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● 04.08.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 08/04/2023: ExTiX Deepin 23.4 and Moving from Rust to C++

Posted in News Roundup at 12:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Getting started with nmap scripts

• This blog post will cover the general usage of nmap scripts, not the scripting itself. Check out the getting started with nmap post if you are new to nmap.

=> ↺ ZFS On Linux (still) needs better ways to control the ZFS ARC

• The ZFS ARC is ZFS’s version of a disk cache. For various reasons, ZFS on Linux keeps its ARC separate from the kernel’s regular disk caches that are used for other filesystems, and ZFS tunes the ARC size and other parameters separately, instead of the whole thing being integrated into the kernel’s general memory tuning.

=> ↺ AI is the End of Tutorial Webpages

• Since 1999, most of my site traffic has been from technical tutorials. That’s going away.

• I’ve been writing technical tutorials for things like tcpdump, lsof, etc, for years. More broadly, I’ve been explaining technical topics in more approachable language.

=> ↺ How To Manage Log Files Using Logrotate In Linux

• We already have published a guide that described how to setup centralized Rsyslog server on CentOS system. Today, in this guide, we are going to discuss what is Logrotate, how to install Logrotate and how to manage log files using Logrotate on Linux.

Games

=> ↺ Reviewing the Combined Top 5 Linux Gaming Predictions from 2022

• Every year we now have a traditions to gather predictions, to see if any of us in the Linux community have any idea where things may be going. We recently published the ones for the year 2023. Last year, we had numerous contributors and we compiled the Top 5 predictions based on the most common ones. In 2021, this approach worked great and most of the predictions were accurate. What about 2022? Did we do as well?

=> ↺ The Last of Us Part I got a juicy patch with Steam Deck improvements

• It’s certainly no secret that The Last of Us Part I had a really bad launch overall and the developer is now trying to improve things. This new patch goes over crash bugs, does a little optimization of texture streaming to reduce CPU usage, some textures not rendering correctly was fixed and a whole lot more. So we’re slowly getting closer to the state it should have released in.

=> ↺ Battlestar Galactica Deadlock is free to keep this weekend

• If you enjoy strategy games, you don’t want to miss the free giveaway of Battlestar Galactica Deadlock. The developer is currently giving it away to keep on Steam, with anyone able to claim a copy until April 9th, 9AM UTC.

=> ↺ EVERSPACE 2 out now, devs focus on Proton for Linux – Steam Deck optimizations planned

• ROCKFISH Games have now launched EVERSPACE 2 and it looks awesome! One of their original Kickstarter promises did not make it though, with Native Linux support being cancelled as they will support it with Proton instead.

=> ↺ Report: Steam Deck to pass 3 million sales during 2023

• A new report from Omdia currently doing the rounds is that the Steam Deck from Valve is set to hit 3 million sales during 2023.

=> ↺ Everything Stadia Is Now Officially Dead, Project Head Exits Google

• It’s been a while since we’ve talked about Google’s Stadia product. What was originally billed as a forthcoming world class cloud video game streaming platform launched terribly, never gained much traction, and eventually was announced to be pivoting to serving as the backend platform for other companies that actually knew what the hell they were doing with game streaming. While most of Stadia and its team had been fully sunsetted, it was only a few weeks ago that Google finally gave up entirely and shut down its plans to be even a backend service for anyone else to use.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ COSMIC DE: First Spring Update!

• Ahh, spring. Sun is shining, birds are chirping, and COSMIC is blossoming into a beautiful desktop environment prototype. Carl (System76 CEO) is thoroughly enjoying daily driving it at work: “There’s nothing quite the same as feeling the design by using it daily.” It’s not quite ready yet for you or me, but Carl feels it’s close to being ready for the design team to use daily. For now, completed software pieces are being used alongside temporary engineering workarounds. Once those workarounds have been replaced by designed, implemented, and user-tested software, we’ll have an alpha release to play around in.

• That part is further away…but it’s exciting! Each month, more and more pieces are coming together for Pop!_OS’s new desktop environment. Read on to see what was added in March.

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

=> ↺ ExTiX Deepin 23.4 Live based on Deepin 23 Alpha 2 (latest) with Refracta Snapshot and kernel 6.3.0-rc4-amd64-exton :: Build 230403 |

• I’ve released a new version of ExTiX Deepin today (230403). This ExTiX Build is based on Deepin 23 Alpha 2 (latest version) released by Deepin Technology 230208. Please read the Release Notes… As you can see the developers urge people to try Deepin Alpha 2 in a non-production environment! I must say, though, that I haven’t discovered any “bugs”. And the installed programs won’t “crash” or anything like that. On the contrary ExTiX Deepin 23.4 with the Deepin DE 23 works pretty well I would say. I have nevertheless kept ExTiX 22.12 with Deepin 20.8 on the server. Deepin 20.8 is the stable version released 221208. ExTiX 23.4 uses kernel 6.3.0-rc4-amd64-exton. ExTiX 23.4 works in the same way as all other ExTiX versions. I.e. you can install it to hard drive while running the system live. Use Refracta Installer for that. You can also create your own live installable Deepin 23 system with Refracta Snapshot. (Using ExTiX 23.4 as a “base system”). So easy that a ten year old child can do it!

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Xubuntu 23.04 “Lunar Lobster”: Best New Features

• Xubuntu 23.04, based on the upcoming Ubuntu 23.04 Lunar Lobster, is set to arrive on April 20, 2023. This latest release is built on the Linux Kernel 6.2, which brings the latest hardware, CPU, GPU, and file-system support.

• From revamped applets to a more powerful Thunar file manager, Xubuntu 23.04 offers numerous improvements and bug fixes for a more polished user experience via the “OG” of all Linux desktops – Xfce 4.18.

• Here’s a roundup of the new features.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Photoplotting PCBs With A 3D Printer

• Do you ever wonder why your PCB maker uses Gerber files? It doesn’t have to do with baby food. Gerber was the company that introduced photoplotting. Early machines used a xenon bulb to project shapes from an aperture to plot on a piece of film. You can then use that film for photolithography which has a lot of uses, including making printed circuit boards. [Wil Straver] decided to make his own photoplotter using a 3D printer in two dimensions and a UV LED. You can see the results in the video below.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Branching Out: sq Grows a Certificate Store, and More Convenient Trust Management

• Now that sq supports a certificate store, it is possible to import certificates, and then designate them by fingerprint or key ID: [...]

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi rolls out a code editor for young people #PiDay #RaspberryPi @Raspberry_Pi

• Raspberry Pi is building a new online text-based Code Editor to help young people aged 7 and older learn to write code. It’s free and designed for young people who attend Code Clubs and CoderDojos, students in schools, and learners at home.

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi Launches Online Code Editor to Help Kids Learn

• The Raspberry Pi Code Editor, which is considered to be in beta, is available to everyone for free right now at editor.raspberrypi.org (opens in new tab). The editor is currently designed to work with Python only, but the organization says that support for other languages such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS is coming.

=> ↺ My biases when choosing open-source tools

• I reflect on my preferences when it comes to choosing open-source tools I need to rely upon.

=> ↺ SIP on Android – Sipgate and Linphone

• Three years ago, I wrote about how you could add SIP calls to Android for free. Android had a well-integrated system which made VoIP calling a first-class citizen on its handsets.

• Sadly, Google killed native SIP calling in Android 12. FFS!

• It’s relatively easy to get it set up again, although you’ll need to install a separate app.

=> ↺ Development Update 001

• A key design objective was minimizing the overhead of operating multiple nodes. Consequently, I devised the cluster model with genuinely independent nodes, allowing any request to be sent to any node at any time. No designated “leader” node exists, and no calls must be made to specific instances. This adaptability lets you spin nodes up or down as required.

