Leftovers

• James G ☛ Advent of Technical Writing: Lists

  When I edit technical content, I often see two extremes when it comes to lists: not using them at all, even when lists are an appropriate way to convey information given the piece, and using them too much. The crux of finding a balance is knowing when to use lists. Therein lies a question: when are lists useful?

  I want to talk about lists in the context of ordered or unordered and unordered lists. Ordered lists, which start with numbers, should be used to convey sequential information (i.e. actions to take in a product). Unordered lists, which start with bullet points, can convey any related points

• Manuel Moreale ☛ The personality of a personal website

  These are all very interesting questions but for me, the more pressing question is a slightly different one: which you is your personal site representing? We often don’t pay too much attention to this but we all have different ways of being ourselves.

• Science

  • Futurism ☛ Space Station Astronauts Find Desiccated Tomato After Blaming Colleague for Its Theft

    In late March, astronauts were each given a share of the harvest tucked inside Ziploc bags. Rubio says his share, however, floated away before he could eat the fruits of his labor.

    "I spent so many hours looking for that thing," Rubio said during a September livestream. "I'm sure the desiccated tomato will show up at some point and vindicate me, years in the future."

  • Space ☛ ISS astronauts find tomato that was lost in space for 8 months (video)

    The minor incident turned into a large inside joke for Rubio in the fall. The 1-inch-wide (2.5 centimeters) Red Robin dwarf tomato was a part of the final harvest for the Veg-05 experiment that Rubio himself had tended through some growing pains.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Patrick Breyer ☛ European Health Data Space: Lawmakers want to stop the obligation for everyone to have a remotely accessible electronic patient file

    The EU’s Health Data Space bill is intended to oblige doctors to enter a summary of each patient’s treatment into an interconnected system (Article 7). Exceptions or a right to object are not provided even for particularly sensitive diseases and therapies such as mental disorders, sexual diseases and disorders such as impotence or infertility, HIV or addiction therapies. Patients whould only be able to object to access to their electronic patient file by other healthcare providers or industry. How this right could be exercised would be up to every Member State. According to a survey by the European Consumer Organisation BEUC, 44% of citizens are concerned about the risk of theft of their health data; 40% of citizens fear unauthorised data access.

    Next Tuesday, the plenary of the European Parliament is to vote on final amendments to their negotiating mandate. The first round of negotiations between the EU Council, EU Parliament and EU Commission is due to take place as early as next Thursday. The rapporteurs want to finalise the negotiations before the 2024 European elections.

  • Axios ☛ U.S. Border Patrol is using AI to crack down on fentanyl trafficking

    Why it matters: More than 70,000 Americans died of synthetic opioid overdoses in 2021, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

  • Austin Gil ☛ On Work-Life Balance

    At first, I thought it was just lucky timing and somehow the stars aligned around my interests, birthdays, and parties, but that’s reductive. It wasn’t about luck.

    At least, not entirely…

  • Gizmodo ☛ Woman Enters MRI Machine With a Gun, Gets Shot in Butt

    The report was first filed in July by the woman’s healthcare provider to the FDA’s Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database—a voluntary reporting system for adverse events tied to medical devices. But the incident appears to have first been publicly unearthed last week by The Messenger.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Amnesty International USA Reaction to Senate Blocking Passage of Assault Weapons Ban

    “As we are witness to yet another community reeling from a senseless act of gun violence, it’s shameful that a sensible path forward has been blocked in favor of more thoughts and prayers. Amnesty International USA will continue to push for these important changes to gun safety laws until they are the law of the land.”

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Teleport ☛ Connect Using EC2 Instance Connect via Teleport

    Accessing EC2 Instances is done using SSH, which typically involves generating and managing SSH Keys. This is not easy when you have a large fleet/team.

  • India Times ☛ Explained: what are the EU's landmark AI rules?

    Ahead of the meeting, lawmakers and governments could not agree on key issues, including the regulation of fast-growing generative AI and its use by law enforcement.

    The main issue is that the first draft of the law was written in early 2021, almost two years before the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT, one of the fastest-growing software applications in history.

  • Tim Kellogg ☛ LLMs: Fake it till you make it

    How does the current generation of AI work? Think of the phrase “fake it till you make it”, and then take it all the way to the extreme, that’s close enough to what’s going on to get a feel for it.

