Leftovers

• Robert Birming ☛ Breaking Free from Routine

  Now, I park just outside the city and take my bicycle to the car. It takes about 20 minutes and I get both exercise and a nice ride.

  It struck me that I really should have done this a long time ago. Saving money, improving my health, and enjoying the experience—it's a win-win. Even the occasional bad weather doesn't outweigh the benefits.

• Michał Sapka ☛ RFC1885 and "speaks for themselves"

  Another cool tidbit from the RFC which was lost in the great war of Twitter:

  Assume that individuals speak for themselves, and what they say does not represent their organization (unless stated explicitly).

  – rfc1855

  I never understood those “my views do not represent my employer” marks, as they are as obvious as the color of aliens (gray, of course). Yet people state it as having any opinion on the web is dangerous. And I mean any, as someone may always it questionable. And loosing job, means of living over a stupid joke is terrible. We could have just left it where it was, but no.

• Kev Quirk ☛ Update on 500 Social

  The instance now sports around 40 members and the local timeline has a steady stream of interesting posts, from interesting folks.

• Education

  • Yordi Verkroost ☛ Guide, Don’t Control | Yordi

    Teaching is simply about letting people tinker with learning materials they’ve found themselves and helping them back onto the right path when they’ve gone astray.

    That’s the essence of it. Let me break it down a bit further.

  • Allen Downey ☛ Think Stats 3rd Edition – Probably Overthinking It

    I am excited to announce that I have started work on a third edition of Think Stats, to be published by O’Reilly Media in 2025. At this point the content is mostly settled, and I am revising chapters to get them ready for technical review.

    If you want to start reading now, the current draft is here.

  • Stanford University ☛ Green Library hopes to open 24 hours a day by end of quarter

    To prepare for the change, the library installed a rolling shutter door to block students from accessing the staircase to other areas in the library past midnight. This would leave only Green Library’s Hohbach Hall — the first-floor space facing Meyer Green — available for students past midnight from Sunday through Thursday.

    The remaining hurdle to opening is hiring two full-time librarians to oversee the space from midnight to 8 a.m.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Hackaday ☛ Heathkit Signal Generator Gets An Update

    [DTSS_Smudge] correctly intuits that if you are interested in an old Heathkit signal generator, you probably already know how to solder. So, in a recent video, he focused on the components he decided to update for safety and other reasons. Meanwhile, we get treated to a nice teardown of this iconic piece of test gear.

  • Lou Plummer ☛ The Culinary Misadventures of the Long Distance Hiker

    The year Wonder Woman and I hiked the Appalachian Trail, we were away from home for 156 days, from early May to mid-October. At the beginning of our journey, I weighed around 230 pounds. By the end, I had dropped to 180 pounds and was wearing medium-sized clothes for the first time since high school. For most long-distance hikers, the two overriding feelings are ravenous hunger and fatigue. The trail involves over 400,000 feet of climbing, stretching from Maine to Georgia and covering just shy of 2,200 miles. It’s almost impossible for hikers to carry enough food to sustain their weight, though some manage better than others for physiological reasons I can’t quite grasp.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • FSF ☛ FSF is working on freedom in machine learning applications

    The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has announced today that it is working on a statement of criteria for free machine learning applications, which will require the software, as well as the raw training data and associated scripts, to grant users the four freedoms.

    Machine learning (ML) applications raise the issue of whether they respect users' software freedom. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is preparing a statement of criteria to determine when a machine learning application is free (as in freedom). The statement is being prepared by a working group consisting of FSF's board members, staff, and management, and they have consulted various external experts.

  • The Record ☛ Zendesk helped Internet Archive secure account after hacker breached email system

    In his update on Monday, Freeland said archive.org had returned to service but only in read-only mode. Features like uploading, borrowing, reviewing items, interlibrary loan and other services are not yet available, he added.

  • Wired ☛ A Lawsuit Against Perplexity Calls Out Fake News AI Hallucinations

    A new lawsuit brought against the startup Perplexity argues that, in addition to violating copyright law, it’s breaking trademark law by making up fake sections of news stories and falsely attributing the words to publishers.

    Dow Jones (publisher of The Wall Street Journal) and the New York Post—both owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp—brought the copyright infringement lawsuit against Perplexity today in the US Southern District of New York.

  • Michał Sapka ☛ AI radio is straight out of a nightmare

    So, OFF Radio fired all their contractors and replaced them with AI. It went smooth as butter.

    I tuned in just to check how it’s going and, oh boy, if it isn’t the stuff of nightmares. AI Emilia is interviewing Wisława Szymborska. What shocked me first, was that the AI persona is perfectly mimicking human tone - pauses, tones, sometimes mispronounces and corrects itself. If I didn’t knew, I would not know from the audio alone.

    But that’s not the biggest problem. Szymborska died 12 years ago. She was a word-renowned poet awarded with a Nobel prize. How shameless OFF Radio needs to be?

  • Bitdefender ☛ AI chatbots can be tricked by hackers into stealing your data

    A group of researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore discovered the flaw, which they have nameed "Imprompter", which uses a clever trick to hide malicious instructions within seemingly-random text.

    As the "Imprompter: Tricking LLM Agents into Improper Tool Use" research paper explains, the malicious prompt looks like gibberish to humans but contains hidden commands when read by LeChat (a chatbot developed by French AI company Mistral AI) and Chinese chatbot ChatGLM.

