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Links 13/1/2022: Sparky 5.16, Fwupd 1.7.4, and KDE Plasma 5.24 Beta Released



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • OBS Studio pulls in NVIDIA as a new sponsor | GamingOnLinux

        OBS Studio continues growing, with NVIDIA joining as their latest big sponsor to help this free and open source project continue getting better.

        Announced by the official OBS account on Twitter, it notes that NVIDIA is a new Diamond sponsor. This means that NVIDIA will be providing at least $50,000 a year to the project. This doesn't mean NVIDIA has any kind of control over OBS and they join the likes of Logitech, Twitch, Facebook and more in helping to fund probably the best way to record and livestream video on Linux.

      • BSDNow 437: Audit that package

        Using FreeBSD’s pkg-audit, 20 year old bug that went to Mars, FreeBSD on Slimbook, LLDB FreeBSD kernel core dump support, Steam on OpenBSD, Cool but obscure X11 tools, and more

    • Kernel Space

      • Intel Is Bringing an Important Feature to Linux Kernel 5.17

        Intel is working to provide the Linux kernel with the ability to allow BIOS updates without a reboot.

        Certain compute systems require high Service Level Agreements (SLAs) where fewer system reboot firmware updates are required for deploying firmware changes to address bug fixes, security updates, and to debug and root cause issues. Ever since BIOS updates became possible, the process required rebooting the PC.

        Intel is now changing that, thanks to a new part of the ACPI specification called Platform Firmware Runtime Update and Telemetry (PFRUT). This allows for firmware updates to a PC’s BIOS or UEFI without forcing a reboot. The idea is to reduce downtime, especially for servers that should ideally remain available 100 percent of the time.

      • Intel Arc DG2 "Alchemist" Added For Mesa 22.0 But Code Disabled For Now - Phoronix

        Intel's open-source Linux graphics driver developers have now committed the DG2/Alchemist graphics card PCI IDs and device information data to Mesa 22.0 for their OpenGL and Vulkan driver support, but for now until the Linux kernel support is baked this is disabled.

        Landing today in Mesa 22.0, which has now been extended by three weeks for additional development, is adding the DG2 (Alchemist) device information and the twenty PCI IDs. Yes, there are 20 PCI IDs for DG2 but not necessarily for all different models planned for going to market but sometimes extras are reserved for early engineering samples, possible but currently unplanned future SKUs, and similar reasons for reserving more possible IDs per family than what necessarily appear in retail/OEM channels.

      • Linux Kernel Patches Posted For Bringing Up Tesla's Full Self-Driving SoC - Phoronix

        Samsung in partnership with Tesla has posted a set of 23 patches for enabling Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) SoC for the mainline Linux kernel.

        The 23 patches get Tesla's Full Self-Driving SoC so that it can boot off the upstream Linux kernel compared to the downstream kernel builds currently used. The initial Tesla FSD SoC is made up of three clusters of four Cortex-A72 processor cores and several extra IP blocks.

      • Intel adds twenty ARC Alchemist GPU PCI IDs to open-source Linux Mesa drivers

        As many as twenty Intel ARC Alchemist GPU PCI Device IDs appear in the upcoming open-source Linux Mesa graphics driver update

        Intel has not divulged a massive amount of details on their newest ARC Alchemist discrete graphics cards, especially during last week's CES 2022 conference in Las Vegas. With this newest update to the next Linux Mesa driver, it is appearing that Intel is diligently working to make sure their newest GPU will be widely available on more than just Window's operating system.

    • Applications

      • Fwupd 1.7.4 Released with Support for ModemManager Devices and New Hardware

        Fwupd 1.7.4 is here exactly one month after fwupd 1.7.3 and adds firmware branch support for ModemManager devices, adds the ability for firmware engineers to patch files at known offsets, and introduces support for displaying why more devices are not marked as updatable.

