Leftovers

• Robert Birming ☛ Prioritized Writing

  It's the same if we want to become better writers. If we want to develop our writing, then we have to write more - there are no shortcuts.

  To be able to write more, we may have to adjust other parts of our life. Maybe we decide to watch one episode instead of two of our favorite series. And at the breakfast table, we choose to write instead of scrolling through our feeds.

  Priorities, and we prioritize writing.

• Lou Plummer ☛ I'm Not Moving

  I moved to my hometown, Fayetteville, NC, in November of 1979 when I was in the ninth grade, then the final year of junior high school. I've lived here or close to here with a couple of short exceptions ever since. At the same time there have been tremendous changes in some areas and very little movement in others. When I came here, we were the company town for Ft. Bragg and now we are the town for Ft. Liberty, but the only thing that changed was the renaming of the post to remove the reference to a traitorous Confederate general. Ft. Liberty is now the largest military base in the US by number of assigned personnel. The 82nd Airborne Division is stationed here along with the Army's Special Operations Command, a couple of Special Forces Groups and two Army Airfields. We are also home to a large military retiree community, and it is rare to find someone who actually grew up here. It can be a transient community, although the Army does not move people around as much as they did during the cold war.

• Smithsonian Magazine ☛ An 11-Year-Old Boy Rescued a Mysterious Artwork From the Dump. It Turned Out to Be a 500-Year-Old Renaissance Print | Smithsonian

  “It’s the most important print I’ve ever cataloged and offered for sale,” says Spencer in the statement. “It was pasted down on a mount, probably around 1900, which will affect the value, but it’s a really nice impression with great clarity and contrasts, which is a massive bonus. In excellent, unmounted condition, this is a print that can command sums close to £200,000 [more than $260,000].”

• Artnet Worldwide Corporation ☛ A Dürer Print Found in a Dump Could Score Big at Auction

  Earlier this year, on a whim, Winter sent the print to be assessed by Rare Book Auctions, an auction house in Staffordshire, in the West Midlands of England. After passing through the company’s parent branch, it arrived before the director, Jim Spencer. “When the vendor said it had been rescued from a tip, I didn’t expect much,” Spencer said via email. “I felt a shiver of excitement as soon as I looked upon this print…and I was straight on a train to the British Museum.”

• Six Colors ☛ Ten.

  After leaving IDG (which, along with two predecessor companies, had offered me continuous employment for more than 20 years), I really should have taken some time off. But in their infinite wisdom, IDG’s bosses decided that the right day to lay off a huge chunk of staff was the day after an Apple event. (Well, technically they wanted to lay people off the day of the event, but I helped convince them that it would be a stupendously terrible idea.)

• Rachel ☛ Place name mappings probably need a time dimension too

  What if that picture of the ground had been taken in that same spot in 2004? Would it still make sense to call it "Meta - Headquarters"? I hope you wouldn't say that. Back then, that space was inhabited by Sun Microsystems, a company that very much is not the same as Facebook. (This is well before Oracle ate them - that was 2009-2010.)

  What happens in another couple of years when Meta is the next smoking crater in the tech landscape and then some other company tries to become the next unicorn in the mud flats of Menlo Park? Or how about a couple of decades past then when that whole area is underwater? Will my pictures say something like "San Francisco Bay"?

• Education

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ The Injustice Of Our Rights Regime

    Powell says SCOTUS is committed to education as an important right. Then he says that education is just another service offered by the state. The Equal Protection Clause doesn’t require equality in that service. Powell says education isn’t a fundamental right set out in our Constitution.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Why holding kids back fails, and what to do about it

    As of now, 26 states have such policies, compared with just 18 states five years ago. This month, Maryland lawmakers will consider their own policy to hold back third graders who struggle with reading, while allowing parents to opt out as long as they agree to get their child extra reading support.

    The looming decision in Maryland, where 69% of students are not reading at grade level, has reignited a century-long debate about the consequences of "flunking" students. Based on what the research shows, we believe parents and guardians would be wise to explore their options to opt out of the retention policy. We say this because of what we know to be the negative effects associated with forcing a child to repeat a grade.

  • Baldur Bjarnason ☛ The gaps in your skill set – Baldur Bjarnason

    I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the gaps in my skill set. As we’re now about to head into the year’s final quarter, I’ve been looking back at the two-year review I wrote at the beginning of the year and assessing my progress.

    And it’s a mixed bag.

    I decided to spend some time focusing on building up the blog and the newsletter instead of jumping into creating another fully-fledge product, which seems to have worked. Sort of. Newsletter subscribers have almost doubled, which is great. RSS feed followers, however, are about the same.

  • The Kent Stater ☛ Here are classes to spruce up a Kent State student’s future schedule

    Current students, alumni, professors and advisors shared their recommendations for classes that they felt all students should take at some point in their Kent State career.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Back to basics: Sweden aims to de-digitalize youth

    "Schools have a responsibility to prepare [children] for the world," Forssmed affirms. "But my God," he says, throwing his hands wide in consternation, "what we're seeing now is something else." Forssmed says Swedish students are suffering widespread disorders and a decline in physical and intellectual capabilities due to the hours spent online.

