● 05.15.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 15/05/2023: Linux 6.4 RC2 and KeePassXC 2.7.5

Posted in News Roundup at 2:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ Linux Made Simple ☛ 2023-05-07 [Older] Linux Weekly Roundup #234

Server

=> ↺ TechTarget ☛ Improve Kubernetes network performance with Cilium and eBPF | TechTarget

• Learn how the Cilium Kubernetes plugin and eBPF framework can improve network efficiency and security, then walk through installing Cilium on a K3s cluster with sample code.

=> ↺ TechTarget ☛ Can you use Kubernetes without Docker? | TechTarget

• Although Docker and Kubernetes are often used together, the two serve different roles in IT environments — and Docker containers aren’t the only option for Kubernetes deployments.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ 2023-05-12 [Older] Stop Updating Your Linux Computer Within The GUI

=> ↺ 2023-05-12 [Older] Relatable? Also i’m sure someone would find the show nostalgic

=> ↺ 2023-05-12 [Older] Kubuntu 23.04 Quick Overview #shorts

=> ↺ 2023-05-12 [Older] How to install Ubuntu Kylin 23.04

=> ↺ 2023-05-12 [Older] Did you know the ROG Ally ships with Windows, guys? 👀👀 Not sus at all…

=> ↺ 2023-05-11 [Older] Enterprise Linux Security Episode 66 – Job Security

=> ↺ 2023-05-11 [Older] Is NOBARA really better than FEDORA? benchmarks, experience, apps, controllers…

=> ↺ 2023-05-11 [Older] Ubuntu Kylin 23.04 | Easy•Excellent•Expert•Elaborate

=> ↺ 2023-05-11 [Older] Interesting, isn’t it?🐧

=> ↺ 2023-05-11 [Older] How to install Minetest on MX Linux 21.3

=> ↺ 2023-05-11 [Older] Is Protestware Healthy For Free and Open Source

=> ↺ 2023-05-11 [Older] Demystifying the Top Command in Linux | Linux Crash Course Series

=> ↺ 2023-05-10 [Older] How to install Inkscape on MX Linux 21.3

=> ↺ 2023-05-10 [Older] How to install Ubuntu MATE 23.04

=> ↺ 2023-05-10 [Older] Episode 58: Power Up & Freak Out | The Linux For Everyone Podcast

=> ↺ 2023-05-10 [Older] Linux Dot Files Were Never Meant To Exist

=> ↺ 2023-05-10 [Older] Of Course It’s Hard!If It Were Easy, Everyone Would Do It.

=> ↺ 2023-05-09 [Older] MSI Data Leak Is More Serious Than We Thought

=> ↺ 2023-05-09 [Older] Ubuntu MATE 23.04 overview | For a retrospective future.

=> ↺ 2023-05-09 [Older] STOP using SOCIAL MEDIA for News, RSS is MUCH BETTER!

=> ↺ 2023-05-09 [Older] Building a Powerful Raspberry Pi NAS with the Argon EON Pi Case & OpenMediaVault

=> ↺ 2023-05-09 [Older] How to install Audacity on MX Linux 21.3

=> ↺ SANS ☛ 2023-05-08 [Older] Wait Just an Infosec: Podcast with Lori Brumm, Jacob Gray and Johannes Ullrich. Tuesday 10am EDT https://www.yewtu.be/watch?v=lqBGwlZLdFk, (Mon, May 8th)

=> ↺ 2023-05-08 [Older] Edubuntu Makes Triumphant Return With 23.04 (Back After 9 Years!)

=> ↺ 2023-05-08 [Older] Xubuntu 23.04 Quick Overview #shorts

=> ↺ 2023-05-08 [Older] How to install Flightgear on Linux Lite 6.2

=> ↺ 2023-05-08 [Older] Linux Was Almost Destroyed By This Lawsuit

=> ↺ 2023-05-07 [Older] Why this new Steam feature could hint at a Steam Controller sequel… | Press Steam to Start Ep 6

=> ↺ 2023-05-07 [Older] How To Install Linux Mint 21.1 for Someone Else (OEM Install)

=> ↺ 2023-05-07 [Older] Swearing In Your Code Make You A Better Developer??

=> ↺ 2023-05-07 [Older] How to install Toontown Rewritten on Linux Lite 6.2

=> ↺ Open Source Security (Audio Show) ☛ Episode 375 – The market forces of left-pad, Episode 77 remaster part 2

• Josh and Kurt finish up the leftpad discussion. We spent a lot of time talking about how the market will respond to these sort of events, and the market did indeed speak; very little has changed. There is an aspect of all these security events where we need to understand the cost vs benefit just isn’t there. it may never be there. Rather than whine and complain, we need to work with our constraints.

=> ↺ 2023-05-10 [Older] FLOSS Weekly 731: Confidential Computing – Dan Middleton, Confidential Computing Consortium [Ed: FLOSS Weekly is shilling fake (anti) privacy, which is actually outsourcing and thus a form of security breach. Corporate media insists that people do not need any servers of their own, and they say the same about personal computers, phones etc. After all, who would want to own anything? Let the billionaires own and control everything, then pay them monthly rents, like in feudal times, except now it's digital.]

=> ↺ The TLLTS Podcast ☛ 2023-05-11 [Older] The Linux Link Tech Show Episode 1004

Kernel Space

=> ↺ LWN ☛ Linux 6.4-rc2

=> ↺ LWN ☛ Kernel prepatch 6.4-rc2 [LWN.net]

• The second 6.4 kernel prepatch is out for testing. “”This being rc2, it’s been a fairly calm week as people are only starting to find any issues from the merge window, but it all looks fine.””

