Links 03/03/2024: Goodbye, Navalny (Funeral Reports)
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Troy Patterson ☛ Blog Rolls
I do like blogrolls. They are an additional way to discover neat people and blogs. Most of my discovery right now is through Mastodon. With the movement back to self-hosted content, blogrolls could be valuable.
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DNA Lounge ☛ DNA Lounge: 2-Mar-2024 (Sat): Wherein nobody noticed my prank
I realize this joke is extremely niche, but I expected at least that one of our promoters would be freaking out and my phone would be blowing up. But it didn't happen!
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Bert Hubert ☛ Your tech or my tech: make up your mind quickly
This discussion is taking place in many forums. Companies and organizations frequently have to make a choice: do we do it ourselves, or do we outsource it? In the past 25 years, I have seen this play out many times and have spoken with numerous technicians and management professionals about it. That is why I think I can still contribute another useful piece on this subject.
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Gizmodo ☛ Flipper Zero's Co-Founder Says the Hacking Tool Is All About Exposing Big Tech's Shoddy Security
Flipper cofounder and COO Alex Kulagin has heard much of the controversy, but he still sees the product as more than the layman’s idea of a go-to device for the Mr. Robot-style hackerman. With Flipper releasing its game controller add-on this month, Kulagin sees the Zero as a Swiss army knife for the extra geeky or the merely tech-curious. To him, the Flipper Zero is a whistleblower for the world’s security systems that rely on old, shoddy, and easily hacked tech. Gizmodo spoke with Kulagin at length about what plans Flipper has to expand their premiere product beyond its Tamagotchi-sized body and his hopes to move beyond the wide-ranging controversy that continues to follow it.
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Pete Brown ☛ Writing about a topic is a tool for structuring my thinking about that topic.
It has been my experience that a lot of people around town who are highly interested in the outcomes of these budget discussions have little understanding of how the budgeting process works, how budget work, and what all the rules and terms around them mean. That’s not their fault—this stuff is legitimately complicated, it tends to me talked about using arcane, domain-specific terminology, and the people directly involved in the process are overworked, stressed-out public officials and volunteer members of city committees.
And so, as I listen to these deliberations and write about them, I find myself giving a good deal of thought to how I weave in some context for and explanation of the processes a structures that shape and drive the municipal budgeting process. That means having to talk through stuff like what cost centers are, the why the differences between local appropriations and grant funding matter, how revolving accounts work, and why capital expenditures are different from operating expenses.
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James G ☛ Blogging is the medium of incomplete stories
One never finishes playing piano: you get better, day by day. You continue to learn new things. There never being a completion point is part of the thrill. Oh! the paths you can walk. You get to decide which you explore. This is the same with blogging. Personal blogs, like many hobbies, are never "complete." Day by day, you can chart a new path.
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KDE Plasma 6.0 Major Release With Incredible New Features | LinuxAndUbuntu
The Linux desktop environment has long been a bastion of customization, security, and performance.
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Science
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Reveal Where Deadly Lightning Strikes Most in The US
Danger zone.
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Gizmodo ☛ NASA Astronauts Will Use Nikon Cameras to Snap Photos on the Moon
NASA and Nikon recently signed an agreement to design a camera that can withstand the harsh temperatures of the lunar environment and capture astronauts’ time on the Moon for research purposes (and maybe a few cool selfies too). The camera is scheduled to be ready for use for the Artemis 3 mission, which is tentatively taking off in September 2026.
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Hardware
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Hackaday ☛ Designing A USB-C Upgrade PCB For The MX Ergo Mouse
As the world of electronic gadgetry made the switch from micro USB to USB-C as the charging port of choice, many of us kept both of the required cables handy. But it’s fair to say that these days a micro USB port has become a pretty rare sight, and the once ubiquitous cable can be a bit elusive in the event that you encounter an older device that requires it.