    "They cannot cut with scissors. They cannot climb a tree. They cannot walk backward because they are sitting with their cell phones," he told DW in an interview at the ministry in Stockholm. "We are also seeing things like diseases that usually were in old people and middle-aged people now haunting young people" due to lack of physical activity.

  • RTL ☛ Rare consensus: Opposition unites over smartphone ban in schools, but implementation raises questions

    The government's recent decision to ban smartphones in primary schools, and to partially regulate their use in secondary schools, has sparked a rare moment of consensus among opposition parties, though concerns remain about the implementation and broader impact on digital education and language literacy programmes.

    It is rare that the entire opposition welcomes a government decision, but that appears to be the case after the Education Ministry announced last week that smartphones will be banned in primary education by Easter. Nevertheless, opposition lawmakers argue that a number of questions remain unanswered regarding the partial ban in secondary education.

• Hardware

  • Intel Downsizing Leaves Staff Waiting on Lay Off Decisions

    The future of workers at tech giant Intel remains in the air, with around thousands of job cuts still to be confirmed.

    The company has revealed that it is “more than halfway to our workforce reduction target”, despite announcing a massive layoff of 15,000 employees back on August 1st and claiming to be acting with urgency to execute the plan.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Korea Times ☛ Scientists show how pregnancy changes brain in innumerable ways

    The team began following Chrastil — who works at the University of California, Irvine, and was 38 years old at the time — shortly before she became pregnant through in vitro fertilization.

    During the pregnancy and for two years after she gave birth, they continued doing MRI brain scans and drawing blood to observe how her brain changed as sex hormones like estrogen ebbed and flowed. Some of the changes continued past pregnancy.

  • The Hill ☛ Scans show reorganization of brain during pregnancy

    MRI images taken of a 38-year-old woman throughout her pregnancy show the condition caused an extensive restructuring of her brain, according to a proof-of-concept study published Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Annapurna Interactive Resignation Crisis

    Microsoft’s layoffs reflect ongoing challenges in the gaming industry.

  • Game Rant ☛ Xbox Game Pass Losing At Least 8 Games on September 30 [UPDATED]

    Gotham Knights and at least seven more titles are leaving Xbox Game Pass on September 30. These departures will increase the number of September 2024 Xbox Game Pass removals to 14.

    Microsoft ordinarily removes games from its subscription content catalog every two weeks. It most recently did so on September 15, when Xbox Game Pass lost Payday 3, You Suck at Parking, and four other titles.

  • Kenya on top countries chart as tech companies layoff 211,033 employees in 2024

    Other major tech staff reductions have come from Turkey’s Getir (6,000 job cuts), India’s Paytm (5,000 job cuts), Spain’s Telefonica (3,421) and the United States’ Microsoft (3,400 job cuts).

  • 404 Media ☛ Larry Ellison's AI-Powered Surveillance Dystopia Is Already Here

    This sentiment has become a bit tiresome, in part because saying it doesn’t really mean anything, and our real world has long since surpassed George Orwell’s dystopian nightmare in a few ways. But invoking 1984 as warning, not instruction manual feels appropriate here, with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, the fifth-richest person in the world, pitching his exciting vision for an always-on, 1984-style, AI-powered surveillance fever dream to an audience of investors.

  • Jamie Zawinski ☛ "Maybe Later" Intensifies

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ Existing measures to mitigate AI risks aren’t enough to protect us. We need an AI safety hotline as well.

    For one thing, they likely lack the expertise to help an AI worker think through safety concerns. What’s more, few workers will pick up the phone if they know it's a government official on the other end—that sort of call may be “very intimidating,” as Saunders himself said on the podcast. Instead, he envisages being able to call an expert to discuss his concerns. In an ideal scenario, he’d be told that the risk in question does not seem that severe or likely to materialize, freeing him up to return to whatever he was doing with more peace of mind.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Why you shouldn't use AI to write your CV

    While there is no doubt that there is a time and a place for AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, the increasing prevalence of AI-generated work is forcing society to start looking at how it should be used, and when it shouldn’t. Schools and universities, for example, are having to rethink the way they assess pupils and students – not only to ensure AI is not being used as a “cheat”, but also to be able to incorporate AI tools into the teaching and evaluation process.

  • Futurism ☛ OpenAI Says It's Fixed Issue Where ChatGPT Appeared to Be Messaging Users Unprompted

    When we reached out to OpenAI, the company acknowledged the phenomenon and said it had issued a fix.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ Air Force’s ChatGPT-like AI pilot draws 80K users in initial months

    Since the Air Force and Space Force launched their first generative AI tool in June, more than 80,000 airmen and guardians have experimented with the system, according to the Air Force Research Laboratory.

