Mike M.

NASA has a new problem to fix before the next Artemis II countdown test

artemis, artemis II, artemis iii, human spaceflight, jared isaacman, Kennedy Space Center, NASA, orion, Science, Space, space launch system / Mike M. / February 14, 2026

John Honeycutt, chair of NASA’s Artemis II mission management team, said the decision to relax the safety limit between Artemis I and Artemis II was grounded in test data.

“The SLS program, they came up with a test campaign that actually looked at that cavity, the characteristics of the cavity, the purge in the cavity … and they introduced hydrogen to see when you could actually get it to ignite, and at 16 percent, you could not,” said Honeycutt, who served as NASA’s SLS program manager before moving to his new job.

Hydrogen is explosive in high concentrations when mixed with air. This is what makes hydrogen a formidable rocket fuel. But it is also notoriously difficult to contain. Molecular hydrogen is the smallest molecule, meaning it can readily escape through leak paths, and poses a materials challenge for seals because liquified hydrogen is chilled to minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 253 degrees Celsius).

So, it turns out NASA used the three-year interim between Artemis I and Artemis II to get comfortable with a more significant hydrogen leak, instead of fixing the leaks themselves. Isaacman said that will change before Artemis III, which likewise is probably at least three years away.

“I will say near-conclusively for Artemis III, we will cryoproof the vehicle before it gets to the pad, and the propellant loading interfaces we are troubleshooting will be redesigned,” Isaacman wrote.

Isaacman took over as NASA’s administrator in December, and has criticized the SLS program’s high cost—estimated by NASA’s inspector general at more than $2 billion per rocket—along with the launch vehicle’s torpid flight rate.

NASA’s expenditures for the rocket’s ground systems at Kennedy Space Center are similarly enormous. NASA spent nearly $900 million on Artemis ground support infrastructure in 2024 alone. Much of the money went toward constructing a new launch platform for an upgraded version of the Space Launch System that may never fly.

All of this makes each SLS rocket a golden egg, a bespoke specimen that must be treated with care because it is too expensive to replace. NASA and Boeing, the prime contractor for the SLS core stage, never built a full-size test model of the core stage. There’s currently no way to completely test the cryogenic interplay between the core stage and ground equipment until the fully assembled rocket is on the launch pad.

Existing law requires NASA continue flying the SLS rocket through the Artemis V mission. Isaacman wrote that the Artemis architecture “will continue to evolve as we learn more and as industry capabilities mature.” In other words, NASA will incorporate newer, cheaper, reusable rockets into the Artemis program.

The next series of launch opportunities for the Artemis II mission begin March 3. If the mission doesn’t lift off in March, NASA will need to roll the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to refresh its flight termination system. There are more launch dates available in April and May.

“There is still a great deal of work ahead to prepare for this historic mission,” Isaacman wrote. “We will not launch unless we are ready and the safety of our astronauts will remain the highest priority. We will keep everyone informed as NASA prepares to return to the Moon.”

NASA has a new problem to fix before the next Artemis II countdown test Read More »

The first Android 17 beta is now available on Pixel devices

android, android 17, Google, smartphones, Tech / Mike M. / February 13, 2026

In short, the first Android 17 beta is chock full of things that may interest developers and modders, but there’s little in the way of user-facing changes right now.

Android 17 release schedule

Google has made some notable changes to how it releases Android updates, and Android 17 continues the trend. Like last year, there will be two Android 17 releases in 2026. The first one, coming in Q2, will be the more significant of the two. It will include a raft of new APIs, behavioral changes, and feature updates. This split release setup was implemented to better align with when major OEMs release new devices, but Android 17 availability still focuses mainly on Pixels. Google’s phones receive immediate updates, but everyone else has to wait for OEMs to roll out updates over the following weeks or months.

At the end of the year, another version (you can think of it as Android 17.1 even though Google doesn’t give it a name) will become available on supported devices. This “minor SDK release” will include some API and feature changes, but Google doesn’t have any details at this time.

Android release schedule — Credit: Google

Before we get to that, Google plans to launch a second beta release in March. The company says Beta 2 will include final APIs, allowing developers to complete testing and roll out updates. Developers will have “several months” to get that work done before the final version hits Pixels.

In 2025, Google also changed the way it updates the open source parts of Android. Rather than regular code dumps, Google now only updates the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) twice yearly, in the second and fourth quarters, when new versions are released. That makes it harder to know what to expect from upcoming versions of Android, but Google insists this is more efficient.

