Leftovers

• Nicolas Magand ☛ One year of publishing “Blend of links” posts

  After almost a year and 12 posts in this blog’s new category “Blend of links,” I’ve shared a total of roughly 120 links with you, dear readers, all without having to write anything of substance (which takes time I may not have, and like I said before, I’m lazy).

• Amit Patel ☛ SDF letter spacing

  I was extremely pleased that my font renderer looked so close to Google’s, not only the spacing but also the shapes. Looking closely at the edges led me down another rabbit hole … a tale for the next blog post.

• [Old] The Marginalian ☛ Steve Jobs on Why Computers Are Like a Bicycle for the Mind (1990) – The Marginalian

  And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.

• Lou Plummer ☛ Easy Things vs. Hard Things

  Some of the rest of us have the ability to do things that other people really struggle with, we just don't get paid the way pro athletes do. That's OK, there are other rewards. These abilities are not doled out fairly by the gods and sometimes we maintain them for only a while before other people take over our roles.

• Alex Ewerlöf ☛ SLS

  Service Level Indicator is a metric. Service Level Objective sets the expectation.

  Fine! But what is the day-to-day experience of using service levels? More exactly, how do you relate the raw metric values (e.g. latency, error rate, cache hit rates, etc.) to a target that looks like 99.96%?

  There’s a conceptual gap between the metric values and SLO target.

  This is where Service Level Status (SLS) comes to the picture. SLS processes the values of the service level indicator metric over time.

• Thorsten Ball ☛ Joy & Curiosity #6

  I’m going to try something new again. This Register Spill consists of only the Joy & Curiosity section. Why? I want some writing time back for other side-projects, but I also think the writing might get better of it’s not on a weekly schedule. I’ve also really enjoyed compiling a list of links, so let’s focus on that for a while.

• Robert Birming ☛ The Freedom of Limitations

  Written almost a hundred years ago by social psychologist and ”FOMO guru” Erich Fromm. It makes you think, and that’s one of the positive aspects of not being too limited.

• Austin Kleon ☛ Better to light a candle than curse the darkness - Austin Kleon

  My friend Alan Jacobs writes in response to a piece bemoaning the fact that nobody reads Arthur Koestler anymore: [...]

• Alan Jacobs ☛ the smog of unknowing – The Homebound Symphony

  2. You can curse the darkness, or you can light a candle. You can lament that people don’t know the value of Arthur Koestler’s work, or you can write an essay that seeks to call readers’ attention to his best writing. If young people today do not know of events or artists or thinkers or works that you think they would benefit from knowing, you can tell them. That’s one of the main things writers are for.

• Standards/Consortia

  • [Old] Ars Technica ☛ Massachusetts’ biggest OpenDocument supporter hangs up his pompoms | Ars Technica

    Quinn's troubles also go beyond that of just being able to do his everyday job. The Boston Globe recently pushed for a baseless investigation into Quinn's travels to out-of-state trade shows. The newspaper later reported that Quinn did not violate any rules, but forgot to mention in the report that it requested the initial investigation.

• Science

  • Wired ☛ Alien Spaceships Could Be Detected Using Gravitational Waves

    Since then, gravitational waves have become an essential new tool for scholars exploring the universe. But we are still at the very beginning of our explorations. What signals might we see in the data, and will they change how we see the physics of the cosmos?

    There is, however, a more practical question that often gets overlooked—if something is out there, how would we recognize it?

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Researchers snoop data from air-gapped PC's RAM sticks by monitoring EM radiation from 23 feet away

    Since electronic devices (like the RAM sticks) always emit radio frequency signals, no matter how minute, the attacker could then intercept the back-and-forth switching of radio signals coming from the RAM through a Software-Defined Radio and record it as binary information.

• Education

  • Hans-Dieter Hiep ☛ What is an education?

    All these points contribute to an education. Simply put, an education helps students to become self-sufficient. I shall discuss the above points one-by-one, and reflect on each general statement how, in particular, it applies to computer science education.

