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● 09.15.23

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● Leftover Links 15/09/2023: Microsoft in Trouble Over Teams Video App (Antitrust)

Posted in News Roundup at 7:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Leftovers

=> ↺ The Atlantic ☛ What Did People Do Before Smartphones?

• No one can remember.

Science

=> ↺ Science Alert ☛ By 2120, Most Communication on Earth Won’t Be Biological

• Shhhh.

=> ↺ Off Guardian ☛ 2023: A Strange Odyssey

• Riley Waggaman The algorithm demands more efficient coffee! Roscosmos, which is a black budget Masonic scam just like NASA (it’s just a joke, relax—OR IS IT?), recently crashed a Shahed suicide drone into the Moon for science. Probably you read about it.

Education

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Public Schools Must Face the Reality of Shrinking Enrollment

• Post-pandemic enrollment isn’t likely to rebound anytime soon.

Hardware

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ Ahead of this year’s biggest IPO, Arm targets $54.5B valuation

• British chip design firm Arm Holdings Ltd., which dominates the smartphone industry, late today set a price of $51 per share ahead of what is set to be the biggest initial public offering of the year on Thursday.

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ In this year’s biggest IPO, Arm stock closes up 25% as chip designer raises $4.87B

• Updated with market reaction and executive interview: Newly public shares of British chip design firm Arm Holdings Ltd., which dominates the smartphone industry, jumped 10% in initial trading and then rocketed to close up nearly 25% Thursday.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ SK hynix Investigates Sanctions-Breaking ‘Ghost RAM’ In Huawei Phone

• SK hynix is investigating how its LPDDR5 and NAND flash memory got into Huawei’s latest Mate 60 Pro smartphone.

=> ↺ NYPost ☛ Dear Abby: I don’t care what society says, I love my flip phone

• Dear Abby weighs in on smartphones and parents dating after their partner’s death.

=> ↺ CNX Software ☛ Cadence Neo NPU IP scales from 8 GOPS to 8 TOPS

• Cadence Neo NPU (Neural Processing Unit) IP delivers 8 GOPS to 80 GOPS in single core configuration and can be scaled to multicore configuration for hundreds of TOPS. The company says the Neo NPUs deliver high AI performance and energy efficiency for optimal PPA (Power, Performance, Area) and cost points for next-generation AI SoCs for intelligent sensors, IoT, audio/vision, hearables/wearables, mobile vision/voice AI, AR/VR and ADAS.

=> ↺ CNX Software ☛ Rockchip RK3588 AIoT gateway supports WiFi 6, 5G, RS232, RS485, LoRaWAN, BLE, and Ethernet

• Dusun DSGW-380, also called Dusun Pi 5, is an industrial AIoT gateway powered by the Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with a 6 TOPS AI accelerator and supporting a wide range of connectivity options. The gateway comes with 8GB LPDDR4 memory, and up to 128GB eMMC flash, and operates in a wide -25 to +75°C temperature range. It supports dual gigabit Ethernet, RS232, and R485 wired connectivity and various wireless protocols including WiFi 6, Bluetooth LE, 5G, and LoRaWAN.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Off Guardian ☛ Cure By Suicide

• One of the cool things (or so it seems) about Canada is National Health Care. A bad thing that comes with it (among many) is the government can, and will, stick its nose into your personal health business.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Suicides in Lithuania almost halve in seven years

• The number of suicides in Lithuania has almost halved over the last seven years, the Institute of Hygiene reported on Friday.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Latvia still fairly high in EU suicide statistics

• Despite significant improvements over the last decade, Latvia retains one of Europe’s highest rates of death from suicide according to Eurostat data published September 8.

=> ↺ NYPost ☛ US suicides hit an all-time high last year

• About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday.

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ Food is fundamental to Australia’s security

• Resilience, the economy and national security are a live discussion across Australia.

Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

=> ↺ Hindustan Times ☛ Microsoft Facing Formal EU Complaint Over Teams Video App | Tech News

• Microsoft Corp.’s attempt at avoiding deeper European Union scrutiny of its Teams video-conferencing app fell flat with the bloc’s antitrust enforcers readying a formal complaint against the firm’s conduct.

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ The Linux Foundation Announces Schedule for Annual Member Summit

=> ↺ The Linux Foundation Announces Schedule for Annual Member Summit

=> ↺ Linux Foundation’s Site/Blog ☛ The Linux Foundation Announces Schedule for Annual Member Summit [Ed: Not even a single person representing the community; this is a corporate think tank, with the token patent person thrown in too. Linux Foundation: Got lots of money? No? Then go away. Stop wasting our time! There is, as per the brochure as well, a strong correlation between sponsorship and keynote slots; yes, you need to pay to speak. Poor? Then no time for you to present. Stop being poor. "Recall that LF booted its community representation prior to becoming further corrupt," a reader notes. "The corruption had already started by then but was under the radar then."]

