● 02.18.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 18/02/2023: Wine 8.2 Released and Celebrating 20 Years of Inkscape

Posted in News Roundup at 12:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ Turn your old laptop into a free Chromebook: how to install ChromeOS Flex

• Our experts reveal how you can transform a deteriorating, annoying laptop into a secure, speedy machine

Server

=> ↺ PostgreSQL: CloudNativePG 1.19.0, 1.18.2 and 1.17.4 Released!

• The CloudNativePG Community has announced version 1.19.0, a new minor release of the CloudNativePG Operator, which introduces support for backup from a standby, which reduces the I/O impact on the primary, and delayed failover, which enables you to wait for some amount of time after a failure on the primary before triggering an automated failover.

• Support for separate WAL volumes has been enhanced with the possibility to add a separate WAL volume even on an existing PostgreSQL cluster. More metrics for WAL usage monitoring have been added to the default Prometheus exporter. Both functionalities have also been backported to 1.18.2.

• The cnpg plugin for kubectl has been enhanced with the introduction of the backup command to issue a new base backup on a selected cluster.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Framework now offers 2TB SSDs for the Steam Deck. But you’ll have to do the leg work. (Deck News) – Invidious

=> ↺ 16 NextCloud apps I use every day! – Invidious

=> ↺ Begone GTK4, Long Live The New King GTK5 – Invidious

• GTK4 has only been here for around 3 years and I hadn’t expected GTK5 to even be in discussion for at least a few more years, but towards the end of this year it’d likely going to enter development already.

=> ↺ Nobara Project 37 Quick Overview #shorts – Invidious

• A Quick Overview of Nobara Project 37

Applications

=> ↺ The Best Terminal Emulators for Linux

• If you’re a fan of Linux, you know the reason it’s awesome: the command line. Though many outsiders view it as only a “hacker tool,” it’s one of the best available tools for any operating system. The Linux shell has the ability to install software, manage your operating system, and basically everything else, but you need a terminal emulator to interact with the command line.

• There are many good ones, and picking the right one depends on your needs and how you prefer it to look.

=> ↺ 1.3 About Screen Contest — celebrating 20 years of Inkscape | Inkscape

• We are eagerly awaiting your artwork submissions, created using only Inkscape, for our 1.3 About Screen Contest. This contest represents one of the highlights for contributors across the project – to see just how artists and designers are putting the vector editor’s tools and features to great use.

• This year’s release contest, which launched on February 5, has a new twist – a topic to rally around together. So, please join in and help us in “Celebrating 20 years of Inkscape”!

• It’s hard to believe that the free and open source Inkscape project has been around since 2003. That’s when it “forked” or started its own path from its predecessor Sodipodi.

• Almost two decades later, the Inkscape project has grown to include active contributors and artist and design communities from around the world. This diversity is part of what enables the project to continue advancing and launching new versions and innovating in its features, capabilities and solutions. Version 1.3 will continue the tradition. The draft release notes are available for reading in the Wiki.

• In preparation for 1.3, as with all our major releases, the new Inkscape release will feature a contributing artist’s work on the About Screen. Over the years, other such Inkscape contest entries have been used for visuals for articles, T-shirt designs, banners and more.

• Looking back at the About Screen Contest entries over the years, it’s impressive to see the variety of styles and tools used to create and, ultimately, inspire others, through artwork created using Inkscape.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Remove Stacer from Ubuntu Linux

• Stacer is a free & open-source Linux system monitoring software with a beautiful GUI. The primary purpose of using this software is to get metrics data of the system to analyze its performance and resource usage.

=> ↺ How to Install Webmin on Linux

• Webmin is a browser-based tool for administering Linux and Unix servers. Here’s how you can install it on your system.

=> ↺ How to Set Up Deep Learning Architecture on Ubuntu 22.04

=> ↺ MySQL Generated columns

• MySQL Generated Columns are the next big thing in database management. With the introduction of generated columns, you can create virtual columns that calculate values based on an expression and store the result. The generated columns make it easier to perform complex queries and sort data without having to repeat the same calculation multiple times.

=> ↺ MySQL Common table expressions (CTE)

• SQL is a language that has been used for decades to manage and manipulate data in relational databases. It provides various tools and techniques to fetch, filter, and aggregate data from tables. One such tool is the Common Table Expression (CTE).

=> ↺ How To Install Apache JMeter on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

=> ↺ How To Install IonCube Loader on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

=> ↺ How To Install Matomo on Rocky Linux 9

=> ↺ How to install EndeavourOS Cassini Neo – Invidious

• In this video, I am going to show how to install EndeavourOS Cassini Neo

=> ↺ How to install and use ClamAV in Ubuntu 22.04

=> ↺ Embedded Linux and Yocto training courses now available in Italian

=> ↺ How to Take a Screenshot on Chromebook With the Snipping Tool

=> ↺ A Beginner’s Guide to Installing TensorFlow on Ubuntu

• TensorFlow is an open-source software library developed by Google for machine learning and deep learning tasks. It provides a flexible and efficient way to build and train machine learning models, from simple linear regression to complex neural networks. TensorFlow supports a wide range of platforms, including Ubuntu, one of the most popular Linux distributions.

=> ↺ How to install MariaDB on Fedora 37

=> ↺ How to Install Microsoft Fonts on Linux Mint 21 or 20

• Microsoft fonts, such as Arial and Times New Roman, are widely used in documents, and other media created using Microsoft Office applications. However, these fonts are not included by default in most Linux distributions, including Linux Mint.

=> ↺ How to Install Metasploit Framework on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

• Metasploit Framework is an open-source platform that has become a powerful tool for penetration testing and vulnerability assessment in today’s cybersecurity landscape. It is designed to help security professionals perform comprehensive testing of their network’s security posture, identify potential weaknesses, and mitigate them before attackers can exploit them.

=> ↺ How to Install Oracle Java 17 on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

• Welcome to the world of Java Development! As a professional developer, you know that Java is one of the most popular programming languages in the world, and the Java Development Kit (JDK) is an essential tool for Java development.

=> ↺ How to Install Jellyfin Media Server on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

• Jellyfin is an open-source media server software that allows you to organize, stream, and share your media content with friends and family. It is a powerful tool that lets you enjoy your favorite music, movies, TV shows, and photos on any device with internet access.

=> ↺ How to Install the latest OpenSSL version on Debian 11

• Hello, friends. OpenSSL is a vital component for many systems, and knowing how to install the latest version of it on Debian 11 could be quite useful. OpenSSL is a robust, commercial-grade, full-featured toolkit for general-purpose cryptography and secure communication. This makes it an almost indispensable component of any current Linux system.

=> ↺ How to Install BookStack with Nginx on Ubuntu 20.04

• BookStack is a self-hosted, open-source, easy-to-use platform for organizing and storing information. This tutorial will teach you how to install BookStack on a Ubuntu 20.04-based server.

=> ↺ How to Install XWiki on Ubuntu 22.04

• XWiki is a free and open-source wiki software written in Java and runs on Tomcat. This tutorial will show you how to install XWiki on Ubuntu 22.04 server.

=> ↺ How to install Zabbix 6 on Debian 11

• Zabbix is a free and open-source software used for monitoring several IT components, including networks, servers, virtual machines, and cloud services. This tutorial will show you how to install the Zabbix monitoring server on Debian 11.

=> ↺ How to Install and Use iostat on Ubuntu

• iostat, also known as input/output statistics, is a popular Linux system monitoring tool that can be used to collect statistics of input and output devices. It allows users to identify performance issues of local disk, remote disk, and system information. This tutorial will teach us how to install and use iostat on Ubuntu.

=> ↺ How to Install Concrete5 CMS with free Let’s Encrypt SSL on Debian 11

• Concrete5 is a free and open-source content management system for publishing Internet content. This post will show you how to install Concrete5 CMS with Apache and Let’s Encrypt SSL on Debian 11.

=> ↺ How to Debug C Programs in Linux using gdb

• If you are a C/C++ programmer or develop software using the Fortran and Modula-2 programming languages, you’ll be glad to know there exists an excellent debugger – dubbed GDB – that lets you easily debug your code for bugs and other problems. In this article, we will discuss the basics of GDB, including some of the useful features/options it provides.

=> ↺ How to Open Files in Default Desktop Application from Command-Line on Ubuntu

• What do you do when you want to open a PDF file in Ubuntu?

=> ↺ How to Install GNOME Flashback on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

• GNOME Flashback is a lightweight desktop environment that offers a classic and traditional user interface for Linux systems.

=> ↺ How to Install and Enable OpenSSH on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

• OpenSSH is a highly robust utility that offers safe access to remote machines through an unsecured network. It is an extensively utilized encryption protocol that establishes secure communication between two untrusted hosts.

=> ↺ How to Add a User to Sudoers on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

• Ubuntu is a popular operating system widely used for servers and desktops.

=> ↺ How to Install and Use ‘NeoVim’ [Vim-based] Text Editor

• Vi or Vim is an age-old default command line text editor that you’ll come across in any Linux distribution. No doubt, Vim is a

=> ↺ How to Install Subversion on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

• Subversion, also known as SVN, is a powerful version control system that can help developers manage and track changes to their software projects. Unlike other version control systems like Git, Subversion uses a centralized model, which makes it easier to manage and control access to your repository.

=> ↺ How to Install Eclipse IDE on Fedora Linux

• Eclipse IDE, or Integrated Development Environment, is a powerful open-source software tool for developing and deploying applications across various platforms. The Eclipse IDE is widely known for its excellent support for different programming languages, including Java, Python, C++, and many more.

=> ↺ How to Install Ubuntu 22.04 LTS {Step by Step} with Screenshots

• The Ubuntu 22.04 operating system (code name: Jammy Jellyfish) is a free and open-source Linux distribution derived from the Debian Linux distribution.

=> ↺ How to Install GitLab on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

• GitLab is an open-source web-based Git repository management tool that offers a complete DevOps platform. It provides a wide range of features and tools for software development teams to manage their projects, including version control, project management, CI/CD, monitoring, and more.

=> ↺ How to Change Hostname on Debian 11 or 10

• Modifying the network device’s hostname in a Linux system is an uncomplicated procedure that can be executed via the terminal.

=> ↺ How to Install ImageMagick on Debian 11 or 10

• ImageMagick is an incredibly powerful open-source software that provides users with the tools to create, edit, and manipulate images. It is a versatile software commonly used by graphic designers, photographers, and web developers for various image-related tasks, ranging from resizing images to adding special effects.

=> ↺ How to Install balenaEtcher on Debian 11 or 10

• balenaEtcher is a widely used, user-friendly, and efficient tool for creating bootable USB drives and SD cards. Its popularity stems from its ease of use, reliability, and robust features that simplify creating bootable media.

=> ↺ How to use the fuser command in Linux

• Suppose you are given a task to identify the processes that are using a particular file, and then kill them one by one – all this has to be done from the command line. What would you do? Well, if you are a command line newbie, I am sure you’d be clueless, asking around for help. But command line pros will likely have an idea that there exists a command line utility in Linux that lets you identify processes based on the files (or directories, or sockets) they are accessing. Not only that, the tool also allows you to kill these processes, so you don’t have to use the kill or killall commands separately. The command line utility we’re talking about is fuser.

=> ↺ How to Install Spotify on Ubuntu

• Spotify is a Swedish entertainment company founded by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon that gives you instant access to millions of songs from old favorites to the latest hits. In this tutorial, we will explain how to install Spotify on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver).

WINE or Emulation

=> ↺ WineHQ – News – Wine 8.2 Released

• The Wine development release 8.2 is now available.

• What’s new in this release:

• Better debug information in Wow64 mode. Wow64 thunks in the WPCAP library. Indeo IV50 codec support. Monitor names set from EDID data. Various bug fixes.

• The source is available now. Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

=> ↺ Wine 8.2 rolls out along with a new Proton Experimental update

• Today we’ve seen an update for two translation layers. Wine has development release 8.2 available, and there’s an update for Proton Experimental too.

Wine development release 8.2 is now available for Linux FreeBSD and macOSThe Wine development release 8.2 is now available. What’s new in this release: Better debug information in Wow64 mode.Wow64 thunks in the WPCAP library.Indeo IV50 codec support.Monitor names set from EDID data.Various bug fixes.The source is available now. Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

Games

=> ↺ A new Civilization game is in development and XCOM designer leaves Firaxis

• 2K sent out a press release today confirming a number of things including a new Civilization game is on the way.

=> ↺ All Your Base Are Belong to Us — Zero Wing (and other classics) hit Steam

• Zero Wing along with other shoot ‘em up classics Out Zone, Twin Cobra and Truxton from Toaplan and Bitwave Games have their brand new PC releases out.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Adding variable tiling width ratio and gaps to XFCE xfwm4

• After a lot of desktop environment and window manager hoping, I’ve settle down with XFCE. I find it customizable, pretty and fast. But after all my hoping, I’ve always missed a couple of things learned from the tiling window manager world: resizable master area and gaps.

• Here a couple of patches I wrote to enable those two features for Xfwm4.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ This week in KDE: a smooth release of Plasma 5.27

• This week we finally released Plasma 5.27 and so far it’s been very smooth! The only significant regressions found so far are already fixed, ready for release in a few days. There have been some grumblings about the new window outlines feature, but you can’t please everyone, and there’s a chance we’ll end up making them optional.

=> ↺ Plasma Mobile 5.27 + PlaMo Gear 23.01.0

• Manjaro ARM is proud to present the packages for Plasma 5.27.0 together with the packages for Plasma Mobile Gear (soon to be regular Gear) 23.01.0 for the mobile devices.

• These packages are currently being tested in our Unstable branch and will soon be transferred to Testing and then finally to Stable branch when the time comes…

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Gnome Console adds Overview Page to show All Open Tabs | UbuntuHandbook

• Gnome Console terminal emulator added new tab overview feature a few days ago by releasing version 44 beta.

• For those never heard of Gnome Console, it’s new core application for GNOME desktop since version 42. Gnome Console formerly called kgx, has a more modern and native look and feel than the previous Gnome Terminal. Ubuntu proposed to use Gnome Console as default terminal emulator in 22.10 release, but delayed due to few regressions.

• Gnome Console has an attractive feature that the header bar turns red when running sudo command or switching to root user. And, it goes purple for remote / ssh terminals.

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

=> ↺ Clonezilla Live (3.0.3-22) Released: Now Support for Multiple LUKS Devices and Linux 6.1 LTS

• Today, Steven Shiau — the developer of Clonezilla Live — announced that Clonezilla 3.0.3 is now available! This open source and free partition clone/imaging live ISO distribution based on Debian Sid repositories offers users a powerful tool to manage their data with ease. The new version includes several bug fixes and improvements over its predecessor,

BSD

=> ↺ Nextcloud + OpenBSD = <3

• Looks like everything is made of clouds and farts now, so we cannot be out of it we need to keep up on the trend. I maintain the nextcloud port since ever, and I am using since then, to be honest it’s pretty cool and handy, despite all the php slowness and other flavors the system has and the OpenBSD’s issues as client and server (in comparation with loonix and others), it works really really well in every way I use it; which is as “multimedia cloud”, “CalDAV/CardDAV” server for my android phone, “Password Manager” and “Backups” in general.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the week 2023/07

• Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,

• Week 7 of the year – 7 days have passed since the last review, BUT we only released 6 snapshots since then. The reason is only timing though: the 7th snapshot is still in QA and, looking at the current results, is likely to be published later today. So no need to be worried. This review will cover snapshots 0210…0215.

