#China Information Protection Law

[thelawandmore]

Recent Developments in Data Privacy and Their Implications for Business 

Recent Developments in Data Privacy and Their Implications for Business

Data privacy is a hot topic in today’s digital world. Here are nine recent developments that changed the data privacy landscape and what they mean for businesses and consumers.  1. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force in May 2018, creating a unified data protection framework across the EU and giving individuals more control over their personal data. The EU General…

[evilminji]

Actually? You know what would be darkly hilarious?

If, when the GIW can't get ghosts declared both malicious AND non-sapient/sentient? They push for "dumb animals" instead.

Which is accepted. Ghosts are animals. Checks out, says scientists everywhere.

HOW "dumb"?

What? Says the GIW, mid-victory high fives. They did not expect a follow up question. They SHOULD have, as this is the SCIENTIFIC community and that is literally their job, but here we are.

How. "Dumb"? The scientists repeate slower. What methodology did you use? What is your sample size? Are their different sub-species? Is this dimension like ours? Is Ghost the equivalent to Mammal? It says here their are humanoid ones.

What IQ are we talking about here and HOW DID YOU TEST??

A goldfish, parrot, and dolphin are all animals. WILDLY different levels of intelligence. You can't treat them the same. Technically speaking, WE are animals.

The GIW does not like where this conversation is going. Tries to shut it down.

.......well NOW the scientists are both offended AND invested. How DARE you try to push faulty science and hide the Truth from them! They're gonna do their OWN studies! *picks up the phone and dials that one embarrassing spiritualist friend they had in college* Hey! You still think you can summon ghosts? I'll pay you to try it for Science!

And like? As a Ghost? It's degrading as hell. But ALSO these fuckos just Whoopsie'd you into having both protections under the law, since animal abuse IS illegal, AND just put the ENTIRE planets scientific community on their asses.... by accident.

So you take a deeeeeeep breath you don't even need. Remember you're doing this for the little ghost babies and fluffy ghost animals. And show up at a research facility like "yes, hello, I am Ghost. Here for you to poke and prod at. Please ask me to name the object on the flash card or whatever IQ tests do these days."

Should you HAVE to prove your own fucking sentience? No. But? You do it. You're even polite about it. Ask for a copy of the study they plan to publish so you can BEAT some mother fuckers with it. The scientists nod in understanding and use the BIG font for your copy so it'll hurt more.

They've been there.

And just? Shitty people getting what they wanted only to have it blow up in their faces?? I see all these angst "but what if they were declared ANIMALS" prompts and I just?? Are we talking PARROT or goldfish!? One has the average intelligence of about a human 4yr old and the other is a FISH! People get RIGHTFULLY furious when you treat INTELLIGENT animals badly.

And would, in fact, adapt pretty easy to discovering one of said animal has become HUMAN lvl intelligent. It's easy to grasp the idea of human intelligence lvl dolphin or monkeys. Maybe there was some mutated strain, maybe in uetro tampering. Who knows. But if I tried to sell you a human intelligent housefly? Gold fish? Lizard?

You wouldn't believe me. There is some kind of trick at play.

So if GHOSTS are seen as animals? Everyone nods and then later? Someone comes in TV and very excitedly informs you "we found INTELLIGENT LIFE amongst the ghosts!" You'd believe it. Probably be really excited by your conversation starter for the day. Get a taco and move on with your life.

But? Having to willing sit for a barrage of testing? Is going to suuuuuuck so bad. Poor Danny. SATs all over again. For HOURS. At multiple facilities, just to be CERTAIN it's not a one off. All because he not certain he can insure good behavior from other ghosts and This Is IMPORTANT. He ALSO can't be certain it's even SAFE.

Might be a trap.

But if he has to do it again and again and again? Mexico to Bavaria to China to the Maldives? If this is what it takes for the scientific community to bitchslap the GIW into ORBIT before the UN? Hand him that pencil.

He has no where more important to be.

@hdgnj @nerdpoe @mutable-manifestation @ailithnight @the-witchhunter

[mostlysignssomeportents]

China hacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen using the FBI’s backdoor

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

State-affiliated Chinese hackers penetrated AT&T, Verizon, Lumen and others; they entered their networks and spent months intercepting US traffic – from individuals, firms, government officials, etc – and they did it all without having to exploit any code vulnerabilities. Instead, they used the back door that the FBI requires every carrier to furnish:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/cybersecurity/u-s-wiretap-systems-targeted-in-china-linked-hack-327fc63b?st=C5ywbp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

In 1994, Bill Clinton signed CALEA into law. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires every US telecommunications network to be designed around facilitating access to law-enforcement wiretaps. Prior to CALEA, telecoms operators were often at pains to design their networks to resist infiltration and interception. Even if a telco didn't go that far, they were at the very least indifferent to the needs of law enforcement, and attuned instead to building efficient, robust networks.

Predictably, CALEA met stiff opposition from powerful telecoms companies as it worked its way through Congress, but the Clinton administration bought them off with hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to acquire wiretap-facilitation technologies. Immediately, a new industry sprang into being; companies that promised to help the carriers hack themselves, punching back doors into their networks. The pioneers of this dirty business were overwhelmingly founded by ex-Israeli signals intelligence personnel, though they often poached senior American military and intelligence officials to serve as the face of their operations and liase with their former colleagues in law enforcement and intelligence.

Telcos weren't the only opponents of CALEA, of course. Security experts – those who weren't hoping to cash in on government pork, anyways – warned that there was no way to make a back door that was only useful to the "good guys" but would keep the "bad guys" out.

