Leftovers

• Proprietary

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • BoingBoing ☛ Microsoft warns that Windows 11's AI could install malware

      Windows 11 comes with an "agentic AI" feature, which is to say a built-in chatbot that can make changes. Microsoft warns that it might install malware on your PC: "Only enable this feature if you understand the security implications."

    • Windows Central ☛ Windows 11 agentic OS faces Xpia malware threat

      As such, the company warns that these agentic capabilities aren't without risk. "AI applications introduce novel security risks, such as cross-prompt injection (XPIA), where malicious content embedded in UI elements or documents can override agent instructions, leading to unintended actions like data exfiltration or malware installation."

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Linuxiac ☛ Xubuntu Discloses October Download Site Compromise

      It’s important to stress that nothing on cdimages.ubuntu.com, official Ubuntu repositories, or the mirror network was affected, and existing Xubuntu installations were never at risk.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Patrick Breyer ☛ Inofficial translation of German leak [PDF]

      The majority of Member States taking the floor expressed their support for the most recent compromise proposal.

      After the Presidency established that there was a sufficient majority for the compromise text, it announced its submission to the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) on November 19 (as an I-Item) as well as to the Justice and Home Affairs Council in December.

    • Michigan News ☛ Jackson is giving away 100 home security cameras in high-crime areas to help police - mlive.com

      The project will be implemented in phases. Phase 1 involves identifying pilot areas using police crime data, developing a resident sign-up and finalizing camera selection and project guidelines.

      Phases 2 and 3 will involve community engagement and camera installation. Phase 4 will involve the operation of the program and evaluations, while Phase 5 will present the findings to City Council and determine next steps.

    • The Verge ☛ Europe is scaling back its landmark privacy and AI laws

      The proposed overhaul won’t land quietly in Brussels, and if the development of the GDPR and AI Act are anything to go by, a political and lobbying firestorm is on its way. The GDPR is a cornerstone of Europe’s tech strategy and as close to sacred as a policy can be. Leaked drafts have already provoked outrage among civil rights groups and politicians, who have accused the Commission of weakening fundamental safeguards and bowing to pressure from Big Tech.

    • Andrew Moses ☛ It's your fault my laptop knows where I am

      Alas, it is not IP geolocation being used by TopHat. As aforementioned, IP geolocation is a pretty implicit flow — webpages are able to see your IP when you connect to them. However, when trying to determine your location, TopHat pops up a big scary dialogue past the line of death!

      Clearly this is asking something else entirely — something that’s presumably so precise as to require my explicit consent.

      I’ll spare you the suspense. This is the Geolocation API, a feature of all modern browsers that allows the retrieval of your location to a much more precise degree (hence the permission pop-up). As of writing this post, IP geolocation is enough to place me somewhere in the Lakeshore neighborhood of Madison (1-2 miles long), but Chrome’s Geolocation API is enough to pin me to the exact building — Morgridge Hall — I’m sitting in. That’s orders of magnitude more accurate.

    • India Times ☛ EU to delay 'high risk' AI rules until 2027 after Big Tech pushback

      The EU Commission's "Digital Omnibus", which faces debate and votes from European countries, proposed to delay stricter rules on use of AI in "high-risk" areas until late 2027, ease rules around cookies and enable more use of data. Europe is scrabbling to balance tough rules with not losing more ground in the global tech race, where companies in the United States and Asia are streaking ahead in artificial intelligence and chips.

    • NYOB ☛ Digital Omnibus: EU Commission wants to wreck core GDPR principles

      Despite heavy criticism from civil society and large parts of the EU Parliament, the EU Commission has now published its proposal for the “Digital Omnibus”. Contrary to the Commission's official press release, these changes are not “maintaining the highest level of personal data protection”, but massively lower protections for Europeans. While having basically no real benefit for average European small and medium businesses, the proposed changes are a gift to US big tech as they open up many new loopholes for their law departments to exploit. Schrems: “This is the biggest attack on European’s digital rights in years. When the Commission states that it ‘maintains the highest standards’, it clearly is incorrect. It proposes to undermine these standards.”

