Links 11/07/2024: Internet Phone Book and Intense Mind Control/Censorship by Social Control Media
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM) Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Internet Phone Book ☛ Internet Phone Book
We are creating a physical directory for exploring the vast poetic web. It features the personal websites of hundreds of designers, developers, writers, curators, and educators.
Open call for sites
We are seeking personal, poetic, and human websites. If you would like your site to be considered for the first edition, click the link below to submit your website and we will get back to you.
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James G ☛ Four years of the personal web
As I started working on my website, I found more people that were passionate about the web, too. Here was a space where we were all making because it was fun. In my exploration of the web, I have found poets whose work has motivated me to write more poems, bloggers who share slices of life from far away lands, and tinkerers who are making things because it’s fun and whose energy motivates me immensely.
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Ruben Schade ☛ Yerevan on my mind
It sounds weird, but I tend to view wallpapers as aspirational. During the first wave of COVID when we were all stuck at home, I had this one park bench in Ōsaka as my wallpaper. I see these pictures every day, and they give me something to work towards. Armenia is going to be painful to get to from Australia, but Clara and I are committed to heading that way eventually!
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Science
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New York Times ☛ NASA Says No Plan to Use SpaceX to Rescue Boeing Starliner Astronauts
In a news conference from aboard the International Space Station, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams said they had confidence in the troubled spacecraft to get them home.
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The Conversation ☛ Why consciousness may have evolved to benefit society rather than individuals
But we have argued that consciousness may have evolved to facilitate key social adaptive functions. Rather than helping individuals survive, it evolved to help us broadcast our experienced ideas and feelings into the wider world. And this might benefit the survival and wellbeing of the wider species.
The idea fits with new thinking on genetics. While evolutionary science traditionally focuses on individual genes, there is growing recognition that natural selection among humans operates at multiple levels. For example, culture and society influence traits passed on between generations – we value some more than others.
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Omicron Limited ☛ Auroras caused by head-on blows to Earth's magnetic field could damage critical infrastructure, scientists say
"But weaker, more frequent events such as interplanetary shocks can pose threats to ground conductors over time. Our work shows that considerable geoelectric currents occur quite frequently after shocks, and they deserve attention."
Shocks which hit the Earth head-on, rather than at an angle, are thought to induce stronger geomagnetically induced currents, because they compress the magnetic field more. The scientists investigated how geomagnetically induced currents are affected by shocks at different angles and times of day.
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Education
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong Baptist University students’ union begins process of disbanding
Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) students’ union has begun the process of disbanding, becoming the latest student group to do so after the unions at Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
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APNIC ☛ Event Wrap: 36th Annual FIRST Conference
The five-day event welcomed international incident response and computer security professionals who participated in talks and breakout sessions on topics related to the theme ‘Bridging Security Response Gaps’. The event included a pre-conference training for conference delegate and locals. View the program for more information.
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Sandor Dargo ☛ Trip report: C++ On Sea 2024 | Sandor Dargo's Blog
First, I’m going to write about the three talks that I liked the most during the 3 days, then I’m going to share 3 interesting ideas I heard about and then I’m going to share some personal impressions about the conference.
I’ll update this article with the links to the recordings once they become available.
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Hardware
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CNX Software ☛ QNAP unveils TS-432X and TS-632X Arm-based NAS with 10GbE networking, up to six SATA bays
QNAP has unveiled TS-432X 4-bay and TS-632X 6-bay Tower NAS systems that feature not only 2.5GbE ports but also one or two 10GbE SFP+ cages, as well as one PCIe Gen 3 x4 slot and are powered by an Annapurna Labs Alpine AL524 4-core 64-bit Arm processor.
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Hackaday ☛ Building A Cassette Deck Controller To Save A Locked Out Car Stereo
Cars have had DRM-like measures for longer than you might think. Go back to the 1990s, and coded cassette decks were a common way to stop thieves being able to use stolen stereos. Sadly, they became useless if you ever lost the code. [Simon] had found a deck in great condition that was locked out, so he set about building his own controller for it.
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Daniel Lemire ☛ Benchmarking ARM processors: Graviton 4, Graviton 3 and Apple M2
I decided to quickly test Amazon’s new Graviton 4 processor. I am deliberately not comparing against x64 processors. It is far easier to compare ARM against ARM given that you can run exactly the same instructions.
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India Times ☛ Samsung Electronics wins cutting-edge AI chip order from Japan's Preferred Networks
It is the first order Samsung has revealed for its cutting-edge two-nanometre chip contract manufacturing process. Samsung did not elaborate on the size of the order.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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New York Times ☛ Sacklers Threatened with Lawsuits from States and Creditors for Purdue Pharma
Legal maneuverings followed a Supreme Court ruling last month that denied the Sackler family immunity from liability over its role in the opioid crisis.
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Dr. Pierre Kory has gone all-in on anti-statin quackery
Since the pandemic, I’ve noticed a distinct—shall we say?—”evolution” in many doctors who initially started out as COVID-19 contrarians, such as, for example, Paul Marik. First, they went “anti-lockdown” and anti-public health interventions, portraying COVID-19 as not nearly as dangerous as public health physicians, scientists, and officials were warning in 2020.
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France24 ☛ Europe's drinking water contamined by 'forever chemical': NGOs
It follows an earlier study in May, also by the European Pesticide Action Network (PAN Europe) and its members, that found "alarming" levels of PFAS chemicals in Europe's rivers, lakes and groundwater.
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Omicron Limited ☛ Dutch winter bee mortality rate above 20%, finds annual survey
In the winter of 2023–2024, 21.2% of the Dutch population of honeybee colonies died. While this mortality rate is lower than that of the previous winter, it still represents a worryingly high number of bee colonies that did not survive this winter period.
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Harvard University ☛ You won’t even know you’re exercising, but your body will
The team cited several potential mechanisms for TV’s negative effects. Prolonged sitting, they say, causes cellular and molecular responses that impair skeletal muscle function and mitochondrial activity. Skeletal muscles, in turn, play important roles in glucose metabolism, while excess sitting has been shown to reduce insulin sensitivity, disrupt sugar and fat metabolism after meals, increase inflammation, and affect blood flow to the brain.
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Los Angeles Times ☛ Orange County mosquito samples are West Nile-positive
Residents averse to getting bitten can reduce their risk by removing stagnant containers of water from around their homes — such as uncovered outdoor grills and potted plants with saucers — where mosquitoes breed. Also, opt for long-sleeved clothing and apply a repellent that contains DEET, oil of lemon eucalyptus or another effective active ingredient.
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The Hill ☛ FTC bans NGL from hosting kids under 18 on messaging app
The FTC’s settlement with “NGL: ask me anything” is the first time the agency has ordered messaging app to stop hosting teens and kids online. The move comes after years of mounting pressure for lawmakers and regulators to hold tech platforms accountable for their impact on youth mental health.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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The Record ☛ FTC audit of websites and apps finds three-fourths use dark patterns to trick consumers
A Federal Trade Commission (FTC) review of hundreds of websites and apps revealed that more than three-fourths of them use so-called dark patterns to trick consumers into sacrificing their privacy or purchasing products they don’t need, the agency said Wednesday.
