Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 26/3/2021: OBS on Wayland and Diffoscope 171



  • GNU/Linux

    • Server

      • Why you should care about service mesh

        Many developers wonder why they should care about service mesh. It's a question I'm asked often in my presentations at developer meetups, conferences, and hands-on workshops about microservices development with cloud-native architecture. My answer is always the same: "As long as you want to simplify your microservices architecture, it should be running on Kubernetes."

        Concerning simplification, you probably also wonder why distributed microservices must be designed so complexly for running on Kubernetes clusters. As this article explains, many developers solve the microservices architecture's complexity with service mesh and gain additional benefits by adopting service mesh in production.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Kernel Space

      • Linux 5.13 To Bring A Huge Speed-Up For MD RAID10 DISCARD Handling

        For those running Linux MD RAID10 arrays you may have found the performance around discard requests such as when running MKFS and FSTRIM operations to be rather slow... Well, with Linux 5.13 it will be lightning fast.

        For years there have been reports of slow DISCARD handling for RAID10 MD block devices under Linux...

        [...]

        This dramatic speed-up from 280 seconds to less than 1 second has now been queued into Linux-block's for-next branch ahead of the Linux 5.13 kernel from md-next. Thus barring any issues from coming up, this optimization will be found in Linux 5.13.

      • Linux 5.13 To Fix Its Handling Of Unused ACPI Power Resources

        Two fixes were queued this week into the Linux kernel's power management "linux-next" branch that could help improve the power management behavior for some devices as up to now the Linux kernel was not properly following the ACPI specification.

        An Intel discovered and fixed issue was Linux not turning off unused power resources during initialization. For select platforms there may appear to be power resources not associated with any devices physically present on the platform. The ACPI specification outlines that the OS should turn off such unused power resources, but the Linux kernel currently doesn't do this -- with Linux 5.13 that will happen.

        [...]

        Following that is this patch to turn off unused power resources unconditionally. This should help for ensuring unused power resources get turned off regardless of what is being reported by the BIOS should its state get confused.

      • Graphics Stack

        • Collabora announce PanVk, an open source Vulkan driver for Arm Mali Midgard and Bifrost

          Open source consulting firm Collabora are certainly busy. While they work with Steam owner Valve on various things, they also work in other areas of Linux like driver development - their latest being PanVk.

          Extending the Panfrost driver which currently supports OpenGL and ES across Arm Mali Midgard and Bifrost GPUs, they're now looking at Vulkan support now that Panfrost is getting quite mature. PanVk itself is already being worked on, with enough of the Vulkan API implemented so that vkcube can run but it's still overall in the early stages of development so real-world applications need more functions added and optimization is not yet a focus.

        • Another Intel Gen12 Performance Optimization Coming For Mesa's Vulkan Driver

          A small but measurable and seemingly widespread performance optimization is currently being buttoned up for Intel's open-source "ANV" Vulkan driver within Mesa to benefit latest-generation Gen12/Xe Graphics.

          A pending merge request is providing 1~3% better performance on Intel Gen12 graphics hardware with the ANV Vulkan driver. Games like Dota 2, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Fallout 4, and others have been tested and confirmed to benefit.

        • Lavapipe CPU-Based Vulkan Performance Looking Good Compared To SwiftShader - Phoronix

          Google's open-source SwiftShader has been supporting a software-based Vulkan implementation for some time, building off its prior OpenGL / GLES and D3D9 support. While SwiftShader's Vulkan implementation has received heavy investment and attention from Google, it turns out Mesa's Lavapipe software implementation is beginning to pull ahead.

          The CPU-based Mesa Lavapipe Vulkan implementation started by Red Hat's David Airlie and continued to work on part time by him and other Mesa developers is actually looking better now than Google's SwiftShader, at least according to Airlie's recent benchmarks. David meanwhile continues working on many different areas of Mesa, maintaining the DRM subsystem for the kernel, and his other areas of attention at Red Hat. Granted, Lavapipe is able to leverage existing Mesa infrastructure, but the results are looking real well against Google's SwiftShader receiving full-time attention.

        • Mesa's Intel Vulkan Driver Introduces A Null Hardware Layer - Phoronix

          Intel's latest addition to Mesa 21.1 with their "ANV" Vulkan driver is... A null hardware layer.

          This "nullhw" Vulkan layer is to disable all rendering and compute commands in the command parsing hardware. This null hardware Vulkan layer was written a year ago but only merged now.

        • New OBS Plugin Offers Game Capture Solution on Wayland (for Vulkan renderers)

          One of the issues cropping up in the migration from Xorg to Wayland is the desire to capture part or all of your screen for recording and/or streaming to others - in many cases, applications designed for Xorg simply capture a black screen, with few workarounds.

          However, for games and applications that can run with the Vulkan API, there's a new plugin from David Rosca (nowrep) for OBS Studio called obs-vkcapture (OBS Plugin Forum | GitHub) that aims to work around the issue and get your gameplay ingested directly, bypassing the built-in Xorg 'Window Capture'.

    • Applications

      • NAVER Whale 2.9.115.16 Is Released

        The South Korean Internet giant NAVER has released a new version of their feature-rich proprietary Whale web browser. It features a online video conferencing solution called "Whale On", which has been greatly improved in the latest release, and a music player, a calculator and many other interesting features other web browsers do not have. Whale is available for Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS and Android.

        [...]

        The toolbar above the web page area has a button that lets you control the built-in music player, a button that lets you take a screenshot of a part of a web page, entire web pages or the entire screen, a button that lets you split the web browser window in two and a button that expands or closes the feature-rich sidebar.

        The sidebar is full of features that are unique to NAVER Whale. There's a toolbox with a clock, an alarm, a calculator, a calendar, a conversion tool and other useful tools, a scrapbook, a bookmark manager, a language translator, a music player, a comic strip reader, something called "NOW" and a few online services you can only use if you have a NAVER account.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to Install Tomcat 10 on Debian 10 – TecAdmin

        Apache Tomcat is an open source web server with servlet container for publishing Java based web applications. Tomcat is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation. As of today, Tomcat 10 is the latest stable version available for the installation on development and production environments. To know more about the Apache Tomcat visit apache official site http://tomcat.apache.org/.

        This tutorial will help you to how to install Apache Tomcat 10 on Debian 10 Buster Linux system.

      • How to Add a New Device to BTRFS File System in Linux

        BTRFS – an abbreviation for the B-tree file system, is a modern Linux file system and logical volume manager optimized for fault tolerance, error detection, and repair. BTRFS uses the Copy on Write (CoW) principle and it provides features such as snapshots, RAID, and self-healing.

      • How To Install Canon Printer Driver in Ubuntu Linux

        Canon is one of the largest printing giants in the world. It is used widely for both industrial, office, and home usage. Normally, using a mobile printer is easy and doesn’t require a lot of computing knowledge. On Windows, you can find the official software driver for each printer device. But, in Ubuntu Linux, it automatically detects the printer, and the CPU transfers the print command to the printer. However, if you have any issues setting up your Canon printer on your Ubuntu system, you can install a few packages on your system and make your printer ready. There are a few methods available on the web that you can use to install the Canon printer driver in Ubuntu and other Debian distribution-based systems.

