● 09.13.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Leftover Links 13/09/2023: Digital Restrictions (DRM) in Cars and Browsers

Posted in News Roundup at 7:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Leftovers

=> ↺ New Yorker ☛ How to Decolonize the City

A recent exhibition in Brussels, in radically reframing the art and architecture of Art Nouveau, offered some clues.

=> ↺ Kev Quirk ☛ Metro 2033

The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct. The half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind. But the last remains of civilisation have already become a distant memory, the stuff of myth and legend. More than 20 years have passed since the last plane took off from the earth. Rusted railways lead into emptiness. The ether is void and the airwaves echo to a soulless howling where previously the frequencies were full of news from Tokyo, New York, Buenos Aires. Man has handed over stewardship of the earth to new life-forms. Mutated by radiation, they are better adapted to the new world. Man’s time is over.

=> ↺ Truthdig ☛ The ‘War on Terror’ and the Hell It Wrought After 9/11

Under the “war on terror” rubric, open-ended warfare was well underway — “as if terror were a state and not a technique,” as Joan Didion wrote in 2003 (two months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq). “We had seen, most importantly, the insistent use of September 11 to justify the reconception of America’s correct role in the world as one of initiating and waging virtually perpetual war.”

In a single sentence, Didion had captured the essence of a quickly calcified set of assumptions that few mainstream journalists were willing to question. Those assumptions were catnip for the lions of the military-industrial-intelligence complex. After all, the budgets at “national security” agencies (both long-standing and newly created) had begun to soar with similar vast outlays going to military contractors. Worse yet, there was no end in sight as mission creep accelerated into a dash for cash.

=> ↺ Truthdig ☛ The US Legacy of ‘Security’ Lives on 22 Years Later

Leaders in Central Asia and the Middle East, despite their authoritarian credentials, have reinvented themselves as indispensable to a U.S.-led security architecture, leveraging the GWOT’s prevailing ethos to quell internal opposition. Even in Latin America, seemingly distant from the 9/11 epicenter, governments have weaponized these legal tools against a broader spectrum of perceived adversaries, including civil society and grassroots organizations. A hyper-securitized world is now our new normal.

Science

=> ↺ Lessons from Japan’s ‘Lost Decades’: An underdog in the era of innovation and entrepreneurship

In 1989, when Japan’s corporations were on the crest of a wave, there was no sci-tech company among the global top 10 by market capitalization. The most technologically advanced company on the list was IBM, founded in 1911 and nearly 100 years old back then. Now, looking at today’s global top 10 companies by market capitalization — Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, NVIDIA, Tesla, Facebook, TSMC — 8 of them are innovation-driven companies. Among them, the oldest is Microsoft, founded in 1975, and the youngest is Facebook, established in 2004.

Education

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Federal Court Strikes Blow Against Categorical Denials of Online Teaching Accommodations

Prof. Katherine Macfarlane and I break down Oross v. Kutztown University

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Students back Lithuanian teachers’ planned strike

The Lithuanian School Students’ Union (LMS) is going to join the teachers’ strike at the end of September.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Lithuanian school bans mobile phones amid drive to make students pay attention

Elena Čiobienė has been a Lithuanian teacher for almost 40 years. Even without technology, she says, students were inventive in keeping themselves busy with everything except studying. But with smartphones, she says, it is much worse.

Hardware

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Western Digital announce the SN770M NVMe for handhelds like the Steam Deck [Ed: Linkspam by Liam Dawe. Not good.]

Need a storage upgrade for your Steam Deck, ROG Ally or other handheld? Western Digital are the latest to enter the game with their new WD_BLACK SN770M NVMe SSD.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Arm, a British Chip Designer, Juggles Challenges Before 2023’s Biggest I.P.O.

He reports to Masayoshi Son, the head of SoftBank, which owns Arm and plans to sell a portion of the British company this week in the year’s biggest initial public offering. Officials in Beijing and Washington also command Mr. Haas’s attention amid a widening chip trade war, as does Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and others who have unsuccessfully pitched the idea of a stock listing in the country.

And Mr. Haas must juggle the demands of more than 200 companies that use Arm’s technology. Ten of the biggest — including Apple, Google, Samsung and Nvidia — have been negotiating for stakes in the highly anticipated Arm offering as artificial intelligence drives explosive demand for more powerful chips.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ Arm Develops Full Chip Designs for Multiple Markets: Report

Arm reportedly designs reference solutions for automotive, cloud computing, IoT, mobile devices, a Bloomberg report says.

=> ↺ Tedium ☛ Based On A True Interpretation

How bothered should we be by the BlackBerry film fudging the truth? Honestly, I think we should embrace Jim Balsillie’s good nature about it.

I finally saw the BlackBerry movie last night, a film I had been quite excited about, and I gotta say that it lived up to all my expectations and then some.

It is clearly the work of a team who, when given the task of trying to tell the story of a groundbreaking company, chose to create something compelling, rather than 100 percent factual, much as The Social Network attempted to tell the story of a company whose story had become a popular myth essentially. The film, by director Matt Johnson, essentially does the same thing with a smartphone that was once at the center of public consciousness, only to disappear almost overnight.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ Intel Sells Minority Stake in IMS Nano to TSMC

TSMC buys into IMS Nano, a leading maker of multi e-beam photomask writing tools.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Putting The Magic Smoke Back Into A Dodgy Spectrum Analyzer

The trouble with fixing electronics is that most devices are just black boxes — literally. Tear it down, look inside, but it usually doesn’t matter — all you see are black epoxy blobs, taunting you with the fact that one or more of them are dead with no external indication of the culprit.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ 3D Printing A Sock Knitting Machine

3D printing socks isn’t really a thing yet. You’d end up with scratchy plastic garments that irritate your feet no end. You can easily 3D print all kinds of nifty little mechanisms, though, so why not 3D print yourself a machien to knit some socks instead? That’s precisely what [Joshua De Lisle] did.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Book8088 Slows Down To Join The Demoscene

As obsolete as the original IBM Model 5150 PC may appear, it’s pretty much the proverbial giant’s shoulders upon which we all stand today. That makes the machine worth celebrating, so much so that we now have machines like the Book8088, a diminutive clamshell-style machine made from period-correct PC chips; sort of a “netbook that never was.”

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Axios ☛ FDA blasted over inaction on menthol ban [Ed: FDA, which brought COVID-19 "boosters" to hundreds of millions of human beings after they had been tested on only a few mice]

Public health groups criticized the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday for missing a self-imposed August deadline to finalize a rule banning menthol in cigarettes.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Paris fumigates for tiger mosquitoes as tropical pest spreads across Europe

Health authorities in Paris fumigated areas of the French capital for the first time on Thursday to kill disease-carrying tiger mosquitoes whose rapid advance through northern Europe is thought to have been accelerated by climate change.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Almost half of Hong Kong’s homeless suffer PTSD, study finds, as gov’t urged to offer greater support

Almost half of Hong Kong’s homeless people experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but lack the necessary support to manage the mental health condition, a study has found.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Many Children May Have Lost Medicaid Coverage Because of State Errors

Federal officials warned state agencies to review their systems for establishing eligibility, as they pare back Medicaid rolls. Children in particular may have been affected.

=> ↺ Science Alert ☛ 5 Outdated Ways to Prevent Pregnancy Show How Far Contraception Has Come

Don’t try these at home.

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ Did government overstep on COVID ‘misinfo’? Courts weigh in.

A Sept. 8 ruling in Missouri v. Biden enjoins certain federal officials from pressuring social media platforms to take down protected free speech.

=> ↺ Reason ☛ The Best of Reason: The DEA at 50

For five decades, drugs have been winning the war on drugs.

