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● Links 25/10/2022: Tails 5.6

Posted in News Roundup at 7:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 16 Gen7 Linux Laptop Launches with 240Hz Display, DDR5 RAM

• Following the success of the TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen7 laptop, which was the first to be available in two colors, the new InfinityBook Pro 16 Linux laptop is also available in two visually identical-looking versions Workstation Edition and Max Performance Edition, in Ice Grey or Deep Grey colors.

• As its name suggests, TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 16 Gen7 features a large, high-quality 16-inch WQHD display that’s available in the highly requested 16:10 aspect ratio (2560×1600 pixels resolution) for both variants, but the Max Performance Edition has a 240 Hz refresh rate that’s four times faster than a 60Hz display for more responsive and accurate gaming.

=> ↺ System76 upgrade the Thelio desktops with Intel 13th Gen and new AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs

• Out for a new desktop? Want one from a company that builds them for Linux and has their own Linux distribution? System76 just gave the Thelio line a nice big upgrade. Available across the Thelio and Thelio Mira, with the Thelio Major sticking to AMD Threadripper.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ 8 Fun Command Line Tools You Can Mix and Match – Invidious

• Command line tools covered in this video include: cmatrix, cowsay, espeak, lolcat, figlet, fortune, ternimal, lsd If you have a fun Linux command line tool to recommend leave me a message or send me an email

=> ↺ Why Steam Deck Is Truly Garbage For The Money| A PC Gamer’s Steam Deck Review Reaction – Invidious

• OH BOY HOWDY! Let’s see what a “real” PC gamer has to say bout why the Steam Deck is terrible….

=> ↺ Late Night Linux – Episode 200 – Late Night Linux

• It’s our 200th episode spectacular! We look back over some of the key events and trends from the last ~5 years that the show has been going. The rise of Arm and RISC-V, the death of 32-bit x86, Mozilla’s decline, the Ubuntu Phone fever dream, gaming wins, and loads more.

=> ↺ Fsearch | Fast File Search Utility for Linux – Invidious

• What’s up, Linux Community!!! In this video, I cover FSearch, a fast file search utility inspired by Everything Search Engine. It’s written in C and based on GTK3.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Sony Adds Initial Linux Support for PS5′s New DualSense Edge Controller

• Having support for new hardware on Linux is always good. It gives users the freedom to choose any platform of their choice.

• But, for gaming gear, that is not always the case. With Linux, not all gaming accessories work as expected.

• Sony, on the other hand, is making a reasonable effort by adding initial support for a piece of hardware that has not yet been released into the market.

• DualSense Edge, the next-gen wireless controller from Sony is getting Linux support!

Applications

=> ↺ Best Debian 10 Nestat Alternative

• Today, we will explore the best alternative to Netstat which is the Socket Statistics tool or the “ss” command. The “ss” helps in providing relevant information about the network connections. The netstat command is comparatively slower than the Socket Statistics because it gathers the information by reading the /proc files. Reading from the /proc files takes plenty of time to display several network connections. On the other hand, Socket Statistics directly gathers the information from kernel space.

• We listed down the different ways that the “ss” can be used to get an information about the network connections. The “ss” command was implemented on the command line of Ubuntu 22.04.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Day 21: conic gradients

• It’s time to get me up to speed with modern CSS. There’s so much new in CSS that I know too little about. To change that I’ve started #100DaysOfMoreOrLessModernCSS. Why more or less modern CSS? Because some topics will be about cutting-edge features, while other stuff has been around for quite a while already, but I just have little to no experience with it.

=> ↺ Creating a High Quality GIF with Transparency

• I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the process to create the gif at the top of my How BSD Authentication Works blog post, so I thought I’d share it.

• Here’s how to create a small, high quality gif with transparency using a video and an image as source material.

=> ↺ openvpn: error=CRL has expired

• After the former FreshPorts server was retired, its OpenVPN credential were revoked. I maintain those certificates via ssl-admin. I uploaded the new CRL into the System | Certificate Manager | Certificate Revocation page in pfSense.

• Today, I was seeing strange errors in Nagios, and figured someone wasn’t connected to the VPN. Checking OpenVPN client logs, I found nothing. On the OpenVPN server, I found this message: [...]

=> ↺ Why I feel DNS CAA records are a real TLS security improvement in practice

• The fundamental Certificate Authority problem is that any CA in the world can issue valid TLS certificates for your domain, regardless of how good or bad their practices are. These days all CAs at least claim to be careful and there is some assurance that they are, but their actual operational practices vary and a specific CA may be vulnerable to issues like BGP based attacks (also).

=> ↺ How To Install Franz on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS

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

• Franz is an application was built in order to make it easier for people to manage and organize their chats. Currently, Franz supports Slack , WhatsApp, WeChat, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, GroupMe, and Skype.

=> ↺ How To Install SFTPGo on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS

• SFTPGo is a fully featured and highly configurable SFTP server with optional HTTP/S, FTP/S and WebDAV support. Several storage backends are supported: local filesystem, encrypted local filesystem, S3 (compatible) Object Storage, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage, SFTP.

=> ↺ How To Install Akaunting on Debian 11

• Akaunting is a free, open-source self-hostable accounting software that can be used to manage your invoices, quotes, and finances. Akaunting provides an elegant and intuitive UI will all the features and was designed for small businesses and freelancers.

=> ↺ How to swap panes in Tmux

• Tmux is an open-source utility that manages numerous terminal windows effectively. Most people know the idea of tab management in Linux Terminal if they have ever used the Terminator application. We may divide the terminal into several panes using Tmux. We can move, resize, and flip between these panes to make adjustments.

• This lessens the agony of juggling many Gnome terminal windows and tabs. In most cases, closing an SSH connection also closes any associated remote terminal sessions. Tmux can assist since it keeps track of those sessions even if the SSH connection is lost.

=> ↺ How to customize the tmux configuration

• Tmux is one of the best applications you can use on a Linux/Unix-based operating system. It is a beefed-up GNU screen version commonly referred to as a terminal multiplexer. You can append Tmux’s behavior using the tmux.conf file. This Tmux configuration file is used to change many things, such as custom keybindings, modifying the status bar, customizing color schemes, and many more. In this article guide, we shall learn how to customize the tmux configuration file (tmux.conf)

• Before we dive into the primary subject matter, we shall brush through the installation, how to launch and how to use sections to enable us to be on the same page. Check our detailed article that covers installing and using Tmux on Linux.

=> ↺ How to Upgrade Python Packages with Pip

• Don’t forget all those Python packages you installed on your system. Here’s what you need to know about updating Python packages with Pip.

=> ↺ How To Install ClipGrab on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS – Unix / Linux the admins Tutorials

• In this guide, we will illustrate how to install ClipGrab on Ubuntu systems.

• ClipGrab is a donationware video download manager, allowing the download of videos from a variety of websites such as YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion or Facebook. It has been praised for its user-friendliness, but also flagged as malware by security software. It can convert the downloaded files to other file formats such as MP3, MPEG4, OGG Theora or WMV. It is published as free software under the terms of the GPL-3.0-or-later license.

=> ↺ How To Install Texstudio on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS

• TeXstudio is a cross-platform open-source LaTeX editor. Its features include an interactive spelling checker, code folding, and syntax highlighting. It does not provide LaTeX itself – the user must choose a TeX distribution and install it first.

• Originally called TexMakerX, TeXstudio was started as a fork of Texmaker that tried to extend it with additional features while keeping its look and feel.

=> ↺ How To Install Beekeeper Studio on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS

• Beekeeper Studio is built with Vue.js, a lovely little web framework that is similar to React and Angular, but a little smaller and easier to work with (personal opinion, no hate mail please).

• Beekeeper Studio is built and maintained by Matthew Rathbone in Dallas, TX.

• Its the SQL Editor and Database Manager Of Your Dreams. Its’ really a modern, easy to use, and good looking SQL client for MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, SQL Server, and more.

=> ↺ How to install Ktorrent in Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LS

• In this small guide, we will show you how to install Ktorrent in your Ubuntu system.

• KTorrent is a BitTorrent client that is part of the KDE Gear. It is an advanced BitTorrent client for the K Desktop Environment.

=> ↺ How to adjust the Tmux pane size

• Tmux is a useful Linux program that allows for terminal window multitasking. Tmux is an acronym for Terminal Multiplexing, a program based on the concept of sessions. When using Tmux, you can disconnect and run it in the background before reattaching it again. The Tmux app can replace the famous GNU screen.

Games

=> ↺ Victoria 3 is an ambitious society sim that will engross you if you let it

• Paradox Development Studios’ latest game depicts a century of history with a focus on economics and society. Facing the challenges of a changing world can be daunting but the game is good at letting you play at your own pace.

