Leftovers

• Task And Purpose ☛ Free Wi-Fi for military barracks across all branches, Pentagon says

  The memo also includes some ways to improve junior troops’ quality of life, with more Wi-Fi access in the the barracks and a plan to tackle specific issues at remote installations.

• Michał Sapka ☛ Unix History moved

  Moving sites to my flat is a breeze, thanks to FreeBSD. Splitting them into separate hugo sites is not. But here we are, Unix History is now on Crys Site.

• Dan Q ☛ Thanks, RSS Readers

  Regardless of whether or not you love RSS as much as I do, thanks for reading my blog via RSS!

• Nathaniel Snelgrove ☛ Creative hobbies vs side hustles

  It was too much because it was no longer a hobby for me. It had turned into a side hustle.

  Here’s what I think the difference is: a creative hobby is something that you do exclusively for you. It won’t make you money. It doesn’t inherently earn you an audience. It’s for fun. To make this as simple as possible, maybe you play an instrument. Maybe you draw.

  On the other hand, a side hustle is something you make for other people. It can bring you the same amount of joy as a hobby, but the primary goal is providing a service or product for other people. My backing tracks became a side hustle. I made them for other people and hoped to grow an audience. If you play an instrument and you start releasing music, the minute that stops being about self-satisfaction and becomes something you do for the pursuit of an audience, it’s a side hustle.

• R Scott Jones ☛ Five ways to explore where you live

  So with that decision behind us, we started to invest ourselves a bit more in what we now consider to be our long-term neighborhood.

  If you’re new to an area—or, like us, you’ve decided that this will be home for awhile—here are some ways that you can better connect to the place you live, along with some personal examples of what we’ve done since making that decision.

• The Register UK ☛ Japan to put a small red Swedish house on the Moon

  Swedish artist Mikael Genberg is ispace's final payload customer for the HAKUTO-R Mission 2, which is expected to bring the Resilience lunar lander and Tenacious micro rover to the Mare Frigoris in the Moon's northern hemisphere – a sun-drenched bit of prime real estate with a clear line of communication to Earth.

• Science

  • Futurism ☛ Scientists Puzzled by Hundreds of Little Red Dots in James Webb Images of Distant Universe

    Deepening the mystery, the Little Red Dots were only visible for a period of around one billion years, about 600 to 800 million years after the Big Bang. Now, they're nowhere to be found, and determining exactly what they are will be crucial to figuring out where they fit into the evolution of our universe.

  • Futurism ☛ Boeing Execs Have Been Suspiciously Quiet Ever Since Starliner Limped Back to Earth

    But NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are still stranded on board the International Space Station after the space agency deemed Starliner too dangerous for their return.

    And instead of trying to spin the landing into a victory, Boeing executives have been eerily quiet since. Two executives who were scheduled to speak at a post-landing press conference at NASA's Johnson Space Center, seemingly decided last minute not to show up.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Stuck-in-space astronauts make first public comments since Boeing capsule left without them

    The two Starliner test pilots—both retired Navy captains and longtime NASA astronauts—will stay at the orbiting laboratory until late February. They have to wait for a SpaceX capsule to bring them back. That spacecraft is due to launch later this month with a reduced crew of two, with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams for the return leg.

  • The Conversation ☛ Cosmology is at a tipping point – we may be on the verge of discovering new physics

    To be fair, controversies are just the normal course of the scientific method. And over many years, the standard cosmological model has had its share of them. This model suggests the universe is made up of 68.3% “dark energy” (an unknown substance that causes the universe’s expansion to accelerate), 26.8% dark matter (an unknown form of matter) and 4.9% ordinary atoms, very precisely measured from the cosmic microwave background – the afterglow of radiation from the Big Bang.

  • Amazon Inc ☛ Better-performing “25519” elliptic-curve cryptography - Amazon Science

    The x/Ed25519 algorithms have distinct purposes. The x25519 algorithm is a key agreement algorithm, used to securely establish a shared secret between two peers; Ed25519 is a digital-signature algorithm, used to sign and verify data.

    The x/Ed25519 algorithms have been adopted in transport layer protocols such as TLS and SSH. In 2023, NIST announced an update to its FIPS185-6 Digital Signature Standard that included the addition of Ed25519. The x25519 algorithm also plays a role in post-quantum safe cryptographic solutions, having been included as the classical algorithm in the TLS 1.3 and SSH hybrid scheme specifications for post-quantum key agreement.

  • Futurism ☛ Experts Find NASA Is in Major Trouble

    In a new report, a group of aerospace experts have declared that NASA is at a turning point — and the agency's death could be imminent.

    As the Washington Post notes, the new report, fittingly titled "NASA at a Crossroads" and published at the behest of Congress by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, highlights in grim detail just how much trouble the agency is in.

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ This Ancient Celtic Helmet Is the Oldest Ever Found in Poland

    Though it was damaged by age, researchers determined the “spectacular” helmet was originally shaped like a cone, possessing a separate curved neck piece and decorated with etched lines. Its discovery has changed the team’s perceptions of the Celts—a group of Central European tribes who thrived during the Iron Age, from 1200 B.C.E. until 50 C.E.

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Researchers don’t take enough account of variation in biology – doing so could unlock new understanding in science and medicine

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] Plants can grow in near-darkness, new research shows – here are three promising benefits

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Cosmology is at a tipping point – we may be on the verge of discovering new physics

• Education

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ Trump wants to abolish the Department of Education. Is Michigan ready?

    But with Michigan students continuing to struggle on national and state assessments, "the solution is not that simple," according to Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers, a Trump-endorsed Republican whose campaign said he does not support abolishing the department.

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Crucial MX500 SSD firmware susceptible to buffer overflow security vulnerability

    The vulnerability has been recorded as CVE-2024-42642. Crucial has yet to officially announce this vulnerability in its MX500 SSDs, and no one knows which firmware variants are affected. The most optimal case we can assume is that Crucial is working on a firmware update behind closed doors and will announce it once it's complete.

  • The Drone Girl ☛ How much can I charge to shoot vineyard aerial imagery?

    Congratulations on your new business and especially on the fact that one of your customers has volunteered to pay you! That’s a terrific feeling and a sure sign that you’re doing something right. To be sure, what to charge is an extremely difficult question to answer – and one that I myself struggle with whenever I do freelance work. I’m honestly terrible at deciding how much I’m worth and then asking for it.

    I guess I would have three suggestions for you in this case: [...]

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Robert Birming ☛ The Sound of Silence

    They say that we are born with two ears and one mouth to make us listen more and talk less. I wish that was true.

    We can discover and learn so much just by listening more, by paying attention. Even the silence can give us important insights, if we are willing to listen closely.

  • International Business Times ☛ Man Struggling With $18/hr Salary Tells Aging Mom: 'I Don't Have The Funds Or Time To Help You If Something Happens'

    The son went on to explain that even if he were to relocate to his mother's city to assist her, he would likely only be able to find low-paying entry-level positions. This income wouldn't be sufficient to cover his own living expenses, let alone his mother's.

    "There's no way I could afford to pay for all of the necessary care and whatnot making $18/hr at a call centre," he wrote. His mother proposed that he start building his career by securing an office job and working his way up.

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Everything You Wanted to Know About the Longest Nerve in the Body

    How is this crucial brain-body connection orchestrated? The answer involves the very unusual vagus nerve. The longest nerve in the body, it wends its way from the brain throughout the head and trunk, issuing commands to our organs and receiving sensations from them. Much of the bewildering range of functions it regulates, such as mood, learning, sexual arousal and fear, are automatic and operate without conscious control. These complex responses engage a constellation of cerebral circuits that link brain and body. The vagus nerve is, in one way of thinking, the conduit of the mind.

