179270288
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'Jude Bunting KC, representing Kearney and the BBC, told a hearing on Monday: “The MI5 now confirms publicly that in 2006 and 2009 MI5 obtained communications data in relation to Vincent Kearney.”
'He said the security service accepted it had breached Kearney’s rights under article 8 and article 10 of the European convention on human rights. They relate to the right to private correspondence and the right to impart information without interference from public authorities.
'“This appears to be the first time in any tribunal proceedings in which MI5 publicly accept interference with a journalist’s communications data, and also publicly accept that they acted unlawfully in doing so,” Bunting said.
'He claimed the concessions that it accessed the journalist’s data represented “serious and sustained illegality on the part of MI5”.'
The good news is that it's come out. The bad news is that it has taken 16 years to do so. The interesting question is whether there will be any meaningful consequences for individuals within MI5; there's a nice charge of 'malfeasance in public office' which can be used to get such individuals into a criminal court. Or will the outcome be like that of when the CIA hacked the US Senate's computers, lied about it and NOTHING HAPPENED.
179214330
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'The causes of sickness could include the relatively quick acceleration of EVs compared to fuel vehicles, their regenerative braking systems and a lack of sensory triggers such as engine noise and vibrations when travelling in a car.
'Research carried out in China, a big producer of electric cars, found that EVs were associated with more severe motion sickness symptoms than fuel vehicles.'
179103070
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
As well as microplastics, they seem to release 'bisphenol B, an endocrine-disrupting chemical that acts like oestrogen when absorbed into the bodies of humans and animals.'
178916330
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'Reintroduced for environmental reasons, the beaver has made an amazing comeback in the Netherlands. Extinct in the early 19th century, it was reintroduced in 1988, and now there are an estimated 7,000 beavers roaming around.now in danger of causing serious flooding.
'But there’s a significant downside to the booming Dutch beaver population. Beavers are increasingly digging burrows and tunnels under roads, railways and – even more worryingly – in dykes. For a country where a quarter of the land sits below sea level, this is not a minor problem – especially as beavers are not exactly holding back when digging.
“We’ve found tunnels stretching up to 17 metres into a dyke. Wide enough for a grown man to fit in. That’s alarming,” says Jelmer Krom of the Rivierenland water board. Rivierenland is a region in the middle of the Netherlands, crisscrossed by big rivers, where dykes are crucial for keeping high water at bay. If a major dyke gives way, it would cause a serious flood affecting thousands of people.'
178856808
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
Showing a limited understanding of what Tor is, the article blames it for allowing paedophiles to share images...
'Millions of child predators are forming sprawling online communities on the dark web using the Tor network, where criminal behavior escalates through the sharing of child sexual abuse material, grooming strategies and normalization of exploitation, experts say. Despite repeated warnings of a growing number of predators taking advantage of it, Tor’s developers have taken no action to curb the spread of this content, critics say.
'According to experts, these anonymous communities normalise child abuse, making it more likely that participants will go on to commit contact offenses against children they can access in real life.
“People will say ‘this particular victim is what has made me want to violate my own daughter’ and things like that,” said Richardson of C3P. “There’s definitely, by their own admission, this sort of escalation, and they egg each other on in these communities.”
'"Tor has a board of directors that makes decisions surrounding this, and I don’t think they’ve ever been held to account for any of this. They’re the only people who can essentially intervene, and they refuse to do so.”
Seriously?
178672056
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
Even journalists have noticed — and some are resorting to piracy, again
'A decade and a half on from the Pirate Bay trial, the winds have begun to shift. On an unusually warm summer’s day, I sit with fellow film critics by the old city harbour, once a haven for merchants and, rumour has it, smugglers. Cold bigstrongs in hand (that’s what they call pints up here), they start venting about the “enshittification” of streaming – enshittification being the process by which platforms degrade their services and ultimately die in the pursuit of profit. Netflix now costs upwards of 199 SEK (£15), and you need more and more subscriptions to watch the same shows you used to find in one place. Most platforms now offer plans that, despite the fee, force advertisements on subscribers. Regional restrictions often compel users to use VPNs to access the full selection of available content. The average European household now spends close to €700 (£600) a year on three or more VOD subscriptions. People pay more and get less.
