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Techrights
Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 26, 2024,
updated Apr 26, 2024
> GNOME bluefish
> Image by [SrBlonde] via Hackaday.IOOkay, so we’re opening with more than just a keyboard, and that’s fine. In fact, it’s more than fine, it’s probably the cutest lil’ ZX Spectrum you’ll see today.
> But there’s a trade-off. The more ten-dollar words I indulge in, the fewer readers will understand what I’m trying to say. But if I simplify too much, I risk losing my own voice in the process.
> Manual Moreale wrote an interesting post about self promotion, where he reflects on whether closing out all his People and Blogs post with a line pointing to his Ko-Fi page is too much:
> "And so I added that single line. But adding that single line was a struggle. Because in my head, it’s obvious that if you do enjoy something and are willing to support it, you’d probably go look for a way to do it. That’s how my brain works. But unfortunately, that’s not how the [Internet] works. Apparently, the correct approach seems to be the opposite one. You have to constantly remind people to like and subscribe, to support, to contribute, and to share."
> Every time I need to do something that is marketing-related, I can feel the tension in my brain as if a part of me is trying to fight against it. And this is for the most benign things. I’ll give you an example. I recently edited all P&B interviews and added a line at the end of the intro that reads:
> "If you're enjoying the People and Blogs series and you want to see it grow, consider supporting on Ko-Fi."
> Matt Haughey wrote a blueprint for his “Dream CMS” and we had him on ShopTalk to talk about it. That got me thinking about what features I’d want in my dream CMS. It’s fun to think of what a modern CMS might have like inline editing, asset serving, monetization/membership functionality, and more imaginative comment moderation.
> Most of my dream CMS features center around improving my writing and content surfacing. All these ideas seem like a pretty good fit for LLMs or AI, even though I don’t drink from that particular well often.
> As usual, Cory’s take is measured, accurate, and raises some interesting points on the ownership of your data online. Many people have begun to think about these things now that the USA is finally preparing legislation on privacy and personal data. Of course, that isn’t a worry for me, but this short statement prodded at something I was thinking about when moving my blog around in the last few weeks.
> While shared hosting is often overlooked, it’s an affordable and user-friendly way to host a website, making it a great option whether you’re a beginner or a veteran in website building. It’s also a great throwback to the hosting you yearned for back in the day. Who remembers sitting around on the old free hosting platforms waiting for someone with their own domain to scoop them up and allow them to start hosting a website on their shared plan under a subdomain?
> I’ve been hosting my website on a shared hosting plan for the past couple of months and have been enjoying it.
> Last week I ran a fun exercise: I wanted to take a week off work and build out The Cascade, the almost-weekly-ish newsletter that I’ve written about front-end development and CSS, and turn it into a full blow standalone honest-to-goodness blog. I gave myself 2 days for the design, 2 days for development, and 2 days to write some example posts and see how it all looks like fitted out with real content.
> A newsletter gives me an opportunity to create some more longform content within the same theme of empathetic leadership (a theme, mind you, that doesn't really fit well with the more personal things I post here).
> Many readers will be aware of the trend for disposable vapes, and how harvesting them for lithium-ion batteries has become a popular pastime in our community. We’re all used to the slim ones about the size of a marker pen, but it’s a surprise to find that they also come in larger sizes equipped with colour LCD screens. [Jason Gin] received one of this type of vape, and set about reverse engineering it.
> To write that the Hubble Space Telescope is legendary would be an understatement.
> In the 34 years this telescope has been in orbit, it has produced breathtaking images of the cosmos. One that sticks out, for instance, is the iconic Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, aka the deepest visible-light view of our universe ever created. Thanks to the Hubble telescope, astronomers know our universe is about 13.7 billion years old and that many galaxies host supermassive black holes at their centers. It's because of this spaceborne eye on the cosmos that scientists were also able to map the mysterious substance dark matter in 3D.
> On Tuesday a RocketLab Electron rocket launched NASA's new Advanced Composite Solar Sail System. It aims to test the deployment of large solar sails in low-earth orbit and on Wednesday, NASA confirmed they had successfully deployed a 9 metre sail.
