The European Commission Is Testing an Open Source Alternative To Microsoft Teams
The European Commission is preparing to trial a communications platform built on Matrix, the open source messaging protocol already used by the French government, German healthcare providers and European armed forces, as a sovereign backup to Microsoft Teams.

Signal currently serves as the backup tool but has proven to … ⌘ Read more

Debian’s Challenge When Its Developers Quietly Drift Away
You may recall the news last month around no one was left on Debian’s data protection team and other volunteer staffing challenges with different Debian efforts in the past. Debian Project Leader Andreas Tille has been looking at the issue of the challenges that arise when Debian’s all-volunteer developers quietly drift away either due to time commitments, other interests, or other reasons but don’t properly communicate it to the Debian project… ⌘ Read more

Russian Spy Satellites Have Intercepted EU Communications Satellites
European security officials believe two Russian space vehicles have intercepted the communications of at least a dozen key satellites over the continent. From a report: Officials believe that the likely interceptions, which have not previously been reported, risk not only compromising sensitive information transmitted by the satellites … ⌘ Read more

Linux Dropping SMC TCP ULP Support For Being “Fundamentally Broken”
Merged four years ago to the Linux kernel networking subsystem’s Shared Memory Communications (SMC) code was TCP Upper Layer Protocol (ULP) support for allowing applications to replace TCP with the SMC protocol in-place as a transparent replacement. Except for the next kernel cycle it’s set to be reverted after realizing it’s “fundamentally broken.”.. ⌘ Read more

High-Speed Internet Boom Hits Low-Tech Snag: a Labor Shortage
The U.S. laid fiber-optic cables to a record number of homes last year as billions of dollars in federal broadband grants and a surge in data-center construction fueled an enormous buildout, but the industry does not have enough workers to sustain the pace.

A 2024 report by the Fiber Broadband Association and the Power & Communication Contractors Assoc … ⌘ Read more

EU Deploys New Government Satcom Program in Sovereignty Push
The EU “has switched on parts of its homegrown secure satellite communications network for the first time,” reports Bloomberg, calling it part of a €10.6 billion push to “wean itself off US support amid growing tensions.”

SpaceNews notes the new government program GOVSATCOM pools capacity from eight already on-oribit satellites from France, Spain, It … ⌘ Read more

When 20-Year-Old Bill Gates Fought the World’s First Software Pirates
Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Just months after his 20th birthday, Bill Gates had already angered the programmer community,” remembers this 50th-anniversary commemoration of Gates’ Open Letter to Hobbyists. “As the first home computers began appearing in the 1970s, the world faced a question: Would its software be free?”
… ⌘ Read more

DDR5-4800 vs. DDR5-6000 Performance With The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D In 300+ Benchmarks
With the incredible market demand around DDR5 memory and significantly elevated pricing on the more premium DDR5 memory modules, as part of the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D launch there’s been some communication that thanks to 2nd Gen AMD 3D V-Cache, using lower memory speeds like DDR5-4800 can be suitable without much of an impact to the gaming performance. But what about for Linux gaming? And other workloads with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D? C … ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA VA-API Driver 0.0.15 Released With A Few Fixes
The NVIDIA-VAAPI-Driver 0.0.15 was released overnight as this VA-API driver implementation built atop NVIDIA’s NVDEC interface used by their proprietary user-space driver stack. The purpose of NVIDIA-VAAPI-Driver as this community open-source project continues to be around enabling video acceleration for NVIDIA GPUs with the Firefox web browser on Linux that supports the VA-API interface but not NVIDIA’s NVDEC… ⌘ Read more

Kernel Community Drafts a Plan For Replacing Linus Torvalds
The Linux kernel community has formalized a continuity plan for the day Linus Torvalds eventually steps aside, defining how the process would work to replace him as the top-level maintainer. ZDNet’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports: The new “plan for a plan,” drafted by longtime kernel contributor Dan Williams, was discussed at the latest Linux Kernel Maint … ⌘ Read more

China Hacked Downing Street Phones For Years
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Telegraph: China hacked the mobile phones of senior officials in Downing Street for several years, The Telegraph can disclose. The spying operation is understood to have compromised senior members of the government, exposing their private communications to Beijing. State-sponsored hackers are known to have targeted the phones of some of the … ⌘ Read more

