Links 27/10/2023: Facebook Shrinks by a Lot, Yet More Microsoft Layoffs
Contents
- Leftovers
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM)
- Monopolies
- Gemini* and Gopher
-
Leftovers
-
Robert Reich ☛ No Labels Isn’t What It Claims to Be
-
Ruben Schade ☛ Floor indicator kerning, and other things
I noted indicator two’s bezel didn’t have any paint residue, indicating (HAH!) to me that it had either been pried off or replaced after indicator one. This suggests an inspection or maintenance was performed on it to diagnose or fix a fault. This maintenance was either unsuccessful, incomplete, or introduced additional bugs.
-
Education
-
Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Redefining “Normal” in Academia
In her recent post, “The Post COVID Work Environment—We Can’t Go Back to Normal,” Scholarly Kitchen Chef Dianndra Roberts explored the importance of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) and highlighted how what’s considered “normal” can vary greatly from person to person. The need to redefine “normal” in academia is not only a moral obligation but it also holds significance in terms of practicality and advancement. What was normal centuries ago may not be considered normal today. And what is normal for one person may not be normal for another.
-
-
Hardware
-
The Next Platform ☛ TSMC Makes The Best Of A Tough Chip Situation
If you had to sum up the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023 from the perspective of the semiconductor industry, it would be that we made too many CPUs for PCs, smartphones, and servers and we didn’t make enough GPUs for the datacenter.
-
CNX Software ☛ Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite – A 4.3 GHz 12-core Arm AI processor for next gen PCs and laptops
Qualcomm has now provided Arm chips for mobile PCs (aka laptops) for several years, but apart from a 20-hour battery life, the performance and price of Snapdragon laptops have often been disappointing. The Snapdragon X Elite aims to change that at least on the performance front. The new Qualcomm 12-core 64-bit Arm processor is clocked at up to 3.8 GHz boosting to up to 4.3 GHz, and is said to deliver up to twice the CPU performance against the competition (Intel/AMD/Apple) or provides the same level of performance at a third of the power consumption.
-
-
Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
-
BBC ☛ Cancer: Number of diagnoses in Northern Ireland continue to rise - BBC News
Northern Ireland Cancer Registry figures also suggest that those diagnosed are living longer.
-
New York Times ☛ Carnival Was Negligent in Covid Outbreak on Cruise Ship, Court Rules
An Australian judge found that the cruise company and a subsidiary “breached their duty of care” in handling a coronavirus outbreak on the Ruby Princess in March 2020.
-
Federal News Network ☛ 2% of kids and 7% of adults have gotten the new COVID shots, US data show [Ed: Seems like people now understand how effective and safe these experimental vaccines actually are]
More than a month after federal officials recommended a new version of the COVID-19 vaccines, 7% of U.S. adults and 2% of children have gotten a shot. One expert calls the numbers “abysmal.”
-
New York Times ☛ Is Social Media Addictive? Here’s What the Science Says.
“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage and ultimately ensnare youth and teens,” the states said in their lawsuit filed in federal court. “Its motive is profit.”
The accusations in the lawsuit raise a deeper question about behavior: Are young people becoming addicted to social media and the [Internet]? Here’s what the research has found.
-
Ruben Schade ☛ Adjudicating UK and US food nomenclature
Ben from Sorted Food channel recently did a collaboration with Josh from the Mythical Kitchen, and Max from Tasting History. It was an absolute blast seeing my favourite people in this space come together to settle once and for all the differences between British and American foods.
While Australia does tend towards the British side culturally speaking, we do certain things differently, and others we do like the Yanks. As an Australian who grew up overseas with a German father, I also feel uniquely qualified to pass judgement on the outcome of this.
Round one: Biscuits
-
-
Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
-
GeekWire ☛ Tech Moves: Xbox exec shuffle; Outreach hires president; UW grad students win Google fellowships
Microsoft’s Xbox division is getting a leadership shuffle as Matt Booty was promoted to president of game content and studios, overseeing ZeniMax and Bethesda, while Sarah Bond is now Xbox president. Microsoft also announced Thursday that CMO Chris Capossela is stepping down after more than three decades at the tech giant.
-
Microsoft abruptly axes Metaverse project, triggers staff layoffs - OnMSFT.com
Microsoft has discontinued its ambitious foray into the metaverse, opting to shelve its two key projects, Project Airsim and Project Bonsai.
-
IT Web ☛ Meta jobs bloodbath sees 24% headcount decline
Facebook parent company Meta has seen a 24% decline in its headcount after announcing job cuts earlier this year.
This emerged when the social media company announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2023.
In March, Meta announced a second round of job cuts, reducing its workforce by 10 000 employees. This, after in November, the company said it was laying off 11 000 employees, about 13% of its workforce.
In its Q3 results, Meta says its headcount was at 66 185 as of 30 September, a decrease of 24% year-over-year.
-
Silicon Angle ☛ Data poisoning is the latest threat for generative AI models
Another way to look at these kinds of attacks is split between black-box and white-box attacks. The former assumes the attacker has no prior knowledge of the inner workings of the AI’s model, while the latter assumes they do and tend to be more successful.
-
Tedium ☛ Permanent Unicorn
But there’s something happening elsewhere in the Mac ecosystem that shouldn’t be ignored: The possibility that a lot of older users, who don’t upgrade so often, are going to be left without a modern version of MacOS. During the first half of the 2010s, Apple was making devices at a high level, so high that these machines have remained in common sight when you’re out and about. A big reason they’ve stuck around comes down to a combination of upgradeability and ingenuity: These machines are very common, and users have gone out of their way to keep them alive.