=> ↺ Hindustan Times ☛ France orders halting Apple iPhone 12 sales over radiation

The French agency that regulates radio frequencies, the ANFR, said testing found that the model emits more electromagnetic waves susceptible to be absorbed by the body than permitted.

Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ Former Twitter executives: Privacy and security practices deteriorated under Musk

The Federal Trade Commission is currently investigating whether Twitter — now X Corp. — violated a 2011 agreement Twitter entered into with the agency to settle complaints about Twitter’s privacy practices. The agreement required Twitter to implement a security and privacy program, including regular external audits.

In a court filing unsealed Monday, several former executives said Musk failed to heed warnings about potential security concerns, especially as he fired or laid off large numbers of employees after acquiring the company last year.

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Lawyer’s Microsoft email snafu goes from $1.75M lawsuit to Ctrl+Alt+Settle

The attorney had asked for $1.75 million in the suit – $750,000 in damages and $1 million in punitive damages, accusing Microsoft of both breach of contract and “tortious business dealings” for “wantonly delaying the simple remedy of aiding one single email access.”

The original allegation was that Schlachter lost access to his Microsoft business email account on May 10 this year, but that the software giant failed to extricate him from a verification loop that was preventing him from getting into his account, which the filing said he paid for via a monthly subscription.

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Grab those updates: Microsoft flings out fixes for already-exploited bugs

Five others are listed as critical.

Let’s start with the two currently under exploitation. First up: CVE-2023-36761, an information disclosure vulnerability in Word deemed “important” by Redmond with a 6.2 out of 10 CVSS severity rating.

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ Beware of insecure networked printers

Despite promises of a paperless office that have origins in the 1970s, the printer is still very much a security problem in the modern office.

And even if Microsoft Corp. will succeed in its efforts to eradicate the universe of third-party printer drivers from its various Windows products, the printer will still be the bane of security professionals for years to come. The problem is that the attack surface for printer-related activities is a rich one, with numerous soft targets.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Judge For FTC Rules Intuit Can’t Continue Its ‘Free To File’ Advertising Bullshit

The old saying goes: there’s only two things that are permanent, death and taxes. For quite a while now, we could have added a third item to the list: Intuit annoying us to death with its bullshit advertisement about filing for taxes for “free.” You really should go back and read our posts on this topic if you’re not familiar with it, but the topline summary is simple enough. Intuit has spent years advertising to the masses that they can file taxes for free using its TurboTax platform as part of a government program, except only a third of the public qualifies for free filing and Intuit did every last thing possible to hide the options for free filing and collected money from many who would qualify to file for free instead.

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Linux Foundation’s Site/Blog ☛ Will the Cyber Resilience Act help the European ICT sector compete? [Ed: Mirko Boehm moved from OIN to Linux Foundation this past summer. Always chasing money, even if that means software patents and monopolies [1, 2, 3, 4]]

Much has been written about the potentially damaging effects of the draft EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) on the open source ecosystem (BitKom, Eclipse Foundation, VDA, OSBA, Linux Foundation – this post is based on a draft of the CRA from September 15, 2022). In this post, we are going to look at the CRA from a different perspective: As a part of the EU cybersecurity strategy, the higher-order goal of the CRA is the further development and strengthening of the integrated EU single market. Since open source software is the foundation of nearly every modern digital product, influencing how the open source ecosystem operates will be felt by the European businesses and citizens. Will the CRA be conducive to EU ICT policy goals?

Security

=> ↺ Beta News ☛ Uncovering the market in vulnerability exploits

A Windows privilege escalation exploit listed for $8,000 as an executable and $13,000 as source code, while a Barracuda emails security exploit was $15,000.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Zero Day Summer: Microsoft Warns of Fresh New Software Exploits

Microsoft’s struggles with zero-day exploits rolled into a new month with a fresh Patch Tuesday warning about malware attacks in the wild.

=> ↺ SANS ☛ Microsoft September 2023 Patch Tuesday, (Tue, Sep 12th)

This month we got patches for 66 vulnerabilities. Of these, 5 are critical, and 2 are already being exploited, according to Microsoft.

=> ↺ Krebs On Security ☛ Adobe, Apple, Google & Microsoft Patch 0-Day Bugs [Ed: Too late. Exploited already.]

Microsoft today issued software updates to fix at least five dozen security holes in Windows and supported software, including patches for two zero-day vulnerabilities that are already being exploited. Also, Adobe, Google Chrome and Apple iOS users may have their own zero-day patching to do.

=> ↺ APNIC ☛ How JPCERT/CC automates malware analysis

Guest Post: How to automate daily incident investigations more efficiently.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ ICS Patch Tuesday: Critical CodeMeter Vulnerability Impacts Several Siemens Products

ICS Patch Tuesday: Siemens has released 7 new advisories and Schneider Electric has released 1 new advisory.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ A Virus For The BBC Micro

If you work at all with British software or hardware engineers, you’ll find that there’s an entire generation perhaps now somewhere between their mid-40s and mid-50s, who stand slightly apart from their peers in their background and experience. These were the lucky teenagers who benefited from the British government’s 1980s push to educate youngsters in computing, and who unlike those before or who followed, arrived at university engineering courses fresh from school fully conversant with every facet of a computer from the hardware upwards.

=> ↺ The Africa Report ☛ Kenya’s banks incur hefty tech costs over digitisation, cyberattacks

Lenders are keen to tighten cyberattack vulnerabilities that come with digitisation after Kenya suffered a major cyber-attack last month.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ [Old] The Good, The Bad, And The Incredibly Ugly In The Court Ruling Regarding Government Contacts With Social Media

One has to think that Donald Trump judicial appointee Judge Terry Doughty deliberately waited until July 4th (when the courts are closed) to release his ruling on the requested preliminary injunction preventing the federal government from communicating with social media companies. The results of the ruling are not a huge surprise, given Doughty’s now recognized pattern of being willing to bend over backwards as a judge in support of Trumpist culture war nonsense in multiple cases in his short time on the bench. But, even so, there are some really odd things about the ruling.

=> ↺ EDRI ☛ Party-cipate and #CelebrateEncryption

Now is the time to show your support for encryption and influence the European Parliament to do better for children and everyone else. Join the #CelebrateEncryption action and share photos of you and your friends promoting privacy and celebrating encryption.

=> ↺ Privacy International ☛ Judgment says that UK cannot digitally spy on people outside its borders without accountability

=> ↺ USA ☛ Letters to the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate on the Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Certain Terrorist Attacks

[...] Consistent with this provision, I have sent to the Federal Register the enclosed notice, stating that the emergency declared in Proclamation 7463 with respect to the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, is to continue in effect for an additional year.

=> ↺ Patrick Breyer ☛ Chat control: EU Council plans death blow to digital privacy of correspondence and secure encryption

In the dispute over plans to search all private messages and photos (#ChatControl) for suspicious content, a proposal by the Spanish presidency has been leaked that ambassadors will discuss on Thursday and is intended to secure a majority for the proposed #ChatControl regulation at the end of the month.

=> ↺ EFF ☛ Federal Judge Upholds State Department Rule Requiring Visa Applicants to Disclose Social Media Information

Visa applicants already are required to disclose personal information including their work, travel, and family histories. The “Registration Requirement,” which went into effect in May 2019, requires visa applicants to disclose their social media identifiers over the past five years, including for pseudonymous accounts. The policy began during the Trump Administration and has continued under President Biden. The State Department estimated that 14.7 million people would be affected by the policy each year.

