Links 07/11/2023: Privacy Crackdowns and Journalists' Deaths
Contents
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Leftovers
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Chris ☛ Typing Fast Is About Latency, Not Throughput
But the problem isn’t throughput. If throughput was the concern, most professionals could get by with far less than 80 words per minute. Even writers who work in their natural language struggle with producing more than a few pages per day; counting charitably, that’s less than 5 words per minute.
Throughput is not the issue. Latency is.
What can we do when we are able to type faster?
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Hardware
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Sony's PlayStation 5 Slim Dissected: Same 6nm SoC, Different Cooling
Slim version of Sony's PlayStation 5 uses the same 6nm AMD SoC, but is completely re-engineered from the ground up to make it smaller.
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Ruben Schade ☛ Jay on AMD AM5 system stability
Memory timing and resulting stability
Cores containing 3D-Cache not being deactivated properly
[...]
For those not versed in AMD nomenclature, X3D CPUs are variants of AMD’s desktop silicon that include more cache. Games benefit significantly from this, but they offer negligible improvement for production tasks. Because the cache is more heat sensitive, X3D CPUs are clocked lower than their non-cache enhanced versions, meaning they’re really optimised for gaming.
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APNIC ☛ Chiplets — the inevitable transition
One thing that is more than certain in the semiconductor industry is that chiplets are here to stay. The shift towards chiplet architecture is inevitable for almost all high-end CPUs/GPUs, accelerators, and networking silicon vendors. It is not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’.
This article looks at the semiconductor industry evolution, the inflection points, and how packaging and interconnect technologies evolved to make chiplets a viable alternative to monolithic dies to keep Moore’s Law alive, CPU/GPU and networking industry’s chiplet adaption and the future trends…
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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VOA News ☛ Californians Bet Farming Agave is Key to Weathering Drought, Groundwater Limits
The 49-year-old mechanical engineer is one of a growing number of Californians planting agave to be harvested and used to make spirits, much like the way tequila and mezcal are made in Mexico. The trend is fueled by the need to find hardy crops that don’t need much water and a booming appetite for premium alcoholic beverages since the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Vox ☛ A boneheaded state official may have just handed the NRA a big Supreme Court victory
National Rifle Association v. Vullo, which the Court announced that it would hear last Friday, is such a case. It involves two unrelated actions which former New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) Superintendent Maria Vullo took against the NRA, one of which successfully shut down an NRA program that recklessly endangered countless New Yorkers’ lives — and one of which recklessly endangered Vullo’s effort to shut down this potentially deadly program.
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Bridge Michigan ☛ Flint water cases doomed by missteps from Dana Nessel’s office, experts say
Flint residents call the failed criminal cases the latest in a string of injustices stemming from the crisis, in which residents of the impoverished city were ignored for months by state and federal officials after they complained of foul, discolored tap water that caused rashes and other physical ailments and threatened the health of thousands of children.
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Pro Publica ☛ The EPA’s Struggle to Limit Drinking Water Contaminants
As far as state and federal officials are concerned, the drinking water in Smithwick, Texas, is perfectly safe.
Over the past two decades, the utility that provides water to much of the community has had little trouble complying with the Safe Drinking Water Act, which is intended to assure Americans that their tap water is clean. Yet, at least once a year since 2019, the Smithwick Mills water system, which serves about 200 residents in the area, has reported high levels of the synthetic chemical 1,2,3-trichloropropane, according to data provided by the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that collects water testing results from states.
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Study laundering: Retracted antivax studies resurrected in fake journals
When I sat down to write this post, I hadn’t intended on revisiting last week’s topic so soon, but then I saw a post on Popular Rationalism, which is James Lyons-Weiler‘s Substack, entitled Gorski Gaslights His Blog Readership on Skidmore et al.’s Peer-Reviewed Study. My first reaction upon reading the titled was “Who are the ‘et al’?” After all, one of the points I made about Michigan State University economics professor Mark Skidmore‘s awful paper was that he was sole author in the original paper and remains sole author of the “revised” paper, as I wondered why he didn’t recruit any real statisticians, epidemiologists, or even social scientists skilled in the construction of meaningful survey questions. My second reaction was amusement, mainly because most of the “defenses” of Prof. Skidmore’s paper were predictable and unconvincing. My third reaction was a bit of déjà vu combined with the satisfaction of seeing that James Lyons-Weiler had basically confirmed everything that I said about his journal without meaning to do so. In doing so, he reminded me that this is not the first time that we’ve seen a retracted paper resurrected in a dodgy journal; the only difference is that this time the dodgy journal was more obviously dodgy than the usual journal used to launder a retracted antivax study and even more obviously ideological. Given that Lyons-Weiler’s response allows me a chance to discuss his “Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge” (IPAK) grift, of which the “journal” in which Prof. Skidmore’s paper was republished is but a small part.
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CS Monitor ☛ To counter teen suicide, French schools turn to lessons in empathy
A series of teen suicides has reignited debate in France about the dangers school bullies pose, and focused new efforts to curb school harassment.
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YLE ☛ Finnish chain recalls 33 tonnes of dog food as hundreds of pet owners complain
Musti Group, which runs the Musti ja Mirri chain of pet supply stores, saw its share price fall by as much as 17 percent on Monday as the fallout from the product recall continued.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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PC Mag ☛ X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames For $50,000
In November of last year, in a thread about offering amnesty to previously suspended accounts, Musk claimed that “vast numbers of handles were consumed by bots/trolls” and that he was “aiming to start freeing those up next month.”
In the same thread, another user, Paris Vegas, suggested that Musk make a Handle Marketplace where users could buy and sell handles in an eBay/auction-style format, suggesting that it would be a good way for X to free up handles and generate some revenue.
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Gizmodo ☛ Sony Pulls Plug on X/Twitter Integration on PS4 and PS5
Tweeting out your latest PlayStation platinum trophy on a PS5 is going to get a little tricky. PS4 and PS5 owners received a message Monday saying the integration of X, formerly known as Twitter, will be coming to an end next week, as first spotted by users on X.
“As of November 13, 2023, integration with X (formerly known as Twitter) will no longer function on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 consoles,” the message from Sony read. “This includes the ability to view any content published on X on PS5/PS4, and the ability to post and view content, trophies, and other gameplay related activities on X directly from PS5/PS4 (or link an X account to do so). “
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The Atlantic ☛ AI Search Is Turning Into the Problem Everyone Worried About
This is Google’s current existential challenge in a nutshell: The company has entered into the generative-AI era with a search engine that appears more complex than ever. And yet it still can be commandeered by junk that’s untrue or even just nonsensical. Older features, like snippets, are liable to suck in flawed AI writing. New features like Google’s own generative-AI tool—something like a chatbot—are liable to produce flawed AI writing. Google’s never been perfect. But this may be the least reliable it’s ever been for clear, accessible facts.