Reddit Lawyers Force Founder to Redact ‘WallStreetBets’ From Miami Event
Reddit has forced Jaime Rogozinski, the founder of infamous r/WallStreetBets, to strip the WallStreetBets name from an upcoming Miami conference after legal threats citing trademark rights. According to a press release, it’s the “first known case of a social media company enforcing trademark control over a user-created community.” F … ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Abed is a character from Community and “cool cool cool” was one of his “things”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMXYjejIup4

Former Canonical Developer Advocate Warns Snap Store Isn’t Safe After Slow Responses to Malware Reports
An anonymous reader shared this article from the blog Linuxiac
In a blog post, Alan Pope, a longtime Ubuntu community figure and former Canonical employee who remains an active Snap publisher… [warns of] a persistent campaign of malicious snaps impersonating cryptoc … ⌘ Read more

Ireland Wants To Give Its Cops Spyware, Ability To Crack Encrypted Messages
The Irish government is planning to bolster its police’s ability to intercept communications, including encrypted messages, and provide a legal basis for spyware use. From a report: The Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill is being framed as a replacement for the current legislation that governs digital communic … ⌘ Read more

Meta’s Oversight Board Takes Up Permanent Bans In Landmark Case
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Meta’s Oversight Board is tackling a case focused on Meta’s ability to permanently disable user accounts. Permanent bans are a drastic action, locking people out of their profiles, memories, friend connections, and, in the case of creators and businesses, their ability to market and communicate wi … ⌘ Read more

Hundreds Answer Europe’s ‘Public Call for Evidence’ on an Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy
The European Commission “has opened a public call for evidence on European open digital ecosystems,” writes Help Net Security, part of preparations for an upcoming Communication “that will examine the role of open source in EU’s digital infrastructure.”

The consultation runs from January 6 to Februa … ⌘ Read more

Astronomers Finally Explain How Molecules From Earth’s Atmosphere Keep Winding Up On the Moon
An anonymous reader shared this report from CNN:

Particles from Earth’s atmosphere have been carried into space by solar wind and have been landing on the moon for billions of years, mixing into the lunar soil, according to a new study [published in the journal Nature Communications Ea … ⌘ Read more

Could We Provide Better Cellphone Service With Fewer, Bigger Satellites?
European satellite operator Eutelsat “plans to launch 440 Airbus-built LEO satellites in the coming years to replenish and expand its constellation,” Reuters reported Friday. And last week America’s Federal Communications Commission approved SpaceX’s request to deploy another 7,500 Starlink satellites, while Starlink “projects it … ⌘ Read more

Students Increasingly Choosing Community College or Certificates Over Four-Year Degrees
DesScorp writes: CNBC reports that new data from the National Student Clearinghouse indicates that enrollment growth in four year degree programs is slowing down, while growth in two year and certification programs is accelerating: Enrollments in undergraduate certificate and associate degree programs … ⌘ Read more

oVirt 4.5.7 Released After Two Years With New OS & CPU Support
The oVirt 4.5.7 open-source virtualization management platform released this week after not seeing any new releases in two years. While Red Hat had started the oVirt open-source project for which their Red Hat Virtualization platform is based, since they shifted that to maintenance mode to focus on the Red Hat OpenShift platform and stopped contributing to oVirt, it’s been up to the open-source community to keep it going… ⌘ Read more

Are QWERTY Phones Trying To Make a Comeback?
After nearly two decades of touchscreen dominance, QWERTY smartphones are staging a niche comeback, with Clicks and Unihertz unveiling new physical-keyboard phones at CES 2026. Gizmodo reports: At CES 2026, Clicks, the company behind the Clicks keyboard case and the new Power Keyboard, announced plans to sell the Communicator, a “second phone” with a QWERTY keypad. Clicks pitches the … ⌘ Read more

Digg Launches Its New Reddit Rival To the Public
Digg is officially back under the ownership of its original founder, Kevin Rose, along with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. “Similar to Reddit, the new Digg offers a website and mobile app where you can browse feeds featuring posts from across a selection of its communities and join other communities that align with your interests,” reports TechCrunch. “There, you can post, co … ⌘ Read more

Verizon To Stop Automatic Unlocking of Phones as FCC Ends 60-Day Unlock Rule
The Federal Communications Commission is letting Verizon lock phones to its network for longer periods, eliminating a requirement to unlock handsets 60 days after they are activated on its network. From a report: The change will make it harder for people to switch from Verizon to other carriers. The FCC today granted Verizon’s … ⌘ Read more

