06.27.22

Links 28/06/2022: Git 2.37.0 and GCC Rust Front-end

Posted in News Roundup at 10:55 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  • GNU/Linux

    • TechTarget ☛ Words to go: Learn basic Linux terminology

      The Linux operating system is an open source, community developed OS for computers and servers, and is one of the most widely used and supported OSes. It manages hardware resources and applications and provides a user interface for admins and developers to use.

      For admins new to using Linux, some of the terminology might seem daunting. However, familiarity with the key Linux terms can help anyone better understand this commonly used OS.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Kernel Space

      • ZDNet ☛ Linus Torvalds is cautiously optimistic about bringing Rust into Linux kernel’s next release | ZDNet

        For over three decades, Linux has been written in the C programming language. Indeed, Linux is C’s most outstanding accomplishment. But the last few years have seen a growing momentum to make the Rust programming language Linux’s second Linux language. At the recent Open Source Summit in Austin, Texas, Linux creator Linus Torvald said he could see Rust making it into the Linux kernel as soon as the next major release.

        After the conference, I spoke with Torvalds and he said, “I’d like to see the Rust infrastructure merging to be started in the next release, but we’ll see.” The next Linux release would be Linux 5.20. Torvalds and the other Linux kernel maintainers are currently working on Linux 5.19.

        The average time between new mainline kernel releases is 9 to 10 weeks. That means we’ll probably see 5.19 in early August. Then, if all goes well, we’d see Rust in 5.20 in late October or early November 2022.

        But, Torvalds added, “I won’t force it, and it’s not like it’s going to be doing anything really meaningful at that point — it would basically be the starting point. So, no promises.”

      • Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC) ☛ Microconferences at Linux Plumbers Conference: Android – Linux Plumbers Conference 2022

        Linux Plumbers Conference 2022 is pleased to host the Android Microconference

        Continuing in the same direction as last year, this year’s Android microconference will be an opportunity to foster collaboration between the Android and Linux kernel communities. Discussions will be centered on the goal of ensuring that both the Android and Linux development moves in a lockstep fashion going forward.

    • Applications

      • OMG Ubuntu ☛ Pitivi Video Editor Adds Beat Detection, Object Tracking + More – OMG! Ubuntu!

        A new development version of Pitivi video editor is out and it boasts some major new features.

        The GTK-based video editor is currently in the midst of a GTK4 port as part of this year’s Google Summer of Code but, happening alongside that work, is work on adding a slew of other features that would-be content creators will be keen to try.

        Following OpenShot’s lead, the Pitivi 2022.06 milestone introduces object tracking. I had a bit of a play with this prior to writing this article. To track and object you click “cover object” in the clip options panel then draw out a area around the object(s , as you can track multiple ones) you want to track. Pick a track tracking algorithm and hit track.

      • [ANNOUNCE] Git v2.37.0
        The latest feature release Git v2.37.0 is now available at the
usual places.  It is comprised of 395 non-merge commits since
v2.36.0, contributed by 75 people, 20 of which are new faces [*].
As this cycle was shorter than usual, it is a smaller release than
usual, but the size of tarballs are about the same ;-).
      • LWN ☛ [ANNOUNCE] Git v2.37.0

        Version 2.37.0 of the Git source-code management system has been released.

      • LWN ☛ [ANNOUNCE] Git v2.37.0
      • Peta Pixel ☛ Free, Open-Source Photo Manager DigiKam Gets a Big Update | PetaPixel

        DigiKam, the free open-source multi-platform digital photo management application, has released version 7.7 for Windows, macOS, and Linux that adds new features, support for more cameras, and fixes a bunch of bugs.

        DigiKam is an open-source digital photo management application that runs on Linux, Windows, and MacOS. The company says it provides a comprehensive set of tools for importing, managing, editing, and sharing photos and RAW files.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • LinuxOpSys ☛ Parted Command in Linux with Examples

        Traditionally many users use fdisk tool for partitioning, the primary reason to use parted is when the disk size is bigger than 2TB. Initially parted only supported GPT, and from util-linux 2.23 fdisk also started supporting GPT.

        In this tutorial, we learn about parted command in Linux with some useful examples.

      • Linux Made Simple ☛ How to install Anime War Mugen V4 on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install Anime War Mugen V4 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.

      • UNIX Cop ☛ Nginx – Using Apache Bench To Test FastCGI Cache

        In this post you will use Apache Bench To Test FastCGI Cache

      • UNIX Cop ☛ Install and Configure Discourse Forum on Ubuntu Server.

        In this actice, We’ll install Discourse Forum on Ubuntu server. Also, we will provide you with some useful information about its usage. Let’s get started!

        Discourse is a free and open-source Internet forum software. Features include support for categorization and tagging of discussions, configurable access control as well as usability improvements recently popularized by large social networks, such as live updates, expanding link previews, infinite scrolling, and real-time notifications. It is written in Ember.js and Ruby on Rails, and uses PostgreSQL for database back-end. It is a modern forum solution that powers discussions on thousands of sites to drive user engagement. You can create customizable questions and ideas, and integrate it with popular services.

      • UNIX Cop ☛ How to install Apache Maven on Ubuntu/Debian Servers

        This post is about how to install Apache Maven on Ubuntu / Debian

        Apache Maven is a free and open-source project management tool used for Java Projects and also automate the development procedure of such projects. It can be used for C#,Ruby and other proramming Languages. It uses a Project Object Model, Which essentially contains information about the configuration details, Projects Dependencies, Project Details and more in a XML File.

      • UNIX Cop ☛ Setup your own Remote Desktop Server Infrastructure with Rustdesk

        RustDesk is an open-source alternative to TeamViewer and AnyDesk. It provides free remote desktop services on its cloud and self-hosted infrastructure for organizations.

      • TecAdmin ☛ What is the /etc/nsswitch.conf file in Linux

        /etc/nsswitch.conf is a Linux configuration file that specifies how the system should switch between different name service providers. The file can be used to configure which services should be used for hostname lookup, password lookups, and so on.

        The /etc/nsswitch.conf file is read by the Name Service Switch (NSS) library when the system starts up. The NSS library then uses the information in /etc/nsswitch.conf to determine which name service providers should be used for each type of lookup.

        /etc/nsswitch.conf is a critical part of the Linux operating system, and any changes to the file can potentially cause serious problems. As such, it is important to understand how /etc/nsswitch.conf works before making any changes to the file.

      • Make Use Of ☛ How to Run Windows Software on Linux With Bottles

        Linux is unquestionably the best operating system that offers a highly secure and reliable environment. However, Linux always gets a backlash because of the lack of software support.

        If you also feel the same, don’t worry because now you can use Bottles to use any software in Linux. Bottles is similar to Wine (a popular compatibility layer for Windows) but offers some advanced options. Furthermore, Bottles allows you to install Windows software on Linux with ease. If you are also interested in running any Windows software on Linux, you should install Bottles on your machine.

        So let’s start with some basic information about Bottles.