    This post started with a chat with my family. I expanded on it and added a (overly?) positive take on where AI may take us. Don’t expect technical details here.

  • Antipope ☛ Made of lies (and more lies)

    Why you shouldn't trust AI (large language models): a cautionary example.

    So, Google Bard is the big G's "AI" assisted internet search tool.

    I'd heard ungood things about Bard's tendency to Make Shit Up, so I decided to test it for myself, on a topic I'm an authority on: me.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EFF ☛ Think Twice Before Giving Surveillance for the Holidays

      A number of these gifts raise red flags for us as privacy-conscious digital advocates. Ring cameras are one of the most obvious examples, but countless others over the years have made the security or privacy naughty list (and many of these same electronics directly clash with your right to repair).

      One big problem with giving these sorts of gifts is that you're opting another person into a company's intrusive surveillance practice, likely without their full knowledge of what they're really signing up for.

      For example, a smart speaker might seem like a fun stocking stuffer. But unless the giftee is tapped deeply into tech news, they likely don't know there's a chance for human review of any recordings. They also may not be aware that some of these speakers collect an enormous amount of data about how you use it, typically for advertising–though any connected device might have surprising uses to law enforcement, too.

    • Patrick Breyer ☛ EU Digital Identity Regulation (eIDAS): Pirates don’t support blank cheque for surveillance of citizens online!

      The EU Parliament’s Industry Committee today approved a new EU regulation on digital identity (eIDAS 2) against the votes of the Pirates and their group. According to the law, a new digital identity app will enable EU citizens to access public and private digital services such as Facebook or Google and to pay online. The deal was approved despite IT security experts and scientists publicly warning against mass surveillance and recently countering disinformation by the EU.

    • Patrick Breyer ☛ Secure encryption and end of voluntary chat control on Facebook and Instagram protect innocent users and support law enforcement!

      Voluntary mass surveillance of our private communications makes no significant contribution to saving abused children or to convicting abusers, but criminalises thousands of minors, overburdens law enforcement and opens the door to arbitrary private justice by big tech industry. Voluntary chat control could never contain the amount of suspected CSAM on Zuckerberg’s platforms. Relieving the police of the flood of largely false reports frees up law enforcement capacity for targeted and undercover investigations into organised child sexual abuse, thereby really protecting children. Even without chat control mass surveillance, user reports and reports resulting of the automated scanning of public posts on Facebook and Instagram will continue to be made.

    • The Washington Post ☛ Federal government is using data from push notifications to track contacts

      Government investigators in the United States have used push notification data to pursue people of interest, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a letter Wednesday to the Justice Department, revealing for the first time a way in which Americans can be tracked through a basic service provided by their smartphones.

    • US Senate ☛ Letter from US Sentaor Wyden on Surveillance via Smartphone Push Notification [PDF]

      Apple and Google should be permitted to be transparent about the legal demands they receive, particularly from foreign governments, just as the companies regularly notify users about other types of government demands for data. These companies should be permitted to generally reveal whether they have been compelled to facilitate this surveillance practice, to publish aggregate statistics about the number of demands they receive, and unless temporarily gagged by a court, to notify specific customers about demands for their data. I would ask that the DOJ repeal or modify any policies that impede this transparency.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Spying through Push Notifications

      When you get a push notification on your Apple or Google phone, those notifications go through Apple and Google servers. Which means that those companies can spy on them—either for their own reasons or in response to government demands.

    • Reuters ☛ Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications - US senator

      Apps of all kinds rely on push notifications to alert smartphone users to incoming messages, breaking news, and other updates. These are the audible "dings" or visual indicators users get when they receive an email or their sports team wins a game. What users often do not realize is that almost all such notifications travel over Google and Apple's servers.

      That gives the two companies unique insight into the traffic flowing from those apps to their users, and in turn puts them "in a unique position to facilitate government surveillance of how users are using particular apps," Wyden said. He asked the Department of Justice to "repeal or modify any policies" that hindered public discussions of push notification spying.

      In a statement, Apple said that Wyden's letter gave them the opening they needed to share more details with the public about how governments monitored push notifications.

