cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/9485476

A new Which? investigation has found potentially lethal knock-off chargers still being sold on online marketplaces seven years after the consumer champion first exposed the danger they pose to UK consumers.

More than half of cheap charger bought from Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Temu and others fail safety checks or miss legally required product markings.

Archived version

Here is the link to the original study by the consumer group Which?

Cheap phone chargers sold on some of Britain’s biggest online marketplaces can explode, catch fire or electrocute users, according to safety tests by Which?.

An investigation by the consumer group found that nine out of fifteen USB phone chargers bought from retailers including Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, B&Q Marketplace and Debenhams Marketplace failed electrical safety tests. Some were found to contain lumps of modelling clay to make them feel more substantial.

Every charger tested was also found to be missing legally required information on its packaging, documentation or the product itself, meaning none could legally be sold in the UK.

The findings are likely to increase pressure on ministers to use new powers to force online marketplaces to take greater responsibility for the safety of products sold by third-party agents.

...

The findings come despite repeated warnings about unsafe electrical products sold online. Which? first highlighted dangerous chargers on major marketplaces in 2019 and has since carried out a series of investigations into potentially hazardous products sold through third-party platforms.

...

Which? is calling on the government to use powers contained in the Product Regulation and Metrology Act, which received royal assent last year, to impose explicit legal duties on online marketplaces to ensure products sold through their platforms are safe.

...

The legislation allows ministers to introduce new requirements through secondary legislation but the government has yet to bring forward detailed rules. A consultation on potential changes was launched recently.

Consumer groups argue that the delay is allowing unsafe goods to continue reaching British households.

...

Amazon said customer safety was a top priority and that it had removed the products highlighted by Which?. AliExpress said both identified products had been removed and affected customers would be informed of the risks. Debenhams said it had removed the listing and was contacting customers to offer refunds.

eBay said that all of the products identified in the investigation had already been removed through its existing safety processes before Which? shared its findings and pointed to measures that it said prevented 21 million potentially unsafe listings from appearing on the site last year.

Temu and Shein said they had removed or suspended the relevant listings while reviewing compliance with British labelling and documentation requirements.

A new Which? investigation has found potentially lethal knock-off chargers still being sold on online marketplaces seven years after the consumer champion first exposed the danger they pose to UK consumers.

More than half of cheap charger bought from Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Temu and others fail safety checks or miss legally required product markings.

Archived version

Here is the link to the original study by the consumer group Which?

Cheap phone chargers sold on some of Britain’s biggest online marketplaces can explode, catch fire or electrocute users, according to safety tests by Which?.

An investigation by the consumer group found that nine out of fifteen USB phone chargers bought from retailers including Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, B&Q Marketplace and Debenhams Marketplace failed electrical safety tests. Some were found to contain lumps of modelling clay to make them feel more substantial.

Every charger tested was also found to be missing legally required information on its packaging, documentation or the product itself, meaning none could legally be sold in the UK.

The findings are likely to increase pressure on ministers to use new powers to force online marketplaces to take greater responsibility for the safety of products sold by third-party agents.

...

The findings come despite repeated warnings about unsafe electrical products sold online. Which? first highlighted dangerous chargers on major marketplaces in 2019 and has since carried out a series of investigations into potentially hazardous products sold through third-party platforms.

...

Which? is calling on the government to use powers contained in the Product Regulation and Metrology Act, which received royal assent last year, to impose explicit legal duties on online marketplaces to ensure products sold through their platforms are safe.

...

The legislation allows ministers to introduce new requirements through secondary legislation but the government has yet to bring forward detailed rules. A consultation on potential changes was launched recently.

Consumer groups argue that the delay is allowing unsafe goods to continue reaching British households.

...

Amazon said customer safety was a top priority and that it had removed the products highlighted by Which?. AliExpress said both identified products had been removed and affected customers would be informed of the risks. Debenhams said it had removed the listing and was contacting customers to offer refunds.

eBay said that all of the products identified in the investigation had already been removed through its existing safety processes before Which? shared its findings and pointed to measures that it said prevented 21 million potentially unsafe listings from appearing on the site last year.