The annual review, which concluded in February, studied 642 global websites and subscription-based mobile apps, examining the practices of companies worldwide alongside authorities from 26 nations. Sixty-seven percent of them were found to have deployed multiple “possible” dark patterns, while 76% used at least one.
Two types of dark patterns were most frequently detected, the agency said.
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404 Media ☛ 4chan Is Using TikTok Owner ByteDance's Hidden AI App to Generate Porn
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has turned off the AI-image generation capabilities of one of its AI apps after 404 Media found that users on 4chan found a way to use the AI app to generate porn, despite policies and guardrails in the app designed to stop the creation of that type of content.
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Jeff Triplett ☛ Jeff Triplett's Micro.blog
I wish I could use Touch ID, but I often use SSH and Remote Desktop. Touch ID will only work if my finger is there. It’s still an excellent suggestion for anyone seeking a more secure way to assume sudo access.
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Jeff Geerling ☛ If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
I'll cut to the chase—after repeating some variation of that about 8 times, eventually I got queued up in the 20 minute line to a human support rep.
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Federal News Network ☛ NDAA amendment to give more authority to DoD components to buy cyber products
The fiscal 2022 defense bill states that the DoD components can’t independently purchase cyber services unless they can buy services at a lower per-unit price than what the DoD chief information officer office, which leads department-wide procurement of cyber services, offers. The components can also procure cyber services independently if the DoD CIO office approves the purchase.
If passed, the amendment included in the 2025 defense bill would allow DoD components to buy cyber services independently if they can demonstrate the “compelling need that the requirement of the product has due to its urgency, or to ensure product or service competition within the market.”
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The Hill ☛ Dynamic pricing helps both consumers and the environment
That’s part of the reason AI’s potential to unleash across-the-board dynamic pricing is also gaining attention from policymakers and regulators. Just last week, the Justice Department’s top antitrust official warned that using AI to set prices could be viewed as “price fixing” and therefore be an antitrust concern.
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India Times ☛ ET Explainer: Cloudflare's new tool aims to block AI bots from scraping website content
Content delivery network and cloud security platform Cloudflare last week launched a new tool to tackle artificial intelligence (AI) bots that crawl websites and scrape their content indiscriminately. It comes at a time when content publishers are increasingly anxious about their unique works being turned into fodder for AI models.
Here’s a closer look at the tool and why it matters.
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India Times ☛ Soon, AI computing assessment units to determine GPU needs
“GPUs are a scarce resource and it is probable that ministries which do not have heavy computing requirements will need to share them (with other ministries) on a fragmented or distributed basis,” a senior government official told ET.
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Ruben Schade ☛ Cautious optimism for the industry after AI pops
You know that English saying that history doesn’t repeat, but that it rhymes? “AI” is now that rhyme. Like Big Data, the Metaverse, VR, and Blockchain, AI has reached stratospheric levels of hype and investment without the scruples, mathematics, or business models needed to sustain it. It will therefore deliver the same outcome.
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Andreas ☛ One year of blogging - 82MHz
That piece btw was largely written by ChatGPT; I just told it to write an announcement post for my blog and make it sound as exciting as possible, and boy did it deliver! Right out of the gate the bullshit meter was off the charts and way better than what I could have come up with myself… And then I just went over it and poured as much snark and sarcasm into it as I possibly could, while chuckling like a maniac the whole time. (I’m putting the original ChatGPT output at the bottom of this post in case anyone wants to know what the AI considers a usable blog post)
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Security
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Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
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Zimbabwe ☛ Job scams are on the rise, you’re not as invincible as you think, protect yourself
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already transformed many industries, with more significant changes still on the horizon.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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US Navy Times ☛ Sailor searched for Biden’s electronic health records, Navy says
The sailor, who has not been identified, searched the name “Joseph Biden” in Military Health System Genesis, the armed service’s health record database, and a co-worker reported it as a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, otherwise known as HIPPA, according to a Navy official.
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Reason ☛ Accessing Google Location History Records Is Not a Search — At Least When Limited — Fourth Circuit Rules
In the new ruling, the Fourth Circuit rules 2-1 that no search occurred. Judge Jay Richardson wrote the majority opinion, and he was joined by Judge Harvie Wilkinson, Judge James Wynn dissented. Here's the key reasoning from the majority opinion by Judge Richardson:
"Relying on Carpenter, Chatrie argues that the government conducted a search when it obtained his Location History data from Google. We disagree. Carpenter identified two rationales that justify applying the third-party doctrine: the limited degree to which the information sought implicates privacy concerns and the voluntary exposure of that information to third parties. Both rationales apply here. Accordingly, we find that Chatrie did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the two hours' worth of Location History data that law enforcement obtained from Google. So the government did not conduct a search by obtaining it."
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Wired ☛ Google Is Adding Passkey Support for Its Most Vulnerable Users
If you wish to join, use the Advanced Protection Program enrollment page, click “Get started,” and walk through the process to enroll with a passkey or a physical security key. While APP is meant to keep everyone out of your account, Chatterjee also emphasizes that the program offers recovery options that users should set up so they can regain access if they are ever locked out of their own account.
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Defence/Aggression
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El País ☛ US and Panama join forces to stop migration: From barbed wire in the jungle to mass repatriation
In a statement, the U.S. government assured that the agreement with Panama includes support for migrant repatriation operations from that country, and insists that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will support training and capacity building to strengthen and institutionalize “safe and humane” repatriation in that country. “Irregular migration is a regional challenge that requires a regional response,” Mayorkas said. “As the United States continues to secure our borders and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain, we are grateful for our partnership with Panama to manage the historic levels of migration across the Western Hemisphere.”
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New Eastern Europe ☛ Norway on the front line of tensions with Russia
The Barents Sea, which Norway shares with the Russian Federation, also hides real treasures from the perspective of oil and gas. According to estimates, the deposits there contain as much as two-thirds of the country’s remaining oil and gas reserves. In “wartime” 2022, 93 deposits were being exploited on the Norwegian shelf – 70 in the North Sea, 21 in the Norwegian Sea and two in the Barents Sea (this year extraction will start at the third largest Arctic deposit to date). Oil and gas accounted for 73 per cent of the total value of Norwegian commodity exports in 2022.
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The Moscow Times ☛ Saudi Arabia Implied It Would Sell Euro Bonds if G7 Seized Frozen Russian Assets – Reports - The Moscow Times
In what one source described as a “veiled threat,” the kingdom’s finance ministry reportedly implied it would start selling debt issued by the French Treasury if the G7 seized Russian assets that were frozen in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Taiwan sees single-day record of Chinese planes in airspace
The ministry on Thursday said it had detected 66 Chinese military aircraft operating around Taiwan in the past 24 hours, making it a record high this year.
