#anti-circumvention

[mgeist]

Huge Win for Copyright User Rights in Canada: Federal Court Rules Digital Lock Rules Do Not Trump Fair Dealing

The Federal Court has issued a landmark decision (Blacklock’s Reports v. Attorney General of Canada) on copyright’s anti-circumvention rules which concludes that digital locks should not trump fair dealing. Rather, the two must co-exist in harmony, leading to an interpretation that users can still rely on fair dealing even in cases involving those digital locks. The decision could have enormous…

[maria-ruta]

Discord is officially blocked in Russia

anti-DPI programs can handle Discord here's Goodbye DPI w/ GUI here's ByeDPI, possibly nicest solution for Android other variants can be found here

regarding VPNs - Windscribe is still the real one, w/ non-standard protocols and special "hostile network" switch, one problem though - limited traffic, so you most likely have to juggle it w/ some noname VPN apps or proxy add-ons

note that it's illegal in Russia to talk about blocks circumvention, so if you don't live in Russia, please share this post, so your followers, who live there could see it and use it

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Apple fucked us on right to repair (again)

Today (September 22), I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. Tonight, I'll be in person at LA's Book Soup for the launch of Justin C Key's "The World Wasn’t Ready for You." On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

Right to repair has no cannier, more dedicated adversary than Apple, a company whose most innovative work is dreaming up new ways to sneakily sabotage electronics repair while claiming to be a caring environmental steward, a lie that covers up the mountains of e-waste that Apple dooms our descendants to wade through.

Why does Apple hate repair so much? It's not that they want to poison our water and bodies with microplastics; it's not that they want to hasten the day our coastal cities drown; it's not that they relish the human misery that accompanies every gram of conflict mineral. They aren't sadists. They're merely sociopathically greedy.

Tim Cook laid it out for his investors: when people can repair their devices, they don't buy new ones. When people don't buy new devices, Apple doesn't sell them new devices. It's that's simple:

https://www.inverse.com/article/52189-tim-cook-says-apple-faces-2-key-problems-in-surprising-shareholder-letter

So Apple does everything it can to monopolize repair. Not just because this lets the company gouge you on routine service, but because it lets them decide when your phone is beyond repair, so they can offer you a trade-in, ensuring both that you buy a new device and that the device you buy is another Apple.

There are so many tactics Apple gets to use to sabotage repair. For example, Apple engraves microscopic Apple logos on the subassemblies in its devices. This allows the company to enlist US Customs to seize and destroy refurbished parts that are harvested from dead phones by workers in the Pacific Rim:

https://repair.eu/news/apple-uses-trademark-law-to-strengthen-its-monopoly-on-repair/

Of course, the easiest way to prevent harvested components from entering the parts stream is to destroy as many old devices as possible. That's why Apple's so-called "recycling" program shreds any devices you turn over to them. When you trade in your old iPhone at an Apple Store, it is converted into immortal e-waste (no other major recycling program does this). The logic is straightforward: no parts, no repairs:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks

Shredding parts and cooking up bogus trademark claims is just for starters, though. For Apple, the true anti-repair innovation comes from the most pernicious US tech law: Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

DMCA 1201 is an "anti-circumvention" law. It bans the distribution of any tool that bypasses "an effective means of access control." That's all very abstract, but here's what it means: if a manufacturer sticks some Digital Rights Management (DRM) in its device, then anything you want to do that involves removing that DRM is now illegal – even if the thing itself is perfectly legal.

When Congress passed this stupid law in 1998, it had a very limited blast radius. Computers were still pretty expensive and DRM use was limited to a few narrow categories. In 1998, DMCA 1201 was mostly used to prevent you from de-regionalizing your DVD player to watch discs that had been released overseas but not in your own country.

But as we warned back then, computers were only going to get smaller and cheaper, and eventually, it would only cost manufacturers pennies to wrap their products – or even subassemblies in their products – in DRM. Congress was putting a gun on the mantelpiece in Act I, and it was bound to go off in Act III.

Welcome to Act III.

Today, it costs about a quarter to add a system-on-a-chip to even the tiniest parts. These SOCs can run DRM. Here's how that DRM works: when you put a new part in a device, the SOC and the device's main controller communicate with one another. They perform a cryptographic protocol: the part says, "Here's my serial number," and then the main controller prompts the user to enter a manufacturer-supplied secret code, and the master controller sends a signed version of this to the part, and the part and the system then recognize each other.

This process has many names, but because it was first used in the automotive sector, it's widely known as VIN-Locking (VIN stands for "vehicle identification number," the unique number given to every car by its manufacturer). VIN-locking is used by automakers to block independent mechanics from repairing your car; even if they use the manufacturer's own parts, the parts and the engine will refuse to work together until the manufacturer's rep keys in the unlock code:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

VIN locking is everywhere. It's how John Deere stops farmers from fixing their own tractors – something farmers have done literally since tractors were invented:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

It's in ventilators. Like mobile phones, ventilators are a grotesquely monopolized sector, controlled by a single company Medtronic, whose biggest claim to fame is effecting the world's largest tax inversion in order to manufacture the appearance that it is an Irish company and therefore largely untaxable. Medtronic used the resulting windfall to gobble up most of its competitors.

During lockdown, as hospitals scrambled to keep their desperately needed supply of ventilators running, Medtronic's VIN-locking became a lethal impediment. Med-techs who used donor parts from one ventilator to keep another running – say, transplanting a screen – couldn't get the device to recognize the part because all the world's civilian aircraft were grounded, meaning Medtronic's technicians couldn't swan into their hospitals to type in the unlock code and charge them hundreds of dollars.

The saving grace was an anonymous, former Medtronic repair tech, who built pirate boxes to generate unlock codes, using any housing they could lay hands on to use as a case: guitar pedals, clock radios, etc. This tech shipped these gadgets around the world, observing strict anonymity, because Article 6 of the EUCD also bans circumvention:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#medtronic-again

Of course, Apple is a huge fan of VIN-locking. In phones, VIN-locking is usually called "serializing" or "parts-pairing," but it's the same thing: a tiny subassembly gets its own microcontroller whose sole purpose is to prevent independent repair technicians from fixing your gadget. Parts-pairing lets Apple block repairs even when the technician uses new, Apple parts – but it also lets Apple block refurb parts and third party parts.

For many years, Apple was the senior partner and leading voice in blocking state Right to Repair bills, which it killed by the dozen, leading a coalition of monopolists, from Wahl (who boobytrap their hair-clippers with springs that cause their heads irreversibly decompose if you try to sharpen them at home) to John Deere (who reinvented tenant farming by making farmers tenants of their tractors, rather than their land).

But Apple's opposition to repair eventually became a problem for the company. It's bad optics, and both Apple customers and Apple employees are volubly displeased with the company's ecocidal conduct. But of course, Apple's management and shareholders hate repair and want to block it as much as possible.

But Apple knows how to Think Differently. It came up with a way to eat its cake and have it, too. The company embarked on a program of visibly support right to repair, while working behind the scenes to sabotage it.