  • Connor Tumbleson ☛ Decaying Technology

    Now every year during price hikes I've just accepted it on the account of fatigue and 0 time. Now with cPanel upping my price even further because of an End of Life (EOL) operating system - my needle is being pushed further to resolving this.

  • Futurism ☛ It's Now Illegal to Post Fake AI-Generated Product Reviews by People Who Don't Exist

    It's officially illegal to publish fake, AI-generated product reviews.

    Sweeping changes to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines aimed at cleaning up the polluted, confusing world of online product reviews went into effect on Monday, meaning the federal agency is now allowed to levy civil penalties against bad actors who knowingly post product reviews and testimonials deemed misleading to American consumers.

  • Federal Trade Commission ☛ Federal Trade Commission Announces Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials | Federal Trade Commission

    “Fake reviews not only waste people’s time and money, but also pollute the marketplace and divert business away from honest competitors,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “By strengthening the FTC’s toolkit to fight deceptive advertising, the final rule will protect Americans from getting cheated, put businesses that unlawfully game the system on notice, and promote markets that are fair, honest, and competitive.”

    The final rule announced today follows an advance notice of proposed rulemaking and a notice of proposed rulemaking announced in November 2022 and June 2023, respectively. The FTC also held an informal hearing on the proposed rule in February 2024. In response to public comments, the Commission made numerous clarifications and adjustments to its previous proposal.

• Security

  • Cyber Security News ☛ Beast Ransomware Attacking Windows, Linux, And ESXi Systems [Ed: This seems like a Windows and VMware (proprietary) issue, not "Linux"]

    Ransomware groups are cybercriminal organizations that deploy malware to encrypt victims’ data, which helps render it inaccessible until a “ransom” is paid. The rise in ransomware incidents has significantly impacted organizations worldwide.

    [...]

    The “Linux” and “ESXi” versions offer “customizable encryption paths” and “VM shutdown options.”Beast creates a “BEAST HERE?” mutex to prevent multiple instances and avoids encrypting data in “CIS countries.”

  • Purism ☛ RIP RSA AES: The Immediate Need of Quantum-Resistant Cryptography

    Enter the work of French scientist Damien Stehlé, whose contributions to the field of post-quantum cryptography are invaluable in this context. Steil’s ML-KEM (Module Learning with Errors Key Encapsulation Mechanism) is a promising candidate for securing data against quantum attacks. Based on the MLWE problem, ML-KEM offers resistance to both classical and quantum attacks, making it a robust choice for future-proofing cryptographic systems.

  • Unix Men ☛ How to Decode Base64 Strings

    5 Best Ways To Secure Your Linux System Distribution

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Medevel ☛ Piped YouTube: Browse YouTube Ad-Free While Protecting Your Privacy - Free Self-hosted App

      Hey! Ever wished you could watch YouTube videos without feeling like you're being watched back?

      That's exactly what Piped is all about!

    • EFF ☛ In Appreciation of David Burnham

      burnham.jpgOne of the first observers to recognize the impact of NSA’s capabilities in the emerging digital landscape was David Burnham, a pioneering investigative journalist and author who passed away earlier this month at 91 years of age. While the obituary that ran at his old home, The New York Times, rightly emphasized Burnham’s ground-breaking investigations of police corruption and the shoddy safety standards of the nuclear power industry (depicted, respectively, in the films “Serpico” and “Silkwood”), those in the digital rights world are especially appreciative of his prescience when it came to the issues we care about deeply.

      In 1983, Burnham published “The Rise of the Computer State,” one of the earliest examinations of the emerging challenges of the digital age. As Walter Cronkite wrote in his foreword to the book, “The same computer that enables us to explore the outer reaches of space and the mysteries of the atom can also be turned into an instrument of tyranny. We must ensure that the rise of the computer state does not also mean the demise of our civil liberties.” Here is what Burnham wrote in a piece for The New York Times Magazine based on the reporting in his book:

      Remember, that was written in 1983. Ten years before the launch of the Mosaic browser and three decades before mobile devices became ubiquitous. But Burnham understood the trajectory of the emerging technology, for both the government and its citizens.

    • EFF ☛ EFF to Massachusetts’ Highest Court: Pretrial Electronic Monitoring Should Not Eviscerate Privacy Rights

      EFF joined the Committee for Public Counsel Services, ACLU, ACLU of Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, in filing an amicus brief in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in Commonwealth v. Govan, arguing just that. 

      In this case, the defendant Anthony Govan was subjected to pretrial electronic monitoring as a condition of release prior to trial. In investigating a completely unrelated crime, the police asked the pretrial electronic monitoring division for the identity and location of “anyone” who was near the location of this latter incident. Mr. Govan’s data was part of the response, and that information was used against him in this unrelated case. 

      Our joint amicus brief highlighted the coercive nature of electronic monitoring programs. When the alternative is being locked up, there is no meaningful consent to the collection of information under electronic monitoring. At the same time, as someone on pretrial release, Mr. Govan had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his location information. As courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have recognized, location and movement information are incredibly sensitive and revealing. Just because someone is on electronic monitoring, it doesn’t mean they have no expectation of privacy, whether they are going to a political protest, a prayer group, an abortion clinic, a gun show, or their private home. Pretrial electronic monitoring collects this information around the clock—information that otherwise would not have been available to law enforcement through traditional tools.  

