Links 17/01/2024: Reverse-Engineering PCBs and DRM Hooked to Satellites (John Deere)
Contents
- Leftovers
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- 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/Monopsonies
-
Leftovers
-
Jonathan Dowland ☛ Jonathan Dowland: Reading hack
This year, with respect to my ever-growing reading backlog, I'm going to try something new: when I acquire a new book, I'm going to try to read at least a few pages of it immediately.
-
R J Faas ☛ One positive outcome from Musk’s decimation of Twitter: a blogging renaissance
After years of apathy, people are returning to blogs or creating new ones. As result of the cautionary tales that have emerged in the dust that was Twitter and Substack, the value of those principles is top of mind as we regroup and decide how to move forward.
-
Daniel Pipes ☛ [Bloganuary] Clutter
That’s not to say I’m disorganised (although I am at least some of the time!), but it does mean that I’m perhaps more-prone to distraction and context-switching than I might prefer. Compared to times in my life that I’ve been less “clutter-brained”, I find it harder to gain and maintain focus.
-
Numeric Citizen ☛ Numeric Citizen Blog
I do share most of his views on the current state of Micro.blog because I did experience some issues with the service myself. I won’t repeat it here. That being said, I love Micro.blog, and I certainly want it to thrive. I’m a believer. I’m a supporter of the ideas behind the service. I subscribe to the premium tier. I love it so much that I created a series of videos about Micro.blog so that others can take full advantage of its features set. But I want to do more. In fact, I can do more. How can I help? Where do I enlist?
-
Jeff Bridgforth ☛ A new look to this site
I consider this more of a site refresh than a site redesign. The layouts on the site are essentially the same. I did not rewrite any of the HTML code but kept the same structure. I did not rewrite the CSS from scratch but just went back and refactored the code that I already had written in the past. I updated a few bits of content (photo on homepage and about page) but most everything is the same.
-
Ronnie Lutes ☛ Podcasts I Enjoy
Here’s my list: [...]
-
Hardware
-
Hackaday ☛ $50 10Gbps Mesh Network Uses USB4
You want to build a cluster of computers, but you need a high-speed network fabric that can connect anything to anything. Big bucks, right? [Fang-Pen] developed a 10 Gbps full-mesh network using USB4 that cost him under $50. The first part of the post is about selecting a low-power mini PC, but if you skip down to the “Networking” section, you’ll find the details on the cluster.
-
Hackaday ☛ Reverse-Engineering A Russian Tornado-S Guidance Circuit Board
With Russian military hardware quite literally raining down onto the ground in Ukraine, it’s little wonder that a sizeable part of PCBs and more from these end up being sold on EBay. This was thus where [msylvain] got a guidance board from a 300 mm Tornado-S 9M542 GLONASS-guided projectile from, for some exploration and reverse-engineering. The first interesting surprise was that the board was produced in February of 2023, with the Tornado-S system having begun production in 2016.
-
-
Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
-
Scripps Media Inc ☛ Follow up: More on the 'toxic chemical' that killed millions of bees in Escondido
"Fipronil is very toxic to the bees' nervous systems. It is a chain reaction. If the bees bring in the Fipronil to one hive or multiple hives, other hives will be affected" Gunn added.
Officials from the department of agriculture say they could not find any farms in the area that used the chemical.
-
Ruben Schade ☛ Advertising and road safety
I’ve been seeing more of these billboards around Sydney recently, but I was miffed over the visual pollution they pose. I hadn’t even considered they were a safety risk.
-
Truthdig ☛ What’s Required To Keep ‘Forever Chemicals’ out of Drinking Water
As it turns out, a tougher standard is expected early this year. That’s when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is set to finalize an enforceable cap on PFAS in drinking water that will require GAUD and thousands of other utilities around the country to update their treatment methods. The standard, which in regulatory terms is called a maximum contaminant level or MCL, limits permissible amounts of the two most studied and ubiquitous PFAS compounds — PFOA and PFOS — to just 4 ppt in drinking water each. Roughly equivalent to a single drop in five Olympic-size swimming pools, this is the lowest concentration that current analytical instruments can reliably detect “within specific limits of precision and accuracy during routine laboratory operating conditions,” according to the EPA. Four other PFAS — PFHxS, PFNA, PFBS, and HFPO-DA (otherwise known as GenX Chemicals) — will be regulated by combining their acceptable levels into a single value. Utilities will have three to five years to bring their systems into compliance.
-
Pro Publica ☛ 5 Things to Know About How Mississippi Counties Jail People for Mental Illness
For many people in Mississippi, the path to treatment for a serious mental illness may run through the local jail — even though they haven’t been charged with a crime.
