Desktop/Laptop

• MNT Reform 2 Open Source DIY Arm Linux Modular Laptop Coming Soon (Crowdfunding)

  We first covered MNT Reform in fall of 2017, when it was a prototype for a DIY and modular laptop powered by NXP i.MX 6QuadPlus processor, and with plans to eventually use i.MX 8 hexa-core processor.

  Last year they designed several beta units of Reform to get feedback for a dozen users, and have now fully redesigned the laptop based on an NXP i.MX 8M system-on-module with the crowdfunding campaign expected to go live in February on Crowd Supply.

  The goals of the project are to provide an open-source hardware laptop that avoids binary blobs as much as possible and is environmentally friendly. These goals guided many of the technical decisions.

  For example, there are many NXP i.MX 8M SoM’s, but MNT selected Nitrogen8M as the schematics are available after registration on Boundary Devices website, and that means people wanting to create their own module compatible with Reform 2 could do so.

• MNT Reform open source, modular laptop crowdfunding campaign launches in February

  The MNT Reform is a modular laptop designed to run free and open source software and to be easy to repair, upgrade, or customize. It’s been under development for a few years, and now the developers of the project have finalized the design.

  You’ll likely be able to pre-order one in February when a crowfunding campaign gets underway.

• MNT Reform open source, modular laptop

  A new open source modular laptop will be launching next month via a crowdfunding campaign on the Crowd Supply website, offering an open source DIY laptop that can be modified and customised in a wide variety of different ways as well as protecting your online privacy. “Modern laptops have secret schematics, glued-in batteries, and mystery components all over. But Reform is the opposite — it invites both curious makers and privacy aware users to take a look under the hood, customize the documented electronics, and 3D-print their own parts.”

• Is the MNT Reform the Most Open Source Laptop, Ever?!

  Every single inch of this uniquely positioned notebook has been designed to be as hacker, user, and open source friendly as possible.

  It also boasts some seriously unexpected touches, like a mechanical keyboard, a 5-button trackball, and an system-independent OLED display to relay information.

  In this post we take a closer look at what the hack-friendly MNT Reform laptop has to offer, why it’s designed the way it is, and where and when you can buy one for yourself.

• Manjaro Linux Laptop with 10th Gen Intel Chips to Launch as “Dell XPS 13 Killer”

  Manjaro Lead Project Developer Philip Müller confirmed in an interview with Forbes that a partnership with Tuxedo Computers will bring us several new Linux laptops powered by Intel’s 10th Generation Core i7 chips.

  In essence updated versions of the InfinityBook Pro 15 model, the Manjaro-powered laptops will boast a maximum of 64GB RAM and feature 2TB SSD storage thanks to a Samsung EVO Plus NVMe drive.

  Like several other Tuxedo Computers, all devices support aftermarket upgrades without losing warranty.

Server

• Catalogic Announced Open Source Kubernetes Disaster Recovery

  Today Catalogic Software, announced its open source utility, KubeDR. KubeDR is said to provide backup and disaster recovery for Kubernetes cluster configuration, certificates and metadata. On top of KubeDR, Catalogic also launched its cLabs to support new products, open source initiatives and innovations.

• Catalogic Software Announces KubeDR – Open Source Kubernetes Disaster Recovery

  Catalogic Software, a developer of innovative data protection solutions, today announced the introduction of its Catalogic open source utility, KubeDR, built to provide backup and disaster recovery for Kubernetes cluster configuration, certificates and metadata. Kubernetes is the fastest growing and most popular platform for managing containerized workloads in hybrid cloud environments. Catalogic is also launching cLabs to support new products, open source initiatives and innovations, such as KubeDR.

  Kubernetes stores cluster data in etcd, an interface that collects configuration data for distributed systems. While there are solutions focused on protecting persistent volumes, the cluster configuration data is often forgotten in existing industry solutions. There is a market need to provide the specific requirements of backup and support for Kubernetes cluster data stored in etcd. Catalogic’s new KubeDR is a user-friendly, secure, scalable and an open source solution for backup and disaster recovery designed specifically for Kubernetes applications.

• Elastic Brings Observability Platform to Kubernetes

  Elastic N.V. announced this week that Elastic Cloud, a subscription instance of an observability platform based on the open source Elasticsearch engine, is generally available on Kubernetes.

  Anurag Gupta, principal product manager for Elastic Cloud, deploying Elastic Cloud for Kubernetes (ECK) eliminates the need to invoke an instance of the platform running outside their Kubernetes environment.

• Kubernetes Launches Bug Bounty

  Kubernetes, the open-source container management system, has opened up its formerly private bug bounty program and is asking hackers to look for bugs not just in the core Kubernetes code, but also in the supply chain that feeds into the project.

  The new bounty program is supported by Google, which originally wrote Kubernetes, and it’s an extension of what had until now been an invitation-only program. Google has lent financial support and security expertise to other bug bounty programs for open source projects. The range of rewards is from $100 to $10,000 and the scope of what’s considered a valid target is unusual.

• Google Partners With CNCF, HackerOne on Kubernetes Bug Bounty

• CNCF, Google, and HackerOne launch Kubernetes bug bounty program

  Bug bounty programs motivate individuals and hacker groups to not only find flaws but disclose them properly, instead of using them maliciously or selling them to parties that will. Originally designed by Google and now run by the CNCF, Kubernetes is an open source container orchestration system for automating application deployment, scaling, and management. Given the hundreds of startups and enterprises that use Kubernetes in their tech stacks, it’s significantly cheaper to proactively plug security holes than to deal with the aftermath of breaches.

• IBM

  • Update: State of CentOS Linux 8, and CentOS Stream

    We wanted to update you on what is happening, largely out of sight to most of the community, on the CentOS Linux 8 front. We have appreciated the patience of the community, but we understand that your patience won’t last forever.

    A lot of the work in rebuilding RHEL sources into CentOS Linux is handled by automation scripts. Due to the changes between RHEL 7 and RHEL 8, many of these scripts no longer work, and had to be fixed to reflect the new layout of the buildroot. This work has been largely completed, allowing us to pull the source from Red Hat without a lot of manual work. This, in turn, should make the process of rebuilding RHEL 8.2 go much more smoothly than RHEL 8.0 and 8.1 have done.

  • Retooled CentOS Build Scripts To Help Spin New Releases Quicker, More Automation

    The release of CentOS 8 came several months after RHEL 8.0 and this week’s release of CentOS updated against RHEL 8.1 took over two months of work. But moving forward to RHEL 8.2 and beyond, that turnaround time will hopefully be less.

    When transitioning from CentOS/RHEL 7 to RHEL 8 sources, a lot of the CentOS community build scripts broken. The build root needed a new layout and initially a lot of manual steps were involved in pulling the enterprise Linux sources from Red Hat. But now with getting the initial CentOS 8 work done and their first stable point release under their belt, their new scripts for assembling CentOS 8 appear to be in good standing.

  • Industry Speaks: IBM i Predictions for 2020, Part 1

    We are three weeks into 2020, and that New Year smell hasn’t worn off yet. As time rolls on, the IBM i community will certainly get down to business. In the meantime, here are industry predictions from nine community members to read.

    For Alan Seiden, the CEO of Seiden Group and an IBM Champion for Power, risk management will be a common theme for how they approach IT staffing in 2020.

    “IBM i shops have traditionally operated in a lean manner, relying on key individuals who knew their systems intimately,” Seiden says. “Now, with IT staff managing more projects than ever, new technology entering, and senior staff retiring, companies are looking for reliable partner organizations to supplement internal continuity and support. In the same vein, I see DevOps automation and disaster recovery solutions on the minds of CIOs.”

  • IBM joins LOT Network to thwart patent trolls

    IBM on Tuesday announced it’s joining the LOT Network, a nonprofit group of companies that aims to thwart patent trolls. The move is a commitment to open innovation from IBM, which received a record 9,262 US patents in 2019 alone.

    The LOT Network was founded in 2014, with Red Hat (which IBM acquired in 2019) as a founding member. The organization aims to protect its members from patent assertion entities (PAEs) — entities that genereate more than half of their annual revenue from patent litigation.

    With a membership of more than 600 companies of all sizes, the LOT Network includes more than 2 million patent assets. If any of them fall into the hands of a PAE, LOT Network members automatically receive a license to that patent. Consequently, the PAE won’t be able to sue LOT members for alleged infringement of that patent.

    Since 1920, IBM has collected more than 140,000 US patents. It’s adding more than 80,000 patents and patent applications to the LOT Network.

  • Red Hat Announces OpenShift Container Platform 4.3

    Today, Red Hat announced plans to release OpenShift Container Platform 4.3. OpenShift Container Platform, sometimes shortened to just OpenShift, is Red Hat’s Kubernetes based open-source software container application. When Red Hat says open-source, they mean open source. You can find the current full release notes here alongside the source code in their GitHub repository. Red Hat was founded in 1993 as an open-source software provider and advocate. Today it provides a wide range of home and enterprise software products and services, including a Linux operating system and 24/7 support subscriptions.

Audiocasts/Shows

• GNU World Order 336

  Listener feedback

Kernel Space

• XFS – Online Filesystem Checking

  Since Linux 4.17, I have been working on an online filesystem checking feature for XFS. As I mentioned in the previous update, the online fsck tool (named xfs_scrub) walks all internal filesystem metadata records. Each record is checked for obvious corruptions before being cross-referenced with all other metadata in the filesystem. If problems are found, they are reported to the system administrator through both xfs_scrub and the health reporting system.

  As of Linux 5.3 and xfsprogs 5.3, online checking is feature complete and has entered the stabilization and performance optimization stage. For the moment it remains tagged experimental, though it should be stable. We seek early adopters to try out this new functionality and give us feedback.

• Linux 5.5-rc7

  Well, things picked up at the end of the week, with half of my merges
  happening in the last two days.
  
  Whether that is the usual "send the weeks work to Linus on Friday", or
  a sign that things are just picking up in general after the holidays,
  I don't know.  If the former, I'll probably just release the final 5.5
  next week. But if it looks like there's pent-up fixes pending next
  week, I'll make another rc.
  
  Nothing in here looks particularly odd. Drivers is about half of the
  patch (networking, sound, gpio, gpu, scsi, usb, you name it), with the
  rest being the usual mix - arch, networking, filesystems, core
  kernel..  The diffstat looks mostly fairly nice and flat, with a
  couple of exceptions that look harmless (a few device tree file
  updates, some pure code movemment, and a couple of driver fixes that
  ended up changing calling conventions to get done and as a result got
  to be more lines than the bug otherwise would have merited).
  
  Please do test, there should be nothing scary going on.
  
                Linus
  

• Kernel prepatch 5.5-rc7

  The 5.5-rc7 kernel prepatch is out. Linus is still unsure whether the final 5.5 release will come out next week or not: “if it looks like there’s pent-up fixes pending next week, I’ll make another rc”.

• Linux 5.5-rc7 Kernel Released

  The seventh weekly release candidate to Linux 5.5 is now available for testing.

  Linus noted with Linux 5.5-rc7 there was a large uptick in patch volume at week’s end. “Well, things picked up at the end of the week, with half of my merges happening in the last two days.”

  Due to the recent holidays in large part, it’s possible an eighth release candidate may be needed for Linux 5.5 before then releasing the kernel as stable on 2 February. However, in today’s 5.5-rc7 announcement, Torvalds noted he may just end up releasing 5.5 stable next week. In any case, the release of Linux 5.5 is right on the horizon and this should be the kernel powering Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and other upcoming distribution releases.

• Do not blame anyone. Please give polite, constructive criticism

  Note that “we don’t break users” is literally about user-space applications, and about the kernel I maintain.

  If somebody adds a kernel module like ZFS, they are on their own. I can’t maintain it, and I can not be bound by other peoples kernel changes.

  And honestly, there is no way I can merge any of the ZFS efforts until I get an official letter from Oracle that is signed by their main legal counsel or preferably by Larry Ellison himself that says that yes, it’s ok to do so and treat the end result as GPL’d.

  Other people think it can be ok to merge ZFS code into the kernel and that the module interface makes it ok, and that’s their decision. But considering Oracle’s litigious nature, and the questions over licensing, there’s no way I can feel safe in ever doing so.

  And I’m not at all interested in some “ZFS shim layer” thing either that some people seem to think would isolate the two projects. That adds no value to our side, and given Oracle’s interface copyright suits (see Java), I don’t think it’s any real licensing win either.

  Don’t use ZFS. It’s that simple. It was always more of a buzzword than anything else, I feel, and the licensing issues just make it a non-starter for me.

  The benchmarks I’ve seen do not make ZFS look all that great. And as far as I can tell, it has no real maintenance behind it either any more, so from a long-term stability standpoint, why would you ever want to use it in the first place?

• What Linus Torvalds Gets Wrong About ZFS [Ed: This anti-Torvalds rant comes from the same publisher, Conde Nast, that forced Torvalds out of his own project for a month]

  Ars Technica recently ran a rebuttal by author, podcaster, coder, and “mercenary sysadmin” Jim Salter to some comments Linus Torvalds made last week about ZFS.

• Zhaoxin 7-Series x86 CPUs Mitigated For Spectre V2 + SWAPGS

  When it comes to the Zhaoxin x86-compatible processors coming out of VIA’s joint venture in Shanghai, their forthcoming 7-series (KX-7000) has hardware mitigations in place for some CPU vulnerabilities.

  We haven’t heard much about these Chinese x86 CPUs with regards to speculative execution vulnerabilities but it appears the pre-7-Series is vulnerable to Spectre Variant Two and at least SWAPGS. But with their 7-series, hardware mitigations appear to be in place.

• Benchmarks Of Arch Linux’s Zen Kernel Flavor

  Following the recent Linux kernel tests of Liquorix and other scheduler discussions (and more), some requests from premium supporters rolled in for seeing the performance of Arch Linux’s Zen kernel package against the generic kernel. Here are those benchmark results.

  These are some benchmarks I recently did on the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X while running EndeavourOS. Tests were done with its default Linux 5.4.8-arch1 kernel compared to the same kernel revision but using Arch’s Zen kernel flavor. That is Arch’s spin of the Zen-kernel patches (not to be confused with AMD Zen).

• Intel’s ConnMan Is Ready With WireGuard Support

  In addition to NetworkManager having good WireGuard support in advance of this secure VPN tunnel tech landing with the Linux 5.6 kernel, Intel’s ConnMan software is also ready with supporting WireGuard.

  Intel’s ConnMan hasn’t seen a new tagged release in nearly one year but over the past two months in the Git development code WireGuard support has materialized. ConnMan, as a reminder, is the Intel-led effort for providing an Internet connection manager on Linux designed for embedded/mobile use-cases that dates back to their Moblin days.

• AMD

  • AMD Adds Zen 3 Code To Linux Kernel

    Even though it may feel like just yesterday that the Zen 2-powered chips in the Ryzen 3000-series processors came out, we’re already catching plenty of wind that Zen 3 is well on its way, which shouldn’t be all too surprising given that AMD does its best to maintain annual updates to its CPU lineup. Today, we caught a whiff of Zen 3 microcode being added to the Linux kernel, as spotted by hardware leaker Komachi.

    The spotting details the addition of EDAC (Error Detection and Correction) family ops code to the Linux kernel for the Family 19h systems, which is the family of AMD CPUs based on the Zen 3 microarchitecture. Naturally, the existing family 17h (Zen2) chips can still be used, and we must note that this is not about the Ryzen 4000 ‘Renoir’ APUs that were announced at CES, as those are still based on the Zen2 microarchitecture.

  • ASUS TUF Laptops With Ryzen Are Now Patched To Stop Overheating On Linux

    The AMD Ryzen Linux laptop experience continues improving albeit quite tardy on some elements of the support. In addition to the AMD Sensor Fusion Hub driver finally being released and current/voltage reporting for Zen CPUs on Linux, another step forward in Ryzen mobile support is a fix for ASUS TUF laptops with these processors.

  • AMD Sends In A Bunch Of Fixes For Linux 5.6 Along With Pollock Support

    After already several rounds of feature work queued in DRM-Next for Linux 5.6, AMD has submitted a final batch of feature work for this next kernel as it concerns their AMDGPU graphics driver.

    While Linux 5.6′s merge window isn’t opening until around the start of February, with RC6 having come, it effectively marks an end to the feature window of DRM-Next for targeting the next kernel. AMD’s final pull request is mostly centered on fixes plus a few other extras and also enabling AMD Pollock display/graphics support for that forthcoming hardware.

  • The AMD Ryzen Thermal / Power Linux Reporting Improvements Working Well – V2 Up For Testing

    A few days ago I reported on AMD’s “k10temp” Linux kernel driver finally seeing the ability to report CCD temperatures and CPU current/voltage readings as a big improvement to this hardware monitoring driver. The work hasn’t yet been queued for inclusion into the mainline kernel, but initial testing is working well and a second revision to the patches has been sent out.

    Linux HWMON maintainer Guenter Roeck who spearheaded this work independent of AMD sent out the “v2″ k10temp driver improvements on Saturday. This allows core complex tie temperature reporting for Zen 2 CPUs and allows current and voltage reporting for Ryzen CPUs. While this information has long been available to Windows users, sadly it’s not been the case for Linux at least as far as mainline drivers go — the out-of-tree Zenpower driver and other third-party attempts have been available but nothing mainline.

• Intel

  • More Benchmarks Of The Initial Performance Hit From CVE-2019-14615 On Intel Gen7 Graphics

    On Wednesday I shined the light on the initial performance hit from Intel’s CVE-2019-14615 graphics vulnerability particularly striking their “Gen7″ graphics hard. That initial testing was done with Core i7 hardware while here are results looking at the equally disturbing performance hits from Core i3 and i5 affected processors too.

    This article offers some benchmarks with Core i3/i5 results added in alongside the i7 CPUs previously tested with the Gen7 graphics found most commonly with Ivy Bridge and Haswell processors. Each distinct system was tested before/after from the CVE-2019-14615 posted on Wednesday.

  • Intel graphics patch “wrecks” Gen7 iGPU Linux performance

    Earlier this week Intel released details about a vulnerability in its integrated graphics hardware. Its advisory ID was INTEL-SA-00314 and it talked about the CVE-2019-14615 vulnerability. Products from 3rd Gen Core up to 10th Gen are affected including the contemporaneous Xeon, Pentium, Celeron and Atom products. Intel was made aware of this vulnerability as far back as August so already has patches available and links to recommended new drivers for both Windows and Linux users (scroll down this page about half way).

    All so regular and nothing surprising so far… However, since the updated drivers have been released, Linux-centric tech site Phoronix has been busy checking and testing the new drivers (on Linux of course) to see if there are any performance penalties, or other aberrations, delivered with the vulnerability patches.

  • More Details On Intel’s CVE-2019-14615 Graphics Vulnerability, a.k.a. iGPU Leak

    As for CVE-2019-14615 the Intel graphics vulnerability disclosed this week affecting Gen7 through Gen9 graphics architectures, it’s been dubbed “iGPU Leak” by the researchers involved. Thanks to the researcher who originally discovered this vulnerability having reached out to us, we now have some more information on this issue they describe as a “dangerous vulnerability.”

    This is the vulnerability that initially piqued our interest over the big graphics performance hit to older Ivybridge/Haswell processors with integrated graphics where in the initial patches we’ve seen quite dramatic losses.. Fortunately though the current Gen9 graphics have a mitigation where we’re seeing fortunately no change in performance. As relayed yesterday, however, they hope for no Gen7 graphics performance penalty in the final version of their mitigation.

  • Intel Gen7 Graphics Mitigation Will Try To Avoid Performance Loss In Final Version

    Intel’s open-source developers working on their security mitigation for the Gen7 graphics hardware have volleyed a new version of the patch series for that mitigation currently causing big hits to Ivybridge / Haswell performance.

  • Intel’s OSPray 2.0 Ray-Tracing Engine Released

    An area where Intel continues striking with rhythm and near perfection is on the open-source software front with their countless speedy and useful open-source innovations that often go unmatched as well as timely hardware support. Out this weekend is their OSPray 2.0 release for this damn impressive ray-tracing engine.

    OSPray 2.0 is out as their latest big upgrade to this open-source ray-tracing engine that supports photo-realistic global illumination, MPI for exploiting large system performance, volume rendering, and is all open-source software. OSPray 2.0 is another big advancement for this project that is part of Intel’s growing oneAPI tool-kit.

  • The Linux Kernel Obsoletes The Intel Simple Firmware Interface

    We haven’t heard of the Simple Firmware Interface in a number of years, but that changed this week in Linux now formally marking SFI as “obsolete” and confirmation Intel does not plan to ship any future platforms with this standard that dates back to their early days of working on Atom-powered mobile devices.

Applications

• Keep a journal of your activities with this Python program

  Last year, I brought you 19 days of new (to you) productivity tools for 2019. This year, I’m taking a different approach: building an environment that will allow you to be more productive in the new year, using tools you may or may not already be using.

• Use this Twitter client for Linux to tweet from the terminal

  Last year, I brought you 19 days of new (to you) productivity tools for 2019. This year, I’m taking a different approach: building an environment that will allow you to be more productive in the new year, using tools you may or may not already be using.

  I love social networking and microblogging. It’s quick, it’s easy, and I can share my thoughts with the world really quickly. The drawback is, of course, that almost all the desktop options for non-Windows users are wrappers around the website. Twitter has a lot of clients, but what I really want is something lightweight, easy to use, and most importantly, attractive.

• KMyMoney 5.0.8 released

  The KMyMoney development team today announces the immediate availability of version 5.0.8 of its open source Personal Finance Manager.

  Despite even more testing we understand that some bugs may have slipped past our best efforts. If you find one of them, please forgive us, and be sure to report it, either to the mailing list or on bugs.kde.org.

  Besides the software itself, the KMyMoney website was refurbished and now has a more modern clean look. Thanks to all who were involved in the process.

• Shotcut is an open source video editor for Windows, Linux, and macOS

  Last month, we talked about SimpleVideoCutter. This time, we’ll be looking at a more advanced video editor called Shotcut.

  Shotcut is an open source video editor for the Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. The application has a ton of features, and in this review, I’m giving you an overview of the program’s main functionality.

  The start screen of the application looks complex, but once you get past it, the program turns out to be user-friendly. First things first: select the project folder, name and video mode (resolution) and click on the Start button. There are some panels on the left and right sides of the screen, these are the Filters, Peak Meter and the Recent panes. You can close these if you don’t need them, they can be recalled from the toolbar at the top. The GUI should look simpler already.

• VirtualBox 6.1.2

  VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is now the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software.

  [...]

  Modularity. VirtualBox has an extremely modular design with well-defined internal programming interfaces and a client/server design. This makes it easy to control it from several interfaces at once: for example, you can start a virtual machine in a typical virtual machine GUI and then control that machine from the command line, or possibly remotely. VirtualBox also comes with a full Software Development Kit: even though it is Open Source Software, you don’t have to hack the source to write a new interface for VirtualBox.

  Virtual machine descriptions in XML. The configuration settings of virtual machines are stored entirely in XML and are independent of the local machines. Virtual machine definitions can therefore easily be ported to other computers.

Instructionals/Technical

• How to install WPS Office 2019 on elementary OS 5.1 Hera

• How to Secure an Outdated Web Application in 5 Minutes

• Smarter reusable IPFS chunks from HTML documents

• How To Setup OpenLDAP Server on Debian 10

• Number word sequences

• How To Install Python pip On Ubuntu 18.04

• How To Install Python pip On Debian 9

• How to Install Minecraft on Linux Mint 19

• How to Install CMake on Debian 10

• append() And extend() Methods In Python

• How to Install VokoscreenNG 3.0 via PPA in Ubuntu 18.04/19.10

• How to store sensitive data in Linux with Vault

• Bash if else Statement

  Bash if statement, if else statement, if elif else statement and nested if statement used to execute code based on a certain condition. Condition making statement is one of the most fundamental concepts of any computer programming. Moreover, the decision making statement is evaluating an expression and decide whether to perform an action or not.
  In this tutorial, you will learn Bash if statements and how to use them in your bash script. Moreover, we can understand if statements through the flow diagram.

Games

• Christopher Allan Webber: Terminal Phase 1.0

  I’m pleased to announce that Terminal Phase, a space shooter game you can play in your terminal, has achieved version 1.0. The game is completely playable and is a fun game (well, at least a number of playtesters told me they thought it was fun). It includes two levels (one of which is more balanced than the other), and more content is on its way (1.0 isn’t the end!). You can see it being played above in cool-retro-term but it works in all sorts of terminals, including gnome-terminal and etc.

  I also released a video recently (archive.org mirror) of me doing a live playtest of the game and also showing off how to make new levels and program new enemies (which serves as kind of an introduction, but probably not the best one, to Spritely Goblins).

  Terminal Phase was actually a reward for hitting the $500/mo milestone on my Patreon account, which we achieved a little over a week ago. I aimed to get 1.0 out the door by midnight on Wednesday but I actually released it a couple of hours later, closer to 2:30am, because I was trying to make the credits look cool:

  Terminal Phase Credits

  I think I succeeded, right? Maybe you would like your name in there; you can still do so by selecting a tier on my Patreon account. I released the game as FOSS, so whether you donate or not, you can still reap the benefits. But I figure making the credits look cool and putting peoples’ names in there would be a good way of making people feel motivated. And there are more releases on the way; I’ll be adding to this now and then and releasing more stuff occasionally. In fact you may notice the cool parallax scrolling starfield in the gif at the top of this post; I added that after 1.0. I guess it’s a bit sneaky to put that on top of a post labeled 1.0, but the good news is that this means that 1.1 is not far away, which will include some new enemies (maybe a boss?), new levels, and yes, parallax starfields (and maybe your name in the credits if it isn’t already).

• Indie Game VVVVVV Goes Open Source In Honor Of Its Tenth Anniversary

  Terry Cavanagh’s VVVVVV is an action-platform game that has offered players a tough challenge for almost ten years.

  On January 10, 2020, VVVVVV celebrated its tenth anniversary in a blog post. With the blog post came a big surprise for longtime fans of the game.

• Indie smash hit VVVVVV is now open source

  The popular Indie platformer VVVVVV is now open source and available on GitHub. Terry Cavanagh, the creator of the game, detailed the process of porting the original Adobe Flash release to C++ for release on PC on his blog. It’s an entertaining read, especially for fans of the game.

• Indie Platforming Classic VVVVV Is Now Open Source

  Creative game developer Terry Cavanaugh has recently decided to release the source code for his beloved gravity-bending platformer VVVVV in honor of the game’s tenth anniversary.

• Steam for Chrome OS would make Chromeboxes even more awesome

  Once upon a time, there was this small-form-factor PC you could buy called a SteamBox. It was designed to hook up to your television and give you access to the almost 40,000 games at Valve’s Steam storefront.

  I bought a SteamBox. It worked surprisingly well until I bricked it trying to install Windows 7.

  After several reinventions and a revolving door of partners, the only way to find a SteamBox today is looking for a very overpriced used model on eBay or Amazon. It was a shame, really, because the idea was a good one — an inexpensive way to get Steam into your living room. All Valve needed was a partner with deep pockets and that wasn’t afraid to keep dipping into them.

  Hello there, Google.

• Report: Google wants to bring the Steam game store to… Chrome OS?

  We have a wild report from Android Police this morning, as the site claims that Google is working to bring official Steam support to Chrome OS. Yes, Valve’s Steam. The gaming platform. On Chromebooks.

  The story apparently comes from a direct source: Kan Liu, the director of product management for Chrome OS. During an interview with Liu at CES, the site says Liu “implied, though would not directly confirm, that Google was working in direct cooperation with Valve on this project.” The idea is that, according the Liu, “gaming is the single most popular category of downloads for Play Store content on Chromebooks,” and Steam would mean even more games.

• Google and Valve are bringing Steam to Chromebooks – and it’s all thanks to Linux

  Kan Liu, Director of Product Management for Google’s Chrome OS, has revealed that the Chromebook team at Google is bringing Steam to Chromebooks.

  The news, reported by AndroidPolice, is certainly exciting, as it means PC gamers won’t have to rely on Windows to play games. According to the website, Liu implied that Google is working with Valve, the company behind Steam, to make this happen.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Kubuntu Focus: First Boot And Initial Impressions Of This Powerful New Linux Laptop

    Tuxedo Computers and the Kubuntu Council recently introduced us to the Kubuntu Focus, a premium Linux laptop designed for power users, developers and gamers. I’ve cracked open my review unit and wanted to introduce a series of articles by taking a first look at the modified KDE desktop and start exploring what distinguishes this particular laptop from the crowd.

  • KDE Plasma 5.18 Seeing More Last Minute Work To Make It One Of Their Best Releases Ever

    This past week KDE Plasma 5.18 reached beta for this next long-term support release of the modern KDE desktop. While it’s approaching the finish line next month, developers have not let up on more improvements in making this one of their best and most polished releases ever.

    Some of the additional work that headed into Plasma 5.18 this week as well as other KDE components has included…

  • Plasma 5.18 is the release you’ve been waiting for

    A ton of features, bugfixes, and and user interfaces have landed for Plasma 18, and a beta release is now available for adventurous types to test out ahead of the release next month.

    I think this is the Plasma release that a lot of people have been waiting for. It’s faster, more stable, more beautiful, and more feature-filled than any previous release, and it comes with a Long Term Support guarantee. Nothing is perfect, and we can always do better (and always strive to), but I think Plasma 5.18 is going to hit a sweet spot for a lot of people. Look for it in the next LTS releases of Kubuntu and openSUSE Leap, as well as all the rolling release distros of course.

  • This Cool Cyberpunk Desktop is Easy to Recreate on Kubuntu

    Arguably the most striking feature of this neo-noir desktop in the video above is the vivid live wallpaper. Atmospheric, this instantly instills an edgy, futuristic vibe reminiscent of films like Blade Runner, Dark City, and eXistenZ.

    I am even more impressed by easy it is to recreate the whole look (assuming you’re running KDE Plasma desktop) for yourself.

    On a regular Ubuntu desktop with GNOME Shell setting up a live wallpaper requires some a bit of effort (installing an unmaintained app from a random repo or getting tricksy with mpv, fining the numbers and deftly placing enough hyphens).

Distributions

• Reviews

  • Review: Zorin 15.1 “Lite”

    Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based operating system that aims to make Linux easy for Windows and macOS users. In the words of Zorin, it is “the alternative to Windows and macOS designed to make your computer faster, more powerful, secure and privacy respecting”. Zorin’s main product is the paid-for “Ultimate” edition, which will set you back €39 and comes with macOS, Windows, Linux and “Touch” layouts (i.e. themes) as well as a relatively large collection of software and “installation support”. Other editions of Zorin are free but come with less pre-installed software and fewer desktop layouts.

    For this review I dusted off a MacBook that dates from late 2009 and installed the “Lite” edition which, as the name suggests, is designed to breathe new life into older hardware. The laptop is one of the plastic, white MacBooks. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and 4GB of RAM – I doubled the amount of RAM a few months ago. The laptop has mostly been running Fedora with the MATE desktop and the i3 window manager as an alternative environment, both of which ran fine. Zorin’s Lite edition uses Xfce as the desktop environment.

    First impressions and installation

    Zorin’s website is either modern and clean or yet another bootstrap site, depending on your view. There are just three links in the navigation menu: Download, Computers and Help (the Computers section links to vendors that sell laptops with Zorin pre-installed). The Download section lists Zorin’s Ultimate edition first, followed by the Core, Lite and Education editions.

    Clicking any of the Download links for the free versions triggers a “Sign up to our newsletter & Download” pop-up window featuring a huge “Sign up & Download” button and a very small “Skip to download” link. I am not a fan of this type of marketing. I don’t mind that they ask if I maybe want to sign up to their mailing list, but I take issue with the fact that the dialogue window has been designed to make the “No thanks” option easy to miss. Such marketing techniques assume that users need to be tricked into signing up to receiving marketing materials, which reflects poorly on the project as a whole.

• SUSE/OpenSUSE

  • Dominique Leuenberger: openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the week 2020/03

    This has been a busy week when looking at the snapshots. Tumbleweed has received 6 fully tested snapshots that were published (0110, 0111, 0112, 0113, 0114 and 0115).

• Fedora Family

  • The Performance Cost To SELinux On Fedora 31

    Following the recent AppArmor performance regression in Linux 5.5 (since resolved), some Phoronix readers had requested tests out of curiosity in looking at the performance impact of Fedora’s decision to utilize SELinux by default. Here is how the Fedora Workstation 31 performance compares out-of-the-box with SELinux to disabling it.

    By default Fedora runs with SELinux enabled in an enforcing and targeted mode. But by booting with selinux=0 as a kernel parameter or editing /etc/selinux/config it’s possible to outright disable the Security Enhanced Linux functionality or change its operating mode.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • Xubuntu 20.04 Will Include a Dark Theme

    Current Xubuntu 20.04 daily builds include a freshly created ‘Greybird-dark’ variant that does exactly what it says on the tin.

    Greybird’s steely bright aesthetic is swapped for a collection of darker greys. While new colour palette allows the theme to stay true to its name — it’s still grey — the overall effect is more transformative than you might have otherwise thought.

    In short, Greybird Dark instantly gives the Xfce desktop a distinctive, classy new look that’s more than a match for dark themes touted in other distros.

Devices/Embedded

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • MarsCat is a Bionic Cat Powered by Raspberry Pi 3 (Crowdfunding)

    Elephant Robotics MarsCat is a robotic cat that tries to mimic the behavior of actual cats through artificial intelligence. It can have a life of its own roaming the house, and you can also interact with it as it will play with toys/teasers through its camera, and you can send voice command to ask it to walk, run, look at you, be quiet. etc… but the trick is that it may not always obey like a real cat, and its personality will evolve depending on how you interact with it.

    Beside being a bionic pet, MarsCat can also be used to teach/learn robotics as the company will release an open-source SDK allowing you to change the Python code running on the Raspberry Pi 3 board powering the cat, and access API’s to control the camera, microphone, touch sensors, as well as the 16 servos connected to a Microchip ATMega2560 MCU via two servo boards. Visual programming for the robot will be made possible through Scratch 3.0 program.

  • MarsCat robot is more project than pet

    Built on the Raspberry Pi platform and launched on Kickstarter, the MarsCat is the pet project of Joey Song, who has long been a fan of Sony’s Aibo robotic dog but dismayed at its high price. (Song said he picked a used one up for $2,000 a few years ago.) With Mars Cat, Song says he’s hoping to bring down the price of such a pet (the launch price is $699) while also speeding up the pace of innovation. At launch, the MarsCat will support detecting brightness and moving objects, attributes that Aibo cannot sense.

  • Open Mainframe Project Continues to Grow with Launch of Polycephaly and New Members

    The Open Mainframe Project (OMP), an open source initiative that enables collaboration across the mainframe community to develop shared tool sets and resources, continues to see rapid growth with a new project , Polycephaly, and the addition of new members.

    The project (formally zJenkins) is based on IBM IBM Dependency Based Build (DBB) using Groovy script to build z/OS applications with Jenkins and Git, and three academic institutions from China: Beijing Institute of Technology, South China University of Technology, and Xidian University.

  • The BSC coordinates the manufacture of the first open source chip developed in Spain

    In collaboration with the Centro de Investigación en Computación of the Mexican IPN, Centro Nacional de Microelectrónica of the CSIC and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC).

    Lagarto, which is built with TSMC’s 65-nanometer transistors, is the first open source instruction set architecture (ISA) chip developed in Spain, coordinated by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). The chip, which has performed better results than expected, is a key step in the center’s strategy to become a benchmark in the open source hardware technologies’ field developed in Europe.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Google Chrome may soon let you copy images directly to Android’s clipboard

  • Android beauty apps could give your phone a black eye

  • Google Pixel 4 caught running Android 11 ahead of Developer Preview 1 release

  • Xiaomi Mi A1 January update arrives amid Android 10 anticipation (Download link inside)

  • Modern Android App Architecture with JetPack and Dropbox Store

  • Xiaomi Mi A3 Android 10 update delay confirmed as Pie-based January 2020 patch goes live (Download link inside)

  • Realme rolls out Android 10 with Realme UI to the Realme XT

  • Realme XT Starts Receiving Android 10-Based Realme UI Update in India

  • Redmi Note 7 Pro running Android 10 spotted on Geekbench

  • Android 10 Is Now Rolling Out To Huawei P30 Lite

  • More Nokia phones on Android 10

  • Samsung Galaxy A60 and M40 to Get Android 10 Update Soon

  • Xiaomi’s Poco is now an independent smartphone brand

  • The Pixel 4a is putting Google in an unwinnable war — with itself

  • Android virus that sends offensive messages from infected phones

  • YouTube Rolls Out Profile Cards Feature On Android

  • TranslateMe launches network reward campaign for Android mobile users

  • 7 things your Android phone can do iPhones owners can only dream of

  • HOW TO ENABLE “DEVELOPER OPTIONS” ON YOUR ANDROID SMARTPHONE

  • How to check your Android version

  • How to find a stolen or lost Android phone

  • This week in Android: Galaxy S20 leaks, Poco F2 details, and more!

  • Xbox Console Streaming on Android is now open to Insider testers globally

  • Xbox Console Streaming for Android now available as a global preview

  • Twitter’s pinned lists feature is making its way to Android

  • Android Users Beware: These Top Camera Apps May Secretly Be Spying On You

  • Android beauty apps could give your phone a black eye

  • Android R spotted running on Google Pixel 4

  • [Update: Mi A3 in mid-Feb] The Android 10 update is now available for the Xiaomi Mi A2

  • Realme XT receives Android 10 update with Realme UI

  • POCO F1 review, 18 months later: Still going strong in 2020

  • This week in Android: Galaxy S20 leaks, Poco F2 details, and more!

  • How to turn off the flash on your Android device’s camera

  • ONE UI 2.0 ANDROID 10 UPDATE COMING SOON FOR THE GALAXY A60 AND M40

  • LG kicks off stable Android 10 update for its second high-end phone

  • Asus ZenFone Max Pro M2 Android 10 update might be around the corner

  • [New build with January 2020 patch] Xiaomi allegedly cancels Mi A2 Android 10 update citing unknown reasons

  • What Is Android Mobile? Everything You Need To Know

  • Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S5e Android tablet gets first price cut to $350 ($50 off)

  • Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Review: Valiant Battle to Keep Android Relevant in The Workplace

  • Android Users In The US Finally Get RCS Messaging

  • How to find a stolen or lost Android phone

  • iPhone vs. Android: Which is better for you?

  • 20 new Android games from the week of January 13th, 2020: Space Grunts 2, Draw Chilly, and Chamber

  • Non-techies, this new phone is not for you

    When it comes to smartphones, people mostly talk about operating systems like Android or iOS. But here is a phone which runs Linux and is meant only for developers. If you are not a techie, you simply can’t use this phone. Dubbed as the PinePhone BraveHeart, this phone is made by a company called Pine64 which focuses on open software. The first batch of the devices have already started to ship.

    The company categorically states that this phone is meant only for developers. “Only intend for these units to find their way into the hands of users with extensive Linux experience and an interest in Linux-on-phone,” it said. The device doesn’t come with any pre-installed operating system and you are required to install your own Linux build.
    Priced at $150 or around Rs 11,000, if you are a Linux enthusiast and someone who likes to tinker around your own projects then this phone might interest you.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Mattermost co-founder survived tough times to launch game-changing collaboration platform

  One of the co-founders of the influential startup accelerator Y Combinator once termed the struggles of entrepreneurs to launch a business the “trough of sorrow.” As he was trying to run an independent video game business, entrepreneur Ian Tien suddenly found himself waist deep in that trough.

  Tien (pictured) had built his business on a messaging app that quickly went south after being acquired by a large company.

  “It started crashing and losing data, and we were super-unhappy,” Tien recalled. “Rather than go to another platform, we realized we had 10 million hours of people running messaging in their own video games. Why don’t we build this ourselves?”

  The result was Mattermost Inc., an open-source, online self-hosted messaging service that has attracted attention from investors and recognizable customers, such as Uber Technologies Inc., Airbus and the U.S. Department of Defense.

• Unifying open standards and open source with agile technology

  Broadband installations globally have eclipsed the one billion mark to date. These connections are largely based upon a traditional model of modified existing central office architectures, complemented by copper or fibre access and a relatively simple edge network connecting a handful of devices in the home via wired or Wi-Fi connections.

  However, a new digital era is fast emerging, where new technologies such as 5G, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV), a proliferation of devices driven by the Internet of Things (IoT), and a significantly more sophisticated and complex connected home have compounded matters and applied significant pressures to the network architecture and its ability to scale to meet the challenges and opportunities of this new world.

• What’s in Your Containers? Try an Open Source Tool to Find Out

  As most security pros know, application containers — Docker, rkt, etc. — and the orchestration elements employed to support them, such as Kubernetes, are used increasingly in many organizations.

  Often the security organization isn’t exactly the first stop on the path to deployment of these tools. (If it was in your shop, consider yourself one of the lucky ones.) Instead, usage tends to emerge from the grass roots. It starts with developers using containers on their workstations to streamline unit testing and environmental configuration; builds traction as integration processes adapt to a more “continuous integration” approach facilitated by containers; and ultimately gains acceptance in the broader production landscape.

  [...]

  “Anchore Engine is an open source tool for performing deep inspection of container images,” said Ross Turk, Anchore VP of marketing. “These images can contain a whole lot: operating system packages, language libraries, credentials and secrets, and configuration that affects how the resulting containers are executed. Anchore Engine flattens and unpacks the image, layer by layer, and inventories what’s inside.”

  This information is valuable not only because it provides information on what software may need to be updated in the event of security patches or updates, but also because it gives you visibility into the implementation of applications and services before, after, or during their release into the production environment. It can inform software architecture reviews, threat modeling, conversations about secrets management, audit activities and design reviews, among other things.

• What’s Ahead for Open Source and Financial Services in 2020

  It should not come as a surprise that software companies like to try their hand in many different industries, and it was only a matter of time before the most popular ones decided to start offering financial and banking services. Google’s recent announcement that it will start to offer “smart checking accounts” comes right on the heels of Facebook’s Libra currency announcement, and we anticipate that this trend will just continue. The biggest reason is that banking continues to happen where customers are already shopping, and/or where social networking occurs – ultimately serving to streamline the customer experience and to permit spending and lending to happen faster and in places the customer already spends a significant amount of time.

• SD Times Open Source Project of the Week: Khronos Vulkan

  Khronos Vulkan, which just released its 1.2 update, is a low-overhead, cross-platform 3D graphics and computing API.

  Vulkan targets high-performance realtime 3D graphics applications such as video games and interactive media across all platforms.

  The new version includes improved performance, enhanced visual quality and easier development.

  Last year, Google’s Stadia launched with a host of AAA titles that use HLSL on Vulkan: Destiny 2, Red Dead Redemption II, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and the Tomb Raider games

• LSD welcomes Knowledge Focus to Planet Open Source

  Today, LSD Information Technology (LSD) is announcing the merger of Knowledge Focus into its fold as of 1 January 2020. The strategic integration is the result of a shared vision to unify and further strengthen competencies across key open source solution spaces. With this merger, LSD hopes to explore new opportunities with their combined superpowers and will continue to deliver market-leading open source solutions.

  Stefan Lesicnik, CEO of LSD Information Technology, said on the merger: “We are really excited to no longer compete with the great team from Knowledge Focus, but rather, as colleagues, to work with them and deliver great customer solutions based on open source Elastic Stack and Kafka. Knowledge Focus’ open source experience with Elastic and Kafka, combined with the LSD expertise around DevOps, Openshift and Kubernetes, provide instant combined value for strategic solutions for our clients.”

• Wine industry collab develops open source platform

  A University of Adelaide and industry collaboration has developed a digital platform to help grapegrowers optimise their irrigation and crop management.

• flexiWAN Offers Escape From SD-WAN Black Box

  Israeli startup flexiWAN has introduced open source SD-WAN software that, it believes, can give telcos a competitive edge by enabling them to customize services to suit their own needs.

  The company says its approach, based on modular software elements, addresses a growing problem in the SD-WAN market — namely that service providers are struggling to differentiate because they’re all selling similar services based on the same set of inflexible systems, says flexiWAN’s co-founder and CEO Amir Zmora.

• Inspecting TLS-encrypted traffic with mitmproxy

  Mitmproxy is a free, open-source tool whose killer feature is the ability to inspect Transport Layer Security (TLS)-encrypted mobile phone app traffic. The tool is superior to Wireshark when it comes to examining TLS-encrypted network traffic, and its zero-dollar price point beats out the not-cheap Burp Suite. The only downside (upside for some) is that mitmproxy is primarily a command line tool, unlike the swish Burp Suite GUI.

• Value Of Open Source Strategy Is To Attract Right Developers: Sudhir Tiwari, ThoughtWorks

• CDMO Speeds its Line with Open-Source L4 Serialization System

  Sovereign Pharmaceuticals, LLC is a CDMO specializing in small-batch prescriptions drugs, packaging solid and liquid products in their Ft Worth, TX, facility. They handle a variety of bottle sizes—from 50 cc up to 950 cc and from 1 oz to 16 oz—for a number of drugs and indications. Dealing with several virtual companies for clients, they spend a lot of time educating them about regulatory requirements.

  In 2016, the company sought a serialization solution to meet the DSCSA enforcement date in Nov. 2018. While they were driven by regulations, meeting the deadline appeared it would be a challenge. “We tried one solution and our customers tried three other solutions and none of them were going to meet the deadline,” says Ryan DeSario, Serialization Supervisor at Sovereign.

• Open Source Luminary Marc Fleury Enters Crypto Arena with Announcement of New Crypto Asset Class and Continuous Token Offering Sale

• Open source pioneer Dr. Marc Fleury launches Two Prime & new crypto asset class

  Open source pioneer Dr. Marc Fleury today launches Two Prime, a fintech firm that focuses on the financial applications of crypto to the real economy. Two Prime’s Chief Executive Officer Fleury and Chief Operating Officer Alexander S. Blum are bringing abundance to the crypto industry by introducing a new breed of cryptocurrency with safeguard mechanisms that use real assets. Two Prime’s ultimate goal is to bring about the next phase of crypto’s financial applications and reinvigorate the crypto market by introducing traditional tools and models to the space.

• Open-Source Guru Fleury’s Crypto Firm to Debut Asset Token

  Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency firm Two Prime, headed by an entrepreneur who sold a previous tech business for $350 million, is set to introduce a digital token invested in a basket of blockchain-based holdings.

  The FF Accretive Token, registered in Hong Kong, will use the proceeds from its initial issuance to make crypto-related investments in a structured portfolio of cryptocurrencies, debt and equities with the goal of generating accretive cash flow, according to a company release. Instead of releasing all the coins at once like most initial coin offerings, Two Prime will issue the tokens continuously into the market based on demand.

• Open-source Nextcloud rebrands itself, ready to compete with GSuite and Office 365

  For years now Nextcloud has been considered by many, mostly more tech-savvy users, especially those in the free and open-source community, as a fairly viable alternative to Dropbox – although one that just “isn’t there” yet.

  Not only in terms of user-friendliness – for one thing, Nextcloud is self-hosted – but more importantly, there have been complaints about its functionality and even reliability.

  However, there was always one pretty major advantage that recommended it over a proprietary service like Dropbox: Nextcloud is free and open-source, meaning that there are no “secret ingredients” in its code, which allows users full control of the data they sync, share, and host while using it.

  Nextcloud has announced taking a big step forward in the hope of growing into much more than just a Dropbox alternative.

  The product has changed its name to Nextcloud Hub to reflect the addition of new features to its integrated mail client, calendar and contacts, audio and video team chat, and real-time collaborative document editing – a competitor to Google Docs and Microsoft’s Office 365.

• European public services rely on Bareos for backups

  European public services make up about half of all customers that pay for support services on Bareos, a backup solution available as open source. The software is used by universities across the continent, national and state archives, and municipalities small and large, reports Bareos, the 8-year-old company based in Cologne (Germany) that is the main developer of the eponymous software solution.

• My FOSS Story

  Being a FOSS maintainer has given me a lot of interesting experiences. Some bad, some good. I’ve tried to express some of those experiences in this article with the goal of helping everyone understand each other better. This article doesn’t necessarily generalize because these experiences are told through my perception of the world. For example, my individualist perspective on life greatly colors how I perceive FOSS. Namely, it’s largely a personal endeavor for me, rather than a more altruistic attempt at improving a public good. A different perspective could greatly change how one experiences FOSS.

  My hope is that others will use these experiences to reflect on their own and perhaps the experiences of others. I think this process can lead to greater empathy and an overall better experience for everyone.

  In this article, I listed a lot of behaviors that I considered negative. Not everyone will see them as negatively as I do. That’s okay and expected. More to the point, I am certainly guilty of committing some of those negative behaviors myself. We are not perfect and we will never be able to be purely empathetic 100% of the time. This is a game of inches and my hope is that we can do better, even if it’s just a little bit.

• The new standard in on-premises team collaboration: Nextcloud Hub

  During a keynote presentation in Berlin, Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek announced the availability of a new product from Nextcloud. Nextcloud Hub is the first completely integrated on-premises content collaboration platform on the market, ready for a new generation of users who expect seamless online collaboration capabilities out of the box.

• Nextcloud Hub Announced For Offering On-Premises Content Collaboration Platform

  Nearly four years since forking from ownCloud, Nextcloud continues taking on the likes of Dropbox, Google Docs, and Microsoft 365 — especially more so now with their introduction of Nextcloud Hub. Nextcloud Hub is a completely integrated on-premises content collaboration platform.

• Open source fights cancer, Tesla adopts Coreboot, Uber and Lyft release open source machine learning

  It’s hard to a growing company these days that doesn’t take advantage of machine learning to streamline its business and make sense of the data it amasses. Ridesharing companies, which gather massive amounts of data, have enthusiastically embraced the promise of machine learning. Two of the biggest players in the ridesharing sector have made some of their machine learning code open source.

  Uber recently released the source code for its Manifold tool for debugging machine learning models. According to Uber software engineer Lezhi Li, Manifold will “benefit the machine learning (ML) community by providing interpretability and debuggability for ML workflows.”

• JetBrains Mono is a free, open source monospace font

  JetBrains Mono is a new font designed especially for coders and developers. The lowercase characters are taller than the ones in other monospace fonts, improving readability.

• Best fonts for programming: JetBrains Mono typeface is easy on the eyes

  What typeface do you program with? JetBrains released a new open source typeface that is designed with coding in mind. JetBrains Mono aims to minimize eye strain, improve code readability, reduce noise, and balance whitespace with ligatures. Besides its practical usage, it’s also just plain beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. See what it looks and add it to your IDE.
  Long hours staring at a screen is a recipe for eyestrain. Dark mode and display-altering software such as f.lux help take some of the strain away.

  What typeface is best for coding? When designing a typeface with the intention of coding, the distinction between characters, spacing, height, and line thickness are all components that need consideration.

• Events

  • X.Org’s XDC2020 May Abandon Poland Conference To Find More Welcoming European Location

    Hopefully you didn’t yet book your tickets to XDC2020 as the annual X.Org conference as the venue — and host country for that matter — may change.

    The annual X.Org Developers’ Conference flips each year between different venues in North American and Europe. Last year it was announced XDC2020 would be hosted in Gdansk, Poland by a local Polish crew at Intel. But now that decision is being reassessed over finding a more welcoming and inclusive country for the event.

  • Top 5 Reasons Why You CAN’T MISS SUSECON 2020

    A new year, a new decade, and a new SUSE (now fully independent), all coalesce to a new SUSECON—bigger, more inspiring, and more focused on the world we live in than ever before. Like a pot of gold, SUSECON 2020 will be full of life-enhancing moments to make your world better. Here are the top five riches you have to look forward to when the rainbow lands in Dublin, March 23 – 27, 2020.

  • Xen Project Design and Developer Summit: Registration and CFP Open Now!

    Starting today, registration and Call for Proposals officially opens for the Xen Project Developer & Design Summit. This year’s Summit, taking place from June 2nd through the 4th at the PRECIS Center in Bucharest, Romania, will bring together the Xen Project community of developers and power users to share ideas, latest developments, and experiences, as well as offer opportunities to plan and collaborate on all things Xen Project.

    If you’d like to present a talk at the Summit, the Call For Proposals is open now and will close Friday, March 6, 2020.

    The Xen Summit brings together key developers in this community and is an ideal sponsorship opportunity. If you are interested in sponsoring this year’s event, check out the Sponsorship Page. For information regarding registration, speaking opportunities and sponsorships, head over the event website and learn more!

  • FOSDEM 2020 RTC Devroom schedule announced

    The schedule for the RTC devroom at FOSDEM 2020 in Brussels, Belgium has recently been announced. The devroom is on Sunday, 2 February 2020. We have 18 great presentations scheduled this year. Please share the link and come to support them.

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • webcompat.com: Project belt-on.

      So last week, on Friday (Japanese time), I woke up with a website being half disabled and then completely disabled. We had been banned by GitHub because of illegal content we failed to flag early enough. And GitHub did what they should do.

      Oh… and last but not least… mike asked me what Belt-on meant. I guess so let’s make it more explicit.

    • Units of Measure in Rust with Refinement Types

      Years ago, Andrew Kennedy published a foundational paper about a type checker for units of measure, and later implemented it for F#. To this day, F# is the only mainstream programming language which provides first class support to make sure that you will not accidentally confuse meters and feet, euros and dollars, but that you can still convert between watts·hours and joules.

    • This post focuses on the work I accomplished as part of the Treeherder team during the last half of last year.

      The Taskcluster team requested that we stop ingesting tasks from the taskcluster-treeherder service and instead use the official Taskcluster Pulse exchanges (see work in bug 1395254). This required rewriting their code from Javascript to Python and integrate it into the Treeherder project. This needed to be accomplished by July since the Taskcluster migration would leave the service in an old set up without much support. Integrating this service into Treeherder gives us more control over all Pulse messages getting into our ingestion pipeline without an intermediary service. The project was accomplished ahead of the timeline. The impact is that the Taskcluster team had one less system to worry about ahead of their GCP migration.

• SaaS/Back End/Databases

  • This Beaten-Down Software Stock Has a New CEO: Time to Buy?

  • Cloudera taps former head of the company it merged with to be its new CEO

    Data software company Cloudera named Rob Bearden as its new CEO on Monday. Bearden was previously the CEO of rival Hortonworks, which merged with Cloudera last year in a stock swap that valued the combined companies at $5.2 billion.

    Shares of Cloudera rose 3% in extended trading following the announcement.

    Bearden is a familiar face for many of the company’s employees. Now he’s keen to eke out more savings from the integration of the two companies and bring in more revenue from customers.

  • MariaDB goes bigly on cloud-native smart apps

    MariaDB Corporation is upping its cloud-native playbook.

    At the same time, MariaDB is aiming to up its approach to so-called ‘smart’ applications., so before we define the parameters at play here, let’s look at the news.

    The database company’s mysteriously named MariaDB Platform X4 is new to the table and is described as a cloud-native open source database for developers to build modern applications using smart transactions and cloud-native data storage.

    We know that modern applications (that aspire to be smart) require access to vast amounts of data — and that data needs to be optimised for analytical queries and Machine Learning (ML) models.

    In this way, transactions can be augmented with data insights, turning them into smart transactions.

  • How can CIOs avoid vendor lock-in and stop repeating past mistakes?

    Percona’s own research supports this — around 89% of respondents to the Open Source Data Management Software Survey were using more than one open source database in their applications. The most popular public cloud services make heavy use of open source in their cloud deployments, and host many open source implementations. The growth of software containers based on Docker is also increasing the consumption of open source.

• Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

  • Next release will be LibreOffice 7

    Congratulations! Next release will be LibreOffice 7 instead LibreOffice 6.5. Look at that message in marketing mail list.

• CMS

  • Alfresco Helps George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust Begin Its Paperless Journey

    Alfresco Software, an open source content, process and governance software company, has announced the successful implementation of its Digital Business Platform by George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust to enable paperless processes. By digitising clinical and non-clinical forms, the Trust is able to make creation and changes quicker and easier, as well as give patients more control over their health and well-being. After just four months, patients and staff are seeing such a positive difference that there are plans to expand the usage of the Alfresco Digital Business Platform to digitise more processes.

  • Should You Use Open-Source Document Management Software?

    A document management system (DMS) can play an integral role in the organization and efficiency of your business. Companies that want a paperless office or a streamlined way to store and access digital documents turn to document management software. The most useful systems allow you to perform a variety of tasks like scan paper documents, control file versions, organize various folders, set user permissions and collaborate with other team members.

    Not all applications are created equal; you must, therefore, choose a DMS that serves your needs and integrates with your other business platforms. Business owners and developers who want added flexibility and customization often turn to open-source DMS solutions.

  • Drupal 8.8.0 is available

    The last normal feature release of Drupal 8 includes a stable Media Library as well as several improvements to workspaces and migrations. The new experimental Claro administration theme brings a fresh look to site management. This is also the first release to come with native Composer support.

  • Drupal 8.8.0 Released, Acquia Acquires AgilOne and More Open Source CMS News

    Drupal 8.8.0 — the last normal feature release of Drupal 8 — is now available for download. Some of the updates in this release include:

• Funding

  • UVM Gets $1 Million From Google For Open Source Research

    Open source software can be shared and modified but UVM said the concept is about more than software. The school says the aim of the project is to broaden understanding of how people, teams and organizations thrive in technology-rich settings, particularly in open-source projects and communities.

  • UVM gets $1M from Google for open source research

    The unrestricted gift is to support open-source research. Open source is a type of computer software, where source code is released under a license, and the copyright holder grants users the rights to study, change and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.

• FSF

  • GNU Projects

    • GNU Make 4.3 Released!

      The next stable version of GNU make, version 4.3, has been released and is available for download from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/

      Please see the NEWS file that comes with the GNU make distribution for details on user-visible changes.

    • GNU Make 4.3 Released With Performance Improvements, Newer GNU libc + Musl Support

      While a Red Hat developer is working on “Goals” to try to improve upon Make, the GNU Make project is not slowing down and is out this Sunday with a big update.

      GNU Make 4.3 is this new release and some of the changes include:

      - Makefiles can now specify the “-j” option within their MAKEFLAGS variable to enable the parallelism mode.

• Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

  • Is open source culture the answer to our technology woes?

    For that, open source culture is likely to be the most effective, if not the only, therapy. Open source means to be open about the source of knowledge that enables anyone to make something. With regard to technology, one important element of that source, but certainly not the only one, is represented by the code used to generate a given piece of software, AKA the source code.

    But you would be mistaken to think that the ability to read and write code is a necessary requirement to access this alternative technological world. In fact, open source should be understood in its broader sense of open knowledge. Should one wish, everyone can contribute in many ways such as by sharing, translating and editing instructions, creating tutorials and engaging with the ethical issues at stake in our technological society. Contrary to how things were 30 years ago, open source software is today as user-friendly and good-looking as any other proprietary and close-source counterpart. The ability to read and write code is certainly useful, but not necessary when using open source alternatives.

  • Open Data

    • Open source: Vatican wartime archives ready for new batch of scholars

      After decades of anticipation, the Vatican archives are ready to welcome, starting March 2, scores of scholars wishing to study documents related to the wartime pontificate of Pope Pius XII.

      All 85 researchers who have requested access have been given the green light to come and sift through all the materials from the period of 1939 to 1958, Bishop Sergio Pagano, prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Archives, told Catholic News Service Jan. 13.

      [...]

      The nationality or religion of those requesting aid did not matter to the pope, only verifying that need was legitimate, the bishop said.

      He said the archives have letters from people who admitted they were atheists but were turning to the pope for help because they saw him as the only moral leader left in such a dark time in history.

      Referring to accusations by some historians and Jewish groups that Pope Pius XII and others did not do enough to stop the Nazi rise to power and the Holocaust, Pagano said the pope “did speak with his efforts and then he spoke up with words, so it is not true that the pope was totally silent.”

      The new researchers’ stated fields of interest, he said, obviously were focused on World War II, the Holocaust, the persecution of the Jewish people, the murder of Italian citizens in Rome by Nazi German troops and the relationship between the Holy See and the Nazi’s national socialist party and with communism.

    • How open-source code could help us survive natural disasters

      In November 2019, while on a trip to Australia to discuss the power of technology to make a difference in the aftermath of natural disasters, I saw firsthand the devastation caused by historic bushfires raging throughout the country.

      Sadly, devastating bushfires are still burning on the continent, putting more and more lives at risk and destroying entire communities. As the fires persist, the smoke in Sydney and elsewhere has rendered the air quality “hazardous.” There’s been a national spike in hospital visits, many to treat breathing problems.

      Unfortunately, Australia is not alone in being ravaged by natural disaster.

  • Open Access/Content

    • Textbooks are pricey. So students are getting creative.

• Programming/Development

  • SaltStack Introduces Plugin Oriented Programming with New Open-Source Innovation Modules to Power Scalable Automation and Artificial Intelligence

  • JFrog Launches Free ConanCenter to Improve C/C++ DevOps Package Search and Discovery English

    JFrog, the Universal DevOps technology leader known for enabling liquid software via continuous updates, announces today the launch of the free ConanCenter, enabling better search and discovery while streamlining C/C++ package management. Conan is an open-source, decentralized, and multi-platform package manager for developers to create and share native binaries.

  • Rav1e Kicks Off 2020 With Speed Improvements For Rust-Based AV1 Encoding

    Xiph.org’s Rustlang-written “Rav1e” AV1 video encoder is back on track with delivering weekly pre-releases after missing them over the past month due to the holidays. With Rav1e p20200115 are not only performance improvements but also binary side and build speed enhancements.

    The new Rav1e pre-release should be roughly 30% faster while also delivering slight enhancements to the image quality at the highest speed (10). That’s a winning combination with speed and image quality improvements together!

  • RPushbullet 0.3.3

    Release 0.3.3 of the RPushbullet package just got to CRAN. RPushbullet offers an interface to the neat Pushbullet service for inter-device messaging, communication, and more. It lets you easily send (programmatic) alerts like the one to the left to your browser, phone, tablet, … – or all at once.

    This release further robustifies operations via two contributed PRs. The first by Chan-Yub ensures we set UTF-8 encoding on pushes. The second by Alexandre permits to downgrade from http/2 to http/1.1 which he needed for some operations with a particular backend. I made that PR a bit more general by turning the downgrade into one driven by a new options() toggle. Special thanks also to Jeroen in help debugging this issue. See below for more details.

  • Static Customization Of Function Signatures In Rust

    Sometimes I have a big function that does a lot, and in new code I need to do almost the same thing, but slightly differently. Often the best approach is to call the same function but add parameters (often described as “options”) to select specific variations. This can get ugly when the function has optional outputs — results that are only produced when certain options were passed in — because typically there is the possibility of an error when code looks for an output (e.g. unwraps a Rust Option) at a site that did not request it. It would be great if the compiler could check that you only use an output when you passed in the option to enable it. Fortunately, some simple Rust coding patterns let us achieve this.

  • Perl Weekly: Issue #443 – 2020-01-20 – New Book: Mojolicious Web Clients

    brian d foy has just let me know that his new book, “Mojolicious Web Clients” is now available for puchase. You can buy it on Amazon and on LeanPub as well.

    I’d recommend you buy it from LeanPub as they give him a much larger percentage of the sales and they also let you easily tip brian with extra money. IMHO the $5.99 he is asking for is ridiculously low.

    LeanPub also allows brian to update the book and easily distribute it to everyone who purchased an earlier revision of it.

  • [Old] Building a search engine from scratch

    The previous blog post in this series explored our journey so far in building an independent, alternative search engine. If you haven’t read it yet, we would highly recommend checking it out first!

    It is no secret that Google search is one of the most lucrative businesses on the planet. With quarterly revenues of Alphabet Inc. exceeding $40 Billion[1] and a big portion of that driven by the advertising revenue on Google’s search properties, it might be a little surprising to see the lack of competition to Google in this area[2]. We at Cliqz believe that this is partly due to the web search bootstrapping problem: the entry barriers in this field are so massive that the biggest, most successful companies in the world with the resources to tackle the problem shy away from it. This post attempts to detail the bootstrapping problem and explain the Cliqz approach to overcoming it. But let us first start by defining the search problem.

  • What’s wrong with computational notebooks?

    Computational notebooks, such as Jupyter Notebooks, Azure Notebooks, and Databricks, are wildly popular with data scientists. But as these notebooks are used for more and more complex tasks, data scientists run into more and more pain points. In this post I will very briefly summarize our method, findings, and some opportunities for tools.

  • How to Check If String Contains Substring in PHP

  • How to Get Current Date & Time in JavaScript

  • Che: A Revolutionary IDE for the Mainframe

    Tools such as the green screens of ISPF and the Eclipse desktop IDE, enhanced with proprietary plug-ins, have served mainframe application developers well over the years and, for those comfortable with them, will continue to do so. However, changes in the broader world of development are creating the conditions for a revolution in mainframe tooling.

    [...]

    Finally, as the velocity of overall software delivery increases, mainframe is a critical component of digital transformation initiatives. According to 451 Research, 24% of companies are releasing application software daily or hourly while, similarly, DORA’s 2019 State of DevOps survey shows 20% of teams are deploying multiple times per day. Software delivery expectations have changed with continuous deployment becoming the new normal and, to remain a vital computing platform for the long term, mainframe app development needs to support this paradigm.

  • How developers will work in 2020

    Software development is perpetually in a state of flux. Coders are constantly fighting a battle to keep their skills relevant. Each year brings new methodologies, frameworks, and languages to learn. Within the context of a highly-complex and rapidly changing industry, it’s important to find out which skills, tools, and trends are worthy of your time.

  • Setup Your Local Environment for Open Source Package Contributions

    One of the most important steps to get started in contributing to an open source package is to set up your local environment.

    [...]

    Now that you’ve pulled down your forked version of the package, let’s composer require your fork of the package locally. This will allow you to make changes to your local version of the package, and they will immediately be reflected in your local Laravel project without needing to run composer update.

  • SaltStack Introduces Plugin Oriented Programming with New Open-Source Innovation Modules to Power Scalable Automation and Artificial Intelligence

  • SaltStack Advances Automation Stack With 3 Open-Source Software Modules

    SaltStack, the makers of intelligent automation for IT operations roll out three new Open-Source projects to drive machine learning and data stream processing.

