How do you turn the idea of public investment in open digital infrastructure into institutional practice?
Our report, “The Sovereign Tech Agency: From Feasibility to Implementation,” traces the development of the Sovereign Tech Agency from an initial 2021 concept to five complementary programs that have invested in over 110 critical #opensource technologies.
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✨Know Thyself✨
Spooky season is here and we’re getting into the Halloween vibe with this quite robust specimen of a skeleton.
This Memento Mori mosaic is held in the National Museum Bath of Diocletian, Rome, and thought to date to the C1st CE. The Greek motto is ‘gnōthi sauton’ (know thyself) and is reminiscent of the Latin idea ‘memento mori’ (remember death).
https://epistemicast.org/germanys-sovereign-tech-agency-with-laia-domenech-burin/
Our latest podcast is with Laia Domenech Burin is about Germany's Sovereign Tech Agency (@sovtechfund).
Laia says “Open source is the core to build digital sovereignty. We understand digital sovereignty as the capacity to shape and use technology in a self-determined way.”
#digitalsovereignty #OpenSource #SovereignTechAgency #techpolicy
My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today.
Walter and I met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s, and we stayed friends for nearly six decades. When Brad and I married in 2008, Walter stood beside us as our best man. Just last month, on Sept. 14, he turned 90, on the same day Brad and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. I will always treasure that he and I shared that date.
Walter was more than Chekov. He was a writer, a teacher, a thoughtful man, and a loyal friend. To the fans who loved him for so many years, thank you. He loved you too.
Rest well, my dear friend. Keep navigating a steady course.
– George
I'm happy to introduce #Steuererklärung: a bookkeeping app for #Linux, #Windows and #Mac with an optional module for German tax declarations with #ELSTER. It's built natively for #GNOME with #GTK / #Adwaita on #GJS and is #OpenSource 🎉
Germany's annual income tax return has long had no native Linux desktop application. This app aims to change that 🤓
Feedback, feature wishes and bug reports are very welcome!
Available for Windows, Mac and Linux at https://jumplink.eu/steuererklaerung/
can we please end cyber security awareness month I have been made aware thanks
Our full statement on PHP2Shell.
Free AI tokens will not save the day. We need to invest in the people behind the code.
https://www.sovereign.tech/news/php2shell-shows-why-critical-open-source-needs-investment-at-scale
Through the Sovereign Tech Fund and Sovereign Tech Resilience, we invest in the maintenance and security capacity needed to turn findings into fixes. With the Digital Commons EDIC, we are also working on a pilot European Sovereign Tech Fund to scale public investment across Europe.
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This week's PHP2Shell incident shows why critical open source needs sustained investment at scale. On 21 October, PHP released fixes for two critical vulnerabilities that could, under certain conditions, allow attackers to execute code on affected web servers without authentication. But the incident also shows that finding vulnerabilities only improves security if maintainers have the resources to fix them.
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"Local Wikipedia is Wikipedia, but only for things a half hour walk from you."
Because eMudhra is in the news, I am sharing a screenshot of a footer of an email I once received from them in reply to my query about my PAN card (a government-issued tax identity and card). #eMudhra
⚠️📢 Sicherheitswarnung: PHP – Kritische Schwachstellen bedrohen Webanwendungen weltweit
In einer Vorab-Ankündigung informieren die Entwickler von PHP aktuell über die Veröffentlichung von Details und Patches zu zwei Schwachstellen in der Programmiersprache.
‼️ Der Patch ist für heute 16 Uhr deutscher Zeit (14:00 UTC) angekündigt und sollte unverzüglich installiert werden.
Underappreciated aspect of IT procurement: keyboard layouts. I easily lose 1% productivity daily because I am using a German keyboard layout at work and a US keyboard layout everywhere else. They are annoyingly different, e.g., the Y and Z being in swapped positions trips me up regularly.
Among the 377 results that OpenAI announced two weeks ago, one stood out. It claimed to settle the “quasi-Riemann hypothesis” — a weaker version of the Riemann hypothesis, which is arguably the biggest open question in math. https://www.quantamagazine.org/ai-proved-the-quasi-riemann-hypothesis-what-happens-now-20261019/
"Ignoring the slop" cannot be done and it doesn't help. These reports created with the help of AIs point out actual problems, and sometimes vulnerabilities. Ignoring real vulnerabilities because they were found by AI does not make users safe and secure. It makes them vulnerable. We don't want that. (I don't call this "slop" because it's typically accurate and correct, even if too wordy)
Mastodon für alle Studierenden:
Die Uni Innsbruck eröffnet eine zweite Instanz für alle Studentinnen und Studenten. Nach den Mitarbeiter:innen haben damit nun alle Uniangehörigen Zugang zum Fediverse über lokale Instanzen, angebunden an das Uni-Anmeldesystem via Single-Sign-On. 🙌
https://www.uibk.ac.at/de/newsroom/2026/social-media-mastodon-fur-alle-studierenden/
👉 @team
At the UN, plans for a global coalition to attack LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights
https://globalvoices.org/2026/10/17/at-the-un-plans-for-a-global-coalition-to-attack-lgbtq-and-reproductive-rights/
Ah yes, and here we see once again how the interconnectedness of global markets makes the world safer and more peaceful
*checks notes*
er, I am sure it is just a matter of the markets not being free enough yet.
Hi folks, if you are maintaining a widely used #OpenSource infrastructure project (think networking, encryption, testing/QA automation, desktop libraries, payment libraries ...) now is a good time to ask for a security audit or other support through the Sovereign Tech Resilience program.
The basic idea is: you apply (quick process), and we pair you with a partner firm from our network. We help with the scoping and pay the bill for the partner.
This is _not_ money for maintainers -- we have other programs for that -- but it does translate in free access to services for you.
Please take a look at the full services provided and consider if some of them could make sense for you. Happy to answer questions.