● 08.20.21

Gemini ♊︎

● Links 20/8/2021: Reasons to Switch From Windows to GNU/Linux, Release of OpenSSH 8.7

Posted in News Roundup at 4:09 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ 8 Reasons to Switch from Windows to Linux

• As Windows 10 started to show a new face with a number of policy decisions that Microsoft made regarding its product, there’s been an observable upsurge in the number of people switching to Linux. This isn’t surprising as Linux has always been the perfect tool for privacy. If you are still on the fence, here are eight reasons why you should make the switch from Windows to Linux.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Linux overview | Zorin OS 16 core – Invidious

• In this video, I am going to show an overview of Zorin OS 16 core and some of the applications pre-installed.

=> ↺ Elementary OS 6 ODIN Released! A Whole New Experience With Application Sandboxing Technology (NEW!) – Invidious

• Elementary OS has taken a step in a whole new direction with its cutting-edge application sandboxing technology. This is a first-of-its-kind platform change that has the potential to be a massive update for Elementary OS as well as desktop Linux altogether.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Check file status on Linux with the stat command

• The stat command, included in the GNU coreutils package, provides a variety of metadata, including file size, inode location, access permissions and SELinux context, and creation and modification times, about files and filesystems. It’s a convenient way to gather information that you usually need several different commands to acquire.

=> ↺ Gitea installation on Ubuntu 20.04

• Gitea is one of the most well-known self-hosted Git servers and is written in the Go programming language. Gitea includes a file editor for the repository, user management, wiki, project issue tracking, and so on.

• Besides the many pros of Gitea, it’s also a lightweight application that doesn’t require much of the resources of your computer.

• This article will show you the steps to install Gitea on your Ubuntu 20.04 machine.

=> ↺ How To Install Budgie Desktop on Debian 11 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Budgie Desktop on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, the Budgie Desktop environment is popular because of its simplicity yet user-friendly and easy to use. Budgie uses GNOME technologies at its core and is integrated very well with the GNOME stack. Initially, developed as an individual desktop environment for Solus distribution (the then Evolve OS), the Budgie desktop gained popularity, and the Linux community embraced its simplicity.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the Budgie desktop environment on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

=> ↺ How to Install GNOME 40 on Ubuntu 21.04 – LinuxCapable

• GNOME 40 introduces many changes from visual changes, new apps, and overhaul back-end changes to improve performance. Overall, it is vastly different from what previous Gnome versions have looked before.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the new GNOME 40 on your Ubuntu 21.04 operating system.

=> ↺ How to Install LibreOffice 7.2 in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.10 | UbuntuHandbook

• The LibreOffice office suite 7.2 was released with many new features and improvements. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.04, and Ubuntu 21.10.

• LibreOffice is the default office suite available in Ubuntu as well as many other Linux Distributions out-of-the-box. It’s made up of a Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math, and database management tools, and supports the file formats of MicroSoft Office.

=> ↺ How to Upgrade Debian 10 (Buster) to Debian 11 (Bullseye)

• Debian 11, codenamed ‘bullseye’ was released on August 10th after nearly two years of development. This is a stable release and will receive support for the next 5 years just like any other Debian stable version.

=> ↺ How to set/play with the ArcoLinux Logout application, the ArcoLinux Betterlockscreen and the lock screen | ArcoLinux

• Our ArcoLinux Logout and ArcoLinux Betterlockscreen application have been around for a while. But every now and again the developers of betterlockscreen and i3lock will change their application. Then we adapt the code.

• We provide you a means to lock your system in several ways. You can choose your own wallpaper in the process.

• You can also choose the icons you like. Create new ones if you want. Another example to be creative with the logout application.

• Change font size, opacticy, size of the icons and more.

=> ↺ Install Flectra on Ubuntu 20.04 – Unixcop

• Flectra is a free and open-source CRM and ERP software that provides a lot of flexibility and customization that lets you meet the unique needs of your business.

• Also Flectra is the next generation business information system helps you grow your business, with powerful modular design covering all essential aspects of a busines.

• Flectra is a fork of Odoo Community and its main goal was to implement many features from Odoo Enterprise while still keeping it open for everyone to use.

=> ↺ Install and Configure Elasticsearch on Rocky Linux 8

• Elasticsearch is a free and open-source analytics engine used for storing, searching, and analyzing big volumes of data in real-time. It is written in Java and based on Apache Lucene. It is known for its speed, scalability, and powerful set of features. You can use it to monitor application performance, logging, and log analytics.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install ElasticSearch on Rocky Linux 8.

