Google locks the office supply closet.
Also cloud server crashed and Amazon whispered a code.

The New Employee ID Badge for Software

Google is making it a lot harder for everyone to install their own apps on Android-certified devices, effectively mandating a new system of mandatory developer registration which some are calling an "existential threat" to open source distribution platforms like F-Droid. The new rules require every developer, even those for apps that are merely sideloaded and not sold on the Google Play Store, to submit government ID, verify keys, and pay a fee to Google. This is apparently about security, which is the company equivalent of saying, "We need to update our firewall rules," before removing the office fridge.

The "Keep Android Open" campaign has launched in response, urging users to contact regulators across the US, the EU, and other international jurisdictions to protest what the organizers call an "unprecedented expansion" of Google's centralized control. Software developer Marc Prud'hommeaux, a board member at F-Droid, is reportedly leading the movement and stated that the vast majority of people are somewhere between concerned and outraged by the policy. It seems Google is attempting to put a new chain on the front door, while simultaneously insisting they are only adding a better peephole.

The Secret 'Wink' Protocol for Classified Invoices

New documents have revealed that Google and Amazon agreed to a bizarre, secret "winking mechanism" as part of a $1.2 billion cloud contract for Project Nimbus with the Israeli government. This secret warning system was devised to alert the Israeli government when the tech giants were compelled by foreign courts or investigators to hand over Israeli data, despite being under a gag order prohibiting disclosure. Apparently, international data disclosure procedures are now being managed with the sophistication of two fourth-graders passing coded notes during a math test.

The 'wink' was reportedly encoded into payment transfers from Google and Amazon to the Israeli government, with the payment amount corresponding to the telephone dialing code of the country that had received the data. For instance, a payment of 1,000 shekels might signal a disclosure to the United States (dialing code +1), while a 3,900 shekel payment could point to Italy (dialing code +39). The agreement is also reported to include clauses prohibiting Google and Amazon from suspending services to Israeli government entities, even if the usage is found to violate the companies' own terms of service due to human rights concerns. A Google spokesperson denied that the company evades any legal obligations.

We Blame Greg: The Azure Front Door Incident

Microsoft's Azure cloud platform experienced a significant global outage that managed to disrupt core services like Microsoft 365, Xbox Live, and even third-party airline systems like Alaska Airlines. According to Microsoft, the widespread issue was traced back to an "inadvertent tenant configuration change" in the Azure Front Door (AFD) infrastructure. One person pressed the wrong button on a global scale, leading to a massive chain reaction of service degradation across multiple Microsoft products, including Outlook and Teams.

The outage, which happened less than ten days after a similar incident at Amazon Web Services' US-EAST-1 data center, proves that the fragility of our connected world means all the big cloud companies are just a few faulty configuration changes away from chaos. Despite their efforts to implement safeguards against erroneous deployments, Microsoft stated that a software defect allowed the faulty deployment to bypass safety validations. The entire internet is now operating under the assumption that someone will eventually put a zero in the wrong field.

Briefs

• Python Tooling Drama: The Uv project is apparently "the best thing" to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade, which means we should all brace for the inevitable three-way ideological schism that follows any successful tool launch.
• Vintage Acquisition: AOL is being sold to Bending Spoons for a mere $1.5 billion, which is apparently the going rate for an entire digital monument to dial-up noises and forgotten email addresses.
• Subtitles Get Rekt: Streaming service Crunchyroll is reportedly "destroying its subtitles" by implementing an update that breaks text formatting and removes contextual metadata, making them less readable. This is the natural outcome of every company deciding that the content is less important than the container it is shipped in.

The New Employee ID Badge for Software

Google is making it a lot harder for everyone to install their own apps on Android-certified devices, effectively mandating a new system of mandatory developer registration which some are calling an "existential threat" to open source distribution platforms like F-Droid. The new rules require every developer, even those for apps that are merely sideloaded and not sold on the Google Play Store, to submit government ID, verify keys, and pay a fee to Google. This is apparently about security, which is the company equivalent of saying, "We need to update our firewall rules," before removing the office fridge.

The "Keep Android Open" campaign has launched in response, urging users to contact regulators across the US, the EU, and other international jurisdictions to protest what the organizers call an "unprecedented expansion" of Google's centralized control. Software developer Marc Prud'hommeaux, a board member at F-Droid, is reportedly leading the movement and stated that the vast majority of people are somewhere between concerned and outraged by the policy. It seems Google is attempting to put a new chain on the front door, while simultaneously insisting they are only adding a better peephole.

The Secret 'Wink' Protocol for Classified Invoices

New documents have revealed that Google and Amazon agreed to a bizarre, secret "winking mechanism" as part of a $1.2 billion cloud contract for Project Nimbus with the Israeli government. This secret warning system was devised to alert the Israeli government when the tech giants were compelled by foreign courts or investigators to hand over Israeli data, despite being under a gag order prohibiting disclosure. Apparently, international data disclosure procedures are now being managed with the sophistication of two fourth-graders passing coded notes during a math test.

The 'wink' was reportedly encoded into payment transfers from Google and Amazon to the Israeli government, with the payment amount corresponding to the telephone dialing code of the country that had received the data. For instance, a payment of 1,000 shekels might signal a disclosure to the United States (dialing code +1), while a 3,900 shekel payment could point to Italy (dialing code +39). The agreement is also reported to include clauses prohibiting Google and Amazon from suspending services to Israeli government entities, even if the usage is found to violate the companies' own terms of service due to human rights concerns. A Google spokesperson denied that the company evades any legal obligations.

We Blame Greg: The Azure Front Door Incident

Microsoft's Azure cloud platform experienced a significant global outage that managed to disrupt core services like Microsoft 365, Xbox Live, and even third-party airline systems like Alaska Airlines. According to Microsoft, the widespread issue was traced back to an "inadvertent tenant configuration change" in the Azure Front Door (AFD) infrastructure. One person pressed the wrong button on a global scale, leading to a massive chain reaction of service degradation across multiple Microsoft products, including Outlook and Teams.

The outage, which happened less than ten days after a similar incident at Amazon Web Services' US-EAST-1 data center, proves that the fragility of our connected world means all the big cloud companies are just a few faulty configuration changes away from chaos. Despite their efforts to implement safeguards against erroneous deployments, Microsoft stated that a software defect allowed the faulty deployment to bypass safety validations. The entire internet is now operating under the assumption that someone will eventually put a zero in the wrong field.

Briefs

• Python Tooling Drama: The Uv project is apparently "the best thing" to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade, which means we should all brace for the inevitable three-way ideological schism that follows any successful tool launch.
• Vintage Acquisition: AOL is being sold to Bending Spoons for a mere $1.5 billion, which is apparently the going rate for an entire digital monument to dial-up noises and forgotten email addresses.
• Subtitles Get Rekt: Streaming service Crunchyroll is reportedly "destroying its subtitles" by implementing an update that breaks text formatting and removes contextual metadata, making them less readable. This is the natural outcome of every company deciding that the content is less important than the container it is shipped in.