GNU/Linux

• Desktop/Laptop

  • System76 ☛ Exploring Astrophysics and Gravitational Lensing with the Lemur Pro

    Interview with Massimo Pascale, an astrophysicist armed with the System76 Lemur Pro. Discover how gravitational lensing, the Sunburst Arc, and open-source tech converge to unravel the universe's mysteries.

  • It's FOSS ☛ Match File Managers

    An enjoyable drag and drop quiz to match the file managers with their respective desktop environments.

  • It's FOSS ☛ Can You Guess Which Distro is Older?

    You have to choose between the two available options. Now, choosing the correct one depends on how familiar you are with various distributions.

  • It's FOSS ☛ Jigsaw Puzzle: File Commands

    Complete the jigsaw puzzle by arranging the tiles. You can either go with the commands in description or the image.

• Kernel Space

  • Linux Journal ☛ Core Knowledge That Modern Linux Kernel Developer Should Have

    The Linux Kernel is written in C programming language, so C is the most important language for the Linux Kernel developer. Initially, the kernel was written in GNU C (now it is also possible to build it using LLVM) which extends standard C with some additional keywords and attributes. I would recommend learning some modern C version like C11 and additionally learning GNU extensions to be able to read kernel code effectively. Small, architecture-specific parts of the kernel and some highly optimized parts of several drivers are written in assembly language. This is the second language of choice. There are 3 main architectures nowadays: x86, ARM, and RISC-V. What assembly language to choose depends on your hardware platform.

• Games

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Mobile SEGA “Forever” games delisted

    Back in June 2017, SEGA announced its SEGA Forever initiative to bring its classic games to iOS and Android as free to start games with a no ads IAP. Each game was to be adapted for mobile while remaining faithful to the originals. We saw the service launch with five games with more coming every few weeks. As recently as this week, select SEGA Forever games have been delisted on iOS and Android.

• Desktop Environments/WMs

  • GNOME Desktop/GTK

    • GNOME ☛ Tobias Bernard: GNOME 45 Release Party & Hackfest

      In celebration of the 45 release we had a hackfest and release party in Berlin last week. It was initially supposed to be a small event, but it turns out the German community is growing more rapidly than we thought! In the end we were around 25 people, about half of them locals from Berlin :)

      GNOME OS

      Since many of the GNOME OS developers were in town for All Systems Go, this was one of the main topics. In addition to Valentin, Javier, and Jordan (remote), we also had Lennart from systemd and Adrian from carbonOS and discussed many of the key issues for image-based operating systems.

      I was only present for part of these discussions so I’ll leave it to others to report the results in detail. It’s very exciting how things are maturing in this area though, as everyone is standardizing on systemd’s tools for image-based OSes.

Distributions and Operating Systems

• Devices/Embedded

  • Rachel ☛ The Philips Hue ecosystem is collapsing into stupidity

    Unfortunately, the idiot C-suite phenomenon has happened here too, and they have been slowly walking down the road to full-on enshittification. I figured something was up a few years ago when their iOS app would block entry until you pushed an upgrade to the hub box. That kind of behavior would never fly with any product team that gives a damn about their users - want to control something, so you start up the app? Forget it, we are making you placate us first! How is that user-focused, you ask? It isn't.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Web Browsers/Web Servers

  • Data Swamp ☛ Firefox hardening with Arkenfox

    Dear Firefox users, what if I told you it's possible to harden Firefox by changing a lot of settings? Something really boring to explain and hard to reproduce on every computer. Fortunately, someone did the job of automating all of that under the name Arkenfox.

    Arkenfox design is simple, it's a Firefox configuration file (more precisely a user.js file), that you have to drop in your profile directory to override many Firefox defaults with a lot of curated settings to harden privacy and security. Cherry on cake, it features an updater and a way to override some of its values with a user defined file.

    This makes Arkenfox easy to use on any system (including Windows), but also easy to tweak or distribute across multiple computers.

• Content Management Systems (CMS)

  • WordPress ☛ Help Influence the Future of WordPress by Taking the 2023 Annual Survey Today

    Each year, the WordPress community (users, site builders, extenders, and contributors) provides valuable feedback through an annual survey. The results can influence the direction of the WordPress project by identifying areas that need attention. Annual surveying can also help track trends over time, with data points often finding their way into the yearly State of the Word address.

• FSF

  • ZDNet ☛ A look back at 40 Years of GNU and the Free Software Foundation

    It's fading from memory, but if it weren't for GNU and the Free Software Foundation, open-source, and Linux, indeed, most of our technology-driven world wouldn't be here.

Leftovers

• Kev Quirk ☛ “Thing” Is the Worst Word in the English Language

  I absolutely hate the word "thing". Like, seriously, what value does that word have? It adds nothing to a conversation and should be erased from the dictionary.

  Picture the scene, dear reader; I'm in one room, and my kids are in another. Then, out of nowhere, one of them shouts:

  Daaaaaaaaad, what's this thing here?

  To which I usually respond with something like "what thing? use your bloody words!" And to my great annoyance, their response is usually something like:

• Bert Hubert ☛ NLUUG Award

  I won an award! Earlier this year I was lured to the NLUUG spring conference, and after my presentation (on machine learning from scratch), the two large presentation rooms were joined for some additional announcements. Turns out this was to give me an NLUUG Lifetime Achievement Award!

• Education

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea passes laws to better protect teachers from abuse

    The protesting teachers had expressed frustration over mistreatment by parents and students.

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ AMD's Scott Herkelman Announces Departure

    Herkleman's 7-year tenure at AMD will wrap up at the end of 2023.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ U.S. to Extend Permission for Samsung and SK Hynix to Export New Tools to China

    Samsung and SK Hynix can continue buying new tools for Chinese fabs, for now.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ China Struggles to Raise $41 Billion to Boost Fab Tool Production

    China has troubles raising money for its third Big Fund aimed to support makers of wafer fab equipment.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ China's First Domestic PCIe 5.0 Enterprise SSD Controller Enters Mass Production

    Yingren Technology has announced that mass production has started on the YR S900 PCIe 5.0 enterprise SSD controller.

  • Hackaday ☛ Feed Your Fasteners In Line, With A Bowl Feeder

    If you spend much time around industrial processes, you may have seen a vibrating bowl feeder at work. It’s a clever but simple machine that takes an unruly pile of screws or nuts and bolts, and delivers them in a line the correct way up. They do this by shaking the pile of fasteners in a specific way — a spiral motion which encourages them to work to the edge of the pile and align themselves on a spiral track which leads to a dispenser. It’s a machine [Fraens] has made from 3D printed parts, and as he explains in the video below the break, there’s more to this than meets the eye.

  • Hackaday ☛ String Art Build Uses CNC To Make Stringy Art

    String art is as old as, well, string and something to hang it from. But, like most things, it gets more enjoyable when you involve a CNC. [Paul MH] went the whole hog with this build, creating a CNC string art builder that could handle the whole process, from placing the nails to running the string.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ China Stimulates Investments in Chips with Massive R&D Incentives

    China to offer chip companies a 120% deduction of R&D expenses before taxes through 2027.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ China Increases Localization of Chipmaking Tools, But Still Lags Behind

    Chinese companies produce more wafer fab tools, but still cannot make competitive lithography scanners.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Pro Publica ☛ He Enforced a Mask Mandate. He Wound Up Facing a Criminal Charge.

    Jill Joy pointed her cellphone camera at the security guards gathered near the doors to the middle school auditorium, where the Webster Central School District Board of Education meeting was about to start. Panning the scene for her livestream viewers that cold evening in February 2022, she noted, “They’ve brought in extra security. Say ‘Hi,’ you fucking tools.”