Applications

=> ↺ Neowin ☛ KeePassXC 2.7.5

• KeePassXC is a community fork of KeePassX, a native cross-platform port of KeePass Password Safe, with the goal to extend and improve it with new features and bugfixes to provide a feature-rich, fully cross-platform and modern open-source password manager.

• KeePassXC currently uses the KeePass 2.x (.kdbx) password database format as its native file format in versions 3.1 and 4. Database files in version 2 can be opened, but will be upgraded to a newer format. KeePass 1.x (.kdb) databases can be imported into a .kdbx file, but this process is one-way.

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ 2023-05-07 [Older] The 8 Best Media Players for the Steam Deck

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ 2023-05-12 [Older] A Complete Guide to Privacy on the Steam Deck

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ University of Toronto ☛ Why I use separate lexers in my recursive descent parsers

• As someone who’s written a number of recursive descent (RD) parsers over the years, I had a reaction on the Fediverse. You see, when I write recursive descent parsers, I always write a separate lexer.

=> ↺ MJ Fransen ☛ Create texinfo files with org-mode for your personal notes

• Let your computer do the work for you, where possible.

• Use a snippet system like yasnippet with a template for your org-files

• Create a Makefile to run the shell script with the substitution for uref lines and run makeinfo and install-info command.

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ How to Install and Set Up Snort IDS on Linux to Secure Your Network

• Snort is one such famous, free-for-personal use and open-source IPS/IDS solution. Let’s learn how you can install and set up Snort on Linux to defend your network from cyber-attacks.

=> ↺ How to Install and Use Jupyter Notebook in Linux, Windows and Mac

• If you are looking for a robust tool that can assist you with scientific computing, and interactive computing, Jupyter Notebook is an ideal choice for you, as it supports multiple programming languages and can make it more suitable for a wide variety of data analysis operations.

=> ↺ Linux Made Simple ☛ 2023-05-11 [Older] How to install Minetest on MX Linux 21.3

=> ↺ Linux Made Simple ☛ 2023-05-10 [Older] How to install Inkscape on MX Linux 21.3

=> ↺ Linux Made Simple ☛ 2023-05-09 [Older] How to install Audacity on MX Linux 21.3

=> ↺ Linux Made Simple ☛ 2023-05-08 [Older] How to install Flightgear on Linux Lite 6.2

=> ↺ Linux Made Simple ☛ 2023-05-07 [Older] How to install Toontown Rewritten on Linux Lite 6.2

=> ↺ Write and append to .txt file using the terminal in Linux

• To write and append to a .txt file using the terminal in Linux, first create a new textfile on your desktop using the touch command…

=> ↺ How do I enable the top menu bar in Firefox

• I recently installed Kubuntu, which came with Firefox already installed. I have not used Firefox as my main browser for quite a few years. One thing I did notice,was that the top menu bar was not enabled.

=> ↺ AddictiveTips ☛ How to Set Up a PostgreSQL Database on Ubuntu

• PostgreSQL is an outstanding choice for SQL databases on Ubuntu. In this guide, we will guide you through the process of installing and configuring a PostgreSQL database on Ubuntu Server. Whether you’re a newcomer to Linux databases or knowledgeable about PostgreSQL, this step-by-step guide will help you install and configure a database on Ubuntu Server.

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ How to Monitor User Logins on Linux

• Whether you are a Linux admin with servers and multiple users under your watch or a regular Linux user, it is always good to be proactive in securing your system.

• One of the ways you can actively secure your system is by monitoring user logins, especially currently logged-in users and failed logins or login attempts.

=> ↺ Despite Layoffs, Open Source and Linux Skills are Still in Demand – Slashdot [Ed: SJVN as parrot of Zemlin, indirectly paid by him and thus by monopolies]

• ZDNet reports that Jim Zemlin, executive director at the Linux Foundation, recently noted rounds of tech-industry layoffs “in the name of cost-cutting.” But then Zemlin added that “open source is countercyclical to these trends. The Linux Foundation itself, for instance, had its best first quarter ever.”

=> ↺ Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux: A Comprehensive Introduction

• Cybersecurity has become a major concern for all organizations in today’s digital age. With the rise of web-based applications, web penetration testing has become a crucial step in ensuring the security of online assets. Kali Linux, a popular operating system, provides various tools that can be used for web penetration testing. In this article, we will discuss the importance of web penetration testing with Kali Linux and how it can be done effectively.

=> ↺ Network World ☛ Taking advantage of the grep command’s many options

• The grep command offers interesting options to help you find what you want from text files.

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ How to Install and Set Up Snort IDS on Linux to Secure Your Network

• Protect your network from intruders and unsolicited attacks by installing and setting up Snort IDS.

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ How to Use the split Command to Split Text Files in Linux

• Learn how to split a large file into multiple smaller files using the split command on Linux.

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ How to Use gomphotherium: A Complete Fediverse Client for Your Linux Terminal

• Want a terminal-friendly way to scroll through your fediverse toots? Consider installing gomphotherium, a terminal-based client for the fediverse.

=> ↺ Run Oracle Database 23c with Podman Desktop

• Podman Desktop is an open source graphical tool enabling you to seamlessly work with containers and Kubernetes from your local environment. On this blog I will share all the steps to get Podman Desktop running on an Oracle Linux 9 system to then run one container with Oracle Database 23c Free Edition.

Distributions and Operating Systems

Reviews

=> ↺ Distro Watch ☛ Review: Rhino Linux (Beta)

• I want to underline that Rhino Linux is in its early stages of development. The snapshot I was using was a development release of a rolling platform, built on Ubuntu’s development branch. In other words, we should expect some issues and unpredictability. In fact, I would have been surprised if there had not been a few problems.

