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● 05.27.22

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● Links 27/05/2022: Many More Microsoft Security Failures (and Spin/Lies)

Posted in News Roundup at 2:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Server

=> ↺ Kubernetes 1.24: Maximum Unavailable Replicas for StatefulSet

• Kubernetes StatefulSets, since their introduction in 1.5 and becoming stable in 1.9, have been widely used to run stateful applications. They provide stable pod identity, persistent per pod storage and ordered graceful deployment, scaling and rolling updates. You can think of StatefulSet as the atomic building block for running complex stateful applications. As the use of Kubernetes has grown, so has the number of scenarios requiring StatefulSets. Many of these scenarios, require faster rolling updates than the currently supported one-pod-at-a-time updates, in the case where you’re using the OrderedReady Pod management policy for a StatefulSet.

• Here are some examples:

• In order to support such scenarios, Kubernetes 1.24 includes a new alpha feature to help. Before you can use the new feature you must enable the MaxUnavailableStatefulSet feature flag. Once you enable that, you can specify a new field called maxUnavailable, part of the spec for a StatefulSet.

Applications

=> ↺ Briar Messenger

• Another week, another privacy-focused messenger.

• Briar is another end to end encrypted messenger that I’ve been taking a look at lately. Here’s a little overview of it and my thoughts.

=> ↺ Lotus 1-2-3 For Linux

• It’s an exciting time in the Lotus 1-2-3 enthusiast community – that was a joke, there is no enthusiast community, it’s just me!

• It really is an exciting time though – that part isn’t a joke!

• There have been some major developments in the last few weeks, and I guess that’s pretty unusual for 30 year old abandonware.

• I’ll cut to the chase; through a combination of unlikely discoveries, crazy hacks and the 90s BBS warez scene I’ve been able to port Lotus 1-2-3 natively to Linux – an operating system that literally didn’t exist when 1-2-3 was released!

• If you want to hear how a proprietary application could be ported to new operating systems 30 years after release, read on.

Games

=> ↺ Beautiful musical puzzle-adventure Sonority is out now

• Musical puzzle-adventure game Sonority is out now from Hanging Gardens Interactive and Application Systems Heidelberg. I took a look so you know what to expect. Note: key provided by the publisher.

=> ↺ Nora: The Wannabe Alchemist is a fresh time-management visual-novel hybrid

• A mixture of point & click, time-management and a visual-novel all blended together is what you get with Nora: The Wannabe Alchemist. It just entered Early Access from developer Error 300, a nice casual game for those of you who want something a bit slower to relax with.

=> ↺ CRSED: F.O.A.D. is like PUBG with powers, now on Linux and Steam Deck Verified

• We may not have PUBG supported on Linux / Steam Deck yet but we do now have CRSED: F.O.A.D. (previously called Cuisine Royale), a Battle Royale game that looks quite a bit like PUBG but sprinkles in some powers.

=> ↺ Morrowind gets shiny in OpenMW with post-processing shaders coming

• OpenMW, the free and open source game engine reimplementation of Morrowind is about to get a lot better looking, with post-processing shaders coming in the next release.

=> ↺ Steam Deck – Steam Deck Client and SteamOS Update: Remote Play Together and SteamOS 3.2 – Steam News

=> ↺ SteamOS 3.2 out for Steam Deck — better fan curves, refresh rate switching

• Valve has released a huge Stable update for SteamOS with version 3.2 now available for updating on your Steam Deck. Here’s what’s new. A lot of this isn’t exactly new-news, since it’s pushing out most of the changes from the Beta you could opt into at any point. 

=> ↺ ProtonUp-Qt adds support for Wine manager app Bottles

• ProtonUp-Qt, the fantastic tool to help you install various community builds of Wine and Proton like GE-Proton or Wine-GE on Linux and Steam Deck just added support for the Bottles application.

=> ↺ Bomber Crew is free for keeps on Steam until June 2nd

• A quality game from 2017, Bomber Crew can now be grabbed free on Steam for a limited time so don’t miss out. Consider this your tip of the day!

=> ↺ Serious Sam 4 gets Steam Deck support with a small but ‘notable’ update

• Serious Sam 4 gained a Steam Deck Verified rating recently, which is in part thanks to the developer pushing out a small but significant patch for the game. It was listed in the recent post on Steam Deck hitting 3,000 titles either Playable or Verified.

