Leftovers

• [Old] Rachel J Kwon ☛ Internet is fun

  Because a lot of us remember when the [Internet] was mostly just fun, and the good parts of the old [Internet] were by and large created by real individual humans who had no motives other than to explore the [Internet] and just put stuff out there that was interesting and fun and random. We were just being curious about technology and the web.

• Science

  • Omicron Limited ☛ New algorithms could enhance autonomous spacecraft safety

    However, dangerous situations may crop up in space with little warning and insufficient time for space-to-ground communications. And though redundant systems have been quite effective, they add to the expense and heft of autonomous spacecraft.

    This is why experiments are being conducted in the laboratory of Soon-Jo Chung, Bren Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems and senior research scientist at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA, to streamline emergency features on autonomous vehicles such that they can diagnose and safely respond to encounters with other objects in real time. With new algorithms on board, spacecraft can test their own equipment and predict which future actions are most likely to keep them operating safely.

• Education

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ From the publisher

    The magazine you now hold in your hands is 125 years old. Not this actual issue, of course, but the publication itself, which launched in 1899. Few other titles can claim this kind of heritage—the Atlantic, Harper’s, Audubon (which is also turning 125 this year), National Geographic, and Popular Science among them.

    MIT Technology Review was born four years before the Wright brothers took flight. Thirty-three before we split the atom, 59 ahead of the integrated circuit, 70 before we would walk on the moon, and 90 before the invention of the World Wide Web. It has survived two world wars, a depression, recessions, eras of tech boom and bust. It has chronicled the rise of computing from the time of room-size mainframes until today, when they have become ubiquitous, not just carried in our pockets but deeply embedded in nearly all aspects of our lives.

  • CBC ☛ AI textbooks and chatbots are already changing the way students learn. Should they?

    Though there's enthusiasm about the possibilities AI offers in education — including its ability to simplify difficult-to-understand concepts and provide immediate feedback — there are also concerns about issues such as bias, misleading information and the lack of student-teacher interaction.

  • Adafruit ☛ The NSA releases an internal 1982 lecture by computing pioneer Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

    The lecture, which Hopper delivered during her tenure at the NSA, provides a rare glimpse into the thoughts and expertise of a woman who played a pivotal role in shaping modern computing.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Simone Silvestroni ☛ Four years

    I didn't realise how this August marks four years since I deleted all my corporate social media accounts.

  • The Conversation ☛ Michael Mosley’s final series: how we showed what happens to your body when you’re stressed

    The fight-or-flight response happens within milliseconds. But when you need to stay on high alert for an extended period, your body relies on a different system to keep us in overdrive. This system is known as the HPA axis, which involves the hypothalamus (H) and pituitary (P) in the brain, along with the adrenal (A) glands above the kidneys. Together, the HPA axis eventually produces cortisol, commonly referred to as the stress hormone.

  • EcoWatch ☛ Global Food Production Limited by Lack of Pollinators Is 'Cause for Concern and Optimism,' Researchers Say

    An international research team led by Rutgers University has analyzed the crop yields of more than 1,500 agricultural lands on six continents, and found that a lack of pollinators is limiting the global production of important, nutrient-dense foods like fruits, nuts, vegetables and legumes.

    The researchers found that one- to two-thirds of farms in many different locations, growing a variety of different crops, have fields that are no longer producing at optimum levels because of a lack of pollinators, a press release from Rutgers University said.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ African farmers are using private satellite data to improve crop yields

    When the next planting season rolled around, Tope’s team weighed different ways to avoid another cycle of heavy losses. They decided to work with EOS Data Analytics, a California-based provider of satellite imagery and data for precision farming. The company uses wavelengths of light including the near-infrared, which penetrates plant canopies and can be used to measure a range of variables, including moisture level and chlorophyll content.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Children and the [Internet]: Helping kids navigate this modern minefield

    The United States' most senior public health official, surgeon-general Vivek Murthy, believes social media platforms should come with warning labels. The United Nations' education, science and culture agency says smartphones should be banned in schools. Chinese regulators are pushing to limit children's smartphone use to just two hours a day.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • The Register UK ☛ Dick's Sporting Goods runs into problems with online attack

    The lack of effect on operations suggests that ransomware wasn't deployed on the corporate servers, since no pause in operations was reported. Then again, many ransomware operators don't even bother to lock down servers these days. They simply steal information and threaten to expose it unless the victims pay up.

  • The Register UK ☛ AT&T agrees to pay $950,000 to settle quad-state 911 outage

    In keeping with many such actions by US government agencies, this is a settlement, not a fine – meaning AT&T admits no guilt. The cost is equal to less than one hour of profit, according to the telco's last quarterly earnings statement. Making it equal to 74 minutes might have been proportional at least.

    Within hours of the deal with the FCC being announced, AT&T suffered another 911 outage – this one lasting a couple of hours in New York, Houston, Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina. The telco claimed the problem was a software fault.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Nvidia earnings show AI boom is still on, though cracks have formed

    The majority of Nvidia’s revenue came from sales to tech companies including Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft building out data centers to power AI projects for themselves or their own customers.

  • New York Times ☛ Nvidia Earnings: Revenue Jumps 122%, a Positive Sign for AI Boom [Ed: Bubble, not "Boom"]

    Revenue was $30.04 billion in the quarter, surpassing its $28 billion estimate in May. Net income rose to $16.95 billion from $6.19 billion a year ago, eclipsing the most recent quarterly profits of Meta and Amazon.

