GNU/Linux

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Citizix ☛ How to set up Wireguard on Ubuntu 22.04

    WireGuard is a communication protocol and free and open-source software that implements encrypted virtual private networks, and was designed with the goals of ease of use, high speed performance, and low attack surface. It is a lightweight Virtual Private Network (VPN) that supports IPv4 and IPv6 connections.

  • ID Root ☛ How To Install Ansible on Fedora 37

    In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Ansible on Fedora 37. For those of you who didn’t know, Ansible is an open-source IT automation and configuration management tool that can help system administrators automate tasks, deploy applications…

  • ID Root ☛ How To Install ADB and Fastboot on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

    In this tutorial, we will show you how to install ADB and Fastboot on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

  • Net2 ☛ How to Install MongoDB on Ubuntu 22.04

    MongoDB is a real popular way to store and manage lots of unstructured or semi-structured data. It’s a type of database that focuses on documents, so you can be more flexible with the structure of your data than you could with a more traditional database.

  • peppe8o ☛ Transcribe audio files to text with SpeechRecognition and Raspberry PI (python)

    Whether you’re a content creator looking to transcribe interviews, or just someone interested in the capabilities of speech recognition technology, SpeechRecognition with Raspberry PI offers

  • The New Stack ☛ Grab a Snapshot of Your Container Image with Checkpoint

    Have you ever been in a situation where you have a Docker or Podman container running exactly how you need

  • UNIX Cop ☛ Install and Use iostat on Linux

    In this post, you will learn about iostat on Linux. This tool allows you to monitor CPU usage and provides information about input and output processes on the system. The command iostat Reports Central Processing Unit (CPU) statistics and input/output statistics for devices, partitions, and network file systems (NFS).

  • nixCraft ☛ How to add an IP alias on Amazon Linux 2

    IP aliasing is nothing but associating more than one IP address to a network interface such as eth0. For example, using the following methods, you can add an IP alias on Amazon Linux 2.

  • FOSSLinux ☛ 10 must-know Bash shell scripting tips and tricks for beginners

    Bash shell scripting is a versatile and flexible tool for automating tasks and streamlining workflows in a Unix-like environment. It has become a popular language for both beginners and experienced developers alike. In this article, we will provide some tips and tricks to help you become more proficient at Bash shell scripting.

  • FOSSLinux ☛ 15 essential Bash debugging techniques and tools

    Bash is a widely used command-line interface and scripting language in Unix-based operating systems. As with any software, Bash scripts can contain bugs that lead to errors, unexpected behaviors, or even crashes. Debugging is the process of identifying and resolving these issues, which is essential for maintaining script reliability and performance.

  • H2S Media ☛ How to Install Google Chrome on Debian 12 BookWorm

    Mozilla FireFox is already there on all Debian Linux as a default browser. However, those who are interested in setting up Google Chrome on Debian 12 bookworm, can see this guide.

  • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install UFW Firewall on Debian 12, 11 or 10

    Firewalls are essential in securing computer systems and networks from unauthorized access, cyber-attacks, and other security threats. The traditional method of configuring firewalls on Linux systems involves using iptables, a powerful command-line tool that offers granular control over network traffic.

  • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Google Chrome on Debian 12, 11 or 10

    Google Chrome is a free web browser developed by Google that has gained widespread popularity among internet users worldwide. It was first released in 2008 and has since become one of the most widely used web browsers, with a market share of over 60% as of 2023.

  • Linux Capable ☛ How to Configure Unattended Upgrades on Debian 12, 11 or 10

    Debian is a widely used Linux-based operating system renowned for its versatility and expansive collection of software packages and tools. However, keeping the system up-to-date and secure can be challenging, given the significant volume of packages and updates available. To help streamline this process, the Unattended Upgrades Package can be utilized.

• Games

  • CubicleNate ☛ SteamDeck | RetroArch and mGBA for Trading Pokémon

    I bought the SteamDeck for a number of reasons. One such reason was to turn it into a portable retro gaming station. I know there are a lot of other options out there to do this task but this one was the most economical and already had Linux installed on it.

• Desktop Environments/WMs

  • GNOME Desktop/GTK

    • OMG! Linux ☛ GNOME Extensions Site Now Shows Download Counts

      Ever wondered how many downloads your favorite GNOME Shell extension gets?

Distributions and Operating Systems

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • Linux Hint ☛ 7 Best Ubuntu Screen Recorders for Everyday Use

    Comprehensive guide on the top 7 reliable screen recorders available in the market for Linux and on the latest and older Ubuntu versions for everyday use.

  • Linux Hint ☛ 100 Best Applications for Ubuntu 2023

    Comprehensive guide on the best 100 set of applications and software for Ubuntu in 2023 to make the best use of your operating system according to your need.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Linux Gizmos ☛ M5Stack launches compact Kmeter Isolation Unit

    M5Stack launched this month a compact K-type thermocouple sensor unit based on the STM32F030 microcontroller. This device is equipped with a 14-bit thermocouple sensor allowing readings from 200°C to 1350°C and ±2°C accuracy.

  • Arduino ☛ Improve your data analysis with the Advanced Chart Widget for Arduino Cloud

    We’re excited to announce the release of our latest Arduino Cloud feature, the Advanced Chart Widget! This new and improved widget is a significant upgrade from our previous chart widget, offering more customization options and functionality that will make it easier than ever to visualize and analyze your device data.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• OpenSource.com ☛ Our favorite tech books written by women

  Whether you’re a fast reader or someone who takes a book at a leisurely pace, a whole month is an ample time to explore a new book. As March is Women’s History Month, we asked Opensource.com contributors to tell us about their favorite books by women authors.

• OpenSource.com ☛ Open source reimagines the traditional keyboard

• Medevel ☛ Hopebilling: An Open Source Solution for Hosting Service Providers

  HopeBilling is an open-source and completely free billing system for hosting providers. It offers a competitive range of features, serving as an alternative to proprietary software.

• Medevel ☛ QuitSmoke – Quit Smoking Now App for Android

  QuitSmoke is a free open-source mobile app that helps you track your progress in quitting smoking. You can see how much money you’ve saved, how many cigarettes you’ve avoided, and how long you’ve been smoke-free. Additionally, you can monitor how your health is improving.

• Programming/Development

  • Dirk Eddelbuettel ☛ Dirk Eddelbuettel: pkgKitten 0.2.3 on CRAN: Minor Update

    A new release 0.2.3 of pkgKitten arrived on CRAN earlier, and will be uploaded to Debian. pkgKitten makes it simple to create new R packages via a simple function invocation. A wrapper kitten.r exists in the littler package to make it even easier.

    This release improves the created ‘Description:’, and updated some of the continuous integration.

  • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

    • Linux Handbook ☛ Enable Syntax Highlighting in Zsh

      Enabling the syntax highlighting on ZSH can be a lifesaver, especially if you are into development.

Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Electronic Bandage Speeds Wound Healing

  We’re a long way from the dermal regenerators in Star Trek, but researchers at Northwestern University have made a leap forward in the convenient use of electrotherapy for wound healing.

• Hackaday ☛ Quick And Dirty Microscope Motion Control For Focus Stacking

  If you’ve spent much time looking through a microscope, you know that their narrow depth of field can be a bit challenging to deal with. Most microscopes are designed to only have a very thin slice of the specimen in focus, so looking at anything above or below that plane requires a focus adjustment. It’s tedious and fussy, and that makes it a perfect target for automation.

• Off Guardian ☛ Hand Picked

  Todd Hayen Were we handpicked to know the truth? Are we the chosen ones? I have resisted this idea for almost three years. It seems much too biblical, and although I consider myself a spiritual/religious person I am not so sure if I see the Bible as literal as most religious people do.

• Science Alert ☛ NASA Says This Asteroid Has a ‘Very Small’ Chance of Ruining Valentine’s Day in 2046

  Let’s maybe just keep an eye on it.

• Science Alert ☛ Trillionth-of-a-Second Shutter Speed Camera Catches Chaos in Action

  Blink and you’ll miss it.

• Science

  • Hackaday ☛ Computers For Fun

    The last couple years have seen an incredible flourishing of the cyberdeck scene, and probably for about as many reasons as there are individual ’deck designs. Some people get really into the prop-making, some into scrapping old tech or reusing a particularly appealing case, and others simply into the customization possibilities. That’s awesome, and they’re all different motivations for making a computer that’s truly your own.

  • France24 ☛ Mice born from two fathers could take human reproduction into new territory

    Scientists in Japan say they have succeeded in breeding mice with two fathers, using eggs originating from male cells. While the scientific breakthrough could pave the way for new fertility treatments, experts say it is still a long way from being used in humans.

  • Federal News Network ☛ 3D-printed rocket remains grounded after more launch aborts

    A rocket made almost completely of 3D-printed parts remains grounded after back-to-back launch aborts. Relativity Space’s rocket came within a half-second of blasting off Saturday on its debut flight from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The engines ignited, but abruptly shut down, leaving the rocket standing on its pad. Launch controllers reset the countdown clocks and tried again. But once more, on-board flight computers halted the countdown, this time with 45 seconds remaining.

  • Gizmodo ☛ Watch Live: Relativity Space Re-Attempts Launch of First 3D-Printed Rocket

    Editor’s note: After several holds and aborted attempts, Relativity Space scrubbed its Saturday afternoon launch of the Terran 1 rocket. The company said further updates and a new launch plan will be issued soon. Check Gizmodo’s Spaceflight in the coming days for more information.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Prostate cancer treatment can wait for most men, study finds

    A study finds long-term evidence that actively monitoring localized prostate cancer can be a safe alternative to immediate surgery or radiation. The results published Saturday are encouraging for men who want to avoid treatment-related sexual and incontinence problems. Researchers followed more than 1,600 U.K. men who agreed to be randomly assigned to get surgery, radiation or active monitoring.

