Recent Entries

From The Django weblog at 2025-06-09 18:00:00

DSF calls for applicants for a Django Fellow

The Django Software Foundation is announcing a call for Django Fellow applications. A Django Fellow is a contractor, paid by the Django Software Foundation, who dedicates time to maintain the Django framework.

The Fellowship program was started in 2014 as a way to dedicate high-quality and consistent resources to the maintenance of Django. The Django Software Foundation currently supports two Fellows –Natalia Bidart and Sarah Boyce– and has approved funding for a new full-time Fellow. This position will be initially for a period of one year, but may be extended depending on fundraising levels.

Beyond keeping Django running, a fellow is a representative of Django itself. They embody the welcoming culture of Django and aid the community to progress the framework. Fellows are often called upon to speak at Django conferences and events.

They are also usually leading Django Sprints occurring in conferences or other setups. Hence a Django Fellow often engages in both informal and formal mentorship.

Responsibilities

Fellow duties include (but are not limited to):

• Monitoring security reports and ensuring security issues are acknowledged and responded to promptly
• Fixing release blockers and helping to backport fixes to these and security issues
• Ensure timely releases including being a release manager for a new version of Django
• Triaging tickets on Trac
• Reviewing and merging pull requests
• Answering contributor questions on the Forum
• Helping new Django contributors land patches and learn our philosophy

Requirements

A Django fellow reviews a very large amount of Django contributions. This requires knowledge in every aspect of web development that the Django framework touches. This turns out to be an intimidatingly-large list of technical topics, many of which are listed below. It’s not our expectation that you come into the job knowing everything on this list! We hope you’ll have solid experience in a few of these topics, particularly some of the “core” technologies important to Django (Python, relational databases, HTTP). But we fully expect that you’ll learn most of this on the job. A willingness to learn, and a demonstrated history of doing so, is more important than comprehensive knowledge.

The technical topics you can expect to work on includes (and is not limited to):

• SQL and Databases: SQLite, MySQL, Postgres, Oracle
• Technical Documentation
• Javascript
• CSS
• Semantic HTML
• Accessibility
• UI/UX design (Web and CLI)
• Python async
• Python features (and versions), compatibility matrix, etc.
• Everything around HTTP
• Security best practices

There are also:

• Complex processes which need adhering to
• Multiple discussions which need opinions and direction
• Requirements for both formal and informal mentorship

And required professional skills such as:

• Conflict resolution
• Time management and prioritization expertise
• Ability to focus in short periods of time and do substantial context switches
• Self-awareness to recognize their own limits and reach out for help
• Relationship-building and coordination with Django teams, working groups, and potentially external parties.
• Tenacity, patience, compassion and empathy are essential

Therefore a Django Fellow requires the skills and knowledge of a senior generalist engineer with extensive experience in Python and Django. Open source experience, especially in contributing to Django, is a big plus.

Being a Django contributor isn't a prerequisite for this position — we can help get you up to speed. We'll consider applications from anyone with a proven history of working with either the Django community or another similar open-source community. While no geographical location is required, we have a slight preference for timezones between around -8 and +3 UTC to allow for better working hours to overlap the current fellows.

If you're interested in applying for the position, please email us at fellowship-committee@djangoproject.com describing why you would be a good fit along with details of your relevant experience and community involvement. Lastly, please include at least one recommendation.

The current hourly rate for a fellow is $82.26 USD.

Applicants will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Details of Django and/or other open-source contributions
• Details of community support in general
• Understanding of the position
• Clarity, formality, and precision of communications
• Strength of recommendation(s)

Applications will be open until midnight AoE, 1 July, 2025, with the expectation that the successful candidate will start around August 1, 2025.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-06-09 16:36:15

FAA to retire floppy disks and Windows 95 amid air traffic control overhaul

Agency seeks contractors to modernize decades-old systems within four years.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-06-09 11:54:19

New Way to Track Covertly Android Users

Researchers have discovered a new way to covertly track Android users. Both Meta and Yandex were using it, but have suddenly stopped now that they have been caught.

The details are interesting, and worth reading in detail:

>Tracking code that Meta and Russia-based Yandex embed into millions of websites is de-anonymizing visitors by abusing legitimate Internet protocols, causing Chrome and other browsers to surreptitiously send unique identifiers to native apps installed on a device, researchers have discovered. Google says it’s investigating the abuse, which allows Meta and Yandex to convert ephemeral web identifiers into persistent mobile app user identities...

From The Rest Is History at 2025-06-09 00:05:00

572. The Medici: Masters of Florence (Part 1) (GLT1413065864.mp3?updated=1749052325)

What are the origins of one of history’s most glittering, and for a time, most powerful families in Europe; the Medici? How were they able to seize supreme power in the Republic of Florence , one of the most dazzling cities in the world, during the 15th century, at the height of the Renaissance? When did Florence’s explosive growth begin, and how? Who was Cosimo Medici, the Godfather of the family, who through cunning, blood, betrayal and sheer will, pulled his family to the forefront of Florentine politics?  Join Dominic and Tom for the first episode of their new series on one of history’s most glamorous, most colourful, most devious, and frequently most dastardly families in history - the Medici - and their rise to the highest echelons of wealth and power in Renaissance Europe.  The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude  Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From The Week in Westminster at 2025-06-07 11:00:00

07/06/2025 (p0lgvx95.mp3)

George Parker, the political editor of the Financial Times assesses the latest developments at Westminster.

Following the publication of the Strategic Defence Review, George discusses the recommendations made in the Report with its main author, the Labour peer Lord Robertson, who is a former secretary general of NATO and a former Labour defence secretary and with Penny Mordaunt, the former Conservative defence secretary.

Amid mounting concern at Westminster over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, George is joined by Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale and Labour MP Jon Pearce, the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, to discuss the latest.

To discuss the results of the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election in Scotland, George brings together Jamie McGuire, who was a Labour councillor until he defected, a few days ago, to Reform UK and Kezia Dugdale, a former leader of the Scottish Labour Party who is now at the Centre for Public Policy at Glasgow University.

And, finally, ahead of next week's Spending Review, George speaks to crossbench peer, Lord Macpherson, who was the Permanent Secretary at the Treasury and to Conservative peer and former Cabinet Minister Michael Gove, who is the editor of the Spectator magazine.

From More or Less: Behind the Stats at 2025-06-07 06:00:00

Is the world’s population being miscounted? (p0lgv3n5.mp3)

Exactly how many people live on our planet is one of those difficult-to-answer questions. The UN estimates is 8.2 billion, but that’s largely based on census data, which is certainly not a perfect measure.

So when a recent study from Finland found that rural populations around the world had been underestimated by 50 to over 80%, the media got quite excited. This would be a big error - a 50% underestimate would mean the actual number of people in an area is double the number they thought there were.

One newspaper in Spain - El Mundo - did its own sums and said this meant there were potentially 2 billion more people in the world than we currently think there are.

But is it what the researchers in Finland actually meant?

“Absolutely not,” says Josias Lang-Ritter, a researcher from University in Finland and a co-author of the study.

Tim Harford speaks to Josias to figure out the right way of understanding the study.

Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Caroline Bayley Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Nigel Appleton Editor: Richard Vadon

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-06-06 22:12:17

Anthropic releases custom AI chatbot for classified spy work

"Claude Gov" is already handling classified information for the US government.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-06-06 22:00:56

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Run in Southern New England

Southern New England is having the best squid run in years.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-06-06 20:15:28

Millions of low-cost Android devices turn home networks into crime platforms

BadBox malware has been menacing low-cost Android devices for nearly a decade.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-06-06 18:43:00

Hearing on the Federal Government and AI

On Thursday I testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform at a hearing titled “The Federal Government in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”

The other speakers mostly talked about how cool AI was—and sometimes about how cool their own company was—but I was asked by the Democrats to specifically talk about DOGE and the risks of exfiltrating our data from government agencies and feeding it into AIs.

My written testimony is here. Video of the hearing is here.

From A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry at 2025-06-06 18:02:37

Collections: Nitpicking Gladiator’s Iconic Opening Battle, Part I

This week, we’re going to take a close look at arguably the most famous and recognizable Roman battle sequence in film: the iconic opening battle from Gladiator (2000). Despite being a relatively short sequence (about ten minutes), there’s actually enough to talk about here that we’re going to split it over two weeks, talking about … Continue reading Collections: Nitpicking Gladiator’s Iconic Opening Battle, Part I →

From The Incomparable Mothership at 2025-06-06 17:00:00

769: Wrestle a Book (d40885a8-a3cc-430c-bd26-3f43ed8abbc3.mp3)

Our Awards Book Club continues its run through the roses with a tougher than expected review of Vajra Chandrasekera’s “Raksefall,” Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Alien Clay,” and Kelly Link’s “The Book of Love.”...

From Schneier on Security at 2025-06-06 15:41:13

Report on the Malicious Uses of AI

OpenAI just published its annual report on malicious uses of AI.