  • 404 Media ☛ This Is Doom Running on a Diffusion Model

    This is “GameNGen” (pronounced “game engine”), and is the work of researchers from Google, DeepMind, and Tel Aviv University. They call it “the first game engine powered entirely by a neural model that enables real-time interaction with a complex environment over long trajectories at high quality.” Without getting too deep into the weeds, essentially the way it works is that the diffusion model is trained gameplay footage of Doom to produce the next frame based on the frames that came before it and player input.

  • The Register UK ☛ LinkedIn migrates from CentOS to Azure Linux [Ed: Since ICBM already abandoned it anyway...]

    This is an important stage in a long process. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn way back in 2016. Even so, as recently as the end of last year, we reported that a move to Azure had been abandoned, which came a few months after it laid off almost 700 LinkedIn staff – the majority in R&D.

    The blog post is over 3,500 words long, so there's quite a lot to chew on – and we're certain that this has been passed through and approved by numerous marketing and management people and scoured of any potentially embarrassing admissions. Some interesting nuggets remain, though. We enjoyed the modest comment that: [...]

  • Linuxiac ☛ LinkedIn Shifts to Microsoft’s Azure Linux

    For those unfamiliar with Azure Linux, it is a highly specialized free and open-source distribution (previously known as CBL-Mariner) developed by Microsoft and tailored for Azure’s cloud infrastructure.

    [...]

    In other words, this isn’t your typical Linux distro in the broad sense that you pick up and use for everyday computer use (it doesn’t even include things like desktop environments).

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ Americans’ perception of AI is generally negative, though they see ‘beneficial applications’

    A vast majority of Americans feel negatively about artificial intelligence and how it will impact their futures, though they also report they don’t fully understand how and why the technology is currently being used.

    The sentiments came from a survey conducted this summer by think tank Heartland Forward, which used Aaru, an AI-powered polling group that uses news and social media to generate respondents.

  • The Korea Times ☛ Minors most vulnerable to deepfake sex crimes

    Education and child protection authorities are on high alert, as data reveals that more than one-third of victims of deepfake sex crimes in Korea are minors.

  • [Old] Wired ☛ The Kremlin Has Entered Your Telegram Chat

    On April 13, the FSB was reported to have secured a court order to monitor Rose’s phone calls and read his messages. (Telegram says it is not aware of this order, and “in any case, would never have shared any messages with the FSB.”)The next day, Rose and his wife, who had also posted the video about Bucha, were arrested on charges of spreading “knowingly false information,” with investigators citing Telegram messages Rose had sent to an unknown person with a Latvian phone number in which he asked about evacuating his family from Russia. While in pretrial detention, Rose learned that Russian authorities had labeled him an “extremist.”

  • The Hill ☛ Telegram CEO Pavel Durov charged in French court

    Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was formally indicted by a French judge Wednesday on charges he was complicit in the criminal activity taking place on the messaging app, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement to The Hill.

    He was released from custody after posting 5 million euros for bail.

  • The Record ☛ Telegram CEO's arrest sparks flurry of questions over motivation, privacy impact

    By Tuesday, however, she was reassured that the French prosecutor’s allegations of Durov’s cryptography offenses were relatively minor, and that they appear to merely relate to Telegram having not completed required paperwork.

    “It's not crazy,” Galperin told Recorded Future News in an interview. “It does not appear to be a punishment for having end-to-end encryption.”

  • The Washington Post ☛ Telegram CEO Pavel Durov charged in France, banned from leaving country

    The 39-year-old billionaire’s case is an unprecedented test of the power of governments over multinational tech companies operating under widely varying laws around the world. Durov’s Telegram is unusual for being run from a nonaligned Middle Eastern country, the United Arab Emirates, and for declaring that it shares no information with authorities anywhere about messages or activities on the site.

  • The Verge ☛ Telegram CEO charged in French criminal investigation

    French prosecutors will release Durov under judicial supervision on a €5 million bail, but he won’t be allowed to leave France. As noted by Le Monde, Durov also faces charges of refusing to comply with authorities and complicity in the criminal distribution of CSAM.

  • NBC ☛ Telegram CEO Pavel Durov charged by French prosecutors

    Pavel Durov, the CEO and a co-founder of the news and messaging app Telegram, has been charged in France with enabling various forms of criminality in the app, French prosecutors said Wednesday.

    One of the charges — complicity in administering an online platform permitting illicit transactions by an organized group — carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 euros ($555,750), prosecutors said.

  • Wired ☛ Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Charged Over Alleged Criminal Activity on the App

    Durov was arrested on Saturday at 8 pm local time after his private jet landed at an airport near Paris. He was then detained for four days as part of an investigation into alleged criminal activity taking place on Telegram. On Wednesday evening, local time, he was indicted and forbidden from leaving the country, according to a statement released by the Paris Prosecutor. He was released under judicial supervision, the statement said, and must post a €5 million ($5.5 million) bail and report to a police station in France twice a week.

  • Nick Heer ☛ Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Formally Charged in France

    The charges are related to criminal uses of Telegram’s platform and its refusal to cooperate with authorities. I know there are some people who are worried about the potential implications of this for other services. I am not yet sure whether these concerns are merited.

  • JURIST ☛ Telegram founder Pavel Durov released from detention

    Telegram posted on Sunday in support of its president and CEO, claiming that Durov has “nothing to hide” and that the messenger platform abides by the laws of the EU, including the Digital Services Act. The platform’s moderation is “within industry standards and is constantly improving,” the post read, refuting the allegation of Telegram’s inadequate moderation standards by the French authorities.

  • RFERL ☛ French Prosecutors Face Deadline On Next Move In Durov Case

    Such moves by judicial figures in France don't imply a party is guilty or that the case will necessarily lead to trial. They are usually seen as an indication that prosecutors think there may be enough of a case to proceed with the probe. If he is placed under formal investigation, the judges will decide whether to remand him in pretrial detention, or some other restrictive method.