    • Silicon Angle ☛ EU to revise GDPR, AI Act as part of regulatory simplification push

      The first batch of proposals focuses on the AI Act, a law the EU implemented last year to regulate artificial intelligence systems. Some of the rules set forth in the legislation apply only to AI systems that regulators deem to be high-risk. Under the proposed changes, the EU would delay the implementation of those rules from August 2026 to December 2027.

  • Confidentiality

    • Dhole Moments ☛ Moving Beyond the NPM elliptic Package

      Yesterday, the Trail of Bits blog published a post about finding cryptographic bugs in the elliptic library (a Javascript package on NPM) by using the Wycheproof. This blog post was accompanied by a new chapter in their Testing Handbook about using Wycheproof as well as two CVEs.

      It’s pretty cool work, especially to applied cryptography nerds (and C2SP contributors like myself).

      But one can’t help but notice all the dates in the disclosure timeline are from 2024, which was last year.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Dissenter ☛ 'I Hurt The Oppressor': British Journalist Sami Hamdi Recounts ICE Detention

  • FAIR ☛ Corporate Media Parrot Dubious Drug Claims That Justify War on Venezuela

    Since August, the US has been amassing military assets in the Caribbean. Warships, bombers and thousands of troops have been joined by the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, in the largest regional deployment in decades. Extrajudicial strikes against small vessels, which UN experts have decried as violations of international law, have killed at least 80 civilians (CNN, 11/14/25).

  • Tennessee Lookout ☛ Shelby County mayor: ‘The military should not be used against Tennesseans’

    “Now we realize we have a very long way to go and we are up against the mightiest of adversaries, the White House and Donald Trump, Gov. Lee and federal officials, some of whom are willing to do whatever it takes to satisfy their whimsy of the day,” said Harris, who called Lee’s decision to deploy the Guard “dumbfounding and disappointing.”

    “The military should not be used against Tennesseans,” Harris said.

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ How a Nazi trial ended the just-following-orders defense for US troops

    The case against Calley had its direct underpinnings in the Nuremberg trial of 22 defendants, according to Gary Solis, a Marine company commander in Vietnam who later had a long career as a judge advocate general, serving alternately as a military prosecutor, a defense lawyer and a judge.

    “I believe that is the key result of Nuremberg — obedience to orders is no longer a defense to war crimes. That was not new Nuremberg law that was being created in the courtroom but rather new enforcement,” Solis told Military Times.

  • India Times ☛ Meta to block Facebook and Instagram for Australian teens by December 10

    The company said it had begun notifying users it believed were between 13 and 15 years old that their accounts will be shut down through in-app messages, email and texts.

    From December 4, it will start deactivating the accounts and blocking new sign-ups by anyone under 16.

  • The Nation ☛ The Deliberate Decimation of the Federal Workforce

    Systems built up over the last 120 years are being either eliminated or corroded at warp speed, with the implicit blessing of the US Supreme Court.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • NDTV ☛ Epstein Files Will Be Released Within 30 Days: US Attorney General Pam Bondi: Donald Trump, Justice Department

    The material could shed more light on the activities of Epstein, who socialised with Trump and other notable figures before his 2008 conviction on charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution. The scandal has been a thorn in Trump's side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters.

  • New Yorker ☛ Jeffrey, Who? A Plane Ride with Donald Trump

    Why did “Jeffrey” take root in my memory long after other details of the weekend had faded? Even if I’d heard the name “Epstein,” it would’ve meant nothing to me. It was because I’d had a glimpse into something that seemed suggestive and worth knowing but minus any elucidating context that it lodged in my brain, subliminal but retrievable. It would be more than twenty years before I had an inkling of what that something was.

  • American Oversight ☛ American Oversight Demands Urgent Action Amid Claims Ed Martin — Trump’s DOJ “Chief Enforcer” — Used Auto-Deleting Apps

    Following explosive allegations from House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin that Edward P. Martin, Jr., the head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Weaponization Working Group, has been conducting official business on personal devices and auto-deleting messaging applications like Signal to evade federal record-keeping requirements, American Oversight sent a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Pam Bondi and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Acting Archivist Marco Rubio demanding urgent action to recover any missing records and prevent further destruction.