=> ↺ Thüringen continues its support for open source alternatives Permalink

• The free state of Thuringia has already shown its support for open source projects. One example is by the creation of its open source award in 2019, winners of which include edu sharing, in.RET and IG Papiergraben. Another example is the state’s parliament’s adoption of a rule on public procurement, also in 2019, which defined open source as “software solutions whose source code is publicly accessible and whose licences do not restrict their use, distribution, and modification.” In the Thuringian Public Procurement Act (Thüringer Vergabegesetz), a preference has been given to open source software when technically possible and economical.

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ Is your Postgres ready for production?

• You’ve been building your application for months, you’ve tested with beta users, you’ve gotten feedback and iterated. You’ve gone through your launch checklist, email beta users, publish the blog post, post to hacker news and hope the comments are friendly. But is your database ready for whatever may come on launch day or even 2 months in? Here’s a handy checklist to make sure you’re not caught flat footed.

Education

=> ↺ Free Python book updated to second edition #Books #Python

• Think Python is an introduction to Python programming for beginners. It starts with basic concepts of programming; it is carefully designed to define all terms when they are first used and to develop each new concept in a logical progression. Larger pieces, like recursion and object-oriented programming, are divided into a sequence of smaller steps and introduced over the course of several chapters.

=> ↺ Think Python 2e

• This is the second edition of Think Python, which uses Python 3. If you are using Python 2, you might want to use the first edition, which is here.

Licensing / Legal

=> ↺ Divided Federal Circuit Makes Controversial Ruling That Nonliteral Elements of “Cloned” Software Are Not Protectable Because It Was Based on Open Source and Other Known Material

• The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a district court ruling that the asserted nonliteral elements of a software program were not copyright protectable, in part, because allegedly copied materials contained unprotectable open-source elements, factual and data elements and other known elements that were not original.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Moving from Rust to C++

• I’ve been involved in Rust and the Rust community for many years now. Much of my work has been related to creating infrastructure for building GUI toolkits in Rust. However, I have found my frustrations with the language growing, and pine for the stable, mature foundation provided by C++.

• [...]

• I’ll close with some thoughts on community. I try not to spend a lot of time on social media, but I hear that the Rust community can be extremely imperious, constantly demanding that projects be rewritten in Rust, and denigrating all other programming languages.

=> ↺ Catch-23: The New C Standard Sets the World on Fire

• A new major revision of the C language standard, C23, is due out this year. We’ll tour the highs and lows of the latest draft9 and then drill down on the mother of all breaking changes. Sidebars celebrate C idioms and undefined behavior with code and song, respectively.

=> ↺ Own Your Work

• One of the easiest ways to start sharing your work in the form of writing, designs, or photographs is by using the latest trendy platform in that space, especially when everyone else seems to be using it.

• How many Blogspot sites are you checking these days? They still work, but Google has killed one or two services, so who knows for how long?

• Medium was great for publishing content, but it doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

• Nowadays, many people start a Substack newsletter if they want to share content and monetize it too, but will it be around in five or ten years? What will happen with your content and your audience if they’re not?

• Imagine a billionaire buying one of the main social media services and some things not going as expected. What would happen with all the effort you’ve put into it that brought your followers and your content?

=> ↺ Slint 1.0: The Next-Generation Native GUI Toolkit Matures

• We’re thrilled to announce version 1.0 of Slint, a comprehensive toolkit to build native user interfaces for desktop and embedded devices, implemented in Rust. This is a major milestone, the result of three years of work by 50 contributors. Compared to the previous release, version 1.0 introduces only minor API cleanups and bug fixes. For full details refer to the ChangeLog.

• Development of Slint (initially known as “SixtyFPS”) started in May 2020 to address the needs of modern user interface (UI) development. Having worked tirelessly to build and refine it, we’re proud to have reached the stage where paying customers and open-source users are selecting Slint over other UI toolkits to build their applications. The 1.x series signifies that Slint has now graduated out from “development mode” and is ready to be used in production projects.

=> ↺ GraphQL: From Excitement to Deception

• Are you wondering if you should use GraphQL in your project? Do your developers fight over arguments like “GraphQL is the future” and “REST is just simpler”? I had endless discussions with my team that I will summarize here.

=> ↺ An On-Ramp to Flow

• Millions of words have been written on the value of “flow” to engineers and other knowledge workers – a kind of work where you are able to hold multiple complex and abstract concepts in your head simultaneously and quickly make progress towards a goal. Over the course of a work week, it’s not surprising to find that a huge amount of the “work that gets done” happens within a few short bursts of time, a couple of hours at most, when builders are able to reach and stay in flow.

=> ↺ Polars for initial data analysis, Polars for production

• In this article we’ll use both two APIs and see how Polars lets you transition from looking at the data to something we can run even more efficiently in production.

=> ↺ Pipes-and-Filters

• The Pipes-and-Filters architecture pattern describes the structure of systems that process data streams.

=> ↺ Let’s (not) break up the monolith – Part 1

• Well, let us look at these two responses and see if microservices will help them to solve the aforementioned issues. As this post would be very long as a single post, I decided to split it up in two posts. This post will discuss the first response. The next post (link will follow) will discuss the second response and sum it all up.

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ 2023-04-07 Web::Scraper – Weekly Travelling in CPAN

=> ↺ 2023-04-05 [Older] Increasing Perl’s Visibility, Redux

=> ↺ 2023-04-04 [Older] Perl Weekly Challenge 210: Kill and Win and Number Collision

=> ↺ 2023-04-02 [Older] Experiments in Overloading

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Chrome ships WebGPU

• The Chrome team is thrilled to announce that WebGPU is now available by default in Chrome 113, which is currently in the Beta channel. WebGPU is a new web graphics API that offers significant benefits such as greatly reduced JavaScript workload for the same graphics and more than three times improvements in machine learning model inferences. This is possible due to more flexible GPU programming and access to advanced capabilities that WebGL does not provide.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Metadud: Just 4% Of U.S. Teens Use VR Daily, 7% Plan To Buy A Headset Anytime Soon

• Despite several years of blistering hype about the rise of the “Metaverse” (read: Facebook’s clumsy attempt to dominate a market simply by rebranding video games, AR, and VR as…something else), new data from Piper Sandler indicates that there’s little real interest among younger Americans.

=> ↺ Follow-ups to “Incompetent but Nice”

• I think this framing is terrifically important. Starting from the point of view that this is probably a management failure – rather than something inherent to the person – correctly puts the onus on the manager for letting someone get into a situation like this. Sure, there are situations where there’s not much the manager could have done, but those are rare.

=> ↺ Stop Gatekeeping Architecture

• A long time ago, way before I became an architecture critic, I was a person who looked at buildings. It never occurred to me that this was something one could do for a living. I grew up in a small town before the omnipresence of cell phones, meaning that if I was bored and didn’t have a book in hand, I had no choice but to gaze out at the world and occupy my time thinking about it. I believe that children are naturally attracted to buildings because they offer imaginative potential. Who lives in that house? Why do they live there? Why does the house look like that? Do poor people or rich people live there?

Education

=> ↺ Teaching, Entitlement, And The Verb “Need”

• “Hey, Sumana,” you may be asking. “If you avoid using the word ‘need’ because you think that it’s a magic override kind of word, and then when other people say they ‘need’ something you jump to fulfill those needs, doesn’t that lead to a kind of unhealthy imbalance where you have a hard time expressing your own needs and getting them met, while also getting accidentally tangled up when other people use ‘need’ a lot more loosely than you?”

Hardware

=> ↺ Spice Up The Humble 16×2 LCD With Big Digits

• The 16×2 LCD display is a classic in the microcontroller world, and for good reason. Add a couple of wires, download a library, mash out a few lines of code, and your project has a user interface. A utilitarian and somewhat boring UI, though, and one that can be hard to read at a distance. So why not spice it up with these large-type custom fonts?