• The Linux Foundation Member Summit is an annual event for Linux Foundation member organizations (over 3,000), fostering collaboration, innovation, and partnerships among business and technical leaders looking to advance open source strategy, implementation, and investment in their organizations. The 2023 Member Summit features 65+ sessions focused on the leading projects, technologies, and topics that are driving digital transformation across the open source ecosystem. Keynote speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

Security

=> ↺ Linux Foundation’s Site/Blog ☛ Strengthening Security: What You Need to Know About our New Vulnerability Reporting Policy

• Today, we’re introducing our new vulnerability disclosure policy, which clarifies how vulnerability reporters should connect with the Linux Foundation project maintainers who are able to resolve issues.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ China Denies iPhone Ban, but the Devil Is in the Details

• China’s Foreign Ministry affairs has clarified media reports that iPhones had been “soft-banned” from government administration services. But the devil is in the details, and concerns around cybersecurity could be weaponized in the East as they have been in the West.

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ DHS warns of malicious AI use against critical infrastructure

• The DHS report warns of state-backed hackers using AI for both malware development and election interference.

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ Remote Desktop Protocol exposures leave 85% of organizations vulnerable to attack [Ed: Microsoftism in action]

• A new report from Palo Alto Network Inc.’s Unit 42 finds that 85% of organizations have Remote Desktop Protocol internet accessible for at least 25% of the month, leaving them open to ransomware attacks or unauthorized login attempts.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Ransomware Gang Takes Credit for Disruptive MGM Resorts Cyberattack

• A known ransomware gang has taken credit for the highly disruptive cyberattack on MGM Resorts, and the company has yet to restore impacted systems.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ North Korean Hackers Steal $53 Million in Cryptocurrency From CoinEx

• North Korean hackers stole $53 million in cryptocurrency from crypto exchange CoinEx after the hot wallet private key was leaked.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ LockBit Affiliate Deploys New 3AM Ransomware in Recent Attack

• A LockBit affiliate has deployed the new 3AM ransomware family on a victim’s network, after LockBit’s execution was blocked.

=> ↺ Pen Test Partners ☛ PCI v4 is coming. Are you ready?

• If you’ve landed here the chances are you are considering PCI compliance.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Azure HDInsight Flaws Allowed Data Access, Session Hijacking, Payload Delivery

• Orca Security details eight XSS vulnerabilities in Azure HDInsight that could lead to information leaks, session hijacking, and payload delivery.

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ Microsoft: Iranian espionage campaign targeted satellite and defense sectors [Ed: Microsoft is not a security expert but purveyor of back doors, which among other things allow Tehran to get into systems and networks all around the world]

• Tehran’s latest hacking activity involves easy-to-detect techniques to gain access and then pivoting to stealthier methods.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ A Second Major British Police Force Suffers a Cyberattack in Less Than a Month

• Personal details of thousands of police officers and staff from Greater Manchester Police have been hacked from a company that makes identity cards.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Caesars Confirms Ransomware Hack, Stolen Loyalty Program Database

• The hijacked data includes driver’s license numbers and/or social security numbers from a Caesars Entertainment loyalty database.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ ICS Computers in Western Countries See Increasing Attacks: Report

• ICS computers in the Western world have been increasingly attacked, but the percentages are still small compared to other parts of the globe.   

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Kubernetes Vulnerability Leads to Remote Code Execution [Ed: This is a Microsoft Windows issue]

• A high-severity vulnerability can be exploited to execute code remotely on any Windows endpoint within a Kubernetes cluster.

=> ↺ LWN ☛ Security updates for Friday

• ecurity updates have been issued by Debian (c-ares and samba), Fedora (borgbackup, firefox, and libwebp), Oracle (.NET 6.0 and kernel), Slackware (libwebp), SUSE (chromium and firefox), and Ubuntu (atftp, dbus, gawk, libssh2, libwebp, modsecurity-apache, and mutt).

=> ↺ Europol ☛ New Europol report shines light on multi-billion euro underground criminal economy

• The world is getting smaller, as trade, communication and infrastructure on a global scale brings us closer together. However, there is another, darker, side to the coin: our interconnected world is being abused by criminals who have created an underground economy to sustain their illegal operations.

=> ↺ Identity of NSA hacker behind cyberattack on China’s leading aviation university identified; to be disclosed in due course: source

• During the investigation of the cyberattack against Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU), a leading Chinese aviation university, China has successfully extracted multiple samples of the spyware named SecondDate, and with the collaborative efforts of partners in various countries, the real identity of the US’ National Security Agency (NSA) personnel responsible for launching the cyberattack on NPU has been successfully identified, Global Times learnt from National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC) and Chinese internet security company 360 on Thursday. […]

• Relevant sources have told the Global Times that the real identities of individuals involved in NSA’s cyberattacks will be disclosed through the media in due course. It is believed that this will once again draw global attention to the US government’s indiscriminate cyberattacks on other countries.

