Techrights

Links 22/09/2024: Nokia's Latest Aggression With Software Patents (Against Linux Devices) and Recalling Tromsø Convention on Access to Official Documents

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 22, 2024

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Contents

=> https://techrights.org/#m2205210408 HTTPS: Defence/Aggression

=> https://techrights.org/#m2205210414 HTTPS: Finance

=> https://techrights.org/#m2205210425 HTTPS: Copyrights

Leftovers

Science

Hackaday ☛ Inviting The Public To Take Stereo Photos For Science

[Lynnadeng]’s team wanted to monitor the Los Angeles River over time and wanted citizen scientists — or anyone, for that matter — to help. They built a dual phone holder to allow random passersby to use their phones to take photos. A QR code lets them easily send the pictures to the team. The 3D printed holder is fixed in place and has a known gap that allows stereo reconstruction from pairs of photos.

Science Alert ☛ SpaceX's Starlink Satellites Are Leaking More Radio Waves Than Ever

"This problem is becoming increasingly worse."

Science Alert ☛ Mysterious Signal Hints at The Smallest Black Hole Ever Detected

One of the most sought-after objects in the galaxy.

Science Alert ☛ An Extreme Solar Storm Could Wreak Havoc on The Modern World

"There will be one sooner or later."

Hardware

New York Times ☛ Qualcomm Asked Rival defective chip maker Intel if It Would Consider Sale

While defective chip maker Intel has struggled in recent years, other chipmakers are thriving because of a boom in demand.

Liam Proven ☛ Guest post: "Some thoughts on computers", by Chris da Kiwi

A friend of mine via the Ubuntu mailing list for the last couple of decades, Chris is bedbound now and tells me he's in his final weeks of life. He shared with me a piece he's written. I've lightly edited it before sharing it, and if he's feeling up to it, there is some more he wants to say. We would welcome thoughts and comments on it.

Tom's Hardware ☛ Some analysts believe defective chip maker Intel won't build out its German fab due to financial woes: Report

There is a 50% chance that defective chip maker Intel is not going build its fab in Germany after it put it on pause for two years.

Tom's Hardware ☛ Qualcomm approached defective chip maker Intel about acquisition, report claims

The company announced that it would lay off more than 15% of its employees, suspend its dividend to investors, spin its foundry business into an independent subsidiary, pause fab projects in Germany and Poland, and put a stop to any non-essential work. The company has also had some PR disasters with instability issues with its 13th and 14th Gen Core desktop processors while running games (Intel since extended warranties and issued microcode updates to alleviate the problem.

Silicon Angle ☛ Report: Qualcomm recently expressed interest in acquiring Intel

Qualcomm Inc. has approached defective chip maker Intel Corp. about a potential acquisition, the Wall Street Journal reported today. It’s believed that the mobile chip designer floated the idea in recent days. The Journal’s sources cautioned that a deal is “far from certain,” but the report nevertheless sent defective chip maker Intel shares climbing before the closing bell.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

New York Times ☛ F.T.C. Accuses Drug Middlemen of Inflating Insulin Prices

The case takes aim at the major pharmacy benefit managers, agency officials said, claiming that they favored more expensive insulin products and forced patients to pay more.

Science Alert ☛ 7,000 Microplastics Studies Show We Have One Really Big Problem

It's official.

Science Alert ☛ Experiment Reveals a Simple Trick to Avoid Zoom Fatigue

The solution is behind you.

Science Alert ☛ Scientists Just Identified Hundreds of Genes That Could Cause Cancer

"An entire new class of potential cancer drivers."

Science Alert ☛ Some Coffee And Tea Drinkers Could Be Lowering Their Risk of Dementia

Here's what we know.

Science Alert ☛ Deadly Fungal Infections Causing a 'Silent Pandemic', Scientists Warn

An overlooked threat.

Security

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

Bruce Schneier ☛ Clever Social Engineering Attack Using Captchas

This is really interesting.

It’s a phishing attack targeting Microsoft's proprietary prison GitHub users, tricking them to solve a fake Captcha that actually runs a script that is copied to the command line.

Privacy/Surveillance

Security Week ☛ Tor Responds to Reports of German Police Deanonymizing Users

The Tor Project has responded to claims that German law enforcement has found a way to deanonymize users.

