● 05.12.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 12/05/2022: AlmaLinux OS 8.6 and LibreOffice 7.2.7

Posted in News Roundup at 6:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Enterprise Linux Security Episode 27 – People Problems – Invidious

• In the industry, we spend a great deal of time hardening our security, doing our due diligence when it comes to patching, implementing firewalls, avoiding EOL software, as well as many other aspects of our security focus.

=> ↺ How to install Fedora 36 – Invidious

• In this video, I am going to show how to install Fedora 36.

=> ↺ Why Fedora 36 is a great GNOME Distro! (Full Review) – Invidious

• I run Fedora! With the gaining popularity of this awesome Linux distro, version 36 is the next stop in its plan for world domination! Okay, maybe that’s a bit too dramatic – Fedora may not be taking over the world, but it is taking the Linux world by storm lately!

=> ↺ Interview with a Hashicorp Director – Invidious

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux 5.17.7

=> ↺ Linux 5.15.39

=> ↺ Linux 5.10.115

=> ↺ Linux 5.4.193

=> ↺ Linux 4.19.242

=> ↺ Linux 4.14.278

=> ↺ Linux 4.9.313

NVIDIA

=> ↺ NVIDIA open source video drivers for Linux kernel – LinuxStoney

• NVIDIA has announced the open source of all kernel modules supplied in its proprietary video driver suite. The code is open source under MIT and GPLv2 licenses. The ability to build modules is provided for the x86_64 and aarch64 architectures on systems with the Linux 3.10 kernel and newer releases. Firmware and user-space libraries such as the CUDA, OpenGL, and Vulkan stacks remain proprietary.

• It is expected that the publication of the code will lead to a significant increase in the usability of NVIDIA GPUs on Linux systems, enhance integration with the operating system, and simplify the delivery of drivers and debugging problems. Ubuntu and SUSE developers have already announced the formation of packages based on open modules. Having open modules will also make it easier to integrate NVIDIA drivers with systems based on non-standard custom builds of the Linux kernel. For NVIDIA, open source will improve the quality and security of Linux drivers through greater community engagement and the ability for third-party review and independent audits.

=> ↺ Nvidia open sources GPU Kernel modules for Linux: How will that be Beneficial? – Boiling Steam

• Today is almost a historic day, as Nvidia has posted a long announcement regarding the fact that they are releasing open-source (GPL/MIT dual license) Kernel modules for their GPUs. There’s already a github repo where you can see and contribute to their code.

=> ↺ NVIDIA open source Linux GPU kernel modules – Geeky Gadgets

• NVIDIA has this week announced it is now publishing Linux GPU kernel modules as open source with dual GPL/MIT license. First making available the R515 driver with the source code now available for the kernel modules on GitHub. NVIDIA has taken the step to help improve the experience of using NVIDIA GPUs in Linux and offer tighter integration with the operating system enabling developers to debug integrate, and contribute back, says the press release.

=> ↺ NVIDIA Takes a Big Step to Improve its GPU Experience on Linux – It’s FOSS News

• Linus Torvalds will be happy to hear this…

• NVIDIA finally announced an open-source initiative to improve the GPU experience on Linux.

• Unfortunately, it isn’t exactly what you think, you will still find proprietary drivers around.

• But, it’s as significant as ditching the proprietary drivers.

• Here it is: NVIDIA released open-source GPU kernel modules with support for data center GPUs and consumer (GeForce/RTX) cards.

=> ↺ 4 reasons why NVIDIA’s new FOSS drivers aren’t what you think they are. – Invidious

• Don’t get me wrong. This is really cool (and unexpected) stuff. But it took many attempts and years of work before AMD’s FOSS drivers were accepted into the kernel. NVIDIA has a very long road ahead of them.

=> ↺ Nvidia Open-Sources Linux Drivers | Tom’s Hardware

• Nvidia has announced that it will be open-sourcing the Linux drivers for its graphics cards, starting with the R515 release, using a dual GPL/MIT license. The source code for the kernel modules will be available in the NVIDIA Open GPU Kernel Modules repo on GitHub, but at the moment only the code for data center GPUs is considered production-ready. GeForce and Workstation GPUs are considered “alpha quality” at this time.