=> ↺ Personal information of thousands of Sanford Health patients potentially compromised

• The imaging vendor Sanford Health uses for its mobile heart screen trucks, DMS Health Technologies, experienced a data security incident between March 27 and April 24, 2023.

• According to Sanford Health, patient information was potentially compromised including name, date of birth, date of service, physician name and exam type. Sanford Health is one of numerous DMS contracted partners affected by this event.

=> ↺ Data Breaches ☛ AlphV responds to MGM incident and sloppy reporting

• Meanwhile we continued having super administrator privileges to their Okta, along with Global Administrator privileges to their Azure tenant.

=> ↺ Data Breaches ☛ FL: Hillsborough County Public Schools cyberattack claimed by LockBit3.0

• The sample files are routine types of district files. One did contain personal and medically related information on students. The file list suggests there may be a lot of older data in the stolen tranche but not necessarily any student databases with personal or sensitive information.

• “Seems that HCPS do not care about their county’s 270 000 students and 17 000 teachers data. We give them 10 days to consider and we will release all data to public after 3 day auction to sell it private,” LockBit threatens.

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation

=> ↺ Hacker News ☛ Microsoft Uncovers Flaws in ncurses Library Affecting Linux and macOS Systems [Ed: Meanwhile Microsoft has intentional flaws in its own software]

• A set of memory corruption flaws have been discovered in the ncurses (short for new curses) programming library that could be exploited by threat actors to run malicious code on vulnerable Linux and macOS systems.

=> ↺ Hacker News ☛ Free Download Manager Site Compromised to Distribute Linux Malware to Users for 3+ Years [Ed: Not official repos; this is overrated]

• A download manager site served Linux users malware that stealthily stole passwords and other sensitive information for more than three years as part of a supply chain attack.

=> ↺ LinuxInsider ☛ More Linux Malware Means More Linux Monitoring [Ed: Jack M. Germain posts more marketing trash, even borrowing "Log4j" (2021) for extra scare/FUD. This isn't journalism, it's spammy marketing disguised as information.]

• For instance, it has been almost two years since the Log4j disclosure. There are still systems vulnerable to it because businesses take too long to do patches, he offered.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ California settles with Google over location privacy practices for $93 million

• Search giant Google has agreed to a $93 million settlement with the state of California over its location-privacy practices. The settlement Thursday follows a $391.5 million settlement with 40 states, reached in November 2022, to resolve an investigation into how the company tracked users’ locations. The states’ investigation was sparked by a 2018 Associated Press story, which found that Google continued to track people’s location data even after they opted out of such tracking by disabling a feature the company called “location history.” Google says the case was based on outdated product policies that it changed “years ago.”

Defence/Aggression

Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ Putin’s North Korean “pariah summit” underlines his international isolation

• Vladimir Putin’s recent meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was a “Pariah Summit” that underlined the scale of Russia’s international isolation as a result of the country’s criminal Ukraine invasion, writes Peter Dickinson.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ North Korea’s Kim visits military aviation factory in Russia’s far east

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived at a Russian industrial city to visit a military aviation plant on Friday, Russian agencies reported, following his summit with President Vladimir Putin.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Ukraine orders civilian evacuation in under-fire areas in Kherson region

• Ukrainian officials on Thursday ordered the evacuation of families with children in areas of the southern Kherson region that are “subject to constant enemy fire”, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ A bromance of bullets and bombs

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Labeled An ‘Accomplice’ To Russian Crimes In Ukraine, Lukashenka To Meet Putin

• Authoritarian Belarusian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka will meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on September 15 in the resort city of Sochi for talks on closer economic cooperation, as the two countries become further isolated internationally over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Putin ‘Gratefully’ Accepts Kim Invite To Visit North Korea

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted Kim Jong Un’s invitation to visit North Korea, stoking U.S. concerns that a revived Moscow-Pyongyang axis could bolster Russia’s military in Ukraine and provide Kim sensitive missile technology.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ U.S. Aims New Sanctions at Russian Military Supply Chains

• The sanctions are intended to deprive President Vladimir V. Putin of equipment and technology “he needs to wage his barbaric war on Ukraine,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Images Show Wagner Camp In Belarus Continues To Shrink

• The first images since the confirmation of the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin show that a suspected tent camp thought to be occupied by troops from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group near the Belarusian village of Tsel, has been further dismantled.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Britain, France and Germany say they will keep their nuclear and missiles sanctions on Iran

• Britain, France and Germany have announced that they will keep their sanctions on Iran related to the Mideast country’s atomic program and its development of ballistic missiles. The measures were to expire in October under a timetable spelled out in the now defunct nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. The three European allies known as E3 had helped negotiate the nuclear deal. In a joint statement on Thursday, they said they would retain their sanctions in a “direct response to Iran’s consistent and severe non-compliance” with the accord. Iran has violated the sanctions by developing and testing ballistic missiles and sending drones to Russia for its war on Ukraine.

