Links 01/06/2024: WeblogPoMo2024, Pentagon’s Increasing Reliance on (i.e. Bailouts to) Microsoft
Contents
- Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
- Leftovers
- Science
- 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 Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
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Education
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Positech Games ☛ In praise of long-form content and deep work – Cliffski's Blog
Imagine the situation where you want to read something, which means taking new information into your brain, and you are only able to commit to a 3 minute session of reading, not 5 minutes. Unless you are the US president, or Elon Musk, you probably don’t actually have to save the vital 2 minutes difference. So this metric is not really being given to be in any way helpful, its being given as a kind of reassurance, or in the 6 minute case, presumably as some sort of urgent trigger warning. Its no great revelation that social media is warping out minds, but I really don’t think we appreciate just how bad its getting. When you cannot make a safe assumption that someone’s attention will be held for even 6 minutes, we are in real serious trouble.
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Leftovers
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Joel Chrono ☛ WeblogPoMo2024 is over
I was already a bit unsure about me doing a blog per month, I had done it before, but a lot of my evenings were spent on all those other things—I didn’t even finish my Top 25 Games post like I intended. That’s alright for me, since I still wasn’t happy with how I was writing it. I will dedicate a some more time to complete it.
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Lewis Dale ☛ #WeblogPoMo2024 retrospective
Overall, I’m kind of impressed I’m even writing a post on the last day. Honestly, I expected to maybe manage the first 7-or-so days, but in fact I managed to write 19 consecutive blog posts (and that’s not counting the intro post on the 30th of April). In total, including today, I managed to write a post 25/31 days. I’m calling that a success.
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Lev Lazinskiy ☛ Five Books Every Human Should Read
I’m sorry. You were looking for a listicle, but instead you are going to have a brief existential crisis. There have been more books published this month then you will ever have the chance to read in your lifetime. This is why this is an extremely curated list that will never grow above 5. It only includes those books that I believe every human should read given their limited time on this earth.
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Barry Sampson ☛ WeblogPoMo Review
Back on day two I set out my goals for WeblogPoMo2024. Here's how it's gone.
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Barry Hess ☛ Blogging Every Day
I have blogged every day for two separate months this year: January and May. Mostly these have been a positive experiences. Some pretty nice posts have come out of these blogging challenges and I’m not sure whether or not those posts would have been written without the challenge.
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Lou Plummer ☛ My #Weblog2024 Retrospective
If something is worth doing in my world, it is worth overdoing, so for #WeblogPoMo2024, I wrote not one, but two posts every day, one for this blog and one for my app review site, AppAddict. After the first week, I managed to stay a day ahead for the rest of the month using the scheduled post feature of Scribbles. I don't have a list of things to blog about (yet) so I'd usually start brainstorming in the afternoon until an idea struck me and then I'd type it out in the last hour before bed.
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Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Matthew Graybosch
This is the 40th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Matthew Graybosch and his blog, starbreaker.org
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Futurism ☛ YouTube's Crackdown on Ad Blockers Is Making It Miserable to Use
YouTube recently doubled down on its neverending campaign against ad-blocking services.
But for ad blocker users who have lately experienced annoying glitches on the video-sharing platform, YouTube may not be the party to blame.
In an April announcement, YouTube vowed to strengthen its anti-adblocker "enforcement," arguing that they violate the platform's Terms of Service and ultimately hinder creators.
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Rob Knight ☛ A WeblogPoMo Retrospective
WeblogPoMo is over. You can read all my posts here. I followed the hashtag all month and also followed the @pomo account. I was flooded with excellent posts daily including people who just started blogging which fills my small web heart with joy.
There's nothing I love more than reading about things people are really into and WeblogPoMo has delivered on that. Here's some of the stuff I enjoyed. Anne organised all this and you can see all her excellent posts here.
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Robert Birming ☛ WeblogPoMo Voices
WeblogPoMo 2024 – the fun and inspiring challenge to "encourage people to choose a guiding topic for the month, something that will help them feel propelled to post” – is over for this time (but Junited starts tomorrow). Many thanks to Anne Sturdivant for organizing it.
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Brandon ☛ WeblogPomo Comes to an End
Today is the final day of WeblogPomo. For the past thirty-one days, myself along with seventy-one registered participants, and I'm sure quite a few who didn't register, posted a new blog every day for the month of May. I thought I'd reflect on the past month and what I learned from this challenge.
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Anne Sturdivant ☛ Blogroll Spin #6
Warning: this list is loaded! Many names on this spin may need no introduction and perhaps it's a little belated to be adding them during the sixth spin of this blogroll.
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Lev Lazinskiy ☛ Forbidden Words | Lev Lazinskiy
This is an evolving list of forbidden words and phrases that substitute cliches for actual thought. (inspired by HBR Guide for Better Business Writing), the exception is when words are used in the right context. For example, when referring to network bandwidth.
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Standards/Consortia
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The Register UK ☛ ICQ may shut down, but Nina may yet resurrect it
Multiple independent efforts are underway to save ICQ from extinction… as well as MSN, AIM, Yahoo! and more.
The recent news that ICQ is shutting down seems to have surprised a lot of people who didn't realize that it was still going. AOL sold the service to Digital Sky Technologies back in 2010, and the Reg FOSS desk – once known to his friends as 73187508 – verified that old accounts still worked.
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Jan Lukas Else ☛ Adding more context to my blogroll
The hosted Miniflux finally contains my newly contributed feature to save descriptions for feeds. The exported OPML also contains them, and that’s why I’m finally able to show some context on my blogroll.