• Early on there were a few glitches. The live media wouldn’t boot in UEFI mode which is a problem on newer hardware. I also found Calamares was prone to crashing during its clean-up phase, preventing the system from booting. I could work around these problems, but it would be a barrier for anyone not familiar with using the command line and chroot environments.

• After those initial issues, things actually became pretty comfortable for me while using Rhino. The distribution is a pleasantly medium weight, I like the initial welcome wizard which helps us configure a few things, and Xfce offers a pleasant, stable user interface. The application menu is lightly populated, encouraging us to install software we need beyond the bare basics. Apart from some issues with Firefox, the included software worked well.

• The key feature though of Rhino Linux is its package manager. I found it worked quite well. Really, this is just glue binding together multiple package managers behind the scenes, but it works unusually well. It’s fairly quick, the packages and their sources are neatly organized, and it makes upgrading software much more streamlined for the user.

• It’s still early days for Rhino Linux, but it’s off to a good start. If the developers can sort out a few issues with the start-up process and maybe remove GNOME Software so people aren’t tempted to use it over the prescribed package manager, I think it will be a good experience.

• A lot of people have been saying they’d like to see a rolling flavour of Ubuntu and now it is here. It’s not an entirely smooth experience yet, but it’s close. The one thing I feel is missing is a method to rescue or rollback system upgrades, perhaps using Btrfs snapshots, so that following Ubuntu’s development branch doesn’t break the system. Once some rollback method is in place, I think it will make Rhino a very appealing, Ubuntu-compatible rolling release platform.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Red Hat Official ☛ Red Hat Delivers Latest Releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux

=> ↺ AlmaLinux Official ☛ AlmaLinux 9.2 – Now Available

• Hello Сommunity. The AlmaLinux OS Foundation is proud to announce the general availability of AlmaLinux OS 9.2 codenamed “Turquoise Kodkod”!

=> ↺ EuroLinux ☛ EuroLinux 9.2 released

• On May 11, 2023, we released version 9.2 of the EuroLinux operating system. It maintains compatibility with Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 9.2. EuroLinux 9.2 repositories have been expanded to include Python 3.11, Nginx 1.22, PostgreSQL 15, new versions of Performance Co-Pilot, updated toolsets: Rust v1.66, Go v1.19 and LLVM v15. The new version of the system also introduces a variety of improvements to the web console (cockpit). The Linux kernel has been updated to version 5.14.0-284.

=> ↺ SJVN ☛ CIQ Mountain: SysAdm, DevOps, and Secure Rocky Linux Images

• With CentOS 7 coming to the end of its days, CentOS Linux clones such as AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux are rapidly gaining in popularity for business users To help f=graner more of an audience, CIQ has expanded its Rocky portfolio with the introduction of a new service: CIQ Mountain.

• CIQ Mountain is both a SysAdmin tool, somewhat like Red Hat Satellite, and a DevOps program. It’s meant to make life easier for businesses, whether they’re in a home office or a Fortune 500 company.

=> ↺ OMG! Linux ☛ Fedora Won’t Adopt GNOME’s New Console App Anytime Soon

• Despite this modern replacement for GNOME Terminal being decent (especially since gaining a fancy tab overview) the bods overseeing what’s included in Fedora remain unconvinced by its appeal, citing missing features and a lack of a definitive “USP”.

• Thus, they plan to “stick with GNOME Terminal indefinitely”.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Linux Gizmos ☛ SolidRun launches TI Sitara AM64x embedded modules starting at $55.00

• SolidRun’s new industrial System-on-Module features the AM64x Sitara family of processors from Texas Instruments. The embedded products provide support for multi-protocol industrial ethernet with TSN and they are compatible with new the HummingBoard-T carrier boards also from SolidRun.

=> ↺ Linux Gizmos ☛ SBC boasts i.MX 8M Plus processor for machine learning

• The eDM-SBC-iMX8MP is a Single Board Computer that runs Linux on the NXP i.MX8M Plus quad-processor with an integrated Neural Processing Unit and HiFi4 DSP. 

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Jonah Brüchert ☛ Connecting an electric typewriter to a modern computer

• When we talked about teletype technology at my local university hackerspace, Spline, I remembered the typewriter had a 26-pin connector. After some research, I learned that the machine is basically an Erika S3004, one of the most popular typewriters of the GDR, in a different case. With this new knowledge, I was able to find a table of commands which can be sent and received from the device.

• The 26-pin connector is a port used in the GDR, which speaks a faily standard rs232 protocol, with a baud-rate of 1200. In fact, the USB TTL adapter I usually use for routers, worked on it after some creative wiring.

=> ↺ Ken Shirriff ☛ The Group Decode ROM: The 8086 processor’s first step of instruction decoding

• A key component of any processor is instruction decoding: analyzing a numeric opcode and figuring out what actions need to be taken. The Intel 8086 processor (1978) has a complex instruction set, making instruction decoding a challenge. The first step in decoding an 8086 instruction is something called the Group Decode ROM, which categorizes instructions into about 35 types that control how the instruction is decoded and executed. For instance, the Group Decode ROM determines if an instruction is executed in hardware or in microcode. It also indicates how the instruction is structured: if the instruction has a bit specifying a byte or word operation, if the instruction has a byte that specifies the addressing mode, and so forth.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ Pimoroni Inventor HAT Mini Review: Great for Making Robots

• This diminutive board features a range of outputs for servos, GPIO, motors, sensors, serial communication and of course there are eight bright RGB LEDs.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ IT Wire ☛ iTWire – Bitdefender adds real-time protection to its Android security software

=> ↺ 9to5Google ☛ Google Contacts for Android rolling out birthday notifications

=> ↺ Giz China ☛ Motorola Android Auto Adapter to UK and Europe – Gizchina.com

=> ↺ SlashGear ☛ 5 Cheap Android Phones You Should Avoid Buying

=> ↺ Phone Arena ☛ Android 14 will automatically make Google Photos pix look brighter and more realistic – PhoneArena

