PC Mag: You’ve heard it a million times—use a long, strong, unique password for every single one of your online accounts. But memorizing even one password like Py4″qIme%F[pGmbe is too hard for most of us. Memorizing dozens of them? Fuhgeddaboudit! You need the help of a password manager to record those gibberish strings and to… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: February 2025
Meta torrented over 81.7TB of pirated books to train AI, authors say
Ars Technica: “Newly unsealed emails allegedly provide the “most damning evidence” yet against Meta in a copyright case raised by book authors alleging that Meta illegally trained its AI models on pirated books. Last month, Meta admitted to torrenting a controversial large dataset known as LibGen, which includes tens of millions of pirated books. But… Continue Reading
Trump tracker: US trade
This tracker is paywalled on FT.com – I reference it for those who have subscription access. “As the president threatens a trade war, follow the latest data on imports, exports and trade balances.” Continue Reading
DOGE Emails Went Out to Federal Judges by Mistake
As if we have not been in a lessons not learned class since noon on January 20, 2025 today Newsweek reported: “One of the people who received an email from allies of Elon Musk was a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit aimed at blocking these messages. “I, like probably every other judge in the country,… Continue Reading
GAO Annual Report on Nation’s Fiscal Health
“As the federal government’s publicly held debt continues to grow, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) today issued its annual report on the nation’s fiscal health. The report again warns Congress and the Administration about the federal government’s long-term fiscal path and calls for decisive action. As it has since 2017, GAO recommends a strategy… Continue Reading
Deferred Resignation Email to Federal Employees, Updated Continuously
Via LLRX – Deferred Resignation Email to Federal Employees, January 28, 2025 – Updated Continuously – I am adding news and government document updates to this article to keep readers abreast of the accelerating plan to force federal employees, who work at agencies throughout the government, to resign by the end of day, February 6,… Continue Reading
Trump’s first 100 days: all the news affecting the tech industry
The Verge: “President Donald Trump kicked off the first day of his presidency by signing a flurry of executive actions, including halting enforcement of the TikTok ban and rolling back the Biden administration’s artificial intelligence order. Having already run the country once before, Trump entered the presidency with the goal of hitting the ground running,… Continue Reading
Executive Order 14192 – for each new regulation issued, at least 10 prior regulations be identified for elimination
EXECUTIVE ORDER 14192 – UNLEASHING PROSPERITY THROUGH DEREGULATION February 6, 2025 – By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, as amended (31 U.S.C. 1101 et seq.), and in order to promote prudent financial management… Continue Reading
How to Responsibly Dispose of Your Electronics
Wired – Get rid of old, broken, and unused devices—even Lightning cables—without adding to the e-waste problem. “Whether you have an old phone languishing in a desk drawer or a broken laptop gathering dust in the back of a closet, there will never be a better time to dispose of it. There’s a good chance… Continue Reading
‘Things Are Going to Get Intense:’ How a Musk Ally Plans to Push AI on the Government
404 Media: Thomas Shedd, a Musk-associate and now head of the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS), told government tech workers in a meeting this week that the administration plans to widely deploy AI throughout the government. Shedd also said the administration would need help altering login.gov, a government login system, to further integrate… Continue Reading
As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders
Ars Technica: “Two years ago, a Canadian writer named Cory Doctorow coined the phrase “enshittification” to describe the decay of online platforms. The word immediately set the Internet ablaze, as it captured the growing malaise regarding how almost everything about the web seemed to be getting worse. “It’s my theory explaining how the Internet was… Continue Reading
Data Governance in Open Source AI: Enabling Responsible and Systemic Access
“As the Open Source Initiative convened its process to define Open Source AI, it became clear that organizations that care for open, fair and public-interest AI need to pay particular attention to and establish a shared position on data sharing and data governance. Open Source Artificial Intelligence (AI) development presents an opportunity to democratize technological… Continue Reading