-
Techdirt ☛ EU Parliament Fails To Understand That The Right To Read Is The Right To Train
Walled Culture recently wrote about an unrealistic French legislative proposal that would require the listing of all the authors of material used for training generative AI systems. Unfortunately, the European Parliament has inserted a similarly impossible idea in its text for the upcoming Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act. The DisCo blog explains that MEPs added new copyright requirements to the Commission’s original proposal: [...]
-
Futurism ☛ Google AI Boss Says AI Is an Existential Threat to Humankind
While AI could help many sectors such as medicine, he called for an independent body governing AI akin to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a view that even former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt also espouses.
-
[Repeat] Zimbabwe ☛ ChatGPT is not AI
Imagine someone bolting two doors and an engine onto a shopping cart and proclaiming they’ve got themselves a ‘fast car,’ absurd right? In a world where buzzwords are as ubiquitous as that one joke everyone can’t seem to miss, let’s address the latest hype on everyone’s lips: ChatGPT.
Before we start arguing about what is and what is not, let’s discuss what is; and what really is AI. AI is not a thing, it’s a broad field of study made with multiple disciplines. Now hand to heart, the subfields of AI are as varied as the number of passwords I’ve forgotten – a lot! But for the sake of progress, let’s keep it simple, we will summarize it to: [...]
-
Futurism ☛ Twitter Use Has Absolutely Plummeted Since Elon Musk Took Over
Insights from multiple social media analytics firms paint a worrying picture of the future of X, with monthly downloads being down 38 percent globally and 57 percent in the US between October 2022 and October 2023, per estimates from the digital intelligence company Sensor Tower reviewed by Axios.
-
Axios ☛ X usage plummets in Musk's first year
X, formerly Twitter, has hemorrhaged users and advertisers in its first year under Elon Musk's ownership, according to new data provided to Axios.
-
Matt Rickard ☛ Between Images and Text: CLIP
CLIP (Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training) is a neural network that connects images to text. The original model by OpenAI (January 2021) was trained with 400 million images with their text captions. It uses a technique called "contrastive learning" that embeds the images and text in a common space where the representations from the two modalities can be compared.
-
-
Security
-
Privacy/Surveillance
-
The Register UK ☛ iLeakage attack steals passwords, texts from Apple devices • The Register
-
TechXplore ☛ New research reveals alarming privacy and security threats in smart homes
-
Citizen Lab ☛ Finding You: The Network Effect of Telecommunications Vulnerabilities for Location Disclosure
This report provides a comprehensive guide to geolocation-related threats used by 3G, 4G, and 5G network operators. Case studies, references, examples, and evidence are provided to give a complete and contextual understanding of mobile network-based location tracking in order to formulate policies and actions that protect civil society from current and future geolocation surveillance.
-
-
-
Defence/Aggression
-
CS Monitor ☛ Lockdown, manhunt as Maine grapples with mass shooting
Maine’s governor says 18 people were killed and 13 were injured in shootings in Lewiston. A lock down is in place and hundreds of officers are searching for Robert Card in this ongoing homicide investigation.
-
New York Times ☛ Turkey’s Erdogan Defends Hamas and Lashes Out at Israel
In a speech in Parliament, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey accused Israel of committing “massacres” in Gaza and said Hamas was fighting for “liberation.”
-
France24 ☛ Computer-generated (CG) images add to the confusion in the war between Israel and Hamas
Since the attack carried out on Israel by Hamas on October 7, the internet has been flooded with thousands of images of the conflict and even more rumours. However, many of the videos and photos circulating are actually false. Two of these images recently went viral. The first image supposedly shows a camp for Israeli refugees illegally constructed in Palestinian territory. The second is said to show a Palestinian flag being held aloft by football fans. In reality, both of the images were generated by AI.
-
The Nation ☛ Concerned About Democracy? House Republicans Invite You to “Shut Up!”
The message from Johnson’s rapid ascent to the most powerful Republican post in Washington is stark: In the 118th Congress, it is not possible for a defender of democracy to serve as speaker of the House.
-
Off Guardian ☛ MSM blames [cryptocurrency] for “funding Hamas” and “climate change”
Reuters agrees. So does France 24. And the Times of Israel. And the Japan Times. And Deutsche Welle. And the Rand Corporation. And the Wall Street Journal.
In fact, the terrorist funding problem with cryptocurrency is so bad that companies have been forced – FORCED – to start freezing private assets. You know how they hate doing that.
That’s the news: “Bitcoin – bad for the environment, good for terrorists.”
-
ABC ☛ Man who threatened Michigan governor, secretary of state sentenced
A 60-year-old Detroit man will serve 15 months of probation after threatening to kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
-
Jerusalem Post ☛ WATCH: Cooper Union Jewish students attacked by pro-Palestinian student group
A security team at Cooper Union College in the United States locked Jewish students in the library on Wednesday night to protect them against a pro-Palestinian group, which tried to break down the door.
-
NPR ☛ TikTok returns to the campaign trail but not everyone thinks it's a good idea
But while some first-time, grassroots candidates only know a political playing field that includes TikTok, uncertainty lingers over the best way for national Democrats to embrace it. Especially when the vast majority of the party isn't on the platform.
Plus, as potential national security concerns remain over the Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, an official presence from the White House is missing. The app is banned on government devices. And as President Biden runs for reelection, his campaign is mirroring his administration in staying away.