=> ↺ Forbes ☛ Stunning Android 14 Feature Will Bring A Massive Google Photos Upgrade

=> ↺ PC Mag ☛ Put Down the Phone: How to Unplug With Google’s Digital Wellbeing for Android | PCMag

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ What Are Dynamic System Updates? How to Run a New Version of Android as a Guest OS

=> ↺ SlashGear ☛ 5 Cheap Android Phones You Should Avoid Buying

=> ↺ SlashGear ☛ 5 Android Apps That Are Worth The Money

=> ↺ SlashGear ☛ These 5 Android Apps Use AI To Help You Learn A New Language

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

FSFE

=> ↺ FSFE ☛ 2023-05-11 [Older] EU Parliament wants to protect Free Software in AI regulation

=> ↺ FSFE ☛ 2023-05-11 [Older] Look back with us on Konrad’s amazing ‘Youth Hacking 4 Freedom’ project

=> ↺ FSFE ☛ 2023-05-09 [Older] Tack foss-north 2023!

=> ↺ FSFE ☛ 2023-05-08 [Older] Chaos Communication Camp: Call for Participation

Programming/Development

=> ↺ TechTarget ☛ Python interpreter vs. IDE: What network engineers should know | TechTarget

• In the network automation era, Python is the de facto language to automate repetitive network tasks on a global scale. Network engineers can use a plethora of tools during their automation journey, including interpreters and integrated development environment, or IDE, tools.

=> ↺ Ciprian Dorin Craciun ☛ Learning before dabbling in applied cryptography

• I’ve been for a long time an “applied cryptography passive enthusiast”, following various blogs and reading various introductory articles on the subject, but I have newer dug deeper or tried to do anything myself (hence the qualification “passive”).

• However, since a year or so, I’ve started playing, first in my mind then in proof-of-concept code, with various ideas, especially related to long term encryption or encryption in automation scenarios, thus leaning towards “applied cryptography active hobbyist”.

• About at the same time, I’ve started following closer some of the most prominent public writers on the topic. They might not necessarily be cryptographers themselves, however they are able to translate the various primitives, schemes, constructs, and their properties, into plain English.

• Thus, for anyone seriously wanting to start experimenting with cryptography (which has nothing to do with “crypto”, that is yet another alias for ponzi-schemes), I wanted to highlight some of these information sources.

• Following that, I will also list a few articles that I consider are good introductory topics, or generic enough to be applicable in a broader sense.

=> ↺ Jack Kelly ☛ The Maddest My Code Made Anyone

• As Half-Life modding matured, some really interesting inventions appeared. MetaMod was a C++ framework that interposed itself between the server binary and the actual mod DLL, allowing you to inject custom behaviour into an existing mod. I didn’t understand enough C++ to write MetaMod plugins, but that didn’t matter: AMX Mod and later AMX Mod X let you write custom plugins using a simpler C-style language called Pawn (known back then as “Small”). This enabled an explosion of ways for operators to tweak their game servers: quality-of-life improvements for players, reserved player slots for members, and delightfully bonkers gameplay changes. I remember having my mind blown the first time I stumbled upon a game of CS with a class-based perks system, inspired by Warcraft 3, and that was just one instance of the creativity that came from the AMX(X) modding scenes.

• And with the Half-Life-specific background covered, we are now ready to talk about NS: Combat and my gloriously dumb contribution to the AMXX world.

=> ↺ Jim Nielsen ☛ The Power of Fast Feedback Cycles

• Having code you can inspect, poke at, tweak, and then immediately run is a kind of super power. Fast, iterative feedback loops are incredibly empowering. This is what I was getting at when I wrote about cheating entropy by writing vanilla HTML, CSS, and JS: [...]

=> ↺ Nicolas Fränkel ☛ Working on an unfamiliar codebase

• In our profession, it’s common to work on an unfamiliar codebase. It happens every time one joins a new project or even needs to work on a previously untouched part in big ones. This occurrence is not limited to a developer having to fix a bug; it can be a solution architect having to design a new feature or an OpenSource contributor working on a GitHub issue in their free time. Hence, I want to describe how I approach the situation so it can benefit others.

=> ↺ MaskRay ☛ Relocation overflow and code models

• Certain groups prefer static linking or mostly static linking for the sake of deployment convenience and performance. In scenarios where the distributed program contains a significant amount of code (related: software bloat), employing full or mostly static linking can result in very large executable files. Consequently, certain relocations may be close to the distance limit, and even a minor disruption can trigger relocation overflow linker errors.

=> ↺ Rlang ☛ Model Misspecification and Linear Sandwiches

• Details can be found in the mentioned reference. The rest of the post illustrates with examples how to compute “sandwich” estimates in R, and why you may want to do so.

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ Perl ☛ 2023-05-11 [Older] Welcome new contributors with the first-timers-only tag

=> ↺ Perl ☛ 2023-05-10 [Older] Perl Weekly Challenge 216: Registration Number

=> ↺ Perl ☛ 2023-05-09 [Older] PTS 2023

=> ↺ Perl ☛ 2023-05-09 [Older] Require in Perl, what should I pay attention?

