Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 18/07/2023: Akademy 2023 Videos and Debian Brainwashing



  • GNU/Linux

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • LibreBootGNU forked Libreboot?

      They forked Libreboot, due to disagreement with Libreboot’s Binary Blob Reduction Policy. This is a pragmatic policy, enacted in November 2022, to increase the number of coreboot users by increasing the amount of hardware supported in Libreboot. Libreboot’s Freedom Status page describes in great detail, how that policy is implemented - the last few Libreboot releases have vastly expanded the list of hardware supported, which you can read here.

    • Licensing / Legal

      • The Drone GirlNew York drone hub brings in European drone law expert for support — here’s why

        These days, GENIUS NY is considered the largest drone and robotics accelerator program in the world. It vets startup ideas and offers funds to the most promising based on viability of business models. But GENIUS NY has also promised to provide more support than just money by way of ‘end-to-end’ help, including simply offering up office space at The Tech Garde (that’s CenterState CEO’s incubator in downtown Syracuse), as well as the benefit of ultra-close proximity to New York’s Griffiss International Airport, one of just seven FAA-designated UAS test sites in the United States. New York is also the site of the UTM Pilot Program Phase 2, and has been the site of other drone testing projects including drone parachutes.

    • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

      • Open Access/Content

        • Guest Post — Peer Review Week 2023 to Focus on Peer Review and the Future of Publishing

          It’s an unsettling time in what has been, for more than 350 years, a remarkably stable undertaking, with changes taking place in how research is conducted, the rise of Open Access (OA) and open science, the evolution of big data, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and more. Even the transition from analog to digital publishing represented more of a change of venue than a fundamental shift in the business models, norms, or values that have always sustained and guided scholarly publishing.

          As we consider how to meet the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities of this moment in our industry, it makes sense also to reconsider how we manage peer review selection, how we gather expert feedback, and how we honor and reward reviewers. How can we make peer review easier and more fulfilling for reviewers, more efficient and effective for editors and publishers, and more trustworthy for everyone? How can we distribute the rewards and responsibilities of peer review more equitably?

          It is imperative for stakeholders across the whole scholarly ecosystem to work together proactively to ensure that peer review keeps up with the evolving publishing landscape and remains our most powerful tool for evaluating the rigor, credibility, and interest of scholarly research.

    • Programming/Development

      • HackadayQuantum Computing On A Commodore 64 In 200 Lines Of BASIC

        The term ‘quantum computer’ gets usually tossed around in the context of hyper-advanced, state-of-the-art computing devices, but much as how a 19th century mechanical computer, a discrete computer created from individual transistors, and a human being are all computers, the important quantifier is how fast and accurate the system is at the task, whether classical or quantum computing. This is demonstrated succinctly by [Davide ‘dakk’ Gessa] with 200 lines of BASIC code on a Commodore 64, implementing a range of quantum gates.

      • QtQt Insight 1.3 Released

        We are happy to announce the Qt Insight 1.3 release.

      • QtCommercial LTS Qt 6.2.9 Released

        We have released Qt 6.2.9 LTS for commercial license holders today. As a patch release, Qt 6.2.9 does not add any new functionality but provides bug fixes and other improvements.

      • QtVxWorks for Qt 5.15.14 Released

        The release is a€ € source code release made on top of the Qt 5.15.14 LTS Commercial release.

      • QtQt Contributor Summit 2023 - Venue, Registration, and More
      • RlangFinding Duplicate Values in a Data Frame in R: A Guide Using Base R and dplyr

        In data analysis and programming, it’s common to encounter situations where you need to identify duplicate values within a dataset. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced programmer, knowing how to find duplicate values is a fundamental skill. In this blog post, we will explore two different approaches to accomplish this task using base R functions and the dplyr package in R. By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to detect and manage duplicate values in your own datasets.

      • TecMintProgrammer vs System Administrator: Which Career Path is Right for You

        Careers in the technology space and broad and diverse and require different sets of skills. Programming and Systems Administration are two occupations that stand out and you are likely to find professionals in these fields in almost every company.