Signal Creator Marlinspike Wants To Do For AI What He Did For Messaging
Moxie Marlinspike, the engineer who created Signal Messenger and set a new standard for private communications, is now trialing Confer, an open source AI assistant designed to make user data unreadable to platform operators, hackers, and law enforcement alike. Confer relies on two core technologies: passkeys that generate a 32-byte encry … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Pledges Full Power Costs, No Tax Breaks in Response To AI Data Center Backlash
Microsoft announced Tuesday what it calls a “community first” initiative for its AI data centers, pledging to pay full electricity costs and reject local property tax breaks following months of growing opposition from residents facing higher power bills. The announcement in Washington, D.C. marks a clea … ⌘ Read more

Supreme Court Takes Case That Could Strip FCC of Authority To Issue Fines
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Supreme Court will hear a case that could invalidate the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to issue fines against companies regulated by the FCC. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile challenged the FCC’s ability to punish them after the commission fined the carriers for … ⌘ Read more

Ubisoft Closes Game Studio Where Workers Voted to Unionize Two Weeks Ago
Ubisoft announced Wednesday it will close its studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia — two weeks after 74% of its staff voted to unionize.

This means laying off the 71 people at the studio, reports the gaming news site Aftermath:

[Communications Workers of America’s Canadian affiliate, CWA Canada] said in a statement to Aftermath the un … ⌘ Read more

Italy Fines Cloudflare 14 Million Euros For Refusing To Filter Pirate Sites On Public 1.1.1.1 DNS
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Italy’s communications regulator AGCOM imposed a record-breaking 14.2 million-euro fine on Cloudflare after the company failed to implement the required piracy blocking measures. Cloudflare argued that filtering its global 1.1.1.1 … ⌘ Read more

Torvalds Tells Kernel Devs To Stop Debating AI Slop - Bad Actors Won’t Follow the Rules Anyway
Linus Torvalds has weighed in on an ongoing debate within the Linux kernel development community about whether documentation should explicitly address AI-generated code contributions, and his position is characteristically blunt: stop making it an issue. The Linux creator was responding … ⌘ Read more

Wi-Fi Advocates Get Win From FCC With Vote To Allow Higher-Power Devices
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission plans to authorize a new category of wireless devices in the 6 GHz Wi-Fi band that will be permitted to operate at higher power levels than currently allowed. The FCC will also consider authorizing higher power levels for certain wireles … ⌘ Read more

‘Godfather of SaaS’ Says He Replaced Most of His Sales Team With AI Agents
joshuark shares a report from Business Insider: Jason Lemkin, known to some as the Godfather of SaaS, says the time has come to push the limits of AI in the workplace. Lemkin, the founder of SaaStr, the world’s largest community of business-to-business founders. In a recent podcast Lemkin said that this means he will stop hiring huma … ⌘ Read more

As US Communities Start Fighting Back, Many Datacenters are Blocked
America’s tech companies and data center developers “are increasingly losing fights in communities where people don’t want to live next to them, or even near them,” reports the Associated Press:

Communities across the United States are reading about — and learning from — each other’s battles against data center proposals that are fast multi … ⌘ Read more

Asahi Linux Has Experimental Code For DisplayPort, Apple M3/M4/M5 Bring-Up Still Ongoing
Prominent Asahi Linux developer Sven Peter spoke at this week’s 39th Chaos Communication Congress “39C3” in Hamburg, Germany. He provided an update around the still-in-the-works Apple M3 / M4 / M5 SoC and device support as well as other outstanding features like getting DisplayPort working on Apple Macs under Linux… ⌘ Read more

NJ’s Answer To Flooding: It Has Bought Out and Demolished 1,200 Properties
New Jersey has found its answer to the relentless flooding that has plagued the state’s coastal and inland communities for decades: buy the homes, demolish them and turn the land back into open space permanently. The state’s Blue Acres program has acquired some 1,200 properties since 1995, spending more than $234 million in feder … ⌘ Read more

What Might Adding Emojis and Pictures To Text Programming Languages Look Like?
theodp writes: We all mix pictures, emojis, and text freely in our communications. So why not in our code? That’s the premise of “Fun With Python and Emoji: What Might Adding Pictures to Text Programming Languages Look Like?” (two-image Bluesky explainer; full slides), which takes a look at what mixing emoji with … ⌘ Read more

LibreOffice 26.2 Gets Rid Of The “Community” Edition Branding
With the upcoming LibreOffice 26.2 open-source office suite release, they are getting rid of the “Community Edition” branding for the standard version of this widely-used cross-platform office suite… ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net @movq@www.uninformativ.de A crocodile had bitten the big submarine internet cable that connects Australia to Europe. The investigations revealed that some construction work last week accidentally tore up the protective layer around it. That went unnoticed, unfortunately, so marine life had an easy job today. For just 40 minutes, they were quite fast in repairing the damage if you ask me! These communication cables are fricking large.

