Links 07/10/2023: Proprietary 'Girlfriend' (Bot) Incites to Murder, NPR Spreads Disinformation
Contents
- Distributions and Operating Systems
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM)
- Monopolies
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Distributions and Operating Systems
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Open Hardware/Modding
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Hackaday ☛ Smart Coffee Replaces Espresso Machine Controller With Arduino, Sensors
A common hacker upgrade to an espresso machine is to improve stability and performance with a better temperature controller, but [Schematix]’s Smart Coffee project doesn’t stop there. It entirely replaces the machine’s controller and provides an optional array of improvements for a variety of single-boiler machines (which is most of them).
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Leftovers
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Manuel Matuzovic ☛ Mark all as read
I was on the train home from Hamburg when I decided to finally migrate my website from Netlify and 11ty to Kirby on my friend's server. I got most of the work done on the train and made some final changes on Monday.
There's a lot you should consider when migrating from one tech stack to another. I didn't. I yoloed it, uploaded the site, and changed the DNS records, knowing there would be some damage.
Is that smart? No.
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Tedium ☛ Tune-In
Laugh-In creator George Schlatter finally gives his long-lost show Turn-On the official release it deserves. He loves that the internet noticed his white whale.
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Scoop News Group ☛ One threat facing the world’s fastest supercomputer? Raccoons
The national lab, which is famous for its role in the Manhattan Project, sits within a rural Tennessee campus of just over 4,400 acres. That location is strategic and helps protect the facility, home to the Summit and Frontier supercomputers, the latter of which became the fastest supercomputer in the world last year. These computers are a critical part of the Department of Energy’s research agenda and play a critical role in helping scientists across the world build advanced models and process large datasets.
But nearby nature also means that wildlife is able to access infrastructure that supports the lab’s science operations. At times, animals can get into power lines or substations, creating a dip in voltage. That voltage dip can ultimately push a supercomputer offline, according to Bronson Messer, the director of science at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility.
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BIA Net ☛ 'Colorful Anatolia' exhibition unveiled from Ara Güler's archive
The exhibition featuring color photographs, will be on display until April 7, 2024.
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Science
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Hackaday ☛ ISS Mimic Brings Space Station Down To Earth
Built at a cost of more than $150 billion over the last twenty-five years, the International Space Station is arguably one of humanity’s greatest engineering triumphs. Unfortunately, unlike Earthly construction feats such as the Hoover Dam, Burj Khalifa, or the Millau Viaduct, you can’t visit it in person to really appreciate its scale and complexity. Well, not unless you’ve got the $50 million or so to spare to buy a seat on a Dragon capsule.
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Cryptography Engineering ☛ To Schnorr and beyond (Part 1)
In this post I’m going to talk about signature schemes, and specifically the Schnorr signature, as well as some related schemes like ECDSA. These signature schemes have a handful of unique properties that make them quite special among cryptographic constructions. Moreover, understanding the motivation of Schnorr signatures can help understand a number of more recent proposals, including post-quantum schemes like Dilithium — which we’ll discuss in the second part of this series.
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Education
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NPR ☛ Arnold Schwarzenegger has one main guiding principle: 'Be Useful'
When I went into the capitol in Sacramento, I did a lot of listening because I had to learn very quickly about the various different policies, the various different issues. I mean, you go from one minute about prison guards' overtime, then you talk about the firefighters and talk about law enforcement. They talk about the nurses, the teachers. They talk about the crime. You're dealing with so many different subjects that from morning to night, it's better if you listen. Then if you sit down by yourself, without having the computers and the iPhone/iPads, that's how you get to be successful.
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Hardware
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Hackaday ☛ Tetris On An Oscilloscope, The Software Way
When we talk about video games on an oscilloscope, you’d be pardoned for assuming the project involved an analog CRT scope in X-Y mode, with vector graphics for something like Asteroids or BattleZone. Alas, this oscilloscope Tetris (Russian language, English translation) isn’t that at all — but that doesn’t make it any less cool.
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Hackaday ☛ Hackaday Prize 2023: Hydrocleaner Nips Pollution In The Bud
It’s unfortunate, but a lot of trash ends up in our rivers and, eventually, our oceans. Cleaning efforts can be costly and require a lot of human power. One of the ways to keep trash out from reaching the ocean is to attack it at the river level. That’s the idea behind [Xieshi Zhang]’s Hydrocleaner, a semi-autonomous river cleaning robot.
