● 09.12.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Leftover Links 12/09/2023: OSI Continues Attacking the OSI’s Mission and Open Source Definition on Microsoft’s Money

Posted in News Roundup at 11:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Leftovers

• I don’t want to live like a prepper and have a basement full of pickled vegetables slowly fermenting, or a library of paper slowly crumbling.

• I want to take full advantage of the modern world while it still exists.

Science

• As futuristic as holographic technology may sound, in a sense it’s actually already in widespread commercial use. Concerts and similar events already use volumetric projection, with a fine mesh (hologram mesh or gauze) acting as the medium on which the image is projected to give the illusion of a 3D image. The widespread availability of this technology has now enabled Germany’s Roncalli circus to reintroduce (virtual) animals to its shows after ceasing the use of live lions and elephants in 1991 and other animals in 2018.

Education

• There’s plenty of great content to look forward to over the next few days, including five technical sessions on topics including routing, DNS, multihoming, automation, and satellites. There are also two FIRST/APCERT/APNIC security sessions, an IPv6 deployment session, a Lightning Talks session, and more.

• From 19-20 September, network operators, local IXPs, peering coordinators, Internet researchers and government officials will meet at CAPIF 2 to build a more diverse interconnection environment in Central Asia, Iran, and beyond. To prepare, we’ve been examining changes in local interconnection and peering, IPv6 deployment, and network security.

Hardware

• Some decades back, when I’d buy a new PC, it would unlock new capabilities. Maybe AGP video, or a PCMCIA slot, or, heck, sound.

• Nowadays, mostly new hardware means things get a bit faster or less crashy, or I have some more space for files. It’s good and useful, but sorta… meh.

• Lately my aging laptop with 8GB RAM started OOMing (running out of RAM). My desktop had developed a tendency to hard hang about once a month, and I researched replacing it, but the cost was too high to justify.

• But when I looked into the Framework, I thought: this thing could replace both. It is a real shift in perspective to have a laptop that is nearly as upgradable as a desktop, and can be specced out to exactly what I wanted: 2TB storage and 64GB RAM. And still cheaper than a Macbook or Thinkpad with far lower specs, because the Framework uses off-the-shelf components as much as possible.

• As we move into a future where robots are becoming integral to our lives, we can’t forget that safety is a crucial part of innovation. True technological progress comes from applying comprehensive safety standards across technologies, even in the realm of the most futuristic and captivating robotic visions. By learning lessons from past fatalities, we can enhance safety protocols, rectify design flaws, and prevent further unnecessary loss of life.

• Browsing the Asian marketplaces online is always an experience. Sometimes, you see things at ridiculously low prices. Other times, you see things and wonder who is buying them and why — a shrimp pillow? But sometimes, you see something that probably could have a more useful purpose than the proposed use case.

• Just when we though we’d seen it all when it comes to custom keyboards (or most of it, anyway), along comes [Stu] with the TypeBoy and TypePak. Like the title implies, TypeBoy and TypePak are inseparable.

• You’ve probably seen USB hubs with physical switches for each port, they provide a handy way to cut the power to individual devices, but only if you’re close enough to flip them. They won’t do you much good if you want to pull the plug on a USB gadget remotely.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Plus: internet censorship, outdoor dining land grabs, and more…

• To antivaccine conspiracy theorists, it is always of the utmost importance to find a way to explain deaths from the pathogens that cause vaccine-preventable diseases as somehow not being due to that pathogen. The reason is simple. If antivaxxers can spin a convincing sounding narrative claiming that a specific pathogen isn’t causing disease and death that can be prevented by vaccines targeted against that pathogen, then they can add to that narrative the claim that the vaccine doesn’t work (because it’s not targeting the “true” cause of the disease and death) and is therefore unnecessary. Add to that claims that the vaccine is dangerous, and they can spin a narrative that seems compelling if you don’t know a lot about infectious disease. For COVID-19, we saw this narrative in the form of conspiracy theories falsely claiming that death certificates were misattributing deaths during the pandemic as being due to COVID-19 when they supposedly were not, leading to false claims that people were dying “with COVID-19” and “not of COVID-19” or that “only” 6% of deaths attributed to COVID-19 were actually caused by COVID-19. That latter lie was based figures showing that 94% of COVID-19 death certificates had multiple contributing factors but also involved conflating sequelae of COVID-19 infection that ultimately led to death with primary causes of death. As I like to say, everybody dies of cardiac arrest. Whatever ultimately kills you, your proximate cause of death will be cardiac arrest. That’s a trivial observation. The far more important thing to know is: What caused the cascade of events that led to your cardiac arrest and death.

• Researchers at Iowa State University found a simple intervention could help. During a two-week experiment with 230 college students, half were asked to limit their social media usage to 30 minutes a day and received automated, daily reminders. They scored significantly lower for anxiety, depression, loneliness and fear of missing out at the end of the experiment compared to the control group.

• They also scored higher for “positive affect,” which the researchers describe as “the tendency to experience positive emotions described with words such as ‘excited’ and ‘proud.’” Essentially, they had a brighter outlook on life.

• An experimental study was conducted to investigate the effect of self-monitoring limited social media usage on psychological well-being. After completing pretest measures, 230 undergraduate students from a large Midwestern university were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: either limit their social media usage to 30 min a day or to use social media as usual. After 2 weeks of limiting, the self-monitored group showed significant improvements in their psychological well-being. Anxiety, depression, loneliness, fear of missing out, and negative affect decreased while positive affect increased. These results suggest that limiting social media usage may improve psychological well-being on multiple dimensions. This study is one of the first to experimentally investigate feasible alternatives to social media use abstinence or experimenter-managed limitation. Future studies could investigate motivations and mechanisms of social media use through qualitative explorations.

• In extreme cases the impact can be violent. Social media presents countless hours of individuals swearing, sweating, and slamming the table as they attempt to hold down chicken wings doused in hot sauces or entire record-breaking peppers.