Distributions and Operating Systems

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Qubes 4.1 Now Available for Pre-Install

• I’m convinced that the Librem 14 is the best laptop for Qubes and our customers seem to agree. Originally, customers who selected Qubes with their order would have to install it themselves with a USB thumb drive we added to the order. More recently we started offering Qubes as a pre-installed option, all set up on the computer before it ships. This required a number of changes to the Qubes OEM project Nitrokey created for their own use so that we could allow customers to reset their disk unlock passphrase on first boot.

• Originally we shipped Qubes 4.0.4 and when Qubes 4.1 was released, many of our customers asked when we would switch to the newer version. Updating our OEM installer for Qubes 4.1 took a lot more effort than we expected, but we are happy to announce that our Qubes 4.1 OEM installer is now complete and we are starting to use it for new orders. This is a project I worked on personally, and in this blog post I’ll do a brief technical dive into what’s involved in making the Qubes OEM installer and why upgrading to Qubes 4.1 was more complicated than expected.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Canonical Details Plans to Make the Firefox Snap, Snappier

• I think most of us can agree that the Firefox Snap included in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS doesn’t start up nearly as fast as it could (or arguably should).

• Now, Canonical wants us to know that — and it wants us know that it’s doing something to fix it.

• Canonical’s Oliver Smith runs through the current causes of slow cold startup times in a blog post, and details some of the steps its engineers are taking to improve the situation. Oliver also spends a bit of time setting out the stall for why Firefox is now a Snap app in Ubuntu, and why, overall, a Snap is inherently better for most of us using Ubuntu.

• Oliver explains that the “[Firefox Snap has] trade-offs when it comes to performance, most notably in Firefox’s first launch after a system reboot. A part of this is due to the inherent nature of sandboxing, however we feel there is still significant opportunity to improve start-up times across the board.”

=> ↺ Data@Mozilla: Crash Reporting Data Sprint

• Two weeks ago the Socorro Eng/Ops team, in charge of Socorro and Tecken, had its first remote 1-day Data Sprint to onboard folks from ops and engineering.

=> ↺ Mozilla Meetups: The Building Blocks of a Trusted Internet

• Join us on June 9 at 3 PM ET for a conversation on how the digital policy landscape not only shapes, but is also shaped by, the way we move around online and what steps our policymakers need to take to ensure a healthy internet.

Programming/Development

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ What happened to Perl 7?

• Two years ago Perl 7 was announced. A key idea for Perl 7 was to significantly reduce the boilerplate needed at the top of your code, by enabling a lot of widely used modules / pragmas, but this would have come at the price of breaking some backwards compatibility. This would have meant that some existing code wouldn’t have worked without modification.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Meet the OnlyFans Creator Who Said She Slept With Instagram Employees to Get Her Account Back

• One enterprising creator, however, says she found a far more effective way to get her Instagram account back after it was removed: By having sex with a Meta employee. And then, when her account was removed again, she found another employee, and did it again.

• Kitty Lixo, an OnlyFans model, podcast host, and adult-content creator who had more than 150,000 followers before her account was recently removed by Instagram for a fourth time, recently went viral for an interview she gave on the podcast No Jumper. When asked by host Adam22 what the sluttiest thing she ever did was, Kitty recounted sleeping with a Meta employee (someone she already knew) to successfully get her Instagram account back after it was removed, then seeking out other Meta employees through her podcasting and Bay Area connections to do the same when her account was again removed.

=> ↺ BBC to axe 1,000 jobs in digital transformation

• The network will create a single 24-hour television news channel serving the UK and abroad, absorbing BBC World.

• Channels including children’s channel CBBC, BBC Four and Radio 4 Extra will stop traditional broadcasting, while “a number” of World Service language services will become digital only.

=> ↺ Opinion | The Deep Need to Organize for a Better World

• To begin, an anecdote. This past summer, a pigeon walked through my open balcony door while my attention was elsewhere. I shooed it out, but when I turned around two more pigeons walked out of my bedroom. In the 20 years I’ve lived in my apartment, this had never happened to me, though my balcony door was often open. All I could imagine was that those poor birds had gotten as disoriented as the rest of us in these pandemic years when nothing feels faintly normal.