In 2023, Mississippi Today and ProPublica investigated the practice of jailing people solely because they were waiting for mental health treatment provided through a legal process called civil commitment.
-
-
Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
-
Reuters ☛ Tech layoffs continue after 'Year of Efficiency'
Big Tech's "Year of Efficiency" may be over but recent layoffs at Google and Amazon have signaled the firms will keep cutting jobs in 2024 as they make big investments in generative AI. [sic]
-
Pakistan ☛ Discord is Firing Nearly 200 Employees to “Sharpen Its Focus”
Discord is implementing a workforce reduction of 17%, as CEO Jason Citron aims to “sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to bring more agility to our organization.”
-
The Verge ☛ Square Enix says it used AI art in upcoming Foamstars game
In an interview with VGC, Kosuke Okatani, producer on Foamstars, said that the development team used AI generation tool Midjourney to create in-game art for album covers for the game’s soundtracks but explained that the majority of the game was still made by humans.
-
MIT Technology Review ☛ How AI is changing gymnastics judging
Srbić took the gamble—even though there was a new element of risk in this case. As it turns out, it wasn’t the typical judge that would decide whether he’d in fact landed all his maneuvers. It was AI.
Srbić’s routine, like all routines at the competition, had been captured by a handful of high-definition cameras, which together had built a three-dimensional image of his body as it moved. The footage had then been fed into AI software that was able to analyze each angle and movement to a specificity beyond the capabilities of the human eye.
-
Trail of Bits ☛ LeftoverLocals: Listening to LLM responses through leaked GPU local memory
We are disclosing LeftoverLocals: a vulnerability that allows recovery of data from GPU local memory created by another process on Apple, Qualcomm, AMD, and Imagination GPUs. LeftoverLocals impacts the security posture of GPU applications as a whole, with particular significance to LLMs and ML models run on impacted GPU platforms. By recovering local memory—an optimized GPU memory region—we were able to build a PoC where an attacker can listen into another user’s interactive LLM session (e.g., llama.cpp) across process or container boundaries, as shown below: [...]
-
Chip Huyen ☛ Sampling for Text Generation
However, this probabilistic nature also causes inconsistency and hallucinations. It’s fatal for tasks that depend on factuality. Recently, I went over 3 months’ worth of customer support requests of an AI startup I advise and found that ⅕ of the questions are because users don’t understand or don’t know how to work with this probabilistic nature.
To understand why AI’s responses are probabilistic, we need to understand how models generate responses, a process known as sampling (or decoding). This post consists of 3 parts.
-
Manuel Moreale ☛ If a human does it
Let’s just state the obvious here: AIs are not human. Should be obvious but apparently it’s not. I say it’s not because the amount of people who justify all sorts of shitty behavior coming from people working on AI models is astounding.
-
Gizmodo ☛ AI Algorithms Can Be Converted Into 'Sleeper Cell' Backdoors, Research Shows
While AI tools offer new capabilities for web users and companies, they also have the potential to make certain forms of cybercrime and malicious activity much more accessible and powerful. Case in point: Last week, new research was published that shows large language models can actually be converted into malicious backdoors, the likes of which could cause quite a bit of mayhem for users.
-
Red Hat Official ☛ Evaluating LLM inference performance on Red Hat OpenShift AI
-
Search
-
404 Media ☛ Google Search Really Has Gotten Worse, Researchers Find
Google search really has been taken over by low-quality SEO spam, according to a new, year-long study by German researchers.
The researchers, from Leipzig University, Bauhaus-University Weimar, and the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, set out to answer the question "Is Google Getting Worse?" by studying search results for 7,392 product-review terms across Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo over the course of a year.
-
-
-
Security
-
Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
-
Zach Flower ☛ Authentically Speaking
Real authenticity is about honest connection. It's about sharing a truth with someone else—not to generate a specific outcome, but to create a relationship.
It's that honesty, or lack thereof, that marks the difference between an authentic and inauthentic experience. No matter how charismatic some people are, when the goal is control instead of honest connection, authenticity is nowhere to be found.
-
-
Privacy/Surveillance
-
[Repeat] RFA ☛ Is Apple's AirDrop safe to use in China?
The Chinese government has had its eye on AirDrop for some time, calling it "a major problem" for police, because it offers a way for people to share content without going through the country's tightly monitored and heavily censored internet.
The Beijing municipal judicial affairs bureau said on Jan. 8 that it had managed to de-anonymize AirDrop users, sending a warning to anyone hoping to share banned content without triggering censorship alerts or leave evidence that might be used to target them in criminal proceedings.
A senior IT engineer in the United States said the bureau's claim was feasible.