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Gizmodo ☛ Cruise Robotaxis Require Remote Human Assistance Every 4 to 5 Miles
Things just keep getting worse for Cruise, the troubled robotaxi company that once dreamed of being a leader in the autonomous driving industry. Only a month after a violent collision forced the company to ground all of its fleets nationwide, multiple news outlets have reported that the company’s “self driving” cars are...well...not actually driving themselves, all the time. Instead, the vehicles appear to be aided by remote human assistants, frequently as often as every four to five miles.
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Security
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Techdirt ☛ Former DHS/NSA Official Stewart Baker Decides He Can Help NSO Group Turn A Profit
NSO Group used to have everything going for it. It had plenty of customers and plenty of leeway to sell to some of the worst governments in the world.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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5 Ways To Prepare for the Online Privacy Crackdown
With legislation around the world seeking to gut encryption and online anonymity, Ramiro Romani offers an overview of what's coming and several solutions for divesting from Big Tech products and protecting your online privacy.
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Off Guardian ☛ Authoritarians Drunk on Power: It’s Time to Recalibrate the Government
There is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.
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MIT Technology Review ☛ It’s shockingly easy to buy sensitive data about US military personnel
The year-long study, which was funded in part by the US Military Academy at West Point, highlights the extreme privacy and national security risks created by data brokers. These companies are part of a shadowy multibillion-dollar industry that collects, aggregates, buys, and sells data, practices that are currently legal in the US. Many brokers advertise that they have hundreds of individual data points on each person in their database, and the industry has been criticized for exacerbating the erosion of personal and consumer privacy.
The researchers say they were “shocked” at the ease with which they were able to obtain highly sensitive data about members of the military. “In practice, it seems as though anyone with an email address, a bank account, and a few hundred dollars could acquire the same type of data that we did,” Hayley Barton, a coauthor of the study and a graduate student researcher, says.
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The Register UK ☛ You can buy personal info of US military staff from data brokers for just 12 cents a pop
The study, funded by a grant from the American military, follows from a proposal submitted by the scholars to the US Military Academy at West Point in 2021, in the wake of an August 2021 report [PDF] by one of the authors, Justin Sherman, who is currently a senior fellow at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy.
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Duke University ☛ Data Brokers and the Sale of Data on U.S. Military Personnel
It is not difficult to obtain sensitive data about active-duty members of the military, their families, and veterans, including non-public, individually identified, and sensitive data, such as health data, financial data, and information about religious practices. The team bought this and other data from U.S. data brokers via a .org and a .asia domain for as low as $0.12 per record. Location data is also available, though the team did not purchase it.
Data broker methods of determining the identity of customers are inconsistent and evidence a lack of industry best-practices.
Currently, these inconsistent practices are highly unregulated by the U.S. government.
The inconsistencies of controls when purchasing sensitive, non-public, individually identified data about active-duty members of the military and veterans extends to situations in which data brokers are selling to customers who are outside of the United States.
Access to this data could be used by foreign and malicious actors to target active-duty military personnel, veterans, and their families and acquaintances for profiling, blackmail, targeting with information campaigns, and more.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Controversy brews over new EU-based digital certificate laws that could compromise digital trust relationships
The Electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services Act passed the European Union Parliament back in 2014 and has been slowly enacted since July 2016. But a more recent change this past summer with a proposed Article 45 of eDIAS has gotten more attention as of late, and not in a good way.
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Defence/Aggression
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Meduza ☛ Journalists confirm deaths of over 35,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine
Journalists from Mediazona and BBC News Russia have worked with a team of volunteers to determine the names of 35,780 Russian soldiers who have been killed in Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
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Truthdig ☛ The ISIS Prison Camps the World Forgot
But four years on from ISIS’ formal defeat, Rojava has a problem. The region’s Kurdish-Arabic military alliance now guards 2,000 imprisoned foreign ISIS fighters along with 8,000 Syrian and Iraqi combatants, most held in substandard, ad-hoc detention facilities in repurposed schools. Meanwhile, displacement camps in the windswept Syrian desert hold tens of thousands of ISIS-linked women and children, sometimes alongside the very civilians ISIS terrorized.
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BIA Net ☛ HRW: 'Civilians bear the brunt of ongoing attacks by Turkish Forces in Northeast Syria'
"Turkey should thoroughly investigate strikes that killed or injured civilians and provide adequate redress, where appropriate, to victims or their families. It should hold to account those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law arising from such attacks."
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Atlantic Council ☛ The mouth of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah hath spoken—and nothing useful came out
To avoid appearing weak against Israel to its supporters, Hezbollah is falling back on a pattern of using propaganda to cover its inaction against the Jewish state.
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New York Times ☛ Blinken Warns Iran Against Widening the Israel-Hamas Conflict
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned Iran during a weekend of diplomacy in the Middle East. The U.S. military posted a photo of one of its submarines in the region.
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France24 ☛ At least 20 killed in attack by Cameroon's anglophone separatists
Separatist rebels killed around 20 people, including women and children, on Monday in an attack on a village in one of Cameroon's restive anglophone regions, security and local officials said.
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AntiWar ☛ America’s War Economy and the Urgent Call for Peace in the Middle East
On September 19, 2001, eight days after 9/11, as the leaders of both parties were already pounding a frenzied drumbeat of war, a diverse group of concerned Americans released a warning about the long-term consequences of a military response.
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France24 ☛ China and Australia can become 'trusting' partners, Pooh-tin tells Albanese
Chinese leader Pooh-tin Jinping told Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese Monday that their countries could become "trusting partners", pledging to work with Canberra on everything from regional security to climate change as the two leaders eased years of tensions that cut billions of dollars in trade.
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The Straits Times ☛ US to send high-level delegation to Australia on Aukus mission
The US is sending representatives from the State Department, the White House's National Security Council staff, the Energy Department.
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France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: Netanyahu says Israel will take 'overall security responsibility' of Gaza after war
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that his country will take "overall security responsibility" of the Gaza Strip for an indefinite period after its war with Hamas.
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LRT ☛ Lithuania approves National Defence Plan
Lithuania’s State Defence Council (VGT) on Monday approved the National Defence Plan, said Kęstutis Budrys, Chief National Security Adviser to President Gitanas Nausėda.
