● 02.16.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 16/2/2022: IBM in Very Hot Water Over Ageism

Posted in News Roundup at 6:44 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ 2021 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Award Winners

• The polls are closed and the results are in. We once again had some extremely close races (and multiple ties) and the large number of new categories this year certainly kept things interesting.

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ How To Turn Your Mac Or Windows PC Into A Chromebook With Chrome OS Flex

• Google has debuted a new ‘Flex’ version of Chrome OS that it says can revive old Windows PCs and Macs by turning them into Chromebooks. The adoption of Chromebooks has been increasingly in the education sector recently, thanks largely to their ease-of-use and affordable pricing. The new software will now enable users to turn their regular PCs and Macs into Chromebooks.

=> ↺ Chrome OS Flex for PC and Mac Users Announced, Brings Chromebook Features to All Computers

• In a blog post, Google has detailed the new free-to-download Chrome OS Flex operating system that is built for businesses and schools. Just like Chrome OS, the new operating system offers access to Web apps and virtualisation, boots up quickly, and offers background system updates, according to Google. Chrome OS Flex will also offer proactive security with sandboxing and protection against viruses, ransomware, and phishing. The company says that Chrome OS Flex can be deployed quickly via USB sticks or network deployment, and a user’s cloud profile, settings, bookmarks and policies will sync after they log in.

=> ↺ Google’s Linux-based Chrome OS Flex is a huge threat to Windows 11, and Microsoft should be extremely worried

• Windows 11 is a really good operating system, but it is overkill for many home and education users these days. Not to mention, it can be risky to use since there is so much malware designed for it. Even for business, many companies are exclusively using web-based solutions in the browser, making Windows unnecessary for them. And so, Chromebooks are becoming more and more popular. They are affordable, easy to use, and extremely secure.

• If a company wants to switch to Chromebooks from Windows laptops, however, there is a big dilemma — what should be done with existing computers? After all, Chrome OS cannot be installed on computers that didn’t ship with Chrome OS, right? Well, actually, this is changing…

• Following Google’s 2020 acquisition of Neverware — a company that developed and maintained the Chromium OS-based CloudReady operating system — the search giant is putting that acquired technology to good use. You see, CloudReady is becoming an all-new operating system called “Chrome OS Flex.”

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Mozilla & Meta Develop “Privacy” Friendly Advertising – Invidious

• Mozilla & Meta is an unlikely combo and they are here to bring you Interoperable Private Attribution a so called private means to collect advertising data.

Kernel Space

Bootlin

=> ↺ Bootlin contributions to OP-TEE 3.15 and 3.16 – Bootlin’s blog

• Last year, Bootlin started contributing to the OP-TEE project, which is an open source Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) implemented using the Arm TrustZone technology. We published a blog post about our contribution of a generic clock framework to OP-TEE, and also presented a talk OP-TEE: When Linux Loses Control (slides, video).

• As part of this work, Bootlin engineer Clément Léger contributed to the OP-TEE project, and many of his contributions have already been merged, and released as part of the 3.15 and 3.16 OP-TEE releases. In this blog post, we present some details of our contributions to OP-TEE so far, and our next steps.

=> ↺ Opdenacker: Using Device Tree Overlays, example on BeagleBone boards

• Over on the Bootlin blog, Michael Opdenacker has an introduction to using device tree overlays to support changes to the standard device tree definition for a particular system-on-chip (SoC). This allows users to add new hardware or modify the hardware configuration for their system relatively easily—and without recompiling the kernel or the full device tree source files.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Gemini: TLS and its discontents

• Encryption schemes like TLS aim to provide three things: authentication, integrety, and (transmission) confidentiality. Gemini fails to provide two of them.

=> ↺ Beware of trying to compare the size of subtrees with du

• One of the things I like to do to understand space usage is to use du to look at both the aggregate usage of a directory tree and a breakdown of where the space is going (often with the handy -h options to GNU du and sort). This is also something you may wind up doing if you want to compare the disk space usage of two versions of a directory tree and its subtrees (for example, the disk space usage in / for two systems). However, there is a somewhat subtle trap hiding in a comparison of subtree sizes, and that trap is hardlinks.

=> ↺ How to Set or Change Timezone on Debain 11 – Cloudbooklet

• How to Set or Change Timezone on Debian 11. In this guide you are going to learn how to configure or setup your own timezone on Debian server.

• Setting up a correct timezone is necessary on your server for some cronjob or any system related processes. By default, when a server is provisioned a default timezone will be configured automatically with the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). You can change the timezone later using the below method.

=> ↺ Install/Upgrade Linux Kernel 5.16 on Debian 11 Bullseye – LinuxCapable

• Linux kernel 5.16 has many new features, support, and security. The Linux 5.16 kernel release has a great new feature, FUTEX2, or futex_watv(), which aims to improve the Linux gaming experience, growing considerably with better native Linux porting for Windows games utilizing Wine.

• Other improvements have seen write include improved write congestion management task scheduler for CPU clusters sharing L2/L3 cache, amongst many other additions. More information can be found on the Linux 5.16 Kernel release changelog.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the latest 5.16 Linux Kernel on Debian 11 Bullseye.

=> ↺ How to install PgHero on Ubuntu 20.04

• Hello, friends. In this post, we will help you to install PgHero on Ubuntu 20.04 using an external repository and get to know better your PostgreSQL instance.

=> ↺ Install Timeshift on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – LinuxCapable

• Timeshift is a powerful open-source tool that can help you protect your data. It allows you to create incremental snapshots of your filesystem, which can be browsed with a file manager. In BTRFS mode, snapshots are taken using the in-built features of the BTRFS filesystem if you’re looking for a reliable way to back up your data.

• Timeshift is worth considering for all users as it is handy when you need to restore, which often happens with Linux systems when you start off learning, amongst many other examples.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install TimeShift on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish.

=> ↺ Building a Docker image in Jenkinsfile and publishing to ECR – Octopus Deploy

• In this post, you learn how to build and push the Octopus Deploy underwater app to Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) using Jenkins.

=> ↺ Creating an EKS cluster in AWS

=> ↺ How to install the Opera browser on Zorin OS 16 – Invidious

• In this video, we are looking at how to install the Opera browser on Zorin OS 16.

=> ↺ How to set up Kubernetes Cluster on Debian 11 with kubeadm and CRI-O

• Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Google originally designed Kubernetes, but the Cloud Native Computing Foundation now maintains the project. It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery.

• Kubeadm is a tool used to build Kubernetes (K8s) clusters. Kubeadm performs the actions necessary to get a minimum viable cluster up and running quickly.

• In this guide we will learn how to use kubeadm to set up a kubernetes cluster in Debian 11.