• Serious complications from the heightened responses, such as the dangerous narrowing of cerebral arteries or damage to the esophagus with repeated retching, are thankfully uncommon, with fatalities – though recorded – even rarer.

• Researchers, medical professionals and advocates say the United States should adopt best practices similar to those deployed in states like California, which according to federal data has the lowest rate of maternal deaths in the country; focus on improving the health care received by American women — but especially Black and Native women — during pregnancy and delivery, and up to a year after; and enhancing the social services offered to pregnant women, from transportation to housing.

• Social media isn’t the first phenomenon to spark a moral panic about its impact on people’s (and especially young people’s) mental health, and it surely won’t be the last — but for now, it’s the star of the show. A lot of people will gladly latch on to, and casually misrepresent, any research that might strengthen their belief in social media’s harms. But that doesn’t mean there are no harms: it’s just that good research needs to account for the complexity of the subject and social media’s myriad impacts, good and bad. One person doing such research is Professor Andy Przybylski from the University of Oxford, who joins us on this week’s episode for a more detailed and meaningful discussion about social media and mental health.

• The founder of MAPS talks about FDA approval for MDMA-assisted therapy and the “psychedelic renaissance” he has helped create.

• During the hottest summer in history, The New Yorker’s Dhruv Khullar undergoes testing in a specialized chamber where researchers monitor the effects of heat on the body.

• Join us in this episode as we unlock the secrets to supercharging your workday through intentional lifestyle adjustments. From harnessing the power of sleep to crafting an invigorating morning routine and conquering mid-day slumps, we’ll guide you towards a more productive and fulfilling work life.

• A combination of “absurdly high” federal tariffs and excessive FDA regulations created the conditions for a crisis.

• Don’t succumb. It’s a psychological illusion.

Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Startups and investors are learning, once again, that great technology doesn’t necessarily translate into great business. After months of hype surrounding the potential of generative AI, investors and startups are ratcheting back their enthusiasm and trying to take a more measured approach to the market.

• A number of startups built on a foundation of AI are confronting declining customer interest and the need for layoffs, reports The Wall Street Journal. Adding to the pressure: Investors aren’t convinced that new companies will survive as brand-names like Microsoft and Google push into the space.

• In addition, the flood of products unveiled since last year is bewildering many technology customers. On the one hand, they want time to understand how AI’s capabilities can fit their needs. On the other, they’re pressuring vendors to keep up with developments. “Some of our customers, all they want to hear is that we’re thinking about AI,” said Ellen Loeshelle, director of product management – intelligence platform at Qualtrics. “Like I could say that in one sentence and get off the phone and they’d be happy.”

• [...]

• How patient investors will be remains to be seen. OpenAI reportedly lost $540 million in 2022, despite ChatGPT’s popularity. While it’s unlikely investors will back away from generative AI bets entirely, numbers like that are sure to put a brake on things.

• According to LinkedIn’s headcount, a significant chunk of the 270+ employees at the renowned market intelligence company for the app economy Sensor Tower were let go last week—roughly 40 of them. The chief product officer, chief financial officer, and chief marketing officer are a few of the individuals who told TechCrunch about the layoffs. Both the finance department and almost all of the marketing are supposedly affected.

• The corporation held an all-hands conference to review the adjustments, which could still be in the works as part of a more extensive organizational restructure at Sensor Tower. Although Sensor Tower recognized the layoffs, it withheld further details, announcing that a more comprehensive announcement would be made the following week.

• According to Melissa Sheer, a Sensor Tower spokesperson, in an email statement made available to TechCrunch, “Earlier this week, Sensor Tower’s management team took necessary steps to reorganize and right-size our business under a talented and experienced senior leadership team.

• Blizzard’s parent company Activision Blizzard Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) of Santa Monica is awaiting a takeover by Microsoft to create a video game colossus.

• 2023 has been a great year for video games. Yeah, I know. Forget the headline for a second, alright? I’m going somewhere with this. Just three months after The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom launched to one of the highest Metacritic review scores of all time, Baldur’s Gate 3 beat it by a point. We’ve had a remake of the best horror game ever made, Resident Evil 4, which somehow managed to improve on the original. We’re in the midst of enjoying Starfield. We’re still full from Street Fighter, Metroid Prime, Sea of Stars, Final Fantasy, Armored Core, and Dead Space. We have Spider-Man, Super Mario, Mortal Kombat, and Assassin’s Creed still to come. We’re so sick of good games we’ve decided Diablo 4 is terrible. It’s been a good year for video games. A great year. A challenger to the likes of 2020, 2013, and 1998 as the best ever. But it has been a bad year for gaming.

• Only three people on duty during “power sag”.

• Microsoft has blamed insufficient staffing and automation issues for an outage at an Australian data centre which shook its Azure, Microsoft 365 and Power Platform services for over 24 hours.

• Between 30 August and 1 September, Australian businesses reliant on software giant Microsoft’s cloud services suffered significant downtime when a “power sag” caused an outage impacting multiple products.

• “This event was triggered by a utility power sag in the Australia East region which tripped a subset of the cooling units offline in one data centre, within one of the Availability Zones,” said Microsoft.

• The incident began sometime on Sunday and affected hotel reservation systems throughout the United States and other IT systems that run the casino floors.

• The $20 million set aside for this Digital Futures Project – not a whole lot of money for Google but a lot for academics and think tanks – will go towards supporting outside researchers exploring how machine-learning technology will shape society as it increasingly encroaches on people’s lives. The project is particularly interested in AI’s potential to upend economies, governments, and institutions, and is funding boffins to probe issues such as: [...]

• I am by no means on the leading edge of LLMs. However, one thing I’ve noticed listening to people who are closer to the leading edge than I, is this idea that nobody quite knows why LLMs give the results they do — and the results can’t be repeated either (which is why experience and intuition are key to using them effectively).

• In science, you say you “understand” something when you can describe how it works and reliably predict (and even manipulate) its outcomes.