      • Linuxiac ☛ DNF Command Line Package Manager in Linux: A Complete Guide

        DNF (Dandified YUM) is a package manager for RPM-based Linux distributions, including RHEL, Fedora, CentOS, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, and Oracle Linux. It was initially introduced in Fedora 18 in 2013.

        DNF simplifies package maintenance by automatically checking for dependencies and determining the actions needed to install, remove, update, or perform any other operation on your Linux system’s package base.

        Furthermore, the DNF package manager allows you to manage and collect information about software repositories on your Linux system.

        Many of you are likely familiar with its predecessor, YUM. So, before we go any further, let’s look over the benefits of DNF over YUM.

      • ID Root ☛ How To Install Deluge BitTorrent Client on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install the Deluge BitTorrent Client on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Deluge is a free open-source torrent downloading app for Linux, Windows, and macOS. Deluge BitTorrent can be used as standalone application software with a graphical user interface or via the command line. Alternatively, a variant for the server is available, which can be accessed with the 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 the step-by-step installation of the Deluge BitTorrent client on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

      • RoseHosting ☛ How to Install Vanilla Forums with OpenLiteSpeed on Ubuntu 20.04 – RoseHosting

        Vanilla Forums is a modern, lightweight, and open-source multi-lingual forum software written in PHP. It provides all of the features you need to run a successful forum. It’s easy to install and use, and the flexibility and free nature of Vanilla Forums make it an attractive choice for anyone looking to start their own forum.

        OpenLiteSpeed is a lightweight, open-source HTTP server developed and copyrighted by LiteSpeed Technologies, Inc. It provides a user-friendly web interface and supports various operating systems, including Linux, Mac OS, SunOS, and FreeBSD.

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install and configure Vanilla Forum with OpenLiteSpeed on an Ubuntu 20.04 VPS.

      • AddictiveTips ☛ Easily create bootable drives on Linux with BootQT

        BootQT is a highly easy-to-use bootable drive creation tool for Linux. In this guide, we’ll show you how to install it. We’ll also go over how you can easily use BootQT to create bootable drives on your Linux system.

      • AddictiveTips ☛ Translate text to different languages on the Linux desktop

        Are you tired of loading up Google Translate in a web browser each time you need to translate some text? If you’re on Linux, you’ll love Dialect. It uses the Google Translate API and allows you to do translations from the Linux desktop quickly. Here’s how to use it.

      • AddictiveTips ☛ How to use the new Gnome Shell remote desktop feature

        Gnome 42 has a fantastic new feature that allows Linux users to share their desktop with Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol remotely. In this guide, we’ll show you how you can use this great new feature.

      • AddictiveTips ☛ The easy way to run a virtual machine on LAN with Linux

        Quickemu is a fantastic, easy-to-use tool that makes creating virtual machines on the Linux desktop a breeze. But did you know that you can run these virtual machines on the LAN? Here’s how!

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • GNOME Introductory Post

          I will be working as a Google Summer of Code Intern at GNOME Foundation, and my project will be to add Chromecast support to the already very cool GNOME Network Displays app that has Miracast support as of now. It can be installed through flatpak as well.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Web Browsers

      • Mozilla

        • Tips On UNIX ☛ Install Firefox 102 On Ubuntu / Linux Mint / Alma Linux & Fedora | Tips On UNIX

          This tutorial will be helpful for beginners to download the latest version of Firefox and install Firefox 102 on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04, LinuxMint 20.3, Rocky Linux 8, Alma Linux 9, and Fedora 36.

          Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation. Firefox is a cross-platform browser and is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android.

    • SaaS/Back End/Databases

      • PostgreSQL ☛ PostgreSQL: Odyssey 1.3 released

        Odyssey team is pleased to announce the release of Odyssey 1.3, a scalable multi-threaded connection pooler for PostgreSQL\GreenplumDB designed for the cloud.

      • PostgreSQL ☛ PostgreSQL: pg_ivm 1.1 released

        IVM Development Group is pleased to announce the release of pg_ivm 1.1.

      • PostgreSQL ☛ PostgreSQL: Timescale’s 2022 State of PostgreSQL Survey Is Now Open!

        Our love for PostgreSQL runs deep. We built our products on PostgreSQL, are proud members of the PostgreSQL community, and wouldn’t exist without it and the extensibility it provides.

        In 2019, Timescale launched the first State of PostgreSQL report, advancing our desire to provide more significant insights into the specificities and features applicable to the PostgreSQL community. Following a one-year hiatus due to the pandemic and after the 2021 survey submissions, we released the 2021 report.

    • GNU Projects

    • Programming/Development

      • Idiomdrottning ☛ git clarity

        I once got the advice to read Pro Git[PG][P] in this chapter order: 10, then 1–9. As opposed to 1–10.

        I like that the book has these two routes through it and has put care into both.

      • Geeks For Geeks ☛ What is memoization? A Complete tutorial

        In computing, memoization is used to speed up computer programs by eliminating the repetitive computation of results, and by avoiding repeated calls to functions that process the same input.

      • Perl / Raku

        • Russ Allbery: Tie::ShadowHash 2.00

          This is a small Perl module that combines multiple key/value sources of data into a “shadow hash” that acts as if all of the underlying data sources have been merged. Any modifications made to the shadow hash are stored in an overlay and reflected in further accesses to the shadow hash, but the underlying data sources are read-only and are not changed.

      • Rust

        • GCC ☛ [GCC] Rust front-end
          Since November 2020, I've worked full-time on the Rust front-end for
GCC, thanks to Open Source Security, Inc and Embecosm. As a result, I
am writing to this mailing list to seek feedback from the collective
experience here early to plan a path for upstreaming the front-end
into GCC.

  • Leftovers

    • Science

      • Why Robots Need to See – Robotics Business Review

        Most autonomous vehicle manufacturers incorporate high-end 3D LiDARs, along with additional sensors, into their vehicles so that they are provided with enough data to fully understand their surroundings and operate safely. Yet in April 2019, Elon Musk famously told attendees at Tesla’s Autonomy Day that LiDAR is a “fool’s errand”—and that anyone relying on it is “doomed,” referring to Tesla’s preference for vision-based perception.

        The LiDAR / vision debate continues to this day. But since that time there has been a steadily increasing emphasis on cameras and computer vision in the autonomous vehicle market.

    • Hardware

      • The Next Platform ☛ The Faster The Switch, The Cheaper Bit Flits

        It may have taken a while for the transition to 200 Gb/sec and 400 Gb/sec networking to take off in the datacenter, but this higher gear to switching is finally kicking in and delivering unprecedented bang for the buck in networks, and in fairly short order at least compared to sluggish pace that 100 Gb/sec Ethernet took getting into the datacenter.

        The engineering challenge of making a cost-effective and power efficient 100 Gb/sec switch was the barrier, and that is how we got stuck with the interim stepping stone of 40 Gb/sec between 10 Gb/sec and 100 Gb/sec speeds in the first place. And all that difficulty in getting faster signaling rates and new signaling techniques such as pulsed amplitude modulation (PAM) to cram more bits onto a signal have laid the foundation for 200 Gb/sec, 400 Gb/sec, and faster speed jumps on the Ethernet roadmap. And thus hyperscalers, cloud builders, service providers, telcos, and large enterprises are now starting to deploy this technology as they upgrade their networks for ever-heavier message passing.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ Lake County, IL Health Department doctors should probably be avoided, in my experience. – BaronHK’s Rants

        I went to the Health Department in Lake County, Illinois to try to manage my high blood pressure because I felt like I was going to pop. That was last year.