-
Atlantic Council ☛ Six steps to disrupt Hamas and other terrorist groups’ finances
The United States must again learn from tragedy. The US government has an opportunity to use its robust financial authorities to disrupt Hamas’s tactical financial capabilities. To do so, it must implement structural changes to strengthen both US and partner capabilities to combat terrorism financing and other illicit finance threats in the Middle East and beyond.
Below are six steps that the US government—Congress and the Justice, State, and Treasury departments—should take now to address terrorism financing risks.
-
New York Times ☛ Denmark Aims a Wrecking Ball at ‘Non-Western’ Neighborhoods
The government says the plan is meant to dismantle “parallel societies” — which officials describe as segregated enclaves where immigrants do not participate in the wider society or learn Danish, even as they benefit from the country’s generous welfare system.
-
The Dissenter ☛ Fighting To Uncover Secrets Of the Cold War Surveillance State
-
The Nation ☛ October 16 Anti-War Demonstration in D.C.
-
CS Monitor ☛ Seeking neutrality, Kremlin stays on sidelines of Israel-Hamas war
Russia has cultivated warm ties with both Israelis and Palestinians, which it does not want to jeopardize by any involvement in the Israel-Hamas war.
-
Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
-
AntiWar ☛ Did Putin Kill Yevgeni Prigozhin?
On August 23, 2023, Yevgeni Prigozhin’s plane crashed, ending the life of the leader of the Wagner private military group. Since then, little effort or ink has been spent on who is responsible for his murder.
-
LRT ☛ Lithuanian president slams Hungarian ‘flirtation’ with Russia
The Hungarian prime minister’s meeting with Vladimir Putin sends “a very wrong message”, says Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda.
-
RFERL ☛ Hungary's Orban 'Proud' Of Keeping Contact With Russia
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on October 26 that he was "proud" to keep communications open with Moscow after angering fellow EU leaders by meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin this month.
-
Latvia ☛ Latvia has become EU's largest importer of corn from Russia
This year, the import of grain from the aggressor state Russia has grown rapidly in Latvia, despite its staunch support of Ukraine.
-
The Strategist ☛ RAAF Wedgetail to protect vital supply lines to Ukraine
A Royal Australian Air Force E-7A Wedgetail early warning aircraft will use its highly effective radar system to search for missiles launched from hundreds of kilometers inside Russia and Belarus [...]
-
France24 ☛ Slovakia's new populist PM announces halt of military aid to Ukraine
Slovakia's new populist Prime Minister Robert Fico said Thursday that his government was stopping military aid to Ukraine, in the first Western reversal of the kind.
-
LRT ☛ Lithuanian FM urges EU to ‘stop being frozen in the headlights’ with ammo deliveries to Ukraine
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has called on EU member states to “stop being frozen in the headlights” and speed up the delivery of the promised ammunition to Ukraine.
-
LRT ☛ Russia has de facto veto over Ukraine’s future – interview
Although countries like Lithuania don't want to admit it, Russia does hold a veto over Ukraine’s future, Henrik Larsen, a researcher at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, told LRT.lt in an interview.
-
RFA ☛ US and allies confirm North Korea-Russia ‘deleterious’ arms deal
The allies warned such a trade could bolster Moscow’s aggression towards Ukraine.
-
RFERL ☛ Arrested Ukrainian Oligarch Kolomoyskiy Transfers Control Of Media Holdings
Ukrainian billionaire Ihor Kolomoyskiy, who was arrested in Kyiv last month on suspicion of fraud and money-laundering, has transferred corporate rights over his 1+1 media group to the company’s employees.
-
RFERL ☛ Russia Maintains Pressure On Avdiyivka As Kyiv Eyes EU Summit For Support
Sporadic intense fighting continues in the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiyivka and surrounding areas of the Donetsk region as Kyiv watches a European Union summit in Brussels amid fears of donor fatigue among some members.
-
RFERL ☛ Slovakia's Fico Says He Will Not Support More Military Aid To Ukraine At EU Summit
Newly appointed Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico will not back further military aid to Ukraine nor support further sanctions against Russia at a European Union summit, Slovak media cited him as saying.
-
RFERL ☛ Russian TV Journalist Who Protested War On-Air Stripped Of Child Custody
A Moscow court has deprived a former Russian state television journalist who conducted an on-air protest against the invasion of Ukraine of custody of her two children.
-
RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Pilots Begin F-16 Training In The United States
Ukrainian pilots have begun training to fly advanced F-16 fighter jets in the U.S. state of Arizona, the U.S. Air Force announced on October 25.
-
RFERL ☛ Welsh Parliament Recognizes Holodomor As Genocide Of Ukrainian People
The Welsh parliament has approved a resolution recognizing the 1932-33 Holodomor as a genocide of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian Embassy in London said on October 25.
-
teleSUR ☛ ATACMS Missiles in Ukraine to Increase Scale of War: Lukashenko
"We don't want the Ukrainian war, just like you don't," Belarusian President Lukashenko told Hungarian FM Szijjarto.
-
New York Times ☛ As Winter Nears, Ukraine Braces for Attacks on Energy Grid
Russia targeted power systems last year and recent attacks suggest a return to that strategy, raising anxiety among Ukrainian civilians and officials.
-
New York Times ☛ Slovakia to Halt Arms Deliveries to Ukraine, as New Leader Promised
The newly appointed prime minister, Robert Fico, whose party aligned with pro-Russian forces during the recent election campaign, had promised “not to send a single cartridge” of ammunition to Kyiv.
-
New York Times ☛ As Violence Surges, Nations Seek U.S. Defense Pacts. Some Americans Are Wary.
Many countries, including Ukraine and Israel, want greater U.S. protection against Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. But some Americans resist further military commitments.