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ The unfinished business of universal literacy

    Mass illiteracy has serious consequences, including for a country’s security. A lack of educational opportunities and high rates of literacy increase the risk of extremist ideologies. The Sahel is a case in point. With the highest illiteracy rates in the world, the extremist insurgency gripping the region attracts a growing population of disaffected young people who have been denied the opportunity to go to school.

    Poverty and illiteracy tend to go hand-in-hand. The average literacy rate of the least developed nations is only 65%, compared to near 100% adult literacy in developed countries.

  • Lee Yingtong Li ☛ Australian English linguistic growth charts

    Below are presented linguistic ‘growth charts’ and limit ages, showing expressive vocabulary by age for an Australian English cohort, based on the norming sample for the long-form Australian English Communicative Development Inventory (OZI),1–2 and its short form (OZI-SF).3–4

  • [Old] Broads Authority ☛ Empire Building?

    In 2013, the anthropologist David Graeber wrote a thought provoking essay which explored why in allegedly efficient capitalist systems, many people find themselves in jobs they admit are useless. This has recently been expanded into a book called Bullshit Jobs: A Theory in which the author speculates that one reason for the existence of such jobs is empire building.

  • Makoism ☛ Rethinking Reading

    In this post, Holzwarth borrows from Newton's laws of motion and flips them to focus on core human behavior: [...]

  • Rachel ☛ "SRE" doesn't seem to mean anything useful any more

    To me, a SRE is *both* a sysadmin AND a programmer, developer, whatever you want to call it. It's a logical-and, not an XOR.

    By sysadmin, I mean "runs a mean Unix box, including fixing things and diving deeply when they break", and by the programmer/whatever part of it, I mean "makes stuff come into existence that wasn't there before". In particular, I expect someone to run the *right* things on those boxes, to find the actual problems and not just reboot stuff that looks squirrelly, and that they write good, solid code that's respectful of the systems and the network. They probably write programs to make the sysadmin part of the job run itself. Automation for the win.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • BBC ☛ Corruption review finds 'red flags' in more than 130 Covid contracts - BBC News [Rianne: long overdue]

    An anti-corruption charity finds significant concerns in £15.3bn worth of contracts awarded during the pandemic.

  • Truthdig ☛ How Opioids Corrupted Organized Medicine

    After all, if you don’t prescribe responsibly, it’s the state medical board that comes for you!

    Yet opioid manufacturers also wrote most of this FSMB booklet. (The Wall Street Journal reports Purdue’s David Haddox was particularly active.) Companies including Cephalon, Endo and Purdue then paid the FSMB more than $250,000 to distribute 163,000 copies of it to physicians. For context, there are about 1 million licensed physicians in the nation — so that’s one booklet for every six physicians.

    In fact, the FSMB was showered with more than $2 million in opioid cash over the next few years, while opioid manufacturer sales reps marched door-to-door, hand-delivering these booklets to doctors and nurse practitioners at primary care offices. The Mississippi lawsuit notes (paragraph 163, pg. 60) this was a powerful signal:

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • The Korea Times ☛ South Korean soldier photos removed from military intranet to prevent deepfake crimes

    Intranet photos of soldiers, military and defense ministry officials have been made unavailable over concerns they could be abused to make sexually abusive deepfake images, officials said Sunday.

  • Futurism ☛ Waymo Giving 100,000 Robotaxi Rides Per Week But Not Making Any Money

    But as the newspaper notes, there's a major caveat: despite its healthy stream of customers, Waymo still isn't profitable. Google's experimental division, which includes Waymo, had an operating loss of around $2 billion in the first of this year, and the robotaxi company is most likely a significant portion of that loss, Mark Mahaney at investment research firm Evercore ISI told the NYT.

    With even the industry leader still in the red, it's a sobering reminder that the road to profitability is a long one, with no guarantee that it won't lead to a dead end.

  • New York Times ☛ Waymo Turns Toward Making Money as It Expands Driverless Car Business

    But there is still a big question about whether Waymo’s robot cars can become a profitable business. And some wonder whether Waymo will one day move away from the business of managing car fleets and focus on selling its technology to other companies.