=> ↺ Hackaday Podcast 213: Not Your Grandfather’s Grandfather Clock, The Engineering Behind Art, Hydrogen Powered Flight

• Join Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi as they review some of their favorite hacks and projects of the past week. The episode starts with a discussion about the recently announced Artemis II crew, and how their mission compares to the Apollo program of the 1960s and 70s.

=> ↺ String Operations The Hard(ware) Way

• One of the interesting features of the 8086 back in 1978 was the provision for “string” instructions. These took the form of prefixes that would repeat the next instruction a certain number of times. The next instruction was meant to be one of a few string instructions that operated on memory regions and updated pointers to the memory region with each repeated operation. [Ken Shirriff] examines the 8086 die up close and personal to explain how the 8086 microcode pulled this off and it is a great read, as usual.

=> ↺ Share Your Projects: Take Pictures

• Information is diesel for a hacker’s engine, and it’s fascinating how much can happen when you share what you’re working on. It could be a pretty simple journey – say, you record a video showing you fixing your broken headphones, highlighting a particular trick that works well for you. Someone will see it as an entire collection of information – “if my headphones are broken, the process of fixing them looks like this, and these are the tools I might need”. For a newcomer, you might be leading them to an eye-opening discovery – “if my headphones are broken, it is possible to fix them”.

=> ↺ Aftermarket Commodore power supplies

• There are a bunch of aftermarket manufacturers, but the two most commonly seen by retrocomputer bloggers and video creators are Electroware (centre) and Keelog (right). To the left is an original “brick of death” from my Commodore 64C that got so hot and smelly after plugging it in, I haven’t dared touch it since: [..]

=> ↺ Thieves Cut Through Coffee Shop Wall to Pull Off $500,000 Apple Store Heist

• When Apple store employees came into work the next morning, they saw that “an entire wall of iPhones (approximately 436) were gone,” according to Lynnwood Police, plus other merchandise like Apple Watches. According to police, they stole $500,000 worth of merchandise in total.

• The suspects managed to cut the hole without hitting any plumbing, and entered the Apple side through its back room. Mike Atkinson, CEO of Seattle Coffee Gear, tweeted a photo of the damage, showing the square hole right next to the toilet where the thieves crawled through.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Trump’s Idling Plane Got More TV Coverage Than Biden Cutting Healthcare for 15 Million

• One analysis from Media Matters (4/3/23) found that over an hour-and-a-half period before Trump’s arraignment, CNN aired 48 minutes of B-roll of the idling Trump plane and motorcade, along with shots of Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago. MSNBC aired 66 minutes of similar footage. As Media Matters noted, this kind of coverage is similar to when networks regularly aired footage of Trump’s empty podiums (FAIR.org, 3/16/16).

• The reader can decide what’s more important: A Democratic administration taking healthcare from 15 million, or a con-man war criminal being indicted for some of the least important of his crimes.

=> ↺ 15 Million in the US to be Kicked Off of Public Health Benefits

• Millions are to lose Medicaid/CHIP benefits in the coming months as pre-pandemic income eligibility restrictions have returned.

=> ↺ Biden Just Took the First Step to Overhaul Medicare Advantage. Many More Must Be Taken

• The corporations that run Medicare Advantage plans are engaged in widespread waste, fraud and abuse, resulting in tens of billions of dollars of overpayments to them every year. The advocates and government agencies overseeing Medicare Advantage have spent nearly two decades reporting on this fraud and waste and urging Congress to overhaul the program. Few in Congress or the administration were listening. Now, the Biden administration is finally taking action, but it’s only a first step.

=> ↺ Taiwan uses drones to fight lychee pests

• Both lychee and longan fruit trees flower in April, which also corresponds with the spawning period for a major fruit tree pest, the lychee stink bug.

• Changhua County took extra precautions this year, using drones to release parastitic wasps (Anastatus fulloi), which are a natural nemesis of lychee stink bugs, according to LTN. Boxes of these wasps were transported by drone to hard to reach areas to engage in natural biological control.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Conversational AI to become a part of Google search, says CEO Sundar Pichai: WSJ report

• This is where it went wrong as the first pictures of exoplanets were taken by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in 2004, as confirmed by NASA. This led to a massive rout in the share prices of its parent Alphabet, which lost $100 billion in market cap.

• Further, Pichai’s comments indicate that Google plans to allow users to interact directly with the company’s LLMs via its search engine — a move that would upend the traditional link-based experience.

=> ↺ Elon Musk Blocks Likes And Replies To Tweets That Link To Substack In A Pique Of Pettiness

• Poor Matt Taibbi. He destroyed his credibility to take on the Twitter Files, and did so in part to raise the profile of his Substack site, Racket News. Indeed, Substack has become a home for nonsense peddlers of all kinds to create their own little bubbles of nonsense. In congressional testimony, Taibbi admitted that having Elon Musk hand pick him to deliver the “Twitter Files” has increased the number of paying subscribers to his Substack (though he defended it by claiming that the money has all gone towards journalism).

=> ↺ Twitter Breaks Substack Links For Some Reason

• In the absence of an explanation from Musk or one of the Salacious B. Crumb-type minions with which he surrounds himself, this can only be presumed to be either another of the countless technical errors that have plagued the site since Musk fired most of its staff or an attempt to get attention for his struggling site, which has seen ad spending, which accounts for the vast majority of the company’s revenue, drop by at least 70% since his takeover last year.

=> ↺ Mehdi Hasan Dismantles The Entire Foundation Of The Twitter Files As Matt Taibbi Stumbles To Defend It

• So here’s the deal. If you think the Twitter Files are still something legit or telling or powerful, watch this 30 minute interview that Mehdi Hasan did with Matt Taibbi (at Taibbi’s own demand):

=> ↺ Safari releases are development hell – Ashley’s blog

• Safari 16.4 rolled out last week, and for us it’s been a nightmare. We make the browser-based game creation app Construct. Early versions of Safari 16.4 broke opening projects, previewing projects, and all existing content published with Construct, all in different ways. I wanted to share our experience so customers, developers, regulators, and Apple themselves can see what we go through with what is supposed to be a routine Safari release.

• Most browsers provide pre-release versions for early testing. For example Chrome Canary and Firefox Nightly update daily, and there’s also less frequent dev and beta releases. Apple provide Safari Technology Preview (STP), but it’s only for macOS, and does not update to any public schedule. It seems to be about once every 2 weeks. Pre-release browsers are usually pretty rocky with obvious issues that get sorted out soon enough. However when things start making their way to beta, it’s time to look more closely. So when Safari 16.4 beta 1 was announced on February 16th (also not to any public schedule), we started taking a closer look – and there were a lot of problems.

=> ↺ Layoffs are ramping up among hospitals and health systems. Here are 34 examples from 2023

• Layoff announcements have increased this year as hospitals and health systems limp out of a financially devastating 2022.

=> ↺ 5 Ways the Rising Costs of Games Are Affecting the Industry

• However, 343 Industries were hit hard by layoffs at Microsoft, so Microsoft may have been unhappy with Halo Infinite despite its monetization. But this does highlight rising costs as having a curious effect on the industry: pushing developers to incorporate profitable monetization regardless of the potential damage to the game itself.

Security

=> ↺ 2023-04-07 The Hidden Security Risk in Cloud-Native: Out-of-Date Software

=> ↺ 2023-04-07 This Week in Security: Cookie Monster, CyberGhost, NEXX, and Dead Angles

=> ↺ 2023-04-07 Cisco Releases Security Advisories for Multiple Products

=> ↺ 2023-04-07 Sophos Patches Critical Code Execution Vulnerability in Web Security Appliance

=> ↺ 2023-04-07 Tesla Retail Tool Vulnerability Led to Account Takeover

=> ↺ 2023-04-05 [Older] Bugs in This Brand of ‘Smart’ Garage Doors Could Allow a Hacker to Open Them at Will

=> ↺ 2023-04-05 [Older] Tech companies need to take cybersecurity risks more seriously

=> ↺ 2023-04-05 [Older] What are the biggest cybersecurity threats this year?

