Tootfinder

How Canada Can Become a Nation of Jailbreakers, Reclaim Our Digital Sovereignty, Win the Trade-War, and Disenshittify Our Technology.
https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/28/disenshittification-nation/#post-american-internet
Must read article…

An interview with Citizen Lab founder Ronald Deibert about the US adopting authoritarian digital practices, the research group's accomplishments, and more (Finian Hazen/MIT Technology Review)
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/2

Meet the man hunting the spies in your smartphone
Ronald Deibert and his research group, the Citizen Lab, have rigorously worked to unveil alarming digital threats for the past two decades. Now, he warns, this kind of work is under threat.

😬 Native Instruments GmbH is in preliminary insolvency
https://cdm.link/ni-insolvency/

Native Instruments GmbH is in preliminary insolvency - CDM Create Digital Music
According to insolvency documents, Berlin-based Native Instruments GmbH (also parent to iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx) is in preliminary insolvency proceedings. This is devastating news for one of the biggest brands in music-making technology.

Advice for all the poor clickworkers and AI agents who are trying to create accounts on half-open fediverse servers:

1. Do not begin your reasons for joining with the words, “I’m a genuine Fediverse user …”
2. Do not end the with, “… interested in technology, digital culture, and open communities. I’d like to join fedifreu.de to exchange ideas respectfully, follow diverse perspectives, and be part of a friendly, decentralized social space that values openness and co…

U.S. Bars 5 European Tech Regulators and Researchers (Steven Lee Myers/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/technology/trump-rubio-european-tech-disinformation-digital-services-act.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/251223/p105#a251223p105

Surveillance tools exported by China, based on US tech and obtained by Chinese companies, to countries like Nepal are being used to stifle Tibetan refugees (Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/china-tibet-nepal-sur…

Chinese surveillance based on US tech is used to silence Tibetans in Nepal
Nepal is just one of at least 150 countries to which Chinese companies are supplying surveillance technology, from cameras in Vietnam to censorship firewalls in Pakistan to citywide monitoring systems in Kenya. This technology is now a key part of China’s push for global influence, as it provides cash-strapped governments cost-effective, if invasive, forms of policing — turning algorithms and data into a force multiplier for control. The irony at the heart of this digital authoritarianism i…

from my link log —
'The goal is to automate us': welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook

Surveys…
GAAD / WebAIM Global Digital Accessibility Salary Survey #2 (closes 2 Jan 2026):
https://webaim.org/projects/salary2/
Intopia’s Australia / New Zealand Assistive Technology Survey (closes 6 Feb 2026):

India officially notifies its first data protection law to establish a framework for data processing, protection, and governance, including verifiable consent (The Economic Times)
https://economictimes.indiatimes.c…

India notifies its first data protection law to strengthen privacy, security
India has officially notified the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025, establishing a framework for data processing, protection, and governance. These rules, enforcing the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, introduce verifiable consent, breach notification mandates, and data retention limits. They aim to enhance individual control and foster safer digital ecosystems.

This article suggests that research in 3D rendering contributed to machine- assisted assassinations of children in Gaza.
It is a topic very close to my heart. When I was starting my academic career at the dept. of Digital Storytelling of ZGDV in Darmstadt, Germany, I took a lot of inspiration by colleagues from the Institute of Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California. Their work was funded by DARPA and a lot of it was about military training. Let alone the fact t…

How Pixar’s technology helped develop more lethal military drones
The 3D modeling systems that made ‘Toy Story’ possible have been key to enabling unmanned aircraft to navigate and aim their weapons with greater precision

FTC v. Meta: TikTok's rise undermined the FTC's antitrust case and helped Meta avoid a breakup; Judge Boasberg said the tech landscape has "changed markedly" (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/technology/meta-google-antitrust-t…

Technology Is Fast and the Courts Are Slow
Silicon Valley has increasingly pointed at rapid digital changes to blunt government efforts to rein in its power.

""Toy Story was a transitional project. Since Pixar couldn’t send digital data to theaters, every one of the movie’s frames was printed on analog film. When #ToyStory originally hit home video, that 35 mm version was its source. Only years later, after technology advanced, did #Pixar …

To my mind the following article suggests that the present day "AI" approach is very wrong.
Why? Because biological RI (Real Intelligence) out performs CI (Computer Intelligence) by orders of magnitude on many dimensions: power required (perhaps 20 to 50 watts for the human brain), weight, size, cooling, and ability to innovate in new ways.
Our present digital computer approach to intelligence seems about as apt as trying to power passenger airplanes using onboard coal…

OpenAI Signs $38 Billion Cloud Computing Deal With Amazon
After signing agreements to use computing power from Nvidia, AMD and Oracle, OpenAI is partnering with the world’s largest cloud computing company.

The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) said the project aims to loosen what it described as the “chokehold” of US technology companies on Europe, which is damaging democracy.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/30122025-german-hackers-call-fo…