Links 13/03/2024: Chatbots Failing Quite Badly, TikTok in Trouble (US)
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM) Monopolies/Monopsonies
-
Leftovers
-
Tim Bornholdt ☛ Adding tagging to timbornholdt.com
But as I think through the best place to start, I'm resisting my urge to just blanket redesign the site without a plan. And the first step of that plan is to do the tedious work of going through my archives and adding tags to the old posts.
Tags aren't exactly a revolutionary new feature. It took me about a half hour to implement the basics, and then another day or so of tweaking the process of adding them to each post so I can do it quickly.
-
EAPL.mx ☛ [EN] Re: Micropower radio
Creating your own station is illegal, as in you need to buy an 'expensive concession and follow requirements from communications authority', being more expensive than the equipment to operate, and inconvenient for some messages. I see why pirate stations are appealing for some.
I worked as well in a college station although transmitting only by Internet and with some speakers around the campus. I was working in a project to build an FM station there. Sadly the university, being private, didn't approved required resources. The local public university still has a station though.
-
Eric Bailey ☛ Thoughts on embedding alternative text metadata into images
Another trend I see from time to time on social media is the idea that images should have alternative (alt) text descriptions included in their metadata. Like a lot of things accessibility-related, the idea contains nuance that needs unpacking.
At a high level, storing alt text as metadata is not a bad idea. In fact, reading the sentiment expressed makes me happy. It is a step above indifference or downright hostility—two frustratingly common reactions to asking someone to describe their images with text.
That said, the framing and presenting of the “storing alt text as metadata” as a technological concept itself also has some things to think through. Let’s unpack it.
-
Science
-
The Telegraph UK ☛ Shells collected during Captain Cook's final voyage rescued from skip
The shells were passed down to Atkinson’s grandson John Clayton (1792-1890), before being sold along with the Clayton estate in 1930, and entering the collection of Newcastle University.
Thereafter, the history of the collection seemed to stop, and experts believed the rare shells collected by Atkinson had simply been lost.
But it has now emerged that in the 1980’s the shells were thrown into a skip as part of a general clear-out before Buchanan spotted the specimens and took them home.
-
-
Education
-
Barry Hess ☛ Anti-Leadership
When bad things happen, no matter the organization, we look to leaders to step up and help us through to an outcome that gives us hope for a better future. This starts with helping to solve the immediate problem expediently. As the wider group is under a high degree of anxiety and panic, a leader’s calm demeanor is helpful. Sometimes they need to help the team step back, take a breath, and slow down decisions. Other times they need to communicate the direness of the situation, encouraging quick movement depending on past training and experience.
-
-
Hardware
-
Quartz ☛ 3D Wi-Fi could fix connection issues and change the technology
Most wireless communication relies on “planar” processors, meaning they’re essentially flat. Because they’re two-dimensional, they can only handle a limited range of frequencies at a given time. But unlocking a manufacturing process that lets you build chips in three dimensions could let hardware handle multiple frequencies at the same time. That could amount to a revolution.
-
-
Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
-
Latvia ☛ Tourist stays still 20% below pre-pandemic levels
The importance of foreign visitors to Latvia's tourism sector, and the size of the ongoing recovery from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic is made clear in new data published by Eurostat March 8.
-
JURIST ☛ France President Macron announces bill that would legalize assisted suicide
French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday in an exclusive interview with La Croix and Libération the outline of the French end-of-life bill, which opens the door for assisted dying in the country.
-
Lee Peterson ☛ The no podcasts for 30 days experiment
So I’m now into the second week of my break from podcasts so I thought I’d try a 30 day experiment.
-
University of Michigan ☛ Political rage on social media is making us cynical
They found that people who were exposed to more political attacks on social media were more politically cynical, and that perceived exposure to these attacks was associated with more anger about the state of the U.S., which was subsequently related to greater levels of political cynicism.
Their results, based on a panel survey of 1,800 American adults fielded during the 2020 election, were recently published in the International Journal of Press/Politics.
-
Air Force Times ☛ VA plans to trim 10,000 jobs this year, mostly from medical sites
The cuts represent about 2% of the total VA employee count of more than 458,000, the largest total in department history. VA has seen significant additions in staffing in recent years, adding more than 82,000 workers to the payroll since 2019.
-
Pro Publica ☛ New York Guardianship Services Was Supposed to Care for the Sick and Elderly. Instead, It Left Them Confused and Alone.
Across New York City, hundreds of vulnerable people have been entrusted to New York Guardianship Services, one of roughly a dozen companies the courts rely on to care for “the unbefriended,” those without family or friends to help them.
The state’s guardianship law is supposed to prevent these guardians from abusing, neglecting and defrauding those under their care. But, as ProPublica reported last week, the measure is failing to safeguard those who need protection the most.
-
-
Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
-
Quartz ☛ Google's Gemini AI chatbot won't answer some questions about elections
The news come just weeks after Google was forced to pause its AI model from generating images of people after users found it was making historically inaccurate and sometimes offensive photos.
“This wasn’t what we intended,” Google said in a blog post in February. “So we turned the image generation of people off and will work to improve it significantly before turning it back on.”
-
India Times ☛ ai rules: Sweeping EU rules on AI to pass final hurdle
EU lawmakers are poised to approve on Wednesday wide-ranging rules to govern artificial intelligence, including powerful systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT, marking the final major hurdle before formal adoption. Brussels has sprinted to pass the new law since OpenAI's Microsoft-backed ChatGPT arrived on the scene in late 2022, unleashing a new global AI race.
-
International Business Times ☛ Microsoft Scrambles To Block Copilot From Creating Nightmarish Images
Microsoft has tightened its safeguards for Copilot's image-generation AI after a staff engineer's report to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding potential risks of harmful content generation.
-
Krebs On Security ☛ Patch Tuesday, March 2024 Edition
Apple and Microsoft recently released software updates to fix dozens of security holes in their operating systems. Microsoft today patched at least 60 vulnerabilities in its Windows OS. Meanwhile, Apple’s new macOS Sonoma addresses at least 68 security weaknesses, and its latest update for iOS fixes two zero-day flaws.
-
404 Media ☛ Amazon's Hidden Chatbot Recommends Nazi Books and Lies About Amazon Working Conditions
An Amazon chatbot that’s supposed to surface useful information from customer reviews of specific products will also recommend a variety of racist books, lie about working conditions at Amazon, and write a cover letter for a job application with entirely made up work experience when asked, 404 Media has found.
-
New Statesman ☛ Why men shouldn’t control artificial intelligence
Few experts today believe that AI should be shut down entirely (or that it even can be). Most understand that AI comes with certain risks, particularly around privacy violations, creation of biased decision-making systems, mass surveillance and other forms of social control.
-
El País ☛ Marc Serramià: ‘If we all trust tools like ChatGPT, human knowledge will disappear’
Q. What dangers are we talking about?
A. There are many. One of them, on which I focus part of my research, is privacy. Even if we anonymize data, it is always possible to reverse engineer and infer things about you that are used for personalized advertising, to decide whether you are granted a bank loan or not, or for a potential employer to judge whether you are the profile they are looking for. This is what our work suggests: since we use algorithms to study you, why not use them for good things too, like learning your privacy preferences? In other words, if I tell you that I don’t want you to share my location, don’t ask me again. What we have proposed is that AI can learn from the user and can act as a representative in this process and define their preferences by predicting them from the information it has about them. We made a very simple AI tool and yet our data shows that it was able to predict actual user preferences with good reliability.
-
Quartz ☛ The ways AI has been and can be used to spill your secrets
As AI continues its ascent to world domination — albeit with some high-profile Chatbot stumbles along the way — it hasn’t had the best reputation for being secure. It has even been caught in the middle of the U.S. trade war with China.
From stolen trade secrets to broken guard rails, check out the slideshow above for some of the ways the emerging AI industry is struggling when it comes to keeping and spilling secrets.
-
arXiv ☛ ArtPrompt: ASCII Art-based Jailbreak Attacks against Aligned LLMs
Safety is critical to the usage of large language models (LLMs). Multiple techniques such as data filtering and supervised fine-tuning have been developed to strengthen LLM safety. However, currently known techniques presume that corpora used for safety alignment of LLMs are solely interpreted by semantics. This assumption, however, does not hold in real-world applications, which leads to severe vulnerabilities in LLMs. For example, users of forums often use ASCII art, a form of text-based art, to convey image information. In this paper, we propose a novel ASCII art-based jailbreak attack and introduce a comprehensive benchmark Vision-in-Text Challenge (ViTC) to evaluate the capabilities of LLMs in recognizing prompts that cannot be solely interpreted by semantics. We show that five SOTA LLMs (GPT-3.5, GPT-4, Gemini, Claude, and Llama2) struggle to recognize prompts provided in the form of ASCII art. Based on this observation, we develop the jailbreak attack ArtPrompt, which leverages the poor performance of LLMs in recognizing ASCII art to bypass safety measures and elicit undesired behaviors from LLMs. ArtPrompt only requires black-box access to the victim LLMs, making it a practical attack. We evaluate ArtPrompt on five SOTA LLMs, and show that ArtPrompt can effectively and efficiently induce undesired behaviors from all five LLMs.
