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Links to Long Reads - Contemporary stories

[Marta Havryshko @HavryshkoMarta]

This is what the typical spontaneous resistance to forced mobilization in Ukraine looks like.

The main cast: women of all ages.
A young woman screaming at the top of her lungs.
An older woman — apparently a local vendor — less agile, but no less determined.
Some spirited guy comes charging in and starts going after the draft officers.
A little dog is barking its tiny heart out, contributing what it can to the resistance.

Sadly, they didn’t manage to save the man. He was shoved into a vehicle and driven away to go perform his “civic duty.”

This is Mykolaiv.

But these days, it could be almost anywhere in Ukraine.

[Pirat_Nation 🔴 @Pirat_Nation]

DuckDuckGo has launched a pair of sunglasses that do absolutely nothing and they sold out.

Called “Normal Fing Sunglasses,”* they’re a joke about the growing trend of AI-powered smart glasses.

The sunglasses have no camera, no microphone, no AI, no battery, and no electronics.
They’re just regular polarized sunglasses with UV400 protection.

[Music over time🎻 @Peal8888]

The most underrated rock band in history.

[Kruptos @KuptoKosmos]

🇪🇺📱 ATTESTATION MATÉRIELLE OBLIGATOIRE !

La vérification d’âge européenne est présentée comme open-source, moderne et respectueuse de ta vie privée...

On te promet que tu prouves simplement que tu as plus de 18 ans, sans rien révéler d’autre. Zéro tracking, zero-knowledge proofs, tout le packaging

En réalité, la preuve d’âge est collée au matériel de ton téléphone

Le chercheur @Paul_Reviews l’a démontré à plusieurs reprises
En avril 2026, il a contourné le système en quelques minutes en modifiant simplement des fichiers de configuration (PIN, biométrie, rate-limiting...)
Il a ensuite prouvé des attaques par relais : le QR code généré par un site est capturé et validé à distance sur un vrai téléphone conforme

Rien n’est falsifié côté cryptographie, et pourtant la vérification passe !

Résultat... Pour tenter de colmater ces failles structurelles, le système pousse vers une attestation matérielle stricte (hardware-bound attestation) et des applications uniquement approuvées par la Commission européenne

Conséquence directe : GrapheneOS, CalyxOS et les systèmes pensés pour la vie privée sont refusés, même s’ils sont techniquement plus sécurisés

Sur Linux desktop, aucune solution native. Tu dois sortir un téléphone "conforme" pour scanner le QR code

Bref... le système est à la fois facilement contournable et sert de prétexte parfait pour forcer l’usage du téléphone et de l’application qu’ils contrôlent !

Ils n’interdisent rien
Ils rendent juste impossible d’accéder autrement 😉

#Privacy #AgeVérification

[WIRED @WIRED]

A German startup sent a camera-wearing chef to my apartment. In exchange for a free lunch, I let them record every chop and stir to train future humanoids. https://t.co/uXbULBeoHG

[Thomas Fazi @battleforeurope]

On Thursday, the European Parliament “adopted” the extension of Chat Control 1.0. This is the temporary suspension of the EU’s ePrivacy rules that allows tech platforms to mass-scan citizens’ private communications, ostensibly to detect child sexual abuse material. “Adopted” is placed in quotation marks here because the word implies something that conspicuously failed to happen: a majority of MEPs voting in favour. In fact, 314 MEPs voted to reject the text, against 276 in favour. And yet it passed anyway.

This was made possible through a procedural sleight of hand worthy of Brussels at its most cynical. The file was rammed through under an “urgency procedure”: European Parliament President Roberta Metsola unilaterally reopened a dossier that MEPs had already rejected in March, and the Council conveniently bounced it back at the start of the summer recess, when securing attendance is hardest. Rejecting it a second time would have required not a simple majority but an absolute one: 360 votes. The law was therefore approved despite a majority of MEPs voting against it. The regulation will now remain in force until April 2028, buying time for negotiations on its even more ambitious successor, Chat Control 2.0.

