Links 16/07/2024: Salesforce Layoffs and Microsoft's DMARC Fail
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- 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 Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Sara Jakša ☛ Do People in Real Life Know I Have a Blog? | Blog of Sara Jakša
I am something in between - I am not hiding my blog. I am also not promoting my blog. If people ask me for my hobbies, blogging or writing on the internet will be somewhere there. If people ask more, than that is fine, if not, well, that is fine as well. If the conversation goes into that direction, I will absolutely mention why having one own site is awesome - and also the drawbacks.
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Nat Bennett ☛ Are platforms pointless?
I have never seen a company whose problem with their application was that they couldn't throw enough memory or CPU at the application server itself. The problem is always the database. And platforms tend to treat the data services as an afterthought. You get them from somewhere and you hook them up to your lovingly-orchestrated containers.
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Science
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Science Alert ☛ Almost 50% of Cancer Deaths in US May Be Preventable, Study Finds
A giant wake-up call.
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Science Alert ☛ The Mystery of How Big Animal Brains Should Grow May Finally Be Solved
We were wrong about this.
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Discover a Face-Detection Circuit in The Brains of Primates
There you are.
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Science Alert ☛ An Early Warning Sign of Dementia Risk May Be Keeping You Up at Night, Says Study
Sleep tight.
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Federal News Network ☛ This company is helping government satellite operators improve awareness of threats in low-earth orbit
An academic course endorsed by the Defense Department and delivered by accelerator company BM&T aims to help science and engineering students develop their idea
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The Conversation ☛ When scientific citations go rogue: Uncovering ‘sneaked references’
Reading and writing articles published in academic journals and presented at conferences is a central part of being a researcher. When researchers write a scholarly article, they must cite the work of peers to provide context, detail sources of inspiration and explain differences in approaches and results. A positive citation by other researchers is a key measure of visibility for a researcher’s own work.
But what happens when this citation system is manipulated? A recent Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology article by our team of academic sleuths – which includes information scientists, a computer scientist and a mathematician – has revealed an insidious method to artificially inflate citation counts through metadata manipulations: sneaked references.
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Bruce Schneier ☛ Hacking Scientific Citations
Be careful what you’re measuring, because that’s what you’ll get. Make sure it’s what you actually want.
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Education
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Hindustan Times ☛ Govt school teachers’ union oppose digital attendance, warns of protest
From July 8, a new regulation issued by Uttar Pradesh government’s state project director Kanchan Verma, mandates that all government school teachers mark their daily attendance digitally, in the tablets provided to them.
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Tao Security Blog ☛ My First Book is 20 Years Old Today
I am done writing books on security, but I believe the core tactics and strategies in all my books are still relevant. I'm not sure that's a good thing, though. I would have liked to not need the tactics and strategies in my book anymore. "The Cloud," along with so many other developments and approaches, was supposed to have saved us by now.
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Robert Birming ☛ Don't f*ck with fika!
I once read about a Swedish CEO who offered lukewarm coffee (a big no no) during job interviews. Later, she would ask if it was good and if the person wanted a refill. Those who didn't say anything about the coffee not being hot enough were dismissed as "not having enough integrity”.
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Kevin Wammer ☛ No more ambition
Recently, I had lunch with a close friend and had an epiphany: I’m actually quite satisfied with my life. This might have been obvious to others, but it wasn't to me. I was still chasing this one thing without knowing what the endgame was. When would I have fulfilled my desire?
I don't yet know if I've reached it or if I've simply changed so much as a person that I don't care anymore. But I am content. Life is good. I simply don't need more.
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[Old] R Scott Jones ☛ What are 5 interesting things about you?
I first extended, then re-enrolled in the internship once or twice again, and was eventually hired by the campaign to assist the campaign manager as we worked to collect signatures to get it on the ballot, and then to get it passed by the voters. It passed 56-43 in 2000, and was later upheld by the US Supreme Court in two separate decisions. It remains the law today.
Obviously, working on a successful effort like that really adds to your sense of efficacy. It was sorta hard to take classwork seriously after having just made a difference “in the real world.” And as an idealistic college student who wanted to make the world better, it definitely fueled the direction I took from there. With all the connections I had made in the political advocacy arena, I naturally got involved in countless other efforts, organizations, and such and eventually leading to my career in public lands conservation. No class has had a bigger impact on me than that fateful internship “mistake.”
