Cory DoctorowToday's threads (a thread)
Inside: Tax prep services send sensitive financial info to Facebook; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/22/free-file-now/
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Today (Nov 22), I'm hosting a California Book Club event with Kim Stanley Robinson where we'll be discussing his 1998 novel "The Gold Coast":
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My publisher Tor Books and Goodreads are having a drawing for a giveaway of advance hardcopies of my next novel, "Red Team Blues," a Silicon Valley forensic accounting thriller about a cryptocurrency heist. If you're in the US or Canada, enter here to win a copy:
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/353941-red-team-blues
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Tax prep services send sensitive financial info to Facebook: And they didn't even know they were doing it.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/109388476395017478
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Cory Doctorow's linkblog (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image If you were unfortunate enough to e-file your US #tax using HR Block, Taxact or Taxslayer, your most sensitive financial information was nonconsenually shared with Facebook, where it was added to the involuntary dossier the company maintains billions of people, including people who don't have Facebook accounts. 1/
Hey look at this
* Greg Bear (1951-2022) https://file770.com/greg-bear-1951-2022/
* Global Voices seeks an editor to lead our Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa coverage https://globalvoices.org/2022/11/21/global-voices-seeks-an-editor-to-lead-our-francophone-sub-saharan-africa-coverage
* Tumblr to add support for ActivityPub https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/21/tumblr-to-add-support-for-activitypub-the-social-protocol-powering-mastodon-and-other-apps/ (h/t Slashdot)
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#20yrsago Dumbass plan to redesign internet shored up by crooked, lying consultants https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/22/world/threats-responses-surveillance-terror-tracking-agency-weighed-but-discarded-plan.html
#10yrsago Texas student suspended for refusing RFID tracker https://www.wired.com/2012/11/student-suspension/
#10yrsago Finnish police confiscate 9-y-o’s laptop after she downloads a song from the Pirate Bay https://dublimat.blogspot.com/2012/11/9-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-piratism.html
#10yrsago Hacker steals entire nation’s identity https://www.loweringthebar.net/2012/11/if-youre-greek-somebody-probably-stole-your-identity.html
#10yrsago Fact-checking US patent-boss’s defense of his job https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/us-patent-chief-to-software-patent-critics-give-it-a-rest-already/
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#10yrsago Counterfeiters counterfeit anti-counterfeiting notice https://memex.craphound.com/2012/11/22/counterfeiters-counterfeit-anti-counterfeiting-notice/
#10yrsago Spacehawk: the complete collection of Basil Wolverton’s space crusader https://memex.craphound.com/2012/11/22/spacehawk-the-complete-collection-of-basil-wolvertons-space-crusader/
#5yrsago Connected sex-toy allows for code-injection attacks on a robot you wrap around your genitals https://twitter.com/SarahJamieLewis/status/933150566347284481
#5yrsago Why we should cheer the DoJ’s lawsuit to block the AT&T/Time-Warner merger https://www.wired.com/story/why-the-government-is-right-to-block-the-atandt-time-warner-merger/
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#5yrsago For more than 50 yrs, the sugar industry has used Big Tobacco tactics to suppress sugar/cancer link and to confuse the science https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003460
#5yrsago Cops chase innocent shoplifting suspect into stranger’s house, then storm it with 50-person SWAT team and blow up every room except one https://thefreethoughtproject.com/cop-watch/fifty-swat-cops-tore-down-house-shoplifting
#5yrsago Trump’s top economic advisor couldn’t bear to listen to the president bloviate so he pretended he had a bad connection and hung up https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/11/22/gary-cohn-trump-tax-reform-bad-phone-connection-carper-sot-nr.cnn
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Sugar industry sponsorship of germ-free rodent studies linking sucrose to hyperlipidemia and cancer: An historical analysis of internal documents