        The “doctor” at the Lake County Health Department told me to stop eating salt and that she wouldn’t prescribe any medications.

        Salt makes almost no difference to my blood pressure, but they don’t want to hear it. You’re wasting your money trying to use a Federally Qualified Community Health Center to save money, but you’re better off going to see a private practice doctor instead.

        I ended up suffering through high blood pressure for months while doing my research to choose a different doctor to see, and I’m now a patient at Vista Physicians Group.

        My doctor at Vista prescribed me medication on my first visit and I started noticing a huge improvement in how I felt and my blood pressure by the third day.

        [...]

        There are extremists on both sides of the medical divide. There are people like my mom who won’t take their medications or get their vaccines, with rare exceptions, and put themselves in too much risk from that, and there are people who go into the doctor’s office and end up on twice as many medications and double the dose that they need to be on, and they can end up in danger from the medication as much or more than the disease.

    • Security

      • Help Net Security ☛ Python packages with malicious code expose secret AWS credentials [Ed: Yes, if one installs malware, bad things will happen]

        Sonatype researchers have discovered Python packages that contain malicious code that peek into and expose secret AWS credentials, network interface information, and environment variables.

        All those credentials and metadata then get uploaded to one or more endpoints, and anyone on the web can see this. Going up a directory level showed hundreds of TXT files containing sensitive information and secret.

      • Support for Istio 1.12 ends on July 12th, 2022

        According to Istio’s support policy, minor releases like 1.12 are supported until six weeks after the N+2 minor release (1.14 in this case). Istio 1.14 was released on June 1st, and support for 1.12 will end on July 12th, 2022.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • David Rosenthal ☛ DSHR’s Blog: Pseudonymity And Cooperation

          Ever since I explained the reasons why in 2014′s Economies of Scale in Peer-to-Peer Networks, I have been pointing out that Bitcoin isn’t decentralized, it is centralized around five or fewer large mining pools. Ethereum is even more centralized; last November two pools controlled the majority of Ethereum mining. On 13th June 2014 GHash controlled 51% of the Bitcoin mining power. The miners understood that this looked bad, so they split into a few large pools. But there is nothing to stop these pools coordinating their activities.

        • Wired ☛ The Power and Pitfalls of AI for US Intelligence | WIRED [Ed: Surveillance and assassination in "HEY HI" clothing so that fools will cheer]

          FROM CYBER OPERATIONS to disinformation, artificial intelligence extends the reach of national security threats that can target individuals and whole societies with precision, speed, and scale. As the US competes to stay ahead, the intelligence community is grappling with the fits and starts of the impending revolution brought on by AI.

          The US intelligence community has launched initiatives to grapple with AI’s implications and ethical uses, and analysts have begun to conceptualize how AI will revolutionize their discipline, yet these approaches and other practical applications of such technologies by the IC have been largely fragmented.

          As experts sound the alarm that the US is not prepared to defend itself against AI by its strategic rival, China, Congress has called for the IC to produce a plan for integration of such technologies into workflows to create an “AI digital ecosystem” in the 2022 Intelligence Authorization Act.

        • The Washington Post ☛ Alexa has a new voice — your dead relative’s [Ed: Listening devices disguised as corpses]
        • IT Pro Today ☛ My Body, My Data Act Tackles Online Privacy in Wake of Roe v. Wade Decision

          Representative Jacobs’ office said that one of the bill’s intents is to protect women seeking abortions from the prying eyes of law enforcement in states where abortion is illegal.

        • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ NordVPN becoming more annoying and scammy. – BaronHK’s Rants

          NordVPN is becoming more annoying and scammy.

          First of all, they’re based in Panama, which is not even near Europe, but that’s an aside.

          Recently, I’ve noticed that they shift my VPN connection to Panama and the UAE. Those famous parts of America.

          I noticed this at first because Facebook and Paypal change regions and language automatically, and then set cookies so it’s very difficult to change them back.

          I noticed that NordVPN keeps shunting my connection to a “Cyber Assets Fzco” based in Dubai recently, it seems to do that more than the Panama ones that keep coming up.

          On Reddit, there have also been discussions about NordVPN switching people to AutoPay if they try to switch credit cards, even if that’s not what they want, and NordVPN will continue billing their cards even if they try to cancel it. (NordVPN doesn’t have my card number because I subscribed through Google Play.)

          Also, disturbingly, NordVPN has been gobbling up other VPNs which signed deals with the RIAA and MPAA to block BitTorrent or identify the VPN users (making the VPN worthless), which immediately folded up and sold their branding and subscribers to NordVPN since their business was ruined.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Finance

      • Michael West Media ☛ Rooing the day: Qantas passengers and crew taken for a ride by the board – Michael West

        The Qantas board is offering staff an $87m bribe as it slashes real wages and conditions. As ever, shareholders and Qantas fat cats get the cream, writes Michael Sainsbury.
        Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, now in his 14th year at the helm of the sometimes flying/sometimes not kangaroo, is famed for his ability to shake money out of government and pull serial financial sleights of hand to boost the company shares and his own hefty remuneration.
        The latest rabbit he has extracted from his hat is a $5000 “payment” to mollify the company’s 19,000 workers, potentially worth $87 million, with the rider that they must sign up to new industrial agreements. So far only 4000 have.
        “It’s a straight-up bribe,” one former Qantas pilot with lengthy experience told Michael West Media.
        The comment is backed by TWU secretary Michael Kaine. “This is not a ‘thank you’ payment, it’s more like a bribe,” Kaine said in a joint statement with the Australian Services Union and the Flight Attendants Association of Australia.
        “The strings attached to this sham payment are just more wage suppression tactics Qantas has become accustomed to under the 15-year Joyce regime. All workers, especially those illegally sacked by Qantas management, are owed this payment and far more..

      • The Verge ☛ Tesla accused of violating federal law over ‘mass layoffs’ at Gigafactory
      • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ Elon Musk/Tesla goes from firing people to “own the libs” and because “we grew too fast” to because they’ll have to file bankruptcy soon. – BaronHK’s Rants

        Elon Musk/Tesla goes from firing people to “own the libs” and because “we grew too fast” to because they’ll have to file bankruptcy soon.

        Elon Musk, just days/a few weeks ago said they would trim “about 10%” of the managerial staff at Tesla because “we grew too fast” and “now we have to get headcount down” to operate more efficiently.

        Then he said he was firing the “Diversity and Inclusion Team” to own the libs.

        Then he declared in the past week that if Tesla keeps operating the way it is, with their factories being “gigantic money furnaces”, they’ll be in bankruptcy court very soon.

        And now they announce a hiring freeze and are laying off based on seniority.