=> ↺ How to install Game Jolt on a Chromebook

• Today we are looking at how to install Game Jolt on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

• This tutorial will only work on Chromebooks with an Intel or AMD CPU (with Linux Apps Support) and not those with an ARM64 architecture CPU.

• If you have any questions, please contact us via a YouTube comment and we would be happy to assist you!

=> ↺ How to Install CRI-O Container Runtime on Debian 11

• Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Google originally designed Kubernetes, but the Cloud Native Computing Foundation now maintains the project. It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. Kubeadm is a tool used to build Kubernetes (K8s) clusters. Kubeadm

=> ↺ Unable to Format a USB Drive on Ubuntu? Here’s What to Do

• Are you having trouble formatting a USB stick on Ubuntu? This guide will show you how to format a USB or hard drive that cannot be otherwise formatted due to the error: udisks-error-quark, 11 (Error in formatting volume). This error usually occurs when your storage device has several partitions in it.

• In this article, we’ll take a look at the root cause behind this error, and how you can fix it to make your USB drive usable again.

=> ↺ What Are Floating IPs In DigitalOcean? – CloudSavvy IT

• DigitalOcean’s Floating IPs are a way of reserving public IP addresses that are independent of your compute resources. They provide a way to rapidly reroute traffic between your assets without waiting for DNS changes to take effect.

• Compute components such as Droplets come with their own IPv4 address that facilitates public access. When you destroy a Droplet, you lose your rights to its IP. That address will go back into the pool that’s available to new Droplet creations.

• Floating IPs are yours for as long as you need them. Once you’ve been allocated an IP, it can be attached to any eligible resource or sit dormant in your account for the future. Destroying a Droplet that’s targeted by a floating IP will keep the address available in your account, removing only the Droplet-specific IP allocated at the time of the Droplet’s creation.

=> ↺ 3 Strategies for Automated Production Deployments With Docker – CloudSavvy IT

• Docker is a popular development tool as it simplifies starting isolated instances of your application with a reproducible configuration. It can also be used in production where it ensures live deployments are identical to your development environment.

• Getting a container into production isn’t always as straightforward as running docker run on your local machine. It’s not a great idea to be manually pushing images to a registry, connecting to a remote Docker host, and starting your containers. This relies on human intervention so it’s time consuming and error prone.

• In this guide, we’ll look at three different strategies you can use that make it easy to automate Docker deployments and maintain consistent configuration. These approaches can be scripted as part of a CI pipeline to start new containers each time your code changes. You’ll need to build your Docker images and push them to a registry as the first stage in your script, then use one of the techniques below to pull the image and start containers in your production environment.

Games

=> ↺ CheckMyDeck – Steam Deck Verified at a Glance – Boiling Steam

• While SteamDB is a great website to see which titles have been Steam Deck Verfied, there’s a new kid around the block — CheckMyDeck. This website allows you to quickly see what titles are Verified or not, based on the games available in your Steam library.

=> ↺ iFixit: Teardown of Steam Deck and Now An Authorized Seller of Steam Deck Parts – Boiling Steam

• For a long time, we were wondering when Steam Deck replacement parts were going to be available. Valve said at the Steam Deck conference that they were going to sell them at some point, but we didn’t know when or who would be selling them. Well, today Valve has mentioned in their blog post that they will be partnering with iFixit and make them an authorized seller of individual Steam Deck components. The post went on to mention “we are still hammering out the details, and will be sharing more info on this soon.” Still, great to hear some news on this.

=> ↺ PS2 Memory Card ISO Loader Offers Classic Gaming Bliss | Hackaday

• It used to be that to play a console game, you just had to plug in a cartridge or put a CD/DVD in the optical drive. But these days, with modern titles ballooning up to as much as 100 GB, you’ve got no choice but to store them on the system’s internal hard disk drive. While that can lead to some uncomfortable data management decisions, at least it means you don’t have to get up off the couch to switch games anymore.

• Which is precisely why the MC2SIO project for the PlayStation 2 is so exciting. As [Tito] explains in his latest Macho Nacho Productions video, this simple adapter lets you connect an SD card up to the console’s Memory Card slots and use that to hold ISOs of your favorite games. With the appropriate homebrew software loaded up, your PS2 becomes a veritable jukebox of classic games.

=> ↺ Valve Releases Proton 7.0 with Major Improvements for Linux Gaming

• Based on Wine 7.0 and DXVK 1.9.4, Proton 7.0 comes with major improvements for Linux gaming, including improved audio support for the Skyrim and Fallout 4 games, support for local decoding of H264 videos, and initial support for legacy EAC (Easy Anti-Cheat) with the Star Wars: Squadrons and Knockout City video games already playable and many others coming soon.

• Of course, numerous Windows games are now playable on Linux thanks to Proton 7.0. These include Anno 1404, Call of Juarez, DCS World Steam Edition, Disgaea 4 Complete+, Dungeon Fighter Online, Epic Roller Coasters XR, Eternal Return, Forza Horizon 5, Gravity Sketch VR, Monster Hunter Rise, NecroVisioN, and Nights of Azure.

Distributions

EasyOS

=> ↺ Widescreen wallpaper truncated horizontally for non-widescreen

• This has been a bug forever, in EasyOS, Quirky and all the pups. The wallpaper is (usually) in /usr/share/backgrounds. Around mid-2000′s, wide-screen displays started to appear, whereas most Linux and Windows wallpaper had proportions suited to conventional non-widescreen proportions, such as 1024×768.

• So that wallpapers would display undistorted on a widescreen, in 2009 I wrote /usr/sbin/background_reshape, that truncated the image, cutting equal amounts off top and bottom, creating a wide-screen image to suit the screen.

• Various people worked on that script, to improve the maths, including old-forum members ‘Karl Godt’ and ‘wjaguar’. Those guys seem to be long gone, but I would like to acknowledge their contribution.

• A fundamental problem with the original ‘background_reshape’ is that it modified the image file in-place, permanently changing the file in /usr/share/backgrounds. Not good if you change the screen proportions, perhaps if change the monitor. To fix that, the script was modified, the original image was stored in folder /usr/share/backgrounds_original.

=> ↺ Linux kernel 5.10.93 compiled

• I experienced 5.10.94 is broken, and still serious issues with 5.10.99. So for EasyOS 3.4 have stayed with 5.10.90.

New Releases

=> ↺ Kali Linux 2022.1 released: New tools, kali-linux-everything, visual changes

• Visually refreshed and with improved usability for visually impaired users, it comes also with a new “kali-linux-everything” image, wider compatibility for Kali’s SSH client, and new tools.

• [...]

• Kali Linux 2022.1 is ready for immediate download or updating.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Making ‘Dinobabies’ Extinct: IBM’s Push for a Younger Work Force

• A trove of previously sealed documents made public by a Federal District Court on Friday show executives discussing plans to phase out older employees and bemoaning the company’s relatively low percentage of millennials.