=> ↺ The new bigger demo for Scrabdackle deserves your attention

• Love your quirky little action-adventures? Scrabdackle should be something for you to take a look at and there’s a big update to the demo for you to try.

=> ↺ SCS Software hope Euro Truck Simulator 2 has another ‘decade of further growth’

• Euro Truck Simulator 2 from SCS Software recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and it seems there’s absolutely no stopping it.

=> ↺ Steam continues growing hitting over 30 million online

• Remember the days of the original green Steam client, that no one particularly liked? Hard to believe that it now sees over 30 million people online.

=> ↺ Widelands, The Settlers II inspired strategy game version 1.1 is out now

• Love strategy games? Originally inspired by The Settlers II, the free and open source game Widelands has a big new release out now.

Distributions and Operating Systems

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

=> ↺ Bitwarden 2022.10.1 – PCLinuxOS

• Bitwarden is an Open source, cross platform password manager that sync passwords but also allows accessing passwords offline. Update now available in the software repository.

=> ↺ Strawberry 1.0.10 – PCLinuxOS

• Strawberry is a audio player and music collection organizer. It is a fork of Clementine. The name is inspired by the band Strawbs. Install it from the Synaptic Packager Manager.

=> ↺ Discord 0.0.21 – PCLinuxOS

• All-in-one voice and text chat for gamers that’s free, secure, and works on both your desktop and phone. Stop paying for TeamSpeak servers and hassling with Skype. Simplify your life. Now available in the software repository.

=> ↺ IceWM 3.1.0 – PCLinuxOS

• Window Manager for X Window System. Can emulate the look of Windows’95, OS/2 Warp 3,4, Motif or the Java Metal GUI. Tries to take the best features of the above systems. Features multiple workspaces, opaque move/resize, task bar, window list, mailbox status, digital clock. Fast and small. Available in the PCLinuxOS software repository.

=> ↺ Shotcut 22.10.222 – PCLinuxOS

• Shotcut supports many video, audio, and image formats via FFmpeg and screen, webcam, and audio capture. It uses a timeline for non-linear video editing of multiple tracks that may be composed of various file formats. Scrubbing and transport control are assisted by OpenGL GPU-based processing and a number of video and audio filters are available.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ The Ever-Reddening Revenue Streams Of Big Blue

• Red Hat, which had first mover status in the enterprise, figured it out, packaging a complete server stack atop the Linux kernel and selling subscriptions for the packaging and ongoing support of that stack. And while Red Hat will never make as much money in systems software as Oracle or Microsoft, it certainly has been a boon to IBM’s software and consulting businesses since the latter decided to pay $34 billion to acquire the former in October 2018.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Tails – Tails 5.6 is out

• Update the Linux kernel to 5.10.149. This should improve the support for newer hardware: graphics, Wi-Fi, and so on.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Canonical enables Ubuntu on Sipeed’s LicheeRV RISC-V board

• Canonical continues to expand the availability of Ubuntu running on RISC-V processors and hardware. Followed by a few announcements during the RISC-V Summit China 2022 we are proud to announce the Ubuntu release for additional RISC-V hardware – Sipeed’s LicheeRV board.

• Open standards and collaboration are strategic to both hardware and software across industries and geographies. In the last decade, open source and open standards have reshaped our world. RISC-V is the most prolific and open Instruction Set Architecture in history, which has led the hardware community to embrace open standards and collaboration at this level.

=> ↺ Top 10 features in Ubuntu 22.10, and how to upgrade

• Ubuntu 22.10, codenamed Kinetic Kudu, was released on 20th October 2022. This version brings new exciting features such as the latest kernel, Gnome 43, a redesigned tray menu, Pipewire, and many more. Canonical is known for releasing frequent updates for their most popular distros. For instance, after Jammy Jellyfish (22.04), Canonical has now released Kinetic Kudu (22.10), a short-term release version. This means it will only be supported for nine months compared to the long-term release version that is supported for five years.

• If you are an Ubuntu lover, you will know that they always follow a chronological order when naming their releases. Canonical has named this latest release ‘Kinetic Kudu,’ a naming convention derived after an African animal species. Therefore, to uphold the naming conventions legacy, all repos and applications contain the Kinetic prefix.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 758

=> ↺ The Fridge: Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 758

• Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 758 for the week of October 16 – 22, 2022.

=> ↺ Participate in the Kubernetes and Cloud Native Operations Survey 2023 | Ubuntu

• Canonical has conducted surveys about Kubernetes and Cloud Native Operations in the past two years. As a member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and an active part of the community, we contribute the anonymised results back, along with our analyses and the insights of industry experts. Everyone can submit an answer anonymously. Respondents only need to provide their contact address when participating in a gift raffle. The reports for 2021 and 2022 are freely available to everyone.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ MiniPC features numerous 12th Gen Intel processors

• AAEON released today the new BOXER-6645-ADS which is a fanless MiniPC that integrates various 12th Gen Intel processors along with Iris Xe Graphics. This MiniPC is equipped with 4x GbE ports, 8x USB 3.2 Gen2 ports, 2x SATA III interfaces and up to 64GB of DDR5.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Restoring a 19th-century telephone with Raspberry Pi

• The rotary dial performs its original function, and the original wires are now connected directly to the Raspberry Pi GPIO. Mark is a genius and wrote code that converts the pulses made by turning the dial into digits that the phone SIM card mounted on the GSM HAT can recognise.

• As if this weren’t enough cleverness for one project, Mark also added speed-dial functionality and caller ID. If the code recognises a telephone number it has dialled before, it speaks the person’s name through the speaker while the phone is ringing.

=> ↺ Battery Eliminator Bible: what’s in that classic console AC adapter

• This is hardly exhaustive, but I promised a list of amperage, voltage and polarity for the wallwarts with my classic game consoles here. I’ve included both the AC adapter’s nominal rating and measured voltage with no load to give you an idea of tolerances, keeping in mind that electronics do age. However, please note that using this list is completely at your own risk: I take no responsibility for frying your machine if you wire it wrong or I measured it wrong. If the machine is highly valuable and it takes batteries, maybe you should just use batteries instead of taking a (small) chance on my competency.

=> ↺ Meet your new GPS system: Starlink

• At no time did the team attempt to break the encryption used by Starlink, instead they were interested in the various synchronisation sequences – predictable repeating signals that assisted with the coordination between satellite and ground receiver.

• Each sequence also contains information related to the satellite’s distance and velocity. Humphreys and his team found that the Starlink satellites transmitting approximately four sequences every millisecond “that’s just wonderful for dual use of their system for positioning,” Humphreys opined.

• Based on current analysis, the team estimates that they can achieve ground precision of around 30m, but if they could get the Starlink team to cooperate and add data related to each satellite’s position in the synchronisation stream, they could refine the accuracy to less than 1m.

=> ↺ This jack-o’-lantern farts pumpkin spice whenever someone gets close | Arduino Blog

• Halloween is just a week away and that means two things: jack-o’-lanterns decorating front stoops around the world and the sudden proliferation of pumpkin spice-based products. Pumpkin spice isn’t a spice made from pumpkin, but rather a spice used in pumpkin pies. As we all know, farmers harvest pumpkin spice from pumpkin farts. That inspired The Man Cave YouTube channel to build this jack-o’-lantern that toots pumpkin spice whenever someone gets close.

• The Man Cave wasn’t able to acquire a real farting pumpkin (Starbucks keeps those under lock and key), so they were forced to build an artificial recreation that expels Febreze pumpkin spice-scented air freshener. They started by carving a jack-o’-lantern from a mundane, non-flatulent pumpkin. That got a face with an expression that conveys the general sentiment of “sorry about my delightfully aromatic gas.”

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ What is Android Adaptive Battery: Everything you need to know

=> ↺ How to delete search history on Android – Android Authority

=> ↺ Google shows what good Android tablet and foldable apps look like

=> ↺ What Are The Newest Trends In The Android Gaming World?

=> ↺ Google Pixel Watch review: Best Android smartwatch is a Fitbit in disguise | The Independent

=> ↺ The best fighting games on Android in 2022

=> ↺ Funtouch OS 13 is here: What to know about Vivo’s new Android 13 skin

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers/Web Servers

Mozilla

=> ↺ How to get the Chrome major version from the User-Agent or UA-CH headers

• Over the weekend frontend-firebrand Alex Russell tweeted that it’s confusing these days to know how to get the major version of a Chromium browser, either via the User-Agent header (given User-Agent Reduction), or from User-Agent Client Hints.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ This search algorithm is usually called “group testing”

• The answer is: this is group testing, or, more exactly, the “binary splitting” version of adaptive group testing, in which we are allowed to adjust the testing strategy as we go along. There is also non-adaptive group testing in which we come up with a plan ahead of time for which tests we will perform.

