Links 1/25/2026

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1. TimH January 25, 2026 at 7:32 am

   Re bitlocker. Most reporting just uses the word “warrant” or “legal warrant” or “warrant request”, but here we have:

   Early last year, in 2025, FBI investigators in Guam got a search warrant for Microsoft.

   https://cybersecuritynews.com/microsoft-shares-bitlocker-keys/

   Search warrant? All a bit fishy, and doesn’t sound like a legally binding court order to me.

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   1. Bobby Boycott January 25, 2026 at 10:35 am

      If you own a MacBook with Tahoe (MacOS26) and have file vault enabled, I want you to take a look in your Passwords App where you will find the encryption key for you laptop. This encryption key is most likely backed up to your iCloud account.

      This is just as bad, maybe worse, that what is going on here with Microsoft.

      If the FBI gets a warrant for your iCloud account they now posses the encryption key for you Laptop.

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      1. Yves Smith January 25, 2026 at 10:42 am

         I do not use iCloud. I never trusted it. Hard disk backups only. There are also Mac backup services which say they don’t knuckle under to police requests for data.

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2. The Rev Kev January 25, 2026 at 7:33 am

   “We’re running out of aspirin! Pharmacies rationing aspirin to patients with most serious heart problems due to ‘worrying’ UK shortages”

   I got an idea. What if Starmer got on the horn to China’s President Xi and see if he can ramp up production of aspirin which the UK will purchase for a good price. It is hardly a high-tech medicine and so much of the world’s drugs is produced by China anyway. This could even open up the door to further trade deals between the UK and China. Of course this all depends on Starmer not stuffing it up but it is worth a try.

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3. IM Doc January 25, 2026 at 7:36 am

   Aspirin? Massive shortage? You must be kidding me. Literally, aspirin is one of the most simple of organic processes to manufacture drugs. If there are shortages of aspirin and empty shelves anywhere in the Western world, I would view that as a sign of great concern.

   Aspirin – or acetysalicylic acid ( ASA for short) – is a completely artificial compound made from petroleum organics. The original product for literally centuries dating back to the Greek and Roman world was from salicin or willow trees. I have literally seen all kinds of recipes and methods to extract it in ancient texts but mostly medieval texts and mostly in Latin. You basically take the bark, char it just a bit, mash it up into a fine powder and then stir it into vinegar. I have seen it being used in this vinegar extract all the way into making a poultice out of things like sour cream and placing it directly on the affected area.

   It was not until the late medieval era that its modern usefulness became known. The word is “auge”. It means fever of an intermittent nature that is still totally with us today – almost every severe infection presents with intermittent fever spikes. And these ancient preps absolutely helped with that. The cardiac and blood clotting indications did not really become obvious until the 20th Century.

   The problem making the jump from a natural product to a synthetic product is also quite interesting. In medicine, this process was basically started during the 19th Century and this was done with so many other drugs and compounds. It was a process of refining and stripping out all the other chemicals that existed with the main target. The same exact thing was done with coca as it was turned into cocaine, and opium as it was turned into heroin. Among so so many others. The active chemical was found awash in all kinds of other similar chemicals in the plant. When we refined and severely concentrated the original chemical from these plants, it turns out that there is a much more intense medical activity. Modern cocaine is so many thousands of times more powerful than a native Peruvian chewing on coca leaves. The same can be said for heroin. In essence, we created Frankentsteins. Salicin was a bit different in that the refined natural product, the profoundly concentrated salicylic acid makes anyone taking it orally violently ill. In the late 1800s, chemists discovered that if you stick an acetyl group on this salicylic acid molecule, it is perfectly tolerated and very useful for fever. In short order, the very simple mass manufacturing process for this compound was easily worked out with petroleum organic chemicals. It is profoundly easy to manufacture and profoundly cheap.

   In the past 10 years, we have had all kinds of medical shortages. Largely because we have completely shipped all drug manufacturing to overseas locations, some friendly like Ireland, but the vast majority to China and India. It is one of the single most stupid doltish decisions I have ever seen – who would ever have thought that the massive shortages in the entire medicine cabinet would not be a national security issue? Most of the shortages have involved drugs with profoundly complicated manufacturing. This is the very first time I have heard of something as simple as aspirin. I know the article is about Britain – but if a major Western country is having this problem it will not be long until they all are. Stupidity in this realm is universal among Western countries. We are so screwed it is hard to contemplate.

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   1. skylark January 25, 2026 at 8:00 am

      Auge, a typo for “ague” ?