Just kidding, I completely made that up. :-D I didn’t notice any outage either. But I didn’t try to connect to Down Under at the time span in question.

Indie Game Awards Disqualifies ‘Clair Obscur’ Over GenAI Usage
“Perhaps no group of fans, industry workers, and consumers is more intense about AI use than gamers….” writes New York magazine’s “Intelligencer” column:

Just this month, the latest Postal game was axed by its publisher, which was “overwhelmed with negative responses”
from the “concerned Postal community” after fans spotted
AI-generated material in … ⌘ Read more

MIT Grieves Shooting Death of Renowned Director of Plasma Science Center
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) community is grieving after the “shocking” shooting death of the director of its plasma science and fusion center, according to officials. Nuno FG Loureiro, 47, had been shot multiple times at his home in the affluent Boston subu … ⌘ Read more

Linux Exposing Support For Lenovo ThinkPads Being Able To Detect Hardware Damage
Newer Lenovo ThinkPads are adding the ability to detect and report varying degrees of hardware damage. The Lenovo ThinkPad ACPI driver for Linux is being adapted for being able to communicate said hardware damage to user-space Linux software… ⌘ Read more

Repeal Section 230 and Its Platform Protections, Urges New Bipartisan US Bill
U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said Friday he was moving to file a bipartisan bill to repeal Section 230 of America’s Communications Decency Act.

“The law prevents most civil suits against users or services that are based on what others say,” explains an EFF blog post.

“Experts argue that a repeal of Section 230 could … ⌘ Read more

‘Free Software Awards’ Winners Announced: Andy Wingo, Alx Sa, Govdirectory
This week the Free Software Foundation honored Andy Wingo, Alx Sa, and Govdirectory with this year’s annual Free Software Awards (given to community members and groups making
“significant” contributions to software freedom):

Andy Wingo is one of the co-maintainers of GNU Guile,
the official extension language of the GNU operating … ⌘ Read more

Doom Studio id Software Forms ‘Wall-To-Wall’ Union
id Software employees voted to form a wall-to-wall union with the CWA, covering all roles at the Doom studio. “The vote wasn’t unanimous, though a majority did vote in favor of the union,” notes Engadget. From the report: The union will work in conjunction with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which is the same organization involved with parent company ZeniMax’s … ⌘ Read more

AMD ROCm’s TheRock 7.10 Released
TheRock is an interesting open-source build platform for ROCm and HIP that has taken shape over the past year. It’s become an official ROCm effort albeit still in early stages and relying on community contributions for enhancements for different consumer GPU targets and more. To date its users have largely relied on running the latest TheRock Git while today TheRock v7.10 was tagged… ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Is Back To Working On “Hornet” Security For eBPF Programs On Linux
Earlier in the year Microsoft proposed the “Hornet” Linux security module to provide signature verification capabilities for eBPF programs to provide for better system security. It’s been months since hearing anything more about it and not being merged, but yesterday they “reintroduced” it to the Linux kernel community… ⌘ Read more

NASA Loses Contact With MAVEN Mars Orbiter
NASA has lost contact with its MAVEN Mars orbiter after it passed behind Mars. When it remerged from behind the planet, the spacecraft never resumed communications. SpaceNews reports: MAVEN launched in November 2013 and entered orbit around Mars in September 2014. The spacecraft’s primary science mission is to study the planet’s upper atmosphere and interactions with the solar wind, inc … ⌘ Read more

Rubio Orders Diplomats To Return To Using Times New Roman Font
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor Antony Blinken’s decision to adopt Calibri a “wasteful” diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters. The department … ⌘ Read more

North Queenslanders split over new crocodile management plan
The new management plan sees the expansion of crocodile removal zones across north and far north Queensland. Some say it will not increase safety without better community education. ⌘ Read more

Sitting in his car while saltwater rains down, Paul has stayed to defend his home
As a bushfire rages on Tasmania’s east coast, bayside resident Paul Worsteling shelters in his car, charging his phone while saltwater rains down on the roof. ⌘ Read more