    • NYOB ☛ CJEU landmark rulings on “credit ranking” and review of DPAs

      The European Court of Justice (CJEU) today issued two landmark judgments in proceedings against the German credit reference agency SCHUFA, which previously enjoyed considerable freedom in Germany. The CJEU confirmed that national courts have extensive powers to scrutinize data protection authorities – thereby strengthening the rights of data subjects. Furthermore, the court ruled that the assignment of automatically calculated credit scores is not in line with the GDPR.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Climate tipping points are nearer than you think. Our new report warns of catastrophic risk

    Six of these are in the icebound parts of the planet (the "cryosphere"), including the collapse of massive ice sheets in Greenland and different parts of Antarctica, as well as localized tipping in glaciers and thawing permafrost. Sixteen are in the "biosphere"—the sum of all the world's ecosystems—including trees dying on a massive scale in parts of the Amazon and northern boreal forests, degradation of savannas and drylands, nutrient overloading of lakes, coral reef mass mortality, and many mangroves and seagrass meadows dying off.

    Finally, we identified four potential tipping points in the circulation of the oceans and atmosphere, including collapse of deep ocean mixing in the North Atlantic and in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, and disruption of the West African monsoon.

  • University of Exceter ☛ Global Tipping Points

    Global Tipping Points is led by Professor Tim Lenton from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute with the support of more than 200 researchers from over 90 organisations in 26 countries.

    The Global Tipping Points Report was launched at COP28 on 6 December 2023. The report is an authoritative assessment of the risks and opportunities of both negative and positive tipping points in the Earth system and society.

  • Science Alert ☛ Earth on Brink of Five Catastrophic Climate Tipping Points, Report Warns

    The climate system has many potential tipping points, such as ice sheets disappearing or dense rainforests becoming significantly drier and more open. It would be very difficult, effectively impossible, to recover these systems once they go beyond a tipping point.

  • India Times ☛ US Congress will not take up TikTok legislation before end of year: senator

    Concerns about Chinese-owned TikTok sparked efforts for months in Congress to boost powers to address it or potentially ban the popular short video sharing app, but those bills have stalled in Congress. TikTok, which has more than 150 million U.S. users, denies it improperly uses U.S. data.

  • Vice Media Group ☛ The Fentanylware (TikTok) Panic Reached a New Level of Stupidity at Last Night's GOP Debate [Ed: The Fentanylware (TikTok) "Panic" is realisation os what TikTok actually is and who controls it]

    In the fourth Republican debate, Nikki Haley said every 30 minutes spent watching Fentanylware (TikTok) makes people "17% more antisemitic."

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Atlantic Council ☛ While the West dithers, the future of the world is being decided in Ukraine

      As Russia’s invasion approaches the two-year mark, the picture is now far more complex and significantly darker. Western unity is increasingly in question, with US support for Ukraine becoming hostage to political infighting and pro-Kremlin forces winning national elections in the EU. Meanwhile, pledges of new aid from Ukraine’s partners have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the war. This is fueling a growing sense of jubilation in Moscow, where many believe recent developments vindicate earlier Russian predictions that any Western resolve to oppose the Kremlin would prove short-lived.

      Unsurprisingly, Putin is now more confident than ever that he can outlast the West in Ukraine. Despite suffering catastrophic battlefield losses, he remains determined to press ahead with the invasion, and is actively preparing Russia for the rigors of a long war. Russia’s goal remains the “denazification” of Ukraine, meaning the eradication of Ukrainian national identity and the return of the country to Kremlin control, either via direct annexation or through the installation of a puppet regime in Kyiv.

    • RFERL ☛ U.K., U.S. Sanction Two Russians Accused Of Cyber Spying On British Politicians, Journalists

      The U.K. Foreign Office said in a statement on December 7 that the cyber-spying was conducted by Star Blizzard, also known as the Callisto Group, an entity that Britain's cybersecurity center has established with quasi-total certainty is run by Center 18 -- an FSB unit identified as being behind a series of cyber-espionage operations targeting Britain.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ UK accuses Russia of yearslong cyberespionage campaign

      According to the Foreign Office, two Russian agents have been sanctioned for their alleged involvement in preparing so-called spear-phishing campaigns and "activity intended to undermine the UK."

    • RFERL ☛ With Wagner In Disarray, A Russian Diplomat With Spy Links Surfaces In The Central African Republic

      Multiple sources in CAR say the task of liaising between Wagner mercenaries and local police has fallen to Pavlov, while photographic evidence independently corroborates the diplomat's presence together with Russian military brass in the African nation, the joint investigation by RFE/RL's Russian Service and All Eyes On Wagner (AEOW), a Swiss investigative NGO, found.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Interesting Engineering ☛ Tesla shocks the world by sharing its 48-volt technology — for free

      This is a game-changer for the EV world. No more playing catch-up in the dark – Tesla just handed everyone a cheat sheet to the next level of electric mobility.