-
Meduza ☛ The anonymous quality control person will hear you now: Moscow now requires doctors to record audio of patient visits. Officials say it’s nothing to worry about.
In mid-December, the Moscow Health Department issued an order making it mandatory for medical clinics to keep audio recordings of patient visits. City officials said they had decided to implement the rule after conducting a “successful” pilot experiment in two Moscow clinics.
Under the new policy, which came into effect on December 28, 2023, every doctor in the city’s clinics is required to record all patients’ appointments (with the exception of dentists).
-
Patrick Breyer ☛ AI Act threatens to make facial surveillance commonplace in Europe
In the final stage of negotiations on the EU’s AI Act, it has become known that even the publicly announced limitation of the controversial facial recognition technology to the prosecution of serious criminal offences has since fallen. Digital freedom fighter and Member of the European Parliament Patrick Breyer (Pirate Party) warns that the law paves the way for the introduction of biometric mass surveillance in Europe where EU governments decide to steer this course.
-
404 Media ☛ Is Your Local Police Department Using Fusus AI-Enabled Cameras? Find Out Here
“Whether it’s a drone, a traffic camera, a private cell phone video, or a building security camera, FUSUS can extract the live video feed and send it to our Intelligence Center and officers in the field,” one memorandum 404 Media previously obtained reads.
-
-
-
Defence/Aggression
-
The Strategist ☛ Migration vital for northern Australia, and national security
Nowhere in Australia are population and skills shortfalls more apparent than in the north which is heavily dependent on overseas migration to sustain both, and to boost the region’s contribution to national security.
-
The Nation ☛ The Immigration Issue
-
[Older] [Repeat] YLE ☛ Finnish border authorities prepare for migrant influx
The four men arrived in Finland last week and were detained by the border guard on suspicion of attempting to enter the country illegally. They said that there are many smugglers available on the instant messaging service Telegram willing to assist undocumented asylum [sic] seekers on their journey from Russia into Finland.
-
Democracy Now ☛ Despite Trump’s Triumph in Iowa, Many GOP Voters Say Legal Troubles Could Make Him Unfit for Reelection
Former President Donald Trump has won the Iowa caucuses by a landslide, but polls reveal almost a third of voters believed Trump would not be fit to serve as president if convicted in his ongoing criminal trials. “These trials of Trump may well turn out to be far more significant than a lot of political pundits assume,” says national affairs correspondent at The Nation John Nichols, who says one upcoming state will determine if any other Republican candidate has a chance to be the GOP’s nominee. “It all comes down to New Hampshire.”
-
Truthdig ☛ Trump’s Threat to Democracy Wins Big in Iowa
Sean Eldridge, president and founder of Stand Up America, said in a statement that the former president’s win is another clear indication that “the 2024 election will be a referendum on the future of our democracy.”
-
The Nation ☛ Iowa Finally Picked the GOP Nominee
I watched the Emmys Monday night instead of Iowa caucus returns. (Congrats to the team behind The Bear, but that is not a comedy.) Sure, I switched briefly to cable stations; after 8:30, the headline essentially remained: “Trump wins, DeSantis and Haley vie for second” for hours. (DeSantis edged Haley.) But that had been the headline for at least a month. Can bored reporters and pundits make a “narrative” out of this dull and predictable story?
-
Kansas Reflector ☛ A Kansas legislator stands against Trump and Jan. 6 violence. Will his fellow Republicans listen?
Howe wrote a column about former President Donald Trump, the Jan. 6 insurrection and election denialism. He asked his fellow Republicans, in plain language, to take a different path while they still have time. With a full primary schedule ahead of us — and the Kansas presidential primary set for March 19 — the party could choose to look forward rather than backward, focus on attracting new voters rather than exacting revenge, and work together with Democrats for the good of our country.
-
Vice Media Group ☛ Everything We Know About 'Timhouthi Chalamet,' the Yemeni Influencer Celebrating Red Sea Ship Raids
On January 15, a user on X reposted a TikTok of a young man sailing around the Galaxy Leader, a cargo ship seized by Yemen’s militant Houthis last year. “Yemeni pirates posting casual tiktok’s while the entire western imperial core are having a meltdown about their blockade on their ships is the funniest shit of 2024, surely,” the user wrote in a caption. As of this writing, the video has been viewed more than 13 million times, with social media users dubbing the handsome man “Timhouthi Chalamet.”
-
Jacobin Magazine ☛ In Italy’s Main Shipyard, Anti-Islam Policy Divides Workers
This is the backdrop to the increasing use of immigrant labor, which is owed to an intertwining of profitability questions and demographic factors. The shipyard was always a pole of attraction for labor as well as politically managed (internal) migration, notably under the fascist regime. Indeed, fascism favored the influx of nonunionized labor from the southern region of Puglia in order to discipline and “cleanse” a working class that had shown remarkable combativity. This was seen as an “Austrian-minded” working class, which looked across the border to an international labor movement — thus needed “Italianizing.”
