If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties‚ subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Judicial Watch has come forward with newly acquired evidence of an intriguing alliance during the US 2020 election. The investigative body was able to obtain‚ via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit‚ a series of records demonstrating a comprehensive synergy between the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and a controversial entity‚ the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP). These files reveal a concerted effort to execute “real-time narrative tracking” on principal social media networks during the critical days leading up to the 2020 election. Interestingly‚ these records illustrate instances of social media post “takedowns” and an intentional avoidance of creating public records that would be subject to the FOIA process. These records also allow us a peek into the operations of EIP. Originally known as the Election Misinformation Partnership‚ it invested in monitoring online election discourse round the clock‚ especially prioritizing “disinformation that is going viral.” A lawsuit launched under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) gave Judicial Watch access to the records. The lawsuit was deemed necessary in response to a lack of transparency from the DHS‚ which did not respond to a formal request submitted by Judicial Watch on October 5‚ 2022. This data was part of an extensive request by Judicial Watch that included all communication records between CISA and EIP‚ minute details of a meeting between DHS officials and EIP members on July 9‚ 2020‚ and all records of communication between CISA and Stanford University’s Internet Observatory or the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public‚ specifically regarding the Election Integrity Partnership‚ the 2020 US election‚ online misinformation and disinformation‚ or various social media platforms. The Election Integrity Partnership‚ established right before the Presidential elections in July 2020‚ was composed of four major entities: Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO)‚ the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab‚ University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public‚ and social media analytics firm Graphika. This partnership provided a valuable service to federal bodies‚ such as Homeland’s Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)‚ enabling them to file tickets for flagging or censoring specific social media posts and online stories. It also extended similar privileges to three liberal organizations – the Democratic National Committee‚ Common Cause‚ and the NAACP – along with the Homeland-funded Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center. In 2023‚ a report by the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government revealed the drastic evolution of CISA. Established in 2018 to protect critical infrastructure from cyber threats‚ it had emerged by 2020 as the central conduit for domestic surveillance and censorship of social media by the federal government. CISA’s focus shifted to reporting supposed disinformation on social media. By the following year‚ they had officially formed a team specializing in misinformation‚ disinformation‚ and malinformation. As criticism intensified in 2022 and 2023‚ CISA sought to obscure its activities‚ ostensibly serving a purely “informational” role despite judicious allegations of unconstitutional conduct. “These records show the lengths to which a ‘Homeland Security’ Deep State agency went in its effort to censor and suppress Americans during and after the 2020 election‚” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “That it took a federal lawsuit to extract these disturbing records should raise additional worries about what else this Biden administration is up to.” The post Documents Show DHS Agency “Real-Time Narrative Tracking” of Social Media Posts in 2020 appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties‚ subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Sign Up To Keep Reading This post is for Reclaim The Net supporters. Gain access to the entire archive of features and supporters-only content. Help protect free speech‚ freedom from surveillance‚ and digital civil liberties. Join Already a supporter? Login here The post Tips To Avoid YouTube’s Anti-Ad Block Detection and Reclaim Your Privacy appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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Any English-speaker who’s attempted to use an alphabetical keyboard will know just how accustomed we have become to the seemingly nonsensical QWERTY keyboard layout. But there’s still some debate as to why this design came into existence‚ and why‚ roughly 150 years after its inception‚ we have not adopted a more efficient alternative.The QWERTY (pronounced KWEHR-tee) layout’s name refers to the positioning of the first six letters on most Latin-based alphabet keyboards. The design was first patented in 1878 by Christopher Latham Sholes and is still considered the standard keyboard layout today.Although