    • Interesting Engineering ☛ Two high-speed US rail projects bag $6 billion in government funding

      Two high-speed rail projects connecting a few of the busiest cities in the US are to get $6.1 billion in government funding. The Brightline West high-speed rail system connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas and

    • Reuters ☛ US to award $6.1 billion to Las Vegas, California high-speed rail projects

      The U.S. Transportation Department is awarding $3 billion for a $12 billion Las Vegas to Southern California high-speed rail project and $3.07 billion to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles.

      The Las Vegas to Los Angeles project aims to finish before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, while the California high-speed rail authority program aims to ultimately move travelers from San Francisco to the Los Angeles basin at speeds above 200 miles per hour in under three hours, with initial service starting as early as 2030.

    • Democracy Now ☛ “Green Colonialism”: Nigerian Climate Activist Nnimmo Bassey Says Africa Is Being Sold Out at COP28

      Longtime Nigerian activist and poet Nnimmo Bassey joins us at COP28 in Dubai to discuss how “false climate solutions” like carbon trading markets are hurting efforts to reduce emissions and prevent catastrophic global heating. “People are making deals rather than talking about how to cut emissions at source,” says Bassey. “We’re seeing a sellout of the African continent.” Bassey is director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation and received the Right Livelihood Award in 2010 for his environmental activism.

    • Democracy Now ☛ “Cabal of Oil Producers”: Climate Scientist Kevin Anderson Slams Corporate Capture of COP28 [Ed: COP28 is like 'Linux' Foundation: GPL- and Linux-hostile corporations trying to lead the way 'for us']

      As we broadcast from COP28 in Dubai, leading climate scientist Kevin Anderson lays out why he dismisses the annual climate talks as “grand events” that do little to actually curb emissions. “These COPs have become little more than a scam under which the oil companies and the other fossil fuel companies are hiding that nothing is being done,” says Anderson. Decades of inaction make solving the climate crisis much harder, and Anderson notes “technology and fairness have to go hand in hand” in order to save the planet.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Vice Media Group ☛ Scientists Have Reported a Breakthrough In Understanding Whale Language

      Sperm whales are giants of the deep, with healthy adults having no known predators. Scientists studying their vocalizations have already picked out key elements of their communication, namely clicks, sequences of which are called codas. Now, researchers led by Gašper Beuš from the University of California, Berkeley report the discovery that the acoustic properties of these clicks—for example, pitch—are “on many levels analogous to human vowels and dipthongs,” which is when one vowel sound morphs into another such as in the word “coin.” The researchers even identify two unique “coda vowels” that are “actively exchanged” in conversation between whales, which they term the a-vowel and i-vowel.

  • Overpopulation

    • El País ☛ UN says Africa faces unprecedented food crisis, with 3 in 4 people unable to afford a healthy diet

      It warned that “millions are expected to be at risk of worsening hunger in the near future.” With a young population set to double by 2050, Africa is the only rapidly growing region where people are getting poorer, and some are beginning to celebrate coups by soldiers who promise a better life. Despite its wealth of natural resources, Africa is far from meeting its commitment to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2025.

    • NBC ☛ California officials warn of possible low water supplies

      Water agencies heard from the state that they are currently being allocated 10-15% of their expected needed water supplies for 2024.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Only 3 agencies have hit deadline for cyber event logging standards, GAO finds

    Just three of the 23 civilian Chief Financial Officer Act agencies have met the cyber event logging standards called out in President Joe Biden’s 2021 cybersecurity executive order and a subsequent Office of Management and Budget memo, a new Government Accountability Office report found.

  • USGAO ☛ Cybersecurity: Federal Agencies Made Progress, but Need to Fully Implement Incident Response Requirements[PDF]

    Federal agencies rely upon the following for cybersecurity incident response:

    • tools, such as endpoint detection and response solutions;

    • services, such as threat hunting or cyber threat intelligence provided by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and third party firms; and

    • resources, such as skilled staff and funding.