  • Microsoft Raises Payouts to Shareholders Despite Massive Layoffs

    A few days ago, Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, announced that the company is planning to fire around 650 employees. However, according to a recent Bloomberg report, the company plans to increase payouts to shareholders by 10%.

    As of November 21, shareholders will receive a quarterly dividend of 83 cents a share, compared with the current 75 cents. The company also announced that a new $60 billion share repurchase agreement replaces the 2021 buyback program of the same value.

  • Security

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • Scoop News Group ☛ Treasury hits Predator spyware makers with more sanctions

        The sanctions target five individuals and one corporate entity that the U.S. government says were responsible for the spyware’s proliferation.

        They are in addition to the sanctions issued in March, when the Treasury Department said Predator has been implicated in the targeting of American government officials, journalists and policy experts. The Biden administration had placed Intellexa on its trade blacklist last summer.

      • Los Angeles Times ☛ Snap bets big on augmented reality glasses as tech race heats up

        Augmented reality glasses overlay digital images onto a person’s view of the physical world. They’re different from virtual reality headsets that fully immerse people into a computer-generated environment.

      • New York Times ☛ Instagram Teen Accounts: What to Know About New Privacy Settings

        The changes are part of a new effort by Instagram, called “Teen Accounts,” that packages new and existing safeguards for young people on the app. The company said the settings would help create more age-appropriate experiences for minors.

        Instagram’s privacy and other changes may help address intensifying concerns by lawmakers and parent groups about the effects of social media apps on children. But they also risk irking some teenagers — and teen influencers — who are deeply invested in their public profiles.

      • EDRI ☛ Open letter: The dangers of age verification proposals to fundamental rights online

        On 16 September, EDRi and 63 organisations, academics and experts in privacy, encryption, child safety, sex workers' rights and consumer rights issued a joint statement urging the European Commission to prioritise effective child safety measures while expressing serious concerns about the suitability, proportionality, and negative impact on fundamental rights of current age verification proposals.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law ☛ A Dangerous Vision for the Presidency | Brennan Center for Justice

      The Project 2025 book sets out in detail the plan to fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with loyalists. Trump tried to implement a similar scheme, known as Schedule F, near the end of his term but ran out of time. Now, the Heritage Foundation writes, “Empowering political appointees across the Administration is crucial to a President’s success.” This may sound bland, but it is a truly radical proposal. No president has ever sought anything like this power. It is inherently corrupt.

    • Federal News Network ☛ Schedule F would make agencies ‘hard-pressed’ to meet national security threats

      The witnesses also raised concerns about how the likely churn of employees under a Schedule F classification would impact the continuity of federal operations between administrations. A higher level of turnover would be particularly harmful due to the lengthy process for filling political roles, which can often take up to a year for senior DoD positions, Levine said.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Chinese scientists use Starlink signals to detect stealth aircraft and drones

      In the experiment, a DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone, roughly the size of a bird, was used to simulate a stealth aircraft. The radar cross-section of the drone was similar to that of actual stealth fighters. But instead of relying on traditional ground-based radar emissions, the drone was detected by analyzing electromagnetic signals from a Starlink satellite passing over the Philippines.

    • SCMP ☛ Starlink radiation makes stealth target glow on Chinese radar | South China Morning Post

      Taking a DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone – about the size of a bird and with a radar cross-section comparable to that of a stealth fighter – the team launched it off the coast of Guangdong.

      The ground-based radar did not sent out any radio waves to produce an echo, but the target appeared on screen. This was because the drone was illuminated by electromagnetic radiations emitted by a Starlink satellite flying over the Philippines, according to the scientists.

    • Axios ☛ "Irresponsible": White House slams Musk's comment on Trump assassination attempt

      The White House on Monday criticized Elon Musk's now-deleted post that questioned why former President Trump has recently faced two apparent assassination attempts while President Biden and Vice President Harris have not.

    • Axios ☛ TikTok "ban bill" heads to court

      The intrigue: Lots of information in the DOJ's filings is redacted classified material, available to the judicial panel but not to TikTok. In other words, TikTok's lawyers are flying more than a bit blind.

    • India Times ☛ TikTok faces tough questions from court over challenge to US law

      A lawyer for TikTok and Chinese parent company ByteDance sought on Monday to convince a federal appeals court to block a U.S. law that would ban the short video app used by 170 million Americans as soon as Jan. 19, arguing that it violates free speech protections, but faced tough questions from the judges.

      A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard two hours of arguments in the lawsuit filed by TikTok and ByteDance in May seeking an injunction to prevent the law from taking effect.

    • New York Times ☛ TikTok Faces Tough Questions From Judges in Fight Over U.S. Ban

      The hearing, before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, lasted roughly two hours. Three judges asked probing questions of both TikTok and the government about an April law that forces ByteDance, the app’s owner, to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company before Jan. 19 or face a ban in the United States. The lawyers have asked the judges to deliver a decision in the case before Dec. 6, and legal experts anticipate the losing party will appeal to the Supreme Court.