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University of Michigan ☛ New weapons detection system debuts at the Big House
The University of Michigan’s Division of Public Safety and Security implemented a walk-through weapons detection system at Michigan Stadium for expanded security measures. According to a Nov. 1 press release from DPSS, the system was used for the first time during the Nov. 4 football game against Purdue University.
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RFA ☛ Laos punished 78 border security officers for bribery in June
In exchange for money, they had allow Chinese to enter and exit the country illegally.
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RFA ☛ New Hong Kong law to extend reach of 'espionage' crimes overseas
Security legislation coming next year could mean businesses, foreigners and even lawyers face widening crackdown.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Latvia ☛ Attempts to cross Latvian-Belarusian border go slightly down
Attempts to cross the Latvian-Belarusian border illegally have decreased due to the cold weather, but tensions are currently increasing on Poland's border with Belarus, State Border Guard Chief Guntis Pujāts told Latvian Television November 7.
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Meduza ☛ Jailed Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin facing new misdemeanor charges for not including ‘foreign agent’ labels on social media posts — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ What’s the catch? In Russia’s Saratov region, the authorities’ response to a film about housing shows art can still shame the government into action — Meduza
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YLE ☛ Russia repairing damaged telecoms cable in Gulf of Finland
Russian telecoms operator Rostelecom notified Finland of the need for repairs on 12 October, as the cable partly runs through Finnish waters.
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teleSUR ☛ Russia's Jewish Region Offers Refuge to Palestinians
"Anyone who needs help will be able to find shelter in the Jewish Autonomous Region," Governor Goldstein said.
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RFERL ☛ Imprisoned Bashkir Activist Transferred To Notorious 'Special Regime' Prison In Siberia
The imprisoned opposition activist from Russia's Republic of Bashkortostan, Airat Dilmukhametov, has been transferred to a notorious "special regime" prison, the harshest type of penitentiary in the country, his relatives told RFE/RL on November 5 after weeks of having no contact with him.
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RFERL ☛ St. Petersburg Prosecutors Launch Probe Into Suspected Abduction Of Chechen Woman
Prosecutors in the Russian city of St. Petersburg have launched a probe into the suspected abduction of a woman from the North Caucasus region of Chechnya, the North Caucasus SOS (SK SOS) human rights group said on November 6.
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RFERL ☛ Russian Troops Shoot Georgian Dead Near Boundary With Breakaway Region
The Georgian State Security Service (SUS) said on November 6 that Russian troops shot to death a Georgian man near the administrative boundary with Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia while trying to detain him.
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Latvia ☛ Latvian Russian Union's politician gets conditional sentence
Riga City Court in Vidzeme suburb has sentenced Aleksandrs Filejs, a politician of the Latvian Russian Union (LKS) party, to a conditional imprisonment of ten months for denying the occupation of Latvia, the agency LETA reported Novemebr 6.
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Meduza ☛ At least 19 Ukrainian soldiers confirmed dead in November 3 Russian missile strike in Zaporizhzhia region — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Aide to Ukrainian Armed Forces’ commander-in-chief killed at home by grenade during birthday celebration — Meduza
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New York Times ☛ Ukraine’s Secret Plan to Save a City Trapped in Purgatory
Since Russian troops were pushed out of the city of Kherson, they have bombed it relentlessly. Closely held river operations could change that.
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New York Times ☛ Five Wounded as Russian Missiles Strike Odesa, Damaging an Art Museum
In another setback, Ukraine said 19 soldiers had been killed in a strike on a medals ceremony last week. Unusually, the ceremony had been held in the open, rather than a protected space.
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New York Times ☛ As a Ukrainian, I Refuse to Compete for Attention
Ukrainians have been infantilized by the need to vie for international interest.
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New York Times ☛ Biden Confronts Limits of U.S. Leverage in Israel and Ukraine Wars
President Biden’s influence over Israel and Ukraine seems far more constrained than expected, given his central role as the supplier of arms and intelligence.
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The Straits Times ☛ G7 foreign ministers plan talks with Ukrainian counterpart this week
G7 foreign ministers plan to hold online talks with their Ukrainian counterpart during meetings in Tokyo this week, Japan said on Tuesday, adding that the group was committed to supporting Kyiv as other conflicts spiral.
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RFERL ☛ Slovak PM: No Obstacles To Private Weapons Exports To Ukraine
Slovakia's new prime minister, Robert Fico, who has pledged to halt the country's military aid for neighboring Ukraine, on November 6 said he had no intention of preventing private defense companies' exports.
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RFERL ☛ Ukraine Says Ready For 'Constructive Dialogue' After Polish Truckers Block Border
A top Ukrainian government official has said Kyiv is "ready for a constructive dialogue" to resolve a dispute that has led to Polish truckers blocking border crossings between the two countries over claims of unfair competition.
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RFERL ☛ Ukraine Expects 'Positive' EU Report On Membership Bid This Week
A senior Ukrainian official on November 6 said Kyiv expected the EU to provide a "positive" appraisal of its progress toward membership in a report this week and that it had carried out all the necessary reforms.
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RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Military Chief Says Aide Killed In Explosion During Birthday Celebration
Ukraine's commander in chief, General Valeriy Zaluzhniy, said his "assistant and close friend," Major Hennnadiy Chasyakov, 39, was killed when an explosive device detonated in what was thought to be a birthday gift.
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RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Says 'Irresponsible' To Talk About Elections During Wartime
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said it is "irresponsible" to speak about holding national elections under wartime conditions, strongly hinting at a potential delay to a vote that normally would be in March 2024.
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RFERL ☛ Russia Says It Repelled Ukraine Drone Attack On Crimea
Russia's Defense Ministry says its air defenses repelled an attack by Ukrainian drones that targeted Moscow-occupied Crimea on November 7.
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France24 ☛ Ukraine's Zelensky says 'not the time' for presidential elections
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday he doesn't believe it is the right time for elections as debate intensifies on holding a vote in 2024 while the country fights against Russia's invasion.
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Atlantic Council ☛ How to keep NATO relevant into 2024 and beyond
The 2024 Washington Summit is a perfect opportunity to show that allies are ready to stand up for freedom, ensure continuous support to Ukraine, and credibly boost their defense spending and capabilities.
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AntiWar ☛ Ukraine Has Lost the War
Ukraine has lost the war. That is not fake news from social control media. It is not propaganda from Russian media. It is what follows deductively from statements made by the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, in a November 1 interview with The Economist.