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      1. IM Doc January 25, 2026 at 8:30 am

         Yes – you are correct – I am not sure if that typo was an early AM brain malfunction or the autocorrect. Curiously, on so many autocorrect platforms – it sometimes insists on placing words that are not even English.

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   2. vao January 25, 2026 at 8:02 am

      “Literally, aspirin is one of the most simple of organic processes to manufacture drugs.”

      In high school, one of our chemistry lab exercises was to produce aspirin.

      “Most of the shortages have involved drugs with profoundly complicated manufacturing. This is the very first time I have heard of something as simple as aspirin.”

      There is a very simple solution: order the Pharmacy of the Army to start producing aspirin to make up for the shortage. Every country has such a pharmacy, with the necessary production lines to manufacture essential medicines for the troops. In the spirit of rearmament and Kriegstüchtigkeit, let us take advantage of those NATO-level 5% defense budgets to Make Aspirin Procurable Again.

      You are not telling me that those Army Pharmacies have been dismantled and the supply of pharmaceuticals for war emergencies privatized, are you?

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   3. The Rev Kev January 25, 2026 at 8:09 am

      In John Michael Greer’s novel “Retrotopia” he makes the point that modern medicine selects one particular ‘active’ ingredient and discards the rest which may be a mistake. Do we really know the purpose of some of those other ingredients were. Some of them come from plants that were specifically bred so there may have been a purpose in having these ingredients as part of that plant.

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      1. Samuel Conner January 25, 2026 at 8:21 am

         “purpose” is for the plant that produces them; “effect” is what they may do for humans who ingest them.

         I have read that gut flora produces all sorts of by-products that can be beneficial to the host organism. Each of us is carrying a bioreactor around with us in our abdomen. Take good care of your gut flora.

         (amusingly, while “gut fauna” is not something that one likes to think about, sometimes it can be beneficial. There is an old RadioLab episode about parasites that reported on someone who infected himself with hookworms to control severe asthma. Evidently the worms negotiated with the immune system to be tolerated, and this had the side effect of moderating asthma symptoms. I don’t recommend trying that at home, though)

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      2. IM Doc January 25, 2026 at 8:36 am

         I did not even mention the single most important of all chemicals refined from plants – and that would be sugar from sugar cane. Certainly not a “drug” per se. But it is one of the most consequential chemicals the world has ever seen. Not only for the whole economies built on it but also for the millions and possibly billions suffering from its overuse. And I can assure you, slowly chewing on a piece of sugar cane is an infinitely better experience than ingesting 2 tablespoons of refined sugar. I have yet in my life been able to do that without hours of nausea – while the slow chewing of a sugar cane in the mouth lights up the entire rest of the day.

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         1. VP January 25, 2026 at 8:56 am

            Chewing sugarcane was an absolute treat. Growing up, in January we would get couple of whole sugarcane stalks, break them up and chew on them for couple of days. We pretty much couldn’t eat anything spicy after that as our tongues would be roughed up… but absolutely worth it.

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            1. jJMH January 25, 2026 at 9:38 am

               I had one experience of chewing sugar cane while in Hawaii. That was over 30 years ago. Definitely worth it.

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         2. Alejandro January 25, 2026 at 9:17 am

            In Robert Lustigs “Metabolical”, he presents the mantra- “protect the liver, feed the gut”. He also states that the fiber in fruits, regulates satiety as a protective mechanism against overconsuming fructose and overwhelming the liver.

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   4. Samuel Conner January 25, 2026 at 8:10 am

      I wonder what “decide for yourself” people in the current HHS administration think about anarchist biohacking such as that developed by Four Thieves Vinegar collective.

      Perhaps a UK branch of that group will work out a simple procedure for at-hope preparation of ASA.

      I hope that there will be a core of “makers” who can keep the world running after the LLMs have cognitively disabled everyone else.

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   5. Yves Smith January 25, 2026 at 10:11 am

      I sometimes see white willow bark as an ingredient in dietary supplements. But the only one I remember specifically is some ACE stacks (aspirin, caffeine, ephedra). Take those in the proper ratio and you get a thermogenic boost. Popular among body builders in the dieting down phase. But too much and you get mighty speedy!

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4. vao January 25, 2026 at 7:44 am

   Regarding “This is not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this is North Gaza”:

   1) The comments under the twitter post are edifying.

