● 06.03.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 03/06/2023: IBM Betraying LibreOffice Some More (After Laying off LibreOffice Developers)

Posted in News Roundup at 1:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ System76 working on a standalone PC case, plus a big Open Firmware upgrade

• System76 are the company behind the popular Pop!_OS Linux distribution, plus various laptops and desktops and now they’re expanding once again. Their Pop!_OS is in the top list for Linux users on Steam.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Big, Incredible Journeys in an Incredibly Big Country

• Trips across Australia are often necessarily trips at a striking scale.

=> ↺ ZDNet ☛ 8 things you can do with Linux that you can’t do with MacOS or Windows

• Why should you try Linux? This is why.

• Back when I first started using Linux in 1997, the open-source operating system was primarily used by computer science students, hackers, and programmers who wanted an alternative to the Windows operating system. It was serious and geared toward serious work.

• Fast forward to now and Linux is used for everything. Why? Simply put, it’s more flexible and secure than Windows.

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ Neowin ☛ System76 unveils the Galago Pro ultraportable laptop starting at $999

• System76, the OEM that focuses on open-source computing, has refreshed the Galago Pro with a move to Intel H-class processors. Prices for the laptop start at $999 but customizations will push this up.

Applications

=> ↺ Medevel ☛ fzf is a General-Purpose Command-line File Finder.

• fzf is a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder.

=> ↺ Medevel ☛ Diskover Community Edition – Open source File Indexer and File Search Engine

• diskover is an open source file system indexer that uses Elasticsearch to index and manage data across heterogeneous storage systems.

=> ↺ Medevel ☛ fd: A Nifty Way to Search And Find Files in Your Filesystem

• fd is a program to find entries in your filesystem. It is a simple, fast and user-friendly alternative to find. While it does not aim to support all of find’s powerful functionality, it provides sensible (opinionated) defaults for a majority of use cases.

=> ↺ Linux Links ☛ Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Google Photos

• Google Photos lets you store your images in the cloud for convenient access from anywhere. What are the best open source alternatives?

=> ↺ Medevel ☛ MediaBundle: Is a Self-hosted Media File Manager

• MediaBundle is a media file manager bundle for Symfony with a REST API and an admin interface (React)

=> ↺ Medevel ☛ Koodo Reader Is An Amazing Free Libre eBook Manager for Windows, Linux, macOS, and the Web

• modern ebook manager and reader with sync and backup capacities for Windows, macOS, Linux and Web…

=> ↺ Linux Links ☛ Alternatives to popular CLI tools: tar

• We showcase free and open source alternatives to tar, the most widely used archiving utility in Linux systems.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ TecMint ☛ How to Remove a Directory and File in Linux Using ‘rm’ Command

• The rm command is a UNIX and Linux command line utility for removing files or directories on a Linux system. In this article, we will clearly explain what actually rm and “rm -rf” commands can do in Linux.

• In addition, we will share a few useful examples of removing a file, removing a directory, removing multiple files or directories, prompting for confirmation, removing files recursively, and forcing the removal of files.

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ How to Fix NetworkManager Not Running on Linux

• It can be frustrating losing your connection to the internet—and it’s much worse when you find that NetworkManager isn’t running at all. Unfortunately, this issue is commonly encountered by users running distros such as Arch Linux and Ubuntu.

• In most cases, issues with NetworkManager are simple to resolve. You might find that the solution is as easy as reinstalling NetworkManager or enabling the service. Let’s take a look at some troubleshooting methods that are effective at resolving most issues with NetworkManager not running on Linux.

=> ↺ ZDNet ☛ How to better monitor your Ubuntu Linux PC’s temperature and voltage

• If you have fans running too often or you want to improve how Linux uses your hardware, there’s a simple command for that.

=> ↺ OSTechNix ☛ Disk Space Analysis Made Easy: Understanding df And du Commands In Linux

• If you’re new to the Linux environment, it’s common to feel puzzled by certain commands, especially when they serve similar purposes. One such confusion arises between the df and du commands, both of which are used for disk space analysis. Don’t worry, you’re not alone! Understanding df and du commands and their distinct purposes is key to effectively managing your disk space in Linux. In this beginner-friendly guide, we will demystify the df and du commands, helping you gain clarity on their functionalities and how they contribute to analyzing disk space in Linux. By the end of this article, you’ll feel confident in distinguishing between these commands and utilizing them to make informed decisions about your disk space management.

=> ↺ How to install Hashcat on Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04 LTS

• Hashcat is for those who are in the computer security field and want to test the strength of the password to perform security audits. In short, it is an advanced password recovery tool that supports various hashing algorithms with extensive options for password cracking.

=> ↺ ID Root ☛ How To Fix 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable Error on Nginx

• The 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable error is a common HTTP status code that indicates the unavailability of a web server. When encountered, it implies that the server is currently unable to handle the request due to temporary overload or maintenance.

=> ↺ Neowin ☛ How To Install and Use PowerShell on Linux – Free Guide [Ed: In this "sponsored" placement the Microsofters try to turn GNU/Linux into Microsoft Windows, making them dependent on Microsoft]

• There are key differences such as the ability to run standard Bash commands in Linux PowerShell.

=> ↺ Real Linux User ☛ How to prevent your Linux computer from falling asleep with Caffeine

• Operating Systems do not always do precisely what you would like or expect them to do.

=> ↺ ID Root ☛ Linux ifconfig Command

• The ifconfig command in Linux is a powerful utility that allows users to configure and manage network interfaces on their systems. Whether you need to view IP address information, activate or deactivate interfaces, or troubleshoot network connectivity, ifconfig provides the necessary tools.

=> ↺ How to Choose the Best Linux Distribution

• Choosing the best Linux distribution depends on your specific needs and preferences. In the following view I explain how 20+ years of experience with Linux have shaped my views. Here are some factors to consider when selecting a Linux distribution: Remember, there is no single “best” Linux distribution that suits everyone.

=> ↺ Restricting Root: Limiting Capabilities for Users within Docker Containers

• Introduction: In recent years, container technology has become a popular tool for developers and sysadmins to deploy and manage software systems. Docker is a widely used platform that provides an efficient way to create, deploy, and manage containers.

=> ↺ Bridging the Gap: Sharing Namespaces Between Hosts and Containers

• Introduction In today’s digital landscape, containerization has become a popular method for deploying and managing applications. Containers enable developers to package their application with all necessary dependencies, making them portable and easily deployable across different environments. However, an important aspect of containerization is the concept of namespaces.

=> ↺ Soaring with Docker: An Introduction to Docker on Cloud Platforms

• Introduction In today’s fast-paced digital world, businesses are focusing more on delivering software quickly and efficiently. This is where container technology has become a game-changer for developers and IT operations teams. Docker is one such container technology that has been widely adopted by the industry for its benefits in streamlining application development, testing, and deployment.

=> ↺ Docker and AWS: A Powerful Partnership for Cloud Deployments

• Introduction The Dynamic Duo: Docker and AWS Docker and AWS are two of the most powerful technologies in the cloud computing industry today. Docker is a containerization platform that allows developers to create, deploy, and manage applications in a lightweight, portable manner.

=> ↺ Seamless Blogging: Deploying WordPress with Docker on AWS

• The Importance of Seamless Blogging Blogging has become an essential tool for sharing ideas and expertise with a global audience. Bloggers and content creators rely on their blogs to connect with their audience, build a loyal following, and establish themselves as industry experts. However, managing and maintaining a seamless blog can be time-consuming and challenging.

=> ↺ FOSSLinux ☛ Fixing ‘Repository does not have a Release file’ Error in Ubuntu and Debian

• Encountering an error while updating or installing packages can be frustrating, especially when it hinders your progress. One such error that Ubuntu and Debian users often face is ‘Repository does not have a Release file.’ This error usually occurs due to an incorrect repository source list, or if the repository does not support your version of Ubuntu/Debian.

=> ↺ UNIX Cop ☛ How to increase Swap size on Ubuntu

• Hello, friends. Today, you will learn how to increase Swap on Ubuntu. The process is easier than you think. Let’s go. Swap or swap memory space, or also known as virtual memory, is the one that uses the space on the HDD instead of a memory module.

=> ↺ Linux Shell Tips ☛ How to Filter Log Files Based on Date in Linux

• Linux logs are the most important files which tell us what is happening with the Linux kernel, distribution, its boot process, applications, and more.

=> ↺ Make Tech Easier ☛ How to Install Eclipse IDE on Linux

• The Eclipse IDE is an established open-source tool used by software developers for developing applications. This software offers a wide range of features and tools that effectively optimize the development process.

• The Eclipse (IDE) is primarily utilized for the purpose of writing, evaluating, and debugging code. The platform provides support for a wide range of programming languages, which includes Java, C/C++, Python, PHP, and others.

Games

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Linux hits a multi-year high for user share on Steam thanks to Steam Deck

• After some recent weirdness where March saw a big drop, the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for May 2023 is now showing the Linux share at a multi-year high.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Halls of Torment hits over 70K sales in the first week

• Here’s a nice little indie success story for you! Halls of Torment from Chasing Carrots launched on May 24th into Early Access with Native Linux support and it works great on Steam Deck. They’ve announced that their launch week was pretty great!

Desktop Environments/WMs

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ This Week in GNOME ☛ This Week in GNOME/Felix Häcker: #98 Fast Searching

• Update on what happened across the GNOME project in the week from May 26 to June 02.

=> ↺ OMG! Linux ☛ GNOME Working on New UI for Fractional Scaling

• Looks like GNOME designers are giving some much-needed love to fractional scaling settings accessible through the Settings app.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Handbook ☛ Re-name Sound Output Devices in Top-right Menu in Ubuntu 23.04

• For Ubuntu 23.04, Fedora 38 and other Linux with GNOME 44, there’s now an extension allows to change display name of audio output devices from the top-right aggregation menu (aka Quick Settings). By default,  the speakers and headphones in the sound output sub-menu is a bit too explicit, that are not very clear to understand.

=> ↺ GNOME ☛ Christian Hergert: GJS plugins for libpeas-2.0

• One of the main features I want to land for the libpeas-2.0 ABI break is support for plugins in JavaScript.

• With the right set of patches, you can get that. Thanks to Philip Chimento, GJS will hopefully soon land support for running code in a SpiderMonkey realm. Philip also did us a solid and wrote the code to exfiltrate enough GType information from an imported JavaScript module. That allows libpeas to correlate which GTypes are provided by a plugin.