=> ↺ 2023-04-04 [Older] ISTIO-SECURITY-2023-001

=> ↺ 2023-04-04 [Older] Micron Technology: China probes US chip maker for cybersecurity risks as tech tension escalates

=> ↺ 2023-04-03 [Older] Three ways AI chatbots are a security disaster

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Why regulators in Canada and Italy are digging into ChatGPT’s use of personal information

• As governments rush to address concerns about the rapidly-advancing generative artificial intelligence industry, experts in the field say greater oversight is needed over what data is used to train the systems.

• Earlier this month, Italy’s data protection agency launched a probe of OpenAI and temporarily banned ChatGPT, their AI-powered chatbot. On Tuesday, Canada’s privacy commissioner also announced an investigation of OpenAI. Both agencies cited concerns around data privacy.

=> ↺ Court orders software supplier to provide more information on massive data leak

• The reason for the lawsuit was a hack in Nebu’s computer systems last month. The personal data of possibly several million Netherlands residents leaked. Blauw wants more information about what exactly happened, how big the data leak was, and what the consequences are.

• According to Blauw, the information that Nebu has provided so far is entirely insufficient. The court shares that view. “In the agreement between both parties, Nebu is obliged to inform Blauw about incidents related to the processing of personal data and to follow Blauw’s instructions in such a case. In the opinion of the preliminary relief judge, Blauw’s right of instruction and Nebu’s obligation to comply must be interpreted broadly.”

=> ↺ TikTok Hit With Nearly $16 Million Fine In UK For Misusing Children’s Personal Data

• A spokesperson for TikTok told CNN that the company “invest[s] heavily to help keep under 13s off the platform” and that it disagreed with the ICO’s decision.

=> ↺ Indian Government Looking To Buy NSO-Esque Malware, But Not From NSO

• When NSO Group began making the wrong kind of headlines all over the world, suddenly lots of governments began at least feigning an interest in caring about what third-party tools their intelligence and security agencies were using to conduct surveillance.

=> ↺ How Reckless Cops Relying On Questionable Facial Recognition Tech Can Destroy Lives

• The use of facial recognition far outpaces its proven track record. Prone to false positives and negatives, especially when it comes to anyone else but white males, the tech continues to make inroads with the law enforcement community which has never seen a black man it can’t prosecute for crimes he didn’t commit.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Biden urges Hungary to welcome Sweden to NATO without delay

• U.S. President Joe Biden issued a statement welcoming Finland’s accession to NATO, stressing that it was ” the fastest ratification process in NATO’s modern history”. In the same statement, Biden urged Hungary and Turkey to Sweden to “conclude Sweden’s NATO ratification processes without delay”.

• Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán formally asked MEPs to support Finnish and Swedish accession at an off-site meeting of the Fidesz parliamentary group in Balatonfüred at the end of February. However, Gergely Gulyas, Orban’s chief of staff pointed out that Sweden’s involvement in an EU lawsuit against Hungary “does not help” the ratification process. 

=> ↺ Preparing for War in the South China Sea

• “Imagine you have a visitor who comes into your house,” Corazon Valdez Fabros said over Zoom from Quezon City in the Philippines. “You welcome this visitor. But this is a visitor who has all the guns, all the materials, that basically you cannot object to because they are fully loaded. And you cannot even tell this visitor to get out of your house when you want them to get out.” This article is a joint publication of The Nation and Workday Magazine, a nonprofit newsroom devoted to holding the powerful accountable through the perspective of workers.

=> ↺ 2023-04-06 [Older] National Guard deployed to reinforce security at tourist destinations

=> ↺ 2023-04-06 [Older] War Criminals and Military Aggressors Who Occupy Seats in the Security Council

=> ↺ 2023-04-04 [Older] Atlantic Council convenes formalized task force focused on Black Sea security

=> ↺ 2023-04-03 [Older] Cabinet presents new national security strategy for entire Dutch kingdom

=> ↺ Ukraine War Plans Leak Prompts Pentagon Investigation

• Classified war documents detailing secret American and NATO plans for building up the Ukrainian military ahead of a planned offensive against Russia were posted this week on social media channels, senior Biden administration officials said.

=> ↺ Top-secret Pentagon documents on Ukraine war appear on social media

• “We are aware of the reports of social media posts and the department is reviewing the matter,” said Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh.

• The documents include maps of Ukraine and charts on where troops are concentrated and what kinds of weapons are available to them. The online posts show photos of physical documents that were folded and creased in some instances.

=> ↺ What we know about Russian [crackers] — and how to stop them — after a year of cyberwar in Ukraine

• Following the retreat of Russian troops from Kyiv, we started detecting an increasing number of attacks aimed at gathering information for espionage purposes. Russian military hackers are interested in any information they think can help Russia win this war. They prioritize quiet and long-term campaigns allowing them to stay inside systems and to maintain access data for as long as possible. This distinguishes them from so-called Russian “hacktivists” whose primary goal is informational impact, so they promptly disclose details of their attacks.

=> ↺ Senior Twitter lawyer resigns, the latest in a series of executive departures

• The lawyer, Christian Dowell, rose to the top of Twitter’s legal department in recent months after the company’s legal leaders resigned or were fired by Musk. Dowell had been intimately involved in Twitter’s recent negotiations with the Federal Trade Commission, two people familiar with those discussions said.

=> ↺ Past, Present and Future

• Through its Belt and Road Initiative, China has made its mark worldwide, funding projects as far-flung as power plants in Ecuador and high-speed rail in Laos. But exactly what is the Belt and Road Initiative?

=> ↺ Palestinian Poet Mohammed El-Kurd on Israeli Apartheid, Growing Tension in Region & Raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque

• Israel has bombed southern Lebanon and Gaza as tension soars in the region days after Israeli police repeatedly attacked Palestinian worshipers inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem. In response to the raids on the mosque, militants in southern Lebanon and Gaza fired dozens of rockets into Israel. It was the largest rocket attack from Lebanon in 17 years. Meanwhile, a Palestinian gunman opened fire on a vehicle near an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank on Friday, killing two Israeli settlers. This all comes as Israel continues to impose a violent crackdown in the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army has killed at least 94 Palestinians so far this year. Israel’s raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan have sparked international condemnation. For more, we speak with Mohammed El-Kurd, the Palestine correspondent for The Nation, who is from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem and says the escalating violence in Palestine cannot be separated from “the larger settler-colonial enterprise” of the decades-old Israeli occupation.

=> ↺ Fears of ‘Serious Escalation’ Grow as Israel Bombs Lebanon and Gaza

• Fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East mounted Friday after Israel bombed Lebanon and the occupied Gaza Strip in the early hours of the morning, an assault that followed two consecutive nights of violent raids on the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

=> ↺ Armed man tries to enter Russian Defense Ministry building in Moscow — Meduza

• A man armed with a pistol tried to get into the Russian Defense Ministry’s building in central Moscow, according to the state news agency TASS and the Telegram channels Shot and 112.

=> ↺ Africa ‘All Out,’ 54-0, Against Joining Biden’s Proxy War on Russia

• When President Biden announced sanctions against Russia over their February, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he called it a battle of democracy over tyranny. He expected Africa to rally to the US lead. Unsurprisingly, not one of Africa’s 54 countries as joined US sanctions against Russia. Many are neutral; some even […]

=> ↺ Prigozhin blames St. Petersburg Governor Beglov for ‘irrecoverable losses of cultural heritage,’ instigates negligence case — Meduza

• Evgeny Prigozhin, founder of the mercenary Wagner Group, has returned to his rivalry with the St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov, head of the St. Petersburg municipality.

=> ↺ Journalists confirm the deaths of nearly 20,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine — Meduza

• Journalists with Mediazona and BBC News Russian, working alongside a team of volunteers, have identified 19,688 Russian military service members killed during Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine.

