Why the Latest Executive Orders Threaten Blind Americans—And How We Can Fight Back

If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you might be feeling frustrated, uncertain, or even afraid about recent executive actions coming from Washington. You’re not alone.

Learn more: buff.ly/40xdHuC

Why the Latest Executive Orders Threaten Blind Americans—And How We Can Fight Back

New executive orders are putting accessibility programs for blind Americans at risk. Learn why this matters and how you can take action to protect our independence.

^{Chris Peterson (Penny Forward)}

"[...] representatives of this group of hackers, commonly referred to as "ethical hackers", though theft and home invasion have nothing to do with ethics—but well, I understand, ethical hackers, because that's what they call themselves [...]" (a certain Polish MP)

"Hacker", as we in the bizz know well, carries different meanings for different people, and this can cause hilarious misunderstandings. Yesterday, the Polish TV network TVN aired the second part of an ongoing documentary about issues in NEWAG trains that were analyzed by Dragon Sector. Near the end, the documentary featured a recording from the November 2024 meeting of the Parliamentary Infrastructure Committee, which was meant to discuss the matter. During the meeting, one of the Members of Parliament took issue with the Dragon Sector team being referred to as "hackers"—the quote above is from him (translated from Polish).

This, of course, is nothing new—just another example of someone knowing the colloquial meaning of the word but not its specialized one. This disconnect has existed for at least the past 40 years.

This raises an interesting question—should we use the word "hacker" in formal settings (court, parliamentary committees, etc.), or would we be better understood if we opted for "cybersecurity specialist" or a similar term, as we often do on LinkedIn and other professional platforms?

Or perhaps we should continue using the word "hacker," as it serves as a great litmus test for whether the person we're discussing these topics with is truly familiar with the computer security industry and its terminology. It’s an unexpected but useful canary—or perhaps a reminder—that not everyone speaks "computer."

Returning to the original quote, and on a rather amusing note—or perhaps to balance things out—multiple departments of the Polish government are actively seeking to hire individuals with the "Certified Ethical Hacker" certification. In some cases, you can even get grants to earn it! Additionally, one can find information on government websites about how Dragon Sector was invited to the National Security Bureau to receive a commemorative letter of congratulations and symbolic gifts after winning the 2014 CTF season.

So, do we continue advocating for our specialized meaning of the word "hacker" in official settings? Or should we revert to something more neutral instead?

Just food for thought :)

Following a suggestion from Eva Town (on Bluesky), I've just added my "thumbs down" to the PR to remove inclusive design info from the US Web Design System:
github.com/uswds/uswds-site/pu…

How about you? 👿

Remove content related to 1/20/25 EO by thisisdano · Pull Request #3078 · uswds/uswds-site

Summary Removed report link and introduction. Removed content related to the January 20, 2025 Executive Order, "Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing". This...

^GitHub

Building a CLI is easy with these browser methods 👀

#deno #nodejs #typescript #WebDev #javascript #WebDevelopment

Our friends at @delta are continuing to make #WebXDC an amazing platform: delta.chat/en/2025-01-23-webxd…

The realtime #WebXDC APIs are built on top of #iroh #p2p connections in #DeltaChat. Glad to be playing a part in this!

Delta Chat: Replacing billionairish platforms with ZIP files

How can we evolve and deploy web apps without allowing developers or operators to become a “billionaire in the middle”? There are many ways to try to address this challenge and some involve the tec...

^delta.chat

This week in #FDroid (TWIF) is live:

- F-Droid Client & Basic 1.22.0 are out (dare to update!)
- #webxdc is spreading its tentacles
- #dolphinemulator has a huge update
- #newpipe brings one fix, one still missing
- Catshare unifies device-to-device sharing

All these and news about 154 more apps at f-droid.org/2025/01/30/twif.ht…

Refresh your home-screen | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

This Week in F-DroidTWIF curated on Thursday, 30 Jan 2025, Week 5F-Droid coreF-Droid and F-Droid Basic were updated to 1.22.0 stable, but not yet ‘suggested’...

^f-droid.org

In case you missed it, acting ICE head Tom Homan was up yesterday complaining that ICE is having a hard time meeting the quotas they're setting because of campaigns telling people their rights and how to resist raids.

In case you're wondering if the little things you do could possibly make a difference, know that they already are.

EDIT: Link to quotes added:

themarysue.com/making-it-very-…

'Making it very difficult to arrest': Trump's Border Czar supposedly hates that migrants know their rights | The Mary Sue

Trump's Border Czar Tom Homan is complaining that mass deportation is harder than he thought it would be. In an interview on CNN, Homan whined that

^{Sarah Fimm (The Mary Sue)}

The US Web Design System has deleted it's info on inclusive design, in response to the 2025-01-20 Executive order "Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing".
github.com/uswds/uswds-site/pu…

If you know anyone who used those resources, let them know about the Inclusive Design principles:
inclusivedesignprinciples.info…

#accessibility #a11y #inclusion

Remove content related to 1/20/25 EO by thisisdano · Pull Request #3078 · uswds/uswds-site

Summary Removed report link and introduction. Removed content related to the January 20, 2025 Executive Order, "Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing". This...

^GitHub

No como el resto de IAs que están alojados en el país que amenaza con invadir Groenlandia, México, Panamá y Canada y cuyas autoridades son conocidas desde hace 30 años por exigir backdoors en todos los productos informáticos

Que lo mismo yo soy viejo, pero recuerdo cuando se demostró que el gobierno americano espiaba a empresas europeas para darle ventajas a sus competidoras americanas y nos tuvimos que callar todos porque libertad y democracia

elpais.com/tecnologia/2025-01-…

DeepSeek no es un juego: el peligro para la privacidad de la nueva IA china

Las descargas masivas de la aplicación del país asiático amplían el potencial de controlar, desinformar y erosionar principios democráticos

^{Raúl Limón (Ediciones EL PAÍS S.L.)}

Marianne Faithfull, 'As Tears Go By' Singer, Dead at 78

rollingstone.com/music/music-n…

Marianne Faithfull, 'As Tears Go By' Singer, Dead at 78

Marianne Faitfull, singer of "As Tears Go By" and the Grammy-nominated 'Broken English,' has died at age 78.

^{Kory Grow (Rolling Stone)}

Freedesktop looking for new home for its GitLab instance

lwn.net/Articles/1007032/ #LWN

Unsere Demokratie lebt von Engagement! Daher muss die Zivilgesellschaft geschützt & nachhaltig und gezielt gefördert werden. Bildung und Open-Source können dabei helfen, digitale Innovation zugänglicher zu machen und das zivilgesellschaftliche Engagement zu stärken. Benachteiligte Gruppen brauchen außerdem eine gezielte Förderung – der Zugang zu Bildungsmaterialien darf nicht vom sozioökonomischen Status abhängen.

Jetzt auf unserem Blog weiterlesen:
🔗 okfn.de/blog/2025/01/die-zukun…

🚀0 A.D. Alpha 27: "Agni" is here! 🔥 The final alpha of our free, open-source RTS, named after the Hindu god of fire. Play on Windows & macOS—no ads, no paywalls! Should be on Linux in the coming weeks.

🔽 Download: play0ad.com/download/

#0AD #RTS #FreeGame #Strategy #FOSS