Leftovers

• Benjamin Sandofsky ☛ Oh the Humanity

  The pin shipped with fraction of the features promised at its unveiling eleven months ago, and what features that did ship fail most of the time. It's too heavy, and has atrocious battery life, with users expected to swap batteries every few hours as the device runs uncomfortably hot. Its projector is useless in daylight, and its input system is awkward and slow. For a device meant to replace your phone, you expect an experience faster than just whipping out your phone.

• Mandy Brown ☛ What you see | everything changes

  IN 1999, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons ran a simple research study: they screened a short video in which a group of people passed a basketball between them, and asked subjects to count the number of passes. At the conclusion of the video, they asked a few questions, among them: how many passes did you observe? And—did you notice the gorilla?

  Halfway through the video, a person in a gorilla suit had walked through the field of play. But in the initial and subsequent studies, more than half of the subjects hadn’t noticed the gorilla at all. Chabris and Simons refer to this phenomena as “inattentional blindness,” and note that we can consider it both a limiting factor of our perception, as well as a useful consequence of our ability to stay focused. That is, whether or not we are able to see something is as much a product of our attention as our eyes; just as importantly, the ability to focus on one task or object necessarily entails ignoring—even to the point of being entirely unaware of—other things that cross our path.

  In other words, we’re all of us, all of the time, watching out for our own version of the ball, the things that we’ve learned (or been taught) to care about, while at the same time remaining blissfully unaware of entire bands of gorillas thumping their chests before our eyes.

• Thomas Rigby ☛ Burn folder for RSS feeds

  Earlier this year, I wrote about organising my RSS feeds to make them easier to manage. Basically, I group blogs by name alphabetically.

  Today I took it a step further. There are some blogs from news outlets that post a hundred times a day and it's 90% mainstream news I don't need/want to deal with when I'm super busy.

• Science

  • USMC ☛ A child thought he’d found a rock — it was actually a Marine’s jawbone

    With the assistance of the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification and Intermountain Forensics in Salt Lake City, a profile was developed last May and “uploaded to a portal supporting police and forensic teams with investigative comparisons, and FamilyTreeDNA, a Houston-based genetic testing company,” according to the Arizona news outlet AZ Family.

  • New York Times ☛ The Dusty Magnets ofthe Milky Way

    A new map of the center of the Milky Way galaxy reveals details of its magnetic fields

  • Reason ☛ A Big Panic Over Tiny Plastics

    Science can detect increasingly small particles of plastic in our air and water. That doesn't mean it's bad for you.

  • Science Alert ☛ A Gigantic Snake Prowled India's Jungles 47 Million Years Ago

    Not to be messed with.

  • Science Alert ☛ Prepare Yourself. A Massive Wave of Cicadas Is About to Erupt in The US.

    Two-for-one deal.

  • Science Alert ☛ Could Vitamin D Be The Secret to Slowing Human Aging?

    Here's what we know.

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Discover 2 Key Brain Systems Behind Psychosis

    New hope for treatments.

  • Science Alert ☛ Vikings Filed Grooves Into Their Teeth as an Unusual Form of ID

    Say cheese!

• Education

  • New York Times ☛ University of Michigan and Other Colleges Crack Down on Student Protests

    university’s president, Santa J. Ono, issued a stern rebuke: Enough.

    “Like many of you, I am proud of our university’s history of protest,” he said. “But none of us should be proud of what happened on Sunday.” He announced that the school would draft a new policy to redefine what could be punished as disruptive behavior.

    The University of Michigan is not alone.

  • Manuel Matuzović ☛ beyond tellerrand: One of my favourite web development and design conferences - Manuel Matuzovic

    I don't attend beyond tellerrand to learn technical things I can implement in my projects afterward. Although I have to say that I always learn something because the dev talks are usually excellent. I go there for inspiration, for the conversations between talks, for the friendly atmosphere, to broaden my horizon, and most importantly, to recharge mentally. Attending a conference is exhausting: traveling, lots of walking around, listening to presentations, lack of sleep, etc. Still, BTConf somehow manages to recharge my batteries every time I'm there.

  • YLE ☛ Too much screen time? School tablet provision under fire

    One month ago Munther decided to return the tablet. She said that it would not return to her home unless the family is able to limit screen time and block certain apps.

    "It is questionable that a school device has Minecraft and YouTube, for instance, where there is a lot of damaging material," said Munther.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ LYFT: Standing Up For Better IKEA BEKANT Control

    The IKEA BEKANT sit/stand desk is kind of a lifesaver — even if you don’t personally go between sit and stand much, the adjustability makes sharing the desk a breeze. Sharing was the case in [Matthias]’ house during the pandemic, as he and his wife took turns using the desk. Switching between their two preferred heights quickly became annoying, so [Matthias] engineered LYFT, a replacement controller that stores up to four settings.

  • [Repeat] MIT Technology Review ☛ Why it’s so hard for China’s chip industry to become self-sufficient

    Within China, at least three companies are also developing similar insulator products. Xi’an Tianhe Defense Technology, which makes products for both military and civilian use, introduced its take on the material, which it calls QBF, in 2023; Zhejiang Wazam New Material and Guangdong Hinno-tech have also announced similar products in recent years. But all of them are still going through industrial testing with chipmakers, and few have recent updates on how well these materials have performed in mass-production settings.

  • Jeff Geerling ☛ Resetting and upgrading old Hikvision IP Cameras

    This guide isn't definitive, but it is a good reference point as I am wiping out some Hikvision IP cameras I inherited in my new office space. They were all paired with an annoying proprietary Hikvision NVR, and I wanted to wipe them and use them on a new isolated VLAN with my new Raspberry Pi Frigate-based NVR setup.

    The cameras I have are Hikvision model number DS-2CD2122FWD-IS, but this guide should apply to many of the cameras from that era.

  • Boston Globe ☛ Boston Dynamics to offer commercial version of Atlas robot

    For years, the company has released wild videos of its human-shaped robot, Atlas, performing tricks such as dancing, doing back flips, and starring in a Super Bowl commercial. But the hydraulic-powered “research platform,” as the company called it, was never intended for sale.

    Until now. On Wednesday, Boston Dynamics announced it has created a commercial version of Atlas that will be be sold — eventually — to the manufacturing industry.

    The new Atlas is electric-powered and able to lift heavy items with strength exceeding an elite human athlete, the company said. The robot can also twist its body and move in ways that a human cannot, such as bending its knees backwards and spinning its torso 360 degrees.

  • Matt Birchler ☛ Emulators aren’t new; here’s the great ones on the Mac

    The core issue here is that game and the software is not even remotely new (the very popular mGBA turned 10 this year). It’s also not some sort of skeezy software category that you need to venture to the dark web to find. In fact, I would argue that some of the most impressive software I’ve ever run on my Mac and PC have been emulation apps.

  • Ben Jojo ☛ Sysadmin friendly high speed ethernet switching

    The goal that I now have is to run this relatively cheap (and power efficient at 60W) switch with as close to stock Debian as possible. That way I do not have to lean on any supplier for software updates, and I can upgrade software on the switch for as long as I need it. This does mean however that the bugs will be my responsibility (since there is no TAC to fall back on).

  • SparkFun Electronics ☛ Centimeter Level Accuracy and Easy Survey-Grade RTK Connectivity with PointOne's Polaris

    Today Point One Nav is officially launching support for GIS product creators, surveyors, and GIS professionals on the Polaris RTK Network to reach centimeter level accuracy. See it in action with the RTK Facet!