we are now all pretty familiar with the QWERTY layout‚ and would struggle to type without it‚ the letters don’t appear to follow any clear order. There is‚ however‚ some method to the madness.The history of QWERTYThe first practical typewriter was invented by Sholes in 1867 replacing the larger‚ more cumbersome Typographer. Beginning with the then-titled Type-Writer‚ Sholes and colleagues would go on to produce a number of keyboard formats starting with a 28-key‚ alphabetical iteration‚ eventually developing into the QWERTY format on the Sholes &; Glidden Type-Writer in 1874. The machine was then put into production through their partnership with gun manufacturer Remington.The original 1874 Sholes &; Glidden Type-Writers followed a similar design to Remington's sewing machines.Image credit: Dr. Bernd Gross via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)However‚ this wasn’t the final development of the format. In 1886‚ new company Wyckoff‚ Seamans &; Benedict (WS&;B) released the Remington Standard Type-Writer No. 2 which‚ to avoid Sholes’s patenting limitations‚ changed the design to feature M next to N and C exchanged for X. This is the QWERTY format keyboard we use today.With Remington becoming the sole producer of QWERTY format machines the layout was a resounding success‚ with more than 100‚000 QWERTY-based Remington typewriters in use across the US by 1890.In 1893‚ the Union Typewriter Company was formed by WS&;B and Charles Newell Fowler. The company was a shareholder in five of the leading typewriter companies and together formed the Typewriter Trust. With the five companies all adopting the QWERTY format‚ this layout became the standard.Theories around the function of QWERTYAs legend would have it‚ the reason QWERTY follows this precise order is to slow down the process of writing on a typewriter.Typewriters work by pressing a key which forces a steel type to hit a ribbon of ink before transferring that ink stamp onto the paper. The issue with this complex mechanism is that if more than one letter is hit in quick succession then the steel types get jammed.The supposed idea for the QWERTY layout was an attempt to prevent the keys from jamming by separating common letter pairings. On QWERTY keyboards‚ TH‚ ON‚ AN‚ CH‚ and IE all sit a good space apart‚ minimising the chances of the keys getting stuck by slowing down the typing process. There are‚ however‚ two keys that break this rule – E and R is the second most common character combination‚ and they’re famously right next to each other in the QWERTY layout.The slowing of the operator theory is‚ however‚ speculatory‚ and the true origins of the QWERTY keyboard are still debated. A 2011 paper aiming to disprove the use of the QWERTY format to slow down typing details the prehistory of the design.The paper claims the formatting of the keyboard was actually created accidentally while trying to make typing faster and more efficient for those translating from Morse code.“The code represents Z as ‘· · · ·’ which is often confused with the digram SE‚ more frequently-used than Z. Sometimes Morse receivers in United States cannot determine whether Z or SE is applicable‚ especially in the first letter(s) of a word‚ before they receive following letters. Thus S ought to be placed near by both Z and E on the keyboard for Morse receivers to type them quickly‚” the paper details.In direct opposition to the common belief‚ the Morse code idea suggests its function was to speed up typing by placing similar Morse-coded letters next to each other‚ increasing typing reaction time once the writer works out the Morse character. The Morse receiver needs to be as fast at typing as the Morse sender‚ so it would be counterintuitive to intentionally slow typing down.Another parallel theory surrounding the design suggests that it was Remington’s involvement with production that standardized the format. Remington worked as both a manufacturer of the QWERTY keyboard typewriters‚ as well as providing training courses on how to use them.The theory goes that by training typists on the QWERTY system‚ all companies that used typists trained by Remington would have to stock Remington brand typewriters‚ thus creating a self-sustaining system.Keyboard layout alternativesWhatever the events were that led to the conception of the QWERTY layout‚ the design is no longer optimized for modern-day typing habits. Even Sholes himself continued to propose more efficient alternative layouts for the rest of his life‚ filing his final patent in 1889‚ one year before he died.One of QWERTY’s most significant rivalries was with August Dvorak‚ a professor at the University of Minnesota‚ who proposed his own variation intent on increasing words per minute (WPM) titled the Dvorak keyboard.The layout of a Dvorak keyboard.Image credit: Unknown via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)Developed in the 1930’s and approved in 1982 by the American National Standards Institute‚ the Dvorak keyboard groups the most-used consonants on the right of the “home row” and the vowels on the left and is designed to be used in a back-and-forth motion between the left and