As German MEP @FabioDeMasi noted following the vote, Chat Control is a “legislative zombie” — a measure the European Parliament has rejected multiple times, revived again and again until the desired outcome emerges. This episode should give pause to those who insist that the EU’s democratic deficit could be cured by handing more power to the European Parliament. Here is that very institution’s president working with the Council to resurrect a file the Parliament itself had buried. If this is how the Parliament operates, empowering it further would only deepen this democratic deficit, lending a thicker veneer of legitimacy to what remains, at bottom, an executive-bureaucratic machine that treats votes as obstacles to be engineered around.

Continue reading here: https://t.co/yxWOZ07vTA

[Punna82 @Punna82]

En mycket bra breakdown på vad chat control betyder för dig #svpol
Politiker vill dig inte väl och värnar inte dina grundläggande mänskliga rättigheter...

[Mick Wallace @wallacemick]

'Belgium is two, maybe 3 months away from developing a Nuclear weapon..'

[Martin Sonneborn @MartinSonneborn]

Ich habe heute versucht, die Chatkontrolle zu stoppen.

Am Wochenende mussten Sibylle Berg und ich Parlamentspräsidentin Metsola schriftlich mitteilen, dass das Durchprügeln der Chatkontrolle im Eilverfahren leider gegen die Geschäftsordnung des EU-Parlaments verstößt. Während Metsola der interessierten Presse daraufhin (fälschlicherweise) mitteilte, dass das schon alles seine Richtigkeit habe, warten wir immer noch auf ihre Antwort.

Deshalb wollte ich es ihr heute bei der Eröffnungssitzung in Straßburg noch einmal erklären. Und musste erstaunt feststellen, dass die Präsidentin doch Regeln kennt: Exakt nach 60 Sekunden hat sie mir das Mikrophon abgestellt. (regelkonform, wird aber selten gemacht)

Dabei hätte ich noch einiges zu sagen gehabt: "Frau Präsidentin, Sie wachen nach Artikel 22 über dieses Regelwerk (mit der ausgedruckten Geschäftsordnung wedelnd) - erklären Sie den Eilantrag für unzulässig. Wir sind hier schließlich nicht auf Malta! Die aktuelle Fassung der Geschäftsordnung überreiche ich Ihnen gerne persönlich. In der MEP-Bar."

Wie es nun weitergeht? Morgen wird über das Eilverfahren abgestimmt, obwohl diese Abstimmung gar nicht stattfinden dürfte. Wenn der Antrag erfolgreich ist, kommt die Chatkontrolle Donnerstagmittag zur Abstimmung ins Plenum. Um sie noch zu stoppen, müssten 361 Abgeordnete - eine qualifizierte Mehrheit - DAGEGEN stimmen.
Die schlechte Nachricht: Donnerstag ist der letzte Tag vor der Sommerpause und viele MEPs dürften bereits auf dem Weg in den Urlaub sein. Ein Schelm, wer Böses denkt bei dieser Terminierung... Smiley!

Wenn die Chatkontrolle durchgeht, dürfen die Plattformen (also die US-Tech-Bros) wieder & weiterhin fröhlich & ganz legal Ihre Nachrichten scannen. Schreiben Sie also gefälligst etwas unterhaltsamer in den kommenden Wochen... ZwinkerSmiley!

[profdeibert @RonDeibert]

“In my phone, there were 15 years of photos, messages, you name it, messages with the prime ministers, with the members, the leaders of the different political parties and journalists. … Everything.”
@SteliosKoul plans to sue NSO Group

https://t.co/ZKjjV94LRn @TheRecord_Media

[Preston Byrne @prestonjbyrne]

The reason that they’re trying to age gate the entire Internet is not because everyone wants it, but because nobody does.

Parental controls exist, but nobody uses them. The Puritans among us seek to force everyone into behavior of which they approve.

[Clash Report @clashreport]

French Presidential Candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon:

I propose that we discuss and organize with the Chinese because they are reasonable people.

They are not gringos ready to pull out their Colt every five minutes to exterminate whoever displeases them.

They are reasonable people. So let's talk with reasonable people.

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

The culture of wine in Europe predates the Romans: in ancient Greece, wine was praised by poets, historians, and artists. Dionysus, Greek god of wine, represented not only intoxicating power of wine when abused, but also its social and beneficial influences. Indeed, according to ancient Greek historian Thucydides :

“Peoples of Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate olive and vine”

Wine making emerged in Europe with expansion of Roman Empire throughout Mediterranean when many major wine producing regions that still exist today were established. Even then, wine making was a precise crop growing that fostered development of different grape varieties and cultivation techniques.