• Education

  • Scheerpost ☛ Public Universities Run on Underpaid Labor. Now Grad Workers Are Fighting Back.

    From Temple University to Rutgers, the devaluation of academic labor has its roots in decades of neoliberalism.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ A Fancy Connected Caliper For Not A Lot

    An essential for the engineer is a decent caliper, to measure dimensions with reasonable accuracy. Some of us have old-fashioned Vernier scales, while many up-to-date versions are electronic. When entering large numbers of dimensions into a CAD package matters can become a little tedious, so the fancier versions have connectivity for automatic reading transfer. [Mew463] didn’t want to shell out the cash for one of those, so modified a cheaper caliper with an ESP32-C3 microcontroller to provide a Bluetooth interface.

  • Hackaday ☛ A Retro-Style Trainer For Motorola’s 1-Bit Chip

    If you want to program a microcontroller today, you pop open your editor of choice, bang out some code, and flash it over USB. But back in ancient times, when your editor was a piece of paper and you didn’t even have a computer of your own, things were a bit different. In that case, you might have reached for a “trainer”: a PCB that included the chip you wanted to program along with an array of switches, LEDs, and maybe even a hex keypad for good measure. Grab yourself the programming manual (printed on paper, naturally), and you’re good to go.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Science Alert ☛ Sleep Disturbances Linked With Higher Dementia Risk, Study Finds

    Here’s what we know.

  • France24 ☛ Fukushima disaster: Japan marks 12 years since deadly tsunami as support grows for nuclear power

    Japanese offered tearful prayers Saturday on the anniversary of the deadly tsunami that triggered the Fukushima disaster, but public support for nuclear power is growing as memories of the 2011 meltdown fade.

  • Pro Publica ☛ A Norfolk Southern Contractor Is Testing East Palestine Homes

    Last month, Brenda Foster stood on the railroad tracks at the edge of her yard in East Palestine, Ohio, and watched a smoky inferno billow from the wreckage of a derailed train. The chemicals it was carrying — and the fire that consumed them — were so toxic that the entire area had to evacuate. Foster packed up her 87-year-old mother, and they fled to stay with relatives.

    With a headache, sore throat, burning eyes and a cough, Foster returned home five days later — as soon as authorities allowed. So when she saw on TV that there was a hotline for residents with health concerns, she dialed as soon as the number popped up on the screen.

  • TruthOut ☛ NYC Retirees Fight Their Own Unions to Stop Catastrophic Health Care Cuts

  • uni Emory ☛ 1,095 days: Three years of COVID-19 response at Emory

    Three years ago, Emory University joined higher education institutions across the country in announcing that, after an extended spring break, classes would switch to online, marking the start of Emory’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Off Guardian ☛ Italy 2020: Inside Covid’s Ground Zero

    Michael Bryant On the third anniversary of the WHO declaring “Covid” a “pandemic”, we take a detailed look at how Italy provided the perfect platform for creating, and then spreading, the Covid narrative. Three years ago the Western World came to a standstill. The official Covid-19 narrative depicted a strange suddenly-super-spreading, deadlier-than-flu virus hailing from …

• Security

  • SANS ☛ Overview of a Mirai Payload Generator, (Sat, Mar 11th)

    The Mirai[1] botnet is active for years. It was the first botnet targeting devices running Linux like camera recorders. Our first diary about it was in 2016![2]. Still today, my honeypot is hit by hundreds of Mirai requests every day! I found a Python script that generates a Mirai payload (SHA256:f56391e9645df1058847e28af6918c64ddc344d9f328b3dde9015213d5efdc7e[3]) and deploys networking services to serve it via FTP, HTTP, and TFTP. Nothing very fancy but it will give you a good idea about how Linux hosts are abused to deliver malicious payloads.

  • Djalel Oukid ☛ The best open-source 2FA apps for Linux & Android

  • Government Technology ☛ Tech School ‘Prevented Catastrophe’ with Antivirus, Backup

    A cyber attack on a server at the Wilkes-Barre Career and Technical Center was discovered Wednesday, and antivirus and backup procedures “prevented a catastrophe” and “a lot of problems,” Administrative Director Anthony C. Guariglia said Thursday.

    The regional vo-tech high school in Plains Twp. shut down its computer and Wi-Fi network, along with all computers, on Wednesday and used a flexible instruction day to provide remote instruction to students on Thursday, Guariglia said.
    […]

    School information-technology staff is working with law enforcement and Computer Visionaries Inc. to determine who is responsible for the cyber attack and how it happened, Guariglia said.

  • Data Breaches ☛ Weekend update: Non-US hospitals hit by cyberattacks
    

    DHnet in Belgium reports that Saint-Pierre hospital in central Brussels temporarily closed its emergency room and diverted line 112 to other institutions due to a cyberattack early Saturday morning. The attack reportedly disrupted the functioning of many applications, including patient records and telephone lines.

    By 5:00 pm Brussels time, most of the blocked apps were functional again. Line 112 and emergencies are expected to be restored later in the evening.

  • Data Breaches ☛ Another ransomware attack results in a HIPAA breach: Florida Medical Center

    In a notice issued yesterday, Florida Medical Clinic (“FMC”) confirmed that unauthorized individuals gained access to its computer network and used ransomware to encrypt files.

    FMC detected suspicious activity on January 9, 2023, and the incident was fully contained within hours. FMC states they were able to “proactively isolate the exposure.” DataBreaches has sent them an inquiry asking they accomplished that.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Gizmodo ☛ Should You Pay for Meta Verified and Twitter Blue?

      Social media services have generally been free of charge for users, but now, with ad revenues slowing down, social media companies are looking for new revenue streams beyond targeted ads. Now, Twitter is charging for its blue check verification, and Meta and Twitter both charge for identity protection.

  • Confidentiality

    • Data Breaches ☛ Notice of Privacy Incident of Historical Health Records – California Secretary of State

    • Data Breaches ☛ ZOLL Medical notifying 1,004,443 patients of data breach — HIPAA

      A number of large recent breaches have involved trackers or analytics, but not all large breaches these days involve trackers. ZOLL Medical is notifying 1,004,443 patients whose protected health information (PHI) may have been compromised in a recent data security incident that didn’t involve pixels or trackers at all.

      According to ZOLL’s notification, the Massachusetts-headquartered firm’s security team first detected unusual activity on their internal network on January 28. They responded promptly to mitigate the incident and investigate it with the help of third-party cybersecurity experts.

    • Data Breaches ☛ Highly sensitive files from Berkeley County Schools dumped by ransomware gang

      In early February, Berkeley County Schools in West Virginia experienced a ransomware attack. On March 3, the district issued a notice on its website that stated their investigation determined “some data stored in Berkeley County Schools’ network may have been accessed that included employee Social Security numbers and direct deposit information.”

    • Data Breaches ☛ Data Exfiltration Trends in Healthcare

    • Data Breaches ☛ Bone & Joint Clinic reports “network disruption” caused HIPAA breach of employee and patient information

      The Bone & Joint Clinic in Wisconsin has notified current and former employees as well as current and former patients of a data security incident that they describe as a “network disruption.”

      According to their notification of March 10, the disruption was experienced on January 16, and the personal and protected health information may have been involved: names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, home addresses, phone numbers, health insurance information, and diagnosis and treatment information.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Common Dreams ☛ US ‘Imperial Anxieties’ Mount Over China-Brokered Iran-Saudi Deal

    While advocates of peace and a multipolar world order welcomed Friday’s China-brokered agreement reestablishing diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, U.S. press, pundits, and politicians expressed what one observer called “imperial anxieties” over the deal and growing Chinese influence in a region dominated by the United States for decades.

  • NYPost ☛ China becomes the broker while Joe Biden is still the joker

    Friday’s biggest headline-grabbing news was the bust of Silicon Valley Bank, however, the honor goes to the announcement that Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic relations.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Biden Rejection of DC’s Criminal Code Reforms Reminds Us of His Past Contributions to Mass Incarceration

    When President Biden announced he would not veto Congress’ override of Washington, DC’s Revised Criminal Code Act (RCCA), he chose politics over public safety and DC’s right to self-governance.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Resistance to Atlanta’s Cop City Is Rising

    Atlanta is a city built inside a forest, one that Indigenous Muscogee people call the Weelaunee Forest. In recent years, the Atlanta Police Foundation, a private nonprofit organization, has led an effort to build what would be the nation’s largest police training center on hundreds of acres of that forest land. The move sparked the creation of a broad coalition to protest the project, some opposed to forest destruction and others against police expansion. Together, these organizers are calling on Atlanta’s mayor, Andre Dickens, and the city council to “Stop Cop City.”

  • Scheerpost ☛ The ‘Stop Cop City’ Movement Roots Going Back Decades

    The Stop Cop City movement recalls Atlanta’s 1996 Olympic bid and the city’s long history of prioritizing tourists, business interests, and wealthy white communities over Black and working-class people

  • Meduza ☛ Wagner Group announces new recruitment centers, with some reportedly located in schools — Meduza

    Wagner Group founder Evgeny Prigozhin announced on March 10 that new centers for recruiting mercenaries to his private military company have opened in 42 cities across Russia. The press service of Prigozhin’s company, Concord, published the announcement, with a list of addresses for the new recruitment centers attached.