Last year, Apple announced a repair program. It was hilarious. If you wanted to swap your phone's battery, all you had to do was let Apple put a $1200 hold on your credit card, and then wait while the company shipped you 80 pounds' worth of specialized tools, packed in two special Pelican cases:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/

Then, you swapped your battery, but you weren't done! After your battery was installed, you had to conference in an authorized Apple tech who would tell you what code to type into a laptop you tethered to the phone in order to pair it with your phone. Then all you had to do was lug those two 40-pound Pelican cases to a shipping depot and wait for Apple to take the hold off your card (less the $120 in parts and fees).

By contrast, independent repair outfits like iFixit will sell you all the tools you need to do your own battery swap – including the battery! for $32. The whole kit fits in a padded envelope:

https://www.ifixit.com/products/iphone-x-replacement-battery

But while Apple was able to make a showy announcement of its repair program and then hide the malicious compliance inside those giant Pelican cases, sabotaging right to repair legislation is a lot harder.

Not that they didn't try. When New York State passed the first general electronics right-to-repair bill in the country, someone convinced New York Governor Kathy Hochul to neuter it with last-minute modifications:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/weakened-right-to-repair-bill-is-signed-into-law-by-new-yorks-governor/

But that kind of trick only works once. When California's right to repair bill was introduced, it was clear that it was gonna pass. Rather than get run over by that train, Apple got on board, supporting the legislation, which passed unanimously:

https://www.ifixit.com/News/79902/apples-u-turn-tech-giant-finally-backs-repair-in-california

But Apple got the last laugh. Because while California's bill contains many useful clauses for the independent repair shops that keep your gadgets out of a landfill, it's a state law, and DMCA 1201 is federal. A state law can't simply legalize the conduct federal law prohibits. California's right to repair bill is a banger, but it has a weak spot: parts-pairing, the scourge of repair techs:

https://www.ifixit.com/News/69320/how-parts-pairing-kills-independent-repair

Every generation of Apple devices does more parts-pairing than the previous one, and the current models are so infested with paired parts as to be effectively unrepairable, except by Apple. It's so bad that iFixit has dropped its repairability score for the iPhone 14 from a 7 ("recommend") to a 4 (do not recommend):

https://www.ifixit.com/News/82493/we-are-retroactively-dropping-the-iphones-repairability-score-en

Parts-pairing is bullshit, and Apple are scum for using it, but they're hardly unique. Parts-pairing is at the core of the fuckery of inkjet printer companies, who use it to fence out third-party ink, so they can charge $9,600/gallon for ink that pennies to make:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Parts-pairing is also rampant in powered wheelchairs, a heavily monopolized sector whose predatory conduct is jaw-droppingly depraved:

https://uspirgedfund.org/reports/usp/stranded

But if turning phones into e-waste to eke out another billion-dollar stock buyback is indefensible, stranding people with disabilities for months at a time while they await repairs is so obviously wicked that the conscience recoils. That's why it was so great when Colorado passed the nation's first wheelchair right to repair bill last year:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair

California actually just passed two right to repair bills; the other one was SB-271, which mirrors Colorado's HB22-1031:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB271

This is big! It's momentum! It's a start!

But it can't be the end. When Bill Clinton signed DMCA 1201 into law 25 years ago, he loaded a gun and put it on the nation's mantlepiece and now it's Act III and we're all getting sprayed with bullets. Everything from ovens to insulin pumps, thermostats to lightbulbs, has used DMCA 1201 to limit repair, modification and improvement.

Congress needs to rid us of this scourge, to let us bring back all the benefits of interoperability. I explain how this all came to be – and what we should do about it – in my new Verso Books title, The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

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/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

Image: Mitch Barrie (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daytona_Skeleton_AR-15_completed_rifle_%2817551907724%29.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

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kambanji (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/kambanji/4135216486/

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

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Rawpixel (modified) https://www.rawpixel.com/image/12438797/png-white-background

[winepresswrath]

american copyright law is wild. I'm not a huge fan of the copyright act and think the anti-circumvention rules in particular are draconian & nonsensical but canada does iirc explicitly allow for non commercial user generated content and also fair dealing is not a mere defence so like. despite the horrors we persist i guess.

[mariacallous]

On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court held that frozen embryos were “children” under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. While this was a decision about in vitro fertilization (IVF), Alabama’s recognition of embryos as persons is simply a logical extension of the anti-abortion movement’s long-time commitment to the notion of fetal personhood, an idea now animating the post-Dobbs criminalization of reproductive care. A number of state legislatures have already granted personhood status to fertilized eggs or unborn children in utero at any stage of development.

Consistent with the anti-abortion movement’s goal of a nationwide recognition of fetal personhood, the criminalization of abortion is a tool for preventing abortions from ever occurring. In our new article, Bodies of Evidence: The Criminalization of Abortion and Surveillance of Women in a Post-Dobbs World, we explore: how ban states are criminalizing abortion; the way medication abortion is disrupting abortion bans; the threat of prosecution faced by women who self-manage abortions with medication; and the ways modern surveillance technologies enable law enforcement investigations of abortion crimes.

The criminalization of abortion is one of several strategies endorsed by the anti-abortion movement and adopted in states attempting to enforce abortion bans and defend them against circumvention by medication abortion.

Medication abortion, a two-pill regimen involving mifepristone and misoprostol, is approved by the FDA for terminating a pregnancy up to 10 weeks. While the FDA approved the use of mifepristone in 2000, the revolutionary promise of medication abortion—where a woman can receive the medication in the mail, then safely self-manage an abortion in the privacy of her own home—was not realized until the FDA permanently lifted the in-person dispensing requirement in 2021. Not surprisingly, research from the Guttmacher Institute indicates that medication abortion now accounts for 63% of abortions in the United States, up from 53% in 2020.

Because of medication abortion, pregnant people living in states that ban or severely restrict abortions have access to a form of abortion care that was not available pre-Roe. Today, pills can be moved across state lines, doctors in abortion-protective states can offer telehealth care to women in ban states, and organizations like Aid Access can mail abortion medication from overseas. It is no longer necessary for all women in ban states to travel out of state to access abortion care.

The anti-abortion movement is, of course, aware of the ways in which medication abortion can thwart abortion bans and is attacking the problem on a number of fronts. In one response to this threat, a group of anti-abortion doctors brought a lawsuit challenging both the FDA’s original approval of mifepristone in 2000 and subsequent actions in 2016 and 2021 to improve access to and availability of the drug. The goal of the lawsuit is to remove mifepristone from the U.S. market, a result that would drastically reduce access to medication abortion for all women in the United States, regardless of the state in which they live. The Fifth Circuit granted partial relief to the doctors, landing the case in front of the Supreme Court after the government’s petition for writ of certiorari was granted. The Court heard oral arguments on March 26.

While it is unwise to predict how the Court will rule on any case, a majority of justices during the oral argument seemed to express some skepticism that the doctors who brought the suit had the necessary legal standing to seek the requested relief. The Court could thus dispose of the case without ever reaching its merits.

Even if the challenge to the FDA’s treatment of mifepristone is unsuccessful, however, the case presented an opportunity for the plaintiffs to bring attention to another of the movement’s strategies—one that was raised on three separate occasions during the oral argument by Justices Alito and Thomas. This strategy concerns the Comstock Act, a federal obscenity law from 1873, virtually dormant but still on the books, that criminalizes the mailing of “[e]very article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion.”