• The most exciting changes delivered during this week were:

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ IBM Builds An AI Supercomputer On The Cheap In Its Cloud

=> ↺ systemd 253: The future of enterprise Linux boot processes • The Register

• The first systemd release of 2023 is here, and it introduces a brand spanking new tool for building Unified Kernel Image (UKI) files.

• Fresh versions of systemd appear roughly twice a year, apart from release candidates. We reported on the last version, systemd 252, in November last year. As we said at the time, systemd 252 brought in support for Agent P’s new, more secure Linux boot process. Those two stories have details of the UKI boot files and how they work.

=> ↺ Make systemd better for Podman with Quadlet

=> ↺ How to use new container events and auditing features in Podman 4.4

=> ↺ CIO role: 4 ways to do more with less

=> ↺ Workplace culture: 4 key priorities for 2023

=> ↺ Soft skills: How well-rounded IT pros can push your business forward

Debian Family

=> ↺ bits from the release team: bookworm in soft freeze

=> ↺ Heroic Games Launcher

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ A Match Made in Tech Heaven: Ubuntu and Lenovo ThinkPad X13s Arm Laptop

• If you’re searching for an extraordinary Arm-powered laptop, look no further than the Lenovo ThinkPad X13s! Boasting a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 SoC and 13.3 inches 1920 x 1200 resolution display that will provide an unparalleled viewing experience, not to mention up to 32GB RAM with 28 hours of battery life…

=> ↺ Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is Equipped with Linux Kernel 5.19 — From Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu!

• With the launch of Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS quickly approaching, Canonical has upgraded its long-term supported Jammy Jellyfish series to the Linux 5.19 kernel from Kinetic Kudu in Ubuntu 22.10 for an even more efficient and secure user experience! Initially slated for early February 2023, the Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS point release will come with Linux 5.19…

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ VisionFive 2: A Raspberry Pi Like Moment for RISC-V – Boiling Steam

• The VisionFive 2 is a new RISC-V System-on-a-Chip (SoC) board that offers powerful performance (somewhere between RPi 3 and RPi 4) and low cost. Until now most of the powerful RISC-V systems were much more expensive and out of reach of most of us. This new board features a quad-core processor with a clock speed of 1.5GHz, 2GB of LPDDR4 RAM (there is also 4GB and 8GB RAM versions available) and an eMMC storage and TF card slot.

=> ↺ Small, MKR WAN 1310-powered device monitors CO2 levels in classrooms

• This CO2 monitor performs two functions: it shows anyone nearby the CO2 levels in the area and it uploads that data over LoRaWAN to a central hub that can track the levels across many locations. A school could, for example, put one of these CO2 monitors in every classroom. An administrator could then see the CO2 levels in every room in real time, along with historical records. That would alert them to immediate dangers and to long term trends.

=> ↺ Control 8 relays with the Raspberry Pi Pico using PicoRelay8 or Pico-Relay-B

• 8086 Consultancy’s PicoRelay8 is a baseboard for the Raspberry Pi Pico (W) board equipped with eight 28V DC / 10A Normally Open relays that be used for all sorts of automation projects, while Waveshare Pico-Relay-B also supports eight relays with both DC and AC loads and comes with some extra features.

=> ↺ Remember This?

• We’re celebrating two decades of invention, innovation, and electronics here at SparkFun this year! We’ve released thousands of products throughout our history, and we thought it’d be a fun look back to show you what the top products were each year.

• We’ve linked related or similar products below the retired ones in case you’re inspired by trends of years past to start something new. We’ve loved growing and developing with you all these years, and these are the highlights of what we’ve accomplished together.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Razer Edge 5G Review: Who needs an Android gaming handheld?

=> ↺ HarmonyOS Might Outrun Android And iOS In Years

=> ↺ Poco F4 gets Android 13 update in India with Reliance Jio 5G support – GSMArena.com news

=> ↺ Poco F4 Finally Gets the Long-due Android 13 Update With Jio 5G Support in India

=> ↺ Android 13 Finally Arrives for Xperia 10 III – Phandroid

=> ↺ Best Android Phones 2023

=> ↺ Android Circuit: Galaxy S23 SnapDragon Success, OnePlus 11 5G On Sale, Find N2 Flip Launch

=> ↺ 19 Ways To Fix It When Visual Voicemail Isn’t Working On Android

=> ↺ Fix: Android Keyboard Typing Wrong Letters

=> ↺ android: How to share Wi-Fi password on Android devices

=> ↺ Experts Warn of RambleOn Android Malware Targeting South Korean Journalists

=> ↺ How to dim the wallpaper with bedtime mode on Android | Android Central

=> ↺ 40+ Best Open Source Android Apps

• The best open source Android apps. Replace the proprietary options to enjoy a potentially better experience!

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ What does ChatGPT mean for the open source community

• Community is about people. Making connections with other people with a shared interest and passion for something is what makes communities so fulfilling. Both the disagreements and the moments of shared inspiration are profound experiences that we humans bring to one another in our forums, chat rooms, bug reports, conferences, and neighborhoods. As an open source community, we create technology. We create it openly, together, and with a genuine interest in sharing experiential knowledge. We value diversity, and we find value in the perspectives of novices and experts alike. These are things you can’t distill in machine learning chat bot, whether it’s open source or not (and ChatGPT is not).

• The open source community thrives on the genuine interest in sharing. That’s something ChatGPT cannot emulate.

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ PostgreSQL JDBC 42.5.4 Released

• The PostgreSQL JDBC team has released version 42.5.4

• This release fixes some tests that were failing. Changes in 42.5.3 caused some tests to fail. These failing tests were not noticed in the Github testing workflow. This oversight has been corrected as well. There are no changes to the code. The details can be found in the Changelog

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ LibreOffice Dark Mode: Manual switch to enable/disable coming in 7.5.1

• LibreOffice 7.5 introduced a new Dark Mode, activated automatically to match your system settings. But many of you asked for a manual switch, so our Design community has implemented it for the next update – LibreOffice 7.5.1, in two weeks! Follow the Design community’s activities on Mastodon and Twitter

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Where is php.ini? Find the Correct PHP Configuration File

• The php.ini file is a configuration file used by PHP to specify settings for your web server, such as file upload size, error reporting, and memory usage. However, the location of the php.ini file can vary depending on your server setup and operating system. In this tutorial, we will explore a few methods to help [...]

=> ↺ git status Side Effects

• There is a way to prevent this, by running git status –no-optional-locks (https://git-scm.com/docs/git#Documentation/git.txt—no-optional-locks) or by setting GIT_OPTIONAL_LOCKS to 0, as writing the updated index is just an optimization and git knows it can be avoided.

• I don’t think there are many chances to actually stumble on this in the real life, but I’m writing this down so that if I ever do I have an easy way to remember what happened and find the solution.

=> ↺ Deploy MongoDB in a Container, Access It Outside the Cluster – The New Stack

• How to a deploy a containerized version of MongoDB and connect to it from a machine or service outside of the hosting server.

=> ↺ Peter Czanik: The syslog-ng Insider 2023-02: 4.0; Azure; 101; FreeBSD;

• After almost 14 years, a new major version of syslog-ng is available. Type support for name-value pairs is now available and Python support received major improvements.

=> ↺ Certified Qt Safe Renderer 2.0 is released

• We are happy to announce that our latest Qt Safe Renderer (QSR) 2.0 is certified and available as of today, addressing the need to build UI applications with Functional Safety in mind.

=> ↺ Adorable model trolley livens up a garden

=> ↺ Instantly understand 40+ languages, with Speech Recognition Engine

• Voice commands are a contactless, hands-free, natural way to interact with devices, equipment, and machines of all kinds: no wonder they are increasingly popular! With speech recognition technology advancing faster than you can say “users expect it,” developers often need to find ways to integrate it in their new projects. This, however, requires them to take the time to train a smart device to listen for wake-up words, understand commands… and potentially start over for every new voice or language.

• To cut through all the hassle and help you integrate speech recognition in the easiest and fastest way, Arduino Pro has released Speech Recognition Engine: a powerful, ready-to-use and extensive software library born out of the collaboration with worldwide leader in the field, Cyberon.

=> ↺ AI Search Is a Disaster

• The trouble arises when we treat chatbots not just as search bots, but as having something like a brain—when companies and users trust programs like ChatGPT to analyze their finances, plan travel and meals, or provide even basic information. Instead of forcing users to read other internet pages, Microsoft and Google have proposed a future where search engines use AI to synthesize information and package it into basic prose, like silicon oracles. But fully realizing that vision might be a distant goal, and the road to it is winding and clouded: The programs currently driving this change, known as “large language models,” are decent at generating simple sentences but pretty awful at everything else.

=> ↺ I Think AI Would Kill my Wife

• Turns out the Bing AI is bizarre and that is making quite the waves at the moment. In essence, the Bing version of ChatGPT has the capability of performing internet searches and as a result will feed some extra data into itself. Then it uses this to conjure up answers with hilarious results, particularly if its internal learned state does not line up with the results. Among other things this has lead to the bot gaslighting its users into believing that they are in the wrong calendar year. I think there is something quite a bit deeper being uncovered by these AI stories and it does worry me a bit.

=> ↺ mount-img asks read-only or read-write

• If you click on a .img drive-image file, the partitions in the image get mounted read-only. If you do it from a terminal, you can pass the “rw” parameter to mount read-write. But clicking on the file in ROX-Filer does not offer that choice.

• This came up in the forum, someone wanted to mount the partitions read-write. So, I have modified /usr/sbin/mount-img script to ask. Now, click on the file and this window pops up:

=> ↺ Writing Javascript without a build system

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ This Week in PSC (098)

=> ↺ Using Type::Params Effectively

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ How To Use Find with atime, ctime, mtime, amin, cmin, mmin

=> ↺ 10+ Bash: If, Else If, Else Examples

=> ↺ Writing efficient for loops in Bash: Tips and Tricks

• Bash is a popular shell scripting language that is commonly used in Linux and Unix-based operating systems. One of the most commonly used constructs in Bash is the for loop, which is used to iterate over a set of items and perform a particular action on each item.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ 3 Conditions that Must be Met to Make Interoperability a Reality

• The term “interoperability” holds different meanings for different people. While we all would agree that the primary goal of interoperability is to make sharing data easier in order to improve outcomes and lower costs, there are varying perceptions about what that looks like. FHIR has been great at giving us a common set of protocols and standards to work from, but how we connect and how data actually gets shared are still open challenges.

Leftovers

=> ↺ UN agencies appeal for help as death toll in Turkey, Syria quake rises above 42,000

• The death toll from the earthquake that has devastated parts of Turkey and Syria exceeded 42,000 on Friday as the United Nations appealed for $1 billion to address a growing humanitarian crisis. France said it was sending an additional 40 tonnes of tents, food and medical aid.

=> ↺ ‘Everywhere was pitch black’: How one quake victim survived 187 hours under rubble

• Huseyin Berber, a 62-year-old diabetic, spent 187 hours trapped under rubble in the Turkish city of Antakya following the earthquakes that devastated the region on February 6. To survive, he was forced to turn to extreme measures, including drinking his own urine, before finally being saved by rescuers.

=> ↺ 84,000 Buildings to Be Urgently Demolished in Türkiye

• Authorities are investigating businessmen who would have criminal responsibilities in the poor construction of buildings that were destroyed by the earthquakes.

=> ↺ Erdoğan Can’t Hide Any Longer

• On the evening of February 8, two nights after the earthquake that devastated 10 cities in Turkey, four young men with cheap megaphones walked the streets of Istanbul repeating the same cry: “Thousands under the rubble are fighting for their lives tonight. Erdoğan is still trying to cover up his crime. Please tell everyone what you know.”

=> ↺ ‘Wind-sensitive’ vehicles in Denmark: What are they and when are they not allowed on bridges?

• Denmark often experiences windy weather. This can result in road authorities temporarily banning or advising against the use of the country’s long bridges for vehicles categorised as ‘wind-sensitive’ (vindfølsom). Which vehicles does this term cover?

=> ↺ Indians and Romanians among nationalities given most Danish work permits

• New data shows that Denmark issued around 51,000 work permits in 2022, with Indians and Romanians among national groups providing the most foreign workers to the Scandinavian country.

=> ↺ EXPLAINED: How has Sweden adjusted its plans for work permit reform?

• Sweden’s government on Friday refined its plans to limit low-skilled labour migration and encourage skilled foreign workers, as it announced a change in instructions to a government inquiry. Here’s what you need to know.

=> ↺ Shakespeare and the Politics of the 21st Century | The Chris Hedges Report

• Nearly five centuries later, the social and political considerations of Shakespeare’s oeuvre continue to offer insights pertinent to our times.

Science

=> ↺ Mice Pass Epigenetic Tweaks to Pups

• An engineered methylation pattern persisted for four generations of mice, demonstrating transgenerational epigenetic inheritance can occur in mammals.

=> ↺ RSV Vaccines That Work?

• Multiple candidates are in Phase 3 clinical trials for

=> ↺ RSV Vaccines That Work?

• Multiple candidates are in Phase 3 clinical trials for older adults and pregnant women, with some getting close to approval in the United States.

=> ↺ Unidentified Object Downed by US Could Belong to Hobbyists

• The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB), a group that launches small, lightweight balloons equipped with GPS trackers, transmitters and antennas, announced in a blog post that one of its balloons had not transmitted its location since traveling toward the region where a U.S. F-22, on February 11, used a missile to destroy a “high-altitude object” that was deemed to be a threat to commercial aviation.

• Last week, the organization posted information to its website indicating that the last recorded communication from the balloon, with the call sign K9YO, occurred on February 11 and indicated that it was located off the southern coast of Alaska, and traveling east, in the direction of Canada’s Yukon province.

Education

=> ↺ The Richest Americans Need to Be Taught This Serious Lesson About Teachers

• How can we measure the work a particular society truly values? Take-home pay can make as good a yardstick as any: The lower an occupation’s compensation, the lower the esteem a society is showing for that occupation.

Hardware

=> ↺ MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Armv9 Cortex-A715/A510 processor targets mainstream 5G smartphones

• Manufactured with a 4nm processor, the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 is an octa-core Armv9 processor designed for mainstream smartphones. with two Cortex-A715 cores, six Cortex-A510 cores, a Mali-G610 MC4 GPU, as well as 5G, WiFi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity.