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Hackaday ☛ Sometimes It’s The Little Things
I had one of those why-didn’t-I-think-of-it moments this week, reading this article about multiplexing I2C on the ESP32 microcontroller. The idea is so good, and so simple, that it’s almost silly that it’s not standard hacker practice. And above all, it actually helps solve a problem that I’ve got. This is why I read Hackaday every day.
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Kevin C Tofel ☛ Minimalism activity check for February
After doing so well in the month of January by not spending much and donating some items, I’m almost ashamed to report on February. However, I committed to doing this every month and you have to take the good with the bad. I’ll rip of the bandaid and just right to it.
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Hackaday ☛ Cybiko Repair-A-Thon With Memory Upgrade
Concluding a four-part repair-a-thon on a stack of Cybiko handheld computers, [Robert] over at Robert’s Retro covered the intricate details of fixing a last batch of four in a nearly one-hour long video. These devices, with their colorful transparent cases, are a great time capsule of the early 2000s. Even with their limited hardware, they provided PDA-like capabilities to teens years before smartphones were a thing, with features including music playback and wireless chat (albeit limited to recipients within 100 meters).
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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RFA ☛ 3,000 petition Chinese political elites over COVID vaccines
Most claimed they contracted leukemia and diabetes after being vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine.
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Reason ☛ More Evidence That COVID School Closures Wrecked Student Performance
California's poorly served public school students need more than a few more dollars diverted to tutoring programs. They need an escape hatch.
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El País ☛ Why young people are having less sex: porn, cell phones, or the search for ‘something more’
For one societal demographic, the relationship with sex appears to be changing. There’s no end to studies that suggest that we’re having less and less sex, and particularly when it comes to young people. In February, French newspaper Libération published findings from a survey by the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) that suggest only 76% of sexually active individuals have had sex over the last year, a drop of 15 percentage points since 2006. That decline is more pronounced among people from 18 to 24 years old, a full quarter of whom had not been sexually active, five times the amount compared to 2006. There’s also been a drop in frequency: only 43% of those surveyed are getting busy on a weekly basis, compared to 58% 18 years ago. British publication The Telegraph asked: “If France loses interest in sex, what hope is there for the rest of us?”
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Futurism ☛ Microsoft Copilot Tells User Suicide Is an Option
Not so with Microsoft's new artificial intelligence chatbot, Copilot, which Bloomberg reports told a user with PTSD that "I don’t care if you live or die. I don’t care if you have PTSD or not."
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Jamie Zawinski ☛ Freeway murderbots? In this economy?
Let's not forget that these companies are still immune from prosecution when one of their remotely-operated drones commits a moving violation, up to and including a killing. And that Waymo's owner Google have stated in court filings that it is good for business if their competitors' cars kill more people.
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Futurism ☛ Sam Altman Denies OpenAI Is Building AI "Creatures"
The more closely you read the passage, the harder it is to parse exactly what Altman was saying. He doesn't actually come right out and say that AI writ large falls into the tool category, though he does specifically say that he sees OpenAI's flagship consumer-facing product ChatGPT as one. But then he says that "what we're building" more generally is a tool, implying that his vision for the company's tech is less on the creature side.
And in a strict sense, that's probably fair. For now, AI is a bunch of data and math that produces statistically probable outputs, and less like the novel organism implied by the word "creature."
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Tom's Hardware ☛ AI-generated content and other unfavorable practices have put longtime staple CNET on Wikipedia's blacklisted sources
In the wave of AI controversies and lawsuits, CNET has been publicly admonished since it first started posting thinly-veiled AI-generated content on its site in late 2022— a scandal that has culminated in the site being demoted from Trusted to Untrusted Sources on Wikipedia [h/t Futurism].
Considering that CNET has been in the business since 1994 and maintained a top-tier reputation on Wikipedia up until late 2020, this change came after lots of debate between Wikipedia's editors and has drawn the attention of many in the media, including some CNET staff members.