In 1965, the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) secretly funded a review in the New England Journal of Medicine that discounted evidence linking sucrose consumption to blood lipid levels and hence coronary heart disease (CHD). SRF subsequently funded animal research to evaluate sucrose’s CHD risks. The objective of this study was to examine the planning, funding, and internal evaluation of an SRF-funded research project titled “Project 259: Dietary Carbohydrate and Blood Lipids in Germ-Free Rats,” led by Dr. W.F.R. Pover at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom, between 1967 and 1971. A narrative case study method was used to assess SRF Project 259 from 1967 to 1971 based on sugar industry internal documents. Project 259 found a statistically significant decrease in serum triglycerides in germ-free rats fed a high sugar diet compared to conventional rats fed a basic PRM diet (a pelleted diet containing cereal meals, soybean meals, whitefish meal, and dried yeast, fortified with a balanced vitamin supplement and trace element mixture). The results suggested to SRF that gut microbiota have a causal role in carbohydrate-induced hypertriglyceridemia. A study comparing conventional rats fed a high-sugar diet to those fed a high-starch diet suggested that sucrose consumption might be associated with elevated levels of beta-glucuronidase, an enzyme previously associated with bladder cancer in humans. SRF terminated Project 259 without publishing the results. The sugar industry did not disclose evidence of harm from animal studies that would have (1) strengthened the case that the CHD risk of sucrose is greater than starch and (2) caused sucrose to be scrutinized as a potential carcinogen. The influence of the gut microbiota in the differential effects of sucrose and starch on blood lipids, as well as the influence of carbohydrate quality on beta-glucuronidase and cancer activity, deserve further scrutiny.
#5yrsago Trump found someone even worse than Tom Price to regulate Health and Human Services: an insulin profiteer https://medium.com/@caitlynmcclure/dude-who-tripled-price-of-insulin-nominated-to-regulate-price-of-insulin-bf9a25e609b7
#5yrsago “Less lethal” is a deceptive term to describe the weapons that routinely kill and maim peaceful protesters https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/homer-venters-crowd-control-weapons/
#5yrsago States suspend your driver’s license over inability to pay court fines, costing you your job and any ability to repay https://www.vice.com/en/article/59yvwx/the-vicious-cycle-of-losing-a-drivers-license-over-court-debt
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#5yrsago Behold! The astonishing mental gymnastics of TSA apologists explaining why rich people don’t need to be screened https://memex.craphound.com/2017/11/22/behold-the-astonishing-mental-gymnastics-of-tsa-apologists-explaining-why-rich-people-dont-need-to-be-screened/
#5yrsago Uber admits it breached 57,000,000 accounts, then bribed the hackers to cover it up, now they’re paying a top ex-NSA lawyer to teach them transparency https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-21/uber-concealed-cyberattack-that-exposed-57-million-people-s-data
#1yrago Private ambulances want a ban on firefighters rescuing babies https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/22/amr-vs-babies/#unauthorized-ambulance
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Yesterday's threads: Universities secretly sold their students to online casinos; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/109382131577417870
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Cory Doctorow's linkblog (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Universities secretly sold their students to online casinos; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/21/rah-rah/ #Pluralistic 1/
My latest book is Chokepoint Capitalism (with Rebecca Giblin), nonfiction about monopoly and fairness in creative labor markets.
https://chokepointcapitalism.com
Signed copies available from Book Soup:
https://www.booksoup.com/book/9780807007068
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(no title)
a book about why creative labor markets are rigged - and how to unrig them Competition is supposed to be fundamental to capitalism. Over the last four decades though, greedy robber barons have worked out how to lock in customers and suppliers, eliminate competitors, and shake down everyone for more than their fair share. This…
My latest novel is Attack Surface, a sequel to my bestselling Little Brother books, now in paperback, wherever books are sold.