If you want to check out Android 17 today, you’ll need a Pixel device. It supports the Pixel 6, Pixel 7, Pixel 8, Pixel 9, and Pixel 10 generations. The Pixel tablet and original Pixel Fold are also included. Other phone makers may release beta builds in the weeks ahead, but it’s a Google-only event for now. You can opt in to get an OTA to Android 17 on the beta program website.

The first Android 17 beta is now available on Pixel devices Read More »

ULA’s Vulcan rocket suffers another booster problem on the way to orbit

Space, united launch alliance, vulcan rocket / Mike M. / February 12, 2026

Moments after liftoff from Florida’s Space Coast early Thursday morning, a shower of sparks emerged in the exhaust plume of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket. Seconds later, the rocket twisted on its axis before recovering and continuing the climb into orbit with a batch of US military satellites.

The sight may have appeared familiar to seasoned rocket watchers. Sixteen months ago, a Vulcan rocket lost one of its booster nozzles shortly after launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rocket recovered from the malfunction and still reached the mission’s planned orbit.

Details of Thursday’s booster problem remain unclear. An investigation into the matter is underway, according to ULA, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. But the circumstances resemble those of the booster malfunction in October 2024. Closeup video from Thursday’s launch shows a fiery plume near the throat of one of the rocket’s four solid-fueled boosters, the area where the motor’s propellant casing connects to its bell-shaped exhaust nozzle. The throat drives super-hot gas from the burning solid propellant through the nozzle to generate thrust.

Anomalous plume

The plume first appeared less than 30 seconds after liftoff at 4: 22 am EST (09: 22 UTC) on Thursday. The rocket later released a cloud of sparks and debris a little more than a minute into the flight. That was followed by a sudden rolling motion along the long axis of the Vulcan launcher. Finally, the rocket’s four strap-on boosters burned out and were jettisoned, falling into the Atlantic Ocean, and ULA said the rest of the mission continued without incident.

“Early during flight, the team observed a significant performance anomaly on one of the four solid rocket motors. Despite the observation, the Vulcan booster and Centaur performed nominally and delivered the spacecraft directly to geosynchronous orbit,” said Gary Wentz, ULA’s vice president of Atlas and Vulcan programs. “The integrated US government and contractor team is reviewing the technical data, available imagery, and establishing a recovery team to collect any debris. We will conduct a thorough investigation, identify root cause, and implement any corrective action necessary before the next Vulcan mission.”

ULA’s Vulcan rocket suffers another booster problem on the way to orbit Read More »

It took two years, but Google released a YouTube app on Vision Pro

Apple, apple vision pro, Google, Mixed Reality, Tech, vision pro, visionOS, XR, youtube / Mike M. / February 12, 2026

When Apple’s Vision Pro mixed reality headset launched in February 2024, users were frustrated at the lack of a proper YouTube app—a significant disappointment given the device’s focus on video content consumption, and YouTube’s strong library of immersive VR and 360 videos. That complaint continued through the release of the second-generation Vision Pro last year, including in our review.

Now, two years later, an official YouTube app from Google has launched on the Vision Pro’s app store. It’s not just a port of the iPad app, either—it has panels arranged spatially in front of the user as you’d expect, and it supports 3D videos, as well as 360- and 180-degree ones.

YouTube’s App Store listing says users can watch “every video on YouTube” (there’s a screenshot of a special interface for Shorts vertical videos, for example) and that they get “the full signed-in experience” with watch history and so on.

Shortly after the Vision Pro launched, many users complained to YouTube about the lack of an app. They were referred to the web interface—which worked OK for most 2D videos, but it obviously wasn’t an ideal experience—and were told that a Vision Pro app was on the roadmap.

Two years of silence followed. Third-party apps popped up, like the relatively popular Juno app, but it was pulled from the App Store on Google’s claim that it violated API policies. (Some others remained or became available later.)

Google is building out its own XR ambitions, so it’s possible the Vision Pro app benefited from some of that work, but it’s unclear how this all came to be. But it’s here now. Next up: Netflix, right? Sadly, that’s unlikely; unlike Google, Netflix has not announced any intention here.