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Hackaday ☛ Zilog’s Forgotten Operating System: Z80-RIO
When it comes to famous operating systems for the Z80 and similar Zilog processors, the first and maybe only one to come to mind is CP/M, which was even made its presence known on the dual-CPU (8502 and Z80) Commodore 128. Yet Zilog also developed its own operating system, in the form of the comprehensively titled Z80 Operating System with Relocatable Modules and I/O Management (Z80-RIO for short). With limited documentation having survived, [Ralf-Peter Nerlich] has set out to retain and recover what information he can on RIO and the associated Programming Language Zilog (PLZ) after working with these systems himself when they were new.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ AMD Exec Says Intel IFS is Destined to Fail
Time will tell if Intel’s refocusing on manufacturing will pay off, but at least one AMD exec thinks IFS was a mistake.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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uni Emory ☛ The wellness industry has commodified your health | Carson’s Class Notes
Not only has wellness become individualized, meaning its products and preachings are entirely self-focused, it has turned the fulfillment of health into a class question. By charging high prices for specialized goods and associating health with the image of luxury — toned celebrities, perfect skin, unattainable diets — the industry has successfully twisted the idea of health into an aspiration, reserved for the elite.
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Futurism ☛ Man Died After 911 Put His House on a “Blacklist” and He Had a Heart Attack
If you were to have a medical emergency, at your home or anywhere, the general logic stands to reason that after dialing 911, medics would begin to treat you upon their arrival on the premises. For Yurek, however, this wasn't the case. In November 2021, according to the Seattle Times, the 48-year-old suffered a heart attack in his home, prompting his then-13-year-old son to call 911. Seattle Fire Department medics arrived quickly, but abstained from entering the family's home for a full thirteen minutes after their arrival — all because Yurek was wrongfully "blacklisted" by the city as a potential threat to law enforcement and fire department crews, as the family's lawsuit alleged.
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NBC ☛ Seattle to pay almost $2M in death of man whose address was wrongly put on 911 blacklist, delaying medics’ response
The family alleged Yurek was wrongly included on a blacklist of people known to be hostile to police and fire crews. Yurek lived in the unit a couple of years before his death and the previous tenant had been on the outdated list, according to the lawsuit filed last year.
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Seattle Times ☛ Seattle settles lawsuit alleging medics’ delay led to man’s death
Yurek lived in the complex for a decade but had moved into a different unit a couple of years before his death. The previous tenant of the unit was on the outdated list.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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The Register UK ☛ AI girlfriend encouraged man to attempt crossbow assassination of Queen
Investigators discovered Chail, who lived in a village just outside Southampton, had been conversing with an AI chatbot, created by the startup Replika, almost every night from December 8 to 22, exchanging over 5,000 messages. The virtual relationship reportedly developed into a romantic and sexual one with Chail declaring his love for the bot he named Sarai.
He told Sarai about his plans to kill the Queen, and it responded positively and supported his idea. Screenshots of their exchanges, highlighted during his sentencing hearing at London's Old Bailey, show Chail declaring himself as an "assassin" and a "Sith Lord" from Star Wars, and the chatbot being "impressed."
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Cloudbooklet ☛ AI Girlfriend Disadvantages – Man Sentenced to 9 Years in Jail
AI girlfriend disadvantages can be serious and costly. A man who created and abused an AI girlfriend was sentenced to 9 years in jail for violating human dignity and privacy laws. Read more about this shocking case and the ethical implications of AI girlfriends.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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The Register UK ☛ Online tracking is alive and well in link decoration
About 73 percent of websites, based on a data set of 20,000, use at least one link decoration for tracking, said Shaoor Munir, a doctoral student in computer science at University of California at Davis, during the Ad-Filtering Dev Summit in Amsterdam on Wednesday.
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New York Times ☛ Visa Applicants’ Social Media Data Doesn’t Help Screen for Terrorism, Documents Show
A Trump-era practice of vetting the social media profiles of visitors has provided scant value, intelligence officials concluded. But the Biden administration has kept the policy in place.
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Spiegel ☛ "Victims Are Completely Transparent To the Attacker"
DER SPIEGEL: You have placed Intellexa's weapons under the microscope. What is behind the Predator program and how dangerous is it?
Ó Cearbhaill: It is highly invasive spyware. Once installed on the phone, it can access everything: photos, calendars, emails, messenger messages. It can even remotely turn on the microphone, record all the sounds in the room and upload the data to a secret server.
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Defence/Aggression
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Janes ☛ Ukraine conflict: Sweden links Gripen transfer to Ukraine to its NATO membership
“Today, Sweden announced the 14th military support package for Ukraine worth approximately USD200 million,” Jonson said. “The government also presented an assignment to the Swedish Armed Forces to analyse and report on the conditions for strengthening Ukraine through [the transfer of the] JAS 39 Gripen. Support in the form of [the] JAS 39 Gripen would be conditional on Sweden first becoming a member of NATO.”