=> ↺ Why Elif Batuman’s Been Thinking About “Compulsive Heterosexuality” ‹ Literary Hub

• EB: I had some thoughts about whether or not to explain what fingering is. So “finger,” for those who don’t know, is a command you used in Unix when email was text-based rather than web-based. You could say “finger” and then the person’s user name, and they’d tell you where they’ve logged in. It was this really sinister, creepy thing that everyone did and nobody talked about.

Hardware

=> ↺ Robotic Hand Uses Old CD-ROM Parts

• Robotic arms and actuators are compelling things to watch, and as popular among the maker set as they are crucial to modern industry. [kthod2000] built a design of their own, which relies on parts salvaged from old CD-ROM drives. 

=> ↺ The 512 Gigabyte Floppy Disk

• There are times when a technology goes almost overnight as if in a puff of smoke, and others when they fade away gradually over time to the point at which their passing is barely noticed. So it is with removable media, while we still have the occasional USB flash disk or SD card , they do not come anywhere near the floppies, Zip disks, and CD-ROMs of the past in their numbers or ubiquity. If the floppy disk is just a save icon to you there’s still the chance to experience their retro charm though, courtesy of [Franklinstein]. He’s made a 3.5″ floppy disk that eschews 720 k, 1.44 M, or even 2.88 Mb, and goes all the way with a claimed 512 Gb capacity. We’re sure we can’t remember these from back in the day!

=> ↺ Mitsubishi Electric details more ‘improper quality control’ • The Register

• Mitsubishi Electric has admitted to widespread cheating on its internal quality control efforts.

• The Japanese giant makes datacenter-scale power supply products, uninterruptible power supplies, high-end optical networking kit, plus plenty of electronics and semiconductor products – so this scandal is of concern to Reg readers. Buyers of other Mitsubishi Electric products, covering building operations, railways, and space systems, also have reason for concern.

• One more thing: the company’s motto is “Changes for the better.” We can’t make this stuff up.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Sanctions Frustrating Russian Ransomware Actors

• Joyce said one reason for the decrease in ransomware attacks since the February 24 invasion is likely improved awareness and defensive measures by U.S. businesses.

• He also said some of it is tied to measures the United States and its Western allies have taken against Moscow in response to the war in Ukraine.

=> ↺ Attribution is key to holding cyber criminals accountable

• “Attribution is a good way to make clear to malicious actors that their actions will be seen and will be addressed,” she added.

• Maigre made her remarks on Thursday during a virtual roundtable discussion hosted by The German Marshall Fund. The discussion revolved around Maigre’s policy brief on NATO’s role in global cyber security.

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Lesson Learned: Always Listen to Mom

=> ↺ disguise or distract

=> ↺ what it really does

Security

=> ↺ 3 key elements to protect a Kubernetes cluster

• Kubernetes changed how we structure, deploy, and run our applications and became a de-facto standard for running infrastructure at scale. With the rapid adoption of container-based technologies, organizations are increasingly concerned about the security of their Kubernetes clusters. And they should be! While cloud and enterprise distributions provide solid security capabilities, they require tuning according to match organizational security needs.

=> ↺ Ransomware grounds some flights at Indian budget airline SpiceJet

• The carrier has not discussed what variety of ransomware it experienced, the systems it impacted, and whether it paid the ransom or was able to swiftly restore systems. Whatever SpiceJet did to defeat ransomware, it fixed the problem at jet speed – operations resumed within hours rather than stretching into days as happened when Colonial Pipeline was infected.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Twitter Fined $150 Million by FTC for Alleged User-Privacy Violations

• The Federal Trade Commission levied a $150 million fine on Twitter, alleging that the social network let advertisers use private data to target specific users — without informing users of the practice.

• According to the agency, Twitter violated a 2011 FTC order that “explicitly prohibited” the company from misrepresenting its privacy and security practices. In addition to the $150 million fine, Twitter is banned from “profiting from its deceptively collected data,” the FTC said.

=> ↺ What Was the Wiretap?

• According to Brian Hochman’s The Listeners: A History of Wiretapping in the United States, Americans have held many attitudes toward surveillance over the years. The latest, which has calcified since police wiretapping was enshrined into law in 1968, is indifference. Wiretapping was once seen as extraordinary: Americans in the early 20th century considered it a “dirty business.” Then some attitudes shifted, and by the postwar era, many private citizens were already using freelance tappers in divorce disputes. (Hochman drops the astonishing tidbit that in the 1950s in New York, “Private ears tapped more lines to monitor cheating spouses than their counterparts in law enforcement did to gather criminal evidence.”) By the 1960s, Americans were divided, with law-and-order conservatives arguing that police needed the right to surveil and progressives pushing to protect privacy.