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ Russian War Report: Ukraine’s Black Sea offensive retakes oil rigs near Crimea

• Ukrainian soldiers board what appears to be the Tavrida oil drilling rig near the waters of Crimea. Russia protests actions by Armenia.

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ It is still far too early to write off Ukraine’s counteroffensive

• The slow pace of Ukraine’s much hyped counteroffensive is sparking fresh calls for a negotiated peace, but the Ukrainian military may yet achieve its goals as long as international support continues, writes Dennis Soltys.

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ Ukraine’s drone strikes are a window into the future of warfare

• Kyiv’s innovations will usher in a new generation of do-it-yourself drone technology, making their use a routine feature of warfare.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Romanian town builds air-raid shelters as drones cross border from Ukraine

• A Romanian town on the Ukrainian border has begun installing air-raid shelters after fragments of a drone thought to be of a kind used by Russia were found nearby, while residents say they frequently hear explosions and anti-aircraft fire coming from the Ukrainian side of the border just a few hundred metres away across the Danube River.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Romania Extends Flight Restrictions Along Ukrainian Border

• Romania has imposed additional flight restrictions in parts of its airspace along the border with Ukraine, the Defense Ministry said on September 14, as Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Danube River ports have intensified.

=> ↺ Spiegel ☛ Russia’s Scorched Earth Policy in Ukraine: A Trip to the Dried-Up Kakhovka Reservoir

• The Kakhovka Reservoir was once a vast body of water in the heart of Ukraine. In June, after the Russians apparently blew up the dam holding it back, the lake ran dry. We traveled along the Dnieper River to see how people’s lives have changed.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Ukraine Thanks Bulgaria After Parliament Lifts Food-Export Restrictions

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he is grateful to Bulgaria for not extending restrictions on Ukrainian grain imports from September 15.

=> ↺ TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Zelenskyy is expected to visit Washington as Congress is debating $24 billion in aid for Ukraine

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected on Capitol Hill and at the White House next week. His visit comes as Congress is debating President Joe Biden’s request to provide providing as much as $24 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine as it fights the Russian invasion. The trip was confirmed by two congressional aides and an administration official granted anonymity to discuss the plans. Zelenskyy is expected to be in the U.S. to attend the United Nations General Assembly. The Ukrainian president made a wartime visit to Washington in December 2022 and delivered an impassioned address to a joint meeting of Congress.

=> ↺ New Yorker ☛ Ukrainian Artists Prepare for War in “Liturgy of Anti-Tank Obstacles”

• A documentary short by the Ukrainian filmmaker Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk shows sculptors of religious statues using their tools and training for a new purposes after the Russian invasion.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ New U.S. Sanctions Target Workarounds That Let Russia Get Western Tech For War

• The United States says that it’s placing sanctions on more than 150 businesses and people from Russia to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Georgia to try to crack down on evasion and deny the Kremlin access to technology, money, and financial channels that fuel its war in Ukraine.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Pope’s envoy had ‘cordial’ talks in China on Ukraine, Vatican says

• Pope Francis’ envoy, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, had “open and cordial” talks in Beijing with a Chinese government official on the need to find ways to peace in Ukraine, the Vatican said on Thursday.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ International Criminal Court Opens Field Office in Kyiv To Track Russian War Crimes

• The Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office said on September 14 that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had opened a field office in Kyiv as part of efforts to hold Russian forces accountable for potential war crimes committed during it’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Zelensky to Meet With Biden in Washington Next Week

• The Ukrainian leader will go from an appearance at the United Nations General Assembly to the capital to meet with President Biden and members of Congress.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Ukraine Intensifies Attacks on Russia in Crimea and Black Sea

• Claims of damage to Russian air defenses and warships reflect Ukraine’s growing strategy of degrading the Kremlin’s ability to use the region as a staging area that is vital to its war effort.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Russia-Ukraine War : Ukraine’s Increased Attacks in Crimea Target Russian Combat Capabilities

• Ukraine’s military said it struck air defense systems in its latest attacks on the Russian-occupied region as Russian officials claimed they thwarted a Ukrainian assault on a patrol boat in the Black Sea.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Biden Taps Penny Pritzker to Drive Ukraine’s Economic Revival

• The appointment of the former commerce secretary and Democratic Party fund-raiser reflects a growing focus on Ukraine’s postwar economic survival.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Ice dancer Drobiazko to be stripped of Lithuanian citizenship

• The Citizenship Commission has issued a recommendation to strip the Russian-born ice dancer Margarita Drobiazko of Lithuanian citizenship due to her continued performances in Russia. The country’s president, who has the power to revoke her citizenship, said he would do it “in the near future”.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Lithuanian company involved in sale of plane parts to Russia – investigation

• While Western sanctions restrict Russia’s access to aircraft parts, a way to circumvent them has involved a Lithuanian company, according to an investigation by the Russian publication Important Stories.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ Navalny’s FBK appeals to Baltic states to lift ban on Russian cars

• The Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), an NGO founded by the Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny, has appealed to the Baltic states to reconsider their ban on cars with Russian licence plates to enter their territories, Meduza has reported.

