Leftovers

• Greece ☛ Google to conduct 3D mapping across Greece

  Google LLC will carry out 3D mapping across Greece from February 4 to October 30 as part of efforts to update its Maps and Street View services.

• The Register UK ☛ British Museum says ex-contractor 'shut down' IT systems

  A spokesperson for the public museum in central London, which houses eight million works related to human history, art, and culture, told The Register at the weekend: "An IT contractor who was dismissed last week trespassed into the museum and shut down several of our systems. Police attended and he was arrested at the scene.

• Lee Peterson ☛ The daily carry notebook

  I call these scratchpads and label them 1, 2, 3 etc… I write a page number at the bottom of each page and their use is for keeping an ongoing shopping list, daily notes for appointments I’m going to (this helps my ADHD so that I have a script to follow and cover off all points that I need) and then anything that I think of whilst I am out – ideas, quotes, anything really. I can then add that to the Rhodia when I am home.

• Brandon ☛ The Benefit (and Joy) of Email Relationships

  A little over a year ago, I wrote a post about a few pen pal relationships I had online over the years. Since that post, I've developed several more email relationships, and I just wanted a take a few minutes and talk about how amazing that has been.

• Bob Monsour ☛ Much more to come on RSS entry IDs

  I wrote a TIL the other day describing how Evan Sheehan changed how he created IDs for each entry in his RSS feed.

• Alex Gaynor ☛ Stop Demanding Performance

  But more important, we shouldn’t demand performance proactively. We shouldn’t be upset that a politician isn’t giving a loud speech when they simply don’t have the votes, to do otherwise is to communicate quite explicitly that we want to be misled, and we ourselves don’t care about the results.

• Science

  • Wired ☛ Scientists Recreate the Conditions That Sparked Complex Life

    Examples of endosymbiosis are everywhere. Mitochondria, the energy factories in your cells, were once free-living bacteria. Photosynthetic plants owe their sun-spun sugars to the chloroplast, which was also originally an independent organism. Many insects get essential nutrients from bacteria that live inside them. And last year researchers discovered the “nitroplast,” an endosymbiont that helps some algae process nitrogen.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ Useful quantum computing is inevitable—and increasingly imminent

    At the same time, quantum algorithms are improving far faster than hardware. A recent collaboration between the pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim and PsiQuantum demonstrated a more than 200x improvement in algorithms to simulate important drugs and materials. Phasecraft, another company we have invested in, has improved the simulation performance for a wide variety of crystal materials and has published a quantum-enhanced version of a widely used materials science algorithm that is tantalizingly close to beating all classical implementations on existing hardware.

    Advances like these lead me to believe that useful quantum computing is inevitable and increasingly imminent. And that’s good news, because the hope is that they will be able to perform calculations that no amount of AI or classical computation could ever achieve.

  • Science Alert ☛ Astronaut Films 'Intensely Green' Aurora From Aboard The ISS

    An incredible video captured from the International Space Station shows an aurora from above, rippling with the unusual green light that has drawn our attention to the skies throughout time.

• Career/Education

  • The New Stack ☛ Habits To Start Now To Become a Healthy Senior Coder

    Last summer, a remarkable opening keynote was given at Toronto’s CppNorth conference, and the conference has finally uploaded the video to YouTube shortly before New Year’s Day. Maybe it was the organizers’ way of reaching beyond their audience of C++ developers to the broader community planning their New Year’s resolutions — because the video makes you want to exercise, take care of your body and prepare for your best possible old age.

    But more importantly, Kate Gregory gave the audience her reasons why to prepare for the future — along with some surprising statistics, the latest research and the results of her survey of “hundreds of people, the world over.”

• Hardware

  • The Atlantic ☛ Your Light Bulb Is Lying to You

    God said, “Let there be light”—everyone knows that. But God did not specify what color light, and this would eventually prove problematic.

    In the age of the LED light bulb, consumers have an unfathomable range of lighting options. This has, perversely, made the task of pleasantly illuminating our homes harder, not easier. The culprit is not LED technology per se, but the bafflingly unhelpful way in which LED bulbs are labeled.

  • James G ☛ Airport pianos

    Over the course of an eight hour layover, Jackson cleaned the piano and re-tuned it: a laborious process that takes time, care, and focus. In the YouTube video of the tuning, Jackson says he only had 45 minutes in the end to re-tune the piano after cleaning and restoring of the instrument. He did it, and had enough time to make his next flight.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The frequent crank fallacy of the appeal to Semmelweis

    Earlier this month, Dr. Jonathan Howard took note of a post on (not-so) Sensible Medicine by Edward H. Livingston, MD, FACS entitled The Semmelweis Effect and The Great Barrington Declaration. Dr. Howard pointed out, quite correctly, that Dr. Livingston appears not to have had clue one about what the Great Barrington Declaration actually said and proposed. Why do we say this? In his post, Dr. Livingston never even mentioned that the central concept behind the GBD was to stop all those nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), such as school and business closures, being used to slow the spread of the virus in favor of “opening up” society and allowing mass infection of the “young and healthy,” who were presumably at low risk for severe disease and death from COVID-19. The reason was, according to the GBD authors, that doing so would allow us to reach “natural herd immunity” more rapidly; indeed, they promised “natural herd immunity” in 3-6 months if their recommendations were followed. But what about those who were at high risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19, such as the elderly and those with various chronic diseases that made them high risk for complications and death? The GBD proposed “focused protection” for them without ever actually proposing any unique, concrete, practical methods to actually protect the vulnerable. Remember, also, that the GBD was published in early October 2020, which was more than two months before the mRNA vaccines became available to healthcare workers under an emergency use authorization in December 2020. (I got my first dose on December 18, 2020, the first week the new vaccines were available in my area.) Truly, the GBD was profoundly social Darwinist at its core.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] New antibodies could help win the fight against malaria

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] As vaccination falters, polio back in Afghanistan, Pakistan

  • New York Times ☛ Even Adults May Soon Be Vulnerable to ‘Childhood’ Diseases

    Outbreaks among the unvaccinated are a predictable consequence of falling immunization rates. But even vaccinated adults may be vulnerable to some illnesses.