  • New York Times ☛ Who Is Telegram’s Pavel Durov and Why Was He Arrested in France?

    Under French law, Mr. Durov’s detention can be extended through Wednesday: After that, the authorities must charge or release him. If he is charged, prosecutors could ask a judge to keep him in custody, but he could also be released under certain conditions.

  • New York Times ☛ Can Tech Executives Be Held Responsible for What Happens on Their Platforms?

    For now, tech executives have little to fear, with cases like Mr. Durov’s likely to be outliers, experts said. Historically, companies have been held responsible for a platform’s transgressions, rather than individuals. And legally, the bar is high in the United States and Europe to prosecute individuals for activities at their companies, especially with U.S. laws like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects [Internet] platforms from being responsible for harmful speech.

    But the threshold for holding executives liable for what takes place on their sites is lowering in specific areas, particularly child safety, said TJ McIntyre⁩, an associate professor at University College Dublin’s School of Law.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Wired ☛ Generative AI Transformed English Homework. Math Is Next

    Right now, high schoolers and college students around the country are experimenting with free smartphone apps that help complete their math homework using generative AI. One of the most popular options on campus right now is the Gauth app, with millions of downloads. It’s owned by ByteDance, which is also TikTok’s parent company.

  • The Hill ☛ These are Arlington National Cemetery's rules about politicizing grounds

    According to Arlington National Cemetery’s media policy, filming and photographing is not authorized “for partisan, political or fundraising purposes, in accordance with the Hatch Act.”

  • US News And World Report ☛ Iran Operated Fake Human-Resources Firm to Root Out Unfriendly Spies, Researchers Say

    The mission uncovered by Mandiant dates back to at least 2017 and was active until recently. At different times, the Iranians made their operation appear as if it was controlled by Israelis. Analysts say the likely purpose of the impersonation was to identify individuals in the Middle East who were willing to sell secrets to Israel and other Western governments. It targeted military and intelligence staff associated with Iran’s allies in the region.

  • New York Times ☛ Algerian Man Charged Over Synagogue Arson Attack in France

    French authorities have described the attack as an act of antisemitic terrorism.

  • Vox ☛ Is Georgia’s MAGA elections board going to rig the election for Donald Trump?

    The state board’s new rules, by contrast, allow local elections officials to dig through documents looking for something they think could be an irregularity, and then to refuse to certify the results based on their own idiosyncratic conclusion that the election was not conducted properly. If Trump loses Georgia in November, moreover, his campaign will very likely lobby local officials to use this power aggressively in an effort akin to the pressure Trump and his allies put on local officials in 2020.

  • CS Monitor ☛ If Trump loses, was the election rigged? Wisconsin is a test on accepting results.

    As the deeply divided swing state gears up for another presidential contest, it is a microcosm of a broader struggle to restore confidence in a bedrock of U.S. democracy: the casting and counting of votes.

    Proponents of Republican-authored electoral reforms say they will prevent fraud and ensure that all legal votes are counted properly; critics say the aim is to suppress votes for Democrats and lay the groundwork for post-election lawsuits. There are also intra-GOP divides about whether it’s worth rehashing fraud allegations.

  • [Old] The Washington Post ☛ Opinion | He worked in Russian media. He recognizes the same tactics at Fox News.

    In a newly released report, U.S. intelligence agencies outline how Russia yet again sought to subvert American democracy. The findings confirm that the Kremlin tried to plant damaging disinformation about Joe Biden among associates of then-President Donald Trump.

    That report and others that preceded it are important, because the foreign threat to American democracy is real and growing. But they should not distract us from a disturbing reality: The most serious danger to the United States from the Russian propaganda playbook doesn’t come from Moscow. It comes from Manhattan, where Fox News prime-time hosts broadcast conspiracy theories and disinformation while mimicking tactics that insiders in Russian media easily recognize.

  • India Times ☛ TikTok must face lawsuit over 10-year-old girl's death, US court rules

    While a federal law typically shields [Internet] companies from lawsuits over content posted by users, the Philadelphia-based 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled the law does not bar Nylah Anderson's mother from pursuing claims that TikTok's algorithm recommended the challenge to her daughter.

  • India Times ☛ Chinese [crackers] hit [Internet] companies in US and India: Why it is 'dangerous'

    A Chinese [attacking] group has exploited a zero-day vulnerability to expose several [Internet] service providers in multiple countries, security researchers have said, adding that they have identified five victims of the cyberattack – four in the US and one from India but did not name them.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Chinese cyberattacks hit nearly half of German firms, study

    Eighty percent of German businesses reported being hit by data or IT theft, industrial espionage or sabotage in the last 12 months, with 45% of companies tracing cyberattacks or other acts of industrial spying to China, a survey showed on Wednesday.

  • NPR ☛ Trump campaign staff had altercation with official at Arlington National Cemetery

    "Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate's campaign," according to the statement. "Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants."

  • USMC ☛ Veteran’s book about involvement in Jan. 6 attack leads to his arrest

    A Marine veteran’s self-published book documenting his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol led to his arrest Thursday on felony charges, including assaulting law enforcement officers.

  • US News And World Report ☛ TikTok Must Face Lawsuit Over 10-Year-Old Girl's Death, US Court Rules

    A U.S. appeals court has revived a lawsuit against TikTok by the mother of a 10-year-old girl who died after taking part in a viral "blackout challenge" in which users of the social media platform were dared to choke themselves until they passed out.

  • VOA News ☛ Militia group member sentenced to 5 years in prison for Capitol riot plot

    The judge said there is "no question" that Wilson intended to interfere with the congressional certification of Biden's 2020 electoral victory over Trump.