=> ↺ Linux Essentials – The sed Command – Invidious

=> ↺ it’s GNU

• In this episode of Linux Essentials, we explore the sed command. sed, aka the “stream editor” is an underused command, and that’s a shame because it’s extremely useful for manipulating text.

=> ↺ Best Way to Install Node.js and NPM on Rocky Linux 8 or AlmaLinux

• Here we learn the commands to install Nodejs and its package manager NPM on Rocky Linux 8 or AlmaLinux…

• Node.js is a framework based on the fastest JavaScript compiler currently available, Google V8. The focus is on high efficiency since asynchronous I/O, i.e. the connection of external resources such as the network or the file system. Since Node.js is based on JavaScript, the entry barrier is correspondingly low, at least for web developers. Node.js is an extremely interesting technology that allows you to develop complex and very scalable web applications with just a few lines of code.

• Whereas to download and install various packages & dependencies, Node.js comes with an official package manager called NPM (Node Package Manager).

=> ↺ openqa-cli Cheatsheet – openQA bites

• Checkout the new openqa-cli cheat sheet page where I start to collect some useful “how do I do …” snippets for the openQA CLI utility openqa-cli.

• The page aims at being a quick ready-to-be-use reference cheat sheet and not a complimentary documentation. Feel free to send me further suggestions via email or chat.

=> ↺ openqa-cli cheat sheet – openQA bites

• openqa-cli is a command-line utility for interacting with openQA. The tool is versatile and allows you to control and interact with an arbitrary openQA instance from the comfort of your command line. While the internal help is quiet comprehensive, I list some of the most basic tasks in the form of a tutorial or knowledge base here.

• Within this page the hostname duck-norris.host refers to a custom openQA instance. Replace it with your own hostname.

Games

=> ↺ Chess with lasers, Deflection confirmed for release on September 14

• Developed by the two-person studio Coreffect Interactive, the strategy game Deflection is set to release with native Linux support on September 14.

• It’s not exactly chess, although it does take some basic elements from it with gameplay inspired by both the classic Laser Chess and Khet. You face off against another player one on one, with you each trying to destroy the enemy’s king with your laser. Through the game you will move and rotate mirrors to bounce it around, use portals to move it across the board and more. Deflection looks like it will make your mind spin a little and quite a nice looking board-game styled strategy game. You’ll be able to fight against others online, fight the AI and create levels with the built in editor too.

=> ↺ Don’t sleep on the 2D action-RPG Chronicon with a big upgrade out now and DLC coming

• Chronicon is a game that I keep on coming back to because it’s just so good. A 2D action-RPG in the vein of Diablo made with GameMaker Studio 2 and it works great on Linux. Developer Subworld has managed to carve out something really quite special here, with over five thousand user reviews on Steam giving it an Overwhelmingly Positive score it’s easy to see why.

=> ↺ Is Proton an emulator? – Invidious

Desktop Environments/WMs

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ MATE Desktop 1.26 Released After 18 Month of Development

• MATE Desktop 1.26 adds new functions and some more Wayland support to various parts of the stack while maintaining the look and feel.

• The MATE desktop environment, as you probably know, is the continuation of the GNOME 2 desktop. When GNOME 3 came along, some folks weren’t happy with it and yearned for a continuation of their beloved GNOME 2 interface. The void created by the demise of GNOME 2 was filled by MATE, a fork that tries to keep the old alive and running.

• A few days ago, the official account of the project published the news of the launch of MATE 1.26 desktop environment. MATE release their stable release with even minor numbers. So the 1.24 and the 1.26 are stable releases, while 1.25 was the development branch in between.

Distributions

BSD

=> ↺ OpenSSH 8.7 released

• OpenSSH 8.7 has been released. Changes include steps toward deprecating scp and using the SFTP protocol for file transfers instead, changes to remote-to-remote copies (they go through the local host by default now), a stricter configuration-file parser, and more.

=> ↺ OpenSSH 8.7 Released With Experimental SFTP Support For SCP – Phoronix

• OpenSSH 8.7 is out today as the newest feature release for this widely-used SSH server/client software.

• With OpenSSH 8.7 the prominent changes primarily revolve around SCP work and preparing for future changes. OpenSSH 8.7 highlights include:

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Free Software NOT as in free speech, NOR as in free beer

• I don’t have any access to my Email ([email protected]) and my other FP resources (e.g. Fedora Ambassadors, Fedora People space, Git repo, etc.). My account was completely removed from Ask Fedora (I was an admin), all my posts in Ask Fedora (including the Welcome page for Farsi section) were removed, and…

• My purpose of writing this post is not to describe my situation in a personal matter. This offensive deletion was not the only case, for example, some time ago GitLab deleted the profiles of numerous Iranians (GitLab blocked Iranians’ access) and blocked Iran IP range, and it is still not possible to access GitLab from Iran. Before GitLab This was done by GitHub (although the problem has now been fixed).

