Recent Entries

From The Media Show at 2025-08-13 17:55:00

Journalists in Gaza, AI Avatar, Housing Journalism, True Crime (p0lwrdpm.mp3)

After an Israeli attack in Gaza City killed four Al Jazeera journalists, including correspondent Anas al-Sharif, we examine the situation for journalists in Gaza with Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Oren Persico from Israeli news website Seventh Eye discusses how Israeli media is covering the war.

A journalist's exchange with an AI avatar of Joaquin Oliver, who was killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, has raised questions about posthumous “interviews.” We hear from Joaquin’s father Manuel and Claire Leibowicz of the Partnership on AI.

A scoop by The i’s housing correspondent Vicky Spratt prompted the resignation last week of homelessness minister Rushanara Ali. Vicky joins us to explain how the story came about.

Plus: Simon Ford, executive producer of Channel 4’s Operation Dark Phone: Murder by Text, on gaining access to a landmark investigation into Encrochat and the long-running 24 Hours in Police Custody.

Producer: Dan Hardoon Assistant Producer: Lucy Wai

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-13 17:28:35

AI Applications in Cybersecurity

There is a really great series of online events highlighting cool uses of AI in cybersecurity, titled Prompt||GTFO. Videos from the first three events are online. And here’s where to register to attend, or participate, in the fourth.

Some really great stuff here.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-13 15:08:47

OpenAI brings back GPT-4o after user revolt

After unpopular GPT-5 launch, OpenAI begins restoring optional access to previous AI models.

From The Django weblog at 2025-08-13 15:03:19

Building better APIs: from Django to client libraries with OpenAPI

tl;dr

A summary of resources and learnings related to building REST API I put together over the last couple of years. Complete API development workflow from Django backend to frontend clients using Django REST Framework, drf-spectacular for OpenAPI spec generation, and automated client generation with openapi-generator. Big productivity boost!

There is a lot of discussion about frameworks for building REST APIs, some of them being even able to generate OpenAPI specs directly for you. Django is not quite known for that, but there are ways of doing this by automating most of the process while being very productive and offering your team a clean developer experience.

Overview

The stack I prefer makes use of several additional modules you will require: django-rest-framework and drf-spectacular alongside Django. REST Framework helps you extend your application in order to have a REST API, while drf-spectacular will help you the ability to generate the OpenAPI spec (standalone post: Create OpenAPI spec for Django REST Framework APIs.

After having the OpenAPI spec, you can generate clients with openapi-generator. Here is an example I mapped out of generating an Angular client:

Step-by-step process

There is also a recording from my GLT 2025 talk where I summarize most of these ideas.

In case you want to follow along, here is a step-by-step guide from the repository I showed during the presentation:

• Create a Django project
• Add a Django app
• Models and database migrations
• DRF serializers
• DRF views
• Configure URLs
• Add and configure drf spectacular
• Generate OpenAPI

From the last step, you can generate the API clients for the platform you require. You can follow the README and the examples available in my glt25-client repository.

Maintaining compatibility over time

The final tool you can use is openapi-diff, which will help you keep your documentation compatible. This is very important once your REST API is used in production:

Example of a compatible change: glt25-demo v1 to v2

docker run --rm -t openapitools/openapi-diff:latest https://github.com/nezhar/glt25-demo/releases/download/v1/openapi.yaml https://github.com/nezhar/glt25-demo/releases/download/v2/openapi.yaml

Example of a breaking change: glt25-demo v2 to v3

docker run --rm -t openapitools/openapi-diff:latest https://github.com/nezhar/glt25-demo/releases/download/v2/openapi.yaml https://github.com/nezhar/glt25-demo/releases/download/v3/openapi.yaml

Automating the maintenance

The process can be automated even further using GitHub Actions and Dependabot. Here are what the steps look like with this full continuous delivery setup:

Takeways

Building a complete API development workflow from Django to client libraries using OpenAPI creates a powerful and maintainable development experience. By combining Django REST Framework with drf-spectacular for automatic OpenAPI spec generation and openapi-generator for client creation, you can eliminate manual API documentation and reduce integration errors.

If you want to go even further, you can automate the integration of error codes inside the OpenAPI spec. This way you can better support languages that are even more strict when consuming the REST API!

Thank you to Harald Nezbeda for proposing this guest post on the Django blog!

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-13 12:08:00

SIGINT During World War II

The NSA and GCHQ have jointly published a history of World War II SIGINT: “Secret Messengers: Disseminating SIGINT in the Second World War.” This is the story of the British SLUs (Special Liaison Units) and the American SSOs (Special Security Officers).

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-12 20:52:39

Why it’s a mistake to ask chatbots about their mistakes

The tendency to ask AI bots to explain themselves reveals widespread misconceptions about how they work.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-12 12:01:38

The “Incriminating Video” Scam

A few years ago, scammers invented a new phishing email. They would claim to have hacked your computer, turned your webcam on, and videoed you watching porn or having sex. BuzzFeed has an article talking about a “shockingly realistic” variant, which includes photos of you and your house—more specific information.

The article contains “steps you can take to figure out if it’s a scam,” but omits the first and most fundamental piece of advice: If the hacker had incriminating video about you, they would show you a clip. Just a taste, not the worst bits so you had to worry about how bad it could be, but something. If the hacker doesn’t show you any video, they don’t have any video. Everything else is window dressing...

From School of War at 2025-08-12 10:12:00

Ep 221: Joel Wuthnow and Phillip Saunders on China’s PLA (NEBM9217197388.mp3)

Joel Wuthnow and Phillip Saunders, both of the  U.S. National Defense University and authors of China's Quest for Military Supremacy, join the show to discuss the origins, organization, and strategic outlook of China’s military.  ▪️ Times     •      01:22 Introduction     •      01:57 Origins     •      06:58 Crisis control        •      08:48 PLA structure      •      13:05 1960            •      20:17 Horizontal escalation         •      24:34 By land or sea     •      28:23 American resolve     •      30:54 Xi         •      36:41 A lack of experience      •      44:10 Military diplomacy     •      48:17 Reading list     •      50:43 Be unpredictable Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

From Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics at 2025-08-12 09:02:00

Hera (p0lvwqzk.mp3)

The Queen of the Olympian gods is swallowed whole by her father at birth and then marries her brother Zeus, who turns himself into a cuckoo to seduce her. Hera, or Juno to the Romans, has her triumphs. She adds the eyes to the tail feathers of her sacred bird the peacock by plucking them from the hundred-eyed monster Argos. And in the Iliad she dons a magic bra given to her by Aphrodite to persuade Zeus to support the Greeks against the Trojans.

Her loyalty to the Greeks begins when Trojan prince Paris doesn't choose her as the most beautiful. She then devotes her life to persecuting him and his people. Perhaps a slight overreaction. But is Hera a monster or just mistreated by the undisputed worst husband of all time?

At a packed out solo show recorded at the Hay Festival Natalie puts the case for and against.

'Rockstar mythologist' Natalie Haynes is the best-selling author of 'Divine Might', 'Stone Blind', and 'A Thousand Ships' as well as a reformed comedian who is a little bit obsessive about Ancient Greek and Rome.

Producer...Beth O'Dea

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-12 01:13:14

High-severity WinRAR 0-day exploited for weeks by 2 groups

Exploits allow for persistent backdooring when targets open booby-trapped archive.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-11 23:25:34

The GPT-5 rollout has been a big mess

OpenAI faces backlash as users complain about broken workflows and losing AI friends.

From The Django weblog at 2025-08-11 20:30:00

Welcome Our New Fellow - Jacob Tyler Walls

We are pleased to welcome Jacob Tyler Walls as the newest member of the Django Fellowship team. Jacob joins Natalia Bidart and Sarah Boyce, who continue in their roles as Django Fellows.

Jacob is a full-stack developer and open-source maintainer with five years of experience using and contributing to Django. He got involved in open source thanks to music technology. After majoring in music and philosophy at Williams College, Jacob earned a Ph.D. in music composition from the University of Pennsylvania. Programming coursework both fed into his creative output and also led to roles as a Python generalist working on music information retrieval and as a developer for an interactive music theory instruction site using Django.

As a member of Django’s Triage & Review Team, Jacob is passionate about software testing and eager to pay forward the mentorship he received as a contributor. Jacob also co-maintains the Python projects music21 and pylint.

Most recently, as part of his work as a core developer of Arches, an open-source Django/Vue framework for managing cultural heritage data, Jacob had the opportunity to explore the expressive potential of Django’s ORM. He gave a DjangoCon talk on his experience adapting QuerySets to work with highly generic data access patterns and an analogous talk for an audience of Arches developers. Since 2022, he has focused on developing GIS-powered Django apps at Azavea and later Farallon Geographics.

When time permits, Jacob continues to teach music theory, including most recently as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Delaware. (Perhaps another time Django Reinhardt will end up on the syllabus.)

