Links 01/05/2024: FCC Takes on Illegal Data Sharing, Google Layoffs Expand
Contents
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Leftovers
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Ruben Schade ☛ Explaining how or why something is
I’ve been on the Web long enough to know that responses to a technical opinion fall into one of two camps:
How something got to be the way it is.
Why (or the corollary: why should it still be that way).
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The Straits Times ☛ Indian state suspends licences of 14 products in latest setback for yoga guru
The judges are considering whether to press contempt charges against Baba Ramdev or not.
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Ruben Schade ☛ My own comment rules (and advice)
Nothing here is unique or special, to be clear! But I suspect following these guidelines will get you far in life in general, not just when emailing a small-time blogger in Australia.
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Mike Rockwell ☛ Tech Is Still Cool
The most interesting thing about Linux to me is the myriad of windowing managers. I can’t say its necessarily better than what we have on macOS, but it has plenty of innovative ideas that has me working a bit differently — using multiple virtual desktops never clicked with me on macOS like it has in Linux.
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Eric McClure ☛ Measuring Competence Is Epistemic Hell
Without modern tools, there is no possible way (other than acquiring brain damage from chronic cyanide poisoning), for an ancient human to realize that every step of the ritual is actually necessary, because without extensive experimentation over many human lifetimes, it isn’t obvious what danger the ritual is guarding against, and if it’s working as intended, no one will have seen the danger or be able to know about it in the first place! It seems that evolution always kept around enough sacrificial intelligent humans to tinker with new possible rituals, but always ensured that the majority of the population would obey the safe, known ways of doing things, without questioning them, because trying to rationally evaluate an opaque ritual meant death. Not even the culture itself knew what disaster or point of failure the ritual was actually preventing, only that it kept them alive. Religion is simply a convenient way of packaging rituals; if you look in the rules set out by many ancient religions, a lot of them start looking like “how to run a functioning society” and include things like “keep your toilet clean”. They got popular because they worked, we just had no idea why and in many cases couldn’t have possibly figured out why with the technology at the time. Even worse, if you got it wrong, it could take you decades until you finally manifested an affliction that actually started causing problems.
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Hamilton Nolan ☛ One Year of Independence - by Hamilton Nolan
The publication you are reading, How Things Worked, launched on May 1, 2023. This week marks its one year anniversary. When I began writing here, I told myself that I would give it a good effort for a year, and then assess how it was going. And here we are.
In my first post here, I laid out three reasons why I decided to put my time into this, rather than going for another newsroom job, like I had for my entire career before this. First, because I’ve always liked the ability to write whatever I want, even when that ability was ill-advised. Second, because newsrooms jobs are scarce today due to the fact that tech platform middlemen have sucked most of the money out of the journalism industry. And third, because this sort of publication held out the possibility of becoming the ideal model for any writer: Funded completely by readers, with complete editorial freedom, with no limitations imposed by advertisers or other outside interests.
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Andrew Stephens ☛ Save the Web by Being Nice
A common complaint amongst the old guard bloggers is that the old web as we knew it is dying. This is false.
The old web has actually been dead for many years; killed by the rise of social media, the lure of video, the corruption of SEO, and the double threat posed by mobile devices being both effectively useless for text content creation and difficult to build pages for that also look good on desktop screens.
The good news is that the web isn't actually dead dead, just mostly dead.
And mostly dead, as well all know, is partly alive.
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Cory Dransfeldt ☛ Some site updates
I updated some things on my site and then I started to lose track of all of said updates.
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Pete Brown ☛ We need to kill the idea that "the web" is somehow separate from tech gear that someone owns.
I don’t believe the web is dying. Not for one second. Maybe this specific version of the web is dying, that might be true. Let’s imagine we ban TikTok. And Facebook. And Instagram. And Threads. And all the other huge platforms. There would still be one global town square left. It’s called the web. The web itself IS the global town square.
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Brandon ☛ Movies
I've written thousands of words on video stores over the years. As one of my favorite past-times and my first job, I love and miss the video store. I have so many great memories of browsing the aisles and I dream about it often. I like to joke that if there is a heaven, I know mine will be inside of a video store.
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Science
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Crooked Timber ☛ The destruction of Argentina’s higher education and science system — Crooked Timber
What is often argued in response to these odious comparisons is that Argentina cannot afford to invest in research and development. It is precisely the opposite. It is not the case that “developed” countries can allocate more money to R&D because they have extra cash to expend. Development is also a function of centuries of sovereign production of knowledge. Capitalism, for instance, is not only the product of processes of land appropriation and capitalist accumulation but also of scientific progress. Neither agricultural nor industrial capitalist modes of production would exist without scientific knowledge produced by academies around the world in the modern era. For example, in the 17th century, the role of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge in driving scientific and technological advancement for the development of capitalism was fundamental. But this does not mean that scientific laboratories and the ideologues’ libraries can submit their own mode of knowledge production to the logic of capital. Even if they are to be instrumental to capitalism, they have to maintain the “non-economic” functioning of their own practice, in the same way that the modern state is not reduced to economic logic but fulfils its functions following its own political logic, even when it serves capital.