  • Perl / Raku

    • Perl Weekly Challenge 43: Olympic Rings and Self-Descripting Numbers

      These are some answers to the Week 43 of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

      Spoiler Alert: This weekly challenge deadline is due in a couple of days (January 19, 2020). This blog post offers some solutions to this challenge, please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

  • Python

    • The tiniest of Python templating engines

      In someone else’s project (which they’ll doubtless tell you about themselves when it?s done) I needed a tiny Python templating engine. That is: I wanted to be able to say, here is a template string, please substitute a bunch of variables into it. Now, Python already does this, in about thirty different ways, and str.format or string.Template do most of it as built-in.

    • How to set a variable in Django template

    • Why ASGI is Replacing WSGI in Django

      When I first learnt about how to deploy my Django website. I took the easy route which was deploying it on Heroku.

      There’s literally tons of tutorial on how the process of deploying it work. Heck, there was even a book about the benefits of deploying Django using Heroku.

      Soon in my own work, I needed to deploy my own Django project. It was working well for a bundled development grade web server. I thought to myself, why not find a better way on a production-grade web server. Instead of just a miserable default web server that is not production-grade.

      My journey in searching on deploying Django started for me. Which if you look at multiple tutorial references they still suggest the use of Heroku or Digital Ocean.

    • Weekly Python StackOverflow Report: (ccxi) stackoverflow python report

    • Understand predicate pushdown on row group level in Parquet with pyarrow and python

      We are using the NY Taxi Dataset throughout this blog post because it is a real world dataset, has a reasonable size and some nice properties like different datatypes and includes some messy data (like all real world data engineering problems).

Barry Tuckwell, the Michael Jordan of French Horn, Dies at 88

Australia has lost one of its most celebrated musicians. Barry Tuckwell has passed away – he was one of the greatest French horn players of the last 70 years.

The Aesthetics of Panic

Education

• Texas Republicans Are Manufacturing a Crisis in Houston’s Public School System

  If the state of Texas had its way, the state would be in the process of taking over the Houston Independent School District.

Health/Nutrition

• With Fate of Roe v. Wade Unsure, Abortion Fight Shifts to New Territory

  Jan. 22 marks the 47th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that legalized abortion nationwide. Those on both sides of the furious debate say this could be the year when everything changes.

• White House Seeks to End Michelle Obama Guidelines on School Nutrition

  The Trump administration on Friday proposed rolling back nutrition guidelines for school meals that had been promoted by Michelle Obama as part of her campaign to combat child obesity.

• Doctor’s pro-vaccine TikTok went viral. Then came hate and threats from around the world

  For more large-scale attacks, such as what the backlash against Baldwin’s post grew into, Shots Heard triggers a “formal activation,” meaning an email is sent out to the entire volunteer network.

  Baldwin ended up with 11 people volunteering their services to monitor her social media pages and prevent the spread of inaccurate information about vaccines. By Thursday morning, the volunteers had banned over 5,000 anti-vaccine accounts on Facebook and the angry calls to Baldwin’s office had slowed. By Friday afternoon, Google Reviews had removed all fraudulent reviews of Baldwin’s practice.

  “When the bullies get pushback, they dissipate,” Wolynn said. “They’d rather go after people who don’t have help and have to try to defend themselves.”

  Baldwin says the experience won’t stop her from trying to get out the message that vaccines are safe.

• Big Pharma Is Literally Poisoning Us

  Big Pharma spends a small fortune every year buying politicians to make sure we can’t import prescription drugs from Canada, but they’re more than happy to sell us contaminated medications from countries with weak manufacturing controls and exploitable labor that ensure high profit margins.

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • Pseudo-Open Source

    • Openwashing

      • Google Research open sources NLP model ALBERT for increased performance

        ALBERT was developed by a group of research scientists at Google Research as an “upgrade to BERT.” The NLP model is designed to optimize the performance of natural language processing tasks as well as their efficiency, and now it has been made publicly available. Let’s take a closer look.

      • How Facebook’s New Open Sourced Codebase PySlowFast Is Helping Them Understand Videos Better [Ed: Facebook does video surveillance -- in many situations in direct violation of the privacy laws of countries -- so openwashing to the rescue?]

      • Microsoft has made it easier to port games to DirectX 12 with open source layer [Ed: The openwashing of proprietary software trap (DX). So when Microsoft says “open” it means closed trap.]

      • Fugue Open Sources Regula to Help Engineers Validate Terraform for Policy Compliance

      • Fugue is open sourcing a new cloud security tool

      • Fugue open sources Regula to evaluate Terraform for security misconfigurations and compliance violations

      • Facebook’s New Low Latency Speech Recognition Can Be A Disrupter

      • Perfect Sense Open Sources Gyro to Automate Cloud Provisioning

        Perfect Sense has launched an open source project dubbed Gyro that provides an alternative approach to automating cloud infrastructure provisioning and management.

      • Open source technologies introduces by Uber

      • AWS Introduces Open Source AutoML Toolkit ‘AutoGluon’

      • Lyft open sources Flyte for developing machine learning workflows

      • CBNCloud STACK, the First Iconic Open-Source Cloud Computing Solution for Indonesia Market [Ed: This is not "open source" but a misuse of the label or openwashing of proprietary software]

      • Preferred Networks Releases Optuna v1.0, Open-source Hyperparameter Optimization Framework for Machine Learning

        Preferred Networks, Inc. (PFN, Head Office: Tokyo, President & CEO: Toru Nishikawa) has released Optuna (TM) v1.0, the first major version of the open-source hyperparameter optimization framework for machine learning. Projects using the existing beta version can be updated to Optuna v1.0 with minimal changes to the code.

      • The New Microsoft Edge Is a Third-Rate Chrome Knockoff

      • Dynatrace ‘traces’ route to standardised (OpenTelemetry) observability with Google & Microsoft [Ed: Openwashing of surveillance with the euphemism "telemetry" (which means spying but makes it sound more scientific)]

        The organisation that calls itself a ‘software intelligence company’ is working with the two tech giants (Dynatrace is no tiddler, the firm now has over 2000 employees) on the OpenTelemetry project to shape the future of open standards-based observability.

        Dynatrace says it is contributing ‘transaction tracing’ know-how and manpower (Ed – we think they mean ‘personpower’) to the project.

      • Microsoft Announces An Open-Source, Free Source Code Analyzer Tool

    • Privatisation/Privateering

      • Linux Foundation

        • Linux Foundation’s DENT Project Focuses on Disaggregated Network Switches

        • LF Energy teams with Alliander for an open source bootcamp for energy professionals in Arnhem

          LF Energy, a nonprofit, vendor-neutral initiative from The Linux Foundation, whose mission is to accelerate the energy and electricity sectors’ worldwide decarbonization goals through open-source technology, announced it is partnering with Dutch distribution system operator, Alliander, to host a free Open Source Bootcamp for Energy.

        • IOTech Announces Edge Xpert “Fuji” v1.6 the Latest Release of its Open Edge Software Platform for Industrial IoT Systems

          Edge Xpert is IOTech’s product quality and enhanced implementation of the Linux Foundation’s EdgeX Foundry™ the leading open source edge computing platform.

        • Akraino Edge Stack R2 Enables Use Cases for Telco & AI Edge, Connected Car, & AR/VR

        • Akraino Edge Stack Gains NFV, Mixed Reality Blueprints

    • • Microsoft’s Rust-Based Project Verona Reaches Open Source on GitHub [Ed: Microsoft is openwashing things in its proprietary software platform, GitHub]

      • webcompat.com: Project belt-on.

        So last week, on Friday (Japanese time), I woke up with a website being half disabled and then completely disabled. We had been banned by GitHub because of illegal content we failed to flag early enough. And GitHub did what they should do.

        Oh… and last but not least… mike asked me what Belt-on meant. I guess so let’s make it more explicit.

      • The open source licence debate: what we need to know [Ed: ComputerWeekly should know that GitHub is proprietary software and does not speak for “Open Source”, it's entrapping it]

        Chief operating officer (COO) for GitHub Erica Brescia noted that, from her perspective, she is seeing an “increasing tension” between open source projects and those that are building services on top of open source, such as cloud vendors with their database services.

  • Security

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

      • Why Open Source Licenses With A Commons Clause May Become Less Common

        The Commons Clause also is ambiguous in its prohibition against selling “hosting or consulting/support services related to the Software” for any product or service whose value derives entirely or substantially from the software’s functionality. A plain reading of this provision suggests that a cloud service provider cannot host the licensed software for free and charge a fee for customer support or consulting relating to the software’s functionality (e.g., how to use the software). The Commons Clause documentation refers to a discussion board suggesting that consulting may be permitted, but the language of the clause and the contents of that online discussion appear to suggest otherwise.

      • Manage Your OSS Security Using a Free Scanning Tool [Ed: "Enterprise License Optimization Blog" is Flexera marketing rubbish; it likes to talk all about "Open Source" (FUD), but its own stuff is 100% proprietary]

      • Sonatype: improving software with open source technology

      • Open source licence series – R3: The world needs audit licenses [Ed: Typical old nonsense of proprietary software firms, looking to portray a licensing question as pertaining only to FOSS]

        The so-called ‘open core’ model is hard to get right.

        [As we know, the open-core model primarily involves offering a “core” or feature-limited version of a software product as free and open-source software, while offering “commercial” versions or add-ons as proprietary software.]

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • Hong Kong: Improve Privacy Ordinance Rights Protections

        Hong Kong legislators should ensure that the review of the Hong Kong Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance will include amendments that improve privacy rights protections, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the Legislative Council (LegCo) Panel on Constitutional Affairs. The panel is set to review the ordinance, which has not been revised since 2012, on January 20, 2020.

        “The government’s current proposal is too narrow, and LegCo now has a critical opportunity to strengthen this outdated law and bring it closer to better models, such as Europe’s privacy laws,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “Strong protections on how people’s personal data can be collected and used will help assuage fears that mass surveillance tactics used elsewhere could spread to Hong Kong.”

      • Why Twitter May Be Ruinous for the Left

        Twitter is especially beloved by the press, and the unfortunate affinity that journalists and policy makers have for the social network means that—as with politics itself—you may not care about Twitter, but it cares about you, especially if you’ve just done something embarrassing on national television. Reformed Twitter users who’ve quit the service talk about how tweets are inescapable. They are embedded in news stories, screencapped for Instagram, and quoted on TV shows and podcasts.

        The sum effect is that Twitter is both leaderless and influential, little used and widely reviled. And at its best, even now, it can still be wonderful: There is a joy and exhilaration in watching a democratic culture at work, in getting to see dozens of people grow and think in real time. At its worst, its rabble seems to adopt that old knock against the British newspapers—that they wield power without responsibility—as a proud boast and way of life.

      • Tuesday Hearing: EFF Argues in New Jersey Supreme Court That Defendant Can’t Be Forced to Turn Over Password to Encrypted iPhone

        Trenton, New Jersey—On Tuesday, January 21, at 1 pm, EFF Senior Staff Attorney Andrew Crocker will ask the New Jersey Supreme Court to rule that the state can’t force a defendant to turn over the passcode for his encrypted iPhone under the Fifth Amendment, which protects American’s rights against self-incrimination.The Fifth Amendment states that people cannot be forced to incriminate themselves, and it’s well settled that this privilege against self-incrimination covers compelled “testimonial” communications, including physical acts. However, courts have split over how to apply the Fifth Amendment to compelled decryption of encrypted devices.EFF, ACLU, and ACLU of New Jersey filed a brief in the case State v. Andrews arguing that the state can’t compel a suspect to recall and use information that exists only in his memory to aid law enforcement’s prosecution of him.At Tuesday’s hearing, Crocker will tell the court that reciting, writing, typing or otherwise reproducing a password from memory is testimony protected by the Fifth Amendment.Read the amicus brief EFF filed in the Andrews case:https://www.eff.org/document/effaclu-amicus-us-v-andrewsWHO: EFF Senior Staff Attorney Andrew CrockerWHAT: New Jersey v. AndrewsWHERE: Supreme Court of New Jersey 25 Market St. Trenton, NJ 08611The argument will also be live-streamed.WHEN: Tuesday January 21 1 pm

      • Huawei partners with TomTom for Google Maps alternative

        With the US ban on Chinese tech giant Huawei still in force, the smartphone maker has had to come up with novel ways of replacing any technology – either hardware or software – that it previously sourced from US companies. The most notable impact of the ban is Huawei’s inability to use anything made by Google on its phones.

        But now the Chinese company appears to have found a replacement for at least one of the search giant’s key services, confirming that it’s secured a Google Maps alternative by entering a partnership that will see navigation specialists TomTom provide maps, live traffic information and software for Huawei smartphones, as reported by Reuters.

        As TomTom is based in the Netherlands, Huawei is able to skirt the US government’s trade ban, which prevents the Chinese phone maker from dealing with American companies.

Defence/Aggression

• Virginia Braces for Arrival of Pro-Gun Militias Amid State of Emergency

  Virginia-based gun control activist Catherine Koebel is intimately familiar with the reign of terror that the state’s pro-gun forces attempt to maintain through threats and intimidation, despite the fact that a strong majority of Virginia residents support gun reforms.

• Southern Peace Activists Help Soldiers Become Conscientious Objectors

  The South is arguably the engine of the U.S. war machine. The region is home to Fort Bragg, the largest U.S. military base in the world. Southern states supply more soldiers than others; the region is home to three of the five states with the highest military recruitment numbers in 2016 – Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Its congressional delegations have historically been some of the most militaristic, and military contractors have long put many of their production facilities in Southern communities, where right-to-work laws are a barrier to unionization.

• Destruction Without Death: China’s Modern Day Genocide

  You don’t have to commit mass killings to perpetrate a genocide, and the Chinese government’s oppression of Uighur Muslims meets precisely that definition, writes James Devenish.

• The Army’s cyber school now teaches information operations

  School officials are now building a cohort of instructors and curriculum to train the cyber and electronic warfare professionals. Much of the curriculum is coming directly from lessons learned from the operational force, Craft said, and includes a mixture of cyberspace operations, electronic warfare and information operations.

• 3 Alleged Members Of Hate Group ‘The Base’ Arrested In Georgia, Another In Wisconsin

  The Floyd County, Ga., Police Department says Luke Austin Lane, 21, Michael John Helterbrand, 25, and Jacob Kaderli, 19, were “allegedly involved in a white supremacist group with plans to overthrow the government” and to kill a married couple whom they identified as having high-profile roles in the far-left group Antifa.

  [...]

  The Base was founded in mid-2018 and “seeks to accelerate the downfall of the United States (US) government, incite a race war, and establish a white ethno-state,” according to an affidavit prepared by local law enforcement.

• How Nazis courted the Islamic world during WWII

  Hitler had already postulated the racial inferiority of non-European peoples in “Mein Kampf.” Once in power, however, German officials showed themselves to be more pragmatic: Non-Jewish Turks, Iranians and Arabs had already been explicitly exempted from any official racial discrimination in the 1930s, following diplomatic interventions from the governments in Tehran, Ankara, and Cairo. And during the war the Germans showed similar pragmatism. Muslims everywhere, it was clear to every German officer, were to be treated as allies.

• Trump’s Space Force Is Worse Than Reagan’s Star Wars

  With a stroke of a pen, Donald Trump created an entirely new branch of the armed forces last year. It’s the first new branch of the U.S. military since 1947.

• Trump Is the Third President to Lie About Afghan War Success

  The Bush, Obama and Trump administrations all routinely lied to the American people about the success of the 18-year war in Afghanistan. They exaggerated progress and inflated statistics to create an illusion that that the war was winnable. But after the deaths of 157,000 people at a cost of $2 trillion, corruption is rampant and the carnage continues.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• How Does This White House Stop Lying? By Not Talking at All.

  But this administration views any information sharing as a sign of weakness. Hence the extraordinary decision earlier this week to suddenly cancel two classified congressional briefings on Trump’s Iran strategy and embassy security. Given the shifting explanations for the assassination of Iran’s Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, perhaps the administration figured it had more to lose by furnishing manipulated “evidence” of an imminent threat than by simply yanking the briefings.

  Such contempt for the free flow of information is contagious. As the Senate impeachment trial nears, journalists are facing extraordinary restrictions on their ability to report its developments. Given the fact that majority leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear he doesn’t want to call new witnesses or listen to any evidence that might force the Senate to conclude that Trump is a sociopathic lawbreaker, such restrictions make perfect sense.

Environment

• ‘You have not seen anything yet,’ climate activist Greta says ahead of Davos

  “So, we are now in a new year and we have entered a new decade and so far, during this decade, we have seen no sign whatsoever that real climate action is coming and that has to change,” Thunberg said in a speech in Lausanne.

  “To the world leaders and those in power, I would like to say that you have not seen anything yet. You have not seen the last of us, we can assure you that. And that is the message that we will bring to the World Economic Forum in Davos next week.”

  Protesters held signs including “Wake up and Smell the Bushfires” and “It is late but it is not too late”.

• Astronaut Shares Heartbreaking Photos of The Australian Bushfire Smoke

  About 70 percent of Australia’s 3 million square miles of land is covered by a layer of grey-and-brown smoke. According to NASA, the smoke had already travelled halfway around the planet by January 8, “turning the skies hazy and causing colourful sunrises and sunsets” in South America.

  [...]

  “We are seeing a sign of what would be normal conditions in a 3C world,” Betts said. “It tells us what the future world might look like.”

• ‘Our Planet Is Seriously Burning and the Adults Keep Letting Us Down’: Ninth Circuit Throws Out Youth Climate Case

  “Seeking to quash this suit, the government bluntly insists that it has the absolute and unreviewable power to destroy the Nation,” wrote Judge Josephine Staton in a scathing dissent opinion. “My colleagues throw up their hands, concluding that this case presents nothing fit for the Judiciary.”

• Doctors Sound the Alarm on Climate Emergency

  The doctors are worried about the climate emergency. In recent days the UK’s Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has announced it’s halting investments in climate-changing fossil fuel and mining companies.

• Energy

  • Despite Trump Vows, Coal Industry Falling as Wind Power Surges in US and Worldwide

    Trump is one of a handful of significant trans-generational genocidal maniacs whose policies will kill millions in the future.

  • ANALYSIS: Turkey becoming a second Iran

    The Turkish leader last month signed a memorandum with Libya about the linking of their so-called economic zones in the Mediterranean Sea.

    The deal that was clearly meant to prevent Israel, Greece and Cyprus from realizing their plan for the construction of the pipeline and to claim the expected gas reserves in these zones.

  • Pull out or perish: behind Blackrock’s grand exit from coal

    BlackRock, the world’s biggest fund, is quitting thermal coal. The move by the $10 trillion fund has stunned financial markets. Climate change and coal: while the people protest in the streets, progressive analysts such as IEEFA’s Buckley protest to global finance bosses. Tim Buckley, who had lobbied hard for the BlackRock exit, reports on the revolution in big money.

• Wildlife/Nature

  • Why Mother Nature Is the Key to Reforestation Planet Desperately Needs

    While mass planting of trees is absolutely necessary, assisted natural regeneration simply supports and accelerates the natural process of forests which yearn to grow.

Finance

• The Multinational Trying to Bankrupt the Dock Workers Union Has a Sordid Past

  The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is facing an existential crisis.

• A 2020 Reminder: 55% of US Women Between 18 and 54 Would Rather Live Under Socialism Than Capitalism

  Not raving Marxists clamoring for state-run economy, evidence shows four in 10 Americans overall would rather live in country that provides “universal health care, tuition-free education, and a decent day’s wage for a decent day’s work.”

• Peter Schiff Says He’s Lost His Bitcoin After Wallet Freeze-Out

  “I just lost all the Bitcoin I have ever owned,” Schiff, chief global strategist at Alliance Global Partners, said in a series of posts on his unverified Twitter account. “My wallet got corrupted somehow and my password is no longer valid.”

• Joe Biden Thinks Coal Miners Should Learn to Code. That’s Classist.

  As of 2016, there were only 50,000 coal miners in the United States, and yet they occupy so much of our political imagination and conversation around jobs, unions and climate change. During the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump ran on bringing coal jobs back to the United States, and Joe Biden said on December 30 that miners should learn to code, as those are the “jobs of the future.” His comments, made to a crowd in Derry, New Hampshire, were reportedly met with silence.

• Sanders Team Hits Back After Biden Claims Social Security Video Was “Doctored”

  Highlighting a major contrast between the current top two candidates in the Democratic primary field in terms of how they have addressed the issue over their long legislative careers, the Bernie Sanders campaign hit back against a claim made by Joe Biden earlier in the day in which the former vice president said there was “doctored video” being circulated by the Sanders campaign that showed him agreeing with former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan about the need to cut Social Security.

• Sanders Team Slams Biden for Claiming Social Security Video Was ‘Doctored’

  Highlighting a major contrast between the current top two candidates in the Democratic primary field in terms of how they have addressed the issue over their long legislative careers, the Bernie Sanders campaign hit back against a claim made by Joe Biden earlier in the day in which the former vice president said there was “doctored video” being circulated by the Sanders campaign that showed him agreeing with former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan about the need to cut Social Security.

• Joe Biden Can’t Outrun His Record on Social Security

  Recently, a newsletter from the Bernie Sanders campaign laid out Joe Biden’s long record of supporting cuts to Social Security. The website PolitiFact weighed in on one part of that record, a speech Biden gave in 2018 in which he expressed enthusiasm for former House Speaker Paul Ryan’s plans to cut Social Security.

• ‘The Facts Are Very Clear’: Sanders Team Hits Back After Biden Claims Social Security Video Was ‘Doctored’

  “Biden not only pushed to cut Social Security—he is on tape proudly bragging about it on multiple occasions,” said Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir in response to accusations by the former vice president.

• California Bill Would Raise Taxes on Corporations With Large CEO-Worker Pay Gaps

  A bill to raise taxes on corporations with large gaps between CEO and worker pay moved forward in the California state senate Wednesday after a hearing that drew sharp lines between labor and anti-poverty supporters and corporate and Wall Street opponents.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• As Citizens United Turns 10, We Need to Fight to Get Money Out of Politics

  Ten years ago this week, the Supreme Court released its disastrous 2010 Citizens United decision.

• Britain Cannot Turn Its Back on Lone Children Now

  Eighty-one years ago last month, the first of the Kindertransport trains arrived in the United Kingdom, bearing children fleeing conflict and persecution ahead of the outbreak of World War II. In total, the Kindertransport rescue effort ferried 10,000 child refugees to safety in Britain. But now, the government is threatening to turn its back on vulnerable children.

  This month, members of parliament from the ruling Conservative Party blocked a move to guarantee the right of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to be reunited with family members living in the UK after Brexit. Unless the amendment to a bill is blocked by the House of Lords or by the courts, countless vulnerable children across Europe will be left without a safe and legal way to rejoin their families.

• Because ‘I Can Feel Bernie Beating Trump,’ Pramila Jayapal Endorses Sanders for President

  The co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus “has led the fight against Trump’s racism, sexism and xenophobia,” Sanders said responding to the news. “Together, we will defeat Trump and build a working class movement and transform this country so it works for all.”

• Today’s US-Iran Crisis Is Rooted in the Decision to Invade Iraq

  The ramifications of the illegal, unnecessary and predictably tragic U.S. decision to invade Iraq are still with us. This includes the ongoing crisis with Iran, which brought us perilously close to all-out war in early January, resulted in the tragic downing of a civilian airliner and remains in a hair-trigger situation.

• Peru: Many With Disability Left Off Voting Lists

  Actors with down syndrome represent Hamlet in a theater in Lima in December 2019. 

• The Battle With Trump Over Refugee Resettlement Is Not Over Yet

  Refugee resettlement groups throughout the country are, thankfully, back to their usual work of finding new homes for refugees following this week’s ruling by a federal judge in Maryland temporarily barring the implementation of Trump’s executive order 13888, signed this past September. That order, part of a much broader package of anti-immigrant, anti-refugee and anti-asylum-seeker measures pushed by hard-line adviser Stephen Miller, was intended to allow cities, counties and states to opt out of the refugee resettlement program. And since new funding streams for the resettlement agencies were due to kick in on Jan. 21, based on estimates of how many refugees were to be resettled in each region of the country in the year beginning in June 2020, agencies had been scrambling to obtain approval letters from governors and local officials by the Jan. 21 deadline.

• Parnas Spins Tales of Trumpian Corruption — and We Know Most of Them Are True

  Following the rules of an anachronistic 18th-century ritual, the House managers walked in formation to the Senate to deliver the articles of impeachment on Thursday. The sergeant at arms informed the senators that if they speak during the trial they could be imprisoned, and then the chief justice arrived in his robes accompanied by four senators. He then administered the constitutionally prescribed oath to deliver impartial justice to the assembled senators, after which, one by one, they signed their names to a book. The only thing missing was the white wigs.

• ‘This Is Why No One Trusts the Media’: MSNBC Slammed for Featuring ‘Body Language Expert’ Who Calls Sanders a Liar

  While the Sanders campaign demanded an apology from the network, critics of Joy Ann Reid’s morning show said the segment was “fraudulent garbage” and a “disgrace.”

• The Women’s March Is Back and Ready to Defeat Trump

  The Women’s March is back this year — with a new board and new strategy to get women activated to oust Donald Trump in November. The organization’s flagship march in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, which culminates a week of actions, is expected to draw more than 10,000 participants. Sister marches around the country will see thousands more participate.

• ‘The Government Can’t Airbrush History’: National Archives Denounced for Blurring Out Anti-Trump Signs in Women’s March Photos

  “It is the job of the National Archives to document history, not alter it to serve the president’s ego.”

• Sanders Leads Democrats in New National Poll

  Amid a series of endorsements from key groups and allies in crucial primary states this week — and despite the “brouhaha” with Sen. Elizabeth Warren — a new national poll shows Sen. Bernie Sanders now in the lead over former Vice President Joe Biden and the rest of the Democratic primary field.

• What Rod Blagojevich’s Double Impeachment Could Mean for Trump

  Impeachments are fortunately rare in American political life: Trump is only the third president to have been impeached; eight governors have been impeached and removed from office.

• The Battle to Impeach Trump Is Part of a Global Struggle for Democracy

  The impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump — with their abundance of political theater and insipid media coverage — often treat Trump’s crimes as the endpoint of an abuse of power and an illegal act. This is a grave mistake: We must understand Trump’s crimes not as an endpoint but as symptoms of a long history of conditions that have led to the United States’ slide into the abyss of authoritarianism.

• Trump’s Impeachment Defense, Prosecutors Dig In

  Advocates for and against President Donald Trump gave no ground Sunday on his Senate impeachment trial, digging in on whether a crime is required for his conviction and removal and whether witnesses will be called.

• Trump Defense Team Includes Alan Dershowitz, Ken Starr

  President Donald Trump has assembled a made-for-TV legal team for his Senate trial that includes household names like Ken Starr, the prosecutor whose investigation two decades ago resulted in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz will deliver constitutional arguments meant to shield Trump from allegations that he abused his power.

• Bernie Sanders Leads in New Post-Debate National Poll

  Amid a series of endorsements from key groups and allies in crucial primary states this week—and despite the “brouhaha” with Sen. Elizabeth Warren—a new national poll shows Sen. Bernie Sanders now in the lead over former Vice President Joe Biden and the rest of the Democratic primary field.

• Voters in Iowa Care More About Key Issues Than Warren-Sanders Unity

  “What people are talking about on the doors is nothing like what’s on social media.”

• ‘Naked, Unapologetic and Insidious’ Corruption: Democrats Respond to Trump’s Official Statement on Impeachment Charges

  “Though the President describes this conduct as perfect,” said the House Managers assigned to prosecute the Senate trial, “the Founders had a different word for it: impeachable.”

• As Senators Are Sworn In, Calls for a Full for Impeachment Trial Intensify

  For just the third time in history, the U.S. Senate has opened a trial to determine if a sitting president should be removed from office. The Senate trial comes a month after the House impeached President Trump for pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who will preside over the impeachment trial in the Senate, later swore in senators who will serve as jurors when the trial officially begins on Tuesday. This comes as more information is coming to light about the actions of President Trump and his associates. On Thursday, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office said the White House Office of Management and Budget violated federal law by withholding $400 million in aid money to Ukraine even though the funds had been allocated by Congress. We speak with attorney John Bonifaz, co-founder and president of Free Speech for People and co-author of The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump.

• US Citizen Dies in Egyptian Prison

  The death this week of Mustafa Kassem, an Egyptian-American imprisoned in Egypt after an unfair trial, underscores the Trump administration’s failed approach on human rights in Egypt.

  Police arrested Kassem in August 2013, during protests against the military takeover in Cairo. He was held for more than five years, until his conviction and sentencing in September 2018 in an unfair trial alongside more than 700 others. According to his family, Kassem, a diabetic with a heart condition, was repeatedly refused appropriate medical care.

• Moderate Democrats are celebrating MLK. He was disgusted by them

  From a Birmingham jail cell, he wrote he was “gravely disappointed with the white moderate” that he saw as “the Negro’s great stumbling block,” as much or more so than ardent segregationists or even the KKK. The white moderate, he observed, lived “by a mythical concept of time” and constantly advised “the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

  As King saw it, the American embrace of moderation in his time was enabled by a belief “that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony. But unfortunately, this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity.”

• Election Update: The First Post-Debate Polls Are In! And They’re … Pretty Weird.

  For all that said, polls with strong house effects, because of the additional complications they present, aren’t necessarily ideal for evaluating polling swings following news events such as debates. So while it’s tempting to infer from the polls we have so far that the debate didn’t change things very much — no candidate is consistently seeing their numbers surge or crater — we should wait for a few more polls to confirm that.

• Brazilian authoritarian Bolsonaro fires his culture minister for giving a speech plagiarized from Joseph Goebbels

  Last week, Roberto Alvim, gave a speech in his capacity as Brazil’s culture minister: backed by a Wagner aria, Alvim gave a speech about reforming Brazilian art that literally plagiarized the words of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda.

• 3 Years In, ‘A Very Stable Genius’ Authors Say Trump Decisions Are ‘More Chaotic’

  Through an aide, President Trump declined to speak to the journalists for the book, Leonnig said. Relying on more than 200 unnamed sources — many of whom were at Trump’s side during defining moments of the presidency — Rucker and Leonnig build scenes that paint Trump as dangerously uninformed as he is self-congratulatory.

  One such episode occurs six months into his presidency, during a Pentagon meeting in which, the journalists report, Trump called senior military commanders “a bunch of dopes and babies.” Leonnig and Rucker cite the anecdote as a climactic “inflection point,” marking Trump’s determination to drive away those who try to offer him counsel.

  “The guardrails are gone, and increasingly the decisions have become more chaotic,” Leonnig said. “And the people that he’s surrounded by are increasingly those who think their mission is to tell him, ‘Yes.’ ”

• As Iraqi cleric calls for mass protests against US some Iraqis refuse out of fear of Iran

  “The Iranian-backed militias, such as Kataib Hezbollah, al-Nujaba, and Asaib Ahl al-Haq have to be expelled to Iran before expelling the American troops. “[The] US troops presence in Iraq is very important for our protection,” Sajad added. “If the US troops {are] expelled now, we as protesters will be the biggest losers, as Iranian-backed militias will kill all of us in days.”

  Over 511 protestors and security force members have been killed since December and about 17,000 people have been wounded since the beginning of the protests, according to Human Rights Watch.

• 2 GTA men indicted in U.S. for allegedly trafficking items for Pakistan nuclear program

  Two Mississauga, Ont., men have been indicted for allegedly helping to run an international procurement network over a five-year period to traffic materials such as aircraft parts and satellite communications equipment to support Pakistan’s nuclear program.

  Father and son Muhammad Ahsan Wali, 48, and Haji Wali Muhammad Sheikh, 82, are among five men accused of being associated with an alleged front company called Business World, based in Rawalpindi, a city in northern Pakistan, according to the United States Department of Justice.

Censorship/Free Speech

• National Archives ‘Wrong’ to Blur Images of Anti-Trump Signs

  The National Archives said Saturday it made a mistake when it blurred images of anti-Trump signs used in an exhibit on women’s suffrage.

• National Archives `Wrong’ to Blur Images of Anti-Trump Signs

  The independent agency is charged with preserving government and historical records and said it has always been committed to preserving its holdings “without alteration.”

  But the archives said in a statement Saturday “we made a mistake.” The archives’ statement came one day after The Washington Post published an online report about the altered images.

  The archives said the photo in question is not one of its archival records, but rather was licensed for use as a promotional graphic in the exhibit.

  “Nonetheless, we were wrong to alter the image,” the agency said.

• Stephen King Walks Back Diversity Remarks After Twitter Backlash

• Chip Gibbons on FBI vs. 1st Amendment

  This week on CounterSpin: At a Sacramento rally in 2016, members of a white supremacist group called the Traditionalist Worker Party stabbed counter-protesters from the civil rights group By Any Means Necessary. The FBI responded by opening up a domestic terrorism investigation—into By Any Means Necessary. At first, the FBI misidentified the Traditionalist Worker Party as the Ku Klux Klan, and was going to investigate BAMN for conspiring to violate the rights of Klan members, in documents that described the Klan as consisting of people “that some perceived to be supportive of a white supremacist agenda.”

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• Mysterious property holdings Journalists trace mansions outside Moscow to the new prime minister’s family

  Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s family owns 2.6 hectares (about 6.4 acres) of land in the “Cotton Way” community outside Moscow, in the prestigious Rublyovka neighborhood, according to Rosreestr records uncovered by Open Media, which says the Mishustins own five homes with a total area of 2,457 square meters (more than 26,445 square feet). The two biggest houses on these properties are 861 square meters (9,267 square feet) and 741 square meters (7,976 square feet), respectively.

• Why Americans—and the World—Ought to Be Concerned About Julian Assange’s Extradition Case

  The indictment of Assange is recognized by many free speech groups as the most important press freedom case of our time. Yet, with mainstream media blackout and utter silence of political leaders on this important issue, criminalization of journalism goes on without much of the public being aware of it.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Louis Adamic’s Life Fighting Fascism

  Louis Adamic, a popular nonfiction writer of the 1920s-40s, never escaped—perhaps never wished to escape—his status as an enigma. He was a talented journalist whose work appeared in a variety of magazines, as well as the author of well-received works of fiction and nonfiction. He was also a Slovene immigrant, from that sliver of land once part of Yugoslavia and now an independent state. He poured his finest energies into the vision of a multicultural, multiracial American democracy, something not seen then—or now. Adamic also seemed early on to be an existentialist or grim pessimist, projecting images of fatalism and a propensity for violence as the inescapable reality of his new country. In the end, he threw himself into a crusade against the incoming Cold War, and was assassinated for his trouble. His death removed one more political inconvenience from the latest version of American liberalism.

• WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Barry Spurr: Ex-Professor, Racist, Misogynist, Turned Literary Editor

  Where Are They Now is an occasional column in New Matilda. You can read a past edition here (on party boy Corey Worthington). This edition brings you an update on Barry Spurr, the ‘Racist Professor of Poetry’.

• Illegal Crossings Plunge as U.S. Extends Policy Across Border

  Adolfo Cardenas smiles faintly at the memory of traveling with his 14-year-old son from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border in only nine days, riding buses and paying a smuggler $6,000 to ensure passage through highway checkpoints.

• Qatar: End of Abusive Exit Permits for Migrant Workers

• Sialkot man ‘dupes’ Canadian wife of thousands of dollars

  A Canadian woman has alleged that her Pakistani husband ran away after siphoning off thousands of dollars from her bank account.

• Hindu Fascism: An All-American Threat

  We, as Muslim and Hindu women of color, have watched in horror as both the country of our ancestors, India, and the country of our birth, the United States, have devolved into nationalism and fascism.

• 7 Men, 5 Women Selected for Weinstein Trial

  A jury of seven men and five women was selected Friday for Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial after an arduous, two-week process in which scores of people were dismissed because they had already made up their minds about the disgraced Hollywood mogul.

• Noam Chomsky Makes the Case for the Lesser of Two Evils

  After a harrowing discussion about humanity’s undeniable march toward a dystopian future, world-renowned thinker Noam Chomsky and Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer move on to other pressing topics related to current events and end on a positive note.

• EFF Asks the Supreme Court to Put a Stop to Dangerously Broad Interpretations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

  At EFF, we have spent years fighting the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The law was aimed at computer crime, but it is both vague and draconian—putting people at risk for prison sentences for ordinary Internet behavior. Now, we are asking the Supreme Court to step in and stop dangerous overbroad interpretations of the CFAA.

  The CFAA was passed more than 30 years ago, before the invention of the World Wide Web. Consequently, the law is hard to make sense of in our increasingly digital world. Some courts have rightly interpreted the law narrowly, focusing on hacking and other illegal computer intrusions. But other courts have bought into tactics used by creative prosecutors, who argue that when the statute outlaws “exceeding authorized access” to a computer, it also covers violating the “terms of service” of websites and other apps.

• Bhutan on Brink of Overturning Same-Sex Conduct Ban

  A bill that would repeal parts of Bhutan’s penal code that criminalize same-sex conduct will be introduced in the upper house of Parliament this month. The lower house of Parliament voted in June 2019 to repeal two sections of the country’s 2004 criminal code, which made “unnatural sex” between consenting adults illegal. But before being sent to royal approval, the bill first needs to pass the National Council, Parliament’s upper chamber.

  Bhutan’s penal code includes a provision derived from British colonial authorities punishing “sexual conduct against the order of nature” with up to one year in prison. While there have been no known prosecutions under the law, provisions like this one curtail the rights and freedoms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, subjecting their intimate lives to unwarranted scrutiny.

• At US Border, Inaccurate Mayan-Language Interpretation Can Lead to Deportation

  As the U.S. continues to use hostile policies to stop people from seeking refuge and asylum in the United States, we look at a key problem that is preventing migrants from getting due process, and in many cases getting them deported: inadequate interpretation for indigenous asylum seekers who speak Mayan languages. Guatemala has a population of 15 million people, and at least 40% of them are indigenous. In the past year, a quarter of a million Guatemalan migrants have been apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border. At least half of them are Mayan. Many speak little or no Spanish. This is the focus of a new report in The New Yorker magazine titled “A Translation Crisis at the Border.” We speak with the article’s author, Rachel Nolan, in Guatemala City. We also spoke with Odilia Romero, Zapotec interpreter and a longtime indigenous leader with the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations. Romero is a trilingual interpreter in Zapotec, Spanish and English, who recently developed a training program for indigenous-language interpreters.

• India Failing on Kashmiri Human Rights

  Kashmir has been under a lockdown for five months. Fearing that Kashmiris might protest the revocation of autonomy provided to Jammu and Kashmir state under India’s constitution, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi clamped down.

  Since the restrictions in August, the government has taken slow, reluctant steps to ease some of them, but is still falling far short in upholding Kashmiri rights.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Thoughts on LBRY

  At the behest of people like Bryan Lunduke and DTLive on YouTube, I have started using LBRY more and last night I even uploaded a few test videos of my own. I would eventually like to put up some of my own tutorial videos.

  With that said, LBRY has some serious issues. So, let’s be frank. LBRY has no rules against hardcore porn or if they do, they are not enforced. That’s fine, and I don’t care. It’s not hard to find porn on YouTube also. However if a porn channel doesn’t flag their own content as mature, then it will be in your search results and there’s no way right now to flag it yourself. The suggestions that I got in the help forum (aka the discord server) was to report it to the #report-spam room which I did. Will that result in these channels being told to reflag their content? Who knows. It seems a little iffy.

• AFRINIC WHOIS database tampered?

  In the same email, AFRINIC CEO, Eddy Kayihura, informed the community that following allegations of fraudulent manipulation of the AFRINIC WHOIS database, the matter has been referred to the Central Criminal Investigation Division (CCID) of the Mauritius Police Force for further investigation. Also, due to the serious nature of the allegation, an employee of AFRINIC, whose name has been cited in the allegation, has been immediately dismissed on grounds of very serious professional misconduct.

• How just five companies came to dominate the world’s 5G networks

  The agenda for the meeting will be dominated by the topic that has cast a shadow over Britain’s relations with the US, the entire telecoms industry and ties with China. At last, the Prime Minister will decide whether to allow Huawei to supply mobile operators equipment for their 5G networks.

  Allowing Huawei to continue to supply some kit in the UK, as is expected, is certain to be controversial. The US government has publicly warned allied countries not to use Huawei equipment, claiming that its closeness to the Chinese state and the country’s intelligence laws could mean that Huawei devices could be used for espionage in the future. Huawei executives have consistently denied this.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• HP remotely disables customer’s printer until he joins monthly subscription

  Just because you buy a product doesn’t mean you actually own it; that’s the new normal that the advancement of technology has been slowly establishing over the past decades. Corporations look after themselves by using copyright protections such as digital rights management, DRM, but in this process, consumers’ rights are often restricted to an absurd degree.

  For example – as Ryan Sullivan has discovered and then shared on Twitter – HP will disable ink cartridges in your (or, it would seem, their) printers if you stop paying a monthly subscription for a service that’s known as HP Instant Ink.

Monopolies

• Disney is hunting down the most popular Baby Yoda toys on Etsy

  Everyone loves Baby Yoda, but official merchandise of the character has been hard to find, since Disney didn’t want to spoil the surprise surrounding the little green alien by producing toys and t-shirts ahead of The Mandalorian’s premiere. In that vacuum, plenty of enterprising Etsy sellers have popped up to sell their own homemade Baby Yoda plushies and toys — at least, until Disney started issuing takedown notices, requiring that Etsy remove listings for bootleg merch.

• Patents

  • Taking the measure of the prior art (T 1943/15)

    In a recently published Board of Appeal decision (T 1943/15), the Board considered the circumstances under which a disclosure of a component’s dimension may be derived solely from the patent drawings, either by eye or by measurement.

    [...]

    As with any disclosure, the disclosure of a drawing used in a novelty attack should be clearly and unambiguously derivable. In order to assess whether a measurement in a drawing is clear and unambiguous, it is necessary to assess what technical teaching a skilled person could be said to derive from the drawing (T 204/83). Consequently, dimensions derived solely by measuring a patent drawing (and not complemented by the description) are not considered part of the disclosure of a patent.

    What about relative measurements? Are these disclosed by a patent drawing? In a previous decision of the Boards of Appeal, the relative size of two components deduced solely from the drawings in a patent were not considered part of the patent’s disclosure (T 1664/06). Several other decisions, based on different facts, have reached the opposite conclusion. In one decision, the relative thickness of two drawing components were considered disclosed, as the relative thickness of the components was identified in the specification as an essential component of the invention (T 748/91). Practical technical teaching could thus be said to be derivable from measurement of the drawings. In other decisions, the drawing in a patent were considered “quite” precise (T 1200/05) or akin to construction drawings (T 422/95). Measurement of the drawings could therefore again be said to confer practical teaching.

  • BioDelivery Sciences International, Inc. v. Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2020)

    Last week, the Federal Circuit issued a per curiam Order in BioDelivery Sciences International, Inc. v. Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc., denying a petition for a panel rehearing or rehearing en banc filed by Appellant BioDelivery Sciences International, Inc. Judge Newman dissented from the denial of the petition for rehearing en banc.

    The dispute between the parties arose when BioDelivery sought inter partes review of claims 1, 4, 6–9, 11, 12, 26, 27, 32, 38, 44, 51, 58, 65, 72, 82, 109, and 125–127 of U.S. Patent No. 8,765,167, citing seven prior art grounds of anticipation or obviousness. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board instituted the IPR on most, but not all, of the challenged claims, and on one of the grounds. The PTAB ultimately issued a Final Written Decision finding claims 1, 4, 11, 12, 26, 27, 44, 51, 58, 65, 72, 82, and 125–127 of the ’167 patent to be patentable.

    BioDelivery appealed to the Federal Circuit, which received briefing and argument before the Supreme Court issued its decision in SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu. On BioDelivery’s motion, the Federal Circuit directed the PTAB “to implement the Court’s decision in SAS.” In response, the PTAB “modif[ied its] Decision to Institute and instead deny the Petition in its entirety, thereby terminating [the] proceeding,” and in particular, “ORDERED that Petitioner’s request for inter partes review of claims 1, 4, 6–9, 11, 12, 26, 27, 32, 38, 44, 51, 58, 65, 72, 82, 125–127 of the ’167 patent is denied and no inter partes review is instituted.”

  • Patent case: Fractus S.A. vs. Xiaomi Inc. c.s., Netherlands

    The Spanish company Fractus sued Xiaomi and their distributors for infringement of their patent on a monopole antenna with a radiation arm that is shaped as a space-filling curve. However, the provisions judge declared that the claim of the patent should be interpreted narrowly on the basis of the prosecution history and on the basis of the general knowledge of the skilled person.

  • Patent Injunctions Update: German Ministry of Justice publishes draft amendment to Patent Act and Hague Court of Appeal decides in further Philips FRAND cases [Ed: Philips imposing a patent tax on everybody, using the dubious and highly misleading (misnamed) concept of “FRAND” (each letter in this acronym is a lie)]

    This patent was upheld and found infringed by the Court of Appeal [see here for decision against Asus and here for decision against Wiko]. It then further discussed both parties’ FRAND defences.

    In the case against ASUS, the Court of Appeal referred to its earlier decision and then addressed ASUS additional arguments. It reiterated that [under the CJEU's decision in C-170/13 Huawei/ZTE] after notification by the SEP-holder, a SEP-implementer must show willingness to take a licence before an obligation to make a FRAND-offer on the part of the SEP-holder arises. According to the Court of Appeal, this is consistent with the UK approach, as set out in the decisions in Unwired Planet [see [2017] EWHC 711 (Pat) and [2018] EWCA Civ 2344, Katpost here].

    The Court of Appeal also reaffirmed that it will not always be necessary to submit claim charts as part of the notification to the implementer, but that it depends on all circumstances of the case whether sufficient notification is given. What is decisive is whether the SEP-implementer knows which rights are invoked against is, which products are alleged to infringe them and in what manner.

    As for willingness, the Court of Appeal clarified that mere attendance of licensing negotiations is not sufficient: to be considered willing, a licensee must actively engage in them. It may also oblige licensees to inquire after the relevant licensing terms if it considers these unclear. In the absence of such willingness, it will not be inappropriate for SEP-holders to request an injunction, even if they did not make a FRAND-offer – since under the Huawei/ZTE framework, they are under no obligation to do so until a licensee has proved to be willing.

    In the decision in proceedings against Wiko, the Court of Appeal did not explicitly differentiate between Wiko’s FRAND-arguments in the present proceedings and those that led to the earlier decision. Its discussion of the FRAND-issues in the case was entirely along the lines of its July 2019 decision and the Court of Appeal did not add significant new points to its earlier reasoning.

  • Software Patents

    • How Sonos’s case against Google could help shift the US patent narrative [Ed: These bogus software patents of Sonos can only highlight the absurdity of such patents; Google should work to invalidate these]

      Earlier this month the home speaker business Sonos sued Google for patent infringement in US district court and at the International Trade Commission. The case, for a journalist, had an immediate appeal to it. The search giant is sued on a regular basis, but mostly by NPEs not operating companies; and while Sonos rarely litigates it has shown a willingness to defend its IP rights in court.

      Throw in the high profile of both companies and the confrontation makes for a juicy story and so it has proved. There has been a lot of coverage, including this comprehensive piece in the New York Times.

      Sonos is by no means a small player – the company sells around $1 billion-worth of speakers annually – but it pales in comparison with the giants of Silicon Valley. What’s more, as its district court complaint outlined, it relies on the likes of Google and Amazon to reach customers and to add functionality to its products.

      [...]

      Other outlets and reporters have also turned their attention to the array of challenges faced by IP owners to protect themselves. Rana Foorahar at the Financial Times, for instance, has won a legion of fans for her reporting on what she frames as big tech’s creeping power.

      In December last year, The Economist ran a story titled “The trouble with patent-troll-hunting” on how “rules to curb frivolous patent claims may encourage infringement”. If you want a sense of how the climate has changed, in August 2015 it ran a lengthy piece on how it was “time to fix patents”, declaring that “today’s patent systems are a rotten way of rewarding” ideas.

    • Dallas Invents: 130 Patents Granted for Week of Dec. 31 [Ed: A lot of these are software patents granted to bogus entities looking to sue in Texas where courts favour all patents and trolls]

      Dallas Invents is a look at U.S. patents granted with a connection to the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area. Listings include patents granted to local assignees and/or those with a North Texas inventor. Patent activity can be an indicator of future economic growth, as well as the development of emerging markets and talent attraction. By tracking both inventors and assignees in the region, we aim to provide a broader view of the region’s inventive activity. Listings are organized by Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC).

• Copyrights

  • Google garners support from tech industry in Supreme Court API copyright fight

    The Google-Oracle legal battle dates back over a decade, with the core issue being whether copyright laws bar the commonplace practice of software reimplementation — the “process of writing new software to perform certain functions of a legacy product”.

    Oracle won the most recent iteration of the legal fight, with the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling that the functional elements of application programming interfaces (APIs) are subject to copyright. Since then however, Google has got the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to reconsider Oracle’s court victory.

    Submitting a joint “friend of the court” brief on Monday — a legal document that offers information that has a bearing on the issues of a court case — Mozilla, Medium, Cloudera, Reddit, along with others, have pleaded for SCOTUS to reverse the Federal Court’s decision and allow for APIs to continue to be free from copyright, or at least be available for fair use.

  • A Creative Commons-Licensed Work Walks into a Copy Shop – Great Minds v. Office Depot

    As 2019 came to a close, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision in Great Minds v. Office Depot. Concerned the interpretation of permitted, non-commercial activity under the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, this case resembles and is, in fact, intertwined with Great Minds v. FedEx, which Great Minds appealed to the 2nd Circuit in 2018.

    In both cases, Great Minds sued a copy shop for reproducing – for a profit – their Eureka Math curriculum on behalf of public schools or school districts that had paid the copy shop for the reproductions; while the schools are free to use and reproduce the curriculum for noncommercial uses, Great Minds contends that the copy shops are violating the CC BY-NC 4.0 license through commercial use by reproduction for profit. Let’s explore how courts on both coasts rejected Great Minds’ argument, finding for the copy shops.

    [...]

    On November 8, 2019, the Ninth Circuit heard Great Minds appeal from the dismissal of the copyright infringement claim; this came a year and a half after the 2nd Circuit affirmed a similar dismissal in Great Mind’s appeal against FedEx. The Ninth Circuit issued an affirming opinion on December 27th, as 2019 came to a close.

    The court noted that reproduction by the school and district licensees was permitted by the license, while “if Office Depot were itself a licensee, commercial copying of Great Minds’ material would fall outside the scope of the License and infringe Great Minds’ copyright.” As a result, the question as issue was whether or not, by the licensees using Office Depot’s services to lawfully exercise the rights of the license, Office Depot had themselves become licensees.

    The court ruled that Office Depot was not a downstream recipient licensee, citing to a “consensus in courts” that third-party agents employed by licensees to exercise the lawful rights of the license do not themselves become licensees by virtue of providing their services to the licensee. Rather, “[i]ts activities remain within the ambit of the schools and school districts’ license.”

    The court rejected Great Mind’s argument that there was a volitional element to Office Depot’s services, noting the unwanted consequences that would result from the court drawing the line of distinction sought by Great Mind’s council.

  • Most Canadian ISPs Are Staying Quiet on Pirate Site Blocking

    Canada is a relative newcomer when it comes to pirate site blocking. At the moment it remains unclear how most ISPs will technically implement these blocks and whether they’ll communicate this information to the public. To find out more we reached out to nearly a dozen providers. Unfortunately, only one took the time to respond.

  • Ebook.bike Owner Risks Crippling Sanctions Over Piracy Case Discovery Failures

    Former Pirate Party Canada leader and Ebook.bike operator Travis McCrea is facing the possibility of crippling sanctions if the plaintiff in his copyright infringement lawsuit has his way. After McCrea failed to produce discovery as ordered by the court, the legal team of author John Van Stry are moving in for the kill, demanding sanctions that have the potential to undermine any chance of McCrea winning his case on the merits.

Desktop/Laptop

• Why Windows 7 Users Should Switch to Linux

  Now, if you think that Linux is intimidating, confusing, or (and I mean this nicely) for nerds: I hear you. At first glance it can often look that way.

  But Linux suffers from poor marketing rather than poor product. With no multi-million dollar marketing campaign out there promoting one specific flavour of Linux it’s left to enthusiasts to ‘sell’ each system, usually on its technical merits — which is what makes things seem rather niche.

  However it’s 2020 and Linux-based operating systems (called ‘distros’) like Ubuntu and Linux Mint are very user-friendly. They let you continue to do pretty much all of that you currently do on Windows 7 just as easily, but with safety first.

• Should I upgrade from Windows 7 to Linux?

  After 10 years of service, Microsoft has finally decided to cease support for Windows 7. This means that the OS will no longer receive any type of updates and that anyone still using it will be exposed to online threats.

  Given this change, many users are left wondering what they should do. Most think that they are limited to just three choices…

• Windows 7 Support Ended. Here’s You Should Do.

  As per the information available, there are 200+ million devices that are still running Windows 7. The number might increase, as, it is difficult to estimate the offline devices which might be still running Windows 7.

Server

• IBM

  • CentOS 8 (1911) derived from RedHat Linux 8.1 Enterprise released

    With the release of RedHat Linux 8.1 Enterprise, we knew that it was only a matter of time for CentOS V8 (1911) to be released. Now that it is finally here let’s have a look at what this new update has in store for us.

    What’s New

    Since RedHat Linux 8.1 Enterprise powers this version of CentOS, it’s going to accompany all the features and improvements that came with the latest RHLE. If you’ve not been keeping up with RHLE, you need not worry as we’re going to discuss all the changes that were implemented with this update.

  • Enterprise Insights: Red Hat And The Public Cloud

    Open source projects are the epicenter of technology innovation today. Docker and Kubernetes are revolutionizing cloud-native computing, along with data-focused projects like Mongo and Redis and many others. Even as open source projects drive innovation, however, sponsoring companies face a growing existential threat from hyper-scale cloud providers.

    Red Hat is the recognized leader in enterprise open source support. It’s a successful public company with a track record of growth, so it was somewhat puzzling to understand why the Red Hat board decided to sell to IBM this past year.

  • Red Hat Shows Off Their vDPA Kernel Patches For Better Ethernet Within VMs

    Red Hat engineers have been developing virtual data path acceleration (vDPA) as a standard data plane that is more flexible than VirtIO full hardware offloading. The goal is providing wire-speed Ethernet interfaces to virtual machines in an open manner.

    This patch series was sent out on Thursday by Red Hat’s Jason Wang. This implements the vDPA bus for the Linux kernel as well as providing a vDPA device simulator and supporting vDPA-based transport within VirtIO.

  • What is the latest kernel release for my version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

    I read an interesting question on the Red Hat Learning Community forums recently. What is the latest kernel version for my version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)? In this post we’ll see how you can find out.

    Some users, trying to be helpful, gave a specific version of the kernel package. Unfortunately, that might only be valid at the time of writing. A better approach would be to understand where to get that information about the latest kernel version for a given version of RHEL.

    When Red Hat releases a major or minor update to RHEL, they ship it with a specific branch of the kernel version. This page in the customer portal shows the kernel version “branch” associated with a release of RHEL (e.g. RHEL7.6).

  • dnf-automatic – Install Security Updates Automatically in CentOS 8

    Security updates play a crucial role in safeguarding your Linux system against cyber-attacks and breaches which can have a devastating effect on your critical files, databases and other resources on your system.

    You can manually apply security patches on your CentOS 8 system, but it is much easier as a system administrator to configure automatic updates. This will give you the confidence that your system will be periodically checking for any security patches or updates and applying them.

Kernel Space

• Linux 5.4.13

  I’m announcing the release of the 5.4.13 kernel.

  All users of the 5.4 kernel series must upgrade.

  The updated 5.4.y git tree can be found at:
  git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-5.4.y
  and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser:

  https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-s…

• Linux 4.19.97

• Linux 4.14.166

• Btrfs Async Discard Support Looks To Be Ready For Linux 5.6

  After months of work by Facebook engineers, it looks like the new async discard support for Btrfs is ready for the upcoming Linux 5.6 cycle as a win for this Linux file-system on solid-state storage making use of TRIM/DISCARD functionality.

  Btrfs has been handling its DISCARD functionality synchronously during the transaction commit, but that can lead to performance issues depending upon the amount of TRIM’ing required and how the drive behaves. With this async discard support, the work is punted off the transaction commit.

• BTRFS Guide | The Best Desktop File System

  This video goes over BTRFS in-depth, and in this guide, you will learn basic commands, structure, snapshots, and raid capabilities.

• Ryzen

  • Ryzen 9 3900X vs. Ryzen 9 3950X vs. Core i9 9900KS In Nearly 150 Benchmarks

    This week our AMD Ryzen 9 3950X review sample finally arrived and so we’ve begun putting it through the paces of many different benchmarks. The first of these Linux tests with the Ryzen 9 3950X is looking at the performance up against the Ryzen 9 3900X and Intel Core i9 9900KS in 149 different tests.

    The Ryzen 9 3950X is AMD’s new $749 USD processor just below the Threadripper 3960X. The 3950X offers sixteen cores / 32 threads with a 3.5GHz base clock and 4.7GHz maximum turbo clock. Over the 3900X at $499 is four extra cores / eight threads, a 300MHz lowering of the base clock, 100MHz higher maximum boost clock, and larger L1 and L2 caches while both of these Zen 2 processors share the same TDP of 105 Watts.

  • Ryzen CPUs On Linux Finally See CCD Temperatures, Current + Voltage Reporting

Applications

• The 10 Best Presentation Software for Linux in 2020

  Presentation always plays a vital role in decision making, and in closing any kind of deal. It provides graphical descriptions and clears the situation. In ancient times, we used papers for presentation. With the revolution of our modern technology, we shifted to screens from the papers and developed a lot of tools for making our work easy. If any company’s core system in Linux, then they should go through the whole post and find out the best presentation software for Linux.

  Our world has many types of operating systems for our personal computers and laptops. Among them, Linux is one of the most popular ones because it’s free and has a lot of open-source tools. With that, a user can customize his/ her’s operating system at his/ her will. But getting the right presentation software for Linux distributions can be quite tough. Don’t fear, and we will discuss the presentation software in our content today. I hope you will get the right match for your work.

• 5 Best GUI Clients for PostgreSQL on Ubuntu

  Written in C, PostgreSQL which is also known as Postgres is one of the most popular relational database management systems. macOS server has it as default database and is also available for other operating systems such as Windows, FreeBCD, OpenBCD and Linux. As PostgreSQL is one of the most used database management systems in the world, it is used as the backbone of many small to large applications and software’s.

  Even though I feel working in command-line is best way to learn anything in the world of application and software development, there are some limitations while working with databases in command-line. It requires great experience of working in command-line or it could get really messy for newbies as well as for professionals.

• XMPP – Fun with Clients

  As I already wrote in my last blog post there’s much development in XMPP, not only on the server side, but also on the client side. It’s surely not exaggerated to say that Conversations on Android is the de-facto standard client-wise. So, if you have an Android phone, that’s the client you want to try&use. As I don’t have Android, I can’t comment on it. The situation on Linux is good as well: there are such clients as Gajim, which is an old player in the “market” and is available on other platforms as well, but there is with Dino a new/modern client as well that you may want to try out.

  The situation for macOS and iOS users are not that good as for Windows, Linux or Android users. But in the end all clients have their pro and cons… I’ll try to summarize a few clients on Linux, macOS and iOS…

Instructionals/Technical

• Shift on Stack: api_port failure

• How To Git Commit With Message

• Windscribe VPN on openSUSE

  With all the talk of VPN (Virtual Private Network) services to keep you safe and my general lack of interest in the subject, I was talking to Eric Adams, my co-host on the DLN Xtend podcast about the subject. He was telling me that he was hesitant to recommend any service so he gave me some option to try out. The one I chose, after doing a little reading was Windscribe.

  I am new to the VPN game so I want to be careful in saying, I am recommending this as the perfect solution but rather demonstrating how I set it up and how I am using it on my openSUSE Tumbleweed system. Much in the same way Eric informed me about it.

• How to Install Minecraft on Ubuntu 18.04

• How to Remove Top Bar Application Menu in Ubuntu 19.10, 18.04

• How to add podcasts to a mobile device with Linux

• How to transfer a file from a remote computer to a local machine on Linux/Ubuntu

• How to Make Linux Mint Look Like Windows 7

• 50 Useful and Productive cURL Command in Linux

  The cURL utility is a simple yet powerful command-line tool for transferring files to/from remote locations. Its full form stands for ‘Client URL’. It has cemented its position as one of the best tools for remote data transfer over the internet. cURL offers a robust collection of commands that enable many advanced functionalities. Additionally, most curl command in Linux works exceptionally well for headless agents and/or automated scripts. To help you get started with cURL, our editors have compiled this thoughtfully curated introductory guide. Although it’s meant as a starting point for beginning Linux users, seasoned users can use it as a reference guide.

  The cURL utility supports a wide variety of protocols and features. We’ve outlined the essential commands with appropriate examples and suggest readers try them interactively for gaining first-hand experience on them. As with any Linux tool, your expertise with cURL will only grow when you continue to use it in everyday life.

• How To Install Selenium Chrome On Centos 7

• How To Limit User’s Access To The Linux System

• How to Get Started with Raspberry Pi

• How to Install Arduino IDE on Ubuntu 18.04

• How to Preserve Directory Path with CP Command

• How to Set or Change Timezone in Ubuntu Linux [Beginner’s Tip]

• Install Steam on OpenSUSE to Play Games

• What is Kanban and How to use Kanban in Linux

  in 1997, directly after University, I started as an IT specialist and have been working in this area ever since in different roles. During these more than 20 years of being part of and later also leading IT related projects, our teams were using several methods and supporting software to plan our projects in the best possible way. Not all were equally successful. Currently our teams are working in a Scrum approach which is part of the Agile methodology. To support this way of working we use among others a Kanban board to plan and monitor our work. Kanban is nothing new but seems extremely popular at the moment. It is not only a great approach for large and complex projects, but also on a smaller scale for your study and your personal projects. In this article, which will be a part of a series on productivity apps, I want to explain three topics: What is Kanban, Why should you use Kanban to be more productive and What are the best Kanban apps for Linux.

• What’s your favorite Linux terminal trick?

  The beginning of a new year is always a great time to evaluate new ways to become more efficient. Many people try out new productivity tools or figure out how to optimize their most mundane processes. One area to assess is the terminal. Especially in the world of open source, there are tons of ways to make life at the terminal more efficient (and fun!) with shortcuts and commands.

  We asked our writers about their favorite terminal trick. They shared their time-saving tips and even a fun terminal Easter egg. Will you adopt one of these keyboard shortcuts or command line hacks? Do you have a favorite you’d like to share? Tell us about it by taking our poll or leaving a comment.

Wine or Emulation

• Wine Announcement

  The Wine development release 5.0-rc6 is now available.
  
  Barring any last minute issue, this is expected to be the last
  release candidate before the final 5.0.
  
  What's new in this release (see below for details):
    - Bug fixes only, we are in code freeze.
  
  The source is available from the following locations:
  
  https://dl.winehq.org/wine/source/5.0/wine-5.0-rc6.tar.xz
  
  
  http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/wine/source/5.0/wine-5.0-rc6.tar.xz
  
  Binary packages for various distributions will be available from:
  
  https://www.winehq.org/download
  
  You will find documentation on https://www.winehq.org/documentation
  
  You can also get the current source directly from the git
  repository. Check https://www.winehq.org/git for details.
  
  Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. See the file
  AUTHORS in the distribution for the complete list.
  

• Wine 5.0-RC6 Released With Another 21 Fixes

  We’ll likely see the Wine 5.0 stable release next week or the following week, but for now Wine 5.0-RC6 is available as the newest weekly release candidate.

  Given the code freeze that’s been in place for over the past month, there are no new features but only bug fixes at this stage. Wine 5.0-RC6 ships with 21 known bug fixes in total.

  Some of the fixes in Wine 5.0-RC6 are for Brothers In Arms – Hell’s Highway, Tomb Raider, The Witcher Enhanced Edition, Serious Sam Classic, and other games. There are also fixes for applications like 7-Zip, Acrobat Reader, and Pale Moon.

• The sixth Release Candidate for Wine 5.0 is out now

  The Wine team have released a sixth and perhaps final Release Candidate for the upcoming stable release of Wine 5.0. What’s going to be one of the biggest releases ever, with some truly massive feature improvements since Wine 4.0 back in January last year.

  Going by how many Release Candidates they’ve done before (7 for 4.0 and 6 for 3.0 and 6 for 2.0), the final stable Wine 5.0 release could well be next week.

  For this sixth Release Candidate of Wine 5.0, they noted 21 bug fixes. As always, some might have been fixed in older versions that have been retested recently. From the recent fixes you should see a better experience with The Witcher Enhanced Edition, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Serious Sam Classic, Far Cry 5 and probably more too.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • So you want to make a KDE video…

    KDE is running a competition in search of the next great promotional video for KDE’s Plasma desktop and KDE’s applications.

    The prizes are two fantastic TUXEDO computers, one per category, which will undoubtedly boost your film rendering capacity. There are also 12 goodie packages for runner-ups, and who doesn’t need more Linux shirts, caps and stickers?

    Although we have already received some interesting entries, we feel it may be time to help video artists out there with ideas from the judges themselves.

    Below, Julian Schraner, Ivana Isadora Devčić, and Paul Brown from the Promo team and Farid Abdelnour from the Kdenlive team give their views on what a KDE promotional video should look like, where to find resources, and which pitfalls may hurt your film if you fall for them.

  • Learning about our users

    In a product like Plasma, knowing the kind of things our existing users care about and use sheds light on what needs polishing or improving. At the moment, the input we have is either the one from the loudest most involved people or outright bug reports, which lead to a confirmation bias.

    What do our users like about Plasma? On which hardware do people use Plasma? Are we testing Plasma on the same kind of hardware Plasma is being used for?

    Some time ago, Volker Krause started up the KUserFeedback framework with two main features. First, allowing to send information about application’s usage depending on certain users’ preferences and include mechanisms to ask users for feedback explicitly. This has been deployed into several products already, like GammaRay and Qt Creator, but we never adopted it in KDE software.

