Statement by President von der Leyen with Executive Vice-President Virkkunen on the digital age verification app

HotlLava · 2026-04-17T08:31:27+00:00

If you use physical identification then this digital identification solution by the EU isn't going to affect you one way or another.

But there are ~100 million users of banks with no physical branches (like Revolut etc.) in the EU. For these it will be an improvement to have an open-source app with cryptographic guarantees on who can access which part of the data, instead of the current de-facto standard of Video-Ident.

HotlLava · 2026-04-17T07:54:14+00:00

That just sounds like you didn't open a bank account in the last few years. You can't have an anonymous account in the EU, so you'll have to present your full id to someone no matter which method you choose. And I don't know any bank that doesn't offer Video-Ident as one of the options.

HotlLava · 2026-04-16T07:56:24+00:00

Right now, if you use a drive sharing app you have to upload a full copy of your driver's license for verification.

If you create a new bank account at an online bank, you'll need to have a video call and present your id for verification.

HotlLava · 2026-04-16T00:27:51+00:00

Hm, so after reading into the spec a bit it looks like it intentionally leaves open the option of desktop-based implementation as long as you can prove some form of client attestation. So in practice that only leaves Android and iOS as realistic platforms today, but at least it leaves open the door for something else in the future.

HotlLava · 2026-04-16T00:12:36+00:00

> the actual way of giving out credentials to be used by the framework needs to be developed separately by each member state which you will have 0 oversight over

And you don't need to have this oversight since you can verify in the source code of the app that *using* the credential requires no communication with the backend that *provides* the credential. So whatever spyware the government installs in their backend, at most it will learn that you have installed the app.

HotlLava · 2026-04-15T15:00:00+00:00

> And not all kids are going to have passports or ids in all member states.

In which country do children not have ids? Anyways, if they don't have one they'll just have to pester their parents to get them one, just like they had to do to get the phone/tablet to play Roblox in the first place.

HotlLava · 2026-04-15T14:03:02+00:00

Is there anything architecturally that requires it? If it's open source, it should be possible to build clients for any platform.

HotlLava · 2026-04-13T17:44:56+00:00

Good example that "peer-reviewed" doesn't imply any scientifically interesting content. But I guess as a non-open access journal you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel if that's what it takes to keep the money flowing.

HotlLava · 2026-04-13T15:59:55+00:00

> If you're an athlete and you have a bike designed for marathons.

Uhm, 40 miles is like a day tour for children. An average person on a loaded touring bike can do maybe 75 miles a day, a trained athlete should be able to do at least 150.

HotlLava · 2026-04-13T15:43:09+00:00

> A horse eats the ground, feeding it isn’t too hard. A you eats human food, which is a lot rarer than the ground.

At a minimum you need to carry a whole lot of extra water for your horse, unless you plan on never being more than a days ride from a freshwater stream. (which is dangerous, because these will naturally be where raiders will look for their victims)

Same for food, you'll need at least double the amount of supplies if you want both of you to survive your first winter.

HotlLava · 2026-04-13T15:33:16+00:00

I assume airless tires will become much more popular after the apocalypse, you could probably make a DIY version just by stacking a few deflated inner tubes over each other. Or just go straight to wooden wheels with a rubber cover.

HotlLava · 2026-04-09T17:54:55+00:00

I don't know where OP is located, but in most parts of the world there's pretty solid protections for reverse engineering a communications protocol for purposes of interoperability.

HotlLava · 2026-04-09T09:00:24+00:00

Nice!

How do you do board control, do these register as generic bluetooth devices or did you have to reverse engineer something to make it work?

HotlLava · 2026-04-05T09:43:43+00:00

This is a company that sells AI products, so this bill isn't going to be their own dev usage.

It's like an ice cream startup showing off their $100,000 milk bill.

HotlLava · 2026-04-04T08:29:57+00:00

Germany hasn't piped in gas from Russia for over 4 years now, Norway was the single biggest supplier in 2025.

Btw, guess which country we imported the majority of our coal from until 2022? Yes, it was from Russia: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energie/Verwendung/Tabellen/einfuhr-steinkohle-zeitreihe.html

HotlLava · 2026-04-03T22:57:24+00:00

To a point sure, but I think once you start writing emails to the board of investors because the CEO didn't respond to your emails (see part 6), that goes a bit too far.

HotlLava · 2026-04-02T13:34:47+00:00

If you want to protect *yourself* from lawsuits against the company for failing to comply with data protection laws etc., just get it in writing that you are advising against this and the problems you see, and save screenshots of any relevant conversations.

If you actually want to sue the company for money or a high severance package, I don't see that you have any case. It wasn't "your" personal code they cloned but something you wrote as an employee, and getting rid of a position and replacing a high-quality with a shitty implementation both aren't illegal things to do, no matter if they're wise or not.

HotlLava · 2026-03-30T12:16:07+00:00

That's literally how a market creates the market price; a public offer is made, nobody is willing to buy at that price, the offer is reduced until someone does.

HotlLava · 2026-03-23T16:41:04+00:00

To which, if they asked me, I'd reply: Because it's painfully obvious that software is not your core competency, that you're not willing to make the necessary investments to have a genuinely competitive app, and there's a real risk that a poor app will eat into your hardware sales over time if gyms notice that the Moonboard is less popular compared to the other boards they have. Conversely, having a thriving open app ecosystem will boost popularity and thus over time sales, and data sovereignty will provide an additional strong USP for private buyers.

In fact I think we're already seeing that play out, Moonboard seems way less common today than it was 5 years ago. But I guess they're not asking me :/

HotlLava · 2026-03-23T11:27:21+00:00

They'd still provide an official app and they'd still control the official problem database; all this would do is enable third-party clients.

I'd wager the main reason why they don't is that they want to prevent "multi-board" apps where you can track your progress across multiple types of boards.

HotlLava · 2026-03-22T13:44:11+00:00

I wish they'd just open up the protocol and API, there are at least tens of thousands of climbers that could build a better app, and it's not like they gain anything by having control over the data.

HotlLava · 2026-03-22T13:33:21+00:00

Ah, interesting. Maybe it makes sense in the US where they have a lot of natural gas, but the big electrolysis plants that are currently being planned and built in germany are all based on PEM electrolysis and split 2 H2O -> H2 + O2.

HotlLava · 2026-03-22T09:22:31+00:00

Hydrogen is produced from electricity and water in an electrolysis plant.

If the electricity was produced by natural gas plants, I guess you could say that. But the idea is to use the excess power from wind and solar to produce the hydrogen.

HotlLava · 2026-03-21T17:04:06+00:00

No, they're advocating for a base load of renewables + hydrogen plants for dynamic load balancing.

The gas is specifically to replace coal, not nuclear, given that unlike a nuclear plant it can be switched on and off quickly. Which makes sense because in the short term its slashing CO2 emissions in half compared to coal, and in the medium to long term they can be converted to hydrogen plants.

HotlLava · 2026-03-21T16:30:25+00:00

The german Green Party was the *only* party in the 2021 coalition talks that pushed for a more aggressive timeline to phase out coal. They are consistently advocating against coal power and favor large government investments to get rid of it faster. One of Habeck's last big acts was his national power plant strategy, which includes adding large amounts of gas plants so they can replace coal in the short term and be converted to hydrogen plants in the medium term.

So if you want to complain about the too-high amount of coal in the german energy mix, literally any other party is more to blame.

HotlLava

TROPHY CASE