  • Google ☛ I Spy With My Little Eye: Uncovering an Iranian Counterintelligence Operation | Google Cloud Blog

    The data collected by this campaign may support the Iranian intelligence apparatus in pinpointing individuals who are interested in collaborating with Iran’s perceived adversarial countries. The collected data may be leveraged to uncover human intelligence (HUMINT) operations conducted against Iran and to persecute any Iranians suspected to be involved in these operations. These may include Iranian dissidents, activists, human rights advocates, and Farsi speakers living in and outside Iran.

  • RFA ☛ North Korea orders all students abroad to return home for ideological education

    The government is worried that the students have been exposed to freedom too long, observers say.

  • RFA ☛ North Korea test-fires multiple rocket launcher with new guidance system

    The test came after reports the North sent over 13,000 containers suspected of carrying arms to Russia.

  • The Strategist ☛ The other proliferation

    Mention ‘proliferation’ and most people will assume that you are talking about the spread of nuclear weapons.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Adds 92 U.S. Citizens, Including Journalists, To Sanctions List

      The Russian Foreign Ministry said on August 28 that it added 92 U.S. citizens, including journalists of The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, to its sanctions list.

    • Meduza ☛ Telegram has become a key tool for the Russian military. Why does Moscow continue to rely on a Dubai-based civilian messaging app? — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ What’s causing the Russian ruble to fluctuate wildly against the dollar and euro, even as it holds steady against the yuan? — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russia spends billions on protecting its border. So why is it so easy to break through? — Meduza

    • RFERL ☛ CIA 'Certain' Putin Planning Counteroffensive In Kursk To Reclaim Territory

      Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to mount a counteroffensive to try to retake territory in the Kursk region captured by Ukrainian troops, Deputy CIA Director David Cohen said on August 28.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Turkey wants to end the war in Ukraine—and might have a formula to do it

      Turkey would play a role in a cease-fire and post-war arrangement, drawing on a history of balance and deterrence in the Black Sea region.

    • France24 ☛ 🔴Live: Ukraine intent on retaining captured Russian territory, US intel official says

      Ukrainian forces are intent on retaining the territory in Russia’s Kursk region they seized in their incursion for “some period of time” and any Russian counteroffensive will be a difficult fight, Deputy CIA Director David Cohen said on Wednesday. The announcement came after the Kremlin dismissed talk by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about a plan to end the war and said Russia would continue what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine. Follow our liveblog for all the latest developments.

    • France24 ☛ UK's Starmer, Germany's Scholz seek reset in British-EU ties with comprehensive treaty

      British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday in Berlin that a new comprehensive treaty between the two countries would form part of wider post-Brexit efforts to reset UK-EU relations. The UK and Germany, NATO allies and western Europe's biggest defence spenders, are searching for ways to further cement defence cooperation ahead of a possible scale down of US military support for Ukraine in the event that former US president Donald Trump is elected in November.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania delivers final batch of crowdfunded anti-drones to Ukraine

      The final batch of 22 anti-drones purchased with funds raised through the Radarom! crowdfunding campaign in Lithuania was delivered to Ukraine on Wednesday, the NGO Blue/Yellow said.

    • RFERL ☛ Romania Gives Green Light To Start Talks On Stake In Moldovan Danube River Port

      The Romanian government on August 28 approved the start of negotiations with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for the purchase of a major stake in  Moldova's Danube River port of Giurgiulesti.

    • RFERL ☛ Kyrgyz President Says Russian Singers To Perform For Free At Independence Day Celebrations

      Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov said late on August 27 that Russian singers Stas Mikhailov, Filipp Kirkorov, and Lyusya Chebotina, who openly supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine will perform at Kyrgyzstan's Independence Day celebrations on August 31.

    • RFERL ☛ At Least 9 Killed In Fresh Round Of Russian Attacks On Ukraine

      At least nine people were killed by fresh Russian attacks on two Ukrainian regions on August 28 as Kyiv's drones struck three Russian regions, setting an oil depot on fire in Russia's Rostov region.

    • RFERL ☛ Nobel Prize Winner Asks For Red Cross Help In Saving Imprisoned Russian Activist

      Former editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov has called on the Red Cross to intervene to alleviate the situation of Aleksei Gorinov, who is serving a 7-year sentence that rights groups and his supporters say it is politically motivated.

    • CS Monitor ☛ Why Estonian volunteers are weaving camouflage nets for Ukrainian soldiers

      Estonian women weave camouflage nets to protect front-line Ukrainian soldiers so they can defend themselves against Russian attack.

    • New York Times ☛ Why Hasn’t Russia Kicked Out Ukrainian Invaders? Its Own Invaders Are Busy.

      Despite its overwhelming firepower, Russia has been unable for weeks to push Ukrainian troops back across the border, with the failure as much the result of priorities as a lack of personnel.

    • New York Times ☛ Shelling Kills 6 in Eastern Ukraine

      The rest of the country, though, was largely spared from another consecutive night of large-scale Russian bombardment.

    • New York Times ☛ Trump Blames Biden for Wars Abroad. Here’s a Look at Their Records.

      Former President Donald J. Trump blames President Biden for crises around the globe. But the reality is that presidents inherit a world already hurtling through history.

    • France24 ☛ ‘Phantom fleet’ suspected of transporting Russian liquefied natural gas from the Arctic

      Satellite images from August show two liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers docked at the port of Arctic LNG 2, a Russian LNG production mega-project sanctioned by the United States. Because they transmit false GPS coordinates and have links with opaque companies supposedly based in Dubai, these ships could be part of a "phantom fleet" being developed to export LNG and get around existing US sanctions. On August 23, the United States added the two LNG tankers to its list of sanctions.