• As for GitHub, we said to ourselves “yeah, This was expected from the new owner of GitHub (Microsoft)”, but my problem today is not about big proprietary commercial corporations, I am talking about free and open source projects that are increasingly restricting the access of Iranian users and in the most ridiculous case, they are blocking all Iranian IPs! which, as far as I know, is not mandatory, and US law does not force companies to block IPs, but only prohibits them from providing services and trading with Iran, which goes back to politics, but my current argument is not commercial or political.

=> ↺ Composable software catalogs on Kubernetes: An easier way to update containerized applications | Red Hat Developer

• Recently, I’ve been experimenting with how to build and use composable software catalogs on Kubernetes. Similar to Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but adapted for a container context, composable software catalogs let developers add tooling without building a new container image.

• This article explains how composable software catalogs use existing container technologies to build on the Software Collections model, and how they can potentially make more options available to container users, simplify builds, and reduce container image sizes.

=> ↺ Understanding garbage collection in Java, Part 1: Stages and levels of garbage collection

• Garbage collection is one of the great benefits of a high-level language. Garbage collection saves programmers from doing a lot of housekeeping, and it helps prevent the very serious errors that can arise from that housekeeping. However, garbage collection is performed by a background thread running at unpredictable times and can force the application to slow down or pause.

• One of the most important aspects of performance in a production application is choosing the right garbage collector and configuring it optimally. Optimal choices depend on each application’s behavior and requirements. Therefore, every Java developer should understand and follow recommended best practices for garbage collection.

• This article is the beginning of a four-part series about garbage collection in Java. The article describes the process and different levels of garbage collection and offers a few ways to view garbage collection in action. Subsequent articles will delve into more detail, help you choose your garbage collector, and show you how to track its effects.

=> ↺ MAKE MORE with Inkscape – G-Code Tools – Fedora Magazine

• Inkscape, the most used and loved tool of Fedora’s Design Team, is not just a program for doing nice vector graphics. With vector graphics (in our case SVG) a lot more can be done. Many programs can import this format. Inkscape can also do a lot more than just graphics. This series will show you some things you can do besides graphics with Inkscape. This first article of the series will show how Inkscape’s G-Code Tools extension can be used to produce G-Code. G-Code , in turn, is useful for programming machines such as plotters and laser engravers.

=> ↺ How cloud-native architectures can help cable operators prepare for DOCSIS 4.0

• With cable operators looking for ways to simplify their infrastructure for services, including fast data and voice transfer, critical transformation in the cable access network is taking shape. Multiple service operators (MSOs) are moving to a new generation of access network as they shift to digital optical solutions. MSOs are gradually migrating from centralized access architecture to distributed access architecture (DAA).

• Fortunately, Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications (DOCSIS) 3.1 technology is available—and DOCSIS 4.0 is on the horizon—to support the growth of hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) network symmetry both upstream and downstream (upload speed and download speed, respectively).

=> ↺ Build a lab in five minutes with three simple commands | Enable Sysadmin

• As sysadmins, we live at a frenetic day-to-day pace, maintaining and creating new systems, resolving issues and requirements as they are encountered, and inventing solutions to problems nobody knew existed the day before. With that kind of busy schedule, studying to learn new technologies can seem like a monumental challenge.

• Being able to study and test new technologies and software versions implies the risk of losing information. The risk increases if you do not have your own computer or one dedicated to this exclusive purpose and you instead have to use the same machine for both work and study (as in my case).

=> ↺ Artificial Intelligence (AI): 4 characteristics of successful teams

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly seen as a must-have technology that enables businesses to become agile and innovate at scale. IDC predicts global spending on artificial intelligence (AI) systems will increase from US $50 billion in 2020 to US $110 billion in 2024.

• But Gartner research estimates that 50 percent of AI implementations are struggling to get past the proof-of-concept stage and be implemented at scale. The reasons vary from overhyped expectations and lack of vision to inadequate data infrastructure and lack of skilled resources.

• Another important factor is the team that’s working on the AI programs. While AI teams may have the requisite tools and technologies, many lack other key capabilities – like mining for the right use cases and optimizing decision-making – that are essential for success.

=> ↺ Cockpit Project: Cockpit 251

• Cockpit is the modern Linux admin interface. We release regularly.

