Leftovers

• Digital Camera World ☛ Stop losing your photos: my simple file-naming system will save your sanity (and you hair!)

  Stop losing your files. It's 2025, and you're still scrolling through folders named "New Folder" and "Untitled." Here's the one thing that will save your hair and sanity: a simple, consistent naming system.

• Adam Aaronson ☛ I Drank Every Cocktail

  The International Bartenders Association, or IBA, maintains a list of official cocktails, ones they deem to be “the most requested recipes” at bars all around the world. It’s the closest thing the bartending industry has to a canonical list of cocktails, akin to the American Kennel Club’s registry of dog breeds or a jazz musician’s Real Book of standards.

• Raymond Camden ☛ Using AgentQL and Pipedream to Fix Missing RSS Feeds

  Now, the last few lines are the most confusing. The rss_str returns a binary, not "regular" string of XML. I have no idea why. There's probably a good reason and I asked on their repo about it. But it took all of one additional line to make it a string.

• Ava ☛ the online shopping experience

  Well, if I online shop now, depending on the type of website, one or more of the following applies: [...]

• Science

  • Tim Bray ☛ QRS: Finite-state Struggles

    The story thus far · Prior to beginning work on Regular Expressions, I’d already wired shell-style “*” wildcards into Quamina, which forced me to start working with NFAs and ε-transitions. The implementation wasn’t crushingly difficult, and the performance was… OK-ish.

• Career/Education

  • Seth Godin ☛ Seeing the lottery

    But these famous colleges acknowledge that they get three or four or five or even ten qualified applicants for every one they admit. Your effort is the ticket, but the prize is hardly assured. It’s a lottery.

    Even the Olympics is a lottery. 10,000 people give up a decade or more to get proficient at a sport, and on any given day, 100 of them could win. But only one does. The same is true for book publishing and the record business.

• Hardware

  • The Register UK ☛ New data shows tape is still not dead

    Drives built to work with the current ninth-gen spec, which offers 18 terabytes of uncompressed capacity on each tape, can therefore write the 12TB eighth-gen tapes and read seventh-gen tapes to access the measly 6TB each can contain.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Court House News ☛ First Amendment doesn’t provide the right to be heard, Fourth Circuit finds

    Hebb failed to prove that the city’s ordinance was intended to silence anti-abortion views, rather than simply address noise complaints, Wynn said. The restriction also does not substantially burden speech beyond the city’s regulatory interests, he added, or prevent protesters from unamplified speech, handing out pamphlets, or having signs or placards.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Medicaid Cuts Will Be a Disaster for ERs

    Many Americans get much of their health care from ERs. Defunding this service will bring financial and human ruin.

  • Doc Searls ☛ How about  ASO, for Attention Surfeit  Order?

    Royal Society: Attention deficits linked with proclivity to explore while foraging. To which Thom Hartman adds, The Science Catches Up: New Research Confirms ADHD as an Evolutionary Advantage, Not a Disease.

• Proprietary

  • India Times ☛ Microsoft SharePoint [breach] affected US Energy Department, nuclear weapons agency

    A US Department of Energy spokesperson said that on July 18 a Microsoft SharePoint zero-day vulnerability impacted its systems, including those of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.

  • The Register UK ☛ SharePoint victim count hits 400+ orgs in ongoing attacks

    In addition to the DOE, other government agencies and critical sectors, including telecommunications and software, have been hit in the ongoing attacks, with a "major Western government" being among the first victims on July 7, according to Check Point Research.

  • SANS ☛ Analyzing Sharepoint Exploits (CVE-2025-53770, CVE-2025-53771)

    A few days after the exploit originally became widely known, there are now many different SharePoint exploit attempts in circulation. We do see some scans by researchers to identify vulnerable systems (or to scan for common artifacts of compromise), and a few variations of the "ToolPane.aspx" URL being hit. Even for our "random" honeypots, the number of hits has increased significantly without having to emulate SharePoint better.