        The rising demand for programming and administration skills has opened doors to freelancers who bridge the gap and work for companies seeking experts in the same field.

  • Leftovers

    • Ruben Schade“What do you want me to do?”

      While sitting at a lobby coffee shop this morning (shocking!), I saw a delivery worker arrive with a package. After failing to receive any acknowledgement from the downstairs intercom, he whipped out his phone and had a lengthy call with the recipient.

      I’m paraphrasing, but it went like this:

      I’m downstairs with your package. Uh huh. Yes. Can I deliver it? Yes? Where to? Okay, but are you here? Do you want me to leave it here? No? Okay, can you buzz me up then? No, I’m downstairs. The address on the package. I can come up, or leave it here, which one?

    • Science

    • Education

      • CERWhat Humanities Scholars Want Students To Know About the Internet: Alternative Paths for Alternative Endpoints

        Her list explains a huge part of the Web, but was completely orthogonal to what I was thinking about teaching. She wasn’t asking me to teach tools. She wanted me to teach fundamental concepts. She wanted students to have understanding about a set of technologies and ideas, and the students really didn’t need IP addresses and packets to understand them.

        The important insight for me was that the computing that she was asking for was a reasonable set, but different from what we normally teach. These are advanced CS ideas in most undergraduate programs, typically coming after a lot of data structures and algorithms. From her perspective, these were fundamental ideas. She didn’t see the need for the stuff we normally teach first.

      • Terence EdenWhy you should attend the University of Luck

        Most top flight universities around the world have the same problem. They have space for 100 students on a specific course. 15,000 apply. How do they select the best-of-the-best-of-the-best?

        My answer is - they don't.

        They should ignore extra-curricular activities (that tend to bias against poorer students with less free time). Ignore admission essays (which aren't read, can be creepily voyeuristic, and are probably copy-and-pasted). Ignore relevant experience (which, again, can be bought). Ignore whether someone's parents went to the school. Ignore skin colour, religion, sex, gender, credit-score, disability, and everything else2.

    • Hardware

      • CNX SoftwareMonitor One – A customizable cellular IoT gateway for industrial equipment monitoring

        Particle’s Monitor One Developer Edition is a customizable cellular IoT gateway for monitoring industrial equipment packaged in an IP67 rugged enclosure with reference firmware, and suitable for rapid prototyping with support for a range of I/Os and sensors, and even a prototyping area for to solder your own circuitry. Like the company’s earlier Tracker One asset tracker, the Monitor One is based on the Tracker SoM with a Nordic Semi nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4 wireless SoC for Bluetooth connectivity, a Quectel LTE Cat M1 (North America) or Cat 1 with 3G and 2G fallback (EMEA), u-blox Neo-M8U GNSS module, and an ESP32 for WiFi location support. The new customizable cellular IoT gateway still integrates with the Particle IoT PaaS (Platform as a Service), and the company also provides developer tools.

      • Ruben SchadeTroubleshooting my Am386SX’s RAM issues

        Last month I talked about getting a gorgeous Tseng ET4000AX ISA graphics card for my recently-fixed Am386SX motherboard. I was looking forward to seeing Windows 3.0 [sic] in 256-colour goodness for the first time since our childhood PC, and maybe even GEM.

      • Tom's HardwareQuantum Computing Qubit Entanglement Record Broken at 51

        Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China have managed to entangle a record 51 qubits. More importantly, the qubits weren't just entangled in pairs, but as a single system, a required step on the road to more useful quantum computing.

      • New York TimesThe Semiconductor Struggle

        The U.S. and China are engaged in a great-power struggle, and chips are part of the fight.

      • New York Times‘An Act of War’: Inside America’s Silicon Blockade Against China

        The Biden administration thinks it can preserve America’s technological primacy by cutting China off from advanced computer chips. Could the plan backfire?

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

    • Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

      • TeleportSimplify Teleport

        For this month's newsletter, I’m going to cover a range of things you can do to simplify your Teleport deployment, so you can spend less time maintaining Teleport and more time enjoying the summer!

      • The VergeThe birth of id Software

        In the space of about one second, at the age of almost 23, I had glimpsed my future, my colleagues’ future, and the future of PC gaming, and that future was phenomenal.

      • The NationThe Future of AI Is War

        A world in which machines governed by artificial intelligence (AI) systematically replace human beings in most business, industrial, and professional functions is horrifying to imagine. After all, as prominent computer scientists have been warning us, AI-governed systems are prone to critical errors and inexplicable “hallucinations,” resulting in potentially catastrophic outcomes. But there’s an even more dangerous scenario imaginable from the proliferation of superintelligent machines: the possibility that those nonhuman entities could end up fighting one another, obliterating all human life in the process.

      • The AtlanticA Voicebot Just Left Me Speechless

        But a world in which the bots can understand and speak my name, and yours, is also an eerie one. ElevenLabs is the same voice-cloning tech that has been used to make believable deepfakes—of a rude Taylor Swift, of Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro debating Ratatouille, of Emma Watson reading a section of Mein Kampf. An AI scam pretending to be someone you know is far more believable when the voice on the other end can say your name just as your relatives do.

      • Dark ReadingMicrosoft 'Logging Tax' Hinders Incident Response, Experts Warn

        A recent email compromise by Chinese APT group Storm-0558 highlights a lack of access to security logging by many Microsoft 365 license holders, prompting calls from researchers to abolish it.

      • International Business TimesBarts Health NHS Trust faces ransomware threats from Russian organisation BlackCat [Ed: Windows TCO]

        According to BlackCat, these documents contain personally identifiable information of both employees and clinicians associated with the Trust, including National Insurance Numbers (referred to as Social Security Numbers by the organisation).

        In addition to personal data, the documents are claimed to contain financial information such as client documentation, credit card details, financial reports, accounting and loan data, as well as insurance agreements.

      • Mirror UKElon Musk admits Twitter is 50% down in advertising revenue and drowning in debt

        Elon Musk admitted Twitter has lost half of its advertising revenue.

        In a reply to a tweet offering business advice, Musk tweeted Saturday, “We’re still negative cash flow, due to (about a) 50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.”

        “Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” he concluded.

      • India TodayAmazon fires more employees, says layoffs will help improve business

        A "small number" of employees from the Amazon Pharmacy division have been fired by the company, Amazon confirmed to the media. Here are all the details.

      • Heartfelt Plea on LinkedIn: Former Microsoft Employee’s Emotional Job Appeal
    • Security

      • SANSAnalysis Method for Custom Encoding, (Wed, Jul 5th) [Ed: Windows TCO]

        In diary entry "Deobfuscating a VBS Script With Custom Encoding", I decoded a reader submitted VBS script with custom encoding of the payload.

      • LWNSecurity updates for Monday [LWN.net]

        Security updates have been issued by Debian (gpac, iperf3, kanboard, kernel, and pypdf2), Fedora (ghostscript), SUSE (bind, bouncycastle, ghostscript, go1.19, go1.20, installation-images, kernel, mariadb, MozillaFirefox, MozillaFirefox-branding-SLE, php74, poppler, and python-Django), and Ubuntu (cups, linux-oem-6.1, and ruby2.3, ruby2.5, ruby2.7, ruby3.0, ruby3.1).

      • City of Odessa dealing with data breach



        According to the City of Odessa, mayor Joven was advised that the city dealt with a serious data breach.

        It was discovered that accounts assigned to a terminated high-ranking employee have been recently accessed, and sensitive information was transferred.

      • Data BreachesTwo California plastic surgery practices suffer cyberattacks and embarrassing patient data leaks

        On June 21, BlackCat (AlphV) threat actors added Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery to their leak site. “We have lots of PII and PHI, including a lot of pictures of patients that they would not want out there,” the listing read. “It be in your best interest to reach out before we release all data. Leak to follow if no contact made.”

        On July 8, that text was replaced with a different message: “Dr. David Kim and Dr. Eugene Kim does not care about patient privacy. Only fill they pockets with money,” BlackCat claimed in their usual insulting manner.

