Desktop/Laptop

• Make Use Of ☛ The 8 Best Linux Distros for Chromebooks

  Want to use Linux on your Chromebook? Check out these eight distributions that offer better features and enhanced performance than Chrome OS.

  As the name suggests, a Chromebook makes its best-selling point with affordability as an added advantage. Besides, despite the difference between Chromebook and other Windows and Mac-based machines, the default OS is the most distinguishing feature.

  However, limited features, minimal customization, and vulnerability to various attacks make privacy a big concern. Hence, Chromebook users are always looking for alternative operating systems that offer flexibility and customization.

• Linux Journal ☛ 6 Best Linux Desktop Environments to Try in 2022

  Are you looking for the best Linux desktop environments for your desktop? Then this article is particularly for you. Want to find the notable mentions, the best features, and what you might be fond of? Get to know about the 6 best Linux desktop environments to try in 2022 from here. So, let’s dive in!

  And with that, we have reached the conclusion. This article walked you through the 6 best Linux desktops for 2022. If you’re looking for an easy-to-customize desktop, choose from Budgie, KDE, and GNOME.

  But do remember that older systems with less than 4GB RAM support are not suitable for GNOME. If a lightweight desktop is your requirement, go with KDE. So, have you decided upon your choice of Linux desktop?

• India Times ☛ kite: Upgraded Kite Os Suite Released | Thiruvananthapuram News – Times of India

  Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has released the upgraded KITE GNU/ Linux operating system (OS) suite – the free and open source software (FOSS) based OS developed by the Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) for deployment in new laptops in schools.

  This OS suite can be used as a complete computing platform not only by students and teachers in schools, but also in home computers, government offices, DTP centres, software developers, etc.

  The new OS suite has all the important updates till date of the popular Ubuntu OS. It also features a lot of FOSS-based applications which are not part of Ubuntu 20.04repository.

Audiocasts/Shows

• Jupiter Broadcasting ☛ Linux Action News 232

  Steam comes to ChromeOS, our thoughts on Arch turning 20, and our first look at GNOME 42.

• Video ☛ Information Wants To Be Free – Invidious

  Should information be free? The slogan “information wants to be free” sprang up in the 1980s.

• Video ☛ Clear Linux 36010 overview | optimized for performance and security. – Invidious

  In this video, I am going to show an overview of Clear Linux 36010 and some of the applications pre-installed.

• Video ☛ Arch Linux Is Finally 20 Years Old!! – Invidious

  Arch Linux has been around for 20 years now and for those years it’s been sticking to same set of principles to bring us the amazing project we have today

• Video ☛ Ubuntu’s new logo, Steam on Chrome OS, and Windows on Steam Deck – Linux and open source News – Invidious

Kernel Space

• Multi-queue improvements in Linux kernel Ethernet driver mvneta

  In the past months, the Linux kernel driver for the Ethernet MAC found in a number of Marvell SoCs, mvneta, has seen quite a few improvements. Lorenzo Bianconi brought support for XDP operations on non-linear buffers, a follow-up work on the already-great XDP support that offers very nice performances on that controller. Russell King contributed an improved, more generic and easier to maintain phylink support, to deal with the variety of embedded use-cases.

  At that point, it’s getting difficult to squeeze more performances out of this controller. However, we still have some tricks we can use to improve some use-cases so in the past months, we’ve worked on implementing QoS features on mvneta, through the use of mqprio.

Applications

• Linux Links ☛ 7 Useful Free and Open Source PDF Tools – LinuxLinks

  Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. The format includes a subset of the PostScript page description programming language, a font-embedding system, and a structural storage system.

  Over the years PDF has become an extremely important file format. If you want to create documents that can be viewed under all major operating systems, PDF is the ticket, as it maintains the overall look and feel of documents regardless of what platform they are viewed under.

  This article focuses on useful PDF tools which can help you create PDFs as well as small utilities/libraries that help you work with PDF. It doesn’t seek to overlap with our articles on PDF manipulation tools and PDF viewers as they are covered in separate articles.

  Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.

• XDA ☛ Can the Mac Studio run Linux? Yes, but not natively

  Apple’s latest desktop workstation, the Mac Studio, is very tempting. Thanks to the new Apple M1 Ultra processor, the Mac Studio could well the most powerful Mac yet, even competing with the “cheese grater” Mac Pro. Out of the box, the Mac Studio will run macOS Monterey, but what if you want to leverage that power in a different OS? If you’re wondering whether you can run Linux on the Mac Studio, we have both good and bad news for you.

  The bad news is that it’s still not possible to run Linux – or Windows, for that matter – natively on macOS. While Intel-based models made it easier to install different operating systems, Macs running Apple Silicon are more locked down. The silver lining here is that you can run Linux on the Mac Studio, but it’ll have to be through a virtual machine.

Instructionals/Technical

• Ubuntu Handbook ☛ Automate Mouse Clicks Easily via XClicker in Ubuntu Linux | UbuntuHandbook

  Playing video games or doing other tasks that need repeated mouse clicks in Linux? XClicker may help.

  XClicker is a free open-source tool, allows to make ‘left.’, ‘right‘ or ‘middle‘ click (single or double) automatically in any area in your screen.

  It provides an easy to use interface, allows to set the click interval in Milliseconds and/or seconds, choose click type (e.g., left, right, double click). By enabling ‘Custom Location’ then clicking on ‘Get’ button, user may then do single click anywhere in screen to set the x, y coordinate.

• Video ☛ How to install Audacity on Zorin OS 16 – Invidious

• ID Root ☛ How To Install Timeshift on Manjaro 21 – idroot

  In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Timeshift on Manjaro 21. For those of you who didn’t know, Timeshift is a powerful open-source tool that can help you protect your data. Timeshift protects your system by taking incremental snapshots of the file system at regular intervals. These snapshots can be restored at a later date to undo all changes to the system

  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 the Timeshift open-source backup and restore on a Manjaro 21.

• FAQForge ☛ How to Restore a Large MariaDB Backup from the Terminal

  If you have a backup of a larger database and restoring it via PhpMyAdmin does not work, this can be achieved via the following command on the shell. To see the status of the restoring backup, we install the program pv. It allows us to see visual progress of the process, after starting the restore of the file.

• LateWeb ☛ A simple way to list Symbolic Links in Linux

  A symbolic link also known as a soft link is a kind of a pointer that points to the location of a folder or a file on your system. Some of these links are created by default on your system, whereas you yourself can also create symbolic links manually for any of your desired files or folders. This article will explain to you the different methods through which you can list down all symbolic links on Linux, I have used Linux Mint 20 for this guide, but the same steps will work on any Linux distribution.

• LateWeb ☛ A simple way to install Adobe acrobat reader in Ubuntu

  Adobe pdf is a family of application software and Web services developed by Adobe Inc. to view, create, manipulate, print and manage files in Portable Document Format (PDF).

  The main function of Adobe Acrobat is creating, viewing, and editing PDF documents. It can import popular document and image formats and save them as PDF. It is also possible to import a scanner‘s output, a website, or the contents of the Windows clipboard.

  Because of the nature of the PDF, however, once a PDF document is created, its natural organization and flow cannot be meaningfully modified. In other words, Adobe Acrobat is able to modify the contents of paragraphs and images, but doing so does not repaginate the whole document to accommodate for a longer or shorter document. Acrobat can crop PDF pages, change their order, manipulate hyperlinks, digitally sign a PDF file, add comments, redact certain parts of the PDF file, and ensure its adherence to such standards as PDF/A.

• LateWeb ☛ A easy way to install PSensors in Ubuntu

  Psensor is a very useful utility for Linux-based systems that shows the values of the various sensors that are mounted on your mainboard. It is capable of displaying the temperature of the various components of your CPU, the rotation speed of your fans as well as your CPU usage. Apart from its command-line interface, it also offers you a very nice and user-friendly graphical interface that you can easily opt to use for extracting your desired information. This article shows you how to install and use Psensor on Ubuntu 20.04

• LateWeb ☛ A Easy Way To Install and Use SSHGuard on Ubuntu

  SSHGuard is an open-source daemon that is used to enhance the security of ssh as well as other network protocols. Moreover, it is used to prevent brute force attacks. It will continuously monitor and keep the track record of the system logs which helps in tracking the continuous login attempts or malicious activity. Once it detects such activity then it will immediately block the IP using firewall backends such as pf, iptables, and ipfw. Then it will unblock the IP after a set interval of time. Several log formats such as raw log file, Syslog-ng, and Syslog are supported by SSHGuard as well as provide extra layer protection to several services postfix, Sendmail, vsftpd, etc. including ssh.

• Linux Made Simple ☛ How to install VRoid Studio 1.4.2 on a Chromebook

  Today we are looking at how to install VRoid Studio 1.4.2 on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

  This tutorial will only work on Chromebooks with an Intel or AMD CPU (with Linux Apps Support) and not those with an ARM64 architecture CPU.

Games

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Stellaris: Overlord expansion announced enabling you to expand your power | GamingOnLinux

  Oh goodie, more ways to completely mess with the whole galaxy. Stellaris: Overlord has been announced as the next full proper expansion for the popular grand-strategy game from Paradox.

  Overlord will grant you access to new features centred around more intricate management of intergalactic empires, from specialized vassals to powerful new megastructures. Sounds like it gives you more tools to become some sort of evil empire, although not just that as you will be able to help out other systems you control too. With their changes it also means if you become a vassal it’s not a delayed game over, with new options to play through.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Halftime Heroes is basically a 3D Vampire Survivors | GamingOnLinux

  Oh no, not again, not another game to hook me in and steal away my free time. Halftime Heroes is out in Early Access. Note: personal purchase.

  Here’s the thing about it, Halftime Heroes is clearly a shameless attempt to jump on the hype-train created by the very popular Vampire Survivors. However, Vampire Survivors was not the first wave-based survival game and certainly won’t be the last but it has helped to push their popularity up with a very clear design — and that is exactly what Halftime Heroes has copied and put into 3D.

• Boatswain, your Stream Deck app for Linux – Georges Stavracas

  That’s right: rich and engaging Stream Deck integration on Linux.

  Boatswain is a new app I’ve been working on for the past month that allows controlling Stream Deck devices. It can assign icons and actions to buttons, and perform them. Boatswain is on track for it’s first stable release soon.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• 9to5Linux ☛ LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) 5 “Elsie” Is Now Available for Download

  As I reported during the beta phase, LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) 5 is based on the Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” operating system series. More precisely, it is using the packages included in the Debian GNU/Linux 11.2 point release that arrived last year in December.

  This means that Linux Mint Debian Edition 5 is powered by the long-term supported Linux 5.10 LTS kernel series, which will be supported until October 2023. On top of that, LMDE 5 “Elsie” comes with all the applications and packages included in the Linux Mint 20.3 “Una” release.

Distributions

• IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

  • Venture Beat ☛ Report: 95% of IT leaders feel open source tools are key to strong infrastructure | VentureBeat

    A new survey by Red Hat found that cloud computing and always-on services built using the open source development model and open source code are increasingly crucial to nearly every industry. A full 95% of IT leaders say they are key to their enterprise infrastructure.

    What was surprising was that 82% of IT leaders said they’d be more likely to select a vendor who contributes to the open source community, which was driven, in part, by a desire to sustain healthy open source communities. That, too, bodes well for the continued growth of open source code as an engine of innovation.

    [...]

    The survey included interviews with 1,296 IT leaders worldwide. To ensure credibility, the IT leaders were unaware that Red Hat was sponsoring the survey.

  • Red Hat Official ☛ Coming to the stage at Red Hat Summit 2022

    Red Hat Summit 2022 is less than two months away and we can’t wait for you to see the powerful and inspiring stories that will be showcased! We’ll be bringing together speakers from around the world and across sectors to share how they are building better solutions for their customers and for themselves using open source solutions.

    Join us May 10 and 11 as thousands of customers, partners, and technology industry leaders from around the world come together for two days of innovation, education and collaboration. (Psst, registration is open!)

    During Red Hat Summit 2022 you’ll enjoy talks from visionary technology industry speakers, inspirational stories from our customers and partners, informative Ask the Experts sessions, and more!

    To whet your appetite here’s a sneak peek of what some of our Red Hat executives will be talking about during the keynote sessions. They will be joined by customers, partners and other industry leaders to share how open source technology is making a difference.

  • Red Hat Official ☛ Podman 4.0′s new network stack: What you need to know

    Of the new features in Podman v4.0, one of the most important is a new network stack, written from scratch in Rust to support Podman. The new stack is composed of two tools, the Netavark network setup tool and the Aardvark DNS server. Together, they offer several advantages over the existing Container Networking Interface (CNI) stack, including:

  • Cockpit 265

    Cockpit is the modern Linux admin interface. We release regularly.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • OMG Ubuntu ☛ Your First Look at Ubuntu 22.04’s Default Wallpaper

    An updated background image is rolling out to users of the the daily builds as a software update, but you don’t need to be running it to take a look — you can see it in this post.

    Per tradition, each new release of Ubuntu comes with a custom designed desktop background that features the codename mascot, in this case that’s a Jellyfish, in the middle.

  • Ubuntu ☛ How we implemented an interactive Live Demo Box

    The Vanilla squad recently spent a two week sprint prototyping an interactive live demo box. We were tasked with coming up with a proof of concept, to enable demoing of each variant of our examples dynamically. A few guest developers were able to joined us, which meant four of us were able to dedicate a two week iteration to the project.

Devices/Embedded

• Tom’s Hardware ☛ Pine64 Announce Rockchip RK3588 Powered QuartzPro64 Development Board

  Pine64, makers of the PinePhone and line of Linux-powered devices, has announced the QuartzPro64, a professional development board based on the powerful RK3588 chipset.

  The SoC, which also powers the ITX-3588J from Firefly and the BPI-R2 Pro from Banana Pi, is the successor to the RK3399 used in the ROCKPro64 board from Pine64. The manufacturer is keen to make it clear, however, that the ROCKPro64 isn’t going anywhere ‘anytime soon’.

  With eight cores (4x A55 and 4x A76 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz and 2.4 GHz respectively) and capable of driving an 8K display, there’s a lot to like about the RK3588. Pine64’s QuartzPro64 will ship with 16GB of of LPDDR4X RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage, and with as much of the SoCs fearsome array of IO exposed as possible.

• Igalia work within the GNU/Linux graphics stack in 2021 – Samuel Iglesias Gonsálvez’s blog

  Last year both the OpenGL and the Vulkan drivers received a lot of love. For example, we implemented several optimizations such improvements in the v3dv pipeline cache. In this blog post, Alejandro Piñeiro presents how we improved the v3dv pipeline cache times by reducing the two-cache-lookup done previously by only one, and shows some numbers on both a synthetic test (modified CTS test), and some games.

  We also did performance improvements of the v3d compilers for OpenGL and Vulkan. Iago Toral explains our work on optimizating the backend compiler with techniques such as improving memory lookup efficiency, reducing instruction counts, instruction packing, uniform handling, among others. There are some numbers that show framerate improvements from ~6 to ~62% on different games / demos.

• Pinephone pro – Kevin’s musings

  Once again it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I am getting a bit caught up with life and am going to try and resume some more regular blogging.

  Lets start with a quick post about the Pinephone pro. I had gotten not one, but two of the orig pinephones. Nice fun to play with, but so many non upstream patches to get everything working made it pretty much impossible that it would ever be able to have a Fedora spin. Also, it was really quite slow at pretty much everything. ;( Enter the pinephone pro that was announced late last year.

  I signed up for the very first batch of pinephone pro’s and managed to get one! First, for some reason, the shipper (DHL international) decided to use USPS for the last leg of the shipping to my house. This is not ok, because I don’t actually have USPS service here.

• Linux Gizmos ☛ Jetson-based sensor fusion kit feature mmWave Radar

  Mistral’s “AI-SFK Lite” system runs Linux on its Jetson Xavier NX powered Neuron Base Board Basic with a 250GB SSD, GbE, HDMI 2.0, CAN, etc., and adds Mistral’s 77GHz mmWave Radar module and a CSI-based 8MP/4K camera.

  Mistral announced a $1,450 AI-SFK Lite (AI-enabled Sensor Fusion Kit Lite) kit for AI, machine vision, and video analytics applications including edge camera with object detection and recognition, human activity recognition, smart retail, Industry 4.0, radar camera sensor fusion, robotics, and ADAS. The system is built around its Neuron Base Board Basic (NB-Basic) carrier board. The AI-SFK Lite uses the Jetson Xavier NX based version of the NB-Basic, which also supports the Jetson Nano.

• CNX Software ☛ OK3568-C SBC provides dual GbE, WiFi 5, 4G/5G connectivity, multiple display interfaces – CNX Software

  Taking a break from the recent RK3588 news, let’s check out a board based on Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor with the Forlinx OK3568-C single board computer equipped with up to 8GB RAM and 64 GB storage.

  The board is comprised of the company’s FET3568-C system-on-module and OK3568-C carrier board offering multiple display interfaces, plenty of connectivity options with dual Gigabit Ethernet, WiFI 5, Bluetooth 5.0, as well as optional 4G or 5G cellular connectivity, and PCIe slots.

• Help Net Security ☛ Wind River Studio Linux Services helps developers manage Linux-based intelligent systems – Help Net Security

  Wind River has announced new Wind River Studio Linux Services to further address evolving challenges around security, defects, compliance, and the ongoing management of mission-critical intelligent systems when using community- based open source software.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Arduino ☛ Arduino CTC Go! is now compatible with Chromebooks | Arduino Blog

    Many educators, especially those using CTC GO!, have reached out to us for a solution that will make the board compatible with Chromebooks.

