Anyone

Download the analysis here (pdf)

The implementation of the regulation for a European electronic identity (EUid) based on digital wallets faces new criticism by digital rights groups. One of them, Austria-based Epic, recently published an open letter, and urged the European Commission to close certain loopholes that would lead to severe privacy and transparency problems.

Soon after the letter, the updated implementing acts seemed like a step in the right direction – "until we discovered completely new weak spots that not only endanger user privacy but also contradict the European Parliament’s agreement," Epicenter says in an analysis.

The Commission's new draft contains "privacy and transparency shortcomings [that] undermine trust in the eIDAS ecosystem and the democratic process as a whole. They must be fixed immediately," Epicenter adds.

A core pillar of trust in the eIDAS ecosystem is the public relying party registry. This registry is essential to enable oversight by public watchdogs and to ensure transparency. However, the current system makes it nearly impossible to obtain a meaningful overview of how relying parties are using digital identities – undermining the sole purpose of a transparency register.

The current draft of implementing acts fails to clearly distinguish between cases where a relying party is legally required to identify wallet users and other scenarios where such identification is optional. Practically speaking, the Wallet doesn’t know if it interacts with a bank that has a legal obligation to know who their customers are or Facebook that have no right to identify or track us.

Since the right to use pseudonyms depends on this distinction, it is critical that relying parties explicitly state whether a legal identification obligation applies to them and based on which law in particular. This lack of clarity cancels out the right to pseudonymity and makes the enforcement nearly impossible.

Even more concerning are the controversial changes made behind closed doors, after the public consultation process had already concluded, and at the explicit request of powerful industry players. These changes reintroduce a unique, persistent identifier and extend its scope towards the private sector – assigning users a lifelong, unchangeable digital identity number.

This proposal clearly contradicts the eIDAS regulation. The European Parliament had already drawn a clear red line against such an identifier – and now, it is being reintroduced in an undemocratic manner through an implementing act.

Just started reading this book by J. McKenzie Alexander, Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at London School of Economics (LSE), which is free to download as ePub, Mobi, and pdf.

Nearly 80 years ago, Karl Popper gave a spirited philosophical defence of the Open Society in his two-volume work, The Open Society and Its Enemies. In this book, J. McKenzie Alexander argues that a new defence is urgently needed because, in the decades since the end of the Cold War, many of the values of the Open Society have come under threat once again. Populist agendas on both the left and right threaten to undermine fundamental principles that underpin liberal democracies, so that what were previously seen as virtues of the Open Society are now, by many people, seen as vices, dangers, or threats.

The Open Society as an Enemy interrogates four interconnected aspects of the Open Society: cosmopolitanism, transparency, the free exchange of ideas, and communitarianism. Each of these is analysed in depth, drawing out the implications for contemporary social questions such as the free movement of people, the erosion of privacy, no-platforming and the increased political and social polarisation that is fuelled by social media.

In re-examining the consequences for all of us of these attacks on free societies, Alexander calls for resistance to the forces of reaction. But he also calls for the concept of the Open Society to be rehabilitated and advanced. In doing this, he argues, there is an opportunity to re-think the kind of society we want to create, and to ensure it is achievable and sustainable. This forensic defence of the core principles of the Open Society is an essential read for anyone wishing to understand some of the powerful social currents that have engulfed public debates in recent years, and what to do about them.

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A giant digital clock in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, is counting down the hours until the states join the western European power grid. "We are now removing Russia's ability to use the electricity system as a tool of geopolitical blackmail," Lithuania's Energy Minister Zygimantas Vaiciunas said.

Official celebrations are planned across the Baltics, although some consumers worry about disruptions to supply.

Latvia will physically cut a power line to Russia on Saturday and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is to attend a ceremony with Baltic leaders in Vilnius on Sunday.

"This is the last step in our fight for energy independence. We can finally take matters into our own hands," Vaiciunas said.

The Baltic states were once Soviet republics but are now part of the European Union and key NATO members on the frontier with Russia.

They have been preparing to integrate with the European grid for years but have faced technological and financial issues.

The switch became more urgent after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022

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Archived

Recovering South Korean shopaholic-turned-climate activist Lee So-yeon used to buy new clothes almost daily – until a $1.50 winter coat triggered an awakening that stopped her shopping entirely.