It took two years, but Google released a YouTube app on Vision Pro Read More »

Once-hobbled Lumma Stealer is back with lures that are hard to resist

Biz & IT, castleloader, clickfix, infostealer, lumma, malware, Security / Mike M. / February 11, 2026

Last May, law enforcement authorities around the world scored a key win when they hobbled the infrastructure of Lumma, an infostealer that infected nearly 395,000 Windows computers over just a two-month span leading up to the international operation. Researchers said Wednesday that Lumma is once again “back at scale” in hard-to-detect attacks that pilfer credentials and sensitive files.

Lumma, also known as Lumma Stealer, first appeared in Russian-speaking cybercrime forums in 2022. Its cloud-based malware-as-a-service model provided a sprawling infrastructure of domains for hosting lure sites offering free cracked software, games, and pirated movies, as well as command-and-control channels and everything else a threat actor needed to run their infostealing enterprise. Within a year, Lumma was selling for as much as $2,500 for premium versions. By the spring of 2024, the FBI counted more than 21,000 listings on crime forums. Last year, Microsoft said Lumma had become the “go-to tool” for multiple crime groups, including Scattered Spider, one of the most prolific groups.

Takedowns are hard

The FBI and an international coalition of its counterparts took action early last year. In May, they said they seized 2,300 domains, command-and-control infrastructure, and crime marketplaces that had enabled the infostealer to thrive. Recently, however, the malware has made a comeback, allowing it to infect a significant number of machines again.

“LummaStealer is back at scale, despite a major 2025 law-enforcement takedown that disrupted thousands of its command-and-control domains,” researchers from security firm Bitdefender wrote. “The operation has rapidly rebuilt its infrastructure and continues to spread worldwide.”

As with Lumma before, the recent surge leans heavily on “ClickFix,” a form of social engineering lure that’s proving to be vexingly effective in causing end users to infect their own machines. Typically, these types of bait come in the form of fake CAPTCHAs that—rather requiring users to click a box or identify objects or letters in a jumbled image—instruct them to copy text and paste it into an interface, a process that takes just seconds. The text comes in the form of malicious commands provided by the fake CAPTCHA. The interface is the Windows terminal. Targets who comply then install loader malware, which in turn installs Lumma.

Once-hobbled Lumma Stealer is back with lures that are hard to resist Read More »

OpenAI researcher quits over ChatGPT ads, warns of “Facebook” path

advertising, AI, AI behavior, AI ethics, AI sycophancy, Anthropic, Biz & IT, chatbots, chatgpt, generative ai, machine learning, openai, sam altman, Sycophancy / Mike M. / February 11, 2026

On Wednesday, former OpenAI researcher Zoë Hitzig published a guest essay in The New York Times announcing that she resigned from the company on Monday, the same day OpenAI began testing advertisements inside ChatGPT. Hitzig, an economist and published poet who holds a junior fellowship at the Harvard Society of Fellows, spent two years at OpenAI helping shape how its AI models were built and priced. She wrote that OpenAI’s advertising strategy risks repeating the same mistakes that Facebook made a decade ago.

“I once believed I could help the people building A.I. get ahead of the problems it would create,” Hitzig wrote. “This week confirmed my slow realization that OpenAI seems to have stopped asking the questions I’d joined to help answer.”

Hitzig did not call advertising itself immoral. Instead, she argued that the nature of the data at stake makes ChatGPT ads especially risky. Users have shared medical fears, relationship problems, and religious beliefs with the chatbot, she wrote, often “because people believed they were talking to something that had no ulterior agenda.” She called this accumulated record of personal disclosures “an archive of human candor that has no precedent.”

She also drew a direct parallel to Facebook’s early history, noting that the social media company once promised users control over their data and the ability to vote on policy changes. Those pledges eroded over time, Hitzig wrote, and the Federal Trade Commission found that privacy changes Facebook marketed as giving users more control actually did the opposite.

She warned that a similar trajectory could play out with ChatGPT: “I believe the first iteration of ads will probably follow those principles. But I’m worried subsequent iterations won’t, because the company is building an economic engine that creates strong incentives to override its own rules.”

Ads arrive after a week of AI industry sparring

Hitzig’s resignation adds another voice to a growing debate over advertising in AI chatbots. OpenAI announced in January that it would begin testing ads in the US for users on its free and $8-per-month “Go” subscription tiers, while paid Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education subscribers would not see ads. The company said ads would appear at the bottom of ChatGPT responses, be clearly labeled, and would not influence the chatbot’s answers.

