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● 05.17.23

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● Links 17/05/2023: New Tails and Debian Installer Bookworm RC 3

Posted in News Roundup at 8:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Applications

=> ↺ TecMint ☛ Remmina – A Feature Rich Remote Desktop Sharing Tool for Linux

• Remmina is a free and open-source, feature-rich, and powerful remote desktop client for Linux and other Unix-like systems, written in GTK+3. It’s intended for system administrators and travelers, who need to remotely access and work with many computers.

• It supports several network protocols in a simple, unified, homogeneous, and easy-to-use user interface.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Linux Capable ☛ How to Install MusicBrainz Picard on Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04

• Picture this: your music library is a sprawling, unorganized mess of songs, albums, and artists — it’s practically impossible to navigate. Finding that one special track is like seeking a needle in a haystack.

=> ↺ Adam Young: Acronym Challenge Programmatic Interface

• How do you know what is inside your computer? There are a couple tools. If the hardware is on the PCI bus, from the command line you can run lspci, which will in turn enumerate the discovered devices on that bus. But what if the hardware is not on the PCI bus? And how does the Kernel discover it in the first place? For the hardware that I have to work with, the answer is that it is enumerated by the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) coded embedded in the device and exposed via the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI). This world is full of four letter acronyms. Here are my notes on some of them.

=> ↺ Linux Capable ☛ How to Install CUDA on Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04

• In the realm of high-performance computing, CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) stands as a revolutionary technology. Developed by Nvidia, CUDA is a parallel computing platform and application programming interface (API) model that leverages the power of Nvidia GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) to boost the computational speed and efficiency of software applications.

=> ↺ [Repeat] APNIC ☛ RFC 9234 observed in the wild

• Route leaks occur when Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) prefixes are propagated in a way that goes against the expected topology relationships of BGP. For example, this can happen when a route learned from one transit provider is announced to another transit provider or a lateral peer (peer-peer-peer), or when a route learned from one lateral peer is announced to another lateral peer or a transit provider (see RFC 7908). These leaks often result from misconfiguration or the absence of BGP route filtering, or from inadequate coordination between Autonomous Systems (ASes).

=> ↺ OSTechNix ☛ How To Clean Up Junk Files In Ubuntu Using Ubuntu Cleaner

• Ubuntu Cleaner is a tool that helps you to clean up your Ubuntu or derivative system by removing old kernels, package configurations, and other unnecessary files to free up space.

=> ↺ OSTechNix ☛ How To Restore Vanilla GNOME Desktop With Flatpak Support In Ubuntu

• As you may already know, starting from the Ubuntu 18.04 version, the default desktop environment is GNOME. Prior to that, Ubuntu used a custom desktop environment called Unity. GNOME is one of the most popular desktop environments which is known for its simplicity, accessibility, and ease of use. While Ubuntu uses the GNOME DE by default, it’s important to note that Ubuntu’s version of GNOME is heavily customized. Some of you may not like the customized version of GNOME in Ubuntu. If you’re one of them, this tutorial will help you to restore Vanilla GNOME desktop with flatpaks support in Ubuntu, much like what you’d find in a fresh Fedora installation.

=> ↺ Terence Eden ☛ The limits of CSS styling select options

• As you can see, it’s possible to do some pretty extravagant styling of the individual you can even change how they look when they’re selected.

=> ↺ OSTechNix ☛ How To Optimize Laptop Battery Life With TLP In Linux

• There are quite a few tools exists to power saving and battery life extension in Laptops. We already have looked at two tools namely Laptop Mode Tools and Powertop that improves the Linux Laptop battery performance. Today we will discuss yet another Laptop power management utility named TLP. TLP is a feature-rich commandline tool to optimize Laptop battery life in Linux.

=> ↺ Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Zim Wiki on Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04

• Zim Wiki is an innovative piece of software designed to cater to your need for a well-organized digital notebook. It’s a desktop application that combines a notepad’s simplicity with the power of a Wiki, offering a unique blend of convenience and functionality.

=> ↺ Medevel ☛ How to Scrap Webpages using Using Node.js and Cheerio

• Web scraping is a process of extracting useful information from web pages. Node.js is a popular backend language that can be used for web scraping. In this tutorial, we will learn how to use Node.js for web scraping.

• Prerequisites

• Before we start, make sure you have the following

=> ↺ UNIX Cop ☛ How to enable HSTS in Nginx

• Hello, friends. In this post, you will learn how to enable HSTS in Nginx. This is simple and useful in configurations made to increase security. Introduction – What is HSTP? HSTS is short for HTTP Strict Transport Security, which in its best translation means HTTP Strict Transport Security.

=> ↺ Linux Capable ☛ How to Enable or Disable AppArmor on Linux Mint 21/20

• AppArmor, short for Application Armor, is a Linux Security Module (LSM) that provides a set of tools to protect your system at the application level.

=> ↺ ID Root ☛ How To Install PuTTY on Rocky Linux 9

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PuTTY on Rocky Linux 9. Are you a system administrator, network engineer, or software developer in search of a reliable and versatile tool for connecting to remote systems and managing them securely?

=> ↺ Storage Unleashed: Achieving Seamlessness in Kubernetes and Enterprise Storage Integration

• Introduction Enterprise storage has become an essential component of many modern businesses.

=> ↺ Volume Projection: Advanced Techniques in Kubernetes

• Introduction Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform that allows developers to effortlessly manage and scale their applications. One of the most crucial elements of Kubernetes is storage management. Kubernetes provides developers with a flexible and scalable way to store data using its volume abstraction layer.

=> ↺ Linux Hint ☛ Examples of Creating an Index in PostgreSQL

• Guide on the different examples of creating a single or multi-column indexes in PostgreSQL to eliminate the duplicates and concurrent indexes to avoid locking.

=> ↺ Linux Hint ☛ PostgreSQL BPCHAR Data Type

• Practical guide on understanding how CHAR(n) and VARCHAR(n) work to understand how BPCHAR works and how it affects the characters when working with PostgreSQL.

=> ↺ Linux Hint ☛ How to Find the Array Length in Bash

• Tutorial on the methods of counting the length of an array in Bash using the “#” symbol or loop, or using the “wc” or “grep” commands along with examples.

=> ↺ Linux Hint ☛ How Does Docker Registry Differ from Docker Repository?

• Docker Registry is the storage system for Docker images, while Docker Repository is a way to organize and manage images within a particular registry.

=> ↺ Trend Oceans ☛ How to Install and Use dig and nslookup Commands in Linux for DNS Lookup

• Well, if you have any problems with DNS resolution or want to check the DNS information, you can always look for that information with the dig and nslookup commands in Linux.

=> ↺ Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Firefox Beta, Nightly on Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04

• Welcome to the world of Mozilla Firefox, where the future of internet browsing is continuously being shaped and refined. Within this vibrant ecosystem, you’ll discover two unique, feature-packed browsers: Firefox Beta and Firefox Nightly.

=> ↺ Linux Capable ☛ How to Install gThumb on Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04

• Meet gThumb, an advanced image viewer and browser tailor-made for the GNOME desktop environment. This open-source application is a favorite amongst many Ubuntu users due to its impressive array of features and simplistic design.

=> ↺ TecMint ☛ How to Fix “sudo unable to open read-only file system” Error

• The Linux filesystem is a built-in layer that manages how files are stored and retrieved on a Linux system and other storage devices. It provides a directory structure that defines the location of files on the system, and without it, your system would be a complete mess.

• The health of a filesystem is therefore crucial for the integrity of data. For this reason, the error “sudo unable to open read-only file system” can be particularly disturbing and ominous.

Games

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Steam gets game trials with Dead Space being first, plus Valve dumps Google Analytics

• Two bits of Steam news for you here, as Valve continue iterating on Steam features for players and developers.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Fanatical offering a new Premium Steam Deck Bundle

• With a whole bunch of games that are Steam Deck Verified, the new Play on the Go Premium Edition Bundle from Fanatical may be worth a look. No need for me to give you a breakdown on compatibility this time, since every single game should be click and play (same for Linux desktop too).

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Valheim has a performance boost patch in Beta

• Valheim is a fantastic game but it could do with some optimisations, especially when you’re building up a big castle and whatever else people come up with. Thankfully Iron Gate have put out some improvements.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Emberbane is an epic pixel art metroidvania inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender

• Any Avatar: The Last Airbender fans around? Hamlet Games are developing Emberbane, an action-packed epic metroidvania platformer inspired by Avatar. With plans for Linux, macOS and Windows support it’s looking really great.

