Links 27/01/2024: Microsoft Fires Almost Half the Staff in Toys For Bob, Media Expresses Concerns About Microsoft's Growing Debt Levels
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Techdirt ☛ How To Bell The AI Cat?
Deciding how we want AIs to behave may be useful as an aspirational goal, but it tempts us to spend all our time on the easy part, and perhaps cede too much power up front to those who claim to have the answers.
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Jeff Bridgforth ☛ Blogging and me
People and Blogs is an ongoing series by Manuel Moreale where he asks people to talk about themselves and their blogs. I just started reading the series a couple of months ago. I thought it would be fun to share a little bit about myself by using his interview questions.
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Fred Herbert ☛ Counting Forest Fires
Today I'm hitting my 3 years mark at Honeycomb, and so I thought I'd re-publish one of my favorite short blog posts written over there, Counting Forest Fires, which has become my go-to argument when discussing incident metrics when asked to count outages and incidents.
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Greg Morris ☛ High vs Low-Energy Tasks
This week, I’ve had two lengthy meetings at the end of the working day. Important, interesting meetings, but exhausting, and it brought to mind the often overlooked skill of scheduling things for the best possible time.
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Cory Dransfeldt ☛ You don't need a framework for that
That we've spent years conflating sites and applications feels like a failure of education and imagination.
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Dan Langille ☛ Using a third party tool to drive tarsnap backups
The selling point of this tool:
"By default, 31 daily, 12 monthly, and indefinite yearly backups are kept."
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Zach Flower ☛ Post-Mortem Incident Report Do's and Don'ts
As mentioned in this week's Sunday Reboot, I've recovered a few of my old posts from the Wayback Machine—all from my time at the now shut-down Fixate.io (via their blog, Sweetcode). This is the first of those posts, which I believe was originally written for VictorOps but ultimately scrapped for whatever reason.
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Björn Wärmedal ☛ Not Yet, Apparently. (Also: Outage)
I have yet to get an offer for a used computer at work, but I'm no longer resigned to using my current work computer for Blender projects.
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Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Ran Prieur
This is the 22nd edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Ran Prieur and his blog, ranprieur.com
Ran's an interesting character to say the least and his site reflects that. I especially love the very old school vibe.
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Nicolas Magand ☛ Collecting too many links
So far, it works. Actually, I’ve never been so well organised when it comes to saving links, and it makes me proud of myself. It works so well in fact that I am now submerged in cool links and articles to read.
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Wouter Groeneveld ☛ How To Search The Internet
Thanks to the multi billion dollar advertisement industry, searching for something on the internet has devolved from a joyous Altavista guess-the-keywords activity to a tiring chore where one has to wade through endless pools of generated SEO-optimized crap, hollow company blogs with more social media link embeds than actual content, and Reddit flame wars than ever before. In short: great stuff.
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Reason ☛ No, Blocking Traffic Is Not Protected by the First Amendment
Some folks may disagree. That is indisputably their right, and I'm thankful for that. Also not in dispute: It is not their right to detain people, no matter how righteous they believe their cause to be.
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Science
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The Scientist ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Online U of A course outlines how to remove structural barriers for Indigenous science
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The Conversation ☛ Spreadsheet errors can have disastrous consequences – yet we keep making the same mistakes
The above is just a fraction of the spreadsheet errors that are regularly made by various organisations.
Spreadsheets represent unknown risks in the form of errors, privacy violations, trade secrets and compliance violations. Yet they are also critical for the way many organisations make their decisions. For this reason, they have been described by experts as the “dark matter” of corporate IT.
Industry studies show that 90% of spreadsheets containing more than 150 rows have at least one major mistake.
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Futurism ☛ Gene Therapy Administered Via Virus Cures Deafness in 11-Year-Old Boy
Dam's deafness was due to a mutation to a gene called otoferlin, according to the news outlet. The gene makes a protein that's a key component in relaying sound between the inner ear and brain, but a mutated version of the otoferlin gene impedes this process, impacting around 200,000 people across the globe.
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Engadget ☛ NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter has flown on Mars for the final time
After three years of service, NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter has flown on Mars for the last time. Earlier this month, during its 72nd flight, Ingenuity stopped communicating with the Perseverance rover. Although NASA later reestablished contact with the helicopter, it emerged that at least one of Ingenuity's carbon fiber rotor blades was damaged during a landing on January 18th. The helicopter is upright and is still in contact with ground controllers, but it's no longer capable of flight.
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CS Monitor ☛ ‘The little helicopter that could’: Ingenuity takes final Mars flight
Originally slated for a 30-day mission, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter shouldered three years of discovery, achieving the first controlled flights on another planet and helping engineers push the limits of space exploration.
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PC Mag ☛ NASA's Ingenuity Forced to Retire After Damaging Copter Blade During Mars Flight
In addition, Ingenuity was able to fly repeatedly even though Mars has a far thinner atmosphere, at less than 1%, compared to Earth. “What Ingenuity accomplished far exceeded what we thought possible,” Nelson said.
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NASA ☛ After Three Years on Mars, NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Mission Ends
With flight operations now concluded, the Ingenuity team will perform final tests on helicopter systems and download the remaining imagery and data in Ingenuity’s onboard memory. The Perseverance rover is currently too far away to attempt to image the helicopter at its final airfield.
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NASA ☛ Mars Helicopter
Completing 128.8 flying minutes, covering 10.5 miles (17.0 km), and reaching altitudes as high as 78.7 ft (24.0 m)
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Education
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Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Kitchen Essentials: An Interview with Stephanie Orphan of arXiv
Continuing our Kitchen Essentials series of interviews with leaders of infrastructure organizations, today we’re hearing from Stephanie Orphan, Program Director of arXiv, the e-print repository that serves a number of scientific and quantitative fields.
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Science X Network ☛ Writing by hand may increase brain connectivity more than typing on a keyboard
High-density EEGs, which measure electrical activity in the brain using 256 small sensors sewn in a net and placed over the head, were recorded for five seconds for every prompt.
Connectivity of different brain regions increased when participants wrote by hand, but not when they typed. "Our findings suggest that visual and movement information obtained through precisely controlled hand movements when using a pen contribute extensively to the brain's connectivity patterns that promote learning," van der Meer said.
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New York Times ☛ College Is All About Curiosity. And That Requires Free Speech.
The controversy began with criticisms of some universities, Harvard included, for soft-pedaling their responses to the horrific Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and for then ignoring the overheated rhetoric of many pro-Palestinian protesters on campus. It has since spiraled into a full-bore battle in the never-ending culture wars.
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Dan Langille ☛ Clearing out multiple drives – while watching Band of Brothers
This time, I thought I’d be clever and try all the commands at once. And I detached the new-session via tmux (avoid the nested tmux sessions from before).
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Stephen Smith ☛ Fun With an Inexpensive Oscilloscope
Oscilloscopes used to be quite expensive pieces of kit, usually beyond the means of casual hobbyists. Nowadays there is quite a selection of inexpensive oscilloscopes on the market and I purchased a FNIRSI 1014D on Prime day for $200 CAD. This is a dual channel 100MHz Oscilloscope which also has a built-in signal generator. At that price, you can’t lose. If you want to measure computer speeds in the GHz range, then you need a much more expensive device; but, for plotting frequencies under 100MHz and generating signals of a few MHz it is ideal.
The screen is quite nice and readable. The controls are simple enough and there are some good youtube videos on how to use the scope. The documentation is quite terse, so watch the videos.
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Ruben Schade ☛ Is it worth collecting cassettes in 2024?