        This release also introduces support for more hardware, including the HP USB-C G2 Dock, Nordic HID devices using MCUBoot, ThinkPad Thunderbolt 4 Dock, Quectel EG25-G LTE modem, many UF2 devices, as well as more PixArt devices.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to install and use ADB on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Chromebooks, or even in a browser

        If you want to do any number of things that require access to the so-called Android Debug Bridge (ADB) or the fastboot tools for Android — sideloading apps, installing custom ROMs, taking screenshots in apps that forbid it, or accessing certain hidden features — you'll need to get ADB up and running on your platform of choice first. Fortunately, doing so is possible virtually on any device at this point — you can even start ADB from another Android phone, or a web browser. We'll help you get set up no matter what platform you're on in this guide.

      • How To Install ImageMagick 7.1.0 In Ubuntu 20.04 LTS / Linux Mint | Tips On UNIX

        ImageMagick is a free and open-source software used to create, edit, compose or convert digital images. It can read and write images in a variety of formats including 200 images.

        It is available for multiple operating systems Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and others.

        This tutorial will be helpful for beginners to install ImageMagick 7.1.0 in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 21.10, LinuxMint 20.3, and Fedora 35

      • Beginner's Guide to LibreOffice Writer for Microsoft Word Users

        This is a collection of LibreOffice Writer tutorials for beginners published over the years by the Ubuntu Buzz. It covers the most basic exercises like basic writing, inserting pictures and tables, and dealing with page as well as paragraph styles. They are adapted with the hope to be useful and suitable for those who have background in Microsoft Word. We wish you would find Ubuntu, LibreOffice and Free Software community a safe home full of happiness and success.

      • Packaging LLVM Snapshots

        The release manager for LLVM creates source tarballs with every new release of LLVM. That is more or less the result of a git archive operation on a particular directory in the LLVM mono-repository. In the downstream Fedora operating system we take those source tarballs and use them as input to our build system.

        [...]

        In order to make it easier for us to migrate to the next official version of LLVM, I tried to keep the changes to the original blueprints for a package to a minimum.

      • How to Install Liquorix Kernel on Linux Mint 20 - LinuxCapable

        Liqourix Kernel is a free, open-source general-purpose Linux Kernel alternative to the stock kernel with Linux Mint 20. It features custom settings and new features and is built to provide a responsive and smooth desktop experience, especially for new hardware. Liquorix Kernel is popular amongst Linux Gaming, streaming, and ultra-low latency requirements and often boasts the latest Linux Kernels, having multiple branches to choose from the stable, edge, and development.

        For users seeking to have their Linux Mint system kernel up to date and not wanting to manually install kernels or use the testing/unstable repositories, installing a third-party kernel that may be for you.

        In the following tutorial, you will learn how to import the Liquorix Kernel PPA and install the latest Linux Kernel on Linux Mint 20.

      • How to Set up Laravel Horizon Queueing in Rocky Linux 8

        Laravel Horizon is an open source dashboard app that keeps track of Laravel Redis queues. The Horizon dashboard is a single page application built using Vue.js. The application is designed to provide real-time insights into queue workloads, recent jobs, failed jobs, job retries, throughput and runtime metrics, and process counts. The Dashboard provides several statistical data on the execution times, throughput or failure of the processes involved, sending notifications if errors occur.

        Laravel Horizon has an excellent code-driven setup and user interface dashboard for your Laravel powered Redis queues. Horizon permits you to effortlessly monitor key metrics of your queue framework like runtime, and work failures.

      • [Old] Isolating Xwayland in a VM

        In my last post, Qubes-lite with KVM and Wayland, I described setting up a Qubes-inspired Linux system that runs applications in virtual machines. A Wayland proxy running in each VM connects its applications to the host Wayland compositor over virtwl, allowing them to appear on the desktop alongside normal host applications. In this post, I extend this to support X11 applications using Xwayland.

