Longtime Slashdot reader Matt_Bennett shares a blog post from Adafruit: Adafruit received at 10:38 p.m. ET on May 22, 2026 a letter from former FBI chief of staff, Jonathan F. Lenzner, and partner at Fenwick & West LLP, counsel for Flux, demanding, among other things, that Adafruit refrain from publishing an article addressing what the letter characterizes as false and potentially defamatory claims about Flux, including statements about Flux's intellectual property, commercial traction and user base. The letter further asserts claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Adafruit accessed only information that Flux's own systems made publicly available through a server misconfiguration. Adafruit's reporting concerns a matter of public security interest and was conducted in the ordinary course of responsible disclosure. Although Adafruit vigorously rejects the assertions made in Flux's May 22, 2026 demand letter, we have temporarily stopped publishing on the Adafruit blog while we consider our response and next steps. We will update the community as appropriate. For context, Adafruit is a major open-source hardware company and electronics retailer known for its maker-focused boards, components, tutorials, and community publishing. Flux.ai is relevant because it is building an AI-assisted circuit-board design platform aimed at changing how engineers create and collaborate on PCB designs. "Adafruit probably did a review of AI PCB tools," writes HN user karmicthreat. "I've used Flux.ai before; it was a pretty bad experience. After about 50-100$ in tokens a couple of times, I couldn't get more than a couple of simple components on the schematic. And not in sensible positions..." Redditor AlexTaradox adds: "Nothing was published as far as I know. I assume they did review of AI tools and likely contacted flux with some preliminary results, but flux saw where it is going and decided to block them from publishing any results. Flux is garbage and they obviously know it, but they need to hold for some time until some other scam acquires them. Doing anything with them is just asking to be screwed..." Further discussions are taking place on Reddit and Hacker News.

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New EU battery rules taking effect early next year are pushing tech makers toward user-replaceable batteries in products like headphones, e-readers, handheld consoles, laptops, and possibly earbuds. But carve-outs for smartphones and tablets may mean replaceable batteries won't necessarily return to phones in the way many users remember. The Verge's Dominic Preston reports: Since the upcoming law doesn't actually come into force until February 18th, 2027, companies still have plenty of time to get their ducks in a row. Still, it's likely that before then we'll see more and more manufacturers launch products with user-replaceable batteries, across audio, e-readers, gaming handhelds, and more. Only time will tell whether most of those products are EU only, or whether the new European laws shape the nature of tech worldwide. It's likely that some product categories will move slower than others. Tech companies will have breathed a sigh of relief that wearables look likely to be exempt, but if wireless earbuds aren't carved out as well then there may be a scramble to adapt the miniature designs for easy replaceability. "The in-ear form factor demands extreme miniaturization, to fit the driver, antenna, processor, microphones and battery," notes a recent report from consultants Futuresource, going on to suggest that meeting the requirements will make earbuds both bigger and more expensive to manufacture. There also remains uncertainty about how some elements of the law will be interpreted. The law requires that user repairs be possible using "commercially available tools," which are "tools available on the market to all end-users." Right to Repair Europe's Alberico points out that this is a broad definition, likely to include a lot of tools not found in most houses, so there will likely be nothing to stop manufacturers requiring the sorts of less common screws that require dedicated electronics tool kits. There's also no strict definition of the "reasonable" price that manufacturers are required to set for spare parts. "That will likely take time -- and possibly litigation -- to clarify in practice," Alberico says. "But without fair access to affordable spare parts, repair will struggle to become the simplest and most attractive option for consumers." The big disappointment is that the separate phone and tablet legislation means we won't see any real changes there, so long as manufacturers make their batteries and devices durable. "This creates a false tradeoff between durability and repairability," Alberico says. "Robust, waterproof devices should not have to come at the expense of user-replaceable batteries. While the ecodesign legislation requirements meant an improvement in battery durability and replaceability, at Right to Repair Europe we'll continue to advocate for all products to be designed with user-replaceable batteries." Whether the EU will listen remains to be seen. Otherwise, the main product people seem to want to replace the battery in may remain one of the only ones where they can't.