=> ↺ On Scala 3′s Optional Braces

• As a disclaimer, this may well be a subjective opinion, so full disclosure: I have never liked working with languages that have significant whitespace syntax. On the list of languages I dislike most, CoffeeScript is in the top 3, with YAML being a close second, and I had hoped that CoffeeScript’s failure will finally make the notion of significant whitespace unpopular. But significant whitespace is like a siren song that keeps coming back in language design, possibly propelled by the popularity of Python and of YAML, and I don’t understand why.

=> ↺ nanotime 0.3.7 on CRAN: Enhancements

• A new version of our nanotime package arrived at CRAN today as version 0.3.7. nanotime relies on the RcppCCTZ package (as well as the RcppDate package for additional C++ operations) and offers efficient high(er) resolution time parsing and formatting up to nanosecond resolution, and the bit64 package for the actual integer64 arithmetic. Initially implemented using the S3 system, it has benefitted greatly from a rigorous refactoring by Leonardo who not only rejigged nanotime internals in S4 but also added new S4 types for periods, intervals and durations.

• This release adds a few more operators, plus some other fixes, that were contributed in several PRs by Trevor Davis. The NEWS snippet has the full details.

Leftovers

=> ↺ How do you find your people, when searching is itself an antipattern?

• If you want to meet and talk to cool people, your first thought might be… to try to meet cool people. Like, at a meetup or something, maybe? So then, why are the cool people so rarely at the obvious venues: founder hangouts, dating app queues, online meetups and events?

=> ↺ I Wanted a Boyfriend. My Life Coach Told Me to Become a Commodity.

• I picked my life coach because of his picture. He was fit, had kind eyes and a winning smile—an aspirational stand-in for the gay man I wished I was. At 33 years old, I had never been in a relationship, and I wanted to change that. For years, I’d been in psychotherapy—recovering from sexual violence and working through my fear of physical intimacy—but I had hit a wall. I didn’t want more analysis of my avoidant attachment styles or the reasons I take pleasure in withholding. I wanted results. I thought life coaching would be different. I booked a Zoom consultation.1

=> ↺ Redefining Freedom With Robin Kelley

• Even when African Americans have been actively denied time and space to dream, we have imagined other possibilities for the world around us. Jupiter Hammon, one of the first African Americans to publish poetry in the 18th century, envisaged a future in heaven that would make navigating the atrocities of being enslaved less absolutely crushing. Some 200 years later, the legendary poet and intergalactic recording artist Sun Ra would declare that outer space is the place for Black people to live and thrive outside of the strictures of white and Western dominance. All the while, Black radical movements have manifested visions of the new worlds, the improved material conditions and healthier social relations that would emerge if Black people were finally free to determine our own trajectories.

=> ↺ Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf Speaks!

• This week we talked to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, former NBA player and legendary athlete-activist, about his new memoir, In The Blink of an Eye (Kaepernick Publishing). Mahmoud tells us about his decision to write his story, who his influences are, and his decision to team with Kaepernick Publishing.

=> ↺ Dancers Now Help Power Glasgow Nightclub

• Humanity thus far has supplied most of its electricity needs by burning stuff, mostly very old stuff that burns great but is hard to replace. That stuff is getting increasingly expensive, and the pollution is a bother too, so renewable sources of energy are becoming more popular.

=> ↺ Get Clear Insights Into Cloudy Water With The Open Colorimeter

• A basic scientific tool for chemistry and biology is a colorimeter device used to measure which wavelengths of light a particular sample solution absorbs. Some applications of colorimeters are measuring pH or chlorine levels, measuring pollutants, such as oil or pesticides, and, in some cases, can even be used to measure RNA/DNA concentrations. Even most washing machines today have a specialized colorimeter sensor, of sorts, to measure turbidity (cloudiness) to provide feedback on the cleaning process. To help in building your home scientific lab, [IORodeo] has released an Open Colorimeter.

Hardware

=> ↺ Simulating Temperature In VR Apps With Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation

• Virtual reality systems are getting better and better all the time, but they remain largely ocular and auditory devices, with perhaps a little haptic feedback added in for good measure. That still leaves 40% of the five canonical senses out of the mix, unless of course this trigeminal nerve-stimulating VR accessory catches on.

=> ↺ Plumbing Valves As Heavy Duty Analog Inputs

• Input devices that can handle rough and tumble environments aren’t nearly as varied as their more fragile siblings. [Alastair Aitchison] has devised a brilliant way of detecting inputs from plumbing valves that opens up another option. (YouTube) [via Arduino Blog]

=> ↺ Bare-Metal STM32: Setting Up And Using SPI

• The Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) interface was initially standardized by Motorola in 1979 for short-distance communication in embedded systems. In its most common four-wire configuration, full-duplex data transfer is possible on the two data (MOSI, MISO) lines with data rates well exceeding 10 Mb/s. This makes SPI suitable for high-bandwidth, full-duplex applications like SD storage cards and large resolution, high-refresh displays.

=> ↺ “Reversing Shorts” Demystify Phone Security

• Ever wonder what makes a cellphone’s operating system secure, or what that app you just installed is saying about you behind your back? In a brand new video series, [Jiska] gives us a peek into different topics in smartphone software reverse engineering.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Intentional Disinvestment: EPA Launches Civil Rights Probe of Water Crisis in Mostly-Black Jackson, Mississippi

• The Environmental Protection Agency is launching a civil rights investigation into whether the state of Mississippi discriminated against the majority-Black capital of Jackson when it refused to use federal funds to address the city’s dangerous water crisis. Mississippi has received federal funds to address drinking water needs since 1996 but distributed funds to Jackson just three times over this 26-year span. “For years, Black communities have faced intentional disinvestment” in water infrastructure, says Abre’ Conner of the NAACP, which filed the complaint that led to the investigation. Conner says that through the creation of the EPA’s new civil rights office, the government now has “an opportunity to make right the wrongs that have happened to Black communities and to other historically disadvantaged communities for years.”

=> ↺ Covid Inquiry Mystery

• There is still no explanation as to why the judge chairman Lady Poole, the lead counsel Douglas Ross KC and three other lawyers have all quit the public inquiry into the handling of Covid in Scotland. This is an astonishing event. The inquiry currently is not happening. But nobody in the media seems particularly to care.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Apple Releases Patch for New Actively Exploited iOS and iPadOS Zero-Day Vulnerability

• Tech giant Apple on Monday rolled out updates to remediate a zero-day flaw in iOS and iPadOS that it said has been actively exploited in the wild.

=> ↺ Australia flags increased penalties for data breaches following major cyberattacks

• Dreyfus, in an official statement issued on Saturday, said the government would next week move to “significantly increase penalties for repeated or serious privacy breaches” with amendments to privacy laws.

=> ↺ Cybercrimes shoot up by 112% in Mumbai in five years

• Cheating cases, whether through loan apps, matrimonial frauds or job scams, topped the list of cybercrimes last year with 1,154 FIRs being lodged. Online frauds involving debit/credit cards were next on the list-1,075 FIRs filed. According to the data, detection rate of cybercrimes was low at 16% in 2021. Experts pointed out that the number of FIRs being registered were very less compared to actual complaints.

Security

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Ring Cameras Are Being Used to Control and Surveil Overworked Delivery Workers

• The popularity of networked doorbell surveillance cameras was not an inevitable outcome, but a development that companies like Amazon have cultivated through a variety of well-documented methods. The company has spent years stoking suburban paranoia, then offering Ring surveillance cameras as a salve. It has partnered with police departments (at least 2,000 as of this summer) to offer Ring cameras for free or at a steep discount. Ring surveillance cameras are offered at a discount during Prime Day, the pagan holiday celebrating Amazon’s consumption cult. The company is even launching a Ring surveillance footage TV show. Each of these methods have also been part of the company’s monopoly speedrun which has shifted commerce away from physical brick-and-mortar stores to e-commerce and delivery workers.

=> ↺ We Need a New Paradigm to Halt the Unprecedented Growth of Electronic Monitoring

=> ↺ French Government Hits Clearview With The Maximum Fine For GDPR Violations

• Clearview hasn’t won many friends since its inception. Scraping the web of any relevant content to compile a few billion records for facial recognition matches is no way to run a respectable business, and Clearview has been anything but respectable.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Boston councilor proposes official ‘Hijab Day’ on Mahsa Amini’s birthday

• She continued, talking about the protests and Amini, leading the conversation to focus on justice for Amini and the other women who were killed for the crime of improperly worn hijabs, demonstrating the various ways one can wear a hijab, seemingly to prove that there is no incorrect way to do so.