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Tim Bornholdt ☛ I'm getting rid of my iPhone for a month
Long time readers of this blog may recall that I've been psyching myself up enough to try switching to the Light Phone.
I’m legit embarrassed to admit just how much I’m addicted to my iPhone.
It happened slowly over the course of the last 15 years. Today, I find myself frequently incapable of putting it down, even when it’s actively making me feel terrible.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China cracks down on social media over 'harmful' content for kids
The move will “rectify prominent problems” related to short-video and livestreaming platforms, social media sites, online shopping platforms, app stores, smart devices for children and online controls for minors, the statement by the Cyberspace Administration of China said.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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BNN ☛ Salesforce Cuts More Jobs in Latest Sign of Tech Austerity
Salesforce Inc. cut about 300 roles as part of a broader effort to streamline operations, underscoring that the tech industry remains focused on controlling costs.
The software giant made the cuts this month, according to a person familiar with the reductions who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. In a statement, the company confirmed that it had pared some jobs, without getting specific.
“Like any healthy business, we continuously assess whether we have the right structure in place to best serve our customers and fuel growth areas,” a spokesperson said. “In some cases that leads to roles being eliminated.”
While a small sliver of the company’s total workforce, the cuts are just the latest example of the tech industry reining in costs following years of rapid hiring. San Francisco-based Salesforce cut about 700 workers earlier this year and pared roughly 10% of its total workforce at the start of 2023.
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Head Topics ☛ Political uncertainty, IT jobs bloodbath curtail hiring in SA
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Futurism ☛ Company Abandons Plans to Give AI Workers "Rights" and Add Them to Org Chart After Outcry From Human Employees
Unsurprisingly, the baffling concept of extending rights to "digital employees" that don't actually exist didn't sit well with many, leading to major backlash and eventually forcing Lattice to reconsider.
The retaliation highlights a growing disillusionment with AI, which has quickly taken over entire industries by storm.
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The Register UK ☛ ZDI shames Microsoft for coordinated vuln disclosure snafu
A Microsoft zero-day vulnerability that Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative team claims it found and reported to Redmond in May was disclosed and patched by the Windows giant in July's Patch Tuesday – but without any credit given to ZDI.
The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-38112, is in MSHTML aka Trident aka Microsoft's proprietary browser engine for Internet Explorer. Redmond called it a spoofing vulnerability, noted that it was being exploited in the wild, and assigned it a 7.5-out-of-10 CVSS severity score.
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Cyble Inc ☛ Microsoft's DMARC Fail: Data Breach Notifications Flagged As Spam
Microsoft recently sent data breach notifications to Microsoft 365 customers that were flagged as spam and even blocked by the company’s own security tools, according to security researchers.
The emails were flagged – and raised concerns among Microsoft customers – for a few reasons: they asked for high-level account information, included a link that was not clearly connected to Microsoft, and also appeared to improperly implement DMARC anti-spoofing protocols.
While Microsoft deserves credit for transparency, the world’s largest software company also demonstrated the perils of failing to follow some pretty essential email authentication and security practices.
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Wired ☛ Hackers Claim to Have Leaked 1.1 TB of Disney Slack Messages
The data, which appears to have been first published on Thursday, was posted on BreachForums and later taken down, but it is still live on mirror sites.
Roei Sherman, field CTO at Mitiga Security, says he isn't surprised that a giant like Disney could have a breach of this scale and significance. “Companies are getting breached all the time, especially data theft from the cloud and software-as-a-service platforms,” he says. “It is just easier for attackers and holds bigger rewards."
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The Strategist ☛ Get ready for AI-supercharged [criminal activity]
Cybercrime is causing significant disruption to the Australian economy. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, cybercrime cost $3.5 billion in Australia in 2019. Around $1.9 billion was lost directly by victims and the rest was the cost of recovery from attacks and of measures to protect systems.
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[Repeat] Ruben Schade ☛ But chatbots are better than $FOO!
Presented with this reality, people have been invoking whataboutism to defend the technology. You see, chatbots might be inconsistent, but this other $THING is worse. You can substitute $THING with whatever bugbear you possess, from the quality of Wikipedia, to journalism, to democracy. I don’t buy it.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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EFF ☛ Detroit Takes Important Step in Curbing the Harms of Face Recognition Technology
Robert Williams, a Black resident of a Detroit suburb, filed suit against the Detroit Police Department after officers arrested him at his home in front of his wife, daughters, and neighbors for a crime he did not commit. After a shoplifting incident at a watch store, police used a blurry still taken from surveillance footage and ran it through face recognition technology—which incorrectly identified Williams as the perpetrator.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Detroit Police can no longer substitute face recognition technology (FRT) for reliable policework. Simply put: Face recognition matches can no longer be the only evidence police use to justify an arrest.