    The first step has been to allow our users to tune how much information Plasma products should be telling KDE about the systems they run on.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Doing Things That Scale

    I used to have an Arch GNU/Linux setup with tons of tweaks and customizations. These days I just run vanilla Fedora. It’s not perfect, but for actually getting things done it’s way better than what I had before. I’m also much happier knowing that if something goes seriously wrong I can reinstall and get to a usable system in half an hour, as opposed to several hours of tedious work for setting up Arch. Plus, this is a setup I can actually install for friends and relatives, because it does a decent job at getting people to update when I’m not around.

    Until relatively recently I always set a custom monospace font in my editor and terminal when setting up a new machine. At some point I realized that I wouldn’t have to do that if the default was nicer, so I just opened an issue. A discussion ensued, a better default was agreed upon, and voilà — my problem was solved. One less thing to do after every install. And of course, everyone else now gets a nicer default font too!

    I also used to use ZSH with a configuration framework and various plugins to get autocompletion, git status, a fancy prompt etc. A few years ago I switched to fish. It gives me most of what I used to get from my custom ZSH thing, but it does so out of the box, no configuration needed. Of course ideally we’d have all of these things in the default shell so everyone gets these features for free, but that’s hard to do unfortunately (if you’re interested in making it happen I’d love to talk!).

    Years ago I used to maintain my own extension set to the Faenza icon theme, because Faenza didn’t cover every app I was using. Eventually I realized that trying to draw a consistent icon for every single third party app was impossible. The more icons I added, the more those few apps that didn’t have custom icons stuck out. Nowadays when I see an app with a poor icon I file an issue asking if the developer would like help with a nicer one. This has worked out great in most cases, and now I probably have more consistent app icons on my system than back when I used a custom theme. And of course, everyone gets to enjoy the nicer icons, not only me.

Distributions

• TROMjaro Updates Deliver Lighter, Better Manjaro

  TROMjaro is based on Arch Linux but is much simpler to install and maintain. That makes it a good computing platform to investigate.

  While it is easier to install and use than most other Arch Linux-based distributions, users already familiar with how the Linux OS works will have a less challenging experience than newcomers to Linux migrating from macOS and Microsoft Windows.

  The TROMjaro desktop has its own unique look and feel, and its own approach to handling software.

  Existing TROMjaro users do not have to do anything special to update their systems if they installed an earlier ISO. Just update the TROM repository.

• New Releases

  • Alpine 3.11.3 released

    The Alpine Linux project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of version 3.11.3 of its Alpine Linux operating system.

• Screenshots/Screencasts

  • VIDEO: Linux Lite 4.8 Features and Desktop Tour

    Linux Lite eases Windows 7 users transition to Linux much more comfortable by offering simple software like Team Viewer, VLC, Firefox, TimeShift backup utility, and a full Microsoft Office compatible office suite in LibreOffice.

  • Why Pop!_OS is NOT just an Ubuntu clone (interview with Jeremy Soller)

    There are many myths in the Linux community, with one of them being that Pop!_OS is just an Ubuntu clone.

  • Astra Linux Common Edition 2.12.22 overview | Ensures the protection of confidential information.

    In this video, I am going to show an overview of Astra Linux Common Edition 2.12.22 and some of the applications pre-installed.

• Arch Family

  • Tuxedo’s New Manjaro Linux Laptops Will Include Massive Customization

    The Manjaro/Tuxedo Computers partnership will also offer some intense customization options, Forbes adds.

    “Want your company logo laser-etched on the lid? OK. Want to swap out the Manjaro logo with your logo on the Super key? Sure, no problem. Want to show off your knowledge of fictional alien races? Why not get a 100% Klingon keyboard?”

• Fedora Family

  • Fedora’s CoreOS Released and Out for Preview (Stable & Testing Version)!

    Fedora’s CoreOS Released Now: The team Fedora officially announced that the CoreOS stable and testing version are released for users. CoreOS is designed for handling the running containerized workloads securely and at scale. Fedora’s CoreOS combines the OCI support, SELinux security for atomic host, provisioning tools and automatic update model of container Linux with the packaging technology.

  • Linux Container Fedora CoreOS Released For Public Use: Download Now!

    As per the official blog, Fedora CoreOS does not give guaranteed stability, which is challenging to achieve along with the incremental and evolving development required by Fedora CoreOS.

    However, Fedora CoreOS is still under active development. The CoreOS team promises to provide tools and work over the time to manage the impact of any regressions or breaking changes from automatic updates.

    Future of CoreOS Container Linux and Fedora Atomic Host

    CoreOS Container Linux will be maintained for a few more months, as mentioned in the latest blog by Fedora CoreOS team, whose end-of-life date will be announced later this month.

    Fedora Atomic Host has already reached end-of-life, and the users are highly recommended to migrate to Fedora CoreOS as soon as possible.

    Upcoming Enhancements

    Fedora CoreOS also serves as the upstream to Red Hat CoreOS. It aims to provide the best container host to run containerized workloads securely and at scale.

• Debian Family

  • Debian Is Making The Process Easier To Bisect Itself Using Their Wayback Machine

    For a decade now snapshot.debian.org has been around for accessing old Debian packages and to find packages by dates and version numbers. Only now though is a guide materializing for leveraging this Debian “wayback machine” in order to help in bisecting regressions for the distribution that span multiple/unknown packages.

    The bisecting is intended for Debian Sid users of the latest bleeding-edge packages and to helping track down what specific package versions may have introduced a regression. This Debian snapshot archive offers a JSON-based API to query changed packages based upon dates and from there with leveraging Git can make the bisecting manageable.

  • Stremio

    There is a new tool available for Sparkers: Stremio

    What is Stremio?

    Stremio is a one-stop hub for video content aggregation. Discover, organize and watch video from all kind of sources on any device that you own.
    Movies, TV shows, series, live television or web channels like YouTube and Twitch.tv – you can find all this on Stremio.

  • Debian 10, the clean install

    Events have ended my upgrade procrastination. Last week my hard drive started having many errors. Fortunately it lasted long enough for me to copy all of its contents to my USB backup drive. (My /home/brad directory is automatically backed up daily, but I also have separate partitions for downloaded files, PDFs, Linux CD images, and archived photos from my digital camera…and those only get backed up now and then.) Then a quick trip to the store for a new SATA hard drive.

    I suppose I could have copied my old root partition over to the new drive. But I’ve been running 32-bit Debian 8 (“Jessie”), which is now two versions behind. And I’ve been noticing more and more applications that I want to run are only being distributed for 64-bit Linux. So I decided to do a clean install of 64-bit Debian 10 (“Buster”), with my preferred MATE desktop (now a standard option with Debian).

  • gnu Linux Debian – top 1000 packages by install – popularity contest

    remember: only the installs are counted where the user said yes during setup to: „do you want to participate in popularity contest?“ (guess that many Linux users are privacy sensitive and a lot of them probably say „no“)

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • [Ubuntu] Design and Web team summary – 17 January 2020

    The second iteration of this year is the last one before our mid-cycle sprint next week.

    Here’s a short summary of the work the squads in the Web & Design team completed in the last 2-week iteration.

  • 5 key steps to take your IoT device to market

    IoT businesses are notoriously difficult to get off the ground. No matter how good your product is or how good your team is, some of the biggest problems you will face are just in getting to market and maintaining your devices once they’re in the field. The webinar will take a look at how Canonical’s Brand Store product allows you to get to market while catering for long term problems and the need to keep your product up to date in the future.

    More specifically, this webinar will look at the common problems we see organisations facing on their way to getting an IoT device to market, and cover five key steps to solve these problems. Along the way we will dig a little into serval case studies Canonical has done with various customers and partners to show you what has already been achieved with these solutions.

Devices/Embedded

• E-con ships 5MP cam for Nano Dev Kit, which gets rev’d with second CSI link

  E-Con has launched a $69, 5-megapixel “e-CAM50_CUNANO” camera for the Jetson Nano Dev Kit with a MIPI-CSI2 interface and Linux driver. Meanwhile, Nvidia launched a revised “B01” version of the kit with a second CSI connector and support for the Xavier NX.

  E-Con Systems has followed its 3.4-megapixel e-CAM30_CUNANO camera for the Jetson Nano Dev Kit with a 5-megapixel model. Like the 3.4MP model, the e-CAM50_CUNANO uses a MIPI-CSI2 interface, but is built around OnSemi’s 1/2.5″ AR0521, a 2.2µm pixel CMOS image sensor with integrated ISP.

• Pumpkin SBCs feature new MediaTek SoCs and mainline Linux/Android SDK

  MediaTek has launched two “Pumpkin i300 EVK” SBCs with a quad -A35 MediaTek i300 and unveiled a Pumpkin i500 EVK based on the octa-core -A73/-A53 i500. The SBCs feature a BayLibre-developed, MediaTek Rich IoT SDK v20.0 with Yocto and Android 10.

  At CES last week, MediaTek teased an OLogic built Pumpkin i500 EVK AI Vision SBC built around its powerful octa-core Cortex-A73 and -A53 MediaTek i500. Due in February, the SBC will join two recently launched Pumpkin i300 EVK SBCs built around different variations of the quad-core, Cortex-A35 based MediaTek i300 (MT8362) SoC.

• A beginner tries PCB assembly

  I wrote last year about my experience with making my first PCB using JLCPCB. I’ve now got 5 of the boards in production around my house, and another couple assembled on my desk for testing. I also did a much simpler board to mount a GPS module on my MapleBoard – basically just with a suitable DIP connector and mount point for the GPS module. At that point I ended up having to pay for shipping; not being in a hurry I went for the cheapest option which mean the total process took 2 weeks from order until it arrived. Still not bad for under $8!

  Just before Christmas I discovered that JLCPCB had expanded their SMT assembly option to beyond the Chinese market, and were offering coupons off (but even without that had much, much lower assembly/setup fees than anywhere else I’d seen). Despite being part of LCSC the parts library can be a bit limited (partly it seems there’s nothing complex to assemble such as connectors), with a set of “basic” components without setup fee and then “extended” options which have a $3 setup fee (because they’re not permanently loaded, AIUI).

• Digitizing a analog water meter

  Sadly, my meter is really dirt under the glass and i couldn’t manage to clean it. This will cause problems down the road.

  The initial idea was easy, add a webcam on top of the meter and read the number on the upper half it. But I soon realized that the project won’t be that simple. The number shows only the use of 1m^3 (1000 liters), this means that I would have a change only every couple of days, which is useless and boring. So, I had to read the analog gauges, which show the fraction in 0.0001, 0.001, 0.01 and 0.1 m^3. This discovery blocked me, and I was like “this is way to complicated”.

  I have no idea how I found or what reminded me of OpenCV, but that was the solution. OpenCV is an awesome tool for computer vision, it has many features like Facial recognition, Gesture recognition … and also shape recognition. What’s a analog gauge? It’s just a circle with an triangular arrow indicating the value.

• NVIDIA Jetson Nano Developer Kit-B01 Gets an Extra Camera Connector

  Launched in March 2019, NVIDIA Jetson Nano developer kit offered an AI development platform for an affordable $99.

• Fake cases — make sure yours is the real deal

  We’ve had some reports of people finding cases that pretend to be official Raspberry Pi products online — these are fakes, they’re violating our trademark, they’re not made very well, and they’re costing you and us money that would otherwise go to fund the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s charitable work. (Reminder, for those who are new to this stuff: we’re a not-for-profit, which means that every penny we makes goes to support our work in education, and that none of us gets to own a yacht.)

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Gesture Plus by Jawomo lets you customize Android 10′s gesture

  • LG V50 Android 10 update starts rolling out in South Korea

  • More Nokia phones on Android 10

  • Download: Xiaomi Mi A2 receives official Android 10 update

  • Leaked Galaxy S20 spec sheet details huge screens, big batteries, Android 10, more

  • Huawei P Smart 2019 Starts Receiving Android 10-Based EMUI Firmware Update

  • Today’s Tablet Sales: iPads, Amazon Fire, Android Tablets Best Deals [Updated]

  • Android Circuit: New Samsung Galaxy S20 Leaks, Huawei’s Big Google Problem, Radical OnePlus 8 Lite Revealed

  • Android secrets: Here are the best Google features you didn’t know about

  • 5 Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week

  • Android’s version of AirDrop, ‘Fast Share,’ has been renamed to ‘Nearby Sharing’

  • Concept Android Auto app alerts you of pedestrians before you see them

  • Android Auto’s support for Google Assistant routines has been broken since 2018

  • This concept Android Auto app uses nearby phones to detect pedestrians

  • How to get started with Android apps on your Chromebook

  • Google already testing Stadia on non-Pixel Android phones

  • Chrome for Android prepares Google Assistant integration for voice search

  • Blockbuster Android update will bring the feature millions have been waiting for

  • Which Android Tablet Should You Get?

  • Google app’s new Labs lets you disable Doodles in the homescreen widget

  • 5 Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week

  • 7 things your Android phone can do that people with iPhones only dream

  • How to enable RCS messaging in Google Messages on Android phones

  • It’s time for Google to build a video editor for Chromebooks and Android

  • CES 2020: 8 exciting Android announcements you might have missed

  • TicPods 2 Pro review: Still a solid Android alternative to Apple AirPods [Video]

  • The Note 10 is the best Android phone but this is why I use a Pixel

  • Xbox Console Streaming Preview for Android Goes Global

  • Fleeceware – The Free Android Apps That Secretly Cost $240 Per Year

  • These were the most downloaded apps on IOS and Android in 2019

  • Warning: If your Android phone has THESE apps

  • Android alert: 25 apps that could be stealing from you, have YOU installed one?

  • The stable Android 10 update now rolling out for the LG V50 ThinQ in Korea

  • LG V50 ThinQ gets stable Android 10 update in South Korea, global rollout to follow

  • LG V50 ThinQ Is Starting To Get Android 10, Surprising Absolutely Everyone

  • Android 10 stable has started to roll out to LG V50 phones

  • Honor 8X EMUI 10 (Android 10) stable update starts rolling out

  • EMUI 10 now rolling out on Huawei P30 Lite

  • Samsung Galaxy A60 and M40 may also get Android 10 a little bit ahead of schedule

  • Asus ROG Phone 2 Android 10 update imminent as it gets WiFi & Bluetooth certification

  • Google Pixel 4 running Android 11 (Android R) caught on Geekbench, Developer Preview coming soon?

  • Firefox for Android migration is about to begin

  • Firefox Nightly for Android to get a major update next week

  • Chrome for Android tests recommending tabs you should close, even if you won’t listen

  • Chrome for Android tests reminding you to clean up your old tabs, since you clearly can’t handle them yourself

  • The best sci-fi Android games for a space adventure

  • 10 best auto chess and auto battle games for Android!

  • Android Circuit: Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra Leaks, Huawei Fights Google, OnePlus Confirms Key Feature

  • Google Assistant routines haven’t worked on Android Auto for over a year, still no fix in sight (Update: Google acknowledges)

  • Android is finally receiving a feature Google should have introduced years ago

  • Android R spotted running on Google Pixel 4

  • The Beauty Of OLED Screens And Why All Android Devices Should Use Them

  • Is Huawei getting ready to launch its Android rival?

  • How to reset your Android device and erase your personal data

  • What is Android TV? Everything You Need To Know To Get Started

  • PinePhone, the $149 Linux Phone, Has Started Shipping for the Brave of Heart

    The long-anticipated PinePhone Linux-powered smartphone has finally started shipping to customers who were brave enough to purchase the first batch.

    The PinePhone Linux phone has been available for pre-order since mid-November 2019, and those who bought one paid as low as $149 USD for the device, which doesn’t ship with an operating system preinstalled. After a bit of delay, the PinePhone is now finally shipping to customers, starting today, January 17th.

    “We’re now ready and I am happy to confirm that PinePhones will begin shipping on January 17th, 2020,” said PINE64′s Lukasz Erecinski. “The dispatch process will take a couple of days, however, so your unit may ship anytime between the 17th and 25th. At any rate, you’ll have your PinePhone soon.”

  • The $150 PinePhone feels like it’s from an alternate universe

    In our current mobile world, there are essentially two worlds: Android and iOS. But for the oddballs who aren’t satisfied with either option, Pine64 has started shipping the PinePhone, a Linux-based, kinda-DIY smartphone that sells for just $150.

    Originally a crowdsourced startup, Pine64 has made single-board computers and the PineBook laptop in the past, so it isn’t new to developing alternative hardware for Linux. As ArsTechnica wrote, the company’s efforts are not an attempt to create a third mainstream category for smartphones, but the PinePhone still looks to be an interesting concept.

  • This Linux smartphone is now shipping for $150

    Computer and developer-board maker Pine64 has started shipping the first edition of its much-anticipated – at least in the open-source community – PinePhone, after pre-orders sold out. Dubbed “Brave Heart”, the device is indeed designed only for the keener hobbyists.

    Shipping at only $149.99, Brave Heart is a fully open-source smartphone running Linux, which the company claims was developed “with the community for the community”, which means with developers and early adopters, and for developers and early adopters; and in this case, preferably for those who have extensive Linux experience.

    In a departure from Android and iOS, Pine’s new project provides a platform for customers to develop Linux-on-phone projects. It does not come with a pre-installed OS, but supports all major Linux phone projects such as Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish OS and Plasma Mobile.

    Although buyers get to choose their OS, therefore, it will be up to them to upload the platform to the Pine Phone – meaning the device is not designed for the average Joe.

  • Motorola One Zoom – The Lumia is dead, long live One

    Here we go. I’ve had the Motorola One Zoom for about a month now, and I have to say it’s a good phone. In fact, let’s do it systematically. Pros: excellent camera, good sounds, fast performance, splendid battery time, configurable operating system that is steadily improving. Cons: the phone is super heavy and cumbersome to hold, you need a lot of patience getting everything configured and tweaked, especially if you care about privacy.

    But did I accomplish my mission? Yes I did. I have found a worthy successor to my Lumia. One Zoom matches and even supersedes some of the aspects of my previous phone, which makes me happy, as my degrees of freedom and my sense of nerdy control have not changed (for the worse). I really disliked Android many years ago, but it has evolved into a pretty solid system, and even someone like me, with almost zero interest in the mobile nonsense, can appreciate the improvements and advancements. You have the tools to change anything you like, and while the defaults are silly and lax, you can make Android work as you please.

    Now, Android will most likely never be as clean and elegant as Windows Phone. But the super-rich app ecosystem does compensate for that. At the end of the day, it is a small compromise, here and there, but overall, 95% of things are just as good as they were, or even better. I’d say that qualifies as a pleasant and successful transition from one platform to another. It was a little bit traumatic due to the SIM card mistake and the manual data transfer, but I might even say that I’m cautiously, mildly enjoying it.

    So there we are. An end of an era, and a start of a new one. Motorola One Zoom seems like a really nifty mid-range phone. I do wonder what high-end devices offer, but that’s a story for another time. Meanwhile, if you want a capable, fast phone with lots of juice and a splendid camera with a real optical zoom, this is a really clever choice. I’m happy with my decision. 9.5/10. Bye Lumia, welcome One.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• 7 things I learned from starting an open source project

  I’m currently involved—heavily involved—in Enarx, an open source (of course!) project to support running sensitive workloads on untrusted hosts. I’ve had involvement in various open source projects over the years, but this is the first for which I’m one of the founders. We’re at the stage now where we’ve got a fair amount of code, quite a lot of documentation, a logo, and (important!) stickers. The project will hopefully be included in a Linux Foundation group—the Confidential Computing Consortium—so things are going very well indeed.

  I thought it might be useful to reflect on some of the things we did to get things going. To be clear, Enarx is a particular type of project, one that we believe has commercial and enterprise applications. It’s also not mature yet, and we’ll have hurdles and challenges along the way. What’s more, the route we’ve taken won’t be right for all projects, but hopefully, there’s enough here to give a few pointers to other projects or people considering starting one up.

• Open source: A matter of license and lock-in

  Recently, a few bits of newsworthy information hit the open source landscape. Separately, these pieces of news were not that glaring, but when you put them together something a bit more ominous comes into focus–something I never would have thought to be an issue within the open source community.

  Before I get into this, I want to preface this by saying I am not usually one to cry foul, wolf, or squirrel! I prefer to let those pundits who make a living at gleaning the important bits out of the big bowl of alphabet soup and draw their own conclusions. But this time, I think it’s important I chime in.

  Yes, at this very moment I am donning my tin foil hat. Why? Because I think it’s necessary. And with me sporting that shiny chapeau, understand every word you are about to read is conjecture.

• Why Did Red Hat Drop Its Support for Docker’s Runtime Engine?

• [KDE] Itinerary extraction in Nextcloud Hub

  Nextcloud announced their latest release and among the many new features is itinerary extraction from emails. That’s using KDE’s extraction engine, the same that powers similar features in KMail as well.

• One open source chat tool to rule them all

  Last year, I brought you 19 days of new (to you) productivity tools for 2019. This year, I’m taking a different approach: building an environment that will allow you to be more productive in the new year, using tools you may or may not already be using.

  Instant messaging and chat have become a staple of the online world. And if you are like me, you probably have about five or six different apps running to talk to your friends, co-workers, and others. It really is a pain to keep up with it all. Thankfully, you can use one app (OK, two apps) to consolidate a lot of those chats into a single point.

• Finance goes agile as open source checks the security box

  “At Northwestern Mutual, we’ve finally gotten past that curve,” said Sean Corkum (pictured, right), senior engineer at Northwestern Mutual. “Now we’re trying to make it even easier for our internal developers to participate in open source … and contribute more to the community.”

• Top NLP Open Source Projects For Developers In 2020

• Kiwi TCMS: Project roadmap 2020

  Hello testers, the Kiwi TCMS team sat down together last week and talked about what we feel is important for us during the upcoming year. This blog post outlines our roadmap for 2020!

• Events

  • Let’s Talk With Neal Gompa of Fedora @ openSUSE Conference

    In this episode of Let’s Talk, we sat down with Neal Gompa of the Fedora community at openSUSE Conference

  • FOSSCOMM 2019 aftermath

    FOSSCOMM (Free and Open Source Software Communities Meeting) is a Greek conference aiming at free-software and open-source enthusiasts, developers, and communities. This year was held at Lamia from October 11 to October 13.

    It is a tradition for me to attend this conference. Usually, I have presentations and of course, booths to inform the attendees about the projects I represent.

    This year the structure of the conference was kind of different. Usually, the conference starts on Friday with a “beer event”. Now it started with registration and a presentation. Personally, I made my plan to leave Thessaloniki by bus. It took me about 4 hours on the road. So when I arrived, I went to my hotel and then waited for Pantelis to go to University and set up our booths.

• Web Browsers

  • Chromium

    • Google announces end of support dates for Chrome Apps on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS

      The end of support for Chrome apps has been a long time coming — Google announced more than two years ago that it was going to start winding things down.

      The Chrome Web Store has already been stripped of the App section on Windows, macOS and Linux, and now Google has announced that it is to be pulled from Chrome OS too. The company has also revealed the dates on which support will be dropped completely for all platforms.

    • Linux disk resizing on Chromebooks pushed back to Chrome OS 81

      The good news is that plans have been in the works since March of last year to allow you to reclaim some of that space by shrinking or resizing the Linux storage. The bad news is that after being pushed back twice since the feature is being put off again; this time until Chrome OS 81.

      You’d think this would be a relatively simple thing to implement but in reality, it’s not. That’s because the Chrome OS filesystem has evolved in the past year and due to expected support for a particular file type for older Linux kernels never worked out.
      I’d rather the Chromium team take their time for a well designed and implemented solution so as not to break any functionality. Plus there’s the challenge of having enough free storage to restore a container backup.

  • Mozilla

    • The Pros And Cons Of Using Tor Browser

      The Tor Browser sends all traffic data through the Tor Network. Some also call it the anonymity network. It does so by connecting to a server with a list of Tor nodes and bouncing the connection through three different proxies.

      There’s an entry node, a middle relay, and an exit node that are selected at random. The connection between these different nodes is encrypted, and the IP addresses aren’t public. It makes the whole process safe and anonymous.

      The Tor Browser is easy to download and install and doesn’t cost a penny to boot. Volunteers created and run the Tor Project, so donations are welcome. Moreover, the code is open-source, which means anyone can review it. It ensures that the code stays secure, and no one can use it for any hidden exploitative money-making purposes.

• FSF

  • GNU Projects

    • GNU Guile 3.0.0 now available

      GNU Guile, a programming and extension language for the GNU Project, is now available as version 3.0.0. According to the team, this is the first release in the stable 3.0 release series.

      The major new feature in this version is just-in-time (JIT) native code generation, which helps speed up performance. In this release, microbenchmark performance is twice as good as the 2.2 release, and some individual benchmarks have seen improvements up to 32 times as fast, according to the project maintainers.

      Other new features include support for interleaved definitions and expressions in lexical contexts, native support for structured exceptions, and improved support for R6RS and R7RS Scheme standards.

    • Experimental Support For C++20 Coroutines Has Landed In GCC 10

      As of this morning experimental support for C++20 coroutines has been merged into the GCC 10 compiler!

      Coroutines allow a function to have its execution stopped/suspended and then to be resumed later. Coroutines is one of the big features of C++20. Sample syntax and more details on C++ coroutines can be found at cppreference.com.

      Coroutines support for GCC has been under development for months and now as a late addition to GCC 10 is the experimental implementation.

    • GNU Binutils 2.34 Branched – Bringing With It “debuginfod” HTTP Server Support

      With GNU Binutils 2.34 comes debuginfod support, which is the HTTP server catching our eye while the debuginfod server is distributed as part of the latest elfutils package. This isn’t for a general purpose web server thankfully but is an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF debugging information and source code. With debuginfod enabled, Binutils’ readelf and objdump utilities can query the HTTP server(s) for debug files that cannot otherwise be found. Enabling this option requires building Binutils using –with-debuginfod.

  • Licensing / Legal

    • Fugue open sources Regula to evaluate Terraform for security misconfigurations and compliance violations

      Regula rules are written in Rego, the open source policy language employed by the Open Policy Agent project and can be integrated into CI/CD pipelines to prevent cloud infrastructure deployments that may violate security and compliance best practices.

      “Developers design, build, and modify their own cloud infrastructure environments, and they increasingly own the security and compliance of that infrastructure,” said Josh Stella, co-founder and CTO of Fugue.

      “Fugue builds solutions that empower engineers operating in secure and regulated cloud environments, and Regula quickly and easily checks that their Terraform scripts don’t violate policy—before they deploy infrastructure.”

• Programming/Development

  • Announcing git-cinnabar 0.5.3

    Git-cinnabar is a git remote helper to interact with mercurial repositories. It allows to clone, pull and push from/to mercurial remote repositories, using git.

  • Steve Kemp: Announce: github2mr

    myrepos is an excellent tool for applying git operations to multiple repositories, and I use it extensively.

    I’ve written several scripts to dump remote repository-lists into a suitable configuration format, and hopefully I’ve done that for the last time.

  • Perl / Raku

    • Term::ANSIColor 5.01

      This is the module included in Perl core that provides support for ANSI color escape sequences.

      This release adds support for the NO_COLOR environment variable (thanks, Andrea Telatin) and fixes an error in the example of uncolor() in the documentation (thanks, Joe Smith). It also documents that color aliases are expanded during alias definition, so while you can define an alias in terms of another alias, they don’t remain linked during future changes.

  • Python

    • JavaScript destructuring like Python kwargs with defaults

      I’m sure it’s been blogged about a buncha times before but, I couldn’t find it, and I had to search too hard to find an example of this.

    • Create the input text box with tkinter

      In the previous post, I have written a python program to create the database, earning table as well as input the first row of data into the earning table. In this chapter, I will create a simple UI to accept the user’s input so we do not need to hardcoded the values into the SQL query. I will leave the SQL commit code to the next chapter, we will only create a simple input’s UI in this chapter first.

      A description box and the earning box of the Earning Input user interface
      As you can see I will create the above simple UI with tkinter which can then be further upgraded in the future to include more stuff.

    • Start using 2FA and API tokens on PyPI

      To increase the security of PyPI downloads, we have added two-factor authentication (2FA) as a login security option, and API tokens for uploading packages. This is thanks to a grant from the Open Technology Fund, coordinated by the Packaging Working Group of the Python Software Foundation.

      If you maintain or own a project on the Python Package Index, you should start using these features. Click “help” on PyPI for instructions. (These features are also available on Test PyPI.)

    • How to Build RESTful APIs with Python and Flask

      For some time now I have been working with Python but I just got to try out Flask recently, so I felt it would be nice to write about it. In this aritcle I’ll discuss about Flask and how you can use it to build RESTfull APIs.

      Flask is a Python-based microframework that enables you to quickly build web applications; the “micro” in microframework simply means Flask aims to keep the core simple but extensible.

    • Reading Binary Data with Python

      When you deal with external binary data in Python, there are a couple of ways to get that data into a data structure. You can use the ctypes module to define the data structure or you can use the struct python module.

      You will see both methods used when you explore tool repositories on the web. This article shows you how to use each one to read an IPv4 header off the network. It’s up to you to decide which method you prefer; either way will work fine.

    • Python 3.7.5 : Django security issues – part 001.

      Django like any website development and framework implementation requires security settings and configurations.
      Today I will present some aspects of this topic and then I will come back with other information.

    • How to display flash messages in Django templates

      Sometimes we need to show the one-time notification, also known as the flash messages in our Django application. For this Django provides the messages framework. We are going to use the same here.

      To show flash messages in the Django application, we will extend our previous project Hello World in Django 2.2. Clone the git repository, check out the master branch and set up the project on your local machine by following the instructions in the README file.

Baby Dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark

In violation of the separation of church and state, American tax dollars are funneled to fundamentalist private schools teaching crackpot absurdities – such as a claim that Noah probably took two baby dinosaurs onto his ark.

Brecht in Berlin

One of Brecht’s best-loved and most-performed works, The Caucasian Chalk Circle was written in Los Angeles in 1944 while the playwright was still in exile. He returned to Germany in 1947, but the play remained behind, a parting gift to the country that had offered him refuge from the Nazis, but which, with the Cold War heating up and the House Un-American Activities Committee in full lather, had turned against his socialist politics. With Brecht back in East Berlin, The Caucasian Chalk Circle received its premiere in May of 1948 in a student production at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota under the direction of the young theater professor Henry Goodman, a World War II veteran.

A native of Minneapolis, Goodman had been stationed in Berlin during the occupation and had seen Brecht’s work onstage in the devastated city. From America Brecht had tried to stop such productions. In September of 1945 he wrote to the Soviet cultural official Mikhail Apletin requesting that all further stagings of his work be forbidden until his own repatriation to Germany. Brecht was appalled that a production of his Threepenny Opera—utterly inappropriate given the circumstances, he thought—had been mounted in August of 1945, just a few months after the end of the war, and likely seen by Goodman. In the new post-Nazi, post-War world, Brecht felt all his plays needed at least some revision. The only work he believed ready for immediate presentation was Fear and Misery of the Third Reich.

Education

• Why College Should Be Free

  Obviously, I am making an analogy with free college. And obviously, people who don’t support free college (and probably many who do) are going to reject this analogy. Here are some possible counterarguments: [...]

Health/Nutrition

• Evidence Shows Whooping Cough Is Evolving Into a ‘Superbug’, Scientists Warn

  In new world-first research, a team of Australian scientists has discovered how B. pertussis strains are adapting to the current acellular vaccine (ACV) used in Australia, which is similar to the ACVs used for whooping cough in other countries around the world.

  “We found the whooping cough strains were evolving to improve their survival, regardless of whether a person was vaccinated or not,” explains microbiologist Laurence Luu from UNSW.

• Federal Regulators: Newark Beth Israel Put Patients in “Immediate Jeopardy”

  Newark Beth Israel Medical Center’s heart and lung transplant program was putting patients in “immediate jeopardy” before the hospital began to implement corrective measures, according to federal regulators.

  In a pair of reports sent to the Newark, New Jersey, hospital on Dec. 12, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that the transplant program repeatedly failed to fix mistakes. Spurred by ProPublica articles, the CMS investigation uncovered a series of incidents in which the hospital identified areas for improvement following botched surgeries but didn’t carry out its own recommendations, allowing “subsequent adverse events to occur.”

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • Boeing discovers new software problem in 737 Max

    The news comes following the release of internal documents showing employees knew about problems with pilot training for the 737 MAX and tried to conceal them from regulators. In the documents released by US lawmakers, Boeing employees said the aircraft was “designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys,” in an apparent reference to regulators.

  • A Georgia election server was vulnerable to Shellshock and may have been hacked

    Forensic evidence shows signs that a Georgia election server may have been hacked ahead of the 2016 and 2018 elections by someone who exploited Shellshock, a critical flaw that gives attackers full control over vulnerable systems, a computer security expert said in a court filing on Thursday.

    Shellshock came to light in September 2014 and was immediately identified as one of the most severe vulnerabilities to be disclosed in years. The reasons: it (a) was easy to exploit, (b) gave attackers the ability to remotely run commands and code of their choice, and (c) opened most Linux and Unix systems to attack. As a result, the flaw received widespread news coverage for months.

  • Micro Focus AD Bridge 2.0: Extending security policies and access controls to cloud-based Linux

    With AD Bridge 2.0, organizations can leverage existing infrastructure authentication, security as well as policy, in order to simplify the migration of on-premises Linux Active Directory to the cloud, resulting in fully secured and managed Linux virtual machines in the cloud.

  • Pseudo-Open Source

    • Openwashing

      • Facebook Releases Open Source Speech Recognition Platform

        Facebook has announced that it will be making its wav2letter@anywhere online speech recognition framework more readily available as an open source platform. The framework was developed by Facebook AI Research (FAIR), which claims that it has created the fastest open source automatic speech recognition (ASR) platform currently on the market.

      • Microsoft opens up Rust-inspired Project Verona programming language on GitHub

  • Security

    • [Attacker] stole [sic] over 10,000 hospital files

      Jason Corden-Bowen, of the CPS, said: “Moonie had no right to access confidential patient and staff records. He admitted his earlier wrongdoing and accepted a police caution yet he went ahead to reoffend knowing fully well it was not just against hospital procedures but it was wrong and illegal.

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • Dear Reuters: This Is NOT How You Report On Dishonest, Disingenuous Talking Points From US Officials Regarding Encryption

        Attorney General William Barr and his DOJ and FBI have really ramped up their bullshit campaign against the public being able to use encryption. President Trump himself weighed in himself with some ignorant statements, suggesting that Apple owes him some sort of quid pro quo, because his policies may have helped them on trade:

      • FBI used Graykey to unlock an iPhone 11 Pro, which was previously thought to be the most secure iPhone

        A recent article by Thomas Brewster at Forbes highlights the fact that the FBI is able to unlock iPhones using a product called Graykey. Specifically, a product called Graykey was used in a case against Baris Ali Koch to unlock Koch’s iPhone – an iPhone 11 Pro. Graykey works by bypassing the timeout functionality in iOS and allows for brute forcing of the passcode or password.

      • Police forces around the world continue to deploy facial recognition systems, despite no evidence of their utility

        Last month, this blog wrote about governments around the world continuing to trial facial recognition systems, and the growing concerns this is provoking. There’s one area in particular where facial recognition systems are deployed: law enforcement. That’s hardly a surprise, since the legal system can only operate if it identifies alleged criminals that need to be arrested, tried and punished. But it also emphasizes how facial recognition is seen by many as a natural tool for controlling populations. The most famous example is in China, where facial recognition systems are widely deployed, especially in the turkic-speaking region of Xinjiang. The situation is getting so bad that even Chinese citizens are becoming concerned.

      • Report: Adult Site Leaks Extremely Sensitive Data of Cam Models

        There are at least 875,000 keys, which represent different file types, including videos, marketing materials, photographs, clips and screenshots of video chats, and zip files. Within each zip folder – and there is apparently one zip folder per model – there are often multiple additional files (e.g. photographs and scans of documents), and many additional items that we chose not to investigate.

        The folders included could be up to 15-20 years old, but are also as recent as the last few weeks. Even for older files, given the nature of the data, it is still relevant and of equal impact as newly added files.

      • 2019 End of Year Campaign Wrap Up – Thanks for Helping Tor Take Back the Internet

        Our commitment to privacy extends to our donors. We execute our fundraising in a way that is very different than other nonprofits. We never share your information with third parties. We never receive potential new donor information from outside sources. We do not track the behavior of our donors when you open our emails. We allow donors to choose what information you share with us. You can be more anonymous by sending a money order to our physical address or utilizing cryptocurrency to protect your personal information. Privacy is limited by requirements of the most popular donation methods, PayPal or credit card, but we are committed to offering privacy-preserving methods of making donations.

      • America’s Most Powerful Woman Called Mark Zuckerberg a Crook. Facebook Has No Rebuttal

        “They don’t care about the impact on children. They don’t care about truth,” she said, adding that Facebook’s only interest is turning a profit. Facebook has “schmoozed” the administration—a likely reference to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s secretive dinners with President Trump—because “all they want is their tax cuts and no antitrust action against them.”

        “I think that what they have said very blatantly, very clearly, that they intend to be accomplices for misleading the American people with money from god knows where. They didn’t even check on the money from Russia in the last election. They never even thought they should,” Pelosi said, before returning to the topic at hand, the Senate’s looming impeachment trial.

      • The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It

        Clearview has shrouded itself in secrecy, avoiding debate about its boundary-pushing technology. When I began looking into the company in November, its website was a bare page showing a nonexistent Manhattan address as its place of business. The company’s one employee listed on LinkedIn, a sales manager named “John Good,” turned out to be Mr. Ton-That, using a fake name. For a month, people affiliated with the company would not return my emails or phone calls.

        While the company was dodging me, it was also monitoring me. At my request, a number of police officers had run my photo through the Clearview app. They soon received phone calls from company representatives asking if they were talking to the media — a sign that Clearview has the ability and, in this case, the appetite to monitor whom law enforcement is searching for.

Defence/Aggression

• A Conflict Fueled By Global Warming

  One of the world’s worst humanitarian crises is unfolding on the shores of Lake Chad, according to the United Nations. In Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad, people are suffering from more than just extreme poverty. Boko Haram and other violent Islamist groups combined with corrupt governments and the absence of any functional state administration are making their lives hell — not to mention diseases, natural disasters and overpopulation. All these problems are now being made worse by climate change.

• Gun-Rights Activists Gear Up for Show of Force in Virginia

  Police are scouring the internet for clues about plans for mayhem, workers are putting up chain-link holding pens around Virginia’s picturesque Capitol Square, and one lawmaker even plans to hide in a safe house in advance of what’s expected to be an unprecedented show of force by gun-rights activists.

• City Of Dallas Shuts Down Business Of Man Who Called Cops Over 100 Times In 20 Months To Deal With Criminals Near His Car Wash

  Let’s talk about nuisance abatement laws. These are laws cities can use to shut down businesses that appear to draw more than their fair share of the criminal element.

• Riots in Lebanon’s Capital Leave More Than 150 Injured

  Police fired volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets in Lebanon’s capital Saturday to disperse thousands of protesters amid some of the worst rioting since demonstrations against the country’s ruling elite erupted three months ago. More than 150 people were injured.

• Eminem Attacked for Rapping About 2017 Manchester Arena Bombing

  The latest album by rapper Eminem is facing backlash over lyrics that seemingly make light of the 2017 bombing of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England.

• As Iran and Iraq simmer, giants of Shiite world vie for influence

  “Lots of Iraqis believe in Iran,” says Hisham al-Hashemi, a security analyst with the European Institute of Peace. “They believe in it as an Islamic Revolution, and the right for this revolution to cross borders everywhere.”

• War in Syria drives out Christian community

  The recent history of the Christians of the Khabur Valley is a nightmare in a loop. They are descendants of those who fled Anatolia during the 1915 genocide. Iraq was a first stop for many, but life there was far from easy either. After a massacre in northern Iraq in 1933, many crossed to French-controlled Syria, where they settled along the Khabur River.

  Once a thriving community of 15,000 individuals in the Khabur Valley, local NGOs say there are a “few hundred” left in the area following the IS offensive in 2015.

  “It was IS back in 2015 and it’s very much the same people right now,” said Lunan. Videos continue to emerge of Turkish-backed Islamists committing atrocities against civilians.

Environment

• Michigan’s ‘green ooze’ may be ‘tip of iceberg’ of state’s toxic sites

  The discovery of toxic PFAS chemicals at a contaminated site in Madison Heights could triple the cost of an already expensive cleanup effort, a state official told lawmakers Wednesday.

  And taxpayers could get stuck with the bill to clean up the green ooze site, since it’s unclear if its imprisoned owner can pay for it.

  “Is it $2 million? Is it $20 million? I don’t know, but it’s not in the hundreds of thousands. It’s in the millions,” said Tracy Kecskemeti, southeast district coordinator for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE).

• Brazil’s indigenous communities resist Bolsonaro

  Meanwhile, in southern Brazil, the Kaingang are working to reforest their land with araucaria, an indigenous tree which produces a fruit they can eat and sell, and that supports indigenous wildlife. For Marcio Kokoj of the Kaingang Guarani Indigenous Environmental Association, the Bolsonaro government feels like a throwback to Brazil’s military dictatorship that murdered thousands of indigenous people, drove thousands more from their lands, and tortured many and enslaved others between 1964 and 1985.

  “The greatest concern today is with the attacks on the demarcations of our lands, we therefore need to make self-demarcation,” Kokoj said. “If it depends on Bolsonaro, he will open up areas for large-scale agricultural production, multinationals, mining. That worries us a lot.”

  Self-demarcation is when indigenous communities draw the boundaries of their own territory, often expelling illegal occupants, such as loggers.

• No one will be untouched by a warming planet, scientists say

  Climate change is costing cities as they try to adapt and mitigate. Farmers are facing increasing challenges, which can lead to consumers paying more for food. Extreme weather disasters are on the rise in Canada and costing insurance companies, leading to higher premiums. People are dying in heat waves which are set to become more frequent as the planet warms; and hurricanes are stalling, meaning more people are in danger for longer periods of time.

• With Passage of NAFTA 2.0, Congress Boosts Fossil Fuel Polluters in Mexico

  NAFTA 2.0 cleared another hurdle on January 16 as the U.S. Senate approved the trade deal with bipartisan support.

• This Is Our Last Decade to Get Climate Right

  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in October 2018 that we have 12 years to keep global temperatures increases at 1.5 degrees Celsius or less. Now, we have more like 10 years.

• Activists Find Evidence of Formosa Plant in Texas Still Releasing Plastic Pollution Despite $50 Million Settlement

  Their suit against Formosa Plastics Corp. USA resulted in a $50-million-dollar settlement and a range of conditions in an agreement known as a consent decree. Key among the conditions was the company’s promise to halt releasing the nurdles it manufactures into local waterways leading to the Texas Gulf Coast by January 15.

• Energy

  • How One Utah Community Fought the Fracking Industry — and Won

  • ‘Pete Takes Money From Fossil Fuel Billionaires’: Climate Activists Disrupt Buttigieg Rally in New Hampshire

    “We are really concerned about candidates who have taken money from fossil-fuel executives. So that includes Joe Biden as well as Pete Buttigieg.”

  • Big Oil sponsors Croatia’s EU presidency

    The six-month Croatian presidency of the Council of the EU has signed a deal with the country’s national oil company INA to supply its fuel.
    The part state-owned firm is now designated as the EU council presidency’s “official gasoline supplier” – and comes during the launch of the European Commission’s European Green Deal, a seminal policy that seeks to cut carbon emissions and fossil fuel consumption across the European Union over the next three decades.

    “INA is proud to be official fuel supplier during Croatian’s presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2020. The company will provide fuel for official vehicles,” it said when asked for a comment.
    The deal, described as an in-kind contribution, was confirmed to EUobserver by the secretariat of the Croatian Presidency (EU2020HR) whose spokesperson, in an email, also noted it had signed sponsorship deals with six other Croat companies.

    “The EU2020HR has so far signed seven sponsorship agreements with exclusively Croatian companies. When we complete the list of sponsors full information will be posted on the EU2020HR website,” said the secretariat on Wednesday (15 January).

• Wildlife/Nature

  • Pacific Ocean’s Warm “Blob” Killed a Million Seabirds in One Year

    For this new study, published in the journal PLOS One Wednesday, researchers from the University of Washington, the United States Geological Survey, and other institutions determined that approximately 62,000 murre carcasses had washed ashore from central California through Alaska between the summer of 2015 and spring of 2016.

    In some locations, the number of carcasses was 1,000 times more than normal. In total, the researchers estimate that one million murres died during the time period they studied, making the event the largest mass death of seabirds in recorded history.

  • Victoria Police rejects social media campaign claiming arson caused fires

    Victoria Police say the fires engulfing the eastern part of Victoria are not being treated as the work of arsonists, as claimed by a widespread social media campaign.

    In the past week, a Twitter hashtag #ArsonEmergency – mimicking the popular #BushfireEmergency hashtag – attracted thousands of tweets linking the fires to arsonists and casting doubt on the role of climate change in exacerbating the bushfires’ severity.

    But authorities have moved to dispel those claims.

    “Police are aware of a number of posts circulating in relation to the current bushfire situation, however currently there is no intelligence to indicate that the fires in East Gippsland and north-east Victoria have been caused by arson or any other suspicious behaviour,” a police spokeswoman said.

  • WHEN IT COMES TO THE AUSTRALIAN BUSHFIRES, RUPERT MURDOCH IS AN ARSONIST

    In times of crisis, social media can become a hotbed of misinformation. Often it’s accidental—people sharing faulty information they think is true, based on unconfirmed initial reports, or comical trolling, like the now-nearly-decade-old “shark on the highway” photoshop that gets shared during seemingly every hurricane landfall. But there is increasingly another sort of misinformation, and it’s much more sinister. It’s the deliberate injection of lies, disinformation, employing a combination of high profile trolls and bot armies to wage a public disinformation campaign.

    The bushfires currently engulfing Australia offer an unwelcome example, one that I’m watching from front row seats here in the country. Little did I know when I planned my sabbatical in Sydney to study the impact of climate change on extreme weather events in Australia, that I would be here in the country to witness what is arguably the most profound example yet of that phenomenon. As I write this commentary, I’m looking out at smoke-tinged skies while the faint smell of smoke wafts in through an open window. Living through its consequences, even as we study it, is a recurring irony of climate science in the 21st century.

Finance

• Australia’s Fires Show How Wealth Inequality Compounds Climate Disasters

  This is not the first time that Australia has been devastatingly burned. More than ten years ago, in February 2009, fires in Australia killed 173 people, injured thousands more and destroyed 2,000 homes. The day of the February 2009 blaze, which became known as Black Saturday, constituted the country’s most deadly wildfire event in history. The fires were sudden and moved with alarming speed.

• Of Course There Is a Class War, David Brooks

  Though absolutely wrongheaded and naive, his latest New York Times column is very useful.

• What Is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and Do I Qualify for It?

  ProPublica has covered how budget cuts at the IRS have made it harder for the agency to ensure the billionaires of the world pay up, but the cuts haven’t affected everyone equally.

  In short: Wealthy taxpayers haven’t faced as much scrutiny.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Airbus Asks Court To Dismiss Chuck Yeager’s Lawsuit, Pointing Out It Doesn’t Allege Anything Actionable

  You may recall that last summer we wrote about how American aviation legend Chuck Yeager decided to sue Airbus when the company mentioned the fact that Yeager broke the sound barrier in marketing material. Yeager’s lawyer is Lincoln Bandlow, who has spent much of the past few years as a copyright troll after a formerly respectable career in which he once touted himself a free-speech fighter. His complaint, however, served mostly as comedic material. There were claims of trademark infringement and violation of Yeager’s publicity rights. Neither made much sense, as repeating a historical fact, even in marketing material, does not constitute either violation and is clearly protected speech. It was only a matter of time before Airbus responded and now we have that response.

• Marin to meet with Google, Apple CEOs at Davos conference

  During the 22-24 January conference, Marin also meet with leaders of major tech firms including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft President Brad Smith to discuss “new technologies and data policy, corporate social responsibility, sustainable development and job creation,” the statement says. Google has a major data centre in Hamina, while Microsoft shut down its product development operations in Finland in 2016.

• Harry, Meghan to Give Up Public Funds, ‘Highness’ Titles Under Deal

  Goodbye, your royal highnesses. Hello, life as — almost — ordinary civilians.

• Bernie Sanders Denounces Trump’s Effort to Divide Democrats

  After President Donald Trump earlier in the day accused Democrats in Congress of “rigging the election again against Bernie Sanders,” the 2020 presidential candidate shot back Friday evening to say the president’s effort to divide Democrats would be unsuccessful.

• “Let’s Be Clear About Who Is Rigging What”: Bernie Sanders Denounces Trump Effort to Divide Democrats

  2020 candidate says only reason for impeachment trial is president’s effort to “use the power of the federal government for his own political benefit.”

• Yes Minister Fan Fiction

  I have been rather unwell this last week with atrial fibrillation, and at 5am last Sunday morning had the paramedics out and puzzling over the ECG results. This particularly severe episode was a result of being out in the cold and storm for hours on the AUOB march, and I felt so guilty at being a self-inflicted drain on the NHS that I declined their offer to take me into hospital and decided to recover at home.

• How an Anti-Sexist Candidate Got Smeared as Sexist

  The recent scandal alleging that Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren a woman couldn’t beat Trump captured attention for days. The manufactured narrative shows how the media repeats cynical, bad-faith attacks until they get seen as fact.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Iranian Tech Users Are Getting Knocked Off the Web by Ambiguous Sanctions

  Between targeted killings, retaliatory air strikes, and the shooting of a civilian passenger plane, the last few weeks have been marked by tragedy as tensions rise between the U.S. and Iranian governments. In the wake of these events, Iranians within the country and in the broader diaspora have suffered further from actions by both administrations—including violence and lethal force against protesters and internet shutdowns in Iran, as well as detention, surveillance and device seizure at the U.S. border and exacerbating economic conditions from U.S. sanctions. And to make matters worse, American tech companies are acting on sanctions through an overbroad lens, making it much harder for Iranian people to be able to share their stories with each other and with the broader world.

  The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions that target foreign countries, groups, and individuals. Some of these sanctions impact the export to Iran (or use by residents of the country) of certain types of technology, although trying to parse precisely which types are affected appears to have left some companies puzzled.

• ‘King Of Bullshit News’ Sees His Bullshit Libel Lawsuit Tossed For A Second Time

  Michael Leidig, the owner of Central European News, wasn’t thrilled BuzzFeed called him the “King of Bullshit News” in a 2015 article. The BuzzFeed investigation dug into CEN’s publishing business and found the company did nothing more than generate a steady stream of salacious and rarely plausible “news” stories, which were then picked up by other “news” agencies (Mirror, Sun, etc.) less concerned with accurate reporting than with racking up page views.

• Joe Biden Can’t Tell The Difference Between The 1st Amendment & Section 230; Still Thinks Video Games Cause Violence

  Joe Biden is the latest Democratic candidate for President interviewed by the NY Times editorial board, and if you’re interested in tech policy, well, it’s a doozy. Biden seems confused, misinformed, or simply wrong about a lot of issues from free speech to Section 230 to copyright to video games. It’s really bad. We already knew he was on an anti 230 kick when he gave a confused quote on it late last year, but for the NY Times he goes even further:

• Turkey restores access to Wikipedia after 991 days

  Internet rights group Turkey Blocks first reported the block on April 29 2017, establishing technical evidence of a nationwide restriction in the absence of a court order or official notice. After the initial blocking, authorities explained that the entirety of Wikipedia was restricted because attempts by state officials to amend specific articles via the platform’s own editorial process and legal demands had both been unsuccessful.

  The site uses TLS encryption to enforce HTTPS security, an industry standard that provides user confidentiality and makes it impossible for governments to censor individual web pages. Hence, network operators blocked the entire platform in order to comply with the order. The sites were blocked with a combination of SNI filtering and DNS poisoning at the ISP level, with each telecom operator responsible for technical implementation of restrictions.

• National Archives Censors Anti-Trump Messages from 2017 Women’s March Photo to Avoid ‘Political Controversy’

  A massive, blown-up photo of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, D.C., currently on display in the National Archives, has been altered to remove anti-Trump messages, in order to avoid “political controversy.”

  As reported in the Washington Post, the photograph, taken by Mario Tama for Getty Images, sits near the entrance to a National Archives exhibit on the women’s suffrage movement. But upon closer inspection, it’s clear that the exhibited photo has been quietly changed, with any mentions of President Donald Trump, as well as references to parts of female anatomy like “vagina” and “pussy,” blurred out from the protestors’ signs.

• Librarians, Advocacy Groups Take Action Against Missouri’s Proposed Censorship Legislation

  As news broke about HB 2044, legislation proposed in the state of Missouri which would open wide the doors to rampant censorship of library material and prosecution of librarians, librarians and library advocacy groups got to work.

  “Public libraries already have procedures in place to assist patrons in protecting their own children while not infringing upon the rights of other patrons or restricting materials. The Missouri Library Association will always stand against censorship and for the freedom to read, and therefore opposes Missouri House Bill 2044,” reads the statement from Missouri Library Association president Cynthia Dudenhoffer. “Public libraries exist to provide equitable access to information to all of its users, as it is key to having an informed populace. Missouri Library Association will always oppose legislation that infringes on these rights.”

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• Cambodia: Drop Charges Against 2 Journalists

  Expand

  Former RFA reporters Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin speak to the media outside of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, Aug. 29, 2019.

• Obama Freed Chelsea Manning Three Years Ago. Why Is She Still in Jail?

  The country that Manning stepped into in 2017 was very different from the one she essentially left in 2010. For one, Donald Trump was president, and his administration was already outwardly hostile toward her—only days after he was inaugurated, Trump called Manning an “ungrateful traitor” in a tweet.

• Impeachment trial security crackdown will limit Capitol press access

  “There is no additional safety or security brought by bringing such a device into reporter work space and gives the impression that it is being done mostly to protect Senators from the bright light of the public knowing what they are doing in one of the country’s most important moments,” the Standing Committee of Correspondents wrote in a letter Tuesday to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer.

• EU could force mobile phone manufacturers to standardise chargers

  “To reduce electronic waste and make consumers’ life easier, MEPs want binding measures for chargers to fit all mobile phones and other portable devices,” claims the briefing.

  The parliament plans to vote on the measures in the next month.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Hunger Striker Nearing Death in ICE Custody: “I Just Want Freedom”

  Doctors and advocates for incarcerated immigrants are demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) release five South Asian asylum seekers on hunger strike at a remote ICE jail in Louisiana, where at least three strikers are being force-hydrated and at least two are being force-fed after refusing to eat and drink for over 75 days.

• Russia: Persecution of ‘Undesirable’ Activists

• Biden Prioritizes Israel While Overlooking Daily Anti-Semitism in US

  When, on January 2, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden responded to a questionnaire from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) about anti-Semitism, Zionism, and his relationship to Jews and Jewish culture in the U.S., there was a noticeable absence in his response: practically any mention of American Jews.

• Episode 63 – The Global Crisis of Child Labor Exploitation – Along The Line Podcast

• Tens of Thousands of People Lost Driver’s Licenses Over Unpaid Parking Tickets. Now, They’re Getting Them Back.

  Some 55,000 motorists will regain their right to drive this year after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed legislation Friday that ends the practice of suspending licenses over unpaid parking tickets.

  The law, known as the License to Work Act, goes into effect in July.

• Why China’s move to bar Human Rights Watch chief from Hong Kong was contrary to the city’s Basic Law

  Once again, the Chinese authorities are trying to accuse others for their own failures there – the people of Hong Kong are the loudest and strongest voices demanding democratic freedoms and the rule of law. The current situation is a direct result of Beijing’s increasing encroachment on Hong Kong’s freedoms and its rigid disregard of the legitimate grievances of the Hong Kong people.

• British Police Failed To Stop Muslim Grooming Gang Due To Fears Over “Community Tensions”

  The police operation identified 57 girls who had been exploited, including one who died after being injected with heroin by her abuser, but the case was shut down in 2005 and “very few” offenders were brought to justice.

• Thousands Gather for Women’s March Rallies Across the U.S.

  Thousands gathered in cities across the country Saturday as part of the nationwide Women’s March rallies focused on issues such as climate change, pay equity, reproductive rights and immigration.

• DaBaby Shockingly Caught on Video Assaulting Hotel Worker

  Fresh off a recent arrest, along with other altercations, rapper DaBaby has been caught on video assaulting a hotel worker.

• FBI: Saudi government ‘almost certainly’ helps its citizens escape prosecution in US for serious crimes

  Some of the cases date back 30 years, suggesting the Saudi government had spent decades subverting the U.S. criminal justice system and leaving untold numbers of victims without any recourse.

  In April, a story co-published by The Oregonian/OregonLive and ProPublica showed how the FBI, Homeland Security and other agencies have been aware of the Saudi machinations since at least 2008 yet never intervened.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Verizon Kills Cable Contracts As TV Sector Finally Starts Listening To Cord Cutters. Kind Of.

  Remember cord cutting? The trend that cable and broadcast execs and countless sector analysts spent years claiming either wasn’t real, didn’t matter, or would most certainly end once Millennials started procreating? It set records in 2019, and despite some wishful thinking among cable TV executives, there’s no real sign that the trend is going anywhere thanks to the continued rise of new streaming services.

• ICANN Needs To Ask More Questions About the Sale of .ORG

  Over 21,000 people, 660 organizations, and now six Members of Congress have asked ICANN, the organization that regulates the Internet’s domain name system, to halt the $1.135 billion deal that would hand control over PIR, the .ORG domain registry, to private equity. There are crucial reasons this sale is facing significant backlash from the nonprofit and NGO communities who make the .ORG domain their online home, and perhaps none of them are more concerning than the speed of the deal and the dangerous lack of transparency that’s accompanied it. 

  Less than three months have passed from the announcement of the sale—which took the nonprofit community by surprise—to the final weeks in which ICANN is expected to make its decision, giving those affected almost no chance to have a voice, much less stop it. The process so far, including information that the buyer, Ethos Capital, provided to ICANN in late December, raises more questions than it answers. U.S. lawmakers are correct that “the Ethos Capital takeover of the .ORG domain fails the public interest test in numerous ways.”

Monopolies

• 2019 Income Sources

  Trad pub certainly sells a bunch through Amazon. Traditional publishers put even more effort into diversification than I do. I’m going to assume that they’re at least as successful as I am, and roughly one-third of my trad pub income comes through Amazon. This means Amazon backs roughly 42% of my income.

• Book Review: 3D Printing and Intellectual Property

  One of the subjects that IP laws have had to grapple with in the 21st century is that of 3D printing technology. 3D printers manufacture physical objects based on input from a digital file. The range of 3D printable products includes medical products, aesthetic products, plane parts, toys, buildings, guns etc. With the opportunities offered by 3D printing technology comes the worry from the IP community that the technology is susceptible to abuse and undue exploitation of IP rights. In 3D Printing and Intellectual Property, Lucas S. Osborn explains the technical aspects of 3D printing in plain language before going on to address how various aspects of IP laws (copyright, trademarks, patent and design laws) confronts the issues raised by 3D printing technology. A primer chapter on the foundations of IP law provides a much-needed context for the issues at the root of IP law concerns about 3D printing.

  [...]

  This book will be relevant to a variety of readers: lawyers, lawmakers, policymakers and judges. For its plain, easy-to-read language and its coverage of technical aspects of the 3D printing technology, this book will also be relevant to technologists and artists. Having said that, legal practitioners and scholars in the US, Europe and many countries in the Global North might find the book more relevant than practitioners from the Global South and the African continent, as it focuses on the former jurisdictions.

• Patents

  • Proportionality clause in draft German patent reform bill falls short of not only eBay v. MercExchange but also the EU’s definition

    The debate over a draft patent reform bill presented by the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection is raging. I outlined some fundamental issues on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the ministry has published its draft bill.

    On his (strongly recommended) Comparative Patent Remedies blog, Professor Thomas Cotter indicated my reaction to the draft bill made more sense to him after reading the explanations provided by the ministry. The rationale provided for the measure, and the legislative intent expressed in the “Eckpunktepapier,” are very clear that they don’t mean to change anything about where the case law already stands under the current statutory framework. Yesterday, CIPLITEC hosted a speech by Presiding Judge Ulrike Voss (“Voß” in German) of the Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court (not to be confused for Andreas Voß of the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court, formerly Mannheim Regional Court). The last question an attendee had for the appellate judge was about what the reform bill would change, and essentially she said this:

    There’s the statute, and there’s the rationale given by the ministry. As a judge, she’ll be sure to read the rationale part as well, but the statute will be the law to apply. The rationale says that there’s no intent to change anything, and the language of the statute is consistent with existing case law. Yet the courts may ask themselves whether the fact that the law was amended means that some change of the situation was intended anyway, contrary to the official statement by the ministry. She certainly predicted that the statute would encourage defendants to argue proportionality more frequently than before.

    The judge went on to say that there might be a bit more of an opening for exceptional cases in which the defendant would, on the basis of proportionality, be granted not only a transitional (workaround/”use-up”) period as stated by the Federal Court of Justice in the Heat Exchanger decision, but in some cases might be able to elude injunctive relief on a permanent basis. She did, however, note that “it would take a lot” to get to that point, and in response to a follow-up question agreed that the standard for that would be clearly more demanding than the one for a transitional period. In my opinion, while Heat Exchanger addressed the hypothetical possibility of a use-up period and stopped short of suggesting a permanent denial of injunctive relief, it didn’t preclude that from being the outcome in some extreme cases either. So the door was never closed, but the judge has a point that it may be slightly more open now.

  • Shooting from the Hip and Curing a Premature Appeal

    When I first wrote about Amgen v. Amneal, I focused on the patent law issue regarding Markush groups in the patent claims. Here, I want to circle back to the question appellate jurisdiction. I’ll be teaching the 2nd semester of Civil Procedure at Mizzou this spring and appellate jurisdiction is the the first topic up for grabs.

    Most patent infringement litigation reaches the Federal Circuit under the “final judgment rule” which creates appellate jurisdiction over cases “appealed from a final decision of a district court.” 28 U.S.C. 1295(a)(1). Final decisions “are decisions that end litigation on the merits and leave nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.” Slip op.; Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 467 (1978). Thus, in a patent case involving infringement claims and invalidity defenses, both must be resolved before appeal. (Note here, that there are some, albeit limited, options for interlocutory appeals prior to final judgment).

    [...]

    Too Short Analysis: The Federal Circuit did not cite any precedent or statute to support its conclusion that the oral-argument waiver can cure the lack of final judgment. The procedure principles here fall within the umbrella of “cumulative finality.” Most courts have accepted the notion that a premature appeal can be cured by a subsequent entry of final judgment by the district court. However, some courts have taken an alternative approach.

  • Without eBay factor #2, German patent reform movement is left with nothing but Kremlinology, spin, and self-delusion: licensing vs. injunction

    Thanks to both those favoring and those opposing patent injunction reform in Germany who gave me feedback. What I hear for the most part is that people appreciate my relentless pursuit of harsh analysis. The injunction-related part of the German patent reform bill is redundant boilerplate of the kind that’s not really going to move the needle. Someone has to tell it like it is. The only good news so far is that Ingmar Jung, the rapporteur of the CDU/CSU (= the chancellor’s party) group in the German Federal Parliament, told Handelsblatt that they’re going to “scrutinize and discuss” the proposal.

    I’m quoted in that same article, saying that the proposed reform, a draft version of which was revealed earlier this week, fails to deliver meaningful progress as a prevailing patentee simply needs to make a licensing offer that may be excessive, but just not excessive enough for the court to categorize as unreasonable based on a superficial analysis. In that case, the “infringer” will be considered an “unwilling licensee,” and the injunction will come down regardless of the damage it may do.

    While I agree with at least one of the thought leaders of the reform movement who says that he sorely misses (as do I) a reference to the commercial value of an invention underlying an injunction patent relative to the accused product, even that perspective isn’t comprehensive enough. At the heart of the single biggest issue there’s the total absence, from the statute as well as the government’s rationale, of the second eBay v. MercExchange factor: the requirement for an injunction that monetary relief (= a damages award) be “inadequate” to make the patentee whole. That includes, but is not limited to, the intrinsic value of the invention at issue and its relevance to the accused product.

  • Obstruction Ahead! The IPEC decision in Adolf Nissen Elektrobau v Horizont Group

    As an early Christmas gift, on 18 December 2019, His Honour Judge Hacon handed down a judgment in the matter of Adolf Nissen Elektrobau v Horizont Group. This case concerned the field of electric road traffic signs. Horizont’s UK patent (the ‘Patent’) claimed a board to be mounted on to vehicles which had an arrangement of lights which included flashing directional arrows and a warning cross which was shown in a different colour in a constant light. The benefits of the invention was said to be causing “increased levels of attention” to road users due to the “unusual – and thus unexpected – form and colour”. Oddly the Patent specification described mobile electric road traffic devices that were known in the art as those that include directional arrows and warning crosses both of which flash and are in a yellow colour. This, however, was not in line with UK road traffic regulations which require that the crosses are constant (not flashing) and are red. It was noted in the decision that yellow flashing arrows and crosses are consistent with German road traffic regulations.

    Adolf Nissen (‘Nissen’) sought to revoke Horizont’s Patent for lack of inventive step over three pieces of prior art: DE007 (a German Utility Model), a US Patent (‘Pederson’) and the prior use of one of Nissen’s traffic boards. The court held that Horizont’s Patent was invalid as it lacked inventive step over DE007 and one of Nissen’s traffic boards. DE007 described a panel with flashing lights which could be “interconnected to represent a leftward or rightward arrow or a diagonal cross”. Horizont argued, among other things, that DE007 differed from the Patent as it did not display a constant (i.e. not flashing) red cross. It was held that it would be obvious to adapt DE007 to show a constant red cross as well as flashing yellow arrows as these were conventional road traffic signals in the UK. The skilled person would have known how to achieve this as part of his common general knowledge (‘CGK’) using LEDs of two colours in the spotlights. Further it was held that the any reservations the skilled person might have concerning safety or regulatory approval were not relevant to the assessment of obviousness. Turning to the other successful piece of prior art: Nissen’s traffic board. This was supplied with a purely yellow LED display which contained a full library of possible signs, including a cross or flashing yellow arrows. As this yellow LED display was not in line with UK regulations, it was argued that the skilled person would not find this purely yellow LED display useful and therefore it would be obvious to incorporate red LEDs to allow the optional display of a red cross, so as to comply with UK regulations. This would make the device familiar to UK road users.