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AntiWar ☛ Don’t Worry, It’s Not Foreign Aid… It’s Corporate Welfare!
Faced with growing American frustration over more than $100 billion spent on a failed proxy war in Ukraine, President Biden’s handlers have hit on a gimmick to convince us that this foreign aid is actually an investment in our own economy!
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European Commission ☛ Commission consults Member States on a proposal for a partial adjustment of the phase-out schedule of the State aid Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework in view of the upcoming winter heating period
The European Commission has sent to Member States for consultation a draft proposal to partially adjust the phase-out schedule of the provisions of the State aid Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework aimed at providing a crisis response following Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
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RFERL ☛ Kadyrov Says Group Of Former Wagner Mercenaries Training With His Forces
The authoritarian leader of Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, said on Telegram on November 6 that former Wagner Group mercenaries were training in Chechnya with his forces.
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Environment
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Idiomdrottning ☛ Stop Norway’s drills!
Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre (from the social democratic Arbeiderpartiet) said that they refuse to stop or even cut back on their fossil fuel drilling projects, saying that the solution will come from the demand side. I.e. he is hoping that demand for fossils will decrease as people stop flying, driving tractors, running factories and eating meat.
That is unfathomably wack.
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France24 ☛ Sunak’s king’s speech to set out plans on climate, crime ahead of UK election
Charles III gives the first King's Speech in more than 70 years Tuesday, formally opening the UK parliament with a run-down of his government's legislative plans as an election looms.
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Energy/Transportation
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DeSmog ☛ The Carbon Capture Sector’s Community-Involvement Rhetoric Doesn’t Match Reality
Increased federal incentives for “carbon management” technologies are catalyzing a surge in proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the United States, from the Gulf Coast to the Midwest to California. CCS proponents are touting their support of local community involvement in developing these sites. But residents say they are often left with empty promises.
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Silicon Angle ☛ On theCUBE Pod: Thoughts on Sam Bankman-Fried going down and the SEC going after a CISO
There was no mistaking the story that the tech world was fixated on this week. Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of FTX Trading Ltd., was found guilty on all seven counts in his federal trial on fraud and conspiracy charges.
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Hackaday ☛ Virginia To Get Large-Scale Wind Farm
If you go about 27 miles off the coast of Virginia, you’ll find two windmills jutting up out of the sea. Two windmills aren’t particularly interesting until you realize that these two are on the edge of a 2,100-acre lease that Dominion Energy is placing in Federal water. According to the company, those two will be joined by 176 more windmills on a nearly 113,000-acre adjacent lease. The project has been in the planning and pilot phase for a while, but it was recently given the green light by the US government. You can see a promotional video about the project below. There’s also a video of the first monopiles — the mounts for the windmills — arriving in the area.
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The Nation ☛ The SBF Verdict and Crypto’s Unindicted Scam Network
Sam Bankman-Fried’s conviction on seven charges of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering is only the first act in what promises to be a lengthy, expensive legal drama. Southern District of New York Judge Lewis Kaplan already scheduled a second trial for the former head of the FTX crypto exchange next March, this time for charges arising from Bankman-Fried’s alleged $150 million bribe to Chinese officials in an effort to unfreeze a $1 billion tranche of crypto cash supposedly linked to a money-laundering inquiry. He may also face charges for violating campaign finance laws as part of a wide-ranging political-influence operation. And he’s likely to be sued by practically everyone he ever did business with. In June, dozens of lawsuits against Bankman-Fried, his colleagues, and FTX investors and celebrity spokespeople were combined into one giant blob of a legal proceeding known as a multidistrict litigation, with many more lawsuits still waiting to be filed. The legal afterlife of FTX—a company that existed for less than three years—should be much longer than
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Finance
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TechCrunch ☛ WeWork, once worth $47 billion, files for bankruptcy [Ed: It was never worth that much. It's just part of the "tech" Ponzi scheme, assigning totally fictional values to companies that barely make any money and are deep in debt.]
Flexible-office-space firm WeWork has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a remarkable collapse for the once high-flying startup co-founded by Adam Neumann and bankrolled by SoftBank, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.
The New York-based firm, which raised over $22 billion and was valued at $47 billion at its peak, has listed both assets and liabilities in the range of $10 billion to $50 billion in its petition filed in a New Jersey federal court.
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CNBC ☛ Citigroup considers deep job cuts for CEO Jane Fraser’s overhaul, called ‘Project Bora Bora’
Managers and consultants working on Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser’s reorganization have discussed job cuts of at least 10% in several major businesses, according to sources.
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The Kent Stater ☛ Bank deposit delays: Some customers still haven’t been paid
Some customers still haven’t received their direct deposit paychecks following a “human error” last week deep in the plumbing of America’s banking system. The deposit delays are linked to a problem that emerged on Friday with the Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments system, causing headaches for consumers and employers.
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LRT ☛ Lithuania desperate to attract more foreign banks – but none are coming
The highly concentrated banking sector in Lithuania, offering lofty profit margins, does not appear to invite more competition, despite the government’s efforts to attract new banks.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Central bank digital currency evolution in 2023: From investigation to preparation
Explore CBDC evolution in 2023, including key developments from central banks and what is next for the digital euro.
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WhichUK ☛ Which banks allow you to keep your account as an expat?
Barclays is closing UK accounts belonging to customers living overseas
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YLE ☛ One third of young people on social assistance in some parts of Helsinki
People receiving basic social assistance are far more likely to live in the capital's suburbs than in downtown neighbourhoods.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Futurism ☛ Twitter Desperately Trying to Sell Off Inactive Usernames
According to emails reviewed by Forbes, the @Handle team has even begun soliciting potential buyers by asking them to pay a $50,000 flat fee to start the purchase process. It's unclear how much more an inactive account buyer would have to pay to get access to any accounts they might want to purchase, but per those emails the magazine viewed, the company has purportedly updated its inactive username guidelines and fees.
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Reason ☛ Senate Resolution Would Send Federal Offenders Back to Prison 3 Years After Being Released to Home Confinement
The Bureau of Prisons released more than 12,000 people on home confinement during the pandemic. Three years later, Republicans want to overturn a Justice Department rule allowing those still serving sentences to stay home.