FRT creates an “imprint” from an image of a face, then compares that imprint to other images—often a law enforcement database made up of mugshots, driver’s license images, or even images scraped from the internet. The technology itself is fraught with issues, including that it is highly inaccurate for certain demographics, particularly Black men and women. The Detroit Police Department makes face recognition queries using DataWorks Plus software to the Statewide Network of Agency Photos, or (SNAP), a database operated by the Michigan State Police. According to data obtained by EFF through a public records request, roughly 580 local, state, and federal agencies and their sub-divisions have desktop access to SNAP.
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NL Times ☛ People in the Netherlands have spent almost 6.3 billion euros on smart devices
Dutch residents spend the most on smart household appliances like washing machines, dishwashers, kettles, blinds, and robot lawnmowers. In total, 3.7 billion euros are spent on these types of appliances.
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The Age AU ☛ Kids Money: Young people say they don’t need a bank. Here’s what they do instead
“Digital money is all kids know these days. The reality is cash isn’t something they need to know. Digital tools like savings goals being reached with little icons can reward them in a way they relate to.”
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Deccan Chronicle ☛ Google maps to roll out new interface for Android users
The go to app for navigation, Google maps is set to come up with a new interface with sheet-based design for Android users.
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Reason ☛ FTC Opens a Backdoor Route to Age Verification on Social Media
An administrative agency ordering a social media app to ban minors is effectively a backdoor way to accomplish what Congress has been failing to mandate legislatively and what courts have been rejecting when state lawmakers do it.
Granted, the FTC does not seem to be requiring NGL to check IDs. It's merely "required to implement a neutral age gate that prevents new and current users from accessing the app if they indicate that they are under 18," per the FTC's press release.
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Inside Towers ☛ AT&T Addresses Illegal Download of Customer Data - Inside Towers
AT&T officials say the data does not contain the content of calls or texts, personal information such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or other personally identifiable information. It also does not include the timestamp of calls or texts.
“While the data does not include customer names, there are often ways, using publicly available online tools, to find the name associated with a specific telephone number,” the company said in a statement. “At this time, we do not believe that the data is publicly available.”
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Defence/Aggression
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The Strategist ☛ What Australia can learn from Europe in addressing hybrid threats
There are indications that Moscow orchestrated arson attacks in Riga in February, London in March and Warsaw in May and attempted to set off explosions mid-year in Germany, France and Czechia. This fits Russia’s broader strategy of using proxies to test Western defences, together with disinformation campaigns, cyber attacks and espionage. Attacks on European infrastructure doubled from the last quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Kaspersky to shut down US operations following Commerce Department ban
Nearly a month after the U.S. Commerce Department announced that it was banning Kaspersky Lab Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Russian antivirus software maker Kaspersky from selling its software in the U.S., Kaspersky Lab has announced it’s closing its U.S. business and laying off its employees.
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Sightline Media Group ☛ One-third of US military could be robotic by 2039: Milley
intelligence and unmanned technology could lead to robotic military forces in the future.
“Ten to fifteen years from now, my guess is a third, maybe 25% to a third of the U.S. military will be robotic,” said retired Army Gen. Mark Milley at an Axios event Thursday launching the publication’s Future of Defense newsletter.
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Craig Murray ☛ Assassination and Trump’s Mentality
Six months ago I said to a well-known public figure that the US intelligence agencies had destroyed Trump’s first Presidency and that, in a second chance, he would have to uproot their entire leadership or simply let them continue to run the country and concentrate on making money for himself.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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The Dissenter ☛ US Prosecutors Secure Guilty Plea In First-Of-Its-Kind Espionage Act Case Involving Drone Photography
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404 Media ☛ DDoSecrets Mirrors Wikileaks Data After Assange Plea Deal
The transparency activism organization Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) published copies of data available on Wikileaks’ website onto their own site on Sunday. The move comes after Wikileaks founder Julian Assange entered a plea agreement, part of which involved him deleting any unpublished classified information that Wikileaks hasn’t publicized and signing an affidavit stating he had done so.