    • VOA News ☛ TikTok, US face off in court over law that could lead to ban on popular platform

      Attorneys for the two sides — and content creators — appeared before a panel of three judges at a federal appeals court in Washington, where TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, are challenging the law that is forcing them to break ties by mid-January or lose one of their biggest markets in the world.

    • Security Week ☛ DoJ: Chinese Man Used Spear-Phishing to Obtain Software From NASA, Military

      The US on Monday announced charges against a Chinese national who allegedly sent spear-phishing emails to government employees in an effort to obtain restricted software.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Phishing Campaign Against NASA: Chinese National Indicted

      According to U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan, Song Wu engaged in a multi-year spear phishing campaign, targeting individuals in key positions across U.S. government agencies, including NASA, the Air Force, Navy, Army, and the Federal Aviation Administration. Wu’s goal was to fraudulently obtain restricted or proprietary software used in aerospace engineering and computational fluid dynamics. These programs are vital to both industrial and military applications, such as developing advanced tactical missiles and designing cutting-edge weapons systems.

    • The Record ☛ DOJ indicts Chinese national for spear phishing campaign against NASA, FAA, Air Force

      The DOJ accused Song of launching a lengthy campaign of sending emails to employees of NASA, the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Army and Federal Aviation Administration as well as officials at research universities in several states and aerospace companies.

      Song would send the emails pretending to be someone connected to the victim — either a relative, friend or work colleague — asking that they send the source code or software that he was after.

    • Michigan Advance ☛ In Ann Arbor, Jane Fonda warns it would be ‘impossible’ to fight climate change if Trump wins • Michigan Advance

      Fonda, who is slated to speak at a Climate Voters for Harris event hosted by the University of Michigan College Democrats Tuesday, said that she frequently hears from college students who say they aren’t planning to vote or are considering third party candidates.

    • The Hill ☛ Bottom Line: TikTok on the clock

      TikTok signaled its staying involved in Washington less than five months after President Biden signed a bill that would force its Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest or face a nationwide ban, hiring Ballard Partners to lobby on issues related to [Internet] technology and content platform regulations.

  • Environment

    • Semafor Inc ☛ Google bows to pressure in Chile

      Google said it would rework from scratch its plan to build a $200 million data center in Santiago, Chile after opposition from locals and environmentalists. The tech giant’s decision comes months after a Chilean court partially revoked its 2020 permit, siding with activists who complained that the data center would exacerbate Santiago’s yearslong drought by using residents’ water supplies to cool its servers.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Earth 'has a fever': Teaching fifth-graders about burning fossil fuels

      Through her network of teachers, she said she’s confident that, at least in Los Angeles, there is interest in developing climate literacy at all levels. She’s hoping some of the lessons she is creating will find their way into those classrooms.

    • Energy/Transportation

      • DeSmog ☛ Oil and Gas Sponsorship of Global Sports Hits $5.6 Billion, Report Finds

      • Tedium ☛ Cross-Country Amtrak Trips: What The Experience Is Like

        What it’s like to travel across the country via Amtrak—and what you need to know if you want to do it yourself.

      • CBC ☛ EV sales are still growing. So why are carmakers pulling back?

        More than 65,000 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) were registered in the second quarter of this year, according to Statistics Canada. That's equal to 12.9 per cent of all new vehicle registrations. Over the same period five years ago, BEVs and PHEVs made up just 3.4 per cent.

        The trend hasn't been entirely linear, but it's clear sales are still growing — though perhaps not as quickly as had been expected.

      • The Washington Post ☛ Data center jobs may not be sexy, but they’re critical to modern society

        More than 468,000 people work at data centers in the United States, according to estimates PwC published in a report for the Data Center Coalition. Direct employment in data centers increased 17 percent from 2017 to 2021 compared with 2 percent in overall growth of U.S. employment during the same period. Analysts predict that revenue in the data center industry will grow exponentially as more companies invest in data centers to support their AI and cloud-computing initiatives. Amazon plans to invest $100 billion in data centers over the next 10 years, while Meta plans to spend up to $40 billion on digital infrastructure, including data centers. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

      • PC World ☛ Why a long-lasting laptop battery can save you serious cash

        But battery-sipping laptops are still necessary. Recently, I was in Berlin shuttling back and forth across town for press conferences and meetings. I didn’t have access to a wall charger and the venues I was in didn’t provide charging outlets — just rows and rows of chairs. That scenario has become surprisingly common, surprisingly quickly, and I have absolutely experienced “battery anxiety” as I compiled my notes to file a story.

      • David Rosenthal ☛ Lie Down WIth Dogs, Get Up WIth Fleas

        Apart from the general idea that "more is better", why would these immense sums of money be attractive to this alleged billionaire? Apart from the costs of running a Presidential campaign, some of which ends up in his own pocket, there is the need to pay his legions of lawyers, and the looming judgements that these lawyers failed to avert, including $88.3M before interest to E. Jean Carroll and $454M before interest in his New York fraud case.

