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● 07.11.22

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● Links 11/07/2022: Calibre 6.0 and Limine Installer 0.1.4

Posted in News Roundup at 7:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: July 10th, 2022

•  This week was all about Linux notebooks as we saw new releases of the TUXEDO Pulse 15, KDE Slimbook, System76 Lemur Pro, and Slimbook Executive laptops. KDE fans got new releases of the KDE Gear and Frameworks software suites, Debian users got new installation/live mediums with the latest updates, and Calibre and Audacious apps received major updates that brought exciting new features.

• Below, you can enjoy these and much more in 9to5Linux’s Linux weekly roundup for July 10th, 2022.

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ x86 Raspberry Pi Desktop is a great way to revive an old PC

• The Raspberry Pi Foundation has updated its lightweight Linux for 32-bit PCs.

• When the first Raspberry Pi launched just over a decade ago, the Raspberry Pi Foundation offered an ARMv6 version of Debian 7. It worked, but it had a problem: while the Pi 1 had a hardware floating-point unit, the ARMv6 version of Debian couldn’t use it. FPU support needed the ARMv7 edition.

• Fortunately, Mike Thompson and Peter Green rose to the challenge and created Raspbian – later officially adopted by the manufacturer and renamed the Raspberry Pi OS. It started out as a seriously cut-down edition of Debian, recompiled for ARMv6 plus hardfp support – because the fairly feeble SoC in the early Pi needed all the help it could get.

• Both the Raspberry Pi and its OS have been huge successes, and both the hardware and software are regularly upgraded. What gets less attention is that for five years, there’s also been a PC OS version. It’s called the Raspberry Pi Desktop. Barring a couple of Pi-native components, such as Mathematica, it’s the same set of customizations applied to the x86-32 edition of Debian.

Applications

=> ↺ Calibre 6.0 Released with Full-Text Search, ARM64 Support on Linux, and Qt 6 Port – 9to5Linux

• Calibre creator Kovid Goyal released today a new major version of this popular open-source ebook management software, Calibre 6.0, which introduces exciting new features.

• The Calibre 6.0 release is the first to be ported to the latest Qt 6 open-source application framework, offering users a more modern interface and most probably a smoother performance. This means that Calibre will no longer support 32-bit CPUs as Qt 6 doesn’t support them and that some third-party plugins may not work until they’re also ported to Qt 6.

• Another major new feature of the Calibre 6.0 release is full-text search, as Calibre is now capable of indexing the full text of books in your library. You can use the full-text search feature to search for words inside any book by clicking on the FT button at the left edge of the search bar.

=> ↺ yt-dlp – fork of youtube-dl – LinuxLinks

• We’ve previously extolled the virtues of youtube-dl, a hugely popular free software tool for downloading videos from YouTube and other user-uploaded video platforms.

• The project has run into issues in the past, sailing close to copyright infringement claims. For example, in late 2020 the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) issued a takedown notice to GitHub under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), requesting the removal of youtube-dl. GitHub initially complied with the takedown request, but reinstated the project’s repository after a few weeks.

• More recently, youtube-dl has been beset with other issues. Historically, the project saw very active development. Yet there hasn’t been a release since December 2021, with almost no code commits for many months. More importantly, download speeds from YouTube are tragically slow. Indeed, users complain frequently of terrible slow download rates. It’s claimed that YouTube is throttling downloads, and given the lack of maintenance of youtube-dl, the issue persists.

• Step forward yt-dlp. It’s a fork of youtube-dl that’s under active development. It focuses on adding new features and patches and maintaining compatibility.

=> ↺ Limine Installer version 0.1.4

• Here is a PET package. Version 0.1.4 does not yet do an actual install of Limine. It scans for installed OSs and generates menu entries for ‘limine.cfg’.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ The Linux load average does mean something (although maybe not much)

• The second thing the Linux load average may give you is some indication that you had a burst of transient tasks (or transiently active tasks). If you see a spike in the load average but no sign of it in other indicators, then you know that something happened and it can’t have lasted very long; for a brief period, you had a lot of tasks that were either runnable or in IO wait. You’re probably more likely to see something like this on a big machine with a lot of CPUs, for the simple reason that if you had fewer CPUs, tasks would have started having to wait and you’d see signs of this in other indicators (CPU utilization, CPU and IO pressure, and so on).

=> ↺ How to install GNU R and RStudio (an SPSS Alternative) on Ubuntu

• This tutorial explains how you can install GNU R and RStudio (libre version) on Ubuntu. This applies to the OS version 22.04 and later as well as the older ones. R is the software environment for statistical computing & graphics from The GNU Project, an alternative to the proprietary S language. On the other hand, RStudio is a graphical program that allows users to use R in convenience and more. A combination of both is a strong free/libre open source replacement to SPSS. Finally, this article is a companion to our Libre SPSS Alternatives. Now let’s install them.

=> ↺ How to Get Line Number in Grep Output – buildVirtual

• This short tutoral shows how to show line numbers in your grep output. If you’re here you will already know grep is a command-line utility for searching plain-text data sets for lines that match a regular expression. Grep stands for Global regular expression print.

=> ↺ How to Generate Random Numbers in Linux System

• When it comes to the numbers game, no operating system does it better than Linux. Moreover, Linux operating system’s environment is smoothly transparent in its approach. So why would you need to generate random numbers in Linux?

• The answer is pretty simple. With the numerous possibility of projects that can be run under Linux, a random-number generator is a must-have skill. For instance, users might be required to key in a unique sequence of characters to authenticate a particular app-related transaction.