-
[Repeat]Ubuntu ☛ Large Language Models (LLMs) Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) using Charmed OpenSearch
Large Language Models (LLMs) fall under the category of Generative AI (GenAI), an artificial intelligence type that produces content based on user-defined context. These models undergo training using an extensive dataset composed of trillions of combinations of words from natural language, enabling them to empower interactive and conversational applications across various scenarios.
Renowned LLMs like GPT, BERT, PaLM, and LLaMa can experience performance improvements by gaining access to additional structured and unstructured data. This additional data may include public or internal documents, websites, and various text forms and content. This methodology, termed retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), ensures that your conversational application generates accurate results with contextual relevance and domain-specific knowledge, even in areas where the pertinent facts were not part of the initial training dataset.
-
Silicon Angle ☛ How executive leaders can manage the impacts of the US executive order on AI
The EO sets forth new mandates, directives and guidance to ensure that developers and users of AI, including gen AI, proactively weigh AI value against AI harms to certain rights throughout the AI lifecycle. Consequently, the EO expands and repositions the risks of loss associated with responsible AI failures, which will affect current and future AI investments and the projected corresponding return on investment. With this in mind, public and private sector executive leaders should adjust leadership priorities, reconcile AI investment with redistributed risks of loss, and prepare today for a more regulated tomorrow.
-
Trail of Bits ☛ DARPA awards $1 million to Trail of Bits for AI Cyber Challenge
As we move beyond the initial phase of the competition, we’re eager to offer a sneak peek into the driving forces behind our approach, without spilling all of our secrets, of course. In a field where competitors often hold their cards close to their chests, we at Trail of Bits believe in the value of openness and sharing. Our motivation stems from more than just the desire to compete; it’s about contributing to a broader understanding and development within the cybersecurity community. While we navigate through this challenge with an eye on victory, our aim is also to foster a culture of transparency and collaboration, aligning with our deep-rooted open-source ethos.
-
The Register UK ☛ Singapore’s central bank says AI isn't ready for policy work
"The flexibility of this class of models is also a drawback: AI/ML models can be 'fragile' in that their output is often highly sensitive to the choice of model parameters or prompts provided," Edwards observed. Combined with opacity of output, "this flaw makes it difficult to parse the underlying drivers of the process being modelled."
-
Wired ☛ Why Elon Musk Had to Open Source Grok, His Answer to ChatGPT
Open sourcing Grok could help Musk drum up interest in his company’s AI. Limiting Grok access to only paid subscribers of X, one of the smaller global social platforms, means that it does not yet have the traction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. Releasing Grok could draw developers to use and build upon the model, and may ultimately help it reach more end users. That could provide xAI with data it can use to improve its technology.
-
-
Security
-
Privacy/Surveillance
-
Silicon Angle ☛ Report: Automakers might be secretly selling your driving data to insurance companies
Car companies have been selling their customers’ detailed driving behavior data to third-party brokers, possibly affecting the owners’ insurance premiums, according to a New York Times exposé published today that asks serious questions about privacy within the internet of things.
-
EFF ☛ Reject Nevada’s Attack on Encrypted Messaging, EFF Tells Court
The brief by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Nevada, the EFF, Stanford Internet Observatory Research Scholar Riana Pfefferkorn, and six other organizations asks the court to reject a request by Nevada’s attorney general to stop Meta from offering end-to-end encryption by default to Facebook Messenger users under 18 in the state. The brief was also signed by Access Now, Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), Fight for the Future, Internet Society, Mozilla, and Signal Messenger LLC.
Communications are safer when third parties can’t listen in on them. That’s why the EFF and others who care about privacy pushed Meta for years to make end-to-end encryption the default option in Messenger. Meta finally made the change, but Nevada wants to turn back the clock. As the brief notes, end-to-end encryption “means that even if someone intercepts the messages—whether they are a criminal, a domestic abuser, a foreign despot, or law enforcement—they will not be able to decipher or access the message.” The state of Nevada, however, bizarrely argues that young people would be better off without this protection.
“Encryption is the best tool we have for safeguarding our privacy and security online — and privacy and security are especially important for young people,” said EFF Surveillance Litigation Director Andrew Crocker. “Nevada’s argument that children need to be ‘protected’ from securely communicating isn’t just baffling; it’s dangerous.”
-
ACLU ☛ How to Protect Consumer Privacy and Free Speech
Technology is a necessity of modern life. People of all ages rely on it for everything from accessing information and connecting with others, to paying for goods, using transportation, getting work done, and speaking out about issues of the day. Without adequate privacy protections, technology can be co-opted to surveil us online and intrude on our private lives–not only by the government, but also by businesses–with grave consequences for our rights.
-
Wired ☛ US Lawmaker Cited NYC Protests in a Defense of Warrantless Spying
House lawmakers were expected to cast votes the following day to determine which of two rival bills would become law. While both aimed to reauthorize the 702 program, they shared little else in common. The first bill was backed by Turner and Jim Himes—HPSCI's leading Democrat—and had the support of the US intelligence community. The second, a bill chock full of privacy reforms, had been introduced by the House Judiciary Committee and was opposed by the Biden White House.
-
New York Times ☛ Dating Apps Have Hit a Wall. Can They Turn Things Around?
Both companies have recently brought on leaders who have vowed to experiment with new features, hoping to capture the growth investors crave. But they face one critical obstacle: Not enough young people are willing to pay for subscriptions to dating apps — partly because younger daters are increasingly looking to platforms like Snapchat and TikTok to make connections — and it’s not clear what will change that.
-
Quartz ☛ Cars now tell insurance companies what drivers do wrong
A chilling new report from the New York Times brings into focus what we in the automotive press has been saying for years and years: the mountains of data your car generates is unsecured, and it is being used without your knowledge or consent.
We’re likely all aware of the little dongle that insurance companies offer to drivers in the hopes that a babysat driver with cash on the line will behave like a safe driver. The only problem? People hate being watched, especially in their cars where there is supposed to be some semblance of privacy. It turns out, some automakers are skipping the whole “consent” business and allowing insurance companies to take a look at mountains of driving data without owner’s knowledge.
-
New York Times ☛ Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies
What it contained stunned him: more than 130 pages detailing each time he or his wife had driven the Bolt over the previous six months. It included the dates of 640 trips, their start and end times, the distance driven and an accounting of any speeding, hard braking or sharp accelerations. The only thing it didn’t have is where they had driven the car.
On a Thursday morning in June for example, the car had been driven 7.33 miles in 18 minutes; there had been two rapid accelerations and two incidents of hard braking.
-
CoryDoctorow ☛ Your car spies on you and rats you out to insurance companies (12 Mar 2024)
This is true whether you own or lease the car, and it's separate from the "black box" your insurer might have offered to you in exchange for a discount on your premiums. In other words, even if you say no to the insurer's carrot – a surveillance-based discount – they've got a stick in reserve: buying your nonconsensually harvested data on the open market.
-
El País ☛ Airbnb is banning the use of indoor security cameras in the platform’s listings worldwide
Airbnb said Monday that it’s banning the use of indoor security cameras in listings on its site around the world by the end of next month.
The San Francisco-based online rental platform said it is seeking to “simplify” its security-camera policy while prioritizing privacy.
-
The Verge ☛ Roku hackers breach 15,000 accounts and are selling them online
One saving grace is that the Roku accounts didn’t reveal social security numbers, full payment account numbers, or dates of birth. Roku says it has since “secured the accounts from further unauthorized access” by asking affected users to reset their passwords. It’s also working to cancel and refund unauthorized purchases. Even if you weren’t affected by this data breach, it still might be worth checking HaveIBeenPwned to see if any of your credentials have been exposed recently. It also couldn’t hurt to change your Roku password.
-
Gizmodo ☛ TikTok Is Allegedly Working on a New Photo App and Its Icon Looks Awfully Familiar
The developer AssembleDebug, who has been right in the past, recently spotted code indicating that TikTok was working on a new photo-sharing app called “TikTok Photos.” The code included language that TikTok Photos would be launched soon and implied that creators would be able to sync the photos they upload on TikTok to the new app automatically.