  • Help or headache? Counsel share data tips and pitfalls

    Data is providing both headaches and solutions for corporates, according to in-house lawyers, who say that data mining has proven to be a useful means of tracking down infringers.

  • Cross-Licenses, Royalty Stacking, and Patent Disputes

    While the majority of U.S. patent litigation is now NPE litigation (and has been since at least 2009), litigation between operating companies continues to occur at roughly the same rate as it has for the past 20 years. (So much for the idea that IPR or eBay destroyed the ability for patent owners to enforce their intellectual property.)

    These two categories of litigation are often fundamentally different, occurring for completely different reasons. For every Smartphone War, there are dozens of cases that are fundamentally about getting a competitor to pay a little more for the license they were probably already discussing taking. That’s true in cellular technology, but it’s true in a lot of other areas as well, ranging from semiconductor manufacturing to automotive to digital video. It’s relatively rare for an operating company to file a lawsuit without discussing the possibility of a license first—after all, patent litigation is expensive and if you can avoid it, why wouldn’t you? (This is also why large companies employ entire teams of people whose sole job is to make deals to license patents—at least, once they’re aware those patents exist and have a chance to evaluate infringement.)

    But there are a couple of considerations that can make it hard to get to an agreement as to that license. These considerations can result in litigation being filed—and often quickly settled after the parties refocus on negotiations, realizing that they’d far rather have a deal than spend tens of millions on protracted patent litigation.

    [...]

    Another issue is royalty stacking. When you have a complex multi-component product it could potentially require licensing hundreds or thousands of patents. Smartphones might implicate more than 250,000 patents. And if each licensee asks for 1% of the sales price, you can very quickly wind up paying more for licenses than you’ll make from the product—at which point you just don’t make the product. That’s the essence of the royalty stacking problem.

    One analysis, examining the royalty stack problem for smartphones, arrived at an estimate of more than $120 in patent royalties for a $400 smartphone. Each licensee, individually, might only receive $0.50 or $1.00 or $9.00 per phone—but, when summed up, the licenses approach the cost of the hardware. That situation recurs in many consumer products—for example, consumer audio-visual devices may need to license Wi-Fi patents, A/V codecs, user interface patents, and other features, all of which can add up quickly on a $50 or $100 device.

    Effectively, the royalty stacking problem is a species of tragedy of the commons. Licensors are incentivized to extract the highest possible royalty from the manufacturer, but if every licensor does so, they run the risk of the product becoming unprofitable and the manufacturer ceasing to manufacture it. Even worse, licensors generally don’t have knowledge of the total royalty stack of the party they’re negotiating with, meaning that their idea of a reasonable portion of the stack may be very different from what the licensee knows is possible. (And licensees are generally obligated to keep their licenses secret, meaning they can’t share how much they’re paying as a way of reducing this knowledge gap during negotiation.)

    At the end of the day, the licensor may think they’re asking for something reasonable, while the licensee knows the requested royalty is out of line with licenses for similar patents and paying that rate would drive the product into unprofitability, a net loss for all involved. Again, this can make it difficult to reach a settlement.

  • 2020 is set to be a crucial year for Standard-Essential Patent litigation in Europe

    The debate over standard-essential patents (SEPs) is typically distinguished as much by concerns over competition than issues of patent law per se. Erixon argues: ‘…SEP disputes are less concerned about the rights and boundaries of patents, and more about antitrust limits to market behavior.’ At the European level EU institutions acknowledge the policy concern that the owners of patents on technological standards (SEPs) could block competitors from making use of standards, and thus obstruct the development of efficient and thriving ICT and Internet of Things (IoT) sectors, an acute point in the 5G era. The aim is to balance the role of monopolistic patent rights (granted at the non-EU EPO) in the context of the EU’s overriding focus on competition (embedded in Articles 101 to 109 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)).

    The inherent fragmentation of the European patent system, which has significant EU and non-EU aspects, works against the regulatory centralisation typically favoured by the EU. Further fragmentation is caused by the self-regulation model of standard-setting, which occurs at independent standard organisations such as ETSI and ISO. Yet, the EU is still able to exert a great deal of influence – in particular, in disputes over SEPs national courts are obliged to follow the CJEU’s guidance on what amounts to fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing of standard-essential patents (FRAND). At the judicial level, the challenges of resolving this issue are compounded by tension between the CJEU’s role in making prescriptive rulings on matters of intellectual property and the implementation of these rulings by national courts in complex domestic litigation.

    [...]

    Key questions concern the global nature of SEP disputes, the interpretation of the CJEU guidance in Huawei (2015), and assessing the effect of the non-discrimination component of the FRAND (does it mean that materially the same licence terms as offered to Samsung must be offered to Huawei in the circumstances of the Unwired case?). The question of royalty-rate calculation is also the subject of appeal. In a linked case, the UKSC will also decide a case involving Conversant, Huawei and ZTE concerning whether England & Wales is an acceptable forum to decide global patent licensing disputes regarding patents valid in other territories.

    Huawei seeks to overturn the earlier Court of Appeal and High Court rulings that held that seeking a global FRAND licence (rather than a territory-by-territory one) is fair and reasonable approach in the context of SEPs. In this view, if an implementer of the SEP technology refuses a FRAND global licence, an injunction can be sought by the SEP holder and granted by the court (as it will not constitute abuse of dominance). The UKSC will consider whether Unwired Planet, as SEP holder, made use of a ‘time advantage’ to improve its negotiation position.

    Will the decision be handed down before the UK’s formal exit from the EU on 31st January 2020? What could the impact of a ‘no deal’ or ‘bare-bones’ exit mean for the UK’s legal system post-transition at the end of 2020? Could the impact of Brexit mean UK courts choosing (in coming years) to depart from the CJEU’s guidance in Huawei v ZTE and develop an alternative approach? Looking to the year ahead, 2020 ought to bring a measure clarity on at least some these issues.

  • Software Patents

    • $4,000 Cash Prize for Prior Art on Universal Cipher Patent

      On January 17, 2019, Unified added a new PATROLL contest with a $4,000 cash prize for prior art submissions for US 7,721,222. The ’222 patent generally relates to a non-English text generation system by which text can be generated in any language without a keyboard. The ‘222 patent is owned by Universal Cipher, LLC (an NPE) and has been widely asserted in district court. To protect innovation and deter future frivolous assertions, Unified is offering a $4,000 cash prize for the best prior art on this patent.

• Copyrights

  • Learned societies turn against scholarship and join publishers for profit

    Many researchers, including the authors of this post, are members of learned societies whose mission is to support research and advance scholarly values. At the end of last year, we saw these values betrayed when over 100 societies joined with the Association of American Publishers in signing the letter to the White House. It is unsurprising that corporate publishers would resist reform. For them, any change to the rules threatens their profits. But why would learned societies purporting to represent researchers sign on? One reason is that some scholarly societies have come to depend on the lucrative business of journal publishing to subsidize their operations. In the case of one of the signatories, the American Psychological Association, publishing income accounts for ~80% of their revenue. Such learned societies face a dilemma: Their stated mission is to support scholarship, but the funds to do it come from a publishing system that has worked against scholarly values for more than three decades. We are saddened that these societies have decided to side with the publishers against the public interest.

  • Red Hat and IBM Jointly File Another Amicus Brief In Google v. Oracle, Arguing APIs Are Not Copyrightable

    Monday Red Hat and IBM jointly filed their own amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the “Google vs. Oracle” case, arguing that APIs cannot be copyrighted.

    “That simple, yet powerful principle has been a cornerstone of technological and economic growth for over sixty years. When published (as has been common industry practice for over three decades) or lawfully reverse engineered, they have spurred innovation through competition, increased productivity and economic efficiency, and connected the world in a way that has benefited commercial enterprises and consumers alike.”

  • OSI Files Amicus Brief in Supreme Court’s Google v. Oracle

    The Open Source Initiative is proud to join OSI affiliate members Creative Commons, Mozilla Foundation, Software Freedom Conservancy, and Wikimedia Foundation along with other small, medium and open source technology organizations in filing an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief in the Google v. Oracle case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

    In Google v. Oracle, Oracle successfully convinced the appeals court that Google’s reuse of a limited number of Java declarations in its creation of the Android operating system is a copyright infringement and that a jury finding it fair use was mistaken. The brief asks that the Court reverse this decision and confirm that, as has been the common understanding for decades, API interfaces are not copyrightable and that their reuse by others is a fair use under copyright law.

  • Ariana Grande Faces Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Over ’7 Rings’

    A rapper is suing pop star Ariana Grande for copyright infringement, claiming that she copied the chorus of “7 Rings” from one of his songs.

  • ‘Local’ Pirate Sites Are Thriving Around the World

    The Pirate Bay, YTS and Animeflv are well-known pirate brands that are hugely popular in many countries. The same can’t be said for Mrpiracy, Filma24, and Cimaclub. However, the latter and many other ‘local’ sites dwarf these major brands on their ‘own’ turf.

  • ‘Casting Couch’ Movie Company Orders Cloudflare to Unmask Tube Site Pirates

    Adult movie company AMA Multimedia has obtained a DMCA subpoena from a Washington court to help it track down individuals who uploaded content to various ‘tube’ sites. The subpoena orders Cloudflare to hand over the identities of uploaders and potentially site operators too but given the way the content seems to be delivered, it remains a question whether the former will be possible.

  • Manga Scanlation Teams Don’t Want War, They Want Accessible Content

    Huge scanlation platform MangaDex recently revealed that legal pressures had, among things, restricted its ability to receive donations from users. Following our report, a server administrator connected to several other groups gave us additional insight into these anti-piracy efforts. Amid the hostilities, however, it appears that all the scanlation community really wants is to improve the chances of manga titles arriving in the West.

  • Pirated Copy of ’1917′ Leaks in Massive Screener Dump

    Six pirated movie screeners have leaked in the span of just a few hours. The screener dump includes a copy of Golden Globe winner 1917, one of the most prominent leaks thus far. Also notable is the involvement of the group TOPKEK, which hasn’t released any screeners before.

Desktop/Laptop

• Kubuntu Focus Laptop is Now Ready for Pre-Order

  If you’ve ever wanted a KDE-specific, Linux-powered laptop, now’s your chance.

  The Kubuntu Focus is a new Linux laptop effort set to marry the Kubuntu Linux distro and a laptop aimed specifically for gamers, power users, developers, video editors, and anyone who seeks performance and seamless Linux compatibility.

  And now, this brand new laptop is ready for pre-order.

  The laptop was born from a collaboration between Kubuntu, Tuxedo Computers, and MindShareManagement Inc. The Focus will not only highlight the KDE desktop environment, it will be the first officially recognized laptop created specifically for the Kubuntu Linux distribution.

• Kubuntu Focus: A new top-of-the-line Linux laptop arrives

  For years, there have been high-powered Linux laptops like Dell’s XPS 13 Developer Edition, System76′s Serval WS, and ZaReason’s UltraLap 6440 i5, but I’ve never seen anything quite as powerful out of the box as the Kubuntu Focus from the Kubuntu Council, MindShareManagement, and Tuxedo Computer.

  The specs alone are pretty darn impressive. It starts with the CPU. The Focus uses an Intel Core i7-9750H 6 core 4.5GHz Turbo processor. There are faster CPUs out there, but you’re not going to find many of them in a laptop. This is backed up by an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU with 6GB of video RAM.

  To run applications with all that processor power, the Focus comes with 32GB of Dual Channel DDR4 2666 RAM. This, in turn, gets its data from a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe-connected Solid-State Drive (SSD).

  What all that horsepower gives you is an outstanding performance. With the CPU set to ‘Performance’ mode via the CPU frequency widget, GeekBench 5.0.4, I saw single core measurements of 1,292 and a multi-core rating of 5,734. There are maxed up faster desktop systems, but you’d need to look long and hard for laptops that can give it a run for its money.

  That said, you may find yourself using the Focus in desktop mode more often than you’d like. With great power comes great battery drain. Running the machine hard, I saw a battery life of just less than three hours. When not beating the heck out of it, it came in at a respectable three and a half hours. Still, I’m used to getting five or six hours out of a laptop these days.

• Can You Live Without These Five Companies That Rule Your Life?

  Want to get a PC that’s not a Mac or a Windows machine? Well, you’ve got to try using one that runs on Ubuntu or Linux, but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Similarly, good luck trying to get around using Word, Excel and Powerpoint like apps without cozying up to Apple or Google for that.

• I’m still on Windows 7 – what should I do?

  If Windows 10 runs well on your PC, you might decide to pay to authenticate it. If it doesn’t run well, you can still try a different option, such as Linux Mint, Ubuntu LTS or CloudReady.

  Alternatively, keep Windows 7 for offline use, and use a “live Linux” for internet access.

  Many people are familiar with the idea of running Linux from a “live CD” or DVD, which doesn’t interfere with the current desktop operating system. There are not many DVD drives around nowadays, so the modern equivalent is to run it from a thumb-drive. You can create one with a tool such as Rufus or LinuxLive USB Creator. Thumb-drives are slow, so you won’t get great performance, but it will keep you safe online. You’ll also find out if you can live with Linux.

• How to Upgrade From Windows 7 to Linux

  If you’re still using Windows 7 because you just don’t like Windows 10, that’s understandable. But there’s an alternative upgrade path: You can install Linux on your PC for free, and you’ll have a supported operating system that’s still getting updates.

  This is easier than you might think. You can try Linux on your PC before installing it, and you can even install it alongside Windows 7 when you make the leap. Here’s what you need to know.

• How to install Linux on your Chromebook

  Chromebooks can do a lot right out of the box. However, if you want just a little more, you can install Linux apps to most newer models (see the full list here) and have access to a full catalog of desktop-class applications.

  [...]

  The Pixelbook Go is one of the more expensive Chromebooks on the market, but for all you get, it’s worth it. You get an amazing keyboard, great battery life, and an Assistant key that lets you connect to the company’s smart assistant at any time. It is, like we said, pricey, but there are plenty of other great Chromebooks out there if you’re looking for something different.

• 7 Best Windows 7 Alternatives You Can Use After Its Death

  Linux Mint is probably the closest replacement to Windows 7 in terms of look and feel. You get a similar taskbar and a menu bar that looks like the Start Menu. It appears that the initial learning curve won’t be steep as compared to other operating systems.

  To install apps on Linux Mint, you can take the help of the command line, but it also has a full-blown app store for the users.

  In terms of hardware, the popular Linux distro can run smoothly if your machine has 1GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, and 20GB of storage. However, it can manage to run with somewhat less capable hardware as well.

Server

• IBM

  • Red Hat Accelerates Cloud-Native Development with Unified Hybrid Cloud Storage for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

    Enhanced with Multi-Cloud Object Gateway from Red Hat’s 2018 acquisition of NooBaa, Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage 4 offers greater abstraction and flexibility so customers have the freedom to choose data services across multiple public clouds, while still operating from a unified Kubernetes-based control plane for applications and storage. In addition to helping customers avoid public cloud lock-in, this enables developers to keep their data close to applications through improved accessibility, delivering a more efficient developer experience.

    With a consistent Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) interface, enterprises now have built-in object storage and scalability needed to support portability for data-intensive applications across the hybrid cloud on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, previously unavailable through any container storage vendor in the OpenShift OperatorHub.

  • OpenShift and Kubernetes, with Clayton Coleman

    Five years ago, Clayton Coleman took a bet on a new open source project that Google was about to announce. He became the first external contributor to Kubernetes, and the architect of Red Hat’s reinvention of OpenShift from PaaS to “enterprise Kubernetes”. Hosts Adam Glick and Craig Box return for 2020 with the story of OpenShift, and their picks for Game of the Holidays.

  • Command Line Heroes season 4 trailer

    No one ever said hardware was easy. In Season 4, Command Line Heroes is telling 7 special stories about people and teams who dared to change the rules of hardware and in the process changed how we all interact with technology.

    The first episode drops January 28, 2020. Subscribe today and sign up for the newsletter to get the latest updates and bonus content.

  • Deploying applications in the OpenShift 4.3 Developer perspective

    In this article, we take a look at user flow improvements for deploying applications in Red Hat OpenShift 4.3‘s Developer perspective. You can learn more about all of the developer-focused console improvements in the OpenShift 4.3 release article here. Since the initial launch of the Developer perspective in the OpenShift 4.2 release, we’ve had frequent feedback sessions with developers, developer advocates, stakeholders, and other community members to better understand how the experience meets their needs. While, overall, the user interface has been well received, we continue to gather and use the feedback to enhance our flows.

  • A ‘fail fast’ solution for end-to-end machine learning

    Enterprise AI solutions are characterized by an end-to-end workflow that involves data sourcing, querying, ETL, feature engineering, and training the machine learning algorithms. Did you know there’s an end-to-end machine learning pipeline, which can be built using Pythonic frameworks, that allows you to fail fast at TeraScale data levels?

  • Deploying your storage backend using OpenShift Container Storage 4

    This Blog is for both system administrators and application developers interested in learning how to deploy and manage Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage 4 (OCS). This Blog outlines how you will be using OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) 4.2.14+ and the OCS operator to deploy Ceph and the Multi-Cloud Object Gateway as a persistent storage solution for OCP workloads. If you do not have a current OpenShift test cluster, you can deploy OpenShift 4 by going to the OpenShift 4 Deployment page and then follow the instructions for AWS Installer-Provisioned Infrastructure (IPI).

  • What desktop OS do you use at work?

    We have all heard the age-old debate of what is the best operating system user prefer. Windows or Mac? Linux or nothing. The funny thing about this question is that in many places of business, the user does not get a choice. You are handed a laptop when you start and may be stuck with whatever is preloaded onto the machine. In some cases, you’re not even allowed to run something else in a virtual machine.

Audiocasts/Shows

• Destination Linux 156 – CES 2020, Disaster Recovery Tips, Fallback Safe Distros?, Firefox

  Topics covered in this episode:
  openEuler
  New Firefox 72 Released
  Linus Say No To ZFS In Kernel
  New Dell Linux Laptop
  Nvidia Wakes Up

• No, But | User Error 83

  Context switching, improving Linux conferences, a positive approach to life, what makes us cringe, and more.

  #ErrorAsk: What’s the dumbest idea for an app that you can come up with?

• LHS Episode #321: The Weekender XL

  It’s time once again for The Weekender. This is our bi-weekly departure into the world of amateur radio contests, open source conventions, special events, listener challenges, hedonism and just plain fun. Thanks for listening and, if you happen to get a chance, feel free to call us or e-mail and send us some feedback. Tell us how we’re doing. We’d love to hear from you.

• 2020-01-17 | Linux Headlines

  Nextcloud announces exciting changes to the platform, Puppet is now releasing both faster and slower, DigitalOcean?s restructuring is resulting in layoffs, and Fedora CoreOS reaches production-ready status.

• Infrastructure Engineer: Seth McCombs | Jupiter Extras 47

  Ell and Wes are joined by Infrastructure Engineer Seth McCombs for a chat about how he got started in tech, the hard transition from legacy data centers to the cloud, and why being honest about both success and failure can lead to a better open source community.

• 5 Things I Hate About Linux

  So I love Linux for my daily desktop driver, but there are some things that I hate about it. Here are the 5 things that I wish were different.

Kernel Space

• Graphics Stack

  • Red Hat Recommends Disabling The Intel Linux Graphics Driver Over Hardware Flaw

    It’s been another day testing and investigating CVE-2019-14615, a.k.a. the Intel graphics hardware issue where for Gen9 all turned out to be okay but for Gen7 graphics leads to some big performance hits. Besides the Core i7 tests published yesterday in the aforelinked article, tests on relevant Core i3 and i5 CPUs are currently being carried out for seeing the impact there (so far, it’s looking to be equally brutal).

    The contents of CVE-2019-14615 are still marked private, but the Red Hat Customer Portal has opened their guidance on this graphics flaw. Red Hat rates this CVE as having moderate impact. This Red Hat bug report does shed some more light onto the issue.

  • Mir 1.7 Released With Improvements For Running X11 Software

    Mir 1.7 was released today as the newest feature release for this Ubuntu-focused display stack that for the past two years now has focused on serving viable Wayland support.

    With the Mir 1.7 release there are a number of X11 client improvements, including the ability to show basic window decorations, a new configuration knob for specifying the XWayland executable to utilize for the support, and various code clean-ups.

  • Panfrost: Liberating ARM GPUs @ Linux Conf Au

    This talk covers the history, future and internals of the Panfrost driver for ARM GPUs.

  • Raspberry Pi 4 V3D Driver Reaches OpenGL ES 3.1 Conformance

    The V3D Gallium3D driver that most notably offers the open-source graphics support for the Raspberry Pi 4 is now an official OpenGL ES 3.1 implementation.

    Consulting firm Igalia has continued working on the V3D driver since Eric Anholt left Broadcom. Igalia had ironed out OpenGL ES 3.1 support and last month also went on to begin tackling geometry shaders and more.

  • Iago Toral: I am working on the Raspberry Pi 4 Mesa V3D driver

    Yeah… this blog post is well overdue, but better late than never! So yes, I am currently working on progressing the Raspberry Pi 4 Mesa driver stack, together with my Igalian colleagues Piñeiro and Chema, continuing the fantastic work started by Eric Anholt on the Mesa V3D driver.

    The Raspberry Pi 4 sports a Video Core VI GPU that is capable of OpenGL ES 3.2, so it is a big update from the Raspberry Pi 3, which could only do OpenGL ES 2.0. Another big change with the Raspberry Pi 4 is that the Mesa v3d driver is the driver used by default with Raspbian. Because both GPUs are quite different, Eric had to write an all new driver for the Raspberry Pi 4, and that is why there are two drivers in Mesa: the VC4 driver is for the Raspberry Pi 3, while the V3D driver targets the Raspberry Pi 4.

  • Raspberry Pi 4 V3D driver gets Geometry Shaders

    I actually landed this in Mesa back in December but never got to announce it anywhere. The implementation passes all the tests available in the Khronos Conformance Tests Suite (CTS). If you give this a try and find any bugs, please report them here with the V3D tag.

  • Raspberry Pi 4 V3D driver gets OpenGL ES 3.1 conformance

    So continuing with the news, here is a fairly recent one: as the tile states, I am happy to announce that the Raspberry Pi 4 is now an OpenGL ES 3.1 conformant product!. This means that the Mesa V3D driver has successfully passed a whole lot of tests designed to validate the OpenGL ES 3.1 feature set, which should be a good sign of driver quality and correctness.

    It should be noted that the Raspberry Pi 4 shipped with a V3D driver exposing OpenGL ES 3.0, so this also means that on top of all the bugfixes that we implemented for conformance, the driver has also gained new functionality! Particularly, we merged Eric’s previous work to enable Compute Shaders.

Benchmarks

• Intel graphics patch “wrecks” Gen7 iGPU Linux performance

  Earlier this week Intel released details about a vulnerability in its integrated graphics hardware. Its advisory ID was INTEL-SA-00314 and it talked about the CVE-2019-14615 vulnerability. Products from 3rd Gen Core up to 10th Gen are affected including the contemporaneous Xeon, Pentium, Celeron and Atom products. Intel was made aware of this vulnerability as far back as August so already has patches available and links to recommended new drivers for both Windows and Linux users (scroll down this page about half way).

  All so regular and nothing surprising so far… However, since the updated drivers have been released, Linux-centric tech site Phoronix has been busy checking and testing the new drivers (on Linux of course) to see if there are any performance penalties, or other aberrations, delivered with the vulnerability patches.

  Intel describes the CVE-2019-14615 vulnerability as follows: “Insufficient control flow in certain data structures for some Intel Processors with Intel Processor Graphics may allow an unauthenticated user to potentially enable information disclosure via local access.” Please note the key phrase – local access – but Phoronix thinks that WebGL within web browsers is another possible attack vector.

  In its Linux testing, Phoronix was initially unperturbed by results on processors sportin

• Intel’s Mitigation For CVE-2019-14615 Graphics Vulnerability Obliterates Gen7 iGPU Performance

  Yesterday we noted that the Linux kernel picked up a patch mitigating an Intel Gen9 graphics vulnerability. It didn’t sound too bad at first but then seeing Ivy Bridge Gen7 and Haswell Gen7.5 graphics are also affected raised eyebrows especially with that requiring a much larger mitigation. Now in testing the performance impact, the current mitigation patches completely wreck the performance of Ivybridge/Haswell graphics performance.

  The vulnerability being discussed and analyzed this week is CVE-2019-14615. This CVE still hasn’t been made public over 24 hours later (though there are the Intel SA-00314 details for this disclosure), but from going through kernel patches and other resources, it certainly caught our interest right away and have been benchmarking it since yesterday evening. The CVE-2019-14615 vulnerability amounts to a new information disclosure issue due to insufficient control flow in certain data structures. Local access is required for exploiting this control flow issue in the hardware, but it’s not yet known/published if say WebGL within web browsers could exploit this issue. This is a hardware issue with all operating systems being affected. Our testing today, of course, is under Linux.

Applications

• The 15 Best Physics Tools for Linux System in 2020

  There are different types of applications of Linux physics software in the study and research of theoretical and applied physics. So, it’s very difficult to call a single piece of software the best. Here we have enlisted a collection of 15 best Physics tools for Linux.

  Some of them are for analyzing data, some for numerical applications, some for simulation, and even some will help you in programming the solution of different physics-related problems. We are certain that no matter what your requirement is, you are going to love this curated collection of Linux physics software.

• 11 Best Web Browsers I Discovered for Linux in 2020

  Web Browser is a software that provides an interface to surf the web. With an introduction in around 1991, there development and advancement have advanced many folds till the current stage which we see today.

  Earlier there used to be mostly text-based sites with few having images and graphical content, hence only text-based browsers sufficed with some of the early browsers being: Lynx, Netscape, and Opera.

  But, with the advancement of technology to support audio, video, images and even flash content, browsers also need to be that advanced to support such content. This has pushed the advancement of browsers to what we see today.

  A modern browser requires the support of many software which include: web browser engines like Geeko, Trident, WebKit, KHTML, etc, Rendering engine to render the web site content and display in a proper format.

  Linux being an open-source community gives freedom to developers across the globe to experiment with features they expect from an ideal browser.

• Get started with this open source to-do list manager

  Last year, I brought you 19 days of new (to you) productivity tools for 2019. This year, I’m taking a different approach: building an environment that will allow you to be more productive in the new year, using tools you may or may not already be using.

Instructionals/Technical

• How to install the latest Kali Linux

• Id command in Linux

• How to check the installed RAM on Debian 10

• How to Update All Packages on OpenSUSE

• [Older] How to Copy Files and Folders on Linux Using the cp Command

• How to Install Atom Editor on Linux Mint 19

• How to Install OpenLiteSpeed HTTP Server with PHP on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

• How to Install Tomcat 9 on Fedora 31

• Troubleshooting Ansible errors

• DuckDuckGo Bangs – Search Directly On Your Favorite Websites

• Plug and play support for (Gaming) keyboards with a builtin LCD panel

• Boooted as EFI/UEFI or BIOS

• Comparing perf.data files with perf-diff

• 3 Methods to Install the Latest PHP 7 Package on CentOS/RHEL 7 and CentOS/RHEL 6

• Yum-cron – Install Security Updates Automatically in CentOS 7

• Dell Inspiron 20 3048 All-In-One Desktop SSD Upgrade

• What is the difference between Non-Login and Login, Non-Interactive and Interactive shell sessions in Linux/Ubuntu/Debian

• How To Install Gitea on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

• Linux find Windows 10 OEM product key command

• Protects Linux machines from accidental shutdowns/reboots with molly-guard

• LibreOffice Writer: Inserting Tables

• Locking and unlocking accounts on Linux systems

• Crostini Linux disk space resizing is coming to Chrome OS

• How to Benchmark Hard Disks in Linux

• How to Permanently Install Ubuntu on Any External Drive Using VirtualBox

• How to Set Environment Variables in Linux

• .NET Core on Red Hat platforms

• How to use Wget Command in Linux with Examples

• Route command in Linux

• Install Jira on Ubuntu with Nginx, RDS and Let’s Encrypt SSL – AWS

• All About Debian /etc/network/interfaces File

• Command Line Apps to Perform a Internet Speed Test on Linux

• How to Find Files in Linux Using the find Command

• How to use the KDE Plasma 5 clipboard manager

• Add a new user account with admin access on Linux

• Linux / Unix Rsync Copy Hidden Dot Files and Directories Only

• Exporting github repositories to myrepos

• How to add a host to Observium

• How to install Akaunting free accounting software on Ubuntu Linux

• 8 Practical Examples of the usermod Command in Linux

  The usermod command in Linux allows you to modify a user account in various ways. Check out what settings you can modify in this tutorial.

Games

• Godot Engine 3.2 is almost here with a first Release Candidate

  Godot Engine, the quickly improving free and open source game engine is getting real close to a major release with the first Release Candidate now up for Godot 3.2.

  What was suppose to be a reasonable small release, has grown into something rather large with a lot of new features coming in to help developers make their games. With thousands of code commits by hundreds of different developers to the point that they expect Godot 3.2 to be “much more mature than 3.1 in all aspects”.

• RELEASE CANDIDATE: GODOT 3.2 RC 1

• The hero is dead so it’s up to you to fix a glitched world – Lenna’s Inception is out now

  In Lenna’s Inception you will be exploring a little island, filled full of dangerous dungeons as you work to bring order to a kingdom falling apart from glitches. Designed in a way that’s much like classic Zelda titles, however it has a clever idea of letting you play through in either 8-bit or 32-bit pixel art styles and they each have a distinct soundtrack.

• Detailed open-world space sandbox game ‘Avorion’ leaving Early Access soon

  Boxelware have announced that Avorion, their procedural co-op space sandbox where you build your own spaceship will leave Early Access soon.

  After being in development for years, first appearing on Steam in early 2017 it’s been seriously fun to watch it grow into such a massive game. Incredibly fun too.

• Wizard of Legend gets a little electric in a huge content update out now

  Contingent99 just released a massive upgrade to Wizard of Legend, their fast-paced magical action game and it continues to be brilliant.

  The Thundering Keep update brings in an entirely new stage complete with new enemies and a big boss battle which should make runs through it more interesting. Also added in this update you will find over 20 new Arcana (card spells), over 30 new Relics (items you equip to buff you up), new special moves, new outfits and plenty of balance changes and bug fixes.

• Google is Reportedly Working to Bring Steam Support to Chromebooks

  It would appear that Google is working to bring official Steam support to its Linux-based Chrome OS operating system for supported Chromebook devices.

  According to a report from the Android Police website, Kan Liu, director of product management for Google’s Chrome OS, revealed the fact that Steam support could be enabled on Chrome OS in the near future by taking advantage of the implementation of support for Linux apps that landed in Chrome OS last year.

  While this might come as good news for Chromebook owners, the fact of the matter is that Chrome OS devices aren’t powerful enough to support many of the games available on Steam. If Steam comes to Chrome OS, most probably Google will only enable it only on its most powerful Chromebooks.

  Kan Liu did not said when Steam will be coming to Chrome OS, and neither Google or Valve have confirmed this news. However, it looks like Google will be working directly with Valve to enable official Steam support on Chrome OS, and Google is working to release more powerful Chromebooks this year.

• Steam reportedly coming to Chrome OS – Linux gaming across even more devices

  Android Police have an article up mentioning that Google is reportedly working on getting Steam working officially and supported on Chrome OS. While the details of this are a little sketchy, since neither Valve or Google have announced this, Android Police claim they spoke directly to Kan Liu at CES, the Director of Product Management for Google’s Chrome OS who told them of their plans to make it happen.

  Note: You can get Steam working on it in some form with some manual effort now, although it’s not great. This seems to be about making it all official. Having it properly integrated, enabling ease of use would be good, part of what Chrome OS is supposed to be about?being simple and easy.

• Exclusive: Google is working to bring official Steam support to Chrome OS

  Last week in Las Vegas while at CES, I spoke with Kan Liu, Director of Product Management for Google’s Chrome OS. In a wide-ranging discussion about the Chrome platform and ecosystem, Liu dropped something of a bombshell on me: the Chrome team is working—very possibly in cooperation with Valve—to bring Steam to Chromebooks.

  Liu declined to provide a timeline for the project, but did confirm it would be enabled by Chrome OS’s Linux compatibility. The Steam client would, presumably, run inside Linux on Chrome—a platform for which it is already available. Liu implied, though would not directly confirm, that Google was working in direct cooperation with Valve on this project. Valve’s motive here is largely in being the first major gaming storefront on a platform that, to date, has had no compatibility with mainstream PC or console releases. Valve also seems like a good fit, as the company has no particular loyalty to any one platform, and is increasingly facing competition from players like Epic and Microsoft on its most popular OS, Windows. Currently, it is possible to install the Steam Linux client on Chrome OS using the Crostini Linux compatibility layer, but there’s no official support, and performance has been pretty lamentable even when comparing identical Linux-native systems to Chrome. Even getting games running in a remotely playable way is kind of a nightmare.

• A Long Way Down blends together Slay the Spire card combat with maze building – now in Early Access

  One thing is for sure, Slay the Spire truly has kicked off a deck-building indie game revolution of sorts. More and more are releasing with deck-building and A Long Way Down seems like one of the better ones so far. Note: Key provided by the publisher, Goblinz Studio.

  Quite derivative I would say though, in the nicest way possible. The deck-building card-based combat from Slay the Spire is merged in with maze building in a similar fashion to what’s seen in Guild of Dungeoneering.

• The Humble Australia Fire Relief Bundle is up with 100% going to charity

  Humble are back with a new bundle, although this is a 100% charity bundle to help deal with the sad situation in Australia.

  The Humble Australia Fire Relief Bundle only has one tier at $25, which does include quite a lot of games. Here’s what’s included, I’ve highlighted in bold text those with Linux support….

• Google plan over 120 Stadia games this year, 10 coming to Stadia before other platforms

  In their latest community update, the Stadia Team have given a small insight into what’s coming to the Linux-powered game streaming service Stadia across 2020.

  Missed our first impressions of Stadia? Check them out here.

  They said “more than” 120 games will be coming to Stadia this year, more interestingly though they also mentioned that 10 will be arriving in the “first half of this year” that will “only” be on Stadia when they launch. So that’s presumably some timed-exclusives they have going. No names were mentioned, so we just have to wait and see.

• Move over Sonic, Surge has arrived with Open Surge – a game engine and retro platformer

  I grew up playing the early Sonic games so Open Surge really speaks to me. A retro Sonic-inspired platformer (that’s actually quite polished already) and a game engine for others to create with it.

  Open Surge is free and open source software (GPL license), so anyone can grab it from GitHub and do whatever they wish. Written from scratch in C, using the cross-platform Allegro programming library.

• Boxtron, the Steam Play tool to run games through a native DOSBox on Linux has a new release

  Boxtron is another awesome Steam Play tool! Covered here a few times now, like Proton it enables you to play games on Linux that don’t have a Linux build setup on Steam only this is for DOSBox games.

  Rather than running DOSBox-powered games on Steam through Proton when they don’t have a Linux build of it all up, using Boxtron should give a better experience.

  Today a new release went up with Boxtron 0.5.4 fixing multiple issues including: games that use multiple CD images not starting like The Dame Was Loaded (and probably other FMV titles), they tweaked Retro City Rampage 486 to use “aspect=false”, several bugs around parsing user-supplied regex for MIDI synthesiser detection were fixed, they also fixed a bug preventing MIDI port detection if there are no soundfonts installed and there’s now several fallback soundfont names for various Linux distributions.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• Xfce 4.16 is Adopting Client Side Decoration by Default

  Xfce 4.16 will look a little different to long time users when it arrives later this year, as the popular desktop environment is adopting client side decoration by default.

  But before you cry tears over the loss of traditional app menus I should stress that the plan is to go full CSD, not full GTK header. It’s a subtle sounding difference, but an important one.

  Xfce 4.16 is switching to GTK header bars, but they’re more commonly referred to as client side decoration (CSD) as window borders are rendered client side (GTK), not by the window manager.

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • KPatience added to flathub. Which app should be next?

    This week we added KPatience to flathub.

    That makes for a quite a few applications from KDE already in flathub

  • KDE Connect Website SoK 2020 Week 1

    It had been great fun working with KDE Community on my SoK 2020 Project that is making a Website to promote KDE Connect. I started early off making the website from December by having a lot of discussion with my mentors Carl Schwan and Piyush Aggarwal, and the KDE Connect Developers. They were all very supportive and provided very constructive feedback. So when the project got accepted last week a lot of the work was already over. My proposal included the more work that is required on the website and taking the website to as much perfection as possible.

  • Plasma 5.18 LTS Beta (5.17.90) Available for Testing

    Are you using Kubuntu 19.10 Eoan Ermine, our current Stable release? Or are you already running our development builds of the upcoming 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa?

    We currently have Plasma 5.17.90 (Plasma 5.18 Beta) available in our Beta PPA for Kubuntu 19.10.

    The 5.18 beta is also available in the main Ubuntu archive for the 20.04 development release, and can be found on our daily ISO images.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • PaperWM: tiled window management for GNOME

    When I started using Linux on my personal computer, one of the first things I got excited about was tiny lightweight window managers, largely because my laptop at the time had 32MB of RAM and anything else was unusable.

    Then I got into tiling window managers like xmonad! I could manage my windows with my keyboard! They were so fast! I could configure xmonad by writing a Haskell program! I could customize everything in all kinds of fun ways (like using dmenu as a launcher)! I used 3 or 4 different tiling window managers over the years and it was fun.

    About 6 years ago I decided configuring my tiling window manager wasn’t fun for me anymore and switched to using the Ubuntu stock desktop environment: Gnome. (which is much faster now that I have 500x more RAM in my laptop )

    So I’ve been using Gnome for a long time, but I still kind of missed tiling window managers. Then 6 months ago a friend told me about PaperWM, which lets you tile your windows in Gnome! I installed it immediately and I’ve been using it ever since.

  • Alberto Ruiz: GTK: OSX a11y support

    Everybody knows that I have always been a firm believer in Gtk+’s potential to be a great cross platform toolkit beyond Linux. GIMP and Inkscape, as an example, are loyal users that ship builds for those platforms. The main challenge is the short amount of maintainers running, testing and improving those platforms.

    Gtk+ has a few shortcomings one of them, one of the biggest ones is lack of a11y support outside of Linux. Since I have regular access to a modern OSX machine I decided to give this a go (and maybe learn son Obj-C in the process).

    So I started by having a look at how ATK works and how it relates to the GTK DOM, my main goal was to have a GTK3 module that would walk through the toplevels and build an OSX accessibility tree.

Distributions

• Introducing Zorin Grid: Manage All of Your Organization’s Computers as Easily as One.

  We’ve been working on a major new product over the past 2 years, and we’re excited to finally introduce it to you today.

  Since the beginning of the Zorin OS project in 2008, our mission has always been to bring the power of Linux to people who’ve never had access to it before. It has been downloaded millions of times since then, helping countless users switch to Linux and giving them a better, easier, and more secure computing experience.
  Now, we’re moving onto the next part of the Zorin OS master plan: to bring Linux into the working world; into businesses, schools, and organizations. We’re making this possible with the help of our new product called Zorin Grid.

• Zorin OS Makes It Easy to Deploy Linux-Powered Computers in Schools, Businesses

  The Zorin OS development team announced today a new tool to make it easier for organizations to deploy a fleet of Linux-powered computers and administrate them from a a centralized place.

  Meet Zorin Grid, an in-house built tool whose whole purpose is to make it simple for IT administrators to set up, manage, and secure a fleet of Linux-powered computers in any type of organization, including small and medium sized businesses or schools and universities. The tool also provides a centralized place to administrate all these computers.

  “We’ve been working on a major new product over the past 2 years, and we’re excited to finally introduce it to you today. We’re moving onto the next part of the Zorin OS master plan: to bring Linux into the working world; into businesses, schools, and organizations. We’re making this possible with the help of our new product called Zorin Grid,” reads today’s announcement.

• Meet Zorin Grid: A Slick Linux Desktop Management Tool For Schools And Businesses

  Zorin Grid is aimed specifically at organizations still running Windows 7 who want an alternative to upgrading or buying new hardware with Windows 10.

  In a nutshell, Zorin Grid is a cloud-powered tool with the intention of making it simple to set up, manage, monitor and secure a fleet of Zorin OS computers. The Zorin team says it’s like “putting your PCs on auto-pilot.” The concept seems very similar to the Google Management Console, which lets an entire fleet of Chromebooks be managed from a single device.

  From the announcement: “Imagine all of your organization’s computers working in concert. When you choose to install an app or make a new security policy, it’s deployed to your fleet automatically. It’s just as easy to manage computers that are off-site as on-premises. Fully-owned or BYOD. And all of this is accessible anytime, anywhere, in the cloud.”

  For the past 2 years, the Zorin team has been working with various organizations, soliciting feedback and building Zorin Grid.

• Screenshots/Screencasts

  • KDE Plasma 5.18 Beta Run Through

    In this video, we are looking at KDE Plasma 5.18 Beta.

• SUSE/OpenSUSE

  • Martin de Boer: Comparing uptime performance monitoring tools: StatusCake vs Freshping vs UptimeRobot

    When you host your own website on a Virtual Private Server or on a DigitalOcean droplet, you want to know if your website is down (and receive a warning when that happens). Plus it’s fun to see the uptime graphs and the performance metrics. Did you know these services are available for free?

    I will compare 3 SaaS vendors who offer uptime performance monitoring tools. Of course, you don’t get the full functionality for free. There are always limitations as these vendors like you to upgrade to a premium (paid) account. But for an enthousiast website, having access to these free basic options is already a big win!

    I also need to address the elephant in the room: Pingdom. This is the golden standard of uptime performance monitoring tools. However, you will pay at least €440 per year for the privilege. That is a viable option for a small business. Not for an enthousiast like myself.

    The chosen free alternatives are StatusCake, Freshping and UptimeRobot. There are many other options, but these ones are mentioned in multiple lists of ‘the best monitoring tools’. They also have user friendly dashboards. So let’s run with it.

  • Vinzenz Vietzke: Running for openSUSE Board #2: Questions and Answers

    Already in the beginning of 2019 I have been a candidate for the board of openSUSE. Since there are now two places open again, I am again available for the task and run for election.

    A general overview of my ideas and goals can be found here.

    In the run-up to the election all candidates of the community are of course open for questions. I have answered a catalogue of 5 questions from Gerald Pfeifer, currently chairman of the board, and would like to make it available here.

  • Q&A for openSUSE Board elections

    Our openSUSE Chairman has some questions for the candidates for the openSUSE Board. My answers are here:

• Fedora Family

  • Fedora CoreOS out of preview

    The Fedora CoreOS team is pleased to announce that Fedora CoreOS is now available for general use. Here are some more details about this exciting delivery.

    Fedora CoreOS is a new Fedora Edition built specifically for running containerized workloads securely and at scale. It’s the successor to both Fedora Atomic Host and CoreOS Container Linux and is part of our effort to explore new ways of assembling and updating an OS. Fedora CoreOS combines the provisioning tools and automatic update model of Container Linux with the packaging technology, OCI support, and SELinux security of Atomic Host. For more on the Fedora CoreOS philosophy, goals, and design, see the announcement of the preview release.

  • Fedora CoreOS Now Deemed Production Ready For Containerized Workload Experience

    Fedora CoreOS has graduated out of its preview state and is now considered ready for general use.

    Fedora CoreOS is the spin of the Red Hat sponsored Linux distribution focused on running containerized workloads and succeeds the earlier Fedora Atomic Host initiative as well as CoreOS Container Linux.

  • Fedora program update: 2020-03

    I will not hold office hours next week due to travel, but if you’ll be at DevConf.CZ, you can catch me in person.

• Debian Family

  • Debian Xfce vs Gnome

    XFCE is a light desktop environment compatible with low resource systems while keeping a nice visual interface and effects like screen rotation and transparency. Xfce is extremely user friendly and it is a lot more user friendly than new GNOME versions for PC users without touch screen.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • Elementary OS 6 will be based on Focal Fossa Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Version!

    Elementary OS 6: The Co-founder and CXO of Elementary OS Cassidy James Blaede says, Elementary OS 6 will be based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa version. He also mentioned that the developers are working furiously to make the Elementary OS 6 more convenient and bug-free. The exact words from him are,

    Elementary OS 6. elementary OS is based on the Ubuntu LTS core and repositories under the hood. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS will be coming out this year, and subsequently, we plan to release elementary OS 6 with a 20.04 base.Cassidy James Blaede

  • Elementary OS 6 Will Release with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Base

    As Ubuntu 20.04 LTS is under the UI development phase with a recent desktop theme update, Cassidy James Blaede, Co-founder & CXO, mentioned in his latest blog that Elementary OS 6 will release with a 20.04 base.

    Reviewing 2019 and listing the great accomplishments and improvements along with the major release of elementary OS 5.1 Hera that broke the previous first-month downloads, his team has designed significant 2020 goals for making life much more comfortable with elementary OS.

Devices/Embedded

• Cloud-based test farm lets you check out edge AI software on Linux dev boards

  FØCAL is a profiling and automated test farm platform based on Docker and LTTng for testing Linux edge AI software on the BeagleBone, Raspberry Pi, Jetson, Up Squared, and Google Coral.

  A venture-backed startup called FØCAL has launched a cloud-based test farm of the same name designed for hardware/software codesign of Linux-based edge AI and computer vision applications. The test farm offers testing on common Linux hacker boards for a flat price of $0.10 an hour

• Slim-height Whiskey Lake embedded PC doubles as panel PC

  Cincoze’s rugged “P2102” computer has an 8th Gen U-series CPU with up to 64GB DDR4, triple displays, 2x SATA, 2x GbE, 3x USB 3.2 Gen2, 2x mini-PCIe, and M.2 plus support for optional touchscreen modules. A P2102E model adds PCI/PCIe x4 and optional PoE.

  Cincoze announced a P2100 Series of rugged, industrial computers starting with P2102 and P2102E models that run on Intel’s 8th Gen Whiskey Lake UE SoCs with 15W TDPs. The company refers to the 254.5 x 190 x 41.5mm, 2.2 kg P2102 and PCI/PCIe x4 enabled, 254.5 x 190 x 61mm, 2.7 kg P2102E as mini-PCs, but we would call them fanless, compact industrial computers.

• Krescue for Khadas VIM Boards Enables Backup/Restore of eMMC flash, Access to the Terminal, and More

• Snekboard Controls LEGO Power Functions with CircuitPython or Snek Programming Languages (Crowdfunding)

• NanoPi R2S Dual Gigabit Ethernet SBC & Router is Powered by Rockchip RK3328 SoC

  FriendlyElec launched NanoPi R1S router with two Ethernet ports based on either Allwinner H3 or H5 processor coupled with 512MB RAM last November.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Apple may be forced by EU to replace iPhone charger with Android equivalent

  • Data Doctors: How to screen record on iPhone, Android

  • How to set up a Wear OS smartwatch with your Android phone

  • How to Stream Your Xbox One to Your Android Phone or Tablet

  • How to reset your Android device and erase your personal data

  • 7 Android tricks the iPhone doesn’t have, and how to do them

  • 10 Android 10 features to look for when your phone gets updated

  • Firefox for Android migration is about to begin

  • Firefox Nightly for Android will move to the revamped Preview version on January 21

  • [Closed beta] Xiaomi Mi A3 Android 10 update allegedly available to a selected number of people in India

  • Realme 3 Pro receives stable update to Realme UI and Android 10

  • Leaked Galaxy S20 spec sheet details huge screens, big batteries, Android 10, more

  • Rumor | The Xiaomi Pocophone F1 may get Android 10 “by February”

  • Today’s Tablet Sales: iPads, Amazon Fire, Android Tablets Best Deals [Updated]

  • Android users can now experience the joy of being negged by Co—Star

  • PinePhone’s Linux and privacy-centric $150 smartphone begins shipping to early adopters

    PINE64, a company that embraces an open and community-driven platform for hardware and software, has begun shipping its first batch of PinePhones, the $150 “BraveHeart” editions. The PinePhone is a Linux-based and developer-focused smartphone, and the BraveHeart in particular is an early-adopter model for the most dedicated of Linux and open-platform users.

    The PinePhone arrives without any software preloaded, and users are expected to flash their OS of choice to the device. The Linux community has a wide swath of OS options that are all in various stages of development, so this blank slate of a phone will be an excellent testbed for their future releases. The components are definitely geared toward testing instead of performance, as it comes with a 5.95″ LCD screen, a quad-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex A-53 processor, 16GB of memory, 2GB of RAM, a rear 5MP camera, and a 2MP front-facing shooter. A 3000 mAh battery powers it all and the phone supports USB-C charging at up to 15W – 5V 3A, a surprising addition given the rest of the mediocre specs. The order page even has a prominent warning that small amounts of dead pixels and other imperfections are to be expected due to the low cost and development-minded nature of the device.

  • The PinePhone begins delivery—a Linux-powered smartphone for $150

    The PinePhone is powered through an Allwinner A64 SoC, which options 4 Cortex A53 CPUs at 1.2GHz, constructed on an attractive historical 40nm procedure. This is similar chip the corporate makes use of at the PINE A64 unmarried board pc, a Raspberry Pi competitor. There are 2GB of RAM, a Mali-400 GPU, 16GB of garage, and a 2750mAh battery. The rear digicam is 5MP, the entrance digicam is 2MP, the show is a 1440×720 IPS LCD, and the battery is detachable. There is a headphone jack, a USB-C port, and strengthen for a MicroSD slot, which you’ll if truth be told boot running techniques off of. The mobile modem is a big separate chip this is soldered onto the motherboard: a Quectel EG25-G.

  • PinePhone Linux Smartphone Shipment Finally Begins

  • PinePhone Linux Smartphone Shipment Finally Begins

    In November last year, pre-orders for PinePhone Braveheart Edition commenced for everyone. But due to manufacturing issues coming in the way, the shipment date slipped for weeks, which was scheduled in December last year.

    PinePhone Braveheart Edition is an affordable, open source Linux-based operating system smartphone preloaded with factory test image running on Linux OS (postmarketOS) on inbuilt storage.

    You can check on PinePhone Wiki to find the PinePhone compatible operating system such as Ubuntu Touch, postmarketOS, or Sailfish OS, which you can boot either from internal storage or an SD card.

  • The PinePhone starts shipping—a Linux-powered smartphone for $150

    Pine64 has announced that it is finally shipping the PinePhone, a smartphone that takes the rare step outside the Android/iOS duopoly and is designed to run mainline Linux distributions. The PinePhone starts shipping January 17 in the “Braveheart” developer edition.

    This initial “Braveheart” batch of devices is meant for “developer and early adopter” users, according to the Pine64 Store. The phone doesn’t come with an end-user OS pre-installed and instead only comes with a factory test image that allows for easy verification that the hardware works. Users are expected to flash their own OS to the device. There are several available, from Ubuntu Touch to Sailfish OS, but they are all currently in an unfinished alpha state. Pine64 says that only enthusiasts with “extensive Linux experience” are the intended customers here—this isn’t (yet?) a mainstream product.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• 16 Open Source Cloud Storage Software for Linux in 2020

  The cloud by the name indicates something which is very huge and present over a large area. Going by the name, in a technical field, Cloud is something that is virtual and provides services to end-users in the form of storage, hosting of apps or virtualizing any physical space. Nowadays, Cloud computing is used by small as well as large organizations for data storage or providing customers with its advantages which are listed above.

  Mainly, three types of Services come associated with Cloud which are: SaaS (Software as a Service) for allowing users to access other publically available clouds of large organizations for storing their data like Gmail, PaaS (Platform as a Service) for hosting of apps or software on Others public cloud ex: Google App Engine which hosts apps of users, IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) for virtualizing any physical machine and availing it to customers to make them get feel of a real machine.

• Meet the newest Collaborans!

  What better way to start the new year than by highlighting the newest members of our engineering and administrative teams who joined in Q4 2019!

  Based in Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Greece, these newest Collaborans join our worldwide team of highly skilled engineers, developers and managers who all share a common passion for technology and Open Source.

• Web Browsers

  • Chromium

    • Google is finally killing off Chrome apps, which nobody really used anyhow

      Today, Google shared an updated timeline for when Chrome apps will stop working on all platforms. June 2022 is when they’ll be gone for good, but it depends on which platform you’re on (via 9to5Google). Previously, we knew that Chrome apps someday wouldn’t work on Windows, macOS, and Linux, but today, Google revealed that Chrome apps will eventually stop working on Chrome OS, too.

      A Chrome app is a web-based app that you can install in Chrome that looks and functions kind of like an app you’d launch from your desktop. Take this one for the read-it-later app Pocket, for example — when you install it, it opens in a separate window that makes it seem as if Pocket is functioning as its own app.

  • Mozilla

    • A brand new browsing experience arrives in Firefox for Android Nightly

      It’s been almost 9 years since we released the first Firefox for Android. Hundreds of millions of users have tried it and over time provided us with valuable feedback that allowed us to continuously improve the app, bringing more features to our users that increase their privacy and make their mobile lives easier. Now we’re starting a new chapter of the Firefox experience on Android devices.

• SaaS/Back End/Databases

  • MariaDB X4 brings smart transactions to open source database

    MariaDB has come a long way from its MySQL database roots. The open source database vendor released its new MariaDB X4 platform, providing users with “smart transactions” technology to enable both analytical and transactional databases.

    MariaDB, based in Redwood City, Calif., was founded in 2009 by the original creator of MySQL, Monty Widenius, as a drop-in replacement for MySQL, after Widenius grew disillusioned with the direction that Oracle was taking the open source database.

    Oracle acquired MySQL via its acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2008. Now, in 2020, MariaDB still uses the core MySQL database protocol, but the MariaDB database has diverged significantly in other ways that are manifest in the X4 platform update.

    The MariaDB X4 release, unveiled Jan. 14, puts the technology squarely in the cloud-native discussion, notably because MariaDB is allowing for specific workloads to be paired with specific storage types at the cloud level, said James Curtis, senior analyst of data, AI and analytics at 451 Research.

• FSF

  • GNU Projects

    • GNU Guile 3.0.0 released

      Version 3.0.0 of the Guile implementation of the Scheme programming language has been released. There’s a lot of work here, including a new, lower-level byte code implementation, interleaved internal definitions, a new exception implementation, and much more. “Guile programs now run up to 4 times faster, relative to Guile 2.2, thanks to just-in-time (JIT) native code generation. Notably, this brings the performance of “eval” as written in Scheme back to the level of ‘eval’ written in C, as in the days of Guile 1.8.”

    • GNU Mes 0.17 released

      We are delighted to announce the release of GNU Mes 0.17, representing
      64 commits over 6 weeks.
      
      Mes is now an official GNU package and we have bootstrapped gcc-4.7.4
      for x86-linux with a reduced binary seed (i.e., without regular toolchain).
      
      Next targets:
      
       - upstream the x86 Mes bootstrap to GuixSD
       - create a x86_64 Mes C Lib, see if that is is enough to bootstrap x86_64
       - reduce the 1MB ASCII M1 seed to ~5000 LOC/~100KB of M2 source
       - create a plan for Geesh and Gash and use them to reduce the
         bootstrap binary dependencies
       - and/or otherwise reduce the bootstrap binary dependencies
      
      Packages are available from Guix's wip-bootstrap branch.
      
      * About
      
      GNU Mes[0] aims to help create full source bootstrapping for GNU/Linux
      distributions such as GuixSD[1] as part of the bootstrappable builds[2]
      effort.
      
      It consists of a mutual self-hosting Scheme interpreter written in
      ~5,000 LOC of simple C and a Nyacc-based C compiler written in Scheme.
      This mes.c is being simplified[3] to be transpiled by M2-Planet[4].
      
      The Scheme interpreter (mes.c) has a Garbage Collector, a library of
      loadable Scheme modules-- notably Dominique Boucher's LALR[5],
      Pre-R6RS portable syntax-case[6] with R7RS ellipsis, Matt Wette's
      Nyacc[7] --and test suite just barely enough to support a simple REPL
      and simple C-compiler: MesCC.
      
      Mes+MesCC can compile an only lightly patched TinyCC[8] that is
      self-hosting.  Using this tcc and the Mes C library we now have a
      reduced-binary-seed bootstrap for the gnutools triplet: glibc-2.2.5,
      binutils-2.20.1, gcc-4.7.4.
      
      Mes is inspired by The Maxwell Equations of Software: LISP-1.5[9] --
      John McCarthy page 13, GNU Guix's source/binary packaging transparency
      and Jeremiah Orians's stage0[10] ~500 byte self-hosting hex assembler.
      

    • Mes Becomes An Official GNU Project, Mes 0.17 Released To Bootstrap GNU/Linux Distros

      GNU Mes 0.17 was released this weekend as the first release as being an official GNU project. Mes consists of a self-hosting Scheme interpreter and a Nyacc-based C compiler written in Scheme. From this Scheme interpreter to build its C compiler, it can then build a (slightly patched) TinyCC compiler and in turn that resulting TinyCC compiler can go on to building GCC 4.7, Glibc 2.2.5, and Binutils 2.20 for getting a toolchain in place to go on to build the rest of the GNU/Linux platform.

    • SecureMyEmail makes really private email surprisingly simple

      The service also allows seamless, key-free transmission to other SecureMyEmail subscribers and to others who use PGP software such as the PGP-compatible free-software GNU Privacy Guard.

  • Licensing / Legal

    • Copy-left behind: Permissive MIT, Apache open-source licenses on the up as developers snub GNU’s GPL

      Permissive open-source software licenses continue to gain popularity at the expense of copyleft licenses, according to a forthcoming report from WhiteSource, a biz that makes software licensing management tools.

      Permissive licenses include the MIT and Apache 2.0 licenses and are known as such because the permit licensors to do more or less what they want with the covered software, with minimal caveats, and without imposing obligations like sharing code revisions.

      Copyleft licenses like GPLv2, GPLv3, and LGPLv2.1 convey similar freedom, while, to put it simply, requiring that licensors not release versions or derivatives of the licensed code that restrict said freedom.

• Programming/Development

  • JetBrains’ New Font (Apparently) Makes Reading Code Easier

    A new free and open source monospace font has been released by software development powerhouse JetBrains.

    Their typographic creation is called (surprise) JetBrains Mono and, they claim, it makes reading code much kinder on the eyes.

    Admittedly it feels a bit like everyone has their own monospace font these days: IBM released ‘Plex’ in 2017; Microsoft has launched ‘Casacida; and even Ubuntu has its own one for when you need to get up close with the command line.

    But with JetBrains being — apologies in advance, you knew this obvious pun was coming — the brains behind some of the world’s best-loved development and code creation tools, it kinda makes sense for them to have their own one too, doesn’t it?

    And lo: the creation of JetBrains Mono.

  • 9 Best Free Git Clients

    Git is an open source distributed version control system which was originally designed by Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, in 2005 for Linux kernel development. This control system is widely used by the open source community, handling small to extremely large projects with an emphasis on speed and efficiency, but maintaining flexibility, scalability, and guaranteeing data integrity.

    Git is one of a number of open source revision control systems available for Linux. Other popular tools in this field include Subversion, Bazaar, Mercurial, Monotone, CVS, and SVN. However, Git is frequently regarded by many developers to be the finest version control tool available.

    There are two Git tools that are part of the main Git repository each designed for a different job. Git-gui is a Tcl/Tk-based graphical user interface that concentrates on commit generation and single file annotation. gitk is a repository browser that is also written in Tcl/tk. Whilst these two tools, used in conjunction, offer reasonable access to the power of Git, they lack integration, and functionality that other Git clients provide.

    The purpose of this article is to provide an insight into the best free open source Git clients that are available. We have covered the best graphical and console based clients available, so hopefully there will be something here of interest for anyone involved in the development of software projects.

    There are a large number of projects that use Git to aid their development. Notable examples include the Linux kernel, Eclipse, Wine, X.org, Ruby on Rails, ALSA, Bacula, Drupal, FreeRADIUS, Puppet, VLC, and many more.

  • Code a Boulder Dash mining game | Wireframe #30

    Learn how to code a simple Boulder Dash homage in Python and Pygame. Mark Vanstone shows you how. 

  • Announcing Better Support for Fuzzing with Structured Inputs in Rust

    Today, on behalf of the Rust Fuzzing Authority, I’d like to announce new releases of the arbitrary, libfuzzer-sys, and cargo fuzz crates. Collectively, these releases better support writing fuzz targets that take well-formed instances of custom input types. This enables us to combine powerful, coverage-guided fuzzers with smart test case generation.

    Install or upgrade cargo fuzz with:

    cargo install –force cargo-fuzz
    To upgrade your fuzz targets, bump your libfuzzer-sys dependency to 0.2.0 on crates.io. That should be all that’s needed for most cases. However, if you were already using Arbitrary inputs for your fuzz target, some changes will be required. See the upgrading fuzz targets section below for more details.

  • C vs. Rust: Which to choose for programming hardware abstractions

    Rust is an increasingly popular programming language positioned to be the best choice for hardware interfaces. It’s often compared to C for its level of abstraction. This article explains how Rust can handle bitwise operations in a number of ways and offers a solution that provides both safety and ease of use.

  • Perl / Raku

    • Shorewall 5.2.3.5 Released!

      Shorewall 5.2.3.5 is now available for download. Shorewall is a gateway/firewall configuration tool for GNU/Linux, written in Perl.

  • Python

    • Mocking in Python

      The first mission is called “Univocalic davasaan” created by Phil15 and here you have to write a function named davasaan which calculates the integer division by 10, and make your code as short as possible.

      The second one is the “Tree Walker” mission created by quarkov where you are given a tree and a target and your task is to calculate the number of leaves or subtrees that are equal to the target.

    • Python Bytes: #164 Use type hints to build your next CLI app

    • Talk Python to Me: #247 Solo maintainer of open-source in academia

      Do you run an open-source project? Does it seem like you never have enough time to support it? Have you considered starting one but are unsure you can commit to it? It’s a real challenge.

      On this episode, we welcome back Philip Guo, who has been a solo maintainer of the very popular PythonTutor.com project for over 10 years. He has some non-traditional advice to keep your sanity and keep your project going while holding down a busy full-time job.

    • Leysin Winter sprint 2020: Feb 28 – March 7th

      The next PyPy sprint will be in Leysin, Switzerland, for the fourteenth time. This is a fully public sprint: newcomers and topics other than those proposed below are welcome.

    • Use this Python script to find bugs in your Overcloud

      OpenStack stores and manages a bunch of log files on its Overcloud nodes and Undercloud host. Therefore, it’s not easy to use OSP log files to investigate a problem you’re having, especially when you don’t even know what could have caused the problem.

      If that’s your situation, LogTool makes your life much easier! It saves you the time and work it would otherwise take to investigate the root cause manually. Based on a fuzzy string matching algorithm, LogTool provides all the unique error and warning messages that have occurred in the past. You can export these messages for a particular time period, such as 10 minutes ago, an hour ago, a day ago, and so on, based on timestamp in the log.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Apple may have to abandon Lightning connector cable

    The cable is used to charge and sync many Apple devices, such as the iPhone.

    But members of the European Parliament urged the European Commission on Monday to force tech giants to adopt a single universal charging method.

The Wonders of Modern Life Briefly Explained: An Anthropology of the Industrial Revolution

Health/Nutrition

• Ex-Pharma Lobbyist Embedded in White House Tanked Drug Pricing Bill

  In 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump told voters that lowering drug prices would be a top priority of his domestic agenda. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) introduced a bill to lower drug costs, Trump greeted it with enthusiasm. But in October, Trump executed an about-face, abandoning negotiations on the House bill, claiming it would “harm seniors,” and threatening to veto the bill if it passed the Senate.

• 1st Malaria Vaccine Tried Out in Babies in 3 African Nations

  A pinch in the leg, a squeal and a trickle of tears. One baby after another in Malawi is getting the first and only vaccine against malaria, one of history’s deadliest and most stubborn of diseases.

Integrity/Availability

• Software tips for nerds

  I use Vim for almost a decade now, which is probably the longest I’ve sticked to some application. During that time, I repeatedly tried to use it as an IDE but inevitably failed each time. Let’s remember eclim as my Java IDE. I work almost exclusively on projects written in Python, which can be beautifully done in Vim but because of a gap in my skills, I was reliant on PyCharm. Thankfully, not anymore.

  My biggest issue was misusing tabs instead of buffers and poor navigation within projects. Reality check, do you open one file per tab? This is a common practice in other text editors, but please know that this is not the purpose of tabs in Vim and you should be using buffers instead. Please, give them a chance and read Buffers, buffers, buffers.

  Regarding project navigation, have you ever tried shift shift search in PyCharm or other JetBrains IDE? It’s exactly that thing, that you wouldn’t even imagine but after using it for the first time, you don’t understand how you lived without. What it does is, that it interactively fuzzy-finds files and tags (classes, functions, etc) that matches your input, so you can easily open them. In my opinion, this unquestionably defeats any other way of project navigation like using a file manager, NerdTree, or find in the command line.

  Fortunately, both of these problems can be solved by fzf.vim, which quickly became one of my most favorite Vim plugins. Please read this section about fzf plugin.

  I am forever grateful to Ian Langworth for writing VIM AFTER 11 YEARS, EVERYTHING I MISSED IN “VIM AFTER 11 YEARS” and VIM AFTER 15 YEARS articles. If you are a Vim user, those are an absolute must-read.

• Proprietary

  • Was It an Act of War? That’s Merck Cyber Attack’s $1.3 Billion Insurance Question. [iophk: Windows TCO]

    In all, the attack crippled more than 30,000 laptop and desktop computers at the global drugmaker, as well as 7,500 servers, according to a person familiar with the matter. Sales, manufacturing, and research units were all hit. One researcher told a colleague she’d lost 15 years of work. Near Dellapena’s suburban office, a manufacturing facility that supplies vaccines for the U.S. market had ground to a halt. “For two weeks, there was nothing being done,” Dellapena recalls. “Merck is huge. It seemed crazy that something like this could happen.”

