ATHENS — Greece’s attempt to lure top scientists back to their homeland after the trauma of the financial crisis has stalled after an ambitious program to reverse the brain drain descended into fiasco.

A group of professors who hoped to bring back young researchers through a much-advertised program financed with EU funds are now feeling betrayed, having been left waiting for years only to find out the program won’t happen.

To rub salt into the wound, no one from the government bothered to inform them that the scheme was dead, they said.

“All this ‘brain gain’ talk isn’t just a joke; it’s a massive step backward,” Aristides Hatzis, a professor at the University of Athens, said. “During the financial crisis, there was only one area where there was money invested: research, as the EU prioritized this. Now there’s nothing; it’s at the very bottom of the list of priorities — a complete abandonment.”

An estimated 500,000 people moved abroad during Greece’s financial crisis, which began in 2008, shrinking the country’s economy by a quarter and driving unemployment to 28 percent. Greece had experienced mass migration before, including in the decades after World War II, but this time it was many citizens with high levels of education and skills who emigrated.

“Brain Regain,” an initiative by the ruling conservative New Democracy government to reverse the mass exodus of scientists and professionals, comprises several schemes, such as offering a 50 percent income tax exemption for seven years, and is expanding to include high-skilled public sector roles.

And overall, the situation has improved since the crisis era.

According to the survey OECD Diaspora Review Greece, from 2021 onward, there has been a steady increase in the number of citizens returning to Greece, with 2023 marking a milestone year when — for the first time since the start of the crisis — more people returned than left. Specifically, during the two-year period of 2023–2024, 69,000 Greeks left their country while 98,000 returned.

But when it comes to scientists, there is still a major problem.

Star-crossed project

The current fury of many researchers and scientists hinges on a Greek government project called “Trust your Stars” — an €80 million research funding program backed by funds from EU’s post-Covid recovery fund, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).

Research teams were called to submit their proposals, with 145 out of a total 1,241 submissions selected. Thirteen months later, after several complaints regarding the delay, the selected list of projects was finally published on July 22, 2025.

Then, it all started to unravel.

Those not selected for funding reacted fiercely, with some 203 submitted objections and calls for reevaluation. Scientists raised their concerns over the evaluation process itself, and some even submitted complaints to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.

In January 2026, Greece’s development ministry then issued a statement, saying payments of some €40 million had already been made, and that the remaining half of the program’s budget was earmarked for completion by Dec. 31, 2029. But complaints only escalated, with some of those selected for funding sending formal legal notices to the education ministry, seeking details about where the money had been spent since the program had not yet started.

Then, the final bombshell dropped: Trust your Stars was not going to receive the EU funds anymore.

In a statement published in May, Greece’s education ministry said the country’s finance ministry had decided to “remove the project during the review of Greece’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan.” It was later revealed that on the day the list of selected proposals was officially published, the government also delisted the program — but no one informed the applicants for 10 months.

“It was ultimately not possible to implement the project ‘Trust your Stars’ within the time frame set out by the RRF,” said an official from the education ministry. “For this reason, the project was removed, as part of a review of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan by the Council of the European Union.”

“As regards the funds linked to the actions in question, these were redirected to finance other actions undertaken by the RRF and the Education Ministry. Consequently, under no circumstances was there any loss of resources from the RRF,” added the official.

Shattered hopes

On July 15, Greece’s finance ministry issued a statement, saying it was trying to secure funds “to settle any outstanding financial obligations arising from legal commitments entered into at the time of the revocation of the program.”

While the statement rekindled hopes that a solution would be found, Hatzis argues that it was just a legal trick and that the education ministry has no legal commitment since no contracts were signed following the initial announcement of accepted proposals.

“What happened violates a fundamental principle, one that is sacrosanct in states governed by the rule of law: ‘reliance,’ the citizen’s legitimate trust in the state,” he said. “There may be no contractual liability, since we did not sign an agreement, but there is a political, moral and even legal obligation. Many young people turned down other offers or did not take up jobs elsewhere because they hoped they would be paid through the program.”

Hatzis added that with its handling of the situation, the government had managed to turn the entire scientific community against it — both those who had been successful and those who had not.

“If you’re a young scientist and you’re abroad, stay there! If you’re a young scientist and you’re thinking of moving abroad, go for it. Don’t wait a minute!” he wrote in a lengthy social media post.

Pantelis Kammas, an associate professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business who was co-leading one of the teams that had a successful proposal, said the program was a chronicle of a death foretold.

“The perception within the scientific community was that this was EU money and that it could be handed out hastily through nontransparent procedures. There was a sense of mistrust because this was a one-off emergency program,” said Kammas. “The ministry lacked an organized framework for evaluation, the academic community’s objections were based on these well-known shortcomings, and media that seek to oppose the government jumped on that. This was the perfect storm, so the government decided to backtrack and cancel the program.”

Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, an associate professor of the history of science at the University of Athens, said he had gathered a team of 25 young scientists to come to Greece from countries like the U.K. and Germany for a study of medicines used during the Byzantine period, which could serve as inspiration for new pharmaceutical formulations. Fortunately, they had not already traveled by the time the project was canceled.

“The most offensive thing is that the government never bothered to meet us or give us a reasonable explanation about what happened,” he said, noting the government’s handling created even greater problems with the scientific community than those that already existed.

Bouras-Vallianatos himself returned to Greece in 2022 after a 15-year career in Edinburgh, and has not regretted the decision, as he wanted to raise his children in his homeland. However, he added that while many others wanted to return to Greece, the conditions for doing so were not in place. Some of them do but only for sentimental, personal reasons, he said.

“There has been no serious policy by the Greek state to get its scientists back.”

According to preliminary statistics, research spending in Greece has declined, dropping to €1.27 billion — or 0.51 percent of GDP — in 2025, from €1.30 billion in 2024.

“Funding and low salaries is a big issue,” continued Bouras-Vallianatos. “An independent body should be set up, which would allocate funds for research and adheres to international standards in terms of evaluation. We are a small country; we all know each other, so a large proportion of the evaluators should be foreigners.”

LONDON — The personal mobile phone numbers of three U.K. Cabinet ministers — including Defense Secretary Wes Streeting — have been found published online alongside their names.

The discovery comes after POLITICO reported that Prime Minister Andy Burnham fell victim to a texting scam — engaging with messages from someone impersonating Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, before becoming suspicious the contact was illegitimate and ending the conversation.

After checking through a list of Cabinet members, POLITICO found three published on the web, for Streeting, Justice Secretary Alex Norris and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant. POLITICO is not pointing to where the numbers can be found to avoid further risking security.

All three ministers declined to comment on the record. The reference to Streeting’s number online has since been deleted, and officials are working to remove the other two.

Ministers are given secure government devices to conduct business for their briefs, in particular for high-risk roles like defense, and are expected to use those for non-personal comms.

A government spokesperson said: “The government has robust procedures in place to ensure the security of sensitive information.”

But Prerana Joshi, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, said that having direct numbers for Cabinet ministers in the public domain is a risk, warning that numbers could be spoofed and used to call others at a time when the U.K. is “in a high threat situation” globally.

“In any civil space, if your number is exposed, a whole host of malign, nefarious or even opportunistic cyber criminals or cyber actors could get hold of it, and they have tactics,” Joshi said.

‘No significance’

Downing Street would not comment on the revelation that Burnham exchanged messages with the impersonator, citing “national security.”

One person briefed on the communications said a “few messages” were exchanged after the PM entered No. 10 but insisted they were “of no significance.”

It is unclear how the fraudster obtained Burnham’s number. POLITICO could not find it published online.