      • No Need to Hack When It’s Leaking, Monday edition: Dating App That Claims 50 Million Users Suffered a Data Breach

        A majority of the records referred to an application called 419 Dating – Chat & Flirt. However, inside the database, I also saw information related to other dating apps called Meet You – Local Dating App by Enjoy Social App, and Speed Dating App For American by MyCircle Network Corp. The presence of what appeared to be logos and development files pertaining to these apps in the same database may be suggestive of the likelihood that all three dating apps are owned or developed by the same company using different names. There were also documents related to a couple of location-tracking applications found in the database, though we can’t assure they are related in any way to 419 Dating due to the lack of information available online that the companies are connected. According to multiple listings of software download sites, 419 Dating – Chat & Flirt is developed by a Chinese company called SILING APP (also visible in the web archive). I immediately sent a responsible disclosure notice and although the database was quickly secured no one ever replied. The app used to be available on the Google Play Store but was removed shortly after my notification. However, the app is still available on many other websites. Per its own advertisement campaign, the 419 Dating app claims to have 50 million users worldwide.

        The database appears to contain a massive number of user records that include customer names, account numbers, emails, passwords, and more. In total, the database contained more than 600 compressed server logs.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • Systemd FreeAnonymity and corporate FOSS

          Q: But why is there such hectic push to acquire either personal identities (through phone verification or electronic payment) or a corporate/legal-identity before you are able to publish? In the past, you could participate in movement activities and hand leaflets out, or newspapers, or just sheets of paper with an essay, nobody asked your id, and unless state agencies recorded your picture and identified you, you remained anonymous within a crowd. Except for military regimes most “democratic constitutions” protected the right to free speech.

        • NYOBNorwegian DPA temporarily bans behavioral advertising on Facebook and Instagram

          Following a CJEU ruling that declared Meta/Facebook’s GDPR approach largely illegal, the Norwegian DPA (Datatilsynet) is the first national data protection authority declaring behavioral advertising on the company’s platforms Facebook and Instagram illegal. Datatilsynet imposes a temporary ban for the usage of said approach by Meta. noyb welcomes this decision as a first important step and hopes that other DPAs will follow.

        • India TimesMeta fined by Norway regulator Datatilsynet over data privacy breaches

          Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms will be fined one million crowns ($100,000) per day over privacy breaches unless it takes remedial action, Norway's data protection authority said on Monday, in a move that could have wider European implications.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Environment

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • EDRIAll eyes on EU: Will Europe’s AI legislation protect people’s rights?

        Up for debate over the next months will be the limits for police’s use of surveillance technology, how far people affected can challenge the use of AI, and how far companies should play a role in deciding the reach of this legislation.

        As we watch the painful and infuriating consequences of unchecked police power in France, we cannot ignore the descent into a state of heightened surveillance and violence enacted by police.

      • Myth – Nobody Wants to Work

        Lots of places pushing that $15/hr minimum wage, some already have it. Target lead the charge bumping to $15/hr in 2017 and now starting wage goes up to $24/hr. I’m sure there are other companies upset I didn’t toot their horn here, but you need to understand, Target tried to be “college kid cool” and pay well. If you can start at more than $18/hr with just a high school education, you didn’t do bad. Unless you are willing to go into “the trades” where you do a lot more labor without air conditioning, $24/hr plus some form of health insurance is about the best you can hope for. I’m told they’ve hired from within their store ranks for people to be Web developers and other IT roles at corporate.

        The shit companies sit around chanting “Nobody wants to work.” They just don’t finish the phrase “Nobody wants to work for us because we are a shit company paying shit wages.”

        I have written about The Minimum Wage Debate many times.

      • Press GazetteOpen Democracy editor and CEO Peter Geoghegan steps down

        He is replaced as CEO by former managing director Satbir Singh.

      • SpiegelAbu Dhabi Secrets: How Qatar Seeks to Leverage Its Influence in Europe

        The United Arab Emirates and Qatar are battling for influence in Europe. A data leak has revealed how Abu Dhabi has sought to discredit its rival with the help of a private intelligence company in Switzerland – an effort that extends into Germany.

      • CS MonitorAfrican tech workers press global social media giants for better conditions

        African content moderators urge tech giants to provide adequate mental health care and fair pay in recognition of their grueling but vital role.