   2) Those who posted the video clip utterly failed to draw the appropriate comparisons: it should have been “This is not Nanking in 1938 or Warsaw in 1944, this is North Gaza”. The context of those historical precedents — reasons for the armed struggle, mentality of the oppressor, disparity in power, methods applied to eradicate the resistance, complete material and human devastation as outcome of the operation — match accurately those for Gaza.

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5. JohnA January 25, 2026 at 7:46 am

   Re Musk and his spat with Ryanair CEO:
   ‘Musk could barely hide the sting he felt from the snub. He initially responded by calling O’Leary “misinformed” and added that he doubted Ryanair “can even measure the difference in fuel use accurately.” ‘
   Ryanair are notorious for cost shaving and penny pinching. Basic fares are usually low but notorious for add-ons that push up the price. Air crew have to pay for their own uniforms and supposedly not paid when the plane is on the ground. Hence their punctuality. As most Ryanair flights are relatively short hop, not sure how many passengers would be desperate to pay for add on wifi connection. Having said that, when I fly from to my local airport in south of France – only served by Ryanair, I am amazed how many passengers buy small bottles of wine at an outrageous price on a 1.5 hour flight when the bar in the arrival area charges less than 1/4 the price if you are that bothered about having a drink.
   However when it comes to fuel use, the airline is renowned for not carrying too much ‘redundant’ fuel on flights. So much so, that when a Ryanair plane has to circle an airport for whatever reason before landing, the pilots often ask for priority to land lest they run out of fuel if they have to stay airborne for much longer.
   Musk would be well advised to heed the old advice of not getting into a pissing contest with a skunk when it comes to duelling with O’Leary.

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   1. The Rev Kev January 25, 2026 at 9:28 am

      Hard to believe that Musk was stupid enough to fall for it again and again. I swear to you, Musk has the temperament of Donald Duck-

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFJLD7w_kdE (14 secs)

      And it gets him into trouble. Like when he had a fight with Scott Bessent and ended up with a black eye that could not be hidden. And O’Leary played him like a fiddle here and made Musk look stupid.

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      1. JohnA January 25, 2026 at 10:20 am

         Ryanair once tweeted a ‘risque’ ad hinting William Windsor might like to fly with them, taking into account his alleged sexual preferences and only withdrew it under pressure from the royal family.

         https://www.celebitchy.com/860474/kensington_palace_demanded_that_ryanair_apologize_for_that_2022_tweet/

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6. Ben Panga January 25, 2026 at 7:56 am

   Re: China reveals 200-strong AI drone swarm that can be controlled by a single soldier — ‘intelligent algorithm’ allows individual units to cooperate autonomously even after losing communication with operator

   This is what Anduril software is in theory made for. If drones are the future, these will be the 2 teams.

   My money is on the Imperial Chinese drone tech.

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7. Bryan January 25, 2026 at 8:17 am

   It’s nice to see a positive article about renewable energy “solar and wind overtake fossil fuels in the EU.” Unfortunately the article was superficial and didn’t go into any of the Dynamics of the energy market. Last week NC ran a piece by an oil and gas lobbyist telling us how renewable energy is too expensive. What a shame NC doesn’t want to discuss energy from and energy centric perspective. The first step is acknowledging price, by accepting Lazard’s numbers as the industry standard: https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-energyplus-lcoeplus/

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   1. TimH January 25, 2026 at 8:25 am

      Last week NC ran a piece by an oil and gas lobbyist telling us how renewable energy is too expensive. What a shame NC doesn’t want to discuss energy from and energy centric perspective.

      NC often includes links to pieces that the editors disagree with. One has to hear contradictory opinion and arguments to understand what’s going on.

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   2. Yves Smith January 25, 2026 at 10:18 am

      Based on having read over two million comments (no typo), I have yet to see an instance, including this one, where concern trolling was done in good faith. Your comment is an attack on the site by falsely depicting NC as having an anti-renewables posture. So this is two policy violations in one comment, since you also straw manned.

      I trust you will find your happiness on the Internet elsewhere.

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8. The Rev Kev January 25, 2026 at 8:37 am

   ‘Li Zexin 李泽欣
   @XH_Lee23
   “China will lose the US market…”
   “We don’t care. The world is big enough that the US is not the totality of the world’s market.”
   🤷‍♂️Victor Gao was not kidding.’

   The US deep state has been pushing for an economic divorce from China for many years now. The Chinese, realizing that this was inevitable, hoped for an amicable divorce. Instead Trump tried to make it a sudden split that would leave the US in the commanding position. Well, that didn’t happen. At this point I think that the Chinese are slowly giving up on the US market and will concentrate on the rest of the world instead. This would end up leaving the US in an isolated position but free-dum, amiright?