    Joy was among a group of parents in suburban Rochester, New York, who’d dubbed themselves ROC for Educational Freedom. Two years earlier, in 2020, they’d created a Facebook group to organize against what they perceived as “drastic” and “deranged” COVID-19 safety measures in suburban Monroe County school districts. Then in the summer of 2021, Joy landed in a local news story when she stood before the Webster school board cupping her hand over her young daughter’s mouth to mimic a mask. “If you saw this, you would see that this is abuse and you would stop it,” she’d declared.

  • Pro Publica ☛ How We Investigated the Philips Respironics CPAP Recall

    To understand the breakdowns that led to one of the most tumultuous medical device recalls in generations, ProPublica and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette spent a year probing what happened inside Philips Respironics after the company first learned that contaminants were turning up in breathing machines designed to save lives.

    The news organizations also tracked what has happened since the recall as the company claimed that its devices were safe despite multiple test reports showing that foam embedded inside them to reduce noise could break down and send dangerous particles and chemicals into the masks of patients. Millions of ventilators, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and bi-level positive airway pressure (BiPAP) machines were impacted by the recall.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Philips Kept Complaints About Dangerous CPAP Machines Secret While Company Profits Soared

    The first complaints landed at the offices of Philips Respironics in 2010, soon after the company made a fateful decision to redesign its best selling breathing machines used in homes and hospitals around the world.

    To silence the irritating rattle that kept users awake at night, Philips packed the devices with an industrial foam — the same kind used in sofas and mattresses. It quickly became clear that something had gone terribly wrong.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China shifts attention to post-pandemic recovery

    To be ready, Beijing needs to be honest about the pros and cons of how it handled Covid-19.

  • Science Alert ☛ Flesh-Eating Bacteria Are on The Rise in The US. Here's How to Avoid Them.

    Okay... great.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ CVS responds quickly after pharmacists frustrated with their workload don’t show up

    A group of pharmacists frustrated with overwhelming workloads didn't show up for work last week in at least a dozen Kansas City-area CVS pharmacies. The company's response included sending its chief pharmacy officer to town and promising to quickly hire more help.

• Proprietary

  • Futurism ☛ People Disgusted With Flavor of Coke's AI-Generated Soda

    But according to a new hard-hitting new investigative report by Gizmodo, the reality is far more sobering. According to the site's team, Y3000 isn't just a big downgrade from regular Coke, but it's downright unpleasant.

    The team didn't mince words, calling it "all bark and no bite," and simply "bad."

  • Futurism ☛ Iranian Authorities Say AI Could Help Issue Fatwas Faster Than Ever Before

    While most Shia clerics spend weeks or months poring over Islamic texts, Ghotbi and his allied ayatollahs suggest that AI could speed up both the research and the public release of fatwas, which traditionally are issued on everything from patriotism to personal hygiene — but have, over the past few decades, often been issued in protest of Western cultural subjects, such as the infamous one against the novelist Salman Rushdie.

  • Techdirt ☛ Authors Guild, Jealous Of Other Terrible Author Lawsuits Against AI, Decides To Join In The Party

    It’s been eight years since the Authors Guild was thoroughly and totally embarrassed by losing its big lawsuit against Google over the Google Books scanning project. I guess they’re missing the feeling of embarrassment, as they’ve filed what is effectively the same damn suit against OpenAI over that company’s book scanning.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ IBM Took a Man’s Voice, Pitting Him Against His Own Work, While Companies Profit from Low-Effort Garbage Generated by Bots and “Self-Service”.

      IBM Took a Man’s Voice, Pitting Him Against His Own Work, While Companies Profit from Low-Effort Garbage Generated by Bots and “Self-Service”.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Security Week ☛ UK’s New Online Safety Law Adds to Crackdown on Big Tech Companies [Ed: It'll mostly hurt small companies; GAFAM put back doors in ciphers and products already]

      British lawmakers approved an ambitious but controversial new internet safety law with wide-ranging powers to crack down on digital and social media companies.

    • Security Week ☛ UK Minister Warns Meta Over End-to-End Encryption [Ed: What End-to-End Encryption? Facebook spies on all the conversations, it's just a question of how many of them it also shares with the government.]

      Britain's interior minister warned Meta that out end-to-end encryption on its platforms must "not to come at a cost to our children's safety".

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Signal Will Leave the UK Rather Than Add a Backdoor

    • WhichUK ☛ Which? Shorts podcast: the spies in our smart homes

      We take a closer look at what data is kept by your smart devices and ask what it means for your privacy

    • EDRI ☛ Open Letter: European Parliament must protect journalists and ban spyware in the European Media Freedom Act

      As the European Parliament gets set to vote on the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) next week, 80 civil society and journalists’ associations are calling on Members of European Parliament (MEPs) to ensure meaningful protection for journalists in the regulation by including a total ban on spyware.

    • Michael Geist ☛ Why Industry Minister Champagne Broke the Bill C-27 Hearings on Privacy and AI Regulation in Only 12 Minutes

      More than a year after Bill C-27 was first introduced, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology finally launched its review of the bill yesterday with an opening appearance from ISED Minister François-Philippe Champagne. The delays in Bill C-27 reflect significant concern with both the effectiveness of the privacy provisions and the inclusion of an AI bill that is widely viewed as inadequate. Champagne started with a 12 minute opening statement in which he assured committee members that he had heard the criticisms and that the government had a wide range of amendments planned to address the concerns.

    • JURIST ☛ New York bans the use of facial recognition technology in schools

      Commissioner of Education of the State of New York Betty Rosa banned the use of facial recognition technology (FRT) in New York schools on Wednesday after a state report found that student privacy risks outweighed the potential security benefits.

    • EDRI ☛ EDRi-gram, 27 September 2023

      The weather might be cooling off but the digital rights world is heating up with activity.

      Civil society continues to fight against dystopian surveillance technology.

      More than 85 organisations have called on EU governments to say no to the CSA Regulation until it fully protects online rights, freedoms, and security. Over 115 civil society organisations are urging EU lawmakers to regulate the use of AI technology for harmful and discriminatory surveillance by law enforcement.

    • France24 ☛ Chairman of Chinese developer Evergrande placed under police surveillance, report says

      The chairman of China Evergrande Group has been placed under police surveillance, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, raising more doubts about the embattled developer’s future as it grapples with the mounting threat of liquidation.

    • RFA ☛ Junta threatens prison terms for unregistered SIM card users

      Critics say registering with an ID card leaves users open to surveillance.

    • EDRI ☛ Potential loopholes in the AI Act could allow use of intrusive tech on ‘national security’ grounds

      Both the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe (COE) negotiations are considering excluding AI systems designed, developed and used for military purposes, matters of national defence and national security from the scope of their final regulatory frameworks. If this indeed happens, we will have a huge regulatory gap regarding such systems.

    • Security Week ☛ Misconfigured TeslaMate Instances Put Tesla Car Owners at Risk

      Attackers can find tons of information on Tesla cars and their drivers by searching for misconfigured TeslaMate instances online.

• Defence/Aggression

  • NYPost ☛ US federal contractor charged with espionage for sharing classified intel with foreign spy

    A government contractor with the State and Justice departments who had top security clearance was charged Thursday with aiding a foreign government spy.

  • Vox ☛ 40 years ago today, one man saved us from world-ending nuclear war

    But Petrov did not report the incoming strike. He and others on his staff concluded that what they were seeing was a false alarm. And it was; the system mistook the sun’s reflection off clouds for a missile. Petrov prevented a nuclear war between the Soviets, who had 35,804 nuclear warheads in 1983, and the US, which had 23,305.