The too long, didn’t read is: if you want, but maybe not modern tapes! Wow that’s a terrible setup for a post; pretend I recorded something profound here instead. On Metal, with Dolby C.
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Computer History ☛ Insanely Great: The Apple Mac at 40
In January 1984, Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple Macintosh, an "insanely great" computer "for the rest of us" that changed the world—and Apple itself. Exemplifying a (counter) culture of changemakers, the Mac brought the graphical user interface to the masses and launched new connections for computing and creativity. It became the foundation upon which Apple built an empire and grew into the world's largest company.
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Daniel Stenberg ☛ Logitech G915 TKL
Keyboards belongs in this annoying category of products that are really hard to figure out and get a proper feel for ahead of time even if you would be able to try them out before purchase. They pretty much require that we use them for a while before we can tell for sure we like them and want to stay with them many hours every day for the next several years.
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Stephen Hackett ☛ The Premier Issue of Macworld Magazine
The entire thing is safe and sound over on the Internet Archive, and I suggest you spend some time flipping through it. Andrew Fluegelman’s feature on the making of the machine starts on page 126 and includes writing from Andy Hertzfeld, Joanna Hoffman, Bill Atkinson, Chris Espinosa, Susan Kare, Burrell Smith and more.
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Jarrod Blundy ☛ Happy 40th, Mac
Update: Oh, and since we’re all doing it, my first Mac was the first Intel MacBook Pro — perhaps the greatest gift I’ve ever received — as a hand-me-down from my best friend Robert. Before I got that laptop, which we fondly referred to as “Lappy”, I had been running Windows XP, which I fully customized to resemble Mac OS X’s Aqua interface. However, it couldn’t compare to the real deal, and I’ve never looked back.
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Luke Harris ☛ The Macintosh is 40, here are all the Macs I have ever owned
Hey! It’s been 40 years since the start of a product line. Let’s celebrate. Yay capitalism!
Sarcasm about our product-obsessed culture aside, I’ll gladly leap at any excuse to write about computers I used to own. It feels great remembering the little adventures me and the plastic thinking boxes had together. I have been obsessed with Macs in particular since before my teen years, and it’s hard to curb my enthusiasm for them. Some people were obsessed with collectible card games and Nintendo, I was obsessed with Macs. Same thing.
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Matt Birchler ☛ Here’s to another 40 🎂
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Macworld ☛ The Mac at 40: Iconic, indelible, immortal
And yet today marks the 40th anniversary of the Macintosh. While it has certainly seen its ups and downs over the intervening years, it’s a device that has nevertheless been in constant production since the day Apple co-founder Steve Jobs first took the wraps off it back in 1984.
In that time, it’s run on four different processor architectures and two major operating systems, making it a bit of a computer of Theseus. It’s seen challengers rise and fall, and been threatened with extinction more than once, and yet for all of that has emerged in recent years revitalized and stronger than ever.
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Mike Rockwell ☛ My First Macintosh
In late 2006 I purchased a base model MacBook with a 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 512MB of RAM, and a 60GB hard drive.
Apple made a big deal about how upgradable these machines were — the memory slots and hard drive were accessible behind a metal plate inside the battery compartment. I upgraded the hard drive and memory myself, ending up with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive.
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Rob Knight ☛ My First Mac
My first Mac was a 2009 27” iMac. It was a Christmas present from my parents. I had asked for a Mac Mini so a iMac was a big upgrade. I asked for the mini partly because it was cheaper and partly because I already had a (really crappy) monitor. I think it technically belonged to my dad’s company for tax reasons and I did do some work for him at least once so all good Mr tax man, nothing to see here.
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Scott Willsey ☛ Mac 40
Personally, I started early on the Mac. My dad bought us matching 128K Macs the first year they came out. My Mac was upgraded to Fat Mac and then Mac Plus, and it served me far longer than it had any right to. By the time I got a current at the time PC at a discount from my employer, my Mac was way past its useful lifespan.
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[Old] Rolling Stone ☛ The Birth of the Mac: Rolling Stone’s 1984 Feature on Steve Jobs and his Whiz Kids
Can a $2500 computer, weighing under twenty pounds and taking up no more desk space than a piece of paper, change the world? Improve your life? Foil Orwell’s prophecies? Save Apple from the clutches of IBM?
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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University of Michigan ☛ The impact of video game therapy at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital
On the third Saturday of every month, dozens of patients at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital experience an unusual type of treatment: video game therapy.
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TruthOut ☛ 2024-01-17 [Older] Food Insecurity in Prison Makes People Like Me Vulnerable to Labor Exploitation
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Rach Smith ☛ A not so casual gamer
I was a few days in to having the games on my phone when I remembered why I deleted them last time. These games interfere with my life. I have good phone boundaries when I’m with my kids, doing work, or working out, but I had spent every other bit of spare “me” time merging and matching. I wasn’t going to bed on time.
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Antivaxxers write about “lessons learned” but know nothing
This week has been a bit busy, to the point where I wasn’t sure if I was going to write anything before Saturday. Then I saw an antivaxxer with whom regular readers here are familiar, Steve Kirsch, promoting an article about “lessons learned” during the pandemic:
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Collabora ☛ WhisperFusion: Ultra-low latency conversations with an Hey Hi (AI) chatbot
By creating a real-time Hey Hi (AI) chatbot communication system using WhisperLive and WhisperSpeech, we have addressed the unnatural delay in current bot interactions for seamless conversation.
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Investopedia ☛ Salesforce Cuts 700 Jobs in Latest Big Tech Layoff
Salesforce (CRM) shares ticked 0.6% higher in intraday trading Friday following reports it's laying off 700 workers or around 1% of its workforce, in the latest of a series of job cuts.1
The move by Salesforce comes amid a wave of recent tech industry layoffs at companies including Microsoft (MSFT), Google (GOOGL), and Amazon (AMZN), among others.
However, Salesforce is still reportedly hiring for 1,000 open roles across the company, indicating the cuts could reflect an adjustment in the company's labor force.
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Crash Bandicoot studio Toys For Bob loses 40% of staff due to Microsoft layoffs
Toys for Bob is a fairly small team with only 85 people, which makes the layoffs pretty grim given that the studio lost around 40 per cent of their workforce.
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The Gamer ☛ Crash And Spyro Developer Reportedly Loses 40 Percent Of Staff In Layoffs
Reports suggest that Toys for Bob has been hit hard by the Microsoft layoffs, with some sources saying that the developer has lost up to 40 percent of its staff. This comes just after Microsoft acquired Toys for Bob's parent company, Activision Blizzard, in a deal that cost almost $70 billion.
Toys for Bob was best known in recent years for its work on the revivals of both Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. However, after the release of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, its developers were instead put to work on the Call of Duty series. The only exception here was the live service Crash Team Rumble, which was met with mixed reviews.
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Chris McLeod ☛ Generative AI for Blogging: Revisited
About 6 months ago I did an experiment with using generative AI tools to write blog posts. It was part of a wider “understand if this stuff is useful and what its limitations are” exercise I needed to go through for work; it’s a hot topic and I needed to understand it - which involved using it, basically. I usually learn best by doing
In the end I wrote 3 posts using “GenAI”, using a couple of different methods (ranked in order from least satisfying result to “most satisfying”): [...]
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404 Media ☛ We Need Your Email Address
The long answer is that, through our own reporting, we are realizing that in order to combat the fracturing of social media platforms, a Google discoverability crisis fueled by AI generated spam and AI-fueled SEO, and a media business environment that is in utter freefall, we need to be able to reach our readers directly using a platform that we own and control. To do that, we need your email address.