  • Meduza ☛ Journalists confirm 16,774 Russians killed in Ukraine, with over 1,600 new losses in the past two weeks — Meduza

    Journalists with Mediazona and BBC News Russian, working with a team of volunteers, have determined that at least 16,774 Russian nationals have been killed during the course of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

  • Meduza ☛ Shot fired through the window of a St. Petersburg bookstore displaying the phrase ‘Peace to the world’ — Meduza

    During the evening of March 11, a bullet smashed the window of an independent bookstore in St. Petersburg. Photographs published on Facebook and on the bookstore’s Telegram channel show that the phrase “Peace to the world” is written across the window. “Well, not everyone likes the inscription on our windows. It’s very sad,” read a post on the store’s Telegram channel.

  • Meduza ☛ Zelensky responds to petition to rename Russia to Muscovy — Meduza

    A petition posted on President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky’s website in November 2022 suggested changing Russia’s official name to Muscovy, and the Russian Federation to the Muscovite Federation. It gathered more than 25,000 signatures, meaning that President Zelensky was legally obligated to respond to it.

  • Meduza ☛ ISW: Defensive lines being built inside Russia are a ‘waste of funds’ — Meduza

    In their March 10 daily assessment of Russia’s offensive campaign, analysts with the American think tank Institute for the Study of War discussed recent construction of fortified defensive lines in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions, as well as in Russian-annexed Crimea.

  • The Dissenter ☛ March To Iraq War, 20 Years Later: March 11, 2003

  • France24 ☛ The head of Wagner says Russian fighters near central Bakhmut

    The head of Russian paramilitary group Wagner said Saturday his fighters were near the centre of Bakhmut as a top Ukrainian commander insisted it was important to “buy time” ahead of an upcoming counteroffensive.

  • Breach Media ☛ Document reveals Canada’s undisclosed motives for arming Saudi Arabia

    Government lists oil, opportunities for Canadian companies, and reduced need for western military missions as rationale for Saudi weapons sales

• Environment

  • France24 ☛ Latest California storm leaves at least two dead and breaks levee

    Another powerful storm pummeled California overnight into Saturday, forcing thousands to evacuate and resulting in at least two deaths, while causing a levee to give way in coastal Monterey County.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Common Dreams ☛ Denying Reports, White House Says ‘No Final Decision’ on Willow Project

      White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday denied reports that U.S. President Joe Biden would imminently approve the Willow Project, saying “no final decisions” have been made on the highly controversial $8 billion ConocoPhillips oil drilling endeavor in northern Alaska slammed by critics as a “climate catastrophe.”

    • Hackaday ☛ Enzymes Make Electricity From Thin Air

      There’s an old magic trick known as the miser’s dream, where the magician appears to pull coins from thin air. Australian scientists say they can now generate electricity out of thin air with the help of some enzymes. The enzyme reacts to hydrogen in the atmosphere to generate a current.

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ Energy Crisis in Pakistan

      Pakistan is land with ample indigenous natural resources. These resources can play a pivotal role in helping and running country’s economy. The mismanagement of the resources and ignorance can lead to several crises.

    • Reason ☛ Sen. Pat Toomey on Cryptocurrency and FTX’s Collapse

      “It’s not clear that FTX would have existed, at least at its scale, if we had domestic guidelines for American companies,” the former senator tells Reason.

• Finance

  • Pro Publica ☛ CO Residents Lose in HOA Foreclosures. HOA Lawyers Win.

    Karl Paymah was on the clock.

    A certified letter from the Rock Ridge Condominium Association in the Denver suburb of Aurora said he had 30 days to pay $1,515.45 in unpaid homeowners association dues and penalties — or face foreclosure.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Are Colorado’s Efforts to Curb HOA Foreclosures Working?

    Last year, when the Colorado legislature passed a bill aimed at protecting residents in disputes with their homeowners associations, lawmakers had one key goal in mind: reducing the number of foreclosures filed by HOAs.

  • Scheerpost ☛ The Chris Hedges Report: Kshama Sawant’s New ‘Workers Strike Back’ Coalition Will Fight for $25 Minimum Wage and More

    Socialist Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant is launching a national coalition called Workers Strike Back to fight for wages, universal healthcare, LGBTQ rights, a clean energy transition, and more.

  • TruthOut ☛ Silicon Valley Bank Collapses in Largest Failure Since 2008 Crisis

  • TruthOut ☛ Biden’s Budget Includes Tax Hikes Targeting Corporations and the Rich

  • JURIST ☛ France pension protests enter seventh day, affecting multiple economic sectors

    Protestors in France Saturday demonstrated for a seventh day against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform plan, which has been widely disputed across the country since his announcement of the plan in January.

  • TruthOut ☛ Colonialism Created Food Insecurity in Haiti, Now Climate Change Compounds It

  • The Kent Stater ☛ Takeaways from America’s second-largest bank failure

    Silicon Valley Bank’s 48-hour collapse led to the second-largest failure of a financial institution in US history. SVB was one of America’s 20 largest commercial banks and is now under the control of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation after it became unable to pay back customers who withdrew their deposits.

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ Draining talent: The consequences and solution of Brain Drain Pakistan

    Pakistan, like many other developing countries, has been struggling with the issue of brain drain for decades. The term “brain drain” describes the phenomena of highly educated and competent people leaving their home country in search of better chances overseas, losing their country of vital talent and experience in the process.

  • Reason ☛ Wages Are Rising for Low-Skill Workers, Driving Down Poverty and Inequality

    Plus: “Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given” right, administrative state abuses, and more…

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Common Dreams ☛ The Tucker Carlson-Led Effort to Whitewash the History of January 6 Will Fail

    Dominion Voting Systems has provided a public service for the American people. As a result of its pending defamation lawsuit against Fox News, Dominion has laid bare the extraordinary con game that Fox carried out in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and that continues today.Fox elevated and affirmed for their millions of viewers former President Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen from him by giving airtime to Trump’s team. But even as they put them on the air, Fox hosts and executives admitted privately that they knew they were airing lies and “insane” conspiracy theories. The big three Fox propagandists, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham privately complained about their lying guests. But they never bothered to tell this to their viewers. Their texts, obtained by Dominion as part of the lawsuit, also reveal that some worried they would lose viewers if they actually told the truth.

  • Common Dreams ☛ I Love Bernie Sanders Because He Has More Guts Than Any Politician Out There

    A few weeks ago, Bernie phoned.

  • Scheerpost ☛ California Considers Giving the Incarcerated a Right to Vote

    It takes a constitutional amendment followed by a statewide vote to legalize balloting behind bars. Will it happen?

  • TruthOut ☛ Inside the Private Conservative Group That Promises to “Crush Liberal Dominance”

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ Betrayal of Trust: The Selfish Actions of Pakistan’s Leaders

    Authors: Asad Ullah and Tanzeela Aslam* Behind the curtains of Pakistan’s political landscape lies a dark and mysterious truth – the betrayal of trust by its leaders through their selfish actions.

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ China’s rise is vital for geopolitics

    China is an old civilization and its history goes back several thousand years. It has passed through many ups and downs in history. But, the worst era of two centuries was a bitter experience, where it was colonialized by the West, suppressed, harassed, coerced, and invaded.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Common Dreams ☛ When a Fact-Checker on Tax Injustice Gets It All Wrong

      A recent fact check by Politifact, authored by Louis Jacobson, itself fails a fact check. It wrongly labels as “false” a perfectly legitimate description of the amount of taxes paid by billionaires.

    • Gizmodo ☛ Climate Denial King Rupert Murdoch Is Hiring a Director of Sustainability

      Have you ever dreamed about furthering environmental goals in the corporate space—or, more specifically, working for one of the world’s most prolific climate deniers, at a company helping churn a crusade against the very existence of a job like yours?

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • uni Stanford ☛ Law School activists protest Judge Kyle Duncan’s visit to campus

    Members of SLS organizations protested against Duncan at his Thursday talk at the Law School, claiming that “he has repeatedly and proudly threatened healthcare and basic rights for marginalized communities.” The protest drew the criticism of at least one free speech civil rights group and according to SLS Dean Jenny Martinez, “was not aligned with [SLS’s] institutional commitment to freedom of speech.”

  • France24 ☛ More than 1,300 migrants brought ashore in Italy as locals march for shipwreck victims

    Three boats overcrowded with migrants were brought safely to Italian ports on Saturday, the coastguard said, as thousands of marchers remembered the victims of last month’s deadly shipwreck off Calabria’s coast.

  • JURIST ☛ Israel dispatch: mass protests continue as state legal advisor spars with national security chief over dismissal of cautious Tel Aviv police commander

    Yael Iosilevich is a law student in the Buchmann Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University and JURIST’s Staff Correspondent in Israel. 

• Monopolies

  • Patents

    • Quartz ☛ A more equitable covid vaccine rollout could have saved a life every 24 seconds in 2021 [Ed: They fail to mention patents]

      The World Health Organization (WHO) declared covid-19 a pandemic three years ago, on Mar. 11, 2020.

  • Copyrights

    • Techdirt ☛ Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Urbanity

      Last week, we had the first of our series of posts showcasing the winners in all six categories of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927, and the spotlight was on Best Remix winner Lucia. This week, we’re taking a look at the winner of the Best Visuals category: Urbanity by Government Name.

Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal

  • Exhausted

    I’m exhausted. It’s simple mathematics: I wake up too early, and go to bed too late. Not even because I’m procrastinating, but because it’s what my family’s schedule demands. This will mess your system real fast. And, unlike in my younger years, I cannot catch up in the weekends.