=> ↺ Nvidia Open Sources Linux Drivers

• Nvidia is open sourcing the Linux drivers for its graphics cards, and the source code for the kernel modules will be available on GitHub, reports Ian Evenden. Currently, only the code for data center GPUs is production-ready, with code for workstation GPUs considered to be “alpha” quality.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Setup your Git username and email – PragmaticLinux

• A version control system, combined with an issue tracking system, are must-have tools for serious software development. Each time you commit a code change, you can link it to an issue. Likewise, each time you report an issue, you can link it to a specific code revision. Perfect for backtracking what changed in the code, when, why and who made the change. With Git, this only works if you properly configured your username and email. This article explains how to setup your Git username and email.

=> ↺ How To Install PHP 8 on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PHP 8 on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, PHP is a programming language used for developing web applications. PHP scripts created can be executed on Linux, macOS, Windows and many other Unix systems provided PHP has been installed.

• 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 the PHP 8 on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

=> ↺ How to Change Terminal Font Size in Ubuntu 22.04

=> ↺ How to run Redox OS with gnome-boxes

• I’m back in the topic “not that known free/open operating systems that aren’t a linux distribution“. Today I’ll show how to run Redox OS with gnome-boxes.

=> ↺ How to install Podman on Ubuntu | TechRepublic

• As you know, Kubernetes has officially deprecated Docker support, which means anyone working with Kubernetes might have to change runtime environments. One such environment is nearly a drop-in replacement for Docker named Podman.

=> ↺ How to Install and Use Dropbox Cloud Storage in Ubuntu 22.04 | UbuntuHandbook

• This is a beginner’s guide shows how to install and use the Dropbox cloud storage and file sharing tool in Ubuntu 22.04.

• Dropbox is a popular file hosting service powered by the American company Dropbox, Inc. It provides free account with 2 GB storage and paid plans for more. You can use it as a cloud storage and/or for sharing files with your friends.

=> ↺ How to Install Google Chrome on Manjaro Linux

• Manjaro is one of the most popular Linux distributions out there. However, many users still don’t dare to use it because it’s not Ubuntu or a Debian derivative, thinking that it’s too complicated to use. Today, you will learn how to install Google Chrome on Manjaro.

Games

=> ↺ Latest Steam Client Update Improves the File Picker on Linux and Fixes Many Bugs

• For GNU/Linux users, the new Steam Client update improves the file picker by adding home and mounted drive paths to the file picker quick bar, as well as the ability for the file picker to remember the previous location when selecting Library custom art. It also fixes the file picker’s extension filters to appear when selecting Library custom art.

• Also for Linux users, the new Steam Client update addresses an issue that made media pre-caching files to be re-downloaded when updating the graphics drivers and fixes the ability to add non-Steam shortcuts with spaces in the path.

Distributions

BSD

=> ↺ First time installing OpenBSD and stuff I did

• I have been wanting to use OpenBSD for a while after hearing everyone prazing it’s superior security. Until then, my only exposure to OpenBSD was installing it on a VM and maintaining Drogon on it. Needless to say, VM performance sucks. Not even Linux can do video playback on a VM without graphics acceleration. Now I finally got the motivation to install it on real iron afer building and hosting some services on my hardware.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Fedora Linux 36 Now Generally Available | Business Wire

• The Fedora Project, a community-driven open source collaboration sponsored by Red Hat, Inc., today announced the general availability of Fedora Linux 36, the latest version of the fully open source Fedora operating system.

• Fedora Linux 36 continues the Fedora Project’s momentum of delivering leading-edge open source technologies that enable community members and developers to design tailored solutions for their users

=> ↺ AlmaLinux 8.6 Release Notes

=> ↺ AlmaLinux 8.6 released [LWN.net]

• Just one day after the RHEL 8.6 release, AlmaLinux 8.6 Stable has been released. See the release notes for more information.

=> ↺ AlmaLinux 8.6 Stable is Now Available! – AlmaLinux OS Blog

• Hi, Community! The AlmaLinux OS Foundation is excited to announce that AlmaLinux OS 8.6 Stable is now available. Just like a flash after the beta release. This stable release is for the x86_64, aarch64 and ppc64le architectures and is ready for production installations and to power all your computing needs and workloads. Grab it from the nearest mirror and join us on the AlmaLinux Community Chat to discuss.