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Science
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Science News ☛ The largest known genome belongs to a tiny fern
A small fern has broken the record for the largest genome yet known, researchers report May 31 in iScience. The plant’s full set of genetic instructions is over 50 times the size of the human genome. And it’s about 7 percent larger than the genome of the previous record holder, a Japanese flower dubbed Paris japonica.
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The Local DK ☛ Blacksmiths in Denmark steer journey into Viking ship's past
The clang of hammer on metal rings out across the Danish fjord as sweating blacksmiths work to painstakingly recreate an anchor that once hung from a Viking longship 1,000 years ago.
Their efforts are part of a project to seek out the seafaring secrets of those Scandinavian sailors by reconstructing the boats they crossed the seas in.
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The Conversation ☛ The universe’s biggest explosions made some of the elements we are composed of. But there’s another mystery source out there
In order to explain the presence of these heavier elements today, it’s necessary to find phenomena that can produce them. One type of event that fits the bill is a gamma-ray burst (GRB) – the most powerful class of explosion in the universe. These can erupt with a quintillion (10 followed by 18 zeros) times the luminosity of our Sun, and are thought to be caused by several types of event.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Wired ☛ Gene-Edited Salad Greens Are Coming to US Stores This Fall
Pairwise previously took the greens to farmers markets for taste-test trials and explained to shoppers that they were made with gene editing. Tasters were generally positive about the greens, according to Pairwise CEO Tom Adams. The company is now turning its attention to developing pitless cherries and seedless blackberries. “We see our role in the food chain as inventing new products,” he says.
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Science News ☛ It’s a big year for cicadas. Here’s what to know about this year’s emergence
The year 2024 offers a particularly good display. The biggest, in geographic extent, of all the in-sync groups (called broods) is emerging from soil into daylight this spring. Known as Brood XIX, it spans roughly from Georgia into Illinois. And unlike 2021’s extravaganza (SN: 12/14/21), this time a second multispecies brood in the Midwest (called Brood XIII) means all seven of North America’s named species will be showing off somewhere.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, periodical cicadas offer nature watching at its friendliest. No binoculars needed. Neither young cicadas nor adults have body parts that can sting or bite. Plus, these cicadas are so easy to catch for a close-up — just reach out and pick one up.
Here are answers to some cicada-watcher questions.
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The Local DK ☛ Heights, knives, and fire: the surprising risks Danes expose their children to
When you live somewhere like this, it rubs off on you. You relax into it, knowing society has generally got your back.
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ SCOTUS Is Helping Corporations Dodge Consumer Liability
The US Supreme Court just handed the oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries — and its subsidiary, Georgia-Pacific, a paper and building material manufacturer — a major victory when it allowed the company to avoid paying damages to people who claim they were poisoned by the company’s products.
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Le Monde ☛ In Sweden, parents of young children question the omnipresence of screens
However, parents are starting to question things, at a time when health professionals are slowly starting to sound the alarm. In autumn 2023, the Public Health Agency in Stockholm announced that it would make recommendations by December 2024. For the moment, there are no guidelines, apart from those of the Swedish Paediatric Association, published in November 2023, for children aged 0 to 5. In this eight-page document – half of which refers to scientific studies – the doctors proceed with caution. They acknowledge that parents, who themselves spend a great deal of time in front of screens, may feel a "certain reluctance" to accept the results of the study, which "tends to recommend that the youngest children should not use digital screens at all." Pediatricians, therefore, advise no screens until 2 years of age, then a maximum of one hour a day until the age of 5.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Caitlin Dewey ☛ Gmail will break your heart
My phone periodically resurfaces photos from the recentish past. It’s a feature of Google Photos, which I’ve used for five years, and a shameless nostalgia trap. On this day last year, I was making tacos. On this day two years ago, we hiked Glacier. I’ll tap without fail, swiping the years back — disquieting the depths where those pixels settled.
Emails, however, are another story. Google never reminds me of them. Once read or sent, they sink forever into digital muck — all 18 unremembered years of it.
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Futurism ☛ Google Admits Its AI Search Feature Is a Dumpster Fire, Says It Will Scale Back the Tool
Google is at least partially admitting that its AI Overviews search feature is a hot mess.
The company's generative AI-enhanced search tool has been giving users incredibly dumb answers, confidently telling one user, for instance, to add "about 1/8 cup of non-toxic glue" to their pizza sauce to stop it from sliding off the pie. Other users were told to eat at least one rock a day or literally jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.
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The Register UK ☛ Google finally addresses those bizarre AI search results
For those who missed it, Google introduced these so-called AI Overviews this month, graduating the system from an optional experimental feature to putting it into worldwide production starting with US users.
Basically, when you search for something on the web using Google, or ask it a question, the tech colossus may use its Gemini AI mega-model to automatically generate an answer at the top of the results page for your query. This answer is supposed to be based on what the web has to say about the topic you attempted to look up. Rather than click through search results links to pages to find information, netizens are offered an AI-made summary of that info right there on the results page.
That summary is supposed to be accurate and relevant. However, as some folks discovered, Google sometimes came back with absurd and nonsensical answers.
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Wired ☛ Google's AI Overviews Will Always Be Broken. That's How AI Works
Socher says wrangling LLMs takes considerable effort because the underlying technology has no real understanding of the world and because the web is riddled with untrustworthy information. “In some cases it is better to actually not just give you an answer, or to show you multiple different viewpoints,” he says.