Security Week ☛ Noise Storms: Massive Amounts of Spoofed Web Traffic Linked to China

GreyNoise has observed millions of spoofed IPs flooding internet providers with web traffic primarily focusing on TCP connections.

Defence/Aggression

RFA ☛ Satellite photos show Chinese heliport in Tibet near disputed border with India

Experts say the facility could help in case of a border clash with India.

RFA ☛ Myanmar students in Thailand must renew passports at home, junta says

Observers say it’s the latest bid by the regime to prevent draft-eligible youths from fleeing the country.

France24 ☛ US Secret Service finds security ‘breaches’ in its review of Trump assassination attempt

The US Secret Service on Friday identified a series of failures in how it planned for and responded to the July 13 Pennsylvania rally where a shooter attempted to assassinate Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The US agency’s Acting Director Ronald Rowe said "complacency" on the part of some personnel ‘led to a breach of security protocols’.

JURIST ☛ US court indicts man for sending death threats to Supreme Court justices

The US District Court for the District of Alaska indicted Alaska resident Panos Anastasiou on Wednesday over allegations of sending deadly threats to US Supreme Court justices and their relatives.

France24 ☛ What the operation to blow up Hezbollah’s pagers tells us about Israel’s spy agencies

The mass explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies believed to belong to members of the Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah in Lebanon have widely been attributed to Israel’s intelligence services. The attacks, which killed dozens of people and wounded thousands more, speak volumes about the technical capacities of Israel’s spy services – and their role in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Techdirt ☛ DC Appeals Court To Cop: Yeah, It’s Obstruction To Delete Messages Telling Capitol [Insurrectionists] To Delete Evidence Of Crimes

Oh, these “law and order” types. What a joke. The self-proclaimed “law and order” candidate is Donald Trump, a convicted felon and open supporter of those who committed federal crimes during the January 6th raid of the Capitol building.

And, of course, he’s earned the endorsement of another “law and order” figurehead, the Fraternal Order of Police — an entity that spends most of its time ensuring officers are above the law, including those officers who showed their “love” for “law and order” by participating in the Capitol raid.

Here’s yet another “law and order” dude who not only sold out his fellow Capitol police officers by expressing his support for [insurrectionists], but told [insurrectionists] to delete social media posts containing footage of the crimes they committed. And, having been convicted for obstructing a federal investigation, Capitol police officer Michael Riley is pretending he doesn’t understand the law in hopes of getting his conviction tossed.

New York Times ☛ Albania Plans to Create a Muslim State in Tirana as Symbol of Tolerance

His hoped-for Muslim state in Tirana, Albania’s capital, will be a Vatican-style sovereign enclave controlling territory about the size of five New York City blocks, and it will allow alcohol, let women wear what they want and impose no lifestyle rules.

NL Times ☛ Operation Market Garden commemorated with paratroopers in Ede, Dutch king to attend

Eighty years after the landing of the airborne troops in September 1944, which was part of the Allied liberation operation Market Garden, the events will be commemorated on the Ginkelse Heide near Ede. Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend the commemoration of the airborne landings. King Willem-Alexander will also take part in the commemoration. He will lay the first wreath at the Airborne Memorial and meet several World War II veterans. Fifteen veterans from countries including Canada and the United Kingdom will probably be present on Saturday, the oldest of whom was born in 1921.

US News And World Report ☛ Parachutists Commemorate 80th Anniversary of Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands

Paratroopers from the Dutch Air Mobile Brigade and 12 other NATO nations took part in a series of jumps over Ginkel Heath, watched by a small group of World War II veterans and around 60,000 spectators.

Local mayor Rene Verhulst called the heath near Arnhem a place “where 80 years ago courage, sacrifice and hope came together in the shape of the airborne landings during Operation Market Garden. Today we commemorate the brave young soldiers who risked and sometimes gave their lives for our freedom.”