• With the GJS realm support in place, we can land the new GJS loader for libpeas-2.0.

Distributions and Operating Systems

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Fedora Project ☛ Fedora Community Blog: CPE Weekly update – Week 22 2023

• This is a weekly report from the CPE (Community Platform Engineering) Team. If you have any questions or feedback, please respond to this report or contact us on #redhat-cpe channel on libera.chat.

=> ↺ Red Hat simplifies management for Red Hat Enterprise Linux across the hybrid cloud

• Dubai, UAE –Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today introduced an expanded set of management capabilities to Red Hat Insights for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, designed to help reduce enterprise Linux complexity across the hybrid cloud without slowing innovation. These enhancements extend Red Hat’s vision to make the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform more accessible, manageable and maintainable wherever organizations operate.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Linux Mint ☛ Monthly News – May 2023

• Hi everyone, I’d like to thank all of you for your support and your donations. The development cycle for Linux Mint 21.2 was closed a few days ago. Most of the projects have been tagged, built and added to the repositories for the upcoming release. Xfce was updated to version 4.18.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Core as an immutable Linux Desktop base

=> ↺ Neowin ☛ Linux Mint 21.2 development cycle closes, beta ISOs could land soon

• The development cycle for Linux Mint 21.2 has now ended which means a beta should be on the horizon. The news was announced by the project’s head, Clem Lefebvre, among other updates.

=> ↺ ZDNet ☛ There’s a new Ubuntu Linux desktop on its way

• Built around an immutable Linux core, this new Snap-based Ubuntu should provide a remarkably stable Linux desktop.

=> ↺ Ubuntu ☛ Docker container security: demystifying FIPS-enabled containers with Ubuntu Pro

• In today’s rapidly changing digital environment, the significance of robust Docker container security measures cannot be overstated. Even the containerised layer is subject to compliance standards, which raise security concerns and compliance requirements.

• Docker container security measures entail safeguarding our lightweight, appliance-type containers –each encapsulating code and its dependencies– from threats and vulnerabilities.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ CNX Software ☛ Pico-Ice board combines Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU with Lattice ICE40 UltraPlus 5K FPGA

• tinyVision.ai Pico-Ice is a development board with a Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU and a Lattice ICE40 UltraPlus 5K FPGA connected through an 8-bit bus. The Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller provides the clock for the FPGA and can program the FPGA directly or the dedicated FPGA flash using a drag-drop of a UF2 file.

=> ↺ Linux Gizmos ☛ Variscite teases i.MX 91 based System-on-Module with GbE support

• This week, Variscite revealed at Computer that they will soon release a low-cost System-on-Module based on the latest NXP i.MX 91 processor optimized for Linux-based applications.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Hackaday Prize 2023: LASK4 Watches Those Finger Wiggles

• What do you get when you combine an ESP32-S2, a machine-learning model, some Hall effect sensors, and a grip exercise toy? [Turfptax] did just that and created LASK4. The four springs push down pistons with tiny magnets on them. Hall effect sensors determine the piston’s position, and since the springs are linear, the ESP32 can also estimate the force being applied on a given finger. This data is then streamed to a nearby computer over TCP. A small OLED screen shows the status, and a tidy 3D printed case creates a comfortable package.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Hackaday Podcast 221: The Future Of The Raspberry Pi, Sniffing A Toothbrush, Your Tactical Tool Threshold

• Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi are back in the (virtual) podcast studio to talk the latest phase of the 2023 Hackaday Prize, the past, present, and future of single-board computers, and a modern reincarnation of the Blackberry designed by hardware hackers. They’ll also cover the current state of toothbrush NFC hacking, the possibilities of electric farm equipment, and a privately funded satellite designed to sniff out methane. Stick around till the end to find out if there really is such a thing as having too many tools.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ What Makes Wedge Coils Better Than Round For PCB Motors?

• PCB motors are useful things. With coils printed right on the board, you don’t need to worry about fussy winding jobs, and it’s possible to make very compact, self contained motors. [atomic14] has been doing some work in this area, and decided to explore why wedge coils perform better than round coils in PCB motor designs.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ SMA Connector Footprint Design For Open Source RF Projects

• When you first start out in the PCB layout game and know just enough to be dangerous, you simply plop down a connector, run a trace or two, and call it a hack. As you learn more about the finer points of inconveniencing electrons, dipping toes into the waters of higher performance, little details like via size, count, ground plane cutouts, and all that jazz start to matter, and it’s very easy to get yourself in quite a pickle trying to decide what is needed to just exceed the specifications (or worse, how to make it ‘the best.’) Connector terminations are one of those things that get overlooked until the MHz become GHz. Luckily for us, [Rob Ruark] is on hand to give us a leg-up on how to get decent performance from edge-launch SMA connections for RF applications. These principles should also hold up for high-speed digital connections, so it’s not just an analog game.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers/Web Servers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Security Boulevard ☛ Avoid The Hack: 6 Best Privacy Browser Picks for Linux and macOS [Ed: Most of these are Firefox-based; Microsoft site SecurityBoulevard not 100% dead yet?]

=> ↺ Security Boulevard ☛ Avoid The Hack: 6 Best Privacy Browser Picks for Linux and macOS [Ed: Most of these are Firefox-based; Microsoft site SecurityBoulevard not 100% dead yet?]

• While the browser suggestions in this post provide better privacy, they don’t necessarily provide anonymity. For anonymous browsing, users should use the Tor browser.

• The Tor browser is configured to run on the Tor network. At its most basic, the Tor network routes user browsing traffic via at least three (3) hops before hitting an exit node and…

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ PostgreSQL ☛ pgAdmin 4 v7.2 Released

• The pgAdmin Development Team is pleased to announce pgAdmin 4 version 7.2. This release of pgAdmin 4 includes 24 bug fixes and new features. For more details please see the release notes.

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ LWN ☛ LibreOffice packages

• as you’ve probably seen, the LibreOffice RPMS have recently been orphaned, and I thought it would be good to explain the reasons behind this.

• The Red Hat Display Systems team (the team behind most of Red Hat’s desktop efforts) has maintained the LibreOffice packages in Fedora for years as part of our work to support LibreOffice for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We are adjusting our engineering priorities for RHEL for Workstations and focusing on gaps in Wayland, building out HDR support, building out what’s needed for color-sensitive work, and a host of other refinements required by Workstation users. This is work that will improve the workstation experience for Fedora as well as RHEL users, and which, we hope, will be positively received by the entire Linux community.

=> ↺ LWN ☛ Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice [LWN.net]

• Red Hat’s Matthias Clasan has let it be known that LibreOffice will be dropped from a future Red Hat Enterprise Linux release, and the future of its support in Fedora is unclear as well.

=> ↺ Linuxiac ☛ Red Hat to Cease Shipping LibreOffice in Further RHEL Releases

• Red Hat’s discontinuation of maintenance for LibreOffice will also affect Fedora, with the office suite expected to ship as a Flatpak.

• LibreOffice, born out of the OpenOffice.org project, has gained immense popularity over the years as a free alternative to proprietary office suites.

• Its compatibility with various document formats, robust features, and extensive community support has made it a favored choice for individuals, businesses, and educational institutions.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Jelmer Vernooij ☛ Porting Python projects to Rust

• I’ve recently been working on porting some of my Python code to rust, both for performance reasons, and because of the strong typing in the language. As a fan of Haskell, I also just really enjoy using the language.

• Porting any large project to a new language can be a challenge. There is a temptation to do a rewrite from the ground-up in idiomatic rust and using all new fancy features of the language.

=> ↺ Rlang ☛ Sorting, Ordering, and Ranking: Unraveling R’s Powerful Functions

• In the realm of data analysis and programming, organizing and sorting data efficiently is crucial. In R, a programming language renowned for its data manipulation capabilities, we have three powerful functions at our disposal: order(), sort(), and rank(). In this blog post, we will delve into the intricacies of these functions, explore their applications, and understand their parameters. These R functions are all used to sort data, however, they each have different purposes and use different methods to sort the data.

=> ↺ Olimex ☛ AgonLight Week Programming Challenge – ISSUE 3

• Here we go to the Third issue of the AgonLight programming challenge.

• This time taking into the account the feedback we got from Facebook we will extend it to be 1 week long, not just weekend!

• So rules are changed: [...]

=> ↺ Godot Engine ☛ Dev snapshot: Godot 4.1 dev 4

• This snapshot signifies that Godot 4.1 is now in feature freeze and will only receive bug fixes going forward. Enjoy this final package of new features and enhancements and give them a good shake!

=> ↺ Medevel ☛ Wails: Build Desktop Apps With Go and Web Technologies

• Wails offers a different approach: it provides the ability to wrap both Go code and a web frontend into a single binary. Tools are provided to make this easy for you by handling project creation, compilation, and bundling. All you have to do is get creative!

=> ↺ Rlang ☛ Troubleshooting Pandoc Problems as an R User

• The Pandoc CLI by John MacFarlane is a really useful tool: for instance, rOpenSci community manager Yanina Bellini Saibene recently asked Maëlle whether she could convert a Google Document into a Quarto book.

=> ↺ Rlang ☛ 3D alpha wrapping with R

• The RcppCGAL package now contains version 5.5.2 of the CGAL library. There is something new in this version: the 3D alpha wrapping. This is a bit similar to the 3D alpha hull but this can work better.

=> ↺ Rlang ☛ Checking normality in R

• Introduction

• “The normal distribution describes the manner in which many phenomena vary around a central value that represents their most probable outcome”

• Leonard Mlodinow

=> ↺ Rlang ☛ Version 1.0.0 of NIMBLE released, providing automatic differentiation, Laplace approximation, and HMC sampling

• We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for hierarchical models and computationally-intensive methods (such as MCMC and SMC). Version 1.0.0 provides substantial new functionality.

Leftovers

=> ↺ The Drone Girl ☛ The bizarre way photographers are using drones (that doesn’t actually involve taking photos)

• Just don’t assume that every reference of ‘drone photography’ means the drone is taking the photo. That’s certainly not what’s happening with Light the Night.