    Noone has sympathy for the exhausted. The plight of sleep deprivation is great: reduced cognitive abilities, stress and anxiety, mood swings, vulnerability to diseases, injuries, despair.

  • Back, and I’m writing stuff.

    I just remembered the midnight existed and decided to pay a visit. Luckily it’s kind of slow around these parts so it doesn’t take me long to catch up. I’ve been attending game development classes lately and it’s going quite well! I’ve also started writing some stories, and they’re coming along nicely as well (although they do seem a bit inconsistent at parts). So I’ve been enjoying myself lately. Hopefully the same goes for everyone else here.

  • 🔤SpellBinding: BGOPUSR Wordo: FOSSA

  • What is privilege?

    Almost three years after the murder of George Floyd, it feels like American society has gone backward when it comes to social justice. Once touted by many politicians and major corporations, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) is now a “dirty” topic an increasing number of businesses are staying out of. There was a time when Corporate America had an influence even in deep red states (think of, in 2015, how North Carolina quickly backtracked on the infamous “bathroom bill” when several major companies decided to pull their business out of the state). Now they are on the defensive in the face of the “anti-woke” movement in the Republican Party epitomized by Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

• Technical

  • XMPP!

    XMPP peeps: Email is a lost cause, a dead horse, it’s unpossible

    Also XMPP peeps: Everyone needs to get on OMEMO, all old jabber clients are obsolete and need to be thrown away

    Not sure why one of them can be improved and the other can’t…

    If you’re here looking for my XMPP address, it’s sandra.snan@idiomdrottning.org same as my email address. I prefer email.)

    I was hanging out with some XMPP fans and they were very gracious & kind & patient, and have not consented to this blog post so I’m gonna be super vague about them!

  • Running Multiple Servers

    When I started my gemini capsule I added some hobby stuff to the page. Specifically info about amateur radio. My webpage for amateur radio is pretty “old school” with no JS, very little CSS and all generated using Linux command line tools. As I never remember to update it I thought I might as well make the transition to just use Gemini and point my gemini to http proxy and all is good.

    The issue is I already have this capsule running on my VPS where I also host that page. I could use a different port but that is always sucks. Similar to how hosting multiple sites on a single box, I found that you can use nginx to proxy incoming connections based on the SSL cert used and direct them to a specific server. Setup multiple gemini servers on different ports and now I have both pages working:

  • Programming

    • Feature Poor Sudo Replacement

      … the `sudo` program is made up of 108,255 lines of C code … this is simply unacceptable in a utility that is installed suid root … 95% of the code is just sitting there … just waiting for someone to find the next exploit. We could easily have a suitable replacement that would cover just about everyone’s needs in no more than a few hundred lines of code …

GNU/Linux

• Desktop/Laptop

  • Make Use Of ☛ Linux GUI Frameworks and Widget Toolkits Explained

    Linux GUI toolkits might sound confusing, but they define the look and feel of modern Linux desktops. Here’s everything you need to know about them.

    The X Window System is the main display server in use on Linux desktops today. While it may provide elements of a graphical interface, it doesn’t supply any user interface elements by itself. This is a deliberate design choice on the part of the original developers.

    X doesn’t know how to draw window decorations. It doesn’t draw the buttons in windows or lay out any text elements. All of these things are handled by the toolkit.

    X toolkits offer developers a way to define graphical elements without having to do it all manually. Instead of writing out code to allow users to pick files from a dialog box, they can farm this out to a library instead.

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • The TLLTS Podcast ☛ 2023-03-09 The Linux Link Tech Show Episode 995

• Applications

  • Unix Men ☛ Best VPNs for Linux with and without GUI

    The Linux operating system takes up a tiny portion of the market because it appears daunting to the average person. It’s commonly known as the hacker-preferred OS controlled primarily through the command line. Meanwhile, the typical Windows and Mac user probably doesn’t even know what a terminal is.

    It might be easier to persuade people to switch to Linux if more services had a familiar GUI (Graphical User Interface). At the same time, they should support the beloved command line to appeal to die-hard Linux enthusiasts.

    Let’s begin with VPN (Virtual Private Network) services, as these tools are essential cybersecurity and online anonymity tools. We compiled a short list of three providers that offer both GUI and command line options for Linux.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • H2S Media ☛ How to Install Git in Debian 12 bookworm

    Git is an essential version control system and tool when it comes to managing code in software development and maintain different versions of a code. Even GitHub is powered by Git.

  • The Register UK ☛ Cop a load of this DIY e-ink calendar to help plan those projects you’ll never finish

    Korokithakis seems to be a very versatile chap: he’s a pretty good photographer and also has a way with words. For instance, while he could have written some C++ to parse Google Calendar and render the results, that sounded hard (it does to us too). But…

  • OSTechNix ☛ How To Use Ansible To Automate Logical Volume Manager (LVM) In Linux

    Ansible is a simple and easy-to-use automation tool that offers different modules to work with disk management in Linux. When you have more machines to install and configure the operating system with the same configuration then ansible is of great use. A particular use case I can think of is when you are building a cluster where all the servers have the same storage space and need the same LVM partition scheme.

  • Kev Quirk ☛ Are you making these design mistakes on your blog?

    I read a lot of blogs; some I read regularly, others I just come across while I’m out in the wilds of the Internet. The problem is, I’m seeing more and more blogs that fail to meet what I think is the minimal standard for blog design, readability and accessibility.

    This is my rant list of the 5 design mistakes I see most often with blogs.

  • Kmille ☛ How to Yubikey: a configuration cheatsheet

    This post shows different use cases for a Yubikey. There are also command line examples in a cheatsheet like manner. I’m using a Yubikey 5C on Arch Linux. If you run into issues, try to use a newer version of ykman (part of yubikey-manager package on Arch).

  • University of Toronto ☛ As a system administrator, I work in many different environments

    I do a fairly large amount of work (as much as I can reasonably manage) on either my own desktop or in my primary environment on our Ubuntu servers, where I have a NFS mounted home directory, X forwarding, and so on. In both of these environments I have a custom shell, Git aliases, a relatively evolved GNU Emacs configuration with multiple packages, LSP servers for various things I use, and so on. But my energy to keep several copies of this environment in sync has limits and so I don’t go too deep into various other things I could customize.

  • Jussi Pakkanen ☛ My book is finally available for purchase

    The text block has been created with a “mini-LaTeX” DTP program that I wrote basically from scratch. This caused “fun” things to happen. For example I got an email from the printing house some four days before the unveiling event that the book contains words that were not hyphenated according to recommended style guides. I was aware of said style guides, had added handling for those and even had unit tests to ensure that they work. And yet in production they did not work. This lead to a very stressful debugging session where you know that the only person in the world that can fix it is you, and that there is a very strict and personal deadline.

    The actual PDF generation was done with Cairo and Pango. Surprisingly there were zero issues with them, the printer accepted them just fine and the printout looks great. The cover was made with Scribus and it did have several issues none of which had anything to do with Scribus itself, just that doing a full color managed print job is to this day a bit tricky. did have to postprocess Cairo’s output with Ghostscript because Cairo only produces PDFs in the RGB colorspace whereas printers require grayscale PDFs.

  • H2S Media ☛ Command to Install Tasksel on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

    What is the purpose of Tasksel? Tasksel on Ubuntu, Debian, or Linux Mint is a popular open-source tool for those who want to use a single command for installing multiple packages.

  • H2S Media ☛ How to install Mixxx DJ software on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

    Mixxx is an open-source DJ software available free to use for Linux such as Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and Arch; not only Linux but Windows, and macOS are also supported.

  • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Docker on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

    Docker is an open-source platform enabling software developers to package and deploy their applications in a portable, lightweight container. The technology was first released in 2013 and has since become a popular choice for developers due to its ability to simplify application deployment and improve the scalability of their applications.

  • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Tasksel on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

    Tasksel is a Debian/Ubuntu tool that simplifies the installation and configuration of predefined software packages for specific purposes or tasks. It is designed to make it easier for users to install specific software packages related to a particular task or service without manually selecting each package.

  • Linux Capable ☛ How to Configure Unattended Upgrades on Debian 12, 11 or 10

    Debian is a widely used Linux-based operating system renowned for its versatility and expansive collection of software packages and tools. However, keeping the system up-to-date and secure can be challenging, given the significant volume of packages and updates available. To help streamline this process, the Unattended Upgrades Package can be utilized.

  • Linux Capable ☛ How to Schedule Cron Jobs as www-data in Linux

    The www-data user is a default system user account created automatically when a web server such as Apache or Nginx is installed on a Linux system. The web server primarily uses this user to access and serve web files, which is crucial for the proper functioning of websites and web applications.

  • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Darkstat on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04

    Darkstat is a powerful network traffic analyzer that captures and visualizes data about network usage. It is a free and open-source tool that can be used to monitor network traffic and identify potential issues. Darkstat was originally developed by Emil Mikulic in 2001 and has since been maintained by a community of developers.

  • Linux Capable ☛ 20 Examples of Scanning for Viruses with ClamAV on Linux

    Computer viruses can cause significant harm to your system, including stealing data and compromising privacy. While Linux is known to be a secure operating system, it’s still important to have antivirus software to protect your system.

  • TechRepublic ☛ How to deploy MongoDB as a Docker container

    Jack Wallen shows you how to spin up a MongoDB container as a Docker container for your development needs.

