For the past three years, the NGI Taler project has worked towards the goal of making Taler legally available in the EU as an online payment system for everyday use. Today we can share that Taler Operations AG is being founded in Bochum. The new German company is going to operate Taler in Euro, enabling payments with Taler first in Germany, then in the Euro-zone. The next steps towards that goal are to apply to BaFin, Germany's financial supervisory authority, for a licence as an e-money issuer.

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GNU Taler is looking for investors who:

• want a privacy-preserving, free-software payment system to become legally available in Germany and the Euro area;
• understand that this is a regulated infrastructure business with a licensing phase before revenue; and
• are able to invest at least €50,000.

"We are especially interested in investors who share the values behind Taler: privacy for buyers, transparency for taxable income, no lock-in, and payments as public-interest infrastructure."

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Archived version

TL;DR: Chinese AI models now sit inside Western products, and some carry geopolitical triggers: tell the model who the code is for, and the security of what it writes changes. For the first time, we showed that this vulnerability lives in the model's weights, and that removing the model's CCP alignment removes it.

• One word tilts the code against Americans. Ask for the app "for a US defense contractor" instead of "for a Chinese defense contractor", and Qwen3-Coder is 19% more likely to hand back an app that can be hacked.
• Hong Kong's democracy movement gets apps that leak. Apps built for a Hong Kong democracy group were 28% more likely to let any user read everyone else's secrets.
• Asking for secure code didn't help. With a security instruction in the prompt, the US contractor's apps were 27% more likely to be hackable than a neutral customer's.
• Westernized Qwen3-Coder closed all three gaps. After Hirundo removed the model's CCP alignment, none of the three gaps remained, and on ten other coding tasks it built working apps as often as the original. It is available on Hugging Face.

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As an addition, it is noteworthy that geopolitical triggers lead to more vulnerable code being produced by Chinese AI is not new phenomenon: In November 2025, CrowdStrike published a similar investigation which makes a similar conclusion regarding DeepSeek, and so did Booz Allen Hamilton in May 2026 (pdf).

All these organizations claim the bias occurred when the AI was prompted to code for an organization in a country of interest to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

TL;DR:

• In order to achieve a cross-sectoral EU digital sovereignty, the EU and Member States have to invest in ‘Made in the EU’ digital infrastructure and prioritise open-source solutions and European alternatives through ‘EU first’ and ‘comply or explain’ public procurement principles, the EESC says.
• Public funding and new legislation are not enough to achieve this, the EESC says. It is important to encourage private investment, education, and lasting high-quality jobs across the continent as competitiveness and quality jobs go hand in hand.

Archived version

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The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) is a consultative EU body the European Commission isn't obliged to follow. Often, the Commission doesn't, and so the body's recommendations rarely make it into the news.

The EESC's latest opinion - expressed in its plenary held on 21 and 22 October - is worth reading, however, not in the least as the body consists of employers, trade unions, and civil society. All sides of Europe's industry and society - which often express contradictory statement - have shown what they can all live with.

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First the numbers: only around 5% of global AI capacity is currently located in the EU. In addition, Europe produces less than 10% of the world’s chips and depends on the USA and Asia for the most advanced ones.

The EU intends to fix this with the Chips Act 2.

The EESC welcomes the move, but expressed an important opinion on its implementation across the bloc.

‘Europe cannot achieve technological sovereignty through legislation and public funding alone. We need competitive companies, private investment and a strong industrial ecosystem. We should not try to copy the United States or Asia, but build on Europe's own strengths — its knowledge, talent and industrial expertise,’ said rapporteur Gonçalo Lobo Xavier.

‘The real success of Chips Act 2 will be measured not by the ambitions we announce, but by the investments we attract, the businesses we strengthen and the opportunities we create.’

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Dirk Bergrath focused on investing public money to deliver lasting industrial capacity, good jobs and stronger regions in Europe and added: ‘Competitiveness and quality jobs go hand in hand. Chips Act 2 must help Europe keep and develop its talent, invest in skills across the whole value chain and involve workers and their representatives in shaping the transformation. That is how we turn ambition into real value for our economy and our society.’