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CBC ☛ Winnipeg man caught in scam after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was legitimate
"Nobody's gotten back to me" from Meta, he said. "And that's another reason why I want to bring this forward, because it just seems like they operate with impunity. They don't have to answer to me."
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Vox ☛ OpenAI and Vox Media: What a media licensing deal says about the future of the [Internet]
The final result? The entire galaxy, including you, me, and everyone we know, has either been destroyed or been transformed into paperclips. (As AI arch-doomer Eliezer Yudkowsky has written: “The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.”) End thought experiment.
The point of the paperclip maximizer experiment is twofold. One, we can expect AIs to be optimizers and maximizers. Given a goal, they will endeavor to find the optimal strategy to fulfill the maximal achievement of that goal, without worrying about the side effects (which in this case involve the galaxy being turned into paperclips).
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Security Week ☛ Mysterious Threat Actor Used Chalubo Malware to Brick 600,000 Routers
The destructive incident occurred over a 72-hour period between October 25 and October 27, 2023, and impacted ActionTec T3200s, ActionTec T3260s, and Sagemcom F5380 router models.
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The Verge ☛ What we learned from the huge Google Search leak
The algorithm that powers Google Search is one of the most important, most complicated, and least understood systems that rule the internet. As of this week, though, we understand it a little better. Thanks to a huge leak of API documentation, we got an unprecedented look at what Google cares about, how it ranks content, and how it thinks the internet should work. The leaked documentation is dense, and it doesn’t tell us everything about how Google ranks, but it does offer a set of signals we’ve never seen before.
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Wired ☛ Google Admits Its AI Overviews Search Feature Screwed Up
When bizarre and misleading answers to search queries generated by Google’s new AI Overview feature went viral on social media last week, the company issued statements that generally downplayed the notion the technology had problems. Late Thursday, the company’s head of search, Liz Reid, admitted that the flubs had highlighted areas that needed improvement, writing, “We wanted to explain what happened and the steps we’ve taken.”
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Cyble Inc ☛ OpenAI Reveal Covert Influence Operations By State-Actors
Through an in-depth analysis of recent developments and disruptions, the AI and Covert Influence Operations Latest Trends report offers invaluable insights into the modern-day tactics employed by threat actors to manipulate narratives and influence public opinion across online platforms.
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The Register UK ☛ Mystery attacker remotely bricked 600,000 SOHO routers
The cyber attack, which wasn't reported at the time, took place over a 72-hour period between October 25 and 27, 2023. It "rendered the infected devices permanently inoperable, and required a hardware-based replacement," according to US telco Lumen Technologies' Black Lotus Labs, which published details about the destructive event on Thursday and named it "Pumpkin Eclipse."
It seems the mysterious intruders specifically targeted two different routers – ActionTec's T3200 and T3260 – but it's unclear how they gained access.
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Bennett, Coleman & Company Ltd ☛ Tech Layoffs 2024: Over 9,500 Employees Fired In May Alone, Over 89,000 Lost Jobs Since January | Times Now
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Austin's tech industry sees wave of layoffs; local economists remain bullish
Since 2023, tech giants like Google, Dell, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft have slashed tens of thousands of jobs. With heightening interest rates and inflation, Sprague said it was only a matter of time that the trend reached Austin’s tech sector as well.
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Security
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Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
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University of Toronto ☛ Phish tests aren't like fire drills
Google recently wrote a (blog) article, On Fire Drills and Phishing Tests, which discusses the early history of what we now call fire drills. As the article covers, the early "fire evacuation tests" focused mostly on how individual people performed, complete with telling people that things were their own fault for not doing the evacuation well enough. It then analogizes this to the current way "phish tests" are done. As I read this, I had a reaction on the Fediverse to the general thought of fire drills and phish tests: [...]
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Patrick Breyer ☛ Majority for chat control possible – Users who refuse scanning to be prevented from sharing photos and links
“The Belgian proposal means that the essence of the EU Commission’s extreme and unprecedented initial chat control proposal would be implemented unchanged,” warns MEP and most prominent opponent of chat control Patrick Breyer (Pirate Party). “Using messenger services purely for texting is not an option in the 21st century. And removing excesses that aren’t being used in practice anyway is a sham.
Millions of private chats and private photos of innocent citizens are to be searched using unreliable technology and then leaked without the affected chat users being even remotely connected to child sexual abuse – this would destroy our digital privacy of correspondence. Our nude photos and family photos would end up with strangers in whose hands they do not belong and with whom they are not safe. Despite lip service being paid to encryption, client-side scanning would undermine previously secure end-to-end encryption in order to turn our smartphones into spies – this would destroy secure encryption.
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The Washington Post ☛ Carpenter’s AirTags help uncover ‘massive’ case of stolen tools in Md.
Twice before, this Virginia carpenter had awoken in the predawn to start his work day only to find one of his vans broken into. Tools he depends on for a living had been stolen, and there was little hope of retrieving them. Determined to shut down thieves, he said, he bought a bunch of Apple AirTags and hid the locator devices in some of his larger tools that hadn’t been pilfered. Next time, he figured, he would track them.
It worked.
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The Register UK ☛ DoD awards Palantir $480M for battlefield AI tech everywhere
Maven is arguably the Pentagon's highest profile artificial intelligence project, and involves the use of AI models and algorithms to identify battlefield targets from available information and surveillance visuals, such as drone video footage. Work on the project began in 2017, and it's been deployed for real-world use since late last year after Hamas attacked Israel, the US military said.
Outspoken Palantir CEO Alex Karp earlier said the Peter-Thiel-built-biz has led the Maven project since Google pulled out amid employee protest.
