● 07.16.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 16/07/2022: OpenBGPD 7.5 and AYANEO Adopts GNU/Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 9:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ The Linux Desktop is Hard to Love

• I want to love the “Linux Desktop”. I really do. But I’ve come to the realization that what I love is the idea of the Linux Desktop. The community. The security and core focus on open source. The customizable environments. Tweaking as much or as little of the operating system as I please!

• I just can’t stick with it. I always end up back on macOS. And I’m starting to understand why.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ ‘iptables -L’ doesn’t show you interface matches on rules by default

• Today I learned something that I could have noticed if I’d paid enough attention, which is that the default ‘iptables -L’ output doesn’t show you interface matches that are part of rules. In order to see this in ‘iptables -L’ you have to make it verbose (with -v), which also shows you the volume counters. There is a story here.

Applications

=> ↺ Listen to music on Linux with Rhythmbox | Opensource.com

• It’s hard for me to work in total silence. I need some kind of background noise, preferably some familiar music. My music-listening needs are pretty simple: I just need a music player that plays my library of MP3 music and streams from a few websites I like to listen to.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ IMAP servers can have significant imbalances between disk and network IO

• IMAP is deliberately a high level protocol; it gives you abstract access to your mailboxes. One of the decisions in the protocol is that it should avoid round-tripping data through the client as much as possible. For example, to copy messages from one IMAP folder to another, your client doesn’t download them and then upload them to store them in the new folder; instead, it issues a COPY command that tells the IMAP server ‘copy these messages to this folder’. If you’re telling the server to copy (or MOVE) a bunch of messages, your network traffic is low but the server’s IO traffic is potentially high (if they’re big messages). The IMAP protocol is full of commands where the client asks the server to do a lot of work on its behalf. Often this will result in a lot of server disk IO for relatively little network traffic to and from the client.

=> ↺ How to Fix Remote Host Identification has changed while SSH – TREND OCEANS

• While accessing your remote server from your host machine, you may encounter an error that states: “WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!” with a long message like the attached screenshot.

=> ↺ How to Install Metasploit Framework on Android Using Termux Without Root

•  Metasploit is one of the essential tools that every penetration tester should have. It can help you to perform various tasks, such as creating and testing exploits on the target system.

• It is officially available for Linux, macOS, and Windows. However, beginners interested in security may not have a PC. In that case, you can take the help of your Android device by installing the Termux terminal emulator.

=> ↺ How to Setup DNS Server with BIND on Ubuntu 22.04

• BIND or Berkeley Internet Name Domain is free and open-source DNS Server software. It’s one of the most popular DNS server software used by more than 70% of DNS on the Internet. This guide will teach you how to install DNS Server with BIND on Ubuntu 22.04 server. This tutorial will show you how to set up Master-Slave BIND DNS server installation using two Ubuntu servers.

=> ↺ How to Install FreetuxTV on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS

• In this guide, we will show you how to install FreetuxTV on Ubuntu systems.

• FreetuxTV is a VLC -based program for receiving Internet TV and radio in various languages. Recording of current programs and time-shift viewing are some of the useful program features. The program is still under development, but many well-known radio and television stations can already be used. The list continues to grow.

=> ↺ Splitting the irealpro 1400 | Adam Young’s Web Log

• The irealpro player has become an indispensable tool for practicing a tune. Since I play saxophone, the fact that irealpro will give me a full rhythm section to play against makes working on a tune far more possible than it was for me in the past.

• I recently got a new phone and went to reinstall the set of songs that I use. They come from a collection called the Jazz 1400. This snuck up slightly in number from the last time I imported, and it must have hit a threshold, because my phone refuses to import it.

=> ↺ How to Install RPM Fusion on Rocky Linux 9

• RPM Fusion is a repository of add-on packages for RHEL type distributions and EL+EPEL that a group of community volunteers maintains.

=> ↺ How To Install Kubuntu 22.04 with Dualboot, UEFI and External Disk Method

• This tutorial will explain in step by step how you can install Kubuntu 22.04 LTS “Jammy Jellyfish”. It will start with requirements, continuing with 10 steps to install, finished with restart and the final result. Let’s install it!

=> ↺ How to install Glances on CentOS 9 Stream — System Monitor written in Python

• Hello, friends. In this post, you will learn how to install Glances on CentOS 9 Stream.

=> ↺ How To Speed Up DNF Package Manager on Rocky Linux 9 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to speed up the DNF package manager on Rocky Linux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, DNF is the default package manager for Rocky Linux 9 and newer versions, RHEL 9 and its clone CentOS 9 Stream, AlmaLinux 9, and Fedora 36. One of the benefits of using DNF is that it can be used to download packages from multiple repositories, including Rocky Linux’s official repositories, third-party repositories, and your own local repositories. However, some users may find the download speed slow compared to other distributions. This can be frustrating after you download and install many packages. Most users do not realize that some minor tweaks to some configuration files can increase your download speed immensely.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step increase DNF download speed on Rocky Linux. 9.

=> ↺ How to Install SMPlayer on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS

• In this guide, we will show you how to install SMPlayer in Ubuntu systems.

• SMPlayer is a cross-platform graphical front-end for MPlayer and mpv and forks of Mplayer using GUI widgets offered by Qt.

• SMPlayer is free and open-source software subject to the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 or later.SMplayer has been localized in more than 30 languages.

• SMPlayer is built with Qt and is based on MPlayer. This makes it quite portable, since MPlayer and Qt are already available on all major operating systems. On the operating systems on which SMPlayer has not yet been ported to, it is likely possible to run the application through binary compatibility with another Unix or Linux.

=> ↺ How to Install PhotoQT Image Viewer on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS

• In this article, we will show you how to install PhotoQt on Ubuntu systems.

• PhotoQt is a simple yet powerful and good looking image viewer, based on Qt/QML, published as open-source, and completely free.

• It is an image viewer that relies on an interesting operating concept inspired by smartphones. While the motif is displayed full-screen, all edges except the right one serve as a trigger (when touched with the mouse pointer) for a control implemented in other programs via menus and toolbars. For example, the left edge is used to display the metadata , while the lower edge shows a bar with a preview of neighboring images. This leaves plenty of space for the actual image. On the other hand, if you prefer keyboard control, you can use various pre-configured key shortcuts that can be reassigned if necessary.

WINE or Emulation

=> ↺ WineHQ – Wine Announcement – The Wine development release 7.13 is now available.

• The Wine development release 7.13 is now available.

• What’s new in this release: – Gecko engine updated to version 2.47.3. – USB driver converted to PE. – Some theming improvements. – Various bug fixes.

• The source is available at:

• https://dl.winehq.org/wine/source/7.x/wine-7.13.tar.xz

• Binary packages for various distributions will be available from:

• https://www.winehq.org/download

• You will find documentation on https://www.winehq.org/documentation

• You can also get the current source directly from the git repository. Check https://www.winehq.org/git for details.

• Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. See the file AUTHORS in the distribution for the complete list.

Games

=> ↺ AYANEO to have their own AYANEO OS based on Linux

• Looks like Linux is truly becoming a gaming platform for the masses now, as AYANEO are throwing their hat in the ring with AYANEO OS on their hardware with the AYANEO AIR. While their new IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign focuses on it being a Windows handheld, they’re also developing their own full Linux distribution for their hardware which will be available to download “in the future”.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ This week in KDE: some nice improvements!

•  Current number of bugs: 52, down from 53. 0 added and 1 resolved…

• Dolphin, Gwenview, and Spectacle now use the XDG Portals interface for dragged-and-dropped files, which allows them to successfully drop files into sandboxed apps without punching a hole in the sandbox by giving it access to your entire home folder or the system’s temp folder (Harald Sitter, version 22.08 of these apps)

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ 13 Ways to Tweak Nautilus File Manager in Linux to Get More Out of it

•  Nautilus is GNOME’s default file manager application, and you may have seen it in many Linux distributions.

• It’s a good file manager with plenty of features. However, you can enhance your experience by employing some tweaks and tips.

• I am going to share such tips and tweaks in this article. Some tweaks may require installing additional Nautilus plugins, while some are built-in but lesser-known features. A few tips are purely cosmetic and just change the look and feel.