=> ↺ Perl ☛ 2023-05-09 [Older] PTS 2023

=> ↺ Perl ☛ 2023-05-07 [Older] Perl Toolchain Synergy

=> ↺ Perl ☛ 2023-05-09 [Older] How to Send and Receive Email with Perl

Leftovers

=> ↺ The Unix Heritage Society ☛ The Gnome and Its “Secret Place”

• So a different modification of the Sixth Edition text, we still have “to UNIX” and the continuous “is gathering…and saving”. What does change is we no longer know where the gnome is saving those characters. We’ve now lost the secret place, research and BSD carry on knowing the real story, and MERT 0 kept this intact as well. Taking a look further afield, in the System III manuals, originally produced in 1980, we see the same as PWB, a merged intro document (now just named intro again), and the same text, the Sixth Edition text minus the secret place commentary. So whatever merges of documentation took place between PWB 1.0 and 3.0, it seems the updated text from the Seventh Edition was never picked up, and the modified line persisted through to this point. Checking forward, this text persists into the release of PWB 5.0. The first release of System V only changes “UNIX” to “the UNIX System”, consistent with nomenclature changes throughout documentation in the PWB 5.0->System V transition.

Education

=> ↺ Lusaka ZM ☛ Digital training for 100, 000 teachers by Indian Institute Launched

• Minister of Education Douglas Syakalima commented on JAIN Group of Institutions for the timely partnership, especially with the introduction of Information Communication and Technology (ICT) subjects in schools.

• In a speech read for him by Ministry of Education Universities Director Amos Mumba, during the launch, Mr Syakalima noted the urgent need to train staff with the latest technology to enhance efficiency and service delivery to pupils across the country.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Vox ☛ 2023-05-12 [Older] Eat more beans. Please.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Stack Overflow Layoffs: Question and Answer Website Sacks 10% Employees, CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar Says ‘Weighs Heavily on Me’

• “I’ve made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce by about 10 per cent per cent or 58 employees. This is painful for them, and we are supporting those employees through this transition with severance packages, extensions of healthcare benefits, and outplacement services,” the CEO said in a statement.

=> ↺ Daniel Miessler ☛ AI’s Next Big Thing is Digital Assistants

• There’s about to be a huge difference, and that difference will come from context. Specifically, your Digital Assistant (DA) will know almost everything about you. Not just a few things like your name and your favorite color. No. It’ll know everything. We’re talking about: [...]

=> ↺ Gizmodo ☛ I Created a Biased AI Algorithm 25 Years Ago—Tech Companies Are Still Making the Same Mistake.

• The dangers of bias and errors in AI algorithms are now well known. Why, then, has there been a flurry of blunders by tech companies in recent months, especially in the world of AI chatbots and image generators? Initial versions of ChatGPT produced racist output. The DALL-E 2 and Stable Diffusion image generators both showed racial bias in the pictures they created.

=> ↺ Interesting Engineering ☛ Production of Polestar 3 and Volvo EX90 pushed to 2024 to develop software

• Swedish automaker Volvo and its subsidiary Polestar have announced delays in the production and delivery of their highly anticipated vehicles, the Volvo EX90 and Polestar 3.

• Originally scheduled for release in 2023, the production start date has been pushed to the first quarter of 2024. The companies attribute the delays to the additional time needed for software development and testing, aiming to ensure a high-quality vehicle introduction and maximize customer benefit from the advanced technology.

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Toyota’s bungling of customer privacy is becoming a pattern

• The exposed data belongs to almost the entire Japanese customer base that had signed up for Toyota’s T-Connect driver assist product, and users of the G-Link service – a similar product for Toyota’s luxury subsidiary Lexus.

• [...]

• We’ve reached out to Toyota to learn more about this latest incident but haven’t heard back.

Security

=> ↺ Engadget ☛ 2023-05-07 [Older] Twitter says a ‘security incident’ led to private Circle tweets becoming public

=> ↺ CISA ☛ 2023-05-09 [Older] Hitachi Energy MSM

=> ↺ CISA ☛ 2023-05-11 [Older] Siemens Siveillance Video Event and Management Servers

=> ↺ Computing UK ☛ FBI dismantles ‘Snake’ malware network created by Russian spies

• Russian intelligence agency leveraged the Snake tool to infect computers in over 50 countries

• The FBI has successfully disrupted a sophisticated malware network that had been used by Russian spies for nearly two decades to gather sensitive data from hundreds of computers across 50 countries…

=> ↺ Gizmodo ☛ 2023-05-05 [Older] Uber’s Ex-Security Chief Leaves Court With No Jail Time for Covering Up Massive Hack

=> ↺ CISA ☛ CISA Adds Seven Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

=> ↺ 2023-05-05 [Older] Achieving Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM)

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ Jan Schaumann ☛ Whose Cert Is It Anyway?

• Screengrab from the TV show ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’ with ‘line’ replaced by ‘cert’. Remember the X.509 PKI? You know, the one that gave us such hits as “Oh wait, certificate revocation is basically all broken”, The One Where That Dutch CA Issued A Fraudulent *.google.com Cert, and of course my all-time favorite, Honest Ahmed’s Used Cars and Certificates? It’s great, because it secures virtually all web traffic, and all you have to do is get a certificate from a certificate authority – any one at all!

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ New Statesman ☛ The memeification of George Orwell

• The publishers’ proud claim that this is the first full-length study for 20 years is not true. The best reason for a second try is that Orwell is worth it. Born as he was into a world at war, a biography of Orwell is almost a running history of that world in 46 years – years in which he hammered himself into a writer of monstrous talent, enormous breadth, and enduring significance. In spite of old colonial money on both sides of the family – sugar and opium on the English side, Burmese teak on the French – it was as a man of the left that Orwell took a sharp and personal interest in struggle wherever he found it. At the same time, for someone who swept so wide (his Eastern Service BBC wartime scripts were outstanding) he also ground exceeding small. One moment we find him discussing nationalism and imperialism as great historical tides, the next moment he is an imperial policeman lying flat on his belly, shooting an elephant he didn’t want to shoot in a village he didn’t want to police. A jeering crowd and a man at bay – it was in small things such as these that Orwell lifted his sights and found his range.