• Our Live Images, Raspberry Pi, Cloud and Container images updates are in process too, so stay tuned to catch the updates. Don’t blink, you might miss them.

=> ↺ CentOS Alternative AlmaLinux OS 8.6 Is Now Available for Download, Based on RHEL 8.6

• AlmaLinux OS 8.6 “Sky Tiger” builds on the changes implemented by Red Hat in their Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 release and adds two new repositories, namely Real Time (RT) and Real Time for NFV (NFV), as well as new module streams like PHP 8.0, Perl 5.32, Apache Log4j 2, and container-tools 4.0.

• It also contains all the goodies from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6, such as the numerous Web Console enhancements, brand-new System Roles to make system administration simpler, as well as updated versions of the SCAP Security Guide and OpenSCAP components for better security.

=> ↺ AlmaLinux 8.6 is available, which continues the development of CentOS 8 – LinuxStoney

• AlmaLinux distribution kit 8.6 , synchronized with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 and containing all the changes proposed in this release. Assemblies prepared for x86_64, ARM64 and ppc64le architectures in the form of boot (830 MB), minimum (1.6 GB) and full image (11 GB). Later, they additionally promise to form Live builds, as well as images for Raspberry Pi boards, containers and cloud platforms.

• The distribution is fully binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 and can be used as a transparent replacement for CentOS 8. Changes come down to rebranding, removing RHEL-specific packages like redhat-, insights-client and subscription-manager-migration, creating a “devel” repository with additional packages and build dependencies.

=> ↺ Hybrid work: Best practices in times of uncertainty

• Thanks to the pandemic and its direct implications on the workforce, the CIO role is more difficult than ever. From the first lockdown to today’s slow and strategic reopening, industry conditions have been anything but favorable or predictable. For this reason, leaders should take a targeted approach to managing hybrid work systems.

• Let’s explore some ways to take control of the current unpredictable outlook and best position your organization for success.

=> ↺ A practical solution to cloudify the network edge: Why containers, white-box devices and SD-WAN are ideal

• Containers, software-defined wide area networking, cloud edge communications, and white-box devices

• Containerized Software Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) on white-box x86 platforms offers a higher degree of flexibility and similar performance when compared to dedicated bare-metal solutions — especially when the goal is to deliver dynamic edge compute solutions with greater security capabilities.

=> ↺ Developer tools rebrand, say farewell to CodeReady name | Red Hat Developer

• We’ve updated the names of these tools to be more descriptive based on user feedback. We have received positive responses on the new naming and their aligned target users and use cases. Read on for a quick overview of these offerings, plus enhancements in the latest major releases.

=> ↺ How to organize JFR data with recording labels in Cryostat 2.1 | Red Hat Developer

• With the tech preview release of Cryostat 2.1, users can attach metadata or custom labels to JDK flight recordings that monitor containerized Java applications, and can manage those recordings using Cryostat. Recording labels can identify recordings in queries and perform actions on multiple recordings containing the same label. This article shows how to add and edit metadata labels on your JDK flight recordings, including the recordings managed through automated rules.

=> ↺ How collaborative commons and open organization principles align

• I have read Jeremy Rifkin’s book The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism, which has a strong connection to open organization principles, particularly community building. Rifkin also writes about the future of green energy generation and energy use in logistics. This is the first of three articles in this series. In this article I’ll talk about collaborative commons. In the next, I’ll talk about its impact on energy production and supply. In the last article, I will look at other economic systems like logistics.

• Rifkin believes that the capitalist economy is slowly passing, and the collaborative commons is increasing in importance in the global economy resulting in a part capitalist market and part collaborative commons (like Open Organization Communities). Within these collaborative commons are “social impact-focused organizations” that Laura Hilliger and Heather Leson wrote about in their articles on these organizations. Rifkin thinks these commons are finding synergies where they can add value to one another, while benefiting themselves. At other times, they are deeply adversarial, each attempting to absorb or replace the other.

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Available to Download – LinuxStoney

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Available to Download, Following the announcement of the release of RHEL 9, Red Hat published the release Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 . Installation builds have been prepared for the x86_64, s390x (IBM System z), ppc64le, and Aarch64 architectures, but are available for download only to registered Red Hat Customer Portal users. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 rpm packages are distributed through Git repository CentOS The 8.x branch, which will be supported until at least 2029, develops in accordance with the development cycle, which implies the formation of releases every six months at a predetermined time.