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Defence/Aggression
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Daniel Miessler ☛ The Left's Brexit
Here's the problem. They don't get to fucking decide that. Half the country has seen all this evidence and they still want him. This shakes me deeply. I don't see how that's possible. But it's true. Go check the polls. It's tied. Half. Half the country still wants him over The Left.
Actually, I eventually did figure this out. Most people voting for him also hate him compared to a theoretical, better conservative, but they love him because he's the best weapon against the Radical Left. In other words, they love him because he's their defense against the Left turning the country into San Francisco.
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New Eastern Europe ☛ Why pacifism kills
The problem lies not in pacifism itself but in its manipulation for purposes contrary to true pacifist ideals. While it is justifiable to direct pacifist appeals toward Russia as the aggressor, directing them at Ukraine or both sides inadvertently benefits Russia. This is where the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu ring true: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” The intention here is not to dispute pacifism’s merits but to highlight how ill-conceived pacifist ideas and appeals can escalate conflict rather than promote peace.
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Common Dreams ☛ Holy, Holy, Holy: Guilty As F*#k Of Absolutely Everything
Wow. Just like the "stable genius" and "very innocent man" predicted, it turns out "even Mother Teresa could not beat these charges" - 'cause she too evidently had Michael Cohen pay off an adult film star she banged - which is why a blessed jury of regular Americans found Trump guilty of all 34 charges in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the 2016 election so we wouldn't know what an utter scumbag he is. Now, of course, we do. A good day.
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The Register UK ☛ TikTok said to be working on US-specific version of its algo
The work required to make this clone is said to be tedious and time consuming, and is expected to take more than a year. Considering TikTok began working on this late last year, the cloned algorithm would presumably be ready later this year or early in 2025. The deadline for TikTok to divest itself to a US buyer is January 19, which means the job might just barely be done in time to avoid exile.
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Reuters ☛ Exclusive: TikTok preparing a US copy of the app’s core algorithm, sources say
The work on splitting the source code ordered by TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance late last year predated a bill to force a sale of TikTok's U.S. operations that began gaining steam in Congress this year. The bill was signed into law in April.
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Digital Music News ☛ Reuters Says TikTok Is Cloning Its Algorithm for U.S. App
The report suggests work on splitting the source code was ordered by ByteDance last year, predating the bill that would force ByteDance to divest from TikTok to keep its presence in the United States. ByteDance says it has no plans to sell TikTok and divesting from the service would be impossible. Instead, TikTok has challenged the U.S. law in court on First Amendment grounds.
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404 Media ☛ Hacker Allegedly Wanted to Become the Tech Arm of ISIS
An alleged hacker from Detroit who bought a wealth of stolen credentials from an underground data market also pledged allegiance to ISIS and told FBI informants he wanted to create a tech arm for the terrorist organization, according to court records reviewed by 404 Media.
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The Nation ☛ Saudi Arabia’s September 11 Connection and the Contradictions of American Foreign Policy
In the ultimate irony, Saudi Arabia—the one state that actually was deeply implicated in the 9/11 attack—went not just unpunished but has been rewarded by the superpower it helped terrorize. This inversion of elementary moral logic was made possible by the topsy-turvy reasoning of crackpot realism: Saudi Arabia is too important an ally (and, it should go without saying, too important a source of free-flowing oil) to ever be subject to justice. Instead, scapegoats were found in the form of Iraq and Afghanistan (where the Taliban did host Al Qaeda—but which never had the intelligence capability inside the United States that Saudi Arabia possessed.)
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Axios ☛ America's seething right plots revenge for Trump conviction
The big picture: Beyond the broad indignation, Trump's conviction on all 34 felony counts in his New York hush-money case has triggered two types of responses among his supporters.
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Federal News Network ☛ Lawmakers want answers about Pentagon’s increasing reliance on Microsoft
Members of Congress sent a letter to the Pentagon on Wednesday asking about the department’s push to begin implementation of Microsoft’s most expensive licenses, known as E5, across all components starting next month.
The Pentagon is considering mandating all department offices to implement the full suite of Microsoft 365 E5 licenses across their Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet) within the next 12 months as part of its effort to achieve the target level of zero trust by 2027, according to a draft memo first obtained by Axios.
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Los Angeles Times ☛ What happens after the Trump verdict will test American democracy
Will Americans who disagree with the outcome respect the rule of law, and more importantly, the safety of the jurors who decided the case? Or, as a country, are we so conditioned along partisan lines that we vehemently reject all outcomes that don’t serve our political interests?
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[Repeat] Digital Music News ☛ ByteDance Offered U.S. Government Major TikTok Oversight
Every two weeks, this worker would email spreadsheets with data on U.S. users to ByteDance workers in China. Data on those spreadsheets included users’ names, email addresses, IP addresses, geographic and demographic information.
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The Verge ☛ TikTok is reportedly splitting its source code to create a US-only algorithm
TikTok has tried to convince lawmakers of its US independence before, with the “Project Texas” data silo that it described as “an unprecedented initiative dedicated to making every American on TikTok feel safe, with confidence that their data is secure and the platform is free from outside influence.” However, Alex Heath visited a Transparency and Accountability Center last year and, amid the project’s transparency theater, found a company that “seems to have realized that it won’t save itself from a US ban on the technical merits.”
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VOA News ☛ Iranian Londoners demand action against Islamic Republic aggressors
The Iranian demonstrators rallied to denounce what they said was the London police's failure to promptly identify and apprehend those responsible for assaulting protesters outside the recent memorial ceremony in London for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash earlier this month along with seven others.