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The Atlantic ☛ Trump Reportedly Divulges Nuclear Secrets
Now it’s worse still: According to new reports yesterday, Trump in April 2021 shared national secrets about U.S. nuclear submarines with an Australian billionaire who is a member at Mar-a-Lago. The magnate, Anthony Pratt, has reportedly told federal investigators that Trump told him the “supposed exact number of nuclear warheads they routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected,” per ABC News.
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The Kent Stater ☛ OPINION: TikTok culture is ruining concerts
A case of this was seen when a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) where musician Steve Lacy was singing his song “Bad Habit.” In case you’ve never seen a concert, many musical artists will stop at the hook of the song. This could either be the title or the part of the song that captures most of the attention so the audience could sing by themselves. In this case, Lacy did not stop at the hook. He stopped during the chorus and the crowd did not sing. In fact, they were dead silent. He then said into his microphone, “TikTok is insane because why would you go to a whole concert solely for a hook? Nah, this is actually so crazy. So you’re telling me you woke up early to queue for tickets online, spent your parents’ money, got your outfit, traveled to the show and in between all of that time you didn’t learn one other word of the song than the hook? The audacity!”
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ABC ☛ Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources
According to Pratt's account, as described by the sources, Pratt told Trump he believed Australia should start buying its submarines from the United States, to which an excited Trump -- "leaning" toward Pratt as if to be discreet -- then told Pratt two pieces of information about U.S. submarines: the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads they routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected.
In emails and conversations after meeting with Trump, Pratt described Trump's remarks to at least 45 others, including six journalists, 11 of his company's employees, 10 Australian officials, and three former Australian prime ministers, the sources told ABC News.
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RFA ☛ Former US soldier arrested for helping Chinese spies
Joseph Schmidt, 29, had Top Secret clearance and allegedly contacted Chinese officials to pass on military secrets.
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New York Times ☛ Former U.S. Soldier Is Accused of Trying to Give Classified Secrets to China
Joseph D. Schmidt, who served in a military intelligence battalion, was arrested this week in San Francisco after relocating to Hong Kong since 2020.
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Defence Web ☛ SA, Indian navy personnel train together
Joint training with the Indian Navy saw the South Africa Navy (SAN) frigate SAS Mendi (F148) utilised for at least eight different evolutions in False Bay this week.
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Bruce Schneier ☛ Deepfake Election Interference in Slovakia
I just wrote about this. Countries like Russia and China tend to test their attacks out on smaller countries before unleashing them on larger ones. Consider this a preview to their actions in the US next year.
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Wired ☛ Slovakia’s Election Deepfakes Show AI Is a Danger to Democracy
Šimečka and Denník N immediately denounced the audio as fake. The fact-checking department of news agency AFP said the audio showed signs of being manipulated using AI. But the recording was posted during a 48-hour moratorium ahead of the polls opening, during which media outlets and politicians are supposed to stay silent. That meant, under Slovakia’s election rules, the post was difficult to widely debunk. And, because the post was audio, it exploited a loophole in Meta’s manipulated-media policy, which dictates only faked videos—where a person has been edited to say words they never said—go against its rules.
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Defence Web ☛ SA President launches country’s newest armed service in Musina
The newest component of the South African government’s security sector – the Border Management Authority (BMA) – was launched in Musina yesterday (Thursday, 5 October) by President Cyril Ramaphosa well over a year after its first “cohort” of border guards was deployed.
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Defence Web ☛ Nations expand their nuclear arsenals as global insecurity deteriorates – SIPRI
The number of operational nuclear weapons around the world is increasing as countries expand and modernise their militaries amidst a deteriorating global security situation, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has found. It is concerned that the world is moving towards the first possible use of nuclear weapons since the Second World War.
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JURIST ☛ Uganda arrests opposition leader and supporters for ‘inciting violence’
The Uganda Police Force conducted a security operation on Thursday to quell ongoing protests against the arrest of opposition leader Bobi Wine. According to the official press release, police arrested 40 suspects for inciting violence, including lawmaker Matovu Charles.
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JURIST ☛ US to resume deporting Venezuela nationals who cross into US unlawfully
The US will resume deporting Venezuelan nationals who illegally reside in the US, according to a Thursday press release from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
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Meduza ☛ Slowly, then all at once: The final act in the tragedy of Nagorno-Karabakh’s collapse — Meduza
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The Gray Zone ☛ The US knew the president of Honduras was trafficking drugs. It supported him anyway.