  • Law Society of Ireland ☛ EU deal on new cyber-resilience rules

    “Parliament has protected supply chains, ensuring that key products, such as routers and anti-viruses, are identified as a priority for cyber-security,” said the lead MEP on the issue Nicola Danti (pictured).

    “We have ensured support for micro and small enterprises and better involvement of stakeholders, and addressed the concerns of the open-source community, while keeping an ambitious European dimension,” she added.

    The agreement reached is now subject to formal approval by both the European Parliament and the EU Council.

  • [Old] European Commission ☛ EU Cyber Resilience Act

    The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) aims to safeguard consumers and businesses buying or using products or software with a digital component. The Act would see inadequate security features become a thing of the past with the introduction of mandatory cybersecurity requirements for manufacturers and retailers of such products, with this protection extending throughout the product lifecycle.

    The problem addressed by the Regulation is two-fold.

    First is the inadequate level of cybersecurity inherent in many products, or inadequate security updates to such products and software.

    Second is the inability of consumers and businesses to currently determine which products are cybersecure, or to set them up in a way that ensures their cybersecurity is protected.

  • Dolphin Publications B V ☛ Cyber Resilience Act: manufacturers responsible for open-source code

    The content is also reassuring for the open-source community. Europe will hold manufacturers responsible for making products more secure. If this manufacturer starts working with open-source code in a product, this code becomes part of the product for which the manufacturer is responsible. This is made clear through an important specification about who must comply with the law. Any development that takes place outside the goal of commercialization will now be allowed to ignore the rules. Open-source developers often cannot respond as quickly to a security incident as a company acting from commercial interests.

    Manufacturers may, therefore, continue to shop the open-source community for software. This is common, by the way: “Open-source software represents more than 70 percent of the software present in products with digital elements in Europe.” This statement comes from an open letter that several open-source organizations sent to the Commission earlier this year to express their concerns. But where manufacturers could previously choose to adopt the code in its entirety, security controls will now be required.

  • Euractive ☛ EU institutions finalise agreement on cybersecurity law for connected product

    As Euractiv anticipated, the agreement was largely pre-cooked at the technical level, with many aspects of the proposal being endorsed during the political meeting. However, EU negotiators settled the last political hurdles after some intense discussions.

    [...]

    Another negotiation point is dealing with open-source software integrated into commercial products. Here, an agreement was reached at the technical level and endorsed at the political level.

    As Euractiv previously reported, the idea was to cover only software developed in the context of commercial activities and to have more limited rules for open-source software stewards regarding documentation and vulnerability handling.

    In the final iteration of the text, seen by Euractiv, non-profit organisations that sell open source software on the market but reinvest all the revenues in non-for-profit activities were also excluded from the scope.

  • [Old] Euractive ☛ EU policymakers prepare to close on cybersecurity law for connected device

    How to include open-source software has been largely agreed upon at the technical level. As Euractiv previously reported, EU policymakers introduced the figure of open-source software stewards subject to documentation and vulnerability handling.

  • [Old] Euractive ☛ EU policymakers’ advance on open source software, support period in new cybersecurity law

    These two factors are essential in determining to what extent the open source software can comply with the requirements of the upcoming cybersecurity law. That is why EU policymakers have conceived a tiered approach with proportionate obligations.

  • European Parliament ☛ Cyber Resilience Act: agreement with Council to boost digital products’ security

    The agreed text will now have to be formally adopted by both Parliament and Council in order to come into law. The Industry, Research and Energy Committee will hold a vote on the file in a forthcoming meeting.

  • [Old] European Commission ☛ Cyber Resilience Act

    Four specific objectives were set out:

    1. ensure that manufacturers improve the security of products with digital elements since the design and development phase and throughout the whole life cycle;

    2. ensure a coherent cybersecurity framework, facilitating compliance for hardware and software producers;

    3. enhance the transparency of security properties of products with digital elements, and

    4. enable businesses and consumers to use products with digital elements securely.

  • [Old] EU ☛ Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on horizontal cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/1020

    7. Manufacturers shall, upon identifying a vulnerability in a component, including in an open source component, which is integrated in the product with digital elements, report the vulnerability to the person or entity maintaining the component.

  • India Times ☛ EU's AI Act could exclude open-source models from regulation

    According to the document, which circulated among lawmakers on Thursday morning, the AI Act would not apply to free and open-source licences unless, for example, they are deemed high-risk or being used for already banned purposes.