      • 10 Helpful Tips for Managing a Nextcloud Docker Instance

        Nextcloud needs no introduction. It is the most popular open-source software for self-hosting a collaboration suite that gives you access to document collaboration, file hosting, project management boards and chat service.

        We have been using Nextcloud for managing our team activities on Linux Handbook and It's FOSS. We self-host our Nextcloud instance, obviously. This self-hosting experience has taught us several important lessons and I am going to share them with you. This will help you if you happen to be a day-to-day Nextcloud administrator.

        I assume that you use Docker to deploy Nextcloud. Most tips are centered around that while some are generic advices that are valid for all kind of Nextcloud deployments.

      • How to Integrate Nautilus File Manager with Git

        Nautilus file manager is the software of choice for many Linux users who enjoying using GUI apps for directory management. Personally, I like to work with Git via the terminal because I learned to be more efficient in working that way.

        The last time we talked about this, I had to use an extension to make it work. This is the reason why I am now happy to tell you that you can also be efficient using the GUI thanks to Nautilus integration capability for Git on the GNOME desktop environment.

        This is particularly good news because some users have had to employ third-party apps to achieve the same goals and that no longer has to be the case. What is required to integrate Git with your file manager? Nautilus, a Git account, and sudo privileges.

      • Network address translation part 3 – the conntrack event framework

        This is the third post in a series about network address translation (NAT). The first article introduced how to use the iptables/nftables packet tracing feature to find the source of NAT-related connectivity problems. Part 2 introduced the “conntrack” command. This part gives an introduction to the “conntrack” event framework.

      • A sysadmin's favorite Linux history command line hack

        Like many people working with Linux machines, I prefer using the command line interface when possible and when it makes sense. In some cases, it is easier to find, inspect, and modify some configurations using your fingers because they just "know" the commands you need to type, and it's quicker than opening a GUI and searching for the sequence of menus that you need to click.

        Sure, there are some cases when using the GUI is faster, and you're only doing that task once or twice, so who cares, right? But if it's something that you'll need to do multiple times, maybe with some variations, your sysadmin brain ponders, "Can I automate this?" In many cases, the answer will be, yes, but the effort to automate the task isn't worth it in other situations.

    • Games

      • 2 Years Later, Valve's Hands Off Approach To Adult Games Is Still Confusing, Still Very Much Not Hands Off

        Back in 2018, after a year of truly hammering down on independent game studios producing what many would consider "adult" or "porn" games, Valve finally relented and said its Steam platform would be more open. As part of the announcement, Valve indicated it would take a hands off approach to game curation and allow more adult-style games generally, later clarifying that it intended to prevent only "troll" games. If all of that sounds incredibly vague and ripe for creating a massive and confusing mess, well, that's precisely what happened. Developers saw the chance that Steam would accept their games as a crapshoot, with some making it through and others not. The reasons for denials were equally vague and arbitrary.

      • Google Chromebooks could soon be surprising gaming laptops — here's how

        Chromebooks may get a new "game mode" that will make Google-powered laptops a lot more useful for gaming — which would in turn play into long-rumored plans to bring Steam to Chrome OS.

        According to Chrome Unboxed, a new entry in the Chromium Gerrit hints at the possibility of a game mode toggle for Borealis — an upcoming Ubuntu-based Linux container. Specifically it looks designed to automatically activate game mode when you open or close a game.

      • Sid Meier's Civilization VI has finished the New Frontier Pass with a Portugal DLC | GamingOnLinux

        The sixth and final DLC pack is out as part of the New Frontier Pass with a Portugal DLC for Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. Available to all who purchased the pack, or as an individual DLC. It includes the Portugal civilization with João III, the Nau unique unit, and two unique structures, the Navigation School building and the Feitoria.

        You also get access to a new Zombies Defense game mode. In this optional game mode, the dead don’t stay dead for long and present an ever-growing threat to the world’s civilizations. On top of that you also get a new Wetlands Map Script and two new World Wonders.

      • Them's Fightin' Herds is now available on Linux with the 2.0 update out now | GamingOnLinux

        Ready, FIGHT! Them's Fightin' Herds from Mane6, Inc. and Humble Games has now been officially ported to Linux with the 2.0 patch release and the Shanty character DLC is out now too. Them’s Fightin’ Herds is an indie fighting game featuring a cast of adorable animals designed by acclaimed cartoon producer Lauren Faust. Beneath the cute and cuddly surface, a serious fighter awaits!

        This 2.0 update is the biggest yet, so big in fact that their patch notes are ridiculously long. The highlight for us here is of course their new fancy Linux build! It works to perfection too, I've been playing it today and it's very smooth and looking fantastic.

      • Sub Rosa, an experimental online multiplayer FPS finally enters Early Access | GamingOnLinux

        After being around in some form for quite a few years now, Cryptic Sea and Devolver Digital have now released Sub Rosa into proper Early Access on the Steam store.

        "Sub Rosa is an experimental online multiplayer FPS with a focus on orchestrating deals and coordinating a team of players to increase their wealth and perceived status in the game. This requires a great deal of iteration and testing with how a growing numbers of players understand and react to the possibilities laid out before them in Sub Rosa. Early Access gives an opportunity to tinker with many facets of the game in an attempt to better the experience for everyone."

      • Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun - Aiko's Choice standalone expansion announced | GamingOnLinux

        Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun was one of the best games from 2016 easily, it helped to revive a classic style of tactical stealth games and it's coming back with Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun - Aiko's Choice.

        This is a standalone expansion from the same developer, Mimimi Games. Now they're finished with Desperados III they've come back to their first proper hit. Set in Japan around the Edo period, you take control of kunoichi adept Aiko and her deadly assassin friends to hunt down the ghosts of her past.

        [...]

        So that's good news for us that they still plan to continue their Linux support.

      • The Remote Play Together Sale & Livestream is live on Steam

        Ready to bring some friends together this weekend but still social distancing because of COVID-19? Valve have your back here with a big sale now on for games that work with Remote Play Together. This follows on from the big Steam Client update with the 'Invite Anyone' feature, along with the Steam Link app finally coming to Linux.

      • Popular Game Titles Metro Exodus and Total War: Rome Remastered Releasing for Linux in April

        Metro Exodus is popular as a post-apocalyptic setting first-person shooter game as a modern sequel to Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. And, Total War: Rome remastered is just a reboot of the classic RTS game which was quite popular as well.

        Recently, they’ve both announced that the game titles are also releasing for Linux with native support in April.

        Considering the promising work being done by Steam with Proton, Linux is probably going to become a first-class platform for games soon. And, the arrival of popular game titles like Metro Exodus and Total War: Rome remastered is just something that re-affirms that hope.

