GNU/Linux

• Leftovers

  • Baldur Bjarnason ☛ Let's pause for a moment, I need time to think

    Back when I relaunched this site in 2010 – switching from a pair of named blogs, Loud for links and Another Quiet Day for essays, to a eponymous blog and site – the point was that it would be a more focused foundation for my career. Unlike the blogs I’d been running up until then, this site has always had a defined purpose. I might digress into topics that suit my fancy, after all you always bring your whole self into your career so expecting yourself to leave bits off is like leaving an arm at home and expecting to easily reattach it when you get back, but ultimately it should always return to form: [...]

  • Matt Birchler ☛ I don’t care about bad or missing features that I don’t use

    Sometimes I’ll talk about something I like online and people will express shock that I can use a product that has such a clear downside. I’ve gotten people ask how I can use Things since it doesn’t have shared task lists. More recently I was told the monitor I wanted to get would have been outdated in 2008 because it didn’t have Thunderbolt or 5K resolution.

    Here’s the thing, neither of those things impacted my use of the product at all, so their omissions don’t make me feel anything at all.

  • The Zambian Observer ☛ nuns are expelled by the Vatican for breaking chastity vows with online love affairs

    Olson recorded his April 2023 interrogation of Mother Superior Teresa Agnes Gerlach in her Arlington convent, in which she seemed to admit to a consensual long-distance phone romance with Father Philip Johnson, a retired former priest from the diocese in Raleigh, North Carolina.

    The bishop claimed that by engaging in the s£xting relationship, Gerlach committed sins of adult£ry in violation of the sixth commandment and her vow of chastity, according to Chron.

  • Science

    • Crooked Timber ☛ In defense of a minimum referee ratio

      Solving the referee crisis in academic peer review will require multiple measures, but when it comes to securing that enough people are willing to referee, I propose to discuss the number we should treat as the lower boundary of how much we should referee. Let’s call the number of reports a person writes for journals divided by the number of reports that person receives in response to their own paper submissions a person’s referee-ratio. I want to defend that the referee ratio should be at least 1.2. In other words, for every 4 reports we receive, we should write at least 5 (adjusted for the number of authors of a paper).

    • Rlang ☛ How to Find Columns with All Missing Values in Base R

      When working with real-world datasets in R, it’s common to encounter missing values, often represented as NA. These missing values can impact the quality and reliability of your analyses. One important step in data preprocessing is identifying columns that consist entirely of missing values. By detecting these columns, you can decide whether to remove them or take appropriate action based on your specific use case. In this article, we’ll explore how to find columns with all missing values using base R functions.

    • The Korea Times ☛ European satellites launched to create artificial solar eclipses in a tech demo

      Each fake eclipse should last six hours once operations begin next year. That's considerably longer than the few minutes of totality offered by a natural eclipse here on Earth, allowing for prolonged study of the sun's corona, or outer atmosphere.

    • Wired ☛ We’ve Never Been Closer to Finding Life Outside Our Solar System

      Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, we may have spotted a galactic neighbor with all the right molecular ingredients a mere 40 light-years away.

  • Career/Education

    • Kodsnack ☛ Kodsnack 617 - Craving for the human touch, with Laura Herman

      Recorded on-stage at Øredev 2024, Fredrik talks to Laura Herman about creativity, creation, and AI.

    • EDRI ☛ Dear Claire

      At EDRi, we’ve always seen leadership transitions as an opportunity to look back on what we’ve achieved and set the stage for what’s next. When you became Executive Director in 2018, you were always transparent about the fact that this would be a 5-6 year term, to help EDRi build long-term resilience and make an impact in an increasingly complex and unpredictable world.

  • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

    • Pro Publica ☛ GOP Lawmakers Are Already Trying to Overturn Missouri’s Right to Abortion

      One month after Missouri voters approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion, Republican lawmakers in the deeply red state are already working to overturn it — or at least undermine it.

      One measure would ask voters to amend the state constitution to define life as beginning at conception, declaring that embryos are people with rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

    • Michigan Advance ☛ These counties swung for Trump — and abortion rights

      Abortion ballot measures succeeded in 7 of the 10 states that had one this November. Examining the results of those initiatives in several states where Trump won shows that Democrats were not able to convince large swaths of the electorate that protecting abortion rights rested on electing Harris.