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire - Microsoft Exploitation

    On July 19, reports emerged that Microsoft SharePoint Servers worldwide were under active exploitation. Researchers at Eye Security published a blog post detailing their identification of an “active, large-scale exploitation” that was initially linked to a pair of vulnerabilities in SharePoint dubbed ToolShell. Successful exploitation of CVE-2025-53770 could expose MachineKey configuration details from a vulnerable SharePoint Server, ultimately enabling unauthenticated remote code execution.

    Please find below a comment from Satnam Narang, Sr. Staff Research Engineer at Tenable and a FAQ here.

  • Wired ☛ Microsoft Put Older Versions of SharePoint on Life Support. Hackers Are Taking Advantage

    When asked about the alleged breach at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Energy emphasized that the incident did not impact sensitive or classified data. “On Friday, July 18, the exploitation of a Microsoft SharePoint zero-day vulnerability began affecting the Department of Energy, including the NNSA,” a DOE spokesperson told WIRED in a statement. “The Department was minimally impacted due to its widespread use of the Microsoft M365 cloud and very capable cybersecurity systems. A very small number of systems were impacted. NNSA is taking the appropriate action to mitigate risk and transition to other offerings as appropriate.”

  • Julik Tarkhanov ☛ Why Can't We Just... Send an HTML Email

    Let’s be honest about what these “email builders” often are. They are web editors that generate HTML tables nested within HTML tables, with inline styles that would make a 1999 web developer blush. They promise “drag and drop” simplicity, but what happens instead is this: you want a screwdriver for a day, but they make you subscribe to the Ultimate Hardware Experience™ - complete with their industrial-grade underwater welder, a 24/7 forklift hotline, and a personal welding consultant who will call you every month to discuss your underwater welding needs (even though you live in Nebraska and just needed to tighten a bolt).

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • The Register UK ☛ NIH warns researchers to avoid AI in grant applications

      In guidance issued last week to researchers, NIH, part of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), disallowed grant applications created with the help of generative AI.

      "NIH will not consider applications that are either substantially developed by AI, or contain sections substantially developed by AI, to be original ideas of applicants," the health agency notice explains.

    • 404 Media ☛ Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain

      Google’s AI Overview, which is easy to fool into stating nonsense as fact, is stopping people from finding and supporting small businesses and credible sources.

  • Social Control Media

    • Zimbabwe ☛ South Africa Forces Meta to Comply. What That Means for Zimbabwe

      South Africa just scored a major legal victory that many countries, including Zimbabwe, would be jealous of. A court there has compelled Meta, the tech giant that owns WhatsApp and Instagram, to hand over subscriber information tied to accounts that posted explicit content of school children.

      This is huge.

    • EFF ☛ You Shouldn’t Have to Make Your Social Media Public to Get a Visa

      The Trump administration is continuing its dangerous push to surveil and suppress foreign students’ social media activity. The State Department recently announced an unprecedented new requirement that applicants for student and exchange visas must set all social media accounts to “public” for government review. The State Department also indicated that if applicants refuse to unlock their accounts or otherwise don’t maintain a social media presence, the government may interpret it as an attempt to evade the requirement or deliberately hide online activity.

    • The Register UK ☛ IRL Com recruits teens for real-life stabbings, shootings

      The FBI's alert follows a similar warning from the UK National Crime Agency about a "deeply concerning" trend of The Com recruiting teenage boys to commit a range of criminal acts, from cyber fraud and ransomware to child sexual abuse.

    • The Register UK ☛ Public service TV should work 'urgently' with YouTube: Ofcom

      The warning comes in the Public Service Media Review, published [PDF] yesterday, which maintains that in a marketplace with services like Netflix and YouTube – with their "hyper-personalized experiences that are hugely popular with viewers and advertisers" – PSBs are finding it "much harder to fund the production and distribution of high-quality UK content to all audiences."