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The Conversation ☛ [NASA]’s planned mission to retrieve rocks from Mars is in trouble – but it’s a vital step to sending humans to the red planet
[NASA] recently asked the scientific community to help come up with innovative ideas for ways to carry out its Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. This was in response to a report by an independent board that deemed that its US$11 billion (£8.7 billion) price tag was too expensive and its 2040 timeline too far in the future.
In brief, the ambitious plan was to collect rock samples cached inside containers by [NASA]’s Perseverance rover and deliver them to laboratories on Earth. Perseverance has been exploring Mars’ Jezero Crater, thought to have once hosted an ancient lake, since 2021. The mission would deliver the samples by sending a lander that carries a rocket ([NASA]’s Sample Retrieval Lander) down to the surface of Mars.
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Education
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RFA ☛ Number of US students in China has plunged in wake of COVID curbs
Pandemic restrictions and security and censorship concerns dampen interest in China, as many opt for Taiwan.
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Dr Gena Gorlin ☛ Coaching for Demo Day
Recently I got to spend a week in intimate coaching conversations with a batch of brilliant, young, insanely ambitious, insanely stressed-out founders as they prepared to pitch a room full of San Francisco’s most formidable investors at Entrepreneur First (EF)’s inaugural US Demo Day.
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The Atlantic ☛ What I Wish Someone Had Told Me 30 Years Ago
It is nonsense that to shine, you need to go to a fancy school, bootlick bosses, or pay your dues at soul-sucking jobs working for bad people. You do not need to get 1500 on your SAT or to have a sky-high IQ or family connections. You don’t even need sparkling talents. You simply need to want to construct goodness with whatever life throws at you. This starts by grounding yourself with unbreakable core values and then watching, learning, and copying those who do it—and get it—right. But it also includes watching and studying those who screw it up. You need to find your own passions, not have them imposed by others. Then outwork everyone in pursuit of shaping your destiny—your own personal greatness—on your terms, by your measures, at your pace.
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Hardware
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CNX Software ☛ SBC Case Builder v3.0 can create thousands of cases for popular SBCs and standard motherboards (mini-ITX, Pico-ITX, NUC…)
SBC Case Builder V3.0 case design utility has just been released with the ability to create over 1,000 standard cases – not including customization – for popular SBCs from Raspberry Pi, Hardkernel, Orange Pi, Radxa, and others, as well as standard motherboards following Mini-ITX, Pico-ITX, NUC, Nano-ITX, etc.., and SBC adapters following these standards, meaning you could install a Raspberry Pi 5 into a mini-ITX case if needed.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Alibaba's Yitian 710 is the fastest Arm-based CPU for cloud servers, study claims
Study shows that Alibaba's 64-core Yitian 710 outperforms Amazon's Graviton 3, Huawei's Kunpeng 920, and Ampere's Altra 80-core processor.
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CNX Software ☛ Review of SONOFF SNZB-06P human presence and SNZB-04P door/window Zigbee sensors
SONOFF has been gradually refreshing its Zigbee product lineup since August 2023, and CNX has recently written about the Temperature/Humidity Sensor (SNZB-01P), Switch/Button (SNZB-02P) and Motion Sensor (SNZB-03P), and the SONOFF SNZB-06P human presence sensor. I’ve now had the opportunity to review both the SONOFF SNZB-06P and the new Door/Window Sensor (SNZB-04P).
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The Verge ☛ The drinking fountain button is tragically misunderstood
Sounds simple, right? But the genius of the drinking fountain button is that it’s modularly repairable. That whole mechanism is part of a self-contained cartridge that’s easy to remove and swap out.
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The Register UK ☛ AI and server boom sends Samsung's memory back to profit
Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions unit reported on Tuesday a 68 percent year-on-year increase in sales for Q1 2024, largely thanks to its memory sales – a result that confirms what many had predicted: an AI and server boom has brought the chip shop out of the lows experienced in 2023.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Nicholas Tietz-Sokolsky ☛ Gaining depth perception
Three weeks later, my new glasses were in. I drove myself in to pick them up, which was probably a mistake. But I couldn't anticipate the profound experience and shift I was about to have.
He grinned when he presented the closed glasses case to me. "Try them on." I opened the case nervously and put them on and then my eyes... Both eyes were looking at the same place. It was bizarre, like I had truly stepped into a 3D movie, but deeper and surrounding me. This is how people experience the world? Every day, their whole lives? "Anything look different?" he asked me with a grin. Holy...
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CS Monitor ☛ Farmers protest as environment and modern capitalism trump survival
But the pressures of the modern world are hollowing out a profession as old as civilization. Cheaper imported foods, environmental regulations, and costs are squeezing small farms to the point of extinction, and farmers around the globe are fighting back, engaging in often raucous street protests.