    • Distributions

      • BSD

        • Buffer overruns, license violations, and bad code: FreeBSD 13’s close call

          At first glance, Matthew Macy seemed like a perfectly reasonable choice to port WireGuard into the FreeBSD kernel. WireGuard is an encrypted point-to-point tunneling protocol, part of what most people think of as a "VPN." FreeBSD is a Unix-like operating system that powers everything from Cisco and Juniper routers to Netflix's network stack, and Macy had plenty of experience on its dev team, including work on multiple network drivers. So when Jim Thompson, the CEO of Netgate, which makes FreeBSD-powered routers, decided it was time for FreeBSD to enjoy the same level of in-kernel WireGuard support that Linux does, he reached out to offer Macy a contract. Macy would port WireGuard into the FreeBSD kernel, where Netgate could then use it in the company's popular pfSense router distribution. The contract was offered without deadlines or milestones; Macy was simply to get the job done on his own schedule.

          With Macy's level of experience—with kernel coding and network stacks in particular—the project looked like a slam dunk. But things went awry almost immediately. WireGuard founding developer Jason Donenfeld didn't hear about the project until it surfaced on a FreeBSD mailing list, and Macy didn't seem interested in Donenfeld's assistance when offered. After roughly nine months of part-time development, Macy committed his port—largely unreviewed and inadequately tested—directly into the HEAD section of FreeBSD's code repository, where it was scheduled for incorporation into FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE.

          This unexpected commit raised the stakes for Donenfeld, whose project would ultimately be judged on the quality of any production release under the WireGuard name. Donenfeld identified numerous problems with Macy's code, but rather than object to the port's release, Donenfeld decided to fix the issues. He collaborated with FreeBSD developer Kyle Evans and with Matt Dunwoodie, an OpenBSD developer who had worked on WireGuard for that operating system. The three replaced almost all of Macy's code in a mad week-long sprint.

      • Arch Family

        • Manjaro Linux 21.0 "Ornara" Is Released in Xfce, KDE and GNOME flavors

          The latest version of the Arch-based community-made GNU/Linux distribution Manjaro comes with a better and more intelligent installer and Linux Kernel 5.10. It is available in three desktop flavors: Xfce 4.16, which is the most popular one among Manjaro users, KDE Plasma 5.21 and GNOME 3.38 (not 40).

          [...]

          The updated installer is the main highlight in this release. The "Calamares" installer used by Manjaro will now lookup your location using a GeoIP database and use that information to propose language settings, keyboard settings and time-zone. It will only propose defaults based on where it thinks you are, you can override its suggestions if you want to.

          Manjaros improved installer will, for some reason, propose "No swap" as a default in the disk Partitions section. It is possible to change that. It is also possible to enable Encrypt system with a single check-box. The rest of the options you have to configure are strait forward with the Users section being a notable exception. It won't let you proceed without entering some string in the What is your name? field - like that's somehow any of Manjaros business.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Taking the plunge into open source

          Finding a new open source project might seem daunting, but it may not be as hard as you think. If you are passionate about any hobby or cause in your life, you can probably find an existing open source project that is closely related to your interests.

          Do you sew clothing? Projects exist that build open source patterns or feed inputs into sewing hardware. Passionate about flight? Investigate some of the many open source drone projects. Within any of those projects, whenever you catch yourself thinking that something could be better or different, seize on that impulse. This could be your first contribution waiting to happen.

          It doesn't have to be an earth-shattering change either. You might find a broken link or a typo in some of the project's text. Or you’re a user of the project and you notice something is not working as expected. This is your chance to not only start contributing and improving a project, but also making your cause or hobby that much better!

        • Running Oracle Linux in public clouds

          Research from the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) indicates that 78% of organizations run different Linux distributions in the public cloud than they do on-premises. This can mean different management tools, different administrator certifications, different support contracts, and even different levels of patching and security compliance. The same ESG study shows that two-thirds of surveyed organizations regularly move workloads between public clouds, but find these migrations painful because of the differences in technology stacks, and the resultant issues with performance, security, availability, and in-house skills. (ESG Research Insights Paper Survey: Today's Top 3 IT Challenges with Modern Application Environments, March 2021)

          To help reduce this complexity, Oracle's Linux distribution is consistent across deployments on premises, in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services.

          When running Oracle Linux on premises or in clouds, customers have access to the exact same code and packages. Oracle Linux improves performance of all workloads and is optimized–out of the box–for Oracle software. Oracle Linux is 100% application binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Since 2006, Oracle Linux has been completely free to download and use. Free source code, binaries, and updates. Freely redistributable. Free for production use.

        • Feeling brave? GNOME 40 is here and you can have a poke around in the Fedora 34 beta

          The GNOME project has released version 40 of its Linux desktop, with a new design for finding and launching applications and updated core apps.

          GNOME is the default desktop for numerous Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Red Hat and variants such as Fedora and CentOS Stream, SUSE, and many more.

          Version 40 is the first to use a new numbering scheme. The previous version was 3.38, but the project did not want to get to 4.0 out of concern that it would be perceived as too big a shift. "If we ever did release 4, then people would see it as a huge change in [that] everything's going to be broken again, and that's not really what we've got," executive director Neil McGovern told The Reg last year.

          There is history here: GNOME 3.0 caused considerable grief and was described by Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, as "crazy crap" and "really annoying".

        • How to Upgrade to Fedora 34 Beta Right Now

          Fedora 34 will be releasing next month. Fedora 34 beta is already released and it features the awesome new GNOME 40.

          If you are running Fedora 33 right now and want to enjoy GNOME 40 and all the other features that come with Fedora 34, you can easily do that.

          In this tutorial, I’ll show the steps for upgrading to Fedora 34 beta using terminal as well as the GUI method.

        • Friday’s Fedora Facts: 2021-12



          Here’s your weekly Fedora report. Read what happened this week and what’s coming up. Your contributions are welcome (see the end of the post)! The Final freeze begins 6 April.

          I have weekly office hours on Wednesdays in the morning and afternoon (US/Eastern time) in #fedora-meeting-1. Drop by if you have any questions or comments about the schedule, Changes, elections, or anything else. See the upcoming meetings for more information.

      • Debian Family

        • Raspberry Pi OS Is Now Powered by Linux Kernel 5.10 LTS, Improves Support for Raspberry Pi 400

          The Raspberry Pi Foundation released today a new version of their Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) distribution for the tiny Raspberry Pi computers, finally upgrading the kernel to Linux 5.10 LTS, which brings numerous new features and improvements and is supported until December 2022.

          Linux kernel 5.10.17 is included in the new Raspberry Pi OS release, which also improves support for the Raspberry Pi 400 computer by ensuring the keyboard country is correctly read in the startup wizard, adds support for NVMe devices to SD Card Copier utility, and ports the Recommended Software app to GTK3 for a more modern UI.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Full Circle Magazine #167
        • What’s in a snap?

          Snaps are several things, all at once. They are confined, standalone Linux applications that bundle all their necessary dependencies, which means they do not need to rely on the underlying system, and can run independently of it. Snaps are also packaged as compressed Squashfs filesystems, using the .snap extension. For most users, they are an abstraction to get software on their Linux distro, in a simple, straightforward manner. But you may wonder, what lurks inside?

          [...]