=> ↺ GSoC’22 @GNOME – Coding Phase 1: Evaluate, Design, Code | by Pooja Patel

• GNOME HIG CSS Library project aims to design, develop and publish a unified CSS library incorporating the revised Human Interface and Visual Identity Guidelines allowing developers to update the existing GNOME websites and create new ones with a congruent visual identity.

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ The Story of CP/M

• CP/M was special because it separated the physical I/O system (now called BIOS – Basic I/O System) from the disk operating system (at the time, called the BDOS – Basic Disk Operating System). CP/M was the start of program portability: before CP/M, programs were required to run on exactly the same underlying hardware.

BSD

=> ↺ How Unix didn’t used to support ‘#!’, a brief history

• Before I started my research for writing this entry, I would have said that kernel support for ‘#!’ was added in 4.2 BSD. That’s certainly where it first appeared and where it became well known, but according to the history section of Wikipedia’s page on #!, it was first introduced by Dennis Ritchie in 1980, after V7, although it might have been suggested to him by someone else. It didn’t become known through later releases of Research Unix because those were never very widely spread, unlike V7.

=> ↺ rpki-client 7.9 released

=> ↺ OpenBGPD 7.5 released

• OpenBGPD-portable is known to compile and run on FreeBSD, and the Linux distributions Alpine, Debian, Fedora, RHEL/CentOS and Ubuntu. It is our hope that packagers take interest and help adapt OpenBGPD-portable to more distributions.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Matt Hicks appointed as Red Hat CEO amid leadership changes

• In a statement, the IBM-owned company says Hicks, who previously served as Red Hat’s executive vice-president of products and technologies, succeeds Paul Cormier, who will serve as chairman of Red Hat.

=> ↺ Fedora Community Blog: Friday’s Fedora Facts: 2022-28

• Here’s your weekly Fedora report. Read what happened this week and what’s coming up. Your contributions are welcome (see the end of the post)!

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Debix Model A packs i.MX 8M Plus and mirrors RPI form factor

•  According to the product page, the Debix Model A seems to support Android 11, Yocto, Ubuntu and Debix OS.

• The company is also offering an I/O expansion board and a LoRa board compatible with the Debix Model A. See the spec list and the images below for more details.

• Specifications listed for the Debix Model A Single Board Computer include…

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ I Built a Video Game Console

• That’s code for “I built a fancy case for my Raspberry Pi (3B+)” if you didn’t know.

=> ↺ Stratum 1 Grandmaster Time Server On A Budget

• [Jeff Geerling] has been following the various open source time projects for some time now, and is finally able to demonstrate a working and affordable solution for nanoseconds-accurate timekeeping in your local lab. The possibility of a low-cost time server came about with the introduction of the Raspberry Pi CM4 compute module back in Oct 2020, whose Broadcom network chip (BCM54210PE) supports PTP (Precision Time Protocol, IEEE-1588) 1PPS output and hardware-based time stamping. Despite the CM4 data sheet specifying PTP support, it wasn’t available in the kernel. An issue was raised in Feb last year, and Raspberry Pi kernel support was finally released this month.

=> ↺ Making Noctua fans work (quietly) with a Supermicro motherboard

• Typically one installs whiny siren-like server fans that spin at 5000+ rpm, and don’t worry much about noise. But I do.

=> ↺ Debix Model A packs i.MX 8M Plus and mirrors RPI form factor

• The Debix Model A from Polyhex is a Single Board Computer (SBC) built around the i.MX 8M Plus Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU industrial-grade processor. This SBC integrates a 2.3 TOPS Neural Processing Unit and expandable storage to target industrial automation, multimedia, and other IoT applications.

• The Debix Model A was designed by Polyhex Technology and it’s based on the NXP NPU i.MX 8M Plus industrial processor with maximum frequency of 1.6GHz. By default, this device comes with 2GB of LPDDR4 but can be upgraded to 4GB or 6GB. The default storage interface provides support for an SD Card but can also be customized to provide eMMC support from 8GB up to 128GB. 

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ This “iPad” made for prison is “clearly” running an old Android version; Tech prisoners use – PhoneArena

=> ↺ Bluetooth LE For Headphones And Earbuds Coming To Android 13: What It Promises For You?

=> ↺ Android 13 Final Beta Improves Security and Privacy, and More

=> ↺ Ulefone Rugged Armor X6 Pro Debuted With Android 12 – Gizchina.com

=> ↺ OnePlus Nord CE 2 gets its first Android 12 beta update, here’s what’s new – PhoneArena

=> ↺ Google Pixel 6A vs. Pixel 6: What’s Different About Google’s Cheaper Android 12 Flagship – CNET

=> ↺ Android Auto Wi-Fi connection might be tweaked in latest update

=> ↺ Delete These Android Apps Infected With Autolycos Malware

=> ↺ Android removes Fuchsia code as Starnix project progresses – 9to5Google

=> ↺ The 15 Most Popular Free Apps Everyone Needs on Their Android Phone

=> ↺ Moto G Power (2022) vs. Moto G Power (2021) | Android Central

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Watch as the “Microsoft + Open Source” apologists push a narrative

• Say what, now? I won’t deny, that’s a good opening line… but… ahem…

• In the beginning… IBM was The Evil Empire. And, if Steven is talking about the early days of Microsoft… they were not the Evil Empire at that time. Not by a long-shot.

• In fact, Microsoft was (in those early days) primarily a maker of software and hardware for a variety of computer platforms made by other companies. Commodore, Apple, Tandy, and so many others.

=> ↺ What’s coming in the next version of Leaf Node Monitoring?

• Leaf Node Monitoring is my own open source (GPLv3), paid, network monitoring program for Windows, Linux & Android. Written in C++ & Qt 5. Perfect to run on your desktop and monitor your servers. Simple setup, auto-detects running services, runs checks concurrently, open port scanning and alerting. I’ve recently released the first version, and this post goes over the features that will come in the next release.

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ Making interactive sqlite3 more useful

• sqlite3 is a fantastic embedded database for rapid prototyping and resource-constrained environments, given its lack of dependencies or a server. You open one file with a CLI tool, and that’s it. You probably interacted with several today without realising it.

=> ↺ The difference between “=” and “IS” in SQLite

• SQLite has two equality operators: = and IS (= can also be written as ==). They’re very similar, except when NULL is involved.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

=> ↺ 6 Best Free and Open Source JavaScript-Based Web Content Management Systems

•  To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 6 high quality free JavaScript-based Linux WCMS. Hopefully, there will be something of interest for anyone who wishes to manage a website.

• Here’s our verdict. All the software featured here is published under an open source license.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ To build successful software, don’t make the plan better. Make it shorter.

• Consequently, to make up for these delays, teams are pressured to deliver the next feature in less time than they originally estimated.

• When that happens, teams face two choices: cut scope or cut corners. Because the all-knowing long-term plan deems scope immutable, engineers will cut corners, leading to more bugs and creating a vicious cycle of delivering broken features.

• This cascade of broken features will eventually bring the team to a halt because they’ll be too busy draining the flood to actually fix the leak that’s causing it.

• A further problem with the assumption that nothing will go wrong is that it implies there will be no mistakes to learn from. Therefore, teams will continue operating with broken, costly, inefficient processes.

=> ↺ glandium.org » Blog Archive » Announcing git-cinnabar 0.5.9

• Git-cinnabar is a git remote helper to interact with mercurial repositories. It allows to clone, pull and push from/to mercurial remote repositories, using git.

Python

=> ↺ Sneak Peek: Crimes with Python’s Pattern Matching

• The pattern matching feature is, on the whole, pretty reasonably designed, and people will expect it to behave in reasonable ways. Whereas subclasshook is extremely dark magic. This kind of chicanery might have a place in the dark beating heart of a complex library, certainly not for any code your coworkers will have to deal with.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ zshbrev

• zshbrev allows you to mix zsh code and brev code. Not for polished li’l “eggs” but for your own duct tape and chewing gum hacking and automation. Quick and dirty♥.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Richard Seymour’s World Is Full of Wonder

• In 2015, Richard Seymour’s entire world was in flux. The London-based author, editor of Salvage, a socialist magazine that covers art and politics, and contributor to the New Left Review had recently left the Socialist Workers Party; his long-term relationship had fallen apart; and then, on Christmas Day, he noticed how eerily warm the weather was where it should have been crisply cold. As Seymour explained, all this contributed to a “deep crisis” in which he rethought everything from his “tough-minded militant” persona (the “political ego ideal,” he says) to actual politics, specifically where the overlapping crises of the climate and environment fit into his decidedly class-focused worldview. During this period, Seymour came to understand the climate as “the problem of problems” because, as he says, “the biosphere is the precondition for everything else.”

