Futurology Today

We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.

A controversial proposal from U.S Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to let bird flu naturally spread through poultry farms is raising alarms among scientists -- who say the move could be inhumane and dangerous.

They sell things that come in cups, or with napkins. Lots of people cycle/run/walk here instead of driving, seems pretty stupid.

Taking away the bins doesn't mean you don't produce rubbish....

Edit: I think there is still a bin IN the cafe, but most people eat/drink outside. Lots of people asking staff where the bins are. Still hypocritical I think though? (And still mildly infuriating to remove well used bins!)

France’s research minister said a French scientist was denied entry to the US this month after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration.

For those not familiar, there are numerous messages containing images being repeatedly spammed to many Threadiverse users talking about a Polish girl named "Nicole". This has been ongoing for some time now.

Lemmy permits external inline image references to be embedded in messages. This means that if a unique image URL or set of image URLs are sent to each user, it's possible to log the IP addresses that fetch these images; by analyzing the log, one can determine the IP address that a user has.

In some earlier discussion, someone had claimed that local lemmy instances cache these on their local pict-rs instance and rewrite messages to reference the local image.

It does appear that there is a closed issue on the lemmy issue tracker referencing such a deanonymization attack:

https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/1036

I had not looked into these earlier, but it looks like such rewriting and caching intending to avoid this attack is not occurring, at least on my home instance. I hadn't looked until the most-recent message, but the image embedded here is indeed remote:

https://lemmy.doesnotexist.club/pictrs/image/323899d9-79dd-4670-8cf9-f6d008c37e79.png

I haven't stored and looked through a list of these, but as I recall, the user sending them is bouncing around different instances. They certainly are not using the same hostname for their lemmy instance as the pict-rs instance; this message was sent from nicole92 on lemmy.latinlok.com, though the image is hosted on lemmy.doesnotexist.club. I don't know whether they are moving around where the pict-rs instance is located from message to message. If not, it might be possible to block the pict-rs instance in your browser. That will only be a temporary fix, since I see no reason that they couldn't also be moving the hostname on the pict-rs instance.

Another mitigation would be to route one's client software or browser through a VPN.

I don't know if there are admins working on addressing the issue; I'd assume so, but I wanted to at least mention that there might be privacy implications to other users.

In any event, regardless of whether the "Nicole" spammer is aiming to deanonymize users, as things stand, it does appear that someone could do so.

My own take is that the best fix here on the lemmy-and-other-Threadiverse-software-side would be to disable inline images in messages. Someone who wants to reference an image can always link to an external image in a messages, and permit a user to click through. But if remote inline image references can be used, there's no great way to prevent a user's IP address from being exposed.

If anyone has other suggestions to mitigate this (maybe a Greasemonkey snippet to require a click to load inline images as a patch for the lemmy Web UI?), I'm all ears.

Summary

The Trump administration defied a judge’s order to stop migrant expulsions to El Salvador, then told the judge to be more “respectful.”

Judge James Boasberg demanded details on the flights, suspecting the government ignored his orders. The administration refused, claiming judicial overreach and possible state secrets.

Migrants, allegedly gang members, were sent to a brutal Salvadoran prison under an old wartime law. Trump officials mocked the judge, and Chief Justice Roberts issued a rare rebuke.

The administration has appealed, with another hearing set for Friday.

• (JS Required) Press Release.

Apple was ordered by EU antitrust regulators today to open up its closed ecosystem to rivals, with the latter spelling out details on how to go about it in line with the bloc's landmark rules and where non-compliance could lead to an investigation and fines.

Original thread: https://lemmy.world/post/27067506/15809869

In the piece — titled "Can You Fool a Self Driving Car?" — Rober found that a Tesla car on Autopilot was fooled by a Wile E. Coyote-style wall painted to look like the road ahead of it, with the electric vehicle plowing right through it instead of stopping.

The footage was damning enough, with slow-motion clips showing the car not only crashing through the styrofoam wall but also a mannequin of a child. The Tesla was also fooled by simulated rain and fog.

German newspaper article: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000262056/die-schallwaffe-von-serbiens-machthaber-wurde-identifiziert

Translation (DeepL + minor corrections):

The sonic weapon of Serbia's ruler has been identified

Recordings on social media show sound cannons on the riot police's off-road vehicles. The interior minister becomes entangled in contradictions.

The disturbing images of panic among the peaceful participants at a protest rally in Belgrade went around the world. In numerous videos show thousands of people suddenly trying to escape and trying to flee and stumbling over each other. Some of them fall.

An extremely shrill sound can be heard in the videos. There are many indications the use of a sound weapon by the large contingent of Serbian riot police. Serbian riot police represented in the large contingent. The regime of President Aleksandar Vučić denied any use of such a weapon, DER STANDARD reported.

However, images emerged on Wednesday that contradict the official account from Belgrade. On the images, which were shared by opposition politician Marinika Tepić on X can be seen in police off-road vehicles on which so-called are clearly fitted with so-called Long-Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD). As research by several Serbian daily newspapers has revealed, this is likely to be that this is a product of the US company Genasys.