-
YLE ☛ Finland detects more GPS jammers as drivers increasingly try to hide their tracks
Authorities have found people using the jammers in company cars tracked by their employers. Lorry drivers also sometimes try to disrupt tachographs tracking where and when they are driving.
According to Juurakko-Lehikoinen, when a jammer is found turned on in company cars, for example, Traficom has contacted the firms that own the vehicles.
-
India Times ☛ eu commission microsoft privacy rules: EU Commission's use of Microsoft software breached privacy rules: watchdog
The European Commission's use of Microsoft software breached EU privacy rules and the bloc's executive also failed to implement adequate safeguards for personal data transferred to non-EU countries, the EU privacy watchdog said on Monday.
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) ordered the Commission to take measures to comply with privacy rules and to halt data transfer to the US company and subsidiaries located in third countries that do not have privacy deals with the EU, setting a deadline of December 9 for both orders.
-
Wired ☛ Airbnb Bans All Indoor Security Cameras
As of April 30, hosts around the world must remove indoor cameras and disclose other outdoor monitoring tech to guests before they book. Airbnb previously allowed hosts to install security cameras in common areas of a home, like hallways and living rooms. But it also required hosts to disclose them, make them clearly visible, and keep the cameras out of places like sleeping areas and bathrooms.
Still, the cameras have been an issue. Guests have reported encountering hidden cameras in their short-term rentals. For hosts, the cameras can be a way to discourage guests from throwing large parties or to stop the gatherings before they become too disruptive. It’s a big enough concern that several companies have started making noise monitoring tech, billing themselves as solutions to protect short-term rentals.
-
NPR ☛ Airbnb bans all indoor security cameras
While the majority of its listings — more than 7 million worldwide at the end of last year — don't report having indoor security cameras, Airbnb said the policy change was made in an effort to prioritize the privacy of guests.
Previously, the company allowed indoor security cameras in common areas, as long as they were disclosed on the listing page before booking and clearly visible to guests.
-
-
-
Defence/Aggression
-
RFERL ☛ Former Kazakh Minister Pleads Not Guilty Of Beating Wife To Death
A former Kazakh minister who was arrested in November on charges of killing and torturing his wife pleaded not guilty to all charges as the preliminary hearings into the high-profile case kicked off on March 11.
-
New York Times ☛ Tuesday Briefing: U.S. Moves to Crack Down on TikTok
Also, uproar about a retouched royal photo and an Oscars recap.
-
RFA ☛ US intelligence: Beijing may try to influence 2024 election
China allegedly used Hey Hi (AI) to generate political content on Fentanylware (TikTok) during America’s 2022 midterm elections.
-
Democracy Now ☛ “Haiti Needs Peace”: PM Ariel Henry Announces He Will Resign, Transitional Council to Take Charge
Unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry has announced he plans to resign amid rising opposition in Haiti, where a coalition of armed groups opposing the de facto leader have declared an uprising, led mass jailbreaks and taken over the country’s airport. At an emergency meeting with international actors in Jamaica, the regional bloc CARICOM has reportedly proposed a plan to set up a seven-member presidential panel that would appoint a new interim prime minister. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said the panel would only include Haitians who support the deployment of a U.N.-backed security force, a policy supported by Henry, while large swaths of Haitians voiced opposition to another hand-selected leader. “I’m not sure this solves the problem that’s been going on in Haiti,” says Haitian American scholar Jemima Pierre, who explains why Henry’s resignation and transition announcement attempts to “put a veneer of legality on this situation,” while the country continues to operate under occupation by foreign interests. “There’s going to be more flare-ups in the next few months … if we don’t stop this problem by its root, which is the constant U.S. imposition of its terms on Haitian people and the denial of Haitian sovereignty.”
-
Digital Music News ☛ FCC Commissioner Declares TikTok a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
The FCC commissioner calls TikTok a “clear and present danger” and a “serious threat” to US national security, ahead of the critical congressional vote on legislation which could lead to a TikTok ban.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner Brendan Carr said in a recent interview that TikTok “presents a clear and present danger to US national security” in a categorically different way than any other social media company.
-
New Yorker ☛ TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants
The effectiveness of the TikTok experience is found in what it doesn’t require. Unlike Twitter, TikTok doesn’t need a critical mass of famous or influential people to use it for its content to prove engaging. The short-video format grabs the user’s attention at a more primal level, relying on visual novelty, or a clever interplay of music and action, or direct emotional expression, to generate its appeal. And, unlike Facebook, TikTok doesn’t require that your friends already use the service for you to find it useful. Though there are some social features built into TikTok, they’re not the main draw of the app. TikTok also doesn’t rely on its users to manually share content with friends or followers to surface compelling offerings. It assigns this responsibility to its scary-good recommendation algorithm. A 2021 investigation by the Wall Street Journal, in which reporters created more than a hundred TikTok accounts to tease out the basic dynamics of this suggestion logic, showed that the app can target a user’s interests with uncanny accuracy in as little as forty minutes of observation.
-
India Times ☛ tiktok china influence us elections: China could use social media app TikTok to influence the 2024 elections: US spy chief
China could use social media app TikTok to influence the 2024 US elections, US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a House of Representatives intelligence committee hearing on Tuesday.
Asked by Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi if China's ruling Communist Party (CCP) would use TikTok to influence the elections, Haines said: "We cannot rule out that the CCP would use it."
-
The Atlantic ☛ Could a TikTok ban actually happen?
If the bill ends up passing, its provisions would set a clear domestic precedent: Other foreign-run platforms could be subject to similar actions. Ruane is concerned about what such a ban would mean abroad too. Already, American-owned digital platforms have been blocked in other countries, including China, and a TikTok ban could give authoritarian regimes the license to ban others for “pretextual” reasons. The potential fallout, she told me, could further limit users’ access to information and freedom of expression across the world.
-
Gizmodo ☛ TikTok Finds a New Defender: Elon Musk
However, Musk and the Kentucky Congressman are confused about the bill, according to Federal Communications Commission member, Brendan Carr. Replying to Musk’s tweet, he says the proposed law only applies to apps based in China, North Korea, Iran, or Russia which demonstrate a significant threat to national security.
This appears to be a change in tone from Musk. Just months ago, he was critical of TikTok, saying the app is full of antisemitic content, and noting how it’s addicting teenagers. However, he rejected the idea that TikTok is controlled by the Chinese government.
-
CS Monitor ☛ House Republicans to vote on TikTok ban despite Trump opposition
House Republicans are moving ahead with a bill that would require Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the United States even as former President Donald Trump is voicing opposition to the effort.
House leadership has scheduled a vote on the measure for March 13. A Republican congressional aide not authorized to speak publicly said that’s still the plan and there has not been significant pushback to the bill from lawmakers.
-
Axios ☛ Congress is cracking down on TikTok because CFIUS hasn't
Zoom in: CFIUS got initial authority on this matter because TikTok is the result of a 2017 deal whereby China's ByteDance bought a startup called Musical.ly, which had significant U.S. operations.
• CFIUS has been investigating that deal since at least 2020, when former President Trump unsuccessfully tried to force a TikTok divestiture via executive order.
• This includes negotiations that resulted in Oracle securing all of TikTok's U.S. user data and vetting its algorithms and content moderation models, via what Oracle calls Project Texas, but CFIUS never signed off on a final agreement.
-
Axios ☛ TikTok ban, explained: Congress' yearslong case against ByteDance
A years-long battle over TikTok's fate in the U.S. is escalating this week, as the popular video-sharing platform campaigns against the threat of a ban.
State of play: Following threats from the Trump and Biden administrations, Congress is advancing federal legislation to force China's ByteDance to sell its stake in the U.S. version of TikTok or ban the platform from U.S. app stores. Here's a timeline of how we got here.
-
The Hill ☛ House to hold TikTok briefing with intel officials ahead of vote on potential ban
Intelligence officials from the FBI, Department of Justice and Office of the Director of National Intelligence will brief House lawmakers about TikTok on Tuesday, a Republican aide told The Hill.
The 1 p.m. briefing comes ahead of an impending floor vote this week on a bill that could ban TikTok, the popular social media app owned by China-based ByteDance.
-
Rolling Stone ☛ Will Congress Ban TikTok in the U.S.? Here's What to Know
The bill is not only expected to pass the House of Representatives, the Biden administration supports it. The president said last week he’ll sign it if it makes it to his desk, and the Justice Department will brief lawmakers this week about the how China — through the Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok — may be using the app to influence U.S. elections. A Biden administration spokesperson suggested to Rolling Stone that foreign powers can use the app to influence “Americans’ views and beliefs.”
