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Links 10/7/2019: Sparky 4.11 and Sculpt OS 19.07



  • GNU/Linux

    • Server

      • Linux features beyond server management

        With its text-based interface, Linux provides IT administrators an easy and quick way to navigate files, grant permissions, run containers and build data processing capabilities on an open source OS.

        Linux has traditionally stayed in on-premises architectures, but that's starting to change. With the development of containers and orchestration, organizations are using it beyond bare metal.

        If you decide to use these newer Linux features and capabilities, however, you should still familiarize yourself with the kernel, as well as some useful commands and security protocols.

      • Inside the Canonical Container Strategy

        Canonical continues to pursue a somewhat bifurcated approach to containers by announcing support for Kubernetes 1.15 while continuing to advance Snaps as an application container that enables software deployment via a single click.

        For example, Canonical recently announced in collaboration with DJI that Snaps will be supported on an instance of Ubuntu embedded in Manifold 2 drones manufactured by DJI. While that approach will make it easier to deploy containerized applications on a type of embedded system, Snaps—for the moment, at least—mostly only runs on Ubuntu.

        Docker, in contrast, provides what Canonical describes as “process containers,” which typically are immutable and share some libraries across all containers in execution. Docker registries are optional and typically contain a loose collection of Docker images identifiable by hash or tags. That approach makes it possible to run containerized applications across multiple operating systems. However, within organizations that have standardized on Ubuntu, Canonical is making the case for an application container in the form of Snaps.

        Canonical is trying to drum up support for Snaps on multiple distributions of Linux with mixed success. Most recently, it made available Snapd, a service that individual developers can employ to run Snaps on other Linux distributions. Support for Snaps running on Linux distributions other than Ubuntu generally is limited to what’s provided by Canonical, which tends to limit enthusiasm. It’s also worth noting that alternative application packaging technologies in the form of AppImage and Flatpak have been around longer than Snaps.

      • IBM

        • IBM Closes Red Hat Acquisition Pledging to Keep Enterprise Software Separate

          $34B deal is now done and with it comes renewed questions about how IBM will influence and control Red Hat's enterprise software portfolio.

          IBM announced on July 9 that it had formally closed its' largest acquisition ever, picking up enterprise Linux vendor Red Hat in a deal valued at $34 billion.

          With the deal now done, questions about how IBM will handle Red Hat's enterprise application software portfolio and direction moving forward can now be officially answered. In a press conference, Arvind Krishna, SVP, Cloud and Cognitive Software at IBM and Paul Cormier, President Products and Technologies at Red Hat were peppered with questions about what will happen now.

          Krishna said that Red Hat will remain neutral and will continue to work with its partners that might well be competitors to IBM.

        • IBM Acquires Linux Developer Red Hat For $34 Billion

          IBM on Tuesday closed the deal that saw it acquire open source software products leader and Linux developer Red Hat Inc. for $34 billion.

          IBM first announced its intent to acquire Red Hat in October 2018. On May 3, the U.S. Department of Justice concluded its review of IBM's Red Hat acquisition, and by posing no objections basically approved IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat.

          Red Hat will operate as a distinct unit within IBM and will become part of IBM’s Cloud and Cognitive Software segment. It will maintain its independence and neutrality, insists IBM.

          Current CEO Jim Whitehurst will continue to lead Red Hat. He will join IBM’s senior management team and will report to CEO Ginni Rometty.

        • CEO Ginni Rometty: Red Hat's open-source software 'is a play that helps all of IBM'

          IBM on Tuesday closed on its $34 billion cash acquisition of Red Hat.

    • Kernel Space

      • Linux 5.1.17

        I'm announcing the release of the 5.1.17 kernel.

        All users of the 5.1 kernel series must upgrade.

        The updated 5.1.y git tree can be found at:

        git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-5.1.y

        and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser:

        https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-s...

      • Linux 4.19.58
      • Linux 4.14.133
      • Linux 4.9.185
      • Linux 4.4.185
      • Address Space Isolation and the Linux Kernel

        Mike Rapoport from IBM launched a bid to implement address space isolation in the Linux kernel. Address space isolation emanates from the idea of virtual memory—where the system maps all its hardware devices' memory addresses into a clean virtual space so that they all appear to be one smooth range of available RAM. A system that implements virtual memory also can create isolated address spaces that are available only to part of the system or to certain processes.

        The idea, as Mike expressed it, is that if hostile users find themselves in an isolated address space, even if they find bugs in the kernel that might be exploited to gain control of the system, the system they would gain control over would be just that tiny area of RAM to which they had access. So they might be able to mess up their own local user, but not any other users on the system, nor would they be able to gain access to root level infrastructure.

      • Active kernel releases

        Many Linux distributions provide their own "longterm maintenance" kernels that may or may not be based on those maintained by kernel developers. These kernel releases are not hosted at kernel.org and kernel developers can provide no support for them.

        It is easy to tell if you are running a distribution kernel. Unless you downloaded, compiled and installed your own version of kernel from kernel.org, you are running a distribution kernel. To find out the version of your kernel, run uname -r:

      • Linux 5.3 Media Driver Updates Bring New Amlogic Meson Video Decoder

        After going through 9+ rounds of revisions for the Amlogic video decode driver, it's now been part of the media subsystem updates for the Linux 5.3 kernel.