  • Lou Plummer ☛ The Last Bottle of Bourbon

    I drove to the AA building where I knew people would be gathering in preparation for a meeting. Being Sunday in my Southern city, there was no alcohol for sale before noon. I went in and found a couple of guys I knew and liked and told them how hopeless I felt. Instead of feeling sorry for me, they were pretty matter-of-fact. They told me that I had all the information I needed to get sober. I wasn't an alcoholic out of ignorance about the disease. They told me no one could save me from being a drunk but me, with a willingness to follow directions—but all that I had ever demonstrated was an arrogance against doing that. Instead of feeling offended, something just clicked. These were men I knew and respected. They weren't trying to play a tough-love head game on me. Knowing me to be an atheist, they chose not to use a bunch of supernatural spiritual language. I certainly didn't have the power within me to resist demon rum, but they did, and they were willing to help me. One was a retired Army medic who worked at the county jail. The other guy was an ex-con who worked as a carpenter. They made it clear that for me, getting sober and staying sober wasn't going to be a dramatic event, but a slow process where I'd need to rely on and trust them. I was ready to do that. I didn't want to keep living a life where I was unable to stay out of the liquor store, and where the people who knew me best didn't think I could anyway.

  • TechCrunch ☛ Apple AirPods Pro granted FDA approval to serve as hearing aids | TechCrunch

    Apple announced that its most premium earbuds would double as an over-the-counter hearing aid, courtesy of a software update, pending approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

    The FDA on Thursday announced that it has granted what it calls “the first over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid software device, Hearing Aid Feature.” Specifically, it has approved the software update that enables that functionality.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Dedoimedo ☛ Youtube channel eligibility - Keep dangling them carrots

    Recently, I uploaded a new video to my Youtube channel. When I tried to add a description to the clip, Youtube wouldn't let me proceed to the next step. First, it told me I cannot use angled brackets, which is fine. Then, it told me that if I wanted to use URLs (to my own blog no less), I needed to verify myself. What.

    And so I explored this venue a bit more, decided not to play ball with this nonsense, and removed the links from the description. But I also decided to write an article about this pointless experience, about this tiered reward conditioning mechanism. It highlights oh-so many things wrong with the whole modern media industry, and I want to express myself. Here we go.

  • Business Insider ☛ Meta's Threads Is Being Taken Over by Engagement Bait - Business Insider

    It seems like Threads prioritizes comments over reposts or likes, which isn't necessarily bad.

    But it does make Threads easy to manipulate — and I tried doing just that.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ How Google is helping transform education in Africa

    Digicloud Africa, Google’s reseller enablement partner in Africa, says numerous education ministries around the world now benefit from centralised deployments of Workspace for Education on Chrome, with Chromebooks having risen to the world’s top-selling device for education.

  • India Times ☛ WhatsApp getting AI assistants for small companies to customise ads

    After disrupting the SMS channel, WhatsApp is piloting calling functionality for large enterprises, which could cause a channel shift from IVR telephony currently used for customer services.

  • The Register UK ☛ Unity scraps runtime fee, hikes subscriptions instead

    Unity Enterprise customers, whom Bromberg said were the largest segment of the platform's users, are being stuck with most of the bill and will be facing a 25 percent price hike. All Unity customers who make more than $25 million annually are required to pay for an Enterprise plan, and default pricing isn't indicated. When we asked Unity, they didn't share the specific pricing details.

  • The Washington Post ☛ FDA approves Apple AirPods as hearing aids

    The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it has approved a piece of software that will transform the latest model of Apple’s AirPods Pro earbuds into over-the-counter hearing aids. The company’s hearing aid feature will be pushed to eligible devices through a software update in the coming weeks, Apple said.

  • IGN ☛ Microsoft Layoffs Hit Call of Duty Warzone Mobile, Which ‘Didn't Hit as Big as Hoped’

    Microsoft’s shock gaming layoffs have reportedly hit the Activision Blizzard teams behind mobile games Call of Duty Warzone Mobile and Warcraft Rumble.

    Yesterday, Xbox boss Phil Spencer sent a memo to staff, verified by IGN, that outlined a further 650 layoffs at Microsoft’s gaming business. These layoffs follow the 1,900 made earlier this year, and bring the total up to an eye-watering 2,550 since Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard last year.

    While Spencer insisted no games were canceled or studios closed this time, Game File reports that Activision Blizzard’s development teams for Call of Duty Warzone Mobile and Warcraft Rumble were hit.

    [...]

    It sounds like Call of Duty Warzone Mobile hasn’t met Activision’s expectations, however. Game File’s Stephen Totilo said that Warzone Mobile “didn't hit as big as hoped,” and that while it will remain online, its team “is being scaled down.”

  • EuroGamer ☛ CWA union slams Microsoft layoffs as "extremely disappointing"

    In a statement, the CWA said that as one of the world's "largest and most profitable corporations", Microsoft could have achieved its goals for "long-term success without destroying the livelihoods of 650 of our colleagues".

  • The Gamer ☛ Blizzard Workers Union Calls Out "Heartless" Microsoft Layoffs

    A union of World of Warcraft developers has called out Xbox's latest wave of layoffs, labelling it a "heartless" decision. A representative of the union also encourages workers to unionise, as mass layoffs like this have become "all too common" in the industry.

  • CWA slams Microsoft over 'extremely disappointing' layoffs

    The union, which threw its weight behind Microsoft's merger with Activision Blizzard, has underlined the 'devastating' impact of layoffs.

  • The new wave of layoffs at Microsoft Gaming also included the developers of mobile games Warcraft Rumble and Call of Duty Warzone Mobile

    We wrote that another 650 Microsoft Gaming employees will lose their jobs. The reduction affects management departments and support services. But now we know more about the games that will be affected.

  • Phil Spencer Says “Our goal has been to minimise disruption” in 650 Xbox Staff Layoff Mail [Ed: Innovative new euphemism: layoffs were "growth" according to him and now they are "to minimise disruption"]

    Microsoft has just announced another round of layoffs in its gaming division. This time the company is cutting 650 jobs primarily in corporate and support roles. Chief Phil Spencer shared this news in a memo to staff.

  Look ma! I got laid off at 3 in the morning!

  • Digit.in ☛ Inside Microsoft layoff: Late night emails, social media blackout and more job cuts coming

    Phil Spencer, who is the Chief at Xbox, had informed the team about the layoffs via an internal memo at 3 AM PT. As per the memo, the job cuts would mainly impact corporate and supporting functions such as HR and marketing, rather than game development or studio operations.

  • Digit.in ☛ Inside Microsoft layoff: Late night emails, social media blackout and more job cuts coming [Ed: Look ma! I got laid off at 3 in the morning!]

    Phil Spencer, who is the Chief at Xbox, had informed the team about the layoffs via an internal memo at 3 AM PT. As per the memo, the job cuts would mainly impact corporate and supporting functions such as HR and marketing, rather than game development or studio operations.

  • IBM: The Closure of the China R&D Department is Final and Irreversible

    IBM CEO Arvind Krishna responded to the reasons for closing the China R&D department during an internal online meeting with IBM global employees, stating that the closure of the China R&D department is now a completed action and is irreversible.

    Arvind Krishna said: ‘I really wish we could focus, we need strategic hubs, and these hubs are places that can accommodate teams of thousands.’

  • Ars Technica ☛ My dead father is “writing” me notes again

    Growing up, if I wanted to experiment with something technical, my dad made it happen. We shared dozens of tech adventures together, but those adventures were cut short when he died of cancer in 2013. Thanks to a new AI image generator, it turns out that my dad and I still have one more adventure to go.

  • PC-Tablet ☛ Microsoft Layoffs Spark Outrage: World of Warcraft Union Cries Foul

    Microsoft layoffs spark outrage from World of Warcraft union. CWA criticizes "heartless" decision, raises concerns about impact on game quality.

    In a shocking move that has sent ripples through the gaming community, Microsoft’s recent layoffs have drawn sharp criticism from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union representing quality assurance workers at Blizzard Albany. The layoffs, affecting hundreds of employees across various gaming studios including Bethesda and 343 Industries, have been deemed “heartless” by the CWA, particularly in light of Microsoft’s record-breaking profits and CEO Satya Nadella’s staggering compensation.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Federal News Network ☛ Marines banking on identity services as zero trust foundation

      As part of its first major milestone to enable a zero trust architecture, the Marines are deploying a software-defined network (SDN), a software-defined perimeter (SDP), and maybe most importantly, adopting the Naval Identity Service (NIS).