> Power distribution units, as the name implies, are indispensable tools to have available in a server rack. They can handle a huge amount of power for demands of intensive computing and do it in a way that the wiring is managed fairly well. Plenty of off-the-shelf solutions have remote control or automation capabilities as well, but finding none that fit [fmarzocca]’s needs or price range, he ended up building his own essentially from scratch that powers his home automation system.
> In a Universe ruled by the harsh and unyielding laws of Physics, it’s often tempting to dream of mechanisms which defy these rigid restrictions. Although over the past hundred years we have made astounding progress in uncovering ways to work within these restrictions — including splitting and fusing atoms to liberate immense amounts of energy — there are those who dream of making reality a bit more magical. The concept of asymmetrical electrostatic propulsion is a major player here, with the EmDrive the infamous example. More recently [Dr. Charles Buhler] proposed trying it again, as part of his company Exodus Propulsion Technologies.
> While there’s still something undeniably cool about the flip-open communicators used in the original Star Trek, the fact is, they don’t really look all that futuristic compared to modern mobile phones. But the upgraded “combadges” used in Star Trek: The Next Generation and its various large and small screen spin-offs — now that’s a tech we’re still trying to catch up to.
> Large language models are famous for their ability to make things up—in fact, it’s what they’re best at. But their inability to tell fact from fiction has left many businesses wondering if using them is worth the risk.
> Networking giant Cisco warned that a group of state-sponsored hackers exploited zero-days in its firewall appliances to spy on government networks over the last several months.
> Cisco in a Wednesday warning said that two zero-day vulnerabilities in Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) firewalls were exploited by a state-backed hacking group since November 2023 to infiltrate government networks globally.
> The same types of bizarre AI images that have repeatedly gone viral on Facebook have begun to make their way to LinkedIn. In some cases, these images are performing very well, as is the case on Facebook. In others, they are identified as AI by a majority of the commenters.
> The web has become so interwoven with everyday life that it is easy to forget what an extraordinary accomplishment and treasure it is. In just a few decades, much of human knowledge has been collectively written up and made available to anyone with an [Internet] connection.
> But all of this is coming to an end. The advent of AI threatens to destroy the complex online ecosystem that allows writers, artists, and other creators to reach human audiences.
> The police arrested Darien on Thursday at the airport, and said in a statement “It’s believed Mr. Darien, who was an Athletic Director at Pikesville High School, made the recording to retaliate against Mr. Eiswert who at the time was pursuing an investigation into the potential mishandling of school funds.” He has been released after posting bail, and faces charges including theft (for the issue with school funds), disturbing the operations of a school, retaliation against a witness, and stalking.
> “The audio clip ... had profound repercussions,” police wrote in charging documents. “It not only led to Eiswert’s temporary removal from the school but also triggered a wave of hate-filled messages on social media and numerous calls to the school. The recording also caused significant disruptions for the PHS staff and students.”
> A high school athletic director in the Baltimore area was arrested on Thursday after he used artificial intelligence software, the police said, to manufacture a racist and antisemitic audio clip that impersonated the school’s principal.
> I try to not spend too much time on Youtube for a few reasons. First I don’t have much time nowadays, secondly they want to keep you on their app and force you to watch ads and as I don’t like ads I want to spend the less time there.
> My usage of Youtube was : I go there only to watch one video then close my tab I grab somewhere then I closed the tab. But I’ve found lately that it was not the case anymore, I got caught by Shorts thumbnails and watch one, two, four and I have lost a quarter of an hour in the blink of an eye.
> “There goes the neighborhood” isn’t a phrase to be thrown about lightly, but when they build a police station next door to your house, you know things are about to get noisy. Just how bad it’ll be is perhaps a bit subjective, with pleas for relief likely to fall on deaf ears unless you’ve got firm documentation like that provided by this automated noise detection system.
> 2024 is the year Corporate Open Source—or at least any remaining illusions about it—finally died.
> It's one thing to build a product with a proprietary codebase, and charge for licenses. You can still build communities around that model, and it's worked for decades.
> But it's totally different when you build your product under an open source license, foster a community of users who then build their own businesses on top of that software, then yoink the license when your revenue is affected.
> That's called a bait-and-switch.
> Bryan Cantrill's been sounding the alarm for years—yes, that Bryan Cantrill, the one who posted this gem: [...]x
> Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has contributed to a boost in gaming revenue, but Xbox console sales have taken another massive hit.