OpenAI researcher quits over ChatGPT ads, warns of “Facebook” path Read More »

China showcases new Moon ship and reusable rocket in one extraordinary test

china, human spaceflight, launch, long march 10, mengzhou, moon, reusable rocket, Space, Wenchang / Mike M. / February 11, 2026

A Chinese Long March 10 booster, powered by seven kerosene-fueled YF-100K engines, lifts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on Hainan Island on February 11, 2026 (local time). Credit: Liu Yang/VCG via Getty Images

Mengzhou, which means “dream vessel” in Chinese, is scheduled for its first orbital test flight later this year. The spacecraft will launch on a Long March 10A rocket and dock with China’s Tiangong space station in low-Earth orbit. The Long March 10A, optimized for low-Earth orbit flights, will consist of a single reusable first-stage booster flying in combination with an upper stage. The full-size Long March 10, with 21 engines on three first-stage boosters connected together, will have the power to place payloads up to 70 metric tons into low-Earth orbit, and enough energy to propel the 26-metric-ton Mengzhou spacecraft to the Moon.

China’s leading state-owned space industry contractor, the China Aerospace and Science Technology Corporation (CASC), said the recovery of the Long March 10 booster after the in-flight abort test lays the foundation for “subsequent full-profile flight tests” and marks a “significant step” for China in “mastering reusable rocket technology.”

“The flight test further evaluated several key technologies, including the reliability of multiple engine restarts and high-altitude ignition during the rocket’s reentry phase, adaptability to complex force and thermal environments, and high-precision navigation control during the reentry phase.”

CASC oversees a sprawling industry of rocket and spacecraft manufacturers, including those responsible for designing and building the Mengzhou spacecraft and Long March 10 rocket.

The Mengzhou capsule splashes down in the South China Sea after the in-flight abort test. Credit: China Manned Space Agency

The successful splashdown and recovery of the Long March 10 booster continues a busy period for China’s reusable rocket initiatives. No fewer than 10 Chinese companies are working on reusable rockets at different levels of maturity, all seeking to match the success of SpaceX’s reusable rocket program in the United States.

In December, two Chinese launch providers debuted new rockets—the Zhuque-3 and Long March 12A—with recoverable and reusable boosters. The rockets reached orbit, but their boosters missed their landings downrange from their launch pads.

Several Chinese companies have also completed high-altitude “hop tests” to evaluate vertical takeoff and vertical landing technologies ahead of launching their first orbital flights.

These advancements in China’s reusable rocket and lunar exploration programs come as NASA prepares to launch a crew of four astronauts on a loop around the far side of the Moon as soon as next month. A US-made lunar lander is likely still a few years away from being ready to transport crews to and from the lunar surface.

China showcases new Moon ship and reusable rocket in one extraordinary test Read More »

A Project Hail Mary final trailer? Yes please.

amazon mgm studios, andy weir, culture, Entertainment, project hail mary, Trailers / Mike M. / February 10, 2026

Sure, most Americans are glued to their TVs for today’s Super Bowl and/or the Winter Olympics. But for the non-sports minded, Amazon MGM Studios has released one last trailer for its forthcoming space odyssey Project Hail Mary, based on Andy Weir’s (The Martian) bestselling 2021 novel about an amnesiac biologist-turned-schoolteacher in space.

As previously reported, Amazon MGM Studios acquired the rights for Weir’s novel before it was even published and brought on Drew Goddard to write the screenplay. (Goddard also wrote the adapted screenplay for The Martian, so he’s an excellent choice.) The studio tapped Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The LEGO Movie) to direct and signed on Ryan Gosling to star. Per the official premise:

Science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction… but an unexpected friendship means he may not have to do it alone.

In addition to Gosling, the cast includes Sandra Huller as head of the Hail Mary project and Ryland’s superior; Milana Vayntrub as project astronaut Olesya Ilyukhina; Ken Leung as project astronaut Yao Li-Jie; Liz Kingsman as Shapiro; Orion Lee as Xi; and James Ortiz as a new life form Ryland names Rocky.

A Project Hail Mary final trailer? Yes please. Read More »

Malicious packages for dYdX cryptocurrency exchange empties user wallets

Biz & IT, cryptocurrency exchanges, malware, Open Source, Security, supply chain attack / Mike M. / February 6, 2026

Open source packages published on the npm and PyPI repositories were laced with code that stole wallet credentials from dYdX developers and backend systems and, in some cases, backdoored devices, researchers said.