Science

=> ↺ European Commission ☛ EVP Vestager remarks at the Conference on deep tech entrepreneurship for an innovative, resilient and competitive internal market [Ed: Well, Vestager should know that EC tolerating EPO corruption and helping the crimes of Team UPC (setting up an illegal kangaroo court for patents) is a massive blow to tech entrepreneurship and to justice; makes us look no better than Putin's Russia]

• European Commission Speech Stockholm, 01 Jun 2023 I am delighted to be in Stockholm today for the Conference on deep tech entrepreneurship for an innovative, resilient and competitive internal market.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Perovskite Sensor Array Emulates Human Retina For Panchromatic Imaging

• The mammalian retina is a complex system consisting out of cones (for color) and rods (for peripheral monochrome) that provide the raw image data which is then processed into successive layers of neurons before this preprocessed data is sent via the optical nerve to the brain’s visual cortex. In order to emulate this system as closely as possible, researchers at Penn State University have created a system that uses perovskite (methylammonium lead bromide, MAPbX3) RGB photodetectors and a neuromorphic processing algorithm that performs similar processing as the biological retina.

Education

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ India has removed the periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

• Class 10 students following the Indian government’s syllabus will no longer learn the periodic table of elements. Environmental sustainability has also been removed from the curriculum.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ University of Chicago Graduates: Go Forth and Argue

• For University of Chicago graduates, I celebrated the need to profoundly disagree.

Hardware

=> ↺ Computers Are Bad ☛ the reinvention of owens lake

• A few months ago I found out (via the rare sort of mailing list I actually stay subscribed to) that the Center for Land Use Interpretation was holding a Memorial Day open house at their Swansea location. I always have a hard time describing CLUI, but most people that are interested in domestic military, telecom, or cold war history are probably at least peripherally aware of them. Their Land Use Database functions as a less SEO-driven (and somehow both more and less pretentious) version of Atlas Obscura, cataloging a huge number of unusual and historic sites.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Chatting About The State Of Hacker-Friendly AR Gear

• There are many in the hacker community who would love to experiment with augmented reality (AR), but the hardware landscape isn’t exactly overflowing with options that align with our goals and priorities. Commercial offerings, from Google’s Glass to the Microsoft HoloLens and Magic Leap 2 are largely targeting medical and aerospace customers, and have price tags to match. On the hobbyist side of the budgetary spectrum we’re left with various headsets that let you slot in a standard smartphone, but like their virtual reality (VR) counterparts, they can hardly compare with purpose-built gear.

=> ↺ Chris Hannah ☛ I’ve finally got some 35mm film developed

• This is my first time getting film developed, and overall I’m happy with the results. There are certainly a few photos that didn’t come out so well, a few fingers that I had to crop out, and also one shot that was cut in half. But at least that gives me a few things to focus on when I’m next out shooting film.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ European Commission ☛ Opening Remarks by Commissioner Stella Kyriakides at the European Parliament Debate – Antimicrobial Resistance

• European Commission Speech Brussels, 01 Jun 2023 Honourable Members,

• First of all, I would like to thank you for your support on our ongoing work to address AMR, and putting this question forward today.

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ TikTok ban on federal devices formalized with update to Federal Acquisition Regulation

• Three major federal agencies on Friday issued an interim rule to implement a controversial ban on the use of TikTok on the devices of government employees and contractors.

• The Department of Defense (DOD), General Services Administration (GSA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) issued the interim rule for implementation of the No TikTok on Government Devices Act applicable to any contract solicitations the agencies issue on or after June 2.

=> ↺ 37signals LLC ☛ We need not all be connected, all the time

• In Denmark today, we have a centralized app used by all Danish public schools called Aula. Think of it as Facebook for teachers and parents. For our kid in an international school, there’s a similar system. All of it sucks. And I don’t mean in the way that the apps are poorly made, although that is typically also true, but in the way that adding IT to the parent-school relationship only made it worse.

=> ↺ Axios ☛ Biden taps former Obama admin official Mandy Cohen to lead CDC

• Mandy Cohen, the former head of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, is expected to become the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two sources familiar with the move confirmed to Axios.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Amid fresh wave of Covid-19, workplaces in Beijing navigate infection etiquette

• Not every employer gives paid time off to an infected employee, contrary to official guidelines.

=> ↺ European Commission ☛ Protecting jobs and workers: Final report confirms SURE was crucial in mitigating impact of pandemic and supporting recovery [Ed: Face-saving report; they protected the interests of a patent cartel that wheeled out flawed and massively overpriced products, instead of actually saving lives]

• European Commission Press release Brussels, 02 Jun 2023 In 2020, the Commission´s nearly €100 billion SURE instrument designed to protect jobs and incomes affected by the COVID-19 pandemic supported about 31.5 million employees and self-employed people and over 2.5 million businesses.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ A Sweetheart Deal for the Sacklers: Billionaires Get Immunity from Civil Lawsuits over Opioid Crisis

• A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that members of the Sackler family can receive immunity from all current and future civil litigation related to their role in creating and fueling the opioid epidemic. The billionaire Sacklers own Purdue Pharma, maker of the highly addictive opioid OxyContin. The legal shield could lead to a settlement in the range of $6 billion for thousands of plaintiffs, including states, local governments and tribes. Opioid overdoses have killed over 500,000 people in the U.S. over the past two decades, according to the CDC. For more, we speak with Ed Bisch, founder of the group Relatives Against Purdue Pharma, whose 18-year-old son, Eddie, died of an OxyContin-related overdose in 2001. He says drug company executives responsible for the opioid crisis should be prosecuted by the Department of Justice. And in Mexico City, Christopher Glazek is the investigative reporter who was the first to publicly report how the Sackler family had significantly profited from selling OxyContin while fully aware it was directly fueling the opioid epidemic in America. “The Sacklers did what they’ve always done: They struck a deal, they paid a bribe, and they’re getting away with it,” Glazek says of the latest settlement.

=> ↺ Axios ☛ CDC: Upward of 9 million cut corners on drugs due to cost

• More than 9 million American adults aren’t taking their medications as prescribed due to the cost, with those who are uninsured or disabled among the likeliest to cut corners, according to new CDC data released Friday.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ AI Will Never Fit Into A Licensing Regime

• Yes I’m aware that Nvidia and Adobe have announced they will license training data. I don’t know what those agreements will look like, but I can’t imagine that they make any sense in terms of traditional licensing arrangements. Rather, I’m guessing they just brute forced things to build goodwill among artist communities and perhaps to distinguish themselves from other AI companies. I sincerely doubt these arrangements will help artists though, and I fear these licensing conversations will distract from better conversations on how to balance interests. To explain my thoughts on this, I first have to start from the beginning.

=> ↺ Gizmodo ☛ Don’t Store Your Money on Venmo, U.S. Govt Agency Warns

• Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal users are being warned not to store money on the apps long-term, the watchdog Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said on Thursday, following Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank’s failure when customers tried to withdraw money en masse. CFPB is worried about what will happen if another financial crisis occurs, saying those who store funds in Venmo and PayPal could lose it all.

=> ↺ Bruce Schneier ☛ Open-Source LLMs

• But building on public models like Meta’s LLaMa, the open-source community has innovated in ways that allow results nearly as good as the huge models—but run on home machines with common data sets. What was once the reserve of the resource-rich has become a playground for anyone with curiosity, coding skills, and a good laptop. Bigger may be better, but the open-source community is showing that smaller is often good enough. This opens the door to more efficient, accessible, and resource-friendly LLMs.

• More importantly, these smaller and faster LLMs are much more accessible and easier to experiment with. Rather than needing tens of thousands of machines and millions of dollars to train a new model, an existing model can now be customized on a mid-priced laptop in a few hours. This fosters rapid innovation.

=> ↺ Hindustan Times ☛ AI-Controlled drone turns on operator in a shocking simulated test, Highlights ethical concerns

• The drone, equipped with artificial intelligence, deviated from its assigned mission of destroying surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites during a Suppression of an Enemy Air Defense mission and attacked the human operator instead.

• In the simulated test, the drone’s primary task was to identify and eliminate SAM threats. But, the human operator still had the final say in deciding whether to engage the targets. The AI-controlled drone had been trained to prioritize destroying the SAM sites and saw any “no-go” instructions from the human operator as obstacles preventing it from fulfilling its mission.

• As a result, the AI made the decision to attack the operator.

=> ↺ SCMP ☛ AI-powered drone tried to kill its human operator in US military simulation

• ‘It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective’

=> ↺ Tom’s Hardware ☛ US Military Drone AI Simulation Reportedly Turned on Its Human Operator

• A military drone AI simulation reportedly resulted in the AI opting to eliminate its human operator or attack communications towers so it could continue its mission unimpeded.

=> ↺ India Today ☛ AI-operated drone goes wild, kills human operator in US army simulator test

• As per Aerosociety, the AI soon realized that sometimes the human operator would tell it not to kill certain threats, but it would gain points if it did. So what did the AI do? It decided to eliminate the operator. It saw the operator as an obstacle preventing it from accomplishing its objective, so it took matters into its own hands.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ AI-Controlled Drone Goes Rogue, ‘Kills’ Human Operator in USAF Simulated Test

• At the Future Combat Air and Space Capabilities Summit held in London between May 23 and 24, Col Tucker ‘Cinco’ Hamilton, the USAF’s Chief of AI Test and Operations held a presentation that shared the pros and cons of an autonomous weapon system with a human in the loop giving the final “yes/no” order on an attack. As relayed by Tim Robinson and Stephen Bridgewater in a blog post and a podcast for the host organization, the Royal Aeronautical Society, Hamilton said that AI created “highly unexpected strategies to achieve its goal,” including attacking U.S. personnel and infrastructure.

• “We were training it in simulation to identify and target a Surface-to-air missile (SAM) threat. And then the operator would say yes, kill that threat. The system started realizing that while they did identify the threat at times the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective,” Hamilton said, according to the blog post.

Windows TCO

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Idaho Hospitals Working to Resume Full Operations After Cyberattack

• Officials in the Idaho attack have only referred to the problem as a virus that needs to be removed.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Information of 2.5M People Stolen in Ransomware Attack at Massachusetts Health Insurer

• Point32Health, the second-largest health insurer in Massachusetts, is in the process of informing more than 2.5 million individuals that their personal and protected health information was stolen in a recent ransomware attack.

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ How university cybersecurity clinics can help cities fight ransomware

• Cybersecurity faculty and students can be a valuable resource to help local governments and business build cyber capacity.

=> ↺ CNN ☛ Cyberattack forces Idaho hospital to send ambulances elsewhere

• The cyberattack has also hampered computer systems at nearby Mountain View Hospital, which is under the same ownership as Idaho Falls Community Hospital.