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The Gray Zone ☛ A Maidan 2.0 color revolution looms in Georgia
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Meduza ☛ ‘An infinite regress of separations’ In 2022–2023, Belgian photographer Aurélien Goubau made a series of trips to the Polish-Belarusian border to document the lives of residents, activists, and refugees — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ ‘Two assholes in flight’: Putin’s suggestion that Prigozhin and Wagner Group’s founder died in a drug-fueled accident enrages the mercenary group’s allies — Meduza
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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FAIR ☛ NPR Falsely Claims Its Reporter Is the Only One to Visit Nicaragua
In 2023 alone, numerous foreign journalists from press outlets from all parts of the world have reported from Nicaragua. Broadcast outlets based in the United States, China, Russia, Iran and around Latin America have regularly filed reports in both English and Spanish. Independent reporters from the United States, Canada and Britain have reported in outlets such as the Morning Star, Rabble and Black Agenda Report.
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Environment
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uni Case Western Reserve ☛ Editorial: The fight against climate change isn’t over yet
Combating climate change is a monumental problem that won’t be solved in just a few years. It is understandable to despair about the state of the world today; increased and worsened natural disasters are not events to simply gloss over. But that despair doesn’t come from fear, but rather love for the only home we have ever known: Earth. While the road ahead may seem bumpy and uncertain, know that the fight isn’t over yet. There is still more work to be done, and we shouldn’t back down. When we stick together and campaign for common goals, there is nothing that we can’t do.
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Futurism ☛ 150 Dolphins Die as Water Hits Hot Tub Temperature
And that's not some loose analogy to describe the very real dangers of climate change. Earlier this year, sensor buoys off the coast of Florida registered temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, around the average temperature of a literal hut tub.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Mont Blanc shrinks 2 meters in 2 years
Researchers have been measuring the peak since 2001 to analyze the impact of climate change. Alpine glaciers have been melting rapidly, with data showing they lost around one-third of their volume over two decades.
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El País ☛ Trees are being cut without a second thought. What else will attract the rain?
A glance at international law barely finds any recognition of the value of entire ecosystems, from microorganisms to fungi, save for Evo Morales’ Rights of Mother Earth or New Zealand’s approaches. Meanwhile, as Wohlleben criticizes, planting trees is fashionable, but sponsored in the shadows by the logging industries, which introduce non-native or genetically modified species. And it’s not about planting, but about leaving trees alone. Even if they try to contain warming to about two degrees, undisturbed forests can do even better by creating their own microclimate and low-pressure zones that attract rainfall: “Precipitation does not decrease in large natural forests, but when they are replaced by grasses or agricultural landscapes, they can decrease by up to 90%,” says Wohlleben.
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Energy/Transportation
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New York Times ☛ Gary Wang, an FTX Founder, Says Sam Bankman-Fried Steered Misuse of Funds
Mr. Wang is one of three key witnesses who pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate against Mr. Bankman-Fried, the onetime crypto mogul on trial for fraud.
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H2 View ☛ Energy Observer docks in Namibia on hydrogen-powered tour
The Energy Observer has dropped its anchor in Namibia on its round-the-world hydrogen-powered tour, discovering different countries and its energy challenges.
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The Register UK ☛ Google says that YouTube vid can wait if it saves on energy
First announced in 2020, the carbon-intelligent computing platform was created to shift the timing of non-urgent compute tasks, such as YouTube video processing or adding new words to Google Translate, to periods when low-carbon power sources like wind and solar are most readily available, the company said at the time.
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New York Times ☛ The N.Y.C. Subway Is No Longer Broke. Can It Buy Rider Happiness?
In his report, Mr. DiNapoli urged the M.T.A. to use its newfound resources to “execute its most critical goal: bringing riders back to the system.”
Weekday subway ridership has rebounded significantly since plummeting at the height of the pandemic, but still hovers at about 70 percent of prepandemic levels, according to M.T.A. data.
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New York Times ☛ China’s E.V. Threat: A Carmaker That Loses $35,000 a Car
On Wednesday, European politicians worried by a wave of Chinese exports formally launched an investigation into whether electric car manufacturers in China have received government subsidies, a step that could lead Europe to impose tariffs. China’s E.V. exports have surged 851 percent in the past three years, mainly to Europe. The inquiry by the European Union is geopolitically complicated: Many of Europe’s most important companies have ties to China’s market, and China is ready to retaliate.
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Silicon Angle ☛ [Cryptocurrency] wallet hardware maker Ledger lays off 12% of staff
Ledger produces hardware products and services that allow companies and consumers secure their blockchain-based cryptocurrency tokens and tokens. The company’s current devices work similarly to USB keys and feature small screens that permit users to confirm transactions and can act without exposing the private keys that represent their currency wallets.