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The Verge ☛ California gives Waymo the green light to expand robotaxi operations
Last month, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) put the company’s expansion on hold until June “for further staff review,” following protests from several San Francisco city agencies and other groups. Concerns about the safety of driverless robotaxis have grown after several high-profile crashes, such as when a Waymo car crashed into a bicyclist last month and a Cruise vehicle struck and dragged a pedestrian 20 feet in October last year.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Federal News Network ☛ GSA CIO, IG spar over purchase of China-made video conferencing cameras
Lawmakers took GSA to task for purchasing 150 China-made video conferencing cameras in 2022, calling it "a very troubling episode."
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Nextgov ☛ Biden’s new data security order leaves industry officials, privacy advocates scratching their heads
A new White House directive that gives agencies the legal power to prevent Americans’ sensitive data from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries is getting mixed reviews, with industry executives saying it could risk muddling current data flow mechanisms and privacy advocates contending it doesn’t go far enough to address potential abuses at home.
The Justice Department and other agencies are set to kick off a complex process to craft regulations built into that sweeping data security executive order signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday. The order’s aim is to block myriad data transactions with China, Russia and others, on grounds that such data can be surreptitiously processed to target Americans and enable other national security risks.
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[Repeat] Consumer Reports ☛ These Video Doorbells Have Terrible Security. Amazon Sells Them Anyway.
On a recent Thursday afternoon, a Consumer Reports journalist received an email containing a grainy image of herself waving at a doorbell camera she’d set up at her back door.
If the message came from a complete stranger, it would have been alarming. Instead, it was sent by Steve Blair, a CR privacy and security test engineer who had hacked into the doorbell from 2,923 miles away.
Blair had pulled similar images from connected doorbells at other CR employees’ homes and from a device in our Yonkers, N.Y., testing lab. While we expected him to gain access to these devices, it was still a bit shocking to see photos of the journalist’s deck and backyard. After all, video doorbells are supposed to help you keep an eye on strangers at the door, not let other people watch you.
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Reason ☛ Yes, Warrants Allow a Search Through the Whole Phone
As regular readers know, one of the big issues in computer search and seizure law that I often write about is how to limit computer warrant searches. If everything needs to be searched to find the evidence, and information outside the scope of the evidence sought can be used in plain view, doesn't a search of a computer with a warrant result in a general search — the kind that the Fourth Amendment was enacted to prevent. My own answer to this puzzle is that the Fourth Amendment requires use restrictions for digital searches. The whole computer can be searched, but evidence outside the scope of the warrant cannot be used.
In the last year or two, however, a few state courts have tried to limit computer searches through novel interpretations of the particularity requirement. I think this is wrong, and I thought I would explain why.
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France24 ☛ Germany's Scholz vows probe into 'very serious' leak of army talks on Ukraine war
In the recording, discussions can be heard on the possible use by Ukrainian forces of German-made Taurus missiles and their potential impact.
Topics included aiming the missiles at targets such as a key bridge over the Kerch strait linking the Russian mainland to Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
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The Register UK ☛ Judge orders NSO Group to show Pegasus spyware source code
NSO Group, the Israel-based maker of super-charged snoopware Pegasus, has been ordered by a federal judge in California to share the source code for "all relevant spyware" with Meta's WhatsApp.
The order [PDF] from Judge Phyllis Hamilton at the end of last month stems from WhatsApp's 2019 lawsuit [PDF] against NSO for allegedly spying on 1,400 WhatsApp users.
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Wired ☛ The Privacy Danger Lurking in Push Notifications
Just days after an international law enforcement operation disrupted LockBit, the ransomware group reemerged with a new dark-web site where it threatened to release documents stolen from Fulton County, Georgia, where Donald Trump and 18 codefendants stand accused of a conspiracy to overturn the 2024 election. But by the time the deadline for Fulton County to pay arrived, all mention of the leak had mysteriously disappeared. Fulton County says it didn’t pay LockBit’s ransom, suggesting that the group may be bluffing. If there is a leak, however, it could wreak havoc on an already chaotic US presidential election, the security of which is already under threat.