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Bruce Schneier ☛ Chatbots and Human Conversation
If chatbots truly become the dominant daily conversation partner for some people, there is an acute risk that these users will adopt a lexicon of AI commands even when talking to other humans. Rather than speaking with empathy, subtlety, and nuance, we’ll be trained to speak with the cold precision of a programmer talking to a computer. The colorful aphorisms and anecdotes that give conversations their inherently human quality, but that often confound large language models, could begin to vanish from the human discourse.
For precedent, one need only look at the ways that bot accounts already degrade digital discourse on social media, inflaming passions with crudely programmed responses to deeply emotional topics; they arguably played a role in sowing discord and polarizing voters in the 2016 election. But AI companions are likely to be a far larger part of some users’ social circle than the bots of today, potentially having a much larger impact on how those people use language and navigate relationships. What is unclear is whether this will negatively affect one user in a billion or a large portion of them.
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Futurism ☛ OpenAI Failing to Destroy Contraband AI Girlfriends Flooding GPT Store
Given the clear proliferation of obviously rule-breaking chatbots, including some that have been available for multiple weeks or months, the company's statement rings awfully hollow.
Indeed, when searching the GPT Store using keywords like "girlfriend," "romantic," and "horny," Futurism found chatbots that should obviously be prohibited — some of which seem, per their stated age, to predate the public opening of the marketplace.
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Futurism ☛ Chatbots Are Developing an Understanding of the World, Scientists Claim
Using random graphs — mathematical objects where the lines between points on a graph can be selected at random — to exemplify the unexpected behavior of LLMs, the duo determined that these models not only seem to be developing skills absent from their training data, but that they also seem to be using more than one skill at a time as they grow.
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The Register UK ☛ FBI recruits Amazon Rekognition AI to hunt down 'nudity, weapons, explosives'
The FBI plans to use Amazon's controversial Rekognition cloud service "to extract information and insights from lawfully acquired images and videos," according to US Justice Department documents.
In its Agency Inventory of AI Use Cases, the DOJ lists the project, code-named Tyr, as being in the "initiation" phase for the FBI, which intends to customize and use the technology "to review and identify items containing nudity, weapons, explosives, and other identifying information."
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Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Seems To Use Debt Rather Sparingly [Ed: This article is way out of date. The debt is a lot higher now. Nobody audits Microsoft's bank balances.]
We could understand if investors are concerned about Microsoft's liabilities [...]
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Security
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Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
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Scoop News Group ☛ IRS changes public password policies to match NIST guidance
The IRS will no longer require password changes every 60 days for public-facing portals and is now enforcing a minimum length of 14 characters, moves that align the tax agency with National Institute of Standards and Technology guidelines and are intended to improve efficiencies.
In guidance shared with Scoop News Group that was issued Monday, the IRS’s Office of Safeguards noted that these changes would match agency protocols with the best practices detailed in NIST SP 800-63B, a document titled “Digital Identity Guidelines: Authentication and Lifecycle Management.”
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Privacy/Surveillance
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New York Times ☛ N.S.A. Buys Americans’ Internet Data Without Warrants, Letter Says
The disclosure comes amid congressional scrutiny and a Federal Trade Commission crackdown on commercial data brokers.
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-26 [Older] National Security Agency Buys Web Browsing Data Without Warrant, Letter Shows
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] Is the Digital Diplomacy Strategy Able to Protect Data Privacy Security in Business?
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Truthdig ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Report: Each Facebook User Is Tracked by Thousands of Companies
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Engadget ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Facebook and Instagram will block DMs to teens unless they're from a friend
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Gizmodo ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Creeps Will Have a Harder Time Sliding Into Instagram and Facebook DMs
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Gizmodo ☛ iPhone Apps Secretly Harvest Data When They Send You Notifications, Researchers Find
iPhone apps including Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X/Twitter are skirting Apple’s privacy rules to collect user data through notifications, according to tests by security researchers at Mysk Inc., an app development company. Users sometimes close apps to stop them from collecting data in the background, but this technique gets around that protection. The data is unnecessary for processing notifications, the researchers said, and seems related to analytics, advertising, and tracking users across different apps and devices. Some of the companies involved said these findings are inaccurate.
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Scoop News Group ☛ OMB seeks input on privacy impact assessments for AI use
OMB is asking specifically for comments on topics such as risks related to AI that agencies might consider when completing privacy impact statements — which agencies use to analyze the handling of information — and updates OMB might make to guidance to improve how agencies address and mitigate those risks.
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Defence/Aggression
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CNN ☛ Israel attacks: UNRWA head fires staff members allegedly involved in October 7 | CNN
The UN relief agency operating in Gaza said Friday that Israel had accused some of its staff of being involved in the October 7 attacks, and that their contracts would be immediately terminated.
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BIA Net ☛ PACE: 'Torture and ill-treatment becoming more widespread in Turkey'
Despite the official authorities' "zero tolerance for torture and ill-treatment" message in Turkey, incidents of torture and ill-treatment have increased in recent years in detentions and prisons, states a new Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe resolution.
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Defence Web ☛ Looser gun laws could deepen Nigeria’s security crisis
Despite Nigeria’s strict gun ownership laws, the country remains the region’s largest illicit small arms market, adding to the nation’s dire security crisis. Inefficient law enforcement and security services have led to an exasperated citizenry willing to do anything to protect their lives and livelihoods.
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-26 [Older] Blinken Playing Catch Up with China and Russia in Africa
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Defence Web ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Looser gun laws could deepen Nigeria’s security crisis
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Maritime Diplomacy in the ASEAN Maritime Security Strategic Partnership
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CBC ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] It's getting really expensive to protect MPs from threats
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Counter Punch ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Overcoming the Obstacles to UN Maintenance of International Peace and Security
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Beyond Old Wars, New Fears: Rethinking Security in a 21st Century World
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] President Sisi Says Egypt Will Not Allow Any Threat to Somalia or Its Security
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ANF News ☛ 2024-01-20 [Older] Internal Security Forces dismantle ISIS cell
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Vox ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] The Supreme Court says no, Texas can’t use razor wire to restrain federal agents
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Defence Web ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] SAPS Commissioner hosts his Namibian counterpart to share expertise, insights
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Harvard University ☛ Will tech change what it means to be human? And does it matter?
When thinking about the ethics of AI, Sandel told the crowd, there are four familiar worries: One has to do with computers stealing human jobs, another with computers amplifying human biases. The third common objection concerns privacy and the fourth, democratic decay.
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US News And World Report ☛ Michigan's Arab American Leaders Shun Biden Campaign, Ahead of President's Visit
Biden's support for Israel could cost him votes in battleground states like Michigan, where Arab Americans account for 5% of the vote and Biden's margin of victory over former President Donald Trump was less than 3%. An October poll showed Biden's support among Arab Americans had plunged to 17% from 59% in 2020.
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Bastian Allgeier ☛ My grandpa was a Nazi
I wondered for many years, how all of this could have happened. How people like my grandpa turned into monsters and people around him watched or turned into monsters with him.
The last years made this very clear.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok is Eyeing Another Big Music Move, This Time in Nashville
But government officials in Tennessee have been among those most outspoken about TikTok’s US presence, given increasing federal concern surrounding consumer protections and the platform’s ownership by Chinese company ByteDance.
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Salon ☛ "It’s not game over – it’s game on": why 2024 is an inflection point for the climate crisis
But we must do more than take our foot off the warming accelerator – we must slam on the brakes. To avoid the worst of the climate crisis, global emissions must roughly halve by 2030. The task is monumental but possible, and could not be more urgent. It’s not game over – it’s game on.