  • Hackaday ☛ Computing Via (Virtual) Dominos

    Back in 2012, [Matt Parker] and a team built a computer out of dominos for the Manchester Science Festival. [Andrew Taylor], part of the team that built the original,  has built a series of virtual domino puzzles to help explain how the computer worked. He also links to a video from the event, but be warned: the video contains some spoilers for the puzzles. If you are ready for spoilers, you can watch the video below.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Science Alert ☛ WHO Warns Growing Spread of Bird Flu to Humans Is 'Enormous Concern'

    "The mortality rate is extraordinarily high."

  • The Hill ☛ California water regulators adopt nation’s first standard for ‘Erin Brockovich’ compound

    When the State Water Board first proposed the 10 parts per billion MCL two years ago, Brockovich told The Hill that this threshold was insufficient, expressing her frustration “that nothing’s changed in 30 years.”

  • Thacker the hack keeps Thacking and hacking

    When I came across his latest additional hit piece on young physician Dr. Allison Neitzel, entitled Fake Physician Group Platformed Disgraced, Fake Physician Allison Neitzel on Their Fake Medical Journal Website, I debated about whether to write about Paul Thacker one more time. After all, I’ve now written three posts in the last two weeks about his brain-meltingly stupid and deceptive hit piece on young physician Dr. Allison Neitzel as somehow “not a physician” based on a pedantic, dishonest, cherry-picked legalistic definition of the word, as well as its aftermath, in which the usual suspects, including the grifting quacks at the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance, as well as much of the rest of the COVID-19 antivax quack crankosphere, amplified Thacker’s hack attack, as well as using Dr. Neitzel’s apology to the FLCCC in what appears to have been an orchestrated attack her as not credible. Of course, they didn’t mention that this apology had almost certainly come about as the result of legal bullying, the FLCCC having sent a process server to Dr. Neitzel’s apartment, a little context left out of all the posts by Thacker, the FLCCC, and its allies attacking Dr. Netizel. Then, Dr. Neitzel published a heartfelt response to Thacker, including a recounting of some of her personal history that had led her to combat misinformation, leading me to heap more deserved scorn on the FLCCC and Thacker, even as antivaxxers amplified Thacker’s attacks.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Simon Willison ☛ How cheap, outsourced labour in Africa is shaping AI English

    Alex Hern theorizes that the underlying cause may be related. Companies like OpenAI frequently outsource data annotation to countries like Nigeria that have excellent English skills and low wages. RLHF (reinforcement learning from human feedback) involves annotators comparing and voting on the “best” responses from the models.

    Are they teaching models to favour Nigerian-English? It’s a pretty solid theory!

  • The Guardian UK ☛ TechScape: How cheap, outsourced labour in Africa is shaping AI English

    I said “delve” was overused by ChatGPT compared to the internet at large. But there’s one part of the internet where “delve” is a much more common word: the African web. In Nigeria, “delve” is much more frequently used in business English than it is in England or the US. So the workers training their systems provided examples of input and output that used the same language, eventually ending up with an AI system that writes slightly like an African.

    And that’s the final indignity. If AI-ese sounds like African English, then African English sounds like AI-ese. Calling people a “bot” is already a schoolyard insult (ask your kids; it’s a Fortnite thing); how much worse will it get when a significant chunk of humanity sounds like the AI systems they were paid to train?

  • Simon Willison ☛ AI for Data Journalism: demonstrating what we can do with this stuff right now

    My focus in researching this area over the past couple of years has mainly been to forget about the futuristic stuff and focus on this question: what can I do with the tools that are available to me right now?

  • Wired ☛ Meta Is Already Training a More Powerful Successor to Llama 3

    Meta released two versions of Llama 3 today, one with 8 billion parameters—an industry term that roughly conveys a model’s power—and another with 70 billion parameters. LeCun said that bigger models are in the works and that the most powerful, with more than 400 billion parameters, is currently in training.

  • Pi My Life Up ☛ Running a V Rising Dedicated Server on Linux

    V Rising is an action role-playing survival game in which you play as a vampire. While it is possible to play this game by yourself, you can also run a server and play with up to 40 other players.

    Thanks to the team providing a dedicated server, it is possible to host one of those servers without keeping the game running on your machine.

    Unfortunately, while V Rising does not have an official Linux server, there are ways around this. In this guide, we will use a Docker container that uses Wine to run the V Rising Dedicated server.

  • NYP Holdings Inc ☛ Netflix’s True Crime Doc ‘What Jennifer Did’ Accused Of Using A.I. Manipulated Images

    What Jennifer Did, the new Netflix true crime documentary surrounding convicted murderer Jennifer Pan, quickly made its way into Netflix’s Top 10 films since its release last Wednesday (April 10). However, a new report from Futurism reveals that the doc may have employed pictures of Pan that were manipulated by artificial intelligence.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Post Office Horizon response 'could be seen as cover-up', legal chief admits

    The inquiry was shown evidence of an apparent lack of effort to find out what the Post Office already knew about three bugs after they were highlighted in a 2013 report by forensic accountants Second Sight.

    Rodric Williams, who remains the Post Office’s head of legal for dispute resolution and brand, was asked if it was true that the Post Office had “entered a cover-up mode” in response to the report.

  • Molly White ☛ AI isn't useless. But is it worth it?

    As someone known for my criticism of the previous deeply flawed technology to become the subject of the tech world's overinflated aspirations, I have had people express surprise when I've remarked that generative artificial intelligence toolsa can be useful. In fact, I was a little surprised myself.

    But there is a yawning gap between "AI tools can be handy for some things" and the kinds of stories AI companies are telling (and the media is uncritically reprinting). And when it comes to the massively harmful ways in which large language models (LLMs) are being developed and trained, the feeble argument that "well, they can sometimes be handy..." doesn't offer much of a justification.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Telegram to hit a billion users within a year, founder says

    “We’ll probably cross a billion monthly active users within a year now,” Durov, who fully owns Telegram, told Tucker. The goal of the app is to remain a ‘neutral platform’ and not a ‘player in geopolitics’

    The goal of the app, which has now 900 million active users, is to remain a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics”, Durov said. The Russia-born entrepreneur said he had fled Russia in 2014 citing government interference in a company he founded.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Patrick Breyer ☛ Leak: Privacy-friendly and encrypted messaging services are to be penalised with chat control bulk scanning orders

      “Privacy-friendly communication services such as Protonmail which can so far be used anonymously are to become the most extremely monitored services by imposing chat control scanning on them. So far securely encrypted messenger services such as Signal are to be turned into bugs in our pockets by imposing ‘client-side scanning’,” denounces Pirate Party Member of the European Parliament and shadow rapporteur Patrick Breyer. “EU governments want to go to war against the confidentiality and security of our digital communications as such. Everything that makes up the internet and digital communication, all of the modern reality of the internet is considered a ‘risk’ and to be combatted in the opinion of the EU interior ministers. We Pirates will not stop fighting for our fundamental right to digital privacy of correspondence and secure encryption – this is exactly why we digital freedom fighters are in the EU Parliament.”