  • Defence Web ☛ Environmental disaster and climate change refugees should be recognised as such

    In response to these challenges, many individuals and communities have no choice but to abandon their homes and seek safety elsewhere. The vast majority will remain within their country borders – it’s predicted that by 2050 up to 86 million Africans will migrate within their own countries due to weather shocks. But some will cross borders, triggering the need for international protection.

  • Meduza ☛ Rest in pieces: Russia is unofficially but systematically dismantling many monuments to Polish, Lithuanian, and Finnish victims of Soviet Terror

    As Moscow’s relations with the West have deteriorated since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, monuments to Polish and Lithuanian victims of Stalinism and Finnish soldiers killed in World War II have systemically vanished from cities across Russia. Some officials say the disappearances are only temporary while restoration work is underway, but more often, they claim ignorance and blame anonymous vandals. At the same time, there’s typically no police response when a memorial is damaged or goes missing. Meduza reviews the monuments dismantled and disappeared in the past year.

  • Meduza ☛ Fuel explosion in Nagorno-Karabakh claims 68 lives, many people still unaccounted for — Meduza

  • RFERL ☛ Baku Detains Former Russian Businessman Vardanian, Who Briefly Served As Nagorno-Karabakh's De Facto PM

    Azerbaijan's State Border Service (DSX) said on September 27 that it has detained billionaire Ruben Vardanian, a former Russian citizen of Armenian descent, who served as prime minister in the de facto government of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh for less than four months before he was dismissed from the post in February.

  • Democracy Now ☛ Assassination on U.S. Soil: Orlando Letelier’s Son Seeks Justice for 1976 Bombing by Pinochet Regime

    As part of events marking the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-backed military coup in Chile that ousted democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende and led to the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, Chilean President Gabriel Boric visited Washington, D.C., Saturday to deliver a historic address. He spoke at the site where former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier was assassinated in 1976 by agents of the Pinochet dictatorship, along with his co-worker Ronni Moffitt. We feature excerpts from the address and speak with Letelier’s son, Juan Pablo Letelier, a former member of the Chilean House and Senate with the Socialist Party, about his father’s assassination and the Boric administration’s work toward redress for the families of victims of Pinochet’s regime.

  • Democracy Now ☛ Red Scare at the Smithsonian? Battle Brews over Portrayal of Latino History in Planned New Museum

    A political battle is brewing in Washington, D.C., over plans to build a National Museum of the American Latino and the portrayal of American Latino history. Last year, the Smithsonian Institution opened a temporary preview exhibition inside the National Museum of American History that has become the focus of controversy within the Latino community, as Republican lawmakers and others challenge what one conservative writer described in The Hill as an “unabashedly Marxist portrayal of history.” We speak to two historians who were hired to develop a now-shelved exhibit on the Latino civil rights movement of the 1960s for the museum. Felipe Hinojosa is a history professor at Baylor University in Texas, and Johanna Fernández is an associate professor of history at the City University of New York’s Baruch College. We discuss their vision for the first national museum dedicated to Latino history, which Hinojosa describes as “complex” and “nuanced,” and how conservative backlash has sought to stymie and rewrite their work. “These conservatives are using fear to essentially push through their agenda,” says Fernández, who warns that the rising wave of censorship throughout the U.S. could be a “repeat of the Red Scare.”

  • Democracy Now ☛ “Breaking Point”: Cities Struggle with Rise in Asylum Seekers; U.S. Foreign Policy Linked to Increase

    A sharp increase in the number of people attempting to cross into the United States is straining resources in border communities, as thousands of asylum seekers arrive at the southern U.S. border each day seeking safety from violence, conflict, extreme poverty and the impacts of the climate crisis. Congressmember Jesús “Chuy” García of Illinois says decades of U.S. military interventions, sanctions and the war on drugs “are all important factors” in what is driving the migration, particularly from South and Central America. “We need a system that responds both compassionately and responds to the root causes of why people come to this country,” he says. We also speak with Fernando García, founder and executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, who says the lack of leadership from the federal government is causing hardship along the border for both asylum seekers and local communities struggling to welcome the newcomers. “Nothing has been done — not by this administration, obviously, and much less from the previous administration. So we are seeing the same situations over and over,” he says.

  • Democracy Now ☛ Hispanic Heritage Month: Rep. Chuy García Remembers Pioneering Activists Rudy Lozano & Bert Corona

    As we mark Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States, Congressmember Jesús “Chuy” García says it’s important to celebrate the contributions of activists who fought racial and economic inequality. The Illinois Democrat is the first Mexican immigrant from the Midwest elected to Congress and recently delivered a speech on the House floor to mark the 40th anniversary of the killing of Chicago activist Rudy Lozano, whom García considered a friend and mentor. Lozano was murdered in 1983, after working to build multiracial support for the historic election of Chicago’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington. “Activists like Rudy Lozano … were responsible for movements that have empowered Latino, African American, Asian and other discriminated communities over a 40-year span,” says García. He also recalls the work of Bert Corona, who started the Mexican American labor organization CASA, which had nationwide chapters that served as organizing hubs and protested the Vietnam War.

  • Meduza ☛ Life along closed borders Armenian photographer Lilit Danielyan chronicles how the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh has transformed Armenian villages nearest to the country’s borders — Meduza

  • Meduza ☛ Ruben Vardanyan, former state minister of breakaway Artsakh Republic dismantled by Baku, arrested while trying to leave Nagorno-Karabakh — Meduza

  • The Straits Times ☛ US says North Korea release of soldier a 'one-off' and not 'breakthrough' in ties

    The United States said on Wednesday that it did not see any diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea over the return of US soldier Travis King, seeing the episode as isolated.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Crime in Hong Kong rises by 34.6% in first 8 months of 2023, security chief says, led by over 50% spike in fraud

    Hong Kong recorded 58,453 crime cases in the first eight months of this year, a 34.6 per cent increase compared with the same period last year. Violent crime also rose by 14 per cent to 6,495 cases, the city’s security minister has said.

  • France24 ☛ More than 100 dead, 150 injured in fire at Iraq wedding party

    More than 100 people were killed and 150 injured in a fire at a wedding party in Hamdaniya district in Iraq's Nineveh province that left civil defence searching the charred skeleton of a building for survivors into the early hours of Wednesday.

  • France24 ☛ More than 100 dead, scores injured in fire at Iraq wedding party

    More than 100 people were killed and 150 injured in a fire at a wedding party in Hamdaniya district in Iraq's Nineveh province that left civil defence searching the charred skeleton of a building for survivors into the early hours of Wednesday.

  • Off Guardian ☛ Major Victory for 9/11 Family: UK attorney general withdraws decision on application for new inquest

    We at the International Center for 9/11 Justice are very happy to announce — on behalf of the family of Geoff Campbell — that the decision by the attorney general for England and Wales to refuse the family’s application for a new inquest into Geoff’s murder on September 11, 2001, has been withdrawn.

  • RFA ☛ Huawei’s role in Indonesia raises ‘digital colonization’ concerns

    Tech company's interaction is part of China’s broader Belt and Road investment and infrastructure program

  • RFA ☛ Philippines to craft more assertive strategy for sea territories

    The military’s efforts would include strengthening naval presence in Manila-claimed South China Sea waters.

  • France24 ☛ 'I feel ashamed we haven't done a better job in Sudan,' says ICC chief prosecutor

    Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), spoke to FRANCE 24's Marc Perelman on the sidelines of the 78th UN General Assembly in New York. He discussed the ICC's investigation of alleged crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine, but also the situation in Sudan, where a new ICC probe was opened two months ago into alleged war crimes in the Darfur region.