=> ↺ The Washington Post ☛ Idaho hospitals working to resume full operations after cyberattack

• Officials with Idaho Falls Community Hospital said the attack happened Monday, causing some clinics to close, some ambulances to be diverted to nearby hospitals and their cafes to only accept cash. Mountain View Hospital, also located in Idaho Falls, was similarly affected by the computer virus, officials said.

=> ↺ Malwarebytes Labs ☛ US hospital forced to divert ambulances after cyberattack

• While the exact nature of the cyberattack is unknown at this point and the hospital calls it a “virus”, it is more likely that it is dealing with a ransomware attack. By definition, a virus is a program or piece of code, that runs against your wish and can replicate itself. I put emphasis on “replicate” for a reason. This is because the replication factor is a very important component in the definition of a virus.

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Linux Foundation Research Finds Open Source Crucial to Realizing Full Potential of Microgrids | | news-journal.com [Ed: A proprietary “study”; What does ‘Linux’ Foundation stand for? Proprietary software has won?]

=> ↺ Linux Foundation Research Finds Open Source Crucial to Realizing Full Potential of Microgrids | | news-journal.com [Ed: A proprietary “study”; What does ‘Linux’ Foundation stand for? Proprietary software has won?]

Security

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ Invisible data exfiltration: New security issue found in Google Workspace [Ed: No, the moment you outsource to Google Workspace it is already a data breach as regimes can access, tamper with, and destroy anything; this issue is about yet more parties having such capabilities. True security means control. It means no regimes can exercise control over you, no matter if they're "good regimes" or "bad regime" (that can change over time), plus they too can have breaches, so there's a chain of compromise.]

• A previously unknown security issue in Google LLC’s Workspace could allow an attacker to exfiltrate data from Google Drive without being traced. Detailed Tuesday by researchers at Mitiga Security Inc., the vulnerability is the result of a forensic deficiency that allows a user to exfiltrate data without generating any record of the activity.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Adobe Inviting Researchers to Private Bug Bounty Program [Ed: Adobe: we don't want to hire people to identity our bug doors; will y'all volunteer?]

• Adobe is inviting security researchers to join its private bug bounty program on the HackerOne platform.

=> ↺ LinuxSecurity ☛ Critical Remotely Exploitable Django Vuln Fixed | LinuxSecurity.com

• It was discovered that Django 3.2 before 3.2.19, 4.x before 4.1.9, and 4.2 before 4.2.1 incorrectly handled uploading multiple files using one form field (CVE-2023-31047). With a low attack complexity, no privileges required to exploit, and a high confidentiality, integrity and availability impact, this vulnerability has been rated as “Critical” by the National Vulnerability Database (NVD).

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Critical Vulnerabilities Found in Faronics Education Software

• Faronics patches critical-severity remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in the Insight education software.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Organizations Warned of Salesforce ‘Ghost Sites’ Exposing Sensitive Information [Ed: "The clown" is a security breach; it's proprietary software, remotely controlled]

• Salesforce ghost sites — domains that are no longer maintained but still accessible — can expose personal information and business data.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Russia Blames US Intelligence for iOS Zero-Click Attacks [Ed: It should blame itself for buying Apple despite all that is known about Apple and the NSA et al]

• Kaspersky said its corporate network has been targeted with a zero-click iOS exploit, just as Russia’s FSB said iPhones have been targeted by US intelligence.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ Russian FSB Accuses U.S. of Hacking Thousands of iPhones in Russia

• The announcement is related to a blog post written by researchers from Kaspersky who said someone had targeted them with iPhone malware.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Russian Security Service Claims Thousands Of Diplomats’ iPhones Hacked; Moscow-Based Kaspersky Also Hit

• Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claims thousands of iPhones belonging to the country’s diplomats have suffered a massive hacking attack.

=> ↺ Reuters ☛ Russia says US hacked thousands of Apple phones in spy plot

• Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday it had uncovered an American espionage operation that compromised thousands of iPhones using sophisticated surveillance software.

• Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab said dozens of its employees’ devices were compromised in the operation.

• The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said in a statement that several thousand Apple Inc devices had been infected, including those of domestic Russian subscribers as well as foreign diplomats based in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

• “The FSB has uncovered an intelligence action of the American special services using Apple mobile devices,” the FSB said in a statement.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Moxa Patches MXsecurity Vulnerabilities That Could Be Exploited in OT Attacks

• Critical authentication bypass and high-severity command injection vulnerabilities have been patched in Moxa’s MXsecurity product.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Google Temporarily Offering $180,000 for Full Chain Chrome Exploit

• Google is offering a bug bounty reward of up to $180,000 for a full chain exploit leading to a sandbox escape in the Chrome browser.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Toyota Discloses New Data Breach Involving Vehicle, Customer Information [Ed: The problem here is that people tolerate and buy cars that collect data they must not and need not have]

• Toyota says improper cloud configurations exposed vehicle and customer information in Japan and overseas for years.

=> ↺ LWN ☛ Security updates for Friday [LWN.net]

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (cups and netatalk), SUSE (cups, ImageMagick, installation-images, libvirt, openvswitch, and qemu), and Ubuntu (avahi, cups, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-hwe, linux-azure, linux-azure-4.15, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-hwe, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-snapdragon, linux, linux-aws, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.4, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, linux-aws-5.4, linux-bluefield, linux-intel-iotg, and linux-intel-iotg-5.15).

=> ↺ Major data breach at UL Hospitals Group exposes patient info – Gript

• UL Hospitals Group, responsible for managing six hospitals in the midwest region, announced a significant data breach resulting in the inadvertent sharing of personal and medical information belonging to over 1,000 patients with an unknown third party.

• The breach occurred in January when a staff member mistakenly sent the data to an unidentified recipient.

• The affected patients received gastroenterology services at University Hospital Limerick, Ennis Hospital, and Nenagh Hospital between 2018 and January 2023. The breach involved an email attachment containing “patient names, dates of birth, medical chart numbers, and limited medical information,” according to ULHG in a statement. However, no personal contact details like phone numbers or email addresses were compromised.

=> ↺ Orbiter Finance Discord Server Hacked

• A decentralized cross-rollup layer-2 bridge, Orbiter Finance’s Discord server was compromised by bad actors, who have shared a link to a fraudulent airdrop program. This incident marks the latest targeting of Orbiter Finance.

=> ↺ Middlesex Co. Public Schools confirms ransomware attack

• The superintendent for Middlesex County Public Schools confirmed Thursday that the school division was the subject of a recent ransomware attack.

• “We can confirm that Middlesex County Public Schools recently suffered a ransomware attack,” said Superintendent Dr. Tracy Seitz in a statement to 10 On Your Side. “We took immediate action to begin an internal investigation, creating an incident response team led by our talented IT professionals along with some of the country’s leading experts in cybersecurity. Fortunately, the impact on our daily operations has been minimal.

• The cybersecurity organization BetterCyber said earlier Thursday that the Akira ransomware group claimed to have hacked the Middlesex County Public Schools website, allegedly stealing 543 GB of its data.

=> ↺ Update on GLBA Safeguards Rule in Higher Education

• On February 9, 2023, the Department of Education Office of Federal Student Aid (“FSA”) issued an electronic notice regarding the Federal Trade Commission’s Final Rule amending the Standards for Safeguarding Customer Information (“Safeguards Rule”) under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”). The amendments to the Safeguards Rule, which go into effect on June 9, 2023, include updated data security requirements for financial institutions, including all Title IV institutions of higher education and servicers.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ AntiWar ☛ FISA and Freedom

• “We may even cheer on those who ask us to … forfeit our personal freedoms. Of course, this is no new story. Even the ancients warned that democracies can degenerate toward autocracy in the face of fear.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Amazon Settles Ring Customer Spying Complaint [Ed: Amazon continues to get BILLIONS from the US government to spy on everybody; this is not even a slap on the wrist]

• The FTC charged Amazon-owned Ring with failing to implement basic protections to stop hackers or employees from accessing people’s devices or accounts.

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ Amazon was fined $30 million for enabling Ring workers to spy on people and keeping kids’ Alexa records

• The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is hauling Amazon over the coals for its lax enforcement of data privacy, forcing it to pay $30 million in fines for privacy violations via its Ring and Alexa devices.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Reporting Mandates Likely The Reason Behind The FBI’s Sudden Drop-Off In Section 702 Abuses

• Earlier this month, we reported (via Charlie Savage of the New York Times) that the FBI had finally delivered its first reduction in Section 702 abuses in the entirety of its access to this particular NSA collection.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Mark Curtis ☛ Britain’s secret role in the brutal US war in Vietnam

• There is a myth the UK did not support Washington’s war against Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, Labour and Conservative governments backed every phase of US military escalation and played secret roles in the conflict, declassified files show.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Judge delays first criminal trial in Elijah McClain’s death over objections of prosecutors

• A judge in Colorado has agreed to delay the first criminal trial in the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who was stopped by police, forcibly restrained and injected with a powerful sedative nearly four years ago. Police officers Randy Roedema and Jason Rosenblatt had been scheduled to go on trial starting July 10, but their lawyers asked for more time. They said they could not mount a proper defense because prosecutors had not spelled out what actions by their clients allegedly led to McClain’s injuries, or whether they are accused of being directly responsible for his death or considered complicit in other defendants’ actions. The two have pleaded not guilty.

=> ↺ AntiWar ☛ How the UAE and China Set Their Sights on Southern Yemen

• National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan traveled to Saudi Arabia and met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan the Crown Prince of the UAE, and India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval earlier this month.\

=> ↺ Marcy Wheeler ☛ John Durham Fabricated His Basis to Criminalize Oppo Research

• The entire Durham investigation was built on a fabrication about what a Russian intelligence report said about Hillary.

=> ↺ BBC ☛ Islamic State teen convert given minimum six years for terror plot

• He was put under police surveillance after his mother reported him to anti-extremism agency Prevent

• At one point, King changed his WhatsApp status to “kill the non-Muslims, wherever you see them”

=> ↺ Newsquest Media Group Ltd ☛ Teen IS fanatic who planned London terror attack reported by his mum

• He also spoke about Islam constantly and told his mum he wanted to go to Syria with a girl from the UK who he had been talking to online.

• “Mr King showed his mother videos on Instagram, some of which concerned her. One of those videos showed Muslims on horseback riding into battle overlaid with what Mr King’s mother described as motivational chanting,” Mr Jarvis said.