According to LinkedIn, Ledger employs approximately 734 staff in total, meaning the company is cutting about 88 people.
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European Commission ☛ Remarks by Executive Vice-President Šefčovič on the results of the third joint EU gas purchasing tender
European Commission Speech Brussels, 06 Oct 2023 Good morning.
I'm here today to present to you the results of the third round of our joint gas purchase.
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Overpopulation
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NPR ☛ The Philippines' capital is running out of water. Is building a dam the solution?
Some 40 miles downriver, the sprawling Metro Manila area and its more than 13 million people are facing a looming water shortage. It's the result of an exploding population, human-caused climate change and, some would argue, poor planning on the part of officials over the years. The Philippine government commissioned the building of the Kaliwa Dam on the Agos River decades ago as part of a larger plan to help get more water to Manila. But construction finally broke ground last year, as officials amped up claims that the dam would alleviate water shortages that could hit the capital as early as next year.
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Finance
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The Nation ☛ We Are Witness to Our Self-Destruction
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Meduza ☛ Faced with up to $379 million in year-end losses, Russian Post moves to shutter unprofitable branches and refinance debt — Meduza
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New York Times ☛ More Brokerages Leave Powerful Realtor Group
Re/Max and Anywhere Real Estate, a brokerage franchiser, will no longer require agents to belong to the National Association of Realtors, as part of agreements to settle two class-action lawsuits.
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New York Times ☛ Mike Lindell’s Lawyers Say He Owes ‘Millions’ in Fees
The disclosure, made in a court filing this week, is a sign that the pillow magnate and leading supporter of the election denial movement is facing financial stress.
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New York Times ☛ Former Americans Who Gave Up Their Citizenship Want Their Money Back
Former U.S. citizens who live abroad have filed a class-action lawsuit saying the $2,350 fee to relinquish their nationality was exorbitant.
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MIT Technology Review ☛ Video: Leah Stokes on the challenges ahead for the Inflation Reduction Act
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), often dubbed the “Climate Bill,” was signed into law more than a year ago in the US and catalyzed more than $390 billion of investment in the clean energy sector.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Democracy Now ☛ As Fraud Trial Gets Underway, Trump Tries to Provoke Judge to Jail Him: David Cay Johnston
We get an update on Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston. New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking to fine Trump $250 million and is asking for a permanent ban on Trump family members running a business in New York. The outcome of the trial could put the future of the Trump Organization in jeopardy. Trump himself has already been barred from posting or speaking publicly about the trial after his public comments about James, which she described as “race-baiting,” and about Judge Arthur Engoron. Johnston, the author of three books on Trump, including The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family, says that though this trial doesn’t carry with it the potential for incarceration that his criminal trials do, it is just as threatening to the Trump empire because “Donald Trump is his money.”
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New Statesman ☛ Yanis Varoufakis: The Democrats are helping to elect Trump
“Technofeudalism”, as the title of Varoufakis’s sixth book has it, is now the defining economic system. Digital hegemons such as Google and Amazon have eroded two of the distinctive features of capitalism: profit and markets.
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Truthdig ☛ Living in a “Technofeudalist” Hell
Now, in Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis – the “libertarian Marxist” former finance minister of Greece – makes an excellent case that capitalism died a decade ago, turning into a new form of feudalism: technofeudalism.
To understand where Varoufakis is coming from, you need to go beyond the colloquial meanings of “capitalism” and “feudalism.” Capitalism isn’t just “a system where we buy and sell things.” It’s a system where capital rules the roost: the richest, most powerful people are those who coerce workers into using their capital (factories, tools, vehicles, etc) to create income in the form of profits.
By contrast, a feudal society is one organized around people who own things, charging others to use them to produce goods and services. In a feudal society, the most important form of income isn’t profit, it’s rent. To quote Varoufakis: “rent flows from privileged access to things in fixed supply” (land, fossil fuels, etc). Profit comes from “entrepreneurial people who have invested in things that wouldn’t have otherwise existed.”
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Futurism ☛ Facebook Laying Off Metaverse Employees
But a peek behind the scenes paints a far more troubling picture of the company's efforts to turn his VR vision into a reality.
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Reuters ☛ Exclusive: Meta to lay off employees in metaverse silicon unit on Wednesday
The FAST unit, which has roughly 600 employees, worked on developing custom chips to equip Meta's devices to perform unique tasks and operate more efficiently, differentiating them from others entering the nascent AR/VR market.
However, Meta has struggled to make chips that can compete with silicon produced by external providers and has turned to chipmaker Qualcomm (QCOM.O) to produce chips for its devices currently on the market.