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ TecMint ☛ A Detailed Comparison Between Deepin vs Elementary OS

• Linux comes in numerous distributions or flavors, each suited for a particular purpose. Distributions such as RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), SUSE Enterprise Linux, Debian, Rocky, and AlmaLinux are recommended for server and data center environments.

• Others such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint, MX Linux, Manjaro, and Zorin are some of the best desktop distributions you can install on your laptop or PC.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Red Hat Official ☛ Confidential computing use cases [Ed: IBM/Red Hat pushing data breach (outsourcing) as privacy or "confidential computing"]

• This article is the third in a six-part series (see our previous blog), where we present various usage models for confidential computing, a set of technologies designed to protect data in use—for example using memory encryption—and the requirements to get the expected security and trust benefits from t​​he technology.

• In this third article, we consider the four most important use cases for confidential computing: confidential virtual machines, confidential workloads, confidential containers and confidential clusters. This will allow us to better understand the trade-offs between the various approaches, and how this impacts the implementation of attestation.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Tor ☛ New Release: Tails 5.13

• We will provide a migration plan from LUKS1 to LUKS2 for existing Persistent Storage in Tails 5.14 (early June).

=> ↺ Debian ☛ Debian Installer Bookworm RC 3 release

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Ubuntu ☛ A brief history of MicroStack

• OpenStack is no doubt a wonderful and successful piece of software. It allows you to create your own cloud infrastructure, and thanks to its open-source nature, it’s free to use for everyone. But as with many giant software projects, all that power comes with a challenge: it is reasonably complex to install and configure. A number of OpenStack distributions do exist that intend to make engineers’ life a lot easier, but those also tend to be more complex than a non-experienced user would like them to be.

• To solve this problem once and for all, Canonical created a simplified and easy-to-install distribution of OpenStack called MicroStack.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi ☛ Bugg.xyz acoustic monitoring for conservationists

• Bugg wildlife traps record the sounds of the forest, and are AI-trained to listen to the quietest creatures, as well as those that broadcast their whereabouts to all and sundry. In fact, it’s more of an acoustic census, creating detailed records of the particular soundscapes of contrasting habitats, noting changes that may indicate deforestation or a natural disaster leading to depleted biodiversity. Dr Sarab Sethi, an environment research scientist at Imperial College London, developed the Bugg acoustic monitoring system, which is now being used to record the sounds of forests from Norway to Taiwan, as well as Bali and Borneo.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ MIDI Interface For NeXTcube Plugs Into The Past

• [Joren] recently did some work as part of an electronic music heritage project, and restored an 80s-era NeXTcube workstation complete with vintage sound card, setting it up with a copy of MAX, a graphical music programming environment. But there was one piece missing: MIDI. [Joren] didn’t let that stop him, and successfully created hardware to allow MIDI input and output.

=> ↺ The Drone Girl ☛ DJI Agras T20P finally available outside Asia

• The announcement coincides with Brazil’s Agrishow which occured last week and is one of the largest agricultural technology trade shows in the world.

=> ↺ Purism ☛ Is Advanced AI a Reason to Decouple from The Centralized Internet?

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi ☛ Is this the world’s first Raspberry Pi Pico birthday card?

• We know Kevin McAleer best for his robots, but a big birthday in his family inspired him to pivot to greetings cards. He has created what we’re loosely billing as the world’s first Raspberry Pi Pico-powered birthday card. This interactive build guides the recipient to press buttons and play their personalised greeting.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ [Repeat] Stacey on IoT ☛ Are we sure we want a smarter smart home and gadgets?

• And when it comes to the smart home and consumers, I have to ask: Do we really want to make fully visible what we currently keep invisible to tech companies, data brokers, and the companies and governments that buy from them?

=> ↺ XDA ☛ Google could transform your Android phone into a dashcam with future update

=> ↺ Google Could Activate Dashcam Mode on Android and Pixel Soon | NextPit

=> ↺ Android Central ☛ Google launches Live tab for Android TV with international programming | Android Central

=> ↺ Phone Arena ☛ Android 13 QPR3 Beta 3.2 is rolling out to Pixels addressing more minor bugs – PhoneArena

=> ↺ XDA ☛ Android 13 QPR3 Beta 3.2 update brings plenty of connectivity fixes to Pixel devices

=> ↺ The Sun ☛ Google warns Android owners to delete apps right now – they silently ‘steal’ from you | The US Sun

=> ↺ 9 to 5 Toys ☛ Today’s Android game and app deals: Dead Cells, Almost Gone, Streets of Rage 4, more

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Medevel ☛ Plane: Open Source Project and Issue Management Tool for Teams

• Open-source, self-hosted project planning tool[...]

=> ↺ Medevel ☛ Analytics: An Open-source Self-hosted Web Analytics

• Lightweight analytics abstraction layer for tracking page views, custom events, & identifying visitors

=> ↺ Medevel ☛ Nextein: Yet Another Markdown Blog and CMS Next.js Generator

• A static site generator with markdown + react for Next.js

=> ↺ Jim Nielsen ☛ Building an Infinite Spreadsheet

• As of late, I’ve been working on Quadratic: an infinite canvas spreadsheet that runs code. Think Figma (infinite canvas) meets Excel (spreadsheet) meets VSCode (IDE). In addition to formulas (e.g. SUM(A1:A5)) every cell in Quadratic can be the result of code (right now it’s Python only, which means I’m learning more Python, but JavaScript is on the roadmap too).

Web Browsers/Web Servers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Mozilla ☛ The Mozilla Blog: Pocket’s new features make it even easier to discover and organize content [Ed: Mozilla hired managers from Facebook and Twitter. Now it's turning Firefox into social control media instead of a browser.]

• Pocket’s latest updates make it simpler than ever to discover and organize high-quality content that aligns with your unique interests and passions. As you may have noticed, Pocket has been rapidly evolving and growing; we’re listening to our users so that we can continue to make Pocket the go-to destination to stay informed and keep up to date with the topics you love. Starting today, Pocket is rolling out a new mobile and web experience so you can easily find the stories and topics you care about. In addition, Pocket is launching a new feature called Lists (at launch just on web, with the feature coming to Pocket mobile later this year), which will make it simpler to organize saved content. 

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ Peter Eisentraut ☛ Overview of ICU collation settings

• ICU use is becoming more prominent in PostgreSQL. One of the benefits that ICU offers is a lot of customization options for collations. Some of these are given as examples in the PostgreSQL documentation, but I have always found it hard to get complete and easily-accessible information about this.

• So for this article, I dug deeper and looked up all the collation settings that there are and tried to work out examples for each one.

Education

=> ↺ Olimex ☛ TuxCon the open source hardware and software conference in Plovdiv is June 10 and 11!

• On June 10, at the Technical University in Plovdiv, there will be a series of 9 talks starting at 11 o’clock. Following the talks, there will be a quiz with prizes and lightning talks, during which visitors can share something interesting they have discovered or are working on in the field of Open Source. The first day will conclude with the FOSS beer event at Fabric bar.

• On June 11, the traditional soldering workshop will take place at the Olimex Training Building. Participants can choose between soldering kits or creating art using broken electronic components.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Erlang ☛ Erlang/OTP 26 Highlights

• A list of all changes is found in Erlang/OTP 26 Readme. Or, as always, look at the release notes of the application you are interested in. For instance: Erlang/OTP 26 – Erts Release Notes – Version 14.0.

Python

=> ↺ Adafruit ☛ CircuitPython 8.1.0 Release Candidate 0 Released! @circuitpython

• This is CircuitPython 8.1.0-rc.0, a release candidate for 8.1.0. We believe it is stable, and are making a release candidate for further testing before final release.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Self-Driving Library For Python

• Fully autonomous vehicles seem to perennially be just a few years away, sort of like the automotive equivalent of fusion power. But just because robotic vehicles haven’t made much progress on our roadways doesn’t mean we can’t play with the technology at the hobbyist level. You can embark on your own experimentation right now with this open source self-driving Python library.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Troy Patterson ☛ Web Site Prophecy

• So, I ended up taking troypatterson.me. Little did I know that in a way, that would turn out to be prophetic. See, now I live in Maine, where the state abbreviation is ME. So, I guess I now have Troy Patterson of Maine as my website address.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ The Last Cosmopolitan

• Elias Canetti belonged to Europe’s 20th century. It was a period of extreme horrors that gave way to a slow but determined effort to heal. The scale of the suffering that he and millions of others witnessed in the first half of the century led to the pledge—“Never again!”—that was supposed to define its second half. But history has a way of relapsing. While no conflict since then has matched the violence of World War II, and no catastrophe has found its equal in the more than 50 million people who died—including in extermination camps—Europe in the 21st century has seen a reawakening of the far-right nationalist and racist ideologies that engulfed the continent during that horrible era. Authoritarian governments, nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-immigrant sentiments, the scapegoating of minorities, and the fight over territory have all gained a new intensity over the past decade.1

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Surprise!