British officials initially feared Wiles’ phone had been hacked again. But a White House official said: “This incident had nothing to do with the Chief of Staff’s devices being hacked.”

It is not clear whether Burnham will change his phone number, as Boris Johnson did after the Popbitch newsletter revealed in 2021 that the then-prime minister’s details had been sitting online for years.

‘Full of traps’

The episode has sharpened questions over whether Burnham — who built his political brand on his informal style and being more approachable than other prime ministers — can carry on that way in No. 10.

A former national security adviser, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said the prime minister needs to “get into the habit” of having his security staff verify that messages reaching him are authentic.

National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell “could have phoned the White House in five minutes and checked whether Susie Wiles genuinely was texting the prime minister,” they said.

“Being a domestic politician and going on listening tours around the U.K. is one thing, but when you engage in the international world, it’s full of traps and full of risks,” the former adviser added.

“What starts off as a very informal chat can quickly get into some kind of business, and you could give away key details of an upcoming trip or the movements of Donald Trump,” they said.

Former Defense Secretary Ben Wallace — himself targeted by imposters posing as Ukraine’s prime minister in 2022 — said the incident “demonstrates our adversaries are always looking for weak points in our communications.”

While Downing Street has said nothing significant was discussed in the exchanges between Burnham and the imposter, Wallace said “there is always a risk of kompromat” being obtained by hostile actors.

As technology, such as AI voice cloning, improves, these sort of incidents are going to “happen more and more,” Wallace added.

Others have urged Burnham not to change tack.

Guto Harri, Johnson’s former director of communications, said: “It’s only a threat and it’s only an embarrassment if they give something away — and it doesn’t seem that he’s done anything like that.”

Harri said it was “good to have someone big enough not to have his calls screened from everyone” as prime minister.

“I don’t think it’s healthy that the civil service wants to control all access to the principal. If they had their way, nobody would be able to talk to a prime minister without going through them,” he said.

“We can’t say that politicians are not living in the same world as us … and then moan about them speaking to people like a normal human being.”

Harri conceded a new number might be a “good idea,” giving the prime minister a “clean slate.”

Dan Bloom contributed to this report.

Pauline von Pezold und Frederik Schindler widmen sich in dieser Folge gemeinsam mit Jacob Ross, Research Fellow bei der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik , der Außenpolitik der AfD. Sie analysieren gemeinsam mit ihm, wie sich die Partei von einer reinen Protestbewegung zu einer gestaltenden Kraft mit einem eigenen Gegenentwurf zur Außenpolitik der Bundesregierung entwickeln will.

Im Zentrum steht das Konzept der „Multipolarität“. Einer Weltordnung, die in regionale Einflusssphären unterteilt ist, wie sie von Russland und China propagiert und von Teilen der AfD angestrebt wird. Schindler, Ross und von Pezold diskutieren, ob der Versuch der AfD, gleichzeitig die Nähe zu Putins Russland und zum Amerika unter Donald Trump zu suchen, ein Widerspruch ist oder vielmehr Teil einer kohärenten Strategie ist, um sich als neue Kraft in einer veränderten Welt zu positionieren.

Außerdem gehen sie der Frage nach, wie realistisch ein solcher außenpolitischer Kurswechsel für Deutschland wäre.

„Inside AfD“ ist der POLITICO-Podcast über die umstrittenste Partei des Landes. Trotz Radikalisierung und Beobachtung durch den Verfassungsschutz wächst die AfD weiter. Wie ist das möglich? Was treibt ihre Anhänger, Strategen und Gegner an? Wie funktioniert das Innenleben der Partei? Und was bedeutet ihr Aufstieg für das politische System Deutschlands?

Antworten liefern immer mittwochs Pauline von Pezold von POLITICO und Frederik Schindler von WELT — unaufgeregt, aber kritisch.

Fragen und Feedback gern an insideafd@politico.eu.

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Researchers at Stanford and Carnegie Mellon ran a test to measure how often chatbots flatter users. In a paper on social sycophancy in AI advice, they ran OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, DeepSeek, Qwen, and Mistral through thousands of personal dilemmas. — Read the rest

The post AI told Reddit's biggest jerks they did nothing wrong 51% of the time appeared first on Boing Boing.

LAS VEGAS — Weeks before they escaped a closed test and launched a cyberattack without any human prompting, some of OpenAI’s most advanced artificial intelligence agents secretly began sharing tips on how to cheat their way through an internal hacking evaluation, two of the AI company’s researchers said Wednesday.

“This is a pivotal moment both for our company as well as the AI industry as a whole,” Michael Dalton, one of the AI-maker’s researchers, said during a presentation at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The latest disclosure provides greater detail on the timeline and methods used by two of OpenAI’s models before they slipped outside a controlled environment and onto the open internet, allowing the models to breach AI developer platform Hugging Face undetected. OpenAI admitted its models were responsible for the hack late last month, roughly a week after Hugging Face said an autonomous AI system broke into its network.

The revelation is likely to spur fresh scrutiny of the measures leading AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic are taking to monitor the behavior of their most cyber-capable technology — especially during evaluations where agents are prompted to demonstrate their hacking skills in what is meant to be a controlled setting.

On Tuesday, the U.K.’s AI Safety and Security Institute disclosed that Anthropic’s most powerful AI model created fake online personas and sought to trick a human coder into abetting a cyberattack during a recent hacking test gone wrong. After the Hugging Face disclosure last month, Anthropic conducted a review and found models it was testing had breached three organizations in separate incidents dating back to April.

Dalton and Eric Wallace, another OpenAI researcher, said Wednesday the AI giant recently learned that multiple agents it was testing simultaneously began communicating over an internal message board in early May. There, different models shared advice about how to accomplish difficult hacking challenges they were struggling to surmount, including workarounds that required internet access.

Two OpenAI models ultimately strung together a series of sophisticated techniques to gain access to the internet and worm their way inside Hugging Face in mid-July. OpenAI has said the models were focused on completing a hacking evaluation they were prompted to solve, and that correct answers could be found on the AI developer platform.

The OpenAI researchers told conference attendees that since early May, the models created a message board inside OpenAI’s Artifactory internal file system. Without the company’s knowledge, the models spent months independently exchanging information and techniques to help each other complete difficult tasks.

Wallace said that when models get stuck, they often “try to game or cheat the task in order to get their reward.”

“The beginning of this incident kind of traces back to this point where one agent realized it could communicate by uploading a note,” he added.

By late May, one model found a way to abuse Artifactory’s internet access to retrieve files from various websites — effectively giving the models indirect access to the internet. In June, the models were able to find and exploit a previously unknown zero-day vulnerability to gain administrative privileges on Artifactory, install remote software and expand their activity within the system.

These efforts eventually overloaded Artifactory, causing a system-wide outage in early July that alerted OpenAI’s engineers to the ploy. After investigating, the company revoked the model’s credentials, removed the message board and worked with Artifactory to fix any gaps before resuming training. But the models found another way to communicate inside Artifactory just days later and continued exchanging techniques to target additional vulnerabilities within OpenAI’s infrastructure and external systems, including Hugging Face.

In light of the incident, Dalton said OpenAI is “consciously slowing down research to enhance security and to upgrade the security principles and foundation of our environment, and dramatically scaling up the monitoring of our AI agents and improving our general security control environment across prevention, detection, and mitigation.”

LONDON — Andy Burnham entered Downing Street with a promise to give hard-pressed voters “breathing space” on the cost of living. Now he must show he can deliver. 

At the top of his list is finding a way to reduce stubbornly high energy bills — even as the Iran-U.S. war forces up prices and ministers are under pressure to cut their own departmental budgets. The new prime minister knows any intervention must make a real impact for voters if he is to turn Labour’s fortunes around. 