• The same users might require an application to generate a random and unique password string for them. Also, for a normal Linux user, a random number generator can help create unique file names especially if this user is actively involved in Linux file management.

=> ↺ How to Copy a File to Multiple Directories on Linux

• Under Linux file management, flexibility is key. When dealing with a single file copy required in multiple directory destinations, we do not want to waste too much time re-inventing the targeted directory paths before all of them have the intended file copy.

• For standard file/directory copying operations, the Linux cp command is used.

• This tutorial will walk us through various Linux-based approaches to copying a single file to multiple directory locations in Linux.

=> ↺ How to Install FreetuxTV on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – LinuxCapable

• FreetuxTV is a free GTK WebTV and Web Radio player for Linux. The FreetuxTV project aims to create a WebTV player working on the Linux platform. The GUI is developed in GTK and uses the VLC engine to display the channels. FreetuxTV has been designed with simplicity in mind, and as such, it has a very user-friendly interface. With FreetuxTV, you can easily browse the available channels and add your favorite ones to your list. You can also record your favorite programs and watch them later at your convenience. Overall, FreetuxTV is an excellent tool for anyone who wants to watch TV on their Linux PC.

• The following tutorial will teach you how to install FreetuxTV on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish using a LaunchPAD APT PPA with the command line terminal. Also, the tutorial will cover how to install the stable or, for users that prefer bleeding-edge software, the unstable PPA for alternative installations.

=> ↺ How to Install MariaDB in RHEL and Debian Systems

• MariaDB is a binary drop-in replacement for MySQL, developed by the original authors of MySQL Project and fully compatible with MySQL having more features and better performance enhancement.

Games

=> ↺ Heroic Games Launcher: play Epic Games Store and Gog games on Linux – gHacks Tech News

• When it comes to PC games, multiple gaming platforms and stores compete for a share of the market. While Valve’s Steam has been the dominating platform for a long time, there are other platforms, often with exclusive or time-exclusive games that gamers can’t get anywhere else officially.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Kdenlive 22.04.3

• Kdenlive is an acronym for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor. It works on GNU/Linux, Windows and BSD. Through the MLT framework, Kdenlive integrates many plugin effects for video and sound processing or creation. Furthermore Kdenlive brings a powerful titling tool, a DVD authoring (menus) solution, and can then be used as a complete studio for video creation.

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ Haiku Activity & Contract Report, June 2022: 802.11ac WiFi

• al way of things, the monthly Activity Report is hereby combined with my Contract Report. Since there is just so much to report this month, instead of the usual chronological order by section, instead things will be loosely sorted by “size”.

• This report covers hrev56148 to hrev56235.

Red Hat/ IBM

=> ↺ Deploy an Operator via GitOps using Advanced Cluster Management | Red Hat Developer

• GitOps is a strict discipline: Everything you code or manage should be specified through configuration files in your Git repositories, and applied automatically through CI/CD pipelines. This article shows you how to integrate security policies into GitOps so that they are applied consistently throughout your clusters. Security policies are part of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes, a platform that helps developers configure and deploy applications along with other useful services such as metrics. This article also uses Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes. For background on Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management, read Understanding GitOps with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management on the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud blog.

=> ↺ 4 examples of successful IT leadership

• IT departments have critical responsibilities in organizations, but the full scope of their role is often misunderstood. As digital transformation continues to be a priority in nearly all organizations, IT leaders must reevaluate what success looks like and how it can be achieved.

• The C-suite should empower IT leaders to implement essential technology throughout their organizations in a way that is strategic, cost-effective, and serves employees and customers. Understanding how IT teams can have an impact across an organization is a good first step to begin executing effective technology acquisition strategies.

=> ↺ Sustainable business: 5 tips to boost code efficiency

• In recent years, adopting sustainable business practices has become an important aspect of corporate branding and an expected factor in doing business.

• Customers, partners, and channels are now routinely inquiring about companies’ sustainability strategies. Employees are proud to contribute to ecologically sensitive companies that make responsible decisions regarding the environment.

=> ↺ How to install RHEL a new way with image builder | Enable Sysadmin

• I am sure many sysadmins can relate to this scenario:

• You get into work on Monday morning, attend your staff meeting, and log into your ticketing system, expecting a quiet week. NOPE! Right there in all caps (why do people use all caps in a ticket?) and marked Urgent is a request for a new application environment. Of course, the requester needs the new server up and running by the end of the week.

• You are a savvy sysadmin. No problem, right? How hard could it be to deploy a new server with a database and web server? You thought ahead. You have templates for these things!

=> ↺ An open conversation about open societies

• Throughout the course of human history, why have some societies endured and evolved while others have struggled and disappeared? According to author Johan Norberg, being “open” might have something to do with it.

• Norberg is the author of Open: The Story of Human Progress, a book several members of the Open Organization community found so compelling that we decided to publish a four-part series of reviews on it.

• Happily, we were recently able to sit down with the author and continue our discussion. We wondered exactly what “being open” is in the context of global governance and international relations today. And how might we locate guidelines and approaches that will move everyone toward a greater good for the entire global community?

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Banana Pi BPI-Leaf-S3 integrates ESP32-S3 for wireless support

• The Banana Pi BPI-Leaf-S3 is a low power MCU built around the Espressif ESP32-S3 SoC from Espressif. As other ESP32 based devices, Banana Pi BPI-Leaf-S3 supports Wi-Fi/BLE 5.0, a 3.7V external battery and several I/O peripherals.