    • EFF ☛ How Many U.S. Persons Does Section 702 Spy On? The ODNI Needs to Come Clean.

      EFF has joined with 23 other organizations including the ACLU, Restore the Fourth, the Brennan Center for Justice, Access Now, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation to demand that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) furnish the public with an estimate of exactly how many U.S. persons’ communications have been hoovered up, and are now sitting on a government server for law enforcement to unconstitutionally sift through at their leisure.

      This letter was motivated by the fact that representatives of the National Security Agency (NSA) have promised in the past to provide the public with an estimate of how many U.S. persons—that is, people on U.S. soil—have had their communications “incidentally” collected through the surveillance authority Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.

    • Wired ☛ Anthropic Wants Its AI Agent to Control Your Computer

      It took a while for people to adjust to the idea of chatbots that seem to have minds of their own. The next leap into the unknown may involve trusting artificial intelligence to take over our computers, too.

      Anthropic, a high-flying competitor to OpenAI, announced today that it has taught its AI model Claude to do a range of things on a computer, including search the web, open applications, and input text using the mouse and keyboard.

    • Nebraska Examiner ☛ Computer programs monitor students’ every word in the name of safety

      School districts across the country have widely adopted such computer monitoring platforms. With the youth mental health crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and school violence affecting more K-12 students nationwide, teachers are desperate for a solution, experts say.

      But critics worry about the lack of transparency from companies that have the power to monitor students and choose when to alert school personnel. Constant student surveillance also raises concerns regarding student data, privacy and free speech.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

      • 404 Media ☛ Watch: Inside the FBI’s Secret Phone Company

        In 2018, a secure communications app called Anom started to gain popularity among organized criminals. Soon, top tier drug traffickers were using it all over the world. Because they thought their messages were secure, smugglers and hitmen coordinated high stakes crimes across the platform. But Anom had a secret: it was secretly run by the FBI.

        That’s the pitch I sent to the annual hacking conference DEF CON. Much to my delight, they accepted, and below you can now see the talk in full.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Off Guardian ☛ Globalists flee in terror as Russia plans for mass adoption of digital ruble in mid-2025

    Klaus Schwab is on suicide watch after Russia’s central bank announced on Thursday that it is preparing for the large-scale implementation of the digital ruble, colloquially known in the Global South as the CBDC That Cares™, as early as mid-2025. “We are planning to start large-scale implementation of the digital ruble.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’

    The Republican nominee’s preoccupation with dictators, and his disdain for the American military, is deepening.

  • ADF ☛ Sub-Saharan Arms Trade Diversifies Amid Raging Conflicts

    The flow of arms into Sub-Saharan Africa is declining, and the role of longtime suppliers such as Russia and China has diminished as other actors enter the mix.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • The Guardian UK ☛ ‘End justifies the means’: high Russian death toll fails to shift opinion on Ukraine war

      The soldiers then proceeded to berate their commander for sending “the hungry and freezing in droves to their deaths … Your insane orders are killing them.”

      The clip offers a rare but telling glimpse into the nature of Moscow’s warfare, which Russian soldiers have likened to being thrown into a meat grinder.

      Throughout the war in Ukraine, Russia is believed to have suffered catastrophic losses, reportedly losing up to 90% of the personnel it had at the onset of the conflict.

    • Meduza ☛ Russia is putting pressure on women to boost the birth rate — but demographers say the main problem is too many people dying

      According to U.N. projections, Russia’s population of around 146 million could shrink by 20 million people by the end of the century, with worst-case estimates predicting a dramatic decline of nearly 60 million people. In response to this looming crisis, the Kremlin has rolled out various initiatives to tackle the “demographic problem,” from promoting “family values” in schools to restricting access to abortion. The independent outlet Holod spoke with demographic experts to understand why these government efforts aren’t boosting birth rates, what could realistically slow the population decline, and whether immigration could be part of the solution. Meduza shares an English-language summary of their findings.

    • New Yorker ☛ The U.S. Spies Who Sound the Alarm About Election Interference

      The U.S. intelligence agencies, though, waited until two months after Trump won the 2016 election to lay out the sweeping scale of the Russian operation. Instead of averting a partisan battle, the delay ignited one. Democrats argued that the Kremlin’s support rendered Trump an illegitimate leader; Trump and his allies claimed that the intelligence agencies were part of a deep-state conspiracy against him. Seven years later, the fight continues.

    • The Washington Post ☛ South Korea urges N. Korean troops in Russia to withdraw: What to know

      South Korean and Ukrainian officials are raising the alarm about reports of North Korean troops supporting Russians inside Ukraine, warning that the alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang is growing stronger and evolving beyond transferring weapons.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Western leaders offer underwhelming response to Zelenskyy’s victory plan

      Western leaders have failed to rally behind Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's victory plan, highlighting the limitations of Western support for the Ukrainian war effort, writes Aleksander Cwalina.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuanian MEP Gražulis voted against €35 billion loan to Ukraine

      Lithuanian MEP Petras Gražulis voted on Tuesday against a 35-billion-euro loan to Ukraine, which will be covered by profits from Russia’s frozen assets in the West.