• The critics agree: Beau Is Afraid is a Freudian farce, a nightmarish horror-comedy, a tragicomic Oedipal odyssey. But what does all this mean—that it’s about mommy issues? That it’s funny and scary? That the protagonist takes a long journey; that the film itself is long? Ari Aster’s latest begins in a birth canal and ends with a passage through a murky birthlike tunnel. We cut from newborn Beau’s perspective of the birthing room to his spot on a therapist’s couch. This is a movie in which everything is expelled and nothing is left out.1

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Proper Fat

=> ↺ Buttondown ☛ Mostly announcements and plans but also some fun floating point trivia

• This is a really busy week for me, so light newsletter this time. Let’s start with obligatory stuff and then get into fun newsletter stuff.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Two Stage Refrigerator Is Chill

• Every time we check in with [Hyperspace Pirate] he’s trying to make things cold. Really cold. His recent two-part video shows a propane vapor compression system that can go down to -37° C as well as a two-stage system using homemade ethylene that can get to -83° C. He’s trying to get to -100°, so he’s close, and we have no doubt he’ll get there.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Hackaday Prize 2023: Learn DSP With The Portable All-in-One Workstation

• Learning Digital Signal Processing (DSP) techniques traditionally involves working through a good bit of mathematics and signal theory. To promote a hands-on approach, [Clyne] developed the DSP PAW (Portable All-in-one Workstation). DSP PAW hardware and software provide a complete learning environment for any computer where DSP algorithms can be entered as C++ code through an Arduino-like IDE.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ A Bicycle Powered By A Different Kind Of Eddy

• When you think of a bicycle and an Eddy, you’d be forgiven for thinking first of Eddy Merckx, one of the most successful competitive cyclists to ever live. But this bicycle, modified by [Tom Stanton] as shown in the video below the break, has been modified by ditching its direct drive gearing in favor of using the friction-like eddy currents between magnets and copper to transfer power to the wheel.

Science

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Human DNA Is Everywhere: A Boon For Science, While Terrifying Others

• Environmental DNA sampling is nothing new. Rather than having to spot or catch an animal, instead the DNA from the traces they leave can be sampled, giving clues about their genetic diversity, their lineage (e.g. via mitochondrial DNA) and the population’s health. What caught University of Florida (UoF) researchers by surprise while they were using environmental DNA sampling to study endangered sea turtles, was just how much human DNA they found in their samples. This led them to perform a study on the human DNA they sampled in this way, with intriguing implications.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Open letter reveals fourth Novosibirsk scientist hit with treason charges in last year — Meduza

• Valery Zvegintsev, a chief scientist at the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at the Russian Academy of Sciences’s Siberian branch, was arrested for treason earlier this year, according to an open letter in support of multiple Novosibirsk scientists accused of treason that was released on Monday.

Education

=> ↺ Phil Eaton ☛ Two books I recommend to developers

• These are the books I recommend to developers wanting to improve their skills as professional programmers because of high information density, believable premises/examples, and being well edited.

• You don’t need to read books to improve as a developer but they are unparalleled in quickly helping you gain depth in a subject.

=> ↺ Chris ☛ Reading Slightly More Incrementally

• Some people have asked how I can learn so much from what I read. I don’t believe I do – in fact, I believe I squander most of what learning potential does exist. I’m trying to change that, and this is how. Starting back up with spaced repetition has afforded me to also read non-fiction books differently.

Hardware

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ Loongson Begins to Enable CPUs That Could Rival AMD and Intel Offerings

• Loongson has started posting its first Linux patches for the upcoming 3A6000-series processors, which promise to rival AMD’s Zen 3-based CPUs.

• [...]

• Loongson shared details about the progress of its 3A6000-series CPU development last November when it revealed that the design phase of the project had been concluded and that samples of the processors would be available in the first half of 2023.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ Asus Responds to AM5 BIOS Controversy: Warranty Covers Beta Fixes, EXPO Presets

• In a statement that went out via email and press release, Asus affirms that, despite repeated claims elsewhere last week, its AM5 motherboard warranty covers not only recent BIOS updates to Ryzen 7000 boards designed to fix voltage issues that led to chip and/or board failures for some users, but also all AMD EXPO, Intel XMP, and (Asus’ proprietary) DOCP memory presets. It also stated that all recent BIOS updates follow AMD’s voltage guidelines for Ryzen 7000 CPUs.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ Loongson Begins to Enable CPUs That Could Rival AMD and Intel Offerings

=> ↺ Stacey on IoT ☛ Bell Labs wants to turn existing fiber into a networked sensor

• Mikael Mazur, a member of the technical staff at Bell Labs, said he is looking to turn the existing fiber optic cables along the sea floor, in buildings, and strung along telephone poles as a sensor to detect temperature changes, weather, earthquakes — even structural changes in buildings.

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ Russian CPUs Double the Price Due to Deficit and Logistics: Report

• Prices on Russian CPUs are increasing, due to the deficit and logistics issues. Also surprising is that some foundries may still be producing CPUs for Russian companies, if a report is to be believed.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ How to Think About the New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines

• A breast cancer surgeon’s take on the new mammogram advice.

=> ↺ Pro Publica ☛ Congress Questions Cigna’s Large-Scale Denial of Insurance Claims

• A key congressional committee asked insurance giant Cigna on Tuesday to provide corporate documents so that lawmakers can examine the company’s practice of denying health care claims without ever opening a patient file.

• The House Committee on Energy and Commerce joined several state and federal regulators in scrutinizing the legality of Cigna rejecting the payment of certain claims using a system known as PXDX.

=> ↺ Pro Publica ☛ Minnesota Board of Nursing Weighs Terminating Executive Director

• The Minnesota Board of Nursing has called an emergency meeting to consider removing its beleaguered executive director over an unspecified “personnel issue.”

• In an email to board staff Tuesday morning, President Laura Elseth said Executive Director Kimberly Miller was on leave “effective today.”

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ In East Palestine, Norfolk Southern Hired a Company With a Long History of Ignoring Hazards

• Before February 3, East Palestine, Ohio, was the kind of place that balanced bucolic idyll with the convenience of urban living. The town, home to fewer than 5,000 people, is both far enough from Pittsburgh and close enough to it for residents to be able say, “We’re a bit in the city, but we’re a bit in the country.” That was before a portion of a 150-car freight train slipped off a track and burst into flames.1Additional reporting and research by Andrea Navarro and Jesse Newman.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Time Is Running Out for Texas Republicans to Clarify Exceptions in Their New Abortion Law

• Amanda Zurawski and her husband were “beyond thrilled” to soon welcome their first child, a daughter named Willow, last fall following more than a year of “grueling” fertility treatments. However, things took a tragic turn for the Texas couple. During her second trimester, Zurawski began experiencing odd symptoms and, after a medical exam, learned that she had dilated prematurely because of a condition known as cervical insufficiency. Shortly after the diagnosis, her water broke at just 17 weeks, leading doctors to inform the aspiring mother that the loss of her daughter was inevitable.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Pay No Attention to the GOP “Debate” on Abortion

• Last month, I fell for a kayfabe. The far-right Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA) “broke” with disgraced former president Donald Trump over his opposition to a national abortion ban and his preference to return the issue to the states. The group called it a “morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate” and pledged not to support any candidate “who refuses to embrace at a minimum a 15-week national standard.”

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Microbubbles And Ultrasound: Getting Drugs Through The Blood-Brain Barrier

• The brain is a rather important organ, and as such, nature has gone to great lengths to protect it. The skull provides physical protection against knocks and bumps, but there’s a lesser-known defense mechanism at work too: the blood-brain barrier. It’s responsible for keeping all the nasty stuff – like bacteria, viruses, and weird chemicals – from messing up your head.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Wikipedia Grapples With Chatbots: Should It Allow Their Use For Articles? Should It Allow Them To Train On Wikipedia?