        With Truth Social's Q2 financials reporting a loss of 1,911% of revenue, which was down 30% year-on-year, and with the stock down 80% from its peak, it was clearly time to move on.

      • Axios ☛ Trump unveils new [cryptocurrnecy] venture World Liberty Financial

        • Celebrities who become enamored with cryptocurrency and try to become entrepreneurs tend to end up losing money for their unsophisticated fans.

        What we're watching: The optics of a presidential candidate launching a new company could make cryptocurrency policy an election issue after all.

      • Wired ☛ The Trumps Have Gone Full [Cryptocurrency] With World Liberty Financial

        World Liberty Financial marks the latest development in Trump’s bid to court the [cryptocurrency] industry, members of which are broadly supportive of his reelection campaign.

  • Finance

    • 5 days after reports of 650 more Microsoft gaming layoffs, the company announces plans to pay out even more money to shareholders

      Microsoft is set to start paying out even more to its shareholders in November, despite recent reports that the company is laying off 650 people from its gaming staff.

      As reported by Bloomberg, Microsoft shareholders will soon see an increased quarterly dividend payout for every share they have. Come November 21, this is going up by 10%, to 83 cents per share rather than the current 75 cents. What's more, the company has announced a $60 billion scheme to buy back its stocks, replacing a separate program of the same value which Microsoft announced in 2021.

      That's a lot of money – bear in mind that Microsoft previously acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, so this isn't far off being in the same ballpark. All in all, it could be considered questionable timing, too, given that the announcement comes less than a week after it was reported that the company is laying off 650 of its gaming staff. Reportedly, most of the people affected hold corporate and support roles, with no games studios set to be closed as a result.

    • Bloomberg ☛ Microsoft Plans New $60 Billion Buyback, Raises Dividend 10% [Ed: Microsoft faking its "value"]

      Buyback agreement is less than 2% of Microsoft’s market value

    • India Times ☛ Cisco lets go thousands of employees in second major layoff this year: report

    • Veteran VR Studio nDreams Announces Layoffs Amid “challenging VR games market”

      nDreams, one of the most veteran VR studios, today announced it’s tightening the belt with a layoff round due to affect 17.5% of the company.

      The Farnborough, UK-based studio maintains in the LinkenIn announcement that layoffs are in response to “a challenging VR games market, situated within a tough gaming landscape more broadly.”

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Vox ☛ The Murdoch succession drama, and court case, explained | Vox

      Rupert Murdoch stepped back from running his empire in 2023, and handed the role of chair of News Corp to his eldest son, Lachlan, who also stayed on as CEO of Fox Corp, and is seen as the Murdoch child most politically aligned with his father’s conservative viewpoints.

    • Federal News Network ☛ The contractor cybersecurity locomotive picks up steam

      The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program has been long in gestation. But this baby is going to be a big one. That’s what happens when the Defense Department wants all of its contractors to do something. Attorney Eric Crusius, a partner at Holland and Knight, joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss more.

    • Harvard University ☛ Harvard experts share how to fix social media 

      Popular social media platforms were once a place to connect with old and new friends, post life updates, and share photos of your kids. But they have become fraught with misinformation, an algorithm-delivered onslaught of content aimed at fueling discord, all in service to business models that prioritize drawing eyeballs, said experts on digital life at a discussion last Thursday on how to improve discourse and spaces online.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Linux Foundation to host AWS' OpenSearch search and analytics engine

      The Linux Foundation today announced the launch of the OpenSearch Software Foundation, a community-driven initiative that will support the search software, which is used by developers around the world to build search, analytics, observability and vector database applications.

    • FSF ☛ Free software in the EU needs your help! Join the international effort before September 20

      Free software development in the European Union needs sustainable funding. Right now, EU citizens have until September 20 to participate in an ongoing consultation for the Digital Europe Programme. Below is more information on how you and your organization can advocate for long-term support for free software in the EU, joining a similar call from Free Software Foundation Europe

    • The Strategist ☛ Indonesia’s new cyber force needs to be planned, not rushed

      This decision should be welcomed, as strengthening cybersecurity in Indonesia is a must. Indonesia has experienced a significant increase in cyberattacks since the beginning of 2024. According to the Indonesian-based civil society organisation on digital rights, SAFEnet, the frequency of events has doubled compared to data from the same period last year. Despite this, in Southeast Asia region, Indonesia is placed behind Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand in assessments of its cybersecurity capability level by the National Cyber Security Index. Indonesia’s vulnerability is what led to a failure of the TNI to protect itself.

      However, before going further, the TNI needs to weigh up a few vital issues. The establishment of this new force must be comprehensively examined through consultation with various parties, especially relevant experts.

    • VOA News ☛ France uses tough, untested cybercrime law to target Telegram's Durov

      The so-called LOPMI law, enacted in January 2023, has placed France at the forefront of a group of nations taking a sterner stance on crime-ridden websites. But the law is so recent that prosecutors have yet to secure a conviction.