    So we’re pleased to announce that from today, educators and students who are using CTC GO! can now program the UNO Wifi Rev2, that comes with the kit, with their Chromebooks.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Android Police ☛ Android 13 might bring Google Photos search right to the Pixel Launcher

  • 9to5Google ☛ Android will ask users to verify their age in Australia – 9to5Google

  • Liliputing ☛ Lilbits: Google IO 2022 announced, Android 13 DP2 released, and Mac Studio reviews are in – Liliputing

  • TechRadar ☛ Android 13, Wear OS, Pixel 6a and more: what we expect from Google IO 2022 | TechRadar

  • 9to5Google ☛ Android TV 12 set to start rolling out ‘early’ this year – 9to5Google

  • Notebook Check ☛ AGM H5, allegedly the first Android 12 rugged handset, coming next month with the loudest speaker in a phone – NotebookCheck.net News

  • 9 to 5 Toys ☛ Android app deals of the day: Siege of Dragonspear, and more – 9to5Toys

  • Make Use Of ☛ 7 Ways to Fix Unresponsive Widgets on Android

  • Computer World ☛ 5 easy ways to make Android more ergonomic | Computerworld

  • Android Authority ☛ Samsung Galaxy A53 launched with the promise of 4 Android updates

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Peter Czanik: The syslog-ng insider 2022-03: syslog-ng 4; MQTT source; Zinc; Elastic Cloud; 3.36;

  This is the 99th issue of syslog-ng Insider, a monthly newsletter that brings you syslog-ng-related news.

• Events

  • Gunnar Wolf: Speaking about the OpenPGP WoT on LibrePlanet this Saturday [Ed: People who worked hard to remove RMS from the FSF speak at LibrePlanet?]

    I much enjoyed attending this conference in person in March 2018. This year I submitted a talk again, and it got accepted — of course, given the conference is still 100% online, I doubt I will be able to go 100% conference-mode (I hope to catch a couple of other talks, but… well, we are all eager to go back to how things were before 2020!)

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • Ubuntu Pit ☛ Chrome vs Firefox: Which One is the Best Browser?

      Is Mozilla Firefox better than Google Chrome? – The most common question we often get from many people. Basically, these two browsers are, without any other competitor, the most-used browsers. So, the competition between them is quite strong. However, both Firefox and Chrome are developed based on open-source web browser engines. Still, there are many differences among them. And today, we will discuss the complete fact of Chrome vs Firefox.

      [...]

      In the battle of Chrome vs Firefox, we are not going to discuss just the similarities and dissimilarities of these two competitive browsers. Indeed, we aim to reach a conclusion where you can choose the best browser for you. So, we will discuss some major facts of these two browsers and tend to find out the winner in the particular fact. Before going into the details, you can have a look at our previous article on the Brave vs. Chrome battle.

    • Mozilla ☛ Mozilla and Open Web Docs working together on MDN

      For both MDN and Open Web Docs (OWD), transparency is paramount to our missions. With the upcoming launch of MDN Plus, we believe it’s a good time to talk about how our two organizations work together and if there is a financial relationship between us. Here is an overview of how our missions overlap, how they differ, and how a premium subscription service fits all this.

    • Mozilla ☛ Performance Sheriff Newsletter (February 2022) – Mozilla Performance

      In February there were 122 alerts generated, resulting in 19 regression bugs being filed on average 4.3 days after the regressing change landed.

      Welcome to the February 2022 edition of the performance sheriffing newsletter. Here you’ll find the usual summary of our sheriffing efficiency metrics, followed by a review of the year. If you’re interested (and if you have access) you can view the full dashboard.

• Programming/Development

  • The Register UK ☛ An open-source COBOL contender emerges

    The newly announced gcobol compiler is a fresh front end for GCC, and builds native binary executables.

    There are already other FOSS and freeware compilers for COBOL out there, but few are fully open source. Notably, there’s GnuCOBOL, which evolved out of OpenCOBOL. The OpenCOBOL FAQ is worth a read, and notes that: “OpenCOBOL was initially developed by Keisuke Nishida from experience working on TinyCOBOL originally developed by Rildo Pragana.”

    There’s nothing wrong with GnuCOBOL: it’s mature, in active development, and supports various COBOL standards and dialects – but as the announcement for gcobol says: “Our project should not be confused with GnuCOBOL. That project is a Cobol translator: it compiles Cobol to C, and invokes gcc to produce executable code.”

    You can still get COBOL-IT for free. This French project developed an open-source compiler suite until it was acquired by “the guardians of business COBOL” – or alternatively, a retirement home for ageing software businesses – aka Micro Focus – in 2017.

  • Qt ☛ Desktop and Mobile are in the DNA of Qt

    Qt has a long and exciting history. Born in Norway, raised in Finland by two different parents, and finally grew up to be a global citizen. Our growth journey includes ups and downs, which have made us pivot and refocus along the way. In the beginning, the focus was on the desktop while Qt 2 brought Embedded into the limelight. Qt 4 was the first actual cross-platform framework, and Qt 5 initially focused on Mobile. After listing to Helsinki Stock markets, we have been growing independently and towards being truly the cross-platform framework that our founders envisioned from the start.

FreeStyle Libre 3 miniaturizes real-time glucose monitoring [Ed: Rarely can you find the terms "Libre" and "Free" abused to badly.]

I’ve worn the FreeStyle Libre 2 flash-glucose monitor (FGM) on my upper arm for the last three years. As a diabetic, I need to pay close attention to my glucose levels, and the Libre 2 was a revolution compared to finger-prick blood tests every couple of hours. The new Libre 3 system is a highly-anticipated update that massively improves on the Libre 2.

Hardware

• CubicleNate ☛ Magnetic USB Cables | Prolong Device Ports – CubicleNate’s Techpad

  USB-C, although very capable is quite fragile, especially on phones or tablets that children use. I have started using these to extend the life of the cheap tablets by preventing damage to the ports from mishandling the charging cables. Although this solution isn’t perfect, it is far better than the USB-C and micro-USB cables that are bundled with devices. An added benefit is that it is one magnetic cable that works with USB-C and micro-USB devices.

  I don’t know how long these particular magnetic USB cables will continue to be sold but there but some form of them will likely continue. They aren’t good for everything but they are good for enough for many devices and will help to prolong their usage.

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • Pseudo-Open Source

    • Openwashing

      • Linux Foundation’s Site/Blog ☛ LF Energy: Solving the Problems of the Modern Electric Grid Through Shared Investment [Ed: Microsoft's Jason Perlow keeps pushing "Linux" Foundation further and further away from Linux]

        The energy industry sits at the epicenter of change because energy makes everything else run. And inside the energy industry is the need for a rapid transition to electrification and our vast power grids. Like it or not, utilities face existential decisions on transforming themselves while delivering ever more power to more people without making energy unaffordable or unavailable.

      • Court affirms it’s false advertising to claim software is Open Source when it’s not | Open Source Initiative [Ed: This is the same OSI that promotes Microsoft proprietary software]

        Stop saying Open Source when it’s not. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed a lower court decision concluding what we’ve always known: that it’s false advertising to claim that software is “open source” when it’s not licensed under an open source license.

        You can read the decision here. The facts, as described by the trial court, are that Neo4j, Inc. had been through several releases of its software and several license choices along the way, ending with what the court called “the Sweden Software License,” because the licensor was a Swedish subsidiary of the plaintiff.

      • LWN ☛ OSI: Court affirms it’s false advertising to claim software is Open Source when it’s not

        The Open Source Initiative reports on a ruling in the US Court of Appeals reaffirming the meaning of “open source” in a software license.

      • Copyleft Won’t Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them [Ed: SFC sounds like it is joining anti-Free software trolls now]

        We are passionate about and dedicated to the cause of software freeedom and rights because proprietary software harmfully takes control of and agency in software away from users. In 2014, we started talking about FOSS as fundamental to “ethical software” (and, more broadly “ethical technology”) — which contrasts FOSS with the unethical behavior that Big Tech carries out with proprietary software. Some FOSS critics (circa 2018) coined the phrase “ethical source” — which outlined a new approach to these issues — based on the assumption that software freedom activists were inherently complicit in the bad behavior of Big Tech and other bad actors since the inception of FOSS. These folks argue that copyleft — the only form of software licensing that makes any effort to place ethical and moral requirements on FOSS redistributors/reusers — has fundamentally ignored the larger problems of society such as human rights abuses and unbridled capitalism. They propose new copyleft-like licenses, which, rather than focusing on the requirement of disclosure of source code, they instead use the mechanisms of copyleft to mandate behaviors in areas of ethics generally unrelated to software. For example, the Hippocratic License molds a copyleft clause into a generalized mechanism for imposing a more comprehensive moral code on software redistributors/reusers. In essence, they argue that copylefted software (such as software under the GPL) is unethical software. This criticism of copyleft reached crescendo in the last three weeks as pundits began to criticize FOSS licenses for failing to prohibit Putin from potentially using FOSS in his Ukrainian invasion or other bad acts.

        We have in the past avoided a comprehensive written response to the so-called “ethical source” arguments — lest our response create acromony with an adjacent community of activists who mean well and with whom we share some goals, but with whose strategies (and conclusions about our behavior and motivations) we disagree. Nevertheless, the recent events have shown that a single, comprehensive response would help clarify our position on a matter of active, heated public debate and fully answer these ongoing criticism of FOSS and our software freedom principles.

  • Security

    • CISA ☛ Treck TCP/IP Stack (Update H)

    • New Linux backdoor that propagates via Log4j vulnerability easy to exploit in the cloud

      In a blog post, 360Netlab researchers say that the network traffic generated by this sample triggered a DNS Tunnel alert in their system. The researchers investigated further and found a new botnet family which they named B1txor20 based on it using the file name “b1t,” the XOR algorithm, and the RC4 algorithm key length of 20 bytes.

    • Make Use Of ☛ The 12 Safest Free Software Download Sites for Linux [Ed: Terrible advice. GitHub is run by NSA/Microsoft (malware) and Softpedia is an anti-Linux site; the safer route is, use the repos of the distro]

      Linux is an open-source operating system with a broader contributor community than other OSes. However, downloading software for your Linux system can sometimes be risky due to security reasons.

      The internet is flooded with spyware, especially on websites offering free apps, where some contributors try to exploit users through malicious files. That is why it is always recommended to use authentic websites to get an app.

    • CISA ☛ Strengthening Cybersecurity of SATCOM Network Providers and Customers | CISA

      CISA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are aware of possible threats to U.S. and international satellite communications (SATCOM) networks. Successful intrusions into SATCOM networks could create additional risk for SATCOM network customer environments.

      In response, CISA and FBI have published joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) Strengthening Cybersecurity of SATCOM Network Providers and Customers, which provides mitigations and resources to strengthen SATCOM provider and customer cybersecurity.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Trust ☛ Facebook’s ‘double standard’ on hate speech against Russians

  Facebook’s decision to allow hate speech against Russians due to the war in Ukraine breaks its own rules on incitement, and shows a “double standard” that could hurt users caught in other conflicts, digital rights experts and activists said.

  Facebook owner Meta Platforms will temporarily allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, Reuters reported last week.

  It will also allow praise for a right-wing battalion “strictly in the context of defending Ukraine”, in a decision that experts say demonstrates the platform’s bias.

• Business Insider ☛ Russia’s internet censorship is forcing citizens to turn to the dark web and VPNs for news and social media

  In just under a month, the internet in Russia has become nearly unrecognizable after hundreds of news outlets and social media platforms have vanished from the web, while global tech companies like Netflix and Apple have restricted their services.

  The Kremlin earlier this month banned Twitter and Facebook from the Russian internet, and on Monday it blocked access to Instagram. Russian Instagram influencers posted tearful goodbye videos, urging followers to move to platforms they could still access.

  Russia has rapidly and drastically entered into a type of digital isolation, cutting off millions of citizens from access to accurate information and online spaces to express opinions. As Moscow seeks to stifle dissent and control the narrative over its invasion of Ukraine, digital and human rights groups are worried about the future of Russia’s internet.

  In addition to the Kremlin blocking access to numerous online platforms and news sites, several companies and outlets have been forced to suspend their operations after the country passed a law that makes it a serious crime to publish information the government deems as “fake.”

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• The Washington Post ☛ Apple and Google app stores remain available in Russia. Activists and officials say that’s a good thing.

Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • Public Domain Review ☛ Philipp Hainhofer’s *Große Stammbuch* (1596–1633) – The Public Domain Review

    Hainhofer’s 227-page volume collects the signatures of over seventy-five of Europe’s most notable seventeenth-century nobles. A richly illustrated album amicorum — a kind of friendship book for preserving the autographs of acquaintances — the Große Stammbuch was renowned in Hainhofer’s lifetime, becoming one of Augsburg’s must-see artworks. This vellum Kunstkammer brings together the royal, semi-divine hands of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II [17], King of Denmark Christian IV [20] and Cosimo II de’ Medici [30] with exquisite drawings, a painting on silk, and embroidered panels made by dozens of artists, including Georg Behem, Tobias Bernhard, Joseph Heintz, Johann Mathias Kager, Lucas Kilian, Jacopo Ligozzi, and Anton Mozart.

    The cosmopolitan connoisseur Hainhofer rarely traveled without his Stammbuch, which he showed off to a wide network of aristocrats to win new contributions. A single entry was often the result of months spent negotiating with a signatory and artists. Though occasionally a royal would commission her own page, Hainhofer usually had the leaves painted to his taste, which the duchess or king would then sign and otherwise personalize (with mottos or brief inscriptions). Expenses — paid by the contributor — ranged from ten to fifty ducats. By 1610, Hainhofer was regularly receiving invitations for personal audiences with potential autographers. And, in September 1612, when Hainhofer visited François de Lorraine [103] to solicit his hand, the Count attempted to keep the book by force, only surrendering it after the diplomatic intervention of the Elector of Cologne.

Instructionals/Technical

• LateWeb ☛ A Simple Way To Check NVIDIA Drivers Version on Linux

  Nvidia Corporation is an American multinational technology company incorporated in Delaware and based in Santa Clara, California. It is a fabless company which designs graphics processing units (GPUs) for the gaming and professional markets, as well as system on a chip units (SoCs) for the mobile computing and automotive market. Its primary GPU line, labeled “GeForce”, is in direct competition with the GPUs of the “Radeon” brand by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Nvidia expanded its presence in the gaming industry with its handheld game consoles Shield Portable, Shield Tablet, and Shield Android TV and its cloud gaming service GeForce Now. Its professional line of GPUs are used in workstations for applications in such fields as architecture, engineering and construction, media and entertainment, automotive, scientific research, and manufacturing design.

  In addition to GPU manufacturing, Nvidia provides an application programming interface (API) called CUDA that allows the creation of massively parallel programs which utilize GPUs. They are deployed in supercomputing sites around the world. More recently, it has moved into the mobile computing market, where it produces Tegra mobile processors for smartphones and tablets as well as vehicle navigation and entertainment systems. In addition to AMD, its competitors include Intel and Qualcomm.

• LateWeb ☛ A simple way to understand the IOStat command

  The iostat command in Linux allows users to monitor system i/o statistics on the device. It is based on how long the devices are operating at the average baud rate to monitor the input/output of the system. Based on reports, system configurations can be changed to optimize CPU performance. This command is in the sysstat package.

• LateWeb ☛ A Great Way To Backup Your Data in Ubuntu Linux

  fwbackups is a feature-rich user backup tool that allows you to backup your essential documents anytime, anyplace using a simple, powerful interface with support for scheduled backups and remote backups.

• Linux Capable ☛ How to Install MakeMKV on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

  MakeMKV is a free, open-source tool that can convert video clips from DVDs and Blu-rays, usually encrypted. The output will have most information preserved but not changed; it’s perfect for people who want their media without hassle or headache caused by software limitations like those found with some other transcoder apps.

  In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install or upgrade to the latest version of MakeMKV on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish using a recommended Launchpad PPA repository by the MakeMKV team to provide the most up-to-date version using the command line terminal.

• Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Glances System Monitor on AlmaLinux 8

  Glances System Monitor is free, an open-source command-line tool for process monitoring, system resources such as CPU, Disk I/O, File System, Load Average, Memory, Network Interfaces and processes. Glances are built with Python language. Glances support cross-platform monitoring, which can be used with a web-based interface.

  One of the excellent features Glances supports is setting thresholds in the program. You can set careful, warning, and critical in the configuration file, which will then relay information in colors that can show alerts to systems resources bottlenecks, system resources issues, and much more. Glances, by default, comes with a pre-set list of colors, but you can modify and add additional configs.

  The following tutorial will demonstrate how to install Glances System Monitor on AlmaLinux 8 workstation or server using the command line console, create a systemd service file, create a web service and secure with firewalls, and lastly, some basic commands and maintenance tips.

• HowTo Geek ☛ How To Use set and pipefail in Bash Scripts on Linux

  The Linux set and pipefail commands dictate what happens when a failure occurs in a Bash script. There’s more to think about than should it stop or should it carry on.

• Video ☛ Linux Essentials – The echo Command – Invidious

• HowTo Forge ☛ How to Install and Use Apache Guacamole Remote Desktop on Rocky Linux 8

  Apache Guacamole is a free, open-source, clientless, remote desktop gateway. It supports standard protocols like SSH, RDP, and VNC. It does not need any third-party plugins and clients to work. You can access your machine using a web-based gateway. It can be put behind a proxy server which allows you to access your servers from anywhere in the world.

• LateWeb ☛ A simple explanation of the NAMEI command in Linux

  As a Linux administrator, you often have to work with files, folders, symlinks, etc. And sometimes you need to know more information about individual elements in a path for example file type, owner, …

  For that matter, the namei command appeared. Now we’re gonna teach you to use the namei command in Linux.