• We know Kevin McAleer best for his robots, but a big birthday in his family inspired him to pivot to greetings cards. He has created what we’re loosely billing as the world’s first Raspberry Pi Pico-powered birthday card. This interactive build guides the recipient to press buttons and play their personalised greeting.

=> ↺ Wladimir Palant ☛ Malicious code in PDF Toolbox extension

• The PDF Toolbox extension for Google Chrome has more than 2 million users and an average rating of 4,2 in the Chrome Web Store. So I was rather surprised to discover obfuscated code in it that has apparently gone unnoticed for at least a year.

• The code has been made to look like a legitimate extension API wrapper, merely with some convoluted logic on top. It takes a closer look to recognize unexpected functionality here, and quite some more effort to understand what it is doing.

• This code allows serasearchtop[.]com website to inject arbitrary JavaScript code into all websites you visit. While it is impossible for me to tell what this is being used for, the most likely use is injecting ads. More nefarious uses are also possible however.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Vulnerability in Telegram for macOS lets malware access user mic and camera — Meduza

• Telegram messenger has confirmed that a vulnerability has been detected in its macOS app available via the App Store. The desktop app that can be downloaded from the company’s website doesn’t have this problem, Telegram clarified in a tweet.

Windows TCO

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Ransomware-as-a-service groups rain money on their affiliates

• Researchers with cybersecurity firm Group-IB infiltrated the Qilin gang in March and this week analyzed its operations in a report that detailed its inner workings and the economic model that keeps it churning.

=> ↺ Hearst Communications ☛ New York audit: School districts unprepared for cyber attacks

• The Education Department “has not taken the fundamental steps or improved the technical controls needed to secure its own critical systems,” the auditors said.

• Auditors also went to four school districts and scanned their systems for vulnerabilities. What they found was so concerning that the districts took immediate action, they said.

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ Russian man charged over ransomware attacks, including against D.C. police

• The 30-year-old Mikhail Matveev, who is based in Kaliningrad, Russia, is also charged with ransomware incidents affecting law enforcement in New Jersey, as well as several victims in the health care sector, according to newly unsealed indictments from the Justice Department. Along with the criminal charges, the Treasury announced sanctions barring Matveev from conducting financial transactions in the United States, and the State Department issued a $10 million reward for his arrest.

• The investigation into Matveev involved the FBI, IRS and local law enforcement in D.C. and New Jersey, as well as authorities from Japan, the U.K., France, Germany and the European Union.

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ Ransomware group claims 2.5 terabytes of stolen data less than a month after emerging online

• A new cybercrime outfit calling itself RA GROUP is just the latest to take advantage of leaked Babuk ransomware source code.

• The post Ransomware group claims 2.5 terabytes of stolen data less than a month after emerging online appeared first on CyberScoop.

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ 5.8M records stolen in ransomware attack on pharmacy company PharMerica

=> ↺ Krebs On Security ☛ Russian Hacker “Wazawaka” Indicted for Ransomware

• A Russian man identified by KrebsOnSecurity in January 2022 as a prolific and vocal member of several top ransomware groups was the subject of two indictments unsealed by the Justice Department today. U.S. prosecutors say Mikhail Pavolovich Matveev, a.k.a. “Wazawaka” and “Boriselcin” worked with three different ransomware gangs that extorted hundreds of millions of dollars from companies, schools, hospitals and government agencies.

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ Next-gen open-source technologies are breaking barriers [Ed: Notice the dash; proprietary software pushers, fronting by ''Linux Foundation, in media that gets paid to produce these puff pieces (it's obligatory)]

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ Navigating the data deluge: Open source makes waves in climate change sphere

=> ↺ Red Hat ☛ How to use the new OpenShift quick starts to deploy JBoss EAP

• In the articles, How to migrate your Java applications to Red Hat OpenShift and How to deploy JBoss EAP applications with OpenShift Pipelines, we covered the technologies utilized to build and deploy Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform images on OpenShift. These technologies include Source to Image (S2I), Helm charts, build configs, deployment configs, tekton pipelines, and ingress routes. While these technologies will be familiar to developers experienced with Kubernetes and containerization, a Jakarta EE developer coming from a traditional JBoss EAP background may be new to these tools.

Security

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ Discord suffers data breach after third-party agent was compromised

=> ↺ Krebs On Security ☛ Re-Victimization from Police-Auctioned Cell Phones

• Countless smartphones seized in arrests and searches by police forces across the United States are being auctioned online without first having the data on them erased, a practice that can lead to crime victims being re-victimized, a new study found. In response, the largest online marketplace for items seized in U.S. law enforcement investigations says it now ensures that all phones sold through its platform will be data-wiped prior to auction.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ US News And World Report ☛ Bill Would Require Manufacturers to Enable Porn Filters on Phones, Tablets

• Alabama lawmakers advanced anti-pornography legislation Tuesday that would require phones and tablets to automatically block sexually explicit content or pornography until the purchaser changes the device settings.

• The House of Representatives voted 70-8 for the bill by Republican Rep. Chris Sells, of Greenville. The bill now moves to the state Senate.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Neighborhood Watch Out: Cops Are Incorporating Private Cameras Into Their Real-Time Surveillance Networks

• Police have their sights set on every surveillance camera in every business, on every porch, in all the cities and counties of the country. Grocery store trips, walks down the street, and otherwise minding your own business when outside your home could soon come under the ever-present eye of the government. In a quiet but rapid expansion of law enforcement surveillance, U.S. cities are buying and promoting products from Georgia-based company Fusus in order to access on-demand, live video from public and private camera networks.

=> ↺ Thompson Reuters Foundation ☛ Privacy or safety? U.S. brings ‘surveillance city to the suburbs’

• Fusus technology is being operated in over 60 different cities and counties across more than a dozen states, by police departments, school districts and sheriffs as part of public safety initiatives, according to public records requests and announcements seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ What the defence strategic review got right—and got wrong

• The central guidance in the defence strategic review is the introduction of the concept of deterrence by denial.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong sees overall crime rise by almost 50% in first quarter of 2023 – fraud and violent crime up

• The overall crime rate in the first quarter of this year has increased by 48.4 per cent compared to the same period last year. A

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ The Unseen Soldiers of America’s Privatized Wars

• In 2020, retired Army Officer Danny Sjursen offered an interesting explanation for how the War on Terror was then becoming ever more privatized: the Covid-19 pandemic had changed the Pentagon’s war-making strategy as the public began to question how much money and how many lives were being expended on war abroad rather than healthcare at home. As a result, Sjursen argued, the United States had begun deploying ever more contractors, remote drones, CIA paramilitaries, and (often abusive) local forces in that War on Terror while US troops were redeployed to Europe and the Pacific to contain a resurgent Russia and China. In other words, during the pandemic, Washington placed ever more dirty work in corporate and foreign hands.

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ Commissioner for refugees fleeing to Hungary from Russian-Ukrainian war appointed

• Norbert Pál has been appointed Government Commissioner for individuals fleeing the Russian-Ukrainian war to Hungary, the Hungarian Gazette announced on 15 May.

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ Hungary blocks EU from giving Ukraine €500 million for weapons

• Hungary has blocked the release of the eighth installment of the European Peace Facility (EPF) for arms to Ukraine, the Italian newspaper ANSA reports.

=> ↺ The Gray Zone ☛ Immiserated, humiliated, yet resilient: how Syrians survive America’s economic siege

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Ja Morant and This Country’s Sick, Hypocritical, and Racist Relationship to the Gun

• Ja Morant has the attention of the sports media world for all the wrong reasons. Morant’s friend livestreamed the 23-year-old All-Star Memphis Grizzlies guard brandishing a gun while laughing and listening to music in the passenger seat of a car. Just two months ago, the NBA suspended Morant and pushed him into counseling after he showed off a gun on social media. That came on the heels of a series of accusations that Morant had, among other things, flashed a gun during an alleged assault. Now, he has been suspended indefinitely from the Grizzlies. Morant—the $200 million point guard, the face of the franchise, the person that Daily Memphian columnist Chris Herrington told me is “the most important person to the city since Al Green”—is in danger of throwing his career away.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Vigilante Killings on the Subway Are Not Legal or Moral

• Daniel Penny, the man who choked another man to death on the F train on May 1, was finally arrested and charged with a crime late last week. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Penny with manslaughter in the second degree for killing Jordan Neely. In New York, second-degree manslaughter occurs when a person “recklessly causes the death of another person.”