  • LRT ☛ Lithuanian Navy sends radar equipment sets to Ukraine

    The Lithuanian Navy handed over radar equipment sets to the Ukrainian Navy on Tuesday.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • The Gray Zone ☛ Canada’s honoring of Nazi vet exposes Ottawa’s longstanding Ukraine policy

    • Meduza ☛ Ukrainian soldier tells CNN that Wagner Group has returned to Bakhmut — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ The Guardian: European components found in Iranian-made drones used by Russia to attack Ukraine — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Ukraine admits moving long-range missile production abroad – and taking missile warfare to Russia’s home territory — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Illuminations Ukrainian photographer Mykhaylo Palinchak documents the devastation that remains after Russia’s retreat from occupied parts of Ukraine — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Spitting in the face of the law’: Russian officials and public figures respond to the video of Kadyrov’s son beating a detained man — Meduza

    • France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: Several hundred Wagner fighters return to eastern Ukraine, Kyiv says

      Several hundred members of Russia’s Wagner private mercenary group have returned to eastern Ukraine to fight but are not having a significant impact on the battlefield, a Ukrainian military spokesperson said on Wednesday. Wagner fighters played an important role in Russia’s capture of the eastern city of Bakhmut in May but left Ukraine after a brief mutiny in June.

    • Latvia ☛ Former politician accused of hate crime goes missing

      Former Rīga City Council deputy Ruslans Pankratovs, who has been accused of acts aimed at causing national hatred and intolerance against Ukrainians, has vanished, LETA reported Tuesday September 26.

    • AntiWar ☛ A Rough Diplomatic Week for Ukraine

      In the early weeks of the war, a peace was still possible that would have seen Ukraine lose few lives and little to no land. Even the Donbas would have remained in Ukraine with autonomy under a still possible Minsk agreement. Only Crimea would have remained lost.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Ukraine’s counteroffensive is making real progress on the Crimean front

      Ukraine's escalating attacks in Crimea are steadily undermining Russia's invasion and are a reminder that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is not limited to the relatively static front lines of the war, writes Peter Dickinson.

    • LRT ☛ Latvia asks to report Russian war propaganda symbols on cars

      The letters “Z” and “V” that have become the symbols of Russia’s war in Ukraine have been largely eradicated from Latvia’s public space. But pro-Kremlin activists are still putting the stickers with these symbols on their cars, the Latvian public broadcaster LSM reports.

    • LRT ☛ Ukrainian soldier convicted in Lithuania’s Soviet crackdown case seeks release from liability

      Oleksandr Radkevich, a Ukrainian citizen convicted in absentia in the January 13, 1991, Soviet crackdown case, is asking the court to release him from criminal liability.

    • RFERL ☛ Bulgarian Parliament Approves Sending Antiaircraft Missiles To Ukraine

      Bulgaria's parliament approved on September 27 a decision to provide missiles for S-300 air-defense systems to Ukraine.

    • RFERL ☛ Imprisoned Father Of Russian Girl Who Drew Anti-War Picture Placed In Solitary Confinement Five Times

      A Russian man sentenced to two years in prison for discrediting Russia's army in April, after anti-war drawings by his 13-year-old daughter drew attention to his online posts about the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, has been placed in punitive solitary confinement five times since August.

    • RFERL ☛ Poll Shows Slovaks Split Ahead Of Elections With Ukraine In Spotlight

      Slovak opposition party Smer, led by former Prime Minister Robert Fico, holds a narrow lead over its liberal challenger ahead of weekend elections that have revealed stark dividing lines over whether the country should continue to support Ukraine or instead seek closer ties with Russia.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Court Rejects Appeal Of Ukrainian Activist From Crimea Against 15-Year Prison Term

      A military court in Russia has rejected an appeal filed by Ukrainian activist Bohdan Zyza from Russian-occupied Crimea against the 15-year prison term he was handed in June on terrorism charges, Zyza's sister, Oleksandra Barkova, said.

    • RFERL ☛ Polish Minister Says Talks With Ukraine On Track After Grain Import Ban

      Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus said on September 27 that talks with Ukraine were on track as the two countries try to resolve a dispute about a ban imposed by Warsaw on Polish grain imports.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine To Boycott All UEFA Tournaments With Russian Participation

      Ukrainian soccer teams will boycott all competitions featuring Russian sides, while Poland will refuse to play against teams from the country, their national federations said on September 27 following a decision by UEFA to lift a ban on Russia's youth teams.

    • RFERL ☛ Moscow Bars 23 British Nationals, Including Senior Admiral, From Entering Russia

      Russia's Foreign Ministry said on September 27 that it has banned 23 British nationals, including the chief of the Defense Staff, Admiral Tony Radakin, from entering Russia

    • RFERL ☛ Kherson Under 'Massive Shelling' As Cities In Southern Ukraine On Alert

      The southern Ukrainian city of Kherson again came under Russian shelling late on September 27 after Russian troops struck two businesses in the regional capital, local authorities said.

    • Spiegel ☛ A Ukrainian Couple Scarred by War: "I Could Sense that Alina Was There"

      Alina and Andriy got married in Kyiv in September 2019. When Russia invaded, Andriy volunteered to defend his country, and lost both arms and his sight. But the couple has found renewed purpose in life.

    • teleSUR ☛ US Senate Advances Short-Term Spending Bill Ahead of Shutdown

      The bill includes US$6.1 billion of aid for Ukraine and US$6 billion for domestic disaster relief.

    • New York Times ☛ Russia Releases New Videos of Viktor Sokolov, Admiral Ukraine Says It Killed

      Moscow, apparently intent on disproving Ukrainian assertions, released videos and comments from the commander of its Black Sea Fleet, Adm. Viktor Sokolov.

    • New York Times ☛ Russia Shares New Video of Black Sea Fleet Admiral Ukraine Claims to Have Killed

      The latest video, and comments published in Russian news outlets, appeared to be an effort by Moscow to end speculation over the admiral’s status.

    • teleSUR ☛ US and UK Coordinated Attack Against Black Sea Fleet: Russia

      Russian diplomat Zakharova said that Western intelligence services, NATO satellites, and spy planes were involved in the preparations.

    • New York Times ☛ Russia-Ukraine War: Ukraine’s Influence Increases in Disputed Black Sea Waters

      Several ships have sailed a new shipping corridor established to evade Russia’s de facto blockade. A military campaign has helped Ukraine gain some control, experts say.

    • New York Times ☛ Canada House Speaker Quits After Ukrainian Who Fought for Nazis Was Honored

      Anthony Rota, the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, introduced a 98-year-old veteran of an SS unit as a “hero” in front of Ukraine’s president.

    • Latvia ☛ Estonia also moves towards reviving 'Königsberg' and ditching 'Kaliningrad'

      Latvia's northern neighbor, Estonia, is in the process of joining Latvia, Lithuania and Poland by referring to Russia's Balic exclave of 'Kaliningrad' by one of its older names.

    • Latvia ☛ Latvian teams will refuse to play Russian teams at all levels of football

      The Latvian Football Federation (LFF) came out with a crystal-clear statement September 27 distancing itself from current efforts by the sport's European governing body, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), to move towards rehabilitating teams and players from aggressor state Russia.

    • Latvia ☛ Latvian police ask public to report provocative signs on cars

      The letters Z and V, as well as other openly supportive symbolism of Russian aggression, have mostly been eradicated from Latvia's public space. Instead, pro-kremlin activists are beginning to put stickers on cars spreading the same message in a slightly more hidden form, Latvian Television reported September 26.

    • France24 ☛ Western sanctions on Russian diamonds set to disrupt a global industry

      G7 experts are set to arrive in India on a fact-finding mission this week ahead of the expected announcement of a new embargo on importing Russian diamonds. An EU ban has also been under discussion for months – but imposing new regulations on the global diamond market is no easy feat.