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Scoop News Group ☛ Europe is trading security for digital sovereignty
Notwithstanding the need for a more comprehensive cybersecurity regime in Europe, the Commission is looking at this the wrong way, with potentially unpredictable consequences. The inclusion of strict sovereignty and data localization requirements in the legislation means that non-European companies would be disqualified from participating in the scheme. According to a May 2023 leaked draft, sovereignty requirements are necessary to “provide guarantees about the independence from non-EU law” and, to this end, the highest level of security assurance will be issued for cloud services “operated only by companies in the EU, with no entity outside of the EU having effective control over CSP [cloud service provider], to mitigate the risk of non-EU interfering powers undermining EU regulations, norms and values”. Advertisement
Simply put, such a requirement would make it impossible for non-EU headquartered companies or EU companies with international investments and operations to function at the highest levels of EU cybersecurity and cloud environments, limiting competition in the cloud market significantly in favor of a European cloud industry that is yet to be fully formed. Of course, there is nothing wrong with Europe wanting to boost its own cloud market, but shutting itself off from competition and the global cybersecurity industry is, at best, misguided.
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Federal News Network ☛ All right, the White House has spoken on AI. Now What?
The recently released executive order on AI from the Biden Administration drew a lot of interest from technology professionals and interest groups. Everyone is glad the White House is focused on the issue. Federal News Network’s Eric White spoke with one expert observer: Barney Mccabe, the executive director of the University of Arizona’s Institute for Computation and Data Enabled Insight.
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Idiomdrottning ☛ Don’t ban e2ee
There are plenty of good reasons beyond privacy to not wanna attempt such a horrific lockdown.
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The Register UK ☛ Alibaba takes more of Salesforce behind the great firewall
In 2022, Salesforce shut its Hong Kong office and reduced its presence in China, leaning on Alibaba as a partner – a strategy that could assist the US vendor in navigating Chinese policies during increasingly tense US-Sino relations.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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VOA News ☛ Russia Baselessly Accuses Ukraine of Complicity in Dagestan Pogroms
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, reported that calls for violence seemingly “originated” from “Morning Dagestan,” a Russian-language channel on the Telegram messenger.
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Quartz ☛ Students are sharing AI-generated fake nudes of classmates—and there's no US federal law to stop them
But so far, there hasn’t been much in the way of resolution. The school, citing confidentiality, won’t share how many people are affected. Nor has it disclosed whether the students behind the deepfakes have been caught and will face disciplinary action.
This isn’t an isolated incident. Something similar happened in Spain in September. Also, public personalities, including congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson, and several YouTubers and Twitch streamers, have found themselves caught up in deepfake pornography scandals.
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Techdirt ☛ Human Beings Are Not Puppets, And We Should Probably Stop Acting Like They Are
A few years ago, we wrote about Joe Bernstein’s absolutely fantastic long read on how we’re probably all looking at the concept of disinformation wrong. As our title said, “most information on disinformation is misinformation.” The underlying thesis is that tons of people seem to believe that disinformation is this all powerful force that drives people to do things they never would have done otherwise, in absence of the disinformation.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Meduza ☛ Russian TikToker recently accused of making ‘pro-Ukrainian statements’ reportedly served military summons while on tour
Video footage published by the channels Baza and Ostorozhno, Novosti, show a man in civilian clothing speaking to the Internet celebrity while police officers stand nearby. According to Ostorozhno, Novosti, Minaev signed an acknowledgement that he had received the summons.
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Reason ☛ Is Restricting Pro-Israel-as-Jewish-Democracy Speech National Origin/Ethnicity Discrimination or Harassment?
Harvard concludes that it is, but I’m skeptical that this is right—just as I’d be skeptical that an employer’s restricting pro-Hamas speech constitutes such discrimination or harassment.
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Reason ☛ Harvard Kennedy School Professor's Rejecting Students' Class Project Discussing "Jewish Democracy" in Israel
was a violation of free speech principles, Harvard concludes.
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RFERL ☛ Hungarian Museum Director Fired For Allowing Minors Into Exhibition With LGBT Content
Hungarian Minister for Culture and Innovation Janos Csak has sacked the head of the National Museum for allowing under-18s into a World Press photo exhibition on its premises that displayed LGBT content.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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EFF ☛ Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 35.14 [Ed: "Digital Rights Updates [...] LISTEN ON YouTube" bit of a contradiction right there, but EFF takes bribes from Google]
Version 35, issue 14 is out now — you can read the full newsletter here, and subscribe to get the next issues in your inbox automatically. You can also listen to the audio version below:
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EFF ☛ EFF to Ninth Circuit: Activists’ Personal Information Unconstitutionally Collected by DHS Must Be Expunged
In 2019, the local San Diego affiliate for NBC News broke a shocking story: components of the federal government were conducting surveillance of journalists, lawyers, and activists thought to be associated with the so-called “migrant caravan” coming through Central America and Mexico.
The Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security, the agency’s watchdog, later reported that the U.S. government shared sensitive information with the Mexican government, and U.S. officials had improperly asked Mexican officials to deny entry into Mexico to Americans to prevent them from doing their jobs.
The ACLU of Southern California, representing three of these individuals, sued Customs & Border Protection (CBP), Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the FBI, in a case called Phillips v. CBP. The lawsuit argues, among other things, that the agencies collected information on the plaintiffs in violation of their First Amendment rights to free speech and free association, and that the illegally obtained information should be “expunged” or deleted from the agencies’ databases.
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Nicholas Tietz-Sokolsky ☛ Accessibility is a requirement, not a feature
Stop me if you've heard this one before: "We're putting accessibility (features) on the roadmap." Or this one: "We don't need to make it accessible since we don't have any blind users 1 ."
It belies an attitude that's all too common in the software industry: That accessibility is something you can build once and be done with. That it's an extra feature, not something core to a product. That it's optional, a business decision, to make your product accessible.
Just as with security, this is a misunderstanding of the nature of accessibility. Security is something you have to always think about, and always work on; you are never "done". And the same with accessibility.
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France24 ☛ Imprisoned Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammadi begins hunger strike
Imprisoned Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi began a hunger strike on Monday in protest against what she said was the jail's failure to give her access to medical care, the activist HRANA news agency reported.
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JURIST ☛ Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi begins hunger strike from Tehran prison cell
Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi began a hunger strike from her Tehran prison cell Monday, protesting the Iranian authorities’ alleged negligence towards sick inmates and the criminalization of women who refuse to wear the hijab.
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RFERL ☛ Imprisoned Nobel Laureate Mohammadi Launches Hunger Strike Over Lack Of Medical Care
Imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi has launched a hunger strike to protest against a lack of medical attention after prison officials twice blocked her access to urgently needed hospital care because she will not wear a head scarf.