Signed copies at Dark Delicacies:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Cory_Doctorow_-__Attack_Surface_HB_%26_TPB.html#/
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My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
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Upcoming appearances:
* Kim Stanley Robinson's Gold Coast (California Book Club), Nov 22
https://www.altaonline.com/california-book-club/a40882308/kim-stanley-robinson-the-gold-coast-california-book-club-november-selection/
* Conversation with Tim Wu, Informed (Miami), Nov 30:
https://informed22.interkinnect.com/
* Library Learning Experience/American Library Association (New Orleans), Jan 27-30
https://www.2023.alaliblearnx.org/cory-doctorow
* Australian Digital Alliance Copyright Forum (Canberra), Feb 17:
https://digital.org.au/2022/11/08/doctorow-giblin-first-speaker-announcement-ada-forum-2023/
* Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy (Brussels), Mar 2:
https://www.brusselsconference.com/registration
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Recent appearances:
* Business Without Bullshit
https://open.spotify.com/episode/04GWeryHzC1uWgZrmEjSDH?si=36c048e0fc264437&nd=1
* Team Human interview
https://www.teamhuman.fm/episodes/229-cory-doctorow
* Pitchfork Economics
https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/chokepoint-capitalism-with-cory-doctorow-and-rebecca-giblin/
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EP 144 - Cory Doctorow & Rebecca Giblin - Authors of Chokepoint Capitalism
Listen to this episode from Business Without Bullsh-t on Spotify. Meet Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin. Cory is a renowned science fiction author, activist and journalist who’s written a range of highly acclaimed books, his most recent being Chokepoint Capitalism co-written with Rebecca Giblin, a Professor of Law at Melbourne University, an Art Future Fellow and Director of Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia. If you've ever wanted to know how companies like Spotify and Audible make their money, and at whose cost, then today's your lucky day. Cory and Rebecca are field experts who are on a mission to debunk, expose and provoke reform in intellectual property and copyright control. BWB is powered by Oury Clark.
You can also follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!
Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/22/free-file-now/
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If you're a Medium subscriber, you can read these essays - as well as previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.
My latest Medium column is "Anything That Can’t Go On Forever Will Eventually Stop: Ticketmaster and Ideas Lying Around"
https://doctorow.medium.com/anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-will-eventually-stop-110ba9711133
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If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is also ad- and tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "👒". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!
Subscribe here: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list
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Today's top sources: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org/).
eof/
Eli Robillard@pluralistic Dude, Mastodon lets you have more chars than that other app. Please don't take a one-size-fits-all-channels approach. What might have been necessary there is real annoying here.
@erobillard please read my bio and unfollow me if my posting style is not to your liking
Christina Sørensen@pluralistic @erobillard your on mastodon isn't the character limit like 500 characters?
@cafkafk @erobillard sure feels like you didn't read my bio
MrCopilot@pluralistic @erobillard
I have been looking for a specific comment for like 20mins but I can see it is useful in probably dozens of your response's posters. So here goes for all who need it.
I keep @pluralistic in it's own list. Then you can filter it out of your public timeline & still follow.
Much prefer that filter Home & Lists were not combined into a single option, but it is what it is.
I like threads as they drop, #Chronology But I want to see how well the tools work. Now, we wait.
@pluralistic @erobillard "check boxes and booleans don't grow on trees young man"
"Yes, ma'am "
garrett@pluralistic ah, love team human.
Samuel@pluralistic Hi Cory! I love your books! I just wonder why some books are CC licensed and some or not? And how do you decide which books will be CC licensed? Just curious :)
@samuel my publisher made me stop in 2017.
@pluralistic Ahh, all right. Anyway, I really enjoyed the little brother series and most recenty attack surface. I have made all my coworkers (web developers) read them :) Keep up the good work!
@samuel Thank you!
Virginicus@pluralistic I've been wearing the Skin Head Wig for 10 years now. It's terribly comfortable.
Will Cox@pluralistic well, that explains why I’ve stopped getting advertisements for private jets.
Shine McShine@pluralistic that cover is gorgeous!
ZombieRasputin@Shine_McShine @pluralistic Yeah, all of the covers lately have been great. My favorite is Walkaway, by far.
Adam Gessaman 
@pluralistic Well, that's about the only thing that would convince me to log into Goodreads. Any chance Tor would consider running a giveaway on The Storygraph? https://app.thestorygraph.com/giveaways
TechTaxCanuck@pluralistic Wow - already 3,000+ entries!!
Great giveaway -- thanks!