=> ↺ As Congress Considers Prolonging Cuba’s Designation as a Terrorism Supporter, Biden Dithers

• Although Cuba’s Revolution survived military invasion, guerrilla actions, terrorist attacks, and bacteriologic warfare, enough was not enough. Now there are pay-offs to dissidents, manipulation of worldwide media coverage, and weaponization of social media capabilities. The U.S. economic and financial blockade persists, after 60 years, and will continue. That’s mostly because […]

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Judge says Murdoch can be forced to testify — experts say he may spill Fox secrets out in the open

• “But one of the interesting things here, that Dominion has been doing, is fighting its case in the court of public opinion and so the Murdoch piece of the case is part of them litigating the case in the court of public opinion,” Lidsky said.

=> ↺ Texas School Performs Worst-Ever Redaction of a Public Record

• Unfortunately for them, the names of the 10 students using the browser with a built-in VPN are easily readable, because for as much effort as the redactor expended covering these names up, they used a very light-colored marker. In an attempt to get the general impression across, a Motherboard staff artist has recreated the document, altering the names of all people and institutions involved partly to protect their privacy and partly to throw rival reporters suddenly inspired to see what kind of poorly-redacted documents they might be able to get from this school off the trail while we ourselves see what we can get: [...]

Environment

=> ↺ The Willow Project Was a Key Climate Test. And Joe Biden Failed It.

• President Joe Biden’s recent approval of the Willow Project in Alaska has alarmed many young people and once again made us question his seriousness about addressing the climate crisis before it is too late.

=> ↺ Michoacán environmental activist found dead

• An Indigenous environmental and lands rights activist has been murdered in the state of Michoacán, less than three months after the disappearance of two other local activists.

=> ↺ Colombia Adopts an Unprecedented Energy Policy—but Needs Help to Pull It Off

• Gustavo Petro doesn’t just want to transform his own country; he wants to change the world. The new leader of Colombia, who took office last August, is targeting what he calls his nation’s “economy of death.” That means pivoting away from oil, natural gas, coal, and narcotics toward more sustainable economic activities. Given that oil and coal make up half his country’s exports—and Colombia is the world’s leading cocaine producer—that’s not going to be easy.

=> ↺ Potent Heat-Trapping Methane Emissions Saw 4th-Largest Annual Increase in 2022: Report

• Driven primarily by human activities including fossil fuel extraction, methane levels in the atmosphere had their fourth-largest annual increase in 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ Russia’s crypto mining capacity second only to U.S. — Meduza

• Judging by the first quarter of 2023, Russia is now second only to the U.S. in terms of its crypto mining capacity. The Russian business publication Kommersant reported the market change, citing the data center operator BitRiver.

=> ↺ The Last Thing the Railway Industry Needs Is Another Giant Merger

• On March 15th, the Surface Transportation Board (STB)—the federal agency that regulates the U.S. freight rail industry—gave final approval to the acquisition of Kansas City Southern by Canadian Pacific. Approving this merger between America’s sixth- and seventh-largest railroads was a dire mistake, which will have enormous economic and social costs that resound for decades.

=> ↺ America’s chance to become a clean-energy superpower

• A report by Climate Power, an advocacy group, found that over 100,000 new jobs were announced in 31 states between the passage of the IRA and the end of January, with the lion’s share of the 90-plus clean-energy projects in conservative states. Georgia, hardly a liberal stronghold, came top with over $15bn in investment. Bryan Fisher of RMI, a clean-energy non-profit, estimates that more than 75 decarbonisation projects worth $1bn or more are under development in deep-red Texas and Louisiana thanks to BIL and IRA inducements. ExxonMobil, once a highly climate-sceptical company, is now heading a $100bn project for CCS along the Gulf of Mexico.

• America’s new approach to energy rightly tackles the climate externality previously neglected by federal policy while mostly leaving the picking of specific technology winners to the private sector. Thanks to the insistence of Senator Ron Wyden, a wonkish Democrat from Oregon, the tax credits for clean power will shift to a technology-neutral approach. A geothermal entrepreneur gushes that his hitherto-overlooked technology will finally get a fair chance. As Mr Wyden explains: “This ties together markets with choice and competition…the more you reduce carbon emissions, the more tax credits you earn.”

=> ↺ Riding The Rails By Ebike

• As most developed countries around the world continue to modernize their transportation infrastructure with passenger rail, countries in North America have been abandoning railroads for over a century now, assuming that just one more lane will finally solve their traffic problems. Essentially the only upside to the abandonment of railroads has been that it’s possible to build some unique vehicles to explore these tracks and the beautiful yet desolate areas they reach, and [Cam Engineering] is using an ebike to do that along the coast of central California.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ The Sounds Emitted By Plants Are Real But They Are Still Not Talking

• A recent paper published by researchers at the university of Tel Aviv in Cell on the sounds they captured from ‘stressed’ plants had parts of the internet abuzz with what this meant, with some suggesting that this was an early April Fools prank. The fun part here is the news item is not that plants make noise, but rather that this was the first time (apparently) that the noise made by plants was captured by microphones placed at some distance from a variety of plants.

Finance

=> ↺ 2023-04-04 [Older] The Social Security Scare Story Industry

=> ↺ ‘Either Trade Unions Win This, or It Will Be the Far Right’: Labor Sees High Stakes in French Pension Fight

• As French workers intensify their fight against President Emmanuel Macron’s deeply unpopular plan to raise the nation’s retirement age from 62 to 64, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

=> ↺ Student Debt Forgiveness Is a Win-Win for Our Country

• The majority of us support debt relief, but lobbyist-backed lawsuits are holding back Americans from achieving a better life.

=> ↺ Russia’s Finance Ministry reports first quarter budget deficit of 2.4 trillion rubles — Meduza

• According to preliminary data from the Ministry of Finance, Russia’s federal budget for January–March saw a deficit of 2.4 trillion rubles ($29.5 billion). Legally, the 2023 budget is allowed a deficit of 2.93 trillion rubles ($35.9 billion).

=> ↺ Experts sound Gong on Chinese money-laundering in Australian property market

• The recent bust of a Sydney-based money laundering syndicate, and the story of a charming Chinese criminal brought down by New Zealand authorities, highlight the need for Australia to catch up on global anti-money laundering regulations, reports Callum Foote.

• Earlier this year, the Australian Federal Police busted a money laundering scheme earning its members hundreds of millions in profit, with millions of dollars worth of Sydney property seized.

=> ↺ Hope for the Common Good When Savage Capitalism Is Destroying the Place

• Note: The following is excerpted from David Barsamian’s recent interview with Noam Chomsky at AlternativeRadio.org.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Perp Time

=> ↺ ‘Oh, Please’: Critics Scoff at Clarence Thomas’ Defense of Secret Luxury Trips

• Under fire after reporting offered a detailed look at his decades of billionaire-funded luxury vacations, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas claimed Friday that he was “advised” by colleagues not to report personal hospitality gifts from friends, a story that drew immediate derision from lawmakers and legal analysts.

=> ↺ Clarence Thomas Defends Undisclosed Trips. Here Are the Facts.

• In a rare public statement, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas responded Friday to a ProPublica report that revealed that Thomas has, for decades, accepted luxury travel from billionaire Republican megadonor Harlan Crow and failed to disclose it.

• Thomas’ brief statement acknowledges joining Crow and his wife, who he described as among his “dearest friends,” on “a number of family trips” over the years. He also defended his failure to disclose them.

=> ↺ Should Clarence Thomas Be Impeached? GOP Megadonor Gave Justice Free Luxury Vacations for 20 Years

• Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report frequent luxury trips paid for by a billionaire Republican megadonor named Harlan Crow, leading to renewed calls for the conservative jurist’s impeachment. According to ProPublica, Thomas has for decades accepted flights on Crow’s private jet, trips on his yacht and frequent stays at his exclusive lakeside resort, in apparent violation of a law requiring justices and other federal officials to disclose most gifts. “Justice Thomas has this extraordinary and apparently unprecedented relationship with this outside billionaire who is basically subsidizing his life,” says ProPublica reporter Justin Elliott. Thomas has previously come under scrutiny for conflicts of interest after he refused to recuse himself from cases about Republican efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, even as his wife, Ginni, was pressuring officials to ensure Donald Trump’s victory.