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Follow The Crypto ☛ Follow the [Cryptocurrency]
These PACs have already spent heavily to influence the outcome of multiple Congressional races.
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Environment
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The Walrus ☛ The World Is Moving Away from Fossil Fuels. Canada Is Holding On for Dear Life
Virtually every major analyst that isn’t an oil company (and even some of them, like BP) now expects global demand for oil to peak around 2030, if not sooner; McKinsey, Rystad Energy, DNV, and the International Energy Agency all agree. This places Canada in a uniquely vulnerable position. Oil is Canada’s biggest export by a mile, a vital organ of our economy: we sold $123 billion worth of it in 2022 (cars came in second, at just under $30 billion). Three quarters of that oil is exported as bitumen—the most expensive, emissions-heavy form of petroleum in the market and therefore the hardest to sell. That makes us incredibly sensitive to fluctuations in global demand. Think of coal as the canary in our oil patch.
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Macworld ☛ It's not just iPhones: Apple users are holding on to their Macs longer than ever
A modern Mac computer with an Apple M-series chip is strong enough for most Mac users to hold on to it for 3 years or more. Even the first machine with Apple’s M1 chip, the MacBook Air from 2020, still has enough bounce in its step for everyday use such as sending emails, browsing, simple photo and video editing.
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Science News ☛ Plants might not hold on to carbon as long as we thought
A new analysis of pulses of radioactive carbon-14 from 20th-century bomb tests reveals that plants stock more carbon in short-lived tissues such as leaves than previously estimated, scientists report in the June 21 Science. That means that this carbon is probably more vulnerable to re-release to the atmosphere — potentially altering estimates of how much anthropogenic carbon the biosphere can hold, the team says.
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VOA News ☛ Kenyans combat the threat of logging with hidden beehives
“Mangrove honey is also classified as top quality and medicinal," he added. “This could be due to the environment that mangroves thrives in" and what they absorb from their surroundings.
Nyongesa now has 11 beehives and harvests about 8 liters (2 gallons) of honey per hive every three months. Each liter earns him $6, a valuable source of income.
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Wildlife/Nature
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The Revelator ☛ Coastal Restoration: Saving Sand
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Overpopulation
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Greece ☛ Are we turning into Barcelona?
“Water is becoming dangerously scarce; it hardly rained over the winter, the desalination units are old and keep malfunctioning and scheduled cuts are already taking place. What’s more, new villas keep appearing every year, with huge swimming pools and big gardens that require a lot of watering. How is our small island supposed to carry such a huge burden?” she asks.
Earlier this month, thousands of residents in Barcelona protested against the effects of overtourism, which are making their lives unbearable. Spain is the second most popular destination in the world after France, receiving 85 million visitors last year and expecting even more in 2024. The streets in downtown Barcelona are constantly congested, rental rates have skyrocketed by nearly 70% in the past few years, water is being rationed (every resident is entitled to 200 liters a day) and small neighborhood businesses are shutting down and turning into bicycle rental shops, cafes and souvenir stores.
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Finance
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Pro Publica ☛ In New York, Wage-Theft Violators Get Millions in Government Contracts
In the lobby of its midtown Manhattan headquarters, Fedcap Rehabilitation Services has a large wall display that pays homage to its near 90-year history of leading “the fight for equity and opportunity” for the disabled community.
The nonprofit is known in New York as having pioneered the field of vocational rehabilitation, a service that helps find jobs for people with disabilities.
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TMZ ☛ Bhad Bhabie Posts $57 Million OnlyFans Earnings Statement
The interesting part ... based on the cash breakdown, BB seems to have made more money from DMs than subscriptions ... meaning her fans really wanted to get their points across personally and communicate with her.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Site36 ☛ One third of all asylum applications in Germany rejected in 2023
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Techdirt ☛ Apple Continues To Genuflect To Vladimir Putin In The Russian Apple App Store
So, what to think about all of this? Certainly some folks will point out that Apple has no choice but to comply with Russian law while operating the App Store in country. And, sure, that’s true. But operating the store is in and of itself a choice that Apple is making. And Apple is a company that has been particularly vocal when it comes to protecting the privacy and rights of its users. It seems that moral stance includes some kind of a carve out for Russians, however.
Apple can do this, of course. But what it cannot do is accept the cheers for pulling out of Russia and for its customer-privacy focus while also accepting its role as digital policeman for the Kremlin. Pick a lane, you can’t have both. And the company is specifically doing the political bidding of the Russian Big Bad, it should be pointed out.