The plaintiffs argued that the Registration Requirement violated the expressive and associational rights of both their U.S.-based and non-U.S.-based members and partners. We agree: knowing that your social media posts will be combed through will lead people to self-censor. Additionally, the rule deprives visa applicants of the rights to anonymous speech and private association. The district court rejected the plaintiffs’ First Amendment arguments and dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs can’t amend their complaint.

The district court acknowledged that U.S. citizens have a right to receive information and ideas from, and to freely associate with, non-U.S. persons. But the court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the Registration Requirement prevents them from doing so because of the rule’s chilling effect on the social media activity of would-be visitors to the United States. The court found that the plaintiffs’ complaint lacked specificity, stating, “These allegations fail to identify a particular instance of speech that any person wishes to—but cannot—hear.”

=> ↺ EFF ☛ EFF Award Winner: Signal Foundation

All are invited to attend the EFF Awards! Whether you are an activist, an EFF supporter, a student interested in cyberlaw or public interest technology, or someone who wants to eat good food and drink with other cool individuals, anyone can have a fun time at the ceremony.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ DOJ To Court: Here Are The Many, Many Reasons Why The FTC Can & Should Be Investigating Elon Musk’s Handling Of User Data

If you read this morning’s story about Elon Musk’s impulsive decision to move servers out of Sacramento and up to Portland in a dangerous and wholly unsecure manner, and wondered if the FTC (who has two consent decrees with the company regarding how it protects users’ private data) was aware of it, we already have your answer. Last night, the DOJ filed a response to Elon trying to get out of the existing FTC consent decrees, and called out this story as one example. (The timing of the story and the filing coming out on the same day is a coincidence: the filing was due yesterday, and the book came out today).

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ The Batshit Crazy Story Of The Day Elon Musk Decided To Personally Rip Servers Out Of A Sacramento Data Center

Back on Christmas Eve of last year there were some reports that Elon Musk was in the process of shutting down Twitter’s Sacramento data center. In that article, a number of ex-Twitter employees were quoted about how much work it would be to do that cleanly, noting that there’s a ton of stuff hardcoded in Twitter code referring to that data center (hold that thought).

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ Former Twitter executives: Privacy and security practices deteriorated under Musk

Former employees say Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter may have caused the company to violate a consent order with the FTC.

=> ↺ Bruce Schneier ☛ Cars Have Terrible Data Privacy

A new Mozilla Foundation report concludes that cars, all of them, have terrible data privacy.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ The Tank Museum Has 300 Armored Vehicles and Over 100 Million YouTube Views

Only a few hundred thousand people visit The Tank Museum, in the English countryside, each year. But on YouTube, it’s more popular than the Met and MoMA.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Air, artillery strikes have killed over 450 civilians in Myanmar so far this year

Observers say the strikes are part of a bid to reduce risk to troops and hurt resistance morale.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Junta airstrike damages school in Myanmar’s Sagaing region

The helicopter attack is one of a growing number targeting educational facilities.

=> ↺ Digital First Media ☛ Michigan false electors acted ‘at the direction’ of Trump, court filing says

The Trump supporters then submitted the false certificate to Congress and the National Archives in an attempt to challenge the results of the election when federal lawmakers met on Jan. 6, 2021, to tally states’ votes.

=> ↺ Futurism ☛ Vladimir Putin Declares His Love for Elon Musk

Though he didn’t mention it explicitly, the Russian president’s comments come just days after Musk revealed that he’d denied a Ukrainian request for Starlink internet access on the front lines of its war with Russia — a denial that essentially sabotaged Ukraine’s military in its defense against the invaders.

=> ↺ The Sunday Times UK ☛ Shoplifters evade TikTok police to spread tips and targets

Shoplifters are using TikTok to spread a playbook of tactics on how to steal goods such as clothes, jewellery and make-up from retailers.

Users on the video-sharing platform have rated high-street stores on the basis of how easy it is to get away with shoplifting and offered tips on avoiding detection.

=> ↺ Gizmodo ☛ TikTok Officially Launches In-App Shopping Feature

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, first started testing the Shop feature in November 2022 and has added more vendors in recent months including brands PacSun, Revolv, and Willow Boutique as well as beauty brand KimChi Chic, according to a report by Ad Age. TikTok Shop will add in-feed video and Live Shopping to its For You feed while also showcasing product reviews and connecting users with sellers for marketing opportunities.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Iranian Cyberspies Deployed New Backdoor to 34 Organizations

Iran-linked cyberespionage group Charming Kitten has been observed infecting 34 victims with a new backdoor, cybersecurity firm ESET reports.

Believed to be operating on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and also tracked as APT42, Ballistic Bobcat, Mint Sandstorm (formerly Phosphorus), and NewsBeef, Charming Kitten has been targeting activists, government organizations and journalists for more than a decade.

=> ↺ Vox ☛ The US-Iran prisoner swap, briefly explained

The agreement was negotiated by the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran over a period of two years, according to the New York Times, and was facilitated by Oman, Qatar, and Switzerland. Though the agreement does involve the eventual release of prisoners by both parties, Iran’s primary motivation for engaging in the negotiations is a mechanism by which it can access billions of dollars of its own assets to purchase humanitarian goods like food and medicine.

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ Why a hard-kill strategy doesn’t work against combat drones

The reality is that the old-hat method of shooting at anything that poses a threat is extremely difficult when the target is a small object moving at 100 kilometres an hour in often unpredictable patterns. Many militaries have tried using small arms, but it almost never works unless the drones are extremely close and there are only a few of them.

=> ↺ Deutsche Welle ☛ Iran confirms it arrested Swedish citizen

Iran has repeatedly imprisoned foreigners and charged them with espionage or other national security violations. Several Western governments have accused Iran of arresting foreign nationals in order to obtain concessions.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ 50 Years After Coup in Chile: Peter Kornbluh on How U.S. Continues to Hide Role of Nixon & Kissinger

On the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-backed military coup in Chile that deposed democratically elected socialist leader Salvador Allende, we discuss the U.S. contribution to the coup and declassified records obtained by the National Security Archive’s Chile Documentation Project with Peter Kornbluh. His book, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, has been revised and published in Chile for the first time. “There’s a lot known about the U.S. role in Chile, but there’s a lot to be reminded of, as well, and then there are the secrets that remain,” says Kornbluh, who says countries around the world must learn from Chile’s history to counter growing misinformation and authoritarianism today. “Very authoritarian voices are rising to dangerous levels that actually threaten our democracy.”

=> ↺ ADF ☛ Prigozhin’s Death Leaves Cloud of Uncertainty in Africa

Yevgeny Prigozhin built a violent and profitable mercenary network over the past five years in the Central African Republic (CAR), Libya, Mali and Sudan. His last days before his death in a plane crash on August 23 were spent in Africa trying to expand his reach.

Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ North Korea’s leader is in Russia to meet Putin, with both locked in standoffs with the West

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un rolled into Russia on an armored train to see President Vladimir Putin. It’s a rare meeting between isolated leaders driven together by their need for support in escalating standoffs with the West. Kim is expected to seek economic aid and military technology for his impoverished country. Kim’s train stopped in Khasan, a station on the Russia-North Korea border, where it was met by a military honor guard and a brass band, according to video on social media channels by a regional governor and Russia’s natural resources minister. Kim appears to have something Putin desperately needs: munitions for Russia’s grueling war in Ukraine.