A literal interpretation of this law would, at a minimum, make the mailing of any kind of abortifacient unlawful, essentially resulting in a nationwide ban on medication abortion. While the Department of Justice under the Biden administration interprets the Comstock Act narrowly, the Justice Department under a Trump administration is free to reject that interpretation. To achieve a nationwide abortion ban, the anti-abortion movement doesn’t need Congress or even the courts—it only needs Donald Trump to be elected. And while Congress could certainly repeal the Comstock Act, that is not an outcome anyone should expect in the near future.

As the anti-abortion movement pursues these strategies, another more familiar tactic for preventing women from self-managing abortion with medication is also available: the prosecution of women and those that may assist them. Although providers have historically been the primary targets of abortion laws, women have been investigated and prosecuted for pregnancy-related conduct and a variety of pregnancy outcomes, even during the Roe era. And, in 2016, when candidate Donald Trump was asked whether he thought women who sought an illegal abortion should face criminal punishment, he answered in the affirmative—“there has to be some sort of punishment.”

Some state officials, politicians, and movement leaders claim that no one intends to prosecute pregnant women for abortion crimes. Others, emboldened by the demise of Roe, have suggested that criminal punishment of pregnant women who seek or obtain abortions is logical, morally justifiable, and required to end abortion.

As we explore in our article, a number of current states’ laws—including personhood laws—provide prosecutors with the tools to investigate and prosecute women who self-manage abortion using medication and those that assist them. The decision whether to do so will generally turn on a prosecutor’s interpretation of these laws, many of which do not explicitly exempt women from prosecution, and his or her exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

Georgia, for example, has passed a personhood law. Its “Living Infants Fairness and Equality” Act (LIFE Act) bans abortion after six weeks, a time at which most women don’t even know they are pregnant, and states that “[i]t shall be the policy of the state of Georgia to recognize unborn children as natural persons.” It defines “natural person” as “any human being, including an unborn child,” and defines “unborn child” as “a member of the species of Homo sapiens at any stage of development who is carried in the womb.” By including “unborn child” in the definition of natural person, the LIFE Act raises the possibility that a woman who obtains or self-manages an abortion after six weeks could be charged with murder.

In Georgia, a person commits murder “when he unlawfully and with malice aforethought, either express or implied, causes the death of another human being.” No exemptions from prosecution are provided in the LIFE Act. While our article identifies some ambiguity surrounding whether a woman having or self-managing an abortion could be prosecuted for murder under Georgia’s LIFE Act, Douglas County District Attorney Ryan Leonard previously indicated that women in Georgia “should prepare for the possibility that they could be criminally prosecuted for having an abortion. . . . If you look at it from a purely legal standpoint, if you take the life of another human being, it’s murder.” This prosecutor’s statement is an example of a threat of prosecution, where a public official purposefully wields fear and uncertainty to enforce an abortion ban.

Meanwhile, an April 1 ruling by the Florida Supreme Court enabled a six-week abortion ban to take effect by May 1, replacing the current law, which bans abortion after 15 weeks. In Florida, “[a]ny person who willfully performs, or actively participates in, a termination of pregnancy in violation” of the law before or during viability “commits a felony of the third degree, punishable” by a term of imprisonment not exceeding five years and fines. There is no exemption for pregnant women. The broad “any person” language subjects women who self-manage abortion through medication to the threat of investigation and prosecution.1 Recognizing this possibility, Florida legislators proposed H.B.111 in October 2023, a bill that explicitly exempts pregnant women from prosecution for terminating their pregnancies: “This paragraph does not apply to the pregnant woman who terminates the pregnancy.” The bill died in subcommittee in March of this year.

Florida’s six-week ban features the same broad language prohibiting “any person” from engaging in the proscribed conduct. Accordingly, women will continue to be at risk of investigation and prosecution under the new law. There were 84,052 abortions in Florida last year, an increase of 2,000 abortions from 2022. More than 7,000 of those women came to Florida from other states. With the imposition of the six-week ban, the use of medication abortion will undoubtedly spike. Women continue to have abortions even when they are illegal.

Georgia and Florida are just two examples of states with laws that subject women to the threat of prosecution for self-managing abortions. There are also a range of laws “related to fetal remains, child abuse, felony assault or assault of an unborn child, practicing medicine without a license, or homicide and murder” that don’t even mention or outlaw abortion, but which have been used to investigate and prosecute people for conduct related to the alleged termination of their own pregnancies, even while Roe was the law of the land.

In the post-Dobbs world, prosecutors who choose to investigate women for self-managing abortions have an array of modern surveillance technologies at their disposal. In our article, we present three hypothetical scenarios involving law enforcement investigations of a single mom, a college student, and a high school student based on alleged self-managed abortions. In each of the scenarios, we attempt to illustrate what is possible based on current law and technology. We are not suggesting that these exact scenarios have occurred or will occur. But aspects of these fact patterns are consistent with cases described in If/When/How’s 2023 report documenting the ways in which women were investigated and prosecuted for conduct pertaining to self-managed abortions between 2000 and 2020, prior to the fall of Roe.

Whether abortion laws target providers, aiders and abettors, or women themselves, the criminalization of abortion necessarily involves the surveillance of women. Women’s bodies are often the so-called scene of the crime, and their personal data will, more likely than not, be evidence of the crime. The modern digital environment only amplifies the scope and harm of that surveillance. Communications with friends and family, internet searches, websites visited, purchases made, data shared with mobile apps, location, and other data generated in the course of everyday life become evidence that can be used in prosecutions against women and those that assist them in obtaining abortions.

We offer no single, silver bullet solution for the threat of surveillance and prosecution women face in a post-Dobbs world. But there are some intermediate measures that can mitigate this threat. As our research demonstrates, state laws criminalizing abortion are, on the whole, a confusing morass. They often do not unambiguously preclude the prosecution of women. Confusing statutory language coupled with the unpredictability of prosecutorial discretion creates uncertainty—which in turn curtails women’s liberty, compromises their privacy interests, and puts their health at risk. State legislators, especially those who claim that there is no intention to prosecute women, should ensure that laws clearly and explicitly exempt women from prosecution.

Another avenue that holds some promise for disrupting the threat is specifically tied to the state of Delaware, where many big platforms and technology companies are incorporated. Delaware, we argue, should join California and Washington in passing a data shield law that includes provisions specifically designed to prevent companies from turning over data sought by law enforcement organizations from ban states that are investigating abortion crimes. Such a shield law could provide one significant hurdle to law enforcement attempts to investigate and prosecute women who have abortions and those that assist them. As the chosen state of incorporation for many tech companies holding data relevant to the investigation of abortion crimes, Delaware has a unique opportunity to engage in threat mitigation.

[tomorrowusa]

No matter how remote, bizarre, or ridiculous, Republicans will try to twist reality to fit their conspiracy theories.

Under Elon Musk, Twitter/X has spiraled out of control with MAGA freaks taking full advantage of the lack of content moderation. Just when you think Twitter won't get any worse, it gets worse.