    • JURIST ☛ Russia opens cases against journalists illegally entering Kursk

      Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced Tuesday that it has opened criminal cases against at least seven Western journalists who illegally crossed the state border of the Russian Federation near Sudzha in the Kursk region.

    • LRT ☛ Belarusian mushrooms press Lithuanian pickers down

      While mushroom picking is a popular pastime activity for many a Lithuanian, for some it is part of their livelihood. This summer, however, mushroom prices are very low, pickers complain. The reason could be imports from Belarus and Russia.

    • LRT ☛ Drop in Russian spa tourists in Lithuania replaced by locals, EU neighbours

      Lithuania's main spa towns of Birštonas and Druskininkai are seeing an increase in local customers, as well as visitors from neighbouring EU countries.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Pro Publica ☛ Nonprofit Explorer Adds Trending Nonprofits Feature

    When Congress held hearings in December 2023 to investigate allegations of campus antisemitism, they brought in the presidents of Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania. At the same time, ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer got surges of traffic to pages for all three universities. When the same congressional committee held further hearings in April and brought in now-former Columbia University president Nemat Shafik, traffic to the university’s page on the site peaked.

    When The New York Times published an article in August about the CEO of GLAAD’s pattern of lavish spending, including luxury travel and home office renovations, we noticed a corresponding spike in traffic to the page for the organization’s finances. It was the most-viewed organization on the site for two days straight. GLAAD spokesperson Rich Ferraro defended the organization’s spending, saying the trips were business expenses that furthered the group’s advocacy goals and the office improvements aided the CEO’s many on-camera appearances.

  • The Register UK ☛ Facebook whistleblower calls for transparency

    These trade-offs "were invisible to me," and Facebook staff "had learned to not see there were implicit choices. But every time they resolved those, because of the corporate culture, they would end up on the side of profits instead of optimizing for what was good for people," Haugen noted.

    To correct our course, she argues for a way to measure, navigate, and understand the world of social media, AI models, and other aspects of the unseen digital world.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • DeSmog ☛ Big Oil Is the Winner From Dutch Carbon Capture Subsidies

    • The Register UK ☛ Broadcom's plan for faster AI clusters: strap optics to GPUs

      The answer, as you might expect, is to ditch copper in favor of optics – even though that comes at the expense of increased power consumption. Nvidia has estimated that using optics rather than copper for its NVL72 systems would have required another 20 kilowatts per rack – on top of the 120 kilowatts for which they're already rated.

    • The Register UK ☛ Google Irish datacenter plans denied for not being green

      The decision, issued last week but previously unreported, saw the South Dublin County Council deny Google's ten-year planning permit to build a 72,400 square meter data storage facility, along with associated support infrastructure, at the Grange Castle Business Park outside the Irish capital.

      Reasons given for denying the project centered on environmental impact. The council states Google "failed to demonstrate that the proposed use is acceptable" due to insufficient power capacity on the national grid, and a "lack of significant on site renewable energy," which it classified as anything "below 100 percent."

    • The Verge ☛ Are Meta’s carbon emissions shrinking? Depends on how you look at it

      It helps to take a look at the graph below from the sustainability report. The light gray bars show Meta’s total “location-based” greenhouse gas emissions. Those bars have risen steadily since 2019, climbing to a total of 14,067,104 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023. It’s a slight increase in planet-heating pollution over the past year.

    • Idiomdrottning ☛ Subsidized gasoline

      Now, they wanna raise it again to 10%, which, even though that is just a third of what we used to have, still would be a atep in the right direction. Except they’re also gonna subsidize the fuels to keep costs the same. That means free money for fossil corporations.

    • Futurism ☛ Tesla Deletes Elon Musk's "Master Plan"

      The now-deleted document laid out how the Elon Musk-led company was hoping to fight climate change by electrifying cars and powering them with solar energy.

      Almost two decades later, Musk's dedication to saving the environment has eroded greatly. The mercurial CEO recently even endorsed infamous climate change denier and former president Donald Trump.

    • Futurism ☛ Tesla Quietly Deletes Claim That Old Teslas Will Be Capable of Self-Driving

      Of course, Tesla's eight-year-old promise has aged like milk. Despite the company's best efforts — and plenty of chaos caused by its controversial $15,000 "Full Self-Driving" software — full autonomy is likely still many years out.

      Worse yet, the carmaker's reckless approach — of using members of the public to beta test its driver assistance features — has already resulted in plenty of crashes, with overzealous drivers being lulled into a false sense of security by the brand's overconfident marketing.

    • Electrek ☛ Tesla deletes its blog post stating all cars have self-driving hardware

      Those articles are all missing from the website as of now. They can be found through archive.org, but everything prior to 2019 seems to have been deleted from Tesla’s servers.

      It’s a shame, because a lot of the history of Tesla can be seen through those blog posts. While the data is still available, it’s harder to get to it when you have to look for it off-site.

      But perhaps the most interesting missing article is the one mentioned above, “All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware.”

    • India Times ☛ Tesla's rivals still can't use its superchargers

      More than 12 months later, Tesla's network, with nearly 30,000 fast-charging plugs in the United States and Canada, remains largely inaccessible to most people who don't drive Teslas because of software delays and hardware shortages. Tesla built the Supercharger network to encourage sales of its vehicles. Tesla built the Supercharger network to promote sales of its cars. By opening up the network, Tesla can make money from drivers of other car brands, who pay per kilowatt-hour to charge.