You can find Jacob on GitHub as @jacobtylerwalls and follow occasional musical updates at jacobtylerwalls.com

Thank you to all the applicants to the Fellowship. We hope to expand the program in the future, and knowing there are so many excellent candidates gives us great confidence as we work toward that goal.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-11 12:05:32

Automatic License Plate Readers Are Coming to Schools

Fears around children is opening up a new market for automatic license place readers.

From The Rest Is History at 2025-08-11 00:05:00

590. The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: Death at the Theatre (GLT2286421954.mp3)

After passing the 13th amendment, in the closing weeks of the brutal American Civil War, what did president Abraham Lincoln - recently re-elected - do next to inflame his detractors? Crippled with guilt for the death and destruction of the war, was he indeed a unionist tyrant? What did Lincoln decide to do with the defeated rebel states? And, with time ticking for Lincoln’s life, who was John Wilkes Booth, the racist actor bent on Lincoln’s destruction? Join Dominic and Tom as they launch into the final days of one of America’s greatest presidents; Abraham Lincoln. Who would be his assassin, and where would he meet this tragic reckoning? 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 2025-08-09 12:18:47

Encryption made for police and military radios may be easily cracked

An encryption algorithm can have weaknesses that could allow an attacker to listen in.

From The Django weblog at 2025-08-09 10:38:58

Django’s accessibility contributing guide

The Django accessibility team is excited to announce that our accessibility contribution guidelines are now live in the documentation 🎉

These new guidelines are designed to support contributors in making Django more accessible to all users — including those who navigate the web using screen readers, keyboard-only inputs, and other assistive technologies.

They outline practical steps for designing and testing accessible user interfaces, how to contribute, follow up on ongoing accessibility issues, and contact the team. For beginners, we also recommend resources like The A11Y Project to get started.

We welcome your feedback and contributions as we continue to improve accessibility across the Django ecosystem! Come say hi on the Django Forum: Accessibility contributing guide.

From More or Less: Behind the Stats at 2025-08-09 06:00:00

Why it matters that Trump fired data chief (p0lvwlgc.mp3)

On Friday 1st August the US Bureau of Labor Statistics put out their job report data for August. It included revisions to their estimates for the jobs created in May and June which stated there were 258,000 fewer jobs than they had previously estimated. This news was not received well by the White House. President Trump fired the head of the bureau, Erika McEntarfer, calling the numbers ‘phony, rigged, a scam’ and spreading conspiracy theories that McEntarfer had fudged the data. We speak to economist Michael Strain from the American Enterprise Institute, to understand why the revisions happened and the potential consequences of throwing doubt on one of the US’s most important statistical agencies. If you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at, email the team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Production Co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Sam Bonham

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-09 00:22:02

Friday Squid Blogging: New Vulnerability in Squid HTTP Proxy Server

In a rare squid/security combined post, a new vulnerability was discovered in the Squid HTTP proxy server.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-08 21:11:56

It’s getting harder to skirt RTO policies without employers noticing

Most companies downsizing office space say it's because of hybrid work.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-08 20:41:00

Adult sites are stashing exploit code inside racy .svg files

Running JavaScript from inside an image? What could possibly go wrong?

From The Incomparable Mothership at 2025-08-08 17:24:49

778: Oops! All Batman (d94da7e7-840f-43e6-b2cb-790e0c08fa78.mp3)

We celebrate the tenth anniversary of our Summer Superhero Spectacular tournament with something slightly different: A draft of our favorite superhero movies....

From A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry at 2025-08-08 16:37:31

Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IIIb: Children and Childrearing

This is the back half of the third part of our series (I, II, IIIa) discussing the patterns of life for the pre-modern peasants who made up the great majority of humans who lived in the past. Last week, we started looking at family formation through the lens of marriage, this week we’ll consider it … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IIIb: Children and Childrearing →

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-08 12:01:14

Google Project Zero Changes Its Disclosure Policy

Google’s vulnerability finding team is again pushing the envelope of responsible disclosure:

Google’s Project Zero team will retain its existing 90+30 policy regarding vulnerability disclosures, in which it provides vendors with 90 days before full disclosure takes place, with a 30-day period allowed for patch adoption if the bug is fixed before the deadline.

However, as of July 29, Project Zero will also release limited details about any discovery they make within one week of vendor disclosure. This information will encompass:

• The vendor or open-source project that received the report ...

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-07 21:05:34

Google discovered a new scam—and also fell victim to it

Disclosure comes two months after Google warned the world of ongoing spree.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-07 18:48:57

OpenAI launches GPT-5 free to all ChatGPT users

New model claims fewer confabulations, better coding, and "safe completions" approach.

From Net Assessment at 2025-08-07 14:27:00

What’s the Plan for AI? (Net_Assessment_-_August_7th_Episode_V2.mp3?dest-id=808287)

Chris, Zack, and Melanie sit down to chat about the recently-released White House AI Action Plan. Should American AI policy be in pursuit of unchallenged dominance in the field? What kinds of investments and policy choices should the US government be making in order to accelerate AI innovation and deployment? Can the United States become one-stop-shopping for full-stack AI for our friends, in order to counter Chinese supremacy? Do Trump administration policies of the last six months contribute to us achieving our AI goals?

Chris is unhappy with the firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commission Erika McEntarfer, Zack compliments the CCP on getting the Trump administration to capitulate on its trade agenda, and Melanie calls out Senator Josh Hawley for his proposal to give $600 tariff rebate checks when the Trump tariffs are being advertised as a way to bring down the national debt.

Show Links:

• The White House, “Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan,” July 2025.

• Editorial Board, “Trump’s AI Action Plan is a Good Start—but Only a Start,” Washington Post, July 27, 2025.

• Raffaele Huang and Liza Lin, “How China is Girding for an AI Battle With the US,” Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2025. 

• Mehdi Alhassani and Anthony Bak, “America is Winning the Wrong AI Race,” Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2025. 

• Aaron MacLean, “A Warning to the Young: Just Say No to AI,” Engelsberg Ideas, July 9, 2025.

• Jeffrey Ding, “The Innovation Fallacy: In the US-Chinese Tech Race, Diffusion Matters More than Invention,” Foreign Affairs, August 19, 2024.

• “Hawley Introduces Legislation to Send Rebate Checks to Working Americans,” July 28, 2025. 

• Nevada Joan Lee and Christopher Preble, “The Quiet Demise of the Rio Treaty,” Stimson Center, August 1, 2025.

• Christopher Preble, “80 Years with the Bomb: The Nuclear Age in Four Moments,” Stimson Center, July 31, 2025.

• The Editorial Board, “The Bureau of Labor Denial,” Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2024.

• Spencer Jakab, “Trump vs. the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Why This Firing Could Burn Your Finances,” Wall Street Journal, August 4, 2025.

• Power Problems, https://www.cato.org/search/category/multimedia+power-problems

• Blue Blaze, https://blueblaze.substack.com/.

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

From The Briefing Room at 2025-08-07 14:21:00

Should the government worry about debt? (p0lvnq17.mp3)

In a time of sluggish economic growth, the favourite way of squaring the circle of spending more but not increasing taxes is to borrow - and we have.

Keeping everybody’s lights on during the pandemic and homes heated after the Russian invasion of Ukraine has helped send our national debt up from £1.8 trillion to £2.8 trillion in recent years.

But the question for the chancellor Rachel Reeves is how much more debt we can afford - and how much more debt do the markets think we can afford?

So what’s the answer to that?

Guests:

Duncan Weldon, economist and author of 'Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through' Mehreen Khan, economics editor of The Times Chris Giles, economics editor of The Financial Times

Producers: Ben Carter, Kirsteen Knight and Sally Abrahams Productions co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele Sound engineer: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-07 12:05:39

China Accuses Nvidia of Putting Backdoors into Their Chips

The government of China has accused Nvidia of inserting a backdoor into their H20 chips:

China’s cyber regulator on Thursday said it had held a meeting with Nvidia over what it called “serious security issues” with the company’s artificial intelligence chips. It said US AI experts had “revealed that Nvidia’s computing chips have location tracking and can remotely shut down the technology.”

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-07 12:00:02

Here’s how deepfake vishing attacks work, and why they can be hard to detect

Why AI-based voice cloning is the next frontier in social-engineering attacks.

From Strong Message Here at 2025-08-07 07:00:00

Strong Recommend: The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald (p0ltb06c.mp3)

Fancy trying a new author, but don't know where to start? Armando recommends a short novel by Penelope Fitzgerald, and Helen shares a tip on how to try on a new author for size before committing.

Join Helen and Armando over the summer for more cultural recommendations, available weekly on BBC Sounds.

Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls Executive Producer: Pete Strauss Sound Editing: Chris Maclean Recorded at The Sound Company

Strong Message Here: Strong Recommend is produced by Gwyn Rhys Davies and is a BBC Studios production for Radio 4.