> In its latest earnings report, Microsoft stated gaming revenue has increased by $1.8bn, or 51 percent year-on-year, while Xbox content and services revenue specifically increased by 62 percent. Microsoft admits this is due to the net impact from the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
> [...]
> Hardware revenue, however, has decreased by 31 percent year-on-year due to poor sales of Xbox consoles.
> At the close of the stock market on Wednesday, Meta's share price plummeted on CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s aggressive artificial intelligence and mixed reality spending plans, which wiped out more than $200 billion in market valuation.
> Investors overlooked its strong first-quarter earnings and focused on the large costs that the tech giant will incur in building out its AI strategy—a major deviation from Meta’s self-touted belt-tightening “year of efficiency” in 2023.
> The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is issuing over $5.6 million in refunds to consumers as part of a settlement with Ring, an Amazon-owned company. This settlement stems from allegations that Ring failed to adequately safeguard private video footage from unauthorized access.
> Blizzard has announced it will not hold BlizzCon, the publisher’s annual fan convention, this year. “After careful consideration over the last year, we at Blizzard have made the decision not to hold BlizzCon in 2024,” Blizzard wrote on its website.
> Instead of BlizzCon, Blizzard wrote that it would be holding other, smaller events throughout the year and mentioned participating in other trade shows, such as Gamescom. Additionally, 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of World of Warcraft, with Blizzard stating that it’s planning “multiple, global, in-person events” as well as sharing updates for WoW’s 10th expansion, The War Within, and Diablo IV’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred.
> • OpenPGP signatures
> Unless the user knows how to verify the signing key through the OpenPGP Web of Trust, this technique ultimately relies on a correct download of the signing key and signature, and thus on HTTPS.
> At Which? Tech support, we've heard from members who have been targeted by scammers using fake pop-up messages
> There are generally two approaches to consent in privacy law. In the United States, the notice-and-choice approach predominates; organizations post a notice of their privacy practices and people are deemed to consent if they continue to do business with the organization or fail to opt out. In the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) uses the express consent approach, where people must voluntarily and affirmatively consent.
> Both approaches fail. The evidence of actual consent is non-existent under the notice-and-choice approach. Individuals are often pressured or manipulated, undermining the validity of their consent. The express consent approach also suffers from these problems – people are ill-equipped to decide about their privacy, and even experts cannot fully understand what algorithms will do with personal data. Express consent also is highly impractical; it inundates individuals with consent requests from thousands of organizations. Express consent cannot scale.
> Enter laws requiring porn platforms to verify visitor ages. Such laws have already taken effect in at least eight states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia), and bills to do the same were introduced in at least 11 other states in 2023. So far in 2024, legislators in at least seven states (Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and Oklahoma) have introduced such porn age-verification bills. While the particulars vary, most would result in all visitors to web-based adult-content platforms having to submit a government-issued ID proving their age, either directly to the platform or through a third-party verification service.
> Supporters of such measures say it's no different than carding people in stores who try to buy age-restricted merchandise. But there's a big difference between momentarily flashing your ID in front of a store clerk and submitting it to a website or app. The latter creates a record, permanently attaching real identities to online activity that many people would prefer stay private.
> A new study, led by experts in security and terrorism studies at the University of Portsmouth, provides a thorough examination of the terrorist environment following the armed conflict between Philippine forces and Islamist militants who seized the southern city of Marawi for five months, in which over a thousand people died and a million were displaced.
> I’m not convinced American privacy legislation will have much impact on a company based in China. TikTok has also long promised to host data in America — “Project Texas” — and according to recent reports the effort is largely cosmetic.
> This is not a ban of TikTok. This is a focused effort to force ByteDance to sell the company, so that it can be controlled by a company with more transparency and accountability. If ByteDance refuses to sell TikTok, the app will be removed from distribution by platform gatekeepers, but there’s nothing to stop TikTok from continuing to operate and be available to Americans via the web, as long as it’s hosted somewhere else.
> From HR 815, now signed into law: [...]