      • How To Install Chevereto on Debian 11 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Chevereto on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, Chevereto is an image hosting script that allows you to create your own image hosting websites like the popular Tinypic and Photobucket. Chevereto is available in the Free and Paid versions, Paid version comes with all the features like storage, banners, likes, followers, social login, etc, while the Free version is always 6 months behind the paid version. Chevereto comes with all major features like user accounts, albums, admin dashboard, HTML 5 drag, and many more.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of Chevereto on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

    • Games

      • Escape Simulator hits over $4M in gross sales | GamingOnLinux

        Escape Simulator has turned into a big success story for indie games and developer Pine Studio, with an announcement about how well it's done.

        Releasing on Steam back in October 2021, writing on Reddit the team noted how it has managed to hit "$4M in gross sales in less than two months of being released on Steam". It just goes to show that with the right know-how, indie developers can still manage to cut through the noise of thousands of games releasing on Steam all the time.

        How did they do it? As the Reddit post explains that part of the reason is that they hired a good PR team, and worked to create a good trailer. Plenty of it comes down to clever marketing, although it sounds like it did take a fair bit of time to do, like creating special puzzle rooms for people who covered the game. There was also some cross-promotion with other developers, and a lot of wishlists came from having a demo at some Steam festivals. Overall, it's an interesting little look into what goes on behind the scenes to make a game a success.

      • SuperTux released free on Steam, an open source classic | GamingOnLinux

        Giving a nice boost to a classic free and open source game, SuperTux has now been released on Steam and it's free to download and play.

        "Run and jump through SuperTux, the sidescrolling 2D platformer starring Tux, the Linux mascot. Squish and knock out enemies, collect powerups, and solve platforming puzzles throughout the Icy Island and the Rooted Forest, as Tux tries to save his beloved Penny from her kidnapper, Nolok!"

      • Heck Deck is a brilliant fusion of bullet-hell and a card game | GamingOnLinux

        What do you get when you cross a twin-stick bullet-hell with a card-game? Heck Deck. It's not a particularly long game but the idea is excellent. It ends up more like a deck-building shooter strategy game, it's thoroughly odd to properly pin it to a genre. Note: key provided by the developer.

        Time only moves when you move and you directly control a little sort-of wiggly-thing. Cards are you abilities and enemies fire cards. The thing is though, when you run out of cards you need to crash yourself into the cards the enemies fire to get more. It hurts you, but you get a new card to use (except health cards - they don't hurt of course). It's absolutely genius and I love it.

      • Godot Engine - Dev snapshot: Godot 3.5 beta 1

        Godot 3.4 was released 2 months ago, and some of the major planned features for Godot 3.5 have since been merged and are now ready for wider testing.

        So we're starting the beta testing phase with this already significant set of changes, and we'll have frequent beta builds to polish them for the stable release. Some more features are still being worked on and will be included in future beta builds.

        All this work is done by contributors on the side while our main development focus remains on the upcoming Godot 4.0 alpha (see our release policy for details on the various Godot versions).

        Jump to the Downloads section.

        As usual, you can try it live with the online version of the Godot editor updated for this release.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • Your First Look at System76's Rust-Based Desktop Experience - OMG! Ubuntu!

        If you’ve been itching to hear some progress about System76’s new desktop environment, you’re in luck!

        Developer Eduardo Flores went hands on with early development versions of several COSMIC components and written about his findings (with copious amount of screenshots) on his blog.

        “System76’s objective is to create something that is faster, more customizable, and free of the limitations of the GNOME desktop environment, and let’s face it, we’re all curious as to how this desktop will look like,” Eduardo writes.

        And hey: he’s not wrong!

        Do keep in mind that everything you see in his (and this) post is at formative stage. Nothing shown is final, nothing shown is stable, and nothing shown is immune to change. Expect the final version of the Rust-based COSMIC desktop to differ (possibly majorly) from anything you see here.

        With that public service announcement out of the way, let’s dive in!