=> ↺ The Kent Stater ☛ Armored train carrying North Korea’s Kim Jong Un crosses into Russia ahead of Putin meeting

CNN — Kim Jong Un’s heavily armored private train has crossed into Russia and the North Korean leader has met with officials, state media reported Tuesday, ahead of an expected and closely watched summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin that the US has warned could result in an arms deal. Kim briefly left his to train at…

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Ukrainian state aircraft company to start manufacturing drones — Meduza

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko says Ukrainian Security Service opened criminal case against him; agency denies claim — Meduza

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ US expected to decide soon on long-range missiles for Ukraine

ATACMS missiles would greatly increase Ukraine’s ability to strike the logistical networks supporting Russia’s invasion and would make it increasingly difficult for Putin’s army to operate inside Ukraine, writes Benton Coblentz.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: Ukraine says it may contact WTO for compensation over Poland’s refusal to import grain

Ukraine may take legal action, including turning to the World Trade Organization to obtain compensation, after Poland extended a ban on importing its grain, Ukraine’s prime minister said Tuesday. Russia’s Vladimir Putin earlier on Tuesday dismissed Kyiv’s claims that it will soon receive F-16 fighter jets from the West, saying deliveries of the aircraft to Ukraine will only prolong the war with Moscow.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Train carrying North Korea’s Kim enters Russia ahead of Putin talks

A train carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has entered Russia, Russian state news agency Ria Novosti said Tuesday, ahead of a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Kim Jong Un’s arrival in Russia sets stage for high-stakes ‘negotiations’ with Putin

The summit could change the dynamics of global security, experts say.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Russian Court Rejects Request By Anti-Putin Shaman For Transfer To Less Restrictive Psychiatric Clinic

A court in Russia’s Far East has refused to transfer to a less restrictive psychiatric clinic a Yakut shaman who became known across the country for his attempts to march to Moscow to drive President Vladimir Putin out of the Kremlin.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Russian Nationalist Putin Critic Girkin’s Pretrial Detention Extended

A court in Moscow has extended the pretrial detention of Igor Girkin, once a leader of Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east, who was arrested in July and charged with public calls for extremism after criticizing President Vladimir Putin for “badly” handling the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Putin Suggests Former Top Aide Fled Russia Due To Financial Irregularities At State Company

President Vladimir Putin suggested that Anatoly Chubais, a former top government official who fled after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, may have left due to financial irregularities at the state-run corporation he oversaw.

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ Kim Jong Un Meets Russia’s Natural Resources Minister

The North Korean leader is also expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ Ukraine Has Lost 71,500 Soldiers in Counteroffensive: Putin

He maintains that the U.S. plans to provide F-16 fighters to Ukraine will only prolong the conflict.

=> ↺ TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ North Korea’s leader is in Russia to meet Putin, with both locked in standoffs with the West

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un rolled into Russia on an armored train to see President Vladimir Putin. It’s a rare meeting between isolated leaders driven together by their need for support in escalating standoffs with the West. Kim is expected to seek economic aid and military technology for his impoverished country. Kim’s train stopped in Khasan, a station on the Russia-North Korea border, where it was met by a military honor guard and a brass band, according to video on social media channels by a regional governor and Russia’s natural resources minister. Kim appears to have something Putin desperately needs: munitions for Russia’s grueling war in Ukraine.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ North Korea’s Kim says his visit shows ‘strategic importance’ of Russia relations

Mr Kim arrived in Russia by private train for talks with President Vladimir Putin.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Putin, Citing Trump ‘Persecution,’ Wades Back Into U.S. Politics

The Russian leader, whose government meddled in the American presidential election won by Donald J. Trump, also offered words of praise for Elon Musk.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Kim-Putin Meeting Nears, but Where?

Russian reports said the North Korean leader had crossed into Russia by train on Tuesday morning, but his destination was unclear.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Latvian law enforcement and economists on the alert for sanctions evaders

The latest trade data shows the continuation of a trend that has been evident ever since Russia started its war on Ukraine and the West responded with swingeing trade sanctions – while trade with aggressor countries Russia and Belarus has quickly reduced, trade with countries bordering Russia in central Asia has markedly increased.

=> ↺ AntiWar ☛ The West’s Blueprint for Goading China Was Laid Out in Ukraine

The West is writing a script about its relations with China as stuffed full of misdirection as an Agatha Christie novel. In recent months, US and European officials have scurried to Beijing for so-called talks, as if the year were 1972 and Richard Nixon were in the White House.

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ Russia seeks to legitimize occupation of Ukraine with sham elections

In early September, Russia staged sham parliamentary elections in occupied regions of southern and eastern Ukraine as Moscow attempted to legitimize its earlier illegal annexation of five Ukrainian provinces.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Ukraine says Germany ‘wasting time’ on decision to send Taurus missiles

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Monday urged Berlin to supply Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles during a surprise visit to Kyiv by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ EU To Cease Sanctions Against Three Russian Businessmen This Week

The European Union will not renew sanctions against three men targeted over Russia’s war against Ukraine when the current punitive measures expire later this week, three diplomatic sources told Reuters on September 12.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Former Ukrainian Lawmaker Who Appeared On Russian TV Suspected Of High Treason

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) says former lawmaker Serhiy Polishchuk, who is currently out the country, is suspected of high treason for his appearances on Russian television where he “denied the existence of Ukraine” while allegedly taking money from Russian security authorities.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Poland To Extend Ban On Ukrainian Grain Imports

The Polish government has agreed to extend a ban on Ukrainian grain imports unilaterally even if the current EU restrictions expire on September 15.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Sweden Considering Sending Fighter Jets To Ukraine

The Swedish government is considering donating Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine to help it fight Russia, Swedish public radio (SR) reported on September 12, citing unnamed sources.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Russia-Ukraine War: North Korea’s Leader Arrives in Russia as Nations Seek Closer Military Ties

North Korea has one of the world’s largest arsenals, offering Russia access to munitions that could help its forces fighting in Ukraine.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Europe Rushes to Build Defenses But With Little Consensus on How

A push by more than 30 allied countries to arm themselves, precipitated in part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has raised concerns of disorganization and supply shortages.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Russian-registered cars banned from entering Latvia and EU via eastern border

As of Tuesday, September 12, persons with vehicles registered in the Russian Federation are prohibited from entering the European Union (EU) through the Latvian-Russian and Latvian-Belarusian border crossing points, according to information from the State Revenue Service (VID) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China says seeks deeper ties with North Korea as Kim Jong-un arrives in Russia

China said on Tuesday it was seeking to deepen cooperation with North Korea in “various fields,” as leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Russia on his first trip overseas in four years.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Lithuania to ban Russian cars following EC clarification

Following a clarification from the European Commission, Lithuania will not let in any cars with Russian license plates, unless they are bound for Kaliningrad. Owners who defy the ban may see their vehicles confiscated.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Supreme Court Of Chechnya Mitigates Prison Sentence Of Opposition Bloggers’ Mother

The Supreme Court of Russia’s North Caucasus region of Chechnya has mitigated the prison sentence of Zarema Musayeva, the mother of three self-exiled outspoken Chechen opposition activists.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Russian Humanitarian Aid Arrives In Nagorno-Karabakh After Deal On Transport Corridors

Officials in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh said a Russian truck carrying humanitarian aid arrived on September 12 in the region via territory controlled by Azerbaijan, the first time such a crossing has been allowed in more than three decades.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Kyrgyz Supreme Court Upholds Court Decision To Deport Investigative Journalist To Russia

Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court on September 12 rejected an appeal filed by prominent investigative journalist Bolot Temirov against a court decision to deport him to Russia for “illegally obtaining a Kyrgyz passport.”