  • Futurism ☛ Shady Firms Say They're Already Manipulating Chatbots to Say Nice Things About Their Clients

    The goal? Manipulate AI chatbots and search tools into holding favorable views of their clients, which might be brands, websites, or humans. The idea is that when someone uses an AI tool to look for info about these clients, the AI model can be tweaked into offering a glowing review.

  • Alvaro Montoro ☛ Web Developers, AI, and Development Fundamentals

    Even the best AI can only take you so far without a solid foundation in development fundamentals. Developers need to adapt and evolve with AI, using it as the powerful tool that it is, but without over-relying on it.

  • India Times ☛ They had thriving lives on X, until Brazil banned it overnight

    Overnight, many Brazilians who had similarly built their businesses on X were thrown into a frenzied search for new platforms where many would have to start from scratch to reach clients, market their work and connect with sponsors.

  • PC World ☛ Why I'm waging a personal war against bloatware

    Shouldn’t I be free to enjoy the power of my freshly minted rig by playing fun games rather than having to spend all my time blocking annoying and persistent pop-ups?

    What’s more, isn’t it a shame that someone other than the laptop’s owner (me) has decided to fill some of its limited 256GB storage with enough useless junk that I now can’t even load one triple-A game on it?

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Pavel Durov promises changes to Telegram after his arrest

    “While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk,” the Russian-born tech entrepreneur wrote. “That’s why this year we are committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise.”

  • Matt Birchler ☛ PayPal brings their debit card to Apple Wallet

    PayPal is a pioneer in digital wallets, they’re one of the biggest wallets in the world today, and Apple is just about to let them enable tap-to-pay in their iOS app and even become the default wallet on iPhones. They’re unquestionably one of the companies most likely to successfully get people to switch to from Apple Wallet.

• Defence/Aggression

  • ANF News ☛ Salih Muslim: Turkey aims to destroy all Kurds in the New Greater Middle East Project

    Salih Muslim said, “There is no end to the games in the Ottoman Empire” and likened the agreement between Iraq and Turkey to the Adana Agreement signed between Turkey and Syria in 1998. Salih Muslim said, “The Adana Agreement signed by the Turkish state with Syria in 1998 is an example of this. They are still using this agreement. The agreement signed between Iraq and Turkey on 15 August is similar to this. They make agreements behind secret doors. What they are doing now is included in the content of the agreements. This agreement is a game played on the peoples.”

  • VOA News ☛ Iran's secret service plots to kill Jews in Europe, says France

    Iran is accused of recruiting criminals, including drug lords, to conduct such operations.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Indonesia detains 7 over ‘ISIS terror plot’ to attack Pope Francis during Jakarta visit: Report

    Detachment-88 spokesman Colonel Aswin Siregar informed reporters that the investigation is still ongoing and it has not yet been determined whether the seven detainees are connected or belong to the same terror cell.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Indonesian police detain seven in a failed plot to attack Pope Francis | The Straits Times

    Searches conducted in the house of one of the militants said to be planning an attack on Pope Francis – who visited Jakarta from Sept 3 to 6 – yielded bows and arrows, a drone and ISIS leaflets, a source told The Straits Times. Some of those arrested had pledged allegiance to ISIS, he added.

    “One of the arrested is a militant who belongs to the same terror group that attacked Wiranto,” the source said, referring to Indonesia’s then Chief Security Minister – who goes by one name – who was stabbed by two ISIS-radicalised assailants in 2019 and underwent surgery after the attack.

  • [Repeat] Michael Geist ☛ New Academic Year Requires New Approach to Combat Campus Antisemitism

    The source of this dread is no mystery as the stunning outbreak of antisemitism since Oct. 7 has been particularly pronounced on university campuses. Indeed, last spring, the presidents of four of Canada’s largest universities – the University of Toronto, UBC, McGill and Concordia – all conceded to the House of Commons justice committee that antisemitism was a significant problem on their campuses. And those admissions came just as encampments on university campuses across Canada were proliferating – encampments that exacerbated antisemitism concerns and remained active for months until court orders led to their removal.