        This Amlogic video decode driver supports the GXBB/GXL/GXM chipsets and allows currently MPEG-1/MPEG-2 decoding with future work to tackle MPEG-4, H.264, HEVC, and VP9.

      • Linux 5.3 Crypto Updates Jitter RNG, Adds xxHash

        Herbert Xu sent out the crypto subsystem updates on Monday for the in-development Linux 5.3 kernel.

        Linux 5.3 is bringing an updated Jitter RNG implementation based on the upstream Jitter 2.1.2 spec with various alterations. There is also now support for the SHA204A random number generator, 5-way interleave support for ECB/CBC/CTR for 64-bit ARM, and other fixes.

      • Raspberry Pi CPUFreq Driver & Other Power Management Work For Linux 5.3

        The power management changes for Linux 5.3 merge window don't offer any P-State changes or other prominent Intel changes this cycle but there is some other improvements as well as new CPUFreq drivers for CPU frequency scaling.

        Arguably the biggest Linux 5.3 power management change is the mainline addition of a CPUFreq driver for Raspberry Pi. This CPUFreq driver communicates with the firmware running on the dedicated processor responsible for clock adjustments. This firmware ends up making the final call on whether to honor requests for CPU clock changes based upon thermal and power criteria.

      • Graphics Stack

        • AMD Opens Up Its Contrast Adaptive Sharpening Under FidelityFX On GPUOpen

          Following the Radeon RX 5700 series launch, AMD has now open-sourced their Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) technology under FidelityFX on GPUOpen.

          Contrast Adaptive Sharpening provides sharpening and optional scaling and is implemented as HLSL and GLSL shaders for Direct3D and Vulkan. CAS is designed to provide better sharpness with fewer artifacts and to increase the quality of temporal anti-aliasing.

          The GLSL/Vulkan shaders for CAS are obviously relevant to Linux gamers though this initial FidelityFX release appears catered to a Windows workflow. FidelityFX 1.0 / CAS is licensed under the MIT license.

        • AMDGPU & RadeonSI Linux Drivers See More Navi Optimizations + Fixes

          t's just not the RADV Vulkan driver seeing lots of Navi activity but the AMDGPU DRM kernel driver and RadeonSI OpenGL Mesa driver are also off to the races in improving their newly-enabled Navi / Radeon RX 5700 series support.

          On the AMDGPU kernel side, AMD longtime Linux developer Alex Deucher sent out a new PR containing some additional fixes for Navi. This pull request is for the now-open Linux 5.3 merge window to polish up this initial GPU enablement for the kernel.

          The Navi 10 work that's new for AMDGPU is GPU reset abilities in case of hangs, PowerPlay power management fixes, and graphics fixes. Outside of Navi specific work there is also XGMI fixes, HMM API changes, and other fixes.

    • Applications

      • Developer preview of Debezium Apache Kafka connectors for Change Data Capture (CDC)

        With the release of Red Hat AMQ Streams 1.2, Red Hat Integration now includes a developer preview of Change Data Capture (CDC) capabilities to enable data integration for modern cloud-native microservices-based applications. CDC features are based on the upstream project Debezium and are natively integrated with Apache Kafka and Strimzi to run on top of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, the enterprise Kubernetes, as part of the AMQ Streams release.

      • Open-Source Peer-To-Peer File Synchronization Tool Syncthing 1.2.0 Released

        Syncthing, an open source continuous file synchronization tool, had a new release yesterday. The new Syncthing 1.2.0 adds QUIC with NAT traversal as a new transport protocol, fixes some bugs, and enables automatic error reporting.

        Syncthing is a free, open-source peer-to-peer file synchronization application written in Go, which implements its own open Block Exchange Protocol. The application, which is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Solaris, Darwin and BSD, can sync files between devices on a local network, or between remote devices over the Internet.

      • Proprietary

        • Best free video editing program for Windows, Mac, Linux

          Like any other downloadable software you could use, there’s going to be a learning curve, which might be the biggest downside to DaVinci 16. You may not have experienced DaVinci’s editing software yet but they work just like Premiere and Final Cut.

          The best way to learn the program and work out the technical kinks is by downloading it and giving the editing technology a try. It’s free to download and use, so check it out and see how it works differently than the programs you might pay a lot of money for.

        • How to be an IT rock star

          And while everyone know Linus Torvalds, in general, says Momjian, “If you are a creator of an infrastructure tool, you sit in an office and maybe you’re at a conference once every other month.” He argues that no IT decision maker really plans their IT strategy around a scripting language, a compiler or a text editor, or base it around some of the virtualisation tools out there. “They are interesting, but not a core part of a business process in organisations,” he says.

          But compared to the early 1990s when Momjian was a Unix admin, proprietary Unix systems are on life support. Compare the proprietary Unix vendors to the like Microsoft and Oracle, who are still selling relational databases. Since the early 2000s, Momjian has been a database man. “There is a lot of people who find databases really interesting,” he adds.

          For Momjian, the database industry is a good industry to be in. And there are some people in the open source community who are jetted around the world to speak to thousands of delegates about their contribution to database technologies.