=> ↺ Lenovo Eyes Job Cuts Due to Weakened PC Market

• Lenovo, the world’s biggest computer company, will cut jobs amid a weak PC market.

=> ↺ Hackaday Podcast 206: Busted Crypto Killed The Queen, Kicad’s New Clothes, Peer Inside The Sol 20

• Under the weather though they both were, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney got together to take a look under the covers of this week’s best and brightest hacks. It was a banner week, with a look at the changes that KiCad has in store, teaching a CNN how to play “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” and going deep into the weeds on JPEG.

=> ↺ Fail Of The Week: Epic 312 Weeks Of Fixing A Broken Project

• If a hacker guardian angel exists, then we’re sure he or she was definitely AWOL for six long years from [Aaron Eiche]’s life as he worked on perfecting and making his Christmas Countdown clock. [Aaron] started this binary clock project in 2016, and only managed to make it work as expected in 2022 after a string of failures.

=> ↺ Giant 3D Printed Excavator Is Awesome, But Needs Work

• Many of us adored big construction machinery as children. Once we got past the cute, tiny age, it became uncool to gasp with shock and awe at diggers and bulldozers for some reason . [Ivan Miranda] still digs the big rigs, though, and built himself a giant 3D printed excavator that looks like brilliant fun. 

=> ↺ IoT Prototype Kit is powered by an Alder Lake-H COM Express module with up to Core i5-12600HE CPU

• ADLINK has launched an IP-i IoT Prototype Kit based on their Express-ADP COM Express Type 6 Basic “Alder Lake-H” module with either an Intel Core i5-12600HE 12-core (4P+8E) processor clocked at up to 4.5 GHz or a Core i3-12300HE 8-core (4P+4E) processor reaching up to 4.3 GHz.

=> ↺ Anatomy Of A Fake CO2 Sensor

• The pandemic brought with it a need to maintain adequate ventilation in enclosed spaces, and thus, there’s been considerable interest in inexpensive C02 monitors. Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous actors out there that have seen this as a chance to make a quick profit.

=> ↺ Quantum Interconnects Get Faster

• If you are a retrocomputer fan, you might remember when serial ports were a few hundred baud and busses ran at a few megahertz at the most. Today, of course, we have buses and fabric that can run at tremendous speeds. Quantum computing, though, has to start from scratch. One major problem is that jockeying quantum states around for any distance is difficult and slow. Part of it is that qubits decay rapidly, so you don’t have much time. They are also generally susceptible to noise and perturbation by outside forces. So many quantum machines today are limited by how much they can cram on one chip since there isn’t a good way to connect to another chip. The University of Sussex thinks it has improved the outlook for quantum interconnects with a technique they claim can move qubits around at nearly 2,500 links per second.

=> ↺ Hack Lets Intel MacBook Run Without A Battery

• A long time ago, a laptop was a basic thing, and you could pretty much run one just by hooking up a power supply to the battery contacts. A modern MacBook is altogether fussier. However, when [Christophe] was stuck in the midst of a 2020 lockdown with no parts available, he found a way to get his damaged MacBook up and running without a battery.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Watchdogs Upset EPA Has ‘Once Again Failed’ to Limit Dicamba Herbicide Harm

• “I call bullsh*t.”

=> ↺ Metzl on Fox News discussing the need to investigate the origins of COVID

• On February 10, Scowcroft Strategy Initiative Nonresident Senior Fellow Jamie Metzl appeared on Fox News to discuss the need for a bipartisan 9/11-style commission investigating the origins of the COVID-19 virus. He asserts that the noncompliance of the Chinese governments is cause for worry, and further investigation is the best means to prepare for – or even stop – a future pandemic. Metzl stresses that this is a bipartisan issue that has seen agreement and consensus among members of both sides of the aisle. He also notes the lack of transparency on the part of the NIH in the work they were minimally funding in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

=> ↺ Thousands of people benefitting from SANDF’s Project Owethu health drive

• As part of Armed Forces Day 2023 events, the South African Military Health Service (SAMHS) has launched Project Owethu that is bringing free healthcare to thousands of people in the Richard’s Bay area.

=> ↺ France drops Covid testing restrictions for travellers from China

• France has dropped Covid testing restrictions imposed on travellers from China, the French embassy in Beijing said.

=> ↺ Biden DOJ Supporting Rail Giant Norfolk Southern’s Effort to Block Future Lawsuits

• Norfolk Southern—the railroad giant whose train derailed and caused a toxic chemical fire in a small Ohio town earlier this month—has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 2017 lawsuit filed by a cancer-afflicted former rail worker, and the Biden administration is siding with the corporation, fresh reporting from The Lever revealed Thursday.

=> ↺ Like Chording But Not

• Repetitive strain injuries (RSI) can be a real pain. You’ve got a shiny new laptop, and everything’s going smoothly, but suddenly you can’t use it without agonizing (as in typing-speed reducing) pain caused by years of keyboard bashing or just plain bad posture. All of us hacker types will likely have or will experience this at some point, and luckily there are many potential solutions.

=> ↺ Ohio Train Disaster Could Happen Elsewhere in The US

• “We cannot risk the lives of millions of people in our region for the gas industry’s profits,” the Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out.

=> ↺ There’s No Toxic Spill Conspiracy. This Happens Constantly in America

• The East Palestine disaster raised public awareness of toxic spills, which are a disturbingly constant feature of U.S. capitalism.

=> ↺ Green Groups Say Buttigieg Must Act to Ensure Ohio Toxic Train Derailment Is Last of Its Kind

• With progressive lawmakers and rail workers condemning the profit-driven railway scheduling policies that employees say are to blame for the February 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, environmental advocates on Friday called on the U.S. Department of Transportation to reinstate safety rules to prevent similar crashes.

=> ↺ Buttigieg’s Paralysis After the East Palestine Disaster Is a Gift to the Hard Right

• The Biden administration likes to put Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on television. It’s easy to understand why. Buttigieg is well-spoken and rhetorically fluid, a forceful advocate for Biden’s policies, and especially skilled in verbal sparring against Republicans and reporters. Yet Buttigieg’s silences are sometimes as telling as his words.

=> ↺ When a Toxic Bomb Train Hits Your Town

• On February 3rd, a massive train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio blanketed the town with a toxic brew of spilled chemicals and gasses, fouling the air, polluting waterways and killing thousands of fish and frogs. Local residents are suffering ailments ranging from respiratory distress, sore throats, burning eyes and rashes, all with unknown long-term consequences. The two mile long freight train was operated by Norfolk Southern Corporation, It’s been called a “bomb train,” as among its 141 cars were tankers that can hold up to 32,000 gallons each of highly flammable toxic chemicals. In addition to the spill, an out-of-control fire raged for days followed by a “controlled” burn of the train’s most toxic cargo, releasing a huge mushroom cloud of fire and smoke. This catastrophe could have been prevented, had it not been for lax regulation and the outsized lobbying power of corporations like Norfolk Southern.

=> ↺ Amid Ohio Nightmare, Rail Worker Alliance Urges All of Labor to Back Railroad Nationalization

• An alliance representing rail workers across the United States published an open letter late Thursday urging all of organized labor to support the nationalization of the country’s railroad system, arguing that the private and inadequately regulated industry has “shown itself incapable of doing the job.”

=> ↺ How to save two million lives a year

• New analysis by the World Bank suggests that is mainly because they are trying to do so, as Beijing formerly did, on too small a scale. Most of the toxic brown haze choking South Asia’s cities comes not from local cars and waste dumps but from brick kilns, stubble-burning and other pollution sources far away.

• The best way to reduce it, as China has shown, is to model pollution, share data and plan controls over the vast expanse in which the smog circulates. That way the most cost-effective solutions, such as regulating brick-kilns, can be prioritised over more expensive or growth-dampening ones, like closing power stations. The Bank has mapped six of these so-called airsheds in South Asia. Huge areas, they span states and municipalities; four of the six cross national borders. One stretches from eastern Iran via western Afghanistan into Pakistan; another from northern India to Bangladesh.

=> ↺ America’s Teenage Girls Are Not Okay

• Some psychologists point to social media, whereas others blame school shootings; others chalk it up to changes in parenting. Climate-change activists say it’s climate change. Atlantic writers like me blather on about the decline of physical-world interactions. These explanations aren’t equally valid, and some of them might be purely wrong. But the sheer number of theories reflects the complexity of mental-health challenges and suggests that, perhaps, nobody knows for sure what’s going on.

• The numbers are undeniable. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which is published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the gold standard for measuring the state of teen behavior and mental health. From 2011 to 2021, the survey found, the share of teenage girls who say they experience “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” increased from 36 to 57 percent, with the highest jump coming during the coronavirus pandemic. The share of girls who said they’ve contemplated suicide increased 50 percent in the decade. (For teenage boys, the increase was smaller.)

=> ↺ “Heroism” in the face of COVID-19?

• It never ceases to amaze me just how much COVID-19 antimaskers and anti-“lockdowners” have fallen into exactly the same narratives commonly used by antivaxxers that I used to write about for years and years before the pandemic. I realize that it shouldn’t amaze me anymore, particularly given how much COVID-19 minimization narratives have nearly completely embraced common antivaccine narratives, but occasionally it does. For example, earlier this week I came across what will likely become (for me, at least) a classic example of COVID-19 minimizers and antivaxxers embracing an old antivax message at—where else?—that never-ending font of misinformation, pseudoscience, and disinformation about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines, the Brownstone Institute, in the form of a post by someone (whom I haven’t heard of before) named Haley Kynefin entitled Covidianism Inverts the Heroic Archetype. It’s a post that reminds me of something I wrote about over five years ago, something that could have been written by a certain antivaxxers whose blatherings and frequent fantasies about “heroism” I’ve written about a number of times, namely Kent Heckenlively, such as when he fantasized about being Aragorn, Son of Aragorn, the lost true king of Gondor, charging into battle against the Dark Lord Sauron in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

=> ↺ Pesticide Use and Climate Crisis Locked in ‘Vicious Cycle’ Backed by Polluting Industries

• Even though synthetic pesticides—the majority of which are derived from fossil fuels—contribute significantly to planet-heating pollution and increase the vulnerability of food systems, industrial agriculture interests continue to recklessly portray further pesticide use as a sensible response to the climate emergency’s worsening impacts.

=> ↺ Super Drought Super Bowl: The Goddess Sings

• The land was parched, its people too. The rivers that had raged through the Nation’s once-wild Southwestern desert shrank in their canyons. Vast man-made lakes shriveled to puddles behind massive dams, cathedrals of leisure, irrigation and electricity transformed into towering monuments to vanished abundance, implacable wailing walls of hubris and shame.

• The ancient king perched perilously on his throne far away in a White House built long ago by the enslaved. Crowned only by a tuft of transplanted hair, the ruler spoke through false teeth of a better-built tomorrow. From the old play book/prayer book, he read his litany of Hope. Few listened. Fewer believed.

=> ↺ The Battle to Stop Air Products’ Carbon Capture Project at Lake Maurepas Grows

• Where the Tickfaw River leads into Lake Maurepas in South Louisiana, a coffin containing a plastic skeleton is fastened to pilings rising out of the water. “Save Lake Maurepas From Impending Death by Air Products,” a sign above it states. This arresting visual captures the sentiments of opponents of a plan to develop the world’s largest carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project under the lake.

• Air Products, a global hydrogen manufacturing company, is proposing to build a $4.5 billion “Clean Energy Complex” to manufacture blue hydrogen and an accompanying carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project, that would be operational by 2026.  

=> ↺ Inside Out recalls more plant-based milks after link to NSW botulism case

• Inside Out is recalling two types of oat milk, days after its almond milk was taken off the shelves due to the discovery of a toxin that causes serious illness.

Proprietary

=> ↺ US Gov Says Tesla Self-Driving May Cause Crashes, Issues Recall

• The safety regulators issued a recall affecting 362,000 cars, but it also highlights the shortcomings of the current recall system.

=> ↺ Microsoft: February updates break some Windows Server 2022 VMs

• Microsoft says some Windows Server 2022 virtual machines might not boot up after installing updates released during this month’s Patch Tuesday.

• This known issue only impacts VMs with Secure Boot enabled and running on vSphere ESXi 6.7 U2/U3 or vSphere ESXi 7.0.x.

=> ↺ Why ChatGPT Caused Microsoft Stock to Stumble Today

=> ↺ Microsoft says talking to Bing for too long can cause it to go off the rails

=> ↺ Bing is broken: Microsoft’s new AI is insulting and gaslighting users

• Last week, Microsoft put forth ambitious statements about implementing ChatGPT to enhance its search engine, Bing. However, the anticipated “new day in search” envisioned by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has not come to fruition. Currently, the search engine’s chatbot is only accessible by invitation, and there’s a waitlist of over 1 million individuals. As users interact with the bot, some have reported that it can be unreliable and exhibit traits such as obstinacy, mood swings, and irritability.

=> ↺ Twitter to limit use of text messages for two-factor authentication to paid subscribers

• Two-factor authentication (2FA), meant to make accounts more secure, requires an account holder to use a second authentication method in addition to a password. Twitter allows 2FA by text message, authentication app and a security key.

=> ↺ Some Twitter users are unable to post, told they’re ‘over daily limit’

• Some Twitter Inc. users were unable to send tweets on Wednesday afternoon, instead getting an automated message saying they were “over the daily limit for sending Tweets,” even for users who hadn’t posted yet for the day. The company said it was aware of the glitch and working to fix it.

=> ↺ Smaller Companies Facing Cybersecurity Insurance Headwinds: Equifax Executive

• Experts have urged companies to assume that any outside program is vulnerable to hacking, a position known as “zero trust.” This way, they can take the necessary measures to address the attack.

=> ↺ Cyber Security Concerns: A threat to India’s National Security

• Confidential government and military data and citizens’ financial and personal information are at risk of being stolen or leaked by cyber criminals. Moreover, it undermines national security by exposing sensitive information to hostile actors. Terrorists launch cyberattacks to damage, breach, or use crucial infrastructure to jeopardize national security, adversely affect military hardware, obstruct the economy, and result in massive casualties. The rapid adoption of technology and the widespread use of the Internet have made India an attractive target for cybercriminals.

=> ↺ Minister Lintilä admits WhatsApp account wasn’t hacked, still denies sending Sanna Marin meme

• The investigation by parliamentary officials was unable to rule out the possibility that someone may have used Lintilä’s account at the same time as him.

Security

USCERT ☛ CISA Releases Fifteen Industrial Control Systems AdvisoriesCISA released fifteen (15) Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories on February 16, 2023. These advisories provide timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits surrounding ICS.CISA encourages users and administrators to review the newly released ICS advisories for technical details and mitigations:ICSA-23-047-01 Siemens Solid EdgeICSA-23-047-02 Siemens SCALANCE X-200 IRT [...]

=> ↺ After apparent hack, data from Australian tech giant Atlassian dumped online

• A hacking crew called SiegedSec posted data on what appears to be thousands of employees and floor plans for two of the company’s offices.