-
Democracy Now ☛ “The People Won”: Guatemala Inaugurates Anti-Corruption President Bernardo Arévalo Despite Sabotage
Bernardo Arévalo was sworn in as president of Guatemala Monday after conservative leaders attempted for months to disqualify Arévalo’s landslide victory in August’s runoff presidential election by claiming election fraud and persecuting his progressive Semilla party up until the final hours before his inauguration. Arévalo is the son of the country’s first democratically elected president, who implemented a series of revolutionary reforms from 1945 to 1951 before a CIA-backed coup ousted his successor and ushered in decades of authoritarian rule. Many supporters see Arévalo’s presidency as a new spring for Guatemala. We discuss the battle to defend his election, the pro-democracy protests in the country and what Guatemala can expect from his leadership with three guests: Andrea Villagrán, Guatemalan congressmember with Movimiento Semilla; Lucía Ixchíu, exiled K’iche Indigenous leader; and Frank La Rue, Guatemalan human rights activist, lawyer and a member of the election observation team.
-
Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
-
Atlantic Council ☛ Confident Putin boasts of Russian “conquests” in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin is now openly referring to "Russian conquests" in Ukraine as he grows visibly in confidence amid mounting signs of Western weakness, writes Peter Dickinson.
> -
France24 ☛ Zelensky warns Davos that ‘predator’ Putin will pursue Ukraine invasion if fighting paused
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday told attendees at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in the Swiss resort town of Davos that Russian President Vladimir Putin would pursue his invasion of Ukraine even if fighting paused on the sprawling front.
-
New York Times ☛ Putin Is Making His Plans Brutally Clear
Ukrainians know that when it comes to Vladimir Putin, one must not trust what he says, but watch what he does.
-
ADF ☛ With New Name, Same Russian Mercenaries Plague Africa
The Wagner Group may have a new name for its operations in Africa, but it’s the same Russian mercenary outfit that has pillaged mineral wealth and left a trail of atrocities across the continent.
-
Atlantic Council ☛ Russia faces fresh accusations of targeting journalists in Ukraine
A series of Russian attacks on hotels used by international journalists has sparked fresh accusations that Moscow is deliberately targeting the media in Ukraine, writes Mercedes Sapuppo.
-
France24 ☛ More than a dozen injured in Russian strikes on Ukraine's Kharkiv
At least 17 people were wounded in Russian strikes on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Tuesday evening, the regional governor said.
-
France24 ☛ Ukraine orders evacuation of Kharkiv villages threatened by Russian attacks
Authorities in Ukraine's northeast region of Kharkiv on Tuesday urged residents of more than two dozen villages near the front line to evacuate, citing worsening Russian attacks in the area.
-
JURIST ☛ Poland truckers blockading Ukraine border sign temporary agreement with government to halt protest
The Polish Ministry of Infrastructure announced Tuesday that protests along the Polish and Ukrainian borders carried out by Polish truckers have come to a temporary halt until March 1 due to an agreement facilitated by Minister of Infrastructure Dariusz Klimcza.
-
LRT ☛ Lithuanian institutions buy cars from company linked to declared war sponsor Vičiūnai Group
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Lithuanian state companies and institutions have purchased more than 12 million euros worth of goods from car trading company Autovici, linked to Vičiūnai Group, which has recently been added to Ukraine’s list of international war sponsors, initiative group STOP Trade in Russia reported on Tuesday.
-
RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Journalist Links Attempted Home Raid With His Reports Criticizing Government
Ukrainian investigative journalist Yuriy Nikolov, whose report suggested mass corruption among officials at the Defense Ministry, has linked a recent incident at his apartment, when unknown men tried to force their way into his home, with his reports criticizing the government.
-
RFERL ☛ Polish Truckers Suspend Border Blockade After Agreement With Government
Polish truckers have ended their blockade at the Jagodzin-Dorohusk checkpoint on the border with Ukraine, the State Border Service reported on January 16 after the truckers reached an agreement earlier to suspend their protest over unfair competition.
-
RFERL ☛ Biden Invites Lawmakers To White House To Discuss Ukraine Aid After Zelenskiy Stresses Unity At Davos
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged the West to be united in its backing of Ukraine in the face of Russia's nearly two-year aggression and called for Kyiv's allies to help it establish air superiority over Moscow in order to win on the battlefield.