-
El País ☛ The metamorphosis of jihadism in Spain
Spain has changed in the last two decades. So has the jihadist threat. Ever since 10 backpack bombs exploded on four Madrid commuter trains on March 11, 2004, killing 192 people and wounding nearly 2,000, security forces have carried out more than 400 operations against Islamist terrorism and arrested 1,049 suspected jihadists. The last arrest took place last Wednesday in Melilla, an exclave city on the northern coast of Africa. But the background of the detainees has been evolving over the years. Seven factors explain the changes.
-
Wired ☛ Your Kid May Already Be Watching AI-Generated Videos on YouTube
There’s a whole new way to get rich on the internet—at least according to a rush of YouTube tutorials touting the money to be made using AI to generate videos for kids. Searching for how to create kids content or channels on YouTube now pulls up tutorials offering roadmaps for creating simple animations in just a few hours. They advocate use of tools like ChatGPT, voice synthesis services ElevenLabs and Murf AI, and the generative AI features within Adobe Express to automate scripting as well as audio and video production.
-
Quartz ☛ Donald Trump calls Facebook 'enemy of the people' while buying ads on it
Trump is still spending plenty of money on Facebook ads, according to Facebook’s Ad Library, an online tool that allows anyone to see how political ads are being shown on the platform. Facebook launched the Ad Library in 2019 after the site received criticism about a lack of transparency on how political campaigns were trying to influence voters online.
-
Deccan Chronicle ☛ United Christian Forum Urges Governor Intervention Amid Rising Concerns Over Targeting of Christians in Assam
In the memorandum, the United Christian Forum Golaghat outlined several distressing incidents, including demands by certain groups to delist tribal Christians from the Scheduled Tribes list, threats issued to Christian schools to remove religious symbols and even eviction of a nun from a bus.
Stressing the need of an urgent intervention of the government, the UCF president Jidan Aind and secretary Leander Toppo, said that Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Bill, 2024, raised apprehensions among Christians, fearing potential misinterpretation and misuse to target their religious practices.
-
El País ☛ India announces steps to implement a citizenship law that excludes Muslims
The Citizenship Amendment Act provides a fast track to naturalization for Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to Hindu-majority India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before Dec. 31, 2014. The law excludes Muslims, who are a majority in all three nations.
The law was approved by Indian Parliament in 2019, but Modi’s government had held off with its implementation after deadly protests broke out in capital New Delhi and elsewhere. Scores were killed during days of clashes.
-
NPR ☛ India announces steps to implement a citizenship law that excludes Muslims
The law was approved by Indian Parliament in 2019, but Modi's government had held off with its implementation after deadly protests broke out in capital New Delhi and elsewhere. Scores were killed during days of clashes.
-
New York Times ☛ India to Enforce Citizenship Law Criticized as Anti-Muslim
The incendiary law grants Indian citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees and Christians from a few nearby countries. Muslims are pointedly excluded.
With a characteristic thunderclap, the government of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, made a short declaration on Monday night that it had finalized the details that would bring the law, known as the Citizenship Amendment Act, into force.
-
CS Monitor ☛ India’s new citizenship law discriminates against Muslims
The Citizenship Amendment Act provides a fast track to naturalization for Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians who fled to Hindu-majority India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan before Dec. 31, 2014. The law excludes Muslims, who are a majority in all three nations.
It also amends the old law, which prevents illegal migrants from becoming Indian citizens, and marks the first time that India – an officially secular state with a religiously diverse population – has set religious criteria for citizenship.
-
Scoop News Group ☛ Intelligence officials warn pace of innovation in AI threatens US
Speaking Monday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the committee that the bureau is increasingly concerned that AI models might be stolen and that U.S. law enforcement agencies are stepping up their efforts to secure the U.S. AI industry. Just last week, authorities in California arrested a Chinese national and accused him of stealing AI-related material from Google, his former employer, and sharing it with companies in China.
Wray warned that if Chinese security agencies were to get access to U.S. AI models, their already formidable hacking crews would only improve their capabilities. “If they steal our AI to power it, it makes words like ‘force multiplier’ sound like an understatement,” Wray said. Advertisement
-
JURIST ☛ UN report urges immediate action as Syria confronts escalating violence
The UN Syria Commission of Inquiry released a report Monday concerning the most severe escalation of violence in the country since 2020. Explosions during a military academy graduation ceremony in Homs triggered the escalation, which began in October, leading to a series of indiscriminate attacks by Syrian and Russian forces on opposition-held areas.
-
Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
-
Meduza ☛ Navalny associate Leonid Volkov reportedly attacked outside his home in Lithuania — Meduza
-
Meduza ☛ Russian Defense Ministry claims 234 pro-Ukraine fighters killed during border attack — Meduza
-
Meduza ☛ Armed clashes reported around Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions as pro-Ukraine forces attempt to cross border — Meduza
-
CS Monitor ☛ Poland to US: Help Ukraine now or pay the price later
“If we have Putin not in eastern Ukraine but on the border of Poland, then guess what will happen?” Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski asked at a breakfast Tuesday hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. “If NATO is to remain credible, you will need more foreign troops in Poland, including American troops. So if you don’t want to send your people to Europe, the best thing is to defeat [Russia] in Ukraine.”
-
VOA News ☛ Russia Steps Up Spy War on West
In a recent report, Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI, warned that Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, “is restructuring how it manages the recruitment and training of special forces troops and is rebuilding the support apparatus to be able to infiltrate them into European countries.”
The operations range from the killing of political opponents based overseas to interference in foreign elections, with the aim of undermining Western unity and support for Ukraine.
-
New York Times ☛ Ukraine Stages Flurry of Attacks and Drone Strikes on Russia
The attacks and drone strikes across the southern border were intended to counter President Vladimir V. Putin’s control over Russia, a leader in one of the groups said.
-
New York Times ☛ In Russia, There Is Something Putin Can’t Control
As “The Master and Margarita” shows, power never totally succeeds in shaping art to its ends.
-
European Commission ☛ Commission proposes to open EU accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina and updates on progress made by Ukraine and Moldova
European Commission Press release Brussels, 12 Mar 2024 Today, the European Commission recommended to open EU accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina and discussed the upcoming oral report to the Council on the progress made by Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to address the outstanding steps made in the Commission's Enlargement report.
-
NYPost ☛ Polish PM warns House Speaker Mike Johnson that ‘thousands of lives’ are at risk due to failure to pass more Ukraine aid
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) Tuesday that he’s putting “thousands of lives in Ukraine” at risk by turning the issue of whether to approve aid to the war-torn country into a political football.
-
Atlantic Council ☛ Ukraine expands EU energy exports in fresh display of wartime resilience
Ukraine is boosting energy exports to the European Union in the latest demonstration of the country's remarkable wartime resilience, writes Aura Sabadus.
-
Atlantic Council ☛ Mood darkens in Odesa amid Russian bombardment and Western hesitancy
The mood in Ukrainian Black Sea port city Odesa has darkened in recent weeks amid a surge in Russian bombing attacks and growing doubts over the future of Western military aid, writes Michael Bociurkiw.
-
France24 ☛ French National Assembly approves bilateral security agreement with Ukraine
French lawmakers on Tuesday backed a security accord with Ukraine, after a debate that showed deep divisions over President Emmanuel Macron's policy towards Kyiv.
-
France24 ☛ Three killed in Russian missile strike on Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih
A Russian missile strike in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's hometown of Kryvyi Rih left three dead and dozens wounded on Tuesday, in an attack Kyiv warned would not go "unpunished".
-
France24 ☛ Pro-Ukrainian armed groups launch incursion into Russia
Pro-Ukrainian militias on Tuesday staged a brazen cross-border attack on Russia, hours after Kyiv launched one of its largest drone attacks since the start of the war.
-
Press Gazette ☛ Ukraine’s local news deserts could be barrier to national recovery
Foreign aid donors urged to support local media in rebuilding of Ukraine.
-
RFERL ☛ Russia Strikes Apartment Buildings In Kryviy Rih, Kupyansk, Killing 3
Russian armed forces on March 12 struck apartment buildings in the Ukrainian cities of Kupyansk and Kryviy Rih, killing at least three people.
-
RFERL ☛ U.S. To Send $300 Million In Military Aid To Ukraine, First New Package In Months
The Biden administration said it will send $300 million in military aid to Ukraine, the first new package in months, as its massive aid bill for the embattled country remains stuck in Congress.
-
RFERL ☛ Russian Supreme Court Rejects Appeal Filed Over Imprisonment For Anti-War Posts
Russia's Supreme Court on March 12 rejected an appeal filed by history teacher Nikita Tushkanov from the country's Komi Republic against his imprisonment over online posts criticizing Moscow's war in Ukraine.