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uni Case Western Reserve ☛ BookTok or BookToxic?
Yet, as much as BookTok is a driving force in the publishing industry—spawning best-sellers left and right while welcoming new readers along the way—it has swamped reading in senseless commercialism. Bookstores now have entire bays dedicated to books marketed with the sign “as seen on TikTok.” BookTokers receive loads of books from publishers to artfully show off on their platforms, but that never reappear on the channel. Nonetheless, people hop onto the bandwagon: They want to be in on “what everybody is talking about.” Really, they want to be able to say they have read a lot of books because that is equated with “knowing things.” And when you “know things” you are granted a generous stake in cultural capital. Who would refuse the titles of being “well-versed,” “cultured” and “literary?”
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Democracy Now ☛ International Court of Justice Orders Israel to Prevent Genocide in Gaza But Fails to Order Ceasefire
In a highly anticipated ruling, the International Court of Justice at The Hague has found that there is a “real and imminent risk” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and supported “at least some” of the provisional measures South Africa had requested when it brought the case in order to rein in Israel’s military assault. Though the ruling falls short of calling for an immediate ceasefire, analysts say it is nevertheless a significant milestone. We discuss the “unprecedented” decision by the World Court with a panel of experts: Palestinian human rights attorney Diana Buttu, genocide scholar Raz Segal and scholar of colonialism Mahmood Mamdani. “It becomes imperative upon the world community to now act,” says Buttu. “This is the beginning of a process of isolating Israel,” adds Segal.
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Vox ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] It’s not your imagination. There has been more war lately.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Ukraine seeks missiles after Germany promises helicopters
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Europe buying Russian oil via India at record rates
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NL Times ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Netherlands arrests 3 in international smuggling ring in violation of Russia sanctions
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CBC ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Russia says 74 dead, no survivors, in crash of plane carrying Ukrainian PoWs
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CBC ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Ceding land to Russia would be occupation disguised as peace, Ukrainian Nobel Prize winner says
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russian military transport plane crashes
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] Ukraine updates: Poland's Tusk visits Kyiv, pledges support
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] The UN Refugee Chief Says That He's Worried That the War in Ukraine Is Being Forgotten
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Forms Business Council After Outcry Over Banker's Arrest
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Vows to Help Business After Banker's Detention
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] Senators Are Racing to Win Support for a Border Deal as Aid to Ukraine Hangs in the Balance
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] Poland's Tusk Arrives in Ukrainian Capital Kyiv
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Ukraine updates: Defense aid deals underway, says Zelenskyy
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Ukraine updates: Donetsk reports 27 dead in market shelling
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The Age AU ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] 'There is no limit': Kostyuk proud of fellow Ukrainians
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-20 [Older] How Germany fudges the math on NATO and Ukraine
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-20 [Older] Ukraine updates: Kyiv calls on allies for more weapons
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NL Times ☛ 2024-01-26 [Older] MH17 convict Igor Girkin gets 4 years in prison in Russia for “extremism”
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-26 [Older] Finns Go to the Polls Sunday to Elect a New President at a Time of Increased Tension With Russia
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Russia sentences woman to 27 years for war blogger's death
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International Business Times ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Britain Must Train Citizen Army To Prepare For War With Russia, Says UK Army Chief
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The Age AU ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] British army chief: UK must train citizens for war with Russia
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The Age AU ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Russia accuses Kyiv of downing military transport plane, killing all 74 aboard
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International Business Times ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Russian Plane Carrying 65 Ukrainian Prisoners Of War Crashes Near Ukraine
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Russia's Top Diplomat Accuses US, South Korea and Japan of Preparing for War With North Korea
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Ukraine Says It Shoots Down 11 of 14 Russian Drones
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Samsung Elec Considering Leasing Russia Factory - Media
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] China Seals Closer Uzbek Ties, Pushes Railway Route Bypassing Russia
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Oil Refinery in Southern Russia Ablaze -News Agencies Quote Officials
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Plane Crash in Western Russia - What We Know and Don't Know
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Putin Meets Chad Junta Leader as Russia Competes With France in Africa
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Russia Seeks Emergency UN Security Council Session on Plane Crash
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Ukraine Says Russia Did Not Ask It to Ensure Air Space Security Where Russian Plane Crashed
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] US Senate Panel Backs 'Big Hammer' Plan to Seize Russian Assets to Help Ukraine
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-23 [Older] ISW analyses Russia’s deceptive claims on war in Ukraine at UN Security Council
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-23 [Older] How Russia won the sanctions war with the West
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CBC ☛ 2024-01-23 [Older] Canada sending more equipment to Ukraine as full-scale war with Russia nears 2-year mark
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-23 [Older] Ukraine updates: Several killed in Russian missile strikes
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-23 [Older] Blinken Pitches the US as an Alternative to Russia's Wagner in Africa’s Troubled Sahel
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-23 [Older] Russia's Lavrov Talks Middle East With Iran, Turkey, Lebanon
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] Putin grants Russian citizenship to US boxer Kevin Johnson
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Scheerpost ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] Patrick Lawrence: Russia’s Turn From the West
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International Business Times ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] Russian Charter Plane With Six People On Board Crashes In Afghanistan
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The Local SE ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] Russian group behind hacker attack on Swedish authorities and retailers
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] Russia Says It Pressed Hamas to Free Hostages During Moscow Delegation Visit
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-18 [Older] Why are many Russians freezing in their homes this winter?