-
New York Times ☛ Zelensky Calls for Peace, Not More Weapons, in Davos
In a speech in Switzerland, the Ukrainian president asked for more sanctions on Moscow, but he did not appeal for weaponry for new offenses.
-
Meduza ☛ Russian university student who was accused of working for Ukrainian hackers charged with treason — Meduza
-
The Kent Stater ☛ US citizen detained in Russia on alleged drug charges, Moscow court says
CNN — A US citizen has been arrested in Moscow on drug-related charges, according to an official statement released Tuesday. The citizen, named as Robert Woodland, is accused of preparing and attempting a crime, as well as illegally dealing with drugs.
-
RFERL ☛ New Doctrine In Belarus For First Time Provides For Use Of Nuclear Weapons
The defense minister of Belarus said on January 16 that the country will put forth a new military doctrine that for the first time provides for the use of nuclear weapons.
-
RFERL ☛ Navalny's Self-Exiled Lawyer Olga Mikhailova Charged With Extremism In Absentia
Olga Mikhailova, a self-exiled lawyer of imprisoned Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, said on Facebook (Farcebook) on January 16 that Russian prosecutors charged her in absentia with participating in an extremist community because of her association with Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).
-
RFERL ☛ Turkmen, Russian Nationals Largest Groups With Residence Permits In Turkey
Turkey says people from Turkmenistan and Russia are the two largest groups of foreigners living in the country as they seek better living conditions.
-
Meduza ☛ Russian airline S7 cuts Moscow staff amid aircraft repair challenges due to sanctions — Meduza
-
Meduza ☛ Estonian authorities arrest political science professor suspected of spying for Russia — Meduza
-
RFERL ☛ Russian Professor At Estonian University Arrested On Espionage Charge
Estonian media reported on January 16 said that Vyacheslav Morozov, a Russian citizen who worked as a professor on international political theory at the University of Tartu, was arrested earlier this month.
-
RFERL ☛ Activists In Russia's Bashkortostan Under Pressure Day Before Alsynov's Sentencing
Authorities in Russia's Republic of Bashkortostan detained several noted activists on January 16, one day before a court is expected to pronounce the verdict and sentence of activist Fail Alsynov.
-
Meduza ☛ Russian colonel sentenced to six years in prison for failing to defend Crimean Bridge from drone attacks — Meduza
-
Meduza ☛ Russian rapper who attended ‘almost naked’ party receives military summons after release from jail — Meduza
-
New Yorker ☛ An Economics Lesson from Tolstoy
The Russian novelist believed that the dismal science was inescapably suffused with morality and politics.
-
-
-
Environment
-
Overpopulation ☛ Earth’s nature is being ravaged by population growth
In 1800, the world’s population was 1 billion, but in 2022 we exceeded 8 billion and are now growing by about 80 million a year. At the same time species and ecosystems are declining and disappearing through our overexploitation: more than one in four of 150,000 reviewed species are threatened, half of which are vascular plants. Among 71,000 animal species studied, almost half are decreasing, only 3 percent are increasing. And it goes fast. Since 1970, populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish have declined on average about 70 percent. The reasons are many. Overexploitation in forestry, hunting and fishing. Agriculture and livestock farming over expanding areas. Infrastructure and buildings such as housing, industries, roads and mines. Our spread of invasive organisms.
Species usually decline because we take over and wipe out their habitats – natural ecosystems and environments to which they have long adapted through evolution. These days habitat destruction happens mainly in the tropics, but also in Europe. There, plants and animals are decreasing in parallel with increasing population density and consumption, as the ecologist Trevor Beebee shows in his current book “Impacts of Human Population on Wildlife” (2023).
-
Hindustan Times ☛ The fervour of Swifties is driving up travel interest across Europe
Beyond the above-mentioned cities, there’s also a rising interest in Vienna, Madrid, Zurich, Lyon, Milan, and Amsterdam. The firm also confirmed that American fans are driving transatlantic travel demand as they are planning to travel to see the singer perform in Europe.
-
Greece ☛ Fishermen calling for no-go zones
Although they are well aware of the financial losses they will incur, fishermen on Amorgos are calling for limits to be placed on fishing around their island in order to preserve fish stocks for the future. [...]
-
New York Times ☛ It’s January at a Big Himalayan Resort. Where’s the Snow?
Javed Rehman, a tourism official in Kashmir, said that no snow essentially means no tourism this time of year. It is a stark contrast to 2023, when the resort extended the ski season by 15 days, to April 15, because of an influx of people, he said.