=> ↺ New Yorker ☛ A Novel That Links Climate Change and the Death of Salvador Allende

• In Ariel Dorfman’s “The Suicide Museum,” a billionaire with a scheme to save the planet needs to know exactly what happened in the 1973 Chilean coup.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ [Old] Prosecutors Declined to Charge Jail Employees In Alleged Jeffrey Epstein Suicide Cover-Up

• A new report from the Department of Justice offers new detail on the events leading to Epstein’s death and excoriates the Bureau of Prisons for repeated, systemic failures.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Hunter Biden Was Indicted on Gun Charges

• Also, autoworkers prepare for a strike. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.

=> ↺ NYPost ☛ IRS whistleblower’s boss recommended his removal from Hunter Biden probe ‘to protect the integrity of the investigation’

• A top IRS official involved in the government’s probe into Hunter Biden recommended booting whistleblower Gary Shapley from the investigatory team.

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ Sudan’s South Darfur: At Least 40 Killed In Airstrikes

• According to official data, the Al-Wohda health center in Nyala received “a large number” of trauma patients, some of whom were already dead when rushed there while some others died after arrival.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ 50 human rights organisations urge UN action in Sudan conflict

• A group of 50 human rights organizations sounded the alarm Tuesday over the ongoing Sudan conflict’s severe humanitarian impact and called on the UN to take decisive action. The organizations released their statement as the UN Security Council met to discuss the ongoing situation in Sudan and South Sudan.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ French diplomat released amid rising political tensions in Niger

• France announced Thursday the release of Stéphane Jullien, an advisor to French citizens living in Niger, who was detained by authorities last week. In a statement, the French Foreign Ministry confirmed that Jullien had been freed Wednesday.

=> ↺ Defence Web ☛ Paramount’s Mwari racking up flying hours in Mozambique while weapons integration progresses

• As the launch customer for the Mwari intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and strike aircraft, Mozambique has accumulated over 70 hours of flying on the type, which Paramount is hoping to sell to other African and European customers.

=> ↺ New Yorker ☛ The Secret Life and Anonymous Death of the Most Prolific War-Crimes Investigator in History

• When Mustafa died, in the earthquakes in Turkey, his work in Syria had assisted in the prosecutions of numerous figures in Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ U.S. Approves $235 Million in Egypt Aid, Choosing Security Over Rights

• Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken overruled congressional restrictions on U.S. military aid tied to Egypt’s dismal human rights record.

=> ↺ NYPost ☛ Dethroned pageant queen alleges she was raped, forced into explicit video in lawsuit against Pornhub

• A former pageant queen is alleging she was raped and forced to film pornography in a new lawsuit against Pornhub and its parent company, MindGeek, which changed its name to Aylo in August.

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ DACA back on the docket: Texas federal judge rules program illegal

• DACA was declared illegal by a federal judge from the District Court in Southern Texas. The declaration accompanies lawsuits from nine Southern states and does not end protection for dreamers, yet seeks to undermine the program through the Supreme Court.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Slovakia Expels Russian Embassy Employee

• Slovakia said on September 14 it was expelling an employee of the Russian Embassy in Bratislava for activities in “direct violation” of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ BBC Says Russian Pilot Tried To Shoot Down British Plane Over Black Sea Last Year

• A Russian pilot deliberately fired missiles at a Royal Air Force surveillance plane in international airspace over the Black Sea last year, the BBC reported on September 14 — an incident Russia previously attributed to a “technical malfunction.”

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ U.S. Will ‘Respond Appropriately’ To Russian Expulsion Of Diplomats

• The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has rejected the “unprovoked expulsion” by Russia of two diplomats, saying that the United States “will respond appropriately.”

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Russian Gets Life In Prison In High-Profile Case Of Molestation, Murder Of Tajik Girl

• A court in Moscow has issued a life sentence to Aleksandr Syomin for the 2018 molestation and murder of Huvaido Tillozoda, a 5-year-old ethnic Tajik girl, a case that caused a public outcry in Tajikistan.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Cancer-Stricken Jehovah’s Witness Gets Four Years In Prison In Russia’s Far East

• A court in the Russian Far Eastern town of Belogorsk on September 13 sentenced a 71-year-old Jehovah’s Witness who has cancer to four years in prison after finding him guilty of organizing activities of a banned organization.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Russian Given Fraction Of Compensation He Sought For 13 Years Of Wrongful Imprisonment

• A court in Russia’s Republic of Bashkortostan on September 13 ruled that an 86-year-old man who served 13 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder and attempted murder in 1959, should receive compensation of about 32 million rubles ($333,400).