=> ↺ We Are ‘Just Beginning,’ Tennessee GOP Boasts in Fundraiser After Expelling Democrats

• The Tennessee Republican Party waited less than 24 hours to start fundraising off the expulsion of two progressive lawmakers from the state House—openly bragging Friday about what critics have called a blatantly anti-democratic move that shows the party’s growing authoritarianism.

=> ↺ ‘Fascism, Full Stop’: Progressives in Congress Condemn Expulsion of Tennessee Democrats

• “This is fascism,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). “Expelling your political opponents for demanding action on gun violence when children are dying is disgusting.”

=> ↺ Jones Says He Will Fight ‘Unconstitutional’ Expulsion as Reinstatement Votes Loom

• Former Tennessee State Rep. Justin Jones said Friday that he intends to challenge his expulsion in the courts and at the ballot box amid uncertainty about the path ahead for him and fellow removed Rep. Justin Pearson, whose decision to stand in solidarity with constituents protesting the scourge of gun violence drew national attention and praise.

=> ↺ Tennessee GOP Show That Revenge Is Fascism’s First Instinct

• Republicans in the Tennessee House of Representatives are furious and out for revenge. Two Black Democratic members and a Democratic woman had confronted them — and embarrassed them — over their unwillingness to do anything about the slaughter of Tennessee’s children in that state’s schools.

=> ↺ “A Public Lynching”: Justin Jones, Black Tennessee Lawmaker, Responds to Expulsion from State House

• We speak with Justin Jones, one of two Black Democratic lawmakers expelled by a Republican supermajority in the Tennessee state House of Representatives Thursday for peacefully protesting gun violence in the chamber last week as thousands rallied at the Capitol to demand gun control after the Covenant elementary school shooting in Nashville. A vote to expel their white colleague who joined them in solidarity failed. “They thought by expelling us they would silence us, they would silence our movements that we’re part of, but in fact they’ve amplified it, because the nation can see how racist they are. The nation can see how retaliatory and absurd and authoritarian they are,” says Jones.

=> ↺ Tennessee Goddamn

=> ↺ Trump’s Indictment Is Not “Selective Prosecution”

• With news network helicopters hovering overhead, Trump’s motorcade made its way south through Manhattan on Monday, toward his long-awaited arrest and arraignment. Trump was, however begrudgingly, arriving in court to surrender himself to the judicial process and to hear details of the 34 felony counts that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was charging him with. Ever the self-promoter, Trump has seized the moment and refashioned himself as the outlaw ex-and-maybe-future president, the gangster folk hero, the desperado taking on the maleficent forces of the overweening state, the revolutionary so fearsome that the state has to resort to a show trial to shut him up.

=> ↺ 5 Other Modern Presidents Who Should Have Been Indicted for Their Crimes

• Seeing Trump arraigned in New York on Tuesday was satisfying even if the outcome of the trial cannot be foreseen and he has a presumption of innocence. There is obviously evidence that he falsified his business records for the purpose of hiding material facts […]

=> ↺ Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Bets on New Hampshire to Boost a Very Unlikely Presidential Bid

• The Kennedy name may not be so politically potent as it once was. But it still resonates in some Democratic circles, especially in northern New England, where a 1960 New Hampshire primary win set Massachusetts Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s course to win his party’s nomination and the presidency. Sixty-three years after that historic win, JFK’s most prominent, and most controversial, nephew is counting on New Hampshire Democrats to boost an unlikely bid by the latest in a long line of Kennedys to seek the nation’s highest office.1

=> ↺ The Tennessee GOP’s Shameful Expulsion of 2 Black Legislators

• In a juster, saner world, a Google search for the term “racist show trial” would promptly yield footage of the despicable vote in the GOP-led Tennessee legislature to expel two Black members for the offense of doing their jobs: using their position to advocate for desperately needed gun-control legislation. Justin Jones, a representative from Nashville, and his Memphis colleague Justin Pearson both helped escort a group of high school protesters into the state capitol last Thursday to demand action on gun control in the wake of the horrific killing of six people at a Nashville private school. Both men went to the “well” of the legislative chamber—the spot on the floor where lawmakers typically address the assembly—and helped lead chants of protest. At times, they each spoke through a megaphone. The crowd stayed briefly, and peacefully dispersed.

=> ↺ IRS Strategic Plan Vows to Amp Up Audits of the Rich

• Flush with $80 billion in new funding, the IRS is aiming to ramp up audits of wealthy taxpayers and large corporations, according to a strategic operating plan it released Thursday. The 150-page plan also includes a lengthy list of proposed changes intended to improve customer service, upgrade the agency’s notoriously outdated computer systems, boost hiring and even “explore making it easier” to file tax returns directly with the IRS for free.

=> ↺ Twitter Verified Unfollows All Accounts Amid Confusion Over Blue Check

• Twitter’s revoking of legacy verified accounts might finally be getting underway as it has begun a mass unfollowing and now follows ‘no one.’

• On the ‘Twitter Verified’ account, the following has hit the rock bottom as it has reached ‘Zero.’

=> ↺ US Big Tech Companies Struggle To Reduce Headcount In Europe. Here’s Why

• Both in France and Germany, where labor laws are among the strongest in the EU, Google is currently in negotiations with works councils – company-specific groups whose elected employee representatives negotiate with management about workforce issues, according to a person familiar with the matter. By law, companies are required to bargain with these councils before implementing layoffs – a sometimes lengthy process that includes information gathering, negotiations and the possibility of recourse.

=> ↺ Twitter takes down post on Home Minister globally

• In an apparent first, Twitter appears to have withheld a tweet globally in response to a “legal demand” in India. Journalist and Right to Information (RTI) activist Saurav Das posted a screenshot of two past tweets, one of which appears to quote Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah, with a message from the social media platform stating that the content has been “withheld in Worldwide”.

• This is significant as Twitter has usually restricted access to posts following government requests only in the territory where such content is demanded to be blocked. The only instances where content has also been taken down globally is when it also violates Twitter’s own Terms of Service.

=> ↺ ‘We cut the internet during the earthquake, because…’

• Two days after the devastating earthquakes, authorities restricted the bandwidth of Twitter for nearly an entire day. The restriction was lifted after widespread criticism that Twitter had an important role in rescue efforts.

=> ↺ Lawmakers meet with Apple, Disney CEOs as part of talks on competition with China

• High-profile tech and media executives shared their experiences of working in and competing with China with lawmakers who visited California this week.

• Over the three-day trip that kicked off on Wednesday, lawmakers were scheduled to meet with Disney CEO Bob Iger and Apple CEO Tim Cook, as well as high-level executives from Google, Microsoft, Palantir and Scale AI.

=> ↺ Former presidential candidate Valery Tsepkalo tried in absentia and sentenced to 17 years in Belarus — Meduza

• The Belarusian politician Valery Tsepkalo (also spelled “Tsapkala”) has been sentenced to 17 years in a high-security penal colony. A Minsk court tried him in absentia.

=> ↺ Democrats Can Win on Trans Issues—but Only if They Fight

• In his campaign to become a Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin, Daniel Kelly relied heavily on transphobia, accusing his rival, Janet Protasiewicz, of being a hostage to “trans ideology.” Such attacks have become the norm among Republican candidates, especially since 2022, when targeting care for trans kids and the participation of trans people in sports became staple culture-war issues. One text message Kelly’s campaign sent to voters on election day read: Politicians are ignoring parents and jeopardizing the safety of our children. Woke activists backing Janet Protasiewicz are destroying parents rights and forcing trans ideology into our schools. She will do nothing to stop the sexualization of our children. Today, vote for Judge Daniel Kelly to end the trans madness in our schools and protect parents rights!