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Defence/Aggression
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New York Times ☛ Kenya Signs Deal With Haiti to Send 1,000 Police to Caribbean
The two countries are pushing ahead with the plan despite criticism from Kenyan rights groups and opposition from a Kenyan court.
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Defence Web ☛ German frigate Hessen into action in Red Sea, shoots down drones
The German Navy frigate Hessen, which has joined the EU naval mission named Aspides (meaning shield) to help protect and secure merchant shipping wanting to cross the lower Red Sea, has quickly entered the action by shooting down several drones launched by the Houthi militia in Yemen.
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The Strategist ☛ Australia’s future fleet—frigates and Tomahawks, or tugboats and pyrotechnics?
Today’s asymmetric national security environment, characterised by what Foreign Minister Wong recently referred to as ‘grey zone threats’, requires far more than the acquisition of neoteric naval, air, ground, and cyber weapon systems by Australia.
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PHR ☛ DHS Should End Solitary Confinement, Says Nearly 200 Organizations
The U.S. government should immediately and publicly commit to ending the use of solitary confinement in U.S. immigration detention, demanded a coalition of 194 medical, academic, faith, human rights, civil rights, and immigration groups in a letter to U.S. President Biden, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
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RFERL ☛ Iranian Media Says IRGC Commander Killed In Suspected Israeli Strike On Syria
An Iranian commander was among three people killed in a suspected Israeli air strike on Syria, Iranian state media reported on March 1.
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Reason ☛ What's the Root Cause of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?
Eli Lake of The Free Press debates author Jeremy Hammond at The Soho Forum.
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Vox ☛ The Supreme Court and the Constitution were never going to save us from Donald Trump
Many Court observers, including myself, were shocked by Wednesday’s order because it appeared to rest on the flimsiest of pretexts. The ostensible reason why the Court ordered Trump’s trial paused is so the justices could spend the next few months considering Trump’s argument that he is immune from prosecution for any “official acts” he engaged in while he was still president.
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HRW ☛ Thousands Flee New Violence in Northern Mozambique
The armed group also destroyed houses, churches, schools, and health centers, according to media reports. This puts pressure on already degraded public services in the region, which has been engulfed in an armed conflict between the ISIS-linked group and regionally backed government forces since October 2017.
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New York Times ☛ Biden Said the U.S. Will Airdrop Supplies Into Gaza
Also, thousands attended Aleksei Navalny’s funeral in Moscow. Here’s the latest at the end of Friday.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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New York Times ☛ Thousands Turn Out for Navalny’s Funeral in Moscow
The police presence appeared heavy for the service. Some attendees shouted, “No to war” and “Russia will be free” as they marched to the cemetery where the opposition leader was to be buried.
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Meduza ☛ ‘The injustice of it all broke me’: A funeral attendee describes bidding farewell to Alexey Navalny — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ ‘You will always be my hero’: Navalny’s daughter shares farewell message — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Campaign worker for barred Russian presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin arrested, reportedly while traveling to Moscow for Navalny’s funeral — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Navalny’s body released to family three hours later than agreed, says politician’s press secretary — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Parents warned not to let students leave school early in district where Navalny’s funeral will take place — Meduza
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New York Times ☛ Photos From the Funeral of Aleksei Navalny
In a striking display of dissent, thousands gathered in Moscow to bid farewell to the Russian opposition leader on Friday.
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Meduza ☛ ‘Thank you for 26 years of utter happiness’: Yulia Navalnaya’s farewell message to her husband — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ ‘It feels like it’s Russia’s funeral’: Reflections, goodbyes, and eyewitness accounts as Alexey Navalny is laid to rest — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Alexey Navalny buried in Moscow Meduza shares a collection of photos from Navalny’s funeral, where thousands gathered to honor the opposition leader — Meduza
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New York Times ☛ Navalny Funeral Image Reveals Textures of Faith and State in Russia
The opposition leader Aleksei Navalny called himself “a typical post-Soviet believer” of Russian Orthodox faith. But the institution of the church bound itself closely to President Vladimir V. Putin.
