AI in education is being used to displace academic governance of technologies in education - only managers have decisionmaking power to introduce it

Can I quietly ask we stop talking about what "AI" *could* do in education and identify instead what's actually happening with AI in education? I'll start...

oh no my refreshing coke

damn it my spicy meth

In any other context, what would we think about some unseen stranger eavesdropping on kids’ conversations to see what they’re talking about?

I missed that Communications Minister Anika Wells said that kids talking on social media about plans to get around the teen ban will be picked up by the platforms as a signal that they are under 16.

So did I: 2025.pycon.org.au/program/A7XZ...

My friend @chrisjrn.fyi spoke about this not long ago: redmonk.com/videos/an-ob...

"Creating and publishing software under an open source license is an act of contribution to the digital commons. Finding and publishing information about security issues in that software is also an act of contribution to the same commons." Maybe, but these contributions are not of equal value.

Something something market signals.

Fun* fact: in Australia, over 87% of the people who have data exposed in a data breach do so because it was in the ~3 very large data breaches we have each year. (On average, since 2018)

Probably because the ban has absolutely nothing to do with child safety whatsoever, it is about limiting and controlling access to information for young people, as well as slowly forcing everyone to adopt a digital ID. The whole thing is an absurd farce that’s going to fail in spectacular fashion.

Microsoft apologizes for not explaining cheaper no-AI M365 plans, and all it took was a government lawsuit

Little known fact about Jesus: he was also very close to the gambling lobby, and fought hard to shut down freedom of information requests

The teen social media ban hasn't begun but already Australians have been exposed in a social media platform's ID breach. The privacy commissioner says it "goes to many of the concerns that Australians already hold about the looming age assurance scheme." www.crikey.com.au/20...

How's that new privacy tort working out?

If only someone had warned… oh why bother?

A few previously unreported bits in here: - 68000 Aussies in the Discord leak. - Information Commissioner’s office unsuccessfully sought powers to proactively investigate social media companies handling of age check data - Privacy Commissioner worried about scams b/c people used to handing over ID

"I could not be prouder to be a member of the Python Software Foundation today. The purpose of a system is what it does, and it is clear that the PSF understands this very well." — @daedalus.eigenmagic.com pivotnine.com/blog/python-sof...

Imagine how right I am about things in my actual field of expertise.

From left to right that’s @daedalus.eigenmagic.com, @drspacejunk.bsky.social, @cosmicrami.com, @zerogeewhiz.bsky.social, and Dr Trent Yarwood who is over on Mastodon at eigenmagic.net/@trent.

I've just scheduled this week’s issue of #TheCrux containing: - AWS falls over - Updog comes up - ACCC sues Microsoft - ITPros NZ shuts down - IBM makes The Line sad - Deep Time - LongBool - handy personal scripts and lots more. Subscribe! pivotnine.com/newsletter/

We appear to be in some sort of crisis crisis where everything is described as a crisis.

"The Department of Home Affairs will work with social media providers to access publicly available data to identify non compliance"

I don't want public servants who don't understand how emails work and politicians who use this to tell pathetic lies about the FOI system regulating the use of the internet. The standard of public representation in communications policy is through the floor, and it's been Labor's level for decades.

The purpose of a system is what it does.

The social media age ban may actually mean more people have more data collected about them - it means the risk from hacks and leaks may increase and goes against 'data minimisation' principles according to @drwaus.bsky.social

It's galling to see the Albo government paint the U16 social media ban as a great success when there are expert organisations working with vulnerable children queuing up to demonstrate how it will make young people less safe online. Children will suffer as a result of the social media ban.

Senators and even eSafety seem to be unaware you can already use TikTok logged out. 🫠https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/sep/22/under-16s-may-still-see-gambling-violent-far-right-content-under-australia-social-media-ban-simply-by-not-logging-in-zero-neo-nazis

lmao after watching successive governments do absolutely nothing meaningful about the data broker industry nor targeted marketing, I’m not above laughing at them for this

I will be at the amusingly named CyberCon in Melbourne for the next few days. If you see me around the venue, do say hello.

My "actually doing my job" t-shirt is prompting questions already answered by my shirt.

For the first time, the Deloitte report also publicly maps out the business rules of the jobseeker punishment system Here's the tech the government inflicts on poor ppl every day - everyone is subject to it: single mums, ppl with disabilities, homeless ppl

What certainly isn't AI is the interviews Deloitte conducted with guilty bureaucrats and executives inside the Department. Here is one of them saying their system disproportionately-incorrectly punishes First Nations people

Here is a current DIRECTOR within the Department effectively blowing the whistle to Deloitte that the system doesn't demonstrate "natural justice" The Robodebt vibes here are off the charts and I'm begging media to cover this

Imagine receiving this advice from your independent assurance review, and still operating the system in question as is. That's what the Federal government is doing, currently -- at the expense of hundreds of thousands of participants

An FOI I put in at the start of the year found that senior officials at the Department of Employment were aware of these significant issues in 2020, but refused to act It took until DECEMBER 2024 to get Deloitte to review the system & report back

Can I offer Discord a nice sticker at this trying time?

Given it's cybersecurity awareness season, why not get cybercrafty with this handy DIY CyberSecure™ rating label? Fill in your own rating with a marker and colour in the stars with your favourite crayon! The auditors won't notice a thing! www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/1748...

Proudly blabbing to a journalist, on the record, that your big retailer employer is definitely going to do some crimes is… well it's one of the available choices. www.channelnews.com.au/exclusive-ma...

lol the AG Dept was getting so many FOI requests about the FOI bill that they tried to get a blanket extension of time on those requests, info commissioner said no, the law doesn't work like that. www.righttoknow.org.au/request/i_am...

"Every age assurance vendor that we tested had one bypass that was easily accomplished with things that you could buy at your local $2 shop," said Professor Shaanan Cohney from the University of Melbourne. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

Putting LLMs into everything is like putting asbestos into everything, except the asbestos is flammable.

Woke you say?

More effective than 80%* of existing cybersecurity products.

I see that @daedalus.eigenmagic.com is now providing the tools to fix enterprise cybersecurity. www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/1742...

We take security seriously.

interesting bit in a Lancet article re: Australia's teen social media ban: surprisingly the amount of socialising in person hasn't dropped significantly in the past 25 years, and certainly not by the average amount of social media use.

re-reading the teen social media ban law's original documentation: the government argued that banning kids off social media will help them not get doxxed (as a way of making the case that the law abides by our human rights obligations) ?