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France24 ☛ 'Contained but not stopped': French far right takes record number of seats in parliament
The RN’s electoral advance “has been contained but not stopped", says Arnaud Benedetti, editor-in-chief of the Revue politique et parlementaire. "We can conclude that the National Rally is firmly established in the parliamentary landscape,” says Benedetti, adding that the party will try to “strengthen these foundations” as it prepares for the 2027 presidential election.
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ACLU ☛ How Donald Trump's Election Lies and Other Anti-Voter Policies Will Continue to Impact Our Democracy
A second Trump administration will likely perpetuate policies that undermine our electoral systems. As outlined in Project 2025 policies, evidenced on the campaign trail and in interviews, if Trump is reelected, his administration will likely attempt to manipulate the 2030 census to deny representation and federal resources to millions; abuse executive power to suppress voting and interfere with elections; and roll back federal progress on voting access.
In a country that has a long history of voter suppression and continues to struggle with voter turnout, four years of constant attacks on our voting rights risks long-term, pervasive harm. At the ACLU, we’re fighting back. We defeated the Trump administration’s efforts to manipulate our electoral process before, and we’ll use every tool at our disposal to do so again. Learn more in our breakdown: [...]
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Krebs On Security ☛ The Stark Truth Behind the Resurgence of Russia’s Fin7
In typosquatting attacks, Fin7 registers domains that are similar to those for popular free software tools. Those look-alike domains are then advertised on Google so that sponsored links to them show up prominently in search results, which is usually above the legitimate source of the software in question.
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Sightline Media Group ☛ Quieting Discord: A new frontier in military leaks and extremism
Extremist groups value the platform’s layers of privacy and anonymity, as well as its chat and video functions and collaborative nature, Guhl said. Berge described it as a walled garden, or an online environment where user access to content can be controlled. Servers come with the capability to assign hierarchy to different members and allow some members to access information that others can’t, the researchers said.
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US Senate ☛ Letter to the Pentagon
We write with serious concern that the Department of Defense (DoD) is doubling down on a failed strategy of increasing its dependence on Microsoft at a time when Congress and the administration are reviewing concerning cybersecurity lapses that led to a massive hack of senior U.S. officials’ communications.
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Axios ☛ U.S. military's future rests on today's global warfare
• Cheap, abundant drones are devastating far more expensive systems in Eastern Europe. In waters off Yemen, they embroil the U.S. Navy in fighting so intense it's been compared to World War II.
• Disinformation campaigns shape international perceptions, including in Africa, where Russia's playbook colors a U.S. withdrawal from Niger.
• Directed-energy weapons that fry electronics from afar and intercept overhead threats are leaping from sci-fi to reality. Powerful lasers and microwaves are headed to the greater Middle East.
[...]
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LRT ☛ ‘We must be prepared for the unexpected’ – interview with Dutch army commander
I also think that they will integrate their operations more quickly than they have done in the past – I mean air, cyber, land and sea. It will be used more intelligently, so we must be prepared. And they will certainly use a lot of drones and electronic warfare, which we did not see at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, but which they are now developing relentlessly.
We need to prepare for a fight that will not be very massive, that will start in completely different spheres, not on land.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ How extremist groups like 'Islamic State' are using AI
Over the past year, observers from a variety of extremist monitoring organizations have reported how IS and other extremist groups are encouraging followers to make use of new digital tools.
In February, a group affiliated with Al Qaeda announced it would start holding AI workshops online, The Washington Post reported.
Later, the same group released a guide on using AI chatbots.
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VOA News ☛ Australia accuses China of cyber espionage
The agency said Tuesday that the [intruders] were trying to plunder information by infiltrating old and forgotten computers that were still connected to sensitive networks. Australian officials said the targets were government and business networks, and that the threat was “ongoing.”
It is the first time Australia has directly attributed malicious cyber espionage to a state-sponsored group in China.
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VOA News ☛ Russian election meddlers hurting Biden, helping Trump, US intelligence warns
A declassified post-election assessment, released in March 2021, reaffirmed the initial findings. Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized "influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden's candidacy and the Democratic Party" while offering support for Trump, the report said.
U.S. intelligence officials said they have been in contact with both presidential campaigns and the candidates but declined to share what sort of information may have been shared.
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RFERL ☛ White House Warns Iran Against Meddling In Gaza Protests In U.S.
[...] The warning, issued by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, said actors tied to Iran's government had posed as activists online, sought to encourage protests regarding Gaza, and even provided demonstrators with financial support. [...]
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VOA News ☛ China says India has no right to develop contested border region
India says its remote state of Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of the country, but China says it is a part of southern Tibet, and has objected to Indian infrastructure projects there.
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New York Times ☛ Hezbollah Launches Retaliatory Rockets After Israel Appears to Strike in Syria
Two members of Hezbollah were reported killed in Syria, near the border with Lebanon, and the Israeli police said that the Hezbollah rocket barrage that followed killed a man and a woman in the Golan Heights.
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RFERL ☛ White House Warns Iran Against Meddling In Gaza Protests In U.S.
The White House accused Tehran on July 9 of trying to take advantage of Gaza-related protests in the United States and described such behavior as unacceptable, following a warning by a top U.S. intelligence official that Iran was trying to stoke discord in American society.
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Scoop News Group ☛ Bipartisan Senate bill takes aim at ‘overly burdensome’ cybersecurity regs
The Streamlining Federal Cybersecurity Regulations Act would establish an interagency committee to recommend which cyber regulations to lessen or waive.
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The Strategist ☛ Three things to look for in the forthcoming intelligence review
Any day now, the government will release the public report of the latest independent review of the National Intelligence Community (NIC), conducted by Heather Smith and Richard Maud.
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Defence Web ☛ Eastern DR Congo “a rapidly escalating crisis” – MONUSCO Head
The senior United Nations (UN) representative in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) warned the Security Council (SC) the “rapidly escalating crisis” in the east of the country where a three-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) mission is deployed on peacekeeping duty could provoke wider conflict.
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Defence Web ☛ Growing international organised crime requires a global strategy to counteract it
Organised crime has become a threat to international peace and security, with more than 80 per cent of the world’s population living in countries with high levels of criminality, and the problem is growing worse. This requires a global strategy to counter it, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GITOC).
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JURIST ☛ UN Security Council extends mission monitoring operations in Yemen
The UN Security Council unanimously voted on Monday to extend the mandate of the body monitoring the ceasefire agreement in Yemen’s Al Hudaydah Governorate, the United Nations Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA).
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BIA Net ☛ Ill prisoner kept in solitary cell in Giresun
Mehmet Darga was put in solitary confinement reportedly because of his participation in hunger strikes protesting PKK leader Öcalan’s confinement.