-
Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong’s pay-as-you-throw waste tax requires residents’ ‘support, cooperation,’ environmental chief says
Hong Kong’s pay-as-you-throw waste tax would require residents’ “support and cooperation” and could take years to be widely upheld, environmental chief Tse Chin-wan has said. In an op-ed published by Ming Pao on Monday, the secretary for environment and ecology said the new waste charging scheme was “easy to comply with, civilised and hygienic.”
-
Energy/Transportation
-
DeSmog ☛ What Alberta Premier Danielle Smith Gets Wrong About Heat Pumps
A major cold snap led to record electricity usage in the Canadian province of Alberta over the weekend, culminating in demands from provincial utilities to limit consumption. The extreme cold and record-setting electrical consumption has reignited local debates about whether heat pumps are a viable option in the province.
While Canada’s federal government is interested in helping Canadians transition off oil and gas for home heating — and is incentivizing the installation of heat pumps — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has repeatedly warned against them.The premier has made the same comment — that heat pumps don’t work well in cold temperatures and that homeowners can’t get insurance without having a backup heating source — on at least two separate occasions in recent months.Smith’s comments were made in the context of home heating costs within a wider discussion concerning carbon taxes and the affordability crisis.
-
-
Wildlife/Nature
-
The Revelator ☛ The Amazon Is in Trouble
-
-
-
Finance
-
Latvia ☛ LTV's De Facto looks at Baltic International Bank's liquidation process
The Baltic International Bank was closed by the regulator about a year ago. It turns out the bank has less money than accounted for and it cannot settle with all creditors, Latvian Television's De Facto reported on January 14.
-
JURIST ☛ China authorities announce corruption charges against former chair of banking giant Everbright Group
Tang Shuangning, the former Chairperson of state-owned Chinese banking behemoth Everbright Group, was arrested on charges of embezzlement, accepting bribes and “privately reading publications with serious political problems,” China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate said on Monday.
-
Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Ex-chair of Chinese state-owned bank Everbright arrested over alleged corruption, bribery
The former chairman of state-owned Chinese banking giant Everbright Group has been arrested on suspicion of corruption and bribery, prosecutors said on Monday.
-
Robert Reich ☛ Biden vs. Trump: Whose Economic Plan Is Better for You?
-
-
AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
-
New York Times ☛ Harris Warns of ‘Profound Threat’ to America’s Freedoms
In a speech honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the vice president denounced laws rolling back civil rights and emphasized the fights that await future generations.
-
Jacobin Magazine ☛ Fossil Fuel Corporations Are Faking Grassroots Support
According to a new briefing from the Clean Creatives, an advocacy group focused on cutting the public relations industry’s ties with fossil fuels, the PR juggernaut Edelman has employed its purportedly definitive “trust barometer” — the newest edition of which was released on Monday at the World Economic Forum — to help fossil fuel companies more effectively manufacture public trust. With Edelman’s help, these corporations turned oil and gas workers into a positive public face for fossil fuels, obscuring the role of the profit-hungry executives who actually pull the strings.
-
Antipope ☛ The coming storm
2024 looks set to be a somewhat disruptive year.
Never mind the Summer Olympics in Paris; the big news is politics, where close to half the world's population get to vote in elections with a strong prospect of electing outright fascists.
-
The Verge ☛ Google layoffs continue with ‘hundreds’ from sales team
After laying off about 1,000 employees last week, Google is now cutting jobs on its advertising sales team. In a statement to The Verge, Google spokesperson Chris Pappas confirmed that “a few hundred roles globally are being eliminated” as part of the change.
-
India Times ☛ OpenAI seeks to allay election meddling fears in blog post
The company faces challenges policing what is actually happening on its platform.
-
-
Censorship/Free Speech
-
University of Michigan ☛ Board of Regents schedules special meeting for Jan. 16
The Board of Regents will conduct a special meeting at 4 p.m. Jan. 16 to vote on a statement regarding free speech. It follows a public feedback period on a draft statement of principles.
-
RFERL ☛ Iran Extends Jailed Nobel Laureate Mohammadi's Prison Sentence
The statement said the charge was brought against Mohammadi, 51, by the Intelligence Ministry. The Nobel laureate did not attend the latest trial and the verdict was issued in her absence, according to her family.
In addition to the extended prison term, Mohammadi has also been banished from Tehran for two years and barred from traveling abroad, using a smart phone, and joining political groups for the same time period.
-
New York Times ☛ Iran Adds Prison Time for Nobel Winner and Frees 2 Journalists on Bail
The Iranian regime sentenced Narges Mohammadi, the jailed human rights activist who received the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, to 15 more months in prison, her family said on Monday.
The news came a day after Iran released the journalists Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi on bail while they appeal their sentences, according to state media. They had been jailed for their coverage of a young woman whose death sparked a nationwide protest movement that challenged the country’s system of authoritarian clerical rule. Prosecutors filed a new complaint against the women on Monday.