  • Quartz ☛ Apple plans to move iPhone 16 battery production out of China and into India

    Apple is encouraging suppliers to move toward India-made iPhone batteries for the upcoming iPhone 16 line as part of its broader effort to diversify supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Dec. 6, citing anonymous sources. The tech giant has reportedly given the mandate to Shenzhen-based Desay and Taiwanese battery supplier Simplo Technology.

  • Futurism ☛ Ex-OpenAI Board Member Refuses to Say Why She Fired Sam Altman

    As the New York Times reported in the midst of the Thanksgiving hubbub, Toner and Altman butted heads the month prior because she published a paper critical of the firm's safety protocols (or lack thereof) and laudatory of those undertaken by Anthropic, which was created by former OpenAI employees who left over similar concerns.

  • International Business Times ☛ Former OpenAI Director Says He Is Still Unsure Why The Board Fired Sam Altman

    Still, details about what led to the initial chaos are few and far between. According to a Bloomberg report, Altman had been trying to raise funds for a new AI chip startup.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ AI executive order will face challenges with talent pipeline, experts say

    The order also addresses new strategies for federal use of the technology, including the issuing of guidance for agency deployment, helping agencies access AI systems through more efficient and less expensive contracting, and hiring more AI professionals within the government.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • EFF ☛ In Landmark Battle Over Free Speech, EFF Urges Supreme Court to Strike Down Texas and Florida Laws that Let States Dictate What Speech Social Media Sites Must Publish

  • France24 ☛ Iran uses rape, torture to silence detained Mahsa Amini protesters, Amnesty says

    Iranian authorities have used rape and sexual assault to punish or silence those arrested during the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, Amnesty International said in a report released on Wednesday. Amnesty documented 45 cases of sexual violence perpetrated against men, women and children who were detained and says the actual number of victims may be much higher.

  • Amnesty International ☛ Sexual Violence Weaponized [PDF]

    Iranian intelligence and security forces committed horrific acts of rape, gang rape, and other forms of sexual violence, which amount to torture and other ill-treatment, against women, men and children as young as 12 who were arbitrarily detained in connection with the nationwide protests that took place during the “Woman Life Freedom” uprising of September-December 2022, following the death in custody of Mahsa/Zhina Amini.

    Sexual violence was used by state agents with total impunity as a weapon of torture to crush protesters’ spirit, self-esteem and sense of dignity, to deter further protests, and to punish them for challenging the political and security establishment and its entrenched system of gender-based discrimination, as enforced through draconian legislation including abusive compulsory veiling laws.

  • VOA News ☛ Denmark Passes Bill to Stop Quran Burnings

    Denmark sought to strike a balance between constitutionally protected freedom of speech, including the right to criticize religion, and national security amid fears that Quran burnings would trigger attacks by Islamists.

    Domestic critics in Sweden and Denmark have argued that any limitations on criticizing religion, including by burning Quran, undermine hard-fought liberal freedoms in the region.

  • New York Times ☛ Denmark, Fearing Reprisals, Bans Quran Burning

    Under a new law passed by Parliament, those found guilty of the crime can be fined or sentenced to up to two years in prison.

    “Quran burnings must be stopped,” Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard, who presented the law, said on Instagram on Thursday. “We must protect the security of Denmark and the Danes.”

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Denmark parliament adopts bill prohibiting Quran burnings

    Burning, tearing, or defiling religious texts in public could land people with a fine or up to two years behind bars. Destroying a holy text on video and disseminating the footage online could also put offenders in jail.

    The Danish Justice Ministry has said the law aims to combat the "systematic mockery" that raises terror threat levels in Denmark.

  • France24 ☛ Denmark adopts law banning burning of Koran and other holy texts

    The bill, which prohibits "inappropriate treatment of writings with significant religious importance for a recognised religious community", was passed with 94 votes in favour and 77 opposed in the 179-seat Folketing.

  • JURIST ☛ Denmark Parliament passes law criminalizing burning of Quran

    Criticism of the new law was shared across the political aisle, with several left-wing lawmakers voicing their dissent. Karina Lorentzen, of the Socialist People’s Party said, “Does Iran change its legislation because Denmark feels offended by something an Iranian would do? Does Pakistan? Does Saudi Arabia?… the answer is no.”