• Unlike the ESP32-C3 featured yesterday, the ESP32-S3 integrates a dual core Tensilica LX7 with a five-stage pipeline and a maximum frequency of 240MHz. The CPU also supports single-precision floating point unit (FPU), 32 interrupts at six priority levels and a 128-bit data bus to increase computing performance. 

=> ↺ Arduino “launches” WisGate Edge LoRaWAN gateways in collaboration with RAKwireless – CNX Software

• Arduino was already involved in LoRaWAN with its MKR WAN 1300 board, but now the company has started offering Arduino-branded Wisgate Edge Pro and Wisgate Edge Lite 2 LoRaWAN gateways for respectively outdoor and indoor environments as part of the Arduino Pro family.

• If the names of the gateways seem familiar, it’s because Arduino collaborated with Rakwireless, and is simply using their existing LoRaWAN gateways. As I understand it RAKwireless will provide the hardware and technical support, while Arduino will sell the gateways and other LoRaWAN hardware through its existing customer base, more acting as a distributor.

=> ↺ What Is a Raspberry Pico W and What Can You Use It For?

• When Raspberry Pi launched the original Pico in January 2021, it was well received as a powerful, low-cost ($4) microcontroller development board. Powered by Raspberry Pi’s own RP2040 system-on-chip (SoC) based on two Arm Cortex-M0+ cores running at 133MHz, it features 2MB of onboard flash storage, 264kB of RAM, and 40 pins—including three analogue inputs and the unique Programmable I/O subsystem.

• However, one glaring omission is the lack of onboard Wi-Fi. Launched at the end of June 2022, the $6 Pico W rectifies that with built-in wireless connectivity. Let’s take a closer look at the Pico W’s capabilities and what you can use it for.

=> ↺ The Old Computer Challenge V2: day 1

• Today is the beginning of the 2022 Old Computer Challenge, for a week I am not restricted to one hour of Internet access per day.

=> ↺ SolidRun’s 64-bit Renesas RZ/G2 based SOMs – Aerospace Manufacturing and Design

• As the first product to emerge from this exciting partnership, these new system-on-module (SOMs) are uniquely engineered and positioned as an ideal foundation for artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced human-machine-interface (HMI) applications, industrial and building automation, video surveillance, IoT solutions, and more.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Top 20 Best Quit Smoking Apps for Android Device in 2022

=> ↺ Best Android 3DS emulator: What is the best 3DS emulator on Android?

=> ↺ Urgent Android warning over apps infested with Joker malware – the Google Play downloads you should delete immediately | The Sun

=> ↺ Nothing to worry about Samsung? New Android phone launches tomorrow | Express.co.uk

=> ↺ How To Fix An Android Phone That Isn’t Ringing

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ SSH: Less Relevant In the Cloud

• Secure Shell or SSH has been the de facto way to connect to a server remotely. It’s been around since 1995. It’s simple on the surface – it uses public-key cryptography (or a password) to authenticate on a remote server. The connection protocol can open up terminal shells (to execute commands or transfer files), or do bidirectional forwarding (client-to-server/server-to-client).

• But SSH is slowly fading into the background for two reasons. First, the client/server architecture makes it difficult to deploy inside a container or other ephemeral infrastructure (not to mention added attack surface area for security). Second, managing public-key infrastructure for potentially large amounts of servers without a granular authorization framework (you can only SSH as different UNIX users) makes it difficult to manage in cloud environments.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Unsafe Syntax

• We thought this looked alright. But something we realized is that if we allowed this for const, we’d likely want to allow this for all modifier keywords too, including unsafe. And that unfortunately causes some issues. So this post is a brief look at what those issues are, what plans exist to improve it, and how we might even be able to do things better?

• Note: The purpose of this post is mostly to share thoughts. I don’t speak for Oli here, and I definitely don’t speak for any Rust team. Don’t take think of this as a serious proposal, but instead think of it as notes which may come in useful at a later time

=> ↺ CIDER Turns 10

• CIDER started its life as an effort to replace a hacked version of SLIME1 with a proper environment for Clojure development on Emacs. The work on it was fueled mostly by the advent of nREPL which was the first project that aimed to provide a common tool-agnostic foundation for Clojure development tools.

=> ↺ My favorite Erlang Container

• If you want the TL:DR; I wrote the dandelion project, which shows how to go from an Erlang/OTP app, automate the generation of live code upgrade instructions with the help of pre-existing tools and CI/CD, generate a manifest file and store build artifacts, and write the necessary configuration to have Kubernetes run said containers and do automated live code upgrades despite its best attempts at providing immutable images. Then I pepper in some basic CI scaffolding to make live code upgrading a tiny bit less risky. This post describes how it all works.

=> ↺ [Repeat] Go generics are not bad

• When programming, we often need to write ‘generic’ functions where the exact data type is not important. For example, you might want to write a simple function that sums up numbers.

• Go lacked this notion until recently, but it was recently added (as of version 1.18). So I took it out for a spin.

=> ↺ Containerizing Interactive R Markdown Documents | R-bloggers

• The rmarkdown package is behind the versatility of R Markdown with dozens of standard and community-provided output formats, ranging from HTML, Word, and PDF, to slides, books, and interactive documents. This abundance of awesomeness is a direct continuation of a long line of predecessors: Sweave/LaTeX, knitr, and pandoc. Its success is the foundation upon which Quarto is built on.

• The htmlwidgets R package provides the basis for interactive JavaScript widgets that you can embed in HTML outputs. These are pre-rendered objects that respond to various gestures, like hover and click events. You just render the document once, and you are done until the next time when the document needs updating.