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ UK to ban making ransomware payments for some organizations — targets 'public sector bodies and operators of critical national infrastructure'

      According to the announcement, the proposals would prohibit "public sector bodies and operators of critical national infrastructure, including the [National Health Service], local councils and schools," from making ransomware-related payments. They would also require other businesses planning to pay a ransom to notify the UK government so it can "provide those businesses with advice and support" before the payment is made. (Including a heads-up if such a payment would violate sanctions on Russia.)

    • Security Week ☛ Organizations Warned of Interlock Ransomware Attacks

      The hackers were seen deploying a RAT to drop a file in the Windows Startup folder and achieve persistence, but also executing PowerShell commands to modify Windows Registry keys for the same purpose.

      After establishing remote control, the attackers ran PowerShell commands to deploy a credential stealer and a keylogger, and were also seen using information stealers such as Lumma Stealer and Berserk Stealer.

    • Bitdefender ☛ UK to ban public sector from paying ransomware demands

      The ban would prevent operators of critical national infrastructure, the NHS, local councils and school, from giving in to digital extortionists - in the hope that criminals will have their business model disrupted, and that consequently they will find such organisations a less attractive target in future.

      And the proposals don't end there. The UK government is also looking at requiring businesses not covered by the ban to notify the authorities of any intent to pay a ransom.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Register UK ☛ Brave browser blocks privacy-busting Microsoft Recall

      Brave Software, which offers a Chromium-based browser tricked out with extra privacy controls, argues that Recall still presents a risk, even if transitioning it from opt-out to opt-in has mitigated concerns.

      "Recall is antithetical to Brave's goals as a privacy-first browser, and as such we should disable Recall's ability to capture what the user does on Brave," explained Shivan Kaul Sahib, VP of privacy and security at Brave Software, in the initial GitHub Issue post outlining the browser code change.

    • Brave Browser ☛ Brave blocks Microsoft Recall by default | Brave

      Microsoft first announced Recall in May 2024 and immediately drew fire from security and privacy advocates. Recall saved full-screen screenshots every few seconds and stored them in a local plaintext database, leaving it open for exploitation by anyone (including malware) who had access to the machine. The outcry caused Microsoft to hastily roll back the feature and re-work it significantly.

      A year later, Recall is back, and Brave is ready for it. We will disable it by default for Windows 11+ users, with a toggle to turn it back on for users who really want Recall.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

      • Mike Rockwell ☛ ‘I Don’t See the Point of Smartwatches’

        Now that I’m working at Automattic, though, I’m sitting in front of a computer for my entire work day. I still wear my Apple Watch, but not for the same reasons. Now, I literally only use it as a pomodoro timer — using it’s built-in timer app to take short, five minute breaks periodically throughout the day.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Taiwan warns of Chinese interference before recall vote

    Taiwan will hold the largest recall vote in its history this weekend. The 24 legislators on the list are all from the largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT).

    On Wednesday, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council stated that it was evident and clear that the Chinese Communist Party was attempting to interfere with Taiwan's democratic process.

  • Futurism ☛ Tech Billionaires Accused of Quietly Working to Implement "Corporate Dictatorship"

    Duran dubs this emerging ideology the "Nerd Reich" — a slurry of right-wing ideas championed by ruthless tech overlords like Palantir founder Peter Thiel, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, and cryptocurrency titan Brian Armstrong, with some OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sprinkled in for good measure. Drawing on the reactionary writings of Curtis "Mencius Moldbug" Yarvin and the cryptolibertarianism of tech investor Balaji Srinivasan, this philosophy isn't explicitly outlined by our billionaire overlords, but is nonetheless a useful framework that explains their increasingly undemocratic actions.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Fully Chinese-made drone found in Ukraine for first time

    The discovery, by Ukrainian intelligence, marks the first time that Russia has deployed weapons made only with Chinese components.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ US judge denies bid to unseal Epstein grand jury transcripts

    The ruling is the first in a series of attempts by US President Trump to release information related to the Epstein case. Meanwhile, a panel of lawmakers voted to subpoena the Justice Department for its files on Epstein.