By using AI as a force multiplier for our expert investigative teams, in the three months since our last report we’ve been able to detect, disrupt and expose abusive activity including social engineering, cyber espionage, deceptive employment schemes, covert influence operations and scams.

These operations originated in many parts of the world, acted in many different ways, and focused on many different targets. A significant number appeared to originate in China: Four of the 10 cases in this report, spanning social engineering, covert influence operations and cyber threats, likely had a Chinese origin. But we’ve disrupted abuses from many other countries too: this report includes case studies of a likely task scam from Cambodia, comment spamming apparently from the Philippines, covert influence attempts potentially linked with Russia and Iran, and deceptive employment schemes...

From School of War at 2025-06-06 10:42:00

Ep 203: Stephen Rabe on the Invasion of Normandy (NEBM4468927621.mp3?updated=1749179251)

Stephen Rabe, historian and author of The Lost Paratroopers of Normandy: A Story of Resistance, Courage, and Solidarity in a French Village, joins the show to discuss one of the countless, incredible stories from D-Day.  ▪️ Times      •      01:18 Introduction     •      01:25 Marine        •      02:50 Origins      •      06:48 Normandy     •      09:29 507th           •      15:20 Training     •      18:23 Overlord           •      21:21 The Villagers        •      25:20 A change in plans      •      30:07 HQ Battalion     •      36:17 Armageddon           •      39:00 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division       •      44:01 Staying behind     •      46:37 Return       Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

From The Briefing Room at 2025-06-05 16:00:00

Explainer: A history of US tariffs (p0lg9wzb.mp3)

Tariffs have dominated the first few months of President Trump’s second term. But where did he get the idea from? Ben Carter spoke to Douglas Irwin, professor of economics at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in the US.

This is part of a new mini-series called the The Briefing Room Explainers. They’re short versions of previous episodes of the Briefing Room.

Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producer: Ben Carter Editor: Richard Vadon

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-06-05 15:35:15

“In 10 years, all bets are off”—Anthropic CEO opposes decadelong freeze on state AI laws

Amodei says AI "too fast" for blanket law ban; sees fundamental world change in 2 years.

From Strong Message Here at 2025-06-05 09:45:00

Weird Turkish Barber Shops (with Stewart Lee) (p0lgcg05.mp3)

Comedy writer Armando Iannucci decodes the utterly baffling world of political language.

This week, Helen Lewis is away, so comedian and writer Stewart Lee joins Armando to look at Robert Jenrick's flashy video in which he takes aim at 'weird Turkish barber shops', among other things. They discuss how the way politicians, entertainers and journalists are changing and overlapping, and Armando recalls the time he read politician's jokes in a comedy club (spoiler alert, it was a disaster).

Listen to Strong Message Here every Thursday at 9.45am on Radio 4 and then head straight to BBC Sounds for an extended episode.

Have you stumbled upon any perplexing political phrases you need Helen and Armando to decode? Email them to us at strongmessagehere@bbc.co.uk

Sound Editing by Chris Maclean Production Coordinator - Sarah Nicholls Executive Producer - Pete Strauss

Produced by Gwyn Rhys Davies. A BBC Studios Audio production for Radio 4. An EcoAudio Certified Production.

From The Rest Is History at 2025-06-05 00:05:00

571. Hannibal: Roman Bloodbath at Cannae (Part 4) (GLT2444504695.mp3?updated=1749055048)

How did the Battle of Cannae - one of the most important battles of all time for Ancient Rome, with a whole Empire at stake, and a reputation that had reverberated across the centuries - in 216 BC, unfold? What brilliant tactics did Hannibal adopt in order to overcome the Roman killing machine, with its vast numbers and relentless soldiers? Why did so many men die in such horrific circumstances? And, what would be the outcome of that bloody, totemic day, for the future of both Carthage and Rome? Join Tom and Dominic for the climax of their epic journey through the rise of Hannibal, and his world-shaking war against Rome, in one of the deadliest rivalries of all time. The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From The Media Show at 2025-06-04 17:35:00

Reporting from the Hajj at Mecca, Katherine Maher from National Public Radio in America takes on President Trump's funding cuts (p0lgckjz.mp3)

Ros Atkins with some of the week's biggest media stories: Katherine Maher the CEO of National Public Radio in America on the attempts by President Trump to cut federal funding for the network. How does the global media cover the Hajj at Mecca, we talk to ITV reporter Shehab Khan who has visited as a journalist and a pilgirm. The journalist Patrick McGee talks about his new book "Apple in China: The capture of the World's Greatest Company." And what does the future hold for voice over artists in the AI era? We hear from Gayanne Potter who believes her voice has been used to train an AI generated voice and also to the General Secretary of Equity Paul Fleming.

Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Assistant Producer: Lucy Wai.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-06-04 12:20:37

Two certificate authorities booted from the good graces of Chrome

Chunghwa Telecom and Netlock customers must look elsewhere for new certificates.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-06-04 12:00:52

The Ramifications of Ukraine’s Drone Attack

You can read the details of Operation Spiderweb elsewhere. What interests me are the implications for future warfare:

If the Ukrainians could sneak drones so close to major air bases in a police state such as Russia, what is to prevent the Chinese from doing the same with U.S. air bases? Or the Pakistanis with Indian air bases? Or the North Koreans with South Korean air bases? Militaries that thought they had secured their air bases with electrified fences and guard posts will now have to reckon with the threat from the skies posed by cheap, ubiquitous drones that cFan be easily modified for military use. This will necessitate a massive investment in counter-drone systems. Money spent on conventional manned weapons systems increasingly looks to be as wasted as spending on the cavalry in the 1930s...

From The Django weblog at 2025-06-04 12:00:00

Django security releases issued: 5.2.2, 5.1.10, and 4.2.22

In accordance with our security release policy, the Django team is issuing releases for Django 5.2.2, Django 5.1.10, and Django 4.2.22. These releases address the security issues detailed below. We encourage all users of Django to upgrade as soon as possible.

From More or Less: Behind the Stats at 2025-06-04 09:00:00

Does the average American have fewer than three friends? (p0lg4tn5.mp3)

Tim Harford is here to sprinkle a refreshing shower of statistical insight over the parched lawns of misinformation.

This week, we try to unpick the confusion over a claim made by London Mayor Sadiq Khan about the contribution skilled immigrants make to the nation’s finances.

Mark Zuckerberg says that the average American has fewer than 3 friends. Is he right?

Two doctors claim that up to 90% of Alzheimer’s disease can be prevented. Are they wrong?

And Tim interviews an American, Catholic, philosopher of religion called Robert Prevost. Is he the pope?

If you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should look at, email the team – moreorless@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Tim Harford Reporter: Lizzy McNeill Producers: Nicholas Barrett and Nathan Gower Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Nigel Appleton Editor: Richard Vadon

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-06-03 13:00:48

Meta and Yandex are de-anonymizing Android users’ web browsing identifiers

Abuse allows Meta and Yandex to attach persistent identifiers to detailed browsing histories.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-06-03 13:00:48

Meta and Yandex are de-anonymizing Android users’ web browsing identifiers

Abuse allows Meta and Yandex to attach persistent identifiers to detailed browsing histories.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-06-03 12:07:32

New Linux Vulnerabilities

They’re interesting:

Tracked as CVE-2025-5054 and CVE-2025-4598, both vulnerabilities are race condition bugs that could enable a local attacker to obtain access to access sensitive information. Tools like Apport and systemd-coredump are designed to handle crash reporting and core dumps in Linux systems.

[…]

“This means that if a local attacker manages to induce a crash in a privileged process and quickly replaces it with another one with the same process ID that resides inside a mount and pid namespace, apport will attempt to forward the core dump (which might contain sensitive information belonging to the original, privileged process) into the namespace.”...

From School of War at 2025-06-03 10:35:00

Ep 202: Fred Kagan on Ukraine’s Attack and the Future of War (NEBM1309781145.mp3?updated=1748903745)

Fred Kagan, senior fellow and the director of the Critical Threats Project at AEI, joins the show to discuss Ukraine’s drone operation targeting Russia’s strategic air assets.  ▪️ Times      •      01:46 Introduction     •      02:25 What just happened?        •      07:48 Escalation risk      •      10:20 Control     •      12:39 Implications           •      21:10 Stratagems     •      24:04 Effects           •      30:40 Economic pressure        •      37:20 Continuing operations  Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-06-02 22:43:04

Broadcom ends business with VMware’s lowest-tier channel partners

Broadcom claims many eliminated partners weren't doing any VMware business.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-06-02 12:03:34

Australia Requires Ransomware Victims to Declare Payments

A new Australian law requires larger companies to declare any ransomware payments they have made.

From The Rest Is History at 2025-06-02 00:05:00

570. Hannibal: The Invasion of Italy (Part 3) (GLT2952414067.mp3?updated=1748537311)

How did Hannibal achieve the remarkable feat of crossing the Alps with his army, and elephants? How many of his men survived the treacherous journey? Was it worth sacrificing so much of his army in order to fight the Romans in Italy? And, what unfolded during the first great clash between Hannibal and Rome, at dawn, by the Trebbia River, in 218 BC…? Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss Hannibal’s extraordinary journey over the Alps, and the early stages of his epic war against Rome.  The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude  Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-31 14:32:08

Ransomware kingpin “Stern” apparently IDed by German law enforcement

BSA names Vi­ta­ly Ni­ko­lae­vich Kovalev is "Stern," the leader of Trickbot.