    • FAIR ☛ Pundits Try to Make ‘Progressive’ Case for Kennedy

      Next year, Donald Trump will have the chance to reshape the American public health system with his nomination of anti-vaccine crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary for health and human services. While corporate media haven’t necessarily endorsed this choice, many commentators have worked hard to downplay the danger Kennedy poses to the US public.

    • Ness Labs ☛ The Art of Wintering: How to Find Strength in Slowing Down - Ness Labs

      Wintering is not about completely withdrawing or giving up. It’s about finding the right balance between rest and movement, solitude and connection. Like a tree pulling energy into its roots, it’s about gathering strength for your next season of growth.

    • The Nation ☛ Will There Be a Bird Flu Epidemic Under Trump?

      Pandemic expert Sam Scarpino at Northeastern University wrote a thread recently on Bluesky, which aptly summarized the concerning, recent developments about the virus: with unusual cases arising with no known contact with animals; new mutations that confer greater affinity for human sialic acid receptors, which H5N1 uses to dock with our cells, and; H5N1 showing up in wastewater more frequently, he says “time may be running out” for us.” Let’s be clear: we haven’t seen sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus emerge yet, but our response in the United States is already freaking out scientists around the world. The mismanagement here has been terrible, and the new administration does not bode well for the future of managing infectious disease threats.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Just one mutation can make H5N1 bird flu a threat to humans

      In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, Scripps Research Institute biologists determined that a single mutation of the hemagglutinin protein — the “H” in H5N1 — could transform a virus that has so far sickened or killed mostly birds and cows into a pathogen that targets cells in human beings.

    • EcoWatch ☛ Glyphosate Exposure Linked to Long-Term Brain Inflammation

      Even the low dose led to negative impacts on the brains that lasted several months after exposure had ended. The scientists published their findings in the journal Journal of Neuroinflammation.

  • Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • Drew Breunig ☛ Why LLMs Are Hitting a Wall: The Low-Hanging Fruit Has Been Eaten | Drew Breunig

      We’re finally coming to terms with the idea that LLMs have hit a wall.

      Thanks to decades of data creation and graphics innovation, we advanced incredibly quickly for a few years. But we’ve used up these accelerants and there’s none left to fuel another big leap. Our gains going forward will be slow, incremental, and hard-fought. As Gary Marcus wrote last week, “scaling laws aren’t really laws anymore.”

      Reviewing the history of machine learning, we can both understand how the field advanced so quickly and why LLMs have hit a wall.

    • Jarrod Blundy ☛ OpenAI’s 4o model cost me a whopping 62 cents last month

      If you’re paying $20/month for ChatGPT Plus just to use the API, you’re vastly overpaying.

    • Jeff Bridgforth ☛ Trying out Bluesky

      Recently, I had seen a lot of talk about Bluesky. Bluesky had a big moment after the election in November as a lot of people decided to abandon Twitter and give Bluesky a try. I wanted to see what Bluesky was all about and see how it compared to Mastodon so I decided to sign up for Bluesky.

    • Seth Godin ☛ Who owns your words?

      If you’re putting your words on a social media platform, you might be surprised to discover that they could disappear at any moment. Some platforms acknowledge that they own the relationship you think you have with your readers, not you. Others go so far as to insist that they can take your username and transfer it if they choose.

    • Troy Patterson ☛ Pedagogy of the Depressed

      The article makes some interesting points. There are several notes about AI “learning” (it doesn’t learn), “making decisions” (again, AI is not sentient), and “figuring out“. They also note that the trainings point out individualizing instruction without doing any individualization.

    • Truthdig ☛ Why the Left Should Keep One Foot in Big Social Media (For Now) - Truthdig

      Last month, Truthdig contributor Jeb Lund wrote an enthralling piece, “The Case for Abandoning X.” In it, Lund supported the mass “Xodus” of several million leftists from the social media platform, X. Citing everything from Musk’s support for Trump’s reelection to the amplification of right-wing extremism under his reign, Lund opined that there’s no reason to stick around on this “Nazi bar” hosting a global “town square” for much of the planet.

    • New York Times ☛ Google Introduces A.I. Agent That Aces 15-Day Weather Forecasts

      Ilan Price, the new paper’s lead author and a senior research scientist at DeepMind, described the new A.I. agent, which the team calls GenCast, as much faster than traditional methods. “And it’s more accurate,” he added.