    The demand letter cites allegations described by Ranking Member Raskin, who wrote to Martin this week outlining “credible” information that Martin sought to evade accountability by concealing his communications related to the Weaponization Working Group’s activities. Under the Federal Records Act (FRA), the DOJ and NARA are legally obligated to take swift action when federal records are at risk of destruction.

  • 404 Media ☛ Two Weeks of Surveillance Footage From ICE Detention Center ‘Irretrievably Destroyed’

    The filing was made as part of a class action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security by people being held at Broadview, which has become the site of widespread protests against ICE. The lawsuit says that people detained at the facility are being held in abhorrent, “inhumane” conditions. The complaint describes a facility where detainees are “confined at Broadview inside overcrowded holding cells containing dozens of people at a time. People are forced to attempt to sleep for days or sometimes weeks on plastic chairs or on the filthy concrete floor. They are denied sufficient food and water […] the temperatures are extreme and uncomfortable […] the physical conditions are filthy, with poor sanitation, clogged toilets, and blood, human fluids, and insects in the sinks and the floor […] federal officers who patrol Broadview under Defendants’ authority are abusive and cruel. Putative class members are routinely degraded, mistreated, and humiliated by these officers.”

• Environment

  • India Times ☛ Saudi Arabia backs Elon Musk's xAI with data center deal

    The goal is to use the country's ample energy reserves, deep pockets, abundance of land and links to global fiber optic networks to provide cheap AI computing power, including to companies based elsewhere. Humain has set a target of powering 6% of the global AI workload in the coming years.

  • TruthOut ☛ Climate Change Is Biggest Security Threat That Every Country Is Facing Right Now

    Yassin also discusses the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, where the estimated death toll is now at 150,000. “This is a proxy war funded by foreign nationals who have vested interests in Sudan’s resources. … The UAE has been using the RSF militia to illegally smuggle gold out to finance the war and finance their own gold reserves. The UAE is also really interested in Sudan’s agricultural lands.”

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Molly White ☛ Issue 97 – This is hardship

      It’s too soon to tell whether this slide is just the beginning of another [cryptocurrency] apocalypse, or if it’s just routine [cryptocurrency] volatility. Either way, I’ll be here to chronicle it — except for my scheduled hiatus beginning November 26. If history is any guide, that’s exactly when the market will choose chaos.

    • Michael Geist ☛ Canadian Government Introduces New Stablecoin Act as Part of Budget Implementation Legislation

      The Canadian bill establishes a federal regime under the Bank of Canada to supervise issuers of stablecoins available to persons in Canada. The bill defines stablecoins as digital assets referencing a single fiat currency and requires issuers to be listed by the Bank. While it does not outright prohibit unlicensed issuing (unlike the U.S.), it effectively restricts issuance of stablecoins by requiring registration. The Canadian bill allows any person to the Bank of Canada to become an approved stablecoin issuer with a detailed application that covers governance issues, technical specifics, meeting anti-money laundering rules, and financial disclosures.

    • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Bitcoin Drops Below $90,000 in Sign of Souring Mood

      The risk-sensitive cryptocurrency has erased 2025 gains and is now down nearly 30% from a peak above $126,000 in October. It traded down 2% at $89,953 in the Asia afternoon, having collapsed through chart support around $98,000 last week.

• Finance

  • Undeadly ☛ The rpki-client project needs financial support

    OpenBSD developer Job Snijders (job@) has updated the rpki-client website to indicate the OpenBSD-associated project needs to raise [a total of] €300,000 before the start of 2026 to continue work.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New York Times ☛ Saudi Arabia’s Prince Has Big Plans, but His Giant Fund Is Low on Cash

    That’s in large part because Prince Mohammed and his deputies have spent a vast portion of the nation’s bounty on projects that are in financial distress, and they are frantically trying to turn things around, according to 11 people briefed on its operations, including current employees, board members, investors and their representatives.