    • Science Daily ☛ Bicycle rolling-stop laws don't lead to unsafe behavior by riders or motorists, research shows

      Laws that let bicyclists treat stop signs as yield signs lead neither riders nor motorists to act unsafely, according to a groundbreaking study.

    • The Oregonian ☛ Allowing bicyclists to roll through stop signs doesn’t reduce safety, researchers say - oregonlive.com

      Surveys found a “need for increased awareness” about rolling stop laws. Residents of Idaho, the first state to implement the yield law in 1982 were more familiar with the rule than people in Oregon and Washington, which only implemented those new laws circa 2020.

      In fact, nearly 60% of the 80 Corvallis-area drivers and cyclists that Oregon State researchers recruited for a lab study on their driving habits were unaware of the state yield laws before participating in the study, researchers found.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Learning to Live Beside Endangered Tigers May Be the Key to Saving Them

      New programs in India are helping to reduce conflict between humans and the big cats by educating communities and helping those who have been affected by animal attacks

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • FAIR ☛ ‘They’re Trying to Pass Laws to Make Dark Money Even Darker’ - CounterSpin interview with Steve Macek on dark money

    Janine Jackson interviewed North Central College‘s Steve Macek about “dark money” campaign contributions  for the August 23, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

  • Techdirt ☛ Zuckerberg’s Spineless Surrender: Rehashing Old News To Enable False GOP Narratives

    You may have seen a bunch of headlines in the past couple of days claiming that Mark Zuckerberg “admitted” that the Biden White House pressured him about “censoring” content and he wished he’d stood up to them more. It got plenty of coverage. Unfortunately, almost none of that coverage is accurately reporting what happened, what’s new, and what was actually said.

    The reality is pretty straightforward: Mark Zuckerberg folded like a cheap card table, facing coercive pressure from Rep. Jim Jordan to modify Meta’s moderation practices. What he says misleadingly plays into Jordan’s mendaciously misleading campaign. In short, Zuckerberg’s claim that he would stand up to government pressure on moderation is undermined by the fact that he’s revealing this literally while caving to government pressure on moderation.

  • The Register UK ☛ Where the computer industry went wrong

    Part 1: The eight-bit era You'll find below an informal roundup of the slip-ups and missteps that stick in the mind of The Reg FOSS desk, from the dawn of the microcomputer industry onwards. We are certain that we've missed plenty – let us know your favorites.

    We often hear Commodore fans saying that the company had the worst management in the history of the industry… and it did make its fair share of bad decisions. Even so, there are plenty of rivals for that dubious honor.

  • The Register UK ☛ Microsoft hosts a closed security summit? How transparent

    US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who has been very critical of Microsoft's shoddy security performance while raking in billions of dollars in government contracts, didn't get an invite, we're told.

    So…some friendly government officials and security vendors but no press or members of the public ensure "the highest level of transparency" in Microsoft's book?

  • Security Week ☛ LinkedIn Hires Former Twitter Security Chief Lea Kissner as New CISO

    Kissner replaces Geoff Belknap, who recently moved into a separate leadership role at Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn.

  • Six Colors ☛ Apple job cuts in Books are turning the page in the wrong direction

    In a report at Bloomberg (paywalled, naturally), Mark Gurman says that the company has laid off about a hundred people, primarily in the team behind Apple Books and the Apple Bookstore.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Musk voices support for California bill requiring safety tests on AI models

    California state lawmakers attempted to introduce 65 bills touching on AI this legislative season, according to the state’s legislative database, including measures to ensure all algorithmic decisions are proven unbiased and protect the intellectual property of deceased individuals from exploitation by AI companies. Many of the bills are already dead.

  • The Washington Post ☛ California AI bill 1047, opposed by Pelosi, passes State Assembly

    The proposed law would require companies working on AI to test their technology before selling it for “catastrophic” risks such as the ability to instruct users in how to conduct cyberattacks or build biological weapons. Under the proposed law, if companies fail to conduct the tests and their tech is used to harm people, they could be sued by California’s attorney general. The bill only applies to companies training very large and expensive AI models, and its author, Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, has insisted it will not impact smaller startups seeking to compete with Big Tech companies.

  • New York Times ☛ California Legislature Approves A.I. Safety Bill

    The State Assembly approved the measure, known as S.B. 1047, which would require big A.I. companies to test their systems for safety before releasing them to the public. The bill would also give the state’s attorney general the power to sue A.I. makers for serious harms caused by their technologies, like death or property damage.

  • The Verge ☛ California State Assembly passes sweeping AI safety bill

    Senator Scott Wiener, the bill’s main author, said SB 1047 is a highly reasonable bill that asks large AI labs to do what they’ve already committed to doing: test their large models for catastrophic safety risk. “We’ve worked hard all year, with open source advocates, Anthropic, and others, to refine and improve the bill. SB 1047 is well calibrated to what we know about forseeable AI risks, and it deserves to be enacted.”

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ The Superseding Trump Indictment Is about Obstruction as Much as Immunity

    In this Xitter thread, I went through everything that had been added or removed from the superseding indictment against Trump, based on this redline. The changes include the following: [...]

  • Federal News Network ☛ Cyber incident reporting for critical infrastructure: Implications for boards

    The reporting rule pursues the laudable goal of gathering potentially useful information that can assist first responders and government officials in improving cybersecurity. However, adhering to this rule could theoretically expose companies and their boards to liability, even though the Freedom of Information Act protects disclosed information, and any disclosed information cannot be used in lawsuits. Indeed, even though government officials may not be permitted to use the disclosed information in litigation, they could theoretically use that information as a roadmap to investigate the company to ultimately obtain the same data. This is a critical weakness of this proposed rule.

    The rule is expected to go into effect in 2026, providing boards some time to consider their legal and cyber implications.