From More or Less: Behind the Stats at 2025-05-31 06:00:00

Factchecking the Trump administration’s Autism claims (p0lfgf97.mp3)

Picking Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known vaccine sceptic, as the Secretary for Public Health might not be the most ‘out there’ thing the Trump administration has done but it certainly raised some eyebrows. Since his appointment Kennedy has been on a mission to ‘Make America Healthy again’ and has set his sights on finding ‘the cure’ for Autism. Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurological and developmental disorder that can affect how someone communicates, socialises, learns and behaves. In the 1980’s one study estimated that 4 in 10,000 (1 in 2500) children in Wisconsin had an Autism diagnosis. Recent data from the Centres for Disease control states that 1 in 31 eight year olds in the US have the condition. Why have the numbers gone up? Is it due to environmental toxins as Robert Kennedy suggests or does the answer lie in the counting? Presenter/Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Production Co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Studio Manager: Andrew Mills Editor: Richard Vadon

From A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry at 2025-05-30 18:11:44

Fireside Friday, May 30, 2025 (On Professional Military Education)

Hey all, we’re doing a Fireside this week! For this week’s musing, I thought it might be worthwhile – this being a frequent space for military history – to offer a brief outline of professional military education (PME) in the United States, which is to say the various stages by which US officers are academically … Continue reading Fireside Friday, May 30, 2025 (On Professional Military Education) →

From The Incomparable Mothership at 2025-05-30 16:56:34

768: Eternal Clockwork Bugs (72c94fda-d00d-46a6-a73a-3dd097eca16a.mp3)

Guillermo del Toro’s career started small, with the small-scale vampire (sort of) horror (sort of?) movie “Cronos,” in which an old man finds a mechanical object containing a magical bug that gives him eternal life in the bad way. Meanwhile, young Ron Perlman hates his evil uncle but continues to do his bidding! It’s a fun 1992 throwback that is still recognizeably del Toro....

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-30 12:05:16

Why Take9 Won’t Improve Cybersecurity

There’s a new cybersecurity awareness campaign: Take9. The idea is that people—you, me, everyone—should just pause for nine seconds and think more about the link they are planning to click on, the file they are planning to download, or whatever it is they are planning to share.

There’s a website—of course—and a video, well-produced and scary. But the campaign won’t do much to improve cybersecurity. The advice isn’t reasonable, it won’t make either individuals or nations appreciably safer, and it deflects blame from the real causes of our cyberspace insecurities...

From School of War at 2025-05-30 10:37:00

Ep 201: Zachary Griffiths & McKinsey Harb on the U.S. Army (NEBM1223998490.mp3?updated=1748559968)

Lt. Col. Zachary Griffiths & Maj. McKinsey Harb joined the show to discuss the U.S. Army’s new Field Manual 1, FM 1 -THE ARMY: A PRIMER TO OUR PROFESSION OF ARMS.  ▪️ Times      •      01:22 Introduction     •      01:51 West Point        •      05:43 Culture shift      •      08:50 FM 1     •      12:00 Ben Salomon           •      18:06 Warrior     •      24:04 Tensions           •      31:05 Recruiting       •      35:18 Leader/follower      •      42:19 Mission command

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-29 22:04:53

Friday Squid Blogging: NGC 1068 Is the “Squid Galaxy”

I hadn’t known that the NGC 1068 galaxy is nicknamed the “Squid Galaxy.” It is, and it’s spewing neutrinos without the usual accompanying gamma rays.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-29 18:58:09

AI video just took a startling leap in realism. Are we doomed?

Google's Veo 3 delivers AI videos of realistic people with sound and music. We put it to the test.

From Emperors of Rome at 2025-05-29 16:30:53

Glory and Gold (250530-crassus04.mp3)

Crassus had power, he had money, but he still felt something was missing. With an army and a province in the east, he sets off to win the glory he had always been denied Perhaps it lay in Parthia.

Episode CCXLII (242)

Part IV of Crassus

Guest:
Assoc. Professor Rhiannon Evans (Classic and Ancient History, La Trobe University)

From The Briefing Room at 2025-05-29 16:00:00

Rare earths (p0ld1144.mp3)

Rare earths and critical minerals are precious resources everyone seems to want but what are they and what are they used for? David Aaronovitch speaks to Ellie Saklatvala, head of Nonferrous Metal Pricing at Argus – a provider of market intelligence for the global commodity markets.

Guest Ellie Saklatvala

Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producer: Caroline Bayley Editor: Richard Vadon

From Net Assessment at 2025-05-29 14:04:00

Great Power Competition or Collusion? (Net_Assessment_-_Episode_4_v1.mp3?dest-id=808287)

Is President Trump’s approach to foreign policy best described as a spheres of influence approach in which the major players are the United States, China, and Russia? Chris, Melanie, and Zack debate Stacie Goddard’s recent article outlining this idea and assess the implications for Europe, Asia, and North America. Chris expresses frustration with a new brand of American corruption, Melanie highlights China’s acquisition of land near Itaewon, and Zack laments the restructuring of the National Security Council.

Links:

• Stacie E. Goddard, “The Rise and Fall of Great-Power Competition,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/rise-and-fall-great-power-competition.

• Monica Duffy Toft, “The Return of Spheres of Influence,” Foreign Affairs, March 13, 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/return-spheres-influence.

• Edward Wong, “Trump’s Vision: One World, Three Powers?,” New York Times, May 26, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/us/politics/trump-russia-china.html.

• Marc Caputo and Alex Isenstadt, “Scoop: Trump, Rubio take aim at National Security Council’s ‘Deep State’,” Axios, May 23, 2025, https://www.axios.com/2025/05/23/white-house-national-security-council-trump-rubio.

• Choe Sang-Hun, “North Korea Makes Arrests Over Failed Ship Launch That Angered Kim Jong-un,” New York Times, May 25, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/world/asia/north-korea-ship-launch-arrests.html.

• Rebecca Ballhaus and Angus Berwick, “The Father Pursues Trump’s Diplomatic Deals. The Son Chases Crypto Deals,” Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2025, https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/trump-steve-zach-witkoff-crypto-6d8a96be

• Supporting Stimson • Stimson Center

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-29 12:06:02

Surveillance Via Smart Toothbrush

The only links are from The Daily Mail and The Mirror, but a marital affair was discovered because the cheater was recorded using his smart toothbrush at home when he was supposed to be at work.

From In Our Time: History at 2025-05-29 10:15:00

The Korean Empire (p0l74p1t.mp3)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Korea's brief but significant period as an empire as it moved from the 500-year-old dynastic Joseon monarchy towards modernity. It was in October 1897 that King Gojong declared himself Emperor, seizing his chance when the once-dominant China lost to Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War. The king wanted to have the same status as the neighbouring Russian, Chinese and Japanese Emperors, to shore up a bid for Korean independence and sovereignty when the world’s major powers either wanted to open Korea up to trade or to colonise it. The Korean Empire lasted only thirteen years, yet it was a time of great transformation for this state and the whole region with lasting consequences in the next century…

With

Nuri Kim Associate Professor in Korean Studies at the faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Wolfson College

Holly Stephens Lecturer in Japanese and Korean Studies at the University of Edinburgh

And

Derek Kramer Lecturer in Korean Studies at the University of Sheffield

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Isabella Bird Bishop, Korea and her Neighbors: A Narrative of Travel, With an Account of the Recent Vicissitudes and Present Position of the Country (first published 1898; Forgotten Books, 2019)

Vipan Chandra, Imperialism, Resistance and Reform in Late Nineteenth-Century Korea: Enlightenment and the Independence Club (University of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1988)

Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1859-1910 (University of California Press, 1995)

Carter J. Eckert, Offspring of Empire: The Koch'ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876–1910 (University of Washington Press, 1991)

George L. Kallander, Salvation through Dissent: Tonghak Heterodoxy and Early Modern Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2013)

Kim Dong-no, John B. Duncan and Kim Do-hyung (eds.), Reform and Modernity in the Taehan Empire (Jimoondang, 2006)

Kirk W. Larsen, Tradition, Treaties, and Trade: Qing Imperialism and Chosŏn Korea, 1850-1910 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2008)

Yumi Moon, Populist Collaborators: The Ilchinhoe and the Japanese Colonization of Korea, 1896-1910 (Cornell University Press, 2013)

Sung-Deuk Oak, The Making of Korean Christianity: Protestant Encounters with Korean Religions, 1876-1915 (Baylor University Press, 2013)

Eugene T. Park, A Family of No Prominence: The Descendants of Pak Tŏkhwa and the Birth of Modern Korea (Stanford University Press, 2020)

Michael E. Robinson, Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History (University of Hawaii Press, 2007)

Andre Schmid, Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919 (Columbia University Press, 2002)

Vladimir Tikhonov, Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea: The Beginnings, 1880s-1910s (Brill, 2010)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

From The Media Show at 2025-05-29 10:11:00

Daytime TV crisis? Police media strategy shift after car ploughs into crowd at Liverpool FC parade, Simon Reeve (p0lf3lrk.mp3)

Katie Razzall presents some of the big stories in the media this week, including how the police in Merseyside changed their media strategy after a car ploughed into crowds attending a football victory parade in Liverpool. Rebecca Camber, who is security and crime editor at the Daily Mail and chair of the Crime Reporters Association, explains what is behind the shift.