  • Court House News ☛ Florida judge blocks DOJ access to Epstein files

    Grand jury transcripts from two criminal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein will remain sealed, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

    U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg denied the Department of Justice's request for documents of the grand jury proceedings convened in West Palm Beach in 2005 and 2007, citing precedent set by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ Letters on display from the mastermind of Pearl Harbor attack

    For the first time, two letters written by Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto — the architect behind the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor — have been made public.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ Huge SaaStr-Replit vibe coding disaster! — if it ever happened

    There is no checkable evidence that this happened. Replit did confirm that SaaStr was a Replit customer, that a database had been deleted, and that they restored it. So a database was deleted, at some point, in some manner. That’s the entire verifiable facts of the tale.

  • NDTV ☛ Donald Trump Was Told He Is In Epstein Files: Report

    Trump, who was friendly with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, appears multiple times on flight logs for Epstein's private plane in the 1990s. Trump and several members of his family also appear in an Epstein contact book, alongside hundreds of others.

• Environment

  • SBS ☛ The climate change scenario that could leave Australia 'unrecognisable'

    A new report has found climate change is accelerating, with current global efforts "dangerously inadequate". Here's what it means for Australia.

  • Wales UK ☛ Foreign Office updates travel advice for Brits due to spread of serious diseases in popular Italian spot | Wales Online

    Until now, both Dengue and Chikungunya have only been found in Italy in travellers returning from abroad. However, the Foreign Office-supported Travel Health Pro website has reported local cases of the illnesses.

  • University of Minnesota ☛ European nations report more local detections of chikungunya, dengue

    Meanwhile, France and Italy have reported their first local dengue cases of the year, France's from the Loire Valley and Italy's in Bologna province. Both involved single cases. Portugal had reported two dengue cases in Madeira in January, which the ECDC said likely involved transmission in 2024.

    Earlier this month, the ECDC announced the launch of a new series of mosquito-borne illness updates and published guidance on locally acquired mosquito-transmitted diseases in Europe.

  • Trinity Mirror North East ☛ Warning to anyone going on holiday to Italy as Foreign Office updates advice

    Previously, instances of these diseases in Italy were detected in individuals who had contracted them overseas. However, Italian health authorities have now diagnosed two new cases in people who caught the viruses within the country, igniting concerns of local transmission.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Futurism ☛ Things Are Looking Really, Really Bad for Tesla

      Deliveries fell a record 13.5 percent this quarter compared to a year earlier — and the accompanying earnings report, which is set to be released this afternoon, could paint an even more dire picture of Tesla's financials, as CNN reports, highlighting just how far the carmaker has fallen.

    • CNN ☛ Get ready for more bad news from Tesla

      The company’s adjusted net income, the measure most closely followed on Wall Street, fell $419 million from one year ago to $1.4 billion. That’s a 23% drop – outpacing the sales decline of 13.5% over the same period.

      The stricter reading for net income fell 16% to $1.2 billion.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ Freedom of Voice: Learn From History’s Most Effective Protesters

    • The Hindu ☛ First exports from BBP: Four Asian elephants head to Japan

      The park said that the animals have been are trained for the past six months for this transportation and are cleared for good health to make the journey. The animals will be accompanied by two veterinary doctors from Himeji Central Park and two veterinary officers from Bannerughatta Biological Park, four keepers, one supervisor and one biologist from Bannerughatta Biological Park. A total of eight persons from Bannerughatta Biological Park will visit and stay at the Himeji Central Park for two weeks to train the elephants to acclimatise to the new environment, the release added.

• Finance

  • Chris ☛ Pay Off Mortgage Or Invest?