  • Vox ☛ Mark Zuckerberg’s letter about Facebook censorship and Biden is not what it seems

    As we enter the final two months before the election, there are fewer guardrails for misinformation in place on major social media platforms, and writing a letter about the Biden administration and censorship, Zuckerberg seems to be throwing Republicans a political grenade, something that can fire up the base and use to get mad about Democrats. In reality, though, Zuckerberg is probably just trying to keep his company out of more hot water and to continue revamping his own public image.

    To understand how Zuckerberg’s letter could do this, it helps to know why he sent it to Rep. Jordan in the first place.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Register UK ☛ Musk tweaks Grok to remove election misinformation

      Secretaries of State from Minnesota, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Washington confirmed in a press release this week that X had updated Grok to direct anyone who uses election-related terms in their search query to vote.gov for the most up-to-date information, instead of taking matters into its own hands.

    • The Washington Post ☛ Russia claims Ryan Evans of Reuters was with Britain’s MI6

      A Reuters spokesperson said in a statement that the Russian Foreign Ministry was “factually incorrect” in its allegations about Evans. “Ryan was not a former MI6 employee,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to The Washington Post, adding, “it is ludicrous to suggest that Reuters is under the control of Western intelligence agencies.”

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Local SE ☛ Quran-burning activist Salwan Momika to face trial in Stockholm

    Momika, together with his accomplice Salwan Najem, carried out a series of anti-Islamic demonstrations in Sweden last summer, several of which involved him burning copies of the Quran, the holy book of Islam.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Sweden prosecutes Quran burners with hate crime

    But critics have said Sweden, one of the most liberal countries in the world, should treat Quran burnings as a form of free speech protected by law.

  • Mike Rockwell ☛ Telegram Founder Arrested

    Why should we allow governments to force companies to moderate the content shared through their services? Why should we be treating speech online any differently than speech spoken in person?

    Should restaurants be forced to moderate the speech of their patrons? Should they be forced by their government to install microphones at each table to ensure their customers aren’t sharing misinformation or engaging in illegal activity? Of course not.

  • France24 ☛ Telegram CEO Durov to appear in Paris court after initial detention ends

    After almost four days of questioning in detention by French investigators he was handed over to judicial authorities who will decide further measures, a source close to the case told AFP.

    A Paris investigating magistrate will decide whether to press charges against Durov, and the judiciary would then rule on whether he will be remanded in custody or allowed to go free, possibly under judicial control with restrictions on his movements.

  • Matt Birchler ☛ Straight to jail

    I just have to say I think it’s notable when a former President, and potential future President, threatens you with prison time if you don’t bow to his demands. Zuck is a powerful guy, but if POTUS says he may throw you in prison for breaking no laws…that’s at least a little concerning for anyone.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Trump Says We ‘Gotta’ Restrict the First Amendment

    “They say, ‘Sir, that’s unconstitutional.’ We’ll make it constitutional.”

  • Harvard University ☛ His country banned music. Suddenly he was a target.

    “In the opinion of the Taliban, doing music is not allowed according to sharia,” he told the Gazette. “I grew up with music … I fight all my life because they say music is against Islam.”

    After the Taliban fell in 2001, Pazhman was able to pursue music out in the open. The 2006 graduate of Kabul University with a degree in music has performed extensively throughout Afghanistan, and abroad. His first public performance was in 2011, at the Melodies of the East music festival in Samarqand, Uzbekistan. He said his band received the first position award among musicians from 54 countries.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CPJ ☛ China shuts down journalist’s [Internet], cell service

    “Chinese authorities must restore journalist Gao Yu’s [Internet] connection and phone services and stop harassing her with physical and digital surveillance,” said Iris Hsu, CPJ’s China representative. “Beijing’s excessive need to control dissent is a reflection of its cowardice and fear of critical reporting.”

  • ANF News ☛ Swedish newspaper Syre: The silence about the killed Kurdish journalists is a crime

    “On Friday, the world was shaken by the news that two brave women journalists, Gulistan Tara and Hêro Bahadîn, were killed by a Turkish drone while carrying out their work in Sulaymaniyah. Their lives were brutally snuffed out, a tragic reminder of the systematic violence and repression that Turkey practises against Kurds, especially against those who dare to speak the truth. This murder is not just an attack on individuals; it is an attack on freedom of expression and a direct challenge to the silence of the international community.

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Russia Charges Deutsche Welle Journalist Over Kursk Reporting

    Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Tuesday that it has filed criminal charges against a Deutsche Welle reporter and a Ukrainian television journalist for illegally crossing the border into the Kursk region during a reporting assignment.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Site36 ☛ Stolen colonial objects in Germany: Little movement on restitution

    Academics fear that the German government could reduce a programme for the restitution of stolen colonial assets. The responsible green ministry denies this. The German government is falling short of its announcements on the return of stolen colonial objects from state ownership.

  • Tedium ☛ The First-Sale Doctrine Needs A Reset For The Internet Of Things

    Right to repair is a fundamental tenet of consumer rights, but we may need to push for more. My suggested starting point: Introduce a law that requires manufacturers to release the source code to “smart hardware” to the public within two years of ending support for the device. This would force manufacturers to either have a lasting business plan for equipment that doesn’t degrade over time, or to give the FOSS community the building blocks to keep otherwise functional products going.

  • CBC ☛ Australians now have the legal right to disconnect from work. But how effective will it be?

    Australia's right-to-disconnect law has come into effect — giving employees the right to refuse contact if their employers reach out to them by phone or email after hours, a type of law that has popped up around the world.

