Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Standards/Consortia

  • The Register UK ☛ RISC-V battles to get messaging right over open standard

    The RISC-V community would rather not have its instruction set architecture (ISA) hit with export or import sanctions, as that would affect adoption and encourage fragmentation. It hopes to avoid a crackdown by getting lawmakers, policy wonks, and officials to understand what the community sees as the subtle difference between open source and an open specification.

    Simply put, they hope to press the point that it's one thing to hit a product with trade restrictions – say, a particular computer processor, or a paid-for software application, or even an open source project – but quite another to hit an open standard or specification with restrictions. It's the difference between banning, for example, exports of certain Ethernet network controllers, and straight up banning the export of Ethernet as a whole.

  • [Repeat] APNIC ☛ Calling time on DNSSEC?

    There have been quite a few Internet technologies that have not been enthusiastically adopted from the outset. In many cases, the technology has been quietly discarded in favour of the next innovation, but in some cases, the technology just refuses to go away and sits in a protracted state of partial adoption. In some cases, this has seen a determinate state so protracted that much of the original rationale for the technology has been overtaken by events and the case to support adoption needs to be rephrased in more recent terms.

  • Frank Meeuwsen ☛ The daunting task of importing 24 years of blogposts | Frank Meeuwsen

    I really hope to have a clean archive in markdown in a few days time. It should make future life easier. I hope. I wish.

Leftovers

• Troy Patterson ☛ Links or Ads?

  This was fascinating to me. Stephen Downes has expressed what is frequently a frustration for me. Links that I can’t really get to. There has been lots of discussion about this practice across Mastodon. There is the issue that links that may be available for one person may not be available to someone else. I do, however, love the elegance expressed by Stephen Downes, links versus advertisements. If I can’t get through the link, it isn’t a link, it is an advertisement.

• Manuel Moreale ☛ Bearblog is fun

  That said, a few weeks back I started toying with the idea of porting the design of this site over to Bear, just for fun. And to my surprise, creating a bear version of my site was surprisingly simple.

• Anil Dash ☛ Systems: The Purpose of a System is What It Does

  A potential negative aspect of understanding that the purpose of a system is what it does, is that we are then burdened with the horrible but hopefully galvanizing knowledge of this reality. For example, when our carceral system causes innocent people to be held in torturous or even deadly conditions because they could not afford bail, we must understand that this is the system working correctly. It is doing the thing it is designed to do. When we shout about the effect that this system is having, we are not filing a bug report, we are giving a systems update, and in fact we are reporting back to those with agency over the system that it is working properly.

  Sit with it for a minute. If this makes you angry or uncomfortable, or repulses you, then you are understanding the concept correctly.

• Manton Reece ☛ Weak opinions, strongly held

  It also matters what we consume. If we read too much social media, what happens is that most of the consumption is headlines and opinions, not the facts behind the headlines. It’s retweets, short quotes, and TikToks, not longer blog posts and stories.

• James G ☛ Personal archives

  I take all of my notes in a single notes document. This is my lab notebook, my list of TODOs, observations: everything that is on my mind. I find that this list needs a better priority scheme, but at present I am enjoying letting the space grow. I may create a new document with my TODOs soon and another one called lab notebook.

• Manuel Moreale ☛ Consumption-to-creation ratio

  You're currently reading this post either in your RSS feed, in your inbox, or in your browser. You are consuming content. Consuming content is what the majority of the people do most of the time online. But what's the ideal ratio between consuming and creating content? I'd argue that a 100/0 split in favour of consumption is not ideal the same way a 0/100 also isn't. You need to consume at least some content in order to help your ideas evolve.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ A Bizarre Form of Water Could Help Explain Uranus's Messy Magnetism

    It's not entirely clear why, but thanks to a team of researchers from China and Russia we might have a new piece of the puzzle: a really weird, ionized form of water dubbed aquodiium that could exist deep in the extreme high-pressure interiors of these weird, icy worlds.

    Aquodiium consists of a normal water molecule with two additional protons, giving it a net positive charge that – in sufficient enough quantities – could produce a planetary magnetic field like those of Uranus and Neptune.

  • Greece ☛ Cretan civilians executed by Nazis identified 83 years later using DNA

    Eighteen civilians who were executed on Crete by the Nazis during World War II have been identified 83 years later via DNA analysis by the Comparative Genomics Lab at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH).

• Education

  • APNIC ☛ Register now for APNIC 58 in Wellington

    Registration is now open for APNIC 58 in Te Whanganui a Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand from 30 August to 6 September 2024 at the Tākina Wellington Convention & Exhibition Centre. APNIC 58 is proudly hosted by InternetNZ.

  • Matt Fantinel ☛ Best longterm goal? Not having one

    So, maybe, probably, I'd have spent years focusing on my goal of becoming the best backend developer, while not really enjoying it that much. And knowing myself, I just know that I could never do my best work if I didn't enjoy what I was doing. I'd have sacrificed all the fun I had along the way, and probably still feel not good enough by now.

    This anecdote was focused on web development, but it really could apply to most longterm goals in life.

  • Lucidity ☛ The Complex Problem Of Lying For Jobs — Ludicity

    This reads like a fucking robot wrote it. I suddenly realize, to my own dismay, that I live in the timeline where a robot probably did write it, but my point stands. It's corporate piffle, it's soulless nonsense, and I'd happily slam a pint of hemlock to wash the taste of this particular bland of flaccid uncharisma and drooling dullspeak from my mouth. And to make it worse, it is still lying, which I will elaborate on below.

  • Juha-Matti Santala ☛ Third places and meetups

    Community and urban design are two things somewhat close to my heart. Community is very much at the core of it, I’m a community guy by any measure of the word. Urban design is more of a curiosity to me: I watch videos on it from channels like Not Just Bikes, City Beautiful and Strong Towns and occasionally read books and articles around the topic.

    In this blog post, I’ll introduce you to third places as a concept and how I think our meetups provide some of the same benefits.

  • Johan Bleuzen ☛ Learning to read again

    I know how to read except that I don’t read anymore… I can read stuff in my daily life, like press news, blog posts or technical documentations but I can’t read a book. It can sound weird but I’ve not been able to read a complete book for a maybe more than ten years now and everytime I tried in the past, I gave up pretty quickly.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Research suggests hate speech experiences drop when schools offer structure and adult support

    A new study looks at hate speech experiences even before COVID, during the period between 2015 and 2019. The article, "Hate Speech Against Asian American Youth: Pre-Pandemic Trends and The Role of School Factors," was published May 4 in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

• Hardware

  • Intel Stock’s Semiconductor Slump: A Sell Signal for Savvy Investors?

    Unlike peers in the high-performance chipmaking space, Intel’s focus on the PC and other consumer-focused markets can be viewed as a good or bad thing, depending on who you talk to.

    The company is clearly now seeing challenges in central processing units for data centers and devices. The company seems affected by China’s export controls and tariffs. So, there’s plenty for long-term investors to consider at this point in time.