  • Annie Mueller ☛ Build a life you can live in

    So you have to build something. If you lose the structure you trusted, you have to construct something new. Tough work. Slow work. Nice work, if you can get it.

  • The Conversation ☛ Why neglecting your brain health can make it harder to achieve physical goals

    It’s easy to monitor your physical health using mobile devices and wearable technology to preserve physical health throughout your life. It may be more unclear, however, how to improve and monitor brain health and mental wellbeing. In our new book Brain Boost: Healthy Habits for a Happier Life, we draw on research to offer practical tips.

    A number of factors contribute to our happiness in life, including genetics, our social and physical environment, cognition and our behaviour, such as lifestyle choices. Studies have shown that good cognitive function is related to better wellbeing and happiness.

  • Federal News Network ☛ VA needs to tighten up its procedures for suicide screeners

    "This really is a one of a kind effort that VA has undertaken to ensure universal screening for veterans in a health care system this size," said Amber Singh.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ ‘Extremely unlikely’: China rejects CIA claim that Covid-19 ‘more likely’ came from lab leak

    China said Monday it was “extremely unlikely” Covid-19 came from a laboratory, after the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said it believed the virus had more likely come from a lab rather than natural transmission. “

  • The Straits Times ☛ China says ‘extremely unlikely’ Covid-19 pandemic came from lab leak

    It urged the US to “stop politicising and instrumentalising the issue of origin-tracing”.

• Proprietary

  • Linuxiac ☛ ISD Is a New Tool Offering a User-Friendly Approach to Systemd Management

    While this can be intimidating for beginners, it can also become tedious for advanced users who find themselves running the same commands over and over. But that’s about to change. Introducing isd—your new way to manage systemd with ease!

  • Jeff Geerling ☛ Don't pay $800 for Apple's 2TB SSD upgrade

    Yes, accepting the kit for review obviously affects how I perceive the kit, but I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that a DIY solution that costs under $300 is easier to stomach than Apple's $800 price for the same upgrade.

  • Teleport ☛ Four Ways Teleport Overcomes the Limitations of VPNs and Bastions

    In this blog, we’ll explore the four primary limitations of VPNs and bastion hosts amid modern infrastructure environments, highlighting the ways that Teleport overcomes them by providing credential-less, ephemeral, and secure infrastructure access.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    "" ☛ https://www.voanews.com/a/deepseek-s-sputnik-moment-prompts-investors-to-sell-big-ai-players-/7951643.html | Source: VOA News

    • VOA News ☛ Tech stocks sink as Chinese competitor threatens to topple their AI domination

      The shock to financial markets came from China, where a company called DeepSeek said it had developed a large language model that can compete with U.S. giants but at a fraction of the cost. DeepSeek’s app had already hit the top of Apple’s App Store chart by early Monday morning, and analysts said such a feat would be particularly impressive given how the U.S. government has restricted Chinese access to top AI chips.

    • Matt Birchler ☛ The LLM bubble might be about to burst (but not for the reason you think)

      Now there are reasons not to want the Chinese-developed DeepSeek-R1 to be the go-to LLM, but I think its existence points to the days of $20+ per month subscriptions to use tools with LLM features are numbered. We’ll see, though.

    • The Register UK ☛ Tech stocks tank as US AI dominance no longer a sure bet

      As The Register revealed at the weekend, DeepSeek launched some openly available machine-learning models which perform favorably against US competitors OpenAI and Meta, according to benchmarks. And what's really set the cat amongst the investors is that they were trained using fewer Nvidia chips, or so DeepSeek claims.

      DeepSeek, founded in 2023, by Liang Wenfeng and financially supported by his quantitive hedge fund High Flyer, released DeepSeek V3 at the close of 2024, and has now rolled out R1, classified as a reasoning model optimized from V3.

  • Social Control Media

    • International Business Times ☛ 'Becoming More Woke': BMW UK Faces Online Mockery After Announcing Departure From Elon Musk's X

      BMW Group UK has faced an onslaught of ridicule and backlash after announcing its decision to leave X, formerly known as Twitter. The luxury carmaker revealed it would cease posting on the platform, retaining its presence only for customer service purposes. While BMW refrained from specifying the reason behind this move, many speculated it was linked to recent controversies involving X's owner, Elon Musk.

    • Nebraska Examiner ☛ Social media experts are skeptical about the power of new state laws

      More states are hoping to rein in the harm that social media can do to teens’ mental health and privacy by approving laws that require age verification or parental consent, prohibit “addictive feeds” or ban the apps for minors. They also are taking social media companies to court.

      But some experts say such efforts won’t make social media any safer. Instead, they fear the moves might infringe on people’s privacy and First Amendment rights [sic] — while potentially making the platforms harder for everyone to use.

    • Lyta Gold ☛ against social media

      Elon bought Twitter to elect Trump in hopes of becoming Trump someday. Zuckerberg has pivoted Meta toward Twitter in hopes of becoming Elon and then Trump too in turn. TikTok is dead unless Trump saves it, and he only will if the network agrees, like the others, to become a propaganda organ for him. That covers basically all the major social media sites: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Threads (okay not major but included by default), and TikTok.1 Every single one is—or is becoming—a right-wing propaganda network. They’re slightly distinguishable from Gab, in that they’re not wall-to-wall Nazi content, but they’re also completely fine with Nazi content. Meta is opening the floodgates to calling immigrants “trash” and “shit,” a rhetorical prelude to mass deportations. Stephen Miller is signing off on the political purge of Meta employees who aren’t expected to fall in line. That’s what these sites are now, and what they’re for. You will be posting your vacation photos and “hey, does anyone recognize this tree?” beside literal Nazis celebrating the cleansing of their blood and soil.