The slow death of Twitter is measured in disasters like the Baltimore bridge collapse

As conspiracy theorists compete for attention in the wake of a tragedy, others seek engagement through dubious expertise, juicy speculation, or stolen video clips. The boundary between conspiracy theory and engagement bait is permeable; unfounded and provoking posts often outpace the trickle of verified information that follows any sort of major breaking news event. Then, the conspiracy theories become content, and a lot of people marvel and express outrage that they exist. Then they kind of forget about the raging river of Bad Internet until the next national tragedy. [ ... ] On Tuesday evening, I called Lisa Snowden, the editor-in-chief of the Baltimore Beat — the city’s Black-owned alt-weekly — and an influential presence in Baltimore’s still pretty active X community. I wanted to talk about how following breaking news online has changed over time. [ ... ] Here are some of the tweets that got attention in the hours after the collapse: Paul Szypula, a MAGA influencer with more than 100,000 followers on X, tweeted “Synergy Marine Group [the company that owned the ship in question] promotes DEI in their company. Did anti-white business practices cause this disaster?” alongside a screenshot of a page on the company’s website that discussed the existence of a diversity and inclusion policy. That tweet got more than 600,000 views. Another far-right influencer speculated that there was some connection between the collapse and, I guess, Barack Obama? I don’t know. The tweet got 5 million views as of mid-day Wednesday. [ ... ] Here are some of the tweets that got attention in the hours after the collapse: Paul Szypula, a MAGA influencer with more than 100,000 followers on X, tweeted “Synergy Marine Group [the company that owned the ship in question] promotes DEI in their company. Did anti-white business practices cause this disaster?” alongside a screenshot of a page on the company’s website that discussed the existence of a diversity and inclusion policy. That tweet got more than 600,000 views. Another far-right influencer speculated that there was some connection between the collapse and, I guess, Barack Obama? I don’t know. The tweet got 5 million views as of mid-day Wednesday.

When people are mostly interested in "flooding the zone with shit", it is useless to even try to refute their falsehoods.

It doesn't matter that the Dali is not US owned but instead has ties to Singapore and Denmark. And the construction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge took place almost entirely during the administrations of Republicans Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford when DEI did not even exist as such.

With conspiracy theories there are always loopholes and sub rosa circumventions to account for the obvious lack of clear evidence.

To MAGA Republicans, facts are irrelevant. All that matters is how fast their lies travel through online platforms. And one of those platforms, Twitter/X, has been lubricated by its far right owner to accelerate those lies.

If you haven't already, quit Twitter/X and encourage others to do so ASAP. Migrate to Mastodon or Bluesky and enjoy the comparative sanity on those platforms.

[luigiblood]

An interpretation of the Dolphin on Steam situation.

As a reminder, Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator, had announced a release of a Steam version using features from Steam like cloud save, Steam Deck native support and all.

A couple of days ago, Dolphin's Steam page was pulled down, then Dolphin's official blog mentioned a DMCA takedown, and PC Gamer reported on it, quoting the DMCA. Then we all went a bit crazy over this, then Delroth, a former Dolphin member, talked in a bit more detail, and debunked a misunderstanding.

You can still read this from Delroth here: https://mastodon.delroth.net/@delroth/110440301402516214

EDIT: Delroth has made one more very interesting post on Reddit about encryption keys in emulators here: https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/140b7x5/are_dolphin_devs_special_in_bundling_decryption/

All in all, the situation was misinterpreted from all sides, and to sum it up, according to Delroth: Valve asked Nintendo about this, and Nintendo said they don't want this, and quoted the DMCA's set of laws. In fact, not only Delroth says this, a lawyer contacted by PC Gamer essentially says the same thing in the updated report here.

One more preface: I am NOT a lawyer, legal text is very hard to fully grasp, this is only my own interpretation of the situation, what I am about to say may be VERY VERY WRONG. Got it?

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a copyright law from 1998. It is made of several titles and acts. The first title contains the anti-circumvention part which we'll get to later. The second title contains the takedown process part.

DMCA Takedown

I'll get to the second title first:

To sum it up, this is the part where you can do a copyright infringement claim, a "notice and takedown" process. This process also includes the ability of a counterclaim.

NONE OF THIS HAPPENED ON DOLPHIN ON STEAM. Nintendo did not use this process. They just told Valve a reason, and it was Valve's decision alone that got the emulator removed, and they notified Dolphin of the reason.

I won't really debate much on this, it's not really interesting.

"Anti-circumvention"

Now, the anti-circumvention part, the meaty part. There's a lot of legal text, but I will translate to the best of my abilities to you, don't worry.

This is the part where I feel the least comfortable about, and again, this is an interpretation, but let's start again from that quote that I had (from PC Gamer, by the way):

the Dolphin emulator operates by incorporating these cryptographic keys without Nintendo’s authorization and decrypting the ROMs at or immediately before runtime. Thus, use of the Dolphin emulator unlawfully 'circumvent[s] a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under' the Copyright Act.

The thing is... I only said that indeed, the Wii Common Key, required to decrypt everything, is included in Dolphin's source code. It's... not necessarily the problematic point of this, as I tried to read more into it, and I will go back to the Lockpick_RCM actual DMCA takedown.

Lockpick_RCM is a Switch tool that gets a set of keys from your Switch console and puts them into an easy to read file that could be used in conjunction with other Switch tools. They're required to decrypt pretty much everything about the Switch, from games to other packages.

The use of Lockpick with a modified Nintendo Switch console allows users to bypass Nintendo’s Technological Measures for video games

A thing you read a lot is "Technological Measures"... turns out this has a bit of a definition in 17 U.S.C. §1201... or rather, in that text itself, here's the very first thing you can read:

17 U.S.C. §1201 (a)(1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

The wording "circumvent a technological measure" happens to have a definition tied to it:

17 U.S.C. §1201 (a)(3) As used in this subsection— (A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and (B) a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

It's a somewhat precise definition, actually, and purely relying on it... this makes pretty much everything Wii, 3DS, Wii U and Switch a very dangerous situation.

The "technological measure" also has a definition:

17 U.S.C. §1201 (a)(3)(B) a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

Basically it just means a DRM (Digital Rights Management) process of sorts.

A lot of people loves to talk about the previous lawsuits on emulators, but note that I never mentioned the emulation being the issue here. Nintendo is NOT arguing, on a legal level anyway, that emulators are illegal by being one, their communication team does by stifling innovation in their public arguments.

According to 17 U.S.C. §1201 (a)(3)(A), just having encryption is enough to consider that they're protected, and just decrypting is already illegal... this affects a lot more than you think, it's not just Dolphin at this point, it seems we misunderstood a lot of things about the DMCA.

To sum it up more bluntly: I don't feel like the encryption key is the main argument, it's actually about what you do with it that they argue against.

So even if Dolphin removed the Wii Common Key, if they still include the decryption process, even if you provided the key yourself from your own system, EVEN your own Wii dumps, the argument here implies that since you're still decrypting the Wii dump data, this last part is argued to be illegal. This ain't right.

Now apply this to everything else, even if you decrypted the game beforehand so that Dolphin doesn't even decrypt anything, the problem would be moved to the dumper or the decrypter tool doing it. This applies to a lot of systems.