“Every application using the compromised npm versions is at risk ….” the researchers, from security firm Socket, said Friday. “Direct impact includes complete wallet compromise and irreversible cryptocurrency theft. The attack scope includes all applications depending on the compromised versions and both developers testing with real credentials and production end-users.”

Packages that were infected were:

npm (@dydxprotocol/v4-client-js):

3.4.1
1.22.1
1.15.2
1.0.31

PyPI (dydx-v4-client):

1.1.5post1

Perpetual trading, perpetual targeting

dYdX is a decentralized derivatives exchange that supports hundreds of markets for “perpetual trading,” or the use of cryptocurrency to bet that the value of a derivative future will rise or fall. Socket said dYdX has processed over $1.5 trillion in trading volume over its lifetime, with an average trading volume of $200 million to $540 million and roughly $175 million in open interest. The exchange provides code libraries that allow third-party apps for trading bots, automated strategies, or backend services, all of which handle mnemonics or private keys for signing.

The npm malware embedded a malicious function in the legitimate package. When a seed phrase that underpins wallet security was processed, the function exfiltrated it, along with a fingerprint of the device running the app. The fingerprint allowed the threat actor to correlate stolen credentials to track victims across multiple compromises. The domain receiving the seed was dydx[.]priceoracle[.]site, which mimics the legitimate dYdX service at dydx[.]xyz through typosquatting.

Malicious packages for dYdX cryptocurrency exchange empties user wallets Read More »

Stellantis swallows $26 billion costs as it rethinks its EV strategy

Cars, EV adoption, Stellantis / Mike M. / February 6, 2026

The automotive industry’s big bet on a rapid adoption of electric vehicles—at least here in the United States—continues to unwind. Today, Stellantis, which owns brands like Jeep and Dodge, as well as Fiat, Peugeot, and others, announced that it has “reset” its business to adapt to reality, which comes with a rather painful $26.2 billion (22.2 billion euro) write-down.

It wasn’t that long ago that everyone was more bullish on electrification. Even the US had relatively ambitious plans to boost EV adoption into the next decade, including a big commitment to charging infrastructure. Ten new battery factories were announced, and the future looked bright.

Not everyone agreed. Some automakers, having been left behind by the push toward battery EVs and away from simple hybrids that offered little in the way of true decarbonization, lobbied hard to relax fuel efficiency standards. Car dealers, uncomfortable with the prospect of investing in and learning about new technology, did so, too. When the Republican Party won the 2024 election, the revanchists got their wish.

Gone were the incentives to consumers and businesses to buy EVs, which helped offset the higher purchase price. Out went funding for that national network of high-speed chargers. Tough future emissions standards were torn up, and inefficient and polluting gasoline engines will instead be the order of the day. And automakers were told to forget about being fined under the existing regulations—”sell as many gas-guzzlers as you like” was the message. (But also, bizarrely, import those tiny Japanese Kei cars, too.)

Reality bites

Stellantis is hardly alone in feeling this pain; in December, Ford announced a $19.5 billion write-down as it reprioritized combustion-engine platforms going forward. GM followed in early January with news that canceling some of its EV plans would cost the company $6 billion. Neither bill is quite as large as the one facing Stellantis (and its shareholders).

Stellantis swallows $26 billion costs as it rethinks its EV strategy Read More »

The Switch 2 is getting a new Virtual Console (kind of)

Classics, gaming, Nintendo, retro, switch 2, virtual console / Mike M. / February 5, 2026

In 2018, we lamented as Nintendo officially replaced the Virtual Console—its long-running line of downloadable classic games on the Wii and Wii U—with time-limited access to a set of games through a paid Nintendo Switch Online subscription. Now, Hamster Corporation is doing what Nintendo no longer will, by offering downloadable versions of retro console games for direct individual purchase on the Switch 2.

As part of today’s Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, Hamster announced a new Console Archives line of emulated classics available for download starting today on the Switch 2 and next week on the PlayStation 5 (sorry, Xbox and OG Switch fans). So far that lineup only includes the original PlayStation snowboarding title Cool Boarders for $12 and the NES action platformer Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos for $8, but Hamster promises more obscure games, including Doraemon and Sonic Wings Special, will be available in the future.

If the name Hamster Corporation sounds familiar, it’s because the company is behind the Arcade Archive series, which has repackaged individual arcade games for purchase and emulated play on modern consoles since 2014. That effort, which celebrated its 500th release in December, even includes some of Nintendo’s classic arcade titles, which the Switch-maker never officially released on the original Virtual Console.