  • A Windows 10 Vulnerability Was Used to Rickroll the NSA and Github [iophk: Windows TCO]

    “What Saleem just demonstrated is: With [a short] script you can generate a cert for any website, and it’s fully trusted on IE and Edge with just the default settings for Windows,” Kenn White, a researcher and security principal at MongoDB, said. “That’s fairly horrifying. It affects VPN gateways, VoIP, basically anything that uses network communications.” (I spoke with White before Rashid had demonstrated the attack against Chrome.)

    The flaw involves the way the new versions of Windows check the validity of certificates that use elliptic-curve cryptography. While the vulnerable Windows versions check three ECC parameters, they fail to verify a fourth, crucial one, which is known as a base point generator and is often represented in algorithms as G. This failure is a result of Microsoft’s implementation of ECC rather than any flaw or weakness in the ECC algorithms themselves.

  • VirtaMove Announces Beta Version V-Migrate for Linux Container Migrations

    The new release of VirtaMove’s award-winning application migration product V-Migrate for Linux now moves legacy Red Hat and other Linux application infrastructure forward with a stateful re-install of applications into a container. You can now easily move legacy applications from Red Hat Enterprise Linux RHEL 5 and 6 to new Linux Docker containers on modern Linux releases and even run those containers on Microsoft Windows Server 2019. V-Migrate for Linux software automatically moves Linux-based applications from older to newer operating systems, on modern in-house servers or on hybrid or public cloud environments, including Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS clouds. RHEL 6 reaches End of Maintenance Support 2 on November 30, 2020. On January 14, 2020, Microsoft ended all support for Windows Server 2008 R2.

  • Pseudo-Open Source

    • Openwashing

      • Microsoft: Application Inspector is now open source, so use it to test code security

    • Privatisation/Privateering

      • Linux Foundation

        • Confidential computing promises secure cloud apps

          Enterprises, governments and other organizations all sit on vast troves of data that cannot be processed due to security and privacy concerns. To address this limitation, researchers and vendors have developed various confidential computing techniques to safely process sensitive data.

          Confidential computing is particularly important for organizations in heavily regulated industries or sectors where opportunities for running workloads on the public cloud are severely limited, such as government, telecommunications, healthcare and banking. Confidential computing protects data at rest, which enables organizations to deploy sensitive workloads off premises and provides further protection to sensitive workloads on premises.

          [..].

          “If projects and products can show regulators and legislators that the levels of security are sufficient to meet their requirements, then deployment to public clouds becomes plausible for a great many more applications and use cases,” said Mike Bursell, chief security architect at Red Hat.

        • Akraino Edge Stack Enables Connected Car, AR/VR, AI Edge, and Telco Access Edge Application Use Cases

          LF Edge, an umbrella organization within the Linux Foundation that aims to establish an open, interoperable framework for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system, today announced the availability of Akraino Edge Stack Release 2 (“Akraino R2”). Akraino’s second release furthers the power of intelligent edge with new and enhanced deployable, self-certified blueprints for a diverse set of edge use cases.

          Launched in 2018, and now a Stage 3 (or “Impact” stage) project under the LF Edge umbrella, Akraino Edge Stack is creating an open source software stack that supports a high-availability cloud stack optimized for edge computing systems and applications. Designed to improve the state of edge cloud infrastructure for enterprise edge, over-the-top (OTT) edge, and carrier edge networks, it offers users new levels of flexibility to scale edge cloud services quickly, to maximize the applications and functions supported at the edge, and to help ensure the reliability of systems that must be up at all times.

          “The Akraino community has grown rapidly in the past year, and now includes contributions from 70 percent of LF Edge Premium member companies and countless other ecosystem partners beginning to deploy the blueprints across the globe,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Automation, Edge and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “With R2, strong community collaboration brings even more blueprints to the ecosystem that support current and future technology at the open source edge.”

  • Security

    • Patch Tuesday, January 2020 Edition

      As first reported Monday by KrebsOnSecurity, Microsoft addressed a severe bug (CVE-2020-0601) in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016/19 reported by the NSA that allows an attacker to spoof the digital signature tied to a specific piece of software. Such a weakness could be abused by attackers to make malware appear to be a benign program that was produced and signed by a legitimate software company.

    • Study Shows The Internet Is Hugely Vulnerable To SIM Hijacking Attacks

      U.S. Wireless carriers are coming under heavy fire for failing to protect their users from the practice of SIM hijacking. The practice usually involves conning or bribing a wireless employee to port a victim’s cell phone number right out from underneath them, letting the attacker then pose as the customer to potentially devastating effect. Carriers are facing numerous lawsuits from victims who say attackers used the trick to first steal their identity, then millions in cryptocurrency, or even popular social media accounts.

    • Restoring DNS Privacy

      Stefan and I have been taking last week to add DNS over TLS into IPFire – another step to make DNS more private. Here is what we have done.

      Cleaning up some mess

      IPFire has multiple places where DNS servers could be configured. If you were using PPP for your Internet connection, you would have set this up with your dialup settings. If you were using a static IP address, then you would have set up the DNS servers with it in the setup. If you were using DHCP, you had a page on the web user interface to go to. This is not only confusing for the user, but also there were the places in the code where those settings were applied.

      Now, we have created an entire new page which combines all of it together! You will have a list where you can set all DNS servers and set new settings.

      [...]

      This will be release with Core Update 140. Amongst the many new features, we have removed a lot of code that has caused us a lot of trouble in the past and rewritten many things entirely from scratch.

    • Security updates for Friday

      Security updates have been issued by Arch Linux (chromium), Fedora (gnulib, ImageMagick, jetty, ocsinventory-agent, phpMyAdmin, python-django, rubygem-rmagick, thunderbird, and xar), Mageia (e2fsprogs, kernel, and libjpeg), openSUSE (icingaweb2), Oracle (git, java-11-openjdk, and thunderbird), Red Hat (.NET Core), Scientific Linux (git, java-11-openjdk, and thunderbird), SUSE (fontforge and LibreOffice), and Ubuntu (kamailio and thunderbird).

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

      • Microsoft Catches Infected npm Package Targeting UNIX Systems [Ed: The anti-Linux Microsoft spinners, including Bogdan Popa in this case, have really been spinning this a lot]

        Microsoft has detected and reported a malicious npm file that was uploaded to the Node.js platform npm on December 31.

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • US Government Challenges Apple on Encryption (Again)

        Expand

        Attorney General William Barr speaks during a tour of a federal prison in Edgefield, South Carolina, July 8, 2019.

      • Chief Justice Arrives at Capitol for Impeachment Trial

        The chief justice of the United States arrived Thursday at the U.S. Senate to preside over President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, ready to swear in the senators with an oath to ensure “impartial justice” as jurors for only the third such proceeding in American history.

      • Free Press Advocates Decry ‘Unprecedented’ and ‘Unjustified’ Restrictions on Reporter Access to Trump Impeachment Trial

        “Americans expect and deserve a fully transparent impeachment trial… For the Senate to produce anything less would be a show of GOP contempt for the American people.”

      • Trump Was on Board With the Plan to Use Ukraine to Torpedo Biden, Parnas Says

        Lev Parnas, a close associate of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, claimed in a series of interviews that aired on Wednesday and Thursday that the president and top aides were aware of and on board with the plot to use Ukraine to torpedo former Vice President Joe Biden’s chances in the 2020 election.

      • Ukraine launches criminal probe into Trump allies’ alleged “surveillance” of Marie Yovanovitch

        “Ukraine’s position is not to interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States of America. However, the published references cited by the Washington Post contain a possible violation of the law of Ukraine and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which protects the rights of a diplomat on the territory of the foreign country,” the agency said in a statement. “Ukraine cannot ignore such illegal activities on the territory of its own state.”

        The statement added that the agency reached out to the FBI for information and materials about “persons who may be involved in a possible criminal offense.”

      • Traficom sells license plate data for targeted adverts, research

        When customers drive into the shopping mall car park, a camera snaps a picture of their vehicle’s registration plate number. The camera was installed by Jyväskylä-based information technology and services firm Nodeon.

        Checking the registration number at the Transport and Communications Agency’s (Traficom) database, the firm is able to gather personal information about the owners of the vehicles, including their postal codes – and then sells that data to the shopping mall.

      • Breaking iPhone encryption won’t make anyone safer

        It only takes one disaffected government employee, one deeply inserted spy in government or a tech company, or one sophisticated criminal attack to successfully extract that key.

      • Pelosi rips ‘shameful’ Facebook behavior, accuses it of intentionally misleading users

        House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slammed tech giant Facebook on Thursday, accusing the social media company of abusing technology to mislead users and calling its behavior “shameful.”

        “The Facebook business model is strictly to make money. They don’t care about the impact on children, they don’t care about truth, they don’t care about where this is all coming from, and they have said even if they know it’s not true they will print it,” Pelosi said at a press conference.

        “I think they have been very abusive of the great opportunity that technology has given them,” she added.

      • Jack Dorsey Asks Elon Musk How to Fix Twitter

        “Basically, how do you tell if the feedback is real or someone trying to manipulate the system, or probably real, or probably trying to manipulate the system,” Musk continued. “What do people actually want, what are people actually upset about versus manipulation of the system by various interest groups.”

      • Facebook Foes Sue to Force Zuckerberg to Sell Majority Stake

        Facebook Inc. was sued by four potential competitors who accuse it of anticompetitive behavior and who asked a judge to order Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to give up control of the social media behemoth.

        The companies also said if Facebook isn’t forced to sell its WhatsApp and Instagram assets, it’ll integrate them into the social network, “consolidating its market power across the globe, likely permanently foreclosing competition in the relevant markets for decades to come.”

      • EU considers banning facial recognition technology in public spaces

        As the development of facial recognition technologies gains traction, lawmakers have been left with the task of working out how to control its use.

        The EU, as reported by Reuters, is considering a ban of up to five years on facial recognition in public areas — potentially including locations such as parks, tourist hotspots, and sports venues — to give politicians time to thrash out legislation to prevent its abuse.

        The proposals, as seen by the publication, are part of an 18-page whitepaper that suggests a ban could permit the time to create a “sound methodology for assessing the impacts of this technology and possible risk management measures.”

      • EU mulls five-year ban on facial recognition tech in public areas

        The European Union is considering banning facial recognition technology in public areas for up to five years, to give it time to work out how to prevent abuses, according to proposals seen by Reuters.

        The plan by the EU?s executive – set out in an 18-page white paper – comes amid a global debate about the systems driven by artificial intelligence and widely used by law enforcement agencies.

        The EU Commission said new tough rules may have to be introduced to bolster existing regulations protecting Europeans? privacy and data rights.

Defence/Aggression

• How the President Became a Drone Operator

  We’re only a few days into the new decade and it’s somehow already a bigger dumpster fire than the last. On January 2nd, President Trump decided to order what one expert called “the most important decapitation strike America has ever launched.” This one took out not some nameless terrorist in a distant land or a group of civilians who happened to get in the way, but Major General Qassem Suleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force and the mastermind of its military operations across the Middle East.

• Russia’s Bid to Block UN Financing for Syria Probe Defeated

  In late December, United Nations member countries defeated an attempt by Russia to block funding for investigations into grave abuses in Syria, approving US$17.81 million for a team of investigators responsible for gathering evidence of serious crimes for future prosecutions and ensuring they have the resources necessary to do the work.

  The UN General Assembly created the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) in 2016 in response to a stalemate at the UN Security Council, where Russia had used its veto  six times since 2011 to block action on the Syrian conflict. Since 2016, Russia has used its veto eight more times to the same effect. But Moscow was unable to prevent the IIIM’s creation in the General Assembly or block its inclusion in the UN budget.

• Nuclear Hubris

  If an attack of any sort kills “hundreds of thousands or even millions” of people—their deaths are instantly belittled if they aren’t Americans.

• Trump’s Space Force Means Trump Not Satisfied Being Terrible Only on This Planet

  The U.S. military is creating an imaginary “space gap” to pour money into closing, wasting funds while increasing the risk of conflict.

• Senate Urged to Convict Trump After GAO Says Freezing Ukraine Aid Was Illegal

  Sparking fresh calls for the Republican-controlled Senate to remove President Donald Trump from office, a federal watchdog agency announced Thursday that the White House violated the law by withholding congressionally approved U.S. military aid to Ukraine — a decision at the center of the impeachment probe.

• Texas Baby-Killer Pleads Guilty to a New Murder

  Former nurse Genene Jones, suspected for decades of killing more than a dozen children but tried and convicted for only one, pleaded guilty Thursday in San Antonio to the murder of an 11-month-old boy in 1981 and was sentenced to life in prison. Jones’ sudden reversal — she had previously pleaded not guilty to five murder charges filed in 2017 — confirms her place as a serial baby-killer and ends a twisted criminal-justice saga that has played out over four decades.

  Jones, 69, unexpectedly sought the plea deal last week, just a month before she was to go to trial in the first of the five murder charges: for the death of Joshua Sawyer on Dec. 12, 1981.

• Trump’s Unprecedented Attack on Iran and the Rule of Law

  It’s time to demand an end to the madness once and for all.

• Go To War And One Day You Might Get A Dunny Named After You Too!

  Wondering how you can help the Morrison Government save $500 million on their War Memorial upgrade, and maybe redirect the money towards fighting climate change?

• The Real Reason Trump Ordered Soleimani’s Killing

  President Donald Trump’s administration has trotted out an embarrassingly inconsistent series of justifications for the recent drone strike in Iraq that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The ever-changing story of why Soleimani was killed underscores the Trump administration’s thin rationale for an action so provocative that it could have triggered an all-out war.

• The Media Failed Us in the Lead-Up to the Iraq War

  In 2003, virtually every newspaper endorsed the war, and journalists reported as fact the false claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This was an unchallenged lie pitched by then–Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has since professed remorse. Many journalists later expressed regret for falling for it. But our profession is shrinking, and I worry that our collective memory is, too.

  On January 3, Donald Trump ordered a US drone strike that killed Iran’s Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani. The ensuing swirl of political punditry and Trump’s continued erratic behavior give me a sinking feeling that we are about to repeat our worst mistakes.

• Joe Biden won’t tell the truth about his Iraq war record — and he hasn’t for years

  Sen. Bernie Sanders’ camp has just highlighted a video of Biden speaking at the Brookings Institution in July 2003, after the invasion, in which he expresses support for “finishing this job” in Iraq and says: “The president of the United States is a bold leader and he is popular.”

  As far as showing Biden’s support for the war, that video is the tip of the iceberg.

• [Old] Three Stooges first to blast Hitler

  The book both exposes and accuses Hollywood’s largest moviemakers — MGM, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox — as hideously bowing to the demands of Nazi censors in order to have their movies released in Germany, a large and steady commercial consumer of American movies.

  Urwand reveals many documents showing Adolf Hitler’s front men to have had great and sustained influence in Hollywood and on its executives, starting with Hitler’s rise to the Reich chancellorship in January 1933, through to the inevitable outbreak of World War II in September 1939.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren’s Dispute Is a Sign the Media Has Learned Little from the 2016 Election

  Media consumers have their own responsibility in this, especially as we share news on social media. Those of us who are extremely online should consider what fixating on these reality-TV-type moments means and how it affirms the models of for-profit media that thrive off drama. But similar to how plastic-straw bans ask individuals to step up while massive corporations bear far greater climate responsibility, placing the onus for change entirely on media consumers ignores the systemic problems that only those of us in content production can address.

Environment

• YouTube Still Monetizing, Promoting Climate Science Denial, Report Finds

  A new report by the global activist NGO Avaaz reveals that, despite YouTube’s pledge to combat misinformation, the popular video site owned by Google has failed to crack down on this problem when it comes to climate change. Videos containing false or misleading information on climate change continue to reach millions of users through YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. Furthermore, ads — including those from major brands and environmental groups — displayed on these videos provide a monetary incentive, not only to YouTube, but to the videos’ creators to keep promoting fringe theories contrary to scientific reality.

• Trump Dooms the Future by Gutting the National Environmental Policy Act

  The National Environmental Policy Act, better known as NEPA, has served the nation well for 50 years. But last Friday the Trump administration decided to gut the law via administrative rules changes that will allow virtually unhindered development, resource extraction and pollution. It’s one thing for the Trump cultists to support certain policies, tariffs, sanctions and war-mongering. It’s quite another to allow Trump’s anti-environmental administration to doom the future by leaving generations to come a smoldering, polluted and unlivable planet — which is just what gutting NEPA will do.

• Climate Crisis: We Need Radical Change Now, Not in the Future

  Reading Naomi Klein’s new book, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, is similar to watching a mega-disaster movie in a theater. Except, you can leave your fears behind when you exit the theater. Klein’s message is that our human induced climate change is devastating our livable earth, we are stuck here, it is not safe, the house is on fire.

• Schumer Praised for Joining Sanders in Voting Against Trump Trade Deal That Ignores Climate Crisis

  After the Senate passed USMCA, one activist said that “there is no excuse for any Democrat to vote for a trade deal that compromises our climate.”

• Energy

  • Harvard Law School Students Disrupt Recruitment Event, Calling on Major Law Firm to #DropExxon

    “This is a do-or-die moment in human history.”

• Wildlife/Nature

  • ‘Scale of This Failure Has No Precedent’: Scientists Say Hot Ocean ‘Blob’ Killed One Million Seabirds

    The lead author called the mass die-off “a red-flag warning about the tremendous impact sustained ocean warming can have on the marine ecosystem.”

  • Hazard Reduction Burns Don’t Stop Wildfires, Say Nation’s Eminent Ecologists

    The political firestorm lit by Barnaby Joyce and fanned by the Government and conservative media commentators around ‘Greens’ preventing hazard reduction burns has obviously been well and truly debunked (and extinguished). But prescribed burns won’t stop wildfires in the first place. Dr Byron Lamont a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Plant Ecology with Curtin University, and Adjunct Research Fellow Dr Tianhua He explain.

  • Lost Country: Aboriginal Flags Have Begun Flying At Half Mast Around Australia

    An Aboriginal woman from Victoria is hoping that First Nations people and organisations around the nation will join her university in flying Indigenous flags at half mast, to acknowledge the grief Aboriginal people are feeling at the destruction of Country from Australia’s ongoing bushfire crisis.

  • Australia’s sunshine could spare its blazing forests

    The hellish sight of Australia’s blazing forests threatens to become all too familiar. But the future doesn’t have to be like this.

  • Nothing Left: The Greatest Moral Challenge Of Our Nation, And Why We’re Failing To Tackle It

    There’s a lot to be proud of on the left of politics, writes Associate Professor George Morgan. But how we’ve confronted the politics of climate change is not one of them.

  • In God We Trust*

Finance

• How Economic Despair Drives Workers to Their Deaths

  Maria Fernandes was a good-hearted American with a family, ambitions and a rock-solid work ethic.

• ‘I Made a Lot of Bankers Look Very Good,’ Brags Trump as Wall Street Titans Enjoy $32 Billion Tax Bonanza

  “It looks like Trump just let the six largest banks ‘get away with murder’ something he promised he wouldn’t do as president,” said a senior advisor to Bernie Sanders in response.

• Another Geithner Scandal

  Tim Geithner might have left his job as Treasury Secretary seven years ago, but his legacy lives on. The Wall Street Journal reported that the financial firm Morningstar had reached a settlement with the SEC over marketing it had done for firms whose bonds it had rated.

• Trump’s Broad-Based Sanctions Failed in Iran and Will Fail in North Korea

  In both Iran and North Korea, the Trump administration has pursued an aggressive policy of “maximum pressure” — crushing economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation and military threats — in order to thwart their nuclear ambitions. In both cases, “maximum pressure” has not only failed to achieve the desired goal but has had the opposite effect: ramping up tensions and hardening both countries’ resolve to obtain nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, sanctions are having devastating consequences for ordinary citizens in both countries.

• Treasury Inspector General Probes Possible Trump Tax Break Abuses

  The Treasury Department’s inspector general is looking into the opportunity zone program following stories by ProPublica and The New York Times about how the tax break meant to help the poor had been manipulated by billionaires.

  The development, which was first reported by NBC News, comes after three congressional Democrats wrote to Treasury’s inspector general in October asking for the probe and citing the ProPublica and Times stories.

• Bose Closing All Retail Stores in North America, Europe, Japan, & Australia

  Bose will close all of its retail stores in North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Online sales played a significant part in Bose’s decision.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• The Warren-Sanders Squabble is Foolish

  The real issues in this campaign have nothing to do with who said what in 2018.

• How Donald Trump Successfully Wagged the Dog, and More

  Although I have never seen Donald Trump with a pet, I do believe that he wagged the dog when he ordered the assassination of the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. The expression “wag the dog” comes from a 1997 film satire in which a president, caught up in a sex scandal, uses a war to divert attention from his peccadillo. It was released at about the time of the Monica Lewinsky/ President Clinton scandal and later U.S. bombing in Sudan. In Trump’s case, he more than wagged the dog. By ratcheting up tensions with Iran, he also increased his stature as commander-in-chief to the detriment of Democratic candidates and reinforced his image as a rogue head of state.

• Death by Illogic, Lies and Stupidity

  Donald Trump continues to be under fire. He has been impeached for a gross abuse of power: attempting to blackmail the Ukrainian government into libeling his likely 2020 Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, with allegations of corruption. To induce the Ukrainians to do this, Trump ordered the withholding of military aid. This was an illegal act. When a congressional investigation followed, Trump and his rather clownish minions in Congress tried to obstruct it. This constituted yet another impeachable offense.

• In Explosive Interviews, Giuliani Sidekick Lev Parnas Says Trump ‘Lied’ and ‘Knew Exactly What Was Going On’

  “It was all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden. It was never about corruption.”

• Standing With Labor, Farmers, and Climate Groups on Trump Trade Deal, Sanders Vows to Vote Against NAFTA 2.0

  “In my view, we need to rewrite this trade agreement to stop the outsourcing of American jobs, to combat climate change, to protect the environment, and stop the destructive race to the bottom.”

• Progressive Groups Urge Sanders-Warren Unity to Defeat Corporate Democrats in Primary—and Then Donald Trump

  “When progressives fight each other, the establishment wins.”

• Politics and Business in Seattle

  I am in Seattle for an academic conference, having last been here about ten years ago.

• The welcome wagon Here’s what Russia’s new prime minister told lawmakers, immediately after they voted him into office

  On January 16, State Duma deputies approved the appointment of Federal Tax Service chief Mikhail Mishustin as Russia’s new prime minister. The new head of Vladimir Putin’s cabinet won the support of 383 deputies. Another 41 lawmakers abstained, and not a soul voted against him. At the hearing, Mishustin made a speech outlining his plans for the federal government and also answered a few questions. Meduza summarizes these remarks below.

• With Bernhardt Running Trump’s Interior Dept., Former Corporate Clients Lavishing Tens of Millions in New Lobby Spending

  “The corruption is absolutely shameless.”

• Should Facebook and Twitter Stop Trump’s Lies?

  Antitrust law was designed to check the power of giant commercial entities. Its purpose wasn’t just to hold down consumer prices but also to protect democracy.Antitrust should be used against Facebook and Twitter. They should be broken up. So instead of two mammoth megaphones trumpeting Trump’s lies, or those of any similarly truth-challenged successor to Trump, the public will have more diverse sources of information, some of which will expose the lies.A diverse information marketplace is no guarantee against tyranny, of course. But the system we now have – featuring a president who lies through his teeth and two giant uncritical conveyors of those lies – invites tyranny.

• Scotty From Marketing Makes The Urban Dictionary: To Do A ‘Scomo’ Is To…?

  Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has finally made the big time… the Urban Dictionary.

• Group Behind Wisconsin Voter Purge Lawsuit Has Strong GOP Ties

  This case has thrust Wisconsin to the forefront in this year’s voter suppression wars and reflects a larger Republican strategy to tilt the playing field by making it harder for low-income, student, and minority citizens to vote.

• Wisconsin May Purge 200,000 Voters From State Rolls in 2020

  A Wisconsin appeals court on Tuesday put on hold a purge of approximately 200,000 voters from the state voter rolls. The court proceedings have been complicated, and how it will end is unclear, but this purge is a bad idea regardless of how the courts come down on its legality.

• Pelosi Pushes for a Real Impeachment Trial With Witnesses and Cross-Examination

  In a historic move, the House of Representatives presented articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate Wednesday. It marks only the third presidential impeachment trial in all of U.S. history. Earlier Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a news conference with the seven impeachment managers. The House vote to send articles of impeachment to the Senate comes as The Washington Post reports explosive new information at the center of the impeachment inquiry. New material released by House Democrats shows text messages between former Giuliani associate Lev Parnas and Robert Hyde, a Republican congressional candidate from Connecticut, in which the two have threatening exchanges about Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. In the text messages, Parnas and Hyde discuss how Yovanovitch was under surveillance. Yovanovitch has repeatedly said she felt threatened by Trump, who called her “bad news” in his now-infamous July 25 call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. For more, we’re joined by Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation. “Pelosi at least thinks or hopes that there will be witnesses, there will be cross-examination, and this will be something more approaching a real trial situation as opposed to kind of just a show,” Mystal says.

• Biden, Buttigieg and Corporate Media Are Eager for Sanders and Warren to Clash

  Corporate Democrats got a jolt at the end of last week when the highly regarded Iowa Poll showed Bernie Sanders surging into first place among Iowans likely to vote in the state’s Feb. 3 caucuses. The other big change was a steep drop for the previous Iowa frontrunner, Pete Buttigieg, who — along with Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden — came in a few percent behind Sanders. The latest poll was bad news for corporate interests, but their prospects brightened a bit over the weekend when Politico reported: “The nonaggression pact between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren is seriously fraying.”

• Not Bernie, Us. Not Warren, Us.

  In a sense, this moment calls for Sanders and Warren supporters to be better than their candidates, who’ve descended into an avoidably harsh conflict that hugely benefits corporate power and corporate Democrats.

• What Separates Sanders From Warren (and Everybody Else)

  In America, the term “middle class” has long been used to describe the majority of wage and salary earners, from those receiving a median annual income of around $50,000 to those who earn three or four times that amount. Whether Democrat or Republican, politicians from across the political aisle claim to represent the middle class—that vast-yet-amorphous segment of the population where the managers and the managed all seem to fit together.

• Moscow City Court cancels fine against non-protester whose leg was broken by police before a protest

  The Moscow City Court has reversed a 10,000-ruble ($162) fine instituted against Konstantin Konovalov, who has said he was going on a run in central Moscow on July 27 when police violently arrested him, breaking his leg in the process. A protest was scheduled to take place three hours later; Konovalov claims he was not involved in the protest. Protest Apologists, a human rights organization whose attorney Fyodor Sirosh is representing Konovalov, posted about the court’s ruling on Telegram.

• Zelensky withdraws bill decentralizing power in Ukraine for further revision

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has withdrawn a bill from the national legislature that would have increased the autonomy of individual regions, including breakaway regions in the country’s east. Zelensky introduced the bill into the Verkhovna Rada in mid-December and decided to withdraw it after meeting with legislative leaders from his party, Servant of the People.

• Mikhail Mishustin formally appointed Russia’s prime minister as Medvedev takes on Security Council role

  Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially signed an order appointing Mikhail Mishustin to be Russia’s new prime minister, the Kremlin’s press service reported.

• Pauline Hanson Weaponises Her Wilful Ignorance. Why Can’t We Call It Out?

  Pauline Hanson has been getting a free pass by mainstream media for far too long, writes Nico Bell.

• New Report: Trump Violated US Funding Law at Center of Impeachment Trial

  But after an investigation, the Government Accountability Office ruled that “Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law.” It said that the Trump-controlled U.S. budget agency blocked release of the money “for a policy reason,” which is not allowable under U.S. law.

  The ruling by the GAO came less than two hours before the formal start of Trump’s Senate trial on two articles of impeachment, that Trump abused the office of the presidency by trying to get Zelenskiy to open the Biden investigations while withholding the military aid and then obstructing congressional efforts to investigate Trump’s Ukraine-related actions.

• Senate Urged to Convict Trump After GAO Says White House Broke Law by Freezing Ukraine Aid

  The federal watchdog’s decision “should be a call to action for every senator to put country over party and vote to remove Trump from office.”

• ‘Russia’s Political Transition Has Arrived Ahead of Schedule’

  In his annual State of the Nation address, Putin proposed changes to the constitution in a series of moves that appear to pave the way for the term-limited president to assume a new position of power after he leaves office. A few hours after Putin’s address, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced on live television that he and the entire Russian government would be resigning, saying that the Russian president will choose a new government.

  Putin later nominated Mikhail Mishustin, a 53-year-old technocrat who heads the Federal Tax Service and is best known for boosting tax collections and cutting graft, as Medvedev’s successor. Mishustin is a low-profile choice not seen as a power player in Moscow, making his prospects of transitioning into a major political force unlikely.

• New allegations, watchdog report complicate GOP position on impeachment trial

  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Thursday issued a stunning report, accusing the White House budget office of breaking the law by withholding military aid to Ukraine — the very issue at the heart of the Democrats’ impeachment effort.

  Separately, a close associate of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, has delivered a trove of information to House Democrats related to Giuliani’s campaign to pressure Ukrainian leaders to find dirt on the president’s political rivals. Lev Parnas, a Soviet-born Florida businessman facing unrelated campaign-finance charges in New York, is also making the media rounds to deliver a damning message: Trump, he says, was privy to the pressure campaign from the start.

• Sanders says he’s concerned about lost campaign time during impeachment trial

  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is atop polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, said Thursday he is worried about losing valuable time on the campaign trail while he sits through an impeachment trial that could last for weeks.

  The Senate spent much of Thursday in a ceremonial session to mark the beginning of President Trump’s trial, which included all senators present taking an oath administered by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to uphold impartial justice. Senators then signed an oath book one by one.

  Asked later if he’s concerned about how participating in the trial will affect his White House bid, Sanders responded, “Yeah, I am.”

Censorship/Free Speech

• Right-Wing ‘Review Boards’ in Missouri Would Pave Way for Arresting Librarians Over Books Deemed ‘Inappropriate’

  “Every reader and writer in the country should be horrified, absolutely horrified, at this bill.”

• Rep. Devin Nunes Now Threatening To Sue Fellow Congressional Reps

  It really wasn’t that long ago that Rep. Devin Nunes was a co-sponsor of the Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act. Of course, since then, he’s been filing a whole bunch of frivolous lawsuits against news organizations, journalists, political operatives, critics, and, most famously, a satirical internet cow.

• R.E.M.Trying To Stop Trump from Playing Their Music

  Mike Mills, who is the bassist of R.E.M and one of its founders, says that the band is “exploring all legal avenues” to prevent President Trump from using the group’s music at public rallies.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• Assange ‘denied access’ to lawyers in UK

  Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been denied access to evidence and even basic items like paper and pens by British prison officials, putting his US extradition case on the brink of judicial review, his lawyer has warned.

  Solicitor Gareth Pierce was shocked to learn that District Judge Vanessa Baraitser only intended to allow the defence team one hour to review evidence with the Australian in the holding cells at the Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday.

  He’s been charged in the US with 17 counts of spying and one count of computer hacking after WikiLeaks allegedly tried to help US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning conceal her virtual identity in the release of thousands of classified Pentagon files regarding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

  Some of those files have revealed US war crimes committed in both countries.

• Short of Time: Julian Assange at the Westminster Magistrates Court

  Another slot of judicial history, another notch to be added to the woeful record of legal proceedings being undertaken against Julian Assange. The ailing WikiLeaks founder was coping as well as he could, showing the resourcefulness of the desperate at his Monday hearing. At the Westminster Magistrates Court, Assange faced a 12-minute process, an ordinary affair in which he was asked to confirm his name, an ongoing ludicrous state of affairs, and seek clarification about an aspect of the proceedings.

  Of immediate concern to the lawyers, specifically seasoned human rights advocate Gareth Peirce, was the issue that prison officers at Belmarsh have been obstructing and preventing the legal team from spending sufficient time with their client, despite the availability of empty rooms. “We have pushed Belmarsh in every way – it is a breach of a defendant’s rights.” Three substantial sets of documents and evidence required signing off by Assange before being submitted to the prosecution, a state of affairs distinctly impossible given the time constraints.

  A compounding problem was also cited by Peirce: the shift from moving the hearing a day forward resulted in a loss of time. “This slippage in the timetable is extremely worrying.” Whether this shows indifference to protocol or malice on the part of prosecuting authorities is hard to say, but either way, justice is being given a good flaying.

  The argument carried sufficient weight with District Judge Vanessa Baraitser to result in an adjournment till 2 pm in the afternoon, but this had more to do with logistics than any broader principle of conviction. As Baraitser reasoned, 47 people were currently in custody at court; a mere eight rooms were available for interviewing, leaving an additional hour to the day. In her view, if Assange was sinned against, so was everybody else, given that others in custody should not be prevented from access to counsel. (This judge has a nose for justice, albeit using it selectively.)

Civil Rights/Policing

• It’s 2020 and Florida’s Supreme Court Just Ruled in Favor of a Poll Tax

  “Florida cannot violate the U.S. Constitution’s protections. The right to vote cannot be contingent on the ability to pay.”

• EU Parliament Calls for Release of Burundi Journalists

  The European Parliament today adopted a resolution condemning the continued deterioration of the human rights situation in Burundi ahead of the May 2020 elections. It also called on authorities to drop charges and immediately and unconditionally release four journalists working for Iwacu, one of the country’s last remaining independent newspapers, and all others arrested for exercising their fundamental rights.

  Christine Kamikazi, Agnès Ndirubusa, Egide Harerimana, and Térence Mpozenzi, and their driver, Adolphe Masabarakiza, were arrested on October 22, 2019 while on a reporting trip to Bubanza Province, and later charged with being complicit in “threatening the security of the state.” Their judgment is due by the end of January.

• The Trump Administration Weakens Standards for ICE Detention Facilities

  The new immigration detention standards set by the Trump administration weaken critical protections and lower oversight requirements. The consequences for the health and safety of people who are detained could be disastrous.

• The Humanitarian and Environmental Disaster of Trump’s Border Wall

  Making America great again in a new wild west.

• The Questions No One’s Asking About the Border Wall

  A new Wild West has taken root not far from Tombstone, Arizona, known to many for its faux-historical reenactments of the old West. We’re talking about a long, skinny territory — a geographic gerrymander — that stretches east across New Mexico and down the Texan Rio Grande to the Gulf of Mexico. It also runs west across hundreds of miles of desert to California and the Pacific Ocean. Like the old Wild West, this one is lawless, save for the law of the gun. But that old West was lawless for want of government. This one is lawless because of it.

• Trump Has Suspended Nearly 50 Laws to Build the Wall

  A new Wild West has taken root not far from Tombstone, Arizona, known to many for its faux-historical reenactments of the old West. We’re talking about a long, skinny territory — a geographic gerrymander — that stretches east across New Mexico and down the Texan Rio Grande to the Gulf of Mexico. It also runs west across hundreds of miles of desert to California and the Pacific Ocean. Like the old Wild West, this one is lawless, save for the law of the gun. But that old West was lawless for want of government. This one is lawless because of it.

• The Longue Durée: Commemorating RIC and Black & Tan Colonialism

  Most histories of modern Ireland tend to marginalise or completely disregard questions of language and culture. This neglect occurs within various fields, be it the study of the conquests of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the rise to power of Ascendancy Ireland during the eighteenth century, the expansion of the modern technocratic state during the nineteenth century as well as in the study of quasi-independent Ireland during the twentieth century.

• Why Legal ‘Innovation’ Might be Bad News for Rights in Russia

  Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans for constitutional reform that, among other things, seem to clear a path for him to remain in power – albeit not as president – after his term expires in 2024.

  But the reforms have implications beyond Putin’s political future. Some, like me, are pondering the impact on the rights of millions of Russians if Putin’s call “to directly guarantee the priority of the Russian Constitution in our legal framework” becomes law.

• Judge Says Chicago PD Must Release Nearly 50 Years Of Misconduct Files Before The End Of This Year

  The Chicago Police Department is one of the worst in the nation. There’s simply no denying this.

• Morocco: 3 Years in Abusive Solitary Detention

• Parental Leave Laws Are Failing Single Parents

  The two parties in Congress don’t agree on much these days. However, in the final days of December, they struck a deal that will give about 2 million federal workers paid time off following the birth of a baby, an adoption or the arrival of a foster child in their home.

• Moms 4 Housing Speaks Out After Militarized Eviction From Vacant Oakland House

  We look at the fight for affordable housing in the Bay Area with Moms 4 Housing, the unhoused and insecurely housed mothers who were evicted Tuesday by a militarized police force from a vacant home they had been occupying in Oakland, California. The action ended a two-month standoff between the mothers and real estate developer Wedgewood Properties when sheriff’s deputies arrested two mothers and two of their supporters. All four were released on bail Tuesday afternoon. We speak to Misty Cross, one of the moms who was arrested, and her daughter Destiny Johnson. “It was never about trying to stay in that house,” says Cross. “The message we were trying to send out was to get people aware of policies and things that are in place that are making us not move forward in life.” We also speak to Carroll Fife, the director of the Oakland office for Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.

• A Christian Nationalist Group Is Quietly Shaping Bills for State Legislatures

  Fred Clarkson, a senior research analyst at the social justice think tank Political Research Associates, had studied the Christian right wing for decades when someone tipped him off about an intriguing link on the website of the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation (CPCF) — a group that seeks to “preserve America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and promote prayer.” In early 2018, Clarkson clicked on the link, which led him to what was essentially a roadmap of the Christian right’s theocratic vision for state legislatures — a 116-page manual of model legislation aimed at advancing an anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice, Christian nationalist agenda.

• Dissenter Weekly: Blowing Whistle On Business Of War In Iraq—Plus, Honduras and DOJ Cheat Whistleblower

  On this week’s “Dissenter Weekly Update,” host and Shadowproof editor Kevin Gosztola discusses how military contractors are speaking out after President Donald Trump assassinated—and attempted to assassinate—leaders of militias aligned with General Qassim Soleimani.

  Current and former employees for a military contractor called Sallyport Global Services claim the Iranian-backed militia, Kataib Al Imam Ali, allegedly stole military hardware and issued death threats against their employees. The company, which had a billion-dollar contract with the Pentagon, bribed the militia with “free trucks” and a first, second, and third base for their operations. These fighters were aligned with the United States, probably fighting ISIS, wasting taxpayers dollars like most military ventures. It’s how the business of war works.

• The end of Iraqi Christianity?

  Erbil has been a refuge for Christians escaping the horrors of ISIS during the militants’ occupation of Mosul and the nearby Nineveh Plains, home to some of the oldest Church communities dating back to earliest times. Such attacks have underlined the precarious state of Iraq’s now tiny Christian community, which continues to reel from an exodus triggered by genocidal persecution.

  According to research by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), within a generation, Iraq’s Christians have declined by 90 per cent to below 250,000. Some reports suggest that the actual figure may be lower than 120,000.

  Were the Iran crisis to become protracted, bishops from the region believe that the consequences for Iraqi Christians would be potentially catastrophic.

• How to Organize Your Workplace Without Getting Caught

  In the last few years, American workers across multiple industries have unionized or mobilized collectively in an attempt to get better wages, demand accountability for sexual harassers in the workplace, push for real action to slow down climate change, and in general, change company culture.

  The movement seems to be popping up everywhere: Amazon, Google, Gawker, Riot Games, Salesforce, Tesla, Kickstarter, Uber, you name it. In fact, approval ratings for unions among Americans are at the highest level since the beginning of the 2000s, according to Gallup.

  As proud members of a union, we at Motherboard understand how important collective action is, and how challenging it can be. One of the biggest and perhaps most overlooked questions is: how do you form a union or organize a workplace walkout without tipping off the company that owns your computers and internet connection?

• All the Single Ladies

  Still, much of this is assuming that men in educated dating pools prefer educated women. And for long-term relationships, they do. Compared with women, though, men tend to be more open to pairing up with less educated partners. And less educated women tend to be open to dating men more educated than themselves. What this means, then, is that educated women are not only competing against other educated women for educated male partners, but also against less educated women. To use Guttentag’s phrasing, the dating environment for educated men has an oversupply of women, and they are acting in line with Guttentag’s original findings. As Birger puts it in Date-onomics, describing why educated men are often reluctant to settle down, “Why make a lifetime commitment to one woman when you can keep her as an option while continuing to survey the market—a market that, for college-educated men, has an ever-increasing number of options?” This point has also been stressed by David Buss. In an essay titled The Mating Crisis Among Educated Women, Buss observes that it is no coincidence that the rise of hookup culture on college campuses has developed alongside the growing proportion of female students. Even Tinder, he suggests, is a part of the same phenomenon. Fewer men means more hookups.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Bad Ideas: Raising The Arbitrary Age Of Internet Service ‘Consent’ To 16

  We all know various ideas for “protecting privacy online” are floating around Congress, but must all of them be so incredibly bad? Nearly all of them assume a world that doesn’t exist. Nearly all of them assume an understanding of “privacy” that is not accurate. The latest dumb idea is to expand COPPA — the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act — that was put in place two decades ago and has been a complete joke. COPPA’s sole success is in getting everyone to think that anyone under the age of 13 isn’t supposed to be online. COPPA’s backers have admitted that they used no data in creating and have done no research into the effectiveness of the law. Indeed, actual studies have shown that COPPA’s real impact is in having parents teach their kids its okay to lie about their age online in order to access the kinds of useful services they want to use.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• False Profits and Anti-Christs™

  It doesn’t take many viewing minutes into Messiah, the new Netflix series, to make an old postmodernist like myself wonder what the fuck I’m wasting what’s left of my time with this stuff for. El-Masih, the YouKnowWho (played, this time, by Mehdi Debhi), shows up in “Palestine” out of nowhere to announce that it’s Armageddon Time, accompanied by the first of many signs: Just as Damascus is about to have a bad hair day with artillery fired on them by ISIS from mysteriously unguarded heights not far away, a locust-like sandstorm engulfs Assad-abad. Insh’allah intervenes, it seems, but on whose behalf I can’t tell.

Monopolies

• Uber Wins Dubious Honor Of Being First Big Tech Company To Bully A Small Nation Using Corporate Sovereignty

  Six years ago, when Techdirt first started writing about the investor-state dispute system (ISDS) — or corporate sovereignty as we prefer to call it — it was largely unknown outside specialist circles. Since then, more people have woken up to the power of this apparently obscure element of international trade and investment deals. It essentially gives a foreign company the ability to threaten to sue a nation for millions — even billions — of dollars if the latter brings in new laws or regulations that might adversely affect an investment. The majority of corporate sovereignty cases have been brought by the extractive industries — mining and oil. That’s not least because many of the laws and regulations they object to concern environmental and health issues, which have come to the fore in recent years. New legislation designed to protect local communities might mean lower profits for investors, who then often threaten to use ISDS if they are not offered compensation for this “loss”.

• Trademarks

  • Trademark Opposition Stupidly Prevents Indians Pitcher Shane Bieber From Telling Everyone He’s ‘Not Justin’

    Stupid, needless trademark oppositions achieve a whole lot of things that make me angry. It allows Monster Energy to trot around the globe pretending it has trademark rights that it absolutely does not. It allows people to try to make trouble for businesses just to be pains in the ass. And it allows large, global brands to bully smaller entities under the guise that they must police trademarks or risk losing them.

• Copyrights

  • Corellium CEO says Apple is trying to ‘eliminate public jailbreaks’ with latest DMCA filing

    The intensity of the lawsuit that Apple has filed against software virtualization company Corellium has reached another level as the latter’s CEO says a recent DMCA from Apple claims that it is “engaging in trafficking” and that Apple is trying to set a precedent to “eliminate public jailbreaks.” Corellium CEO Amanda Gorton has penned an open letter expressing her belief that “Apple’s latest filing against Corellium should give all security researchers, app developers, and jailbreakers reason to be concerned.”

  • Apple Lawsuit Against Cyber Startup Threatens ‘Dangerous’ Expansion Of Copyright Law

    As Apple and Corellium head towards mediation talks, the iPhone maker has been criticized for “dangerous” claims that the cybersecurity startup has broken copyright laws. Critics say the lawsuit could lead to an expansion of U.S. copyright law and legally endanger software creators and security researchers tinkering with Apple tech.

    Corellium “virtualizes” Apple iPhones. In other words, it creates software-only versions of the devices, helping researchers and developers better test hacks or the functionality of apps. For instance, if a developer wanted to see whether their app crashes iOS or breaks a phone entirely, they won’t have to restart or buy a new iPhone if they can just spawn a new software version at speed.

    But Apple believes this amounts to illegal replication of its famous phone. It first launched a suit in August 2019 but has ratcheted up the claims against Corellium, in particular around what the Cupertino giant says are breaches of its rights as protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

  • Corellium Accuses Apple of Using Lawsuit to ‘Crack Down on Jailbreaking’

    The lawsuit has been ongoing since August, but it is heating up after Apple amended its lawsuit in late December with a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) filing, suggesting the Cupertino company believes jailbreaking is a violation of the DMCA. Corellium, says Apple, facilitates jailbreaking through its software.

    Corellium’s CEO Amanda Gorton has taken issue with Apple’s new filing, and yesterday penned a missive lambasting Apple for its jailbreaking position. “Apple’s latest filing against Corellium should give all security researchers, app developers, and jailbreakers reason to be concerned,” reads the letter’s opening statement.

  • Join Us in Washington D.C. to Celebrate Culture and Heritage on Public Domain Day

    In collaboration with the Internet Archive, the Institute for Intellectual Property & Social Justice, the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, and SPARC, this event will “bring together a diverse group of organizations, musicians, artists, activists, and thinkers” to celebrate the works entering the public domain in 2020 as well as highlight the “elements of knowledge and creativity that are too important to a healthy society to lock down with copyright law.”

  • RomUniverse’s Request to Dismiss Nintendo Piracy Lawsuit Fails

    A California federal court has denied RomUniverse’s request to dismiss Nintendo’s piracy lawsuit. The site’s operator, who is leading his own defense, argued that he is protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions. However, the court notes that a motion to dismiss is not the proper stage to bring this up and has refuted other arguments too.

  • Kim Dotcom Wins Back K.im Domain After Dispute & $100K Sell-Back Offer

    After falling into third-party hands the main domain of Kim Dotcom’s K.im project is set to be reclaimed. The Isle of Man domain recently expired and was quickly snapped up but, following a dispute process, it could be transferred back to the crypto project in a matter of days. Documents reviewed by TorrentFreak reveal that there was an attempt in December to sell the domain back for $100,000.

  • Why Is The NYC MTA Going After A Random Artist Who Created A Different Subway Map For Infringement?

    It’s been a while since we last wrote about the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), but in the past, it’s always been for incredibly stupid reasons. There was the time it claimed it owned the facts of its schedule and went after someone who created a better scheduling app. There was the time it claimed that its “unlimited rides” card really meant no more than 90 rides. We didn’t write about this other one, but a few years back, the MTA actually sued a bagel place for calling itself “F Line Bagels.” And now we have it filing an incredibly questionable copyright takedown notice over someone making a nicer subway map.

Desktop/Laptop

• Kubuntu Focus Offers The Most Polished KDE Laptop Experience We’ve Seen Yet

  As we mentioned back in December, a Kubuntu-powered laptop is launching with the blessing of Canonical and the Kubuntu Community Council. That laptop, the Kubuntu Focus, will begin shipping at the beginning of February while the pre-orders opened today as well as the embargo lift. We’ve been testing out the Kubuntu Focus the last several weeks and it’s quite a polished KDE laptop experience for those wanting to enjoy KDE Plasma for a portable computing experience without having to tweak the laptop for optimal efficiency or other constraints.

• Kubuntu Focus Linux Laptop Is Now Available for Pre-Order, Ships Early February

  The previously announced Kubuntu Focus Linux laptop is now available for pre-order and has a shipping date and a price tag for those who want a premium computer.

  Unveiled last month during the Christmas holidays, the Kubuntu Focus laptop is a collaboration between Kubuntu, Tuxedo Computers, and MindShareManagement Inc., and it aims to be the first-ever officially recognized Kubuntu Linux laptop targeted mainly at gamers, power users, and developers.

  Kubuntu Focus is a premium and very powerful device that comes pre-installed with the latest Kubuntu release, an official Ubuntu flavor featuring the KDE Plasma Desktop environment, some of the most popular Open Source software, and astonishing hardware components.

  Today, Kubuntu announced on Twitter that the Kubuntu Focus laptop is now available for pre-order with a price tag starting at $2,395.00 USD for the base model, which features 32GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card, and one power supply, but the laptop can go for up to $3,665.00 USD.

Server

• Edge AI server packs in a 16-core Cortex-A72 CPU plus up to 32 i.MX8M SoCs and 128 NPUs

  SolidRun’s “Janux GS31 AI Inference Server” runs Linux on its CEx7 LX2160A Type 7 module equipped with NXP’s 16-core Cortex-A72 LX2160A. The system also supplies up to 32 i.MX8M SoCs for video and up to 128 Grylfalcon Lightspeeur 2803 NPUs via multiple “Snowball” modules.

  When people talk about edge AI servers, they might be referring to some of the high-end embedded systems we regularly cover here at LinuxGizmos or perhaps something more server-like such as SolidRun’s rackmount form factor Janux GS31 AI Inference Server. The system would generally exceed the upper limits of our product coverage, but it’s a particularly intriguing beastie. The Janux GS31 is based on a SolidRun CEx7 LX2160A COM Express Type 7 module, which also powers the SolidRun HoneyComb LX2K networking board that we covered in June.

• IBM

  • CentOS Linux 8 (1911) Released: Free/Community Version Of RHEL 8.1

    Just four months after the release of first CentOS 8 series based on the Red Hed Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 source code, the second CentOS Linux 8 (1911) was released on Jan 15, 2020.

    If you’re aware, CentOS is the “community version” of RHEL. The current release for CentOS 8, tagged as 1911, is derived from RHEL 8.1 source code, which is fully compatible with the upstream product.

  • Red Hat ups its OpenShift Kubernetes hybrid-cloud game

    When they’re not working on Linux, Red Hat is making it darn clear that job one is the hybrid cloud by way of Kubernetes. In its latest steps to support this, Red Hat is releasing its Kubernetes-based Red Hat OpenShift 4.3 and Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage 4 to provide multi-cloud Kubernetes container support.

    OpenShift 4.3 is based on Kubernetes 1.16. Red Hat supports customer upgrades from OpenShift 4.2 to 4.3.

    Building on last fall’s developer-friendly OpenShift 4.2, the new OpenShift release brings stronger platform security to Red Hat’s Kubernetes take. Specifically, it brings the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) compliant encryption (FIPS 140-2 Level 1) to OpenShift. FIPS validated cryptography is mandatory for US federal departments that encrypt sensitive data.

  • Huawei has created an alternative to Android and Windows: the project openEuler

    A trade war between the US and Huawei has forced Chinese companies to look for a replacement Android, the license of which was revoked by Google. In the summer of 2019 mobile giant from China has introduced Harmony OS – the concept of a universal operating system for mobile devices, including smartphones, TVs and even wearable electronics. On the weekend unexpectedly Huawei has introduced another OS – openEuler.

    [...]

    It is worth noting that at this point in the project repositories, there was no documentation in languages other than Chinese. Wishing to establish openEulear yourself you can use an. ISO file (3.2 GB), but all the documentation is available in Chinese only.

    We will remind that earlier smartphones Huawei promised to ban in Google and lock your apps. Also Huawei has introduced a smartphone Mate 30 without the support of Google.

  • Google Cloud Now Offering IBM Power SystemsGoogle Cloud Now Offering IBM Power Systems

    With this, customers can now run IBM Power Systems as a service on Google Cloud—whether they are using AIX, IBM i, or Linux on IBM Power.

  • Crafting a future-proof application environment across the hybrid cloud

    Modern information technology (IT) success requires the right investment in infrastructure and tooling. Beyond the tooling, however, the real benchmark for accomplishment lies in the successful development, deployment and operation of applications that power an organization. Ultimately the applications are what drive value to customers, partners and employees.

    The challenge for IT becomes how to combine available technologies to empower development teams to do their work and successfully operate the resulting applications.

    Thinking of the overall organizational IT capacity as an application environment that spans the various cloud locations, on-premises resources and technologies deployed seems daunting. However, it provides a very useful lens through which to look at long term IT strategy.

  • The Red Hat Edge: How Red Hat OpenStack Platforms Delivers the Potential for Nearly 600 Percent ROI

    To conduct this study, IDC interviewed eight organizations asking survey respondents a mix of quantitative and qualitative questions about the impact that Red Hat OpenStack Platform has had on their IT operations, businesses and cost of deploying private cloud services. Interviewees encompassed the financial services, manufacturing, financial technology, information technology, medical research, automotive, education and healthcare sectors.

  • Red Hat Summit 2020 flash sale: get your hoodie before it’s gone!

    Planning to go to Red Hat Summit this year? You don’t want to miss the industry’s premier enterprise open source technology conference, and it’s coming up fast! We’ve got an added incentive for you to sign up today, until end of day January 23 or we run out, we’re giving a special bonus to folks who register for Red Hat Summit.

    Through January 23rd or until we’ve moved through our limited quantity (whichever comes first), those who register for Red Hat Summit will get an exclusive Red Hat Summit hoodie with their Summit registration. We expect these to go fast, so don’t hesitate to register today and take advantage of the flash sale to get Early Bird Red Hat Summit pricing and a little something extra.

  • OpenShift Container Storage 4: Introduction to Ceph

    This Blog will go through Ceph fundamental knowledge for a better understanding of the underlying storage solution used by Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage 4.

  • New and improved Topology view for OpenShift 4.3

    The Topology view in the Red Hat OpenShift console’s Developer perspective is a thoughtfully designed interface that provides a visual representation of an application’s structure. This view helps developers clearly identify one resource type from another, as well as understand the overall communication dynamics within the application. Launched with the 4.2 release of OpenShift, the Topology view has already earned a spotlight in the cloud-native application development arena. The constant feedback cycles and regular follow-ups on the ongoing trends in the developer community have helped to shape up a great experience in the upcoming release. This article focuses on a few showstopper features in the Topology view that were added for OpenShift 4.3.

Audiocasts/Shows

• FLOSS Weekly 562: Kong

  Kong delivers a next-generation API and service lifecycle management platform designed for modern architectures, including microservices, containers, cloud and serverless. Offering high flexibility, scalability, speed and performance, Kong enables developers and Global 5000 enterprises to reliably secure, connect and orchestrate microservice APIs for modern applications.

• 2020-01-15 | Linux Headlines

  We say goodbye to a community member, the latest Vulkan update is looking great, while GitHub, IBM, and CentOS all have announcements.

• 2020-01-16 | Linux Headlines

  Mozilla faces difficult choices after a major layoff, a new release of PyTorch adds long-awaited Java support, GNU Guile sees a significant speedup, and the LLVM community debates the future of decision making for the project.

• The Linux Link Tech Show Episode 840

  nest, home, dan horror story

• Compromised Cameras | Self-Hosted 10

  Wyze and Xiaomi suffer major cloud hosted blunders, so Alex tells us about his new fully offline camera secuirty system, tied into Shinobi.

  Plus Chris gets ready for Project Off-Grid’s solar upgrade, our new favorite self-hosted SpeedTest app, and a Ring alternative.

• Unix keyboard joy | BSD Now 333

  Your Impact on FreeBSD in 2019, Wireguard on OpenBSD Router, Amazon now has FreeBSD/ARM 12, pkgsrc-2019Q4, The Joys of UNIX Keyboards, OpenBSD on Digital Ocean, and more.

Kernel Space

• A medley of performance-related BPF patches

  BPF programs cannot run until they are “attached” to a specific call point. Tracing programs are attached to tracepoints, while networking express data path (XDP) programs are attached to a specific network device. In general, more than one program can be attached at any given location. When it comes time to run attached programs, the kernel will work through a linked list and invoke each program in turn.

  Actually executing a compiled BPF program is done with an indirect jump. Such jumps were never entirely fast, but in the age of speculative-execution vulnerabilities those jumps have been turned into retpolines — a construct that defeats a number of Spectre attacks, but which also turns indirect jumps into something that is far slower than they were before. For cases where BPF programs are invoked frequently, such as for every incoming network packet, that extra overhead hurts.

  There have been a number of efforts aimed at reducing the retpoline performance penalty in various parts of the kernel. The BPF dispatcher patch set is Björn Töpel’s approach to the problem for BPF programs, and for the XDP use case in particular. It maintains a machine-code trampoline containing a direct jump instruction for every attached BPF program; this trampoline must be regenerated whenever a program is added to or removed from the list. When the time comes to call a BPF program, the trampoline is invoked with the address of the program of interest; it then executes a binary search to find the direct-jump instruction corresponding to that program. The jump is then executed, causing the desired program to be run.

  That may seem like a lot of overhead to replace an indirect call, but it is still faster than using a retpoline — by a factor of about three, according to the performance result posted with the patch series. In fact, indirect jumps are so expensive that the dispatcher is competitive even in the absence of retpolines, so it is enabled whether retpolines are in use or not. This code is in its fifth revision and seems likely to make its way into the mainline before too long.

• Removing the Linux /dev/random blocking pool

  The random-number generation facilities in the kernel have been reworked some over the past few months—but problems in that subsystem have been addressed over an even longer time frame. The most recent changes were made to stop the getrandom() system call from blocking for long periods of time at system boot, but the underlying cause was the behavior of the blocking random pool. A recent patch set would remove that pool and it would seem to be headed for the mainline kernel.

  Andy Lutomirski posted version 3 of the patch set toward the end of December. It makes “two major semantic changes to Linux’s random APIs”. It adds a new GRND_INSECURE flag to the getrandom() system call (though Lutomirski refers to it as getentropy(), which is implemented in glibc using getrandom() with fixed flags); that flag would cause the call to always return the amount of data requested, but with no guarantee that the data is random. The kernel would just make its best effort to give the best random data it has at that point in time. “Calling it ‘INSECURE’ is probably the best we can do to discourage using this API for things that need security.”

  The patches also remove the blocking pool. The kernel currently maintains two pools of random data, one that corresponds to /dev/random and another for /dev/urandom, as described in this 2015 article. The blocking pool is the one for /dev/random; reads to that device will block (thus the name) until “enough” entropy has been gathered from the system to satisfy the request. Further reads from that file will also block if there is insufficient entropy in the pool.

• Oracle, OpenZFS respond to Linus Torvalds saying ‘Don’t use ZFS’ from @Lunduke on LBRY.tv

• Oracle, OpenZFS respond to Linus Torvalds saying ‘Don’t use ZFS’

  The reporting around his comments — coming from a wide array of news outlets (some Linux-centric, others less so) — has been heavy on opinion… but light on commentary from the key parties involved.

  In fact, I have yet to see a single article on this topic where the journalist has reached out to the folks that own ZFS (Oracle) or the maintainers of OpenZFS (which was forked from an earlier, open source version of ZFS).

  Let’s correct that.

Benchmarks

• Intel’s Mitigation For CVE-2019-14615 Graphics Vulnerability Obliterates Gen7 iGPU Performance

  Yesterday we noted that the Linux kernel picked up a patch mitigating an Intel Gen9 graphics vulnerability. It didn’t sound too bad at first but then seeing Ivy Bridge Gen7 and Haswell Gen7.5 graphics are also affected raised eyebrows especially with that requiring a much larger mitigation. Now in testing the performance impact, the current mitigation patches completely wreck the performance of Ivybridge/Haswell graphics performance.

  The vulnerability being discussed and analyzed this week is CVE-2019-14615. This CVE still hasn’t been made public over 24 hours later (though there are the Intel SA-00314 details for this disclosure), but from going through kernel patches and other resources, it certainly caught our interest right away and have been benchmarking it since yesterday evening. The CVE-2019-14615 vulnerability amounts to a new information disclosure issue due to insufficient control flow in certain data structures. Local access is required for exploiting this control flow issue in the hardware, but it’s not yet known/published if say WebGL within web browsers could exploit this issue. This is a hardware issue with all operating systems being affected. Our testing today, of course, is under Linux.

Applications

• broot Is An Interactive Treeview Directory Navigation Tool For The Command Line

  broot is an interactive command line tool written in Rust for navigating directories using a tree view and fuzzy search. It also incorporates a ncdu like disk usage mode.

  The tool is inspired by the tree command (which is not interactively searchable though, and doesn’t act as a launcher) and the excellent fzf command line fuzzy finder, allowing users to navigate to a directory and locate a particular file with the minimum amount of keystrokes.

  It runs on Linux, macOS and Windows. There are some rough edges on Windows though – some things need fixing, and it’s quite slow on Windows for now. It works great and it’s very fast on Linux though (and I assume macOS, although I don’t own a Mac so I didn’t try it).

• VokoscreenNG – Vokoscreen Screencaster Rewritten From Scratch

  VokoscreenNG, open-source screen recording software formerly called Vokoscreen, released its first stable version days ago.

  Vokoscreen 2.5 is the last version with ffmpeg and will not more continue developed. The new VokoscreenNG, which is based of Qt and GStreamer, has been rewritten from scratch with new modern UI. And it works on Linux and Windows.

  VokoscreenNG so far does not provide any binary packages, though Linux binary Appimage and Flatpak package were requested. At the moment, you can build the software from the source.

• Kubic with Kubernetes 1.17.0 released

  The Kubic Project is proud to announce that Snapshot 20200113 has just been released containing Kubernetes 1.17.0.

  This is a particually exciting release with Cloud Provider Labels becoming a GA-status feature, and Volume Snapshotting now reaching Beta-status.

Instructionals/Technical

• Telegram Desktop Account Recovery When Phone is Broken

• Delete Users in Linux With Userdel Command

• 6 Git mistakes you will make — and how to fix them

• Sharing your WiFi connection with a NetworkManager hotspot

• Examples on how to use PS COMMAND in Linux

• Use Font Finder to Install Google Fonts on Debian 10

• Alarm clock Set Timeout For A Shell Command

• 4 core skills to level-up your tech career in 2020

• How to Install Tomcat 9 on CentOS 8

• Technically Speaking: Containers and hybrid cloud

• How To Install Ruby on Rails on CentOS 8

• gnu-linux terminal bash – debugging postgresql connection problems

• Fedora Redhat CentOS – lighttpd not working – only binds to ipv6 not ipv4

• How to Format a Hard Drive to NTFS in Linux

• How to Install Apache Kafka on Ubuntu 16.04

• How to Install Deepin Desktop Environment on Linux Mint 19

• How to Install DokuWiki with Nginx and Let’s encrypt SSL on Debian 10

• How to Install Microsoft PowerShell 6.2.0 on Ubuntu 18.04 Linux

• How to Select or Choose the Best Hosting Services

• How to Sync Time in Linux Server using Chrony

• How to Use Top Command in Linux

• How to change timezone in Linux

• How to configure a SIP endpoint for intra-office calling

• How to install the NVIDIA drivers on RHEL 8 Workstation

• How to use ZIP COMMAND in Linux

• Install VirtualBox 6.1.2 on Ubuntu 19.10, 18.04 & 16.04 LTS Version!

• Building a customized Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 image for Microsoft Azure

• Learn to use KILL COMMAND in Linux

• PostfixAdmin – Create Virtual Mailboxes on CentOS/RHEL Mail Server

• How to define Ansible default user

• Git Questions for DevOps / Software Engineering Interviews

• linux bash – list files and directories – no clutter – only the path no group no owner

• Lab setup for Ansible testing

• How to install Hyperledger Fabric on Ubuntu 18.04 with the help of Docker

• Running syslog-ng in BastilleBSD

• Running SReview in minikube

• Optimize Jpeg/jpg Images through the Debian Command line

• Organize and sync your calendar with khal and vdirsyncer

• Zorin Grid Lets You Remotely Manage Multiple Zorin OS Computers

  With Zorin Grid, you can configure and manage several Zorin OS computers remotely. Know more about it.

Games

• When Kickstarter goes wrong for indie games: Drift Stage

  A lot of the time Kickstarter (and other crowdfunding services) for indie games goes well, in fact the vast majority of the time all is fine. Sometimes though, everything breaks down as is the case with Drift Stage.

  Drift Stage was successfully funded on Kickstarter back in February of 2015, with a reasonable sum (compared with other projects) of $57,720 to make their modern take on retro racing a reality. Over the years, they released multiple demo versions and showed it off at Minecon (the Minecraft convention) in 2016 which you can still find a demo of here on itch.io and all seemed well on the surface.

  Time went on, backers noticed a lack of new details and progress on it with many trying to find out what was actually going on. In December of 2018, the Artist on the project Charles “DelkoDuck” Blanchard posted on Steam to finally clear it up and it wasn’t good. The programmer and co-creator, Chase Pettit, apparently did a bit of a disappearing act, becoming hard to get in contact with and claimed they were just too busy for it.

• Open-world puzzler ‘Bonfire Peaks’ has you climb mysterious ruins and set fire to your belongings

  Arriving with Linux support on May 5, from the developer of Pipe Push Paradise and Hiding Spot is the open-world puzzle game Bonfire Peaks.

  Not much info on it yet, with it only just being announced. From what the developer said it’s a “difficult open world puzzle game about climbing mysterious ruins and setting fire to your belongings” that’s being made in Unity. They do at least have a trailer up you can see below:

• Action-packed drone building game ‘Nimbatus’ has a huge update, we have 3 copies to give away

  We’ve teamed up with Stray Fawn Studio again to give away three copies of their space drone construction game, Nimbatus, plus there’s a massive update out now.

  So what’s new in the “Mothership Update”? A lot and it sounds awesome!

  Your Nimbatus mothership can be upgraded now, there’s some Steam Achievements with drone skins you can unlock and they will be adding even more in the next update. There’s a new “Programmer” Captain to pick which unlocks everything but it only allows you to build autonomous drones (no manual piloting), proper save file management giving more freedom, new difficulty settings, multiple new locations including a Jungle Ruin and new rewards when you advance through the campaign. There’s also new building parts, bug fixes and balancing changes

• Core Defense aims to mix up the Tower Defense genre with deck-building and randomness – out now

  Core Defense, available today in First Access on itch.io is a Tower Defense game that’s trying to be a little different. Throwing out predefined waves and rewards, in favour of a little random generation. Note: The developer provided an early key for GamingOnLinux.

  Having everything mostly set in place is usually a big part of Tower Defense, since you know what you will be dealing with and often from where. Throwing that out to keep you on your toes is certainly interesting, as is the rewards system of getting you to pick from a randomised set of rewards each time which could be a new tower or an upgrade.