=> ↺ Why Agile coaches need internal cooperation

• If you’re an Agile coach, you probably seek to inspire and empower others as an external member of your team or department. However, many Agile coaches overlook the importance of internal cooperation. That’s not necessarily a term you are familiar with, so allow me to explain.

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ The truth is a hard problem | Playing Perl 6␛b6xA Raku

• In a recent article, stevied promised a detailed walk through of code. I asked him if he would be interested in a critique of his writings. He foolishly agreed.

=> ↺ Installing stable Perl with Perlbrew

• Perl is still my favourite programming language, and Perlbrew is still my preferred method to install it (with pkgsrc coming a close second, depending on the environment). And not just because Perlbrew, like other Perl tools, uses the TLD for a country I wish to visit one day!

Python

=> ↺ simple_listener.py

• I use simple_listener now whenever I need a server that listens for incoming TCP and/or UDP connections. For example, I have a configuration that can accept connections from Cobalt Strike beacons using leaked private keys.

=> ↺ How can Tensorflow be used to standardize the data using Python?

• In this article, we are going to see how to use standardize the data using Tensorflow in Python.

=> ↺ Multiple Linear Regression With scikit-learn

• In this article, let’s learn about multiple linear regression using scikit-learn in the Python programming language.

• Regression is a statistical method for determining the relationship between features and an outcome variable or result. Machine learning, it’s utilized as a method for predictive modeling, in which an algorithm is employed to forecast continuous outcomes. Multiple linear regression, often known as multiple regression, is a statistical method that predicts the result of a response variable by combining numerous explanatory variables. Multiple regression is a variant of linear regression (ordinary least squares) in which just one explanatory variable is used.

Leftovers

=> ↺ My Office Space

• I’ve always had an internal struggle with my office workspace. I see lots of pictures of beautiful workspaces. I sit on zoom calls with people who have wonderful backgrounds. I watch recordings of people who appear to have the complete setup. I read articles about new office spaces. All of it leaves me wanting more from my own space.

• But I also have a three young kids and a small house with no garage. So “my” office space is not really mine; nor is it exclusively an office. I do consider myself lucky though. My office resides in an attachment to our house that requires I go outside to get to it. Its separateness is a good thing — enough to give me the space I need. But the space itself, that’s what leaves me wanting more.

Education

=> ↺ Running an Effective Book Club at Work

• Here are a eight things I’ve learned about how to make an at-work book club successful! These helped us keep attendance high and helped us all get a lot out of the books we read.

=> ↺ Why I tend to avoid reading social news comments

• I was told my latest Walkman post made it to Hacker News again, which tracks again with a spike in traffic! I avoided reading it, along with other sites like Reddit.

Hardware

=> ↺ Rubenerd: Uses for tangled earbud cables

• Have you ever pulled earbuds out of your pocket, or headphones from your desk, and marvelled at how ridiculous the coiled mess of cables is?

Proprietary

=> ↺ Cyber threat increasing faster than Dutch companies’ resilience

• Cyberattacks have reached an “industrial scale,” and the cyber security threat against the Netherlands is increasing faster than Dutch companies’ and organizations’ resilience against them. The National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) and the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) said that in their annual Cyber Security Image for the Netherlands on Monday. “This skewed growth increases the risk of disruption of our society.”

• According to the NCTV and NCSC, the question is no longer if but when companies, the government, knowledge institutions, and other organizations will be attacked. “Having the basic measures in order helps, but they are far from being implemented properly everywhere. There is still too little multifactor identification and the creating and testing of backups.”

=> ↺ Experian, You Have Some Explaining to Do

• Twice in the past month KrebsOnSecurity has heard from readers who’ve had their accounts at big-three credit bureau Experian hacked and updated with a new email address that wasn’t theirs. In both cases the readers used password managers to select strong, unique passwords for their Experian accounts. Research suggests identity thieves were able to hijack the accounts simply by signing up for new accounts at Experian using the victim’s personal information and a different email address.

=> ↺ Microsoft Office Backtracks its Security Move to Block Macros! But Why | Tech Times

• Microsoft Office backtracks its recent major security move that plans to block Visual Basic for Applications or VBA macros altogether.

=> ↺ Microsoft Outlook email searches are broken again in Windows 11

• Microsoft is investigating an issue causing Outlook search not to display recent emails in desktop apps running on Windows 11 systems. The problem affects POP, IMAP, and offline Exchange accounts because Outlook’s search feature uses the local Windows Search service to index emails.

Security

=> ↺ DKIM signature types (algorithms) that we see (as of July 2022)

• A lot of email these days is signed with DKIM, partly because signing email with DKIM is increasingly mandatory in practice. But ‘signed with DKIM’ is a broad category because DKIM has more than one signing algorithm and on top of that is used with (public) keys of different lengths.

• What signing algorithms DKIM supports in practice is a matter for some discussion. The initial DKIM RFCs, such as RFC 6376, support rsa-sha1 and rsa-sha256. RFC 8301 deprecates rsa-sha1 and says that it shouldn’t be used (and that a message with only a rsa-sha1 DKIM signature should be considered to fail validation). RFC 8301 also says RSA keys must be at least 1024 bits long and should be at least 2048 bits; again, messages with too-small keys should be considered to fail validation. RFC 8463 defines Ed25519 based DKIM keys, but apparently very few big providers actually support them, which makes them relatively pointless and useless in practice. Probably the most broadly useful algorithm and key length is rsa-sha256 with 2048 bit keys.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ India requires VPN Service Providers to log client activities and keep accurate information on them

• On 28 April 2022, the Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-In) issued directions under sub-section (6) of section 70B of the Information Technology Act of 2000, relating to information security practices, procedure, prevention, response and reporting of cyber incidents for safe & trusted Internet. The directions were set to be effective as from 60 days from the date of issue, i.e they became effective as from 27 June 2022.