Windows TCO

• BianLian added that its victim, “the world’s leading nonprofit,” operates in 116 countries with $2.8 billion in revenues. The extortionists claim to have stolen 6.8TB of data, which they say includes international HR files, personal data, and more than 800GB of financial records. They claim to also have email messages as well as medical and health data.

Pseudo-Open Source

Openwashing

• The Open Source Definition isn’t directly applicable to AI systems, so global experts will gather to establish shared principles to protect the values of Open Source during this period of hyper growth in AI technology.

Security

• About a year ago, I left a comment on a Nostalgia Nerd video about Viruses. It’s a good video, worth a watch, like most of their content.

• Here’s my silly comment.

• The ends aren’t always supposed to justify the means. And a federal agency that already raised the hackles of defense lawyers around the nation during a CSAM investigation probably shouldn’t be in this much of hurry to start sending out unsolicited software to unknowing recipients.

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

• Windows arbitrary file deletion vulnerabilities should no longer be considered mere annoyances or tools for Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. Over the past couple of years, these vulnerabilities have matured into potent threats capable of unearthing a portal to full system compromise. This transformation is exemplified in CVE-2023-27470 (an arbitrary file deletion vulnerability in N-Able’s Take Control Agent with a CVSS Base Score of 8.8) demonstrating that what might initially seem innocuous can, in fact, expose unexpected weaknesses within your system.

Privacy/Surveillance

• Uber will extend several benefits to Indian Navy’s personnel and their families, including a personalised profile on the Uber app; premier executive cab category “providing surge price protection during peak office hours”; availability of top-rated drivers; zero cancellation fee on all its rides and a 24×7 premium business support, the official said.

• Among the main suppliers of state Trojan programs are companies from Israel. The country has observer status with the Council of Europe. The parliamentarians are calling on the government in Jerusalem to report on exports to countries where the software could be used for human rights violations. Morocco, which is considered a “partner for democracy” by the PACE Assembly, is also to investigate the use of “Pegasus” that has become known.

Confidentiality

• Sofía shares a short presentation on Post-Quantum Cryptography’s (PQC) development. PQC is special and different in how it uses complex problems with no efficient quantum solution to satisfy security goals. The panel commences on several topics and a few prompts from the audience. The competition should provide multiple solutions for exchanging keys and digital signatures so that when one solution is no longer secure, applications can change to another. The largest concern is how the performance characteristics will affect applications that need key exchange and digital signatures. Google will be testing key exchange at scale, but there is a gap for digital signatures. Cryptographic agility gets redefined with an emphasis on updating applications and hard to reach hardware like TPMs and satellites.

• This talk summary is part of my DEF CON 31 series. The talks this year have sufficient depth to be shared independently and are separated for easier consumption.

• The review found other weaknesses, specifically those involving information systems, contractor oversight, information sharing, etc. The report also said that the IRS does not employ overall oversight efforts related to unauthorized access of contractors, even though multiple IRS offices oversee said contractors.

• In this review, we found weaknesses in training, information systems, contractor oversight, information-sharing, and more. Of the related recommendations we’ve made since 2010, 77 haven’t been implemented as of March 2023. We’re also making 16 new recommendations, including one for Congress to consider.

Defence/Aggression

• Given the weight of sadness of September 11, it’s jarring to remember how innocent I was when I first encountered the date in a political setting. I was living in Chile as a study-abroad student. It was 1995, and as I walked the streets of Santiago, still a political novice, I saw that date, 11 de Septiembre, on a street sign and did not understand why an avenue would bear that name. The codirector of my study-abroad program was a Chilean journalist who explained to me that September 11, 1973, was when hell was unleashed on anyone in Chile who thought they could peacefully and electorally create a better world.

• But today, on the 50th anniversary of the Chilean coup, there are individuals and groups, like Ecomemoria, for which Mr. Córdova has volunteered, working to ensure that the legacy of the dictatorship is remembered in its entirety. It’s a heavier lift than most expected, given that the atrocities from that period are well documented. But growing political divisions – and the ways in which Chileans envision their nation’s future – shape the way today’s anniversary is remembered.

• “There is not a single piece of land in Chile that doesn’t bear the scars of the dictatorship. Yet society lives as if nothing happened,” says Jimmy Bell, the son of a political prisoner who was imprisoned and tortured.

• In its annual report, the PIF claims to have $776 billion in assets under management. Over the past year, it increased this figure by 10%, with 25 new companies incorporated. Despite its massive stake beyond Saudi borders, the fund’s investments abroad still only represent a minority part of its portfolio: 23% of the total. In the report, the PIF highlights that its shares “include high-tech and high-growth sectors, such as video games and the creative industries in general, as well as companies and initiatives linked to the rapidly expanding travel and tourism industries.”

• We look at the 50th anniversary of what is sometimes called the “other 9/11” — the U.S.-backed coup in Chile, when General Augusto Pinochet ousted President Salvador Allende and inaugurated almost two decades of brutal military rule. Allende died in the presidential palace on September 11, 1973, marking the end of Chile’s first socialist government. During Pinochet’s military dictatorship, more than 3,000 people were disappeared or killed, and some 40,000 more were tortured as political prisoners as Chile remained a close partner to the United States during the Cold War. “We’re still living in some sense under the shadow of Pinochet, and of course we’re living under the gigantic light … of Salvador Allende,” says renowned Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman, who served as a cultural adviser to Allende from 1970 to 1973 before going into exile following the coup. His latest novel, The Suicide Museum, explores the mystery around Allende’s death and whether it was a suicide or murder.

• According to a 1975 Church Committee report on CIA involvement in Chile, its funding for Edwards’s right-wing newspaper El Mercurio, to the tune of roughly $2 million after Allende’s victory alone, was “by far the largest — and probably the most significant — instance of support for a media organization” in the country by the CIA. A postmortem by the CIA, the report explained, “concluded that El Mercurio and other media outlets supported by the Agency had played an important role in setting the stage” for the successful 1973 coup through their unrelenting propaganda campaign against Allende. It was all just one part of what the report described as the “continuous and massive” US covert action in the country between 1963 and 1973.