          For Momjian, these are the true rock stars of the software industry.

    • Instructionals/Technical

    • Games

      • 3D puzzle game "Flux Caves" fully released, now has Linux support again

        When trying out Flux Caves myself back in March, I was quite impressed with the demo. It recently released in full and as of today, the Linux version is live everywhere.

        Unlike some puzzle games, the aim of Flux Caves is not to make you sweat or get frustrated. It's supposed to be a more peaceful experience with a slightly open-world for you to run around in. There's no losing, no dying, just you and the puzzles.

      • Ready your pickaxe for "UnderMine", releasing with Linux support on August 20th

        Confirmed to be coming to Linux at the Early Access release on August 20th, UnderMine looks like a fantastic action-adventure roguelike.

      • Tactics V: Obsidian Brigade, a retro-style tactical turn-based RPG coming next month to Linux

        Here's another new game for you to keep an eye on, it's called Tactics V: Obsidian Brigade and it's arriving with Linux support on August 15th.

        In development by From Nothing Game Studios (previously made GravBlocks), it's inspired by the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics and other console tactical RPGs from the 1990s.

      • Time-looping adventure game "Elsinore" is releasing soon with Linux support

        After a successful crowdfunding campaign back in 2015, Elsinore a time-looping adventure game set in the world of Shakespeare's Hamlet is releasing with Linux support on July 22nd.

        This was previously mentioned on GamingOnLinux a few times, in our older crowdfunding roundup articles "The Funding Crowd". Some of you might actually remember it, I certainly didn't but I'm putting that right now by making sure everyone knows, as it does sound very interesting.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • KMyMoney 5.0.5 released

          The KMyMoney development team today announces the immediate availability of version 5.0.5 of its open source Personal Finance Manager.

          After three months it is now ready: KMyMoney 5.0.5 comes with some important bugfixes. As usual, problems have been reported by our users and the development team worked hard to fix them in the meantime. The result of this effort is the brand new KMyMoney 5.0.5 release.

          Despite even more testing we understand that some bugs may have slipped past our best efforts. If you find one of them, please forgive us, and be sure to report it, either to the mailing list or on bugs.kde.org.

    • Distributions

      • New Releases

        • Qubes OS 4.0.2-rc1 has been released!

          A point release does not designate a separate, new version of Qubes OS. Rather, it designates its respective major or minor release (in this case, 4.0) inclusive of all updates up to a certain point. Installing Qubes 4.0 and fully updating it results in the same system as installing Qubes 4.0.2.

        • Start Hacking! Kali Linux is Now Available for Raspberry Pi 4

          We’ve already discussed how amazing the Raspberry Pi 4 is with upgraded specs. You can easily utilize it as a desktop replacement for minimal tasks like browsing activities, managing media or similar stuff acting as a desktop replacement. In either case, IoT projects and so on.

          That’s all good. But, we’re talking about something more exciting – which you might have already figured out from the headline.

          Offensive Security announced to officially support Kali Linux on Raspberry Pi 4. Well, it was quite expected because of Raspberry Pi 4’s popularity just after a few weeks of launch.

        • Ethical Hacking OS Kali Linux Is Now Available on the Raspberry Pi 4 Computer

          Announced last month, the Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer is the latest and most advanced Raspberry Pi SBC ever built. It features a powerful 1.5 GHz quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A72 CPU, up to 4GB of RAM, support for up to 4K resolutions, Bluetooth 5.0, Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB 2 and 2x USB 3 ports, 2x micro-HDMI ports, and a USB-C power supply.

          The Offensive Security team was quick to build an image of their popular Kali Linux operating system for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer to give security researchers and hacking enthusiasts a more affordable way to run their favorite Linux OS for ethical hacking and penetration testing tasks.

      • Debian Family

        • Sparky 4.11

          New live/install iso/img images of Sparky 4.11 are out.

          Sparky 4.11 “Tyche” is the last release of the 4 line which moves the base system from Debian stable “Stretch” to Debian oldstable “Stretch”.

          Make sure that Sparky 4 will be supported next 2 years about, so if you keep running your machine with Sparky 4, do regular system upgrade.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Ubuntu: What does the future look like post-Unity?

          Following Canonical's pivot away from its internally-developed Unity user interface and Mir display server, Ubuntu has enjoyed two relatively low-drama years, as the Linux Desktop market homogenized during its transition back to a customized GNOME desktop. In a review of the most recent release, TechRepublic's Jack Wallen declared that "Ubuntu 19.04 should seriously impress anyone looking for a fast and reliable Linux desktop platform."

          Largely, it's been a slow-and-steady pace for Ubuntu since the pivot from Unity to GNOME, though the distribution made headlines for plans to end support for 32-bit support. This prompted Valve, operators of games marketplace Steam, to re-think its approach toward Ubuntu, which it previously characterized as "as the best-supported path for desktop users."

          TechRepublic's James Sanders interviewed Will Cooke, director of engineering for Ubuntu Desktop at Canonical, about the distribution's long-term plans for legacy 32-bit support, shipping a desktop in a post-Unity-era Ubuntu, and why Linux should be the first choice for users migrating from Windows 7 prior to the end of support.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Sculpt OS release 19.07

        The most prominent user-visible feature of Sculpt OS 19.07 is the ability of copy and paste text between terminals, graphical applications, and virtual machines. Our unique take on this feature is described in a dedicated article.