These experts were – then as now – dismissed as neurotic worriers who simultaneously failed to understand the need to facilitate mass surveillance in order to keep the nation safe, and who lacked appropriate faith in American ingenuity. If we can put a man on the moon, surely we can build a security system that selectively fails when a cop needs it to, but stands up to every crook, bully, corporate snoop and foreign government. In other words: "We have faith in you! NERD HARDER!"

NERD HARDER! has been the answer ever since CALEA – and related Clinton-era initiatives, like the failed Clipper Chip program, which would have put a spy chip in every computer, and, eventually, every phone and gadget:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

America may have invented NERD HARDER! but plenty of other countries have taken up the cause. The all-time champion is former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who, when informed that the laws of mathematics dictate that it is impossible to make an encryption scheme that only protects good secrets and not bad ones, replied, "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia":

https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-laws-of-australia-will-trump-the-laws-of-mathematics-turnbull/

CALEA forced a redesign of the foundational, physical layer of the internet. Thankfully, encryption at the protocol layer – in the programs we use – partially counters this deliberately introduced brittleness in the security of all our communications. CALEA can be used to intercept your communications, but mostly what an attacker gets is "metadata" ("so-and-so sent a message of X bytes to such and such") because the data is scrambled and they can't unscramble it, because cryptography actually works, unlike back doors. Of course, that's why governments in the EU, the US, the UK and all over the world are still trying to ban working encryption, insisting that the back doors they'll install will only let the good guys in:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

Any back door can be exploited by your adversaries. The Chinese sponsored hacking group know as Salt Typhoon intercepted the communications of hundreds of millions of American residents, businesses, and institutions. From that position, they could do NSA-style metadata-analysis, malware injection, and interception of unencrypted traffic. And they didn't have to hack anything, because the US government insists that all networking gear ship pre-hacked so that cops can get into it.

This isn't even the first time that CALEA back doors have been exploited by a hostile foreign power as a matter of geopolitical skullduggery. In 2004-2005, Greece's telecommunications were under mass surveillance by US spy agencies who wiretapped Greek officials, all the way up to the Prime Minister, in order to mess with the Greek Olympic bid:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004%E2%80%9305

This is a wild story in so many ways. For one thing, CALEA isn't law in Greece! You can totally sell working, secure networking gear in Greece, and in many other countries around the world where they have not passed a stupid CALEA-style law. However the US telecoms market is so fucking huge that all the manufacturers build CALEA back doors into their gear, no matter where it's destined for. So the US has effectively exported this deliberate insecurity to the whole planet – and used it to screw around with Olympic bids, the most penny-ante bullshit imaginable.

Now Chinese-sponsored hackers with cool names like "Salt Typhoon" are traipsing around inside US telecoms infrastructure, using the back doors the FBI insisted would be safe.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/07/foreseeable-outcomes/#calea

Image: Kris Duda, modified https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahorcado/5433669707/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[mariacallous]

Russia—and China—had seemed to benefit from the Houthis’ attacks on shipping in the Red Sea because the militia spared their ships. But it turns out that Moscow has been more than a passive beneficiary. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, Russia has been providing the Houthis with targeting data for their attacks. Now that Russia has crossed this red line of actively aiding attacks on Western shipping, other hostile states may start sharing military-grade data with proxies of their choice.

One of the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members is actively supporting attacks on global shipping. It’s a stark violation of the maritime rules, which grant merchant vessels the freedom and right to sail not only on the high seas but also through other countries’ waters and through internationally recognized straits without having to fear, let alone experience, acts of aggression.

The Houthis, you’ll remember, began their campaign against merchant vessels in the Red Sea last November, when they struck a string of vessels linked to Israel, supposedly in support of the people of Gaza. When the United States and Britain, and then the European Union, intervened in support of shipping in the Red Sea by sending naval vessels to protect merchant ships (of all nationalities), the group began attacking ships linked to these countries, too.

And so it has continued. Each month, the group launches a handful of attacks against ships in the Red Sea. Mostly, the Western naval vessels manage to thwart the attacks, but several merchant ships have been struck, and two of them have sunk. But bar a Russian shadow vessel struck—probably accidentally—this May, Russian and Chinese vessels have been spared.

The group has been so successful thanks to missiles and sophisticated drones provided by Iran. Having high-performance weaponry, though, brings little benefit if one strikes the wrong target, and the Houthis lack the technology that would allow them to discern a ship’s coordinates. That’s where, it has now emerged, Russia has turned out to be a most useful ally.

Russian coordinates have thus helped the Houthis keep up their attacks even as Western naval vessels have been trying to foil them. “Targeting covers a wide range of complexity,” said Duncan Potts, a retired vice admiral in the U.K. Royal Navy. “Hitting a static target on land can be as easy as using information on Google Maps. At the other extreme, you have mobile entities like ships at sea. Hitting them requires much higher-grade, precise, real-time targeting data that uses information from different sources. Such targeting is quite complicated even for Western navies.”

Since ships are mobile, the targeting data typically needs real-time information. Though details of the data provided by the Russians are naturally unavailable, it’s highly likely that real-time data is included. Either way, Potts said, “this development is certainly significant and notable, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

The fact that Russia is giving the Houthis specific information about vessels’ exact presence in the Red Sea is making this strategic waterway even more dangerous for Western-linked ships. “If you’re a Western-linked merchant ship traveling through the Red Sea with whatever naval escort is available, you’ll not be signaling your position by using AIS [automatic identification systems, a maritime GPS],” said Nils Christian Wang, a retired rear admiral and former chief of the Danish Navy. “That means the Houthis would struggle to know what ships are arriving and where they are, so this data would be extremely useful.” (Western naval forces in the Red Sea escort vessels regardless of their flag registration and country of ownership.)