      Shery Thomas, the cyber technology officer and technical director for the Marine Corps Information Command, the Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command and the Marine Corps Forces Space Command, said all of these support the zero trust principles of network separation and segmentation as the service goes down the path to meet the initial capabilities for zero trust by 2027.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • BBC ☛ Police begin facial recognition pilot

      Live facial recognition (LFR) technology is being used by police in Hampshire for the first time.

      Vans in Portsmouth, Southampton, Basingstoke and Winchester have been scanning people passing a camera during a three-day pilot scheme.

      Images are compared to faces put on a police watch list with an alert immediately issued if they match.

      The force said 35,000 faces had been scanned in Portsmouth during the first day of the pilot, leading to two arrests.

    • Michael Tsai ☛ Age Verification and the App Store

      I get that Apple doesn’t want to be responsible for age verification, but it’s really a stretch to say that this is better for privacy. With payment processing, Apple is all about protecting customers by only giving the App Store their billing information. It’s too dangerous to give a random Web site your credit card number, we’re told. But when we’re talking about much more sensitive information, like proof of identity, we’re supposed to believe the opposite. You should upload your driver’s license to each individual service because Apple collecting the information once and then sharing a Boolean would violate your privacy.

    • The Record ☛ 23andMe pledges $30 million to the 6.4 million people affected by data breach

      The settlement allows 23andMe to deny “any wrongdoing whatsoever,” and it includes a clause that says it cannot “be construed or deemed to be evidence of or an admission or concession on the part of 23andMe with respect to any claim of any fault or liability or wrongdoing or damage whatsoever.”

    • Techdirt ☛ School Monitoring Software Sacrifices Student Privacy For Unproven Promises Of Safety

      The companies making the software claim it’s all done for the sake of student safety: preventing self-harm, suicide, violence, and drug and alcohol abuse. While a noble goal, given that suicide is the second highest cause of death among American youth 10-14 years old, no comprehensive or independent studies have shown an increase in student safety linked to the usage of this software. Quite to the contrary: a recent comprehensive RAND research study shows that such AI monitoring software may cause more harm than good.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Google's AI model faces probe over data use in EU

      Irish regulator the Data Protection Commission (DPC) has launched an inquiry into whether Google complied with European Union privacy laws regarding the development of one of its artificial intelligence models.

      "The Data Protection Commission today announced that it has commenced a cross-border statutory inquiry into Google Ireland," the DPC said in a statement.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ How Kamala Harris de-normalized Donald Trump in ABC debate

    She de-normalized Donald Trump.

    For years, various politicians and pundits have yelled themselves hoarse over the danger of normalizing Trump’s chicanery, casual mendacity, outrageous divisiveness and outright criminal behavior. For years, the media have attempted to contextualize a candidate/president/insurrectionist/candidate who often dismisses the most time-honored rules of American politics (including the peaceful transfer of power) and continues to feed his not-inconsiderable number of supporters a diet of self-aggrandizement and grievance.

  • New York Times ☛ How Hamas Uses Brutality to Maintain Power

    The group has abused hostages and Palestinians in its efforts to maintain control of Gaza and wage an insurgent war.

  • VOA News ☛ Lawsuit against TikTok ban set to begin in Washington

    Attorneys representing the social media application TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, are poised to clash with lawyers from the Department of Justice on Monday in a case that could decide the fate of the service in the United States.

    The case, which will be heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, consolidates several lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of a law enacted earlier this year. The measure, which had broad bipartisan support in Congress, demands that ByteDance sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner before January 19, 2025, or be forced to shut down its service within the U.S.

  • Deseret Media ☛ TikTok faces crucial court hearing that could decide fate in US

    Driven by worries among U.S. lawmakers that China could access data on Americans or spy on them with the app, the measure was passed overwhelmingly in the U.S. Congress in April just weeks after being introduced.

  • Reuters ☛ TikTok faces crucial court hearing that could decide fate in US

    The White House says it wants to see Chinese-based ownership ended on national security grounds, but not a ban on TikTok.

  • Fast Company ☛ TikTok’s fate in U.S. may be determined in upcoming court hearing - Fast Company

    TikTok and parent company ByteDance face a key court hearing on Monday in a legal battle seeking to block a law that could ban the app used by 170 million Americans as soon as Jan. 19.

  • C-SPAN ☛ U.S. Court of Appeals for DC Circuit Hears Oral Argument on TikTok Ban Law

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit hears oral argument in TikTok Inc. v. Merrick Garland, a lawsuit brought on by Chinese company ByteDance over a law that compels it to sell its ownership of TikTok in the U.S.

  • NPR ☛ 14 pro-Trump electors linked to efforts to reverse his 2020 loss are back for 2024

    This year’s return of some of these Republicans as potential electors — confirmed in recent weeks through party filings to state election officials — raises questions about what they will do if Trump loses in their states again. The GOP nominee, who is facing four felony counts related to leading conspiracies to reverse the 2020 results and disenfranchise millions of voters, has refused to commit to unconditionally accepting the results of the upcoming 2024 election while continuing to repeat the lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.

  • RFA ☛ North Korea unveils uranium enrichment facility for the first time

    A uranium enrichment facility produces highly enriched uranium by spinning uranium in centrifuges at high speeds. This enriched uranium is a critical component in the production of nuclear warheads.

  • France24 ☛ North Korea reveals images of uranium enrichment facility for the first time

    The country, which conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and is under rafts of UN sanctions for its banned weapons programmes, has never publicly disclosed details of its uranium enrichment facility.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ German state bans Islamic center over alleged Hamas links

    Brandenburg's Interior Minister Michael Stübgen said on Thursday the IZF "is associated with the Islamist terrorist group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood."

  • ANF News ☛ Germany bans an Islamist association

    Brandenburg's Christian Democrat (CDU) Interior Minister Michael Stübgen said in a statement that the measure was justified because the IZF's activities ‘contradict international understanding and the idea of constitutional order’.

    Stübgen argued that “the embers of an Islamist culture worthy of the Stone Age must be extinguished while they are still in Bloom.”

  • India Times ☛ TikTok faces crucial court hearing that could decide fate in US

    The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hold oral arguments on the legal challenge, putting the fate of Chinese-owned TikTok in the middle of the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election.

  • Michigan Advance ☛ ‘A campus should not be lawless’: AG charges 11 people involved in University of Michigan protests • Michigan Advance

    “A college campus should be a place where the exploration and sharing of ideas and opinions is able to flourish, but conviction in your ideals is not an excuse for violations of the law,” Nessel continued. “A campus should not be lawless; what is a crime anywhere else in the city remains a crime on university property. Our laws everywhere are designed to make safe communities and encourage respectful coexistence, no matter our personal disagreements or conflicting beliefs. Just as we strive for safe communities and neighborhoods, we owe it to students and parents alike to protect and encourage a safe campus environment.”

  • JNS ☛ Iran set to dramatically increase uranium enrichment

    According to the IAEA definition, it is technically possible to create an atomic bomb with roughly 42 kilograms (92.5 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60% if the material is further enriched to 90%.

    Iran has recently threatened a push towards the bomb. On May 9, an adviser to Khamenei warned that Tehran would weaponize its nuclear program if Israel “threatens its existence.”

  • Futurism ☛ Psychiatrist Says Trump’s Speech Patterns at Debate Were Cause for Alarm

    To be fair, this has to an extent always been the case with this candidate. His rhetorical style has long been considered "unique" by linguistic standards, and transcribing his "incoherent" speeches has been extremely difficult since long before his current rival became her party's nominee.

    Still, the Trump on display during this week's debate is a far cry from the vitriolic sharpshooter we saw irradiate Marco Rubio and loom over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

  • Freedom From Religion Foundation ☛ Shinto roots of Japan’s World War II atrocities unearthed on FFRF TV show

    Under Emperor Hirohito, who was considered a god, Shinto nationalism created some of the most horrific atrocities in history in the cause of a righteous and racist holy war, Bryan Mark Rigg points out. Rigg has worked as a professor of history at American Military University, Southern Methodist University and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He’s the distinguished author of several highly regarded books on World War II history. Rigg’s newest book, recently published by Knox Press, is called “Japan’s Holocaust: A History of Imperial Japan’s Mass Murder and Rape during World War II.”