From The Rest Is History at 2025-08-07 00:05:00

589. Mary, Queen of Scots: Downfall (Part 6) (GLT8999516788.mp3?updated=1754478548)

Following the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley, how did Mary Queen of Scots - thought to have conspired for his death - navigate the most precarious situation of her young life so far? Would she marry again, and if so whom? Why was she forced to flee her enemies dressed as a man, and would she escape the threat of imprisonment? Could she look to her fellow cousin, Elizabeth I, for aid, or face the Virgin Queen’s condemnation? And, would she come out from these tumultuous events a queen and unscathed, or dethroned, and traumatised for life? Join Tom and Dominic as they reach the dramatic climax of their journey through the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, as steps into the hands of Elizabeth I and her spymasters. Would this most brave and belligerent, but now beleaguered of women, survive the most perilous period of her 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 GoodFellows: Conversations from the Hoover Institution at 2025-08-06 18:52:54

Niall Ferguson, Flying Scotsman | GoodFellows (GoodFellows_Niall6z0va.mp3)

How does a young Scotsman go from struggling actor and failed politician to internationally acclaimed (and knighted) historian? In a solo installment of GoodFellows, Sir Niall Ferguson, Hoover’s Milbank Family Senior Fellow, discusses his academic journey, fellow historians he admires, keys to successfully multi-tasking through life, plus how he and his spouse, Hoover Research Fellow Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who also appears in this episode), are raising their two sons. Also discussed: Sir Niall’s newfound passion for sailing, his non-Scottish attitude toward golf and fishing, why he doesn’t see retirement as a viable lifestyle, plus the pride he takes in a music legend recently lauding him as the “Jimi Hendrix” of his profession.   Recorded on July 30, 2025. Subscribe for clarity on today’s biggest social, economic, and geostrategic shifts — only on GoodFellows.

From The Media Show at 2025-08-06 18:09:00

Return of MasterChef, No. 10's TikTok Strategy, Bluey on YouTube, Investigating Tesla (p0lvgxv2.mp3)

MasterChef has returned to our screens. We hear from the BBC journalist who first broke the story about allegations of misconduct and ask what the future holds for one of the BBC’s biggest brands.

As Downing Street holds its first ever influencer reception, we speak to one of the TikTok creators who attended and the journalist who first reported on the event. We lift the lid on the relationship between influencers and the government.

Children’s cartoon Bluey is riding high in the YouTube charts. We hear from the BBC executive behind Bluey's YouTube strategy.

Plus, New York Times reporter Chris Buckley on the Taiwanese TV drama imagining a Chinese invasion and the political controversy it's sparked. And the German journalist who gained access to an extraordinary data leak from Tesla discusses what he found about the company and its boss, Elon Musk.

Producer: Dan Hardoon

From More or Less: Behind the Stats at 2025-08-06 13:58:00

Are abortion numbers rising in the US? (p0lvf1kf.mp3)

In June 2022 the United States Supreme Court passed what became known as ‘the Dobbs decision’. In doing so they overturned the long standing constitutional right for women to access abortion in the US. Since then a number of states have banned abortion completely with many others having highly prohibitive rules. You’d expect the numbers of abortions to go down. They haven’t. How is it possible that more people are accessing abortions in a post Dobbs society and why is it not true that states which have total bans have zero abortions per year? Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Production Co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Studio Manager: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon, Bridget Harney.

From More or Less: Behind the Stats at 2025-08-06 13:39:00

Does a single AI query use a bottle of water? (p0lvdy34.mp3)

We’re living through boom-times for Artificial Intelligence, with more and more of us using AI assistants like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grok and Copilot to do basic research and writing tasks.

But what is the environmental impact of these technologies?

Many listeners have got in touch with More or Less to ask us to investigate various claims about the energy and water use of AI.

One claim in particular has caught your attention - the idea that the equivalent of a small bottle of drinking water is consumed by computer processors every time you ask an AI a question, or get it to write a simple email.

So, where does that claim come from, and is it true?

Reporter: Paul Connolly Producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Donald McDonald Editor: Richard Vadon

From More or Less: Behind the Stats at 2025-08-06 10:59:00

Are abortion numbers rising in the US? (p0lvd3w0.mp3)

In June 2022 the United States Supreme Court passed what became known as ‘the Dobbs decision’. In doing so they overturned the long standing constitutional right for women to access abortion in the US. Since then a number of states have banned abortion completely with many others having highly prohibitive rules. You’d expect the numbers of abortions to go down. They haven’t. How is it possible that more people are accessing abortions in a post Dobbs society and why is it not true that states which have total bans have zero abortions per year? Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Production Co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Studio Manager: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon, Bridget Harney.

From The Django weblog at 2025-08-06 08:53:57

Django bugfix release issued: 5.2.5

Today we've issued the 5.2.5 bugfix release.

The release package and checksums are available from our downloads page, as well as from the Python Package Index.

The PGP key ID used for this release is : 3955B19851EA96EF

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-06 05:35:28

The Semiconductor Industry and Regulatory Compliance

Earlier this week, the Trump administration narrowed export controls on advanced semiconductors ahead of US-China trade negotiations. The administration is increasingly relying on export licenses to allow American semiconductor firms to sell their products to Chinese customers, while keeping the most powerful of them out of the hands of our military adversaries. These are the chips that power the artificial intelligence research fueling China’s technological rise, as well as the advanced military equipment underpinning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine...

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-05 19:28:10

Voice phishers strike again, this time hitting Cisco

Stopping people from falling for phishing attacks isn't working. So what are organizations to do?

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-05 12:06:21

Surveilling Your Children with AirTags

Skechers is making a line of kid’s shoes with a hidden compartment for an AirTag.

From School of War at 2025-08-05 10:35:00

Ep 220: Marc LiVecche on Hiroshima and Morality (NEBM6387274394.mp3)

Marc LiVecche, McDonald Distinguished Scholar of Ethics, War, and Public Life at Providence and author of The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury, joins the show to discuss Just War Theory and whether the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki fit in that framework.  ▪️ Times     •      01:23 Introduction     •      01:30 Misspent youth     •      07:51 Moral injury        •      13:27 Conflicting views     •      19:15 Richard Frank            •      28:53 Right not moral          •      39:12 Not the same     •      40:36 Gifts from heaven Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

From Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics at 2025-08-05 09:02:00

The Women Poets of Ancient Greece (p0lv47xt.mp3)

Natalie is joined by Edith Hall and Nikita Gill to tell the stories of the Nine Earthly Muses, the most admired Greek women poets. They are Sappho, Myrtis, Corinna, Moero, Anyte, Nossis, Erinna, Praxilla and Telesilla. The idea was that these "divine voices" had been nurtured by the Muses themselves.

Sappho's magnificent poetry offers a different perspective from Homer's. Her Helen of Troy feels no guilt at all about leaving her family to be with Paris. The poets provide funny, inventive and unexpected angles: Corinna writes about a contest between two local mountains to see which of them can play the best song on the lyre. The disgruntled loser, Mount Helicon, then rains down boulders like snow in displeasure. Praxilla writes drinking songs using her own meter and rhythms. But their work has been scorned and misunderstood by critics and Natalie wants to redress that.

'Rockstar mythologist' Natalie Haynes is the best-selling author of 'Divine Might', 'Stone Blind', and 'A Thousand Ships' as well as a reformed comedian who is a little bit obsessive about Ancient Greek and Rome.

Nikita Gill is an Irish-Indian poet whose work offers a shift of perspective which centres women in both Greek and Hindu myth as well as folklore. She has been shortlisted for the Goodreads Choice Award in poetry and the Children's Poetry Award and longlisted for the Jhalak Prize. Her new book is Hekate: The Witch.

Edith Hall is Professor of Classics at Durham University, specialising in ancient Greek literature. She has written over thirty books and is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Producer...Beth O'Dea

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-04 20:16:26

AI site Perplexity uses “stealth tactics” to flout no-crawl edicts, Cloudflare says

The allegations are the latest to accuse Perplexity of improper web crawling.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-04 12:01:27

First Sentencing in Scheme to Help North Koreans Infiltrate US Companies

An Arizona woman was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for her role helping North Korean workers infiltrate US companies by pretending to be US workers.

From an article:

According to court documents, Chapman hosted the North Korean IT workers’ computers in her own home between October 2020 and October 2023, creating a so-called “laptop farm” which was used to make it appear as though the devices were located in the United States.

The North Koreans were hired as remote software and application developers with multiple Fortune 500 companies, including an aerospace and defense company, a major television network, a Silicon Valley technology company, and a high-profile company...