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Distribution Introduced – LinuxStoney

• Red Hat has released the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 distribution . Ready-made installation images will soon be available to download to registered users of the Red Hat Customer Portal (you can also use iso images CentOS Stream 9 The release is built for the x86_64, s390x (IBM System z), ppc64le, and Aarch64 (ARM64) architectures. The sources for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rpm packages are located in Git repository CentOS In accordance with the 10-year support cycle for the RHEL 9 distribution, it will be maintained until 2032. Updates for RHEL 7 will continue to be released until June 30, 2024, RHEL 8 until May 31, 2029.

• The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 distribution is notable for its move to a more open development process. Unlike previous branches, the CentOS Stream 9 . CentOS Stream is positioned as an upstream project for RHEL, enabling third-party participants to control the preparation of packages for RHEL, propose their changes and influence decisions. Previously, a snapshot of one of the Fedora releases was used as the basis for a new RHEL branch, which was finalized and stabilized behind closed doors, without the ability to control the development progress and decisions made. Now based on the Fedora snapshot, with the participation of the community, the CentOS Stream branch is being formed, in which preparatory work is carried out and the basis for a new significant branch of RHEL is formed.

=> ↺ Nest with Fedora: Call for proposals and sponsors – Fedora Community Blog

• As we celebrate Fedora Linux 36 with the upcoming Release Party, we are also looking forward to our next virtual event: Nest with Fedora. As I mentioned in my last update, the 2022 edition of our annual contributor conference will be our third virtual Nest paired with Fedora Hatches (local in person meetups). A big thanks to Fedorans for showing up with seven proposals for Hatches all across the world! Furthermore, I am excited to announce that the Nest with Fedora call for proposals and sponsors is now open.

• You’ll also notice a new Fedora mascot in the banner for this post, a wonderfully Fedorable design developed by intern Jess Chitas. Introducing Colúr, inspired by the Nest logo and named with the Gaelic word for pigeon. The Design Team was inspired by wordplay because Colúr sounds similar to the word color in English and he is a comprised of all the Fedora colors! Welcome, Colúr!

Devices/Embedded

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Android 13 Arrives at Google I/O: Here Are the New Features – CNET

=> ↺ Nokia X20 5G Android 13 DP : Live Update and First Look! – Nokiapoweruser

=> ↺ Why You Should Uninstall Your Third-Party Android Keyboards

=> ↺ Realme Pad Mini 8.7 inch Android tablet heads to Europe for €180 and up – Liliputing

=> ↺ Motorola’s new cheap Android phone has a 120Hz screen with a whole lot of color | TechRadar

=> ↺ Android TV OS now has over 10,000 apps – 9to5Google

=> ↺ It’s easier than you think to change default apps on your Android

=> ↺ Your Next Android App Purchase May Only Cost 5 Cents – Review Geek

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ 14 Open-source Text To Speech TTS apps and libraries

• In 1961, physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr and his colleague Louis Gerstman used an IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech, an event among the most prominent in the history of Bell Labs.

Web Browsers

=> ↺ A tale of a trailing dot

• Trailing dots on host names in URLs is the gift that keeps on giving.

• Let me take you through a dwindling story of how the dot is handled differently in different places through the stack of an Internet client. The evil trailing dot.

Mozilla

=> ↺ Improved Process Isolation in Firefox 100 – Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog

• Firefox uses a multi-process model for additional security and stability while browsing: Web Content (such as HTML/CSS and Javascript) is rendered in separate processes that are isolated from the rest of the operating system and managed by a privileged parent process. This way, the amount of control gained by an attacker that exploits a bug in a content process is limited.

• Ever since we deployed this model, we have been working on improving the isolation of the content processes to further limit the attack surface. This is a challenging task since content processes need access to some operating system APIs to properly function: for example, they still need to be able to talk to the parent process.

• In this article, we would like to dive a bit further into the latest major milestone we have reached: Win32k Lockdown, which greatly reduces the capabilities of the content process when running on Windows. Together with two major earlier efforts (Fission and RLBox) that shipped before, this completes a sequence of large leaps forward that will significantly improve Firefox’s security.