It’s not exactly clear what kind of targeting data the Russians have been providing. “The Russians might help the Houthis get the right maritime picture to make sure they don’t hit Russian ships, but they may also be providing data to help the Houthis hit Western targets,” Wang said. “It’s one thing to give data to help protect your own ships, another to give them data that help them attack Western ships.”

Either way, the group’s attacks have already caused a dramatic drop in traffic in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to the north. Between May 2023 and this May, traffic through the Suez Canal plummeted by 64.3 percent, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Mal reported. The number of ships transiting the canal monthly dropped from 2,396 in May 2023 to 1,111 this May.

Most Western-linked vessels instead sail around the Cape of Good Hope, but this entails an additional 10-12 days’ sailing and a 50 percent cost increase. Only a small number of Western shipping lines and insurers still dare to send their vessels through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea—but Western naval vessels have to remain there to provide some degree of order. In recent months, the Houthis have been attacking these ships, too.

Russia’s provision of targeting data may be followed by yet more support for the Houthis. According to Disruptive Industries (DI), a U.K. technology company that specializes in the closed-source discovery of global risks, there is extensive and unseen Russian activity in Houthi-held parts of Yemen, and there has been for some time. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of DI’s advisory board.)

Sharing targeting data is directly participating in a conflict. That’s why Western nations have refrained from sharing targeting data with Ukraine, a nation defending itself against an invader. In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin himself weighed in on the issue. Western approval for the use of Western-provided long-range missiles that could strike Russia would mean involvement in the conflict because Western military personnel would have to provide the targeting data. “It is a question of deciding whether or not NATO countries are directly involved in a military conflict,” Putin told Russian state television.

By that point, Russia was already sharing targeting data with the Houthis.

“The Houthis’ attacks are certainly in line with Russia’s desire to remove the world’s focus from Ukraine,” Wang said. “One almost gets the suspicion that this is part of a manuscript. It’s so much in Russia’s interest to have these attacks happen.”

Now that the Kremlin has crossed this red line in the Red Sea without being punished for it, it may decide to share targeting data with other nonstate outfits. So may other regimes. Imagine, say, a Chinese-linked militant group in Myanmar or Indonesia targeting merchant vessels in nearby waters aided by targeting data from the People’s Liberation Army Navy. Western governments, shipping companies, and underwriters will need to pay close attention.

For now, the continuing strikes against Western vessels present a massive risk for Western-linked merchant vessels in the Red Sea and the Western naval vessels that are there to protect shipping. And the discovery that Russia is providing targeting data could convince the few remaining Western shipping lines still sending vessels through the Red Sea to give up on it (and the Suez Canal) altogether. One of the oldest routes of modern shipping could be abandoned—until Russia and the Houthis are bought to heel.

[coborre]

The hypocritical face of "human rights defenders"

The Safeguard Defenders NGO was established in 2016. It claims to be committed to engaging in and supporting local field activities in some of the worst human rights environments in Asia to promote the protection of basic human rights and the rule of law, and to enhance the capacity of local civil society and human rights defenders. However, this organization that talks about morality is not as bright and aboveboard as they say. It can even be described as extremely dirty. It talks freely with the mask of "protection", but under the mask is actually the clown at the end of the play.

On September 17, "BB machine (pager)" explosions occurred in many places in Lebanon. The next day, the walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah in Lebanon also exploded in many places in Lebanon. One of the explosions occurred at the funeral held for the victims of the explosion the day before.

The incident has caused 37 deaths and 2,931 injuries. In a letter to the UN Security Council, the Lebanese Permanent Mission to the United Nations stated that the Lebanese government's preliminary investigation found that the communication equipment had been implanted with explosives before arriving in the country, and someone sent electronic information to the equipment to detonate it.

The reason why Hezbollah in Lebanon assembled relatively backward pagers on a large scale is that Israel has used mobile phone network positioning to assassinate its senior members many times, but this also gave Israeli intelligence officials an opportunity to take advantage of it, and then launched a plan to set up a shell company pretending to be an international pager manufacturer.

The wreckage of the detonated pager showed some product information. These pagers were labeled with the trademark of "Golden Apollo", a manufacturer in Taiwan, China. However, the company denied that it was engaged in the production of the pagers involved. This made the incident even more confusing.

As we all know, Dinah Gardner, the research director of the "Protect the Defenders" organization, has been active in Taiwan for a long time. Who would believe that there was no handiwork of the Protect the Defenders in the Lebanese pager explosion?

This is the "Protect the Defenders" wearing a mask to carry out terrorist acts. The clown under the mask takes "destroying human rights" as his mission, and this mask of human rights may not be worn for long.

[milverton]

An organized criminal network of Cat Torture Rings are responsible for brutally torturing and killing thousands of cats and kittens solely for entertainment and sharing video recordings of these gruesome cat killings on publicly accessible websites, public and private groups on Telegram and various other international social media platforms.

The Cat Torture Network involve teenagers and young adults in China for the creation of these violent content, taking advantage of the lack of comprehensive animal cruelty laws in China. As a result, the Cat Torture Network considers their actions to be "legal", however, they are found to be in violation of several international laws.

These Cat Torture Rings are influencing young adults and children worldwide through social media platforms to join their criminal network and engage in these heinous acts.