A restructuring of FAST has been expected since the spring, when Meta hired a new executive to lead the unit.
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India Times ☛ Govt sends notice to X, YouTube, Telegram to remove child sexual abuse content from platforms
In the notice sent by the ministry of electronics and information technology, all these platforms have been warned that non-compliance with the notice issued would lead to their safe harbour status being withdrawn.
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PHR ☛ Biden Administration Constructs Physical and Legal Barriers to Asylum: PHR
In response to reports that the Biden administration will continue construction of border barriers in Starr County, Texas, the following quote is attributable to Tessa Wilson, senior program officer with the asylum program at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR): “The Biden administration’s decision to waive 26 federal laws for faster border wall construction in Texas..."
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New York Times ☛ Scottish By-election Result: Labour Beats S.N.P. in Key Parliamentary Vote
The opposition party took back a parliamentary seat in a win that observers said showed a path to power in next year’s general election.
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Mexico News Daily ☛ What were the highlights of the Mexico-US security talks?
Fentanyl, migration, illegal weapons and border security were the top items on the agenda at the Mexico-U.S. High Level Security Dialogue.
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Mexico News Daily ☛ Mexico recovers US $2.5M in civil suit against García Luna
The former security minister, currently being held in custody in the United States, has 10 days to return the sum to the Mexican government.
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JURIST ☛ Federal court chooses new Alabama congressional districts map after gerrymandering challenge
A three-judge panel in Alabama chose a new congressional district map on Thursday in response to a lawsuit arguing that the Alabama legislature’s congressional map was racially gerrymandered.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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Techdirt ☛ Startups’ Tech For Displaying Ads On Walgreens Cooler Doors Is On Fire…Literally
We tend to talk a lot around here about advertising, given how closely intertwined tech and digital industries tend to be with ads and the like. And frankly, given how often we’ve beat the drum that advertising is content and content is advertising, it’s become all the more clear in these modern times that good advertising really is useful if not also entertaining, while bad advertising is far worse today in comparison to bad advertising from times past.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Techdirt ☛ A Reagan Judge, The First Amendment, And The Eternal War Against Pornography
Using “Protect the children!” as their rallying cry, red states are enacting digital pornography restrictions. Texas’s effort, H.B. 1181, requires commercial pornographic websites—and others, as we’ll see shortly—to verify that their users are adults, and to display state-drafted warnings about pornography’s alleged health dangers. In late August, a federal district judge blocked the law from taking effect. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit expedited Texas’s appeal, and it just held oral argument. This law, or one of the others like it, seems destined for the Supreme Court.
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RFERL ☛ As Crimea Increasingly Becomes A War Zone, Russian-Installed Authorities Clamp Down On Social Media Posts
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia invaded and occupied in 2014, has increasingly seen attacks targeting Russian military supply lines and the Black Sea Fleet. The Russian-installed occupation authorities have repeatedly warned people against posting on social media about attacks, the effects of which official media routinely minimize.
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VOA News ☛ Musical About Tiananmen Square Opens Amid Fears Over China’s Response
It took three years to produce Tiananmen. Beijing’s growing willingness to track down its critics and exert pressure on them left many who auditioned wary of accepting roles that jeopardize family or business interests in China.
The show’s musical director, theater veteran Darren Lee, told VOA Mandarin that before accepting the job, he had a career first: calling his parents to see if there were relatives still in China who would be endangered.
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RFA ☛ ‘Pillar of Shame’ sculptor says Hong Kong 'too dangerous' to visit
Jens Galschiøt also said that some European artists and politicians are wary of traveling to the city under the current crackdown on dissent.
Galschiøt has been trying to retrieve his artwork since it was removed from the University of Hong Kong in December 2021 and seized by Hong Kong national security police in May, said he would like to go to the city to get it back, but that this is currently "impossible."
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[Old] RFA ☛ INTERVIEW: 'I don't know if it's possible for me to ever return to Hong Kong'
RFA: Do you think it's because a lot of your work recorded what happened in 2019, and interviewed protesters?
Connors: I think it's absolutely related. But, you know, I can only speculate why I would be on that list, because there are many people, local and international journalists and artists who were documenting, recording and interacting with those events. And, as far as I know, many of them have been able to travel freely back and forth. So it's a little bit of a mystery to me, why I would be singled out, to be honest.
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Reason ☛ Amicus Briefs in Volokh v. James, the Second Circuit Case Related to Social Media "Hate Speech" Policies
"For the most part, the American Civil Liberties Union, Young Americans for Freedom, and the Babylon Bee don't see eye to eye."