• The Chicago Boys’ opposition to the politicization of the economy preceded Allende’s victory by decades, but his socialist government’s economic planning, Keynesian demand-stimulation, and wealth redistribution provided their ideal adversary, and brought them to the attention of Chile’s business elites. From the Chicago-inspired perspective of these técnicos, Allende’s proposals amounted to an ignorant violation of the laws of the economy and the destruction of a free society.

• Under the war on terror rubric, open-ended warfare was well underway — “as if terror were a state and not a technique,” as Joan Didion wrote in 2003 (two months before the US invasion of Iraq). “We had seen, most importantly, the insistent use of September 11 to justify the reconception of America’s correct role in the world as one of initiating and waging virtually perpetual war.”

• In a single sentence, Didion had captured the essence of a quickly calcified set of assumptions that few mainstream journalists were willing to question. Those assumptions were catnip for the lions of the military-industrial-intelligence complex. After all, the budgets at “national security” agencies (both long-standing and newly created) had begun to soar with similar vast outlays going to military contractors. Worse yet, there was no end in sight as mission creep accelerated into a dash for cash.

• These findings suggest that both basic personality traits and social factors help explain why individuals endorse group-based violence for their cause. Research solely focusing on social or social-psychological factors — and neglecting the role of personality — is missing an important piece of the “puzzle” of violent extremism.

• Mr. Floderus’s case is unusual because of his professional background, which makes him a high-value prisoner in what experts describe as an energetic “hostage diplomacy” advanced by Iran.

• The New York Times also stated that Floderus’ detainment forms part of a series of arrests carried out by Iranian authorities in order to secure the release of Iranian prisoners held in foreign jurisdictions or to meet other demands. The BBC reports that Floderus is detained alongside several other foreign nationals and Iranians who are of dual nationality or foreign permanent residency. Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian-Swedish medical specialist who has been held in Iran since 2016 and sentenced to death for “corruption on Earth”, is another detainee. Supporters for Djalali claim that his arrest stems from Iranian authorities seeking to exert pressure on Sweden to release Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian official, who is currently subject to a life sentence in Sweden.

• How the tech billionaire built a one-man monopoly over American infrastructure and became too powerful for the U.S. government to rein in.

• Episode 470 of the Cyberlaw Podcast

• North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will soon visit Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin, the two countries confirmed on Monday, a potentially landmark summit amid Moscow’s deepening isolation over the war in Ukraine.

• The potential summit puts the two’s longtime ally, Beijing, in a precarious position.

• The United States on September 11 warned North Korea against any moves toward supplying Russia with weapons and threatened further sanctions against Pyongyang after the Kremlin confirmed that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will visit Russia “in the coming days.”

• Joined by his top military officials handling his nuclear-capable weapons and munitions factories, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Russia on Tuesday, where he is expected to hold a rare meeting with President Vladimir Putin that has sparked Western concerns about a potential arms deal for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

• Mr Kim left on Sunday to visit the Russian Federation, said the Korean Central News Agency.

• Kim Jong Un is expected to meet with Vladimir Putin, according to North Korea’s KCNA news agency. Mr. Kim is likely traveling on a personal train – similar to one used on previous trips – that has been seen idling on the North Korean side of the border.

• Kim Jong-un has ammunition stocks that Russia covets as it continues its war in Ukraine, and North Korea may get advanced technology and badly needed food aid in return.

• As he heads to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin, the North Korean leader continues his family’s history of traveling solely by rail.

• North Korea’s leader is expected to discuss military cooperation with President Vladimir V. Putin, including the possibility of sending more weapons for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

• Ties between Russia and North Korea date back to the founding of the Asian country 75 years ago.

Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

• European Commission Press release Brussels, 11 Sep 2023 New Flash Eurobarometer survey reveals support for EU’s energy security and green transition measures, on boosting clean tech and responding to Russia’s Ukraine invasion

• The Swedish government wants to increase the country’s defense budget by 28% as it prepares to join the NATO alliance. The increase would put Sweden on track to reach NATO’s target for military spending to be 2% of a country’s gross domestic product. Sweden’s center-right coalition government unveiled a defense bill Monday and said the defense budget will be increased by $2.4 billion. About $63 million will be spent on Sweden’s future membership of NATO. Sweden and neighboring Finland sought protection under the NATO security umbrella after Russia invaded Ukraine last year. Finland joined earlier this year but Sweden is still waiting.

• For Western officials and their news media conduits who have carefully crafted the myth that Ukraine is a vibrant democracy, the past few weeks have been extremely challenging.  First came the revelation that members of the country’s draft boards had engaged in a pervasive degree of corruption.

• Reprinted with permission from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft Hawkish critics of the Biden administration have been constantly agitating for escalation over Ukraine for the last year and a half.

• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Monday urged Berlin to supply Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles during a surprise visit to Kyiv by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

• The Council of Europe released a joint statement Sunday condemning the recent elections in the Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine. Over the course of one week, Russia held regional elections across several parts Ukraine, including four regions that it does not fully control – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.

• Lithuania on Monday condemned the elections held by Russia over the weekend in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and vowed a “strong and concrete response” to those involved.

• Fewer Belarusians and Ukrainians have chosen to study at Lithuanian higher education institutions this year, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport has reported.

• In disgust, Ukraine moves to ban all Chinese tourists.

• Russia’s military targeted a civilian cargo ship in the Black Sea with “multiple missiles” last month, but they were successfully intercepted by Ukrainian forces, Britain said on September 11, citing intelligence.

• A “striking fist” in the North, and river crossings in the South. Along a jagged 1,000-mile front, the fighting is multifaceted — and relentless.

