Travis ‘Nep’ Smith

Age Verification, Estimation, Assurance, Oh My! A Guide to the If you've been following the wave of age-gating laws sweeping across the country and the globe, you've probably noticed that lawmakers, tech companies, and advocates all seem to be using different

Language shapes how we think about the systems that govern our lives. Here's your guide to the terminology that's shaping “Age Verification” laws, and why you should care about these distinctions. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

ICE and CBP Agents Are Scanning Peoples’ Faces on the Street To Verify Citizenship Videos on social media show officers from ICE and CBP using facial recognition technology on people in the field. One expert described the practice as “pure dystopian creep.”

“We should have banned government use of face recognition when we had the chance because it is dangerous, invasive, and an inherent threat to civil liberties,” EFF’s @MGuariglia.bsky.social told @404Media.co. www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp...

the text "STOP SURVEILLANCE" next to a surveillance camera

Look around your neighborhood 🔦
That streetlight? Could have a camera.
That squadcar? Could be hijacking your cell signal.
EFF is working to kick surveillance out of our communities. We just need your help: takebackctrl.org/stop-survei...

sometimes i remember "calque" is a loanword and "loanword" is a calque and i get so pissed off

Club Championships 2025: The Big Do-Over (Men's Div. Semis Previews) - Ultiworld Familiar teams and familiar matchups dot the men's semifinal slate, but will the outcomes be the same as 2024?

Club Championships 2025: The Big Do-Over (Men's Div. Semis Previews) -> buff.ly/FCLtUfe

[Pres. by Spin Ultimate | Photo: @UltiPhotos.bsky.social]

Indigenous Services ignored 18 out of 34 recommendations The audit’s findings are especially alarming in two areas: access to safe drinking water and emergency management services.

Indigenous Services Canada fails to deliver on most promises, says auditor general www.aptnnews.ca?p=278710

“Off the record” is one of the most basic elements of media literacy for a federal prosecutor to know.

ChatGPT Atlas: OpenAI launches web browser centered around its chatbot Company’s AI-powered browser built around marquee bot is designed to provide more personalized web experience OpenAI on Tuesday launched an AI-powered web browser built around its marquee chatbot. “Meet our new browser—ChatGPT Atlas,” a tweet from the company read. Continue reading...

ChatGPT Atlas: OpenAI launches web browser centered around its chatbot

This is truly a big problem - the missing news pages are just the visible part of this iceberg .

Trump announces plan to steal $230 million from US taxpayers - Lawyers, Guns & Money Or, as John Roberts would call it, an “official act” that means that the president lives in a law-free zone: President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in comp...

Trump announces plan to steal $230 million from US taxpayers www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/10/trum...

the Muppets have been real quiet since the Louvre heist

Chicago Mayor Issues Defiant Call For A General Strike It was an audacious proposal, given that the U.S. has never held a true, nationwide general strike.

Whoa. Chicago mayor calls for a general strike; now we're talking

www.huffpost.com/entry/chicag...

A big win for local democracy in Calgary | The Sprawl All 14 wards have now had election debates.

WE DID IT!! 🎉 All 14 wards in Calgary have now had election debates. We organized four of them because no one had. There are 20 candidates total in those wards and 16 showed up for our last-ditch debates—candidates from across the political spectrum. What a ride! #yyccc

White words on a black background read: 50+ Immigration agents have the authority to detain whom they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally. We found more than 50 Americans who were held after agents questioned their citizenship. They were almost all Latino. ~130 Agents also can arrest citizens who allegedly interfered with or assaulted officers. We compiled cases of about 130 Americans, including a dozen elected officials, accused of assaulting or impeding officers. ~20 Among the citizens detained are nearly 20 children, including two with cancer.

Hi, I'm the ProPublica reporter who's been tracking an unusual stat: U.S. citizens grabbed by immigration agents.

I did it because the government isn’t.

This is what I found.

EFF Members' Speakeasy: NYC Join EFF staff and local online rights supporters for a Speakeasy meet up on Saturday, October 18 in NYC!Raise a glass and discover EFF's latest work defending digital freedoms online. This event is

EFF Members make our work possible—now it's our time to show our thanks! Join us on October 18 for an evening of community, conversation and drinks: eff.org/speakeasy-nyc

Did you know that a typhoon just hit Alaska & displaced over 1,000 people and washed away entire communities?

If your media isn't covering this, it's bc these are Indigenous communities.