  • Reuters ☛ Denmark passes law to ban Koran burnings

    Denmark and Sweden experienced a series of public protests this year where anti-Islam activists burned or otherwise damaged copies of the Koran, triggering demands that the Nordic governments ban the practice.

    According to Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard, more than 500 demonstrations that included burnings of the Koran or flags were registered since July.

  • Reason ☛ Denmark Bans Desecrating Copies of Holy Books

    "History will judge us harshly for this and with good reason," Inger Stojberg of the right-wing anti-immigration Denmark Democrats party said in response to the bill's passage. "What it all comes down to is whether a restriction on freedom of speech is determined by us, or whether it is dictated from the outside." …

    "Does Iran change its legislation because Denmark feels offended by something an Iranian would do? Does Pakistan? Does Saudi Arabia?" Karina Lorentzen of the leftist Socialist People's Party said. "The answer is no." …

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong Tiananmen vigil activists appealing judgement in nat. security case to hear verdict within 3 months

    Founded in 1989, the Alliance organised yearly mass vigils in the city to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing that year.

    Members of the Alliance were arrested in September 2021 after refusing to comply with the demand from national security police for information. It disbanded later that month, joining dozens of other civil society groups that have been forced to shut in the wake of the national security law imposed in June 2020.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Organisers of Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigils appeal conviction, sentencing over national security data request

    The three activists were found guilty in March of failing to comply with a notice issued by national security police in August 2021 demanding information, including personal information about standing committee members and staff. They were jailed for four and a half months each.

  • RFERL ☛ At Least One Arrest Made At Memorial For Iranian Teen Who Died After Alleged Incident With Morality Police

    At least one person was arrested amid a heavy police presence at a traditional memorial marking the 40th day since the death of Iranian teen Armita Garavand, according to human rights activists.

  • RFERL ☛ Uzbek Blogger Released After Prison Term Replaced With Parole-Like Sentence

    Uzbek blogger Fozilxoja Orifxojaev, who was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison in January 2022 over a post on Facebook, was released from prison after his sentence was replaced with a parole-like sentence, relatives said on December 6. [...]

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CPJ ☛ Iranian journalist Soltan-Ali Abedi jailed for 1 year for corruption reports

    Abedi had been arrested and detained multiple times since 2021 after publishing critical reports about Sistan and Baluchestan province, addressing issues such as water shortages and the governor’s performance, according to the person familiar with the case.

    In 2021, he was threatened by city council officials and then beaten up by a group of unknown attackers after publishing a critical report about Zahedan’s city council, that person said.

  • ANF News ☛ Journalist Ahmed, incommunicado for 44 days

    The news agency RojNews now said with certainty that Ehmed was abducted by forces of the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party). Silêman Ahmed has been working for the agency's Arabic-language editorial team for five years and disappeared after visiting his family in Aleppo, while he was at the Sêmalka-Pêşxabûr border crossing between the Autonomous Region of North and East Syria and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • India Times ☛ Tesla is fighting with Sweden's unions. Here's what to know.

    Unions say Tesla is flouting Sweden's tradition of collective agreements. About 90% of Swedish workers are covered by these agreements, which apply to nonunion employees and set work conditions across industries. They have a long history in Nordic countries and are widely seen as crucial to maintaining social cohesion and a high standard of living.

    The strikers and the unions taking up their cause "are fighting an incredibly important battle right now," Jan Villadsen, chair of the 3F Transport union representing the Danish dockworkers, said in a statement. "Even if you are one of the richest in the world, you can't just make your own rules," he said, referring to Musk.

  • The Register UK ☛ Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

    3F, which covers multiple industries in Denmark, has limited its sympathy strike to its Transportation arm, which union chair Jan Villadsen explained will mean transportation workers at docks, including drivers, won't unload or transport Tesla vehicles bound for Sweden.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Gizmodo ☛ Here's Your Free Window to Watch A Charlie Brown Christmas on Streaming

  • The Verge ☛ Spotify’s CFO is out days after mass layoffs

    Of all the layoffs happening at Spotify this week, this has to be the biggest. Chief financial officer Paul Vogel, who since 2020 has managed the company’s balance sheet as it expanded into podcasting and audiobooks, is leaving the company at the end of March 2024.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Tidal Lays Off 10% of Staff As Owner Block ‘Right-Sizes’

    Just days after Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced plans to lay off around 1,500 employees, Jack Dorsey’s company Block — which owns Square, Cash App, and Tidal — has begun the first stage in a planned widespread staff reduction across its subsidiary companies that will continue into next year. As a result, approximately 40 staffers across multiple departments at Tidal, or 10% of the staff, have been laid off.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Bloomberg ☛ Apple Set to Avoid EU Crackdown Over iMessage Service

  Apple Inc.’s iMessage service looks set to win a carve out from new European Union antitrust rules to rein in Big Tech platforms after watchdogs tentatively concluded that it isn’t popular enough with business users to warrant being hit by the regulation.