=> ↺ Helsinki Times ☛ Russian Embassy warns its citizens: Finland may seize Russian vehicles and personal items

The ongoing geopolitical tensions between the European Union (EU) and Russia have taken a new turn. The Russian Embassy in Helsinki recently warned its citizens to abstain from using vehicles with Russian license plates while visiting Finland. This advisory follows the EU sanctions permitting Finnish authorities and other EU member states to seize vehicles with Russian registration.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ More than 100 illegal border crossings attempted in last day

During the last 24 hours, large numbers of attempts to illegally cross into Latvia from Belarus continued.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ ‘I’m wanted by Interpol’: At FSB’s request, Russian court remands Igor Strelkov in custody, while defendant argues he couldn’t flee abroad — Meduza

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Putin says Soviet Union was wrong to invade Czechoslovakia and Hungary — Meduza

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Austria’s former top diplomat Karin Kneissl (who danced with Putin) moves two ponies to Russia by dedicated Russian military airlifter — Meduza

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Kim Jong-un arrives in Russia by armored train What we know so far about the North Korean leader’s first visit to Russia since 2019 — Meduza

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Putin says Anatoly Chubais has fled, and that ‘he’s no longer Anatoly Borisovich, but some Moisha Israelievich’ — Meduza

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Putin proposes designating September 30 holiday commemorating annexation of Ukrainian territories — Meduza

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russian war critics abroad, Ukraine’s counteroffensive, and Moscow’s next-gen weapons Excerpts from Putin’s speech at the 2023 Eastern Economic Forum — Meduza

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Pro Publica ☛ The NYPD Denied Our Request for Body Camera Footage of a “Friendly Fire” Killing. Here’s How We Got It Anyway.

In March 2021, I received a tip to look into the police killing of a Bronx man who was shot dead in 2017 while in the throes of a mental health crisis. The source suggested I request the investigative files from the NYPD’s Force Investigation Division, the internal unit that spent two years probing the case.

=> ↺ EFF ☛ Appeals Court Upholds Public.Resource.Org’s Right to Post Public Laws and Regulations Online

Tuesday’s ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upholds the idea that our laws belong to all of us, and we should be able to find, read, and share them free of registration requirements, fees, and other roadblocks. It’s a long-awaited victory for Public.Resource.org, a nonprofit organization founded in 2007 by open records advocate Carl Malamud of Healdsburg, Calif., and represented in this case by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) with co-counsel Fenwick & West and David Halperin.

“In a nation governed by the rule of law, private parties have no business controlling who can read, share, and speak the rules to which we are all subject,” EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry said. “We are pleased that the Court of Appeals upheld what other U.S. courts, including the Supreme Court, have said for almost 200 years: No one should control access to the law.”

As part of its mission of promoting public access to all kinds of government information, Public Resource acquires and posts online a wide variety of public documents, such as nonprofits’ tax returns, government-produced videos, and standards incorporated into law by reference. These standards include electrical, fire safety, and consumer safety codes that have been mandated by governments. But without Public Resource’s work, they are often difficult to access, much less share with others, which means that areas of law that profoundly affect our daily life are obscured from our view. Even courts have had trouble accessing the laws that they are supposed to apply.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Yet Another Court Says Yes You Can Publish The Law

We’ve talked about this case – American Society for Testing and Materials et al v. PublicResource.org – a few times before. It was one of two cases brought against Carl Malamud’s Public Resource organization for posting the Code of Federal Regulations on its website, and including with the CFR language the standards promulgated by various standards development organizations (like ASTM) that had been incorporated by reference into the CFR as part of that operative law. The standards development organizations claimed that their standards were copyrighted and that publishing them amounted to infringement, whereas Public Resource argued that since those codes had the force of law, it could not be infringement to publish what the law is.

Environment

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ The World Bank is talking climate but funneling billions into oil and gas projects

In 2022, the World Bank supplied about $3.7 billion in loans and capital to expedite imports and exports—“trade finance”—that likely ended up funding oil and gas developments, according to Urgewald, a campaign group that tracks global fossil fuel finance. The source of these funds was the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the arm of the Bank that works with the private sector, Urgewald said.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ Climate Change Is Creating Strange ‘Polygon Fields’ In the Arctic, and Scientists are Worried

Weird polygonal landscapes are emerging in remote reaches of the Canadian High Arctic, a discovery that exposes the extreme changes that polar regions are experiencing as a result of human-driven climate change, reports a new study.

=> ↺ Vox ☛ Wildfires are coming… for New Jersey?

Wildfire risk is modeled by combining the likelihood and the intensity of a blaze with an area’s exposure and susceptibility. Widely used models include the US Forest Service’s Wildfire Risk to Communities, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Risk Index, and Risk Factor, a model created by the nonprofit First Street Foundation that looks at fire and other climate risks down to the neighborhood and address level. Some models use the same data but parse risk differently, looking at just housing units or also factors like building values and population to determine a final risk. Some models are searchable by address or neighborhood, while others summarize risk at a county or state level.

=> ↺ DeSmog ☛ The United States and Canada Are Among the World’s Top 5 ‘Planet Wreckers,’ New Fossil Fuel Report Contends

United Nations chief António Guterres has called on nations to arrive at September 20’s high-level climate summit in New York City with firm commitments for ending fossil fuel production.

So far, however, the world’s top 20 oil and gas extractors have enough production planned to generate 173 billion tons of carbon pollution by 2050 — more than enough to blow past their Paris Agreement commitments and heat the world well beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above historical temperatures. The greatest polluter among them will be the United States.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ India Times ☛ [Cryptocurrency] market saw illicit transactions of $70 billion in five years: report

The illicit [cryptocurrency] activity includes transactions tied to stolen funds, scams, ransomware, human trafficking, terrorism financing, and dark net markets.

In 2017, the [cryptocurrency] space saw $4.9 billion worth of illicit transactions. After falling to $4.6 billion a year later, this figure nearly tripled and hit $12.3 billion in 2019.

=> ↺ BW Businessworld Media Pvt Ltd ☛ Apple Watch Series 9 Becomes Apple’s First-Ever Carbon Neutral Product

Additionally, the Series 9 boasts a new 4-core Neural Engine, which is fantastic for handling machine learning tasks. Apple said it is twice as fast as the one in the Apple Watch Series 8. Even with all this power, the S9 SiP is impressively energy-efficient, allowing the Apple Watch Series 9 to keep going for a full 18 hours on a single charge.

=> ↺ Hindustan Times ☛ Fake cryptocurrency OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood sentenced to 20 years in US prison

Prosecutors had sought a sentence of at least 30 years for Greenwood, who they said was OneCoin’s “primary promoter” who touted it as the next Bitcoin. In reality, OneCoin was a pyramid scheme that defrauded at least 3.5 million people, they said.

=> ↺ Earth Justice ☛ Cryptocurrency Mining in Texas

Cryptocurrency mining companies in Texas filed applications to connect new facilities to the grid with a projected demand of nearly 42 GW of electricity in 2027, enough electricity to power more than 8.3 million Texas homes during periods of peak demand.

As cryptocurrency mining expands, it becomes less lucrative for each of the participants, more competitive, and more energy-intensive.

=> ↺ The University of Cambridge ☛ Bitcoin electricity consumption: an improved assessment

We launched the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) in response to this growing demand for reliable data-driven insights in July 2019. Reflecting the increasing public interest in the topic, our work has evolved, gradually expanding the Index’s scope to provide the building blocks necessary to form a more complete picture of Bitcoin’s environmental footprint.

=> ↺ Gizmodo ☛ Heat Pumps Really Bring the Heat During Those Cold Dark Winter Months, Study Says

In a recently published report in the energy research journal Joule, a team of researchers from Oxford University and the Regulatory Assistance Project outline how incredibly efficient heat pumps are at warming up homes, even in the depths of the most bitterly cold weather.