-
JURIST ☛ Iran court hands Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi extended prison term
The Islamic Revolutionary Court’s verdict includes fifteen months in prison, two years of exile outside Tehran and its neighboring provinces, a two-year travel ban, a two-year ban on membership in socio-political groups, and a two-year ban on using a smartphone, as reported by Mohammadi’s family.
The additional charges follow Mohammadi’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in October last year. She is the 19th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the second Iranian woman, after human rights activist Shirin Ebadi in 2003.
-
[Old] The Fire ☛ Why Hillsdale earns a ‘Warning’ rating from FIRE
Public institutions are, of course, legally bound to follow First Amendment standards, but private schools have the right, as private associations, to prioritize other values above free speech. Accordingly, we first review policies at private schools to see if they do promise their students free speech rights. If they do, we hold them to following the associated legal standards a matriculating student may expect given those advertised commitments.
However, if a private school doesn’t have a clear, written commitment to free speech, and instead consistently states in policy that student speech must align with other particular values, we award that school a Warning rating.
-
University of Michigan ☛ University adopts statement on diversity of thought, freedom of speech
The Board of Regents voted Jan. 16 to approve the “Principles on Diversity of Thought and Freedom of Expression” to make it clear that “as a great public university … we enthusiastically embrace our responsibility to stimulate and support diverse ideas and model constructive engagement with different viewpoints.”
-
Techdirt ☛ Free Speech Experts Realizing Just How Big A Free Speech Hypocrite Elon Is
On Monday, Elon Musk tweeted “To fear parody or criticism is a sign of weakness.”
-
-
Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
-
Washington Monthly ☛ How Fighting Monopoly Can Save Journalism
The collapse of the news industry is not an inevitable consequence of technology or market forces. It’s the result of policy mistakes over the past 40 years that the Biden administration is already taking measures to fix.
-
RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Journalist Links Attempted Home Raid With His Reports Criticizing Government
Well-known Ukrainian investigative journalist Yuriy Nikolov, whose recent report revealed possible mass corruption among top officials at the Defense Ministry, has linked a recent incident at his apartment, when unknown men tried to force their way into his home, with his reports critical of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his government.
-
-
Civil Rights/Policing
-
The Dissenter ☛ US Judge Rules In Favor Of Police 'Buffer Law' Viewed As Threat To Rights Of Journalists
-
Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Over 40% of Hong Kong students ‘embarrassed’ to be in parents’ social control media posts, survey finds
Over 70 per cent of Hong Kong students have said they would prefer it if their parents did not post photos and stories of them on social control media platforms, with some saying it made them feel embarrassed or even angry, a survey conducted by a youth group has found.
-
-
Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
-
JURIST ☛ Editors Guild of India issue concerns about broadcasting legislation
The Editors Guild of India (EGI) on Monday, issued statement on X (formerly known as Twitter), expressing concerns over the draft Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill, stating that the provisions of the bill would lead to an overarching censorship framework for broadcasting services, imcluding the news broadcasting.
-
Techdirt ☛ Americans Received 55 Billion Robocalls In 2023, A 9% Jump From 2022
It’s extremely weird that we’ve somehow normalized the fact that scammers, scumbags, debt collectors, and marketers have made the U.S.’ primary voice communication platform largely unusable.
-
-
Digital Restrictions (DRM)
-
The Register UK ☛ John Deere tractors get connectivity boost with Starlink deal
The farm equipment giant's hardware has been increasingly connected to the [Internet] over the years, with Deere pushing its John Deere Operations Center (JDOC) software as a way for farmers to manage their equipment and view various types of data pertaining to their farm's environs and performance.
John May, CEO at John Deere, predicted in 2022 that some 10 percent of the company's revenue would come from software fees by 2030. Making that software worth the recurring cost to cash-strapped farmers means ensuring Deere equipment isn't regularly dropping its [Internet] connection.
-
-
R J Faas ☛ Apple – You’re not a struggling company anymore so stop acting like it
I guess it’s a tacit statement that they’ll only go after the big guys but won’t spend the expense for others – and let’s be clear, this will be expensive for Apple and may not even make financial sense overall. But since that’s not stated, there’s no way to know where they draw the line. The basic message is that Apple will let you use alternate payment processors but will make it as tedious and difficult as possible to convince you not to.
-
Silicon Angle ☛ A loss for Epic, costly for Apple: Supreme Court refuses to review antitrust case
In December, a federal court ruled in favor of Epic in the Google case, a result Epic said was a “win for all app developers and consumers around the world.” It’s not certain right now what changes Google will make after this verdict, but what was peculiar to some observers was the fact that in the very similar case against Apple, in which Epic also claimed Apple abuses its “monopoly,” the Supreme Court had earlier ruled in favor of Apple.