=> ↺ Critics of Islam attacked in Leipzig, Germany – police sides with Antifa

• Later, the assault continued in a side alley. There, the BPE team was virtually encircled by Muslims and Antifa like the prey of a pack of predators. The police are said to have been more concerned with preventing the attackers from resisting their attacks than with making it impossible for the perpetrators to attack.

=> ↺ Intimidation complaint claims voter was filmed, accused of being ‘mule’ at Mesa dropbox

• An official with the Arizona Secretary of State’s office confirmed Wednesday that they have referred the report to the Department of Justice and Arizona’s attorney general.

=> ↺ Armed Vigilantes Are ‘Monitoring’ Ballot Drop Boxes in Arizona Now

• This time local sheriffs were captured on camera trying to intervene in a standoff between the armed individuals monitoring the drop boxes and those who came to observe the watchers.

• The sheriff’s office did not respond to a request for comment about Saturday night’s incidents.

=> ↺ Election officials: Armed “vigilantes” near ballot drop box in Arizona

• Why it matters: At least two voters have filed complaints of voter intimidation to Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) in the past few days, including one claiming “camo clad people” of taking pictures while an early ballot was dropped off outside the Maricopa County election headquarters, according to KNXV-TV, an ABC-affiliated station in Phoenix.

=> ↺ Islamic State Group Still Active in Southern Syria, Observers Say

• Last week, local fighters, some of whom were affiliated with the Syrian government, carried out an operation targeting several hideouts belonging to IS operatives in a town in the southern province of Daraa. During the raid, at least six IS members were killed, and three houses used as IS operations centers were destroyed, according to local news reports.

=> ↺ 10 Burkina Faso Soldiers Killed, 50 Wounded in Army Base Attack

• Djibo’s population of some 30,000 has been cut off for three months with jihadis controlling the main roads after blowing up bridges.

• An attack on a supply convoy heading for Djibo September 26 left 37 dead — 27 of them were soldiers. Seventy truck drivers are still missing.

=> ↺ Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is ‘inextricably connected’ to the Kakhovka dam Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s chief of defense intelligence, explains what may happen in the battle for Kherson — Meduza

• In the face of the advancing Ukrainian army, the Russian military are getting ready to defend their foothold in Kherson. At the same time, they’re evacuating the area and preparing for their own “very rapid” retreat, in case it becomes necessary. In an interview to Ukrainska Pravda, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, the Ukrainian chief of defense intelligence, explained Russia’s current strategy in Kherson, and whether there’s any reason to think that the Russian troops might destroy the Kakhovka dam as part of their retreat.

=> ↺ Putin to meet with military supply and logistics council — Meduza

• Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet remotely with the “coordination council” for military supply and logistics, created by Putin’s decree on October 21. On October 25, the president will participate in his first meeting with the council, which held its inaugural meeting on October 24.

=> ↺ The Spoils of War: Why Boston is No Longer the “Athens of America”

• Boston’s liberal and high culture cachet spilled over into suburban towns like Lexington and Concord. The latter, of course, was the home of Emerson, Thoreau, and other famous writers and thinkers who made significant contributions to American thought, culture, and literature. While today this history is clearly revered and appreciated by those who live in Concord, the town and its neighbor Bedford are also home to Hanscom Air Force Base, which Wikipedia describes as “the Air Force’s center for the development and acquisition of electronic systems” while also noting that “the base has also played a significant role in the creation of a national high-technology area around Route 128.” It’s highly unlikely, of course, that Emerson and Thoreau would be pleased by this fact.

=> ↺ The Deadly Cost of Police Welfare Checks

• This is what happens when you indoctrinate the police into believing that their lives and their safety are paramount to anyone else’s: suddenly, everyone and everything else is a threat that must be neutralized or eliminated.[Click to Tweet]

=> ↺ iTWire – Two Chinese men charged over alleged bribery in Washington’s Huawei case

• Two Chinese citizens have been charged with trying to bribe an American law-enforcement official to allegedly obtain inside information about the government’s case against telecommunications equipment vendor Huawei Technologies.

• Guochen We and Zheng Wang were charged in a Brooklyn complaint last week which was made public on Monday. Huawei was not named in the allegations, with references being to an unnamed telecommunications company instead.

• It was not immediately clear why the case was made public at this time, given that the government’s stoushes with Huawei took place quite some back.

• Guochen and Zheng were among 13 Chinese citizens charged in three separate cases. Both men were said to remain at large.

=> ↺ iTWire – US chip curbs on China will also affect Australia: claim

• Restrictions on semiconductor exports to China, announced by the US on 7 October, will also affect Australia, an academic says in an op-ed for Australian think-tank, the Lowy Institute.

• James Laurenceson, director and professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, said the impact of the US policy hardly seemed to have registered in Australia.

• The updated export rules are claimed to be aimed at restricting “the PRC’s [People Republic of China's] ability to obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors”.

• Laurenceson said analysts outside government — which has painted the curbs as being targeted to blunt China’s military modernisation and alleged human rights abuses — were of one voice that Washington was trying to cut off Beijing’s access to foundational technologies in order to remain economic top dog.

• He cited a number of analysts, such as Hal Brands from John Hopkins University who had written that by homing in on chips, “the US is seeking to hinder Chinese economic dynamism and military muscle alike”.

=> ↺ Following Russia’s ‘dirty bomb’ accusations, Ukraine urges IAEA to inspect its facilities — Meduza

• Following Russia’s allegations that Ukraine is trying to produce a “dirty bomb,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect “immediately” any energy facilities claimed to be places of “dirty bomb” production.

=> ↺ RT suspends host Anton Krasovsky after he calls for Ukrainian children to be ‘drowned in a river’ — Meduza

• RT Editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan reported Monday that the outlet has suspended host Anton Krasovsky, four days after he called for Ukrainian children to be “drowned” and “burned” on air.

=> ↺ “Promoting Stability or Fueling Conflict?”: Biden’s U.S. Arms Sales Boom from Ukraine to Saudi Arabia

• We speak with national security expert William Hartung about the Biden administration’s unprecedented military spending on Ukraine and the impact of U.S. arms sales on national and global security. Despite Biden’s campaign promises to curb arms sales, Hartung says the administration has followed an “outmoded ideology” that necessitates the U.S. achieve global military dominance through weapons sales. “There’s a lot of money at stake and it shapes policy in ways that are detrimental to human rights and peace and stability,” says Hartung, who also details the influence of the weapons lobby on government policy.

=> ↺ The Far Right and Far Left Smear Campaign Against Ukraine

• Greene’s an idiot, but Waters is a widely respected musician-activist. However, he recently penned an open letter to Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska. In the letter Water asked Zelenska to beg her husband, President Volodymyr Zelensky, to stop accepting weapons from NATO countries and make peace with Russia. (Waters has written no similar open letters to Jill Biden or Russian President Vladimir Putin’s longtime mistress Alina Maratovna Kabaeva.)

=> ↺ Clarence and Ginni Thomas Must Be Investigated by Congress, Watchdog Says

=> ↺ Stabilizing Afghanistan

• The Taliban have been totally unresponsive to pressures to change their fundamentalist policies despite the steadily worsening internal situation. One result is a growing resistance movement that encompasses the National Resistance Front (NRF) and the Afghanistan Freedom Front. So, the one positive aspect of the Taliban takeover—the secession of fighting—is in danger of disappearing, compounding the already dire situation.

=> ↺ „Russians, go home!” – several municipalities in Kharkiv region liberated by Transcarpathian Hungarians

=> ↺ 101st Airborne Deployed to Ukraine’s Border ‘Ready To Fight Tonight’

• A commander said, “this is not a training deployment, this is a combat deployment”

=> ↺ Chris Hedges: Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

• The longer the proxy war in Ukraine continues, the closer we come to a direct confrontation with Russia. Once that happens, the Dr. Strangeloves running the show will reach for the nukes.

=> ↺ Opinion | Progressive Democrats Break Rank With Call for Urgent Diplomacy in Ukraine

• In a dramatic break with the Biden administration on the eve of the midterm elections, 30 House Democrats have sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to engage in direct talks with Russian President Vladmir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. In addition to bilateral talks, signatories to the letter, initiated by Progressive Caucus Chair Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, urge the White House to support a mutual ceasefire and diplomatic efforts to avoid a protracted war that threatens more human suffering and spiraling global inflation, as well as nuclear war through intention or miscalculation.