      If you’re fine with this, then you’re a quisling. If you don’t care, then you’re an asshole. If you don’t think it’s going to affect you, then you’re an idiot. I had a conversation with somebody recently who said that they still used Twitter, but it was okay because they’d curated their feed, and they only saw what they wanted to see. This person then proceeded to spout right-wing talking points about how actually everything was the Democrats’ fault, even some things that objectively aren’t the Democrats’ fault. You may think you’re safe but you’re not. This stuff is poison. Maybe stop drinking the poison????

    • Dan Sinker ☛ Pulling the Threads

      The changes Zuckerberg announced today—including removing "restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse" (read: allowing xenophobic and anti-trans hate speech to flow free), and bizarrely moving their trust and safety team from California to Texas, as if one state is somehow magically less biased than another—are going to make Meta's already terrible platforms much, much worse.

      And I'm not going to play a part in it. I'm done with Threads.

• Pseudo-Open Source

  • Openwashing

    • Hackaday ☛ New Open Source DeepSeek V3 Language Model Making Waves

      In the world of large language models (LLMs) there tend to be relatively few upsets ever since OpenAI barged onto the scene with its transformer-based GPT models a few years ago, yet now it seems that Chinese company DeepSeek has upended the status quo. Its new DeepSeek-V3 model is not only open source, it also claims to have been trained for only a fraction of the effort required by competing (open & closed source) models, while performing significantly better.

• Security

  • Confidentiality

    • Macworld ☛ Mullvad review: A VPN that's all about privacy

      Mullvad’s VPN is making waves in the tech world, and not just because it’s very good. While many VPN services are great for maintaining privacy online, Mullvad goes even further, offering a low-priced, easy-to-understand plan that lets you sign up entirely anonymously if you’d like. Pair that with good speeds and great unblocking of streaming sites and you have a very competitive VPN that just needs some more servers.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Scotsman ☛ US not the only country with TikTok concerns. Why Scotland should beware for 2026 Holyrood elections

    TikTok is at the centre of a row over Romania’s annulled presidential election

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Denmark announces $2 billion plan to boost Arctic security

    Denmark will invest 14.6 billion kroner ($2.05 billion / €1.95 billion) in its military presence in the Arctic, Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced at a Monday press conference.

  • France24 ☛ Denmark launches $2 billion Arctic security plan, seeks EU unity on Greenland

    Greenland is already part of a power struggle in the Arctic. As its ice melts due to global warming, the battle for its natural resources is also heating up – enormous oil and gas deposits are believed to lie under its seas. Russia and China have already increased their Arctic mining activities and military presence, and the region may soon offer new shipping routes between the US and Europe.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Europe’s Elon Musk Problem

    Countries apply these laws to create conditions for fair debate, to build trust in the system, and to inspire confidence in the winning candidates. Some democracies believe that transparency matters—­that voters should know who is funding their candidates, as well as who is paying for political messages on social media or anywhere else. In some places, these rules have a loftier goal: to prevent the rise of anti­democratic extremism of the kind that has engulfed democracies—­and especially European democracies—­­in the past.

    But for how much longer can democracies pursue these goals? We live in a world in which algorithms controlled by American and Chinese oligarchs choose the messages and images seen by millions of people; in which money can move through secret bank accounts with the help of crypto schemes; and in which this dark money can then boost anonymous social-media accounts with the aim of shaping public opinion. In such a world, how can any election rules be enforced? If you are Albania, or even the United Kingdom, do you still get to set the parameters of your public debate? Or are you now forced to be Las Vegas too?

  • The Atlantic ☛ The January 6er Who Left Trumpism

    Not every Capitol rioter was a card-carrying seditionist; some have regrets, and a few are even refusing a pardon. Jason Riddle is one.

  • Latvia State Radio and Television Center ☛ LVRTC Submarine Optical Fiber Cable Damaged (Updated 27.01. at 15.25) - LVRTC

    Early on January 26th, the submarine optical fiber cable in the Baltic Sea belonging to SJSC Latvia State Radio and Television Center (hereinafter – LVRTC) was damaged. LVRTC’s Data Transmission Monitoring System detected disruptions in data transmission services on the Ventspils–Gotland (Fårösund) segment. LVRTC continues to provide services via alternative data transmission routes. Currently, there may be delays in data transmission speeds, but for the most part, this does not impact end users in Latvia.

  • VOA News ☛ Sweden intercepts Bulgarian ship over damaged Baltic cable

    The Bulgarian vessel on Sunday "was chased by the Swedish coast guard with instructions for the ship to go into their territorial waters and it is now on anchor where an investigation ... is ongoing," Alexander Kalchev, CEO of Navigation Maritime Bulgare (Navibulgar), owner of the Vezhen, told AFP.

  • The Record ☛ Sweden seizes ship suspected of Baltic Sea cable sabotage

    The Vezhen, a cargo ship, is suspected to have damaged a cable owned by the Latvian State Radio and Television Centre (LVRTC) running between the Latvian city of Ventspils and the Swedish island of Gotland.

    In an announcement on Sunday, the public prosecutor’s office said a “preliminary investigation into suspected serious sabotage has been initiated,” and confirmed the investigation was being led by the country’s Security Service (SÄPO).

  • The Register UK ☛ Sweden seizes vessel after another undersea cable damaged

    The cable runs between the Latvian town of Ventspils and Sweden's Gotland island and belongs to the Latvian State Radio and Television Center (LVRTC). Vezhen is sailing under the flag of Malta, and its historical movements can be viewed here, showing it passing close to the relevant position, which does not necessarily prove involvement.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Swedish Authorities Board Ship Seized Over Baltic Sea Cable Breach

    "We can confirm that persons from Swedish authorities have been on board the vessel to carry out investigative measures," Swedish Security Services spokesperson Johan Wikstrom said.

    He declined to comment further on the investigation.