=> ↺ The Comic’s Kosky

• This solemn field spreads itself literally at the center of Germany—its historical consciousness, its politics, its culture, its crimes. The Nazi Chancellery was here and Hitler’s bunker nearby, though the exact location is not marked and therefore not available as a site of pilgrimage for Fascists.

• The sprawling American embassy is across the street from the memorial, and just beyond it the Brandenburg Gate. With its cool beige stone, glass and steel, the embassy’s neo-Art-Deco-ism seems an ironic nod to the Good Old Days of the Cold War, when America’s power was ascendant. I think of the building as a diplomatic diner serving up Marshall Plan burgers, NATO fries washed down with the chocolate shake of Mutually Assured Destruction.

=> ↺ Storing information on paper using the Pen To Paper protocol

• Here is a draft for a protocol named PTPDT, an acronym standing for Pen To Paper Data Transfer. It comes with its companion specification Paper To Brain.

• The protocol describes how a pen can be used to write data on a sheet of paper. Maybe it would be better named as Brain To Paper Protocol.

=> ↺ What Brits Know About Class That Americans Don’t

• Americans have a really hard time talking about so many topics. Given the ubiquity of social media, you might think I’m being deliberately obtuse. I don’t think I am; race, gender, LGTBQ+, politics, among others are widely discussed but anyone that’s spent any time online knows that almost all those conversations happen in echo chambers or they quickly fall into chaos. Admittedly, trying to have a “reasonable” conversation with someone who believes you have fewer rights over your body (whether reproductive or simply the right not to have your teeth kicked in by law enforcement) is all but impossible. However, one topic that almost all Americans, regardless of political persuasion, are loath to discuss is the subject of class. Today’s Tedium is looking at one of the most iconic sketches in the history of British comedy to understand the lack of discussion around class in America and what it says about even the most “cynical” of Americans.

=> ↺ Got A Cardboard Box? Get Into Food Smoking!

• We appreciate a good kitchen hack, and we have always liked TV personality and chef [Alton Brown]’s McGuyver-ish approach to these things. So for anyone who hasn’t seen it, let’s take a moment to highlight how to make (and use) Alton Brown’s Cardboard Box Smoker.

=> ↺ There Are Still Things to Love About America

• It’s hot and hazy as July rolls around. Growing up in the Baltimore swamplands, we used to say, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” Meaning that the humidity was harder to deal with than the feverish temperatures. At some point in my family, the phrase morphed into: “It’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity.” At the time, we meant the antics of people when it gets hot, including public drunkenness, mishaps with fireworks, and fights over slights. (These days, sadly enough, you’d have to add to that list slaughtering people at a July 4th celebration with an AR-15-style rifle.)

=> ↺ Collaborative Effort Gets Laser Galvos Talking G-Code

• Everyone should know by now that we love to follow up on projects when they make progress. It’s great to be able to celebrate accomplishments and see how a project has changed over time. But it’s especially great to highlight a project that not only progresses, but also gives back a little to the community.

Science

=> ↺ Hotelling’s Law and Differentiation

• The resulting observation is called Hotelling’s law – that rational producers will tend to make their products as similar as possible. You can think of this as the opposite of product differentiation. Through the lens of game theory, both A and B have reached Nash Equilibrium by situating themselves in the middle of the beach.

Education

=> ↺ Teachers often work a second job outside of the classroom

• In a 2021 national survey of 1,200 classroom teachers conducted by the Teacher Salary Project, a nonpartisan organization, 82% of respondents said they either currently or previously had taken on multiple jobs to make ends meet. Of those, 53% said they were currently working multiple jobs, including 17% who held jobs unrelated to teaching.

Hardware

=> ↺ A Simple Web-Based Wiring Harness Tool

• When building electronic assemblies there is quite often the need to construct custom cables to hook things up. It’s all very well if you’re prototyping by hand, or just building one or two of a thing, but if you’re cranking them out using outside help, then you’re going to want to ensure that cable is described very accurately. [Christian Nimako-Boateng Jr.] presents for us the first version of wirely, a wiring harness tool. This is a web-based tool that allows one to describe the cable ends and connectivity between them, producing a handy graphic and exports to excel in a format that should be easy to follow.

=> ↺ Helping Secure Amateur Radio’s Digital Future

• The average person’s perception of a ham radio operator, assuming they even know what that means, is more than likely some graybeard huddled over the knobs of a war-surplus transmitter in the wee small hours of the morning. It’s a mental image that, admittedly, isn’t entirely off the mark in some cases. But it’s also a gross over-simplification, and a generalization that isn’t doing the hobby any favors when it comes to bringing in new blood.

=> ↺ Hackaday Podcast 177: Microscopes, Telescopes, Telephonoscopes, And A Keyboardoscope?

• This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos stood around talking like they weren’t thousands of miles apart. And we mean that literally: Kristina just got an up/down desk, and it turns out that Elliot’s had the exact same one for years.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ California social media addiction bill drops parent lawsuits

• A first-of-its-kind proposal in the California Legislature aimed at holding social media companies responsible for harming children who have become addicted to their products would no longer let parents sue popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

• The revised proposal would still make social media companies liable for damages of up to $250,000 per violation for using features they know can cause children to become addicted. But it would only let prosecutors, not parents, file the lawsuits against social media companies. The legislation was amended last month, CalMatters reported Thursday.

=> ↺ AAPS joins the legal thuggery against medical standards

• I’ve written about the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) on a number of occasions, dating all the way back to 2006. The first time I discovered AAPS, I described the organization as a “medical John Birch Society” in that it is in reality a political organization disguised as a legitimate medical professional society. More than that, AAPS is a crank medical organization every bit as much a bunch of far right conspiracy theorists as the John Birch Society ever was and has been around a long time, having been founded in 1943. This makes unsurprising to me that earlier this week AAPS announced that it was suing three medical specialty boards that had announced measures to strip physicians promoting COVID-19 misinformation and other health misinformation of their board certifications.

Proprietary

=> ↺ It’s ChromeOS now, not Chrome OS

• Chrome OS, Google’s Linux-based operating system for its Chromebook devices, has been around for more than a decade, but the company has made a small but notable branding change: it’s now called ChromeOS, with no space in between. James Croom, Google’s senior director of marketing for ChromeOS, confirmed the change to The Verge.

=> ↺ Living With Models

• More people, more often, are finding themselves dealing with the output of Machine-Learning (ML) software. With even a little practice you can spot when it’s happening. It makes me wonder what the future of human/ML interaction looks like. Herewith a few personal experiences.

=> ↺ How to Install Visual Studio Code on Rocky Linux 9

=> ↺ How to Install VSCodium on Rocky Linux 9

Security

=> ↺ Why Open Source is ESG

=> ↺ DHS review board says it could take years to fix government software vulnerability

• The recommendations are categorized into four main focuses — addressing the continued risks of Log4j, adopting industry-accepted practices for managing vulnerabilities, building a more proactive model of vulnerability management and making investments for the country’s digital security in the future.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ #Privacyofthepeople: 91 problems but this ain’t one

• Delhi Police issued a notice to Razorpay under Section 91 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (“Section 91”) while it was investigating Mr Mohammad Zubair, a fact-checker and founder of Alt-News. In compliance with the notice, Razorpay shared the personal information of donors of Alt-News without informing Alt-News or the donors. In this #Privacyofthepeople post, we explain the scope of Section 91 notices, how they may impact your right to privacy and what remedies you have under law. Since IFF uses Razorpay to receive donations, we also explain the steps we are taking to protect donor privacy.

=> ↺ A New Attack Can Unmask Anonymous Users on Any Major Browser

• The findings, which NJIT researchers will present at the Usenix Security Symposium in Boston next month, show how an attacker who tricks someone into loading a malicious website can determine whether that visitor controls a particular public identifier, like an email address or social media account, thus linking the visitor to a piece of potentially personal data.