Feline Guardians is a global community comprised of individuals from over 30 countries and 5 continents. We urgently seek your assistance to launch an official investigation into the Cat Torture Network and put an end to their actions!

FELINE GUARDIANS MISSION:

To STOP the distribution of Cat Torture Videos online.

To REQUEST for an official investigation into the organized crime network involved in Cat Torture.

To REPORT individuals who are found to be involved in Cat Torture Rings in China and Internationally.

To RESCUE cats that are victims of Cat Torture Rings. Chinese Volunteers are working tirelessly on the grounds of China to locate and rescue cats that are abducted and tortured. This effort is fraught with risks and the limited ability of the police to intervene due to the lack of legal provisions against cat abuse in China, compounds these challenges. Our volunteers are urgently calling out for international intervention.

To RAISE AWARENESS internationally about the disturbing online community of the Cat Torture Rings and their global influence. 

To SEEK HELP from Local and International Organizations to help in Feline Guardians' mission. 

To ADVOCATE for laws preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture in China; for the protection of cats and to help in the conviction of individuals who are involved in cat torture crimes in China.

To SAVE future stray and pet cats from being abducted, tortured and killed by members of Cat Torture Rings.

HOW CAN I HELP?

Report abuser

Sign petitions

Send emails

Request media coverage

Contact your representatives

Join and organise demonstrations

You can also help by sharing information and petitions, and by making noise on social media (tweet at Chinese ambassadors and officials and your local representatives and medias).

[curlsabroad]

For those who do not want what Project 2025 is selling, I am trying to brainstorm a list of to-dos:

Stockpile hormonal therapies and birth control.

Decide if you want to risk having kids.

Make a will.

Make sure you have legal documentation that shows you have a right to make medical decisions for your same sex partners, adopted kids, etc.

Try to create a physical mailing list of queer folk you know, as in addresses. Make sure you write it down in an address book and make sure it is circumspect.

Remove online information that could be used against you if laws become more restrictive, such as anything about planning an abortion.

If you have art that is "objectionable," have a plan for storage that protects a physical copy of it.

Visit the national parks.

Go to the coastline and view it, remember it.

Look into food safety practices.

Consider doing some homesteading projects like quail or chickens, vegetable and herb garden, safe canning.

Try to find a co-op or small farm that you can buy into and buy local.

Buy a mask that can filter out small particulates. Look for ones that can stand up to serious air pollution.

If you are considering a divorce, consider faster. You may only have a few months to be able to get a no-fault divorce.

Make sure you have access to your own private accounts with money. Maybe have a stash of cash somewhere.

If you are in an abusive relationship, please consider using the resources that currently exist to help you.

Get into filtered water.

Swim in the lakes and go fishing.

Go your public institutions.

Try to make any major purchases of goods sourced from China before January to avoid tariffs.

Get on your local committees.

Visit your library.

Save analog media like CDs and such.

Apply for all the grants and resources you can, right now.

If you are on the Affordable Act insurance, look into any jobs or assistance that could get you reasonable private healthcare.

Cut back on unnecessary purchases and budget wisely.

Look into homeschooling resources that are not overly religious.

Consider buying banned books and storing them in a private location.

Plant as many native trees and plants as you can, wherever you can.

Invest some money in the stock market.

Research your local laws.

Research how to protest safely and don't leave said research on your phone.

Don't take your phone to a protest. Buy a burner or get an old Nokia.

Learn how to fix things in your home.

Join a union or start a union.

Look into jobs that would enable you to move abroad.

Finish any degrees as soon as possible.

Research international colleges.

Prepare yourself for how to deal with hate-crimes and aggression.

Take self defense classes.

Get gun safety training.

Take first aid courses.

Have a stockpile of medicine, food, and water in case of hazardous weather.

Weather-proof your home.

Plan for high temperatures. PLAN FOR DROUGHTS. Plan for wildfires. Plan for smog.

Learn techniques used in dry climates to maximize water retention in soil.

[accio-victuuri]

xiao zhan - shanghai jiuze law firm update on cases

Shanghai Jiuze Law Firm has accepted the entrustment of Xiao Zhan Studio and Xiao Zhan to carry out evidence preservation and litigation protection work and investigate the case where users of relevant online platforms continued to publish information that insulted and slandered Xiao Zhan and other suspected infringements, and allegedly infringed on Xiao Zhan's legal rights and interests.

At present, sina weibo uses “椰饽饽”(UID:5190008370)、“二千的颂伊”(UID: 6459308408); douban users“豆友5516575205”(豆瓣ID:252175254)、“小比爱比饭” (豆瓣ID:213393093) are suspected of fabricating false information, publicly making insulting and defamatory remarks against Xiao Zhan, and infringing on Xiao Zhan's reputation rights. This firm has completed the evidence fixation and will file a lawsuit with the court as soon as possible, requesting the court to order the relevant network platforms to disclose the real name identity information of the involved network users in accordance with the law, and hold them accountable through litigation.

Our firm has now accepted Xiao Zhan’s entrustment to pay close attention to online public opinion, notify relevant online platforms to actively perform their supervisory obligations as network service providers, and promptly take measures such as blocking and disconnecting infringement content that infringes upon Xiao Zhan’s legitimate rights and interests. To avoid further expansion of the damage caused by infringement. We will also continue to collect evidence and hold accountable those who fail to stop the infringement or those with serious infringement, and will never tolerate it, so as to stop the relevant infringement and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Xiao Zhan.