• LateWeb ☛ How To Make A Temporarily Folder In Ubuntu Using MKTemp

  Temporary files are used to temporarily store data that the operating system needs temporarily during operation and will disappear when no longer needed. they will disappear on their own after reboot.

  This command in Linux allows the user to make a temporary file or directory in the tmp folder. Now we’re gonna teach you to use the mktemp command in Linux.

• LateWeb ☛ Easy Way To Install And Use Anaconda on Ubuntu

  In simple terms, Anaconda is an open-source package and environment manager that houses thousands of predictive analysis, machine learning, and data science packages. Its purpose is to provide scientific libraries and dependencies for Python programmers. Anaconda is frequently used for the development of machine learning and artificial intelligence applications.

  Anaconda makes package distribution and administration easier. It comes with various tools such as conda and Jupyter Notebook that provide you with a smooth and fast package and environment development. Anaconda also supports the creation of a basic, controllable environment, making any project deployment straightforward.

  In this article, you will learn how to install, use, and remove Anaconda from your Ubuntu operating system.

• Trend Oceans ☛ Easy way to fix: sudo unable to resolve host name or service not known

  Once in a while, you will encounter the above error after making changes to /etc/hostname. And the resolution of this error is pretty simple.

• Pragmatic Linux ☛ Install Python applications with pipx – PragmaticLinux

  The new kid in town in Python land is pipx. With pipx, you install and run Python applications in a convenient way. Under the hood, it automatically creates a virtual environment for the Python application and adds the executable, to a location on your user’s PATH. You can think of pipx as Flatpak, but then dedicated to install and run Python applications. This hands-on article teaches you all you need to know about how to install Python applications with pipx.

• FAQForge ☛ Kakoune Editor – Alternative for Vi Editor on Ubuntu

  Kakoune is highly inspired by Vi therefore it looks slightly similar to experienced developers and system admins. Kakoune is a modal code editor, it binds Vi keystrokes into a text editing language. It does a great job of editing files either on a local system or a server.

  Now we will observe how Kakoune is installed on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS edition. I will use Ubuntu repositories to fetch the libraries. It can also be installed from source.

• Vitux ☛ How to Install latest Linux Kernel 5.15 on Ubuntu 20.04 – VITUX

  Linux Kernel 5.15 was released as the newest Long Term Support (LTS) kernel release on Oct 31,2021. It provides new enhancements and features including a new NTFS driver and built-in support for Intel’s Alchemist discrete graphics.

• Linux Handbook ☛ How to Make a File Executable in Linux terminal?

  New to Linux command line and wondering how to make a bash script or some other file executable? Here’s how to do it.

• How to Use Linux Screen Command – Cloudbooklet

  Linux screen command is one of the most useful command whenever you perform a long-running task like zipping a huge directory or exporting a database from Linux terminal without getting interrupted by sudden connection drop or the SSH session termination. Well, this happened to everyone of us at some point. This is where the screen command comes in that allows us to resume the sessions and save us while working on big process.

  In this guide you are going to learn how to use the Linux screen command and perform your tasks.

• ID Root ☛ How To Install OpenLiteSpeed on Debian 11 – idroot

  In this tutorial, we will show you how to install OpenLiteSpeed on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, OpenLiteSpeed is a fast open-source web server application that comes with a built-in fast PHP module. One of the main advantages of LiteSpeed is that it can handle more than a hundred thousand concurrent connections with low resource usage (CPU and RAM). OpenLiteSpeed also provides a web-based user interface to manage web servers from the web browser.

  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 the OpenLiteSpeed web server on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

• Linux Capable ☛ How to Enable/Disable Firewall on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

  When it comes to firewall protection for your system, the default Ubuntu UFW program is a great option. It is short for “uncomplicated firewall.” It allows users with little knowledge on how Linux IPTABLES so you can secure your home network or server without the need to learn complicated long-tail commands that is more for the sysadmin side of things.

  The tutorial is aimed more at new Ubuntu desktop users, but servers can also use the same commands on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish. You will learn how to check, enable and disable the UFW firewall and, for desktop users, install the firewall GUI to better control UFW for users that do not want to use the terminal in the future.

• Linux Capable ☛ How to Install GIMP on Rocky Linux 8

  GIMP or GNU Image Manipulation Program is an open-source program used for many different purposes. Its primary function is to center around graphic design and editing images and transcoding between various image formats, free-form drawing, and many more specialized tasks. GIMP is released under GPL-3.0-or-later license and is available for Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.

  In the following tutorial, you will learn to install the GIMP on Rocky Linux 8 workstation using two methods with appstream dnf package manager or the flatpak package manager, both of which are installed natively on your workstation, along with some tips in maintaining or removing GIMP into the future.

• Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Redis on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

  Redis is an open-source (BSD licensed), in-memory key-value data structure store used as a database, cache, and message broker. Redis supports data structures such as strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets with range queries, bitmaps, hyperlog logs, geospatial indexes, and streams. Redis also provides high availability with Redis Sentinel software logic, creating automatic partitioning across Redis nodes with Redis Cluster.

  In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Redis on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish using the terminal command line and some basic setup instructions to get you started.

• Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Rust on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

  Rust is an open-source systems programming language that focuses on speed, memory safety, and parallelism. Developers use Rust to create a wide range of new software applications, such as game engines, operating systems, file systems, browser components, and simulation engines for virtual reality. Rust is syntactically similar to C++ but can guarantee memory safety by using a borrow checker for validating references.

  For users, especially developers wanting to try out Rust Programming language, the following tutorial will teach you how to import and install the latest version on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish, along with how to engage the Rust terminal with some essential tips such as updating and removing the software using the command line terminal.

Games

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Valve reduces size of Steam Deck Client in the latest update | GamingOnLinux

  Valve makes a few more small tweaks to the Steam Deck in the latest client update out now and ready to download. Not a big update but still quite a welcome one, as it fixes up a few minor issues plus the size of the client is now reduced.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ RimWorld gets a fresh Beta with big Steam Deck upgrades | GamingOnLinux

  Building up a settlement on the go is going to be a reality soon for RimWorld fans, as a fresh Beta version is now available and ready for testing with the Steam Deck.

  Planned to release in full on April 6, they’re giving mod creators a little extra time to prepare as it’s upgraded a lot of the internals for the Steam integration so quite a few mods could break with this Beta. They said everything but a few mods should work, and you can test by opting into the “steam_deck” Beta branch (no password).

  “The update focuses on Steam Deck changes and improvements. The UI changes make it easier to read on-screen text and type with the Steam Deck keyboard, and menus look a lot better. The controls make more sense now with improved scrolling, zooming, time control, and touch screen navigation. Overall, playing RimWorld on Steam Deck should be a lot smoother with more intuitive controls. There may be more changes on the way to get RimWorld a “Verified” status for Steam Deck.” — Ludeon Studios

• Boiling Steam ☛ 1400 Games On The Steam Deck, Including Doom (2016)

  We can also plot the daily increase of new titles over time. Not sure if there is any particular reason but the number of new additions is markedly less this week compared to the previous week.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Arena-survival FPS Cathedral 3-D is now free to play | GamingOnLinux

  Want to try out a retro-styled arena survival FPS? Cathedral 3-D is now free to play so you’ve got nothing to lose. The free to play update included an overhaul of some gameplay elements like a redesigned magic system with easy teleportation.

  This is a very fast-paced game, with the idea that you need to protect a box that contains your heart. It’s absolutely manic and won’t be for everyone but if you love a challenge this might be a good pick for you, especially now it’s free.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ My favourite proper roguelike Jupiter Hell gets a fancy upgrade | GamingOnLinux

  Love roguelikes? Want a modern game that looks good and feels great to play? Jupiter Hell is what you need. The developers just released a nice big free upgrade too.

  Version 1.3 Valhalla brings with it some pretty fun additions. There’s a rework to multiple parts of the level generation, especially for Valhalla Spaceport, which has a new tough boss fight included. The Callisto area also got a big rework to add in some more variation and special mechanics involved with some other improvements to the level generation there, plus some weapon additions to each part of Callisto too. Some new visuals have been added, smoke now slows people down but not for the technician character who is “master of smoke” they say and plenty more.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 announced | GamingOnLinux

  For those who don’t use it and are confused: the whole idea is that it produces high-resolution outputs from lower resolution inputs. It’s one way to get good performance at 4K for example, for games that are a bit too resource intensive. It can work with many resolutions and the Steam Deck has FSR built-in.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Ubuntu ☛ KDE snaps performance revving up

    Speed, or rather, responsiveness is an essential part of the software usage experience. This applies to every technology and domain, snaps included. Indeed, when it comes to snaps, the equation is a bit more complicated and slightly less straightforward because snaps are packaged as compressed, standalone applications and wrapped in a number of security confinement mechanisms, which set them apart from the classical desktop programs. However, the speed and responsiveness imperative remains.

    Over the years, the snap development team has put a lot of effort into making snaps more accessible to the users. One of the main venues of focus has been the startup performance of applications. Notably, improvements in the use of the compression algorithm for snaps has led to 30-60% boost in startup times. Developers have started adopting the new LZO algorithm in their workflows, with positive results and feedback from the users. In today’s article, we want to share with you a fresh set of data from the KDE community.

Distributions

• New Releases

  • Alpine 3.12.10, 3.13.8 and 3.14.4 released

    The Alpine Linux project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of the releases:

    3.12.10
    3.13.8
    3.14.4

• Debian Family

  • Debian Community News: Maria Glukhova, Dmitry Bogatov & Debian Russia, Google, debian-private leaks

    The Free Software Fellowship team has recently blogged about Fedora’s relationship with Iran and Russia. Now it is our turn in the Debian Community News Team to look at Debian with the explosive leak of 185 emails from debian-private about the arrest of Dmitry Bogatov in Russia.

    Was Bogatov really a victim of the Russian state or was his arrest another example of smoke and mirrors, like a false-flag operation, encouraging western developers to show sympathy towards Russian cyberspies?

    Can we spot the machinations of psyops officers in these email discussions?

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • Linuxiac ☛ Ubuntu Changed the Design of Its Logo, Here’s What It Looks Like Now

    In preparation for the upcoming Ubuntu 22.04 Long-Term Support update, due in April, Canonical has unveiled a new Ubuntu logo.

    Ubuntu is, without a doubt, the most well-known desktop Linux distribution on the planet. Canonical, the Ubuntu creator, announced some exciting news yesterday: the Linux-based operating system is having a new logo!

    The original Ubuntu logo consisted of a black rounded lowercase wordmark positioned to the right of a stylish abstract emblem consisting of a ring of three segments with three solid dots attached.

Devices/Embedded

• Linux Gizmos ☛ Module and dev kit showcase RK3568 multiplexing skills

  Forlinx has launched a “FET3568-C” module that runs Linux on a quad -A55 RK3568 with up to 8GB DDR4 and 16GB eMMC. The module powers an “OK3568-C” SBC with triple displays, 2x GbE, 4x USB, M.2 B-key, PCIe Gen2/SATA, and PCIe Gen3 x4.

  Although Rockchip’s octa-core RK3588 has held center stage in recent weeks in product announcements such as Pine64’s QuartzPro64 SBC, the quad-core, Cortex-A55 RK3566 and more I/O rich RK3568 are the Rockchip SoCs that will dominate mainstream embedded Arm devices over the next few years. Forlinx has just released a FET3568-C compute module and sandwich-style OK3568-C dev kit built on the RK3568.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Gizmodo ☛ Review: Xiaomi’s 12 Pro Proves Americans Need More Android Options

  • 9to5Google ☛ Android 12L Beta 3 now available for Lenovo P12 Pro – 9to5Google

  • HowTo Geek ☛ Android Tablets vs. iPads: How Good Are Android Tablets?

  • Android Central ☛ The new Samsung Galaxy A53 5G promises four years of Android OS updates for $450 | Android Central

  • 9to5Google ☛ Android will ask users to verify their age in Australia – 9to5Google

  • CNX Software ☛ OK3568-C SBC provides dual GbE, WiFi 5, 4G/5G connectivity, multiple display interfaces – CNX Software

  • Android Authority ☛ Samsung Galaxy A53 5G launched with the promise of 4 Android updates

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Gemini/Browsers

  • Gemini in the Most Impractical Way Possible

    There are a few cool bits. Lagrange itself works really well, at least after a few settings tweaks. The Quest’s hand tracking also works in Lagrange so there’s no need for controllers. Instead you can point at the screen and pinch the air to interact with it. That’s pretty neat but admittedly far from ergonomic. It gets tiring after just a few minutes with how much scrolling is needed.

    One plus is being able to resize the screen to however big you want it and move it anywhere in your workspace. Did you know that if you have a big enough screen, Lagrange will intelligently switch from the mobile UI to the desktop UI?

    I managed to even get my Station client certificate imported, though that was quite the exercise. Apparently adb doesn’t have a good way of sending a piece of text to a connected device’s clipboard, otherwise I could send my certificate that way. The Quest also doesn’t have a built-in file browser, so copy pasting it from a file wasn’t an option either. I ended up starting a simple, local http server on my laptop that served my certificate as a text file. From there I could connect to it from the Quest and copy paste the certificate into Lagrange. Phew!

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • Security

    • LWN ☛ Security updates for Thursday

      Security updates have been issued by Debian (flac, openssl, and openssl1.0), Fedora (nbd, pesign, and rust-regex), openSUSE (ansible, java-1_8_0-openjdk, libreoffice, and stunnel), Oracle (expat, glibc, and virt:ol and virt-devel:rhel), Red Hat (expat, redhat-ds:11.3, and virt:av and virt-devel:av), SUSE (atftp, java-1_8_0-openjdk, libreoffice, python3, and stunnel), and Ubuntu (apache2, bind9, firefox, fuse, and man-db).

    • The Register UK ☛ NSA spies ample opportunities to harden Kubernetes [Ed: Why would anyone trust the NSA on security? It's not what they do; they undermine security.]

      If Kubernetes is so complicated that even Google is automating its setup, then it’s worth paying attention when U.S. spy giant, the National Security Agency (NSA) points to strengthening it.

      Kubernetes, as the NSA points out, provides “several flexibility and security benefits compared to traditional, monolithic software platforms.” Unfortunately, that flexibility comes with a lot of moving pieces with their own cybersecurity considerations.

      The NSA and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently updated their Kubernetes Hardening Guidance [PDF] which, while designed for government agencies, is still a great set of recommendations for independent organizations.

    • USCERT ☛ WordPress Releases Security Update

      WordPress versions prior to 5.9.2 are affected by multiple vulnerabilities. Exploitation of some of these vulnerabilities could allow a remote attacker to take control of an affected website.

    • CISA ☛ ISC Releases Security Advisories for BIND | CISA

      The Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) has released security advisories that address vulnerabilities affecting multiple versions of ISC Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND). A remote attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to cause a denial-of-service condition.

      CISA encourages users and administrators to review the following ISC advisories and apply the necessary updates or workarounds.

    • CISA ☛ OpenSSL Releases Security Updates | CISA

      OpenSSL has released security updates addressing a vulnerability affecting multiple versions of OpenSSL. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause a denial-of-service condition.

      CISA encourages users and administrators to review the OpenSSL Advisory and upgrade to the appropriate version.

    • CISA ☛ Drupal Releases Security Updates | CISA

      Drupal has released security updates to address vulnerabilities affecting Drupal 9.2 and 9.3. An attacker could exploit one of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.

    • Eric Hameleers ☛ Chromium 99 critical security fix, upgrade asap | Alien Pastures

      I have uploaded new chromium 99 packages for Slackware. The chromium-ungoogled 99 packages are currently being built and will follow shortly.

      These new packages were triggered by a recent Google Chromium update which mentions a fix for a security hole which allows remote attackers to take control of your computer. Opening a malicious advertisement or web page is already sufficient, the vulnerability does not need any interaction to do its work. See CVE-2022-0971.

    • Raphaël Hertzog: Freexian’s report about Debian Long Term Support, February 2022

      Every month we review the work funded by Freexian’s Debian LTS offering. Please find the report for February below.

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • The Guardian UK ☛ Human rights officials call for Pegasus spyware ban at El Salvador hearing

        Senior human rights officials have repeated calls for a ban on the powerful Israeli spyware Pegasus until safeguards are in place to protect civilians from illegal hacking by governments.

        Calls for a moratorium on the sale and use of the military-grade spyware were made on Wednesday at a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) into widespread unlawful surveillance using Pegasus spyware against journalists and activists in El Salvador.

        “There’s no doubt that malware marketed for complex security threats is being manipulated and used against the media and civil society … which is having a chilling effect on democracy,” said Scott Campbell, senior human rights and technology officer of the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Meet Ghislaine: Heiress to an Espionage Empire

  Despite being found guilty late last year for her role in sex crimes against minors, Ghislaine Maxwell, the “madam” and chief accomplice of the intelligence-linked pedophile and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, may soon walk free. A juror in the case, Scotty David, subsequently took credit for the jury’s decision to find Ghislaine Maxwell guilty and “inadvertently” revealed that he had incorrectly answered a pre-trial questionnaire. As a result, the possibility of a mistrial, and Ghislaine walking free, now looms large.

  David has some interesting connections, as he currently works for the Carlyle Group – the global investment firm whose ties to the bin Laden family during the early 2000s have come under scrutiny. Carlyle’s executives often have ties to intelligence, with one example being its former chairman and then chairman emeritus, Frank Carlucci, who had been deputy director of the CIA and, later, Reagan’s Secretary of Defense. Carlyle’s current co-founder and co-chairman David Rubenstein, as noted in this article from Free Press Report, served on the board of the influential Trilateral Commission during the same time as Jeffrey Epstein, while his ex-wife Alice Rogoff (divorced in 2017) had a very close working relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, including with her now defunct “charity” the TerraMar Project. Given the fact that there are known ties between David’s employer and Ghislaine Maxwell, why has this potential conflict of interest gone unmentioned by mainstream media?