• Here are the release notes from Cockpit 251 and cockpit-machines 250:

• Certificate and smart card authentication for ssh and sudo

• Once you’ve logged into Cockpit with a client certificate, you’ll likely need to switch to administative mode, or connect to remote machines through SSH. If your machine is part of a FreeIPA domain, you can now set up constrained delegation rules so that the Cockpit certificate authentication gets forwarded to sudo and/or ssh. This is particularly useful if your user account does not have a password. Please see the Client certification documentation for details.

Debian Family

=> ↺ parkyLinux 6.0 Release is based on Debian 11 and Includes a Built-in VPN

• SparkyLinux 6.0 is a major stable update that utilizes Debian 11 ‘Bullseye’ as its base now.

• While you can go through the features of Debian 11, SparkyLinux 6.0 should reflect some of the perks associated with it.

• Here, we shall take a quick look at what SparkyLinux 6.0 has to offer.

• [...]

• To enhance privacy and security, SparkyLinux has decided to include the non-profit RiseUp VPN application pre-installed.

• It is a VPN service that relies on donations to keep the network alive and comes with cross-platform support. You can also find it available for Android devices.

• So, this makes it an interesting addition to the distribution. If you are not using any VPN service, this should make things easy.

• The FirstRun app has been replaced with an improved welcome app that guides you through some basic pointers.

=> ↺ Tails 4.22 Is Coming Soon! Contribute to Tails by Testing 4.22~rc1

• Tails, or “The Amnesic Incognito Live System”, recently released the latest version of its privacy-focused secure Linux distro, Tails 4.21, with various changes, bug fixes and improvements including an update to Tor Browser 10.5.4, an update to Thunderbird 78.12 and a fix for a bug in Tails Installer that enabled the deletion of Persistent Storage when doing a manual upgrade. With Tails 4.22 scheduled for release on September 7, the Tails team is asking users to contribute to Tails by testing the release candidate for Tails 4.22 by the end of August.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Vote in the Ubuntu 21.10 wallpaper competition

• The time has come. It’s time to vote for the 10 images you would like included in the official Ubuntu 21.10 release as optional wallpapers.

• [...]

• We would like to apologise to the artists and photographers and designers who participated. Especially those with high resolution, beautifully detailed images. Google forms simply do not do them justice. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a better platform to host the competition in the short amount of time we had to organise everything.

=> ↺ Snap usage metrics now available on the command line

• For years now, developers and publishers could view how well their snaps are performing in terms of usage and popularity through the Snap Store Web interface, using the metrics tab. This functionality allows people to examine the cause and effect of their work, like software updates, marketing campaigns, or other events. But it requires manual intervention.

• A new capability, currently under development and available in the edge channel of snapcraft, allows developers and publishers to check the usage metrics for their snaps from the command line. This means that actions can be scripted, and it is possible to establish trends based on collected data.

=> ↺ Learn How to Install Npm and Node.js on Ubuntu

• Node.js is effectively an open-source cross-platform JavaScript run-time environment. With Node.js enabled, you can run JavaScript on your Ubuntu machine without having to worry about opening any browsers. It’s built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine and it can be installed in multiple ways on Linux.

• Node.js is essential for building server-side and networking applications. This platform runs efficiently on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and macOS. Npm is the default package manager and is often tagged as the world’s largest software registry.

=> ↺ How To Install Reveal.js on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Reveal.js on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Reveal.js is an open-source HTML presentation framework. It’s a tool that enables anyone with a web browser to create fully-featured and beautiful presentations for free. It is built on open web technologies. It has a rich set of features including, Markdown content, nested slides, PDF export, and JavaScript APIs for controlling the slide navigation.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of Reveal.js on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

=> ↺ How to connect to an SFTP server in Ubuntu

• SFTP is a built-in feature of SSH, and once SSH is installed on a system, SFTP can be used to transfer files back and forth with a GUI or terminal. SFTP is especially useful with servers.

• In this guide, we’ll show you how to connect to SFTP servers on Ubuntu, as well as how to configure your own server to host. To get started, ensure you use the latest Ubuntu desktop, Server, or an OS based on Ubuntu.

Devices/Embedded

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Arduino #Include Teams Up With Ghanaian “Lab on Wheels” Education Project

• The Arduino #Include program was first announced as part of the 2021 Arduino Day event. Since then, the team has been refining exactly how #Include will help members of the Arduino community to spread our love of electronics around the world.

• One of the pilot programs has just taken delivery of equipment provided through #Include. This marks an exciting milestone for Arduino, its users, and a whole community of brand new Arduino lovers in Accra, Ghana.