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Engadget ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] Russian state-sponsored hackers accessed the emails of Microsoft’s ‘senior leadership’ [Ed: A better headline: Microsoft fails to protect its own systems, tries to blame "Russia"]
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] Microsoft Says State-Backed Russian Hackers Accessed Emails of Senior Leadership Team Members
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International Business Times ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] Russian 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva Pulls Off Remarkable Third Round Victory At Australian Open
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] Asylum Seekers 'Missing' After Crossing Russia Border to Finland
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] More Than 1,000 Rally in Russian Region in Continuing Protests Over Activist's Jailing
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] Russian Prosecutor Asks Court to Jail Woman Accused of Killing War Blogger for 28 Years - RIA
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] Australia Imposes Sanctions on Russian Hacker Over Medibank Breach
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] Russia Clashes With US and Ukraine Supporters, Ruling Out Any Peace Plan Backed by Kyiv and the West
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] Russia's Navalny Says He Is Forced to Listen to Pro-Putin Singer Every Morning
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Paul Le Blanc on the Meaning of Lenin
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Russian communists mark 100 year since Lenin's death
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Russian plane crashes in northeastern Afghanistan mountains
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] North Korea Stresses Alignment With Russia Against US and Says Putin Could Visit at an Early Date
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Two Russian Sailors Held in Mozambique as Financial Hostages, Moscow Says
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] A Century After Lenin's Death, the USSR's Founder Seems to Be an Afterthought in Modern Russia
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Twenty-Five Killed After Ukraine Shells Russian-Controlled City of Donetsk, Officials Say
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Fire at Novatek's Terminal Caused by Explosions - Russia's RIA Agency
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Fire Erupts at Russia's Novatek Baltic Sea Terminal After Suspected Ukrainian Drone Attack
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Four Survived Jet Crash in Afghanistan, Fate of Two Others Being Confirmed - Russia
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] NATO's Steadfast Defender Exercises Mark Return to Cold War Schemes, Russia Says
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Officials Report at Least 25 Dead in Shelling of a Market in Russian-Occupied Ukraine
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Russian Flight Carrying 6 Disappears Over Afghanistan; Crash Reported
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Russia Takes Village in Ukraine's Kharkiv Region -Defence Ministry
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] Two Russian Nationals Were Passengers on Jet Which Went Missing Over Afghanistan - TASS
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-21 [Older] West Stands to Lose at Least $288 Billion in Assets if Russian Assets Seized -RIA
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-20 [Older] Russia’s Geopolitical Ambitions and Propaganda in the New Era in Africa
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-20 [Older] Microsoft says Russian hackers accessed executives' emails
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-20 [Older] Russia to Consider Law on Property Confiscation for 'Fakes' About Army
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-20 [Older] Russia Will Consider Property Confiscations for Those Convicted of Discrediting the Army
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-20 [Older] Zelenskyy Calls Trump's Rhetoric About Ukraine's War With Russia 'Very Dangerous'
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] Russian Language Still Divides Russia and Baltics
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Counter Punch ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] D. F. Fleming’s and Arnold Toynbee’s Lessons of Russian History as a Way of Understanding the War in Ukraine
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] Ukraine updates: Drone sparks fire at Russian oil depot
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-26 [Older] The Associated Press Wins DuPont-Columbia Award for Ukraine War Documentary '20 Days in Mariupol'
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Ukraine updates: Kyiv calls for probe into plane crash
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-20 [Older] Zelenskiy Counts on More Western Defence Aid for Ukraine in Next Two Months
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-26 [Older] Belarus Investigates Some 20 Analysts Over 'Harming National Security'
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Defence Web ☛ 2024-01-23 [Older] Moscow conference “exposed” South Africa to practical security strategies
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Defence Web ☛ 2024-01-23 [Older] Moscow conference “exposed” South Africa to practical security strategies
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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The Dissenter ☛ Unauthorized Disclosure: Matthew Hoh
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Futurism ☛ Boeing Door Scandal Grows With New Whistleblower
"The reason the door blew off is stated in black and white in Boeing’s own records," the whistleblower wrote in a note on an aviation website. "It is also very, very stupid and speaks volumes about the quality culture at certain portions of the business."
The whistleblower's allegations line up with findings by National Transportation Safety Board investigators, who found that certain bolts had not been installed, which likely led to the door plug getting ripped out.
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RFERL ☛ How A Russian Fighter-Jet Manufacturer Continued To Import Western Aviation Parts Despite Sanctions
Among Yakovlev's best-known aircraft are the multipurpose fighter jets Su-30MK and Su-30CM, both of which have seen wide use in Russia's nearly two-year-old invasion of Ukraine. The company also produces the Yak-130 training jet, and components for the Airbus A320 passenger jet as well as the Russian passenger jets MC-21 and Sukhoi Superjet 100.
RFE/RL obtained the data with the help of C4ADS, a nonprofit data-analysis and global-research organization based in Washington, D.C.
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Environment
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International Business Times ☛ European Union Reports Drastic Reduction In Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Lowest In 60 Years
In 2023, the European Union emitted eight per cent less carbon dioxide from its fossil fuel consumption compared to 2022.
This reduction in emissions is the most significant annual decline since 2020, when governments implemented measures like closing factories and restricting air travel to combat the spread of COVID-19, according to an analysis conducted by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea).
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Energy/Transportation
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-26 [Older] UN: Global Trade Is Being Disrupted by Red Sea Attacks, War in Ukraine and Low Water in Panama Canal
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Johan Bleuzen ☛ Enable your « eco-design » feature by default
Just like those websites, does hiding video, animation, maps will make your navigation less enjoyable ? I don’t think so. Will it bother users to have to click a button to play a video ? I think they’ll survive… My final word on this will be : «Don’t create Eco-mode things», just use it and if you think that it’s necessary to have a «full power» mode add one ! But please save your time and just make it the default for your users…
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DeSmog ☛ This NGO Won a Climate Case Against Shell. Its Next Target? Dutch Bank ING
When Royal Dutch Shell lost a landmark climate lawsuit in The Netherlands, climate advocates said the Dutch court’s ruling put polluters and their financiers on notice. Now, the Dutch NGO that successfully sued Shell over its climate plans is taking those financial backers to court in a case that could help reverse the global banking sector’s support of fossil fuel firms and their activities.
On January 19, Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) announced it is initiating legal action against ING, the Netherlands’ largest bank and a major funder of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG). In a letter addressed to ING CEO Steven van Rijswijk and the first step in litigation, Milieudefensie says it believes the bank is in breach of its “duty of care” obligation under Dutch law. “ING’s climate policy is miles away from what is necessary to achieve the 1.5°C target,” the letter asserts, referring to the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious climate objective. Since that agreement’s adoption in December 2015, ING has issued 83.2 billion Euros in bonds to the fossil fuel industry, Milieudefensie says.
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DeSmog ☛ LNG Canada May Detonate World’s 6th Largest ‘Carbon Bomb,’ Expert Warns
Canada is on the path to detonating the world’s sixth largest “carbon bomb” thanks to new and planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities on the northwest coast of British Columbia, an international climate researcher is warning.
Those projects include LNG Canada, a $40 billion export facility led by the oil and gas company Shell that could begin shipping LNG exports to Asia next year, as well as Cedar LNG, a proposed facility owned in part by the Haisla First Nation that received environmental approval from the B.C. government last year.
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Overpopulation
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Salon ☛ Groundwater resources are drying up across the globe. New research suggests we can fight the drip
Humans rely on groundwater for many things, but especially our food. Roughly 30 percent of all the planet's available freshwater comes from groundwater, or water that is found underground in the spaces between rocks, soil and sand. It is primarily used for agriculture and billions of humans are dependent on it, facing severe food deprivation without it. A study published this month in Nature Water even details how aquifer depletion also makes it harder to resist historic droughts, such as the record-breaking dry spells unleashed by climate change.
Which makes it pretty alarming that groundwater levels are dropping across the globe, often at increasing rates, as new research in the journal Nature have now estimated the full scope of the problem: Groundwater is on the decline in 71% of the aquifers studied.
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Finance
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Chinese yuan vs U.S. dollar in Africa
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Quartz ☛ Big Tech's investments in AI has regulators asking Microsoft, Amazon, and Google some questions
“History shows that new technologies can create new markets and healthy competition. As companies race to develop and monetize AI, we must guard against tactics that foreclose this opportunity,” Lina Khan, the FTC chair, said in a statement Thursday. “Our study will shed light on whether investments and partnerships pursued by dominant companies risk distorting innovation and undermining fair competition.”
The FTC is seeking information on specific investments or partnerships, including agreements and the strategic rationale behind them; the practical implications of specific partnerships; analysis of the transactions’ competitive impact; competition for AI inputs and resources; and information provided to any other government entity.
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Kev Quirk ☛ Why I Don't Write About Security
I love what I do for a living; I'm a passionate cyber security professional. So why don't I write about it here on the blog?
Well, I kinda do. I occasionally write posts that are tangentially related to what I spend many, many hours every week doing, but you're unlikely to find posts here about the latest breaches, leadership, or tends in the cyber security space.
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The Register UK ☛ Wait, security courses aren't a requirement to graduate with a computer science degree?
The University of California, San Diego, for the record, is the only school in the top 24 with a computer science and engineering program that does list security as an undergraduate degree requirement, although it's unclear if that's really the case from the college's curriculum.
