In July 2025, the Netherlands faced a crisis that unfolded not in public squares but across invisible networks. The Public Prosecution Service, several courts, and parts of the Ministry of Justice were forced to halt operations. Hearings were postponed, case files became inaccessible, and whole sections of the justice system were brought to a standstill. The cause was not ransomware flashing on screens or stolen data dumped online. It was the silent exploitation of Citrix NetScaler, a remote-access system used by thousands of organisations to let staff work securely from anywhere. Think of Citrix as a heavily guarded front door to an office: only authorised people can enter, and it keeps prying eyes out. In theory. In July, that door had both a faulty lock and an absent guard. ...

Far-right movements thrive in the shadows, weaving complex networks across borders that shape politics and media narratives. Reactionary International steps into that murky terrain with a public, evidence-based approach, mapping these hidden connections for all to see. Rather than conspiracy or propaganda, it offers rigorous research from a diverse team of contributors worldwide. Exploring the project’s origins, funding realities, and why it stands apart from typical disinformation claims. A public lens on hidden networks Reactionary International is an openly accessible research platform published by Progressive International, whose About page clearly describes its creation and mission. Its stated aim is to trace the links between politicians, think‑tanks, media outlets, financiers, journalists and technology platforms involved in far‑right coordination and influence campaigns. ...

In one corner, we have Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, telling The Guardian in 2024 that AI will be “10 times bigger than the Industrial Revolution.” Disruption is inevitable, he says, but humanity will adapt, as it always does. The challenge is simply to manage the turbulence. In the other corner, we have Joseph Weizenbaum, reflecting in the 1980s on his earlier work designing a banking system for processing physical cheques. It was an intricate, technically satisfying project. Only years later did it occur to him that no one had asked whether automating cheque processing at scale was socially desirable, or what knock-on effects it might have. “It never occurred to me to ask,” he admitted. ...

In 1991, The Tech at MIT published an interview with Joseph Weizenbaum, the computer scientist best known for creating ELIZA and later becoming one of the field’s sharpest internal critics. Speaking with Diana ben‑Aaron, he dissected the role of computers in education, their entanglement with the military, and the ethical evasions of scientists. Three decades later, his words are less a time capsule and more a mirror, the issues he named have not only persisted but mutated into modern forms, from AI hype cycles to tech‑military partnerships dressed up in start‑up chic. This post is a “then/now” rendering of that interview: his points in their original spirit, and how they look in the world of 2025. ...

Threat modelling for zero-day vulnerabilities is a peculiar exercise in preparing for the unknowable. These are not the comfortable, catalogue‑ready bugs that live in CVE databases. These are the ones nobody, least of all the vendor, has seen fit to admit exist. They arrive without warning, without a patch, and with precisely zero days’ notice before being exploited. The task, therefore, is less about ticking boxes and more about building the sort of resilience that can withstand the unexpected without falling to pieces. ...

In the spring of 2021, Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) researcher Wietse Boonstra quietly uncovered seven critical flaws in Kaseya’s widely used IT management software. DIVD warned the company within days, flagging more than 2,200 vulnerable systems across the globe. Weeks later, three flaws remained unpatched, and the REvil ransomware gang pounced. Overnight, some 1,500 organisations were paralysed, from supermarkets in Sweden to schools in New Zealand. This was not an isolated close call. In a 2023 study with the University of Twente, DIVD found that less than half of Dutch municipalities acted promptly when notified of exploitable flaws in their email systems. In some cases, local authorities ignored the warnings entirely. ...

Ten years ago, Nonprofit AF , in Weaponized data: How the obsession with data has been hurting marginalized communities, warned that nonprofits’ data obsession could dehumanise and harm marginalised communities, reducing lived experiences to reductive metrics, ignoring power dynamics, and prioritising funder dashboards. Now it’s 2025. Technology, AI, data regulation, and global politics have changed, but many threats have only intensified. What changed? What has improved Stronger legal guardrails (sometimes) Since GDPR (2018), Europe and other jurisdictions have enacted data protections that at least nominally strengthen consent and individual’s rights. Data-sharing rules and transparency mandates force nonprofits to be somewhat more accountable. ...

In The Hunger Games, twenty-four children are forced to kill each other while the elites applaud. It was sold as dystopian fiction. The trouble is, it is looking more like current affairs with every passing news cycle. The real world, too, is structured like a zero-sum game, where one person’s gain is another’s loss. There are no mutual wins here, only trade-offs, casualties, and very profitable illusions. This article contends that global power operates not unlike the Capitol’s arena: a ritualised battleground in which marginalised regions, Gaza, the Congo, Yemen, Ukraine, are sacrificed to maintain the illusion of order and the comfort of hegemony. The names change. The rules do not. ...

The global system is less a well-oiled machine and more a Jenga tower of vested interests, teetering on the edge of collapse, but held together by the shared fear of losing one’s own block. It stays upright not by design brilliance, but by inertia, intimidation, and a stubborn refusal to imagine alternatives. As in … Inertia of the comfortable Those with power, states, corporations, elites, and multilateral institutions, are quite content, thank you. Change threatens their positions. So they: ...

At first glance, The Hunger Games seems like a dystopian romp designed for young adults who enjoy a bit of archery and a healthy disdain for authority. But dig deeper, and Suzanne Collins’ world is less allegory than blueprint. Panem is not merely fiction. It is a thinly veiled map of our geopolitical, economic, and psychological landscape. If you squint (or even if you do not), you can see the outlines of our own era: a decadent centre, exploited peripheries, staged conflict as entertainment, and rebellions whose success depends not on justice, but on optics. ...