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • New Breeze Theme Gives KDE Neon Release Lots of Sparkle
          Few desktop environments — and Linux is both blessed and cursed with a plethora of them — can be inviting enough to fit the computing needs of all user scenarios. KDE is one of them. Even better, the October release of KDE Neon 5.23 makes it a fitting choice over other distros running KDE.

          This release has a double claim to fame. KDE Neon 5.23 has components not yet absorbed by other KDE-based distros. It is also the 25th Anniversary edition of KDE, first released in 1996.

          KDE Neon 5.23 is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution featuring the latest KDE Plasma desktop and other KDE community software. With an edge over other KDE installations, the Neon project provides a rapidly evolving software repository with all the latest KDE software.

        • KDE Plasma 5.24 Beta Released with New Overview Effect, Fingerprint Support, and More

          KDE Plasma 5.24 comes with numerous changes that will make many of you happy. For example, it introduces the long-anticipated support for fingerprint readers to unlock the screen, as well as to authenticate in apps that require administration password, and also to authenticate with sudo on the command-line.

          Another interesting feature of the upcoming KDE Plasma 5.24 desktop environment series is a brand-new Overview effect that lets users control their virtual workspaces and find search results from KRunner, all in one place. The new Overview effect can be toggled with the Super+W keyboard shortcut and has a blurred background by default.

        • Plasma 5.24 Beta - KDE Community

          As is traditional, today we are bringing you the testing version of KDE’s Plasma 5.24. Plasma 5.24 Beta is aimed at testers, developers, and bug-hunters.

          To help KDE developers iron out bugs and solve issues, install Plasma 5.24 Beta and test run the features listed below. Please report bugs to our bug tracker.

        • KDE Plasma 5.24 Beta Released With Better Wayland Support - Phoronix

          KDE has made available the beta of the upcoming Plasma 5.24 desktop update ahead of its planned stable release on 8 February.

          KDE Plasma 5.24 Beta brings many Wayland improvements, refining of the Breeze theme, a variety of system tray and widget improvements, continued changes to the KDE System Settings, a new KWin overview effect, many Discover improvements, and a ton of fixes.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • Human Interface Guidelines, libadwaita 1.0 edition – Form and Function

          After a lot of hard work, libadwaita 1.0 was released on the last day of 2021. If you haven’t already, check out Alexander’s announcement, which covers a lot of what’s in the new release.

          When we rewrote the HIG back in May 2021, the new version expected and recommended libadwaita. However, libadwaita evolved between then and 1.0, so changes were needed to bring the HIG up to date.

          Therefore, over the last two or three weeks, I’ve been working on updating the HIG to cover libadwaita 1.0. Hopefully this will mean that developers who are porting to GTK 4 and libadwaita have everything that they need in terms of design documentation but, if anything isn’t clear, do reach out using the usual GNOME design channels.

          In the rest of this post, I’ll review what’s changed in the HIG, compared with the previous version.

    • Distributions

      • Screenshots/Screencasts

      • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

        • Rolling repos sync with Cooker (2022/01/13)

          Hard working OM Cooker devs are at work copying Cooker repos to Rolling repos. We do this when Cooker devs believe we are at a good point for stability and bug fixing. There have been a huge amont of bugs fixed. Especially for KDE or other desktop packages it is best to wait for the entire process to complete to avoid problems.

          Do not upgrade your Rolling system while this is in progress.You need to wait until copying cooker repos to rolling repos is finished. This process takes some time so we all need to patient.

      • Debian Family

        • Sparky 5.16 – SparkyLinux

          ISO images of Sparky “Nibiru” of the oldstable line have been updated up to 5.16. This release is based on Debian oldstable 10 “Buster”.

          All packages upgraded from Debian “Buster” and Sparky “Nibiru” repos as of January 11, 2022.

          System reinstallation is not required; if you have Sparky 5.x installed, simply keep Sparky up to date.

          New live/install media of the oldstable line can be downloaded from the download/oldstable page.