Task And Purpose ☛ US troops jump into the Netherlands for Market Garden anniversary

Eight decades after the Allies jumped into the Netherlands in a failed attempt to seize a path into Germany, hundreds of paratroopers once again descended into Arnhem. Soldiers from more than a dozen NATO countries parachuted onto Ginkel Heath, outside of the Dutch city on Saturday, Sept. 21, commemorating the same jumps done by the Allies 80 years ago during Operation Market Garden. The jumps culminated a week of memorial events for the mission, a failed attempt during World War II to secure an invasion route into Germany.

The Independent UK ☛ Hundreds of parachutists drop over Dutch heath to commemorate World War II operation

Hundreds of paratroopers dropped out of near-cloudless skies over a heath in the central Netherlands on Saturday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of one of World War II's most daring — but ultimately unsuccessful — missions, Operation Market Garden.

Paratroopers from the Dutch Air Mobile Brigade and 12 other NATO nations took part in a series of jumps over Ginkel Heath, watched by a small group of World War II veterans and some 60,000 spectators.

CNN ☛ Iranian hackers sent stolen Trump campaign information to people associated with Biden campaign

Iranian hackers sent unsolicited information they stole from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to people who were affiliated with Joe Biden’s campaign over the summer, federal law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

LRT ☛ Poland arrests suspect in Volkov’s attack in Vilnius

Anatoly Blinov, who is suspected of involvement in an attack on Alexei Navalny’s associate Leonid Volkov in Vilnius, has been arrested in Poland for three months.

New Yorker ☛ Timothy Snyder on Why Ukraine Can Still Win the War

The historian has travelled extensively in Ukraine, and discusses the lessons Ukrainians can teach America about freedom.

RFERL ☛ Iran Presents New Kamikaze Drone At Tehran Military Parade

Iran has presented the latest version of its kamikaze drone at a military parade in Tehran.

New York Times ☛ Ukraine Strikes Two More Russian Munition Depots

Strikes on weapons arsenals are crucial to weaken Moscow’s overwhelming superiority in battlefield firepower, analysts said.

Atlantic Council ☛ How the Atlantic Council contributed to Evan Gershkovich’s release

An encounter at the Global Citizen Awards played a modest but vital role in the exchange that released the Wall Street Journal reporter who was imprisoned in Russia.

New York Times ☛ How the Kremlin Might Get Past RT Bans to Spread Its Message

Social media companies may try to ban RT, the Russian state media broadcaster. But the network has proved in the past to be a wily adversary when confronted with efforts to silence it.

Atlantic Council ☛ Ukraine’s expanding drone fleet is flying straight through Putin’s red lines

Ukraine's rapidly expanding campaign of long-range drone strikes is flying straight through Vladimir Putin's red lines and could help persuade Kyiv's Western partners lift restrictions on attacks inside Russia, writes Giorgi Revishvili.

France24 ☛ Zelensky hopes for quick US action as more weapons depots are hit in Russia

President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the United States to supply Ukraine with more weapons before his upcoming visit to the White House to present a "victory plan". Zelensky's plea came as Ukraine said Saturday it had hit two Russian munition depots overnight, in attacks that illustrated its growing capability to strike targets deep inside Russia.

RFERL ☛ Ukraine's Zelenskiy To Begin U.S. Trip With Visit To Pennsylvania Munitions Factory

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is set to kick off his U.S. visit on September 22 with a stop at a Pennsylvania factory producing key munitions for his country's fight against Russia’s invading forces.

RFERL ☛ 'We Can Feel The Difference,' Zelenskiy Says Of Increased Aid By Allies

Kyiv’s allies have increased military support for Ukraine this month, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said, after the European Union pledged a new $39 billion loan for the country’s recovery.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

[Old] Access Info Europe ☛ Council of Europe prepares for Entry into Force of the Tromsø Convention on Access to Official Documents – Access Info Europe

Other country representatives participating in the meeting, including from Estonia, Finland, Norway, and Ukraine, stressed the importance of government transparency to protect the Council of Europe’s mission of advancing human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

“A well-implemented transparency regime ensures that the public, and watchdogs such as journalists and civil society have the information they need to do their work, to defend human rights, to monitor for corruption,” added Darbishire.

[Old] Council Of Europe ☛ TROMSØ CONVENTION - The Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents (CETS No. 205)

The Tromsø Convention was the first binding international legal instrument to recognise to everyone the right to access official documents held by public authorities without discrimination and regardless of the requester's status or motives in seeking access.