From The Rest Is History at 2025-08-04 00:05:00

588. Mary, Queen of Scots: The Mystery of the Exploding Mansion (Part 5) (GLT2383249995.mp3?updated=1754129911)

How and why was Mary Queen of Scots’ traitorous husband, Lord Darnley, murdered, and by whom…? Was Mary complicit? Why was his death one of the greatest mysteries in all British history? And, with Mary’s situation growing increasingly precarious, and allies few and far between, to whom would Mary turn next? Join Tom and Dominic as they unravel, tantalisingly, the build up to and enactment of Lord Darnley’s mysterious murder, in the next stage of the tumultuous life of Mary Queen of Scots. Were her hands red and dripping with the blood of her murdered husband? 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 Django weblog at 2025-08-03 14:20:56

DSF member of the month - Jake Howard

For July 2025, we welcome Jake Howard as our DSF member of the month! ⭐

Jake actively shares his knowledge through blog posts and community talks. He is part of the Security Team Working Group and he created the DEP 14. He has been a DSF member since June 2024.
You can learn more about Jake by visiting Jake's website and his GitHub Profile.

Let’s spend some time getting to know Jake better!

Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc)

I’m Jake. I’m a Senior Systems Engineer at Torchbox, where I’ve been for a little over 4 years. “Systems Engineer” is a fairly loaded title, and means different things to different people. I like to describe it as doing everything technical to do with Software Engineering which isn’t Programming (Sysadmin, Devops, IT support, Security, Networking), but also doing a fair bit of Programming.

Most of my hobbies revolve around technology. I’m an avid self-hoster, running applications on servers both in “the cloud” and in my house. There’s been a server of some kind in my house for the last 10 years. I’m generally quite a private person, so I like to know what’s happening to my data. Since I started working remotely at the start of the 2020 pandemic, I’ve channeled some of this passion into posts on my website, with posts about all manner of things I’ve done from self-hosting to general software engineering.

Away from my desk (sort of), I’m a volunteer for Student Robotics, inspiring college students into STEM through competitive robotics (no, not quite like Robot Wars). In school, I was always the quiet one, but now I seem completely at home with public speaking, commentary and otherwise being in front of large crowds of people. I wish I knew the secret - I’d make millions!

My GitHub is also pretty active, with contributions all over the place (OpenZFS, Nebula VPN, Gitea, Plausible Analytics, OpenCV, Ansible…).

I’m curious, where your nickname “RealOrangeOne” comes from?

Because a lot of life happens online (especially in the last 5 years), many people haven’t even seen pictures of me, let alone met me in person. I am not in fact a talking piece of fruit. For a while, I tried to stay anonymous, avoiding photos or videos of me on the internet. But since I discovered I enjoy public speaking, I’ve sort of given up on that (for the most part).

By now, I’m sure many people have speak. But, for those who don’t know: I, like my father before me, am ginger 🔥 (the hair colour, not the plant).

The exact specifics of how being ginger lead to “TheOrangeOne” are sadly lost to time. I’ve owned theorangeone.net for well over a decade at this point. Unfortunately, it’s not a particularly original nickname, and I have to be fast to claim it when signing up to new services. In some places (where I wasn’t fast enough) I’m forced to sub out “The” for “Real”, which has lead to some confusions, but not too many. Canonically, I prefer “TheOrangeOne”, but as we all know, naming things is hard.

How did you start using Django?

I’ve been using Django since around the 1.8 release. My job at the time was at a Django development agency, so it was the first real Python framework I’d used. The first few weeks there was my first exposure to Django, pip, package management and collaborative software engineering - it was quite a lot to learn at once. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was working working as a junior alongside a couple fairly well-known names in the Django community like Tom Christie (DRF, Starlette, HTTPX) and Jamie Matthews (django-readers, django-zen-queries). We mostly built single-page apps with React, so I learned Django and Django Rest Framework at the same time, which means I now often have to look back at the docs to remember how forms and templates work.

As for contributing to Django, that came much later. My first commit to Django was in May 2024. Having used Django for a while, and written plenty of packages, I’d never stopped to look at how upstream was developed. Around the time of DEP 14 kicking off, I needed to look a bit more at the inner workings of the Django project, to learn what was in store for me. When scrolling through Trac tickets, I found an interesting looking ticket, and got to work. At the time of writing, I’ve now closed 9 Trac tickets across 12 PRs, and some pretty cool features (simple block tags, better Accept header parsing, performance improvements to the URL router) now have my name on them (metaphorically speaking).

I wouldn’t call myself an “active” contributor, but I try and keep an eye on the tickets and forum threads which interest me the most, and chime in when I can.

What other framework do you know and if there is anything you would like to have in Django if you had magical powers?

Since it’s the first framework I learned, and so far has done everything I need, I’ve mostly used Django. For a few smaller services, I’ve leaned more towards Starlette and AIOHTTP, but for anything even slightly large I’ve just used Django - since I’d end up recreating much of Django using the smaller frameworks anyway. A better (likely official) path for single-file Django (ie without some of the magic module handling) might help draw a few more people in and fill a few more of these “micro-service” style use-cases.

I’m a class-based views person - I like the encapsulation and easy extension of base views. As with any opinion on the internet, I’m sure many people disagree with me, but to me it’s just personal preference. I’m still surprised it’s a pattern not seen by many other Python frameworks.

Following in the footsteps of Python, I often wonder if Django could also do with some dead battery removal (or at least extracting into separate packages). Django is a pretty big framework, and whilst the contrib apps are intended to be separate, they also require hooks and assumptions in other areas of the codebase. I might be wrong (it happens quite a lot), but I suspect some of those packages would be better suited externally, perhaps improving some developer momentum - and lightening the load for the Fellows. Django’s sitemap and syndication (RSS) frameworks are 2 places I wish would get some more love.

Outside of Python, I’m a big fan of Rust (as cliche as it may be). Whilst Rust is a popular language, there isn’t really a “Django” like (batteries included) framework - it’s all composing the pieces you need yourself. However, that doesn’t stop people being very productive with it. As a result, most of the frameworks have very generic interfaces, letting developers pass state around as needed, rather than trying to do everything themselves. Outside of the obvious static typing debate (which I’m in favour of), I’d love to see Django embrace some dependencies, especially if they bring some performance improvements. It may end up being a bad idea, but it might also help those who want to use Django’s modules outside of Django.

Many years ago, I tried to be a polyglot - switching between different programming languages (and frameworks) to find new ways of working and match the problem to the correct solution. Now, I’ve settled mostly on Python and Rust. They fit my needs well, I’m very productive in them, and between the 2 there’s not much they can’t handle. Given my background, and the fact most sysadmin-y tools are written in it, I’m really not a fan of Go.

What projects are you working on now?

Over time, I’ve slowly stepped back from having big side projects - being a new dad sure takes up time and energy. Large projects ended up feeling too much like work outside of work, and I end up either getting distracted or bored. After work, I want to do something fun, not that seems like yet another job. I’m the kind of person who gets the sudden urge to research something interesting for an evening, dive in, then not think about it again for several weeks. It’s not the most productive way of doing things, which is why my posts are all over the place, but it doesn’t feel much like work for me - I lean heavily on what interests me at any time to drive what I want to do.

With that said, I’m currently in the process of rebuilding my website. Of course, both the current and new versions are built on Django, but the new build should be easier to maintain, faster, and hopefully won’t need rewriting again in just a couple years. Most of my other projects have been small tools to make my home server that bit nicer.

Professionally, I’m not really a developer anymore. As a sysadmin (ish), much of my day-to-day doesn’t involve much programming. I spend much more of my time deploying, monitoring and administering Django applications than I do writing them. My main project at the moment is helping port a large Java / JS deployment over to Django and Wagtail, running on Kubernetes with some very high and interesting stability and scaling requirements. Since most of my professional live has been at software agencies, I’ve tended to bounce between different projects, rather than sitting on a single one. So I’m also supporting on a few other smaller projects as and when I’m needed.

Which Django libraries are your favorite (core or 3rd party)?

django-tasks, of course!

…

Oh right, a serious answer…

I have to say, one of the most underrated modules in Django is django.utils. It’s not as glamourous as the ORM, forms or cache, but it’s a treasure trove of useful methods. I personally always like looking at the internal helper functions large frameworks use - see the problems they’ve had to solve time and time again. Whilst there’s not the same stability guarantees, I’ve definitely been helped out on a few occasions by some undocumented functions.

In that theme, I’m a fan of libraries which do one thing and do it well. I quite like small libraries which aim to solve a problem. There’s definitely a line before that becomes a problem (anyone remember left-pad?), but libraries which scope creep are often harder to work with than the more narrow-scoped ones, whilst the smaller ones just keep on working and making my life easier. For example, django-environ makes reading and parsing environment variables into settings really easy and clean, and django-decorator-include helps including other urlpatterns whilst wrapping them in a decorator - particularly helpful for 3rd-party package’s URLs.

Finally, I’ve got a real soft-spot for whitenoise (and ServeStatic for ASGI users). Django’s documentation deters people pretty hard from serving media and static files using Django - and rightly so in performance-critical environments. However, for most people, having to additionally maintain (and secure) nginx is more maintenance than necessary. whitenoise serves static files using Django directly, without any extra configuration, whilst also pre-compressing files for a nice performance boost. To me, it’s such a universally-useful library, I’d love to see it it included in Django itself someday.