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International Business Times ☛ 'Are We Overpaid Or Underpaid': YouTuber Turned EU Parliament Member Reveals How Much He Makes
In January this year, Fidias announced his candidacy for the EU Parliament, admitting he had no prior knowledge of politics or the European Union but was eager to learn. "I am 23 years old, and I have never voted. I said to myself one night that if I never vote and I never take an interest, the same nerds are always going to be in power, and I said 'enough!'" he declared.
He emphasised that his intention was not necessarily to win but to inspire young people to participate in elections. "I heard somewhere that if you are unsatisfied with things around you and want them to change, you have to be the change. Why did I choose to be independent? Because I can't fit into moulds. Because I want you to know I have no party interests to serve," he added.
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Inside Towers ☛ FAA Updates Identification Area Maps for Drone Operators - Inside Towers
The FAA has released an updated map of FAA-Recognized Identification Areas (FRIAs). FRIAs are specific locations where drones can be flown without Remote ID equipment. This new tool simplifies the process of locating these areas, ensuring pilots can easily find a nearby FRIA to comply with the regulations, according to the FAA. It might also help those using drones for cell tower imaging.
The Remote ID rule is part of the FAA’s effort to integrate drones into the National Airspace System safely. It mandates that all drones requiring registration must broadcast identification and location information. This capability helps the FAA, law enforcement, and other federal agencies to locate drones that might be operating unsafely or in restricted areas, notes DroneLife.
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Sara Jakša ☛ A Question for People working in Tech: What is your Company Device Policy?
Basically, I am mostly interested in the what device are you using? Not the model or the operating systems. More in the realm of the following questions:
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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NPR ☛ Biden faces criticism over his gas car ban. But he doesn’t have one
Voters in Midwestern states are seeing ads railing against President Biden’s gas car ban. But there’s one catch: the Biden administration hasn’t prohibited gas-powered vehicles. That’s not stopping fossil fuel industry groups and former President Donald Trump from targeting swing state voters with warnings of car bans.
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VOA News ☛ Russia reacts to Trump assassination attempt pushing its own narrative
For foreign audiences, Russia utilizes the social media platforms like X, formerly Twitter, and a network of 270+ accounts of the Russian embassies and consulates worldwide, all boosting the Kremlin’s narratives in many different languages.
The Russia Embassy in South Africa is one of the most prominent propaganda superspreaders on X.
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The Atlantic ☛ The Trump Shooting Conspiracies Outpaced Reality
Online platforms such as Facebook and X have long been accelerants for baseless information and conspiracy theories, but these things aren’t just the product of an information crisis that can be resolved with education and by reining in social media. When conspiracy theories become the default logic for many Americans in understanding all major moments, they suggest a more fundamental breakdown.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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El País ☛ Meta’s digital censorship targets art from the Leopold Museum in Vienna
The Leopold Museum has used its own accounts on Instagram and Facebook to launch its crusade against Meta’s censorship. “Our images are repeatedly reported for sexually explicit content,” says the museum’s social media manager, Pia Semorad. “Most of the time, artworks with female nudity and homosexual content — not male nudity — are reported and undergo a review period of about 24 hours. In the process, the images are temporarily ‘blocked.’ They are not shared to non-followers or displayed on the Explore page. What’s more, our account is displayed lower in the feed to followers. In major cases, our account is restricted: its content is not shown to unfamiliar users and the account cannot be found by typing our name in the search bar. We have found that the same post can be reviewed various times, so there seems to be no limit.”
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VOA News ☛ US journalist Masha Gessen is convicted in absentia in Russia for criticizing military
Russian police put Gessen on a wanted list in December, and Russian media reported the case was based on statements they made about atrocities in the Ukrainian town of Bucha in an interview with a popular Russian online blogger.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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Counter Punch ☛ A Dark Chapter Closes: Julian Assange Goes Free
The dust has finally settled over Julian Assange’s release from jail, but it may never settle over what the U.S. state did, to him and to a free press. He is now in Australia, with his family, where he belongs, beginning the hopefully not too long process of healing from his ordeal, from being driven nearly out of his mind by official torture at the hands of British ghouls acting on behalf of American ones. Last reports were that Assange took anti-psychotic and anti-depressant medication to cope with existence in his Belmarsh prison cell. I hope it helped; such meds often save a life, but they entail dangers, too. The important thing for him, personally, is that the worst is over.