• The documents, which emerged from a lawsuit contending that IBM engaged in a yearslong effort to shift the age composition of its work force, appear to provide the first public piece of direct evidence about the role of the company’s leadership in the effort.

=> ↺ [Reposted] IBM executives called older workers ‘dinobabies’ who should be ‘extinct’ in internal emails released in age-discrimination lawsuit

• Internal emails show IBM executives calling older workers “dinobabies” and discussing plans to make them “an extinct species,” according to a Friday filing in an ongoing age-discrimination lawsuit against the company.

• The documents were submitted as evidence of IBM’s efforts “to oust older employees from its workforce,” and replace them with millennial workers, the plaintiff alleged. It’s the latest development in a legal battle that first began in 2018, when former employees sued IBM after the company fired tens of thousands of workers over 40 years old.

=> ↺ IBM emails show millennial workers favored over ‘Dinobabies’

• IBM executives discussed in emails how to force out older workers and derided them as “Dinobabies” who should be made an “Extinct species,” according to a court filing in an age discrimination case against the company.

• The communications show “highly incriminating animus” against older employees by officials who at the time were in the company’s “highest ranks,” according to the filing Friday.

• The partially redacted filing says the emails surfaced in separate arbitration proceedings but it doesn’t reveal the identities of the company officials or indicate when they were speaking. A judge has ordered the release of versions of the underlying documents.

=> ↺ IBM ‘dinobabies’: Internal documents show executives discussed plans to make older workers an ‘extinct species’

• Shannon Liss-Riordan, a renowned employment lawyer who has represented employees in disputes against Amazon, Google, and Uber, then filed a class-action complaint on behalf of three former IBM employees in federal court in Manhattan, alleging that that tech giant discriminated against them based on their age when it fired them.

• According to Bloomberg, a court document in the case, unsealed last week, showed that senior IBM officials were directly involved in conversations about the need to shrink the company’s older staff population, sometimes referring to them using terms like “dinobabies.”

• As per the filing, IBM executives expressed dissatisfaction over the fact that the company had a smaller percentage of millennials in its staff than a rival firm, and said that the situation would change following the lay-offs.

=> ↺ IBM emails show millennial workers favored over ‘dinobabies’

• The case is Lohnn v. International Business Machines Corp., 21-cv-06379, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

=> ↺ Zettaset Announces Expanded Collaboration with Red Hat

• Zettaset, a leading provider of data protection solutions, today announced an expanded collaboration with Red Hat to bring its next generation XCrypt Full Disk Encryption solution to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system. This new release from Zettaset delivers improved data security features within enterprise Linux environments to help customers meet end-to-end data protection requirements and better protect their digital assets.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ GIGABYTE Partners with Canonical to Certify Servers for Ubuntu

• High performance server and workstation maker GIGABYTE Technology today announced a partnership with Canonical to certify servers for the Ubuntu Server operating system to enable systems to be “quickly and confidently deployed,” GIBABYTE said.

• As part of GIGABYTE’s commitment to certifying enterprise solutions and to help customers with rapid deployment, GIGABYTE routinely works with partners to get server qualifications that ensure the software will be compatible with the hardware and the systems will be able to get up and running in no time. Partnering with Canonical further extends the depth of certification that GIGABYTE provides to better support end users with their flavor of OS.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Elkhart Lake powers Mini Type 10, Qseven, and embedded PC products

• DFI unveiled a Linux-friendly “EHL Series” of embedded products based on Intel’s Elkhart Lake, including the “ED700-EHL” industrial computer, “EHL9A2” Mini Type 10, and “EHL7000” Qseven module.

• Last August, we covered DFI’s EHL171 and EHL173 thin Mini-ITX boards, which are based on Intel’s Atom x6000 Elkhart Lake processors. Now, DFI has formally announced the boards along with three other EHL (Elk Hart Lake) Series products. The ED700-EHL embedded system, EHL9A2 COM Express Mini Type 10 module, and a more preliminary “EHL7000” Qseven module ship with Linux and Win 10 IoT Enterprise and offer 15-year lifecycle support.

=> ↺ Embedded mini-PC builds on 3.5-inch RK3399 SBC

• Seco Edge has launched a “Pictor” mini-PC that runs Linux on a Rockchip RK3399 via Seco’s 3.5-inch “Solon” SBC. Features include 4GB LPDDR4, optional 64GB eMMC, 2x CAN, HDMI 2.0a, and 4x USB, including a USB 3.0 Type-C with DP.

• While covering Elkhart Lake based Icarus SBC and Atlas and Halley modules from Seco’s embedded unit, Seco Edge, we noticed that on Feb. 3 the company announced a 181 x 109 x 75mm Pictor embedded computer built around Seco’s Rockchip RK3399-based, 3.5-inch Solon SBC. The Solon was recently renamed from the previous SBC-C31, which was announced back in Feb. 2020. It’s new to us, however, so we will cover it here along with the Pictor with a combined spec sheet.

=> ↺ You Can Send MIDI Over I2C If You Really Need To | Hackaday

• The Musical Instrument Digital Interface has a great acronym that is both nice to say and cleanly descriptive. The standard for talking to musical instruments relies on a serial signal at 31250 bps, which makes it easy to transmit using any old microcontroller UART with a settable baud rate. However, [Kevin] has dived into explore the utility of sending MIDI signals over I2C instead.

• With a bit of hacking at the Arduino MIDI library, [Kevin] was able to get the microcontroller outputting MIDI data over the I2C interface, and developed a useful generic I2C MIDI transport for the platform. His first tests involved using this technique in concert with Gravity dual UART modules. After he successfully got one running, [Kevin] realised that four could be hooked up to a single Arduino, giving it 8 serial UARTS, or, in another way of thinking, 8 MIDI outputs.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ This clever conductive ink printer lets anyone sketch a circuit with ease | Arduino Blog

• The creation of conductive ink has enabled anyone with a brush to sit down and sketch out an entire circuit on a wide variety of surfaces, although this process comes with a few large drawbacks. Compared to digital fabrication techniques, such as designing and manufacturing PCBs, the drawn traces are often inconsistent and messy, leading to unsightly and unreliable circuits. To fix this problem, a team from Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany came up with an intelligent handheld printer called Print-A-Sketch that can automatically correct user errors while also providing a wide range of tools for drawing incredible designs on anything.

