Originally posted on 2020-03-06 at CodiMD

#articles

Hello there, Cool Kids!

It took a while, but it’s here. I am of course talking about the next CPU based vulnerability! It’s like Nespresso — what else?

Or not! Maybe I’m talking about this newsletter which I finally have time to write again! After a pretty crazy overworking February, things are slowing down back to the normal, 2-job rhythm. Hey, I even have just 1 job for the next 2 weeks, though honestly, filling in all the Amsterdam paperwork probably qualifies as a full-time pasttime.

I digress. People don’t follow this newsletter for my personal struggles! It’s all about the juicy, juicy, juicy tech drama and all the tracking by your boss, your drawing tablet, your mobile network operator, your dating app’s panic button, or pretty much anyone with the help of machine learning!

I had a different link originally for the mobile network operator selling your data story, but that site’s privacy policy was so convoluted and difficult to escape accepting, that after 5 minutes of clicking my way through every privacy policy ever, I gave up and linked to the Wired version of the article instead. Seriously, what the fuck.

As for that last one, the real kicker is that further articles went on to show that ClearView AI was in use by quite a few public services already. Yikes!

But it can’t all be negative right? Surely there is still some good in the world and champions of the light!

Do I have a treat for you…

Yes, I’m sorry Cool Kids, the world is still a very much bittersweet place. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I’m a white man, so heh, let me explain to you all about that :D

We have diverse stories for you though, to cover up for our non-diverse writer team (hi!). Take a look at the following story for example — Could you guess that there is a load of unforeseen issues with owning one of the most wanted domain names in the entire internet?

You know how we Greeks invented rhetorical questions? You know how it’s a great way to have a dialogue, but still not allow the other person to speak? I honestly wasn’t aiming for one previously. It was just meant to be a normal question, like for example, would you believe that an analyst tracking one of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges for years would uncover a trove of thefts, hacking, colluding, bribery, cartels, arrests, (breathes in), the FBI involved,more thefts, shady carribean banks, price jacking, liquidity issues, random people getting free money, virtuous thieves, wow, is this a fucking movie script? I half expected the magicians to walk in, do a show in Vegas then give all the money to the people or something

Here’s an easy one.What could possibly be wrong about the fact this millionaire decided to pay his employees better wages and became a national hero for it… aaaaaaand of course there’s another side to the story :/

Oof, this is honestly pretty tiring. Kudos if you manage to read even most of the links — there’s so, so much interesting stuff in there. A bunch of Cool Kids have applied to different CERN programs and I’m very happy for that! Wish you the most of success.

Until next time,
Obligatory reminder to take care of yourselves

Keep making the world great,
Alexander P.