[Old] Council Of Europe ☛ Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents: Tromsø, 18.VI.2009 [PDF]

Article 2 – Right of access to official documents

1 Each Party shall guarantee the right of everyone, without discrimination on any ground, to have access, on request, to official documents held by public authorities.

2 Each Party shall take the necessary measures in its domestic law to give effect to the provisions for access to official documents set out in this Convention.

3 These measures shall be taken at the latest at the time of entry into force of this Convention in respect of that Party.

Environment

Futurism ☛ The US Is Backsliding Into Dirty Fossil Fuels Because of Ravenous AI Datacenters

The monstrous energy demands of AI data centers are set to keep surging — and it's no coincidence that the fossil fuels industry is having a field day.

Earlier this year, energy providers already signaled that they would keep coal plants, once set for retirement, online to meet the demands.

Energy Mix Productions Inc ☛ Oil Sands, Aviation Hold Canada Back as Emissions Fall 0.8% in 2023

The country will need to speed up that progress if it hopes to hit its 2030 target to cut emissions by 40 to 45% compared to 2005 levels, the institute said.

Wired ☛ California Can Slake the Thirst of Its Farms by Storing Water Underground

California’s agriculture sector uses about 40 percent of all the state’s water, or 80 percent of its consumed water. With less water available, agriculture must adjust. The study provides a pathway for the sector to do so.

The study, published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that groundwater aquifers have more storage potential than surface water reservoirs. So, instead of devoting decades to build more dams and reservoirs that are subject to evaporation and overflow, water should be diverted into these depleted aquifers below the Central Valley and the coastal plains.

New York Times ☛ Did PFAS From Sewage Sludge Poison a Family Farm?

Pastures were fertilized with toxic sewage decades ago. Nobody knew, until the cows’ milk was tested.

Futurism ☛ Scientists Horrified by What They Found Under the Doomsday Glacier

Their latest understanding is that the Thwaites will melt at an even faster rate as the century marches on and face complete collapse within 200 years. Should it melt, the icy mass contains so much water that it could single-handedly raise global sea levels by over two feet — hence its foreboding moniker.

Semafor Inc ☛ Fossil fuel companies pour billions into sports, with Saudi Aramco leading the charge

The single biggest source of money identified was Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, which has poured an estimated $1.3 billion into sponsorship deals, primarily in soccer and motorsports. But almost all major sports have some sponsorship coming from fossil fuel companies, the report found, with rugby and golf also ranking high among the disciplines with the most active deals.

New Weather Institue ☛ Dirty Money: How Fossil Fuel Sponsors Are Polluting Sport [PDF]

The Olympics and Paralympics in 2032 will be hosted in Brisbane, and Australians are characteristically eager, for sport is in our DNA. But for too long, the uncomfortable questions regarding the oil and gas sponsors who are undermining our safe future and that of sport have been ignored.

We, as athletes, fans, and custodians of sport, must address them.

Sport has always been a driver of change and a force for good. This is our opportunity to push for partnerships that reflect the values of respect, excellence and integrity that should be at the heart of sport - and to draw a clear line for a sustainable world.

There is no place for fossil fuel sponsors in sport. Not if we want to ensure a future where sport still exists.

Energy/Transportation

The Hill ☛ Microsoft strikes deal to reopen Three Mile Island nuclear plant

The 1979 partial meltdown was the worst in the history of U.S. commercial nuclear generation, and although it did not cause any deaths, it exacerbated public concerns around the safety of nuclear power, along with the much costlier and deadlier Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union seven years later. The plant was retired due to declining revenues in 2019.

India Times ☛ AI may breathe new life into Three Mile Island to supply power to Microsoft's data centers

The plan to restart Three Mile Island's Unit 1 comes amid something of a renaissance for nuclear power, as policymakers are increasingly looking to it to bail out a fraying electric power supply, help avoid the worst effects of climate change and meet rising power demand driven by data centers.

Axios ☛ Three Mile Island nuclear plant to restart, power Microsoft data centers

Why it matters: The plan to bring a plant associated with an infamous 1979 partial meltdown back online in 2028 blends two big energy trends.

• One is voracious energy needs to power data centers, especially as AI grows.

