45 Followers
105 Following
1.2K Posts
And so but anyway, did I ever tell you about my most humiliating experience as a skilled and successful computer programmer?

Palantir Technologies is suing Republik Magazine over an investigation into Palantir’s activities in Switzerland, published in December 2025. The lawsuit demands a counterstatement and is currently being heard by the Zurich Commercial Court.
Read the story that made Palantir sue us — now available in English. #palantir #freemedia

https://www.republik.ch/2026/02/18/how-tenaciously-palantir-courted-switzerland?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=cm&utm_content=palantir-en

Last year, a human trafficking victim in a Southeast Asian scam compound messaged @agreenberg. The man wanted to blow the whistle on the criminals who had enslaved him.

Over the course of months, the source known as Red Bull, shared his story and secrets from inside compound.

Read the wild story of how Red Bull turned into a whistleblower and then escaped from the compound, risking his life in the process

https://www.wired.com/story/he-leaked-the-secrets-southeast-asian-scam-compound-then-had-to-get-out-alive/

He Leaked the Secrets of a Southeast Asian Scam Compound. Then He Had to Get Out Alive

A source trapped inside an industrial-scale scamming operation contacted me, determined to expose his captors’ crimes—and then escape. This is his story.

WIRED

Look, Jeff Atwood, it is difficult to take you seriously when you write authoritatively on a subject you clearly don’t understand.

GDPR doesn’t mandate cookie notices.

Cookie notices are *malicious compliance* by the surveillance-driven adtech industry.

If you’re not tracking people, you do not need a cookie notice, period.

If you’re only using first-party cookies for functional reasons, you do not need a cookie notice, period.

If you’re using third-party cookies to track people – i.e., if you’re sharing their data with others – then *you must have their consent to do so*. Because, otherwise, you are violating their privacy. Even then, the law doesn’t mandate a cookie notice.

How would you conform to EU law without a cookie notice if your aim wasn’t malicious compliance?

You would not track people by default and you would make it so they have to go your site’s settings to turn on third-party tracking if, for some inexplicable reason, they wanted that “feature”.

Boom!

No cookie notice necessary.

What’s that?

But that would destroy your business because your business is founded on the fundamental mechanic of violating people’s privacy?

Good.

Your business doesn’t deserve to exist.

Because the real bullshit here isn’t EU legislation that protects the human right to privacy, it’s the toxic Silicon Valley/Big Tech business model of farming people for data that violates everyone’s privacy and opens the door to technofascism.

https://infosec.exchange/@codinghorror/115120175033311443

Jeff Atwood (@[email protected])

Look, EU, it is difficult to take you seriously when you forced all this cookie notification bullshit on us. That feature a) should not exist and b) if it did, should be a BROWSER feature not "every website in the entire world now has to bother everyone forever about this stupid thing" https://blog.codinghorror.com/breaking-the-webs-cookie-jar/

Infosec Exchange
Alas, it is time for more uncomfortable questions, in this case regarding the announced Android developer verification program: https://commonsware.com/blog/2025/08/26/uncomfortable-questions-android-developer-verification.html #AndroidDev
Uncomfortable Questions About Android Developer Verification

Google announced a program that is proving to be unpopular among Android app development experts. I have questions.

CommonsWare: Android App Development Books
If you're an #androiddev or #iosdev and want to be interviewed by the EU as part of https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/c7161c9d-9db5-c881-5f50-7faab4af7387 send me a DM, and I'll pass on the interviewers' e-mail addresses (they've asked me to do this).
Non siate come the vecchio, andate a votare al referecchio (una poesia)
I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, "It's only working because you're here."
I'm currently looking for a new fully remote, contract role. I have 15 years of Android experience, and plenty more Kotlin, Java , C / C++, and even more obscure stuff
Microsoft, I don’t know how to express just how close to actual hell that sounds like to me.