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ Ukraine debates ways to prevent military leaks after ‘secret plan’ ends up online

• Reuters was not immediately able to review the leaked documents. The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters earlier that the document leak looked like a Russian disinformation operation to sow doubts about the counter-offensive.

• He said the leaked data contained a “very large amount of fictitious information” and that Russia appeared to be trying to seize back the initiative in its invasion, now in its 14th month.

=> ↺ Leaked documents expose US-NATO Ukraine war plans

=> ↺ Ukraine, North Korea and Iran included in leaked documents online

• Those postings of what appeared to be U.S. military documents triggered a Pentagon review into how the documents ended up on the [Internet].

=> ↺ The Pentagon is reviewing the alleged leak of classified U.S. documents about Ukraine’s war effort and military strength

• The documents, posted in recent days as photos on Twitter and Telegram, outline Ukraine’s military strength, the state of the conflict, casualty figures and the burn rate for HIMARS long-range rocket systems. Some of them carry a March 1 date.

• “We are aware of the reports of social media posts, and the Department is reviewing the matter,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said in an email, without elaborating.

=> ↺ Twitter labeled NPR a “state-affiliated media” despite its guidelines clearly stating otherwise

• NPR is the second US media organization whose credibility has been targeted by Twitter. The New York Times’ main Twitter account lost its verified badge on Sunday (Apr. 2). According to the Washington Post, the decision came directly from Musk, after he learned the publication had no intention of paying to retain the golden tick that had recently been assigned to accounts belonging to organizations.

=> ↺ Elon Musk says NPR’s ‘state-affiliated media’ label might not have been accurate

• “The operating principle at new Twitter is simply fair and equal treatment, so if we label non-US accounts as govt, then we should do the same for US, but it sounds like that might not be accurate here,” he wrote.

=> ↺ ChatGPT falsely accused me of sexually harassing my students. Can we really trust AI?

• AI promises to expand such abuses exponentially. Most critics work off biased or partisan accounts rather than original sources. When they see any story that advances their narrative, they do not inquire further.

• b What is most striking is that this false accusation was not just generated by AI but ostebnsibly based on a Post article that never existed.

=> ↺ ‘Infecting minds’: US book sent to teachers seeks to sow climate doubt

• From crops to corals, a book circulated by a controversial US think tank is riddled with misleading claims about established climate science, in what campaigners slam as a bid to “infect” young minds.

• The free-market Heartland Institute drew outrage from campaigners and educators, but applause from climate skeptics, when it sent the book to more than 8,000 American school teachers this year “to present facts” it said were ignored or distorted by pundits and the media.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Woman who held sign reading ‘Putin eats children’ at Alexey Moskalev’s custody hearing fined for ‘discrediting’ Russian army — Meduza

• A Tula court has issued a 50,000-ruble ($600) fine against Yelena Tarbayev, a St. Petersburg resident who protested at Alexey Moskalev’s custody hearing on Thursday, according to the independent outlet OVD-Info.

=> ↺ EFF to Ninth Circuit: Twitter Has First Amendment Right to Ban Users, Including Presidents

=> ↺ Alexey Moskalev awaiting deportation in Belarusian pre-trial detention center — Meduza

• Alexey Moskalev, the single father from Russia’s Tula region who escaped house arrest after being sentenced to two years in prison on charges of “discrediting” the Russian army, is awaiting deportation in a Belarusian pre-trial detention center, according to Russia’s Interior Ministry and the Russian Embassy in Belarus.

=> ↺ Chinese authorities in Tibet go after relatives of self-immolating protestors

• Chinese authorities are harassing and discriminating against relatives of Tibetans who protested against Chinese rule by setting their bodies alight going back to 2008, two sources in Tibet told Radio Free Asia.

=> ↺ New Indian Textbooks Purged of Muslim History and Hindu Extremism

• The governing party’s leaders have also tried to minimize the founding fathers’ arguments for why India’s diversity could survive only under a secular umbrella, co-opting the legacy of many secular leaders as they push to remake India into a Hindu-first nation.

=> ↺ Harsh prison sentences for antiwar protesters and dissidents on the rise in Russian courts

• Based on the available data, Re:Russia notes an overall trend for greater numbers of guilty verdicts and increasing severity in punishing the antiwar dissidents.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ 2023-04-06 Covering the West Bank: Security insights and tips for journalists

=> ↺ Justice Ministry declares journalist Arkady Babchenko a ‘foreign agent’ — Meduza

• Russia’s Ministry of Justice has added journalist Arkady Babchenko to its list of “foreign agents.”

=> ↺ Evan Gershkovich: Russia charges US journalist with spying – reports

• The WSJ released another statement following news of the charges: “As we’ve said from the beginning, these charges are categorically false and unjustified, and we continue to demand Evan’s immediate release.”

• US officials say they have sought access to Mr Gershkovich but have not been able to visit him. However, the WSJ said its lawyers had been given access to him.

=> ↺ Russia formally charges Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich with espionage — Meduza

• Russian investigators have formally charged Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich with espionage, according to Russian state media. The charges have not officially been announced.

=> ↺ To free American journalist jailed in Russia, US faces uphill battle, experts say

• The United States will face an uphill battle in any efforts it takes to free detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich — who has been imprisoned in Russia for over a week — because of the seriousness of the espionage charges against him and the fact that Moscow shows no sign of backing down, experts told ABC News.

=> ↺ Belmarsh Warden Blocks Assange From Meeting With Representatives of Press Freedom Organization

• By Kevin Gosztola / The Dissenter The warden of Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh blocked representatives with the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) from visiting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, despite previously reviewing RSF’s request and agreeing to grant access. Rebecca Vincent, the director of operations and campaigns for RSF, declared, “We followed all rules […]

=> ↺ Book Excerpt: “Guilty of Journalism”

• In their 2020 updated indictment against the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, United States prosecutors did not name Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson. Instead, Thordarson, a citizen of Iceland, was referred to as “Teenager.”

• The Justice Department (DOJ) withheld Thordarson’s identity, even though Thordarson was well known, and not as some helpless minor but as a known liar and diagnosed sociopath with a criminal record.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Decoding the U.N. Cybercrime Treaty

• Given that existing cybercrime laws are, as stated by the U.N.General Assembly, “in some instances misused to target human rights defenders” and “endanger their safety in a manner contrary to international law,” these widened parameters amplify the potential implications for billions of people—particularly stifling free speech, increasing government surveillance, and expanding state investigative techniques.

=> ↺ UN Cybercrime Draft Treaty Timeline

• October 2017 The Russian Federation presents a letter to the UN General Assembly containing a draft of the United Nations Convention on Cooperation in Combating Cybercrime, intended for circulation to Member States. 

• November 2019 A resolution, sponsored by Russia—along with Belarus, Cambodia, China, Iran, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Syria, and Venezuela—to set up an international convention to combat cybercrime passes in the UN General Assembly. The resolution was opposed by the US, the EU, and other nations. Human rights organizations, including the Association for Progressive Communications and EFF, urged the General Assembly to vote against the resolution, citing concerns that it “could undermine the use of the internet to exercise human rights and facilitate social and economic development.” 

• December 2019 The UN General Assembly adopts a resolution to create an Ad Hoc Committee (AHC) to draft a UN Convention “on countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes.” Participation in the AHC is open to all Member States of the world, as well as non-member state observers (like the EU and the Council of Europe), civil society, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to varying degrees. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), through the Organized Crime and Illicit Trafficking Branch, Division for Treaty Affairs, serves as Secretariat for the Ad Hoc Committee. However, the timing of this effort was controversial, as another UN General Assembly Resolution had raised concerns that cybercrime laws “are in some instances misused to target human rights defenders or have hindered their work and endangered their safety in a manner contrary to international law.”

=> ↺ Their Loved Ones Were Killed by Police. Why Are Officers Still Harassing Them?