  • JURIST ☛ Canada police arrest Pakistani man for planned ISIS-inspired attack on New York Jewish center

    The US Department of Justice (DOJ) claimed that the man, Muhammed Shahzeb Khan, intended to commit the shooting in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), a militant Islamist group designated as a terrorist organization by both the US and Canada. US prosecutors charged Khan with one count of attempted provision of material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Arrests in tractor-trailer migrant tragedy show importance of collaboration

    Seven men were detained by the Guatemalan government late last month and charged with trafficking in the 2022 deaths of 53 migrants who perished in a tractor trailer abandoned in the sweltering Texas heat by a network paid to safely – and illegally – bring them into the United States.

    U.S. authorities have put in an extradition request for one of the men. He is believed to be the mastermind of the operation, which killed several children, a pregnant woman, and dozens of other Guatemalan, Honduran, Mexican, and Salvadoran immigrants seeking safety and opportunity in the U.S.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Pete Brown ☛ When that thing you like turns into a business

    What I mostly find is that I am now innately suspicious any time I run across some new podcast or YouTuber—any sort of online creator, really—who seems to have something interesting to say. Is it real, I wonder, or is it a hustle, a put-on to build a brand and engagement? If it is real, how long before the inevitable turn toward monetization?

  • 404 Media ☛ Behind the Blog: Party Time

    This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss last night's shindig.

• Environment

  • CBC ☛ Warmer temperatures have put chinook salmon — and a way of life — in grave danger

    This summer about 24,000 chinook were counted moving up the Yukon River at the border with Alaska. That's compared to historic lows of 12,000 and 15,000 the last two seasons, says Elizabeth MacDonald, a biologist and fisheries manager for the Council of Yukon First Nations.

  • The Korea Times ☛ Number of international flight passengers in South Korea increases by 19.9% in July-August: data

    This year's figure came to about 97 percent of that logged in 2019.

  • New York Times ☛ In Papua New Guinea, Pope Francis Hears Plea for Climate Action

    In the Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea, hundreds of people may soon have to abandon their homes, pushed inland by the rising sea. Hundreds more were buried in a devastating landslide this year. Around the country, intensive logging is shrinking the island’s lush rainforests, and mine tailings have polluted its rivers.

    On Friday, Pope Francis, who has long begged the world to preserve nature, started his visit to a place that is a stark example of how human action can harm the environment. Locals hoped his presence would make a difference.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Deseret Media ☛ How do you get a grumpy 4-ton elephant to a new home 120 miles away? Elephant movers

      The Egyptian veterinarian's résumé includes possibly the most famous elephant relocation on the planet. In 2020, Khalil's team saved Kaavan, an Asian elephant, from years of loneliness at a Pakistan zoo and flew him to a better life with other elephants at a sanctuary in Cambodia.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Hedgehogs threatened by robot mowers, German activists warn

      Hedgehogs are particularly in danger from mowers operating at night, as the animals are nocturnal feeders and do not flee when in danger, instead relying on their spines as defense — an inadequate protection against the sharp metal blades of a robotic mowing machine.

  • Overpopulation

    • California ☛ Governor Newsom adapts state’s drought response to changing conditions, continues action to support recovery and build resilience | Governor of California

      The state of emergency remains in effect in California’s remaining 39 counties, where significant impacts from the multi-year drought – including depleted groundwater supplies, domestic well failures and harm to native fish – persist in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River basins, the Tulare Lake basin, the Scott, Shasta and Klamath River watersheds, and the Clear Lake watershed.

    • Lusaka ZM ☛ Zambia : Luanshya Lawyer Zevyanji Sinkala Drills Boreholes to Alleviate Water Crisis in Public Institutions

      Luanshya lawyer Zevyanji Sinkala has come to the aid of Luanshya residents faced with erratic water supply, by drilling some water boreholes in some public institutions to alleviate the water problem in the district.

    • Omicron Limited ☛ To save its tigers, India has relocated thousands of people—it could enlist their help instead

      In protected areas globally, nature conservationists can find themselves at odds with the needs of local communities. Some scientists have argued that, in order for them to thrive, tigers need forests that are completely free of people who might otherwise graze livestock or collect firewood. In a few documented cases, the tiger population has indeed recovered once people were removed from tiger reserves.