=> ↺ UPDATE: Further EU DPA orders stop of Google Analytics

• The Italian DPA (GPDP) has joined the consensus shared by the EDPS, as well as the French and Austrian DPA and has banned the use of Google Analytics (GA). Following our 101 complaints on data transfers, the GPDP concluded that websites using GA collected user interactions and transferred user data to the US; a country without an adequate level of data protection, making said transfer unlawful.

=> ↺ WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep

• What may be less well known about it is how it may be enabling your boss to see how you are spending your day while sitting in front of your company’s device. Through an investigation into Office 365, and thanks to research conducted by UCL computer science graduate Demetris Demetriades, Privacy International has exposed invasive and problematic features that the Suite offers, unbeknownst to most users.

• Two of the most concerning features that Office 365 offers are the tools for information governance and risk management called Audit and Content Search. These can be used to present a detailed amount of information to administrators. By simply introducing the right queries administrators can gain access to reading people’s e-mails, documents and 1-1 messages on Teams and anywhere else actionable. The Audit feature, which is not enabled by default, provides the additional option to search for individual users over a chosen period and displays all imaginable activities conducted by the user in a list format down to deletion of e-mails and password changes.

=> ↺ Netherlands could punish doxing with one year in prison, thousands in fines

• People who distribute someone else’s personal data as a way of intimidation may soon risk a prison sentence of up to one year behind bars, or a fine of up to 9,000 euros. The punishment is outlined in a bill which the Cabinet submitted to the Tweede Kamer to tackle the method of bullying, known as doxing.

=> ↺ [Reposted]

=> ↺ Stylometric fingerprinting redux

• If you wish to write anonymously, I recommend the following: [...]

=> ↺ Are social media checks an answer to gun violence? NY says yes.

• As missed warning signs pile up in investigations of mass killings, New York state is rolling out a novel strategy to screen applicants for gun permits. People seeking to carry concealed handguns will be required to hand over their social media accounts for a review of their “character and conduct.”

• It’s an approach applauded by many Democrats and national gun control advocacy groups, but some experts have raised questions about how the law will be enforced and address free speech concerns.

=> ↺ App-ocalypse

• As you enter a shop, you could hear the very friendly radio shouting in the background “Download our app now!”. Ignoring that, you proceed to buy your groceries then head to the cashier. There’s a glaring gigantic ad stating “Download our app for personalized offers and benefits, now!” As you rush to exit the store, you see one big final ad stating that “The app has numerous benefits, download it!”

• The short story above is based from my personal experience and events that we’ve all experienced by now. It has gotten so worse, even your local grocery shop has an “app” now, your city has one, for some reason, your school, your workplace, your local parking lot and the list can keep going on. They all propose the same thing, “benefits, benefits, convenience!” This is yet another act of people being convenient, falling into the trap of modern consumerism.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Collateral damage: Collaery in the clear, but safeguards fall short – Michael West

• It’s good news for one brave individual who exposed an egregious act of Australian spying, but protections for other whistleblowers remain inadequate, writes Callum Foote.

• Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has ordered leaking charges against lawyer Bernard Collaery to be dropped. The lawyer and former ACT attorney-general faced charges for four years after he was accused of leaking classified information about an alleged Australian spying operation in East Timor. The information related to an alleged bugging operation of the East Timor prime minister’s office by Australian officials in 2004.

• Collaery had been facing five charges related to breaching the Intelligence Services Act. The move sparks greater interest regarding a tightening of whistleblower protections across Australia.

• Following a number of inquiries and reviews, including the parliamentary joint committee on corporations and financial services in September 2017 and a Senate Standing Committee on Economics inquiry in 2019, the previous government introduced the Enhancing Whistleblower Protections Act 2019.

Environment

Energy

=> ↺ Electric car sales jumped 83 percent in a year; Market share doubled

• In total, 29,531 new electric cars were registered in the first six months of this year. According to the sector, the increase is partly because subsidies were made available for more vehicles. There are also an increasing number of affordable electric models on the market.

=> ↺ Want a green future? Too often, big tech is in the way

• When civic institutions seem unable to act decisively to address deepening crises—war, inequality, climate—many turn to technology as a potential solution. The title of Paris Marx’s weekly podcast, Tech Won’t Save Us, gives us a hint about their approach to those kinds of hopes.

• Marx recently released their first book, Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation, which brings unflinching scrutiny to the hype around electric vehicles, ride-hailing apps, self-driving cars, delivery bots and more. Marx cuts through the demonstrably false promises of proposal after proposal, deflating the hype.

=> ↺ Putin’s energy weapon: Europe must be ready for Russian gas blackmail

• Whatever Russia has lost by limiting gas supplies, it has gained in soaring prices. These prices have been pushed up, to a large extent, by Russia’s own energy weaponization tactics. Restricting gas supplies now also has longer-term repercussions because it slows down the ability of companies to inject natural gas into storage in order to ensure facilities are 80% full by November 1, as mandated by the EU. More damaging still, it creates a general perception that, in the absence of Russian gas supplies, Europe will be unable to cope with peak winter demand and will face a major crisis.

