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Wendy M. Grossman

@wendyg.bsky.social

450 followers 530 following 380 posts

Freelance writer specializing in computers, freedom, and privacy. New net.wars posting every Friday at https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net. Based London. Folksinger. 2024 CD: https://www.pelicancrossing.net/lasttriphome.htm. Not age-verified here; no DMs.

netwars.pelicancrossing.net.

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 7h

This week's net.wars, "Software is still forever", laments the amount of ewaste about to be produced by the end of Windows 10, and notes new developments in age verification under the Online Safety Act: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/10/10/s...

Software is still forever

On October 14, a few months after the tenth anniversary of its launch, Microsoft will end support for Windows 10. That is, Microsoft will no longer issue featur

netwars.pelicancrossing.net

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 7h

Software is still forever

On October 14, a few months after the tenth anniversary of its launch, Microsoft will end support for Windows 10. That is, Microsoft will no longer issue featur

netwars.pelicancrossing.net

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 9h

To be fair, co-author Robert Waldinger does study how children's lives affect them in middle age. But he's working on boomer children...

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 10h

What qualifies her co-author? He's a psychiatrist who studies adult life.

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 1d

UKIGF 2025 will take place on December 11 in London. Registration is open here: ukigf.org.uk/events/uk-ig...

UK IGF 2025 - UK IGF

UK Internet Governance Forum Meeting 2025 Building Digital Governance Together This year’s UK Internet Governance Forum (UK IGF) will follow the same overall theme as the global IGF which took place i...

ukigf.org.uk

Reposted by Wendy M. Grossman

Ian | Founder & Firestarter @cubicgarden.com · 4d

#Techgrumps 3.32 is now live
Your illegal, racially motivated stops will go more smoothly

rss.com/podcasts/tec...

This time with Me, @wendyg.bsky.social @eastmad.bsky.social @rnalexander.bsky.social

Coming to techgrumps.wordpress.com soon.

Techgrumps 3.32 : Your illegal, racially motivated stops will go more smoothly | Podcast Episode on RSS.com

Techgrums 3.32UK Digital IDhttps://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/09/26/the-absurdity-card/Christie’s has quietly shuttered its digital art departmenthttps://news.artnet.com/market/christies-scraps-...

rss.com

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 7d

I remember the occasion well...

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 7d

This week's net.wars, "Undue process", watches Imgur depart the UK when the ICO threatens to fine it; 4chan and Kiwi Farms sue Ofcom in a US court over the Online Safety Act; and we wave goodbye to AOL dial-up: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/10/03/u...

Undue process

To the best of my knowledge, Imgur is the first mainstream company to quit the UK in response to the Online Safety Act (though many US news sites remain unavail

netwars.pelicancrossing.net

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 9d

At @skepticalinquirer.bsky.social , my piece on the UK's ONline Safety Act: skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/ch...

Childproofing the Internet | Skeptical Inquirer

In late August 2025, the American screenwriter Josh Olson posted on Bluesky an image I couldn’t see. Because I am in the United Kingdom, the image was label ...

skepticalinquirer.org

Reposted by Wendy M. Grossman

Foundation for Information Policy Research @fipr-policy.bsky.social · 14d

On the BritCard - in theory better government systems are a great idea, but implementing it requires very high levels of management competence to cope with the ambition and complexity; the costs will correspondingly be very high.

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 14d

This week's net.wars, "The absurdity card", can't believe we're doing ID cards all over again: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/09/26/t...

The absurdity card

Fifteen years ago, a new incoming government swept away a policy its immediate predecessors had been pushing since shortly after the 2001 9/11 attacks: identity

netwars.pelicancrossing.net

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 21d

This week's net.wars, "Blur", goes to #gikii 2025 and finds its surrealism struggling to keep up with the weirdness of real life: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/09/19/b...

Blur

In 2013, London's Royal Court Theatre mounted a production of Jennifer Haley's play The Nether. (Spoiler alert!) In its story of the relationship between an old

netwars.pelicancrossing.net

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 24d

My review of Ben Collier's biography of Tor: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/09/16/r...

Review: Tor

Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy by Ben Collier MIT Press ISBN: 978-0-262-54818-2 The Internet began as a decentralized system designed to rero

netwars.pelicancrossing.net

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · 28d

This week's net.wars, "Dethroned", goes to #gikii and talks about restrospective doping controls that revise history: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/09/12/d...

Dethroned

This is a version of a paper that Jon Crowcroft and I delivered at this week's gikii conference. She sounded shocked. But also: as though the word she had to p

netwars.pelicancrossing.net

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Sep 5

This week's net.wars, "Remediating monopoly", ponders the future of AI versus search envisaged by the judge in the (first) Google case: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/09/05/r...

Remediating monopoly

This week Judge Amit P. Mehta handed down his ruling on remedies in the antitrust case on search. Decided in 2024, this was the first to find that Google acted

netwars.pelicancrossing.net

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Sep 1

Someone should do a blind test of this claim.

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Aug 29

This week's net.wars, "Passing the Uncanny Valley", sees Sophie Nightingale deliver the news that training people to detect synthetic facial images has little effect; and we bid goodbye to Typepad (may its bloggers find new homes): netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/08/29/p...

Passing the Uncanny Valley

A couple of weeks ago, the Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub played host to Sophie Nightingale, who studies the psychology of AI deepfakes. The particular project s

netwars.pelicancrossing.net

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Aug 28

New @plutopia.io: our conversation with pioneer James L. Wayman on the history of biometrics. "People never have what you think they're going to have where you think they're going to have it.", plutopia.io/james-l-waym...

plutopia.io

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Aug 26

*And* animals are way smarter than AIs.

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Aug 26

Sadly, they've fixed it now. But it gave me a nice opening for a piece I'm writing.

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Aug 23

tx for the description. I don't think I want to see that enouhg (or at all) to age verify. :)

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Aug 23

Apparently whatever you posted with this is "adult content", not viewable by those in UK who have not verified their age. Fun!

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Aug 22

This week's net.wars, "Email to OfGem", finds the US declaring victory over the UK Home Office's demand that Apple weaken its encryption, and emails OfGem to oppose Tesla's application to enter the UK energy market: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/08/22/e...

Email to Ofgem

So, the US has claimed victory against the UK. Regular readers may recall that in February the UK's Home Office secretly asked Apple to put a backdoor in the A

netwars.pelicancrossing.net

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Aug 16

For referencee, the piece was called "Access Denied", and it ran in Scientific American in August, 1998. ACM had done a survey. Number one write-in explanation of why women falling out of compsci: sexual harassment.

Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Aug 15

Yep. I first wrote about the shrinking pipeline of women in compsci in 1998.

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Wendy M. Grossman @wendyg.bsky.social · Aug 15

Right. And my email server is in Pitttsburgh.