  • Linux Made Simple ☛ 2023-03-09 How to install Gedit on a Chromebook

  • Linux Made Simple ☛ 2023-03-09 How to install Lightworks on Linux Lite 6.2

  • Linux Made Simple ☛ 2023-03-10 How to take screenshots on a Chromebook

  • Linux Capable ☛ Understanding /dev/null: A Critical Component of Linux

    Are you curious about the mysterious /dev/null file in Linux? As a virtual device, /dev/null plays a unique and critical role in the operating system, allowing users to redirect unwanted output and free up resources. This article will explore the ins and outs of /dev/null and how it can be used in Linux commands.

  • 2023-03-09 Automatically Take Versioned Steam Save-Game Snapshots Using Steamback

  • 2023-03-09 Send Files Securely Over The Local Network With Cross-Platform LocalSend App

  • DebugPoint ☛ Fixing Slow Download Speed while Using pacman in Arch Linux [Tutorial]

    You are not alone if you are experiencing slow download speed while using Pacman in Arch Linux. Sometimes, system updates via pacman or any package installation become slower in your Arch system.

    This issue can be frustrating, especially when downloading large-size packages.

    However, there are a few ways which can fix this problem. Here are some of them.

• Desktop Environments/WMs

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • KDE ☛ KDE Frameworks 5.104.0

      KDE today announces the release of KDE Frameworks 5.104.0.
      KDE Frameworks are 83 addon libraries to Qt which provide a wide variety of commonly needed functionality in mature, peer reviewed and well tested libraries with friendly licensing terms. For an introduction see the KDE Frameworks release announcement.

      This release is part of a series of planned monthly releases making improvements available to developers in a quick and predictable manner.

    • 2023-03-10 KDE Gear 23.04 branches created

  • GNOME Desktop/GTK

    • This Week in GNOME ☛ 2023-03-10 Felix Hacker: #86 New Decoding

Distributions and Operating Systems

• BSD

  • Exotic Silicon ☛ Discovering one bug after another in the UTF-8 decoding logic in OpenBSD, then going on to fix other aspects of related code.

    Still, the debugging process we went through here to discover the cause of the problems in the first place is worth sharing from the beginning, as the code in question was particularly bad with plenty of textbook mistakes. Who knows what you might find in your own investigations elsewhere.

• Fedora Family / IBM

  • Red Hat Official ☛ Re:Role | The Sysadmin And The Script

    System(s) Administrators don’t get enough credit. They set up systems. Maintain them. Make sure everything follows security best practices. All while having to know code and infrastructure and looking out for crises. And if you think you can automate away their jobs, you’re in for a surprise: They can do it better and continue to make other valuable contributions to your company.

    The company, its business activities and its employees depicted in this podcast are fictional and are not intended to represent or depict any current or former business organization or any individuals living or dead. Any resemblance to any individual or organization is purely coincidental.

  • Red Hat Official ☛ The State of Customer and Partner Experience 2022: Looking to the future

    As we dive head first into 2023, Red Hat and the Customer and Partner Experience (CPX) team are full speed ahead on our plans to continue driving customer and partner success. We know that our customers and partners expect a seamless and positive experience with us, and we will continue to invest and improve in the areas that matter the most to deliver on that expectation. We aim to make our customers’ and partners’ experience with Red Hat as positive, connected and simplified as possible.

    This year, the Red Hat CPX team is rallying around three main objectives to improve customer and partner experience. We believe that focusing on and prioritizing these three areas will lead to a more holistic, connected and positive experience for our customers and partners.

  • Latest Trends in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (Podcast #12 w/ Ron Pacheco)

    In this first episode of the Red Hat podcast series, we discuss the latest trends in enterprise Linux with Ron Pacheco, Senior Director of Linux Business & Ecosystem Strategy at Red Hat. Join us for an insightful conversation on the future of Linux in the cloud.

  • Red Hat Official ☛ Inject external data in policy evaluations with Conftest

    Separating policy from data enables more robust and reusable policy definitions that allow you to factor external data sources in compliance evaluation.

  • Nikita Prokopov ☛ 2023-03-09 Adventures in REPL implementation

• Devices/Embedded

  • CNX Software ☛ Hailo-15 quad-core AI Vision processor delivers up to 20 TOPS for Smart Cameras

    The company also offers a camera development kit with an Hailo-15 single board computer with dual-camera, HDMI, Ethernet, USB ports, audio jacks, and expansion header, a Yocto-based Linux distribution with a full stack DSP, libraries (OpenCV, GStreamer…), BSP, and drivers, as well as documentation and support.

    The Hailo-15 does not seem to be available just yet based on the rendering of the devkit, but Hailo will be showcasing its new AI vision processor at ISC-West in Las Vegas, Nevada, from March 28-31, at booth #16099. More details can be found in the press release and the product page where you can also order the development kit.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Hackaday ☛ This Open Hardware Li-Ion Charger Skips The TP4056

    There’s a good chance that if you build something which includes the ability to top up a lithium-ion battery, it’s going to involve the incredibly common TP4056 charger IC. Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. It’s a decent enough chip, and there are countless pre-made modules out there that make it extremely easy to implement. But if the chip shortage has taught us anything, it’s that alternatives are always good.

  • Arduino ☛ Lamptopus: The most adorable desk lamp in the world

    If you have access to a 3D printer, this is a fun project that should be fairly easy to tackle. The light comes from two Adafruit NeoPixel rings and two servo motors provide the rotation. An Arduino Uno board controls those, with the sketch starting the rotation at set intervals. All of the 3D files and the sketch are on GitHub if you want to build your own Lamptopus, and Ruby Zoom’s video provides thorough instructions.

  • SparkFun Electronics ☛ 2023-03-10 A Tag as Dynamic Wouldn’t Sense as Sweet

  • SparkFun Electronics ☛ 2023-03-09 How to Build an ML-powered Doorbell Notifier

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Sportskeeda ☛ All Motorola phones confirmed to get Android 14

  • Express ☛ Google reveals important date that all Android users should know | Express.co.uk

  • Android Police ☛ Android Auto: How to remove unwanted apps

  • Mashable ☛ How to locate your Android smartphone when it’s lost | Mashable

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• OMG! Linux ☛ Warp is a File Transfer App for Linux & Windows

  Using Warp is no-fuss: open Warp on one computer and drag/drop a file or folder to transfer, and take note of the text code/QR code. Open Warp (or a compatible app) on another device, enter the text code/scan the QR code and the transfer takes place.

  You can transfer files from Linux to Windows; Linux to Linux; Windows to Linux; or Linux to Android using a compatible app.

• Programming/Development

  • Qt ☛ Call for Presentations – Qt World Summit 2023 in Berlin

    Qt World Summit is back in-person! Qt Group is looking for speakers, collaborators and industry thought leaders to share their expertise and thoughts…

  • [Old] ACM ☛ Exploiting input sanitization for regex denial of service

    Web services use server-side input sanitization to guard against harmful input. Some web services publish their sanitization logic to make their client interface more usable, e.g., allowing clients to debug invalid requests locally. However, this usability practice poses a security risk. Specifically, services may share the regexes they use to sanitize input strings — and regex-based denial of service (ReDoS) is an emerging threat. Although prominent service outages caused by ReDoS have spurred interest in this topic, we know little about the degree to which live web services are vulnerable to ReDoS.

  • RTL ☛ Girl with AI earrings sparks Dutch art controversy

    That’s because the work — one of several fan recreations replacing the 1665 original while it’s on loan for a huge Vermeer show at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum — was made using artificial intelligence (AI).

    Its presence has sparked a fierce debate, with questions over whether it belongs in the hallowed halls of the Mauritshuis — and whether it should be classed as art at all.

  • Idiomdrottning ☛ go install a fork

    Keep only their version canonical

    Do not rename the package paths and jump through serious hoops in order to compile your local version from the source tree.

  • Idiomdrottning ☛ Butlerian Jihad

    My experience with the current generation (ChatGPT), for programming specifically, is that:

    it suggests impossible things that can not ever be made to work even with tweaks

    sends you down a rabbit hole of wrongness when what you would’ve needed instead was a blank slate and a clear perspective

    it lies and says that it has tested things (even giving the specific version of the compiler it’s supposed to “work” on) without having done so

  • Python

    • Linux Capable ☛ Python: Working with Files and Directories Guide

      Files and directories are essential components of any computing system, and Python provides an easy way to interact with them. The built-in functions and modules allow for creating, reading, writing, and deleting files and directories. This article aims to provide an in-depth guide to working with files and directories in Python.

  • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

    • Guillaume Quéré ☛ The oldest privesc: injecting careless administrators’ terminals using TTY pushback

      This trick is possibly the oldest security bug that still exists today, it’s been traced as far back as 1985.

      It’s been discovered and rediscovered and re-rediscovered by sysadmins, developpers and pentesters every few years for close to 4 decades now. It’s been subject to multiple developper battles, countless posts, but still remains largely forgotten.

      This is just another attempt at shedding light on it, for both attackers and defenders.

    • Jes Olson ☛ write posix shell

      most people in tech are familiar with shell scripts. but shell is a language!

Leftovers

• Florian Müller ☛ 2023-03-10 WiFi router maker AVM deemed unwilling licensee of standard-essential patents–but more WiFi 6 patent assertions by Huawei may be needed to force settlement

• Xe’s Blog ☛ 2023-03-10 A weapon to surpass Metal Gear

• Science

  • The Scientist ☛ How Larval Fruit Fly Brains Convert Sensory Signals to Movement

    A wiring map diagrams more than half a million neuronal connections in the first complete connectome of Drosophila and holds clues about which brain architectures best support learning.