> The lawmakers leading the charge on this ban have cited national security concerns stemming from the app’s Chinese ownership. Specifically, they’ve mentioned the possibility of the Chinese government accessing the data of American users and using the app to spread propaganda or influence foreign elections. Members of Congress have referred to information they learned in security briefings about the potential for TikTok to harm American interests, but the contents of those briefings are not public.
> TikTok on Wednesday faced a formidable threat to its business, with a new law signed by President Biden that could dramatically change the way the popular video app operates.
> TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has faced scrutiny from U.S. government officials over how it handles the data of its users here as well as its ties to China. The new law would require ByteDance, a tech company founded in China in 2012, to sell TikTok or the app will be banned in the U.S.
> The air base is strategically important to the Iranian regime and forms part of the protection of the Natanz complex, where it is suspected to be building nuclear weapons.
> The legislation was signed into law just hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in China.
> The TikTok ban is a geopolitical issue that has nothing to do with the users themselves, Professor Ferre-Pavia stated.
> "China's government favours a cyber-sovereignty Internet governance model, which is closed, centralised and country-led," Thillien said.
> "This is very different from the multi-stakeholder governance model the US has backed until now, which is open, decentralised and industry-led.
> "This move to a more Chinese approach to the Internet was also apparent back in October 2023, when the Office of the US Trade Representative withdrew its backing of traditional US digital trade objectives at the World Trade Organisation."
> A tiny group of lawmakers huddled in private about a year ago, aiming to keep the discussions away from Fentanylware (TikTok) lobbyists while bulletproofing a bill that could ban the app.
> How the viral TikToks of a Chinese glycine factory elucidate our increasingly chaotic digital environment.
> U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has begun a critical trip to China armed with a strengthened diplomatic hand following Senate approval of a foreign aid package that will provide billions of dollars in assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the social control media platform -– all areas of contention between Washington and Beijing.
> TikTok announced Wednesday that it had suspended a feature that rewarded users for watching and liking videos on its new Lite app, available in France and Spain, after the EU launched an investigation Monday over child-safety concerns.
> President Joe Biden today signed legislation that will ban Fentanylware (TikTok) in the U.S. unless parent company ByteDance Ltd. sells the app within one year. The Senate approved the bill a few hours earlier in a 79-18 vote.
> Plus: Masking protesters, how Surveillance Giant Google Search got so bad, Columbia's anti-apartheid protests of the '80s, and more...
> European Commission Statement Brussels, 24 Apr 2024 The Commission takes note of TikTok's decision to unilaterally suspend the “Task and Reward Programme” of Fentanylware (TikTok) Lite in France and Spain [...]
> The departure of U.S. military personnel in Chad and Niger comes as both countries are turning away from years of cooperation with the United States and forming partnerships with Russia.
> US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Thursday on the United States and China to manage their differences “responsibly” as he went on a charm offensive ahead of expected tough talks.
> A Belarusian court has sentenced the members of dissident rock band Nizkiz to two years of prison labor after finding them guilty of "organizing and plotting actions grossly violating public order."
> Lithuanian Armed Forces have denied the Belarusian security service’s report that a drone attack was launched on Minsk from Lithuania.
> This week's US aid package for Ukraine provides the country with a vital lifeline in the fight against Russia but Western leaders must adopt a more long-term approach if they want to stop Putin, writes Peter Dickinson.
> Russian President Vladimir Putin said on April 25 that in the interest of the country's national defense it is possible to nationalize industrial facilities.
> Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to visit China in May. Putin announced the plans on April 25 at a congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow.
> NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday it was "not too late for Ukraine to prevail" against Russia as long as its allies fulfil promises to deliver more weapons.
> Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials said Wednesday.
> As Russia continues its war in Ukraine, the Lithuanian parliament on Thursday extended national sanctions against Russian and Belarusian citizens for a year but voted down proposals to impose new restrictions on Belarusians.
> The U.S. Treasury Department on April 25 issued further sanctions targeting companies that manufacture, sell, and ship Iranian drones as part of an effort to curb their use by Russia in its full-scale war in Ukraine.
> Ukraine's agriculture minister offered to resign on April 25 after he was named as a suspect in a multimillion-dollar corruption investigation.
> Authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka said that "several dozen Russian nuclear weapons" were deployed in Belarus, a move that has raised concerns in the West that Moscow's war against Ukraine could spread.