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VOA News ☛ Stockholm says Iran uses gangs [sic] to target Israeli, Jewish interests in Sweden
The Security Service also accused Iran of looking to act against dissidents among the Iranian diaspora and targeting the interests of other states.
Gang [sic] violence has persisted in Sweden for years, with 53 people shot dead and 109 injured in 363 shootings in 2023.
Sweden has the highest number of deadly shootings per capita in Europe, which can be partially attributed to disputes between two powerful gangs [sic].
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JURIST ☛ Sweden says Iran used criminal networks to threaten security of local individuals, groups and other states
The Swedish Security Service, commonly referred to as Säpo, said on Thursday that the Iranian government used criminal networks in Sweden as proxies to threaten the security of groups in Sweden and other states Iran perceives as threats. Säpo said that Iran is one of Sweden’s greatest security threats.
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Sightline Media Group ☛ WWII vet says ‘greatest generation’ fits because ‘we saved the world’
Now, he proudly lays claim to being part of “The Greatest Generation.”
“Because we saved the world,” he said.
He has made the trip back to France before but says his return this year for the 80th anniversary of D-Day is special for the people of Europe, and for himself.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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The Scotsman ☛ New WW2 archive unveils rare stories and artefacts from Scotland
The materials have been preserved by an Oxford University project that has digitised more than 25,000 previously hidden artefacts from the Second World War.
Photos of the objects and stories will be available to view on the project website, theirfinesthour.org, on June 6 to complement events commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
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Environment
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Futurism ☛ Major Cuts in Shipping Pollution Actually Made Climate Change Worse, Scientists Find
The findings illustrate the unpredictable complexities of both modeling and combating climate change, while also serving as a preview of the risks of solar geoengineering efforts to cool our sweltering planet.
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Bridge Michigan ☛ Michigan schools receive $24 million to buy electric buses
More than two dozen Michigan school districts will receive a total of $24 million in federal rebates to purchase electric buses, the latest in a nationwide push to eliminate diesel buses that harm the environment and students’ health.
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The Register UK ☛ FCC chair calls for fresh rules on satellite explosion risk
"We can no longer afford to launch new satellites into our skies without being thoughtful about space sustainability," said Rosenworcel. "Our orbital debris mitigation efforts will help preserve the orbital environment to protect services we rely on and allow new services to be launched."
A satellite or rocket body that has not been passivated has the potential to explode. The harsh environment of space can cause components and fuel lines to degrade, meaning that any remaining propellant might combust. And then there is the problem posed by batteries. The resulting litter from explosions in orbit can put other craft in peril, and cause more debris to be spread, sparking a cascading disaster. In short: No debris-emitting explosions, please.
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El País ☛ Al Gore: ‘Fossil fuel companies are better at capturing politicians than capturing emissions’
Q. Are you worried about the rise of greenwashing?
A. It is simply dishonest: giving people the impression that a business or a political entity is doing something that is really only for show, and avoiding their responsibilities. It should be called out. It’s not a new tactic, but it seems to be used more by large consumer-facing organizations, whether in business or governance, that feel the pressure from people. So it should be called out wherever it occurs so that we can keep the pressure on to engineer real changes. Not imaginary changes.
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Energy/Transportation
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The Register UK ☛ Datacenter energy demand slows the demise of US coal plants
Coal plants can credit their new lease on life to the datacenter industry, which is expanding and upgrading existing bit barns as well as building new facilities. The age of AI requires lots of energy – Google search powered by AI alone is expected to use ten times the power of a more traditional information request, according to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) January report.
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Wired ☛ Ecuador Is Literally Powerless in the Face of Drought
Ecuador is in trouble: Drought has shrunk its reservoirs, and its hydroelectric dams have had to power down. The government has been forced to cut electricity to homes for hours at a stretch, and in mid-April, President Daniel Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency. Since then, homeowners have been taking cold showers and struggling without internet access, while restaurants have been serving up meals by candlelight to avoid closing and losing perishable food. For businesses, that’s the worst, says Etiel Solorzano, a Quito-based tour guide for Intrepid Travel. “Three hours of no power? You can go bankrupt for that.”
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Wildlife/Nature
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The Scotsman ☛ Why Danish fishermen are posing a new threat Scotland’s dwindling population of puffins
The decline of our oceans further exacerbates the triple planetary crisis affecting both land and sea: climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. This crisis is placing the world’s ecosystems under assault. Billions of hectares of land are degraded, affecting almost half of the world’s population and threatening half of global GDP. Which is why action to transform food systems is so important.
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Finance
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Bennett, Coleman & Company Ltd ☛ Tech Layoffs 2024: Over 9,500 Employees Fired In May Alone, Over 89,000 Lost Jobs Since January
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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CPJ ☛ CPJ, partners join call for U.S. Senate to advance PRESS Act
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined more than 85 journalism and civil society organizations and 35 attorneys and law professors in urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to schedule a markup of the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying Act (PRESS Act) as soon as possible so that it can be considered by the full Senate and become law.
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VOA News ☛ UN conference looks at possibilities, dangers of AI
Top United Nations officials and global tech leaders discussed the potential of artificial intelligence Thursday but warned about risks of the technology as the U.N. telecommunications agency's AI for Good conference began.
The two-day conference AI for Good has been held yearly in Geneva since 2017.
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Molly White ☛ Cryptocurrency companies have raised over $115 million to influence US elections this cycle, and they’re just getting started
I am worried about cryptocurrency’s impact on the upcoming elections in the United States, but not in the way the industry would like you to think.