right hands‚ evenly distributing the workload between hands.Additionally‚ Dvorak invented two more keyboards designed for those with just one hand (one keyboard for left and one for right). These reportedly allowed people to type efficiently with a single hand‚ up to speeds of 50 WPM.There is‚ however‚ still some debate surrounding the efficiency of the Dvorak keyboard‚ which is exacerbated by the fact that generally people become familiar with the QWERTY layout from a young age.In a 2019 piece by The Verge‚ writer Jon Porter details his experience using a Dvorak keyboard over a 10-year period. Porter states that to use the Dvorak keyboard‚ you are forced to learn how to touch type‚ which is of course more efficient than not touch typing on a QWERTY keyboard.Porter also points out the increased security of using a widely unfamiliar keyboard layout‚ as anyone watching your keystrokes would not instantly be able to work out what was written.Similarly‚ the more recent addition of the Colemak keyboard claims to have improved on both the QWERTY and the Dvorak system and is now the third most popular keyboard layout. But‚ overall‚ there isn’t any resounding evidence that suggests either the Dvorak or Colemak layout is significantly more efficient than QWERTY.The layout of a Colemak keyboard.Image credit: Unknown via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)However‚ now‚ in the age of touchscreens‚ a method was developed by researchers at the University of St Andrews in 2013 which is optimized to be used with the thumbs. Called KALQ (referring to the letters on the bottom right of the keyboard)‚ the layout splits the keys into 16 on the left and 12 on the right‚ with commonly used letters together and letter pairs on opposite sides.The researchers who devised the layout found that after training test participants for 10 hours‚ they were able to reach 37 WPM‚ whereas QWERTY users average around 20 WPM.While the system claims to allow tablet users to type 34 percent faster than QWERTY users‚ as it’s optimized for touchscreen use‚ it’s unlikely to replace the QWERTY system for physical computer keyboards.So‚ now‚ as the war of the keyboards takes a more futuristic turn‚ are we soon going to see the end of the legendary QWERTY‚ or are we all too set in our ways to bother?

Even science is prone to the occasional case of mistaken identity‚ particularly when it comes to figuring out what’s in a fossil. When Colombian priest Padre Gustavo Huertas found two small‚ round rocks with leaf-like patterns sometime between the 1950s and 70s‚ he classified them as fossilized plants. But on more recent examination‚ it was revealed the rocks weren’t the remains of ancient plant life after all – they were baby turtle shells.Huertas originally deemed the fossils to be specimens of the plant species Sphenophyllum colombianum. This was odd; the fossils dated to the Early Cretaceous‚ but other members of this plant’s genus were thought to have died out more than 100 million years before that time. Upon closer inspection of one of the fossils‚ researchers Fabiany Herrera and Héctor Palma-Castro noticed key plant features‚ such as its shape and veins‚ were missing. Instead‚ it looked more like bone. Palaeontologist Edwin-Alberto Cadena confirmed this was indeed the case – and that bone was the shell of a tiny turtle.“They sent me the photos‚ and I said‚ ‘This definitely looks like a carapace’ – the bony upper shell of a turtle‚” said Cadena. It also turned out that the visible part of the fossil was the underside of the turtle shell‚ which could explain why it was misidentified. What Huertas may have thought to be leaves and stems were instead the rib bones and vertebrae making up the shell. The more typically identifiable marks that could be used to compare to other turtles‚ both modern and fossilized‚ are found on the outside of the shell.The turtle fossil with rib and back bones superimposed.Image credit: Photo by Fabiany Herrera and Héctor Palma-Castro; drawing by Edwin-Alberto Cadena and Diego Cómbita-RomeroGiven the size of the turtles‚ this was something of a rare discovery. As Cadena explained‚ the bone in the shells of young turtles is very thin and so can be easily destroyed. As a result‚ there aren’t many fossils of turtle hatchlings around. The researchers determined that this particular turtle was somewhere between 0 and 1 year old when it died‚ with a slightly developed carapace. They also nicknamed it “Turtwig”‚ after the small‚ turtle-esque starter Pokémon that has a leafy twig on its head.As well as potentially providing insight into turtle development during the Cretaceous – some grew up to 4.5 meters (15 feet) – the researchers hope their discovery will have a wider impact on the field. “We resolved a small paleobotanical mystery‚ but more importantly‚ this study shows the need to re-study historical collections in Colombia‚” said Herrera.“Discoveries like these are truly special because they not only expand our knowledge about the past but also open a window to the diverse possibilities of what we can uncover‚” Palma-Castro added.The study is published in Palaeontologia Electronica.