Temu and Shein said they had removed or suspended the relevant listings while reviewing compliance with British labelling and documentation requirements.

Petition closes on 10 December 2026.

Previously, the NHS Service Standard held that “public services are built with public money, so unless there's a good reason not to, the code they're based on should be made available for other people to reuse and build on.” This is what the current policy should be reverted to.

NHS England has issued guidance, called SDLC-8, which requires that all source code repositories be private from the 11th of May, 2026, unless there is an exceptional need, approved by the Engineering Board.

The Free Software Foundation Europe have warned that open repositories allow security researchers to inspect and report vulnerabilities, and that de-publishing code does nothing to prevent attackers from analysing already-deployed systems, binaries, or previously copied source code.

Archived version

Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a "resurgence and expansion" of JDY, a covert network associated with China-nexus state-sponsored threat actors.

"The JDY botnet comprises over 1,500 SOHO [small office and home office] and IoT devices and operates as a centrally controlled, high-performance scanner used to discover, fingerprint, and continuously map exposed services at scale," Lumen's Black Lotus Labs said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

JDY was first flagged as a cluster within another botnet codenamed KV-botnet in mid-December 2023. Primarily used for broader scanning against internet targets, the stealthy network comprising compromised SOHO routers, firewalls, and IoT devices has been put to use by Chinese hacking groups like Volt Typhoon.

...

Apple blames DMA for delaying Siri AI in Europe. The EU says nothing is stopping Apple from launching it.

Archived version

...

Jan Penfrat, a senior policy adviser for European Digital Rights (EDRi) ... sees Apple’s latest moves as a means of putting pressure on the EU Commission to allow it to break the DMA. “It’s very much a lobbying tactic,” he said. “The problem is not the DMA but Apple refusing to open up its competition-busting software ecosystem.”

For Michael Veale, a professor of technology law and policy at University College London, the core issue is that Apple is making an exception to its own long-standing privacy and security setup “in order to stay relevant and in the game” when it comes to AI. “Apple’s privacy and security model is built like a Jenga tower, based on extreme vertical control by the firm, and risks collapsing when interoperability is introduced.” In other words: Apple’s comfortable altering its own practices for Siri AI, giving the AI the ability to access lots of data across different apps, but argues the same kind of access is too dangerous when competitors ask for it.

Veale and Penfrat both said there’s no way to properly assess Apple’s proposed solution because the company has not made it public. Other experts, such as [the professor of competition law and digital regulation at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, Friso] Bostoen, questioned why Apple needs as long as 18 months to implement it, given the interoperability requirements were predictable and should have been addressed in parallel with the development of Siri AI.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/9446418

The deadly crackdown on the December 2025-January 2026 anti-regime protests saw many Iranians killed, tracked or detained. The US-Israel war on Iran has intensified the repression, but it has not stopped families from trying to trace their missing loved ones or from seeking justice for people who have disappeared into prisons and juvenile correction centres across the country.

...

The war broke out just a few weeks after the latest protests, which were initially driven by deteriorating living conditions, before evolving into a widespread movement challenging the regime. The conflict has also disrupted efforts by several Iranian NGOs outside the country to document the scale of the crackdown.

In a comprehensive report published in late February, the Virginia-based NGO, Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI), recorded 6,488 confirmed and verified deaths of protesters. An additional 11,744 cases remain “under review and are not included in confirmed totals", the report noted.

...

Dozens of protesters arrested during the December-January uprisings have been charged with attacking security forces or trespassing on military installations and sentenced to death. Some have already been executed.

...

The detainees also include minors. In a report on the repression of schoolchildren, the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran states that hundreds of children have been arbitrarily detained, subjected to enforced disappearance, and denied access to their families and legal counsel. The NGO reported that at least 216 children had been killed during the protests.

...