  • New York Times ☛ Sweden Suspects ‘Gross Sabotage’ After Damage to Cable Under the Baltic Sea

    The Nordic country has opened an investigation into the damage, just weeks after NATO stepped up its military presence in the area following a series of similar incidents.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Sweden seizes ship in Baltic Sea after damage to data cable to Latvia

    Swedish authorities have launched a preliminary investigation into suspected sabotage and detained a vessel in the Baltic Sea after damage was reported to an undersea data cable between Latvia and Sweden.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Sweden seizes ship suspected of Baltic cable sabotage

    The investigation comes after the cable under the Baltic Sea, used by Latvian state media, was damaged early on Sunday. Latvia, which deployed a warship in the immediate aftermath, claims the damage was likely caused by "external influence."

    Previous incidents of reported data cable breakages on the Baltic seabed have been linked to Russia's shadow fleet — hundreds of aging tankers with opaque ownership structures used to skirt sanctions.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Auschwitz survivors speak at 80th anniversary of liberation

    On Monday, 80 years to the day after the liberation of the camp, survivors, heads of state and government, and guests of honor gathered at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp for a major memorial ceremony celebrating the anniversary. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Olaf Scholz attended on behalf of Germany.

  • VOA News ☛ Auschwitz liberation at 80: Survivors, world leaders mark milestone

    “We were victims in a moral vacuum,” she told delegates. “But today, however, we have an obligation not only to remember, which is very, very important, but also to warn and to teach that hatred only begets more hatred.”

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Survivors mark 80th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation

    There will be no speeches by politicians at the ceremony, with the focus on the voices of the few remaining survivors of the camp.

  • New Eastern Europe ☛ Auschwitz-Birkenau. Death at a wave of a finger

    A boy in a navy uniform holds the hand of an elegant man in a tie, with a buttonhole and wearing a hat. Next to him walks an older, moustachioed man in a bow tie. Everything could be regarded as normal, if it weren’t for the Stars of David sewn onto their clothes, the freight wagons they’ve just disembarked on the railway ramp and the armed German soldiers. Agnieszka Sieradzka, art historian and curator of the art collection at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum posits that this scene most likely happened, and was immortalised in what she calls the most valuable extant piece of camp art: the Sketchbook from Auschwitz, drawn by an unknown artist. The sketchbook is extremely accurate, so much so that the SS truck registration numbers marked on the drawings match the documentation preserved in the camp.

  • Axios ☛ Holocaust Remembrance Day: Less than 220K survivors left worldwide, study finds

    Why it matters: The anniversary, which also commemorates International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday, is likely the last major milestone with the presence of child survivors — the last generation of the Holocaust.

    The big picture: Survivors are scheduled to speak at commemoration events around the world as advocates race to record their testimonies and as rising antisemitism and misinformation threatens to erase their stories.

  • New York Times ☛ Musk Says Germany Has ‘Too Much of a Focus on Past Guilt’

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] ICC prosecutor seeks arrest of Afghanistan's Taliban leaders

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] UK court jails Southport girls' murderer to 52 years

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Man gets 30 years for attack outside Charlie Hebdo offices

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Indonesia agrees to repatriate Frenchman on death row

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Greece presidential election: Signs of a conservative swing?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] DR Congo: Peacekeepers killed in heavy fighting with M23

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] DRC conflict: Why a US peace initiative faltered

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] DR Congo: Military fights to halt M23 rebels, UN 'alarmed'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] Is Colombia seeing more war than peace?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] In Germany, 10 million people excluded from upcoming vote

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] For freed Palestinian prisoners, freedom comes with caution

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] Philippine vessels suspend survey after China's 'harassment'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] Slovakia's peaceful anti-government protests grow nationwide

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Mozambican opposition leader says fight is 'far from over'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Tanzania election: What chance does the opposition have?

  • Defence Web ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] Mozambique operating MCAV-20 armoured vehicles

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] Germany's Scholz: 'Shameful' antisemitism still in society

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-19 [Older] Scholz says Germany cannot turn page on Holocaust

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-19 [Older] German envoy warns Cheeto Mussolini 'driven by vengeance' — reports

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] Italian government under fire for releasing ICC-wanted Libyan warlord

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] How Odesa's artworks were saved from destruction and sent to Berlin

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Bitdefender ☛ Hacked buses blare out patriotic pro-European anthems in Tbilisi, attack government

      These buses had fallen victim to a hack orchestrated by anti-government protestors, who took control of the ticket scanners and point-of-sales devices. In a bold move, they transformed these everyday tools into platforms for political expression, using them to play pro-European music and slogans.

      The broadcast messages resonated with many of those on board:

      "Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Georgia! **** Russia!"

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] No surprises expected in Belarus' 'no-choice' election

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-18 [Older] Poland's Belarus border fence: A controversial deterrent

    • Meduza ☛ Putin congratulates Lukashenko on ‘landslide win’ in Belarus’s presidential vote — Meduza

    • Rlang ☛ Decomposing within and between person effects in longitudinal data with SEM in R workshop

      Join our workshop on Decomposing within and between person effects in longitudinal data with SEM in R, which is a part of our workshops for Ukraine series! 

    • JURIST ☛ European Council renews sanctions against Russia for another 6 months

      The Council of the European Union extended its restrictive economic measures against Russia for another six months for its continued war in Ukraine on Monday. The measures will now be in force until 31 July, 2025.

    • North Koreans ask: Why are our soldiers fighting Ukraine when ‘main enemy’ is US?

      State media and education system distort history and geopolitical situation to blame Washington for current woes.

    • Cost of military exemption for tuberculosis jumps fivefold in North Korea

      People want to avoid enlistment as they fear being shipped off to Russia to fight in war with Ukraine.

    • RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Presses Ukraine’s Cause With Gathered World Leaders In Poland

      Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pressed efforts to bolster support as world leaders gathered in Poland to mark the 80th anniversary of the Auschwitz death camp liberation, while on the battlefield Russian forces pressed their assault on Pokrovsk, their major target over recent months.

    • RFERL ☛ EU Renews Russia Sanctions After Assuring Hungary On Energy Matters

      The European Union has renewed its wide-ranging sanctions against Russia after it overcame objections of the government of Moscow-friendly Hungarian leader Viktor Orban by providing assurances on energy-related issues.