• When you visit a website, the page can capture your IP address, but this doesn’t necessarily give the site owner enough information to individually identify you. Instead, the hack analyzes subtle features of a potential target’s browser activity to determine whether they are logged into an account for an array of services, from YouTube and Dropbox to Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and more. Plus the attacks work against every major browser, including the anonymity-focused Tor Browser.

=> ↺ San Francisco Police Want Real-Time Access to Private Surveillance Cameras

• If approved, the draft ordinance would also allow SFPD to collect historical video footage to help conduct criminal investigations and those related to officer misconduct. The draft law currently stands as the following, which indicates the cops can broadly ask for and/or get access to live real-time video streams: [...]

=> ↺ Would Meta Really Shut Down Facebook And Instagram In The EU Over Data Transfer Rules?

• Just a few weeks back we talked about how the US’s unwillingness to fix the way the NSA collects internet data could basically mean that most of the big US internet services cannot work in the EU. That article was about Google, and it goes through the background and history of the various US/EU privacy data sharing agreements, and how each one has been tossed out by EU courts in large part because of the NSA surveillance techniques brought to light by Edward Snowden. But much less attention has been paid to what this all means at a practical level.

=> ↺ UK government ministers urged to not conduct business using WhatsApp

• A newly published report marks the conclusion of a yearlong investigation launched in 2021 by then-Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham. The inquiry was initiated after concerns were raised into the use of the messaging service WhatsApp and private email accounts by former health secretary Matt Hancock and his deputy, James Bethell, at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) during the height of the pandemic.

• The report found that official information had been shared through 29 WhatsApp accounts, 17 private text messaging accounts, eight private email accounts and one LinkedIn account.

=> ↺ Facebook’s new test allows people to have up to five profiles

• As part of the test, some Facebook users will have the ability to create up to four additional profiles tied to their original account. The idea is that additional profiles can be used for different purposes, like one for friends, one for co-workers, and others for interacting with interest groups and influencers. Users will still have one account but be able to switch between profiles with a few clicks.

=> ↺ Ring Reveals They Give Videos to Police Without User Consent or a Warrant

• The company has provided videos to law enforcement, without a warrant or device owner consent, 11 times already this year. This admission comes in response to a series of critical letters from Senator Ed Markey (D-MA). Markey chastised the company over many of the same privacy problems that EFF has brought up, including the far-reaching audio capabilities of Ring devices, and the company’s refusal to commit to not incorporate facial recognition technology into their cameras.

• Amazon must consider the danger these products pose to the public by creating a growing web of surveillance systems that are owned by individuals, but are de-facto operated by law enforcement. 

• Police are not the customers for Ring; the people who buy the devices are the customers. But Amazon’s long-standing relationships with police blur that line. For example, in the past Amazon has given coaching to police to tell residents to install the Ring app and purchase cameras for their homes—an arrangement that made salespeople out of the police force. The LAPD launched an investigation into how Ring provided free devices to officers when people used their discount codes to purchase cameras.

=> ↺ Arizona Makes It Illegal To Record Cops From Less Than Eight Feet Away

• Courts (with the rare exception) are in agreement: there’s a First Amendment right to film cops. With every citizen carrying a camera these days, there’s a lot more filming happening. And those recordings have often proven key when cops face criminal charges for violating rights or, you know, murdering people.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Russian, Belarusian citizens will not be allowed to own firearms in Estonia

• The coalition agreement of the Reform Party, Isamaa and the Social Democratic Party (SDE) aims to prohibit citizens of Russia and Belarus from owning guns in Estonia. Incoming interior minister Lauri Läänemets said the change will take months to implement and that repealing the weapons permits of other unfriendly people should also be considered.

=> ↺ Secret Service erased texts from two-day period spanning Jan. 6 attack, watchdog says

• A watchdog says the U.S. Secret Service deleted many of the text messages sent during a two-day period surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

• The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, told Congress the messages were deleted after his office asked for them.

• The discovery was made as part of the watchdog’s investigation into the deadly siege last year and will likely play into the probe being led by the House select committee investigating the attack.

=> ↺ Secret Service Texts From January 6 Were Deleted After Watchdog Requested Them

=> ↺ ‘Looks… Pretty Bad’: Secret Service Erased Jan. 6 Texts After Being Asked for Them

• Thursday reporting by The Intercept that the Secret Service deleted text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021 “shortly after oversight officials requested the agency’s electronic communications” has elicited many questions and concerns about what evidence regarding last year’s deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol was destroyed.

• The Secret Service claims that the messages were erased as “part of a device-replacement program.”

=> ↺ US intel officer targeted by John Bolton reacts to coup-plot confession

=> ↺ Noam Chomsky: Biden’s Middle East Trip Contains Echoes of Trump’s Policies

=> ↺ Ukrainian Failed Counterattack, Weak Defense Lines, and Oversight-Free Weapon Deliveries

• There is no oversight over where the ‘western’ weapon deliveries to the Ukraine go to…We can only guess where those weapons will end up.

=> ↺ It Can Happen Here: A White Supremacist Coup That Succeeded

• Cedric Harrison is a tall man with a long view. He leads heritage tours in Wilmington, N.C., the site of the nation’s only successful white supremacist coup.

=> ↺ Why 8kun Went Offline During the January 6 Hearings

• The latest Jan. 6 committee hearing on Tuesday examined the role of conspiracy theory communities like 8kun[.]top and TheDonald[.]win in helping to organize and galvanize supporters who responded to former President Trump’s invitation to “be wild” in Washington, D.C. on that chaotic day. At the same time the committee was hearing video testimony from 8kun founder Jim Watkins, 8kun and a slew of similar websites were suddenly yanked offline. Watkins suggested the outage was somehow related to the work of the committee, but the truth is KrebsOnSecurity was responsible and the timing was pure coincidence.

=> ↺ Reality Bites but Gen X Can Still Fight Back

• Maybe it was seeing the former Oath Keeper wearing a Descendents T-shirt when testifying before the January 6 committee, but I think it’s past time we reckoned with Generation X. The backbone of Trumpist alt-right support comes from my generation. Learning that polls show people born between 1965 and 1980 are the foot soldiers and ideological minders of the new fascism has been jarring, because I’ve always considered Gen X underrated. There has been much ink spilled about the culture wars between boomers and millennials, skipping right over us. It seemed unfair. After all, we were the generation of grunge, some of the best hip-hop ever made (defined by the revolutionary sounds of Public Enemy), and the last generation to read newspapers (that matters to me, for some reason). We should be recognized. We launched movements and challenged the two-party duopoly.

=> ↺ ‘A special operation against city preservation advocates’ How commercial interests in St. Petersburg are using the ‘political situation’ to demolish historic buildings — Meduza

• On July 13, Live City, a movement dedicated to preserving St. Petersburg’s cultural heritage, published a letter from film director Alexander Sokurov to city governor Alexander Beglov. In it, Sokurov accuses the city authorities of taking advantage of the “difficult military and political situation” to dismantle the movement to preserve St. Petersburg’s historic buildings. According to the St. Petersburg news outlet Bumaga, the government has spent the months since the start of the war reorganizing and eliminating the city’s oldest preservation advocacy groups, demolishing monuments, and changing laws to benefit commercial developers. With Bumaga’s permission, Meduza is publishing an abridged translation of the investigation.

=> ↺ Dying to kill The Russian neo-Nazis fighting Vladimir Putin’s war to ‘denazify’ Ukraine — Meduza

• When announcing the February invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin said that one of Russia’s aims was to “denazify” the country. In the months since, Kremlin propaganda has continuously pushed the notion that Russian troops are “destroying” and capturing “nationalists,” “Banderities,” and “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine — painting all Ukrainian soldiers as far-right radicals and eliding the fact that thousands of innocent civilians have died as a result of the invasion. What the Kremlin’s propagandists have conveniently ignored, however, is the fact that several avowed ultra-right nationalists are actually fighting on Moscow’s side. Meduza tells the story of how Russian neo-Nazis were drawn into Vladimir Putin’s war to “denazify” Ukraine. 

=> ↺ Bernie Sanders Unveils Resolution to End US Support for Saudi-Led War in Yemen

=> ↺ Human Rights Watch to US: Stop Selling Weapons to Saudis

• As U.S. President Joe Biden met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Friday, a top official at Human Rights Watch implored the American leader to not lift a ban on the sale of certain weapons to the repressive monarchy as it continues waging an atrocity-laden war in Yemen.