    • RFA ☛ First North Korea troops expected to arrive in Kursk Wednesday: report

      Ukrainian forces invaded the neighboring Russian region in early August.

    • RFA ☛ Seoul could send weapons to Ukraine to counter North Korea's troop deployments

      South Korea vowed 'phased measures' to counter Russian-North Korean military cooperation.

    • RFERL ☛ U.S. To Announce New Sanctions To Curb Russia's War Machine

      The United States is set to announce new sanctions as early as next week aimed at curbing Russia's Ukraine war efforts, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on October 22.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Detained In Poland Planned Sabotage, Foreign Ministry Says

      A Ukrainian citizen arrested in Poland on suspicion of preparing sabotage planned to set fire to a factory in the city of Wroclaw, the Polish Foreign Ministry has announced.

    • RFERL ☛ EU Approves $38 Billion Loan For Ukraine, Funded By Frozen Russian Assets

      The European Parliament has approved a loan of up to 35 billion euros ($38 billion) for Ukraine's defense and reconstruction that will be repaid using future revenues from Russian central bank assets frozen abroad.

    • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea joining Russia in Ukraine war raises security threat for South Korea: Analysts

      Evidence mounts of North Korea's plans to send up to 12,000 of its special forces to aid Russia.

    • CS Monitor ☛ In Gaza or Ukraine, peace can look impossible. Here, there’s hope.

      Geneva Peace Week hosts people from around the world who aren’t just hoping for peace, but creating it. Their stories point to what’s possible.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuanian MEP Gražulis voted against €35 billion loan to Ukraine, calls it ‘human error’

      
      

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Says 14 Ukrainian Drones, 4 Unmanned Boats Destroyed

      Russian air defense systems downed 14 Ukrainian drones early on October 23, 10 of them over the occupied Crimea region, Russia's Defense Ministry said, adding that 4 unmanned boats had also been destroyed off the Crimean coast.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine's Prosecutor-General Resigns Amid Draft-Dodging Scandal

      Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin has resigned amid investigations that found dozens of government officials had dodged military service by claiming disablity benefits.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ A crack in the BRICS: Iran’s economic challenges take center stage at Russia’s summit

      The reality is that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will show up to the BRICS leaders meeting and look for support across the BRICS not only in the military domain, but also for his country’s economy.

    • LRT ☛ ‘The Russians don’t respect us’ – interview

      Russia only attacks a weaker opponent and NATO is now signalling strength, James Sherr, an expert at the Estonian International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), told LRT.lt in an exclusive interview.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuanian gas transition company fined for installing Russian parts into GIPL pipeline

      Lithuania’s natural gas transmission company Amber Grid has been fined 81,100 euros for what are thought to be 123 Russian-made parts installed in the Gas Interconnection Poland-Lithuania (GIPL) without proper certifications.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia, China, Iran Intent On 'Fanning Divisive Narratives' In U.S. Election, defective chip maker Intel Officials Say

      U.S. intelligence officials warned on October 22 that “foreign actors” from Russia, China, and Iran are intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans ahead of the November 5 U.S. presidential election and beyond.

    • RFERL ☛ Uzbek Authorities Probe Suspicious Death Of Russian Journalist

      Uzbek authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the death of 47-year-old Russian journalist Inessa Papernaya and two others at a hotel in Tashkent. According to the Uzbek General Prosecutor’s Office, forensic examinations have been ordered to determine the cause of death.

    • RFERL ☛ Jailed Chechen Political Prisoner Zarema Musayeva Hospitalized

      Zarema Musayeva, a political prisoner in Russia’s Chechnya region and the mother of three outspoken opposition activists, has been hospitalized after her health declined seriously, according to her lawyer, Aleksandr Savin.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Engineer Identified Among Victims Of Downed Cargo Plane In Sudan

      The death of Anton Selivanets, a Russian aircraft engineer, has been confirmed following the downing of a cargo plane in war-torn Sudan.

    • RFERL ☛ European Court Says Russia's 'Foreign Agent' Law Violates Human Rights

      In a landmark ruling, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said Russia’s “foreign agent” law violates the European Convention on Human Rights, saying it is "arbitrary" and used in an "overly broad and unpredictable way."

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Envoy: Moscow Will Help Lukashenka Quash 'Disorder' In 2025 Presidential Poll

      Russian Ambassador to Belarus Boris Gryzlov said Moscow will provide assistance to Minsk -- which could include Russian boots on the ground -- if it is asked to help counter attempts to “destabilize” 2025 presidential elections.

    • ADF ☛ Flags at Nigerian Protests Could Signal Russian Plans to Expand Influence

      After forming alliances with military-led juntas in the Sahel, Russia might be moving its influence campaign south by supporting social unrest in Nigeria.

    • RFERL ☛ Moldovan President, Opponent Agree On Debate Before Runoff

      Incumbent Moldovan President Maia Sandu and Russian-backed candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo have agreed to hold a public election debate on October 27 ahead of a November 3 presidential runoff, the two candidates' campaign teams have announced.

    • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea pledges countermeasures over N.Korea-Russia military cooperation

      SEOUL - South Korea will gradually take countermeasures in line with the level of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, Deputy National Security Adviser Kim Tae-hyo told a briefing on Tuesday.

    • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea UN representative denies Pyongyang sent troops to Russia

      Pyongyang dismissed Seoul’s claims as “groundless rumour”.

    • France24 ☛ Russian interference did not represent 'critical mass' in Moldova vote, expert says

      Moldovans voted by a razor-thin majority in favor of securing the country’s path toward EU membership, after the pro-Western president accused foreign interference and “criminal groups” of trying to undermine the vote in the former Soviet republic. FRANCE 24's Maria Gerth Niculescu reports from Chisinau. Mark Owen speaks to Clara Volintiru at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She says that Russian interference did not represent a 'critical mass' in the vote.

    • France24 ☛ Moldova’s president bet big on the EU referendum. It may cost her dearly

      Moldova has voted to enshrine its EU membership aspirations in the nation’s constitution by a razor-thin margin after a campaign awash with accusations of Russian interference and political repression. It’s an awkward moment for President Maia Sandu, who organised the vote to coincide with her own bid for re-election – and failed to win the absolute majority needed to triumph in the first round.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Justice Department rule aims to curb the sale of Americans’ personal data overseas

      The proposed regulation imposes a series of restrictions on how American entities can sell “bulk” sensitive data across six categories.

    • Latvia ☛ Latvia plans special grant for border municipalities

      An agreement between the government and local governments provides for a special €2.5 million grant for five municipalities bordering Russia and Belarus. Border residents believe that more funding is needed in almost all areas, including strengthening security, Latvian Radio reports October 22.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia, China, Iran Intent On 'Fanning Divisive Narratives' In U.S. Vote, Officials Say

      U.S. intelligence officials warned on October 22 that “foreign actors” from Russia, China, and Iran are intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans ahead of the November 5 U.S. presidential election and beyond.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Incoming EU foreign policy chief Kallas warns against Russia and China

      The European Union's next foreign policy chief has told lawmakers that strengthening security must be a priority, warning that Europe must be prepared as Russia and \"partly China\" exploit the continent’s open societies.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Washington Post ☛ Meta suspends accounts tracking Trump, Bezos jets, echoing Musk’s X

    The accounts drew from publicly broadcast flight data to post the takeoff and landing airports of planes used by Zuckerberg, Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) alongside estimates of the carbon dioxide emissions from each trip.

    The posts do not specify who was on the plane, the purposes of the flight or where the passengers traveled next. (Bezos, Amazon’s founder, owns The Washington Post.)

  • The Conversation ☛ Why does Donald Trump tell such blatant lies?

    Politics was once thought of as an art. It was political philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli who, in 1532, wrote: “Those princes who have done great things … have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft.” Part of that craft was lying. Machiavelli argued that rulers should do whatever it takes to retain power, and this could include “being a great dissembler”.

    Politicians can lie by omission and by exaggeration – but sometimes, like Trump, they tell outright “big lies”. This term was introduced by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, and the concept of the big lie was used by the Nazis to justify persecution of the Jews.

    A big lie is often defined as “a deliberate gross distortion of the truth used especially as a propaganda tactic”. These have, it is argued, the power to disrupt society.

• Environment

  • CBC ☛ Can the sea soak up our excess carbon dioxide? These scientists are finding out

    The process uses ocean alkalinity enhancement — a way of accelerating the natural process that occurs when alkaline (or chemically basic) rock washes into the sea — to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

  • EcoWatch ☛ 85% of American Youth Polled Worry About Climate Change, Want More Action From Government and Corporations

    A “supermajority” — 85 percent — of young Americans polled feel distressed about human-caused climate change and, and similar percentages want stronger action from corporations and the government, according to a new study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

    In the survey — the largest of its kind — most of the 16,000 respondents aged 16 to 25, from every state in the country, said they were worried about the impact climate change was having on humans and the planet, reported the Chicago Tribune.

  • EcoWatch ☛ Plastic Pollution Sounds Like Food to Whales Using Echolocation

    “These acoustic signatures are similar, and this might be a reason that these animals are driven to consume plastic instead of, or in addition to, their prey,” Greg Merrill, lead author of the study and a graduate student at Duke University, said in a statement.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ On Lake Erie, getting rid of problem algae starts with giving it less food

    Bacteria commonly called blue-green algae are often present in bodies of water throughout the world, but if fed too much of the phosphorus and nitrogen in farm fertilizers, they can turn into harmful algae blooms that can affect drinking water, create oxygen-starved dead zones that kill marine life, spoil swimming, boating and tourism and endanger human health.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • DeSmog ☛ Robert Jenrick Endorsed by Notorious Climate Science Deniers

    • DeSmog ☛ Big Ag Is Using ‘Regenerative Agriculture’ to Mask Business-as-Usual

    • Pro Publica ☛ He Died Building a Ship for the U.S. Government. His Family Got Nothing.

    • Wired ☛ Peter Todd Was ‘Unmasked’ As Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Now He’s In Hiding

      Since the documentary aired, Todd has repeatedly and categorically denied that he created Bitcoin: “For the record, I am not Satoshi,” he alleges. “I think Cullen made the Satoshi accusation for marketing. He needed a way to get attention for his film.”

      For his part, Hoback remains confident in his conclusions. The various denials and deflections from Todd, he claims, are part of a grand and layered misdirection. “While of course we can’t outright say he is Satoshi, I think that we make a very strong case,” says Hoback.