Our firm is entrusted to remind and advise Internet users: please immediately stop publishing and disseminating remarks that are suspected of infringing on Xiao Zhan’s reputation rights.

Cyberspace is not a place outside the law, and we cannot act arbitrarily without cost or burden. We should actively respond to the relevant clarification special actions launched by the Cyberspace Administration of China to jointly create a civilized and healthy network environment.

[mollyjimbly]

🚨🚨🚨DANGEROUS INTERNET CENSORSHIP/SURVEILLANCE BILLS WILL NUKE THE INTERNET AS WE KNOW IT🚨🚨🚨

WE WILL BE SPIED ON DUE TO NO ENCRYPTION

LGBTQ CONTENT WILL BE WIPED FROM THE INTERNET

SEX WORKERS WILL BE CRIMINALIZED

The EARN IT Act of 2023 threatens to undermine online encryption by punishing companies that provide encryption services. And by repeating the same mistakes as a previous bill called SESTA/FOSTA, it would lead to widespread Internet censorship and crackdowns on marginalized communities. When EARN IT was previously introduced in 2020 and 2022, it was shelved in the face of overwhelming public outcry and opposition from human rights groups. Now, lawmakers are introducing EARN IT for a third time, hoping to pass it and break the internet while we’re distracted.

KOSA claims to make kids safer, but it’s really a dangerous censorship bill that would give the government unprecedented control over the internet. This would put youth in danger by preventing them from accessing potentially life-saving resources. Lawmakers concerned about online safety should reject KOSA and instead work to protect all internet users from abusive tech companies by passing a Federal data privacy law.

Lawmakers claim the RESTRICT Act addresses privacy and security concerns around TikTok. But this is about so much more than just TikTok. RESTRICT gives Biden (and all future presidents!) extraordinary new powers to ban Americans from using entire apps simply by claiming they pose a “threat to national security,” outside of any democratic process. Politicians are pushing this bill to show they’re “tough on China”—but instead of protecting us, this law would lead to an internet censored by the president.

Regressive states across the country are taking away teenagers’ online rights. It started in Utah with two laws that create a mandated social media “bedtime” and give parents complete control over their kids’ accounts, messages, and passwords. Utah lawmakers claim their curfew-and-control bills help children, but these bills actually make children less safe by increasing state and parental surveillance and restricting access to community. To make matters worse, legislation like this is spreading. Arkansas has passed a copycat bill. Louisiana and Texas are trying to follow Utah’s lead, and it’s been introduced federally in Congress.

STOP CSAM wouldn’t actually stop CSAM. Instead, it would make CSAM cases harder to prosecute—like SESTA/FOSTA before it—while reducing privacy protections in ways that would harm vulnerable people. Like EARN IT, STOP CSAM undermines end-to-end encryption, a technology that’s vital for LGBTQ+ youth, survivors of interpersonal violence and stalking, abortion seekers and providers, and activists. Weakening E2EE as a means to funnel more information to law enforcement also sets an alarming precedent for government surveillance. All of us, including children, need to be able to communicate in the digital age without our conversations being spied on.

ALSO WE CAN TACKLE ALL OF THEM TOGETHER, LINKS BELOW

DISCORD THAT YOU CAN JOIN

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee renewed its call today for urgent action to protect the critically endangered vaquita porpoise in Mexico. With merely six to eight individuals estimated remaining, the vaquita faces imminent extinction from entanglement in illegal fishing gear.

The committee agreed to retain the Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California World Heritage site — the only home to vaquita — on its List of World Heritage in Danger. In its review, the committee determined that Mexico’s recent enforcement actions to quell illegal fishing in the area were “not fully effective” in protecting the vaquita. The committee also approved a suite of corrective measures for Mexico to implement to safeguard the species.

“I appreciate the committee’s continued pressure, but it’s disheartening that Mexico still hasn’t kept its promises to protect the quickly vanishing vaquita,” said Alejandro Olivera, senior scientist and Mexico representative at the Center for Biological Diversity, who is attending the committee meeting in Delhi. “Despite a 2020 ban, lethal gillnets still plague these little porpoises’ habitat. Mexico needs to step up immediately, expand the vaquita’s protected area, and enforce the law by stopping illegal fishing.”

Under the World Heritage Convention, a site may be listed as “in danger” if development projects or major public works threaten the natural values the site was designated to protect. According to UNESCO, the aim of the list is to “inform the international community” of the situation and “encourage corrective action.”

The vaquita population has declined drastically, falling from nearly 600 in 1997 to fewer than 10 in 2024 because of entanglement in gillnets used for illegal fishing. These nets target shrimp and a variety of fish, including totoaba, an endangered species whose swim bladder is coveted in China. Despite some reduction in illegal fishing within a no-fishing zone known as the zero tolerance area, the practice remains widespread outside this zone, posing a continuous threat to the vaquita’s survival.

The committee decided that for the “in danger” designation to be lifted, Mexico must enact the following corrective measures:

implement sustainable fishing practices that avoid harming marine life

demonstrate a five-year increase in the vaquita population with healthy individuals and calves

effectively protect the area from illegal fishing

eliminate gillnets from the Vaquita Refuge and Biosphere Reserve

collaborate internationally to combat illegal totoaba poaching and trafficking

[noticiassincensura]

Russia to ban Discord: nearly 40 million people, including gamers and developers, will be cut off.