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RFA ☛ Renowned HK actor laments China’s censorship hurts creativity
‘We have a lot of restrictions now,’ says Chow Yun-fat.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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BIA Net ☛ Journalist at all costs: Journalism in Turkey through a Romanian lens
Turkey is one of the countries where freedom of speech is not so free because many publications and news channels are pro-government and they seem to be in charge of the amount of information that is being made public. The bia Media Monitoring Reports prepared by Erol Önderoğlu shows how this issue is being handled in the everyday life of a journalist and especially in courts: journalists imprisoned, thousands of judiciar cases against journalists and media channels, internet regulations, pro government news outlets - this is what media freedom is like in a reportedly democratic country. Turkey is one of the countries where freedom of speech has a limit that might not be the same as in other countries and this puts many journalists in a challenging spot where they have to choose between freedom and truth.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Finding the space to speak: Journalism professor Francis Lee on navigating Hong Kong’s changing media landscape
Like much else in Hong Kong, the media landscape has changed dramatically since Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the city in 2020, with outlets closed and journalists put on trial.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Democracy Now ☛ Medical Students & Survivors Demand Columbia U. Notify All Patients of Jailed OB-GYN Sex Abuse Record
On Wednesday, hundreds of medical students and sexual assault survivors of former university obstetrician Robert Hadden protested at Columbia University’s campus calling for accountability during the inauguration ceremony of the university’s first woman president. We speak with medical students and survivors demanding Columbia take action to notify all former patients of Hadden about his previous sexual assault convictions by the November 23 deadline of New York’s Adult Survivors Act. “Wouldn’t you want to know if your OB-GYN had sexually assaulted 500 other patients?” asks survivor and activist Evelyn Yang, who has been sharing her experience publicly since 2020.
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Democracy Now ☛ 300+ More Sex Abuse Survivors Sue Columbia U. & Jailed OB-GYN Robert Hadden
We speak to the attorney suing Columbia University and its affiliated hospitals on behalf of some 300 more patients who say they were sexually assaulted by former Columbia University obstetrician Robert Hadden over two decades while Columbia shielded the sexual predator. Anthony T. DiPietro filed a new lawsuit against the university and its affiliated hospitals earlier this week. “Columbia knew from the beginning,” DiPietro says of Hadden’s abuse and its subsequent cover-up. Survivors, he continues, “shouldn’t be having to carry this burden around with them for their entire lives.”
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The Nation ☛ The WGA Wins Its Strike, but California Workers Face Uncertainty
Last week, the Writers of Guild of America came to an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to end the 148-day writers’ strike in Hollywood. Guild members can vote through this weekend on the new contract, one with impressive wins on key issues including minimum staffing on shows, streaming revenues, and the application of AI technology in the industry.
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Digital Music News ☛ Hipgnosis Songs Group CEO Placed on Leave Following Sexual Assault Allegations
Hipgnosis places CEO Kenny MacPherson on leave while he faces allegations of sexual assault from a woman who previously worked with him at another company.
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Federal News Network ☛ Virginia family sues school system for $30 million over student’s sexual assault in bathroom
A teenager and her parents have filed a $30 million lawsuit against a Virginia school system after she was sexually assaulted in a women’s restroom by a male student. The family alleges Loudoun County Public Schools failed to immediately investigate the attack.
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The Register UK ☛ Apple pays $500K to make sales bods' complaint about wage theft go away
Without admitting any wrongdoing, Apple has agreed [PDF] to pay $500,000 to resolve the lawsuit. California federal district Judge Vince Chhabria approved the settlement on Thursday, which accounts for about four minutes of Apple's latest quarterly profits [PDF] of $19.9 billion.
The two sales bods' complaint [PDF], filed July 2022, and subsequently amended [PDF], claimed Apple failed to pay "solutions consultants" – salespeople who sold Apple products at third-party stores such as those run by AT&T, Best Buy, T-Mobile US, and Verizon – for all the hours they worked.
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King World Productions Inc ☛ Beloved Pet Emu Killed by Arizona Sheriff’s Deputies While Attempting to Put It in the Back of a Cop Car
An emu is being mourned by its owner after Arizona sheriff's deputies strangled it to death while trying to wrangle it into a cop car.
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NPR ☛ Jailed Iranian women's rights activist wins 2023 Nobel Peace Prize
The chairperson of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, made the announcement in Oslo. Reiss-Andersen began by quoting the slogan of Iranian human rights campaigners, in Farsi and English: "Zan, Zedegi, Azadi. Woman, Life, Freedom."
Reiss-Andersen said that altogether the Iranian regime had arrested Mohammadi 13 times, convicted her five times and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. Mohammadi remains incarcerated in Iran's notorious Evin prison.