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CS Monitor ☛ US solar capacity is growing. The tradeoff: valuable farmland.
According to Mr. Duttlinger’s solar lease, reviewed by Reuters, Dunns Bridge said it would use “commercially reasonable efforts to minimize any damage to and disturbance of growing crops and crop land caused by its construction activities” outside the project site and “not remove topsoil” from the property itself. Still, subcontractors graded Mr. Duttlinger’s fields to assist the building of roads and installation of posts and panels, he said, despite his warnings that it could make the land more vulnerable to erosion.
Crews reshaped the landscape, spreading fine sand across large stretches of rich topsoil, Mr. Duttlinger said. When Reuters visited his farm last year and this spring, much of the land beneath the panels was covered in yellow-brown sand, where no plants grew.
“I’ll never be able to grow anything on that field again,” the farmer said. About one-third of his approximately 1,200-acre farm – where his family grows corn, soybeans, and alfalfa for cattle – has been leased.
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Brattleboro Reformer, Vermont ☛ US to reclassify cannabis as low-risk drug, in major shift
But it would be downgraded to a Schedule III drug under the proposal, along with drugs like ketamine and painkillers containing codeine, with a moderate to low likelihood of dependence, Hinojosa's statement said.
"This is the next step in the formal rescheduling process," a source familiar with the issue told AFP. The process would still require a long period for public comments and finalization.
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Air Force Times ☛ Military bases teem with PFAS — there’s still no firm plan for cleanup
The U.S. Department of Defense, or DOD, is among the nation’s biggest users of firefighting foam and says 80% of active and decommissioned bases require cleanup. Some locations, like Wurtsmith, recorded concentrations over 3,000 times higher than what the agency previously considered safe.
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US News And World Report ☛ Facebook and Instagram Face European Union Scrutiny Over Possible Breaches of Digital Rulebook
The European Union said Tuesday that it's scrutinizing Facebook and Instagram over a range of suspected violations of the bloc's digital rulebook, including not doing enough to protect users from foreign disinformation ahead of EU-wide elections.
The EU's Executive Commission said it's opening formal proceedings into whether parent company Meta Platforms breached the Digital Services Act, a sweepting set of regulations designed to protect internet users and clean up social media platforms.
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CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Cigna’s nopeinator
This was how the claims denial process is said to work, but it's not how it was supposed to work. Dr Day was markedly slower than her peers, who would "click and close" claims by pasting the nurses' own rationale for denying the claim into the relevant form, acting as a rubber-stamp rather than a skilled reviewer.
Dr Day knew she was slower than her peers. Cigna made sure of that, producing a "productivity dashboard" that scored doctors based on "handle time," which Cigna describes as the average time its doctors spend on different kinds of claims. But Dr Day and other Cigna sources say that this was a maximum, not an average – a way of disciplining doctors.
These were not long times. If a doctor asked Cigna not to discharge their patient from hospital care and a nurse denied that claim, the doctor reviewing that claim was supposed to spend not more than 4.5 minutes on their review. Other timelines were even more aggressive: many denials of prescription drugs were meant to be resolved in fever than two minutes.
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The Conversation ☛ Many old books contain toxic chemicals – here’s how to spot them
The Poisonous Book Project, a collaborative research project between Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library and the University of Delaware, is dedicated to cataloguing such books. Their concern is not with the content written on the pages, but with the physical components of the books themselves — specifically, the colours of the covers.
The project recently influenced the decision to remove two books from the French national library. The reason? Their vibrant green cloth covers raised suspicions of containing arsenic.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Ubuntu ☛ The biggest use cases for AI in Automotive (that aren’t just self-driving cars)
A study of 4 major use cases of AI in cars
In this fast-paced age of technological evolution, Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as the key catalyst driving profound shifts in the automotive sector. From smart vehicle design to customised in-car interactions, AI is reshaping every aspect of transportation, ensuring safer, more effective, and environmentally friendly journeys for both drivers and passengers.
In this blog, we’ll have a look at the four most promising use cases for AI in the automotive industry.
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404 Media ☛ Men Use Fake Livestream Apps With AI Audiences to Hit on Women
The implication here is that you can download this app and use it to lie to women so they will find you interesting. AI has enabled the creation of many dumb, coercive, and dystopian apps, and, while it’s hard to crown any specific app the dumbest, most coercive, and most dystopian, Parallel Live and a nearly identical app called “Famefy” are certainly in the running. Famefy has 40,000 ratings on the iOS App Store and Parallel Live has nearly 5,000 reviews, suggesting these apps are depressingly popular.
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Naman Sood ☛ How to install Linux from a Windows installer
Countless people have suggested that I should write a blog post about how I did this, so here we go.
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Manton Reece ☛ AI hesitancy
Some people think generative AI is in the same line as other problematic new technologies, fads that come and go, leaving a string of wrecked businesses and broken apps in their wake. I understand the hesitation. We have been inundated with tech companies that don’t care about data privacy, don’t care about how energy use affects the climate, and don’t care as much about user control as they do about profit.