    • France24 ☛ Two Russian cosmonauts, one US astronaut land back on Earth after ISS mission

      Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut landed back on Earth Wednesday after spending a year at the International Space Station (ISS), Russia’s Roscosmos space agency said.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuanian footballers won’t play against Russians after UEFA lifts ban

      The Lithuanian Football Federation (LFF) says Lithuanian footballers will not play against the Russians after the UEFA Executive Committee on Tuesday decided to reinstate Russia’s U17 teams to international competitions.

    • LRT ☛ Russia dismantling monuments to Lithuanian victims

      Russia has been unofficially but systematically dismantling monuments to Polish and Lithuanian victims of Soviet repressions, as well as to Finnish soldiers killed in the Second World War.

    • RFA ☛ North Korea orders diplomatic staff to donate $100 each for new subs

      Kim Jong Un toured Russian military facilities this month and came away with submarine envy.

    • RFERL ☛ Navalny Says He Will Be Transferred To Strictest Prison Cell For 12 Months

      Jailed Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny says he was informed a day after a court rejected his appeal against a 19-year sentence that he will be transferred to the strictest possible prison cell for one year.

    • YLE ☛ Russia's Åland consulate facing scrutiny as closure petition goes to parliament

      There have been previous efforts at the political level to close Russia's consulate in Åland.

    • RFERL ☛ Chief Editor Of Belarusian Newspaper Goes On Trial On Charge Of Discrediting Belarus

      A court in the city of Maladechna near Minsk began the trial of journalist Alyaksandr Mantsevich on September 27 amid an ongoing crackdown on independent journalists and democratic institutions.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • FAIR ☛ NPR Report on Depleted Uranium Shells for Ukraine Was a One-Source Dud

    Sometimes that is the case, but not this month, in its coverage of an announced decision by the Biden administration to further escalate the violence in Ukraine by supplying that country’s military with controversial depleted uranium (DU) anti-tank shells. Morning Edition (9/8/23) glossed over the reason many nations consider their use an atrocity. In fact, many commercial news organizations did a much better job in reporting in depth on this story.

  • New York Times ☛ ‘Unprecedented’ Secrecy in Google Trial as Tech Giants Push to Limit Disclosures

    Now as the case, U.S. et al. v. Google, enters its third week in court, it is shaping up to be perhaps the most secretive antitrust trial of the last few decades. Not only has Google argued for the landmark trial to be largely closed off to the public, but so have other companies that are involved, such as Apple and Microsoft. Apple even fought to quash subpoenas, describing them as “unduly burdensome,” to get its executives out of giving testimony.

• Environment

  • CBC ☛ Are we voting with our wallets to overheat the planet?

    But according to the IEA, an independent agency funded by governments through the OECD, inexpensive oil may not be what the future holds if governments fail to spend trillions of dollars more on clean energy technology.

    "Prolonged high [oil and gas] prices would result if the decline in fossil fuel investment in this scenario were to precede the expansion of clean energy and the action to cut overall energy demand," said the report.

    In other words, climate investment must come first or gas prices will spike.

  • teleSUR ☛ California Sues Major Oil Companies for Climate Risks

    The lawsuit is against Exxon, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, and the American Petroleum Institute.

  • Breach Media ☛ B.C.’s far right is turning the public against a conservation project

    With COVID-19 restrictions in the rearview mirror, far-right organizers are trying to stop climate actions like the Cowichan Estuary Restoration Project

  • New York Times ☛ Are Fossil Fuels the Next Cigarettes?

    California’s lawsuit against oil giants mirrors a legal strategy used in the 1990s against the tobacco industry.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • DeSmog ☛ Hydrogen Lobby Sets Sights On Labour Party

      Hydrogen lobbyists are targeting the Labour Party after betting on the opposition winning next year’s general election, DeSmog can reveal.

      Energy policy will be a major focus at the October conferences of both major parties, which fall weeks after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak dramatically announced plans to water down the UK’s green targets.

    • RFERL ☛ Binance, World's Largest Cryptocurrency Exchange Company, Quits Russian Market

      Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange company, said on September 27 it will sell all of its Russian operations to a newly established company.

• Finance

  • Latvia ☛ Rīga plans to close over 100 gambling rooms

    Riga City Council's Committee on Security, Order and Corruption Prevention on Wednesday, September 20, supported the cancellation of permits for 139 gambling room operated by eight companies outside Riga Historical Centre, Riga City Council said.

  • Techdirt ☛ AMC Defeats Liberty Tax Service Over Supposed Depiction In ‘Better Call Saul’

    A little over a year ago, Liberty Tax Service filed a trademark and defamation lawsuit against AMC. At issue was the depiction of a shady tax prep company run by con-men in the final season of the hit show Better Call Saul. In the show, the name of the tax prep company is “Sweet Liberty Tax”, run out of a trailer in the middle of the desert, with branding that included the use of the Statue of Liberty. Liberty Tax likewise uses Lady Liberty, typically by employing people to stand outside of its storefronts in costume, waving around signs to get people to come in for tax services. Liberty Tax claimed the show ripped off its name and branding, while also claiming that the negative connotation of the fictional tax company would either confuse the public into thinking that the real life company was itself shady, or that the company had some association with the depiction in the show.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Billionaire boss of Chinese property giant Evergrande held by police – report

    The billionaire boss of beleaguered Chinese property developer Evergrande is being held by police, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, as the debt-ridden company continues to grapple with severe financial troubles.

  • RFERL ☛ Iranian Misery Index Hits New High As Unemployment, Inflation Rise

    Iran's Misery Index, a calculation that combines unemployment and inflation rates, has risen to 60.4 percent, its highest point ever and more than double what it was six years ago.

  • WhichUK ☛ Inflation sees surprise fall to 6.7% - but will savings rates keep rising?

    A drop in food and accommodation costs helped slow the rate despite fuel price

    rises

  • New York Times ☛ U.K. Inflation Rate Slips Lower for Third Straight Month

    Prices rose at an annual rate of 6.7 percent in August. A rise in energy costs was offset by a slower increase in food prices.

  • Blizzard Entertainment lays off several Hearthstone developers

    Blizzard Entertainment has reportedly laid off several developers working on Hearthstone, amidst wider company changes.

  • Forbes ☛ 2023 Layoff Tracker: Snap Cuts 170 Employees

    Snapchat parent company Snap became the latest major company to conduct a round of layoffs this week, letting go of 170 employees, following major reductions this month at Cisco, Google and Roku as lingering recession fears persist (see Forbes’ layoff tracker from the first quarter here).

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • FSF ☛ Free Software Awards: Nominate those who inspire you by Nov 21

    Nominate someone today. The deadline for nominations is November 21 at 23:59 EST (04:59 UTC).

  • Silicon Angle ☛ OpenAI reportedly exploring share sale on an up to $90B valuation

    The Wall Street Journal reported today that the deal is expected to allow employees to sell their existing shares as opposed to the company issuing new shares to raise additional capital. People familiar with the discussions claim that OpenAI has begun pitching investors on the deal, telling them that it expects to reach $1 billion in revenue this year and many billions more in 2024.

  • Techdirt ☛ American Library Association Data Shows The Party Of Free Speech Is Doing More Than Ever To Silence Speech

    We’re increasingly at the mercy of bigots in this country. That’s an upsetting turn of events, considering our history, which includes a long list of enshrined rights as well as the assertion that all people are created equal.

  • Techdirt ☛ It’s Beyond Stupid That Robocallers And Lobbyists Have Made Our Voice Networks Almost Unusable

    It can’t be said often enough: it’s stunning that we’ve let scammers and scumbags hijack the nation’s top voice communications platform. And that we’ve let marketing and telecom industry lobbyists slowly degrade the authority of the one U.S. regulator capable of actually doing something about it.