• Although Win32k Lockdown is a Windows-specific technique, it became possible because of a significant re-architecting of the Firefox security boundaries that Mozilla has been working on for around four years, which allowed similar security advances to be made on other operating systems.

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ PostgreSQL: PostgreSQL 14.3, 13.7, 12.11, 11.16, and 10.21 Released!

• The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released an update to all supported versions of PostgreSQL, including 14.3, 13.7, 12.11, 11.16, and 10.21. This release closes one security vulnerability and fixes over 50 bugs reported over the last three months.

• We encourage you to install this update at your earliest possible convenience.

• If you have any GiST indexes on columns using the ltree data type, you will need to reindex them after upgrading.

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ Announcement of LibreOffice 7.2.7 Community

• LibreOffice 7.2.7 Community, the seventh minor release of the LibreOffice 7.2 family, targeted at desktop productivity, is available for download from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/.

• End user support is provided by volunteers via email and online resources: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/community-support/. On the website and the wiki there are guides, manuals, tutorials and HowTos. Donations help us to make all of these resources available.

=> ↺ LibreOffice 7.2 Gets Last Update Before June 12th End-of-Life, Upgrade to LibreOffice 7.3

• The LibreOffice 7.2.7 update is here two months after the previous release (version 7.2.6) to add one last layer of bug fixes to the LibreOffice 7.2 office suite series, which will reach the end-of-life (EOL) next month on June 12th, 2022.

• This update includes a total of 47 bug fixes, according to the RC1 and RC2 changelogs. These bug fixes aim to make your LibreOffice 7.2 installations more stable and reliable until you will upgrade to a newer version of the open-source office suite, such as the LibreOffice 7.3 series.

Programming/Development

Rust

=> ↺ When will we learn?

• Congratulations to Rust for its first (but not its last) supply-chain attack this week! They join a growing club of broken-by-design package managers which publish packages uploaded by vendors directly, with no review step, and ship those packages directly to users with no further scrutiny.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Distributed platforms vs. “complexity”

• As I skimmed the list, a thought struck me: “I used to work this way. Why did I stop?”

• It only took a couple years for me to transition from doing “everything” in a terminal to leaning heavily on web apps. There were several factors at play, but I think Google Reader is what got me. Checking email from multiple locations was a solved problem with IMAP, but there wasn’t a great way to keep multiple feed readers in sync. I could’ve used a text-based feed reader on one machine and accessed it with a remote shell, but switching to Reader was just so simple.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Well I didn’t get hired

• And that’s fine.

• I am actually a bit relieved.

• Sure it would’ve been super cool to get that new job but then again, I kinda knew I wasn’t ready in that interview.

• Way more complicated stuff than I am used to, so I’m glad I went through that interview: I know what to look into.

Science

=> ↺ Cute robots

• The robotics researcher was working on the problem of how to design these assistants in a way that would make them not only acceptable, but pleasant to interact with. To that end, they should be made flexible enough to support a range of “personalities” and modes of interaction. One should be able to give the robot different names, with all the implicit associations of gender and age that comes with a name. Years of research on sound and emotion has provided the knowledge for easily simulating the prosodic contours we identify as sad, reluctant, happy, angry, and so on. Even a highly stylised speech synthesis is able to convey a sense of emotional state, which can be used in the design of a “robot personality.”

=> ↺ Measuring stick for DBH measurements

• When measuring the diameter of tree stems to estimate above ground woody biomass, it’s important to avoid stem features which might skew the diameter estimate and misrepresent the stem diameter. Burls, swelling at branching nodes, and large wounds should be avoided if possible. It’s convention to measure stem diameter at 1.3 m (DBH, diameter at breast height), but sometimes this will need to be changed to avoid these idiosyncratic features.

• Recording the height of the stem diameter measurement becomes even more important when estimating biomass change over time. If the diameter is measured at different heights in different years then any biomass change estimates will be unrealistic. Tree stems tend to taper upwards, so a diameter measurement at 1 m will generally be larger than a measurement at 1.5 m.

