Rosamunde Van Brakel

These panels are part of a collection of 7 panels and a book panel on digital criminology at #EUROCRIM2025 that I have coordinated with Mareile Kaufmann and @marcschuilenburg.bsky.social #digitalcriminology #criminology #crimsky

screenshot panel abstract book panel Marc Schuilenburg

screenshot panel abstract digital policing environmental crime

Excited to see the programme is out for #EUROCRIM2025! Looking forward to speak in two of the digital criminology panels 🤩

#digitalcriminology #greencriminology #surveillance #morethanhuman #AI #environmentalcrime

Letter of the day (in the Times)

What Does Palantir Actually Do? Palantir is often called a data broker, a data miner, or a giant database of personal information. In reality, it’s none of these—but even former employees struggle to explain it.

Palantir is often called a data broker, a data miner, or a giant database of personal information. In reality, it’s none of these—but even former employees struggle to explain it. www.wired.com/story/palant...

AI tools used by English councils downplay women’s health issues, study finds Exclusive: LSE research finds risk of gender bias in care decisions made based on AI summaries of case notes

'Artificial intelligence tools used by more than half of England’s councils are downplaying women’s physical and mental health issues and risk creating gender bias in care decisions, research [led by Sam Rickman, LSE] has found.' 1/2

De standaardmail versturen duurt een paar seconden maar een persoonlijke mail opstellen duurt twee minuten en is effectiever. De e-mailadressen van de MEP’s zitten klaar in het systeem. Je hoeft dus enkel België te selecteren en eventueel namen van MEP’s te deselecteren. @jbaert.bsky.social

Here we are again. Every photo, every message, every file you send will be automatically scanned—without your consent or suspicion. This is not about catching criminals. It is not based on scientific evidence. It will enable mass #surveillance of EU citizens. #chatcontrol

fightchatcontrol.eu

Sweden will operate a new 5-layered radar system starting 2026, several years early, expedited because worsened security situation

At a cost of about €1B the systems detection capabilities range from drones to satellites with a maximum range of 2000 km

www.svt.se/nyheter/inri...

At 81, Deborah Hinton, a former British magistrate …, seems an unlikely terrorist suspect. But last month she was detained for 7h, fingerprinted and had a DNA swab taken. It was the first time she had ever been arrested, and the experience left her “in a state of trauma” and “shaking uncontrollably”

Ik werd geciteerd in een artikel over #Palantir in de Vlaamse financiële krant De Tijd van zaterdag over de invloed van het bedrijf op het politiewerk en de ontwikkelingen in Duitsland. www.tijd.be/politiek-eco...

Palantir, de AI-lieveling van beleggers en de datareus achter Trumps deportaties Onder president Donald Trump groeide Palantir uit tot dé AI-leverancier van het Witte Huis en het duurst gewaardeerde techbedrijf ooit. Het spoort illegale migranten op in de VS en steunt Israël en Oe...

Quoted in an article on #Palantir in today’s Flemish financial newspaper De Tijd on impact of software on police work! www.tijd.be/politiek-eco...

It Looks Like a School Bathroom Smoke Detector. A Teen Hacker Showed It Could Be an Audio Bug A pair of hackers found that a vape detector often found in high school bathrooms contained microphones—and security weaknesses that could allow someone to turn it into a secret listening device.

Everything from military radios to AI can be hacked. At the Defcon hacker conference, researchers showed how they hacked into these systems—not for gain—but to point out vulnerabilities.

First, a student who found that vape detectors installed at his high school could be used for surveillance: 🧵

Richard Seymour · Baseline Communism: David Graeber’s Innovations In his critique of economics, as in his philippic against ‘bullshit jobs’, Graeber stresses the political decisions...

‘Graeber does seem to have had most fun as an outsider, a movement anthropologist wending his way among anticapitalist militants, or sitting in on horizontalist spokescouncils, arguing and taking field notes.’