        • Bits from Debian: New Debian Developers and Maintainers (November and December 2021)

          The following contributors got their Debian Developer accounts in the last two months:

          Douglas Andrew Torrance (dtorrance) Mark Lee Garrett (lee)

          The following contributors were added as Debian Maintainers in the last two months:

          Lukas Matthias Märdian Paulo Roberto Alves de Oliveira Sergio Almeida Cipriano Junior Julien Lamy Kristian Nielsen Jeremy Paul Arnold Sowden Jussi Tapio Pakkanen Marius Gripsgard Martin Budaj Peymaneh Tommi Petteri Höynälänmaa

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Ubuntu 21.04 users need to upgrade their systems this week

          It’s January 13 which means there’s just one week left until Canonical stops giving out updates for Ubuntu 21.04 'Hirsute Hippo' which launched last April. As it’s an inter-LTS release, it only receives 9-months of updates, and then it’s time to move on. The best plan for people still running Ubuntu 21.04 is to upgrade to Ubuntu 21.10 and then to upgrade to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (not available until April) before July 14.

          If you’re not too sure which Ubuntu version you’re running, open Settings, and then on the left-hand pane scroll down to About. This will open a new page in Settings and you need to look for OS Name, next to which, will be the version of Ubuntu you’re running. If you’re on Ubuntu 21.04 or for some reason still on Ubuntu 20.10, then you need to get upgrading.

        • The State of Robotics – December 2021 | Ubuntu

          I will be honest, I thought that December was going to be a slow month for the robotics news. With all the holidays, I was not expecting a month with exciting announcements or events. And when I was ready to put videos of robots dancing to Christmas carols, with Christmas hats and Christmas lights, I found a month packed with great news!

          So let’s dive into our monthly robotics blog and explore what the last month of 2021 brought us. And if you were looking at our 2021 robotics rewind, this is not it.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • An open source developer's guide to 12-Factor App methodology

        The 12-Factor App methodology provides guidelines for building apps in a short time frame and for making them scalable. It was created by the developers at Heroku for use with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apps, web apps, and potentially Communication-Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) apps. For organizing projects effectively and managing scalable applications, the 12-Factor App methodology has powerful advantages for open source development.

        The principles of 12-Factor App methodology are strict rules that act as building blocks for developing and deploying SaaS applications, and they are not constrained to any programming language or database.

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • Firefox Is Currently Facing A Major Bug In Connection

            Users of the open source web browser have started to report a bug on various online communities where the browser simply can’t establish a connection to any website they wish to visit. Even when they try to close the browser, it hangs and keeps running in the background.

            No official statement from Mozilla is released so far. However, the bug is already reported and developers and users are discussing the root cause of the problem.

            Right now, the implementation of HTTP3 protocol in the browser seems to be the root cause of the problem, as users suggested that turning it off could fix the issue completely.

      • SaaS/Back End/Databases

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

        • 'IwlIj jachjaj! Incoming LibreOffice 7.3 to support Klingon and Interslavic

          There's a good chance you've heard of LibreOffice – OK, yes, and Klingon. Interslavic, maybe not. Here's why some of you should care.

          LibreOffice is the continuation of the moribund OpenOffice project, which had to change its name because Oracle claimed the trademark on the old name.

          If you're still using OpenOffice, don't. It's basically dead. Download LibreOffice, uninstall OpenOffice, then install LibreOffice instead. It's completely compatible because it's the same program, just a more modern version – smaller, faster, less buggy, and more secure.

          It's even handy if you have a legit copy of Microsoft Office. In your correspondent's experience, it's a lot better at recovering corrupted or damaged MS Office files than MS Office itself. (It's also free, resistant to MS Office viruses, and legal even for commercial use.)

          And as for the languages? The website already lists 51, and more are coming. That's a tiny fraction of the world's 7,000-plus languages, and a language goes extinct every two weeks. For small communities trying to keep minority languages alive, being able to write in it is very important.