[There are also] reports on the case of Diana Taherabadi, a 16-year-old high school student, who was arrested at her home in late January and is being held at the Kachoui Juvenile Rehabilitation and Correctional Centre.

“Sources close to the student's family have reported that confessions were extracted from her during her detention, a claim that has not been independently verified. However, during her judicial hearing, she rejected the charges brought against her and stated that she played no role in the matters attributed to her,” the media outlet reported.

...

These cases contradict statements by Iran’s Education Ministry spokesperson Ali Farhadi, who told the official ISNA news agency in early February that “thanks to the Iranian education minister’s oversight, no student remained in detention from the very first days of the unrest".

...

Despite the risks, families continue to demand justice and pay tribute to the victims of the state’s crackdown. Last week, relatives of Pajman Norooz Rajabi gathered at the spot where the 27-year-old athlete was killed by security forces on January 8 in Tonekabon, a northern Iranian city, formerly known as Shahsavar, located on the Caspian coast.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/9446418

The deadly crackdown on the December 2025-January 2026 anti-regime protests saw many Iranians killed, tracked or detained. The US-Israel war on Iran has intensified the repression, but it has not stopped families from trying to trace their missing loved ones or from seeking justice for people who have disappeared into prisons and juvenile correction centres across the country.

...

The war broke out just a few weeks after the latest protests, which were initially driven by deteriorating living conditions, before evolving into a widespread movement challenging the regime. The conflict has also disrupted efforts by several Iranian NGOs outside the country to document the scale of the crackdown.

In a comprehensive report published in late February, the Virginia-based NGO, Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI), recorded 6,488 confirmed and verified deaths of protesters. An additional 11,744 cases remain “under review and are not included in confirmed totals", the report noted.

...

Dozens of protesters arrested during the December-January uprisings have been charged with attacking security forces or trespassing on military installations and sentenced to death. Some have already been executed.

...

The detainees also include minors. In a report on the repression of schoolchildren, the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran states that hundreds of children have been arbitrarily detained, subjected to enforced disappearance, and denied access to their families and legal counsel. The NGO reported that at least 216 children had been killed during the protests.

...

[There are also] reports on the case of Diana Taherabadi, a 16-year-old high school student, who was arrested at her home in late January and is being held at the Kachoui Juvenile Rehabilitation and Correctional Centre.

“Sources close to the student's family have reported that confessions were extracted from her during her detention, a claim that has not been independently verified. However, during her judicial hearing, she rejected the charges brought against her and stated that she played no role in the matters attributed to her,” the media outlet reported.

...

These cases contradict statements by Iran’s Education Ministry spokesperson Ali Farhadi, who told the official ISNA news agency in early February that “thanks to the Iranian education minister’s oversight, no student remained in detention from the very first days of the unrest".

...

Despite the risks, families continue to demand justice and pay tribute to the victims of the state’s crackdown. Last week, relatives of Pajman Norooz Rajabi gathered at the spot where the 27-year-old athlete was killed by security forces on January 8 in Tonekabon, a northern Iranian city, formerly known as Shahsavar, located on the Caspian coast.

...

The deadly crackdown on the December 2025-January 2026 anti-regime protests saw many Iranians killed, tracked or detained. The US-Israel war on Iran has intensified the repression, but it has not stopped families from trying to trace their missing loved ones or from seeking justice for people who have disappeared into prisons and juvenile correction centres across the country.

...

The war broke out just a few weeks after the latest protests, which were initially driven by deteriorating living conditions, before evolving into a widespread movement challenging the regime. The conflict has also disrupted efforts by several Iranian NGOs outside the country to document the scale of the crackdown.

In a comprehensive report published in late February, the Virginia-based NGO, Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI), recorded 6,488 confirmed and verified deaths of protesters. An additional 11,744 cases remain “under review and are not included in confirmed totals", the report noted.

...

Dozens of protesters arrested during the December-January uprisings have been charged with attacking security forces or trespassing on military installations and sentenced to death. Some have already been executed.