India Times ☛ Two men stole $230 million in cryptocurrency and went on a spending spree, US says

Two men have been charged with stealing $230 million worth of cryptocurrency that they used to go on a lavish spending spree involving travel, nightclubs, luxury cars, jewelry and palatial rental properties in Los Angeles and Miami before they were caught, federal prosecutors said.

The Register UK ☛ US indicts two over socially engineered $230M+ [cryptocurrency] heist

The indictment [PDF], unsealed on Thursday, doesn't go into any great detail about the criminal incident at the heart of the case, other than claiming the pair allegedly contacted the victim directly and stole more than 4,100 Bitcoins from them.

The stolen cryptocurrency tokens were then moved around various exchanges and mixers, with the help of some VPN use, in an attempt to mask their route to the cyber thieves' wallets.

The Register UK ☛ Microsoft money to reignite Three Mile Island nuclear plant

TMI Unit 1, which was retired for economic reasons in 2019, is slated for a potential revival as the Crane Clean Energy Center (CCEC), according to Constellation's announcement of a new PPA with the IT giant.

While the terms of the deal remain undisclosed, reopening the facility will require approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, though that might not be a hard sell.

NPR ☛ Three Mile Island nuclear plant will reopen to power Microsoft data centers

The partial nuclear reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island happened on March 28, 1979, when one of the plant's two reactors' cooling mechanisms malfunctioned. The reactor that will be reopened to power Microsoft's data centers was not involved in the accident.

The Washington Post ☛ Microsoft deal would reopen Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power AI

The restart of Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, would mark a bold advance in the tech industry’s quest to find enough electric power to support its boom in artificial intelligence. The plant, which Pennsylvanians thought had closed for good in 2019 amid financial strain, would come back online by 2028 under the agreement, according to plant owner Constellation Energy.

[Old] Chicago Sun Times ☛ Steinberg: 25 years on, the soggy story of the Loop Flood lingers - Chicago Sun-Times

The arched tunnels were hand-dug around 1900 by a short-lived telephone company. Seven and a half feet high, six feet wide, they moved freight, coal and ash on small trains. No other American city has a similar system.

Trucks proved more efficient, though, so the train network was abandoned in 1959. The tunnels were largely forgotten.

[Old] WBEZ Radio ☛ How Chicago's 1992 Loop Flood Started

The tunnels that brought about the 1992 Flood were never supposed to be there. In 1899, the company that built them, Illinois Telegraph & Telephone, had a franchise (or permission) to build a telephone system in the Loop, which included laying underground cables. Conduit is normally an inch or two wide, but the company sneakily built 7-foot-wide underground “conduit” for those cables. In 1902, it came out that these “conduits” were in fact tunnels meant to house an underground rail system. IT&T may have been a legit phone company, but they also planned to operate underground trains that would bring coal, mail, and other freight to buildings in the Loop; they would also remove coal ash and other trash. At the time, most buildings relied on horse-drawn carts for deliveries, but traffic congestion downtown was terrible (worse than today) and traffic-free tunnels would be a huge improvement. The only problem: IT&T did not have the right permits for an underground train system. Building the train tunnels without permission was a huge abuse of their original franchise, and City Hall was not pleased, with some Aldermen referring to IT&T's tunneling as a “land grab.”

GM to begin layoffs at Kansas plant in November as Malibu production ends

The plant will be down until the middle of 2025, when it will start building the Chevrolet Bolt EV and resume production of the Cadillac XT4 crossover.

Wildlife/Nature

Science Alert ☛ Genetic Tracing Links SARS-CoV-2 With Animals at Wildlife Market

The next pandemic might still be preventable.

Finance

RFA ☛ Cambodia pulls out of regional economic deal amid criticism

The decades-old CLV agreement with Vietnam and Laos was being used as a ‘political weapon,’ Hun Sen says.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

[Repeat] Tedium ☛ Qualcomm Apparently Wants To Buy Intel. Mind Blown.

In one of the wildest Friday-night news dumps in a while (in a week full of absolutely insane news stories), word out of the Wall Street Journal is that Qualcomm, a semiconductor giant whose prominence has grown on the back of the smartphone, was interested in buying Intel outright.