Considering the definition I showed earlier, this seems hard to argue against, however, notice that I never said anything as fact, and insisted that it is Nintendo's argument, legally speaking, I believe this is an important distinction to make.

Exceptions?

The law also explicitly defines exceptions to this, but please read carefully, because this is where I start to really interpret from here:

In 17 U.S.C. §1201 (a)(1)(B), my understanding is that when the protection itself prevents legitimate use, then you are allowed to break it. That said, and this is important: The later subparagraphs defines these paragraphs as something that CANNOT BE USED AS A DEFENSE. This is only there to shield the Library of Congress from any attack, and to allow them to research the various impacts that the protection does and determine rules. Their ruling is also explicitly not allowed to be used as a defense in the text.

After reading a lot of this, I only found one thing that, very honestly, I find quite unclear. Subsection (f) about Reverse Engineering, is particularly showing how much they're not well versed in computer science.

17 U.S.C. §1201 (f) basically says if you're trying to understand how the program works, you are allowed to circumvent the protection, under the idea that you're doing analysis, or...

17 U.S.C. §1201 (f)(2) for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.

In the case of infringement, I believe this is about copyright in general, as the law suggests this does not affect copyright laws in any way.

So what is interoperability... well let's take the definition from there:

17 U.S.C. §1201 (f)(4) For purposes of this subsection, the term “interoperability” means the ability of computer programs to exchange information, and of such programs mutually to use the information which has been exchanged.

So we're talking about the ability for a program to exchange information with the work, in this case, a game for example.

...what is this? Programs exchange information all the time. That's even the basis of a computer. Maybe there are other definitions, but frankly I can't be bothered to read even more legalese right now.

With just this, and not taking into account anything else, I feel like this allows emulators to work, they don't really modify the game, they try to run it within a sandbox, where a lot of information is exchanged to make sure the program runs as intended.

Oddly enough this would still make the ability to run those games on a modded Switch still illegal though, while emulators could be allowed to do this.

But make no mistake: This is not a legally tested argument. I need to repeat: This is an interpretation. Lawsuits literally work with lawyers interpreting information and the laws, and argue. The whole idea of laws being unclear is not necessarily a fault, it's specifically why lawyers exist.

Why now? And what now?

Honestly, as much as Nintendo argued, for the time being, they have not shown any intention to take down Dolphin as a whole. They could just argue as a scare tactic to prevent Dolphin to reach an even more mainstream status. I doubt Nintendo didn't know about Dolphin for that long.

Until I see an actual DMCA takedown, or worse against Dolphin itself, I'm going to assume Dolphin will stay up for a long time.

Removing the Wii Common Key from Dolphin will not change the situation, as it is the whole decryption process that the argument is about.

Whether Citra, Cemu, Yuzu and Ryujinx could have included the keys or not, the argument would still be the same here.

TL;DR of the complicated part

About the takedown itself:

Valve asked Nintendo about Dolphin on Steam, and they argued that Dolphin is illegal because it decrypts Wii games, and Valve, on their own accord, took down Dolphin from Steam from this. (Note: GameCube does not use encryption and cannot be impacted by this.)

An actual lawyer also takes this as a warning from Nintendo to Valve according to PC Gamer.

About the argument that Nintendo used against Dolphin:

Encryption Keys are NOT the main point of contention, because...

The encryption itself, as a whole, is argued by Nintendo to be a protection measure.

This means that decrypting the game outside of the intended way by the copyright owner (Nintendo, on a Nintendo Switch) is argued to be illegal by default.

The law, as in how I interpret it, goes in that sense, but for some reason you are allowed to make an additional program that can "interoperate" with the protected works in question and explicitly is allowed to break the protection. This is a vague part, and could be used in defense of Dolphin, potentially.

The final answer can only be answered in a courtroom.

[arklayraven]

Screw people who are against archives and preservation for games and media in general so much.

The US Copyright Office announced today that they would not grant a new exemption in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in support of video game preservation. (see p.29) For the past three years, the Video Game History Foundation has been supporting with the Software Preservation Network (SPN) on a petition to allow libraries and archives to remotely share digital access to out-of-print video games in their collections. Under the current anti-circumvention rules in Section 1201 of the DMCA, libraries and archives are unable to break copy protection on games in order to make them remotely accessible to researchers. While we are disappointed by the Copyright Office’s decision (see p. 191 of the Register’s Recommendation), we have no regrets about going through this process. Over the last three years, working on the petition has helped us generate important research, notably our Survey of the Video Game Reissue Market in the United States report, which proved that around 87 percent of video games released in the United States before 2010 remain out of print. Our combined efforts with SPN have raised significant public awareness of these issues and have already made an impact throughout the game industry and preservation communities. Unfortunately, lobbying efforts by rightsholder groups continue to hold back progress. During our hearing with the Copyright Office, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) declared that they would never support remote game access for research purposes under any conditions. The game industry’s absolutist position—which the ESA’s own members have declined to go on the record to support—forces researchers to explore extra-legal methods to access the vast majority of out-of-print video games that are otherwise unavailable. We’re not done fighting here. We will continue our advocacy for greater access and legal allowances for video game preservation and working with members of the game industry to increase internal awareness around these issues. We encourage members of the game industry who are disappointed by the Copyright Office’s decision to ask their leadership to push for greater support for the work of libraries and archives within their industry groups.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil top judge accuses X of ‘willful’ circumvention of court-ordered block

Justice Alexandre de Moraes imposes $900,000 daily fine on banned social media platform in dispute with Elon Musk

In the latest round of the dispute between Elon Musk and Brazil’s top court, a senior judge has accused X of a “willful, illegal and persistent” effort to circumvent a court-ordered block – and imposed a fine of R$5m ($921,676) for each day the social network remains online.

The social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which has been banned by court order since 30 August, on Wednesday became accessible to many users in Brazil after an update that used cloud services offered by third parties, such as Cloudflare, Fastly and Edgeuno.

This allowed some Brazilian users to access X without the need for a VPN – which is also prohibited in the country.

Late on Wednesday, X described its reappearance in Brazil as an “inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users”.

But the influential supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes – who ordered the original ban as part of an attempt to crack down on anti-democratic, far-right voices – on Thursday described the move as a deliberate attempt “to circumvent the court’s blocking order”.

Moraes said that the tactic was “confessed directly by its largest shareholder, Elon Musk, in a post on X addressed to the entire country”.

This was a reference to a message by Musk who on Wednesday posted: “Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.”

Continue reading.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Isabela Dias at Mother Jones:

Earlier this week, the Biden administration officially announced a long-anticipated border crackdown. The executive action—which relies on the same presidential authority former President Donald Trump invoked to enact an entry ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries—circumvents a key provision of US law: The legal right to seek asylum, regardless of where or how a person enters the country. Under Biden’s order, with narrow exceptions, only migrants coming to official ports of entry will qualify for asylum after encounters at the border reach a certain threshold. This may sound wonky. But it is in line with what Biden vowed to try to do as the November election approaches: shut down the border “right now.” And, still, not even a Democratic president gutting asylum has placated the anti-immigrant fearmongers on the right.