While looking at the ultra-cheap padded jacket at an H&M shop in the United States, where she was working at the time, Lee asked herself how any item of clothing could be sold so cheaply.

The 30-year-old embarked on a deep dive into fast fashion production methods and was horrified at the human, social and environmental toll hyperconsumerism is having on the planet – and on the mental health of women who make and buy cheap clothes.

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The reason the clothes are so cheap, Lee learned, is because the women who sew for companies are paid little, while the business model itself is causing significant environmental harm.

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Lee now organises clothing swaps with her friends and family, and has written a book to promote the idea of valuing garments for “the story behind it”, rather than chasing ephemeral trends.

She is part of a small but growing global movement seeking to promote second-hand clothing and help people – especially women – opt out of the cycle of over-consumption.

The app Lucky Sweater provides a platform for users to trade items from their closets with each other, focussing on sustainable brands, founder Tanya Dastyar [said].

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Archived

The European Union and Moldova on Tuesday agreed on an energy security plan aimed at weaning the country off its dependence on Russian supplies and integrating it into the 27-nation bloc’s network.

The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, said that Moldova would receive 250 million euros ($258 million) this year — 40% of it by mid-April — after Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom cut supplies on Jan. 1.

Daily electrical outages were imposed after hundreds of thousands of people in Moldova’s separatist pro-Russian Transnistria region were left without heating and hot water last month over an alleged $709 million bill for past supplies to Moldova.

The decision by Gazprom, which came into effect a day after a gas transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine expired, halted gas supplies to Transnistria’s gas-operated Kuciurgan power plant, the country’s largest, which provided a significant portion of Moldova’s electricity.

The commission said that its financial package will provide support to consumers in Moldova – a candidate country for EU membership – to help pay their rising electricity bills. Some 60 million euros ($62 million) is earmarked for 350,000 people left in the cold in Transnistria.

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Archived

Greenland’s legislature debated Tuesday whether to prohibit political parties from receiving contributions “from foreign or anonymous contributors” after President Donald Trump laid out ambitions for the United States to take over the vast island that belongs to Denmark.

Inatsisartut, Greenland’s parliament, discussed the proposal that would also ban any single party from receiving domestic private contributions that exceed 200,000 Danish kroner (about $27,700) in total, or 20,000 kroner (about $2,770) for a single contributor.

The government of Greenland asked the parliament’s five-member presidency to consider a bill aimed to “protect Greenland’s political integrity” that would take effect immediately.

The bill “must be seen in light of the geopolitical interests in Greenland and the current situation where representatives of an allied great power have expressed interest in taking over and controlling Greenland,” according to a translation of a parliamentary document in Danish outlining the measure.

The move comes ahead of parliamentary elections that must be held no later than April in Greenland.

Kent Fridberg, a senior legal officer at parliament, said he did not know whether any such foreign donors had already contributed to Greenland’s political parties and the idea for the bill was “basically a preventative measure.”

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Fridberg noted Trump’s expressed interest in Greenland — and said some Russian politicians had voiced a similar interest — and that parties on the island are generally funded by public means.

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/17978607

Archived

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A European alliance has emerged with an alternative to tech’s global order.

They call their project OpenEuroLLM. Like DeepSeek, they aim to develop next-generation open-source language models — but their agenda is very different. Their mission: forging European AI that will foster digital leaders and impactful public services across the continent.

To support these objectives, OpenEuroLLM is building a family of high-performing, multilingual large language foundation models. The models will be available for commercial, industrial, and public services.

Over 20 leading European research institutions, companies, and high-performance computing (HPC) centres have enlisted in the the project. Leading their alliance is Jan Hajič, a renowned computational linguist at Charles University, Czechia, and Peter Sarlin, the co-founder of Silo AI, Europe’s largest private AI lab, which was acquired last year by US chipmaker AMD for $665mn.

They’re joined by an array of European tech luminaries. Among them are Aleph Alpha, the leading light of Germany’s AI sector, Finland’s CSC, which hosts one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers., and France’s Lights On, which recently became Europe’s first publicly-traded GenAI company.

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/17978607

Archived

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A European alliance has emerged with an alternative to tech’s global order.