• In recent times, the appeal has gone beyond the writing. He has become a trope, a meme, a signifier, a symbol, a moral force, a patron saint of lost causes and begetter of hopeful ones. He thought working for the BBC was a lost cause, but that didn’t stop the corporation sticking a statue of him at the front door. There he stands outside Broadcasting House, like a doorman spoiling for a fight or looking for a light, however you see him. His deeply etched face, like Big Brother himself, has become part of our culture. Taylor reckons Orwell is not now just a popular writer “but someone who has quarried his way down into the heart of the human condition”. Want to give your op-ed a bit of moral welly? Reach for George.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-05-13 [Older] Serbian protesters demand improved security after shootings

=> ↺ The Atlantic ☛ 2023-05-12 [Older] Don’t Read This If You Have a Security Clearance

=> ↺ Hindustan Times ☛ ‘300 more madrassas…’: In Telangana, Himanta Sarma’s message to Owaisi

• In March, the Assam chief minister said he had closed 600 madrassas and intended to close all of them as he wanted to build colleges, schools and universities instead.

Environment

=> ↺ RTL ☛ ‘The days when environmental policies were simply pushed through are over’

• Regarding the European Union’s target of reducing CO2 emissions by 55% by 2030, Welfring expressed confidence in Luxembourg’s progress, affirming that the Grand Duchy is “on the right track.” However, she stressed the urgent need for concrete measures to be implemented to achieve this ambitious goal.

=> ↺ APNIC ☛ Good day, sunshine

• We’ve covered this before on the blog — Ulrich Speidel investigated the risks of solar storms to the modern Internet. In his post, Ulrich explains how solar storms can release charged particles that can interact with Earth’s magnetosphere and disrupt power grids, satellite communications, and other technological systems, including the Internet.

• He discussed the 1859 Carrington Event. Widely considered a catastrophe, the Carrington Event had significant impacts on telegraph systems, which were the primary means of long-distance communication at that time. The Carrington Event spiked electric currents in telegraph lines, causing widespread disruptions, damaging telegraph equipment, and even leading to some telegraph offices catching fire. However, the event did not have significant impacts on other aspects of society, as the infrastructure at that time was relatively simple compared to today.

• Ulrich also explored the challenges of mitigating the impacts of solar storms on the Internet, including the need for better monitoring, forecasting, and resilience measures. It’s a great outline of the issues in CME events.

=> ↺ Gannett ☛ Scientists warn an El Niño is likely coming that could bring scorching heat to Earth

• Climate scientists are especially concerned about the potential for hotter temperatures. Given things already are warmer than normal, they say a strong El Niño could send global average temperatures soaring to a record high.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Big Oil’s Outrageous Spending in California

• If you thought the $18 million that Big Oil spent on lobbying California officials in 2022 was outrageous, the gusher of money the oil and gas industry is spending in their campaign to control the regulatory apparatus is even worse this year.

• Big Oil spent $9.4 million attempting to influence the California Legislature, Governor’s Office and agencies in the first quarter of 2023, according to lobbying disclosures by the oil and gas industry now posted on the California Secretary of State’s website.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ Gizmodo ☛ Rooftop Solar Panels Could Power a Third of U.S. Manufacturing, Study Finds

• Researchers used a survey from the Department of Energy and compared states to understand where rooftop solar could best supply electricity needs for manufacturing. They found that companies that focus on textiles, apparel, and furniture would benefit the most from transitioning to solar energy. Their work is published in the journal Environmental Research: Sustainability and Infrastructure.

=> ↺ IOP Publishing ☛ Technical feasibility of powering U.S. manufacturing with rooftop solar PV

• The use of renewable electricity is vital for the decarbonization of industry. Industrial firms source renewables through off-site power purchase agreements or on-site installations, though the latter currently supplies <0.1% of industrial electricity demand in the U.S. Manufacturing buildings typically have large, flat rooftops that are ideal for solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays. This study investigates the feasibility of using rooftop solar PV to cover the net annual electricity needs of industry across all U.S. states and manufacturing sectors. Modeled electricity supply intensity for solar PV arrays is compared with the electricity demand per unit of floorspace for average manufacturing buildings derived from the U.S. Department of Energy Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey. Results show that, depending on geographical location, rooftop solar PV can completely fulfill the electricity requirements of 5%–35% of manufacturing sectors considered on a net annual basis (assuming net metering). Furniture, textiles, and apparel manufacturing can be powered through on-site means in nearly every location, representing 2% of U.S. manufacturing electricity use and 6% of floorspace. Considering seasonal potential during summer months expands the list of feasible sites, particularly in the U.S. Southwest. Compared to off-site sourcing of renewable energy, pursuing on-site PV installations can also enable manufacturers to maintain limited operations during periods of grid disruption, especially when coupled with on-site energy storage. Overall, the results indicate a substantial physical opportunity for industrial firms to expand rooftop solar PV from currently low levels to help meet decarbonization goals.

=> ↺ The Economist ☛ The aviation industry wants to be net zero—but not soon

• The trouble is that the technology that might help Mr Calhoun meet this goal is barely perceptible on the horizon. As the jet age nears its centenary, even the historic pace of improvement is becoming tougher to sustain. “Every leap in tech makes the next one harder,” says Andrew Charlton of Aviation Advocacy, a consultancy. And not just for Boeing and its European arch-rival, Airbus.

• Take engines. CFM, a joint venture between GE and Safran, two engine-makers, has nearly 1,000 engineers working on Rise, an open rotor-engine that does away with the cowling the covers the fan blades. Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney, two other big engine-makers, are also beavering away on their own ideas. But neither engine is likely to provide the efficiency gains that Boeing is after.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ RTL ☛ Seven people living in a single-family property – if that’s our vision of the future, count me out

• One professor Florian Hartweck from the University of Luxembourg argued that “three bedroom, two bathrooms and a view of nature” isn’t feasible and doesn’t meet the needs of today.