    • New York Times ☛ Standoff at Ukrainian Procurement Agency Threatens to Disrupt Weapons Supply

      Ukraine’s defense minister fired the head of a state agency that acquired over $7 billion in armaments last year, citing “unsatisfactory” results. But, the official vowed to remain.

    • Dispatches from Europe No. 13, January 27, 2025 – Yurii Samoilov, Miners Union Leader and Revolutionary Socialist

      On November 6, my hosts in Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement), a democratic socialist organization in Ukraine, arranged for me to meet with Yuriy Samoilov, a co-founder of Sotsialnyi Rukh, President of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine, and President of the Kryvyi Rih regional sector of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU).

    • Meduza ☛ Over by May 9 Ukrainian media publishes Trump’s alleged ‘100-day plan’ to end the war — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Top Ukrainian military intelligence official allegedly warns of nation’s collapse if negotiations aren’t underway by the summer. Kyiv denies story. — Meduza

    • Latvia ☛ Blacklisted Russian citizen on trial for weapons charges in Latvia

      Last year, Russian citizen Karen Vacheian was blacklisted in Latvia on suspicion of links to organized crime and Russian special services. He was arrested last September and found in possession of an illegal weapon, while the investigation also revealed other offenses. Vacheian appeared in court last week, Latvian Television's De Facto reported on January 27.

    • France24 ☛ Sweden intercepts Bulgarian ship over damaged Baltic cable

      The Swedish coast guard seized a Bulgarian ship after a fibre-optic cable under the Baltic Sea linking Sweden to Latvia was damaged, officials said on Monday. Latvia sent a warship on Sunday to investigate the damage, while Swedish prosecutors opened an "aggravated sabotage" investigation. Nations around the Baltic Sea have scrambled to bolster defences after the suspected sabotage of undersea cables in recent months, with some observers blaming Russia. FRANCE 24's Eliza Herbert reports.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania’s deputy minister had Russian social control media account with USSR-glorifying playlist

      Lithuania’s Deputy Finance Minister Valentin Gavrilov had an account on the Russian social network VKontakte and it contained a playlist of songs glorifying Russia’s army and the Soviet Union, LRT RADIO reported on Monday.

    • New York Times ☛ Venice in Winter, With a Poet as Our Guide

      A writer and his daughter wander the ancient city at night, inspired by Joseph Brodsky, the Russian writer who loved the city in its cold, quiet season.

    • Meduza ☛ Russian lawmakers to expand reach of military conscription — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russian antitrust officials order nation’s biggest textbook supplier to pay 2 billion rubles for ‘monopolistically high prices’ — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russian pro-war commentators talk strategy, L.A. wildfires, and Elon Musk salute at Moscow bloggers’ conference — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Jailed suspect accuses police of torture and rape with mop, leading to special request from head of Russia’s Dagestan Republic — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ E.U. extends sanctions and averts unfreezing Russian assets after Hungary drops opposition — Meduza

    • Latvia ☛ Nordic-Baltic states: Lukashenko has no legitimacy

      The Nordic-Baltic countries said January 26 they support the statement by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas on support to the Belarusian people and the sham of the election process in Belarus.

    • France24 ☛ UK, Canada impose new sanctions on Belarus after ‘sham election’ hands Lukashenko seventh term

      Britain and Canada on Monday imposed coordinated sanctions on six Belarusian officials and three defence companies, one day after an election extended the rule of President Alexander Lukashenko to a seventh term after his major opponents were imprisoned or exiled.

    • LRT ☛ Lukashenko will never be Belarus’ legitimate leader – Lithuanian president

      Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will not be the country’s legitimate leader after Sunday’s event that should not be called elections, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has said.

    • RFERL ☛ Protesters In Europe Decry 'Sham' Lukashenko Vote

      Demonstrators in Warsaw, Riga, Prague, and Vilnius decried the likely January 26 voting victory of Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The Washington-based Freedom House advocacy group said the expected start of Lukashenka's seventh term as president signifies the entrenchment of "an authoritarian state" and the European Parliament has called the vote a sham.

    • RFERL ☛ Western Nations Condemn Election That Hands Belarus' Lukashenko Seventh Term

      Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenko has secured his seventh term in office in a presidential election that European Union leaders have denounced as a "sham."

    • New York Times ☛ As Convicted Felon and Putin Circle Each Other, an Agenda Beyond Ukraine Emerges

      President Convicted Felon jabs at the Russian leader with threats; Vladimir Putin responds with flattery. But there are notable signals in their jousting, including a revived discussion about nuclear arms control.

    • New Yorker ☛ Production Notes on Amazon’s Melania Convicted Felon Documentary

      Note 1: Use clip of her smiling, but crop out Putin and Chernobyl.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Vox ☛ Vox’s The Logoff: Trump’s firing of inspectors general, explained

    Why does this matter? Inspectors general are a thorn in the side of administrations, as they often uncover practices that are embarrassing (or worse) to the president and his appointees. But they are a necessary check on the abuse of power, as their broad oversight authority — and, critically, their independence — helps them reveal errors and malfeasance. In a massive government moving around trillions of dollars, that’s critical, as there’s plenty of potential for waste and plenty of incentives for corruption.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ Every DOJ Beat Journalist Fails to Mention a Dozen Judges Approved of 1512 Charge for January 6

    None of these outlets — among others — mentioned that every single DC District Judge approved the use of 18 uSC 1512(c)(2) for January 6, and only Carl Nichols required that it include an evidentiary component (the stance ultimately adopted by SCOTUS).

  • 404 Media ☛ Memos to Federal Employees Were Written By People With Ties to Project 2025, Metadata Shows

    The 2025 Presidential Transition Project, better known as Project 2025, is a right-wing agenda from the Heritage Foundation that lays out the blueprint for remaking the federal government by firing government workers to install conservative, right-wing figures. The priorities of its authors include restricting access to reproductive care, mass deportations, and firing civil servants to replace them with Trump loyalists.