    • Patrick Breyer ☛ Germany will not introduce IP data retention but agrees on expedited targeted retention

      „This decision is a success for the civil rights movement, which has been fighting for decades on the streets and in the courts against the idea of blanket collection of the entire population’s contacts, movements and Internet connections. The agreed solution focuses on effective and ad hoc data preservation. A blanket data retention of IP records would have been a frontal attack on our right to use the Internet anonymously, which countless people depend on.

    • Vox ☛ Colorado brain data bill: How a new law will protect the privacy of our thoughts

      You may have heard that Elon Musk’s company Neuralink surgically implanted a brain chip in its first human. Dubbed “Telepathy,” the chip uses neurotechnology in a medical context: It aims to read signals from a paralyzed patient’s brain and transmit them to a computer, enabling the patient to control it with just their thoughts. In a medical context, neurotech is subject to federal regulations.

      But researchers are also creating noninvasive neurotech. Already, there are AI-powered brain decoders that can translate into text the unspoken thoughts swirling through our minds, without the need for surgery — although this tech is not yet on the market. In the meantime, you can buy lots of devices off Amazon right now that would record your brain data (like the Muse headband, which uses EEG sensors to read patterns of activity in your brain, then cues you on how to improve your meditation). Since these aren’t marketed as medical devices, they’re not subject to federal regulations; companies can collect — and sell — your data.

      Luckily, the brain is lawyering up. Neuroscientists, lawyers, and lawmakers have been teaming up to pass legislation that would protect our mental privacy.

    • The Nation ☛ The NSA Wants Carte Blanche for Warrantless Surveillance

      To understand the vast quantity of private data the NSA clandestinely intercepts, one only has to take a look at its massive Utah data center, more than five times the size of the US Capitol. Functioning partly as a sort of remote external hard drive, it has a storage capacity in the zettabytes—the equivalent of more than 100 million 1-terabyte personal computers. According to the data storage company Seagate Technology, “three zettabytes is enough space to hold 30 billion 4K movies—that’s so much cinema it’d take 5.4 million years to watch it! Or 60 billion video games—enough to let you enjoy nonstop gameplay for 86,700 lifetimes!” And by now the data center may have moved from zettabytes to yottabytes, beyond which names have not yet been created. But NSA is not interested in video games or Hollywood flicks; its zettabytes are for storing communications people believe—mistakenly—are private.

    • US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit ☛ United States v. Jeremy Travis Payne

      The panel held that the CHP officers did not violate Payne’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when they compelled him to unlock his cell phone using his fingerprint. Payne established that the communication at issue was compelled and incriminating. The panel held, however, that the compelled use of a biometric to unlock an electronic device was not testimonial because it required no cognitive exertion, placing it in the same category as a blood draw or a fingerprint taken at booking, and merely provided the CHP with access to a source of potential information. Accordingly, the Fifth Amendment did not apply.

    • NYOB ☛ Statement on EDPB "Pay or Okay" Opinion

      Today, the EDPB has issued its first decision on "Pay or Okay" in relation to large online platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, as first reported by Politico. This decision prohibits Meta from using an unlawful consent request processing personal data. It seems that by now, Meta has run out of options to continue using people's data for advertising in the EU without a consent mechanism that actually complies with the law.

    • The Register UK ☛ EU tells Meta it can't paywall privacy

      The EU's Data Protection Board (EDPB) has told large online platforms they should not offer users a binary choice between paying for a service and consenting to their personal data being used to provide targeted advertising.

      The EDPB opinion [PDF] published yesterday addresses whether it is valid in terms of data protection law to process personal data for the purposes of behavioral advertising in the context of "consent or pay" models as introduced by Meta.

    • European Data Protection Board ☛ Opinion 08/2024 on Valid Consent in the Context of Consent or Pay Models Implemented by Large Online Platforms: Adopted on 17 April 2024 [PDF]

      The offering of (only) a paid alternative to the service which includes processing for behavioural advertising purposes should not be the default way forward for controllers. When developing the alternative to the version of the service with behavioural advertising, large online platforms should consider providing data subjects with an ‘equivalent alternative’ that does not entail the payment of a fee. If controllers choose to charge a fee for access to the ‘equivalent alternative’, controllers should consider also offering a further alternative, free of charge, without behavioural advertising, e.g. with a form of advertising involving the processing of less (or no) personal data. This is a particularly important factor in the assessment of certain criteria for valid consent under the GDPR. In most cases, whether a further alternative without behavioural advertising is offered by the controller, free of charge, will have a substantial impact on the assessment of the validity of consent, in particular with regard to the detriment aspect.

      With respect to the requirements of the GDPR for valid consent, first of all, consent needs to be ‘freely given’. In order to avoid detriment that would exclude freely given consent, any fee imposed cannot be such as to effectively inhibit data subjects from making a free choice. Furthemore, detriment may arise where non-consenting data subjects do not pay a fee and thus face exclusion from the service, especially in cases where the service has a prominent role, or is decisive for participation in social life or access to professional networks, even more so in the presence of lock-in or network effects. As a result, detriment is likely to occur when large online platforms use a ‘consent or pay’ model to obtain consent for the processing.

    • Wired ☛ US Senate to Vote on a Wiretap Bill That Critics Call ‘Stasi-Like’

      Some of the nation’s top legal experts on a controversial US spy program argue that the legislation, known as the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), would enhance the US government’s spy powers, forcing a variety of new businesses to secretly eavesdrop on Americans’ overseas calls, texts, and email messages.

      Those experts include a handful of attorneys who’ve had the rare opportunity to appear before the US government’s secret surveillance court.

      The Section 702 program, authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was established more than a decade ago to legalize the government’s practice of forcing major telecommunications companies to eavesdrop on overseas calls in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

    • Patrick Breyer ☛ EU privacy experts opinion against surveillance advertising on Instagram, Facebook and co.: Pirates call on Meta to give in

      “Meta’s privacy fee undermines the protection of privacy, presents users with a false choice and economically coerces them into consenting to extensive surveillance and exploitation of their online activities. Zuckerberg will not get away with forcing users to consent to this exploitation by making privacy unaffordable. The reason why Meta insists on an unlawful consent model is its business model based on ubiquitous tracking. Following the recommendation of the EU data protection authorities, Meta now needs to develop an alternative to its surveillance-capitalist business model, for example free access funded with contextualised and surveillance-free advertising. Meta needs to abandon its ‘pay or okay’ scheme and respect our fundamental right to use the internet anonymously!”

    • EFF ☛ Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act Passed the House, Now it Should Pass the Senate

      Everyday, your personal information is being harvested by your smart phone applications, sold to data brokers, and used by advertisers hoping to sell you things. But what safeguards prevent the government from shopping in that same data marketplace? Mobile data regularly bought and sold, like your geolocation, is information that law enforcement or intelligence agencies would normally have to get a warrant to acquire. But it does not require a warrant for law enforcement agencies to just buy the data. The U.S. government has been using its purchase of this information as a loophole for acquiring personal information on individuals without a warrant.

      Now is the time to close that loophole.

      At EFF, we’ve been talking about the need to close the databroker loophole for years. We even launched a massive investigation into the data broker industry which revealed Fog Data Science, a company that has claimed in marketing materials that it has “billions” of data points about “over 250 million” devices and that its data can be used to learn about where its subjects work, live, and their associates. We found close to 20 law enforcement agents used or were offered this tool.