Travel presenter Simon Reeve joins YouTube influencer Alfie Watt, who won Race Across the World last year, to discuss the different media platforms selling the excitement of exploration to a range of audiences.

And with news that ITV is to radically trim the air time of two of its long-running shows, Loose Women and Lorraine, presenter Kirstie Allsopp and media analyst Bella Monkcom from Enders Analysis discuss if there is a crisis in Britain's daytime TV sector.

Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Assistant Producer: Lucy Wai

From Strong Message Here at 2025-05-29 09:45:00

An Announcement President (with Jon Stewart) (p0ldz63c.mp3)

This week, we have a very special guest, Jon Stewart! Jon joins Armando and Helen to discuss whether Trump is the political equivalent of Miles Davis, the quaintness of UK politics compared to the US, Jon does a flawless Margaret Thatcher impression and they answer the age old question... are escalators the most emascualting form of travel?

Listen to Strong Message Here every Thursday at 9.45am on Radio 4 and then head straight to BBC Sounds for an extended episode.

Have you stumbled upon any perplexing political phrases you need Helen and Armando to decode? Email them to us at strongmessagehere@bbc.co.uk

Sound Editing by Charlie Brandon-King Production Coordinator - Sarah Nicholls Executive Producer - Pete Strauss

Produced by Gwyn Rhys Davies. A BBC Studios Audio production for Radio 4. An EcoAudio Certified Production.

From The Rest Is History at 2025-05-29 00:05:00

569. Hannibal: Elephants Cross the Alps (Part 2) (GLT8313087633.mp3?updated=1748456138)

Why did Hannibal choose to cross the Alps with his elephants in 218 BC, when invading Rome? Was it a brilliant stratagem or a military disaster? What was the secret to the Roman Republic’s growing military success at this time? And, why did Carthage, under Hannibal’s formidable generalship, believe they were more than capable of taking on the might of Rome?  Join Tom and Dominic as they charge into one of the most legendary military clashes of all time: the outbreak of the Second Punic War, which saw Carthage under Hannibal Barka, take on the Roman Republic, by leading his army all the way over the snowbound Alps, atop elephants…. The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude  Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-28 23:12:07

Thousands of Asus routers are being hit with stealthy, persistent backdoors

Backdoor giving full administrative control can survive reboots and firmware updates.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-28 12:09:26

Location Tracking App for Foreigners in Moscow

Russia is proposing a rule that all foreigners in Moscow install a tracking app on their phones.

Using a mobile application that all foreigners will have to install on their smartphones, the Russian state will receive the following information:

• Residence location
• Fingerprint
• Face photograph
• Real-time geo-location monitoring

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this. Qatar did it in 2022 around the World Cup:

“After accepting the terms of these apps, moderators will have complete control of users’ devices,” he continued. “All personal content, the ability to edit it, share it, extract it as well as data from other apps on your device is in their hands. Moderators will even have the power to unlock users’ devices remotely.” ...

From GoodFellows: Conversations from the Hoover Institution at 2025-05-27 20:28:44

Caveman Marxists: Frank Dikötter on Whether China Is a Fiery Dragon or a Paper Tiger | GoodFellows | Hoover Institution (GoodFellows_2025-05-23_-_Frank_Dikotter_wip02_podcast_8vtvv.mp3)

Is China hell-bent on a move against Taiwan, or does its saber-rattling not square with a military capability that’s perhaps overestimated? Frank Dikötter, a Hoover senior fellow specializing in the history of modern China, joins Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster to discuss his reading of China’s desire and ability to project power, including its manufacturing capability and its suppression of individual liberties, plus the durability of Xi Jinping’s rule. Recorded on May 23, 2025.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-27 12:07:57

Chinese-Owned VPNs

One one my biggest worries about VPNs is the amount of trust users need to place in them, and how opaque most of them are about who owns them and what sorts of data they retain.

A new study found that many commercials VPNS are (often surreptitiously) owned by Chinese companies.

It would be hard for U.S. users to avoid the Chinese VPNs. The ownership of many appeared deliberately opaque, with several concealing their structure behind layers of offshore shell companies. TTP was able to determine the Chinese ownership of the 20 VPN apps being offered to Apple’s U.S. users by piecing together corporate documents from around the world. None of those apps clearly disclosed their Chinese ownership...

From School of War at 2025-05-27 10:33:00

Ep 200: Rick Atkinson on the American Revolution at 250 (NEBM6700728008.mp3?updated=1748308149)

Rick Atkinson, historian and author of The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780, joins the show to discuss the causes, conduct, and epic consequences of the American Revolution.   ▪️ Times      •      02:08 Introduction     •      02:21 Journalism        •      04:30 Mogadishu      •      09:30 Lessons     •      12:49 Ideology           •      16:36 Diplomacy     •      20:21 Boston           •      22:59 “Blows must decide”       •      28:05 British strategy      •      31:27 Washington          •      36:49 Franklin in Paris     •      41:15 Friendless Britain           •      45:57 Legacy     •      51:24 250th Celebration  Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-26 12:30:50

Where hyperscale hardware goes to retire: Ars visits a very big ITAD site

Watching memory DIMMs get sorted like Wonka children inside SK TES' facility.

From The Rest Is History at 2025-05-26 00:05:00

568. Hannibal: Rome's Greatest Enemy (Part 1) (GLT7606824410.mp3?updated=1748000703)

Who was Hannibal, the flawed but brilliant Carthaginian general? What makes Rome vs Carthage in the third century BC one of the most totemic ancient rivalries of all time? How did Hamilcar, father of Hannibal, restore the fortunes of Carthage following their devastating defeat to the Romans in 264 BC? And, what personal tragedy spurred Hannibal on to seize his destiny by the reins, take command of the Carthaginian army, and at last set out to have his vengeance on Rome? Join Tom and Dominic as they launch into the early life and rise of Hannibal; bane of Rome and master of Carthage, as the famous feud between those two greatest of cities gathers momentum... The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From The Week in Westminster at 2025-05-24 11:19:00

24/05/2025 (p0ld40zv.mp3)

To discuss the government's U-turn on taking winter fuel allowance from all but the poorest pensioners, Caroline is joined by the Conservative peer, David Willetts - president of the Resolution Foundation, which focuses on people on lower incomes; and Claire Ainsley, former policy director to Sir Keir Starmer, now at the Progressive Policy Institute.

Also this week, the UK and the EU struck a trade deal. Caroline speaks to the EU Ambassador to the UK, Pedro Serrano about it.

Reform UK’s newest MP Sarah Pochin, who served as a magistrate for twenty years and the Labour MP and barrister Catherine Atkinson discuss plans by the former Conservative Justice Secretary David Gauke for the biggest shake-up of sentencing in England and Wales for more than 30 years.

And, this week marks the first anniversary of a public inquiry report into the infected blood scandal. The former Health Secretary, now Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham has campaigned on behalf of victims and came into the studio with Lee Moorey, who was given contaminated blood.

From More or Less: Behind the Stats at 2025-05-24 06:00:00

Is the UN underestimating the global fall in fertility? (p0ld40ry.mp3)

Every two years, the UN release their predictions for the future population of humanity – currently expected to peak in the 2080s at around 10.3 billion people.

One of the things they use to work this out is the fertility rate, the number of children the average woman is expected to have in her lifetime. When this number falls below 2, the overall population eventually falls. In this episode of More or Less, we look at the fertility estimates for one country – Argentina. The graph of the real and predicted fertility rate for that country looks quite strange.

The collected data – that covers up to the present day – shows a fertility rate that’s falling fast. But the predicted rate for the future immediately levels out. The strangeness has led some people to think that the UN might be underestimating the current fall in global fertility.

To explain what’s going on we speak to Patrick Gerland, who runs the population estimates team in the United Nations Population Division.

Presenter / producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Sue Maillot Editor: Richard Vadon

From A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry at 2025-05-23 21:58:07

Collections: The Logistics of Road War in the Wasteland

This week, we’re doing another ‘silly’ topic, but this being me, it is a silly logistics topic, because – as the saying goes – amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. So we’re going to be professionally silly this week and talk about the logistics of vehicle warfare in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting, in part because … Continue reading Collections: The Logistics of Road War in the Wasteland →

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-23 20:56:45

Feds charge 16 Russians allegedly tied to botnets used in cyberattacks and spying

An example of how a single malware operation can enable both criminal and state-sponsored hacking.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-23 20:06:59

Researchers cause GitLab AI developer assistant to turn safe code malicious

AI assistants can't be trusted to produce safe code.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-23 18:57:13

Google’s Will Smith double is better at eating AI spaghetti … but it’s crunchy?