=> ↺ My Name on Mars

• One of NASA’s many space programs in recent years is the Mars 2020 mission. The mission launched a rover named “Perseverance” in July 2020, which landed on the Martian surface in February 2021. The mission also includes the “Ingenuity” helicopter, a demonstrator rotorcraft and the first machine to achieve powered flight on another planet.

• To increase public awareness about the mission, NASA conducted an outreach campaign called “Send Your Name to Mars”. People around the world could register their names using a form on NASA’s website, and their submissions were etched into three chips mounted onto the rover. Over ten million names were submitted, and I was one of them.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

Security

=> ↺ Security updates for Thursday

• Security updates have been issued by Fedora (microcode_ctl, mingw-SDL2_ttf, seamonkey, and thunderbird), Mageia (cifs-utils, gerbv, golang, libcaca, libxml2, openssl, python-pillow, python-rencode, python-twisted, python-ujson, slurm, and sqlite3), Red Hat (gzip, kernel, kpatch-patch, podman, rsync, subversion:1.10, and zlib), Scientific Linux (gzip), Slackware (curl), SUSE (clamav), and Ubuntu (curl, firefox, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.13, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.13, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.13, linux-hwe-5.13, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-hwe, linux-azure, linux-azure-4.15, linux-dell300x, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-hwe, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-snapdragon, linux, linux-aws, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.4, linux-azure-fde, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-gkeop-5.4, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial, and linux-oem-5.14).

=> ↺ Malicious rustdecimal package found in crates.io Rust repository

• The developers of the Rust language warned about the identification of the rustdecimal package in the crates.io repository , which contains malicious code. The package was based on the legitimate package rust_decimal and used similarity in name ( typesquatting ) for distribution, with the expectation that the user would not notice the absence of an underscore when searching or selecting a module from a list.

=> ↺ Inkscape in Industrial Products

• Do not click web links or open unsolicited attachments in email messages.

=> ↺ Siemens JT2GO and Teamcenter Visualization

• The Tiff_Loader.dll is vulnerable to infinite loop condition while parsing specially crafted TIFF files. An attacker could leverage this vulnerability to crash the application and cause a denial-of-service condition.

=> ↺ BPFdoor: Stealthy Linux malware bypasses firewalls for remote access

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ San Francisco Police Are Using Driverless Cars as Mobile Surveillance Cameras

• “Autonomous vehicles are recording their surroundings continuously and have the potential to help with investigative leads,” an internal training document states.

=> ↺ 27 Rights Groups Demand Zoom Abandon ‘Invasive,’ and ‘Inherently Biased’ Emotion Recognition Software

• More than two dozen rights groups are calling on Zoom to scrap its efforts to explore controversial emotion recognition technology. The pushback from

Finance

=> ↺ Financial Inequality Shown to Scale

• This is rather a short gemlog post, although I wanted to raise awareness on an important topic. The financial inequality today is more higher than ever, and shows no signs of slowing down. It’s a product of the current system that exploits people and treats them only as numbers and products. More people are dying of hunger and living in poverty more now than ever, and in turn, our planet is also getting destroyed.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Money talks: Twitter’s financial backers must use their power to mitigate risks of Musk takeover

• Twitter’s shareholders and the financial institutions backing Elon Musk’s bid to take over the company must use their power to center and uphold the human rights of hundreds of millions of people who use the platform across the globe. With no adequate risk mitigation measures in place, Elon Musk’s takeover of the tech giant is jeopardizing the company’s long history of steadily improving protections for human rights, in collaboration with civil society around the world. Through open letters to shareholders and financial institutions, Access Now, and civil society organizations, investors, and investor advocates are calling on these stakeholders to act now and withhold their support and approval for the sale unless the necessary human rights safeguards are put in place.

• “Most of these giant asset management companies and financial institutions have advocated for sustainable and responsible business practices, and made public statements about benefiting society and the public good,” said Laura Okkonen, Investor Advocate at Access Now. “This is the time for them to demonstrate they will actually walk the talk, and apply those ambitious principles to a deal that would profoundly impact people around the world.”