-
Latvia ☛ Latvian security service assesses Russian economy
The Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB), one of Latvia's three security services, has put on its economist's hat and produced an analysis of the current state of the Russian economy.
-
Atlantic Council ☛ Continued US and allied integration is essential to deter Russian CBRN use
This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Atlantic Council project Conceptualizing Integrated Deterrence to Address Russian Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Escalation. The objective of this project was to develop an approach for incorporating European allies and partners into the US model of integrated deterrence against Russian CBRN use.
-
Atlantic Council ☛ Global Sanctions Dashboard: How Iran evades sanctions and finances terrorist organizations like Hamas
Iran’s financing of Hamas and other terrorist organizations; UAE’s role in facilitating Iran and Russia sanctions evasion; lifting of UN sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program.
-
JURIST ☛ Russia conducts military exercises after revocation of nuclear test ban treaty
Russia’s military conducted exercises with nuclear-capable missiles Wednesday, shortly after the legislature unanimously voted to revoke their ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
-
RFERL ☛ U.K. Court Dismisses Challenge By Sanctioned Russian Oligarch Fridman
Britain's High Court has dismissed a legal challenge by sanctioned Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman, who wanted funds to pay for his driver and the upkeep of his London mansion.
-
RFERL ☛ Russia Says Free-Trade Agreement With Iran Likely By End Of Year
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said a free-trade zone between the Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union and Iran would be established by the end of the year.
-
RFERL ☛ Armenia's Pashinian Hopes For Peace Deal With Azerbaijan 'In The Coming Months'
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian says Yerevan and Baku are working on a peace deal that could be signed "in the coming months."
-
teleSUR ☛ Palestinian Resistance to Meet Russian Authorities: Zakharova
Russia calls for an immediate ceasefire and the resumption of negotiations on the creation of a Palestinian state.
-
teleSUR ☛ Slovak PM Fico to Vote Against New Sanctions on Russia
"If these sanctions are going to harm us, I don't see the point in supporting them," stated Fico.
-
-
-
Transparency/Investigative Reporting
-
[Repeat] Bruce Schneier ☛ New NSA Information from (and About) Snowden
Those three pieces of info come from Jake Appelbaum’s Ph.D. thesis.
-
[Old] Eindhoven University of Technology ☛ Communication in a world of pervasive surveillance: Sources and methods: Counter-strategies against pervasive surveillance architecture
Many aspects of this research started as investigative journalism rather than science. Documents first published by news organizations under the byline of the author of this thesis are reproduced here in full and credited appropriately. Sensitive, classified, or otherwise secret internal documents are provided to ensure that their content is witnessed firsthand, to make them freely accessible on the Internet and in libraries, and to ensure that they are not erased from history.
The perspective in this thesis is necessarily dominated by the United States of America, whose activities impact nearly every person on planet Earth. The focus on America is deeply political: it is the moral duty of every citizen of the United States to address serious faults in policy and to assist in the process of accountability. Democratic discussion covering technical and non-technical topics of various government or corporate activities is important and necessary. The evidence and findings discussed in this thesis touch on myriad controversial issues ranging from political spying on world leaders to drone assassination of human beings who faced no legal charges and are afforded no day in court.
-
-
Environment
-
DeSmog ☛ GOP Climate Denier Vivek Ramaswamy Headlining Jordan Peterson’s ARC Conference
A Republican presidential candidate who has referred to climate change as a “hoax” is headlining the inaugural event for a new global organization created by conservative influencer Jordan Peterson.
Vivek Ramaswamy will be one of the marquee speakers at the inaugural meeting of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), also known as the ARC Conference, an event being held in London, England, from October 30 to November 1.
-
Energy/Transportation
-
YLE ☛ APN Podcast: Could public transport be free in the capital?
This week the show asks if the capital's new tramline can help get commuting back on track as many continue to work from home.
-
LRT ☛ Belarus issues license for Atsravyets NPP 2nd unit despite Lithuania’s objections
The Ministry of Emergency Situations of Belarus issued a license on October 24 for the industrial operation of a second power unit at the Astravyets nuclear power plant.
-
WhichUK ☛ How to avoid overloading your plug sockets at home
It's easy to plug too many devices into too few sockets, particularly when using
extension leads and USB ports. Here's how to plug in devices and charge phones and laptops safely
-
-
-
Finance
-
Latvia ☛ Latvian central bank aims to cash in on basketball success
Latvijas Banka, the Latvian central bank (LB), will release a special silver collector coin on October 31 dedicated to the centenary of basketball in Latvia. 2023 marks the centenary of the Latvian Basketball Federation, which was founded in 1923.
-
WhichUK ☛ Mortgage hack: how to save thousands in interest payments
Overpaying by just £5 a month could shave over £2,000 off your mortgage
-
New Yorker ☛ Yes, We Can Tackle International Tax Evasion, if We Really Try
A new report finds that the amount of offshore wealth shielded from tax authorities has fallen dramatically since the Obama Administration, which pioneered efforts to make countries share banking information.
-
Mercury News ☛ Tech companies and big bank slash hundreds more Bay Area jobs
Tech companies and a big bank have slashed hundreds more jobs in the Bay Area, unsettling revelations that arrive on the heels of monthly job losses in the once-robust region.
-
-
AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
-
European Commission ☛ Speech by Commissioner McGuinness at European Movement Ireland and Konrad Adenauer Foundation event, 'Innovation and competitiveness: 30 years of the single market'
European Commission Speech Dublin, 26 Oct 2023 It's great to be here.