> President Emmanuel Macron appealed on April 25 for stronger, more integrated European defenses and said the continent must not become a vassal of the United States, as he outlined his vision for a more assertive European Union on the global stage.
> President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called for expanding international sanctions against Russia for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine as Kyiv battles against Moscow's more numerous and better armed forces.
> Russia's children's rights commissioner on April 24 announced a deal with Ukraine to exchange almost 50 children displaced by Moscow's invasion, but a Ukrainian official declined to confirm the agreement.
> By LOLITA C. BALDOR (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is expected to announce Friday that it will provide about $6 billion in long-term military aid to Ukraine, U.S. officials said, adding that it will include much sought after munitions for Patriot air defense systems.
> Two U.S. officials say Ukraine has sidelined U.S.-provided Abrams M1A1 battle tanks for now in its fight against Russia. This is in part because Russian drone warfare has made it too difficult for them to operate without detection or coming under attack. The sidelining of the Abrams reflects evolving battlefield tactics where drone use has made it virtually impossible for them to maneuver without detection. A $1 billion aid package announced this week includes munitions specifically able to take down drones and additional air defense systems. The U.S. agreed to send 31 Abrams to Ukraine in January 2023 after an aggressive monthslong campaign by Kyiv.
> The new $61 billion U.S. aid package will keep Ukraine from the brink, allowing it to release rationed ammunition and launch anti-aircraft missiles. But as Russia pushes forward, even small offensives may be outside Ukraine’s reach.
> The goal for a recent delivery of ATACMS, a coveted long-range missile system, is to put more pressure on Russian forces in eastern parts of occupied Ukraine.
> Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is in China this week as tensions have risen over trade, security, Russia’s war on Ukraine and the Middle East crisis.
> Chasiv Yar has been under relentless attack by Russian forces. Controlling the town would put them in striking distance of key Ukrainian operational and supply centers.
> French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday urged Europe to wake up to the fact that it was not sufficiently armed in the face of global threats such as Russian aggression that pose an existential challenge to the continent. In a major foreign policy speech, Macron called on Europe to adopt a "credible" defence strategy that is less dependent on the US.
> Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution sponsored by the US and Japan on Wednesday, which called on all nations to contribute to the peaceful use of outer space and to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race.
> Ruben Vardanian, a former Russian citizen of Armenian descent who served as prime minister in the de facto government of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh from November 2022 to February 2023, has ended a hunger strike in a Baku prison, his family said on April 25.
> European lawmakers are expected to vote on April 26 on a resolution that calls for the "immediate and unconditional release" of all political prisoners held in Russia, including journalists Alsu Kurmasheva and Evan Gershkovich.
> A Moscow court on April 25 fined Anastasia Ivleyeva, the organizer of a party in December that sparked a scandal, 50,000 rubles ($535) on a charge of discrediting Russia's armed forces.
> A court in Russia's Komi region on April 24 issued an arrest warrant for Garry Kasparov, opposition politician and a co-founder of the Free Russia Forum, on a charge of creating and leading a "terrorist" group.
> The Basmanny district court in Moscow on April 25 sent Aleksandr Fomin, one of the co-founders of the construction company Olympcitystroy, to pretrial detention until at least June 23 on a charge of giving a bribe to Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov.
> The U.S.-Japan resolution on weapons of mass destruction is a "dirty spectacle", said Russian diplomat Nebenzia.
> Russia's server and storage supply was hampered by U.S.-imposed sanctions, but the state seems to have returned to normalcy nevertheless.
> Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg cautioned Western allies against becoming as dependent on China as they had been on Russia.
> The move was prompted by a significant decrease in visa applications following Finland's restriction on Russian citizens entering the country in September last year.
> Russia’s woes and other geopolitical shifts have allowed the heartland of Eurasia to build on the freedom from big-power intervention.
> Last year, in an effort to bring greater transparency to local elections, the Texas Legislature mandated that school districts, municipalities and other jurisdictions post campaign finance reports online rather than stow them away in filing cabinets.
> But many agencies appear to be violating the law that took effect in September.
> Plastic pollution is becoming more of an issue as time goes on. Reusable bags are one of many ways people can limit waste and reduce their footprint.