  • The Register UK ☛ Investor tells Texas Instruments to stop spending on fabs

    The $65 billion hedge fund, which has amassed a $2.5 billion stake in Texas Instruments, says in its letter [PDF] that the chipmaker is investing way too much into its 2022 plan to almost triple production capacity by 2030. Elliott Management's core reasoning is that TI is projected to overshoot demand by a significant margin in the coming years: 54 percent in 2026 and 50 percent in 2030, when the plan will be complete.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • TechXplore ☛ Tesla under investigation over Bay Area factory toxic emissions, and faces lawsuit over alleged health harms

    Bay Area air quality officials have launched an investigation into Tesla, charging the electric automaker with letting massive amounts of harmful toxins escape into the air from its Fremont car factory.

  • Joel Chrono ☛ Creation, consumption, and stuff

    Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely times when I “consume”, whenever I scroll on social media, and read a few words in a random post, or whenever I watch a YouTube Short of a topic I don’t care about just because it is mildly interesting to me, knowing very well it’s not worth it, and forgetting about it after scrolling down.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ A bipartisan push to make air travel easier for new parents packing breast milk and formula

    Under the proposal, the agency must consult with maternal health organizations — March of Dimes, Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine — to determine what policies and regulations need to be updated as pumping technology and best practices for breast milk storage evolve, she said.

  • New York Times ☛ Opinion | How We’ve Lost Our Moorings as a Society

    You see, shame used to be a mangrove. It used to be that if you were a candidate for president of the United States and it was alleged — with a lot of evidence — that you falsified business records to cover up sex with a porn star right after your wife had given birth to a child, you would lower your head in shame, drop out of the race and hide under the bed. That shame mangrove has been completely uprooted by Trump.

  • Charter Communications ☛ New bill aims to expedite cases for Lejeune water victims

    The Navy, which handles the administrative claims, has previously said adjudicating the cases is time-consuming.

    It recently introduced a plan to expedite the claims. But Ensminger said that voluntary elective option is far from adequate for the financial burden victims suffered from the toxic water.

  • Rach Smith ☛ Why being on my phone too much makes me feel bad

    There’s a threshold of phone use that once crossed makes me feel pretty bad.

  • Robert Birming ☛ Creating Yourself - Robert Birming

    I listened to a documentary about Bob Dylan. It ended with the following wise words from him:

    "Life is not about finding yourself or finding anything. Life is about creating yourself and creating things."

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ The group aiming to stop ‘endemic’ suicide among Native American vets

    It’s the highest rate among racial and ethnic groups of veterans, both for that year and for all other years dating back to at least 2001. While the actual number of deaths is lower in comparison to totals from other demographic groups, given the smaller overall population of Indigenous veterans, it marks a jump from a rate of 29.8 per 100,000 just one year prior for the demographic — one that serves in the military at a higher rate per capita than any other ethnic group.

  • Science Alert ☛ These Factors Could Be Behind The Military's Shockingly High Suicide Rates

    A 2021 study estimated that four times as many active duty service members and veterans died by suicide as died in battle since 9/11.

    Despite recent calls to action to improve suicide prevention within the military, suicide rates remain elevated among service members.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Roy Tang ☛ Google's LLM Hallucinations

    My friends at Forbes, we know what exactly is causing the issue: LLMs are basically parrots 1 that have no concept of factuality or reliability or context. It has no idea whether the source of the information is a satire site like the onion or a joke comment on a reddit post or whatever. In fact, LLMs have no concept of sources or documents or such things; the language models break down their training data sets into things like terms and words and tokens and probabilities and uses those to chain together sentences, but any concept of their source documents is lost along the way. This is why attribution can be challenging for an LLM.

  • India Times ☛ Ex-OpenAI board member provides her first detailed account of CEO Sam Altman's ouster

    Former OpenAI board member Helen Toner revealed on a podcast the backstory behind the firing and rehiring of CEO Sam Altman, citing instances of psychological abuse and a toxic atmosphere at the company due to a manipulative executive.

  • Futurism ☛ Google Caught Manually Taking Down Bizarre AI Answers

    Last week, on the heels of Google's all-in-on-AI I/O conference, netizens and journalists alike took to social media in droves to share screenshots of Google's new "AI Overview" — in short, a new AI function tacked to the top of Google search pages that gobbles up search results and paraphrases what it finds — spitting out head-scratching, false, and in some cases downright conspiratorial answers to search queries.

  • The Verge ☛ Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

    Gary Marcus, an AI expert and an emeritus professor of neural science at New York University, told The Verge that a lot of AI companies are “selling dreams” that this tech will go from 80 percent correct to 100 percent. Achieving the initial 80 percent is relatively straightforward since it involves approximating a large amount of human data, Marcus said, but the final 20 percent is extremely challenging. In fact, Marcus thinks that last 20 percent might be the hardest thing of all.

  • Harry Cresswell ☛ AI free, human-generated

    For now, I’m right behind this “AI free” movement and what it stands for.

  • Take-Two CEO Responds To Reports Of Studio Shutdowns

    Although the Take-Two CEO mentioned how Intercept Games and Roll7 haven't been shut down, it seems a layoff is on the way.

  • Portfolio Media Inc ☛ Microsoft's Post-Merger Layoffs Cited In I-Told-You-So Appeal

    A private group of gamers is pointing to Microsoft's recent layoffs of 1,900 Activision and XBox employees as evidence of market harms stemming from Microsoft Corp.'s acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc., as the group seeks to revive a private antitrust suit challenging the merger in the Ninth Circuit...

  • Take Notes, Xbox: Larian CEO Built “Multiple fallback positions” to Stop Mass Layoffs after Baldur’s Gate 3 Success

    Microsoft’s decision to shut down these studios led to mass layoffs that frustrated many in the gaming landscape. However, it seems Mircosoft should start taking notes from Larian Studio’s CEO, who developed clever strategies to avoid layoffs after Baldur’s Gate 3‘s incredible success.

  • TechCrunch ☛ Fisker cuts hundreds of workers in bid to keep EV startup alive

    Workers suspected layoffs were coming when the company directed everyone to work from home on Wednesday — an out-of-character directive, according to multiple current and former employees. The layoffs were announced during an all-hands meeting held Wednesday morning.

  • Game Rant ☛ Intercept Games Announces Layoffs Despite Take-Two Comments

    Earlier this month, Take-Two’s CEO Strauss Zelnick responded to rumors that the company was shuttering OlliOlli World developer Roll7 and Kerbal Space Program 2 developer Intercept Games amid cost-cutting measures. Internal documentation from Bloomberg showed that Take Two was proposing to shutter Roll7 but did not mention Intercept Games. Zelnick said the company did not shutter its studios but instead rolled out a cost-reduction plan to save $165 million “in existing and future costs” by cutting spending, canceling projects, and laying off 5% of its staff.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EFF ☛ A Wider View on TunnelVision and VPN Advice

    • India Times ☛ EU in touch with Telegram as it nears criterion for EU tech rules

      EU tech regulators are in touch with messaging app Telegram as it nears a key usage criterion that could see it subject to more stringent requirements under a landmark EU online content legislation, the European Commission said on Tuesday.