• Responding to reports that the Biden administration is considering ending its vague proscription against the transfer of “offensive” weaponry to Saudi Arabia, Michael Page, Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Middle East and North Africa deputy director, warned that such a policy reversal “could lead to fresh rights violations in Yemen.”

=> ↺ From ‘Bone Saw’ to ‘Pariah’ to ‘Fist Bump’: Outrage as Biden Greets Murderous Saudi Prince

• Making a mockery of his own campaign vow to treat the repressive Saudi kingdom as a “pariah,” U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday greeted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—who intelligence agencies believe approved the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi—with an amiable fist bump as he arrived at the royal palace in Jeddah.

• Already furious over the president’s decision to meet with the crown prince despite his role in the brutal 2018 murder of Khashoggi and subsequent cover-up attempt, human rights defenders responded with outrage to the greeting, which the Saudi regime swiftly blasted out on social media.

=> ↺ JOHN KIRIAKOU: With President Biden in Saudi Arabia

• The truth is that Biden is arriving in Jeddah with hat in hand to ask the Saudis to increase oil production. That, of course, would lower oil prices and help the Administration to get a hold on inflation. But the Saudis (and the Emiratis and the Kuwaitis) already have said that their oil industries are operating near maximum capacity.

=> ↺ Chris Hedges: War with Iran

• The United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia are plotting a war with Iran. The 2015 Iranian nuclear arms accord, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Donald Trump sabotaged, does not look like it will be revived.  U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is reviewing options to attack if Teheran looks poised to obtain a nuclear weapon and Israel, which opposes U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations, carries out military strikes.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Secret Service Deleted Jan. 6 Texts After Oversight Request … For Some Reason

• The revelation came in a letter obtained by the Jan. 6 committee that was sent by Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General — which oversees the Secret Service — to the House and Senate homeland security committees. The letter notes that the DHS IG’s office requested the Secret Service’s electronic communications from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 before being informed that the communications had been erased. The letter reportedly notes that the erasure took place after the request was made. Secret Service has claimed the communications were deleted as part of a “device-replacement program.”

=> ↺ Secret Service erased text messages from Jan. 6 and the day before, the Homeland Security watchdog says

• The Secret Service erased text messages from both Jan. 6 and the day before the attack on the Capitol after the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog requested records of electronic communications tied to the insurrection, according to a letter sent to congressional committees that was obtained by NBC News.

Environment

=> ↺ SCOTUS Limits the Environmental Protection Agency

=> ↺ ‘Europe Is Cooking’: Records Smashed as Historic Heat Alert Issued

• Several countries across Europe are enduring the dangerous hot conditions that climate scientists have longed warned of and meteorologists project the brutal heatwave could last in some areas through next month.

• Spain and Portugal have faced high temperatures since last Friday. According to CNN, at least three Spanish cities set records this week: Ourense at 43.2°C (109.76°F); Soria at 38.7°C (101.66°F); and Zamora at 41.1°C (105.98°F).

=> ↺ ‘Nothing Short of a Death Sentence’: Fury as Manchin Tanks Climate Spending

• Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia informed Democratic leaders Thursday that he will not support any new climate spending or tax increases targeting the wealthy and large corporations, sinking his party’s revived push for renewable energy investments and further undercutting the country’s ability to rein in carbon emissions.

• While Manchin’s refusal to endorse green energy funding may have been entirely foreseeable given his close ties to the fossil fuel industry and his role in tanking the Build Back Better package just months earlier, climate advocates nevertheless voiced dismay at the power one individual has been able to exert over a process with implications for billions of people across the planet.

Energy

=> ↺ Coal Baron Manchin Kills What Could Be Nation’s Last Best Chance on Climate

=> ↺ Biden Urged to Respond to Manchin by Killing West Virginia Fracked Gas Pipeline

• President Joe Biden on Friday faced calls to respond forcefully to Sen. Joe Manchin’s latest climate obstruction by canceling a fracked gas pipeline in the right-wing Democrat’s home state of West Virginia, a move that would prevent around 90 million metric tons of new greenhouse gas emissions from being spewed into the atmosphere each year.

• “West Virginians would be better served by pursuing clean energy projects than climate-polluting pipelines.”

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Hungary, the dog breeding superpower

• Due to the existing huge demand all across Europe, illegal breeders have been overbreeding dogs in Hungary. These animals then grow up amidst poor conditions and are not given proper medical care. Once they are sold, many of them get sick with serious illnesses, and a large percentage of them die young. Our documentary traces the system of dog trade in Hungary, and shows how it has been built up over the last decades, as well as some of those who are taking part in this illegal business.

=> ↺ WTO Agreement Boosts Efforts for a Sustainable Ocean

Finance

=> ↺ Opinion | Confronting “Policy Murder” and the Rising Violence of the Right

• On Juneteenth weekend, tens of thousands of people walked up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the U.S. Capitol as part of the epically titled Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls. (Priti Gulati Cox and I traveled via Amtrak from Kansas to join in.) Although we were following the footsteps of a mob that had stormed the Capitol seventeen months earlier, this march embodied the polar opposite worldview. At the rally ending the march, Poor People’s Campaign co-chair Rev. William J. Barber II made that clear, saying that the event was not a violent insurrection but rather “a resurrection” of people power against violence.

=> ↺ Opinion | Behold: The Big Business Plot to Overthrow Democratic Rule

• “[T]he monopoly which our manufacturers have obtained against us … like an overgrown standing army, has become formidable to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature.”—Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Later-no-harm and the ‘Wright’ method of single transferable vote

• Later-no-harm is a criterion for preferential voting methods which provides that ‘Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm any candidate already listed’ [1]. The most well-known voting systems which comply with later-no-harm are the single transferable vote (STV), and its single-winner variant, instant runoff voting.

=> ↺ Curiosities in drafting for the weighted inclusive Gregory method of STV

• In Australia, 2 jurisdictions make use of the weighted inclusive Gregory method of the single transferable vote (STV). The weighted inclusive Gregory method of STV is one of 2 systems recommended by the Proportional Representation Society of Australia as part of a gold standard electoral system.

• Each of the 2 jurisdictions, however, has interesting quirks in the drafting of the legislation giving the specifications for the weighted inclusive Gregory method, which are worth exploring.

=> ↺ Outgoing IT minister announces details of third and final 5G auction

• The auction, of the 694-790 MHz frequency range, is set to take place in autumn, following the conclusion of the current, ongoing auction involving Telia, Tele2 and Bite.

• Two telecoms firms will be eligible to bid.

=> ↺ So where did all this right-wing religious nuttery come from?

• The Reagan presidency was their first major victory; in eight short years he cut union membership in America almost in half, dropped the taxes on billionaires from a top 74% bracket down to 27%, and slashed thousands of protective regulations, particularly around guns and the environment.

• Over the 40 years of the Reagan revolution, we’ve gone from having about the same gun-ownership density as Canada (around 15 guns per 100 people) to the most in the world (over 120 guns per 100 people). We’re now drenched in blood: Guns kill more American children than drunk drivers or any other cause.

=> ↺ If Trump Jumps Into Presidential Race Before Midterms, All Bets Are Off

=> ↺ OAN Starts Attacking Verizon, The Last Cable Giant Willing To Platform Its Conspiratorial Gibberish

• When last we checked in with right-wing propaganda network One America News (OAN), it was suffering some kind of embolism for being kicked off of DirecTV. Despite a lot of attention, not that many people actually watch the channel, so DirecTV finally kicked it aside. This was distorted by OAN and numerous key Republicans into a claim that the conspiracy theory floating outlet was being “unfairly censored.”

=> ↺ Why The GOP Wants To Break Your Spam Filter: GOP Candidate Tricked Gullible Voters Into Funding Him With Misleading Spam Emails

• Over the last few months we’ve been covering this bizarre story of how Republican politicians, pushed by their preferred spamming provider (which misrepresented a study on how email providers treat political spam), have been falsely claiming that Google is “censoring” their political emails. They’ve also been pushing a law that would require email providers not to label politician emails as spam. In response, Google caved a bit and proposed a new offering that would whitelist political campaigns, keeping them out of the spam filter (but including a button at the top asking the recipient if they want to unsubscribe from that mailing). Google asked the Federal Election Commission (FEC), to bless this idea (and specifically to note it wouldn’t be deemed to violate any campaign finance laws).