I’ll throw a bonus shout out for granian, a new (ish) WSGI / ASGI server written in Rust. gunicorn has a near monopoly on running Python apps in production, especially in the WSGI space, so it’s nice to see a newcomer. granian isn’t always faster, but doing the HTTP handling in Rust (and using popular libraries to do it) can improve stability and throughput, without holding the GIL. I’ve not run anything in production with it yet, but I’ve been using it on personal projects for almost a year without issue.

What are the top three things in Django that you like?

Contrary to what I’ve already said, I actually like Django’s batteries. Sure, there’s quite a few “dead” ones in need of some cleaning up and TLC, but having most of what I need already installed makes me far more productive. I don’t need to think about how to render my form on the page, save the results as a model, or properly handle errors - everything “just works”, and works together. Sure, batteries have their downsides - it makes swapping them out rather difficult, but I’d rather ship my feature sooner than compare the trade-offs of different ORMs. The auto-reloading in django-tasks is only around 8 lines of code thanks to django.utils.autoreload being so easy to hook in to.

Secondly: Forms, but not for the reasons you might think. Most forms are created to take submissions from the user, validate them, then probably save them to a model. However, they’re great as general data validation. I’ve written plenty of views with complex querystring requirements, and leaning on forms to validate them saves a lot of boilerplate code. Sure, pydantic might be a bit faster and have more features, but given I’m already productive with django.forms, and it’s already installed and well understood by other developers in my team, I don’t feel the need to reach for something else.

Finally, I wouldn’t say it’s quite a “favourite”, and it’s well-known as being far-from-perfect, but I’ve got a real soft-spot for the Django Admin. It lets me focus on building the core of an application, rather than the internal interface - particularly when there are no strong requirements for it, or it’s only going to be used by me and a few others. Since it’s a fair raw view of the database by default, I’ve definitely been bitten by some less-than-restrictive permissions, but there’s generally all the hooks I need. I don’t like building frontends, so only needing to build 1 rather than 2 makes me a lot happier, especially if it comes with authentication, permissions, read-only views and a dark mode 😎!

How did you join the security team?

I’d love to say it’s an interesting story, stroking my ego that I saved the day. But the reality is, as usual, far less glamorous.

As an engineer, I’ve tended towards 2 specialties: Security and Performance, which usually go hand-in-hand. In early 2023, I was invited to join the Wagtail CMS Security team after reporting and subsequently helping fix a memory exhaustion issue. I was already involved in all things security at Torchbox, especially our ISO-27001 certification, so I was already known when I submitted a vulnerability report.

Thibaud mentioned to me late last year that the project potentially looking for new members of the security team, to help with resourcing and some potential process improvements within the foundation. I naturally jumped at the opportunity - since the team is generally closed to new members and “fully-staffed”. After a few gentle reminders (he’s a busy guy), I received a message from Sarah formally inviting me in March.

Since then, I’ve tried to review every report which came through, and helped author a few patches. A few reports even had to be raised upstream with Python’s Security Response Team (PSRT). It’s been an interesting experience, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the team developers over the coming years.

I’m aware that you have created DEP 14 on the Background Workers, how the work is going so far? Do you need support from the community on anything?

DEP 14 (the proposal to add a native background workers API to Django) has been a really interesting journey. I’m beyond humbled to see the community interest behind it. When I started down this road, I’d only intended to start the conversations and help rally the community interest. Since then, and 6000 lines of code later, I’m mostly single-handedly writing a database-backed production-grade task system.

Right now, we’re at a bit of a cross-roads. Many of the foundational parts work, relatively well. The difficulty comes with the more complex features: Retries, dependencies, robust execution. Building a task system is easy - building a reliable one people want to actually use is incredibly difficult. If anyone out there is interested in getting involved, please do! Report issues, fix bugs, contribute to design discussions. Most of the APIs are based on what I think looks sensible. Software this large, pivotal and complex can’t be built in isolation - so it needs a diverse audience to ensure we (I) make the right decisions, and design an API people actually want to use that will last and scale for years to come.

The next challenge on my list to tackle is timeouts - a highly requested feature. It sounds simple, but the reality is far from it. Many of those challenges sparked the topic of my upcoming PyCon UK talk later this year.

Django is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. Any nice story to share?

My personal highlight was DjangoCon Europe 2024 - my first DjangoCon. I ended up bringing the stereotypically grey British weather with me, but I had a great week chatting Django with some interesting people, and putting faces to the names and handles I’d seen online. After the talk announcing DEP 14 and background tasks, I was inundated with people voicing their support - many wondering how it’d taken this long.

But personally, I’m more interested in what’s to come. Of course, there’s django-tasks, but the next sets of releases are shaping up to be pretty interesting. Over the last 3-4 years or so, I’ve personally noticed a bit of a resurgence in people’s appetites for change in Django. The 6.x Steering Council have a lot of interesting ideas, and clearly the community agree. People are happy with what Django can do now, but want to bring it a little more up-to-date - and are happy to put in the work to do it. Only a few weeks ago, django-csp was included in core, making it easier to make more secure applications. I’m sure that’s just the start. The fact people are still keen on working on a framework which just celebrated 20 years shows it must be doing something right!

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

I’d like to thank whoever nominated me to be a DSF member in the first place. To this date, I have no idea who you are.

Beyond that, I’m just looking forward to seeing what comes of Django, and Python in general over the next few years.

Thank you for doing the interview, Jake !

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-08-01 22:23:42

At $250 million, top AI salaries dwarf those of the Manhattan Project and the Space Race

A 24 year-old AI researcher will earn 327x what Oppenheimer made while developing the atomic bomb.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-01 22:01:54

Friday Squid Blogging: A Case of Squid Fossil Misidentification

What scientists thought were squid fossils were actually arrow worms.

From A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry at 2025-08-01 19:00:56

Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IIIa: Family Formation

This is the first part of the third part of our series (I, II) discussing the patterns of life of the pre-modern peasants who made up the great majority of all humans who lived in our agrarian past and indeed a majority of all humans who have ever lived. Last week, we looked at death, … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IIIa: Family Formation →

From The Incomparable Mothership at 2025-08-01 17:09:43

777: The 44% Rule (0b480501-cea4-458b-829a-15af28704b6f.mp3)

2025 Awards Book Club nears the end with award nominees “Asunder,” “The Ministry of Time,” and “The Tainted Cup.” Plus: What else are we reading?...

From Schneier on Security at 2025-08-01 12:07:28

Spying on People Through Airportr Luggage Delivery Service

Airportr is a service that allows passengers to have their luggage picked up, checked, and delivered to their destinations. As you might expect, it’s used by wealthy or important people. So if the company’s website is insecure, you’d be able to spy on lots of wealthy or important people. And maybe even steal their luggage.

Researchers at the firm CyberX9 found that simple bugs in Airportr’s website allowed them to access virtually all of those users’ personal information, including travel plans, or even gain administrator privileges that would have allowed a hacker to redirect or steal luggage in transit. Among even the small sample of user data that the researchers reviewed and shared with WIRED they found what appear to be the personal information and travel records of multiple government officials and diplomats from the UK, Switzerland, and the US...

From School of War at 2025-08-01 10:32:00

Ep 219: Stephen Platt on Mao's China and the Original Marine Raider (NEBM8158871702.mp3)

Stephen Platt, professor of Chinese history at UMass Amherst and author of The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II, joins the show to discuss the incredible life of Evans Carlson. ▪️ Times     •      01:48 Introduction     •      02:50 American quirk     •      08:14 China      •      10:18 Soviet policy      •      14:01 Nicaragua            •      16:29 Edgar Snow          •      21:11 FDR     •      24:42 8th Route Army      •      31:52 Embargo        •      38:30 Raiders     •      42:40 Makin Island     •      46:30 Force multiplier         •      52:44 1946 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 2025-07-31 22:43:51

Microsoft catches Russian hackers targeting foreign embassies

End goal is the installation of a malicious TLS root certificate for use in intel gathering.

From The Django weblog at 2025-07-31 15:34:04

Djangonaut Space is looking for contributors to be mentors

Hello Django 🌌 Universe!

🛰️‍ This is Djangonaut Space phoning home about Session 5! We're recruiting technical mentors (Navigators) to join our next 🌟stellar🌟 mission.

👩‍🚀 We are looking for people who regularly contribute to Django or a Django related package, that want to mentor others. Our next session will be Oct-Nov.

🚀 Come join us and be a cosmic contributor! Express your interest to be a mentor here.

📚 Want to learn more about what it means to be a Navigator:

• Here's a high-level overview of the role
• Here's the workbook each Navigator is provided

🤝 Interested people will have to complete a 30 minute meet & greet type interview with organizers.

✋ If you're interested in applying to be a Djangonaut, applications will open and close in September (dates to be determined). The latest information will be posted on our site, djangonaut.space. Please follow our social media accounts or subscribe to our newsletter for announcements.