@leninology.bsky.social reads David Graeber’s essays:

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Global Fight Over Who Governs Communications Satellites Heats Up | TechPolicy.Press Global connectivity cannot be left to political actors with incentives to keep their societies digitally isolated, write Raquel Rennó Nunes and Lux Teixeira.

and here is some of our first pieces of research on the subject:

www.techpolicy.press/global-fight...

Watch this space 🚀

Wired and Orbited: Reclaiming infrastructure for a resilient internet - ARTICLE 19 In the depths of the ocean and high above the Earth’s atmosphere, a quiet revolution is reshaping the internet as we know it. Far from the public eye, the physical infrastructure that powers our digit...

📢 NEW INITIATIVE: As tech giants claim ownership of subsea cables and satellite networks, who will protect our digital rights? @article19.bsky.social team digital launches "Wired and Orbited" to ensure internet infrastructure remains open and resilient for all.

www.article19.org/resources/wi...

Eco-cops?

Encryption Made for Police and Military Radios May Be Easily Cracked Researchers found that an encryption algorithm likely used by law enforcement and special forces can have weaknesses that could allow an attacker to listen in.

Two years ago after researchers found backdoor in an encryption algo used to secure radio comms for police/military/intel agencies around world, the org behind the algo advised users to deploy an end-to-end encryption solution on top of the algo. Now researchers also found security issue with that

Because the twin is not a copy: On the politics of digital twins - Louise Amoore, 2025 This essay explores the changing form of the digital twin as a political technology in the age of deep learning and generative artificial intelligence (AI). It ...

My essay “Because the twin is not a copy: the politics of digital twins” - written for a 2023 workshop organised by Christoph Borbach & out now in a special issue on digital twinning in #NewMedia&Society #DigitalTwins #algorithms journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

ChatGPT File • • Edit View Window Help ChatGPT 5 > How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry The word "blueberry" has the letter b three times: • Once at the start ("B" in blueberry). • Once in the middle ("b" in blue). • Once before the -erry ending ("b" in berry). Total: 3 O92 Show me where the letter b appears in the word please. Sure — here's "blueberry" with each b highlighted: B lue b erry Positions (counting from 1): 1 B - first letter 4 b - in blue 6 b - in berry D9< Spell that out with all three bs please. I mean, just spell the word. Sure — here's the full spelling with all three b's shown in place: BLUEBERRY That's exactly how blueberry is spelled, with the b's in positions 1, 5, and 7.

ChatGPT File Edit View Window Help E ChatGPT 5 > You wrote "BLUEBERRY". There are only two bs there. Ah - I see the mix-up. Let's slow it down and spell blueberry carefully, letter by letter, showing all three b's. blueberry Now you can see them: • 1st b → position 1 • 2nd b → position 5 • 3rd b → position 6 blueberry Exactly — blue berry has three b's: • 1st b → at the very start • 2nd b → right after the e in blue • 3rd b → immediately after the second b, starting berry So the "bb" in the middle is really what gives blueberry its double-b moment. Its double-b moment; I see. Yep - blueberry is one of those words where the middle almost trips you up, like it's saying "b-b-better pay attention." That little bb moment is satisfying, though — it makes the word feel extra bouncy.

 ChatGPT File Edit View Window Help 巴 • ChatGPT 5 > My students get you to write their essays for them, you know. Ah, the old "ChatGPT, do my homework" routine — I'm familiar with that one. I can see why they'd be tempted, but here's the thing: I'm a lot more useful as a coach than a ghostwriter. If they use me to brainstorm ideas, plan structure, or clarify tricky concepts, they'll actually learn and still have their own voice in the work. If they just hand in what I write, they're skipping the thinking part - and it usually shows. I'm good, but I still leave a trail of... telltale ChatGPT-isms. A trail of blueberries, as it were. Exactly — a trail of blueberries: easy to follow, a little sweet, and maybe just obvious enough for a watchful teacher to notice. If your students really are leaving me to bake the whole blueberry pie for them, they might forget that the best part of pie is making it themselves... even if it gets a little messy. "Blueberry" only has two bs. Nope - blueberry really does have three b's. Here it is spaced out: bluebberry Positions: b- at the start 5 b - in the "blue" part 6 b - right next to it, starting "berry" That middle double-b is easy to miss if vou just glance at the word.