• The unit is based around an Arduino Mega 2560, which collects movement data from an optical motion sensor and uses it to make small adjustments. From there, the piezoelectric printhead utilizes changes in current to control a matrix of ink-laying dots that can deposit ink at a steady pace depending on how fast the user is moving the device. Finally, a wide-angle RGB camera module, OLED screen, and joystick allow for a user to interact with the printer.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Ten takeaways from the 2022 State of Open Source survey

=> ↺ who OSI chose for its survey

• We started 2022 with great news! Open Source is growing and the proof is in the numbers: Out of 2,660 respondents to our recent global survey, 77% increased the use of open source software in their organizations over the last 12 months, and 36.5% indicated that they increased the use significantly.

• The Open Source Initiative (OSI) and OpenLogic by Perforce joined forces to conduct a global survey about the State of Open Source software. In only six weeks, we drew 2,660 respondents from every corner of the globe and from companies of all sizes representing over 15 different industries.

Web Browsers

Chromium

=> ↺ Chrome’s first zero-day bug for 2022 is reportedly being exploited

• Google has found a zero-day in Chrome for Windows, Mac, and Linux, which it believes may be under exploit.

• The company released a patch that fixes a number of security vulnerabilities, notably CVE-2022-0609 for which Google’s advisory says it “is aware of reports that an exploit… exists in the wild”.

• The CVE-2022-0609 bug is a use-after-free in Chrome’s Animation component.

Mozilla

=> ↺ Everything You Need to Know About Mozilla and Meta (Facebook) Working Together – It’s FOSS News

=> ↺ Mozilla

=> ↺ the mere impression or perception of privacy

• Even if it is “Meta” now, it does not change the fact that they were involved in some of the worst privacy practices ever.

• If you think twice, Facebook isn’t an ideal privacy-focused social media platform (even though I still use it for certain use-cases).

• With so much more to complain about, how come a privacy-focused company “Mozilla” end up working with Meta (Facebook)?

• Surprisingly, Mozilla made several remarks about Facebook’s bad privacy practices in the past.

=> ↺ Version 100 in Chrome and Firefox – Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog

• Chrome and Firefox will reach version 100 in a couple of months. This has the potential to cause breakage on sites that rely on identifying the browser version to perform business logic. This post covers the timeline of events, the strategies that Chrome and Firefox are taking to mitigate the impact, and how you can help.

=> ↺ Support.Mozilla.Org: Introducing Cindi Jordan

• Please join me to welcome Cindi Jordan into our Customer Experience team as a Sr. Customer Experience Program Manager.

FSF

GNU Projects

=> ↺ Online Guix Day Conference: schedule released! — 2022 — Blog — GNU Guix

• The Guix hackers are very happy to announce the second online Guix Days Conference on Saturday and Sunday, 19 & 20 February 2022. This conference is open to everyone (no registration fee) and will be held entirely online. Want to know the schedule, read on!

Programming/Development

=> ↺ How To Design A Chat Bot

• I’m working on a library for designing highly composable protocol agnostic chat bots. The design is based on Mealy machines and heavily leverages Haskell’s profunctor machinery. I want to walk through the early stages of the design process and how you might arrive at such an architecture.

=> ↺ Open CVEs against dnsmasq

• The reports are all machine generated by the Google fuzzer. The problem is that the fuzzing framework it’s using is wrong.

=> ↺ Introduction to GitLab’s CI/CD for Continuous Deployments

• Among the many benefits of GitLab are how it facilitates CI/CD practices, that is continuous integration and continuous deployment. In CI, frequent software updates are immediately tested as they are added to the codebase. In CD, those changes are automatically uploaded to a repository and then deployed to production.

=> ↺ Toy programming languages are like atomic playsets of the 1950s

• As we move into the third decade of the 21st century, we have similar toys in the digital realm – toy languages. These are meant to be used by children to learn programming, and while they obviously do not possess the same physical dangers, they do pose a danger to the ability to learn proper programming.

=> ↺ Drew DeVault’s blog: Status update, February 2022

• Hello once again! Another month of free software development goes by with lots of progress in all respects.

• I will open with some news about godocs.io: version 1.0 of our fork of gddo has been released! Big thanks to Adnan Maolood for his work on this. I’m very pleased that, following our fork, we were not only able to provide continuity for godoc.org, but also to simplify, refactor, and improve the underlying software considerably. Check out Adnan’s blog post for more details.

• [...]

• Another contributor has been working on expanding our graphics support, including developing a backend for glad to generate OpenGL bindings, and a linear algebra library ala glm for stuff like vector and matrix manipulation. Other new modules include a MIME database and encoding::base32. Cryptography progress continued with the introduction of XTS mode for AES, which is useful for full disk encryption implementations, but has slowed while we develop bigint support for future algorithms like RSA. I have also been rewriting the language introduction tutorial with a greater emphasis on practical usage.

• Before we move on from the language project: I need your help! I am looking for someone to help develop terminal support. This is fairly straightforward, though laborsome: it involves developing libraries in our language which provide the equivalents of something like ncurses (or, better, libtickit), as well as the other end like libvterm offers. Please email me if you want to help.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ DNA-style frameshift cryptography

• Unless you’ve been asleep for a very long time, like a modern-day Rip van Winkle, you’ve probably learned that information in DNA is encoded in triplets of units that can be represented by the four letters A, C, G, and T. Each triplet of letters is a “codon”.

Leftovers

Science

=> ↺ Martian Wheel Control Algorithms Gain Traction

• Imagine the scene: You’re puttering along in your vehicle when, at least an hour from the nearest help, one of your tires starts losing air. Not to worry! You’ve got a spare tire along with the tools and knowhow to change it. And if that fails, you can call roadside assistance. But what if your car isn’t a car, has metal wheels for which no spares are available, and the nearest help is 200 million miles away? You just might be a Jet Propulsion Laboratory Engineer on the Curiosity Mars Rover mission, who in 2017 was charged with creating a new driving algorithm designed to extend the life of the wheels.

Hardware

=> ↺ Anti-Curl Sandpaper Storage Is Impressive | Hackaday

• Maybe it’s the humidity, maybe it’s the cold weather. Something is making [Laura Kampf]’s nice fabric-backed sandpaper curl up into scrolls the second it comes out of the package. So you can understand why she urgently wanted to make a storage system that would be easy to flip through like a record bin, but also provide enough pressure to keep the papers flat.

• Although [Laura] didn’t know what exactly the end result would be, she got started on it anyway — that’s a great way to get more projects off the drawing board and past the finish line. It worked out, because she got a great idea while building the box and using nice cam clamps to hold the finger joints together as the glue dried. Since she already had a bunch of these cam clamps in different lengths lying around, why not use a couple of them for this?

=> ↺ Filament Dry Box Design Goes Way Over The Top | Hackaday

• There’s a fine line between simple feature creep and going over the top when it comes to project design. It’s hard to say exactly where that line is, but we’re pretty sure that this filament dry box has at least stepped over it, and might even have erased it entirely.