=> ↺ Traveller screening: Europol wants to collect data on Europeans crossing borders

• Frontex and Europol want to create an indivdual file for all travellers and check it against various databases. The analysis is to be carried out with AI.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Jan. 6 panel is told that Trump indicated support for hanging Pence during insurrection

• The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol collected testimony that then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows remarked to others that then-President Donald Trump indicated his support for hanging Vice President Mike Pence after rioters who stormed the Capitol on that day started chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”

=> ↺ Yasin Malik: Top Kashmiri separatist given life in Indian jail

• He was found guilty of participating in and funding terrorist acts and involvement in criminal conspiracy.

=> ↺ Nigeria’s kidnapping crisis: Should ransom payments be banned?

• But the lawmakers argue that such payments fuel the kidnapping industry, where criminal gangs randomly seize people and demand anything from $50 to $1m.

• Detective superintendent Eguaoje Funmilayo of the Federal Criminal Investigations Department (FCID) said families were normally hesitant to involve police, and instead pay ransoms – something that police discourage them from doing.

=> ↺ Police discover severed head of missing legislator in Nigeria

• The violence in the southeast is another layer of insecurity in Nigeria, where kidnappings for ransom are common in the northwest and parts of the Middle Belt region. Armed groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic West Africa Province are also active in the northeast of the country.

=> ↺ Soros says ‘civilization may not survive’ Ukraine war

• In his traditional dinner speech on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain town of Davos, the Hungarian-born investor and philanthropist said the war has “shaken Europe to its core.”

• “The invasion may have been the beginning of the Third World War and our civilization may not survive it,” Soros said.

=> ↺ Somalia’s al Qaeda Branch Has Gotten ‘Bigger, Stronger, and Bolder’ Since U.S. Exit

• But al-Shabab, which Townsend called the “largest, wealthiest, and most lethally active arm of al Qaeda,” continues to reiterate that it desires to attack the U.S. homeland. The Pentagon does not believe that al-Shabab has the capabilities to match its ambitions just yet, but it has the ability to strike in the Horn of Africa, killing almost 150 people in an attack on Kenya’s Garissa University in 2015 and staging a truck bombing in Mogadishu in 2017 that took almost 600 lives.

=> ↺ Documents Reveal How Pentagon Shaped ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Into A Recruitment And PR Vehicle

• Files on “Top Gun: Maverick” detail the influence the Pentagon had over the sequel to Top Gun, how that affected the storyline and character arcs, and which “key talking points” became part of the script.

• Additionally, documents on “Top Gun” also show the United States military has long wanted this to be a major franchise. 

=> ↺ The War on My Homeland Offers a Real Chance to Save the Planet

• Some days ago, I left my home in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, to make my way to Sweden. There I will address the United Nations’ Stockholm +50 International Meeting on the Human Environment, opening June 2. I will do so on behalf of Stand With Ukraine, a coalition of 45 Ukrainian organizations and networks, supported by hundreds more worldwide. Our message: “End the global fossil fuel addiction that fuels Putin’s war machine.”

=> ↺ The Buffalo Attack Is Part of a Long History of Racial Terror

• Our Buffalo community is grieving right now. We’re grieving for Pearl Young, a grandmother who volunteered every Saturday at her church’s food pantry. We’re grieving for Miss Kat Massey, a dear friend of mine who would write a $10 check every month to the community land trust I ran. We’re grieving for Londin Thomas, an 8-year-old Black girl who hid in a milk cooler while a mass shooter opened fire on a supermarket full of shoppers in East Buffalo, killing 10 people and wounding three others. Londin survived, but she will live with the trauma of that day for the rest of her life. The shooter’s victims were mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunties—pillars of our community who were looked up to and loved.

=> ↺ Opinion | Meanwhile, Back in Washington, and Somalia, and Syria, and Kenya, and …

• So we hear that former President George W. Bush finally came around to denouncing “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” This unexpected and belated outburst of truth-telling and self-criticism was, of course, unintentional—just one of those verbal gaffes that the man once entertained the nation with on a regular basis. Realizing his error, the former commander-in-chief quickly explained that the unjustified and brutal invasion he was condemning was, naturally, not that of Iraq, but Ukraine. He brushed his faux pas off as a result of his advanced age, and the audience had a good laugh about it all.