  • Confidentiality

    • Nicolas Cropp ☛ Bank security stinks

      Contrary to popular belief, even though banks advertise themselves as "secure" and other apps and sites tout their "bank-level security"....bank security fucking sucks. In this blog post I'll review my banks, of which I have quite the large swath, and why their security fucking sucks.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Register UK ☛ US Air Force says AI-controlled F-16 has fought humans

    The US Air Force Test Pilot School and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) claim to have achieved a breakthrough in machine learning by demonstrating that AI software can fly a modified F-16 fighter jet in a dogfight against human pilots.

    The claims rest on the USAF and DARPA implementing machine learning in an X-62A VISTA, a plane built as a testbed as it can mimic the performance of other aircraft, and recognition of their work as one of four finalists for the National Aeronautic Association's 2023 Robert J. Collier Trophy, an annual award for exceptional feats of aeronautics or astronautics in America.

  • Wired ☛ The Trump Jury Has a Doxing Problem

    Unlike jurors in federal cases, whose identities can be kept completely anonymous, New York law allows the personal information of jurors and potential jurors to be divulged in court. Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing Trump’s prosecution in Manhattan, last month ordered that jurors’ names and addresses would be withheld. But he could not prevent potential jurors from providing biographical details about themselves during the jury selection process, and many did. Those details were then widely reported in the press, potentially subjecting jurors and potential jurors to harassment, intimidation, and threats—possibly by Trump himself. Merchan has since blocked reporters from publishing potential jurors’ employment details.

  • New York Times ☛ 3 Reasons This Country Is a Top ISIS Recruiting Ground

    Hundreds of men from Tajikistan — a small, impoverished country in Central Asia controlled by an authoritarian president — have joined an affiliate of the Islamic State in Afghanistan known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, analysts say.

    They point to three main reasons Tajiks are vulnerable to recruitment.

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ Biden says uncle’s remains never found during WWII due to cannibals

    The president’s comments on cannibalism, meanwhile, are not far off. In 1992, nearly half a century after World War II, Japanese historian Toshiyuki Tanaka revealed that he had uncovered more than 100 cases of cannibalism committed by Japanese troops in Papua New Guinea.

    “These documents clearly show that this cannibalism was done by a whole group of Japanese soldiers, and in some cases they were not even starving,” Tanaka said.

  • New York Times ☛ An ISIS Terror Group Draws Half Its Recruits From Tiny Tajikistan

    Many governments and terrorism experts are asking the same question.

    Tajik adherents of the Islamic State — especially within its affiliate in Afghanistan known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province (I.S.K.P.), or ISIS-K — have taken increasingly high-profile roles in a string of recent terrorist attacks. Over the last year alone, Tajiks have been involved in assaults in Russia, Iran and Turkey, as well as foiled plots in Europe. ISIS-K is believed to have several thousand soldiers, with Tajiks constituting more than half, experts said.

  • New York Times ☛ Takeaways From a Trove of ByteDance Records

    Somehow, thousands of pages of sealed court documents relating to the birth of TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, were mistakenly released by a Pennsylvania court. Before they were made secret again, I read them.

    The documents — emails, chat transcripts and memos — are a fascinating window into ByteDance’s origins. They show that Susquehanna International Group, the trading firm of the Republican megadonor Jeff Yass, played a bigger role in the company than previously known.

    They also tell a new version of the ByteDance origin story, one with fits and starts on the way to becoming one of the world’s most highly valued start-ups.

  • RTL ☛ Quick recovery: 'You are my son': stabbed Sydney bishop forgives attacker

    The area is a hub for Sydney's small Christian Assyrian community, many of whom fled persecution and war in Iraq and Syria.

    Emmanuel has an online following of almost 200,000, courting controversy with his criticism of Covid-19 vaccines, lockdowns and Islam.

  • Netzpolitik ☛ „Artificial Intelligence“: Automated Warfare and the Geneva Convention

    Much attention has been focused on the bias, discrimination, and possible job losses introduced by automated technologies in the commercial space. However, understanding the use of these solutions in warfare should be at the top of such discussions: Automated Decision-making or Automated Weapons do not just automate war; they can change and shift the roles of citizens within the Geneva Conventions.

  • The Register UK ☛ Europe gives TikTok 24 hours to explain its latest app

    The Commission wants to understand "the potential impact of the new 'Task and Reward Lite' program on the protection of minors, as well as on the mental health of users, in particular in relation to the potential stimulation of addictive behavior." Also on the to-do list handed to TikTok is information about the measures the service adopted to mitigate such systemic risks.

    TikTok has reportedly said it will comply with the overnight deadline to provide its risk assessment of the Lite app, and the April 26 deadline for the other info outlined above. Which is sensible, given the DSA allows for colossal fines.

  • India Times ☛ TikTok quizzed by EU on TikTok Lite launch in France, Spain

    The move by EU industry chief Thierry Breton under EU tech rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) comes two months after he opened an investigation into TikTok over possible DSA breaches.

  • Site36 ☛ Flag stress among Brandenburg physicists and fears, that Israeli military could benefit from German technology

  • France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: Iran reports 'no damage' in Isfahan after suspected Israeli attack

    Iran's state media reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan Friday as US media quoted officials as saying Israel had carried out retaliatory strikes on its arch-rival. No damage was caused in the overnight attack, a senior Iranian army commander told state TV. Israel had previously warned it would hit back after Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel over the weekend.

  • Reason ☛ Elica Le Bon: Is War with Iran Coming?

    Elica Le Bon, an attorney and Iranian-American activist, talks about Iran's recent strike on Israel on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions.

  • France24 ☛ What we know so far about the explosions reported in central Iran

    Iran's state media reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan on Friday, raising fears of a possible Israeli strike in retaliation for Tehran's unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country. Here's what we know so far.

  • RFERL ☛ Israel Reportedly Launches Retaliatory Attack On Iran

    Israel has launched an attack in Iran, U.S. media reported quoting U.S. government officials, in what appears to be retaliatory strikes for the unprecedented air attack Tehran launched last weekend on its sworn enemy.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Iran fires air defense batteries at Isfahan air base and nuclear site after drones spotted

    Iran has fired air defenses at a major air base and a nuclear site near its central city of Isfahan after spotting drones. The commotion early Friday raised fears of a possible Israeli retaliatory strike following Tehran’s unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country. It was unclear if the country had come under attack, as no Iranian official directly acknowledged the possibility and Israel’s military did not respond to a request for comment. However, tensions have remained high in the days since the Saturday assault on Israel amid its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and its own strikes targeting Iran in Syria. U.S. officials declined to comment as of early Friday, but American broadcast networks quoting unnamed U.S. officials said Israel carried out the attack.

  • New York Times ☛ Reaction to Israel’s Strike in Iran Plays Down Significance

    In Israel, officials described the strike as a limited response designed to avoid escalating tensions. Iran state television said military and nuclear facilities were safe.

  • France24 ☛ How Israel could respond to Iran’s drone and missile assault

    Although the US has said that it would not take part in any retaliatory strike from Israel in response to Iran’s largely thwarted salvo over the weekend, the Biden administration’s “ironclad” support for the country could still prompt Israel to launch a direct attack on Iranian soil – with potentially disastrous results.

  • IT Wire ☛ Google sacks 28 staff over Israel cloud contract protest

    Israel has been engaged in military action against the Palestinian extremist group Hamas after the latter killed about 120 Israelis in a raid on 7 October. Since then, Israel has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, including extremists.

