Hard Pass

The New York Times filed a copyright lawsuit against Perplexity, joining other publishers using legal action as leverage to force AI companies into licensing deals that compensate content creators.

An engineer got curious about how his iLife A11 smart vacuum worked and monitored the network traffic coming from the device. That’s when he noticed it was constantly sending logs and telemetry data to the manufacturer — something he hadn't consented to. The user, Harishankar, decided to block the telemetry servers' IP addresses on his network, while keeping the firmware and OTA servers open. While his smart gadget worked for a while, it just refused to turn on soon after. After a lengthy investigation, he discovered that a remote kill command had been issued to his device.

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan warned that the Supreme Court's decision in the Texas redistricting case will lead to a "violation of the Constitution" of voter rights.

The Supreme Court issued an unsigned decision in favor of freezing the initial 2-1 U.S. federal court ruling against Texas Governor Greg Abbott's proposed redistricting map, a stay that could help Republicans pick up five additional U.S. House seats in next year's midterms.

"This Court’s stay ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race," Kagan wrote in her dissent. "And that result, as this Court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution."

Pathetic and corrupt leadership here.

I just noticed multiple websites show this error. This isn't just me, right?

House Speaker Mike Johnson is imploring his fellow Republicans to stop venting their frustrations in public and bring their complaints to him directly.

Increasingly, they’re ignoring him.

Cracks inside the GOP conference were stark this week as a member of Johnson’s own leadership team openly accused him of lying, rank-and-file Republicans acted unilaterally to force votes and a leadership-backed bill faltered. It’s all underscored by growing worries that the party is on a path towards losing the majority next year.

NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams today signed two executive orders that will ensure city agencies continue to make sound financial decisions that protect taxpayer dollars and that protect New Yorkers’ right to practice their religion at houses of worship without harassment, while protecting freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.

Executive Order No. 60 prohibits mayoral agency heads, agency chief contracting officers, and any other mayoral appointees with discretion over contracting from engaging in procurement practices that discriminate against the State of Israel, Israeli citizens, or those associated with Israel.

The executive order also prohibits the chief pension administrator and mayoral trustees to the city pension system from opposing divestment from bonds and other assets that would discriminate against the State of Israel, Israeli citizens, or those associated with Israel.

credit to Melonbread

Nicholas Merrill received a hand delivered National Security Letter from the FBI in 2004, ordering him to give up data on one of his ISP customers.

Merrill opened it and read the letter while the agent waited. The first and second paragraphs told him he was hereby ordered to hand over virtually all information he possessed for one of his customers, identified by their email address, explaining that this demand was authorized by a law he’d later learn was part of the Patriot Act.

The third paragraph informed him he couldn’t tell anyone he’d even received this letter—a gag order.

He then fought a landmark, decade-plus legal battle against the FBI and the Department of Justice. As the owner of an internet service provider in the post-9/11 era, Merrill had received a secret order from the bureau to hand over data on a particular user — and he refused... and won.

After that, he spent another 15 years building and managing the Calyx Institute, a nonprofit that offers privacy tools like a snooping-resistant version of Android and a free VPN that collects no logs of its users’ activities.

Now the completely anonymous phone service. The full article is worth the read.

EDIT: Sorry I should have cross-posted. I forgot where I first saw the story: the Privacy community.

They state it's scheduled maintenance but the dashboard link leads to a 500 return. https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/

Archived version

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Among the major announcements in the Liberals' Nov. 4 budget is a proposed $1-billion over four years to Transport Canada for an Arctic Infrastructure Fund (AIF), which will invest in major transportation projects in the North that have dual-use applications for civilians and the military. These can include airports, seaports, and all-season roads and highways, according to the budget document.

Huebert told The Hill Times that his biggest question regarding the AIF is what types of projects will it support, and whether security considerations will be at the forefront in the planning for these projects.

Prime Minister Mark Carney (Nepean, Ont.) announced back in June that Canada, along with allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, agreed to invest five per cent of annual GDP on defence by 2035. That pledge will be divided into an investment of 3.5 per cent of GDP on core military capabilities, with the remaining 1.5 per cent invested in defence and security infrastructure, including air and sea ports, telecommunications, emergency preparedness systems, and other dual-use investments intended to serve defence and civilian readiness.

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Kent Fellows, an assistant professor in the economics department and the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, told The Hill Times that the AIF is a good idea and shows Ottawa is taking the Arctic seriously, adding that improving trade infrastructure in the North leads to economic benefits for all of the country.

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Pierre Leblanc, principal of Arctic Security Consultants and a retired colonel and former commander of the Canadian Forces in the Arctic, told The Hill Times that the AIF indicates the government is “shifting the centre of gravity” towards defence in the Arctic. He argues that current global threats to Canada’s national security, including from China, are possibly the worst he’s seen.

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