Even before Biden gave his speech about the new border proclamation, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri was live on Fox News calling the measures “mass amnesty” for “illegals.” He was echoed by Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Donald Trump and president of the “lawfare” America First Legal group, who wasted no time cherry-picking sections of the executive order and sharing them without context to baselessly claim the new rule gives “fast-pass entry to unlimited numbers of fighting-age” migrants. “This border EO makes mass migration permanent,” Miller wrote on X. Not to be outdone, House Speaker Mike Johnson—who declared the now-defunct bipartisan senate border deal “dead on arrival”—called it “window dressing” and said President Biden is “allowing thousands of illegals to cross because he wants to turn them into voters.” None of this is true. The proclamation halts the entry of migrants between ports of entry when apprehensions at the border average 2,500 per day over the course of a week. The suspension can only be lifted 14 days after that number drops to a seven-day average of 1,500 daily encounters, meaning it would be in effect for at least 21 days. How could that not be considered a harsh enforcement measure?

Yes, the rule allows for exemptions for unaccompanied minors, victims of “severe form of trafficking,” as well as in some cases based on “operational considerations” and “urgent humanitarian” circumstances. And it doesn’t affect the processing of claims from asylum seekers through the CBP One cellphone application at ports of entry. But we are talking about a fundamental violation of asylum law and the Refugee Convention on the part of the Biden administration to appease right-wing anger over migration. “President Biden’s action sets a dangerous international precedent as a first-of-its-kind numerical cap on asylum,” Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement, “limiting the number of people who can claim asylum in the United States.”

Plus, this is far from the first restriction. The Biden administration has already limited access to asylum with another ban known as “Circumvention of Lawful Pathways.” It created a “presumption of ineligibility” for asylum if migrants can’t show that they made an appointment on the flawed CBP One app to come to a port of entry, had previously sought and been denied protection in another country on their way to the United States, or qualified for narrow exceptions under “exceptionally compelling circumstances.”

President Joe Biden (D) gave everything the right-wing immigration restrictionists wanted, and it’s still not good enough for them, as they continue to whine about Biden giving out “mass amnesty” for undocumented immigrants.

[springdayautumnmoon]

Is it just me or has Youtube completely given up on their anti ad block shit? When they first introduced it, it seemed like they were constantly competing with Ublock on who could add more circumventions to the other and I'd have to update it almost every day just to keep up, but I haven't had to touch it in months now and it feels like Youtube just gave up and accepted that Ublock is here to stay.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

No True Apple User (transcript of a Twitter exchange)

Benedict Evans: Different people prefer different trade-offs. The important thing is to understand that these are mostly trade-offs - and about one and a half billion people like the trade-offs that Apple makes

My reply:

Before Apple offered one-click opt-out from FB tracking in iOS, it could have been argued that Apple users like Facebook's "trade-off." After all, they all signed up for FB and kept using it. But once there was an opt-out for surveillance, >96% of Apple users took it (and FB lost $10B in the first year). 

FB offered a bargain, and Apple helped its users make a counteroffer. That's a common practice in tech, as old as the first third-party drive for an IBM 360.

This practice (“adversarial interoperability“), greatly benefited Apple in the past, e.g., when Apple reverse-engineered MS Office's file-formats for  iWork, reversing losses due to the poor compatibility between Win Offce and Mac Office.

MS would have argued that the legions of users defecting from MacOS for Windows in order to enjoy high-reliabliity interchange between Office docs preferred that trade-off - yes, users liked MacOS, but they liked reliable collaboration more.

iWork revealed this trade-off for the false choice it was: you could use MacOS and you could reliably exchange files with Windows users. 

In other words, you could bargain.

Trade-offs without bargaining don't reveal users' preferences (what they'd like in the best of all worlds). Rather, they tell us about users' tolerance. 

Users would tolerate Windows as a condition for reliable collaboration. They'd prefer MacOS and reliable collaboration.

iOS  users would tolerate Facebook spying on them via their iPhones, but they'd prefer to use Facebook on iOS without being spied upon.

Which explains why FB has gone to such enormous lengths to present take-it-or-leave offers to its users - it knows that the company's preferences are totally disconnected from its customers' preferences.

FB would prefer to spy on you with every hour that god sends, and make this surveillance a precondition for participating in the community, family life, civics, and commerce that lives inside its walled garden.

FB users would like to do all those things...and not be spied upon.

And because it is always technically possible to make tracker-blockers, ad-blockers, alternative clients, etc, the only way FB can win that  contest is to make it illegal for users to get their way.

For example, FB can entice, funnel or coerce its users into primarily interacting with its services via apps. Because apps are encrypted, they can't be lawfully reverse-engineered and altered without risking "anti circumvention" liability.

You can make an ad-blocker for the web because you don't need to bypass a technical protection measure to block web-ads. But do the same thing for apps and you risk a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine.

Apple is an enthusiastic proponent of this regime, because  it's the primary means by which the firm prevents third parties from offering rival app stores.

Apple's argument is that having a legal right to decide which software its customers can install allows it to act as its customers' proxy. If Apple can override the choices made by its users, it can prevent them from making bad choices.

Moreover, Apple can bargain with large firms whose take-it-or-leave-it offers would otherwise impose hardship on its users. An individual user who objects to FB spying is out of luck.

But Apple can say to FB, "We have blocked spying, and your only choice is to leave the app store altogether, or suck it up." In other words, Apple can give FB the same take-it-or-leave-it treatment that FB imposes on 3b users, which is a delicious irony.

Hearing FB squeal that Apple is exercising its market power - derived from the fact that billions of people can only be reached by subjecting oneself to the conditions of Apple's walled garden - to harm FB's interests is such a sweet bit of comeuppance.

But the sweetness has a bitter core, because Apple also spies on iOS users, even those who opt out of app-based surveillance, in exactly the same way that FB does, for exactly the same purpose (ad targeting) - and they deceive their users about it.

And, like FB, Apple devotes enormous lobbying efforts and legal resources to increase the legal risk of allowing users to express their preferences (as opposed to just their tolerance) for Apple's trade-offs.

If Apple users preferred to be shut out of  shopping around for app stores, or if they preferred to only get their devices repaired at official, Apple-sanctioned repair depots, or if they preferred to be blocked from using refurb parts, Apple wouldn't have to do anything. It could save millions of dollars in engineering and legal bills.

 But Apple behaves as if it believes its users strongly prefer to have more choice, even if they'll tolerate less choice.

Now, there's a "No true Apple user" rejoinder to this argument: "You knew when you bought an iPhone that it came shackled to Apple's commercial imperatives, which could be enforced through legal action by wielding the DMCA, patent, copyright, CFAA, tortious interference, etc. If you didn't like it, you could have bought an Android device, or no device at all.“ 

But that same argument can (and was) made by FB, to Apple: 

"Those users for whom you blocked our surveillance knew the deal: sign up for FB, get spied on. No one forces anyone to sign up for FB. You can use Mastodon. Or you can just use FB on the web only, and run tracker/ad blockers. They may have preferred surveillance-free socializing, but they tolerated the 'trade-off' of being spied on."

Apple has repeatedly demonstrated that it is an imperfect proxy for its customers' interests. And Apple behaves as if it believes that its users strongly prefer a different trade-off, and takes heroic measures to prevent anyone from doing unto Apple as Apple did unto MS and FB.