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VOA News ☛ Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi Goes on Hunger Strike While Imprisoned in Iran
The decision by Mohammadi, 51, increases pressure on Iran's theocracy over her incarceration, a month after being awarded the Nobel for her years of activism despite a decadeslong campaign by the government targeting her.
Meanwhile, another incarcerated activist, the lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, reportedly needs medical care she has yet to receive. She was arrested while attending a funeral for a teenage girl who died under disputed circumstances in Tehran's Metro while not wearing a hijab.
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New York Times ☛ Imprisoned Nobel Winner and Iranian Rights Activist Begins a Hunger Strike
Narges Mohammadi is protesting the prison’s denial of hospital treatment for her heart condition, her family said. [...] Ms. Mohammadi is serving a 10-year sentence in the notorious Evin prison, on charges of “spreading propaganda against the state,” but she has continued to be a vocal critic of the government even from behind bars. Last week, she refused to cover her hair with the mandatory hijab when prison authorities wanted to transport her to a hospital. In response, they told her she would not be released for medical care, according to her husband, Taghi Rahmani.
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ACLU ☛ Organizing Across Prison Walls to Get Out the Vote in Virginia
Leading up to November 7, my fiance and I have been busy. I’ve been organizing events and roundtables, speaking to groups, canvassing, and doing outreach to help fellow Virginians understand just how important this election is. My fiance, Quadaire, has been writing editorials and speaking to the people around him, encouraging them to ask their loved ones to vote. He does this challenging work even though he can’t vote, because he’s currently serving his 15th year in a Virginia prison, where he has been since he was 20 years old.
We are both fighting an uphill battle: Many people have lost faith in the system, don’t believe their voice matters, and don’t understand how our state government works. We know that in Black communities in particular, voter suppression has led to a distrust in the system. But as I’ve been telling anyone who will listen, voting is how your voice gets heard in a world where people are only listening to what they want to hear.
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Site36 ☛ German police against Israel protest: Union only wants “small stationary rallies”
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Pro Publica ☛ What Can Happen When Kids Age Out of Foster Care in New Mexico
Last year, 63 kids in New Mexico turned 18 and aged out of foster care. It’s a fraught time; after spending their lives in a system that micromanages their every move, the teens are thrust into adulthood, left to fend for themselves while struggling with the aftereffects of a childhood often spent cycling among foster homes. Some thrive. Many do not.
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Site36 ☛ Prosecution against international Antifas in Budapest started, arrest warrants requested for 14 more
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RFERL ☛ Imprisoned Belarusian Nobel Laureate Byalyatski Placed In Solitary Confinement
Imprisoned Belarusian rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Byalyatski has been placed in punitive solitary confinement for alleged wrongdoings while in custody, the activist's wife, Natallya Pinchuk, said at the World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg on November 6.
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RFA ☛ Women saved from Thai factory were confined to room, barred from leaving
The 10 Myanmar nationals were freed after contacting a labor watchdog about their plight via Facebook (Farcebook) Messenger.
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New York Times ☛ Radio Journalist, ‘DJ Johnny Walker,’ Fatally Shot During Live Broadcast in the Philippines
A gunman shot and killed Juan Jumalon, known to his followers as D.J. Johnny Walker, while he was livestreaming his radio show on Facebook.
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Techdirt ☛ Ohio Lawmaker Wants To Criminally Charge Minors Who Watch Porn to Protect Minors. What?
In the latest chapter of my laziness writing on the crazy escapades of anti-porn Republicans for Techdirt, I wish to introduce you to Ohio state Rep. Steve Demetriou, who represents Bainbridge Township.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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APNIC ☛ How the cost of network ownership can change over time: Part 2
In case you missed it, we at TeleGeography are looking back at some previous hypothetical network scenarios to see how the cost of network ownership can change over time.
In my colleague’s post, Senior Research Manager Brianna Boudreau explored the first tiered scenario, which takes a conservative approach to integrating Internet services and SD-WAN into the WAN. If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to start there. Brianna’s post also provides important context about our hypothetical network and baseline dual MPLS network.
For Part 2 of this analysis, I’ll map out a second, less conservative tiered approach, then switch gears to our remote hybrid network.
Let’s dive in.
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APNIC ☛ Event Wrap: IGF 2023
APNIC and the APNIC Foundation actively participated in the IGF 2023, held in Kyoto, Japan from 8 to 12 October 2023.
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Hackaday ☛ Browsing The WWW On A 1980s IBM PC Using MicroWeb
Do you ever sit at your 1981 vintage IBM PC and get the urge to pop onto that newfangled ‘WWW’ to stay up to date on all the goings-on in the world? Fret not, because [Al’s Geek Lab] has you covered with a new video (also embedded below), which you will unfortunately have to watch on a device that was made at the very least in the late 1990s. What makes this feat possible is a miniscule web browser called MicroWeb, created by [jhhoward], that will happily run on an 8088 CPU or compatible, without requiring any fiddling with EMS or similar RAM extensions.
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RIPE ☛ Safeguarding Our Core Function in Difficult Times - The RIPE NCC Registry 2024
In the second article in a series focused on the RIPE NCC’s Draft Activity Plan and Budget 2024, I look at the core work within the Registry and how I see our plans shaping up for the future.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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More Layoffs At Netflix
Despite its expectation-beating third quarter, Netflix has laid off another small group of executives, this time in its drama and deals divisions.
The handful of executives affected include Alex Sapot, who was director of original series; Pete Corona, who was director of drama series; and Laura Delahaye, who was director, overall deals, according to Deadline.
Netflix had already laid off 150 executives in May, 300 in June and about 30 in September, bringing the total, with the latest included, to about 500.
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Techdirt ☛ Spotify Changes How It Pays Out Royalties To Try To Stop Scams; Upsets Indie Artists In The Process
A few weeks ago we had a story from Glyn Moody about how some people were effectively spamming music streaming services like Spotify with “functional music,” tracks designed to get plays solely for the sake of royalties. Glyn, reasonably, called for an “overhaul,” in how these systems worked.
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Monopolies
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CoryDoctorow ☛ Amazon is a ripoff
There's a cheat-code in US antitrust law, one that's been increasingly used since the Reagan administration, when the "consumer welfare" theory ("monopolies are fine, so long as the lower prices") shoved aside the long-established idea that antitrust law existed to prevent monopolies from forming at all.