  Not only that, but – according to a family member of one of the women who testified against Maxwell during her trial – David was connected with the journalist who would publish the now infamous, post-verdict report via Vicky Ward. Ward has been denounced by Epstein victims and others close to the case for having had a past “chummy” relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell she declined to disclose for years and for subsequently telling Ghislaine that Epstein victim Maria Farmer had been the person who had first reported Maxwell and Epstein to the FBI back in 1996. Farmer later claims that Ward’s lack of journalistic integrity, after promising to keep Farmer’s identity secret, had put her life in danger and forced her into hiding.

  It seems that there is, yet again, a major cover-up in the works, one which involves major centers of financial and political power in New York City and beyond. In order to fully understand the sexual trafficking and blackmail operation that Maxwell and Epstein oversaw, and why powerful forces apparently continue to intervene in the case, one must first understand its genesis, particularly how and why Ghislaine Maxwell arrived in New York City. In this second installment of “Meet Ghislaine” (read Part 1 here), the beginnings of Ghislaine’s career – closely controlled by her father, Robert Maxwell, until his 1991 death – are followed in detail.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• AccessNow ☛ Iran: Human rights groups sound alarm against draconian Internet Bill

  We, the undersigned human rights and civil society organizations, are alarmed by Iranian parliament’s move to ratify the general outlines of the draconian “Regulatory System for Cyberspace Services Bill,” previously known as the “User Protection Bill” and referred to hereafter as “the Bill.” If passed, the Bill will violate an array of human rights of people in Iran, including the right to freedom of expression and right to privacy. We urge the Iranian authorities to immediately withdraw the Bill in its entirety. We further call on the international community, along with states engaged in dialogue with Iranian authorities, to ensure that the promotion and protection of human rights in Iran is prioritized, including by urging Iran’s parliament to rescind the Bill as a matter of urgency.

  While UN Human Rights Council member states will soon vote on whether to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Iran, the Iranian parliament is attempting to further curtail the rights of people inside Iran with passage of this Bill. If implemented, this will carry grave risks of increased and even complete communication blackouts in Iran, and it is likely to be used as a tool to conceal serious human rights violations.

• AccessNow ☛ #KeepItOn: How to stop internet shutdowns in Ukraine – Access Now

  Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine includes a broad range of cyberattacks, such as DDoS attacks on websites, blocking mobile connections, and other forms of deliberate disruption. Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition are documenting these attacks, some of which represent internet shutdowns and/or acts of censorship. They are exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine — just as shutdowns have in other parts of the world.

  When governments like Russia’s interfere with internet access or block communications platforms, they prevent human right defenders, journalists, activists, and the public from getting access to information and reporting what is happening on the ground. It is often a deliberate attempt to hide human rights violations and atrocities and amplify state propaganda by removing access to alternative news sources. It is imperative that the international community, including U.N. bodies, tech companies, telecommunications providers, and other relevant actors, act now to protect and maintain the communications infrastructure in Ukraine and demand accountability for those who damage it.

• The Record ☛ How Telegram found itself in the middle of the war between Russia and Ukraine

  When Russia invaded Ukraine late last month, Dasha Tkachuk, like many Ukrainians, found herself relying on one app in particular: Telegram.

  “It is impossible not to be on Telegram [right now] — everyone uses it,” said Tkachuk, a 23-year-old sociologist living in Kyiv.

  Before the invasion, Tkachuk operated a channel on the app — which features instant messaging, public or private community-like channels, massive group chats and other social features — that shared studying opportunities for students. “We had a small audience of nearly 15,000 people, and advertisers were willing to pay nearly $30 for one post,” she said.

  Her revenue from the app dried up on Feb. 24, when Russian troops first entered the country and her clients stopped placing ads. But Tkachuk quickly found a new way to use the app — she got to work setting up several Telegram channels explaining what was happening in Ukraine for Russian-speaking users.

  “In Russia, people use Telegram to get the latest news just like Ukrainians do,” she said.

  The app’s popularity in the region was strong even before the ongoing war, with it serving as among the most popular sources of news among Ukrainians between the ages of 18 and 24.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• It’s time for Congress to hold a Right to Repair hearing — The Repair Association

  If it has a microchip in it, chances are, there are issues fixing it. Our members — from repair, refurbishing and recycling businesses across every industry — have been raising the alarm about how manufacturers are pushing to monopolize repair of everything from appliances, to farm equipment, to servers and routers and even hearing aids.

  As we’ve built momentum for the Right to Repair across the country, supporting bills in 40 states, we believe it’s time for Congress to get off the sidelines.

  Yesterday, March 16, the Repair Association, along with more than 50 different organizations, sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, Ranking Member Jim Jordan; Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law Chairman David Cicilline, Ranking Member Ken Buck; and Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Chairman Hank Johnson, and Ranking Member Darrell Issa calling for the full House Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing on the Right to Repair. The letter includes signatures from trade associations, small businesses, public interest groups, environmental advocacy organizations, and agriculture groups.

Audiocasts/Shows

• BSD Now 446: Debugging ioctl problems

  Restoring a Tadpole SPARCbook 3, The FreeBSD Boot Process, Debugging an ioctl Problem on OpenBSD, Why my game PC runs FreeBSD and Kubuntu, DNSSEC, Badgers, and Orcs, Oh My, and more.

• The Linux Link Tech Show Episode 946

  Joel wishes dann a happy birthday

Kernel Space

• LWN ☛ Generalized address-space isolation [LWN.net]

  The disclosure of the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities put a spotlight on the risks that come with sharing address spaces too widely. Even if the protection mechanisms provided by the hardware should prevent access to sensitive data, those vulnerabilities can often be used to leak that data anyway. So, from the beginning, mitigation strategies have included reducing the sharing of address spaces, but there is more that could be done and ongoing interest in doing so. Now, this patch set posted by Junaid Shahid (containing work from Ofir Weisse and inspired by earlier patches from Alexandre Chartre) shows what would be required to create a general address-space isolation (ASI) mechanism for the kernel.

• LWN ☛ When and why to deprecate filesystems [Ed: Nobody wants to say the real reason Reiserfs is being discarded]

  It is a good bet that a significant amount of code in the kernel is entirely unused. Even so, that code must still be maintained and shipped, posing an ongoing cost to the development community. What should be done with code that is unmaintained and, possibly, unused? Answering that question requires understanding which users still exist, if any, and taking a hard look at what the future support requirements for that code will be. The kernel community has recently discussed this problem in the context of filesystems, and the Reiserfs filesystem in particular, with a focus on the approaching 2038 deadline.

  Removing support for old hardware is difficult enough, but there does often come a point where it becomes possible. If a particular device has been unavailable for years and nobody can point to one in operation, it may be time to remove the support from the kernel. Another strong sign is a complete lack of maintainer interest; that led to the recent decision to remove support for the NDS architecture, for example. Filesystems can be harder, though; they are independent of the hardware and can thus live far longer than any particular device type. Users can hold onto a familiar filesystem type for a long time after most of the world has moved on.

  Reiserfs is certainly a case in point; this filesystem was first covered in LWN in 1999; it found its way into the 2.4.1 kernel the next year despite a fair amount of opposition based on the allegedly stable nature of 2.4 releases. There were a number of reasons for the inclusion of Reiserfs; chief among them, perhaps, was that it was the first Linux filesystem to support journaling. This filesystem attracted a fair amount of interest in its early days and some distributions adopted it as the default choice, but its own developers quickly moved on to other things; by 2004, Hans Reiser was arguing against enhancing Reiserfs, saying instead that his new Reiser4 filesystem should be adopted instead. In the end, Reiser4 was never merged, but Reiserfs lives on in the kernel.

Instructionals/Technical

• How to Install Docker on Ubuntu 22.04 / 20.04 LTS

  Docker is a free and open source tool designed to build, deploy, and run applications inside containers. Host on which docker is installed is known docker engine. Docker uses the OS level virtualization and providers container run time environment. In other words, Docker can also defined as PaaS (platform as service) tool.

  As docker is a daemon based service, so make sure docker service is up and running. When you launch an application which needs multiple containers to spin up and there is dependency among the containers then in such scenarios, docker compose is the solution.
  In this guide, we will cover how to install Docker on Ubuntu 22.04 and 20.04 step by step and will also cover docker compose installation and its usage.

• Linux Shell Tips ☛ How to Install Drupal CMS in RHEL 8 Linux

  CMS platforms have an undisputed grip in the World Wide Web and Drupal qualifies as one of the unique candidates in this docket.

  CMS platforms make it easier and more flexible to create and manage both the content and users that have partial/full administrative privilege on such content.

  Also, CMS platforms like Drupal support numerous plugins to make your website more extensive. You get to create new/customizable web pages, comment sections, and other useful tweaks that will meet your CMS objectives.

• H2S Media ☛ Install Fotoxx Image Editor on Debian 11 Bullseye – Linux Shout

  Learn the commands to install Fotoxx on Debian 11 Bullseye Linux. The software is an image management and image editing program that focuses on the simple and fast operation. Beginners, in particular, should be offered a tool to make working with digital images under Linux much easier.

  In contrast to programs like Shotwell, no internal database is used, but the existing folder structure on the data medium, as with gThumb or Geeqie. However, it should be noted that an internal index is created when the program is started for the first time so that metadata can be found more quickly. As long as this indexing is running, images can be viewed but not edited. Whether the program lives up to its reputation “for people who find F-Spot too limited but GIMP too complicated” is something you should try for yourself.

• NVISO Labs ☛ Investigating an engineering workstation – Part 1

  In this series of blog posts we will deal with the investigation of an engineering workstation running Windows 10 with the Siemens TIA Portal Version 15.1 installed. In this first part we will cover some selected classic Windows-based evidence sources, and how they behave with regards to the execution of the TIA Portal and interaction with it. The second part will focus on specific evidence left behind by the TIA Portal itself and how to interpret it. Extracting information from a project and what needs to be considered to draw the right conclusions from this data will be the focus of the third post. Last but not least we will look at the network traffic generated by the TIA portal and what we can do in case the traffic is not being dissected nicely by Wireshark.

• David Rosenthal ☛ Storage Update: Part 1

  It is past time for an update on storage technology. There is so much to write that I need to break it into multiple parts. Below the fold, I start with two papers reporting developments that could increase the performance of DNA data storage significantly.

• Rachel ☛ Dumb things you can sometimes do with hard links

  Here’s a very old and stupid trick you could do with some filesystems in some situations back in the day… and might still be able to do in a few places today.

• uni Toronto ☛ Where cut comes into Unix (and a bit on the history of awk)

  The cut command is in some ways one of those little Unix oddities, because in many ways (although not all of them) it duplicates the functionality of awk. Both commands have been part of my Unix landscape for long enough that I don’t think about where they come from, but today I wound up curious about cut’s history.

• Rachel ☛ More stories about stacks of modems

  Back in January, you might have seen my post about a very large BBS which seemed to solve for the problem of “how do we host a bunch of users” by having one physical box per user. It might have been one physical box per *two* users, maybe, but it’s hard to say.

• Jeff Geerling ☛ ASUSTOR Lockerstor 4RS Review – 1U 4-drive NAS

  In this blog post, I’ll quickly recap the main features, then give more impressions of the unit from our experience setting it up, and my Dad’s use of it at the station since we recorded the video.

• Teleport ☛ SSH into Docker Container or Use Docker Exec?

  SSH has always been the default mechanism to get remote shell access into a running Unix or Linux operating system from a terminal client to execute commands. While SSH is familiar, Docker provides more lightweight and easier-to-use methods that don’t require running your container with an SSH server. This post will explore two methods to get shell access into a Docker container using OpenSSH and the docker exec command.

• Install GNU Fortran on Fedora

• UNIX Cop ☛ Terraform: Importing Existing Infrastructure Part-2
  

• How to Find Motherboard Model and Serial Number in Linux – Putorius

  If you ever wanted to update your BIOS or make any other hardware changes to your Linux system, you likely needed the motherboard information. There is a handy little command line tool called dmidecode that we have written about in the past. This program will dump a ton of information about the hardware on your system. It’s name is short for DMI decode because it can display all the information in the DMI Table (SMBIOS). In this case we are going to use specific switches to find the motherboard model and serial number in Linux system.

• UNIX Cop ☛ How to install Apache Cordova on Debian 11

  Hello, friends. In this short post, we will help you to install Apache Cordova on Debian 11. This tool is used to create mobile applications.

• UNIX Cop ☛ Terraform: Importing Existing Infrastructure

Distributions

• Top 10 Most Beautiful Linux Distributions [Featured]

  We give you the top 10 beautiful Linux Distributions of 2022. They are a visual treat to your eyes while being a robust operating system.

• TechRepublic ☛ DahliaOS is a look into what Google’s Fuschia could become

  
  I’ve tried just about every flavor of Linux known to humankind. Over the year, there have been a few new distributions and/or desktops to really excite me (such as Pop!_OS, Cutefish, the latest KDE Neon and the latest from ZorinOS) but for the most part, releases have become incremental steps forward (which is at least still progress) to shine on what is already quite good.

  But every so often, a distribution comes along and catches my attention. Such is the case with dahliaOS. Now, before you get too excited, dahliaOS is still very much in alpha stage development, so this isn’t something you’re going to want to slap onto a desktop and make it your go-to. Nope. dahliaOS is far from ready for prime time. In fact, who’s to say if it ever will be ready for your production desktops. Even so, it’s pretty fascinating.

• BSD

  • Frederic Cambus ☛ FreeBSD on the Vortex86DX CPU

    After trying NetBSD and OpenBSD on my DMP EBOX 3300A-H with a Vortex86DX CPU, I was curious to see how FreeBSD would fare on such constrained systems these days.

• IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

  • Enterprisers Project ☛ Hybrid work: 3 cultural pitfalls to avoid

  • Enterprisers Project ☛ The new CEO: Chief Empathy Officer

    When I first joined Futurice as the new group CEO, I decided to schedule some get-to-know-you meetings with the various offices throughout Europe. In one of those meetings, I confused the Finnish cities of Tampere and Turku – a bad mistake to make among Finns. (And I am Finnish! I should have known better.) It started a storm of jokes that led to the team in Tampere immortalizing my mistake – they made t-shirts and wore them on the next group call. I’ve been paying for it ever since with the giggles and jokes that come with a screw-up from the boss.

    This opportunity to be vulnerable with my teams has led to emails, suggestions, complaints, and other communications from across the company that still come to me each day. They are keeping me in the loop. It’s just one powerful lesson on how the work world has changed and how leadership needs to strategically change with it.

    Being vulnerable is just one way to build trust, and it is rooted in a new era of recognizing empathy as a core leadership quality. I am no longer just the Chief Executive Officer. Now, if I really want to promote the growth and development of our company, I am also the Chief Empathy Officer.

  • LWN ☛ Fedora considers curl-minimal [LWN.net]

    The curl utility is a command-line program (and associated library) for interacting with various network protocols; it is commonly used to do things like transferring data from a remote server over HTTP or HTTPS using a URL. But curl also supports a lot more protocols, some of which are probably rarely used, obsolete, deprecated, or all three. As a recent discussion on the Fedora devel mailing list shows, though, it is hard to find agreement that support for only some of those protocols should be installed by default, while others might be left in an optional package for those who need them.

    A proposal to install a minimal version of curl by default starting with Fedora 37 was posted to the list on February 22. As is usual for feature proposals, it was posted on behalf of the feature owners, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek and Kamil Dudka, by Fedora program manager Ben Cotton. The idea is to make the curl-minimal package (and it companion libcurl-minimal) the default for installation on Fedora systems, while allowing users to switch to the full curl package (and libcurl) if they need it. The minimal variants “are compiled with various semi-obsolete protocols and infrequently-used features disabled: DICT, GOPHER, IMAP, LDAP, LDAPS, MQTT, NTLM, POP3, RTSP, SMB, SMTP, SFTP, SCP, TELNET, TFTP, brotli compression, IDN2 names”, while both packages support HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP.

    There are two benefits for Fedora described in the proposal. The infrequently used protocols are not as well tested as the others and “are a source of security bugs”. Most people are not using them anyway, so removing them reduces the attack surface for the default installation. In addition, the minimal packages are smaller, saving 8MB, which is a reduction of 12%.

  • LWN ☛ Fedora’s missing Chromium updates

    Google’s Chrome browser seemingly dominates the Internet at this point, but that does not mean that everybody wants to run it. Chrome, of course, is built on an open-source project called Chromium but is not an open-source product itself; it includes a number of proprietary add-ons. But the Chromium source is out there and can, with some effort, be used to build a working, open-source browser; a number of distributors do so. But Chromium is famously hard to package, and distributors have, at times, struggled to keep up with it; a recent discussion in the Fedora community has brought new attention to this problem.

    Comparisons between Chrome and Chromium often focus on what the latter browser lacks. It doesn’t have Google’s automatic updates, for example, and it is missing a number of codecs for problematic media formats. Chromium’s ability to use the Google bookmark-synchronization feature was taken away in 2021. But Chromium users can also point to what is gained, starting with the fact that it is free software. Chromium lacks many of the data-reporting mechanisms found in Chrome and is rather less insistent about using one’s Google ID with random web sites. Distributors can also add their own features as well.

