Link Roundup February 2018

Polish Jews stunned, scared by eruption of anti-Semitism

Amid Israeli criticism, a prominent Polish right-wing commentator used an offensive slur to refer to Jews. Rather than being punished, he was welcomed on TV programs, including a state television talk show where he and the host made anti-Jewish comments, including jokes about Jews and gas chambers.

Do Not, I Repeat, Do Not Download Onavo, Facebook’s Vampiric VPN Service

Facebook, however, purchased Onavo from an Israeli firm in 2013 for an entirely different reason, as described in a Wall Street Journal report last summer. The company is actually collecting and analysing the data of Onavo users. Doing so allows Facebook to monitor the online habits of people outside their use of the Facebook app itself. For instance, this gave the company insight into Snapchat’s dwindling user base, even before the company announced a period of diminished growth last year. To put it another way, Onavo is corporate spyware.

HOUSE VOTES TO GUT THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT TO NIP 'ABUSIVE LAWSUITS'

The bill would effectively gut the ADA, detractors argue. Without a fear of being sued, businesses might be inclined to ignore ADA compliance rules. Critics of the bill also believe people with disabilities should not bear the responsibility of making sure businesses are compliant with the law.

New Zealand goose: How one blind bisexual bird became an icon

Henry and Henrietta went on to have 68 cygnets over the next six years. Thomas decided to stick around with the duo where he played the role of a doting uncle, helping raise the swans, teaching them how to fly and taking care of them when their parents did not.

Salon magazine mines crypto-cash with readers' PCs

"I've opted-in to Salon's new revenue model using Coinhive," wrote security researcher Troy Mursch. "100% of my CPU [central processing unit] is now used by them to mine cryptocurrency. As my computer slows to crawl and quickly begins to heat up, I struggle to navigate their website."

The female price of male pleasure

So let's actually talk bodies. Let's take bodies and the facts of sex seriously for a change. And let's allow some women back into the equation, shall we? Because if you're going to wax poetic about male pleasure, you had better be ready to talk about its secret, unpleasant, ubiquitous cousin: female pain.

FEMA To End Food And Water Aid For Puerto Rico

"If we're giving free water and food, that means that families are not going to supermarkets to buy," De La Campa said. "It is affecting the economy of Puerto Rico. So we need to create a balance. With the financial assistance we're providing to families and the municipalities, they're able to go back to the normal economy."

THE DIRTY WAR OVER DIVERSITY INSIDE GOOGLE

In interviews with WIRED, 15 current Google employees accuse coworkers of inciting outsiders to harass rank-and-file employees who are minority advocates, including queer and transgender employees. Since August, screenshots from Google’s internal discussion forums, including personal information, have been displayed on sites including Breitbart and Vox Popoli, a blog run by alt-right author Theodore Beale, who goes by the name Vox Day. Other screenshots were included in a 161-page lawsuit that Damore filed in January, alleging that Google discriminates against whites, males, and conservatives.

MIA: THE LIBERAL MEN WE LOVE

Much has been written of the ways Trump gaslights, but far less has been said of the innumerable relationships drained of normalcy, of the ongoing and daily glare of current affairs in which somehow every day is worse. Who is it that said that when fascism eventually comes to America, it will be draped in the flag and holding the cross? I think it is worth adding that it will wear the face you love.

‘YOU WANT A DESCRIPTION OF HELL?’ OXYCONTIN’S 12-HOUR PROBLEM

When many doctors began prescribing OxyContin at shorter intervals in the late 1990s, Purdue executives mobilized hundreds of sales reps to “refocus” physicians on 12-hour dosing. Anything shorter “needs to be nipped in the bud. NOW!!” one manager wrote to her staff. Purdue tells doctors to prescribe stronger doses, not more frequent ones, when patients complain that OxyContin doesn’t last 12 hours. That approach creates risks of its own. Research shows that the more potent the dose of an opioid such as OxyContin, the greater the possibility of overdose and death.

Browser as Botnet, or the Coming War on Your Web Browser

While conducting this research, I also found myself conducting, *ahem… cough, cough*, other research on The Pirate Bay 🏴‍☠️. I happened to have my system CPU monitor open because I was testing some botnet code a few minutes before and I noticed something peculiar. When I opened certain links on The Pirate Bay my CPU usage would spike to ~80% on all cores. When I navigated away from those links the usage would fall. Had I found an instance of the very abuse that I was studying live in the wild?