      But in pitting people against wildlife, relocations foster bigger problems that do not serve the long-term interests of conservation.

• Finance

  • HT Digital Streams Ltd ☛ From Boeing to Detroit Three, US labor unions flex muscle

    U.S. planemaker Boeing has averted a possible strike after reaching a tentative labor deal with a union representing more than 32,000 workers in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, the latest in a series of labor negotiations that brought double-digit wage increases despite a tight labor market and stubborn inflation.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Jeff Bezos' Project Kuiper satellite internet to get UK approval, competition with Elon Musk's Starlink intensifies

    However, Project Kuiper is now planning to launch 3,236 satellites into space, despite not having launched any Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, except for two prototypes in November last year, and the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has already granted Amazon permission to launch the satellites over five phases.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • France24 ☛ How Russia spread a fake rumour about Kamala Harris and a hit-and-run

      A fake news report posted online in early September by a fake news site claims that presidential candidate Kamala Harris was responsible for a hit-and-run back in 2011 that left a young girl in a wheelchair. Pro-Russian and pro-Trump social media accounts have been widely circulating a video featuring the alleged victim of the hit-and-run and accusing Harris. However, there are indications that the interview is fake and possibly AI-created.

    • Axios ☛ The rise of fake influencers

      • Brands and creators are harnessing artificial intelligence to mint synthetic influencers.

      Why it matters: Today’s young people are encountering a barrage of information [sic] through influencers and forming opinions based on their content.

    • NDTV ☛ Tenet Media: How US Right-Wing Social Media Influencers Became Russia's "Useful Idiots"

      Two employees of Russian state media were charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and money laundering. The DOJ states that Russia's goal was to push narratives that aligned with Kremlin objectives, such as promoting domestic political division, weakening US support for Ukraine, and boosting conservative figures like Donald Trump.

      These individuals, unaware of their role in Russian operations, were described in Cold War terms as "useful idiots."

    • CNN ☛ How some of the biggest right-wing media stars ended up as unwitting puppets of Russian propaganda

      Two Russian state media employees were charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and money laundering.

      The secret payments pull back the curtain on some of the most popular right-wing personalities, who were paid millions of dollars by the Kremlin, without their knowledge according to the Justice Department to promote conservative narratives that furthered Russian interests. And while the influencer, podcaster, and online content creator space is booming, the indictment shows how open the new media ecosystem is to infiltration, where independent creators operate with few guardrails and little transparency.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ YouTube deletes Tenet Media’s channel following US indictment over Russian disinformation

      A spokesperson for the Google LLC unit told The Washington Post today that the move is part of “ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.” YouTube has also taken down four other channels associated with Tenet Media co-founder Lauren Chen.

      The development comes two days after the U.S. Justice Department indicted two employees of Russian state-backed media organization RT over a scheme to spread disinformation in the U.S. Prosecutors charge that the two defendants paid a “Tennessee-based online content creation company” to post Russian propaganda. The indictment doesn’t name the company but includes a quote from its YouTube channel that multiple news outlets used to identify it as Tenet Media.

    • The Record ☛ YouTube removes Tenet Media channel over alleged ties to Russian disinformation effort

      Google has shut down several YouTube channels belonging to a company the Justice Department linked this week to a Russian disinformation campaign.

      On Wednesday, the Justice Department took down 32 websites used for a Russian influence operation and charged two Russian nationals working for the outlet RT for their role in paying U.S.-based media influencers to spread propaganda that furthered the Kremlin’s geopolitical goals.

      While the document does not name the U.S. company or citizens involved in the effort, evidence in the indictments ties the campaign to Tennessee-based media company Tenet Media — a prominent right-wing platform that employs dozens of popular political commentators.

    • The Atlantic ☛ YouTubers Are Almost Too Easy to Dupe

      No wonder Russia finds its useful idiots among the extremely online.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ U.S. company, Russian propaganda: Kremlin tactic to sway U.S. vote

      Russia has long sought to inject disinformation into U.S. political discourse. Now, it’s got a new angle: paying Americans to do the work.

