Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 17/09/2022: Details Emerge About Uber's Ubercrack



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • VideoUber Has Been Hacked - Invidious

        Uber had a massive security breach, the hacker allegedly had access to Ubers internal AWS, vsphere, hackerone, gsuite, and domain admin accounts.

      • VideoTikTok No Longer a Threat in Deal with US Govt - Invidious

        TikTok No Longer a Threat in Deal with US Govt This week in Privacy News, period trackers enable Anonymous Mode, Sims tied to ID are problematic, and Facebook is not sure where all your data is stored. Also, the government strikes a deal with TikTok so they will no longer be a considered a national security threat.

    • Kernel Space

      • Advent(2) -- The System-Call Advent Calendar

        What you need is a Linux shell (as we focus on Linux) with the gcc C compiler installed (apt-get install build-essential). [...]. For some exercises, you will need a relatively recent Linux kernel (> 5.10) as we will explore some shiny new features.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • AddictiveTipsImprove the Gnome Shell clipboard with Pano

        The Gnome Shell clipboard manager is very basic. It can copy things to it and paste the items elsewhere (programs, file manager, terminal, etc.). However, it doesn’t let users sort through it, keep clipboard history, or anything like that.

        Thankfully, a third-party extension has come along called Pano. It is for Gnome Shell 42+ and offers an elegant way to manage your Gnome clipboard items. Here’s how to improve your Gnome Shell clipboard with Pano.

      • Computer WorldSadly, IT can no longer trust geolocation for much of anything

        Ferraz is regrettably right. Regardless of which one of these many options a fraudster opts to use, the bottom line is that IT simply can no longer trust geolocation for much of anything. There are some applications where the risk of meaningful damage from location fraud is so low that it’s probably fine to use location — say, a gaming application where someone pretends to be in Central Park when they aren't. If all they get are points or access to a special visual treat, it’s likely harmless.

      • Embedding ain't easy, but its alright

        To make life easier for myself, I wrote a shortcode called git-embed, which at build time will fetch the specified file, and embed either the whole file, or a line range in a highlighted code block. It supports line ranges (start, finish), and it will use the file’s extension as the highlight language, unless you override with lang parameter.

      • The Power of CSS Blend Modes

        Here’s where it gets interesting. The fourth layer uses the same repeating radial gradient, but rather than alternating between white and gray, it steps through the rainbow, with hard color stops so there’s no blending.

      • Lee Yingtong LiOn the credible probability of confidence intervals

        Confidence intervals are commonly misinterpreted by consumers of statistics. Hoekstra et al. [1] presented 120 psychology researchers and 442 students with ‘a fictitious scenario of a professor who conducts an experiment and reports a 95% CI for the mean that ranges from 0.1 to 0.4’. 58% of respondents endorsed the assertion ‘There is a 95% probability that the true mean lies between 0.1 and 0.4’, and the proportions were similar between students and researchers. That assertion is incorrect,1 but clearly the misinterpretation is common.

        The usual explanation for why the assertion is incorrect goes something like ‘The true mean is a fixed (but unknown) value, not random. So either it is in the interval (with probability 1), or it is not in the interval (with probability 1). There can be no probability in between.’2 But this seems unsatisfying, for it seems to beg the question. There are interpretations of probability which can assign probabilities to fixed-but-unknown parameters. Does adopting another interpretation of probability not resolve the issue?

      • UNIX CopHow to Install Inkscape on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS

        In this guide, we will show you how to install Inkscape on Ubuntu systems

      • OpenSource.comFix the apt-key deprecation error in Linux | Opensource.com

        Follow these steps and you can run apt update with no warnings or errors related to deprecated key configurations.

      • H2S MediaHow to install Atom Text Editor on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - Linux Shout [Ed: Atom has already been assassinated by Microsoft. It's bloated and deprecated. Why are multiple sites (so far this week) promoting this for Linux???]

        You might want to work with Text editors on Linux for coding because they provide intelligent code completion; suggestions of instructions and possible parameters; color highlighting, syntax highlighting, and more such features to code more rapidly. Out of popular text editors, Atom is one that has many convenient features for programming in Python by default and offers even more through its extensibility. It is available for the platforms Windows, Mac OS X, Unix/X and is open source (i.e. there are no costs). It was developed by the GitHub folks and has been available under the free MIT license since 2014.

        Atom is Node.js based and the source code of this code editor is also available to download and compile, to use on any system. However, soon on December 15, 2022, Github will stop any further development of Atom Text Editor.