It is with this backdrop that I get to the point: this AI shit is real. It will change almost everything. I’m not expecting to see another truly game-changing technology for the rest of my career. This is the one.
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Wired ☛ AI Detectors for ChatGPT: Everything You Need to Know
As a journalist who started covering AI detection over a year ago, I wanted to curate some of WIRED’s best articles on the topic to help readers like you better understand this complicated issue.
Have even more questions about spotting outputs from ChatGPT and other chatbot tools? Sign up for my AI Unlocked newsletter, and reach out to me directly with anything AI-related that you would like answered or want WIRED to explore more.
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Simon Willison ☛ How an empty S3 bucket can make your AWS bill explode
Maciej Pocwierz accidentally created an S3 bucket with a name that was already used as a placeholder value in a widely used piece of software. They saw 100 million PUT requests to their new bucket in a single day, racking up a big bill since AWS charges $5/million PUTs.
It turns out AWS charge that same amount for PUTs that result in a 403 authentication error, a policy that extends even to "requester pays" buckets!
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[Repeat] NYOB ☛ ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can’t correct it
ChatGPT keeps hallucinating - and not even OpenAI can stop it. The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 triggered an unprecedented AI hype. People started using the chatbot for all sorts of purposes, including research tasks. The problem is that, according to OpenAI itself, the application only generates “responses to user requests by predicting the next most likely words that might appear in response to each prompt”. In other words: While the company has extensive training data, there is currently no way to guarantee that ChatGPT is actually showing users factually correct information. On the contrary, generative AI tools are known to regularly “hallucinate”, meaning they simply make up answers.
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India Times ☛ Uber ceases operations: Ride-hailing app Uber ceases operations across Pakistan
The spokesperson said the company would now focus on growing its Careem app in Pakistan and users on Uber will have to switch to Careem as operations have ceased in Pakistan from Tuesday onwards.
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Arduino ☛ Arduino Cloud is now natively supported on tablets
We’re excited to announce the release of IoT Remote v3.0.0, featuring a native tablet version (available for both Android and iOS platforms) optimized for unlocking the full potential of larger screen sizes. What is the Arduino IoT Remote app?
The Arduino IoT Remote app allows you to interact with your devices connected to the Arduino IoT Cloud from your mobile device. With it, you can control and monitor all your dashboards, as well as access your phone’s internal sensors like GPS, light, and accelerometer so that they are populated to the Arduino Cloud and used in your projects.
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Silicon Angle ☛ OpenAI signs content licensing agreement with the Financial Times
As part of the collaboration, the companies will make certain Financial Times content available to users of ChatGPT. OpenAI said the deal covers “select attributed summaries, quotes and links to FT journalism.” It didn’t specify when the content will become accessible or in which versions of ChatGPT.7
Besides bringing Financial Times articles to the chatbot, OpenAI will also use the content to train new AI models. The deal is part of a broader effort by the company to improve its LLMs using training datasets from third parties. Last November, OpenAI launched a partner program designed to give its LLMs access to external information repositories “that reflect human society.”
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Silicon Angle ☛ Ford probed in US after fatal collisions in self-driving cars
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, said the driver-assistance software has been linked with a number of crashes, including two in 2024 that resulted in fatalities. The first happened close to San Antonio, Texas: A 24-year-old driver in a Mustang Mach-E was traveling on Interstate 10 when he crashed into the back of a stationary Honda CRV. The occupant of the Honda died in the collision.
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Silicon Angle ☛ What to know about AI at this year's RSA Conference
This year, conference attendees will be just as hooked on AI/ML solutions as they were 12 months ago. But I believe there’s an opportunity to educate this year’s attendees beforehand on the questions they need to be asking vendors to determine whether the next AI/ML presentation they listen to is legit or just buzzword soup.
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Security
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The Register UK ☛ UK lays down fresh legislation banning crummy default device passwords
Smart device manufacturers will have to play by new rules in the UK as of today, with laws coming into force to make it more difficult for cybercriminals to break into hardware such as phones and tablets.
The Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 (PSTI Act) aims to enforce minimum security standards by which all device manufacturers must abide.
Of the three main requirements all smart devices must adhere to, shipping devices with easily crackable default passwords is arguably the headliner. Default passwords are allowed, but if they're easily discoverable online, then it will fall foul of the Act.
It has been coming for a while. We started reporting on the proposed PSTI Act back in 2021 and even at the bill's first inception, it primarily aimed to stamp out these what's-even-the-point passwords.
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Dark Reading ☛ Attackers Planted Millions of Imageless Repositories on Docker Hub
The purported metadata for each these containers had embedded links to malicious files.