Firms are neither intrinsically good, nor are they intrinsically evil. They respond to incentives and constraints. The possibility that users might bargain back against a proposed trade-off makes those proposed trade-offs fairer, on average.

If a firm knows an obnoxious course of action will trigger users taking a step to block, reconfigure, or modify some or all of its products and service, it has to weigh those costs against the expected parochial distributional benefits from imposing bad trade-offs on its users.

Firms that aren't subject to discipline from user defection, modding, etc, are prone to folly - they arrogantly overreach. Users experience harms as a result, and it's only when those harms accumulate to the point where tolerance for the 'trade-off' runs out that the harm ceases.

Preferences are revealed by user conduct, sure - but the extent to which a preference can be revealed is limited by the extent to which it can be technologically expressed.

A world in which there are extensive legal restrictions on users expressing their preferences is a world in which successful trade-offs tell us little about users' preferences.

And a firm that goes to lengths to expand and invoke those legal restrictions tells on itself, revealing its own secret belief that it is imposing a trade-off on its users that the users would gladly jettison... if they could.

ETA: Evans replied:

Sending over two dozen tweets is not good faith engagement in a conversation - rather, this is what in other contexts is called a Gish Gallop.

Meanwhile, it's almost about FB and Windows. This is deflection and whataboutery. I made one very specific point about the trade-offs between security and flexibility on the iPhone. Those trade-offs are real - that is not debatable. The only debate is which to choose.

[Image ID: An Apple 'Privacy. That's iPhone.' ad. The three rear-facing camera lenses have been replaced by the staring, red eye of HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.]

(Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified)

[beardedmrbean]

The Senate approved a measure Wednesday evening to override President Biden's move last year to allow Chinese solar panel makers to avoid tariffs for 24 months.

In a bipartisan 56-41 vote, the Senate voted in favor of the resolution which was sponsored by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and co-sponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., the latest congressional action to face an expected veto from President Biden. The vote comes less than a week after the House passed a companion resolution with 12 Democrats voting in favor.

"This measure is pro-American jobs and anti-Chinese forced and child labor. It's that simple," Scott remarked on the Senate floor ahead of the vote.

"It's time for the Senate to finish the job in Congress and send this to President Biden's desk. This isn't partisan, it's about human rights," he continued. "I will not stand by, and I hope the U.S. Senate will not stand by, and accept excuses to turn a blind eye to communist China's human rights atrocities."

CONGRESS GEARS UP TO SMACK DOWN PRESIDENT BIDEN'S CHINESE SOLAR HANDOUT

Overall, Chinese companies control a more than 80% share in the global solar panel industry, controlling the supply chain in all the manufacturing stages of the product, according to the International Energy Agency. The Chinese solar industry has been tied to forced labor in China's Xinjiang province.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

In addition to Manchin, several Democrats including Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Bob Casey, D-Pa., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., voted with Republicans in favor of the legislation.

"Ohioans are manufacturing solar panels that can power our economy," Brown said in remarks of his own Wednesday. "They just need a level playing field. You can’t say you want American manufacturing to lead the world, while allowing Chinese companies, often subsidized by the Chinese government, to skirt the rules and dump solar panels into the U.S." 

"This comes down to whose side you’re on: Do you stand with workers in Ohio, or do you stand with the Chinese Communist Party?"

CHINESE TECH COMPANIES ARE EXPLOITING US GREEN ENERGY GOALS, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS WARN

In June 2022, Biden implemented the 24-month moratorium on the enforcement of solar panel anti-circumvention tariffs introduced under the Obama administration to protect U.S. companies. The White House characterized the move as a two-year "bridge" that would allow companies to build solar panel production capabilities on U.S. soil.

The move, however, came after the Commerce Department said months earlier it would investigate whether Chinese manufacturers were routing solar panels through countries in Southeast Asia to avoid U.S. tariffs. And in December, the agency published its preliminary findings showing four large solar companies had routed products through Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam to circumvent duties. 

The Commerce Department is expected to release its final findings in May. Still, the White House vowed last week that Biden would veto the resolution passed Wednesday if it made it to his desk regardless of the findings. 

"From day one, the President has prioritized investments that will create good-paying jobs and build secure supply chains in the United States, including for solar energy," the White House said on April 24. "The Administration is working aggressively to support domestic solar panel manufacturing."

DEM CONGRESSWOMAN SILENT ON WHY SHE SIGNED HUSH AGREEMENT INVOLVING CHINESE TECH COMPANY

The resolution, meanwhile, earned the support of pro-tariff groups like the Coalition for a Prosperous America and human rights groups like the Uyghur Human Rights Project.

Environmental groups and green energy organizations like the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) have opposed it.

"We are urging senators to see through this political charade and examine the facts at hand," SEIA President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper said last week.

"The United States cannot produce enough solar panels and cells to meet demand, and the remaining 14 months of this moratorium gives us time to close the gap," she continued. "The United States can get there and become a global leader in clean energy manufacturing and development. Overturning the moratorium at this stage puts that future at risk." 

Following the vote Wednesday, Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., who sponsored the House version of the bill alongside Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., applauded the Senate vote.

"I am pleased to see the U.S. Senate, in a strong bipartisan vote, pass my legislation that supports American workers," Kildee said in a statement. "We must hold those who violate U.S. trade laws accountable, including China." 

"When we fail to enforce our trade laws, it hurts Michigan and American businesses and workers. I will continue standing up for fair trade and the American worker, including support efforts to expand the domestic manufacturing of solar panels."

[hoursofreading]

The GOP's only policy position is that of 'what will hurt people most?' There is no reason why Republicans even have a chance of taking back the majority. In 2022 alone, Biden and Dems have done the following:

passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest investment in fighting climate change in history

passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the largest investment in infrastructure since Eisenhower

passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, breaking a 30-year streak of federal inaction on gun violence legislation

signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law

took out the leader of al Qaeda

ended America's longest war

reauthorized and strengthened the Violence Against Women Act

signed the PACT Act, a bill to address veteran burn pit exposure

signed the NATO accession protocols for Sweden and Finland

issued executive order to protect reproductive rights

canceled $10,000 of student loan debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 and canceled $20,000 in debt for Pell Grant recipients

canceled billions in student loan debt for borrowers who were defrauded

nominated now-Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Justice Breyer

brought COVID under control in the U.S. (e.g., COVID deaths down 90% and over 220 million vaccinated)

formed Monkeypox response team to reach communities at highest risk of contracting the virus

unemployment at a 50-year low

on track to cut deficit by $1.3 trillion, largest one-year reduction in U.S. history

limited the release of mercury from coal-burning power plants

$5 billion for electric vehicle chargers- $119 billion budget surplus in January 2022, first in over two years

united world against Russia’s war in Ukraine

ended forced arbitration in workplace sexual assault cases

reinstated California authority to set pollution standards for cars

ended asylum restrictions for children traveling alone

signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, the first federal ban on lynching after 200 failed attempts