        Everyone who bought one of these things, proprietary software, patented parts, and zero repair manuals, will most likely end up with a very expensive car in the driveway that is malfunctioning and can’t be serviced by anybody pretty soon.

        On top of the mass layoffs, Musk violated the federal WARN Act by not notifying anyone of the layoffs, and is now being sued. He probably knew he would be, but like most laws, they fail to punish rich people enough that they care about the consequences.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • Michael Geist ☛ The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 132: Ryan Black on the Government’s Latest Attempt at Privacy Law Reform

          Parliament is now on break for the summer, but just prior to heading out of Ottawa, the government introduced Bill C-27. The privacy reform bill that is really three bills in one: a reform of PIPEDA, a bill to create a new privacy tribunal, and an artificial intelligence regulation bill. What’s in the bill from a privacy perspective and what’s changed? Is this bill any likelier to become law than an earlier bill that failed to even advance to committee hearings? To help sort through the privacy aspects of Bill C-27, Ryan Black, a Vancouver-based partner with the law firm DLA Piper (Canada), joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss everything from changes to consent requirements to how the law will be enforced.

  • Gemini (Primer)

    • Technical

      • Science

        • re Communism Against Earth

          There are already many examples where capitalist institutions utilise environmentalist arguments in order to maintain hegemony. A common tactic seems to be creating some kind of division between ‘reckless populists’ who advocate for things like abolishing carbon taxes that adversely affect working people and the ‘sensible middle-class/elite’ who accept the need for ‘sacrifices’ to save the planet. Of course, those who are in favour of these economic sacrifices also tend to be the ones that can afford it.

          [...]

          This conflict has been playing out for a long time in France, and has recently become more prominent in Ireland where Sinn Fein, the main opposition, has become the most popular party. Sinn Fein will often take a ‘populist’ stance against government regulations around environmental issues (carbon tax, peat restrictions, etc). They will claim that these measures unfairly disadvanatge lower-income groups. For example, when the government sought to ban the sale of peat/turf in order to conserve Ireland’s rapidly dwindling boglands, Sinn Fein’s opposition on the basis that such an initiative would disproportionately affect rural communities successfully postponed the ban.

          [...]

          This is perhaps a case where pursing communism /would/ be preferable to pursing an environmentalist/anti-doomsday agenda. From a communist perspective, the ideological situation of capitalism places restraints on what can meaningfully be achieved through political discourse. Before we can even talk about the environment in a way that actually brings about change, we need to change the framework of communication and discourse.

          Now, history also has plenty of examples of communist movements themselves descending into divisive factions leveraging wedge issues for power, so maybe communism is not necessarily the ‘savoiur’ in this regard. But, I do think that before we can solve the environment-problem, we need to solve the systemic issues and ‘divide and conquer’ strategy of the ruling class that communism at least points to.

        • Why Care about Saving the Earth?

          There are large numbers of unacceptable “solution”s in the ecological space. Suppose the only solution to an eco-catastrophe were a mass die-off, with the remnant of humanity consisting of peasants and lords who hunt peasant for sport a la Game of Thrones. Lord Jeffrey VIII, descendant of Jeff Bezos, tells me it goes great with chardonnay. If that is the alternative, then let her burn-baby-burn.

          There are also a lot of anti-immigration, anti-humanist types with an ecological cut to their jib. Right here in my own home state, one of them ran in this season’s democratic primary for a US Senate seat.[1] I’m glad to have voted against him. He was defeated in the primary. Edward Abbey was a well-known expositor of this flavor of environmentalism.

[Meme] Benoît Battistelli and António Campino Buying Elections Since 2010

Posted in Europe, Patents at 4:24 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Is it true? Did you bribe the delegates to protect your job?
China’s regime would likely hang officials who attempt this

Summary: Ever wondered how criminals like Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos could seize and retain power at the EPO? They know exactly what they’re doing and there’s nothing stopping them…

EPO Management Glorifies Illegal Agenda and Violations of the European Patent Convention (EPC) to Impress the Administrative Council

Posted in Europe, Patents at 3:52 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Video download link | md5sum 3d1dadc5eead48da1d54ae8227142469
EPO Management Unwraps the Propaganda Pieces
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: As the meeting of the Administrative Council approaches the “Mafia” brings out the lies and makes a “happy face”, helped by lobbyists and patent maximalists that pursue an illegal agenda and deliberate violations of the European Patent Convention

THE MANAGEMENT of the EPO is utterly corrupt and its corruption is fully supported by those who stand to gain from it, e.g. by ratifying the illegal and unconstitutional, then rushing through an illegal “Unitary Patent” system (UPC) that only crooked Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos would be willing to lie about, being the psychopaths that they are. They also boast/brag about the fake “Ombuds service” [1, 2] having scuttled the real one a decade ago. The law ceased to exist!!! The "new normal" is kangaroo courts and phony oversight (where overseers are bribed, controlled, complicit).

“This is just typical ‘lobbyism’ from EPO management, which is desperate to seem successful and desirable ahead of this week’s meeting in Munich.”UPC propaganda is being shown above; it’s a Trojan horse for European software patents among other illegal things. The illegal agenda is being supported by “Christoph Ernst, Vice-President for Legal and International Affairs [who] thanked all SACEPO members for the inspiring and insightful exchange of views.”

Ernst is incredibly corrupt and he thanks lobbyists who do not represent Europe or European businesses. The puff piece (warning: epo.org link) fails to even mention who’s inside SACEPO.

This is just typical ‘lobbyism’ from EPO management, which is desperate to seem successful and desirable ahead of this week’s meeting in Munich. Reality reveals the exact opposite of success and desirability.

Sadly, as we showed here in past months, the Administrative Council is itself filled with liars, so they’re easy to impress with lies and buzzwords, not facts ofr substance. The EPO brought together dozens of nations, but the common denominator ended up being the most corrupt members. Gravitating towards worst of the worst, motivated by greed at the expense of the law. █

Links 27/06/2022: GnuCash 4.11, digiKam 7.7.0, and Easy 4.2.1

Posted in News Roundup at 1:26 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • How a Turkish Municipal District Switched to GNU/Linux

        Today I learned Turkey’s Scientific and Technological Research Council has a subsidiary developing a GNU/Linux distro called Pardus, “redesigned to be used in accordance with the practices and habits of users in Turkey.”

    • Server

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Applications

      • Converseen Image Converter is Available on Flathub – Fasterland

        Converseen is an open source and cross-platform batch image processor that allows you to convert, resize, rotate and flip an infinite number of images with a mouse click.

      • Make Use Of ☛ The 7 Best Drawing and Vector Editing Apps for Chromebooks

        You might underestimate your Chromebook’s capability to provide quality apps. The main reason for this is its lower hardware specs. However, it offers many features and supports productivity, communication, graphic design, social, and many other applications.

        For graphic designing tasks such as vector editing and drawing, Chromebook provides you with plenty of useful options. And as these apps are mostly lightweight, you can easily install them through the Chrome Web Store without worrying about storage and resources.