      The Digital Services Act (DSA) which kicked in last year applies to all online intermediaries and platforms, but with tougher obligations on Big Tech to do more to police illegal and harmful online content on their platforms.

    • Michael Geist ☛ Curb Your Enthusiasm: Why Bill S-210 Could Mandate CRTC-Backed Age Verification For Streaming Services Like Netflix, Crave and CBC Gem

      There are many reasons to be concerned about Bill S-210, the mandated age verification bill that raises significant privacy and freedom of expression risks and which is being improbably backed by Conservative MPs. The bill would mandate age verification technologies that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada says creates concern given missing safeguards, it establishes website blocking that government officials warn could undermine net neutrality and an open Internet, and its broad scope goes beyond pornography websites to include search and social media. But beyond those concerns, government officials have now zeroed in another problem: the definition of “sexually explicit material” used in the bill effectively captures streaming services such as Netflix, Crave, Prime, and CBC Gem. As a result, watching a show such as Game of Thrones or some episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm on a cable or satellite package comes only with a rating and warning, whereas streaming it via Crave would involve a mandated age verification process.

    • Science News ☛ Privacy remains an issue with several women’s health apps

      The team evaluated the privacy policies and data management features of 20 of the most popular female health apps on the U.S. and U.K. Google Play Store. They found instances of covertly gathering sensitive user data, inconsistencies across privacy policies and privacy-related app features, flawed data deletion mechanisms and more.

      The researchers also found that apps often linked user data to their web searches or browsing, putting the user’s anonymity at risk. Some apps required a user to indicate whether they had had a miscarriage or abortion to use a data-deletion feature. This is an example of dark patterns, or manipulating a user to give out private information, the study authors point out.

    • The Register UK ☛ PayPal plans an ad network built off your purchase history

      And it sounds as though it'll work like this: PayPal will provide ways for businesses to advertise online – on websites and in apps – and use the information PayPal knows about people – their transactions, purchasing histories, etc – to target them specifically.

    • OpenRightsGroup ☛ Demise of the DPDI is good news for data protection in the UK

      “The DPDI Bill contained many dangerous proposals that would have harmed the data protection rights of people in the UK and beyond. The fact that it is being dropped at this late stage is not just down to good timing but also because civil society has been challenging this attempt to undermine our rights, hand more power to government and corporations, and weaken the Information Commissioner’s Office.

      “The next government should learn from the mistakes that have been made during this long parliamentary process. Our data is valuable and we need government to ensure that there are laws in place to protect it, and a strong regulator to ensure that rules are enforced.”

• Defence/Aggression

  • France24 ☛ Israel says it seized key Gaza-Egypt corridor as Rafah ground offensive intensifies

    Israel's army said Wednesday it took control of a vital Gaza-Egypt corridor it suspects aided weapons smuggling as the ground offensive against Hamas in the border city of Rafah intensified.

  • [Old] Foundation for Defense of Democracies ☛ 5 Things to Know About ByteDance, TikTok’s Parent Company

    Chinese law requires ByteDance to adhere to CCP ideology. China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 obligates “all” Chinese organizations and citizens to collaborate with state intelligence operations, effectively co-opting private entities into extensions of the government’s surveillance apparatus. China’s recently revised Counter-Espionage Law intensifies these mandates, stipulating that all technological progress, regardless of its intended civilian or military use, must be accessible to and serve the interests of state security and intelligence efforts. In practice, these laws position firms like ByteDance at the forefront of a strategy where commerce serves the state, and data privacy norms adhered to internationally hold little weight within China’s borders.

  • [Old] CNBC ☛ Dear Senators: TikTok is a Chinese weapon and it’s time to divest it from CCP control. [PDF]

    THIS IS NOT ABOUT FREE SPEECH. Opponents of the Bill in Congress, like the CCP, are cynically using the First Amendment as a talking point. TIKTOK IS NOT A “PUBLIC SQUARE” OR A “FREE SPEECH PLATFORM.” It shadow bans and censors any person or topic deemed problematic by the CCP. Try searching for #UyghurGenocide or #HongKongProtest. Is this free speech or proof of CCP control? If you’re a TikTok shareholder, you’re censored from saying anything critical of the company for fear of seeing your shares seized–is this free speech or proof of CCP control? For decades, we’ve restricted the foreign ownership of traditional media stations for a reason. The proposed legislation narrowly focuses on the company’s conduct, not the speech of its users; it targets TikTok's corporate ownership structure, not the content of its platform. If you care about free speech, you should support this bill.

  • [Old] The Federalist ☛ Beijing-Based ByteDance Knows TikTok Is A Cultural Weapon

    When Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday that Facebook lost daily users for the first time in its 18-year history last quarter, he blamed TikTok. And why shouldn’t he? The young platform is both the most downloaded app and most visited website in the world. It’s addicting and profitable, which also makes TikTok a tool of cultural control.

    Beijing understands this, which is why the app’s Chinese counterpart Douyin is run much differently by ByteDance. Indeed, the Chinese government recently acquired a 1 percent stake and a seat on the board of one of the Beijing-based company’s domestic subsidiaries.

  • [Old] Asia Times ☛ ByteDance under a microscope in TikTok ban furor - Asia Times

    Take ByteDance. The company has become the focus of scrutiny in the US largely due to the outsized influence that its subsidiary plays in the lives of young Americans. Some 170 million Americans are TikTok users, and US politicians fear their data has a direct route back to the Chinese state via ByteDance, which has its head offices in Beijing.

    Location aside, concerned voices in the US cite the evidence of former ByteDance employees who suggest interference from the Chinese government. They cite reports that the state has quietly taken a direct stake and a board seat at Beijing ByteDance Technology Co Ltd, ByteDance’s Chinese subsidiary.

  • [Old] MercatorNet ☛ TikTok goes the culture-bomb: Chinese apps as a weapon of civilisational warfare - Mercator

    The usual reason given for such caution is that TikTok may permit ByteDance to track users’ locations and contacts, sucking up valuable data-points and potentially allowing Beijing to spy on or blackmail the app’s 1.6 billion global users. But might there be a more fundamental fashion in which TikTok could be weaponised, one which could prove far more destructive to Western security than mere electronic phishing expeditions? Are we banning the right app, but for the wrong reasons?

  • [Old] US House Of Representatives ☛ Experts Agree: ByteDance is Beholden to the CCP and Cannot Be Allowed to Exploit Americans' Data

    “The fact is that we live in a world where Americans’ phones are being weaponized against them by a foreign adversary, and we cannot sit back and let that happen. We would never want the U.S. federal government to have the power to censor, surveil, and manipulate Americans—we absolutely should not permit that abuse of power by the Chinese government through TikTok.”