  • LRT ☛ US-led military exercise Saber Strike kicks off in Lithuania

    Saber Strike, a military exercise organised by the US Armed Forces, kicks off in Lithuania on Friday.

  • The Straits Times ☛ US aims to begin new North Korea sanctions monitoring regime by May

    This came after Russia and China thwarted the renewal of monitoring activities.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ WaPo Gives Bill Barr Platform to Attack Joe Biden without Mentioning Barr’s Role in Framing Biden

    If you're going to make a big deal about Bill Barr supporting Trump in this year's election, at least mention that the side channel Barr set up for Russian disinformation on Hunter Biden in 2020 ended up framing Joe Biden.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • The Straits Times ☛ EU sees signs China supplying dual-use components to Russia

      US officials said China was providing to Russia materials including drones and missile technology.

    • Site36 ☛ Under arrest for sabotage plans: Two Russian-Germans allegedly planned attacks on behalf of the Kremlin

    • Meduza ☛ Foreign agents: the movie Russian state TV airs fear-stoking ‘investigative film’ about exiled opposition figures and journalists — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Despite a nationwide labor shortage, Russian regions are further restricting the types of jobs migrants can hold — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Kremlin refuses to join debate over research center named for Hitler-sympathizing philosopher whom Putin has called one of his favorites — Meduza

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Putin’s plan to depopulate Ukraine

      Vladimir Putin's new plan for victory in Ukraine appears to rely on a strategic bombing campaign to render entire regions of the country uninhabitable, writes Peter Dickinson.

    • European Commission ☛ Commission allocates additional €10 million to support researchers from Ukraine under Horizon Europe

      European Commission Press release Brussels, 18 Apr 2024 The Commission has topped up the budget of the MSCA4Ukraine initiative, set up to support researchers forced to flee Ukraine, with an additional €10 million.

    • European Commission ☛ Opening remark's of Commissioner Várhelyi at ‘Ukraine's future summit'

    • Latvia ☛ Russian, Belarusian foodstuffs could be banned from public procurement

      Food and beverages are currently not included on the list of European Union sanctions against Russia and Belarus for their part in the invasion of Ukraine, but lawmakers in Latvia are considering the possibility of introducing measures at a national level to restrict their availability, at least in the sphere of public procurement.

    • NYPost ☛ House committee advances bipartisan $95B foreign aid package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan

      In a rare move, Democrats in the minority on the House Rules Committee joined with Republicans in the majority to vote 9-3 on the passage of further military assistance funding and humanitarian aid for war-torn Ukraine and Israel, as well as vulnerable Taiwan.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Your primer on the US House security bills for Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific, and more

      Our experts share their insights on what’s in the pending legislation and why it matters for US national security.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Grassroots diplomacy can help unlock international support for Ukraine

      Washington State’s ambitious new Sister State Agreement with Kyiv Oblast offers an attractive model that others can follow, both in the US and beyond, writes Benton Coblentz.

    • France24 ☛ Ukraine has 'urgent need' for air defence, says NATO chief Stoltenberg

      NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday that Ukraine had an "urgent, critical need for more air defence", at a G7 foreign ministers' meeting on the Italian island of Capri.

    • France24 ☛ Moldovan youth is more than ready to join the EU

      Brussels opened accession negotiations with Moldova in December 2023 – at the same time as Ukraine. Moldova’s youth is ready to break from its Soviet past and step into a European future.

    • JURIST ☛ Poland authorities arrest suspect in alleged Russia plot to assassinate Ukraine president

      The National Prosecutor’s Office of Poland announced Thursday that it brought charges against a man suspected of espionage for Russia and involvement in an alleged plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The investigation was carried out by both Ukrainian and Polish agencies.

    • JURIST ☛ Germany arrests two German-Russian citizens suspected of preparing sabotage attacks

      German federal prosecutors announced on Thursday the arrest of two German-Russian nationals suspected of spying and planning sabotage attacks on US military targets in an attempt to undermine military support for Ukraine. Reacting to this, German Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock summoned the Russian ambassador to the Foreign Ministry for an explanation.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuanian president says ‘double standards’ in play in Western support to Israel, Ukraine

      Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has said European countries and the US are using “unacceptable double standards” in their different approach to providing aid to Israel and Ukraine.

    • RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Calls For More Air Defenses After Deadly Ukraine Strike

      President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has again appealed to Ukraine's Western allies and partners to urgently supply his embattled country with more air defense systems following more deadly Russian missile strikes on April 19 on Ukrainian cities and critical energy infrastructure.

    • RFERL ☛ Two Arrested In Germany For Planning Sabotage In Favor Of Russia

      Two men with dual German-Russian citizenship have been arrested in Germany for allegedly plotting acts of sabotage aimed at undermining military support for Ukraine, the German prosecutor's office reported on April 18.

    • RFERL ☛ 'Send Them To Ukraine': EU's Borrell Urges Europeans To Donate Air Defense Systems

      The EU's foreign policy chief called on EU member states to give Ukraine more air defense systems as the embattled country grapples with increasingly intense Russian air strikes on its infrastructure while its stocks of weapons and ammunition dwindle as critical U.S. aid remains stuck in Congress.

    • teleSUR ☛ US Aid to Ukraine Not to Change Situation in the Front: Russia

      This week the U.S. House of Representatives will consider a new 61-billion-aid bill for Ukraine.

    • New Yorker ☛ Did Mike Johnson Just Get Religion on Ukraine?

      The Speaker’s sudden willingness to bring foreign-aid bills to the House floor risks his Speakership—and Trump’s wrath.

    • CS Monitor ☛ Rifts in both parties as Congress weighs aid to Ukraine, Israel

      Lawmakers face growing political pressure from their parties over aid to Israel and Ukraine. Some say politics have obscured serious security debates.

    • New York Times ☛ In Unusual Vote, Democrats Rescue Measure to Allow Vote on Ukraine Bill

      A resolution to pave the way for the foreign aid package was on track to die in committee amid Republican opposition when Democrats stepped in to save it.

    • New York Times ☛ How Mike Johnson’s Plan for Aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan Would Work

      The speaker, facing resistance from fellow Republicans, has devised a strategy for steering aid to Ukraine and Israel through the House. The key vote will take place before any of it hits the floor.

    • New York Times ☛ Germany Arrests 2 Men Suspected of Spying for Russia

      The two men, dual citizens of both countries, were accused of being part of a plot to undermine aid to Ukraine by trying to blow up military infrastructure.

    • Latvia ☛ Saeima backs moving away from Russian language in schools

      The Saeima on April 18 supported amendments to the Education Law in the second reading, which plan to stipulate that students will be able to refuse to learn Russian as a second foreign language, LETA reports.

    • LRT ☛ Two people detained on suspicion of attacking Russian opposition activist in Vilnius

      Two people have been detained in Poland on suspicion of attacking Russian opposition activist Leonid Volkov in Vilnius, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda announced on Friday.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania moves to ban TV from Russia, Belarus as long as they ‘pose threat’

      Radio and television programmes produced by companies registered in Russia and Belarus are to be banned in Lithuania for as long as these countries are deemed a threat to national security.