=> ↺ Opinion | Gunmaker Profits Soar as Bloody Massacres Proliferate

• Citizens are waking up to the fact that so many politicians can be so easily bought by the weapons industry, an industry that doesn’t care how many people must die to protect their huge profits. SafeHome.org reports that after a record year in 2020, gun sales in the U.S. dipped slightly in 2021. Still, with nearly 19 million guns sold, 2021 was the second-highest year for gun sales in the U.S.—behind only 2020, when estimated gun sales topped 21 million. The previous record year was 2016, with about 16 million guns sold. Total estimated gun sales fell 13 percent between 2020 and 2021, but they remained higher than they were in 2019 (up nearly 40 percent).

=> ↺ ‘We Refuse to Go On Like This’: US Students Walk Out to Demand Gun Control

• Students across the United States walked out of their classrooms Thursday to protest gun violence and years of inaction in Washington, D.C. they blame for allowing mass shootings to continue, like the one that killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School this week.

• “No more thoughts and prayers.”

=> ↺ Ukraine war: Russia allegedly uses laser weapons against drones

• Russian high-energy lasers are also said to blind satellites. US land forces mount smaller systems on tanks, German Rheinmetall still working on it.

=> ↺ Nuland-Pyatt Tape Removed From YouTube After 8 Years

• YouTube has removed the audio evidence proving U.S. involvement in the 2014 coup in Kiev.

=> ↺ Lee Camp: I Know Who the US Will Coup Next!

• The US government has multiple ways of bringing down other governments, which they have used over the last 50 years to create a ridiculously long list of coups around the world.

=> ↺ Senators Set to Leave Town for 10-Day Recess Without Action on Gun Violence Crisis

• The U.S. Senate is set to adjourn Thursday afternoon for a 10-day recess without taking any concrete steps to address the nation’s deadly epidemic of gun violence, following a pattern of inaction that has prevailed in the decade since the worst school shooting in the nation’s history in Newtown, Connecticut.

• “The Senate isn’t even planning a vote before recess following the deadliest school shooting in a decade.”

=> ↺ ‘No Time to Waste’: New Nationwide March For Our Lives Protests Set for June 11

• Four years, over 100 school shootings, and more than 170,000 U.S. firearm deaths after the first March For Our Lives rallies in 2018, the student-led gun control advocacy group announced Wednesday that it would stage a new nationwide day of protest on June 11 following Tuesday’s Robb Elementary School massacre in Texas.

• “You can’t stop a bullet with thoughts and prayers. To honor those lost and save countless lives, we need action. We’re dying while we wait for it.”

=> ↺ Blame Republicans for Uvalde? Yes, but Also Blame the Supreme Court.

• In the aftermath of whatever mass shooting has happened before you finish reading this, attention and outrage will turn to politicians, mainly Republicans, who refuse to do anything to stop the violence. That’s because the political solution to America’s problem has already been figured out by the rest of the world. To stanch gun violence, you must restrict gun access. It really is that simple: Making guns rare and hard to come by leads to fewer gun homicides, fewer gun suicides, and fewer mass shootings.

=> ↺ ‘We Continue to Fail to Protect Our Youngest’: Guns Leading Cause of Death in Kids

• Following the latest school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Democratic lawmakers are highlighting recent data showing firearms are now the leading cause of death among U.S. children as evidence of the fatal consequences of Republican opposition to gun control legislation.

• “This is a choice,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) tweeted Wednesday. “Every vote against gun reform is a choice.”

=> ↺ ‘Counting Dollars While They Were Counting Bodies’: Abbott Attended Fundraiser Hours After Massacre

• Hours after a gunman armed with two AR-15-style rifles massacred 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott attended a high-dollar fundraiser for his reelection campaign at a private home 300 miles from the site of the shooting.

• The Tuesday evening fundraiser took place at the home of Huntsville resident Jeff Bradley, who confirmed that he hosted the closed-door event but did not provide additional details, such as an attendance list.

=> ↺ Right to Life?

=> ↺ Opinion | Beyond Gun Control, We Need Hatred Control

• Another terrorist slips into the classroom, into the news.

Environment

=> ↺ Big Tech is pouring millions into the wrong climate solution at Davos

• Alphabet, Microsoft, and Salesforce today pledged $500 million to new climate tech that’s supposed to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to keep it from heating up the planet. It’s the latest move by Big Tech to propel the emerging technology forward while painting themselves as global leaders when it comes to taking action on climate change.