“You need to make an emotional connection with people,” said one senior government official, granted anonymity to talk candidly about Whitehall thinking. 

Britain’s new prime minister has already made one bid to show voters he is serious about tackling the problem: Removing VAT from household electricity bills, something he announced on his first day in No. 10. 

The move will knock less than £4 off the average monthly bill, ends after one year, and comes with a price tag of £850 million. Downing Street said it will be paid for through so-far unspecified Whitehall savings. 

But Burnham and his new Energy Secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, promised that the intervention is just a start. Cutting VAT is a “down payment” ahead of the winter, Fahnbulleh said. 

That means ministers have just weeks before Burnham’s first budget this fall to figure out what, if anything, can really ease the burden — and how to pay for it. 

Salami slicing 

“The fiscal space is going to be a challenge, and that is the case for any government,” said Sam Alvis, associate director for environment, energy security, and nature at the Labour-aligned Institute for Public Policy Research think tank. 

That’s because any intervention to bring down energy bills will have to be funded from already under-pressure Whitehall departments. 

“This government is going to have a look at the budget. Whether it chooses to do some priorities differently — that is an open question,” Alvis said. 

One option for Burnham is to slice more charges from electricity bills, as he did with VAT. But any savings could be quickly wiped out if, as expected, the Middle East crisis pushes up wholesale gas prices.

Forecasters at Cornwall Insight predict that average annual household bills will rise by two percent this fall, even after the VAT intervention. 

That leaves Burnham facing the same problems as the man he replaced, Keir Starmer. 

Starmer cut £150 off yearly bills last November by shifting some so-called green levies, used to fund a clean energy scheme, onto general taxation. By the summer, that cut had been swallowed up by higher prices driven by the Strait of Hormuz crisis. 

Nonetheless, Alvis said, this approach remains Burnham’s most realistic option. 

“We are now in a bit of a scenario of salami slicing, where you’re aggregating lots and lots of smaller bits,” he said. “There’s no one big thing that you can do that’s going to take over £100 off bills. So, it’s about accumulating all those things that you think you could possibly do in one go, so it becomes sizable and noticeable.” 

Decisions, decisions 

One of those options, proposed by the think tank Nesta and reportedly being considered by Burnham, involves shifting further green levies from electricity bills onto tax.  

It identified another £42 of savings from a yearly bill, costing the Treasury £1.7 billion per year for a decade. 

Every small cut helps consumers, insists Andrew Sissons, Nesta’s director of sustainable futures. The think tank has also proposed knocking £22 a year off bills by shifting the standing charge on gas — currently a fixed daily fee — onto the unit rate, which changes depending on how much energy a home uses. That would take a year to implement and would not cost the government a penny, Nesta says. 

But such moves must be accompanied by larger interventions if voters are to feel the benefit, he added. 

“The amount you’d need to cut people’s energy bills … for it to feel like a real difference is quite substantial,” he said. The government, he argued, should aim for a “big package.”  

If the government aims for larger changes, they would come with even greater costs.  

Nesta has suggested a one-off move to wipe out electricity debt, removing some bailout costs currently funded through bills, taking total annual bill savings to £130. But the Treasury would have to find £2.7 billion to fund that. 

“[We] shouldn’t ignore the fact that there are fiscal trade-offs. But if the government wants to prioritize energy bills, then this is the kind of step it needs to take,” Sissons added, pointing to their proposed levy change alongside the VAT cut.  

Things take time  

Net-zero policies will, ministers hope, bring down bills for good. But large-scale changes take years to implement. 

“Realistically, the only way to deeply, deeply help people is to get them solar panels, is to get them an EV [electric vehicle], potentially heat pumps in some houses as well,” said Alvis. 

This is another reason to opt for “salami slicing”, he said: To “alter the balance of electricity and gas prices, so that those clean technologies stack up and save people even more money.”  

Alex Bevan, a research fellow at the Future Governance Forum, agreed that big savings attached to the shift to green energy were still a way off.  

“There aren’t quick workarounds on whichever form of energy you choose to generate and deploy,” he said. But government must nonetheless “lock in the benefits [of clean energy],” he argued. 

The same official quoted above stressed that no decision had yet been made on how the government would intervene on bills. Asked whether the government favored a series of small policies or one big intervention, they said: “It doesn’t have to be binary. … It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”  

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “The energy secretary’s focus is bringing bills down for good. We will tackle the cost of living to make life’s essentials affordable again and bring back hope.”

For now, Alvis insisted, Burnham has one thing going for him: He can operate in the knowledge voters accept international issues are pushing up costs. 

“The political point I would make is: By doing your best effort, you give yourself the space to have a conversation with the public,” he said. 

Many EU-funded health projects are on hold amid a dispute between the European Commission and capitals over support for NGOs.

At least seven countries, led by France, Spain and Belgium have twice blocked the Commission’s 2026 EU health budget proposal because they say it doesn’t contain sufficient funding for health NGOs. These organizations represent patients, doctors and public health workers in EU health policy debates, typically in opposition to sectors like tobacco, alcohol and, sometimes, the pharmaceutical industry.

The standoff means public tenders and grant applications for EU health projects — such as training more experts to assess medicines, beefing up health security and creating artificial intelligence platforms to monitor brain health — can’t yet go ahead.

“Various stakeholders have expressed frustration over the delay” as they are already putting together consortiums to bid for projects included in the draft budget, a spokesperson for Public Health Sweden told POLITICO.

The delay also has major implications for the EU’s health crisis response.

The Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority published its work plan in June for the coming year, which includes the expansion of ‘ever-warm’ vaccine production facilities and the creation of a new European Diagnostics Hub to develop cutting-edge technologies — all of which is on hold until the money can flow, unless covered by funds under the 2025 budget.

European Commission spokesperson Eva Hrncirova declined to comment on the potential disruption to the EU’s health program, but told POLITICO the executive would “reflect” on the way forward. 

Root cause

The standoff stems from the Commission’s decision to ax operating grants for NGOs, confirmed in July 2025. These had been in place in Europe since the early 1990s to enable civil society to participate in policymaking on a more equal footing with profit-driven entities.

The Commission told POLITICO the grants were cut to reflect diminished funds for EU4Health after the budget fell from €5.8 billion to €4.6 billion in 2025 to reallocate funds for Ukraine. Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi also previously claimed behind closed doors that NGO operating grants were “illegal.”

When countries voted on the Commission’s second proposal last week — which offered €1.3 million in NGO operating grants, having omitted them altogether from its original plan — at least 14 countries voted in favor of the plan, citing the urgent need for a budget.

“The Public Health Agency of Sweden voted yes and we seconded the criticism that came from the other countries on funding for civil society, but saw that further delays in the work programme were not preferable,” the spokesperson for the Swedish public health authority said in a written comment.

But countries standing firm with NGOs worry that ending support for their day-to-day functions will weaken democratic policymaking and leave lobbying as a preserve of private interests. Some NGOs have already shuttered operations in Brussels over the lack of funds.

Spain and France have been the most vocal in their criticism, forming a blocking minority on the EU4Health Programme Committee that signs off on the budget, alongside Czechia, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Malta. Others, including Ireland and Luxembourg, abstained to signal their displeasure with the removal of NGO funds. 

NGOs play “a vital role in representing patients’ interests and ensuring a balanced policy debate alongside well-resourced industry stakeholders,” a spokesperson for Malta’s ministry of health told POLITICO.

A joint statement read out on behalf of Belgium, Czechia, France, Luxembourg, Spain and the Netherlands at the July 31 meeting, and seen by POLITICO, called for “more adequate level of funding for operating grants while safeguarding other low-budget but high-impact actions from further reductions.”