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ The US Department of Defense is investing in deepfake detection

      Although deepfakes have been around for the better part of a decade, generative AI has made them easier to create and more realistic-looking than ever before, which makes them ripe for abuse in disinformation campaigns or fraud. Defending against these sorts of threats is now crucial for national security, says Captain Anthony Bustamante, a project manager and cyberwarfare operator for the Defense Innovation Unit.

    • Wired ☛ AI-Powered Robots Can Be Tricked Into Acts of Violence

      In the year or so since large language models hit the big time, researchers have demonstrated numerous ways of tricking them into producing problematic outputs including hateful jokes, malicious code and phishing emails, or the personal information of users. It turns out that misbehavior can take place in the physical world, too: LLM-powered robots can easily be hacked so that they behave in potentially dangerous ways.

  • Security

    • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

      • Deseret Media ☛ Woman blames Star Trek license plates for tens of thousands of dollars in accidental tickets

        In 2020, the Huntington resident surrendered her license plates, sold her car and stopped driving.

        "I don't have a car. I don't drive. Those plates were turned in," the 76-year-old said. Yet, many walks to her mailbox bring the retiree unwanted surprises.

        "They are persistent and they keep sending me tickets," Koorey said.

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • Bitdefender ☛ AI chatbot startup WotNot leaks 346,000 files, including passports and medical records

        An Indian AI startup that helps businesses build custom chatbots has leaked almost 350,000 sensitive files after the data was left unsecured on the web.

        Ahmedabad-headquartered WotNot left a massive collection of sensitive user information - including scans of passport and identity documents, medical records, resumes, travel itineraries and more - unsecured in a misconfigured Google Cloud Storage bucket.

      • [Repeat] EDRI ☛ New European Commission: our takeaways on what to expect

        On 1 December 2024, the new political leaders of one of the EU’s most powerful institutions – the European Commission – officially took office. As part of their nomination process, they shared their digital visions for the next five years. Spoiler alert: the fight for digital rights will be as important as ever, with data protection, encryption and privacy all on the chopping block.

      • Scoop News Group ☛ FCC, for first time, proposes cybersecurity rules tied to wiretapping law

        Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel presented draft regulations Thursday to fellow commissioners that would for the first time require telecom companies to upgrade cyber defenses under a federal wiretapping law, or face fines.

        The draft rules are a response to alarming breaches of telecom providers by Chinese government hackers known as Salt Typhoon. The breaches have drawn scrutiny on how those hackers exploited the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), the means by which telecom carriers are obligated to provide law enforcement access to their systems.

      • The Verge ☛ Google just made it easier to turn off personalized search results

        Google is making it easier to switch off personalized search results thanks to an option that sometimes appears at the bottom of the results page, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable. After searching for something, scroll all the way down and look for a link to “Try without personalization.” Click or tap that and Google will load a new page without personalized results.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • India Times ☛ OpenAI to partner with military defense tech company

      The partnership comes nearly a year after OpenAI did away with wording in its policies that banned use of its technology for military or warfare purposes.

    • India Times ☛ ‘Muhammad’ is the most popular boys' name in England and Wales

    • The Moscow Times ☛ Russian Ship's Crew Fired Signal Flares Toward German Helicopter

      AFP understands the incident, which occurred last week, involved the crew of a Russian cargo ship firing red signal flares at a German helicopter without hitting it.

      Pistorius did not go into detail about the incident but said “In this case no one was hurt and no one was in danger.”

    • C4ISRNET ☛ Pentagon green-lights counter-drone strategy amid ‘urgent’ threat

      One-way aerial drone attacks have spiked in recent years, and the Pentagon has grown increasingly concerned by the threats they pose to the U.S. and its allies. For more than a year, Iran-backed Houthi rebel groups have been using small unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, to target ships in the Red Sea, and killer drones have featured heavily in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    • US News And World Report ☛ An Architect of Project 2025 Is Pressuring Republican Senators to Confirm Pete Hegseth

      The think tank behind Project 2025, the conservative blueprint linked to President-elect Donald Trump, is launching an effort to back Trump's imperiled selection for secretary of defense in its latest attempt to wield influence in the incoming Republican administration.

    • C4ISRNET ☛ Anduril, OpenAI partner to boost counter-drone tech for bases, troops

      The companies did not disclose whether there is funding attached to the agreement, which continues a recent trend of large AI firms partnering with the defense industry. In November, Anthropic and Palantir announced they would work with Amazon Web Services to sell Anthropic’s AI models to defense and intelligence agencies.