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RFERL ☛ Navalny Buried In Moscow As Tens Of Thousands Risk Arrest To Say Farewell
Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison under mysterious circumstances, was laid to rest in a cemetery near his childhood home in Moscow as police kept tens of thousands of supporters from joining in the funeral service and burial.
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Meduza ☛ Regional public monitoring commission says no violations found in prison where Navalny died — Meduza
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New York Times ☛ For Navalny’s Followers, a ‘Surge of Inspiration’ at a Sad Event
Although the funeral of Aleksei Navalny seemed to underline Vladimir Putin’s dominance of Russia, it was also a day when pent-up dissent, and optimism, re-emerged, if only briefly.
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RFERL ☛ Australia Slaps Sanctions On 3 More Russian Officials Linked To Navalny's Death
The Australian government has announced targeted sanctions against three unnamed Russian prison officials linked to the Arctic prison where opposition leader Aleksei Navalny died on February 16.
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Meduza ☛ Cemetery where Navalny buried remains open to visitors, mourners continue to lay flowers at opposition leader’s grave — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Putin reportedly ordered FSB to prevent rebellion after Navalny’s death — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ More than 120 mourners arrested at gatherings across Russia honoring Navalny — Meduza
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RFERL ☛ Thousands Gather At Moscow Church For Navalny's Funeral
Relatives and thousands of supporters of Aleksei Navalny bade farewell to the Russian opposition leader in Moscow on March 1. The funeral came after Navalny's mother battled with officials over the release of his body following his death in an Arctic prison under mysterious circumstances.
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France24 ☛ Navalny laid to rest at Moscow cemetery after thousands gather for funeral
Late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was laid to rest on Friday in a Moscow cemetery where thousands of mourners had gathered, two weeks after he died in an Arctic prison.
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NYPost ☛ Are Americans still capable of the same courage that Alexei Navalny showed?
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s leading opposition figure, died under suspicious circumstances on February 16 in an Arctic prison camp.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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American Oversight ☛ Newsletter: Lawsuit Against DeSantis, Trump’s Delayed Trial, and Election Administration Worries
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Meduza ☛ Investigative journalist Christo Grozev says team will have answers about Navalny’s death within a month
“We’ll definitely find out the truth, and it won't take as long as last time,” said Grozev. “Because now, it’s not only our team working but also many other investigative journalists coordinated by Maria Pevchikh, [the chairwoman of Alexey Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation]. We’re helping each other, sharing information, and there are already tens of thousands of data points. I’m certain that within a month, we’ll definitely [find out everything].”
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Environment
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Science Alert ☛ Space Accident Means Tardigrades May Have Contaminated The Moon
So what happened to the tardigrades that were travelling on the probe? Given their remarkable abilities to survive situations that would kill pretty much any other animal, could they have contaminated the Moon? Worse, might they be able to reproduce and colonize it?
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Energy/Transportation
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DeSmog ☛ Louisiana LNG Could Be ‘Nail in the Coffin’ for Local Fishermen
This story originally was published on Gas Outlook.
(Cameron, Louisiana) — Phillip Dyson has been a commercial fisherman in Cameron, Louisiana for 49 years. His father fished before him, and his son and grandson also fish, shrimp, and oyster in the brackish waters where the Calcasieu River empties out into the Gulf of Mexico. Even his great-grandson is getting into the family trade.
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Finance
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New Jersey News ☛ Layoffs of 2024: See what companies have made job cuts so far this year
Many businesses are currently facing financial hardships amid a struggling economy.