      The recent indictment of two Russian state media employees accused of paying a Tennessee media company to create pro-Russia content has renewed concerns about foreign meddling in the November election and points to a new Kremlin tactic in a growing information war.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Ex-Trump advisor charged over his work for Russian TV

      The Justice Department has charged a Russian-born U.S. citizen and advisor to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign with working for a sanctioned Russian state television network and laundering the proceeds.

      Indictments allege that Dimitri Simes and his wife received more than $1 million and a personal car and driver in exchange for work they did for Russia’s Channel One since June 2022. The network was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

      Simes, 76, and his wife, Anastasia Simes, have a home in Huntly, Va., and are believed to be in Russia.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • India Times ☛ Big Tech: US calls on Big Tech to help evade online censors in Russia, Iran

    The White House convened a meeting with representatives of Amazon.com, Alphabet's Google, Microsoft, Cloudflare and civil society activists on Thursday in a bid to encourage U.S. tech giants to offer more digital bandwidth for government-funded [Internet] censorship evasion tools.

    The tools, supported by the U.S.-backed Open Technology Fund (OTF), have seen a surge of usage in Russia, Iran, Myanmar and authoritarian states that heavily censor the [Internet].

  • The Washington Post ☛ Russia throttles YouTube, popular with kids, celebrities and dissidents

    The move comes as Russia is increasingly cracking down on any alternative sources of information, especially online, and has been pushing its citizens away from foreign-based social media apps to locally developed ones over which it has tighter control, such as its video-streaming alternative RuTube.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • ANF News ☛ Journalist Sarunaz Ahmad imprisoned in Iran goes on strike

    Journalist and Child Rights Activist Sarunaz Ahmad, who is imprisoned in Evin Prison in the Iranian capital Tehran, started a strike due to the refusal to allow medical examination.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • RFA ☛ EXPLAINED: Why do places in Tibet have both Tibetan and Chinese names?

    Following the Chinese Civil War (1945-1949), communist Chinese troops invaded Tibet and annexed it in 1950.

    Beijing then signed a 17-point agreement — officially known as the “Agreement of the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet” — with the government of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual and political leader.

    The pact, which gave China sovereignty but granted the area autonomy, was legally repudiated by the Dalai Lama in March 1959 amid the Tibetan Uprising, a failed revolt against China’s rule.

  • Nicolas Cropp ☛ Women in STEM make me mad

    Upon reading The Moral Implications of Being a Moderately Successful Computer Scientist and a Woman by Irene Zhang, I was motivated to make this blog post. She did include a request to share stories of misogyny to her Github, but as I don't use Github(unrelated disgust of Microsoft) nor do I feel motivated sign up to add mine, I'll post them here, along with my thoughts. If you'd like to copy my stories and post them to Github, please feel free to do so, provided you attribute back to this blog post.

    And no, before you cancel me, the presence of women in STEM does not directly make me mad. The presence of women in STEM, as they are currently treated, makes me mad. Continue reading.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Tedium ☛ Smartphone Tethering: A Bigger Grind Than It Needed To Be

    Today in Tedium: If you’re far from home in need of an internet connection, you most likely either use your phone or hunt down the closest coffee shop. But if you’re fancy, maybe you’ll tether your phone to your laptop, and connect that way. Maybe you’ll use your phone’s ad-hoc Wi-Fi network, or connect directly via a USB cable. While we’ve given it a more modern name, tethering, it’s not particularly far removed from the old dial-up modems of yore. And it’s saved my bacon quite a few times over the years. If you’re a nerd, it’s probably saved yours, too. So, how did tethering become a thing—and what did it look like when we first embraced the cellular [Internet] life? Today’s Tedium talks tethering. — Ernie @ Tedium

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • The Register UK ☛ Activists urge FTC to ban hardware downgrades

    In an eight-page letter [PDF] to the Commission (FTC), the activists mentioned the Google/Levis collaboration on a denim jacket that contained sensors enabling it to control an Android device through a special app. When the app was discontinued in 2023, the jacket lost that functionality. The letter also mentions the "Car Thing," an automotive infotainment device created by Spotify, which bricked the device fewer than two years after launch and didn't offer a refund.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• India Times ☛ Why some analysts believe that 2024 is the last year Amazon, Flipkart and other online stores can offer big discounts