  • CBC ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] Toronto man charged with threatening Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland on TikTok

  • Vox ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] How “Am I the Asshole?” ate the internet

  • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] Idiots Who Tried TikTok’s Viral ‘Free Money Glitch’ at ATMs Are Getting Reported for Fraud

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Domestic violence in East Africa: How to break the taboo?

  • FPF ☛ Biden should declassify Senate report on CIA torture program

    The U.S. keeps too many secrets about its actions in the aftermath of 9/11. There’s no better example of this than the CIA’s torture program, which can trace its beginnings to a still-classified September 2001 memorandum of notification signed by President George W. Bush. This memo granted the agency “unprecedented authorities” to capture and detain suspected terrorists.

    The outgoing Biden administration should commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the terrorist attacks by ordering the declassification of the Senate’s report on the CIA’s torture program. A fitting date for the declassification to be completed is Sept. 11, 2026 — the 25th anniversary of the attacks. This would not only help the public hold the government accountable for abhorrent human rights violations but would counter overwhelming evidence that the CIA has become too powerful for oversight.

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-13 [Older] China's Defence Minister Asks Major Countries to Take Lead in Safeguarding Global Security

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] US Backs 2 Permanent Seats for African Nations on the UN Security Council

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] How Extensive is the Privatization of Security?

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Police recover vehicles, livestock and dismantle illegal crossings in five day operation

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] China kicks off top security forum amid global tensions

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Schools Reopen With Bolstered Security in Kentucky County Near the Site of Weekend I-75 Shooting

  • CBC ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] National security watchdog probing RCMP's decision not to probe Flight PS752, lawyer says

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Portugal High-Security Jailbreak Sees Five Inmates Escaping by Ladder

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] UN Security Council Mulls Asking UN to Plan for Haiti Peacekeepers

  • The Gray Zone ☛ US govt-backed media, activists behind attacks on Honduran government

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Most people have little interest in the truth’: Twenty years after the Beslan school siege, victims’ relatives feel exploited and unheard — Meduza

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Russia-Ukraine Conflict Allows Advancement of BRICS Members’ Geopolitical Agenda

    • Scheerpost ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Bypassing Sanctions: Russia, Trade Routes and Outfoxing the West

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Bypassing Sanctions: Russia, Trade Routes and Outfoxing the West

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Should NATO shoot down Russian drones over western Ukraine?

    • The Age AU ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Sarcastic and defiant: Meet Russia’s queen of information war on the West

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Russian Attack on Village in Ukraine's Kharkiv Region Kills Three, Injures Nine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] A Soyuz Craft With 2 Russians and 1 American Docks at the International Space Station

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] Spacecraft Carrying Russians and American Docks With International Space Station

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] Russia Says It Could 'Combine' With China if They Faced a Threat

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] Zelenskiy Says 'Victory Plan' Could Push Russia to End War Diplomatically

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Rethinking of Western Perspective: China’s Alliance with Russia

    • NL Times ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Russian secret services involved in Theo van Gogh's murder: sources say in documentary

    • CBC ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Ukraine unleashes largest drone attack on Moscow yet during war, killing a woman

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Why Ukraine Invaded Russia

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Ballistic missiles to Russia: US, Europe sanction Iran

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Is Russia trying to influence the US election?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] White House Says Will Sanction Iran and Russian Targets

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] EU Vows 'Strong Response' to Iran Missile Transfer to Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Norway's Spy Chief Sees Russia More Likely to Attempt Sabotage

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Russia Is Close to Signing New Bilateral Treaty With Iran, Shoigu Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Russian Attacks Injure Three, Damage Infrastructure in Ukraine, Authorities Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Russian, Сhinese Ships Meet for Joint Drills in Sea of Japan

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Top Russian Official Reports Swift Advance in Ukraine, Rules Out Talks for Now

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Putin Casts Naval Exercise With China as Bid to Counter US in the Pacific

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] The US and Britain Accuse Iran of Sending Russia Missiles to Use in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Ukraine Identifies Russian Suspect in July Attack on Children's Hospital

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Ukraine: Sanctions on Iran Over Missile Supply to Russia Not Enough

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] U.S. Urges Europe to Raise Disquiet Over China-Russia Defence Ties

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] China announces joint naval, air drills with Russia

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Germany blames Russian GRU unit for EU, NATO cyberattacks

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Ukraine updates: EU says Iran likely sent missiles to Russia

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Will Ukraine soon use its own missiles against Russia?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Police Say a Russian 'Spy Whale' in Norway Wasn't Shot to Death

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Death of 'Russian Spy' Whale Hvaldimir Not Caused by Humans, Say Norway Police

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Iran Denies Reports of Missile Transfer to Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Iranian Missiles in Russia Are a Legitimate Target, a Ukrainian Official Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] North Korean Weapons Extending Russian Stockpiles, German General Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Poland Neutralises Sabotage Group Linked to Belarus and Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Russia Focusing on American Social Media Stars to Covertly Influence Voters

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Russian Drone That Crashed in Latvia Carried Explosives, Latvian Military Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Saudi Arabia's MbS Meets Russia's Lavrov, RIA Reports

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Ukraine Says It Downed Six Drones and Two Missiles During Russia's Attack

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-08 [Older] NATO Member Romania Says a Russian Drone Violated Its Airspace

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-08 [Older] Romania Searching for Possible Drone Fragments After Russian Attack on Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-08 [Older] Russia, Ukraine Accuse Each Other of Overnight Air Attacks on Border Regions

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-08 [Older] Russian Shelling Kills Three Women in Ukraine's East, Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-08 [Older] Russia Takes Ukrainian Town in Advance on Pokrovsk

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-08 [Older] Russia's RT Will Continue to Work in the West, Editor Says

    • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Serbia Is a Showcase of Authoritarian Neoliberalism

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Russian Troops Take Kalynove in Ukraine's Donetsk Region - Defence Ministry

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Three Killed by Russian Shelling in Ukraine's Kostyantynivka, Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Ukraine Mourns Dead From Major Russian Strike, Vows Response With Underground Weapons Production

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Ukraine Says Russia Launched 67 Drones in Overnight Attack

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] US Believes Iran Has Transferred Short-Range Ballistic Missiles to Russia, AP Sources Say

    • CBC ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] Meet the right-wing Canadian influencers accused of collaborating with an alleged Russian propaganda scheme

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] Russia vows to restrict US media in response to RT row

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] US Sees Potential Iran Transfer of Missiles to Russia as Alarming

    • Scheerpost ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] Ray McGovern: Conditioning Americans for War With Russia

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] German director Andrei Nekrasov detained in Russia

    • HRW ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] Deadly Russian Attacks on Lviv’s Historic District

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-13 [Older] Nearly $6 Billion in Funding for Ukraine Will Expire if Congress Doesn't Act by the End of the Month

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Ukraine updates: 3 Red Cross staff killed by shellfire

    • HRW ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] Hungary: Ukrainian Refugees Losing Housing

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] Air Raid Alarm Sounds in Ukrainian Capital as Blinken and Lammy Visit

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] Democrats, Republicans Want Biden to Ease Ukraine Weapons Restrictions

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] UK's Lammy Sets Out Further Financial Support for Ukraine During Kyiv Visit

    • Insight Hungary ☛ Trump quotes Orban during presidential debate

      Tuesday night during his presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump quoted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban when Harris stated that world leaders are "laughing" at the Republican candidate.

      "Let me just tell you about world leaders. Viktor Orban, one of the most respected men -- they call him a strong man. He's a tough person. Smart. Prime Minister of Hungary. They said why is the whole world blowing up? Three years ago it wasn't. Why is it blowing up? He said because you need Trump back as president," Trump touted his conversation with the Hungarian leader."They were afraid of him. China was afraid. And I don't like to use the word afraid but I'm just quoting him. China was afraid of him. North Korea was afraid of him. (...) He said Russia was afraid of him," he added.  