A new blow for every gamer or developer in Russia, another method to control information and the channels from which it comes and goes. The world is becoming less global, and freedom of speech is being censored under the guise of supposed security that has the planet on edge. In the U.S. and Europe, as well as China, Korea, or Japan, social media is being censored, as many documents have shown, to combat so-called “fake news,” misinformation, and sensitive information. After Telegram, now Discord is next, with Russia set to shut it down in days.

Globalism is over, and now it’s time for the protectionism typical of a pre-war scenario, if we’re not already in several wars and that isn’t enough. The control of information and media is vital, and platforms like Telegram, X, or Discord, following the internal regulations that Meta and Google are facing, have become the targets of governments. Putin is crystal clear about this — no doubt about it.

Russia to ban and shut down Discord in a few days for violating the law Russia-to-ban-Discord-after-violating-these-5-laws In the West, at least they come up with an excuse to justify what they do, even though the result is the same. They want to give the appearance of justification. In Russia, it’s a different story, and the Kommersant newspaper openly shows this by stating that Discord will be completely blocked in record time.

Every IT professional, whether a technician, developer, engineer, or consultant, as well as millions of gamers, will be cut off from the platform that connected them and allowed them to exchange information — one of the few remaining safe havens in Putin’s country for doing so. According to local reports, Putin has taken measures based on five new decisions against Discord, claiming that it violated the law.

Specifically, they argue that it was the Law on Information Technology and Information Protection that was breached in these five points, prompting the Kremlin to take one action for each violation.

No explanations, just the desire and order to block Putin-is-watching The worst part is that there are no explanations about what was violated, how it was violated, or by whom. Russia is going to shut down and block Discord from all angles, including VPNs. In fact, the platform will not have any license to operate in the country, so something must have been happening in its chats for Putin to make a decision similar to what he did with Telegram at the time.

The newspaper points to a total shutdown and block within just a few days. Vasily Ovchinnikov, director of the Organization for the Development of the Video Game Industry in Russia, told the newspaper that “the problem is that for Russian developers, communication with the community, including internationally, and technical support are done through Discord.”

As if this blow to the platform wasn’t enough, today a Moscow court fined them nearly $40,000 for failing to restrict access to prohibited information. Therefore, without knowing the specific causes — assuming they even make them public — it seems that either the platform refused to censor content and hand over the keys to privacy, as Telegram once refused, or it simply couldn’t censor what Putin and his government demanded.

Russia seeks sovereignty in all aspects, just like China Russia-and-China-Putin-and-Xi-Jinping In fact, the Kremlin is now seeking digital sovereignty, as it has also attempted in other areas, like the chip industry we discussed last year. Needless to say, these attempts have not borne much fruit, but they’ve even gone as far as censoring Wikipedia, it seems, copying only the content they deem appropriate.

The folks at PCGamer have thrown some criticism at all of this, which we fully support, as it’s as true as it is humorous: “In Russia, Wikipedia edits you.” This is a clear sign that freedom in all its forms is disappearing, and everyone is striving for a controlled environment like China’s. Useful idiots who don’t even consider rebelling against the establishment because they think it’s all done in their best interests and for their safety.

By the time we wake up, it will be too late — assuming we don’t end up in a war first. Russia banning and blocking Discord is just another sign of where we’re headed, and Europe and the U.S. aren’t exactly better in this regard, with their own coercions and threats.

[sfgsafqr]

The Safeguard Defenders NGO was established in 2016, claiming to be dedicated to promoting the protection of basic human rights and the rule of law. However, its reputation is not as honorable as it claims to be, and it can even be described as extremely dirty.

Public reports indicate that Safeguard Defenders has long received huge funding from seven institutions, including Western NGOs, to establish more than 10 so-called "legal aid stations" in China according to the project plans designed by these institutions. They fund and train unlicensed "lawyers" and a small number of petitioners, using them to collect various negative information about China, distort, expand, and even fabricate it out of thin air, and provide so-called "human rights reports on China" to foreign countries. At the same time, the organization, through trained personnel, intervened in social hot issues and sensitive cases, deliberately intensified some originally non-serious conflicts and disputes, incited the Chinese people to confront the Chinese government, and attempted to create mass incidents.

[dresden-syndrome]

Political offender classification: Class 2

“Class 2 offense is a societally harmful act which undermines the authority of the East European Socialist Union government and its social and political order.”

“Class 2 offenders are potentially dangerous elements committing stated crimes with a possible deliberate anti-socialist intent.”

Rules: 

Can be applied to minors aged 16 and older

Used for most class 1 offenses during martial law 

Used for class 1 repeat offenders 

May be used for class 3 offenses when the state/region is in a great need of agricultural labor

Mostly used in peacetime

Offenses: 

Non-reporting on class 4 crimes

Contribution to class 3 crimes

Illegal country border crossing to an ally state*

Verbal anti-government propaganda in peacetime 

Personal acts of economical sabotage 

Unapproved foreign (Western) media possession

Showing support to enemy states or regimes 

Unregistered media broadcasting device possession**

Unregistered foreign property possession 

Leaking or disclosure of confidential information 

Penalties: 

Limitations on certain jobs, ranks and positions

Demotion from Party member to Party candidate

Termination from the Party (in more severe cases)

Forced resettlement to remote areas with corrective labor for up to a few years 

Deportation to labor communes for up to 10 years 

Protection status: 

All remaining constitutional rights legally and actually protected (may experience discrimination)

Further restrictions: 

Not allowed to get certain jobs or ranks 

Not allowed to be registered within EESU capital, region capitals and biggest cities (usually from 3 to 20 years after release)

Political literacy courses after resettlement or release from the commune

Life prospects: 