      • Programming/Development

        • New KDReports Release - KDAB

          We have just released version 2.1.0 of our KDReports developer tool product.

          KDReports generates printable and exportable reports from code and from XML descriptions. Developers write the code that integrates KDReports with the rest of the application. External designers or marketing and sales staff can be tasked with creating the report structure, or its appearance. The created reports can be shown in a preview dialog that is part of KD Reports. They can also be saved to PDF files or sent directly to a printer.

        • Perl/Raku

          • Do-It-Yourself warnings categories

            One of the reasons I have not "moved on" from Perl to some other more "modern" language is that Perl gives me such great access to its inner workings. The Do-It-Yourself Lexical Pragmas post from a couple weeks ago is an example of this. Another example is that Perl lets you tie your own code into its warnings system.

            Tying into the warnings machinery requires a module. That is, the interface assumes you are reporting problems relative to another name space that invoked your code. Your module can either add diagnostics to existing Perl warning categories or actually create new categories. In either case your diagnostics are sensitive to the enablement or disablement of the category, as well as its fatalization.

  • Leftovers

    • Hardware

      • Work The World On A 555 | Hackaday

        Over the years the humble 555 timer has been used in so many unexpected places, but there’s a project from [Frank Latos] which we think may be a first. On a piece of stripboard sit a pair of 555s, and instead of the usual passives there are a set of LC circuits. This is no timer, instead it’s a CW (Morse) transmitter for the 80 metre amateur radio band.

        One 555 is configured as a feedback oscillator through a toroidal transformer with a tuned circuit to set the frequency of oscillation. The other takes an inverted input from the oscillator to produce complimentary push-pull outputs from both 555s, which are fed to another transformer that in turn feeds a low-pass filter and thus the antenna.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Pseudo-Open Source

          • Cloudwashing

            • Let your ideas take flight in the Arduino Cloud Games | Arduino Blog

              Arduino’s brand new initiative, the Arduino Cloud Games, is now live and accepting submissions.

              This new program is a way to build a community showcase of the most creative, innovative ideas that show the vast potential and scope of connected projects. Let’s take a look at how you can get involved, and let your ideas take flight.

        • Security

          • Security updates for Thursday [LWN.net]

            Security updates have been issued by Debian (epiphany-browser, lxml, and roundcube), Fedora (gegl04, mingw-harfbuzz, and mod_auth_mellon), openSUSE (openexr and python39-pip), Oracle (firefox and thunderbird), Red Hat (firefox and thunderbird), SUSE (apache2, openexr, python36-pip, and python39-pip), and Ubuntu (apache-log4j1.2, ghostscript, linux, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-hwe-5.4, and systemd).

          • Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation

            • Ransomware is being rewritten in Go for joint attacks on Windows, Linux users [Ed: Microsoft-friendly media wants us to think that the programming languages themselves are to blame for criminals who use them -- a typical FUD pattern; this latest FUD comes [1, 2] from a Microsoft proxy, which is also promoting nuclear tensions]

              Cyber security researchers have discovered evidence of a years-old ransomware strain returning after being rewritten in Golang - a cross-platform programming language capable of reaching a higher number of users across different operating systems.

              The TellYouThePass ransomware was first discovered in 2019, however researchers [sic] at Crowdstrike have now spotted a new strain being used as a second-stage attack following a successful exploit of the Log4Shell vulnerability revealed in December 2021.

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • Using Foreign Nationals to Bypass US Surveillance Restrictions

              Remember when the US and Australian police surreptitiously owned and operated the encrypted cell phone app ANOM? They arrested 800 people in 2021 based on that operation.

              New documents received by Motherboard show that over 100 of those phones were shipped to users in the US, far more than previously believed.

            • Salvadoran journalists' phones hacked with spyware, report finds | Reuters

              The cell phones of nearly three dozen journalists and activists in El Salvador, several of whom were investigating alleged state corruption, have been hacked since mid-2020 and implanted with sophisticated spyware typically available only to governments and law enforcement, a Canadian research institute said it has found.