• Regardless, these companies have a lot of work left to do to deal with their own emissions. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) isn’t the solution for Big Tech’s own pollution.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Cattle Grazing = Death Traps for Yellowstone Grizzly Bears

• Grizzly bears were listed as “threatened” in the lower 48 states under the Endangered Species Act in 1975 – nearly a half century ago. The Endangered Species Act exists for one reason: to protect and recover threatened and endangered species until they are no longer vulnerable to current and foreseeable threats.

• One of the major hurdles for grizzly bear recovery is to have one connected, genetically sound population – not five isolated inbred populations.  Due to the physical disconnect from other populations, the Yellowstone grizzlies remain vulnerable to inbreeding and continue to require the legal protections of the Endangered Species Act.

=> ↺ Researchers from IIT-Madras and Harvard University develop algorithm to combat poaching

• The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says wildlife trade poses the second biggest direct threat to the survival of species after habitat destruction. A study by Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network of the WWF, showed that more than 1 lakh tortoises/freshwater turtles have been illegally traded across India since 2009.

• The study by Prof Ravindran’s team and Prof Milind Tambe’s research group ‘Teamcore’ at Harvard University realised that allocating resources of rangers and drones with coordinated patrolling with real-time communication can be a good strategy to protect wildlife in conserved areas. But none of the earlier models included these components.

Finance

=> ↺ TikTok Announces New WooCommerce Plugin to Power More Shopping Options

• As you can see in this video overview, the new TikTok plugin for WooCommerce enables users to connect their product catalog, activate TikTok pixel tracking, create TikTok ads and launch them, all from the WooCommerce dashboard.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Elon Musk will put up $6 billion to drop Tesla loans from his Twitter deal

• After a brutal month for Tesla stock, Elon Musk will no longer fund his Twitter buyout by borrowing against his Tesla ownership stake.

• In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk announced the expiration of a series of margin loans against Tesla stock, which had been included as part of his original financing plan to acquire Twitter. As part of the announcement, Musk committed to providing an additional $6.25 billion in equity financing, bringing his total commitment to $33.5 billion.

=> ↺ Twitter shareholder sues Elon Musk for tanking the company’s stock

• The complaint focuses on Musk’s conduct since signing the purchase agreement with Twitter’s board on April 25th, particularly his recent statement that the deal “cannot move forward” without more information about automated accounts on the platform.

• After signing the agreement, the complaint alleges, “Musk proceeded to make statements, send tweets, and engage in conduct designed to create doubt about the deal and drive Twitter’s stock down substantially in order to create leverage that Musk hoped to use to either back out of the purchase or re-negotiate the buyout price.”

=> ↺ Facebook rejects Abbott allegation about Texas shooter’s posts

• Facebook is denying Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) allegation that the gunman who killed 21 people, including 19 children, at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday posted publicly about the attack on its platform.

• Abbott said during a press conference Wednesday that the gunman, Salvador Ramos, posted three times before the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

=> ↺ Europe is at a Crossroads of Neoliberalism and What People Actually Want

• Such an idea is neither naive nor impossible. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

• Building a new path based on a lasting peace is the only possible alternative for the sustainability of all people and the planet. The opposite of this means a silencing of the people, the loss of human lives, a divided world, permanent war, living in constant fear of nuclear weapons, and misery for the people affected by war.

=> ↺ Head Count

=> ↺ Fidesz went all in for the future of Europe, but the excitement shifted to anger

• The Hungarian government is disappointed with the outcome of the conference on the future of Europe, even though the organizations in its orbit took an active part in it. In spite of this, the attempt to channel the views of EU citizens may not have too many practical results, as the member states’ governments exsanguinate the proposals through the EU’s decision-making system.

=> ↺ Bernie Sanders, Lindsey Graham to Kick Off New Debate Series

• Left-wing Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and far-right Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are set to kick off a new televised debate series called “The Senate Project” next month.

• Sanders, an independent democratic socialist, and Graham, a Republican ally of former President Donald Trump, are scheduled to square off at 12:00 pm ET on June 13 in an Oxford-style debate moderated by Fox News anchor Bret Baier, the Bipartisan Policy Center—which is co-sponsoring the event alongside the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute—announced Wednesday.