• Chaotic platformer with a curved gameworld ‘CreatorCrate’ getting a demo next week

  You’ve played plenty of platformers before, but have you played a platformer where the entire world is a great big spinning space station with variable gravity? CreatorCrate has a fun idea.

  In CreatorCrate you play as a little robot that eats anything, to then print out shiny new objects that might be a bit more useful. Gravity is different throughout the space station, except in the middle where it vanishes altogether. Currently in development by Jori Ryan, it sadly didn’t pass the Kickstarter test with it not getting enough funding. Ryan carried on development and they’ve let us know that next week on January 22nd it’s going to get a public demo.

• The Frictional Games strange teaser appears to be growing

  Frictional Games, the team that craft some very interesting horror experiences like SOMA and Amnesia are teasing something and it appears to now be growing.

  We posted about it recently, since then checking back each day on their dedicated teaser website to see if anything is different. It appears the video file playing has a date on it when checking the page source, which they update each time a new video is put up.

• Valve give a little more info on what ‘Gamescope’ actually does for Linux gaming

  Recently, a Valve developer revived steamcompmgr (the SteamOS compositing and window manager) and renamed it to Gamescope. After writing about it yesterday here on GOL, they’ve now given some more info on what it actually does.

  Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais is spearheading the effort and a few hours ago they actually gave it a readme, mentioning that “gamescope does the same thing as steamcompmgr, but with less extra copies and latency”

Desktop Environments/WMs

• Xfce 4.16 Desktop Environment Switches to Client-Side Decorations

  Work on the upcoming Xfce 4.16 desktop environment continues in 2020 with a lot of new features and improvements that the community can test drive using the Xfce 4.15 development branch.

  Xfce developer Simon Steinbeiß reports on the latest changes and improvements that have been added to the forthcoming Xfce 4.16 desktop environment release, and the biggest new feature so far is support for client-side decorations (CSD) or GtkHeaderBars for all dialogs.

  “The first big step in this direction has now happened in libxfce4ui, our main user interface library. With the change, almost all dialogs will be converted to using CSD by default without any code changes in existing projects,” said developer Simon Steinbeiß in a recent blog post.

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • November/December in KDE PIM

    Following Kévin here’s the summary of what happened around KDE PIM in the last two months. While this post got slightly delayed due to the holidays, work didn’t slow down at all. More than 1300 changes by 26 contributors landed in the KDE PIM repositories, and we got the 19.12.0 release out in December.

  • Jonathan Riddell: KUserFeedback 0.9.90 Beta Release

    KUserFeedback is a framework for collecting user feedback for applications via telemetry and surveys.

    The library comes with an accompanying control and result UI tool.

  • Plasma 5.18 LTS Beta

    This new version of your favorite desktop environment adds neat new features that make your life easier, including clearer notifications, streamlined settings for your system and the desktop layout, much improved GTK integration, and more. Plasma 5.18 is easier and more fun, while at the same time allowing you to do more tasks faster.

    Apart from all the cool new stuff, Plasma 5.18 also comes with LTS status. LTS stands for “Long Term Support” and this means 5.18 will be updated and maintained by KDE contributors for the next couple of years (regular versions are maintained for 4 months). So, if you are thinking of updating or migrating your school, company or organization to Plasma, this version is your best bet. You get the most recent stable version of Plasma for the long term.

    Read on to discover everything that is new in Plasma 5.18 LTS…

  • Here’s What’s New in KDE Plasma 5.18 LTS

    With a beta build now available for testing I figured it was time to recap the key changes included in KDE Plasma 5.18 LTS so that those of you who ride the plasma wave have some idea of what to expect when it arrives.

    And do expect a varied set of changes when it does, as there’s lots planned, including notifications that are easier to understand, streamlined organisation of system settings, better integration of GTK applications, and plenty more.

    Let’s take a closer look.

  • KDE Plasma 5.18 LTS Reaches Beta With Much Better GTK App Integration

    Out this morning is the first beta of KDE Plasma 5.18, which is also the project’s first long-term support (LTS) release since Plasma 5.12.

    Some of the changes to find with the forthcoming KDE Plasma 5.18 LTS include:

    - Support for GTK applications using client-side decorations. Additionally, GTK applications now inherit Plasma settings for fonts / icons / cursors and more.

  • KDE Plasma 5.18 LTS Desktop Environment Enters Beta, Here’s What’s New

    The KDE Project announced today the general availability of the beta version of the upcoming KDE Plasma 5.18 LTS desktop environment for Linux-based operating systems and Linux-powered devices.

    KDE Plasma 5.18 is a major version of the popular Linux desktop environment as it’s the third LTS (Long Term Support) series, coming three and a half years after the first LTS branch and two years after the second one. This means that KDE Plasma 5.18 LTS will be supported with maintenance update for the next two years.

    “LTS stands for “Long Term Support” and this means 5.18 will be updated and maintained by KDE contributors for the next couple of years (regular versions are maintained for 4 months). So, if you are thinking of updating or migrating your school, company or organization to Plasma, this version is your best bet,” reads today’s announcement.

Distributions

• Top 5 Linux Distros for Windows Users

  When Microsoft initially released Windows 7 in October 2009, the software giant committed to providing ten years of support for its popular operating system. The much-maligned Microsoft was true to their word, support for Windows 7 ended just yesterday a little over ten years after its release.

  According to NetMarketShare, the Windows 7 EOL will affect over one-third of PCs that use Windows 7. That’s hundreds of millions of people. Many no doubt will foolishly continue to use the unsupported OS, placing their PCs at “greater risk for viruses and malware.” Still, a great many others will incur the $139 to “upgrade to Windows 10.

  However, there is a third option. A much better option. To upgrade is to “raise (something) to a higher standard, in particular, improve (equipment or machinery) by adding or replacing components.”

• Screenshots/Screencasts

  • Nitrux 13012020 Run Through

    In this video, we are looking at Nitrux 13012020.

• SUSE/OpenSUSE

  • Running for the openSUSE Board again or: reelect (Sarah);

    I was in the openSUSE Board for 2 years in the past and I have enjoyed this time to bring along the openSUSE project.

    I want to run for the openSUSE Board again after a short break about 1 year. I am happy that the existing openSUSE Board has proceeded my idea with the foundation so successfully. But I would be happy about being allowed to finalize this/ my topic together with the other Board Members as my old idea.
    Additionally, I have watched the decreasing reputation. Public representations of openSUSE have been missing by the openSUSE Board in the last year. I would increase that on the same way I have done that at our university.

• Arch Family

  • Now using Zstandard instead of xz for package compression

    zstd and xz trade blows in their compression ratio. Recompressing all packages to zstd with their options yields a total ~0.8% increase in package size on all of their packages combined, but the decompression time for all packages saw a ~1300% speedup.

    We already have hundreds of zstd-compressed packages in our repositories, and as packages get updated more will keep rolling in. No user-facing issues have been found as of yet, so things appear to be working.

  • Everything you need to know about pacman

  • rsync compatibility

    Our rsync package was shipped with bundled zlib to provide compatibility with the old-style –compress option up to version 3.1.0. Version 3.1.1 was released on 2014-06-22 and is shipped by all major distributions now.

    So we decided to finally drop the bundled library and ship a package with system zlib. This also fixes security issues, actual ones and in future. Go and blame those running old versions if you encounter errors with rsync 3.1.3-3.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • A brand-new desktop theme in works for Ubuntu 20.04

    As we get closer to the release of Ubuntu 20.04, we’re finding out more and more information about how the new operating system update would look like. From what we’ve learned thus far, there’s a new desktop theme in the works that will give the users a fresh look and feel of Ubuntu.

    As Ubuntu users would already know, the operating system has been using Yaru as its UI theme since v18.10. Of course, this is an important period for Canonical as the release of Ubuntu 20.04 is right around the corner, or the 23rd of April, to be more specific. So, the minds behind Yaru considered this the perfect time to conduct a meeting with Ubuntu’s design team at the official Canonical headquarters located in London.

  • Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Gets Fresh Desktop Theme

    As Ubuntu 20.04 LTS is due to be released in April 2020, the Ubuntu Desktop team has announced a new default theme.

    For those who don’t know, Yaru is the theme being used since Ubuntu 18.10. Yaru, Canonical Design, and Ubuntu Desktop team have geared up collaboratively to ship the successor of the Yaru theme in the upcoming Ubuntu 20.04 LTS version.

    [...]

    The option of switching between these variations will be available in the settings. These variations will also be available for shell elements, such as the top bar and notification bubbles.

    To make the upcoming Ubuntu Desktop version more distinctive, more upgradation in the design of the folder icons and other elements is continued, which will be disclosed at a later stage.

  • Our 2019 in Review

    2019 was an intense and record-breaking year for us at elementary. You can read about the monthly updates in detail, but let’s take a look back at milestones from the year—and then look forward to our goals for 2020.

  • elementary OS 6 Will Be Based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

    The elementary OS team is kicking off 2020 with a retrospective of the things they managed to do in 2019 and a set of goals for the year ahead as they want to further improve their Linux-based operating system.

    In a recent blog post, elementary co-founder Cassidy James Blaede talks about an “intense and record-breaking” 2019 and also highlights some of the major goals for 2020 while also revealing the fact that work on the next major release, elementary OS 6, is on the way and it will be based on the upcoming Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) operating system.

    “Ubuntu 20.04 LTS will be coming out this year, and subsequently we plan to release elementary OS 6 with a 20.04 base. We’ve begun some of the underlying work to migrate to and build against newer libraries, but much of that work still lies ahead,” said Cassidy James Blaede, Co-founder & CXO of elementary.

Devices/Embedded

• Wind River acquires Star Lab to broaden portfolio with cyber and anti-tamper security software for Linux

  Wind River, a leader in delivering software for the intelligent edge, announced its acquisition of Star Lab, a leader in cybersecurity for embedded systems.

  The acquisition broadens the comprehensive Wind River software portfolio with a system protection and anti-tamper toolset for Linux, a secure open source–based hypervisor, and a secure boot solution. Star Lab is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Wind River. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

  Historically, embedded devices have functioned in isolation, deployed to environments minimally connected to the outside world. However, with the emergence of ubiquitous connectivity paradigms such as IoT and remotely monitored/autonomously controlled industrial and transportation systems, today’s cyber threat landscape is rapidly evolving.

• Wind River Acquires Star Lab, Bolsters Linux and Embedded System Cybersecurity Offerings

  Wind River has acquired Star Lab, a cybersecurity firm that offers system protection and anti-tamper toolsets for Linux and embedded systems.

• Wind River buys Star Lab for better system-wide security

  Jim Douglas, the CEO of Wind River is a big believer in Linux. This may seem like an odd stance coming from the head of a company built for the embedded world where real-time operating systems (RTOS) reign, but for the last decade or more Wind River has been expanding its portfolio of products to include Linux operating systems. In 2012, it built its own Linux based OS on the Yocto Linux kernel. Wind River wants to bring the world of IT to the old-school industrial world.

• Wind River acquires Star Lab

  Wind River has announced the acquisition of Star Lab, a leader in cybersecurity for embedded systems.

  The acquisition broadens Wind River’s software portfolio with a system protection and anti-tamper toolset for Linux, a secure open source-based hypervisor, and a secure boot solution. Star Lab is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Wind River.

  With the emergence of the connectivity associated with IoT and remotely monitored/autonomously controlled industrial and transportation systems, today’s cyber threat landscape is evolving. Central to this is the ease with which a focused and resourced adversary can acquire and reverse engineer deployed embedded systems.

  Specialising in cyber and anti-tamper security software for Linux, Star Lab provides embedded security for mission-critical systems, infrastructure, and equipment. Its solutions look to address security challenges across critical infrastructure, including proactive protection of systems, even during sophisticated and targeted attacks that breach traditional defensive mechanisms.

• KAL and Ceska launch first Windows 10 ATM on Linux Hypervisor

• MediaTek Rich IoT SDK v20.0 Released, Pumpkin i500 SBC Announced

  MediaTek Rich IoT SDK v20.0 is Available MediaTek has announced its Rich IoT SDK v20.0 is already available for the i300 and i500 chipset series.

• Ingenic X1830 IoT Processor Features a 32-bit MIPS Core, 128MB DDR2 RAM

  Ingenic is a silicon vendor based in Beijing, China and known for its MIPS Xburst processors such as JZ4780 dual-core SoC or T10 video processor.

• Introducing the Intel NUC 9 Compute Elements, Mini PC Kits, and 3rd-Party Ecosystem

• Intel Sends Out Linux Patches For Speed Select Core-Power Controls

  Coming to Linux last year with the 5.3 kernel was Intel Speed Select Technology support as a Cascade Lake feature for optimizing the per-core performance configurations to favor certain cores at the cost of reducing the performance capacity for other CPU cores. That Intel Speed Select (SST) support for Linux is now being enhanced with core-power controls.

• Protect your veggies from hail with a Raspberry Pi Zero W

  Tired of losing vegetable crops to frequent summertime hail storms, Nick Rogness decided to build something to protect them. And the result is brilliant!

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Automate Your Life With Node-RED (Plus A Dash Of MQTT)

    For years we’ve seen a trickle of really interesting home automation projects that use the Node-RED package. Each time, the hackers behind these projects have raved about Node-RED and now I’ve joined those ranks as well.

    This graphic-based coding platform lets you quickly put together useful operations and graphic user interfaces (GUIs), whether you’re the freshest greenhorn or a seasoned veteran. You can use it to switch your internet-connected lights on schedule, or at the touch of a button through a web-app available to any device on your home network. You can use it as an information dashboard for the weather forecast, latest Hackaday articles, bus schedules, or all of them at once. At a glance it abstracts away the complexity of writing Javascript, while also making it simple to dive under hood and use your 1337 haxor skills to add your own code.

    You can get this up and running in less than an hour and I’m going to tackle that as well as examples for playing with MQTT, setting up a web GUI, and writing to log files. To make Node-RED persistent on your network you need a server, but it’s lean enough to run from a Raspberry Pi without issue, and it’s even installed by default in BeagleBone distributions. Code for all examples in this guide can be found in the tutorial repository. Let’s dive in!

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Xiaomi Mi A2 now getting Android 10 update

  • Xiaomi POCO X2 with 8GB RAM and Android 10 spotted on Geekbench

  • Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S now getting stable MIUI 11 with Android 10

  • Samsung Galaxy SM-P615 tablet with Exynos 9611, Android 10 spotted on Geekbench

  • Huawei Asks UK Developers to Help Build App Ecosystem Amid Android Ban

  • How to check your Android version

  • GitHub for Android goes live as a beta on the Play Store

  • GitHub for Android brings code collaboration to your mobile

  • Twitter’s pinned lists feature is making its way to Android

  • Android trojan writes fake user reviews

  • What Is Android Mobile? Everything You Need To Know

  • Huawei P30 and P30 Pro get Android 10 based EMUI 10 on O2 UK

  • Galaxy S9 may soon receive its biggest Android update EVER

  • Android’s version of AirDrop, ‘Fast Share,’ has been renamed to ‘Nearby Sharing’

  • TicPods 2 Pro review: Still a solid Android alternative to Apple AirPods [Video]

  • This might be our first look at one of the most exciting new Android phones of 2020

  • Amazon discounts the best smartwatch for Android users – the Samsung Galaxy Watch

  • The best free and open-source alternatives to Google Maps on Android

  • Twitter is preparing pinned lists for Android

  • Android devices raze alerting users to carried out app updates

  • How to fix Gboard stopped working problem on Android

  • The Search Engine for Android Devices in Europe What is info.com?

  • Google may soon let you record phone calls on Android

  • PinePhone Linux phone starts shipping Friday for the brave of heart

    The dream of a truly free as in speech, open source smartphone running Linux has never truly died. It just took on various forms and suffered numerous setbacks along the way. Last year, however, it seemed that the dream is finally close to becoming reality, with both the Purism Librem 5 and the PINE64 PinePhone declaring shipping dates. The Librem 5 had a rocky head start and now it’s the PinePhone BraveHeart edition’s turn to try convincing the world that a Linux phone for consumers is not such a bad idea after all.

  • PinePhone ‘Brave Heart’ Starts Shipping, Here’s What to Expect

    If you were plucky enough to pre-order a PinePhone Brave Heart edition last month you may be interested to know that devices start shipping from January 17, 2020.

    Yes, this week!

    Pine64’s Lukasz Erecinski shares the date in the company’s latest monthly update, explaining: “We’re now ready […] to confirm that PinePhones will begin shipping …on January 17th 2020. The dispatch process will take a couple of days, however, so your unit may ship on the 20th or 25th. At any rate, you’ll have your PinePhone soon”.

    The handsets are being shipped through a company called Asendia who, Erecinski says, offer a good balance of shipping times (important to buyers) and cost (important to Pine64, who don’t exactly make huge profits all on this tech).

  • PinePhone Braveheart Linux smartphone begins shipping January 17th

    The PinePhone is an inexpensive smartphone designed to run Linux-based operating systems. Developed by the folks at Pine64, the $150 smartphone was first announced about a year ago — and this week the first units will ship.

    Pine64 says it will begin shipping the PinePhone Braveheart Edition on January 17th — although it could take a few weeks for customers to receive their phones.

    [...]

    All of those operating systems are still very much a work in progress, with new builds rolling out all the time, so it’s recommended you load the operating systems onto an SD card rather than built-in storage.

    But that’s one of the key things that really sets the PinePhone apart from other handsets. Not only is it designed to run free and open source, GNU/Linux-based operating systems. But you can boot from internal storage or an SD card. There’s no bootloader lock that keeps you from running the software you want to use on the phone.

    It also has a headphone jack and a removable battery, unlike most modern phones. And there are hardware killswitches for disabling wireless capabilities, the camera, or other hardware.

    Pine64 also included 6 pogo pins on the back of the phone that could eventually be used to connect custom hardware modules.

    Not bad for a $150 phone.

  • This week in Android: Best smartphones, Chromebooks, and more from CES

  • Realme teases the new Realme UI based on Android 10, reveals update schedule

  • Xiaomi Poco X2 is coming with 8GB RAM and Android 10

  • ZTE rolls out Android 10 for the Axon 10 Pro in Europe

  • GitHub for Android beta program has launched

  • Twitter testing pinned lists on Android, scheduled tweets for web app

  • Best Road Trip Apps for Android Device in 2019

    In recent times we’ve covered topics on Android covering content like file managers, music downloaders, video editors. But we’re in a celebratory mood and my focus is on trying to get lost in a new place. Road trips make up some of my favorite holidays and oh, how much more awesome would it have been if there were these many cool applications to enable me to visualize my travel plan.

    It’s the holiday season and I imagine that sooner or later many of us will be taking a couple of trips. Whether you’re already on your road trip or not, today’s list is a collection of the best Android apps of 2019 that will make your journey a lot easier and enjoyable.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• 3 open source tools to manage your contacts

  I have collected a lot of email addresses over the course of my, well, life so far. And managing all that data can be a bit of a pain. There are web-based services, but they aren’t as fast as a local copy.

  A few days ago, I talked about vdirsyncer for managing calendars. Vdirsyncer also handles contacts using the CardDAV protocol. Vdirsyncer supports google_contacts and carddav to do contact synchronizations in addition to the filesystem store it uses for calendars, but the fileext setting will change, so you won’t be trying to store contacts in calendar files.

• Top Open Source Machine Learning Tools

  Google, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft and other tech giants including renowned developers have already taken a nimble step towards the Machine learning and Artificial intelligence to make the dream of human beings of creating a highly intelligent machine. And to armed others to partake in this journey of building a conscious machine for the future, there are quite a good number of open source tools avail by tech giants to integrate artificial intelligence into applications.

  Yet, the artificial intelligence and machine learning are at very early stage, so don?t expect something like some sci-fi movie, however developers those are into AI and ML can use the open-source software we are going to discuss for writing apps for better speech recognition, Image recognization, Voice assistance, developing a neural network and more? Take a look at some of the most popular open-source solutions.

• Events

  • Call for FOSDEM 2020 Booth volunteers

    This year we’ve got one of the high-traffic locations, on the ground floor where Free Software Foundation Europe set up last year, right next to the stairway to *all* the dev rooms. So we’re looking for volunteers to come and talk about both Perl and Raku at FOSDEM 2020 in Brussels. If I haven’t already talked to you, please email me at drforr [at] pobox (dot) com and give me an idea of your availability and what you’d want to do. We’ve made arrangements for the usual booth swag, and will have pamphlets to hand out and books to sell on both Raku and Perl.

  • A day in the life at SUSECON 2020. Here’s what to expect!

    We are roughly about 9 weeks out from SUSECON 2020 taking place in Dublin, Ireland! Wondering what you can expect from this years event? I’ve got you covered!

    Plan to be inspired by keynotes, 150+ breakout sessions and more certification opportunities than ever before! Expect the latest innovations in Linux, Ceph, Cloud Foundry, and a host of other great open source technologies now available from SUSE and from our technology partners. You can also plan to network with open source technologists and experts in their field, gain new skills in our deep dive hands-on technical sessions and gain insight through talking with peers. Your SUSECON pass brings you the best content and value of any conference in the industry, from hands-on training to complimentary certifications to meeting with experts — it’s all here!

  • Daniel Stenberg: You’re invited to curl up 2020: Berlin

    curl up is the main (and only?) event of the year where curl developers and enthusiasts get together physically in a room for a full weekend of presentations and discussions on topics that are centered around curl and its related technologies.

    We move the event around to different countries every year to accommodate different crowds better and worse every year – and this time we’re back again in Germany – where we once started the curl up series back in 2017.

    The events are typically small with a very friendly spirit. 20-30 persons

• Web Browsers

  • Chromium

    • Google to kill third-party Chrome cookies in two years

      So it’ll slowly squish third-party cookies, but only after it’s found alternatives. What does that squishing look like, and what are those alternatives?

      The company already announced that it would limit third-party cookies to HTTPS connections, which will make them more secure. It plans to start doing that next month.

      It will also treat cookies that don’t use the SameSite label as first-party only. SameSite is a tag that developers can include with cookies. It sets the rules for exchanging the cookie with other sites. A bank could use it to avoid sending session cookies to another site that links to a customer’s transaction page, for example, so that a third party couldn’t harvest session information. So in future, developers have to be upfront about how third-party cookies will work, or Chrome won’t send them between sites at all.

    • Chrome’s Move To Stomp Out Third Party Cookies? Good For Privacy, Good For Google’s Ad Business… Or Both?

      We’ve talked in the past how efforts solely focused on “protecting privacy” without looking at the wider tech ecosystem and the challenges its facing may result in unintended consequences, and now we’ve got another example. Google has announced that it’s beginning a process to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome. Looking at this solely through the lens of privacy, many privacy advocates are celebrating this move, saying that it will better protect user privacy. But… if you viewed it from a more competitive standpoint, it also does much to give Google significantly more power over the ad market and could harm many other companies. Former Facebook CSO, Alex Stamos’ take is pretty dead on here:

    • Windows 10 users: Google reveals when it’s killing off Chrome apps

      Chrome apps that work offline for Windows, Mac, and Linux have been around since 2013, but Google has now committed firm dates for switching off support for them.

    • Google sets final timeline for killing and replacing Chrome Apps

      Back in 2016, Google announced that it was killing Chrome Apps in favor of the web. This process began with that category disappearing from the Web Store in late 2017, and Google now has a final timeline for the deprecation.

      Chrome Apps launched in 2013 to a different state of the web. “Packaged Apps” were built with HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript to offer an “experience comparable to a native application.” They were touted as allowing for a wider user base than just one OS, and targeted towards device manufacturers and educators.

      Citing “substantial progress” since then, Google believes that “modern browsers puts the Web in a good position to answer the vast majority of use cases.” Touted first-class experiences include Google Earth and Figma for designers, as well as Progressive Web Apps.

  • Mozilla

    • Firefox 73 Enters Development with New Default Zoom Settings, Improved Audio

      With the Firefox 72 release hitting the stable update channel last week, Mozilla kicked off the development of the next version of its popular, open-source and cross-platform web browser, Firefox 73.

      Now that Mozilla has adopted the monthly release cycle for new Firefox versions, the Open Source company aims to address various bugs and improve the functionality, reliability, and stability of its web browser for all supported platforms.

      Firefox 72 introduced Picture-in-Picture support for Linux and macOS users, the ability to block fingerprinting scripts by default on all supported platforms using the built-in Enhanced Tracking Protection feature, new developer features, and removed the annoying notification request pop-ups.

      With the Firefox 73 release, Mozilla adds the ability to set a default zoom level that’s applicable for all websites. The new option will be implemented in the Preferences page under the “Language and Appearance” section, allowing users to scale the zoom levels up or down from the default 100% setting.

    • Readying for the Future at Mozilla

      Mozilla must do two things in this era: Continue to excel at our current work, while we innovate in the areas most likely to impact the state of the internet and internet life. From security and privacy network architecture to the surveillance economy, artificial intelligence, identity systems, control over our data, decentralized web and content discovery and disinformation — Mozilla has a critical role to play in helping to create product solutions that address the challenges in these spaces.

      Creating the new products we need to change the future requires us to do things differently, including allocating resources for this purpose. We’re making a significant investment to fund innovation. In order to do that responsibly, we’ve also had to make some difficult choices which led to the elimination of roles at Mozilla which we announced internally today.

    • Mozilla lays off 70 as it waits for new products to generate revenue

      In an internal memo, Mozilla chairwoman and interim CEO Mitchell Baker specifically mentions the slow rollout of the organization’s new revenue-generating products as the reason for why it needed to take this decision. The overall number may still be higher, though, as Mozilla is still looking into how this decision will affect workers in the UK and France. In 2018, Mozilla Corporation (as opposed to the much smaller Mozilla Foundation) said it had about 1,000 employees worldwide.

      “You may recall that we expected to be earning revenue in 2019 and 2020 from new subscription products as well as higher revenue from sources outside of search. This did not happen,” Baker writes in her memo. “Our 2019 plan underestimated how long it would take to build and ship new, revenue-generating products. Given that, and all we learned in 2019 about the pace of innovation, we decided to take a more conservative approach to projecting our revenue for 2020. We also agreed to a principle of living within our means, of not spending more than we earn for the foreseeable future.”

    • Mozilla lays off 70 employees to prepare for tough years ahead

    • Layoff survival guide

      If you’re reading these lines, you may have recently been laid off from your job. Or maybe, depending on your country and its laws, you’re waiting to know if you’re being laid off.

    • No Mo’zilla for about 100 techies today: Firefox maker lays off staff as boss talks of ‘difficult choices’ and funding

      On Wednesday Mozilla Corporation, maker of the Firefox browser and would-be internet privacy protector, said it plans to lay off an undisclosed number of employees.

      “Creating the new products we need to change the future requires us to do things differently, including allocating resources for this purpose,” said Mozilla executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker in a blog post.

      “We’re making a significant investment to fund innovation. In order to do that responsibly, we’ve also had to make some difficult choices which led to the elimination of roles at Mozilla which we announced internally today.”

      A Mozilla spokesperson declined to provide a copy of Baker’s internal memo discussing the job cuts, said to affect 70 people. The spokesperson declined to confirm a specific number of affected employees but said the organization’s total number of employees “was just under 1,100 prior to today’s announcement and will be just over a 1,000 going forward.”

    • Niko Matsakis: Async Interview #4: Florian Gilcher

      Hello! For the latest async interview, I spoke with Florian Gilcher (skade). Florian is involved in the async-std project, but he’s also one of the founders of Ferrous Systems, a Rust consulting firm that also does a lot of trainings. In that capacity, he’s been teaching people to use async Rust now since Rust’s 1.0 release.

      [...]

      We discussed the futures crate for a while. In particular, the question of whether we should be “stabilizing” traits by moving them into the standard library, or whether we can use the futures crate as a “semi-stable” home. There are obviously advantages either way.

      On the one hand, there is no clearer signal for stability than adding something to libstd. On the other, the future crate facade gives a “finer grained” ability to talk about semver.

      One thing Florian noted is that the futures crate itself, although it has evolved a lot, has always maintained an internal consistency, which is good.

      One other point Florian emphasized is that people really want to be building applications, so in some way the most important thing is to be moving towards stability, so they can avoid worrying about the sand shifting under their feet.

• Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

  • Welcoming the new Board of Directors at The Document Foundation

    In December, members of The Document Foundation voted for a new Board of Directors. The Board is the main administration of the Foundation’s projects and teams – including LibreOffice and The Document Foundation. The new Board will begin work after FOSDEM in February – and there are some new faces to welcome! Let’s hear from them…

  • Image Compression

    Finally LibreOffice image compression did what you expect. Shrink your image or the impress presentation and don’t destroy your pictures.

• CMS

  • Kiwi TCMS 7.3

    We’re happy to announce Kiwi TCMS version 7.3!

    IMPORTANT: this is a critical security update for CVE-2019-19844: Potential account hijack via password reset form!

    Also migrates to Django 3.0 and includes several other improvement and bug-fixes!

  • WordPress Leaders Nominated for CMX Awards

    Two members of the WordPress leadership team were nominated for excellent work in their field in the first ever Community Industry Awards. Andrea Middleton is nominated for Executive Leader of a Community Team and Josepha Haden Chomphosy is nominated for Community Professional of the Year.

    [...]

    Andrea has been a vital community strategist for the WordPress project since 2011. Her work to build and support a vibrant community has played a part in the success around the popular open source CMS. Her work is sponsored by Automattic, where she leads a team that focuses on educational efforts, funding, and in-person community-driven events that serve a global base.

    Josepha has been the Executive Director of the WordPress project since 2019. Her work to coordinate and guide volunteer efforts spans 20 teams and involves thousands of volunteers. Her work is also sponsored by Automattic, where she leads the open source division that focuses on all aspects of open source contribution including design, development, volunteer engagement, and the health of the overall WordPress ecosystem.

• BSD

  • Insight into Why Hyperbola GNU/Linux is Turning into Hyperbola BSD

    In late December 2019, Hyperbola announced that they would be making major changes to their project. They have decided to drop the Linux kernel in favor of forking the OpenBSD kernel. This announcement only came months after Project Trident announced that they were going in the opposite direction (from BSD to Linux).

    Hyperbola also plans to replace all software that is not GPL v3 compliant with new versions that are.

    To get more insight into the future of their new project, I interviewed Andre, co-founder of Hyperbola.

• FSF

  • First LibrePlanet 2020 keynote announcement: Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle

    The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced Brewster Kahle as its first keynote speaker for LibrePlanet 2020. The annual technology and social justice conference will be held in the Boston area on March 14 and 15, 2020, with the theme “Free the Future.”

  • GNU Projects

    • GNU Guile 3.0.0 released

      We are ecstatic and relieved to announce the release of GNU Guile 3.0.0. This is the first release in the new stable 3.0 release series.

      See the release announcement for full details and a download link.

      The principal new feature in Guile 3.0 is just-in-time (JIT) native code generation. This speeds up the performance of all programs. Compared to 2.2, microbenchmark performance is around twice as good on the whole, though some individual benchmarks are up to 32 times as fast.

    • GNU Guile 3.0 Released With JIT Code Generation For Up To 4x Better Performance

      GNU Guile 3.0 has been released, the GNU’s implementation of the Scheme programming language with various extra features. The big news with Guile 3.0 is better performance.

      GNU Guile 3.0 adds just-in-time (JIT) code generation yielding up to four times faster performance. JIT code generation for Guile is enabled automatically and transparently. Guile 3.0 moves its virtual machine instruction set to be lower-level now to allow for more optimizations and has a variety of other improvements.

    • GNU Guile 3.0.0 released

      We are delighted to announce GNU Guile release 3.0.0, the first in the
      new 3.0 stable release series.
      
      Compared to the previous stable series (2.2.x), Guile 3.0 adds support
      for just-in-time native code generation, speeding up all Guile programs.
      See the NEWS extract at the end of the mail for full details.
      
      
      The Guile web page is located at http://gnu.org/software/guile/, and
      among other things, it contains a copy of the Guile manual and pointers
      to more resources.
      
      Guile is an implementation of the Scheme programming language, packaged
      for use in a wide variety of environments.  In addition to implementing
      the R5RS, R6RS, and R7RS Scheme standards, Guile includes full access to
      POSIX system calls, networking support, multiple threads, dynamic
      linking, a foreign function call interface, powerful string processing,
      and HTTP client and server implementations.
      
      Guile can run interactively, as a script interpreter, and as a Scheme
      compiler to VM bytecode.  It is also packaged as a library so that
      applications can easily incorporate a complete Scheme interpreter/VM.
      An application can use Guile as an extension language, a clean and
      powerful configuration language, or as multi-purpose "glue" to connect
      primitives provided by the application.  It is easy to call Scheme code
      from C code and vice versa.  Applications can add new functions, data
      types, control structures, and even syntax to Guile, to create a
      domain-specific language tailored to the task at hand.
      

• Programming/Development

  • Federico Mena-Quintero: Exposing C and Rust APIs: some thoughts from librsvg

    Librsvg exports two public APIs: the C API that is in turn available to other languages through GObject Introspection, and the Rust API.

    You could call this a use of the facade pattern on top of the rsvg_internals crate. That crate is the actual implementation of librsvg, and exports an interface with many knobs that are not exposed from the public APIs. The knobs are to allow for the variations in each of those APIs.

    This post is about some interesting things that have come up during the creation/separation of those public APIs, and the implications of having an internals library that implements both.

  • Dirk Eddelbuettel: RQuantLib 0.4.11: More polish

    New year, new RQuantLib! A new release 0.4.11 of RQuantLib arrived overnight on CRAN; and a Debian upload will follow shortly.

    QuantLib is a very comprehensice free/open-source library for quantitative finance; RQuantLib connects it to the R environment and language.

    This version does three new things. First, we fixed an oversight on our end and now allow a null calendar (as the C++ API). Second, the package switched to tinytest as a few of my other packages have done, allowing for very flexible testing during development and deployment—three cheers for easily testing installed packages too. Third, and per a kind nag from Kurt Hornik I updated a few calls which the current QuantLib 1.17 marks as deprecated. That lead to a compile issue with 1.16 so the change is conditional in one part.

  • Top Skills In Demand For 2020 [Ed: One cannot properly study jobs in need based only on ads in a site owned and controlled by Microsoft]

    The start of the year, when it is traditional to come up with self-improving resolutions, is a good time to contemplate new job opportunities. So what are employers looking for in 2020? Here we have two lists of the most sought skills.

    The first thing to note is that both of them are biased and there is little common ground between them. The divergence is because they have been constructed with differing goals. As a jobs site Dice is on the look out for the terms that crop up in job postings while LinkedIn Learning is hoping to sign you (or your employer) up to its skill building courses which are provided by Lynda.com, the online learning platform which LinkedIn acquired in 2015.

  • Google open-sources tool to boost 2FA adoption in npm

    Google has open-sourced an npm publishing tool for heightened security across organizations? client libraries.

    The tool, Wombat Dressing Room, aims to reduce the security risks associated with the automation of npm publishing.

    ?On my team, a small number of developers manage over 75 Node.js libraries,? Benjamin Coe, developer engineer at Google, said in an announcement on Friday (January 10).

    ?We see automation as key to making this possible,? he said.

  • This Week in Rust 321

    Always wanted to contribute to open-source projects but didn’t know where to start? Every week we highlight some tasks from the Rust community for you to pick and get started!

  • LLVM Developers Discuss Improved Decision Making Process

    LLVM project founder Chris Lattner has proposed a new decision making process for the LLVM compiler stack around new sub-project proposals, new social policies, changes to core infrastructure, and other key changes.

    Lattner is proposing a process similar to the Swift language’s Evolution Process (to which Lattner has been involved with Swift), Rust’s RFC process, Python PEP, and other similar processes for different programming languages. The motivation is to provide clearer steps for developers wishing to propose effectively fundamental changes to the project with no code owners. And, yes, there still is the LLVM Foundation for more project related matters where as the process changes here are technical focused.

  • LLVM 10 Adds Option To Help Offset Intel JCC Microcode Performance Impact

    Disclosed back in November was the Intel Jump Conditional Code Erratum that necessitated updated CPU microcode to mitigate and with that came with a nearly across the board performance impact. But Intel developers had been working on assembler patches for helping to reduce that performance hit. The GNU Assembler patches were merged back in December while now ahead of LLVM 10.0 that alternative toolchain has an option for helping to recover some of the lost performance.

    On the GNU side the exposed option is “-mbranches-within-32B-boundaries” for altering the handling of jump instructions to aide in reducing the performance hit from the Intel CPU microcode update for Skylake through Cascadelake. (More details in the original JCC article, which includes early benchmarks of the JCC impact and of the mitigated support that has been available within Intel’s Clear Linux since the disclosure date.)

  • RcppRedis 0.1.10: Switch to tinytest

    Another minor release of RcppRedis just arrived on CRAN, following a fairly long break since the last release in October 2018.

    RcppRedis is one of several packages connecting R to the fabulous Redis in-memory datastructure store (and much more). RcppRedis does not pretend to be feature complete, but it may do some things faster than the other interfaces, and also offers an optional coupling with MessagePack binary (de)serialization via RcppMsgPack. The package has carried production loads for several years now.

    This release switches to the fabulous tinytest package, allowing for very flexible testing during development and deployment—three cheers for easily testing installed packages too.

  • Excellent Free Tutorials to Learn COBOL

    COBOL is an acronym which stands for Common Business-Oriented Language. The US Department of Defense, in a conference, formed CODASYL (Conference on Data Systems Language) to develop a language for meeting business data processing needs which is now known as COBOL.

    COBOL is a standard language that can be compiled and executed on various machines. It’s ideally suited for business-oriented applications as it can handle huge volumes of data. It provides numerous debugging and testing tools. COBOL is a structured language; it has different divisions, so it’s easy to debug. The language is not designed for writing systems programs.

    COBOL is one of the oldest computer languages.

  • Perl / Raku

    • Perl Weekly Challenge – 043

  • Python

    • The 9th Annual PyLadies Auction

      If you haven’t attended one previously, you’re missing out! There’s charity. There’s competition. There’s laughter, food, and drinks. There are auction paddles flying in the air as people graciously give money where it has impact.

      The PyLadies auction holds a special place in my heart – I attended my first PyCon in 2015 thanks to financial aid from PyLadies. If you haven’t heard of PyLadies before, we are an international mentorship group with a focus on helping more women become active participants and leaders in the Python open-source community. Last year, the auction raised over $44,000 from the 58 items auctioned off.

    • A Primer on the Python Game Framework

      Computer games are a great way to introduce people to coding and computer science. Since I was a player in my youth, the lure of writing video games was the reason I learned to code. Of course, when I learned Python, my first instinct was to write a Python game.

      While Python makes learning to code more accessible for everyone, the choices for video game writing can be limited, especially if you want to write arcade games with great graphics and catchy sound effects. For many years, Python game programmers were limited to the pygame framework. Now, there’s another choice.

      The arcade library is a modern Python framework for crafting games with compelling graphics and sound. Object-oriented and built for Python 3.6 and up, arcade provides the programmer with a modern set of tools for crafting great Python game experiences.

    • Things You Need to Know Before Hiring Developers for Your Startup

    • More efficient way to sum a list comprehension

      List comprehensions in Python let you create a list declaratively, much like the way you would describe the set in English.

    • Airflow Case Study: ProofPort

      Airflow is an open source tool under the Apache Software Foundation developed by Airbnb. Simply put, Airflow is a workflow orchestration platform. Even so, it is most commonly used for data processing (ETL). It has been very successful and has become the industry standard for batch data processing.

    • Python pip

    • Reuven Lerner made one of the first 100 websites… ever… and other things I learned recording his DevJourney

    • Create a daily earning database with Python SQLite

      In this chapter, we will start a project which will then record my daily earning in the future. We will create the earing table and populate the first row of data into that table. I can then view my earning table using DB Browser which is a browser uses to create, edit, plot and view the SQLite table’s items.

      First of all, let us go to the homepage of DB Browser to download DB Browser through this link. I will temporarily use this tool to view my SQLite table but my final objective is to create my own SQLIte table viewer using the tkinter module. I will go phase by phase to accomplish my objective.

    • Build REST API with Flask & SQLAlchemy

      Flask is a great framework that enables you to build web applications quickly with Python. It’s fast, small, and fun to work with. In this tutorial, we’re going to build a RESTful API with Flask framework, and some other supporting tools.

      The objective of this tutorial is to understand the concept of building a Flask server from the ground up, learn how to commuticate with SQL databases via object-relational mapper, as well as design a RESTful API with object-oriented design pattern.

    • User Accounts With django-allauth – Building SaaS #41

      In this episode, we added django-allauth to create accounts that default to email instead of using usernames. We added the package, configured some templates, and created tests.

      We continued to look at Will Vincent’s django-allauth post on creating user accounts with email and passwords.

      django-allauth let’s us swap out username and email so that users won’t need to create a username, which is the behavior that I want for this service.

    • Variable-Length Arguments in Python with *args and **kwargs

      Some functions have no arguments, others have multiple. There are times we have functions with arguments we don’t know about beforehand. We may have a variable number of arguments because we want to offer a flexible API to other developers or we don’t know the input size. With Python, we can create functions to accept any amount of arguments.

      In this article, we will look at how we can define and use functions with variable length arguments. These functions can accept an unknown amount of input, either as consecutive entries or named arguments.

    • Some median Python NaNsense

      Anybody who has ever taken a numerical analysis course understands that floating-point arithmetic on computers is a messy affair. Even so, it is easy to underestimate just how messy things can be. This topic came to the fore in an initially unrelated python-ideas mailing-list thread; what should the Python statistics module do with floating-point values that are explicitly not numbers?
      Kemal Diri doubtless did not mean to start a massive thread with this request to add a built-in function to the language to calculate the average of the values in a list. That request was quickly dismissed, but the developers went on to the seemingly strange behavior of the statistics module’s median() function when presented with floating-point not-a-number values.

    • Toward a conclusion for Python dictionary “addition”

      One of Guido van Rossum’s last items of business as he finished his term on the inaugural steering council for Python was to review the Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) that proposes a new update and union operators for dictionaries. He would still seem to be in favor of the idea, but it will be up to the newly elected steering council and whoever the council chooses as the PEP-deciding delegate (i.e. BDFL-Delegate). Van Rossum provided some feedback on the PEP and, inevitably, the question of how to spell the operator returned, but the path toward getting a decision on it is now pretty clear.

      [...]

      At the beginning of December, Van Rossum posted his review of the PEP to the python-ideas mailing list. He encouraged the authors (Brandt Bucher and Steven D’Aprano) to request a BDFL-Delegate for the PEP from the steering council, noting that he would not be on the council after the end of the year. D’Aprano indicated that he would be doing so. Apparently that happened, because, tucked away in the notes from the November and December steering council meetings was a mention that a BDFL-Delegate had been assigned—none other than Van Rossum himself.

      In his review, he comes down strongly in favor of | and |= and had some other minor suggestions. He said: “All in all I would recommend to the SC to go forward with this proposal, targeting Python 3.9, assuming the operators are changed to | and |=, and the PEP is brought more in line with the PEP editing guidelines from PEP 1 and PEP 12.” Given that, and that he is the decision maker for the PEP, it would seem to be smooth sailing for its acceptance.

      That did not stop some from voicing objections to the PEP as a whole or the spelling of the operator in particular, of course, though the discussion was collegial as is so often the case in the Python world. Van Rossum thought that | might be harder for newcomers, but was not particularly concerned about that: “I don’t think beginners should be taught these operators as a major tool in their toolbox”. But Ryan Gonzalez thought that beginners might actually find that spelling easier because of its congruence to the Python set union operator.

      Serhiy Storchaka is not a fan of the PEP in general, but believes that | is a better choice than +. He thinks there are already other ways to accomplish the same things that the operators would provide and that their use may be error-prone. He also had a performance concern, but Brett Cannon pointed out that it might only exist for CPython; PyPy and other Pythons might not have the same performance characteristics.

  • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

    • Automating Helm deployments with Bash

      Some of our applications are hosted in a Kubernetes cluster, and we use GitLab Continuous Integration (CI) to automate deployments and Helm 2 to deploy our applications. Helm charts enable the storage of templates of Kubernetes object YAML files with variables that can be programmatically set from command-line arguments passed when the chart is used during deployments. This allows us to store critical secrets in GitLab-protected environment variables or in Hashicorp Vault and use them within the CI deployment job.

      [...]

      The script performs all tasks required to deploy a Helm chart for an application to Kubernetes and waits for the deployment to be ready using kubectl and Helm. Helm runs with a local Tiller installation instead of running Tiller in the Kubernetes cluster. The Kubernetes HELM_USER and HELM_PASSWORD are used to log into the Kubernetes CLUSTER_SERVER and PROJECT_NAMESPACE. Tiller is started, Helm is initialized in client-only mode, and its repo is updated. The template is linted with Helm to ensure that syntax errors have not been accidentally committed. The template is then deployed in declarative mode, using helm upgrade –install. Helm waits for the deployment to be ready using the –wait flag.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Schneier: “It’s really too late to secure 5G networks”

    Schneier points to a variety of factors contributing to 5G’s intrinsic, irreparable unsuitability: first, the US government pushed for weaker security in order to ensure that it could conduct domestic surveillance; the standards themselves are so complex as to be impossible to implement securely; and the system calls for software running on dynamically configurable hardware, which “dramatically increases the points vulnerable to attack.”

    Moreover, 5G is backwards compatible with earlier protocols, inheriting all their insecurities, and generating new ones where these protocols’ weak spots can be chained together to create attacks that each protocol was, in and of itself immune to, but which the system remains vulnerable to.

  • The trouble with IPv6 extension headers

    It has taken longer than anybody might have liked, but the IPv6 protocol is slowly displacing IPv4 across the Internet. A quick, highly scientific “grep the access logs” test shows that about 16% of the traffic to LWN.net is currently using IPv6, and many large corporate networks are using IPv6 exclusively internally. This version of the IP protocol was designed to be more flexible than IPv4 in a number of ways; the “extension header” mechanism is one way in which that flexibility is achieved. A proposal to formalize extension-header processing in the kernel’s networking stack has led to some concerns, though, about how this feature will be used and what role Linux should play in its development.
    In both versions of the IP protocol, the header of each packet contains a collection of information about how the packet is to be handled; at a minimum, it contains source and destination addresses and a higher-level protocol number. In IPv4, the contents of the header are rigidly specified; it is difficult to add new types of information to the header. When IPv6 was designed, extension headers were added as a way to (relatively) easily add new information in the future.

    A few extension header types are defined in RFC8200 (which describes IPv6). Two of particular interest are the “Hop-by-Hop” and “Destination” headers; the former is meant to be acted upon by every system that handles the packet, while the latter is only for the destination node’s attention. These headers may contain one or more options, each encoded in a type-length-value (TLV) format. RFC8200 only defines a couple of options that insert padding into the header, but there is interest in adding a number of others.

    For example, In-situ Operations, Administration, and Maintenance options are meant to allow providers to collect telemetry information on packets passing through their networks. The Path MTU mechanism uses a Hop-by-Hop option to discover the maximum packet size a path can handle. Firewall and Service Tickets (FAST) are a Hop-by-Hop option that documents a packet’s right to traverse a network or pass through a firewall. The Segment Routing options allows a packet to contain the path it should take through a network. And so on.

Life was a cabaret – the Roaring Twenties in Cairo

Less than two years before Ashbee saw her performance in that village, she had left behind the life of a nightclub singer to make her theatrical debut on the stage of the Printania Theatre on Alfi Bey Street. She was said to be the first Egyptian Muslim woman to become a professional actress – before then actresses had largely been Christian or Jewish and from Ottoman Syria. The next year she became the first Egyptian woman to lead her own theatrical company.

Long after Ashbee saw her, Mounira remained one of the biggest names of the riotous underworld of parties and nightlife that flourished in Cairo throughout the 1920s and ’30s. In this period, downtown Cairo was thick with theatres, cabarets, dancehalls, and cinemas, and had an entertainment scene to rival other global cities – Berlin, Paris, or New York.

Education

• Traversed by Tensions: Quebec’s Religious Symbols Law

  Fatima Ahmad, 23, an Education student at McGill University in Montreal, says that Bill 21 prevents her from working as a public school teacher in Quebec. A fourth year student, graduating in April 2020, she is already making plans to move to the United Arab Emirates or Calgary once she graduates. She is photographed wearing a niqab. Thirty-seven year old Nadia Naqvi is a high-school teacher in Quebec. But she is blocked from advancing up the ladder. “Bill 21 has turned me into a second-class citizen in my own profession—my peers can advance professionally, but I cannot. That’s state-sanctioned discrimination” (Globe and Mail, December 21, 2019). She is wearing a beautifully flowered hijab.

• real world crypto talks

  Real World Crypto 2020 was last week. It’s a conference I like because the talks are usually pretty interesting. The crypto talks have real world applications and the real world application talks have crypto. Afterwards, there’s usually not just something to be learned, but something to be done. I didn’t actually attend every talk, but here’s some notes.

• France Says Netflix, Disney Must Plow 25% of Local Revenue Into Content

  France is finalizing a bill to force video-on-demand services from Netflix Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Walt Disney Co. and others to invest at least 25% of their revenue derived in the country to fund local productions.

  The French legislation falls under a European Union directive requiring such companies to ensure that at least 30% of their catalogs are comprised of European-made content. The French Culture Ministry, which shared a presentation made Tuesday in Paris with Bloomberg, didn’t comment on how France is planning to measure sales of the platforms in France.

Health/Nutrition

• Analysis of 30 Years of Single-Payer Research Shows Medicare for All Would Absolutely Save US Money

  “Across the political spectrum, there is near consensus among these economists that a single-payer system would save money.”

• Study Shows Being Rich Buys 9 Extra Years of ‘Healthy’ Living in US and UK

  “In both countries, efforts in reducing health inequalities should target people from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups.”

• A Truly Antiwar Agenda Must Include Free College and Medicare for All

  Last night’s debate brought home a reality for me: A truly antiwar agenda is not confined to priorities traditionally seen as “foreign policy.” It must include bold plans to address climate change, education, institutional racism and sexism, health care and immigration justice. And our movements must reflect that broad-based vision.

• States Can’t Protect Themselves From the Harmful Effects of ACA Repeal

  The Trump Administration and 18 state attorneys general are asking the courts to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) as unconstitutional. With a cloud of uncertainty hanging over coverage and protections for tens of millions of people, some states are looking for ways to protect their residents. On their own, however, states can do nothing to stop most of the harmful consequences of ACA repeal: the only solution is for the courts to uphold the law.

• The Year in Disability Rights

  People with disabilities around the world face serious obstacles to realizing their rights on an equal basis with others. Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2020 documents abuses such as violence, discrimination, segregation, and unlawful detention of people with disabilities in 32 countries including Australia, Tanzania, Kazakhstan, Mexico, and the United States.

  Due to prevalent stigma and lack of adequate mental health services, thousands of people with mental health conditions are shackled – chained or locked up in small confined spaces – in many countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Indonesia, and Somaliland. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of shackling in homes, traditional and religious-based healing centers, schools, psychiatric hospitals, and state-run rehabilitation centers. Those shackled are often exposed to physical and emotional abuse, neglect, and isolation. Though shackling persists in Indonesia, government agencies have made some progress by signing an agreement to monitor places where people with mental health conditions have been shackled. Governments should ban shackling and develop quality, accessible community-based support and mental health services.

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • Amazon to invest $1 bn in India to digitise small, medium businesses, says Jeff Bezos

    Under the initiative, Amazon would establish ‘Digital Haats’ in 100 cities, villages, and communities to help businesses integrate into the digital economy. Digital Haats would be in local neighbourhoods and available to MSMEs irrespective of their association with Amazon, a company statement said.

  • Jeff Bezos Says Amazon To Invest $1 Billion To Digitise Small And Medium Businesses In India

    The company will use its global footprint to export USD 10 billion worth of Make In India goods by 2025, Bezos said at the Amazon smbhav summit which will focus on discussions around how technology adoption can enable small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India.

  • CGI to hire 15,000 over the next 5 years

    CGI plans to hire nearly 15,000 people in India over the next four to five years, the Canadian IT services provider’s founder said.

    The software services company’s India offices, which currently employ nearly 15,000 people, play a strategic role in service delivery across key markets. The about $12 billion company follows a strategy of setting up bases close to client locations, either organically or through acquisitions, Serge Godin, founder and executive chairman of CGI told ET in an interview. India continues to be one of the largest facilities outside Montreal, he added.

  • Security

    • Celebrating a million dollars in bounties paid

      But it’s about much more than a million dollars in bounty payments. Our journey to this point has been an iterative one, gaining strength and improving along the way as we grow, learn and receive feedback from the security research community. We believe our journey models our commitment to building a strong and secure product for our customers but also our dedication to the open source and security community; one where everyone can contribute and also reap the rewards.

    • GitLab Celebrates $1 Million In Paid Bounties

      GitLab has officially awarded more than $1 million in bug bounties to hackers on HackerOne for reporting valid vulnerabilities in the past year.

      The milestone comes hot on the heels of the GitLab security team completing one year of its public bug bounty program in December 2019. The vulnerability disclosure program (VDP) was first launched in 2014 and soon moved to a private, paid bounty program.

    • Kubernetes Bug Bounty Program Announced

      Google has joined forces with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and HackerOne to launch the bug bounty program for Kubernetes. The program has been running in a ‘beta’ mode with invite-only researchers for several months now.

      While driving awareness of Kubernetes’ security model, it aims to secure one of the most widely used open source technologies through the support of the developer and hacker communities.

      Interested in helping lock down Kubernetes? Well, the Kubernetes bug bounty program will reward researchers who find vulnerabilities in the container orchestration system, with bounties ranging from $100 to $10,000.

    • Micro Focus Introduces Industry’s First Active Directory Bridging Solution that Extends Security Policies and Access Controls to Cloud-based Linux

    • Microsoft, NSA confirm killer Windows 10 bug, but a patch is available

      The flaw, CVE-2020-0601, was found in the usermode cryptographic library, CRYPT32.DLL, that affects Windows 10 systems. (Contrary to earlier rumors, it does not affect Windows 7, which coincidentally is being shut down Tuesday as well.) Fortunately, Microsoft reported that the library was not in active use, though that doesn’t prevent an attacker from weaponizing it now that it’s been disclosed.

      Specifically, the attack could allow malware to hide behind a spoofed cyrptographic signature. Antivirus software could therefore identify malware as legitimate applications, or fake banking sites could use the vulnerability to trick a user’s PC into thinking it was legitimate.

    • Malware Marketer NSO Group Looks Like It’s Blowing Off Facebook’s Lawsuit

      In late October of last year, Facebook and WhatsApp sued Israeli surveillance tech provider NSO Group for using WhatsApp to deliver device-compromising malware. The lawsuit sought to use the CFAA to stop NSO from using WhatsApp as an attack vector.

    • Some FCC Subsidized Low Income Phones Are A Chinese Malware Shitshow

      We’ve long talked about the problems with the FCC’s Lifeline program, which was created by Reagan and expanded by Bush Junior (yet somehow earned the nickname “Obamaphone”). The $2 billion program doles out a measly $9.25 per month subsidy that low-income homes can use to help pay a tiny fraction of their wireless, phone, or broadband bills (enrolled participants have to choose one). But for years, the FCC has struggled to police fraud within the program, with big and small carriers alike frequently caught “accidentally” getting millions in taxpayer dollars they didn’t deserve.

    • Security updates for Thursday

      Security updates have been issued by Debian (debian-lan-config and phpmyadmin), openSUSE (openssl-1_1), Oracle (firefox and kernel), Red Hat (.NET Core, git, java-11-openjdk, and thunderbird), SUSE (Mesa, python3, shibboleth-sp, slurm, and tigervnc), and Ubuntu (libpcap and nginx).

    • Linux 5.6 Crypto Getting AVX/AVX2/AVX-512 Optimized Poly1305 – Helps WireGuard

      Now that lead WireGuard lead developer Jason Donenfeld has managed to get this secure VPN tunnel technology queued for introduction in Linux 5.6 mainline, he’s begun optimizing other areas of the kernel for optimal WireGuard performance.

      Poly1305 is used by WireGuard for the message authentication code and that’s the latest bit being optimized in mainline to not only benefit WireGuard but other crypto users as well. Donenfeld has provided x86_64 vectorized implementations of Poly1305 for AVX, AVX-2, and AVX-512F. These AVX/AVX2/AVX-512 optimized versions are proving to be clearly faster — though with AVX-512 is only enabled for Cannonlake/Icelake and newer as for Skylake the AVX-512 down-clocking is causing the performance to come up short.

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • Company Sells Surveillance Cameras Hidden In Tombstones, Threatens Websites For Talking About Its Tombstone Cameras

        Thanks to a FOIA request by Open the Government policy analyst Freddy Martinez, we now know someone’s trying to sell cops cameras they can hide in… gravestones?

      • The Internet Should Hide Your Data, Not Share It

        This is where default options matter. If every browser window automatically opened in incognito mode, then it wouldn’t be considered incognito browsing, but regular web browsing. But if only outlaws take the time to safeguard their privacy, then privacy becomes a de facto outlaw product.

      • Did Giuliani Goons Plot Against US Ambassador? ‘Incredibly Disturbing’ House Impeachment Docs Raise Serious New Questions

        “The new documents from Lev Parnas are chilling, and damning,” said Rep. Ted Lieu. “Is Donald Trump a thug? I don’t know. But Trump certainly used thugs to help him abuse the power of his office.”

      • Giuliani Associates May Have Surveilled U.S. Ambassador, New Evidence Shows

        Associates of U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer appeared to physically, and perhaps electronically, surveil the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine last spring as they dialed up their pressure campaign on authorities in Kyiv, according to new evidence released by House Democrats on Tuesday.

        The new revelations came on the eve of Wednesday’s House vote to hand over articles of impeachment to the Senate, and it could increase pressure on Republicans to call for further evidence and witness testimony as part of the president’s Senate trial, which is expected to get underway next week.

        The trove of documents includes notes and messages provided to lawmakers by Lev Parnas, a Republican donor and associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Parnas was indicted in October for campaign finance violations.

      • Security expert offers hacking advice to students whose campuses have implemented pervasive wireless surveillance

        In a followup Gizmodo article, Vick delves into the deficiencies with the notifications, consent and privacy policies associated with these services — which are a typical mess of overbroad grabs that are subject to change without notice, couched in deceptive language.

        Vick also puts campus location-tracking in the context of campus information security, which is historically very poor, with low-quality passwords, a lack of access auditing, and interconnection of services and networks that allow both outside attackers and insider threats (such as a professor who wants to stalk a student) to operate with wide latitude and a low likelihood of being caught. Adding location-tracking to such a system vastly increases the risks of the kinds of cyberattacks that are already endemic to campuses.

      • Toronto business and government signal full support for Sidewalk Labs’ dominance of the city and beyond

        I’ve previously written about how Sidewalk Labs is poised to gain control of a vastly larger area than Quayside alone, thanks largely to eager enabling by our municipal, provincial and federal governments and by Waterfront Toronto, which is a creation of these three levels of government.

        The company hasn’t been secretive about its goal to use Quayside as a launching pad for much bigger ambitions. But now it appears they’re confident enough – due to the successful co-opting of our governments and business communities, together with much of the mainstream media and the public – to broadcast more of the scope of their plans.

      • Cards not used for online payments to be disabled of service, says RBI

        “Existing cards that have never been used for online/international/contactless transactions shall be mandatorily disabled for this purpose,” said the central bank, in a notification on Wednesday.

        For existing cards, which have seen the online or ‘card-not-present transactions’, the banks have been directed to carry out a risk assessment and take a call on disabling them based on the risk perception.

        Card transactions are usually divided in two categories — card-present transactions and card not present transactions. In the case of the former, the customer physically interacts with payment machinery using his or her card and in case of the latter, the cardholder does not or cannot physically present the card for a merchant’s visual examination.

      • No documents will be asked or biometric taken for NPR, says Home Ministry

        Amid concerns expressed by Opposition parties and states like West Bengal on the National Population Register (NPR), the Home Ministry on Wednesday said that no documents will be asked or biometrics taken while updating the register.

        A form carrying questions as part of the NPR exercise will be finalised soon, ministry officials said. However, the information available on the website of the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, the NPR database would contain demographic as well as biometric details.

      • Apps are sharing more of your data with ad industry than you may think

        Those laws aren’t doing squat to protect us from the digital marketing and adtech industry, according to a new report from the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC).

        What chance do laws stand against policing what the NCC describes as a shadowy network of companies, “virtually unknown to consumers,” with which popular apps are sharing exquisitely personal behavior/interest/activities/habits data, including our religious preference, menstruation cycle, location data, sexual orientation, political views, drug use, birthday, the unique IDs associated with our smartphones, and more?

        The current situation is “completely out of control, harming consumers, societies, and businesses,” the NCC writes, as evidence continues to mount against what it calls “the commercial surveillance systems” at the heart of online advertising.

Defence/Aggression

• Fifty Years and Still the Unrelenting Drumbeat of War

  History tells quite a different story of  Democrats who have run for president supporting war and/or war funding. Look to the failure of the antiwar candidacies of Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern as Democrats who didn’t even get remotely close to the presidency. Eugene Debs ran as an antiwar candidate on the Socialist Party of America ticket and got 3.4% (in his 1920 bid from prison) of the vote in his last run for the presidency. There’s lots of money to be made from war and more power for the empire.

• Who Wins and Who Loses in the Iran Crisis?

  In the latest phase of the US-Iran confrontation, who came out on top is not clear-cut; both countries made gains and losses from the crisis and some of its the results are still to come.

• Vague Imminence: US policy, Pre-emptive Force and Qasem Soleimani

  International relations is typified by its vagueness of definition and its shallowness of justification. Be it protecting citizens of a state in another, launching a pre-emptive strike to prevent what another state might do, or simply understanding the application of a treaty provision, justifications can prove uneven and at odds.

• Missiles, Lies and Assassinations

  Since President Trump’s assassination of Iranian General Qasam Soleimani in Iraq, I’ve seen some well meaning people sharing a video entitled “My 2 cents on current events” on social media. It is by Iranian-American Saghar Erica Kasraie. In the video Kasraie states she is a “human rights activist” and proclaims that Iranians are celebrating the assassination of Soleimani. She then goes on to thank President Trump for this illegal and brazen act of war. I couldn’t help but be reminded of another “viral video” that was circulated by Venezuelan-American comedian Joanna Hausmann when the US was targeting Venezuela for a coup against Maduro last year. She also praised the American led actions against the country, albeit in a manner more appealing to her progressive audience.

• ‘Huge’: House to Consider Lee- and Khanna-Backed Measures to Stop Trump’s March to War With Iran

  The Congressional Progressive Caucus said the two bills are “our best chance to avoid future conflict.”

• American Murder

  Clausewitz said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means”, but  American Presidents have modified his apothegm.  No one knows when it was first judged–How to put it?  Not legal, no; not moral, no, surely not.  Conceiveable..?  Permissible..?–politically safe, for a nation to assassinate a human being, a foreign enemy.  There is no record of that meeting of our government’s most powerful men–only such a group could plan so radical an action–when one of them first dared to say, “Suppose we kill him?”

• Support for Combat Troop Withdrawal Is Not Enough to Stop Endless Wars

  Six Democratic presidential candidates sparred on Tuesday night in Des Moines, the last debate before the crucial Iowa caucuses. The debate, hosted by CNN and The Des Moines Register, focused heavily on foreign policy and rising tensions with Iran following the U.S. assassination of that country’s top military commander, Qassem Soleimani. As the presidential field continues to narrow, the U.S. Senate is preparing for the historic impeachment trial of President Trump, for which Senators Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar are all expected to leave the campaign trail to serve their role as jurors.

• Trump’s Unprecedented Attack on Iran and the Rule of Law

  The assassination of Iranian major general Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3 in Baghdad is what happens when the steady erosion of congressional war-making powers intersects with the tenancy of a madman in the Oval Office.

• Citing Threat From Armed Groups, Virginia Gov. Declares Emergency and Bans Guns at State Capitol

  “This isn’t about the Second Amendment,” said activist Molly Conger, “this is about threats of terrorism.”

• ‘A Truly Historic Moment’: 50 Years After Congress Passed ERA, Amendment Meets Constitutional Threshold With Virginia’s Approval

  The amendment is likely to be tied up in court battles following a Justice Department statement that the deadline for ratification has passed.

• China-Backed Pakistan Bid To Raise Kashmir At UN Fails To Make Noise, Again

  Last month, France, the US, the UK and Russia foiled an attempt by China to discuss Kashmir at a closed-door meeting of the UNSC.

  China has been critical of India’s reorganisation of J-K, and has particularly criticised New Delhi for making Ladakh a union territory. China lays claim over several parts of Ladakh.

• China isolated on Jammu and Kashmir in informal UNSC talks

  China and Pakistan tried, for the third time, to raise the Kashmir issue at the United Nations, in part to embarrass India on the international stage and, in part, to stoke fires in Kashmir Valley, according to officials aware of the development who said the efforts were thwarted by India’s diplomatic allies who left Beijing isolated.

  China got a “stinging response” when it raised Kashmir at a closed-door informal consultation of the UN Security Council (UNSC), Syed Akbaruddin, the Indian envoy to the UN, said in a late-night tweet.

• Canada investigates reports that Iran is harassing families trying to repatriate remains of crash victims

  Little is known at this point about how the repatriation process will play out. Iran does not recognize dual citizenship, something that’s been an issue in past consular cases; a government official said it’s too early to say what impact that factor could have in this case.

• The Kariye Museum in Istanbul – a Byzantine masterpiece under threat

  aFollowing the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453, the Byzantine church was appropriated for Muslim worship and its frescoes and mosaics were gradually (never completely) covered by a thin layer of dye and lime. After the building was declared a national monument in 1945 under the secular Turkish republic, the Kariye Camii underwent a major conservation program, which restored the 14th-century Byzantine paintings and mosaics to their original splendour. Today the Kariye Camii Museum is a major tourist destination in Istanbul.

  The decision to return the Kariye (or Chora) Museum from its non-confessional status to a mosque is a populist one intended to appeal to the pious, nationalistic base of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP (Justice and Development Party).The transformation of Byzantine churches into mosques is the ultimate manifestation of AKP’s neo-Ottomanist vision, its main legitimising cultural policy. If the court’s verdict is indeed implemented, it sets a clear precedent for the most politically charged landmark of the city: Hagia Sophia, the liturgical and political centre of Byzantine Constantinople, which was claimed as the imperial mosque by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II in 1453 and has been serving as a museum since 1934.