• King told his mum he did not believe in terrorism but she was so concerned about him that she contacted Prevent. This culminated in him being arrested.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Albanese debunks next war zone theory on the Pacific

• Anthony Albanese has warned about the devastating consequences if the Indo-Pacific is only thought about as the location for the next war.

• Conflict in the region is not inevitable, the prime minister told an international audience.

=> ↺ Pro Publica ☛ Ryan Busse Explains Roots of the U.S. Gun Violence Epidemic

• From the movie theater to the shopping mall, inside a church and a synagogue, through the grocery aisle and into the classroom, gun violence has invaded every corner of American life. It is a social epidemic no vaccine can stem, a crisis with no apparent end. Visual evidence of the carnage spills with numbing frequency onto TV shows and floods the internet. Each new shooting brings the lists of loved ones lost, the galleries of their smiling photos and the videos of the police response. And each mass shooting brings another surge of national outrage.

• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guns became the leading killer of children in 2020, overtaking car crashes, drug overdoses and disease for the first time in the nation’s history. Yet as the one-year anniversary of the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, passes, nagging questions loom.

=> ↺ Two witnesses of Dersim massacre pass away

• Eşliye Çiçe and Necef Duman who survived the Dersim massacre lost their lives. 94-year-old Duman had survived the massacre by staying under the dead body of her mother Besi.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ After Mass Shootings in Serbia, Few Want to Give Up Their Guns

• Two massacres have prompted the government to tighten already strict rules, but the nation’s gun culture is deep-rooted and complex.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ US bill seeks ‘enhanced’ Uyghur genocide sanctions

• France’s Senate also approves a bill seeking an E.U. version of America’s ban on imports tied to slave labor.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Biden trips and falls on stage at Air Force Academy graduation

• President Joe Biden tripped and fell after handing out the last diploma at a graduation ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado on Thursday, but got up quickly and walked back to his seat.

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ India and Australia should join forces to support maritime security in the Pacific

• Ricky Ponting, one of the most successful captains of an Australian cricket team, once described his mindset at the batting crease: ‘In my head, I don’t see the fielders.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Mainland Chinese student detained under Hong Kong sedition law over mourning man who died after stabbing a policeman

• A mainland Chinese postgraduate student has been detained in Hong Kong under the city’s colonial-era sedition law after allegedly mourning the death of a man who killed himself after stabbing a policeman on the city’s Handover anniversary in 2021.

Russia and War in Ukraine

=> ↺ YLE ☛ PM Sanna Marin: Europe must prevent Russia circumventing sanctions

• “We cannot do it alone as members of the European Union, we need broader joint support,” Marin said.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Former ambassador to Moscow urges Finland to close Russia’s Åland consulate

• Russia established a consulate on the demilitarised Åland islands in 1940 following the end of the Winter War and the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty.

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ Autonomy and asymmetry: The future of Norway’s defense 2022-2042

• August Cole provides an in-depth examination of Norway’s potential defense strategies, the implications of autonomous drones and artificial intelligence, and the necessary transformation of military norms in response to the threats from Russia and beyond.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Moscow Court Extends Pretrial Detention Of Suspect From Cafe Bombing That Killed War Blogger

• A court in Moscow has extended the pretrial detention of Darya Trepova, the woman suspected in the assassination of a prominent Russian war blogger at a St. Petersburg cafe in early April.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Debt Ceiling Deal Puts No Limits on Ukraine Aid

• Emergency spending that has been used to arm Ukraine is exempt and it could also be used to arm Taiwan

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ The Compulsion To Intervene

• Why Washington Underwrites Violence in Ukraine.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Belgorod governor says two killed, six injured in shelling on village of Sobolevka — Meduza

• Two people were killed as a result of shelling on the village of Sobolevka in Russia’s Belgorod region, reported the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Eight European countries to participate in ‘fighter jet coalition’ to train Ukrainian pilots — Meduza

• Ihor Zhovkva, the deputy head of the President’s Office of Ukraine, reported that eight European countries have joined the “fighter jet coalition” to help train Ukrainian pilots. These countries include the U.K., the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Portugal, and France.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Belgorod governor: 850 projectiles hit Shebekino municipality in 24 hours — Meduza

• In the past 24 hours, writes Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov on Telegram, 850 missiles and other projectiles were launched at the Shebekino municipality in Russia’s Belgorod region.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Explosions reported at port in occupied city of Berdiansk — Meduza

• In the occupied city of Berdiansk, a port came under fire from Ukraine’s Armed Forces, according to Vladimir Rogov, a representative of the Russian-appointed authorities in the annexed Zaporizhzhia region.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ An Arctic welcome Russia’s orphan listings have abruptly increased in number. In their midst, Ukrainian children are listed for adoption, too. Some have already been placed with families in the Russian Far North. — Meduza

• According to Ukraine’s National Information Bureau data, almost 20,000 Ukrainian children (including but not limited to orphans) have been forcibly taken to Russia and Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine during the invasion. Although the Ukrainian authorities are working on bringing them back, and have regularly reported successfully returning dozens of children to the country, most of them remain in Russia. The independent news outlet iStories has now discovered that, in 2022, Russia’s federal orphan database grew by 2,450 new records in excess of the average number of new files over the past six years. The journalists believe this reflects the Russian authorities’ efforts to place Ukrainian children forcibly removed from their home country for adoption and foster care in Russian families, and to integrate them irreversibly into Russian society.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ ‘They knocked for a very long time’ Two women and a 9-year-old girl were killed in a Russian strike on Kyiv when they couldn’t get inside an air raid shelter. Zelensky warns former boxer and Kyiv Mayor Klitschko a ‘knockout’ might be near as authorities shift the blame. — Meduza

• Three Kyiv residents were killed by missile fragments during the Thursday-morning Russian strike on Kyiv. One of them was a nine-year-old girl. The Ukrainian news outlet Suspilne reports that all three victims were killed while trying to get into an air raid shelter locked from the inside.

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Apple Denies Helping US Government Hack Russian iPhones

• Apple has denied working with any government to add backdoors to its products after Russia accused the company of helping the NSA hack iPhones.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Report: Secretive Real Estate Holdings On Moscow’s Outskirts Linked To Putin Family

• Family members of Russian President Vladimir Putin quietly acquired several plots of real estate in Moscow’s tony western suburbs near his residence, where a series of luxury homes have been built, a new investigation found.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Navalny’s Bizarre Requests, Including Pet Kangaroo, Denied By Russian Prison Authorities In Stilted Language

• Imprisoned Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny on June 2 released excerpts of his correspondence with prison administrators, detailing sarcastic demands for outlandish things such as a bottle of moonshine and a pet kangaroo.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Online Tatar Language School To Close As International Educator Leaves Russia

• The popular online Tatar language school Ana Tele (The Mother Tongue) has announced its closure as of June 30.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Russian Activists Under Pressure Over Pro-Navalny Rally Scheduled For June 4

• Police in Russia have warned activists of possible repercussions for their participation in nationwide rallies to support jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, scheduled for June 4, his birthday.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ U.S. To Offer To Keep Nuclear Arms Curbs Until 2026 If Russia Does Same

• The United States on June 2 will offer to abide by the nuclear weapons limits set in the New START treaty until its 2026 expiration if Russia does the same, in order to bolster global security, two senior administration officials said.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ China and Russia ignore US call at UN to condemn North Korea satellite launch

• China’s UN representative said North Korea has “legitimate security concerns”.

=> ↺ Helsinki Times ☛ HS: Russia has responded to Finland’s diplomatic note over diplomatic account freezes

• MINISTER for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto (Greens) on Thursday revealed that Russia has responded to the Finnish diplomatic note about the freezing of bank accounts for Finnish diplomatic missions in Russia.

• Haavisto said Russia took the course of action due to the banking difficulties its mission has experienced in Helsinki.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ In Russian Schools, It’s Recite Your ABC’s and ‘Love Your Army’

• The curriculum for young Russians is increasingly emphasizing patriotism and the heroism of Moscow’s army, while demonizing the West as “gangsters.” One school features a “sniper”-themed math class.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Russia says Finland’s embassy can only use one (sanctioned) bank

• Finland’s diplomatic missions saw their bank accounts frozen recently, prompting a complaint from the Finnish government.

=> ↺ Axios ☛ CIA director made unannounced trip to Beijing last month

• CIA director Bill Burns made an unannounced trip to China last month, a U.S. official confirmed to Axios.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ The struggle for control of the Arctic looms as Blinken tours NATO’s north.

• Russia may be having major difficulties in Ukraine, but it remains a vast power in the north and the Arctic, where climate change is opening new sea routes for trade and trouble.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ As War Persists in Ukraine, Doctors Warn of Rise in Premature Births

• The mental burden of Russia’s invasion has exacted a heavy toll on civilians. As the fighting drags on, pregnant women are among those facing the toughest trials.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Ukrainian Shelling in Russia’s Belgorod Region Forces Evacuations

• ‘The conditions are quite difficult,’ the local governor of the region said on social media.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ US Secretary of State Blinken hails Finnish ‘sisu’, calls Russia’s war in Ukraine a “strategic failure”

• Blinken began his official visit to Finland on Friday.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Car Bombing in Russian-Occupied Ukraine Shows Reach of War

• The blast in the Zaporizhzhia region of southern Ukraine killed a cafe owner who was registered to run in elections seen as an attempt to legitimize Moscow’s illegal annexation of the area.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Blinken Details Russia’s ‘Failures’ in Ukraine and Warns Against Cease-Fires

• A speech by the U.S. Secretary of State struck a triumphal tone, while also warning against a rush to short-term solutions to the war in Ukraine.

=> ↺ Helsinki Times ☛ Money and war drive Ukrainian seasonal workers in Finland

• A recent report by E2 Research reveals that Ukrainian seasonal workers in Finland are motivated by financial stability and a desire to support their home country, particularly in light of the ongoing war. The study sheds light on the experiences of Ukrainian workers and the crisis resilience of the farm owners who employ them, offering valuable insights into the motivations and challenges faced by both groups. Conducted between December 2022 and February 2023, the research involved 31 qualitative interviews conducted in Ukrainian, Russian, and Finnish.