    No, higher risk means that an investment has a broader range of outcomes. It might go up more, but it also might go down much more. Paying off a loan has virtually no risk, in this sense, because we know exactly how much the loan is reduced by for each payment.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • FAIR ☛ ‘They Were Able to Pass These Bills Because of Anti-Trans Media Bias’: Documentary filmmaker Sam Feder on the backlash to trans visibility

    Sam Feder is the director of Heightened Scrutiny, a documentary that follows transgender ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio as he argues before the Supreme Court against Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth. The film explores the crucial role centrist media played in driving legislation like Tennessee’s, and the broader cultural backlash against trans rights. FAIR senior analyst Julie Hollar, who appears in the film, interviewed Feder for FAIR.

  • Coalition for Networked Information ☛ Kate Zwaard Named Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information

    Kate joins CNI from the Library of Congress (LC), where she has served since 2011, presiding over the Library’s comprehensive digital transformation and establishing the organization as a technology leader. Under her stewardship, the Library underwent a fundamental change in how it manages, preserves, and provides access to its vast collections in the digital age. Kate’s numerous contributions include authoring LC’s first digital strategy, spearheading innovative digital initiatives such as LC Labs to explore creative uses of new technologies, exponentially expanding the Library’s digital collections, and leading an agency-wide shift to open source software.

  • European Commission ☛ Action plan against cyberbullying

    The action plan against cyberbullying was announced in the Political Guidelines to address the growing trend of abusive behaviours online. It aims to create a comprehensive EU approach to tackling cyberbullying and support Member States. Building on instruments such as the Better internet for kids strategy and Digital Services Act, the plan will focus primarily on minors. It will also consider the gender dimension and vulnerability of certain groups of youths up to the age of 29 (e.g. people with disabilities, LGBTIQ people, migrants).

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Google axes over 7,700 YouTube channels linked to Beijing

      Most were removed as part of their investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to Beijing. The “inauthentic network uploaded content in Chinese and English about China and US foreign affairs,” according to Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG).

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Columbia University ☛ Resolution Agreement Between The United States of America and Columbia University [PDF]

    In settlement and compromize of the Release Claims in this Agreement, Columbia shall pay the United Sates the sum of Two Hundred Million Dollars ($200,000,000), payable in equal installments. [...]

  • US News And World Report ☛ Columbia University Agrees to Pay More Than $220M in Deal With Trump to Restore Federal Funding

    Under the agreement, the Ivy League school will pay a $200 million settlement over three years, the university said. It will also pay $21 million to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

  • New York Times ☛ Columbia Agrees to $200 Million Fine to Settle Fight With Trump

    Columbia University will pay a $200 million fine to settle allegations from the Trump administration that it failed to do enough to stop the harassment of Jewish students, part of a sweeping deal reached on Wednesday to restore the university’s federal research funding, according to a statement from the university.

  • Techdirt ☛ As Site Blocking Is Increasing, European Commission Subtly Slaps Down Italy’s Piracy Shield

    As numerous Walled Culture posts attest, site blocking is in the vanguard of the actions by copyright companies against sites engaged in the unauthorized sharing of material. Over the past few months, this approach has become even more pervasive, and even more intrusive. For example, in France, the Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare was forced to geoblock more than 400 sports streaming domain names. More worryingly, leading VPN providers were ordered to block similar sites. This represents another attack on basic Internet infrastructure, something this blog has been warning about for years.

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ Disagreeing With Readers About Colbert, Trump, and Obama

    I suggested that Stephen Colbert’s cancellation was yet another stopover on the way to a chilling of free speech in America. Recall that Colbert’s employers recently reached a $16 million settlement with President Trump over a lawsuit that the network itself deemed baseless. Colbert (accurately) labeled the settlement a bribe and his Late Show gets the axe just days later.

    The crux of my argument was that this sort of attack on independent media is harder to spot because the president didn’t force Paramount and CBS to drop Colbert, but Trump’s actions made it so that dropping him was certainly the path of least resistance.

    Colbert may land on his feet with some other platform, but it’s clear to an increasing number of companies across different industries that the cost of doing business in America is personally appeasing the leader.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Installing Android phones in Blackberry chassis

    CDA 230 says that platforms aren't required to police their users' speech. If a user libels another user, or harasses them, or threatens them, that's between the users, who can sue each other, but not the platform (CDA 230 only relates to civil liability; it has no bearing on the ability of platforms to be held criminally liable for their users' actions).