    • CS Monitor ☛ How can NATO fight Russian sabotage? With ‘psyops’ and undersea drones.

      Western intelligence specialists have been sounding the alarm for months about Russian sabotage in Europe.

      In past days, however, Moscow’s suspected campaigns to do everything from infiltrating U.S. military bases to jamming GPS and downing planes have reached “staggeringly reckless” levels, the head of the British intelligence service MI6 recently warned.

    • USMC ☛ This Marine Corps unit now has a ship-killing missile in its toolkit

      The weapon provides coverage for Navy and partner vessels from coastal positions and gives joint forces combined land and sea targeting options, according to Love.

    • Federal News Network ☛ Telework, IT modernization emerge as early DOGE targets

      Elon Musk and Vivek Ramasawmy, leaders of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, hit Capitol Hill on Thursday to meet with lawmakers about their ambitious and sweeping ideas to cut government spending.

    • Vox ☛ TikTok ban under Trump: What to know about latest court case | Vox

      The ban, which would drop TikTok from US app stores if its owner ByteDance does not divest by January 19, passed and was signed by President Joe Biden in April. TikTok and some of its content creators swiftly challenged the law in court, arguing that it violates the free speech rights of its more than 150 million American users. The Department of Justice has countered that the app, given its connection to a foreign adversary, must be banned for national security reasons.

    • Digital Music News ☛ TikTok and Nielsen Finalize Metrics-Measurement Deal

      At the intersection of these points, Nielsen is now expected to provide a “cross-media view of ad campaign performance” on TikTok, “inclusive of” U.S. usage.

    • International Business Times ☛ Dutch Government Proposes Strict 20M Population Cap by 2050 Amid Immigration Crackdown

      The Netherlands is considering placing a hard cap on its population numbers, following a review by a government commission into demographic development. The proposals would involve a move away from mass immigration and encourage longer hours and later retirement for the indigenous Dutch.

    • The Washington Post ☛ TikTok influence campaign boosts pro-Russian’s run for Romania’s presidency

      Documents from multiple Romanian government agencies were declassified Wednesday by the departing president covering different aspects of the effort, which they concluded broke various national laws and pointed to Russia as a likely suspect.

    • RFERL ☛ EU Orders TikTok Data Freeze Amid Accusations Of Russian Meddling In Romanian Elections

      The European Union has ordered TikTok to freeze all its data amid reports that the Chinese-owned social platform had been instrumental in implementing a Moscow-orchestrated campaign to influence Romania's presidential and parliamentary elections.

      Romania's Supreme Council of National Defense (CSAT) on December 4 declassified documents revealing the country was the target of an "aggressive hybrid Russian action" that led to last month's surprise victory of pro-Russian far-right candidate Calin Georgescu in the first round of presidential elections.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ How TikTok can potentially get a president elected

      Romanian-born Corneliu Bjola is professor of Digital Diplomacy at the University of Oxford. He is an expert in the methods used to counter digital propaganda.

      Many experts are convinced that TikTok played a major role in propelling Calin Georgescu, a virtually unknown far-right, pro-Russia candidate, into first place in the first round of Romania's presidential election on November 24. Georgescu now faces progressive liberal Elena Lasconi in the runoff on Sunday.

      In this interview with DW, Professor Bjola explains how manipulation methods work on social media in the context of elections and gives his view of what happened in the run-up to Romania's recent elections.

    • India Times ☛ Australia is banning social media for people under 16. Could this work elsewhere - or even there?

      Australia's new law, approved by its Parliament last week, is an attempt to swim against many tides of modern life - formidable forces like technology, marketing, globalization and, of course, the iron will of a teenager. And like efforts of the past to protect kids from things that parents believe they're not ready for, the nation's move is both ambitious and not exactly simple, particularly in a world where young people are often shaped, defined and judged by the online company they keep.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Study of 700-year-old handwriting unveils leading Byzantine painter's true identity: Experts

      Art historians had long suspected that the name — Greek for "full moon" — could have originated as a nickname for some member of the so-called Macedonian School of Painting, based in Thessaloniki.

    • Greece ☛ Experts say study of 700-year-old handwriting unveils Byzantine painter’s identity

      But nothing is known of his life, and scholars now believe Panselinos was just a nickname that eventually supplanted the real name of the man for whom it was coined – likely Ioannis Astrapas, from the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki.