=> ↺ AMD’s Ryzen Master Has a High Severity Vulnerability, Update Available

• AMD’s Ryzen Master software has a bug that allows an attacker to take control of the system, but a new update fixes the issue.

=> ↺ US government launches ‘strike force’ to combat Chinese and Russian technology threats

• Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the Disruptive Technology Strike Force will use intelligence and analytics to target illicit actors.

=> ↺ Hacks, leaks and wipers: Google analyzes a year of Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine

• Google’s report on the Ukraine war shows how Russia executed information operations and hacking campaigns to gain an advantage in cyberspace.

=> ↺ HTML phishing attachment with browser-in-the-browser technique, (Thu, Feb 16th)

• Simply put, the technique is based on displaying a simulated browser pop-up window (usually a login prompt) within the confines of an HTML page opened in a browser. The simulated pop-up may look almost indistinguishable from a real browser window and since it may contain an arbitrary URL in the simulated address bar, the use of the BitB technique for phishing can be quite effective…

=> ↺ Ubuntu Security: Best practices for securing your system

• Ubuntu is a popular Linux-based operating system that has gained considerable popularity over the years due to its user-friendly interface and ease of use. It is a highly customizable and versatile operating system suitable for personal and enterprise use.

=> ↺ CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog

• CISA has added one new vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. This type of vulnerability is a frequent attack vector for malicious cyber actors and poses a significant risk to the federal enterprise. Note: To view the newly added vulnerabilities in the catalog, click on the arrow in the “Date Added to Catalog” column, which will sort by descending dates.

=> ↺ FBI says cyber incident at New York field office ‘contained’

• The bureau is working to gain additional information about the reported cyberattack.

=> ↺ Cisco Releases Security Advisories for Multiple Products

• Cisco has released security advisories for vulnerabilities affecting multiple Cisco products. A remote attacker could exploit some of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.

=> ↺ Sweetwater schools internet outage disrupts student learning and could last all week

• Days after a sweeping systems outage first disrupted student learning and forced teachers to remake their lessons, the Sweetwater Union High School District still hasn’t said what caused the outage or when it expects a fix.

=> ↺ Exclusive: FBI says it has ‘contained’ cyber incident on bureau’s computer network

• The FBI has been investigating and working to contain a malicious cyber incident on part of its computer network in recent days, according to people briefed on the matter.

• FBI officials believe the incident involved an FBI computer system used in investigations of images of child sexual exploitation, two sources briefed on the matter told CNN.

=> ↺ Data Breach Reported At Mount Pleasant Central School District | Mount Pleasant Daily Voice

• After the data breach was discovered on Friday, an investigation into the matter found that several passwords belonging to Grade 7 students in the district had been posted to a shared Google Classroom during the 2020-2021 school year. After this document was found, it was immediately removed.

=> ↺ GoDaddy: Hackers stole source code, installed malware in multi-year breach

• Web hosting giant GoDaddy says it suffered a breach where unknown attackers have stolen source code and installed malware on its servers after breaching its cPanel shared hosting environment in a multi-year attack.

=> ↺ BD issues cybersecurity alert for hacking risk found in Alaris infusion pump software

=> ↺ Spain orders extradition of British alleged hacker to U.S.

• Spain’s National Court has agreed to the extradition to the U.S. of a British citizen who allegedly took part in computer attacks including the hacking in 2020 of Twitter accounts of public figures such as Joseph Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Gates as well as for extortion and theft via internet. A court statement Friday said requirements had been met for handing over Joseph James O’Connor to U.S. authorities for 14 charges covering crimes such as revelations of secrets, membership of a criminal gang, illegal access to computer systems, internet fraud and money laundering. O’Connor, 23, from Liverpool, England was arrested in the southern Spanish coastal town of Estepona in July 2021.

=> ↺ Hackers backdoor Microsoft IIS servers with new Frebniis malware

• Hackers are deploying a new malware named ‘Frebniss’ on Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) that stealthily executes commands sent via web requests.

• Frebniis was discovered by Symantec’s Threat Hunter Team, who reported that an unknown threat actor is currently using it against Taiwan-based targets.

=> ↺ Microsoft fixes three zero-days in its 75-flaw February Patch Tuesday

=> ↺ Security updates for Friday

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (webkit2gtk and wpewebkit), Fedora (firefox, phpMyAdmin, tpm2-tools, and tpm2-tss), Slackware (mozilla), SUSE (mozilla-nss, rubygem-actionpack-4_2, rubygem-actionpack-5_1, and tar), and Ubuntu (linux-azure and linux-hwe-5.19).

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ Beware while searching for phone numbers on Internet

• In the first case, a man was duped of Rs 71,000 when he surfed the Internet to find the number of a hospital. His wife had fallen ill and he called up the number for consultation.

• The victim, Bhagwandin, was asked to deposit Rs 10 through Phonepe to get the patient’s registration done for consultation with a doctor of Indiranagar.

• Since the victim told the miscreant that he cannot make the payment through the app, on which the miscreant asked him to share the bank account number, which he did.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ TikTok “Focused View” Promises Emotion Tracking to Advertisers

=> ↺ Wikimedia wants the Supreme Court to hear case over NSA surveillance. Here’s what’s at stake.

• The case over the National Security Agency’s digital monitoring activities could have major implications for the future of government spying.

=> ↺ German constitutional court declares police use of automated data analysis unconstitutional

• The First Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany Thursday held that provisions authorizing police to use personal data through automated data analysis or automated data interpretation are unconstitutional.

=> ↺ Higgins claims diary details leaked to the media

• Brittany Higgins says a private diary entry she gave police investigating rape allegations against a fellow parliamentary staffer has been leaked to the media in a breach of her privacy.

=> ↺ The US is World’s Biggest Spy Power: Wang

• In 2021 alone, the FBI has conducted up to 3.4 million warrantless searches of Americans’ phone calls, emails and text messages, the Hill reported.

=> ↺ Reported HIPAA complaints and breaches shot up from 2017 to 2021: HHS

• The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to submit an annual report to Congress regarding HIPAA complaints, including how many the agency has received and resolved as well as how many complaints were settled monetarily.

=> ↺ Wikimedia wants the Supreme Court to hear case over NSA surveillance. Here’s what’s at stake.

• The Supreme Court will meet on Friday to decide whether to review a case challenging the legality of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program that hoovers up Americans’ internet traffic as it flows in and out of the U.S

• The American Civil Liberties Union and Knight First Amendment Institute filed the petition on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation asking the high court to weigh in on the government’s stance that proceeding with a trial over the NSA’s longstanding digital monitoring efforts could reveal information harming national security. The court’s answer could have long-lasting implications for how widely the government can use the “state secrets privilege” to stop civil litigation in the name of national security over issues that have a significant bearing on individual rights.

=> ↺ Wisconsin City Decides It’s OK To Eavesdrop On Private Conversations In Its City Hall

• The city of Green Bay, Wisconsin feels no private conversation in city hall should go unheard. The city feels there’s nothing wrong with installing overhead mics to snoop on citizens who might be congregating in the hall’s halls.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ US launches strike force to monitor tech export law violations

• The United States has announced the creation of what it calls a Disruptive Technology Strike Force which, among other tasks, will check for criminal violations of export laws.

=> ↺ Policy, Guns and Money: India’s foreign policy, information warfare and Australia–Netherlands cooperation

• In this episode, ASPI’s Baani Grewal speaks to Ashok Malik, partner and chair of the India Practice at The Asia Group and ASPI visiting fellow.

=> ↺ Foreign Affairs Committee green-lights Nato membership, Parliament to vote on 28 February

• The Foreign Affairs Committee recommends that Parliament approve membership before the end of its legislative term, even though Turkey and Hungary have not yet ratified it.

=> ↺ More than 50k from Ukraine seek refuge in Finland

• Children make up a third of those seeking temporary asylum in Finland.

=> ↺ ‘Paid for treachery’: British embassy guard who spied for Russia jailed for 13 years

• Judge Mark Wall said Smith, who was brought down by a sting operation, was motivated by his anti-British and pro-Russian views.

=> ↺ US Pentagon’s top China official travels to Taiwan, sources say

• A visit could exacerbate tensions between Beijing and Washington.

=> ↺ How the War in Ukraine Ends

• An eminent historian envisions a settlement among Russia, Ukraine, and the West.

=> ↺ Realising the benefits of Washington’s renewed interest in northern Australia

• For the third time in less than a century, the US government has rapidly awakened to Australia’s strategic importance.

=> ↺ Hospitals under fire: how Europe can learn resilience from the Israeli experience

• To ensure they can provide care in the face of these adversities, European hospitals are learning to prioritize hospital resilience, which can be defined as the ability to withstand and quickly recover from attacks.

=> ↺ Russian War Report: Failed Russian push on Vuhledar results in losses as Moscow increases troops

• Vuhledar, a town connecting the northern and southern flanks, has been under an unsuccessful attack from Russian forces for two weeks.

=> ↺ What Biden should say in Poland: No Russia reset while Putin is in power

• President Joe Biden is going to Warsaw to mark one year of war. Other than Ukraine itself, there is no better place than Poland for Biden to show what is at stake.

=> ↺ Putin’s invasion shatters the myth of Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood

• Vladimir Putin’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine has shattered the myth of Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood and represents the point of no return in the relationship between the post-Soviet neighbors, writes Taras Kuzio.

=> ↺ Rebuilding Ukraine: Private sector role can help counter corruption concerns

• Recent corruption allegations have shaken international confidence in the Ukrainian authorities but Ukraine’s vibrant private sector benefits from broadly positive perceptions and should play a leading role in rebuilding efforts.

=> ↺ Kharkiv’s year of war: ‘A bomb can fall on your home any time – and your life is over’

• Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv put up a fierce resistance when Moscow’s forces launched their full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. Russian troops eventually withdrew back to their side of the border, 40 kilometres north of Ukraine’s second largest city. But one year on, the people of Kharkiv are still living under the constant threat of Russian missile strikes.

=> ↺ ‘Not the time for dialogue’ with Russia’s Putin, Macron says at Munich summit

• French President Emmanuel Macron said Kyiv’s Western allies were “ready for a prolonged conflict” in Ukraine as world leaders gathered at the Munich Security Conference on Friday to renew their vow to back Kyiv against Russian forces ahead of the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion.

=> ↺ A Life in Exile: Ukrainian Refugees in Germany, One Year Later

• Just over a year ago, Vladimir Putin sent his army into Ukraine, forcing millions of Ukrainians into flight. Hundreds of thousands ended up in Germany. We checked in with some of them to find out how they have adjusted to their new lives.

=> ↺ Explosion at Samara weapons plant kills one and injures three — Meduza

• At least one person was killed and at least three were injured by an explosion at a defense enterprise in Russia’s Samara region on Thursday, state media reported.

=> ↺ ‘Do you know why the Ukrainians are mad at us?’ How the war in Ukraine has changed Dagestanis’ views of the Russian army — Meduza

=> ↺ NYT Book Review in Denial on Japanese Persecution in World War II

• The insistence that not all Japanese people were banned from California severely damages the credibility of the New York Times.

=> ↺ William Astore: Enough is Enough

• Bill Astore’s Speech for the Rage Against the War Machine Rally.

=> ↺ Moscow man arrested for attempting to bring explosives into train station — Meduza

• Moscow police arrested a man at Kursky Railway Station who tried to pass through the building’s metal detector while carrying explosives, Russian state media reported on Friday.

=> ↺ Ukrainian court sentences Russian propagandist Anton Krasovsky to five years in prison, in absentia — Meduza

• A Ukrainian court has sentenced the RT propagandist Anton Krasovsky to five years in prison. The trial took place in absentia, reports Ukraine Security Service in a press release.

=> ↺ Close to 15K Russians killed in Ukraine since start of invasion identified through open sources — Meduza

• Mediazona and BBC News Russian have confirmed the names of 14,709 Russians killed in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, based on open sources.

=> ↺ Ministry of Justice declares journalist Andrey Loshak and others ‘foreign agents’ — Meduza

• The Russian justice ministry has once again added to its list of “foreign agents.” This week, the additions include journalist Andrey Loshak, the historian Andrey Zubov, and the educational project Shkola Vozrozhdenie (School of Revival).

=> ↺ Pussy Riot activist Rita Flores disappears after being detained by Moscow police — Meduza

• Pussy Riot activist Rita Flores has stopped answering phone calls after her apartment was searched and she herself was detained by the Moscow police.

=> ↺ French court convicts far-right militants over Macron assassination plot

• A French court on Friday found three members of a far-right group guilty of conspiring to prepare an act of terrorism against President Emmanuel Macron in 2018.

=> ↺ Ukraine war exposes splits between Global North and South

• Over the past year, most Global South countries adopted a position of studied neutrality on the war in Ukraine. Their self-interest over the principles of international law and stability ended up serving Russian interests and regional tyrants, but not their citizens, who comprise most of the world’s population.

=> ↺ ‘We cannot risk wars in Europe again,’ says Lithuanian president

• Cooperation between Ukraine and NATO will be one of the key issues to be discussed at the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday.

=> ↺ Lithuanian Railways to probe sanction-busting by Belarusian firms

• Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways, LTG) said on Friday that it has asked prosecutors to investigate possible attempts by businesses to get around EU sanctions.

=> ↺ Norway warns of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons threat

• Russia is increasingly reliant on its nuclear deterrent, including tactical nuclear weapons that may be used on a battlefield, according to a Norwegian intelligence report released on February 13.

=> ↺ South Korea, US to step up nuclear drills amid growing threats from North Korea

• South Korea and the United States will stage tabletop exercises in Washington next week to improve operations of American nuclear assets as part of efforts to better counter North Korea’s threats, Seoul’s defence ministry said on Friday.

=> ↺ Australia court releases pleadings by soldier alleging human rights abuse to media outlets

• The Federal Court of Australia Thursday agreed to release documents to the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and The Guardian filed in a case by former Australian solder Dominic de Pyle. The case alleges that Pyle’s human rights were violated when he was required to perform sex acts as part of his training.

=> ↺ Pennsylvania governor will continue state death penalty moratorium

• Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro Thursday announced that he will not issue execution warrants while in office, thus continuing a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania. The governor also called on the PA General Assembly to abolish the death penalty in Pennsylvania.

=> ↺ Myanmar junta targets Kayin state on Thai border, a rebel hotbed in a key location

• The military has shifted to airstrikes after ground offenses proved ineffective.

=> ↺ Villagers to be displaced by Luang Prabang Dam want more compensation

• Relocation will rob them of their farmland and Mekong River livelihoods

=> ↺ Quizzed at UN, Chinese delegates deny rights abuses against Uyghurs, Tibetans

• ‘The freedom of people of all ethnic groups to believe in all religions has been fully guaranteed.’