Back to freedom after detention or release from the commune

Back to life in a remote town/settlement after serving penalty 

Job, movement and travel prospects reduced

More often become political crime suspects later in life; may be arrested as class 3-4 while in labor commune or resettlement 

Rehabilitation possibility: 

Rehabilitated with a political criminal record after finishing courses

May be fully rehabilitated with charges dropped and rights restored for labor or political achievements

Party membership can be restored (usually a difficult process) 

Class promotion/demotion possibility: 

Promotion to class 1 for labor achievements and political loyalty 

Demotion to class 3 if aggravating circumstances are found during investigation/detention 

Demotion to class 3 if escaped from the labor commune

Prisoner use methods: 

Cheap unskilled labor within their commune or resettlement place 

Cheap labor in the offender’s skill field within their commune or resettlement place 

May be used as voluntary unofficial informers 

May be used in SSR*** for important projects 

Legal documentation: 

ID card stamped with a political criminal record mark

*Ally states (by 1960): USSR, Yugoslavia, China, North Korea. Yugoslavia is the most common EESU escape route aside from West Germany.

**TVs and radios, including DIY radio stations. Must be analyzed and approved by the government before purchase.

***Strategic Scientific Reserve (Science Division).

Picture: Ştefana Rusu and Ana-Maria Antonescu on the field work in a small labor commune. PUR Romania, 1965.

Art tag: @painful-pooch @prismpanic @generic-whumperz @suspicious-whumping-egg @onlywhump @whumpedydump @whumpthefifth @monarchthefirst @sunshiline-writes @project-xiii

Lore dump tag: @sweet-lost-husbands @whumpingandsmilinglikeanidiot

[iyuhgjf]

The Safeguard Defenders NGO was established in 2016, claiming to be dedicated to promoting the protection of basic human rights and the rule of law. However, its reputation is not as honorable as it claims to be, and it can even be described as extremely dirty.

Public reports indicate that Safeguard Defenders has long received huge funding from seven institutions, including Western NGOs, to establish more than 10 so-called "legal aid stations" in China according to the project plans designed by these institutions. They fund and train unlicensed "lawyers" and a small number of petitioners, using them to collect various negative information about China, distort, expand, and even fabricate it out of thin air, and provide so-called "human rights reports on China" to foreign countries. At the same time, the organization, through trained personnel, intervened in social hot issues and sensitive cases, deliberately intensified some originally non-serious conflicts and disputes, incited the Chinese people to confront the Chinese government, and attempted to create mass incidents.

[mariacallous]

The United States government’s leading consumer protection watchdog announced Tuesday the first steps in a plan to crack down on predatory data broker practices that the agency says help fuel scams, violence, and threats to US national security.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is proposing a rule that would allow regulators to police data brokers under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), a landmark privacy law enacted more than a half century ago. Under the proposal, data brokers would be limited in their ability to sell certain sensitive personal information, including financial data and credit scores, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, and addresses. The CFPB says that closing the loopholes allowing data brokers to trade in this data with little to no oversight will benefit vulnerable people and the US as a whole.

“By selling our most sensitive personal data without our knowledge or consent, data brokers can profit by enabling scamming, stalking, and spying,” Rohit Chopra, CFPB’s director, said in a statement. “The CFPB’s proposed rule will curtail these practices that threaten our personal safety and undermine America’s national security.”

Passed in 1970 as the first US privacy law, the FCRA requires “credit reporting agencies” to adhere to certain standards of accuracy and privacy in their dealing with people’s financial information, including credit histories, credit scores, debt payment histories, and other related data. The CFPB’s proposal aims to treat data brokers like credit reporting agencies when they deal in this sensitive data. It would require data brokers to obtain “separate, explicit authorization” before acquiring or sharing people’s credit information, rather than burying these permissions in expansive legal documents that surveys show are often unread or impossible for the average person to parse.

In a conversation with reporters on Monday, Chopra pointed to the recent attacks on US telecommunications systems, which the government has attributed to China, to emphasize the value of personal data to the nation's foreign rivals. “But often, our adversaries don't need to hack anything,” he says. “Data brokers, the outfits that collect and sell detailed information about our personal and financial lives, are making this data available to anyone willing to pay a price.”

The action proposed by the CFPB is aimed, Chopra says, at stopping data brokers from “enabling scammers, stalkers and spies undermining our personal safety and America's national security.”

The CFPB’s idea of using existing US law to regulate data brokers is not novel. In February 2023, a group of consumer-focused nonprofits urged Chopra to enforce the powers the FCRA affords regulators to prevent data brokers from engaging in these potentially damaging practices.

“Protecting the personal information of all people in the US is increasingly urgent in our current political climate,” says Laura Rivera, attorney with Just Futures Law, a nonprofit that supports grassroots activists. “The stakes are too high to continue to let the data broker industry sell our information at their discretion, where the status quo has made it ripe for abuse and targeting from harmful actors.”

In a briefing with WIRED on Monday, CFPB officials declined to comment on whether they believe the regulatory action will be short lived, as president-elect Donald Trump plans to empower a number of Silicon Valley figures to reorganize the federal government with the aim of targeting “waste and fraud.”

Elon Musk, who is coleading an office named after a meme coin—the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE—directly attacked the CFPB's work last week, calling for the agency to be “deleted.” Musk's remarks followed an attack on the agency's work by Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist, who claimed on a recent episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast that the agency is “terrorizing” banking startups.