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ADF ☛ Nigeria: Sahel Extremists Establish Base, Sow Terror in Kainji Lake National Park
Terrorists have left northern Benin and established a new base in northern Nigeria’s Kainji Lake National Park, a 5,300-square-kilometer former tourist attraction.
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CS Monitor ☛ NATO’s plans for war – and peace
The alliance’s 75th anniversary is an opportunity for NATO to see security in broader terms than weapons.
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TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Al Sharpton to deliver eulogy for Black man who died after being held down by Milwaukee hotel guards
The Rev. Al Sharpton is scheduled deliver a eulogy for a Black man who died last month after being pinned to the ground by hotel security guards in Milwaukee, his office said Tuesday.
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LRT ☛ Broswarm becomes first Lithuanian company to win NATO innovation competition
Broswarm, a Lithuanian defence and security startup developing advanced mine detection technology, has become the first Lithuanian company to win the NATO Innovation Challenge, the Economy and Innovation Ministry reported on Tuesday.
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Defence Web ☛ New faces in Cabinet JCPS cluster
More clarity regarding the workings of the seventh democratic South Africa Cabinet, sworn into office last week, can be expected post this week’s two-day lekgotla with its JCPS (Justice, Crime Prevention and Security) cluster having a new line-up.
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TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s security detail shoots man during attempted carjacking, authorities say
A member of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s security detail shot an armed man during an attempted carjacking in the early morning hours, according to court documents.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Meduza ☛ Moscow court issues arrest warrant for Yulia Navalnaya — Meduza
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New York Times ☛ Russian Court Orders Arrest of Navalny’s Widow, Yulia Navalnaya
The court accused Ms. Navalnaya, who left Russia in 2021, of “participating in an extremist community.” She would be subject to arrest if she ever returns to Russia, the court said.
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RFERL ☛ Moscow Court Issues Arrest Warrant For Yulia Navalnaya
Moscow authorities said on July 9 that the Basmanny district court has issued an arrest warrant for Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, on a charge of taking part in an extremist group’s activities.
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JURIST ☛ Russia issues arrest warrant for Navalny widow Yulia Navalnaya
Russia’s Basmanyy District Court issued an arrest warrant for the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, on Tuesday, accusing her of being part of an “extremist” group. Navalnaya, who is currently residing outside Russia, would face immediate arrest should she decide to return.
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Atlantic Council ☛ The Kremlin’s crimes will continue to escalate until Russia is defeated
The Russian bombing of a children's hospital in Kyiv is a clear signal that Kremlin war crimes will only escalate and Vladimir Putin will not stop until he is stopped, writes Serhiy Prytula.
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Meduza ☛ ‘Our last hope’: Four stories of patients from Okhmatdyt, the Kyiv children’s hospital Russia bombed — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ ‘From normality to madness’: French photographer Antoine d’Agata on capturing the invisible pain of war in Ukraine for Jonathan Littell’s new book — Meduza
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Democracy Now ☛ “Peace, Not NATO”: As Biden Hosts Leaders in D.C., German MP Decries NATO’s 75 Years of War & Hypocrisy
President Biden is hosting heads of government from NATO member nations for a three-day summit in Washington, D.C., to mark the 75th anniversary of the expanding nuclear-armed military alliance as leaders pledge to continue supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. We get response from German lawmaker Sevim Dağdelen, who is in D.C. to protest the summit and is the author of the new book NATO: A Reckoning with the Atlantic Alliance. She lays out how NATO is based on a series of myths about its purpose, respecting democracy and upholding human rights — as exemplified by member states’ staunch support for Israel’s war on Gaza. “You have rising contradictions and crisis within the European Union and the NATO states,” Dağdelen says.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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PC World ☛ Proof: Why you can't even trust verified Amazon reviews anymore
The first problem is that Amazon isn’t aware when these marketplace sellers “recruit” fake reviewers because contact is made outside the Amazon system. The seller gets the buyer’s address from a previous purchase, then reaches out directly.
The second problem is that anyone can leave a “verified review” on any product as long as they 1) purchased it via Amazon and 2) paid a reasonable price for that purchase (e.g., it wasn’t free). When reviewing, the buyer can give whatever rating and write whatever they want.
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Environment
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DeSmog ☛ Meet the Labour Government’s New Climate Team
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EcoWatch ☛ Key Largo Tree Cactus Is First Florida Species to Become Locally Extinct Due to Climate Change
The Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii) has become the first Florida species to become locally extinct due to the climate crisis, according to researchers from the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and the Florida Museum of Natural History.
The cactus can still be found in parts of the Bahamas, northern Cuba and a few Caribbean islands, a press release from the Florida Museum of Natural History said.
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Science Alert ☛ Not 'Just Summer'. Deadly Heat Waves in 2024 Are The Toll of Climate Change
So far, the Earth has only crossed that threshold for a single year. However, it is still extremely concerning, and the world appears to be on track to cross the 30-year average threshold of 1.5 C within 10 years.
We study weather patterns involving heat. The early season heat, part of a warming trend fueled by humans, is putting lives at risk around the world.
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CBC ☛ Canada draws link between June heat wave and climate change with new attribution analysis
The analysis noted abnormally high daytime temperatures, high humidity and warmer-than-normal nighttime lows. Bathurst and Saint John, N.B., in particular, set all-time records for the hottest temperature since data was first gathered in the 1870s.
ECCC's study is the start of a pilot project, where researchers will analyze weather data and climate model simulations to compare how these types of events have changed between today's climate and the cooler pre-industrial one.
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Energy/Transportation
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Barry Kauler ☛ Bash plate for trike
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The Korea Times ☛ Bitcoin plunge to continue on German, US government liquidations
Bitcoin prices are expected to remain in a downtrend for the time being, stymied by a selloff from the German government and Mt. Gox, a now-defunct crypto exchange in the process of redeeming investors, market watchers said Wednesday.
Experts say the leading virtual coin will plunge for months before breaking out to the upside, as inferred from previous price movements.
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MIT Technology Review ☛ The Chinese government is all in on autonomous vehicles
The government is finally allowing Tesla to bring its Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature to China. New government permits let companies test driverless cars on the road and allow cities to build smart road infrastructure that will tell these cars where to go. In short, there are a lot of changes taking place. And they all point in the same direction: There’s an immense appetite to make autonomous cars a reality soon. And the Chinese government, on both the central and local levels, has been a major force pushing for it.
So what’s happened lately?
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Futurism ☛ Tesla Quietly Contacting Early Cybertruck Buyers to Replace Their Electric Motors
As of right now, there's a lot that remains unclear about this not-recall, including whether Tesla intends to replace the front or rear motors in those early Cybertrucks or how many people were offered the upgrade offer. This voluntary replacement campaign could, as Electrek points out, be the start of a "soft" retrofitting campaign for problems the company has found with the drivetrains on the Foundation Series' motors.
