Notices by bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 (bert_hubert@eupolicy.social)

Heading to Brussels again to talk about digital autonomy. Hoping to share what I learned from various European government IT projects. And this is much needed since a lot of discourse tends to be quite removed from practice: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/eu-civil-society-need-progress-digital-autonomy/

“The problem is that most governments are by now infused with big-tech aligned employees, contractors and consultants. These people aren’t necessarily corrupt, but if you’ve delivered services for 25 years based on Microsoft platforms, it becomes very tricky to think about anything else”

Currently, hundreds of GW of residential solar power are controlled by terribly insecure & unregulated clouds owned by companies continents away. This problem is well known & could take down the whole European energy grid. We just had a conference about it, and still nothing is happening. Here's my writeup: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/solar-nightmare-at-the-conference/ #ENISA #NIS2 #CRA

RE: https://mastodon.social/@heidilifeldman/117428664447339160

In legal terms, governments often perform "fishing expeditions" in which they don't know what they are looking for, but are betting they'll find something if they just search hard enough. In sane countries (investigative) judges frown on this practice. And yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_expedition

The largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands reports an “IT incident” and has ceased deliveries, shut down its website, and is showing wrong prices in physical stores, which still operate. Also say the shutdown is a protective measure. https://nos.nl/artikel/2634644-geen-bezorging-en-verkeerde-prijzen-in-supermarkt-na-it-incident-bij-albert-heijn /cc @GossiTheDog

RE: https://eupolicy.social/@bert_hubert/117360722161255640

It is useful to think about who "They" are, by the way. It is a coalition of specific countries whose governments think more surveillance is always better, plus political groups who think such surveillance is good for oppressing people they don't like. They also assume such surveillance will never harm people like themselves. Only Others.

Many thanks to @GossiTheDog for his consistent reporting on the latest Citrix-gate. I just did an explainer on Dutch radio, and almost everything I said there came from Kevin. Keep up the great work! Encrypted in Dutch: https://www.bnr.nl/gemist?date=28-09-2026&time=16-43-55

Before the Dutch government presents the annual budget, they take down the previous budget website. And somehow the tradition grew to temporarily put a cat in its place. Behold https://www.rijksfinancien.nl/

I have converted my general dissatisfaction with the world tonight into two minor openstreetmap edits. I added my favorite local bench, and moved a picknick table from a ditch (which it actually sits next to). A remarkably soothing activity.

@pietervdvn @MapComplete will do!

BBC2 has started its election result broadcast. #countbinface #clacton

They are not half-assing this either:

If you can't access BBC2, they are hosting a liveblog here: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5y40d11zewt

RE: https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/116752805722997877

Actual IT departments. Most places now only have "Big Tech Departments".

So to mentally prepare for an eventual bursting of the AI-bubble, perhaps this Friday, this is how it went for the dot com boom. There was an initial retraction, followed several partial recovery/bust events, and finally the NASDAQ lost 80% of its value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

Context: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgz237n40jo

You can do it bubble!

RE: https://mastodon.social/@CuratedHackerNews/116664258011821912

There are some weird assumptions in this piece, like that AI is inevitable, but also some good observations and links:

Not to be outdone by Ireland, The Netherlands has just picked TikTok, Meta and Uber's lawyer as the new head of the Dutch Privacy Authority. Well done everyone. For shame. https://nos.nl/artikel/2614241-advocaat-van-tiktok-en-meta-wordt-voorzitter-privacywaakhond-ap

The world is now so full of ridiculous things that at least I struggle to deal with it all. But this is not an 'us' problem. The (political) world really is idiotic. I needed to vent a bit, so I made a list of things that are impossible to believe, yet are very much what is happening. Perhaps seeing it in writing will help you deal better with the situation. https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/the-impossible-things-we-have-to-believe/