=> ↺ Ocasio-Cortez Endorses Entire Slate of Democratic Socialists in NY

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday endorsed all 13 candidates running for the New York state Legislature on a progressive slate backed by the nation’s largest Democratic Socialists of America chapter.

• DSA For the Many tweeted the Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) endorsement early Thursday morning, proclaiming that “as AOC knows—when we fight together, we win together!”

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Trans woman’s photo used to spread baseless online theory about Texas shooter

• Social media users and trolls on 4chan, Twitter and Facebook are using Sam’s photos and images of at least two other transgender women to spread the baseless theory that the shooter was transgender. In some cases, they have created collages that place the women’s photos alongside images from an Instagram page believed to have belonged to the shooter.

• The claims were spread by some prominent conservatives on Tuesday.

=> ↺ From 4Chan to Congress: How a Hateful Anti-Trans Lie About the Uvalde Shooter Went Viral

• The gunman, identified by authorities as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was reportedly born in North Dakota. Little is known about his politics, or motivation for the shooting. As for the trans part? That was a malicious rumor born in the fever swamps of the message board 4chan. (Gosar — himself a right-wing extremist, embraced by white nationalists — has since deleted the tweet; his spokesperson did not respond to a request to comment.)

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Instagram moderators say Iran offered them bribes to remove accounts

• A Persian-language content moderator for Instagram and a former content moderator have said Iranian intelligence officials offered them money to remove Instagram accounts of journalists and activists.

• “I was offered 5,000 to 10,000 euros [$5,350-$10,700; £4,250-£9,000] to delete an account. They were especially after removing Masih Alinejad,” the former reviewer told BBC Persian.

• Ms Alinejad is an Iranian-American author and activist. Last year, the US justice department said Iranian officials sought to lure the New York-based journalist to a third country to kidnap her.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Due Process Violations in Assange Case

• Deepa Driver, who was a legal observer in Assange’s courtroom throughout the process, enumerates the ways his due process rights have been violated. 

=> ↺ Americans Must Demand an Independent Investigation of Shireen Abu Akleh’s Killing

• On May 11, she was shot and killed while covering an Israeli raid on the Palestinian refugee camp outside Jenin.

• Abu Akleh’s killing in the Israeli-occupied West Bank was shocking, but hardly unusual. According to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, she was the 86th journalist to be killed while covering Israeli oppression since Israel first occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem in 1967.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Lawsuit alleges Chicago police officer ‘recklessly’ shot 13-year-old carjacking suspect

• The lawsuit alleges the officer used excessive force “in violation of the U.S. Constitution” and that the Chicago Police Department continues to disproportionately use excessive and deadly force against Black people. It also claims that the city has failed to implement a foot pursuit policy as required by a federal consent decree on police reform efforts.

=> ↺ Urvashi Vaid, 1958–2022

• The groundbreaking lesbian leader Urvashi Vaid, who died on May 14, wanted a political funeral—the sort where the mourners take over the streets and break windows. She didn’t get that, but her service did start with a chapel full of loved ones, some in saris, some in suits, screaming “Fuck Cancer!” and “Fuck the Supreme Court!” at the top of our lungs.

=> ↺ With ‘Bounty-Hunting’ Law, Oklahoma Enacts Nation’s First Total Ban on Abortion

• Oklahoma on Wednesday became the first state in the U.S. to enact a total ban on abortion after Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill that outlaws the procedure at fertilization and deputizes private citizens to enforce the prohibition.

• Modeled after Texas’ similarly draconian ban, the Oklahoma measure is one of several increasingly extreme bills that state-level Republicans advanced following the leak of a draft opinion making clear the right-wing Supreme Court majority’s intention to overturn Roe v. Wade in the coming weeks.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ 11th Circuit’s Ruling to Uphold Injunction Against Florida’s Social Media Law is a Win Amid a Growing Pack of Bad Online Speech Bills

=> ↺ California Bill Would Make New Broadband Networks More Expensive

• All of these efforts will help bring every Californian affordable fiber internet access. But a bill in the California legislature threatens to undo all of that good work. A.B. 2749, authored by Assemblymember Quirk-Silva, would prohibit the CPUC from requiring providers to offer affordable service to all Californians, and force them to wrongly treat fixed wireless offerings as equivalent to fiber infrastructure. It would also place a completely arbitrary 180-day review shot-clock on the review of applications to federal funding, which will short-circuit public provider efforts to deliver fiber.