The rejection to hear the case today may not, on paper, look like it makes sense, although the court must have had its reasons. Apple has had to make some concessions. It was ordered to allow developers to add “calls to action” so consumers could hit links to another payment system. Apple had before relied on what are called anti-steering policies to ensure this wouldn’t happen.
-
Patents
-
Kangaroo Courts
-
Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ The CJEU judgment of 11 January 2024 in Gilead v. Mylan. Will it prompt an exodus of patent monopoly owners to the UPC? [Ed: UPC is illegal and unconstitutional. It should be challenged already by escalating the matter of its very existence.]
As readers will be well aware, one of the preferred hobbies of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) is to issue controversial judgments in intellectual property matters which, quite often, instead of providing guidance to national courts, raise more questions than they answer.
-
-
-
Trademarks
-
Vice Media Group ☛ Trader Joe's Sued Its Union Over Tote Bags. A Judge Just Threw the Case Out.
Trader Joe's trademark lawsuit was an "obvious" ploy to gain an edge over the union, the judge said in their decision to dismiss.
-
Right of Publicity
-
Vice Media Group ☛ Congress Is Trying to Stop AI Nudes and Deepfake Scams Because Celebrities Are Mad
The new bill, called the No AI FRAUD Act and introduced by Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA), would establish legal definitions for “likeness and voice rights,” effectively banning the use of AI deepfakes to nonconsensually mimic another person, living or dead. The draft bill proclaims that “every individual has a property right in their own likeness and voice,” and cites several recent incidents where people have been turned into weird AI robots. It specifically mentions recent viral videos that featured AI-generated songs mimicking the voices of pop artists like Justin Bieber, Bad Bunny, Drake, and The Weeknd.
-
BW Businessworld Media Pvt Ltd ☛ New IT Rules To Curb Deepfake Menace To Be Notified By Next Week: Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar
Reacting to Tendulkar falling victim to deepfake videos, the Minister said, "That there has been a mixed performance of compliance. I had said at the time of the advisory, that if we find that the advisory is not being followed through completely we will follow it up with very clear, amended IT rules that we had notified. we have decided that there will be new IT rules, it will be notified very shortly. We hope to do this in the next one week."
Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the government wants to use technology for good work. "We must provide safe and secure [Internet] to every citizen. We will work hard for it and make rules."
-
-
-
Copyrights
-
Press Gazette ☛ While New York Times litigates over AI, many media companies will liquidate – US Congress warned
Conde Nast chief executive Roger Lynch has warned that “many” media companies could go out of business in the time it would take for litigation against generative AI companies to pass through the courts.
-
Torrent Freak ☛ JW Player Suffers Severe Traffic Loss After Dynamic Piracy Blocking Blunder
A piracy blocking injunction handed down by an Indian court last September appears to have cost video delivery service JW Player over half of its usual website traffic from visitors in India. Plaintiffs Star India, Hotstar and Disney+ Hotstar, initially requested ISP blocking against less than 10 websites. However, since the court issued a dynamic+ injunction, they were free to keep adding domains, JW Player's included. Instructions to unblock JW Player's domain were not issued until January 9, 2024
-
Torrent Freak ☛ BREIN Takes Down Virtual Pirate Streaming Worlds on VRChat
With technology developing at a rapid pace, virtual reality is expected to be a growth market for entertainment, including films. While it's a relatively small market today, pirates are already venturing into these new worlds, with anti-piracy organizations following closely behind.
-
Digital Music News ☛ “Current Copyright Laws Were Not Designed with Hey Hi (AI) In Mind” Says Virginie Berger—So How Does the Industry Deal with AI? [Ed: LLMs are not Hey Hi (AI), they're mechanising plagiarism]
Keeping the music industry fair for all is a constant tug-of-war against many types of fraud. From preventing false royalty claims, stopping automated bot streaming, and keeping platforms accountable—everyone has a different opinion. Today we’re speaking with Virginie Berger, Chief Business Development & Rights Officer at Matchtune.
-
-
Gemini* and Gopher
-
Personal/Opinions
-
#Lore24 - Day 16 - On Reactionals
The idea of splitting elemental and reactional magic came from a single place, Rich Burlew's Order of the Stick. In specific comic #423[4]. When I read that, the idea went straight to long term memory and was pulled into even the first stories I wrote in the world.
-
A small post
So far so good here, all things considered. My time here is coming to an end soon, and I have a few things to do before I go. I'm very tired, so this is just a quick update.
-
-
Monopolies/Monopsonies
-
* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.