=> ↺ Engineer’s guide to Industrial IoT in Industry 4.0 | Arduino Blog

• This is an edited version of a longer piece first published on Wevolver.

• In recent years, industrial enterprises are accelerating their digital transformation and preparing themselves for the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0). This digitization of production processes enables industrial organizations to implement agile and responsive manufacturing workflows, which rely on flexible Information Technology (IT) systems rather than on conventional Operational Technology (OT). This flexibility facilitates a shift from conventional Made-to-Stock (MTS) manufacturing to novel customizable production models like Made-to-Order (MTO), Configure-to-Order (CTO) and Engineering to Order (ETO).

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ New ways to share Wi-Fi credentials on Android 12 – gHacks Tech News

=> ↺ Nokia 3.4 picks the Android 11 feature update in Wave 1 rollout | Nokiamob

=> ↺ Redmi Note 8 starts receiving MIUI 12.5 update based on Android 11

=> ↺ Jio Phone Next: Explained: What is Android Go and will it make JioPhone Next a ‘real’ Android smartphone – Times of India

=> ↺ Google and Apple discussed an Android-iOS partnership years ago

=> ↺ Android hack makes life easier for left-handers

=> ↺ Want To Remove Meet Tab in Gmail On Your Android Phone Or iPhone? Here Is How To Do It

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ The Apache News Round-up: week ending 20 August 2021

• Happy Friday! We’ve had another great week –let’s review the Apache community’s activities…

CMS

=> ↺ Joomla 4 is Here with Bootstrap 5 Integration and More Friendly UI

• Joomla 4 core is built with modern technologies to become a more powerful and easy-to-use CMS platform. So let’s see what’s new.

• Joomla is an open source Content Management System (CMS) for publishing web content. It allows you to build web sites and powerful online applications. That and its zero price tag makes it a favorite option among many businesses and non-profit organizations.

• At 3.7% Joomla is the third most popular CMS system, with WordPress and Drupal ahead of it. With over 9% of all business websites, Joomla’s emphasis on accessibility, speed, security and SEO out of the box make it the CMS of choice for sites that want to expand and grow.

Programming/Development

Python

=> ↺ How To Read, Write & Parse CSV in Python – TecAdmin

• Have you ever needed to exchange information between the programs except using the variables? Have you ever thought or felt the need to have a text file to exchange data between the programs? Do you know about the idea of storing data/information into an external file and later extracting it when needed? Yes, we can store and transfer data between the programs using the file format known as CSV.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Why Does the Physical Universe Exist?

• The total energy of the universe exploded out of an infinitesimal pinpoint of reality erupting into the void of nonexistence, to cool and diffuse as the wake behind the expanding bow wave of the Event Horizon, precipitating into the swelling space-time of intergalactic, interstellar and interplanetary emptiness, and granulating into matter-energy that expresses gravitational potential by its mass distribution; that itself slowly contracts into accumulative material bodies, and ultimately into light-void centers of matter extinction that in their turn evaporate their confined energy by quantum flickering between existence and nonexistence, until those singularities of space-time pop back into nonexistence once voided of any reality.

• Will that cycling between existence and nonexistence also be enacted by the Event Horizon? Will it just diffuse away into the void of nonexistence?, or will it rebound into a new universal contraction?, or will it oscillate in some as yet unknown Limit Cycle alternating existences and nonexistences? Could we guess that such a coiling and uncoiling was inherent in the Totality, as reflected in the eddies of reality shed behind the Event Horizon and which we see as the cycles of birth, life, death and rebirth?, down to the coiling and uncoiling of the very molecules that convey the persistent genetic patterns of which we each are momentary expressions and disposable links of Life’s transmission?

Education

=> ↺ Biden Education Dept Threatens GOP Leaders With Legal Action, Federal Probes Over Mask Mandate Bans

• President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona warned Republican governors across the country on Wednesday that they could face federal investigations and legal action over their attempts to “block and intimidate” school districts into abandoning mask mandates.

• The president said he had ordered Cardona to use “all of his oversight authorities and legal action if appropriate” against governors including Greg Abbott in Texas, Doug Ducey in Arizona, and Ron DeSantis in Florida. Through executive action and legislation, several Republican governors have threatened to pull state and federal funding from school districts if they enforce mask requirements for students and teachers as the school year begins. School districts across the country are requiring universal masking in accordance with the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ “A Complete Failure of the State”: Authorities Didn’t Heed Researchers’ Calls to Study Health Effects of Burning Sugar Cane

• It was the eve of the 2015 harvest season in Florida’s heartland. As they did every year, sugar companies prepared to torch swaths of cane, a practice that sends plumes of smoke into the skies near rural Lake Okeechobee.