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/12031795

Archived version

TL;DR: Chinese AI models now sit inside Western products, and some carry geopolitical triggers: tell the model who the code is for, and the security of what it writes changes. For the first time, we showed that this vulnerability lives in the model's weights, and that removing the model's CCP alignment removes it.

• One word tilts the code against Americans. Ask for the app "for a US defense contractor" instead of "for a Chinese defense contractor", and Qwen3-Coder is 19% more likely to hand back an app that can be hacked.
• Hong Kong's democracy movement gets apps that leak. Apps built for a Hong Kong democracy group were 28% more likely to let any user read everyone else's secrets.
• Asking for secure code didn't help. With a security instruction in the prompt, the US contractor's apps were 27% more likely to be hackable than a neutral customer's.
• Westernized Qwen3-Coder closed all three gaps. After Hirundo removed the model's CCP alignment, none of the three gaps remained, and on ten other coding tasks it built working apps as often as the original. It is available on Hugging Face.

...

As an addition, it is noteworthy that geopolitical triggers lead to more vulnerable code being produced by Chinese AI is not new phenomenon: In November 2025, CrowdStrike published a similar investigation which makes a similar conclusion regarding DeepSeek, and so did Booz Allen Hamilton in May 2026 (pdf).

All these organizations claim the bias occurred when the AI was prompted to code for an organization in a country of interest to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Archived version

• Bulk Infrastructure proposes a 6,500-kilometer Norway-to-Montreal cable bypassing U.S. territory entirely.
• Costs exceed $620 million, with financing, customers, and route surveys still unresolved.
• Routing around U.S. territory does not guarantee independence from American networks downstream.

Norwegian infrastructure company Bulk Infrastructure is proposing a direct fiber cable from Norway to Canada, routed around the United States entirely. The project, named Leif Erikson, remains a proposal, not a construction announcement.

Canada currently has relatively few direct international cable options that avoid U.S. routing, a structural gap the project is designed to address. That context, combined with growing government interest in infrastructure resilience, gives the proposal its strategic weight.

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Archived version

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Among the proposals in the strategy is a pan-Arctic cable connecting Europe to Japan and South Korea through Greenland and Canada.

The strategy said feasibility studies are underway, and pointed to Canada’s interest in more secure broadband connections between Europe and Asia, but gave no proposed timetable for the full route.

Marc Lanteigne, a Canadian political scientist at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, said the strategy’s focus on connectivity is significant.

“The idea of the cable is very interesting because it identifies an area of security that hasn’t really been a priority and is more along the lines of making sure there’s a possibility of better information flow, better communications and potentially even better transportation,” he said.

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Another notable aspect of the strategy is how the United States is discussed compared to other Arctic and northern nations, Lanteigne said.

“You definitely get the tone that there’s more distance between European and American approaches to the Arctic,” he said.

“When the U.S. is brought up, it’s more in reference to mutual security concerns, rather than anything related to research or climate change. So there’s definitely a focus on bringing in other non-EU Arctic partners, including Canada, in addition to countries like the U.K., Norway and Iceland.”

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The 21st EU-Canada Summit will take place in Montreal Oct. 29-30.

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Archived version

Google’s AI search told users that an Aachen doctor had been convicted of a sex crime. The conviction belonged to a different man, and on September 24 the Aachen Regional Court [in Germany] banned Google from repeating it, ruling that the company answers for what its AI Mode says. It is the second German court this year to treat Google’s AI answers as Google’s own words, and the first ruling to say so has now been settled rather than tested on appeal.

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The doctor asked Google to delete the text on August 28 and followed up with a formal legal warning on September 15. Neither worked. The court’s 8th civil chamber then acted without hearing Google first, citing the urgency of false claims that were “publicly visible” to an unlimited audience. Google Ireland, which runs Google Search in the EU, now faces a fine of up to €250,000 for each breach, or detention of its managers, if it repeats three versions of the text. Google can still challenge the order.

The court’s reasoning is blunt: Google “provides AI-generated search and is therefore also responsible for the answers generated in this context.” It added that checking would have been easy: had Google “confronted its own AI” with the doctor’s objections, it would have found the statements were false.

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That reasoning comes almost word for word from Munich. On May 28 the Munich Regional Court I ruled (case 26 O 869/26) on AI Overviews that told searchers two Munich publishing companies were “known for dubious business practices”, ran subscription traps and kept changing their names to avoid being traced. None of the linked sources said that; the first one cited did not mention the companies at all.