• An online campaign has been launched in Kazakhstan calling for the cancellation of shows by Azamat Musagaliyev, a prominent Russian comic of Kazakh origin, over his recent performance in Ukraine’s Russian-controlled Donetsk region.

• The platforms have played a role in Russia’s ability to project power off Ukraine’s coast since Moscow seized them in 2015.

• NATO Deputy Secretary-General Mircea Geoana said on September 11 that there is “no risk” that alliance member Romania will be dragged into a war following the recent discovery of drone fragments on its territory near the border with war-torn Ukraine.

• The American push to fund Kyiv’s war effort has created big economic opportunities for Mesquite, Texas, and other cities around the country. Some of their G.O.P. congressmen want to end it.

• The European Union has warned Russia of “consequences” for those involved in organizing the “illegal” elections over the weekend in Ukrainian regions occupied by the Kremlin, while Germany said new EU sanctions are possible.

• [...]

• Brussels followed soon afterward by condemning the vote, which it said represented “yet another manifest violation of international law,” adding that it will not recognize “either the holding of these so-called ‘elections’ or their results.”

• Russia’s military presence at Ukraine’s occupied Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant and fighting near the facility pose a security risk, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has told the organization’s board of governors.

• The German prosecutors office has officially charged two individuals with suspected treason on Friday, after they were indicted on August 24. The two suspects referred to as Carsten L and Arthur E were accused of high treason through the passing on of state secrets to Russia’s Secret Service.

• NATO will hold the largest military exercise since the Cold War on its eastern flank next year to practice repelling a Russian attack, the Financial Times reports.

• Russian journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov believes there is neither freedom of the press nor freedom of expression in his home country.

• The Russian ruble strengthened to a more than one-week high against the dollar on September 11, rising sharply after hitting its weakest mark since mid-August on September 8, as the market turns its attention to a central bank rate decision later this week.

• RFE/RL has welcomed a decision by the European Council to sanction two officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) who are responsible for the investigation into, and torture of, the journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko.

• The auto market is one of the few areas in Russia where Western sanctions had an immediate effect. Today, Russia’s car industry has been transformed, with new players, foreign and domestic, stepping to the fore.

• On Sunday, September 10, 256 people tried to cross the Latvian-Belarusian border illegally, which is the largest number of border violators ever detected during a 24-hour period, according to data from the State Border Guard.

• The Interior Ministry will propose to the Seimas to extend the validity period of the foreigner’s passports issued in Lithuania in response to Minsk’s decision not to allow Belarusians to renew their identity documents abroad.

• Lithuania says the number of Belarusian nationals seeking so-called foreigners’ passports is likely to rise following a consular clampdown by Minsk but that Belarusians who fled the regime and have the proper documents can receive the alternative Lithuanian travel document in as little as five days.

• Latvia prevented 246 people from illegally crossing from neighboring Belarus on September 10 — a 24-hour record, the Latvian Border Guard said on September 11.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• In a special session of the state legislature, announced Friday by Gov. Sarah Sanders and convened Monday morning, lawmakers are expected to discuss making major amendments to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which has guaranteed the public’s right to government information since 1967.

• The proposed changes will do a number of things that will reduce transparency in the state. These new limits for requesters include:

• In her announcement, Sanders claimed that part of the urgency of amending FOIA had to do with possible threats to her safety and the fact that the state’s FOIA has not been updated since the advent of the smartphone. News reports on the sudden legislative session, which will also include an effort to lower certain taxes in the state, also note that the session was announced the same week that the governor’s office was named a defendant in a FOIA case to access records on the costs and companions associated with Gov. Sanders’s travel. The proposed FOIA legislation is meant to be applied retroactively to January 2022, which would cover the records associated in that lawsuit.

Environment

• As artificial intelligence is increasingly developing and data centers are erected to further this tech, it’s becoming clear that AI has a water usage problem.

• In its latest environmental, social, and governance (ESG) report, Microsoft said the higher rate of water consumption was in line with business growth. According to that report, water consumption increased by a third from 4.8 cubic metres of water in 2021 to 6.4 million cubic metres last year. That’s compared to the 14 percent increase in water consumption the software giant reported between 2020 and 2021.

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that there have been 23 weather extreme events in America that cost at least $1 billion this year through August, eclipsing the year-long record total of 22 set in 2020. So far, this year’s disasters have cost more than $57.6 billion and claimed at least 253 lives.

• And NOAA’s count doesn’t yet include Tropical Storm Hilary’s damages in hitting California and a deep drought that has struck the South and Midwest because those costs are still to be totaled, said Adam Smith, the NOAA applied climatologist and economist who tracks the billion-dollar disasters.

• We get an update from Morocco, which has declared three days of mourning after the strongest earthquake to hit the region in at least a century. About 2,500 people died in the 6.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the country on Friday, with another 2,500 injured and the death toll expected to rise. The epicenter was in the High Atlas Mountains located about 44 miles from Marrakech, where many villages remain largely inaccessible and lack both electricity and running water. The earthquake also damaged parts of Marrakech, including its old city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We speak with Moroccan scholars Abdellah El Haloui, in Marrakech, where he is head of the English Department at Cadi Ayyad University, and Brahim El Guabli, associate professor of Arabic studies at Williams College, originally from Ouarzazate, Morocco, which was hit by the earthquake.

• During the hottest summer in history, The New Yorker’s Dhruv Khullar undergoes testing in a specialized chamber where researchers monitor the effects of heat on the body.

• A congressional Republican and the head of the Sierra Club talk about the search for common ground on climate action. Plus, the fiction writer Tessa Hadley.

Energy/Transportation

• The apprehension of the ship, the Suez Rajan, came after a group opposed to Iran raised accusations of sanctions violations last year.

• You might not believe this, but I’m old enough to remember when flying was fun.

• Now I’m sure you’ve got your own airline horror stories, which I hope you’ll share. But what happened to make flying such a nightmare?