They argue the Commission is at fault for the impasse and ignored multiple warnings from countries that they would not accept the defunding of civil society groups. 

“Several Member States have raised the same concerns for two years, but these have not been adequately reflected. At the same time, the delay increases pressure from stakeholders to approve the programme regardless of those concerns, because important public-health actions and considerable expert work are involved,” a spokesperson for Luxembourg’s Ministry of Health and Social Security, which abstained in support of NGOs, said in a written comment.

‘Symbolic’ offering

The blocking countries didn’t put a figure on how much they wanted for NGOs, but pointed out the €1.3 million on offer was one-seventh what it was in 2023 and 2024, before the grants were scrapped.

Cyprus was among the countries ready to accept the latest proposal, with the country’s ministry of health telling POLITICO it “viewed positively the efforts made to address concerns regarding NGO funding and welcomed the allocation of dedicated funding.”

But Milka Sokolović, director general of the European Public Health Alliance, said the Commission should ensure the grants “provide meaningful support rather than a symbolic contribution.”

“Budget constraints are real, but so is the need to sustain the organizations that bring expertise, accountability and public engagement to Europe’s health ambitions,” Sokolović said.

The Commission has also angered countries with how late in the year it is seeking approval for the work program, combined with what they see as insufficient consultation in the run-up to the vote.

The Luxembourg ministry spokesperson said the Commission “traditionally” prepared the work program a year in advance. “This gave authorities and potential beneficiaries a reasonable indication of forthcoming priorities and call dates. For both the 2025 and 2026 programs, however, the first drafts reached Member States much later, reducing predictability for all concerned.”

Speaking for the Commission, Hrncirova said countries had been consulted. “In line with the EU4Health regulations and its procedures for the preparation, member states are consulted at several stages with several meetings. This has happened,” she said.

The Commission hasn’t yet scheduled another meeting to try to get a budget over the line. “We are now awaiting the invitation to the next EU4Health Programme Committee for the, hopefully, final meeting for the 2026 work programme,” the spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Sweden said.

“At this stage, the matter is in the hands of the European Commission,” the Maltese spokesperson added.

Shopify says AI isn’t cannibalizing search traffic the way it has for publishers. Instead, AI-driven traffic and orders to Shopify stores tripled year over year in Q2.

Today's links

• Google is a scammer's paradise: The internet's absentee landlord.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS; EZ realistic corpse; $300m login button; Short Uber; Who goes AI?
• Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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Google is a scammer's paradise (permalink)

Forget "Don't be evil"; Google's true motto is a form of vulgar spidermanism: "With great power comes no responsibility." The internet's de facto boss is an absentee landlord.

Google – a thrice-convicted monopolist – is the gateway to the internet, with more than a 90% search market share that it attained by buying out all its competitors and bribing Apple more than $20b/year not to start a rival search engine:

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/8/6/google_monopoly

Google likes to position itself as a wise steward of the internet. They say they use their vast troves of data about the internet and its users to connect the right person with the right information at the right moment. As their mission statement has it, "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful":

https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/search/howsearchworks/our-approach/

The tacit argument is, "Sure, we repeatedly violated antitrust law in order to monopolize the internet, but the internet needs a monopolist. It's scary out there! We have amassed power so that we can protect and guide you."

It's a bullshit argument and no one should accept it – but even if you think it's worth harnessing monopoly power to promote a wise king to rule over the internet, you'd still want Google to take that responsibility seriously. If we're to have a landlord for our civilization's digital nervous system, let's not have it be an absentee landlord.

Google is an absentee landlord. In 2019, they chose to deliberately worsen search results in order to make you search repeatedly to find the information you're seeking, because every fresh query lets them serve fresh advertisements:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/26/babyish-radical-extremists/#cancon

Not all of Google's enshittification can be attributed to deliberate sabotage. Much of it is the result of neglect. Ask Google for a product review and they'll pass over the most rigorous, honest websites on the internet in favor of affiliate scammers who repackage Amazon best-of lists to peddle overpriced, underperforming junk that's sometimes so bad it's dangerous:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Google keeps announcing that it Takes This Problem Very Seriously – and then nothing happens:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/#site-reputation-abuse

And of course, Google AI search results present the company with a highly refined and confident-sounding way to launder spam into product recommendations:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/15/inhuman-gigapede/#coprophagic-ai

Could Google do better? Provably so. Kagi, a small company that runs a search engine powered by Google's own search index consistently delivers results that are substantially superior to Google's – using Google's own infrastructure:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

If Kagi (a startup with a handful of engineers) can extract useful search results from Google's databases, then Google – a thrice-convicted monopolist that's had its pick of thousands of the top computer scientists from the world's most prestigious universities for a generation – could also do so.

They just choose not to.

They're too big to fail. They're too big to jail. They're too big to care.

Google's AI search isn't a way to fix its broken core product: it's a way to partially remediate the damage Google itself inflicted on the open internet, while imprisoning the web in a walled garden that would make Steve Jobs drool:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/29/arsonist-firefighters/#im-feeling-lucky

It's a deadly combination: Google has committed hundreds of billions to stock buybacks and its AI money-furnace, financed by mass layoffs targeting the people who keep the core services useful. The too-big-to-care company is still the internet's gatekeeper, but half the guards at the gate have been fired and the other half have pulled so much overtime that they keep falling asleep on the job.

Google has become a scammer's paradise.

Take Google's "answer box." This is the part of the search results page that tries to answer your query directly, without sending you elsewhere for that info. Back in 2023, Google's Answer Box was taken over by scammers who impersonated airline help desks. When Google's users searched for airlines' toll-free phone numbers, Google directed them to phones that rang in the scammers' boiler room, where they were tricked into giving up their passport info and credit card numbers to boiler-room thieves:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/phone-numbers-airlines-listed-google-directed-scammers-rcna94766

(This was an especially devastating attack because the airlines themselves hide their customer service phone numbers – as enshittified monopolists, they want your money, not your complaints – so it's normal to search Google for the number you're seeking, rather than scouring the airlines' deliberately confusing customer service sites.)

This is especially galling because Google has an extensive "verified merchant" program that goes to enormous lengths to establish the true identity of every merchant whose businesses are listed on Google, in maps, ads and search results. Google "knows" which URLs belong to the airlines. If it can be tricked into scraping a different website for the airlines' phone numbers, that's because Google couldn't be bothered to connect its own database of canonical airline URLs to the process that serves phone numbers to the 90% of the web-using public who search with Google.

Google's database of the canonical URLs for businesses doesn't stop at airlines or even large businesses. Nearly every local merchant has undergone Google's verification process, which includes a step where Google physically mails a postcard with a unique number to the merchant's registered address, which the merchant must then key into Google to prove that they're located where they say they are.

Despite this, Google's ad-sales system will happily sell anyone the right to advertise a different website for queries for specific merchants, and those ads appear above the real result for the business's website. To make this even worse, Google's spent years making it more difficult to distinguish ads from "organic" search results, changing the font and size of the "ad" warning to make it harder to spot, and making the font and color of the ad itself closer to the color of the search results below it.

This is a gift to fraudsters. I had my own run-in with it in 2023, when I was tricked by a Google ad into ordering dinner from my local Thai place using a scam site that had cloned the restaurant's menu. The scammers marked up the price by 15%, then passed the order on to the restaurant, pocketing the vig:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

This scammer – based out of a UC Berkeley dorm-room – had copied hundreds of restaurant websites, then bought Google ads for the restaurants' names, ensuring that searchers would see the scam result before the real one. Remember: Google knows what the true URL is for every one of those restaurants but it sold the scammer ads for a different URL that appeared when people searched for the restaurant by name.