  • The Verge ☛ Here’s the Trump executive order that would ban state AI laws

    According to a draft of the order obtained by The Verge, the Task Force would be able to sue states whose laws are deemed to obstruct the growth of the AI industry, citing California’s recent laws on AI safety and “catastrophic risk” and a Colorado law that prevents “algorithmic discrimination.” The task force will occasionally consult with a group of White House special advisers, including David Sacks, billionaire venture capitalist and the special adviser for AI and crypto.

  • Mike Brock ☛ On Seeing Clearly Without Losing Your Mind

    Thomas Sowell has a famous observation that’s directly relevant here: there are no solutions, only trade-offs.

    This isn’t pessimism. It’s recognition of a fundamental constraint on existence. Every choice forecloses other choices. Every path taken is every other path not taken. Resources—time, attention, energy, money, love—are finite, and allocating them to one purpose means not allocating them to another.

  • India Times ☛ Adobe to buy software provider Semrush in $1.9 billion deal

    Adobe will acquire software platform Semrush for $1.9 billion, the companies said on Wednesday, as the Photoshop maker looks to strengthen its marketing tools and attract brands with generative artificial intelligence products.

  • The Register UK ☛ Microsoft-SAP pact aims to keep cloud running in a crisis

    Microsoft has signed separate deals with French and German sovereign cloud providers Bleu and Delos Cloud to provide assistance for cross-border cooperation in extensive crisis and emergency scenarios. This includes technical and operational cooperation to ensure rapid, coordinated crisis response even in extreme scenarios, such as military conflict or cyberattacks, according to an SAP announcement.

  • The Register UK ☛ Mastodon CEO steps down with €1M payout and a deep sigh

    Rochko's move has, by his own admission, been a while coming. In April 2024, the establishment of a US nonprofit was announced with a governing board of directors that included Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. Rochko also announced that his ownership of the trademark and other assets were headed to the nonprofit.

  • The Verge ☛ Adobe to acquire digital marketing platform Semrush for $1.9 billion

    The acquisition builds on Adobe’s existing suite of marketing tools that help businesses manage digital campaigns and analyze web traffic. Adobe has begun incorporating AI into its marketing platform as well, as it now allows brands to generate ads using the technology. It also announced that it’s building an AI agent designed to brainstorm social media campaigns last month.

  • Terence Eden ☛ The Peaceful Transfer of Power in Open Source Projects

    Most of the people who run Open Source projects are mortal. Recent history shows us that they will all eventually die, or get bored, or win the lottery, or get sick, or be conscripted, or lose their mind.

    If you've ever visited a foreign country's national history museum, I guarantee you've read this little snippet: [...]

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Adobe to acquire Semrush in $1.9B deal to boost generative engine optimization capabilities

    Founded in 2008, Semrush provides digital marketing and search engine optimization tools for businesses and agencies. The company’s platform is used for keyword research, competitive analysis, site audits, backlink tracking, domain authority tracking and online visibility insights.

  • The Register UK ☛ CPython may go Rusty, but older platforms risk getting iced out [Ed: A kind of infiltration by Rust People]

    The Python community is chewing over a new idea: allowing the C-based reference implementation, CPython, to incorporate Rust. It's only at the "pre-PEP" stage, but it's already sparked lively debate.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Techdirt ☛ The Misleading Story Fox News Told About Portland Before Trump Sent Troops

      As The Guardian and The Oregonian/OregonLive have reported, Fox News on Sept. 4 used footage from the 2020 protests after the police killing of George Floyd and said it was from 2025. We found two clear cases from that night as well as one that seemed to match a scene filmed at a key site of the 2020 protests. Fox also mislabeled two other dates of actions shown on screen, and one broadcast implied that a protest from elsewhere was happening in Portland.

      Fox News chyrons about Portland the week of Trump’s remarks carried phrases like “violent demonstrators,” “protesters riot,” “anti-I.C.E. Portland rioters” and “war-like protests.” One host said protesters were attacking federal officers.