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Antipope ☛ Same bullshit, new tin
Let's look at infrastructure first: if you have conscripts, it follows that you need to provide uniforms, food, and beds for them. Less obviously, you need NCOs to shout at them and teach them to brush their teeth and tie their bootlaces (because a certain proportion of your intake will have missed out on the basics). The barracks that used to be used for a large conscript army were all demolished or sold off decades ago, we don't have half a million spare army uniforms sitting in a warehouse somewhere, and the army doesn't currently have ten thousand or more spare training sergeants sitting idle.
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Emmanuel Maggiori ☛ Is Silicon Valley a Ponzi scheme?
In 2012, the Kauffman Foundation, an American non-profit organization, decided to analyze its past twenty years of investing in VC funds as a limited partner, or LP, meaning that it paid money into the fund without managing it. The foundation published a worrying result: The VC funds in which they invested tended to report to them an exceedingly high performance during the first two years. That coincided with the period during which their managers were trying to raise a new fund (VC firms raise new funds every 2.5 years on average). After the first two years passed, the reported performance dropped dramatically and remained low: [...]
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1981 Media Ltd ☛ Ruiner studio Reikon Games has reportedly laid off around 80% off its staff
According to sources speaking to Kotaku, layoffs have taken place at the independent studio, which is based in Poland.
Kotaku’s sources say that around four out of every five employees at Reikon have been laid off, making for a total of “60 to 70 people”.
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US House Of Representatives ☛ Congressman Joe Morelle Takes Action To End AI Generated Deepfake Pornography
Today, Congressman Joe Morelle announced he has authored bipartisan legislation to stop the spread of deepfake pornography generated by artificial intelligence (AI)—HR 3106, the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act. He was joined Dorota and Francesca Mani who are working to pass HR 3106 after their difficulty finding help when Francesca and her classmates were the target of deepfakes at a New Jersey High School.
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Andreas ☛ Reflections on Pacifism
I listened to an interview with a high ranking German military officer recently, and he said in order to be able to successfully defend ourselves, we have to be able to fight a war, and this also means we have to able to win a war, otherwise there’s no point to it. And as much as I hate to admit it, but I can’t argue with this. So I will have to inject some more realism into my core beliefs in the future.
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FAIR ☛ Monifa Bandele on Reimagining Public Safety, Svante Myrick on Roadblocks to Voting
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FAIR ☛ For NYT’s Baker, 2024 Is About ‘Disparate Visions’—Not Threat to Democracy
The New York Times‘ post–New Hampshire analysis of the presidential election by the paper’s senior White House correspondent, Peter Baker, bodes very poorly for how coverage of the 2024 election will proceed.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok’s Move Into Nashville Sparks Political Blowback—Senator Blackburn Comes Out Fighting as Big Plans Emerge
TikTok is expanding its offices across the United States, moving into Nashville and expanding its Seattle offices. But the move into Nashville has sparked some political backlash.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Is Reportedly Testing a 30-Minute Upload Limit As Aggressive Long-Form Expansion Continues
Evidence suggests that Fentanylware (TikTok) is once again preparing to increase the maximum allowed length of video uploads, this time to 30 minutes.
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Vox ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] Would you dump someone if they didn’t peel you an orange? [Ed: TikTok is getting spam pieces from Vox, which tries to treat that as "news"]
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Vox ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] The nine-month cruise that took over TikTok [Ed: Same here]
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CBC ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Understanding 'loud budgeting,' TikTok's newest finance trend [Ed: And here]
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Vox ☛ 2024-01-22 [Older] The complicated lives and deaths of TikTok’s illness influencers [Ed: "illness influencers"... Vox is doing lots of spam for TikTok. Does that distract from the layoffs?]
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International Business Times ☛ 2024-01-25 [Older] TikTok Shop Is Raising Its Seller Fees And Getting Rid Of Huge Discounts [Ed: Trying to get a "hook" on the market, the way Saudi-funded Uber did]
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Engadget ☛ 2024-01-23 [Older] TikTok is laying off workers to cut costs
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-20 [Older] South Africa looking to halt auction of Mandela memorabilia
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VOA News ☛ Taliban Arrest Poet, Magazine Editor, Family Members Say
Zawab is renowned for his critical poetry, which some social media users speculate may have contributed to his arrest. He had faced previous arrests and imprisonment during the former Afghan government because of his critical poetry. Zawab has been critical of mullahs, the mujaheddins and what he called corrupt officials of the country without naming anyone.
Zawab serves as the editor of Meena (Love) magazine published in eastern Afghanistan and owns a bookstore in Kabul.
Since regaining power in August 2021, the Taliban suspended Afghanistan's constitution and revoked most laws implemented over the past two decades. According to the Afghanistan Journalist Center, the Taliban arrested 61 journalists in 2023.
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International Business Times ☛ Freedom of Expression Under Scrutiny as UK Authorities Suppress Environmental Activism
In the face of the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, Michel Forst, the UN expert on environmental defenders, asserted that environmental protesters, acting for the "benefit of us all," must be safeguarded.
During a recent two-day visit to the UK, Forst unearthed troubling information about the treatment of peaceful protesters.
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Worldcrunch ☛ This Happened—January 7: Charlie Hebdo Attack In Paris
Two days after the attack, as the police closed in on the Charlie Hebdo suspects, their accomplice, Amedy Coulibaly murdered four Jewish hostages and held fifteen other hostages during a siege of a kosher supermarket in Paris.
On Jan. 11 about two million people marched in Paris in a rally of national unity. The staff of Charlie Hebdo continued with the publication. The following issue had almost eight million copies in six languages, compared to its typical print run of 60,000 in French.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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JURIST ☛ US appeals court denies wrongful arrest claim from Texas journalist
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied Tuesday the appeal of Texas citizen journalist Priscilla Villarreal, who claimed that her arrest for misuse of information was unconstitutional. Villarreal had brought a civil rights claim against the city of Laredo, Texas over her 2018 arrest.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-24 [Older] Wiretapping scandal in Ukraine: Journalists under pressure
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HRW ☛ 2024-01-19 [Older] Several Investigative Journalists Under Pressure in Ukraine
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[Old] Variety ☛ Penske Media Takes Full Ownership of Rolling Stone
Penske Media Corporation (PMC) has purchased the remaining 49% stake in Rolling Stone from BandLab Technologies, giving the company full ownership of the venerable magazine, including all event and licensing rights, and the parallel entity Rolling Stone International.
In December 2017, PMC acquired a controlling interest in Wenner Media, parent company of Rolling Stone, at a valuation just over $100 million, according to sources close to the transaction.
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[Old] Vanity Fair ☛ Jay Penske Gobbles Up the Remaining 49 Percent of Rolling Stone
I’ve learned that effective January 22, P.M.C. purchased the 49 percent of Rolling Stone it didn’t already own, from minority owner BandLab Technologies. That gives P.M.C. full control of the legendary music brand, including its events, licensing rights, and international editions. Terms of the purchase could not be confirmed, but BandLab invested $40 million for its shares in the publication, while Penske’s initial stake—which brought an end to Wenner’s 50 years of ownership—cost him around $50 million. (In early 2018, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund gave P.M.C. a $200 million cash infusion, providing Penske with a checkbook for further acquisitions. Later in the year, following the killing of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, corporate America’s deep ties to the Saudis came under scrutiny.) Penske traveled from Los Angeles to New York on Thursday to deliver the news to Rolling Stone’s staff. P.M.C. also owns Deadline, Hollywood Life, Robb Report, and other titles.
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Press Gazette ☛ Culture Secretary wants new Telegraph sale investigation after corporate structure changes
The move was prompted by Redbird IMI making changes to the corporate structure of the potential acquiring entities of TMG.