• Iran arrests person for sharing video of missile striking Ukrainian airliner

  On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that it had verified security footage that showed two missiles hitting the plane. The first disabled the jet’s transponder before the second missile struck.

  The footage was captured by a camera on a building four miles away from an Iranian military site. The video was uploaded to YouTube by an Iranian user about 2 a.m. Tuesday, according to The Times.

• Biden Says His Vote for War Wasn’t Really a Vote for War. He’s Still Lying.

  I found myself tumbling through a time warp during the opening segment of Tuesday night’s debate in Iowa. I was sitting there attentively, listening to the six candidates discuss their various stances on the Iraq War … when all of a sudden, I flashed back to October 25, 2002.

• Joe Biden skates by again

  But Biden did back Bush on Iraq. He backed Social Security cuts. He backed a bad bankruptcy bill in 2005. And he lauded a bad budget deal with Republican Mitch McConnell as an example of sound bipartisan policymaking.

  This pattern of behavior raises, to me, a real worry about a potential Biden presidency. Not that his talk of a post-election Republican Party “epiphany” is unrealistic — every candidate in the field is offering unrealistic plans for change — but that he has a taste for signing on to bad bargains. There’s potential for a critique of Biden that isn’t just about nitpicking the past or arguing about how ambitious Democrats should be in their legislative proposals, but about whether Biden would adequately hold the line when going toe-to-toe with congressional Republicans.

• Joe Biden Is Still Lying About His Role in Invading Iraq

  In the former vice president’s new telling of events, he and other Democratic politicians who preferred a multilateral, diplomatic solution were misled by a Bush administration hell-bent on taking America into a war he then promptly set out to oppose.

  The facts say something very different. Biden was one of the Iraq invasion’s most zealous boosters — supporting it vocally and publicly throughout 2003 and 2004 — and it was not until a debate with Dick Cheney the following year that he would finally deem his vote to authorize it a “mistake.” In July 2003, some four months into the invasion, Biden could still be heard saying: “It was the right vote then and would be a correct vote today.”

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• NPR’s sanitizing of Trump’s Milwaukee rally shows how he’s broken the media

  The disconnect between the real Trump and the whitewashed version that emerges from mainstream reporting was captured nicely by Guardian Australia editor Lenore Taylor in a piece she wrote last September headlined, “As a foreign reporter visiting the US I was stunned by Trump’s press conference”:

  I’ve read so many stories about his bluster and boasting and ill-founded attacks, I’ve listened to speeches and hours of analysis, and yet I was still taken back by just how disjointed and meandering the unedited president could sound.

Environment

• UN warns more extreme weather ahead after hottest decade on record

  The past decade has been the hottest on record, the UN said Wednesday, warning that the higher temperatures were expected to fuel numerous extreme weather events in 2020 and beyond.

  The World Meteorological Organization, which based its findings on analysis of leading international datasets, said increases in global temperatures had already had dire consequences, pointing to “retreating ice, record sea levels, increasing ocean heat and acidification, and extreme weather”.

  WMO said its research also confirmed data released by the European Union’s climate monitor last week showing that 2019 was the second hottest year on record, after 2016.

• ‘We are on the brink of a different world’ – Caroline Lucas MP turns to curating

  I knew I wanted to do something about the environment and nature; that’s what gets me up in the morning and that’s what my passion is. One of the lovely things about the Towner collection is that there are so many landscapes and seascapes, a lot of them quite local, so there was a real familiarity with a part of the world I understood. But beyond nature, environment and climate being the theme, my starting point was the David Nash exhibition which opened a couple of months before mine [closes 2 February]. I feel so lucky I was able to meet him, and also visit his studio and the gallery at Capel Rhiw. It was a wonderful immersion in his work and in his thinking. And I was struck by the fact that his exhibition is a retrospective – 200 seasons, 50 years looking back at his work. So my own starting point became: what do we know about the next 200 seasons, what can we be certain of, do we even have 200 seasons of safe life on this planet? That question led me to choose landscapes and seascapes, many of them local, many familiar, but now with a question mark over them. What happens to this over the next 50 years? These outlines of landscapes and seascapes that have long been taken for granted can no longer be assumed to be permanent and unchanging.

• Drinking water: Key challenge this decade

  “Almost 22% of the groundwater in the country has either dried up or in the critical and over-exploited categories,” said Jal Shakti (Water Resources) Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. The water bodies across the country continue to disappear in an alarming pace amid errant real estate growth, needless infrastructure development, citizens’ irresponsibility, corruption and administrative apathy.

  According to the Ministry of Water Resources, the water bodies, excluding the rivers and lakes, cover an area of about seven million hectares. The total length of rivers and canals runs around 1,84,000 km. Unfortunately, the majority of the water bodies are not performing to improve the living condition of people.

• Copernicus: 2019 was the second warmest year and the last five years were the warmest on record

  The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announces today that 2019 was the fifth in a series of exceptionally warm years and the second warmest year globally ever recorded. Meanwhile, Europe saw its warmest year on record by a small margin. Together with the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), C3S also reports that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have continued to rise. Their data provide the first complete, global picture of 2019 temperatures and CO2 levels. The results are in line with previous projections from WMO and the Global Carbon Project (GCP) for 2019. The WMO estimated that 2019 was likely to be the 2nd or 3rd warmest year on record, while both WMO and the GCP indicated that atmospheric CO2 concentrations had continued to increase.

• We Spent $17b On One Fleet, We Won’t Spend $500m On The Other. Which Do You Think Is More Urgent?

  Australia’s immediate security concerns have nothing to do with foreign powers and cold wars. Professor Anthony Burke explains the biggest security threats facing Australia right now, and how we can best confront them.

• Geo-engineering could make poor countries richer

  There is still no certainty that geo-engineering could save the world. But, paradoxically, if it did work it might repair climate injustice.

• Climate Groups Thank Sanders for Being Only Candidate at Debate to Stand Against Trump-Led Trade Deal

  “We can do much better than a Trump-led trade deal that does not even have the phrase ‘climate change’ in it.”

• To Help Australia, Look to Aboriginal Fire Management

  Cultural burning is proactive, while Western-style controlled burning, also called hazard reduction burning, is reactive.

• Shuttered Refinery in Philly Shows Climate Activists Cannot Ignore Labor

  In the early morning hours of June 21, 2019, a catastrophic explosion tore through the Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) oil refinery in the southwest section of Philadelphia. The training and quick thinking of refinery workers, members of United Steelworkers Local 10-1, averted certain disaster and saved millions of lives. One month later, on July 21, PES declared bankruptcy — their second in as many years — and began to close down the refinery in the following months, laying off almost 2,000 people with no meaningful severance. According to workers who spoke with In These Times, the refinery stopped running crude oil in early August, although there are fewer than 100 workers who were kept on as caretakers for the waste water and steam generating units.

• ‘Unquestionably Alarming Signs’: New Data Confirms Earth Just Had Hottest Decade on Record

  2019 was also the second warmest year on record, and the past five years were the five warmest on record.

• Cory Booker’s Halt on Factory Farms Would Help the Climate

  Data from the EPA shows a steady increase in agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions, much of it linked to industrial systems of crop production and the rise of factory farms over the last two decades.

• Energy

  • Australia on the Chasm of Climate Catastrophe

    Australia: coal and Murdoch are kings 

  • Compromised: Genie Energy and the Murdoch media’s climate denial

    Rupert Murdoch, Dick Cheney, former CIA director James Woolsey, former US Treasury head Larry Summers, former US Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, hedge fund boss Michael Steinhardt and Jacob Rothschild have something in common. They are all on the board of oil and gas explorer, Genie Energy. Gas industry whistleblower Simone Marsh explores Rupert Murdoch’s fossil fuel interests.

    Psychological warfare, or psywar, is the use of propaganda against an enemy, supported by such military, economic or political measures as may be required. Such propaganda is generally intended to demoralise the enemy, to break his will to fight or resist, and sometimes render him favourably disposed to one’s position.

    Psychological warfare, winning the “hearts and minds” of the civil population, has been integral to the climate war.

• Wildlife/Nature

  • Australia’s Bushfires Expose an Extinction Crisis Decades in the Making

    The hundreds of fires racing across Australia have captured the world’s attention and left an indelible scar on the continent, with at least 27 human lives lost, 15 million acres consumed and nearly 2,000 homes destroyed. And then, of course, there are the animals, shown dead or scarred in unforgettable photos. The exact number of wild creatures killed in the blazes won’t be known for a while, but one estimate, from University of Sydney ecologist Chris Dickman, puts it at a staggering 1 billion animals.

  • Scientists hope to revive near-extinct northern white rhino in Kenya

    The northern white rhino came closer to extinction in 2018 when the last known living male died in Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy. The only surviving northern white rhinos now are a mother and daughter, which also live at the site, making them the world’s most endangered mammal.

    Researchers collected sperm from male rhinos before their deaths and developed three embryos using eggs collected from the two living females last year. They plan to implant the embryos in female southern white rhinos, which are more populous.

  • The Koreguaje Tribe: Threatened Guardians of the Northwest Amazon

  • Help Us Understand Logging and Timber Practices Across Oregon

    The timber industry for decades drove the economy in Oregon, a state where nearly half of the land is forest.

    Today, the industry has changed. Logging in federal forests, once a major source of lumber, is a fraction of what it was before environmental restrictions. Dozens of mills have closed. Stands of trees that once required a crew of loggers to cut can now be felled by one person in a single machine.

Finance

• Why Do We Have School Lunch Debt at All?

  We live in a nation where food is plentiful but millions of children experience hunger and food insecurity.

• Hospital CEO Admits For-Profit Healthcare Industry Is ‘Number One Cause of Personal Bankruptcy”

  “We need a revolution. Literally, it’s a life or death matter.”

• Top Megadonors and Corporations Have Poured Almost $2 Billion Into Politics Since Citizens United

  And thanks to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2010, it is not possible to know precisely how much money corporations have channeled into dark money groups that influence elections.

• Biden’s Unexamined List of High-Powered Fundraisers

  ’Twas the Friday after Christmas, when all through the land, not a person was working, the computers unmanned. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while Joe Biden released the names of the wealthy and well-connected volunteers who are fundraising for his campaign.

• Hey Los Angeles: More Public Restrooms, Please!

  I have to pee.

• Emphasis on U.S. Exports, Trade Secrets in China Trade Deal

  The United States and China reached a trade deal Wednesday that eases tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, offers massive export opportunities for U.S. farms and factories, and promises to do more to protect American trade secrets.

• Shining a Spotlight on Anti-Homeless Reporters

  With every new year, out come our usual resolutions: Let’s quit smoking, give up meat, or maybe we can lose those extra 15 pounds we always say we should. Alas, for some of us, it’s hard to change our ways. Case in point, the New York Post cannot and will not give up its obsessive, cruel and deranged fascination with shaming homeless people.

• The Secret Behind How Billionaires Make Obscene Amounts of Money

  As Ray Charles wailed in a song of true-life blues: “Them that’s got is them that gets/And I ain’t got nothin’ yet.”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• A Fine Republic, But Can We Keep It?  

  As Benjamin Franklyn was leaving Independence Hall on the final day of the Constitutional Convention, the story goes, a woman asked him, ‘Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”  He is said to have replied without hesitation, “A republic, if you can keep it.”*

• Calling Bernie Sanders a ‘Champion’ for Immigrant Families, Make the Road Action Endorses Vermont Senator for President

  “Bernie Sanders is the champion our community needs and is helping to lead the movement that will help us defeat Trump in 2020.”

• France at a Crossroads

• City Problems: A Fairly True Barcelona Story

  We won the elections. We won by an absolute minority and there’s some merit in that. When you win you have to do a lot of incomprehensible things and no one explains them to you, among them negotiating who’ll end up being mayor at the investiture. Since you’re the winning force (sic) you’ve got to take the lead in the negotiations. They don’t tell you how, it’s not in the “Handbook for Commons Citizens Who Win the Elections”, but there’s a certain logic to it. Then you learn that there’s no such manual and, anyway, if it did exist and tried to reproduce the logic operating in The Castle, it would profane Frege’s grave. I even wondered if the logic of the negotiations is based on quantum physics. Some famous physicist with a few notions of sociology should study the phenomenon.

• Ilhan Omar Warns Progressives Escalating Warren-Sanders Disagreement Only Fuels Trump’s Attacks on Both Candidates

  “Let’s stay focused on the task ahead: defeating Donald Trump in November and fighting for the America we deserve.”

• Indian Students Refuse to Give an Inch to the Far Right

  With her head bandaged and her arm in a sling, university student Aishe Ghosh went before the cameras to say that the students of the university she attends in New Delhi would move “not an inch back.” The students would continue to agitate to defend Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and its union, and to fight against the divisive and toxic politics of the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

• The Wrong Question for Democrats to Be Asking About Trump

• Sanders and Warren Show Differences on Trade and Health Care in Debate

  The final Democratic debate before the Iowa caucus had moments that further highlighted the distinctions between the leading candidates on issues like free public college and health care but for the most part it covered familiar ground.

• It Is Clear the Establishment and Corporate Media Would Prefer Trump Reelection to President Bernie Sanders

  Sanders is likely to face two strikes—one in the capitol and one from capital—if he wins the Democratic nomination and later the White House.

• Putin nominates Federal Tax Service head Mikhail Mishustin to become Russia’s prime minister

  Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed Federal Tax Service (FNS) head Mikhail Mishustin to the State Duma as a candidate for the post of prime minister of the Russian government. The Kremlin’s press service reported Putin’s decision to the news agency Interfax.

• Russia’s government resigns as Putin offers spot on Security Council to Medvedev

  Following Vladimir Putin’s annual state-of-the-nation speech on Wednesday, where the president called for major constitutional reform, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has announced that Russia’s entire ministerial cabinet, commonly referred to as “the government,” will formally resign.

• A modest proposal Putin has suggested a bunch of Constitutional amendments. Here’s what he wants to change.

• Putin proposes national referendum on Russian Constitutional amendments

  In a state-of-the-nation speech on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin proposed a national referendum on amendments to the Constitution that would shape the Russian government in the years after the president’s current term ends in 2024. Putin noted that Russia’s parliament is legally capable of changing the Constitution, but he argued that a national vote is necessary to make the amendments legitimate.

• Russia’s government has resigned. What happens now?

• ‘Vice President Medvedev’ Russia’s prime minister is about to become Putin’s deputy in the Security Council. What does that mean?

  Vladimir Putin has offered Acting Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who resigned the prime minister’s post on January 15, a new position as the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council. This will make Medvedev deputy to Putin himself: Russia’s primary security law dictates that the Security Council is always chaired by the president. Medvedev’s former position, meanwhile, will be occupied by Federal Tax Service head Mikhail Mishustin.

• Putin Engineers Shakeup That Could Keep Him in Power Longer

  President Vladimir Putin engineered a surprise shakeup of Russia’s leadership Wednesday, proposing changes to the constitution that could keep him in power well past the end of his term in 2024.

• House Leaders March Trump Impeachment Articles to the Senate

  In a dramatic procession across the U.S. Capitol, House Democrats carried the formal articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate late Wednesday, setting the stage for only the third trial to remove a president in American history.

• Sanders’ Wife on Feud With Warren: ‘This Discussion Is Over’

  Jane O’Meara Sanders, the wife of Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, has a clear message about the simmering dispute between her husband and Elizabeth Warren: It’s over.

• CNN Debate Moderators Pilloried for Blatant Anti-Sanders Bias

  Critics of the corporate media as well as supporters and staffers of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign blasted the moderators of the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate Tuesday night for employing centrist talking points and demonstrating a bias against Sanders in how they framed questions.

• ‘CNN Is Truly a Terrible Influence on This Country’: Democratic Debate Moderators Pilloried for Centrist Talking Points and Anti-Sanders Bias

  “This is an unusually vile performance by CNN,” tweeted Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi.

• CNN, Clinton Democrats Sow Discord In Democratic Presidential Race

  Senator Bernie Sanders did everything he could to help Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton defeat President Donald Trump in 2016. In 1988, during a C-SPAN appearance, he said, “A woman could be elected President of the United States.” He even encouraged Senator Elizabeth Warren to run for president in 2015.  Yet, before, during, and after the last presidential debate before the Iowa Caucuses, CNN and Clinton Democrats sowed discord among Democratic voters by promoting a spurious story against Sanders—that he told Warren a woman could not win the election during a private meeting in December 2018.

  It is still gaining traction, especially since CNN waited until 24 hours after the debate to release audio of a “tense confrontation” between Sanders and Warren that occurred.On January 15, CNN moderator Abby Phillip asked Sanders about the network’s story. “CNN reported yesterday that — and Sen. Sanders, Sen. Warren confirmed in a statement, that in 2018 you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?”The question was not, what do you recall from that meeting? That would have undermined what CNN reported. Sanders responded, “Well, as a matter of fact, I didn’t say it. And I don’t want to waste a whole lot of time on this, because this is what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want. Anybody knows me knows that it’s incomprehensible that I would think that a woman cannot be president of the United States.”He mentioned he “deferred” to Warren in 2015, when there was a movement to draft her to run for president. He also said, “Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes. How could anybody in a million years not believe that a woman could become president of the United States?”The CNN moderator pressed Sanders further:

• The Big Loser in the Iowa Debate? CNN’s Reputation

  The biggest loser from last night’s Democratic debate (1/14/20) was CNN’s journalistic credibility.

• CNN Asked No Questions About Immigration at First All-White Democratic Debate

  As the federal government plans to divert an additional $7.2 billion from the military budget for the construction of President Trump’s promised border wall, and tens of thousands of asylum seekers from Central America, the Caribbean and other regions are stranded throughout the U.S.-Mexico border, CNN moderators failed to question Democratic presidential candidates on border and immigration issues. We speak to Julio Ricardo Varela, co-host of the Latinx political podcast “In the Thick” and founder of Latino Rebels. “Anyone who thinks that a wall is going to protect us, the statistics aren’t there. … But that is what the American people are led to believe,” Varela says. “The only way you fight against this is that you challenge that propaganda, because that is what it’s becoming. It has become propaganda. And political journalists need to do a better job in challenging what the president says.”

• In Iowa Debate, Progressives Resist Efforts to Divide Them

  The moderators did all they could to start a fight, but Sanders and Warren refused to bite.

• ID cards required to enter Hong Kong universities following campus protest clashes last year

  PolyU began its new semester on Monday with entry gates installed at entrances. Students and staff members must now present their identification cards to enter.

• Facebook’s problems moderating deepfakes will only get worse in 2020

  Hwang argues that the dilution of the term deepfakes could actually have benefits in the long run. “I think the great irony of people saying that all of these consumer features are also deepfakes, is that it in some ways commoditizes what deepfake means,” says Hwang. If deepfakes become commonplace and unremarkable, then people will “get comfortable with the notion of what this technology can do,” he says. Then, hopefully, we can understand it better and focus on the underlying problems of misinformation and political propaganda.

• Lev Parnas implicates president in first TV interview: “Trump knew exactly what was going on”

  Former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal and former Department of Justice official Joshua Geltzer wrote in a joint Washington Post op-ed that the new evidence turned over to Congress by Parnas earlier this week “demolished” Trump’s defense ahead of his looming trial.

  “These new documents demolish at least three key defenses to which Trump and his allies have been clinging,” they wrote. “The documents released Tuesday now show what Trump has been so afraid of.”

Censorship/Free Speech

• Facebook’s Soleimani Ban Flies in Face of First Amendment

  If sanctions can be invoked by a social media network to take down certain content, what is next?

• Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: YouTube Says That Frank Capra’s US Government WWII Propaganda Violates Community Guidelines

  You’ve heard me say it over and over again now: Masnick’s Impossibility Theorem is that it is literally impossible to do content moderation at scale well. There will always be dumb mistakes. The latest example? Rogue archivist Carl Malamud had posted filmmaker Frank Capra’s classic Prelude to War on YouTube. If you’re unfamiliar with Prelude to War, it’s got quite a backstory. During World War II, the US government decided that, in order to build up public support for the war, it would fund Hollywood to create blatant American propaganda. They had Frank Capra, perhaps Hollywood’s most influential director during the 1930s, produce a bunch of films under the banner “Why We Fight.” The very first of these was “Prelude to War.”

• US company offers free cybersecurity assistance to campaigns

  The new “Cloudflare for Campaigns” program will offer free cybersecurity services including firewall protection and and internal data management for campaigns. It will also assist staffers with access to internal systems from accidentally being exposed to malware and other viruses.

• Wikipedia access restored in Turkey after court ruled against ban

  Access to Wikipedia was restored in Turkey on Wednesday after more than two and a half years, the Wikimedia foundation announced.

  The access comes after Turkey’s highest court ruled at the end of last year against the country’s ban on the website, calling it a violation of freedom of expression.

• Easing of restrictions will lead to separatist activities in Kashmir, warn intelligence

  Inputs gathered by the intelligence Agency suggest that restoration of [Internet] services and easing of other curbs will lead to separatist activities in Kashmir Valley. Agencies also warned that Pakistan’s ISI is planning a strategy to exploit the situation once [Internet] services are fully operational in the Valley.

  Meanwhile, the Official Spokesperson, Mr. Rohit Kansal told reporters that Terror outfits have been using encrypted mobile communications and Voice on Internet Protocol (VoIP) to plan infiltrations into India and reactivate their cadre in Kashmir.

• Five Years After Charlie Hebdo: The West is on its Knees

  Tuesday was the fifth anniversary of the massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, in which Islamic terrorists murdered twelve people in the name of Allah. In the years since the attack, the West has become even more craven, and is even less willing to engage in frank discussion about the nature of Islam or the Islamization of Europe.

• SHAH: Criticism of Islam is not hate speech

  As a university lecturer, Hafeez drew harsh criticism from the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami political party for being “too liberal” and was later arrested after being accused of criticizing the Prophet Muhammad on social media in 2013. He was held in solitary confinement for five years awaiting his sentence. Those who represented him were also targeted. Hafeez’s first lawyer abandoned the case after multiple death threats. His second lawyer, Rashid Rehman, was gunned down in 2014.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• We Must Remedy Discrimination in Our Media System

  If we’re going to foster journalism that actually meets community needs, we must address how the foundation of the U.S. media system is built on racism and sexism.

• Former Charlie Hebdo Columnist: We Hope to Avoid Creation of ‘French Islamic Republic’

  That day, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi killed 12 people and wounded 11 others in one of the worst attacks on the press in history. Jokes the magazine made about Islamic leaders and Prophet Muhammad, as well as its depictions of the prophet, considered a sin in Islam, are understood to have been the primary motive behind the attack.

  Speaking on a French radio network ahead of the fifth anniversary of the tragedy, Patrick Pelloux defends the beliefs the magazine still holds.

• Where is the Reporting on PetroCaribe?

  January 12 marks ten years since Haiti’s deadly earthquake. Usually, Haiti appears in international news when there’s a scandal, a disaster, violence. There was a flurry of coverage in October when daily protests, begun with a nine-week general strike – in Haitian Creole, peyi lòk – met with government repression, including the death of three journalists. The mobilization has been ongoing since July 2018, leading to a partial report naming high-ranking government officials of mismanagement of PetroCaribe funds published at the end of May 2019.

Civil Rights/Policing

• On the Politics of ‘Believing Women’

  What we’ve seen as a result of Warren’s statement is further perversion of the language of abuse and victimhood in a context it was never meant to be used.

• Cheers as Federal Judge Blocks Trump Order Allowing Localities to Refuse New Refugees

  “This is an important first step, but this fight is far from over.”

• LAPD Officers Faked Reports, Added Innocent People To Its Gang Database

  Sure, gang databases seem like a good idea. Intel on known criminals is important and can help law enforcement keep tabs on the most problematic people in their patrol areas.

• Artists Will Picket Amazon Events at SXSW Over ICE Contracts

  In its continuing battle to stop Amazon from selling cloud services to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and those who work with them, No Music for ICE has announced that it will picket Amazon events at SXSW 2020.

• Jay-Z Sues the State of Mississippi On Behalf of 29 Prisoners

  Jay-Z has made good on his promise to sue Mississippi for its treatment of prisoners. The lawsuit names two Mississippi state officials in charge of the prison system as defendants.

• Illinois Lawmakers Are Calling for a Nationwide Ban on Isolated Timeouts of Students

  Saying tens of millions of children are at risk, two U.S. senators and 10 members of the House of Representatives, all but one of them from Illinois, on Wednesday urged the nation’s top education official to tell schools to stop putting students in seclusion rooms.

  They also asked Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to issue federal guidance to prohibit physical restraints that restrict breathing and instead promote “evidence-based alternatives” for dealing with challenging behavior that don’t involve hands-on contact.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• They Were Promised Broadband and High-Tech Jobs. They’re Still Waiting.

  A year ago, Mary Lou Muncy landed her dream job advising home health care agencies on wound care.

  The timing seemed perfect. Muncy’s contract as a nurse at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Lexington had ended, and she wasn’t ready to retire. With an annual salary of $77,000, Muncy would have enough money to help her daughter pay for medical school.

Monopolies

• Cancelling a Covenant-Not-To-Sue

  In a divided opinion, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment against the patentee Molon — holding that a 2006 covenant-not-to-sue remained in force despite a subsequent 2007 settlement agreement stating that prior covenants “concerning the subject matter hereof” are “of no further force or effect.”

  The Subject Matter of a Contract: The majority opinion penned by Judge Lourie and joined by Judge Hughes concludes “that the two agreements concern different subject matter” and and thus finds the merger and cancellation clause inapplicable. Writing in dissent, Judge Reyna came to the opposite conclusion since both the 2006 covenant and the 2007 settlement agreement focused on a license to practice the ‘915 patent.

  [...]

  One interesting additional issue not addressed here is the extent that a unilateral covenant-not-to-sue can be revoked, even by agreement. If we think of the covenant as a conveyance (of property rights), a revocation would ordinarily be insufficient to transfer rights back to the patentee. Rather, we would need an express conveyance or release. A covenant-not-to-sue could also be seen as an abandonment of rights — something like a ‘release.’ Historically courts have distinguished between a release and a covenant-not-to-sue, although that distinction appears to have lifted based as covenants now operate as a complete bar to a subsequent underlying action rather than their historical role of only creating a breach of contract action. See Skilstaf, Inc. v. CVS Caremark Corp., 669 F.3d 1005, 1017 (9th Cir. 2012).

• Patents

  • Hospira, Inc. v. Fresenius Kabi USA, LLC (Fed. Cir. 2020)

    It seems that memes can be as compelling in the law as in social media, and the meme of the moment in patent law is inherency, particularly as applied to obviousness determinations (see, for example, Persion Pharmaceuticals LLC v. Alvogen Malta Operations Ltd.; Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. v. Roxane Labs., Inc.). This tendency was most recently illustrated in the Federal Circuit’s decision in Hospira, Inc. v. Fresenius Kabi USA, LLC.

    [...]

    On appeal, Hospira argued that the evidence that the 2% limitation was inherent was adduced from samples made according to the patent disclosure, and thus not prior art; the weakness of this argument is that inherency almost by definition arises where the inherent property existed in the prior art but was not appreciated in the art. The opinion notes that, as here, “extrinsic evidence can be used to demonstrate what is ‘necessarily present’ in a prior art embodiment even if the extrinsic evidence is not itself prior art,” citing Monsanto Tech. LLC v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 878 F.3d 1336, 1345 (Fed. Cir. 2018), and Schering Corp. v. Geneva Pharm., Inc., 339 F.3d 1373, 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2003). In addition, the opinion states that “the work of the inventor or the patentee can be used as the evidence of inherency,” citing Alcon Research, Ltd. v. Apotex Inc., 687 F.3d 1362, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2012), and Telemac Cellular Corp. v. Topp Telecom, Inc., 247 F.3d 1316, 1327–28 (Fed. Cir. 2001).

    [...]

    In addition to the promulgation of the idea that inherency is available to be used to support for obviousness, this decision makes clear that the Court (or some members of the Court) is of a mind to consider claims in a restrictive, rather than permissive way. It is clear that like “mere” isolation in other contexts the discovery of novel properties, not appreciated in the prior art will be treated as inherently present in the art and thus can be used for determining obviousness. This tendency has support in earlier Federal Circuit decisions (for example, that “[i]t is well-settled that the inclusion of an inherent, but undisclosed, property of a composition does not render a claim to the composition nonobvious,” Atlas Powder Co. v. Ireco Inc., 190 F.3d 1342, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 1999)) but its extension to obviousness under the recent case law indicates that prudence suggests applicants limit statements of discoveries as the basis for their inventions and to include some evidence that claims to an invention, like this one, contain limitations that distinguish over any inherent properties (e.g., by reciting the need for treating the diluted formulation by nitrogen sparging). Doing so might (just might) provide a basis for asserting that what provokes or illustrates the inherent property was itself not inherent and thus preclude determining that the invention is obvious.

  • Genentech, Inc. v. Hospira, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2020)

    Last week, the Federal Circuit affirmed invalidation of claims to methods for reducing Protein A leaching in affinity column chromatographic methods important inter alia in purifying monoclonal antibodies, in Genentech, Inc. v. Hospira, Inc. In doing so, the panel majority (over a dissent by Judge Newman) illustrated anew the importance of the deference the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (and particularly the Patent Trial and Appeal Board) is due under the Administrative Procedures Act, and how that deference can be outcome determinative under the right circumstances.

    The case arose before the PTAB in an inter partes review (IPR) of U.S. Patent No. 7,807,799, which claimed methods for purifying antibodies comprising a CH2/CH3 region using Protein A affinity chromatography. The claimed methods are directed to an improvement wherein the amount of Protein A contaminant in the antibody eluate is minimized (substantially to zero). The opinion characterized the claimed method as a “standard purification technique,” relying on high affinity, reversible binding to CH2/CH3 regions, which methods were capable of “reducing leaching of protein A . . . by reducing [the] temperature” of the “composition that is subjected to protein A affinity chromatography.” The inventors found that leaching can be minimized by performing chromatography at temperatures between 10-18°C (the specification also disclosing a broader range of 3-20°C).

    [...]

    The majority’s opinion closes with the Court’s rejection of Genentech’s challenge that inter partes review are an unconstitutional violation of the Fifth Amendment (for reasons substantially identical to the Court’s earlier opinion in Celgene Corp. v. Peter, 931 F.3d 1342, 1356–63 (Fed. Cir. 2019)), nor the Seventh Amendment nor Article III.

    Judge Newman dissented, on the basis inter alia that the invention had actually solved a real world problem and that the majority’s affirmance ignored the value the invention brought to the art. “The court presents a hindsight determination that this apparently simple solution to a difficult problem is anticipated and obvious, although it was not known or obvious to the scientists who were attempting to solve the problem of leaching contamination, and the experts for both sides agreed that the solution presented in the ’799 patent was new to them,” Judge Newman writes. She sees the complexities involved in arriving at this solution, and the failure in the art to disclose the solution rebuts, for the Judge the Board’s invalidation on anticipation and obviousness grounds. On the merits, Judge Newman discounts the overlap at 18°C as supporting anticipation, because her understanding of the law would require the temperature range disclosed in the ’389 PCT publication (18-25°C) to be the same as the claimed temperature range (10-18°C).

  • CRISPR hearing days 2-3: Board of Appeal poised to refer to the EBA?

    In brief summary, the Broad Institute’s CRISPR patent was revoked by the opposition division for lacking a valid priority claim under the well-established EPO approach to priority, based on mountains of Boards of Appeal case law. The Patentee’s argument on appeal is that the EPO approach to priority is wrong because it is not in line with the Paris Convention or a proper interpretation of Article 87 EPC. There are three threads to the Patentee’s argument: (I) Entitlement to priority should not be assessed by the EPO, (II) the EPO incorrectly interprets the phrase “any person” in Article 87 EPC and Article 4 Paris Convention, and (III) US law should govern the interpretation of “any person” in Article 87 EPC when the priority application is a US provisional.

    In a dramatic development this morning, it seems that the Board of Appeal (3.3.08) were poised to seek clarification from the EBA on each of the three strands of the patentee’s argument. The Board of Appeal indicated that the referral would be justified on the grounds that the points of law in question were of fundamental importance (Article 112 EPC). Thus, the Board of Appeal announced that it was their intention to refer questions on the issue of priority to the EBA. A break ensued to allow parties to consider their response. IP Magazine’s twitter account reported that a referral had in fact been made. These reports turned out to be false [Merpel: Fake News!].

    [...]

    The Board of Appeal has indicated that they would contemplate a referral on the ground that the issues at stake are of fundamental importance. The criteria for what constitutes an “issue of fundamental importance” was supplied by the EBA in G 1/12: “a point of law is…to be regarded as of fundamental importance if its impact extends beyond the case in hand. Such importance is established if it could be relevant to a large number of similar cases”. As Opponent 1 pointed out, the “large number” of cases to which the issue could be said to be relevant in this case, are all cases of the Patentee that claim priority from the same US provisional…

    If there were to be a referral from the Board of Appeal, this would arguably not seem to be keeping with the norms of EPO legal practice. It is hard to argue that there is not uniform application of the law of priority across the Boards. It is also difficult to see how their can be said to be an issue of fundamental importance (except to the Patentee). To refer the issue to the EBA would be extraordinary. In this Kat’s view, if the technology to which the patent relates wasn’t so valuable, and if the case wasn’t so high profile, it seems highly unlikely that a Board of Appeal would even contemplate a referral.

    Stay tuned to IPKat for Day 4 as the hearing continues.

  • US patents hit record 333,530 granted in 2019; IBM, Samsung (not the FAANGs) lead the pack

    We may have moved on from a nearly-daily cycle of news involving tech giants sparring in courts over intellectual property infringement, but patents continue to be a major cornerstone of how companies and people measure their progress and create moats around the work that they have done in hopes of building that into profitable enterprises in the future. IFI Claims, a company that tracks patent activity in the US, released its annual tally of IP work today underscoring that theme: it noted that 2019 saw a new high-watermark of 333,530 patents granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

    [...]

    Consider the so-called FAANG group, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google: Facebook is at number-36 (one of the fastest movers but still not top 10) with 989 patents; Apple is at number-seven with 2,490 patents; Amazon is at number-nine with 2,427 patents; Netflix doesn’t make the top 50 at all; and the Android, search and advertising behemoth Google is merely at slot 15 with 2,102 patents (and no special mention for growth).

    Indeed, the fact that one of the oldest tech companies, IBM, is also the biggest patent filer almost seems ironic in that regard.

  • US Patents Hit Record 333,530 Granted in 2019; IBM, Samsung (Not the FAANGs) Lead the Pack

    IFI Claims, a company that tracks patent activity in the US, reports that 2019 saw a new high-watermark of 333,530 patents granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

  • Nokia on losing track in LTE-essential patent infringement case against Daimler in Mannheim and rumored to struggle in Munich case, too

    Next Tuesday (January 21, 2020), the Mannheim Regional Court is scheduled to hold a trial in a Nokia v. Daimler case over EP2286629 on a “method and apparatus to link modulating and coding scheme to amount of resources.” With mediation having practically failed (though the mediators might invite everyone to another meeting, it wouldn’t be likely to yield a result), the assumption is still that the trial will go forward.

    Nokia is going to lose that one in all likelihood. Presiding Judge Dr. Holger Kircher notified the parties and the numerous intervenors (various Daimler suppliers) that, on a preliminary basis, his panel has concluded the patent-in-suit is not essential to the 4G/LTE standard–neither on the basis of a literal infringement theory nor the German equivalent of the Doctrine of Equivalents (DoE).

  • German ministry of justice outlines patent “reform” bill: thick but void smokescreen, designed only to cement the status quo on injunctions

    It’s a rehash of the Emperor’s New Clothes. It’s a smokescreen devoid of any substance. A Fata Morgana for those longing for relief from plaintiffs’ unfettered access to injunctive relief. And a boon for those benefiting from a huge number of mostly meritless patent infringement actions being brought in Germany for leverage. The ministry officials don’t even pretend to be concerned with economic policy, job creation and sustainment, innovation, consumer choice. They’re the guardian angels of a patent litigation system that is out of control–and now gets thje ministry officials to cheer (“Citius, Altius, Fortius” for the patent judiciary–not for the economy, not for society, just for patent judges, patent litigators, patent attorneys involved in litigation, patent trolls, and failed or failing businesses increasingly reliant upon a patent licensing revenue stream).

    To be fair, one must make a distinction here between what constitutes a political achievement for the pro-reform movement and an assessment of suitability-to-task of the measure as it stands. This is like applauding a boxer for having been allowed to challenge his rival, for not getting knocked out in the first round, and for the winner quickly hugging the loser before walking away to cash in and celebrate with his supporters.

    In that sense, it was no small feat to get the ball rolling at all. Originally, the German Federal Ministry of Justice envisioned a minor update to patent law with changes ranging from the cosmetic replacement of the term “Patent Office” with “German Patent and Trademark Office” to a more digital process at the German PTO (almost every patent-in-suit I ever saw in my industry was an EPO patent anyway…). They didn’t go to the drawing board with an intention to redress the balance between plaintiffs and defendants. Then there were some dynamics that shifted the focus to injunctive relief and the injunction gap resulting from the German bifurcation system. Arguably, the pro-reform movement “hijacked” the process. But, so far, to no avail.

    [...]

    If the German legislature adopted the proposal, it would deal a blow to the centuries-old notion of the Separation of Powers. The legislative branch of government would reduce itself to the judiciary’s secretariat. Instead of telling the judges what to do, it would merely restate what the judges have been saying all along. It’s not a conspiracy theory, especially in light of what government insiders know, to presume that the patent judges of the Federal Court of Justice had a hand in this. Whether the ministry officials merely decided to stick to existing case law or whether the Federal Court of Justice simply authored the bill (in Germany, there’s no written or unwritten rule preventing that from happening) is secondary. The result is nothing more than a smokescreen.

    The ministry officials were standing at the drawing board. Instead of sketching a superior solution, they threw their pens away and contented themselves with being mere photographers. It’s now a challenge–but also an opportunity–for the reform movement to appeal to the German Federal Parliament’s institutional self-conception of a legislative institution that looks ahead, not back.

    German government wants to change patent law

    Yesterday the Federal Ministry of Justice in Germany published the first draft of a new patent law. It provides for tighter deadlines for nullity proceedings before the Federal Patent Court. It also covers greater discretion for patent judges when granting automatic injunctions. The German automotive and telecommunications industries, which had previously called on the government to update the law, welcome the changes.

    [...]

    Now the German government wants to make it mandatory for the Federal Patent Court to send a qualified opinion on the validity of a patent to the infringement court after six months. The qualified opinion was imposed on the Federal Patent Court when the patent law was last amended in 2009, albeit with no time limit. The new six-month deadline shortens the time between the filing of a nullity suit and the qualified opinion.

    The opinion indicates to the infringement court if a patent has been rightly granted. Therefore the judges can decide whether to suspend infringement proceedings until the Federal Patent Court has ruled on the patent’s validity.

    However patent experts claim that, all too often, this qualified opinion is either not provided at all or comes too late for the infringement case. This leads to the so-called and oft-criticised injunction gap.

    Furthermore, patent experts have repeatedly called on the government to employ more staff at the Federal Patent Court in Munich. A change in the allocation of work in favour of the nullity senates could also help. Although the government can provide the patent court with more funds, it has no influence on the allocation of work.

  • Software Patents

    • Barcelona Courts approve Trade Secrets Protocol that may indirectly impact patent cases

      Barcelona Commercial Courts have a well-deserved reputation for being dynamic and creative. Not surprisingly, it was Judge Ferrándiz, already retired from the Supreme Court, who back in 1993, when he was sitting at Section 15 of the Court of Appeal of Barcelona, had the idea of specializing that Section on a small number of commercial matters, including intellectual property matters. This was the seed of the specialization introduced across the country on 1 September 2004, the date when Commercial Courts, which have exclusive jurisdiction for patent matters, came into force. These little changes resulted in a modernization of the patent enforcement system that was further enhanced by the coming into force of the new Patents Act on 1 April 2017. Since then, the standards of patent litigation in Spain are approaching the benchmark set by the most experienced European patent courts.

      Among the practical measures introduced by the Commercial Judges in Barcelona during the last few years, the Mobile World Congress Protocol, discussed in other blogs, stands out. Over Christmas, a few months after the coming into force of the 2019 Trade Secrets Act, they circulated a new Protocol that deals with trade secrets.

• Trademarks

  • Carve It All Up: Compumark Report Shows Trademark Registrations, Claims Of Infringement Both Rising Fast

    As we’ve talked about for some time, one of the long-tail effects of the increased use of intellectual property in American culture has been the supercharging effect it’s had on fomenting a permission culture in general. This effect is compounding, as permission culture breeds IP protectionism, which breeds permission culture. The overall effect this has is to cause far too many people to believe that everything that exists can be owned and controlled.

• Copyrights

  • Conservancy Joins Mozilla’s Amicus Brief in Google v. Oracle

    We are pleased to announce our participation in an amicus brief filed by Mozilla with the United States Supreme Court. The amicus brief calls on the court to reverse the Federal Circuit’s earlier decision. The earlier decision came down in Oracle’s favor and held Oracle’s Java API copyrightable. We Amici (Latin for “friends of the court”) are asking the Supreme Court to find in favor of Google and take the stand that copyright law should not be expanded to include API’s. Developers rely on the ability to use API’s without fear of retaliation to provide users with interoperability, additional choices, and modifiable software. Forcing payment agreements in this new area disproportionately harms smaller projects and projects in the public interest.

    In addition to Conservancy, Mozilla was joined by other charities including Creative Commons, Open Source Initiative, and Wikimedia Foundation, as well as a number of small to medium tech companies that rely on FOSS and the freedom to innovate.

  • Google v. Oracle: Amici Weigh in on Why the Supreme Court Should Reverse the Federal Circuit’s Rulings

    In the past week 28 amicus curiae briefs were filed in the Google v. Oracle case, including one written by me and Catherine Crump (of which more below). All but two support reversal of one or both of the Federal Circuit’s copyrightability and fair use rulings.[1]

    Especially significant are IBM’s brief with Red Hat arguing against the copyrightability of computer interfaces and Microsoft’s brief criticizing the Federal Circuit’s unduly rigid fair use analysis and indifference to the need for flexible rules that promote interoperability in today’s highly connected world. The briefs are substantively excellent, and significant because these firms are such prominent developers of software.

    For those interested in the case who are not computing professionals, I recommend the amicus briefs submitted by 83 computer scientists and by the Developers Alliance which explain the Java API technology and why reuse of Java declarations and interfaces generally is so important to enabling compatibility. Several other briefs, including one for the Center for Democracy and Technology et al., and another for R Street and Public Knowledge, offer numerous examples of compatible software systems that benefit consumers as well as software developers

    By my count, more than half of the 28 amicus briefs focus only on the copyrightability issue and another 9 address both the copyrightability and fair use issues. Only 4—the Microsoft, Tushnet, Snow, and Rauschenberg Foundation briefs–address only fair use. This was a something of a surprise given that the fair use decision seems quite vulnerable to challenge. After all, a jury rendered a verdict in favor of Google’s fair use defense, and appellate courts are supposed to defer to jury verdicts. Several amicus briefs take the Federal Circuit to task for substituting its judgment on the merits for the jury’s as to issues about which there was conflicting evidence in the record. Also much criticized are the Federal Circuit’s analysis of the four fair use factors and the manner in which it weighed the factors together.

    One very pragmatic reason why some amici would prefer that the Court rule on the copyrightability issue over the fair use issue is that fair use is a fact-intensive, complex, and much debated limitation on copyright. Google may be able to litigate software interface copyright cases for a decade or more, as it has done in this case, but startups and other small and medium-size companies as well as open source developers would prefer the certainty of a no-copyright-in-interfaces rule, as several amicus briefs pointed out. If the Court rules that interfaces are not protectable by copyright law, litigation over reuses of interfaces is much less likely. And if some developer does bring suit, chances are good that the case can be won on a motion to dismiss or for summary judgment

  • Jetflicks Piracy Trial Delayed After Canada Hands Over Masses of Discovery Data

    The trial of six defendants who allegedly operated the ‘pirate’ streaming service Jetflicks will now take place in July 2020. The delay is in response to Canadian authorities handing over masses of discovery data, including subscriber information and support tickets of the defunct service. The original request for information was made around 22 months ago.

  • Operator of Popcorn Time Info Site is Liable for Piracy, Supreme Court Rules

    The Danish Supreme Court has upheld a conditional prison sentence against the operator of a website that provided information on the piracy app Popcorn Time. The site itself didn’t host the infringing software, but the detailed instructions it provided were enough to warrant criminal liability for copyright infringements of the site’s users.

  • Paris Museums Just Released 321,178 Works of Art Online for Free

    Paris is home to hundreds of thousands of works of art. I’s various museums hold paintings from Francisco Goya, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, and countless others. Paris Musées, a public institution incorporating the city’s 14 museums, has just made it easier to see those masterworks. Paris Musées has uploaded 321,178 works of art—including paintings, photographs, and coins—to its website. More than 150,000 of those images are in the public domain and users can download them in glorious 300 DPI high definition. The other artworks can be viewed, but aren’t available in high definition.

  • Thoughts on “Non-Amicable” Enforcement of CC Licenses

    Broken Hill Wall Mural-07= by Sheba_Also 43,000 photos is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

  • iHeartRadio Replaces Hundreds of Workers With ‘Technology and AI’

    Yesterday, we first reported on iHeartMedia’s mass layoff of employees nationwide.  Now, the company has explained why those people were let go.

  • Rights Groups to European Commission: Prioritize Users’ Rights, Get Public Input For Article 17 Application Guidelines

    The implementation of Art 17 (formerly Article 13) into national laws will have a profound effect on what users can say and share online. The controversial rule, part of the EU’s copyright directive approved last year, turns tech companies and online services operators into copyright police. Platforms are liable for any uploaded content on their sites that infringes someone’s copyright, absent authorization from rightsholders. To escape liability, online service operators have to make best efforts to ensure that infringing content is not available on their platforms, which in practice is likely to require scanning and filtering of billions of daily social media posts and content uploads containing copyrighted material.The content moderation practices of Internet platforms are already faulty and opaque. Layering copyright enforcement onto this already broken system will censor even more speech. It’s paramount that preserving and protecting users’ rights are baked into guidelines the EC is developing for how member states should implement the controversial rule. The guidelines are non-binding but politically influential.The commission has held four meetings with stakeholders in recent months to gather information about copyright licensing and content moderation practices. Two more meetings are scheduled for this spring, after which the EC is expected to begin drafting guidelines for the application of Article 17, which must be implemented in national laws by June 7, 2021.The fifth meeting was held today in Brussels. The good news is EFF and other digital rights organizations have a seat at the table, alongside rightsholders from the music and film industries and representatives of big tech companies like Google and Facebook. The bad news is that the commission’s proposed guidelines probably won’t keep users’ rights to free speech and freedom of expression from being trampled as internet service providers, fearful of liability, race to over-block content.That’s why EFF and more than 40 user advocate and digital rights groups sent an open letter to the EC asking the commissioners to ensure that implementation guidelines focus on user rights, specifically free speech, and limit the use of automated filtering, which is notoriously inaccurate. The guidelines must ensure that protecting legitimate, fair uses of copyrighted material for research, criticism, review, or parody takes precedence over content blocking measures Internet service providers employ to comply with Article 17, the letter says. What’s more, the guidelines must make clear that automated filtering technologies can only be used if content-sharing providers can show that users aren’t being negatively affected.Further, we asked the commission to share the draft guidelines with rights organizations and the public, and allow both to comment on and suggest improvements to ensure that they comply with European Union civil and human rights requirements. As we told the EC in the letter, “This request is based on the requirement of transparency, which is a core principle of the rule of law.” EFF and its partners want to “ensure that the guidelines are in line with the right to freedom of expression and information and also data protection guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.”The EC is scheduled to hold the next stakeholder meeting in February in preparation for drafting guidelines. We will keep the pressure on to protect users from censorship and content blocking brought on by this incredibly dangerous directive.

Desktop/Laptop

• The Easiest Way to Switch from Windows 7 to Linux

  Welcome to the last day of Windows 7—the last day Microsoft is giving out security updates for the antiquated operating system, that is. While you have plenty of options for upgrading Windows 7, and even a hack that might be able to extend your updates for years, one of the best things you can do if you don’t want to make the jump to Windows 10 is to take a 90-degree turn toward Linux.

  Yes, Linux. Don’t be scared. While your first thought is probably, “that’s too complicated for me,” hear me out. There are a number of Linux distributions that look and feel like the Windows you’re already familiar with. You won’t find yourself sitting in front of a command prompt, wondering what to do next, unless that’s the kind of experience you want. Otherwise, Linux isn’t terrifying in the slightest.

  If you’re sticking with Windows 7 because of a specific reason—apps that only work on that version of the OS and nothing else—we even have a workaround for that, too: virtualizing Windows 7 so you can still access it in a safe, as-you-need-it fashion (assuming your system can handle it).

  Stick with us, and we’ll show you just how easy it is to switch to Linux and all the great apps that couldn’t be any easier to download and install in the OS. (We do love package managers.)

• Manjaro with KDE on a MacBook Pro

  With that away, I just installed purely Manjaro Linux on my MacBook last evening, who cares, I anyways don’t use macOS at all beside as VirtualBox startup environment.

  I searched for some pointers in the internet, in the past I already had some parallel install. If you search a bit, you will find various hints how to do it.

  [...]

  For me this did the job and the stuff is running well enough. The webcam won’t work without additional effort, not that I use it. No idea if Bluetooth or other stuff like the Thunderbolt ports work, but I never used that even on macOS.

  Fortunately the HiDPI support on Linux & Qt & KDE has gone a long way since my initial try 2015 and now, with some scaling of 1.5 or 2, it is all nicely usable ;=)

  Given I still have some macOS machines available at work, I might still try out some Kate bundles there from time to time, but my personal life is now macOS free.

• Get Ready For The Manjaro Linux Laptop Explosion (Including AMD Ryzen Models)

  Tuxedo Computers is on a roll. Hot off the heels of announcing the Kubuntu Focus — a workhorse Linux laptop with a heavily tweaked KDE experience — the company has teamed up with Manjaro to tease not one, not two, but several upcoming laptops that will be shipping and optimized for the popular Arch-based Linux distribution.

  On this week’s Linux For Everyone podcast, Manjaro Lead Project Developer Philip Müller shared a bunch of details and some tantalizing teases regarding the new laptops, so if you want the full scoop it’s worth a listen…

Server

• Kubernetes on MIPS

  Background

  MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA), appeared in 1981 and developed by MIPS Technologies. Now MIPS architecture is widely used in many electronic products.

  Kubernetes has officially supported a variety of CPU architectures such as x86, arm/arm64, ppc64le, s390x. However, it’s a pity that Kubernetes doesn’t support MIPS. With the widespread use of cloud native technology, users under MIPS architecture also have an urgent demand for Kubernetes on MIPS.

  Achievements

  For many years, to enrich the ecology of the open-source community, we have been working on adjusting MIPS architecture for Kubernetes use cases. With the continuous iterative optimization and the performance improvement of the MIPS CPU, we have made some breakthrough progresses on the mips64el platform.

  Over the years, we have been actively participating in the Kubernetes community and have rich experience in the using and optimization of Kubernetes technology. Recently, we tried to adapt the MIPS architecture platform for Kubernetes and achieved a new a stage on that journey. The team has completed migration and adaptation of Kubernetes and related components, built not only a stable and highly available MIPS cluster but also completed the conformance test for Kubernetes v1.16.2.

• IBM

  • CentOS Linux 8.1 Officially Released, Based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1

    CentOS Linux 8.1 (1911) is here almost four months after the introduction of the CentOS Linux 8 operating system series, which is based on Red Hat’s Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 operating system series, to add all the new features and improvements implemented upstream in the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 release.

    Highlights include kernel live patching, a new routing protocol stack called FRR which supports multiple IPv4 and IPv6 routing protocols, an extended version of the Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) to help sysadmins troubleshoot complex network issues, support for re-encrypting block devices in LUKS2 while the devices are in use, as well as a new tool for generating SELinux policies for containers called udica.

  • CentOS-8 1911 Released As Rebuild Off Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1

    CentOS 8 1911 has been released today as the community rebuild rebased to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 that debuted back in November.

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 brought official support for kernel live-patching, various container focused updates, new Enterprise Linux System Roles, hybrid cloud improvements, and other security improvements and package updates.

    More details on CentOS 8 1911 can be found via the release notes but as is standard it basically comes down to being a community rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1.

  • Release for CentOS Linux 8 (1911)

    Release for CentOS Linux 8 (1911)

    We are pleased to announce the general availability of CentOS Linux 8.
    Effectively immediately, this is the current release for CentOS Linux 8 and is tagged as 1911,
    derived
    from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Source Code.

    As always, read through the Release Notes at :
    http://wiki.centos.org/Manuals/ReleaseNotes/CentOS8.1911 – these notes
    contain important information about the release and details about some
    of the content inside the release from the CentOS QA team. These notes
    are updated constantly to include issues and incorporate feedback from
    the users.

  • CentOS Linux 8.1 (1911) released and here is how to upgrade it

    CentOS Linux 8.1 (1191) released. It is a Linux distribution derived from RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) 8.1 source code. CentOS was created when Red Hat stopped providing RHEL free. CentOS 8.1 gives complete control of its open-source software packages and is fully customized for research needs or for running a high-performance website without the need for license fees. Let us see what’s new in CentOS 8.1 (1911) and how to upgrade existing CentOS 8.0.1905 server to 8.1.1911 using the command line.

  • Introducing Multi-Cloud Object Gateway for OpenShift

  • Introducing OpenShift Container Storage 4.2

  • Introducing Red Hat OpenShift 4.3 to Enhance Kubernetes Security

  • What’s new in the OpenShift 4.3 console developer experience

    The developer experience is significantly improved in the Red Hat OpenShift 4.3 web console. If you have used the Developer perspective, which was introduced in OpenShift 4.2 Console, you are probably familiar with our streamlined user flows for deploying applications, the new Topology view, and the enhanced experience around OpenShift Pipelines powered by Tekton and OpenShift Serverless powered by Knative. This release continues to improve upon the features that were introduced in 4.2 and introduces new flows and features for the developer.

  • Self Service Speedbumps

    In my case, there is a flavor that almost matches; it has 10 GB of Disk space instead of the required 25. But I cannot use it.

    Instead, I have to use a larger flavor that has double the VCPUs, and thus eats up more of my VCPU quota….to the point that I cannot afford more than 4 Virtual machines of this size, and thus cannot create more than one compute node; OpenShift needs 3 nodes for the control plane.

    I do not have permissions to create a flavor on this cloud. Thus, my only option is to open a ticket. Which has to be reviewed and acted upon by an administrator. Not a huge deal.

    This is how self service breaks down. A non-security decision (link disk size with the other characteristics of a flavor) plus Access Control rules that prevent end users from customizing. So the end user waits for a human to respond

    In my case, that means that I have to provide an alternative place to host my demonstration, just in case things don’t happen in time. Which costs my organization money.

    This is not a ding on my cloud provider. They have the same OpenStack API as anyone else deploying OpenStack.

  • How RHEL 8 is designed for FIPS 140-2 requirements

    Deploying software in a large organization is a challenging task when it comes to providing a consistent and reasonable level of security. Any number of vendors are involved in delivering software that addresses numerous needs of the organization, and that combination of software includes numerous claims and security mechanisms. How can an organization be made aware that all deployed software systems contain generally accepted and state of the art in today’s standards cryptography? Should the organization receiving the software understand and review all the algorithms and protocols used by the software?

    Although, in the open source world the latter may be feasible, it is not always a reasonable or scalable option for the IT department of each and every organization. That is why in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we seek to comply with the FIPS 140-2 standard. FIPS 140-2 is a joint effort between NIST and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS).

  • Design Sprints: the Red Hat Way

Audiocasts/Shows

• Linus’ Filesystem Fluster | LINUX Unplugged 336

  Linus Torvalds says don’t use ZFS, but we think he got a few of the facts wrong. Jim Salter joins us to help us explain what Linus got right, and what he got wrong.

  Plus some really handy Linux picks, some community news, and a live broadcast from Seattle’s Snowpocalypse!

• mintCast 326 – One Byte Opposition

  First up, in our Wanderings, Special Guest Alan Pope finds gold in the loft and plays 30+ year old games online, Leo wins at gifts, but fails at MicroK8s, Tony Hughes plays with Ubuntu Studio, more Matchbox cars, and donates some tech, Joe tries to repair a pebble, fixes more headphones and listens to lots of books, Tony Watts converts 8mm film to digital, plays with a dual monitor setup on his Thinkpad and reconfigures his recording setup.

  Then, in our news – Dell shows a new developer XPS 13 laptop at CES, there is a new enterprise Chromebook from Samsung and EA boots Linux gamers out of multiplayer Battlefield and more.

  In Security – It’s time to update Firefox… again. And Cablehaunt spooks your modem.

• 2020-01-14 | Linux Headlines

  MariaDB has a new cloud-native database, PC sales were up for the first time in 8 years, Google’s Hash Code opens its registration, and GitLab achieved a bug bounty milestone.

• Oracle Groundbreakers Podcast: #374: Kubernetes and Beyond: An Interview with Kelsey Hightower

  Kelsey Hightower is a developer advocate, an open source aficionado, and a widely recognized expert on Kubernetes. He is the creator of the open source tutorial Kubernetes The Hard Way, available on Github, and he is a co-author of Kubernetes: Up and Running: Dive Into the Future of Infrastructure, the second edition of which is now available from O’Reilly Media. In this program his conversation with Oracle’s Karthik Gaekwad encompasses Kubernetes, Open Source, cloud computing, developer advocacy and a lot more. Listen!

• Unboxing of the Kubuntu Focus Laptop

  I got a chance to review the Kubuntu Focus laptop and this is the Unboxing and First Impressions video for it.

Kernel Space

• Linux Founder Linus Torvalds Draws Ire for Criticizing Oracle ZFS

  Linux creator Linus Torvalds has drawn ire for advising people not to use the ZFS file system until Oracle, which inherited the technology when it acquired Sun Microsystems in 2009, changes the licensing used to cover the project’s codebase.

  Torvalds made his remarks on the Real World Technologies forum on January 6. Phoronix was the first to report on the comment, and Ars Technica followed up on Tuesday to criticize Torvalds’s argument, saying in the article’s subhed that “Linus should avoid authoritative statements about projects he’s unfamiliar with.”

• Linux 5.4.12

  I’m announcing the release of the 5.4.12 kernel.

  All users of the 5.4 kernel series must upgrade.

  The updated 5.4.y git tree can be found at:

  git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-5.4.y

  and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser:

  https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-s…

• Linux 4.19.96

• Linux 4.14.165

• Linux 4.9.210

• Linux 4.4.210

• Intel Ivybridge + Haswell Require Security Mitigation For Graphics Hardware Flaw

• Intel’s Linux Graphics Driver Gets Patched For A Gen9 Graphics Vulnerability

  On top of the Intel graphics driver patches back from November for denial of service and privilege escalation bugs, the Linux kernel received a new patch today for “CVE-2019-14615″ regarding a possible data disclosure with Gen9 graphics hardware.

• Intel Patches Security Vulnerability in Linux and Windows Drivers

  Out of the six security flaws, only one comes with a “high” severity rating. Four of them are rated as “medium,” while last one has a “low” rating.

  The high-severity vulnerability is an escalation of privilege that exists in the Intel VTune Amplifier for Windows, and Intel says the bug was discovered internally by company employees.

  To resolve the flaw, users must update Intel VTune Amplifier for Windows to version 8 or newer.

• Tesla Is Making Use Of The Open-Source Coreboot Within Their Electric Vehicles

  Not only is Linux increasingly used within automobiles but it turns out at least one automobile manufacturer is even using Coreboot within their vehicles.

  Tesla turns out to be utilizing Coreboot as part of their electric vehicle computer systems. Tesla Motors’ open-source portal on GitHub is hosting a Coreboot repository with a big code drop having happened at the start of the new year.

  The new code added on top of the Coreboot source tree is from Tesla Motors and Samsung. Samsung manufacturers the company’s current full self-driving (FSD) chip.

• Graphics Stack

  • Vulkan 1.2 Arrives With An Eye On Greater Performance, Better Compatibility With Other 3D APIs On Top

    Coming up next month already will mark four years since the release of Vulkan 1.0 but for today is an early surprise… Vulkan 1.2! The Khronos Group has prepared Vulkan 1.2 for release as the newest major update to this graphics and compute API. Several vendors also have Vulkan 1.2 support in tow.

  • RenderDoc 1.6 Released, NVIDIA + AMD + Intel All Primed For Vulkan 1.2

    This morning’s release of Vulkan 1.2 is off to a great start.

    To no surprise, NVIDIA is first out of the gate with a Vulkan 1.2 driver for Windows and Linux. The NVIDIA 440.48.02 Linux driver adds the Vulkan 1.2 support. Additionally, this Vulkan beta driver supports PRIME synchronization when paired with the Linux 5.4 kernel or newer.

  • Vulkan API specification 1.2 released, new NVIDIA Vulkan Beta driver up

    Today, The Khronos Group has released the next big update the Vulkan graphics API specification with Vulkan 1.2 now available. This marks almost four years since 1.0 specification release.

    Vulkan 1.2 pulls in 23 extensions into the core of the Vulkan API, bringing access to new hardware functionality, the possibility to improve performance and more. There’s a lot of excitement around it, with multiple companies giving their support in the official press release here like Google for Stadia, Stardock Entertainment, NVIDIA, AMD, Arm, Intel and more.

    “Vulkan 1.2 brings together nearly two dozen high-priority features developed over the past two years into one, unified core Vulkan standard, setting a cutting-edge bar for functionality in the industry’s only open GPU API for cross-platform 3D and compute acceleration,” said Tom Olson, distinguished engineer at Arm, and Vulkan working group chair. “Khronos will continue delivering regular Vulkan ecosystem updates with this proven, developer-focused methodology to both meet the needs and expand the horizons of real-world applications.”

  • A Slew Of ACO Optimizations For The Radeon Vulkan Driver Landed In Mesa 20.0

    The Valve-backed ACO compiler back-end that is optionally used by the RADV Radeon Vulkan driver has continued growing in popularity with Linux gamers and also has continued maturing a lot for Mesa 20.0 that is due out later this quarter.

    On top of the work that has merged already for ACO since its original mainlining in Mesa 19.3, optimizations and fixes are aplenty for ACO with RADV come Mesa 20.0.

  • Wayland 1.18.0 release schedule

    Hi all,
    
    Here is the release schedule for Wayland 1.18.0:
    
    - Alpha: January 21st, in one week
    - Beta: January 28th
    - RC1: February 4th
    - First potential final release date: February 11th
    
    Package maintainers are encouraged to pick up the pre-releases to make
    sure packaging can be tested (and fixed) before the stable release.
    This is the first release to support the Meson build system. The
    autotools build is still supported for now, but will be dropped in a
    future version.
    
    Let me know if you'd like a pending patch to make it in the release.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Simon
    

  • Wayland 1.18 Planned For Release Next Month

    Without seeing a new release of Wayland itself in nearly one year, a plan has been rolled out for having Wayland 1.18 in mid-February.

    Simon Ser has stepped up to organize the Wayland 1.18 release and is planning for the alpha in one week, the Wayland 1.18 beta at month’s end, and the release candidates to happen in February until the stable version is ready to ship. The release plan for Wayland 1.18 can be found on Wayland-dev.

  • There Is Finally Open-Source Accelerated NVIDIA Turing Graphics Support

    Here is another big feature coming for Linux 5.6: the Nouveau driver will have initial accelerated support for NVIDIA “Turing” GPUs! This is coming at long-last with NVIDIA set to release publicly the Turing firmware images needed for hardware initialization.

    As of writing, NVIDIA hasn’t yet volleyed the signed firmware needed for Turing hardware initialization, but it appears advanced copies went out to Nouveau DRM maintainer Ben Skeggs of Red Hat. With the firmware bits and some DRM driver hacking, Skeggs now has the Turing GPUs lighting up with the open-source driver.

  • Intel Lands A Final Batch Of Graphics Driver Updates Ahead Of Linux 5.6

    Intel’s open-source graphics driver crew has submitted a final batch of updates to DRM-Next ahead of the Linux 5.6 kernel merge window. The DRM-Next cut-off is this week ahead of the Linux 5.6 window opening up at the start of February.

    Over previous weeks into DRM-Next Intel has submitted various Tiger Lake and Jasper Lake updates, HDCP 2.2 support for Coffee Lake, Panel Self Refresh improvements, and various other enhancements.

Applications

• Oracle VirtualBox 6.1.2 Released with Linux 5.5 Support

  The first maintenance release for Oracle Virtualbox 6.1 series was released one day ago.

  Virtualbox 6.1.2 added kernel 5.5 support in Linux hosts (guest additions not yet), and improved resize and multi-monitor handling for Linux guests using VMSVGA.

• Oracle Releases VirtualBox 6.1.2 with Initial Support for Linux Kernel 5.5

  VirtualBox 6.1.2 is here to add a month’s worth of new bug fixes and improvements to the popular virtualization software developed by Oracle, adding initial support for the upcoming Linux 5.5 kernel series, which should hit the streets later this month. For now, Guest Additions are not supported.

  For the Linux platform, VirtualBox 6.1.2 also improves resize and multi-monitor handling for virtual machines using VMSVGA in Linux guests. However, Oracle notes the fact that the “do not disable a monitor “in the middle”” issue is still present in this release and it causes confusion for users.

• 5 Best Download Managers for Linux

  We often need to download large files that can go corrupt due to various reasons such as slow internet or interrupted download. Using a broken downloaded file is not something one wants.

  Thankfully, we have programs for management of just those situations, download managers. In this article, we’re going to tell you about six most useful download managers available on the Linux platform, with the distinctive features of each one of them.

• 4 Useful Tools to Monitor CPU and GPU Temperature in Ubuntu

  The CPU or GPU temperature depends entirely on the usage of running programs or applications. Sensitive computer components such as CPUs have a finite lifespan and running them at a temperature that exceeds a certain limit (or at higher temperatures generally) can shorten it. Besides, it can also cause thermal throttling especially when the fan is not providing adequate cooling.