=> ↺ Seoul’s defense ministry denies Korean troops massacred civilians during Vietnam War

• Korean government intends to appeal a court ruling that awarded damages to a Vietnamese victim of a 1968 massacre.

=> ↺ First Group Of Ukrainians Finishes Advanced U.S. Military Training In Germany

• The first group of 635 Ukrainian fighters has finished a five-week advanced U.S. training course in Germany on sophisticated combat skills and armored vehicles, the Pentagon said.

=> ↺ Ukraine Will Present Peace Resolution To UN, Zelenskiy Says

• President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that Kyiv next week will present a resolution to the United Nations on peace in Ukraine.

=> ↺ Russian Woman Flees Country Following Harsh Detainment For Discussing Ukraine War

• Olesya Ovchinnikova, a Russian woman from Krasnodar who was brutally detainment along with her husband in a restaurant for discussing the war in Ukraine, has left Russia.

=> ↺ Russia Urges US To Prove Innocence Over Nord Stream Incident

• The Russian side will not allow to simply turn the page on destroying critical energy infrastructure, Girenko said.

=> ↺ Russia to React if EU Seizes Frozen Assets in Favor of Ukraine

• Grushko called the actions of the EU and the West on Russia a “flagrant violation of basic international law.”

=> ↺ ‘I haver never seen such cold eyes’: Denmark’s Queen remembers meeting Putin

• Queen Margrethe has spoken about her two meetings with Russian president Vladimir Putin around a decade ago in a forthright interview with a Danish newspaper.

=> ↺ Finland to join Nato without Sweden if Turkey gives go ahead

• Finland’s president has said that his country will have to join Nato before Sweden if Turkey opts to only ratify Finnish membership of the security alliance.

=> ↺ Andrey Mordvichev replaces Alexander Lapin as commander of Russia’s Central Military District — Meduza

• Lieutenant General Andrey Mordvichev has replaced Colonel General Alexander Lapin as the commander of Russia’s Central Military District, according to the government’s Uniform State Register of Legal Entities.

=> ↺ Biden Pulls Nomination of Human Rights Lawyer for Denouncing Israeli Apartheid

=> ↺ The Big Lie’s new plot: Trump just curiously flip-flopped on mail-in voting

• Donald Trump’s Big Lie has always had many moving parts, and as strange as it may seem, there are new ones every day.

=> ↺ Marcos: China laser not enough to activate US defense pact

• “Despite the fact that it was a military-grade laser that was pointed at our coast guard, I do not think that that is sufficient for it to trigger the Mutual Defense Treaty,” Marcos said in his first public remarks about the Feb. 6 incident involving two Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal.

• Responding to a question, Marcos said he was concerned that activating the 1951 treaty would ratchet up regional tensions.

=> ↺ EDF intelligence chief: Russia has started using spy balloons

• According to Grosberg, the main purpose of sending the meteorological balloons into Ukraine is to exhaust Ukrainian air defenses, who have to track and destroy them, as it is not known what they may be carrying.

=> ↺ Ukraine is burning through ammunition faster than the US and NATO can produce it. Inside the Pentagon’s plan to close the gap

• Running full-tilt, as it was on a recent January morning, the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant churns out roughly 11,000 artillery shells a month. That may seem like a lot, but the Ukrainian military often fires that many shells over just a few days.

• To meet that demand, the Scranton plant is undergoing a massive expansion, fueled by millions of dollars in new defense spending from the Pentagon. It’s investing in new high-tech machinery, hiring a few dozen additional workers and will eventually shift to a 24/7 schedule of constant production.

=> ↺ Christian Farm Laborer Beaten to Death in Pakistan

• He said that though the police had arrested Waseem and two others, getting justice from the courts would be an uphill task.

=> ↺ After decade of civil war, Yemen is in ‘Critical Stage’ – prime minister

• The civil war in Yemen between the internationally recognized government supported by a Saudi-backed coalition of Arab states and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, which began in 2014, has created one of the worst humanitarian crises of the modern era.

=> ↺ ‘Scores of Christians killed, others displaced’ – Nigerian think tank builds ‘atrocities database’

• A Nigerian research center has built a database which tracks how thousands of Christians in northern Nigeria have faced displacement, kidnapping, or death, with little government attention or response to the problem.

• Organized and compiled by the Kukah Centre of Abuja, the “Nigerian Atrocities Documentation Project” aims to compile evidence-based data into “an atrocities’ database” recording Christian persecution in northern Nigeria.

=> ↺ Iran ‘mapping’ Jews in diaspora for kill squads

• It was at a closed event he organised in Iran that she said was told of the plan “to identify all the prominent NGOs run by Jews, who was doing what in each business sector, the important rabbis. They wanted to figure out their influence and where they lived with their families in order to target them.” Talebzadeh, she said, was explicit that the mapping was preparation for murder to make “the diaspora pay a price”.

• In November MI5’s director general Ken McCallum said ten Iranian assassination plots had been foiled in the UK in the space of a year, although he did not say whether Jews had been targeted.

=> ↺ Tehran plans to assassinate influential Jews world over if Israel attacks, claims French journalist

• Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plotted to “identify all the prominent NGOs run by Jews, who was doing what in each business sector, the important rabbis,” Catherine Perez-Shakdam told the Jewish Chronicle.

• Shakdam has met both Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi, and used to write for to pro-Iran media outlets in the past.

• She learnt about the plot at a meeting, which accessed through filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh, who died in April last year.

=> ↺ Pakistani Taliban Storm Karachi Police Headquarters, Kill 4

• Police officials said between eight and 10 assailants traveling in a motor vehicle threw hand grenades at the main gate before storming the multistory police facility. The ensuing clashes killed three assailants, ending the siege, said Siddiqui, a senior leader of the Pakistan People’s Party. The fate of the rest of the militants was not known immediately, however.

=> ↺ Nigeria election 2023: Has Buhari tackled Boko Haram threat?

• The Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap), which splintered from Boko Haram seven years ago, is also becoming more of a threat. In 2022, it claimed the highest number of attacks since its formation, and it controls strategically important territory around Lake Chad.

=> ↺ Pushing papers, telling jokes In the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Roman Abramovich and his team hoped for a peaceful resolution. Then Bucha changed everything. — Meduza

• At the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the hope of regulating the emergency through peace talks was very much alive on both sides of the conflict. Since then, those hopes have evaporated. The Ukrainian side has grown disenchanted with a Russian delegation incapable of making autonomous decisions, pinned as it were to the positions rigidly specified in advance by the Kremlin. After the Russian atrocities in Bucha shocked the world, the space for compromise shrank to a minimum, and the peace talks devolved into addressing localized questions like prisoner exchanges and the grain deal. Yet the peacemaking group still exists, and its Russian side, loosely organized around the oligarch Roman Abramovich, has a number of surprising players. Here’s what we know about its composition and its members’ contacts with the Ukrainian side.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Russia Summons Dutch Ambassador Over MH17 Probe

• Russia said it summoned the Dutch ambassador over what it called “obsessive attempts” by the Netherlands to hold it responsible for the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine in 2014.

=> ↺ How Reuters Covered Terrorist Mahmoud Aleiwat

• Reuters, the largest wire agency in the world, has established a record of deep antipathy to Israel. It recently did itself proud with a report by Henriette Chacar, covering the story of 13.-year-old Mahmoud Aleiwat, who attempted to murder an Israeli father and son at the City of David archeological site in Jerusalem. More on this story can be found here: “Reuters Glowingly Describes Palestinian Terror Teen as Wannabe Chef Who Loved Football,” by Rachel O’Donoghue, Algemeiner, February 7, 2023: [...]

Environment

=> ↺ ‘Feedback loops’ worsening climate crisis: report

• Global warming melts sea ice, which leads to further warming because water absorbs more heat than ice, creating what scientists call a “climate feedback loop.”

• A report released Friday contains what researchers believe is the most comprehensive list of feedback loops ever compiled and a stark warning that climate models may be underestimating their impact.

=> ↺ Cancer Alley in Louisiana: What Is It, and How Can Legislation Address Environmental Injustice?

• Naively, I believed water was only ever polluted through the use of dated pipes, so I was taken aback upon being introduced to the chemical waste that pollutes Louisiana’s bodies of water in St. James Parish. I was even more alarmed when I learned that these issues have been festering since the plants first arrived in the 1960s, with little intervention by the local Louisiana government.

=> ↺ Nearly 30 dangerous feedback loops could permanently shift the Earth’s climate, scientists say

• Dangerous climate feedback loops are increasing global warming and risk causing a permanent shift away from the Earth’s current climate, according to a new study.

• Climate feedback loops are cyclical chain reactions that happen when one change triggers further changes, in a process that keeps on repeating itself. Some of these feedback loops drive down warming, but others amplify it.

=> ↺ Significant deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Finnish Lapland

• The company estimates that setting up the mine would require an investment in the region of 1–1.5 billion euros. Constructing the mining infrastructure could begin early next decade, provided that the conclusions of the scoping study are corroborated by further investigations and permitting processes are initiated.

=> ↺ Antarctica Time Bomb

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ E-scooters more popular than taxis, but walking still rules in Helsinki

• Nearly half of the journeys around the city were done on foot.

=> ↺ Some Lapland filling stations fear fuel shortage

• Filling stations in northern Finland might run out of fuel, if a truckers’ strike continues as planned until next Tuesday.

=> ↺ California solar farm marks largest private-public partnership in DOD history

• A recently-unveiled solar farm at Edwards Air Force Base in California represents the largest public-private partnership in Defense Department history.

• The 1.3 GW project was built in collaboration with Terra-Gen as a result of the Edwards Solar Enhance Use Lease Project. The project, which features more than 2 million panels, is the largest project of its kind in U.S. Air Force history.

=> ↺ Meet the new batteries unlocking cheaper electric vehicles

• New batteries are coming to America.  This week, Ford announced plans for a new factory in Michigan that will produce lithium iron phosphate batteries for its electric vehicles. The plant, expected to cost $3.5 billion and begin production in 2026, would be the first to make these batteries in the US.

=> ↺ How does an EV battery actually work?

• The batteries propelling electric vehicles have quickly become the most crucial component, and expense, for a new generation of cars and trucks. They represent not only the potential for cleaner transportation but also broad shifts in geopolitical power, industrial dominance, and environmental protection.

=> ↺ Huge EVs are far from perfect, but they could still help fight climate change.

• This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. When it comes to watching the Super Bowl, I’ve always been more of a football person than a commercials person.

=> ↺ Zimbabwe: When Energy Crises Leave Us in the Dark, But Life Has to Go On

• Load shedding has been the reality every day since the start of 2023, according to a local tracker. All indications are that the situation won’t be remedied for many months ahead. Just recently, Eskom’s board chairperson, Mpho Makwana, said South Africa was going to be hit by power cuts for at least two more years.

• Across the country, a schedule of power cuts dictates two- to four-hour periods when power supply is cut off, and this is done in stages: Stage 1 means the least loadshedding, while Stage 8 could mean hours and hours of load shedding. In addition, the schedules vary from region to region and municipality to municipality. In some areas, schedules are implemented more efficiently than in others – and Eskom sometimes changes from one stage to another with very little notice.

=> ↺ Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

• Few technologies defined the 20th century more than the car. On the surface, the love affair with the personal automobile continues unabated into this century. The number of drivers on the world’s roads continues to rise almost everywhere. The distance driven by American motorists hit a new peak last year, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration. But there are hints that this is changing. People like Ms Crandall show why. Getting a driving licence was once a nearly universal rite of passage into adulthood. Now it is something that a growing minority of young people either ignore or actively oppose, into their 20s and beyond.

• That, in turn, is starting to create more support for anti-car policies being passed in cities around the world. From New York to Norway, a growing number of cities and local politicians are passing anti-car laws, ripping out parking spaces, blocking off roads and changing planning rules to favour pedestrians over drivers. Anne Hidalgo, the socialist mayor of Paris, boasts of “reconquering” her city for its residents.

=> ↺ The War on Cars

• The War on Cars is a new podcast about the epic, hundred years’ war between The Car and The City. We deliver news and commentary on the latest developments in the worldwide fight to undo a century’s worth of damage wrought by the automobile. We produce a new show every other week.

=> ↺ E-scooters more popular than taxis, but walking still rules in Helsinki

• The most common mode of transportation was walking, with 47 percent of trips done on foot. Walking was even more popular in the heart of the city.

• After pedestrian travel came automobiles (15%), buses (11%) and then bicycles (9%), according to the survey.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Philippines intercepts Vietnamese fishing boat in Reed Bank

• Incident on Feb. 9 happened days after alleged Chinese laser harassment against a Philippine coast guard boat.

=> ↺ Vietnam’s fishing fleet unaware of newly agreed Indonesian economic zone

• The alleged incursions put pressure on Hanoi and Jakarta to disclose details of the deal.

=> ↺ Africa: A Man’s Best Friend is a Trafficker’s Worst Nightmare

• In a recent webinar, Dr. Philip Muruthi, vice president of Species Conservation and Science at the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) and Mark Kinyua, a Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) canine expert and Head of KWS’s Marine and Community Program, explained to journalists how dogs have become a useful new tool in combating the illegal wildlife trade.

• Sniffer dogs, we were told, are capable of detecting the tiniest amounts of wildlife contraband, such as ivory tusks or jewellery and even rhino horn powder, even if it is hidden in a 40-foot shipping container. As a result, the AWF is promoting the deployment of detection dogs to combat illegal trade in East Africa, where poaching in national parks and other protected areas is one of the greatest menaces to wildlife preservation.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ Hong Kong population shrinks for third year straight, as no. of residents falls by 0.9% in 2022

• Hong Kong’s population fell by 0.9 per cent in 2022, according to provisional statistics from the Census and Statistics Department. It is the third consecutive year in which the population has fallen. The number of residents shrank by 68,300 to 7,333,200 last year, amid an exodus of workers and a falling birth rate.

=> ↺ Water crisis in West: Massive reservoir Lake Powell hits historic low water level

• “In the year 2000 the two reservoirs were 95% full. They’re roughly 25% full now,” said Brad Udall, a water and climate scientist at Colorado State University. “It’s hard to overstate how important the Colorado River is to the entire American southwest.”

Finance

=> ↺ Disney: The Place Where Dreams of Mass Layoffs Come True for Investors

=> ↺ Sanders and Warren Grill US’s Largest Grocer on Reports of Rampant Wage Theft

=> ↺ What is Money with Robert Breedlove

• What is Money with Robert Breedlove.

=> ↺ January arrivals in Hong Kong just 7 per cent of 2019 figures

• Arrivals in Hong Kong were down 92.6 per cent in January compared to 2019 figures supplied to HKFP by the Tourism Board.

=> ↺ China’s Top Tech Banker Is Missing? Here’s What That Means

• Investment bank China Renaissance Holdings said it had lost touch with Mr Bao Fan, its prominent founder.