      This portrayal of protesters as routinely instigating violence or rioting was also misleading.

    • Mike Brock ☛ They Don’t Understand Orwell. At All.

      Orwell’s warning wasn’t about government bureaucrats policing language, though he certainly opposed that. It wasn’t primarily about academic administrators or activist minorities demanding accommodation, though he’d have had his critiques. His deepest fear—the one that haunts every page of his serious work—was about how power corrupts the relationship between language and reality until people lose the capacity to perceive truth at all.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • TruthOut ☛ Over 600 People Were Fired or Punished as White House Whipped Up Charlie Kirk Crackdown

    According to an investigation by Reuters, at least 600 Americans were fired, suspended, placed under investigation, or otherwise punished by their employers over comments about Kirk after he was shot and killed in September. The report cites court records, news reports and public statements, and notes that this is likely a vast undercount.

    Teachers, academics, and university administrators were the most frequently punished, Reuters found, making up 350 of the incidents on the list.

  • Reuters ☛ The Charlie Kirk purge: How 600 Americans were punished in a pro-Trump crackdown

    A few days later, Vaughn lost her job. She was one of more than 600 Americans fired, suspended, placed under investigation or disciplined by employers for comments about Kirk’s September 10 assassination, according to a Reuters review of court records, public statements, local media reports and interviews with two dozen people who were fired or otherwise disciplined.

  • 404 Media ☛ Joe Rogan Subreddit Bans 'Political Posts' But Still Wants 'Free Speech'

    Rogan's conspiracy-minded audience blame mods of covering up for Rogan's guests, including Trump, who are named in the Epstein files.

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ Legal Restrictions on Vulnerability Disclosure

    Kendra Albert gave an excellent talk at USENIX Security this year, pointing out that the legal agreements surrounding vulnerability disclosure muzzle researchers while allowing companies to not fix the vulnerabilities—exactly the opposite of what the responsible disclosure movement of the early 2000s was supposed to prevent. This is the talk.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ NPR to get $36 million in government funds to operate U.S. public radio system

    NPR accused the CPB of violating its 1st Amendment free speech rights when it moved to cut off its access to grant money appropriated by Congress. NPR also claims Trump, a Republican, wants to punish it for the content of its journalism.

  • Robert Reich ☛ The real danger to press freedom has nothing to do with Trump’s personal insults

    The lesson here: Pay no attention to Trump’s personal insults. By now they’re expected features of Trump’s childish responses to criticism.

    But pay a great deal of attention to his threats to the profits of media corporations. That’s where the rest of us are most vulnerable to Trump’s ongoing efforts to suppress criticism of him and his regime.

  • Techdirt ☛ Trump Says He’ll Sue BBC For ‘$5 Billion’ Despite Apologies, Resignations Over Editing Gaffe

    Last week we noted how the BBC has been tripping over itself to apologize to Donald Trump for some edits made to a BBC documentary. Admittedly the edits weren’t the best idea; they effectively cobbled together two different parts of Trump’s January 6 speech 54 minutes apart not to misrepresent, but to make it more clear that Trump actively encouraged an open, violent insurrection that resulted in fatalities.

    Obviously our mad, idiot king didn’t much like that.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Israel’s Slaughter of Journalists Can’t Go Unpunished

    In the midst of its criminal assault on Gaza, Israel killed hundreds of Palestinian journalists bearing witness to its brutality. It also remade its own press outlets into vehicles abetting genocide. These crimes can’t be swept under the rug.