  • Environment

    • Omicron Limited ☛ What can bees tell us about nearby pollution? The answer lies in their honey, a new study finds

      The study, published in Environmental Pollution, tested 260 honey samples from 48 states for traces of six toxic metals: arsenic, lead, cadmium, nickel, chromium and cobalt. None of the honeys showed unsafe levels of toxic metals—based on a serving size of one tablespoon per day—and concentrations in the United States were lower than global averages.

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ Can we decarbonize the steel supply chain? A startup just raised $300M to try something unique

      “There’s nothing clean about this,” Thornton’s character Tommy says. “Do you have any idea how much diesel they have to burn to mix that much concrete? Or make that steel and haul this s*** out here and put it together with a 450-foot crane?”

      “In its 20-year lifespan, it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it,” he says, referencing a nearby wind turbine.

    • Energy/Transportation

      • India Times ☛ Microsoft deal signals booming demand from data centres to power AI

        Data centres are expected to account for 8% of the power generated in the US by 2030, compared with 3% in 2022, according to a Goldman Sachs report in May.

      • India Times ☛ data centres: As data centers proliferate, conflict with local communities follows

        The sprawling, windowless warehouses that hold rows of high-speed servers powering almost everything the world does on phones and computers are increasingly becoming fixtures of the American landscape, popping up in towns, cities and suburbs across the United States.

        Demand for data centers ballooned in recent years due to the rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and local governments are competing for lucrative deals with big tech companies. But as data centers begin to move into more densely populated areas, abutting homes and schools, parks and recreation centers, some residents are pushing back against the world's most powerful corporations over concerns about the economic, social and environmental health of their communities.

      • The Register UK ☛ Meta's biggest-ever datacenter won't be nuclear powered

        But instead of being powered by one of the on-site nuclear power plants Zuckercorp has previously advocated for, the facility is opting to drive its AI computing workload by burning more fossil fuels.

    • Wildlife/Nature

      • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ A Pod of Orcas Learned to Target and Feast on Whale Sharks, the Largest Fish in the Sea | Smithsonian

        Although there had been reports of orcas preying on whale sharks in the past, this paper is the first to describe the repeated behavior by a specific pod. The orca group has repeated the behavior at least four times, and the same 50-year-old male, named Moctezuma after an Aztec emperor, was present for three of the documented hunts.

  • Finance

    • DataGeeek ☛ Quantitative Analysis: NVIDIA

      Although the investors do not like the pace of revenue growth, in terms of QoQ, NVIDIA’s revenue increased for the first time in five quarters.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Luigi Mozzillo ☛ Genuflect in advance · mzll

      All he need is a snap of their fingers to bring them to their knees. The strategy of these CEOs, then, seems to be to genuflect in advance.

    • University of Michigan ☛ University sets policy on diversity statements

      The decision by Provost Laurie McCauley follows an Oct. 31 recommendation by an eight-member faculty working group to end the use of the statements, which have been criticized for their potential to limit freedom of expression and diversity of thought on campus.

    • New York Times ☛ University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements

      Some regents have indicated they are likely to seek cuts to the school’s large D.E.I. bureaucracy to offset the expansion, though those decisions will not be finalized until Michigan formulates its next annual budget.

      The new policy on diversity statements effectively overrules a hodgepodge of practices at the university’s undergraduate and graduate schools, most of which began using the statements in hiring in recent years.

    • University of Michigan ☛ Is the University of Michigan considering cuts to DEI?

      The University of Michigan Board of Regents met behind closed doors to discuss the future of the University’s diversity, equity and inclusion plan, including the possibility of defunding DEI altogether, alleges a Nov. 20 letter written by Faculty Senate Chair Rebekah Modrak.

    • Bridge Michigan ☛ Facing DEI scrutiny, University of Michigan abandons ‘diversity statements’ in hiring

      Some regents are criticizing the U-M diversity, equity and inclusion programs and roughly $250 million in spending

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Intel appoints two new board members with semiconductor backgrounds following Gelsinger exit

      Intel has appointed Eric Meurice, former CEO of ASML, and Steve Sanghi, chairman and interim CEO of Microchip Technology, to its board of directors. Both are seasoned leaders in the semiconductor industry and bring decades of expertise and significant accomplishments to the board previously led by people without microelectronics experience. What is noteworthy is that both new board members used to work at Intel.