• Urban architect Christine Muller chimed in that while everyone wants a single-family home, “it is not possible.”

=> ↺ [Repeat] Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Mother’s Day: ‘Why would anyone want a kid?’ – How Hong Kong’s fertility rate sank to the world’s lowest

• A 2023 survey by the Hong Kong Women Development Association (HKWDA) showed that over 70 per cent of respondents aged 18 or above told researchers they had no plans to give birth.

=> ↺ Modern Diplomacy ☛ Drought in Europe and water conflicts on the rise

• The water battle brewing in Letur is a harbinger of conflicts that will play out elsewhere, and whatever happens to Spain’s farming industry — a major source of groceries for its neighbors — will be felt throughout the region.

• “Spain is Europe’s breadbasket and the lack of water there, the lack of agricultural production, is a matter of survival,” said Nathalie Hilmi, an environmental economist at Centre Scientifique de Monaco. “It becomes a financial problem too, because more money needs to be spent finding food.”

Finance

=> ↺ Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2023-05-12 [Older] We Need an Economic Bill of Rights

=> ↺ CBC ☛ Does Canada really need a digital loonie?

• Rogers says more transactions are being done digitally. Only about 20 per cent of retail transactions are done in cash. And, she says, there’s been a surge in interest in various digital currencies.

• When most people think of a digital dollar, they first think of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or Ethereum. What the bank is looking at is not quite [cryptocurrency], but it’s not quite what we generally think of as cash either.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ India Times ☛ New listing reveals Microsoft job cuts may cross 10,000

• Citing a new filing with the state Employment Security Department (ESD), a report by Geek Wire said that Microsoft is slashing 158 jobs in Redmond, Washington state, where it is headquartered. The layoff start date was May 5. The development comes a day after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reportedly told employees that they won’t be getting salary hikes this year.

=> ↺ Hollywood Reporter ☛ Ex-ByteDance Executive Claims Company Shared Data on U.S. Users With Chinese Government

• A wrongful termination suit filed by Yintao Yu, who was head of engineering for the company’s U.S. offices five years ago, alleges that Chinese government maintained a special unit within ByteDance referred to as the “Committee” that “guided how the company advanced core Communist values,” according to an amended complaint filed on Friday in San Francisco Superior Court. He says that ByteDance served as a “useful propaganda tool,” pointing to instances when the company was “responsive to the Chinese Communist Party’s requests to share information, and even to elevate or remove content.”

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Australia’s Aristocrat Leisure to buy software firm NeoGames for $1 billion

• Aristocrat Leisure said it would pay a cash [sic] price of $29.50 per share to the shareholders of NeoGames to buy 100% of the Nasdaq-listed software firm.

• The takeover would give Aristocrat entry into the attractive iLottery market, “which is a highly regulated … and can facilitate further penetration across other online Real-Money Gaming (RMG) verticals,” the company said.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ China jails US

• John Shing-Wan Leung, an American passport holder and Hong Kong permanent resident, “was found guilty of espionage, sentenced to life imprisonment, deprived of political rights for life”, a statement from Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court read.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ China jails US citizen for life on spying charges

• Such investigations and trials are held behind closed doors and little or no information is made public.

• Relations between Washington and Beijing have hit a historical low amid disputes over trade, technology, human rights and China’s increasingly aggressive approach toward its territorial claims.

=> ↺ Deutsche Welle ☛ China sentences US citizen to life in prison for spying

• The court said in a statement that Leung “was found guilty of espionage, sentenced to life imprisonment, deprived of political rights for life.”

• While the court announced Leung’s sentence, no further details were given relating to what he had been charged with.

=> ↺ BIA Net ☛ İstanbul, Ankara mayors claim Kılıçdaroğlu ahead of Erdoğan

• They pointed out that 10 million votes have not yet been counted which corresponds to 20 percent of the total votes.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ VOA News ☛ As Net Tightens, Iranians Pushed to Take Up Homegrown Apps

• Banned from using popular Western apps, Iranians have been left with little choice but to take up state-backed alternatives, as the authorities tighten [Internet] restrictions for security reasons following months of protests. Iranians are accustomed to using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to evade restrictions and access prohibited websites or apps, including the U.S.-based Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

• The authorities went as far as imposing total [Internet] blackouts during the protests that erupted after the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, following her arrest for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s dress code for women.

=> ↺ El País ☛ Marina Ovsyannikova: The Russian journalist who condemned Putin’s war live on TV

• It was the “golden age” of Russian journalism, she recalls in her recently-published book, Between Good and Evil: How I Finally Opposed the Kremlin Propaganda. The situation, however, began to change gradually. In the interviews she has given, the journalist often refers to the 2008 invasion of Georgia as a turning point in the control exercised by the Kremlin over the media. At that moment, Ovsyannikova decided to ignore what she later decided to denounce.

=> ↺ The Print ☛ China censors citizens from discussing Pakistan protest. Political revolt is a sensitive topic

• Hashtags related to the protests in Pakistan were suppressed from trending by Chinese censors on Weibo. Despite some hashtags generating attention, news about the violent protests did not generate significant discussion on Chinese social media. The hashtag “Pakistan ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan arrested” was viewed over one million times on Weibo, and the hashtag “Arrest of ex-Pakistani PM Imran Khan sparks violent protests” did not trend heavily, likely due to Chinese censors’ control.