  • Molly White ☛ Trump’s Project 2025 ghostwriters

    Exposed PDF metadata from the Office of Personnel Management reveals that Heritage Foundation-linked Trump devotees are writing policies at federal agencies.

• Environment

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] At hurricane site, Cheeto Mussolini considers axing disaster agency

  • The Revelator ☛ Saguaro Struggles: A Desert Icon Feels the Heat

  • The Moscow Times ☛ What Next for Russian Gas in Europe: 5 Key Questions

    Russia stopped sending pipeline gas to European countries through Ukraine, a supply route used for decades, from Jan. 1 after Kyiv refused to renegotiate the transit deal due to Moscow's full-scale invasion.

    Russia had used the Ukraine transit line to send about 50% of all its pipeline gas exports to Europe, mainly to Moldova, Slovakia, Austria and Hungary.

  • Vox ☛ Trump environmental rules: what his executive order means

    Carter’s order gave the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), a branch of the White House, the authority to issue binding regulations governing how federal agencies must comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Trump, by revoking it, takes away that power from the CEQ.

    This may seem rather technical, but Trump in effect set off a process that could lead to very meaningful changes in the way the federal government handles environmental reviews for everything from oil pipelines to solar farms to highways to light rail systems to national parks.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] A reputational stain: The oil spill in the Black Sea

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] Does Germany need wind power?

    • DeSmog ☛ Climate Denial Group Aided Legal Defense of Alleged Exxon Hacker-for-Hire

    • DeSmog ☛ Trump Interior Nominee Doug Burgum Hosted ‘VIP Dinner’ for Oil, Gas, and Coal Execs Last Year, Emails Show

    • DeSmog ☛ The Rising Hunger of AI Data Centers Accelerates the Need for Clean Energy to Meet Demand [Ed: "AI Data Centers" is just ridiculous hype that destroys the planet to fake "potential" of scammy companies]

    • [Old] Forbes ☛ You Are Not Stuck In Traffic, You Are Traffic

      That new roads attract more traffic is a concept known as “induced demand” and is often summarised with a quote usually attributed to the great American urbanist Lewis Mumford: “Building more roads to prevent congestion is like a fat man loosening his belt to prevent obesity.”

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Germany: Foot-and-mouth disease threatens whole herds

  • Overpopulation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Vietnam: Alarm bells ring as birthrate hits record low [Ed: Why does the very same establishment media that cautions about climate change treat reduction in human population is an alarming thing rather than path towards climate mitigation?]

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Trump reenters California’s water wars. It's unclear who will win

      “It would mean the loss of California’s most important wild salmon runs, devastating impacts on salmon fishing jobs, enormous degradation in Delta water quality,” said Barry Nelson, a policy representative for the fishing group Golden State Salmon Assn. He also flagged the issue of states’ rights: “This is a very clear statement that the Trump administration believes that California should not have the right to control its water resources.”

• Finance

  • The Straits Times ☛ China captures scam centre suspect with Thailand’s help

    Scam compounds have proliferated in South-east Asia since the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-20 [Older] Billionaire wealth growing faster than ever, says Oxfam report

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-20 [Older] Davos: Young people put pressure on WEF's rich and powerful

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-20 [Older] How Cheeto Mussolini's tariffs could take trade wars to next level

  • Dauntless Developer Phoenix Labs Lays Off 50+ More Employees, With Studio Likely to Close

    The remainder of Phoenix Labs developers have been laid off, with the studios game ‘Dauntless’ and it’s studio likely to close.

    Speaking with now past-employee’s at the studio, it’s understood that around 50 employees have been made redundant today. Several of those employee’s now believe that the Dauntless game is now dead, and that Phoenix Labs is likely to shut down, although Parent company Forte has yet to make such an announcement.

    According to those familiar with the situation, no one at Phoenix Labs still has a job with one person saying it was “surprising” that it was announced as round of layoffs instead of a studio closure.

    Forte, a blockchain company, acquired Phoenix Labs around summer 2023 and in May 2024 made more than 100 of its staff redundant. Forte was asked to comment, but did not supply one in time ahead of publication.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Why Brazil's currency depreciation is back to haunt Lula

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Google to change Gulf of Mexico to 'Gulf of America' in maps

    Google announced on Tuesday that it will change the name of Gulf of Mexico to 'Gulf of America' for users in the US once it is officially updated in the US Geographic Names System.

    The tech company, which owns and operates Google Maps, posted to X that it had a "longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources."

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: It’s pretty easy to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, actually

    If Elon Musk wants to cut $2t from the US federal budget, there's a pretty straightforward way to get there – just eliminate all the beltway bandits who overcharge Uncle Sucker for everything from pharmaceuticals to roadworks to (of course) rockets, and then make the rich pay their taxes.

    There is a ton of federal bloat, but it's not coming from useless programs or overpaid federal employees. As David Dayen writes in a long, fact-filled feature in The American Prospect, the bloat comes from the private sector's greedy suckling at the government teat: [...]

  • Pivot to AI ☛ DeepSeek slaps OpenAI, tech stocks crash

    Chinese company DeepSeek announced its new R1 model on January 20. They released a paper on how R1 was trained on January 22. Over the weekend, the DeepSeek app became the number-one download on the Apple App Store. DeepSeek was the tech talk of the weekend.

    On Monday, the markets reacted.

    The European markets opened first — six hours ahead of New York — and tech and energy stocks crashed. So US traders knew it was time to dump.

  • Antonin Delpeuch ☛ Off-the-shelf governance models for small FOSS projects?

    A one-person open source project with a governance model, is that ridiculous? In this blog post I want to convince you it isn’t, and it could be key to solving widespread problems in the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) ecosystem.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Fujifilm to double spending on chip materials as U.S., Japan and South Korea up chip production

    The outlined spending will double its investment from the last three years, aiming to meet growing demand driven by new fabs in the U.S. (Intel, TSMC), Japan (Kioxia, Micron, TSMC), and South Korea (Samsung, SK hynix) as well as production of ultra-high-end processors for AI and HPC sectors. In addition, the company also plans to tap the Indian market as India is a country that seeks to make microelectronics as well.