      • Genode's Sculpt OS 19.07 Brings Performance Improvements

        Genode continues advancing as an open-source operating system framework and with that their effort to develop Sculpt OS as a general purpose operating system has continued in-step. Out now is Sculpt OS 19.07 as their latest operating system release.

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • Testing Picture-in-Picture for videos in Firefox 69 Beta and Developer Edition

            Have you ever needed to scan a recipe while also watching a cooking video? Or perhaps you wanted to watch a recording of a lecture while also looking at the course slides. Or maybe you wanted to watch somebody stream themselves playing video games while you work.

            We’ve recently shipped a version of Firefox on our Beta and Developer Edition release channels with an experimental feature that aims to make this easier for you to do!

            Picture-in-Picture allows you to pop a video out from where it’s being played into a special kind of window that’s always on top. Then you can move that window around or resize it however you need!

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

      • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

      • Programming/Development

        • AMD announces μProf 3.0, a free tool to optimise apps for AMD processors

          AMD has updated its μProf software in line with the release of Zen 2 processors. Announced its Ryzen Twitter channel via Reddit, the software encompasses four tools that AMD claims allow developers to identify ways to optimise their applications for AMD processors.

          μProf 3.0 gives detailed runtime performance information from CPU profiling to system-wide power profiling. Windows developers can also analyses which areas of an application are more resource intensive, while Linux and FreeBSD developers can monitor system performance metrics. AMD has introduced several new features with the 3.0 update, the principal of which is support for 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Desktop processors.

        • Awesome Web Scraping

          Few days ago we've heard from some of our friends talking about scraping. At that time me like, hey what scrap...? Then knowing somethiing about that took my attention seriously on that amazing technique. Extracting data from websites - sounds really crazy. And yeap, We did something to get started. Now, may be it's your turn.

        • Python Comprehensions are Awesome!

          When programming, it's quite common to want to create a collection of some kind, from another collection, usually with some modification taking place along the way. Python gives an awesome set of tools for dealing with this kind of problem: comprehensions. If you're not using comprehensions regularly in your code, read on, and I'll show you what you're missing out on!

        • Python Seaborn Tutorial | Data Visualization Using Seaborn

          Python is a storehouse of numerous immensely powerful libraries and frameworks. Among them, is Seaborn, which is a dominant data visualization library. In this Python Seaborn Tutorial, you will be leaning all the knacks of data visualization using Seaborn.

          So let’s begin first by reasoning out the importance of Python Seaborn.

        • g_queue_insert_before_link() in GLib 2.61.1

          The second post in a little mini-series on new APIs in the GLib 2.62 series, this one’s about Christian Hergert’s g_queue_insert_before_link().

          This is a new helper function for inserting elements at arbitrary positions in a queue, without needing to allocate a new container element for them. Previously, using g_queue_insert_before(), a new GList container would have been allocated. The new function means that elements can be moved from one position in a queue to another, without any allocations; and statically allocated GList elements can be used in a GQueue correctly.

        • New Course: Learn the Fundamentals of Probability for Data Science

          Learning probability and statistics isn’t the first thing most aspiring data analysts and scientists tackle. But make no mistake: understanding the math is just as critical as understanding the programming!

        • Embedded System Development for IoT: Three-Part Series

          The landscape of embedded systems and computing is changing. Fast. IoT in particular is driving widespread change in technology when it comes to standards, hardware, systems, and software, with the need for all of these components to work seamlessly as a complete infrastructure. Meanwhile, the demand for increased functionality at the edge has underscored the need for faster and more formidable compute power across entire systems or networks.

        • Find the average negative values from the DataFrame
        • 4 Process Managers for Node.js Applications in Linux

          A Node.js process manager is a useful tool to ensure that a Node.js process or script runs continuously (forever) and can enable it to auto-start at system boot.

          It allows you to monitor the running services and it facilitates common system administration tasks (such as restarting on failure, stopping, reloading configurations without downtime, modify environment variables/settings, showing performance metrics and so much more). It also supports application logging, clustering, and load balancing, and so many other useful process management features.

  • Leftovers

    • Hardware

      • Quantum computing startup IQM gets €11m in seed investment

        In a statement on Tuesday, IQM said it is getting funding from US-based investor Matadero QED; Finnish state-owned investment firm Tesi; Helsinki-based venture capital firms Maki.vc and OpenOcean as well as German investment firms MIG Fonds and Vito Venutres.

    • Health/Nutrition

      • Sharing, Generosity and Gratitude

        Many friends from the CC and open education communities have noticed my absence from meetings and conferences in the past six months. I’m ready to share why.

        I was diagnosed with an auto-immune liver disease in 2005, and with liver cancer in September, 2018. The cancer was caused by the underlying liver disease. Once the cancer was diagnosed, my doctor quickly sent me to the Mayo Clinic. I spent the entire month of December in twice-daily radiation and round-the-clock chemotherapy. Bottom line: I needed a liver transplant to live.