Now Hamster’s says it is expanding its efforts “with the concept of faithfully reproducing masterpieces released on various home game consoles, allowing players to easily enjoy them on the latest hardware.” While these new offerings are more bare-bones than the full-fledged interactive museums released by the likes of Digital Eclipse, they still include a few modern features, such as customizable button layouts, screen settings, and the ability to save and load at any time.

The Switch 2 is getting a new Virtual Console (kind of) Read More »

Neocities founder stuck in chatbot hell after Bing blocked 1.5 million sites

Bing, Geocities, Google, microsoft, neocities, Policy, search results / Mike M. / February 5, 2026

Microsoft won’t explain why Bing blocked 1.5 million Neocities websites.

Credit: Aurich Lawson | NeoCities

One of the weirdest corners of the Internet is suddenly hard to find on Bing, after the search engine inexplicably started blocking approximately 1.5 million independent websites hosted on Neocities.

Founded in 2013 to archive the “aesthetic awesomeness” of GeoCities websites, Neocities keeps the spirit of the 1990s Internet alive. It lets users design free websites without relying on standardized templates devoid of personality. For hundreds of thousands of people building websites around art, niche fandoms, and special expertise—or simply seeking a place to get a little weird online—Neocities provides a blank canvas that can be endlessly personalized when compared to a Facebook page. Delighted visitors discovering these sites are more likely to navigate by hovering flashing pointers over a web of spinning GIFs than clicking a hamburger menu or infinitely scrolling.

That’s the style of Internet that Kyle Drake, Neocities’ founder, strives to maintain. So he was surprised when he noticed that Bing was curiously blocking Neocities sites last summer. At first, the issue seemed resolved by contacting Microsoft, but after receiving more recent reports that users were struggling to log in, Drake discovered that another complete block was implemented in January. Even more concerning, he saw that after delisting the front page, Bing had started pointing users to a copycat site where he was alarmed to learn they were providing their login credentials.

Monitoring stats, Drake was stunned to see that Bing traffic had suddenly dropped from about half a million daily visitors to zero. He immediately reported the issue using Bing webmaster tools. Concerned that Bing was not just disrupting traffic but possibly also putting Neocities users at risk if bad actors were gaming search results, he hoped for a prompt resolution.

“This one site that was just a copy of our front page, I didn’t know if it was a phishing attack or what it was, I was just like, ‘whoa, what the heck?’” Drake told Ars.

However, weeks went by as Drake hit wall after wall, submitting nearly a dozen tickets while trying to get past the Bing chatbot to find a support member to fix the issue. Frustrated, he tried other internal channels as well, including offering to buy ads to see if an ads team member could help.

“I tried everything,” Drake said, but nothing worked. Neocities sites remained unlisted on Bing.

Although Bing only holds about 4.5 percent of the global search engine market, Drake said it was “embarrassing” that Neocities sites can’t be discovered using the default Windows search engine. He also noted that many other search engines license Bing data, further compounding the issue.

Ultimately, it’s affecting a lot of people, Drake said, but he suspects that his support tickets are being buried in probably trillions of requests each day from people wanting to improve their Bing indexing.

“There’s probably an actual human being at Bing that actually could fix this,” Drake told Ars, but “when you go to the webmaster tools,” you’re stuck talking to an AI chatbot, and “it’s all kind of automated.”

Ars reached Microsoft for comment, and the company took action to remove some inappropriate blocks.

Within 24 hours, the Neocities front page appeared in search results, but Drake ran tests over the next few days that showed that most subdomains are still being blocked, including popular Neocities sites that should garner high rankings.

Pressed to investigate further, Microsoft confirmed that some Neocities sites were delisted for violating policies designed to keep low-quality sites out of search results.

However, Microsoft would not identify which sites were problematic or directly connect with Neocities to resolve a seemingly significant amount of ongoing site blocks that do not appear to be linked to violations. Instead, Microsoft recommended that Neocities find a way to work directly with Microsoft, despite Ars confirming that Microsoft is currently ignoring an open ticket.

For Drake, “the current state of things is unknown.” It’s hard to tell if popular Neocities sites are still being blocked or if possibly Bing’s reindexing process is slow. Microsoft declined to clarify.