          Your snap (or a snap) could have only a handful of folders, or a whole range of them, including custom paths and structure. The contents will differ from one application to another, but at the end of the day, there is no great mystery about what snaps are. Anyone can download, unpack and inspect any snap, and see exactly what they do. In many cases, you will have an exact trail of environment variables and commands that run. If you want to learn a bit more about what else to expect inside a snap, you may want to check the snap format documentation for other useful details.

          Finally, if you want to experiment, you can try the handy snap try command – to make quick, live changes to snaps, and test modified behavior. This can be quite useful if you want to speed up your development. That’s all we had today. If you have any comments or suggestions, please join our forum for a discussion.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • 10 open source tools for content creators

        There are a lot of well-known open source applications used in web design, but there are also many great tools that are not as popular. I thought I'd challenge myself to find some obscure options on the chance I might find something useful.

        Open source offers a wealth of options, so it's no surprise that I found 10 new applications that I now consider indispensable to my work.

      • SongRec – open source Shazam client

        Shazam is an app that identifies multimedia. The program stores a catalogue of audio fingerprints in a database. Shazam works by analyzing the captured sound and seeking a match based on an acoustic fingerprint in a database of millions of songs. It generates a spectrogram (a time/frequency 2D graph of the sound, with amplitude at intersections) of the sound, and maps out the frequency peaks from it (which should match key points of the harmonics of voice or of certain instruments).

        Shazam can identify music, movies, advertising, and television shows, based on a short sample played either through the microphone of the device and also when you’re listening through your headphones.

      • The Apache News Round-up: week ending 26 March 2021

        Farewell, March --we're wrapping up the month with another great week.

      • SaaS/Back End/Databases

        • Catalyst Cloud is wooing Oracle DB users with PostgreSQL offer

          Catalyst Cloud is now offering PostgreSQL as an alternative to proprietary databases in its new managed database service.

          The company launched the managed database as a service offering into tech preview five months ago, saying the fully automated database infrastructure allowed customers to focus on delivering what really mattered for their businesses

      • FSF

        • The Stallman wars

          So, 2021 isn't bad enough yet, but don't despair, people are working to fix that:

          Welcome to the Stallman wars

          Team Cancel: https://rms-open-letter.github.io/ (repo)

          Team Support: https://rms-support-letter.github.io/ (repo)

          Current stats are...

        • Free Software Community Condemns Richard Stallman’s Reinstatement to FSF Board of Directors [Ed: No, they are not the "Free Software Community"; people who attack RMS are typically those working for openwashing]

          Stallman’s reinstatement came with a staggering lack of transparency from FSF’s board of directors and has triggered a cascade of condemnation from individuals and organizations across the tech industry. Among the many critical responsibilities it maintains, the FSF currently holds the copyrights to enforce the GPL.

        • Update on work to improve governance at the FSF

          The voting members unanimously agreed to elect a union staff member, selected by the FSF union staff, to be a full voting member and director. The first such representative will be elected as soon as the staff chooses one. The FSF will adopt by-law changes to implement this as a requirement going forward.

      • Programming/Development

        • Create Golang Virtual Environments Using Conda In Linux - OSTechNix

          Since Conda is a language-agnostic package and virtual environment manager, we can easily create virtual environments for different programming languages. We already knew how to create Nodejs virtual environments and Rust virtual environments. Today, we will see how to create Golang virtual environments using Conda in Linux.

        • NGRX Actions

          This is what defines an Action.

          Ngrx implements a message passing architecture, where Actions are dispatched.

        • How to read and write files in C++

          In C++, reading and writing to files can be done by using I/O streams in conjunction with the stream operators >> and >>. When reading or writing to files, those operators are applied to an instance of a class representing a file on the hard drive. This stream-based approach has a huge advantage: From a C ++ perspective, it doesn't matter what you are reading or writing to, whether it's a file, a database, the console, or another PC you are connected to over the network. Therefore, knowing how to write files using stream operators can be transferred to other areas.

          [...]

          Reading and writing to files in C++ is not that complicated. Moreover, if you know how to deal with I/O streams, you also know (in principle) how to deal with any kind of I/O device. Libraries for various kinds of I/O devices let you use stream operators for easy access. This is why it is beneficial to know how I/O steams work.

  • Leftovers

    • Opinion | Bigger Than Her
    • Science

      • National Security AI Commission Recommends Ramping Up a Military Tech Race with China

        The national media paid scant attention to the release, on March 1, of the final report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI). In high government circles, however, it is receiving close and admiring attention. That’s because the report bolsters a widely held perception among senior policy-makers—Democrats and Republicans alike—that the United States is engaged in a protracted struggle with China for global supremacy and risks losing out to its more tech-savvy adversary. “For the first time since World War II, America’s technological predominance—the backbone of its economic and military power—is under threat,” the report asserts. “China possesses the might, talent, and ambition to surpass the United States as the world’s leader in AI in the next decade if current trends do not change.” If this country is to avert such a calamity, “the US government must embrace the AI competition and organize to win it.”

    • Education

    • Health/Nutrition

      • Opinion | Greed Drove Big Pharma Companies to Privatize Vaccines Developed With Public Resources

        Boris Johnson claimed the UK's vaccine breakthrough was brought about by 'giant corporations that wanted to give good returns to shareholders.' Nothing could be further from the truth.

      • Who are the 10 Biggest Pandemic Profiteers?

        Here are highlights from the last 12 months of billionaire wealth growth:

        The 10 biggest “Pandemic Profiteers” saw the greatest percentage increase in their wealth—at least 300 percent. [See Table 2]

      • Pandemic Profiteers: How U.S. Billionaires Like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Saw Wealth Grow by $1.3 Trillion

        A new report reveals that as a record number of people in the United States lost their jobs and struggled to put food on the table during the past year of the pandemic, the combined wealth of the 657 billionaires in the country grew more than $1.3 trillion, nearly 45%, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who saw his personal wealth increase by $65 billion — more than $7 million every hour. “They are often leading companies who have benefited from the pandemic conditions by having, essentially, their competition shut down,” says Chuck Collins, author of the report on pandemic profiteers by the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness. “These folks have reaped enormous windfalls in this pandemic.” The massive gains come as pressure grows on lawmakers to impose new taxes on the top 1%, with both Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders proposing new measures to address growing economic inequality.

      • New York State Reaches Deal to Legalize Recreational Marijuana

        The deal would put a 13% sales tax in place for cannabis and would allow people 21 and older to use the drug recreationally. The changes reportedly won’t impact existing medical marijuana dispensaries.

        According to Bloomberg, 9% of the total tax would go to the state and the remaining 4% would go to local governments. The move to legalize marijuana would create a new revenue stream for the state — around $350 million in annual tax revenue once fully implemented, according to an estimate from Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office.

      • Pollution from fossil fuel combustion deadlier than previously thought

        A new study found that fine particulate pollution generated by the burning of fossil fuels was responsible for one in five early deaths worldwide in 2018—far more than previously thought. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Aaron Bernstein said that the people most at risk are those “who can least afford it.”

        Bernstein, interim director of Harvard Chan School’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE), discussed the study in a March 19, 2021, interview on the PRX radio show “Living on Earth.”