=> ↺ Cell Press ☛ Coming in from the cold: Heat pump efficiency at low temperatures

In extreme cold climates, such as where the lowest temperatures approach −30°C, performance data have shown that heat pumps can provide heat at efficiencies up to double that of resistive heating; however, more analysis is required. Even though heat pump efficiency declines during the extreme cold and back-up heating may be required, air-source heat pumps can still provide significant energy system efficiency benefits on an instantaneous and annual basis compared with alternatives.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Building A Cargo Bike Dream

Cargo bikes can haul an impressive amount of stuff and serve as a car replacement for many folks around the world. While there are more models every year from bike manufacturers, the siren song of a custom build has led [Phil Vandelay] to build his own dream cargo bike.

=> ↺ DeSmog ☛ Meet the Shadowy Network Vilifying Climate Protestors

By Amy Westervelt, Drilled, and Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog, with additional reporting by Julianna Merullo and Lyndal Rowlands

Earlier this year, news footage began making the rounds on social media of young activists from the German climate organization Letzte Generation (Last Generation) being assaulted by their fellow citizens as they obstructed streets in an effort to draw attention to the German government’s inaction on climate. A young woman, with her hand glued to a road was ripped off the road by her hair; a young man was run over by a truck driver; a passerby punched the protestors and was cheered on. A few months later, German police raided the homes of Last Generation activists and seized their bank accounts. It all seemed like a gross overreaction to a pretty tame form of protest. Although Last Generation stands out for its willingness to inconvenience everyday people’s lives to draw awareness to the severity of the climate crisis, the tactic of road blockades is not a new one — it was commonly used by suffragettes, civil rights activists, and anti-war activists in the pasts, and has been used by cycling advocates for decades as well. During the same year that Last Generation was blocking roads in Germany, farmers used the exact same tactic, blocking roads with their tractors to protest a renewable energy policy that they don’t feel provides enough incentives for biogas. Not a single farmer was punched in the face or dragged off the road by their hair. What was making everyone so irate about Last Generation?

Finance

=> ↺ ABC ☛ Qantas loses High Court appeal over mass sacking

Qantas has lost its High Court appeal over the sacking of 1,700 workers during the COVID pandemic, with the court ruling the airline illegally outsourced the jobs.

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ United Auto Workers union is poised to strike. Why now?

About 146,000 U.S. auto workers are set to go on strike this week against any automaker that hasn’t reached an agreement with the United Auto Workers union by the time contracts expire on Sept. 14. The union is asking for 46% in raises, among other demands.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Drew Barrymore Dropped as National Book Awards Host After Strike Backlash

The actor and TV host’s decision to return her talk show to the air, bypassing striking writers, made her a magnet for criticism, online and off.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ US clears way for prisoner swap with Iran, releases $6 billion in frozen funds

The Biden administration has cleared the way for the release of five American citizens detained in Iran by issuing a blanket waiver for international banks to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian money from South Korea to Qatar without fear of US sanctions. In addition, as part of the deal, the administration has agreed to release five Iranian citizens held in the United States.

=> ↺ Wells Fargo CFO Expects More Layoffs in Drive for Efficiency

Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer Mike Santomassimo reportedly said that the bank could make further layoffs as it seeks to improve efficiency.

Since the third quarter of 2020, Wells Fargo has been trimming its workforce, already reducing its employee base by nearly 40,000, Reuters reported Tuesday (Sept. 12).

Santomassimo told the media outlet, “I do think that there’s more to do, and you’ll see that through the headcount number.”

At the end of the June quarter, Wells Fargo had 233,834 employees, compared to 243,674 in the second quarter of the previous year, according to the report. The bank has also made cuts in its mortgage business, which has resulted in some layoffs. Additionally, the commercial real estate business faces pressure, particularly in office loans, as employees working remotely have largely vacated many buildings.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ “Capitalism Is an Insecurity Machine”: Astra Taylor on Student Debt & Our Radically Unequal World

As the COVID-19 era pause on federal student debt payments comes to an end and some 40 million Americans will resume payments next month, we speak with Debt Collective organizer Astra Taylor about Biden’s new Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan and her organization’s new tool that helps people apply to the Department of Education to cancel the borrower’s debt. Taylor also discusses her new book, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, in which she writes, “How we understand and respond to insecurity is one of the most urgent questions of our moment, for nothing less than the future security of our species hangs in the balance.” She notes organizing is about “the alchemy of turning our vulnerabilities, turning our oppression, turning our insecurities into solidarity so that we can change the structures that are undermining our self-esteem and well-being.”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Craig Murray ☛ Government By Uncontrolled Lunatic Racists

As long term readers know, I often assist with refugee and immigration cases, including representing at immigration courts, and we have occasionally over the years housed refugee families in our home for a while.

=> ↺ Craig Murray ☛ Destitution Capitalism

I despair that there appears to be no discernible political debate over economic policy in the UK at all, outwith a few left websites and magazines with tiny readerships.

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Don’t worry, folks. Big Tech pinky swears it’ll build safe, trustworthy generative AI

Eight big names in tech, including Nvidia, Palantir, and Adobe, have agreed to red team their AI applications before they’re released and prioritize research that will make their systems more more trustworthy, the White House tells us.

=> ↺ Michael Geist ☛ Federal Court Approves Consent Order Requiring Minister Steven Guilbeault to Unblock Ezra Levant on Twitter

The case dragged along for a couple of years and given the full agreement to stop blocking and pay costs, it appears that the government and Guilbeault recognized they were likely to lose. Instead, they agreed to a consent order in an effort to avoid establishing an adverse precedent. Yet even the consent order sends a signal to government ministers and others speaking on behalf of the government that limiting public access to Twitter or social media feeds may violate Canadians’ Charter rights to access government information.

=> ↺ NL Times ☛ Hacker discovered serious vulnerabilities in Dutch vote counting software

A Dutch hacker discovered serious vulnerabilities in the Dutch vote counting software, the Election Board revealed in a statement published on Tuesday. The identified risks have since been rectified.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ Is Modi Changing India’s Name to Bharat? Jayati Ghosh on What’s Behind the Move

As the G20 met in India this weekend, invitations to dinners during the G20 used the name Bharat instead of India. Bharat is a Sanskrit term which is already India’s second official name but is not widely used internationally. Economics professor Jayati Ghosh speculates Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to be moving toward the name Bharat as a “knee-jerk reaction” to a coalition of 26 opposition political parties called the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A.) ahead of 2024 elections. “It would be funny if it weren’t also so expensively ridiculous,” says Ghosh, who taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi for 35 years. “The immediate bringing in of this measure is really a panicky response to the fact that the opposition parties are coming together.”

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ The World Is Undergoing “Significant Realignments”: Economist Jayati Ghosh on G20, India, China & More

We get an update on the G20 summit, which welcomed the African Union as a permanent member and took place for the first time in India as the country faces criticism for bulldozing slums near the site of the meeting. “What we are seeing is a period of significant realignments,” says economics professor Jayati Ghosh, who critiques the meeting for a lack of action and largely performative events such as a negotiated joint statement which stopped short of condemning Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. “This G20 has done nothing for the major problems of our time,” says Ghosh, who calls on the group of world leaders to act on climate change and wealth inequality. “The G20 is a collection of potentially very powerful governments — that don’t necessarily represent the interests of their own people, I might add — but nonetheless, this collection has not done very much over the last 12 to 13 years.”

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ [Repeat] Vice Media Group ☛ TikTok Blocked ‘WGA’ Searches Amid Writer’s Strike Because It Thought It Was a Conspiracy

TikTok was blocking some searches relating to the ongoing writers’ strike on Monday. The social media network has been a central method for striking workers to share updates and promote the strike, which has been ongoing for months.

The block was first reported by Media Matters for America. Screenshots shared by MMFA show that the app does not return searches for “WGA,” the acronym used for the Writers’ Guild of America, the union currently on strike against Hollywood studios for better wages and AI regulation. Instead, users are told that no results were found, and that the phrase “may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines.”