        You may have heard about the organ shortage in the United States. There are simply not enough organs available to people who need them. Most countries have similar unfortunate statistics. Want to help? Sign up to be a donor (US link) and talk to your family about your decision.

    • Security

      • The Router's Obstacle-Strewn Route to Home IoT Security

        It is newly minted conventional wisdom that not a single information security conference goes by without a presentation about the abysmal state of Internet of Things security. While this is a boon for researchers looking to make a name for themselves, this sorry state of affairs is definitely not beneficial for anyone who owns a connected device.

        IoT device owners aren't the only ones fed up, though. Right behind them is Eldridge Alexander, manager of Duo Labs at Duo Security. Even better, he has a plan, and the experience to lend it some credibility.

        Before assuming his current role at Duo Security, Alexander held various IT posts at Google and Cloudflare. For him, the through-line that ties together his past and present IT work is the security gains that accrue from aligning all of a network's security controls with the principle of zero-trust.

      • Zoom Will Fix the Flaw That Let Hackers Hijack Webcams

        "On the one hand it took over 100 days for them to actually take this seriously and it required public outcry," Leitschuh says. "On the other hand it's a really good thing to see that a company can apologize for their mistakes and be willing to work with the community and researchers. It's now on all of us to hold them accountable."

      • Zoom Zero Day: 4+ Million Webcams & maybe an RCE? Just get them to visit your website!

        A vulnerability in the Mac Zoom Client allows any malicious website to enable your camera without your permission. The flaw potentially exposes up to 750,000 companies around the world that use Zoom to conduct day-to-day business.

    • Environment

      • Zero Hour's Youth Climate Summit Is Coming to Miami to Spotlight the Threat of Rising Sea Levels

        Since 1994, the sea level in South Florida has risen about four inches. In Miami, the rising sea level has meant “sunny day flooding” even when there’s no rain. Some of the most frightening predictions warn that the Monroe and Miami-Dade counties and most of Broward County in the state’s southeast could disappear because of flooding by 2100.

        In an effort to bring attention to the future and current effects of climate change, Zero Hour will host its inaugural summit in Miami. Previously, the organization has focused its largest protests, such as its historic youth climate march last July, in big cities such as Washington, DC, and New York, and they say the change in scenery is an intentional move into a different region.

      • Costly climate measures are hard to sell, but the Netherlands has a plan

        The latest round of Dutch “poldering” also concerns a sea-level-related threat. On June 28th the government released its national Climate Accord, the product of over a year of bargaining between industry, consumer groups and politicians over how to meet the Netherlands’ targets for reducing carbon emissions. Under the global climate agreement signed in Paris in 2016, the country committed to cut its CO2 emissions by 49% by 2030 and by 95% by 2050. The question was how to do it, and who would pay.

      • Von der Leyen struggles for Green light from MEPs

        The Greens will exact a high price for backing German conservative Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission president, judging by their first encounter.

        The environmentalist party's two top MEPs, Ska Keller and Philippe Lamberts, damned the German nominee with faint praise Monday, on her first attempt to secure their votes for her surprise candidacy for the EU's top job.

        The German defense minister came across as "a very able politician," Keller told reporters afterward. "But from my own point of view, that's not enough."

        Unlike von der Leyen, who emerged from last week's emergency EU summit as the compromise candidate to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as Commission president, Keller was a Spitzenkandidat — one of the "lead candidates" who would supposedly compete for the job in a democratic contest.

      • 'Abject failure' from the Government: Caroline Lucas responds to Committee on Climate Change report

        Responding to the release of the Committee on Climate Change report released this morning that concludes (1) that of 33 key sectors, none show good progress in managing climate change risk, Green MP Caroline Lucas said: "This damning verdict from the Committee on Climate Change underlines the Government's abject failure to deliver the policies needed to meet our climate targets.

      • Squid Management for Peace

        While many of these vessels operate legally, many others do not. As many as 300,000 tons of squid are taken illegally from the region each year — much more than the 50 to 150 tons that are allowed to be harvested legally.

        In part this massive illegal fishing operation is the result of the distant and remote nature of the fishery itself. But it’s also inspired by longstanding political angst that impedes cooperation between Argentina and the United Kingdom territory known to some as the Falkland Islands and others as the Islas Malvinas.

        The question of sovereignty over these islands has been festering for nearly two centuries. Argentina argues that the British have illegally occupied the Islas Malvinas since 1833, a matter it first raised with the United Nations and other international bodies in the 1940s. This dispute later erupted in the brief but brutal 1982 Falkland/Malvinas’ War, in which Argentina tried (but failed) to retake the islands by force.

        Decades later the sovereignty struggle continues. Currently Argentina has the backing of the United Nations’ International Court of Justice to negotiate with the UK over the Malvinas. But the UK refuses to negotiate the sensitive issue of sovereignty, stating the self-determination of the Islands’ residents — who voted in 2013 to remain a British Overseas Territory — should be respected.

        Regardless of conflicting interpretations of sovereignty, the fate of the Islands lies in the oceans around them.

        Economically 52.4 percent of the Islands’ GDP — approximately $86.3 million — depends on fisheries, with squid being the most valuable resource. In a good year, the Islands can provide nearly 10 percent of the world’s illex squid supply. By comparison Argentina is less dependent on fisheries — which only account for 3.4 percent of its GDP — but their value still amounts to approximately $20.2 billion, more than 230 times the value of the Falklands’ fisheries.