=> ↺ Confrontation in Şırnak: Two soldiers lost their lives

• Two soldiers lost their lives, one soldier and one village guard were injured in the armed fight that took place in Besta, Şırnak.

=> ↺ AntiWar ☛ The West’s Economic War on Russia Has Failed

• The US with its EU vassals in tow has carried out a two-pronged attack on Russia. The first is Joe Biden’s cruel proxy war on Russia, with its cynical use of Ukrainians as cannon fodder. The second prong is the sanctions war designed to destroy Russia’s economy.

=> ↺ AntiWar ☛ With Upgraded Missiles, Ukraine Prepares To Strike Russian Heartland Despite Assurances

• It’s a pattern Ukrainian officials have commented on before: be patient. The West says no to more advanced weapons and then comes around to sending them. It happened with HIMARS rocket systems, tanks, and fighter jets. The pattern seems to have been repeated again.

=> ↺ Off Guardian ☛ AUDIO: Iain Davis on Perspective with Jesse Zurawell – May 13th

• Regular OffG contributor Iain Davis returns to Perspective this week to talk about what it means to be part of the “alternative media”, widespread failures in covering the “special military operation” in Ukraine and much more. TNT Radio is a 24/7 internet radio station, available here.

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ The Ukraine war and European identity

• The European Parliament elections are still a year away, but political parties across the EU have already shifted to campaign mode.

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ Wrangling China to influence Russia in Ukraine is a fool’s errand

• Pressing Chinese President Xi Jinping to ‘bring Russia to its senses’ in the forlorn hope of ending the war in Ukraine is all the rage among European statesmen.

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ Atlantic Council statement on alleged poisoning

• An independent Russian news website today reported on an alleged poisoning incident of John Herbst, the senior director of our Eurasia Center and former US ambassador to Ukraine.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ UK, Netherlands pledge to provide fighter jet support to Ukraine

• British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday pledged to build an “international coalition” to provide fighter jet support for Ukraine. Earlier in the day, a Ukrainian deputy defence minister said that Kyiv’s troops had pushed Russian forces from chunks of territory around the embattled city of Bakhmut, in the eastern part of the country. Follow our blog to see how the day’s events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Council Of Europe Summit Seeks To Hold Russia To Account For Waging War In Ukraine

• Leaders from across Europe are laser-focused on holding Russia to account for its invasion of Ukraine and were poised to approve a system that would precisely establish the damages Moscow would have to pay to rebuild the nation and compensate victims.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Court In Russia’s Karelia Sentences Man To Six Years In Prison On Treason Charge

• A court in Russia’s northwestern region of Karelia has sentenced a 34-year-old man to six years in prison for high treason.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Founder Of Czech Group Of Frontline Medics In Ukraine Dies From Wounds

• The 38-year-old founder of a group in the Czech Republic that sends volunteer medics to treat Ukrainian soldiers injured during battle against invading Russian forces has died of wounds suffered in March while working on the front lines of the battlefield in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ African Leaders to Seek a Solution to the Ukrainian Conflict

• “I will present this initiative on behalf of the heads of state of Zambia, Senegal, Congo, Uganda, Egypt and South Africa,” President Ramaphosa said.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Mines Could Ruin Ukraine Farmland For Years, Red Cross Says

• Unexploded bombs, shells, and mines not only threaten human life in Ukraine but also risk rendering swaths of fertile farmland unusable for years, the Red Cross said

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Ukraine Lifts Barriers To Exports Of Some Farm Goods

• Ukraine has removed barriers to the export of some agricultural commodities, imposed last year to prevent food shortages, in a bid to boost foreign currency income, the government said.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Kremlin Says ‘Unanswered Questions’ Remain Over Ukraine Grain Deal Extension

• Russia said on May 16 it was still undecided on the extension of a landmark grain export deal with Ukraine, brokered by the UN and Turkey and due to expire on May 18.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ Sadly, Russian ‘SuperCum’ Aircraft Are Just a Typo

• The three drones Ukraine shot down are actually large reconnaissance UAVs.

=> ↺ Helsinki Times ☛ NATO countries slow to increase defense spending

• Despite the recent aggressive actions by Russia in Ukraine, many NATO countries are lagging behind in increasing their defense spending. According to a press release by the ifo Institute, the majority of NATO members are falling short of the goal of allocating 2 percent of their economic output to defense expenditures in 2023. This news raises concerns about the collective defense capabilities of the alliance and the commitment of its members to ensuring their own security.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Out of the cold? After Arab League summit, UAE invites Syria’s president to COP28

• Syria’s embattled President Bashar Assad received an invitation to attend the upcoming COP28 climate talks in Dubai later this year, even as the yearslong war in his country over his rule grinds on.

=> ↺ US News And World Report ☛ Patriot Missile Defense System in Ukraine Likely Damaged -US Sources

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Ukraine Says It Shot Down Hypersonic Russian Missiles Over Kyiv

• A Russian barrage also damaged a U.S.-made Patriot air-defense system, but officials said it was still working.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Your Wednesday Briefing: Ukraine Says It Shot Down Hypersonic Missiles

• Also, a dim outlook for Cambodia’s opposition.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Ukraine’s First Lady Visits Seoul, Requesting Nonlethal Military Aid

• Tools such as equipment to detect and remove mines are needed, Olena Zelenska said.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ African Leaders Plan ‘Peace Mission’ to Russia and Ukraine

• South Africa’s president said officials from six nations would visit Kyiv and Moscow as part of the initiative. The time frame remained unclear.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ European leaders gather in Iceland to discuss human rights and support for Ukraine.

=> ↺ European Commission ☛ Remarks by Executive Vice-President Dombrovskis at the ECOFIN press conference

• European Commission Speech Brussels, 16 May 2023 Thank you minister. Good afternoon, everyone.

• I will start with sanctions, where the EU has been part of the global response to condemn Russia…

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Goodbye Kaliningrad, welcome back Königsberg

• The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea has got a new name – or rather, it is returning to its old names, at least as far as Latvian-speakers are concerned.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Ukraine’s Push Around Bakhmut Presents Russia with Tough Decisions

• Kyiv’s forces have reclaimed ground near the city that it took Russian forces months to seize, raising pressure on Moscow to devote more fighters and equipment there.

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Vice-President of Writers’ Organization (PEN) Resigns Because of Panel’s Excluding Russian Writers

• UPDATE: Added response from PEN.

=> ↺ Reason ☛ For $6.5 Million, Durham Report Finds FBI Didn’t Have Solid Dirt on Trump and Russia

• Plus: Reexamining the roots of qualified immunity, who’s really hurt by business regulations, and more…

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Ukraine Aid Funding Expected to Run Out by Mid-Summer

• The last massive aid package Congress authorized for Ukraine has about $6 billion left, which is expected to be used up by mid-summer, POLITICOreported Monday. So far, the US has authorized about $113 billion in spending on the war in Ukraine, which includes military aid, direct budgetary aid, training, funding for […]

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ ‘Death Outlives War’: Analysis Estimates Post-9/11 ​US Conflicts Killed Over 4.5 Million

• “The United States government, while not solely responsible for the damage, has a significant obligation to invest in humanitarian assistance and reconstruction in post-9/11 war zones,” said the author of a new report.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Reflections on the 75th Anniversary of a Nakba That Never Ended

• In the decades since the event Palestinians know as “the Catastrophe,” dispossession has become a timeless theme of the Palestinian experience.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Journalists say ‘spy’ in new FSB video is Ukrainian woman who was arrested en route to visit sick father in Crimea last year — Meduza

• Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has released a video that it says shows a “detained Ukrainian spy.” The clip was published on Tuesday by the state-run media outlet RIA Novosti, which reported that the 25-year-old “spy” was “transmitting information about Russian military facilities and equipment belonging to the Eastern group of forces.” The woman has reportedly been arrested and charged with espionage.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russian Defense Ministry says it destroyed Patriot missile defense system in Kyiv — Meduza

• The Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily briefing on Tuesday that it successfully used a Kinzhal missile to strike a U.S.-made Patriot missile defense system in Kyiv on Monday night.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Bryansk authorities report Ukrainian drone shot down overnight — Meduza

• Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz reported Tuesday that Russian air defenses shot down a Ukrainian drone in the town of Klintsy the previous night. He said that nobody was injured but that the balcony of a residential building was damaged.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Kyiv authorities report Russian air attack ‘exceptional in density’ — Meduza