  • The Conversation ☛ 2023-03-10 A brief history of the UK’s Winchcombe meteorite

  • The Conversation ☛ 2023-03-09 Why does music bring back memories? What the science says

  • Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Baltic countries planning space cooperation

    Representatives of all three Baltic States met in Tallinn this week, to discuss Baltic space cooperation.

    All three countries are in full cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA) and contribute to its programs, but say that in a rapidly developing field, joint projects in space tech and business would benefit all players.

• Education

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Full-Time Contingent Faculty at New York University Are Trying to Unionize

    At New York University (NYU), half of full-time faculty are known as “contract faculty” — they are hired on contracts lasting for between one and eight years and are not eligible for tenure. Unlike adjunct faculty — who are hired on a per-course and per-semester basis — contract faculty at NYU are not yet unionized. They’re trying to change that: on February 22, contract faculty organizing under the banner of Contract Faculty United–UAW delivered a petition to NYU president Andrew Hamilton demanding that the university agree to a “fair and expeditious” process for recognizing the union. Jacobin’s Sara Wexler spoke to Contract Faculty United–UAW organizer Jacob Remes about the unionization effort.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Michael West Media ☛ COVID-19 could be key to fighting breast cancer [Ed: Very misleading headline]

    COVID-19 immunity and vaccines could be key to fighting breast cancer, a researcher says. Clare Slaney is focused on improving CAR T-cell therapy – a type of immunotherapy whereby doctors collect a small portion of a patient’s T-cells, which are an important part of the immune system.

  • RFA ☛ Thailand issues warnings after smog blankets major cities

    Bangkok and northern towns have been enveloped in a toxic haze for weeks.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ More than 200 people have been treated with experimental CRISPR therapies

    This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here. I’ve spent the last few days thinking about how, when, and if we should use gene-editing tools to change the human genome.

  • teleSUR ☛ Norfolk Southern Freight Train Derails in Alabama

    This derailment came only hours before Norfolk Southern CEO testified before U.S. lawmakers over a series of incidents involving the corporation.

  • Vox ☛ 2023-03-10 How the train industry could change after the Ohio disaster

  • FACT CHECK: Did Sweden have lower pandemic mortality than Denmark and Norway?

    A graphic published by the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper last week claimed that Sweden had the lowest excess mortality of all EU and Nordic counties between the start of 2020 and the end of 2022. We looked into whether this extraordinary claim is true.

  • Vox ☛ 2023-03-10 Why all that rain in California won’t solve its drought

  • The Economist ☛ Why did 250,000 Britons die sooner than expected?

    It is not just in Middlesbrough where life expectancy has flatlined. The latest official data end in 2020, when covid-19 was still claiming large numbers of lives. To provide a post-pandemic health assessment of Britain, The Economist has used provisional figures for the last two years. The result is disturbing. We calculate that life expectancy in Britain in 2022 was 81 years for boys and girls combined, just eight weeks longer than a decade ago.

• Proprietary

  • IT Wire ☛ Billions of credentials, personal records stolen through data breaches: report [iophk: Windows TCO]

    Last year, 4,518 data breaches were reported globally with threat actors exposing or stealing 22.62 billion credentials and personal records, ranging from account and financial information to emails and Social Security numbers, a new security report has revealed.

  • CBC ☛ Union ‘increasingly alarmed’ about Indigo cyberattack, demands further disclosure [iophk: Windows TCO]

    Current and former Indigo workers learned this week that their medical and immigration data were part of the breach, which the Toronto-based retailer previously said also included their names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, home addresses, social insurance numbers and direct deposit information such as bank account numbers.

    Indigo blamed the attack on a ransomware software known as LockBit and warned current and past workers that their information may end up on the dark web, an underground portion of the internet used for illicit activity. It said it had not uncovered any evidence of customer information being breached.

  • Tedium ☛ On “Ernie” : Having learned that Baidu is about to steal my first name for its AI chatbot that’s launching this month, let’s talk about the name Ernie for a bit. (Can I stop them?)

    I mean, if a chatbot is coming to steal my name, I wouldn’t be the first. I’m sure the legendary triathlete Siri Lindley cursed a little the day she found out that there was going to be a chat assistant on everyone’s phone named Siri.

    I’m sure everyone named Alexa must hate that when someone calls their name at home, a bot is competing for the actual person’s attention. And I bet you if Sydney Pollack was still alive, he would be pissed that Microsoft decided to give its search engine’s chat engine the nickname Sydney.

    I mean, even I’m a little guilty of this. In 2009, when I started ShortFormBlog, I decided it would be a clever idea to create a mascot for this site, which I named Julius after my middle name, which I’ve never been a fan of, as a way to take ownership of this thing I never really liked. But I never thought about how other Juliuses would feel about it. Maybe I should have called up Julius Erving for his thoughts.

  • Vice Media Group ☛ People Used Facebook’s Leaked AI to Create a ‘Based’ Chatbot that Says the N-Word

    After 4chan published LLaMa online, others have taken the language model and created a functioning chat bot in Discord, which claimed that the n-word can refer to people who don’t have good intentions.

  • Terence Eden ☛ Happy 2nd Birthday to this Bitwarden bug!

    Now, in fairness, this bug was quickly fixed in the desktop client and the browser plugins. But, sadly, even the latest version of the Android app is still broken.

• Security

  • Vice Media Group ☛ CYBER: LastPass Isn’t Safe and Your Hiking App May be Tracking You

    This week on Cyber we look at the insecure hiking app tracking a former Biden official across D.C., LastPass’s latest breach, Twitter ditching Tor, and ‘Escape from Tarkov’s wiggle problem.

  • CISA ☛ CISA Adds Two Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

    CISA has added two new vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation.

  • CISA ☛ Fortinet Releases March 2023 Vulnerability Advisories

    ortinet has released its March 2023 Vulnerability Advisories to address vulnerabilities affecting multiple products. An attacker could exploit one of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.

    CISA encourages users and administrators to review the Fortinet March 2023 Vulnerability Advisories page for more information and apply the necessary updates.

  • CISA ☛ CISA Releases Five Industrial Control Systems Advisories

    CISA released five Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories on March 9, 2023. These advisories provide timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits surrounding ICS.

  • CISA ☛ Cisco Releases Security Advisory for IOS XR Software

    Cisco has released a security advisory for a vulnerability affecting IOS XR Software for ASR 9000 Series Routers. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause a denial-of-service condition.

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

    • Neowin ☛ Windows-based ransomware now infects Linux devices as well [Ed: Microsofters have been conflating IBM's proprietary software with "Linux"]

      A ransomware variant commonly known to target Windows PCs has recently been found infecting Linux computers as well. The variant does this by exploiting a flaw in IBM’s Aspera Faspex software.

    • Windows ransomware now targeting Linux networks – Global Village Space | Technology [Ed: Misleading attribution]

      IceFire spotted targeting Linux devices as researchers warn of a growing trend.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Data Breaches ☛ Data Exfiltration Trends in Healthcare [PDF]

      Data exfiltration is rapidly becoming more prevalent. In 2022, incidents at Nvidia, Microsoft, and several other companies highlighted how big of a problem it has become – and how, for some organizations, it may be a threat that’s even bigger than ransomware.

• Defence/Aggression

  • LRT ☛ EU considers exemptions from sanctions on Belarusian fertilisers

    The European Commission is preparing to lift sanctions on Belarusian fertiliser producers, Igor Udovickij, the majority shareholder of Birių Kroviniu Terminalas (Bulk Cargo Terminal), a stevedoring company in Klaipėda Port that used to handle Belaruskali cargo, said this week.

  • LRT ☛ First Baltic citizen killed in Ukraine fighting

    An Estonian volunteer was killed in Donbas on Tuesday, according to the Postimees news website. This marks the first time a Baltic citizen has been publicly announced as killed in battle after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

  • RFA ☛ Micronesia’s outgoing president calls to cut ties with China, recognize Taiwan

    David Panuelo alleges Beijing has bribed many of the Pacific nation’s politicians.

  • Vice Media Group ☛ Russia Has Launched a Barrage Of Its ‘Invincible’ Hypersonic Missiles Into Ukraine

    Moscow launched a barrage of missiles at Ukraine on Thursday, which included some of its advanced hypersonic missiles.

  • RFA ☛ ‘Where else in the world is there this kind of slavery?’

    North Korea introduces mandatory military service for women and extends all soldiers’ service time by three years.

  • RFERL ☛ Canada Bans Russian Aluminum, Steel Imports

    Canada on March 10 banned the import of all Russian aluminum and steel products in a move that Ottawa said was aimed at denying Moscow the ability to fund its war against Ukraine.

  • RFERL ☛ U.S. Says Moscow Aims To Destabilize Moldova, Bring In ‘Russia-Friendly’ Government

    The United States on March 10 accused Russia of trying to destabilize the ex-Soviet republic of Moldova, including through the use of street protests, with the goal of eventually bringing in a pro-Moscow government.

  • RFERL ☛ Belgium Recognizes Soviet-Era Famine in Ukraine As Genocide

    Belgian lawmakers have recognized Holodomor — the 1932-33 famine caused by the policies of the Soviet government in Ukraine — as a genocide.

  • RFERL ☛ Russia Says It’s Still In Contact With U.S. Over Nuclear Treaty, But Prospects Dim

    Russia said on March 10 that it was still in contact with the United States over their last remaining nuclear arms treaty despite suspending it last month, but held out little prospect of returning to it.