      Whatever the truth, Todd will now bear the burden of having been unmasked as Satoshi. He has gone into hiding.

    • Inside Towers ☛ Helicopter Crashes Into Dark Houston Radio Tower Claiming Four Lives

      The crash occurred while the aircraft was flying at 600 feet before colliding with the 1,000-foot-high tower. Investigations revealed that the tower’s lights were “unserviceable” at the time, according to CNN, with repairs scheduled by the end of the month, according to a FAA notice released just days before the incident.

    • Ruben Schade ☛ Unhelpful sites for moving

      Again, people, we don’t have an energy bill. We’re just moving in! The power company is asking for the NMI! How can I look up a bill I haven’t received yet?

      Joseph Heller is alive and well, and running comms at Australian billing companies.

    • Dedoimedo ☛ The future of electric vehicles

      Before we dive in, I must answer this question. My stance is: neutral. In reality, it does not matter what kind of propulsion your vehicle has. Well, since I love cars, I am keenly interested in the fine technological aspects of the whole thing, but practically, it makes no difference. Petrol, diesel, two-stroke, four-stroke, rotary, gas turbine, Otto cycle, Stirling cycle, electric, steam, it doesn't matter.

      Cars can be exciting - or not. There are boring petrols, with awful looks, handling and performance. Then, there are super-exciting petrols. There are dull, slow diesels. And then, there are spaceship-class diesels with more torque than most supercars. Like operating systems or programming languages - there's nothing that says every C program is good or every Python program is bad. It's all in the (correct) implementation of the idea, and the type of engine does not guarantee results any which way.

    • Jamie Zawinski ☛ A murderbot stamping on a human face forever

      This dystopic scene of identical robocars clogging an entire block to carry maaaybe 1/4 of a busload of people, was posted by a waymo employee who thought it made his company look good.

    • Vox ☛ What to know about Cuba’s nationwide blackout

      The blackout is the culmination of decades of disinvestment, an economic crisis, and global factors affecting the country’s oil supply, and there doesn’t seem to be a long-term solution to the crisis.

    • Gonçalo Valério ☛ An experiment in fighting spam on public forms using “proof of work”

      It is public knowledge that the “Proof of work” mechanism, used in Bitcoin, started as one of these attempts to fight email spam. So this is not a novel idea, it has decades.

      The question is, would some version of it work for my public forms? The answer is yes, and in fact, it didn’t take much to get some meaningful results.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong’s courts are independent, gov’t says after ex-top court judge says judiciary ‘too partial’ to authorities

    Hong Kong’s courts are independent and proceedings are conducted in accordance with the evidence presented, the government has said after a former top court judge said the Judiciary was “too partial” to the authorities.

  • EDRI ☛ European decision-makers accept petition signatures

    During the Summit, we took the demands of thousands of people across Europe to seven Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Over 40,000 people supported our recent petitions, together with our partner WeMove Europe, calling on EU decision-makers to put people, democracy and the planet at the heart of our digital futures. It was also co-signed by more than 30 civil society organisations working on a broad range of issues – from climate justice and racial justice to corporate accountability.

  • Games ☛ Netflix shuts down California game studio

    Netflix has shut down its AAA Southern California game studio known as Team Blue.

    As reported by Game File, Netflix confirmed its fifth internal studio had been closed, and that three hires on the team had left the company.

  • Chris McLeod ☛ Well, F*ck

    Inside is a letter. From a debt collection agency you’ve never heard of, on behalf of another company you’ve never heard of. It’s relating to a debt amount you don’t recognise, and says you’ve defaulted on a repayment schedule you know nothing about. You must contact them within 7 days of the date of the letter - which is dated 10 days ago.

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ Why Republicans Love to Offer You Tax Cuts

    Republicans love tax cuts. Stereotypically, progressives offer big plans for government services to be built and Republicans offer to take taxes away. Donald Trump is like what would happen if you regressed the typical Republican to the age of five and gave him a bunch of speed and then told him to unveil his economic policy. He has just been running around offering tax cuts to any damn group that happens to be in front of him. Service workers? No tax on tips! Salaried workers? No tax on overtime! Old person? No taxes on Social Security! Active duty military? No tax! Veteran? No tax! Police or firefighter? No tax! He has devolved into a drunken crank leaning out his car window and swinging a bat labeled “NO TAX” at each passing mailbox. Bemused economists have calculated that Trump’s plans would exempt more than 90 million Americans from taxes, costing the government trillions of dollars. Trump claims the money would all be replaced by tariffs, which is a little like saying you are going to quit your job but replace all your income by charging your friends an entry fee to come into your apartment. It probably won’t work out the way you imagine.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Scoop News Group ☛ US officials warn foreign disinformation from Russia may flood post-election period

      The U.S. intelligence community is anticipating a potentially tumultuous post-election period this year, where foreign governments will seek to amplify domestic unrest to cast doubt about the legitimacy of the winner while undermining confidence in democracy.

      Officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence singled out Russia, using some of their strongest language to date to warn that leaders in Moscow are preparing a full-court press in the final weeks of the election and beyond.

    • The Washington Post ☛ Election misinformation is everywhere. Can you tell what’s real or fake?

