Last Week’s Quote was: “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be,”  was by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Veronika got it right.  

This Week’s Quote:  “The Universe is filled with Magical Things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”  By??? 

THE RULES:  No searching up the answer, must be posted at the bottom of the blog post, in the comments section.

The Prize:  First person to post the correct answer gets their next domain or hosting renewal on us.

Major outages disrupt Big Tech cloud providers globally

Between 2pm and 5pm ET today (June 12th) numerous internet users began to report outages across nearly all major cloud providers:

Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Cloudflare and AWS all experienced problems – Amazon contacted Forbes, disputing their reports of AWS being among the affected services – yet Downdetector clearly shows the same pattern affecting AWS that hit everybody else:

With the internet’s largest backend cloud providers imploding at the same time – downstream effects cascaded across the world with any service that has built on these backend providers also going down: Spotify, Twitch, Discord, Shopify – too many to name here.

At the moment there is no known RFO (Reason For Outage) – naturally, rumours abound, which we’ll hold off commenting on until firmer information comes to light.

For the record, easyDNS and all associated services: DNS resolution, email, web hosting, VPS and customer dashboard were all unaffected.

I hadn’t even noticed there was a problem until I tried to book a rental from home depot for the weekend and after calling in was told “our entire rental inventory system is down across the country” and then started to see other reports across other services.

Read: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/06/12/major-websites-experience-technical-issues-amid-widespread-internet-outage/

They Just Gutted Your Privacy and Buried It in a Budget Bill

On June 6, 2025, Canada’s government quietly slipped a major privacy exemption for political parties into Bill C-4, an “affordability measures” bill. The change, backdated to May 31, 2000, retroactively removes privacy protections and shields parties from provincial privacy laws.

This move follows a B.C. court case that applied provincial privacy law to federal political parties. “The government is trying to kill that ruling before it’s even appealed,” said Colin Bennett, a political science professor.

Unlike past bills, this one eliminates key safeguards. It removes data breach notification rules and restrictions on selling personal data. Instead, parties only need a basic privacy policy and a named officer. There’s no requirement to share or correct personal information.
Privacy commissioners have no authority here. Parties can collect and use data freely, without oversight. Critics warn this is part of a broader rollback. With Bill C-2 also weakening data protections, experts say the privacy of millions is now at serious risk.

Read: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2025/06/what-is-with-this-government-and-privacy-political-party-privacy-safeguards-removed-in-affordability-measures-bill/

TED Just Silenced a Powerful Speech They Helped Create

In October 2024, economist Professor Gigi Foster gave a TEDx talk at the University of New South Wales titled The Manipulators’ Playbook. It explored how fear is used during crises to control public opinion and silence dissent. TEDxUNSW called it “insightful and important.”

But when submitted to TED’s US office, the talk was blocked. They claimed it broke TEDx content rules by being too critical of public health leaders and using “divisive rhetoric.”

Foster pushed back, saying, “My statements were backed by studies of high intellectual and scientific rigour.” She provided peer-reviewed evidence, but TED never responded.

Her talk linked pandemic policies to historical suppression of dissent and warned that lockdowns caused more harm than good. She said, “The lockdowns didn’t save lives… they were a massive human sacrifice.”

Despite months of work, TED refused to publish the talk.
This case highlights a growing trend—platforms once open to bold ideas are now censoring voices that challenge authority. Foster’s warning became reality. TED closed the door on real debate.

Read: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/when-ideas-become-too-dangerous-platform


Google Just Patched a Scary Bug That Could Expose Your Phone Number in Minutes

In April 2025, security researcher “brutecat” found a major flaw in Google’s account recovery system. It allowed attackers to reveal a user’s private recovery phone number without their knowledge. The issue could have led to targeted attacks like SIM swaps or account takeovers.
Using an automated script, brutecat bypassed Google’s security checks and tested all possible phone number combinations in under 20 minutes. When TechCrunch gave them a test email, brutecat quickly returned the correct phone number. “Bingo :)” they replied.

Google confirmed it fixed the bug before the story was published. “We want to thank the researcher for flagging this issue,” said Kimberly Samra, a Google spokesperson. She added that there’s been “no confirmed, direct links to exploits.”

While the bug is now fixed, the risk was serious. Hackers could’ve used it to steal private accounts linked to phone numbers. Google paid $5,000 to brutecat as part of its bug bounty program and credited them for helping protect users worldwide.

Read: https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/09/google-fixes-bug-that-could-reveal-users-private-phone-numbers/

Microsoft Fixes One Dangerous Boot Bug but Leaves the Other Wide Open

On June 11, 2025, researchers uncovered two major Secure Boot exploits that could let attackers install malware before your device even powers on fully. Microsoft patched one of them—CVE-2025-3052—but is leaving the other, CVE-2025-47827, unaddressed.

The first bug affects over 50 device makers. It lets hackers disable Secure Boot, the system meant to protect startup processes. It can be triggered by physical access or remotely if the attacker has control. Alex Matrosov, CEO of security firm Binarly, called it a “single vendor misstep [that] can ripple across the entire UEFI supply chain.”

The second flaw, discovered by researcher Zack Didcott, allows malware to sneak in using a Linux module signed by Microsoft. Microsoft hasn’t confirmed plans to fix it. Firmware experts at Eclypsium say this bug provides “a near-universal” way to bypass Secure Boot.

With one hole patched and one still open, users are at risk. Aside from updates, the only defense left is physical device security—something Secure Boot was supposed to handle.

Read: https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/06/unearthed-in-the-wild-2-secure-boot-exploits-microsoft-patches-only-1-of-them/

Apple Just Took a Huge AI Risk That Could Change Everything

On Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple unveiled new AI tools called Apple Intelligence. Unlike other tech giants, Apple chose privacy over flash. Most features run directly on users’ devices, not in the cloud.

New tools like spam detection, call screening, and Live Translation all work locally. Messages from unknown numbers are sorted without your data leaving the phone. Untrusted calls are auto-screened and transcribed, helping users decide whether to answer.

“From a privacy perspective, local processing is the gold standard,” the article notes. Apple’s system avoids sending sensitive data to external servers, making it harder for hackers or third parties to access.

Apple also introduced Private Cloud Compute for more powerful AI tasks, but even this system keeps user data secure. Only the newest Apple devices will support these features, giving Apple control over both hardware and software performance.
The company also added opt-in ChatGPT access with built-in privacy filters. Apple’s focus on privacy isn’t just ethical—it’s a strategy to stand out in a crowded AI market.

Read: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-intelligence-is-gambling-on-privacy-as-a-killer-feature/

Elsewhere online: