Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links Leftover 13/08/2023: Microsoft Cortana's Death



  • Leftovers

    • Chris HannahCelebrating Offline Tech

      Maybe it’s just because my own opinions have been changing recently, but I get the feeling that there seems to be a general resurgence of analogue over digital. Film photography is having a moment, so are mechanical watches it seems, and the act of writing in a physical notebook also seems to be growing in recent years. That’s in no way a definitive list, but it’s just a few things I’ve noticed.

    • Science

      • New YorkerWhat the Webb Space Telescope Will Show Us Next

        The astrophysicist Jane Rigby talks about the beauty of space, the possibility of life on other planets, and how the Webb sees hidden parts of the universe.

      • HackadayBlinded With Science

        So the room-temperature superconductor was a super disappointment, but even though the claims didn’t stand up in the end, the even better news is that real science was done. A paper making extraordinary claims came out, the procedure to make LK-99 was followed in multiple labs around the world, and then it was tested. It didn’t turn out to conduct particularly well at all. After a couple weeks of global superconductor frenzy, everything is back to normal again.

    • Education

      • Society for Scholarly PublshingExperience Graduate School with this PhD Simulator

        Mianzhi Wang, a graduate of a doctoral program in electrical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis has created an old-school text-style simulator for the graduate school experience. Make wise choices, and you can indeed graduate. While the engineering aspect of the creator’s experience tends to emphasize conference papers more than was prevalent in my own biomedical PhD, it’s not that far off. Getting my simulated PhD took a bit longer though than my real life one (not that much longer, unfortunately). Try it for yourself at the link below: [...]

      • Federal News NetworkAfghan universities ready to readmit women but not until Taliban leader says it’s ok, official says

        The Taliban barred women from campuses last December, triggering global outrage. Girls had been banned from school beyond sixth grade soon after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. Afghanistan is the only country in the world with bans on female education.

    • Hardware

      • HackadayInside A Cordless Soldering Station

        There was a time when soldering stations were unusual in hobby labs. These days, inexpensive stations are everywhere. [Kerry Wong] looks at the TS1C station, which is tiny and cordless. As he points out, cordless irons are not new, but modern battery technology has made them much more practical. However, this iron doesn’t actually have a battery.

      • HackadayBench Power Supply Turned Realistic Flight Sim Panel

        Flight simulator software has been available for about as long as desktop PCs have been a thing, but modern incarnations such as 2020’s Microsoft Flight Simulator have really raised the bar — not only graphically, but in terms of interactivity. There’s a dizzying array of switches and buttons that you can fiddle with in your aircraft’s virtual cockpit, but doing it with the same keyboard that you use to hammer out code or write Hackaday articles doesn’t do much for immersion.

      • HackadayOpening A Curta — With Great Care

        We’ve always admired Curta mechanical calculators, and would be very hesitant to dismantle one. But [Janus Cycle] did just that — and succeeded. A friend sent him a Curta Model 2 calculator that was frozen up. Just opening the case involved percussive force to remove a retaining pin, and once inside he discovered the main shaft had been slightly bent. No doubt this calculator had suffered a drop at some point in the past.

      • HackadayModern Demo For A Casio PB-700 Pocket Computer Plotter

        [Fred] has a Casio PB-700 pocket calculator / computer, complete with the companion docking station featuring a four-color pen plotter, model FA-10, and a microcassette tape recorder, model CM-1. He really wanted to see what this plotter could do, but there were no demos that he could find. So despite only having one working pen, [Fred] took matters into his own hands and proceeded to make his own.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Federal News NetworkTexas questions rights of a fetus after a prison guard who had a stillborn baby sues

        The state of Texas is questioning the legal rights of an “unborn child” in arguing against a lawsuit brought by a state prison guard who says she had a stillborn baby because of working conditions. She says prison officials refused to let her leave work for more than two hours after she began feeling intense pains that she believed were signs of early labor. The argument from the Texas attorney general’s office appears to be in tension with positions it has previously taken in defending state laws. The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Its claims came in court filings arguing against a federal lawsuit brough last year by Salia Issa.

      • New York TimesWhat the Supreme Court’s Decision to Hear the Purdue Pharma Case Means

        A federal appeals court had signed off on a deal that would shield members of the wealthy Sackler family from lawsuits in exchange for billions for those harmed by the opioid epidemic.

      • New York TimesSupreme Court Pauses Purdue Pharma Opioid Settlement Pending Review

        A federal appeals court had signed off on the agreement, which would shield members of the wealthy Sackler family from opioid-related lawsuits in exchange for billions to resolve thousands of claims.

      • The Straits TimesPhilippines may extend reduced import tariffs on rice, other commodities

        Supply side challenges include a potential limit on rice shipments from Vietnam.

    • Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

      • India TimesDriverless taxis gain ground in San Francisco

        The CPUC session drew commenters from all sides of the issue, with some calling robotaxis unsafe menaces while others lauded them as solutions to everything from climate change to road rage.

        Driverless cars have gotten stuck in the middle of roads, blocked bus lanes or even interfered in police or firefighter operations.

      • ReasonJournal of Free Speech Law: "Where's the Liability in Harmful AI Speech?," by …

        We examine three liability regimes, tying them to common examples of red-teamed model behaviors: defamation, speech integral to criminal conduct, and wrongful death. We find that any Section 230 immunity analysis or downstream liability analysis is intimately wrapped up in the technical details of algorithm design. And there are many roadblocks to truly finding models (and their associated parties) liable for generated speech.

      • Journal of Free Speech LawWhere’s the liability in harmful AI speech? [PDF]

        ChatGPT “hallucinates.”1 That is, it often generates text that makes factual claims that are untrue and perhaps never even appear in its training data. It can get math problems wrong. It can get dates wrong. But it can also make things up. It makes up sources that don’t exist, as one lawyer found out to their chagrin when they cited nonexistent cases in a legal brief.2 It makes up quotes. And it can make up false claims that hurt people. Ask it what crimes a particular person has committed or been accused of, and ChatGPT might get it right, truthfully saying, for instance, that Richard Nixon was accused of destroying evidence to hide a burglary committed by his campaign, or truthfully saying that it is unaware of any accusations against a person. But it will also sometimes tell a false story about a crime. ChatGPT 3.5 (but not 4.0), for instance, says that one of us (Lemley) has been accused and indeed found liable for misappropriating trade secrets. (He hasn’t.) Others have falsely been accused by ChatGPT of sexual harassment.3

      • Silicon AngleCloud vs. on-premises showdown: The future battlefield for generative AI dominance

        The data from enterprise customers is clear but conflicted: While 94% of customers say they’re spending more on artificial intelligence this year, they’re doing so with budget constraints that will steal from other initiatives.

      • MeduzaRussia’s Digital Development Ministry prohibits employees using Apple devices for professional purposes — Meduza

        Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media has barred its employees from using Apple smartphones and tablets in any professional capacity, reports Interfax, citing ministry head Maxut Shadayev.

      • The VergeMicrosoft shuts down Cortana app on Windows 11

        Microsoft has shut down its Cortana app for Windows 11. A new update is rolling out for Cortana that simply disables the digital assistant three years after Microsoft also discontinued its Cortana apps for iOS and Android.

        If you attempt to launch Cortana on Windows 11 you’ll now be met with a notice about how the app is deprecated and a link to a support article on the change. Microsoft is now planning to end support for Cortana in Teams mobile, Microsoft Teams Display, and Microsoft Teams Rooms “in the fall of 2023.” Surprisingly, Cortana inside Outlook mobile “will continue to be available,” according to Microsoft.

      • Windows LatestMicrosoft just killed the Cortana app on Windows 11 in favour of AI

        Microsoft has finally killed Cortana on Windows 11 – its Windows Phone-era assistant that debuted on desktop with Windows 10. Cortana app was the tech giant’s response to Siri in 2014, and Microsoft published a series of advertisements targeting Apple’s powerful assistant.

      • Windows TCO

        • [Old] CNNA ransomware attack is hitting schools, businesses and government agencies. Here’s what you should know

          A growing number of businesses, universities and government agencies have been [compromised] in a global cyberattack by Russian cybercriminals and are now working to understand how much data was compromised.

          While the scope of the attack is not yet fully known, officials at the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said Thursday that “several federal agencies… have experienced intrusions” and suggested a number of businesses could be impacted as well.

          Separately, state agencies said late Thursday that millions of people in Louisiana and Oregon had their data compromised in a security breach. The states did not blame anyone in particular for the hack but federal officials have attributed a broader hacking campaign using the same software vulnerability to a Russian ransomware gang that calls itself Clop.

        • Silicon AngleAt Black Hat, getting past enterprise cybersecurity ‘Oh sh*t!’ moments

          On the one hand, cybersecurity’s popularity is understandable. Bad actors continue to innovate, and threats continue to proliferate. The cybersecurity needs of organizations continue to multiply as a result.

          On the other hand, why haven’t the vendors gotten a handle on cybersecurity by now? After all, they’ve been working on the problem for years. Given the expanding exhibit floor at Black Hat, there appears to be no shortage of cybersecurity vendors ready to address the problem.

    • Pseudo-Open Source

      • Openwashing

        • TechTargetHashiCorp open source change targets competitors [Ed: Openwashing traps by a Microsoft proxy of sorts]

          HashiCorp moves to a business source license for all its future product releases that prohibits use for commercial purposes, renewing questions about open core business models.

    • Security

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Environment

      • YLEFinland to start seeing climate lawsuits, experts say

        A climate case brought forward by two NGOs last year may have marked a watershed moment in the history of environmental litigation in Finland, according to environmental experts.

      • Off Guardian“Climate Change” is Turning Our Planet into Hell on Earth

        If this all sounds too familiar, it is. We’ve been through this scenario with 9/11. We’ve been through it with Covid. The minute the government starts talking about a state of emergency is the minute we can expect to start losing more of our freedoms. The amount of tracking and surveillance we are under is becoming absurd. One wonders how much worse it can get. A lot worse. As the disasters multiply, the closer we get to the 2024 presidential election, the harder the governmental boot will push down upon our heads.

        Apparently, July 4 was the hottest day on Earth in as many as 125,000 years, breaking a record that was set the day before. Wow.

      • Deutsche WelleWhat does extreme heat mean for the Mediterranean Sea?

        In a warming world, marine creatures are in danger of suffocating. Gases like oxygen and carbon dioxide dissolve better at colder temperatures, so that means the warmer the water, the less oxygen is available to breathe.

        Conversely, higher temperatures also cause an increase in metabolism, which in turn means animals have to breathe even more than usual, said Diego Kersting, a marine scientist with Spain's National Research Council (CSIC). That combination also heightens the risk of death by starvation for marine life.

      • Omicron LimitedAntarctica risks 'cascades of extreme events' as Earth warms, study says

        The study concludes that Antarctica is likely to face considerable stress and damage in the coming decades. Twelve countries including the U.K., U.S., India and China pledged to preserve the continent's fragile environment through the Antarctic Treaty in 1959. The study says some countries risk breaching the terms of this agreement without urgent action to reduce emissions.

        "Nations must understand that by continuing to explore, extract and burn fossil fuels anywhere in the world, the environment of Antarctica will become ever more affected in ways inconsistent with their pledge," lead author Martin Siegert, a professor at the University of Exeter, said in a statement Tuesday.

      • CS MonitorFlash droughts: How climate change contributes to Hawaii’s wildfires

        Several dangerous conditions have combined to make the Maui wildfires especially destructive. Climate change is increasing the likelihood of more extreme weather events like this one, experts say.

      • ScheerpostGreen Groups Slam Biden Admin for Awarding $1 Billion to ‘Unproven’ Carbon Capture Projects

        “Fossil fuel interests see a clear benefit in promoting direct air capture as a means to preserve the dominance of dirty fossil fuels,” said one advocate.

      • Energy/Transportation

        • HackadayLiquid Metal Battery Goes Into Production

          The news is rife with claims of the next great thing in clean energy generation, but most of these technologies never make it to production. Whether that’s due to cost issues, production, or scalability, we’re often teased with industry breakthroughs that never come to fruition. Multi-layered solar panels, wave and tidal energy, and hydrogen fuel cells are all things that are real but can’t seem to break through and overtake other lower cost, simpler, and proven technologies. One that seems to be bucking this trend is the liquid metal battery, which startup Ambri is putting into service on the electrical grid next year.

        • Positech GamesFourth site visit to the solar farm

          2 days ago we took our fourth trip up to the farm to take a look at the site. Its over 400 miles a day of driving to do the round trip, so not something done lightly. Luckily this time we had arranged to be there when it was super-sunny, which is always a nicer way to visit a solar farm. Sun might mean no mud, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is a farm full of grazing sheep. 2 days later and I still have not got all of the sheep crap off my boots.

        • ArduinoMysoltrk is a low-cost solar panel tracking system

          While a solar panel mounted to the top of a roof, lamp post, or the side of a building will produce power, it is nowhere near optimal for achieving the maximum efficiency possible. To get better results, panels are often mounted to pivots and linear actuators/servo motors that continually move to always face the sun. But as Fulvio points out, these motors can be heavy and require extra batteries to function, which is what inspired him to create the mysoltrk to address this shortcoming. Fulvio built his “reinvented” tracker to be small, solid, and sturdy enough to survive outdoors on a balcony or any other space-constrained area like a garden.

        • Interesting EngineeringTexas' 205 mph high-speed rail cuts Dallas-Houston to 90 mins

          This ambitious project aims to bridge two of the United States' largest metropolitan areas through a 240-mile route that promises to cut travel time to under 90 minutes.

        • AmtrakTexas Central and Amtrak Seek to Explore High-Speed Rail Service Opportunities between Dallas and Houston

          Texas Central and Amtrak have submitted applications to several federal programs in connection with further study and design work for the potential Dallas to Houston segment, including the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure Safety and Improvements (CRISI) grant program, the Corridor Identification and Development program, and the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail (FSP-National) grant program.

        • The Register UKFTX [cryptocurrency]-clown Sam Bankman-Fried couldn't even do house arrest. Now he's in jail

          On Friday, at a hearing in New York City, Judge Lewis Kaplan revoked SBF's bail based on American prosecutors' concern that SBF was trying to tamper with the pending trial by sharing personal writings stored in Google Docs from Caroline Ellison, former CEO of FTX-affiliated Alameda Research and a former romantic partner, with the New York Times.

        • DeSmogRevealed: Petrochemical Exec and Major Conservative Donor Has Russian Business Link

          The Conservative Party received a €£2 million donation in March from a petrochemicals executive whose business interests include a Russian textiles plant, DeSmog can reveal.

          Amit Lohia, dubbed the “Prince of Polyester” by Forbes, made the donation on 29 March – the second largest amount handed to the party so far this year.

      • Wildlife/Nature

      • Overpopulation

        • RFERLUN Warns Of Cut To Food Aid To Afghans Amid Funding Shortages

          The UN World Food Program (WFP) has warned that without urgent funding, it will be forced to cut food aid to millions of Afghans grappling with hunger and food insecurity.

        • JURISTUN human rights chief warns Iraq water crisis may affect other countries in the region

          Water scarcity has been a long-standing issue in Iraq due to climate change and government mismanagement. Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported about Iraq’s water shortage in 2019, citing government mismanagement as one of the major reasons for the full-blown crisis in 2018. The series of mismanagement include poor management of upstream water sources, inadequate regulation of pollution and sewage, and chronic neglect and mismanagement of water infrastructure.

    • Finance

      • teleSURVenezuela Wins Lawsuit in Portugal and Recovers Seized Assets

        The money held in Novo Banco was ordered to be delivered and immediately returned to the Venezuelan Government.

      • Michael West MediaWages and jobs on economic agenda for the week

        The economic spotlight this week will be on wage growth and jobs.

        The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release its wage price index on Tuesday.

      • Insight HungaryHungary used its veto to protect Belarusian oligarch from EU sanctions

        Hungary used its veto to shelter Belarusian oligarch Alexander Moshensky from EU sanctions. Iceland also used its lobbying efforts for the businessman with close ties to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Euractiv reports.

        Moshensky's assets include prominent food manufacturers Santa Bremor and Savushkin Produkt which are mainly known for their fish and caviar products The “fish king” of Belarus has enjoyed diplomatic and business relations with Iceland for over two decades now.€ € In 2006,€ Moshensky became the€ country's honorary consul€ in Belarus.

      • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) My Ex Texted Me About An Emergency Meeting on the Seattle Housing Market. (Going Down the Toilet.)

        My Ex Texted Me About An Emergency Meeting on the Seattle Housing Market. (Going Down the Toilet.)

        My ex, John, texted me about an emergency meeting.

        He works as a real estate agent in the Seattle, Washington area.

        He says his bosses are panicking because “luxury” tenants are not paying up, they’re having to start evicting people who were seen as a “very safe bet”, and the number of new leases they’re signing is down by 2/3rds.

      • AxiosWeWork's stumbling, but "wave of demand" supports co-working

        WeWork may have "substantial doubt" about its long-term survival, but one thing appears clear: The iconic co-working company's woes don't extend into the sector at large.

        Driving the news: This week, WeWork shook investors by declaring it may have to file for bankruptcy — a ignominious fall from grace for a company once valued at $47 billion.

      • CoryDoctorowPluralistic: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States (12 August 2023)

        Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States (permalink) The vast majority of America's debt collection targets $500-2,000 credit card debts.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • The Straits TimesMalaysia bans Swatch ‘LGBTQ’ watches; owners, sellers face up to 3 years in jail
        August 10, 2023 5:30 PM

        Under Malaysian law, such a ban can be issued if it jeopardises public order, morality or security.

      • Digital Music NewsThe 1975 Faces $2.5 Million Legal Action from Malaysian Festival Organizer Over Alleged Breach of Contract

        Future Sound Asia, the company behind Malaysia’s Good Vibes Festival, is reportedly preparing to take legal action against The 1975 unless the group coughs up over €£2 million (currently $2.54 million) in allegedly owed damages during the coming days.

      • New York TimesA Wealthy Teenager, a 5-Star Hotel and a Bizarre Defamation Fight

        A teenager turned away by a bar in one of Manhattan’s fanciest hotels started a campaign to sully its reputation, a lawsuit says. The hotel is suing him for defamation.

      • Sparrow MediaCivil Society Organizations and Experts Sign Open Letter to Stand Against Elon Musk’s Efforts to Silence Independent Researchers

        CCDH research shows hate proliferating on “X” under musk; The Sparrow Project joins over 60 organizations and experts worldwide to stand with CCDH

      • RFERLBelarusian Singer Who Refused Lukashenka Scholarship Handed Parole-Like Sentence

        Belarusian singer Patrytsia Svitsina, who in 2020 refused to accept a scholarship from authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka, citing her "moral principles," has been handed a parole-like sentence on a charge of "actively participating in actions that blatantly disrupt social order."

      • [Repeat] TediumIn The Age Of Culling: Discussing the dumb thing CNET did in an effort to please the Google Gods: Don’t cull old news content to improve your SEO ranking. That’s your history!

        Today in Tedium: In the past, I’ve been effusive of my praise of CNET, a news outlet that (along with Wired) pioneered digital journalism, for one specific reason: Its archives have been kept safe from meddling. It is one of the most in-depth archives of news that we have from the early years of the internet, and it is arguably of the most important flavor—day-to-day, standard issue news content. But its ownership picture has changed in recent years, with the media holding company Red Ventures purchasing it (and its subsidiaries, most notably ZDNet, which hasn’t been attached to Ziff Davis for more than 20 years) for $500 million back in 2020. Red Ventures has made some controversial moves with the CNET property, most infamously bringing AI into the mix, but the latest move was like a dagger to the heart: Gizmodo revealed that the company was actively culling its utterly massive archives for search-engine optimization reasons. I’ve talked about killing sites before, but in today’s Tedium, let’s talk culling, and why it’s often just as bad. — Ernie @ Tedium

      • ReasonA Louisiana Man Was Jailed for Criticizing Police. A Federal Court Wasn't Having It.

        The sole arrest pertaining to Krentel's demise was that of a man who criticized the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office's (STPSO) slow-going investigation of the case, which remains unsolved. If that sounds unconstitutional, it's because it is: On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit confirmed that Jerry Rogers Jr.'s suit against Sheriff Randy Smith, Chief Danny Culpeper, and Sgt. Keith Canizaro may proceed, as they violated clearly established law when they arrested him for his speech.

      • The Age AUTime warp, again: Rocky Horror is unchanged after 50 years – but that’s how we like it

        Rocky Horror is so much of its time, right down to Frank-N-Furter’s startlingly aggressive eduction Janet and Brad, I’m surprised those forces that have banished so many cultural artefacts of a bygone age haven’t taker the laser gun to the show and the movie, which is bursting with “triggering” material (ironically, a certain Australian actor had his career ended for throwing himself too enthusiastically into his role).

        However, unlike West Side Story, which has come under assail for what some consider its retrograde elements, Rocky Horror has long been a part of indie/outsider culture, right down the midnight screenings that still take place around the world. Could you really make politically correct a show which is beloved because it is a slap in the face of mainstream culture? It would make no sense.

      • JURISTBangladesh to replace criticized digital security law

        The still-effective DSA contains offenses and punishments for electronic communications, including information and data spreading as well as receiving. For example, Section 28 of the act, regarding the publication and broadcast of information in any electronic format hurting one’s religious values, carries a penalty of up to five years in jail maximum. Section 29, the transmission of defamatory information, carries a penalty of up to three years imprisonment.

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • CPJCPJ deeply disturbed by police raid on Kansas newspaper

        “This kind of action by police – which we sadly see with growing frequency worldwide – has a chilling effect on journalism and on democracy more broadly,” said Ginsberg. “The actions of the police and the judiciary in this case must be thoroughly and swiftly investigated.”

      • GannettPolice conduct 'chilling' raid of Kansas newspaper, publisher's home seizing computers, phones

        Police in a central Kansas town raided the local newspaper's office Friday and seized computers and employees' personal cellphones – an action that advocates say violates federal laws protecting the media.

        Law enforcement officers with the Marion (Kan.) Police Department and the Marion County Sheriff's Office on Friday took the Marion County Record's computer file server, other computers and phones, along with other equipment, the Record reported.

      • Marion County RecordUPDATED: Illegal raids contribute to death of newspaper co-owner

        They refused to say when the items, necessary for publishing next week’s issue of the Record, might be returned. The newspaper has obtained equipment to ensure publication and is working to re-create material for the paper.

        Legal experts contacted by the Record termed the raid unheard of in America and reminiscent of what occurs in totalitarian regimes and the Third World.

        The Record is expected to file a federal suit against the City of Marion and those involved in the search, which legal experts contacted were unanimous in saying violated multiple state and federal laws, including the U.S. Constitution, and multiple court rulings.

      • The Daily BeastKansas Newspaper Says Its Co-Owner Has Died After Being Traumatized by Police Raid

        A Kansas newspaper whose offices were raided by an entire police department on Friday says its 98-year-old co-owner has now died after she was left “stressed beyond her limits.”

      • The Independent UKPress freedom groups blast police raid of Kansas newspaper office: ‘Everyone involved should be ashamed’

        “Based on the reporting so far, the police raid of the Marion County Record on Friday appears to have violated federal law, the First Amendment, and basic human decency,” according to a statement from Seth Stern, director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation.

      • Kansas ReflectorPolice stage ‘chilling’ raid on Marion County newspaper, seizing computers, records and cellphones

        Meyer, whose father worked at the newspaper from 1948 until he retired, bought the Marion County Record in 1998, preventing a sale to a corporate newspaper chain.

        As a journalism professor in Illinois, Meyer said, he had graduate students from Egypt who talked about how people would come into the newspaper office and seize everything so they couldn’t publish. Those students presented a scholarly paper at a conference in Toronto about what it has done to journalism there.

        “That’s basically what they’re trying to do here,” Meyer said. “The intervention is just like that repressive government of Egypt. I didn’t think it could happen in America.”

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • JURISTIntroduction of 3 new bills in India’s Parliament aim to overhaul colonial-era criminal codes

        India Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah presented three landmark bills in India’s Parliament on Friday. The three bills would significantly shift Indian criminal law away from British colonial-era laws. The first of the three newly introduced bill was the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which seeks to replace the Indian Penal Code of 1860.

      • EFFDissecting the UN Cybercrime Convention’s Threat to Coders’ Rights at DEFCON

        The proposed UN Cybercrime Convention could empower tyrants, shatter security, and harm political and social activists, journalists, security researchers, whistleblowers, and millions more around the world for decades to come, we told a packed house at DEFCON in Las Vegas on Thursday - but it’s not too late to stop this bad treaty from being adopted.

        Delegations from Member States as well as observers from civil society will convene August 21 at UN Headquarters in New York City for a two-week negotiation session on the convention’s “zero draft.” The zero draft is the first full text, the result of State-led negotiations that began in February 2022. EFF will be there again this month to lobby Member States and provide expert opinion to ensure the protection of your rights.€  If the Member States can’t reach total consensus on the text, it could go to a vote by the Member State governments in which a two-thirds majority would be required for adoption. A concluding session is scheduled for early next year in New York City.