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Former Moscow Official Gets 4 1/2 Years In Prison For Embezzlement

• A court in the Siberian city of Kransoyarsk on September 14 sentenced the former prefect of Moscow’s Northern Administrative Precinct, Oleg Mitvol, to 4 1/2 years in prison in a high-profile embezzlement case.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ North Korean leader Kim Jong Un heads for aviation plant in Russian Far East town

• Mr Kim was met by the regional governor and other officials on a red carpet at the town’s railway station.

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ The call of history in a Turkish court

• The European Union’s drive to add new members to counter Russian aggression comes at a time when Turkey may finally reform its rule of law to enter the bloc.

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ Kiev Officially Claims Responsibility for Crimean Bridge Blast

• The bridge was damaged by a truck bomb explosion on October 8 last year.

=> ↺ Spiegel ☛ Why Armenia Can’t Free Itself from Moscow

• Armenia feels abandoned by the Kremlin and is trying to find new partners to help ensure its security. But its dependence on the Kremlin is deep – and archrival Azerbaijan is already mulling its next attack.

Environment

=> ↺ Spiegel ☛ Copenhagen’s Far-Reaching Transformation into a “Sponge City”

• As the climate warms, Copenhagen is likely to see more torrential rain storms like the one that inundated the city in 2011. Since then, the Danish capital has taken action, redesigning parks and streets to quickly drain away vast amounts of water.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ Leveraging Australia’s alliances on critical minerals

• Rare, valuable and with unpronounceable names like praseodymium, critical minerals are the foundations of the technologies on which much modern life depends.

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ What to do about Russia’s energy trojan horse

• The future of Gazprom’s piped deliveries to Europe looks bleak. However, Europe has no binding timeline for phasing out Russia’s growing LNG exports. Reducing these import will be critical to bringing Ukraine closer to victory and for securing Europe’s energy system.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ ‘One of the Most Hated People in the World’: Sam Bankman-Fried’s 250 Pages of Justifications

• The FTX founder wrote hundreds of pages of reflections and self-justifications while under house arrest, shedding light on how he may defend himself at his criminal trial next month.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ YLE ☛ APN Podcast: The fight to save Finnish wildlife

• This week’s show unearths some good news on the biodiversity front.

Finance

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Sports Betting Is a Tax on Fans—And a Ticking Time Bomb

• The industry’s erstwhile disavowal of gambling now seems quaint, as smartphones have made sports betting ubiquitous in professional sports—to the detriment of fans and the games themselves.

=> ↺ CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California (14 Sept 2023)

• Anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop. 40 years of declining worker power shattered the American Dream (TM), producing multiple generations whose children fared worse than their parents, cratering faith in institutions and hope for a better future.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Finnish banks’ customers have lost nearly €20m to scammers so far this year

• Scammers have been more active this year.

=> ↺ Mexico News Daily ☛ Peso bounces back, gaining 3% on US dollar in a week

• After a decline last week, the peso has had a slight rebound in response to the latest U.S. inflation data.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Europe’s central bank hikes key interest rate to record high as recession threat grows

• The European Central Bank hiked a key interest rate to a record high Thursday as it battles soaring inflation, defying calls for a pause to take pressure off the faltering eurozone economy.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Statistics Finland admits inflation error, real figures lower over past year

• The official statistics bureau says it has been double-counting electricity costs in its monthly inflation figures since September 2022 – but the erroneous data won’t be corrected retroactively.

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ Argentine artists transform inflated peso bills into canvases

• As Argentina’s currency rapidly depreciates, artists have found a unique way to express their anger with the economic situation – and in the process, raising the value of the increasingly worthless banknotes they are using as their canvases.

=> ↺ Irish Examiner ☛ Number of Irish jobs at risk as Google announces further redundancies

• A number of Irish Google employees are believed to be at risk of redundancy with the company confirming further job cuts in addition to those announced previously this year.

• The tech giant said it will cut staff across its global recruiting division, with layoffs taking place across several countries.

• Speaking to the Irish Examiner, a spokesperson for Google said, “We continue to invest in top engineering and technical talent while also meaningfully slowing the pace of our overall hiring. In line with this, the volume of requests for our recruiters has gone down.

=> ↺ Ghacks ☛ X to sit down to table with layoff claimants

• Elon Musk’s X Corp. has agreed to engage in settlement talks with approximately 2,000 employees who were laid off following the acquisition of Twitter in October 2022.

• This development comes after ten months of relentless efforts by Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, representing the employees, to persuade Twitter to come to the negotiation table.