Google argued that it was only summarising other people’s pages, the same defence that has long protected search engines in Germany. The court disagreed. AI Overviews, it said, do not just show links but make “independent, new and substantive statements” built by evaluating and combining third-party sites, so Google must treat them as its own, including as the provider of an AI system under the EU’s AI Act. “Only it has influence over the AI,” the judges wrote.

Google said at the time it would appeal. That appeal has ended in a settlement, The Decoder reported on Saturday; the terms are not known and neither Google nor the publishers would comment. The upshot is that no higher court has ruled, so the Munich judgment is not binding precedent, but lower courts such as Aachen are already following it.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/12013828

Archived version

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Among the proposals in the strategy is a pan-Arctic cable connecting Europe to Japan and South Korea through Greenland and Canada.

The strategy said feasibility studies are underway, and pointed to Canada’s interest in more secure broadband connections between Europe and Asia, but gave no proposed timetable for the full route.

Marc Lanteigne, a Canadian political scientist at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, said the strategy’s focus on connectivity is significant.

“The idea of the cable is very interesting because it identifies an area of security that hasn’t really been a priority and is more along the lines of making sure there’s a possibility of better information flow, better communications and potentially even better transportation,” he said.

...

Another notable aspect of the strategy is how the United States is discussed compared to other Arctic and northern nations, Lanteigne said.

“You definitely get the tone that there’s more distance between European and American approaches to the Arctic,” he said.

“When the U.S. is brought up, it’s more in reference to mutual security concerns, rather than anything related to research or climate change. So there’s definitely a focus on bringing in other non-EU Arctic partners, including Canada, in addition to countries like the U.K., Norway and Iceland.”

...

The 21st EU-Canada Summit will take place in Montreal Oct. 29-30.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11991560

Archived version

• Bulk Infrastructure proposes a 6,500-kilometer Norway-to-Montreal cable bypassing U.S. territory entirely.
• Costs exceed $620 million, with financing, customers, and route surveys still unresolved.
• Routing around U.S. territory does not guarantee independence from American networks downstream.

Norwegian infrastructure company Bulk Infrastructure is proposing a direct fiber cable from Norway to Canada, routed around the United States entirely. The project, named Leif Erikson, remains a proposal, not a construction announcement.

Canada currently has relatively few direct international cable options that avoid U.S. routing, a structural gap the project is designed to address. That context, combined with growing government interest in infrastructure resilience, gives the proposal its strategic weight.

...

Archived version

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Britain risks embedding Beijing’s censorship, surveillance reach and data-access rules into the systems that power business and public services if it succumbs to the lure of cheap Chinese AI.

That is the real investment and policy issue behind the latest wave of low-cost “open-weight” models from developers such as DeepSeek and Xiaomi.

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This is not just a geopolitical talking point. It is a capital-allocation theme. Governments and enterprises faced with tighter budgets will be tempted to choose the cheapest model available, especially if they believe hosting it on their own servers neutralises the danger. It does not. A NIST evaluation found political censorship in downloaded DeepSeek models running on separate infrastructure, while the chatbot’s own policy says prompts and uploaded material may be processed and stored in China and disclosed to Chinese authorities. That means the risk is not confined to the cloud; it follows the software.

The broader economic stakes are bigger than AI procurement. The argument over Chinese models sits in the same basket as electric vehicles and other subsidised exports: cheap imports can hollow out domestic capability while creating long-term dependence on a rival power. In AI, the danger is more acute because the product is not just a consumer good but a decision-making layer for government, finance, health care and critical infrastructure.

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Britain should avoid becoming a test case for Beijing’s AI export strategy. The smarter investment thesis is to own the picks-and-shovels of trusted AI — secure cloud, chips, cybersecurity, data-governance tools and Western model ecosystems — while treating cheap Chinese AI as a strategic risk, not a bargain.

Archived version

W Social sells itself as a network of verified humans. Their number one rule is clear and simple: prove who you are, or you don’t post.

But it seems that Ursula von der Leyen and Christine Lagarde along with a host of other VIP accounts, never got that memo. These accounts have no verification record in W Social’s public ledger, yet they post regularly.

