# Tech & Policy Roundup — Privacy Wins, Policy Reversals, and New AI Models
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## 🇩🇪 German Government Opposes EU's Warrantless Chat Surveillance
**Source:** [paddi_hansen on Twitter/X](https://xcancel.com/paddi_hansen/status/1975595307800142205)
**HN Thread:** [1104 points | 501 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45506143)
Germany’s governing coalition (**CDU/CSU**) has taken a firm stance against the EU’s *anlasslose Chatkontrolle* — warrantless chat surveillance. This is seen as a rare and important win for digital privacy in Europe.
**Key points:**
- The government will reject proposals for communication monitoring without cause.
- Announcement delivered in a 40-second video by Daniel Eck.
- Widely supported by digital rights advocates.
- Calls for legal codification, oversight, and sunset clauses.
- Observers warn that political pressure could still shift policy.
> **Context:** Germany’s history with the Stasi and Gestapo informs deep public skepticism toward mass surveillance.
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## 📉 Synology Reverses Third‑Party HDD Ban
**Source:** [Guru3D](https://www.guru3d.com/story/synology-reverses-policy-banning-thirdparty-hdds-after-nas-sales-plummet/)
**HN Thread:** [981 points | 628 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45513485)
Synology has rolled back a 2025 policy limiting its NAS devices to first‑party drives. The move follows:
- A sharp sales drop.
- Strong user backlash and brand damage.
- Migration of loyal users to competitors.
With DSM 7.3, compatibility for third‑party HDDs and SATA SSDs is restored, without warnings or degraded performance.
**HN Commentary Highlights:**
- Leadership underestimated customer willingness to leave.
- Employee morale was damaged.
- Stock ownership plans are often PR tools with limited impact.
- Costco‑like “customer-first” models are more sustainable.
> **Lesson:** Platform lock‑in is risky; openness improves trust.
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## 🤖 Google DeepMind’s Gemini 2.5 “Computer Use” Model
**Source:** [Google Blog](https://blog.google/technology/google-deepmind/gemini-computer-use-model/)
**HN Thread:** [609 points | 312 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45507936)
**What it does:**
- Automates UI interactions via screenshots and commands.
- Works in a loop: screenshot → command → execute → repeat.
- Optimized for browsers (mobile UI also supported, desktop OS-level excluded).
**Demo Scenarios:**
- Pull pet data from a site directly into a CRM and schedule appointments.
- Organize Kanban boards by categorizing sticky notes.
**HN Insights:**
- Playwright + LLM script generation > direct MCP control for test automation.
- Best practice is human-navigation + script generation to minimize LLM calls.
- Herd platform offers reusable automation “trails”.
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## 🐛 Bug in Go’s ARM64 Compiler
**Source:** [Cloudflare Blog](https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-we-found-a-bug-in-gos-arm64-compiler/)
**HN Thread:** [485 points | 82 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45516000)
**Discovery:** Cloudflare uncovered a non‑atomic stack pointer modification issue in Go’s ARM64 compiler.
**Impact:**
- Fatal runtime panics (`traceback did not unwind completely`, SIGSEGVs).
- Triggered during stack unwinding in idle services.
- Root cause: incorrect handling of large immediate values in generated code.
**Fix:** Load constants into a temp register before affecting the stack pointer — one extra instruction, atomic change achieved.
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## 📧 Grassroots Campaign Slows EU “Chat Control” Bill
**Source:** [Politico](https://www.politico.eu/article/one-man-spam-campaign-ravages-eu-chat-control-bill-fight-chat-control/)
**HN Thread:** [388 points | 147 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45514433)
**Joachim** — a Danish software engineer — built “Fight Chat Control” over a single weekend.
**Result:**
- 2.5M visits triggered millions of protest emails to EU lawmakers.
- Inspired debates in Denmark, Ireland, Poland.
- Signal threatened to exit EU if bill passes.
**Main concern:** Bill would force scanning of encrypted messages for CSAM — critics warn of mass surveillance risks.
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## 🛠 Rails Simplicity vs. Modern Frontend Bloat
**Source:** [Doing Rails Wrong](https://www.bananacurvingmachine.com/articles/you-re-doing-rails-wrong)
**HN Thread:** [365 points | 265 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45505692)
Conversation satire:
- Kevin advocates Vite + React + TypeScript + Tailwind + ESLint + Docker + CI/CD.
- John runs a single Rails command → app works instantly.
- Moral: you may not need complex frontend stacks; vanilla Rails still delivers.
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## 📩 Public Agency’s “Open Source” Vendor Lock-in Horror
**Source:** [The Email They Shouldn’t Have Read](https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/10/08/the-email-they-shouldnt-have-read/)
**HN Thread:** [347 points | 145 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45515657)
Summary:
- Agency’s hosted “open-source” mail system secretly monitored client emails.
- Lock‑in via onerous contracts (long notice periods, arbitrary fees).
- Evidence collected via a planted “false” email.
- Lesson: Beware of “pseudo–open source” commercial packages and inspect contracts closely.
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## 🚨 ICE’s Fake Cell Towers in Surveillance Vehicles
**Source:** [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/07/ice-bought-vehicles-equipped-with-fake-cell-towers-to-spy-on-phones/)
**HN Thread:** [320 points | 195 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45505854)
- ICE spent $825K on vehicles with IMSI catchers (“Stingrays”).
- Capable of intercepting calls, messages, and tracking phones.
- Heavy use since 2013; oversight murky.
- Apple’s “Lockdown Mode” disables 2G/3G as part of high-security defenses.
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## 🧠 Tiny Recursion Model (TRM) – Small Network, Big Reasoning
**Source:** [alexiajm.github.io](https://alexiajm.github.io/2025/09/29/tiny_recursive_models.html)
**HN Thread:** [295 points | 60 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45506268)
- 7M parameter recursive model achieves surprising AGI benchmarks (ARC-AGI-1: 45%).
- Works via iterative answer refinement.
- Challenges the “bigger is better” LLM narrative.
- Lower cost, reduced risk of overfitting.
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## 🧪 Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 — MOF Pioneers
**Source:** [Nobelprize.org](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2025/popular-information/)
**HN Thread:** [295 points | 52 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45514164)
Awarded to:
- **Susumu Kitagawa**
- **Richard Robson**
- **Omar M. Yaghi**
For creating **Metal–Organic Frameworks (MOFs)**:
- Ultra-porous materials for drug delivery, CO₂ capture, hydrogen storage.
- Potential far exceeds zeolites, but industrial scaling is a challenge.
- Surface areas can reach **7,000 m²/g**.
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## 💬 Closing Thought
Across these stories — from political resistance to mass surveillance, to corporate reversals on restrictive policies, to AI tools balancing complexity and efficiency — common threads emerge:
- **Openness builds trust** (Synology’s reversal, AiToEarn’s open model).
- **Simplicity can outperform complexity** (Rails vs bloated frontends, TRM vs huge LLMs).
- **Public participation matters** (Joachim’s campaign shifted EU politics).
- **Technical precision is vital** (Go ARM64 bug, Gemini UI automation).
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**Resource Highlight:**
Tools like **[AiToEarn](https://aitoearn.ai/)** embody these principles — allowing creators to generate AI-driven content, publish across Douyin, Kwai, WeChat, Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, YouTube, Pinterest, and X simultaneously, with analytics and AI model rankings ([see rankings](https://rank.aitoearn.ai)) — supporting openness, efficiency, and user control.
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