-
Patrick Breyer ☛ Historic agreement on child sexual abuse proposal (CSAR): European Parliament wants to remove chat control and safeguard secure encryption
“Under the impression of massive protests against the looming indiscriminate chat control mass scanning of private messages, we managed to win a broad majority for a different, new approach to protecting young people from abuse and exploitation online. As a pirate and digital freedom fighter, I am proud of this breakthrough. The winners of this agreement are on the one hand our children, who will be protected much more effectively and in a court-proof manner, and on the other hand all citizens, whose digital privacy of correspondence and communication security will be guaranteed.
Even if this compromise, which is supported from the progressive to the conservative camp, is not perfect on all points, it is a historic success that removing chat control and rescuing secure encryption is the common aim of the entire Parliament. We are doing the exact opposite of most EU governments who want to destroy digital privacy of correspondence and secure encryption. Governments must finally accept that this highly dangerous bill can only be fundamentally changed or not be passed at all. The fight against authoritarian chat control must be pursued with all determination!
-
WhichUK ☛ Which? celebrates new online safety laws
Under the Online Safety Bill, online platforms will be required to prevent and quickly remove harmful online content. Ofcom will be responsible for ensuring platforms implement these changes.
-
GO Media ☛ Virginia GOP Sends Explicit Mailers About Dem Candidate's Sex Tape With Her Husband
Let’s back up: Gibson, a nurse practitioner, and her husband, John, had an account on the website Chaturbate where they livestreamed themselves having sex and asked viewers for tips. Those videos were archived on other sites without the Gibsons’ knowledge or consent, and a Virginia Republican operative sent that material to The Washington Post and the Associated Press in September. She vowed to stay in the race, saying “It won’t intimidate me and it won’t silence me.”
Gibson’s lawyer said he believed these actions violated Virginia’s revenge porn law, which makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor to “maliciously” distribute sexual or nude images of someone else with “intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate.”
-
ACLU ☛ What's at Stake in Pennsylvania's Supreme Court Election
As the nation steels itself ahead of what is sure to be a contentious 2024 election year, here in Pennsylvania all eyes are on Nov. 7, 2023. In just a few weeks, Pennsylvania voters will choose the next state Supreme Court justice in an election that could decide which rights and freedoms Pennsylvanians enjoy in coming years.
-
Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
-
European Commission ☛ Speech by Vice-President Jourová at Fighting Misinformation Online 2023 Event
-
New York Times ☛ U.S. Tries New Tack on Russian Disinformation: Pre-Empting It
The State Department’s Global Engagement Center is taking the unusual step of disclosing a covert Russian operation when it is barely off the ground.
-
New York Times ☛ U.S. Tries New Tack on Russian Disinformation: Pre-Empting It
The center, which since 2017 has focused on combating propaganda and disinformation, routinely details Kremlin efforts, but identifying and trying to pre-empt a campaign when it is barely off the ground is a new tactic. It is one that reflects the realization that false narratives are harder to counter once they have already spread.
-
Axios ☛ The fight against deepfakes expands to hardware
Driving the news: Leica announced Wednesday that its new M 11-P camera will be the first with the ability to apply Content Credentials from the moment an image is captured.
-
Bellingcat ☛ Separating Fact from Fiction on Social Media in Times of Conflict
In a time of crisis, social media is flooded with images, videos and bold claims. This can be useful for researchers like ourselves but overwhelming for the general public seeking the facts.
At Bellingcat, we pride ourselves on providing tools and resources for our audience to think critically about sources they find online. In this short guide, we give a few tips on what to consider when confronted with an abundance of footage and claims.
Here’s how to separate fact from fiction with real, recent examples of misinformation.
-
Vice Media Group ☛ 'Verified' X Accounts Are Spreading Misinformation About Maine Shooter Still at Large
This is not the first time verified X users have spread misinformation. In May, numerous verified accounts with large followings spread fake images of an explosion near the Pentagon. Government officials said within hours after the images were posted that there had been no explosion. In the immediate aftermath of Hamas' attack on Israeli citizens earlier this month, the platform was also saturated with misinformation despite X acknowledging the situation required the "highest level of response."
-
The Conversation ☛ Deepfakes in warfare: new concerns emerge from their use around the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Our team at the Lero research centre in University College Cork has just published a first-of-its-kind study examining the ways in which deepfake videos were presented and discussed on Twitter during the early months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Deepfake technology is a recent technological development that essentially allows people to create videos of events that never happened. It seems particularly well suited to the spreading of disinformation, misinformation and “fake news” on social media platforms and elsewhere online. Deepfakes are also very suited to being used in cyberwarfare.
-
PLOS ☛ Do deepfake videos undermine our epistemic trust? A thematic analysis of tweets that discuss deepfakes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Deepfakes are a form of multi-modal media generated using deep-learning technology. Many academics have expressed fears that deepfakes present a severe threat to the veracity of news and political communication, and an epistemic crisis for video evidence. These commentaries have often been hypothetical, with few real-world cases of deepfake’s political and epistemological harm. The Russo-Ukrainian war presents the first real-life example of deepfakes being used in warfare, with a number of incidents involving deepfakes of Russian and Ukrainian government officials being used for misinformation and entertainment. This study uses a thematic analysis on tweets relating to deepfakes and the Russo-Ukrainian war to explore how people react to deepfake content online, and to uncover evidence of previously theorised harms of deepfakes on trust. We extracted 4869 relevant tweets using the Twitter API over the first seven months of 2022. We found that much of the misinformation in our dataset came from labelling real media as deepfakes. Novel findings about deepfake scepticism emerged, including a connection between deepfakes and conspiratorial beliefs that world leaders were dead and/or replaced by deepfakes. This research has numerous implications for future research, societal media platforms, news media and governments. The lack of deepfake literacy in our dataset led to significant misunderstandings of what constitutes a deepfake, showing the need to encourage literacy in these new forms of media. However, our evidence demonstrates that efforts to raise awareness around deepfakes may undermine trust in legitimate videos. Consequentially, news media and governmental agencies need to weigh the benefits of educational deepfakes and pre-bunking against the risks of undermining truth. Similarly, news companies and media should be careful in how they label suspected deepfakes in case they cause suspicion for real media.