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Julian Assange is free—defying imprisonment, and even assassination plots
After more than a decade of persecution, Julian Assange has returned home to Australia a free man. He almost didn’t make it. The FBI and the Pentagon considered every available means—legal and otherwise—to prevent Julian from winning his freedom. Chip Gibbons and Kevin Gosztola return to discuss with TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and Project Censored’s Eleanor Goldfield the inside story of Julian’s fight for freedom, and the monsters who tried to crush him.
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CJR ☛ The cynicism of blaming the media for the Trump assassination attempt
On Saturday—shortly after a gunman attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania and killed Corey Comperatore, a Trump supporter—various observers remarked that a photo of a blood-smeared Trump, his fist raised as Secret Service agents scrambled him off the stage, was instantly iconic, and one for the history books. But this wasn’t quite right. Not because the clichés about the photo’s historical import were wrong; it’s hard to describe, but my instinctive reaction was as if I were looking at something from a high school textbook, not something that had just happened. The observation was wrong because it was photos, plural.
There was one by Evan Vucci, of the Associated Press, of Trump with his mouth open, and another by Vucci of Trump with his lips pursed. There was one by Doug Mills, of the New York Times, showing Trump’s face screwed up in a ball, and another depicting a far more ambiguous expression. The Washington Post’s Jabin Botsford captured Trump’s fist rising from the tight scrum of agents encircling him; Getty’s Anna Moneymaker captured Trump’s bloodied ear through the scrum but also a shot of Trump’s body to the camera, two buttons undone. Each photo—and others besides—depicted the same scene but with different emphases. “As tough as he looked in that one picture with his fist looking very defiant, the next frame I took, he looked completely drained,” Mills recalled afterward. That each photo was taken under the very real threat of gunfire only makes them more remarkable. “I can’t go back in time and get a redo,” Vucci told the Daily Beast. “You’re just making sure that your composition is good and you’re making the images that you need to make.”
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CPJ ☛ [Old] U.S. Presidential Election 2024: Journalist safety kit
The contested 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol have contributed to a rise in domestic extremism and an increased presence of politically motivated militia groups, who are likely to appear at political rallies and polling stations in certain U.S. states. As a result, journalists may face forceful reprisals, including physical harassment, obstruction, and verbal abuse. Media workers covering the election should be aware of the increased risk of online abuse, including doxxing, and targeted disinformation campaigns designed to undermine the press. This underscores an increasingly hostile environment for journalists in the U.S., with at least 40 assaults against journalists in 2023, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a comprehensive database of U.S. press freedom violations, of which CPJ is a founding member.
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RSF ☛ Christophe Deloire, director general of Reporters Without Borders, died on Saturday, 8 June at the age of 53
The team at Reporters Without Borders’ international secretariat, its offices and sections, and their boards of directors, are deeply saddened to announce the death of Christophe Deloire, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders International and director-general of Reporters Without Borders, following a battle with cancer.
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Discourse Blog ☛ Soon Will Come a Day That None of This Exists
There are many aspects to this—private equity strip-mining previously profitable local chains, evil right-wing conglomerates consolidating publications and using that as an excuse to do the same kind of strip-mining the private equity guys are doing, et cetera. I’ve written literally dozens of blogs about all this stuff over my career and will probably keep writing them for the next decade or more.
Take Sports Illustrated, for instance. The other day, I was thinking about a sports story that I wanted to pitch—a meaty magazine feature that would look good in a glossy magazine, a rousing tale of human endurance against all odds that (I thought at least) would probably make for a pretty good film option. This is the kind of stuff that generally was Sports Illustrated’s bread and butter (well, besides the bikini issues) since it started in 1954, but unfortunately, the magazine hasn’t really existed for quite some time. And, as of today, it somehow doesn’t exist even more.
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Lusaka ZM ☛ Zambia : Journalists are being denied opportunity to ask HH random questions
Journalists are being denied opportunity to ask President Hakainde Hichilema random questions. For the sake of free media, it is important to mention it.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Techdirt ☛ Court Reverses Conviction After Cops Lied To Suspect About Having A Warrant To Search His Phone
It’s well-known that cops can lie to suspects to obtain confessions or further information from suspects. But not always. This Delaware case, brought to us by FourthAmendment.com, demonstrates that while lying in interrogation rooms is usually cool and fine, it isn’t when it moves someone to consent to a search they wouldn’t have agreed to under other circumstances.