      • Press GazetteNational World journalists pass no confidence vote in chairman David Montgomery

        Unionised staff said they urged shareholders to "intervene as a matter of urgency".

      • The NationLessons From the Catastrophic Failure of the Metaverse

        There was a time, not so long ago, when every major architect on this planet was “building” in the Metaverse, the brand name for the open-world virtual reality platform and associated projects under the aegis of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. Last year, some staggering names such as Zaha Hadid Architects, Grimshaw, Farshid Moussavi, and, of course, the Bjarke Ingels Group pledged to create “virtual cities,” virtual “offices,” and equally vague sounding “social spaces” to be funded with cryptocurrency and supplied with art (NFTs). The eagerness to latch onto whatever the newest trend the increasingly desperate and failure-prone tech industry dished out was so palpable that even real-life developers like hotel chain CitizenM and brands like Jose Cuervo got involved and threw what one presumes is a whole lot of actual money at the enterprise. The rush to move into virtual real estate was a full-on frenzy.

      • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • ANF NewsThousands of activists arrested across Iran since the beginning of the year

        Since the beginning of the "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi" actions that started after the murder of Jîna Amini in Iran, the arrests continue.

        At least a thousand activists have been arrested since the beginning of 2023. It was announced that 513 of those detained were Kurds and the others were Baloch.

      • The NationLawsuits Have Become the Weapon of Choice Against Activists

        SLAPPs don’t usually win in court, but that’s not what they’re intended to do. Instead, they set out to threaten activists and drain the financial resources of social movements. They often unfold as years-long wars of attrition, where corporations and governments with disproportionately large resources grind down the financial, emotional, and legal capacities of activists. The threat of such a suit—typically brought against individuals or groups that confront powerful people or institutions—discourages free speech and association, chilling democracy itself.

      • The NationThe Campus Right’s Long War on Free Speech

        Overseeing the birth of YAF were two defenders of McCarthyism and the stamping out of free speech: Buckley himself and his protégé M. Stanton Evans, author of YAF’s credo, “The Sharon Statement.” Buckley first came to public attention as the disgruntled Yale graduate who warned in God and Man at Yale (1951) of the evils that higher education poses for Christian lovers of the free market. In that book, he called for discarding the “superstition” of academic freedom so the academy could be purged of dangerous voices (by which he meant Keynesian economists and atheists). Buckley’s second book, cowritten with his brother-in-law L. Brent Bozell, was a defense of McCarthyism, McCarthy and His Enemies (1954). Evans was, like many of the younger writers who gravitated toward National Review, a mini-Buckley: a Yale alumni made dizzy by worries of subversion in academia and the government. He would go on write Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies (2007). (Ann Coulter blurbed it as the “greatest book since the Bible.”)

      • New York TimesIran Steps Up Policing of Women Who Defy Strict Dress Code

        Iran is once again deploying police officers on the streets to enforce its conservative dress code for women, which many have flouted since the protest movement that rattled the country began last fall, according to state news media and social media posts.

      • JURISTIran authorities announce morality police campaign forcing women to wear hijab

        The 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested by the Tehran police on September 14, 2022 for wearing an “improper” hijab and died after two days in custody. The incident sparked protests in major cities throughout the country, which lasted for months and only died down earlier this year following a major crackdown. At least 469 people have been killed during the protests.

      • International Business TimesIran's morality police returns despite protests against hijab rules

        The Iranian regime has taken all sorts of measures to quell the protests. Thousands have been detained and hundreds have been killed in the last few months, but the regime has refused to bow down. Iran's supreme leader blamed the United States and Israel for the protests and added that the "riots" were "engineered" by Iran's enemies.

        "I say clearly that these riots and the insecurity were engineered by America and the occupying, false Zionist regime [Israel], as well as their paid agents, with the help of some traitorous Iranians abroad," he said last year. But the supreme leader did not care to back his claims with some evidence.

      • France24Iran’s morality police resume patrols after lull following death of Mahsa Amini

        Several Iranian celebrities joined the protests, including prominent directors and actors from the country's celebrated film industry. Several Iranian actresses were detained after appearing in public without the hijab or expressing support for the protests.