• The answer is simple: the same things happening across most industries. In fact, a close look at airlines reveals five of the biggest problems with our economy.

• Number 1: Consolidation means fewer choices.

• While there were once many more airlines, a series of mergers and acquisitions over the last three decades has left only four in control of about 80% of the market.

• This

• A Greek shipping company has pleaded guilty to smuggling sanctioned Iranian crude oil and agreed to pay a $2.4 million fine, newly unsealed US court documents seen Thursday by The Associated Press show.

• A Greek shipping company has pleaded guilty to smuggling sanctioned Iranian crude oil and agreed to pay a $2.4 million fine, newly unsealed U.S. court documents seen on September 7 by the Associated Press show.

• The report took particular aim at stablecoins, reiterating the push for countries to get aligned with each other in terms of how they handle stablecoins and limit the potential for those instruments to create shocks to the global system.

• At the request of the Indian G20 Presidency, the IMF and the FSB have developed this paper to synthesise the IMF’s and the FSB’s (alongside SSBs’) policy recommendations and standards. The collective recommendations provide comprehensive guidance to help authorities address the macroeconomic and financial stability risks posed by [cryptocurrency]-asset activities and markets, including those associated with stablecoins and those conducted through so-called decentralised finance (DeFi).

• It’s not totally clear whether Salame is truly passionate about Republican political causes or if he was simply emerging as a Republican donor out of loyalty to his boss (and his girlfriend). He has reportedly said that he was not especially interested in politics, and that he was getting more involved at the encouragement of others at FTX. In a charging document, prosecutors surfaced messages that Salame wrote, saying that the purpose of donations was to “weed out anti [cryptocurrency] dems for pro [cryptocurrency] dems and anti [cryptocurrency] repubs for pro [cryptocurrency] repubs” In other words, it seems that he and his involved colleagues hoped to use donations to elevate politicians sympathetic to the [cryptocurrency] business, regardless of party. (Jason Linder, a lawyer for Salame, did not immediately respond to my request for comment, though he said in a statement last week that “Ryan looks forward to putting this chapter behind him and moving forward with his life.”)

• The cryptocurrency industry is rife with scams of every stripe, and they have often taken place on Twitter. There are a large number of users on the social network, and the nature of the blockchain is such that transactions are nearly instant and irreversible. A click is all it takes to lose everything.

• Spike Aerospace’s supersonic aircraft has been dubbed S-512 and is designed to carry 12-18 passengers at a time. The aircraft mixes high-speed travel with high-end luxury, and the illustrations of the final offering clearly show that the aircraft is for the uber-rich who are in a hurry to get to their destinations.

• On Friday, Union Pacific, the nation’s largest freight railroad carrier, received a blistering letter from federal regulators who criticized the company for poorly maintaining its fleet, furloughing workers who perform train maintenance and allowing its managers to pressure inspectors to stop their efforts in order to keep freight moving.

• The letter, signed by Federal Railroad Administration head Amit Bose, came after the agency inspected the company’s East Departure Yard in North Platte, Nebraska, this summer and found that more than 70% of the train engines had safety defects, as did 20% of the cars — defect ratios twice the national average. Conditions didn’t improve when inspectors returned and found locomotives with defects still in use. “We haven’t been able to get to them yet,” a Union Pacific director said, according to the letter.

• We discuss whether moving away from fossil fuels will see the price we’re

• charged for energy fall.

• We ask whether bills will reduce with the energy price cap set to fall this October

• The ombudsman said that customers cannot be switched to market-based spot priced contracts without their consent.

Finance

• Martyn Butler, who has worked for Wilko for 16 years, says it has been an “emotional rollercoaster”.

• This week the All Points North podcast explores the government’s proposal to tie benefit levels to Finnish language skills.

• The proponent of “big hair and small government” explains how to flourish in a global financial universe that is indifferent to the individual.

• Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 418.

• This is a followup to KOL414 | Corporations, Limited Liability, and the Title Transfer Theory of Contract, with Jeff Barr: Part I. See that episode for more information and notes.

• In Part III, we need to talk about corporations. For more on that, see Corporate Personhood, Limited Liability, and Double Taxation.

• Yet Jeff still thinks that failure/inability to pay a future debt is “theft,” much like Rothbard (and Block) view this as “implicit theft,” thus justifying in principle debtor’s prison, although Barr thinks the theft is not even implicit; he thinks it’s explicit theft. This is the crux of our disagreement.

• Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 417.

• Part 3 of my video commentary on Larken Rose’s recent comments on IP.

• Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 416.

• Part 2 of my video commentary on Larken Rose’s recent comments on IP.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• “United Russia party’s resounding victory ratifies the indisputable leadership of its political force,” the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry stated.

• Even without the Russian or Chinese leaders’ presence at the G20 summit, their influence created challenges for President Biden, who drew on creative diplomacy to assert U.S. global leadership.

• As the world’s second-largest PC manufacturer, following Lenovo, HP’s decision to relocate its production is notable. The company plans to produce some of its commercial notebooks in Mexico, while consumer laptops will be manufactured in Thailand. Additionally, there’s an upcoming shift to Vietnam slated for 2024. The production outside of China for this year is projected to be between a few million to 5 million units, a significant number considering HP’s global shipment of 55.2 million PCs in 2023.

• Retail traders getting their first bite at Arm Holdings’ highly anticipated public offering when the British chip designer begins trading this week should beware: individual investors often get burned when they jump on hot listings.

• Arm’s goal of raising around $5 billion in New York in what might be the biggest IPO of 2023 follows other major listings in recent years whose returns have mostly disappointed.

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday said Europe and its partners should develop a new global framework for artificial intelligence risks, asserting that it would protect against systemic societal risks and foster investments in safe and responsible AI systems.

• The US Congress is heading back into session, and they’re hitting the ground running on AI. We’re going to be hearing a lot about various plans and positions on AI regulation in the coming weeks, kicking off with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s first AI Insight Forum on Wednesday.