Veo 3 is a major leap in AI video synthesis, but the sound effects need more cooking time.

From The Incomparable Mothership at 2025-05-23 16:30:00

767: On a Farm Planet Upstate (a9f79cda-8035-40e0-b615-3e8d56bfbd82.mp3)

From the skyscrapers of Coruscant to the pyramids of Yavin and with numerous stops in between, season two of “Andor” covers the rise of the rebellion and leads to the doorstep of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” What makes it special among Star Wars series? Did season two improve on the groundbreaking first season? It’s Star Wars, so we break it down in detail....

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-23 12:02:59

Signal Blocks Windows Recall

This article gives a good rundown of the security risks of Windows Recall, and the repurposed copyright protection took that Signal used to block the AI feature from scraping Signal data.

From School of War at 2025-05-23 10:38:00

Ep 199: Jonathan Hackett on Our Failures in Iraq & Afghanistan (NEBM8993948765.mp3?updated=1747966983)

Jonathan Hackett, former U.S. Marine Corps interrogator and author of Theory of Irregular War, joins the show to discuss America’s post-9/11 wars and how irregular warfare works.  ▪️ Times      •      01:12 Introduction     •      01:30 A good interrogator       •      03:26 Afghanistan     •      06:15 In the interrogation room       •      12:10 The Reid Technique         •      14:27 Galula     •      17:10 A military solution           •      23:32 Voluntary acceptance       •      25:34 Irregular War      •      28:20 The war we have          •      31:33 COIN     •      36:10 Speaking the language       Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-22 20:15:27

Destructive malware available in NPM repo went unnoticed for 2 years

Payloads were set to spontaneously detonate on specific dates with no warning.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-22 18:19:21

Report calls for regulation of “legally and ethically flawed” VMware

"Broadcom is unlikely to make any voluntary changes to its new commercial terms."

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-22 17:45:45

New Claude 4 AI model refactored code for 7 hours straight

Anthropic says Claude 4 beats Gemini on coding benchmarks; works autonomously for hours.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-22 17:00:03

Authorities carry out global takedown of infostealer used by cybercriminals

Authorities, along with tech companies including Microsoft and Cloudflare, say they’ve disrupted Lumma.

From The Briefing Room at 2025-05-22 16:00:00

What is ransomware and what can be done to stop it? (p0lcryg5.mp3)

In the past few weeks Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and Harrods have all been grappling with the effects of cyber attacks. The most profitable form of cyber attack at the moment is ransomware where criminals infiltrate computer systems, shut them down and then demand a ransom to restore services, or even to stop them publishing data they’ve stolen. This is now a global criminal industry which can affect the running of whole businesses. Marks & Spencer said this week that disruption to its online ordering service would continue throughout June and into July. David Aaronovitch asks his guests how ransomware works, who is responsible and what can be done to stop it.

Guests: Emily Taylor, CEO of Oxford Information Labs and co-founder Global Signal Exchange Geoff White, investigative journalist and author and co-host of the BBC’s podcast series, The Lazarus Heist Susan Landau, Professor of Cyber Security and Policy at Tufts University Professor Alan Woodward, a computer security expert at the University of Surrey

Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producers: Caroline Bayley, Kirsteen Knight and Nathan Gower Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison Sound Engineers: James Beard and Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon

From Emperors of Rome at 2025-05-22 12:56:35

Crassus and the Triumvirate (250522-crassus03.mp3)

As Crassus gathered more power and wealth his success was aided by two allies. One, Julius Caesar, had received financial aid from Crassus for many years. The other, Pompeius Magnus, was at the best of times a bitter rival. Together they formed the triumvirate - more powerful together than apart.

Episode CCXLI (241)

Part III of Crassus

Guest:

Assoc. Professor Rhiannon Evans (Classic and Ancient History, La Trobe University)

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-22 12:06:44

The Voter Experience

Technology and innovation have transformed every part of society, including our electoral experiences. Campaigns are spending and doing more than at any other time in history. Ever-growing war chests fuel billions of voter contacts every cycle. Campaigns now have better ways of scaling outreach methods and offer volunteers and donors more efficient ways to contribute time and money. Campaign staff have adapted to vast changes in media and social media landscapes, and use data analytics to forecast voter turnout and behavior.

Yet despite these unprecedented investments in mobilizing voters, overall trust in electoral health, democratic institutions, voter satisfaction, and electoral engagement has significantly declined. What might we be missing?...

From The Django weblog at 2025-05-22 10:12:02

Why, in 2025, do we still need a 3rd party app to write a REST API with Django?

The question was asked to the president of the DSF this year at FOSDEM, after his talk. And it is clearly a legitimate one!

But… is it True? Do we actually need a 3rd party app to write an API with Django?

In a lot of cases, when you require a complex and full-featured API, I would recommend you do use one. Django REST Framework and Django Ninja being very sound choices with a bunch of nifty things you might need in a bigger project.

But… what if what you need is a simple REST API that does CRUD? Do you really need a 3rd party app to do that?

Let's try not to!

Let's first ask what is a REST API in the context of this article. Let's limit ourselves to building this:

• a URL that answers to GET requests with a list of records of a single model type
• POST-ing to that same URL should create a new record
• a second URL with the primary key of a record tagged to the end. When GET-ing that URL, one should receive only that single record, in a similar format as in the list
• PUT-ing data to that URL should update the record and return that record with updated values
• DELETE-ing to that same URL should delete the record
• everything should be achieved using JSON

Listing records from a model

Chances are you have heard of generic class-based views (CBVs) in Django, the one that comes to mind when it comes to listing records is the built-in django.views.generic.ListView.

ListView extends 2 other classes, BaseListView and MultipleObjectTemplateResponseMixin. Since we want to build an API, we clearly don't need to extend anything template-related. Looking at what BaseListView provides, one can notice the only thing really missing there is a render_to_response method. And this is going to be the case for most of the other base classes.

This sets our starting point!

The type of response we want to render is a json response and Django already provides one. So let's build a JsonViewMixin that looks like this for now:

class JsonViewMixin(View):
    response_class = JsonResponse
    content_type = 'application/json'

    def render_to_response(self, context, **response_kwargs):
        response_kwargs.setdefault("content_type", self.content_type)
        return self.response_class(context, **response_kwargs)

The next thing we have to tackle is that the context returned by BaseListView's get_context_data returns much more data than what we strictly need for this article. Also the list of records returned is not serialized to json.

Serializers for mutliple formats already exist in Django core (see django.core.serializers) but I will go a different route here. There is another way to serialize data in Django that you are likely familiar with but is not labelled as clearly: forms.

Forms are used in regular views to serialize models to simple types, understandable by HTML forms (mostly text) and vice-versa. This is very close to what we need, since json is also mostly text-based.

To start with, using forms as serializers requires creating a new form instance for each record in the list we want to return.

Let's add that to the mixin!

def serialize_many(self, obj_list):
    return [self.serialize_one(obj) for obj in obj_list]

def serialize_one(self, obj)
    form = self.get_form_for_object(obj)
    serialized = form.initial
    serialized['pk'] = obj.pk  # forms strip pk's from their data
    return serialized

def get_form_for_object(self, obj):
    form_class = self.get_form_class()
    kwargs = self.get_form_kwargs()
    kwargs['instance'] = obj
    return form_class(**kwargs)

Why use forms?

ModelForms are a built-in and robust Django tool that are built around the idea of handling the transition between Model fields and simple (and also JSON-serializable) types (mostly text and numbers). Which is exactly what we want from (de-)serializers in a lot of cases.

If you need to (de-)serialize a custom field type, Django documents creating a custom form field and this covered in various places like StackOverflow.

Moving on to our first View

Now that we have a tool to serialize the records list returned by BaseListView let's write the first version of JsonListView. As I alluded to earlier, we need to strip down what is returned from get_context_data.

class JsonListView(JsonViewMixin, BaseListView):

    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
        context = super().get_context_data(**kwargs)
        # wrapping this in a dict for security reasons
        return {
            'results': self.serialize_many(context['object_list'])
        }

This won't work yet because get_form_class that I used in the JsonViewMixin is only provided by classes that descend from FormMixin. Since we want this view to handle both listing and creating records, let's go and fix that in the next section!

1 down, 3 to go: Adding records

First thing first, let's rebrand JsonListView and make it inherit from BaseCreateView.

class JsonListCreateView(JsonViewMixin, BaseCreateView, BaseListView):

Form creation and validation will be handled automatically by Django!

Almost…

The first concern will be with populating the form with POST data. While Django does this for you when dealing with URL encoded or multipart form data, it does not (yet) handle json-encoded POST content.

But this can be handled by taking advantage of the modularity of Django's generic class-based-views and overwritting get_form_kwargs.