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Masked men savagely beat activist who called out Cambodian minister

The attack is the latest by helmet-wearing, baton-wielding motorbike drivers on dozens of outspoken activists in Cambodia. Most of the incidents have targeted members of the opposition, who say they are politically motivated, and none of the attackers have been brought to justice.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Iranian Writer’s Assets Seized By Tehran After Media Interviews Abroad

An Iranian court has ordered the confiscation of an apartment belonging to writer Soroush Mozaffar Moghadam, who is currently in Germany, citing his “propaganda activities against the system” as part of recent nationwide protests, in a move underscoring the Islamic republic’s clampdown on dissent.

=> ↺ FAIR ☛ Georgia’s RICO Law Is in the News—but Its Use to Silence Protesters Gets a Pass

But when a new example arose of RICO being used to punish the powerless rather than the powerful—coming from not only the same state but from the very same grand jury—such cautiousness was hard to find in corporate media.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Masculine Policy: The GOP’s Plan To Outlaw ‘Porn’ And Suspend The First Amendment

Does watching porn threaten your masculinity? Science says it doesn’t.

=> ↺ Kansas Reflector ☛ As censors challenge more books, authors bring a new crop of Kansas literature to annual festival

Those who seek to dictate what we and our children can read are a well-organized minority who attempt to ban books from lists compiled by national groups. The American Library Association reports that in 2022, more books were targeted by would-be censors than at any time in the 20 years the association has tracked challenges.

=> ↺ Al Jazeera ☛ Meta deletes Al Jazeera presenter’s profile after show criticising Israel | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

Tip of the Iceberg episode investigated how Facebook targets Palestinian content related to Israel.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Israel’s Supreme Court hears petitions against divisive judicial reform

Israel’s Supreme Court began a hearing Tuesday on petitions to strike down a major element of the hard-right government’s controversial judicial overhaul which has triggered mass protests and divided the nation.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Israel’s Supreme Court Weighs Law That Limits Its Own Power

Israel’s government passed a bill in July limiting judicial influence. The Supreme Court began meeting on Tuesday to decide whether to strike down the bill, potentially setting up a constitutional crisis.

=> ↺ US News And World Report ☛ Los Angeles Names Intersection in Memory of Woman Who Sparked Iran Protests

Los Angeles, the second most populous U.S. city, is home to an Iranian community of nearly 138,000 people, of the 400,000-620,000 people of Iranian ancestry in the United States, according to the University of California, Los Angeles.

The intersection of Westwood Boulevard and Rochester Avenue- in an area home to Persian businesses- will be renamed Women Life Freedom Square in Amini’s memory, according to a record of the City Council vote on its website.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ Amazon Is Forcing Employees to Sign NDAs That Prevent Union Organizing, NLRB Says

The provision defines confidential information as: “proprietary or confidential information of Amazon in whatever form, tangible or intangible, whether or not marked or otherwise designated as confidential, that is not otherwise generally known to the public,” such as Amazon’s “business, projects, products, customers, suppliers, inventions, or trade secrets.” Some examples listed in the provision include “published and unpublished know-how…Amazon pricing policies…and future plans relating to any aspect of Amazon’s present or anticipated business.” Confidential information, the provision states, does not include the terms and conditions of the signer’s employment.

The Board alleges in the complaint that because the nature of the confidential information policy was so broad, it restricted workers’ rights to unionize.

=> ↺ Jacobin Magazine ☛ NBC Nightly News Is Spreading Anti-Union Propaganda

From the outset, the viewer is oriented to see only how a strike can hurt them and their personal bottom line — and how fault for that lies with the potential strike, not the corporations refusing to negotiate with United Auto Workers (UAW) in good faith. It’s established right away that the strike is coming after the September 14 contract deadline, it’s bad, and it’s bad because it’s going to cost you, the viewer, money.

=> ↺ VOA News ☛ Taliban Denies Aid Interference While Arresting and Threatening Female Aid Workers

Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the United Nations and international aid organizations have reported numerous incidents in which Taliban authorities have interfered in the distribution of humanitarian aid in the country.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Iranian Activist Says She Was Assaulted By Prison Guards Over Hijab

An Instagram account linked to Mohammadi on September 11 detailed the incident, saying that following the second suicide attempt in three days by one of her cellmates, Mohammadi went to the prison infirmary where she encountered what was described as the “deliberate and brutal” behavior of a nurse.

=> ↺ EFF ☛ UN’s Cybercrime Convention Draft: A Slippery Slope for LGBTQ+ and Gender Rights

EFF has consistently voiced concerns over the misuse of cybercrime laws across the globe, and particularly their impact on marginalized and vulnerable communities—notably LGBTQ+ individuals. These laws, often marked by their broad scope and vague wording, have also been weaponized against security researchers, artists, journalists, and human rights defenders.

And as nations continue to engage in negotiations regarding the polarizing UN Cybercrime Convention draft, they bear a significant responsibility to ensure that the misuse of these expanded surveillance powers isn’t legitimized under the UN’s watch. The draft Convention has mostly turned into a surveillance treaty. It could redefine surveillance laws across the world. Without changes, it could potentially legitimize sweeping investigative and prosecutorial powers to investigate crimes that fundamentally violate human rights (both domestically and internationally).

So far, it’s looking bleak for human rights. A proposed amendment championed by Uruguay and backed by 50 nations aimed at bolstering human rights in Article 5 with gender mainstreaming (see minutes 01:15) met strong opposition. Nations like Malaysia, Russia, Syria, Nigeria, and Senegal directly opposed it. Meanwhile, countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq chose to back Article 5 as written in the zero draft, which fails to recognize gender mainstreaming.

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ 48 Years Is Long Enough

Drumming and chanting, hundreds of activists and Indigenous leaders rallied in D.C. Tuesday to mark the 79th birthday of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, and to demand Biden free America’s longest incarcerated political prisoner. Convicted 48 years ago of a killing many say he didn’t commit, Peltier’s conviction is turning into what supporters call “a de-facto death sentence” that “stands as a grim symbol of this country’s long history of stealing life and legacy from Indigenous communities.”

=> ↺ Site36 ☛ Water cannons to neighboring countries: Germany leads cross-border support against mass protests

=> ↺ Pro Publica ☛ The Columbia OB-GYN Who Sexually Assaulted Patients for More Than 20 Years

Laurie Kanyok was 38, a professional dancer on the cusp of retirement, when she learned she was pregnant. She had already suffered one miscarriage and had recently undergone a spinal treatment that she feared would increase the risk of birth defects. Kanyok booked an appointment with an obstetrician, Robert Hadden of Columbia University. She felt grateful to be in the care of someone who had spent his entire career at such a distinguished institution.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ With HR 3557, Broadband Monopolies Are Pushing A Bill That Would Crush Your Town’s Ability To Stand Up To Them

For thirty-plus years, giant telecom monopolies have worked tirelessly to crush all broadband competition. At the same time, they’ve lobbied state and federal governments so extensively, that the vast majority of politicians are feckless cardboard cutouts with little real interest in market or consumer health.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Palo Alto Embraces A Community-Owned Multi-Gigabit Broadband Network After Decades Of Talk

For all of the hype Silicon Valley gets as the birthplace of American technological innovation, the broadband networks in cities like Palo Alto have never kept pace. Like most towns and cities across the U.S., Palo Alto residents have long complained about the slow speeds, high prices, and comically terrible customer service they get from their regional broadband monopolies: Comcast and AT&T.