=> ↺ Big Corporate Money Wants to Kick Andy Levin Out of Congress

• When workers at Michigan’s SKLD Bloomfield Hills Nursing Home launched a strike for improved working conditions last Monday, they did not stand alone. Their represen, Andy Levin, was right there with them. And it wasn’t just a quick stop on the picket line for Levin. He came to march, wearing his “Unions For All” T-shirt and jeans. He raised a clenched fist, jumped in behind the Service Employees International Union’s “Respect Us! Protect Us! Pay Us!” banner, and joined the chant of “Ain’t no party like a union party, ’cause the union party don’t stop.” Finally, he told the crowd, “The whole community stands with these of workers in the name of dignity, respect, and good patient care.”

=> ↺ Ohio Man

=> ↺ Neo-Cons: Genesis to Ascendency

• The adherents of the neo-conservative movement now dominate positions of rank within the Executive branch, and exercise intellectual hegemony among members of the foreign policy community more generally.  

=> ↺ Opinion | NY Times Polls on Biden and Trump’s Low Popularity Don’t Provide Enough Context for Americans’ Foul Mood

• A new New York Times/Siena College poll is generating a lot of attention. It showed that 64% of Democratic voters say they would prefer another Democratic candidate in the 2024 presidential campaign. One-third (33%) of Democrats say that their biggest concern is that Biden, who is 79, is too old to run for re-election. Another one-third (32%) say that his “job performance” hasn’t been good enough to warrant another run for the White House.

=> ↺ Opinion | How To Get the War Out of America

• Today I spoke with the foreign policy aide of a United States Senator in a scheduled lobbying call for our antiwar organization. Rather than use the standard lobbying points about wasteful Pentagon spending, I asked for a frank discussion regarding ways our organization might find a successful strategy to cut the Pentagon budget. I wanted the perspective of somebody working on the Hill for a conservative senator.

=> ↺ Opinion | President Biden: End the War in Yemen

• The United Nations has called the Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” Yet even that designation hardly captures the full extent of misery endured by its people over seven years of violence and unrelenting war.

=> ↺ Opinion | Worsening Chaos: Israel’s Political Instability Is Now the Norm

• The collapse of the short-lived Israeli government of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid validates the argument that the political crisis in Israel was not entirely instigated and sustained by former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

=> ↺ Progressives Release Blueprint for Federal Action on Reproductive Freedom

• The Congressional Progressive Caucus on Friday released a blueprint for legislative and executive actions to protect reproductive freedom in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion and endangers other civil rights.

• “These concrete steps constitute a whole-of-government response to expand access to essential healthcare.”

=> ↺ 99% of House GOP Just Showed They Support Forcing Children to Birth ‘Their Rapist’s Child’: Pascrell

• While reproductive rights advocates and many Democrats on Friday welcomed the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage of a bill protecting the right to travel for abortion care, Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr. called out GOP lawmakers who opposed the legislation.

• “Today 99% of House Republicans made clear they support forcing raped children to give birth to their rapist’s child,” declared the New Jersey Democrat after the House approved the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act in a 223-205 vote.

=> ↺ Jayapal Says ‘Systemic Reform’ Needed to Thwart Manchin’s Obstruction

• As some campaigners urged activists to intensify their organizing to counter U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin’s latest act of climate obstruction, a leading congressional progressive on Friday called for “institutional, systemic reform” to ensure one lawmaker can’t hold their party’s priorities hostage.

• “Progressives have fought tooth and nail for the president’s and the Democratic Party’s agenda. Unfortunately, the senator from West Virginia has consistently worked to undermine it, blocking action on a number of priorities from child care, to housing, and now climate change,” Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said after Manchin (D-W.Va.) revealed he would not currently support any new climate spending or tax increases targeting the wealthy and corporations.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ From sex in the Sumidero to sex in the park: porn producer under fire again

• Marín’s “sex in the sumidero” video also went viral and as a result caught the eye of the federal government’s National Commission of Natural Protected Areas, which denounced the improper use of the national park. It said that the filming of pornographic content in the park damaged “the image of an icon that represents the pride of Chiapas” and exceeded “moral limits.”

=> ↺ ‘I Crossed Some Red Lines’: What It’s Like To Work As A Journalist In Central Asia

• For decades, Central Asian governments have kept a tight grip over information. State media dominate and serve as government mouthpieces rather than the public. The few independent outlets face growing financial pressures and efforts to stifle their reporting through a variety of means — assaults, threats, arrests, and prosecution. Self-censorship is pervasive among journalists and bloggers.

• Even in Kyrgyzstan, which boasts a vibrant and pluralistic media environment compared to its neighbors, press freedom has been on the decline. Independent journalists have been detained or harassed by trolls on social media. The ongoing trial of investigative journalist Bolot Temirov on drug charges bears the signs of political persecution, according to his colleagues.

• As social media increasingly becomes the main source of news [sic] for citizens — especially young people — the governments seek to gain more control over those outlets, too. Internet shutdowns and website blocking are widespread, particularly during anti-government protests.

=> ↺ CC still opposes mandatory filtering and so should you

• As part of Creative Commons’ key strategic goal of Better Sharing, we have taken a firm stance against mandatory content filtering on the internet. In new proposed legislation, the U.S. Congress is now raising mandatory content filtering again as a tool to eliminate infringement of copyrighted works. For those who are new to the discussion, mandatory filtering would require that all information providers enable software that prevents the distribution of materials claimed by rightsholders. If you’ve ever uploaded videos to YouTube, you’ve seen content filters at work: videos are scanned for copyrighted audio like popular music before they are published, and sometimes videos are blocked even when they are legal to share. Policy that forces every digital publisher, platform, and service provider to adopt similar filters would make this broken model universal. CC has long stated that the effects of mandatory filtering are devastating to free speech, as well as the sharing of culture and knowledge. CC has also spoken out against filtering mandates and opposed their introduction in the European Union.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ State-backed [crackers] targeted US-based journalists in widespread spy campaigns: report

• State-sponsored [crackers] from China, North Korea, Iran and Turkey have been regularly spying on and impersonating journalists from various media outlets in an effort to infiltrate their networks and gain access to sensitive information, according to a report released on Thursday by cybersecurity firm Proofpoint.

• The report reveals that government-backed [crackers] used various tools to target journalists, including sending phishing emails to gain access to reporters’ work emails, social media accounts and networks.

=> ↺ Above the Fold and in Your Inbox: Tracing State-Aligned Activity Targeting Journalists, Media

• Proofpoint data since early 2021 shows a sustained effort by APT actors worldwide attempting to target or leverage journalists and media personas in a variety of campaigns, including those well-timed to sensitive political events in the United States. Some campaigns have targeted the media for a competitive intelligence edge while others have targeted journalists immediately following their coverage painting a regime in a poor light or as a means to spread disinformation or propaganda. For the purposes of this report, we focus on the activities of a handful of APT actors assessed to be aligned with the state interests of China, North Korea, Iran, and Turkey.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Petition calling for two home office days per week reaches threshold

• A petition arguing in favour of two home-office days per week for any employee in Luxembourg gathered the necessary 4,500 signatures in the span of just a few hours, meaning that it will be discussed in the Chamber of Deputies.

• Eight new petitions were published on Wednesday morning. If a proposal gathers a minimum of 4,500 signatures, it must be debated by MPs in the Chamber of Deputies.

• The most popular petition by far argues in favour of two weekly home office days, specifically for cross-border workers. On Thursday morning it had already garnered over 7,500 signatures.

=> ↺ Participation in Facebook and Twitter can and will be used against you. You have no right to remain silent after you’ve already spoken. If you need an attorney, good luck with that.

• In one recent post, I linked to an archived Nitter mirror showing that a company called FAMA doxxed a man’s Twitter account for “bad language”, “risky likes”, etc, and sent his employer a 350+ page printout.

• [...]

• Many lawyers advise their Social Security clients to either delete Facebook and Twitter, or at least make their profiles “Friends Only”, so the government can’t go combing through them.

• The problem with the “Friends Only” advice is that the government is the government, and if Facebook or Twitter have information on you, the government is going to get it. It’s only a matter of time.