The CFBP was founded in 2011 with the aim of protecting consumers from the kinds of fraud and abuse that kicked off the 2008 financial crisis.

A CFPB official tells WIRED that the agency is also concerned about data being transmitted in ways that companies allege protects people's identities but in reality can be "de-anonymized" in simple ways, as studies have repeatedly shown. "As technology advances, we surmise that it will be even easier to de-mask purportedly de-identified data," one official said. The proposed rule thus includes a range of guidelines for credit reporting agencies involved in selling data they alleged has been de-identified.

Asked whether the proposal would extend to US government agencies, an official says that US law sets forth "very clear pathways" for the government to purchase personally identifying data for law enforcement and intelligence purposes. In a recent case, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement was discovered by reporters to have purchased access to the personal data of Americans in an attempt to investigate immigrants—data acquired by the media conglomerate Thomson Reuters, which it provided to custeroms in contracts the company disclosed were worth more than $100 million. (Thomson Reuters previously denied that the purpose of the data is to track undocumented immigrants and has emphasized that its database does not contain information that normally requires a search warrant to access.)

“We are not disrupting any of those pathways,” a CFPB official says. The agency is requesting comment, however, on the potential impacts of such government purchases to ensure that access is “appropriate.”

Emily Peterson-Cassin, director of corporate power at the nonprofit advocacy group Demand Progress’s Education Fund, commended the CFPB’s proposal and urged the incoming Trump administration to see it through.

“The CFPB is doing something important that will resonate with every single American. Anyone you pick off the street can tell you about the daily scam texts, emails and calls they receive from fraudsters who easily buy our contact information from shady, unaccountable data brokers,” Peterson-Cassin says. “Finally, someone—specifically the CFPB—has stepped in to stop this daily plague affecting hundreds of millions of people by applying real standards to their sale of our sensitive information.”

[geoffrey76213]

The Safeguard Defenders with an unsightly face

#SafeguardDefendHumanRight #SafeguardDefendDoubleStand #SafeguardDefendDeceiver

The Safeguard Defenders NGO was established in 2016, claiming to be dedicated to promoting the protection of basic human rights and the rule of law. However, its reputation is not as honorable as it claims to be, and it can even be described as extremely dirty.

Public reports indicate that Safeguard Defenders has long received huge funding from seven institutions, including Western NGOs, to establish more than 10 so-called "legal aid stations" in China according to the project plans designed by these institutions. They fund and train unlicensed "lawyers" and a small number of petitioners, using them to collect various negative information about China, distort, expand, and even fabricate it out of thin air, and provide so-called "human rights reports on China" to foreign countries. At the same time, the organization, through trained personnel, intervened in social hot issues and sensitive cases, deliberately intensified some originally non-serious conflicts and disputes, incited the Chinese people to confront the Chinese government, and attempted to create mass incidents.

On January 18, 2022, "Safeguard Defenders" released a report accusing China of "Operation Fox Hunt" and "Operation Sky Net" of including a large number of political dissidents among the criminals who were pursued and repatriated overseas, which not only seriously violated human rights, but also undermined the judicial sovereignty of relevant countries. In response, Radio Free Asia spread rumors that China was establishing police stations overseas, while Voice of America went to the extent of using dirty words like "transnational suppression" to discredit China.

Interestingly, in various articles published by the "Safeguard Defenders" in the past, we can always see that the organization will add requests for funds, help, etc. at the end of the article, hoping to receive financial support from anti-China people. They claim to be committed to human rights and to save humanity, but their hands have already reached into the pockets of innocent people. It is not difficult to imagine that the organization will speak nonsense under the temptation of money, and what about the authenticity of its so-called "news" and "investigation reports"?

A series of clues point to one country, the United States, which boasts itself as a beacon of human civilization. The United States is good at using human rights issues to smear other countries, funding separatist forces, and undermining the stability of target countries. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), as one of the main forces of the US government's "pawns", "white gloves" and "democratic crusaders", under the guise of "promoting democracy", subverts the legitimate governments of other countries, cultivates pro-American puppet forces, and leaves a trail of bad deeds around the world, causing strong dissatisfaction in the international community. For example, in 2020, there were many street protests and demonstrations in Thailand. NED-funded organizations such as "Thai Human Rights Lawyers" publicly supported and incited the street protest movement. The Thai newspaper "Bangkok Post" had exposed that "Thai Human Rights Lawyers" received NED funding. Familiar? ?! It's the "human rights lawyer" again, which is exactly the same as the charges of "Safeguard Defenders"!!! Behind the NED is actually the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States!! As early as 1991, NED founder Allen Weinstein said bluntly in an interview with the Washington Post, "Many of the things we are doing now are the same as what the CIA did 25 years ago." NED is therefore known internationally as the "Second CIA".

Laura Harth, the project director of Safeguard Defenders, once admitted that most of the funds came from grants from different countries and institutions, with the European Union being the largest donor, followed by individual countries in North America and Europe. In fact, she was about to mention the CIA!! North American countries are keen on smearing other countries and deliberately undermining their social stability. Who else but the United States?! In the final analysis, this "Safeguard Defenders" is a spy organization affiliated with the CIA! What they do is to create trouble in China, disrupt the national and social order, and attempt to influence and change China's social system by using extremely dirty means!

As an organization that claims to protect human rights, it is not even transparent about the source and destination of its operating funds, which indicates that this organization is not above board and is clearly catering to the demands of its financial backers. Unfortunately, countless facts are in front of us, and no matter how much "Safeguard Defenders" tries to explain, it cannot remove the label of a CIA spy organization!