  However, this may be the last year for such aggressive discounting. Government agencies are exploring ways to regulate deep discounts and ensure a more equitable playing field between online and offline channels. Canalys’ Sanyam Chaurasia told ET that this is the last year when the likes of Amazon and Flipkart can offer deep discounting on products. “While Amazon and Flipkart will dominate sales this festive season, government agencies are currently working on a way to rationalise deep discounting so that there is no discrepancy between channels. This could be the last year where such big discounts could be given out,” Chaurasia said.

• The Register UK ☛ UK competition watchdog cautions Google over ad services

  The findings, which are provisional at this stage, are that publishers and advertisers are leaning more toward Google's own adtech services to bid for and sell advertising space rather than those of its rivals.

  According to the CMA, it is concerned "that Google is actively using its dominance in this sector to preference its own services.

• Silicon Angle ☛ UK tentatively finds that Google’s display ad unit violates competition rules

  The regulator has found that Google is using Google Ads, DV360 and Ad Manager to give AdX an edge over rival services. Officials determined that the company does so in three ways.

  Publishers sometimes use AdX together with other ad auction platforms to draw more bids for their ad space. According to the CMA, Google sometimes allows AdX to bid for ad space before those competing platforms, which increases the likelihood that it will win the auction. Moreover, Google was founded to have inflated the value of some bids to further improve AdX’s chances of nabbing ad deals.

• The Washington Post ☛ Google is a monopoly and judges want to fix that, but outcomes are hard to predict

  Monopoly charges of that magnitude are a rarity. Google is one of only a handful of corporate giants to be taken to court since the 1970s under federal monopoly law. For decades since, U.S. officials have treated high-tech companies gingerly, leery of damaging the nation’s economic engines and of punishing exemplars of innovation and free enterprise.

  The string of cases against Google suggests an end to that reluctance, reflecting instead a shift toward heavier oversight as concerns have grown across the political spectrum over tech giants throwing their weight around.

• Patents

  • Software Patents

    • The Register UK ☛ Xockets DPU patent case threatens Nvidia's Blackwell launch

      The patents in question encompass a variety of applications, including cloud, machine learning, security, network overlays, streaming data processing, and cloud fabrics. Xockets says Microsoft, as well as Mellanox — later acquired by Nvidia in 2020 — knowingly ripped off these blueprints.

    • [Old] La Fondation Inria ☛ NIST Chooses Falcon as Standard for Post- Quantum Cryptographic Signature

      The group is not an industrial consortium whatsoever. “By the way, NIST mandates that all the algorithms submitted be patent-free. They must be non proprietary so that everybody can use them. In the past, we have seen patented encryption schemes, which turn out to be prejudicial as it actually had the effect of slowing down of the development of certain cryptographic methods.”

    • [Old] US NIST ☛ NIST to Standardize Encryption Algorithms That Can Resist Attack by Quantum Computers

      Today NIST released draft standards for three of the four algorithms it selected in 2022. A draft standard for FALCON, the fourth algorithm, will be released in about a year.

      NIST is calling on the worldwide cryptographic community to provide feedback on the draft standards until Nov. 22, 2023.

      “We’re getting close to the light at the end of the tunnel, where people will have standards they can use in practice,” said Dustin Moody, a NIST mathematician and leader of the project. “For the moment, we are requesting feedback on the drafts. Do we need to change anything, and have we missed anything?”

• Copyrights

  • Silcon Republic ☛ What you need to know about the Internet Archive’s appeal loss

    The Internet Archive has been dealt a serious blow, as it lost an appeal case to share scanned books without the approval of publishers.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Threatening Anti-Piracy Messaging Fails to Stimulate Intent to Subscribe

    A study published this week by researchers in Spain shows how the intent to subscribe to a streaming platform is affected when potential subscribers are presented with stimuli such as advertising-based discounts, loyalty-based discounts, and prosocial anti-piracy messages. When direct threats enter the equation, does the fear factor help or hinder the intent to subscribe?