I’m in London this week and it’s faster, easier and cheaper to take the bus.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez 80000 60000 40000 20000 0 Bernie Sanders 200000 Number of Donations 150000 100000 50000 Elizabeth Warren 60000 40000 20000 01 25 50 Donor Age 75

Hakeem Jeffries 40000 30000 20000 10000 Nancy Pelosi 100000 Number of Donations 75000 50000 25000 Suzan DelBene 2000 1500 1000 500 25 50 75 Donor Age

AOC has just officially become the top House fundraiser, beating out Hakeem Jeffries. Now lemme take a big sip of coffee as I look at the age distribution of donors to AOC vs Jeffries

Rebecca Bollwitt Receives City of Vancouver Award of Excellence Miss604's Rebecca Bollwitt is a recipient of the 2025 City of Vancouver Award of Excellence in the Entrepreneurship Cornerstone category.

Tonight I received the City of Vancouver's Award of Excellence in the Entrepreneurial Cornerstone category along with fellow recipient Celine Bacani.

A very person came up to me afterwards and said: I'm so excited to see two things I love to use everyday get recognized: Lee's Donuts and Miss604 ❤️

Farewell, Mekkawy Ahmed Mekkawy, a pioneering Egyptian tech and digital rights advocate, is remembered for his generosity, activism, and lasting impact on open knowledge and technology.

EFF mourns the loss and honors the life of Ahmed Mekkawy (@linuxawy.org), a friend and supporter who was a passionate advocate for free and open-source software and digital rights manassa.news/en/stories/2...

Ali Velshi: Videos of violent ICE interactions flood social media Many of the videos are difficult to watch, but it is also important to bear witness to what is happening to human beings on the streets of America.

ICE tactics intensify despite disturbing videos surfacing across the U.S. Many of the videos are difficult to watch, but it is also important to bear witness to what is happening to human beings on the streets of America. www.msnbc.com/top-stories/...

Screenshot of text from the interview: You’ve always been an incredibly physical performer: your strut during “Sweet Transvestite” in “Rocky Horror,” or the way you run around unfurling the mystery at the end of “Clue.” Do you still feel that in your body? Does that live somewhere in you still? I think it does, but it’s angry. My mobility is angry to get out. But it’s not happened yet. I do a certain amount of physical therapy. I did a whole bunch of it at Cedars-Sinai, and I got very close, I think, to walking. That was tantalizing. For insurance reasons, I had to withdraw. And I have a visiting physical therapist now, but I can only really do exercises from my bed, which is pretty pathetic. It’s not going to get me walking, I don’t believe. [I have underlined the sentence "For insurance reasons, I had to withdraw."]

Enjoyed the New Yorker interview with Tim Curry, a free-wheeling conversation in which there were several sensitive questions about his paralyzing stroke. But oh my goodness, why was there no follow-up at all to this staggering answer? www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Every time someone drops into my comments asking about a general strike, I have to remind folks that unlike in Europe we have at will employment here allowing essentially anyone to be fired at any time for any reason, and health insurance tied to employment.

The amount of organizing

Fair Use Protects Everyone—Even the Disney Corporation Jimmy Kimmel has been in the news a lot recently, which means the ongoing lawsuit against him by perennial late night punching bag/convicted fraudster/former congressman George Santos flew under the

Fair use protects all of our expression, be it an individual or a major corporation. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

A 15 year old boy with autism went missing earlier this week

He was selling fruit with his family in Springbranch when he disappeared

They filed a missing person’s report & begged the public to help find him

Turns out he was in a Houston ICE detention facility

They kidnapped a disabled child!

Is someone cutting onions?

M.I.T. Rejects a White House Offer for Special Funding Treatment

This is the way

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

Screenshot of a portion of an iOS Home Screen. The icons for Bluesky, Ouranos, Leaflet, and Semble are shown, plus a folder labeled ATProto that has PinkSky, Popfeed, Spark, Flashes, Skylight, Anisota, Bookhive, Germ, and Anchor in it.

I have a whole folder of ATProto apps on iOS (plus a select few directly on my Home Screen).

Today we call them “ATproto” apps.

In the future … they’re just a better way to build a wide range of apps, where users own their data, login in anywhere, and choose different interfaces.

Four smiling people in purple GivingTuesday shirts in a garden. Text reads: "How to build a team for GivingTuesday. The countdown to December 2 is on and now is the time to get your team assembled."

You do not have to do this all on your own.

#GivingTuesday is a team sport. Assemble your team, and get to work: GivingTuesday.org/Build-Your-Team

If you want to start taking steps to enhance your digital security, it can be hard to know where to start. Here are some simple concepts and tips. ssd.eff.org/en/playlist...