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Security

          • The Hidden Danger Behind Double Reporting Of Vulnerabilities - OSTechNix

            This detailed guide talks about why security teams are overwhelmed with vulnerabilities, the danger that hides behind the double reporting of vulnerabilities, and how to mitigate such vulnerabilities using live patching tools like KernelCare.

            We know that the cybersecurity threat is growing, with matching growth in the efforts to try and mitigate the threat and the associated costs. But evidence suggests that mitigation is not progressing quickly enough.

            According to a joint analysis performed by McAfee and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2020 will see the global cost of cybercrime rise past the $1tn mark for the first time - a massive increase of 50% over the 2018 total. That is a rate of change clearly outpacing any comparable metric such as GDP growth, or growth in IT expenditure.

          • Reproducible Builds (diffoscope): diffoscope 171 released

            The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version 171. This version includes the following changes:

            [ Mattia Rizzolo ]

            * Do not list as a "skipping reason" tools that do exist.

            * Drop the "compose" tool from the list of required tools for these tests,

            since it doesn't seem to be required.

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • Data Broker Looking To Sell Real-Time Vehicle Location Data To Government Agencies, Including The Military

              Location data is the new growth market. Data harvested from apps is sold to data brokers who, in turn, sell this to whoever's buying. Lately, the buyers have been a number of government agencies, including the CBP, ICE, DEA, Secret Service, IRS, and -- a bit more worryingly -- the Defense Department.

            • 'Focus on Structural Power': Lawmakers Told to Press Big Tech CEOs on 'Toxic' Business Model

              "Tech CEOs want to talk about their content policies and moderation efforts—because they know their core business models are indefensible."

            • Roskomnadzor puts forward draft order requiring passport data for new user registration on social networks

              Roskomnadzor (Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media) has written up a draft order that will require new users joining social networks and messengers to provide their passport data, address, telephone number, and email address, reports the Russian business newspaper Kommersant.€ 

            • Everything you wanted to know about "surveillance advertising" - and how to avoid it

              What makes this latest initiative different is that it has an associated Web site that draws together a wide range of information about surveillance advertising and its problems. For example, it points to recent market research carried out by GQR in January this year among 1000 people registered to vote in the US. It shows 49% were strongly opposed to companies that track behavior online and collect personal data in order to target people with ads; 25% were somewhat opposed, while 19% were somewhat supportive, and only 7% strongly supported the practice. Even allowing for the fact that the sample was quite small, and may not be completely representative, it’s clear that ordinary people are well aware of the dangers of micro-targeted advertising based on constant surveillance, and unhappy about it.

            • Privacy Talks: Interview with Micah Lee from The Intercept
            • Filmmakers Around the World Team on Cloud Production Test: "It's Part of Our Future"

              Each production implemented COVID safety procedures and used different combinations of technologies, allowing the participants to experiment with numerous workflows that enable remote, cloud-based production tasks including live review of camera footage, dailies, and participation in editorial, color grading and mixing sessions. The experiment involved the Amazon, Google and Microsoft clouds, as well as a range of technologies from participating manufacturers including 5th Kind, Adobe, ARRI, Avid, Bebop, Blackmagic, Colorfront, Evercast, Frame.io, Moxion, Sohonet, Teredek and Teradici. The shorts were also made with the collaboration of many companies from VFX house Framestore and Skywalker Sound (which mixed four of the shorts).

            • Twitter’s ‘unofficial mayor’ Chrissy Teigen quits platform after years of harassment

              Chrissy Teigen, a prolific tweeter the company once called the mayor of Twitter, quit the social media platform Wednesday night. In a series of now-deleted tweets, Teigen said Twitter “no longer serves me as positively as it serves me negatively, and I think that’s the right time to call something.”

            • Chrissy Teigen Deletes Her Twitter Account: ‘It’s Time for Me to Say Goodbye’

              After more than a decade on Twitter, Chrissy Teigen has had enough of the social network.

              The model, TV personality, author and entrepreneur on Wednesday posted a thread on Twitter, telling her more than 13.7 million followers that she was leaving the platform — before she deleted the account.

            • Facebook, Google CEOs Blasted in Congress Over Apps for Kids

              At a hearing focused on disinformation and extremism, lawmakers pressed Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc. and Google, which owns YouTube, to answer questions about whether their products are designed to keep kids addicted and pose a threat to their well-being.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Opinion | Will Drones Really Protect Us?

        Drugs, surveillance & the war on terror.

      • Prison officials describe Alexey Navalny’s health as ‘stable and satisfactory.’ His lawyers say he’s in ‘severe pain.’

        According to the results of a medical examination, opposition politician Alexey Navalny’s health has been deemed satisfactory, Interfax reported on Thursday, March 25, citing spokespeople for the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) in the Vladimir region.

      • Opinion | Waging War at the Supermarket and Abroad

        When the killing is done in the context of war, it’s not murder.

      • The Urgent Need for a Biden-Putin Summit

        Whatever you think of Biden’s€ assertion€ during an ABC News interview that Russia’s President Putin is “a killer” — and whether or not you think the label might apply to Biden, given his pro-war record — the existential imperative of U.S.-Russian relations is to avert a nuclear war. Biden’s claim during the same interview that Putin does not have “a soul” indicates that much of the new president’s foreign-policy thinking is stuck in a cold-war rut.

        No doubt many Americans have welcomed Biden’s holier-than-thou stance toward Putin. But an overarching reality is routinely hidden in plain sight: Everyone’s survival on this planet hinges on Washington-Moscow conflicts not spinning out of control.

      • Opinion | A Personal Recollection on the Day That Launched the Iraq War—and Its Lessons for Us 18 Years Later

        We’ve seen where dehumanization leads: to violence, war, and regret.

      • Upholding Hawaii Law, Federal Court Rules 'No Right to Carry Arms Openly in Public'

        "This is much-needed good news following recent high-profile gun massacres in Atlanta and Boulder," said Kris Brown, president of the gun control group Brady: United Against Gun Violence.

      • Opinion | U.S. Joins "Rules-Based World" on Afghanistan

        It is a sign of hope that Biden and Blinken are turning to legitimate, multilateral diplomacy in the case of Afghanistan, even if only because, after 20 years of war, they finally see diplomacy as a last resort.

      • US Military Ordered 'Clandestine Burning' of Toxic Chemicals in Poor Neighborhoods: Study

        "Congress needs to throw cold water on the Pentagon's mad dash to burn toxic firefighting foam," which "threatens the health of millions of Americans."

      • The Supreme Court May Be About to Blast Another Hole in Gun Control

        In America, returning to “normal” means returning to the constant drumbeat of gun violence and mass shootings. We are the only wealthy country in the world that refuses to protect ourselves or our children from gun violence, and the year of pandemic-induced isolation did not make us any less barbaric.