=> ↺ Chinese tech billionaire Bao Fan missing, company says, sending shares plunging

• The Chinese billionaire chairman of investment bank China Renaissance has gone missing, the firm said, as shares in the company plunged in Hong Kong on Friday. Bao Fan, who is also executive director of the bank, is a major figure in the Chinese tech industry…

=> ↺ Maritza Perez Medina on Fentanyl, Nancy Altman on Social Security

=> ↺ These Workers Were Fired After Union Activity. Here’s How They Got Un-Fired.

=> ↺ What Is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)?

• The earned income tax credit (EITC) put an average of $2,043 back in recipients’ hands and helped lift millions of children above the poverty line last year.

• Thirty-one million people applied and received the credit last year, according to the IRS. But a fifth of taxpayers who are eligible for the credit still don’t claim it. Here’s what you should know about the earned income tax credit and eligibility.

=> ↺ Corporate Greed and Deregulation Fuel Threat of More Bomb Trains As East Palestine Demands Answers

• We look at the failures that led to the massive train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that blanketed the town with a toxic brew of spilled chemicals and gases, fouling the air, polluting waterways and killing thousands of fish and frogs. Residents are suffering ailments including respiratory distress, sore throats, burning eyes and rashes, all with unknown long-term consequences. Many say they do not trust officials who tell them it is safe to return to their homes. This catastrophe could have been prevented, had it not been for lax regulation and the outsized lobbying power of corporations like Norfolk Southern, says Matthew Cunningham-Cook, a researcher and writer at The Lever who is part of a team that is reporting on the disaster.

=> ↺ Warren Demands Answers on Soaring Egg Prices as Top Producers’ Profits Skyrocket

=> ↺ Warren and Porter Demand Answers From Big Egg Over ‘Massive Spike’ in Prices

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Katie Porter on Thursday demanded answers from the five largest egg producers in the United States over recent price surges that companies have blamed on an avian flu outbreak—a narrative that advocates view as an effort to distract attention from rampant profiteering in the industry.

=> ↺ Mike Pence Calls for Privatizing Social Security in Fox News Interview

=> ↺ Republicans Plan to Back Off on Calls to Repeal Affordable Care Act in 2024

=> ↺ Mail delays loom as Posti workers join transport strikers

• Package delivery times may be delayed by up to a week, while it could take up to two weeks for letters and magazines to arrive.

=> ↺ Working from home attracts people from big cities to the suburbs

=> ↺ Housing prices to fall and rents to rise: PTT

• Finnish economic research institute, Pellervo Economic Research (PTT), has predicted that housing prices will fall and rents will rise in 2023. However, the institute has also said that the market is expected to recover in the latter half of the year, and that there is no risk of a downward spiral.

• PTT predicts that the uncertainty in the economy and the rising interest rates will bring housing prices down this year, while rents will increase at a faster rate.

=> ↺ Roblox Reports Nearly $1 Billion Net Loss in 2022

• Roblox released its fourth-quarter, year-end financial earnings for 2022, which show jumps in revenue and bookings while losses continue to deepen. The company saw a 16% increase in revenue year-on-year, with $2.2 billion, while bookings increased 5% year-on-year, at $2.9 billion.

=> ↺ Nigeria: Protests at banks and ATMs break out amid ‘cash scarcity’ concerns

• Destroying ATMs, breaking into banks and setting up blockades in the street: angry protests erupted on February 15 in several cities across Nigeria as people struggle to get their hands on newly designed banknotes. Frustration is mounting as some citizens can’t even purchase basic necessities amid widespread shortages of the new currency, just a week ahead of the 2023 general elections.

=> ↺ Savers need to keep pressure on banks: RBA

• Short-changed savers have been urged to shop around and keep pressure on banks to offer competitive rates. Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has told savers to switch to a better deal if their interest rates don’t reflect the 325-basis point cumulative increase to the official cash rate since May last year.

=> ↺ Technology company accused of price fixes at mine sites

• The corporate watchdog has launched legal action over alleged price fixing and tender bid rigging for entertainment services at Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group mine sites. Technology company Swift is accused of making agreements with a competitor to fix technology infrastructure prices, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says.

=> ↺ France: Lower House Starts Last Day Of Debate On Pension Reform

• Lawmakers will have until midnight to discuss the pension system reform bill, which will then inmediately pass to the Senate.

=> ↺ French Workers Occupy Small Towns to Reject the Pension Reform

• Their protest seeks to attract the attention of legislators, who will have to vote on the Macron’s proposals on Friday.

=> ↺ China Remains Germany’s Most Important Trading Partner in 2022

• Many product groups from China were “indispensable for the German economy,” according to an analysis published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel) on Wednesday.

=> ↺ The SEC Is Starting a Massive Database of Every Stock Trade

• The Consolidated Audit Trail is intended to collect and accurately identify every order, cancellation, modification, and trade execution for all exchange-listed equities and options across all U.S. markets, allowing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to track orders and identify who made them.

• The SEC ordered the CAT to be created in 2012 after regulators had difficulty identifying the causes of the 2010 “flash crash.” At the time, then-SEC Chair Mary Schapiro described the CAT as providing regulators with the “data and means to exponentially enhance [their] abilities to oversee a highly complex market structure.” And in years since, the CAT has been championed as necessary for the SEC’s enforcement efforts.

=> ↺ Management Priorities for Highly Turbulent Times

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ The Specter of ‘Woke Communism’

• How Corporate America Became the Bogeyman of Today’s Anti-Communist Crusaders.

=> ↺ How ‘Woke’ Corporate America Became the Bogeyman of Today’s Anti-Communist Crusaders

• Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida and perhaps the next president of the United States, is waging war against something he and many others on the right identify as “woke communism.” DeSantis even persuaded the Florida legislature to pass a Victims of Communism law, mandating that every November 7th (the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia), all public schools in the state must devote 45 minutes of instruction to the evils of the red menace.

=> ↺ Local media bosses furious at Tim Davie’s ‘cat that got the cream’ licence fee comments

• BBC’s £3.7bn licence fee income rising as commercial sector budgets cut.

=> ↺ Channel 5 agrees second payout in a year over ‘Can’t Pay? We’ll Take it Away!’

• The settlement relates to an episode of the show broadcast in April 2017.

=> ↺ Fox News Worried That Fact-Checking Trump’s “Big Lie” Would Hurt Ratings

=> ↺ [Joke] Tucker Carlson Fears That Leaked Texts of Him Telling Truth Will Kill His Brand

• “Tucker is in a very dark place right now,” a Fox News colleague said. “To be unmasked as an honest person is literally his worst nightmare.”

=> ↺ Nasty, Brutish, and Short—Chicago-Style

• Chicago, Ill.—The mayor is female and an accomplished lawyer. She is Black, and gay, with a wife and child. And she is a progressive who beat the establishment when the odds were against her. For Democrats and left-leaning local politicians, what’s not to love?

=> ↺ After Another Police Killing in Chicago, We Need to Focus on Care, Not Cops

• When police take a life, a public-relations machine whirrs into motion. The goal of the subsequent press releases and media interviews is to cast whoever has been killed by a police bullet, car, or baton in an unsympathetic light. She may have been using drugs. He had an aggressive face. She was experiencing a mental health crisis. He had a gun. He ran. He had been arrested before. He was in a gang. Such well-worn lines serve a purpose: to keep the public from seeing the person and their family as victims deserving of rights, care, or mourning.

=> ↺ The Supreme Court Can’t Even Agree on a Code of Ethics for Itself

• Reports surfaced last week that the nine justices of the Supreme Court have not been able to agree on a code of ethics for their institution. The Supreme Court is the only court in the nation that operates without a code of ethics, but in 2019 Justice Elena Kagan appeared before Congress and assured representatives that one was in the works. Four years and one Supreme-spouse-supported coup attempt later, the justices still appear unable to agree on the basic ethical standards to which they should be held accountable.

=> ↺ When Black Women Are Punished for Winning Too Much

• At this year’s Grammy awards, Beyoncé Knowles became the winner of the most Grammys ever, but lost the Album of the Year category to Harry Styles. It was the fourth time she lost that prize to a white artist. As widespread incredulity gave way to outrage, a Variety article that had been published a couple of days before the awards ceremony began resurfacing on Twitter.

=> ↺ America’s Toxic Romance With the Free Market

• The publication of Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway’s Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues From Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change in 2010 helped transform how science news was reported in the media. The book persuaded reporters worldwide to become more skeptical of industry-sponsored “experts”—particularly on issues like global warming. Oreskes and Conway hope their latest collaboration, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market (Bloomsbury), will have a similar impact. I recently caught up with Oreskes, who teaches science history at Harvard, and is also the author of Why Trust Science, Science on a Mission: How Military Funding Shaped What We Do and Don’t Know About the Ocean, and Plate Tectonics An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth. Long ago, in another life, Oreskes was a geologist. During our conversation, we discussed The Big Myth and how free-market economics became a dominant force in American public policy.1

=> ↺ Trump Claims He’s Been Exonerated in Georgia Elections Probe. That’s Not True.

=> ↺ Justice Minister Varga refuses to meet EP’s PEGA Committee

=> ↺ Berlin’s Recent Botched Election Breeds Public Distrust

• Berlin—An unprecedented do-over election here last Sunday, February 12, put the notoriously left-wing German capital on the precipice of conservative government for the first time in two decades. The revote for state and municipal government—ordered by the state’s constitutional court after widespread mishandling of the September 2021 polls—saw support for the Social Democrats (SPD) plummet, while the rival Christian Democrats (CDU) surged more than 10 percent to 28.2 percent to take the clear lead among parties.

=> ↺ Americans’ trust in news continues to decline, says new survey

• Americans’ trust in news continues to fall according to a new survey from the Knight Foundation and Gallup.

=> ↺ Brazil’s New Lula Government Is an Opportunity for a New Trade Model

• Change is afoot in Latin America. The region—battered by COVID, inequality and environmental crisis—is seeing a second wave of progressive governments elected, most significantly with the recent victory of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil. This is a unique opportunity for us to build a new trade model that puts people and the planet first. Stopping the harmful EU-Mercosur trade deal is a good place to start.

=> ↺ Brazilian Amazon Leader Urges Lula to Prosecute Bolsonaro for Genocide Against Indigenous Yamomami

• The new Brazilian government recently conducted operations to expel thousands of illegal gold miners from Indigenous Yanomami land in the Amazon rainforest. The miners have caused a humanitarian crisis among the Yanomami who have suffered from severe malnutrition and illness from illegal mining operations that have polluted rivers and destroyed forests. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently accused Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right government of committing genocide against the Yanomami people. Bolsonaro, who is expected to return to Brazil from Florida next month, could face genocide charges for his actions. Democracy Now! spoke to Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, a leader and shaman for the Yanomami people, while he was in Washington, D.C., last week. Yanomami says he supports the prosecution of Bolsonaro.

=> ↺ You’d Scowl, Too, if Media Covered You Like Bernie Sanders

• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the new chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions—and the New York Times has something to say about it. In a piece by veteran reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg (2/12/23) headlined, “Bernie Sanders Has a New Role. It Could Be His Final Act in Washington,” the paper demonstrates once again (FAIR.org, 2/24/16, 10/1/19, 1/30/20) how the lens through which corporate media view progressive politicians colors their coverage.

=> ↺ Echoing Workers, Sanders Says Train Derailments Stem From Wall Street Greed

• Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday connected the spate of recent train derailments in the United States to Wall Street-backed cost-cutting and other policy decisions that have decimated the rail industry’s workforce and compromised safety for the sake of larger profits.

=> ↺ Silencing Critics of Israel: Biden Pulls Nomination of Human Rights Lawyer For Decrying Apartheid

• Last Friday, the State Department announced the nomination of James Cavallaro, a widely respected human rights attorney, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. But earlier this week, the State Department withdrew Cavallaro’s nomination after reports emerged that he had described Israel as an apartheid state and had criticized House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s close ties to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Defending the withdrawal of Cavallaro’s nomination, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, “His statements clearly do not reflect U.S. policy. They are not a reflection of what we believe, and they are inappropriate to say the least.” The decision has sparked outrage within the human rights community. Cavallaro joins us to explain that this move by the Biden administration is particularly troubling because the role he was nominated for does not have any authority over U.S.-Israel relations and is an independent position.

=> ↺ Trump’s Legal Team Is in Hot Water

• By any reasonable measure, it’s been a bad week in the legal system for former President Donald Trump and his allies. Special prosecutor Jack Smith—who’s heading up inquiries into the run-up to the January 6 insurrection and the former president’s enormous cache of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago—has sent out a new flurry of subpoenas, including one for former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s former personal attorney Evan Corcoran. The Corcoran subpoena seeks to compel the attorney’s testimony under what’s known as the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege, which is not what you’d call a good look for the Trump legal team.

=> ↺ Katie Porter Is Aiming for Dianne Feinstein’s Seat

• This week, California’s 89-year-old Senator Dianne Feinstein bowed to the inevitable. Facing a growing chorus of critics who detailed her incapacity for the job, and a growing number of young congressional colleagues who were throwing their hat into the ring in an effort to forcibly dislodge her, Feinstein has announced that she will not seek reelection in 2024.

=> ↺ Nikki Haley’s Anti-Union Fanaticism Is Wild Even for a Republican

• Nikki Haley has tried to distinguish herself as a Republican presidential candidate by announcing, “We won’t win the fight for the 21st Century if we keep trusting politicians from the 20th Century.”

=> ↺ News Roundup: Deliberate Lies

=> ↺ ARIA Fires Back Against TikTok’s Song Restrictions in Australia: ‘An Attempt to Downplay the Significance of Music’

• Earlier this month, amid continued licensing talks between the major labels and TikTok, it came to light that the video-sharing app had started limiting the music that certain users can feature in their clips. Now, rightsholders including the Big Three are pushing back against the “test.”

=> ↺ Top Justice Department Official Advises Against Using TikTok: ‘We Need to Be Very Concerned’

• Following a Chinese spy balloon’s much-publicized entry into U.S. airspace – and amid continued talks of a possible TikTok ban in the U.S. – a top Justice Department official is now advising Americans against using the app. Since arriving on the scene,

=> ↺ In the Documents: Emails Between Pennsylvania’s Butler County Commissioners and Prominent Election Denial Group

=> ↺ YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki Announces She’s Stepping Down

• YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced that she’s stepping down from her position. YouTube’s Chief Product Officer, Neal Mohan, will take the lead as the Senior Vice President and new head of YouTube.

=> ↺ Hong Kong 47: Court told of division among election hopefuls, as democrat Au Nok-hin testifies against peers

• The second week of a landmark national security trial relating to 47 Hong Kong pro-democracy figures saw a former legislator testifying against his co-defendants. Meanwhile, three handpicked judges heard that democrats were divided over candidate selection methods in the unofficial primary polls.