...

The detainees also include minors. In a report on the repression of schoolchildren, the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran states that hundreds of children have been arbitrarily detained, subjected to enforced disappearance, and denied access to their families and legal counsel. The NGO reported that at least 216 children had been killed during the protests.

...

[There are also] reports on the case of Diana Taherabadi, a 16-year-old high school student, who was arrested at her home in late January and is being held at the Kachoui Juvenile Rehabilitation and Correctional Centre.

“Sources close to the student's family have reported that confessions were extracted from her during her detention, a claim that has not been independently verified. However, during her judicial hearing, she rejected the charges brought against her and stated that she played no role in the matters attributed to her,” the media outlet reported.

...

These cases contradict statements by Iran’s Education Ministry spokesperson Ali Farhadi, who told the official ISNA news agency in early February that “thanks to the Iranian education minister’s oversight, no student remained in detention from the very first days of the unrest".

...

Despite the risks, families continue to demand justice and pay tribute to the victims of the state’s crackdown. Last week, relatives of Pajman Norooz Rajabi gathered at the spot where the 27-year-old athlete was killed by security forces on January 8 in Tonekabon, a northern Iranian city, formerly known as Shahsavar, located on the Caspian coast.

...

Archived version

• A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for false claims in its AI-generated search overviews.
• In this case, Google's AI had wrongly linked two publishers to scams and shady business practices.
• The court treated the AI overviews as Google's own content and rejected Google's argument that users were responsible for fact-checking the results themselves.

Archived version

As Iranian authorities carry out executions at a pace unmatched in decades, death row prisoners and political detainees across the country have sustained an extraordinary act of resistance: a weekly hunger strike against the death penalty that has continued for more than 120 consecutive weeks and spread to 56 prisons across the country.

For more than two years, prisoners across Iran have staged these weekly hunger strikes in protest against the state’s escalating and unlawful use of the death penalty. This campaign of resistance, by Iran’s most vulnerable people against the Islamic Republic’s most inhumane state practice, is known as “No to Execution Tuesdays.”

...

The prisoners themselves made a conscious decision from the outset to reject distinctions between political prisoners, ordinary criminal defendants, drug defendants, qisas cases, and others facing execution, instead putting the spotlight where it should be—that all executions in Iran are carried out unlawfully, after sham prosecutions and unfair trials.

At a moment when executions in Iran have reached alarming levels and political hangings are rapidly increasing, these prisoners have sustained one of the most visible and enduring campaigns against the death penalty inside Iran.

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More Than 2100 Hanged in 2025: The Deadliest Year for Executions in Decades

The Islamic Republic of Iran is the leading per capita executioner in the world. In absolute numbers, it is second only to China.

Executions in the Islamic Republic violate every single international legal standard on the use of the death penalty. They are carried out for religious and political “crimes” and for drug offenses that are all impermissible under international law, and they are routinely handed down following grossly unfair trials, with defendants denied access to independent legal counsel and convicted solely on the basis of forced “confessions” that were extracted under torture.

...

Archived version

An open letter from the Document Foundation warns that Euro-Office, which is being “marketed” as the first open-source office suite developed in Europe, isn't what it seems - and may reinforce Microsoft’s closed source technology instead.

... Microsoft ... developed and controls the horrible proprietary OOXML format, designed precisely to prevent Digital Sovereignty by maintaining content lock-in. It is far less understandable on the part of companies that claim to advocate open source, such as those promoting Euro-Office.

Euro-Office defaults to the fully proprietary OOXML document format, developed and controlled solely by Microsoft. This makes it a de facto ally of Microsoft in its content lock-in strategy, with control remaining firmly in Redmond and far from Europe.

So, despite what is being written in support of Euro-Office — the latest of the office suites developed in Europe, and not the first — the announcement is not against Microsoft. On the contrary, it strengthens Microsoft’s strategy against European Digital Sovereignty, or, if you prefer, against the freedom of European users to control and manage their own content.