> In addition to plastic waste, reusable bags hold more items than the average grocery store bag. Therefore, the trips you take and the waste you create are all minimized.
> Two hunters have died after consuming venison from a population of deer known to be infected with chronic wasting disease – an incurable, fatal prion sometimes known as "zombie deer" disease not dissimilar to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease.
> A team of doctors at the University of Texas report a 72-year-old man died after presenting with rapid-onset confusion and aggression.
> The man's friend, who was a member of the same hunting lodge, died at a later, unspecified date after presenting with similar symptoms, the doctors note. A post-mortem determined that this second patient had died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, AKA prion disease.
> The Biden-Harris Administration today announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a final rule that requires airlines to promptly provide passengers with automatic cash refunds when owed. The new rule makes it easy for passengers to obtain refunds when airlines cancel or significantly change their flights, significantly delay their checked bags, or fail to provide the extra services they purchased.
> CISA said it made 1,754 notifications last year to organizations with [Internet]-exposed devices vulnerable to attack. Of those, 852 were “patched, implemented a compensating control, or taken offline after notification from CISA.”
> Citing data from the US Treasury’s Financial Crime Enforcement Network as well as research from Chainalysis, a company that specializes in tracing crypto transactions, and the Internet Watch Foundation, a CSAM-focused charity, the letter asserts that the “use of cryptocurrency in the illicit trade of CSAM appears to be increasing.”
> On Google’s core business of search, Pichai didn’t share revenue figures related to experiments to summarize query results using generative AI. By providing more direct answers to searchers, Google could end up with fewer opportunities to show search ads if people spend less time doing additional, more refined searches. The types of ads Google does show also could have to shift.
> One of the false stories published by the hacker in Czech and English claimed that Czechia's security information service (known as BIS) had prevented an assassination attempt against Slovakia's new president “Peter Pelligrini”
> Some health misinformation found there is relatively harmless, like when people were putting potatoes in their socks to “draw out toxins,” researchers said.
> But other misinformation is actively dangerous, like anti-vaccine content or videos that encourage people to drink borax with their morning coffee, they said.
> “There is high-quality and factual information out there on social media platforms such as TikTok, but it may be very difficult to distinguish this from information disseminated by influencers that can actually be harmful,” Roxbury said.
> A Texas state appeals court on Thursday ordered the dismissal of a 2018 defamation lawsuit against ProPublica and the Houston Chronicle brought by famed Houston heart surgeon Dr. O.H. “Bud” Frazier, ruling that a 2018 investigation into the doctor was a “fair, true, and impartial account” of accusations against him.
> Frazier was also ordered to pay the publications’ attorneys fees related to the appeal.
> Digital rights organizations are keeping a close eye on [Internet] access in the West African nation of Togo as the country conducts national elections next week.
> More than two dozen of them called on Togo’s government to ensure unhindered access after multiple instances in recent years in which it implemented shutdowns for political reasons.
> The bill, approved 72-28 by the Alabama House of Representatives, will now move to the state Senate. It removes existing exemptions for public libraries in the state’s obscenity law and is part of a larger nationwide effort to ban books.
> Like other social media services in China, Douyin follows the censorship rules of the Chinese Communist Party. It conscientiously removes video pertaining to topics deemed sensitive or inflammatory by the party, although it has proved a little harder than text-based social media to control.
> Salehi initially received a six-year prison sentence, but had been released after Iran's Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower court over flaws in his original sentence.
> Salehi was released on bail, but then arrested again in November after saying in a video message that he was tortured after his arrest in October 2022. State media at the time released a video showing him blindfolded and apologizing for his words, a statement likely made under duress.
> An Iranian court has sentenced to death a popular rapper jailed for more than a year and a half for supporting nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini's death, local media reported Wednesday.
> Toomaj Salehi, 33, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly backing the wave of demonstrations that erupted a month earlier, triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old Amini.
> The Iranian Kurdish woman had been detained by the morality police in Tehran over an alleged breach of the Islamic republic's strict dress rules for women.
> Late-stage capitalism is destroying a basic human right - being able to live in a house - as housing affordability for renting and buying across Australia has been smashed in recent years.
> A bill that would strengthen oversight of Tennessee’s juvenile detention centers has failed, despite a concerted push for reform after multiple county-run facilities were found to be locking children alone in cells.