• While the situation is admittedly critical, there are arguments to suggest it would not be impossible for Europe to overcome the impact of a full Russian supply cut providing a number of measures are put in place right away.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ Water is power: How Southeast Asia pays the price for China’s dam-building frenzy

• China’s dams bring enormous costs to the environments of affected rivers and the people who rely on them for their wellbeing and livelihoods. Practical opposition to dams within China is limited for the same reason that opposition to other policies is limited: when people – journalists, filmmakers, activists – try to expose the adverse impacts, they are summarily suppressed through sackings and intimidation.

• China is not just choking its own rivers; it’s doing the same to those of other countries through pollution, deforestation and development projects. It has exported its enthusiasm for dam construction, and it is well established as the “pre-eminent global player in major dam projects.” As part of the Belt and Road Initiative, it is building dams as far afield as Africa. Often the main beneficiary of such foreign dam projects is China itself. Construction is profitably financed by Chinese banks, workers are brought in from China, and for China-built dams in Southeast Asia, the resulting hydropower is often intended for export to China.

=> ↺ California deepens water cuts to cope with drought, hitting thousands of farms

• California regulators have begun curtailing the water rights of many farms and irrigation districts along the Sacramento River, forcing growers to stop diverting water from the river and its tributaries.

• The order, which took effect Thursday, puts a hold on about 5,800 water rights across the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers’ watersheds, reflecting the severity of California’s extreme drought.

• Together with a similar order in June, the State Water Resources Control Board has now curtailed 9,842 water rights this year in the Sacramento and San Joaquin watersheds, more than half of the nearly 16,700 existing rights.

=> ↺ Southern California residents cut water in drought of ‘epic proportions’

• Southern California areas told to cut water use by 35% finished June on track to stave off an outdoor watering ban.

• The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California supplies those communities in Ventura, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties with Northern California water delivered by the State Water Project. After a record dry start to the year, the state limited its deliveries to just 5%.

=> ↺ Turkey 18th most populous country in the world

• Turkey, with a population of more than 84.6 million people, ranked 18th among 195 countries in terms of population size, according to a calculation by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) based on UN estimates.

• Turkey makes up 1.1 percent of the world’s total population.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

”

=> ↺ Rubenerd: The Brussels Effect

• I watched this video by TLDR News Europe over lunch, and they discuss an interesting idea Anu Bradford put forward in her 2012 book The Brussels Effect…

=> ↺ China accused of ‘intimidation’ to stop dissident from running for US congress

• In an unprecedented joint address, the directors of the FBI and MI5 warned on Wednesday of the multifaceted threat posed by Chinese espionage. They highlighted one potentially violent effort to prevent a Chinese dissident turned American citizen from running for a seat in Congress.

=> ↺ Boris Johnson Was a Creation of the British Media

• They may have criticisms of him today, but the British media was all in for Boris Johnson when they saw him as a necessary alternative to Jeremy Corbyn’s socialism. And despite everything, they would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ HS: Evidence proves Johan Bäckman’s efforts to discredit Finland in Russia

• Johan Bäckman, known for his connections to Russian authorities, has for years been actively providing Russian state television with news stories and press releases denigrating Finland and other Western countries, according to material seen by Helsingin Sanomat.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ US ‘regrets’ Turkey’s censorship of Voice of America, Deutsche Welle

• A court in Ankara blocked access to the two websites on June 30, following a request by the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK). The RTÜK decision was due to the two outlets’ failure to apply to the council for a license, as required by a regulation authorizing it for online broadcasting.

• The two organizations refused to apply for a license, citing freedom of expression concerns.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Don’t let Boris Johnson distract from what is being done to Julian Assange

• It is really important that we collectively hold our governments to account for their unlawful actions, and that we look at the human rights that our government has promised to uphold and hold them to their promise, and remind them of their promise.

• If the government consistently breaks its own laws or cynically manipulates the law to its own ends of holding power, hiding corruption and making personal financial gains, then we should question whether we continue to be under a contractual obligation as citizens to respect the laws which apply to us.

• Julian Assange’s life is on the line. He has a family with two young children. We need to protect him and save our own freedoms in the process. Forget Boris – he’s the cuckoo spit – a little tiny insect blowing big bubbles.

=> ↺ Monument for murdered journalist Peter R. de Vries planned for Amsterdam’s Leidseplein

• The municipality wants people to contribute ideas about the monument. People have until July 17 to submit their thoughts about De Vries’s death via the municipality’s website. Five artists were asked to share their vision of the monument with the words submitted as inspiration. It is not yet known when the monument will be erected.

=> ↺ The European Media Freedom Act: a unique opportunity to safeguard Europe’s media and democratic values

• Knowing who owns and controls the media is fundamental for democratic resilience. Unlike many types of business, media companies have a special role in informing public debate. Those with close links to States are more vulnerable to political influence including from foreign investors. Transparency of media ownership is therefore a fundamental tool to ensure media accountability and independence. Existing company registers including those provided for under the Audiovisual Media Services and Anti–Money Laundering Directives (AVSMD, AMLD), while helpful, are limited in scope and do not address the specific needs of media ownership. The AVMSD, for example, only provides an option, not a requirement, for media service providers to give information on ownership. The ownership information under AMLD does not include the specific kinds of information that would be helpful in the case of media ownership, such as political allegiance that might sway the editorial line or investments that could highlight possible conflicts of interest.

=> ↺ Lawsuit against two journalists after complaint by deputy justice minister

• Lawsuits have been filed against two journalists after a complaint by Akın Gürlek, the deputy justice minister and a former judge.

