Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

New #Linux #malware has been discovered that masquerades as a #GNOME shell extension and spies on users.

https://www.intezer.com/blog-evilgnome-rare-malware-spying-on-linux-desktop-users/ …

We fund #opensource projects like @Nitrokey, @delta, @cryptpad, @manyver_se, @fediversespace, @mailpipe, @sartura, @Searx_engine, @r2refresh, @IRMA_privacy and many more to help build the #NextGenerationInternet. Want to know more? Meet us at #NGIForum and contribute! @NGI4eu

We would love to feature your photos and videos of apps running on Librem 5 (devkit). Tag your creations with #runsonlibrem5 and we'll share it with the community #librem5 #purism

Google and Facebook Are Quietly Tracking You on Sex Websites #privacy
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/opinion/google-facebook-sex-websites.html

A California Bill Could Transform the Lives of Gig Workers. Silicon Valley Wants Labor’s Help To Stop It.

Gig economy workers who support the legislation view it as a necessary step toward their ability to collectively organize. Uber and Lyft want a workaround.

The post A California Bill Could Transform the Lives of Gig Workers. Silicon Valley Wants Labor’s Help To Stop It. appeared first on The Intercept.

Why Don’t They Just Go Back To Where They Came From?

Trump administration officials take their own advice.

House Votes to Hold Top Trump Officials in Criminal Contempt for Withholding Census Documents

The House of Representatives voted 230 to 198 Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over key documents about the Trump administration’s efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. It’s the first time the full House has voted to […]

Spawn of the triffid? Tiny organisms give us glimpse into complex evolutionary tale

Two newly discovered organisms point to the existence of an ancient organism that resembled a tiny version of the lumbering, human-eating science fiction plants known as 'triffids.'

House Judiciary Committee Continues Its Antitrust Inquiry Into the Internet Marketplace

The House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust held its second hearing on whether our antitrust laws and their enforcement are keeping up with the Internet marketplace. Notably, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple were present as witnesses along with a range of experts to follow, giving Congress a lot to assess. EFF supports this inquiry by Congress and shares the concern that the lifecycle of competition has been on the decline, bringing serious risk of a small handful of gatekeepers having disproportionate power over user expression and privacy online.

Congress Asks the Wrong Question: “How Can We Make Big Tech Behave Better?”

A persistent theme from some in Congress is applying pressure to Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon to modify their practices to appease some constituency. This misses the point of an antitrust inquiry, which is to figure out if these companies are exerting market power in ways that foreclose competition, harm consumers, and suppress innovation, and then remedy the harm with thoughtful interventions. But not all industries share this objective—some would rather have the dominant Internet companies become regulated monopolies in order to further their own policy goals.

For example, major entertainment companies submitted a letter to the House Judiciary Committee claiming that Google and Facebook are not doing enough to stop copyright infringement, and attempted to shoehorn the copyright issue into an antitrust discussion. Echoing this theme, Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon asked the tech companies to explain their copyright enforcement practices. Google’s witness responded by discussing Content ID, their wildly expensive and poorly functioning system of copyright filters for YouTube.

The question struck a discordant note in this hearing on monopoly power. YouTube has the lion’s share of user-uploaded video on the Internet, and while Content ID causes endless difficulties for video creators and their viewers, YouTube’s vast scale makes its filtering system hard to avoid. What’s more, Content ID has cost at least $40 million to build. An aspiring competitor would find it next to impossible to build an equivalent system of filters. Making systems like Content ID the norm (or worse still, a legal requirement) cements Google’s dominance, reinforcing the exact problem the Antitrust Subcommittee has set out to fix.

Changing the subject to copyright may further the entertainment industry’s agenda, but it doesn’t address the monopoly problem. Major content companies consistently seek to narrow distribution channels for their content and then maximize control. It has no place in an antitrust inquiry, as the ultimate objective for Congress should be to open the door to more channels of distribution that can compete with YouTube. In fact, content creators would benefit from competition in distribution channels as alternatives to Google products. This would give content creators choices, and those distributors could compete for new video creations with better terms than what YouTube offers.

Congress’ Effort to Understand the Internet Marketplace Is Vital to the Internet’s Future

Chairman David Cicilline laid out the facts as to why his Subcommittee is engaging in this antitrust inquiry: a small handful of companies wield enormous influence over Internet activity and investors that are important in funding startups noted the “kill-zone” that exists when challenging the dominant tech companies. Rather than try to launch startups that were meant to displace the Internet giants, the market seems to have trended towards building companies that the tech giants will seek to acquire through vertical mergers. Professor Fiona Scott Morton testified that what may be needed is a rethinking of mergers and acquisitions. EFF agrees that this area of antitrust law is sorely in need of a reboot. Other witnesses noted that small businesses now see companies like Amazon as potentially hostile to their ability to use the Internet to grow, Stacey Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. This represents a dramatic shift in how Internet industries have worked historically, where the garage startup became the next billion-dollar corporation only to be replaced by the next garage startup, and no company could gatekeep others.

It’s a powerful indication that the Internet markets have changed when the giant corporations under scrutiny could only list each other as competitors, in response to requests from Congressman Hank Johnson. In a follow-up inquiry, Congressman Joe Neguse noted  4 of the 6 largest global social media companies are all owned by Facebook, which highlights how its series of mergers appeared to have gotten ahead of users who switched away from Facebook but were brought back into the fold in the end.