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Maine Morning Star ☛ Maine enters agreement with Northeast states to improve grid, ease transition to clean energy
The states agreed to coordinate regional planning of power transmission after requesting last year that the U.S. Department of Energy convene a first-in-the-nation multi-state initiative to explore ways to increase the flow of electricity between three different planning regions in the Northeast and assess offshore wind infrastructure.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong police arrest man over suspected animal cruelty after post accusing him of abusing cat went viral
Hong Kong police have arrested a 37-year-old man for suspected animal cruelty after a post went viral online accusing a man of abusing a cat in Sha Tin.
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The Revelator ☛ What 70 Celebrity Tortoises Can Teach Us About Conservation Stories
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Omicron Limited ☛ Surfing NASA's internet of animals: Satellites study ocean wildlife
Now with NASA, she is leveraging the data for a study under the agency's Internet of Animals project. By combining information transmitted from wildlife tags with information about the planet collected by satellites—such as NASA's Aqua, NOAA's GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) satellites, and the U.S.-European Jason-3—scientists can work with partners to draw conclusions that inform ecological management.
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Overpopulation
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Overpopulation ☛ UN World Population Day 2024 focuses on anything but world population
The more painfully the symptoms of demographic entrapment manifest themselves, in the increasingly interlinked metacrisis of environmental and social strains, the more ardently their link with population growth is denounced. We can always blame tyrants and terrorists for violent conflicts, and climate change for food and water shortages.
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Science News ☛ The world has water problems. This book has solutions
“The world isn’t running out of water — people are,” Smedley writes. He travels to the Hoover Dam in the American Southwest to see the low water levels at Lake Mead (SN: 5/18/23). He visits the Middle East, stopping by Jordan’s Karameh Dam, where the impounded water has become too saline for irrigation. Closer to home, he tours Europe’s largest artificial lake, northern England’s Kielder Water, which was constructed during the late 1970s in anticipation of a water demand that petered out within about a decade of completion. It’s the southern half of the country that has become water-stressed.
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Finance
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Tom's Hardware ☛ TSMC's market cap is on track to reach $1 trillion — 6.5 times larger than Intel
TSMC set to become Asia's first trillion dollar company, thanks to Hey Hi (AI) frenzy.
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JURIST ☛ Canada port strike averted as labour board rules union notice illegal
The Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) ruled on Sunday that a strike notice by ship and dock foremen at western Canadian ports violated the Canada Labour Code, effectively averting a disruption to port operations.
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Reason ☛ Republicans Confirm Their Plan To Let Social Security Go Insolvent
Which party can do the least to fix America's troubled old-age welfare system?
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Robert Reich ☛ Robert Reich (Boeing Is Everything Wrong With American...)
Excuse my language, but why is Boeing such a shitty corporation?
Their planes are literally falling apart in the sky.
At least six Boeing planes have had parts fall off this year — including an exit door in mid-flight. A whistle-blower has accused Boeing of a “criminal cover-up” of its safety failures.
But beyond this one company, Boeing’s descent is a case study in how American capitalism has become so rotten. Let me explain.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Intuit to lay off 1,800 employees, plans to rehire in new AI and customer roles
Business and financial software company Intuit Inc. today announced that it’s laying off 1,800 employees, about 10% of its workforce, as it looks to focus more on artificial intelligence — but it plans to rehire 1,800 new people in engineering, product and customer-facing roles.
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The Record ☛ Bellingcat warns of ‘censorship’ on X after research on Russian attack is labeled spam
Despite its reputation, X marked the link to the group’s latest research as “unsafe,” saying that it could lead users to “violent or misleading content” or to a website that misleads people, disrupts their experience, or steals their personal information.
The platform did not reply to a request for comment.
Bellingcat said that it reported the problem to X but, as of the time of writing, the link is still labeled as spam. This hasn't been the case on other social media platforms, researchers added.
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Systemd Free ☛ Politics, economy, and the enemy, the people and their data | systemd-free linux community
Public Opinion: Shaped by 4-5 social media mass media conglomerates who eat and play golf with the military industrial complex. Writing, reading, is so old fashion. People listen and speak through professionally produced a/v media, they speak to each other with video links. Totally under control! Text, more than 250characters, bliaahhh… go away you ancient backwards thinking people!
Is MS IBM Google HP … Oracle, Qt .. part of the same club with the military industrial complex?
What do you think genius, you think merit in coding gave you systemd, dbus, and freedesktop?
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Federal News Network ☛ Contractors see new cyber reporting rules everywhere they look
The Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA) is exactly what it sounds like: a mandate for reporting. There’s also a cyber reporting rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission already in effect. Is it overkill? Executive Vice President for Policy at the Professional Services Council Stephanie Kostro shared more with the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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US Navy Times ☛ Navy should hit back harder against Houthi online disinformation
In the instance of the false Ike attack, Capt. Hill took matters into his own hands, leveraging his 86,000 followers on X. The day after the false claims emerged, Hill began to post videos and still images showing normal operations aboard his ship, including a plane landing on the flight deck and trays of muffins and cinnamon buns fresh from the oven in the ship’s bakery.
Meanwhile, independent analysts exposed how the Houthis generated their false evidence of a missile strike on the Eisenhower.
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NPR ☛ U.S. says Russian bot farm used AI to impersonate Americans
The U.S. Department of Justice said it disrupted a Russian propaganda campaign using fake social media accounts, powered by artificial intelligence, to spread disinformation in the U.S. and other countries.
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RFERL ☛ U.S. Says It Disrupted Russian Effort To Spread Disinformation With Fake Social Media Accounts
It said a “social media bot farm” used elements of AI to create fake social media profiles, “which the operators then used to promote messages in support of Russian government objectives.”
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Reason ☛ Journalist Sues Cops Who Handcuffed Him for Photographing 'Cop City' Arrests
After police detained Benjamin Hendren, they urged construction workers to lie about him.
When Hendren arrived at the scene, he began taking pictures from a public sidewalk across the street from where Georgia State University police officers had arrested a group of protesters who had allegedly trespassed on the construction site.
"At no point did Hendren commit any crime, and at no point did he do anything that any officer could have mistaken as a crime," the lawsuit states. "Further, Hendren did not interfere in any way with the traffic stop that was being conducted."
However, police still stopped Hendren and handcuffed him. They "forcibly took photographs of Hendren while he was handcuffed and sat on the curb," according to the suit. Officers even "grabbed his hair and yanked his head up so he could be photographed against his will."
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EFF ☛ To Sixth Circuit: Government Officials Should Not Have Free Rein to Block Critics on Their Social Media Accounts When Used For Governmental Purposes
The Sixth Circuit must carefully apply a new “state action” test from the U.S. Supreme Court to ensure that public officials who use social media to speak for the government do not have free rein to infringe critics’ First Amendment rights, EFF and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University said in an amicus brief.