        At DEFCON, we highlighted the foremost dangers posed by the zero draft, and the direction in which negotiations seem to be headed. The proposed treaty features five chapters: criminalization, or the categorization of acts deemed a crime under this treaty; domestic and cross-border spying powers, for example, the powers and limits to conduct surveillance both within their borders and across international boundaries; and two additional chapters on technical cooperation and proactive measures.

      • teleSURWorld Bank Not to Finance in Uganda Because of Anti-LGBTI Law

        The World Bank insists that the law undermines the institution's efforts to democratize access to development, as "inclusion and non-discrimination are at the core (...) Our goal is to protect sexual and gender minorities from discrimination and exclusion in the projects we finance. These measures are under discussion with the authorities", to which he adds that until laws guaranteeing these rights are passed, public financing will not continue on their part.

      • New York Times[Older] How the Hollywood Shutdown Will Affect Los Angeles

        With actors and screenwriters on strike, Hollywood is shut down for the foreseeable future. Los Angeles isn’t a pure company town, but the industry is inextricable from the city in many ways.

      • New York Times[Older] Strike Prevents Actors From Promoting Films at Premieres or Festivals

        While on strike, actors are barred from publicizing any studio projects they’ve appeared in. Their absence could affect movie theaters and the festival circuit.

      • uni MichiganGEO to respond to contract offer by Aug. 10 following membership vote

        The University of Michigan offered the Graduate Employees’ Organization its fifth contract proposal, including a signed promise to continue the Rackham Plan through 2026, on Aug. 2.

      • New YorkerLesser-Known Writers’ Strikes

        The James Patterson-ghostwriter strike of 2003, and other labor disputes that are threatening to curtail access to new cultural content.

      • NPROpinion: The Taliban is cracking down on music, and joy

        The Taliban, who shot their way to power in Afghanistan two years ago, have thrown women out of their jobs, banished them from sports, and banned girls above the age of twelve from going to school.

        They have also banned video games, foreign films, and music as "idolatrous."

        And now, they have begun to burn musical instruments.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • Google Warns Against 'Content Pruning' As CNET Deletes Pages To Improve SEO

        CNET deleted thousands of old articles to improve the sites performance in Google Search results, adding to the controversy brought on by its latest editorial strategy -- layoffs and experiments with articles written by artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots.

        Archived copies of CNET’s author pages show that the company deleted small batches of articles prior to the second half of July, but then increased the pace, Gizmodo learned.

        A CNET representative confirmed to Gizmodo that the company culled stories, but declined to share exactly how many stories it took down.

        The world typically thinks of online content as something that lives forever, but that is not necessarily true -- at least not at CNET. And it’s all in the name of better search engine optimization (SEO) to improve performance and ranking on Google, Microsoft Bing, and other search engines.

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • [Old] arXivOne Glitch to Rule Them All: Fault Injection Attacks Against AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization

        AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) offers protection mechanisms for virtual machines in untrusted environments through memory and register encryption. To separate security-sensitive operations from software executing on the main x86 cores, SEV leverages the AMD Secure Processor (AMD-SP). This paper introduces a new approach to attack SEV-protected virtual machines (VMs) by targeting the AMD-SP. We present a voltage glitching attack that allows an attacker to execute custom payloads on the AMD-SPs of all microarchitectures that support SEV currently on the market (Zen 1, Zen 2, and Zen 3). The presented methods allow us to deploy a custom SEV firmware on the AMD-SP, which enables an adversary to decrypt a VM's memory. Furthermore, using our approach, we can extract endorsement keys of SEV-enabled CPUs, which allows us to fake attestation reports or to pose as a valid target for VM migration without requiring physical access to the target host. Moreover, we reverse-engineered the Versioned Chip Endorsement Key (VCEK) mechanism introduced with SEV Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP). The VCEK binds the endorsement keys to the firmware version of TCB components relevant for SEV. Building on the ability to extract the endorsement keys, we show how to derive valid VCEKs for arbitrary firmware versions. With our findings, we prove that SEV cannot adequately protect confidential data in cloud environments from insider attackers, such as rogue administrators, on currently available CPUs.