=> ↺ Helsinki Times ☛ Finland’s special vehicles for breaching enemy defenses, Kenyan students’ plight and shining rainbow rings: Finland in the world press

• Here is a selection of what the international press has published about Finland in the last week:

• Finland Built Special Vehicles For Breaching Enemy Defenses—And Gave Them To Ukraine’s Weirdest Brigade

• This article about Leopard 2R breaching vehicles that Finland recently donated to Ukraine was published in Forbes on May 31.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Ukraine Investigates Deaths by Shelter as Russia Evacuates Border Towns

• In Ukraine’s capital, residents struggled with the question of who was to blame for a shelter closed off to two women and a child. In Russia, the authorities described evacuations in a border region.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Ukrainian Recruits, Wanting to Fight, Train in the U.K. for Counteroffensive

• “We’re going to die, probably,” one recruit said bluntly, as he trained on Friday with several hundred others at a military camp in Yorkshire, England.

=> ↺ The Atlantic ☛ Why Putin’s Secret Weapon Failed

• Russia’s gambit to deter support for Ukraine by restricting energy supplies flopped—thanks to concerted action by European countries.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Swiss Parliament Votes To Block Indirect Arms Exports To Ukraine

• The Swiss parliament rejected an exemption for the transfer of arms to Ukraine on June 1.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Ukraine Freezes More Assets Under Name Of Pro-Russian Politician’s Wife

• The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has frozen more assets of Oksana Marchenko, the wife of pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Pashinian Says Armenia Is Not Russia’s Ally In Moscow’s War With Ukraine

• Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian says “in its war with Ukraine, we are not Russia’s ally.”

=> ↺ Press Gazette ☛ The state of Ukraine’s local media 2023: 25% headcount growth and a ‘pivot to video’

• Research suggests Ukraine’s local newsrooms are on firmer financial footing this year.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ ‘I don’t want Russian provocations,’ says Georgia’s Zurabishvili

• The biggest war in Europe since 1945 has prompted several countries to try to speed up their integration with the West. Those include Ukraine itself but also nations in the western Balkans, as well as Moldova and Georgia, which has been knocking on NATO’s door for many years. The former Soviet Republic applied for EU membership in March 2022, although it has not yet been given candidate status. Our guest on The Interview is Salome Zurabishvili, the president of Georgia.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Blinken says strong Ukraine a prerequisite for ‘real peace’ with Russia

• America’s top diplomat on Friday insisted that a strong Ukraine in control of its own territory was a prerequisite for talks with Russia, warning against a “Potemkin” or fake peace through a ceasefire.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Djokovic, Sabalenka advance to French Open fourth round

• Aryna Sabalenka roared into the French Open fourth round on Friday but the Belarusian world number two steered clear of political questions amid the war in Ukraine by skipping her post-match press conference citing mental health reasons.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: Zelensky says Ukraine ‘ready’ to launch counteroffensive

• Ukraine is ready to launch its counteroffensive to recapture Russian-occupied territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published on Saturday. “We strongly believe that we will succeed,” the president told the Wall Street Journal. Follow FRANCE 24′s live blog for all the latest developments on the war in Ukraine. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Says Ukraine Ready To Launch Its Long-Awaited Counteroffensive

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says his country is ready to launch its much-anticipated counteroffensive to liberate territory occupied by Russian forces while warning that it could take some time and be costly.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Orders Audit Of Ukraine’s Shelters After Three Killed By Debris

• President Volodomyr Zelenskiy has ordered an audit of all of Ukraine’s air raid shelters after a 9-year-old girl, her mother, and another woman were killed by falling fragments of a missile after being unable to enter a Kyiv shelter that was reportedly locked during a Russian attack.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Scholz Defends Ukraine Aid When Protesters Disrupt His Speech At Party Gathering

• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz fiercely defended sending aid to Ukraine after protesters shouted at him during a speech at a gathering of his party in Falkensee near Berlin.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russia fires drones and cruise missiles at Kyiv in sixth attack in six days — Meduza

• The Russian military launched a new wave of drone and missile strikes on Kyiv on Thursday night. The Kyiv authorities noted that this was the sixth air attack on the city in six days.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ At least two reported dead after overnight drone and shelling attacks in five Russian regions — Meduza

• Russian officials reported drone and shelling attacks in five different regions near the country’s border with Ukraine last night.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Armenian prime minister: ‘We are not Russia’s allies in the war with Ukraine.’ — Meduza

• Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a recent interview with the Czech TV network CNN Prima News that his country is not an ally to Russia when it comes to the war in Ukraine.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ ‘We still have a lot to do to build a country and society free of intolerance’ Latvia’s first openly gay president on coming out, the war in Ukraine, and his country’s language politics — Meduza

• On May 31, after three rounds of voting, members of the Latvian Saeima (Parliament) elected Edgars Rinkēvičs, who has been the Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2011, as the country’s new president. He will assume his new position on July 8. Rinkēvičs is only the second openly LGBTQ+ person in the world to hold the post of head of state (which has never happened in any of the countries that were previously part of the USSR). Rinkēvičs was also one of the most popular politicians in the Baltic states in the most recent parliamentary elections, finishing ahead of Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš. Meduza has collected Rinkēvičs statements across the years – about being a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Latvia, the situation for Russian speakers, Russia, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Environment

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Western Lapland chilled by Finland’s coldest-ever June temperature

• The municipality of Enontekiö in Finnish Lapland started summer with sub-zero temperatures.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ May was driest of the century in Latvia

• May was the driest in Latvia this century, according to the information of the Latvian Environment, Geology, and Meteorology Centre compiled by LSM.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Threads of Nature

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ To Curb Climate Change, Young People Are Growing the Green Jobs Market

• When Kristy Drutman graduated from the University of California–Berkeley in 2017, she knew she wanted to pursue a career in environmental communications, but she didn’t know where to start. Years later, after an initial struggle to identify all the options available to her, Drutman became a climate influencer, using her platform as “Brown Girl Green” to share information about green job opportunities with young people finding themselves in a similar position. Now, she runs an entire Green Jobs Board dedicated to this mission.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ 1 dead, 3 missing in Japan after heavy rain from storm Mawar

• Six people were seriously injured and 29 suffered minor injuries as of Saturday afternoon.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ California rolls closer to requiring drivers in driverless trucks

• The California State Assembly on Wednesday approved a law bill that will prevent autonomous trucks from operating on the US state’s roads without a driver on board.

• The Assembly voted 54-3 for Assembly Bill 316, which now must be approved by the California State Senate and be signed by Governor Gavin Newsom (D) to become law.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Robot lawnmowers pose threat to hedgehogs, animal protection group says

• An animal protection association in western Finland has treated a dozen hedgehogs that they suspect were hurt by automatic mowers so far this year.

=> ↺ RTE ☛ New RTÉ documentary series highlights struggles affecting farming, fisheries and forestry on a global scale

• Faraway Fields – The Hardest Harvest In a new RTÉ series, an Irish farmer, forester, and fisherman experience life in some of the most challenging conditions. They set out to discover if they have what it takes to live off of land and sea for two weeks in the harshest of environments with nothing but […]

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Wildfires in Canada’s Nova Scotia force more evacuations, prompt air quality warnings in US

• The largest wildfires ever recorded in Canada’s Atlantic Coast province of Nova Scotia continued to grow Thursday, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of more people and prompting air quality warnings in U.S. regions as far south as Virginia and Maryland.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ uni Stanford ☛ The imaginary world of Earth4All’s low population projections

• This blog was originally published in The Overpopulation Project on April 4, 2023 A new report from Earth4All says world population will peak below 9 billion. While it celebrates this result and says we must work to get it even lower, this unrealistically low projection itself is likely to have the opposite effect.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Immigration drove population trends in Latvia in 2022

• Data published on June 1 by the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (CSB) show that at the beginning of 2023, Latvia had a population of 1 million 883 thousand people, which is 7.3 thousand people more than a year ago.

Finance

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ With debt deal, McCarthy threads the needle

• While some far-right members are unhappy with the debt deal, others say Speaker Kevin McCarthy is holding an unwieldy GOP caucus together better than most. He’s also shown a willingness and ability to work with Democrats.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ After decades of attempts, major Alabama bill to cut state’s 4% grocery tax wins final passage

• Alabama families could soon pay less at the grocery store after lawmakers gave final passage to a landmark bill to gradually remove half of the 4% state sales tax on food by September 2024. Approval of the tax cut plan came Thursday after decades of unsuccessful attempts. The legislation now heads to Gov. Kay Ivey, whose office said she will review it when she receives it. Alabama is just one of three states that tax groceries at the same rate as other purchases. Advocates had long argued taxing food places an unfair burden on families in a poor state where 16% of people live in poverty.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Investigation points to possible money laundering by cleaning company and Latvian bank

• A newly-published investigation by the well-known Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) says a Latvian bank was used to launder significant amounts of money originating in Belarus.

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ Here’s who’s getting kicked off of food stamps with the US debt ceiling deal

• The US debt ceiling deal, which passed through the House and awaits Senate approval, would remove some Americans from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), widely known as food stamps, while adding others.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Here’s Why Principled Progressives Opposed a Cruel and Destructive Debt Ceiling Deal

• The punishing debt ceiling agreement that was hashed out by President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) gained House approval on Wednesday and was passed by the Senate on Thursday night. There was predictable opposition in both chambers from right-wing Republicans who complained that its cruel cuts to domestic programs did not go far enough. But the more meaningful, and moral, opposition came from progressive Democrats—along with Vermont independent Bernie Sanders—who broke with their own party’s president and rejected an arrangement that hikes Pentagon spending and maintains tax breaks for billionaires while literally denying food to hungry Americans and derailing environmental initiatives.

=> ↺ Forbes ☛ Spring 2023 Layoff Tracker: Haven Technologies, Zendesk, ZipRecruiter Cut Hundreds Of Jobs

• Insurance provider Haven Technologies will reportedly slash 70% of its workforce this week amid a slew of major layoffs, including at software service provider Zendesk and job search site ZipRecruiter, as recession fears and high inflation continue to push employers to make significant cuts following major head count reductions last month at Disney, Meta and JPMorgan Chase.

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ 60 Percent of Iran-Russia Trade Is Already De-Dollarized

• Iran and Russia have expanded political and economic relations, particularly in the banking sector, to counter the U.S. arbitrary sanctions.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Stocks gain, dollar stumbles as US averts default

• Global stocks and commodities have risen while the dollar headed for its biggest weekly drop since January as sentiment was buoyed by the approval of US debt ceiling legislation and signs the Fed will skip a rate hike at its next meeting.

