Elsa Patakay, rip off merchant gone bust and rightly so?

Elsa's 100% supportive husband a Mr. Chris Hemsworth

What does the world need?

Another model, or another ‘influencer’?

How about a human that does both with extra skill-set of re re-branding someone else’s products and flogging them off as their own?

Basically a low value human.

Well, it seems that Ms. Elsa Lafuente Medianu, who trades under the false name of Ms. Elsa 'Patakay' ripped off the founder Habitual Beauty Keira Rumble by casing her product from the comfort and 'anonymity' of her brand new, tax deductible laptop i.e. getting Ms. Rumble to ship very generous orders to Ms. Patakay’s head office address in Sydney.

So what’s next?

You get someone’s I.P. (Intellectual Property), i.e. design of the product and flog it off as your own.

Brilliant!

Thankfully no one else is as ‘entrepreneurial’ as Ms. Patakay, well, sans China with Euro brands e.g. BMW luxury cars, but that’s government supported.

In any event, her husband a Mr. Chris Hemsworth thought it was such a great idea, he invested a staggering 3.2% stake in her business venture, albeit hidden within a corporate structure, that being a company called Byron Bay 1st Management.

It's always great to know that one has a supportive husband that’s 100% on board.

Purely Byron has been placed in administration with Cameron Gray and Justin Holzman of DW Advisory.

Twitter v. Taamneh & Gonzalez v. Google

What Policymakers Need to Know About the First Amendment and Section 230

The Supreme Court just heard two cases - Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google - that could dramatically affect users’ speech rights online. Last week, EFF hosted a panel in Washington D.C. to discuss what legislators need to know about these cases, the history of Section 230, and the First Amendment’s protections for online speech.

Alongside EFF Senior Staff Attorney Aaron Mackey, the panel included Billy Easley, Senior Public Policy Lead at Reddit, and Emma Llanso, Director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), one of the co-authors of Section 230, gave opening remarks. 

Senator Wyden and the Supreme Court 

Senator Wyden opened the panel with background on the law: it simply establishes the principle that the person who creates and posts content is responsible for that content. Thanks to Section 230 and the First Amendment, websites can take down what they want. Section 230 is essential to smaller companies and startups: “The big guys can take care of themselves,” but the small guys should be able to compete with the big guys, Wyden explained. The law democratizes speech, and elevates the choices of users. Thanks to Section 230, people are able to speak out. 

Wyden then discussed the latest Supreme Court cases. In Gonzalez v. Google, the petitioning plaintiffs made a radical argument about Section 230. They asked the Supreme Court to rule that Section 230 doesn’t protect recommendations we get online, or how certain content gets arranged and displayed. In Twitter v. Taamneh, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that online services can be civilly liable under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) based on claims that the platform had generalized awareness that members of a terrorist organization used its service.

In our view, the decision in Gonzalez should be clear: online recommendations and editorial arrangements are the digital version of what print newspapers have done for centuries, directing readers’ attention to whatever might be most interesting to them. Deciding where to direct readers is part of editorial discretion, which has long been protected under the First Amendment. Regarding Taamneh, the Court should interpret the ATA to create liability only when platforms have “actual knowledge that a specific piece of user-generated content substantially assists an act of terrorism.” In other words, online services should not be liable under the ATA based only on claims that they had some generalized awareness of terrorist content on their platforms. 

In Wyden’s view of the cases, the Justices seemed to recognize that removing Section 230 protections for algorithms is the same as taking away Section 230 protections generally. Ultimately, what we need is strong consumer privacy laws that remove the incentive for hoovering up personal data and monetizing it, and we need better antitrust enforcement. 

Lastly, Wyden closed with a warning. Those members of Congress that want to scrap Section 230 need to be careful what they wish for. FOSTA, the only law that has amended Section 230, was supposed to eliminate sex trafficking. All it did was “drive the bad guys into the dark web,” creating even less accountability, more harassment, and more violence against sex workers. Without Section 230, it’ll be a lot harder for marginalized voices to call out wrongdoings by powerful people, and it’ll be easier for the government to set the terms of public debate. But the last few years have shown more than ever that we need places where smaller voices can be heard.  