He’s still hoping that Microsoft will eventually resolve all the improper blocks, making it possible for Bing users to use the search engine not just to find businesses or information but also to discover creative people making websites just for fun. With so much AI slop invading social networks and search engines, Drake sees Neocities as “one of the last bastions of human content.”

“I hope we can resolve this amicably for both of us and that this doesn’t happen again in the future,” Drake said. “It’s really important for the future of the small web, and for quality content for web surfers in an increasingly generative AI world, that creative sites made by real humans are able to get a fair shot in search engine results.”

Bing deranked suspected phishing site

After Drake failed to quietly resolve the issue with Bing, he felt that he had no choice but to alert users to the potential risks from Bing’s delisting.

In a blog post in late January, Drake warned that Bing had “completely blocked” all Neocities subdomains from its search index. Even worse, “Bing was also placing what appeared to be a phishing attack against Neocities on the first page of search results,” Drake said.

“This is not only bad for search results, it’s very possible that it is actively dangerous,” Drake said.

After “several” complaints, Bing eventually deranked the suspected phishing site, Drake confirmed. But Bing “declined to reverse the block or provide a clear, actionable explanation for it,” which leaves Neocities users vulnerable, he said.

Since “it’s easy to get higher pagerank than a blocked site,” Drake warned that “it is possibly only a matter of time before another concerning site appears on Bing searches for Neocities.”

The blog emphasized that Google, the platform’s biggest traffic driver, was not blocking Neocities, nor was any search engine unlinked to Bing data. Urging a boycott that may force a resolution, Drake wrote, “we are recommending that Neocities users, and the broader Internet in general, not use Bing or search engines that source their results from Bing until this issue is resolved.

“If you use Bing or Bing-powered search engines, Neocities sites will not appear in your search results, regardless of content quality, originality, or compliance with webmaster guidelines,” Drake said. “If any Neocities-like sites appear on these results, they may be active phishing attacks against Neocities and should be treated with caution.”

Bing still blocking popular Neocities sites

Drake doesn’t want to boycott Bing, but in his blog, he said that Microsoft left him no choice but public disclosure:

“We did not want to write this post. We try very hard to have a good relationship with search engine providers. We would much rather quietly resolve this issue with Bing staff and move on. But after months of attempting to engage constructively through multiple channels, it became clear that silence only harms our users. Especially those who don’t realize their sites are invisible on some search engines.”

Drake told Ars that he thinks most people don’t realize how big Neocities has gotten since its early days reviving GeoCities’ spunk. The platform hosts 1,459,700 websites that have drawn in 13 billion visitors. Over the years, it has been profiled in Wired and The New York Times, and more recently, it has become a popular hub for gaming communities, Polygon reported.

As Neocities grew, Drake told Ars that much of his focus has been on improving content moderation. He works closely with a full-time dedicated content moderation staffer to quickly take down any problematic sites within 24 hours, he said. That effort includes reviewing reports and proactively screening new sites, with Drake noting that “our name domain provider requires us to take them down within 48 hours.”

Microsoft prohibits things like scraping content that could be considered copyright infringement or automatically generating content using “garbage text” to game the rankings. It also monitors for malicious behavior like phishing, as well as for prompt injection attacks on Bing’s large language model.

It’s unclear what kind of violations Microsoft found ahead of instituting the complete block; however, Drake told Ars that he has yet to identify any content that may have triggered it. He said he would promptly remove any websites flagged by Microsoft, if he could only talk to someone who could share that information.

“Naturally, we still don’t catch 100 percent of the sites with proactive moderation, and occasionally some problematic sites do get missed,” Drake said.

Although Drake is curious to learn more about what triggered the blocks, he told Ars that it’s clear that non-violative sites are still invisible on Bing.

One of the longest-running and most popular Neocities sites, Wired Sound for Wired People, is a perfect example. The bizarre, somewhat creepy anime fanpage is “very popular” and “has a lot of links to it all over the web,” Drake said. Yet if you search for its subdomain, “fauux,” the site no longer appears in Bing search results, as of this writing, while Google reliably spits it out as the top result.

Drake said that he still believes that Bing is blocking content by mistake, but Bing’s automated support tools aren’t making it easy to defend creators who are randomly blocked by one of the world’s biggest search engines.

“We have one of the lowest ratios of crap to legitimate content, human-made content, on the Internet,” Drake said. “And it’s really frustrating to see that all these human beings making really cool sites that people want to go to are just not available on the default Windows search engine.”

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

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