    Importantly, CDA 230 also says that if a platform does intervene to prevent one user from harming another, that doesn't mean they have to intervene in every such case. There's a good historical reason for this: back in the paleolithic era, Prodigy, a commercial online service, was sued after they stepped in to protect some users from other users' bad actions. The suit argued that once they'd set the precedent that they were going to police user conduct, they acquired an obligation to police every instance of bad user conduct. In response, Prodigy – and its competitors – stopped moderating altogether: [...]

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Techdirt ☛ With His Bribe Paid, Trump’s FCC Will Now Help CBS Pretend Its Shitty Merger Is Good For Journalism And The Public

    Earlier this month, CBS wimped out and paid Donald Trump a $16 million bribe to settle a completely baseless lawsuit — and to buy regulatory approval of their $8 billion merger with Skydance. The result is now going to be a CBS owned by Trump’s close billionaire friends, the Ellison family, who are clearly signaling they plan to turn the “new CBS'” news division into a glorified version of Fox News (read: propaganda).

  • Northwestern University ☛ Local News Summit

    Public media cuts, increased collaboration and the importance of local sports headlined a panel at a Local Media Association’s summit in Detroit on Wednesday aimed at raising the visibility of the challenges facing local news, potential solutions and its impact on communities.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Telegraph ownership limbo to end as UAE stake cleared

    An attempt by the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords to prevent the threshold being raised from the previously proposed 5% was defeated by 267 votes to 155, majority 112.

    But the move saw a significant Conservative rebellion, with 41 of the party’s peers defying the whip to back the so-called fatal motion.

  • CPJ ☛ Radio journalist Erwin Labitad Segovia shot dead in the Philippines

    The Philippines ranked ninth on CPJ’s most recent Impunity Index, a global ranking of countries where journalists’ murderers are most likely to go free. The country has appeared on the index every year since its launch in 2008.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • The Walrus ☛ China Secretly Executed Four Canadians. A Former Prisoner Explains Why

    Not everyone has been so fortunate. Earlier this year, China executed four Canadian prisoners, ignoring repeated pleas for clemency from Canadian officials, including the prime minister. Their deaths were kept secret by both governments until the information was leaked to the press on March 19. Mélanie Joly, then foreign minister, confirmed and condemned China’s actions. Amnesty International called the killings “shocking and inhumane” and “a wake-up call for Canada.”

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • The Register UK ☛ Governments, power cuts, cable damage behind Q2 net outages

    The global content delivery network posted a summary overview of observed and confirmed disruptions during Q2 2025, which appears to have been notable for a number of reasons, including several unexplained outages.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • BoingBoing ☛ Don't want your Switch 2 bricked? Move to Europe

    Perhaps in an attempt to curb that behavior, however, the Switch 2's license agreement doubles down, allowing Nintendo to terminate your console's function at any time for any reason. This is ostensibly to combat piracy, but users who have dumped their own legitimate games, as well as unsuspecting secondhand buyers purchasing games that have been dumped by someone else, have all been hit with the banhammer. The message seems clear: buy directly from Nintendo forever, or risk getting saddled with the world's most expensive paperweight… unless, of course, you live in Europe. The EU's slightly sturdier consumer protections keep Nintendo from terminating your shiny new console on a whim: [...]

  • AS ☛ Nintendo can brick your Switch 2 in the U.S. for piracy, but not in Europe Nintendo can disable your Switch 2 for piracy in the U.S., but not in Europe, as confirmed by its EULA - Meristation

    When we purchase a video game console or a video game, we are subject to an EULA, which we tacitly accept by using this type of product. These legal documents are rarely read, but companies draw them up to protect themselves in case users misuse their products, such as pirating a video game console to access their video game library without paying.