• Sure, we all know the value of storing 3D printer filament under controlled conditions, to prevent the hygroscopic plastics from picking up atmospheric moisture. But [Sasa Karanovic] must really, REALLY hate the printing artifacts that result. Starting with a commercially available dry box that already had a built-in heating element, [Sasa] took it to the next level by replacing the controller and display with an ESP32. He added a fan to improve air circulation inside the enclosure and prevent stratification, as well as temperature and humidity sensors. Not satisfied with simply switching the heating element on and off at specific setpoints, he also implemented a PID loop to maintain a constant temperature. And of course, there’s a web UI and an API available for third-party control and monitoring.

=> ↺ First Days With A New Microscope | Hackaday

• For big-ticket purchases, I tend to do a lot of research before I open my wallet. I like to at least have the illusion that when I send my money off to a far-away stranger, I’m likely to get back something of equal value in a reasonable timeframe that does what I want it to do. So I tend more toward the “analysis paralysis” end of the spectrum, where I pore over so many specs and reviews that I end up buying nothing.

• While that sounds like a bad thing, and sometimes is, I find that it tends to help me avoid rashly spending money on things that aren’t going to work for me. This is especially true in the area of tools, where while I’m trapped in my analysis loop, I often find a workaround or substitute that’s good enough to get the job done.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ When ‘Freedom’ Means the Right to Destroy

• On Sunday the Canadian police finally cleared away anti-vaccine demonstrators who had been blocking the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, a key commercial route that normally carries more than $300 million a day in international trade. Other bridges are still closed, and part of Ottawa, the Canadian capital, is still occupied.

• The diffidence of Canadian authorities in the face of these disruptions has been startling to American eyes. Also startling, although not actually surprising, has been the embrace of economic vandalism and intimidation by much of the U.S. right — especially by people who ranted against demonstrations in favor of racial justice. What we’re getting here is an object lesson in what some people really mean when they talk about “law and order.”

• Let’s talk about what has been happening in Canada and why I call it vandalism.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ FBI Warns of BlackByte Ransomware Attacks on Critical Infrastructure

• Available as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), BlackByte has been used in attacks against US and foreign businesses, including in critical infrastructure sectors such as government, financial, and food and agriculture, the FBI and USSS warn.

=> ↺ How Roblox ‘Beamers’ Get Rich Stealing from Children

• Underneath the gaming platform worth $68 billion and used by over half of all children in America is a ballooning and highly profitable ecosystem of [crackers] and traders.

Security

=> ↺ Linux kernel patches remote stack overflow bug | SC Media

• Appgate detailed a newly disclosed and newly patched Linux kernel bug Tuesday that could cause local and remote code execution, and denial of service.

=> ↺ Linux Kernel Stack Overflow Patched | Decipher

• Researchers have discovered a remotely exploitable stack buffer overflow in a commonly used Linux kernel module that has been present for more than five years.

• The bug is in the kernel networking module for the Transparent Inter-Process Communication (TIPC) protocol, which is used for communications between clusters. The messages can be sent over either UDP or ethernet, and Samuel Page, a senior exploit developer at Appgate, discovered the stack overflow in TIPC while looking at a previously discovered heap overflow that was disclosed in November. The earlier vulnerability (CVE-2021-43267) allowed an attacker to gain kernel-level privileges either locally or remotely.

=> ↺ CISA Adds Nine Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

• CISA has added nine new vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, based on evidence that threat actors are actively exploiting the vulnerabilities listed in the table below. These types of vulnerabilities are a frequent attack vector for malicious cyber actors of all types and pose significant risk to the federal enterprise.

=> ↺ Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) and Cybersecurity: Is Your Organization Ready? – Linux Foundation

• The Linux Foundation recently published findings on The State of Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) and Cybersecurity Readiness, conducted in late 2021. Jason Perlow, LF editorial director, spoke with Stephen Hendrick, vice president of Research, who led the empirical study and quantitative analysis to understand the extent to which the world was implementing cybersecurity standards and what actions need to be taken now.

=> ↺ 12 years of syslog-ng (and sudo)

• Still, I consider myself to be a part of Balabit (now One Identity Hungary) for 12 years now. I started 12 years ago as a QA engineer. At that time working remotely was not that commonplace as it is now. I had to travel four hours (two hours to and from the office) each and every day. I loved my job, but still it was too much. So, after two weeks I handed in my resignation. Side note: these two weeks were the only period in my whole life when I worked in an office…

• It was a Friday afternoon at the end of February. Balázs Scheidler, founder of Balabit and my line manager in the syslog-ng team told me: “Peter. It took you three difficult interviews to get into Balabit. It’s not that easy to escape from here either. I understand your concerns. However, by Monday, when we can do the paperwork, I’ll have another job for you.”. He kept his word: I quit Balabit, but I had a new job as an external consultant: working on syslog-ng Open Source Edition tasks which I could do remotely. Half a year later, I started to work on syslog-ng full time from the comfort of my home. I was the first remote worker at Balabit.

• Balabit was acquired by One Identity in 2018. It turned out that sudo maintainer, Todd Miller, became my colleague through the acquisition. Until that – just like most sysadmins – I considered sudo to be just a simple prefix for administrative commands. But then I took a closer look at sudo, and I learned that it’s a lot more: session recording, plugins, LDAP support, and many more. And soon I was spreading the word about the lesser-known features of sudo.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Telegram: Where women’s nudes are shared without consent

• A BBC investigation has found that women’s intimate pictures are being shared to harass, shame and blackmail them on a massive scale, on the social media app Telegram.

=> ↺ Facebook parent Meta settles decade-old data-privacy lawsuit

• Facebook parent Meta settles decade-old data-privacy lawsuitFacebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. has settled a decade-old class action lawsuit over the company’s use of “cookies” in 2010 and 2011 that tracked people online even after they logged off the Facebook platform.

• As part of the proposed settlement, which must still be approved by a judge, Meta has agreed to delete all the data it “wrongfully collected” during that period. The company, which posted profits of $39.37 billion in 2021, will also pay $90 million to users who filed a claim, after lawyer fees are deducted.

=> ↺ Meta’s Facebook to pay $90m to settle privacy lawsuit over user tracking

• The settlement covers Facebook users in the US who between April 22, 2010 and September 26, 2011 visited non-Facebook websites that displayed Facebook’s “like” button.

• Lawyers for the plaintiffs plan to seek legal fees of up to $26.1m, or 29 per cent, from the settlement fund.

• The lawsuit began in February 2012.

=> ↺ Texas is suing Meta over using facial recognition data without people’s consent

• The state of Texas filed a lawsuit today against Meta Platforms Inc. for its use of its facial recognition system, a suit that could end up being very expensive for the tech giant.

• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton alleges that Meta, then Facebook Inc., collected biometric data on users without their consent, breaching the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, CUBI. The state is seeking damages as well as asking that such data is not used again without the consent of users.