• All these provisions run contrary to both the established goals of the Biden Administration and the Newsom administration to deliver affordable, future-proof fiber to all. A.B. 2749 has passed the Assembly and is now headed to the Senate. If this bill—which is supported by industry providers like AT&T and Frontier Communications—were to pass, areas that currently do not even have basic service, primarily rural and urban poor areas, would suffer most of all.

• The CPUC is supposed to provide taxpayer-funded grants to companies that build internet infrastructure. The bill prohibits the CPUC from requiring these grantees to offer a service at a fixed price for more than five years. The CPUC is also prohibited from setting a specified rate or setting a ceiling for rates. The only limited exemption to these bans on affordability are for ‘low-income’ households. This means a family of four making less than $55,000 a year would be protected from broadband price gouging, but the vast majority of Californians would not. Put another way, at a time of record inflation, the Californians getting broadband for the first time will be subject to uncontrolled monopoly pricing on infrastructure that their own tax dollars built.

=> ↺ Starlink Users Miffed They Have To Pay Extra To Skip The Long Wait

• While Space X’s Starlink is a promising broadband option if you’re out of range of traditional options (and can afford it), many users who’ve pre-ordered aren’t having a great time. Some say they’ve been waiting for service more than a year, during which time Starlink has often refused to answer basic emails or issue refunds, while imposing price hikes on waiting customers.

Monopolies

Trademarks

=> ↺ Enormous Fashion Company Zara Opposes Trademark For Tiny ‘House Of Zana’ Fashion House

• The last time we discussed Zara, the clothing retailer based out of Spain, it was to witness the company tripping all over itself to apologize to mainland China for denoting Taiwan and Hong Kong as countries on its website. Well, now the company is back, this time for engaging in a somewhat silly trademark opposition to another, far smaller fashion house named House of Zana. After Zara opposed the smaller company’s trademark application, claiming that the names were too similar and would cause confusion, hearings were held in the UK.

Copyrights

=> ↺ TV Piracy is Growing Rapidly in the UK, Data Show

• Nearly half of all piracy traffic is TV-related and the number of illegal downloads and streams continues to rise. This growth is particularly strong in the UK, which in absolute numbers is now ranked third of all countries worldwide. Interestingly, people even pirate content they can watch legally, for free.

=> ↺ Football Chief Slams IPTV Pirates While Sponsored By Piracy “Supporter”

• Luigi De Siervo, CEO of Italian football league Serie A, isn’t happy that fans watch matches using pirate IPTV services. Describing Italy as a “country of freeloaders”, he says those supporting the illegal market must be stopped. Meanwhile, Hollywood is urging the European Commission to take action against one of Serie A’s key sponsors, which also stands accused of supporting piracy.

=> ↺ How the Publishing World Is Muscling In on Hollywood Deals: For Authors, “The Future Is Multihyphenate”

• Meanwhile, publishers like Condé Nast and Vox Media, which owns New York magazine (from which articles have been adapted for projects like Netflix’s Inventing Anna), are building out in-house production arms in hopes of bringing revenue into the beleaguered magazine industry, and maybe even convert viewers into subscribers. CNE was created as part of the pivot-to-video strategy that many traditional magazines hoped would offset lagging newsstand sales and disappearing advertising dollars, and has since expanded into more ambitious Hollywood projects.

=> ↺ Episode 33: Open Culture VOICES – Ariadna Matas

• Welcome to episode 33 of Open Culture VOICES! VOICES is a vlog series of short interviews with open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) experts from around the world. The Open Culture Program at Creative Commons aims to promote better sharing of cultural heritage in GLAMs collections. With Open Culture VOICES, we’re thrilled to bring you various perspectives from dozens of experts speaking in many different languages on what it’s like to open up heritage content online. In this episode, we hear from Ariadna Matas, policy advisor at the Europeana Foundation in the Netherlands. Ariadna contributes to the management and development of the policies and frameworks of Europeana, Europe’s digital library, with a strong focus on copyright, and supports their implementation throughout the Europeana Network. She coordinates the Europeana Copyright Community and the Rights Statements Consortium. She is also a member of the CC Global Network Copyright Platform, the NEMO Working Group on Digitization & IPR, the Libraries and IP Group of the Spanish Federation of Library Associations, and the Rights Statements Consortium Statements and Implementation Working Groups.

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