• Los Angeles, Calif.—Standing near a memorial for her son, at the site where he was killed in 2019, Leah Rea is still distraught.

• “She acts like she’s better than us when she drives by.”

=> ↺ Police Step in When Foster Kids Break Down in NM Homeless Shelters

• Near the pumps of a gas station in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a teenager in foster care sat in the back of a squad car, sobbing and gasping for air. Her hands were cuffed and her legs were bound in a “wrap restraint” to prevent her from thrashing about. A protective foam helmet covered her head.

• The police had been called to find her after she ran away from a nearby youth homeless shelter, where she had been placed by the state child welfare agency.

=> ↺ 2023-04-07 Who was ‘affected’ by Hong Kong’s national security law? More than 30 of us, Mr Lam

=> ↺ 2023-04-06 [Older] Man arrested by Hong Kong national security police for allegedly assisting fraud group linked to ‘extremist gang’

=> ↺ 2023-04-04 [Older] Rallies must not harm national security or public safety, Hong Kong’s John Lee says

=> ↺ Feds barged into the wrong hotel room during a drill, then detained the guest inside

• The man had been asleep in his room at the Revere Hotel when agents began banging on his door and demanding to be let in, according to WBZ-TV. It says the agents handcuffed the man, put him in the shower and interrogated him for more than 45 minutes before they realized their mistake, uncuffed him and apologized.

=> ↺ The Poisonous Atmosphere That Pervades Iran

• The government’s double-talk planted confusion among the public and suggested that there was no consensus among officials. Such contradiction—one official offering an explanation, only to be undermined by another—is characteristic of Tehran’s damage-control tactics. At times, an impression of division can reflect real tensions within the ruling elites. At others, it can be fabricated to project a false sense of behind-the-scenes competition between hawks and doves, as if the elites were somehow responsive to public opinion.

=> ↺ Are Mass School Poisonings in Iran Trying to Stamp Out Girls’ Education?

• The first person arrested in connection with the poisonings was not a suspected perpetrator but a journalist who reported on the attacks: Ali Pourtabatabaei, the editor of a local news website who covered the targeting of schools in Qom. He was taken into custody on the morning of March 5. An official reason was not given for his arrest, but it is widely speculated that the authorities detained him for his role in breaking the story of the first school poisonings in Qom, Iran’s religious center, which is home to half of the country’s Shia’s clerics. His arrest was a testimony to the fact that the Islamic Republic perceives the news of the crisis as the real concern, rather than the crisis itself.

=> ↺ Iran 1953: The Birthplace of Western Backed Coups

• Despite its unique circumstance and history, the Iranian coup in 1953—as explored by Taghi Amirani in his film Coup 53—proved to be a template for the West’s exploitation of the world.

=> ↺ Caitlin Clark’s Lesson for White Athletes: Don’t Be a MAGA Pawn

• In a less-sexist version of this country, we would all be talking about the number 9.9 million. That was the size of the television and streaming audience watching the NCAA Women’s Basketball Finals between Iowa and victorious LSU. It was 12.6 million at its peak—that’s more than watched the World Series. One wonders if in the wildest dreams of Lusia Harris and Nancy Lieberman, they ever saw a day when the game they made would be relished by so many. And yet in these ailing United States, the commentariat has spent days—in highly overheated fashion—debating whether LSU star Angel Reese, a Black woman, should have made a “you can’t see me” gesture to Iowa’s galactically talented guard Caitlin Clark, who is white, as the fourth-quarter clock wound down. The gesture is one Clark has made famous in hoops circles by using in previous games.

=> ↺ The End of Business Unionism at the United Auto Workers—and Beyond?

• The Stellantis Belvidere Assembly Plant built its last Jeep Cherokee in February. The company’s decision to indefinitely idle the Illinois plant came in December, bringing an end to the slow bleed of over 5000 jobs over the past five years. The 25,000-person town of Belvidere was struggling already from the secondary effects of the plant’s downsizing, but this latest blow threatened to be the final nail in the coffin for what remains of the local economy. The members of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 1268 might have reasonably given up on their union. After all, the UAW had been in talks with Stellantis just months earlier, discussing whether the plant would be transitioned to electric vehicle production, and took no action when the company announced its verdict.

Monopolies

Trademarks

=> ↺ Jazz Trumpeter Takes on Apple Music’s Trademark Overreach — And Wins in US Appeals Court

• The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit allowed trumpeter Charlie Bertini to block Apple’s bid for a federal Apple Music trademark covering live performances, arguing that the name would cause confusion with his “Apple Jazz” branding he has used since 1985.

• The court rejected Apple’s argument that it had priority over Bertini’s trademark rights based on its ownership of a trademark through the Beatles’ music label Apple Corps Ltd.

Copyrights

=> ↺ TPB Founders Are Not Involved in the “The Pirate Bay” TV Series

• The six-part “The Pirate Bay” series will start filming this fall, a year later than expected. The production is in the hands of B-Reel Films, a renowned studio with offices in Sweden and L.A., and the ‘rights’ for the project are already being sold globally. The Pirate Bay’s founders won’t see a penny and inform us that they are not in any way involved.

=> ↺ 60-Year-Old Music Pirate Faces Prison in a Country Part-Run By Pirates

• A 60-year-old man is facing a potential two-year prison sentence for placing 1,000 music albums on a server open to the public. While not extraordinary in itself, the man is from the Czech Republic, where Pirate Party politicians are part of the coalition government. The same Pirate Party previously ran at least three pirate sites, and a court even declared the most recent one legal.

=> ↺ Somebody wants to copyright a rhythm – get ready for the dembow tax if they succeed

• One of the most pernicious effects of today’s copyright maximalism is the idea that every element of a creative work has to be owned by someone, and protected against “unauthorised” – that is, unpaid – use by other artists. That goes against several thousand years of human creativity, which only exists thanks to successive generations of artists using and building on our cultural heritage. The ownership model of art is essentially selfish: it seeks to maximise the financial gains of one creator, at the expense of the entire culture of which they are part. A good example of this clash of interests can be seen in yet another lawsuit in the music industry. This time, somebody is trying to copyright a rhythm: [...]

=> ↺ 2023-04-03 [Guest Post] Nigerian’s new Copyright Act 2022: how libraries can benefit

=> ↺ If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

• If you’ve ever researched anything online, you’ve probably used the Internet Archive (IA). The IA, founded in 1996 by librarian and engineer Brewster Kahle, describes itself as “a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.” Their annals include 37 million books, many of which are old tomes that aren’t commercially available. It has classic films, plenty of podcasts and — via its Wayback Machine — just about every deleted webpage ever.

• Four corporate publishers have a big problem with this, so they’ve sued the Internet Archive. In Hatchette v. Internet Archive, the Hachette Publishing Group, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and Wiley have alleged that the IA is committing copyright infringement. Now a federal judge has ruled in the publishers’ favor. The IA is appealing the decision.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ The Practiced Art of Idling

• I first got into MUDs in 1995 or 96. Finding an article on them in Internet World magazine, I used my friend’s older brother’s university shell account to telnet in. And the first two I tried were very different. The first was FurryMUCK, and I used it for a bit before realizing that people were very into their fursonas and all the roleplaying meant something more to them than me. And the second was Dark Castle, a DikuMUD that in retrospect represented everything I now dislike in an online game: open PK, clans that demanded you treat your char like a second job, a mostly-absent group of imms (immortals, admins). But it also had, now lost to the web, an incredible starting guide put together by a more design- and high-minded player. It was a website that was half story, half tutorial. I fell in love, decided I’d keep at it. I even wrote and maintained a newbie guide of my own, and uploaded it to my ISP website. It probably got zero hits. Search sucked in those days, and nobody outside of my high school knew about my home page. I was the only MUDder. But I made it with love and I was proud of it. For all the usual reasons, I can’t link it here.

• Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter. Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

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