  • [Old] Business Insider ☛ TikTok Is China's 'AI-Powered Subversion Weapon,' Says OpenAI Investor

    "Recognising that TikTok is an AI-powered subversion weapon, we should view it as we do other weapons and materials relevant to our homeland and national defense industry," he continued, adding that the US banned Huawei routers due to similar concerns over national security.

  • Vox ☛ Israel’s failure to eliminate Hamas, explained

    One is that it's very difficult to take apart a non-state terror group that has taken root inside a very small, urban, densely populated area when they've been there for almost 20 years. Hamas has taken many, many hostages; to this day there are over 100 hostages still in Gaza. It seems pretty likely that the Israeli military has had a difficult time getting to Hamas leadership and key players because they probably are surrounded by hostages. And as much destruction and devastation and killing that we've seen, I think there would have been probably even more if those hostages weren't there and they wouldn't have to worry about that collateral damage.

  • Digital Music News ☛ TikTok vs. USA Opening Arguments Set for September

    TikTok is challenging a recently passed U.S. law that requires Chinese company ByteDance to divest from TikTok by January 19 or face a ban of the platform. On May 14, a group of TikTok creators filed a lawsuit to block the ban, saying it would have a profound effect on their lives should TikTok be banned.

  • [Repeat] LRT ☛ Why do some Lithuanians feel anxiety over Russian language in the streets?

    However, she notes, most Lithuanians understand that the migrants stand on the same side when it comes to the Russian threat.

    Naturally, Lithuanians want Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians living here to learn Lithuanian. However, Petronytė-Urbonavičienė argues that there are not enough Lithuanian language courses, and the price is often high and the quality poor.

  • Air Force Times ☛ Air Force reservists can soon apply to join the Space Force

    Those invited to apply span officers and enlisted airmen across multiple fields, up to the rank of colonel for officers and chief master sergeant for enlisted.

  • VOA News ☛ US concerned over Iran's enriched uranium stockpile

    The report, seen by The Associated Press, said Iran’s supply of enriched uranium has reached 30 times more than the amount agreed on in a 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers to limit Iran’s nuclear program.

  • VOA News ☛ Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile grows, IAEA reports

    The report said Monday that Tehran has not reconsidered its September decision to prevent the most experienced IAEA nuclear inspectors from monitoring its nuclear facilities, adding that it expects Iran “to do so in the context of the ongoing consultations between the agency and Iran.”

    Tensions have heightened between the IAEA and Iran, and since former President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.

  • RFERL ☛ Iran's Stockpile Of Enriched Uranium Continues To Increase, Says UN Nuclear Watchdog

    Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, according to a confidential May 27 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). [...]

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Latvia ☛ Exporters to Russia expelled from Latvian chamber of commerce

      The Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LTRK) has terminated cooperation with ten companies that continue to export to Russia more than two years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, reported Latvian Television May 28.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Russian influence op keeps trying but struggles to win hearts and minds

      Meta researchers said the influence operation known as Doppelganger continues to target European elections and Ukraine policy with little impact.

    • France24 ☛ Police search European Parliament employee's home, offices over possible Russian interference

      Police searched the offices and residence of an employee of the European Parliament on Wednesday as part of an investigation into whether EU lawmakers were bribed to promote Russian propaganda to undermine support for Ukraine, prosecutors said.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania allocates €5m to rebuild schools, kindergartens in Ukraine

      The Lithuanian government on Wednesday allocated 5 million euros to Ukraine’s education sector.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania to contribute radars to German-led air defence coalition for Ukraine

      The Lithuanian government on Wednesday approved 13.5 million euros for the purchase of air surveillance radars to contribute to the German-led air defence coalition for Ukraine, Defence Minister Laurynas Kasčiūnas said on Wednesday.

    • RFERL ☛ U.S. Army Opens New 155mm Artillery Munitions Plant In Texas

      The U.S. Army inaugurated its new Universal Artillery Projectile Lines facility in Mesquite, Texas, on May 29, marking a significant step in producing more 155mm artillery and modernizing domestic munitions production capabilities.

    • RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Says Russia Trying To Thwart Upcoming Peace Summit In Switzerland

      Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on May 29 that Ukraine continues to counter Russia’s attempts to “weaken” a peace summit that is set to take place in Switzerland in two weeks.

    • RFERL ☛ Every NATO Step To Support Ukraine Will Help Contain Russia, Czech Minister Says

      NATO needs to send a signal that it will contain "Russian imperialism" and every move to aid Ukraine will help it do this, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said on May 29, as the military alliance meets this week to discuss support for Kyiv.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Shelling Kills Several In Ukraine As Sweden Donates Modern Radar Planes

      NATO member Sweden on May 29 announced its largest military aid package for Ukraine so far will include modern radar surveillance planes as Russian attacks continued to target civilians, killing several people in three Ukrainian regions.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine Repels Russian Drone Attacks On Three Regions

      Ukraine's air defenses shot down 13 of the 14 drones launched by Russia early on May 29 at three of its regions, the Ukrainian Air Force reported.

    • RFERL ☛ Blinken Praises Progress Toward 'Dynamic Moldova' In Visit To Chisinau

      U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on May 29 pledged $135 million in aid to Moldova for energy security and to counter Russian disinformation, reaffirming Washington's support for Moldova's European integration and its sovereignty against the backdrop of Russian threats and the war in Ukraine.

    • RFERL ☛ Allies Meet In Prague To Discuss Czech Munitions Drive, Air Defense For Ukraine

      The leaders of five European NATO states reaffirmed their support for Ukraine on May 28 at a meeting in Prague where the main focus was a Czech plan to procure up to 800,000 artillery shells from countries outside the European Union and provide them to Ukraine.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Privacy Implications of Tracking Wireless Access Points

      Brian Krebs reports on research into geolocating routers:

      Apple and the satellite-based broadband service Starlink each recently took steps to address new research into the potential security and privacy implications of how their services geolocate devices.

    • The Straits Times ☛ US accuses China's leadership over Ukraine, delivers new sanctions warning

      The Biden administration has stepped up warnings about China's support for Russia.

    • CS Monitor ☛ The Kremlin is all-in on war in Ukraine. That includes transforming Russia’s economy.

      Despite Western sanctions, Russia has persevered. Now the Kremlin appears to be consolidating its economy fully toward the waging of war in Ukraine.

    • New York Times ☛ Biden Weighs Letting Ukraine Strike With U.S. Weapons in Russia

      President Biden is weighing fears of escalation with a nuclear-armed adversary as he considers whether to let Ukraine shoot American weapons into Russia.

    • New York Times ☛ Pentagon Opens Ammunition Factory to Keep Arms Flowing to Ukraine

      A plant still under construction in Mesquite, Texas, will soon turn out 30,000 artillery shells each month, roughly doubling current U.S. output.