  • VOA News ☛ Why Iran’s Growing Influence in Venezuela Challenges the West

    The U.S. research group Foundation for Defense of Democracies said in a report last December that CICL is a Latin American branch of Iran’s al-Mustafa International University, which the report describes as Tehran’s principal institution for recruiting, indoctrinating and training foreign converts to Shi’ite Islam.

  • Jerusalem Post ☛ Iran secured secret deal with Russia over uranium for nuke program – report

    According to the intelligence source, “President Putin, who made a special trip to Iran to pursue weapons deals between the two countries, agreed to approve the request, apparently due to his interest in compensating the Iranians for their assistance,” the report said.

  • Frontpage Magazine ☛ India: Muslim Leader Claims the Country Will Be Under Islamic Rule Within Twenty Years

    Various sources have confirmed that the Islamic organization led by AIUDF and the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) plan to set up numerous training and career education institutions for Muslim students that would produce large numbers of Muslim officers in the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), the India Police Services (IPS), and allied services in state cadres. These organizations would also support the education and training of engineers, doctors, advocates, and business entrepreneurs from their community that would help establish an Islamic regime in India in an institutionalized way.

  • New Jersey News ☛ A growing number of New Jersey public schools close for Eid as the state’s Muslim population doubles | Opinion

    Ali noted that marking Eid on school calendars and closing schools in observance sparks conversations among students, parents, educators and staff.

  • RNZ ☛ Auckland man who planned violent attack on non-Muslims jailed for two years

    He continues to have interim name suppression.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • NL Times ☛ 2023-03-11 Eindhoven students present off-road solar-powered car

    • NPR ☛ What’s driving the battery fires with e-bikes and scooters?

      Last week’s blaze joined the more than 200 fires in New York City last year caused by batteries from e-bikes, electric scooters and similar devices. Lithium-ion battery explosions are now the third leading cause of fires in the city, the fire department says.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • LRT ☛ Latvia asks people to leave seals alone

      Latvian authorities have asked people to not harass seal pups this season, the country’s public broadcaster LSM reports.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Elephant Hackers

      An elephant uses its right-of-way privileges to stop sugar-cane trucks and grab food.

    • Salon ☛ For the first time, an orca was seen raising another whale species’ young

      Sædís kept the calf close by while the other two killer whales were feeding. There were no other pilot whales in sight, and Sædís had the infant in echelon position, tucked beneath the orca’s mid-lateral flank, which is indicative of nurturing behavior. Baby dolphins can’t swim as fast as their mothers, so in this position, they are given “hydrodynamic benefits,” which allows them to keep up with the pod.

      “The observation of the echelon formation between the adult female killer whale SN0540 and the pilot whale calf should be given special consideration, even though the pilot whale calf was not observed nursing,” the authors wrote. “The echelon position allows a calf to make fewer tail fluke movements than when swimming on its own and overcome physical limitations during high-speed travel, as it is closely ‘drafting’ alongside an individual, carried by the pressure wave created by the adult’s larger body.”

• Finance

  • JURIST ☛ ECHR finds Hungary’s public disclosure of tax debtors violates privacy rights

    The European Court of Human Rights Thursday ruled that Hungary’s practice of publishing information about people who owe tax payments is a violation of their fundamental rights.

  • JURIST ☛ Afghanistan dispatch: ‘Women and children in vast numbers can be seen scavenging for food on the streets to support their families.’

    Law students and young lawyers in Afghanistan are filing reports with JURIST on the situation there after the Taliban takeover. Here, a Staff Correspondent for JURIST in Kabul reports on the implementation and consequences of the Taliban’s policy banning women from work. For privacy and security reasons, we are withholding our Correspondent’s name.

  • Michael West Media ☛ US banking regulator closes SVB as depositors pull cash

    The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has seized the assets of Silicon Valley Bank, marking the largest bank failure in the country since Washington Mutual during the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

  • teleSUR ☛ US Silicon Valley Bank Shuts Down

    The bank’s deposits are currently locked up and under receivership.

  • REVEALED: Danish banks’ policies on non-Danish speaking customers

    We asked Denmark’s largest banks about their policies towards customers who don’t speak Danish. Here’s what they told us.

  • Thousands queue online to access Danish tax returns

    Over 77,000 people were on Friday morning waiting online to access their Danish tax returns – and find out whether they will receive a rebate from the tax agency.

  • Will falling inflation in Denmark mean lower living costs?

    Inflation took another step backwards in February, according to new figures from Statistics Denmark. But how long will it be before the financial burden on consumers lightens?

  • Vox ☛ 2023-03-10 Biden’s plan to tax the rich, explained

  • The Wrap ☛ 2023-03-11 Roku Had $487 Million in Silicon Valley Bank

  • teleSUR ☛ US Financial Collapse Drags Down European Banks

    On Wednesday, Silicon Valley Bank lost about $1.8 billion in trading, sending its shares on Wall Street plunging 60 percent.

  • teleSUR ☛ Belgian Public Workers Strike Over Better Wages & Conditions

    “None of our workers escaped the budget cuts. That is why we sound the alarm bell: every country should have a strong public sector,” the Belge Public Services Union stated.

  • Vice Media Group ☛ How Silicon Valley’s Bank Imploded

    Two days after a surreal bank run amplified by social media began, founders’ favorite bank has been shut down by the FDIC.

  • WhichUK ☛ What supermarkets and shops are doing to help with the cost of living

    From free meals for over-60s and children, to Healthy Start vouchers and targeted discounts

  • WhichUK ☛ Fraud probe into beef mis-labelled as British sold in a UK supermarket

    An investigation has revealed that pre-packed meat and deli products from Southern America and Europe have been labelled as British

  • India Times ☛ Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund withdrew millions from Silicon Valley Bank

    Founders Fund withdrew millions from SVB, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. It joined other venture funds that took dramatic steps to limit exposure to the now-failed financial institution. Founders Fund also advised its portfolio companies that there was no downside to moving their money away from SVB, even if the risk was low.

  • NPR ☛ Silicon Valley Bank failure could wipe out ‘a whole generation of startups’

    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has said that depositors will be able to access up to $250,000 of their funds by Monday morning. Any amount above that will result in a “receivership certificate.”

    And when the FDIC sells the assets of Silicon Valley Bank, those with certificates will receive payments — but how long that will take, and what amount of money will be paid back, remains unclear.

    Some estimates suggest that as little as about 3% of the bank’s deposits are below $250,000, meaning the vast bulk of depositors have money that exceeds standard federal insurance.

  • Gregory Hammond ☛ Should you leave an affiliate program

    When I was just starting out with affiliate marketing I joined a ton of different ones. Once I made at least $1 from affiliate marketing, I knew I could narrow what programs I joined. If you haven’t made any money then don’t leave any, as you don’t know what your audience is going to click.

  • New York Times ☛ Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Sets Off Blame Game in Tech Industry

    The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday set off panic across the technology industry. But [cryptocurrency] executives and investors — who have endured a year of near-constant upheaval — seized on the moment to preach and scold.

    Centralized banking was to blame, the [cryptocurrency] advocates said. Their vision of an alternate financial system, unmoored from big banks and other gatekeepers, was better. They argued that the government regulators that recently cracked down on [cryptocurrency] firms had sown the seeds of the bank’s implosion.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ The GOP Wants You to Pay More Exorbitant Credit Card Fees

    In February, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a rule that would limit most credit card late fees to $8. The rule is being fought by a group of House Republicans who took more than $600,000 from credit card companies in the last election cycle.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • India Times ☛ Microsoft’s third layoff round hits employees in supply chain, cloud, IoT business

    Microsoft has conducted a third round of job cuts that impacted employees in roles related to supply chain, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT).

    According to CRN, the third wave of layoffs are part of the 10,000 job cuts announced by Microsoft earlier this year.

  • ABC ☛ The Polls Were Historically Accurate In 2022

    Of course, some pollsters were more accurate than others. And today, we’ve updated the FiveThirtyEight pollster ratings to account for each pollster’s performance in the 2022 cycle. Our ratings are letter grades that we assign to each pollster based on historical accuracy and transparency. (You can read exactly how we calculate pollster ratings here.) They’re one of many tools you should use when deciding how much stock to place in a poll.

  • India Times ☛ Meta to end news access for Canadians if Online News Act becomes law

    Canada’s news media industry has asked the government for more regulation of tech companies to allow the industry to recoup financial losses it has suffered in the years as tech giants like Google and Meta steadily gain greater market share of advertising.

  • JURIST ☛ Iran and Saudi Arabia re-establish diplomatic ties

    Talks in China between Iran and Saudi Arabia Friday concluded with the two countries agreeing to re-establish diplomatic relations. In a statement, the two nations expressed their desire to “resolve the disagreements between them through dialogue and diplomacy.” The main goal in the re-opening of relations is to “enhanc[e]regional and international peace and security.

  • teleSUR ☛ Saudi Arabia, Iran Set To Resume Diplomatic Relations

    Saudi Arabia and Iran have reached an agreement that includes the resumption of diplomatic relations and the reopening of embassies and missions within two months.

  • JURIST ☛ US sanctions companies helping Iranian petrochemical firms evade sanctions

    The US Department of the Treasury Thursday sanctioned 39 entities connected with providing financial services to sanctioned Iranian firms, such as Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial Co. (PGPICC) and Triliance Petrochemical Co. Ltd. (Triliance).

  • RFA ☛ China’s congress gives nod to third presidential term for supreme leader Xi Jinping

    Unelected delegates vote unanimously, paving the way for Xi’s indefinite rule over party, state and army.

  • Green Party UK ☛ 2023-03-09 Green Party welcome report on positive attitudes towards migration

  • CS Monitor ☛ 2023-03-10 Israeli protesters: ‘Traitors’ and ‘anarchists’ or best and brightest?