Speaking up for Users, So Users Can Speak Up

Reddit’s Billy Easley opened the panel describing the goal of the brief filed by the company in the Gonzalez case. First, they wanted to reorient the discussion back to users, which Section 230 empowers and protects, especially those involved in a moderation role. Reddit uses community moderators, and Section 230 empowers them to take down hateful content. It also helps them protect their users, for example, from defamation claims. 

Second, they wanted to educate folks also about how Reddit uses algorithms, lest people think of “the algorithm” only in terms of what YouTube and Facebook do. For Reddit, the algorithm is simple: You upvote stuff and more people see it. You downvote and nobody sees it anymore. There is also an automod that flags content from newer users or flagged posts so that moderators can review the content before it goes up. That’s not what a lot of social media entities do—and that community moderation would be potentially on the chopping block without Section 230.  

Generally, Easley said, people should remember three points:

• 230 protects people and platforms online. It allows platforms and people to be innovative and experiment online. 
• Algorithms are just tools. They can be used for good and bad. 
• It’s not just about Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit. This should be a conversation about what kind of internet we want to have and whether we want platforms and users to be innovative. 

EFF’s Aaron Mackey spoke next, explaining that EFF’s core concern in these Supreme Court cases is how an interpretation of Section 230 will impact the abilities of users to express themselves online. In Taamneh, the question is how far does liability extend when the platform—Twitter in this case—has only the most attenuated link with a terrorist attack. If you make Twitter liable for merely providing a service that some bad actors used for speech that ultimately supported an organization that perpetrated terrorist attacks, what does that mean for speech? We know from the case law that when you put liability on an intermediary, they will begin to overcensor and only distribute speech that they are confident is inoffensive. That blunts people’s ability to distribute and share their expression online. 

In Gonzalez, the distinction made by the petitioner and Solicitor General, if adopted, would create a less useful internet for users and audiences. Without recommendations the speech online becomes much less organized and more difficult to find. Recommendations are good; you want to be shown the stuff you want, not what you don’t want. 

Lastly, Emma Llanso of CDT, which also filed briefs in the cases, pointed out that the First Amendment should be a guide when considering how the Taamneh case should be litigated. As we saw with FOSTA, over censoring occurred just because of potential liability. If the courts don’t allow protections for recommendations we will likely see similar harm. 

Questions and Answers

The first question for the panelists was whether Congress, not the Supreme Court, should amend Section 230. Easley explained that Congress should identify what they are most concerned about online and take a step back to assess the best way to protect the population they want to protect. Llanso agreed; the question is always “what is the problem you’re trying to solve.” There may be Section 230 angles, but there are other issues to be addressed.

The second question was about a type of law we’ve seen recently that’s frequently formatted as: “Do X or you lose your Section 230 protections,” e.g., your company only gets protections if researchers are allowed access to the data on the platform. Llanso explained that one of the challenges with that kind of structure is that it’s essentially coercing an outcome that the government can’t compel through law, creating First Amendment problems. Mackey pointed out that these bills are often imprecise: it’s unclear when you lose protections, and the scope of that lost immunity. Easley summed it up: using Section 230 as the sword of Damocles is the wrong idea. It hurts users. 

Third: Should platforms have an agreed-upon accountability standard that they are liable for upholding. EFF has concerns about the government setting terms of accountability. But, Mackey explained, EFF co-created the Santa Clara Principles—a voluntary effort that calls for platform transparency, based on Human Rights principles. We want companies to adopt a good regime that works for speech, and is also self-motivated. Llanso pointed out that companies are happy to be with us on First Amendment and Section 230 views, but their support does often disappear once we talk about privacy. Companies should absolutely be accountable to their terms of service, but holding them liable for everything that violates those terms is inherently error prone.