    • New York Times ☛ Russia-Ukraine Border That Separates Families Is Now Also a Front Line

      In northeastern Ukraine, and in the part of Russia it touches, the war strains the emotions of people with relatives, and family histories, that span both sides.

    • New York Times ☛ Blinken Hints U.S. May Accept Ukrainian Strikes in Russia With American Arms

      Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken made his remarks after some European leaders called on President Biden to lift the restrictions he has imposed on Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons.

    • The Straits Times ☛ China could arrange Russia-Ukraine peace conference, Lavrov tells RIA

      China could arrange a peace conference in which Russia and Ukraine would participate, the RIA news agency cited Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Thursday.

    • Meduza ☛ At least 28 Ukrainian journalists are in Russian captivity. Here are some of their stories. — Meduza

    • JURIST ☛ Digital rights and civil society groups urge YouTube and Surveillance Giant Google to resist Russia censorship

      Digital rights group Access Now, alongside over 20 Russian and international civil society organizations, sent an open letter on Tuesday to YouTube and its parent company Surveillance Giant Google calling on them to cease aiding the Kremlin in censoring independent media and human rights organizations in Russia.

    • JURIST ☛ Poland defense officials present plan to strengthen security on border with Belarus

      Polish authorities held a press conference on Monday at the headquarters of the General Staff of the Polish Army, revealing details of a multi-year plan aimed at fortifying the Polish border with Belarus and Russia called “Shield East,” The program involves strengthening detection [...]

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania bans imports of over 2,800 products from Russia, Belarus

      Lithuania’s government on Wednesday approved a specific list of Russian and Belarusian products, following the Seimas’ ban on imports of agricultural products and feed of Russian or Belarusian origin in April.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Adds Actor Aleksei Panin To List Of Extremists

      Rosfinmonitoring, Russia's agency for countering money laundering and terrorism financing, said on May 29 it has added noted actor Aleksei Panin to the register of terrorists and extremists.

    • RFERL ☛ Dodik Says Bosnian Serb 'Foreign Agent' Bill Pulled Back For 'Harmonization' With EU Laws

      Milorad Dodik, the Russian-friendly president of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Serb-led entity, said the sudden withdrawal from parliament of a controversial "foreign agent" bill was prompted by the need to harmonize it with EU legislation "since Republika Srpska is committed to the European path."

    • RFERL ☛ Eyes On Georgia's President After Lawmakers Nix Her Veto Of 'Foreign Agent' Law

      Georgia's so-called "foreign agent" law is expected to land back on President Salome Zurabishvili's desk after lawmakers on May 28 overrode her veto, prompting fresh protests against the piece of legislation seen as mirroring a repressive Russian measure.

    • New York Times ☛ Once a Sheriff’s Deputy in Florida, Now a Source of Disinformation From Russia

      In 2016, Russia used an army of trolls to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. This year, an American given asylum in Moscow may be accomplishing much the same thing all by himself.

    • New York Times ☛ Divisions Set to Deepen in Georgia After Foreign Influence Law Passes

      Many Georgians see restrictions on organizations that receive international funding as a sign their country is moving away from the West and toward a Russia they abhor.

    • Meduza ☛ The fine print of Russia’s proposed tax hikes on personal income and corporate profits — Meduza

    • JURIST ☛ Human Rights Watch reports systematic repression of Belarus human rights lawyers

      Human Rights Watch (HRW) with the Belarusian Association of Human Rights Lawyers and Right to Defence released on Monday a report into the politically motivated crackdown on human rights lawyers in Belarus.

    • RFERL ☛ Hungary's Foreign Minister Visits Belarus Despite EU Sanctions, Talks About Expanding Ties

      Hungary's top diplomat visited Belarus on May 29 for talks on expanding ties despite the European Union's sanctions against the country.

    • RFERL ☛ Poland To Reintroduce Buffer Zone At Belarus Border, PM Says

      Poland will reintroduce a 200-meter buffer zone at the Belarusian border at the beginning of next week, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on May 29, after a soldier was left fighting for his life after an attack on the frontier.

    • teleSUR ☛ Belarus Leaves the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces

      This country will stop informing the CFE signatories about conventional weapons in its territory and will not allow inspection visits.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Verge ☛ Google confirms the leaked Search documents are real

    A collection of 2,500 leaked internal documents from Google filled with details about data the company collects is authentic, the company confirmed today. Until now, Google had refused to comment on the materials.

    The documents in question detail data that Google is keeping track of, some of which may be used in its closely guarded search ranking algorithm. The documents offer an unprecedented — though still murky — look under the hood of one of the most consequential systems shaping the web.

• Environment

  • New York Times ☛ 126 Degrees in India: New Delhi Sweats Through Its Hottest Day Ever Recorded

    New Delhi recorded its highest temperature ever measured on Wednesday — 126 degrees Fahrenheit, or 52.3 degrees Celsius — leaving residents of the Indian capital sweltering in a heat wave that has kept temperatures in several Indian states well above 110 degrees for weeks.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Bangladesh influencers battle heatwaves by planting trees

    The worst heatwave in seven decades is particularly unbearable in the capital Dhaka with temperatures reaching as high as 43 degrees Celsius (109 Fahrenheit) in a crowded city that has been steadily stripped of the trees, lakes, and ponds that once offered its residents relief and shelter.

  • The Scotsman ☛ Not worried about climate change? Food shortages and price hikes may change your mind

    Globally and at home, agriculture is one of the sectors most obviously being hit by our changing climate. Arable farmers across the UK are estimated to have lost £1 billion because of exceptional rainfall over the last year. Fields have been too waterlogged to plant some crops and others have rotted in the ground. High-quality wheat harvests could be down by 40 per cent, so bread prices will rise.

  • CBC ☛ Is mass timber the next big thing in cheaper, greener construction? More provinces are saying yes

    Mass timber is an umbrella category of materials made by binding layers of wood together to create larger, stronger elements like panels and beams. Proponents say it's faster and easier to build with than concrete and steel, and less carbon-intensive to boot.

  • Royal Bank of Canada ☛ Timber Rising: How Wood Can Spur Canada’s Green Building Drive - RBC Thought Leadership

    The building sector is the 3rd most carbon intensive industry in Canada, accounting for 13% of all emissions in 2022, or 92 million tonnes (MT) of CO2e. Canada aims to cut that amount to 53MT by 2030.

    Widespread adoption of wood, specifically mass timber, as a substitute or complement to concrete and steel could cut embodied emissions in buildings by as much as 25%.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Indian capital records highest temperature of 49.9 Celsius

    The weather bureau said the temperatures were nine degrees higher than expected, breaking a previous 2022 record for the city of 49.2C (120.6F).

    Forecasters predicted similar temperatures Wednesday for the city, which has an estimated population of more than 30 million people, issuing a red alert health notice.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Kev Quirk ☛ We Already Have a Digital Currency

      I'm not the right person to talk about crypto currencies. Personally, I think they're nothing more than a glorified ponzi scheme that collectively use more power globally than most countries.