Barrels for storing and shipping emerged, bottles were used for the first time, and even a rudimentary appellation system developed as certain regions gained a reputation for good wine. As wine production became progressively refined, its popularity increased, and wine taverns became a common feature in cities throughout the Empire.

With centuries passing, the art of wine making spread to France, Spain, Germany and parts of Britain. By that time, wine was considered an important part of daily diet and people began to favour stronger, heavier wines. European appreciation of wine endured throughout Dark Ages. Partly because drinking water was still unreliable, wine was preferred alternative to accompany meals. At same time, viticulture and viniculture advanced thanks to farming of Church monasteries across continent, which gave rise to some of finest vineyards in Europe. Benedictine monks for example, became one of Europe’s largest wine producers with vineyards in France’s Champagne, Burgundy, and Bordeaux regions, as well as in Rheingau and Franconia regions of Germany. Merchant and noble classes had wine with every meal and maintained well-stocked cellars.

During 16th Century AD, wine became appreciated as a more sophisticated alternative to beer and as wine products began to diversify, consumers began to value concept of varying their drinking habits. People began to discuss virtues and vices of wine with greater enthusiasm than in previous centuries. William Shakespeare even remarked that “good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used”, implicitly commenting on misuse of wine at this time. Shakespearian era saw availability of fresh drinking water in London, a breakthrough that moved wine industry into a new age."

Improved production techniques in 17th-18th Centuries resulted in emergence of finer qualities of wine, glass bottles with corks began to be used and corkscrew was invented. French wine industry took off at this point, with particular recognition given to the clarets of Bordeaux by merchants from Low Countries, Germany, Ireland and Scandinavia. Bordeaux traded wine for coffee and other sought-after items from New World, helping to cement the role of wine in emerging world trade. While 19th Century is considered golden age of wine for many regions, it was not without tragedy.

Around 1863 many French vines suffered from a disease caused by Phylloxera aphid, which sucked the juice out of the roots. When it was discovered that vines in America were resistant to Phylloxera, it was decided to plant American vines in affected French regions. This created hybrid grapes that produced an even greater variety of wines.

Over last 150 years, wine making has been totally revolutionised as an art and a science. With access to refrigeration, it has become easier for wineries to control temperature of fermentation process and produce high quality wines in hot climates. Introduction of harvesting machines has allowed winemakers to increase size of their vineyards and make them more efficient. Modern wine appreciation pays tribute to timeless art of wine making and demonstrates the importance of wine in history and diversity of European and worldwide culture."

📷© David Dubintsky

#archaeohistories

[@levelsio @levelsio]

If it's Boeing I ain't going

[Lyudmyla Kozlovska 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @LyudaKozlovska]

A deeply troubling narrative shift: VPNs – long recognised as privacy tools that enable access to information and protect activists and journalists – are suddenly framed as a “risk”, rather than a safeguard for fundamental rights.

How can such a distorted narrative appear under the logo of the European Parliamentary Research Service, which is meant to provide independent, rights‑based analysis to MEPs?

[Andreas Rosenfelder @a_rosenfelder]

Zur Durchsetzung eines Social-Media-Verbots für Jugendliche erwägt die EU offenbar VPN-Blockaden. Vielleicht sollte Brüssel ausländische Experten anhören? Russland, China, Nordkorea und Iran arbeiten seit Jahren mit diesem Zensurinstrument
https://t.co/NoH2f6XMIB via @welt

[j.m. kettle @jmkettle]

Giving a restaurant a three star review is illegal in Germany.

[J Wilderness @Jilderness]

Winona Ryder’s (Winona Laura Horowitz) godfather? Timothy Leary

[VOC Nederland @vocnederland]

“The issue here is not marijuana. Marijuana is the messenger, not the message. The issue is whether we will live in freedom or under tyranny. The most basic of all human rights is the right to your own body. The lighted marijuana weed is the torch of freedom.” Julian Heicklen

[BradVsProhibition🇫🇷 @hopla_staub]

En France tu risque un casier judiciaire pour ça ⤵️