• Markets are now focused on US jobs data due on Friday at 0830 EST (1230 GMT), the most significant macroeconomic release of the week, for more cues on the Federal Reserve’s rate hike path.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ Rep. Ro Khanna: Avoiding Default Was Necessary, But Debt Deal Was Passed at Expense of “Most Vulnerable”

• After a contentious battle with the Republican House majority, President Biden and Congress have agreed on a bipartisan deal suspending the debt ceiling until January 1, 2025. Among other concessions to Republicans, the deal caps domestic spending below the current rate of inflation, allows for larger increases to the military budget, implements new work requirements for social programs and fast-tracks the approval and construction of the controversial 300-plus-mile-long fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia. Our guest, California Congressmember Ro Khanna, is among a number of progressive Democrats who voted against the legislation. He calls it a “punch in the gut to climate activists” that “came on the backs of the poor, of students, of the most vulnerable, of women.”

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Elon Musk accused of insider trading in Dogecoin lawsuit

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ Jordan’s royal wedding: Joy, politics, and an eye toward the kingdom’s future

• Royal weddings often highlight tradition and history. In Jordan, celebrations around its crown prince’s nuptials are all about the future.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Nevada GOP sues to hold presidential caucus over primary in 2024

• The Nevada Republican Party is suing the state to maintain its party-run caucuses even as Nevada shifts to a presidential primary system beginning in 2024. Nevada lawmakers ditched the presidential caucus model in 2021 with a law that says all major political parties with more than one candidate must hold their primary on the first Tuesday in February. The move pushed Nevada closer to the front of the presidential nominating calendar and upended decades of political tradition. The Republican Party opposed the change. GOP leaders in the Western state say they look forward to the court upholding their right to choose how they will nominate their presidential candidate.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Oregon Democrats vote to fine absent senators amid GOP walkout

• Oregon Senate Democrats plan to start fining their absent colleagues amid a month-long Republican walkout. In a procedural move Thursday, Democrats voted to fine senators $325 every time their absence denies the chamber the two-thirds quorum it needs to conduct business. The amount is supposed to reflect lawmakers’ average daily pay. Democrats cited an article in the state constitution that says that even if fewer than two-thirds of members are present, they can still meet and compel the attendance of absent members. Senate Republican Minority Leader Tim Knopp condemned the plan as retaliation. The walkout has derailed hundreds of bills.

=> ↺ Bjoern Brembs ☛ The beginning of the end for academic publishers?

• On May 23, the Council of the EU adopted a set of conclusions on scholarly publishing that, if followed through, would spell the end for academic publishers and scholarly journals as we know them. On the same day, the adoption was followed by a joint statement of support by the largest and most influential research organizations in Europe. At the heart of the goals spelled out in the conclusions and the statement of support is the creation of a “publicly owned and not-for-profit” infrastructure for scholarly publications.

=> ↺ Michael Geist ☛ Meta to Test Blocking News Sharing on Facebook and Instagram in Canada in Response to Bill C-18’s Mandated Payments for Links

• Meta has announced that will test blocking news sharing in Canada on its platforms Facebook and Instagram in response to Bill C-18’s system of mandated payments for links. Even as some have suggested the position is bluff, the company has not wavered for months as this emerged as the most likely end game. Back in October, it said it was considering blocking news and in March it confirmed it. The government now says it won’t give in to “threats” but the reality is that Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez more accurately described it last year as a “business decision” when he appeared before the Heritage committee. Given that Facebook says news is responsible for only three percent of content on user feeds and that it is highly substitutable (ie. users spend the same amount of time on the platform whether scrolling through news or other content), the business choice seems like an obvious one.

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ The White House says Section 702 is critical for cybersecurity, yet public evidence is sparse

• Since the Biden administration came out in favor of reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in February, the intelligence community has pointed to the growing threat of foreign cyberattacks on the U.S. as a key argument in favor of the controversial surveillance tool.

• Officials have made broad and general declarations, pointing to wide-ranging applications that include thwarting multiple ransomware attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure, finding out a foreign adversary had hacked sensitive information related to the American military and uncovering a cyberattack against critical federal systems.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ Rep. Ro Khanna Says Sen. Dianne Feinstein Should “Step Down with Dignity”

• Dianne Feinstein returned to the Senate last month after a prolonged absence due to poor health and as questions continue to grow about her fitness for office. Feinstein said she would resume her duties with a lighter schedule, but the 89-year-old senator is reportedly suffering from mental decline that leaves her heavily reliant on her aides. Congressmember Ro Khanna of California is among a growing number of Democrats who have called on Feinstein to retire. “The reality is that she’s not able to do the job,” says Khanna. “She just has a staff that’s running everything, and it’s a very, very sad situation.”

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Dianne Feinstein’s Final Act

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Don’t Reform the Courts. Disempower Them.

• Criminals are often said to have a modus operandi—a standard set of underhanded tactics for achieving their illicit agenda. The same kind of pattern can be seen on the other end of the legal spectrum, among Supreme Court justices. Over the last few decades, the strategy of the reactionaries who dominate the courts has repeated itself again and again in cases involving fundamental rights: First, they whittle away at the rights, and then, when they have a secure majority on the Supreme Court, they eviscerate them entirely. Reproductive freedom is the best example: The rights supposedly enshrined in Roe v. Wade (1973) were chipped away bit by bit over many years in smaller decisions before the final blow came in Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, which ended the constitutional right to abortion last year.1

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ A Wrinkle in Crime

=> ↺ CHP executives resign en masse following defeat to Erdoğan

• Seventeen CHP board members have stepped down after the disappointing parliamentary and presidential election results, while reportedly, the party’s chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is contemplating to keep leading the party for the upcoming local polls in March.

=> ↺ Forensic analysis of the first round: Possible ballot-stuffing practices in 2.4% of the ballot boxes

• The conclusion of a newly released study on the results of the first round of the 2023 presidential election on May 14 using election forensics tools says that the results suggest the presence of certain types of electoral malpractice, although less frequent in 2023 than in 2018.

=> ↺ Loans to the earthquake-hit zones canceled in a few provinces including Diyarbakır

• CHP Diyarbakır MP Sezgin Tanrıkulu disclosed the cancellation of loans to the province.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ The Three Other Trump Investigations

• The Manhattan case isn’t Trump’s only legal problem.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ “Censorship”: The word disinformation artists use when called out

• The Brownstone Institute has been one of the more vocal and, unfortunately, persistent and prolific spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation during the pandemic, starting with misrepresenting science to oppose any public health interventions designed to slow the spread of the virus and then going full-on antivaccine. A particularly pernicious relatively new right wing “think thank,” Brownstone was founded in 2021 by Jeffrey Tucker, previously of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER). Tucker is a far right wing neo-Confederate who in his previous role at AIER had also been instrumental in bringing together the public health-“skeptical” scientists in October 2020 to issue the statement known as the Great Barrington Declaration, which famously advocated a “let ‘er rip” approach to the pandemic in order to achieve “natural herd immunity” within six months. A eugenicist manifesto for the pandemic through and through, the GBD also advocated an ill-defined and ineffective strategy of “focused protection” for all those pesky (to the GBD signatories) elderly and people with chronic diseases who were at high risk for severe disease and death that never would have worked and that Brownstone flacks don’t even appear to be seriously defending anymore.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Older TikTok Creators Are in Demand by Brands

• No matter what their age or finances, some elder influencers are finding that being on the app can bring them extra cash, or even help them extend their careers.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ How Cringe Creators Make a Living on TikTok

• On TikTok, cringe comedy creators are gaining large followings and brand deals by impersonating terrible people.

=> ↺ Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Has Stored Creators’ ‘Sensitive Financial Data’ — Including Social Security Numbers — in China, Report Says

• Last year, Beijing-headquartered ByteDance acknowledged that its employees had improperly accessed TikTok user data. Now, as the app continues to grapple with regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and abroad, a report is claiming that creators’ “sensitive financial information” has in fact been stored on servers in China.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Truth in the Age of the Deepfake

• A few months ago, an image of Pope Francis wearing an André Leon Talley–looking puffer coat cum cassock started circulating online. Since, like the pope, I’m from Argentina, several friends sent this image to me. Each time I received it, I bristled and said, “That’s AI,” or some version of that phrase, which felt to me the same as saying, “You have been fooled.” I felt like I was adding insult to injury: It’s a bummer to learn not only that you have fallen for a fake image but also that the swagged-out pope doesn’t exist, that the joy you felt upon seeing the image of this Catholic heavyweight sporting a giant metal cross on a chain and a puffer coat that someone made to look like papal vestments was based on nothing more than a fiction.

=> ↺ Axios ☛ Scoop: YouTube reverses misinformation policy to allow U.S. election denialism

• In a reversal of its election integrity policy, YouTube will leave up content that says fraud, errors or glitches occurred in the 2020 presidential election and other U.S. elections, the company confirmed to Axios Friday.

=> ↺ Reason ☛ YouTube Abandons Election Misinformation Policy That Censored Political Speech

• “We find that while removing this content does curb some misinformation, it could also have the unintended effect of curtailing political speech.”

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Russian Writer, Staunch Kremlin Critic Barred From Entering Georgia

• Russian writer Viktor Shenderovich, an outspoken Kremlin critic, has not been allowed to enter Georgia.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Lawmakers Attack CUNY Law Grad for Criticizing Israel in Commencement Speech

• Fatima Mohammed’s criticism of Israel, white supremacy, and the NYPD have led to public condemnations from U.S. politicians and pro-Israel groups. Many are calling for the university to be defunded over the speech.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ If the Police Can Decide Who Qualifies as a Journalist, There Is No Free Press

• Where’s the outcry? Mainstream media have been strangely silent following the arrest of two reporters in North Carolina.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Twitter Briefly Pretended To Take A Stand Against Hate, But Then Elon Admitted It Was All A Mistake (Or A Marketing Campaign?)

• Back when I wrote the blog post detailing the basic content moderation learning curve speedrun, I actually thought that, like most sites that go through it, Elon might actually learn from it. Yet, it appears he still has trouble processing lessons from basically any of the mistakes he makes. Or he seems to be trying to leverage his own nonsense into helping his friends.