The final question was about a new batch of laws offering protections of various sorts for young people online: should there be specific special laws for content specifically related to children? Easley said we should interrogate the specific ‘targeting children’ part. State bills talking about platforms that target children are extraordinarily broad. any websites are general purpose and used by both teens and adults. We can all agree that kids’ data shouldn’t be collected. But when laws require parents to have access to all direct messages—like S.B. 152 which is on the governor’s desk currently in Utah—that makes dangerous assumptions about parent-child relationships. A lot of “kids online safety” bills paint too broad a brush and we need a little more thinking on it. 

These bills are mixing two goals. First, a concern about targeting and collecting personal and private information about children online. Second, they seek protection for kids from ‘harmful content.’ But what is harmful content? The bills require age gating and age verification, and that allows more targeted data collection of children in the name of protecting them. These restrictions stop teens and young adults from finding communities online. When these bills combine children’s privacy and protecting children online, they fail to do either. 

A lot of the legislation doesn’t think enough about kids’ independent rights, including from their parents, Llanso said. It’s a murky constitutional sliding scale, but older minors do have their own rights. Understanding how to protect and empower children is better than wrapping kids in bubble wrap. Easley pointed out that if age verification is required, collecting documents to verify age will also be required. That not only violates privacy but creates a data breach concern. And some of these bills also create specific duties for any platform for practices that cause physical, emotional, development harm for those under eighteen and, honestly, no one knows what that means. 

Easley closed the panel out with a simple plea:  “Remember the users. Remember the impact any change in Section 230 can have on users.” 

When congressional offices are thinking about Section 230, both EFF and CDT are happy to help. We’re in the  unique position of having policy expertise as well as litigation expertise.  

EXPOSED! Police officer LIES to driver on national television

Don't trust this cop on his tormenting rant on driver licence possession. 

In the colony Australia the police lie to the people every single day.

They lie in the courts and on the streets. 

It’s up to you to not just catch them out but most importantly, hold them accountable.

This is an excerpt from a longer video (available on liabilitymate), where the focus is on the police officer’s words and not the driver’s arguments.

The Victorian police officer clearly states:

“There’s been a traffic offence committed, right? And you are required in Victoria when you commit a traffic offence to give me your name and address and produce your licence”.

First and foremost is that a police officer alleges that he saw a traffic offence being committed, where it's up to the courts to enforce the law, should you chose not to accept the alleged version of events described by the officer.

He must also caution the driver of a legal action referred to in the U.S as the “Miranda warning”, which is also applicable here in Australia.

When you hold a driver licence, you are required to state your name, address DoB (Date of Birth) and that’s it.

ANY other question asked by the officer, you have the right not to self incriminate and it is to your benefit that you do not answer any other questions, not matter how 'enticing' the may be, as they are actually entrapment.

Also at law, first and foremost you are allegedly treated as not guilty until proven otherwise, BUT in alleged traffic offences the person is always guilty first under absolute liability and strict liability.

The police officer stating that the driver must produce his/her licence is actually false.

Persons (in Victoria) who have a licence have agreed to a law called the Road Safety Act 1986.

In this Act, the following is stated under Section 19:

(8)     A person under the age of 26 years who holds a driver licence must have the licence in his or her possession at all times while driving or in charge of a motor vehicle.

Penalty applying to this subsection: 5 penalty units.

The officer could easily assess if the driver is over 26 years of age, or quite simply state the actual law.

Another lying cop “Just doing my job”

Government Admits C-19 Fines Were Not Valid

People in government lie to the serfs, their constituents, hard working mums & dads every single day.

One of the ‘problems’ or rather deliberate actions is the mainstream media does not have ‘investigative’ journalists to call out lying politicians, MPs or lawmakers.

Conversely ‘social’ media has so called ‘fact checkers’ which is an oxymoron in itself, that censor information that they are told to censor by governments and other NGOs (Non Government Organisations).

In the early days, when so called C-19 Infringement Notices were issued for an alleged breach of the law or more technically an ‘Act’, few cluey people called out the authorities, but they where shut down.

The mainstream media did not even question the legality of the fines, but it used a so called legal expert, more like an actor, to comment on masks, more on that in another post.