The Sixth Circuit is set to re-decide Lindke v. Freed, a case that was recently remanded from the Supreme Court. The lawsuit arose after Port Huron, Michigan resident Kevin Lindke left critical comments on City Manager James Freed's Facebook page. Freed retaliated by blocking Lindke from being able to view, much less continue to leave critical comments on, Freed’s public profile. The dispute turned on the nature of Freed’s Facebook account, where updates on his government engagements were interwoven with personal posts.
Public officials who use social media as an extension of their office engage in “state action,” which refers to acting on the government’s behalf. They are bound by the First Amendment and generally cannot engage in censorship, especially viewpoint discrimination, by deleting comments or blocking citizens who criticize them. While social media platforms are private corporate entities, government officials who operate interactive online forums to engage in public discussions and share information are bound by the First Amendment.
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The Moscow Times ☛ Russia Outlaws The Moscow Times as 'Undesirable' Organization - The Moscow Times
Russians have even been fined for reposting web links and articles published by "undesirable organizations," according to the independent Mediazona news website.
“Of course, we will continue with our work as usual: independent journalism. That's a crime in Putin's Russia,” The Moscow Times' founder Derk Sauer said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
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The Barents Observer ☛ The Moscow Times declared 'undesirable' | The Independent Barents Observer
Founded in 1992, the newspaper is the oldest English-language outlet covering post-Soviet Russia.
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RFERL ☛ Moscow Times Says 'Undesirable' Label Another Effort By Russia To Suppress Independent Reporting
The label has been applied to more than 170 organizations -- including media outlets, religious organizations, and NGOs involved in political, cultural, and educational activities -- since Moscow began using the classification.
It effectively bans the organizations outright.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Russia bans Moscow Times newspaper
The Prosecutor General's Office classified the newspaper as an "undesirable organization," saying it was undermining Russia's leadership.
The designation means that any cooperation with or payments to the outlet are now considered a criminal offense carrying sentences of up to five years in prison.
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VOA News ☛ Russia bans Moscow Times online news outlet
In response to the designation, The Moscow Times said it had anticipated the action and promised to continue its work. It acknowledged that interaction with the publication in Russia now carries the risk of criminal charges, but it vowed to persist despite the challenges.
Founded in 1992, The Moscow Times publishes in English and Russian. It relocated to Amsterdam following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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CPJ ☛ CPJ, 4 others urge Saudi Authorities to release detained podcaster, other content creators
The statement further called on Saudi authorities to end their campaigns of defamation and harassment against all those peacefully expressing views that diverge from the official government line or carrying out legitimate work in journalism, broadcasting, and online media.
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NPR ☛ Iran tried to kill her on U.S. soil. The plot failed, but she lives in its shadow
The murder-for-hire scheme to kill Alinejad is one of at least four state-sponsored plots that the Justice Department says it has foiled in the past several years. It is part of a growing trend in which foreign governments look to silence critics overseas.
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RFERL ☛ Iranian Female Prisoners Call Activist's 'Disgraceful' Death Sentence An Ominous Sign
The group of 16 women said in a letter that prior to last week's presidential election, authorities had slowed down the pace of executions "to the maximum extent possible before the electoral show."
"However, it will now accelerate the issuance and execution of death sentences and will suppress the families of the victims more than before," the letter, which demands the canceling of Mohammadi's punishment, added.
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JURIST ☛ Saudi Arabia court sentences brother of government critic to 20 years prison over social media activity: Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday that a Saudi Arabia court sentenced 47-year-old Saudi teacher Asaad al-Ghamdi to 20 years in prison over charges relating to his social media activity. Asaad al-Ghamdi is the brother of Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, a government critic living in the UK. Human Rights Watch said that Saudi authorities often engage in transnational repression against the family members of overseas critics to coerce critics to return to Saudi Arabia.
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NPR ☛ A Moscow court orders the arrest of Alexei Navalny's widow, who lives abroad
A court in Russia ordered the arrest of the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny during a hearing Tuesday that was conducted in absentia as part of a sweeping Kremlin crackdown on the opposition.
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France24 ☛ Russia issues arrest warrant for Navalny's widow
Russia has issued an arrest warrant for Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison in February. Navalnaya has vowed to continue the work of her husband from exile abroad.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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Meduza ☛ Russia bans The Moscow Times as ‘undesirable organization’ — Meduza
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ANF News ☛ Journalists in Shengal call for measures against Turkish attacks
"As journalists in Shengal, we strongly condemn the attack on the press vehicle of the Çıra TV crew. This attack against humanitarian and moral values targeted the free press, threatening the safety of journalists who have the sacred duty of bringing the truth to the people,” said the statement.
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CPJ ☛ Greek journalist beaten on air while reporting from Athens fire
When Drakontidis refused, saying that he was a journalist with Protothema news site, the man and two others punched him in the head multiple times, pushed him to the ground, and continued to beat him, according to media reports, including a video filmed by a local TV crew.
Drakontidis told CPJ that he had filed a criminal complaint with the police and identified his attackers as employees of the company but he had received no updates on the investigation as of July 10.
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The Hill ☛ CNN cutting jobs, launching first digital subscription product
CNN plans to cut scores of jobs as it goes through a major restructuring of its news-gathering operation and launches a digital subscription product later this year.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Reason ☛ No Homeless In The Park
Are camping laws regulation of "conduct" by homeless people or the "status" of being homeless?
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RFA ☛ Vietnamese man serving 8 years in prison released 2 years early
No reason given, but Truong Huu Loc says it was because he could be a whistleblower about prison conditions.
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New York Times ☛ N.Y.U. Settles Lawsuit by Students Who Claimed Antisemitic Harassment
The lawsuit was part of a wave of litigation against universities over accusations of antisemitism related to campus protests over the war in Gaza.
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JURIST ☛ NYU announces settlement of antisemitism lawsuit
New York University (NYU) announced a settlement reached in a federal antisemitism lawsuit brought by Jewish students in a joint statement issued on Tuesday.
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JURIST ☛ New Zealand court orders University of Auckland to compensate associate professor NZ$20,000 for public harassment
The Employment Court of New Zealand on Monday ordered the University of Auckland to pay damages of NZ$20,000 for breaching its contractual obligations to protect Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles’s health and safety due to public harassment over her commentary during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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EFF ☛ 34 Years Supporting the Wild and Weird World Online
Thank you for supporting EFF in our mission to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world.
Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation commemorates its 34th anniversary of battling for your digital freedom. It’s important to glean wisdom from where we have been, but at EFF we're also strong believers that this storied past helps us build a positive future. Central to our work is supporting the unbounded creativity on the internet and the people who are, even today, imagining what a better world looks like.
That’s why EFF’s lawyers, activists, policy analysts, and technologists have been on your side since 1990. I’ve seen magical things happen when you—not the companies or governments around you—can determine how you engage with technology. When those stars align, social movements can thrive, communities can flourish, and the internet’s creativity blossoms.