    • LRT ☛ European court rejects Kirkorov’s case against Lithuania entry ban

      The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has decided to reject a complaint from Russian pop star Philipp Kirkorov against the migration authority’s decision to ban him from entering Lithuania.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuanian president calls for tariffs on Russian food to make it ‘uncompetitive’

      Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has called for higher tariffs on Russian and Belarusian agricultural products to make their imports in the EU uncompetitive.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Prosecutors Appeal Suspended Sentence For Ex-Memorial Chief

      Prosecutors in the Russian city of Perm on April 18 appealed a local court decision to hand a three-year suspended prison term to Aleksandr Chernyshov, the ex-chief of the Center of Historic Memory, the successor entity of the Memorial human rights group.

    • RFERL ☛ Bashkir Activist Alsynov Loses Appeal Against Four-Year Prison Term

      The Supreme Court of Russia's Baskortostan region on April 18 rejected the appeal filed by Bashkir activist Fail Alsynov against a four-year prison sentence he was handed in January on a charge of inciting hatred that he and his supporters call politically motivated.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Hypersonic-Flight Expert Gets 7 Years On Treason Charge

      A court in St. Petersburg on April 18 sentenced Aleksandr Kuranov, the former head of an institute researching hypersonic flight, to seven years in prison on a charge of high treason.

    • RFERL ☛ After 6 Months In Russian Detention, RFE/RL Journalist Still Making Sense Of It All

      For some 25 years, Alsu Kurmasheva worked as a journalist at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir Service. Then, six months ago, as she says, “in an instant, it turned into a crime.”

    • RFERL ☛ Russian-American Fined For Supporting Navalny's Foundation

      The Memorial human rights groups says that a court in Russia's western city of Oryol ordered Russian-American citizen Ilya Startsev to pay 400,000 rubles ($4,240) on a charge of financing an extremist group.

    • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea, Belarus deputy foreign ministers agree to strengthen ties

      They discussed bilateral cooperation in the economy and culture as well as mutual support on the global stage.

    • New York Times ☛ An ISIS Terror Group Draws Half Its Recruits From Tiny Tajikistan

      Young migrants from the former Soviet republic were accused of an attack on a concert hall in Moscow that killed 145 people.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • International Business Times ☛ Tesla Cybertruck Whistleblower Revealed: Vehicle Issues Similar To Model S Issues 10 Years Ago

    Balan's disclosures about safety concerns align with recent drone footage capturing a backlog of unfinished Cybertrucks at the Texas factory. This incident coincides with Musk's announcement that about 14,000 Tesla workers will be laid off, citing sluggish electric vehicle sales.

• Environment

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Q&A: Why are we drowning in single-use plastics, and what can we do about it?

    Every year, the world produces nearly 400 million tons of plastic, a 19,000% increase from 1950. The amount is forecast to double by 2050 and 90% is never recycled. Over half of the plastics produced are used only once, for things like packaging, utensils and straws.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Fourteen years after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, endemic fishes face an uncertain future

    The 2010 Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon was the largest accidental oil spill in history. With almost 100 million gallons (379 million liters) of oil combined with dispersants suggested to remain in the Gulf, it is one of the worst pollution events ever. More than a decade later, its long-term effects are still not fully understood.

  • American Academy of Neurology ☛ Two Hunters from the Same Lodge Afflicted with Sporadic CJD: Is Chronic Wasting Disease to Blame? (P7-13.002)

    In 2022, a 72-year-old man with a history of consuming meat from a CWD-infected deer population presented with rapid-onset confusion and aggression. His friend, who had also eaten venison from the same deer population, recently died of CJD, raising concerns about a potential link between CWD and human prion disease. Despite aggressive symptomatic treatment of seizures and agitation, the patient’s condition deteriorated and he died within a month of initial presentation. The diagnosis was confirmed postmortem as sporadic CJD with homozygous methionine at codon 129 (sCJDMM1). The patient’s history, including a similar case in his social group, suggests a possible novel animal-to-human transmission of CWD. Based on non-human primate and mouse models, cross-species transmission of CJD is plausible. Due to the challenge of distinguishing sCJDMM1 from CWD without detailed prion protein characterization, it is not possible to definitively rule out CWD in these cases. Although causation remains unproven, this cluster emphasizes the need for further investigation into the potential risks of consuming CWD-infected deer and its implications for public health.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ What plastics really recycle: myths

    Clara and I have been very deliberate about the plastic we bring into our home now, to the point where we’ll pay significantly more for less food because it doesn’t come wrapped in redundant rubbish. We do the whole thing of buying refills instead of newer containers, even though it’s often messy or a massive pain. We’ve swapped hand soap for bars, and stopped buying certain foods altogether.

  • [Old] CBC ☛ Recycling was a lie — a big lie — to sell more plastic, industry experts say | CBC Documentaries

    Although activists sounded the alarm about plastic waste in the 1970s, the documentary claims from 1990 to 2010, plastic production more than doubled. We've been sorting our trash for decades, believing it would be recycled. But the truth is the vast majority of the plastic we use won't be. Over the last seven decades, less than 10 per cent of plastic waste has been recycled.

  • The Conversation ☛ The rising flood of space junk is a risk to us on Earth – and governments are on the hook

    The outer space treaty of 1967 says that the country that authorised the launch (known as the “launching state”) is responsible for damage caused to people or things on Earth. The UN’s liability convention, which came into force in 1972, also makes this liability absolute for damage on Earth or to aircraft in flight. The concept of absolute liability means that responsibility applies regardless of whose fault it was. Countries are also liable for spacecraft and rocket sections launched by private companies. This is because article 6 of the outer space treaty makes nations responsible for the activities of their citizens in outer space.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ No load shedding for three weeks - and counting

      “Load shedding will continue to be suspended until further notice. This follows a period of 21 consecutive days and, as of midday today, 535 hours without load shedding,” Eskom said in a statement.

    • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Railways marks 171 years of service in India

      On April 16, 1853, India inaugurated its first passenger train service, marking the beginning of the country's enduring railway legacy. Over the course of 171 years, the Indian Railways has evolved into the preeminent mode of transportation in the country. It facilitates the commute of 1.8 crore passengers.

      One of the largest rail networks in the world, Indian Railways connects 7,000 railway stations. It operates 16,000 trains criss-crossing the country’s length and breadth through its 1.35 lakh kilometre of rail track. The Indian Railways is the largest employer with a workforce of 14 lakh people.

    • DeSmog ☛ Liz Truss Book Calls for Climate Laws to be Abolished and Boasts of Effort to Cancel UK COP Summit

      The new book by former Prime Minister Liz Truss urges the UK, U.S. and EU to drop their landmark climate change laws, spreads falsehoods about green policies, and fondly recalls an attempt to cancel a major climate conference.

      Truss, who is the Conservative MP for South West Norfolk, resigned as prime minister in October 2022 after just 49 days in office.

    • DeSmog ☛ Pathways Alliance Paid Google to Advertise on ‘Greenwashing’ Searches

      A major Canadian oil sands group has been running advertisements on Google that target people seeking information about oil industry “greenwashing,” the practice by which companies make false and misleading environmental promises. 

      The Pathways Alliance is a marketing and lobbying organization representing the country’s six largest oil sands producers: Imperial Oil, Suncor, ConocoPhillips, Cenovus, CNRL and MEG.

  • Overpopulation

    • CS Monitor ☛ Mexico falls shorts on 1944 treaty to provide Texas farms with water

      Under the treaty designed to allocate shared water resources, Mexico is required to send 1.75 million acre-feet of water from the Rio Grande to the United States over a five-year cycle.