  • JURIST ☛ Ghana dispatch: a three-day protest against government mismanagement and corruption ruffles a few feathers

    Lana Osei is a JURIST staff correspondent in Ghana and a recent graduate of the GIMPA (Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration) Faculty of Law. She files this dispatch from Accra.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Millions of files with potentially sensitive information exposed online, researchers say

    A survey by Censys found 314,000 distinct internet-connected devices and web servers with open directory listings.

  • IT Jungle ☛ Why You Should Be Concerned About the MGM ‘Vishing’ Attack

    Las Vegas casino giant MGM Resorts International has lost millions of dollars this month and suffered damage to its brand as a result of a high-profile ransomware attack that is still ongoing across several of its properties. The hackers that infiltrated MGM’s computer systems are said to have used a low-tech social engineering technique dubbed “vishing” that just about any company is susceptible to, including IBM i shops.

  • American Oversight ☛ American Oversight Files Open Meetings Lawsuit Against Speaker Vos’ Secret Impeachment Panel

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ Donald Trump’s Fantasy Self Worth

    Trump confessed, in a sworn deposition, that if he can't make objective reality match his own inflated self-worth, he's sure the Saudis will bail him out. 

  • France24 ☛ NY judge rules Trump and company committed fraud for years by inflating assets

    A New York judge found Donald Trump and his family business fraudulently inflated the value of his properties and other assets, in a major defeat for the former U.S. president that could severely hamper his ability to do business in the state.

  • teleSUR ☛ New York Judge Finds Trump Liable for Fraud

    In September last year,  New York's Attorney General Letitia James accused the former president of having inflated his net worth by as much as $2.23 billion in annual financial statements filed with several companies.

  • New York Times ☛ NY Judge Rules Trump Committed Fraud, Stripping Control of Key Properties

    The decision in a lawsuit that could go to trial next week is a major win for Attorney General Letitia James, who says former President Donald J. Trump overvalued his holdings by as much as $2.2 billion.

  • France24 ☛ New York judge finds Donald Trump and adult sons liable for fraud in civil case

    A New York judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss state Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of illegally inflating his assets and net worth, and ruled Trump and the Trump Organization are liable for fraud.

  • CS Monitor ☛ SCOTUS: Alabama districts must be redrawn to represent Black voters

    The Supreme Court rejected an Alabama plea to retain a Republican-drawn congressional map, allowing work to proceed on new districts with greater representation for Black voters. Redistricting lawsuits are pending in several other Southern states.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • New York Times ☛ E.U. Law Sets the Stage for a Clash Over Disinformation

      The law, the Digital Services Act, is intended to force social media giants to adopt new policies and practices to address accusations that they routinely host — and, through their algorithms, popularize — corrosive content. If the measure is successful, as officials and experts hope, its effects could extend far beyond Europe, changing company policies in the United States and elsewhere.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ EU says Elon Musk's X is biggest source of disinformation

      The social media network X, formerly known as Twitter, is the biggest source of fake news, a top European official said Tuesday.

      European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said that X, which is not a signatory to a European Union-wide code of conduct to crack down on fake news on social media platforms and advertising companies, has the "largest ratio of mis/disinformation posts."

      Jourova said at a press briefing about updates to the 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation that Elon Musk was not "off the hook" because his company had dropped out of the code of practice.

    • How is it that cancer quack Stanislaw Burzynski is still grifting in in 2023?

      I’m back. Unfortunately, real life in the form of work and a couple of other things intervened to keep me from delivering my usual Insolence. It’s time to start back up, and, unfortunately, I realize that I have to discuss Stanislaw Burzynski.

    • Techdirt ☛ 5th Circuit Decides To Rehear Jawboning Case Involving Disinfo Researchers, Realizes It Can’t Do That Yet, Changes Mind Hours Later

      We’ve been covering the multi-pronged ridiculousness around the Missouri/Louisiana “jawboning” cases, regarding whether or not the White House was overstepping the bounds of the 1st Amendment and pressuring private websites to moderate in a manner they deemed appropriate.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • EFF ☛ EFF, ACLU and 59 Other Organizations Demand Congress Protect Digital Privacy and Free Speech

    The STOP CSAM Act, as amended, would lead to censorship of First Amendment protected speech, including speech about reproductive health, sexual orientation and gender identity, and personal experiences related to gender, sex, and sexuality. Even today, without this bill, platforms regularly remove content that has vague ties to sex or sexuality for fear of liability. This would only increase if STOP CSAM incentivized apps and websites to exercise a heavier hand at content moderation.

  • The Nation ☛ Want to Know How Far-Reaching the Right-Wing Movement Against Free Expression in Schools Is?

    PEN America just released a new report that illuminates how far-reaching the right-wing movement against free expression in schools has become. Book bans increased by 33 percent during the 2022–23 school year, compared to 2021–22—which was already an exceptional year for literary censorship.

  • RFERL ☛ Prosecutors Seek Five Years In Prison In Retrial Of Protest Artist Krisevich

    Prosecutors asked the Tver district court in Moscow during the retrial of noted protest artist Pavel Krisevich to sentence the defendant to five years in prison over a so-called "suicide" performance in which he fired blanks from a pistol in Moscow's Red Square.

  • ACLU ☛ 10 Advocates on Why They Won’t Stand for Classroom Censorship

    Right now, educators across the country are welcoming a new class of learners. At the same time laws that censor teachers and stifle classroom conversations about race, gender, and sexuality are threatening our right to an inclusive education.

  • Twenty-seven detained for 'inciting hatred' and 'disseminating misleading information'

    There are social media account managers of three internet news portals among the 27 who were taken into custody in simultaneous operations carried out by the police in 13 provinces.

  • RFA ☛ Taiwanese businessman jailed over 'Go Hong Kong!' protest slogan

    Lee Meng-chu believes he was targeted to support the idea that foreign forces were behind protests.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China charges #MeToo advocate and labour activist for ‘inciting state subversion,’ supporters say

    China has formally indicted two activists for “inciting subversion of state power”, a group of supporters said Saturday, as the pair face trial after two years in detention.

  • RFA ☛ Feminist journalist Sophia Huang stands trial for subversion

    Rights groups call for the release of Huang and fellow labor activist Wang Jianbing after two years' detention.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • JURIST ☛ Journalist arrested following report on classified France military operation in Egypt

    French journalist Ariane Lavrilleux was arrested Tuesday by the French General Directorate of Internal Security (CGSI) following a complaint that her 2021 co-authored report on a French military operation in Egypt compromised national defense secrets.

  • Jailed Kurdish journalist denied musical instrument over "security" reasons

    Communication notes can be concealed inside the instrument, the prison administration said.

  • The Dissenter ☛ Australian, Latin American Leaders Demand End To Assange Prosecution During US Trips

  • FAIR ☛ Police Seek a Radio Silence That Would Mute Critics in the Press

    But police scanners are wonderful tools for journalists covering not just crime, but police as an institution of power, especially in their relationship to social justice movements. For example, during Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter uprisings in New York City, the citywide police channels offered play-by-play, block-by-block and arrest-by-arrest narratives of nightly confrontations. But this also gave reporters key insights into general police tactics and strategies.

  • NL Times ☛ Shell no longer allowing journalists to participate in financial presentations

    Shell will no longer give press conferences when presenting its annual and quarterly results. Only financial analysts will be allowed at the presentation of the oil and gas giant’s third-quarter results and future presentations. Journalists will be allowed to call in and listen but not ask questions, Financieele Dagblad reports.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Race to buy The Telegraph: Who are the latest runners and riders?