=> ↺ Digital cash: EU Parliament attacks anonymous payments in cryptocurrencies

• A draft EU Parliament report published today would ban anonymous payments and donations in cryptocurrencies.[1] The €1000 limit for anonymous transactions proposed by the EU Commission would be abolished. Only peer-to-peer payments between local wallets without the involvement of service providers would remain possible without identification.

• For the Pirates in the EU Parliament, the stated aim to tackle money laundering and terrorism is only a pretext to gain more control over personal data of EU citizens.

=> ↺ MoviePass 2.0 Wants to Track Your Eyeballs to Make Sure You Watch Ads

• MoviePass is relaunching as a web3-style application where users earn credits to go to the movies by watching ads. The new MoviePass will use facial recognition and eye tracking tech in your phone to make sure that you’re actually watching those ads.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Karnataka hijab controversy is polarising its classrooms

• The hijab has become the subject of a fierce debate in India. It all began last month when six teenagers at a government-run college in Karnataka’s Udupi district began protesting after they were barred from classes for wearing headscarves.

=> ↺ Large Number Of Chinese-Owned Vessels Are Robbing Ghana Of Fish

• Ghana’s small pelagic fish populations, such as sardinella, have dropped 80% in the past two decades. One species, sardinella aurita, is fully collapsed. China is the world’s worst illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing offender, according to IUU Fishing Index.

=> ↺ Islamic State, Al-Qaida Building Support in Afghanistan, Report Says

• The new assessments agree the intent is still there, just that leaders from both terror groups have other priorities.

• IS-Khorasan Province, as the IS affiliate is also known, in particular seems more focused on solidifying its support within Afghanistan instead of preparing to strike at enemies further afield.

=> ↺ Lobbyists Are Donating to GOP Election Deniers Even After Their Companies Pledged to Stop Giving

• Politico uncovered more than $28,000 in lobbyist cash that has flowed to lawmakers who moved to overturn President Biden’s win. Most of the money donated came from Big Tech lobbyists. Microsoft lobbyists gave the most, with Fred Humphries donating $2,500 to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and $1,000 to Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. Greg Maurer, a lobbyist for Facebook, gave $2,500 Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise and $3,250 in total to lawmakers who voted against the election certification. A lobbyist for Google shelled out $1,000 to Scalise and half that amount to Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.).

=> ↺ What Really Happened to Dag Hammarskjold’s Plane

• Last September, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres marked the 60th anniversary of the death of his predecessor Dag Hammarskjold, who was killed in a mysterious plane crash in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, on Sept. 18, 1961, by laying a wreath alongside the names of other fallen U.N. staffers.

• The omission rankled many descendants of the crash victims, who took it as the latest sign that the United Nations has been conducting a listless investigation into one of diplomacy’s most extraordinary cold cases of the 20th century. But the inquiries—which examined new evidence suggesting that Hammarskjold’s plane may have been targeted for attack—have been ultimately stymied by the refusal of powers such as the United States, Britain, and South Africa to fully open their intelligence archives from the period to U.N. investigators.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Police Seek To Question Four Journalists Over Samherji Reporting

• Four journalists will soon be questioned by Northeast Iceland police over their coverage of fishing giant Samherji; specifically, their revelations of a group calling itself “the Samherji guerilla division” which sought to engage in damage control over the company’s revealed involvement in bribery and tax evasion related to their operations in Namibia, Stundin reports.

Environment

=> ↺ US coastlines to experience ‘profound’ sea level rise by 2050: NOAA report

• Coastlines in the U.S. are expected to change drastically in the coming decades as sea levels rise at significant rates, putting coastal communities at risk.

• Scientists are now predicting that sea levels surrounding the U.S. will increase an additional 10 to 12 inches by 2050 — a century’s worth of sea level rise less than 30 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s updated Sea Level Rise Technical Report, which uses satellite observations to make projections for the next 100 years and beyond.

=> ↺ U.S. megadrought worst in at least 1,200 years, researchers say

• The research, which suggests that the past two decades in the American Southwest have been the driest period in 1,200 years, pointed to human-caused climate change as a major reason for the current drought’s severity. The findings were published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

• Jason Smerdon, one of the study’s authors and a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said global warming has made the megadrought more extreme because it creates a “thirstier” atmosphere that is better able to pull moisture out of forests, vegetation and soil.

• “It’s a slow-motion train wreck,” he said. “What we showed in the paper is that increasing temperatures in the Southwest contributed about 42 percent to the severity of this drought.”

=> ↺ Megadrought worsens to driest in at least 1,200 years in western U.S.

• The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario playing out live, a new study finds.

• A dramatic drying in 2021 — about as dry as 2002 and one of the driest years ever recorded for the region — pushed the 22-year drought past the previous record-holder of megadroughts, in the late 1500s, and shows no signs of easing in the near future, according to a study Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

• The study calculated that 42 per cent of this megadrought can be attributed to human-caused climate change.

=> ↺ Southwest megadrought: Last 2 decades were driest in 1,200 years

• The big picture: The new study updates findings from research published in 2020 that found evidence for the first partially human-caused megadrought in the Southwest, but noted that a drought in the 1500s rivaled its intensity and duration. That is no longer the case, the new research shows.

Energy

=> ↺ Corporate Bailouts Are Coming to [Cryptocurrency]

• But recently, with the emergence of DeFi and institutional money entering the space, something has changed: [Cryptocurrency] is getting corporate bailouts.

=> ↺ PM Imran launches Raast person-to-person instant digital payment system

• Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday launched Raast person-to-person payment system for instant digital transactions, saying it would create ease for the masses and bring them into the fold of formal economy.

=> ↺ Plant conversions and abatement technologies cannot prevent stranding of power plant assets in 2 °C scenarios

• So far, no study has estimated the effect of technology deployment and plant conversions on the stranding of existing assets, leaving some uncertainty in the required pace for the energy transition in the power sector. Compared to prior assessments that have focused on calculating committed emissions from existing infrastructure and the impact of climate policy on stranded assets11,12,13,14,15,16,17, this paper accounts for the possible response of the industry towards developing technological solutions when facing the risk of assets being stranded. Not accounting for this response may overestimate the threat that existing fossil fuel infrastructure could pose to reaching the 2 °C targets of the Paris Agreement. Furthermore, looking at differences in assumptions regarding technology development allows us to reconcile differences in results across different models of long-term energy generation.