      As Election Day approaches, the best way for you to stop the spread of misinformation is to build the skills to spot it.

      Artificial intelligence tools are making it cheaper and easier to create deepfake photos and videos. Social media platforms that prioritize sensational posts are making it harder to avoid false narratives and conspiracy theories online. And some tech companies and government agencies have pulled back from fact-checking and debunking falsehoods.

      That leaves you as the first line of defense against misinformation.

    • New York Times ☛ Russian Disinformation Efforts, Including Faked Walz Video, Could Continue After Nov. 5, Officials Say

      Russia is considering actions to stoke protests and even violence over the U.S. election results, intelligence officials said on Tuesday, as foreign powers appear to be moving aggressively to undermine the democratic process during what is already expected to be a contentious vote count.

    • NPR ☛ The Central Park 5 are suing Trump over Philly debate comments

      But during the September debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Trump said that at the time the teenagers “admitted – they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately.” The victim in the case is still alive and deals with lingering health effects from her attack. The five never pled guilty for the crimes they were charged with.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Techdirt ☛ Intuit Asks The Verge To Delete Part Of Interview With Its CEO; The Verge Declined

    Readers here will be familiar with our posts about Intuit. The company that is behind everything from the TurboTax software platform to Credit Karma and more has also built itself a nefarious reputation due to both its active lobbying to keep the tax-filing system in America as complicated as possible (so it can make more money) as well as some of the more cynical and dastardly anti-consumer behaviors to hide its own free tax filing options as I’ve seen (so it could make more money). The company preyed on everyone from the typical lower-income member of the public to American military veterans. It was all so bad that the FTC sued the company, generating a settlement in which Intuit was ordered to pay out $141 million back to its victims.

  • The Record ☛ European human rights court rules against Russia’s foreign agents law, with no path for enforcement

    The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued a new ruling Tuesday stating that Russia’s foreign agents law violates a number of freedoms, and individuals wrongly affected by it should be compensated.

    The Russian law on foreign agents was designed to target organizations and individuals receiving foreign funding and engaging in political activities. However, since its initial adoption in 2012, the Kremlin has abused the law to tighten control over civil society and the media.

  • Brattleboro Reformer, Vermont ☛ Porn stars urge men to vote against Trump

    The initiative comes in response to Project 2025, a blueprint for reshaping the federal government should Trump, the Republican nominee, win the election.

    Page five of the 900-page tome's foreword states: "Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned."

    Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025. But dozens of his allies and former administration members co-wrote the document, and Democrats have argued that many of its policies match his own positions.

  • VOA News ☛ US charges Iranian Revolutionary Guard official in plot to kill VOA host

    The United States has charged a senior Iranian official and three others linked to Tehran for their role in a failed assassination plot targeting VOA host Masih Alinejad.

    Federal prosecutors in New York charged Ruhollah Bazghandi, a senior official in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and three other men linked to Tehran, with participating in a failed attempt to assassinate VOA Persian service journalist Alinejad in Brooklyn in 2022, according to a new indictment made public on Tuesday.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Ukrainian journalist who exposed Russian occupation dies in Kremlin captivity

    A Ukrainian journalist who sought to document the Russian occupation of her country has died in Kremlin captivity. The family of award-winning journalist Victoria Roshchyna received notification of her death from the Russian authorities in early October. No cause of death was given, with reports indicating that she died in mid-September while being moved between Russian prisons. She was just twenty-seven years old.

  • ANF News ☛ New investigation against journalist Abdurrahman Gök already on trial

    Gök and his lawyers Resul Temur and Mehmet Emin Aktar were present at the hearing, which was also observed by Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG) Co-Chair Dicle Müftüoğlu, DİSK Basın-İş President Turgut Dedeoğlu and Human Rights Watch (HRW) representatives.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • GO Media ☛ You Have a 'Work Number' on This Site, and You Should Freeze It | Lifehacker

    Your employment and salary history is being collected, and can be used by prospective employers, landlords, and lenders. Here’s how to take control.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Girls displaced in Nigeria get help returning to school

    Globally, 250 million children are out of school, with 1 in every 5 of these children living in Nigeria, according to UNICEF. Girls have a higher out-of-school rate in Nigeria, particularly the northern region.

    “In addition to insurgency, cultural norms, negative bias towards female empowerment, and poverty contribute to the northern region’s low female education rate,” says Faith Adamu, the Nigeria-based education officer at the Norwegian Refugee Council, an independent humanitarian organization that helps people who have been displaced. Ms. Adamu previously spent nine years at the Center for Girls Education, an organization based in northern Nigeria, developing projects to support adolescent girls. Ms. Bolaji had sought help from the center while developing the safe-space curriculum for SWAGEP.

  • International Business Times ☛ Ex-Green Beret Turned US Banker Dies After Working 100-Hours Weekly, Who Is His Boss And Why Isn't He Fired Yet?

    Leo Lukenas III, a former Green Beret who made the challenging transition to investment banking, tragically passed away in May at just 35 years old. Lukenas, who had been working 100-hour weeks at Bank of America (BofA), died from "acute coronary artery thrombus"—a fatal blood clot in the heart. His death has sparked outrage over the gruelling work culture at Wall Street firms and raised questions about his boss, Gary Howe, the head of BofA's Financial Institutions Group (FIG). Despite the intense scrutiny, Howe remains employed at the bank, prompting the question: Why hasn't he been fired?