  • BoingBoing ☛ "Things happened," Trump excuses the murder of Jamal Khashoggi

    The video is just beyond belief. It is terrific to see Bruce hold Trump's feet to the fire, but equally as sad to see a US President lie, slander a journalist, and make excuses for murder. This is not the first, or probably last, time Trump will try to cover for the Saudi Crown Prince having a journalist he didn't like killed.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ After calling a reporter ‘piggy’, Trump berates another for asking about killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi

    After insulting the journalist for asking about the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, he also lashed out at her for asking about the Epstein files.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Trump’s Self-Damning Response to a Legitimate Question

    But America has closed the gap by becoming a little more Saudi. It has a leader who gilds his palace and hisses to his courtiers that they should do something about anyone guilty of even the mildest insolence. (Incidentally, I take a similar dynamic to be MBS’s implied alibi for Khashoggi’s death: His courtiers murdered Khashoggi not on his direct orders, but in overzealous fulfillment of a general order to keep critics in line.) Moralists in foreign policy have long warned that if you partner with countries that do not share your values, your own values will degrade to match theirs faster than theirs will improve to catch up with yours. As of yesterday, I would say that America and Saudi Arabia—which for so long have styled themselves as unlikely siblings, more alike than they appear—are on course to match each other’s speeds, and meet almost perfectly in the middle.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • The Tyee ☛ Learning to Unlearn about Tibet

    The political situation has led to the displacement of Tibetans and their global relocation. Many of those who identify as Tibetan were not born within nor do they live in Tibet, but reside elsewhere, often in India and Nepal and increasingly in North America and Europe. Canada is home to one of the largest concentrations of Tibetans outside of Asia. The location and status of the Tibetan homeland remain a burning issue for Tibetans, especially for younger generations outside Tibet. Their lived experience in Canada is reshaping their identity and self-image, and many are not only questioning their diasporic condition, but also reimagining what homeland means.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Contributor: ICE is grabbing U.S. citizens, defying its own rules and the Constitution

    Americans have been tackled, tased, beaten and shot by immigration authorities. Some citizens have been held without access to counsel or the ability to call their loved ones. They include a 79-year-old man who was body-slammed to the ground by agents in Van Nuys, an Army veteran in Camarillo who was tear-gassed before being thrown in detention for three days, and a Cal Poly Pomona grad who was knocked down by agents and spent two nights in jail.

    There are likely many more cases of U.S. citizens held by immigration authorities that have not come to light. The actual numbers are unknown because the government does not release statistics about such encounters.

  • Truthdig ☛ In Defiance of the Law, Iranian Women Shed the Hijab - Truthdig

    Ever since the Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom) protests three years ago, images of women going about their daily lives in Iran without the mandatory headscarf have proliferated online. During those protests, Iranian youth rose up in rage after a Kurdish Iranian woman, Jina Mahsa Amini, died in custody after being detained for wearing her hijab loosely, or “incorrectly,” in September 2022. The protests were violently quashed, but since then, Iranian women have been gradually shedding their hijabs.

  • The Register UK ☛ San Jose's license plate queries land it in court

    The lawsuit [PDF], brought on behalf of the Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations – California (CAIR-CA), alleges that the city police department's use of ALPR affords it invasive capabilities to track an individual's location.

  • Tennessee Lookout ☛ Judge temporarily blocks National Guard deployment in Memphis

    The lawsuit argues that the Tennessee Constitution allows the Guard to be deployed only in “circumstances amounting to a rebellion or invasion,” and “even then, the legislature must declare, by law, that the public safety requires it.”

  • Robert Reich ☛ If we don’t raise wages at the bottom, we’re all cooked

    While the stock market is riding high and the Trump administration is slashing taxes for corporations and the rich, nothing is “trickling down” to everyday Americans.

    Frankly, it’s a little galling to hear the CEO of McDonald’s complaining about income inequality, because corporations like McDonald’s are making the problem worse.

    They pay their workers so little that many have to rely on food stamps and Medicaid to make ends meet — for which the rest of us pay in our taxes.

    Meanwhile, their CEOs are paid roughly 1,000 times more than their typical employee.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Silicon Angle ☛ Judge rules WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions aren't monopolization

  The lawsuit was first launched five years ago when the Commission claimed that then-Facebook Inc.’s 2012 acquisition of Instagram and the 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp harmed competition and left consumers with few choices for personal social networking. Prior to the acquisitions, Meta’s Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg was said to have identified Instagram as an “existential threat to Facebook’s monopoly power.” His company was accused of adopting a “buy or bury” strategy.