Let's address this (in a naïve way) within the mixin as it will be applicable to any JSON view:

def get_form_kwargs(self):
    kwargs = super().get_form_kwargs()
    if (
        len(kwargs.get("data", {})) == 0
        and self.request.content_type == "application/json"
        and len(self.request.body)
    ):
        # The request has a JSON body that we did not decode
        kwargs["data"] = json.loads(self.request.body)

    return kwargs

An issue that could arise here is that a JSONDecoderError could be triggered. get_form_kwargs does not return a response so I don't think it is the right place to handle the exception.

The post method does return a response, let's wrap the original one with a try/except (still in the mixin):

def post(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
    try:
        return super().post(request, *args, **kwargs)
    except json.decoder.JSONDecodeError as e:
        return self.response_class(
            {"error": f"json decode error: {e.msg}"},
            status=HTTPStatus.UNSUPPORTED_MEDIA_TYPE,
        )

Speaking of returning responses, the BaseCreateView class is built around HTML principles and its form_valid and get methods are both designed to render a form (via get_context_data).

In the case of our REST API, the "create" part of things should not be involved with GET requests.

Furthermore the reply to an invalid form submission should only comprise of an error (status + message) and should not require anything provided by get_context_data.

Still, in regards to form validation, a valid form should not result in a redirect (behaviour of BaseCreateView) but rather in a 201 response optionally containing the representation of the created record.

The form handling part is generic enough to put it in the mixin itself.

The behaviour of GET is specific to the list/create view though.

Let's write the code accordingly:

class JsonViewMixin(View):

  ...

  def form_invalid(self, form):
    return self.response_class(
      {'errors': form.errors},
      status=HTTPStatus.UNPROCESSABLE_CONTENT
    )

  def form_valid(self, form):
    self.object = form.save()
    context = self.serialize_one(self.object)
    return self.response_class(
      context,
      status=HTTPStatus.CREATED
    )

class JsonListCreateView(JsonViewMixin, BaseCreateView, BaseListView):

  ...

  def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
    # Explicitly point to BaseListView instead of `super()`
    # to prevent actions taken by
    # BaseCreateView's implementation of `get_context_data`
    context = BaseListView.get_context_data(self, **kwargs)
    return {
      'results': self.serialize_many(context['object_list'])
    }

Halfway there!

That was everything needed to handle the create and list portions of our CRUD REST application. Now we can move on to the read, update, delete part. We'll do that in a second View class as it requires a slightly different URL, one that contains the pk of the resource.

Both read and update functionalities are provided by Django BaseUpdateView but, as with the create/list view, the major difference in this case will be that we need a much simpler context.

class JsonReadUpdateView(JsonViewMixin, BaseUpdateView):

    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
        return self.serialize_one(self.object)

That's it!!!

Well, almost…

BaseUpdateView is wired to answer to POST requests for updating a record while REST good practices want us to use PUT instead. The fix for this is to raise an error in reply to POST calls while directing PUTs to the parent's post implementation.

def post(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
    return self.response_class(status=HTTPStatus.METHOD_NOT_ALLOWED)

def put(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
    return super().post(self, request, *args, **kwargs)

One more fix…

Our mixin implementation returns a 201 on form_valid. In case of any view which is not creating a record, this should be 200. Here are the necessary changes:

class JsonViewMixin(View):
    form_valid_status = HTTPStatus.OK  # new property

    def form_valid(self, form):
        self.object = form.save()
        context = self.serialize_one(self.object)

    return self.response_class(
        context, status=self.form_valid_status  # use the new property
    )

    ...


class JsonListCreateView(JsonViewMixin, BaseCreateView, BaseListView):
    form_valid_status = HTTPStatus.CREATED  # override in case of creation

Why PUT and not PATCH?

BaseUpdateView builds a form that expects all fields to be filled. Non-present fields would be reset to empty on the existing record for partial updates.

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to override that behaviour in case of a PATCH request in order to "pre-fill the form" with existing values, maybe by using the form's initial property… 😉

Finally…

The last bit of logic we have to implement is for deleting objects. Most of the code from Django's BaseDeleteView is related to creating and validating a form for confirming the user's intend on deleting the resource. This is usually not the expected behaviour for a REST API, this part being handled by whatever is calling the API.

Furthermore, it doesn't implement a delete method. In the HTML world of Django's BaseDeleteView, everything is done using GET and POST. So we are (mostly) on our own for this last part.

We can still leverage the get_object implementation provided by BaseUpdateView though.

Here is what implementing the delete operation for our read/update/delete view looks like:

class JsonReadUpdateDeleteView(JsonViewMixin, BaseUpdateView):  # name changed

    ...

    def delete(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
        self.get_object().delete()
        # data is required by JsonResponse
        return self.response_class(data={}, status=HTTPStatus.NO_CONTENT)

Conclusion

This implementation is basic and clearly naïve. But it gets the job done!

And this can all be done by leveraging Django-provided tools and mechanisms, mainly using Django's generic CBVs.

Generic class-based views have been built in such a modular fashion that implementing one's own mini REST framework can be done in less than 100 lines of code.

A non-negligible advantage of such an approach is that most libraries written to work with Django's generic CBVs are also likely to work with this implementation.

This rather simple approach can certainly be improved (handling exceptions in delete… anyone?) and is clearly not going to cover everybody's use cases. And it most likely misses handling a bunch of edge cases!

And if you are building a large REST API, I would say you are probably still better off using a 3rd party library but… to me, the answer to the question “Why do you need a 3rd party application to write a simple REST application with Django?” is: "You don’t"

If you enjoyed this article, read more from Emma on Emma has a blog, which is where this piece was from. Or watch the FOSDEM talk that Emma reacts to:

From Strong Message Here at 2025-05-22 09:45:00

The Island of Strangers and the Manacled Gimp of Brussels (p0lcmm85.mp3)

Comedy writer Armando Iannucci and journalist Helen Lewis decode the utterly baffling world of political language.

This week, we're looking at inflammatory language. From Immigration to EU deals, we've heard talk of of 'betrayal' 'surrender' 'invasion' and of course 'an island of strangers'. When is this hyperbole appropriate and when is it egregious? And, can we ever forgive Boris Johnson for the mental image of the Prime Minister as the 'orange ball-chewing manacled gimp of Brussels'?

Listen to Strong Message Here every Thursday at 9.45am on Radio 4 and then head straight to BBC Sounds for an extended episode.

Have you stumbled upon any perplexing political phrases you need Helen and Armando to decode? Email them to us at strongmessagehere@bbc.co.uk

Sound Editing by Charlie Brandon-King Production Coordinator - Sarah Nicholls Executive Producer - Pete Strauss

Produced by Gwyn Rhys Davies. A BBC Studios Audio production for Radio 4. An EcoAudio Certified Production.

From The Rest Is History at 2025-05-22 00:05:00

567. The Great Northern War: Murder in Moscow (Part 4) (GLT4718660658.mp3?updated=1747754804)

What were the consequences of Peter the Great’s mighty victory over Sweden at the Battle of Poltova in 1707? How great was the impact of his reign upon Russia overall, and was he responsible for turning it into one of Europe’s greatest powers? What occurred during the later years of his life? And, what is the story behind his bloody, terrible and tragic treatment of his son, Alexis…? Join Dominic and Tom for the mighty conclusion of their series on one of history’s most remarkable characters: Peter the Great. The ramifications of his reign for Russia, his ghastly dealings with his own family, and the end of his colourful life. The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-21 21:21:39

“Microsoft has simply given us no other option,” Signal says as it blocks Windows Recall

Even after its refurbishing, Recall provides few ways to exclude specific apps.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-21 20:21:51

Apple legend Jony Ive takes control of OpenAI’s design future

$6.5B acquisition of Ive's firm puts him in charge of moving OpenAI "beyond screens."

From The Media Show at 2025-05-21 18:15:00

Gary Lineker fallout (p0lcm42v.mp3)

Katie Razzall and Ros Atkins on some of this week's big media stories. As Gary Lineker leaves the BBC we talk to the former Grandstand presenter Steve Rider, and current sports commentator Henry Winter. The Sunday Times Media Editor Ros Urwin discusses her scoop on Huw Edwards as well as the persistance needed in investigative journalism with BBC correspondent Sanchia Berg who has been reporting on Baby Elsa, one of three infants abandoned by the same mum. We'll also be talking to the journalist who has just won Private Eye's Paul Foot Award which was announced last night.

Producer: Lisa Jenkinson and Lucy Wai Assistant producer: Emily Channon

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-21 12:03:59

More AIs Are Taking Polls and Surveys

I already knew about the declining response rate for polls and surveys. The percentage of AI bots that respond to surveys is also increasing.

Solutions are hard:

1. Make surveys less boring.
We need to move past bland, grid-filled surveys and start designing experiences people actually want to complete. That means mobile-first layouts, shorter runtimes, and maybe even a dash of storytelling. TikTok or dating app style surveys wouldn’t be a bad idea or is that just me being too much Gen Z?