    The problem with Chromium is that it is a huge and messy program to build. The source tarball (compressed) weighs in at well over 1GB. The list of dependencies is long; some of those are bundled with the browser source, while others must be provided by the operating system. The result is that even an out-of-the-box build can be challenging; if the distributor has to make changes to meet its own requirements, the problem gets harder yet.

    Fedora does have its own requirements. As a general rule, bundled libraries are not acceptable; packages are expected to use the shared libraries provided by the distribution. Chromium, like other applications, is expected to integrate with the rest of the Fedora environment — working well with the Wayland display system, for example. Red Hat’s legal team places its own requirements on software that can be shipped, meaning that some of the code (codecs, primarily) that is part of Chromium must be excluded from the build. And, just because that all isn’t challenging enough, Fedora builds the browser with GCC, despite the fact that the Chromium developers use LLVM.

• Debian Family

  • IT Wire ☛ Three candidates in running to be Debian leader

    For the first time, a candidate from Japan has joined the fray, with Hideki Yamane, who has been a developer for the last 12 years deciding to contest.

    The other candidates are the current leader, Jonathan Carter, and Felix Lechner, who describes himself as “foreigner for life”. South African Carter has been the leader for the last two years.

  • LWN ☛ Belenios: a system for secret voting [LWN.net]

    As highlighted by the discussion of, and amendments to, the Debian GR, secret voting means different things to different people. Generally, though, people want trustworthy elections foremost, which means that voters (and those affected) need to understand and believe in the mechanisms used to cast their ballots and tabulate the results. There are cryptographic protocols that can be used to provide a technical solution to some or all of those problems, but there are social and other considerations that may render them unusable in real elections—at least those held by governments at various levels. Our coverage of a talk at linux.conf.au 2020 can help with some of the reasons for that, along with accounts of poorly written implementations of the cryptographic protocols for voting systems.

    Debian currently has two types of votes: an annual election for the Debian project leader (DPL)—this year’s DPL election process started on March 5—and for GRs that get the requisite support from Debian developers (DDs). Six developers can force a vote on any issue via a GR, one sponsor and five seconds is all that it takes. All of the voting is done via PGP-signed email and the ballots and voter lists are published for all to see after the vote. The difference is that DPL election results do not provide a mapping from voter to ballot, while GR voters and ballots are matched up, so everyone can see how each voter chose to rank the options on the ballot.

    Debian uses the Condorcet voting system, which allows voters to rank their choices of candidates or proposals, with some specific mechanisms for dealing with the relatively unlikely circular results that can arise at times. It is, already, a fairly complicated scheme that requires some sophisticated thinking from voters in order to understand how it works. Various other forms of ranked voting have been used in governmental (and other) elections to try to avoid some of those complexities for elections with a less-technical electorate.

    For both Debian election types, anyone can use the published ballots to verify that the reported results match the votes cast; any DD can also directly see that their recorded vote matches how they voted for GR elections. For DPL elections, the devotee vote-collecting system returns a secret code to voters when a correctly signed ballot is submitted via email; that code can be used with the hash value reported in the tally sheet to verify that their vote was included in the ballots. In both cases, developers who did not vote can check to ensure that no vote was recorded for them, either by checking the separate voter list for DPL elections or on the tally sheet for a resolution. All of that adds up to a level of transparency for Debian voting.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • Its FOSS ☛ Ubuntu has a ‘Weird Looking’ New Logo

    There are several elements of the Ubuntu branding. For its fans, the orange and purple color symbolizes Ubuntu.

    In addition to that, Ubuntu has logo that consists of a wordmark (ubuntu written in text) and a graphic symbol in orange color.

  • OMG Ubuntu ☛ These AI-Made Ubuntu Mascot Artworks are Incredible

    
    Every Ubuntu release has a codename composed of an adjective and an animal. These cute and irreverent pairings lead to a spurt of artwork created by professional and amateur artists, illustrators, photographers, and graphics designers alike.

    But open source enthusiast Simon Butcher (who is also head of research platforms at Queen Mary University London, so knows a thing or two about bespoke computing workloads) decided to take a different approach.

Devices/Embedded

• CNX Software ☛ CM4-IO-POE-4G-Box – A Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 box for industrial IoT applications

  
  While the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 is basically unobtanium, companies keep introducing products based on the Arm system-on-module, and Waveshare CM4-IO-POE-4G-Box is a complete system designed for industrial IoT applications with CAN Bus, RS232 and RS485 interfaces, Ethernet with PoE support, plus optional support for 2G to 5G cellular connectivity.

  The CM4-IO-POE-4G-Box is based on the “Compute Module 4 PoE 4G” carrier board which itself appears to be an update to the company’s earlier “Compute Module PoE 4G” carrier board for the Raspberry Pi CM3 module.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • New Scientist ☛ Watch emu-inspired robot legs that use less energy to run

    Robotic legs with an unconventional design inspired by emus can run 300 per cent more efficiently than the same device would if designed traditionally. The technology could be used in prosthetics and exoskeletons, say its inventors.

    Alexander Badri-Spröwitz at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, and his colleagues have done away with the usual approach where every joint in a robotic limb has one actuator to open it and one to contract it. Instead, their BirdBot uses just two motors in each 3D-printed leg and long artificial tendons that cover more than one joint, mimicking the anatomy of certain birds that have lost the ability to fly and instead evolved to run efficiently along the ground.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • 9to5Google ☛ Pixel Launcher search on Android 13 tests photo results – 9to5Google

  • SamMobile ☛ Official Android 12 One UI 4.1 beta update went live for Galaxy M31, M32 – SamMobile

  • Android Police ☛ Asus levels up ROG Phone 5 with Android 12 update

  • The Android 12 update is actually rolling out to the LG Velvet – TalkAndroid.com

  • 9to5Google ☛ Android 12L Beta 3 now available for Lenovo P12 Pro – 9to5Google

  • Android Central ☛ Gabb Phone Z2 Review: A nifty first smartphone for kids | Android Central

  • SDTimes ☛ Android Play Developer Reporting API unlocks greater analytics – SD Times

  • Liliputing ☛ Lilbits: E Ink tablets, sharing Netflix passwords, and Android tablet apps – Liliputing

  • The Verge ☛ Google’s Android Auto app can tell you if your USB cable is bad – The Verge

  • Android Central ☛ Google is throwing Android tablets a bone with upcoming Play Store updates | Android Central

  • Tech Times ☛ Android App Update 2022: How to Disable Automatic Updates | Tech Times

  • Upcoming Android version for tablets might include a new Hub Mode – Good e-Reader

  • CNX Software ☛ Rockchip RK3588 TRM, Android 12 SDK released – CNX Software

    Firefly ITX-3588J mini-ITX motherboard powered by Rockchip RK3588 processor was introduced at the beginning of the month, and now the company has started selling samples for the Core-3588J system-on-module and taken the opportunity to release the Rockchip RK3588 TRM (technical reference manual), and Android 12 firmware and SDK.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• FSF

  • GNU Projects

    • GNU ☛ libtool-2.4.7 released

      Howdy, Libtoolers!
      
      After a long hiatus, the Libtool Team is pleased to announce the release of
      libtool 2.4.7.
      
      
      GNU Libtool hides the complexity of using shared libraries behind a
      consistent, portable interface. GNU Libtool ships with GNU libltdl, which
      hides the complexity of loading dynamic runtime libraries (modules)
      behind a consistent, portable interface.
      
      Here are the compressed sources:
        https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/libtool/libtool-2.4.7.tar.gz   (1.9MB)
        https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/libtool/libtool-2.4.7.tar.xz   (996KB)
      
      Here are the GPG detached signatures[*]:
      
      https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/libtool/libtool-2.4.7.tar.gz.sig
      
      
      https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/libtool/libtool-2.4.7.tar.xz.sig
      
      Use a mirror for higher download bandwidth:
      
      https://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html
      
      Here are the SHA1 and SHA256 checksums:
      
      d3f2d5399f4bf5cbd974b812ebaca28d6492ca65  libtool-2.4.7.tar.gz
      BOlsJATqcMWQxUbrpCAqThJyLGQAFsErmy8c49SB6ag  libtool-2.4.7.tar.gz
      0c90f1b046ea9cd7b32a4b5a6a9df4b46ddb637a  libtool-2.4.7.tar.xz
      T38hfwV85lX/IlWa0iGg/Y74StH8X8tpkM7MMzqhY10  libtool-2.4.7.tar.xz
      
      The SHA256 checksum is base64 encoded, instead of the
      hexadecimal encoding that most checksum tools default to.
      
      [*] Use a .sig file to verify that the corresponding file (without the
      .sig suffix) is intact.  First, be sure to download both the .sig file
      and the corresponding tarball.  Then, run a command like this:
      
        gpg --verify libtool-2.4.7.tar.gz.sig
      
      If that command fails because you don't have the required public key,
      then run this command to import it:
      
        gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 6EAC957F8EEB55C0
      
      and rerun the 'gpg --verify' command.
      
      This release was bootstrapped with the following tools:
        Autoconf 2.69
        Automake 1.16.3
        Gnulib a5218207e5
      
      NEWS
      
      * Noteworthy changes in release 2.4.7 (2022-03-16) [stable]
      
      ** New features:
      
        - Libtool script now supports (configure-time and runtime) ARFLAGS
          variable, which obsoletes AR_FLAGS.  This is due to naming conventions
          among other *FLAGS and to be consistent with Automake's ARFLAGS.
      
        - Gnulib testsuite is enabled and run during 'make check'.
      
        - Support the Windows version of the Intel C Compiler (icl) in
          libtool script.
      
        - Pass '-fsanitize=*' flags for GCC and LLVM, and '-specs=*' for GCC
          to linker.
      
        - Pass '-Xassembler=*' and '-Wa,*' flag to compilers and linkers.
      
        - The variable 'FILECMD' with default value of '/usr/bin/file' was used to
          replace existing hard coded references to '/usr/bin/file'.
      
        - Add MidnightBSD support.
      
      ** Important incompatible changes:
      
        - Libtool changed ARFLAGS/AR_FLAGS default from 'cru' to 'cr'.
      
        - Do not pass '-pthread' to Solaris linker.
      
        - 'libtool' and 'libtoolize' scripts now use '#! /usr/bin/env sh' shebang.
          Previously '#! /bin/sh' was used, which presents challenges for
          containerized environments.
      
      ** Bug fixes:
      
        - Fix significant slowdown of libtoolize for certain projects (regression
          introduced in 2.4.3 release) caused by infinite m4 macro recursion.
      
        - Mitigate the slowdown of libtool script (introduced in v2.4.3) caused by
          increased number of calls to '$SED $sed_quote_subst' (bug#20006).
      
        - Properly parse and export TLS symbols on AIX.
      
        - Various bug fixes surrounding use of 'sed'.
      
        - Darwin systems set proper "allow undefined" flag on OSX 11, and
          PowerPC 10.5.
      
        - Removed some deprecated tests related to 'Makefile.inc' files.
      
      
      Enjoy!
      

• Programming/Development

  • GCC ☛ Announcement: gcobol

    Our project should not be confused with GnuCOBOL (https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnucobol). That project is a Cobol translator: it compiles Cobol to C, and invokes gcc to produce executable code. Our gcobol compiler is (currently) a fork of gcc. It implements a gcc frontend for Cobol and (obviously) invokes the gcc backend to produce executables. (We have a friendly relationship with GnuCOBOL, and its maintainer supports our undertaking.)

    Ours should also not be confused with prior efforts to create a gcc Cobol compiler. Others have tried and failed. Failure wasn

  • Linux Links ☛ 12 Top Free and Open Source PHP Web Frameworks

    
    One of the types of software that’s important for a web developer is the web framework. A framework “is a code library that makes a developer’s life easier when building reliable, scalable, and maintainable web applications” by providing reusable code or extensions for common operations. By saving development time, developers can concentrate on application logic rather than mundane elements.

    A web framework offers the developer a choice about how to solve a specific problem. By using a framework, a developer lets the framework control portions of their application. While it’s perfectly possible to code a web application without using a framework, it’s more practical to use one.

  • Barry Kauler ☛ OE recompile pending tonight

    But was still unable to run Dunfell desktop in container, the ‘pflask’ utility failed. I chased this down to the ‘libcap-ng’ library not recognizing “CAP_SYS_MOUNT”, which is a new Linux Capability that I patched into the Linux kernel.

  • Linux Hint ☛ How to Apply Try Catch Block in PHP

    Exception handling is a very important feature of any object-oriented programming. When any logical or system error arrives after executing any code then it is called an exception and the technique by which the coder can correctly handle the errors is called exception handling. It is used to avoid unexpected results from the end-users, improve the application security and handle predefined errors efficiently. This feature is supported by PHP from version 5. Try and catch block is used to handle exceptions in object-oriented programming. Try block is used to throw the exception if any error occurs and catch or finally block is used to handle the exception in PHP. This tutorial will help you to learn the use of exception handling of object-oriented programming by using PHP.

  • Linux Hint ☛ How to Print Array in PHP

    Array variables are used to store multiple values in a single variable. Different types of programming problems can be solved easily by using array variables. Sometimes it requires checking the structure and values of the array variable in human-readable format for debugging purposes. The array values can be printed in PHP in different ways. Using a loop is the simplest way to print the array values. You can use two built-in functions of PHP to do this task. These are print_r() and var_dump(). If you want to get more detailed information about any array variable then you can use var_dump() because it provides information on array values by including data types. How you can use the ‘for‘ or ‘foreach’ loop and the built-in functions in PHP have been shown in this tutorial using multiple examples.

  • Linux Hint ☛ PHP String Concatenation

    Joining one or more string values with another string value or variable is called string concatenation. It is a common task when we want to print any output in a more meaningful way for the user. PHP has no built-in function to join string data like other standard programming languages. But the array of string values can be joined by using some PHP built-in functions. Different ways to join string values and an array of string values have been shown in this tutorial.

  • Hackaday ☛ Our Favorite Things: Binary Search

    You might not think that it would be possible to have a favorite optimization algorithm, but I do. And if you’re well-versed in the mathematical art of hill climbing, you might be surprised that my choice doesn’t even involve taking any derivatives. That’s not to say that I don’t love Newton’s method, because I do, but it’s just not as widely applicable as the good old binary search. And this is definitely a tool you should have in your toolbox, too.

  • Rust

    • This Week In Rust: This Week in Rust 434

  • Java

    • OpenSource.com ☛ Use Maven to manage your Java dependencies | Opensource.com

      As an open source enthusiast, I’ve used dozens (hundreds?) of libraries that are well beyond my skill or interest as a programmer. For a lot of people, including me, the available libraries are one of the things that makes a particular programming language worth using.

      An open source library represents hours and days you don’t have to work on a problem that’s either not central to your project or, conversely, so central that your project would be otherwise out of reach. Better still, it’s code you don’t have to maintain—unless it’s so important to you that you decide to contribute to it.

      Because open source libraries are a vital component of open source programming, most programming languages have a convenient way to ensure they’re easy to include in your codebase.

Standards/Consortia

• Hackaday ☛ OpenGL In 500 Lines (Sort Of…)

  How difficult is OpenGL? How difficult can it be if you can build a basic renderer in 500 lines of code? That’s what [Dmitry] did as part of a series of tiny applications. The renderer is part of a course and the line limit is to allow students to build their own rendering software. [Dmitry] feels that you can’t write efficient code for things like OpenGL without understanding how they work first.

• VA is Leveraging APIs to Improve Patient Experience

  To drive adoption, VA has been accelerating advertisements and marketing across VA’s medical facilities. In terms of standardization, VA is using Open API, FHIR standards and the 21st Century Cures Act to enable the most applications in the veteran ecosystem as possible.

Counter Punch ☛ In the Search for the Disappeared, the Seeds of a New Society

The motto of the VI National Search Brigade, the central project of the Enlaces Nacionales (National Links) Network, is “In searching for the disappeared, we find each other”.

It makes sense on many levels. The brigades have unearthed hundreds of human remains and clues to the whereabouts of their loved ones, disappeared throughout Mexico. Their goal is to find them and return them to their families, and that in a context where the state and a large part of society have buried their very existence.

Counter Punch ☛ Redemption and Wholeness Rather Than Guilt and Shame

There is another way.

Two years ago my wife and I undertook a pilgrimage to Auschwitz/Birkenau organized and led by the Zen Peacemakers. We stayed for a week at a retreat center by the gates of the camps and every day and most evenings we visited the wretched barracks, dungeons and torture chambers, gas chambers, crematoria, and museums of horrifying memorabilia. We sat in meditation and prayer on the railroad platform where the cattle cars unloaded their traumatized prisoners, most doomed to die there.

Science

• Common Dreams ☛ Scientists Find Craters—Including One Bigger Than a City Block—in Arctic Seafloor

  While thawing permafrost on land tied to human-driven global temperature rise has generated worldwide alarm in recent years, a new study out this week is garnering attention for researchers’ discoveries underwater.

  “As climate change continues to reshape the Arctic, it’s critical that we also understand changes in the submerged permafrost offshore.”

Education

• The Nation ☛ The University Cannot Be Decolonized

  KA: If Black history were properly embedded into the school curriculum and into the university, there would be no need for Black history month. It’s really just an opportunity for institutions to virtue signal. They celebrate some Black stuff, but you don’t learn anything about Black history. The big difference in the UK is basically demographics, in terms of where slavery was. The British-owned slaves were in the Caribbean, not in Britain itself. It’s not like America, where slavery accounted for the Black population. It’s only since the Second World War that there have been large numbers of Black people in the UK. Initially it was adults who would come, and they would bring their children later. So it wasn’t until the 1960s that there were large number of Black kids in the schools.