• India Times ☛ Meta's victory opens the way for Silicon Valley to go deal shopping

  The Meta antitrust ruling "will eliminate a lot of the gymnastics that the major acquirers are going through, and it should really open the door" for more deals, said Tomasz Tunguz, a general partner at venture capital firm Theory Ventures.

• Patents

  • EFF ☛ The Patent Office Is About To Make Bad Patents Untouchable

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has proposed new rules that would effectively end the public’s ability to challenge improperly granted patents at their source—the Patent Office itself. If these rules take effect, they will hand patent trolls exactly what they’ve been chasing for years: a way to keep bad patents alive and out of reach. People targeted with troll lawsuits will be left with almost no realistic or affordable way to defend themselves.

    We need EFF supporters to file public comments opposing these rules right away. The deadline for public comments is December 2. The USPTO is moving quickly, and staying silent will only help those who profit from abusive patents.

  • Software Patents

    • Reuters ☛ US jury says Apple must pay Masimo $634 million in smartwatch patent case

      "Over the past six years (Masimo has) sued Apple in multiple courts and asserted over 25 patents, the majority of which have been found to be invalid," the spokesperson said. "The single patent in this case expired in 2022, and is specific to historic patient monitoring technology from decades ago."

    • MacRumors ☛ Apple Hit With $634 Million Verdict in Apple Watch Blood Oxygen Patent Lawsuit

      The patent dispute led to a ban on U.S. sales of Apple Watch with the blood oxygen feature in December 2023. Apple was able to temporarily continue selling the Apple Watch models while an interim stay was in place during an appeal, but the ban was reinstated as of January 18, 2024, and Apple addressed the issue by immediately launching sales of models with the feature disabled in software.

    • Michael Tsai ☛ Apple Loses Blood Oxygen Patent Case

      I’m not sure which patent was at issue here. I thought it was this one, but Google says that doesn’t expire until 2028.

    • TechCrunch ☛ Jury says Apple owes Masimo $634M for patent infringement | TechCrunch

      Reuters reports the jury found that the Apple Watch’s workout mode and heart rate notification features violated Masimo’s patent.

• Trademarks

  • Techdirt ☛ How Trademark Ruined Colorado-Style Pizza

    Here’s the thing about pizza “styles”: they become styles precisely because they spread. New York, Chicago, Detroit, New Haven—these aren’t just individual restaurant concepts, they’re cultural phenomena adopted and adapted by hundreds of restaurants. That widespread adoption creates the network effects that make a “style” valuable: customers seek it out, restaurants compete to perfect it, food writers chronicle its evolution.

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Primary Wave Acquires Dave Brubeck Catalog, NIL Interest

    Shifting the focus to the bigger jazz-catalog picture, September saw Reservoir Media acquire Miles Davis’ catalog and underscore plans to collaborate with his estate on NIL projects.

  • Walled Culture ☛ Why “public AI”, built on open source software, is the way forward for the EU

    What’s noteworthy here is how two different pieces of EU legislation, passed some years apart, work together to create a special category of open source AI systems that avoid most of the legal problems of training AI systems on copyright materials, as well as the bureaucratic overhead imposed by the EU AI Act on commercial systems. Keller calls these “public AI”, which he defines as: [...]

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Disney lost Roger Rabbit

    Termination is a powerful copyright policy, and unlike most copyright, it solely benefits creative workers and not our bosses. Copyright is a very weak tool for protecting creators' interests, because copyright only gives us something to bargain with, without giving us any bargaining power, which means that copyright becomes something we bargain away.

    Think of it this way: for the past 50 years, copyright has only expanded in every direction. Copyright now lasts longer, covers more kinds of works, prohibits more uses without permission, and carries stiffer penalties. The media industry is now larger and more profitable than at any time in history. But at the same time, the amount of money being earned by creative workers has only fallen over this period, both in real terms (how much money an average creative worker brings home) and as a share of the total (what percentage of the revenues from a creator's work the creator gets to keep). How to explain this seeming paradox?