=> ↺ Michelle Wilde Anderson: Saving Broke and Broken America, One Town at a Time

• On this week’s “Scheer Intelligence,” Michelle Wilde Anderson speaks to Robert Scheer about how four working class towns struggling with poverty and broke governments still managed to progress.

=> ↺ Republicans Block Bill Protecting Right to Travel for Abortion

=> ↺ Texas AG Sues to Block Biden Order Guaranteeing Emergency Abortion Access

=> ↺ A Woman’s Ex-Husband Is Suing the Clinic That Provided Her Abortion 4 Years Ago

=> ↺ Jessica Mason Pieklo on Abortion Rights, Preston Mitchum on Reproductive Justice

• This week on CounterSpin: The Supreme Court’s reversal on abortion rights is so actually and potentially devastating that it’s hard to know where to look. It’s worth tracing things back—Katherine Stewart in the Guardian, among others, walks us through how, at a time when most Protestant Republicans, including the Southern Baptist Convention, hailed the liberalization of abortion law represented by Roe, Christian nationalists, motivated by a desire to protect school segregation and tax exemptions for Christian schools, selected abortion as a way to united conservatives across denominational barriers, by providing a “focal point for anxieties about social change.” Phyllis Schlafly wrote a whole book (How the Republican Party Became Pro-Life) about the work involved in forcing the Republican party to center abortion as a cause—which then became the  longer term effort to reframe “religious liberty” as exemption from law. The names Paul “I don’t want everybody to vote” Weyrich and Bob Jones Sr.—who called segregation “God’s established order”—may also mean something to you.

=> ↺ Student Expelled Over Off-Campus Nazi Joke Can Continue To Sue The School, Says Appeals Court

• Another school has learned it can’t discipline students for off-campus behavior, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s “fuck cheer” decision.

=> ↺ Who Will Replace Judge Donna Scott Davenport?

• For two decades, Judge Donna Scott Davenport oversaw the illegal arrests and detentions of more than a thousand children in her Rutherford County courtroom.

• Her decisions eventually caught up with her: The county settled a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, and an investigation by Nashville Public Radio and ProPublica brought to light what had been happening for years, unchecked. Tennessee lawmakers called for her ousting, the governor asked for a review, and Middle Tennessee State University cut ties with the judge, who taught criminal justice at the school. There were nationwide calls for reform.

=> ↺ James Webb’s Role in Purge of LGBTQ+ NASA Workers Prompts Push to Name Telescope After Harriet Tubman

• The release of the first images from NASA’s new flagship James Webb Space Telescope brought renewed attention to the controversy over naming the telescope after James Webb, who led NASA ahead of the Apollo moon landings in the 1960s. He also played a key role in purging LGBTQ+ people from NASA in what was known as the “lavender scare,” and before that at the State Department under President Truman. We speak with Lucianne Walkowicz, one of four astronomers who led a petition to rename the telescope. Although the petitioners value the insights the telescope contributes, “the way that NASA has dug in its heels about naming the telescope after James Webb has really cast a pall over that,” says Walkowicz. They are also the co-founder of the JustSpace Alliance, which made a new documentary about the push to rename the telescope. We feature an extended excerpt from “Behind the Name: James Webb Space Telescope,” which also examines the push to name the telescope after Harriet Tubman, who “observed the night sky and used the stars for celestial navigation in the service of … people’s freedom.”

=> ↺ Calling On Russia to Free Brittney Griner, Bishop Barber Seeks ‘Humanitarian Visit’

• Bishop William J. Barber II on Friday reiterated his support for Brittney Griner while calling on Russian and U.S. authorities to allow faith leaders to visit the jailed U.S. Olympian and Women’s National Basketball Association superstar in Russia to help secure her release.

• “We are asking the U.S. government and the U.S. and Russian embassies to allow faith leaders to travel to Russia as part of a humanitarian effort to gain her release.”

=> ↺ House Progressives Cite Clarence Thomas to Argue SCOTUS Should Lose Jurisdiction Over Abortion

• Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mondaire Jones on Thursday led a group of progressive lawmakers in sending a letter to Democratic leaders urging them to support restricting the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction over statutes codifying abortion and other civil rights imperiled by the court’s reactionary majority.

• “Congress must use its powers to restrain the court and protect our fundamental rights—once and for all.”

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Microsoft Mapped Broadband Affordability Gaps Because The U.S. Government Couldn’t Be Bothered To

• We’ve long noted how U.S. broadband maps are a bit of a dumpster fire. U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $350 million for FCC broadband maps that overstate broadband availability and speeds, downplay widespread monopolization and consolidation, and can’t even be bothered to measure affordability, one of the biggest obstacles to widespread adoption.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Netflix thinks that the solution to its financial woes is a deal with Microsoft to put ads into your TV shows.

• Netflix is in major financial crisis. They’re doing huge layoffs. They’ve spent years mismanaging the platform and have only themselves to blame.

• Even though the DRM is malicious, and encourages people to be jerks who can’t share with their friends, it’s not the cause of their financial problems.

• Back when it wasn’t so expensive and had shows that people wanted to watch, people would pay the money to subscribe and then keep paying, usually even if there wasn’t anything on that they wanted to watch that month.

Monopolies

=> ↺ Opinion | Why Food Prices Are Rising Even More

• Monopolies are slowly killing rural America—and driving up the price you pay for food.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Google Delists Hundreds of Pirate Bay Domains From UK Search Results

• Google began to delist pirate sites from local search results last year. The search engine voluntarily complies with court orders targeted at third-party Internet providers. This is also true in the UK, where The Pirate Bay initially remained unblocked. A recent wave of removal requests corrected this initial oversight and hundreds of Pirate Bay domains have since been removed.

=> ↺ VNest IPTV Faces US Piracy Lawsuit After Failing to Cease-and-Desist

• A Las Vegas company and its owner have been named in a DISH Network lawsuit targeting pirate IPTV service VNest TV. DISH says the service offered more than 5,000 channels including some obtained from its satellite feeds and others from Sling TV’s online broadcasts. DISH believes VNest TV obtained channels from Nitro TV, a service recently hit with a $100m+ judgment.

=> ↺ More Issues With Copyright Enforcement At Scale: YouTube Reinstates Videos After False Claims

• It’s no secret that Techdirt believes YouTube’s copyright enforcement program is an absolute mess. On the one hand, it’s difficult to be too hard on the company. After all, it is trying to figure out how to enforce draconian copyright laws in countries like America at a scale that is absolutely absurd. On the other hand, the way it works today is so wide open for fraud and abuse, that it’s literally a challenge to pick out which of a ton of stories I want to link to in order to show the history of fraud, mistakes, and nefarious copyright claims taken for reasons that fall completely outside of any interest in copyright law or protection.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Online Negativity Is A Form of Virus

• As the victim of a three-year-long harassment campaign, during which my name has been slandered, attacked, and dragged through the mud, I’ve come to understand a few vital points on the nature of just how effectively the Internet can be used to spread disinformation and hatred. I believe comparing smear campaigns to viruses or pathogens is apt- like any disease, negativity is more appealing to the human psyche than positivity, and has a tendency to become more widely recognized and discussed.

• [...]

• Reddit, I’m convinced, is one of the worst websites ever created, and for the past three years of pure Hell it has been used by these people in order to blackmail me, harass me, rile up mobs against me, and threaten my life and family. Reddit does not only allow this harassment to continue, they endorse it, banning anyone who goes against the narrative these bad actors wish to present. It is a farce, a kangaroo court, a crime against everything the Internet should represent.

• Reddit is doing this, I’m sure, to save face, as they are currently one of the most disliked websites of all time. They are known for having hosted vile and reprehensible material on their website throughout much of the early 2010s- potentially illegal material, even- all under the guise of “free speech,” and now in the later 2010s and early 2020s have done a complete 180 to save face and now ban and censor the least offensive content imaginable without a second thought or any form of justification. I arrived on the site at an interesting period in its history- during the transitional phase, when it went from a no-holds-barred anarchist chaos arena to an authoritarian police state. As such, I was able to witness, firsthand, in a microcosm, the transformation of the Internet.