Google could trivially add a step to the ad sales pipeline that detects mismatches between a merchant's known URL and the URL in an ad bought against the merchant's name. It could automatically resolve these mismatches by sending an email to the merchant's verified email address that says, "Hey, are you buying an ad with a new URL? If so, just reply to this email."

I don't know why Google doesn't do this. Maybe they make huge sums from these scam ads and they don't want to forego the revenue. Or maybe they just don't care.

Whichever it is, there's real consequences for this negligence by the internet's absentee landlord. Take abortions: fake abortion clinics – where pregnant women are bullied or tricked out of the abortions they're seeking – buy Google ads against the names of real abortion clinics. Google makes millions sending abortion-seekers to fake abortion providers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/15/paid-medical-disinformation/#crisis-pregnancy-centers

Google started off as the ideal "intermediary" – the fancy economist's term for a "middleman." They took as their duty to figure out the best websites for you to look at based on your interests, serving as an honest broker between internet users and internet publishers. In the quarter-century since the company's founding, as it transformed itself into a monopolist, it developed the curse of every intermediary: it got Main Character Syndrome.

This is Tim Wu's formulation: the reason for an intermediary existence is to serve the parties to the transaction. Ebay says it exists to connect buyers and sellers, Uber is supposed to connect drivers and riders, dating sites are supposed to connect people with their love-matches. But intermediaries are cursed with an enviable position: by dint of sitting between these different groups of people, the intermediary learns everything about both sides of the transaction, while each side only knows about its own position.

Amazon knows the price you're willing to pay, it knows who's set the lowest price, and it knows how many identical items that match your query are for sale. But the sellers don't know any of that, and you only know some of it. By capitalizing on that information (rather than using it to efficiently match buyers and sellers), Amazon can match you with the sellers willing to pay the highest junk fees, rather than the ones who offer the best price for the best goods:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/03/subprime-attention-rent-crisis/#euthanize-rentiers

This is Wu's Main Character Syndrome in action. Once Amazon attains a dominant market share, it can maximize its own welfare at the expense of its buyers and sellers, transforming itself from a helper to a parasite:

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/lawfare-daily–tim-wu-on–the-age-of-extraction

Google says it wants to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," but every dime it spends fighting fraud (a critical part of this mission!) is a dime it can't spend on stock buybacks, executive compensation and AI servers. "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" is the mission of a good intermediary; "do the absolute minimum to fight fraud" is the mission of a formerly good intermediary with terminal Main Character Syndrome.

Google keeps finding ways to expose its users to fraud while lining its own pockets. That restaurant markup scam that caught me in 2023? Three years later, it's way worse.

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu just filed suit against GuestReservations.com, BookOnline.com and Booking Holdings for running a massive version of the restaurant menu scam – one that extracted millions from people booking hotel rooms:

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/alleged-sf-hotel-booking-scam-had-up-to-85-markup-fees-city-attorney/

Here's how the scam worked: these companies put up websites with deceptive URLs, like SanFranciscoMarriott.GuestReservations.com, and then bought the associated Google ad-word ("San Francisco Marriott"). At the top of Google searches for "San Francisco Marriott booking" was the ad for SanFranciscoMarriott.GuestReservations.com. This site would sell you a room at the Marriott, at a markup of 35% to 85%.

This is a pure ripoff. If Google had served the correct result at the top of the page – if it had used its own database of confirmed merchants and their associate websites to validate its ads – then people booking hotels would have saved 35% to 85% on their rooms.

City Attorney Chiu says that the perps here registered domains for all kinds of hotels, even tiny ones in small towns, all over America. That means that it's not just visitors to San Francisco who got screwed by these creeps – it's also San Franciscans who booked hotel rooms around the country.

Google bears the lion's share of the blame here, but Visa and the other credit card companies are critical to these scams. Card companies allow merchants to set terms of service that refuse refunds under almost any circumstances, and, more often than not, the card issuers side with the merchants over their own customers when they call to cancel a charge from one of these scammers.

I discovered this for myself when I was tricked into buying theater tickets from a ripoff site that had registered the URL of the show I wanted to go to. I figured out that I'd been rooked within a minute of clicking the buy button, but it took months and multiple appeals – and ultimately a threat to cancel my credit card – to get Visa to refund me.

Visa – another bloated monopolist with terminal Main Character Syndrome – can see that it has merchants who generate zillions of appeals and charge-backs because they run scam businesses like these. They could treat these merchants as the fraudsters they are, but because the crooks wreathe themselves in gauzy excuses and lengthy terms of service, Visa enables these massive, nationwide cons.

Google, Visa and the other monopolists who serve as de facto regulators for our society have arrogated to themselves the power to observe every transaction and block the obvious scams. We pay for their failure to take minimal, obvious steps to protect us from the scammers who thrive on their platforms.

Why should they? They're the main characters. They're Bizarro-world spidermen, whose great power confers no responsibility.

---

Hey look at this (permalink)

• When the AI bubble bursts, will Europe be ready? https://www.euractiv.com/opinion/when-the-ai-bubble-bursts-will-europe-be-ready/

• Gavin Newsom Makes An Ass Of Himself On Antitrust, Paramount Merger https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/04/gavin-newsom-makes-an-ass-of-himself-on-antitrust-paramount-merger/

• Against Self-Fulfilling Prophecy https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/against-self-fulfilling-prophecy

• Arson markets https://www.merkley.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026.08.03-LTR-Wildfire-Prediction-Markets-FINAL.pdf

• Eight Myths on Software Engineering and GenAI https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3807963

---

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Steve Ballmer: DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/dancemonkeyboy.mpg

#15yrsago HOWTO E-Z realistic corpse from a cheap plastic skeleton https://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2011/08/quick-and-dirty-corpses.html

#15yrsago $300 Million Button: making customers create logins to buy cost etailer $300M/year https://centercentre.com/

#10yrsago 1 billion computer monitors vulnerable to undetectable firmware attacks https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-24/dc-24-speakers.html#Cui

#10yrsago Stiglitz quits Panama’s official money-laundering panel over internal sabotage https://www.reuters.com/article/us-panama-tax-idUSKCN10G24Z/

#10yrsago BBC will use surveillance powers to sniff Britons’ wifi and find license-cheats https://web.archive.org/web/20160806155022/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/05/bbc-to-deploy-detection-vans-to-snoop-on-internet-users/

#10yrsago How and why to short Uber https://qz.com/707947/investors-have-placed-a-one-way-bet-on-uber-which-made-us-want-to-figure-out-a-way-to-short-it

#5yrsago Facebook's official disinformation research portal is a bad joke https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/06/get-you-coming-and-going/#potemkin-research-program

#5yrsago Scammers sell griefers social media banning services https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/06/get-you-coming-and-going/#curse-of-bigness

#1yrago Which jobs can be replaced with AI? https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/06/unmerchantable-substitute-goods/#customer-disservice

---

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Virtual: EFFecting Change: Who the Machine Serves, Aug 12
  https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-who-machine-serves

• Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales

• Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24
  https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/program/

• Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25
  https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification

• Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8
  https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/

• London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9
  https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn

• South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
  https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/

• Vancouver: BC Policy Solutions Gala, Nov 12
  https://bcpolicy.ca/gala/

---

Recent appearances (permalink)

• The AI Enshittification Bubble (Hidden Forces)
  https://hiddenforces.io/podcasts/the-ai-enshittification-bubble-cory-doctorow/

• F@#$ the AI Overlords (On The Media)
  https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/f-the-ai-overlords

• Why AI Won't Replace Workers, But Will Crash The Economy (Smart Cookies)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRRmUuxJolY

• AI and the Enshittification Era (The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAIJRjb-Bw

• AI is not inevitable (Betakit)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbiTVkq1WHo

---

Latest books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

---

Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

---

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• “Once Is Enemy Action,” a science fiction novel about the origins of modern technofascism. Today's words: 623 (1336 total).