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9. AG January 25, 2026 at 9:34 am

   re: history genocides

   COVERT ACTION MAGAZINE

   What Did Germans Know About the Holocaust? What Do We Know About the Gaza Genocide?
   By Alfred de Zayas

   January 21, 2026
   https://covertactionmagazine.com/2026/01/21/what-did-germans-know-about-the-holocaust-what-do-we-know-about-the-gaza-genocide/

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10. The Rev Kev January 25, 2026 at 9:39 am

    “Ukraine calls trilateral talks with U.S. and Russia to end war “constructive””

    The Russians are of a different opinion. They are furious that the Ukrainians still target civilians and just a day or so, a Ukrainian UAV blew up an ambulance on the way to pick up someone and which killed all three paramedics. This was in the Kherson Oblast-

    https://www.rt.com/russia/631475-zakharova-accuses-kiev-of-hypocrisy/

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    1. ilsm January 25, 2026 at 10:03 am

       Trump offers nothing different from Minsk, that is rebuild Kiev for a go in 2029. Russian Federations wants the Russian speaker Oblasts and nothing like Minsk.

       The EU wants to occupy Kiev.

       Regime change needed in the west!

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11. mzza January 25, 2026 at 9:47 am

    There’s a lot of questionable supposition and rhetoric in the article about Artificial Wombs (not the least tarring Marxist Feminism with what I think is a largely discredited theory — personally I prefer Sylvia Federici’s more contemporary ideas of women and reproduction as a segment of marxist theories on primitive accumulation).

    But I was genuinely surprised to see the author skip over the biological risks at a time biome science is defining medical issues related to even c-sections for drastically reducing an infants biome diversity. Limited access to the birth canal isn’t the only possible culprit (overuse of antibiotics during pregnancy and with the very young is also a likely suspect). Even from the headline my brain jumped to the potential developmental and physical risks such a procedure would likely cause.

    The author also ignores the recent study shared here at NC a couple weeks back on the increased understanding of two-way communication between the mother and developing fetus, using the example of how mother’s milk production varies by situation and child.

    If anyone is interested in more on research into the human biome, a friend’s excellent documentary “The Invisible Extinction” is well worth watching https://www.theinvisibleextinction.com/

    Of the other part of my brain raised on science fiction likes the idea of swarms of subhuman billionaire children turning on their parents in a classic ‘eat the rich’ kind of way, but of course we’re currently living with the wider trump family who sadly seem far too capable of hurting the rest of us faster than they seem to be hurting themselves.

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12. raspberry jam January 25, 2026 at 10:03 am

    re: Designing AI-resistant technical evaluations Anthropic.com

    For those who are unaware, Anthropic makes the US OpenAI competitor LLMs and their models are generally considered the best currently for software-related tasks. I think Anthropic’s success is really a story about early recognition that general purpose LLM would never pay off given the training costs and focusing on niches/use cases to sculpt and train the models around is a better strategy. Anthropic/Claude usage is extremely dominant for software tasks to the point where it is seen more as a “luxury B2B service provider” than anything grandiose like AGI.

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    1. ilsm January 25, 2026 at 10:11 am

       Some company vending toward the US Navy is selling an AI call ShipOS they claim can project “manage” shipbuilding ostensively that it won’t take 12 years to get the second Ford class aircraft carrier to sea.

       My observation is how do you train an numerous interacting LLM’s for AI on 6000 pages of DoD finance and budget manuals. Much less get an LLM to tell you the ship should be cancelled due to schedule and cost variances which could never be overcome (people cannot say this now!!!).

       Program schedule/cost performance has been IT’ed since the days of Honeywell 6000! AI (data center doing supercomputing for chess) is scarcely more than an evolution of H6000…..

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13. The Rev Kev January 25, 2026 at 10:07 am

    “Does Europe Need a Modern-Day Octavian Augustus? Lessons in Pragmatic Reform for a Divided Union”

    Oh god no. The EU already has its Lady Livia behind the scenes trying to centralize all power to her own office. A major problem for the EU is that Brussels is seizing powers from its member States and treat them like vassals. Having a modern day Octavian Augustus would accelerate the problem and make the EU even more dysfunctional. They need to revert back into a sort of federation to give them any chance of survival as the present EU leadership is running the whole continent into the ground.

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