    • H2 View ☛ Indian Army to utilise hydrogen-powered bus | Mobility

      The move has been made to pioneer the deployment of hydrogen fuel cell technology for heavy-duty mobility. Under the MOU, the performance of fuel cell electric buses for public transit will be assessed in the Delhi-NCR region.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ Water and Cooperation Breathe New Life Into Klamath Basin Wildlife Refuges

    • Luke Harris ☛ Cicada chaos

      On Monday we went to the Ryerson Conservation Area to look for cicadas. This year is a big deal because two broods are tunneling to the surface at the same time, with Brood XIII emerging in the Chicago area after 17 years underground.

    • The Scientist ☛ With Neither Brains nor Brawn, Jellyfish and Relatives Developed Subcellular Weapons Instead | The Scientist Magazine®

      Klompen, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, spoke about the genetics of jellyfish toxins, the biomechanics of stinging organelles, and how cnidarian studies can help scientists understand how cells construct their internal machinery.

• Finance

  • JURIST ☛ New Zealand prime minister calls proposed nationwide strikes on budget day illegal

    New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Tuesday called proposed nationwide strikes on budget day encouraging Indigenous Māori and non-Māori allies to walk off their jobs in support of Indigenous rights ‘illegal’.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Democracy Now ☛ “America’s Monster”: How a U.S. Ally Kidnapped, Killed & Tortured Hundreds in Afghanistan

    A major New York Times investigation explores the history of one of America’s most important allies in the war against the Taliban: Abdul Raziq. While fighting in Afghanistan, Raziq was frequently praised by American generals and oversaw soldiers “trained, armed and paid by the United States and its allies.” But to civilians in the area, Raziq became known as “America’s monster” after coming to power through years of torture, extrajudicial killing and abduction. Raziq, who was assassinated in 2018, was responsible for the largest known campaign of forced disappearances during America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan. “Raziq was basically the poster child for brutality by the U.S.-backed government,” says New York Times journalist Matthieu Aikins. Despite knowing about the abuses, the U.S. “continued to work with Raziq side by side because he was just so effective in the war.” Aikins argues U.S. “wishful thinking and self-delusion” about the atrocities committed by U.S. troops and allies “is part of the reason why the U.S. failed in Afghanistan despite spending 20 years there and so many hundreds of billions of dollars.”

  • Democracy Now ☛ “The North Needs to Learn from the South”: Mexico Poised to Elect First Woman President

    In Mexico, millions of voters are poised to elect the first woman president in the country’s history when they cast their ballots on Sunday. Voters will be choosing between front-runners Claudia Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City, and Xóchitl Gálvez, a former senator; and a third candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, who is trailing further behind in the polls. The landmark moment has filled many with hope as Mexico has one of the highest rates of gender violence and femicides in Latin America. “This is the primary contradiction for Mexico. You’re going to elect a woman, but you still haven’t resolved the fact that women are being murdered at the rate of about 10 to 11 every single day,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, who interviewed both Sheinbaum and Gálvez. Hinojosa says the two front-runners are the result of “decadeslong work by feminists in Mexico, along with feminists all over Latin America, pushing for equality.”

  • Democracy Now ☛ “A Narrative of Trump Criminality”: Jury Begins Deliberations in Hush Money Case

    Jury deliberations begin today in Donald Trump’s hush money and election interference trial. Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to a $130,000 hush money payment that his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. In a marathon day of closing arguments, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass argued that the payment scheme amounted to an effort by Trump “to manipulate and defraud the voters” before the 2016 presidential election by preventing Daniels from going public with her claim that she had a sexual encounter with Trump. “It was an amazing summation in which every piece of evidence was explained as a part of the entire narrative of Trump criminality,” says Ron Kuby, a criminal defense lawyer. On the other hand, Trump’s defense lawyer Todd Blanche branded Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, as “the greatest liar of all time” and dismissed the trial as a politicized attack. If Trump is found guilty, it will likely be weeks or months until he is eventually sentenced. The charges carry a maximum of four years in prison, and Trump is expected to appeal any conviction.

  • The Register UK ☛ Malaysia stakes claim to become semiconductor superpower

    Malaysia has therefore committed $5.3 billion to advance some aspects of the NSS. But the PM's speech offered no detail on where $107 billion of investment will come from, when it will arrive, or where it will be spent.

  • Wired ☛ A Nonprofit Tried to Fix Tech Culture—but Lost Control of Its Own

    WIRED’s account of the previously unreported tensions inside the Integrity Institute draws on reviewing internal communications, as well as interviews with several people familiar with the organization who asked for anonymity to speak about private discussions. Early last week, Massachi announced his resignation as executive director in a morning email that didn’t mention the investigation into his conduct. Allen, who was in Brussels for meetings with EU officials, sent his own email 15 minutes later that thanked his cofounder and said a transition plan was in place. “The work of the institute continues full steam ahead,” Allen wrote.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ OpenAI's new safety board includes CEO Sam Altman

    The new committee will spend 90 days evaluating the safeguards in OpenAI’s technology before giving a report. “Following the full board’s review, OpenAI will publicly share an update on adopted recommendations in a manner that is consistent with safety and security,” the company said in a blog post on Tuesday.

  • Slate ☛ TikTok is turning its users into lobbyists, just like Uber did.

    Uber’s strategy pointed to a new kind of political power wielded by consumer tech platforms that could instantly and repeatedly push messaging to thousands—or millions—of loyal users. People have a right, perhaps even a duty, to give their elected officials feedback and input. Now, they were being mobilized to do so not by an organic feeling, or even a grassroots activist campaign, but by a company that had direct and instant access to them.

    Uber turned its consumers into lobbyists. And like any kind of lobbying, the messaging was frequently exaggerated.

  • VOA News ☛ Former head of Dutch intelligence set to become new prime minister

    The former head of Dutch intelligence and immigration services is perched to be the right-wing coalition candidate for the Netherlands' new prime minister, replacing outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

  • VOA News ☛ OpenAI unveils new safety committee

    The committee will include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, board members and other executives. The company said the body will spend the next 90 days strengthening OpenAI's processes and safeguarding advanced AI development from potential misuse and exploitation.

  • The Register UK ☛ Tencent, Microsoft link app stores in China

    A Microsoft China announcement explains the deal means Windows users can install mobile apps on their PCs. It quotes Tencent veep Lin Songtao expressing his enthusiasm about the size of the PC market, and plans to help developers to ensure their products run in Microsoft's OS. A unified account system is on the cards, so that users don't have to worry about extra logins.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Register UK ☛ EU probes Telegram, because size matters for regulators

      The European Union is reportedly looking into messaging app Telegram, and whether it has more users than the platform lets on.

      EU officials are currently in discussions with Telegram concerning its user base according to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed sources. While Telegram officially claims it has just 41 million European users, local regulators are skeptical and suspect the actual user amount is higher. This is particularly relevant since platforms with 45 million or more users (termed very large online platforms or VLOPs) operating in the EU are subject to stricter rules of the EU Digital Services Act (DSA).