• According to Bloomberg, private negotiations with a mediator are scheduled for December 1 and December 2. X Corp. is complying with a court order to participate in mediation, as confirmed by an anonymous source familiar with the matter.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ Reading between the lines of Ursula von der Leyen’s ambitious vision for the EU

• The European Commission president delivered her annual speech on the state of the European Union on September 13 in Strasbourg.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Quebec’s Language Restrictions Limit Freedom of Expression

• One Montreal restaurant was cited for having “fish and chips” on its menu.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Advertising watchdog finds MTV, Calvin Klein ads unethical

• The ethics board criticised a promo for a TV show by broadcaster MTV that referenced suicide.

=> ↺ Off Guardian ☛ An Urgent Call to Speak Truth

• “There can be no doubt that a historic battle is shaping up. I expect it to get worse. The hour is later than any of us realize.” Dave Hunt on censorship of Seduction of Christianity, 1987 I am not sure how much longer my voice will be available online. The battle is intensifying, …

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ Australian MPs Sign Letter of Support for Julian Assange

• The signatories denounced that his case has dragged on for more than a decade, which shows systematic political persecution against the Australian journalist.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Detroit automakers and auto workers remain far from a deal as end-of-day strike deadline approaches

• With a deadline looming just before midnight, the United Auto Workers union and Detroit’s three automakers are far apart in contract talks and the union is preparing to strike. UAW President Shawn Fain says General Motors, Ford and Stellantis have raised their initial wage offers but have rejected some of the union’s other demands. The union is threatening to strike any company that hasn’t reached an agreement by 11:59 p.m. Thursday. Talks are ongoing, and GM increased its wage offer Thursday. Ford’s CEO and Stellantis accused the union of failing to respond to their offers. It would be the first time the union has walked out at all three companies at the same time.

=> ↺ The Kent Stater ☛ Autoworkers strike deadline nears as negotiators rush to avoid historic walkout

• With just hours to go before labor contracts expire at America’s three unionized automakers, thousands of autoworkers could walk off the job. Those limited, targeted strikes could be enough to grind production to a halt at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, which builds vehicles under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brands for North America.

=> ↺ NYPost ☛ UAW to strike at three Detroit factories — including GM, Ford — as sides still far apart

• The United Auto Workers union says it will go on strike at three factories as it presses Detroit companies to come up with better wage and benefit offers.

=> ↺ TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ UAW poised for midnight strike at plants in Wayne, Michigan, Toledo, Ohio, and Wentzville, Missouri

• The United Auto Workers union says it will go on strike at three factories as it presses Detroit companies to come up with better wage and benefit offers. The factories include a General Motors assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri; a Ford factory in Wayne, Michigan, and a Stellantis Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio. Contracts between 146,000 auto workers and the companies are set to expire at 11:59 p.m. Thursday. Despite increased offers from Ford and GM, it appears that no deals will be reached before the deadline. UAW President Shawn Fain says more factories could be added to the strike list if negotiations don’t go the union’s way.

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ UAW strike? Why a Detroit labor dispute runs through the South.

• Labor unions have been winning big pay gains this year. In the auto industry, nonunion factories in the South and the rise of electric vehicles have complicated the situation.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ U.A.W. Set to Begin Walkouts as Deadline Nears With No Contract Deals

• The union announced initial sites of a targeted strike meant to press Ford, General Motors and Stellantis in talks on pay, benefits and the workweek.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ U.A.W. Strike Looms Over Detroit Auto Show

• The three established U.S. automakers could struggle to get new cars and trucks to dealerships and customers if the walkouts drag on.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Studios Say Talks With Striking Writers May Resume Next Week

• The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said the union had asked for a meeting, which would be the first in nearly a month.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ How Strikes Reflect Longstanding Battles for Control in Hollywood

• Striking actors and writers fear A.I. Executives don’t seem to. It’s a longstanding battle over technology and control in Hollywood that plays out onscreen, too.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ The U.A.W. Could Go on Strike Friday. Here’s What to Know About the Issues.

• The union and the carmakers remain far apart on wages.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Spain’s Female Soccer Players Call Off Wage Dispute Strike

• The breakthrough in the labor dispute, which has delayed the start of the season and has added to a turbulent period in Spanish soccer, was an agreement over minimum pay.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Chinese rights lawyer Lu Siwei repatriated by Laos last week

• Activists say the move violates international human rights treaties, while his wife fears he will be tortured.

=> ↺ Helsinki Times ☛ EU labeled a ‘toxic warehouse’ for child sexual abuse material as Finnish lawmakers urged to act

• The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has sounded the alarm, branding the European Union a “toxic warehouse” for hosting child sexual abuse material and urging Finnish lawmakers to take swift action against this disturbing trend. Criminal gangs have found a haven in EU member states, where they host abhorrent criminal imagery of children enduring sexual abuse, rape, and torture.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Is the UK’s new security act comparable with Hong Kong’s security law?