Security Week ☛ UN Experts Urge United Nations to Lay Foundations for Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence

In a 100-page report, the group said AI “is transforming our world,” offering tremendous potential for good from opening new areas of science and accelerating economic growth to improving public health, agriculture and optimizing energy grids.

But left ungoverned, it said, AI’s benefits could be limited to a handful of countries, companies and individuals, while even more powerful systems than exist today “could upend the world of work,” create autonomous weapons, and pose risks to peace and security.

The Verge ☛ Jony Ive confirms he’s working on a new device with OpenAI

There aren’t a lot of details on the project. Ive reportedly met Altman through Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, and the venture is being funded by Ive and the Emerson Collective, Laurene Powell Jobs’ company. The Times reports it could raise $1 billion in funding by the end of the year, but makes no mention of Masayoshi Son, the SoftBank CEO rumored last year to have invested $1 billion in the project.

New York Times ☛ How Elon Musk’s Security Detail Has Grown Following Death Threats and Stalkers

Mr. Musk, 53, has long cultivated a devil-may-care persona, traveling the world, hanging out with moguls, world leaders and celebrities, and smoking weed in public. But in private, he has increasingly barricaded himself behind a growing phalanx of armed bodyguards as he has become more wealthy, more famous and more outspoken — and as the threats against him have evolved.

The Local DK ☛ Tech giants promise 'action plan' on stopping Nordic gangs [sic] using apps for crime

The tech giants Google, Meta, Snapchat and TikTok have pledged to give details "within months" on how they will prevent gang leaders in Nordic countries using their products to carry out serious crimes, Denmark's justice minister said on Friday.

European Commission ☛ EU Cybersecurity Act – rules for notifications of conformity assessment bodies

For each European cybersecurity certification scheme, national cybersecurity certification authorities must notify the Commission of conformity assessment bodies that have the remit to issue European cybersecurity certificates in their country (Article 61(1) of the Cybersecurity Act).

These bodies must be accredited and – where applicable – authorised (Article 60 of the act).

European Commission ☛ EU cybersecurity certification scheme – amendment to the list of state-of-the-art documents

In the European Common Criteria-based cybersecurity certification scheme (EUCC), state-of-the-art documents specify evaluation methods, techniques and tools that apply to the certification of ICT products, or security requirements.

New York Times ☛ Kamala Harris Outspends Donald Trump by Tens of Millions Online

The week of their debate, Kamala Harris outspent Donald Trump by 20 to 1 on Facebook (Farcebook) and Instagram. It was just one sign of how uneven their online advertising battle has become.

Federal News Network ☛ House lawmakers advance bills on acquisition security, IT procurement

The Federal Acquisition Security Council would get a big update under legislation that's on the move in the House.

JURIST ☛ Ninth Circuit reinstates Arizona voting registration and mail-in voting laws

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday vacated a preliminary injunction that had blocked key provisions of Arizona’s contentious Senate Bill 1260, resulting in the reinstatement of Arizona’s 2022 voter registration and mail-in voting laws which were intended to increase election security.

The Kent Stater ☛ Exclusive: Harris campaign launching new ad seeking to tie Trump to Mark Robinson

(CNN) — Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign on Friday launched a new television ad seeking to tie former President Donald Trump to North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson, a day after a bombshell KFile report detailed a series of inflammatory comments Robinson made more than a decade ago.

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-13 [Older] Venezuela recalls Spanish ambassador in post-election clash

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-13 [Older] Slovakian leaders want 'countermeasures' for fictional paper

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

Latvia ☛ Who cares what Latvian social control media says?

LSM's Latvian language service has produced a lengthy analysis of the current role of social control media in general and preposterously-named 'X' (formerly and still widely referred to as 'Twitter') in particular in shaping political discourse.

New York Times ☛ What Trump Did to the G.O.P., Musk Did to Twitter

It’s more toxic but less relevant than ever.

Scoop News Group ☛ OIG audit calls for more clarity from CISA, DHS on disinformation mission

The report gave CISA high marks for its election security work but raised questions about a lack of strategic guidance from DHS.