• "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

---

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

Leading artificial intelligence models from Anthropic and OpenAI created fake online personas and tried to deceive human coders into abetting a cyberattack during a recent safety evaluation, the U.K.’s AI Safety and Security Institute disclosed Tuesday.

It marks the latest case in which a powerful AI system has attempted a digital attack on an unwitting third party without direct prompting during such an evaluation — heightening concerns the powerful technology is advancing too fast for responsible oversight.

The disclosure is likely to ignite fresh calls in Washington and Silicon Valley for more rigorous regulation of the AI industry, particularly over frontier models with advanced capabilities to detect and launch cyberattacks. It comes just days after similar testing mishaps involving some of the same models from OpenAI and Anthropic sparked urgent calls for new AI safety regulation and a push within Silicon Valley to slow the rapid pace of AI development.

Like its U.S. counterpart, AISI routinely conducts security evaluations to better understand what dangers both new and soon-to-be-released AI models pose to public health and safety. But even the digital security body said the actions it uncovered by Anthropic’s Claude Mythos 5 and ChatGPT 5.6 — the latest publicly released model from either AI lab — were unlike anything it had seen before.

“This is the first time AISI has seen deception of this severity that was targeted at a real person, unprompted, in the real world,” AISI said in a 35-page technical report accompanying a blog post Tuesday.

AISI said the malicious activity began on July 25. The AI safety evaluator detected it and launched an investigation on July 28, when it spotted “unusual data transfers” stemming from a cyber evaluation it was conducting on Mythos 5 and ChatGPT 5.6.

Overall, AISI determined that Mythos 5 and ChatGPT 5.6 took “autonomous, unsanctioned action on the live internet, targeting real people and organizations” during 10 of the 122 evaluations the research body conducted and isolated for review. The majority of those actions, it said, involved Mythos 5 and arose during a “single, sustained line of activity.”

In the most alarming incident it uncovered, Mythos 5 attempted a supply chain attack — a sophisticated technique often deployed by North Korean and Russian cyber operatives, in which hackers bury malware inside legitimate code.

To do so, Anthropic’s model created “multiple fake identities” on developer platform GitHub and used them to send messages “pressuring” an open-source software engineer to unwittingly introduce a bugged update into code widely available on the popular site, AISI said. When that effort failed, the AI “edited its earlier activity to appear harmless” and “considered adopting a fresh identity to continue,” AISI added, a sign the model was intent on repeating the ruse.

As part of the same effort, Mythos 5 also sent direct messages over GitHub to software engineers that contained malware.

In another sign of deceitful behavior AISI uncovered in its investigation, multiple AI agents it was testing appeared to communicate with one another about how to convince real engineers using GitHub to trust them. “One agent left public messages on GitHub offering collaboration with other agents working on the same challenge,” AISI wrote.

AISI’s blog and technical assessment make no mention of whether the models also attempted to exploit previously unknown software bugs — called zero-days — during the evaluation.

Last month, OpenAI disclosed that GPT 5.6 and another of its models escaped onto the open internet during what was supposed to be a controlled test, and then hacked another company in a first-of-its-kind, autonomous breach.

In response, Anthropic launched an investigation into whether any of its models took illicit action during recent testing and discovered Mythos 5 and two other models had hacked three organizations during tests dating back to April.

In a statement, an Anthropic spokesperson said they are “grateful” to AISI for their leadership and that this review underscores the need for “a broader conversation about how to safely evaluate increasingly capable AI agents.”

The spokesperson added: “As we shared after disclosing our own incident last week, the field needs stronger, shared standards for how evaluation environments are built and secured. We look forward to partnering with the UK AISI to learn more about this incident as we conduct our own investigation.”

An OpenAI spokesperson referred POLITICO to a blog post about the incident that went up Tuesday evening. “We are committed to working across the industry to strengthen shared practices for conducting high-risk evaluations safely, including convening stakeholders such as national AI institutes, independent evaluators, other AI labs, and other groups in the coming weeks,” the blog read.

AISI stressed in its blog that the malicious activity it disclosed Tuesday took place under “deliberately permissive conditions” so they could assess the safety risks posed by the two models. This included granting the models access to the internet, unlike the earlier incidents detailed by Anthropic and OpenAI.

AISI also noted the models were intentionally stripped of internal guardrails that block malicious behavior. AISI was only able to disable those controls because of its role testing Mythos 5 and ChatGPT 5.6.

Still, AISI said the incidents highlighted the need for greater monitoring of model behavior during testing, and tighter controls over their access to the internet.

The Trump administration is finalizing a voluntary framework under which AI labs would submit powerful models they want to release to the public for federal safety testing. But it has not yet made the framework public, and it includes no provisions for models AI labs are developing internally.

The incidents last month from OpenAI and Anthropic both involved models not intended for public release.

Some cyber experts say recent incidents highlight deeper questions around AI development, such as who is liable when AI systems break federal hacking laws.

“If any of these were human-originated, they would lead to clear and vigorous prosecution. I think it’s time for a serious discussion about updates to existing computer security law,” said Marc Rogers, a hacker and prominent cybersecurity expert.

LONDON — On the ropes, Nigel Farage is going for a right hook.

The Reform UK leader — who has faced intense pressure over his finances over the summer  —  came out swinging Monday at a Westminster press conference focused on his core issue: borders.

Reform is pushing plans for a military drive —  dubbed “Operation Fortress” — which it claims would ensure no small boat carrying undocumented migrants reaches the English coastline.

Under its proposals, an “integrated surveillance command” to track boats using drones, space satellites and infrared feeds would be established using the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, Royal Marines and British Army. 

Small boats would be intercepted at sea with their occupants detained, medically-assessed and given food and water before being returned on military inflatable boats to the country they came from, most likely France.

“I am entirely confident that under a Reform government, within a fortnight, there would be no more boats,” Farage — who took questions at a press conference for the first time since early May — told reporters. 

“If the Royal Navy is not there to protect this country from invasion, then, frankly, I can’t see what its purpose is,” he added.

Seizing the agenda

The Reform announcement comes as the ruling Labour Party enjoys a modest bounce in opinion polls two weeks after swapping out Keir Starmer as prime minister for former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.

Burnham has seized the agenda, announcing a flurry of spending commitments in his first fortnight in charge, and struck a more optimistic tone than his predecessor.

He also moves into No. 10 Downing Street with the salience of immigration slightly diminished. The number of people arriving in the U.K. on small boats was 43 percent lower between Jan. 1 and Aug. 1 this year compared to last year.

But Savanta’s Political Research Director Chris Hopkins explained that immigration remains a top issue for voters.

“It is important Burnham doesn’t ignore the issue given its general importance in U.K. politics,” he said. Hopkins adds that “getting the tone right is a tricky tightrope for a Labour prime minister to walk,” especially with the risk of turning off potential Labour-to-Green switchers on the left.

Easier said than done

Burnham has so far tried to show he’s on the front foot on migration. He has retained Shabana Mahmood as home secretary, one of the few holdovers from the Starmer era and a figure who has riled up some on the Labour left with more stringent immigration rules.

During a visit to Dover over the weekend, Burnham — with the famous white cliffs in the background — promised a “relentless” focus on small boat crossings.

“People want to see this issue addressed,” the prime minister said. “The public don’t like the idea that the border looks like it’s not controlled. We need to bring back that control, but also we need to offer support for people who genuinely need it,” he added.