      With the law still untested in court, France's pioneering push to prosecute figures like Durov could backfire if its judges balk at penalizing tech bosses for alleged criminality on their platforms.

    • VOA News ☛ Big Tech, calls for looser rules await new EU antitrust chief 

      Teresa Ribera will have to square up to Big Tech, banks and airlines if confirmed as Europe's new antitrust chief, while juggling calls for looser rules to help create EU champions.

      Nominated Tuesday by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for the high-profile antitrust post, Ribera has been Spain's minister for ecological transition since 2018.

    • Bitdefender ☛ Ticketmaster boss who repeatedly hacked [sic] rival firm sentenced

      However, after later joining Ticketmaster, Mead shared usernames and passwords with his new colleagues which enabled them to illegally access CrowdSurge's network and sensitive business information.

    • New York Times ☛ Thierry Breton, Top E.U. Commissioner, Resigns, Citing ‘Questionable Governance’

      The surprise resignation of Thierry Breton came after he accused Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, of pressuring France to nominate another candidate instead of him for commissioner.

    • C4ISRNET ☛ Pentagon to oversee $3 billion effort to strengthen microchip supply

      The first task order under what’s known as the Secure Enclave program was awarded to leading microchip developer Intel Corp. The funding will focus on improving commercial fabrication facilities and builds on work Intel has done through other DOD programs.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Intel confirms $3 billion award for Secure Enclave: 18A chips coming to U.S. military

      Intel is set to receive up to $3 billion in direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act for the Secure Enclave program from the U.S. government, which is $500 million less than the rumored number published earlier. This initiative aims to bolster the trusted production of advanced chips on Intel's 18A process technology for U.S. government use in intelligence and military applications.

    • Musk tweets and deletes ‘joke’ about assassinating Biden and Harris

      After what could have been another assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Elon Musk took to X (formerly Twitter) and posted a very dumb, reactionary thought.

      On September 16th, a man with an AK-47 was arrested outside Mar-a-Lago, where Trump resides. In reaction, Musk posted on X, “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/ Kamala 🤔.” The tweet has since been deleted.

    • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

      • US Navy Times ☛ Military influencers could help fight disinformation, experts argue

        On the video-sharing platform TikTok, this type of content is so prevalent that it earned its own label: “miltok.”

        A few of the more popular profiles post disclaimers on their pages indicating their content does not represent the Defense Department. But some experts studying the use of disinformation in warfare think it should.

      • [Repeat] OpenRightsGroup ☛ ICO fails UK Meta users and allows social media giant to resume data scraping for AI

        In May, the global tech company announced changes to its privacy policy claiming it would “rely on the legal basis called legitimate interests” to use individuals’ information for its AI development. However, these plans were put on hold after the data rights group “None of Your Business” lodged GDPR regulatory complaints in 11 EU member states, asking Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) to immediately stop Meta’s abuse of personal data for AI. As a result, Meta announced plans to pause these changes on June 14, and the ICO posted that Meta “responded to our request to pause and review plans to use Facebook and Instagram user data to train generative AI”. Open Rights Group also filed a complaint to the ICO, asking the UK regulator to investigate Meta’s plans and issue a legally binding order to stop processing UK’s personal data to train AI in the absence of valid opt-in consent.

      • RTL ☛ Influence campaigns: Meta bans Russian state media outlets for 'interference'

        Meta late Monday said it is banning Russian state media outlets from its apps around the world due to "foreign interference activity."

        The ban comes after the United States accused RT and employees of the state run agency of funneling $10 million through shell entities to covertly fund influence campaigns on social media channels including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube, according to an unsealed indictment.

      • France24 ☛ Meta bans Russian state media outlets for social media 'interference' campaigns

        Meta late Monday said it is banning Russian state media outlets from its apps around the world due to "foreign interference activity."

        The ban comes after the United States accused RT and employees of the state-run outlet of funneling $10 million through shell entities to covertly fund influence campaigns on social media channels including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube, according to an unsealed indictment.

      • Deutsche Welle ☛ Meta bans RT, other Russian state media networks

        Meta said late on Monday it is banning a range of Russian state media networks due to what it calls "foreign interference activity."

        The list of banned outlets includes RT, Rossiya Segodnya and others, with the company claiming the media networks had used deceptive tactics to carry out covert influence operations online.

        "After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets. Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity," the company said in a statement.

      • CBC ☛ Facebook owner Meta bans Russian state media outlets over 'foreign interference activity'

        Facebook owner Meta said on Monday it was banning RT, Rossiya Segodnya and other Russian state media networks, alleging the outlets used deceptive tactics to carry out influence operations while evading detection on the social media company's platforms.

        The ban marks a sharp escalation by the world's biggest social media company against Russian state media after it spent years taking more limited steps like blocking the outlets from running ads and reducing the reach of their posts.

      • India Times ☛ Facebook owner Meta bans Russia state media outlets over "foreign interference"

        Meta said it's banning Russia state media organization from its social media platforms, alleging that the outlets used deceptive tactics to amplify Moscow's propaganda. The announcement drew a rebuke from the Kremlin on Tuesday.