-
RFERL ☛ Ukraine Hits Oil Facilities In Sweeping Attack Inside Russia
Ukrainian drones were used to hit multiple targets in a sweeping attack on Russia that reportedly ignited fires at two major oil facilities and saw armed groups cross into Russian territory.
-
teleSUR ☛ Russia Thwarts Ukrainian Attacks in Koursk and Belgorod Regions
Ukrainian troops attempted to invade Russia from the Odnorobovka, Nekhoteevka, and Spodaryushino areas.
-
CS Monitor ☛ Poland to US: Help Ukraine now or pay the price later
Poland’s foreign minister, in Washington to meet with President Joe Biden and congressional leaders, spoke with reporters at a Monitor Breakfast.
-
New York Times ☛ Russia Fires Top Naval Commander After Ukrainian Strikes
American officials estimated that Ukraine, a country without a traditional navy, has sunk 15 Russian ships in the past six months.
-
New York Times ☛ ‘Jamming’: How Electronic Warfare Is Reshaping Ukraine’s Battlefields
Drones have become a critical weapon for both sides, but a lack of coordination among troops has put Ukraine at a disadvantage.
-
New York Times ☛ Russia Pivots South for Trade Following Western European Sanctions
Once dependent on Europe for trade, Russia has been forging new routes that will allow it to skirt Western restrictions. A planned railway through Iran could be key for those ambitions.
-
New York Times ☛ Wednesday Briefing: Turmoil in Haiti
Also, more U.S. weapons for Ukraine and a looming financial crisis for dating apps
-
New York Times ☛ U.S. to Send $300 Million in Weapons to Ukraine Under Makeshift Plan
The package will keep advancing Russian troops at bay for only a few weeks, an official said.
-
Security Week ☛ US, Russia Accuse Each Other of Potential Election Cyberattacks
US and Russia suspect each other of intent to disrupt presidential elections set for this week in Russia and November in the US.
-
LRT ☛ Lithuanian customs detain first Russia-registered car
On Monday, after the deadline for re-registration of vehicles with Russian license plates, the Lithuanian Customs Criminal Service detained the first car – the Audi Q7 worth approximately 41,700 euros – that violated the new procedure.
-
LRT ☛ Most Lithuanians don’t want to live next to people with disabilities, homosexuals, Muslims – survey
Two-thirds of Lithuanians do not want to live next to people with mental disabilities, about half would rather not live next to homosexuals and Muslims, and one-third next to migrants from Russia, a new survey has found.
-
RFERL ☛ Armenian Leader Again Threatens To Leave Russian-Led Defense Bloc
Armenia will leave the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) if its lingering security concerns are not addressed by the Russian-led military alliance, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian warned again on March 12.
-
RFERL ☛ Russia Bans 347 Citizens Of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania From Entering Country
Russia's Foreign Ministry said on March 12 it has banned 347 citizens of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, including ministers, lawmakers, public figures, and journalists, from entering Russia over the three Baltic nations' "hostile policies toward Russia."
-
RFERL ☛ Russia Refuses To Reverse Decision To Open Polling Stations In Moldova's Separatist Transdniester
Russia's ambassador to Chisinau says Moscow will not reverse its move to open six polling stations in separatist Transdniester for presidential elections in Russia this week despite an official protest over the move by Moldova.
-
RFERL ☛ Homes Of Russian Artists Searched In Moscow, Other Cities
Police in Moscow and several other Russian cities have searched the homes of artists as part of an investigation into an unspecified treason case that local media reports said involved Pyotr Verzilov, a member of the Pussy Riot protest group and the former publisher of the Mediazona website.
-
RFERL ☛ Military Transport Plane Crashes Near Western Russian City Of Ivanovo
Russia's Defense Ministry said a military transport plane with eight crew and seven passengers onboard crashed in the Ivanovo region on March 12.
-
Meduza ☛ Military transport plane reportedly crashes in Russia’s Ivanovo region — Meduza
-
RFERL ☛ Bishkek Court Issues Arrest Warrant For Russian Businessman Pavel Tyo
The Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security said a Bishkek court issued an arrest warrant for noted Russian businessman Pavel Tyo over alleged links with the late criminal kingpin Kamchybek Kolbaev (aka Asanbek), who was shot dead by police in a special operation in Bishkek in October.
-
Meduza ☛ Police search the homes of artists and activists across Russia — Meduza
-
New York Times ☛ Biden Offers ‘Ironclad’ Commitment to Allies, Defying Russia (and Trump)
The president hosted leaders of Poland at the White House as he sought to reassure NATO members of American steadfastness in the face of threats from Moscow and former President Donald J. Trump.
-
The Straits Times ☛ South Korean held in Russia for spying did humanitarian, mission work, says aid group
March 13, 2024 11:15 AM
The allegation of espionage against the man was “totally absurd” and “completely untrue”, said the group.
-
teleSUR ☛ Russia to Deepen Political Dialogue With Latin America: Lavrov
He also called for maintaining cultural, educational, and humanitarian cooperation on a pragmatic basis and not constrained by ideologies.
-
LRT ☛ Asked by child, Lithuanian president sends greetings to scandalous Belarusian vlogger
A video of Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda greeting a scandalous Belarusian vlogger called Mellstroy has started spreading on social control media.
-
LRT ☛ Lithuanian man dies in detention in Belarus
Lithuanian Foreign Ministry has handed in a note to the Belarusian chargé d’affaires in Lithuania, expressing a strong protest over the detention of the Lithuanian citizen N.R. on the territory of Belarus on December 31, 2023, and his death in a detention facility.
-
Latvia ☛ Enhanced watch reinstated on Latvian-Belarusian border
The Cabinet of Ministers at the meeting on Tuesday, March 12, repeatedly declared a reinforced border surveillance regime for six months, starting from Wednesday, March 13, until September 12 this year, the Ministry of Interior said.
-
Latvia ☛ Worker dies in accident on Latvian-Belarusian border
During construction work of the Latvian-Belarusian border on Tuesday, March 12, the driver of an excavator of "Pamatceļš" Ltd Road” has died, according to construction company Citrus Solutions.
-
-
-
Transparency/Investigative Reporting
-
The Dissenter ☛ Freedom Of Information: US Government Secrecy As Bad As It Was Under Trump
-
Hindustan Times ☛ Police claim John Barnett's death was 'self-inflict, but his lawyer cries foul - Hindustan Times
Barnett's lawyers, Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles, were quoted by DailyMail.com, claiming there had been 'no indication' the former Boeing employee would take his own life.
The statement read in part: 'John was in the midst of a deposition in his whistleblower retaliation case, which finally was nearing the end. He was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on. We didn't see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it.
-
New York Times ☛ Boeing Whistleblower Who Raised Quality Concerns Is Found Dead
A prominent Boeing whistle-blower, a former quality manager who raised concerns about manufacturing practices at the company’s 787 Dreamliner factory in South Carolina, was found dead on Saturday with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to local officials.
The whistle-blower, John Barnett, was in Charleston for a deposition for a lawsuit in which he accused Boeing of retaliating against him for making complaints about quality and safety.
-
Futurism ☛ Boeing Whistleblower’s Attorneys Say They "Didn’t See Any Indication" of Suicide Risk
Knowles and his co-counsel, Rob Turkewitz, were unable to reach Barnett by phone and thus contacted the hotel he was staying at — which was when the retired Boeing worker's body was found in his car.
In an initial autopsy report, as local and national news indicates, the Charleston County Coronoer's Office said that the 32-year Boeing employee appeared to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound — but his lawyers, Knowles and Tukewitz, are urging investigators to take a closer look.
"John was in the midst of a deposition in his whistleblower retaliation case, which finally was nearing the end," the attorneys told Futurism in an emailed statement. "He was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on."
-
Quartz ☛ Boeing whistleblower John Barnett dies from self-inflicted gunshot
Gizmodo asked the coroner’s office if an autopsy had been performed on Barnett. While the office didn’t answer that question, it did share the following statement about his death: [...]
-
Quartz ☛ Boeing whistleblower's attorneys want more answers about John Barnett's death
Barnett’s death spurred conspiracy theories across the web and now his attorneys are claiming they’re unsatisfied with the information that has been put out about his death. Robert Turkewitz of the Law Office of Robert M. Turkewitz, LLC and Brian Knowles of Knowles Law Firm, PC, provided Gizmodo with a statement about Barnett’s death. The statement reads, in full: [...]
-
-
Environment
-
Idiomdrottning ☛ Wishing and hoping
An example I’m even more concerned about is climate change; they can come up with practical ways to blast their CO2e fumes where we can only sit around in our degrown li’l green communities and wish that they didn’t blast as much over there because it’s killing all of us.