        So, let’s explore some of the best vector editors and drawing apps available for your Chromebook that you can download and use for free.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • TechRepublic ☛ How to install and use the Bitwarden Chrome plugin | TechRepublic

        Bitwarden is a great option for those looking to take advantage of strong and unique passwords. Bitwarden offers all the standard features that make using a password manager a must-have for modern convenience and a heightened level of security. Even better, Bitwarden has applications for most platforms, including Linux, macOS, Windows, Android and iOS.

        But the fun doesn’t stop with the basic desktop and mobile apps. Bitwarden also offers a browser plugin for most web browsers. This add-on makes it even easier to use the service, as it exists in your browser toolbar, waiting to help fill in the many credentials necessary for your daily grind.

        At this point, you’re probably thinking: “Hold on, my web browser already does that for me.” Yes, it does. But you should probably think twice about allowing a web browser, known for vulnerabilities, to save your passwords. Whenever I’m asked about this issue, I always suggest that users never let a browser save a password. Instead, make use of a password manager and its browser plugin. By going this route, the likelihood someone could steal your passwords from a browser vault is considerably less, while still keeping things efficient and convenient.

      • OSTechNix ☛ Install Docker And Docker Compose In Ubuntu – OSTechNix

        In this guide, we will see what is Docker, how to install Docker Engine in Ubuntu Linux. In addition, we will also see how to install Docker compose, a tool to define and run multi-container Docker applications.

        This guide has been officially tested on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. However, it should work on older versions such as 20.04 LTS, and 18.04 LTS. For better security and stability, I recommend you to use the most recent Ubuntu 22.04 LTS version.

      • TecAdmin ☛ How to Install Ionic Framework on Ubuntu 22.04 – TecAdmin

        If you’re a web developer looking to create cross-platform mobile apps, then you should check out the Ionic Framework. Ionic Framework is used by over 4 million developers worldwide, making it the fastest-growing app development framework on the market. This open-source development platform allows you to create apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which can then be deployed on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices.

        In this article, we’ll show you how to install the Ionic Framework on Ubuntu 22.04 using Node.js and NPM. Let’s get started!

      • How to Use Metagoofil in Kali Linux a Complete Tutorial for Beginners 2022

        As per the official website, Metagoofil is an information-gathering tool designed for extracting metadata of public documents (pdf,doc,xls,ppt,docx,pptx,xlsx) belonging to a target company.

        Metagoofil will perform a search in Google to identify and download the documents to local disk and then will extract the metadata with different libraries like Hachoir, PdfMiner?, and others. With the results, it will generate a report with usernames, software versions, and servers or machine names that will help Penetration testers in the information-gathering phase.

      • Tips On UNIX ☛ Install Clapper Media Player On Ubuntu / Alma Linux & Fedora | Tips On UNIX

        This tutorial will be helpful for beginners to install Clapper media player on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Linux Mint 20.3, AlmaLinux 9, Rocky Linux 8, and Fedora 36

      • Own HowTo ☛ How to Create Keyboard Shortcuts on Linux Mint

        In this tutorial you will learn how to create shortcuts or edit the already existing shortcuts on Linux Mint.

        Shortcuts are helpful commands when you need to launch an software, take a screenshot or do something custom when you press any key combination. For example, if you press CTRL + ALT + T it would open the terminal on Linux.

        Let’s say you want to create a shortcut to be able to take a screenshot via your preferred keys, without having to use the print screen button or if your keyboard doesn’t have one then creating an shortcut to do this thing would be necessary to do.

      • How to Install Nessus on Kali Linux Guide for beginners 2022

        Hello friends, Welcome again!

        We are studying of Penetration Testing Tutorial This article will cover how to download, install, activate, and access the web interface of Nessus on Kali Linux.

        This post is origin How to Install Nessus on Kali Linux Move forward and start your tutorial. In a previous post you have completed Nessus Vulnerability Scanner Tutorial If you did not read it, please read now.

      • Use of fstab option for Mounting Disk in Linux Permanent Guide 2022

        Mounting disk in Linux is actually a process to access a partitioned and formatted hard disk in the system. Whatever data is stored in a hard disk can only be accessed or used after mounting that hard disk in Linux Operating System. As we know when a pen drive is inserted in the USB slot of Windows system, the pen drive will automatically be available for access in the windows home folder. This is only due to “plug and play” options installed in Windows operating system. But, in Linux, inserting or connecting a hard disk in the system, is not enough to access that disk. Before accessing it, the hard disk has to partitioned, formatted followed by mounting it in the system. However, the hard disk can be mounted with any of the single or multiple folder of Linux system. There is no restriction of mounting location of that hard disk. The following diagram is explained the basic difference between inserting a hard disk in Linux and Windows operating system.

      • HowTo Forge ☛ How to Install and Secure MongoDB NoSQL Database on Ubuntu 22.04

        MongoDB is a free, open-source, and one of the most popular NoSQL database systems. It stores data in JSON rather than the usual table style method found in SQL databases. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MongoDB on Ubuntu 22.04.

      • How to install go1.19beta on Ubuntu 22.04 – NextGenTips

        In this tutorial, we are going to explore how to install go on Ubuntu 22.04

        Golang is an open-source programming language that is easy to learn and use. It is built-in concurrency and has a robust standard library. It is reliable, builds fast, and efficient software that scales fast.

        Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel-type systems enable flexible and modular program constructions.

        Go compiles quickly to machine code and has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection.

        In this guide, we are going to learn how to install golang 1.19beta on Ubuntu 22.04.

        Go 1.19beta1 is not yet released. There is so much work in progress with all the documentation.

      • molecule test: failed to connect to bus in systemd container – openQA bites

        Ansible Molecule is a project to help you test your ansible roles. I’m using molecule for automatically testing the ansible roles of geekoops.

      • ID Root ☛ How To Install MongoDB on AlmaLinux 9 – idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MongoDB on AlmaLinux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, MongoDB is a high-performance, highly scalable document-oriented NoSQL database. Unlike in SQL databases where data is stored in rows and columns inside tables, in MongoDB, data is structured in JSON-like format inside records which are referred to as documents. The open-source attribute of MongoDB as a database software makes it an ideal candidate for almost any database-related project.

        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 the step-by-step installation of the MongoDB NoSQL database on AlmaLinux 9. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

      • Video ☛ An introduction (and how-to) to Plugin Loader for the Steam Deck. – Invidious
      • Linux Handbook ☛ Self-host a Ghost Blog With Traefik

        Ghost is a very popular open-source content management system. Started as an alternative to WordPress and it went on to become an alternative to Substack by focusing on membership and newsletter.

        The creators of Ghost offer managed Pro hosting but it may not fit everyone’s budget.

        Alternatively, you can self-host it on your own cloud servers. On Linux handbook, we already have a guide on deploying Ghost with Docker in a reverse proxy setup.

        Instead of Ngnix reverse proxy, you can also use another software called Traefik with Docker. It is a popular open-source cloud-native application proxy, API Gateway, Edge-router, and more.

        I use Traefik to secure my websites using an SSL certificate obtained from Let’s Encrypt. Once deployed, Traefik can automatically manage your certificates and their renewals.