=> ↺ Opinion | Do Not Stop Worrying. Do Not Love the Bomb

• I have covered enough wars to know that once you open that Pandora’s box, the many evils that pour out are beyond anyone’s control. War accelerates the whirlwind of industrial killing. The longer any war continues, the closer and closer each side comes to self-annihilation.  Unless it is stopped, the proxy war between Russia and the U.S. in Ukraine all but guarantees direct confrontation with Russia and, with it, the very real possibility of nuclear war.

=> ↺ Progressives in US House Call for ‘Proactive Diplomatic Push’ for Ukraine Ceasefire

• Led by Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the lawmakers said the U.S. must lead efforts to end the war as peacefully as possible in addition to providing the Ukrainians with economic and military aid, which now totals $60 billion.

=> ↺ General Vlasov’s return Scholar Jade McGlynn explains how Putin’s ‘unifying historical truth’ is losing to reality in Ukraine — Meduza

=> ↺ ‘You get carried away’: Director of RT’s Russian service suspended and investigated after calling for Ukrainian children to be drowned and burned — Meduza

• Russian state propaganda network RT has suspended Anton Krasovsky, the broadcasting director for its Russian-language service, after he called for Russian-speaking Ukrainian children who oppose Russia to be “drowned” and “burned” in one of his broadcasts. RT Editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan reported the suspension on Telegram on October 24, calling Krasovsky’s comments “wild and disgusting.”

=> ↺ Russian-backed annexation authorities in Kherson announce formation of territorial defense — Meduza

• Russian-installed annexation authorities in Kherson have announced the formation of a territorial defense force.

=> ↺ ‘It’s not the most comfortable place, but I’m free’ The IT specialist waiting out Putin’s draft alone in the forest — Meduza

• Vladimir Putin’s September 21 mobilization announcement sparked a massive new wave of emigration out of Russia; in early October, Forbes Russia reported that roughly 700,000 people had left the country in the previous two weeks (the Kremlin has denied that the real number is that high). Other potential conscripts, unable or unwilling to leave the country altogether, have gone into hiding domestically. One man in the latter group is an IT specialist from southern Russia. Rather than escaping to a hotel or hostel, which are liable to be raided by the authorities, he’s spent the last few weeks camping in the forest — and has kept a public record of his experience on Telegram. The independent Russian outlet Mediazona got in touch with the anonymous outdoorsman to find out why he chose the wilderness over migration. Meduza summarizes their interview.

=> ↺ Shoigu calls his counterparts in the west to accuse Ukraine of false flag attack Russia alleges, offering no proof, that Ukraine is planning to use a ‘dirty bomb’ — Meduza

• On October 23, Russian defense minister Sergey Shoigu placed calls to the defense ministers of several western countries, informing them that Ukraine was preparing a “possible false flag with the use of a ‘dirty bomb.’” Shortly before Shoigu’s conversations, RIA Novosti published reports that Ukraine was planning to detonate a “dirty bomb” on its own territory in order to launch a global anti-Russia campaign. Ukrainian officials have called the allegations absurd and dangerous. Shoigu’s western counterparts reportedly urged him not to escalate the situation in Ukraine further.

=> ↺ Former CIA Director Says Prosecute Trump Like Snowden

=> ↺ Moscow authorities restoring long-neglected bomb shelters in schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings, local media reports — Meduza

• Moscow authorities have begun inspecting the conditions of bomb shelters in the city’s schools, according to the Russian news site Podyom, which cited unnamed employees from companies involved in the review.

=> ↺ Russia accuses Ukraine of planning to present ‘dirty bomb’ explosion as unintended Russian nuclear detonation — Meduza

• The Russian Defense Ministry insists that Ukraine is planning a false-flag strike using a “dirty bomb.” According to the Russian ministry’s Telegram post, the explosion will be presented as an unintended detonation of a low-capacity Russian nuclear warhead.

=> ↺ Kursk regional government asks districts to dig trenches near OBGYN clinics and other civilian objects — Meduza

• Mikhail Gorbunov, the head of Kursk Region’s security committee, said it’s necessary to build shelters in rural areas and district centers, in case of shelling:

=> ↺ Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson reiterates ‘dirty bomb’ claims — Meduza

• Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called on the Ukrainian authorities and their “Western sponsors” to stop preparing a “false flag attack” involving a “dirty bomb.”

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ ‘I am suffering mentally,’ Uvalde educator says after false blame in shooting aftermath: Exclusive

• In a statement to ABC News, DPS spokesman Travis Considine explained: “At the outset of the investigation, DPS reported that an unnamed teacher at Robb Elementary School used a rock to prop open the door that the shooter used to enter the school building. It was later determined that the same teacher removed the rock from the doorway prior to the arrival of the shooter, and closed the door, unaware that the door was unlocked. “

• Considine said “DPS corrected this error in public announcements and testimony and apologizes to the teacher and her family for the additional grief this has caused to an already horrific situation.”

Environment

=> ↺ Meet the Industry Lobbyists Fighting Efforts to Solve the Biodiversity Crisis

• “Companies and their trade associations must align their lobbying activities with biosphere integrity.”

=> ↺ US Coalition Calls on John Kerry to Back Loss and Damage Funding at COP27

• “The discussion is one thing, and the actual provision of money is another.”

Energy

=> ↺ Ukraine races to stop Russia from destroying its power grid

• Ukraine’s grid has been linked to Europe’s since March, allowing European providers to supply current if Ukraine falls short. But if shutdowns make Ukraine’s grid too unstable, Europe might have to disconnect it, at least temporarily, in order to prevent that instability affecting its own grid; that would make Ukraine’s problems even worse. Sudden shutdowns would damage other infrastructure and heavy industry. For example, the ArcelorMittal steel plant in Kryvyi Rih, a city in eastern Ukraine, depends on the public power grid for the facility that turns coal into coke for its blast furnaces. If power were cut abruptly, its equipment would be wrecked, says Mauro Longobardo, chief executive of ArcelorMittal Ukraine. In cities such as Kyiv, meanwhile, water and sewage systems would shut down, along with neighbourhood heating systems. In below-zero temperatures pipes would freeze and crack.

=> ↺ ‘Beyond Parody’: New Climate-Focused Semafor Newsletter Sponsored by… Chevron

• “Welcome to Semafor Climate, where we take the temperature of the politics, technology, and energy markets influencing global warming,” journalist Bill Spindle wrote for Monday’s newsletter.

=> ↺ Opinion | How Democrats Can Play Offense on Gas Prices

• Waiting in line at a convenience store here in New Hampshire the other evening, I started watching a TV in the corner above the counter. A dark and grainy image of the U.S. Capitol flickered onto the screen, then an unflattering photo of Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan, who is running for re-election this November, and the text, “Sen. Maggie Hassan and DC Liberals Voted for $12 Billion in HIGHER ENERGY TAXES.”

=> ↺ Green Groups Call On Governors to Oppose GTN Pipeline Expansion ‘Loud and Clear’

• “We need our governors to stand with us and send a strong message to the federal government to stop rubber-stamping pipeline expansions.”

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ The Free Agent Beaver

=> ↺ The Rethinking Our Relationship to Pit Bulls

• Starting around 1990, multiple features of American life converged to inspire widespread bans that made pit bulls outlaws, called “four-legged guns” or “lethal weapons.” The drivers included some dog attacks, excessive parental caution, fearful insurance companies and a tie to the sport of dog fighting.

Finance

=> ↺ Democrats Need to Warn Against a Truss Economy

• Democratic candidates are heading into the homestretch of the 2022 midterms with a message focused mainly on Trumpian extremism—but they might do well over the next two weeks to highlight the specter of a Trussian meltdown. Liz Truss, of course, is the English Conservative leader destined to become a trivia-question answer as the country’s shortest-serving prime minister. She owes her rapid downfall to her enactment of exactly the same sort of tax-cuts-on-autopilot program that the Republican Party is pledging to pursue with newly minted majorities in the 118th Congress. As the Truss economic program took hold, the British pound promptly tanked, mortgage rates skyrocketed, and financial markets went south.

=> ↺ “America This Week” with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi [Transcript]

• On muzzling the new Citizen Kane, the lettuce-life of Liz Truss, occupying England, and more.

=> ↺ Exit Liz Truss; Enter Lettuce

• The calamitous mini-Budget delivered seven days later spooked the markets and encouraged a fall in the pound.  The promise to abolish the tax bracket of 45p was scrapped.  Then came the sacking of Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, supposedly Truss’s close ally.  In a manner befitting the friendship, Kwarteng was blamed for announcing Truss’s policies.  Jeremy Hunt, his replacement drawn from political oblivion, took the hammer to the fragile edifice of supply-side Trussonomics and promised to further puncture it.  Britannia was being rechained.