They call their project OpenEuroLLM. Like DeepSeek, they aim to develop next-generation open-source language models — but their agenda is very different. Their mission: forging European AI that will foster digital leaders and impactful public services across the continent.

To support these objectives, OpenEuroLLM is building a family of high-performing, multilingual large language foundation models. The models will be available for commercial, industrial, and public services.

Over 20 leading European research institutions, companies, and high-performance computing (HPC) centres have enlisted in the the project. Leading their alliance is Jan Hajič, a renowned computational linguist at Charles University, Czechia, and Peter Sarlin, the co-founder of Silo AI, Europe’s largest private AI lab, which was acquired last year by US chipmaker AMD for $665mn.

They’re joined by an array of European tech luminaries. Among them are Aleph Alpha, the leading light of Germany’s AI sector, Finland’s CSC, which hosts one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers., and France’s Lights On, which recently became Europe’s first publicly-traded GenAI company.

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Archived

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A European alliance has emerged with an alternative to tech’s global order.

They call their project OpenEuroLLM. Like DeepSeek, they aim to develop next-generation open-source language models — but their agenda is very different. Their mission: forging European AI that will foster digital leaders and impactful public services across the continent.

To support these objectives, OpenEuroLLM is building a family of high-performing, multilingual large language foundation models. The models will be available for commercial, industrial, and public services.

Over 20 leading European research institutions, companies, and high-performance computing (HPC) centres have enlisted in the the project. Leading their alliance is Jan Hajič, a renowned computational linguist at Charles University, Czechia, and Peter Sarlin, the co-founder of Silo AI, Europe’s largest private AI lab, which was acquired last year by US chipmaker AMD for $665mn.

They’re joined by an array of European tech luminaries. Among them are Aleph Alpha, the leading light of Germany’s AI sector, Finland’s CSC, which hosts one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers., and France’s Lights On, which recently became Europe’s first publicly-traded GenAI company.

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/17863364

A court [in the UK] has ruled that consent for two new Scottish oil and gas fields was granted unlawfully and their owners must seek fresh approval from the UK government before production can begin.

The written judgement on the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields [off Shetland] came after a case brought by environmental campaigners, Uplift and Greenpeace, at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

In his judgement, Lord Ericht said a more detailed assessment of the fields' environmental impact was required, taking into account the effect on the climate of burning any fossil fuels extracted.

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Shell's Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea was originally approved by the previous UK Conservative government, and the industry regulator, in summer 2022.

Permission for the Rosebank oil development, 80 miles west of Shetland in the North Atlantic, was granted in autumn 2023.

In a 57-page judgement, Lord Ericht wrote that there was a public interest in having the decision "remade on a lawful basis" because of the effects of climate change - which he said outweighed the interests of the developers.

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A court [in the UK] has ruled that consent for two new Scottish oil and gas fields was granted unlawfully and their owners must seek fresh approval from the UK government before production can begin.

The written judgement on the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields [off Shetland] came after a case brought by environmental campaigners, Uplift and Greenpeace, at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

In his judgement, Lord Ericht said a more detailed assessment of the fields' environmental impact was required, taking into account the effect on the climate of burning any fossil fuels extracted.

...

Shell's Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea was originally approved by the previous UK Conservative government, and the industry regulator, in summer 2022.

Permission for the Rosebank oil development, 80 miles west of Shetland in the North Atlantic, was granted in autumn 2023.

In a 57-page judgement, Lord Ericht wrote that there was a public interest in having the decision "remade on a lawful basis" because of the effects of climate change - which he said outweighed the interests of the developers.

...

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Of the 2,206 active leases in the Gulf of Mexico, only a fifth are producing oil, according to records from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which regulates offshore drilling. Oil industry executives and analysts say the current number of 448 oil-producing leases is unlikely to grow significantly, even if Trump makes good on promises to expand leasing opportunities and expedite drilling permits.

The market is saturated with oil, making companies reluctant to spend more money drilling because the added product will likely push prices down, cutting into profits.

“It’s not the regulations that are getting in the way, it’s the economics,” said Hugh Daigle, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Texas in Austin. “It’s true that there are a bunch of undeveloped leases in the Gulf, and it’ll stay that way if we continue to see low or stagnant oil prices.”

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