        In a recent case, actress Azadeh Samadi was barred from social media and ordered by a court to seek psychological treatment for "antisocial personality disorder" after appearing at a funeral two months ago wearing a cap on her head.

      • Deutsche WelleWhy is Iran reintroducing its 'morality police'?

        In September last year, the 22-year-old Kurdish womanMahsa Jina Aminidied in hospital three days after being arrested by the "morality police" for wearing her hijab incorrectly. Her death, allegedly caused by maltreatment, sparked nationwide protests that shook the country for months. The authorities' violent response resulted in the deaths of hundreds. Many women refused to give in and increasing numbers dared to appear in public without covering their heads. In December, officials claimed that the "morality police" had been disbanded.

        But recently there have been reports of its return by several journalists and social media users in the Iranian capital Tehran, and also other cities. On Sunday, a video began circulating on social media that captures the moment when dozens of passers-by intervened to prevent "morality police" officers from arresting three women in the northern city of Rasht.

      • The AtlanticWhy the Remote-Work Debate Stays So Heated

        Nick Bloom, a Stanford economics professor who studies remote work, told me that “research and evidence are slowly catching up” to the work-from-home debate. In five years, he predicted, the topic will be less controversial. Bloom and two colleagues, Jose Maria Barrero and Steven J. Davis, published a working paper earlier this month that collects some of the existing work-from-home research, pulling both from their own work and from other papers. One interesting finding is that although fully remote work has been correlated with a drop in productivity, hybrid work (which occurs widely in white-collar fields such as tech and business services) was not linked to any productivity loss—and could actually help with recruitment and retention.

      • The AtlanticThe Businessmen Broke Hollywood: And now they don’t want to pay their employees.

        Our two unions have not been on strike together since 1960. The writers’ pickets at shooting locations had already shut down an estimated 80 percent of productions. Now SAG’s strike rules dictate that actors not only can’t shoot or do voice-over work for productions; they also cannot attend red carpets or promote any Motion Picture Association projects—something that was already a challenge, given that the writers’ strike had shut down the nighttime talk shows that were such a staple of the press circuit.

        Much like the writers, actors are looking for increases in their residual pay—compensation that’s akin to royalty checks—once-reliable income that has all but vanished in the pivot to streaming. Actors are also seeking protections against artificial intelligence using their voice and image.

      • New York TimesAs Iraq Tries to Chill Critics, Its Newest Target Is€ Social Media

        New regulations on “degrading content” are part of a broader campaign to silence independent voices.

      • RFABooking a hotel room for the Asian Games? Local police will be watching you.

        Facial recognition cameras are installed in guest room doors, a notice warns guests.

      • RFABeijing mulls ban on commercial ads on public buses in Tiananmen Square

        Goal seems to be to avoid tainting purity of communist monuments with commercialism

      • RFADoxxing campaign targeting Hong Kong protesters had China links: report

        Campaign exposing personal information on 2,000 protesters was 'designed to avoid attribution.'

      • ReasonMy New Article on Legislative Restrictions on Classroom Speech

        I am pleased to see that my latest article on the efforts of state legislatures to restrict what ideas professors can endorse in the classroom has now been published. "Professorial Speech, the First Amendment, and Legislative Restrictions on Classroom Discussions" appears in the latest issue of the Wake Forest Law Review.

      • ReasonA Win for the First Amendment, and a Loss for Partisans Who Want to Weaponize Censorship

        One thing is clear about Missouri v. Biden: The decision cannot be understood by viewing it through a polarized lens.

      • ReasonJean Carroll's Libel Lawsuit Against Donald Trump for His 2019 Statements Can Go Forward

        From Judge Lewis Kaplan's opinion today in Carroll v. Trump (S.D.N.Y.): This is a defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll against President Donald Trump, as he then was, for statements Mr. Trump made in June 2019 shortly after Ms. Carroll publicly accused him of sexual assault. In those statements, Mr. Trump denied Ms.…

      • Press GazetteDyson exploitation libel claim versus C4 News heard at Court of Appeal

        Sir James Dyson himself is no longer pursuing the case after a judge ruled his claim out.