  • Makoism ☛ The Dichotomy of Control

    The funny thing about these holes - a large percentage of the things that cause you stress and worry are things that there's jack shit that you can do to control them. I finally realized just how much of my stress came from trying to control things that were simply out of my hands.

    This brings me to what stoics call the idea of the dichotomy of control.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • CBC ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] Is Meta boosting Cheeto Mussolini and Vance on Facebook and Instagram?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] India: 12 killed by train after fire rumor triggers panic

    • Nebraska Examiner ☛ In times of crisis, states have few tools to fight online misinformation

      As deadly wildfires raged in Los Angeles this month, local officials were forced to address a slew of lies and falsehoods spreading quickly online.

      From artificial intelligence-generated images of the famous Hollywood sign surrounded by fire to baseless rumors that firefighters were using women’s handbags full of water to douse the flames, misinformation has been rampant. While officials in Southern California fought fire and falsehoods, Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — announced it would eliminate its fact-checking program in the name of free expression.

      That has some wondering what, if anything, state governments can do to stop the spread of harmful lies and rumors that proliferate on social media. Emergency first responders are now experiencing what election officials have had to contend with in recent years, as falsehoods about election fraud — stemming from President Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his 2020 loss — have proliferated.

    • Science Alert ☛ Climate Misinformation to Escalate on Social Media, Expert Warns

      The decision by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to end its fact-checking program and otherwise reduce content moderation raises the question of what content on those social media platforms will look like going forward.

      One worrisome possibility is that the change could open the floodgates to more climate misinformation on Meta's apps, including misleading or out-of-context claims during disasters.

    • YLE ☛ Survey: Most young people in Finland follow news [sic] on TikTok

      A survey conducted by Kantar for the Finnish Media Federation (Finnmedia) reveals that over half of Finns aged 13-18 now follow news [sic] on TikTok. Additionally, 40 percent of respondents stated that TikTok is their primary source of news [sic], providing all or nearly all the information they need.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Pakistan: Journalists slam new law regulating social media

  • Wired ☛ DeepSeek’s Popular AI App Is Explicitly Sending US Data to China

    DeepSeek, which does not appear to have established a communications department or press contact yet, did not return a request for comment from WIRED about its user data protections and the extent to which it prioritizes data privacy initiatives.

    As people clamor to test out the AI platform, though, the demand brings into focus how the Chinese startup collects user data and sends it home. Users have already reported several examples of DeepSeek censoring content that is critical of China or its policies. The AI setup appears to collect a lot of information—including all your chat messages—and send it back to China. In many ways, it’s likely sending more data back to China than TikTok has in recent years, since the social media company moved to US cloud hosting to try to deflect US security concerns

  • VOA News ☛ UN special envoy in Zambia to assess freedom of expression

    A United Nations special rapporteur is on a 10-day visit to Zambia to assess accusations that the government is stifling dissent.

  • 404 Media ☛ Oklahoma Senator Introduces Bill to Make Porn Completely Illegal

    In a slate of several bills restricting reproductive rights and divorce, Oklahoma senator Dusty Deevers suggests anyone making anything even vaguely pornographic should go to jail.

  • The Nation ☛ A Meteorologist Was Fired for Describing What We All Saw: “Dude Nazi Saluted TWICE”

    CBS58 fired Kuffel without hesitation, even though—in keeping with her job—all she did was open a window, stick her hand out, and tell us it was raining. Here we get back to station spokesperson Molly Kelly. Kelly, upon my query about why Kuffel was fired, responded, “We can confirm that Sam Kuffel is no longer with the station. However, we cannot comment further on personnel issues. You can refer to me as a spokesperson from the company but please do not use my name.”

    I then received a follow up e-mail insisting that I not use her name. In 20 years of doing this work, I have never had a spokesperson, speaking on the record and giving a typically drowsy answer, ask that their name not be used. For non-journalists, the rules are Journalism 101. Not using names is something that needs to be agreed upon in advance, not after the fact. As a communications professional—and especially as an official spokesperson—Kelly should have known that. It was an outlandish request and can only be interpreted as an act of shame or fear.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-18 [Older] Serbia: Protesters rally against public broadcaster

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Belarus: Media watchdog files ICC complaint against Lukashenko

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-19 [Older] Is Lukashenko's youngest son next in line to rule Belarus?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] Georgia: Journalists and dissent under targeted attack

  • VOA News ☛ Pakistani journalists fear amended cybercrime law will further curb freedoms

    The amended law now awaits passage in the Senate after its Standing Committee on Interior approved the amendments Monday. The National Assembly, the lower house of the country’s bicameral parliament, passed the amended bill last Thursday as opposition members and journalists walked out in protest.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Is Serbia on the brink of a general strike?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] Tunisia: Hunger strike as a last resort against crackdown

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] Thailand: Hundreds wed as same-sex marriage law goes into force

  • Axios ☛ Quakers challenge Trump order allowing immigration raids at religious sites

    A collection of Quaker groups sued the Trump administration Monday over a policy allowing federal officials to arrest undocumented immigrants in "sensitive" spaces, like houses of worship.

  • Air Force Times ☛ Air Force reinstates course with Tuskegee Airmen video after outcry

    An internal message leaked online Friday indicated videos on the Tuskegee Airmen and WASPs were pulled immediately from the class to comply with Trump’s DEI orders. The Air Force clarified Saturday that the videos themselves were not targeted for removal, but that BMT classes including diversity-related materials were temporarily suspended for review.

  • The Register UK ☛ AI facial recognition could sink murder investigation

    A murder case in Cleveland, Ohio, could collapse because the city's police relied on AI-based facial recognition software to obtain a search warrant.