    • Finance

      • ‘There’s More Of Us Than Landlords’: Tenant Organizing In The Trump Era

        Tenants throughout the United States struggle with the high cost of living and loss of their homes, but from major cities to small towns, they are escalating a grassroots movement in the name of housing justice.

        In New York, a place where Wall Street investors feel more at home than the state’s own residents, tenants achieved what the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) called “the biggest housing justice victory for tenants in a generation” with the passage of the 2019 “Housing Stability And Tenants Protections Act.”

        The new law will enact sweeping reforms to help protect tenants, such as the preservation of over one million rent-regulated apartments, preventing building owners from raising rents on tenants or during vacancy, allow cities and townships to pass their own tenant protections (among other landmark measures).

        Around 2.4 million tenants in New York, as well as manufactured housing residents across the state, are expected to benefit.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Chinese Tech Companies Are Coming for America’s Influencers

        Tencent, owner of the all-purpose Chinese app WeChat, is trying to encourage more U.S. social-media stars to do business in the world’s No. 2 economy. The opening panel of the event is titled “How Tencent could help your influencers’ businesses in China.” They have an edge over YouTube in tapping the burgeoning market: The Google-owned video service is blocked in the country.

      • What the Measles Epidemic Really Says About America

        Our amnesia about vaccines is part of a broader forgetting. Prior generations of Americans understood the danger of zero-sum economic nationalism, for instance, because its results remained visible in their lifetimes. When Al Gore debated Ross Perot about NAFTA in 1993, he reminded the Texan businessman of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which raised tariffs on 20,000 foreign products—prompting other countries to retaliate, deepening the Great Depression, and helping to elect Adolf Hitler. But fewer and fewer people remember the last global trade war. Similarly, as memories of Nazism fade across Europe and the United States, anti-Semitism is rising. Technology may improve; science may advance. But the fading of lessons that once seemed obvious should give pause to those who believe history naturally bends toward progress.

      • That Windows 1.0 promo we though might be something to do with Stranger Things, was [iophk: see also Today in Apple history: Microsoft gets sued for ripping off Mac OS]

        The idea, a few years ago that a streaming tv show would garner enough hype to warrant this level of promotional involvement from Microsoft would have seemed like utter madness. Today, it feels fairly normal.

      • [Old] The Apple vs. Microsoft GUI Lawsuit

        When Gassée saw Windows 1.0, he dismissed the software as no threat.

        But when Sculley saw the software, he was enraged. Microsoft had been provided early prototypes of the Macintosh and some source code to help optimize Word and MultiPlan. Now Windows had a menu bar almost identical to Apple’s. Windows even had a Special menu, containing disk operations. Other elements were strikingly similar. Windows came bundled with Write and Paint, both mimicking Apple’s MacPaint and MacWrite.

      • Green Party responds to announcement of formation of Unite for Remain

        Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party, said:

        “The Green Party is following with interest today’s announcement from Heidi Allen about the new grouping Unite for Remain.

        “As the Green Party is a democratic party, with direction provided by its members, we are today launching a survey of members to seek their views on the proposals in circulation about how the number of Remain MPs can be maximised in the next election, with the aim of stopping Brexit and transforming the UK to tackle our environmental and social crises.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Letter to the Editor: Censorship of mural is a problem

        Choosing to destroy a work of art that embodies a point of view is no better than Nazi book burning or any number of historically heinous attempts to whitewash or revise the historical record.

        The incredible irony of this decision is first that it involves an institution of learning and teaching, where transparency, tolerance and open discussion of all points of view are the lifeblood of education.

      • SF Protest Against Twitter Blocking of Tweets To Free Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning

        Twitter while not banning the racist reactionary lies of Trump has blocked the tweets of activists who are fighting for the freedom of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. This rally will protest the banning of Free Julian Assange sites and othe sites critical of US and Israeli actions. The collusion and collaboration of the owners of Twitter with the same US intellligence agencies that have been involved in the very crimes that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks has exposed is not surprising. The real criminals of US war crimes in Iraq and the crimes of Hillary Clinton in overthrowing the Honduran goverment are unprosecuted but the whisltelbowers Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are imprisoned.

      • Politicians Queue Up To Make France's Proposed Law Against 'Hateful Content' Far, Far Worse

        The intent behind "ag-gag" laws is pretty evident. The aim is to prevent the general public learning about unsatisfactory or downright cruel conditions in which animals are kept by some farmers. Techdirt has been reporting on them for a number of years. Fortunately, US courts are increasingly throwing them out as unconstitutional. So far, ag-gag laws seems to be a US specialty, but that may be about to change. A new law under discussion in France would force online companies to remove "hateful content" from their networks within 24 hours. The journalist Marc Rees spotted a proposed amendment to the law that would define the following content as "hateful"

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • UK’s surveillance powers to be considered by Europe's highest human rights court

        On Wednesday (10 July), the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights - the court’s highest body - will hear arguments from Amnesty International, Liberty, Privacy International and other human rights organisations from four continents over the unlawfulness of the UK’s bulk surveillance practices.

