Technology

A massive aviation industry clearinghouse that processes data for twelve billion passenger flights per year is selling that information to the Trump administration amid the White House’s new immigration crackdown, according to documents reviewed by the Lever.

The data — including “full flight itineraries, passenger name records, and financial details, which are otherwise difficult or impossible to obtain” for past and future flights — is fed into a secretive government intelligence operation called the Travel Intelligence Program and provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies, records reveal.

Details of this program were outlined in procurement documents released Wednesday by ICE, which is a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

Who would have known? Asking AI things was never a real job?!

Things are undoubtedly bad at Tesla. Its sales are dwindling. Its profits are plunging, as is its share price. There are regular protests outside its showrooms. The Cybertruck is a flop. And somehow, it’s actually a lot worse than that.

The 71% drop in net income it just reported may have been overshadowed by CEO Elon Musk’s announcement that he would be stepping back from his controversial duties at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But that drop is just one indication of serious financial sickness at the EV maker, problems brought on by falling sales for the first time in its history and falling prices for electric vehicles.

The bottom line problem at Tesla is its vanishing bottom line. A deeper look at its first quarter report shows it’s now losing money on what should be its ostensible reason for existence – selling cars.

It was only able to post a $409 million profit in the quarter thanks to the sale of $595 million worth of regulatory credits to other automakers.

But if the Trump administration gets its way, the company can kiss those regulatory credits keeping it in the black goodbye, too.

President Trump denounced the Biden-era Digital Equity Act as “woke handouts based on race,” raging in a social media post against a broad effort to improve high-speed internet access.

...The subject of Trump family corruption is an inexhaustible one. His first term was notorious for the use of his “branded” properties, various Trump hotels and resorts, as conduits for corporations and foreign governments to funnel cash into the family coffers. Behind the scenes, far greater sums were raked in through the overseas operations of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with more than a billion dollars “invested” by Saudi monarchs and Gulf sheiks alone.

However, Trump’s reelection last November and his return to the White House on January 20 have been accompanied by an even greater orgy of money-grubbing. By some estimates, the Trump family wealth has doubled since the election. His social media company Truth Social, despite negligible advertising and customer base, has seen its stock price soar. The president has made significant cash from the sale of branded items, ranging from replicas of his fascist executive orders to bibles, golf clubs and guitars. Trump has also raked in $500 million in contributions to various political action committees to fund future campaigns, although the Constitution bars him from seeking a third term in the White House.

But nothing compares to the vast fortune accumulated through the Trump family’s plunge into the cryptocurrency market, with the launching of World Liberty Financial, a venture that is 60 percent owned by the Trumps. It is overseen by sons Don Jr. and Eric and co-managed by Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump’s top Middle East envoy, billionaire Steve Witkoff. World Liberty has partnered with an array of companies whose financial flimflam is supposedly “regulated” by federal agencies now controlled by Trump himself.

There was little to no interest in World Liberty before the election, but after Trump’s victory, the value of its cryptocurrency, known as $WLFI, soared to a nominal $1.1 billion. Estimates reported by Fortune and Forbes magazines place the Trump family’s total crypto fortune at between $2.9 billion and $6.2 billion...

The event throws into question the perceived heightened accuracy of betting markets like Poymarket over conventional polls.

https://archive.is/Qc8RH

I went with the article title, but I think this isn't enshitification in the traditional sense of the platform making bad choices from a user perspective. Instead this is about shitty use of the platform by malicious users.

This article talks about a practice the author has dubbed "Playlist Stuffing" where an irrelevant, long, and monetized video is added into a playlist, low enough to not show up in the search result for that playlist. The accounts engaging in this seem to be compromised and abandoned accounts from the early days of youtube.

From the article:

In recent months, however, countless tainted playlists have cropped up in YouTube search results. Engadget compiled a sample of 100 channels (there are undoubtedly many, many more) engaged in what we'll refer to as playlist stuffing. These had between 30 and 1,987 playlists each — 58,191 in total. The overwhelming majority of these stuffed playlists contain an irrelevant, nearly hour-long video simply titled "More."

The robotic narration of "More" begins: "Cryptocurrency investing, when approached with a long-term perspective, can be a powerful way to build wealth." You'd be forgiven for assuming its aim is to direct unwitting listeners to a shitcoin pump-and-dump. But over the next 57 minutes and 55 seconds, it meanders incoherently between a variety of topics like affiliate marketing, making a website and search engine optimization.

For all its supposed advice on making easy money online, its best example isn't anything said in the video, it's that "More" has amassed nearly 7.5 million views at the time of this writing — and it's monetized.

The vast majority of channels engaged in this activity were created in 2006, and the youngest was claimed in February of 2009. In all likelihood, these accounts were abandoned long ago and have since been compromised, either by whoever is behind "More" or by a third party which sold access to these accounts to them.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250509114029/https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/05/09/new-jersey-prison-jpay-viapath-tablet

Prison of the Future: Prisoners will be able to implant memories of the victims of their crimes.