-
-
-
Censorship/Free Speech
-
Reason ☛ UC Berkeley Reverses Instructor's Attempt to Give Extra Credit for Pro-Palestinian Political Activity
"While instructors enjoy considerable freedom and all individuals, when acting as private citizens, enjoy free speech rights, University policy does impose limits on using the classroom or one's course for purposes of political advocacy."
-
Reason ☛ Ron DeSantis Is Violating Pro-Palestinian Students' Free Speech Rights
Florida's order to shut down National Students for Justice in Palestine is clearly unconstitutional.
-
Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong Policy Address: Members of opposition unconvinced, as ‘patriots-only’ lawmakers offer muted praise
Hong Kong leader John Lee on Wednesday delivered his second Policy Address in a record-breaking three hour and 20-odd minute speech titled “A Vibrant Economy for a Caring Community,” in which he introduced a raft of measures spanning from easing property taxes to boosting childbirth.
-
Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Google denies Hong Kong police request to remove ‘seditious’ film about media tycoon Jimmy Lai from YouTube
A documentary about pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai remains on YouTube despite a request from Hong Kong police to take it down, a transparency report published by US tech giant Google has revealed.
-
India Times ☛ Mobile net ban in Manipur till October 31
The Manipur government on Thursday extended the mobile [Internet] ban for five days till October 31 amid protests against the curbs.
-
The Hindu ☛ Mobile [Internet] ban in Manipur extended till October 31
The ban was extended following "apprehensions that some anti-social elements might use social media extensively for transmission of images, hate speech and hate videos inciting the passions of the public which might have serious repercussions on the law and order situation," a government notification said.
-
-
Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
-
RFERL ☛ Russian Authorities Formally Charge RFE/RL Journalist With Violating 'Foreign Agent' Law
Russia's Investigative Committee on October 26 specified the charge against RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who is being held in pretrial detention after her arrest on suspicion of failing to register as a foreign agent.
-
RFERL ☛ CPJ Urges Kyrgyz Lawmakers To Reject Russian-Inspired 'Foreign Agents' Bill
A leading journalism watchdog has urged the Kyrgyz parliament not to pass a controversial bill modeled on Russia’s repressive “foreign agent” laws.
-
uni Northwestern ☛ On the Lookout for Local News
Veteran journalist Ken Doctor had been analyzing “Newsonomics” for many years when he jumped back into the game to launch a new local digital news outlet, Lookout Santa Cruz, which debuted in 2020. With the Santa Cruz Sentinel having been taken over and downsized by the Alden Global Capital-controlled Media News Group, Doctor declared that Lookout was entering a news desert, which rankled some journalists in town.
-
CPJ ☛ Guinean journalists arrested, attacked at protest over blocking of news website
On October 16, Guinean police and gendarmerie officers insulted, beat with batons, kicked, and shot tear gas at reporters Mariam Sall, with privately owned broadcaster Espace TV; Mariama Bhoye Barry, with privately owned broadcaster Cavi TV; and Amadou Lama Diallo, with Guinée Matin, as they covered a demonstration in the capital, Conakry, according to the three journalists who spoke with CPJ and a video filmed by Barry and published by Guinée Matin.
-
The Hindu ☛ Journal editor’s firing could negatively impact freedom of speech
The dismissal of journal editor Michael Eisen, fired for sarcastic tweets on the Israel-Palestine conflict, will have a chilling effect on academics and researchers which would affect much needed reform as well as scientific integrity
-
RFERL ☛ Iranian Judiciary Summons Newspaper Chief Over Survey On Head Scarf Law
Mizan did not specify the newspaper's name, but on October 24, the Shargh newspaper reported on a survey suggesting that the "Hijab and Chastity" bill would not have a great impact on attitudes toward with mandatory head scarf, with 84 percent of participants saying it would not influence observance of the rule.
Shargh has since removed the article on the survey from its website.
-
ANF News ☛ Journalist Kaygusuz sent to prison
Selahattin Kaygusuz, the distributor in Batman for the pro-Kurdish Yeni Yaşam daily newspaper, was arrested today (October 25). Kaygusuz was detained in Batman on October 20 based on the testimony of witness Ümit Akbıyık, who is the witness in the files
-
-
Civil Rights/Policing
-
Klarna faces strike action in Sweden over refusal to negotiate with unions
Fintech Klarna is facing a new challenge in Sweden: a looming union strike.
For months the payments company has resisted union calls to establish a collective agreement which would mean Klarna would have to negotiate any large changes like layoffs with the unions.
And on Thursday afternoon, white-collar trade union Unionen and Engineers of Sweden, the country’s largest union for graduate engineers, opted to hold a strike on November 7.
As opposed to many other countries, many workers’ rights, including redundancies and collective pay rises, are negotiated between employers and worker unions in Sweden.