Initiated “use it or lose it" policy for drilling on public lands to force oil companies to increase production

released 1 million barrels of oil a day for 6 months from strategic reserves to ease gas prices

rescinded Trump-era policy allowing rapid expulsion of migrants

expunged student loan defaults

overhauled USPS finances to allow the agency to modernize its service

required federal dollars spent on infrastructure to use materials made in America

restored environmental reviews for major infrastructure projects

Launched $6 billion effort to save distressed nuclear plants

provided $385 million to help families and individuals with home energy costs through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. (This is in addition to $4.5 billion provided in the American Rescue Plan.)

national registry of police officers who are fired for misconduct

tightened restrictions on chokeholds, no-knock warrants, and transfer of military equipment to police departments

required all federal law enforcement officers to wear body cameras

$265 million for South Florida reservoir, key component of Everglades restoration

major wind farm project off West coast to provide electricity for 1.5 million homes

continued Obama administration's practice of posting log records of visitors to White House

devoted $2.1 billion to strengthen US food supply chain

invoked Defense Production Act to rapidly expand domestic production of critical clean energy technologies

enacted two-year pause of anti-circumvention tariffs on solar

allocated funds to federal agencies to counter 300-plus anti-LGBTQ laws by state lawmakers in 2022

relaunched cancer 'moonshot' initiative to help cut death rate

expanded access to emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception

prevented states from banning Mifepristone, a medication used to end early pregnancy that has FDA approval

21 executive actions to reduce gun violence

Climate Smart Buildings Initiative: Creates public-private partnerships to modernize Federal buildings to meet agencies’ missions, create good-paying jobs, and cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

Paying for today’s needed renovations with tomorrow’s energy savings without requiring upfront taxpayer funding

ended Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy

Operation Fly-Formula, bringing needed baby formula (19 missions to date)

executive order protecting travel for abortion

invested more in crime control and prevention than any president in history

provided death, disability, and education benefits to public safety officers and survivors who are killed or injured in the line of duty

Reunited 500 migrant families separated under Trump

$1.66 billion in grants to transit agencies, territories, and states to invest in 150 bus fleets and facilities

brokered joint US/Mexico infrastructure project; Mexico to pay $1.5 billion for US border security

blocked 4 hospital mergers that would've driven up prices and is poised to thwart more anti-competition consolidation attempts

10 million jobs—more than ever created before at this point of a presidency

record small business creation

banned paywalls on taxpayer-funded research

best economic growth record since Clinton

struck deal between major U.S. railroads and unions representing tens of thousands of workers after about 20 hours of talks, averting rail strike

eliminated civil statute of limitations for child abuse victims

announced $156 million for America's first-of-its-kind critical minerals refinery, demonstrating the commercial viability of turning mine waste into clean energy technology.

started process of reclassifying Marijuana away from being a Schedule 1 substance and pardoning all federal prisoners with possession offenses

Note: This list only reflects 2022 accomplishments. Click here for 2021 accomplishments.

[darael]

Minor caveat: ripping DVDs may in fact be illegal, not because you're making personal copies to do what's known as "format-shifting" but because of the anti-circumvention provisions in laws like the DMCA. The short version is that if you have to break or bypass the copy-protection — no matter how thoroughly pathetic that copy-protection may be — you're probably technically in violation of those laws even though you aren't infringing copyright.

Yes, this is shitty and stupid and should be changed. The EFF (among other organisations) is always pushing for those changes.

you guys know you can get USB connectable CD, dvd, and blu-ray players right. and you can buy external hard drives with crazy amounts of space for an amount of money that would make the average person from 2009’s head explode bc of how cheap it is. and if you do this and get ripping software such as handbrake for CDs and DVDs and makeMKV for blurays you can both own a physical copy of whatever media you want and make it accessible to yourself no matter where you are. do you guys know this

[mdmotalebhossainraju]

Investigative Journalism: The French tire manufacturer Michelin continues supplying products to Russia, bypassing EU sanctions

According to a confidential source at the Berliner Telegraph, the French group Michelin — the world's leading manufacturer of car tires — continues to supply sanctioned products to Russia through Turkish intermediaries, thereby expanding its supply programs.

In previous articles, we described how Michelin tires are successfully supplied to Russia via its Turkish distributor TATKO T.A.S. and its subsidiary in Kazakhstan, KAZ T-REMA International, both directly and through chains of intermediaries in the EU and the Middle East.

In the course of our investigative journalism work, our editors have received information from Russian, Turkish and Kazakh customs authorities that reveal the machinations of Michelin, TATKO T.A.S. (TATKO LASTIK SANAYI VE TICARET A.S.) and its associated company DTO TYRE FZCO.

According to information from the Berliner Telegraph, the circumvention of the sanctions takes place as follows: The Turkish company Tatko T.A.S. buys tires from Michelin and sells the products on to DTO TYRE FZCO, which sells the tires directly to Russia and Kazakhstan via Latvia. The Latvian company ESTMA ships the purchased Michelin tires on behalf of DTO TYRE FZCO, bypassing the sanctions, to various customers in Russia and in Kazakhstan to KAZ T-REMA International, which then exports the tires to Russia via its own channels.

In the course of the journalistic research, the Berliner Telegraph and its partners in Turkey made several requests for information to the press offices of Michelin and TATKO T.A.S. (TATKO LASTIK SANAYI VE TICARET A.S.), but all of them were ignored.

According to Turkish sources, this plan to circumvent the sanctions against Michelin was made possible by the close familiarity with the Turkish market of the current Michelin Vice President Manuel Montana, who was the head of the Turkish Michelin office from August 2016 to February 2019 and actively cooperated with the official dealer — TATKO T.A.S. (TATKO LASTIK SANAYI VE TICARET A.S.) — and was also close to its director Vedat Ozcelik.

The question arises how a large European corporation can supply Michelin products to Russia through its Turkish dealer TATKO T.A.S. (TATKO LASTIK SANAYI VE TICARET A.S.) in defiance of the sanctions. And we have almost found the answer to this question, because we assume that the current vice president of Michelin, Manuel Montana, who was the head of the Turkish Michelin office from August 2016 to February 2019, had a good and close relationship with the CEO of TATKO T.A.S. (TATKO LASTIK SANAYI VE TICARET A.S.), Vedat Ozcelik.

This is indirectly confirmed by the fact that Manuel Montana actively recommends that major buyers in the region purchase tires exclusively through TATKO T.A.S. (TATKO LASTIK SANAYI VE TICARET A.S.).

The EU regulators in Brussels have not yet legally assessed Michelin's actions. It is difficult to say to what extent such plans to supply under-sanctioned products to Russia bypassing the formal restrictions from Brussels are legally sound. What is puzzling, however, is the fact that the leading French brand does not seem to care at all who the final recipient of its products is.

However, the problem of Turkey as a “dark territory” through which sub-sanctioned goods are delivered to Russia does not only concern French brands. For example, ARD recently published an investigation into the supply of German machine tools to the Russian Federation, which can be used in the defense industry to produce various types of weapons.

All this suggests that the transparency of business processes in Turkey is still far from European standards and it is unlikely that the country will be ready for EU accession in the near future, as President Erdogan is striving for. However, this does not relieve European companies of the responsibility of using legal loopholes to circumvent Brussels' anti-Russia sanctions without formally violating them.