• The Kyiv authorities declared an air raid alert on Monday night as Russian forces attempted to carry out large-scale missile and drone strikes on the city, according to Ukrainian officials.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russia launches new strikes on Ukraine — Meduza

• Air raid alerts sounded in many regions of Ukraine, including Kyiv, on the evening of May 16.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ It’s not just Wagner At least three Gazprom-linked private military companies now have fighters in Ukraine — Meduza

• Evgeny Prigozhin, founder of Wagner Group, a private military company, is already infamous for taking on Russia’s Defense Ministry. For several weeks, war bloggers have reported that the war-mongering catering tycoon is now in conflict with several other private military companies who have sent fighters to Ukraine in recent months. BBC News Russian investigated the new groups fighting in Ukraine, and discovered that at least three have links to Russian state gas monopoly Gazprom. The groups evidently emerged from the private security structures Gazprom subsidiaries created to protect its infrastructure projects in Russia and its overseas operations in places like Syria. Meduza is sharing an abridged, English-language report on BBC News Russian’s findings.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ A Vladimir family named their son Putin in 2016; now they want to rename him — Meduza

• In 2016, the Juraev family from the Vladimir region decided to give their son the first name Putin. Now, they’ve decided to rename him, says Yekaterina Belous, head of the regional registration office.

=> ↺ Defence Web ☛ SA Army Chief’s visit to Russia not out of the ordinary – SANDF

• SA Army Chief Lieutenant General Lawrence Mbatha is in Moscow for a bilateral visit between the two military establishments in what the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) said is a normal and long-planned engagement. The three-star’s visit is, according to SANDF Corporate Communication Director Brigadier General Andries Mahapa, in line with “a longstanding arrangement”.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Turning away from the West, Russia seeks to strengthen economic ties with the Muslim world

• The Russia-Islamic World Forum will begin in Kazan, southwest Russia, on Thursday. The two-day event was first held in 2009 and aims to strengthen economic ties between Russia and Muslim countries. In the wake of a rupture between Russia and the West, these ties are now part of a shifting world order.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ DOJ announces five criminal cases over China- and Russia-led efforts to steal US technologies

• The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Tuesday five new criminal cases and four arrests in connection with a multi-agency US task force, known as the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, to keep sensitive technology away from “hostile nation-states.”

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Bill Banning Uranium Imports From Russia Passes U.S. House Subcommittee

• A bill banning Russian uranium imports to the United States gained momentum on May 16 by passing a committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ U.S. Charges Russian National In Ransomware Attacks On Law Enforcement Agencies, Hospitals

• The United States has charged a Russian national with multiple federal crimes related to ransomware attacks in the United States and around the world that netted tens of millions of dollars in ransom payments.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Former German Chancellor’s Wife Loses Job After Attending Victory Day Event At Russian Embassy

• Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s wife has lost her job at NRW.Global Business, a trade and investment agency of North Rhine-Westphalia, after she and her husband attended a Victory Day event at the Russian Embassy in Berlin on May 9.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Colombian citizen sentenced to five years in prison for sending SMS with ‘fakes’ about Russian army — Meduza

• A Moscow district court has sentenced Colombian citizen Alberto Enrique Giraldo Saray to five years and two months in a penal colony for spreading “fakes” about the Russian army, writes Mediazona.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Former Putin envoy reportedly spotted in Israeli migration department — Meduza

• A man resembling Russian politician and economist Anatoly Chubais, who is the highest ranked government official to have left Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine, was spotted in Israel’s Internal Affairs Ministry. A Facebook user posted photos taken inside the ministry, writing that Chubais’ wife Avdotya Smirnova, a screenwriter and literary critic, was with him.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russian officials welcome CIA’s new Telegram channel as ‘convenient resource’ for tracking wannabe spies — Meduza

• The Central Intelligence Agency has created a Russian-language Telegram channel for recruiting informants. In particular, it is targeting the Russian military, secret services, foreign service, science and technology, and other key spheres.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ ‘We decided not to hide’: The war and anti-LGBTQ+ laws forced much of Russia’s queer community to leave, many choosing to resettle in Turkey — Meduza

• After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, much of Russia’s queer community chose to move abroad. While life had been difficult even before the invasion, the complete ban on what the authorities call “LGBT propaganda,” introduced in 2022, made life in conservative Russian society even harder. Photographer Sergei Stroitelev talked to queer people who left Russia for Turkey, capturing their new lives, their feelings about moving abroad, and their plans for the future.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ “Deplorable”: Former Sen. Doug Jones Slams Tuberville for Defending White Nationalists in Military

• As President Biden warned Saturday that white supremacy is the “most dangerous terrorist threat” facing the United States, and members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front marched Sunday on the National Mall, we look at how Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is under fire for expressing support for white nationalists in the U.S. military. Tuberville is a major backer of Donald Trump. In 2020, he defeated Democrat Doug Jones, who served in the Senate from 2018 to 2021 and was a U.S. attorney who successfully prosecuted two members of the Ku Klux Klan involved in the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, church bombing that killed four girls. We get response to Tuberville from Jones and look at white supremacists in the military and more with Southern Poverty Law Center senior investigative reporter Michael Edison Hayden.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ A Neo-Nazi Working in Congress: Aide to Rep. Gosar Pledged Loyalty to White Supremacist Nick Fuentes

• We look at a newly confirmed direct connection between a white supremacist leader and a staffer for one of Trump’s staunchest supporters in Congress. The digital director for right-wing Arizona Congressmember Paul Gosar has been revealed as a prominent follower of neo-Nazi online influencer Nick Fuentes. Gosar himself is linked to organizers of the January 6 insurrection and was censured for posting an animated video on social media where he murdered Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacked President Biden. We speak with Talking Points Memo reporter Hunter Walker about his exclusive report, which he says “removes that veil of plausible deniability” from Gosar about his office’s ties to extremists.

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ How Viktor Orbán angered his closest friends in Europe

• Newly-elected Hungarian president Katalin Novák tried to put her best foot forward on her first official foreign visit to Warsaw in May 2022. She was wearing one of Poland’s national colors, red, and managed to arrange a meeting not only with President Andrzej Duda, but also with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who is more directly involved in the day-to-day political operation of the country.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ ‘We’ve targeted quite a few people’ Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov gets frank in a new interview — Meduza

• In an interview with the Ukrainian YouTube channel Rizni Lyudi, Ukraine’s defense intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov shared his views of the combat situation, Wagner Group’s role in the larger scheme of the war, and the Ukrainian secret services’ work on Russian territory. Meduza summarizes Budanov’s key points from the interview. The senior officer’s remarks have been abridged and edited for clarity. Here’s the gist of what he said.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russia’s State Duma denounces Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe — Meduza

• State Duma deputies have unanimously voted in favor of denouncing the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), following Vladimir Putin’s directive, issued on May 10.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Playing chicken to the detriment of democracy and cost to the taxpayer

• Far too often, government departments and its agencies deny Freedom of Information requests without good reason. It leads to unnecessary delays, costs, and the withholding of information that the public deserves to know. What’s the scam?

• The scam is that in so many Freedom of Information (FOI) matters, the Government’s decisions have been very poorly thought out, or been deliberately contrived. The decisions are made by official who receive their pay cheque from the public. When I appeal their decisions, as I will do when they are bizarre, the Government often backflips at the 11th hour.

Environment

=> ↺ Idiomdrottning ☛ Brownshirts vs climate

• Pit-in-the-stomach feeling reading the news today as the brownshirts in Sweden are gearing up to delay climate solutions even harder, through outright denial. This is a horror show since the other parties are already bad and insufficient at climate stuff. We definitiviely can’t afford to add a big old stinking Overton magnet in the opposite direction.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ DOJ crypto enforcement director calls for crackdown on illicit behavior by exchanges

• The U.S. Department of Justice is increasing its efforts to stop illicit and criminal activities on crypto trading platforms, according to a report published by the Financial Times.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong animal NGO appeals for help after halting new intakes amid post-Covid adoption slump

• An animal welfare charity, Team for Animals In Lantau South (TAILS), has said that they will stop accepting new animals for adoption as they are “full.” The founder has said there were fewer foster carers and adoptions after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ The latest from Arte Weekly: Europe experiences severe water shortages caused by drought, while Ukrainian refugees consider returning home

• Record-breaking droughts force Spain to take emergency measures. We look at the wider picture regionally, where droughts are occurring at an alarming frequency causing severe water shortages. Meanwhile, since the war began, 8.2 million Ukrainians have fled to the EU. Arte Europe weekly learns why many are asking whether to stay or return home. Lastly, we turn to Serbia, where a handful of female comic book artists are challenging the status quo in their field.