      • Reason10th Cir. Narrowly Reads "Injury Litigated Against Would Be Incurred" Basis for Pseudonymous Litigation

        The court concludes that this justification doesn't generally let plaintiffs sue pseudonymously in libel or disclosure of private facts that seek damages.

      • JURISTHong Kong man jailed for ‘insulting’ China and Hong Kong flag

        A Hong Kong court sentenced a man on Friday to 18 days in jail for “insulting” the national flag and regional flag, according to Hong Kong Free Press. The man, Yung Ching-man, was charged with one count of desecrating the Chinese national flag and one count of insulting the regional flag.

        [...]

        The National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance was amended in 2021. The charge against Yung is based on the amendment for insulting the national flag by misuse. That amendment also stipulates the correct display and use of the national flag and national emblem. It was enacted by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in October 2020. The amendment could not take effect in Hong Kong directly, but is put into effect by local legislation pursuant to the Hong Kong Basic Law.

      • Hong Kong Free PressHong Kong security law Article 23 would target ‘modern-day espionage’ and ‘[Internet] loopholes,’ security chief says

        Article 23 of the Basic Law stipulates that the government shall enact laws on its own to prohibit acts of treason, secession, sedition and subversion against Beijing. Its legislation failed in 2003 following mass protests and it was not tabled again until after the onset of the separate, Beijing-imposed security law in 2020. Pro-democracy advocates fear it could have a negative effect on civil liberties.

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Jacobin MagazineUnionize the Postdocs

        There is much at stake in this fight. Postdocs bring in billions of dollars in grants to universities, and the potential of our research outputs is worth even more. Yet a staggering 94.8 percent of us report that low pay negatively affects our personal and professional lives. Postdoc scholars often leave our positions after years of having been asked to sacrifice too much in terms of low pay, impacts on our mental health, and delays in starting a family.

        Individual researchers suffer on account of poor conditions for postdocs and the resulting retention crisis — and so does the public, which depends on the work that we do. Making postdoc jobs sustainable is in the common interest, as our work is critical to solving the biggest problems our society faces, like climate change and global pandemics.

      • US News And World ReportSt. Louis Police ID Man Who Died After an Officer Shocked Him With a Taser

        The same officer then applied what's known as a “drive stun,” which involves placing the Taser directly on the skin, police said.

      • NPRIran's morality police return in a new campaign to impose Islamic dress on women

        On Sunday, Gen. Saeed Montazerolmahdi, a police spokesman, said the morality police would resume notifying and then detaining women not wearing hijab in public. In Tehran, the men and women of the morality police could be seen patrolling the streets in marked vans.

      • IDAArkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary becomes South Australia’s first International Dark Sky Sanctuary

        Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary comprises over 63,000 hectares of conservation land in the Flinders Ranges and Outback of South Australia. It is significant for the Adnyamathanha people, whose cultural connections to the land remain strong and vibrant, with stories that relate directly to the landscape. It is one of Australia’s outstanding geological “hotspots”, with a rich biodiversity recognized by the Arkaroola Protection Act 2012. Established in the rugged, arid mountain environment in 1968 by Dr. Reg Sprigg and his wife, Griselda, their aim was for tourism activities to promote and support ongoing conservation, education, and research.

      • NBCActors vs. AI: Strike brings focus to emerging use of advanced tech

        Artificial intelligence tools that mimic humans have in recent years become far more effective in creating images and text — and more common. Technology that replicates individuals’ faces and voices is becoming more prominent in Hollywood. Chatbots like ChatGPT, which can convincingly reproduce human writing, have surged in popularity since late last year. But they also have clear shortcomings: the bots often get basic facts wrong and are derivative when asked to write creative works.

        The actors’ concerns highlight a broader anxiety among entertainers and people in many other creative professions. Many fear that, without strict regulation, their work will be replicated and remixed by artificial intelligence tools, and that such a transformation will both cut their control over their work and hurt their ability to earn a living.