• This time, though, they faced mounting public criticism from residents and environmentalists, who claimed the smoke was making people sick. So on Sept. 30, industry leaders held a conference call with a special guest who tried to quell the objections: Pat Dobbins, the former head of a health department responsible for two Florida counties in the country’s largest cane-sugar-producing region.

=> ↺ Experts Warn Rich Nations’ Push for Boosters Could Lock in Vaccine ‘Apartheid’

• Scientists and public health experts are growing increasingly concerned that rich countries’ pursuit of Covid-19 vaccine boosters could entrench inequities that have left billions of people in poor regions of the world without access to a single dose, denying them protection from the surging Delta variant and prolonging the deadly global pandemic.

• “Anyone who thinks that vaccinating Americans with a third dose is not going to come at the expense of getting the vaccine to other places in the world… you’re just kidding yourself.”—Scott Hensley, University of Pennsylvania

=> ↺ Opinion | Mask Wars: The Revolution Will Be Creative

=> ↺ Biden to Challenge Bans on Mask Rules Using Students’ Civil Rights Protections

=> ↺ Unvaccinated Covid-19 Patients Strain Alabama Hospitals Amid Warning of ‘Potentially Apocalyptic’ Crisis

• Public health experts in Alabama warned Wednesday that the state’s intensive care unit bed shortage—largely the result of unvaccinated Covid-19 patients filling facilities to capacity—is likely to worsen, with one leading infectious disease specialist warning of “potentially apocalyptic” consequences ahead.

• “We’ve never been here before. We are truly now in uncharted territory in terms of our ICU bed capacity.”—Dr. Don Williamson, Alabama Hospital Association

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ Wanted: Disgruntled Employees to Deploy Ransomware

• Criminal hackers will try almost anything to get inside a profitable enterprise and secure a million-dollar payday from a ransomware infection. Apparently now that includes emailing employees directly and asking them to unleash the malware inside their employer’s network in exchange for a percentage of any ransom amount paid by the victim company.

Security

=> ↺ Security updates for Friday

• Security updates have been issued by Fedora (libtpms and mingw-exiv2), openSUSE (389-ds, aspell, c-ares, fetchmail, firefox, go1.15, go1.16, haproxy, java-1_8_0-openjdk, krb5, libass, libmspack, libsndfile, openexr, php7, qemu, and tor), Oracle (compat-exiv2-023 and compat-exiv2-026), and SUSE (389-ds, aspell, djvulibre, fetchmail, firefox, go1.15, go1.16, java-1_8_0-openjdk, krb5, libass, libmspack, nodejs8, openexr, postgresql10, qemu, and spice-vdagent).

=> ↺ Reproducible Builds (diffoscope): diffoscope 181 released

• The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version 181. This version includes the following changes:

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

• “Though these capabilities are intended to protect children and to reduce the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), we are concerned that they will be used to censor protected speech, threaten the privacy and security of people around the world, and have disastrous consequences for many children,” the letter states. 

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ More Than 750 US Military Bases Remain Around the World

=> ↺ Opinion | The All-American Base World

• It was the spring of 2003 during the American-led invasion of Iraq. I was in second grade, living on a U.S. military base in Germany, attending one of the Pentagon’s many schools for families of servicemen stationed abroad. One Friday morning, my class was on the verge of an uproar. Gathered around our homeroom lunch menu, we were horrified to find that the golden, perfectly crisped French fries we adored had been replaced with something called “freedom fries.”

=> ↺ 30 Years Ago, the Tanks Rolled Into Moscow—but We Refused to Be Silent

• On the morning of August 19, 1991, my husband called the dacha where I was with our son and said that tanks were approaching Moscow. I left the baby with the grandmothers, got in the car, and went to the magazine office. I worked at the weekly Ogonyok, which together with two other weeklies, Moscow News and Literary Gazette, formed the media vanguard of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms. Tanks were already at our office. The organizers of the anti-Gorbachev coup had stopped the publication of the magazine, along with other “democratic” media.

=> ↺ DC Bomb Threat Suspect Expressed Belief in Trump Reinstatement Conspiracy Theory

=> ↺ Celebrate the Heroes Who Warned Us That Afghanistan Would Be a Disaster

• Antiwar heroes deserve recognition and respect for telling us not to go into Afghanistan and, after we did, to get out despite being marginalized and ridiculed. They were lonely. Despite widespread reports of casualties among Afghan civilians and the glaring fact that the Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11, 88% of Americans—Democrats and Republicans alike—supported George W. Bush’s war three weeks after U.S. bombs began raining down on Kabul.