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Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
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Tim Bray ☛ Photointegrity
In March of 2004, just over twenty years ago, I published an ongoing piece entitled, like this one, “Photointegrity”. The issue remains the same, but the rise of AI increases its importance and its difficulty. Here are words on the subject, illustrated by photos all of which have been processed with AI technology.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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US Director of National Intelligence ☛ Annual Statistical Transparency Report Regarding National Security Authorities Calendar Year 2023
This report provides insights into the rigorous, multi-layered oversight framework that governs the IC, and the release of this report is consistent with the requirement in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended (codified in 50 U.S.C. § 1873(b)), and the IC’s commitment to the Principles of Intelligence Transparency.
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The Record ☛ FBI searched Section 702 database half as much in 2023, Biden administration says
An annual transparency report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence disclosed the FBI conducted 57,094 searches of U.S. data previously collected by the National Security Agency, down from 119,383 the previous year.
The significant drop marks the second consecutive year that figure has fallen and is something of a victory for the Biden administration, fresh off a bruising campaign to reauthorize the foreign spying program, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
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Cyble Inc ☛ FCC Fined AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile Over Illegal Data Sharing
The Federal Communications Commission has fined the largest phone carriers in the country – AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon – $200 million over illegal data sharing of its customers location with third parties, and that with inadequate safeguards in place.
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Cyble Inc ☛ Privacy Group Complained Against ChatGPT's GDPR Violations
The Vienna-based digital rights group Noyb, founded by known activist Max Schrems, said in its complaint that ChatGPT’s failure to provide accurate personal data and instead guessing it, violates the GDPR requirements.
Under GDPR, an individual’s personal details, including date of birth, are considered personal data and are subject to stringent handling requirements.
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Luke Harris ☛ Plugged in the NAS
With everything working as well as it is currently—besides the lack of AdGuard Home—buying more networking gear is low on the list right now. Worst case I could throw the Comcast gateway into bridge mode and set up an access point face up on the entertainment center. And I have a spare modem.
Feels weird relying on the ISP’s hardware for the LAN side. Doing my best not to think about the privacy issues—whoops.
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Security Week ☛ Why Using Microsoft Copilot Could Amplify Existing Data Quality and Privacy Issues
According to analyst firm Gartner, some 55% of organizations have implemented or are piloting Generative AI. For many of these, Copilot for Microsoft 365 is an obvious starting point given that it’s an easy add-on to the services millions of organizations already use such as M365 and Office365. As well as the ease of purchase there’s also a simplified implementation given that Copilot has plenty of data that it can be trained to work with which is already used by Microsoft services.
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HT Digital Streams Ltd ☛ Google layoffs: ‘Most powerful company instilling fear’ say sacked employees, appeal in Labour Court | Mint
Google, Alphabet Inc's subsidiary, dismissed employees for staging protests at two company offices in April over the company’s cloud project with Israel, dubbed Project Nimbus. This particular contract—a cloud computing deal valued at $1.2 billion—with various branches of the Israeli government, including the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was jointly secured by Google and Amazon.
The sacked workers filed a formal complaint on Monday, April 29, with the US National Labor Relations (NLRB) Board, accusing the company of infringing on their labour rights under US labour law after the tech giant fired almost 50 workers.
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Lee Peterson ☛ What data does Nord VPN collect on your iPhone?
I use a VPN on my devices all of the time, I didn’t use to but here in the UK our privacy is slowly being eroded away. I recently reset my iPhone when I switched back and on installing Nord I thought I’d grab the information and share it here.
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The Register UK ☛ Apple's 'incredibly private' Safari not so private in Europe
Apple's grudging accommodation of European antitrust rules by allowing third-party app stores on iPhones has left users of its Safari browser exposed to potential web activity tracking.
Developers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk looked into the way Apple implemented the installation process for third-party software marketplaces on iOS with Safari, and concluded Cupertino's approach is particularly shoddy.
"Our testing shows that Apple delivered this feature with catastrophic security and privacy flaws," wrote Bakry and Mysk in an advisory published over the weekend.
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The Register UK ☛ Privacy activists slap OpenAI with GDPR complaint
Privacy activist group noyb (None of Your Business) has filed a complaint against OpenAI, alleging that the ChatGPT service violates GDPR rules since its information cannot be corrected if found inaccurate.
In the filing [PDF] with the Austrian data protection authority, the group alleges ChatGPT was asked to provide the date of birth of a given data subject. The subject, whose name is redacted in the complaint, is a public figure, so some information about him is online, but his date of birth is not. ChatGPT, therefore, had a go at inferring it but returned the wrong date.
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NYOB ☛ OpenAI Privacy Complaint – redacted [PDF]
1. noyb – European Center for Digital Rights is a not-for-profit organisation active in the field of the protection of data subjects’ rights and freedoms with its registered office in Goldschlagstraße 172/4/2, 1140 Vienna, Austria, registry number ZVR: 1354838270 (hereinafter: „noyb“) (Attachment 1).
2. noyb is respresenting the complainant under Article 80(1) GDPR (Attachment 2).