              The alleged hacks, which came amid an increasingly hostile environment in El Salvador for media and rights organizations under populist President Nayib Bukele, were discovered late last year by The Citizen Lab, which studies spyware at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. Human-rights group Amnesty International, which collaborated with Citizen Lab on the investigation, says it later confirmed a sample of Citizen Lab's findings through its own technology arm.

              Citizen Lab said it found evidence of incursions on the phones that occurred between July 2020 and November 2021. It said it could not identify who was responsible for deploying the Israeli-designed spyware. Known as Pegasus, the software has been purchased by state actors worldwide, some of whom have used the tool to surveil journalists.

            • NSO Spyware Linked to Phone Hacks of Journalists, Activists in El Salvador

              Human rights groups say they have identified 35 journalists and activists in El Salvador whose mobile phones were infected with spyware manufactured by the Israeli company NSO Group.

              In a statement released on Wednesday, rights groups Access Now, Amnesty International and Citizen Lab said that the people targeted included employees of media groups El Faro and Gato Encerrado, in addition to employees of regional human rights and pro-democracy organizations, such as Cristosal and Fundación Democracia, Transparencia y Justicia.

              A spokesperson for NSO group declined to comment on the specific allegations but said that the company provides its technology “only to vetted and legitimate intelligence agencies as well as to law enforcement agencies, who use these systems under warrants by the local judicial system to fight criminals, terrorists and corruption.”

            • Journalists in El Salvador Targeted With Spyware Intended for Criminals - The New York Times

              El Salvador’s leading news outlet, El Faro, said on Wednesday that the phones of a majority of its employees had been hacked with the spyware Pegasus, which has been used by governments to monitor human rights activists, journalists and dissidents.

              The revelation came just months after the American government blacklisted the Israeli firm that produces Pegasus, the NSO Group, in an attempt to curb the largely unregulated global market in spyware.

              According to Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School and Access Now, two cybersecurity watchdogs that analyzed the phones of El Faro’s employees, the spyware had been installed on the phones of 22 reporters, editors and other employees between July 2020 and November 2021.

              During that time, El Faro was investigating the Salvadoran government’s clandestine connections to the country’s gangs and corruption scandals. The government has denied any connection to local gangs.

            • NSO Group promised to stop selling tools to spy on journalists. A new report proves otherwise - Rest of World

              In July, a consortium of journalists unveiled the Pegasus Project: An investigation detailing how governments across the world deployed Pegasus spyware against journalists, activists, and opposition politicians. In response, the founder and CEO of the Israeli developer of the software, the NSO Group, vowed it would not work with countries that violated human rights and targeted journalists, and claimed that it had suspended the software in five countries that had abused the malware’s usage, although did not specify which ones.

              Now, a newly published report from a group of prominent digital rights organizations suggests that NSO spyware tools are still being used against journalists in El Salvador.

              The report, produced in partnership by Access Now, The Citizen Lab, Fundación Acceso, Amnesty International, and other digital rights groups, found that Pegasus had been installed and used to infect the devices of 35 Salvadoran journalists and activists between July 2020 and November 2021. The findings have been analyzed and corroborated by two of the groups behind the report.

            • NSO Group Spyware Targeted Dozens of Reporters in El Salvador | WIRED

              THE ISRAELI SPYWARE developer NSO Group has long claimed plausible deniability when it comes to misuse of its powerful targeted surveillance tools. Yet despite its protestations—and increased scrutiny from tech companies and regulators alike—the abuses continue. The latest revelation comes from El Salvador, where NSO's Pegasus malware was found on 37 devices belonging to 35 journalists and activists as recently as November of last year.

              Those findings, jointly published by a consortium of digital rights organizations, show that despite NSO Group's insistence that its products are used to track criminals and terrorists, governments continue to deploy them against innocent targets—and that NSO has done little to rein in its clients.