Recently, there has been a push by the cryptocurrency industry to portray crypto as a major issue that will influence votes in the upcoming election season. This just so happens to coincide with Donald Trump's recent statements suggesting he's warmed to the industry. Although Trump personally has actually been far more vocally anti-crypto than Joe Biden — in 2021 saying bitcoin “just seems like a scam”1 and reportedly ordering Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to “go after bitcoin” in 20182 — that hasn’t stopped many in the cryptocurrency world from embracing him as the supposedly pro-crypto candidate anyway.a
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Fred Herbert ☛ The Review Is the Action Item
If abandoning the idea of action items seems irresponsible or impractical to you, keep them. But keep them with some distance; the common tip given by the LFI community is to schedule another meeting after the review to discuss them in isolation. iiii At some point, that follow-up meeting may become disjoint from the reviews. There’s not necessarily a reason why every incident needs a dedicated set of fixes (longer-term changes impacting them could already be in progress, for example), nor is there a reason to wait for an incident to fix things and improve them.
That’s when you decouple understanding from fixing, and the incident review becomes its own sufficient action item.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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Deccan Chronicle ☛ Fact Check: Viral graphic of News 24 reporting 2024 Lok Sabha poll predictions is fake
NewsMeter found that the claim is false as no such poll predictions were published by News 24.
Upon close observation, we noticed that while the logo closely resembles the News 24 logo, the text actually reads News 2024, not News 24.
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The Register UK ☛ OpenAI stops five ineffective AI covert influence ops
According to OpenAI, these manipulation schemes rated only two on the Brookings’ Breakout Scale, a scheme to quantify the impact of IOs that ranges from one (spreads within one community on a single platform) to six (provokes a policy response or violence). A two on this scale means the fake content appeared on multiple platforms, with no breakout to authentic audiences.
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Bruce Schneier ☛ How AI Will Change Democracy
In particular, there are potential changes over four dimensions: Speed, scale, scope and sophistication. The problem with AIs trading stocks isn’t that they’re better than humans—it’s that they’re faster. But computers are better at chess and Go because they use more sophisticated strategies than humans. We’re worried about AI-controlled social media accounts because they operate on a superhuman scale.
It gets interesting when changes in degree can become changes in kind. High-speed trading is fundamentally different than regular human trading. AIs have invented fundamentally new strategies in the game of Go. Millions of AI-controlled social media accounts could fundamentally change the nature of propaganda.
It’s these sorts of changes and how AI will affect democracy that I want to talk about.
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New York Times ☛ Google Is Using A.I. to Answer Your Health Questions. Should You Trust It?
In the weeks since the tool launched, users have encountered a wide array of inaccuracies and odd answers on a range of subjects. But when it comes to how it answers health questions, experts said the stakes were particularly high. The technology could point people toward healthier habits or needed medical care, but it also has the potential to give inaccurate information. The A.I. can sometimes fabricate facts. And if its answers are shaped by websites that aren’t grounded in science, it might offer advice that goes against medical guidance or poses a risk to a person’s health.
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[Repeat] New York Times ☛ Europe Banned Russia’s RT Network. Its Content Is Still Spreading.
A study found that hundreds of sites, many without obvious Kremlin links, copied Russian propaganda and spread it to unsuspecting audiences ahead of the E.U. election.
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Wired ☛ The WIRED AI Elections Project
For the very first time, the widespread availability of generative AI is going to clash head-on with political campaigns and elections. 2024 is already an unprecedented year for democracy: More than 2 billion people—the largest number ever—will vote in national, local, and regional elections in more than 60 countries.
The global electorate now has to contend with this new tech. Deepfakes can be used for everything from sabotage to satire to the seemingly mundane; already, we’ve seen AI chatbots write speeches and answer questions about a candidate’s policy. But we’ve also seen AI used to humiliate female politicians and make world leaders appear to promote the joys of passive income scams. AI has been used to deploy bots and even tailor automated texts to voters.
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India Times ☛ Meta says generative AI deception held in check — for now
Social media giant Meta says its bid to thwart coordinated disinformation campaigns created through ever-improving generative AI is working, despite widespread concerns. Meta said it had seen "threat actors" put AI to work to create bogus photos, videos, and text, but no realistic imagery of politicians, according to the report.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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FAIR ☛ Katherine Li on Corporations’ First Amendment Dodge
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RFERL ☛ Russia Declares Barred Presidential Candidate, Soldiers' Wives Group 'Foreign Agents'
Duntsova, a journalist from the city of Rzhev and a former deputy of the Rzhev city council, has publicly appealed for an end to the war in Ukraine and spoken out against political repression in Russia.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ HK activist Chan Po-ying's husband was arrested; she will not be silenced
Hong Kong activist Chan Po-ying became one of the city’s only pro-democracy voices after her prominent husband’s arrest in 2021, refusing to give up the struggle they had waged together for decades.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ After EU, US criticism of new HK security law, China says 'stop interfering'
The seven were arrested Tuesday and Wednesday for “offences in connection with seditious intention” in relation to social media posts commemorating Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
They were the first people to be arrested under the “Safeguarding National Security Ordinance” — enacted by Hong Kong in March and commonly referred to as Article 23 — which penalises sedition with up to seven years in prison.
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RFA ☛ 'We'll never forget,' Tiananmen massacre families write to Xi Jinping
The relatives of civilians killed by Chinese troops who crushed pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square with machine guns and tanks on the night of June 3-4, 1989, have written to President Xi Jinping calling for an official reckoning with the bloodshed on the 35th anniversary of the crackdown.