• Boostnote – A Note Taking and Markdown Editor Made for Coders

  Boostnote is a 100% open-source, multi-platform Markdown editor and note-taking application designed for developers. Of course, non-programmers can use it without any technical requirements in order to take advantage of all its modern features which include full Markdown editing (with live preview) and Latex support.

  [...]

  Apart from the above-listed features, you can use hotkeys to quickly navigate through the app and search for notes among other quick actions. The tab or spacebars can be customized to your taste and you can export notes as either plain text (.txt) or markdown (.md).

  [...]

  Boostnote is open-source but that doesn’t stop it from having a paid version. The Basic version is free with 100MB cloud storage space while the Premium version features 2GB of cloud storage space for a fee of $3/month and $5 for every extra 5GB.

Instructionals/Technical

• Basic Bash Commands for Linux Newbies

• Himblick one day later

• gnu linux bash terminal – how to get all informations about one’s harddisk – how many blocks

• Adding New Users in Linux With Useradd Command

• 6 handy Bash scripts for Git

• An Intro to MicroK8s

• Which directory is that bash script in?

• Linux tools: du vs. df

• How to Mount a Drive in Linux

• How to Setup FEMP Stack (FreeBSD, Nginx, MySQL 8 and PHP 7.4) on FreeBSD 12

• How to Install Arduino IDE on Linux Mint 19

• How to install GitKraken on Linux

• How to install Linux Lite 4.8

• How to Enable Fractional Scaling in Ubuntu 18.04, 19.10

• How to install and configure Ansible on Redhat Enterprise Linux 8

• How to use/run bash aliases over ssh based session

• How To Use Linux Screen in Linux

• How To Synchronize Files And Directories Using Zaloha.sh

• How To Install IonCube Loader on CentOS 8

• How to install software in RHEL 8

• Install WordPress on AWS with RDS and Setup Free SSL – EC2

• Grep String from a Variable in Bash Using IFS and Echo

• How to Install a Kubernetes Cluster on CentOS 7

• Install Sugarizer in Linux Ubuntu 19.10/ 18.04 LTS & other Distros

• Install Speedy Duplicate Finder Instantly on your Ubuntu 19.10, 18.04 LTS versions!

• Installing debugging tools into a Red Hat OpenShift container with oc-inject

• Django 3 Tutorial & CRUD Example with MySQL and Bootstrap

• How to connect to Ubuntu from macOS

• How to Install CMake on Ubuntu 18.04 Linux

• systemd service sandboxing and security hardening 101

• Comparing Workload Performance

• Install Yii framework.

• How to Install Java on Raspberry Pi

• How To Quickly Transfer Large Files Over Network In Linux And Unix

Games

• Linux’s Gaming Future | DXVK Enters Maintenance mode

  In this video, I go over recent news about DXVK entering maintenance mode and what their lead developer is doing and how this affects Linux’s gaming future.

• Cortex Command has a Community Project that aims to keep the game alive

  Remember Cortex Command? Data Realms released a Linux build for the Humble Indie Bundle 2 in 2010, sadly the Linux version never really progressed much but since it was opened sourced last year it can live on and it is alive.

  The Cortex Command Community Project (GitHub) is one such attempt to revive it, updating it to keep it working nicely on modern systems. I spoke with the maintainer who said they’ve worked to deal with any case sensitivity in the engine (because Windows is not case sensitive, but Linux is) and replacing the sound library FMOD, with Gorilla Audio. Their main goal of this, is to give it feature parity with the Windows version which they said it does.

• 3D party action game ‘Aeolis Tournament’ is on Kickstarter promising some chaotic fun on Linux

  Beyond Fun Studio are raising a little funding on Kickstarter to complete their crazy party game, Aeolis Tournament, which is planned to release with Linux support this Spring.

  You compete in various different game modes, using a super-easy one-button mechanic. Each character has an air cannon, to affect their surroundings for whatever mode they’re in. Inspired by the likes of Fuzion Frenzy, they’re going for a “Nintendo-inspired” cartoony look.

• Paradox to focus on smaller and more frequent updates to Imperator: Rome this year

  Paradox Development Studio have given their first 2020 update on the roadmap for the struggling Imperator: Rome.

  Unlike their other titles including Stellaris, Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis they’re switching up their release schedule to push out what they said will be “smaller, more frequent updates” in comparison. This means the 1.4 update which was going to be titled “Cassander” won’t be happening as planned.

  It makes sense, this is one of their worst launches and it’s still not doing well so rather than building everything into big expansions making people wait long periods they’re going to try and turn it around a little quicker.

• Apocalyptic fantasy RPG strategy ‘Vagrus – The Riven Realms’ new build out, passed $50K on Fig

  Before talking a little about the new build, let’s look at some numbers. Lost Pilgrims Studio put Vagrus up on Fig in May last year, so in around eight months they’ve managed to pass well over $50K on Fig so it certainly seems like they’re doing well. Using Fig’s “Open Access” funding model, a hybrid that blends Early Access and Crowdfunding. They have a set milestone in funding for certain features, a ton of which have been hit now.

  [...]

  It’s really turning into an exceptional narrative-driven experience, the style and writing are fantastic and really do pull you into the world. What’s interesting is that I often struggle with RPG experiences that make me sit still and read (I prefer a good narrator and voice over), but Vagrus is just so captivating I end up absorbed by it. If you enjoy a good read with trading, combat and exploration then Vagrus – The Riven Realms should tick a few boxes for you. The Linux version works great, really enjoying it.

• DOOM Eternal coming to Stadia on March 20, plus other Stadia news – a round-up

  First up we have a delay, with Marvel’s Avengers that was due to release in May being pushed back until September. According to Crystal Dynamics, they said this is to “spend this additional development time focusing on fine tuning and polishing the game to the high standards our fans expect and deserve”—fair enough. It’s expected to release on Stadia at the same time as other platforms.

  [...]

  Something also interesting is that Anna Kipnis, a Senior Prototyper & Game Designer at Google (who is also on the Stadia Star Labs research team), will be doing a talk at GDC 2020 in March titled “Machine Learning Summit: Creating Game AI by Using Mostly English, with Semantic ML”. This is a feature Google are hoping to pull into Stadia, to have more interesting/smarter AI.

• Valve continue working behind the scenes for Linux gaming with ‘Gamescope’

  Valve are definitely up to something. For a little while, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais has been tweaking steamcompmgr, the SteamOS session compositing window manager.

  After being quiet on SteamOS development for a long time with no update since July last year, it certainly seems now like some parts of it are being revived either for the next major SteamOS release or Valve’s other Linux gaming projects. Work on steamcompmgr seemed to stall back in 2018, with it suddenly seeing activity on GitHub in October last year.

• The Humble Sweet Farm Bundle is live with some lovely Linux games

  Humble Bundle have just put up The Humble Sweet Farm Bundle and there’s multiple lovely Linux games included.

• Steam Play Proton 4.11-12 is out

  The first Steam Play Proton release of 2020 is now available with 4.11-12 which is mainly a cleanup.

  Looking to get started with Steam Play on Linux? Be sure to check our previous beginners guide for some tips and explanations. We’ll be keeping that up to date with any major changes.

  DXVK, the translation layer the converts Direct 3D 9/10/11 to Vulkan which forms part of Proton was upgraded to the 1.5.1 release from last week. So all the changes there like performance improvements for D3D9 and bug fixes for some big titles like GTA V are available now.

• Valve’s Proton 4.11-12 Released With DXVK 1.5.1, Updated SDKs

  The Wine-downstream Proton that powers Valve’s Steam Play is up to version 4.11-12 following a release today by a CodeWeavers developer.

  Most notable with Proton 4.11-12 is pulling in DXVK 1.5.1, the release that brings better D3D9 performance and many game fixes as well as better thread defaults for today’s CPUs.

• Slay the Spire patch 2.0 is out, bringing in The Watcher as the fourth character

  As if I needed more reasons to dive into the Spire once again, Slay the Spire 2.0 is out which brings quite a lot of changes in addition to the fourth character.

  You need to unlock this character, by having the third character unlocked and then beating an Act III boss with any character. That can take some time to do, I had a two hour game earlier where I was destroyed by the Act III boss—maybe next time. Just like the other three characters, The Watcher has their own deck of cards and a handful of unique relics.

  There’s also 14 new potions, so they also added a Potion Lab where you can go to find out more information on them just like the Card Library. To make runs even more interesting there’s an additional 9 Relics that all characters can use and an additional 9 Relics just for The Watcher.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Moving from Windows 7 to Plasma? Do it the Easy Way!

    Redmond will no longer provide updates for the 2009 operating system. This puts almost a billion people in the difficult situation of facing increased security risks alongside a slow decline in software availability.

    Folks who reject Microsoft’s forced updates are already opting to regain control over their systems by switching to the friendly and full-featured Plasma desktop, built on a design philosophy which centers freedom and respect for its users. Recent buzz about the possibilities of Plasma has brought a lot of fresh faces on board, and now they are trying to navigate a new operating system that has its differences from Windows.

    If you’re one of those people, you’re probably wondering where you can find experienced users to help you get settled in.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • GNOME 3.36 Will Feature an Improved Shell Theme (And It Looks Very Nice)

    As spotlighted by Alex (aka BabyWogue), the current development work on GNOME 3.36 introduces a brand new aesthetic in the calendar/message tray and in the GNOME Shell search overview.

    Notifications listed in the GNOME Shell Calendar/Message tray have a more prominent appearance, made distinct and separate by the use of a drop shadows (rather than only a subtle border outline, as per current code).

    The “carded” look extends to other elements nestled in the drop down too, including the calendar, world clocks, and weather. A “light” effect is applied on mouse over in the standard GNOME Shell skin.

    The (admittedly fuzzy) .gif above also demonstrates two additional tweaks I’m pretty pleased to see. First, new “hover” state for individual media control buttons, an effect that had been missing until now; and secondly, larger icons in notifications.

Distributions

• IPFire Linux Firewall Distribution Improves Its Intrusion Prevention System

  IPFire 2.23 Core Update 139 is the latest release of the Linux-based firewall distribution, featuring an improved Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) that now receives information about which DNS servers are being used by the system, as well as improved booting and reconnect after loss of Internet connection.

  With this new Core Update, IPFire 2.23 is also switching to AES-GCM as preferred cipher when establishing an SSL/TLS connection to the firewall and connections to web user interface. Previously, the firewall distribution made use of the AES-CBC and ChaCha20/Poly1305 ciphers.

• New Releases

  • Linux Lite 4.8 Released As A Free And Light Windows 7 Alternative

    Days after Microsoft ended all kinds of support for Windows 7, Linux Lite came up with new stable version Linux Lite 4.8 as officially announced here on their website.

    It’s been released before its usual release date, which is mostly scheduled always in February, to welcome all the Windows 7 users who have been forced to switch to Windows 10. The latest version makes the path of transition easy, secure, and smooth, especially for Windows 7 users as it offers a user-friendly simple, lightweight, Microsoft-compatible office suite and similar applications for media, production, and browsing.

  • Linux Lite 4.8 released a day ahead of Windows 7 EOL

    Linux Lite eases Windows 7 users transition to Linux much more comfortable by offering simple software like Teamviewer, VLC, Firefox, Chrome, the Timeshift backup utility, and a full Microsoft Office compatible office suite in LibreOffice. The timing of the release of Linux Lite 4.8 could not have been more perfect. With Microsoft ending support for the popular Windows 7 operating system. While the company hopes that existing Windows 7 users will upgrade to Windows 10, many users are reluctant to do so, tired of the copious amount of updates, not to mention their perception that the software giant’s data collection methods are aggressive and dubious. For these users, the newly released Linux Lite 4.8 is a tempting alternative.

• Screenshots/Screencasts

  • Linux Lite 4.8 Run Through

    In this video, we are looking at Linux Lite 4.8.

  • SparkyLinux 5.10 Run Through

    In this video, we are looking at SparkyLinux 5.10.

• SUSE/OpenSUSE

  • LibreOffice, Firefox, Curl Receive Updates in Tumbleweed

    Several packages were updated this week for openSUSE Tumbleweed as was expected after the holiday season. Five snapshots of the rolling release have been delivered so far this week after passing the rigorous testing applied by openQA.

    The releases are trending incredibly stable with trending or recorded ratings abovea 96 rating, according to the Tumbleweed snapshot reviewer.

    The most recent snapshot, 20200112, updated Xfce desktop environment with an update for xfce4-session 4.14.1 and xfce4-settings 4.14.2. Various developer visible changes were made with Google’s 20200101 re2 library for regular expressions updates. GNOME’s application for managing images with a users Flickr account, frogr 1.6, removed the deprecated use of GTimeVal. The open source platform for the scale-out of public and private cloud storage, glusterfs 7.1, fixed storage rebalancing caused by an input error and fixed a memory leak in the glusterfsd process. ImageMagick version 7.0.9.14 optimized the special effects performance of Fx and virglrenderer 0.8.1, which is a project to investigate the possibility of creating a virtual 3D GPU for use inside qemu virtual machines to accelerate 3D rendering, added some patches. The snapshot continued to update packages for KDE Applications 19.12.1 that started in the 20200111 snapshot. Improvements to the scroll wheel speed was made for KDE’s Dolphin, the video editing software Kdenlive had multiple fixes and an adjustment for faster rendering, and obsolete code was removed from Applications’ diagram package umbrello. Most of the KDE Applications packages also updated the Copyright year to 2020.

  • Linux Bonus Pack Makes SAP Hana Movers Happy

    More and more SAP customers are opting for Hana (and consequently Linux) and ERP successor S/4. According to a new forecast by German-speaking SAP user group DSAG, the percentage of existing customers using S/4 will continue to increase in the next three years – from currently 8 percent to then 50 percent.

    These numbers are impressive, and they are not even taking new customers into account. Numerous companies of all sizes and industries will also switch to SAP and S/4 in the next couple of years.

    [...]

    This company is a supplier operating in the construction industry. On the road to S/4, this company migrated its SAP systems (ECC, APO, TM and PI) to Hana with Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP Applications from its existing infrastructure with DB2, Power hardware and Power VM and AIX.

• Fedora Family

  • Qubes OS 4.0.3-rc1 has been released!

    Shortly after the announcement of 4.0.2, a bug was discovered in the dom0 kernel included in that release. Since the bug would have presented installation problems for the majority of users. That bug has now been fixed, along with a few installer fixes, resulting in 4.0.3-rc1.

    In keeping with standard semantic versioning, we’ve incremented the patch version number to reflect this latest fix, so 4.0.2 has become 4.0.3. This is the first release candidate (rc1) for 4.0.3, because we’d like to give the community an opportunity to test it before declaring it to be the stable release. However, the changes from 4.0.2 are minimal, and 4.0.2 itself was preceded by three release candidates, so we plan to keep the 4.0.3-rc1 testing period brief.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS should entice Windows 7 switchers with new theme

    With Windows 7 dead and buried, it is time to begin looking forward. Microsoft would love for computer users to upgrade to Windows 10, and for many people, that is a very good idea. For others, though, a Linux-based operating system makes much more sense. An OS like Linux Mint or Linux Lite are great choices for switchers, as they feature desktop environments that will make the Windows convert feel comfortable.

    Not all Windows users are scared of change, however. There is no reason why some of them can’t jump into a Linux-based operating system that uses the radically different desktop environment, such as GNOME.

  • Ubuntu 20.04 LTS to Feature a Refreshed Desktop Theme, Here’s What It Looks Like

    Yaru is the default theme of Ubuntu since the release of Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish), and it continued to receive improvements and optimizations since then. With the upcoming Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) release, the Yaru team is working with Canonical’s Design and Ubuntu Desktop teams to further improve its look and feel.

    The main changes that users will notice after installing or upgrading to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS will be a third variation of the Yaru theme called Yaru Light alongside Yaru Dark and Standard, the ability to switch between all Yaru variations from Settings, as well as the fact that the check boxes, switches, and radio buttons will change from green to the Ubuntu aubergine color.

  • Ubuntu is Making Changes to its Appearance Ahead of 20.04

    Major improvements to Ubuntu’s default ‘Yaru’ theme are coming in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

    The community team who work on the Yaru GTK theme recently spent a week at Canonical’s London HQ for an in-person ‘design fest’. There, alongside members of the official Ubuntu design team, they worked on improving the look, fit and feel of of Ubuntu’s default appearance.

    Bugs and and ‘paper cuts’ in the current version of the theme were ironed out, and a crop of major colour changes were agreed upon — changes that alter the overall ‘look’ of the Yaru theme quite considerably.

  • New Ubuntu Theme in Development for 20.04

    Yaru is the user interface theme that has been used in Ubuntu since 18.10. The theme is what determines the colours, borders, shadows, size, and shape of individual elements on the screen.

    Last week, the Yaru team visited London to plan the future of Yaru with members of Canonical’s Design and Ubuntu Desktop teams. I’d like to thank Carlo, Frederik, Mads and Stuart for travelling across Europe to collaborate with us at the Canonical offices.

  • Canonical Is Working On A New Desktop Theme For Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

    With Ubuntu 20.04 to see installation on many desktops (and servers) given its Long-Term Support status, Canonical and the Yaru community team have begun working on a successor to the Yaru theme for this Linux distribution release due out in April.

    Yaru has been the default Ubuntu theme since 18.10 but now a year and a half later is time for some refinements. The Yaru design team was recently at Canonic\al’s London offices to work on the new theme.

    Beyond the normal light and dark variations to the theme, a third version is being worked on that will use light colors throughout. Developers are also working to make it easier to switch between these theme/color variants.

  • Ubuntu’s Waiting for You, Canonical Tells Windows 7 Users

    Rhys Davies, product manager at Canonical, plays the hardware card, explaining that Windows 7 users can either “buy a new computer running another operating” or simply install Ubuntu, which doesn’t require any other hardware upgrades.

    Davies goes on to highlight some of the apps that make the transition from Windows 7 to Ubuntu as smoothly as possible, including Google Chrome, Spotify, Blender, and Microsoft’s very own Skype.

Devices/Embedded

• Wind River acquires Star Lab to improve its Linux security

  Once upon a time Wind River was best known as a leading embedded operating system (VxWorks) and Linux (Wind River Linux) company. It still is. But things have changed. Now its customers want their devices to work in the world of the Internet of Things (IoT) and that requires much better security. That’s one reason why Wind River just acquired the Linux security company Star Lab.

  Star Lab brings its Titanium Security Suite to Wind River’s table. It uses a threat model that assumes an attacker will gain root (admin) access to your system, but makes it harder for them to do your system any harm. It also offers a secure virtual machine (VM) hypervisor, Crucible. Star also has a secure boot program, which ensures that a device’s firmware and boot code hasn’t been maliciously modified or manipulated.

• Linux-based dev kits unlock TI’s new Jacinto 7 automotive SoCs

  D3’s “DesignCore RVP-TDA4Vx Dev Kit” runs Linux on TI’s new Jacinto 7 TDA4VM ADAS SoC with 2x Cortex-A72, 6x Cortex-R5F, 2x EVE/AI enabled DSPs, and a PowerVR GPU. TI also unveiled a Jacinto 7 DRA829V automotive gateway SoC plus its own Jacinto 7 dev kits.

  D3 Engineering announced a sandwich-style development kit that showcases one of TI’s two new Jacinto 7 automotive system-on-chips: the TDA4VM. The Linux-driven DesignCore RVP-TDA4Vx Development Kit, which features 8x 4Gbps FPD-LinkT III channels and 4x display channels, follows its earlier Jacinto 6-based DesignCore RVP-TDA2x Development Kit for ADAS.

• Raspberry Pi 4: Chronicling the Desktop Experience – Reading Comics – Week 12

  This is a weekly blog about the Raspberry Pi 4 (“RPI4”), the latest product in the popular Raspberry Pi range of computers.

  I’ve covered some fairly meaty areas in this blog in recent weeks. For this week, I’m turning to a much lighter side of the Linux desktop. Reading comics on the RPI4.

  The best open source comic book readers for Linux are YACReader, MComix, and QComicBook. Essentially, they are image viewers that are specifically designed to handle comic books. I’ve put each of them through its paces on the RPI4. Here’s my findings.

• Kaby Lake edge AI system features Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

  Ibase’s Ubuntu-ready “EC-7100” edge AI computer combines a 7th Gen Intel Core i7 with Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics. The system offers 2x M.2, mini-PCIe, 2x SATA 3.0, 4x DP, 4x USB 3.0, and up to 3x GbE ports.

  The EC-7100 is another example of the trend of adding discrete graphics cards to embedded systems to enable edge AI or high-end graphics applications. Ibase previously combined an Intel 7th Gen Kaby Laky CPU with an Nvidia MXM NV1050 graphics card in its SI-614 signage player to enable up to 4x 4K DisplayPort displays. With the EC-7100, Ibase has paired Kaby Lake with a much more powerful Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 card for AI applications. One similar system that supports the GTX 1080 is Neousys’ Intel Coffee Lake based Nuvo-8208GC.

• Can algorithms be unethical?

  At Raspberry Pi, we’re interested in all things to do with technology, from building new tools and helping people teach computing, to researching how young people learn to create with technology and thinking about the role tech plays in our lives and society. One of the aspects of technology I myself have been thinking about recently is algorithms.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • How to retrieve lost files on Android – Your guide to Android data recovery

  • How to backup WhatsApp chats on iOS and Android

  • Here’s why your Android and Stadia games are about to get faster

  • Here’s how Android makers can balance 120Hz screens and battery life

  • Xiaomi confirms Android 10 update for Mi A3 coming next month

  • [Update: Mi A3 in mid-Feb] The Android 10 update is now available for the Xiaomi Mi A2

  • Are you getting used to Android 10′s gestures?

  • Samsung continues the development phase of Android 10 for the Galaxy A20e, XCover 4S and Tab S6

  • Blockbuster Android update will bring the feature millions have been waiting for

  • Android Banking Trojans: History, Types, Modus Operandi

  • 5 Best Android Launchers With Battery Saver Features

  • 8 Cybersecurity Risks in Android’s VoIP Components

  • 15 best strategy games for Android and iOS

  • This discounted 3-in-1 Powerline cable can charge Android and iPhone devices for $11

  • Nearby Sharing, formerly Fast Share, is AirDrop for Android

  • 9to5Google Daily 372: Android’s answer to AirDrop gets a new name and Android Auto surpasses 100 million downloads

  • Price Alert: Apple iPad, iPad Pro, Android Tablet Deals Hit New Lows

  • Realme UI unveiled ahead of launch: Here are all the features of the new Android 10-based OS

  • Give Your Phone a Boost: 9 Cool Things to Try in Android 10

  • The Pocophone F1′s next update will probably contain Android 10

  • How to send and receive texts from a PC using Android messages

  • How to enable Android’s built-in screen recorder on Google Pixel

  • How to get started with Android apps on your Chromebook

  • The most anticipated Android games of 2020

  • These 18 Android apps are really good for your new tablet

  • Kaspersky makes Android app testing tool publicly available for mobile developers

  • Android Apps Share Sensitive Data With Ad Tech Companies, Report Finds 01/15/2020

  • Google tests biometric authentication for Android autofill

  • OnePlus 8: News, Leaks, Release Date, Specs, and Rumors!

  • The Android Police Q&A Show is live!

  • Save Space on Your Android by Automatically Deleting Signal Attachments

  • Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware by 50+ organizations

  • Android Central’s Best of CES 2020

  • 18 new Android games from the last two weeks: The White Door, 60 Parsecs!, and Table Top Racing: World Tour

  • What Are Android Apps? Everything You Need To Know

  • Chrome OS 80 adds gesture navigation similar to Android 10

  • Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ review, 4 months later: Even better with Android 10

  • GitHub for Android beta now available for download, shows you everything but code

  • SwiftKey tips and tricks for Android and iOS

  • Introducing the BIXOLON XQ-840 Android Tablet Embedded Desktop Label Printer

  • The Most Popular Apps and Games in the Tizen Store in 2019!

    It’s the end of a decade and time to have a look at the Tizen Apps and Games in the Tizen Store in 2019.

    Starting off our list is Whatsapp Messenger. The Facebook owned app has gone through quite a big change as of 2020. The app is no longer going to support certain versions of iOS and Android OSs. Next comes Facebook itself. There hasn’t been much news about the app as of late but back in November, the app was found to access your smartphone camera on iOS devices. Pretty scary, right?

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• 10 Leading Open Source Companies [Ed: More than a decade ago I wrote for Datamation and now it throws away remains of reputation by calling Microsoft “Open Source company”]

  The days are long gone when open source software was primarily the work of hobbyists and lone developers, your impression is sorely out of date. While independent developers are still an important part of the open source community, today much of the work on open source projects is being done by corporate developers.

  Linux founder Linus Torvalds acknowledged this corporate influence and welcomed it. “It’s very important to have companies in open source,” he said. “It’s one thing I have been very happy about.”

  The list below highlights some of the leading for-profit companies that are using, sponsoring and contributing to open source projects. It includes a mix of large enterprises, small startups and everything in between. Some of the companies exclusively offer products based on open source software, while others sell a mix of proprietary and open source solutions. But all of these companies play a significant role in the open source community.

• Apple App Review: resistance is futile!

  Apple: “Computer says… blub-blub-blub’”

• Apple App Review says “maybe”: the whims of trillion-dollar gatekeepers

  Yesterday, I wrote about how Apple’s refusal to update a couple of fields in their database has impacted the future of Better Blocker, the tracker blocker that Laura and I build at our tiny two-person not-for-profit, Small Technology Foundation.

  I also shared our plan for dealing with this situation.

  Yesterday, we were at Step 3 of our plan. We’d submitted the version 2020.1 updates to Better for macOS and iOS from our old developer account and we were waiting for Apple to approve them.

  Today, we are half-at step 4 because Apple has approved the macOS app and rejected the iOS app.

• Web Browsers

  • Why everyone is talking about WebAssembly

    If you haven’t heard of WebAssembly yet, then you will soon. It’s one of the industry’s best-kept secrets, but it’s everywhere. It’s supported by all the major browsers, and it’s coming to the server-side, too. It’s fast. It’s being used for gaming. It’s an open World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organization for the web, standard. It’s platform-neutral and can run on Linux, Macs, and Windows.

    “Wow,” you may be saying, “this sounds like something I should learn to code in!” You’d be right, but you’d be wrong too; you don’t code in WebAssembly. Let’s take some time to learn about the technology that’s often fondly abbreviated to “Wasm.”

  • Mozilla

    • How we built Picture-in-Picture in Firefox Desktop with more control over video

      Picture-in-Picture support for videos is a feature that we shipped to Firefox Desktop users in version 71 for Windows users, and 72 for macOS and Linux users. It allows the user to pull a element out into an always-on-top window, so that they can switch tabs or applications, and keep the video within sight — ideal if, for example, you want to keep an eye on that sports game while also getting some work done.

      As always, we designed and developed this feature with user agency in mind. Specifically, we wanted to make it extremely easy for our users to exercise greater control over how they watch video content in Firefox.

    • Firefox Picture-in-picture video mode is now available for Mac and Linux

      Recently, release Mozilla Firefox updated version i.e 72.0 brings some new enhancement and changes along with.

      The first one is the Enhance Tracking Protection, with it Firefox now by default blocks fingerprinting script for all users, thus it will restrict extensively all websites from tracking user browser identification and other online activities; along with it there are numerous other security fixes also have been done.

      The second major update is related to pop-up notifications. To enhance the user experience and make it more work-focused, the developer has changed the way of getting it. Now, instead of getting pop-up, the users will get a speech bubble that will appear in the address bar when you interact with the site. Clicking on it then brings up the previously known window with the request.

    • The New Localization System for Firefox is in!

      After nearly 3 years of work, 13 Firefox releases, 6 milestones and a lot of bits flipped, I’m happy to announce that the project of integrating the Fluent Localization System into Firefox is now completed!

      It means that we consider Fluent to be well integrated into Gecko and ready to be used as the primary localization system for Firefox!

      Below is a story of how that happened.

    • Mozilla GFX: moz://gfx newsletter #50

      Glenn and Sotaro’s work on integrating WebRender with DirectComposition on Windows is close to being ready. We hope to let it ride the trains for Firefox 75. This will lead to lower GPU usage and energy consumption. Once this is done we plan to follow up with enabling WebRender by default for Windows users with (some subset of) Intel integrated GPUs, which is both challenging (these integrated GPUs are usually slower than discrete GPUs and we have run into a number of driver bugs with them on Windows) and rewarding as it represents a very large part of the user base.

    • Switching from pyup to dependabot

      I maintain a bunch of Python-based projects including some major projects like Crash Stats, Mozilla Symbols Server, and Mozilla Location Services. In order to keep up with dependency updates, we used pyup to monitor dependencies in those projects and create GitHub pull requests for updates.

      pyup was pretty nice. It would create a single pull request with many dependency updates in it. I could then review the details, wait for CI to test everything, make adjustments as necessary, and then land the pull request and go do other things.

      Starting in October of 2019, pyup stopped doing monthly updates. A co-worker of mine tried to contact them to no avail. I don’t know what happened. I got tired of waiting for it to start working again.

      Since my projects are all on GitHub, we had already switched to GitHub security alerts. Given that, I decided it was time to switch from pyup to dependabot (also owned by GitHub).

    • Strategic approaches to the development of digital literacies

      I’m in Kuwait City today, leading a pre-conference workshop for the AMICAL consortium of American international liberal arts institutions, who work together on common goals for libraries, technology and learning.

      This isn’t a ‘tools’ session but rather, as the title would suggest, a strategic look at developing digital literacies strategically across institutions.

• CMS

  • Best WordPress Search Plugins to Improve Your Site Search

    Are you running a multilingual WordPress website? we published an article on the best translation plugins for multilingual websites and you can improve the user experience of your site visitors who contact you using the world’s best WordPress contact form plugin. Evidently, we’re interested in boosting your WordPress experience and today we’re back with another set of plugin recommendations.

    WordPress installs with the basic setup required to run your business nicely but as you must know by now, there are 3rd party plugins that can boost its effectiveness and this is no different for the content management system’s default search.

    Yes, it works to return a result of selected text in posts and pages but the WordPress search function can do a lot more complex things than that e.g. you can search for strings of texts in PDFs, you can filter search results for specific custom post types, etc.

    If you’re interested in boosting your WordPress search functionality then today’s your lucky day because here are the best WordPress search plugins for your website listed in alphabetic order.

• Education

  • Inside one Michigan city’s fight to save its schools

    The change came after Governor Whitmer announced a plan to close the city’s two high schools, the main campus and a much smaller magnet school. Community resistance, which included a tense face-to-face meeting with the governor at a Benton Harbor church, was a major factor in motivating the state to back away from its decision and try a new approach, one that will keep the two high schools open.

    Now that the city has won the initial skirmish, a far larger battle remains: coming up with a plan to reverse the district’s festering economic and academic decline, and in the process perhaps create a turnaround template for other struggling districts.

  • Child IQ in the U.S. Lowered by Exposure to Flame Retardants and Pesticides, Study Warns

    Over a million children have developed some form of intellectual disability over the past two decades after being exposed to chemicals including flame retardants, pesticides, lead, and mercury, a study has revealed.

    In recent years, pesticides and flame retardants have overtaken lead and mercury as the chemicals responsible for the biggest loss of IQ among children, according to the paper published in the journal Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology.

    The researchers believe this is due to regulations cracking down on the use of chemicals known to effect the parts of the body in charge of producing hormones, called endocrine disruptors. For instance, lead has been banned from gasoline, paint and drinking water systems in the U.S.

• FSF

  • GNU Projects

    • sed-4.8 released

      This is to announce sed-4.8, a stable release.
      
      There have been 21 commits by 2 people in the 56 weeks since 4.7.
      
      See the NEWS below for a brief summary.
      
      Thanks to everyone who has contributed!
      The following people contributed changes to this release:
      
        Assaf Gordon (4)
        Jim Meyering (17)
      
      Jim [on behalf of the sed maintainers]
      ==================================================================
      
      Here is the GNU sed home page:
      
      http://gnu.org/s/sed/
      
      For a summary of changes and contributors, see:
      
      http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=sed.git;a=shortlog;h=v4.8
      
      or run this command from a git-cloned sed directory:
        git shortlog v4.7..v4.8
      
      To summarize the 865 gnulib-related changes, run these commands
      from a git-cloned sed directory:
        git checkout v4.8
        git submodule summary v4.7
      
      Here are the compressed sources:
        https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/sed/sed-4.8.tar.gz   (2.2MB)
        https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/sed/sed-4.8.tar.xz   (1.3MB)
      
      Here are the GPG detached signatures[*]:
      
      https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/sed/sed-4.8.tar.gz.sig
      
      
      https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/sed/sed-4.8.tar.xz.sig
      
      Use a mirror for higher download bandwidth:
      
      https://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html
      
      [*] Use a .sig file to verify that the corresponding file (without the
      .sig suffix) is intact.  First, be sure to download both the .sig file
      and the corresponding tarball.  Then, run a command like this:
      
        gpg --verify sed-4.8.tar.gz.sig
      
      If that command fails because you don't have the required public key,
      then run this command to import it:
      
        gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 7FD9FCCB000BEEEE
      
      and rerun the 'gpg --verify' command.
      
      This release was bootstrapped with the following tools:
        Autoconf 2.69.202-d78a
        Automake 1.16a
        Gnulib v0.1-3167-g6b9d15b8b
      
      NEWS
      
      * Noteworthy changes in release 4.8 (2020-01-14) [stable]
      
      ** Bug fixes
      
        "sed -i" now creates temporary files with correct umask (limited to u=rwx).
        Previously sed would incorrectly set umask on temporary files, resulting
        in problems under certain fuse-like file systems.
        [bug introduced in sed 4.2.1]
      
      ** Release
      
        distribute gzip-compressed tarballs once again
      
      ** Improvements
      
        a year's worth of gnulib development, including improved DFA performance
      

• Programming/Development

  • GCC 10 Introduces A Static Analyzer – Static Analysis On C Code With “-fanalyzer” Option

    Within GCC’s newly minted Git repository is a big last minute feature for the GCC 10 release: a long-awaited static analyzer.

    While LLVM’s Clang has long offered a static analyzer option, GCC 10 is the first release having a static analysis pass for helping developers spot potential issues in the code. For GCC 10 the static analysis pass is focused on C code and operates off the GIMPLE SSA representation. The static analysis pass will emit warnings over double frees and other malloc/free issues. Presumably for GCC 11 we’ll see the language support added and other checks that can be done as static code analysis.

  • Qt packages built with OpenGL ES support are now available

    Some time ago, there was a thread on debian-devel where we discussed how to make Qt packages work on hardware that supports OpenGL ES, but not the desktop OpenGL.

    My first proposal was to switch to OpenGL ES by default on ARM64, as that is the main affected architecture. After a lengthy discussion, it was decided to ship two versions of Qt packages instead, to support more (OpenGL variant, architecture) configurations.

    So now I am announcing that we finally have the versions of Qt GUI and Qt Quick libraries that are built against OpenGL ES, and the release team helped us to rebuild the archive for compatibility with them. These packages are not co-installable together with the regular (desktop OpenGL) Qt packages, as they provide the same set of shared libraries. So most packages now have an alternative dependency like libqt5gui5 (>= 5.x) | libqt5gui5-gles (>= 5.x). Packages get such a dependency automatically if they are using ${shlibs:Depends}.

  • Develop GUI apps using Flutter on Fedora

    When it comes to app development frameworks, Flutter is the latest and greatest. Google seems to be planning to take over the entire GUI app development world with Flutter, starting with mobile devices, which are already perfectly supported. Flutter allows you to develop cross-platform GUI apps for multiple targets — mobile, web, and desktop — from a single codebase.

    This post will go through how to install the Flutter SDK and tools on Fedora, as well as how to use them both for mobile development and web/desktop development.

  • 50 Frequently Asked Kotlin Interview Questions and Answers

    Kotlin has become a hot topic for developers since the day Google announced official support for it alongside Java. It can be used for developing modern Android and iOS apps without getting distracted by issues like ecosystem and portability. So, if you’re a Java developer looking to break into iOS development, Kotlin can also be the ideal solution. Due to its rising popularity, enterprises are lined after Kotlin experts. If you want to get a job as a mobile app developer at renowned companies, you’ll need to master some essential Kotlin interview questions. We’ve curated this well-thought guide to help you get started with Kotlin and increase your job opportunities.

  • Perl / Raku

    • Perl Weekly Challenge 043: Olympic Rings and Self-Descriptive Numbers

  • Python

    • PyCoder’s Weekly: Issue #403 (Jan. 14, 2020)

    • The PythonAnywhere newsletter, January 2020

      So, we have managed to break another record for our longest period ever between two monthly newsletters. It has been sixteen busy months between September 2018 and now, so we have made 2019 an official Year Without a Newsletter.

      Happy New Year, and a warm welcome to the January 2020 PythonAnywhere newsletter. Hooray! Here is what has happened since our last one.

  • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

    • Getting around a subshell problem

Protest Song Of The Week: ‘One Million’ By Turismo Girlfriend World Tour

Turismo Girlfriend World Tour is the moniker of Julie Bernouis, a French-born singer-songwriter  based in New York.

“I don’t pretend to be an activist. I’m not Bob Dylan. But I like a serious catchy and upbeat song,” Bernouis stated. “The whole point is to convey the idea and raise awareness without boring or alienate the kids whilst keeping them dancing, like a subliminal message.” 

Nobody is Google

If I understood him right, he meant to say that scalability costs money and businesses flounder on buying more scalability than they need. Or, people think they are Google, but they are not. Even inside Google, only a small fraction of services operate at Google scale (aka planetary scale).

Health/Nutrition

• These Emails Show a Trump Official Helping Her Former Chemical Industry Colleagues

  In 2017, Dow Chemical scored a long-sought-after victory: After a push from the U.S. government, China approved the import of the company’s genetically modified herbicide-resistant corn seeds.

  A grateful Dow lobbyist emailed a senior Agriculture Department official whose support had been critical: “Thank you for your efforts in support of U.S. agriculture.”

• Having the Abortion Talk With Children Is Easier Than You Think

  In order to destigmatize abortion in our communities, we need to talk about it, and I believe many of these conversations must start at home — between parents and children.

• Another Trump Official Has Been Caught Red-Handed

  In 2017, Dow Chemical scored a long-sought-after victory: After a push from the U.S. government, China approved the import of the company’s genetically modified herbicide-resistant corn seeds.

• CNN Moderators, Alarmed by Cost of Medicare for All, Ignore Price Tag of Endless War

  “None of the candidates who said they support keeping troops in Iraq were asked how they were going to pay for it.”

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • Security

    • All About BIND DNS: Who, How, & Why

      BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) is a software collection of tools including the world’s most widely used DNS (Domain Name System) server software. This feature-full implementation of DNS service and tools aims to be 100% standards-compliant and is; intended to serve as a reference architecture for DNS software.

      Originally written in the 1980s at the University of California’s Berkeley campus, BIND is a free and open-source software package. The most recent major version, BIND 9, was initially released in 2000 and is regularly maintained by the Internet Systems Consortium.

      For small or uncomplicated networks, BIND by itself is well suited to provide all DNS-related service functions. With BIND, you can run caching DNS servers, authoritative servers, or even both together.

    • 5G Security

      The 5G security problems are threefold. First, the standards are simply too complex to implement securely. This is true for all software, but the 5G protocols offer particular difficulties. Because of how it is designed, the system blurs the wireless portion of the network connecting phones with base stations and the core portion that routes data around the world. Additionally, much of the network is virtualized, meaning that it will rely on software running on dynamically configurable hardware. This design dramatically increases the points vulnerable to attack, as does the expected massive increase in both things connected to the network and the data flying about it.

      Second, there’s so much backward compatibility built into the 5G network that older vulnerabilities remain. 5G is an evolution of the decade-old 4G network, and most networks will mix generations. Without the ability to do a clean break from 4G to 5G, it will simply be impossible to improve security in some areas. Attackers may be able to force 5G systems to use more vulnerable 4G protocols, for example, and 5G networks will inherit many existing problems.

      Third, the 5G standards committees missed many opportunities to improve security. Many of the new security features in 5G are optional, and network operators can choose not to implement them. The same happened with 4G; operators even ignored security features defined as mandatory in the standard because implementing them was expensive. But even worse, for 5G, development, performance, cost, and time to market were all prioritized over security, which was treated as an afterthought.

    • Boing Boing was [cracked]

      Around 11:30 EST on January 10th, An unknown party logged into Boing Boing’s CMS using the credentials of a member of the Boing Boing team.

      They proceeded to install a widget into our theme that allowed them to redirect users to a malware page hosted at a third party.

    • Exploit Fully Breaks SHA-1, Lowers the Attack Bar

      A proof-of-concept attack has been pioneered that “fully and practically” breaks the Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA-1) code-signing encryption, used by legacy computers to sign the certificates that authenticate software downloads and prevent man-in-the-middle tampering.

      The exploit was developed by Gaëtan Leurent and Thomas Peyrin, academic researchers at Inria France and Nanyang Technological University/Temasek Laboratories in Singapore. They noted that because the attack is much less complex and cheaper than previous PoCs, it places such attacks within the reach of ordinary attackers with ordinary resources.

    • NSA tips off Microsoft to security flaw

      The National Security Agency (NSA) found and notified Microsoft of what it called a serious vulnerability in the company’s Windows 10 operating system that could potentially expose computer users to significant breaches, surveillance or disruption, officials announced Tuesday.

    • NSA Surprises Microsoft With A Vulnerability Disclosure Just In Time For Patch Tuesday

      Given the NSA’s track record with vulnerability disclosures, it’s somewhat of an anomaly when it actually decides the security of millions of innocent computer users is more important than its exploitation of a security flaw. Ellen Nakishima has the details for the Washington Post:

    • Microsoft patches Windows 10 after the NSA quietly told it about a major vulnerability

      The National Security Agency alerted Microsoft in recent weeks to a significant issue affecting its Windows 10 operating system, ubiquitous within corporations and among consumers, two senior federal cybersecurity officials told CNBC.

      The flaw affected encryption of digital signatures used to authenticate content, including software or files. If exploited, the flaw could allow criminals to send malicious content with fake signatures that make it appear safe. The finding was reported earlier by The Washington Post.

      “Patching like this, in general, should always be important, but the fact that the NSA is the one that disclosed this to Microsoft as well gave it some more importance,” said Satnam Narang, a senior research engineer with cybersecurity company Tenable. Attackers often will steal security certificates in order to send a victim a malicious file that appears to be trustworthy, but with this flaw, the attacker can simply spoof the Microsoft certificate, making the process much easier, Narang said.

    • Security updates for Wednesday

      Security updates have been issued by Arch Linux (thunderbird), CentOS (firefox), openSUSE (chromium, firefox, GraphicsMagick, log4j, nodejs8, phpMyAdmin, singularity, and virglrenderer), Oracle (kernel), Red Hat (firefox), SUSE (man, nodejs10, openssl-1_1, and php7), and Ubuntu (php5, php7.0, php7.2, php7.3 and spamassassin).

    • Securing Kubernetes: Bug bounty program announced

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

      • Linux Developers Start Poaching Microsoft Users After Windows 7 End of Support

        Windows 7 has officially reached the end of support, so users running it have three options to choose from: stick with Windows 7 and face the obvious security risks, upgrade to newer Windows, or migrate to a non-Windows platform.

        As far as the last option goes, Linux distro makers know how big this opportunity really is, so they started poaching Windows 7 users in an attempt to increase their install base.

        After Canonical tried to lure Windows 7 users to install Ubuntu, a number of Korean companies developing their own custom Linux distros have launched similar campaigns specifically supposed to convince Microsoft customers to make the switch.

      • Linux Really Shouldn’t Expect an Influx of Windows Users Anytime Soon

        Windows 7 reaching the end of life is without a doubt a key moment for the OS industry this year. According to third-party data provided by market analysis firm NetMarketShare, Windows 7 accounted for more than 25 percent of the entire PC market in December 2019, which means that 1 in 4 PCs were powered by an operating system whose demise was imminent.

        At the same time, these numbers show that 25 percent of the global PC users now have to face a huge dilemma: should we stick with Windows 7, move to Windows 10, or jump ship to Linux or macOS?

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • Senator Wyden Wants Paid Ad Blocking Whitelists Investigated

        For years, journalists have highlighted how ad blocking companies have slowly but surely been compromising their ethics — and products — to make an extra buck. Several years ago you’ll recall that numerous ad blocking companies were busted letting some companies’ ads through their filters if they were willing to pay extra. Others collect and monetize “anonymized” data that’s gleaned from what ads you’re receiving and which ones you’re blocking (recall that studies repeatedly have shown that anonymized data is not at all anonymous).

      • Attorney General William Barr Says Apple Isn’t Doing Enough To Let The DOJ Check Out A Dead Man’s Phones

        The DOJ has asked somewhat politely for Apple to break the encryption on some iPhones. Last time, the request wasn’t so polite. It involved a legal battle that only ended when a third-party cracked the San Bernardino’s iPhone for the FBI. Nothing of interest was recovered from that phone.

      • Bill Barr: Apple Is Holding Up This Investigation. Apple: You Waited A Month To Tell Us You Needed More Help

        Last week, the DOJ’s counsel sent a letter to Apple asking for its assistance cracking open two phones recovered from the shooter at the Pensacola Naval Air Base. Apple replied it had already provided assistance by giving the FBI everything it could recover from the shooter’s Apple accounts. The company also made it clear it would not attempt to break the encryption on the phones.

      • Top Apps Invade User Privacy By Collecting and Sharing Personal Data, New Report Finds

        A new year often starts with good resolutions. Some resolve to change a certain habit, others resolve to abandon an undesired trait. Mobile app makers, too, claim to have user behavior and their preferences at their heart. From dating to health to music, their promise is to add convenience to consumers’ lives or to offer support when needed. The bad news is that the ecosystem of the underlying ad tech industry has not changed and still does not respect user privacy. A new report, called Out of Control: How Consumers Are Exploited by the Online Advertising Industry, published today by the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC), looks at the hidden side of the data economy and its findings are alarming.

        Scrutinizing 10 popular apps in Google Play Store, such as Grindr, Clue, and Perfect365, the NCC report’s technical analysis reveals comprehensive tracking and profiling practices. Personal data is systematically collected and shared with dozens of third-party companies without users’ knowledge. EFF’s recent report on third-party tracking documents additional ways that companies profit from invading our digital privacy.

      • DHS Move Ahead With Plan To Harvest DNA Samples From Nearly Everyone Detained By ICE And CBP

        Looks like everyone roaming across the board is going to become a source of info for the US government. The DHS has already rolled out facial recognition at international airports and additional biometric collections elsewhere. The Fourth Amendment’s near-nonexistence at the border has led to a steadily-increasing number of invasive device searches. Visa applicants and other long-term visitors are being forced to turn over social media information (including passwords) during the application process.

      • In defense of anonymity

        It’s frustrating to be asked questions based on the misunderstanding that Tor “is the dark web.”

        Tor onion services can be used to publish and share information online with a high degree of privacy and security without being indexed by search engines. You can’t just visit them in any browser. Calling this “the dark web” and assuming everything published anonymously online is bad, is a huge disservice to an underappreciated technology that saves lives.

      • Strong Encryption Is Central to Good Security – India’s Proposed Intermediary Rules Puts It at Risk

        MeiTy is revising proposed amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules. The proposed amendments would require intermediaries, like content platforms, Internet service providers, cybercafés, and others, to abide by strict, onerous requirements in order to not be held liable for the content sent or posted by their users. Freedom from intermediary liability is an important aspect of communications over the Internet. Without it, people cannot build and maintain platforms and services that have the ability to easily handle to billions of people.

        The letter highlights concerns with these new rules, specifically requirements that intermediaries monitor and filter their users’ content. As these security experts state, “by tying intermediaries’ protection from liability to their ability to monitor communications being sent across their platforms or systems, the amendments would limit the use of end-to-end encryption and encourage others to weaken existing security measures.”

      • Companies Use ‘Dark Patterns’ to Mislead Users About Privacy Law, Study Shows

        Researchers found that 32.5 percent of the EU websites studied in the survey use something called “implied consent”—which assumes you agree to being tracked if you don’t take a specific action (like click on an opt out banner within a certain time frame). Such practices are generally forbidden under the law, which requires clear, opt-in consent to data tracking.

        The researchers also found that numerous companies use “dark pattern” GUI designs in their privacy notification systems, which are specifically intended to trick users into signing up for more data tracking than they might otherwise want (there’s some examples of this here).

      • ‘LOL!’: China’s informal, confrontational Twitter diplomacy

        They are among more than a dozen Chinese ambassadors and consuls general around the world who have opened Twitter accounts in recent months, often adopting a style far removed from traditions of diplomatic reserve.

        [...]

        Now the government itself has joined the fray, with the foreign ministry writing its first tweet last month, peppering posts with sarcastic “LOLs”, exclamation marks and hashtags to extol Beijing’s world view or lambaste critics.

      • Confidentiality

        • ‘Smile with your eyes’: How to beat South Korea’s AI hiring bots and land a job

          According to Korea Economic Research Institute (KERI), nearly a quarter of the top 131 corporations in the country currently use or plan to use AI in hiring.

Defence/Aggression

• And We Allow This Madness to Continue

  Try as I did, I found it impossible to send New Year’s greetings to friends in Iraq given the unthinkable and shameless actions of Trump and his regimein the last weeks. His decision to assassinate Iranian Major General Qasim Soleimani at the Baghdad airport led to the Iraqi Parliament voting to expel all foreign troops from Iraq. Trump’s quick response to that was “If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”

• Demonizing the Shia: How the West Perpetuates False Claims About Iran’s Regional Influence

  I was in Iraq in April 1991 when government security forces crushed the Shia uprising against Saddam Hussein’s regime, killing tens of thousands and burying their bodies in pits. I had been expelled from Iraq to Jordan at the start of the rebellion in March and then, to my surprise, allowed to return, because Saddam wanted to prove to the world that he was back in control.

• Making America Dread Again! Trump Is an Unparalleled Threat to Safety and Security

  You were willing to start an undeclared war with Iran last week, had their missile attack taken one American soldier’s life, but when American lives are threatened by crony capitalism, you do nothing.

• Iran: Bloody Crackdown on Dissent

  Iranian authorities intensified their crackdown during 2019 against protests across the country, using mass arrests and lethal force, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2020. The protests were spurred by deteriorating economic conditions, perceptions of corruption, and the lack of political and social freedoms.

  Iran’s judiciary dramatically increased the cost of peaceful dissent during 2019, sentencing dozens of human rights defenders to decades-long prison sentences. In one of the bloodiest crackdowns since the 1979 Revolution, authorities responded to widespread protests after the abrupt increase in fuel prices in November 2019 by directly targeting protesters who posed no threat to life with lethal force.

• 10 Ways Trump’s Actions Against Iran Hurt Americans and the Region

  The U.S. assassination of General Qassem Soleimani has not yet plunged us into a full-scale war with Iran thanks to the Iranian government’s measured response, which demonstrated its capabilities without actually harming U.S. troops or escalating the conflict. But the danger of a full-blown war still exists, and Donald Trump’s actions are already wreaking havoc.

• Charlottesville City Council Passes Resolution Against War on Iran

  Charlottesville Virginia’s City Council voted Monday evening to adopt a resolution opposing war on Iran and urging passage by Congress of Senator Tim Kaine’s privileged resolution.

• Yemen: Wartime Abuses Face Global Spotlight

  Children attending class on the first day of school, which was damaged by an airstrike during fighting between Saudi-led coaltion-backed government force and Houthi forces, Taizz, Yemen, September 3, 2019.

• After Days of Claiming Soleimani Posed “Imminent” Threat to US, Trump Finally Declares “It Doesn’t Really Matter”

  “If this is the case, then nothing matters.”

• Iranian Opposition—1970s to 2020

  In the mid-1970s, I did a fair amount of organizing work with Maryland members of the Iranian Student Association. Our goal was to end the rule of the US-installed Shah of Iran. Some of my work involved helping the Iranian students write their leaflets in American English. In 1976, I attended some meetings in Washington, DC to help plan protests against the Shah, who was scheduled to visit Jimmy Carter and Congress in 1977. At the time, the Shah’s Iran was one the largest recipients of US aid. In addition, its military was trained and outfitted by the United States and its war industry, at no small cost to the Iranian people. Besides the hundreds of millions spent on armaments, the US aid also involved training the Shah’s secret police apparatus—the SAVAK. Naturally, much of this training was done by the Central Intelligence Agency and its affiliates.

• Trump’s Latest Debacle: an Incompetent and Deceitful National Security Team

  For the past three years, the conventional wisdom has been that the United States and the Trump administration have been fortunate in not having to face a national security crisis.  The killing of Qassim Suleimani is Trump’s first (self-inflicted) crisis, and his national security team has failed in every aspect. Since his inauguration, Trump has committed major blunders—leaving the Iran nuclear accord and the Paris climate accord; weakening the European alliance and deserting the Trans-Pacific partnership in Asia; and separating families at the border with Mexico.  The unconscionable assassination policy directed at Iran has exposed failure at every level: national security personnel; national security process; and national security policy.

• Justice at Last? ‘Panic’ in Israel as the ICC Takes ‘Momentous Step’ in the Right Direction

  At long last, Fatou Bensouda, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has uttered the long-anticipated conclusion that “all the statutory criteria under the Rome statute for the opening of an investigation (into alleged war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories) have been met”.

• Egypt: Resilient Resistance to Fierce Repression

• Libya: Reckless Fighting Endangers Civilians

• ‘The Progressive Movement Has to Fight Back’: New Ad Campaign Targets Biden and Buttigieg in Iowa and South Carolina

  “Americans need to know about Biden’s and Buttigieg’s records and their relationships with corporate executives and donors.”

• Biden’s Pack of Lies About the Iraq War

  While Biden and his surrogates like John Kerry continue to falsely claim that he was not for the Iraq invasion, the Sanders camp has rightly highlighted more documentation, including video, of his support for the Iraq invasion after it happened, like his statement about Bush at the Brookings Institution in July 2003: ‘The president of the United States is a bold leader and he is popular.”

• Don’t Be Surprised If Biden’s Iraq War Vote Eats Him Alive Tonight

  The 637th Democratic debate of the 2020 presidential season takes place in Iowa tonight, the last one before that state’s caucus voters head to the polls early next month.

• It Is Remarkable—and Dangerous—How Little Scrutiny Biden Has Received for Supporting Iraq War

  Maybe there’s a reason nobody who voted in favor of that war—excluding George W. Bush—has won a presidential election.

• The 40 Year Cold War With Iran

  The United States has been in a 40-year cold war with Iran.

• A Brutal Trump Makes Culture War on Iran—and Everyone Else

  Civilization gets sucker punched.

• Rise of the spoiler parties The Putin administration is building political parties to split the opposition vote. Say hello to new groups from a nationalist novelist and the product director for World of Tanks.

  On January 10, news broke that a new organization was entering Russia’s political sphere: the Direct Democracy Party. Its founder, Vyacheslav Makarov, is a video game developer and the product director for World of Tanks, an online role-playing game from the company Wargaming in the arcade tank simulator genre. Makarov’s new project isn’t the only political initiative to arise in Russia just in time for the 2021 State Duma elections that will help decide Vladimir Putin’s future. In total, presidential administration officials are looking to register about 10 new parties. Most of them are intended to create an illusion of open competition or to cause division among opposition-leaning members of the electorate. Two or three of the new parties will be permitted to enter the State Duma’s ranks, where Kremlin officials hope they will spread support for Putin beyond United Russia, the dominant party nationwide. Among the celebrities Kremlin officials would like to see as new opposition leaders are YouTube talk show star Yury Dud and Leningrad frontman Sergey “Shnur” Shnurov.

• Poverty Is the New Draft

  What follows is a conversation between professor As`ad AbuKhalil and Sharmini Peries of The Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

• Paul Krugman in Imperial Fantasy Land

  Every time the United States does something vicious, stupid or both, a great chorus erupts from the American choir: “This is not who we are.” The sound is defiant, heroic and ridiculous, like hearing “Ode to Joy” sung by a thousand synthetic, smart-speaker voices and backed by an orchestra of slide whistles. Marx famously wrote that Hegel, in observing that “all great historic facts and personages recur twice,” nevertheless “forgot to add: ‘Once as tragedy, and again as farce.’” Neither man, it turns out, anticipated our capacity for making the same simultaneously panicked and lazy turn around the goldfish bowl over and over again, forgetting each time more of the brief journey we’ve just made.

• FBI: Some Saudi military students being removed from US post-Pensacola shooting

  Nearly two dozen Saudi Arabian military cadets who were training on American bases are being removed from the programs and being sent home in the wake of a December attack at Naval Air Station Pensacola that left three U.S. sailors dead and eight others wounded.

  U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced the Saudi students’ removal Monday during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington. Barr said there was no indication the gunman, Saudi Air Force 2nd Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, who was killed by a sheriff’s deputy, acted in concert with other Saudi cadets or foreign nationals in the program.

• EU Nations Push Iran in Last-Ditch Bid to Save Nuclear Deal

  Britain, France and Germany on Tuesday ratcheted up pressure on Iran to stop violating its landmark nuclear deal in a last-ditch effort to resolve their differences through talks while also starting a process that could bring back punishing U.N. sanctions on Tehran.

• Plotting War

  A recent article on Pharyngula blog, You ain’t no fortunate one, discussed US wars, specifically the qeustion: depending on when you were born, for how much of your life has the US been at war?

  It was an interesting bunch of plots, constantly increasing until for people born after 2001, the percentage hit 100%.

  Really? That didn’t seem right. Wasn’t the US in a lot of wars in the past? When I was growing up, it seemed like we were always getting into wars, poking our nose into other countries’ business. Can it really be true that we’re so much more warlike now than we used to be?

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• CNN Has It In for Bernie

  Tuesday night’s Democratic primary debate is likely to redound to Elizabeth Warren’s benefit. The senator was confident and in command of her arguments. She deftly handled the fracas about comments Bernie Sanders allegedly made to her (which he denies having said) about the poor prospects of a female candidate’s winning the presidential race. Warren turned the controversy into a chance to make the case for her electability.

  The evening was a wash for the other candidates. Sanders had some good moments on foreign policy. The other candidates had a chance to present their arguments but did not otherwise distinguish themselves. Joe Biden occasionally wandered in his answers but avoided the gaffes and verbal snafus that sometimes befuddle him.

  The big loser of the night was the network that hosted the event. CNN was so consistently aligned against Bernie Sanders that it compromised its claim to journalistic neutrality.

• Elizabeth Warren’s Fake Beef With Bernie Sanders Is a Sign the Primaries Are Heating Up

  As FiveThirtyEight broke down in October, Warren is doing particularly well with white, college-educated voters and starting to expand her base by making inroads with nonwhite voters without a college degree and more moderate voters. But a poll later that month still found her supporters were likely to be white, wealthy, and college-educated.

  This raises several questions about this episode. Is it “factionalism” to express concerns about another candidate’s potential to win in November? Is it okay to discuss another candidate’s base at all, even with empirical data behind it? Given the accuracy and mild tone of the script’s comments about Warren — and the fact that presidential candidates have always had to find ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors — might the Massachusetts senator be better served by taking this beef off the grill? Is this beef at all or really more of a Beyond Burger?

Environment

• The Cost of Fleeing Climate Change

  Even if world leaders rapidly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, climate migration and displacement will define the twenty-first century. “We know that a lot of contemporary migration, in fact, is shaped by the adverse impacts of climate change,” Dina Ionesco, the head of the migration, environment, and climate-change division at the International Organization for Migration (I.O.M.), said at the recent U.N. climate negotiations in Madrid. Disasters caused by natural hazards—the vast majority were storms and floods—displaced 17.2 million people in 2018 (almost twice as many as those displaced by conflict) and another seven million in the first half of 2019. Looking ahead, even in a best-case scenario, in which the average global temperature increases no more than 1.7 degrees Celsius, floods are still likely to displace twenty million people per year by 2090, according to a study released in December by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Without significant greenhouse-gas mitigation, floods could displace as many as fifty million people per year. “Climate displacement poses a huge global challenge,” Justin Ginnetti, the report’s lead author, said. “We expect even more extreme weather in the future, so it’s imperative that we understand the magnitude of future risk, what’s driving it, and what we can do about it.”

  A paper published in June, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that, at the current rate, sea-level rise could exceed six and a half feet by 2100. For the Marshall Islands, six and a half feet of sea-level rise would submerge its land entirely, jeopardizing the very idea of Marshallese statehood. Over the past year, the Marshallese government has been working on a national adaptation plan, which officials expect the United States, as part of the compact, will help fund and implement. “We call it our survival plan,” President Heine told me by phone, from Majuro. The top priority, she said, “is the issue of whether or not we’re above the water.”

• British Police Said Watch Out for Extremists — Like Climate Activists

  The counterterrorism police reversed course soon after it came to light that they had published a brochure that lumped the group Extinction Rebellion, not to mention animal rights activists, together with terrorist organizations, retracting the document.

  But on Monday, a top government official refused to find fault with it.

• Environmental group says nitrate levels in many Minnesota water sources potentially unsafe

  Hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans drink from tap water sources that contain potentially unsafe amounts of nitrate, according to a new report by an environmental nonprofit.

  Levels of nitrate observed in roughly 1,100 groundwater systems and more than 13,000 private wells are still low enough to meet federal guidelines. But because drinking tap water with even small amounts of nitrate in it may be a risk factor for cancer and birth defects, the Environmental Working Group called in its report for an “aggressive policy and programmatic approach” to address the situation in Minnesota.

  Under the federal Clean Water Act, drinking water that contains less than 10 milligrams of nitrate per liter is considered to be safe for human consumption. In past research, however, the Environmental Work Group found thresholds of half that amount and less may increase the risk of illness.

• Why solve climate change when you can monetize it?

  Hidden in a $1.4 trillion spending bill passed by Congress last month, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it paragraph, was a sizable provision to fund research to reverse climate change. No, not in a meaningful long-term way, by actually reducing our dependence on fossil fuels or reorganizing the economy to be based on need rather than consumption of disposable goods; rather, the research dollars were to be spent on programs that might allow our apocalyptic way of life to continue apace.

  Specifically, in the text of the spending bill, about $4 million was earmarked to study geoengineering. From the text of the House appropriations bill: [...]

• Wrecking Crew

• Greener Power Reduces Emissions, But It Also Can Heighten The Risk Of Bushfire

  Wind, solar and hydro are much safer on the emissions front, but distributing the power they generate brings with it their own unique set of challenges and risks, writes Geoff Russell.

• We’re Going To Need A ‘Scotty From Marketing’ When the Climate Refugees Start Flooding Australia

  Scott Morrison is a man ahead of his time, because at some point in the not-too-distant future, expertise in spin and cruelty will be far more useful than competence, writes Chris Graham.

• The Deadly Failures of Conservative Government in Australia in the Face of Ferocious Fires

  The Morrison government is engaged in distorting and obscuring the causes of the bushfires raging across parts of Australia since October 2019. This is being done for ideological and political reasons by a conservative government with an established record of climate denial and coal addiction. The huge scale of the disaster is clear.

• To Manage Fires, Australia Must Follow the Lead of Aboriginal Communities

  Since September 2019, Australia has been ravaged by bushfires. You know the statistics: about 18 million acres burned, around 2,000 homes destroyed, and nearly 1 billion animals affected. The fires have also affected Aboriginal communities and lands.

• Energy

  • The Pretend Administration:  Colorado Governor Polis and Fracking

    As children, we liked to pretend to be adults, usually our parents, but sometimes great athletes and screen idols.

  • Nearly All Americans Want to Get Off Fossil Fuels

    The vast majority of people in the world’s largest fossil fuel producing country want to phase them out.

  • ‘A Massive Victory’: BlackRock CEO Promises to Center Climate Change in Investment Strategy

    The firm, which manages nearly $7 trillion in assets, claims it will ensure sustainability is a key factor in investment strategies moving forward.

  • Nuclear power ‘cannot rival renewable energy’

    Far from tackling climate change, nuclear power is an expensive distraction whose safety is threatened by wildfires and floods, experts say.

  • Like Adding ‘Five to Six Hiroshima Bombs of Heat Each Second,’ Study Shows Oceans Warming at Record Rate

    “If you want to understand global warming, you have to measure ocean warming.”

  • Replacing Coal with Renewables Could Save Energy Customers $8 Billion a Year, Financial Analysts Find

    Analysts at Morgan Stanley and Moody’s Investors Service expect that more electric utilities will accelerate their transition away from coal, with major financial benefits for both ratepayers and shareholders.

  • 4 Reasons Traveling Around The USA Totally Sucks

    Pretty much everything about our transportation network is royally fucked. We’ve got airlines loading passengers onto planes in the wrong way, and a subway filled with cops willing to beat a teenager half to death for evading a $3 fare. And then there’s, well, all of this nonsense here …

  • Train or plane? Business travellers weigh climate impact vs. time and money

    For example, Joensuu lawyer Esa Kärnä says he and his colleagues only fly when absolutely necessary, although they may have to attend trials anywhere in the country.

    “Flying is inefficient and expensive compared to the train,” he says. “You can get work done on the train, so the travel time is working time.”

    [...]

    Laakkonen also urges firms and organisations to classify train travel as working time, which is not, for instance the case under the current municipal sector collective agreement.

Finance

• The Fed Protects Gamblers at the Expense of the Economy

  Although the repo market is little known to most people, it is a $1-trillion-a-day credit machine, in which not just banks but hedge funds and other “shadow banks” borrow to finance their trades. Under the Federal Reserve Act, the central bank’s lending window is open only to licensed depository banks; but the Fed is now pouring billions of dollars into the repo (repurchase agreements) market, in effect making risk-free loans to speculators at less than 2%.

• Lebanon: Little Action on Corruption, Economic Crisis

• Joe Biden Has a Serious Problem With Social Security

  The Biden campaign says the candidate is committed to defend and even expanded the program. But a look at his record offers a troubling picture.

• China to frame rules for online-only banks this year: report

  About a dozen groups including foreigners are in talks with Chinese regulators over the new rules and have shown interest in launching digital banking operations, said one person who has been involved in such discussions with the banking watchdog.

  The rules would allow them to partner tech firms for independent digital banking platforms, the source said.