      • Reminding South Korea Who is Boss: Biden’s Enforcers Pay a Visit

        That approach found a receptive audience in meetings with Japanese officials, who recognize it as offering a path to remilitarization. Results in South Korea were more ambiguous. By a substantial margin, China is South Korea’s primary trading partner, and relations between the two nations are generally solid. South Korea has no rational reason to join Washington’s fanatical anti-China campaign, no matter how much pressure the United States applies. A difference of opinion between Washington’s envoys and South Korean officials can be inferred by comparing the joint U.S.-Japan statement with South Korea’s, as only the latter lacked China-bashing verbiage.

        Blinken and Austin appear to have been more successful in reminding South Korean officials that no independent action should be taken to improve inter-Korean relations and in making it understood that Washington calls the shots. The two sides agreed to establish a “working-level diplomatic dialogue” process to align policy regarding North Korea and other matters. [2]In their joint statement, Korean and American officials affirmed that their two nations “are closely coordinating on all issues related to the Korean Peninsula” and that “these issues should be addressed through a fully-coordinated strategy toward North Korea.” [3]

      • Democracy Game Theory for Pakistan

        This commentary offers several game strategies that promise political stability and might even prevent military coups. Unfortunately, the game theory does not fully comport with the conventional principles of democracy. By no means is the democracy game theory superior to representative democracy. The game theory builds on the realism norm that the stealth player will continue to influence democracy in the foreseeable future. The game theory is irrelevant if the stealth player no longer interferes in the democratic process.

        Six Chambers

      • 1 in 5 Capitol Insurrectionists Tied to U.S. Military
      • Insurrection
      • US, Lobbyists and Arm Dealers Scramble to Reposition Amid Impending Saudi Defeat in Yemen

        In his last months in office, former President Donald Trump gave American defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Reaper drone manufacturer General Atomics Aeronautical Systems billions in projected earnings through a controversial $23 billion arms deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a deal now “under review” by the Biden administration.

      • Militias Still Recruiting On Facebook Demonstrates The Impossibility Of Content Moderation At Scale

        Yesterday, in a (deliberately, I assume) well-timed release, the Tech Transparency Project released a report entitled Facebook's Militia Mess, detailing how there are tons of "militia groups" organizing on the platform (first found via a report on Buzzfeed). You may recall that, just days after the insurrection at the Capitol, that Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg made the extremely disingenuous claim that only Facebook had the smarts to stop these groups, and that most of the organizing of the Capitol insurrection must have happened elsewhere. Multiple reports debunked that claim, and this new one takes it even further, showing that these groups are (1) still organizing on Facebook, and (2) Facebook's recommendation algorithm is still pushing people to them:

      • Armed drone power Airbus

        The German armed forces want to arm their drones. Germany, France, Italy and Spain are also to decide on combat drone swarms.

      • After 10 Years of Civil War in Syria, US (Quietly) Declares Defeat but Won’t Go Home

        This March marks the 10-year anniversary of the Arab Spring and the protests that rocked Syria, which were a starting point for the ongoing civil war. That conflict has led to over half a million deaths and nearly 13 million people displaced, according to some estimates.

      • Yemen Enters 7th Year of U.S.-Backed, Saudi-Led War That Caused the World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis

        As the world’s worst humanitarian crisis enters its seventh year in Yemen, we look at the toll of the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led air war. A new report by the Yemen Data Project summarizing the impact of air raids over the past six years finds the bombing campaign has killed almost 1,500 civilians every year on average, a quarter of them children. Journalist Iona Craig, who heads up the Yemen Data Project, says there have been almost 23,000 air raids since the war began in 2015. “We’re still seeing mass civilian casualty events,” says Craig. “We’re still seeing a large number of airstrikes on residential areas and, of course, on civilian infrastructure, which has been absolutely decimated over the last six years of the conflict.”

      • 1 in 5 Capitol Insurrectionists Tied to U.S. Military; Soldiers “Targets” for Extremist Recruitment

        Nearly one in five people facing charges related to the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol had some connection to the military, including at least two active-duty troops, prompting Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to order a 60-day stand-down across the services to address extremism. Ahead of the first deadline on April 6, the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing Wednesday on extremism in the U.S. military. We speak with one of the experts who testified. “People who are connected with the military are prime targets for extremists,” says Lecia Brooks, chief of staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Despite the decades of inaction, she says, “the conversation is moving forward” in Washington, as lawmakers are finally speaking openly about white supremacy and white nationalism.

      • QAnon and the Trump cult: Expert Steven Hassan on whether they can be saved

        QAnon, the anti-Semitic and white supremacist conspiracy-theory cult and live action roleplaying game, may actually be a new type of American religion, as Caroline Mimbs Nyce argued in a recent article at the Atlantic. In an interview with CBC radio, sociologist Edwin Hodge offered this complementary insight: [...]

    • Environment

      • Russia trolls Suez Canal with northern 'alternative'

        Russia has invested heavily in the development of the Northern Sea Route that allows ships to cut the journey to Asian ports by 15 days compared with the conventional route through the Suez Canal.

        As the route becomes increasingly free of ice due to climate change, Moscow is planning to use it to export oil and gas to overseas markets.

      • Protect fish to increase catches − and cut carbon

        There is a clear way to get more value from the seas: protect fish. New research confirms an old argument.

      • Families and Indigenous Youth Vow to 'Not Give Up' After Top EU Court Dismisses 'People's Climate Case'

        "We will keep fighting for justice and for the protection of fundamental rights that are threatened by the unequal and diverse impacts of climate change."

      • Energy

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • California Coastal Commission (Finally) Bans ORVs

          For forty years, the Coastal Commission has been arguing with the California State Parks and Recreation that thrillcraft jeopardized the area’s natural values, including the destruction of nests of endangered least terns and snowy plovers. There are ten species within the Park listed under state or federal laws that the Park agency is obligated to protect.

          But with thousands of dune buggies, dirt bikes, 4WD pickups, and other motorized thrillcraft tearing up the beach and dunes, protection of plants and animals is not among the Park’s priorities.

        • A Rare Good Move for Grizzlies

          Ranger Davy wrote: “Research indicates use of helicopters has significant negative impacts to denning grizzly bears, a threatened species. Wildlife biologists have documented occupied grizzly bear dens in the vicinity of the proposed use. Based on a preliminary review of this project, U.S. Fish and Wildlife agreed with Caribou-Targhee determination of an adverse effect to denning grizzly bears as well as an adverse effect to grizzlies emerging from their dens. Helicopter use would likely cause injury to denning females and possible mortality of cubs of the year. Some of the areas proposed for skiing and landing a helicopter are located within known avalanche prone areas creating a risk to public health and safety. This use as demonstrated by the applicant can be accommodated on lands other than National Forest System lands.”

          After the Forest Service first indicated that they were going to grant the permit for helicopter skiing, Yellowstone to Uintas Connection, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and Native Ecosystem Council jumped into action and submitted comments to the Caribou-Targhee National Forest pointing out that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s own maps showed the area is occupied grizzly bear habitat.

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

      • Government-Inspired Attacks on Female Journalists in El Salvador are Increasing

        For the first time in the 29 years since the signing of the peace accords, a president and several members of his cabinet have been called out for their repressive actions and for inciting violence against critics, in ways that echo the military governments of the 1980s.

