Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ kpw • Now • 70%

target seed ratio = max{1, 1/current ratio}

For example if your total ratio is 0.60, set the target ratio to 1.67.

DACH - jetzt auf feddit.org kpw • Now • 100%

Wie der Sächsische Rechnungshof versucht, die Zivilgesellschaft an die Kandare zu nehmen

verfassungsblog.de

Das staatliche Neutralitätsprinzip schützt eigentlich einen staatsfreien politischen Prozess, in dem sich „die Willensbildung vom Volk zu den Staatsorganen hin vollzieht, nicht umgekehrt von den Staatsorganen zum Volk hin“. So hat es das Bundesverfassungsgericht in seiner Grundsatzentscheidung über die Öffentlichkeitsarbeit der Bundesregierung von 1977 formuliert. Auch staatliche Förderprogramme dürfen deswegen den politischen Wettbewerb nicht verzerren, indem sie zu verdecktem Wahlkampf oder Oppositionsbekämpfung missbraucht werden. Tatsächlich ist der Sonderbericht aber ein weiterer Erfolgsschritt einer langjährigen Strategie der AfD, genau dieses staatliche Neutralitätsprinzip als Waffe zur Einschüchterung einer demokratischen Zivilgesellschaft zu instrumentalisieren.

Europe kpw • Now • 90%

Can the act of assigning a score to someone constitute a decision?

verfassungsblog.de

This, in essence, is the question the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) had to answer in Case C-634/21. And the Court’s answer is yes, following in the footsteps of the Advocate General’s opinion on the case. Rendered on 7 December, this ruling was eagerly awaited as it was the first time the Court had the opportunity to interpret the notorious Article 22 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) prohibiting decisions “based solely on automated processing

science kpw • Now • 85%

The Stanford Prison Experiment was massively influential. We just learned it was a fraud.

www.vox.com

The Stanford Prison Experiment, one of the most famous and compelling psychological studies of all time, told us a tantalizingly simple story about human nature. The study took paid participants and assigned them to be “inmates” or “guards” in a mock prison at Stanford University. Soon after the experiment began, the “guards” began mistreating the “prisoners,” implying evil is brought out by circumstance. The authors, in their conclusions, suggested innocent people, thrown into a situation where they have power over others, will begin to abuse that power. And people who are put into a situation where they are powerless will be driven to submission, even madness. The Stanford Prison Experiment has been included in many, many introductory psychology textbooks and is often cited uncritically. It’s the subject of movies, documentaries, books, television shows, and congressional testimony. But its findings were wrong. Very wrong. And not just due to its questionable ethics or lack of concrete data — but because of deceit.

politics kpw • Now • 96%

How the NYPD defeated bodycams

Police boosters insist that police violence and corruption are the result of "a few bad apples." As the saying goes, "a few bad apples spoil the bushel." If you think there are just a few bad cops on the force, then you should want to get rid of them before they wreck the whole institution. Bodycams could empirically identify the bad apples, right? Well, hypothetically. But what if police leadership don't want to get rid of the bad apples? What if the reason that dashcams, tasers, and pepper spray failed is that police leadership are fine with them? If that were the case, then bodycams would turn into just another expensive prop for an off-Broadway accountability theater.

Europe kpw • Now • 92%

Taking Revenge for Dissent: Hungary’s Chief Justice to Fully Eliminate Judicial Autonomy

verfassungsblog.de

Hungary’s latest judicial reform in May 2023 came in response to EU decisions to suspend the country’s access to funds due to serious rule of law concerns. The reform aimed, among other things, to strengthen the independence of the Kúria, the Supreme Court of Hungary. Experience to date shows that while on the level of formal legal rules, some improvements towards the rule of law have been made, in actual daily practice, the opposite is happening: While steps have been taken to restore the independence of the Kúria, the Chief Justice is working on further eroding the independence of individual judges.

Europe kpw • Now • 95%

Trick and Treat? Hungary's Game of Non-Compliance

verfassungsblog.de

Almost a year has passed since the European Union decided to block the payment of EUR 27 billion in union funds to Hungary under several instruments. Access to the largest part of the frozen funds - altogether EUR 13 billion - depends on whether Hungary complies with its undertakings to strengthen judicial independence. The government claims to have met all four of the so-called super milestones by adopting a judicial package in May 2023 and requests access to the blocked funds under Hungary’s Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF) and ten different operative programmes. However, upon taking a closer look at the preconditions to the payments and the nature and implementation of the proposed reforms, it becomes clear that Hungary is still playing tricks to avoid compliance.