The Delaware limited liability corporation Redbird IMI Media Joint Venture LLC was the sole shareholder of RB Investco Ltd, the company with the right to buy The Telegraph.
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BIA Net ☛ Journalist who suffered attack from mayor's relatives sentenced to prison
Tatvan Mayor Mehmet Emin Geylani's relatives, a police officer and a municipal employee, had physically assaulted journalist Sinan Aygül in the middle of the street. In the case concerning attack, Aygül has been sentenced to 2 months and 5 days in prison for allegedly insulting the assailants.
The Tatvan 1st Penal Court handled the case through a simplified trial process, refraining from categorizing the action as a reaction to an "unjust act." Considering Aygül's "culpable character," the court refrained from converting the penalty into a fine, leaving Aygül facing imprisonment if the sentence is upheld.
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RFERL ☛ 'It's All Becoming Less Bearable': RFE/RL Journalist Alsu Kurmasheva Marks 100 Days In Russian Custody
The "foreign agent" charge carries a maximum prison term of five years, while the second charge is punishable by up to 10 years. Kurmasheva and RFE/RL deny the allegations and say Moscow is punishing her for her journalistic work.
A dual U.S.-Russian citizen, Kurmasheva has not been granted consular access in jail. Russia has denied three U.S. requests to visit her in detention.
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404 Media ☛ Behind the Blog: AI-Generated Harm and Our Journalism Business
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ ‘I just want my money back’: Hong Kong delivery platform workers denied compensation seek labour protections
Yin started working for the Zeek delivery platform as a “fixed-route” rider in early 2021. For several months he had to wait for his salary, and in December 2022 the company shut down altogether.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-23 [Older] How East Africans countered colonial repression
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ADF ☛ 2024-01-23 [Older] India’s Approach to Africa Envisions Developing ‘Together as Equals’
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Kansas Reflector ☛ Who owns the past? Tribes and state historians ask lawmakers to decide on Shawnee Indian Mission
The mission school housed almost 200 Native American students at its peak, the majority of whom were from the Shawnee Tribe. The school is one of an estimated 408 federal schools set up between 1819 through the 1970s, many of which have a troubled history of trauma and abuse that has only recently begun to be discussed on a national level.
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Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Head of Tibetan government-in-exile and representative of Dalai Lama visit Riigikogu
The visit was organized by Juku-Kalle Raid, the chair of the Tibet Support Group in the Riigikogu. The meeting was accompanied by scientific presentations on the history of Tibet.
"Despite being a small country, Estonia is one of the 27 members of the European Union and has the same rights as every other country in Europe to speak out for justice, for freedom and European values," Tsering said.
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Rolling Stone ☛ Swifties Want a Massive Crackdown on AI-Generated Nudes. They Won’t Get One
Swift’s superstardom, signs of Congressional support, and a highly motivated stan army would seem to promise powerful momentum for any attempt to eradicate these nonconsensual AI nudes. But that crusade will come up against a thorny and forbidding set of complications, according to civil liberty experts — no matter how fired up the Swifties are.
“They’re a huge force, and they advocated,” says Katharine Trendacosta, director of policy and advocacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on internet users’ privacy and free expression. “But they did that after Ticketmaster, and we somehow still have Ticketmaster,” she adds, referring to Swifties savaging the company as a price-gouging monopoly (and in some cases even filing lawsuits) due to its mishandling of ticket sales for Swift’s Eras Tour. In the AI fight, too, Trendacosta says, we’ll see “the unstoppable movement of the Swifties versus the immovable object that is the legislature,” a Congress slow to respond to “basically anything.”
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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APNIC ☛ Digging into the Orange España Hack
Guest Post: Investigating the unique manipulation of RPKI used in Orange España's recent outage.
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ACLU ☛ More than 20 Million People Are About to Lose Internet Access. The ACLU is Fighting to Keep Us Connected.
For people across the country, reliable internet access allows them to engage with the world. Think about your day – how many times did you go online, and what were you able to accomplish? This April, however, 23 million households are likely to lose access to affordable internet unless Congress acts now to fund the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), a federal broadband subsidy for low-income households.
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PowerDNS ☛ PowerDNS supports the launch of 1&1’s 5G network
At the end of last year, 1&1 announced the availability of its 5G network for mobile internet subscribers in Germany – this made 1&1 the fourth network provider in Germany, alongside Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica. It was also, according to final case law in Germany, the launch of “the most modern 5G network in Europe”, based on the use of the innovative Open RAN (Open Radio Access Network) technology.
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Silicon Angle ☛ To comply with EU law, Fashion Company Apple opens door to third-party app stores in Europe
Apple Inc. today announced changes to iOS, Safari and its App Store in the European Union to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act, most notably allowing for third-party app stores in Europe in the upcoming iOS 17.4 update scheduled for release in March.
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Silicon Angle ☛ FTC launches inquiry into tech giants’ investments in Proprietary Chaffbot Company and Anthropic
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission today launched a competition inquiry that focuses on five of the largest players in the generative artificial intelligence market. The companies in question are Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc., Surveillance Giant Google parent Alphabet Inc., Anthropic PBC and OpenAI. Last January, Abusive Monopolist Microsoft reportedly invested $10 billion in Proprietary Chaffbot Company for a 49% stake.
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CoryDoctorow ☛ The long sleep of capitalism's watchdogs
Attentive readers will have noticed that there is an intrinsic tension in an arrangement where someone is paid by a company to certify its honesty. The company gets to decide who its auditors are, and those auditors are dependent on the company for future business. To manage this conflict of interest, auditors swear fealty to a professional code of ethics, and are themselves overseen by professional boards with the power to issue fines and ban cheaters.
Enter monopolization. Over the past 40 years, the US government conducted a failed experiment in allowing companies to form monopolies on the theory that these would be "efficient." From Boeing to Facebook, Cigna to InBev, Warner to Microsoft, it has been a catastrophe. The American corporate landscape is dominated by vast, crumbling, ghastly companies whose bad products and worse corporate conduct are locked in a race to see who can attain the most depraved enshittification quickest.
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The Register UK ☛ Apple redecorates its iPhone prison to appease Europe
The iPhone is a computer; you just can't use it as one most of the time because it's a closed system. You're not free to install software that Apple has not approved, unless you "jailbreak" the device – the very term suggesting unlawful transgression rather than a right that follows from ownership.
In instances where the iPhone actually serves as a vehicle for free thought, like among Chinese democracy supporters, Apple may just throw a spanner in the works by altering the behavior of a function like AirDrop because local authorities fear unmonitored communication.
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Matt Birchler ☛ Some quick thoughts on Apple’s new iOS rules for the EU
Speaking of competition, I don’t think they were required to do this, but Apple lowered their commission from all App Store sales in the EU to 17% or 10% depending on if a developer is in the small business program. At the same time, Apple has added a “Core Technology Fee” which will be €0.50 per “first annual install per year over a 1 million threshold” which seems to mean you can distribute your app for free, but once it hits 1 million installs in a year, you owe Apple €0.50 for each install. That may not be the end of the world for a paid app, but it could ruin you if your free app goes viral and you don’t monetize it. You can avoid this new fee by sticking with the old terms, which is what seems to be the right thing to do for those not selling anything in their app.
Adding that the €0.50 fee is eerily similar to Unity's recent "runtime fee" that was received so horribly that the CEO was fired days after announcing it.
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Stephen Hackett ☛ Alternative Browsers Coming to EU iPhones
If this sounds a bit familiar, it’s because the EU has been down this road before.
