Advisers accidentally text war plans.
Also DNA firms exit and dishwashers demand login.

The Case of the Over-Communicative Group Chat

In what can only be described as a failure of basic office communications, several high-ranking U.S. national security leaders have been caught sending sensitive military planning details to the wrong contact list. White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz apparently added an "inadvertent number" to a Signal group chat which contained discussions about imminent military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, code-named Operation Rough Rider. That number belonged to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine.

Senior officials like Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly used the consumer messaging app to coordinate operational details like the types of weapons being used, the targets, and even the attack timing. The White House National Security Council spokesman, Brian Hughes, acknowledged the message thread appears to be authentic. This whole thing feels less like a breach of national security and more like the entire executive team accidentally replied-all to a calendar invite meant for only two people; except instead of a meeting time, it was airstrike coordinates.

23andMe's Exit Strategy: The Fire Sale of Human Lineage

Genetic testing firm 23andMe has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in an attempt to sell substantially all of its assets. This follows a prolonged period of financial turmoil since its public debut in 2021, proving once again that a massive dataset of your ancestral medical history is not a profitable business model. Co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki also resigned from her post but plans to be an independent bidder in the asset sale, which is a bit like selling your house because you cannot pay the mortgage then showing up at the auction to buy it back for pennies on the dollar.

The company insists there will be absolutely "no changes" to how it manages or protects customer data during the court-supervised process. Considering the whole business unit started its implosion following a major data breach, that promise has the reassuring quality of a server room sign that reads "Production is fine, probably." Any buyer must comply with applicable privacy laws, but privacy law is only as strong as the company holding the key, and 23andMe is currently handing out the master key to the bankruptcy court.

Appliances Now Demand a SaaS Subscription for Soap

The ongoing war against local hardware controls has escalated as one engineer found that his new Bosch 500 series dishwasher locks basic functionality behind a cloud connection. Features that used to be a simple button press, such as a rinse cycle or delayed start, are now only "available through Home Connect app only" according to the manual. This requires the appliance to connect to Wi-Fi, which then connects to Bosch's cloud service, which finally lets you tell the machine to, you know, do the dishes.

It is a remarkable engineering feat to take a device whose primary function is to spray water and dirt around and make it dependent on three separate layers of network infrastructure. The main benefit here appears to be either mandatory data collection or a future where the dishwasher suddenly asks for a $4.99 per month "Eco Mode Activation" fee. We are one firmware update away from needing a security audit just to run the garbage disposal.

Briefs

• Open Source Legislation: The German parliament's voting patterns were visualized as a Git contribution graph, an exercise that reveals the true chaos of bureaucracy through the lens of messy version control. Every committee change is now just a regrettable commit.
• Laptop Audio Magic: A new project called Triforce provides a software beamformer for Apple Silicon laptops, essentially turning the internal microphones into an array that focuses on a single speaker. This is great for pretending you are in a quiet room on a conference call even though you are clearly at a crowded coffee shop.
• Printer Protocol: HP avoided paying monetary damages in a class-action settlement over printers that were allegedly remotely bricked by a firmware update, agreeing instead to provide free credits toward ink or printer discounts. The lesson is that your printer owns you, and its mercy is purely discretionary.