=> ↺ Rishi Sunak To Become the UK’s New Prime Minister. Here’s What He Doesn’t Want You To Know

• From offshore dealings to right-wing think tanks, here’s openDemocracy’s guide to the man who could become the UK’s richest PM.

=> ↺ Greenpeace to Rishi Sunak: Tax Fossil Fuel Profits and Lower Energy Bills Now

• Almost seven million people in the U.K.—nearly a quarter of the country’s population—are facing fuel poverty as winter quickly approaches. Meanwhile, heavily subsidized fossil fuel giants are raking in record profits, which they use to block policies that would facilitate a green transition and rein in their destructive industry.

=> ↺ Media Narratives Shield Landlords From a Crisis of Their Own Making

• As more people face the life-altering prospect of dislocation, establishment outlets have decided that landlords are the real victims.

=> ↺ Britain’s New PM Is as Wealthy as the King — and as Distant From the People

=> ↺ Corporate Lobbyists Persuaded Supreme Court to Throw Out Pro-Worker Ruling

=> ↺ Is Portland About to Have Two Supporter-Owned Soccer Teams?

• Community ownership of Portland, Ore.’s two professional soccer teams could soon be on the agenda. A yearlong investigation by former acting attorney general Sally Yates found that the front office of the Portland Thorns, a National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) team, not only failed to cooperate with investigators but even tried to impede them. The Yates report ignited protests in the Rose City, and numerous corporate sponsors of PTFC—the umbrella term for the Thorns of the NWSL and the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer—issued statements either distancing themselves from the club, cutting ties altogether, or diverting their sponsorship funds toward other causes. Feeling the political heat, owner Merritt Paulson fired executives Gavin Wilkinson and Mike Golub. Then, as public pressure kept building, Paulson announced that he would step down as CEO of the clubs, a maneuver that Oregonian sports columnist Bill Oram dismissed as “another empty gesture from an owner unaccustomed to being told he can’t have what he wants exactly the way he wants it.

=> ↺ Biden Needs to Stop Boasting About the Economy

• As polls tighten on the midterms, seasoned pollster Stanley Greenberg has emerged as the Cassandra warning Democrats that they need to push economic populism or risk being turfed out of the House and Senate by an angry electorate. Greenberg, who was a close adviser to Bill Clinton early in his presidency, is not alone in making this argument. He’s echoing the polemics of left-wing figures like Senator Bernie Sanders and journalist David Sirota (a onetime Sanders adviser). But Greenberg, with his impeccable mainstream credentials, is more likely to be listened to by party elites that habitually ignore the criticisms of Sanders or Sirota.

=> ↺ Why Inflation is Not the Main Issue in the Elections

=> ↺ How Not to Offer Climate Finance

• When the COP27 opens on November 6, a high-profile climate finance deal will be signed by climate policymakers from Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels on one side, and from Pretoria and parastatal electricity firm Eskom’s Johannesburg headquarters on the other. On October 19, South Africa’s Cabinet approved – and the Presidential Climate Commission endorsed – the deal, but details are still murky.

=> ↺ Out of the Graveyard: the Return of the Pluto-Populists

• In the US, Donald Trump was never actually in his political grave, despite losing the presidential election and his role in the 6 January Capitol riot. But four out of 10 Americans still approve of him, according to the polls, and he retains his grip on the Republican Party. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro has pulled level with his opponent Lula da Silva as he seeks re-election as Brazilian president. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi is wrangling over his future position in a government led by a quasi-fascist.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ 86 Percent of GOP 2022 Senate Race TV Ad Budget Has Come From Dark Money Groups

=> ↺ 80,000+ March Against Far Right Orbán Government as Part of Teachers’ Revolt

=> ↺ 80,000+ March Against Far-Right Orban Government in Budapest

• With over 80,000 marching in the demonstration it was the largest public display of dissent since Orban’s reelection in April as a revolt by teachers—demanding better pay and increased funding for schools—continues.

=> ↺ VOTE!

=> ↺ How to Follow Your Congressional and Local Elections in 2022

• Think about it this way: The campaigns themselves are constantly watching certain signals — polls, fundraising totals, public opinion — to understand what’s going on in their races. They adjust their tactics accordingly. You have the power to adjust your actions, too. Here are a few questions to ask.

=> ↺ Fetterman Says Dr. Oz Must ‘Immediately Disavow’ Any Trump Effort to Sow Election Doubts

• “It’s clear that Donald Trump, Dr. Oz, and the GOP will do whatever it takes to try and steal this race on election night,” Fetterman campaign spokesperson Joe Calvello said in a statement.

=> ↺ ‘Hey Dems, Blame the Corporate Profiteers’: Progressives Offer Midterm Messaging Advice on Inflation

• While Democratic strategists and politicians have seemed eager in recent months to change the subject from the economy—effectively ignoring the struggles of a majority of U.S. households as the GOP hammers home the message that Democrats are to blame for high gas and grocery prices—progressives including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan have urged the party to see that they can and should face the issue head-on.

=> ↺ Opinion | Rather Than Ignore Him, We Must Demand Trump Be Prosecuted

• I really don’t want to write about him any more. I’d rather not even think about him. Honestly, I’d rather forget he existed.

=> ↺ Opinion | Building Walls That Shouldn’t Exist

• In mid-October 2022, the German newspaper Der Spiegel gained access and published a report by OLAF, the European anti-fraud office, detailing misconduct and irregular activities of FRONTEX, the coast guard agency hired to monitor migration into the EU. The investigation had caused the resignation of FRONTEX’s CEO, Fabrice Leggeri, back in April. Its findings were another sad confirmation of EU’s polices on immigration issues.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ As Elon Gets Ready To Take Over Twitter, Bluesky Takes A Big Step Forward

• It seems quite likely that Elon Musk will own Twitter in a few days. One thing that has remained very much up in the air through all of this is how Musk views Bluesky. As you’ll recall, Bluesky was a project kicked off by Jack Dorsey back in late 2019, partially influenced by my paper on why we needed to move more to a world of protocols rather than platforms. While Bluesky was seed funded from Twitter, it is entirely separate from Twitter. However, part of the promise behind Bluesky was that Dorsey made it clear he hoped to one day move Twitter over to using the Bluesky protocol — and one of the biggest challenges for any of the many attempts at building a protocol-based social media system is actually getting users to sign up. A Bluesky/Twitter deal would effectively bring the users along for the ride.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Section 230’s Fate Belongs With Congress—Not the US Supreme Court

• Section 230 was a little-noticed part of a major 1996 overhaul of US telecommunications laws. The House of Representatives added Section 230 to its telecommunications bill largely in response to two developments. First, the Senate’s version of the telecommunications bill imposed penalties for the transmission of indecent content. Section 230 was touted as an alternative to the Senate’s censorious approach, and as a compromise, both the House’s Section 230 and the Senate’s anti-indecency provisions ended up in the bill that President Bill Clinton signed into law. (The next year, the Supreme Court would rule the Senate’s portion unconstitutional.)

• Second, Section 230 tried to solve a problem highlighted in a 1995 ruling in a $200 million defamation lawsuit against Prodigy, brought by a plaintiff who said that he was defamed on a Prodigy bulletin board. A New York trial court judge ruled that because Prodigy had reviewed user messages before posting, used technology that prescreened user content for “offensive language,” and engaged in other moderation, its “editorial control” rendered it a publisher that faced as much liability as the author of the posts. A few years earlier, a New York federal judge had reasoned that because CompuServe did not exert sufficient “editorial control,” it was considered a “distributor” that was liable only if it knew or had reason to know of the allegedly defamatory content.

=> ↺ Salman Rushdie ‘going to live’ but has lost use of eye and hand, says agent

• Literary agent Andrew Wylie told the Spanish language newspaper El Pais in an article published Saturday that Rushdie suffered three serious wounds to his neck and 15 more wounds to his chest and torso, in the attack that took away sight in an eye and left a hand incapacitated.

=> ↺ The sand doodler who conquered her Somali Islamic critics

• Her mother did not support her dreams of becoming an artist. Neither did her neighbours, who accused her of being un-Islamic. Most Muslims believe that art depicting humans and animals is forbidden.

• “They forced me to stop painting. I abandoned art completely and studied nursing. But I found it boring. One day I decided art would never leave me and I would never leave my art, no matter what people thought of me.”