      • Bruce SchneierTracking Down a Suspect through Cell Phone Records

        What’s interesting to think about is what happens when this kind of thing becomes cheap and easy: when it can all be done through easily accessible databases, or even when an AI can do the sorting and make the inferences automatically. Cheaper digital forensics means more digital forensics, and we’ll start seeing this kind of thing for even routine crimes. That’s going to change things.

      • CNNBurner phones. Pizza crust. DNA on burlap. A New York architect was charged with killing 3 women in Gilgo Beach serial killings cold case

        The case was broken open thanks to cell phone data, credit card bills and DNA testing, which ultimately led them to arrest Heuermann, 59, authorities said.

      • France24Iran’s morality police resume patrols after lull following death of Mahsa Amini

        Iranian authorities on Sunday announced a new campaign to force women to wear the Islamic headscarf and morality police returned to the streets 10 months after the death of a woman in their custody sparked nationwide protests.

      • ReasonNo Pseudonymity or Sealing in College Student's Race Discrimination Lawsuit

        A federal court rejects plaintiff's arguments "that sealing ... is required because she is being 'slandered and libeled' and '[m]aking [her] information public would magnify the effects of [defendants'] wrongdoing' rather than right those wrongs."

      • RFANBA star says he was dumped for China criticism

        Former No. 3 draft pick tells Congress his support for Uyghurs and Tibetans threatened the NBA’s profits.

      • RFAThree Uyghur groups receive grants from Elie Wiesel Foundation

        The grants aim to help shed light on China’s genocide of Uyghurs, foundation head says.

      • RFAHong Kong police question family of exiled activist Nathan Law

        City’s chief vows to hunt down wanted overseas activists, likens them to ‘rats crossing the street.’

    • Monopolies

      • The Register UKEuro monopoly cops to probe Microsoft for slipping Teams into Office

        The latest case, which the Financial Times says will go under the spotlight imminently, pertains to Microsoft injecting Teams into its online Office suite in 2017. Rival Slack lodged a complaint with the EU in 2020, griping that the Windows giant was “force installing [Teams] for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers.”

      • India TimesMicrosoft granted two-month pause of UK appeal over Activision deal

        The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled on Monday that the full hearing of Microsoft's appeal, which was due to begin on July 28, should be adjourned.

      • Patents

        • Dennis Crouch/Patently-OEssential Elements Test for Reissues Patents

          Just in time for my early August floating trip down in the Ozarks, the Federal Circuit has affirmed the USPTO’s rejections of Float’N’Grill’s proposed reissue claims.€  The problem: the reissue claims omit an “essential element” of the original invention in violation of 35 U.S.C. 251. The case here is quite similar to the maligned essential elements test of Gentry Gallery, but relies upon the reissue statute rather than the written description requirement of Section 112(a).

          Float’N’Grill’s US 9,771,132 covers a floating grill. In patent lingo, we call this a “floating apparatus with grill supports” to allow grilling while floating in water. The disclosed embodiment uses magnets to removably secure the grill to the grill supports, and the original claims required a plurality of magnets.€ 

      • Copyrights

        • NPRThousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission

          "It says it's not fair to use our stuff in your AI without permission or payment," said Mary Rasenberger, CEO of The Author's Guild. The non-profit writers' advocacy organization created the letter, and sent it out to the AI companies on Monday. "So please start compensating us and talking to us."

          Rasenberger said the guild is trying to get these companies to settle without suing them.

        • Business InsiderGenerative AI tools are quickly 'running out of text' to train themselves on, UC Berkeley professor warns

          Several lawsuits filed against OpenAI in the past few weeks allege the company used datasets containing personal data and copyrighted materials to train ChatGPT. Among the biggest was a 157-page lawsuit filed by 16 unnamed plaintiffs, who claim OpenAI used sensitive data such as private conversations and medical records.

          The latest legal challenge, presented by lawyers for comedian Sarah Silverman and two additional authors, accused OpenAI of copyright infringement due to ChatGPT's ability to write up accurate summaries of their work. Two additional authors, Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in late June that makes similar allegations.



Recent Techrights' Posts

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