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El País ☛ Jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi wins the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting women’s oppression
Mohammadi, an engineer by training, has been imprisoned 13 times and sentenced to 31 years in prison. She has remained a leading light for nationwide, women-led protests, sparked by the death last year of a 22-year-old woman in police custody
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The Age AU ☛ Who is Narges Mohammadi, the jailed Nobel Peace laureate?
Mohammadi, 51, has kept up her activism despite numerous arrests by Iranian authorities and spending years behind bars. She has remained a leading light for nationwide, women-led protests sparked by the death last year of a 22-year-old woman in police custody that have grown into one of the most intense challenges to Iran’s theocratic government.
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US News And World Report ☛ Iran Unlawfully Detaining Human Rights Activists, Including New Nobel Peace Laureate, UN Expert Says
The wide-ranging report by Javaid Rehman, covering the period from October 2022 through July, was written before the announcement early Friday that the Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to Mohammadi, a longtime campaigner for women’s rights even from her current cell in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.
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CS Monitor ☛ In a Nobel Prize, a light for Iran
The winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, Iranian rights activist Narges Mohammadi, wears many hats. She is the mother of twins, a devoted wife of a husband forced into exile, and a former engineer and journalist. The prize was given to her as “the undisputed leader” of the whole freedom movement in Iran. Perhaps the hat she wears most proudly is that of political prisoner. She is still a prominent leader of other women in prison sentenced simply for their views or the shedding of their hijabs.
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Quartz ☛ Kaiser Permanente workers are set to extend their strike after talks hit a stalemate
Some 75,000 unionized Kaiser Permanente workers have been picketing hospitals and medical centers since Wednesday, demanding higher wages, better staffing, and funding for education and training.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Techdirt ☛ ISPs Are Still Ripping Off A COVID Broadband Discount Program
During peak pandemic, the FCC launched the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB program), giving lower income Americans a $50 ($75 for those in tribal lands) discount off of their broadband bill. Under the program, the government gave money to ISPs, which then doled out discounts to users if they qualified.
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New York Times ☛ Amazon Launches First Project Kuiper Satellites to Orbit
The two prototype spacecraft will test systems to be used in a planned megaconstellation to provide internet service from orbit that will eventually compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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The Register UK ☛ You've just spent $400 on a baby monitor. Now you need a subscription
Miku, you see, was acquired by Innovative Health Monitoring LLC last month. The new owner has wasted no time hitting customers who are used to getting the service for free with a subscription. The device will still work as a camera if you use it on the local network, but anything else is now behind a paywall.
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Monopolies
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India Times ☛ Microsoft looks to close Activision deal next week: report
Microsoft is aiming to close its $69 billion deal for "Call of Duty" publisher Activision Blizzard on Oct. 13 if it gets approval from Britain's antitrust regulator, the Verge reported on Friday, citing a source.
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The Verge ☛ Microsoft eyes closing its giant Activision Blizzard deal next week
Microsoft is planning to finalize its $68.7 billion proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard next week. A source familiar with Microsoft’s plans tells The Verge that the company is eyeing up Friday October 13th as the closing date where it announces to the world that the 20-month process to buy Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard is over.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Everyone wants to make AI chips, UK antitrust hawks eye cloud providers, and MGM rebuffs ransom demand
Generative artificial intelligence continued to dominate the news this week as Anthropic reportedly is raising an additional $2 billion from Google and others, and reports indicated that gen AI partners OpenAI and Microsoft are each looking to design their own AI chips during a severe shortage of graphics processing units from Nvidia.
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Software Patents
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[Repeat] Arca Noae ☛ FAT32 Driver Package version 5.0.5 released [Ed: Patents the elephant in the room.]
The FAT32 Installable File System Driver Package is open source, licensed under the GNU LGPLv2.1, with source code publicly available (see the FAT32 wiki for details).
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Copyrights
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Techdirt ☛ Museum Collection Of Historical TV Culture At Risk Due To Copyright Takedowns
One issue is that Klein was unable to contact Markscan to resolve the problem directly. He is quoted by TorrentFreak as saying: “I just need to reach a live human being to try to resolve this without copyright strikes. I am willing to remove the material manually to get the strikes reversed.”
Once the copyright enforcement machine is engaged, it can be hard to stop. As Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) recounts, there are effectively no penalties for unreasonable or even outright false claims. The playing field is tipped entirely in the favour of the copyright world, and anyone that is targeted using one of the takedown mechanisms is unlikely to be able to do much to contest them, unless they have good lawyers and deep pockets. Fortunately, in this case, an Ars Technica article on the issue reported that:
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