=> ↺ ACLU Says Right to Boycott Is at Stake in Lawsuit Over Arkansas Anti-BDS Law

=> ↺ “Free Speech Issue”: Meet the Arkansas Publisher & ACLU Lawyer Asking SCOTUS to Overturn Anti-BDS Law

• The ACLU is asking the Supreme Court to overturn an Arkansas anti-BDS law that penalizes state contractors unless they pledge not to boycott the state of Israel. Arkansas is one of more than 30 U.S. states to have passed “copycat” legislation to criminalize the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which seeks to boycott Israel and Israeli goods to protest its violation of Palestinian rights. The ACLU and other rights groups have argued the right to boycott is foundational to U.S. politics and protected free speech, and warn if the anti-BDS laws aren’t challenged, Americans could lose their right to boycott fossil fuel companies, gun manufacturers and more. We speak with ACLU lawyer Brian Hauss and Alan Leveritt, publisher of The Arkansas Times and plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit. “The state of Arkansas is requiring us to take a political position in return for advertising,” says Leveritt, who calls his lawsuit “purely a First Amendment issue.” We also speak with filmmaker Julia Bacha, who followed Leveritt’s story in her documentary “Boycott,” and says “it’s critical to start asking our elected officials why they voted for these bills and what they actually mean.”

=> ↺ Republicans Sue Google To Try To Force Spam Into Your Inbox

• Okay, let’s get this out of the way first: Republican politicians send a shit-ton of spam. And, no, it’s not just standard political messaging. It’s spam. And it’s often full of absolute scams. Erick Erickson, an extremely rightwing/GOP-supporting commentator, recently wrote a whole post calling out his team for spamming everyone and then blaming others for the problems their spam created.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ A Pakistani journalist living in hiding was killed by police at a roadblock in Kenya

• On Monday, Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf party and its senior leaders, including Fawad Chaudhry, condemned Sharif’s killing and demanded a detailed investigation. Khan also visited Sharif’s residence in Islamabad to express his condolences to the family.

=> ↺ Donald Trump says journalists should face rape in prison for [legally] reporting on leaked info

• Trump has repeatedly referred to journalists as “the enemy of the people,” a choice phrase used by the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and other cruel oppressors. Like his Big Lie about election fraud, it doesn’t take much to trigger his MAGA mob, and this is what the anti-democratic ex-president is counting on.

=> ↺ Trump Proposes Imprisoning Journalists Who Don’t Name Sources

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ US Abortion Rights: Who Would Kill the Gander that Goosed a Golden Egg?

• Even before classes began in 1963, I had organized the first high school Young Democrats chapter in Texas. By 1964 Houston Young Democrats were attending rallies for presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson, carrying signs reading “All the Way with LBJ – Repeal 14 (b).”

=> ↺ Capital Punishment Places Too Much Trust in an Untrustworthy Institution

• Yes, some crimes are so heinous that they merit death.

=> ↺ Netflix Music Supervisors File for Union Election

• Music supervisors curate and/or oversee the recording of music that appears in films and in television shows and manage negotiations for the use of preexisting music. The craft entered the spotlight in the late spring and early summer when several prominent appearances of Kate Bush’s “Running Up that Hill (A Deal With God)” during the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things prompted a major surge in streams for the 1985 single and subsequent news coverage.

=> ↺ The Sioux Chef uses only native ingredients, but isn’t ‘cooking like it’s 1491′

• Known as the “Sioux Chef,” Sherman grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota as a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. Right after high school, he worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the northern Black Hills of South Dakota, where one of his responsibilities was learning the names and properties of different local plants. Looking back now, he credits that job with sparking his interest in Indigenous foods.

=> ↺ Iran: Climber Elnaz Rekabi apology was forced, source says

• The next day she met the Iranian sports minister with the same clothes on, which raised suspicion that she had not been home during that time.

• The source said Ms Rekabi was detained in a room at Iran’s National Olympic Committee building with plainclothes agents present until she met the minister.

• She is now under “house arrest” but the authorities say she is staying at home because she is in need of rest, the source said.

=> ↺ Karachi Christian Man In Hiding After Being Threatened With Death

• The men let Masih and the children go after his daughter vouched that she wanted to live with “Jesus Pappa”, according to Pak Christian News. Police is said to have turned a blind eye despite Masih’s spouse confessing how she had attempted to poison her husband and children.

=> ↺ Gunmen kill Christian woman, daughter in attack on church service in Nigeria

• Another senior police officer, SP William Ovye-Aya, was quoted as saying, “There was a distress call made to our command over the attack, which left two female worshipers dead, and several others injured. On getting the alert, our command quickly deployed a response team to the area with a view to restoring normalcy in the area and arresting the perpetrators.”

• About a week after the attack, it’s not known if the suspects have been arrested, or even identified.

• This was the second targeted attack on a church in Lokoja area in three weeks, the newspaper said.

=> ↺ Gunmen attack Nigerian church during service, killing 2

• Sunday’s violence renewed concerns about safety at houses of worship in Nigeria, where at least seven attacks have targeted churches or mosques so far this year. In June, a massacre in Ondo state left 40 worshippers dead.

=> ↺ Analysis Shows Voters in States With New Abortion Restrictions Oppose Them

=> ↺ Starbucks Union Celebrates as Last of 7 Fired Memphis Organizers Is Reinstated

=> ↺ The Enigma of John Donne

• During the 16th century, the English were unusually spirited in their destruction of Catholics. If you were unlucky, you might be strung up by the neck, cut down before you died, have your “privy members” hacked off, your bowels taken out and burned, your head removed, and your remainders chopped into four pieces and tossed into some ignoble hole or ditch, according to the wishes of the king or queen. You might also be rolled up into a ball by a torture machine, hung from the wrists by manacles until your body felt like it was exploding, or pinned to the ground with a sharp rock, on top of which a heavy door was mounted, on top of which other heavy things were mounted, until the weight was enough to pulverize your bones.

=> ↺ For a City of Refuge and Love

• Their resignations are only part of the solution. The structure that is the domination of groups over others must stop. Los Angeles must produce an identity that pushes away any dominant community, a rainbow identity, and establishes a city that gives itself the resources to develop based on this identity. The resource in question is a deepened democracy, the sort of democracy that removes power from city council and the mayor and gives it to communities.

=> ↺ Longest Strike Ends: California Mental Health Care Workers Win Big

• Braving three- digit heat, strikers walked picket lines throughout Northern California and the Central Valley. They picketed, marched and rallied at Kaiser hospitals – in a strike that caught the attention of mental health care advocates everywhere. “Our strike was difficult and draining, but it was worth it,” said Natalie Rogers, a therapist for Kaiser in Santa Rosa. We stood up to the biggest nonprofit in the nation, and we made gains that will help better serve our patients and will advance the cause of mental health parity throughout the country.”

=> ↺ Why Have Police Reform Movements Stalled?

• Amid the pressure, elected officials pledged sweeping changes to how officers operate and how they’re overseen.

=> ↺ In ‘Affront to Justice,’ Thomas Shields Graham From Subpoena in Georgia Election Case

• Thomas, who handles emergency requests filed in Georgia, temporarily blocked the subpoena, which was issued by the Fulton County district attorney and called on the South Carolina Republican senator to answer questions about phone calls he made to Georgia election officials after the election.

=> ↺ Opinion | Don’t Call Them Election Deniers. Call Them Election Liars

• “Lie: To make an untrue statement with intent to deceive.””Liar: A person who tells lies.”

=> ↺ Court: No Immunity For Cops Who Waited Months To Test Heart Shaped Candy They Claimed Were Drugs

• We know cops often can’t differentiate innocuous substances from actual drugs. These from-the-hip determinations are just the manufacturing of reasonable suspicion and probable cause, something that allows cops to perform the searches and seizures they were planning to do anyway.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Google, Netflix under scrutiny in South Korea over network fees

• Various versions of legislation have been proposed in South Korea in the hope of making the companies pay what supporters of the reform call a fair price.

• The hearing is expected to be concluded late on Friday but the proposal is still seen as some way away from moving forward to the next stage of the legislative process.

=> ↺ Facebook threatens to block news sharing in Canada as it did Down Under

• Meta, the parent company of social media giant Facebook, has threatened to block the sharing of news feeds in Canada — similar to what it did in Australia — if Ottawa legislates to force it to pay news outlets for their content.

=> ↺ UK Eyes Scaling Back Net Neutrality Rules For No Coherent Reason

• Tell me if any of this sounds familiar: UK telecom regulator Ofcom is proposing that the country scale back popular net neutrality rules under the claim that the rules are harming innovation.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Why Streamers Are Getting on Board With In-Flight Entertainment

• In-flight entertainment (IFE) offerings are generally programmed 90 days in advance, and with new tech, airlines can change them more easily. “[We used to rely] on what we jokingly called ‘sneakernet,’ someone coming onto the aircraft with the dongle connecting over USB and loading everything for the month,” says Leader, adding that it took about a week to update an entire fleet. “The airlines can now load the content over Wi-Fi.”