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Press Gazette ☛ Who reads the Daily Mail? Why biggest print title still has a huge influence

      Circulation and demographic breakdown showing who reads the Daily Mail.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • VOA News ☛ Hong Kong Jails Members of Tiananmen Vigil Group

    Chow Hang-tung, Tang Ngok Kwan and Tsui Hon Kwong, leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were found guilty March 4.

    Before the sentences were announced, Chow said, “We will continue doing what we have always done, that is to fight falsehood with truth, indignity with dignity, secrecy with openness, madness with reason, division with solidarity. We will fight these injustices wherever we must, be it on the streets, in the courtroom, or from a prison cell.”

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ 3 Hong Kong Tiananmen vigil group activists jailed for 4.5 months for refusing national security data demand

    Three former members of the defunct organiser of Hong Kong’s annual Tiananmen vigils have been sentenced to four-and-a-half months in jail after they were convicted of not complying with a national security police data request. Chow Hang-tung, Tang Ngok-kwan, and Tsui Hon-kwong appeared at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts…

  • Press Gazette ☛ Republican Matt Gaetz calls for Congress investigation into media watchdog Newsguard

    The Trump-aligned congressman made the comments after a hearing into the so-called Twitter Files.

  • RFA ☛ Nanjing university suspends lecturer after comments about imported food, US guns

    Students post musings from economics lecturer Chen Saibin on food security, women’s safety and US gun ownership.

  • RFERL ☛ Russia Lists World Wildlife Fund, Others As ‘Foreign Agents’

    Russia on March 10 added the World Wildlife Fund to its register of “foreign agents,” along with a prominent Kremlin critic, a renowned economist, and a few others.

  • RFERL ☛ Iranian Blogger Arrested For Protest Content On Instagram Account

    A blogger in the northwestern Iranian city of Urmia has been arrested for publishing content on his Instagram account about a wave of suspected poisonings across the country that has hospitalized scores of students, mainly schoolgirls.

  • RFERL ☛ Former University Professor In Belarus Sentenced To Prison For Radio Interview

    A former lecturer at the Department of Italian Language at the Minsk State Linguistic University, Natallya Dulina, has been sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for giving an interview to a media outlet labeled by authorities as “extremist.”

  • The Atlantic ☛ 2023-03-10 What You Can’t Say on YouTube

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Coconuts winds down Hong Kong news site after a decade, citing ‘journalistic and commercial challenges’

    Coconuts is winding down its Hong Kong news site, citing commercial and journalistic challenges. The announcement came days after a new general manager took over the publishing group.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Stand News sedition trial: Ex-editor questioned over op-ed likening Hong Kong to Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’

    A former editor of defunct Hong Kong independent news outlet Stand News on trial for sedition has been questioned over an op-ed that compared Hong Kong to the fictional totalitarian regime in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Meanwhile, the judge presiding over the trial asked whether Nineteen Eighty-Four was a book, and what it was about.

  • Mint Press News ☛ John Pilger: The Betrayers of Julian Assange

    I have known Julian Assange since I first interviewed him in London in 2010. I immediately liked his dry, dark sense of humour, often dispensed with an infectious giggle. He is a proud outsider: sharp and thoughtful.

  • ANF News ☛ Journalist Fırat Bulut released

    The Bingöl Penal Judgeship of Peace had issued a warrant against the journalist for “spreading false information” as allowed by the recently passed “disinformation law”.

  • CPJ ☛ Afghan journalists injured in explosion at press award event

    In response to news reports that a number of journalists were wounded in a bomb attack on a press award event in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement calling for a swift investigation:

    “Targeting journalists during an event to honor reporters is a despicable and cowardly act,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Brave Afghan journalists are already reporting in extremely challenging circumstances. The Taliban must investigate quickly, bring the perpetrators to justice, and end impunity for those who target journalists.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • JURIST ☛ Amnesty International: Tunisia must end xenophobic attacks against migrants

    Amnesty International Friday called for Tunisia to put an immediate end to racist and xenophobic attacks targeting Black African migrants. The violence began in early February and was exacerbated by a racially-charged speech by President Kais Saied at a National Security Council meeting on February 21.

  • The Local SE ☛ Sweden’s government finalises bill to end ban on spontaneous dancing

    Sweden’s government is to submit a bill to end the long-ridiculed ban on spontaneous dancing to parliament next week, Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer announced in a press release on Thursday.

  • TruthOut ☛ Farmworkers Push Wendy’s, Kroger and Publix to Take Stance Against Forced Labor

  • RFERL ☛ Taliban Is World’s Most Repressive Regime For Women, UN Says

    Women were forced to cover themselves, banned from public spaces, and forbidden to work for domestic and foreign NGOs, while traveling or working outside their home is largely restricted.

    The International Labor Organization said on March 7 that Afghan women’s employment had fallen by 25 percent since the Taliban’s return to power.

  • NDTV ☛ In Afghanistan, Taliban Force Divorced Women Back To Abusive Ex Husbands

    Marwa was one of a small number of women who, under the previous US-backed government, were granted a legal separation in Afghanistan, where women have next to no rights and domestic abuse is endemic.

    When Taliban forces swept into power in 2021, her husband claimed he had been forced into the divorce and commanders ordered her back to his clutches.

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-07 Germany: Low-Income Households Struggle for Social and Economic Rights

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-08 The Global Backlash Against Women’s Rights

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-07 Lebanon: 38 Countries Condemn Interference with Beirut Blast Probe

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-08 Little to Cheer for in South Korea on International Women’s Day

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-08 ‘Dark Day’ for Georgia’s Democracy

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-08 Egypt: Harsh Sentences Against Rights Activists

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-08 Equal Laws in Nepal Crucial for Ending Discrimination Against Women

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-08 Key Moment for Scrutiny of Economic and Social Rights Record in the UK

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-08 Saudi Arabia: Law Enshrines Male Guardianship

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-08 Thailand: Man Jailed for Selling ‘Yellow Duck’ Calendars

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-09 African Commission Calls for Justice in Burundi

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-09 Lebanon: Electricity Crisis Exacerbates Poverty, Inequality

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-10 Navalny’s Oscar Moment Spotlights Russian Government Abuse

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-10 Uganda: New Anti-Gay Bill Further Threatens Rights

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-09 Zambia: ‘Green City’ Plan Should Focus on Lead Mine Remediation

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-10 Bahrain Revokes Human Rights Watch Visas

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-10 Belarus Equates Rights Protection to Extremism

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-10 Law Enforcement Complicit in Crimes Against Women in Kyrgyzstan

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-10 Russia’s ‘Verdict’ against Ukrainian POW a Cynical Farce

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-10 Tunisia: Racist Violence Targets Black Migrants, Refugees

  • HRW ☛ 2023-03-10 Zimbabwe: Police Shut Down Popular Musician’s Show

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Right to Repair ☛ Right to Repair for Agriculture in Colorado Moves Ahead

    Last night (Thursday March 9) The Colorado Senate voted 4-3 to move Agricultural Right to Repair HB23-1011 ahead to the Senate Floor.  The House has already moved the bill by a vote of 44-17. Participants in Thursday’s hearing in the Colorado Senate AG and Natural Resources Committee heard a rare, lengthy (7 hours !! ) and wide ranging discussion about the merits and pitfalls of HB12-1011. It was by far the most diligent and useful of hearings in our 10 years of experience. The Senate Chair himself explained that he went back and forth at least ten times between Yea and Nea before deciding to cast the deciding Yea vote. 

  • International Business Times ☛ 2023-03-10 Spotify gives consumers an inside look into its new AI-powered feature ‘DJ’

• Monopolies

  • Vice Media Group ☛ How Two Former Employees Scammed Amazon Out Of $10 Million

    Two former Amazon employees pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud against the company.

  • Patents

    • JUVE ☛ Paris courts attract soaring number of patent cases [Ed: This publisher is sponsored (bribed) by litigation profiteers and patent maximalists. This is what they want.]

      The Judicial Court of Paris’ 3rd Chamber, which is responsible for IP, has issued its statistics for the past year. These show an increase of almost 3.5%, from the 174 new lawsuits filed by parties in 2021, to 180 new patent lawsuits filed by parties in 2022.

    • 2023-03-10 USPTO to Transition to Electronic Patent Grants [Ed: Just pushing Microsoft]

  • Trademarks

    • TTAB Blog ☛ Precedential No. 11: TTAB Confirms that Once Opposer’s Mark is Registered, Priority is No Longer an Issue

      After the Board sustained Nnenna Lovette Nkanginieme’s Section 2(d) opposition to registration of the mark LOVETTE for handbags, Applicant Lovette Appleton requested reconsideration, contending that the Board improperly found that, because opposer obtained a registration for her pleaded mark and entered same into the record, priority was not at issue. The Board denied the reconsideration request, pointing out that, absent a petition for cancellation of the “pleaded and proven registration,” priority is not an issue in a Section 2(d) dispute. Nnenna Lovette Nkanginieme v. Lovette Appleton, Opposition No. 91256464 (March 7, 2023) [precedential] (Opinion by Judge Frances S. Wolfson).

  • Copyrights

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Piracy Subreddit Avoided a Reddit Ban By Censoring Itself to Death

      Reddit is probably the best discussion platform the internet has ever seen, but for those operating controversial subreddits, straying over the line a little too often can mean a permanent ban. With many piracy-focused communities already part of the big subreddit in the sky, others self-censor in a bid to stay alive. That can have devastating consequences.