The idea that a company can do anything to create or perpetuate a monopoly so long as its prices go down and/or its quality goes up is directly to blame for the rise of Big Tech. These companies burned through their investors' cash for years, selling goods and services below cost, or even giving stuff away for free. Think of Uber, who lost $0.41 on every dollar they brought in for their first 13 years of existence, a move that cost their investors (mostly Saudi royals) $31 billion.
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New York Times ☛ Another Google Antitrust Battle Reaches Court in Epic Games Case
If Epic wins, Google could be forced to alter its restrictive Play Store rules, allowing other companies to offer competing app stores and making it easier for developers to avoid the cut it collects from in-app purchases. Google generally takes a 15 percent fee for customer payments for app subscriptions and 30 percent for purchases made within apps that are downloaded from the store. (The company says 99 percent of developers qualify for a fee of 15 percent or lower on in-app purchases. Larger app makers like Epic must pay 30 percent.)
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Reason ☛ The Wildly Misleading Statistic at the Center of the FTC's Antitrust Case Against Amazon
Lina Khan says this number is crucial to understanding Amazon's monopoly power, but she's either confused or lying about what it means.
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Vice Media Group ☛ Realtor Influencers Are Freaking Out After $1.8 Billion Conspiracy Lawsuit
A class action lawsuit successfully argued that realty companies illegally conspired to create a system that is more expensive for home sellers.
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Techdirt ☛ Capcom: PC Game Mods Are Essentially Just Cheats By A Different Name
It truly is amazing that the video game industry is so heavily divided on the topic of user-made game mods. I truly don’t understand it. My take has always been very simple: mods are good for gamers and even better for game makers. Why? Simple, mods serve to extend the useful life of video games by adding new ways to play them and therefore making them more valuable, they can serve to fix or make better the original game thereby doing some of the game makers work for them for free, and can simply keep a classic game relevant decades later thanks to a dedicated group of fans of a franchise that continues to be a cash cow to this day.
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Patents
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NYPost ☛ Nike sues New Balance, Skechers for patent monopoly infringement over sneaker technology
Footwear giant Nike filed federal lawsuits on Monday against rivals New Balance and Skechers, accusing them of infringing patents related to Nike's technology for making upper portions of sneakers.
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Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ Brazilian government issues IP National Strategy guidelines for 2023-2025
On October 24, 2023, the Brazilian government released an Action Plan aiming at fostering the National Intellectual Property (IP) Strategy. The plan was prepared by the Interministry IP Group ( a group created in 2019 to coordinate the federal government activities in the field of intellectual property
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Rounding the Bend: Claim Construction and the Role of Extrinsic Evidence
The Federal Circuit’s bread-and-butter over the years has been claim constructions that often surprise or confuse district court judges. Part of the issue here is that most Federal Circuit judges have construed thousands of patents and are deeply immersed in the law of claim construction — while most district court judges see claim construction as a small part of a patent monopoly case, which itself is a small part of their overall docket. The other part of the issue, of course, is that no deference is given to the district court’s claim construction on appeal. The ensuing appeal then regularly turns out like that law school class where students seemed to provide really good answers in the Socratic game, but the professor could never resist tweaking — “almost right.”
The Actelion case involves a common situation where the patent monopoly claims include a measurement but do not state the level of precision, and the court is
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Software Patents
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EFF ☛ Congress Shouldn't Limit The Public's Right To Fight Bad Patents
If the bill passes, it would be a giant gift to patent trolls, who will be able to greatly increase the extortionate toll they demand from small businesses, software developers, and everyday internet users. EFF opposes the bill, and we’re reaching out to Congress to let them know they should stand with technology makers and users—not patent trolls.
Every year, hundreds of patent lawsuits are filed over everyday internet activities–“inventions” like watching ads (online), showing picture menus (online), sharing sports data (online), selling binders or organic produce (online), or clocking in to work (online).
The patents are usually controlled by “patent assertion entities,” also called patent trolls, which don’t actually do business or use the ideas themselves.
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Copyrights
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Torrent Freak ☛ Naver Webtoon: "150 Pirate Sites Shut Down" After Cloudflare DMCA Subpoena
In October we revealed details of a DMCA subpoena application filed by Naver Webtoon in the United States which listed over 350 'pirate' domains offering the company's comics illegally. Late last week, Naver suggested that after obtaining site operators' personal details from Cloudflare, around 150 sites with 2.5 billion annual visits subsequently shut down. While that's a huge claim, just one of those sites accounted for three quarters of a billion visits.
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Michael Geist ☛ The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 183: Andres Guadamuz on the Battle Over Copyright and Generative AI
Generative Hey Hi (AI) raises a host of interesting legal issues, but perhaps none will be more contentious than the intersection between copyright monopoly and services such as ChatGPT. The copyright monopoly questions apply both the creation of large language models used to train these systems as well as the copyright monopoly associated with outputs. These questions have sparked high profile class action lawsuits and government consultations on potential reform.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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[Old] Binary wrist watch 🤓
A couple of weeks back I bought a binary watch (well… binary-coded duodecimal/sexagesimal) on a whim. It was cheap and ugly but I figured it would be kind of fun to test myself a little. A quick mental puzzle whenever I want to know the time. 😀
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Sweet dreams are made of cheese
Given the title, take a wild guess which state of the United States I grew up in.
I suck at waiting. I don't like starting things I suspect I won't get the chance to properly finish. Waiting on someone else to be ready to do something - especially when it's something important to them, but you couldn't give a shit about - makes me wonder if bamboo shoots pounded under finger and/or toe nails is really as bad as it's said to be.
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Rubber Soul - moving out/procrastinating
I've had this compulson in my mind that I need to purchase The Beatles - Rubber Soul on vinyl, and specifically to pick this up around the time that I'm moving in with my partner (next weekend). I've been listening to this album a fair bit recently, and it's most likely this compulsion is that this record simply reminds me of this moment - and I want to have something material as a kind-of calendar item to mark the moment.
I've never lived with a partner before. I've never been in a relationship before that's in anyway as healthy and positive as the relationship I'm in right now - and I know the same is true for my partner as well. This weekend I made no plans at all, to free up my time to do nothing more than throw out a bunch of old stuff and pack up what I'll be taking with me when I move in with her next weekend. No plans, other than a plan to sort out my sh*t, and here I am booting up a terminal to tell this story here rather than do what I set out to do...
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YouTube's Flood From The Bottom of The Barrel
Over the last few weeks YouTube has been recommending me lots of random, obscure and boring videos.
Most of them have tens or hundreds of views at best. Banning their channels only makes more trash to crawl out from the outer darkness; and as the result I become enclosed in some sort of bubble.