    Nintendo’s case for the June 5 launch of the Switch 2 is interesting because it highlights significant differences in the legal frameworks of the United States and Europe. The following can be read in the EULA for the United States: [...]

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Open Web Advocacy ☛ UK Regulator Flags Apple’s iOS Browser Engine Ban in Draft SMS Designation - Open Web Advocacy

  TL;DR: The UK regulator has provisionally found that Apple and Google meet the threshold for Strategic Market Status (SMS) under the DMCC. In Apple’s case, the decision highlights its ban on competing browser engines and its actions to suppress competition from web apps.

• Trademarks

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Pirate Service 'MagisTV' Fails to Secure U.S. Trademark, Faces Malware Backlash

    The MagisTV name is used by dozens of websites, many of which are reseller platforms. While some of these might be related, the name is also used by unrelated entities, simply because the brand has become synonymous with pirate IPTV.

  • Right of Publicity

    • Security Week ☛ OpenAI’s Sam Altman Warns of AI Voice Fraud Crisis in Banking

      OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned the financial industry of a “significant impending fraud crisis” because of the ability of artificial intelligence tools to impersonate a person’s voice to bypass security checks and move money.

      Altman spoke at a Federal Reserve conference Tuesday in Washington.

• Copyrights

  • BW Businessworld Media Pvt Ltd ☛ From Copyright To Cyber Threats: Why AI Financing Faces Legal Perils - BW Businessworld

    The question everyone is asking is whether there is any social value if high schoolers are able to create dramatic images, memes and deepfakes? Should these resources be deployed instead to universal basic income, climate change, tackling air pollution and providing potable water? Should the benefit of AI be limited to fewer people, given that the cost is far greater than we know and any paid model is charging barely a fraction of what they are investing?

    The copyright issues surrounding LLM-driven search engines are complex and unless there is a move to create an equitable system for sharing copyrighted works with AI, the controversies will persist. Especially, since some copyright offices, including India are venturing into copyrighting prompts for AI.

  • Variety ☛ Trump Rejects Idea of Paying Copyright Holders for AI Training

    The Human Artistry Campaign — a coalition that includes Hollywood unions such as SAG-AFTRA, the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America and IATSE — has pushed the opposite side of the argument, maintaining that AI training should be done only with consent from rightsholders.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Labels Don't Want Supreme Court Review to Delay Piracy Lawsuit Against Verizon

    In a move that could reshape the online copyright enforcement landscape, last month the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a pivotal piracy liability lawsuit. The Court's decision will have a direct impact on similar lawsuits, including that between major record labels and ISP Altice, which is now on hold. Verizon has asked the court for a similar stay, but since that lawsuit is in its early stages, the labels are firmly opposed to any further delay.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Jetflix Streaming Piracy Ringleader Sentenced to 7 Years Prison

    The founder of illegal streaming service Jetflicks, a platform said to have negatively affected every significant copyright owner of TV shows in the United States, has been sentenced to 84 months in prison. Kristopher Dallmann had pleaded not guilty to several counts including conspiracy, criminal copyright infringement, and money laundering. He received sentences ranging between 12 and 84 months in prison to be served concurrently.

  • Wired ☛ Trump Says He’s ‘Getting Rid of Woke’ and Dismisses Copyright Concerns in AI Policy Speech

    Those who want AI companies to be able to train on copyrighted works without licensing the material are celebrating Trump’s remarks. “He's absolutely right,” says Adam Eisgrau, a senior director at the Chamber of Progress. “Common sense dictates that requiring gen-AI developers to license the copyrighted works they're trained on is both not doable and makes little sense, because those works are not plagiarized. They're used, as a person would, to learn and produce amazing technology that two federal courts have already said is ‘spectacularly transformative.’”

  • Chris Coyier ☛ Impact of AI on Tech Content Creators

    I certainly wrote a lot of content for that site. And so did a ton of other authors, who still do to this day. And AIs have slurped and increasing reslurp it up. My main concerns with the AI-slurp-age are: [...]