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Patrick Breyer ☛ Leak: EU governments double down on penalising privacy-friendly and encrypted messaging services with chat control bulk scanning orders
An updated version of the methodology to be used in the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation, leaked by the news portal Contexte, reveals more details on the approach pursued by the Belgian Council Presidency: The text doubles-down on services that allow people to protect themselves. If services are used through pseudonyms, VPNs, encryption or without an account, they will score worse on the risk scale, and will be more likely to be served a detection order mandating scanning of all communications content. The same applies if a services allows users to use cryptocurrencies or if it allows users to connect from another jurisdiction (like VPNs, TOR). If a services enables the „direct sharing of content without using centralised servers“, via P2P, that makes it score worse, because it would evade server-side scanning. If a privacy-friendly platform cannot or does not collect data on users (to monitor their behaviour or metadata), it will score worse. Services through which users “predominantly engage in public communication” (i.e. instead of private chats) will score better and thus be less likely to receive detection orders.
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Confidentiality
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WhichUK ☛ New security laws for smart devices: what it means for you
Requirements for a ‘best before’ date for smart devices will improve
transparency and help you choose a product that will last
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Defence/Aggression
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The Straits Times ☛ Reported Indian role in assassination plots a 'serious matter', White House says
The White House said on Monday it viewed the reported role of the Indian intelligence service in two assassination plots in Canada and the United States as a serious matter.
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Digital Music News ☛ China Promises Retaliation After Fentanylware (TikTok) Ban Legislation Passes — As Fentanylware (TikTok) Prepares Its Legal Recourse
A new report suggests China could retaliate following President Joe Biden signing into law legislation that would force the sale of TikTok—or ban the app. President Biden signed the legislation into law last week alongside a military aid package for Ukraine and Israel.
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Security Week ☛ How Fentanylware (TikTok) Grew From a Fun App for Teens Into a Potential National Security Threat
History of Fentanylware (TikTok) and how it many view it as a national security threat.
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Gizmodo ☛ 2024-04-30 [Older] NSA Employee Gets 22 Years in Prison for Trying to Give Top Secret Info to Russia
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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NL Times ☛ 2024-04-30 [Older] Russian cigarette billionaire funneled millions via Netherlands just before sanctions
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-30 [Older] Russia accused of GPS jamming after aircraft disrupted
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-04-30 [Older] Russia-Africa: What Next? Speakers question at the 3rd MGIMO University’s Youth Forum
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-30 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russia hits Kharkiv, Odesa in new strikes
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The Local DK ☛ 2024-04-30 [Older] Denmark's Carlsberg reports first revenue boost since Russia exit
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-30 [Older] A 98-Year-Old in Ukraine Walked Miles to Safety From Russians, With Slippers and a Cane
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-29 [Older] War in Ukraine: Why is the EU still buying Russian gas?
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-30 [Older] Russian Officials Say Ukraine Attacked Crimea With U.S.-Made ATACMS Missiles
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-29 [Older] German army captain admits spying for Russia
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-29 [Older] NATO Chief Chides Members as Ukraine’s Allies Say Slow Arms Deliveries Have Helped Russia
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-29 [Older] Russian Envoy Meets Sudan's Army Commander in Show of Support
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-29 [Older] Russian Missile Hits Educational Institution, Kills Four in Ukraine's Odesa
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-29 [Older] Russia Says Taking Control of Ariston Unit Is Response to Western Hostilities
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-29 [Older] Russia's War in Ukraine Boosts EU Case for Further Expansion, Chairman Says
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Europe’s Exports to Former Soviet Republics are Helping Russia Beat Sanctions
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-28 [Older] Russian Journalists Placed in Pre-Trial Detention in Alleged Extremism Cases
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-28 [Older] Russia: Navalny-linked journalists arrested over 'extremism'
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Russia: Navalny-linked journalist arrested over 'extremism'
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Russia: Forbes journalist Mingazov 'put under house arrest'
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Russian Court Places Forbes Journalist Mingazov Under House Arrest, Says RIA
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] A Russian Journalist Has Been Detained for Posts Criticizing the Military, His Lawyer Says
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-29 [Older] Tajikistan Summons Russian Ambassador Over Moscow's Treatment of Tajiks
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Scheerpost ☛ 2024-04-28 [Older] NATO Says China Must Cut Trade With Russia To Have Good Relations With West
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-28 [Older] Exclusive-China Firms Go 'Underground' on Russia Payments as Banks Pull Back
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-28 [Older] Putin Likely Didn’t Order Death of Russian Opposition Leader Navalny, US Official Says
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-28 [Older] German Police Arrest a Russian Man in Connection With the Fatal Stabbings of 2 Ukrainian Men
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-28 [Older] Russia Threatens West With Severe Response if Its Assets Are Touched
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-28 [Older] Ukrainian 'Grandpa' Leads Over-60s Unit Fighting Russian Forces for Free
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] UK man charged with Russia-backed arson attack in London
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] Briton Charged Over Alleged Russia-Linked Arson Attack