Weapon for psychological warfare

Specifically, the Serbian police are said to have used an LRAD 450XL. This is, despite its name, a device in the medium size category. Officially the device is marketed as completely harmless: according to a video from the manufacturer, it is a powerful speaker with an MP3 player.

The speaker is designed to make announcements which, according to the manufacturer Genasys are still understandable at 1700 meters distance. The fact that that it can also be used to quell protests is indicated by the sound the sound pressure levels: Sounds at 145 decibels are said to be continuously continuously for over eight hours thanks to the built-in rechargeable battery. Sounds can be reproduced at a relatively sharp angle of 15 or 30 degrees.

Loud noises above 85 decibels are already harmful to human hearing. Acute acoustic trauma can occur from 140 decibels. A fraction of a second is enough to damage the hearing. The weapons are marketed as “non-lethal” and manufacturers do not mention permanent hearing damage.

What the manufacturer only briefly mentions in the official product video is the button for the alarm sound. Only when you click further through the website, it becomes clear that the device is mainly sold to armies or police units. According to the manufacturer 100 countries and over 500 police authorities in the USA are already using such sonic weapons.

The LRAD 450XL is also advertised as a device for psychological warfare: It can be used to acoustically simulate the sounds of gunfire or even even entire battles acoustically. Something that conventional loudspeakers fail, according to the website. The “loudspeaker” also makes it possible to immediately create an acoustic “safety corridor” and disperse crowds of people.

On the hood

The device has a magnetic stand. This allows the weapon to be mounted on the hood of a car. In the case of the material that has now emerged, this is on the Defender jeeps of the Serbian police.

Remote control is also possible. The manufacturer offers a kit for wireless control from a distance of around 200 meters. This is consistent with the statements of the anonymous police officer in the Danas report: he stated that several such weapons were used during the mass protests on Saturday.

Interior Minister Ivica Dačić confirmed on Tuesday that the police have sonic weapons. These were purchased in 2021 and are the property of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior. However, they are not used according to the Minister of the Interior: “These systems (...) have not been neither put into operation nor installed in any of our vehicles or systems installed,” Dačić told Danas.

Sonic cannon? Yes, no, maybe

The police sources quoted by the publication contradict this account. All major police stations in Serbia would have sonic weapons, they say. Research by the newspaper Vreme also comes to the same conclusion.

Dačić had previously stated that the Ministry of the Interior had neither a sonic cannon nor similar sonic weapons. It was later said that this claim was “clumsy”. “What was meant was that the Ministry of the Interior has not included this instrument in its arsenal of means of coercion,” Dačić explained. And: “These systems are in boxes in our warehouses.” On Wednesday afternoon, things sounded different again: yes, sonic weapons were available, but they had only been used as loudspeakers, Dačić explained at a press conference.

President Aleksandar Vučić had categorically ruled out the possibility that the Serbian army had sonic cannons. A diversionary tactic, because it is obviously not the army, but the police police that uses such systems.

At the same time, Vučić announced legal action against all those who accuse the police of using such weapons. Furthermore it was said that a drone gun had triggered the panic, which is highly doubtful from a technical point of view. In principle, drone guns are nothing more than jammers, and these are completely harmless to humans.

“At a moment when everyone was quiet, when thousands and thousands and thousands of people were completely peaceful and not threatening anyone, you come up with the idea of demonstrating violence. That is an attack on on your own people,” says military analyst Aleksandar Radić, sharply criticizing the use of a sonic weapon. (Peter Zellinger, 19.3.2025)

TelegrafRS without much content: https://www.telegraf.rs/english/4075115-this-is-the-device-filmed-close-to-the-assembly-this-is-how-the-communication-tool-works

LRAD-450XL manual: https://genasys.com/content/uploads/2021/08/LRAD-450XL_D00101-Rev.-B_3-4.pdf

Miran Pogačars Video: https://x.com/MiranPogacar/status/1902310681988255912

Summary

Trump cut funding to Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which was tracking Russian war crimes, including the abduction of 35,000 Ukrainian children.

A Yale source claims the U.S. State Department deleted key evidence, possibly hindering prosecution efforts and rescue missions. The data was crucial to the ICC’s case against Putin and others.

Trump, who recently met with Putin, has taken a pro-Russian stance.

Yale’s project had led to multiple indictments, but its shutdown raises concerns over legal and humanitarian consequences.

It's only a proof of concept at the moment and I don't know if it will see mass adoption but it's a step in the right direction to ending reliance on US-based Big Tech.

"The space researcher was allegedly randomly checked on arrival, during which his professional computer and personal telephone were allegedly searched. Similarly, messages about the Trump administration’s treatment of scientists have been found."

Walz is just one of several Democrats who have referred to Musk’s immigrant background

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27074161

Original thread: https://lemmy.world/post/27067506/15809869