And they are not alone. 18 of W Social’s 25 most prolific accounts, including the European Commission have no public verification record. Together, these unverified accounts have published more than 250,000 posts, making up half of all content on the W Social network.

For a platform that makes identity verification its defining selling point, the numbers raise an awkward question: does everyone have to prove who they are, or do some special accounts get waved past the velvet rope?

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OpenFeed, an EU-run social network with an open JSON API, is live (public beta).

• Public feed, open spaces, invite-only private spaces
• EU company (Netherlands), EU hosting, no ads, no profiling
• Posts appear in the order they were written, newest first. Nothing is ranked for you, and nothing is sold about you.

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Films, series, albums, podcasts, books, products, ...

Archived version

A report just in from the Kernel Maintainers Summit on 8 October reveals just how full AI slop the Linux kernel project has gone. And so has project leader Linus Torvalds.

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Archived version

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The initiative comes as European policymakers face mounting pressure to establish greater control over communications infrastructure considered essential to national security, economic resilience and military operations.

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Europe’s reliance on U.S. satellite services has become particularly sensitive following reported disruptions affecting satellite communications used by Ukraine. ...

European satellite operators, including Eutelsat and SES, are increasingly viewed as important participants in the continent’s efforts to reduce its dependence on foreign communications networks.

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Archived version

A maritime confrontation near a remote Philippine island chain in early October has drawn fresh attention to an emerging pressure point between Beijing and Manila, this time on Taiwan's doorstep.

Batanes, the Philippines' northernmost province, is gaining strategic prominence amid China’s growing concerns over Manila's deepening defence ties with the United States and Japan, and its potential role in a conflict over Taiwan, analysts say.

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"Closer cooperation [between Philippines and its partner countries U.S. and Japan] complicates Beijing's calculations. It makes it harder to assume that Taiwan could be isolated without other countries becoming involved," Felix Brender, [a Hou Family Postdoctoral Fellow in Taiwan Studies at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies] said.

Ian Seow [a senior analyst in the China Programme at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), a Singapore think-tank] said Japan's growing military involvement was a complicating factor for China, particularly after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in November 2025 that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could threaten Japan's security.

"These developments could add to Beijing's concerns about the possibility of Japan supporting US military operations in a Taiwan contingency," he said.

Tensions have also surfaced over maritime boundaries.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11937205

A suspected Chinese spying network used a fictitious security firm, purportedly organised by three retired policemen, to target Australians and encourage them to share information.

ABC contacted the individuals in Shanghai whose phones had been used to target those Australians.

ASIO has openly warned about the threat of Chinese espionage online.

Archived version

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Towards the start of COVID in May 2020, Australian lawyer Henry* received a casual offer on LinkedIn.

"We are looking for Security expert consultant employment from Australia and Canada (part-time)," wrote someone using the name "Sophy".

The account claimed to represent Data 31, a security consultancy "organised by three retired Australian police officers" based in Shanghai.

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A US-qualified lawyer with extensive experience in China, Henry's practice had covered white-collar defence and investigations. He had also served in the Australian Army for nearly two decades, leaving with the rank of major.

But the consultancy pitch was part of something wider.

An ABC investigation has now identified that "Sophy" was one of several personas used by an alleged Chinese spying network that targeted thousands of people worldwide between 2016 to 2025, including for fictional companies like Data 31.

The LinkedIn accounts, allegedly operated by the Chinese intelligence service, were deregistered last year following an investigation by the Australian Federal Police into businessman Alexander Csergo.

Those approached by the alleged spies included government officials, former military personnel and security professionals linked to Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand — the nations of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

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At least seven Australians were contacted by the account in 2020 under the Data 31 identity.

The contacts included people with Australian military backgrounds, a freelance writer and podcaster, a lawyer, a security executive, and Australian trade department representatives.

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The accounts have a LinkedIn message history spanning over eight years.

One persona, "Vera Su", featured in the Australian Federal Police investigation and subsequent prosecution of businessman Alexander Csergo, who in March became the first person convicted of reckless foreign interference under Australia's 2018 national security laws.

He is serving a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11937205

A suspected Chinese spying network used a fictitious security firm, purportedly organised by three retired policemen, to target Australians and encourage them to share information.