=> ↺ Corruption scandal deals new blow to Xi’s Chinese football dream

=> ↺ How Nick Fuentes dashed Joe Kent’s congressional hopes, delighting Democrats

=> ↺ NYT Trans Letter a Fight for Media Democracy

• In a letter to New York Times leadership (2/15/23), more than 180 of the paper’s contributors (later swelling to more than 1,000) raised “serious concerns about editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non⁠-⁠binary and gender nonconforming people.” What started as a conversation about a paper’s coverage exploded into a battle between media workers who see a problem at one of the most powerful media outlets on earth, and a media management that simply won’t listen.

=> ↺ Hong Kong gov’t deregisters pro-democracy union that called for protest ahead of security law

• A Hong Kong pro-democracy union that called for a protest ahead of the national security law’s enactment has been dissolved by the government. The Hong Kong White Collar (Administration and Clerical) Connect Union (HKWCCU) announced its deregistration on Thursday.

=> ↺ Defending against AI Lobbyists

• When is it time to start worrying about artificial intelligence interfering in our democracy? Maybe when an AI writes a letter to The New York Times opposing the regulation of its own technology.

• That happened last month. And because the letter was responding to an essay we wrote, we’re starting to get worried. And while the technology can be regulated, the real solution lies in recognizing that the problem is human actors—and those we can do something about.

=> ↺ Murder, Lies and State Conspiracy

• Donald John Morrison was the last man to speak to Willie McRae, unless his murderer talked. He invited me warmly into his neat Benbecula home, where I was visiting with my friend, his cousin Donnie.

=> ↺ Musk shuts down two India Twitter offices: report

• The social media company closed its offices in New Delhi and Mumbai, leaving only one remaining office in Bengaluru, Bloomberg reported. Twitter cut more than 90 percent of its Indian workforce late last year.

=> ↺ After Mass Layoffs At Twitter, Elon Musk Shuts Two Of Three Twitter India Offices: Report

• According to a Bloomberg report, Elon Musk has shut these Twitter India offices and asked the staff to work from home in an effort to cut costs. Since only two of the three offices have been shut, the report mentions that Twitter’s office in New Delhi and Mumbai have been closed but the one in Bengaluru (Bangalore) is still open. The latter also houses most engineers.

=> ↺ TikTok planning 2 more data centers in Europe amid data security concerns

• The short video-sharing app, owned by China’s ByteDance, aims to expand its European data storage, TikTok’s general manager for operations in Europe Rich Waterworth said in a blog post.

• “We are at an advanced stage of finalising a plan for a second data centre in Ireland with a third party service provider, in addition to the site announced last year,” he said.

=> ↺ VMware, Broadcom extend merger close deadline by three months

• Britain’s competition regulator in January said it had started the first phase of an investigation into the acquisition, while EU antitrust regulators in February have resumed their investigation and will decide by June 7 whether to clear or block the deal.

• A Broadcom spokesperson said it was common for acquisitions of this size to extend their deal deadline.

=> ↺ Chinese tech billionaire Bao Fan goes missing: company

• Bao Fan, the chairman and chief executive of China Renaissance investment bank, has gone missing, the firm said Friday.

• “The company has been unable to contact Mr. Bao,” China Renaissance said in an announcement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, without offering further details.

=> ↺ Chinese tech billionaire goes missing: company

• The Chinese billionaire chairman of investment bank China Renaissance has gone missing, the firm said, as shares in the company plunged in Hong Kong on Friday.

• Bao Fan, who is also executive director of the bank, is a major figure in the Chinese tech industry and has played a key role in the emergence of various domestic [Internet] startups.

=> ↺ Google India hands over pink slips to over 400 employees

• Employees, who survived the recent layoffs at Google, are worried and have demanded assurances that their jobs are not next to be axed by the company during a recent all-hands meeting with top bosses.

• Denying that the layoffs were done “randomly”, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai had said earlier that he is “deeply sorry” for reducing the workforce.

=> ↺ Google India Lays Off 453 Employees Across Departments: Report

• Google India layoffs come just a few weeks after the parent company Alphabet Inc. announced that it would sack close to 12,000 employees or almost 6 per cent of its total staff. While back then the chief executive officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai did not exactly mention the names of departments that could see layoffs, he did mention that the company was also focussing more on artificial intelligence (AI).

=> ↺ Google has laid off 453 staff in India and Twitter has shut down two offices

• Google has reportedly laid off 453 employees in India as part of its global move to reduce its headcount by 12,000. The move came late yesterday (Feb. 16) night. CEO Sundar Pichai had mailed employees taking “full responsibility for the decisions that led us here,” The Hindu reported today citing sources.

=> ↺ Tech layoffs. Google India sacks 453 people from various operations

• Sources told businessline that a mail was sent out by Sanjay Gupta, Country Head and Vice President, Google India to the affected employees. Email sent with queries seeking comments from Google India did not elicit any reply.

• Last month, Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google, announced the sack of 12,000 employees or 6 per cent of its total headcount globally.

=> ↺ Turkey

• NClick on the image above for a list of charitable and humanitarian organizations that are aiding the relief efforts in Syria and Turkey. (Steve Brodner)

=> ↺ Is a Woman Ever Going to Win the White House?

• Trump’s performative macho is scaring voters in both parties away from women candidates.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ #KeepItOn in Nigeria: social media, internet must stay connected during elections

• Authorities in Nigeria must not shut down social media or in any way interfere with internet access throughout the upcoming elections.

=> ↺ Open letter: the government of Nigeria must keep the internet and social media platforms open and secure during the 2023 general elections and beyond

• Through an open letter, the #KeepItOn coalition calls on authorities in Nigeria to keep the internet and social media platforms open during the elections.

=> ↺ Author George Johnson on Writing Black, Queer — and Banned — Stories

• Over the past two years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of books being banned or challenged in school districts across the country. The majority of the stories that are being censored contain LGBTQ storylines and protagonists of color, including All Boys Aren’t Blue, a story about growing up Black and queer in New Jersey and Virginia and one of the top five most banned books in the country. The author, George Johnson, joined At Liberty this week to talk with us about what makes Black queer voices so threatening, the unique power of books, and their resolve to remain true to their story despite the attacks.

• You’ve said in prior interviews that you always knew your book was likely to be banned. Why did you think that?

=> ↺ Florida prisons ban “The Militant”

• The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has contacted the Florida Department of Corrections to express its concern regarding reports that The Militant was removed from several prisons due to the ideas expressed in the newspaper.

=> ↺ After silencing critics at home, Narendra Modi goes after foreign media

• The raid follows the BBC’s airing last month (only outside India) of a two-part documentary, “India: the Modi Question”. It charts Mr Modi’s career-long efforts to demonise India’s 200m-odd Muslims. It examines above all the prime minister’s role in an outbreak of sectarian violence in 2002 in Gujarat, during his time as chief minister of the state, in which over 1,000 died, most of them Muslims. This episode, in which dozens of Muslim women and girls were raped and burned alive by well-co-ordinated Hindu mobs, has long dogged the chest-puffing Hindu nationalist leader. The bbc documentary cites an unpublished report by the British government on the violence. It describes an organised campaign of ethnic-cleansing against Muslims. It holds Mr Modi “directly responsible” for a “climate of impunity” that enabled the violence.

=> ↺ Trial Begins for Belarusian Blogger Grabbed Off Diverted Flight

• One of Nexta’s founders, Stsiapan Putsila, and a site administrator, Yan Rudzik — both of whom no longer live in Belarus — are being in tried in absentia.

• The Nexta channel, which ran via a messaging app, gained popularity as a way to share news and information in 2020 during the contested reelection of President Alexander Lukashenko and the mass protests that followed.

=> ↺ Iran’s Orwellian Ploy to Outlaw Citizen Journalism and Online Speech

• Spooked by the success of citizen journalists in revealing the magnitude of the state-sponsored crackdown on protests and the critical role of popular public figures in mobilizing grassroots activists, Iran’s parliament is pursuing two pieces of legislation that boil down to a government fiat that Iranians shouldn’t have public opinions and express them freely.

• As part of the first legislation, which is being euphemistically promoted as a “bill to criminalize the publication of news contradicting citizenship rights,” the judicial commission of Iran’s Majlis, or parliament, is working to codify into law a ban on publishing—both by individuals and media outlets—any news that may have “detrimental societal consequences.”

=> ↺ Why India’s crackdown on BBC has left foreign correspondents anxious

• Indeed, while the income tax surveys on the British public broadcaster perhaps represent an unprecedented escalation, foreign correspondents say “hostility”, more often than not, is the Indian authorities’ default mode of engagement with them.

• Yet, how things unfolded after the raid — a full-throttle public attack on the BBC by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and almost no word of condemnation from back home — has left many of them stunned.

• “A lot of governments go after the media, they pinch and poke, but in a way that there’s deniability,” said a journalist working with a western daily, who requested anonymity, like all other journalists interviewed for this article. “But yesterday, there was not even a pretense.”

=> ↺ IT survey at BBC offices clocks over 55 hours

• The Supreme Court last week dismissed a plea seeking the imposition of a complete ban on the BBC in India in the wake of the controversial documentary, terming the petition “entirely misconceived” and “absolutely meritless”. Another set of petitions challenging the government’s decision to block the documentary’s access on social media platforms will be heard in April. On January 21, the government had issued directions to block multiple YouTube videos and Twitter posts sharing links to the documentary.

=> ↺ Ortega strips another 94 Nicaraguans of their nationality, including writers Sergio Ramirez and Gioconda Belli

• Daniel Ortega’s regime stripped another 94 people of their Nicaraguan nationality on Wednesday. Among those affected are exiled writers Sergio Ramírez, winner of the Cervantes Prize, and Gioconda Belli; Nicaraguan journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro; writer and feminist Sofía Montenegro; Bishop Silvio Báez, one of the most critical voices from the Church; and activist Vilma Núñez, who is the president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CNDH). The decision was notified by the president of the Court of Appeals of Managua, Ernesto Rodriguez. According to the ruling, the affected persons are charged with “treason” and are considered “fugitives.” In addition to revoking their Nicaraguan nationality, the justice system – which is under Ortega’s control – ordered all properties owned by the affected persons to be seized. Journalist Wilfredo Miranda, a contributor to EL PAÍS, is also one of the 94 people who have been stripped of their nationality.

=> ↺ Some Guy Thinks A Legal Doc Website’s Failure To Report On His Settlement Is Somehow Defamatory

• Lots of people have really strange ideas about what defamation entails. Far too many people believe defamation occurs anytime their feelings are hurt or they aren’t portrayed in the best light possible.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Voice of Democracy seeks way to restore broadcast license

• Hun Sen says the independent media outlet won’t be revived five months from election

=> ↺ Iran’s seizure of detained journalists’ devices raises fears of fresh arrests, convictions

• Five months after the death of a young woman in morality police custody sparked widespread protests, Iranian authorities are charging journalists who covered the uprising with anti-state crimes. In many of these cases, authorities have powerful tools at their disposal to aid in convictions: journalists’ phones and laptops. CPJ counted at least 95 journalists arrested since the start of the protests. More than half — at least 48 — had their devices seized, according to news accounts and interviews with sources inside the country.

• CPJ senior researcher Yeganeh Rezaian knows firsthand what happens when Iranian officials gain access to personal devices. In 2014, Iranian authorities arrested Yeganeh and her husband, Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, and seized their iPhones and laptops. Forensic analysis conducted later showed that the Rezaians’ computer files were copied using Disk Drill, a kind of file recovery software for phones and computers developed in the U.S. and widely available online.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ At Least 60,000 Minors Set to Cross Dangerous Panama-Colombia Jungle Gap in 2023, Says UN

=> ↺ Abandoned Truck With 18 Bodies Found In Bulgaria

• Police in Bulgaria on February 17 discovered an abandoned truck containing the bodies of 18 migrants who appeared to have suffocated to death.

=> ↺ Abandoned Truck Carrying Migrants Found in Bulgaria, 18 Dead

• Among the 18 people who died from asphyxiation was a 7-year-old boy, according to reports.

=> ↺ Striking Workers Just Won a Historic Union Contract At Book Giant HarperCollins

• HarperCollins Union ratified its new contract on Thursday, ending a months-long standoff for better pay and benefits.

=> ↺ Unauthorized Disclosure: Ollie Vargas

=> ↺ Andrei Pivovarov, former director of Open Russia, was transferred from a Krasnodar jail. His whereabouts have been unknown for a month. — Meduza

• Andrei Pivovarov’s whereabouts have been unknown for a month, Tatyana Usmanova, his former campaign manager, told human rights organization OVD-Info. Pivovarov, the former director of the Khodorkovsky-backed Open Russian organization was sentenced to four years in prison for carrying out the activities of an “undesirable organization.”

=> ↺ Judge issues nationwide order barring Starbucks from firing union supporters

• U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith ruled on Friday that Hannah Whitbeck, who was fired from her position as a shift supervisor in April, must be offered her position on an interim basis or a “substantially equivalent position” if her original post no longer exists without any prejudice to the rights and privileges she previously had.

=> ↺ Pakistani University Bans Mixed Gatherings Amid Taliban Influence

• A university in Pakistan’s northwestern region that was once controlled by the Taliban has banned mixed gatherings of male and female students outside the classroom, amid a resurgence in the influence of the Islamist militia in the area. [...]

=> ↺ Belarusian Workers’ Movement Members Given Long Prison Terms For Treason

• A court in Belarus has handed lengthy prison terms to 10 activists of the Rabochy rukh (Workers’ Movement) on charges of high treason and creation of an extremist group.

• The Workers’ Movement was created in 2020 amid nationwide protests against official results of the presidential election that handed victory to strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has run the country with an iron fist since 1994. The opposition says the vote was rigged.

=> ↺ Iran Hijab video upsets Tehran; Foreign Minister cancels visit to India

• Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian cancelled his visit to India next month. Iran’s Foreign Minister scrapped his trip to New Delhi over a promotional video of “The Raisina Dialogue 2023.” The clip showed Iranian women cutting their hair along with the image of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi. [...]

=> ↺ How ‘deepfake’ pornography victimizes women online

• CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan speaks with a Twitch streamer who was horrified to learn her likeness was being used in ‘deepfake’ pornography – a tactic being used as a method of online targeted harassment.

=> ↺ German Court Rules Police Use of Crime-Fighting Software is Unlawful

• Police use of automated data analysis to prevent crime in some German states was unconstitutional, a top German court said on Thursday, ruling in favor of critics of software provided by the CIA-backed Palantir Technologies PLTR.N.

• Provisions regulating the use of the technology in Hesse and Hamburg violate the right to informational self-determination, a statement from the constitutional court said.

• Hesse has been given a Sept. 30 deadline to rewrite its provisions, while legislation in Hamburg — where the technology was not yet in use — was nullified.

=> ↺ Illegal child marriage crackdown in Assam leaves families in anguish

• In India, the legal marriageable age is 21 for men and 18 for women. Poverty, lack of education, and social norms and practices, particularly in rural areas, are considered reasons for child marriages across the country. UNICEF estimates that at least 1.5 million girls under 18 get married in India every year, making it home to the largest number of child brides in the world — accounting for a third of the global total.