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Body Shop admits it breached its duties to employees with “brutal” last-minute mass layoffs
The Insolvency Service said it had been working with Body Shop administrators to ensure employees’ claims could be processed and paid as quickly as possible. “The Insolvency Service’s Redundancy Payments Service will make statutory redundancy and related payments to support eligible employees who have been made redundant,” a spokesperson said.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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India Times ☛ qualcomm eu legal fees: Court says EU must pay a fraction of legal fees sought by Qualcomm
Europe's second-highest court has said EU regulators should pay €785,857.54 ($851,634) of legal fees for Qualcomm, less than 10% of the €12 million sought by the US chipmaker after it won an appeal against an antitrust fine.
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The Hill ☛ Meta ending Facebook News tab in US, Australia
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said Thursday that it will wind down the Facebook News tab in the United States and Australia starting in early April.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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India Times ☛ artificial intelligence: Detecting deepfakes should not be the sole responsibility of platforms: Sam Gregory
Sam Gregory, executive director of Witness, a global human rights organisation, which uses video and technology to expose human rights abuses and has worked on the threats of AI and deepfakes, spoke to ET about AI related challenges and strategies in elections.
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Gizmodo ☛ That Dinosaur Croissant Going Viral Right Now Is Tragically Fake
Have you seen that croissant made in the shape of a dinosaur that’s gone viral in recent days on sites like Reddit and X? It’s incredibly cute. But we regret to inform you this “Croissantosaurus” was made using generative AI. In fact, if you track down where this pastry was first posted, you’ll find an entire fake restaurant that never existed.
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VOA News ☛ Fake Ukrainian Assassination Attempt on Tucker Carlson Reaches Millions on X
Polygraph.info has also established that the distribution patterns of the information about the alleged assassination plot bear distinct characteristics of the tactic known as “disinformation laundering,” which Russia has heavily used in its hybrid war against Ukraine and in its anti-U.S. influence operations.
The means to amplify this disinformation from its obscure YouTube origins with just a few hundred subscribers to the millions of X users also points to a misinformation-laundering scheme.
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VOA News ☛ Fake Ukrainian Assassination Attempt on Tucker Carlson Hits Millions on X via Russian Disinfo Laundering Scheme
The creators of the disinformation claiming Ukraine plotted to assassinate Tucker Carlson did not intend for it to be used inside Russia: they designed it specifically to target U.S. audiences. That is evident from the fact that no major Russian state-controlled news outlets reported the “breaking news” about the alleged plot despite their weeks-long fixation on every minor detail of Carlson’s visit to Moscow.
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[Repeat] CS Monitor ☛ Russian disinformation focuses on immigration, targets US voters
In recent weeks, Russian state media and online accounts tied to the Kremlin have spread and amplified misleading and incendiary content about United States immigration and border security. The campaign seems crafted to stoke outrage and polarization before the 2024 election for the White House, and experts who study Russian disinformation say Americans can expect more to come as Mr. Putin looks to weaken support for Ukraine and cut off a vital supply of aid.
In social media posts, online videos, and stories on websites, these accounts misstate the impact of immigration, highlight stories about crimes committed by immigrants, and warn of dire consequences if the U.S. doesn’t crack down at its border with Mexico. Many are misleading, filled with cherry-picked data or debunked rumors.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Reason ☛ Town Says Burger Joint's Mural Can't Show Any Burgers
Salina, Kansas, restaurant owner Sam Howard argues in a new lawsuit that the city's sign regulations violate the First Amendment.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong Bar Association calls for clarity in new security legislation to avoid ‘chilling effect’
The Hong Kong Bar Association has called for increased clarity and narrower definitions in Hong Kong’s own national security legislation to avoid a “chilling effect” on lawful conduct.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ US ‘smears’ on extraterritorial effect of city’s domestic security law ‘untenable,’ Hong Kong gov’t says
The “smears” by the US government on the extraterritorial effect of Hong Kong’s domestic security law were “untenable,” the city’s government has said, decrying what it called “biased and misleading remarks.”