        The company, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, said late Monday that it will roll out the ban over the next few days in an escalation of its efforts to counter Russia's covert influence operations.

      • New York Times ☛ Meta Plans to Ban the Russian TV Network RT

        Meta on Monday said that it planned to bar Russian media outlets including RT, the state-owned television network that has come under scrutiny in the United States, from posting to its platforms, saying the outlets had carried out covert influence campaigns across social media sites to manipulate discourse online.

      • The Washington Post ☛ Meta bans RT and Russian state media outlets days after U.S. sanctions

        New information revealed, Blinken said, that these entities “are no longer merely fire hoses of Russian propaganda and disinformation. They are engaged in covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracies, functioning like a de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus.”

      • US News And World Report ☛ Facebook Owner Meta Bans Russia State Media Outlets Over 'Foreign Interference'

        Meta said it's banning Russia state media organization from its social media platforms, alleging that the outlets used deceptive tactics to amplify Moscow's propaganda. The announcement drew a rebuke from the Kremlin on Tuesday.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ The Madcap History of Mad Magazine Will Unleash Your Inner Class Clown

      Nothing was off-limits in Mad, a newsstand stalwart that would reach peak annual sales in the 1970s of 2.5 million issues by delivering belly laughs and self-satisfaction to America’s class clowns through cartoons, parodies, sarcastic characters and an unending stream of gross-out gags. Mad gave mainstream American teenagers license to thumb their nose at institutions in a way that had never really happened on a mass scale, a seismic change that would have a huge influence on pop culture through the likes of “Saturday Night Live,” David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and “Family Guy.”

    • JURIST ☛ Tunisia escalates crackdown on society ahead of presidential elections: Amnesty International

      The rights group found that at least 97 members of the opposition group Ennahda were arrested on September 12 and 13 and that the individuals “are being investigated for conspiracy charges and other charges under the counter-terrorism law.” The group claimed that the arrests represent a growing trend of repression in the country, stating that Tunisian authorities have increasingly harassed political opposition members and stifled media freedom and dissent by restricting independent journalists, human rights defenders and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

    • US News And World Report ☛ Released Russian Dissident Kara-Murza Visits US Congress

      "The word surreal doesn't even come close to describing what I feel now," the dissident said at an event intended to highlight what participants described as the plight of hundreds of prisoners still detained in Russia for their political beliefs.

    • RFERL ☛ Iranian Women Still Targets Of 'Brutal Repression' Since Amini Death

      Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Iran's leadership of an ongoing "brutal repression" of women and peaceful dissenters in the two years since the death of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian student Mahsa Amini while in police custody over a dress-code violation unleashed nationwide protests.

      The international watchdog issued its statement on the September 16 anniversary of Amini's death, the same day recently inaugurated Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian pledged at his first press conference that he would use his authority to ensure the country's feared morality police no longer "bother" women.

    • RFERL ☛ House Of Self-Exiled Anti-War Blogger's Father Attacked By Arsonists In Russia

      Unknown attackers on September 16 threw a Molotov cocktail at the house of Dmitry Tyulenev, the father of popular self-exiled Russian blogger Danya Milokhin, who has openly condemned Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. [...]

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • International Business Times ☛ Workers Threaten To 'Soft Quit' After Amazon CEO Demands They Return To Office Five Days A Week

      Amazon corporate employees have threatened a "soft quitting" revolt in response to CEO Andy Jassy's mandate that they return to the office five days a week.

    • Eric Bailey ☛ Accessibility preference settings, information architecture, and internalized ableism

      I have a lightning talk I deliver internally at my job. It is intentionally delivered to non-accessibility practitioners, so mainly engineers, designers, project managers, and product folk.

    • India Times ☛ Internet is worse than it used to be. How did we get here, and can we go back?

      Covert and deceptive advertising is widespread, blurring the line between commercial and non-commercial content to attract more attention and engagement.

      Another driving force is the dominance of tech giants like Google, Meta and Amazon. They reach billions worldwide and wield immense power over the content we consume.

      Their platforms use advanced tracking technologies and opaque algorithms to generate hyper-targeted media content, powered by extensive user data. This creates filter bubbles, where users are exposed to limited content that reinforces their existing beliefs and biases, and echo chambers where other viewpoints are actively discredited.

    • University of Michigan ☛ U-M unveils enhancements, support for working remotely

      These latest developments build on the university’s support for an inclusive and well-supported work environment for employees across all campuses and Michigan Medicine. The new features are designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, enabling everyone to easily adapt and benefit from the Remote Work Collection System.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • EFF ☛ The New U.S. House Version of KOSA Doesn’t Fix Its Biggest Problems

      For years now, digital rights groups, LGBTQ+ organizations, and many others have been critical of KOSA's “duty of care.” While the language has been modified slightly, this version of KOSA still creates a duty of care and negligence standard of liability that will allow the Federal Trade Commission to sue apps and websites that don’t take measures to “prevent and mitigate” various harms to minors that are vague enough to chill a significant amount of protected speech.  