Lastly, an unfortunate outcome from this congressional inquiry was dismissiveness by some Members of Congress about the idea of structural separation. This is effectively saying these serious problems facing the Internet ecosystem should be approached with one hand tied behind our backs. It is quite possible that industry is opposing discussions of structural separation policies, which have a long history in antitrust law, because they might be the most effective solution. If the endgame is to avoid a regulated monopoly approach to Internet commerce, then all options have to be on the table with the purpose of empowering users to be the ultimate decision makers for the Internet’s future. It is critical that Congress get this right.  An extraordinarily valuable benefit of the Internet is how it has lowered the barriers to participation in commerce, politics, and other social activities that historically were often reserved to the powerful few.

Pokémon-like card game can help teach ecology

Playing a Pokémon-like card game about ecology and biodiversity can result in broader knowledge of species and a better understanding of ecosystems than traditional teaching methods, like slideshows, according to new research.

Endangered Bornean orangutans survive in managed forest, decline near oil palm plantations

Recent surveys of the population of endangered Bornean orangutans in Sabah, the Malaysian state in the north-east of Borneo, show mixed results. Populations have remained stable within well-managed forests, where there is little hunting, but declined in landscapes comprising extensive oil palm plantations, according to a new study.

Radiation in parts of Marshall Islands is higher than Chernobyl

Radiation levels in parts of the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, where the United States conducted nearly 70 nuclear tests during the Cold War, are still alarmingly high. Researchers tested soil samples on four uninhabited isles and discovered that they contained concentrations of nuclear isotopes that are significantly higher than those found near Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The Warden Tried to Cover Up a Crisis at His Freezing Brooklyn Jail — Then He Got Promoted

The Bureau of Prisons hasn’t released its investigation into what went wrong at the New York jail, but the man in charge just got promoted anyway.

The post The Warden Tried to Cover Up a Crisis at His Freezing Brooklyn Jail — Then He Got Promoted appeared first on The Intercept.

How kissing as a risk factor may explain the high global incidence of gonorrhea

In 2016, there were 87 million people diagnosed with gonorrhea, the most antibiotic resistant of all the STIs. There is a global rise in gonorrhea rates and, until now, no one has understood why.

Study bolsters case that climate change is driving many California wildfires

A new study combs through the many factors that can promote wildfire in California, and concludes that in many, though not all, cases, warming climate is the decisive driver.

The DNC Debate Rules Are Turning Small Donors Into a Racket

You can hear the muffled strains of the first 2020 presidential primary debate play in the background of the office as we put the finishing touches on this issue. Technically it’s the second night of the first debate, as the sprawling field of participants—20 in all—necessitated a two-night affair. 

The decision of who gets to participate falls to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which was battered from all sides (including In These Times) with accusations of bias during the 2016 primary. This time around things would be different, the DNC promised. Among other changes, candidates were able to qualify for the first debates by one of two routes: performance in polls (the traditional measure) or how many donors they have—even (and especially) those who give as little as $1. 

A campaign’s tally of small donors is now viewed as a proxy for broad, grassroots political support—and a hallmark of any good insurgency. It began with Howard Dean in 2004. Barack Obama used the approach to power past Hillary Clinton in 2008. Bernie Sanders nearly did the same in 2016. (Another candidate also mastered this approach last time around: Donald Trump.)

I saw firsthand the power small-donor fundraising can have, working as part of the teams that helped Obama raise record amounts of money in 2008 and again in 2012. But as more candidates adopt this approach, we’ve also seen the rise of an industry custom-built to deliver small donors, for anyone who can afford it. Candidates with a large, established base of support like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden will likely meet any donor threshold the DNC sets. For everyone else, the new rules are an invitation—and maybe even a requirement—to buy your way onto the stage. 

Advertising firms have reportedly been quoting a cost of $40 and up for campaigns to acquire a single $1 donor. In practice, this amounts to a massive transfer of campaign funds directly to online ad platforms—2020 candidates are collectively paying more than $1 million a week to Facebook alone. Not only have fundraising appeals become more numerous, they’ve become increasingly desperate. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) plays beer pong to earn donations. Julián Castro’s mom pleads, “I’m humbly asking for $1 to help my incredible son, Julián, qualify for the Democratic Presidential debates.” As a recent Vice News headline summarized: “2020 Democrats Are Literally Begging for $1 on Facebook.” Even Bernie is offering up copies of his latest book (cover price $27.99) for a buck.

In the end, all 20 candidates in the first debate qualified by polling (with 14 meeting the donor threshold as well). For the third round of debate in September, the threshold will double (to 2% polling and 130,000 donors), and candidates have to meet both criteria. Because each new donor is harder to bring in than the one before it, expect the desperation (and spending) to ramp up exponentially.

There’s a lesson or two in all of this about unintended consequences. There’s also a larger question the Left will need to continue to grapple with moving forward: Do we really want money to be the measure of a good candidate? 

If we want a politics focused on building mass movements, then the price of entry should ultimately be participation and solidarity. What we don’t need is to encourage politicians to become better hucksters, offering a brighter future for the low, low price of just $1.

'Intensive' beekeeping not to blame for common bee diseases

More 'intensive' beekeeping does not raise the risk of diseases that harm or kill the insects, new research suggests.

You Can Bury It for 40,000 Years, but Don’t Mess With Arctic Life

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here. Buried under ice for centuries, plants in the warming Arctic have hit air and are awakening, to the surprise of scientists. The resilience of these species suggests newly known plants may emerge as […]

Maureen Dowd Asked Rahm Emanuel to Weigh In on an Immigration Debate. His Record Is Abysmal.

When it comes to immigration, both the politics and the policy, perhaps no Democrat has been more destructive over the past 25 years than Rahm Emanuel.

The post Maureen Dowd Asked Rahm Emanuel to Weigh In on an Immigration Debate. His Record Is Abysmal. appeared first on The Intercept.