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Ukraine updates: Drone attacks disrupt Moscow airports

    • The Local SE ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Sweden pledges another $443 million in military aid to Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Sweden Appoints New Foreign Minister With Focus on Supporting Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Ukraine's Talks With IMF Are 'Difficult', Prime Minister Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] UK and US United Over Tackling Iran's Influence, Lammy and Blinken Say

    • NL Times ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Wilders and Zelenskyy discuss Ukraine war, pathway to peace, Nord Stream explosion

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Keri-Lynn Wilson, Who Founded Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, Becomes Music Director of Kyiv Camerata

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Sweden Announces $440 Million Support Package for Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-08 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Appoints Former Arms Production Minister as Adviser

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] German support for Ukraine under pressure from populists

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Ukraine's evacuees try to keep 'some feeling of home'

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Ukraine updates: Italy will stay with Kyiv, Meloni says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Blinken to Travel to UK Monday to Discuss Middle East, Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Drone Debris Found Next to Ukraine's Parliament Building After Overnight Attack

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Italy Will Never Waver in Decision to Support Ukraine, PM Meloni Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Three Civilians Injured as Ukraine Shells Belgorod Region, Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] UK, US Spy Chiefs Call for 'Staying the Course' on Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy attends Ramstein meeting

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] Macron Discussed Support for Ukraine and Gaza Ceasefire With Germany's Scholz

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] Pennsylvania, Arizona and Texas Benefit From US Funding for Ukraine Arms, Pentagon Says

    • Vox ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] The guessing game over Kamala Harris’s foreign policy

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Dissenter ☛ Unauthorized Disclosure: Lara Witt and Maya Schenwar

  • Vintage Everyday ☛ Unmasked Led Zeppelin’s “Led Zeppelin II” Album Cover

    “The combination of collage, photography and airbrush illustration was groundbreaking for me, because the traditional airbrush technique was very tricky, especially when compared to today’s digital equivalents,” said David Juniper. “The cover imagery was completely experimental and I liked the combination of the abstract ghostly Zeppelin shape along with a faded sepia WW1 photo of German aviators. All the faces were replaced or altered with sunglasses and beards on some of the pilots.”

• Environment

  • The Atlantic ☛ Microsoft is luring fossil-fuel companies with AI

    Fundamentally, this is a story about tension—between two points of view within Microsoft, and between the supposed promise of a technology and its actual uses in the here and now. Sustainability advocates within Microsoft have clashed with leadership over its pursuit of this business. And although Microsoft has maintained that AI could be used to make fossil-fuel companies more efficient, thereby making their work more sustainable, critics aren’t so sure. “The idea that AI’s climate benefits will outpace its environmental costs is largely speculative,” Karen writes, “especially given that generative-AI tools are themselves tremendously resource-hungry. Within the next six years, the data centers required to develop and run the kinds of next-generation AI models that Microsoft is investing in may use more power than all of India. They will be cooled by millions upon millions of gallons of water. All the while, scientists agree, the world will get warmer, its climate more extreme.”

  • NPR ☛ A landslide linked to climate change ‘rang’ the Earth for 9 days, researchers say

    Some 1.2 kilometers (3/4 of a mile) above the remote fjord, a mountaintop collapsed, driving more than 25 million cubic meters of rock and ice into the water. The volume of material was enough to fill 10,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, the researchers say.

    The tsunami in question was towering: 200 meters -- 656 feet -- in height, according to the researchers. Because the wave’s energy was trapped in a rocky fjord, the water sloshed back and forth in a phenomenon called a seiche -- and the scientists traced the seismic signal that was detected on sensors from the Arctic to Antarctica to that pattern.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ The entire Earth shook for 9 days last year because of a landslide in Greenland

    The short answer is that in September 2023, a landslide occurred in Greenland where a mountainside collapsed and carried glacial ice with it. This landslide triggered a 200-meter-high wave that became trapped in the narrow fjord, causing ongoing vibrations that were picked up as a repeated seismic signal by global sensors.

    Scientists say that landslides like these are becoming more common with climate change, which is causing the glaciers supporting Greenland’s mountains to melt.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Microsoft’s Hypocrisy on AI

    For years, Microsoft routinely promoted its work with companies such as Schlumberger, Chevron, Halliburton, ExxonMobil, Baker Hughes, and Shell. Around 2020, the same year Microsoft made ambitious climate commitments that included a goal to reach carbon negativity by 2030, the tech firm grew quieter about such partnerships and focused on messaging about the transition to net zero. Behind the scenes, Microsoft has continued to seek business from the fossil-fuel industry; documents related to its overall pitch strategy show that it has sought energy-industry business in part by marketing the abilities to optimize and automate drilling and to maximize oil and gas production. Over the past year, it has leaned into the generative-AI rush in an effort to clinch more deals—each of which can be worth more than hundreds of millions of dollars. Microsoft employees have noted that the oil and gas industries could represent a market opportunity of $35 billion to $75 billion annually, according to documents I viewed.

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] Impact  of Green Cybersecurity   on Sustainable Development

  • New Yorker ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] How to Address Two Environmental Crises at Once

  • The Revelator ☛ How Concerned Neighbors Kept a Conservation Dream Alive

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Pro Publica ☛ Oregon’s Largest Natural Gas Utility Hasn’t Actually Gone Green

      Seven years ago, Oregon’s biggest natural gas company set out to convince lawmakers and residents that an abundant new source of green energy was out there, just waiting to be tapped.

      Renewable natural gas is derived from decomposing organic waste at sites like landfills or dairy farms. It could, in theory, replace fossil natural gas in our pipelines with something far better for the environment.

    • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] Think you’re better at driving than most? How psychological biases are keeping our roads unsafe

    • Daniel Pocock ☛ Houston Energy & Climate Week 2024

      The inaugural Houston Energy & Climate Week was held from 9 to 13 September 2024.

      The schedule included a wide range of events about energy and climate issues on both a local and global scale.

    • DeSmog ☛ Danielle Smith Boosts Carbon Capture Over Renewables at CCUS Event

    • DeSmog ☛ Violations Discovered at Nation’s First Carbon Capture and Storage Project

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] The amazing flowers growing in pavement cracks and why you shouldn’t pass them by

    • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] The fascinating secrets of plant reproduction that scientists are still uncovering

    • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] A 149 million-year-old pterosaur is Britain’s largest flying animal – how scientists proved it from a single finger bone

    • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] Baleen whales are among the biggest creatures on Earth – science is revealing new secrets about their size

  • Overpopulation

    • Overpopulation ☛ Thirty years is too long to turn a blind eye to world population growth

      September 13 marks thirty years since the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo effectively denounced population stabilisation as a development goal. The consequences have been disastrous.

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Lakes drying up leave Greeks in despair

      As well as losing water directly through evaporation, the lake is being drained by the "increasing irrigation needs of (farmers in) the surrounding area", one of the important food-producing plains in the country.

• Finance

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] US Could Fully Fund Social Security by Targeting Wealthy Tax Dodgers, Wyden Says

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] US Food Insecurity Rate Rose to 13.5% in 2023 as Government Benefits Declined and Food Prices Soared

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] Advocates Urge Action as US Food Insecurity Reaches Its Highest Levels in Years

  • Scheerpost ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] US Food Insecurity Rate Rose to 13.5% in 2023 as Government Benefits Declined and Food Prices Soared

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Elon Musk's decision to move X from San Francisco stirs mixed emotions

    Critics blasted the decision by Elon Musk, noting the city in 2011 approved a payroll tax break that saved the company millions.

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ This Army division just ran cybersecurity for a far-away brigade

    Army officials believe that such remote cyber protection will be critical to units using cloud-dependent systems on missions, systems increasingly being fielded to the force.

  • TruthOut ☛ US Could Fully Fund Social Security by Targeting Wealthy Tax Dodgers, Wyden Says

    The Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee said during a hearing Wednesday that instead of tossing Social Security’s sacred guarantee “in the trash” by cutting benefits, lawmakers should crack down on mega-rich tax dodgers as a way to keep the New Deal program fully solvent for decades to come.

    “The ultra-wealthy are avoiding nearly $2 trillion in taxes every 10 years,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said during a Senate Budget Committee hearing. “That is enough to keep Social Security whole till the end of this century.”

    “That’s where we ought to go to start making progress,” Wyden added.

  • Semafor Inc ☛ How the UAE got the US to bless its AI ambitions

    In a sign of the region’s growing tech importance, Microsoft in April made a $1.5 billion investment in G42, a move that drew some criticism in Washington because of the UAE firm’s past investments in Chinese AI ventures and whether that could lead to intellectual property and advanced hardware flowing to America’s most powerful rival. Microsoft President Brad Smith joined G42’s board of directors.