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Techdirt ☛ $1 Million Awarded To 9-Year-Old US Citizen Held For 34 Hours By CBP
As has often been said about ICE and CBP, the cruelty is the point. Both agencies have seemingly gone out of their way to harm people, even though their directives don’t demand the often cruel actions they take. Both CBP and ICE have been separating immigrant families for years, even though Trump’s decision to badmouth pretty much every country people are fleeing from as producers of garbage people and criminals meant he took most of the heat for this tactic.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Gambia upholds ban on female genital mutilation
Following months of heated debate, legislators ended the bill's chances by rejecting all its clauses and blocking any further vote.
"The Women's (Amendment) Bill 2024, having gone through the consideration stage with all the clauses voted down, is hereby deemed rejected," said Fabakary Tombong Jatta, the speaker of the National Assembly, adding that the legislative process had been "exhausted".
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JURIST ☛ Gambia Parliament keeps 2015 ban on female genital mutilation
The Parliament of Gambia voted Monday to maintain a 2015 ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) by rejecting a controversial bill which sought to reverse the prohibition and legalize the practice of female circumcision.
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RFA ☛ Biden signs bill urging China to resume talks over Tibet
Chinese forces invaded Tibet in 1950 and have controlled the territory ever since. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India amid a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.
Since then, Beijing has sought to legitimize Chinese rule through the suppression of dissent and policies undermining Tibetan culture and language.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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The Register UK ☛ FCC's latest net neutrality rule temporarily stayed in court
The FCC re-approved net neutrality rules in April, leading to immediate appeals from a number of telecommunications firms and trade organizations. It wasn't until late June, when the US Supreme Court made a number of decisions that could upend tech regulations, that the telco trade groups filed a review petition [PDF] that asked the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to permanently stay the new net neutrality rules.
In case you're not sure there's a connection between the US Supreme Court's judgments and this petition from the broadband industry, they spell it right out.
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Digital Music News ☛ American Airlines Adds Entire Ticketmaster Inventory to Rewards
The AAdvantage Events website now presents Ticketmaster’s entire inventory, from concerts, festivals, family live shows, and sporting events. The new inventory includes standard event tickets and verified resale tickets. Users can login to the website to see the number of miles needed to redeem specific ticket packages.
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Silicon Angle ☛ IBM’s $6.4B HashiCorp acquisition faces FTC antitrust review
HashiCorp disclosed the development in a regulatory filing released today. According to the document, both HashiCorp and IBM received a so-called second request from the FTC on Friday. A second request is a regulatory tool that the agency uses to collect the information necessary for an antitrust review.
The development is not entirely unexpected, since large acquisitions frequently prompt the FTC to launch an antitrust review. Broadcom Inc.’s purchase of VMware Inc., which was eventually approved, is among the major tech industry deals that drew a second request.
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Patents
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The Register UK ☛ Lenovo hit with higher patent payout, both sides claim a win
The China-based multinational tech biz was ordered to pay InterDigital $138.7 million by a London High Court last year in a long-running quarrel over licensing rates for patents the latter holds covering technologies in 3G, 4G, and 5G communications used in some Lenovo products.
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Copyrights
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BoingBoing ☛ Zombified tech blog publishing AI articles under real names of former authors
The Unofficial Apple Weblog closed up shop around ten years ago. Its writers went on to bigger, better, animate websites and assumed, rightfully, that their work for TUAW would be archived somewhere or perhaps live on as a nice memory in techblog history.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Canada's Federal Court Grants NBA, NHL, & Premier League Piracy Blockades
Canada's Federal Court has granted a new 'dynamic' piracy blocking order, requiring Internet providers to block specific IP addresses associated with sports streaming piracy. The order covers upcoming NBA, NHL, and Premier League games. It was amended swiftly on Friday, to cover last night's Euro 2024 football final too.
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Torrent Freak ☛ RIAA Sues Verizon After ISP "Buried Head in Sand" Over Subscribers' Piracy
Dozens of record labels including UMG, Warner, and Sony, have filed a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against Verizon at a New York federal court. The labels claim that instead of taking action in response to hundreds of thousands of notices advising Verizon of subscribers' piracy violations, the ISP "buried its head in the sand" while knowingly providing high-speed services to a massive community of online pirates.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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