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Graduation Speeches, “Hate Speech,” and the CUNY Law Controversy

• There’s been a good deal of comment about the City University of New York law school student graduation speaker (Fatima Mousa Mohammed) who devoted a good deal of her speech to harshly condemning Israel and “Zionism,” as well as capitalism, the New York government, and America more generally.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Before books are deemed unlawful, lawyers should read them. I should know, I was once a censor in Hong Kong…

• Over 30 years ago, I was a book censor for a short time when I worked for Hong Kong’s justice minister.  In the autumn of 1988, Salman Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses, was published. The book was a publishing sensation for all the wrong reasons.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ In American Prisons, You’re Nothing More Than a Number

• Formerly incarcerated journalist and writer Keri Blakinger uses her past experiences to detail the inside of prisons and why so few people come out better on the other side.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Former Lawmaker Gets 16 Years In Prison For Ordering Journalist’s Assassination In Siberia

• Isa Khashiyev, a former lawmaker in the Siberian city of Minusinsk, has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for ordering the assassination of an editor of the Ton-M newspaper in 2016.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Elan Closs Stephens named BBC acting chair

• The British government has appointed Elan Closs Stephens as the BBC’s acting chair, replacing Richard Sharp who resigned after an independent report found he had breached rules.

• Closs Stephens, a member of the public broadcaster’s governing body since 2010, will remain acting chair from June 27 for a year, or until a new permanent chair has been appointed, the government said.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ European Commission ☛ Stop violence against women: Commission welcomes the EU’s accession to the Istanbul Convention

• European Commission Statement Brussels, 01 Jun 2023 Today, the European Union is acceding to the Istanbul Convention by adopting two Council Decisions.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Uganda’s Controversial ​’Anti-Homosexuality Act’ Includes Possibility of Death Sentence

• United Nations Human Rights tweeted that they were “appalled that the draconian and discriminatory anti-gay bill is now law. It is a recipe for systematic violations of the rights of LGBT people & the wider population.”

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ This Is Not the End of the Supreme Court’s War on Labor

• Nobody should be surprised that this Supreme Court, controlled as it is by Republicans, is viciously anti-labor. We’d have to go back more than 100 years, to before the New Deal, to find a collection of justices whose antipathy toward workers and their rights matched that of the current Roberts court. In a decision released yesterday, the Supreme Court merged its disregard for workers’ rights with its hatred of the administrative state to produce a ruling that undermines the most powerful tool labor has to defend itself from unfair or unsafe working conditions: the strike.

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ Adidas is entering the final chapter of its Yeezy collaboration

• Adidas has started selling its leftover Yeezys to its most loyal customers.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ City Of Minneapolis Kicks A Bunch Of Pretextual Stops To The Curb In Settlement With State’s Department Of Human Rights

• The brightest light in Flyover Country, USA underwent the growing pains of a coastal megatropolis following Minneapolis PD officer Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd — something that began as a response to allegedly fake $20 bill being passed at a local shop, but ended nine minutes later with Floyd lying dead under Chauvin’s unmoving knee, which was still pressed to his throat.

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ Ryanair fine of €736,000 annulled by Metropolitan Court of Budapest

• In a press release, Ryanair welcomed the fact that the Metropolitan Court of Budapest annulled the €736,000 fine imposed on the airline in August last year, hvg.hu reports.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ Armed Police Raid on Bail Fund for Cop City Opponents Is Attack on “Infrastructure of the Movement”

• We get an update on the armed police SWAT team raid and arrest of three organizers with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which has been raising money to bail out protesters opposed to the construction of a massive police training facility known as Cop City in the Weelaunee Forest, one of the city’s largest green spaces and the former site of a prison farm. Marlon Kautz, Adele Maclean and Savannah Patterson were charged with money laundering and fraud. The arrests come as 42 protesters face charges including domestic terrorism for opposing Cop City and just days before the Atlanta City Council is set to vote on the project. These new and unprecedented arrests are a clear attack on “the infrastructure of the movement,” says Kamau Franklin, founder of the organization Community Movement Builders and a vocal Cop City opponent. He joins us from Atlanta for the latest on the protests and the state repression campaign against them.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Riot To Cancel Summer Esports Season Over ‘League Of Legends’ Players’ Strike

• It’s been a while since we last checked in on the esports industry or discussed any milestones it has reached. For a while there, we were seeing new ground broken on a nearly monthly basis, particularly during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite all of that growth, we did mention that it was also time for the industry to grow up a bit, namely in terms of recognizing that individual players, teams, and their personalities are what is going to ultimately drive the greatest interest in these leagues, no different than any other professional sports league. Basketball is a great sport, but Michael Jordan was a driver of interest in it.

=> ↺ EFF ☛ Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 35.7

• EFFector 35.7 – EFF at RightsCon 2023

=> ↺ The Dissenter ☛ Unauthorized Disclosure: Matt Kennard

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Draconian: South Australia just topped NSW, Tas, Victoria, Queensland with new laws penalising peaceful protesters

• A bill introducing harsh penalties and extending the scope of a law applying to those who obstruct public places has been passed after an all-night sitting by the South Australian Legislative Council this week. Veteran investigative journalist (herself twice imprisoned for free speech) Wendy Bacon reports.

• South Australia now joins New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland, states which have already passed anti-protest laws imposing severe penalties on people who engage in peaceful civil disobedience. South Australia’s new law carries the harshest financial penalties in Australia.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Iran frees one Danish, two Austrian-Iranian citizens after Oman mediation

• Iran has released one Danish and two Austrian citizens, the European countries said Friday, thanking Oman and Belgium for their help in getting the trio freed.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ Rights group estimates Iran executed at least 140 people in May

• Iran Human Rights released data on Thursday which shows Iran executed 142 people in May, making it the highest number of Iranian executions in one month since 2015. Some of the charges used to justify executions this year include blasphemy and adultery.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Telecom Lobbyists Have Had The FCC Under Their Boot Heel For 7 Straight Years And Nobody Much Seems To Care

• For four years under the Trump administration, the FCC was little more than a mindless rubber stamp, stripping away media consolidation rules, gutting net neutrality, and approving competition-eroding telecom mergers (often without even reading the deal details).

=> ↺ RIPE ☛ The RIPE Chair Team Reports: Highlights from RIPE 86

• Another RIPE Meeting packed full of presentations, conversation, parallel events and socials drew to a close last week in Rotterdam. Looking back over the event, the RIPE Chair team shares highlights, new initiatives and other news from RIPE 86.

Monopolies

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Has Amazon found the ultimate lock-in? Cheap cellphone service for Prime

• Bloomberg claims Amazon is in talks with major US carriers, including Verizon, T-Mobile US, and Dish Network, to offer low-cost phone service to Prime customers.

• The move, if true, isn’t all that surprising. Mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) are a dime a dozen. Google Fi Wireless, Boost Mobile, Mint Mobile, and Straight Talk are just a handful of the dozens of options available in the US. These companies pay to use larger carriers’ networks, then resell that access to customers at low prices.

Patents

=> ↺ DroidGazzette ☛ Apple Hit With Lawsuit Over Patented Vibration Technology

• Resonant Systems Inc. alleged that its four registered patents—related to improving a device’s haptic feedback, or a vibration response to touch—are being used in several generations of the Apple Watch, MacBook laptop models dating back to 2015, and Apple phones dating back to the iPhone 6, according to the complaint filed Thursday in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Software Patents

=> ↺ EFF ☛ Our Right To Challenge Junk Patents Is Under Threat

• We need EFF supporters to speak out against this proposal, which is a gift for patent trolls. We’re asking supporters who care about a fair patent system to file comments using the federal government’s public comment system. Your comments don’t need to be long, or use fancy legalese. The important thing is that everyday users and creators of technology get a chance to state their opposition to these rules. Below the button you can see a simple proposed comment you can cut-and-paste; you can also add to it, or write your own. 

• If you have a personal experience with patent troll attacks, please mention it. Comments are not anonymous and you should use your real name. 

Copyrights

=> ↺ Walled Culture ☛ Streaming services today sell musicians access to their own fans; SoundCloud shows a better way

• Most platforms keep artists in the dark about their fans: it’s a really important point that musicians and other creators need to understand if they are to receive fair remuneration for their work, and to take back control of their creative destiny. It’s good to see SoundCloud leading the way here.

=> ↺ Creative Commons ☛ 2023 CC Global Summit: Registration, Call for Proposals, and Scholarships Now Open

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ Music Pirates are Not Terrorists, Record Labels Argue in Court

• Internet provider Cox Communications wants a court of appeal to reverse the $1 billion piracy liability verdict, handed down by a jury four years ago. As supplemental evidence, the ISP submitted a recent Supreme Court ruling which found Twitter not liable for aiding and abetting terrorism. The letter prompted a response from the music companies stressing that terrorism and piracy are quite different.

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ Controversial Pirate IPTV Supplier Investigated After Bell Complaint

• Following reports of a complaint by Bell and other media companies, several searches were carried out in Canada this week as part of a TV piracy and money laundering investigation. Known locally as the Quebec Hugh Hefner, the alleged owner of a targeted IPTV service was previously sentenced in the U.S. after the DEA swapped 10kgs of cocaine found in a computer, with another white powder worth considerably less.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Turns Out Social Media Is Driving Less And Less Traffic To Media Orgs

• As everyone continues to demand that social media companies pay news orgs for the crime of sending them traffic, it’s becoming clear that fewer and fewer people are using social media for news any more, and social media sites simply are not a major driver of traffic to news orgs anyway.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ “This Ain’t No Disco,” Broadway Tells David Byrne

• Former Talking Heads front man David Byrne has seen the future of rock and roll, and it is not solidarity. Ahead of the July Broadway debut of Here Lies Love, Byrne’s “immersive” musical theater collaboration with Fatboy Slim, the production has run afoul of the American Federation of Musicians’ Local 802, which objects to the show’s extensive use of prerecorded music. The Local’s Broadway contract usually stipulates that productions employ 19 live musicians, and union representatives take understandable exception to a pending show that disregards that protection for workers in the industry. Byrne’s supposed artistic motives align a bit too neatly with measures that other cost-cutting executives would embrace as a precedent to sideline musicians already struggling to make ends meet in the age of monopoly-platform streaming.1

=> ↺ Digital Music News ☛ Ed Sheeran Faces Appeal Following Recent ‘Thinking Out Loud’ Copyright Infringement Victory

• Ed Sheeran faces an appeal from the family of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ co-writer following his recent ‘Thinking Out Loud’ copyright infringement victory. Following Ed Sheeran’s victory in the copyright infringement case involving the singer-songwriter’s “Thinking Out Loud,” the family of Marvin Gaye’s co-writer on “Let’s Get It On” intends to appeal …

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