The EU has passed both the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act and they'll take effect some time in 2023. If those names don't ring a bell, they're laws that'll outline certain tech companies as "gatekeepers" and strictly regulate them. Regulation in this case includes stuff like 3rd party app stores/sideloading, 3rd party payment systems, giving others access to hardware in the device (i.e: NFC/secure elements), make it easy to unsubscribe/cancel subscriptions, let users change the default services (i.e: voice assistants etc) on a device and much, much more. Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon (but mostly Apple) are gonna shit their pants and I am here for it. Wikipedia has a surprisingly good amount of information about the DMA and DSA if you want to learn more.
The USA already got the Netherlands to block the sale of ASML's latest extreme ultraviolet lithography machines to China and now they're trying to stop the sale of previous generation deep ultraviolet lithography machines. They're also trying to Japan to stop Nikon selling last-gen lithography machines to China too. Why would the USA do this? They've already made it virtually impossible for any Chinese companies to make the latest and greatest semiconductors, but by making it difficult to make the not-so-new, but still heavily in demand semiconductors, it just feels petty to destroy China's semiconductor industry this way. If China gets cut off from modern lithography machines, the semiconductor shortage won't be easing up any time soon.
NIST is preparing for a post-quantum cryptography world, announcing four encryption algorithms it says are "designed to withstand the assault of a future quantum computer". For general encryption, "used when we access secure websites, NIST has selected the CRYSTALS-Kyber algorithm". For digital signatures, "often used when we need to verify identities during a digital transaction or to sign a document remotely", CRYSTALS-Dilithium, FALCON and SPHINCS+ are NIST's recommendation. I mainly mention this out of curiosity. If you are actually in the position where someone with a quantum computer could access your encrypted data is a real risk, The Sizzle informing you of this news is probably a sign you are fucked.
Dutch police have used deepfake technology to make a very emotional video asking for leads on a teenager's murder, in what is a world first. Sedar Soares, a 13 year old kid, was "shot dead in 2003 while throwing snowballs with his friends in the car park of a Rotterdam metro station". For years police have been stumped as to why he was shot and who done it. You can view the deep fake action at around 33:30 in this documentary about the case and the deep fake re-enactment (all in Dutch, sorry). Police say they've received "dozens of tips" on this cold case after the doco aired, but they "haven'’'t yet checked if these leads are usable".
📻 Nietzsche - The Dandy Warhols
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