        In this tutorial, I’ll share the necessary steps for deploying a Ghost blog with Docker and Traefik.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • digiKam – digiKam 7.7.0 is released

          After three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release.

        • LWN ☛ KDE Apps Mid-Year Update (KDE.news)

          Here’s an update on recent KDE application development on KDE.news…

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • The Register UK ☛ About that misguided call for a 7-Zip boycott • The Register

      A blog post calling for a boycott of the well-known 7-Zip compression app is attracting some discussion on Reddit.

      However, it seems criticism for Igor Pavlov and his FOSS compression app 7-Zip is somewhat overblown and may reflect the anti-Russian sentiment of the times.

      7-Zip has been around since 1999 and in that two-decade span there have been more widely used Windows compression tools (WinZip and WinRAR, in particular) they are shareware, so try-before-you-buy versus free.

      There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the shareware model. It has been around longer than the modern FOSS ecosystem, and there are some excellent shareware tools. However, a lot of people aren’t really trying before a potential purchase: they never intend to pay. And if that’s the case, then you might as well use free software and avoid nag screens.

      Let’s dissect the critical points around 7-Zip. The blogger, identified only as Paul, claims that 7-Zip isn’t really open source because the code isn’t on “Github, Gitlab, nor any public code hosting”. That is not a requirement of the open source definition. 7-Zip’s source is available on Sourceforge and is licensed under the GNU Lesser GPL.

    • Kiwi TCMS: Mejor Sitio Web 2022

      Kiwi TCMS is happy to announce that we have been awarded a “Best Website 2022″ award by Reviewbox.es, scoring 36/40 on their evaluation. The review criteria can be found at https://www.reviewbox.es/los-mejores-sitios-web/.

    • Medevel ☛ How To Choose The Correct Open-source Software for You

      When it comes to choosing between open-source software options, it can easily become confusing. Organizations often find that rushing the decision and using software that doesn’t work for them can be a costly mistake. Therefore, choosing the right open-source software for your projects is important.

    • Apache Blog ☛ The Apache News Round-up: week ending 24 June 2022

      Happy Friday, everyone –let’s review the Apache community’s activities from over the past week…

    • Web Browsers

      • Mozilla

        • OMG Ubuntu ☛ Firefox 102 Adds GeoClue Support on Linux, Improves PDF Viewer – OMG! Ubuntu!

          A new version of Mozilla Firefox is available to download, ahead of its form release on June 28.

          Mozilla Firefox 102 sees the browser bake-in support for GeoClue on Linux desktops, improve the PDF appearance when using high contrast mode, and gain the ability display subtitles and captions in Picture-in-Picture when playing content from HBO Max, DailyMotion, Funimation, and a number of other video streaming sites.

          A clutch of Linux-specific bug fixes include patches to resolve issues with Amazon password length appearance, reduce PDF rendering artefacts, and massage video distortion with H.264 when using VAAPI. Additionally, mesa/crocus is appended to the list of Intel Mesa drivers supported by the browser.

        • Ubuntu Handbook ☛ Firefox 102 Available to Download! New ESR, Geoclue Support

          Mozilla Firefox 102 is available to download now. See what’s new and how to install the browser package.

          For Linux users, Firefox 102 now support Geoclue if available for geolocation. The release also added subtitles and captions display in Picture-in-Picture (pop-out video) for more websites, including HBO Max, Funimation, Dailymotion, Tubi, Disney+ Hotstar, and SonyLIV.

          For those boring with the drop-down download panel, that automatically opens every time you start a download. User may now right-click on the download icon (before Hamburger menu button), and un-check “Show Panel When Download Begins” to disable it.

        • Mozilla ☛ Recording Academy’s VP of D.E.I. Ryan Butler Tells Us What Brings Him Joy Online

          Here at Mozilla, we are the first to admit the internet isn’t perfect, but we are also quick to point out that the internet is pretty darn magical. The internet opens up doors and opportunities, allows for people to connect with others, and lets everyone find where they belong — their corners of the internet. We all have an internet story worth sharing. In My Corner of the Internet, we talk with people about the online spaces they can’t get enough of, what we should save in Pocket to read later and what sites and forums shaped them.

    • GNU Projects

      • Neowin ☛ GnuCash 4.11

        
        GnuCash is a personal and small business finance application, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. It’s designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible. GnuCash allows you to track your income and expenses, reconcile bank accounts, monitor stock portfolios and manage your small business finances. It is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports.

        GnuCash can keep track of your personal finances in as much detail as you prefer. If you are just starting out, use GnuCash to keep track of your checkbook. You may then decide to track cash as well as credit card purchases to better determine where your money is being spent. When you start investing, you can use GnuCash to help monitor your portfolio. Buying a vehicle or a home? GnuCash will help you plan the investment and track loan payments. If your financial records span the globe, GnuCash provides all the multiple-currency support you need.

    • Licensing / Legal

      • Mozilla ☛ The JavaScript Specification has a New License – Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog

        Ecma International recently approved the 2022 standard of ECMAScript. There is something new in this edition that hasn’t been part of prior editions, but this isn’t a new programming feature.

        In March of this year, Ecma International accepted a proposal led by Mozilla for a new alternative license. On June 22nd, the first requests to adopt this license were granted to TC39 and applied to the following documents: ECMA-262 (ECMAScript, the official name for JavaScript) and ECMA-402 (the Internationalization API for ECMAScript).

        The ECMAScript specification is developed at Ecma International, while other web technologies like HTML and CSS are being developed at W3C. These institutions have different default license agreements, which creates two problems. First, having different licenses increases the overhead of legal review for participants. This can create a speed bump for contributing across different specifications. Second, the default ECMA license contains some restrictions against creating derivative works, in contrast to W3C. These provisions haven’t been a problem in practice, but they nevertheless don’t reflect how we think Open Source should work, especially for something as foundational as JavaScript. Mozilla wants to make it easy for everyone to participate in evolving the Web, so we took the initiative of introducing an alternative license for Ecma International specifications.

    • Programming/Development

      • Red Hat Official ☛ The experience of bringing OpenSSL 3.0 into Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora

        The previous major stable version was OpenSSL 1.1 and there is no 2.0 in the middle. The OpenSSL team decided to make an explicit jump in numbering to highlight that this new version included major structural, and more importantly, application programming interface (API) and application binary interface (ABI) changes compared to previous OpenSSL versions.

        These changes affect applications that use the library in direct ways, sometimes by breaking compilation, and often in subtle ways by changing how the library behaves in some situations.

        Due to these differences, changing from OpenSSL 1.1 to OpenSSL 3.0 is not a simple upgrade.

        In the Linux ecosystem, OpenSSL is generally considered a core OS library. It is linked directly or indirectly by the majority of the packages of any distribution and this means that the distribution needs to be fully rebuilt to make such a transition.

      • Godot Engine ☛ Godot Engine – Release candidate: Godot 3.5 RC 5

        The upcoming Godot 3.5 is now considered feature complete, and has received a lot of bugfixes and improvements over the past weeks thanks to all the testers and developers who reported and fixed issues. We are now at the Release Candidate stage, finalizing everything so that we can release 3.5-stable for all users.