• This and planned future forums will bring together some of the top people in AI to discuss the risks and opportunities it poses and how Congress might write legislation to address them.

• A House Oversight subcommittee will hold a hearing on Thursday that will look at potential risks in federal agency adoption of AI along with the adequacy of safeguards to protect individual privacy and ensure fair treatment.

• Witnesses include White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhaker along with the Pentagon’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer Craig Martell and Homeland Security Department’s Chief Information Officer Eric Hysen.

• The lawmakers plan to highlight their proposals in an A.I. hearing on Tuesday, which will feature Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, and William Dally, the chief scientist for the A.I. chip maker Nvidia. Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Hawley plan to introduce bills from the framework.

• On Wednesday, top tech executives including Elon Musk, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and OpenAI’s Sam Altman will meet with the Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, and other lawmakers in a separate closed-door meeting on A.I. regulations.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

• Researchers say they’ve discovered 85 social media accounts and blogs originating from China and working in tandem to amplify a conspiracy theory claiming the deadly fires in Maui were caused by a secretive “weather weapon” unleashed by the US military. NewsGuard, which has previously uncovered other online influence operations from China and Russia, claims the new “coordinated online campaign” represents the most expansive Chinese operation it has uncovered to date.

• The conspiracy-laden content was written in 15 different languages and appeared on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and around a dozen other platforms. Though the exact phrasing of the posts varied, they largely stemmed from a scandalous, baseless conspiracy theory involving the US military, British spies, and experimental sci-fi weaponry. Buckle up for some tinfoil hat activity.

• Yelland and former No 10 comms chief Simon Lewis talk PR and journalism ahead of their podcast launch.

• We’re on the case of the fraudsters, helping you decipher what is and isn’t legit

Censorship/Free Speech

• The social media app, which has been an instrumental tool during the strike, is blocking searches for “WGA.”

• X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has apparently shadowbanned The New York Times, preventing users from seeing tweets that link to the newspaper’s coverage. The move smacks of a particular irony, given that the Times is one of X’s major advertisers and is currently running campaigns to promote its new sports site, The Athletic.

• Times employees had already taken note of the pattern, as high-profile attempts to share Times articles failed to travel on the platform. For instance, earlier this week, former President Barack Obama shared multiple New York Times articles on X about healthcare costs, which the service said reached fewer than 900,000 and 800,000 users respectively. The number was far lower than any other post shared by the former president since X began sharing that data publicly earlier this year — for comparison, a Politico link shared by the president got nearly 13 million views.

• A few years back we had an article about the “The Green Smoothie Girl” aka Robyn Openshaw, who went on this weird SLAPPy binge of threatening people who left negative reviews of her brand of woo woo nonsense. Apparently since that time, Openshaw went down the unsurprising path of being a COVID anti-vaxxer (natch) and more recently had to admit to having lied about having a Ph.D.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• I am currently in Minnesota where I am speaking tonight and doing several media interviews. The primary purpose of the whole US visit is not the public appearances, but preparation for the campaign and defence in the USA should extradition go ahead.

• Then Eleanor Goldfield hosts the second half of the show; her guests, two long-time sex workers, look at sex work and strip clubs from a labor perspective, addressing issues such as the difference between being treated as independent contractors and as employees. They also call for the decriminalization of sex work, and an end to the social and legal ostracism of sex workers.

• Prosecutors have asked a court in Tashkent to convict and sentence journalist Mavjuda Mirzaeva to six years in prison on charges of slander, insult, and extortion. [...]

• Ultimately, I don’t know whether the attack on the Palestine Hotel was a deliberate attack on journalists or not. If it was, it is unclear to me who in the chain of command was responsible.

• But the charges brought by Spain involved “serious criminal conduct,” and the juxtaposition between the U.S.’s own attempts to thwart a war crimes prosecution, versus its obsessive pursuit of Assange for exposing U.S. war crimes, make Blinken’s remarks on the political case against the WikiLeaks founder all the more maddening.

Civil Rights/Policing

• The world is largely split into those who who are doing the daily behaviors that bring them success, and those who aren’t doing those behaviors.

• I call this The Great Bifurcation because technology magnifies the differences between those doing them and those who aren’t.

• The center, officially named His Holiness the Great 14th Dalai Lama Library and Learning Center, opened on Friday, Sept. 8. It includes a digital audio archive with 40,000 hours of the Dalai Lama’s teachings, about 4,000 books with translations of ancient texts on the evolution of Buddhist thought, and Buddhist artifacts from India and Tibet.

• However, there are two further approaches the West can take short of military interference. The first is to take actions that incentivize a change of behavior. These would include, but are not limited to, human rights sanctions and United Nations (UN) mechanisms. The other, more impactful, approach would be to gradually delegitimize the oppressive government by cutting off diplomatic ties or boycotting them from political, sporting, and cultural events.

• Taplin’s distinction between the oligarchs of new and old is that the modern tech billionaires are granted immunity for content published on their platforms through Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Taplin describes the control these oligarchs possess over the speech dictated on their platforms, “So here [Musk] controls this platform, Twitter, and what he wants pushed gets pushed, what he wants suppressed, gets suppressed. And nobody even doubts that that’s happening.”

• This week’s podcast asks whether Finland’s government is doing enough to deal with racism.

• Episode 466 of the Cyberlaw Podcast

• We’re going to go slow on this one, because there’s a lot of background and details and nuance to get into in Friday’s 5th Circuit appeals court ruling in the Missouri v. Biden case that initially resulted in a batshit crazy 4th of July ruling regarding the US government “jawboning” social media companies. The reporting on the 5th Circuit ruling has been kinda atrocious, perhaps because the end result of the ruling is this:

• So, I already wrote a long post walking through the mostly very good 5th Circuit ruling in the Missouri v. Biden case, in which the court threw out most of the district court judge’s injunction against the government communicating with social media companies and academics. The end result is a very good, straightforward ruling on the 1st Amendment that reminds the government that they cannot coerce social media platforms on how they moderate.