  • Reuters ☛ Denmark's DSV wins 14 billion-euro race for Deutsche Bahn's Schenker, sources say

    The sources said a preliminary contract for the transaction, worth some 14 billion euros ($15.43 billion), would be signed in coming days. The deal must be approved by DB's supervisory board, mainly comprising government, parliamentary and union representatives.

  • RTL ☛ 'Combating misinformation': Musk brands Australia 'fascists' after move to fine tech giants

    Tech mogul Elon Musk has likened the Australian government to "fascists", attacking proposed laws that would fine social media giants for failing to stem the spread of misinformation.

    Australia introduced a "combating misinformation" bill on Thursday, which includes sweeping powers to fine tech giants up to five percent of their yearly turnover for breaching online safety obligations.

  • India Times ☛ Elon Musk calls Australian government 'fascists' over misinformation law

    Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, on Friday called Australia's centre-left government "fascists" over proposed legislation to slap fines on social media firms for failing to prevent the spread of misinformation online.

    Australia's Labor government on Thursday unveiled legislation which could fine internet platforms up to 5% of their global revenue for enabling misinformation, joining a worldwide push to rein in borderless tech giants.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ White House secures commitment from AI firms to curb deepfake porn

    Today, Adobe Inc., Anthropic PBC, Cohere Inc., Common Crawl Foundation, Microsoft Corp., and OpenAI agreed to responsibly source their datasets and safeguard them from image-based sexual abuse. Notably, Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google LLC and Meta Platforms Inc. did not sign the agreement, although a number of firms, including Meta and TikTok, have joined the StopNCII initiative to help victims of IBSA more easily report the image or video and have it removed.

  • Deseret Media ☛ Tech companies commit to fighting harmful AI sexual imagery by curbing nudity from datasets

    Several leading artificial intelligence companies pledged Thursday to remove nude images from the data sources they use to train their AI products, and committed to other safeguards to curb the spread of harmful sexual deepfake imagery.

    In a deal brokered by the Biden administration, tech companies Adobe, Anthropic, Cohere, Microsoft and OpenAI said they would voluntarily commit to removing nude images from AI training datasets "when appropriate and depending on the purpose of the model."

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ 'How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter' authors on what went wrong

    Ryan Mac: But on the semantics, Twitter does not exist anymore. It’s X. On financial metrics, the valuation of the company has tanked. Now it’s banned in Brazil. So he has really devalued or destroyed parts of the company down to the name itself.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • US Dept Of State ☛ Secretary Antony J. Blinken Remarks to the Press - United States Department of State

      Accurate information is vital to the health of any democracy. It helps citizens understand the issues and effects – and events that are affecting their lives. It empowers them to engage meaningfully in their communities, their country, the world. When state or non-state actors spread disinformation, material deliberately meant to deceive or divide our public, they attack the very foundations of our free and open society.

      In March, I laid out the comprehensive steps the administration is taking to address this threat to our national security and to our national fabric.

    • The Record ☛ Russia’s RT news agency has ‘cyber operational capabilities,’ assists in military procurement, State Dept says

      A Russian media outlet accused of running a covert influence operation in the U.S. is conducting similar activities elsewhere around the world — with the help of a cyber unit tied to Russian intelligence services, the Department of State said Friday.

    • C-SPAN ☛ Secretary Blinken Statement and State Department Briefing

      “We will not standby as RT and other actors carry out covert activities in support of Russia’s nefarious activities,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken as he discussed new actions Russian state media. The secretary delivered brief remarks at the start of the daily briefing where he spoke on Russia’s influence operations, a cyber unit embedded in RT’s media network, and the use of Russian media to crowdfund in order to pay for military equipment to be used against Ukraine. Other topics addressed during the briefing included the Israeli-Gaza war and intervention boy adversaries, such as North Korea, in the U.S. Presidential election.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ FBI And CISA Addresses Claims Of Hacked Voter Information

      The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have highlighted a growing concern about the spread of false claims related to voting. The announcement, titled “Just So You Know: False Claims of Hacked Voter Information Likely Intended to Sow Distrust of U.S. Elections,” aims to educate the public on how disinformation tactics are being used to manipulate perceptions and undermine trust in the U.S. electoral process.

    • VOA News ☛ How propaganda outlets cover — or ignore — aspects of US election

      After that debate, Beijing-run outlets — like media around the world — were flooded with coverage of Biden’s poor performance.

      But Harris-Trump coverage was noticeably slimmer in state-run outlets such as Xinhua, the Global Times and the People’s Daily newspaper, China media analysts say.

      The shift is a subtle but significant distinction, according to China media analysts, that reflects how the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, employs its propaganda apparatus.

    • VOA News ☛ US slams RT as 'de facto' arm of Russian intelligence

      RT’s parent company and its subsidiaries “are no longer merely fire hoses of Russian government propaganda and disinformation,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters at the State Department.

      “They are engaged in covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracy, functioning like a de facto arm of Russia's intelligence apparatus,” he said, adding the Russian operations also seek to “meddle in the sovereign affairs of countries around the world.”

    • CNN ☛ Biden administration expected to unveil new evidence of RT’s key role in Russian intelligence operations globally

      The goal of the US is to make sure that countries know that RT and Russian intelligence agencies are working together in efforts to sow division and harm democratic processes, while simultaneously making it much more difficult for RT to operate globally, the official said.

    • The Telegraph UK ☛ Asian [sic] man used fake 'Chris Nolan' name on Telegram to stir up racial hatred during Southport riots

      “We do not tolerate violence in our towns and cities, or tolerate those who use social media to encourage such violence.”

    • [Old] New Yorker ☛ Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds

      “Once formed,” the researchers observed dryly, “impressions are remarkably perseverant.”

    • [Old] The Alan Turing Institute ☛ Facts don’t change minds – and there’s data to prove it

      My research with the Turing focuses on studying belief change within the context of wider systems of belief. One intriguing finding from our research programme is that people often create ‘auxiliary hypotheses’ to resolve conflicting information – instead of changing our minds, we come up with unverified propositions to support our existing beliefs. For example, suppose someone believes both that a particular medical treatment works and in a conspiracy theory that suggests the medical community is hiding the truth about this treatment. When faced with evidence that the treatment is ineffective, instead of rejecting either belief, they might create an auxiliary hypothesis speculating that the treatment works but that the medical community’s supposed secrecy is preventing it from being used correctly. In this case, the additional proposition allows them to keep believing in both the treatment’s efficacy and the conspiracy theory. More generally, what our research suggests is that interventions aimed at changing people’s minds need to be designed to address entire belief systems rather than isolated beliefs.

    • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] Popular YouTuber Spent Two Years Secretly Uploading Pre-Recorded Videos While Losing 250 Pounds

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] YouTube Deletes Tim Pool’s Embarrassing Kremlin-Backed Videos

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CPJ ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Malian media regulator suspends TV5Monde and LCI over security reporting

  • uni Case Western Reserve ☛ Editorial: Supporting college journalists: The Observer is not The Daily

    As Case Western Reserve University’s student-run newspaper, we—The Observer—are dedicated to representing and uplifting the community and student voices. We feel it is our duty as the school newspaper to hear and voice the pressing concerns of the student body in order to keep the campus informed while acting as a voice for change.

  • TruthOut ☛ Trump Calls for Entire ABC News Network to Be Fired Over His Disastrous Debate

    In reality, Trump had a dismal debate performance, peddling numerous outlandish lies, failing to focus on questions posed to him, and engaging in several meandering rants that likely baffled viewers at home.

    In a rarity, moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis fact-checked Trump’s most preposterous statements in real-time, interrupting the debate to tell him that his claims of immigrants stealing and eating pets in an Ohio community were baseless and that no state in the country performed any type of post-birth abortion, as he had wrongly (and repeatedly) alleged.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Guardian and NUJ agree to raise unionised staff salaries by 3%

    The salary rise follows the conclusion of a voluntary redundancy round.