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ #KeepItOn for peace and democracy in Sudan, Yemen, and Tajikistan

• Around the world, hundreds of millions of people are struggling for peace and democracy. In Sudan, Yemen, and Tajikistan, civilians are suffering brutal military attacks and violence perpetrated by government authorities. Many of them are desperately speaking out through protests, while struggling to survive. When authorities deliberately cut them off from the internet, they are cutting a lifeline to hope. To help amplify their voices, we bring you their stories, and ask for your solidarity in the call to end authorities’ recklessness in disrupting the internet, especially during crises when blackouts can put people’s lives in danger. As we highlight in our most recent #KeepItOn annual report, the use of internet shutdowns during conflict and war means that people are disconnected when they most need a connection to stay safe.

Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies (1757–1795) – The Public Domain Review

• The essayistic introductions of Harris’s List, an annual digest purporting to review and catalogue sex workers in Georgian London, did not shy away from castigating moralizers. The 1765 edition begins by claiming that “Ladies of Pleasure are public benefits”, while painting opponents of prostitution as zealous believers in the sentiment that, as versified by Matthew Prior’s Paulo Purganti and his Wife (1708): “The Nation ne’er will thrive, / Till all the whores are burnt alive”. Extinguishing this disgusting, incendiary charge, the author asks his readers to consider the Ancients, especially Horace’s anecdote about Cato the Elder, who congratulated a punter, upon exiting the brothel, for sequestering his lust away from “the wives and daughters of their neighbors”. Harris’s List shifts this praise from patron to provider. Commending prostitutes as the guardians of a harmonious polis, the List suggests that “the whole conduct” could be legalized or “regulated by rules”, urging “both Laws and Magistrates [to] be kind to those public-spirited Nymphs”. “Do we not owe to them the peace of families, of cities, nay of kingdoms?” asks the 1787 edition. “What villainies do they not prevent? What plots, what combinations, do they not dissolve? . . . What a miracle!”

• If some may see in these enthusiastic calls for decriminalization an echo of modern-day approaches (as practiced, for example, in the Netherlands), any trace of social progressivism wanes after this introductory foreplay gives way to the lists themselves. In format, these works present a bizarre melange of travel writing, guide books, yellow pages, and cheap erotica — reportage dissolves into racy fiction with the intent to “amuse and entertain the reader”, writes Sarah Toulalan. We encounter hundreds of barely redacted names, services rendered (using euphemisms such as “the Maypole of Love”), street addresses and prices, biographical information, employment history, and lengthy reviews of women and their temperaments. Miss Ph-llis of Tavistock Court is a “fine crummy plump-made dame”, specializing in the “elderly gentleman”, while Miss C-rb-tt of Bridges Street’s skin has a whiteness that “surpasses the new-fallen snow” and a heart comparable only to “Juno Queen of Heaven”. Others are treated far less kindly: Miss Th-m-es of Bow-Street is “too lusty and fat, but her limbs are exquisitely well turn’d”; the body of Mrs. Cl-l-nd of Swallow Street, who hails from Scotland, gets transformed through blazon into a highland landscape, whose “mountain, at the top, is not always destitute of flowers”; and Miss C-ll-ns of Oxford Street, formerly employed as a cow-keeper, has her lovemaking ridiculed with literary conceits, not to be repeated here, related to dairy farming and butter churning.

=> ↺ Alexander in the Bathysphere – The Public Domain Review

• While the bathysphere was not named until the 1930s (“bathy” from the Greek prefix for deep), humans may have been using diving bells for millennia. In the Problemata, a text contentiously credited to Aristotle, the philosopher tells how his student Alexander the Great descends to the depths of the sea in “a very fine barrel made entirely of white glass”, as a later poet would put it. The reasons for this descent differ across time. For some, it was to scout submarine defenses surrounding the city of Tyre during its siege. Others depict the Macedonian king met with a cruel vision of the great chain of being, stating, upon resurfacing, that “the world is damned and lost. The large and powerful fish devour the small fry”. In one particularly elaborate version, Alexander submerges with companions — a dog, cat, and cock — entrusting his life to a mistress who holds the cord used to retrieve the bathysphere. However, during his dive, she is seduced by a lover and persuaded to elope, dropping the chains that anchor Alexander and his animal companions to their boat. Through a gruesome utility, the pets help him survive: the cock keeps track of time in the lightless fathoms, the cat serves as a rebreather to purify the vessel’s atmosphere, and the poor hound’s body becomes a kind of airbag, propelling Alexander back to the sea’s surface.

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