Labour MP Sojan Joseph, whose Ashford constituency is near the Kent coast where many small boats arrive, praised Burnham’s approach so far — though argued that more action is needed.

“We must continue the positive work we’ve already done to reduce the number of small boat crossings and to close asylum hotels, with the hotel in my constituency already closed, to restore order to our borders — and deliver where the previous Tory government failed,” Joseph said.

On Monday, Burnham’s official spokesperson dismissed Reform’s proposals, insisting the Royal Navy already has “primacy for small boat crossings” and that border patrol officers have “significant capabilities and skills that make them the best suited candidate to lead small boats operations in the channel.”

In a BBC interview, former navy commander Tom Sharpe also questioned whether the Royal Navy has the capability to enforce Farage’s plans. Reform is “talking about the largest maritime operation in the Channel since World War Two, a very evocative image, but that’s not the reality,” he said.

Reform has also faced a host of questions about what it would do if France rejects the small boats that have been turned around and sent back to its coastline. Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, said France would be committing a “crime against humanity” if it ordered French forces to block a “humanitarian mission landing civilians in safety and forcing them back out to sea, directly endangering their lives.”

Battle of the narratives

Beyond questions about its viability, Farage’s success will depend on whether he can keep attention on this policy — and away from the multiple controversies surrounding his party.

Farage is facing a special election in his seaside seat of Clacton next week, which he has billed as a chance for the public to show it is unfazed by “establishment” scrutiny of a £5 million gift he received from a cryptocurrency investor before the last election. Shortly before the Reform press conference kicked off Monday, the parliamentary standards watchdog confirmed it is separately investigating the party’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice over an allegation he failed to declare an interest.

The Reform UK leader is also facing pressure on his right flank from Rupert Lowe’s rival Restore Britain outfit.

Farage faced questions Monday about the potential for an alliance with Lowe’s breakaway party, which continues to poll in the single digits but threatens to split the vote on the right. The Reform UK chief said he would “do whatever I could for us to have a sane center-right alliance to beat Labour at the next general election” — though Lowe has continued to direct social media barbs at Farage in the hours since the press conference.

Right-wing splits aside, Farage will be hoping he can keep the political conversation on his terms — and not Burnham’s.

Today's links

• Gemini is better than search because Google enshittified search: We're All Trying To Find The Guy Who Did This.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Microsoft antitrust overturned; Scammer carves C64; RIP Jim Baen; GOP rep to constituent's child: "drop dead" (literally); CCTVs jacked for botnet; Olympic profitability lie; Human factors in health infosec; Exfiltration via computer fans; Congress's summer schedule: 9 working days; Antitrust is political antigrav; Ted Chiang's 72 Letters; Microsoft antitrust appeal; Vinge on privacy; Breaking open the web; Bernie on Brexit; "The Perdition Score"; Intuit v Child Tax Credit.
• Upcoming appearances: London, Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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Gemini is better than search because Google enshittified search (permalink)

Write a critical AI book, and you become everyone's confessor for their AI sins. People in my life keep telling me about their guilty AI pleasures, in search of an explanation, absolution or condemnation:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/

Their most common confession: "I only ever use Google's AI-generated search summaries these days. I no longer click those blue links beneath it, not even to verify the summary." People know that the summaries are full of "hallucinations" (that is, "defects" or "errors") but the summaries are right often enough that many people have come to rely on them, to the exclusion of actual websites, made by actual people, on the actual internet.

Everyone knows this isn't good. The reason there's a web for Google's Gemini AI to summarize is that Google – the thrice-convicted monopoly search company with a 90% market share – directs people to websites, and when you visit a website, you generate revenue for the site, which pays for its maintenance. Most commonly, you generate an "ad impression," but you might also buy a subscription, or generate an "affiliate fee" by purchasing a recommended product.

When Google strips all this away by harvesting an "answer" and displaying it at the top of the page, the bargain between Google and the open web breaks down. Google is extracting 100% of the value from the websites it summarizes, and giving nothing back in return.

This is a marked reversal from Google's founding ethos. In the old days, Google measured its success by how little time you spent on its site. The ideal Google outcome was for you to visit its page (or even better, just a search-box in your browser), type a few words, and get "ten blue links" back, the top one of which was the correct link to locate the information or resource you were seeking. The point of Google was to serve as a conduit, a trusted intermediary that neutrally adjudicated the relevance of every web page for every web user from moment to moment.

Everyone dunks on Google for its high-minded motto, "Don't be evil," but over the years, the company's mission was far more important: "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." That was the pole star that googlers followed for the first couple decades of the company's history…until, that is, the company saturated its market and its growth stalled out.

That was when Google started to panic over its plateauing search revenue, this being an inescapable consequence of 90%+ market-share. The ensuing power struggle pitted googlers who were committed to technical excellence against the company's most ardent enshittifiers, who pointed out that by making search worse, they could increase revenues. After all, if you need to search two or three times to get the answers to your questions, that means the company can show you two or three times as many ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

Where once Google measured its success by how quickly it could send you away from its site and out into the open internet, today's Google is a sticky-trap full of ways to keep you inside its walled garden.

A decade ago, tech had three major approaches:

I. Google's: let you do anything you want, but spy on you while you do it;

II. Apple's: strictly control what you can do, but leave you alone to do it in private; and

III. Facebook's: control everything you do, spy on you from asshole to appetite.

Today, tech is undergoing a form of carcinization, in which every company is turning into a Facebook-crab: maximally surveillant and maximally controlling.

Apple has added surveillance to its walled garden:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

While Google has turned its free-range, internet-wide surveillance system into a walled garden that tries to keep you away from the open internet as much as possible.

Now, in Google's defense, the "open internet" kind of sucks these days. Any piece of useful information you seek out on the open internet is liable to be buried under half a dozen pop-ups, pop-unders, and dickovers:

https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/what_is_a_dickover

Even after you clear these away, the actual information you're seeking is further buried in word-salads that anticipated insipid AI prose by half a decade. Think of all those omelet recipes that appear beneath 2,500 words of cod-Proustian remembrances of "the first time I ate an egg."

The major advantage of AI search summaries is in shielding you from all this nonsense. But where did all that nonsense come from in the first place?

It turns out that this is largely Google's fault.

Google and Facebook monopolized the display advertising market, entering into an illegal, collusive arrangement to rig the bidding so that advertisers paid more and publishers received less:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

The Google/Meta duopoly sucks up 51% of display advertising revenue – more than triple the historic take for advertising intermediaries (buyers, brokers, agencies, etc). As ad revenues for web publishers cratered, the "ad load" on web pages went up. This set up a vicious cycle: increasing the number of ads decreases the number of readers, driving publishers to increase the ad-load even more to make up for the losses.