-
Futurism ☛ Scientists Just Got Closer to Creating Artificial Life in the Lab
As part of their research, WaPo reports, they created a lab-made RNA molecule that accurately copied others and resulted in a functioning enzyme. Now that the institute has done that, it's poised to study the earliest evolutionary stages of life in unprecedented ways.
Gerald Joyce, the president of Salk who co-authored a new paper about the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, told WaPo that although the researchers' lab-made molecule isn't yet self-replicating, the one they did create is a huge step to creating life in the lab.
-
Energy/Transportation
-
Futurism ☛ CEO Dies When Her Tesla Drives Into a Pond
Almost immediately upon making that ill-fated miscalculation, Chao called her friends who were just steps away, asking them if they could help her as her car began swiftly to sink. One jumped into the pond to try to save her friend. Ultimately, despite calling paramedics and other emergency officials, it took hours to get the car, with the CEO in it, out of the pond.
According to experts, you have roughly 30-60 seconds to safely get out of a car when it starts sinking. With automatic windows like those used by Tesla and most other vehicle manufacturers, there are only a few seconds to push the button and roll down the windows before the water gets too high. After that, the only way to get out is to break the glass — and because Tesla uses laminated glass, one of the most durable types on the market, breaking it under the pressure of water would have been nearly impossible.
-
Quartz ☛ Should I keep my laptop plugged in?
The optimal state for your battery, according to Griffith, is somewhere between 20% and 80%. He recommends charging your laptop fully and then unplugging it to run down throughout the day. You should let your battery sit in this “mid-range” zone for most of its life to prolong your battery’s performance.
-
DeSmog ☛ Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey Gifted £2,500 Gala Ticket by Fossil Fuel Firm
Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, accepted a donation worth £2,500 from Viaro Energy, which drills for oil and gas in the North Sea, parliamentary records reveal.
The donation took the form of a seat at Viaro’s table at the exclusive London’s Air Ambulance Charity gala on February 7th.
-
-
Overpopulation
-
NDTV ☛ Bengaluru Water Crisis: Bengaluru Residents, Hospitals Cry For Help As Water Reserves Dwindle
Bengaluru primarily gets its water supply from two sources - Cauvery river and groundwater. For most non-drinking uses, recycled water processed by sewage treatment plants is used. With no rain for a while now, the primary sources have been stretched to their limits. Bengaluru needs 2,600-2,800 million litres of water daily, and the current supply is half of what's required. The result is a daily struggle for the city's residents.
-
Deccan Chronicle ☛ Drinking Water Scarcity Across North Telangana Districts, Contaminated Water in Taps
Habitations in rural and urban local body limits have started facing the water shortage. Villages in remote and interior areas are facing an acute shortage. Lack of coordination between Mission Bhagiratha officials and other departments worsened the situation in undivided Adilabad, Karimnagar and Nizamabad districts.
-
-
-
Finance
-
University of Michigan ☛ The Daily Weekly: The Ann Arbor Housing Crisis
In this episode of The Daily Weekly, we explore the housing crisis in Ann Arbor – why rent is so expensive, and why students scramble to secure housing. We strove to figure out what is causing such high demand and what students should know about the housing crisis.
-
Blame game: What’s causing massive layoffs in video games amid record year?
Projects are being canceled and studios shuttered amid a wave of layoffs in the video game industry that has put thousands out of jobs. But many are wondering what’s driving these deep cuts after video game revenue hit another record in 2023.
-
Fandom Inc ☛ Video Game Industry Layoffs Are Worse Than Ever. How Did We Get Here?
On February 27, Sony announced it would lay off 900 people across its worldwide games business, affecting several games studios. Among them were Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games, both of which had just released big, noteworthy titles--Marvel's Spider-Man 2 launched in October to audience and critical acclaim, while The Last of Us Part II Remastered dropped in January with an updated version that included new content. The Sony layoffs constituted some 8% of the people working in its games division.
-
-
AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
-
FAIR ☛ WSJ Speaks Out Against Threat of Politicians Responding to Voters
The Wall Street Journal (2/26/24) is concerned that they live among us. They are Arab Americans. And what are they doing to threaten the United States? Voting.
-
Hindustan Times ☛ Donald Trump offered to sell Truth Social to Elon Musk: ‘Talks failed but…’ - Hindustan Times
Former US president Donald Trump once offered to sell Truth Social to Elon Musk, The Washington Post reported. The offer was made by Donald Trump last summer, the report claimed citing two unnamed sources. At that time, Elon Musk was still running social media platform Twitter, which has since been renamed X, after taking over in late 2022. The report claimed that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have been in contact about the same “more than was previously known” and the former US president has told confidants that Elon Musk should buy Truth Social despite talks which failed.
-
Security Week ☛ Google Paid Out $10 Million via Bug Bounty Programs in 2023
In the case of Chrome, Google paid out roughly $2.1 million in bug bounties for 359 vulnerability reports in 2023.
-
Bert Hubert ☛ On the new Dutch Intelligence and Security Law
Today, the upper house of Dutch parliament passed a law to reduce (I think) the oversight on the Dutch intelligence and security services, while simultaneously granting them more leeway to execute their powers. In 2022, I resigned as regulator of the Dutch intelligence and security services because of this attempt. Politico.eu wrote a comprehensive article about it, representing various points of view.
In this page I will try to explain how the new law works and what these changes mean. I also provide some context from the European Court of Human Rights. This page refers to the just passed version of the proposed legislation.
-
Modus Create LLC ☛ Software Identifiers through the eyes of Nix
This is an answer to a recent request for comments issued by CISA, the United States “Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency”, about software identifiers. Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of this request for comments early enough and thus too late to comment officially. But CISA encouraged me to publish the answer as a separate blog post. The Guix team similarly published their own answer
-
Reason ☛ FIRE Highlights Hypocritical Officials Who Decry Government Social Media Meddling
Next Monday the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri, which poses the question of whether federal officials violated the First Amendment when they persistently pressured social media platforms to curtail "misinformation." That is what the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit concluded last September, and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is urging the justices to affirm that decision.
-
Quartz ☛ The Reddit IPO is worth millions for OpenAI SEO Sam Altman
At that share price, Altman’s stake in Reddit could be worth between $51.4 million and $56.4 million, according to a Business Insider estimate that calculated Altman owns about 1.66 million shares of the company.
-
Quartz ☛ AMD tried to stop Intel from selling chips to Huawei, report says
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) tried to stop Intel from selling advanced chips to Shenzhen-based Huawei, Reuters reported, arguing that Intel’s license to do so was unfair because it does not have a similar license. It was joined in its efforts by other skeptics of doing business with the Chinese tech company, according to Reuters. Intel’s license was issued by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration in September 2020, after Huawei was put on a trade blacklist the previous year with more than 275 other Chinese firms. American companies are banned from selling to companies on the list without special permission.
-
India Times ☛ Apple: Apple to let developers distribute apps directly from their sites
Software developers who use Apple's App Store will be able to distribute apps to EU users directly from their websites this spring, the company said on Tuesday, as part of changes required by new EU rules forcing Apple to open up its closed eco-system.
The European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which kicked in last week, requires Apple to offer alternative app stores on iPhones and to allow developers to opt out of using its in-app payment system, which charges fees of up to 30%.
-
India Times ☛ Twitter bans over 5 lakh accounts in India, here's whyIndia
This is not a new practice for X to ban accounts for violating the policy. Between December 26 and January 25, the platform banned around 2,31, 215 accounts in India. In the same period, the company banned 1,945 accounts for promoting terrorism on its platform.
-
Earthly ☛ Earthly Achieves SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance
We take security very seriously here at Earthly. As a user, you shouldn’t have to worry about a SaaS vendor being sloppy with your business’ data. We have an information security program that has been in place and communicated throughout our organization for quite some time now, and we achieved SOC 2 Type 1 compliance in April 2023 (Read our SOC 2 Type 1 announcement). This announcement is quite late, but we are still excited to announce that Earthly achieved SOC 2 Type 2 compliance on October 26, 2023.
-
Craig Murray ☛ The Panic Of the Ruling Class
I have known George Galloway my entire adult life, although we largely lost touch in the middle bit while I was off diplomating. I know George too well to mistake him for Jesus Christ, but he has been on the right side against appalling wars which the entire political class has cheer-led. His natural gifts of mellifluence and loquacity are unsurpassed, with an added talent for punchy phrase making.
-
Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
-
India Times ☛ Google Gemini: Google ties up with Election Commission to tackle misinformation during polls
Google has joined hands with the Election Commission of India (ECI) to offer poll-related information on Google search and YouTube, in a bid to prevent spread of misinformation during electioneering.