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Pro Publica ☛ How a Militant Anti-Abortion Activist Is Influencing GOP Politics
Wisconsin Pastor Matthew Trewhella has an affable routine when he’s trying to persuade government officials to abolish abortion, ignore gun laws and question election results.
The 63-year-old opens his talks with a photo of “Trewhella nation”: his wife of over 40 years, their 11 home-schooled children and dozens of grandchildren. He cracks jokes. He quotes history and scripture. He floats secession as a regretful possibility. With half-rim glasses and collared shirts, Trewhella looks and sounds more like a professor than a provocateur.
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RFA ☛ Ancient Buddhist temple in Xinjiang stirs controversy
But experts outside China dispute those claims, saying the Mor Stupa, or pagoda, and other temple structures were built in more of an Indian style.
And it's highly unlikely that Wu Zetian, empress from 690-705 CE during the Tang Dynasty, was involved in the construction of pagodas because it was hundreds of miles away from her court in central China, they say.
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VOA News ☛ Tehran police close Turkish Airlines office after employees defy Iran's headscarf law
According to Tasnim, the Turkish Airlines office will be allowed to reopen on Wednesday and resume business as usual, something that the police did not confirm. The report further said that police would not seal any business due to the non-observance of hijab but issue first warnings.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Robert Heaton ☛ PySkyWiFi: completely free, unbelievably stupid wi-fi on long-haul flights
The plane reached 10,000ft. I took out my laptop, planning to peruse the internet and maybe do a little work if I got really desperate.
I connected to the in-flight wi-fi and opened my browser. The network login page demanded credit card details. I fumbled for my card, which I eventually discovered had hidden itself inside my passport. As I searched I noticed that the login page was encouraging me to sign in to my airmiles account, free of charge, even though I hadn’t paid for anything yet. A hole in the firewall, I thought. It’s a long way from London to San Francisco so I decided to peer through it.
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APNIC ☛ Event Wrap: ICANN 80
The four-day event, the second of the three annual ICANN meetings, was dedicated to policy development work and regional outreach activities. In addition, the 5th Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) High Level Government Meeting was hosted by the Government of Rwanda on 9 June 2024 in conjunction with the ICANN 80 Policy Forum. View the schedule for more information.
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RIPE ☛ The RIPE Chair Team Reports: July 2024
The RIPE Chair Team reports on policy discussions around IPv6 stockpiling and NIS2, latest efforts to improve RIPE visibility, further steps to maintain accountability and transparency on RIPE mailing lists, and an array of recent industry events. And what's more, registration is open for RIPE 88!
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Alex Ewerlöf ☛ Degradation vs disruption
In the context of reliability engineering, there are three terms that are related but sometimes used incorrectly.
Loosely speaking:
• Service degradation is when the quality of the service drops.
• If the service entirely stops, it’s a service disruption.
• If the disruption takes too long, it’s a service outage.
That definition lacks nuances. Let’s dig into four aspects of service levels to distinguish the difference with some examples and illustrations.
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Inside Towers ☛ Nokia and Google Fiber First to Trial 50G PON in the U.S. - Inside Towers
Nokia points out that the 50G test demonstrates how fiber operators can combine different PON technologies on the same fiber to evolve their broadband offerings. Today, operators worldwide are leveraging fiber to create new opportunities with 25G PON services. When the need for more speed arises, the company says that operators have a path to 50G PON upgrades and beyond. Nokia claims that it is the only vendor that can support all next-generation PON options, with 10G and 25G products available today, 50G in trials, and 100G PON as a technology demonstrator.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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Conduition ☛ Reverse Engineering TicketMaster's Rotating Barcodes (SafeTix)
I recently purchased tickets to a concert from TicketMaster. If they had issued me normal, printable PDF tickets I could save offline to my phone, this article would’ve never been penned. But of course this is 2024: Nothing we do online can be simple anymore.
After finalizing the purchase, TicketMaster discloses that I can’t print off tickets for this event. Instead, they issue tickets via a system called Mobile Entry, AKA SafeTix. This takes the form of a rotating barcode displayed inside TicketMaster’s web-app or android/ios app.
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CRN ☛ Google Cloud Exec: Microsoft Is ‘Paying Off Complainants’ After Antitrust Ruling [Ed: The word they're looking for is bribing]
‘Microsoft's playbook of paying off complainants rather than addressing the substance of their complaint hurts businesses and shouldn't fool anyone,’ said Google Cloud top executive Amit Zavery, following the results of a European antitrust complaint ruling today.
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The Business Journals ☛ Microsoft, Apple drop OpenAI board observer seats [Ed: Altam is good at losing lots of money! What a talent!]
Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is giving up its observer seat on OpenAI's board, and Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) is abandoning its own short-lived bid to take an observer seat, as well.
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America Online ☛ Microsoft, Apple nix OpenAI board seats as antitrust scrutiny mounts
Microsoft and Apple have reportedly dropped their plans to hold observer seats on OpenAI’s board of directors – a move that comes as the Big Tech firms face a widening antitrust crackdown in the US and Europe.
Microsoft, which has committed $13 billion toward CEO Sam Altman’s ChatGPT maker, informed OpenAI in a letter late Tuesday that it would give up its non-voting board seat effective immediately, the Financial Times reported.
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CNBC ☛ HubSpot shares plunge 12% on report that Alphabet is shelving interest in acquiring software company
HubSpot shares plunged 12% on Wednesday after a report said Alphabet isn’t going forward with plans to buy the software company.
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India Times ☛ What Microsoft leaving board seat at ChatGPT maker OpenAI means for Apple
Microsoft took a non-voting, observer position on OpenAI's board in November 2023 after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was fired unceremoniously. He was taken back just hours later in a management reshuffle that also saw board shakeup. The seat meant that Microsoft could attend OpenAI's board meetings and access confidential information but had no voting rights on matters including selecting or choosing directors. Apple joining the board would have meant the same rights for the iPhone maker.
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The Register UK ☛ Microsoft avoids formal antitrust probe, settles with CISPE
A group of 27 cloud providers have agreed to settle the complaint they lodged with the European Commission over alleged anti-competitive behavior related to the cost they pay to run Microsoft's software in their datacenters.
The agreement, which will remain confidential, was voted on this afternoon by the members of the Cloud Infrastructure Service Provider of Europe (CISPE) trade group, comprised of 26 firms in Europe and Amazon Web Services (AWS). It means Microsoft has managed to avoid greater scrutiny and a potential date with the regulators.
The formal competition complaint was filed in November 2022 with the EC and pertained to the higher cost of running of acquiring and running Microsoft software in clouds other than Azure, along with technical adjustments needs to run some programs on rival cloud services.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Microsoft, Apple give up observer seats on OpenAI's board amid regulatory scrutiny
In early June, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Federal Trade Commission is looking into the companies’ partnership. The FTC is reportedly concerned that Microsoft may have structured the deal to give it control of OpenAI without drawing regulatory attention. Later that month, the European Union’s top competition official revealed that the bloc may launch a probe into the companies over “certain exclusivity clauses” in their partnership agreement.