2. Bot detection.
There’s a growing toolkit of ways to spot AI-generated responses—using things like response entropy, writing style patterns or even metadata like keystroke timing. Platforms should start integrating these detection tools more widely. Ideally, you introduce an element that only humans can do, e.g., you have to pick up your price somewhere in-person. Btw, note that these bots can easily be designed to find ways around the most common detection tactics such as Captcha’s, timed responses and postcode and IP recognition. Believe me, way less code than you suspect is needed to do this...

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-20 19:48:54

Windows 11’s most important new feature is post-quantum cryptography. Here’s why.

For the first time, new quantum-safe algorithms can be invoked using standard Windows APIs.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-20 15:52:35

Chicago Sun-Times prints summer reading list full of fake books

Reading list in advertorial supplement contains 66% made up books by real authors.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-20 12:05:00

DoorDash Hack

A DoorDash driver stole over $2.5 million over several months:

The driver, Sayee Chaitainya Reddy Devagiri, placed expensive orders from a fraudulent customer account in the DoorDash app. Then, using DoorDash employee credentials, he manually assigned the orders to driver accounts he and the others involved had created. Devagiri would then mark the undelivered orders as complete and prompt DoorDash’s system to pay the driver accounts. Then he’d switch those same orders back to “in process” and do it all over again. Doing this “took less than five minutes, and was repeated hundreds of times for many of the orders,” writes the US Attorney’s Office...

From School of War at 2025-05-20 10:35:00

Ep 198: Robert D. Kaplan on Crisis (NEBM7818849628.mp3?updated=1747703740)

Robert D. Kaplan, Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and author of Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis, joins the show to discuss the world’s current state of “permanent crisis”.  ▪️ Times      •      01:40 Introduction     •      02:00 Far Rockaway      •      04:55 Balkan Ghosts     •      08:20 Geography and technology       •      10:55 Weimar         •      13:43 Mediocrities     •      17:44 Reading deeply           •      20:30 Shakespeare       •      23:20 Where to watch      •      26:59 Xi and Taiwan          •      28:39 Sacred honor     •      31:22 Post-modern cities        •      33:28 AI and atrophy     Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-19 12:06:23

The NSA’s “Fifty Years of Mathematical Cryptanalysis (1937–1987)”

“Fifty Years of Mathematical Cryptanalysis (1937-1987),” by Glenn F. Stahly, was just declassified—with a lot of redactions—by the NSA.

I have not read it yet. If you find anything interesting in the document, please tell us about it in the comments.

From The Rest Is History at 2025-05-19 00:05:00

566. The Great Northern War: Slaughter on the Steppes (Part 3) (GLT4679437587.mp3?updated=1747310607)

Why was the greatest and most climactic battle of the Great Northern War, the Battle of Poltova, one of the most important in all European history? What drove Charles XII of Sweden to invade Russia in the Summer of 1707, in the lead up to that totemic clash? Exactly what happened on the day of the Battle? Would both Peter the Great and Charles survive it unscathed, if at all? And, who would triumph on that bloodsoaked battlefield? Join Dominic and Tom for one of the most dramatic events of their journey through the bombastic life and reign of Peter the Great so far, as they describe the Battle of Poltova, and the day that changed Europe forever. The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From The Week in Westminster at 2025-05-17 11:00:00

17/05/2025 (p0lbs4n2.mp3)

Radio 4's assessment of developments at Westminster

From More or Less: Behind the Stats at 2025-05-17 06:00:00

How dead is the internet? (p0lbq3mb.mp3)

In the early 2020s, a conspiracy theory started circulating online known as the “dead internet theory”.

This suggested that, instead of a vibrant digital super-community where people freely share things like cat videos and conspiracy theories, the internet was instead basically dead - an AI dystopia controlled by the deep state, where almost everything you see and interact with is generated by computers. The theory that the internet is 100% dead can be easily disproven, but the theory does hint at something real. The internet certainly is full of “bots”, autonomous bits of software that are definitely not alive.

In this episode, we investigate one specific claim about the number of these bots on the internet - the idea that more than half of internet traffic is bots. Where does this claim come from, and is it true?

Presenter/producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Giles Aspen Editor: Richard Vadon

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-16 22:05:32

Friday Squid Blogging: Pet Squid Simulation

From Hackaday.com, this is a neural network simulation of a pet squid.

Autonomous Behavior:

• The squid moves autonomously, making decisions based on his current state (hunger, sleepiness, etc.).
• Implements a vision cone for food detection, simulating realistic foraging behavior.
• Neural network can make decisions and form associations.
• Weights are analysed, tweaked and trained by Hebbian learning algorithm.
• Experiences from short-term and long-term memory can influence decision-making.
• Squid can create new neurons in response to his environment (Neurogenesis) ...

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-16 20:25:41

The empire strikes back with F-bombs: AI Darth Vader goes rogue with profanity, slurs

Fortnite AI voice trained on James Earl Jones spoke curse words and insults before patch.

From The Incomparable Mothership at 2025-05-16 17:00:00

766: That's 2K! (9324b06b-5983-48fd-8e9c-aacc09534104.mp3)

We return once more to 1995, this time for a movie set at the turn of the century! It’s “Strange Days,” a cyberpunk movie with only a little bit of cyber but a lot of punk, along with grease and stink....

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-16 14:55:28

Communications Backdoor in Chinese Power Inverters

This is a weird story:

U.S. energy officials are reassessing the risk posed by Chinese-made devices that play a critical role in renewable energy infrastructure after unexplained communication equipment was found inside some of them, two people familiar with the matter said.

[…]

Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers, one of them said.

Reuters was unable to determine how many solar power inverters and batteries they have looked at...

From The Django weblog at 2025-05-16 12:54:21

Our Google Summer of Code 2025 contributors

We’re excited to introduce our Google Summer of Code 2025 contributors!

These amazing folks will be working on impactful projects that will shape Django’s future.\ Meet the contributors 👇

A. Rafey Khan

Project: Django Admin – Add Keyboard Shortcuts & Command Palette. Mentors: Tom Carrick, Apoorv Garg

Rafey will work on making Django Admin faster and more accessible through keyboard-driven workflows. Excited to see this land!

Farhan Ali Raza

Project: Bring django-template-partials into core. Mentor: Carlton Gibson

Farhan will be enhancing Django’s template system by adding first-class support for partials—making componentized templates easier than ever.\

Saurabh K

Project: Automate processes within Django’s contribution workflow. Mentor: Lily Foote

Saurabh will work on streamlining how contributors interact with Django repo—automating repetitive tasks and improving dev experience for all. \ A huge shoutout to our mentors (and Org Admin Bhuvnesh Sharma) and the broader Django community for supporting these contributors! 💚\ \ Let’s make this a summer of learning, building, and collaboration.

From A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry at 2025-05-16 06:41:26

Collections: Alexander Goes West (A Silly Counterfactual)

This week we’re going to do something a bit silly, in part because I have to prepare for and travel to an invited workshop/talk event later this week and so don’t have quite the time for a more normal ‘full’ post and in part because it is fun to be silly sometimes (and we might … Continue reading Collections: Alexander Goes West (A Silly Counterfactual) →

From GoodFellows: Conversations from the Hoover Institution at 2025-05-15 16:38:28

The Plane Truth: Playing Chicken with China, Trump Goes Gulf-ing, Tensions in South Asia (GoodFellows_2025-05-14_wip021_podcast_9nr60.mp3)

America and China take a 90-day time-out in their dispute over tariffs; President Trump’s tour of the Middle East—the first overseas trip of his second term—raises unsettling questions about both his regional strategy and his family’s business dealings; and hostilities between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan raise questions of behind-the-scenes great-power machinations amidst “Cold War 2.” Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster discuss what’s at stake in these various parts of the globe. After that: the three fellows debate the severity of Chinese espionage in America’s universities; and how AI’s ability to shortcut the learning process will impact the future of higher education.    Recorded on May 14, 2025.

From Net Assessment at 2025-05-15 15:48:00

The Paradoxical Power? (Audio__The_Paradoxical_Power_v1.mp3?dest-id=808287)

An immense and growing national debt, entrenched political polarization, and falling levels of patriotism might lead some to conclude that the position of the United States in the world is weakening compared to other major economies. Michael Beckley looks at other measures, including geography, wealth, alliances, and demographics, and concludes that “This is the paradox of American power: the United States is a divided country, perpetually perceived as in decline, yet it consistently remains the wealthiest and most powerful state in the world—leaving competitors behind.” But, he says, all is not well: an urban-rural divide and a “hollow internationalism” threaten our stability and security. Chris, Zack, and Melanie talk about whether the United States is in decline, how our advantages might create vulnerabilities, and how dysfunction at home affects America’s ability to wield influence abroad.

Chris has a shoutout for Gabe Murphy and his work on base realignment, Zack has a remembrance of recently-passed security scholar, practitioner, and mentor Joseph Nye, and Melanie criticizes the Biden administration for not coming clean about the extent of failure of the Gaza Pier.