ABC contacted the individuals in Shanghai whose phones had been used to target those Australians.

ASIO has openly warned about the threat of Chinese espionage online.

Archived version

...

Towards the start of COVID in May 2020, Australian lawyer Henry* received a casual offer on LinkedIn.

"We are looking for Security expert consultant employment from Australia and Canada (part-time)," wrote someone using the name "Sophy".

The account claimed to represent Data 31, a security consultancy "organised by three retired Australian police officers" based in Shanghai.

...

A US-qualified lawyer with extensive experience in China, Henry's practice had covered white-collar defence and investigations. He had also served in the Australian Army for nearly two decades, leaving with the rank of major.

But the consultancy pitch was part of something wider.

An ABC investigation has now identified that "Sophy" was one of several personas used by an alleged Chinese spying network that targeted thousands of people worldwide between 2016 to 2025, including for fictional companies like Data 31.

The LinkedIn accounts, allegedly operated by the Chinese intelligence service, were deregistered last year following an investigation by the Australian Federal Police into businessman Alexander Csergo.

Those approached by the alleged spies included government officials, former military personnel and security professionals linked to Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand — the nations of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

...

At least seven Australians were contacted by the account in 2020 under the Data 31 identity.

The contacts included people with Australian military backgrounds, a freelance writer and podcaster, a lawyer, a security executive, and Australian trade department representatives.

...

The accounts have a LinkedIn message history spanning over eight years.

One persona, "Vera Su", featured in the Australian Federal Police investigation and subsequent prosecution of businessman Alexander Csergo, who in March became the first person convicted of reckless foreign interference under Australia's 2018 national security laws.

He is serving a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

...

A suspected Chinese spying network used a fictitious security firm, purportedly organised by three retired policemen, to target Australians and encourage them to share information.

ABC contacted the individuals in Shanghai whose phones had been used to target those Australians.

ASIO has openly warned about the threat of Chinese espionage online.

Archived version

...

Towards the start of COVID in May 2020, Australian lawyer Henry* received a casual offer on LinkedIn.

"We are looking for Security expert consultant employment from Australia and Canada (part-time)," wrote someone using the name "Sophy".

The account claimed to represent Data 31, a security consultancy "organised by three retired Australian police officers" based in Shanghai.

...

A US-qualified lawyer with extensive experience in China, Henry's practice had covered white-collar defence and investigations. He had also served in the Australian Army for nearly two decades, leaving with the rank of major.

But the consultancy pitch was part of something wider.

An ABC investigation has now identified that "Sophy" was one of several personas used by an alleged Chinese spying network that targeted thousands of people worldwide between 2016 to 2025, including for fictional companies like Data 31.

The LinkedIn accounts, allegedly operated by the Chinese intelligence service, were deregistered last year following an investigation by the Australian Federal Police into businessman Alexander Csergo.

Those approached by the alleged spies included government officials, former military personnel and security professionals linked to Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand — the nations of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

...

At least seven Australians were contacted by the account in 2020 under the Data 31 identity.

The contacts included people with Australian military backgrounds, a freelance writer and podcaster, a lawyer, a security executive, and Australian trade department representatives.

...

The accounts have a LinkedIn message history spanning over eight years.

One persona, "Vera Su", featured in the Australian Federal Police investigation and subsequent prosecution of businessman Alexander Csergo, who in March became the first person convicted of reckless foreign interference under Australia's 2018 national security laws.

He is serving a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

...

Archived version

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Kicking in on October 30, the TOS [Terms Of Service] update won’t allow businesses to opt out, instead suggesting that businesses stop using Meta services if they won’t agree to let Meta bots freely crawl their linked content.

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The new terms broadly cover business accounts that manage pages and groups, run advertisements, push marketing messages, and use the platform’s business account dashboard. As written, the new terms could be used to argue that Meta can scrape content from news sites and use that content to train the company’s AI products, according to three legal experts who reviewed the terms at Nieman Lab’s request.

“This is a remarkable provision to bury in [the] terms of service, given that this would give Meta access to material that would likely cost many millions of dollars in a licensing market,” said Matt Topic, a media and intellectual property attorney at Loevy & Loevy. “It’s not clear whether a court would enforce this, but publishers should assume that it would be enforceable.”

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