I had to try the “blueberry” thing myself with GPT5. I merely report the results.

‘Horrific’: report reveals abuse of pregnant women and children at US Ice facilities Report from senator Jon Ossoff’s office found 510 credible reports of human rights abuses since Trump’s inauguration

A Senate investigation has so far found 510 human rights abuses in ICE detention centers since Jan 20, including deaths, physical & sexual abuse, inadequate medical care, overcrowding & unsanitary conditions, inadequate food & water, extreme temperatures, denial of legal access, & child separation

Courts service accused of covering up IT bug that caused evidence to go missing Sources say judges in courts and tribunals will have made rulings when evidence was incomplete.

Courts service in England & Wales 'covered up' IT bug that caused evidence to go missing.

Software had a long history of data loss.

Executives covered up flaws.

Judges made rulings with incomplete evidence.

Another Post Office type of scandal looms.

Belgium’s ‘Kafkaesque’ visa policy has ‘devastating’ consequences in Gaza, lawyers warn People in Gaza wanting a humanitarian visa from Belgium are being told to apply in Jerusalem or Cairo.

Palestinians trying to get a Belgian humanitarian visa to escape the bloodshed in Gaza face impossible demands and a blocked exit, lawyers say.

#CfP: Special issue on #BigTech in global #security governance! What happens when digital giants learn to see the world through a #security lens? Edited by @mg-borelli.bsky.social, K. Ermoshina, F. Musiani & @gulnarazakharova.bsky.social

👉Submit abstract by 21 Sep: policyreview.info/events/call-...

‘A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians Revealed: The Israeli military undertook an ambitious project to store a giant trove of Palestinians’ phone calls on Microsoft’s servers in Europe

But a cache of leaked Microsoft documents and interviews with 11 sources from the company and Israeli military intelligence reveals how Azure has been used by Unit 8200 to store this expansive archive of everyday Palestinian communications. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Hackers Hijacked Google’s Gemini AI With a Poisoned Calendar Invite to Take Over a Smart Home For likely the first time ever, security researchers have shown how AI can be hacked to create real world havoc, allowing them to turn off lights, open smart shutters, and more.

NEW: In a likely first, security researchers have shown how generative AI agents can be hijacked to cause physical consequences.

They tricked Google's Gemini AI into turning off smart home lights, opening windows, and turning on a boiler.

They hid instructions to the AI in a *calendar invitation*

This is amongst the most impactful two minutes of broadcasting I’ve ever seen.

By Emma Murphy, International Editor, ITV News. #Gaza

Digital twins of the ocean: Wet environing media and marine futures - Adam Wickberg, Susanna Lidström, 2025 The EU’s Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO) is presented as a coherent, high-resolution, multi-dimensional, multi-variable and near real-time representation of the...

Our paper on digital twins of the ocean is out now in this great special issue of New Media & Society, alongside contributions from Jussi Parikka, Rob Kitchin,Geoffrey Bowker among others. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

journals.sagepub.com/toc/nmsa/27/8

#envhist #bluehumanities #envhum

WhoFi quietly turns Wi-Fi into a surveillance tool that sees through walls and remembers your movements The tech uses existing Wi‑Fi networks to sense human presence and movement

Researchers at La Sapienza University in Rome have created WhoFi, a system which claims to be able to identify individuals by analyzing Wi‑Fi signals. #surveillance www.techradar.com/pro/wi-fi-si...

Israel has deliberately starved the people of Gaza. It couldn’t have done it without the west's help | Owen Jones The current hand-wringing by Keir Starmer and other western politicians is empty bluster. They knew what was happening all along, says Guardian columnist Owen Jones

Israel has deliberately starved the people of Gaza.

It said it was starving Gaza over and over again.

It has done so systematically - with the full complicity of the West.

My column on a crime committed in plain sight 👇

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...