=> ↺ US Ranks Higher Than Other Wealthy Countries on ‘Atlas of Impunity’

• The United States’ contributions to the climate crisis and its perpetuation of violence, particularly abroad, resulted in a score on a newly launched “Atlas of Impunity” that placed the country well below other wealthy nations in terms of the government’s willingness to be accountable for its impact both on U.S. residents and the global community.

=> ↺ Indictments for Accountability: Georgia, the DOJ, and the Fight to Stop Future Election Subversion

• On January 2, 2021, mere days before his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop a peaceful transfer of power, former U.S. President Donald Trump made an extraordinary call to former Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” said Trump. “So tell me Brad, what are we going to do?”

=> ↺ Defending Democracy Through Elections Won’t Be Enough to Stop Fascism

=> ↺ ‘I am a man, and will soon get married’: Gay Chechen man arrested in Russia records patriotic videos, likely under duress — Meduza

• Idris Arsamikov, a gay Chechen man detained at the Domodedovo Moscow airport after returning to Russia from the Netherlands, has appeared in two home videos likely recorded under duress.

=> ↺ Civil Society Calls On African Union to Foster Fossil-Free Future for Continent

• As diplomats and political leaders headed to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa for an African Union summit, civil society groups from the continent argued Friday that “rather than doubling down on the obsolete and dirty energy systems,” the A.U. must “move away from harmful fossil fuels towards a transformed energy system that is clean, renewable, democratic, and actually serves its peoples.”

=> ↺ ‘Egregious’: DOL Finds US Meatpacking Plants Illegally Employed 100+ Children

• Federal investigators revealed Friday that one of the nation’s largest food sanitation companies illegally employed at least 102 children in dangerous jobs at 13 meatpacking facilities across eight states, leading to $1.5 million in fines.

=> ↺ Kansas State Police Facing Multiple Lawsuits For Pretextual Traffic Stops

• Thanks to drug legalization, there’s a new “drug corridor” that Kansas law enforcement is taking advantage of. Colorado legalized recreational marijuana use in 2012. Ever since then, state troopers have camped out on I-70 to stop people heading to or from the weed-friendly state. It’s weird to call a road leading to a state with legalized drugs a “drug corridor” (in the sense that this generally refers to illegal drug trafficking), but here we are.

=> ↺ Bulgarian police find 18 people dead in abandoned truck carrying migrants

• Bulgarian authorities said Friday they had found 18 migrants dead in an abandoned truck, as the Balkan nation struggles with an increase in illicit border crossings.

=> ↺ Iran sees first unrest in weeks as protesters mourn executed men

• Protesters in Iran marched through the streets of multiple cities overnight in the most widespread demonstration in weeks amid the monthslong unrest that’s gripped the Islamic Republic, online videos purported to show Friday.

=> ↺ US Senator Calls for ‘Human Rights Defender’ Visa Category

=> ↺ Pakistani University Bans Mixed Gatherings Amid Taliban Influence

• A university in Pakistan’s northwestern region that was once controlled by the Taliban has banned mixed gatherings of male and female students outside the classroom, amid a resurgence in the influence of the Islamist militia in the area.

=> ↺ Amnesty Demands Information On Jailed Russian Activist Pivovarov’s Whereabouts

• Amnesty International has urged the Russian authorities to provide jailed activist Andrei Pivovarov’s relatives and lawyers with information about his current whereabouts and stop what it called his “forced disappearance.”

=> ↺ Norway dispatch: annual police threat assessment highlights risk of extremism in the wake of Quran burnings elsewhere in Scandinavia

• Oksana Bidnenko is a staff correspondent for JURIST in Norway. She is a law student at the Riga Graduate School of Law in Riga, Latvia, and is currently an exchange student at the University of Oslo.  On Monday the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) published its 2023 threat assessment.

=> ↺ Former Memphis Police officers plead not guilty in Tyre Nichols killing

• The five former Memphis Police officers implicated in the death of Tyre Nichols Friday pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and various other crimes.

=> ↺ Spain approves first menstrual leave law in Europe

• The Spanish government Thursday granted final approval to a law creating paid menstrual leave for workers, making it the first European country to pass such legislation. The bill modifies Organic Law 2/2010 on sexual and reproductive health and the voluntary interruption of pregnancy.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Next Week, The Supreme Court Could Destroy Everything Good About The Internet

• Next week, the Supreme Court will hold the oral arguments in the Gonzalez and Taamneh cases. Gonzalez is the main show (and I’m somewhat surprised they didn’t have the hearings on the same day). There were dozens upon dozens of amicus briefs filed in the case, including one by us. There have been lots of articles this week talking about the case, and most of them are… not great. But I did want to present three very useful summaries — one video, two written — if you’d like to understand just what’s at stake here.

=> ↺ Digital Transparency: A Right to Information Report for January 2023

• For the month of January 2022, IFF has filed 7 Right to Information (“RTI”) applications and 02 First Appeals. We received 5 responses including 1 from the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare and 4 from the Department of Electronics and Information Technology.

=> ↺ Read our public brief on the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022

• Our brief summarises the issues with the draft and tries to provide better insight into how they may be resolved.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ More Details On How Tech Lobbyists Lobotomized NY’s Right To Repair Law With Governor Kathy Hochul’s Help

• The good news: last December New York State finally passed a landmark “right to repair” bill providing American consumers some additional protection from repair monopolies. The bad news: before the bill was passed, corporate lobbyists worked with New York State Governor Kathy Hochul to covertly water the bill down almost to the point of meaninglessness.

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ $2,000 for Lower48 IP data arrangement patent prior art

• A new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, was added seeking prior art on at least claim 1 of U.S. Patent 11,100,070, owned and asserted by Lower48 IP, LLC. The ‘070 patent generally relates to system for manipulating hierarchical sets of data. The patent has been asserted against Shopify.

• The contest will expire on May 1, 2023. Please visit PATROLL for more information and to submit an entry for this contest.

=> ↺ Breaking News: UPC Countdown Begins

=> ↺ UPC Code of Conduct for representatives

=> ↺ The Unitary Patent is to become a reality

• Germany has deposited its instrument of UPCA ratification.

=> ↺ Two Ways The U.S. Patent Office Could Do Better At Examination

• Fees from patent applicants pay about 85 percent of the budget of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the office very much serves those “customers” who are seeking patents—not the public. 

• In sum, there’s a very long way to go before the patent examination process becomes fair to the public. However, there are a few ways the process could be changed that we believe would deliver outsized results. That’s why when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) asked for public feedback on how to improve the examination process, we were glad for the opportunity to weigh in with our comments. 

• The America Invents Act, passed in 2012, brought important changes to the patent system, including a review process on granted patents called inter partes review, or IPR. While the IPR process isn’t perfect, and needs to be strengthened, it’s been a big success in getting some of the worst patents out of the system, more cheaply and effectively than a court case. 

=> ↺ Sanders Excoriates ‘Unprecedented’ Greed of Big Pharma During Pandemic

• The senator asked if it is “morally acceptable that tens of thousands of people die each year in this country because they cannot afford the medicine their doctors prescribe, while at the same time, the drug companies make billions of dollars in profits.”

=> ↺ An Up and Down Year at the USPTO

• From the confirmation of Kathi Vidal as Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to the Western District of Texas’s standing order attempting to break up Judge Alan Albright’s monopoly on patent lawsuits…

Trademarks

=> ↺ TTAB Affirms Genericness Refusal of the Color Dark Green for Medical Examination Gloves

• The Board affirmed a refusal to register the color dark green (Pantone No. 3285 c) for “chloroprene medical examination gloves sold only to authorized resellers,” on the ground of genericness, or on the alternative ground that the proposed mark is not inherently distinctive and lacks acquired distinctiveness. The Board found that relevant consumers are exposed to medical gloves of the same color or very similar shades of dark green under a wide variety of marks, and from manufacturers other than Applicant, such that Applicant’s proposed mark cannot serve as a source-indicator. In re PT Medisafe Technologies, Serial No. 88083209 (February 15, 2023) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Cynthia C. Lynch).

=> ↺ TTAB Sustains Section 2(d) Opposition to RAMEN HOOD & Design for Asian-Themed Restaurant Services

Copyrights

=> ↺ Layoffs Hit Motown Records Amidst Capitol Music Group Restructuring

• Layoffs begin at Motown Records as the label changes course to return to the fold of Capitol Music Group. Motown Records has had a rough year. After the exit of CEO and chairwoman Ethiopia Habtemariam in November, the label is now planning restructuring efforts under Capitol Music Group.

=> ↺ Over One-Third of U.S. Music Listeners Don’t Pay for a Streaming Service, Study Finds

• Despite continued subscribership growth for Spotify, Apple, and others, a little over one-third of U.S.-based music listeners opted not to pay for streaming during 2021 and 2022, according to a newly released report.

=> ↺ Fair Use: Training Generative AI

• Perhaps unsurprisingly to anyone who has been paying attention to the conversation around generative AI, the past year also saw the first lawsuits challenging the legality of these tools. First, in November, a group of programmers sued Github and OpenAI over the code generation tool, Github Copilot, alleging (among other things) that the tool improperly removes copyright management information from the code in its training data, in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and reproduces code in its training data without following license agreement stipulations like attributing the code to its original author. Then, in January, a group of artists (represented by the same attorneys as in the Github lawsuit) sued Stability AI and Midjourney over their text-to-image art generation tools. In this second lawsuit, the artist-plaintiffs made several claims, all of which deserve discussion. In this blog post, I will address one of those claims: That using the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works (and as many as 5 billion other works) to train Stable Diffusion and Midjourney constitutes copyright infringement. As Creative Commons has argued elsewhere, and others agree, I believe that this type of use should be protected by copyright’s fair use doctrine. In this blog post I will discuss what fair use is, what purpose it serves, and why I believe that using copyrighted works to train generative AI models should be permitted under this law. I will address the other claims in both the Github and Stable Diffusion lawsuits in subsequent blog posts.

=> ↺ Filmmakers Request Identities of Reddit Users to Aid Piracy Lawsuit

• Filmmakers have obtained a subpoena to reveal the identities of Redditors who commented on piracy-related topics. The comments can provide relevant evidence in support of a repeat infringer lawsuit against ISP RCN, the companies argue. Reddit disagrees and frames the effort as a fishing expedition that is at odds with the right to anonymous speech.

=> ↺ Sci-Hub Founder’s High Court Creativity Fails to Dismiss Publishers’ Lawsuit

• In late 2020, major academic publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society, filed an application to have Sci-Hub blocked by India’s ISPs. Rightsholders targeting conventional pirate sites have obtained similar injunctions within days, but Sci-Hub’s founder is no ordinary opponent. While the High Court of Delhi has just rejected an attempt to have the case dismissed, a creative legal strategy shows that Alexandra Elbakyan is no pushover.

=> ↺ One City Builder Game’s Tale Shows Just How Wide Open The DMCA Process Is For Abuse

• We’ve had no shortage of posts at Techdirt on the problems of fraud and abuse in the current DMCA takedown process. The reason for that is pretty obvious: the whole thing is so wide open to this kind of abuse that it’s actually sort of a wonder that it doesn’t suffer from it even more frequently than it already does. We’ve seen individuals use it try to silence online criticism. We’ve seen it used by media companies to try to silence speech they don’t like.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Happy New Year

• Today I was looking at my system logs and happened to notice that I didn’t rotate my gemlog this year. A while ago I made it so the index file only shows entries from the current year in order to prevent the index from becoming too long. This makes sense if post to my gemlog regularly, but I was actually a bit surprised to see that I hadn’t written ANYTHING in 2023. Ouch!

• This is combined with the fact that I also haven’t recorded a gemcast in months. Of course, you can sympathize with this because I am swamped at work and at home, teaching full time and then taking care of my little ones at home, who are in need of constant attention.

=> ↺ CDEIKTW Wordo: BEAUS

Politics

=> ↺ Evangelicals & Climate Change

• The quote “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” is in the “after the flood” chapter, in the context of the Lord promising not to wreck the world on us again. But this time it’s us (less us as individuals, and more our systems such as fossil economics and wedge politics) that are driving these calamities. Contrary to some common “lol humans can’t touch this” memes in the evangelical community there is (as correctly explained in the video) scriptural support for how we can royally bork up this blue marble garden if we don’t sober up from this bread of idleness.

Technical

=> ↺ smolver development log, part 9 – client certificates

• This is the ninth in a planned series of posts (well, tenth if you count the announcement) where I’ll share my experience writing smolver, my Gemini server software, written in Swift.

=> ↺ New project: “GeschTAp” – the story telling telephone.

• A couple of years ago I tried to modify an old telephone from the 1980th and include an MP3 player that can be controlled by the telephone keys and output audio over the receiver. I used an old MP3 player but controlling the buttons of the player with the telephone keys (microcontroller in between) was very complicated. Finally, I abandoned this project.

• Nowadays, you have easier options. I found the DFPlayer Mini module which is essentially a media player that can play sound files from a SD card and can be controlled via IO ports.

=> ↺ Re: Feeds are a dark pattern

• That is not an issue with feeds. It’s an issue with feed viewers.

• OK, I am kinda sorta breaking my vow to never argue semantics, since this is semantics. dzwdz is not disputing the facts: that a viewer that shows feeds sorted in other ways, like grids or trees can be great. I use one that shows a 2d grid where each feed is a line and each post is a cell.

• Not that I, a veritable firehose of a poster, support the idea that posts from frequent posters are less valuable. Even so, having some sort of organization beyond just a 1-dimensional line is a good idea. You wouldn’t sort a bookshelf by cutting out all the pages, sorting the pages by when the book was written regardless of what book it’s from, and putting that in a huge stack.

=> ↺ Lightweight data monitoring using rrdtool

• I like my servers to run the least code possible, and the least services running in general, this ease maintenance and let room for other thing to run. I recently wrote about monitoring software to gather metrics and render them, but they are all overkill if you just want to keep track of a single value over time, and graph it for visualization.

=> ↺ Introduction to nftables on Linux

• Linux kernel has an integrated firewall named netfilter, but you manipulate it through command lines such as the good old iptables, or nftables which will eventually superseed iptables.

• Today, I’ll share my experience in using nftables to manage my Linux home router, and my workstation.

• I won’t explain much in this blog post because I just want to introduce nftables and show what it looks like, and how to get started.

Programming

=> ↺ [Cheatsheet] Fossil version control system

• Fossil is a DVCS (decentralized version control software), an alternative to programs such as darcs, mercurial or git. It’s developed by the same people doing sqlite and rely on sqlite internally.

=> ↺ Programming Wordle

• Inspired by Ravi’s program (see my last phlog), I decided to give programming Wordle a try. To make it “more fun”, I’m coding in Swift on my Mac. The version I’m writing is just for the command line, but if I get comfortable with Swift, I may just try to implement it as a GUI.

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