> The bill was introduced in the state legislature in January after a WPLN and ProPublica investigation last year reported that seclusion was used as punishment for minor rule infractions like laughing during meals or talking during class. One facility, the Richard L. Bean Juvenile Service Center in Knoxville, was particularly reliant on seclusion, in violation of state laws and standards that banned the practice as a form of discipline.
> “Broadband is now an essential service,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said Thursday in prepared remarks. “Essential services—the ones we count on in every aspect of modern life—have some basic oversight.”
> The rules approved by the agency on Thursday will reclassify broadband services in the United States once more as “common carriers” under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, subjecting broadband to the same public-utilities-style scrutiny as telephone networks and cable TV.
> That distinction means that the agency can prevent [Internet] service providers from blocking or throttling legal content, or letting online services pay ISPs to prioritize their content with faster delivery speeds. But it’s difficult, particularly in an election year, to say whether net neutrality is here to stay or whether the FCC’s vote is just another inflection point in a regulatory forever-war.
> Public interest group Free Press said the vote is a "major victory for the public interest" saying it "empowers the FCC to hold companies like AT&T, Comcast, Spectrum and Verizon accountable for a wide range of harms to [Internet] users across the United States."
> IPv6 would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. I know I’ve harped on about this a few times, but the idea that a committee of intelligent people thought encoding MAC addresses into an IPv6 address was in any way a good idea is absolutely breathtaking.
> The commission voted 3-2 in October to advance the proposal to reinstate open [Internet] rules adopted in 2015 and re-establish the commission's authority over broadband [Internet]. The FCC will vote to give final approval Thursday.
> The median worker laboring under a noncompete is a fast-food worker making close to minimum wage. You know who doesn't have to worry about noncompetes? High tech workers in Silicon Valley, because California already banned noncompetes, as did Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington.
> The fact that the country's largest economies, encompassing the most "knowledge-intensive" industries, could operate without shitty bosses being able to shackle their best workers to their stupid workplaces for years after those workers told them to shove it shows you what a goddamned lie noncompetes are based on. The idea that companies can't raise capital or thrive if their know-how can walk out the door, secreted away in the skulls of their ungrateful workers, is bullshit: [...]
> This year the Patent Public Advisory Committee, also known as PPAC, turns 25. Established in 1999, PPAC is a 9-member advisory committee appointed by the Secretary of Commerce. Each member serves a 3-year term, and I am starting my second year. The primary purpose of the Committee is to review the policies, goals, performance, budget, and user fees of the USPTO with respect to patents. The Committee is also charged, by statute, to advise the Director of the USPTO on these matters and to prepare a report to Congress on the advisory actions the Committee has undertaken during the calendar year. You can find the 2023 PPAC Annual Report
> Late January, the U.S. Department of Commerce published a notice of proposed rulemaking for establishing new requirements for Infrastructure as a Service providers (IaaS) . The proposal boils down to a 'Know Your Customer' regime for companies operating cloud services, with the goal of countering the activities of "foreign malicious actors." Yet, despite an overseas focus, Americans won't be able to avoid the proposal's requirements, which covers CDNs, virtual private servers, proxies, and domain name resolution services, among others.
> Researchers from Delft University of Technology plan to amplify their BitTorrent client "Tribler" with decentralized AI-powered search. A new demo shows that generative AI models make it possible to search for content in novel ways, without restriction. The ultimate goal of the research project is to shift the Internet's power balance from governments and large corporations back to consumers.
> so I had never used glitch.com before starting this, so this was mostly just me fumbling my way around until it worked. I didn't know that the presence of package.json in /app would either enable or disable node and npm. Since we only need npm for building janusweb, we'll have to flip between these two types of glitches when we want to test.
> i've recently come to the realisation that i feel it's appropriate to call myself a ‘writer’. Not because i'm published, or in any way likely to be, or because i'm writing The Next Great Novel, or because i feel i'm talented and good at it. (i can immediately think of several people on my Facebook friends list who i consider to be _far_ better writers than me.) i'm a ‘writer’ in the sense that i _have_ to write: i have to write to “get things out”, and i feel compelled to keep doing so regardless of the extent to which my writing is actually read, i.e. hardly at all.
Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.
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