☄️ We'll see you around the cosmos!

Djangonaut Space session organizers

From The Briefing Room at 2025-07-31 13:55:00

Why don't we have ID cards in the UK? (p0ltc6pr.mp3)

For years there has been an argument, sometimes loud, sometimes subdued, on whether Britain needs an ID card system. One big reason given for wanting them is simply to know who is here legally. With illegal and irregular migration never far from the headlines these days and with President Macron, during his recent visit describing the “pull factor” of illegal migrants being able to work in Britain, the debate is being resurrected. So, what is the history of ID cards in the UK, what form might they take if we have a system and would they work?

Presenter: David Aaronovitch

Guests:

Jon Agar, author of The Government Machine Rainer Kattel, Professor of Innovation and Public Governance, UCL Edgar Whitley, Professor of Information Systems in the Department of Management, LSE Rachel Coldicott, technology specialist and executive director of the research consultancy, Careful Industries.

Producers: Caroline Bayley, Kirsteen Knight and Sally Abrahams Productions co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele Sound engineers: James Beard and Neil Churchill Editors: Sam Bonham and Bridget Harney

From Schneier on Security at 2025-07-31 12:00:37

Cheating on Quantum Computing Benchmarks

Peter Gutmann and Stephan Neuhaus have a new paper—I think it’s new, even though it has a March 2025 date—that makes the argument that we shouldn’t trust any of the quantum factorization benchmarks, because everyone has been cooking the books:

Similarly, quantum factorisation is performed using sleight-of-hand numbers that have been selected to make them very easy to factorise using a physics experiment and, by extension, a VIC-20, an abacus, and a dog. A standard technique is to ensure that the factors differ by only a few bits that can then be found using a simple search-based approach that has nothing to do with factorisation…. Note that such a value would never be encountered in the real world since the RSA key generation process typically requires that |p-q| > 100 or more bits [9]. As one analysis puts it, “Instead of waiting for the hardware to improve by yet further orders of magnitude, researchers began inventing better and better tricks for factoring numbers by exploiting their hidden structure” [10]...

From Emperors of Rome at 2025-07-31 09:17:50

False Nero (250731-false-nero.mp3)

When Nero took his own life in 68CE it was the end of an era for Rome. The Julio-Claudians had ruled for close to 100 years, and with the end of the dynasty there was confusion, civil war, and an outpouring of grief.

Some would exploit this confusion and claim to be the still alive Emperor Nero, with the intention of retaking his empire.

Episode CCXLV (245)

Guest: Assistant Professor Zachary Herz (Legal Historian, Department of Classics, University of Colorado Boulder).

From Strong Message Here at 2025-07-31 07:00:00

Strong Recommend: Evita at London Palladium (p0lt35w4.mp3)

Helen has been to the theatre recently, so you don't have to! Jamie Lloyd's production of Evita has a moment in it which can be enjoyed by anyone who happens to be near the venue at about 9pm most nights across the summer. You can enjoy the showstopper yourself, whilst also adding to the experience of those in the venue who are missing out.

Join Helen and Armando over the summer for more cultural recommendations, available weekly on BBC Sounds.

Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls Executive Producer: Pete Strauss Sound Editing: Chris Maclean Recorded at The Sound Company

Strong Message Here: Strong Recommend is produced by Gwyn Rhys Davies and is a BBC Studios production for Radio 4.

From The Rest Is History at 2025-07-31 00:05:00

587. Mary, Queen of Scots: Murder Most Foul (Part 4) (GLT2035316933.mp3?updated=1753894494)

Why did Mary Queen of Scots’ second marriage to the volatile Lord Darnley threaten to send Scotland into civil war? In what way did she essentially declare war upon her powerful cousin, Elizabeth I? Who was the hotheaded James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, and why would he come to play such a devastating role in Mary’s life? Could Mary survive unburnt if the religious tensions smouldering at the heart of Scotland, erupted into a bonfire of destruction? Why did she personally lead a Scottish army into battle, pistols in hand? And, who in her inner circle was brutally murdered before her very eyes? Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss the climax of Mary Queen of Scots’ dysfunctional marriage, her efforts to seize power in both Scotland and England, and the birth of her heir, whose very existence threatened the reign of England’s Virgin Queen? 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 2025-07-30 23:21:56

In search of riches, hackers plant 4G-enabled Raspberry Pi in bank network

Sophisticated group also used novel means to disguise their custom malware.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-30 19:47:00

So far, only one-third of Americans have ever used AI for work

AP survey shows most Americans treat AI chatbots like a search engine replacement.

From The Media Show at 2025-07-30 17:27:00

Christiane Amanpour, Dead Internet Theory, Food journalism (p0lt5fv7.mp3)

What is the ‘dead internet theory’ and what does it tell us about our anxieties about AI? The Economist’s Alex Hern explains. We also hear from Newsguard’s Isis Blachez about a network of fake news sites built not for people – but to manipulate what answers we get from AI chat bots. Plus, Mark Graham from the Internet Archive discusses how the organisation is approaching its task in the age of AI.

Christiane Amanpour is CNN's Chief International Anchor and host of Amanpour on CNN and PBS. She's interviewed presidents, prime ministers, and popes, and is one of the best-known journalists covering international news. She reflects on her career and tells us why she’s turning to podcasting.

How can food journalism and content drive news subscriptions? We discuss with Emily Weinstein, Editor in Chief of Cooking and Food at The New York Times; and get an insight into the art of restaurant criticism with The Sunday Times’ Charlotte Ivers.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-07-30 12:07:43

Measuring the Attack/Defense Balance

“Who’s winning on the internet, the attackers or the defenders?”

I’m asked this all the time, and I can only ever give a qualitative hand-wavy answer. But Jason Healey and Tarang Jain’s latest Lawfare piece has amassed data.

The essay provides the first framework for metrics about how we are all doing collectively—and not just how an individual network is doing. Healey wrote to me in email:

The work rests on three key insights: (1) defenders need a framework (based in threat, vulnerability, and consequence) to categorize the flood of potentially relevant security metrics; (2) trends are what matter, not specifics; and (3) to start, we should avoid getting bogged down in collecting data and just use what’s already being reported by amazing teams at Verizon, Cyentia, Mandiant, IBM, FBI, and so many others...

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-30 11:30:43

Flaw in Gemini CLI coding tool could allow hackers to run nasty commands

Beware of coding agents that can access your command window.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-29 22:24:16

AI in Wyoming may soon use more electricity than state’s human residents

Proposed datacenter would demand 5x Wyoming's current power use at full deployment.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-07-29 12:02:50

Aeroflot Hacked

Looks serious.

From School of War at 2025-07-29 10:35:00

Ep 218: Lawerence Freedman on Endless Wars (NEBM2007594378.mp3?updated=1753756918)

Lawerence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London and author of ‘The Age of Forever Wars’, joins the show to discuss why protracted warfare seems to be a mark of the era.   ▪️ Times     •      01:32 Introduction     •      02:01 Aligning strategy      •      04:37 Mass      •      07:14 Iraq and Afghanistan      •      11:14 Al Qaeda            •      14:25 Survive          •      17:50 Results matter     •      22:04 Trade-offs      •      27:23 Avoiding mistakes        •      32:13 Why does Putin continue?     •      38:29 Concessions Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

From Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics at 2025-07-29 09:00:00

Alexandria: The Library (p0lsc1f3.mp3)

Natalie is joined by Professors Islam Issa and Edith Hall to tell the story of the great library of Alexandria. It was included in Alexander the Great's original design for his city, located in the Nile Delta. Alexandria was to be a city of knowledge.

The founders of the library were ambitious: they wanted nothing less than to collect all the books in the world. They were willing to pay huge sums, but they were also ruthless and unscrupulous. The Ptolemies would write to fellow rulers and wealthy friends and ask to borrow their priceless texts. Then the library would copy the scrolls, and return the copies. Or alternatively they'd just steal them.

Handily, papyrus, the principal reading material of the era, grew in great abundance around Alexandria. So there was plenty of it for those copies. Less fortunately, it's extremely flammable. So in 48 BCE, when Julius Caesar's besieged army set fire to ships in the harbour in order to block the invading fleet, the fire spread and destroyed a significant part of the library.

'Rockstar mythologist' Natalie Haynes is the best-selling author of 'Divine Might', 'Stone Blind', and 'A Thousand Ships' as well as a reformed comedian who is a little bit obsessive about Ancient Greek and Rome.

Islam Issa is Professor of Literature and History at Birmingham City University. His book 'Alexandria, the City that Changed the World' is the Winner of the Runciman Award and The Times, Sunday Times, TLS, Booklist, Epoch Times and Waterstones Book of the Year.