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Re: You're Not Autistic! 65 Reasons You Can't Be Autistic
In this entry, I'll be responding to Paul Micallef's video "You’re Not Autistic! 65 Reasons You Can’t Be Autistic¹". I'll start by listing the reasons that I've personally experienced people tell me.
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Thoughts this Fall
Well, Brandon, I've been thinking about you a lot these days. I make a good deal of jokes about you being dead. Most of these jokes don't fly with my girls who are still struggling with you being gone. It really doesn't seem real to them because they did not get to go into the hospital when you were dying because of the COVID restrictions. I guess the point is we really miss you.
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Hobbies
So I know in my last note I said that the things I do that sure sound like hobbies aren't "hobbies", but I've been thinking about what we call hobbies all week. Specifically, I noticed something that other people have also identified, but I really *felt* it this last few weeks.
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My addiction to porn
I've never told anyone about this. I've been watching porn for more than 15 years. I can't fathom how much time I've wasted on browsing adult websites. My brain is wired to crave instant porn whenever I'm alone with my phone or laptop.
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You better you better you bet
Fun night. We stayed the night at a casino hotel located in our former home town (at most a mile from the house in which we used to live, as a matter of fact), meeting up with a couple of my wife's cousins, who were definitely in party mode.
I wound up sitting at a machine with my wife because the automated craps machine (the dice-rolling aspect) was seemingly down, a couple techs hovering over it, the screen normally showing a literal pair of large dice outcomes instead showing various diagnostic windows. It was probably for the best.
After the ups and downs of that mindlessness, we had a glorious "comp'd" dinner. My wife and I shared a double cheeseburger and some fantastic barbecued nachos. Lots of fun, playful (heh... originally typed 'playerful'..) conversation.
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🔤SpellBinding — BKORSTY Wordo: RUINS
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Critics and recommendations
A listener wrote in to Pauline Kael’s radio show (on KPFA) near the end of 1961 asking why her opinion on movies were inversely correlated to their popularity.
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Emptiness, meet emptiness
I mean, no wonder it so easily becomes a compulsive need, as though another post ought be started moments after uploading one - which, of course, quickly turns into inner angst over creating the appearance (i.e. giving the impression) of being compulsive - if not desperate.
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Getting droopy-eyed
Probably the most difficult aspects of smolnet for me is waiting: I want it all to happen so much more quickly.
But, of course, that happening meaningfully implies growing wherewithal/skills to take in, digest, and interact with more.
And wouldn't you know wherewithal/skills tend to wane with age?
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Politics and World Events
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Re: Stop Norway’s drills!
Grasping for things is rooted in insisting upon a modeling of reality wherein a subject self exists in contrast to all else, which in the context of said subject self is (which as fast as the speed of thinking-it-so quickly becomes "are") necessarily seen/modeled as objects - aka objectified - to be grasped/possessed/owned by said subject self. The grasping is a distorted attempt by subject/self to fill/address the emptiness of its separation with stuff/objects.
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So I Called Him Nazi
That dude is a narcissist. The shadow knows how comes narcs are popular, And each time I protest his behavior, the jerk laughs.
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Technology and Free Software
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Don’t ban e2ee
100% correct. He goes on to show a mildly steganographed public key system. Not undetectable but impressive for a demo.
I appreciate that Chisnall didn’t go the “lol sending csam is nbd” route that some “privacy advocacy groups” here in Sweden has so misguidedly headed down. [That is messed up].
Most people outside of the hacker community think that other people’s privacy is only creepy.
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Run your own Syncthing relay server on OpenBSD
In earlier blog posts, I covered the program Syncthing and its features, then how to self-host a discovery server. I'll finish the series with the syncthing relay server.
The Syncthing relay is the component that receives file from a peer to transmit it to the other when two peers can't establish a direct connection, by default Syncthing uses its huge worldwide community pool of relays. However, while data are encrypted, this leaks some information and some relays may be malicious and store files until it could be possible to make use of the content (weakness in encryption algorithm, better computers etc…).
Running your own Syncthing relay server will allow you to secure the whole synchronization between peers.
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Blogging From Windows
I still plan to add a dedicated Linux drive to this PC in the future, but until then it seems like this will do nicely.
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My favorite no-code and low-code game tools
I signed up to make a game for someone as a surprise for the Secret Santa 2021 event on Glorious Trainwrecks, a website for experimental lo-fi game makers that's over a decade old.
I first learned about Glorious Trainwrecks from reading Rise of the Videogame Zinesters. It's from 2012 but still relevant. In the book, Anna Anthropy describes her journey to becoming a game maker, her own particular approach, and a variety of games to try out (possibly a slightly dated list that may be harder to find) as well as suggested low-entry no-code or low-code tools to make a game.
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Porting a Playdate (Pulp) game to GameBoy (using GB Studio)
I've written before about why I use zero-code game making tools like Bitsy and Pulp [...] Making a game in GB Studio isn't a completely painless process (dialogue text doesn't automatically wrap, for example, and it's possible to set things up such that you get visual glitches that are only visible at runtime), but it's relatively easy to use, doesn't require writing any code, and can be used to make several different kinds of games.
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Going UTC
Switching to UTC is not without problems. Local solar time with noon when the sun is more or less overhead has various advantages. Maybe less so when the local timezone is "too wide" and you're on an edge? Sunclocks are not the most useful of things in the Pacific Northwest. There is (or was) one on the side of a building by the Burke-Gilman trail, and it would most often be unusable (clouds, or the winter sun-b-gone thing) or off by an hour because of Daylight Saving Time (DST).
Some may need to interact with people who do use a local timezone. In particular one may set UTC at the system level, but then may need to generate events in a local timezone. cron(8) may not support scheduling events in multiple timezones, so you may need something fancier, or to regenerate the cron jobs (for UTC) following each DST wobble: more complexity, higher risk of bugs. Or on certain systems the timezone could be set to a local one, but then not all the systems are the same, which can cause bugs.
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Internet/Gemini
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At long last, I'm back on BBS!
I did the math on whether or not it was worth it to procure replacement parts, some special tools, possibly, and then gamble even getting it right with the repair AND that there's not more stuff inside which my untrained (for verifying integrity of a board, anyway) eyes would miss.
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Programming
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Converting binary to decimal quickly
I first learnt binary as a kid at school and on a few (admittedly rare) occasions it has been useful to know it for my day job (I work in IT). However, in all honesty, it is primarily just something I use to read my binary watch.
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* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.