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The Verge ☛ Spotify accuses Apple of ‘extortion’ with new App Store tax
Spotify — one of Apple’s biggest critics — says Apple’s new plan to comply with the European Union’s tech regulations is “a complete and total farce.” In a post published on Spotify’s website, the company calls Apple’s new app installation fee “extortion, plain and simple” and says Apple is trying to force developers not to leave its store.
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Bryce Wray ☛ A sandwich in the blind: Apple and the DMA
After Apple’s actions take effect in a few weeks (due to a DMA-imposed deadline), non-EU web developers will be under pressure to make their websites work properly on any of multiple browsers from which EU-based users will be able to choose. The problem with that is: these devs will still be forced to use iOS browsers, or simulations thereof, that are actually just the WebKit-driven Safari under the hood; so how can they realistically account for the various differences that will almost certainly exist among all those different browsers?
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Trademarks
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Right of Publicity
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Jonathan Faber ☛ Two disturbing AI situations involving the Right of Publicity of George Carlin and Taylor Swift
I would hope that both of the stories breaking yesterday, one involving George Carlin’s estate and the other involving Taylor Swift, would find universal support in favor of the Right of Publicity.
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Futurism ☛ George Carlin Estate Sues Podcasters Over AI “Comedy Special"
Along with not having consent to use those routines, Hamza and his attorneys have also charged Sasso and Kultgen with misrepresenting Carlin's work and attempting to profit off of his "name, reputation, and likeness."
Indeed, in the description of the YouTube video in question, there are links to all kinds of Dudesy-related monetization, from the duo's merch store to their Patreon.
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Rolling Stone ☛ George Carlin Estate Sues Creators of AI-Generated Comedy Special: ‘Computer-Generated Click-Bait’
In a separate statement announcing the lawsuit Thursday, Kelly wrote: “My father was a legendary comedian and a once-in-a-lifetime talent whose legacy is the body of work that he left behind—his actual performances, albums and books. I understand and share the desire for more George Carlin. I, too, want more time with my father. But it is ridiculous to proclaim he has been ‘resurrected’ with AI.”
She continued, “The ‘George Carlin’ in that video is not the beautiful human who defined his generation and raised me with love. It is a poorly-executed facsimile cobbled together by unscrupulous individuals to capitalize on the extraordinary goodwill my father established with his adoring fanbase.”
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Simon Willison ☛ Did an AI write that hour-long “George Carlin” special? I’m not convinced.
Unsurprisingly this has resulted in a massive amount of angry coverage, including from Carlin’s own daughter (the Carlin estate have filed a lawsuit). Resurrecting people without their permission is clearly abhorrent.
But... did AI even write this? The author of this piece, Kyle Orland, started digging in.
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Futurism ☛ New Law Would Illegalize AI Taylor Swift Porn Flooding Internet
"Intimate deepfake images like those targeting Taylor Swift are disturbing, and sadly, they’re becoming more and more pervasive across the internet," Rep. Joe Morelle, a New York Democrat who earlier this month introduced a bill that would outlaw nonconsensual AI-generated porn, told Futurism in a statement. "I’m appalled this type of sexual exploitation isn’t a federal crime—which is why I introduced legislation to finally make it one."
Though Swift is now the most famous person to be targeted by these repulsive faux-smut peddlers, who proceeded to spread the images far and wide online this past week, she's far from the only one.
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[Old] TMZ ☛ Threatens Lawsuit Over Topless Photo
Swift's lawyers are pissed -- and fired over a letter to the site demanding it take down the post immediately ... or else she'll sue for trademark infringement.
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Futurism ☛ Taylor Swift Has Threatened Legal Action Over AI and Fake Nudes Before
As reports about the controversy indicate, many of the phony Swift nudes that ended up on social media were also uploaded to a site called Celeb Jihad, which has long been a spot for digitally altered images that purport to feature lascivious images of famous women.
Back in 2011, when these facsimiles were created by simply photoshopping a celeb's face onto nude photos of other women — all done, of course, without the consent of either — Swift's legal team was said to have threatened Celebrity Jihad posting fake "leaked" topless photos of her.
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Gizmodo ☛ The White House: Taylor Swift AI Porn Is "Alarming"
The Taylor Swift AI porn debacle seems to be snowballing into a full-blown national emergency and now the White House is involved. Yes, our nation’s executive branch weighed in on Taylor’s fake nudes on Friday, with the top WH spokesperson claiming that the government is concerned about the whole thing but isn’t quite sure what to do about it.
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The Verge ☛ White House calls for legislation to stop Taylor Swift AI fakes
The images spread across X in particular on Wednesday night, with one hitting 45 million views before being taken down. The platform was slow to respond, with the post staying up for around 17 hours. The images later spread to smaller accounts and are still available on X.
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Copyrights
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New York Times ☛ The Sleepy Copyright Office in the Middle of a High-Stakes Clash Over A.I.
In recent months, however, the office has suddenly found itself in the spotlight. Lobbyists for Microsoft, Google, and the music and news industries have asked to meet with Shira Perlmutter, the register of copyrights, and her staff. Thousands of artists, musicians and tech executives have written to the agency, and hundreds have asked to speak at listening sessions hosted by the office.
The attention stems from a first-of-its-kind review of copyright law that the Copyright Office is conducting in the age of artificial intelligence. The technology — which feeds off creative content — has upended traditional norms around copyright, which gives owners of books, movies and music the exclusive ability to distribute and copy their works.
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Press Gazette ☛ Publishers: Ditch Google search addiction or die
So, what’s the playbook for publishers in 2024? The answer is straightforward, but the execution will be challenging.
Every publisher must single-mindedly focus on obtaining and growing front-door direct traffic. Imagine Google, the malevolent (yes, I used that word) monopoly, ceases to send you traffic. Like the banks – please conduct this stress test immediately – publishers are not too big to fail. Though Google is currently risk-averse and doesn’t need to blow up publishing right now so there may be a stay of execution.
Ask yourself the following questions:
• Do you still have a business if Google ceases to send you traffic? [...]
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Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Let’s Be Cautious As We Cede Reading to Machines
The solution to ever more machine-generated texts isn’t necessarily more machine-generated curation. This is an arms race, in which neither side can win. More mid-range quality information curated by mid-range tools will not advance science in the best possible ways. We need to recognize that these tools can be used both for useful ends and malign purposes, and that we can learn from previous experience with waves of techno-euphoria. We need to maintain that better quality content and better quality results will only be maintained by human interactions with the process.
To this end, it makes sense to draw people’s attention to some of the problems associated with relying on machines to do the thinking for us. Below is a brief list of some of these issues: [...]
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EFF ☛ More Than a Decade Later, Site-Blocking Is Still Censorship
As Copyright Week comes to a close, it’s worth remembering why we have in it January. Twelve years ago, a diverse coalition of internet users, websites, and public interest activists took to the internet to protest SOPA/PIPA, proposed laws that would have, among other things, blocked access to websites if they were alleged to be used for copyright infringement. More than a decade on, there still is no way to do this without causing irreparable harm to legal online expression.
A lot has changed in twelve years. Among those changes is a major shift in how we, and legislators, view technology companies. What once were new innovations have become behemoths. And what once were underdogs are now the establishment.
What has not changed, however, is the fact that much of what internet platforms are used for is legal, protected, expression. Moreover, the typical users of those platforms are those without access to the megaphones of major studios, record labels, or publishers. Any attempt to resurrect SOPA/PIPA—no matter what it is rebranded as—remains a threat to that expression.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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