What's News?

Join us this week as we discuss stories that have been in the news that we're still wondering about, obsessing about, and are as confused about as you are.

Links

2G phone networks are being shutdown; read the Rest of World story:
https://restofworld.org/2025/shutting...
PI's Low Cost Tech research: https://privacyinternational.org/camp...
Listen to our podcast on connectivity and vertical mergers:    • Vertical Mergers: Competition, Connectivit...  

Google anti-trust case and potential break up; read the Washington Post story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/techno...
Google buy Wiz: https://blog.google/inside-google/com...

Impact of USAID cuts; read the NY Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...
UK cuts: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c...
PI's work on aid funding surveillance: https://privacyinternational.org/news... https://privacyinternational.org/pres... https://privacyinternational.org/repo...

Um-ing and Ah-ing: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/...

Israel, data and AI:
AI targeting destruction: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-is... and https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/121864...
Cellphone data for targeting https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/wo...
LLM tool collating surveillance data: https://www.theguardian.com/world/202... and https://www.972mag.com/israeli-intell...
Facial recognition https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/te...
US last Afghanistan attack on an innocent man: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-c... and https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/wo...

Outsourced memory; read The Verge article: https://www.theverge.com/reviews/6270...