=> ↺ Vanity Fair ☛ Twitter’s Elon Musk Defends Decision To Limit Tweets in Turkey During Tight Presidential Election

• Over his 20 years as president, Erdoğan has methodically tightened his grip on power, undermining key democratic institutions. The election is largely seen as a referendum on whether Turkey will continue its slide into one-man authoritarian rule. Polls closed at 10 a.m. ET this morning, and preliminary results are expected by the evening.

• “The day before a critical election in Turkey, Twitter appears to be acquiescing to the demands of the country’s autocratic ruler, Erdogan, and is censoring speech on the platform,” tweeted California congressman Adam Schiff in response to the news. “Given Twitter’s total lack of transparency, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Musk’s promises of free speech have again fallen away.”

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Jacobin Magazine ☛ Graduate Workers at the University of Michigan Have Been on Strike for Over a Month

• The graduate student workers walked out after rejecting the university’s original pay-raise offer, which would amount to a pay decrease under inflation. The union is also demanding better protections and support for international students, a reformed campus police (including an unarmed response team), and more help with childcare. Four GEO members sat down with Jacobin’s Peter Lucas to discuss the strike and how the university has responded so far.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Remembering late Tibetan film director Pema Tseden’s ‘weighty’ life

• Pema Tseden, the renowned Tibetan director, died of a heart attack on May 8th, and many hearts worldwide are broken. As a professor of Chinese politics (and Tibet) at Cornell University I have shared his films with my students, and when I informed the current ones of this news they too were pained by his passing. To better understand why Pema Tseden’s death is so significant one can, fittingly, turn to one of his most important films, Tharlo.

=> ↺ The Atlantic ☛ The Lesson I Wish I Never Had to Learn About Motherhood

• It is 2 a.m. I am sitting up awake in the quiet hell of night, worrying about my sister and wishing you were here. I don’t know when this everlasting winter will end. It is hard to keep our ground-floor apartment warm with its high ceilings. I am writing to you from our dining table, where we have never feasted, thousands of miles away from you. It is one of those cursed nights when I can’t sleep. The traffic of my thoughts overwhelms me. You know how much I used to love sleeping, Mom, but now I don’t remember the last time I rested peacefully. Maybe a year ago? Maybe more. Maybe since my sister and I escaped from the Taliban and left Kabul behind. Maybe since I left you behind.

=> ↺ BBC ☛ The Nigerians lured into a trap and for being gay

• When Nigeria passed some of the toughest anti-homosexuality laws in Africa, the [Internet] became a place for the LGBT community to connect with others more safely – until criminal gangs went digital too. BBC Africa Eye investigates how blackmailers pose as potential dates on popular dating apps, only to extort, beat and even kidnap people.

=> ↺ [Old] Gothamist ☛ What you need to know about NYC’s upcoming street homeless count

• Started in 2005, the HOPE survey — also known as the HOPE count— is an annual survey of the street homeless population in New York City. It is not a literal count of every homeless person living on city streets, in the subways and other public spaces. It’s a point-in-time sampling of homeless people living in certain neighborhoods and certain streets in the five boroughs.

YouTube

=> ↺ Gizmodo ☛ 2023-05-12 [Older] YouTuber Pleads Guilty to Intentionally Crashing an Airplane [Ed: Social control media encourages and rewards dangerous, reckless behaviour]

=> ↺ Engadget ☛ 2023-05-12 [Older] YouTuber pleads guilty to intentionally crashing his plane for a wallet sponsorship

=> ↺ International Business Times ☛ 2023-05-12 [Older] Google set to ban YouTube ad blockers, time to sign up for YouTube Premium?

=> ↺ International Business Times ☛ 2023-05-12 [Older] YouTuber fakes plane crash for views and sponsorship

=> ↺ Gizmodo ☛ 2023-05-11 [Older] YouTube Is Forcing Some Users to Disable Adblockers

Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ Anti-Piracy Outfit Wipes ACE’s ‘Watch Legally’ Page From Google

• ACE, the world’s leading anti-piracy coalition, is facing an unexpected setback after Google removed a page that advises ‘pirates’ where they can watch content legally. The removal is the result of an erroneous takedown notice from a competing anti-piracy organization, and was likely triggered by an ACE domain name seizure.

=> ↺ IP Kat ☛ 2023-05-13 [Older] [Guest post] Hong Kong – Amendments to Copyright Ordinance with effect from 1 May 2023

=> ↺ IP Kat ☛ 2023-05-12 [Older] Mr Justice Zacaroli finds manufacturing software copyright infringed and confidence breached in ex-employee fight

=> ↺ IP Kat ☛ 2023-05-09 [Older] Adding a glass canopy to a mosque infringes architect’s copyright and the canopy must be removed, says Cologne Regional Court

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Audio book narrators say AI is already taking away business

• As people brace for the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence on jobs and everyday living, those in the world of audio books say their field is already being transformed.

• AI has the ability to create human-sounding recordings — at assembly-line speed — while bypassing at least part of the services of the human professionals who for years have made a living with their voices.

• Many of them are already seeing a sharp drop off in business.

=> ↺ Rolling Stone ☛ Free Ed Sheeran! Songwriters Explain Why the ‘Let’s Get It On’ Case Was a Near-Disaster

• In the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, songwriters Jenna Andrews (who co-wrote BTS’ “Butter” and “Permission to Dance,” and has written for Noah Cyrus and Jennifer Lopez), and Jamie Hartman (who’s written for the Backstreet Boys, Lewis Capaldi, Jennifer Hudson, and Calvin Harris), along with JHart, discuss the Sheeran lawsuit’s potential ramifications, the limits of musical originality in pop music, the continuing fallout from the “Blurred Lines” case (in which Robin Thicke’s song — written by Pharrell Williams — was found to have infringed on Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up,” based solely on groove and vibe) and more.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

=> Techrights

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.