"We will never forget the lives that were lost to those brutal bullets or crushed by tanks on June 4 35 years ago," the letter said.
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Daily Mail ☛ Germany knife attack: Assailant stabs well-known Islam critic in the face in 'terror' incident at anti-political Islam rally, then wounds other bystanders and a cop before being shot dead by police
The shocking spree unfolded in Mannheim city centre where anti-Islam campaigner Michael Stuerzenberger was speaking at an event of the Citizens' Movement Pax Europa (BPE) - a group that advocates against the 'Islamisation' of Europe.
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France24 ☛ Islam critic among several wounded in knife attack at rally in Germany
Five of those wounded were taking part in a rally organised by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, police said.
A police officer who intervened was also stabbed several times in the back of the head, it said.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Germany: Knife attack in Mannheim, suspect shot
Outspoken Islam critic Michael Stürzenberger was due to speak at the event, which is a part of his "Open Eyes" tour. His organization "Pax Europa" said the 59-year-old Stürzenberger was among those injured.
Mannheim Mayor Christian Sprecht said he was "speechless" after the attack.
The right-leaning mayor urged the people not to speculate about the motives behind the attack before investigators publish their findings.
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The Sun ☛ Knifeman launches frenzied attack on anti-Islam rally in Mannheim before being shot dead by cops on YouTube livestream | The Sun
At least three people were injured in the broad-daylight attack, including a police officer, according to initial reports.
Islam critic Michael Stürzenberger, 59, had been taking part in a rally organised by German counter-jihad group "Citizens' Movement PAX Europa" when he was attacked and "seriously" injured.
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RFA ☛ Tiananmen massacre play premieres in London for 35th anniversary
A play about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre that can no longer be staged in Hong Kong has premiered in London ahead of the 35th anniversary of the bloodshed, in a bid to outrun a widening crackdown on political dissent in the city.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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VOA News ☛ As Russia confirms it jailed missing Ukrainian journalist, calls mount for her release
Victoria Roshchyna, a contributor to Ukrainian media outlets including Ukrainska Pravda, had planned to report on what life is like for those living under Russian occupation.
But shortly after passing through a border post on Aug. 3, 2023, communication between Roshchyna and her family ended. Since then, her family and colleagues have been trying to locate the journalist.
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CPJ ☛ In Nigeria, 2 ICIR journalists summoned, questioned over corruption report
Nigerian police authorities should immediately drop their criminal investigation into journalist Nurudeen Akewushola and the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), and allow them to work free of harassment and fear of arrest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.
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CPJ ☛ Russia extends detention of journalist Alsu Kurmasheva for 2 months
“U.S.-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva has spent more than seven months behind bars for no reason except her work, and she must be freed at once,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities must immediately grant Kurmasheva consular access, provide her with appropriate medical care, drop all charges against her, and release her. Meanwhile, U.S. authorities should not delay any longer Kurmasheva’s designation as ‘wrongfully detained’ and ensure her swift release.”
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[Repeat] Scoop News Group ☛ Phones of journalists and activists in Europe targeted [sic] with Pegasus
The victims in this case include five journalists and two activists. Two chose to remain anonymous, but five others are cited by name in the report: Evgeny Erlikh, a journalist and television producer living in Latvia; Evgeny Pavlov, another journalist in Latvia; Maria Epifanova, the general director of Novaya Gazeta Europe and director of Novaya Gazeta Baltija, its Baltic outlet; Andrei Sannikov, a prominent Belarusian opposition figure and one-time candidate for president; and Natallia Radzina, the editor-in-chief of the independent Belarusian news outlet Charter97.org.
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CS Monitor ☛ YouTube attracts Indian journalists
Sohit Mishra, former Mumbai bureau chief for New Delhi Television, is one of several journalists who have resigned or been fired as the Indian government’s influence over mainstream media grows. But he, like many others, has found reprieve on YouTube.
“In mainstream media, especially on television, there is a lot of pro-government bias ... and shouting loud,” he says. But on YouTube, he adds, he can produce more constructive news.
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CPJ ☛ Report: Pegasus spyware targets exiled journalists from Russia, Latvia, Belarus
A 2022 CPJ special report noted that the development of high-tech “zero-click” spyware like Pegasus — the kind that takes over a phone without a user’s knowledge or interaction — poses an existential crisis for journalism and the future of press freedom around the world. The report included CPJ’s recommendations to protect journalists and their sources from the abuse of the technology and called for an immediate moratorium on exporting this technology to countries with poor human rights records.
CPJ has also joined other rights groups in calling for immediate action to stop spyware threatening press freedom.
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The Record ☛ Exiled Russian, Belarusian opposition journalists targeted with Pegasus spyware
Researchers have found that at least seven Russian and Belarusian-speaking independent journalists and opposition activists were targeted or infected with the infamous spying malware called Pegasus.
All of the newly identified victims live in Europe in exile and had previously “faced intense threats” from Russia or Belarus for criticizing their government policies, including Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a new investigation by the digital rights groups Access Now and Citizen Lab.
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RFERL ☛ After 'Foreign Agent' Law Defeat, Georgian Protesters Set Sights on Elections
The protest movement, the fiercest opposition to the ruling Georgian Dream party in its 12 years in power, failed in its primary goal: to pressure the party to drop a controversial bill on nongovernmental organizations and media. On May 28, the parliament overruled a veto by President Salome Zurabishvili, and the "foreign agent" bill will now become law and start taking effect this summer.