    Several well-known media figures have expressed an interest in taking part in the auction for the media brands, including bosses behind the Daily Mail, GB News and The News Movement – as well as The Telegraph’s most recent owners themselves.

    The starting gun was fired in June when Lloyds Banking Group seized The Telegraph and The Spectator from the Barclay family, who owed around £1bn in outstanding debt.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • RFA ☛ Returning Tibetans see a changing homeland

    For the government, that is doubtless the point. Under leader Xi Jinping, China has applied harsh tactics to promote party ideology over local traditions, cultures and religious practices. In the Tibet Autonomous Region and the southwestern Chinese provinces where many Tibetans live, that has meant prohibiting photographs of the Dalai Lama, pressuring monks to denounce the spiritual leader, and restricting communications with people outside of the area.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ The Militancy of the UAW Strike Forced Joe Biden to Take a Side and Walk the Picket Line

    Today Joe Biden became the first sitting US president to walk a picket line when he joined striking autoworkers. It says less about him than it does the electrifying effects of the strike — forcing politicians, and everyone else, to side with either workers or CEOs.

  • Democracy Now ☛ Making History, Biden Joins UAW Picket Line & Calls on Big 3 to Give Autoworkers “Significant Raise”

    In a historic show of support for striking autoworkers, President Biden became the first sitting U.S. president to join a picket line Tuesday when he joined UAW members outside a General Motors facility in Wayne, Michigan. The American Prospect's executive editor David Dayen says the Biden administration's support for the union is a big shift from how the Democratic Party has treated organized labor in recent decades. “The mentality of the Obama administration and the Biden administration, as far as it relates to worker power, couldn’t be more stark,” he says. The union launched a strike against the Big Three manufacturers — Ford, GM and Stellantis, parent company of Chrysler — earlier this month in a bid to raise pay and benefits amid record profits for the companies. There are now 18,000 workers on strike at 41 facilities across 21 states, and UAW President Shawn Fain has threatened to keep expanding the strike if needed. Dayen recently went to a picket line in Ontario, California, and reported that striking workers have twice had guns pulled on them by nonunion truckers seeking to use a distribution center to move auto parts to dealers.

  • Papers Please ☛ Broader challenge to Federal blacklists filed in Boston

    In a nationally-significant lawsuit, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has filed the most comprehensive challenge  to date to the US government’s system of arbitrary and extrajudicial blacklists (“watchlists”) used to stigmatize and impose sanctions on innocent people — almost all of them Muslim — without notice, trial, conviction, or any opportunity, even after the fact, to see or contest the allegations or evidence (if any) against them.

    The lawsuit, Khairullah et al. v. Garland et al., was filed last week in Federal District Court in Boston on behalf of twelve Muslims from Massachusetts and other states who have been stopped, prevented from traveling to, from, or within the US by air, harassed, delayed, interrogated, threatened, strip-searched, had all the data on their electronic devices copied, detained at gunpoint, denied permits, and had banking and money-transfer accounts summarily and irrevocably closed, among other adverse consequences:

    The complaint includes a depressingly thorough, detailed, and diverse litany of incidents of interference with normal life, especially with normal travel.

  • The Nation ☛ Brotherhood and Solidarity

  • The Nation ☛ The Immortal Life of Dr. Roland Pattillo

    Recently I had a strange dream. I was introducing my late mother’s Milwaukee oncologist to someone I can’t remember.

  • The Nation ☛ A Federal Judge Declares DACA Illegal Again

  • Meduza ☛ Women prisoners in Russia’s Primorsky Krai had their heads forcibly shaved, those who resisted were beaten — Meduza

  • Meduza ☛ Man arrested after picketing in support of prisoner who was beaten by Ramzan Kadyrov’s son — Meduza

  • Meduza ☛ Easy wins for Adam Ramzan Kadyrov’s youngest son has competed in MMA championships since he was eight, and not a single judge has dared let him lose — Meduza

  • France24 ☛ Hollywood writers end strike after guild approves deal with studios

    Leaders of the screenwriters union declared their nearly five-month-old strike over Tuesday after board members approved a contract agreement with studios, bringing Hollywood at least partly back from a historic halt in production.

  • Vice Media Group ☛ The Hollywood Writers' Strike Is Over and Yes, Studios Can Use AI

    The tentative agreement states that studios can present AI-generated material to writers, but it will not affect their pay or credit.

  • New York Times ☛ The Magic Number: 32 Hours a Week

    Striking autoworkers are demanding an end to the 40-hour week. It’s a change that would be good for everyone else, too.

  • University of Michigan ☛ From The Daily: What the UAW strike means for college students

    The United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America are making history. For the first time ever, UAW struck against the “Big Three” automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — at the same time.

  • RFA ☛ Authorities arrest Tibetan man twice for possessing Dalai Lama photo

    He was sentenced to 2 years in a prison in China’s Sichuan province.

  • Federal News Network ☛ FBI is investigating alleged abuse in Baton Rouge police warehouse known as the ‘Brave Cave’

    The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation into claims in recent lawsuits that Baton Rouge police assaulted and strip-searched drug suspects they detained in an obscure warehouse known as the “Brave Cave.” Since the first complaint was filed last month, the city’s mayor has ordered the facility closed, the police department has disbanded its street crimes unit and an officer at the center of the allegations — the son of a current deputy chief — resigned and was arrested on a simple battery charge. The police chief told AP: "I promise you we will get to the bottom of this.”

  • RFA ☛ US blacklists three more firms for Uyghur slave labor

    State Department also releases an addendum to its business advisory for China’s far-west Xinjiang region.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • New York Times ☛ Biden Administration Plans to Bring Back ‘Net Neutrality’ Rules

    The earlier open [Internet] rules, known as net neutrality, prohibited broadband internet suppliers — telecommunications and cable companies — from blocking or slowing online services. It also banned the broadband companies from charging some content providers higher prices for priority treatment, or “fast lanes” on the [Internet].

  • Techdirt ☛ Bloomberg Lazily Helps Telecom Lobby Seed The Press With Bullshit Claims About Net Neutrality

    With the Biden FCC now having a voting majority, the telecom industry is clearly worried about the agency’s plans to restore popular net neutrality rules stripped away by the Trump administration.

  • Techdirt ☛ Biden FCC Prepares To ‘Restore Net Neutrality,’ But The Details Will Matter

    Hey, remember when a bunch of unpopular broadband monopolies convinced a corrupt reality TV star to dismantle most oversight of their very broken industry? And remember how to accomplish this companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast spread endless lies about what was actually happening, going so far as to use fake and even dead people to try and pretend the idea was broadly popular?

  • APNIC ☛ Extended DNS Errors: Unlocking the Full Potential of DNS Troubleshooting

    Guest Post: A study of the implementation and deployment of RFC 8914 Extended DNS Error (EDE) codes.

  • New York Times ☛ Biden Administration Plans to Bring Back ‘Net Neutrality’ Rules

    The head of the Federal Communications Commission said the government needed to protect open access to the “essential infrastructure of modern life.”

  • Scoop News Group ☛ How the Cult of the Dead Cow plans to save the internet

    The "original hacking supergroup" is trying to design tools to rebuild the internet from the ground up.

  • New York Times ☛ Billions to Connect Everyone to High-Speed Internet Could Still Fall Short

    President Biden has promised to provide every American access to reliable high-speed internet. But some have raised concerns about whether the funds will achieve all of the administration’s goals.

• Monopolies

  • New York Times ☛ Here Are the 2 Tactics Amazon Used to Undermine Competition, the F.T.C. Says

    The F.T.C. said that selling on Amazon is so critical for sellers that they end discounts on other sites to regain the Buy Box on Amazon. That raises prices for consumers, the commission said, and makes it harder for other sites to compete on price.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ US sues Amazon for running 'illegal monopoly'

    The FTC released a statement reading: "Amazon's actions allow it to stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing against Amazon."