• TruthOut ☛ A Movement to Defend Pensions Sparked an Educator Uprising in Puerto Rico

Hardware

• Hackaday ☛ An Old Typewriter Speaks To The World

  Typewriters are something which was once ubiquitous, yet which abruptly faded away and are now a rare sight. There was a period of a few years in which electric typewriters and computers existed side-by-side though, and it’s one of these which [Jonah Brüchert] has experimented with connecting to a computer for use as a printer or terminal.

• Hackaday ☛ A Clear Guide For A Low-Profile Bespoke Keyboard

  At the risk of stepping on our fantastic Keebin with Kristina series, a beautiful tutorial by [Ben Vallack] details how to create a custom low-profile keyboard in great detail.

• Hackaday ☛ Cheap Spot Welder Teardown

  It used to be hard to dump enough electricity through two pieces of metal to meld them together. But a lithium-ion battery can do it. The question is, should it? [The Signal Path] takes a cheap battery-based spot welder apart to see what’s inside and tries to answer that question. You can see the teardown in the video below.

• Hackaday ☛ Tired Of 3D Printed Skirts? Try Kisses

  One popular option when 3D printing is to have the printer draw a loop or two around the print before starting. This serves several purposes: it clears the print head for one thing. It also marks the area of the print bed in use and many people use it to adjust the leveling if necessary. However, the little scraps of plastic do add up. [Makers Mashup] decided to try something different and now uses what he dubs the landing strip and kisses method.

• Hackaday ☛ Spark Plug And Plumbing Parts Bring Nitrogen Laser Under Control

  When it comes to high-speed, high-voltage switching, there are a wealth of components to choose from — MOSFETS, thyristors, IGBTs, and even vacuum tubes like thyratrons. But who needs all that expensive silicon (or glass) when all you need to build a high-voltage switch is some plumbing fixtures and a lathe?

• India Times ☛ Intel, Micron CEOs to testify at U.S. Senate hearing on chip making

  Two decades ago, the United States produced nearly 40% of all chips and today it accounts for only 12% of global production, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has said.

• PC World ☛ Intel wants in on cloud gaming with its mysterious ‘Project Endgame’

  For the last several years Intel has been cranking up its GPU game, and it’s just about ready to step up to Nvidia and AMD with discrete “Arc” graphics cards of its own—at least in some places. But the company is never working on just one thing, and in the latest press release for the Arc graphics platform, Intel is hyping something it calls “Project Endgame.” What is that, aside from a flimsy justification to use Marvel characters in a PCWorld header image?

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Counter Punch ☛ Rand Paul’s Solution to Anthony Fauci: Three More Anthony Faucis

  US Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has a solution: Triple the number of such institutions at the top.

  He’s introduced an amendment to Section 401 of the Public Health Service Act which would split the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases into three separate agencies (a National Institute of Allergic Diseases, a National Institute of  Infectious Diseases, and a  National Institute of Immunologic Diseases).

• Counter Punch ☛ Unmasking the Great Unmasking

  To be clear, the virus can be transmitted before symptoms appear, and protection increases when everyone is masked (handy chart here).  I intend to continue wearing an N95 or other high-filtration mask, and I hope that my students, colleagues, and other coworkers will do so as well, since, without fit-testing, even the best mask works better as a trap than as a filter. Despite the lifting of the mandates,  we can still choose to protect each other.

  In its updated guidance, the CDC offered a new measure:  rather than “community transmission,” the new metric is “community level.”  This is calculated substantially on the basis of whether hospitals are likely to be overwhelmed, rather than on the numbers of people actually infected or sick.  Hospitalization is a lagging indicator: by the time these numbers rise, many people have already become infected and sick, and the situation will continue to worsen before it improves.

• Pro Publica ☛ We’re Releasing the Data Behind Our Toxic Air Analysis

  Today ProPublica is releasing the data behind our investigative series “Sacrifice Zones,” which revealed more than 1,000 hot spots of cancer-causing industrial air pollution around the country. Researchers can now download the principal data files behind our investigation from our Data Store.

• The Nation ☛ 6 Million Covid Deaths Worldwide

• Common Dreams ☛ WHO Chief’s Message to Nations of the World: ‘The Pandemic Is Not Over’

  At Wednesday’s World Health Organization media briefing, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on countries around the world to remain vigilant in combating Covid-19, declaring that “the pandemic is not over.”

  While reported cases have been declining over the past several weeks, Tedros said that infections are once again increasing globally—especially in parts of Asia.

• Orac ☛ The Brownstone Institute vs. “vaccine fanatics” in The Epoch Times

  Drs. Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya are the scientific director and a senior scholar, respectively, at the Brownstone Institute, a right wing “free market” think tank founded by Jeffrey Tucker, who left his previous position as editorial director at another right wing think tank, American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), to found Brownstone as the “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration.” I’m writing this post because last week I noticed an article by the two of them that repeats a common antivaccine trope that dates back to long before the pandemic, namely the claim that “vaccine fanatics” are turning people into antivaxxers (excuse me, “vaccine skeptics”). Where did they first publish their little missive? Believe it or not, they first published it on the conspiracy theory and antivax website The Epoch Times under the title How Vaccine Fanatics Fueled Vaccine Skepticism. Then, a week later, they republished it on the Brownstone Institute website under the title Vaccine Fanaticism Fuels Vaccine Skepticism. Let’s just say that publishing an article like this on The Epoch Times—which is a lot like Mike Adams‘ Natural News, only with slicker graphics, fewer ads, and only somewhat less histrionic headlines—is not a good look if you are “not antivaccine,” and both Kulldorff and Bhattacharya really, really, really don’t like being called “antivaccine,” even though both oppose COVID-19 vaccination for children, with Kulldorff even having recently written an article Should I Vaccinate My Child Against COVID?, which, predictably, concludes that the answer is no. Of course, I’ve never called either of them “antivaccine”; rather, I’ve pointed it out when they parrot—apparently unknowingly—antivaccine talking points. That doesn’t stop them from whining about being called “antivaccine.”

• Counter Punch ☛ Labour Leader Keir Starmer, Another Thatcher Lite

  Boris “BoJo” Johnson and several of his staffers are under police investigation for holding parties at his official residence in violation of Covid lockdown restrictions in 2020.

  At the same time there is a cost-of-living squeeze draining the finances of Brits who have already suffered the longest period of wage suppression in nearly 2 centuries. The recovery since the crash of 2008 has been the most sluggish of modern times. Inequality is spiralling.

• Counter Punch ☛ What an End to the COVID-Era Free School Lunch Program Will Mean for Poor Students

  How did the COVID-19 pandemic initially affect the school lunch program?

  In March 2020, nearly all U.S. K-12 school buildings closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Common Dreams ☛ As Covid Cases Surge in China and Europe, US Defunds Pandemic Response

  The White House announced Monday it will be scaling back public health measures to fight the Covid-19 virus despite surging infections rates elsewhere in the world and critics who say that it is much too premature to act as though the pandemic is over.

  “If we’ve learned anything in this pandemic, it is that the trends in Europe precede our own.”

• NDTV ☛ Denmark Plans To Go Tobacco-Free For Anyone Born After 2010

  Denmark unveiled plans on Tuesday to ensure that future generations are tobacco-free, and is considering banning the sale of cigarettes and other nicotine products to anyone born after 2010.

  “Our hope is that all people born in 2010 and later will never start smoking or using nicotine-based products”, Health Minister Magnus Heunicke told reporters.

• Copenhagen Post ☛ Denmark aiming for a smoke-free generation

  No smoking and less drinking The government looked for inspiration in countries like Ireland, Sweden and Finland, which all have a goal to have a smoke-free generation by 2025 or 2030.

  In April last year, New Zealand announced a smoke-free generation – people born in 2004 or after who will never be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products.

• NBC ☛ Lone star tick, linked to Heartland virus, now found in 6 states

  Ticks carrying a mysterious and rare virus that can sicken or even kill older adults or people with underlying conditions have been found in at least six states, a new study reported Wednesday.

  Test samples revealed that lone star ticks in Georgia had picked up the Heartland virus, Emory University researchers reported in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publication.

• NBC ☛ Year-round daylight saving time could have far-reaching effects, from health to education

  Still, the act of shifting between standard and daylight saving times is linked to a variety of negative health outcomes, according to a 2020 study, including higher rates of heart disease and more traffic accidents. So eliminating the practice of changing clocks might at least alleviate those risks.

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • Matt Rickard ☛ GitHub Isn’t About Code

    GitHub isn’t really about code anymore. The code is an integral part, but I imagine engagement for Issues, Pages, and Discussions is significantly higher than just the code. Maybe that’s why GitHub search and discovery has historically been lacking – the signals that are typically useful don’t apply for code.

  • Pseudo-Open Source

    • Privatisation/Privateering

      • Linux Foundation

        • Linux Foundation’s Site/Blog ☛ Looking to Hire or be Hired? Participate in the 10th Annual Open Source Jobs Report and Tell Us What Matters Most [Ed: Linux Foundation wants you to scan QR codes (spyphones), says “your privacy and confidentiality protected.” It’s a form of lobbying and we know whose.]

          The survey will only take a few minutes to complete, with your privacy and confidentiality protected.

  • Security

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • Counter Punch ☛ The Cyber-Corporate Body Snatcher

        In fact, in the 1960s, MIT invented the first wearable computer. In true James Bond-style, it was placed in a shoe with the goal of tracking a roulette ball in a gambling casino. However, MIT’s invention never worked and in 1985, Nevada prohibited wearables in casinos.

        Despite its early disappointment, today’s wearables are everywhere. They are commonly used as fitness monitors for example. Today, there are thousands of wearables available on the market or in development. Yet, artificial intelligence (AI) is set to markedly improve wearables. In the future, many wearables will move from being worn “on” the body (e.g. a watch) to being located “inside” the body (e.g. a smart pill).  Even the US military is looking forward to that.

      • EFF ☛ You Should Not Trust Russia’s New “Trusted Root CA”

        On the one hand, these changes may be necessary for Russians to access government services and websites impacted by international sanctions. Nonetheless, it is a worrying development: the Russian state’s stopgap measure to keep its services running also enables spying on Russians, now and in the future.

        The Internet governance entities ICANN and RIPE rejected Ukraine’s requests to revoke Russian top-level domains, access to Domain Name System root servers, and its IP addresses. However, international sanctions have heavily impacted Russia’s internet infrastructure. In part, this has happened because Certificate Authorities (CAs), the trusted notaries that underpin data security on the web, have begun refusing orders from domains ending in “.ru”, and have revoked certificates from Russia-based banks. Because international CAs like Digicert and Sectigo have largely stopped working for Russian websites, the Russian government has stepped in and suggested that citizens install its “Russian Trusted Root CA.”

        While the capabilities of Russia’s new root certificate authority are not completely clear, the certificate is valid for ten years. It has the capability not just to issue certificates for domains; it can also inspect the traffic of the users who communicate with those domains.

      • #PrivacyofthePeople: this Cookie will not crumble…

        In the last #PrivacyofthePeople post, we captured the conflict between efficiency and privacy posed by the use of voice assistants. In this post, we highlight the same conflict posed by a more fundamental component of our everyday internet: cookies. While cookies presently perform a lot of key functions in ensuring a smooth user experience (such as ensuring that your shopping cast stays with you through different pages on an online marketplace), they also raise concerns about user privacy and data collection as we discuss here.

        [...]

        Web cookies are packets of data, created by websites/web servers and stored on a user’s electronic device by their web browser. The term ‘cookie’ used in programming draws its genesis from ‘fortune cookies’ – cookies embedded with messages. Web cookies are embedded with textfiles which contain a unique name-value pair. An example of a name-value pair is a unique ID. Whenever you visit any website for the first time, the website creates a unique ID number for you and stores it on your computer as a cookie file. During this visit, the selected links, visited pages, information provided on the website through forms, items added on shopping carts etc. are stored on the website’s database. When you visit the same website for the second time, the cookies (i.e. the unique ID) created by the website during the first visit and stored on your device are retrieved by the website which helps the website identify you and your preferences when you visit the website. This often provides users with a personalised experience, saves time, and makes their experience on the internet hassle free.

      • IT Wire ☛ New digital platform rules crucial next step in consumer law reform

        Delivering the 2022 Ruby Hutchison Memorial Lecture, Sims applauded the progress on stronger consumer laws in Australia, starting with the introduction of the Australian Consumer Law in 2011, which included penalties for breaches, and then a significant hike in penalties in 2018.

      • India Times ☛ Ireland fines Facebook for EU privacy law breaches

        Ireland on Tuesday imposed a fine on Facebook parent company Meta for breaching EU data privacy laws, in the latest action in Europe against the business practices of US tech titans.

        The fine against the social media giant, which owns WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, amounted to a total of 17 million euros ($18.7 million) following an inquiry into 12 data breaches, said the Data Protection Commission (DPC).

      • Computer Weekly ☛ Encryption myths versus realities of Online Safety Bill

        Polemics make for bad policies. Here are the myths about encryption that the government’s Online Safety Bill is founded upon: [...]

      • Michael West ☛ Tech giants urged to report algorithm harm

        Social media companies should be forced to report to the federal government on how they use algorithms and how they address harm online, a parliamentary committee has recommended.

        The proposal was one of 26 recommendations made in the final report of the social media and online safety committee, which was handed down on Tuesday.

        The committee also recommended social media companies be mandated to set the highest privacy settings as a default for people under 18.

      • Scoop News Group ☛ Ireland slaps Facebook with $19M fine over 2018 data breaches

        Ireland’s Data Protection Commission on Tuesday issued a roughly $18.6 million fine against Facebook owner Meta related to how it handled European Union user data in the wake of 12 different breaches in 2018.

        The decision found that Meta failed to properly demonstrate its compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation, which dictates data protection and privacy in the EU.

      • Port Swigger ☛ Prison service for England and Wales recorded more than 2,000 data breaches over 12 months

        The UK Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has defended its data protection practices following allegations it failed to support an employee affected by a data breach of an MoJ service.

        The employee’s sensitive personal data was apparently exposed because of unauthorized access gained to the Justice Academy, an online learning and careers platform used by MoJ and other public sector staff.

        These claims were documented in a blog post published by CEL Solicitors, a UK law firm representing the employee.

Defence/Aggression

• FAIR ☛ ‘The Most Vulnerable People Lose When the US Imposes Sanctions’

  Janine Jackson interviewed IPS’s Khury Petersen-Smith about economic sanctions for the March 11, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

• Common Dreams ☛ Declassified Docs Show CIA Used Prisoner as a Torture Training Prop

  A prisoner at a Central Intelligence Agency “black site” in Afghanistan was used as a training prop to teach U.S. operatives how to torture other prisoners, leaving him with serious brain damage and other ailments, newly declassified documents published this week affirmed.

  “We now know that the CIA’s brutalization of Ammar at the black sites was secretly condemned by the agency itself.”

• The Nation ☛ What Actually Killed Breonna Taylor?

  It’s been two years since Americans learned the name of Breonna Taylor. The fateful details of her death have become well-remembered: Police in Louisville, Ky., shot the 26-year-old EMT while attempting to serve a “no-knock” warrant on her ex-boyfriend, who did not live at the home. Ever since, Taylor’s family has publicly grieved the loss of a beloved young woman who dreamed of becoming a nurse. “I just think she was destined to be great,” her mother, Tamika Palmer told The Cut. “She lit up a room and had this aura about herself.”

• Democracy Now ☛ A Tale of Two Wars: Biden Decries Russian Atrocities in Ukraine While Backing Saudi/UAE War in Yemen

  As the U.S. and U.K. push for Saudi Arabia to increase oil production to offset a rise in global energy prices amid sanctions on Russia, the kingdom on Saturday announced it had executed 81 people — the country’s largest mass execution in decades. Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, says the muted criticism of Saudi abuses reveals a double standard when it comes to how Western countries deal with the absolute monarchy, which has been waging a brutal assault on neighboring Yemen for almost seven years with U.S. support. If the U.S. wants the world to oppose Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, “then it’s got to stop supporting the war in Yemen,” says Whitson, who adds that disparate coverage of the wars in Ukraine and Yemen point to “inherent racism” in Western media.

• Democracy Now ☛ Ukrainians Unite to Hold Back Russian Forces in Kyiv, Mykolaiv & Odessa as 3 Million Refugees Flee

  We speak with Ukrainian reporter Nataliya Gumenyuk, who has been reporting from across Ukraine, including the strategic port cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa in the south of the country. More than 3 million refugees have fled the conflict, and Russian forces are increasingly targeting civilian areas. Gumenyuk says the Russian invasion has reshaped Ukrainian national identity and united the previously fractious country in common purpose. “It’s not just their lives, it’s not just their dignity. It’s really about this right to choose. They are really angry by the fact that another country decides for themselves what [the] government should be, how they should live,” says Gumenyuk, founder of the Public Interest Journalism Lab.

• TruthOut ☛ Ukraine, Russian Negotiators Say They’re Inching Closer to Peace Deal

• Democracy Now ☛ A NATO No-Fly Zone in Ukraine Would Be “Direct Involvement in the War Against Russia,” Experts Warn

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to demand the U.S. and NATO allies impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, an idea that President Biden has rejected even as a growing number of Republicans embrace the idea despite the risk it could draw the U.S. directly into the war against Russia and possibly spark a nuclear confrontation. Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, co-authored an open letter signed by foreign policy experts who oppose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. It urges leaders to continue diplomatic and economic measures to end the conflict. “As you start thinking about how a no-fly zone would actually unfold, it becomes very obvious this would be direct involvement in the war against Russia, and rather than end the war, a no-fly zone would enlarge the war and escalate the war,” says Wertheim.