“Klarna doesn’t want this. We understand it as the questions they bring to the table is a way to stall the negotiations — then there is nothing left for us to do than to announce a strike,” says Martin Wästfelt, head of negotiations at Unionen, which has been working to introduce a collective agreement with Klarna for eight months.
-
Associated Press ☛ Questions linger after Connecticut police officers fatally shoot man in his bed
Speaking generally, Lawlor said a debate and policy focus has emerged in recent years over whether the question about police shootings should be whether they were necessary instead of whether they were justified.
-
RFERL ☛ Family Says Imprisoned Iranian Activist Fatemeh Sepehri Again Taken To Hospital
Sepehri is among those who have publicly called for the resignation of the Islamic republic's leader. Her activism led to her arrest last year during nationwide protests.
-
The Nation ☛ The Pleasure and Peril of Gardening While Black
Earlier this year, as January bled into a gray February, my partner glared at the dark green English ivy in our flat and said, “I think it’s dead.” Being the optimist in our relationship, I swiftly rebuked him and said, “No, it isn’t.” We spent 15 minutes quibbling over the plant’s vitality, examining its browning leaves, the sparseness of foliage near the roots, and its overall limpness. I was resolute, so being the dutiful husband, my partner finally gave in and allowed us to hold on to our verdant friend. After examining the soil, he pruned the plant and voiced a suspicion that someone—most likely him—had overwatered it. By the end of the week, the ivy was no longer with us.
-
The Nation ☛ A Weekend at Abortion Camp Offers a Glimpse Into the Future of Abortion Access
On the wall in the gym at Abortion Camp hung a massive, colorful map of the United States festooned with index cards. Each card had the name, age, pronouns, astrological sign, and affiliation of each of the 50-or-so people who had traveled from across the country, and a few from overseas, to attend the event. As a kickoff activity, the campers had broken into small groups to fill out the cards and then placed them on the map to show where they were from.
-
The Kent Stater ☛ United Auto Workers union and Ford reach tentative labor agreement
A bruising 41-day strike at Ford is near an end as the United Auto Workers and its largest employer have reached a tentative deal to return 16,600 strikers to the job within days and pay workers at least 25% more between now and 2028.
-
Mexico News Daily ☛ Court workers extend strike after Senate approves judiciary budget cut
López Obrador's Morena party had a victory in Mexico's Senate on Wednesday, when a controversial bill to eliminate judiciary trusts was approved.
-
France24 ☛ US auto workers union reaches tentative deal with Ford to end strike
The US auto workers union reached a tentative agreement with Ford late Wednesday, a breakthrough in a 41-day stoppage on Detroit's "Big Three" car manufacturers
-
JURIST ☛ Iceland Prime Minister joins nationwide women’s strike
Icelandic women across the country, including Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, participated in a nationwide strike Tuesday, demanding an end to gender inequality and discrimination.
-
-
Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
-
SANS ☛ Adventures in Validating IPv4 Addresses, (Thu, Oct 26th)
It should be pretty easy to validate an IP address. IPv4 addresses are 32-bit unsigned integers, and IPv6 addresses are 128-bit unsigned integers. Things get "interesting" when developers attempt to validate IP addresses as a string. There have been a few interesting vulnerabilities around this issue (CVE-2021-28918, CVE-2021-29921, CVE-2021-29418).
-
APNIC ☛ [Podcast] What really happened — 30 years of APNIC
Discussing the history of APNIC over the last 30 years.
-
APNIC ☛ Notes from NANOG 89: Trust and network infrastructure
The challenge of trustable Internet infrastructure.
-
-
Digital Restrictions (DRM)
-
Right to Repair ☛ The Tide is Turning: Apple’s Right to Repair Concession is a Big Win, But Don't Unpack Your Toolkits Just Yet
In a stunning turn of events, Apple, the tech juggernaut that once fiercely guarded its walled garden, announced support for a U.S. Right to Repair bill at the federal level. "It's about damn time!"—that's the collective sentiment resonating from repair shops to legislative floors (and in my head).
But before we break out the champagne and dust off your toolkit, let's dissect what this actually means for consumers, legislators, and the repair industry. Because as with any Apple product, the devil is in the details.
-
-
Monopolies
-
El País ☛ Tech giant begins antitrust defense by poking fun at its status among youth
The Justice Department has presented evidence that Google secured its dominance in search by paying billions of dollars annually to Apple and other companies to lock in Google as the default search engine on iPhones and other popular products.
-
New York Times ☛ Inside Google’s Plan to Stop Apple From Getting Serious About Search
Google has worried for years that Apple would one day expand its internet search technology, and has been working on ways to prevent that from happening.
-
Digital Music News ☛ Daniel Ek Says He Couldn’t Launch Spotify in 2023 Because of Apple
But as Ek highlights, Apple stands to lose much more than it gains if the DMCC were passed. Apple charges a 30% tax on all transactions made through the App Store and introduces prohibitive rules for developers based on arbitrary decisions. “Instead of letting consumers decide which company wins, Apple has taken their choice away by prioritizing its own services as it tries to increase its profits,” Ek says.
-
Patents
-
Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ ‘Unitary Patent system is an earthquake in slow motion’ [Ed: Unitary Patent system is totally illegal and unconstitutional, but the profiteers keep trying to legitimise what they illegally started in violations of conventions. This is a travesty for the EU.]
The Unitary Patent system is doing much better than expected, with almost 80 cases in the first six months and about 20-25% of new European patents converted to UPs, according to Paul England.
-
JUVE ☛ Formycon and Janssen Biotech put EU SPC waiver to the test in Munich [Ed: Is this an ad for a law firm? Probably. JUVE takes bribes from litigation firms to write fake articles/puff pieces about them, and moreover to lobby for illegal things on their behalf, tarnishing the image of the media.]
