A new version of the Wi-Fi standard, 802.11bf, is planned to standardize their use as spy devices to track people's movements through walls. The designers have reportedly not yet turned their minds to the questions of "privacy and security" for this capability.

When they do, if they follow the usual bad conceptions, they will interpret "privacy" as "protecting the collected data from use unauthorized by the business that controls them", and "security" as meaning "security against third parties, not against the manufacturer or ISP."

And if they implement any way to turn this capability off, I fear that it will be under software control — and that it will be an excuse to to require nonfree software in every Wi-Fi interface, just where you really shouldn't trust it.

What the standard needs is a way to build Wi-Fi interface hardware that is hardware-limited to communication and can't do any tracking. Every ordinary Wi-Fi device should be hardware-limited to communication.

The devices that are not hardware-limited to communication should be special models, which you won't have in your house unless you know that's what you want. They should not do any communication themselves. That way, if you do have one, you'll be able to control who it communicates with.

It would be good to require these devices to have a geofence: no tracking anything outside of a certain boundary. It should be legally required for the installer of such a device to configure the geofence at the boundary of your own apartment. Installing them such that they can track outside of a private place should be a crime as well.

Or perhaps it would be better not to approve this standard and not make such tracker devices.

Doctors Without Borders has campaigned effectively to influence Canada to stop letting Pharma companies privatize drugs developed with public research funds.

The campaign is very good, but ought to go further. Canada ought to take the control of studies that test the effects of medicines away from the Pharma companies, and run them with public funding under public control — and tax the companies to pay for them.

A blemish in the article is that it uses the propaganda term "intellectual property," which opposes the goal and spreads confusion. Please help end the confusion by refusing to use that term.

Bogus Johnson's scorned ex-favorite, Cummings, said that Johnson opposed measures to reduce spread of Covid-19 a year ago because "the people who are dying are essentially all over 80."

There are situations where you can't save everyone and it is inevitable to prioritize who to save. We have seen some such situations during the pandemic, such as when hospitals did not have capacity to treat everyone who was gravely ill. But Johnson gives nearly everyone's life too little priority.

An NHS hospital doctor reproaches Bogus Johnson and the British government for shirking responsibility now to protect Britons from Covid.

Instagram intensely promotes thinness to teens that bring it up in conversations.

Ben & Jerry's announced plans to stop the sale of its ice cream in Israel's colonies in Palestinian territory.

Most Israelis favor colonization and many will boycott Ben & Jerry's if it continues to sell in Israel but not Israel's occupation colonies. Israel's new prime minister, a right-wing extremist, has threatened retribution for this.

I don't think the direction of Ben & Jerry's will be intimidated. However, it is now owned by Unilever. I hope that conglomerate does not impose a "profit über alles" mindset.

It is not clear to me whether Ben & Jerry's plans to stop sales in colonies immediately, while continuing to sell it in Israel, or rather plans only to end the sale of its ice cream in Israel in 2022.