            • Report: 22 journalists at Salvadoran news site hit with Pegasus hack

              At least 22 journalists from the independent Salvadoran news site El Faro were targeted with telephone spyware, investigators announced Wednesday, in one of the most extensive attacks yet discovered using the Pegasus software that human rights advocates say has been abused by governments around the world.

              The journalists were among at least 35 people in El Salvador whose iPhones were hacked with Pegasus between July 2020 and November 2021, according to an analysis by the Toronto-based Citizen Lab and other groups. Also targeted were human rights activists and reporters for other news organizations.

              Some devices were penetrated a dozen or more times, the investigators said. Óscar Martínez, El Faro’s news editor, was hacked 42 times, they said. The digital news site is known for its hard-hitting investigations into the government of President Nayib Bukele.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Blocking access to Twitter in Nigeria is a flagrant violation of fundamental rights

        After seven months of deliberately blocking access to Twitter, authorities in Nigeria have today lifted the ban on the social media platform.

        According to media reports, the government indicated that Twitter had pledged to fulfil certain conditions which had been discussed behind closed doors. Twitter also confirmed that it had been unblocked in the country, but did not acknowledge the conditions, or indicate if it planned on fulfilling them.

        While Access Now welcomes the government’s decision to end the Twitter ban, many aspects of this decision remain unclear, and is appealing to both parties to be transparent and consultative in in regard to the discussions that occurred, or are ongoing to take place, and ensure that the fundamental rights of the people of Nigeria are not jeopardized in the process.

        “Ending the ban on Twitter in Nigeria is the right thing to do, but it is incredibly unfortunate that it took the authorities so many months to do so,” said Felicia Anthonio, Campaigner and #KeepItOn Lead at Access Now. “The ban was an unnecessary attack on fundamental rights, while costing the country’s economy over a billion USD.”

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • Canon Temporarily Abandons Smart Ink Cartridges | Hackaday

        An unexpected side effect of the global semiconductor shortage came to light this week — Japanese printer manufacturer Canon announced they are temporarily going to provide consumable ink and toner cartridges without microchips. Furthermore, they provided instructions for consumers on how to bypass the printer’s logic, allowing it to function even when it incorrectly thinks the ink or toner is low.



Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM Culling Workers or Pushing Them Out (So That It's Not Framed as Layoffs), Red Hat Mentioned Repeatedly Only Hours Ago
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Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 01, 2024
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Embrace, Extend, Replace the Original (Or Just Hijack the Word 'Sudo')
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Links for the day
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reminder of the dangers of Microsoft moles inside Debian
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Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
IBM Raleigh Layoffs (Home of Red Hat)
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Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
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Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
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Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
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we're seeing similar things at Canonical's Ubuntu.com
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Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
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sheer hypocrisy on privacy is evident in the Debian mailing lists
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 30, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 30, 2024
[Meme] Sometimes Torvalds and RMS Agree on Things
hype around chatbots
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Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
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Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Links 30/04/2024: More Google Layoffs (Wide-Ranging)
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Fresh Rumours of Impending Mass Layoffs at IBM Red Hat
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Amnesty International & Debian Day suicides comparison
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
[Meme] A Way to Get No Real Work Done
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Countries That Beat the United States at RSF's World Press Freedom Index (After US Plunged Some More)
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Record Productivity and Preserving People's Past on the Net
We're very productive these days, partly owing to online news slowing down (less time spent on curating Daily Links)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
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IRC logs for Monday, April 29, 2024
Links 30/04/2024: Malaysian and Russian Governments Crack Down on Journalists
Links for the day
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Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
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Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] Russian Reversal
Mark Shuttleworth: In Soviet Russia's spacecraft... Man exploits peasants
Frans Pop & Debian suicide denial
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Hard Evidence Reinforces Suspicion That Mark Shuttleworth May Have Worked Volunteers to Death
Today we start re-publishing articles that contain unaltered E-mails