        Last week, the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES) presented its report on attacks on journalists, freedom of expression and freedom of the press. According to the APES report “Freedom of Expression in El Salvador 2020”, aggressions against journalists doubled between March and September of that year. The organization registered 125 cases in 2020 and 77 in 2019, while in 2018 there were 65. The main culprits of threats and aggressions against journalists and media included President Nayib Bukele and several officials of his cabinet.

      • As it turns 50, Bangladesh is doing well, despite its politicians

        It is not just opposition activists, but also journalists and other critics of the government who increasingly wind up behind bars. In 2018 the government introduced the Digital Security Act, supposedly to curb religious radicalism and pornography online. But its vague provisions, which include stiff jail sentences for those who post “aggressive or frightening” content, have been used to silence critics of all sorts. Mushtaq Ahmed, a writer, was arrested last year after criticising the government’s response to covid-19 on Facebook. He died in prison last month, having been denied bail six times.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Recordings, Transcripts Show Police, Prosecutors Lied To A Grand Jury To Bring Gang Charges Against BLM Protesters

        More information has come out about the disastrous attempt by Arizona prosecutors to turn anti-police-violence protesters into a street gang. Phoenix police officers waded into the protest comprised of (checks official documents) 17 protesters, showering them with pepper balls and arresting them all. Charges were brought, including one very damaging one: assisting a criminal street gang. Gang charges are automatic felonies with hefty sentence enhancements.

      • 'Vicious Attack on Voting Rights': Georgia Governor Signs GOP Suppression Bill

        "This is why federal voting rights legislation is necessary."

      • 'All In for the EACH Act': Rights Advocates Applaud Bill to End Hyde Amendment

        "Congress has the opportunity to bring us one step closer to a world where access to abortion care doesn't depend on where you live, how you are insured, or how much money you have."

      • Opinion | Holding Our Breaths on AUMFs, Drones, and Guantánamo

        Three ways to begin to end the war on terror.

      • The Ghosts of Tortures Past

        A barely tolerated opposition magazine had published an excruciating interview with him, and I forced myself — having recently returned to my native land after 12 years of exile — to devour it with a mix of perverse curiosity and obvious dread. It was a tale of multiple horrors, detailing how Valenzuela and his fellow state agents had abducted dissidents, applied electricity to their genitals, dumped the corpses in rivers and ravines. I knew some of those victims personally and was aware that the viciousness inflicted on them and so many others could very well erupt into my own life.

        Overcome with revulsion, I resolved to forget that name, Andrés Valenzuela. As if banishing him from memory could deny his ferocious persistence. Because here he is again, the protagonist of Nona Fernández’s novel “The Twilight Zone,” translated fluidly into English by Natasha Wimmer. Given my initial distressing experience with the magazine interview, I approached this book with trepidation, also wary that a plethora of investigations, memoirs, films, fiction, essays, plays and poems had extensively covered the themes of terror, memory and the obstacles to national reconciliation since Pinochet’s loss of power in 1990. Could anything original still be expressed on the subject?

      • We are Living Through a Time of Fear – Not Just of the Virus, But of Each Other

        We are now firmly in a time of fear – not only of the virus, but of each other. Fear destroys solidarity. Fear forces us to turn inwards to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Fear refuses to understand or identify with the concerns of others.

        In fear societies, basic rights become a luxury. They are viewed as a threat, as recklessness, as a distraction that cannot be afforded in this moment of crisis.

      • The Border-Industrial Complex in the Post-Trump Era

        The Homeland Security vehicle soon pulled up next to us. An agent rolled down his window and asked me, “What are you doing? Joyriding?”

        After I laughed in response to a word I hadn’t heard in years, the agent informed us that we were in a dangerous construction zone, even if this part of the wall had been built four months earlier. I glanced around. There were no bulldozers, excavators, or construction equipment of any sort. I wondered whether the lack of machinery reflected the campaign promise of the recently inaugurated Joe Biden that “not another foot” of Trump’s wall would be built.

      • Bernie Sanders Is Heading to Bessemer During Last Days of Amazon Union Vote
      • Team Bernie vs. Amazon Executive: War of Words Erupts as Sanders Backs Alabama Union Drive

        "I am proud to stand in solidarity with Amazon workers in Alabama who are fighting for better wages and better working conditions."

      • The Debt We Owe Edward Said

        “Edward Said was our prince,” the Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif recently said in a conversation reflecting on the Palestinian public intellectual’s life and writings. An incomparable thinker, Said is credited with founding postcolonial studies, penning histories of cultural representation and “the Other,” and, in so doing, upending the Anglo-American academy. His Orientalism, published in 1978, is among the most cited books in modern history, by some accounts above Marx’s Capital and Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Throughout decades of essays, books, and reviews, Said showed his care for form and the structures of feeling, seeing in their examination a means of understanding music, literature, the world, and Palestine, his home.

      • “Tragic Moment”: Rohingya Suffer New Blow as Cox’s Bazar, World’s Largest Refugee Camp, Burns Down

        We get an update on a massive fire at the world’s largest refugee camp: the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The fire killed at least 15 people and displaced 45,000 this week, with hundreds possibly still missing. Bangladeshi authorities are investigating the cause of the fire, which destroyed about 17,000 shelters as the blaze ripped through the crowded camp, leaving behind scenes of utter destruction and despair as people were separated from their loved ones. Nearly a million Rohingya refugees live in southern Bangladesh, often in squalid and dangerous conditions, after fleeing a brutal military crackdown in Burma in 2017. Tun Khin, Rohingya activist and president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, says it is a “very, very tragic moment for the Rohingya people.”

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • Intentional Over-billing of Clients Leads to 2-year Suspension

          A partner at a major firm had been suspended initially for six months for intentionally over-billing certain clients for 450 hours of work she and other lawyers had not performed. (Apparently, one justice initially decides the penalty in a bar proceeding there.). Bar counsel then argued to the entire court that six months was insufficient, and the Massachusetts Supreme Court agreed.

          [...]

          And, related to that, many state disciplinary rules, like the USPTO Rules, require certain members of firms to have in place policies to ensure compliance with the ethical rules, and so one lawyer’s misconduct could cause ripple effects.

        • EPO to continue VICO hearings, despite legality appeal[Ed: Notice how propaganda apparatus/think tanks of the EPO's management cover up the scandal and the blunder about kangaroo courts at EPO deciding on 'courts' over webchat]

          The EPO has said it will continue to hold hearings by video-conference without parties’ permission, despite the fact that an appeal questioning the legality of that approach is pending.

          In a statement on Wednesday, March 24, an EPO spokesperson said that after a “careful weighing up of the impact for legal certainty and access to justice”, president António Campinos had decided oral proceedings would continue under current practice.

          At the moment, oral proceedings before examination and opposition divisions, and at appeal level, can be held by VICO without both parties’ consent.

          Earlier this month, an EPO Technical Board of Appeal made a referral to the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBoA) seeking to clarify whether that approach was permissible under the European Patent Convention.

          The referral to the EBoA concerns appeal proceedings, but also extends to oral proceedings by VICO before examining and opposition divisions.