  • IT Wire ☛ FTC, 17 US states sues Amazon over alleged monopoly behaviour

    The US Federal Trade Commission and the top lawyers in 17 states have sued Amazon over alleged anti-competitive behaviour, seeking a permanent order on preventing the company from acting in this way.

  • New York Times ☛ FTC Says Amazon Used These Tactics to Undermine Competition

    In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission said the internet giant used its monopoly power to stifle competition and raise prices.

  • New York Times ☛ For Amazon’s Andy Jassy, a Cleanup Job Just Got a Lot Bigger

    The F.T.C. accused the internet giant of protecting an online retail monopoly and forcing higher prices onto consumers.

  • New York Times ☛ Top Apple Executive Defends Favoring Google on iPhones

    Apple’s top deal maker on Tuesday defended his company’s favoritism of Google on iPhones, a pivotal collaboration that has shaped the modern tech industry and is at the center of a federal antitrust trial against the search giant.

    Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, testified in Washington that Google’s placement as the default search option on the Safari browser across Apple devices was motivated by quality.

  • Digital Music News ☛ FTC Sues Amazon Over Alleged Monopolistic Business Practices — What Does This Mean for Amazon Music?

    The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 17 state attorneys general are officially suing the Twitch, Amazon Music, and Amp owner Amazon over alleged monopolistic and anticompetitive business practices.

  • CCIA ☛ FTC’s Market Definition in Amazon Case Raises the Question: Is this about Competition or Competitors?

    This week the FTC announced its long-anticipated lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that Amazon prevents “rivals from fairly competing”...

  • The Kent Stater ☛ US government and 17 states sue Amazon in landmark monopoly case

    The US government and 17 states are suing Amazon in a landmark monopoly case reflecting years of allegations that the e-commerce giant abused its economic dominance and harmed fair competition.

  • Public Knowledge ☛ FTC Antitrust Suit Against Amazon Highlights Gatekeeper Power

    Today, the Federal Trade Commission and a bipartisan group of 17 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon. The suit focuses on how Amazon has illegally maintained its monopoly in the online superstore market.

  • Reason ☛ FTC Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Amazon

    Among the allegations, the agency charges that Amazon Prime subscribers are incentivized to make the most of their subscription by buying more products.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Consumers rely on Amazon. So why did the FTC file an antitrust suit?

    In Washington state, Amazon is facing an antitrust lawsuit. The FTC and 17 state attorneys general are asking the court to issue a permanent injunction to prohibit Amazon from engaging in its alleged unlawful conduct and restore marketplace competition.

  • IT Wire ☛ FTC, 17 US states sue Amazon over alleged monopoly behaviour

    The US Federal Trade Commission and the top lawyers in 17 states have sued Amazon over alleged anti-competitive behaviour, seeking a permanent order on preventing the company from acting in this way.

  • Patents

    • Tedium ☛ Next-Gen Roadblock

      A patent holder successfully gets one of the biggest advocates of next-gen television to retreat, and other companies could be next.

    • JUVE ☛ Orange and Nokia fend off Assia infringement claims over DSL technology [Ed: And yet more fake patents from the EPO: "found EP 2 187 558 invalid..."]

      After three years of being involved in a dispute over internet infrastructure software, Orange and Nokia have successfully defended claims from US-based company Assia at the Judicial Court of Paris. The court has determined that the two companies did not infringe Assia patent EP 2 259 495, and also found EP 2 187 558 invalid...

    • Unified Patents ☛ Empire IP entity, Fleet Connect, wireless patent challenged

      On September 22, 2023, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 7,058,040, owned and asserted by Fleet Connect Solutions, LLC, an NPE and entity of Empire IP. The ‘040 patent generally relates to minimizing RF channel interference in a device where two RF standards operate in the same frequency bands.

  • Trademarks

    • TTAB Blog ☛ TTABlog Test: Are Mugs, Pastries, and Coffee Shops Related to Tote Bags and Shirts for Section 2(d) Purposes?

      The USPTO refused to register the mark FRANKIE ROSE for "Cups and mugs" in International Class 21, "Pastries; Sandwiches; Coffee beans; Ground coffee beans," in International Class 30, "Online retail store services featuring coffee featuring in-store order pickup, in International Class 35; and"Catering services; Coffee shops, in International Class 43, finding confusion likely with the identical mark registered for "tote bags" in International Class 18 and "shirts" in International Class 25. Applicant argued that its goods and services “are all related to food and beverage items” while Registrant’s goods are “ancillary goods to [Registrant’s] cosmetics products.” How do you think this came out? In re AVR Realty Company, LLC, Serial No. 90699970 (September 25, 2023) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Robert H. Coggins).

  • Copyrights

    • Public Domain Review ☛ Free Speech and Bad Meats: The Domestic Labour of Reading in Milton’s Areopagitica

      Does a healthy intellectual culture resemble a battlefield or a kitchen? Revisiting Milton’s Areopagitica, a tract often championed by today’s free speech absolutists, Katie Kadue finds a debt to the work of early modern housewives. In their labours to preserve food and transform it into wholesome cuisine, Milton saw an analogue for how the reading public might digest books — good and bad alike — into nourishing ideas.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Man Faces Prison Sentence for Reselling Hacked Streaming Service Accounts

      Danish authorities have charged a man for reselling 500,000 hacked accounts obtained from a data leak, including user credentials for online streaming services. The 29-year-old faces a potential prison sentence. While piracy and hacking are no solution, a survey conducted by the major streaming services themselves shows that affordability is of key importance to most subscribers.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Russia's Manga Pirates Face Publisher's Lawsuit & Increasing State Censorship

      After failing to take action following complaints from a new manga platform established in Russia by South Korea, manga piracy site ReManga will reportedly face legal action. With around 18 million visits each month, ReManga is certainly popular, but copyright lawsuits aren't the only threat. Rising state censorship means that illegal and legal platforms alike face potential ISP blocking.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Filmmakers Distribute Fake Movie Leak to Tease Pirates

      The Indian media is buzzing over a 'leak' of the comedy movie "Fukrey 3," which is scheduled for an official premiere later this week. While several news outlets are in on the joke, prospective pirates will be disappointed. The two-and-a-half hour release turns out to be an anti-piracy campaign, complemented with movie trailers.

    • Creative Commons ☛ Explore the 2023 CC Global Summit Program

      The CC Global Summit is now just one week away! As we make the final preparations for this first opportunity to gather in person at a Summit in several years, we are excited to unveil the program that will take place 3–6 October in Mexico City. Since 2006, the CC Global Summit has brought together thousands of CC community members, activists, creators, advocates, librarians, educators, lawyers, and technologists from around the world to discuss, collaborate, and take action to make our global culture more open and collaborative.

    • Creative Commons ☛ Christy Henshaw — Open Culture VOICES, Season 2 Episode 26

      Open Culture VOICES is a series of short videos that highlight the benefits and barriers of open culture as well as inspiration and advice on the subject of opening up cultural heritage. Christy is the Digital Production Manager at the Wellcome Collection which is a museum and library that is part of the Wellcome Trust, one of the largest trusts in the world dedicated to improving health outcomes globally. The Wellcome Collection has made 300,000 pieces from the collection available online, including procedures and software through Github repositories.

    • Walled Culture ☛ Publisher wants $2,500 to allow academics to post their own manuscript to their own repository

      My Berlin talk concluded with a call to action under the slogan “Zero Embargo Now” (ZEN). Back then, I looked forward to a world where all academic papers would routinely be available under green OA immediately, without any embargo. I’m still waiting.