NEW RESOURCES

US Department of Justice: EOIR Launches FOIA Public Access Link. “The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) has launched its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Public Access Link (PAL), a new online portal that streamlines records requests for parties with business before the agency and members of the public seeking records.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Mac: Twitter now rolling out Ticketed Spaces for iPhone users. “Twitter announced earlier this year some new ways for creators to monetize their content on the social network, which includes paid Spaces — or ‘Ticketed Spaces.’ After letting users apply for these new features, Ticketed Spaces are now being rolled out to some iPhone users.”

Fast Company: Hate your Google search results? Now there’s a how-to guide for removing information. “Recent events in Afghanistan have highlighted how detrimental people’s past online activity can quickly become. Afghans are scrambling to erase data about themselves from the internet that the Taliban may use to extract retribution. Thankfully, many tech giants are stepping up to protect Afghani users and help them hide or remove their data.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to See What Twitter Lists You’re On (and How to Remove Yourself). “Twitter lists are a great way to keep up with accounts you care about. The advantage of lists is you get to only follow select accounts instead of drowning in thousands of tweets on your typical timeline. And you don’t need to follow the account to add it to your list. There’s a high chance you’re on someone’s Twitter list as well, but how can you tell? We’ll show you how to see what Twitter lists you’re on in this article.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Marketplace: Admit it, you rank your friends by how much they annoy you. Now, Google’s doing it for websites.. “By the end of the month, Google will change how it ranks websites, so that ones that are harder to load are ranked lower. Will that make websites less annoying? Simon Schnieders founded the search engine optimization agency Blue Array. He said Google’s changes are likely to help. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.”

The Scotsman: Support our Libraries: Scotland on Sunday campaign launch. “This week, the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) published a bold and impassioned vision for the future of Scotland’s libraries. Its strategy places them at the heart of our Covid-19 recovery – an approach Scotland on Sunday shares and is here to champion.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Microsoft : Researchers, cybersecurity agency urge action by Microsoft cloud database users. “Researchers who discovered a massive flaw in the main databases stored in Microsoft Corp’s Azure cloud platform on Saturday urged all users to change their digital access keys, not just the 3,300 it notified this week.”

The Verge: Google allegedly offered Netflix a break on the usual Play Store commission. “In this filing, the lawyers accuse Google of offering Netflix a ‘significantly reduced revenue share’ with the apparent intention of squashing its desire to use an alternative payments system.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BBC: Why pigeons mean peril for satellite broadband. “‘It’s actually been very good but I noticed a series of outages – some a second, some longer,’ says Prof Alan Woodward. The University of Surrey cyber-security expert is talking about his new satellite broadband service from space entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Starlink company. The outages, he thinks, may be caused by a lot of ‘pesky pigeons’, which ‘have taken a fancy to sitting on the dish’.”

Ars Technica: A bad solar storm could cause an “Internet apocalypse”. “Scientists have known for decades that an extreme solar storm, or coronal mass ejection, could damage electrical grids and potentially cause prolonged blackouts. The repercussions would be felt everywhere from global supply chains and transportation to Internet and GPS access. Less examined until now, though, is the impact such a solar emission could have on Internet infrastructure specifically. New research shows that the failures could be catastrophic, particularly for the undersea cables that underpin the global Internet.”

E&T: Internet shown to amplify and expose real-life trolls, but not create them. “New research suggests that the internet is not responsible for making people become more aggressive when engaging in political discussions online, but rather makes the behaviour of more aggressive people more visible.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

Hackaday: IRC Server For MS-DOS . “The recent flurry of projects based around Internet Relay Chat (IRC) should be a fair indication that the beloved protocol is not going anywhere. Now, thanks to [Mike Chambers], you can add to the IRC ecosystem by hosting your very own MS-DOS based IRC server.” I had a PC XT that I had to use with black and white TV because I couldn’t afford a real monitor. Sunday nostalgia: it’s real. Good morning, Internet…

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