At a rally that evening, Zurabishvili, whose position is largely symbolic, addressed the crowd. "Are you angry today?" she asked. "Get angry, but let's get down to business.... We must now do everything to prepare for October 26, which will be our answer to today."
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VOA News ☛ Russian diplomat labels European foreign ministers ‘US agents’ for marching with protesters in Georgia
Addressing the protesters in Tbilisi on May 26, Georgia’s Independence Day, Zurabishvili said “the ghost of Russia” was standing between her nation and its Western allies, a partnership with which “is a true way to maintain our independence, peace and strength.”
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VOA News ☛ Killings, disappearances, new law rock Pakistan’s media
The shadow of five journalist killings since the start of the year is hanging over Pakistan’s media.
Karachi-based journalist Amber Rahim Shamsi says the violence has created a sense of numbness among the country’s reporters.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Sightline Media Group ☛ Soldier honors Native American heritage after religious accommodation
I was doing recruiting activities for West Point at a large Native American organization that focuses on STEM education for Natives. While I was there I met some Air Force women in charge of INET, which is the Indigenous Nations Equality Team. They actually were there speaking about religious accommodations for Native Americans in the Air Force. As soon as I heard them speak a light bulb went off, because I didn’t really think that was something that would be possible. I had wanted to grow my hair longer than regulation for a while, but I didn’t think that I could.
There’s no new regulations. This is actually the same religious accommodation under AR 600-20 as anyone else would follow. The difference is, because we have such a diversity of different beliefs, and backgrounds and cultures as Natives, it makes it a lot more complicated. We have different regalia items, which is kind of like our religious decor that we’d wear. And the hair can be cut in different ways. And so each accommodation is going to be a little bit different.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Brr ☛ Engineering for Slow Internet
This information reflects my own personal experience in Antarctica, from August 2022 through December 2022 at McMurdo, and then from December 2022 through November 2023 at the South Pole.
Technology moves quickly, and I make no claims that the circumstances of my own specific experience will hold up over time. In future years, once I’ve long-since forgotten about this post, please do not get mad at me when the on-the-ground IT experience in Antarctica evolves away from the snapshot presented here.
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The Register UK ☛ Recycling copper wires could be worth billions for telcos
The estimate comes from British engineering company TXO, which claims there's up to 800,000 metric tons of copper wiring that could be harvested in the next ten years. TXO claims over a dozen telcos are investigating extracting copper wires from old networks to sell on the open market.
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Scoop News Group ☛ Alleged Ticketmaster breach could be part of larger compromise, researchers say
Ticketmaster has not yet commented on the breach, which was first reported on criminal forums earlier this week and includes more than a terabyte of data affecting 560 million of the ticket seller’s customers. Though the authenticity of the stolen data has not been confirmed, cybersecurity researchers say privately that they believe the data being offered for sale appears legitimate.
On Friday, the Israeli firm Hudson Rock reported that the breach of Ticketmaster may be linked to breaches at as many as 400 other companies perpetrated using the stolen credentials of an employee at Snowflake, the cloud storage and services company.
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US News And World Report ☛ Microsoft to Pay off Cloud Industry Group to End EU Antitrust Complaint, Politico Reports
Microsoft is close to reaching a multimillion-euro deal with an Amazon-backed cloud lobby to get it to drop an antitrust complaint with the European Commission, Politico reported on Saturday.
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India Times ☛ Microsoft: Microsoft to pay off cloud industry group to end EU antitrust complaint: report
The deal, which hasn't been accepted yet by members of the lobby group Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE), would see the providers withdraw an investigation request over Microsoft's cloud-licensing agreements, the report said, citing industry officials with knowledge of the proposal.
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Trademarks
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Right of Publicity
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Techdirt ☛ Dead Politicians Hit The Campaign Trail For India’s Billion-Voter Election
That raises the issue of who is able to approve the use of audio and video deepfakes of dead people. In India, it seems that some political parties have no qualms about deploying the technology, regardless of what the politician’s family might think. Should the dead have rights here, perhaps laid down in their wills? If not, who should be in control of their post-death activities? As more political parties turn to deepfakes of the dead for campaigning and other purposes, these are questions that will be asked more often, and which need to be answered.
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Hollywood Reporter ☛ Fable Studio Plans Artificial Intelligence Streaming Platform
Generative artificial intelligence is coming for streaming, with the release of a platform dedicated to AI content that allows users to create episodes with a prompt of just a couple of words.
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Copyrights
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Digital Music News ☛ Reggaeton Copyright Lawsuit to Proceed, Federal Judge Rules
Those allegations stem from a lengthy infringement action levied by reggae musicians themselves and the estates of different reggae professionals, who are said to have played a key role in the development of the genre as well as reggaeton.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Link-Busters Flagged Over 56 Million 'Pirate' URLs to Google in a Week
It's no secret that online piracy presents a major challenge to copyright holders. With owners of pirate sites largely unresponsive, search engines and other online intermediaries are often asked to intervene. With a starring role for anti-piracy company Link-Busters, Google has seen a significant surge in takedown requests, one that has set new records on the way.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Spain's Ongoing Pirate Site-Blocking War Targets Thousands of Subdomains
Data published by S2CPI, the body responsible for Spain's administrative pirate site blocking program, shows that the number of headline domains blocked during Q1 2024 is noticeably down on the same period in 2023 and 2022. Overall, sites are still being blocked in large numbers, but the real growth isn't found on main domains. Easily and quickly deployed at almost no cost, subdomains can circumvent blocking and Spain blocks them in their thousands.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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