      • Detroit’s facial recognition surveillance system exposed

        A web page at detroitmi.gov dedicated to the Project Green Light hosts a map showing the location of nearly 600 surveillance cameras and says this infrastructure is for “improving neighborhood safety, promoting the revitalization and growth of local businesses, and strengthening DPD’s efforts to deter, identify, and solve crime.”

        After the extent of the surveillance was exposed and public anger began to rise, Detroit Police Chief James Craig hastily called a press conference on June 27 in an effort to downplay the invasive nature of the system and justify its implementation.

        Forced to admit that the artificial intelligence and biometrics system had been in place for the past two years without review, Craig became irritated. When questioned by the media about its legality, he said, “How come we never talk about the criminals?” Chief Craig also said that the department had the right to detain people based on the technology because it constitutes “reasonable suspicion” that an individual identified by the system had committed a crime.

      • More than 1,000 Android apps "deceptively" glean personal user information

        The apps circumvent Android permissions designed to keep personal data out of the hands of developers Researchers have discovered more than 1,000 Android apps have the power to share and receive personal information even when the user explicitly forbids the collection of data.

        The findings were presented to attendees at PrivacyCon 2019 in the US, and they don't just focus on obscure apps. Indeed, big name firms including Disney and Samsung were cited for releasing apps that flout the privacy conventions users have come to expect.

    • Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

      • US silence on Khashoggi 'not an option', says UN rapporteur

        Speaking alongside Khashoggi's fiancée at a conference in London on Tuesday, Ms Callamard urged the US to declassify its intelligence on the killing and said Washington was "not at the top of the co-operation chain".

      • Spanish security company spied on Julian Assange’s meetings with lawyers

        Documents, video and audio material that EL PAÍS has had access to show that a Spanish private defense and security firm named Undercover Global S. L., which was tasked with protecting the diplomatic building between 2012 and 2018, instructed its men to collect all possible information about the cyberactivist, particularly regarding his lawyers and collaborators.

      • Assange unlikely to find refuge in Supreme Court

        Is such a parallel apt? Not exactly. People misremember the Supreme Court decision in The Pentagon Papers cases that gave The New York Times the right to publish the documents. The court did not find a sacrosanct freedom of the press.

        It merely allowed for the continued publication. Indeed, the justices’ split decision pointed in the other direction: that in matters of “mortal danger”, journalists have a legal responsibility not to publish.

        The Pentagon Papers were a top-secret account of the Vietnam War commissioned in late 1967 by Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara. The review drew on classified documents from the Defence Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

      • Widespread Obesity Makes Trump’s Military Recruitment Goals a Challenge

        A 2018 report by Mission: Readiness, a group of 750 retired military professionals that makes policy recommendations to increase the percentage of young Americans eligible to serve in the military, found that 71% of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 fail to meet all of the basic requirements for military service.

        The biggest disqualifier is obesity, with roughly 31% of American youths disqualified because they are overweight. Other factors explaining the shortage of eligible recruits are inadequate education, criminal history and drug use. According to Army Major Gen. (Ret.) Allen Youngman, a member of Mission: Readiness, almost 25% of high school graduates are unable to pass the basic military entrance exams, which not only disqualifies them from technical positions within the service but also from military service as a whole.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Nicki Minaj pulls out of Saudi Arabia festival after backlash

        It called on her to "refuse the regime's money" and use her influence to demand the release of the detained women activists.

      • Britain: Gang convicted of running “extensive and prolific” modern slavery network

        The gang’s activities were initially exposed by the charity Hope for Justice, whose co-founder and CEO Ben Cooley said, “This was a vast criminal conspiracy profiting from the misery and manipulation of vulnerable human beings.” The charity believes there could have been up to 400 victims who were exploited by the gang between June 2012 and October 2017, in what Judge Mary Stacey, who presided over the two trials, described as the “most ambitious, extensive and prolific” modern slavery network ever uncovered in Britain.

      • Black People Don’t Need Murals To Remember Injustice

        When they were unveiled in 1937, these murals were upheld by the left as radical examples of social justice through art. Concerned parties now see Arnautoff’s work as exploitative and traumatic for the school’s minority students who have to encounter these striking scenes on a daily basis.

        This speaks to a changing dialogue about representation, one spurred on by the democratization of cultural criticism through social media. Audiences now have more platforms to express and amplify what have been long-standing concerns about portrayals of the minority experience in America that rely almost exclusively on fetishistic displays of violence and physical trauma.

      • France combats extremism with secularism — and a hotline

        In February 2018, the French government presented a new plan to combat Islamist threat in a 60-measure document entitled “Prevent to Protect,” which was reviewed by The World. The plan, presently in place, calls for a cross-disciplinary approach, including the reinforcement of secularism in schools and a “greater awareness of radicalization” in the workplace.

        The plan relies on the concept of laïcité — the French term for a strict strand of secularism that involves the complete and total separation of church and state.