• Verdict: Misleading

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ AccessNow ☛ The world must not forget Mahsa Amini

• It has been a year since Mahsa Amini died while in the custody of Iran’s “morality police,” leading to waves of protests across the country – and a subsequent crackdown by the country’s rulers against dissent, both offline and online. We’ve mapped some of the troubling trends in Iran’s digital authoritarian playbook.

=> ↺ APNIC ☛ Results of APNIC By-laws vote

• The Member vote on five resolutions to amend the APNIC By-laws resulted in all resolutions passing.

=> ↺ APNIC ☛ APNIC 56: Thank you and farewell

• Thanks to everyone who participated in and supported APNIC 56.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Securepairs ☛ Secure Repairs Statement on the California Legislature’s Passage of The Right to Repair Act

• Secure Repairs (securepairs.org), an organization of cybersecurity and information technology professionals who support a legal right to repair, celebrates passage of Senate Bill 244 by the California legislature this week. “Nothing says success like having the 5th largest economy in the world embrace robust consumer right to repair protections,” said Paul Roberts, founder of Secure Repairs.

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 for Technology In Ariscale wireless patent prior art

• A new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, was added seeking prior art on at least claims 1 and 14 of U.S. Patent 8,139,652, owned by Technology In Ariscale, LLC, an NPE. The ‘652 patent generally relates to a method of decoding wireless transmission signals involving deinterleaving and mutually combining the repeated symbols. It has been asserted against Razer USA. Infringement against Razer is based on compliance with IEEE 802.11ac.

• The contest will expire on November 30, 2023. Please visit PATROLL for more information and to submit an entry for this contest.

=> ↺ JUVE ☛ Alpina and Torggler & Hofinger win first UPC hearing at Vienna local division [Ed: UPC is illegal, but JUVE took many bribes to promote this attack on constitutions and conventions. It's still trying to legitimise this kangaroo court that's a ticking time bomb.]

• In keeping with the traditional Viennese coffeehouse culture and the famous coffee speciality Wiener Melange, the first hearing at the Unified Patent Court’s local division in Vienna revolved around a patent protecting a technology for milk frothers.

=> ↺ Unified Patents ☛ IPO hosts “IP Litigation Finance & Disclosure” Webinar, September 21

• IPO’s IP Chat Channel. Litigation funding and prevailing secondaries markets have quickly come to undergird huge swaths of U.S. civil litigation today. This is particularly true in U.S. patent litigation, although financing efforts surrounding patents are not exclusively limited to enforcement efforts. Indeed, studies show that up to a third of all modern patent litigation is now funded, making patent litigation the highest-growth area in litigation funding. Some argue that litigation funding has enabled small players and individual inventors to realize the value of their intellectual property holdings.

=> ↺ Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 for Papst Licensing UI patent prior art

• A new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, was added seeking prior art on at least claim 1 of U.S. Patent 9,871,962, owned by Papst Licensing GmbH & Company. The ‘962 patent relates generally to gesture based access to a movable shutter button for a camera on electronic devices with touch-sensitive surfaces. An electronic device having a camera and a touch-sensitive display supports methods for capturing an image using a movable shutter button thereon. The electronic device executes a camera application that may have a single movable displayed on the touch sensitive display, or two shutter buttons, one of which is fixed and one of which is movable.

=> ↺ Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ EPO makes correct diagnosis but prescribes the wrong medication with the Proposed Amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the Boards of Appeal [Ed: The Rules of Procedure of the Boards of Appeal are drawn up by dictators who are corrupt and act in direct violation of the EPC, inc. interference in "independent" procesess. Why aren't politicians stepping in to stop the corruption at the EPO?]

• The EPO has proposed new amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the Boards of Appeal (RPBA) to support more ambitious timeliness objectives.

Trademarks

=> ↺ TTAB Blog ☛ Precedential No. 26: Listing of Application on ESTTA Cover Sheet Suffices for Claim of Common Law Rights in Opposition to Section 66(a) Application

• Opposer Sterling Computers opposed IBM’s Section 66(a) applications to register the marks STERLING and IBM STERLING for various Class 42 services. In its notice of opposition, opposer claimed a likelihood of confusion with its marks STERLING, in standard character and design form, and STERLING COMPUTERS. On its ESTTA cover sheet, opposer listed pending applications for all three marks, as well as common law rights in the mark STERLING COMPUTERS. When it filed an amended notice of opposition, opposer added common law rights in its STERLING marks. IBM objected because those added common law right were not included on the ESTTA cover sheet. The Board, however, sided with opposer, holding that identification of the applications for the STERLING marks was enough to notify WIPO’s International Bureau of its common law rights that are coterminous with those of its identified applications. Sterling Computers Corporation v. International Business Machines Corporation, Opposition No. 91273403 (September 8, 2023) [precedential] (Order by Judge Jennifer E. Elgin).

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