The major brake on this is ad-blocking. In a world with ad-blockers in it, publishers contemplating an increase in ad-load have to confront the possibility that they will induce ad-overload in their readers, who will install a blocker that stops them from seeing any ads:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Google has been looking to kill ad-blocking for a decade, and now they're on the verge of making it happen in Chrome, the dominant web browser they use to reinforce their search monopoly:

https://protonprivacy.substack.com/p/google-is-finally-killing-ublock

Google long ago did away with ad-blocking on mobile devices (reverse engineering an app is a felony, which means an app is just a web-page skinned with the right kind of IP to make it a crime to protect your privacy while you use it). Part of Google's argument for killing ad-blocking for the web is that this puts the web on an even footing with apps – which is a very weird way to describe a race to the absolute bottom:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/12/compelled-speech/#quishing

To top it all off, this decade has seen Google make a series of changes to its search prioritization that favored low-value shovelware sites over carefully researched, reliable alternatives. Search for product reviews and you're apt to get a "site reputation abuse" result from a once-reliable outlet like Forbes filled with useless and even dangerous reviews, which are ranked far above independently maintained, rigorous competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/#site-reputation-abuse

This has only gotten worse with AI search, which preferentially draws from spam sites to produce decontextualized, highly confident recommendations for substandard, overpriced junk, at the expense of recommendations for good products:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/15/inhuman-gigapede/#coprophagic-ai

It's not like Google doesn't have the ability to sort the good from the bad. Kagi.com is a $10/month paid search engine whose results are vastly superior to Google's. But Kagi doesn't have its own search index: instead, they rent access to Google's index, but apply their own (much smaller and less resourced) team's algorithm to rank the results for your queries. In other words, Google could deliver good search results, they just choose not to:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

Gresham's Law holds that "bad money drives out good." It refers to a counterfeit coin crisis in Tudor England, where people preferentially spent counterfeit money in order to make it someone else's problem; meanwhile, everyone hoarded their good coins. Soon, virtually all the money in circulation was bogus.

By downranking quality material in favor of low-effort spam, Google set up a web-wide version of Gresham's Law, where bad webpages drive out good ones, and since so many of those webpages contain product recommendations, they're greshaming the world of real products, too, so the bad is driving out the good there, too.

This is the problem that Gemini search summaries solve: in its role as the web's most important gatekeeper, Google remade it as an ad-festooned cesspit of garbage text and cynical shovelware sites. Now Google proposes to wipe out the publishers whose content they stripmined by breaking the web's bargain: that search engines are symbiotic with publishers. Google has turned fully parasitic, sucking the last drops of juice out of the open web before discarding its husk.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• Anti-Monopoly Bill Hits Make-or-Break Moment in California https://prospect.org/2026/06/29/anti-monopoly-bill-hits-make-or-break-moment-in-california/

• Om Malik, 1966-2026 https://om.co/2026/06/24/1966-2026/

• Why Carbon Capture Can’t Conceivably Solve Climate Change https://projects.propublica.org/why-carbon-capture-cant-solve-climate-change/

• The KIDS Act Would Require Age Checks To Get Online https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/kids-act-would-require-age-checks-get-online

• AI Implementation Bingo Card Generator https://www.workersdecide.tech/bingo/

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Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Appeals court strikes down Microsoft antitrust ruling https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/business/us-appeals-court-overturns-microsoft-antitrust-ruling.html

#25yrsago Ted Chiang's 72 Letters https://web.archive.org/web/20010720192340/http://www.tor.com/72ltrs.html

#25yrsago Concept handheld devices https://web.archive.org/web/20010620115437/https://www.infosync.no/en/news/n/419.asp

#25yrsago Analyzing Microsoft's successful antitrust appeal https://web.archive.org/web/20010703085656/https://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/28/appeals_reaction/index.html

#20yrsago Bengali science fiction of the 1880s https://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2006/05/early-bengali-science-fiction.html

#20yrsago Vernor Vinge on computers, freedom and privacy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2006/jun/29/guardianweeklytechnologysection5

#20yrsago Scammer convinced to carve replica Commodore 64 https://www.419eater.com/html/john_boko.php

#20yrsago Jim Baen, sf publisher, has passed away https://web.archive.org/web/20060703024337/http://david-drake.com/baen.html

#15yrsago YouTube listens to fraudulent NyanCat takedown notice, drags heels on put-back from creator https://web.archive.org/web/20110628132607/http://www.prguitarman.com/index.php?id=369

#15yrsago Wyoming’s corporation mills manufacture privileged artificial “people” to order https://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/28/us-usa-shell-companies-idUSTRE75R20Z20110628/

#15yrsago Publishing in the Internet era: connecting audiences and works https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jun/30/publishers-internet-changing-role?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

#15yrsago Why writers should have their own domains https://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/06/29/mastering-ones-own-domain-an-no-this-is-not-a-seinfeld-reference/

#15yrsago Copyright troll’s biggest fan commits terminal irony https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/06/righthaven-cheerleader-wanted-irony-police

#10yrsago Mississippi state rep tells distraught mom to buy kid’s lifesaving meds ‘with money she earns’ https://www.sunherald.com/news/local/counties/jackson-county/article86416087.html

#10yrsago Always-on CCTVs with no effective security harnessed into massive, unstoppable botnet https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/large-botnet-of-cctv-devices-knock-the-snot-out-of-jewelry-website/

#10yrsago Gun-waving cop who attacked black teenaged girl in her bathing suit faces no charges https://web.archive.org/web/20160624103549/http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2016/06/23/grand-jury-no-bills-former-mckinney-pool-party-cop/

#10yrsago The Olympics are profitable for every host city (that lies about the numbers) https://timharford.com/2016/06/how-do-you-make-the-olympics-pay-fudge-the-figures/

#10yrsago Healthcare workers prioritize helping people over information security (disaster ensues) https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~sws/pubs/ksbk15-draft.pdf

#10yrsago Fansmitter: malware that exfiltrates data from airgapped computers by varying the sound of their fans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GCHCVpndaM

#10yrsago Labour’s knives come out for Corbyn, but he’s guaranteed a spot on the ballot https://www.politico.eu/article/inside-account-of-labour-mps-attacks-on-jeremy-corbyn-shadow-cabinet-resignations-brexit/

#10yrsago Hope Larson’s “Compass South”: swashbuckling YA graphic novel https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/28/hope-larsons-compass-south-swashbuckling-ya-graphic-novel/

#10yrsago How to Break Open the Web: a report on the first Decentralized Web Summit https://www.fastcompany.com/3061357/the-web-decentralized-distributed-open

#10yrsago Californians will get to vote on legal recreational weed https://web.archive.org/web/20160629130245/http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/voters-decide-legalize-recreational-marijuana-40206739

#10yrsago Bernie Sanders on Brexit: urgent lessons for the Democrats https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/opinion/campaign-stops/bernie-sanders-democrats-need-to-wake-up.html

#10yrsago Electoral fraud: Trump sends fundraiser emails to foreign politicians https://www.cnet.com/culture/trump-spams-foreign-politicians-with-fundraising-emails/#ftag=CAD590a51e

#10yrsago The Perdition Score: Sandman Slim vs the One Percent https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/29/the-perdition-score-sandman-slim-vs-the-one-percent/

#5yrsago Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/29/three-times-is-enemy-action/#ctc

#5yrsago SCOTUS to wrongfully accused terrorists: "drop dead" https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/29/three-times-is-enemy-action/#transunion

#5yrsago Lazy Congress only schedules 9 days' work this summer https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/28/dubious-quant-residue/#back-to-work-you

#1yrago Antitrust defies politics' law of gravity https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/28/mamdani/#trustbusting

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• London: Idler Festival, Jul 11
  https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/

• Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales

• Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24
  https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/

• Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25
  https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification

• Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8
  https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/

• London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9
  https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn

• South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
  https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/

---

Recent appearances (permalink)

• Breaking Points
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJmUbkRqXeE

• A.I. Enshittifies Everything (Slate)
  https://slate.com/podcasts/what-next-tbd/2026/06/cory-doctorow-thinks-a-i-is-overvalued-and-overrated-and-still-a-threat

• A World That Just Might Work
  https://aworldthatjustmightwork.com/2026/06/cory-doctorow-ai-use-it-dont-buy-the-hype-dont-feed-the-bubble/

• "How to Think About AI" (Democracy Now!)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBUzl_IaWIw

• The Data Centers Are Coming (ILSR)
  https://ilsr.org/articles/the-data-centers-are-coming-ep-6-closing-arguments/

---

Latest books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

---

Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

---

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

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ISSN: 3066-764X

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