    • International Business Times ☛ Donald Trump Announces DOGE's First New Hire Is Commission's Counsel: Who Is He And What Will He Do?

      Although the name suggests otherwise, DOGE is not an official government department. Instead, it functions as a presidential advisory body tasked with recommending significant cuts to government spending and bureaucracy. Trump's latest move signals his administration's intent to streamline federal operations as a key agenda point for his presidency.

    • Wired ☛ OpenAI Poaches 3 Top Engineers From DeepMind

      OpenAI has long been at the forefront of multimodal AI and released the first version of its text-to-image platform Dall-E in 2021. Its flagship chatbot ChatGPT, however, was initially only capable of interacting with text inputs. The company later added voice and image features as multimodal functionality became an increasingly important part of its product line and AI research. (The latest version of Dall-E is available directly within ChatGPT.) OpenAI has also developed a highly anticipated generative AI video product called Sora, though it has yet to make it widely available.

    • The Verge ☛ Sundar Pichai says Google Search will ‘change profoundly’ in 2025

      Google started its big AI overhaul of Search this year, which included the addition of AI search summaries and a Lens update that lets you search the web with a video. The company is also preparing to launch a major update to its Gemini model as it aims to compete with Microsoft, OpenAI, and the AI search engine Perplexity.

    • Wired ☛ In Sam Altman We Trust?

      Michael Calore: Sam Altman is the CEO and one of the founders of OpenAI, the generative AI company that launched ChatGPT about two years ago, and essentially ushered in a new era of artificial intelligence. This is WIRED's Uncanny Valley, a show about the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley. Today on the show, we're doing a deep dive on Sam Altman, from his Midwest roots to his early startup days, his time as a venture capitalist, and his rise and fall and rise again at OpenAI. We're going to look at it all while asking, is this the man we should trust to guide our explorations into artificial intelligence, and do we even have a choice? I'm Michael Calore, director of consumer tech and culture here at WIRED.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • CBC ☛ She posted about her PhD, and went viral in the worst possible way

      "I would really hate for anyone to be discouraged from studying something that they think is worthwhile and actually that they're interested in," she said. "The pursuit of knowledge in and of its own right is worthwhile."

    • The Washington Post ☛ Three arrested in Romania for carrying out stabbing in London for Iran

      The two arrested are Romanian nationals, and the officials had previously said that they are suspected of being associates of an Eastern European crime network hired to carry out an attack directed by Iran’s security services.

    • The Atlantic ☛ Putin Decides That Stalin’s Victims Were Guilty After All

      Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government announced the “rescission” of a 1991 law officially rehabilitating past victims of political tyranny. Beginning in the late ’80s, an efflorescence of truth under the leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin had revealed the full extent of the Soviet Union’s horrific crimes against its own citizens. Ultimately, more than 3.5 million defendants—people whom that now-extinct totalitarian regime had arrested, tortured, sentenced to monstrous terms in the Gulag, or shot to death—were acquitted, in many cases posthumously.

    • EFF ☛ This Bill Could Put A Stop To Censorship By Lawsuit

      For years now, deep-pocketed individuals and corporations have been turning to civil lawsuits to silence their opponents. These Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPPs, aren’t designed to win on the merits, but rather to harass journalists, activists, and consumers into silence by suing them over their protected speech. While 34 states have laws to protect against these abuses, there is still no protection at a federal level.

  • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

    • Status News LLC ☛ The Times They Are A-Changin’

      The MAGA-curious owner, who drew controversy when he blocked the newspaper's planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, has waded further into its operations since the November election, according to new information I have learned and public remarks the billionaire made Wednesday during a media appearance with right-wing personality Scott Jennings. The meddling has alarmed staffers, some of whom now harbor concerns that the billionaire presents an active danger to the paper they once believed he might help rescue.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Patrick Soon-Shiong adding AI ‘bias meter’ to the LA Times to convince readers it’s not biased – Pivot to AI

      Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the LA Times, has been trying to turn the paper into a right-wing mouthpiece since he bought it in 2018.

      After Soon-Shiong refused to allow the editorial board to make a presidential endorsement in October, three members of the board resigned. The board has endorsed Democratic candidates in every presidential race since 2008.