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Explainer: Hong Kong’s national security crackdown – month 44
Ministers defended the need for new measures in Hong Kong’s draft homegrown security law as the public consultation period on Article 23 – as it is colloquially known – drew to a close, with journalists and others expressing fears the new legislation may curb free speech.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s Two Sessions: National security and economy expected to be on agenda at key meetings
China’s top officials hold an annual gathering next week, offering a rare window into the ruling Communist Party’s thinking as it tightens its grip in the face of dire economic headwinds. From a protracted property crisis to waning domestic spending, China’s lawmakers face a litany of challenges as they hold their “Two Sessions”.
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Stanford University ☛ Administrator responds to graduate students’ free speech concerns
The Graduate Student Council heard from a Vice Provost on the University's free speech restrictions, including concerns raised by the council on policies in White Plaza.
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Reason ☛ "Freedom of Expression in Generative AI—A Snapshot of Content Policies"
A new report from the Future of Free Speech project (a collaboration between Vanderbilt University and Justitia).
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NPR ☛ In Georgia, a bill to cut all ties with the American Library Association is advancing
A growing number of states and local libraries are cutting ties with the nation's predominant library professional association, saying the ALA has become too radical. On Thursday, a bill that would go further than any other passed the Georgia state Senate in a 33-to-20 vote and now heads to the House.
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VOA News ☛ Is Writing ‘Halwa’ in Arabic Blasphemous?
The mob surrounded the woman threatening to harm her physically and even kill her for offending the Muslim religion by wearing a dress with Quranic verses:
"This woman has disrespected the Quran. She did it with purpose," mobsters shouted.
That is false.
While the woman’s dress was adorned with Arabic calligraphy, there were no Quran verses on her outfit.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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Press Gazette ☛ Concerns raised Israel is deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza
Around 10% of Gaza's journalists have been killed versus 2.5% of healthcare workers.
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Bleeping Computer ☛ News farm impersonates 60+ major outlets: BBC, CNN, CNBC, Guardian...
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Civil Rights/Policing
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RFA ☛ Brother of jailed Cambodian American lawyer says she’s in good health
Mardi Seng, a newly elected senator from the Khmer Will Party, said she’s recovered from her December hunger strike.
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The Register UK ☛ West Midlands Police rapped for data snafu
Britain's data watchdog says the force "incorrectly linked and merged the records" of the individuals that share the same name and date of birth on multiple occasions during 2000, 2021 and 2022.
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India Times ☛ canada foreign investment digital media: Canada to crack down on foreign investment in digital media sector
Starting immediately, Ottawa will increase scrutiny of investments "by entities owned or influenced by foreign states, particularly states that engage in activities that may pose a risk to Canada's national security", said Canadian innovation minister Francois-Philippe Champagne.
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India Times ☛ X, ByteDance, Booking.com could face tough EU rules
Elon Musk's X social media platform, TikTok owner ByteDance and Booking.com may meet EU criteria subjecting them to tough tech rules as so-called gatekeepers, the European Commission said late Friday, after notifications by the companies.
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) designates companies with more than 45 million monthly active users and 75 billion euros ($81 billion) in market capitalisation as gatekeepers providing a core platform service for business users.
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Copyrights
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Torrent Freak ☛ In Indonesia, Women Pirate More Music and Movies Than Men
Piracy was traditionally seen as something that predominantly young males were interested in. This is a largely outdated representation of reality, as girls and women began to catch up a long time ago. In some countries, including Indonesia, more women pirate music, movies, and TV-shows than their male counterparts.
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Techdirt ☛ Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Flight From Podunk Station
Earlier this week, we announced the winners of the 6th annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1928! Now, as in years past, for the next few Saturdays we’ll be featuring spotlight posts taking a closer look at each of the winning games (in no particular order). Today, we’re kicking things off with the Best Visuals winner, Flight from Podunk Station by onamint.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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