• Let’s celebrate the good guys.

=> ↺ UK Navy’s Public Brawl over Responsibility for Nuclear Mass Destruction

• The very public brawl — between Rear Admiral John Gower, a former submarine commander and retired leading ministry official, and the retired submarine Commander Robert Forsyth — appeared on the website of The Nautilus Institute, a British military think tank, in an exchange of six lengthy letters last year. And the open quarrel spotlighted the global debate over the legal status of nuclear weapons threats, politely known as “deterrence,” especially since the entry into force of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

• What caused the online uproar was Adm. Gower’s claim that British ballistic missile submarine captains do not have any right to even question, much less refuse an order to launch their nuclear weapons. The headline in a report on the clash in The Ferret of Scotland was, “Trident commanders ‘not legally responsible’ for nuclear attack.”

=> ↺ How Sexual Assaults are Treated in the Military

• “‘A Poison in the System’: The Epidemic of Military Sexual Assault” (August 3, 2021) is comprehensive in its coverage of the issues related to sexual assault in the military, but it is missing the big questions that need to be raised about women, who make up the vast majority of sexual assault cases in the military, and how they are treated by the military following an assault(s), how the chain of military command treats sexual assault, and how the VA deals with veterans who have been victims of assault. Not surprising within the Times article is the revelation that some victims of sexual assault have been assaulted again, that both enlisted men, officers, and commanders are perpetrators of sexual assault, and that women, who have been assaulted and brutalized, can often expect to be brutalized and traumatized again following the actual assault by the system of rules and adjudication of their claims within the military and the VA.

• In May 2019, the New York Times reported that the Defense Department noted a 50% increase in sexual assaults against women over two years.

Environment

=> ↺ ‘Resounding’ Climate Win as Judge Blocks Alaska Drilling Project Defended by Biden

• A federal judge on Wednesday tossed out construction permits for a sprawling, multibillion-dollar Alaska oil drilling project that the Trump administration approved and the Biden Interior Department defended in court earlier this year, infuriating Indigenous groups, climate advocates, and scientists.

• In a 110-page decision (pdf), Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court for Alaska ruled that the Trump administration failed to adequately consider the climate impacts of the Willow project, which—if completed—would produce up to 160,000 barrels of oil a day over a 30-year period.

=> ↺ ‘Victory for Environmental Justice’: Review Ordered for Proposed Cancer Alley Plastics Complex

• Environmental justice and climate campaigners celebrated after a federal official on Wednesday ordered a detailed review of the impacts of a massive Formosa Plastics complex set to be built on over 2,000 acres in an area of Louisiana long known as “Cancer Alley.”

• “Today’s announcement is the ultimate David v. Goliath victory.”—Anne Rolfes, Louisiana Bucket Brigade

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Oblivion awaits insects on which food crops rely

• As the bees start to buzz off, everybody could go hungry. If oblivion awaits insects, the rest of us won’t last long.

Finance

=> ↺ Sanders Traveling to Indiana and Iowa to Pitch $3.5 Trillion Spending Plan to Working Americans

• With both the Democrats’ policy priorities and the upcoming 2022 elections in mind, Sen. Bernie Sanders will travel next week to Republican districts in Indiana and Iowa to speak with voters about the $3.5 trillion spending plan that he’s hailed as the boldest federal budget proposal since the New Deal.

• The Vermont Independent will talk with constituents about how the spending plan, on which he led negotiations as the Senate Budget Committee chairman and which he and Democrats unveiled earlier this month, will improve the lives of working people across the country while demanding that wealthy households and corporations pay their fair share.

=> ↺ Opinion | The Hourly Minimum Wage Should Be $26

=> ↺ Executives Cut Their Own Salaries to Save Even More on Taxes Under Trump Law

=> ↺ Opinion | Let’s Pull the Child Tax Credit from the Ashes of the Social Infrastructure Bill

• With surprising bipartisan support, the Senate recently approved a $1trillion infrastructure bill to improve America’s crumbling roads, bridges, and transit systems. It faces a tough road in the House though, where the Progressive Caucus has said it will not vote on the bill unless the Senate also passes a separate $3.5 trillion piece of social legislation that would invest in education, childcare, and paid family leave.

=> ↺ Progressives Say ‘Do This for Everyone’ as Biden Erases Student Debt for People With Severe Disabilities

• The Biden administration announced Thursday that it is moving to wipe out $5.8 billion in federal student loan debt held by more than 300,000 people with severe disabilities, a step progressives welcomed while also demanding that such relief be extended to every borrower in the United States.