Google already verifies political advertisers through ECI-provided certificates and carries in-ad disclaimers to clearly show who paid for the advertisements, the company said in a blogpost on Tuesday.
-
Hindustan Times ☛ Google restricts AI chatbot Gemini from responding to election-related queries
Google is limiting AI chatbot Gemini's ability to answer queries regarding the elections scheduled to take place this year in several countries, including presidential elections in the United States.
The decision has been taken in a bid to minimise potential blunders in technology deployment, stated the Alphabet-owned company on Tuesday.
-
-
-
Censorship/Free Speech
-
Tor ☛ Hiding in plain sight: Introducing WebTunnel
Today, March 12th, on the World Day Against Cyber Censorship, the Tor Project's Anti-Censorship Team is excited to officially announce the release of WebTunnel, a new type of Tor bridge designed to assist users in heavily censored regions to connect to the Tor network. Available now in the stable version of Tor Browser, WebTunnel joined our collection of censorship circumvention tech developed and maintained by The Tor Project.
The development of different types of bridges are crucial for making Tor more resilient against censorship and stay ahead of adversaries in the highly dynamic and ever-changing censorship landscape. This is especially true as we're going through the 2024 global election megacycle, the role of censorship circumvention tech becomes crucial in defending Internet Freedom.
-
Meduza ☛ How Meduza is preparing for full Internet censorship in Russia
Over the past few months, the Russian authorities have been testing out new methods of “filtering” and restricting Internet access in Russia. Russian Telegram and WhatsApp users have been reporting outages, and there’s an ongoing crackdown on VPN services. During Alexey Navalny’s funeral, law enforcement resorted to its crudest method: turning off high-speed mobile data. Hackers have also been targeting independent media outlets and activists ever since Navalny’s murder. Meduza is currently facing the most intense cyberattack campaign in its history.
This all looks very alarming. But we fear the Russian authorities might go even further and fully censor the Internet if they decide it’s safer for them. At the very least, this could happen around the elections or immediately afterwards. We have to be prepared for this eventuality.
-
JURIST ☛ AP: Pakistan judge sentences 22 year old to death and teenager to life imprisonment under blasphemy laws
Chapter XV of the Penal Code concerning offenses relating to religion provides that “whoever by words, either spoken or written … defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life.” The code also criminalizes defiling the Qur’an, “uttering words with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings,” and disturbing religious assembly.
Blasphemy accusations in Pakistan are serious matters that can spark unrest. In August 2023, after attacks on Christian communities, Rehab Mahamoor at Amnesty International (AI) wrote, “Vicious mob attacks are just the latest manifestation of the threat of vigilante violence which anyone can face in Pakistan after a blasphemy accusation – with religious minorities disproportionately vulnerable.” AI urged Pakistan to repeal these laws and stated that they violate human rights to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and freedom of expression under Articles 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
-
Luke Harris ☛ My site was blocked by ATT
My site was falsely flagged as malware, and every time I would try to visit my site I’d get a helpful “blocked URL” notification from the Smart Home Manager app on my phone. Tapping the notification would bring me to a view with a button to allow the site, but allowing the site over seven times had no effect. ‘Smart’ indeed.
There’s no straightforward way to have ATT remove a URL from their global blocklist. Searching the ATT forums, I saw someone mentioned that their site was falsely flagged on VirusTotal. I ran a report on my domain and sure enough, it was flagged by two negligent antivirus vendors.
-
RFERL ☛ Meduza, Russian-Language News Outlet, Says It Faced Unprecedented Attacks
Meduza said Russian authorities and Kremlin-affiliated organizations are increasingly blocking its mirror servers; launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to disable its website; attempting to disrupt its crowdfunding infrastructure; and hack into its journalists’ accounts using phishing and other techniques.
-
[Old] New York Times ☛ Topics Suppressed in China Are Underrepresented on TikTok, Study Says
The findings could add to a wave of concern that Beijing may be influencing content on the popular video platform. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company.
The report, from the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University, analyzed the volume of posts with certain hashtags on TikTok and Instagram, which has hundreds of millions more users.
-
[Old] Business Insider ☛ Internal Guidelines Show TikTok Censors Videos That Would Anger China
The documents, which provided guidelines for TikTok's moderators, broke infringing content into two categories: "violations" and "visible to self." Violations would result in the content being taken down, while videos marked "visible to self" would be viewable by the user who posted them but invisible to everyone else on the app.
The specific policies addressing political issues considered likely to anger the Chinese government were embedded in sections designed to look more all-purpose, according to The Guardian.
-
[Old] The Guardian UK ☛ Revealed: how TikTok censors videos that do not please Beijing
A more general purpose rule bans “highly controversial topics, such as separatism, religion sects conflicts, conflicts between ethnic groups, for instance exaggerating the Islamic sects conflicts, inciting the independence of Northern Ireland, Republic of Chechnya, Tibet and Taiwan and exaggerating the ethnic conflict between black and white”.
-
-
Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
-
BIA Net ☛ Police officers rear-handcuffing former bianet reporter fined 9,000 lira payable in 10 months
Verdict was reached in the trial where three police officers, K.A., N.D., and Y.Ş. are tried, who attempted to detain bianet reporter (between 2021-2018) Beyza Kural with handcuffs while she was covering news in 2015.
-
CPJ ☛ Ethiopian journalist Muhiyadin Mohamed Abdullahi faces up to 5 years in prison on false news charges
“Officials in Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State should stop wasting public resources on prosecuting a journalist whose only crime was criticizing political elites on Facebook,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should release Muhiyadin immediately and drop the criminal case against him. Ethiopian authorities must bring an end to the culture of locking journalists up whenever they don’t like what they are saying.”
-
The Nation ☛ The Death and Life of Great American Media
Because whatever its other rewards, journalism no longer offers anything like job security. With an average of 2.5 newspapers closing every week in 2023—up from two a week the previous year—the United States has lost one-third of its newspapers, and two-thirds of its newspaper journalists, since 2005. The result, according to Northwestern Medill’s “State of Local News 2023” report, is that more than 200 counties in the country are “news deserts,” places where the workings of local government, the excesses of local law enforcement, and the conduct of local businesses and national corporations face no media scrutiny, and therefore little public accountability at all. As John Nichols recently noted, some of these deserts have swallowed up major cities.
-
-
Civil Rights/Policing
-
Latvia ☛ Online grocery shopping here to stay, Latvian stores report
Several online grocery stores that opened amid severe restrictions during the Covid pandemic have closed. But that doesn't mean people only want to shop face-to-face after the pandemic. Polls show the opposite – food purchases on the internet are increasing, Latvian Television reported on March 9.
-
teleSUR ☛ Finnish Workers Announce Two Weeks' Strike
The reasons for the protest by the unions is a reform of the labour market and a series of cuts in social benefits that the unions consider unacceptable.
The Finnish Government plans to limit the duration of political strikes to a single day and to facilitate the non-binding sectoral agreements for all companies, which would significantly reduce the bargaining power of trade unions.
In addition, it plans to cut unemployment benefits, facilitate dismissal and temporality and allow the first day of sick leave to go unpaid.
-
[Old] VOA News ☛ Chinese State Media Boosts ‘Gen Z Vloggers’ Whitewashing Tibet Repression
Thematically, the vloggers’ accounts as reported to CGTN mirrored Beijing’s talking points — mainly, that Tibet has developed greatly since China forcibly annexed it in 1951, and that there are no human rights violations in the region.
-
Jacobin Magazine ☛ Unions Can’t Be Rebuilt Piecemeal. We Need to Go Big.
In Loomis’s view, the CIO harnessed the disruptive power of the sit-down strike, a tactic that Loomis argues was difficult to pull off successfully and understood its perception by a public that believed in the mythology of private property. They profited from the investment of the communists, even though the communists’ contributions were mixed. And against those who say they should have helped found a labor party, Loomis argues that their investment in the Democratic Party paid off handsomely in neutralizing the typical business-government collaboration.
Loomis concluded our interview by emphasizing the importance of going big. In many ways, our present moment is one of lowered political horizons, and it’s easy to retreat to small-scale, local, or personal projects. But the lesson of the CIO is that it’s necessary to harness the collective power of the working class on a grand scale.
-
India Times ☛ eu members gig workers rights: EU members endorse diluted draft rules on rights for gig workers
Europe moved a step closer to giving so-called gig economy workers at online platforms such as Uber and Deliveroo greater social and labour rights on Monday, although companies said little would change under the watered-down rules.
The draft rules, first proposed by the European Commission in 2021, are aimed at an estimated 28 million workers in the EU, whose numbers are forecast to rise to 43 million next year.