Edith Hall is Professor of Classics at Durham University, specialising in ancient Greek literature. She has written over thirty books and is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-28 21:07:29

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Agent casually clicks through “I am not a robot” verification test

"This step is necessary to prove I'm not a bot," wrote the bot as it passed an anti-AI screening step.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-07-28 20:00:22

That Time Tom Lehrer Pranked the NSA

Bluesky thread. Here’s the paper, from 1957. Note reference 3.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-28 19:15:25

Pro-Ukrainian hackers take credit for attack that snarls Russian flight travel

State-owned Aeroflot cancels dozens of flights, stranding travelers throughout Russia.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-07-28 12:09:22

Microsoft SharePoint Zero-Day

Chinese hackers are exploiting a high-severity vulnerability in Microsoft SharePoint to steal data worldwide:

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-53770, carries a severity rating of 9.8 out of a possible 10. It gives unauthenticated remote access to SharePoint Servers exposed to the Internet. Starting Friday, researchers began warning of active exploitation of the vulnerability, which affects SharePoint Servers that infrastructure customers run in-house. Microsoft’s cloud-hosted SharePoint Online and Microsoft 365 are not affected.

Here’s...

From The Rest Is History at 2025-07-28 00:05:00

586. Mary, Queen of Scots: The Battle for Scotland (Part 3) (GLT1545905247.mp3?updated=1753439562)

Following the death of her husband, the King of France, was the glamorous Mary welcomed back to Scotland, her kingdom since infancy, with open arms or deep suspicion? Did she handle the precarious situation in which she found herself well, or recklessly? Did the majority of Scottish nobles side with Mary, or plot to usurp her in the shadows? When her eye turned on the crown of her wealthier neighbour, England, how did its reigning queen, Elizabeth I, react? And, who was the man that Mary choose to take as her second husband…? Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss Mary Queen of Scots’ polarising return to her native land of Scotland, riven by religious factionalism and political disquiet, and the terrible dangers of being a Scottish queen in more than name alone. 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 More or Less: Behind the Stats at 2025-07-26 06:00:00

Does a single AI query use a bottle of water? (p0lsbflf.mp3)

We’re living through boom-times for Artificial Intelligence, with more and more of us using AI assistants like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grok and Copilot to do basic research and writing tasks.

But what is the environmental impact of these technologies?

Many listeners have got in touch with More or Less to ask us to investigate various claims about the energy and water use of AI.

One claim in particular has caught your attention - the idea that the equivalent of a small bottle of drinking water is consumed by computer processors every time you ask an AI a question, or get it to write a simple email.

So, where does that claim come from, and is it true?

Reporter: Paul Connolly Producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Donald McDonald Editor: Richard Vadon

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-26 01:21:30

After BlackSuit is taken down, new ransomware group Chaos emerges

As BlackSuit's dark web site goes dark, Chaos is already around to pick up the slack.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-07-25 22:00:38

Friday Squid Blogging: Stable Quasi-Isodynamic Designs

Yet another SQUID acronym: “Stable Quasi-Isodynamic Design.” It’s a stellarator for a fusion nuclear power plant.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-25 20:59:37

OpenAI’s most capable AI model, GPT-5, may be coming in August

Sources say new model combines o3 reasoning with general GPT capabilities.

From The Incomparable Mothership at 2025-07-25 17:00:00

776: Next Stop Black Hole City (757e5887-7e02-4488-8bcb-af7c0b8f34c7.mp3)

We went to the theater to see James Gunn’s “Superman” (2025) and are back to report about the pleasant experience. Gunn sets a new direction for DC superheroes, and fans of Zack Snyder may want to look elsewhere. From Krypto the Superdog to a surprising squirrel save, from The Marvelous Miss Lane to that Elemento guy, we’ll break the whole thing down....

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-25 16:50:37

Supply-chain attacks on open source software are getting out of hand

Attacks affected packages, including one with ~2.8 million weekly downloads.

From Schneier on Security at 2025-07-25 12:10:10

Subliminal Learning in AIs

Today’s freaky LLM behavior:

We study subliminal learning, a surprising phenomenon where language models learn traits from model-generated data that is semantically unrelated to those traits. For example, a “student” model learns to prefer owls when trained on sequences of numbers generated by a “teacher” model that prefers owls. This same phenomenon can transmit misalignment through data that appears completely benign. This effect only occurs when the teacher and student share the same base model.

Interesting security implications.

I am more convinced than ever that we need serious research into ...

From School of War at 2025-07-25 10:34:00

Ep 217: Steven Rabalais on Ike’s Mentor (NEBM6320894955.mp3?updated=1753398207)

Steven Rabalais, litigator and author of General Fox Conner: Pershing's Chief of Operations and Eisenhower's Mentor,  joins the show to discuss the extraordinary influence of now-forgotten General Fox Connor on the outcome of WWI and Eisenhower’s career.   ▪️ Times     •      01:51 Introduction     •      03:10 Growing up with history      •      05:47 A southern story      •      07:44 West Point struggles      •      12:07 A reader            •      14:50 Coastal artillery          •      20:46 Rocks and airplanes     •      23:51 Mechanism of victory     •      27:54 WWI logistics        •      32:47 Summer 1918     •      46:03 Eisenhower     •      51:24 Panama        •      01:01:58 Foreshadowing Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

From The Django weblog at 2025-07-25 07:54:01

DjangoCon Africa 2025 Heads to Arusha 🇹🇿

We’re excited to share that DjangoCon Africa is returning this year — and this time we’re heading to Arusha, Tanzania from August 11–15, 2025! 🎉

Arusha city view with Mount Meru in the background, credits Halidtz - CC BY-SA 4.0

This second edition builds on the incredible success of the inaugural DjangoCon Africa held in Zanzibar in 2023. That event welcomed over 200 attendees from 22+ countries, with more than half of the participants being women — a powerful statement about the growing diversity and strength of the African tech ecosystem.

What to expect at DjangoCon Africa 2025

Five action-packed days of:

1. 💬 Talks Three full days of diverse talks spanning programming, technology, society, career development, business, education, and more — all with voices from across Africa and around the globe.
2. 🖥️ Workshops Hands-on training led by Django and Python experts — perfect for deepening your skills and learning new ones.
3. 🤝 Sprints Join code sprints and contribute to open source projects, including Django itself.
4. 👩‍💻 Django Girls workshop A special pre-conference workshop for women interested in web development — part of a global initiative that has introduced thousands of women to Django.
5. 🔍 Discovery & connections Meet developers, designers, educators, and innovators from across the continent. Share stories. Build partnerships. Celebrate African tech talent.

Co-hosting with UbuCon Africa 2025

This year’s DjangoCon Africa comes with a special twist: we’re proud to co-host the first-ever UbuCon Africa — a regional gathering of Ubuntu users and contributors.

From August 13–15, UbuCon Africa will bring together Linux and open source enthusiasts to celebrate people-powered tech, collaboration, and the Ubuntu spirit of “I am because we are.” Whether you're a die-hard Debian dev or just curious about Ubuntu — you’ll feel right at home.

🎟 Secure your spot & get involved

Whether you’re looking to attend, speak, sponsor, or volunteer, DjangoCon Africa has a place for you.

• 👉 Get your tickets
• 👉 Sponsor the event

This is more than just a conference. It’s a celebration of community, learning, and open source  built by and for people across Africa and beyond.

Join us in Arusha this August. Let’s shape the future of Django together.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-24 22:01:28

Two major AI coding tools wiped out user data after making cascading mistakes

"I have failed you completely and catastrophically," wrote Gemini.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-24 19:11:23

Nvidia AI chips worth $1B smuggled to China after Trump export controls

Black market for US semiconductors operates despite efforts to curb Beijing’s high-tech ambitions.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-24 18:51:43

Some VMware perpetual license owners are unable to download security patches

Customers will get patches at unspecified "later date," Broadcom says.

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-24 15:37:05

White House unveils sweeping plan to “win” global AI race through deregulation

Trump's "AI Action Plan" reverses regulations, sparks critical pushback.

From Net Assessment at 2025-07-24 13:57:00

Combating Mexican drug cartels: Is there a military solution? (Net_Assessment_-_24_July_2025_v1.mp3?dest-id=808287)

In this show, Chris, Melanie, and Zack consider the different military options being considered to combat Mexican drug cartels. Are the cartels that manufacture and distribute drugs that kill Americans, particularly fentanyl, a threat to US national security? If so, is military action, with or without the approval of the Mexican government, a viable solution? And if a military operation isn’t a great idea, are there other ways to stop the tens of thousands of fentanyl and other drug-related deaths that occur in the United States every year? Melanie remembers Andrew Schwartz, a force of nature at CSIS who passed away earlier this month. The crew has shout outs for Ukraine’s drone manufacturers and researchers Jessica Batke and Laura Edelson on “The Locknet,” regarding China’s control of the Internet. Grievances for the Trump administration’s handling of staff cuts at the State Department, and for strong-arming allies regarding a hypothetical conflict with China over Taiwan.