  • CPJ ☛ Crimean journalist faces continued harassment in jail, rights group, attorney say

    Bekirov, who is an ethnic Crimean Tatar from Ukraine’s Russian-occupied region of Crimea, was a correspondent for independent Russian news website Grani and reported on Russian authorities’ raids and trials of Crimean Tatars for Crimean Solidarity’s YouTube channel before he was sentenced to 19 years in prison in March 2022.

  • VOA News ☛ British counterterrorism police asked to investigate death of journalist in Gibraltar

    A spokesperson for the Knowles family told local media the family had noted the RPG statement "particularly the assertion that 'there are no specific concerns at this time with regard to the death.'"

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Dozens of HK journalists threatened, intimidated, harassed - press group

    Fifteen journalists saw complaints sent to family members, landlords, employers and organisations they are associated with, Cheng said. Some of the complaints threatened recipients that if they continued to associate with the journalists, they could be breaching national security laws.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • The Atlantic ☛ Taylor Doesn’t Need Travis to Fight Her Fights

    The statement could be parsed in multiple ways. Musk, a known fertility obsessive, might have been joking about gifting Swift a child (perhaps by lending her one of his own 12?). Or he might have been implying a more sexualized threat: I will make you pregnant. Either way, it was a bid to assert dominance over a woman whom it’s not hard to believe that Musk might see as encroaching on his turf—a billionaire in her own right, entering the political sphere, rallying an enormous (and devoted) fan base against his preferred candidate. Musk’s move was also a familiar one: the kind of sexist attack long used by men trying to put women in their place.

  • TMZ ☛ Stranded Astronauts at International Space Station Will Vote in 2024 Election

    In case you're wondering how the process works ... election officials in Harris County, Texas -- where NASA's Johnson Space Center is located -- send clickable PDFs to the astronauts so they can make their selections, according to NBC News.

    Astronauts first started voting from space in the late 1990s ... so, nothing out of the ordinary here -- though there are a couple more astro-ballots beaming down than NASA originally anticipated.

  • VOA News ☛ China tries to reshape Tibet, Xinjiang narratives with new propaganda efforts

    In Tibet, human rights organizations and Western countries, including the U.S., have accused the Chinese government of erasing the Tibetan language and culture through compulsory Chinese language education for Tibetan children, forcing hundreds of thousands of rural Tibetans to relocate to urban areas and replacing the name “Tibet” with the Romanized Chinese name “Xizang” in official documents.

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ Rent is eating up a greater share of tenants’ income in almost every state

    Rents in Arizona have shot up 40% to 60% in the last two years, she said. And the state’s eviction filings spiked 43% to 97,000 between 2022 and 2023, she said.

  • Alabama Reflector ☛ Rent is eating up a greater share of tenants’ income in almost every state

    Nationwide, about 22 million renters are shouldering that percentage. Anyone paying more than 30% is considered “cost burdened,” according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and may struggle to pay for other necessities, such as food, clothing, transportation and medical care.

    Three presidential swing states had among the biggest increases in the share of renters who spent that much on housing: Arizona (to 54% from 46.5%), Nevada (to 57.4% from 51.1%) and Georgia (to 53.7% from 48.4%). The numbers are based on a Stateline analysis of American Community Survey data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Florida and Maine also saw large jumps.

  • ANF News ☛ Sinor Gelawej: ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’ uprising is the way out

    Eastern Kurdistan Free Women's Community (KJAR) Executive Council Member Sinor Gelawej spoke to JIN TV about the ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadî’ (Woman, Life, Freedom) uprising that started in Eastern Kurdistan and Iran in 2022 after the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman died in Tehran on 16 September 2022, after being arrested and mistreated by the Iranian morality police.

  • The Register UK ☛ Boeing union workers reject contract, vote to strike

    Strike action, involving approximately 30,000 workers in the Seattle and Portland areas, began at midnight, September 12, after union members voted by 94.6 percent to reject a new contract and by 96 percent in favor of industrial action.

    The action will hit Boeing's assembly plants in Washington and comes after an offer that included a 25 percent raise over four years, better benefits for healthcare and retirement, and, perhaps most importantly, an assurance that Boeing's next commercial aircraft would be built in Washington state.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • EFF ☛ NextNav’s Callous Land-Grab to Privatize 900 MHz

    Left by the FCC for use by amateur radio operators, unlicensed consumer devices, and industrial, scientific, and medical equipment, this spectrum has become a hotbed for new technologies and community-driven projects. Millions of consumer devices also rely on the range, including baby monitors, cordless phones, IoT devices, garage door openers. But NextNav would rather claim these frequencies, fence them off, and lease them out to mobile service providers. This is just another land-grab by a corporate rent-seeker dressed up as innovation. 

    EFF and hundreds of others have called on the FCC to decisively reject this proposal and protect the open spectrum as a commons that serves all.

    NextNav wants the FCC to reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to grant them exclusive rights to the majority of the spectrum. The country's airwaves are separated into different sections for different devices to communicate, like dedicated lanes on a highway. This proposal would not only give NextNav their own lane, but expanded operating region, increased broadcasting power, and more leeway for radio interference emanating from their portions of the band. All of this points to more power for NextNav at everyone else’s expense.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Kansas to award another $2 million to bridge digital divide

    Educational institutions, local governments, nonprofits and for-profit businesses are eligible to apply for the funding. The first round awarded funds to universities, libraries and workforce training programs, among others. With its funds, the Workforce Alliance of South Central Kansas intends to offer free digital literacy training and certifications for underserved people in the region.

  • French Network Information Centre (Afnic) ☛ RIPE Atlas probes, the world's largest Internet monitoring system

    The Internet is vast and consists of innumerable networks, each with its own specific features. It happens frequently, for example, that there is a problem with one particular network but not with another. So we need to be able to query a service from a number of different locations. That’s what RIPE Atlas probes allow us to do, thousands of tiny machines which, placed all over the Internet, enable everyone to see how it works.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Concerns grow over possible Russian sabotage of undersea cables

    Undersea cables play a key role in many aspects of modern society, accounting for the vast majority of digital communication including internet traffic and more than $10 trillion in daily worldwide financial transactions. Hundreds of undersea cables run across the world’s seas and oceans, with cables in the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea seen as being particularly at risk from potential Russian sabotage.

  • RIPE ☛ The RIPE Chair Team Reports - September 2024

    With RIPE 89 on the horizon, the RIPE Chair team reports on renewed community engagement with law enforcement agencies, conversations about the foundations of the RIR system, and a host of other important topics being weighed up at various community events.

  • The Verge ☛ United Airlines is adding free Starlink Wi-Fi to all of its planes

    United is installing Starlink Wi-Fi into all of its aircraft, more than 1,000 planes, over the next several years, and the service will be free for passengers. “Everything you can do on the ground, you’ll soon be able to do onboard a United plane at 35,000 feet, just about anywhere in the world,” says United CEO Scott Kirby.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Reuters ☛ Google aimed to control web ad tech, US prosecutor says as trial begins

  Google used classic monopoly-building tactics of eliminating competitors through acquisitions, locking customers into using its products, and controlling how transactions occurred in the online ad market, Julia Tarver Wood, an attorney with the Justice Department's antitrust division, said in an opening statement. "Google is not here because they are big, they are here because they used that size to crush competition," she said.

• Techdirt ☛ Cable TV In Free Fall As Industry Loses Another 1.62 Million Viewers

  Most major cable TV giants aren’t suffering too badly, in large part because most of the biggest ones (Comcast, Charter) still enjoy a lucrative monopoly over broadband access across vast swaths of the U.S. Most of the losses they’re taking on video can be compensated by charging users more and more money for broadband, either via rate hikes or weird nickel-and-diming efforts (usage caps, hidden fees).

• [Old] IT Wire ☛ iTWire - OpenBSD's de Raadt slams Red Hat, Canonical over 'secure' boot

  Red Hat's method of ensuring that PCs certified for Windows 8 can boot GNU/Linux, announced by its community distribution Fedora, is to sign up to the Microsoft developer program and obtain a key which will be used to sign a "shim" bootloader.

  This shim would then load the GRUB2 bootloader which will boot the operating system kernel, which will also be signed. All kernel modules will be signed too. As the first key comes from Microsoft, it will be recognised by most PCs and laptops.