• All are invited to attend the EFF Awards! Whether you are an activist, an EFF supporter, a student interested in cyberlaw or public interest technology, or someone who wants to eat good food and drink with other cool individuals, anyone can have a fun time at the ceremony.

• The celebration will begin at 6:30 pm. PT, Thursday, September 14 at The Regency Lodge, 1290 Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco. Register today to attend the event! We even have discounted tickets for EFF members and students.

• “Probable cause on four legs.” That’s the nickname for drug dogs, which give cops permission to perform searches just by performing a neat little trick cops call an “alert.” What constitutes an “alert” is pretty much up to the dog’s handler, who can claim any movement is the drug dog detecting contraband or (deliberately or inadvertently) prompt “alerts” just by being near the dog when the sniff of a car is performed.

• While some argue that the ongoing anti-establishment protests began in mid-September 2022, the reality is that Iranians have been defying the regime for years.

• Relatives of Johan Floderus have released details of his incarceration since April 2022, revving up a public campaign on his birthday to bring him home.

• Six workers from the Agh-Dareh Vosta mines in West Azerbaijan Province have been held in detention since August 31, following union protests.

• Former local radio presenter Alex Belfield was jailed for stalking Vine and others last year.

• Prominent Iranian teachers’ union activist Abolfazl Khoran has been handed a severe sentence by the Islamic Revolutionary Court for “disrupting public order” as the government continues to tightening its grip on dissent and the labor movement.

• The number of workers killed on the job exceeded 200 in a month for the first time in twelve years that the Health and Safety Labor Watch has been collecting this data except for the coronavirus pandemic period and the Soma mine disaster.

• “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” HL Mencken

• First came 9/11, which the government used to transform itself into a police state.

• Two new seats on EFF’s board are filled by Erica Astrella and Yoshi Kohno, who bring valuable experience in diversity, equity, inclusion, security research, and data privacy to the table.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• We’ve already noted how the 2021 infrastructure bill aims to spend a whopping $42 billion on broadband deployments via the Broadband Equity and Deployment program (BEAD). We’ve also noted how big regional monopolies are doing everything in their power to ensure the lion’s share of that money goes to them, and not smaller ISPs or a number of popular, community-owned broadband networks.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• Spotify spent more than $1 billion building a podcast empire that quickly crumbled around it.

• On Spotify, white noise creators can make up to $18,000 per month recording ambient sounds meant for background listening. According to a recent report from Bloomberg, however, these podcast aberrations will no longer be eligible for specific ads.

• Spotify is streamlining how it presents podcasts with a new way for creators to grant patrons access to paid content on the platform. Here’s a peek at the Spotify + Patreon integration.

• Spotify took a $41 million loss in podcast-related write-offs—mostly due to contract terminations. The music company told investors it took steps to shrink its real estate footprint and rationalize certain areas of its podcasting business.

• Last month, after kicking off 2023 by trimming about six percent of its global workforce, Spotify announced approximately 200 podcasting layoffs. Now, CFO Paul Vogel has indicated that his company expects “headcount year over year to actually be down in Q3,” and some are speculating that additional personnel cutbacks could be on the way.

Monopolies

• The US government is taking aim at what has been an indomitable empire: Google’s ubiquitous search engine that has become the internet’s main gateway.

• The legal attack will swing into full force Tuesday in a Washington DC federal courtroom that will serve as the battleground for the biggest US antitrust trial since regulators went after Microsoft and its dominance of personal computer software a quarter century ago.

• EU antitrust regulators have delayed their investigation into Amazon’s $1.7 billion acquisition of robot vacuum cleaner maker iRobot as they wait for the companies to provide requested information.

• The European Commission, which acts as the competition enforcer in the 27-country bloc, said it stopped the clock on Sept. 8, with effect from Aug. 29.

Patents

• Techdirt has been writing about “evergreening” for many years. It refers to the practice by pharmaceutical companies of making small changes to a drug, often about to come off patent, in order to gain a new patent that extends its manufacturer’s monopoly control over it. The New York Times has a story about the Big Pharma company Gilead Sciences that involves evergreening, but with a twist.

Copyrights

• I had no involvement whatsoever with the statement, but was happy to tweet it out and was grateful for the effort to set the record straight on what has been a relentless misinformation campaign that ignores the foundational principles of copyright law.

• We have an incredible group of people lined up to be keynote speakers at the 2023 CC Global Summit, to be held 3–6 October in Mexico City. Recently we announced Anya Kamenetz, and now in our second announcement, we welcome Peter-Lucas Jones, who will address the Summit with a keynote that grows out of his work as a leading figure in Māori media and his collaborations to honor local and traditional knowledge and culture in a global context.

• Last month, the Canadian Federation of Library Associations released a much-needed statement that sought to counter the ongoing misinformation campaign from copyright lobby groups regarding the state of Canadian copyright and the extensive licensing by libraries and educational institutions. I had no involvement whatsoever with the statement, but was happy to tweet it out and was grateful for the effort to set the record straight on what has been a relentless misinformation campaign that ignores the foundational principles of copyright law. Lobby groups have for years tried to convince the government that 2012 copyright reforms are to blame for the diminished value of the Access Copyright licence that led Canadian educational institutions to seek other alternatives, most notably better licensing options that offer greater flexibility, access to materials, and usage rights. This is false, and when the CFLA dared to call it out, those same groups then expressed their “profound disappointment” in the library association.

• The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively reveal the first stills from Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, the follow-up to the micro-budget British slasher that went viral last year for its childhood-bludgeoning premise, became one of the most talked about films of 2023 and would earn $5.2 million in the global box office after costing under $100,000 to make.

• Currently in production, the sequel comes with a bigger budget, more kills and even an Olivier Award-winning, BAFTA-nominated star in the form of Simon Callow (Four Weddings and a Funeral), who has joined the cast.

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