=> ↺ Dumb Netflix Password Sharing Crackdown Will Arrive In US Early Next Year

• Undaunted by criticism that its plan is little more than a Comcast-esque cash grab, Netflix executives say they’re moving full speed ahead with a plan to begin cracking down on password sharing, a practice executives spent years previously encouraging.

Monopolies

Software Patents

=> ↺ Apple Granted Patent for Deepfakes Based on Reference Images

• According to patent documents first spotted by Patently Apple, Apple’s technology uses machine learning to create synthetic images of human faces based on a reference image provided by the user. Once the tech has generated a synthetic face, it can manipulate that face to create changes in expression. Given a reference image or “target shape” depicting a whole person (not just a face), the image generator can also create synthetic images in which the reference person is posed differently.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Pirate IPTV Pair Sentenced to 45 Months in Prison For Defrauding Sky & BT Sport

• Following an investigation by Kent Trading Standards, two men who sold illicit access to live sports, movies, and TV shows, have been ordered to serve a total of 45 months in prison. The pair reportedly made more than £540,000 in just 18 months but after pleading guilty to copyright, fraud, and money laundering offenses, now face action under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

=> ↺ Canada’s Federal Court Issues FIFA World Cup Piracy Blocking Order

• Piracy-blocking efforts in Canada continue to expand. The Federal Court previously issued orders targeting IPTV and NHL streaming sources and last week, a new piracy-blocking order was handed down. It requires local ISPs to prevent subscribers from accessing pirated streams of the upcoming FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

=> ↺ How The Art-Generating AI Of Stable Diffusion Works

• [Jay Alammar] has put up an illustrated guide to how Stable Diffusion works, and the principles in it are perfectly applicable to understanding how similar systems like OpenAI’s Dall-E or Google’s Imagen work under the hood as well. These systems are probably best known for their amazing ability to turn text prompts (e.g. “paradise cosmic beach”) into a matching image. Sometimes. Well, usually, anyway.

=> ↺ As Big Book Publishers Look To Kill The Internet Archive, It Introduces ‘Democracy’s Library’

• Last week the Internet Archive announced a new project: “Democracy’s Library.” This hits on a bunch of important topics for us here at Techdirt. First, it’s a travesty that government-funded research and publications are often hidden away, locked up and impossible to access, despite the fact that they were paid for by us, the public. Second, democracy is legitimately under threat across the globe, and getting more access to quality information out to the public is more important than ever before. While I know that some people have been turning their backs on this idea of late, it’s more important than ever that quality information and data is more accessible to more people. Third, as we’ve seen, previous attempts by dedicated activists and individuals to make government data public have unfortunately ended in tragedy, so having strong backing is key here. And… finally, this is all happening at the same time that the largest book publishers in the world, who should be supporting access to knowledge, are literally trying to destroy the Internet Archive.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Halloween

• Halloween has grown on me lately. It started to annoy me in my twenties, but it’s a lot more fun with small children.

• B is going to be Wall-E, and Brad wants to be a “green purple.” Last year B was an F1 driver, and we used cardboard and spray paint to turn the Cozy Coup into a pretty stellar F1 car. Brad was a bear- which he loved- but even at 18 months you could see the disappointment of not having a race car himself. So for a lot of the night there was a bear driving a race car looking confused.

=> ↺ We have arrived!

• The trip itself went smootthly. Well, except for one small disagreement about where the I-95N on-ramp was located when we were somewhere in Georgia getting gas. And the 18-wheelers hogging up the highway in South Carolina lowering our average speed for the trip. Oh, and there was the bumper-to-bumper traffic just south of Hendersonville [2] on I-26W. Other than that, [DELETED-what have the Romans ever done for us?-DELETED] the trip was just smooth sailing.

• When Bunny and I first started our yearly trips here, we stayed in the The Inn at Brevard [3], on the east end of town. A few years later we started staying at The Red House Inn [4], located on the west end of town. Unfortunately, the owners sold the place just after our visit last year [5], and now the Red House Inn is a private residence. The previous owners still have propery they were willing to rent out, but they houses, and Bunny and I don’t need an entire house for a vactation.

=> ↺ Extreme bathrooms, Brevard NC edition

• The bidet … only slightly less mysterious than the three clam shells.

=> ↺ a stop in at The Midnight

• I listened to some music on Tidal to assist in my enjoyment of the evening, and even wrote a thing on my “TMO” blog out of sheer boredom. Strange how words come to me, sometimes.

=> ↺ Star Log 2022-10-24 (Fairbanks, Alaska, US)

• The last two weeks have been almost nonstop overcast weather, during the night at least. The last few days have had a solid sheet of cloud covering the whole sky. I think we were stuck in some kind of warm, moist air mass.

Technical

=> ↺ IP and ASN based blocking

• Originally started playing with these again because I saw a post about how some google user-agent doesn’t respect robots.txt blocking when it is against the “*” user-agent.

• So, I remade some scripts to extract all the netblocks from the whois server that pwhois.org runs, then add those to a static protocol block in my bird config, with the routes for the ranges set to unreachable.

=> ↺ Updating Gtk applications

• I’ve been patiently waiting for Gnome 43 to land in Arch Linux since it was release now over a month ago. I finally got tired of waiting yesterday and installed some alpha packages via a third party repository. I have to say, I’m a bit disgusted to have to do this to get current software on Arch. I’ve never had to do this sort of hacky thing before, and I don’t like doing it. My strong preference is to only have the default repositories in my repo list. But I digress.

• Now, Gnome is not my daily driver desktop environment. I keep it installed for testing and development, while running Xfce on a daily basis. But I have a number of applications that I have written and maintain which use the Gtk toolkit. For some years now, Gtk+ has been more and more tied to Gnome and is in fact hosted on the Gnome Gitlab instance. So it’s a good idea in my case to pay attention to where this code is headed. I’ve also begun porting a couple of my applications to target Gnome more specifically by using LibAdwaita and loosely following the Gnome HIG. More often than not I have found that this makes for a nice interface, and such applications are still useful outside of Gnome.

=> ↺ neil in gemini space

• quite a few significant life events and my ongoing quest to be a more authentic human had me thinking about living off-grid despite living in the Guernsey suburban area.

• my objective is to be self sufficient for power – specifically electricity. i choose solar for this.

=> ↺ My Cerebral Processing Unit

• So here I sit once again atop the bed, propped up like a mannequin and typing into myx-nulu, the trusty tablet with a cheap, bluetooth keyboard. Hey – it’s part of the morning routine, so I am certainly not complaining. I swigged the remains of yesterday’s Earl Grey with a dash of leche semi-desnatada. In a previous life, I always had a problem with the word desnatada. I saw it as something altogether different, such as desinatana or something even stranger. I believe this springs from an acute dyslexia that I have. I’ve rarely addressed this dyslexia though it’s plagued me throughout my life. Firstly, it interfered with English spelling as I was growing from a bud on the side of a spine of a desert shrub. That feature has carried over slightly into Spanish, as one can see, though the flaw is easier to catch since Spanish, like Czech (another of my linguistic adventures, as anyone who has lived my previous lives with me’d know), is a (mostly) phonetically spelled language. From time to time I still have to look up certain words in English just to be sure, even though I am mostly correct in my first “guess” at spelling.

Programming

=> ↺ The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator problem

• The Myers-Briggs type indicator is fun and the fact that it’s so well-known is an advantage, but it has a drawback.

• There are four categories:

• E vs I, S vs N, T vs F, J vs P.

• The problem is that most people fall somewhere in between. It’s a bell-shaped curve where only a few people are clearly E or clearly I. That’s not really what you want in a personality sorter, where you instead would want people who are mostly one or the other and where true neutral is the rarest result.

=> ↺ GitHub’s li’l pencil

• But as I thought about it a li’l more, I sobered up and realized that the pencil itself is more of a mitigation for how bad GitHub is, than a baseline good.

=> ↺ Re: What is a “unit test?”

• I don’t write unit tests (that’d be almost as pointlessly redundant as type annotation) but I generate them automatically and they’re great. They let me refactor wildly and they help prevent old working code from breaking.

• I like high-level tests, too. When I was first writing 7off (a markdown->gemini converter), I created a sample source file, and a hand-made target file that looked the way I wanted, and then as I was hacking, I kept looking at the diff between the program’s generated target with my handmade version. That’s actually still the only test in 7off’s test directory, which makes sense since it’s a single-procedure API.

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