=> ↺ Quantifying the regional stranded asset risks from new coal plants under 1.5 °C

• Momentum to phase out unabated coal use is growing globally. This transition is critical to meeting the Paris climate goals but can potentially lead to large amounts of stranded assets, especially in regions with newer and growing coal fleets. Here we combine plant-level data with a global integrated assessment model to quantify changes in global stranded asset risks from coal-fired power plants across regions and over time. With new plant proposals, cancellations, and retirements over the past five years, global net committed emissions in 2030 from existing and planned coal plants declined by 3.3 GtCO2 (25%). While these emissions are now roughly in line with initial Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement, they remain far off track from longer-term climate goals. Progress made in 2021 towards no new coal can potentially avoid a 24% (503 GW) increase in capacity and a 55% ($520 billion) increase in stranded assets under 1.5 ◦C. Stranded asset risks fall disproportionately on emerging Asian economies with newer and growing coal fleets. Recent no new coal commitments from major coal financers can potentially reduce stranding of international investments by over 50%.

=> ↺ Why multi-million-dollar blue hydrogen investments might fast end up as ‘stranded assets’

• Investments in blue hydrogen — derived from natural gas with carbon capture and storage — will be riskier than those in green H2 for multiple reasons, according to a new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) — not least because renewable hydrogen may be cheaper in most key markets as soon as 2030.

• “Blue hydrogen is sometimes portrayed as a safe bet, because it allows producer countries to monetise natural gas resources and pipelines that might otherwise become stranded,” Irena says in its 118-page study, Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation: The Hydrogen Factor.

• “But the expected cost reduction in green hydrogen, coupled with stricter climate mitigation policies, means that investments in supply chains based on fossil fuels (blue or grey) — especially assets expected to be in operation for many years — may end up stranded.

=> ↺ Half the world’s fossil fuel assets will be worthless by 2036

• Countries that are slow to decarbonise will suffer but early movers will profit; the study finds that renewables and freed-up investment will more than make up for the losses to the global economy

=> ↺ Europe’s new train routes for 2022

• The continent’s night trains have gone from being on the verge of extinction to a Europe-wide resurgence, spearheaded by Austrian carrier ÖBB, with new, private companies springing up to offer more options.

• Meanwhile as more day trains are laid on across the continent, prices are falling. Italy’s two high-speed networks are knocking out ever more fancy carriages to attract customers, while low-cost, high-speed trains have been rolled out in France and Spain.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Orbán already preparing steps for after ECJ ruling

• On February 16, the European Court of Justice will hand down the final verdict in a case brought by the Hungarian and Polish governments over the so-called rule of law mechanism. Not long after, on March 24-25, at the EU summit, the agenda will include the years-long examination into the erosion of the rule of law in Hungary. This is likely to be the hardest EU hearing of Viktor Orbán yet – held within a week before the parliamentary elections in Hungary. Even if their attempt to stop the mechanism does not succeed, the Hungarian government might challenge the European Commission’s procedure by other judicial means – thus securing EU payments. Translation by Andrea Horváth Kávai.

=> ↺ Banned China apps stay on in new avatars

• Several mobile applications, which form part of the hundreds of such apps banned by India in recent years on security concerns and are backed by global technology majors, continue to operate in India, industry members and privacy experts told ET.

• Last week, the centre banned some 54 Chinese apps thought to be rebranded avatars of those taken down earlier in 2020– when the government had shut down nearly 224 apps — including popular ones like TikTok, Shareit, WeChat, Helo, Likee, UC News, Bigo Live, UC Browser, ES File Explorer and Mi Community.

=> ↺ Goodbye Viacom and CBS: ViacomCBS Changes Corporate Name to Paramount

• The moniker makeover was announced Tuesday by ViacomCBS chair Shari Redstone and president-CEO Bob Bakish in a memo to staffers. The news came the same day that ViacomCBS hosted a nearly three-hour investor presentation to tout its global streaming strategy and plans for expanding the Paramount Plus streaming service and other businesses in the U.S. and abroad.

• CBS is a foundational name in broadcasting — the Columbia Broadcasting System launch dates back to 1927 and the early days of commercial radio. The Eye name will endure on the broadcast network and other existing assets.

=> ↺ Bernie Sanders’s Smart Take on NATO, Ukraine, and Diplomatic Options

• Speaking on the floor of the US Senate on Thursday, Sanders expressed deep concern about the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. He warned that the United States “must unequivocally support the sovereignty of Ukraine and make clear that the international community will impose severe consequences on Putin and his fellow oligarchs if he does not change course.”

• Yet Sanders also steadily warned against abandoning hope for a diplomatic solution. He argued that, as part of a necessary focus on diplomacy, US officials must recognize the role that Russian fears about NATO expansion play in the crisis. This recognition could yet play a critical role in dialing down tensions and averting war.

=> ↺ Astra stock drops 26% after NASA mission fails mid-launch

• Founded in 2016, Astra aims to compete in a growing field of launch vehicle providers that specialize in delivering small payloads to orbit, as opposed to companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX that are equipped to launch a range of payload sizes. The company successfully launched its first commercial payload into Earth orbit in November 2021, but has also experienced several launch failures over the past year.

=> ↺ Mohandas Pai is all for ban on Chinese apps & here’s why

• India has banned more than 270 apps. The new list primarily targets those apps that had been banned and have resurfaced. Almost two years after the entire theme of banning apps started including the incredibly popular TikTok, do we still need these bans?

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Medical boards pressured to let it slide when doctors spread Covid misinformation

• Tennessee’s Board of Medical Examiners unanimously adopted in September a statement that said doctors spreading covid misinformation — such as suggesting that vaccines contain microchips — could jeopardize their license to practice.

=> ↺ Fines sought against organisers of protests against Covid-19 measures

• The two men are accused of not having respected the sanitary measures in force during the demonstrations, such as the obligation to wear face masks or physical distancing. They are also accused of having used technical equipment to amplify speeches and play music, which is in violation of the regulations of the municipality of Luxembourg City.

=> ↺ The TikTok war

• Russian military and open-source intelligence experts, including Michael Kofman of CNA and Rob Lee of King’s College, have compiled Twitter threads with hundreds of crowdsourced videos of military equipment and units on the move toward the Ukrainian border.

• Many are sourced from everyday Russian citizens posting on TikTok, Telegram, Twitter and other platforms about the unusual sight of tanks rolling through their local stretch of highway.

=> ↺ Conspiracy theorists fuel bump in extremist killings, report says

• Killings by domestic extremists increased from 23 in 2020 to at least 29 last year, with right-wing extremists killing 26 of those people in 2021, the Anti-Defamation League said in a report first provided to The Associated Press.

• The ADL’s report says white supremacists, antigovernment sovereign citizens and other adherents of long-standing movements were responsible for most of the 19 deadly attacks it counted in 2021. The New York City-based organization’s list also included killings linked to newer right-wing movements that spread online during the coronavirus pandemic and former President Donald Trump’s presidency.