    "What we're simply saying is that someone who is not being paid 24 hours a day shouldn't be penalized if they're not online and available 24 hours a day," said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ahead of the legislation's enactment into law.

  • NYPost ☛ Cop fatally shoots family's dog in front of two young kids: video

    “The dog runs up to him and he decides his best option is to draw his gun and murder our dog in front of my child, his cousin, and his mother all while they are standing there and could have easily been shot as well,” an outraged Hesseltine wrote on X alongside the CCTV clips.

    The two boys could be heard screaming and sobbing after the gunshots rang out as they watched their injured dog run back towards the house.

  • Alabama Reflector ☛ Alabama considers employment benefits for gig, nontraditional workers

    Portable benefits are employment benefits that are not tied to a single employer but instead follow the worker across different jobs or gigs. The meeting centered on the absence of an existing framework across the United States. to provide benefits like health insurance, retirement savings, and paid leave to gig workers, who currently lack access to such services and protections.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Inside Towers ☛ Quebec to Add 100 Towers in Rural Areas

    The vast majority of the cell towers will be constructed by Videotron, Sogetel Mobilité, and TELUS (NYSE: TU). Quebec says construction is expected to be completed by 2027.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• The Washington Post ☛ Yelp sues Google after monopoly ruling against the search giant

  Online reviews company Yelp sued Google on Wednesday, alleging the search giant has used its power over the web to benefit its own reviews business and unfairly shut out the smaller company.

• The Verge ☛ Yelp sues Google for antitrust violations

  Yelp alleges that Google has created or preserved its monopoly in local search services by preferencing its own inferior vertical over competitors’, which Yelp says harmed competition and reduced the quality of local search services. Yelp claims that the way Google directs users toward its own local search vertical from its general search engine results page should be considered illegal tying of separate products to keep rivals from reaching scale.

• Macworld ☛ The iPhone 16's biggest competitor is the other version of itself

  In case you don’t live in the EU, here’s where iOS and iPadOS are headed. The App Store is already no longer a monopoly, with the arrival of AltStore and the Epic Games Store.

  This means Fortnite, which was removed from App Store after Epic Games pulled a fast one and hid non-Apple in-app purchases inside the game, is now back on the platform for EU users. Apps in categories that Apple simply refuses to allow on the App Store are also available, such as a BitTorrent client and a clipboard manager.

• Patents

  • Omicron Limited ☛ From rhino horn snuff to pangolin livestock feed: A half-century of patents reveals the wildlife trade's evolution

    In our new research, published in the journal Nature Communications, we analyzed the patents for products sourced from various species. We selected bears, Ophiocordyceps caterpillar fungus, rhinos, pangolins, sturgeon and horseshoe crabs, to cover a range of use types, taxonomic groups and trade legalities. Using machine learning, we analyzed half a century of wildlife-related patenting, looking at patents from 1970-2020.

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • IT Wire ☛ The future of AI voice cloning: Emerging trends and technologies shaping the next generation

      As we look toward the future, several emerging trends and technologies are poised to further revolutionize the field. This blog post will explore the future prospects of ai voice cloning, including advancements in technology, potential applications, and its impact on various industries. We’ll also dive into cutting-edge research and expert predictions that are shaping the next generation of voice cloning.

    • CNN ☛ Stolen photos of European influencers used to push Trump propaganda on X

      Nederlof is one of 17 real European women — fashion and beauty influencers from the Netherlands, Denmark and as far away as Russia — whose online photos have been stolen by unknown actors to promote Trump and his pick as running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, on X, a CNN investigation in collaboration with the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) has found. CIR is an independent, non-profit social enterprise which describes itself as dedicated to exposing human rights abuses. It receives funding for individual projects from governments, NGOs and individuals.

    • Salon ☛ Pro-Trump accounts on X impersonated women with stolen influencers' photos, investigation reveals

      Photos of European influencers were stolen and used to promote Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, in the upcoming presidential election, a joint investigation by CNN and the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) has revealed.

      CNN and CIR used reverse-image search tools to analyze over 54 suspect accounts. Each account used photos of influencers from European countries including Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Russia to pose as conventionally attractive young women who were also Trump supporters.

    • New Republic ☛ The Weird Fake Influencers Being Used to Support Trump | The New Republic

      Disinformation is already sinking its heavy hand into the 2024 election.

      Several MAGA influencers with sizable followings have been revealed to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. One account, @Luna_2K24, accrued nearly 30,000 followers by posting suggestive selfies, including one of a woman in a white bikini captioned “Would You Support Trump Being The President forever?”

      But despite garnering the attention of some of the far right’s biggest bulldogs, including MAGA lobbyist Marty Irby, Luna isn’t real. Instead, the woman photographed is German fashion influencer Debbie Nederlof, who told CNN that she was shocked to find that her image was pushing pro-Trump propaganda.

• Copyrights

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Why some might not want to publish web feeds

    Indie sites with large photo libraries also tend to not like publishing web feeds, because they can increase load and negate (albeit imperfect) hotlinking protection. A trick in the early web was to only deliver an image if the request header came from the same site, but this would break any images delivered over a web feed to a remote client. I used to do a few tricks like custom RSS image URLs with finite lifespans, but abandoned them when I realised they were easily negated and more trouble than they were worth.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Pirate Sites, Billions of Visits, Wiped Out in Hours: Sifting the Fmovies Wreckage

    Fmovies was once the world's most popular pirate streaming site. Then mid-June, after years of smooth sailing, it vanished into thin air. Sites with over a billion annual visits tend not to throw everything away so easily. Yet last night, a site with close to two billion visits disappeared in similar circumstances, rapidly followed by another, and then many others after that. In the absence of an official announcement, earlier today we took an early sift through the wreckage.