• Canan Coşkun, a reporter for the Diken news portal, and Barış Pehlivan, a columnist for the daily Cumhuriyet, are charged with “marking a counterterrorism official as a target.”

• Prosecutor Cüneyt Kerimhan Acer alleged that the two journalists exposed the cases Gürlek heard and the courts he worked at.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Berlin Golden Bear Winner Mohammad Rasoulof Arrested in Iran for Social Media Protest Against Police Violence

• “Mr. Mohammad Rasoulof was arrested under the pretext of a one-year prison sentence issued for the movie, ‘The Man of Integrity.’ The verdict was issued by the Revolutionary Court,” the statement said, adding that there are two other open cases currently pending against Rasoulof.

• “In one case, he is being accused for making the documentary film, ‘Intentional Crime,’ in which he investigates the intentional death of Iranian poet and writer, Baktash Abtin,” the producers stated. “The other accusation is for releasing a statement that has gone viral on social media known as #lay_down_your_weapon,” they also noted.

=> ↺ Inside a Uvalde Classroom: A Taunting Gunman and 78 Minutes of Terror

• At one point, he heard one of the officers yell at the gunman: “Come out, we want to talk to you!” The gunman did not answer, though the police have said that two officers suffered grazing wounds when he fired a burst at the classroom door. The chatter from the police went quiet. “You didn’t hear anything anymore,” Mr. Reyes said.

=> ↺ Digital rights for Europe’s youth

• Today’s young people are the first generation whose entire lives are encoded in digital data. As the biggest group of users on social media platforms, young people are most affected by changes to the way the online world is managed.

• In fact, 75% of young people reported wanting to know how their data is used when they use their social media account to access other websites and 90% of young people in the EU would find it useful to know their digital rights. However, young people’s rights often tend to fall under the radar. Strict rules that are in place to protect children suddenly fall away for 18-year olds and above, exposing young people to a deliberately confusing landscape of data extraction, unwanted content and cyberbullying.

• Far from the common belief of being “digital natives”, young people are not always aware of the harms facing them in the online world. Whilst the majority are at ease using social media apps and entertainment platforms, this does not necessarily translate into an innate knowledge of how to browse safely, how algorithms function or how to protect oneself online.

=> ↺ Tibetan convention calls on governments to help resolve Tibet issue with China

• Participants at an international meeting on Tibet called on governments to do more to advance the rights of Tibetans who face repression at the hands of the Chinese government.

• More than 100 participants from 26 countries attended the 8th World Parliamentarians’ Convention on Tibet on June 22-23 in Washington, D.C., to discuss the resumption of the Sino-Tibet dialogue and other key objectives. The meeting was organized by the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile based in Dharamsala, India, which sent 10 representatives to the meeting.

=> ↺ Tibetan former political prisoner Jigme Gyatso dies in Gansu

• “During his imprisonment, he has been subjected to severe beatings due to which he has been admitted in hospital for a long time without any sign of improvement,” the former student now living in exile told RFA Tibetan.

• No cause of death has been given, but sources said he had been in poor health since his release from prison in 2016.

=> ↺ Starbucks Is Slowly Strangling Its Pro-Union Workers. Where Is “Pro-Union” President Joe Biden?

• In response to the tidal wave of unionization at cafés, Starbucks has engaged in a scorched-earth union-busting campaign across the country. The situation is extremely dire — and the Biden administration is not doing anywhere near enough to stop it.

=> ↺ Ohio jury awards $11 million to bakery owners targeted by Oberlin College student protests

• Oberlin argued it was not responsible for the students’ actions. Meanwhile, the three students pleaded guilty to shoplifting and aggravated trespass while issuing statements absolving the bakery of racism.

• In 2017, Gibson’s sued the college for libel; tortuous influence with business relationships and contracts, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, culminating in the nearly month-long trial in Elyria, Ohio.

• “The students eventually pleaded guilty, but not before large protests and boycotts intended to destroy the bakery and defame the owners,” Mr. Jacobson said. “The jury appears to have accepted that Oberlin College facilitated the wrongful conduct against the bakery.”

=> ↺ Judge Unseals Facebook Posts in Gibson’s Case

=> ↺ Post-Roe Organizing For Abortion Decriminalization: Interview With Andrea Ritchie

• On the latest episode of the “Unauthorized Disclosure” weekly podcast, Andrea Ritchie joins Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola for a conversation about organizing for abortion decriminalization in a post-Roe United States.

• Andrea is a Black lesbian immigrant, and the author of the book Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color. She is the co-author of the forthcoming book No More Police: A Case For Abolition, as well as the book Queer (In)Justice. And Andrea is the co-founder of Interrupting Criminalization.

=> ↺ Media Support ‘Self-Determination’ for US Allies, Not Enemies

• Gregory Shupak looks into a self-determination claim that accords with Russian interests, and diverges from the US position, being concealed from the public.

=> ↺ Happy Birthday to EFF!

• But the founders of EFF also knew that a better future wasn’t automatic. You don’t organize a team of lawyers, technologists, and activists because you think technology will magically fix everything—you do it because you expect a fight.

• Three decades later, thanks to those battles, the internet does much of what it promised: it connects and lifts up major grassroots movements for equity, civil liberties, and human rights and allows people to connect and organize to counteract the ugliness of the world.

• We work every day toward a future we want to live in, and we don’t do it alone

=> ↺ [Old] Australia is the only developed country whose government has been condemned as racist by the United Nations

• According to the folksy writer Matthew Engel, the glories of the Olympic Games have a cathartic effect on nations. The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles ‘helped the US regain the confidence it lost in Vietnam’.