=> ↺ Bot-Generated Shooting Threats Are Terrorizing Schools

• The use of bot networks to send automated threats is a common occurrence all over the world. Earlier this week, Security Services in Ukraine busted an alleged Russian bot farm in the city of Lviv. Three people were operating 18,000 to—among other things—send automated bomb threats.

=> ↺ Belgian and Luxembourgish platform against disinformation

• The new EDMO BELUX website can be found at belux.edmo.eu, where new fact-checks and resources will be published daily, as well as on social media, to better counter the spread of disinformation in Belgium and Luxembourg.

• The European Digital Media Observatory for Belgium and Luxembourg (EDMO BELUX) is a hub for research on digital media and disinformation in Belgium and Luxembourg. EDMO BELUX operates in five languages (French, Dutch, Luxembourgish, English and German). This European Commission funded hub gathers a network of more than 100 disinformation experts. It is one of eight projects to have received EU funding to set up national and multinational observatories to counter disinformation.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Soft And Quiet: Self-Censorship In An Era Of Book Challenges

• Quiet censorship — also known as soft censorship or self-censorship, terms used interchangeably — is when materials are purposefully removed, limited, or never purchased at all despite it being a title that would serve a community. It’s always been an issue with intellectual freedom, but now, with more “parental rights” groups demanding curricular and collection oversight, even the best professionals who don’t believe in censorship are falling victim to choosing the path of considering the people who may complain over those who may need the material.

=> ↺ Tibetan nomads sent to labor camps for politically sensitive material on cell phones

• Authorities in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region are detaining more nomadic Tibetans in Drago county and sending them to labor camps for having content deemed politically inappropriate on their cell phones, people with knowledge of the situation said.

=> ↺ Marjorie Taylor Greene Says Republicans Must Stop ‘Big Tech Censorship’

• Greene’s tweet came roughly six weeks after she urged “every Republican” to immediately leave Twitter when her personal account was permanently banned for violating policies against COVID-19 misinformation. The Georgia congresswoman resumed tweeting from her official account two days after the ban.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Do chimpanzees have the right to life?

• In a referendum on Sunday, people in the Swiss canton of Basel voted against giving non-human primates the right to life and physical and mental integrity.

• Almost 75% rejected a plan to give non-human primates similar rights to humans.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Russia is trying to build its own great firewall

• In early December VK, one of Russia’s online conglomerates, was taken over by two subsidiaries of Gazprom, the state-owned gas giant. In the same month a court in Moscow fined Alphabet, Google’s parent company, a record $98m for repeated failure to to delete content the state deems illegal. And Mr Putin’s regime began using hardware it has required [Internet] service providers (ISPs) to install to block Tor, a tool widely used in Russia to mask online activity. All three actions were part of the country’s effort to assure itself of online independence by building what some scholars of geopolitics, borrowing from Silicon Valley, have begun calling a “stack”. His efforts could serve as an inspiration, and a model, for tyrants elsewhere.

=> ↺ Internet Pioneer Vint Cerf Says Digital Inclusion is More Than Just Access

• Cerf suggested that state officials should play hardball with network operators and refuse to provide them with funds until they can answer the questions about broadband data that they are asked.

• He also prognosticated on [Internet] developments of the future, predicting increase in the prevalence of Internet of Things devices for data collection in industries such as agriculture should better network support be developed for the devices.

• Cerf floated the possibility of centralized online logins rather than having to enter sites through individual social media accounts such as a Facebook or Google profile.

=> ↺ Summary of India Digital Ecosystem Architecture (InDEA) 2.0

• In January 2022, MeitY released a revised version of the India Digital Ecosystem Architecture (InDEA) Framework, which was first released in December 2018. InDEA 2.0 lays increased emphasis on the creation of ecosystems, rather than stand-alone systems.

• The entire document has been divided into seven themes: Chapter one sets out the context and need for InDEA 2.0. It also discusses the structure and the intended audience of this framework. Chapter two talks about the founding 27 principles on which InDEA 2.0 is built upon. Chapter three discusses the three architecture patterns which can be used depending on the need of the entity or the government department. Chapter four elaborates upon the federated digital identities which have been and will be created. Chapter five lists the emerging trends in the protocol approach that can be adopted and the need for adopting global standards. Chapters six and seven explain the implementation framework and the need for capacity building for InDEA 2.0.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Intel SGX proves Blu-ray DRM is defective by design | Defective by Design

• Eagle-eyed readers of a technical document recently published by Intel, which details upcoming changes to their line of processors, noticed that the Software Guard Extension (SGX) will soon be deprecated. The SGX provided the ability for certain areas of system memory on Intel computers to be dedicated to encrypting and decrypting information, and therefore private — off-limits to the rest of the system in a so-called “secure enclave.” Connecting the dots, readers of Intel’s document soon realized that this would prevent users from viewing certain kinds of media, particularly Blu-ray discs, used primarily for their high resolution capabilities. As it always does, the DRM in these discs is now forcing an added, arbitrary restriction on top of others: in processors without the SGX, 4K streams will be downgraded to the lower-quality 1080p, even if the device is perfectly capable of playing it.

• “Secure enclaves” sound nice from a privacy perspective, but when examining buzzwords like these, it’s important to ask: privacy for whom? At least in principle, there’s nothing wrong with offloading a system’s cryptography to another part of that system, provided it can still be controlled by the user. But that’s precisely where the problem is: in practice, the SGX was used by Intel to implement DRM. The security and privacy the enclave was supposed to provide its user was forked over to media conglomerates instead — securing and hiding their misdeeds. In effect, if you’re using the SGX, part of your computer is off-limits to you, like a room in your own house you’re not even allowed to enter, let alone use how you would like.

• The problems with Blu-ray disks are nothing new. Not content with the ways they already compromised DVDs with region codes and copy restriction mechanisms, the media cabal behind the format made them dependent on a more complex set of keys, and worse, proprietary software. The con played by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and their friends has been a long one: first convincing users that DRM was necessary to guard against “copyright infringement,” and then, over time, sneaking more and more onerous restrictions into our devices in exchange for the latest superhero flick.

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ The Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court

=> ↺ an illegal system

• The Unified Patent Court (UPC) has been a long time coming with several years of uncertainty. Although the UPC Agreement was first signed in 2013, the UK’s withdrawal in 2020 and three separate German constitutional challenges have all threatened the existence of the UPC.

=> ↺ Hike in Patent Filing Fees in Europe/ EPO!

Copyrights

=> ↺ Paramount Plus to Integrate Showtime Content, Allow In-App Bundle Upgrade

• Paramount Plus will begin integrating Showtime content this summer, launching an in-app upgrade that includes access to the pay TV channel’s programming, ViacomCBS — soon to be renamed Paramount — announced during its Tuesday investor event.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

=> Techrights

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.