Finance

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ The US debt ceiling stalemate threatens money market funds—and financial stability

• Money markets would be the first to react to a debt ceiling breach, heightening market turmoil at the wrong time and helping to raise the odds of a severe recession.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ ‘How to recognize corruption’ available in English

• Latvia’s Corruption Combating and Prevention Bureau (KNAB) has published an English-language version of a corruption-spotting handbook it published in Latvian in 2022.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Glimmers of Hope for a Debt Deal

• Also, a leader in A.I. asks for regulation. Here’s the latest at the end of Tuesday.

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ Meet the Federal Judge Who Could Decide Whether or Not the US Defaults

• As the possibility of a government default on the national debt which could tank the global economy looms, the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE) has sued the government in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts claiming that the debt ceiling law is unconstitutional and unenforceable. According to its complaint, NAGE asks the court to “declare that the Debt Limit Statute is presently unconstitutional and of no force and further seeks to enjoin [President Biden and Treasury Secretary Yellen] from refusing to borrow to meet the operations of government approved by Congress and the debts and obligations that also must be paid pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment…”

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ “Hi Babe” Case: ASIC witnesses mauled in court, Commbank embarrassed, evidence ends abruptly

• The credibility of witnesses was tested severely in ASIC’s case against bank victim advocate Geoff Shannon yesterday, and case evidence was brought to an abrupt close amid talk of perjury. Lisa-Jane Roberts reports from Southport.  

• The cross-examination of ASIC’s star witness in the case against bank victims advocate Geoff Shannon concluded yesterday at Southport Court on the Gold Coast, and the trial was adjourned until 22 August 2023, when both parties will present their final submissions to the court.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Innovation Evangelist: Stockland and Mirvac roped, bound by Bricklet property rorts

• As far as property scams go, it’s a slick one, although you might say it began with good intentions. Giuseppe Porcelli, the Maserati-driving tech entrepreneur from Manly on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, even managed to rope in the bluest of blue chip property types, enticing no less than Stockland and Mirvac into his Bricklet venture as cornerstone investors. Michael West reports.

• Bricklet is a new variant of the “property fractionalisation model”. Fractionalisation means selling bits of a property – rather than the whole property. It is designed to appeal to those who can’t afford their own house or apartment.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ A Bernie Sanders Progressive Could Be the Next Leader of One of America’s Largest Counties

• Bernie Sanders started his career in elected office as the mayor of the largest city in Vermont. Though he eventually became a member of the US House, a US senator and, finally, a presidential contender whose 2016 and 2020 campaigns transformed debates about economic inequality in America, Sanders has always recognized that, while big policy decisions are made at the federal level and in the nation’s statehouses, the implementation of those policies takes place primarily at the local level. That’s one of the reasons Sanders has gone out of his way to make endorsements of progressives running in mayoral races and contests for county executive posts across the country.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Turkish Election Aftershock: Despite Unity on the Left, the Opposition Falls Short

• Istanbul, Turkey—Sunday started sunny and cheerful in Turkey’s most populous city. Scores of families headed to secondary schools to cast their ballots and have their say in Turkish politics. That the country’s longtime president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would lose in this first round of presidential elections seemed a historical inevitability to the smiling, hopeful people lining the streets in my upper-middle-class neighborhood. In a few hours, we would be proven terribly wrong.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Turkey’s Opposition Struggles to Chart Path as Runoff Nears

• President Recep Tayyip Erdogan looks likely to benefit most from the votes that went to an ultranationalist candidate eliminated in the first round.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ 4 Takeaways from Turkey’s Nail-Biting Presidential Election

• Recep Tayyip Erdogan is headed for his — and his country’s — first presidential runoff vote. But the first round showed the longtime leader’s continued strength.

=> ↺ Election calendar in the second round

• With none of the candidates receiving more than 50 percent of the votes, the second round of Turkey’s presidential elections will be held on May 28.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Federal Court Rejects FBI’s Attempt To Glomar Its Way Out Of A Trump-Related FOIA Lawsuit

• After Donald Trump was forced to vacate the Oval Office to make way for its newest tenant, he apparently decided to cement his legacy by walking off with boxes full of classified documents. When the National Archive and Records Administration began filing away the records Trump actually deigned to turn over to it, it found a bunch of classified information. This led to an investigation by the DOJ and, ultimately, a raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence to recover any other classified documents the ex-president might have taken with him.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ Report from U.S.-Mexico Border as Title 42 Ends: Human Rights Violations, Funerals & Makeshift Camps

• We host a roundtable discussion on the human rights crisis unfolding at the U.S.-Mexico border and the impact of President Biden ending the Trump-era pandemic policy known as Title 42 last Thursday, after it had been used to expel nearly 3 million migrants without due process. Guerline Jozef is co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, an immigrant advocacy organization that provides humanitarian assistance to Haitians and other Black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa; Erika Guevara-Rosas is a human rights lawyer and Americas director for Amnesty International; and Erika Pinheiro is an immigration attorney and the executive director of Al Otro Lado, a binational nonprofit helping immigrants on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Orthodox Patriarch Kirill says he only asked to borrow Rublev’s ‘Trinity’ from Tretyakov Gallery, but Putin gave it back to church outright — Meduza

• Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russian Orthodox Church, says he didn’t ask President Vladimir Putin to give Andrey Rublev’s “Holy Trinity” ikon back to the church.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russian FSB develops instructions for conducting searches without court order — Meduza

• Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has released a set of proposed instructions for how agents should conduct home and automobile searches without court orders.

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ Budapest mayor tells EP Budgetary Control Committee about government measures detrimental to capital

• The European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee is in Budapest for a three-day visit. Members of the delegation also met the Mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony. The committee asked about the recovery plan submitted by the government and I also made some suggestions, Gergely Karácsony said at a press conference after the meeting.

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ And They’re Off: GOP Sets Bar So Low and Weird It’s Underground and Babbling About Mermaids

• Hoo boy. The GOP primary season got off to a bonkers start in first-in-the-nation Iowa, where smarmy Li’l Ron wowed by keeping his big-boy pants on and taking timid digs at he-who-shall-not-be-named, in absentia ’cause a non-tornado might’ve mussed his hair. They were joined by a ragtag band of bigots, felons, liars, crackpots, fascists and charlatans – Pastors For Trump! Missing Informants! Seductive Seducing Spirits! – who make Kesey’s trippy Merry Pranksters look like Lutheran astrophysicists. Oh, democracy.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Hiring Tucker Carlson

• Fox thought his prime-time spot was now a blot, But other networks craved him for that slot. Imagine all the feelers that he’s got. The Racist-Preppy Market seems red-hot.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Tucker’s Hot Air, Off Air

=> ↺ Pro Publica ☛ Churches’ Role in TX Election Prompts Calls for Investigations

• Voters in West Texas have decisively rejected three conservative Christian candidates who campaigned on infusing religious values into local decision making. But the support the candidates received from local churches during the race has prompted calls for state and federal investigations and triggered a local political reckoning.

• “I think there should definitely be some penalties,” said Weldon Hurt, a two-term Abilene City Council member who won his race for mayor against one of the candidates. “I don’t know how severe it should be, but I think there has to be a way to curtail this from happening again,” he added. “I think there should be some discipline to these churches.”

=> ↺ Patrick Breyer ☛ Statement by the Child Protection Association (Der Kinderschutzbund Bundesverband e.V.) on the Public Hearing of the Digital Affairs Committee on “Chat Control”

• The EU initiative sends a clear signal to all EU states to take stronger action against sexualised violence against children. We strongly welcome this. To implement this important goal, the directive proposes necessary and correct measures, but goes too far at crucial points.

=> ↺ Patrick Breyer ☛ Summary of Statement by the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information on the public hearing of the Committee on Digital Affairs of the German Bundestagon the topic of “Chat Control”

• The fight against child sexual abuse is an extremely important social task that must be fulfilled with all suitable and appropriate means at our disposal. The so-called chat control, however, significantly exceeds the goal of this task. It hardly offers greater protection for children, but instead it would be Europe’s and Germany’s entry into a disproportionate, unconditional and comprehensive surveillance of private communication.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ ChatGPT chief warns US Senate committee to regulate artificial intelligence

• CEO of OpenAI Samuel Altman appeared before the US Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law on Tuesday for a hearing about how the US might regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Altman called on the US “to develop regulations that incentivize AI safety while ensuring that people are able to access the technology’s many benefits.”