      • World Wide Web ConsortiumWeb Environment Integrity has no standing at W3C; understanding new W3C work

        For a few weeks now we have been hearing concern in the Web community in regard to Web Environment Integrity, and are asked more and more about it. Our silence is due to the fact that the Web Environment Integrity API is not being worked on in W3C, nor has there been any submission to W3C for W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) review.

        In the rest of this article, I want to take the opportunity to explain generally how new work is brought to the World Wide Web Consortium, and how several W3C work groups coordinate what we call "horizontal review". This review and other safeguards we have in place, transcends a particular technology by focusing on aspects that impact people and the Web: Web accessibility, architecture, internationalization, privacy, and security.

      • The Register UKJudge denies HP's plea to throw out all-in-one printer lockdown lawsuit

        HP all-in-one printer owners, upset that their devices wouldn't scan or fax when low on ink, were handed a partial win in a northern California court this week after a judge denied HP's motion to dismiss their suit.

        The plaintiffs argued in their amended class action complaint [PDF] that HP withheld vital information by including software in its all-in-one printer/scanner/fax machines that disabled non-printing functions when out of ink and not telling buyers that was the case.

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • Torrent FreakRecord Labels Hit Internet Archive With New $400m+ Copyright Lawsuit

          Record labels including UMG, Capitol and Sony have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States targeting Internet Archive and founder Brewster Kale, among others. Filed in Manhattan federal court late Friday, the complaint alleges infringement of 2,749 works, recorded by deceased artists, including Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights' Statement on Code of Censorship (CoC) and Kent Overstreet: This Was the Real Purpose of Censorship Agreements All Along
Bombing people is OK (if you sponsor the key organisations), opposing bombings is not (a CoC in a nutshell)
[Meme] The Most Liberal Company
"Insurrection? What insurrection?"
apple.com Traffic Down Over 7%, Says One Spyware Firm; Apple's Liabilities Increased Over 6% to $308,030,000,000
Apple is also about 120 billion dollars in debt
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 23, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 23, 2024
[Meme] GAFAMfox
Mozilla Firefox in a state of extreme distress
Google Can Kill Mozilla Any Time It Wants
That gives Google far too much power over its rival... There are already many sites that refuse to work with Firefox or explicitly say Firefox isn't supported
Free (as in Freedom) Software Helps Tackle the Software Liability Issue, It Lets Users Exercise Greater Control Over Programs
Microsofters have been trying to ban or exclude Free software
In the US, Patent Laws Are Up for Sale
This problem is a lot bigger than just patents
ESET Finds Rootkits, Does Not Explain How They Get Installed, Media Says It Means "Previously Unknown Linux Backdoors" (Useful Distraction From CALEA and CALEA2)
FUD watch
Techdirt Loses Its Objectivity in Pursuit of Money
The more concerning aspects are coverage of GAFAM and Microsoft in particular
Links 23/11/2024: Press Sold to Vultures, New LLM Blunders
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: "Relationship with Oneself" and Yretek.com is Back
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: "Real World" Cracked and UK Online Safety Act is Law
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: Celebrating Proprietary Bluesky (False Choice, Same Issues) and Software Patents Squashed
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 22, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, November 22, 2024
Gemini Links 23/11/2024: 150 Day Streak in Duolingo and ICBMs
Links for the day
Links 22/11/2024: Dynamic Pricing Practice and Monopoly Abuses
Links for the day
Topics We Lacked Time to Cover
Due to a Microsoft event (an annual malware fest for lobbying and marketing purposes) there was also a lot of Microsoft propaganda
Microsofters Try to Defund the Free Software Foundation (by Attacking Its Founder This Week) and They Tell People to Instead Give Money to Microsoft Front Groups
Microsoft people try to outspend their critics and harass them
[Meme] EPO for the Kids' Future (or Lack of It)
Patents can last two decades and grow with (or catch up with) the kids
EPO Education: Workers Resort to Legal Actions (Many Cases) Against the Administration
At the moment the casualties of EPO corruption include the EPO's own staff
Gemini Links 22/11/2024: ChromeOS, Search Engines, Regular Expressions
Links for the day
This Month is the 11th Month of This Year With Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (So Far It's Happening Every Month This Year, More Announced Hours Ago)
Now they even admit it
Links 22/11/2024: Software Patents Squashed, Russia Starts Using ICBMs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 21, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 21, 2024