World News kpw • Now • 96%

The Pilnacek case – A challenge also for the European rule of law

verfassungsblog.de

With the “Pilnacek” case, the debate on corruption in Austria – ongoing since the „Ibiza affair“ (May 2019) but largely inconclusive so far – is heading for a new high point. The affair showcases massive political influence on the Austrian criminal justice system and proves that it is challenging to bring the problem of corruption under control. One of the main reasons is that Austria has not made the necessary adjustments to the European „acquis communautaire“ since its (relatively late) accession to the EU and keeps ignoring fundamental principles of EU law. Since 2000, there have even been setbacks. The case of Christian Pilnacek illustrates the problem of corruption in Austria in an exemplary manner. Likewise, it underlines the continuing backlog of reforms in Austria and the country’s unwillingness to adjust to the European rule of law.

Technology kpw • Now • 96%

Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

News kpw • Now • 98%

He blew the whistle on Amazon. He’s still paying the price

Four years after Tang Mingfang called out the injustices he witnessed at a Foxconn factory in China, nothing has changed — except for him

News kpw • Now • 98%

Greedflation: corporate profiteering ‘significantly’ boosted global prices, study shows

www.theguardian.com

Multinationals in particular hiked prices far above rise in costs to deliver an outsize impact on cost of living crisis, report concludes

Technology kpw • Now • 84%

Excuse me, but the industries AI is disrupting are not lucrative

www.theintrinsicperspective.com

A more interesting “bear case” for AI is that, if you look at the list of industries that leading AIs like GPT-4 are capable of disrupting—and therefore making money off of—the list is lackluster from a return-on-investment perspective, because the industries themselves are not very lucrative. What are AIs of the GPT-4 generation best at? It’s things like: ``` writing essays or short fictions digital art chatting programming assistance ```

Technology kpw • Now • 95%

Boffins convert typing sounds into text with 95% accuracy

www.theregister.com

Researchers in the UK claim to have translated the sound of laptop keystrokes into their corresponding letters with 95 percent accuracy in some cases. That 95 percent figure was achieved with nothing but a nearby iPhone. Remote methods are just as dangerous: over Zoom, the accuracy of recorded keystrokes only dropped to 93 percent, while Skype calls were still 91.7 percent accurate. In other words, this is a side channel attack with considerable accuracy, minimal technical requirements, and a ubiquitous data exfiltration point: Microphones, which are everywhere from our laptops, to our wrists, to the very rooms we work in.

DACH - jetzt auf feddit.org kpw • Now • 93%

Virologin für Maskenpflicht in Arztpraxen

wien.orf.at

Die Virologin Monika Redlberger-Fritz empfiehlt eine Wiedereinführung der Maskenpflicht in Arztpraxen und Spitälern aus. Die Betreiber sollen von ihrem Hausrecht Gebrauch machen. Damit könnten insbesondere in starken Wellen vulnerable Gruppen geschützt werden.

Technology kpw • Now • 98%

European Union Presses Ahead with Article 45

The European Union continues on its path to eIDAS 2.0, which includes the controversial Article 45 that basically tells browsers which certification authorities (CAs) to trust. eIDAS, which stands for electronic identification and trust services, is a framework aimed at regulating electronic transactions. As part of this proposal, the EU wants to support embedding identities in website certificates. In essence, the goal is to bring back Extended Validation (EV) certificates. Browsers—of course—don’t want that, but the real problem is the fact that, with the legal text as it is at the moment, in its near-final form, the EU gets the final say in which CAs are trusted. The global security community has been fighting against Article 45 for more than two years now; we wrote about it on a couple of occasions. As of November 2023, the European Council and Parliament have reached a provisional agreement. The next step is for the law to be put to the vote, which is usually a formality.

Technology kpw • Now • 96%

Sponsored listings are a ripoff…for sellers

Not all ads are created equally sleazy. The privacy harms from surveillance ads, though real, are often hard to pin down. But there's another kind of ad – or "ad" that picks your pocket every time you use an ecommerce site. This is the "sponsored listing" ad, which allows merchants to bid to be among the top-ranked items in response to your searches – whether or not their products are a good match for your query. These aren't "ads" in the way that, say, a Facebook ad is an ad. These are more [#payola](https://kbin.social/tag/payola), a form of bribery that's actually a crime (but not when Amazon does it). Amazon is the global champion of payola. It boasts of $31 billion in annual "ad" revenue. That's $31 billion that Amazon sellers have to recoup from you. But Amazon's use of "most favored nation" deals (which requires sellers to offer their lowest prices on Amazon) mean that you don't see those price-hikes because sellers raise their prices everywhere.