    This despite a specific warning from the provider of that artificial intelligence – our old friends Clearview AI – that results from its facial recognition search software should not be "used as admissible evidence in a court of law or any court filing."

    Nor should it be used for the sole basis for an arrest because it may not be accurate, according to the developer.

  • NDTV ☛ "I Don't Touch Other Women": Uzbek GM Refuses Handshake With India's Vaishali, Triggers Row

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • [Older] Ruben Schade ☛ Residential ISPs cutting over to IPv6

    Unbeknownst to them, their ISP had cut them over to IPv6 overnight, and it had somehow borked their entire home network. Turns out, they were using their ISP’s router more as a modem, and a downstream device was their router. They took that extra router out of the mix, plugged the machines directly into the ISP’s router, and most of their hardware responded. The last step was to use DHCP on the last remaining devices they’d hardcoded with static IPv4 addresses years prior and forgot about.

  • Techdirt ☛ New FCC Boss Brendan Carr Is Big Mad The Biden FCC Tried To Shore Up Telecom Cybersecurity Rules After Embarrassing Industry Hack

    The FCC claimed the authority to tighten up the rules under Section 105 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. The agency also published a notice of proposed rulemaking calling for telecoms to develop and implement cybersecurity and supply chain risk management plans. It’s really pretty common sense stuff, and in a sane country wouldn’t be seen as controversial.

    But it’s not clear any of this will actually be implemented. Incoming FCC boss Brendan Carr has historically refused to stand up to telecom giants like AT&T on absolutely any subject that matters. His primary objective, once he gets done leveraging FCC authority to harass tech and media companies that don’t kiss Trump’s ass, will be to dismantle what’s left of telecom oversight and consumer protection.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Digital Music News ☛ Spotify is ‘Probably the Worst Thing to Happen to Musicians'

    “In that respect, Spotify is probably the worst thing that has happened to musicians. The streaming culture has changed an entire society and an entire generation of artists.”

    The comments echo her sentiment back in 2015, when she remarked upon her decision not to release her album Vulnicura, on Spotify. “It just seems insane, to work on something for two or three years and then just, ‘Oh, here it is for free.’ It’s not about the money; it’s about respect. Respect for the craft and the amount of work you put into it.”

  • Rossmann Repair Group Inc ☛ Final Draft software activation - Consumer Action Taskforce

    Final Draft announced they would discontinue activation & deactivation capabilities for Version 10 on June 30, 2025. This change means:

    • Users can't reinstall the software on new computers
    • Software can't be reactivated after operating system updates
    • Technical support ends February 1, 2025
    • Existing installs will continue working until the computer or operating system is updated

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • IP Kat ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Functional claims for pharmaceutical formulations: Validity versus enforcement (T 2130/22)

• Trademarks

  • Techdirt ☛ The NHL Is Having Trademark Trouble With Its Newest Team In Utah

    This is quite silly, don’t you think? How in the world are an NHL team and a cooler and coffee tumbler brand in any way indistinguishable? Is the concern that coolers are cold and so are hockey rinks? Or is it the licensing deal that the NHL has with Yeti to produce a handful of custom products, like drinkware? At most, assuming the team applied for the mark for merch or whatever that Yeti already has a mark on, the team could still proceed with trademarking its name for the team itself. That licensing deal can’t really be such that it precludes the NHL from naming a team. And, even if that were the case, I sure would think this fight would mark the end of that licensing deal once its term expires.

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Ruff outcome as Bad Spaniels found to have tarnished Jack Daniel's trademarks [Ed: Protecting Big Booze always a priority]

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-01-20 [Older] The Oktoberfest is fair game

    The Oktoberfest in Munich is not just the world’s largest festival: its name has also become very popular in other countries. There are Bavarian-themed festivals around the world named ‘Oktoberfest’. As a consequence of this development, the term has become descriptive for such festivals and related goods and services. The Board of Appeal (‘BoA’) of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (‘EUIPO’) confirmed the rejection of the word mark ‘Oktoberfest’ for services in class 43 (R1840/2019-4). This also has consequences for the assessment of conflicts between trade marks containing the word ‘Oktoberfest’ as a recent decision of the BoA shows.

• Copyrights

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] New Vatican AI Guidelines for the development and use of AI models: from AI training to Vatican’s authorship and ownership of AI-generated outputs (at least within the Vatican City State)

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Pirates Surprise as Oscar-Nominated Movie Screeners Leak Online Again

    'Screener season' used to make its annual appearance as reliably as the Oscars themselves. Copies of the most significant movies, intended for awards voters, would somehow end up online, for the unintended perusal of millions of pirates. A few years ago, screener copy leaks completely dried up, potentially forever. Then a few hours ago, a pair of Oscar-nominated movies, each with the same unusual feature, made their surprise entrance online.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ U.S. Anti-Piracy Symposium Emphazises Need for Site Blocking

    For example, trial attorney Vasantha Rao, who works as the Department of Justice Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, discussed the Gears Reloaded case, the Z-Library takedown, plus international domain seizure actions including Operation Offsides.

    Michael Christin, another trial attorney at the DoJ, went into great detail on the Jetflix case, discussing various challenges his team faced while litigating the case.

    This was an openly accessible symposium, so discussion and commentary was limited to information already in the public record. That said, when discussing future anti-piracy solutions, more novel perspectives were brought up.

  • EFF ☛ It's Copyright Week 2025: Join Us in the Fight for Better Copyright Law and Policy

    All of this is to say that copyright is no longer—if it ever was—a niche concern of certain industries. As corporations have pushed to expand copyright, they have made it everyone’s problem. And that means they don’t get to make the law in secret anymore.

  • The Hindu ☛ Online news publishers join copyright suit in Delhi High Court against OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT

    The Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), which represents the digital arms of several mainstream TV and print organisations in India, has intervened in a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT.

    “This intervention highlights the significant concerns expressed by digital news publishers about the unauthorised mass copying and use of copyrighted works to train AI models, including OpenAI’s GPT models,” the DNPA said in a statement. The Hindu is a member of the DNPA.