Show Links:

• Dan DePetris and Chris McCallion, “No GWOT-NARCO: The Perils of Making War on Cartels,” Defense Priorities, July 2, 2025

• Simon Shuster, “The Hidden War Over Ukraine’s Lost Children,” Time, July 17, 2025

• Caitlin Doombos, Ronny Reyes, “Trump Discussing Drone ‘Mega Deal’ with Ukraine—As US Tech Lags Behind Adversaries,” New York Post, July 17, 2025

• Neal Urwitz, “Andrew Schwartz Must be Remembered,” National Security Journal, July 18, 2025 

• Christopher Preble, “A Credible Grand Strategy: The Urgent Need to Set Priorities,” Stimson Center, January 25, 2024

• Demetri Sevastopulo, “US demands to know what allies would do in event of war over Taiwan,” Financial Times, July 12, 2025

• Jessica Batke and Laura Edelson, “The Locknet: How China Controls Its Internet and Why It Matters,” ChinaFile, June 30, 2025

Support Net Assessment at https://www.stimson.org/support/

From The Briefing Room at 2025-07-24 13:08:00

How close is the UK getting to the European Union? (p0ls0181.mp3)

'Britain is back on the world stage' said Prime Minister Keir Starmer in May following the first UK-EU summit since the UK left the EU in January 2020. Outline agreements were reached to remove red tape for British farm exports and energy trading with the EU as well as plans for a security and defence partnership. Then a few weeks later the Prime Minister held summits in London with first the French President Emmanuel Macron and then the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz. David Aaronovitch asks whether this is the beginning of a new closer relationship with the European Union and if so what compromises might need to be made.

Guests: Peter Foster, World Trade Editor of the Financial Times Jill Rutter, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government Anand Menon, Director of the UK in a Changing Europe Mujtaba Rahman, Managing Director for Europe at Eurasia Group

Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producers: Caroline Bayley, Ben Carter and Kirsteen Knight Production Co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele Studio engineers: Tom Bartlett and Alyson Purcell-Davis Editors: Richard Vadon and Lisa Baxter

From Schneier on Security at 2025-07-24 12:04:48

How Solid Protocol Restores Digital Agency

The current state of digital identity is a mess. Your personal information is scattered across hundreds of locations: social media companies, IoT companies, government agencies, websites you have accounts on, and data brokers you’ve never heard of. These entities collect, store, and trade your data, often without your knowledge or consent. It’s both redundant and inconsistent. You have hundreds, maybe thousands, of fragmented digital profiles that often contain contradictory or logically impossible information. Each serves its own purpose, yet there is no central override and control to serve you—as the identity owner...

From Strong Message Here at 2025-07-24 07:00:00

Strong Recommend (p0lrrlfk.mp3)

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

From GoodFellows: Conversations from the Hoover Institution at 2025-07-24 01:59:32

California Dreaming with Rick Caruso | GoodFellows | Hoover Institution (GoodFellows_2025-07-22_-_Rick_Caruso86ftz.mp3)

In contrast to the 20th-century bosses of industry who ran America’s big cities, New York City seems poised to elect an unabashed socialist with dreams of government-run bodegas, rent freezes, and wealth redistribution. Rick Caruso, noted Los Angeles real estate developer and possible political candidate in 2026, joins GoodFellows regulars and Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster to discuss the future of America’s big cities—whether his other major cities will follow Gotham’s lead, plus how to bring needed change to municipalities notoriously averse to innovation (and in LA’s case, a city perhaps unprepared for the 2028 Summer Olympics).  The three fellows next reflect on the Ukraine-Russia conflict, now entering its 42nd month with no end in sight, then engage in a “lightning round” that touches on Harvard’s reported desire to create a Hoover Institution of its own; Hunter Biden’s skewed take on illegal immigration; the Epstein scandal’s effect on the MAGA movement; plus a “heated” debate over why Sir Niall and his countrymen choose to live without air conditioning.  Recorded on July 22, 2025. Subscribe for clarity on today’s biggest social, economic, and geostrategic shifts — only on GoodFellows.

From The Rest Is History at 2025-07-24 00:05:00

585. Mary, Queen of Scots: The Royal Rivals (Part 2) (GLT5612344391.mp3?updated=1753281236)

What was life like in the glittering French court, for the young and newly married Mary Queen of Scots? What momentous destiny was her formidable mother, Mary of Guise, planning for her? How did Mary become, in 1559, not only the queen of Scotland, but also of France, and - according to her Catholic French supporters - the queen of England? What would Mary do when unexpectedly widowed in a distant court of vipers? And, what did her cousin, the famous Protestant English Queen, Elizabeth I, make of this young, charming, Scottish pretender to her throne...? Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss Mary Queen of Scots; her rise to the throne of France, and her burgeoning rivalry with Elizabeth I. 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 2025-07-23 22:34:26

OpenAI and partners are building a massive AI data center in Texas

"Easy to throw around numbers, but this is a gigantic infrastructure project."

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-23 21:14:40

What to know about ToolShell, the SharePoint threat under mass exploitation

Easy to exploit. Unauthenticated access. Massive reach. ToolShell has it all.

From The Media Show at 2025-07-23 17:29:00

YouTube media coverage of Epping migrant hotel protests, Catholic influencers, Claims journalists in Gaza face starvation (p0lrv887.mp3)

Katie Razzall and Ros Atkins discuss some of the biggest media stories this week including how the protests at the migrant hotel in Epping are being covered by different media outlets. Videos by YouTube journalist Wesley Winter have been seen hundreds and thousands of times online. Cristina Nicolotti Squires, Ofcom’s Broadcasting and Media Group Director talks about a new report from the regulator which says BBC and other public service broadcasters are in danger of becoming "endangered species". Phil Chetwynd, Global News Director of Agence France-Presse on claims that journalists reporting in Gaza face starvation and as the Catholic Church prepares to hold a social media influencers conference in Rome we talk to someone who's attending, Mary-Aoife Ong Co Director of Carlo Acutis Ireland, and to Justin Tackett a philosopher at North Carolina State University about the Vatican's media strategy.

Producer: Lisa Jenkinson

From Schneier on Security at 2025-07-23 12:04:53

Google Sues the Badbox Botnet Operators

It will be interesting to watch what will come of this private lawsuit:

Google on Thursday announced filing a lawsuit against the operators of the Badbox 2.0 botnet, which has ensnared more than 10 million devices running Android open source software.

These devices lack Google’s security protections, and the perpetrators pre-installed the Badbox 2.0 malware on them, to create a backdoor and abuse them for large-scale fraud and other illicit schemes.

This reminds me of Meta’s lawauit against Pegasus over its hack-for-hire software (which I wrote about ...

From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-07-22 22:00:10

A power utility is reporting suspected pot growers to cops. EFF says that’s illegal.

EFF says the "mass surveillance scheme" violates constitutional protections.

From A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry at 2025-07-22 18:22:27

Gap Week, July 25, 2025

Hey folks! I am on vacation this week, so you’ll have to wait till next week to get the next installment of “Life, Work, Death and the Peasant.” However, if you are looking for some ACOUP content to fill your Friday, I have a few suggestions! First, if you want some of my writing in … Continue reading Gap Week, July 25, 2025 →

From Schneier on Security at 2025-07-22 12:05:47

“Encryption Backdoors and the Fourth Amendment”

Law journal article that looks at the Dual_EC_PRNG backdoor from a US constitutional perspective:

Abstract: The National Security Agency (NSA) reportedly paid and pressured technology companies to trick their customers into using vulnerable encryption products. This Article examines whether any of three theories removed the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that this be reasonable. The first is that a challenge to the encryption backdoor might fail for want of a search or seizure. The Article rejects this both because the Amendment reaches some vulnerabilities apart from the searches and seizures they enable and because the creation of this vulnerability was itself a search or seizure. The second is that the role of the technology companies might have brought this backdoor within the private-search doctrine. The Article criticizes the doctrine­ particularly its origins in Burdeau v. McDowell­and argues that if it ever should apply, it should not here. The last is that the customers might have waived their Fourth Amendment rights under the third-party doctrine. The Article rejects this both because the customers were not on notice of the backdoor and because historical understandings of the Amendment would not have tolerated it. The Article concludes that none of these theories removed the Amendment’s reasonableness requirement...

From School of War at 2025-07-22 10:36:00

Ep 216: Will Somerindyke on Making Munitions in America (NEBM5222402097.mp3?updated=1753147459)

Will Somerindyke, Chairman of Regulus Global and CEO of UNION, joins the show to discuss rebuilding the U.S. defense industrial base. ▪️ Times     •      01:36 Introduction     •      02:35 A navy family      •      05:51 Regulus      •      08:05 American made      •      10:45 155            •      14:44 Integration          •      16:53 Supply chains     •      23:20 Demand     •      28:27 Flexibility        •      31:40 Forging vs casting     •      33:45 UNION     •      37:27 Customers        •      40:07 Mindset Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack