Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 20h

And from a pure privacy perspective, the problem there is that once you’ve demanded every encrypted app add a scanning component, then changing what you scan for is just a software update to be agreed upon quietly in some committee down the line.

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 20h

So what worries me come December is that we see a bunch of “moderated” proposals that preserve this central architectural change, but just use it for slightly less. That’s not going to save anyone.

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 20h

The problem with this idea is that most “moderated” versions don’t solve the central problem: you’re changing private, encrypted messengers to have a component that scans the plaintext of the message. This is what potential makes your messages vulnerable to theft.

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 20h

Germany has agreed to stop ChatControl for now, due to huge amounts of public pressure. Good job! The bad news is that it could come back as soon as December, and the German government has interpreted the feedback as a need to “moderate” the proposal.

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 1d

I’m sure we’re going to get details that will clear this all up so it makes sense.

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 1d

Company was valued at over $225m before the 2020 election. It received a $787m payment from Fox News, which presumably didn’t stay inside the company but maybe also didn’t hurt the valuation. This seems like a pricy purchase for a guy whose previous company is so small.

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 1d

This story certainly isn’t making me feel warm and fuzzy. www.cnn.com/2025/10/09/p...

Former GOP election official buys Dominion Voting Systems, says he’ll push for paper ballots | CNN Politics

Dominion Voting Systems, the election vendor that was falsely accused of rigging the 2020 election, is being sold and rebranded as Liberty Vote effective immediately.

www.cnn.com

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Reposted by Matthew Green

Andrea @valkyrie.hacker.gf · 1d

Huh, ID checks not such a great idea

404 Media @404media.co · 1d

BREAKING: A catastrophic breach has impacted Discord user data including selfies and identity documents uploaded as part of the app’s verification process, email addresses, phone numbers, approximately where the user lives, and much more.

🔗 www.404media.co/the-discord-...

The Discord Hack is Every Users’ Worst Nightmare

A hack impacting Discord’s age verification process shows in stark terms the risk of tech companies collecting users’ ID documents. Now the hackers are posting peoples’ IDs and other sensitive informa...

www.404media.co

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Reposted by Matthew Green

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 2d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Reposted by Matthew Green

CAMERON WILSON @cameronwilson.bsky.social · 2d

We're now finding out that as many as 70,000 people had their government IDs provided to prove their ages leaked by Discord. Like I wrote last week, this is an inherent risk (and made greater by a rushed process) of getting platforms to do age checks

Discord says 70,000 users may have had their government IDs leaked in breach

The ID pics had been submitted as part of age-related appeals.

www.theverge.com

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Reposted by Matthew Green

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 2d

Bray is a historian at Rutgers who received death threats after landing on Turning Points USA's Professor Watchlist. As a result, he announced he was moving to Europe. And then this happened.

This kind of harassment and abuse of scholars is Charlie Kirk's legacy and it's only getting worse.

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 2d

“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second.

We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’

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Reposted by Matthew Green

Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 2d

This is the lesson of 2025

Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 2d

he's going to come after you either way, so you might as well act with integrity

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Reposted by Matthew Green

pulsarcube.bsky.social @pulsarcube.bsky.social · 3d

The leader of the CDU caucus has stated that the CDU is now against the proposal, which is a good sign. There will be a vote tomorrow on the positioning of the German government.

netzpolitik.org/2025/eu-uebe...

EU-Überwachungspläne: Unionsfraktion jetzt gegen Chatkontrolle, Innenministerium will sich nicht äußern

Überraschend kündigte am Dienstagnachmittag der Fraktionsvorsitzende der CDU/CSU an, dass es eine anlasslose Kontrolle von Chats mit der Union nicht geben würde. Das Innenministerium sagt, die Abstimm...

netzpolitik.org

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 3d

I hear that the EU ChatControl situation is going better today. I cannot believe how close the EU has gotten to passing this crazy regulation.

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 3d

Who is “we”?

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 3d

One where every commenter on the liberal blogs is not a hard-right Bush-era Republican.

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Reposted by Matthew Green

Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 3d

NEW: In May, a Texas police department said they used the powerful Flock surveillance network against a woman who had an abortion "for her safety"

Newly obtained court records show it was a 'death investigation,' and they considered charging her with a crime

www.404media.co/police-said-...

Police Said They Surveilled Woman Who Had an Abortion for Her 'Safety.' Court Records Show They Considered Charging Her With a Crime

Court records show that the narrative Flock and a Texas Sheriff's Office has told the public isn't the whole story, and that police were conducting a 'death investigation' into the abortion.

www.404media.co

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 3d

Substack is a bad place.

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 5d

If AI became quietly superintelligent in 2018 and began reorganizing our world to its purposes, would that look very different than what’s happening today?

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 6d

Anything is possible to pull off if you’re willing to force someone to redesign their app, and you’re not concerned about security. Just force people to upload the texts to a server before they even get encrypted.

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Reposted by Matthew Green

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 7d

It's too long a story to explain how I know this, but I once found out that the FBI made challenge coins about how they tried to force Apple to break iPhone encryption. Challenge coins celebrating shitty behavior is deeply a part of FBI culture.

Sam @samd.bsky.social · 7d

reddit occupied government

Ken Dilanian
@DilanianMSNBC
Follow
The challenge coins being handed out by @FBIDirectorKash. Seems someone put a lot of thought into this.

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 7d

The Xiaofeng Wang search warrant has been unsealed, thanks to @riana.bsky.social. infosec.exchange/@hovav/11531...

Hovav Shacham (@[email protected])

After a mere six months, progress on @[email protected]’s motion seeking to unseal the XiaoFeng Wang search warrant!! https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69834044/21/in-re-motion-to-unseal...

infosec.exchange

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Reposted by Matthew Green

Signal @signal.org · 7d

We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...

signal.org

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Matthew Green @matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 8d

Buy me a drink, sing me a song, take me as I am because I can’t stay long?

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Reposted by Matthew Green

WIRED @wired.com · 8d

As the Trump administration threatens them, liberal nonprofits have been quietly preparing to do everything from surrendering 501(c)(3) status to relocating outside the US.

The Trump Administration Is Coming for Nonprofits. They're Getting Ready

As the Trump administration threatens them, liberal nonprofits have been quietly preparing to do everything from surrendering 501(c)(3) status to relocating outside the US.

wrd.cm

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