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Using fake Facebook account, Hong Kong police trolled pro-democracy activists

• Revelations emerge after a police officer gives details of the account during an ongoing ‘subversion’ trial

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ The Fire ☛ FIRE to Uvalde: Lift ban on father who questioned school safety or we’ll sue

• Today, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression demanded the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District lift its ban against Adam Martinez, a father of two students in the district. The district banned Martinez from all district property for two years, including from school board meetings. FIRE’s letter to UCISD threatens litigation if the district does not lift the unconstitutional ban by May 22, 2023.

• “My community counts on me to be their voice, but the district wants to shut me up,” said Martinez. “My fight has always been for the 21 people who no longer have a voice and for those who are too scared to speak up about social injustice.”

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Twitter ‘Shadowbans’ Bellingcat After Musk Attacks Them, Then Tries To Retcon A Nonsense Explanation

• Remember, according to Elon Musk, one of the worst things that old Twitter did was “shadowban” people. There was a whole “Twitter Files” about the practice, which Musk insisted was a horrible practice that was censorship. Except… at the same time he had no problem using it to silence accounts he personally disliked. Hilariously, he announced this as part of his “new Twitter policy” back in November, even though it had been existing Twitter policy since 2018.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Age Verification Laws Are Terrible

• Free Speech Coalition, a trade group representing the adult entertainment industry, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah to overturn Senate Bill (SB) 287 – the new law that requires age verification for all adult websites. As I wrote about in my last entry for this site, SB 287 prompted the leadership of Pornhub and its network of porn websites to block the whole state of Utah from accessing it in order to avoid potential civil penalties outlined by the new law.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ Pacific media needs more support to protect the truth

• Media freedom is an essential pillar of democracy. In Pacific island countries, this pillar is under threat from financial and capacity constraints.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Robert Reich ☛ Why Child Labor in America is Skyrocketing

=> ↺ Reason ☛ When This Uvalde Parent Complained About a New Police Hire, He Was Banned From School Property

• Adam Martinez’s youngest son was at Robb Elementary on the day of the shooting—though thankfully he was physically unharmed—and, like many other parents, he became a vocal critic of the police department. However, in retaliation for his criticism, the school district banned him from school property—and school board meetings—for two years.

• On Monday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) sent a demand letter requesting that the school lift its two-year ban on Martinez or face a lawsuit.

• “The First Amendment exists so that people can use their voices to advocate for social and political change,” FIRE attorney Jeff Zeman said in a Monday press release. “Criticizing the government is protected speech, and Uvalde can’t police it.”

=> ↺ Site36 ☛ Police violence in Germany is mostly male and more often goes unpunished, research project finds

• The findings presented in KviAPol shed light on the so-called dark field of police assaults, i.e. cases that have not become known and have not been denounced. Under the direction of Tobias Singelnstein, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Law, the researchers Laila Abdul-Rahman, Hannah Espín Grau and Luise Klaus surveyed more than 3,300 participants online and conducted more than 60 qualitative interviews with members of the police and judiciary, victim counselling centres and lawyers.

=> ↺ Craig Murray ☛ Trial By Jury

• When I started this blog I never envisaged I would be forced to write a defence of the use of juries in Scotland. We live in troubling times indeed.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Chief of Ukraine Supreme Court Is Arrested and Accused of Bribery

• ‘This is a dark day in the history of the court,’ its judges said.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Hollywood Writers Have a Word for It: Inequality

• From Cocaine Bear to Panda Express, the fight for a living wage is the same.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Russia Halts Release Of Iranian Film On Serial Killer Of Sex Workers

• Russian authorities have suspended the release of an award-winning film about a serial killer who targets sex workers in Iran.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Homes Of Russian Activists, Journalist Searched

• Police in Russia’s Tatarstan region have searched the homes of three rights activists, Vera Otreshko, Zulfia Sitdikova, an unspecified member of the unregistered Libertarian party, and the home of journalist Nailya Mullayeva.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Kremlin Critic Says She Experienced Possible Poisoning Symptoms; Report Says Others Also Fell Ill

• Natalia Arno, the U.S.-based chief of the Free Russia Foundation, says there are suspicions she may have been poisoned, “possibly by some nerve agent,” after falling ill during a recent trip to Europe, amid reports that at least two other Kremlin critics have experienced similar episodes since 2020.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba on Their New Handbook for Radical Organizing

• In Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care, Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes combine decades of scholarship, countless interviews with activists, and insights from movements across the globe to deliver a utilitarian and practical guide for youth organizers coming into their own. Kaba, a longtime abolitionist organizer and educator, has led numerous organizations to battle the prison-industrial complex and empower young activists, including Project NIA, the Chicago Freedom School, and Interrupting Criminalization. Her blog Prison Culture as well as her anthology We Do This Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice have garnered international acclaim. Hayes is an organizer and journalist whose work in outlets like Truthout and Movement Memos has chronicled some of the most important grassroots fights of our time. Kaba and Hayes sat down with Sarah Emily Baum to discuss their new book. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Monopolies

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s ‘Punishment’ For Disastrous Megamerger? $39 Million.

• We’ve noted in detail how the AT&T/Time Warner/Discovery mergers have been an apocalyptic mess that aptly demonstrates the U.S. obsession with utterly pointless megadeals and a “growth for growth’s sake” mindset. Hundreds of billions of dollars later and the companies have produced a product that’s notably shittier than when they started, laying off thousands of people, cancelling popular brands, killing popular magazines, and leaving streaming catalogs with new, weird gaps due to a refusal to pay residuals.

Trademarks

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Taco Bell Seeks To Liberate ‘Taco Tuesday’ For Itself, The Masses

• There is a long history of trademark silliness concerning the phrase “Taco Tuesday.” As with many trademark stories, the original sin in all of this was committed by the USPTO , which in the ’80s somehow managed to grant the Taco John’s chain a trademark on the term, despite it being both very descriptive and, after years of lax enforcement, absolutely generic at present. What you will find missing in the stories that we’ve done on this topic in the past is an entity with real weight behind it attempting to invalidate Taco John’s trademark entirely. Sure, everyone from restaurant trade associations to LeBron James (seriously!) have gotten involved, but what we need here is a good old fashioned Goliath to come and stamp out David when he’s misbehaving.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Creative Commons ☛ Michal Čudrnák — Open Culture VOICES, Season 2 Episode 15

• “If you’re considering opening up, start small” says Michal Čudrnák, the Head of Digital Collections at the Slovak National Gallery. When you open up just a small part first you will see what unfolds and can learn in the process what works for your community and what they interested in and how your community wants to use the cultural heritage in your collection. This episode dives into issues of legislation as well as the unique ways public domain material is re-used.

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ ISPs Block ‘Uptobox’ to Fight Piracy, Platform & Users Probably Prepared

• A French court has ordered ISPs to block veteran file-hosting/streaming platform Uptobox. French internet users made roughly 10 million visits to Uptobox last month and are unlikely to give up easily. Meanwhile, blundering efforts to block other content led to the entire Telegram platform being blocked in France last weekend. French visitors were diverted to a government website where code linked their visit to serious crime.

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ Manga Publisher Wants Cloudflare to Expose Operators of Popular ‘Piracy’ Sites

• Manga publisher Shueisha has obtained a subpoena at a California federal court that requires Cloudflare to expose the operators of several piracy-related sites. The targets include 13dl.to, manga-zip.is, wupfile.com and hexupload.net. Each of these sites has millions of monthly users and are predominantly popular in Japan.

=> ↺ Press Gazette ☛ Google traffic worth less than £75m per year to UK publishers says NMA

• Publishers and platforms disagree over how much they each benefit from each other.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Bungie Wins Default Judgment Against Danish Cheat Purveyor In Ruling That Encourages More CFAA Abuse

• A lawsuit [PDF] against a cheat creator has swung almost completely in Bungie’s direction, mainly thanks to the Danish defendant being unwilling to travel across the pond to defend himself in court. The claims are numerous, ranging from copyright infringement to trademark infringement to CFAA violations to the ever-popular (but rarely successful) RICO.

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