RTL ☛ AI generated: Cristiano Ronaldo clip altered to show football star 'speaking Arabic'

A clip of Cristiano Ronaldo being interviewed in English at an awards ceremony has been altered to make it appear as if the Portuguese football star were speaking in fluent Arabic. An expert told AFP the circulating clip, which has been viewed millions of times, contained elements that suggest it was generated using artificial intelligence (AI).

New York Times ☛ How the Kremlin Might Get Past RT Bans to Spread Its Message

Take what happened just two years ago, when Canada and the European Union banned RT outright. Viewership in different countries for channels like RT Deutsch and RT France immediately cratered, but within days new pages appeared that exactly mirrored RT under different, unrelated names that were not blocked and popped up in [Internet] search results, experts noted.

Censorship/Free Speech

Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong gov’t says ‘clear lines drawn’ after first sedition convictions under new security law

Hong Kong’s new security law is “unambiguous” about what counts as unlawful seditious acts, the city’s government has said, after a man was sentenced to 14 months in jail in the first conviction under the legislation.

JURIST ☛ Brazil Supreme Court fines X over noncompliance with suspension order

Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered social control media platform X (formerly Twitter) to pay a daily fine of R$5 million ($900,000 USD) on Thursday following the platform’s failure to comply with the court’s order to suspend its operation in Brazil.

Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong man jailed 14 months under new security law for ‘seditious’ online statements

A Hong Kong court has convicted a third person under a new security law, sentencing him to one year and two months in prison for sedition over statements made on social control media platforms.

RFA ☛ China targets high-ranking officials who read banned books

Officials from glitzy Shanghai to poverty-stricken Guizhou have been accused in recent months of "privately possessing and reading banned books and periodicals," according to state media reports, which typically surface when the officials are probed by the party’s disciplinary arm.

Senior officials have traditionally enjoyed privileged access to materials banned as potentially subversive for the wider population, via the "neibu," or internal, publishing system, former Communist Party officials told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

Press Gazette ☛ Who owns Tortoise Media? The billionaire backers behind Observer bid

Tortoise shareholders have deep pockets and a diverse range of backgrounds.

By far the biggest single shareholder is Tortoise’s editor himself, James Harding. A former editor of The Times newspaper and director of BBC News, Harding holds 32.5% of shares in Tortoise Media Ltd and is the only person identified on its Companies House page as a person with significant control.

Hong Kong Free Press ☛ HK's John Lee sidesteps condemning harassment of journalists

Hong Kong’s John Lee has rebuffed an invitation to criticise the intimidation of journalists, with his office referring HKFP back to comments Lee made during a press briefing when asked whether the city’s leader condemned the recent spate of harassment.

[Repeat] Hong Kong Free Press ☛ US lawmaker Nancy Pelosi calls HK media tycoon Jimmy Lai 'hero'

Lai, the founder of the now-shuttered popular Chinese-language tabloid Apple Daily which supported mass pro-democracy protests, was detained in 2020 and is standing trial on charges including sedition and colluding with foreign forces.

VOA News ☛ 'The Prison Papers': Society magazine spotlights journalists jailed globally

The highlighted journalists include Zamora, Hong Kong's pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai, and reporters across four continents who are in jail.

"We wanted to do something meaningful and creative to highlight cases we consider top priorities around the world," Vincent told VOA. She hopes the magazine inspires readers to mobilize and increases demands for the release of imprisoned journalists globally.

Civil Rights/Policing

The Walrus ☛ The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age | The Walrus

The effect of gamification on artmaking has been dramatic. In Rebecca Jennings’s Vox long read on the necessity of authorly self-promotion, she interviews William Deresiewicz, whose book The Death of the Artist breaks down the harsh conditions for artists seeking an income in the digital economy. Deresiewicz used to think “selling out”—using the most sacred parts of your life and values to shill for a brand—was “evil.” Yet this economy has made it so there’s “no choice” if you want a living. The very concept of selling out, he says, “has disappeared.” A few years ago, much was made of the fact that the novelist Sally Rooney had no Twitter account—this must explain her prolific output. But the logic is back to front: it’s only top-selling authors who can afford to forgo social media. Call it Deactivation Privilege.