• [Old] IT Wire ☛ iTWire - Secure boot: Linux is at Microsoft's mercy

  For example, when the question of protecting the user came up, Garrett wrote: "The user Microsoft care about isn't running Linux. The user is running Windows, and someone's merely using Linux as a vector to launch their backdoored Windows kernel. How do Microsoft protect that user? They blacklist the signature used by that Linux bootloader. If we want to protect the user's ability to boot Linux, we need to protect the Windows users from having Linux used against them."

  Torvalds fired back: "How f**king hard is it for you to understand? Stop arguing about what MS wants. We do not care. We care bout the *user*. You are continually missing the whole point of security, and then you make some idiotic arguments about what MS wants you to do.

  "It's irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what our *users* want us to do, and protecting *their* rights. As long as you seem to treat this as some kind of "let's please MS, not our users" issue, all your arguments are going to be crap."

• [Old] ZDNet ☛ Linux Foundation releases Windows Secure Boot fix | ZDNET

  It took longer than anyone expected but the Linux Foundation fix for Windows 8 PC's UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) Secure Boot lockout of other operating systems has finally arrived.

• [Old] PC World ☛ Delays beset the Linux Foundation's Secure Boot workaround

  Causing all this turmoil, of course, is the fact that Windows 8 hardware will come with Secure Boot enabled in the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), meaning that only operating systems with an appropriate digital signature will be able to boot.

  Ubuntu, Fedora, and SUSE Linux are all among the Linux distributions that have unveiled plans for working around the problem, which has also drawn attention from the Free Software Foundation.

• [Old] FSF ☛ Free Software Foundation recommendations for free operating system distributions considering Secure Boot

  Without a doubt, this is an obstacle we don't need right now, and it is highly questionable that the security gains realized from Secure Boot outweigh the difficulties it will cause in practice for users trying to actually provide for their own security by escaping Microsoft Windows.

  It's also a problem because the Windows 8 Logo program currently mandates Restricted Boot on all ARM systems, which includes popular computer types like tablets and phones. It says that users must not be able to disable the boot restrictions or use their own signing keys. In addition to being unacceptable in its own right, this requirement was a reversal from Microsoft's initial public position, which claimed that the Windows 8 program would not block other operating systems from being installed. With this deception, Microsoft has demonstrated that they can't be trusted. While we are interpreting their current guidelines, we must keep in mind that they could change their mind again in the future and expand the ARM restrictions to more kinds of systems.

  The best way out of all of this (other than having all computers come pre-installed with free software) would be for free software operating systems to also be installable by default on any computer, without needing to disable Secure Boot. In the last few weeks, we've seen two major GNU/Linux distributions, Fedora and Ubuntu, sketch out two different paths in an attempt to achieve this goal.

• [Old] PC World ☛ Free Software Foundation: Ubuntu's Secure Boot Plan Won't Fly

  And indeed, while ARM-based hardware won’t allow users to disable Secure Boot, x86 Windows machines will, as well as making it possible for users to employ their own keys.

  fedora “In theory, there should be no problem. In practice, the situation is more complicated,” Sullivan asserted. “As currently proposed, Secure Boot impedes free software adoption,” essentially by making it more difficult for users to install and try free software, he explained.

• [Old] James Bottomley ☛ Adventures in Microsoft UEFI Signing

  Once the account is created, you still can’t upload UEFI binaries for signature without first signing a paper contract. The agreements are pretty onerous, include a ton of excluded licences (including all GPL ones for drivers, but not bootloaders). The most onerous part is that the agreements seem to reach beyond the actual UEFI objects you sign. The Linux Foundation lawyers concluded it is mostly harmless to the LF because we don’t ship any products, but it could be nasty for other companies. According to Matthew Garrett, Microsoft is willing to negotiate special agreements with distributions to mitigate some of these problems.

• [Old] Linux Magazine ☛ » Linux Magazine: State of Secure Boot

  UEFI Secure Boot was billed as a feature for making sure an "unauthorized" operating system doesn't take over the system, and the Linux community quickly realized that "unauthorized" means something more like "non-Microsoft."

  Since then, open source coders have developed some techniques for co-existing with UEFI Secure Boot, and some Linux projects have even made their peace with Microsoft to become officially "authorized" through Microsoft's certificate authority.

  Now that the smoke has cleared and the leading Linux distros have had time to respond to the challenges of UEFI Secure Boot, we thought it was a good time to take a look at the state of Secure Boot and Linux.

• [Old] James Bottomley ☛ Linux Foundation UEFI Secure Boot System for Open Source

  The source code for the pre-bootloader is available in

  git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jejb/efitools.git

  As Loader.c

• The Verge ☛ Netflix is ending support for some older iPhones and iPads

  The change only impacts devices that can’t be updated to iOS 17, such as the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus handsets, and Apple’s first-generation iPad Pro and iPad 5 tablets. These devices will be unable to receive further Netflix updates, such as important patches for bugs and other security concerns. Apple is rolling out iOS 18 on September 16th.

• 9to5Mac ☛ Netflix will no longer provide support for iPhones running iOS 16

  After discontinuing its app for the third generation Apple TV, Netflix has just confirmed that it will soon end support for some old iPhones and iPads. More specifically, the company will no longer provide updates compatible with devices running iOS 16.

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • Futurism ☛ Before He Died, James Earl Jones Signed Paperwork to Voice Darth Vader Using AI

      Instead of using his then-current voice, Respeecher took footage from former installments of the "Star Wars" franchise to train its AI to sound like Jones did in those original films. Though his voice as an older man wasn't used in the process of training the AI data for the Vader cloning, Jones did advise Disney and Lucasfilm on the character when the show was being created.

    • NPR ☛ Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris drives voters to visit vote.gov

      Swift said she was alarmed by former President Donald Trump posting recent AI pictures on social media, falsely showing her endorsing him, and wanted to combat misinformation with the truth.

• Copyrights

  • Jeremy Keith ☛ What price?

    I’ll point out that the training data requires the wholesale harvesting of creative works without compensation. I’ll also point out the ludicrously profligate energy use required not just for the training, but for the subsequent queries.

    And here’s the thing: people will acknowledge those harms but they will justify their actions by saying “these things will get better!”

    First of all, there’s no evidence to back that up.

  • Cyble Inc ☛ Meta To Unpause It AI Training In The UK

    The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has been closely watching Meta’s efforts. In June, Meta paused its AI training plans after a request from the ICO. The company has since modified its approach, streamlining its objection form and extending the time frame for users to opt out.

    The move reflects the complex interplay between tech giants and data privacy regulators as AI models evolve. While Meta touts its transparent approach to AI, privacy concerns remain at the forefront.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Meta to resume training AI models on UK users’ Facebook and Instagram posts

    Meta Platforms Inc. plans to resume its use of UK adults’ Facebook and Instagram posts in artificial intelligence training projects.

    The company disclosed the decision today. The move comes about three months after Meta paused the practice over privacy concerns.

  • Techdirt ☛ Warner Bros. Copyright Striking Reactions To The ‘Minecraft’ Movie Trailer

    Now, every indication is that this was done through an automated system, rather than anyone making a copyright claim on the video manually. But all that tells me is that Warner Bros. is very bad at the internet and using it to market their forthcoming film. And, because there wasn’t a highly visible public statement from Warner about all of this, the natural speculation is that the company didn’t want people to see the video out of concern it was critical in nature. That doesn’t appear to be the case, but once the rumor mill starts rolling, it’s hard to stop.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ French Pirate Site Blocking Order Targets Expired and Seized Z-Library Domains

    A court in Paris, France, has ordered major Internet providers to block 98 domain names used by popular book download portal Z-Library. The order comes in response to a complaint from the National Publishers Union (SNE), but the victory may be bittersweet. Many of the listed domain names were previously seized by U.S. authorities, and expanding the current order could prove time-consuming.

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] ‘We’re the ultimate creators, not AI’: Will.i.am on why we’re worrying too much about machine-made tunes

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] EU copyright takes it all … including Article 2(7) of the Berne Convention: AG Szpunar advises CJEU to rule that EU Member States can no longer rely on reciprocity clause for works of applied art

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] [Event Report] #1 Digital Knowledge – The Library and Copyright in a Global Digital Economy