    • uni Northwestern ☛ In news deserts, Trump won in a landslide

      The findings are based on results from 193 of the 206 counties Medill has identified as news deserts, in states where county-level election results are currently available. The third annual State of Local News report, released by Medill’s Local News Initiative in October, documented the continuing decline of local news across the country, as measured by the number of newspapers, circulation, frequency of publication, employment and readership.

      The report found that the highest concentration of counties with limited access to local news were in solidly “red” states, such as Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana and Mississippi.

    • Press Gazette ☛ Most popular news apps in the UK: BBC News bigger than Apple

      BBC News has overtaken Apple News as the biggest news app in the UK in the year since Press Gazette’s last annual ranking.

      BBC News had a UK app audience aged 15 and up of 14.2 million people in October after growth of 12% in a year, according to the latest Ipsos iris data.

    • Press Gazette ☛ Future results 2024: Interview with CEO Jon Steinberg

      Future has little events and online subscription revenue so has leaned heavily into e-commerce/affiliate advertising as the source of future earnings for its magazine brands amid the continued decline of print.

    • CPJ ☛ Taliban detains 7 Arezo TV journalists, seals network’s offices in Kabul

      Saif ul Islam Khyber, a spokesperson for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, told media in an audio message that the group sealed Arezo TV’s offices to uphold “Islamic values, prevent misuse of media outlets, and strengthen social order.”

    • CPJ ☛ Kosovo journalist Berat Buzhala, Nacionale newsroom receive death threat

      Buzhala published a screenshot of the Facebook message, which threatened to kill him and “some of your kind.” The Facebook account associated with the threat has since been deactivated.

      Buzhala told CPJ he believes the death threat is a consequence of ruling party, government officials publicly accusing journalists of Nacionale of being pro-Serbian. Buzhala said the threat follows earlier incidents targeting Nacionale’s journalists with smears, verbal threats online, cyberattacks, and physical attacks.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Omicron Limited ☛ When rescue from modern slavery does not mean freedom: Research flags harsh reality of post-rescue life

      People freed from modern slavery are often cast into years of bureaucratic wrangling and legal limbo or forced back into exploitative work, highlighting the need for anti-trafficking organizations to give greater focus to post-rescue support, new research from the University of Bath shows.

    • Federal News Network ☛ USPS sets lower targets for on-time mail, drawing ire from lawmakers

      Lawmakers are pushing back against the next phase of the Postal Service’s 10-year reform plan, amid concerns that its financial condition and ability to deliver mail on time are worsening.

      USPS saw a $9.5 billion net loss in fiscal 2024 — far from its “break-even” goal — and is now lowering its targets for how much mail it expects to deliver on time.

    • New York Times ☛ Amazon Sued Over Slow Deliveries to Low-Income Areas

      The District of Columbia’s attorney general said the company deliberately outsourced Prime member deliveries in certain ZIP codes.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Europol Shuts Down Criminal Messaging Platform MATRIX

      On December 3rd, 2024, Europol announced that a joint investigation between French and Dutch law enforcement authorities had successfully dismantled an encrypted messaging service used by criminals. The platform, known as MATRIX, had been facilitating various serious crimes, including international drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and money laundering.

      The operation, which was coordinated by law enforcement across several European countries, resulted in the seizure of over 40 servers, the arrest of multiple suspects, and the interception of millions of criminal messages. The investigation was a major step forward in combating the use of encrypted platforms for illegal activities.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • RIPE ☛ Analysing Turnout at the October 2024 GM

      With fewer attendees and fewer hot topics to vote on, autumn General Meetings seldom match the warmth and energy of their spring counterparts. But despite the season, GMs are always an impactful way to participate in the RIPE NCC's decision making process. We take a quick look at our October GM numbers and analyse turnout graph by graph.

    • APNIC ☛ Making Segment Routing user-friendly

      Segment Routing (SR) was supposed to make Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) easier and give more power to network operators. Sadly, vendors decided to make it harder by selling weird protocols and over-engineered controller bloatware.

  Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Copyrights

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Apple Stealth Piracy App Trio, Combined Age 215 Years, Face $18.5m Damages Claim

      Hidden pirate features within seemingly harmless apps, known as "stealth apps," are slipping past Apple's App Store security, offering users access to pirated movies and TV shows. Taiwan's Criminal Police Bureau recently busted three individuals promoting unlock instructions for these apps to roughly 400,000 users. Surprisingly, this tech-savvy scheme was orchestrated by a group whose combined age totals 215 years.