It’s a privilege few of us can afford, if it’s the algorithm we need to impress rather than book reviewers of old. In a nightmarish dispatch in Esquire on how hard it is for authors to find readers, Kate Dwyer argues that all authors must function like influencers now, which means a fire sale on your “private” life. As [Internet] theorist Kyle Chayka puts it to Dwyer: “Influencers get attention by exposing parts of their life that have nothing to do with the production of culture.”

Hamilton Nolan ☛ The Machinists Union President Talks Boeing Strike and the Presidential Election

Thirty-three thousand Boeing workers, members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) have been on strike for a week. The workers voted overwhelmingly to strike after rejecting a contract offer from Boeing as insufficient. They are seeking wage gains and a restoration of their pension, which they were forced to give up a decade ago when the company threatened to build its new planes outside of Washington state, where its factories are unionized. Boeing has been moving an increasing amount of production to its non-union plant in South Carolina, which the IAM has not yet succeeded in organizing. A persuasive case has been made that Boeing’s recent and highly publicized quality control issues are rooted in their efforts to enrich shareholders by escaping the union’s influence.

US Navy Times ☛ US Navy to apologize to Alaska villages for century-old attacks

“The Navy will be issuing this apology because it is the right thing to do, regardless of how much time has passed since these tragic events transpired,” she wrote.

Joel Jackson, the president of the Organized Village of Kake, said the apologies are meaningful to the community even after a century.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

European Commission ☛ EIB boosts high-speed internet in Germany with €350 million InvestEU-backed loan

The EIB loan to fibre broadband provider Deutsche Glasfaser will enable up to 460,000 rural German households to access fibre optic internet.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft now allows you to reprogram the Windows Copilot key, but there's a catch

Starting with this beta build, Windows 11 users can change the functionality of the Copilot key to open other programs besides the Copilot AI assistant the button is designed to open, improving the key's flexibility for users who might not use Copilot often enough to warrant a dedicated key just for opening the app. The key can be reprogrammed in the Settings app — under the personalization, then text input sub-menu, to launch a different app that is "MSIX packaged and signed" of the user's choosing. This restriction was implemented to meet "security and privacy requirements to keep customers safe."

Monopolies/Monopsonies

Silicon Angle ☛ EU reportedly preparing to bring formal DMA charges against Google

The European Commission is expected to bring formal charges against Surveillance Giant Google LLC over its business practices in the search market. Bloomberg revealed the upcoming regulatory action today, citing people familiar with the matter. Surveillance Giant Google provides a number of specialized search tools for tasks such as navigating e-commerce catalogs and booking air travel.

India Times ☛ Google: What the US has argued in the Google ad tech antitrust trial

The government on Friday concluded its main arguments in the case -- US et al. v. Google -- and the [Internet] giant started mounting its defense. The case, filed last year, accuses Google of building a monopoly over the technology that places ads on websites around the [Internet].

Patents

Software Patents

India Times ☛ Nokia says German court rules in its favour in Amazon patent dispute

In July, Amazon sued Nokia in a Delaware federal court, accusing the Finnish group of infringing a dozen Amazon patents related to cloud-computing technology.

Nokia initiated the litigation against Amazon over the use of Nokia's patented multimedia inventions in 2023 in Germany, India, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the European Unified Patent Court, it said in a blog post at the time.

404 Media ☛ ‘Cold-Blooded Business’: Nintendo Is Patent Trolling Palworld Because It Got Too Big

Japan games industry analyst explains why Nintendo is going after Palworld, and why it’s probably going to win.

Copyrights

Digital Music News ☛ Nelly Accused of Ripping Off Former Rap Group in $50M Lawsuit

Rapper Nelly (Cornell Haynes Jr.) is facing a $50 million lawsuit from his former rap group, which accuses him of manipulating them into believing they would have writing credits on his 2000 album, Country Grammar.

Torrent Freak ☛ X Loses Battle to Protect Genshin Impact Leaker's First Amendment Anonymity

In November 2023, the publisher of smash-hit videogame Genshin Impact obtained a DMCA subpoena hoping to identify who was behind the leak of unreleased artwork on Elon Musk's X platform. X Corp. challenged the subpoena, citing the user's anonymous speech rights under the First Amendment. In an order published this week, a district court judge denied X Corps' motion to quash, in theory exposing the alleged leaker's identity to Cognosphere.