    • Security Week ☛ Europe’s Cybersecurity Chief Says Disruptive Attacks Have Doubled in 2024, Sees Russia Behind Many

      Experts warn that artificial intelligence tools are also being used to target Western voters at accelerating speed and scale with misleading or false information, including hyperrealistic video and audio clips known as deepfakes.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Digital Music News ☛ "Glory to Hong Kong" Re-Uploaded to Spotify, Apple Music

    “Glory to Hong Kong” was first released in August 2019 as pro-democracy protests and unrest swept across the city. The song contains the lyrics “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” which the government has deemed pro-independence speech. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China with a high degree of autonomy. Advocating for Hong Kong independence from China became illegal after the Hong Kong national security law in 2020.

  • The Register UK ☛ Three-day DDoS attack batters the Internet Archive

    While the San Francisco institution has assured users that its collections and web archives are safe — that's the good news — it warns service remains spotty for the online library and its Wayback Machine.

    Since the flood of phony network traffic began, attackers have launched "tens of thousands of fake information requests per second," according to Chris Freeland, director of library services at Archive.

  • JURIST ☛ Thailand court sentences musician to four years in prison for royal insult

    The charges stem from an incident in 2021 where Chai-amorn publicly admitted to burning a portrait of Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn. He maintained that his actions did not breach the royal insult law, but the court rejected his argument and deemed his actions as a dishonor to the king.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Protest song Glory to Hong Kong reuploaded to Apple Music, Spotify

    DGX Music, the team behind the protest song, announced the re-uploads with a statement, saying: “Unjustified repression will not silence the people… even if we lose a publisher, our pursuit of freedom and democracy will never end.”

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ In the aftermath of this Kansas Reflector columnist's Facebook cataclysm, a call for reality

    For me, however, it did seem to be an act of personal retribution. After all, I had just written a piece for Kansas Reflector that questioned the policies enacted by this monolithic social media platform.

    But it wasn’t what I considered to be an overly harsh critique, even though I did reference the faceless nature of the communications provided by the organization itself. I really just wanted to express my dissatisfaction with the “shadowbanning” technique used to sideline conversations that address substantive issues such as climate change.

    I did not expect to trigger a cascading avalanche of removal notices ostensibly tied to cybersecurity threats, much less the removal of all content linking to Kansas Reflector.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • EDRI ☛ The new EU Commission must address information power

    For over a decade, the flow of information and how people see, read, hear, say, and share information, has been controlled by a handful of private companies – threatening democratic participation and everyday freedoms.

    The European Parliament elections and selection of a new European Commission in June 2024 are an opportunity for the European Union to reaffirm its commitments to promoting the right to freedom of expression and access to information, and address the ever-growing challenges to information integrity across the EU and beyond.

  • Cory Dransfeldt ☛ Partnering with an AI company means I can no longer trust your output

    I want real — human — reporting. We should value and support journalistic institutions and throwing money at them to treat their content as more grist for the AI mill doesn't qualify.

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ I volunteered for a mission. I could take photos that might outlive me

    The camera was a Speed Graphic—a combat photographer’s joke, designed in 1912, with “improvements” and “features” grafted on for the next 30 years. Its outstanding feature was that it made me learn a new trick almost every time I used it. Nothing was automated. To make a single photo, I had to set the aperture and shutter speed, based on my guess about exposure—I had no light meter—then cock the shutter, remove the black steel “dark slide” protecting the film from accidental exposure, focus, compose a shot, then trip the shutter.

    If I didn’t pay close attention, I could double expose, shoot blanks, fog previous exposures, or make out-of-focus images. My particular camera was built in 1945, about the same age as most of the C rations we ate. It was a fabric-covered wooden box with fold-out bellows, two different shutters, and a Rube Goldberg film pack sticking out of the back. It was supposedly easier to use than earlier models’ old-fashioned film holders. I hated that box—but it and its twin were the only Army-issue cameras in the Air Cav Public Information Office.

  • Security Week ☛ China's ByteDance Admits Using TikTok Data to Track Journalists

    They had hoped to identify links between staff and a Financial Times reporter and a former BuzzFeed journalist, an email from ByteDance’s general counsel Erich Andersen seen by AFP said.

    Both journalists previously reported on the contents of leaked company materials.

  • RFERL ☛ Georgian Parliament Votes To Override Presidential Veto Of 'Foreign Agent' Law

    The ruling Georgian Dream party, as expected, pushed through the override on May 28. Its alliance with the Democratic Georgia party holds 84 of the chamber's 150 seats. A simple majority of 76 votes was needed to cancel Zurabishvili's veto.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Georgian parliament overrides veto on ‘foreign agents’ bill

    The Georgian parliament overrode a presidential veto on Georgia’s “foreign agents” legislation on May 28, stirring another round of massive protests in Tblisi. President Salome Zourabichvili has five days to endorse the bill or the parliament speaker will sign it into law.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • International Business Times ☛ Kansas County Will Gift Remote Workers $4500 Cash, Land, $500 For Internet, To Move There

    The rural area's population, which is roughly 130 miles north of Wichita, is home to less than 3,000. The local leaders see this as a problem in the territory's economic growth so they recently launched a "lucrative" program to attract more settlers and remote workers to move there.

    To boost the population, attract remote workers and expand the economy, local leaders have pledged to provide new residents with a generous "moving-in" package. This includes $4,500 cash, a $500 donation towards high-speed internet, a gym membership, and a monthly delivery of farm-fresh eggs. The new residents will also be greeted with a plot of land where they can build a home, offering a truly unique opportunity.

  • RFA ☛ China cracks down on Tibetans during holy month

    The measures illustrate the deterioration of religious freedom in Tibet under the Chinese government’s suppression and Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism — a policy that seeks to bring the religion under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.

  • Lewis Dale ☛ Back to working from home

    One of the side effects of moving house has been that I’m now going to be working from home after being in a coworking space for the last two years. I enjoyed having a dedicated office space for myself, mainly because I had the commute to separate work from home, and it was a separate space that was just about work, so fewer blurred lines. It doesn’t make sense to be paying for a desk now that I have space to work from here, though.

  • El País ☛ Fontana: California city pays $900,000 settlement after forcing a man to confess to a crime that never happened

    The city of Fontana, in California, will compensate Thomas Perez Jr. with nearly $900,000 after the man was “psychologically tortured” by detectives from this city east of Los Angeles. Perez’s nightmare began in August 2018, when he called the authorities to report the disappearance of his 71-year-old father after a family argument. The officers did not believe him and made him the main suspect instead. Detectives extracted a confession from him after a 17-hour interrogation in which Perez broke down. The problem? There was no such crime. His father was alive and well.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • EFF ☛ Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Section 230 | EFFector 36.7

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Digital Music News ☛ Spotify France Price Increase Rolls Out Due to 'Streaming Tax'

    “This justification feels like a feeble attempt to shift blame,” one user wrote on the Spotify Community board of an email about the price spikes, “reminiscent of a schoolchild’s ‘the dog ate my homework’ excuse. … If this tax is indeed the sole reason, I would appreciate more transparency on the breakdown of costs and Spotify’s efforts to negotiate a better deal for its customers.