The mainstream media conning the people.

In New South Wales, the fines will now be excused or refunded, as a result of people who have fought the fines ‘correctly’ in court.

One thing Australia's mainstream media is not telling you is that the fines were never valid across the entire colony, period although there is some hint given by its motherland:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11484139/All-Covid-fines-Australia-invalid-33-000-penalty-notices-withdrawn.html

Australia does not have any Ch. III courts in operation, but that is another topic for another post.

The colony’s courts are Kangaroo Courts, and have been for quite some time.

NSW Police Falsely Claimed that Violet Coco Blocked an Ambulance

A good cross-section of NSW civil society was appalled when Violet Coco was sentenced to 15 months prison time last December, in relation to her taking part in a Fireproof Australia action that blocked one lane – just one lane – of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for 25 minutes last April.

During the hearing, NSW police argued that Coco and the three other Fireproof Australia activists conducting the nonviolent direct action to warn of the escalating climate crisis had blocked an ambulance trying to get across this bridge with its lights and sirens on responding to an emergency.

At the time, there had been an uptick in nonviolent climate action in Sydney, much of which involved road blockages, with the chief argument against these protests put by AM radio shock jocks and conservative politicians being they could block an ambulance responding to an emergency.

So, it was quite convenient that an ambulance had been put out by this action, as it served to validate the opposing position, just after the Perrottet government had rolled out its harsh antiprotest laws, while prominent climate defender Violet Coco was putting her liberty on the line.

But on Tuesday, when two fellow Fireproof activists, Alan Glover and Karen Fitz-Gibbon, went before Downing Centre Local Court, the NSW Police Force withdrew its false allegation that an ambulance had been blocked by their Harbour Bridge action, which has clear implications for Coco’s 15 March District Court appeal.

An inconvenient falsehood

“Initially, the police facts contained conveniently more damning statements – that an ambulance with sirens on was blocked – which upon scrutiny was not the case and this has real world implications for the protesters,” said climate defender Andrew George.

A supporter of Fireproof Australia, which is now called Stop Fossil Fuel Subsidies, George told Sydney Criminal Lawyers that prior to yesterday’s proceedings the Environmental Defenders Office had pushed NSW police for evidence relating to the delayed ambulance, which wasn’t forthcoming.

NSW police then withdrew this allegation from yesterday’s proceedings. But this suggested scenario featured heavily in Coco’s sentencing. 

Indeed, Magistrate Allison Hawkins was heard to chastise the activist in relation to the inconvenience caused to the non-existent patient in the ambulance.

“The updated police facts say there was no ambulance with sirens there,” George made clear. “This played a pretty big part in Violet’s sentencing, so it clearly should have big implications for minimising Violet’s current sentence.”

Silencing the messenger

In response to the rise in climate defending actions on the part of Fireproof and Blockade Australia, NSW police created climate activist-focused Strike Force Guard, while the Perrottet government enacted laws last April, establishing one of the most draconian antiprotest regimes on the planet.

These laws mean that climate defenders who conduct an unauthorised nonviolent protest that obstructs a major road, a bridge, a tunnel or a major facility can face up 2 years imprisonment and/or a fine of $22,000.

Glover and Fitz-Gibbon were placed on 18 month community correction orders (CCO) and fined $3,000 each for their first time offences. 

Although, on sentencing, they hadn’t blocked an ambulance like Coco and fellow bridge protester Jay Larbalestier supposedly had when they were in court.

In the 12 months since the NSW antiprotest regime and the dedicated police unit commenced operations, it’s been clear that authorities are using the threat of prison and steep bail conditions to silence climate defenders, rather than attempt to address the issue of the climate crisis.

“They were using everything in their power to stop people protesting at the time,” George recalled, “and that continued into the June Blockade Australia protests.”

“They had a hitlist of people they wanted to arrest and get onto bail conditions, which included arresting someone for having some gardening tools in a car and charging them with having a concealed weapon.”

