FBI Subpoenaed Breakroom Suggestion Box
Also community collapse and two billion email addresses went missing.

The Case of the Anonymous Archiver

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, has apparently decided the most pressing matter of national security is finding out who runs the highly useful but intentionally opaque website, archive.is. This is essentially the digital equivalent of an entire government agency trying to unmask the person who keeps leaving anonymous, but always accurate, critiques of the office coffee machine in the breakroom suggestion box. The FBI issued a subpoena to domain registrar Tucows to try and get the owner's information, presumably so they can send a strongly worded email about 'data retention policy compliance'.

The website is popular because it captures snapshots of web pages that companies and individuals would prefer to delete or pretend never existed. This is not a crime, but it is certainly inconvenient for corporate narratives. The comments section is full of weary systems administrators pointing out that a US subpoena on a foreign-operated service, even via a US-based registrar, is just the usual jurisdictional drama. It is a massive waste of taxpayer resources to uncover the identity of someone whose job is essentially 'digital historian of minor errors', but one must maintain the illusion of control.

Mozilla Disbands the Japanese Volunteer Team, Citing 'Optimization'

Mozilla has begun dissolving the community support structure for its long running Japanese volunteer community, which has contributed countless hours to Firefox localization and support. This is the corporate equivalent of firing the beloved, highly effective regional manager, Mr. Tanaka, and replacing him with a very enthusiastic new process flow chart. The official reason involves a transition to a new support model, a phrase that always translates to 'we are going to save money now and fix the broken user experience later'.

For nearly a thousand users, the discussion thread is a slow, dignified lament for a system that worked for two decades but was apparently too messy for the new global corporate spreadsheet. Many community members are expressing concern that the nuanced, dedicated support they provided will be replaced by generic, one size fits all corporate content. It is a cautionary tale about how decentralized goodwill is often viewed as unaccounted liability on the corporate balance sheet.

International Criminal Court Cancels its Microsoft 365 Subscription

The International Criminal Court, or ICC, is switching off Microsoft 365 and is instead opting for openDesk, an open source digital workspace solution. This is a massive, highly bureaucratic rejection of proprietary cloud software. The ICC essentially realized that their previous 'filing cabinet', provided by a US company, was under the potential jurisdiction of another government. They have decided to move their sensitive documents into a filing cabinet that is built and owned entirely in house.

The shift is a victory for the principle of data sovereignty, or what we call 'not letting Big Brother accidentally see your search history'. The court decided that trusting its most sensitive legal proceedings to a cloud provider with a legal obligation to the US government was an unacceptable operational risk. It turns out that when the stakes are literally international war crimes, companies like Microsoft and their excellent collaborative tooling are not worth the hidden paperwork.

Briefs

• Email Oopsie: Two billion email addresses were exposed, indexed, and reported by security researcher Troy Hunt on his Have I Been Pwned service. The new number is a fun reminder that your old AOL account password is definitely in the public domain now.
• Agent Mania: A blog post on Fly.io implores everyone to write an agent, continuing the tech industry's quest to make your computer run small, slightly stupid copies of your boss that can argue with other small, slightly stupid copies of other people's bosses.
• Smart Home: IKEA launched a new smart home range featuring 21 Matter-compatible products. We can now look forward to the day your Swedish bookcase is arguing with your Google thermostat about the proper atmospheric humidity for an optimized user experience.