  • The Register UK ☛ Colorado best in the world for repairability, say advocates

    Along with prohibiting parts pairing, the new law mandates that electronic equipment manufacturers make the process of obtaining tools and materials for repairing devices "fair and reasonable." According to Colorado, fair and reasonable access to repairability tools means that they're provided without charge, other than what it costs to prepare and send it, while software tools must be provided for free.

    Documentation and firmware, meanwhile, must be provided at terms comparable to what a manufacturer would offer to an authorized repair shop.

  • Dedoimedo ☛ F-16 Combat Pilot, now in glorious EGA!

    Combat Pilot also had a clever anti-copy mechanism. You had to open the manual to a specific page, paragraph, and word, and input those to be able to fly. I happened to own the original European market CGA version, and one thing that irked me was that the box depicted the game in EGA. 16 colors rather than just 4. Later on, I got myself the EGA version, too, but the manual did not work. This was the North American version, what, and the manual was different. And so I waited and waited, until just recently, I finally figured it out. With a mild delay of just 35 years, I bright you the review of one of the finest combat aircraft simulators ever made.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Ziff Davis ☛ U.S. Big Tech Lobby Pushes India To Reassess Proposed Antitrust Law

  A lobby group from the U.S. representing tech leaders such as Amazon and Google has urged the Indian government to reevaluate a newly proposed antitrust law. Find out more about the law and its potential impact on the tech sector in India.

• The Register UK ☛ Crooks steal '560M people's info' from Ticketmaster

  The records allegedly swiped from Ticketmaster include customers' names, email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses, as well as order info and credit card details — specifically, the last four digits of the cards plus names and expiration dates.

• India Times ☛ Google, Amazon, Apple lobby group opposes India's EU-like antitrust proposal

  A U.S. lobby group representing tech giants Google, Amazon and Apple has asked India to rethink its proposed EU-like competition law, arguing regulations against data use and preferential treatment of partners could raise user costs, a letter shows.

  Citing increasing market power of a few big digital companies in India, a government panel in February proposed imposing obligations on them under a new antitrust law which will complement existing regulations whose enforcement the panel said is "time-consuming".

• Patents

  • Software Patents

    • The Verge ☛ Google Home is still re-adding audio features it lost due to the Sonos lawsuit

      Google was forced to remove some multiroom audio features after Sonos won its patent lawsuit against the company in 2022. But last year, a US district judge threw out the previous ruling and essentially accused Sonos of being a patent troll. Not wasting any time, Google quickly set about bringing features back into its ecosystem by letting users incorporate speakers into multiple speaker groups at once.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Activision Wins $14.5m Judgment After EngineOwning Cheat Makers Bailed Out

    An Activision lawsuit targeting a group of Call of Duty cheat makers has ended with a $14.5m judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. The defendants, all linked to Germany-based EngineOwning UG, initially put up a spirited defense against alleged violations of the DMCA, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and civil RICO, among others. By last summer, all defendants had disengaged from the legal process. At the time of writing, EngineOwning is selling its latest MWIII and Warzone cheat.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ ‘Mastermind’ Arrested After Pirate Site 'Ads' Were Painted on 630-Yr-Old Palace

    After a five-month police investigation, the alleged 'mastermind' behind a nighttime graffiti attack on the 630-year-old Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, South Korea, has been arrested. Last December, CCTV footage revealed a figure in black spray-painting the words "free movie" time and again. The damage to the culturally significant building was meant to advertise a pirate video site.

  • Digital Music News ☛ STIM Collections Hit Record $293M in 2023 Amid Global Growth

    Meanwhile, revenue attributable to live performances increased by about the same amount from 2022, to $12.52 million (SEK 132.52 million), with concerts and festivals rather predictably accounting for the lion’s share at $11.58 million (SEK 122.56 million).

  • [Old] Los Angeles Times ☛ Napster Was Gambling All the Way

    If Napster Inc. goes out of business, it will leave two legacies: a dazzling invention that allowed millions to swap music over the Internet and one of the biggest botched financial opportunities of the Digital Age.

    In the wake of this month’s federal court ruling that Napster helped consumers violate music copyrights, the company faces potentially bankrupting financial penalties and an injunction that could cripple its service.

    Last week, the music industry rejected a last-minute settlement offer from Napster to pay record labels pennies per song out of a proposed membership fee charged to users.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Napster 25th anniversary: Music sharing site created a monster

    “One reason Napster came to life was the record business gouging users,” Menn said. “People were willing to pay for a reasonable digital alternative. But by not providing that, labels couldn’t do anything about ripping a CD onto your computer.”

    Yet labels weren’t sure whether they should sue Napster into oblivion or pay them hundreds of millions to get a piece of the action. Lawsuits from the Recording Industry Assn. of America targeted both Napster and individual music fans who’d downloaded songs, earning wrath and mockery from the record-buying public.

    At the same time, Napster got deep into negotiations with Vivendi Universal’s Edgar Bronfman Jr. and nearly struck a deal with labels to become a legal service.

    “It could have gone either way,” Menn said. “Record companies would have had an ownership stake. [German media conglomerate] Bertelsmann gave a big loan to Napster to keep the pirate version alive while they developed a legit system. They couldn’t pull it off, but the record business had a motivation to do a deal, because what was coming next was unstoppable.”

  • Silicon Angle ☛ OpenAI tightens its grip on news media with Vox Media and Atlantic partnerships

    Both companies have chosen the route of partnerships rather than going in the direction of litigation against OpenAI for its use of publisher content to train its large language models, notably ChatGPT. OpenAI has been sued numerous times, but lately it has struck deals, including with the Wall Street Journal and The Daily Telegraph parent company News Corp.

  • Techdirt ☛ YouTuber Has Video Demonitized Over Washing Machine Chime

    Sadly, it’s even dumber than that. Apparently this recording by this particular “artist” isn’t a song at all, but just an upload of that same washing machine jingle that’s been on YouTube for nearly a decade. So, some rando records his washing machine jingle, uploads it to YouTube, then registers it with ContentID, and goes around demonetizing other YouTube videos where the jingle plays. And, because of how ContentID is policed — or not —, none of this is caught by anyone at all.

  • Walled Culture ☛ Daily newspaper drops paywall, moves to reader patronage, generates 37% more revenue

    The results have been amazing:

    "In the first three months since dropping the paywall, the newsroom welcomed 1,254 new donors who hadn’t previously paid to access their coverage. From December 5, 2023 to March 15, 2024, the Forward received nearly $583,000 in donations under $5,000 — a 37% increase over paid subscription revenue during the same time frame the previous year."