Links: 

• Michael Beckley, “The Strange Triumph of a Broken America: Why Power Abroad Comes with Dysfunction at Home,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2025.

• Michael Beckley, “The Age of American Unilateralism,” Foreign Affairs, April 16, 2025.

• Christopher Preble, “Trump’s Rise: Who’s to Blame?” Cato at Liberty, March 3, 2016.

• Alexander Cornwell, "US, Israel discuss possible US-led administration for Gaza, sources say," Reuters, May 7, 2025.

• Supporting Stimson, https://www.stimson.org/support/

• Gabe Murphy, “Base Instincts: A Case for Base Realignment and Closures at Home and Abroad,” Taxpayers for Common Sense, May 2025.

• John Hendel, “The $42 Billion Biden Internet Program Frustrating Dems in Swing States,” Politico, September 4, 2024.

• Alex Horton, “Biden’s Gaza Pier Was More Dangerous and Costly than Previously Known,” Washington Post, May 7, 2025.

• John Arnold, Immigration chart, X, May 11, 2025. 

From The Django weblog at 2025-05-15 15:00:00

Our new accessibility statement

Happy Global Accessibility Awareness Day! We thought this would be a fitting occasion to announce our brand new Django accessibility statement 🎉

Did you know that according to the WebAIM Million survey, 94.6% of sites have easily-detectable accessibility issues? We all need to work together to build a more inclusive web (also check out our diversity statement if you haven’t already!). There are accessibility gaps in Django itself too. This statement improves transparency, and clearly states our intentions. And we hope it encourages our community and the industry at large to more widely consider accessibility.

How to use this statement

Read it, share it with your friends, or in a procurement context!

• Use it to understand where there are gaps in Django that need to be addressed on projects.
• And opportunities to contribute to Django and related projects ❤️
• Factor it into legal compliance. For example with the European Accessibility Act. Starting June 2025, accessibility becomes a legal requirement for large swaths of the private sector in the European Union.
• Share it with venues for Django events to demonstrate the importance of accessibility for their competitiveness.

How you can help

Take a moment to provide any feedback you might have about the statement on the Django Forum. Let us know if you would prefer additional reporting like an ATAG audit, or VPAT, ACR, or any other acronym. Let us know if you’d like to contribute to the accessibility of the Django community! 🫶

From The Briefing Room at 2025-05-15 13:22:00

What is Israel's plan for Gaza? (p0lbdvhw.mp3)

Dire warnings of famine in Gaza, a broken ceasefire and the threat by the Israeli government of a new “intense” offensive which would forcibly displace Palestinians to an area in the south of Gaza and perhaps out of the strip altogether, plus the latest release of a US hostage. This is the war between Israel and Gaza 19 months on from the deadly attack by Hamas which killed 1200 people in Israel and took 251 hostages.

So what chance of peace between Israel and Gaza? Can a new ceasefire be negotiated with US backing or will Israel go it alone and forcibly occupy most of Gaza?

Guests:

Yolande Knell, BBC Middle East Correspondent Anshel Pfeffer, Israel Correspondent at The Economist, Yossi Mekelberg Senior Consulting Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House Shibley Telhami, Professor of Government and Politics at University of Maryland and a non resident senior fellow at Brookings Institution.

Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producers: Caroline Bayley, Nathan Gower, Kirsteen Knight Production co-ordinators: Sabine Schereck and Katie Morrison Sound Engineer: David Crackles Editor: Richard Vadon

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-15 13:18:49

Spies hack high-value mail servers using an exploit from yesteryear

Attacks spilled contacts and emails from targeted accounts.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-05-15 12:00:33

AI-Generated Law

On April 14, Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, announced that the United Arab Emirates would begin using artificial intelligence to help write its laws. A new Regulatory Intelligence Office would use the technology to “regularly suggest updates” to the law and “accelerate the issuance of legislation by up to 70%.” AI would create a “comprehensive legislative plan” spanning local and federal law and would be connected to public administration, the courts, and global policy trends.

The plan was widely greeted with astonishment. This sort of AI legislating would be a global “...

From Strong Message Here at 2025-05-15 09:45:00

Yes or No? (p0lb60x8.mp3)

Comedy writer Armando Iannucci and journalist Helen Lewis decode the utterly baffling world of political language.

This week, Helen and Armando take a step back and look at whether we're seeing the death of nuance in political debate. Is everything boiled down to 'yes or no' questions? What are the shibboleths of modern politics, and does the language you use, or decline to use, put you firmly on one side of a debate?

Listen to Strong Message Here every Thursday at 9.45am on Radio 4 and then head straight to BBC Sounds for an extended episode.

Have you stumbled upon any perplexing political phrases you need Helen and Armando to decode? Email them to us at strongmessagehere@bbc.co.uk

Sound Editing by Kate Mac Production Coordinator - Katie Baum Executive Producer - Pete Strauss

Produced by Gwyn Rhys Davies. A BBC Studios Audio production for Radio 4. An EcoAudio Certified Production.

From The Django weblog at 2025-05-15 05:55:48

DjangoCon Europe and beyond

We had a blast at DjangoCon Europe 2025, and hope you did too! Events like this are essential for our community, delighting both first-timers and seasoned Djangonauts with insights, good vibes, and all-around inspiration. This year’s conference brought together brilliant minds from all corners of the globe. And featured early celebrations of Django’s 20th birthday! ⭐️🎂🎉

After launching in 2005, Django turns 20 in 2025, and the conference was a great occasion for our community to celebrate this. And work on the sustainability of the project together.

We need more code reviews

Our Django Fellow Sarah Boyce kicked off the conference with a call for more contributions – of the reviewing kind. In her words,

Django needs your help. Every day, contributors submit pull requests and update existing PRs, but there aren't enough reviewers to keep up. Learn why Django needs more reviewers and how you can help get changes merged into core.

We need more fundraising

Our Vice President Sarah Abderemane got on stage to encourage more financial support of Django from attendees, showcasing how simple it is to donate to the project (get your boss to do it!). We have ambitious plans for 2025, which will require us to grow the Foundation’s budget accordingly.

Annual meeting of DSF Members

Our Board members Tom Carrick, Thibaud Colas, Sarah Abderemane, and Paolo Melchiorre were at the conference to organize a meeting of Members of the Django Software Foundation. This was a good occasion to discuss long-standing topics, and issues of the moment, such as:

• Diversity, equity and inclusion. Did you know we recently got awarded the CHAOSS DEI bronze badge? We need to keep the momentum in this area.
• Management of the Membership at the Foundation. With different visions on how much the membership is a recognition or a commitment (or both). There was interest in particular in sharing more calls to action with members.
• Content of the website. A long-standing area for improvement (which we’re working on!)

All in all this was a good opportunity for further transparency, and to find people who might be interested in contributing to those areas of our work in the future.

Birthday celebrations

There was a cake (well, three!). Candles to blow out. And all-around great vibes and smiles, with people taking pictures and enjoying specially-made Django stickers!

Up next

We have a lot more events coming up this year where the Foundation will be present, and bringing celebrations of Django’s 20th birthday!

PyCon US 2025

It’s on, now! And we’re present, with a booth. Come say hi! There will be Django stickers available:

PyCon Italia 2025

Some of the PyCon Italia team was there at DjangoCon Europe to hype up their event – and we’ll definitely be there in Bologna! They promised better coffee 👀, and this will have to be independently verified. Check out their Djangonauts at PyCon Italia event.

EuroPython 2025

We got to meet up with some of the EuroPython crew at DjangoCon Europe too, and we’ll definitely be there at the conference too, as one of their EuroPython community partners 💚. There may well be birthday cake there too, get your tickets!

Django events

And if you haven’t already, be sure to check out our next flagship Django events!

• DjangoCon Africa 2025, in Arusha, Tanzania 🇹🇿 in August.
• DjangoCon US 2025, in Chicago, USA 🇺🇸 in September.

Thank you to everyone who joined us at DjangoCon Europe, and thank you to the team behind the conference in particular ❤️. DjangoCon Europe continues to show the strength and warmth of our community, proving that the best part of Django is truly the people. See you at the next one!

From The Rest Is History at 2025-05-15 00:05:00

565. The Great Northern War: Revenge of the Cossacks (Part 2) (GLT1223770243.mp3?updated=1747251724)

After establishing the city of St Petersburg, what was Peter the Great’s next step in his titanic struggle against Charles XII of Sweden, for mastery of northern and eastern Europe? What drastic, brutal action did he take against Poland, to slow the Swedish advance into his territories? And, after the defection of one of his oldest and most important allies - the leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks - to the Swedes, could Peter and his army survive to fight on?  Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the next and deadliest stage of the Great Northern War: from action-packed military conquests, and harsh marches into the depths of a northern winter, to great betrayals, and the outbreak of the battle that would decide the fate of two of Europe’s mightiest rulers…  The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude  Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-14 23:16:14

OpenAI adds GPT-4.1 to ChatGPT amid complaints over confusing model lineup

Two new AI models join 7 others, leaving some paid users wondering which one is best.