        At this stage we need people to test this release (and potential follow-up RCs) on as many codebases as possible, to make sure that we catch non-obvious regressions that might have gone unnoticed until now. If you run into any issue, please make sure to report it on GitHub so that we can know about it and fix it!

        For this RC 5, we decided to include two fairly important Android PRs which had recently been finalized, as they are important to fulfill Google Play requirements for the near future: full Android scoped storage support, and upgrading the buildsystem from NDK r21 to NDK r23. They’re fairly big changes to include at RC stage but we think it’s really worth having in 3.5, so we’ll need your help to test Android export templates in this build and confirm that they work as expected.

      • Perl / Raku

        • Rakulang ☛ Rakudo Weekly News: 2022.26 Conference Seasoned

          The first in-person event in a long time happened last week. Some of the videos are already available for viewing, others may still come (overview, /r/rakulang comments).

          [...]

          Finally, Corona is still a thing, as at least one attendee tested positive for Corona after the conference. So please continue to look out for your health!

      • Rust

        • Many modes: a GATs pattern

          As some of you may know, on May 4th Jack Huey opened a PR to stabilize an initial version of generic associated types. The current version is at best an MVP: the compiler support is limited, resulting in unnecessary errors, and the syntax is limited, making code that uses GATs much more verbose than I’d like. Nonetheless, I’m super excited, since GATs unlock a lot of interesting use cases, and we can continue to smooth out the rough edges over time. However, folks on the thread have raised some strong concerns about GAT stabilization, including asking whether GATs are worth including in the language at all. The fear is that they make Rust the language too complex, and that it would be better to just use them as an internal building block for other, more accessible features (like async functions and [return position impl trait in traits][RPITIT]). In response to this concern, a number of people have posted about how they are using GATs. I recently took some time to deep dive into these comments and to write about some of the patterns that I found there, including a pattern I am calling the “many modes” pattern, which comes from the chumsky parser combinator library. I posted about this pattern on the thread, but I thought I would cross-post my write-up here to the blog as well, because I think it’s of general interest.

        • Memory Safety for the World’s Largest Software Project – Prossimo

          The Rust for Linux project aims to bring a new system programming language into the Linux kernel. Rust has a key property that makes it very interesting to consider as the second language in the kernel: it guarantees no undefined behavior takes place (as long as unsafe code is sound), particularly in terms of memory management. This includes no use-after-free issues, no double frees, no data races, etc.

          Prossimo is an Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) project. Its goal is to improve the Internet’s security-sensitive software infrastructure by addressing memory safety issues in C and C++ code via the use of memory safe languages. One critical example of such infrastructure is the Linux kernel, used in most servers in the world as well as in billions of devices.

        • LWN ☛ Ojeda: Memory Safety for the World’s Largest Software Project

          Miguel Ojeda has posted an update on the Rust-for-Linux project.

  • Leftovers

    • Linux Foundation and Co.

    • Security

      • USCERT ☛ CISA Adds Eight Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog [Ed: 5 out of 8 of these are Apple!]

        CISA has added eight new vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. These types of vulnerabilities are a frequent attack vector for malicious cyber actors and pose significant risk to the federal enterprise. Note: to view the newly added vulnerabilities in the catalog, click on the arrow in the “Date Added to Catalog” column, which will sort by descending dates.    

      • ShiftLeft finds a 97% reduction in open source software vulnerabilities | SC Media

        ShiftLeft on Thursday released some rare positive news on the AppSec front by reporting that based on millions of scans on its customers, they found a 97% reduction in open source software (OSS) vulnerabilities.

        The researchers said by identifying and prioritizing OSS vulnerabilities that are actually attackable, AppSec teams and developers can now fix what matters, ship code faster, and improve security with fewer, better fixes.

        In other significant findings, ShiftLeft’s report said by focusing on attackability and reduced false positives, developers can make fixes faster and reduce mean-time-to-remediate (MTTR). ShiftLeft reported a 37% year-over-year reduction in MTTR, which they say improves overall security posture and reduces the likelihood of attacks by reducing the time that vulnerabilities are exposed.

      • LWN ☛ Security updates for Monday [LWN.net]

        Security updates have been issued by Debian (openssl), Fedora (dotnet6.0, mediawiki, and python2.7), Mageia (389-ds-base, chromium-browser-stable, exo, and libtiff), Oracle (httpd:2.4 and microcode_ctl), SUSE (dbus-broker, drbd, kernel, liblouis, mariadb, openssl, openssl-1_1, openSUSE kernel modules, oracleasm, php7, php72, python39, salt, and wdiff), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-hwe, mozjs91, and vim).

      • LinuxBuz ☛ What is Cloud Security – Definition, Importance, Benefits [Ed: Paradox as "clown computing" means outsourcing, so you've lost control of the systems; it's a data breach]

        Adopting cloud computing services has helped many enterprises reduce costs, accelerate deployments, and develop at a larger scale. Today many businesses use cloud services as an alternative to traditional practices.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • AccessNow ☛ Indian CERT’s Directions will weaken cybersecurity and privacy: experts call for deferral and public consultation – Access Now

          Access Now supports cybersecurity experts from around the world who are calling on the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) to defer implementation of the contentious new Directions issued in April. The letter states the Directions will have a negative impact on cybersecurity and privacy, and public consultation must be undertaken to ensure that the views of all stakeholders, including subject matter experts, are taken into account.

          “The Directions, as they stand, will have the unintended consequence of weakening cyber security, and its crucial component, online privacy,” the letter states, “we are cognisant of the need for a framework to govern cyber incident reporting, but the reporting timelines and excessive data retention mandates prescribed in the Directions, will have negative implications in practice and impede effectiveness, while endangering online privacy and security.”

    • Defence/Aggression

      • BONUS – Interrogating Cold War 2.0

        In this panel discussion brought to you by Unlimited Hangout and OffGuardian, several panelists discuss the nature of the East-West dichotomy and whether the rise of Eurasia and the fall of the West were engineered by certain factions of global elites and for what purpose.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Public Knowledge ☛ Privileged Conversations | July 2022 – Public Knowledge

        ublic Knowledge has the pleasure of inviting you to a multifaceted program focused on training and developing the next generation of tech policy experts and public interest advocates that reflects the diversity of voices and experiences in our society.

        Please join us for our monthly Career Breakfast Series. This event is designed for students & recent graduates to learn about tech policy and public interest work, careers, and its community. This month you will have the opportunity of having a great conversation with Professor Laura Moy.

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ Survey: EPO staff don’t trust top management, concerns about quality

          Staff members of the EPO have little confidence in the top management. They don’t think there is a clear and coherent strategy, there are big concerns about quality and also about the increasing work load. This is shown by the fifth Technologia Survey, the results of which have been shared with staff last week.

          The survey, which was commissioned by trade union SUEPO, reveals deep divisions between management and staff. It was published just ahead of the meeting of the Administrative Council, 29 and 30 June 2022, in which a decision about the re-appointment of António Campines as EPO president for a second term until 2028 is on the agenda.