    • EFF ☛ KOSA’s Online Censorship Threatens Abortion Access

      But both Republicans and Democrats in Congress are now actively pushing for federal legislation that could cut youth off from these vital healthcare resources and stifle online abortion information for adults and kids alike.

      This summer, the U.S. Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that would grant the federal government and state attorneys general the power to restrict online speech they find objectionable in a misguided and ineffective attempt to protect kids online. A number of organizations have already sounded the alarm on KOSA’s danger to online LGBTQ+ content, but the hazards of the bill don’t stop there.

      KOSA puts abortion seekers at risk. It could easily lead to censorship of vital and potentially life-saving information about sexual and reproductive healthcare. And by age-gating the internet, it could result in websites requiring users to submit identification, undermining the ability to remain anonymous while searching for abortion information online.

    • Techdirt ☛ Americans Consumed 100 Trillion Megabytes Of Wireless Data Last Year (And Paid Too Much For It)

      The survey also found that nearly 40% of all wireless devices had a 5G connection in 2023, a 34% increase over 2022. There’s now 558 million wireless connections in the U.S. alone, more than 1.6 cellular connections for every American (usually a phone, tablet, or watch). The industry trade and lobbying organization, as it tends to do, took a moment to give itself a hearty pat on the back: [...]

  • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

    • Digital Music News ☛ Spotify Trials Parental Controls in Select Countries

      Spotify announced on Friday the introduction of in-app parental controls for listeners under the age of 13. The features will initially be offered as a trial program for family plans in select markets, including Denmark, New Zealand, Sweden, and 11 others.

  Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • India Times ☛ YouTube CEO says Google faces plenty of ad tech competition

    Mohan's testimony kicked off the second week of a trial over the Justice Department's allegations that Google has a monopoly on the advertising technology market. Mohan, who joined Google as part of its acquisition of advertising software company DoubleClick in 2008, said the search giant faced ample competition in the ad tech market. Google expanded into various areas of ad technology in response to demands from its business customers, including publishers and advertisers, he said.

  • Software Patents

    • [Old] US Congress ☛ S.2140 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

      This bill amends the law relating to patent subject matter eligibility to establish that only specified subject matter (e.g., a natural process wholly independent of human activity) is ineligible for patenting. (Currently, subject matter eligibility is determined by examining whether the claimed invention is directed to certain ineligible categories, and if so, whether there is an inventive concept. Subject matter eligibility is one of several requirements that an invention must satisfy in order to receive patent protection.)

      Under this bill, an invention shall be considered to involve patent-ineligible subject matter only if it falls within specified categories, such as (1) a mathematical formula that is not part of a useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition; (2) a mental process that is performed solely in the human mind; or (3) an unmodified human gene as the gene exists in the human body.

    • [Old] US Congress ☛ H.R.4370 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): PREVAIL Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

      This bill addresses various issues relating to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), including by imposing additional requirements on administrative patent validity challenges (proceedings to review and potentially cancel issued patents) at the PTO.

    • [Old] Fish & Richardson ☛ Eleven Ways the PREVAIL Act Would Alter PTAB Practice

      The PREVAIL Act would modify Title 35 of the U.S. Code, Section 316(e) to impose the presumption of validity applicable in district court to the PTAB, and also would raise the bar at the PTAB to require a showing of invalidity by "clear and convincing" evidence, matching district courts.

      For substitute claims first offered within a PTAB proceeding, however, the PREVAIL Act offers a carveout, with provisions that direct the PTAB to apply the current preponderance of the evidence standard to evaluate a petitioner's invalidity attacks on the proposed substitute claims.

  • Copyrights

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Fake Streams 'Save' Premier League Pirates, Security Tips Can Save More

      Premier League fans searching for an illegal stream of the Spurs v Arsenal match on Sunday may have received an unexpected intervention. As part of the BeStreamWise anti-piracy campaign, would-be pirates on X and Reddit were reportedly gifted a link to a stream, but not of the match. The replacement featured a real stream made entirely of water, protecting the viewer from malware and potentially curing them of piracy forever. For those who missed out, there are other things to try.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Miley Cyrus sued for allegedly ripping off Bruno Mars song

      Tempo Music also claims that Cyrus and other defendants’ alleged “unauthorized” reproduction, distribution, performance, “and/or creation” of a derivative work of” Mars’ song infringes on the company’s rights. The “defendants’ conduct has been, and continues to be, willful and knowing,” the suit says.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ ISPs Back Cox's Supreme Court Petition to Counter "Extortionate" Piracy Liability Pressure

      Several Internet Providers, including Verizon, have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant Cox Communications' appeal in a landmark piracy liability case. The ISPs stress that the current ruling creates "extortionate pressure" that puts innocent subscribers at risk. A separate brief from Boston College Law School Professor Alfred Yen, also urges the Supreme Court to take on the case.