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New York Times ☛ Microsoft Surrenders OpenAI Board Position
Microsoft’s decision coincides with European and U.S. regulators’ examination of its ties to OpenAI. In March, Europe’s antitrust enforcer, the European Commission, sent questions to Microsoft, Google, Meta and others about their investments in A.I. startups. It has since sent follow-up questions to Microsoft about its investment in OpenAI because it is concerned about how dominant companies could block smaller competitors from gaining access to A.I. technology.
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Cyble Inc ☛ Microsoft Exits OpenAI Board Amid Regulatory Pressure
The timing of these decisions coincides neatly with growing regulatory pressure on Big Tech’s influence in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence. Both the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the European Commission (EC) have expressed concerns that tech giants’ investments in AI startups like OpenAI could stifle competition and create monopolies in key technological areas.
In June, the FTC launched an investigation into Big Tech investments in generative AI startups, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. The EC, meanwhile, explored the possibility of an antitrust probe into the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership after deciding against a merger control investigation.
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Zach Flower ☛ Back to Basics
Unfortunately for me, my family is not on the Android train, so all my choice did was introduce friction.
I was immediately locked out of those family group chats (thanks for that one, Apple) and was unable to get back in, despite a ton of effort. I couldn't manage my kids' iPads (which require parental approval for installing new applications, and granting extra screen time). My wife and I couldn't easily send high-quality pictures to one another, because of Apple's lack of RCS support (and Android's lack of iMessage support).
In other words, I made my and everyone else's lives more difficult.
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Six Colors ☛ Apple no longer taking OpenAI board seat
But this does make for a wild ride for Apple. It was just a few days ago that it was reported that Apple Fellow Phil Schiller would be taking the observer role as part of the company’s deal with OpenAI, but I guess Phil can go back to sparring with Epic in Europe full time.
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US News And World Report ☛ Microsoft Quits OpenAI Board Seat as Antitrust Scrutiny of Artificial Intelligence Pacts Intensifies
The surprise departure comes amid intensifying scrutiny from antitrust regulators of the powerful AI partnership. Microsoft has reportedly invested $13 billion in OpenAI.
European Union regulators said last month that they would take a fresh look at the partnership under the 27-nation bloc's antitrust rules, while the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Britain's competition watchdog have also been examining the pact.
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RTL ☛ Raising concerns: Microsoft gives up OpenAI board seat amid regulator scrutiny
Microsoft's $13-billion tie-up with OpenAI has raised concerns on both sides of the Atlantic about just how much influence it has over its smaller partner.
Regulators began examining the partnership after an abortive boardroom coup last year against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whom Microsoft supported and even briefly hired.
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Patents
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Software Patents
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Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 awarded for NTECH multimedia patent monopoly prior art
Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Ekta Aswal and Ritu Tyagi, who split an award of $2,000 for their prior art submissions on U.S. Patent 9,215,261, owned by NTECH Properties, LLC, an NPE. The ‘261 patent monopoly generally relates to media delivery and programming and was asserted against ByteDance, Ltd.
We would also like to thank the dozens of other high-quality submissions that were made on this patent. The ongoing contests are open to anyone, and include tens of thousands of dollars in rewards available for helping the industry to challenge NPE patents of questionable validity by finding and submitting prior art in the contests.
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Trademarks
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Right of Publicity
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Futurism ☛ Nicolas Cage Says He’s Terrified AI Will "Steal" His Body
Previously subjected to nonconsensual — though innocuous — AI treatment himself, it's a bit of an overstatement to say that Cage has been "very" vocal about the technology, especially compared to some of his fellow actors who spoke out during SAG-AFTRA's strike over its use last year.
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Copyrights
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Public Domain Review ☛ A Bug’s Life: David and Marian Fairchild’s Book of Monsters (1914)
Macrophotographs of the creatures below our feet, magnified to a wondrous degree by David and Marian Fairchild.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Nintendo Targets Switch Emulators Suyu, Nuzu, Uzuy, Torzu, and Sudachi
Nintendo's dismantling of the Switch emulator scene continued this week. Using the injunction obtained against the Yuzu emulator as a base, Nintendo has just taken down projects including Suyu, Nuzu, Uzuy, Torzu and Sudachi from GitHub. Some are likely to survive elsewhere and at least one is being completely rewritten to address various issues. Whether that will pacify Nintendo is unknown.
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Torrent Freak ☛ YoHoHo Asks GitHub to Take 'Pirated' Pirate-Themed Games Offline
Popular multiplayer game Yohoho.io is available in app stores and on the web. The goal of the pirate-themed 'battle royale' is to kill and plunder opponents, to become the last pirate standing. Apparently, the game itself is also subject to plundering scoundrels, as the makers have asked GitHub to take down various ad-free 'copies'.
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[Repeat] Digital Music News ☛ U.S. Copyright Office Sets Mechanical 'Termination Rights' Rule
The U.S. Copyright Office has finalized a major update to “termination rights” for mechanical licensing payouts under the MMA-established blanket license.
The Office today published its final rule on the subject, close to two years after first taking up the highly complex matter. Subsequently, all manner of organizations, from the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) to the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) itself and many in between, forwarded comments in support of their respective interests.
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Walled Culture ☛ Sharing material used to be the norm for newspapers, and should be for LLMs
Material was not only copied verbatim, but modified and built upon in the process. As a result of this constant exchange, alteration and enhancement, newspaper readers in the US enjoyed a rich ecosystem of information, and a large number of titles flourished, since the cost of producing suitable material for each of them was shared and thus reduced.
That historical fact in itself is interesting. It’s also important at a time when newspaper publishers are some of the most aggressive in demanding ever stronger – and ever more disproportionate – copyright protection for their products, for example through “link taxes”. But Cordell’s speech is not simply backward looking. It goes on to make another fascinating observation, this time about large language models (LLMs): [...]
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Lou Plummer ☛ True Confessions - My Life on the High Seas
Then my ISP started sending me letters informing me that someone in my house was illegally downloading copyrighted material. I ignored the letters because I figured they were bluffing. In fact, they were not bluffing, which I found out one Saturday morning in 2006 when my Internet would not work. When I called tech support to complain, I was told to call back on Monday and ask for the folks in the fraud and abuse department. Oh, shit. This was during the time that the RIAA was suing the grandmothers of teenage downloaders for thousands of dollars. I was terrified all weekend that I was going to lose my house.
When Monday came, and I made the call, the stern-sounding lady on the phone told me to go to my computer and read what was on the screen. It basically said, "If I ever download something illegally again, my Internet will be turned off forever." There was one checkbox, and it just said "OK." I had to check it to get my Internet back. Oh, the movie that got me busted? It was Little Miss Sunshine, I found out later.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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