• TruthOut ☛ No-Fly Zone in Ukraine Would Be “Direct Involvement in the War,” Experts Warn

• Common Dreams ☛ ‘Horrific’: Russia Allegedly Bombs Mariupol Theater Sheltering Hundreds of Ukrainian Civilians

  Russian forces on Wednesday allegedly bombed a theater in which at least hundreds of civilians were reportedly sheltering in Ukraine’s embattled southern port city of Mariupol.

  “It is still impossible to estimate the scale of this horrific and inhumane act.”

• Common Dreams ☛ Biden Calls Putin ‘A War Criminal’ as Russia Continues to Attack Ukraine

  U.S. President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a war criminal” on Wednesday afternoon as the deadly and ongoing assault on Ukraine continued.

  Asked whether he was ready to apply the title to Putin, Biden told a reporter, “I think he is a war criminal,” before walking away.

• Common Dreams ☛ War Has Destroyed $100 Billion Worth of Infrastructure in Ukraine: UN

  While peace talks and humanitarian aid for civilians remain top global priorities amid Russia’s ongoing assault of Ukraine, a United Nations report released Wednesday estimates that over $100 billion in damage has already been done to the country’s battered infrastructure.

  “If the war deepens and protracts further, up to 90% of the population of Ukraine could be facing poverty and vulnerability to poverty.”

• Counter Punch ☛ Putin’s ‘Mission Accomplished’

• Counter Punch ☛ Ukraine and the Media

  Unfortunately, the western media has largely reduced the complex causes behind this disaster to one simplistic meme: It’s all the fault of one man – Vladimir (“Mad Vlad”) Putin the evil autocrat, a modern-day Stalin, an unhinged Hitler with visions of global domination. Unless you adhere to this facile bogyman narrative that reduces a complex global conflict with deep historical roots to a binary contest between good and evil, you are siding with the enemy and won’t get a word in edgewise in any discussion about the real causes behind this horrific war.

  To even suggest that the US and its NATO allies might share some responsibility by pushing Russia to the brink and encouraging the Ukraine to reject compromises that could have prevented the invasion, automatically makes you a Putin apologist, a Kremlin stooge or worse.

• Common Dreams ☛ International Court of Justice Orders Russia to Halt Attack on Ukraine

  The International Court of Justice on Wednesday ordered the Russian government to immediately halt its invasion of Ukraine, a legally binding decision that Moscow is likely to ignore as it continues bombarding its neighbor.

  “The Russian Federation must, pending the final decision in the case, suspend the military operations that it commenced on 24 February 2022 in the territory of Ukraine,” reads the preliminary ruling handed down by the United Nations’ top court.

• Common Dreams ☛ Global Nurses Union Says ‘Heinous’ Russian Attacks on Hospitals Amount to War Crimes

  An international nurses’ union representing more than 2.5 million healthcare workers worldwide issued a statement late Tuesday accusing Russia of committing war crimes during its assault on Ukraine, a weeks-long military campaign that has included attacks on dozens of hospitals and other medical facilities.

  “These heinous attacks constitute war crimes and must not pass as unfortunate events taking place in the fog of war.”

• Counter Punch ☛ The Root Problem is War Not Putin

  War is slaughter.

  War is a highly contagious disease, spreading germs the way a common cold causes its human host to sneeze. Among the many war germs are hatred, fear, dehumanization, tribalism, glorification of violence, and legitimization of murder. Without sufficient therapy, each war leads to the next.

• Counter Punch ☛ The Politics of the Russo-Ukrainian War: International Scholars Weigh In

  Daniel Falcone: Given the history of the region, how likely was this conflict? Can you provide the historical formations that brought us to this point? 

  Lawrence Davidson: Recent history made this war a very real last resort option for the Russians. After the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO with American urging, extended itself eastward. Based on Russia’s experience as the Soviet Union, there was only one way to interpret such action on NATO’s part—it was an act that threatened Russian national security.

• The Nation ☛ Volodymyr Zelensky Is Not a Comedian—and That’s No Joke

  Way before this terrible war, I used to groan when people referred to the president of Ukraine as a “comedian turned politician.” Comedian indeed!

• The Nation ☛ The Dreams of a New Cold War Are Here to Stay

  In certain quarters in this country, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has generated enthusiasm for a new cold war. At The New York Times, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have been described as “children of the [old] Cold War” now involved in a “face off,” an “eyeball to eyeball” confrontation harkening back to John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev contesting Berlin and Cuba in “dramatic fashion” 60 years ago. (Never mind that the “drama” over Cuba nearly led to nuclear war and the possible end of most life on Earth.) Such breathless accounts make me think of the role Slim Pickens played as Major Kong in Stanley Kubrick’s famed film Dr. Strangelove, giddy with resolve, even relief of a kind, now that he and his B-52 crew are finally headed for nuclear combat with the  .

• The Nation ☛ How to Avoid a New Cold War

  With the unlawful invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has blown up the post–Cold War era. The supposed Pax Americana of the past three decades—which featured far too little pax—is over. What comes next is yet to be defined, with a stark contrast between what might be possible and what appears likely to follow. Is a new and more dangerous, militarized Cold War inevitable? Is another world of mutual security still conceivable?

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | America the Vengeful: Medical Ethicist Calls for War Crimes Against Russian Civilians

  Arthur L. Caplan, a professor of medical ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, has been campaigning for a program of mass death. He has written, not one, but two op-eds calling for a pharmaceutical boycott of Russia.

• Common Dreams ☛ ‘Unimaginable’: Russian Attack on Chernihiv Bread Line Kills At Least 10 Ukrainians

  A Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv on Wednesday killed at least 10 civilians who were reportedly queued up to purchase food.

  Oleksandr Merezhko, deputy head and foreign relations chair of the Verkhovna Rada—Ukraine’s parliament—tweeted that “Russians have killed more than 10 people who were standing in line to buy some bread.”

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | The Imperative to Resist a Dangerous New Cold War

  In certain quarters in this country, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has generated enthusiasm for a new cold war. At the New York Times, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have been described as “children of the [old] Cold War” now involved in a “face off,” an “eyeball to eyeball” confrontation harkening back to John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev contesting Berlin and Cuba in “dramatic fashion” 60 years ago. (Never mind that the “drama” over Cuba nearly led to nuclear war and the possible end of most life on Earth.) Such breathless accounts make me think of the role Slim Pickens played as Major Kong in Stanley Kubrick’s famed film Dr. Strangelove, giddy with resolve, even relief of a kind, now that he and his B-52 crew are finally headed for nuclear combat with the Russkies.

• Common Dreams ☛ Ukraine, Russia Reportedly Making ‘Significant Progress’ Toward 15-Point Peace Deal

  Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are reportedly moving in the direction of a 15-point peace deal that would involve Kyiv formally renouncing its ambition to join NATO and accepting “limits on its armed forces” in exchange for a cease-fire, the withdrawal of Moscow’s troops, and security guarantees from the West.

  The broad and tentative framework of the deal was first reported Wednesday by the Financial Times, which noted that Ukraine and Russia’s delegations “have made significant progress” toward an agreement while stressing that potentially major obstacles remain.

• Common Dreams ☛ ‘Do More’: Ukraine President Zelenskyy Asks Congress to Back No-Fly Zone, More Weapons

  Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday morning as he pressed his case for additional backing by western powers to intervene further against Russian assault.

  During his livestreamed remarks, delivered partly in Ukrainian and concluding in English, Zelenskyy asked U.S. lawmakers to think about key moments in American history—including the attacks on Pearl Harbor and those on 9/11—where courage was demanded and its people fought back against outside enemies.

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | How the US Congress Should Respond to What Zelensky Asks For

• Common Dreams ☛ ‘All Wars End in Agreements’: Zelenskyy Voices Hope for Peace Deal as Talks Continue

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Tuesday that “difficult” diplomatic talks with Moscow appear to be moving in a positive direction even as Russian forces ramp up their bombing campaigns in Kyiv and other major cities, worsening an already massive humanitarian crisis.

  “There are fundamental contradictions. But there is certainly room for compromise.”

• Jerusalem Post ☛ Russia to allow thousands of Middle East volunteers to fight Ukraine

  Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the green light on Friday for up to 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East to be deployed alongside Russian-backed rebels to fight in Ukraine, doubling down an invasion that the West says has been losing momentum.

  The move, just over two weeks since Putin ordered the invasion, allows Russia to deploy battle-hardened mercenaries from conflicts such as Syria without risking additional Russian military casualties.

• CS Monitor ☛ Can schools ban hijabs? Indian court says yes.

  The ban last month by the state had sparked protests by some Muslim students and parents, and counter-protests by Hindu students. Critics of the ban say it is another way of marginalizing a community that accounts for about 13% of Hindu-majority India’s 1.35 billion people.

• Gatestone Institute ☛ Turkey: Occupies Northern Cyprus, Goes for the Rest

  Currently, Turkey appears to be targeting the rest of the Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union. The government of Cyprus is now dealing with an “illegal immigration crisis” which it says Turkey is orchestrating. Government authorities state that the majority of migrants entering the free part of Cyprus are being smuggled illegally through the Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.

  Meanwhile, according to Turkish media, Turkey is planning to construct a military naval base in the Karpasia Peninsula in the Turkish-occupied north.

  Despite the uncountable war crimes Turkey has committed in Cyprus, the Turkish government has condemned the UN for having its “peacekeeping forces” there.

• Frontpage Magazine ☛ Taking Calls from Biden

  They prefer not to engage in any kind of telephone dialogue where they would have to listen to Joe Biden try to convince them to do the world a favor and greatly increase their oil production, when what they want to talk about is something else: they believe that the revived Iran deal is misconceived and dangerous. It’s easier to refuse to take Biden’s calls, a telling snub that signals their great unhappiness with Washington.

• Jerusalem Post ☛ Saudi Arabia, UAE leaders not returning Biden’s calls, disappointed with US – report

  The two nations are also reportedly disappointed with the state of negotiations in the ever-nearing Iran nuclear deal, according to the WSJ.

• Mint Press News ☛ Israel Apologists Hurl Familiar Antisemitism Charges in Post-Speech Ambush of Amnesty Director

  WASHINGTON – A typical DC storm has been brewing since Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA, spoke last Wednesday at the Women’s National Democratic Club (WNDC) in Washington. O’Brien gave an excellent talk about Amnesty International’s report on apartheid in Palestine and no sooner did he finish than a hand was raised to be called on for the first question.

• Mint Press News ☛ Yemen Retaliates Against Deadly Fuel Blockade by Targeting Saudi Oil

  YEMEN-SAUDI BORDER – Under the scorching midday sun, Hakem Matari Yahya al-Buttaini’s brother was on the cusp of finally being able to purchase the 40 liters of diesel fuel for which he had been waiting in line for seven days, when he got the call. Hakem had been executed by Saudi Arabia and the news had just spread through local media. Hakem was among seven Yemenis executed by Saudi Arabia on Saturday.

Environment

• Counter Punch ☛ The Impacts of Green New Deals on Latin America

  The European Green Deal, initiated at the end of 2019, aims to combine a transition to clean energy with an emphasis on economic equity. A similar initiative in the United States, associated most visibly with a resolution introduced at the beginning of 2019 by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in the House and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) in the Senate, has inspired some elements of the Biden administration’s economic stimulus bills as well as some stand-alone legislation that has not yet passed Congress. In 2020, the South Korean government made a Green New Deal part of its official policy with an emphasis on boosting renewable energy and creating jobs in that sector.

  The Global South is both present and absent from these initiatives. It is absent in that mainstream Green New Deals focus on the reactivation of economic growth in their own countries or regions, and the global South is scarcely mentioned. And yet the Global South is very much present as well, for many of the materials required in clean energy infrastructure come from this vast region. In other words, Green New Deals depend on a resource flow from lower-income countries without taking responsibility for the possible impacts that may have on local or transnational ecosystems and societies.

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | The Best Climate Policy You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

  Current strategies to combat climate change aren’t working. Carbon emissions are still increasing. But there is a way forward that would actually reduce carbon emissions—a way that’s simple and transparent and that would enable long-term planning for policy makers, as well as greater security for the general public. Spoiler alert: there’s a hitch.

• TruthOut ☛ Manchin Just Delivered Another Blow on Climate. He’s a Threat to Humanity.

• Energy

  • Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | We Must All Reject Fossil Fuel Industry’s Spin on Ukraine War

    Vladimir Putin’s unjust invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a significant and spiraling humanitarian and security crisis. The epicenter of this crisis is Ukraine, and the staggering costs already forced to be borne by its people.

  • The Nation ☛ Fossil Fuels Beget Dictators

    As Vladimir Putin’s war continues to inflict widespread devastation on Ukraine and its people, the feeling of powerlessness only grows deeper for those of us witnessing images of war crimes on the news and social media. But this powerlessness assumes we are mere spectators to this invasion. We’re not. For Americans, our addiction to same-day delivery service and mobility at the click of an app makes us pawns in Putin’s game of petrostate perestroika.

  • Counter Punch ☛ Inside Japan’s Nuclear Meltdown

  • Common Dreams ☛ Red Alert for Fukushima Nuclear Plant After 7.3 Quake in Japan

    This is a breaking story… Please check back for possible updates…

    A series of earthquakes off the coast of Japan on Wednesday triggered a tsunami advisory for Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures—just over 11 years after the region endured a major nuclear disaster.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ No, [Cryptocurrency] Isn’t Helping Ukraine

    In times of war, stocks in weapons companies have always been a safe investment. The war in Ukraine shows that Bitcoiners are now laughing, too. Like other disaster capitalists, die-hard [cryptocurrency] proponents will never be incentivized toward peace. As disciples of the Sovereign Individual, [cryptocurrency] bros are turning a humanitarian nightmare into a dream opportunity for themselves — and even protracting the conflict.

  • YLE ☛ Cryptocurrency taxpayer numbers explode in Finland

    Gains from cryptocurrencies have to be notified to the tax authorities by the taxpayer. The administration says it is making changes to its online service this spring in order to make that process a little easier.

  • KSHB TC ☛ Congressional Democrats urge oil, gas price-gouging inquiry

    Reps. Sharice Davids and Emanuel Cleaver II are among 32 members of Congress who signed a letter to U.S. House and Senate leadership requesting “immediate investigations” and “public hearings on alleged price gouging within the oil and gas industry.”

    Davids, a Democrat from Kansas, and Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri, said the inquiry ought to be a “top priority” for Congress through the end of 2022 in a March 10 letter.

  • New Republic ☛ Oil Companies Are Making a Fortune From Soaring Prices. Democrats Want to Take Some of It Back.

    As gas prices climbed to over $4 per gallon in the United States and oil traded at highs of $130 per barrel this week amid war in Europe, a new report from the U.K.-based think tank Common Wealth finds that the top five oil and gas producers in the U.S. are getting a wildly good deal from the U.S. government: While they rake in massive profits, their tax burden remains shockingly low. Since the Paris Agreement was signed, top producers have, on average, gotten money back from the IRS. Thursday afternoon, a group of congressional Democrats—led by Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in the Senate, and Representative Ro Khanna in the House—announced a bill to help change that, proposing to levy a tax on fossil fuel companies’ windfall profits.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Fight inflation with a windfall profits tax

    How is it possible that we’re paying so much for oil? Is it sanctions? War? Supply-chain shocks? Is the Moon in Neptune? Or is it, you know, a highly concentrated energy sector soaking the public and using all of the above for cover?

    Two Democratic lawmakers – one from each house – think it’s the latter. Ro Khanna and Sheldon Whitehouse have proposed a “windfall profits” tax on oil companies that would claw back the billions the hydrocarbon barons have soaked us for and return it to the public in a one-time payment of $240 for every single tax filer and $360 for joint filers.

• Wildlife/Nature

  • Counter Punch ☛ The Tourism Backlash

    The survey has been done annually since 1992 and points out that although a large majority of Montanans still think the benefits of tourism outweigh the negatives, that number has declined by 5% since the last survey. It’s also not much of a surprise that it’s the western side of the state, with its national parks and stunning mountains, that is feeling the most pressure and starting to voice displeasure with the loss of quality of life in exchange for the dollars the tourists spend here.

    Although many would dispute that there are “limits to growth” and that Montana is so high, wide and handsome that we have plenty of room for all, the reality on the ground is increasing the feeling that we’re trying to stuff too many people on the finite resources and the enjoyment of traditional Montana lifestyles is being negatively impacted.

  • Counter Punch ☛ Putting Cows First in the Gravelly Range

  • Counter Punch ☛ Yellowstone’s Bison Deserve More Tolerance

    The shameful, cruel and wasteful killing of Yellowstone’s bison should have stopped years ago but another 900 are targeted for death this winter. The National Park Service seeks to replace the outdated bison management plan and do away with the annual “cull” (kill) but intolerance for bison in Montana is a huge hurdle to this effort.

    Bison are native to the Yellowstone area and to all of Montana. They should be allowed to roam on public lands such as the Custer Gallatin National Forest, where the new forest plan claims to support “a year-round, self-sustaining bison population…” Yet there are no resident bison on the Custer Gallatin, since they are hazed, killed and trapped at the park border.

  • The Revelator ☛ Now Read This: Stop Doomscrolling and Save the Planet

  • Counter Punch ☛ Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council Halt Grazing and Sagebrush-Juniper Burning in the Elkhorn Mountains

    This is an important victory. The Court’s Order means that if the BLM wants to reconsider plans to graze cattle in this crucial wildlife management area, it must analyze the cumulative effects that grazing, fences, and water developments for cattle will have on wildlife. Considering this is land federal taxpayers specifically purchased for wildlife habitat, the decision is more than justified.