=> ↺ APNIC ☛ Watch APNIC’s 30th Anniversary video

Celebrating 30 years of contributions to a global, open, stable, and secure Internet

=> ↺ uni Stanford ☛ Network Fees Could Splinter The Internet: Stanford Law Professor Barbara Van Schewick Responds To TRAI’s Consultation On OTT Regulation

Van Schewick is a professor of law at Stanford Law School. Her submission to TRAI focused on pointing out how network usage fees violate the principles of net neutrality.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Walled Culture ☛ Google’s “Web Environment Integrity” is an attack on the open Internet and user freedom

That is, Google will get to decide whether your browser configuration is “worthy” of accessing a site. If it isn’t, the site will simply refuse to send you pages. Of course, Google dresses this up as being good for the digital world in all sorts of ways, including the following: [...]

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ BMW Backs Off Heated Seats As A Subscription Service Because It Was Stupid And Unpopular

We’ve noted several times now how automakers have started taking basic car functions and trying to make them subscription services in a bid to please Wall Street. Mercedes, for example, has started hiding better engine performance behind subscription paywalls. BMW last year decided it was going to make heated seats an $18 per month subscription option.

Monopolies

=> ↺ Reason ☛ The Trial Begins: DOJ Sues Google Over Search Engine Dominance

Plus: FDA approves new COVID-19 vaccine, Elizabeth Warren goes after Elon Musk, and more…

=> ↺ IT Wire ☛ Google accused of paying more than US$10b to dominate search

US Government lawyers have claimed Google pays out more than US$10 billion (A$15.6 billion) each year to ensure it is the default search engine on mobile phones and PCs, as the biggest anti-trust trial against the company kicked off in Washington on Tuesday.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ US says Google cheated and tried to hide its efforts to dominate search

The United States argued on Tuesday that Google did not play by the rules in its efforts to keep its dominance in online search, paying $10 billion to ensure that smaller rivals never got traction.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ First Of Potentially Many Google Antitrust Claims Goes To Trial

There have been a whole bunch of antitrust lawsuits filed against Google over the last few years (in fact, one just settled last week though we don’t yet know the details, though when that case was first filed, we noted some problems with it).

=> ↺ India Times ☛ EU antitrust regulators seeking views on Microsoft’s remedies to UK watchdog

The European Commission had cleared the deal in May after Microsoft agreed to license popular Activision games such as “Call of Duty” to rival game streaming platforms. The EU offer did not include the Ubisoft deal.

=> ↺ NDTV ☛ Google Pays $10 Billion A Year To Maintain Monopoly Over Online Search: US

The Google case centers on the government’s contention that the tech titan unfairly gained its domination of online search by forging exclusivity contracts with device makers, mobile operators and other companies that left rivals no chance to compete.

Dintzer told Judge Mehta that Google pays out $10 billion every year to Apple and others to secure its search engine default status on phones and web browsers, thereby burying upstarts before they have a chance to grow.

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ In antitrust case, Google insists its dominance of internet search is lawful

The U.S. Justice Department has accused the Alphabet Inc.-owned company of paying more than $10 billion in annual fees to ensure that device makers such as Apple Inc., browser makers such as the Mozilla Foundation and wireless operators such as AT&T Inc. select Google Search as their default search engine. This is how Google has been able to maintain a market share of more than 90%, the Justice Department says.

=> ↺ Reuters ☛ Google argues quality kept its search on top, defends billions paid

The Justice Department has accused Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) of paying $10 billion annually to device makers like Apple (AAPL.O), wireless companies like AT&T (T.N), and browser makers like Mozilla to keep its search engine’s market share at around 90%.

Google’s search engine is a key part of its business, driving advertising sales and other areas of profit for the world’s fourth most valuable company.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ ‘A Monopolist Flexing’: U.S. Blasts Google’s Tactics as Antitrust Trial Opens

The Justice Department and 38 states and territories on Tuesday laid out how Google had systematically wielded its power in online search to cow competitors, as the internet giant fiercely parried back, in the opening of the most consequential trial over tech power in the modern internet era.

In a packed courtroom at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, the Justice Department and states painted a picture of how Google had used its deep pockets and dominant position, paying $10 billion a year to Apple and others to be the default search provider on smartphones. Google viewed those agreements as a “powerful strategic weapon” to cut out rivals and entrench its search engine, the government said.

“This feedback loop, this wheel, has been turning for more than 12 years,” said Kenneth Dintzer, the Justice Department’s lead courtroom lawyer. “And it always turns to Google’s advantage.”

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Microsoft Edge still forcing itself on users in Europe

This was supposed to happen in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23531, and subsequent versions of Windows in the European Economic Area were expected to inherit that behavior.

The change was made to comply with Europe’s Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which require that companies designated as “gatekeepers” like Microsoft from self-preferencing.

So far, there’s no sign anything has changed, though Microsoft has until March 6, 2024 to comply.

Patents

=> ↺ Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ A Point of View vs The Point of View: Federal Circuit’s Subtle Claim Construction

The patent at issue, U.S. Patent No. 10,225,479 (‘479 patent), relates to using dual-aperture camera systems in smartphones to create aesthetically pleasing “portrait photos.” Specifically, the patent discloses combining images from a wide-angle “Wide” lens and a telephoto “Tele” lens to produce a fused image showing a sharp subject in front of a blurred background. Portrait mode is incredibly popular on Apple and Android phones and so the industry is eager to invalidate the patent held by Tel Aviv based Corephotonics.

Trademarks

=> ↺ TTAB Blog ☛ TTABlog Test: Which of These Section 2(d) Refusals Was/Were Reversed?

Here are three recent appeals from Section 2(d) refusals. At least one of the refusals was reversed. How do you think these came out? Answers will be found in the first comment.

In re Belgravia Wood Limited, Serial No. 90640925 (September 8, 2023) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge George C. Pologeorgis). [Section 2(d) refusal of HOLIDAZZLE for “Electric lights for Christmas trees; Christmas lighting, namely, electric holiday lights; electric holiday lights,” in view of the registered mark DAZZLE for “LED (light emitting diode) lighting fixtures; LED (light emitting diodes) lighting fixtures for use in display, commercial, industrial, residential, and architectural accent lighting applications; LED and HID light fixtures; LED light strips for decorative purposes.”]

Copyrights

=> ↺ Digital Music News ☛ US Copyright Office Rejects Yet Another AI-Generated Image

The US Copyright Office has rejected copyright protection for yet another image created using artificial intelligence. An award-winning image created by artist Jason M. Allen with the generative AI platform Midjourney is the latest to be denied copyright protection by the US Copyright Office.

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ ACE Takes Aim at Zoro.to Successor Aniwatch.to

Earlier this year, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment shut down one of the largest piracy sites, Zoro.to. The anti-piracy group struck a deal with its Vietnamese operator, who also ran the popular 2Embed service. Shortly before shutting down, Zoro.to was ‘acquired’ by Aniwatch.to, which now finds itself at the center of a new ACE investigation.

=> ↺ Creative Commons ☛ Fred Saunderson — Open Culture VOICES, Season 2 Episode 24

Open Culture VOICES is a series of short videos that highlight the benefits and barriers of open culture as well as inspiration and advice on the subject of opening up cultural heritage. Fred is the Rights and Information Manager at the Library of Scotland where he works to make the vast collections of Scotland accessible to the world.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Techdirt Podcast Episode 365: Link Taxes Are (Still) Bad

Earlier this year, we had an episode looking at Canada’s proposed social media link tax and the many ways it would be terrible. Since then, that link tax has become law (though not yet come into effect), and unsurprisingly proven that the dire predictions were correct. Also since then, the Cato Institute’s Paul Matzko published an excellent paper on link taxes in general, and Paul joins us on this week’s episode to discuss the many reasons that a link tax won’t save the newspaper industry.

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