  • 404 Media ☛ Amazon Says It Has a First Amendment Right to Union Bust

    Amazon’s filing, which was in response to an NLRB complaint, was filed last Tuesday as part of a long-running case about whether Amazon is a joint employer of its delivery drivers. Amazon argues it is not the employer of these drivers because of its Delivery Service Partner (DSP) system—Amazon contracts third-party delivery companies as DSPs, which in turn employ drivers.

    When a group of delivery drivers unionized with the Teamsters in 2023, Amazon refused to bargain with the union, claiming it did not have to because it was not an employer. In September, however, the NLRB filed a complaint against the company, officially ruling it as a joint employer, which means that Amazon has just as much responsibility over its drivers as the DSP that employs them.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • New York Times ☛ Ward Christensen, Early Visionary of Social Media, Dies at 78

    Housebound during a 1978 blizzard, he and a friend began devising the first computer bulletin board, a forerunner of online services like Reddit, Fentanylware (TikTok) and Facebook.

  • Digital Music News ☛ A2IM, SAG-AFTRA and More Call Out Fentanylware (TikTok) Over Abrupt Merlin Split: ‘The Latest Example of the Platform Doing Whatever It Can to Avoid Compensating Artists Fairly’

    It’s safe to say the indie music community isn’t a fan of TikTok, which is facing a fresh wave of criticism ahead of its Merlin agreement’s quick-approaching expiration.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ The fight over the 6GHz band and the future of connectivity

    The battle for the 6GHz spectrum band is hotting up in South Africa, mirroring global debates on the allocation of spectrum between Wi-Fi and IMT (cellular) operators. The core of this conflict is the need for additional bandwidth to meet the exploding demand for internet connectivity.

    On one side, cellular operators argue for more spectrum to expand their network capacities; on the other, the Wi-Fi industry advocates for full access to the 6GHz band, claiming it will deliver greater value, faster internet and seamless connectivity.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Hate extra fees on your [Internet] bill? The government wants to know.

    Last week, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it’s looking into the impact of “data caps” — the limits that some home [Internet] providers impose on how much data you can use each month. You might be charged extra if your household goes over the limit.

    Consumer advocates have said for years that these data caps are an unjustified money grab. They hope the FCC is finally going to do something about it.

    I’ll explain what the FCC wants to know about data caps and how to have your say. Even if you don’t pay for using “too much” [Internet], the fees are a glimpse at how [Internet] providers face few consequences if they give you crummy service or jack up your bills.

  • Teleport ☛ The NIS2 Directive is Here. What Happens Next?

    The Network and Information Security (NIS2) Directive’s deadline of October 17th has officially passed. Yet despite this deadline – and the strict penalties in place for non-compliance – nearly 66% of businesses operating in Europe have likely not implemented the necessary compliance controls (Veeam Software). Additionally, the majority of EU member states have yet to officially codify NIS2 standards into their national laws.

    So with two-thirds of organizations technically non-compliant, and the majority of nations technically not mandating the directive, what comes next for NIS2?

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • RTL ☛ Unlicensed use of creative works: ABBA's Bjorn among 11,000 artists issuing AI warning

      "The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted," says the brief statement.

      In Hollywood, studios have been experimenting with AI in recent years, from bringing deceased movie stars back using realistic "digital replicas," to using computer-generated background figures to reduce the number of actors needed for battle scenes.

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Penguin Random House Takes Strong Stance Against Hey Hi (AI) — No Mistaking This Updated Copyright Language

    Penguin Random House has updated its wording on its copyright monopoly pages to better protect its authors’ intellectual property from Hey Hi (AI) uses. The language specifically addresses large language models (LLMs) and other artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

  • The Washington Post ☛ ‘Blade Runner 2049’ producers sue Tesla, Elon Musk for robitaxi imagery

    When Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s long-awaited robotaxi at a movie studio this month, he presented an image of a person standing in an orange desert looking toward demolished buildings — similar to an iconic shot from the movie “Blade Runner 2049.”

  • Digital Music News ☛ Perplexity Faces Copyright Suit Over Alleged ‘Massive’ Infringement of NY Post and Wall Street Journal Articles

    In a case that could establish precedent relevant to multiple music industry lawsuits against generative Hey Hi (AI) companies, the owners of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post are suing Perplexity for copyright monopoly infringement.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ NFL Player Uses Pirate Streaming Site to Watch His Own Team

    Seattle Seahawks cornerback Tariq Woolen, who reportedly earns over $1 million a year, used pirate streaming site MethStreams to watch his own team play. This revelation came from Woolen's Instagram story, where he shared an image clearly displaying the site's URL. While Woolen seemed unconcerned when the news reached him, the NFL, which actively combats piracy, will likely take a different view.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Google Victim Blamed For Piracy Shield Blunder, Warning Over Infiltration Risk

    After Italy's Piracy Shield system blocked Google Drive last weekend, telecoms regulator AGCOM says that if Google had fully collaborated in the fight against piracy, the disruption could've been easily avoided. Meanwhile, an expert has raised the alarm over Piracy Shield's security, warning that nobody knows whether a bad actor has infiltrated the platform. Google Drive today, but will it be trains, hospitals, and government infrastructure tomorrow?