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-24 [Older] Russian Orthodox Church suspends Navalny memorial priest
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-24 [Older] Russia: Top military official arrested on bribery allegations
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-23 [Older] Germany sees spike in Chinese and Russian espionage
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CBC ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Russian missiles pound Ukrainian thermal power stations in escalating campaign
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russia 'massively' shells energy sites
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] EU Criticises Russia Over Control of German, Italian Firms' Units
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Kremlin, Commenting on Blinken Lobbying China on Russia, Says Moscow and Beijing Ties to Continue
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Moscow May Seize Private US Assets in Russia if US Seizes Frozen Reserves, Says Putin Ally
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Russian Missiles Pound Power Plants in Central and Western Ukraine
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Russia Holds in Custody Subordinate of Arrested Deputy Minister, Tass Says
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Russian Think Tank Warns of Stagnating Industrial Output, Investment
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Russia Renews Attacks on the Ukrainian Energy Sector as Kyiv Launches Drones at Southern Russia
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Russia Says It Struck Ukrainian Energy Plants in Response to Kyiv Targeting Its Own Energy Sector
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Russia Steps up Offensive on East Ukraine Village, Kyiv Says Its Forces Holding Out
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Ukraine Drones Target Two Refineries, Airfield in Russia's Krasnodar Region, Kyiv Source Says
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-27 [Older] Zelenskiy Says Russia Targeted Gas Facilities That Secure EU Supply
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Gizmodo ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] Russia's UN Veto Fuels More Tension With the US Over Nuclear Weapons in Space
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] European Commission is considering sanctions against Russian LNG
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CBC ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] Americans are spending $61B on Ukraine's war effort. What will it get them?
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Counter Punch ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] Ukraine War Funding and Failed Russian Sanctions
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] Why Russia and Iran can dodge Western sanctions
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] Ceasefire Monitoring Centre in Nagorno-Karabakh Shuts as Russian Peacekeepers Withdraw
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] Russia Attacks Ukraine's Rail Lines to Disrupt Supply of U.S. Arms, Source Says
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] Ukraine's Farm Minister Is the Latest Corruption Suspect as Kyiv Aims to Undo Recent Russian Gains
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-26 [Older] With Russia in Mind, French Carrier Joins Drills Under NATO Command
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CBC ☛ 2024-04-25 [Older] Canadian who died in Cuba was mistakenly buried in Russia, family says
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CBC ☛ 2024-04-25 [Older] Bombardier gets federal exemption from sanctions on Russian titanium
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-25 [Older] Ukraine Pulls US-Provided Abrams Tanks From the Front Lines Over Russian Drone Threats
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-25 [Older] China Must Stop Aiding Russia if It Seeks Good Relations With West, NATO Says
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-04-24 [Older] The Brown soldiers on the Russian frontline
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NL Times ☛ 2024-04-24 [Older] Dutch auction house to sell off pro-Russian oligarch's superyacht
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-24 [Older] Germany: AfD's Krah faces probe on Russia, China 'payments'
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-24 [Older] The US Is Now Allowed to Seize Russian State Assets. How Would That Work?
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-24 [Older] Russia, US Clash at UN Over Nuclear Weapons in Space
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-23 [Older] Russian-Installed Officials Say Four Dead in Ukraine Drone Attack in Zaporizhzhia Region
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-04-23 [Older] US, Russia Set for a Showdown at UN Over Nuclear Weapons in Space
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Environment
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Energy/Transportation
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Elon Musk leaves Beijing after Tesla wins key data security clearance from China
Tesla boss Elon Musk boarded a plane departing Beijing on Monday, after a whistlestop China visit during which the firm secured a key security clearance for the world’s biggest electric car market.
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France24 ☛ Scores killed in Kenya after dam bursts following weeks of heavy flooding
At least 42 people died when a dam burst its banks near a town in Kenya's Rift Valley, the local governor told AFP on Monday, as heavy rains and floods battered the country.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Bruce Schneier ☛ Whale Song Code
During the Cold War, the US Navy tried to make a secret code out of whale song.
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Finance
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REI loses $311M in 2023, second year in a row it failed to turn a profit
Following a tumultuous year that included layoffs and operations restructuring, REI announced it lost $311 million in 2023.
The Seattle-founded outdoor equipment retailer reported its revenue was $3.76 billion, down 2.4% from the previous year.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Reason ☛ Backpage: A Blueprint for Squelching Speech
How the Backpage prosecution helped create a playbook for suppressing online speech, debanking disfavored groups, and using "conspiracy" charges to imprison the government's targets
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Civil Rights/Policing
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European Commission ☛ Remarks by Commissioner Urpilainen at Slovakian Europe Day event with Trade Union Confederations
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Why it is time to ban corporal punishment and give Hong Kong kids a non-violent childhood
April 30 is International Spank Out Day, urging the public to stop the corporal punishment of children. But can the policies and laws of Hong Kong comply with this objective?
