Notices by Cybermatron (thecybermatron@someone.elses.computer)

In this Opinion, EESC pretty much highlights all the potential risks that are now manifesting themselves. Using a concept of the cloud as “digital energy” (storage, processing and transfer of data) they advocate for the creation of an EU cloud and compare the risk of creating dependencies on non-EU (i.e. US-based) cloud providers to similar risks arising from similar dependencies with regard to other utilities (petrol, gas, electricity).

In today’s issue of “We told you so, idiots”: I would like to highlight the fact that the EU walked into the current “digital sovereignty” crisis - arising from EU dependencies on US cloud providers - full tilt, with open eyes and a song in its heart.

I encourage anyone interested in tracing how we got here to read the *January 2013* Opinion by the European Economic and Social Committee in which it comments on the Commission’s then just published Communication “Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe”. https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/our-work/opinions-information-reports/opinions/towards-eu-cloud-computing-strategy

One of the more frustrating aspects of getting older, but having a stupidly vivid memory of things that went before, is that nearly all the current policy discussions on tech regulation remind me of mistakes made in the past, often in the face of dire warnings issued at the time about all the bad things that could happen, if regulators go down a particular road.

Hello hive mind. I’m just marking a student essay, which quotes from page 4 of “Cory Doctorow’s 2024 book “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What to Do About It”.

I was under the impression that the book was only going to be published in October 2025. Am I wrong and is there an open access copy out there already or have I finally caught a student using one of those famous “hallucinations” (if so, what an author to pick for it🤦♀️)?

@pluralistic

Update: Student was referred for academic misconduct and fined enough mark deductions that they failed the course.

Learning from this experience, I have started asking dissertation students to provide their reading lists at regular intervals because that is now the clearest indicator of whether they used GenAI (signified by an abundance of non-peer reviewed and US articles over relevant, EU-based academic literature).

@dangillmor Salami tactics https://youtu.be/yg-UqIIvang?feature=shared

Looking at what’s going on in the US right now, it’ll be a cold day in hell until I next allow an American to lecture me on free speech and civil rights. I genuinely hope that the EU takes this opportunity to promote its much proclaimed values, rather than just following suit.

@Some_Emo_Chick Finally! I’ve been calling him “Mr Moonraker” in my head for a year, but nobody got the joke. Is it because I is old?

@georgetakei I feel seen 😂