Millions of people around the world are in prison.

However, statistics show that imprisonment does not guarantee the prevention of reoffending.

Prison of the Future: Prisoners will be able to implant memories of the victims of their crimes.

Millions of people around the world are in prison.

However, statistics show that imprisonment does not guarantee the prevention of reoffending.

Meta is reportedly developing what it calls a "super sensing" type of facial recognition technology to its smart glasses lineup. A new report from The Information said that Meta is developing software for the glasses that has the ability to recognize people by name and keep better track of what users are doing throughout the day.

The company originally planned to include similar technology in its first wave of smart glasses, but abandoned that effort due to privacy concerns.

X has received executive orders from the Indian government requiring X to block over 8,000 accounts in India, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment of the company’s local employees. The orders include demands to block access in India to accounts belonging to international news organizations and prominent X users.

…

X is exploring all possible legal avenues available to the company. Unlike users located in India, X is restricted by Indian law in its ability to bring legal challenges against these executive orders. However, we encourage all users who are impacted by these blocking orders to seek appropriate relief from the courts.

The proposal comes after Republicans killed a federal FCC program that provided a $30 discount off the broadband bills of low-income Americans. The Republicans in question claimed they killed the popular program to save money, but a follow up study showed that the program more than paid for itself (by a factor of four) because it helped expand access to remote healthcare, employment, and education.

My state fighting a good fight. We’re flawed, but we sometimes get it right.

Berlin, 30 April 2025

The Document Foundation is proud to release LibreOffice 25.2.3.

This release includes dozens of bug fixes and compatibility enhancements that further improve the suite’s performance, reliability and interoperability.

It is available on Microsoft Windows, Mac and Linux.

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2025/04/30/announcing-libreoffice-25-2-3/

LibreOffice is a powerful, free and open source office suite.

It is used by millions of citizens, universities and businesses in over 100 countries. It is developed by The Document Foundation, a German non-profit.

About us.

We believe that users should have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software that we distribute. We campaign for these freedoms because we believe that everyone deserves them.

The community behind LibreOffice is the heart of the project, without which we would not have the resources to continue developing our software. We invite everyone to join us and help us to make LibreOffice known and accessible to all 🙌.

https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/who-are-we/

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/28904943

Date: May 2025 Affected Regions: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Tver, Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, Kaluga, Leningrad, Kursk, Mordovia (notably Saransk), and others. Confirmed Impact: Mobile internet partially or completely disabled across 30+ urban areas.

Official Narrative: "Security Measures" According to regional telecoms and unofficial channels, mobile internet services were intentionally cut off due to the threat of incoming Ukrainian drone strikes. Authorities cite "preventive action" and the need to limit open communications during heightened alert.

Reality Check: Tactical Blackout or Info Control? While defensive countermeasures against UAV threats are plausible, the scope and consistency of the outages raise questions. Independent observers and local reports suggest that the disruption may have also served to:

• Obscure real-time footage of military or infrastructural damage.
• Prevent citizens from coordinating information during attacks.
• Suppress potential unrest or panic in targeted regions.
• Mask technological vulnerabilities in regional air defense systems.

Strategic Implications:

• Operational transparency within the Russian Federation continues to decline.
• Digital infrastructure is increasingly weaponized as a tool of internal control.
• Civilian communication tools are deprioritized in favor of regime stability narratives.

The situation highlights a key paradox: While the Kremlin projects strength through cyber capabilities and digital sovereignty, it is simultaneously cutting its own population off from the global information sphere whenever reality threatens to contradict the official line.

Broader Context: These shutdowns occur alongside:

• Russia’s ongoing struggle with technological sanctions, including deteriorating access to Western telecom hardware.
• Failures of domestic tech replacements (e.g., the collapse of “Rossgram,” billed as a Russian alternative to Instagram).
• Escalating cross-border drone warfare, now reaching the interior of the country.

Sources:

• Local media reports
• Telecom user data (indirect confirmations from VK/TG channels)
• Internet monitoring watchdogs (e.g., NetBlocks, IsDown)
• Satellite imagery and OSINT (to be updated)

Hashtags: #Russia #UAV #DroneWarfare #InternetShutdown #DigitalAuthoritarianism #Censorship #InfoControl #CyberWarfare #FediverseReports #OSINT

I can't say I'm surprised...

An AI avatar made to look and sound like the likeness of a man who was killed in a road rage incident addressed the court and the man who killed him: “To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” the AI avatar of Christopher Pelkey said. “In another life we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness and a God who forgives. I still do.”

It was the first time the AI avatar of a victim—in this case, a dead man—has ever addressed a court, and it raises many questions about the use of this type of technology in future court proceedings. 

The avatar was made by Pelkey’s sister, Stacey Wales. Wales tells 404 Media that her husband, Pelkey’s brother-in-law, recoiled when she told him about the idea. “He told me, ‘Stacey, you’re asking a lot.’”