          One sign of the lack of trust between staff and management is the fact that the Technologia survey could be held among SUEPO members only and those among EPO staff who actively opted in, since president Campinos refused SUEPO to use EPO emails*.

  • Gemini (Primer)

    • Personal

    • Politics

      • Communism against Earth

        Looking at the communist side, I sometimes see climate obstructionism too, opposing any plan that doesn’t also solve humanity’s millenia-old (albeit amplified in the industrial age) inequality issues. There was this anti geoengineering site that made the rounds a few months back that mixed some very good points vs some of the worst and least thought-through geoengineering proposals with a foundational opposition to all change that didn’t address inequality.

        [...]

        Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling for anti-communism either or for capitalism. You know I rant and rave against that dumdumdadadadum on the daily. All I’m saying is that for me, the priority is pretty darn stark right now and it’s called Earth.

    • Technical

      • Announcements

        • ANN: nofer – a gemini to gopher bridge

          Gopher is OK, but it’s an awkward protocol to write for. It has its quirks, to say the least. I do, however, particularly like seeing gopher pages that are left-and-right aligned. There’s something just so neat about them.

          I had been working on a Perl script called “nofer” (“no gopher”) to work in conjunction with inetd on FreeBSD. It serves gmi pages as gopher pages, so if you have a Gemini capscule, you should be pretty much good to go. It is actually a shame that gopher has a weird layout. With the benefit of hindsight, we didn’t really w

The Importance of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press When It Comes to EPO Corruption

Posted in Europe, Patents at 11:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Video download link | md5sum 6e3eb0d1d0ec217767f7d605301d6974
EPO Survey in Blogs
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: Corruption such as bribery of the media (and academia) has long gone on at the EPO; it’s no wonder that bribes, in addition to threats, have muzzled almost every publisher that covers EPO corruption, but there are exceptions

LAST WEEK we wrote about the EPO staff survey [1, 2] and today it is mentioned in Kluwer Patent Blog, which also has some relevant new comments and already “[t]ranslations are available in German, French and Dutch.”

Patent Quality?This is good. It’s a lot better than it was last year and the start of this year; we did many long videos demonstrating that not even one site or blog covered EPO actions, including strikes.

Having said all that (more in the video above), we’re getting a bit of a deja vu. We still remember IP Kat removing comments critical of António Campinos after it had been issued warnings and even sanctions (like censorship of the whole blog by Benoît Battistelli). We also showed that Bristows was censoring critics (e.g. UPC sceptics) at Kluwer Patent Blog.

As shown towards the end of the video above (I only noticed this while recording), the first comment says:

Dear Reader,

The publisher and editor of the blog may at their discretion remove submitted comments and/or other material from the blog if they have reason to believe that the materials are in violation of the editorial policy.

We ask our readers and commenters to follow these guidelines:

– Be polite. Avoid derogatory comments and respond to the argument, not its messenger. Any ad hominem attacks will not be tolerated. If a comment includes such an attack, the whole comment will not be published. There will be no discussion on this.
– Avoid repetitiveness. If you haven’t convinced the other person after commenting twice, you will probably not succeed the third time.
– Be specific and concise. A reaction of 200 well-chosen words is often better than a lengthy exposé.

It’s similar to what happened in (or to) IP Kat and this means we’re not seeing all the comments posted there. Not only profanities and obscenities get censored (Campinos is the king of profanities and obscenities, he enjoys a monopoly on that!) because in our experience they limit the spectrum of permissible speech to discourage or vanish particular viewpoints, even if expressed politely and factually. IP Kat did this many times and Bristows lied about doing this in Kluwer Patent Blog.

As a reminder, Campinos is basically bribing the voters with jobs, as usual (in some countries a massive salary), in exchange for votes in favour of his own job (a second term); in a proper organisation he would be prosecuted for this. But not the EPO…

“In a letter sent on 10 June,” SUEPO Munich notes, “SUEPO warned the delegations of the decentralisation risks and the requirement of a Conference of Ministers under Article 4a EPC. The Technologia survey 2022 results are now available and disastrous for Mr Campinos. In this letter sent on 23 June to the Heads of Delegations, SUEPO urges the Council to take due account of the results and to give the proper mandate to EPO management to repair the situation.”

Expect the EPO under “nice” Campinos to blackmail blogs for censorship and self-censorship. Campinos is from homeland of “Right to Be Forgotten” (censorship online; protecting criminals from articles that ‘embarrass’ them). █

[Meme] It’s Harder to Talk About Crimes When…

Posted in Europe, Patents at 11:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

It's Not Twitter; But we still censor your views

Summary: Centralised media or centralised Internet remains a peril when it comes to freedom of expression; people in privileged positions typically decide who can and who cannot express an opinion (based on personal preferences, agenda, financial motives)

[Meme] The World Wide Web Has Become Bloated and Slow

Posted in Protocol, Standard at 9:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The World Wide Web at 30

Summary: The Web at 30+ is not what it was back in the 1990s; many people nowadays use tabs because ‘pages’ take far too long to load (in spite of tremendous bandwidth gains; part of the problem is RAM hoard and CPU hogs) and the original goal, a platform or a protocol for interconnected pages, has long been abandoned

Gemini Graduating to First-Class Citizen

Posted in Protocol, Site News, Standard at 8:57 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Spacewalk
Spacewalk is one hub of many in the fast-growing Geminispace, which is estimated to have over 2,500 capsules and many daily updates

Summary: Gemini links have become abundant enough that they justify having their own section in Daily Links instead of scattered around and blended with World Wide Web links

THE coming week will be mostly devoted to EPO news because EPO affairs are very important and it’s a critical time (hopefully António Campinos will be tentatively ousted).

But that does not mean we slow down with Daily Links and site improvement. This past week we made slight improvements to the Gemini capsule as well. The next batch of Daily Links has a whole section partitioned aside and reserved for Gopher/Gemini links. The template associated with the change has just been pushed to Git and will likely be subjected to further tweaks over the next few days.

“Gemini is nowhere near perfect; but it does just about enough for most use cases.”The Web is quickly moving in a direction we do not like. There’s not much journalism left in it, it’s overrun by spam, it’s far too bloated, and few companies control or spy on the lion’s share of Web activity.

We’re not leaving the Web, but we’re setting one foot in the smaller lifeboat just in case the Web goes under. One day it will. Nothing lasts forever. The Web is no longer a platform or a protocol for Web pages but for programs or “webapps”. We don’t want that. We don’t need that. We already got rid of Adobe Trash (Flash), but Google et al recreate it algorithmically — mostly in Chromium — and then “standardise” what they implemented (rammed down our throats through W3C). Shades of Microsoft OOXML and ISO… sans the bribes and overt corruption.

Suffice to say, this has severe ramifications for security, the environment (many facets to how it ruins the planet, ranging from new device production/manufacturing to usage, delivery, and computation), and fairness/neutrality. The Web fosters monopolies; it has become increasingly centralised, as some documentaries warned over a decade ago. We too have cautioned about it and in 2020 we took action.

Gemini is nowhere near perfect; but it does just about enough for most use cases. █

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