The Regional Court Munich has handed down a preliminary injunction against Formycon, after the pharmaceutical company announced its intention to launch a biosimilar of drug Stelara following the expiry of its patent and related SPC.
-
-
Copyrights
-
Walled Culture ☛ A welcome attempt to take down Piracy Shield, Italy’s pre-emptive and unfair Net block system
Since attacking Internet users had proved to be such a failure, the copyright industry changed tack. Instead it sought to block access to unauthorised material using court orders against Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The idea was that if people couldn’t access the site offering the material, they couldn’t download it.
-
Torrent Freak ☛ WatchWrestling.ai Taps Outs Due to ACE/DAZN Tag Team Piracy Piledriver
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, in close cooperation with broadcaster and ACE member, DAZN, say they have shut down pirate streaming platform, WatchWrestling.ai. According to ACE, the ring of related wrestling sites generated over a quarter billion visits over the past year, but after their owner was tracked down in India, he was forced to tap out.
-
Torrent Freak ☛ Record Labels Shut Down FileWarez, Brazil's Oldest Pirate Forum
When FileWarez appeared online in 2004, MySpace was about to become the next big thing. Two weeks ago FileWarez was suddenly gone; no forum, no Discord, no Telegram. Even the site's moderators seemed confused. Global music industry group IFPI now confirms that with their assistance, Brazil's Cyber Gaeco unit forced FileWarez to shut down after more than 19 years online.
-
-
-
-
Gemini* and Gopher
-
Personal/Opinions
-
Slices of language
The ladybird browser project has an interesting methodology they say they are using to keep motivation up: instead of building every api from the bottom up, they are working in slices. Something like "make youtube work", from the low level features to the high level features needed for that. The idea is that it's more fun and fulfilling because you end up with an actual factual real modern website that works at the end of it, rather than implementing something like a camera api which isn't necessary. And lots of other sites will benefit from the support across the stack that youtube needed, so just focussing on that one site means a lot of other sites work better too.
I wonder how applicable the same idea is to language learning. In particular, i think that slices could successfully replace topic oriented vocabulary lists, which i find quite confusing. I find that most topics cause some confusion with their similar words or similar meanings, depending on the topic and language.
-
🔤SpellBinding — AGILNTZ Wordo: GRILL
-
-
Science
-
LFO
Or low frequency oscillators show up in all sorts of places, though I did not know until recently that they are called LFO.
-
-
Technology and Free Software
-
Sorry for the break
Some friends messaged me on IRC to tell me I had been linked in smolzine. Nifty!
I know I haven't posted in four months. It's not due to boredom with smolnet - I still browse as much as I ever did. It's due to a combination of factors, including a new job, some mental health distractions, a recent illness, and a general loss of faith in computing as beneficial.
-
The battery of my Android phone died.
I eventually bought a replacement. My main use case for this thing is GPS tracking of my walks, so I don't really "need" a smartphone. It's mostly just an expensive toy.
If there were still dedicated GPS devices available, I would have bought one of those. But this doesn't exist anymore. This market has been killed off completely by smartphones. And the few dedicated GPS devices that still exist are just as expensive as a phone.
-
dont expect the reader to know what you mean
When a daunting person takes the wrong fork at the intersection somewhere past the DNS layer, they find themselves in foreign territory of alien voices. This country of strange ideas wastes little time to brand the unsuspecting tourist an-under-the-rock-dwelling fool. I am describing the internet of the cultural mainstream. A place, where everyone lives with the understanding that knowledge is universally shared.
-
Where'd September Go?
I missed last month, and this month is almost over as well. Too busy I guess. Or something like that. People ask me what I've been up to, and I'm not entirely sure what to tell them. It happened just last night with a friend. I guess I need to be more mindful of keeping some sort of mental list handy, for when the question comes up.
Of course, I'm not going to give you a list right here, because I still don't have one. At present I only have a few minutes to write anyway.
-
Server Security and Bubble Spam
This is a good time for all server owners to make sure the security of their servers is good. This involves connections having idle timeouts (timeout after not sending something over the connection for a certain amount of time). Also, if you run a streaming service (like my AuraGem Public Radio), you might want to limit the number of connections an IP can make to that stream, since those connections are infinitely connected. This will help with DDoS attacks for those services.
There's also rate-limiting that all servers should really have. Gemini has a "slow down" error code for this.
-
Winter Porter
I used to do a lot more homebrewing in the past - there were a few years where I was brewing 3-4 times a year. Making my own beer was something I'd always wanted to do, but never tried to get into until a friend helped me through my first brew (and whose bottling was truly disastrous, but that's another story for another day). Then after that, I realized the basic formula: boil 12L water, add steeping grains for half an hour, discard, then boil again, add the malt extract. Combine it fully. Get the water to a boil and then turn it down to a simmer and add the hops according to the schedule. Whirlfloc with five minutes left. Cool down to room temperature as quickly as possible, add to a sanitized fermenter, top with water to 21L, pitch the yeast.
-
Programming
-
programming language fun
Hello again my fellow gopherites!
I've been saying for a while that I'd write a phlog post on programming languages and garbage collection and such, and this is that post! :) Programming languages are things that attract a lot of strong opinions and as such I was kind of reluctant to phlog about this, but there's been enough times that the subject comes up during screwtape's fantastic anonradio show, that I'd like to elaborate on a few things, as I can go into a little bit more detail in a phlog post than I otherwise could in sdf com chat.
-
-
-
* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.