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NYPost ☛ Columbia University has failed to protect Jewish students during anti-Israel protests, lawsuit claims
Columbia University has been accused of failing to protect Jewish students in a lawsuit brought forward by an anonymous student.
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Reason ☛ Bipartisan Legislation Would Let the Government Create Speech-Chilling 'Antisemitism Monitors'
The bill would allow the Education Department to effectively force colleges to suppress a wide range of protected speech.
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JURIST ☛ Spain PM decides to stay in the office amid corruption allegations against wife
The Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, announced on Monday in a televised speech that he will continue in office despite the corruption allegations against his wife. Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gomez, was accused of unduly leveraging her position to influence business deals.
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BIA Net ☛ Allegations of sexual assault, drug addiction at Balıkesir removal center
The report also outlines additional issues within the removal center, including allegations of detainees being subjected to hate speech by staff members, inadequate medical care, and a lack of basic necessities such as blankets and drinking water.
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YLE ☛ Monday's papers: Racist Fentanylware (TikTok) comments, new strike warnings, and Tappara's three-peat
Tampere's ice hockey club Tappara has won its third Liiga title in a row.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Internet Society ☛ NDSS Symposium Showcases the Importance of Securing Your Connected Life
It may be a cliché to say that the most interesting conversations you have at a conference are those between the sessions… but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s untrue. At NDSS Symposium 2024, I talked to one of the venue’s security guards, and the conversation definitely didn’t go where I expected.
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Patents
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Unified Patents ☛ Monticello Enterprises payment patent monopoly challenged
On April 26, 2024, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 11,468,497, owned and asserted by Monticello Enterprises LLC. The ‘497 patent monopoly relates to transmitting user payment data to a merchant device based on inputs received from a user.
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JUVE ☛ Datang wins against Samsung in 4G SEP infringement dispute
Samsung Electronics has infringed EP 2 237 607, owned by Datang Mobile Communications Equipment, and currently may not sell 4G-capable mobile devices in Germany.
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Ikorongo Challenges Federal Circuit’s Heightened “Same Invention” Requirement for Reissue Patents
Ikorongo Technology has filed a petition for certiorari asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Federal Circuit’s heightened disclosure standard for the “same invention” requirement in reissue patents. The petitioner argues that the Federal Circuit’s test, established in Antares Pharma, Inc. v. Medac Pharma Inc., 771 F.3d 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2014), directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. Industrial Chemicals, Inc. v. Carbide & Carbon Chemicals Corp., 315 U.S. 668 (1942). Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Ikorongo Tech. LLC v. Bumble Trading LLC, No. 23-1118 (U.S. Apr. 2024).
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Copyrights
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Press Gazette ☛ Who’s suing Hey Hi (AI) and who’s signing: Publisher deals vs lawsuits with generative Hey Hi (AI) companies
Axel Springer and Financial Times on one side; The New York Times on the other.
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Techdirt ☛ ESA Once Again Comes Out Against Video Game Preservation Efforts
On the middle point, the Electronic Software Association, a lobbying group for game and software makers, continues to serve as an example of an obstinant force offering no alternatives. The ESA recently went in front of the Copyright Office for a hearing and reiterated its stance that no carveouts be given to museums and non-profits for the purposes of preserving video game content.
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Press Gazette ☛ Why FT may be wrong to license its content for AI training
The Financial Times has joined a growing group of newsbrands to have licensed its content for use by artificial intelligence pioneer OpenAI. It joins companies like Axel Springer, Le Monde and Associated Press in doing so.
John Ridding, the FT’s CEO, points to a tension inherent in their deal. On the one hand, it positions the FT as a beneficiary, keeping it “at the forefront of developments in how people access and use information”. But he also acknowledges an underlying ethical concern. It’s right, he says, “that AI platforms pay publishers for the use of their material”. There are few media companies around right now who don’t welcome a bit of extra income.
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Torrent Freak ☛ CJEU Gives File-Sharer Surveillance & Data Retention a Green Light
In a judgment published today, Europe's top court concludes that suspected file-sharers can be subjected to mass surveillance and retention of their data as long as certain standards are upheld. Digital rights groups hoped to end the French 'Hadopi' anti-piracy scheme, claiming that it violates the fundamental right to privacy. The CJEU's judgment leaves no stone unturned explaining why that isn't so, leaving case law to deal with the turbulence.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Rightsholders Want U.S. “Know Your Customer” Proposal to Include Domain Name Services
The U.S. Department of Commerce has proposed new customer verification requirements for Infrastructure as a Service providers. The goal of the 'Know Your Customer' regime is to prevent fraud and abuse, including piracy. In response to this plan, prominent rightsholders want the department to expand the proposal's scope to include domain name registrars and registries. Ideally, they argue, domain companies should also be required to take down pirate domains.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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