• “Grateful that the Biden administration has formally recognized its authority to cancel student debt. He must now do this for everyone.”—Rep. Mondaire Jones

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Opinion | How California’s Top Democrats Paved the Way for a Republican Governor This Fall

• Four weeks from now, a right-wing Republican could win the governor’s office in California. Some polling indicates that Democrat Gavin Newsom is likely to lose his job via the recall election set for Sept. 14. When CBS News released a poll on Sunday, Gov. Newsom’s razor-thin edge among likely voters was within the margin of error. How this could be happening in a state where Republicans are only 24 percent of registered voters is largely a tale of corporate-friendly elitism and tone-deaf egotism at the top of the California Democratic Party.

=> ↺ Anti-Vaxxers and the Unvaccinated: False Consciousness in a Time of Pandemic

• On Twitter, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) claimed that neither vaccines nor masks reduce Covid transmission.  On her Facebook page, she insisted, “You’re going to be arrested if you don’t wear a mask that, guess what, doesn’t work.”  Adding, “It’s likely a little piece of cloth covering your face, or a napkin, like a paper mask – those don’t stop Covid from spreading, either.”

• In response, YouTube and Twitter suspended both pols and YouTube removed Paul’s video for promoting disinformation about the pandemic.  And Facebook has done nothing.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Feds Targeted BLM Activists to Foil Racial Justice Protests: Report

• As Black Lives Matter protests grew across the U.S. following the police murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, so did the federal government’s persecution of activists who marched in support of racial justice.

• “Everyday Americans are now facing prison sentences in more distant locations, higher maximums and mandatory minimums, and no chance of parole as a result of exercising their First Amendment rights.”—Princess Masilungan, CLEAR

=> ↺ Documents Show NYPD Has A Secret Surveillance Tech Slush Fund

• About a half-decade ago, public records requesters discovered the Chicago Police Department had been spending seized funds on surveillance equipment like Stingray devices. The forfeiture fund was apparently completely discretionary and the PD used this steady supply of cash to make purchases not specifically approved by the city. It also allowed the department to elude direct oversight of surveillance activities and ensure the public was unable to interrupt the procurement process with pesky comments and questions.

=> ↺ Why The EU Needs To Get Audits For Tech Companies Right

• Discussions over the right – or at least a good – way to regulate big tech companies are heating up in the European Union (EU). Several legislative proposals are set to be negotiated, with public and behind-the-scenes lobbying in full swing already. As with any regulation, a key question is how to hold corporate decisionmakers accountable for their actions and how to create transparency. Some of the ways this has typically been done in other industries include legally mandated corporate compliance regimes, rules for financial or supply chain transparency and mandatory risk assessments and audits. These ideas are coming to the tech sector now, too, especially with the draft “Digital Services Act” (DSA). The DSA suggests new due diligence rules for platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, for example, regarding what processes are in place for content moderation and how they deal with potential infringements on users’ fundamental rights. Audits are introduced to check whether companies comply with the DSA’s due diligence rules.

Monopolies

=> ↺ Antitrust Experts Welcome FTC’s Revised Suit Against Facebook as ‘Huge and Promising Step’

• In a move celebrated by progressives, the Federal Trade Commission filed a revised antitrust lawsuit against Facebook on Thursday, providing additional data and stronger details to back up its allegations that the corporation has maintained a monopoly on social media services for the past decade by “illegally acquiring innovative competitors and burying successful app developers.”

• “While Facebook could buy or bury competitors, it can neither buy nor bury the revitalized FTC under new Chairperson Lina Khan.”—Ed Mierzwinski, U.S. PIRG

=> ↺ Most Americans Favor Investing in Global Covid-19 Vaccine Production: Poll

• As the Delta variant drives a worrying surge in Covid-19 cases around the world, over three-quarters of American voters say they’re concerned about global vaccine inequality, while nearly 70% want the U.S. government to invest in a global vaccine manufacturing program.

• “Americans understand that ending the pandemic anywhere means ending it everywhere.”—Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi

Copyrights

=> ↺ ‘Blue Line’ Apparently Doesn’t Apply To Bad Cops Abusing Copyright Law To Prevent Citizens From Uploading Recordings

• Last month, Sergeant David Shelby of the Alameda County (CA) Sheriff’s Office inducted himself into the Hall O’ Internet Infamy by openly admitting to people filming him that he was playing copyrighted music on his phone in hopes of terminating live streams, recordings, and police accountability activists’ accounts.

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