• He omitted to explain the benefits of this renewed confidence for the millions of bereaved, maimed and poisoned Vietnamese. As for the Sydney Olympics, he described a ‘glorious self-confidence’ that will ‘sustain Australia for years’.

• There is no doubting the efficiency of the Sydney Olympics, the friendliness of the people, the beauty of the setting; but there was a political facade. Soon after the Aboriginal runner Cathy Freeman won her gold medal, the cabinet of John Howard’s government met in Canberra to mount yet another attack on her people by planning to change the Land Rights Act.

=> ↺ The world needs U.S. antitrust legislation: Big Tech must not determine global human rights – Access Now

• “Truth and democracy will forever be under attack with Big Tech calling the shots and manipulating information flows to pad their pockets.”

• A very small number of U.S. tech companies exercise outsized control over global human rights in the digital age — This must change. Today, Access Now and 29 civil society organizations from around the world issued an open statement calling on the U.S. Congress to tackle this dangerous dominance head-on by passing the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and the Open App Markets Act.

• These bills have the power to hold U.S. corporations like Alphabet and Meta — whose influence is wielded through their platforms Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — Apple, and Amazon accountable for failing to keep people safe online, and put an end to their reign of data abuse and surveillance.

• “As it stands, we live in a world where the decisions of a few Silicon Valley CEOs have more sway over human rights online than democratically elected officials,” said Jennifer Brody, U.S. Policy and Advocacy Manager at Access Now. “This is simply unacceptable. The U.S. government’s regime of negligence is over — It must immediately regulate its home-grown surveillance capitalists and put an end to Big Tech’s shameful history of facilitating human rights abuses around the world.”

=> ↺ Mutual Aid Groups That Arose During COVID Gather to Build Power Regionally

=> ↺ A New Play Imagines the End of Isolation for All Incarcerated People

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ A Public Brief on the Data Protection Bill, 2021

• IFF has released its Public Brief and Analysis on the Draft Data Protection Bill, 2021 in continuation of our efforts to make available a public analysis that helps you discover the top issues and concerns with this legislative proposal. We hope this helps you form your own views and then voice them to help bring the power of civic participation to data protection!

• Let’s get some context

• By now we all have heard data classified as the “new oil” or “new fuel”. While the government has left no stone unturned in extracting the monetary value of data, a law that seeks to protect your data from exploitation has still not been enacted. After a (very) long journey, the Draft Data Protection Bill, 2021 (“DPB”, 2021) may be tabled in the Parliament in the Monsoon Session. Which means that this Bill might actually turn into an Act in the coming weeks (see here, here, and here).

• Our feelings could not be more mixed about this incoming data law, as India desperately needs data protection legislation, especially considering the rush in which digital policies are being introduced (don’t ask us how many because we have lost count). But on the other hand, the DPB, 2021, which should empower the user with rights surrounding their own personal information, has failed to prioritise the user. It, instead, benefits the government and large corporations way more than it benefits users such as you and I.

Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Roblox Piracy: Developer Demands Thousands of Gamers’ Personal Details

• A DMCA subpoena application filed in a California court is seeking to identify potentially tens of thousands of people for being part of Roblox groups, some of which contain members allegedly involved in game piracy. Christopher Boomer’s games already have billions of legitimate views, with his copyrights and trademark filings hinting at a beyond-luxury lifestyle.

=> ↺ How Investigators Use OSINT to Track Down IPTV Pirates

• Perhaps the most important aspect of running any kind of pirate site or service is not getting caught. Being exposed by anti-piracy groups can mean legal trouble or in a worst-case scenario, a criminal referral. So how do the authorities track operators down and identify them? According to their own training sessions, it’s all about OSINT. In some cases the process is very easy indeed.

Gemini* and Gopher

Technical

=> ↺ Mixtile Blade 3 (RK3588) OpenCL performance

• Mixtile Blade 3[1] is an intresting dev board. It runs on a RK 3855 SoC, the successor of the RK3399. Which a whole lot of other boards uses. Including QuartzPro64[2], ITX-3588J[3] and Rock Pi 5[4]. The 16GB model Blade 3 is priced at $369, much more expensive then the Rock Pi 5 at 189$ and the expected price of QuartzPro64 at ~$300.

• Mixtile Blade 3 however, has a trick up it’s sleve. It allows networking to other Mixtile Blade 3s directly through PCIe, up to 16Gb/s (their number, not mine). And have a custom cluster case to house 4 nodes in a single box. The vendor have helpfully setup a demo machine for customers to login an try the board before purchase. So I took the liberty and ran some OpenCL benchmark. I too need some numbers to decide if this is a good board.

=> ↺ Fatdog64

• One of my readers recommended me Fatdog64, a lightweight live USB Linux distro. I figured out I should definitely try it, as it has some intriguing concepts. It is based on Linux from Scratch 8.2 featuring the Linux kernel 5.4.152, which makes it more lightweight than the other live USB distributions out there. I must mention the developers have the “eat your own dog food” principle, so they use their own builds of Fatdog in their daily lives.

• By default, the root system is read-only. It uses save files that are loaded upon boot to store your data. It resembles TAILS in a way, although it doesn’t use a partition for saves but files. The save files can be encrypted and stored anywhere you like. Fatdog’s filesystem is AUFS, a stackable filesystem. The Fatdog developers go in depth about AUFS and SFS in their documentation, including how save files work, so if you’re interested in that check the link below.

• Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter. 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

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