    • Help Steven Leelah

      When the British government forcibly deported every single Chagossian from their islands between 1967 and 1971 to make way for a US nuclear weapons base, a few of them eventually found their way to the UK, being at the time British subjects. The small British Chagossian community is very active. Steven Leelah’s grandfather was one of the original deportees and his mother is a UK citizen. Steven had his right to remain in the UK refused by the Home Office, and when he turned up to report as required pending his appeal, he was arrested and imprisoned in “immigration detention” pending deportation. Just where they intend to deport him is an interesting question – his father is Chagossian and his mother is British – certainly not to Chagos, where the islanders are still forbidden from their own homes.

      This is yet another example of the vicious and callous brutality which was injected, deliberately, into the Home Office by Theresa May and her “hostile environment” policy, which is no more and no less than the institutionalisation of racism as government policy. It goes hand in hand with the deprofessionalisation of the “Border force” and the contracting out of most of its functions to for profit companies.

    • Immigrant Rights Activists Renew Push Against Palantir To Cancel $53 Million Contract With ICE

      Organizers with Mijente, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, the Tech Workers Coalition, and other groups mobilized in New York and Washington D.C. to demand Palantir Technologies, a surveillance company, cancel its contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

      In New York, people stood outside the Palantir office and chanted, “Immigrants are welcome here! Time to cancel, Palantir!”

      Activists with Mijente, an immigration and Latinx-focused organization, attempted to give workers entering the New York office a flier that urged “all Palantir employees to speak to their executives and help cancel this contract.”

      As Sophie Hurwitz reported, the flier declared, “There is no need for Palantir to be in the business of abusing human rights. You have the power to stop this.”

      It outlined how hundreds of people were arrested by ICE thanks to the software designed by Palantir and how management lied about Palantir’s role in President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants and asylum seekers.

      The flier additionally noted a Privacy Law Scholars Conference at the University of California in Berkeley dropped Palantir as a sponsor in June.

      But according to Hurwitz, several individuals refused to take the flier as they entered the building that houses the company’s New York office.

    • Daily Dose of Protest: Forever Half Mast – Lucy Dacus

      Most countries have holidays and observances that celebrate aspects of their founding and heritage. For many, it is an opportunity to display patriotic pride, but for others, it is the time to somberly reflect on dark chapters of their nation’s history.

      This is the premise of “Forever Half Mast.” Indie singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus wrote the song in connection with American Independence Day. It is part of a series of songs about holidays, and it grapples with how a citizen should view the shameful parts of their history.

      “There is a daily dissonance one endures as an American wherein much of our joy is counterweighted by shame, where much of our pride lives in tandem with injustice and suffering,” Dacus said in a press statement. “‘Forever Half Mast’ is about confronting this unavoidable culpability as an American citizen and consumer. Instead of allowing this guilt to paralyze us, we should try to let it influence us in positive ways.”

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Monopolies

    • Tech giants to testify at House antitrust hearing [iophk: omits Microsoft's ongoing misdeeds]

      Executives for Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple will testify before Congress next week as part of the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust investigation into Silicon Valley.

  • Monopolies

    • Patents and Software Patents

      • Don’t bury good points “under sea of dross,” says Judge Carr

        The High Court justice says it’s irritating when people take numerous points “indiscriminately,” how it’s essential for top QCs to join the judiciary and that he won’t refer cases on the SPC Regulation any more, in an exclusive discussion with Managing IP

    • Copyrights

      • The 'Lion King' Secret Disney Doesn't Want You To Know

        [...] Yet despite this Xerox-like approach to filmmaking, Disney isn't compensating or even crediting the original writers. Screenwriters working in animation don't have the same protections (or residuals) as their live-action counterparts in the Writers Guild of America, all thanks to some random incident back in 1938.

        While a lot of fans were understandably upset to learn this, we'd like to point out that there are possibly other creative parties being shafted here too. Namely, the folks behind Kimba The White Lion. We've talked before about how The Lion King is suspiciously similar to the '60s Japanese series. [...]

      • Alleged Mastermind of Giant Pirate Manga Site Arrested in Manilla

        The alleged former operator of Mangamura, a site blamed for causing an estimated $2.9 billion in damages to the Japanese manga industry, has been detained in Manilla. According to immigration officials in the Philippines, 28-year-old Romi Hoshino was arrested Sunday when attempting to board a plane to Hong Kong.

      • Cooperative ‘Copyright Troll’ Lawyer Sentenced to Five Years in Prison

        John Steele, one of the attorneys behind the 'copyright troll' law firm Prenda, has been sentenced to five years in prison. The attorney was one of the masterminds behind the fraudulent scheme that extracted settlements from alleged pirates. Because of Steele's cooperative stance, his sentence is significantly lower than that of co-conspirator Paul Hansmeier.

      • Game Developers Want You To ‘Pirate’ Games Instead Of Buying From Key Resellers

        Video game key reselling is a vast market and a major pain point for games studios. Small video game development studios are now urging users to pirate games instead of purchasing them from key resellers. Developers say that the sale of keys, which are ultimately sold for a high amount in illegal markets, cost them more than they earn.

        One such developer named Mike Rose from No More Robots, a Manchester-based gaming studio is running a petition on change.org. In his petition, he called out G2A, a popular online marketplace for key resellers, to stop selling indie titles on their platform.

Recent Techrights' Posts

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Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
 
People Don't Just Kill Themselves (Same for Other Animals)
And recent reports about Boeing whistleblower John Barnett
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
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Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
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Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day