          According to the EPO, hosting oral proceedings by VICO in examination and opposition was introduced to ensure the functioning of the office during the COVID-19 pandemic.

          Before this was introduced, the pandemic had a “significant negative impact” on legal certainty for parties because almost none of the scheduled oral proceedings could take place, an EPO spokesperson said.

          The EPO said it would immediately implement the EBoA’s findings once it rules on the matter.

      • Copyrights

        • Free as in Climbing: Rock Climber’s Open Data Project Threatened by Bogus Copyright Claims

          Viet Nguyen, a climber and coder, created OpenBeta to bring open source software tools to the climbing community. He used Mountain Project, a website where climbers can post information about climbing routes, as a source of user-posted data about climbs, including their location, ratings, route descriptions, and the names of first ascensionists. Using this data, Nguyen created free, publicly available interfaces (APIs) that others can use to discover new insights about climbing—anything from mapping favorite crags to analyzing the relative difficulty of routes in different regions—using software of their own.

          Rock climbers get a lot of practice at falling hard, taking a moment to recover, and continuing to climb. Mountain Project should take a lesson from their community: dust off, change your approach, and keep climbing.

          The Mountain Project website is built on users’ contributions of information about climbs. Building on users’ contributions, Mountain Project offers search tools, “classic climbs” lists, climbing news links, and other content. But although the site runs on the contributions of its users, Mountain Project’s owners apparently want to control who can use those contributions, and how. They sent a cease-and-desist letter to Mr. Nguyen, claiming to “own[] all rights and interests in the user-generated work” posted to the site, and demanding that he stop using it in OpenBeta. They also sent a DMCA request to GitHub to take down the OpenBeta code repository.

        • Court Hears Arguments in Canadian Pirate Site Blocking Appeal

          TekSavvy went up against major media companies including Bell and Rogers in Canada's Federal Court of Appeal this week. The Court, which has to decide whether the country's first pirate site blocking order can stay in place, heard arguments from both sides and intervening parties including the Canadian domain name registry.

        • Courts Sentence Men for Pirating Thousands of Movies & TV Shows, Including Via Plex

          Following the dismantling of several private trackers in 2020, a man has been sentenced for sharing thousands of TV shows and movies via now-defunct torrent site DanishBits. In a separate case, another man has been convicted of sharing 9,440 movies with a relatively small circle of family and friends using the popular Plex media server.

        • City Of London Police Parrot Academic Publishers' Line That People Visiting Sci-Hub Should Be Afraid, Very Afraid

          Techdirt has been following the saga of the City of London Police's special "Intellectual Property Crime Unit" (PIPCU) since it was formed back in 2013. It has not been an uplifting story. PIPCU seems to regard itself as Hollywood's private police force worldwide, trying to stop copyright infringement online, but without much understanding of how the Internet works, or even regard for the law, as a post back in 2014 detailed. PIPCU rather dropped off the radar, until last week, when its dire warnings about a new, deadly threat to the wondrous world of copyright were picked up by a number of gullible journalists. PIPCU's breathless press release reveals the shocking truth: innocent young minds are being encouraged to access knowledge, funded by the public, as widely as possible. Yes, PIPCU has discovered Sci-Hub:



Recent Techrights' Posts

On Groupthink, Mindless 'Sheep', and Toxic Online Cults
This week, treat yourself to a life free of social control media
BetaNews is Run and Written by Bots That Make Clickbait
At least one author is doing this
 
Same Month Judge Suggests Selling Chrome (Compelling Google to Give It Away) Chrome Surpasses Two-Thirds of "The Market", Based on Surveyor
tackling Google's browser monoculture is still a priority
[Meme] Trying to Terrorise Critics
How Microsofters roll...
Illegitimi Non Carborundum
If you try to suppress our publication, we'll not just bark back but also bite
Why This Site Became "Simple" a Year Ago
Light is good, heavy is bad
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 25, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 25, 2024
Links 26/11/2024: International Microsoft Outages, Microsoft Mass Layoffs Bigger Than Reported Last Friday
Links for the day, Deutsche Welle and CBC focus
Gemini Links 26/11/2024: Not Pagan, Emacs Wiki, and More
Links for the day
Links 25/11/2024: Egypt Harasses Bloggers, The University of Michigan Has Become Like a Corporation
Links for the day
Links 25/11/2024: Climate News, Daniel Pocock Receives a Fake/Fraudulent €17,000 Electricity Bill
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsoft: Our "Hey Hi" Hype is Going So Well That We Have MASS Layoffs Every Month. Makes Sense?
Contradiction
Latest Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Are Confirmed, Bing and Vista 11 Losing Market Share
They tried to hide this. They misuse NDAs.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 24, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, November 24, 2024
Gemini Links 25/11/2024: Purity and Cory Doctorow's Ulysses Pact, Smolnet Portal and SGI
Links for the day
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part VIII
By Dr. Andy Farnell
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High in Europe (at 6%)
many in Europe chose to explore something else, something freedom-respecting
Patents Against Energy Sources That Reduce Pollution
this EV space (not just charging) is a patent mine field and it has long been that way
DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, Howard Shrobe, Values Compartmentalisation But Loses the Opportunity to Promote GNU/Linux and BSDs
All in all, he misses an opportunity
Wayland is an Alternative to X
the alternative to X (as in Twitter) isn't social control media but something like IRC
BetaNews, Desperate for Clicks, is Pushing Donald Trump Spam Created by LLMs (Slop)
Big clap to Brian Fagioli for stuffing a "tech" site with Trump spam (not the first time he uses LLMs to do this)
[Meme] Social Control Media Bliss
"My tree is bigger than yours"
Links 24/11/2024: More IMF Bailouts and Net Client Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/11/2024: Being a Student and Digital Downsizing
Links for the day
Techrights' Statement on Code of Censorship (CoC) and Kent Overstreet: This Was the Real Purpose of Censorship Agreements All Along
Bombing people is OK (if you sponsor the key organisations), opposing bombings is not (a CoC in a nutshell)
[Meme] The Most Liberal Company
"Insurrection? What insurrection?"
apple.com Traffic Down Over 7%, Says One Spyware Firm; Apple's Liabilities Increased Over 6% to $308,030,000,000
Apple is also about 120 billion dollars in debt
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 23, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 23, 2024
[Meme] GAFAMfox
Mozilla Firefox in a state of extreme distress
Google Can Kill Mozilla Any Time It Wants
That gives Google far too much power over its rival... There are already many sites that refuse to work with Firefox or explicitly say Firefox isn't supported
Free (as in Freedom) Software Helps Tackle the Software Liability Issue, It Lets Users Exercise Greater Control Over Programs
Microsofters have been trying to ban or exclude Free software
In the US, Patent Laws Are Up for Sale
This problem is a lot bigger than just patents
ESET Finds Rootkits, Does Not Explain How They Get Installed, Media Says It Means "Previously Unknown Linux Backdoors" (Useful Distraction From CALEA and CALEA2)
FUD watch
Techdirt Loses Its Objectivity in Pursuit of Money
The more concerning aspects are coverage of GAFAM and Microsoft in particular