-
Democracy Now ☛ Immigrants Held in Private Northwest Detention Center Report Death, Suicide Attempts Amid Crackdown
At one of the largest for-profit immigrant detention centers in the country, human rights advocates report, there were two suicide attempts Monday, just hours apart. The privately run Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, the site of multiple hunger strikes to protest inhumane conditions over the years, also reported 61-year-old Charles Leo Daniel from Trinidad and Tobago died at the facility last week. He had been detained for about four years and was in solitary confinement at NWDC when he was found unresponsive Thursday in what is suspected to be another suicide. This all comes as a federal judge blocked Washington state from fully enforcing a law intended to increase oversight at the for-profit immigrant jail, run by GEO Group. This recent string of events reveals “the importance and the urgency to shut down the detention center now,” says La Resistencia’s Maru Mora Villalpando, who explains why immigrants are vulnerable and used for votes, for political gain and as scapegoats. “We are in this midst of horrible, horrible situations in detention centers, at the border, in the countries where people need to flee, because it’s working for corporations and for governments. … That’s why we’re not waiting for the government to solve this. We have to save ourselves.”
-
-
Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
-
EFF ☛ Access to Internet Infrastructure is Essential, in Wartime and Peacetime
Unfortunately, governments across the world are very aware of their power to cut off this crucial lifeline, and frequently undertake targeted initiatives to do so. These internet shutdowns have become a blunt instrument that aid state violence and inhibit free speech, and are routinely deployed in direct contravention of human rights and civil liberties.
And this is not a one-dimensional situation. Nearly twenty years after the world’s first total internet shutdowns, this draconian measure is no longer the sole domain of authoritarian states but has become a favorite of a diverse set of governments across three continents. For example:
In Iran, the government has been suppressing internet access for many years. In the past two years in particular, people of Iran have suffered repeated internet and social media blackouts following an activist movement that blossomed after the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman murdered in police custody for refusing to wear a hijab. The movement gained global attention and in response, the Iranian government rushed to control both the public narrative and organizing efforts by banning social media, and sometimes cutting off internet access altogether.
-
The Atlantic ☛ Generative AI Is Making an Old Problem Much, Much Worse
There is a tendency for media coverage to focus on the source of this imagery, because generative AI is a novel technology that many people are still trying to wrap their head around. But that fact obscures the reason the images are relevant: They spread on social-media networks.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, and Google Search determine how billions of people experience the internet every day. This fact has not changed in the generative-AI era. In fact, these platforms’ responsibility as gatekeepers is growing more pronounced as it becomes easier for more people to produce text, videos, and images on command. For synthetic media to reach millions of views—as the Swift images did in just hours—they need massive, aggregated networks, which allow them to identify an initial audience and then spread. As the amount of available content grows with the broader use of generative AI, social media’s role as curator will become even more important.
-
RIPE ☛ As the Balance of Security Controls Shifts, Where Does Responsibility Rest?
The current set of tussles involves a push and pull from industry, standards, and policy with the debate remaining open as to how it will all settle out. As encryption becomes stronger and more pervasive on the Internet to protect our sessions while in transit, the ability to use traditional tools to detect malicious traffic has and will continue to diminish.
At the same time, strong encryption that cannot be intercepted is promoted as part of a zero-trust architecture and is important to adopt to prevent lateral movement. Another argument in favour of strong encryption is that it prevents having points of aggregation where all traffic is visible (e.g. intrusion prevention systems holding a shared key to access and view all data).
-
-
Digital Restrictions (DRM)
-
John Deere to Lay Off 150 Workers at Iowa Factory
Approximately 150 workers at the John Deere Des Moines Works in Ankeny, Iowa, will experience layoffs soon.
-
John Deere plans to lay off 150 Ankeny workers in the next couple of months
-
-
The Register UK ☛ Apple to let EU developers distribute apps from the web
Apple's compliance measures with the EU's Digital Markets Act haven't exactly been universally well received, so the iMaker is making a few tweaks to appease the software-developing masses.
In a post to its developer site today, Apple said it is modifying not only how developers can distribute apps, but also changing the structure of alternative app marketplaces and linking out for purchases that are made away from the official iOS App Store.
-
Patents
-
EFF ☛ Congress Must Stop Pushing Bills That Will Benefit Patent Trolls
One bill, the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would bring back some of the worst software patents we’ve seen, and even re-introduce types of patents on human genes that were banned years ago. Meanwhile, a similar group of senators is trying to push forward the PREVAIL Act (S. 2220), which would shut out most of the public from even petitioning the government to reconsider wrongly granted patents.
-
Software Patents
-
GnuPG ☛ [Announce] GnuPG 2.4.5 released
We are pleased to announce the availability of a new stable GnuPG release: version 2.4.5. This version fixes a couple of bugs and comes with some new features.
-
-
-
Trademarks
-
TTAB Blog ☛ TTAB Dismisses AMERICAN APPAREL Cancellation Petition: Claims Should Have Been Raised as Counterclaims in Pending Opposition
On summary judgment, the Board dismissed this petition for cancellation because Grateful American's claims (genericness and lack of acquired distinctiveness) should have been raised in a pending opposition as compulsory counterclaims. Grateful American waited nearly a year after filing its answer in Gildan Activewear's opposition to registration of the mark GRATEFUL AMERICAN APPAREL before filing this petition for cancellation. Grateful American Apparel LLC v. Gildan Activewear SRL, Cancellation No. 92081329 (March 8, 2024) [not precedential].
-
-
Copyrights
-
EFF ☛ EFF to Ninth Circuit: There’s No Software Exception to Traditional Copyright Limits
Thus, the user files were “substantially similar” because they functioned as sequels to the video game itself—specifically the story and principal character of the game. If the user files had told a different story, with different characters, they would not be derivative works.
-
Digital Music News ☛ Bad Bunny Sues Madrid-Based Fan Over Concert Recording ‘Bootlegs,’ Alleging Copyright Infringement and More
In a move that may make fans think twice about posting concert recordings, Bad Bunny is suing a Madrid-based supporter for allegedly capturing and uploading Most Wanted Tour performance footage. Puerto Rico-born Bad Bunny just recently submitted the to-the-point complaint to a California federal court, naming as a defendant one Eric Guillermo Madronal Garrone.
-
Mozilla ☛ Mozilla Open Policy & Advocacy Blog: Mozilla Joins Amicus Brief Supporting Software Interoperability
In modern technology, interoperability between programs is crucial to the usability of applications, user choice, and healthy competition. Today Mozilla has joined an amicus brief at the Ninth Circuit, to ensure that copyright monopoly law does not undermine the ability of developers to build interoperable software.
-
Futurism ☛ Midjourney Bans Stability From Using Its Images Without Permission
This data could help Stability train or fine-tune its image-generating AI models — an unusual and ethically dubious way to get ahead of the competition, although of course, we're talking about tech that only exists in the first place because of material it scraped without the artists' permission.
The "botnet-like activity from paid accounts" triggered a 24-hour outage earlier this month, infuriating Midjourney.
-
Wired ☛ Google Is Getting Thousands of Deepfake Porn Complaints
A WIRED analysis of copyright claims regarding websites that host deepfake porn videos reveals that thousands of takedown requests have been made, with the frequency of complaints increasing. More than 13,000 copyright complaints—encompassing almost 30,000 URLs—have been made to Google concerning content on a dozen of the most popular deepfake websites.
The complaints, which have been made under the Digital Media Copyright Act (DMCA), have resulted in thousands of nonconsensual videos being removed from the web. Two of the most prominent deepfake video websites have been the subject of more than 6,000 and 4,000 complaints each, data published by Google and Harvard University’s Lumen database shows. Across all the deepfake platforms analyzed, around 82 percent of complaints resulted in URLs being removed from Google, the company’s copyright transparency data shows.
-
Torrent Freak ☛ Does LaLiga's Court Order Compel ISPs to Identify Piracy That LaLiga Has Not?
Reports that top-tier Spanish football league LaLiga will soon file lawsuits against users of pirate IPTV services are incorrect. A court in Barcelona has indeed authorized LaLiga to obtain the identities of subscribers at five major ISPs, but if our reading of court documents is accurate, LaLiga hasn't identified any, even by their IP addresses. As unlikely as it may sound, LaLiga may have no evidence that any subscriber did anything wrong, so ISPs have been instructed to find some.
-
Torrent Freak ☛ Pirate Streaming Site Vumoo.to Goes Offline Following ACE Action
Popular pirate streaming site Vumoo.to was taken down by its operator this weekend, in response to enforcement action by anti-piracy group ACE. With more than 12 million monthly visits, Vumoo was one of the more popular piracy portals. The site was presumably being operated from Vietnam, where many of the largest pirate sites and services still reside today.
-
Monopolies/Monopsonies
-