    The BLM’s 2020 Grazing Decision authorized construction of riparian exclosures, water developments, and the construction of five miles of new fencing. Fences, however, present many hazards to wildlife, including from entanglement and by blocking movement. Since the fencing was installed under an environmental analysis the court found illegal, we still believe it should be removed.

• Overpopulation

  • uni Stanford ☛ Water Security: A Growing Concern

    The future looks bleak as demand for water greatly outstrips the supply. It is estimated that demand will outstrip supply by 50 per cent by the year 2030. This would affect agriculture as well as water-intensive businesses such as food processing, drinks, textiles, metals, chemicals, and paper.

    Climate change coupled with anthropogenic activities such as encroachment and mismanagement of water resources has resulted in a huge decline in groundwater level in recent decades – so much so that experts predict that the third World War will be fought over water. Impacts of climate change are visible today. Erratic monsoons are leading to water stress, loss of green cover and soil degradation, and disturbing natural resource-based livelihoods.

Finance

• Counter Punch ☛ Where Do We Go? The Increasing Scarcity of Affordable Housing in America

  Workers have faced stagnant wages for the past 40 years. Yet the cost of rent has steadily increased during that time, with sharp increases of 14% to 40% over the past two years.

  Now, more than ever, workers are feeling the stress of the affordable housing crisis.

• TruthOut ☛ Labor Board Finds Starbucks Illegally Retaliated Against Union Organizers

• Common Dreams ☛ Sanders Vows ‘Strong Solidarity’ for Multi-State Amazon Worker Walkout

  Sen. Bernie Sanders was among the workers’ rights advocates applauding more than 60 Amazon warehouse employees Wednesday as they staged the company’s first multi-state walkout to demand a reinstatement of breaks and fairer pay.

  Noting that founder and executive chairman owns a $500 million yacht, a $23 million mansion, and is currently charging celebrities and other wealthy customers tens of millions of dollars for rides on his space company’s suborbital flights, Sanders wrote that “Amazon can afford to give its employees a $3 raise.”

• Counter Punch ☛ Tracking Global Warming Via the Dow Jones Average

  The original images I used for this exercise are also shown so you can read the numerical scales and labels of each.

  We all know that “capitalism equals global warming,” and the composite image here is just one possible visualization of that reality.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• TruthOut ☛ Book Reveals Sinema Has Been Marketing Herself as Anti-Government to GOP Donors

• TruthOut ☛ Doulas Push Back Against California’s Proposal to Pay Them Shockingly Low Rates

• TruthOut ☛ Biden Calls Out Oil and Gas Companies as Oil Prices Drop But Gas Remains High

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | The Real Reason Congress Gets Nothing Done

  Why doesn’t Congress get anything done?

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | Let’s Just Say It Very Clearly: The US Supreme Court Is Corrupt

  So now, as expected after decades of taking big bucks for her rightwing work on behalf of America’s oligarchs, we learn that the wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Ginny Thomas, was in Trump’s January 6th “rally” up to her eyeballs.

• [Old] DataCenter Dynamics ☛ US State Department tells staff in Kyiv to destroy IT equipment as it shifts embassy to Western Ukraine

  US officials familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that they had been ordered to destroy networking equipment and computer workstations, as well as dismantle the embassy telephone system.

  Specific IT requirements of the embassy are not known. Procurement documents for other US embassies around the world show that they usually have one to two server rooms.

• [Old] The Independent UK ☛ US closes Ukraine embassy and ‘destroys computer equipment’ ahead of expected Russian invasion

  State Department officials were “temporarily relocating our Embassy operations in Ukraine from our Embassy in Kyiv to Lviv due to the dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces,” said Mr Blinken. Lviv is located in the western part of Ukraine, far from the country’s border with Russia and Moscow-aligned Belarus.

Misinformation/Disinformation

• [Old] Deutsche Welle ☛ The hybrid war that began before Russia invaded Ukraine

  There is no doubt that misinformation of all kinds is being spread via social media. On Twitter, the Ukrainian government said its own official announcements were the only ones users should trust. Germany’s Ministry of Defense also warned of possible misinformation spread by Russia.

• The Verge ☛ Facebook removes ‘deepfake’ of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy

  The deepfake appears to have been first broadcasted on a Ukrainian news website for TV24 after an alleged [intrusion], as first reported by Sky News on Wednesday. The video shows an edited Zelenskyy speaking behind a podium declaring that Ukraine has “decided to return Donbas” to Russia and that his nation’s war efforts had failed.

• Techdirt ☛ With Truth Social Having Trouble Attracting Users, Will Trump/Nunes Realize That There’s More To Managing A Social Media Site Than Grievances?

  It appears that Donald Trump’s social network, at least in its initial form, is following the pattern of many of Donald Trump’s other business ventures: lots of hype, but little in the way of an actual business. As Politico has detailed, even the MAGA world isn’t exactly rushing to make Truth Social the Trumpist paradise he seemed to expect.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Reuters ☛ Saudi blogger Badawi out of prison, still faces travel ban

  Badawi set up the “Free Saudi Liberals” website where he criticized the Saudi clergy and called for changes in the way religion is practiced in Saudi Arabia.

  He was also fined 1 million riyals ($266,567). Prosecutors challenged an earlier sentence of seven years and 600 lashes as too lenient.

• Variety ☛ Pakistan Bans SXSW Title ‘I’ll Meet You There’ for ‘Negative Image of Muslims,’ Director Speaks Out (EXCLUSIVE)

  Tahir said: “It is disheartening, disappointing and shameful that issues that Pakistani ex-pats face in their lives are trivialized and labeled as ‘not reflecting true Pakistani culture.’ We, Pakistanis, represent our country with love and pride every day while living in foreign lands. We do this to support our families and loved ones. We do this to support our country financially and in every other way. We do this with nothing but love for our country and yet to be cast aside by our very own is deeply hurtful.’

• The Express Tribune ☛ Qavi Khan’s film, ‘I’ll Meet You There’ banned in Pakistan

  Speaking to The Express Tribune, a senior official at CBFC confirmed that the film has been banned in Pakistan. “I’ll Meet You There was reviewed by the full board of CBFC and after watching it was decided that the film is not suitable to be given NOC for a release in the country. There were several controversial topics and details that opposed our policy. The board unanimously agreed on a ban,” a senior official shared with us.

• Hindu Post ☛ Pakistan bans ‘I’ll Meet You There’ for ‘negative image of Muslims’; director speaks out

  The film was selected for SXSW’s narrative feature competition in 2020 before the spread of the pandemic forced the festival’s cancelation. Mini-studio Level Forward acquired North American virtual theatrical rights and impact distribution privileges for the film and rolled it out in 2021.

• TruthOut ☛ Marina Ovsyannikova Refuses to Retract Antiwar Statements in Moscow Court

The Lesson Marina Ovsyannikova Offers To Chuck Todd And Lester Holt

It was an incredibly brave — and because she planned her actions in advance — well-executed protest.

But make no mistake. Ovsyannikova is not, like another brave journalist who spoke up this week, Yevgenia Albats, someone who has criticized the regime in the past, someone whose witness now is a continuation of years of brave reporting.

• OpenRightsGroup ☛ Digital Rights And Ukraine

  However, we are very concerned about shutdowns of product updates by phone companies and software providers. These will lower the security of Russian citizens, and make them more vulnerable to government surveillance.

• Internet Censorship Beckons as UK Online Safety Bill Hits Parliament

  At present much of the [Internet] content that you see is governed by a self-regulatory approach, which has struggled to keep pace with rapid online changes. Various examples exist for “harmful” content, such as the rise of the ISIS terrorist group, child abuse, as well as state sponsored propaganda from hostile countries, online bullying, racism and the spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories etc. Some of this is already illegal, but others will now fall into the opaque “legal but still harmful” category.

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

• TruthOut ☛ Extradition Looms for Assange After UK Supreme Court Refuses to Hear His Appeal

• [Old] Stundin ☛ Key witness in Assange case jailed in Iceland after admitting to lies and ongoing crime spree

  Sigurdur Thordarson, a key witness for the FBI against Julian Assange, has been jailed in Iceland. The notorious alleged [cracker] and convicted pedophile was remanded to custody in Iceland’s highest security prison, Litla Hraun, on September 24. Þórðarson´s lawyer, Húnbogi J. Andersen, confirms that he is in custody. Thordarson was given immunity by the FBI in exchange for testimony against Julian Assange.

  Thordarson was arrested the same day he arrived back in Iceland from a trip to Spain, and was subsequently brought before a judge after police requested indefinite detention intended to halt an ongoing crime spree. The judge apparently agreed that Thordarson’s repeated, blatant and ongoing offences against the law put him at high risk for continued re-offending.

• Metro Times ☛ The Foilies 2022 : Recognizing the year’s worst in government transparency

  Each year during Sunshine Week (March 13-19), The Foilies serve up tongue-in-cheek “awards” for government agencies and assorted institutions that stand in the way of access to information. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock combine forces to collect horror stories about Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state-level public records requests from journalists and transparency advocates across the United States and beyond. Our goal is to identify the most surreal document redactions, the most aggravating copy fees, the most outrageous retaliation attempts, and all the other ridicule-worthy attacks on the public’s right to know.

  And every year since 2015, as we’re about to crown these dubious winners, something new comes to light that makes us consider stopping the presses.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Techdirt ☛ Appeals Court Tosses Evidence Illegally Obtained By Opportunistic Cops Who Couldn’t Take ‘Nah’ For An Answer

  It rarely seems obvious, but you can just walk away from (some) unwanted interactions with law enforcement. People with badges and guns often make this option seem untenable, what with their badges and guns and often profane shouting. But law enforcement officers need a certain amount of reasonable suspicion to detain people. But the less people know, the more often officers are able to engage in suspicionless searches and detentions.

• Counter Punch ☛ Migranti: Self-Organization of Migrant Workers in Europe

• Techdirt ☛ FBI Invites Public In On Its Forfeiture Racket, Promises Them A Cut Of The Take

  There aren’t many ways to make something as objectively awful as civil asset forfeiture worse, but the FBI has found a way to do it. As it stands now, forfeiture allows law enforcement to take cash and property from people under the (unproven) theory that it was illegally obtained. The rest of the process does nothing to prove the theory. The burden of proof is often shifted to people who had their stuff taken by law enforcement and the process of seeking the return of property is so expensive and counterintuitive, most people just take the L and move on.

• Computer World ☛ Four-day workweek’s popularity grew during the pandemic — survey

  More businesses adopted a four-day week during the COVID-19 pandemic as the shift to remote working spurred a major rethinking of work practices, according to a poll of senior leaders at 500 UK businesses by the University of Reading’s Henley Business School.

  The survey, an update to research from 2019, showed that 21% of respondents adopted a four-day workweek for all staff in 2021, up from 18% in 2019. The majority of respondents (65%) said a four-day workweek is in place for at least some of their workers, up from 50% who said that in 2019. A four-day workweek is defined in the report as involving a reduction from five to four workdays for the same pay or a compressed workweek with the same hours across four days instead of five.

• Omicron Limited ☛ The exploited female workers behind the glitter of Indonesia’s Islamic fashion

  With the world’s largest Muslim population, Indonesia is a huge market for Islamic fashion, valued at around US$12.69 billion. Many female designers and businesswomen have been touted as the locomotive behind the growth of the local Islamic fashion industry.

  But while women designers are celebrated for their accomplishments, the plight of underpaid female workers in home-based garment workshops, or konveksi laborers, often goes unnoticed.

• Frontpage Magazine ☛ Greece: Muslim Migrants Desecrate and ‘Turn into Toilets’ 2,339 Churches

  Over the years, a few of these desecrations made it to English language media.

• The Nation ☛ A Lone Voice in the Sports World Asks: “What About Palestine?”

  Ali Farag is currently the number-two-ranked squash player in the world. Farag, who hails from Egypt, is also a Harvard grad and was arguably the greatest college squash player in US history, losing just twice in three years while leading Harvard to an unlikely national championship in 2014. In other words, he is a big deal in a corner of the sports landscape to which most people in the United States pay little attention. But in Egypt, which has the second-most squash courts of any country, and in Europe he is a star. Farag used his platform to do something as daring and perhaps as dangerous as the game he has mastered. He is pointing out the baldfaced hypocrisy of the sports world’s sanctioning Russia while giving other nations, especially Israel, a pass for their own military aggression.

• The Nation ☛ United by Difference in New York City

  A heavy pot blew through the window in a flurry of wind and rain. The seal was broken. Pop! Pop! Pop! The rest of the windows came crashing out of the walls, and the house began to flood. My family and I worked tirelessly to keep the water out, but we couldn’t stop the water any more than we could stop the coming changes.

• The Nation ☛ Alt-Lit’s Jeremiad Against the Novel

  Various people in my life have asked me what Sean Thor Conroe’s Fuccboi is about; in most cases I’ve said, “It’s about a fuckboy,” and reckoned I’d said enough. Conroe’s debut novel is billed as a study of young masculinity: Sean, our narrator, is a low-paid delivery worker who cycles the streets of Philadelphia while working on a book about a cross-country trek, negotiating relationships with unhappy “baes,” and trying not to bottom out, financially or narcotically. He staves off the grind of life with Adderall, psilocybin, and pot. More unusually, however, he becomes bedridden and then hospitalized by a painful skin disease—it seems like severe eczema, but if a more precise diagnosis is given, either I missed it or he did—from which he gradually recovers and begins working on a novel within this novel, which is also titled Fuccboi and represents, or is supposed to, a triumph over adversity.

• Counter Punch ☛ How Plantations Can be Used to Teach About Slavery

  Such efforts raise questions about whether students in the U.S. will ever be able to engage in free and meaningful discussions about the history of slavery in America and the effect it had on the nation.

  As cultural geographers, we see a potential venue for these kinds of discussions that we believe to be an overlooked and poorly used resource: plantation museums.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Hollywood Reporter ☛ Weather Channel Owner Sues Nielsen Over Allegedly Undercounting Ratings on Smaller Networks

  The Weather Channel’s owner claims Nielsen cannot reliably rate smaller networks and concealed the flaw in its system it to maintain its dominance on ratings services.

• Techdirt ☛ 30 Years Late, The FCC Finally Tells ISPs To Deliver More Accurate Broadband Maps

  The U.S. is preparing to spend $42 billion to shore up broadband access, despite not actually knowing where broadband is or isn’t available. U.S. broadband maps have stunk for decades, and we’ve spent that entire time trying to fix mediocre U.S. broadband without using real world data to actually do it.

• Techdirt ☛ On Its 12th Anniversary, It’s Clear The 2010 U.S. ‘Broadband Plan’ Was A Colossal Dud

  Today is the 12th anniversary of the release FCC’s National Broadband Plan (NBP).

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• The Verge ☛ Netflix is testing ways to end password sharing and push viewers to pay extra

  This is not the first time Netflix has experimented with a clampdown on password sharing. Last year, the company experimented with an account verification tool to keep unauthorized users from mooching off of others’ accounts.

• Variety ☛ Netflix Will Prompt Subscribers to Pay for Users Outside Their Households in New Test to Address Unauthorized Password Sharing (EXCLUSIVE)

  Netflix will soon launch a test letting primary account holders pay an additional fee for users outside their households — a new attempt by the company to address illicit password-sharing.

  According to the Netflix terms of service, a customer’s account “may not be shared with individuals beyond your household.” After years of turning a blind eye to password-sharing behavior that falls outside that requirement, the company last year ran a limited test prompting users to enter their account credentials as a way to nudge freeloaders into paying for their own accounts.

• The Hill ☛ Netflix looks to curb free password sharing between households

  Streaming platform Netflix announced plans on Wednesday to curb free password sharing between different users’ households, starting with a trio of countries in Central and South America.

  In a statement on Wednesday, Netflix said that it will begin testing new ways to make sure users sharing an account with different households pay additional fees.

Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • Idiomdrottning ☛ Discussing copyright and scarcity

    Copyright is artificial scarcity.

    That sucks. That comes at a huge cost. Articifical scarcity enables poverty.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Pirates Who Lost $90m IPTV Lawsuit Sued Again For Launching More Services

    Troubles are mounting for the former operators of SetTV, a pirate IPTV service that was previously ordered to pay $90 million in damages to DISH Networks. After being accused of launching more pirate services in breach of an injunction in that matter, DISH Networks has now filed a full-blown lawsuit targeting several men and their new platforms.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ LimeWire Founder “Not Thrilled” That ‘Strangers’ Exploit the Brand for NFT Marketplace

    The LimeWire name brings back many memories for many early adopters of P2P file-sharing. The popular application shut down well over a decade ago but according to many mainstream news outlets, it’s making a comeback as an NFT marketplace. In reality, this new project has nothing to do with the original LimeWire, whose founder Mark Gorton is not happy with the confusion being created.

  • Techdirt ☛ Torguard Blocks All U.S. BitTorrent Traffic After Entertainment Industry Lawsuit

    Over the last few years, the entertainment industry and big copyright have ramped up a war against VPN providers here in the U.S., culminating in a lawsuit against VPN provider Torguard by nearly two-dozen movie studios. The same studios had demanded $10 million in damages from another VPN provider, LiquidVPN, earlier last year.

  • Techdirt ☛ Now That White Musicians Are Getting Sued For Copyright, Lawyers Say Copyright Needs To Change

    You may have noticed a whole bunch of stories about copyright lawsuits lately against famous musicians for having songs that sound just kind of like some other songs. I’d been meaning to write up something talking about all of these stories about how Ed Sheeran is supposedly a “magpie” who “borrows” songs, or about how Dua Lipa was sued not once, but twice, claiming her song “Levitating” infringes on the copyrights of others. Or maybe about how it took Katy Perry eight years to finally have an appeals court note that she didn’t actually infringe on someone else’s copyright.