      Now in year four, Mexico has sent only about 30% of its expected deliveries, the lowest amount at this point of any four- or five-year cycles since 1992, according to data from the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), which oversees the treaty.

• Finance

  • LRT ☛ Despite windfall tax, Lithuania’s banks see profits double

    Banks operating in Lithuania earned a net profit of 986 million euros last year, twice as much as in 2022 (491 million euros), according to unaudited data released by the Bank of Lithuania on Thursday.

  A fire broke out at Lithuania’s Medininkai border checkpoint with Belarus in the early morning on Thursday. One customs employee was injured in the fire.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• CNBC ☛ AI startup Stability lays off 10% of employees after CEO exit

  Stability AI made more than 20 of its employees redundant to "right-size" the business after a period of unsustainable growth, according to an internal memo obtained by CNBC.

• The Register UK ☛ Stability AI decimates staff just weeks after CEO leaves

  The layoffs come as the startup - best known for its work on the Stable Diffusion text-to-image generation model - scrambles to get its spending under control, even as it releases updated models and features. On Wednesday Stability rolled out API access to its third-generation Stable Diffusion model, presumably in bid to bring in new business from apps built atop the service.

• The Atlantic ☛ The new rules of political journalism

  This past weekend, I was on a panel at the annual conference of the International Symposium on Online Journalism, in beautiful downtown Austin. Several journalists discussed the question: Are we going to get it right this time? Have the media learned their lessons, and are journalists ready for the vertiginous slog of the 2024 campaign?

  My answer: only if we realize how profoundly the rules of the game have changed.

  Lest we need reminding, this year’s election features a candidate who incited an insurrection, called for terminating sections of the Constitution, was found liable for what a federal judge says was “rape” as it is commonly understood, faces 88 felony charges, and—I’m tempted to add “etcetera” here, but that’s the problem, isn’t it? The volume and enormity of it all is impossible to take in.

• India Times ☛ India’s bumper Apple harvest; GCCs go wider to hunt talent

  By the numbers: Apple contributed 65%, or about $10 billion, double the $5 billion of phone exports from India in FY23 when the US major became the first smartphone brand to achieve this feat.

• India Times ☛ Apple says it wants to spend more on suppliers in Vietnam

  Apple Inc wants to boost its investment in Vietnam, state media quoted the US tech giant's CEO Tim Cook as saying in Hanoi on Tuesday, a day after the US company said it wanted to increase spending on suppliers in the Southeast Asian nation.

  Vietnam is already a key manufacturing hub for Apple and Cook was speaking while meeting Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, state media reported.

• The Register UK ☛ Google laying off staff again, moving some roles to 'hubs'

  The headcount cuts are being reported as "pretty large-scale" with some roles being moved abroad, including to lower cost job locations – borrowing from the playbook used by many legacy tech services vendors. Numbers have not been confirmed.

  Ruth Porat, CFO at Google parent Alphabet, told staff in a memo – seen by CNBC – that the plan is to create hubs to centralize ops for finance teams in Bangalore, Mexico City, Dublin, Chicago, and Atlanta.

• NDTV ☛ Google Lays Off Employees, Shifts Some Roles Abroad Amid Cost Cuts

  Google let go of hundreds of workers across multiple teams in January including its engineering, hardware and assistant teams as the company ramps up investment and builds its artificial intelligence offerings.

  Listen to the latest songs, only on JioSaavn.com

  Company CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly told employees at the start of the year to expect more job cuts.

• Wired ☛ Tesla's Layoffs Won't Solve Its Growing Pains

  For many employees, the layoffs were a surprise. On Friday, Angela’s boss told her how great she was doing at her job, selling Teslas direct to customers in the US state of Georgia. Three days later, her role had been eliminated, effective immediately. “I expected more from Tesla, to at least give people a week or two’s heads-up,” says Angela, who requested to use a pseudonym in case she gets the chance to work for Tesla again. Angela says 40 percent of her team was laid off, and in shock. Around 14,000 people received that same email, which blamed rapid growth for the duplication of job roles. “We have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount globally,” the email said.

• Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

  • RFA ☛ Tibetan political leader ‘optimistic’ about passage of US bill on Tibet

    The Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, also known as the Resolve Tibet Act, was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 15.

    The bill, which also empowers the State Department to counter disinformation on Tibet, was unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, advancing the bill to the Senate floor.

Censorship/Free Speech

• FAIR ☛ ‘I Knew They Had Fabricated a False Narrative’: Interview with Estela Aranha on 'Twitter Files Brazil'

  Libertarian pundit Michael Shellenberger on April 3 tweeted a series of excerpts from emails by X executives, dubbed “Twitter Files Brazil”, which alleged to expose crimes by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Moraes, he claimed, had pressed criminal charges against Twitter Brazil‘s lawyer for its refusal to turn over personal information on political enemies. Elon Musk quickly shared the tweets and they viralized and were embraced by the international far right, to the joy of former President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters.

• The Nation ☛ The Cop City Defendants Are Done Being Silent

  “Speaking out is a really contentious and dangerous thing to do,” Dupuis says from their parents’ home in Massachusetts. (While defendants must return to Atlanta for trials, some were required to leave the state while the case is ongoing). “The prosecution loves to use people’s words against them. And so silence is the safest option. I reached a point where I didn’t want to take the safest option anymore.”

• Michael Geist ☛ Debating the Online Harms Act: Insights from Two Recent Panels on Bill C-63

  The Online Harms Act has sparked widespread debate over the past six weeks. I’ve covered the bill in a trio of Law Bytes podcast (Online Harms, Canada Human Rights Act, Criminal Code) and participated in several panels focused on the issue. Those panels are posted below. First, a panel titled the Online Harms Act: What’s Fact and What’s Fiction, sponsored by CIJA that included Emily Laidlaw, Richard Marceau and me. It paid particular attention to the intersection between the bill and online hate.

• El País ☛ A ‘tropicalized Taliban regime’ and a family succession plan underway: Ortega and Murillo radicalize repression in Nicaragua

  Since 2018, the Nicaraguan police have stepped up repression every April, when citizens and government opponents commemorate the mass social protests that broke out against the regime of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, and were crushed by a brutal paramilitary and police crackdown. This year is no different. Police have detained five people and increased their activities in the country’s main capital cities. The individuals arrested are relatives of protesters who died in the police crackdown and released political prisoners.

• Hong Kong Free Press ☛ HK Tiananmen vigil activists lose bid to challenge convictions at top court

  Chow Hang-tung, a human rights lawyer and the former vice-chair of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements, the group that once organised the city’s annual candlelight vigils in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, represented herself in court on Wednesday.

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 'Not safe': Saudi Arabia slammed after jailing football fans

  "These laws have egregious sentences for basic freedom of expression issues," Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher for Human Rights Watch, told DW. "Anything that can be interpreted as destabilizing the state or insulting the country's leaders can come with very big sentences that can be meted out. And, ultimately, it can be a political decision to decide which fans and which speech is cracked down upon. It's a really terrifying scenario."