'A fellow film critic confides anonymously: “I never stopped pirating, and my partner also does it if he doesn’t find the precise edition he is looking for on DVD.” While some people never abandoned piracy, others admit they have recently returned – this time turning to unofficial streaming platforms. One commonly used app is legal but can, through community add-ons, channel illicit streams. “Downloading is too difficult. I don’t know where to start,” says one film viewer. “The shady streams might bombard me with ads, but at least I don’t have to worry about getting hacked or caught.”'
Personally, as a reader not a viewer, I find a few months of Netflix and my BBC iplayer access as a result of having a TV in the UK, sufficient, along with rather more DVDs than I will ever actually watch...
178614146
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'The body running courts in England and Wales has been accused of a cover-up, after a leaked report found it took several years to react to an IT bug that caused evidence to go missing, be overwritten or appear lost.
'Sources within HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) say that as a result, judges in civil, family and tribunal courts will have made rulings on cases when evidence was incomplete.
'The internal report, leaked to the BBC, said HMCTS did not know the full extent of the data corruption, including whether or how it had impacted cases, as it had not undertaken a comprehensive investigation.
'It also found judges and lawyers had not been informed, as HMCTS management decided it would be "more likely to cause more harm than good".'
Given the relative absence of such stories from the USA, should I congratulate you for better quality software, or for being better at covering up disasters?
178588470
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'A man who is bringing a High Court challenge against the Metropolitan Police after live facial recognition technology wrongly identified him as a suspect has described it as "stop and search on steroids".
'Shaun Thompson, 39, was stopped by police in February last year outside London Bridge Tube station.
'Privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch said the judicial review, due to be heard in January, was the first legal case of its kind against the "intrusive technology".
'The Met, which announced last week that it would double its live facial recognition technology (LFR) deployments, said it was removing hundreds of dangerous offenders and remained confident its use is lawful.
'LFR maps a person's unique facial features, and matches them against faces on watch-lists.'
I suspect a payout of £10,000 for each false match that is acted on would probably encourage more careful use, perhaps with a second payout of £100,000 if the same person is victimised again.
178588434
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
California Department of Fish and Wildlife 'is now warning trappers and hunters to keep an eye out for possibly contaminated wildlife in the area, and not to consume the tainted meat, over concerns the blue meat is a sign that the animal may have consumed poison.
The startling find of wild pigs with bright blue tissue in Monterey County suggests the animals have been exposed to anticoagulant rodenticide diphacinone, a popular poison used by farmers and agriculture companies to control the population of rats, mice, squirrels and other small animals, according to a statement from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.'
178553658
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'A radioactive wasp nest was found next to a site in South Carolina that once made key parts for nuclear bombs.
'Employees who routinely check radiation levels at the Savannah River Site near Aiken found the nest on July 3 on a post near tanks where liquid nuclear waste is stored, according to a report from the US Department of Energy.
'The nest had a radiation level 10 times what is allowed by federal regulations, officials said.'
Whilst within the boundary of the site and probably not a danger to the general public, this seems to show that radioactivity is hard to contain than we like to hope!
178373782
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
Artists demand 'a warning' on such material. Why? If it is what the people want...
178325726
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
Despite getting little public money, this alternative to nuclear power as baseload generator is beginning to prove its a serious contender.
178190904
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'The US district judge Vince Chhabria, in San Francisco, said in his decision on the Meta case that the authors had not presented enough evidence that the technology company’s AI would dilute the market for their work to show that its conduct was illegal under US copyright law.'
Which is surely the point? Authors — and the publishing industry — will still get the same amount of money out of the paying public.
178147825
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
A former potash mine that was repurposed as a permanent dump for toxic chemicals is causing ongoing concern that those chemicals will leak into the local aquifer. This aquifer is a source for the Rhine.
It's notable that this complacent treatment is in contrast to the massive efforts put in to finding permanent repositories for radioactive waste.
177790579
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
Two got short prison terms, two others got suspended sentences. The fraud has cost the company $33bn yet the executives have barely been slapped on the wrist.