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The IRS’s new, Palantir-powered API will make IRS data available to any app it wishes, and Palantir is working for the Criminal Investigation (CI) part of the IRS on a new system to bring together traditionally disparate systems into a single overarching one to investigate all sorts of financial crime, according to a cache of documents obtained by 404 Media. 

The existence and development of the API have been previously reported and announced by the Department of the Treasury. But the documents provide much more specific insight into what the IRS is hoping to achieve with it, and what the agency wants Palantir to build.

“As the IRS’ mission expands as a result of legislative mandates, taxpayer expectations, and oversight requirements, IRS data systems have become increasingly complex and siloed; this creates an opportunity to modernize data access, enhance secure information sharing across business operations, and accelerate compliance capabilities,” one of the documents reads.

404 Media obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the IRS.

The idea of the new API—an Application Programming Interface that lets different pieces of software communicate with one another—is to make “IRS data easily accessible to any app,” according to one of the documents. Specifically, the API will use Palantir’s Foundry software, the documents say.

In September, the Department of the Treasury announced: “To continue improving data integrity and technical infrastructure, Treasury has awarded a contract to Palantir. This partnership will enable a common API layer that supports developer platforms, workflow automation, and data analytics.  This work supports federal employees, increasing efficiency for their professional duties.”

Last month The Intercept reported Palantir is helping the IRS analyze dozens of different datasets to investigate financial crimes. One of the documents obtained by 404 Media discussing CI’s modernization says one objective is to provide modern tools to support investigations into “complex criminal financial crimes, organized crime, tax crimes, protecting the US financial system and other US Treasury Department missions.”

One section lays out how CI currently handles data:

“CI does not have a centralized law enforcement case management system that allows for deconfliction (increased intelligence and officer safety), lead tracking, centralized evidence/case file management, chain of custody tracking, or investigative file sharing/comprehensive case file access (across CI, Chief Counsel, Department of Justice, and civil counterparts). Nor does CI have a centralized repository for all CI case data (intelligence and data analytics). CI's current solution for managing case data is having case related evidence, memorandums, and investigative approval requests housed in Windows folders maintained on individual agent's computers, shared Windows folders within field offices that periodically backup to regional servers and locking filing cabinets and grand jury storage rooms that house physical evidence.”

In February a second federal judge ordered the IRS to stop sharing residential addresses with ICE, Politico reported.

Neither Palantir nor the Department of Treasury responded to a request for comment.

You can read the documents here:

Document one.

Document two.

Document three.

Document four.

Document five.

2026 has seen an unexpected indie success, due to the fact that it’s an extremely unexpected team up. On one hand, you have Grey Alien Games, long time grinders of the solitaire genre, most known by you HG101 readers as the creators of Shadowhand. On the other, we have Night Signal Entertainment, a newcomer created ...

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Forbidden Solitaire was first posted on June 1, 2026 at 4:17 pm.
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U.S. forces deployed to war zones "have been targeted using commercially available location data," reports Reuters, citing "reports fielded by military officials." Reuters calls it "an illustration of how the global surveillance economy is shaping the battlefield." In a letter shared with Reuters by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, U.S. Central Command said it had "received multiple threat reports concerning adversary exploitation of commercial location data to target or surveil U.S. personnel in theater." The message, sent on April 14, offered no further specifics, but Centcom's area of responsibility includes the Gulf, where U.S. forces are facing off against the Iranian military over the Strait of Hormuz. The disclosure was the first official confirmation that U.S. forces had been targeted in an active war zone, Wyden and a bipartisan group of legislators said in a letter sent on Thursday to the Pentagon. "Commercial location data can be used to identify where U.S. troops congregate and their pattern of life, which can be exploited by adversaries to target attacks such as missiles, drones, and roadside bombs, as well as for counterintelligence purposes," the letter warned. Wyden said in a statement that it was time to "start treating the adtech industry as a national security threat." "The letter from U.S. lawmakers to the Pentagon said that, given what military officials know about the trade in location data, they should have acted faster to protect their personnel," the artiles adds, "for example by disabling the unique advertising ID attached to military-issued devices, automatically turning off location sharing on smartphones in the field, and steering staff away from Google's Chrome web browser toward more privacy-focused alternatives." Thanks to Slashdot reader JoeyRox for sharing the article.

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CPAs can I write this comic off on taxes now, please let me know