• El País ☛ Salman Rushdie’s memoir recounts the attack that almost killed him: ‘I just stood there like a piñata and let him smash me’

  It happened in August 2022, when the Indian-born, British-American author was about to give a talk in Chautauqua, in upstate New York. An assailant named Hadi Matar (in the book he prefers to call him only A.) ran on stage and stabbed Rushdie, who was standing in an amphitheater that could seat 4,000 people. Out of the corner of his right eye he perceived a man dressed in black, wearing a balaclava and running towards him. He was paralyzed, and still wonders why to this day.

• RFERL ☛ Taliban Pulls 2 TV Channels For 'Violating Islamic Values'

  Two Afghan television channels have been taken off the airwaves for "violations against Islamic and national values," a spokesman for the Taliban-led government said on April 18. [...]

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• Scheerpost ☛ CIA Director Claims Lawsuit Against Alleged CIA-Backed Spying on Assange Visitors Could Damage US Security

  Four Americans, two attorneys and two journalists, allege that the CIA and CIA Director Mike Pompeo directed UC Global, a Spanish security company, to carry out a spying operation against Assange that violated their privacy. UC Global allegedly copied the contents of their electronic devices and provided the data to the CIA.

• El País ☛ US provides minimal assurances that Assange will not be sentenced to death if extradited

  “The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the first amendment [the possibility that Assange could benefit from the right to freedom of expression enshrined in the U.S. Constitution], and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty,” Stella Assange said in a statement on social media, shared as soon as she learned of the document delivered to the High Court. “Instead, the U.S. has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can ‘seek to raise’ the first amendment if extradited.”

• teleSUR ☛ London Court to Resume Assange Extradition Trial in May

  If, after hearing the arguments from both sides, the court accepts those assurances, Assange could be extradited to the U.S., which is charging him with 18 counts of espionage and computer intrusion due to the revelations from his WikiLeaks platform.

  However, if the court rejects them, the 52-year-old Australian could appeal his extradition in another legal process, which the British government already approved in 2022.

• RFERL ☛ Iranian Journalist Arrested After Recounting Assault By Morality Police

  Ghalibaf, a journalist and student of political science at Tehran’s Beheshti University, disclosed details of her arrest by law enforcement on April 15 for defying the compulsory hijab law, including that she was sexually assaulted during her detention. She was subsequently re-arrested by intelligence forces and taken to an undisclosed location.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Pro Publica ☛ Movie Exec Ryan Millsap Sent Racist, Antisemitic Texts, Records Show

  When Ryan Millsap arrived in Atlanta from California a decade ago, the real estate investor set his sights on becoming a major player in Georgia’s booming film industry. In just a few years, he achieved that, opening a movie studio that attracted big-budget productions like “Venom,” Marvel’s alien villain, and “Lovecraft Country,” HBO’s fictional drama centered on the racial terror of Jim Crow America.

  As he rose to prominence, Millsap cultivated important relationships with Black leaders and Jewish colleagues and won accolades for his commitment to diversity. But allegations brought by his former attorney present a starkly different picture. In private conversations, court documents allege, Millsap expressed racist and antisemitic views.

• EFF ☛ Two Years Post-Roe: A Better Understanding of Digital Threats

  Although many activists fighting for reproductive justice had been operating under assumptions of little to no legal protections for some time, the Dobbs decision was for most a sudden and scary revelation. Everyone implicated in that moment somewhat understood the stark difference between pre-Roe 1973 and post-Roe 2022; living under the most sophisticated surveillance apparatus in human history presents a vastly different landscape of threats. Since 2022, some suspicions have been confirmed, new threats have emerged, and overall our risk assessment has grown smarter. Below, we cover the most pressing digital dangers facing people seeking reproductive care, and ways to combat them.

  A case in Nebraska resulted in a woman, Jessica Burgess, being sentenced to two years in prison for obtaining abortion pills for her teenage daughter. Prosecutors used a Facebook Messenger chat log between Jessica and her daughter as key evidence, bolstering the concerns many had raised about using such privacy-invasive tech products for sensitive communications. At the time, Facebook Messenger did not have end-to-end encryption.

• Techdirt ☛ Cops Claim Body Cam Footage Of Wrong Address Raid Would Be ‘Dangerous’ To Release To General Public

  Cops continue to wonder why people don’t trust them. Go figure.

• Hamilton Nolan ☛ Killing the Middlemen in the Rideshare Industry

  Last month, the Minneapolis City Council passed a law guaranteeing a minimum wage for rideshare drivers in the city. In response, Uber and Lyft, being the caring employers that they are, announced that they would pull out of the city when the law takes effect on May 1. State politicians are still scrambling to find a compromise to appease the companies—but Forman and The Drivers Cooperative saw an opportunity. TDC is now one of several companies trying to fill the gap that would be left by Uber and Lyft’s exit. If successful, they could pave the way for the creating of the first major US city to move its rideshare business to a fully cooperative model, cutting out the middlemen and setting drivers up for a better living.

  I talked to Forman about the TDC’s plans, its efforts to change one of the most nakedly extractive industries in the world for the better, and what you can do to help.

• YLE ☛ Thursday's papers: Finnish children on phones, Olympic uniform designs, and rage-inducing Finglish

  Väntönen pointed out that this is even enshrined in law in her state of Maryland, which states that children under the age of eight cannot be unattended at home or in a car.

• France24 ☛ Violent arrests seen in Iran as 'morality patrols' resume in nationwide crackdown

  Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has made pointed remarks about hijab in two recent speeches. On April 3, he said: “Hijab is a Sharia-based obligation that must not be abrogated [...] Hijab is also a legal obligation, and everyone must respect the law.” A week later, on April 10, he repeated in another speech: “We do not want to impose religion on anyone, but we will fight non-conformism”.

  These speeches were apparently the cue for Ahmad-Reza Radan, the Islamic Republic's national police chief. A former military officer known for years for his brutal imposition of hijab rules, Radan announced in a press release on April 11 that police would crack down on women without a hijab. “Women must wear a hijab as it should be worn, otherwise the police will confront them according to the hijab law,” he said, adding that the crackdown would begin April 13. His office issued a statement on April 14 saying that hijab patrols had started nationwide.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Techdirt ☛ Biden’s New Net Neutrality Rules Don’t Prevent Anti-Competitive “Fast Lanes”

  One of the key reasons the net neutrality fight even became a thing was widespread concern that big ISPs would abuse their power to behave anti-competitively, picking winners and losers across the internet ecosystem, and nickel-and-diming consumers in a variety of obnoxiously creative ways.

• Techdirt ☛ No, TikTok Is Not ‘Programmable Fentanyl.’ Stop It

  What do Fentanyl and TikTok have in common? Well, the real answer is absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. But, if you want to push a nonsense moral panic, apparently, you compare the two.

• Zimbabwe ☛ Africa's Digital Divide: The Case of .africa Top-Level Domain

  At first glance, one might assume that the .africa TLD would be predominantly utilized by African nations and entities to showcase their presence on the internet. However, the reality is quite different.

  Only 9 .africa TLD registrars are on the African continent. Europe has some 40 .africa registrars. North America has 13. France, with all its colonial issues has double what SA has and 3 short of the entire continent.

  Africa’s engagement with its own digital identity is alarmingly low!

• Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ It's time to share scarce spectrum in South Africa

  South Africa, like many nations, faces a growing challenge: the ever-increasing demand for wireless data is straining the limited resource of radio frequency spectrum.

  Cellular networks, Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies all rely on this spectrum to function, and with data consumption doubling every two years, the pressure is on to use this resource more efficiently.