So, now it appears not only are gaol time, remand and extreme bail measures being used to silence climate dissent, but false claims are being applied in the courts in that regard.

An erosion of rights

“We have fought the slow repression of police and the state in cracking down on protest every step of the way,” said NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Josh Pallas, in a statement issued following the 7 March sentencing of Glover and Fitz-Gibbon.

“But the fight is hard when the government is protecting mining and business interests and when the mainstream media side with government and large corporates with vested interests to stifle the right to protest.”

Pallas labelled NSW police “misstating the facts” in court as “outrageous”. And he added that the incident should be addressed and those involved in the spreading of falsehoods should be held accountable.

The lawyer added that the case provides a clear example of how the NSW Coalition government has been attacking the public’s right to peaceful assembly and to demonstrate. And this further has a stifling effect on freedom of expression.

“Climate protesters are being increasingly and disproportionately subjected to punitive legal action by Australian authorities and this has taken that legal action to a new extreme,” the NSWCCL president ended.

The Drop the Prison Sentence Against Violet Coco rally is taking place at Sydney’s Downing Centre Court at 8.30 am next Wednesday 15 March

Security Defects in TPM 2.0 Spec Raise Alarm

Security defects in the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 reference library specification expose devices to code execution attacks.

Security researchers at Quarkslab have identified a pair of serious security defects in the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 reference library specification, prompting a massive cross-vendor effort to identify and patch vulnerable installations.

The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2023-1017 and CVE-2023-1018, provide pathways for an authenticated, local attacker to overwrite protected data in the TPM firmware and launch code execution attacks, according to an advisory from Carnegie Mellon’s CERT coordination center. 

From the CERT alert:

“An authenticated, local attacker could send maliciously crafted commands to a vulnerable TPM allowing access to sensitive data. In some cases, the attacker can also overwrite protected data in the TPM firmware. This may lead to a crash or arbitrary code execution within the TPM. Because the attacker’s payload runs within the TPM, it may be undetectable by other components of the target device.”

“An attacker who has access to a TPM-command interface can send maliciously-crafted commands to the module and trigger these vulnerabilities. This allows either read-only access to sensitive data or overwriting of normally protected data that is only available to the TPM (e.g., cryptographic keys),” the center added.

Quarkslab researchers Francisco Falcon and Ivan Arce are credited with finding the bugs and leading an industry-wide coordinated vulnerability process ahead of Tuesday’s public advisory.

The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) responsible for maintaining the TPM spec has issued an Errata documenting the two memory corruption issues and providing mitigation guidance. 

The two vulnerabilities exist in the way the TPM reference spec processes parameters that are part of TPM commands. “An Out Of Bound (OOB) read vulnerability in the CryptParameterDecryption() routine allowed a 2-byte read access to data that was not part of the current session. It was also possible to write 2-bytes past the end of the current command buffer resulting in corruption of memory,” the center warned.

“An attacker with access to a device built with a vulnerable version of the TPM can trigger this bug by sending crafted commands to the TPM. The vulnerable TPM can thus be tricked to access data that is not part of the intended operation. As the OS relies on the TPM firmware for these functions, it may be difficult to detect or prevent such access using traditional host-based security capabilities,” it added.

This discovery has raised alarm bells because TPM technology is used in a variety of devices, from specialized enterprise-grade hardware to Internet of Things (IoT) appliances. With the growth of cloud computing and virtualization, software-based TPM implementations have also gained popularity. 

The CERT coordination center is urging users to apply any updates provided by hardware and software manufacturers through their supply chain as soon as possible.

“Updating the firmware of TPM chips may be necessary, and this can be done through an OS vendor or the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). In some cases, the OEM may require resetting the TPM to its original factory default values as part of the update process,” the center added.

In high-assurance computing environments, users should consider using TPM Remote Attestation to detect any changes to devices and ensure their TPM is tamper-proof. 

“As these attacks involve TPM-based software, mechanisms such as user-password or PIN protection and tpm-totp do not protect against attacks leveraging the [memory corruption]  vulnerabilities,” according to the advisory.

SecurityWeek