• I predicted, in 2019, that the public’s opinion toward the site would soon shift and Reddit would be viewed for what it has become- an outright circus. At the time, the general public’s opinion was mostly positive. However, as the years went on, my prediction came to fruition. Reddit became embroiled in multiple scandals which would put the follies of Facebook to shame- for instance, the debacle during which they knowingly hired a sex offender and then banned anyone who dared post about it. They are now one of the most censorship-heavy websites on the Internet, deleting a huge fraction of all content submitted. Programmers have wasted hours trying to create facsimiles of the website without censorship, such as “Removeddit,” all to no avail.

• The case of Reddit is a good example of just how quickly negativity can spread. What exists on Reddit today is a false sort of toxic positivity to counteract the outright negativity which persists in groups such as the one which has targeted me. Reddit has become nothing more than 90% pictures of adorable cats with no substance and 10% hate groups which masquerade as righteous causes while spewing ableist and racist rhetoric. The people who attack me do so with no checks, no balances, no restraint, and they are, for no reason whatsoever, hellbent on seeing my failure, to a compulsive, even sociopathic, degree.

=> ↺ Glad to see OCD stereotypes being broken up

• The first response is right on point: OCD is, by definition, not rational.

• I can relate with the OP’s son in that I have contamination obsessions and wash my hands probably more than the average person, and definitely way more than necessary. These obsessions aren’t as bad as they used to be, but they’re still there. Yet I can go days without showering.

• One possible explanation I’ve had, and which might be the case for others, is that some instances of contamination obsessions are–for lack of a better term–self-serving. What I mean is that it’s about keeping yourself quarantined from anything external, and you’re not /quite/ as keen about not contaminating others. (I’ve personally been making an effort to be more considerate about this.) Since I’m mostly reclusive, not showering isn’t putting up any “contamination!” red flags in my brain, at least not until I start to feel and smell gross enough.

=> ↺ # walking

• So because of Ingress, and because my brain was probably not functioning, I’ve walked the most in a day yesterday.

• [...]

• Underestimating yourself is good in the sense that you’re not trying to act like a higher up, but that doesn’t mean to not make commitments. In fact, the fact that we always “suck” means that we should also have the mentality of “suck less”, so that we can have the mindset for improving yourself.

• It’s also worth noting that I’ve done all this stuff because of outward forces, so for someone like me who just can’t do commitments for self, try finding people or events that drives you to actually do some stuff. Even if the person you’re looking for ended up being “bad”, at the end of the day all the improvementd you’ve been trying to make are going to benefit you, and looking back at it, you’ll realise it’s worth it.

=> ↺ Ko kongresu!

• So a little while back, I applied for and was accepted to a conference about youth work!

=> ↺ Advertising Is Psychological Warfare

• This is actually a great description. I consider advertising to be a kind of psychological warfare. It feels like an aggressive attack. I also blame it for the sharp rise in attention deficit issues over the last several decades.

• We gave up cable TV in 2012, mainly because we moved out of a place where we had free cable. Paying money to be subjected to all that advertising was just ludicrous. Now, whenever I’m around a television, I feel like I’m in some kind of distorted reality a la The Twilight Zone. I really noticed it when I was in the hospital recuperating last year.

• It’s not just the advertising. It’s also the “news” media, some of which is itself just a thinly veiled form of promotion. They talk and talk and talk, saying much and conveying little. Both advertising and news seem to be targeting our most primitive and strongest instincts: the instincts to fight, flee, and accumulate. It plays to fear, be it the fear of missing out on the latest product from Apple or the fear of the terrorist.

=> ↺ Check Out My Recommendations

• In my circles there’s been an increasing interest in “Links” pages as a way to help people discover interesting content by looking at what people you like like. For a long time I’ve had a “favourites.gmi” page on my capsule, but it’s been pretty neglected. This file is being removed and replaced.

Politics

=> ↺ Unconditional Basic Income

• I believe we need UBI.

• It’s one of the few policy proposals I’ve seen in many years that has the option to make life drastically better and safer for millions of citizens.

• You might, like me, have some long term qualms about this. I’ve long seen UBI as maybe more of a short-term “patch” solution (it doesn’t fix all externalites and environmental problems of market economies), but a desperately needed one.

• If it also does end up working out long term, that’d be gravy.

Technical

=> ↺ Old CPUs

• Old computers along with old CPUs, are becoming a better offer by the day, not only because of consumerism and planned obsolescence, but because of security.

• From cca. 2008, Intel CPUs have Intel ME built in, with AMD having its counterpart, AMD PSP. Both are management engines, translated from non-corporate speech, that means both are backdoored. Intel PSP can be controlled remotely, several vulnerabilities have been found in it. Luckily, it can be cleaned with ME cleaner, which purges the most dangerous parts from it, although it is a tedious process. AMD PSP cannot be controlled remotely, at least according to what is known, and some motherboards can disable it.

• [...]

• Now yet another backdoor is coming, Microsoft Pluton. Obviously being touted as a “security enclave” that’s built into the CPU, it’s a bright idea by Microsoft to secure computers, when they haven’t even resolved the malware issue on their own operating system. They partnered with Intel and AMD, Pluton being present in all new CPUs. The firmware of Pluton can be updated from Microsoft’s operating system, which, at the moment, seems like the same process as updating CPU microcode, although it might be reserved for them only.

• Last week, an article on Phoronix reportedly showed that one of the laptops with Pluton cannot boot GNU/Linux, all because of it not being “secure.” Seemingly can be disabled, probably the same process as secure boot. Microsoft isn’t to be trusted, knowing their anti-competitive practices, can only imagine in what ways Pluton will be abused.

=> ↺ SSD1306 OLED 128×64 I2C current consumption

• Out of curiosity I hooked up a small 0.96″ OLED display to an amperemeter to measure its current draw. I was fiddling around with it, connected to the I2C bus of a Raspberry Pi, and wanted to get it up and running without using any of the existing libraries. Thus I had to send all the commands ‘by hand’ and stumbled over all the initialisation options mentioned in the datasheet of the driver chip. There are several voltages, frequencies and divider ratios to play around with, and I wondered how they would influence the power consumption of the display. After all, it might come in handy to know exactly what to do to trim the current draw to an absolute minimum, should this be necessary.

Science

=> ↺ A Look Back in Time: How NASA’s Webb Telescope Gives Humanity a Revolutionary New View of Cosmos

• NASA released revolutionary new images of the cosmos this week that were taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful space observatory to date. Launched in 2021, the JWST was designed to study star and planet formation with exponentially more accuracy and detail than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. “We can actually essentially watch the formation of stars,” says astrophysicist Katie Mack. “There’s a chance that it might find signatures consistent with life in the atmospheres of other stars.” We feature NASA’s new images, like the Southern Ring Nebula, and Mack discusses what humans can learn from the new science about the cosmos, and ourselves.

=> ↺ Liquid Piston Engine Finally Works

• The first video from [3DPrintedLife] attempting to make a liquid piston engine was… well… the operative word is attempting. The latest video, though, which you can see below gets it right, at least eventually.. He has a good explanation of the changes that made the design better. Turns out, one change that made a difference was to turn a key part of the engine inside out. You can see the video below.

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ Introducing AuraGem Music

• AuraGem Music is a free music hosting service that will let you upload mp3′s via Titan to your own private library so that you can play them from the capsule using your identity certificate. Because of limited storage, there is a quota system, which you can find more information about on the capsule.

• [...]

• Currently only mp3s are supported. However, support for ogg’s will be added later. Files that are identical, excluding audio header and footers, as well as tags, will be deduplicated to save on space. This ensures that users have full advantage of as much space as is possible. The quota system will take deduplication into account by splitting the quota of identical songs between all users who have uploaded that song. It is assumed that uploaded music has been purchased, unless other evidence can be shown, within a DCMA request, to prove otherwise.

• [...]

• Lastly, AuraGem Music will always remain free to use. However, because this service is run solely by one individual, it cannot be guaranteed that the service will not shut down in the future due to financial issues, server issues, etc. I do not ever intend to sell this service to any companies unless they are FOSS-Oriented and non-profit.

=> ↺ smolZINE – Issue 30smolZINE – Issue 30

• This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Programming

=> ↺ Git Branch Descriptions

• Here’s a neat little feature of git that I just learnt about. It turns out that git branches can have associated descriptions, although they are local only. All you have to do to set one is to run the command git branch –edit-description which will open your editor, just like writing a commit message.

• 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

=> Techrights

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