• [Repeat] The Register UK ☛ AWS accuses Microsoft of clipping customers' cloud freedoms

  AWS has publicly called out Microsoft's software licensing terms, claiming they "restrict choice" and make it "financially unviable" for customers to choose anyone other than Microsoft – something Google and other rivals have complained of.

  This was one among the many points addressed by Amazon in its submission [PDF] to Competition Markets Authority, the regulator charged with inspecting the health of the UK cloud sector with special attention to be given to egress fees; committed special discounts; interoperability; and cloud software policies.

• Copyrights

  • [Repeat] Ruben Schade ☛ Generative AIs don’t steal; their operators do

    He’s more right than he thinks. The data is created by people, but it’s also classified by people for basically slave wages. AI—at least in popular usage—isn’t artificial or intelligent; though there’s certainly a lot of marketing trying to convince us otherwise.

  • Techdirt ☛ Good And Bad News On Attempts To Implicate DNS Services For Copyright Infringement At The Domains They Resolve

    As to how these legal actions in Germany and Italy can be brought in countries where Quad9 has no corporate presence, the answer is something called the Lugano Convention. And to end on a more positive note, another major DNS service provider, Cloudflare, has also won a legal battle in Germany: [...]

  • Digital Music News ☛ Who Will Own Copyright Tomorrow? RIAA, A2IM, Recording Academy Hit Back at ‘Falsehoods Asserted by AI Companies’

    In response to the United States Copyright Office as part of the ongoing discussion around and inquiry into “Artificial Intelligence and Copyright,” the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), the Recording Academy, and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) hit back at false “binary choice” and other unsubstantiated claims asserted by AI companies in recent filings.

    Together, the organizations asked the Copyright Office to reject “the false and dangerous dichotomy posed by some of the tech companies and their supporters (…) suggesting that humanity and, by extension, the Office and Congress, is faced with a binary choice to either reap all the benefits that AI promises or respect the long-established legal rights of human creators.”

  • EFF ☛ EFF Reminds the Supreme Court That Copyright Trolls Are Still a Problem

    On Monday, EFF continued the fight against copyright trolls by filing an amicus brief in Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy, a case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. The case doesn’t deal with copyright trolls directly. Rather, it involves the interpretation of the statute of limitations in copyright cases. Statutes of limitations are laws that limit the time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. The purpose is to encourage plaintiffs to file their claims promptly, and to avoid stale claims and unfairness to defendants when time has passed and evidence might be lost. For example, in California, the statute of limitations for a breach of contract claim is generally four years.

    U.S. copyright law contains a statute of limitations of three years “after the claim accrued.” Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy deals with the question of exactly what this means. Warner Chappell Music, the defendant in the case, argued that the claim accrued when the alleged infringement occurred, giving a plaintiff three years after that to recover damages. Plaintiff Nealy argued that his claim didn’t “accrue” until he discovered the alleged infringement, or reasonably should have discovered it. This “discovery rule” would permit Nealy to recover damages for acts that occurred long ago—much longer than three years—as long as he filed suit within three years of that “discovery.”

  • Torrent Freak ☛ YouTube, Facebook, & TikTok Won't Discuss Bad Takedowns? Get Over It, They're Busy

    Over the years we've published many articles detailing abusive content removal demands and more generally the staggering volume of takedown notices received by the likes of Google and YouTube. A common complaint by users of these services is the difficulty in finding a real person to discuss their issues when things go wrong. That's something unlikely to change anytime soon because content is being taken down like never before.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Music Rights Group Sues Elon Musk's X for Copyright Infringement

    Swiss music collective management outfit SUISA Digital has filed a lawsuit against X's parent company, Twitter International. Filed in Germany, the complaint accuses the platform of copyright infringement after X failed to license music shared by its users without permission. The music group hopes to recover damages in an amount that could run to millions of euros.