      • UNIX CopHow to Install Akregator on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS
      • UNIX CopHow to Install Jami on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS
      • UNIX CopHow to Install NotepadQQ on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS
      • UNIX CopHow to Install Synaptic Package Manager on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS
    • Games

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • BSD

      • KlaraA Quick Look at the History of Package Management on FreeBSD - Klara Inc.

        There are a lot of great stories about how computing tools come about—for example, Jeff Bonwick’s proposal to create the ZFS file system—but unfortunately, not all tools are as well documented or storied. Today, we’ll take a look at how FreeBSD’s package management system evolved over time.

        Every operating system needs a way to install third party applications. These tools are commonly called package managers. In FreeBSD, applications can be easily installed from either pkg—a system managing precompiled binary packages—or the ports tree, which automates building and installation of packages directly from their source code.

      • DragonFly BSD Digestuwtwn(4) update - DragonFly BSD Digest

        If you are using urtwn(4) for your USB network connection, it now supports the Edimax EW-7811Un chipset? model?.

      • DragonFly BSD DigestLazy Reading for 2022/09/11
      • DragonFly BSD DigestBSD Now 472: Consistent Exit Code - DragonFly BSD Digest

        This week’s BSD Now has two things I want to highlight – articles on Linux ABI and on dma. You’ll just have to click through.

    • Red Hat / IBM

      • Silicon AngleIBM debuts new generation of energy-friendly LinuxONE servers - SiliconANGLE

        IBM Corp. today announced a major refresh of its LinuxONE server hardware with a big focus on sustainability, saying it can slash data center energy consumption by up to 75% on multiple workloads.

      • Dell Allies With Red Hat to Build OpenShift Platforms

        Dell Technologies and Red Hat this week announced a collaboration through which instances of the Kubernetes-based Red Hat OpenShift platform will be made available on systems from Dell.

        Caitlin Gordon, vice president of product management for Dell Technologies, says there will be two options. One is an instance of Red Hat OpenShift that has been certified to be installed by an internal IT team. The other is a managed APEX Containers for Red Hat OpenShift service that provides IT organizations and their developers with an on-premises container-as-a-service (CaaS) platform managed by Dell.

      • Fedora ProjectCPE Weekly Update – Week 37 2022 - Fedora Community Blog

        This is a weekly report from the CPE (Community Platform Engineering) Team. If you have any questions or feedback, please respond to this report or contact us on #redhat-cpe channel on libera.chat.

        We provide you both infographics and text version of the weekly report. If you just want to quickly look at what we did, just look at the infographic. If you are interested in more in depth details look below the infographic.

      • Red Hat OfficialRed Hat Insights Advisor pathways will guide you towards a healthier hybrid cloud

        We’re excited to announce a new feature in Red Hat Insights Advisor to make life easier for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) system administrators. It's called pathways, and it's a group of configuration recommendations combined into common remediation actions to simplify getting your systems updated with as few steps as possible.

      • Red Hat OfficialEnhancing application container security and compliance with Podman

        As organizations adopt container-based ecosystems, the approach to continuous IT security and compliance must shift from traditional system security assessments to new methodologies that account for how cloud-based technologies operate. Containers enable agnosticism amongst cloud computing operating environments by packaging applications, or workloads, within a virtualized environment. The application, or workload, is then operating independently of its hosted environment all while inheriting the security benefits of that hosted environment. Container technologies implement the concept of immutability, as in a stateless entity or image that is deployed but not changed.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • CNX SoftwareYuzuki Chameleon - A Raspberry Pi Model A shaped SBC with Allwinner H616 CPU - CNX Software

        Yuzuki Chameleon is an open-source hardware single board computer powered by an Allwinner H616 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor that somewhat follows the shape of Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ SBC with a different port layout that should still keep mechanical and electrical compatibility with some Raspberry Pi HATs.

        The board supports up to 2GB RAM, up to 128GB eMMC flash, features a MicroSD card slot, one 4K-capable HDMI 2.0 port, an audio jack, four USB Type-C ports to keep the design as slim as possible, as well as a wireless module for WiFi and Bluetooth and a connector to optionally add Fast Ethernet through an external module.

      • GizmodoThe Cheapest Kindle Is Now Less Cheap, but It’s Got a Better Screen [Ed: Generally malicious device, but it runs Linux]
    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • Raspberry PiBig Mouth Billy Bass

        One of the key aspects of this project was establishing how the existing animatronic fish worked. Online research revealed some details, usually with a view to controlling the fish with Alexa, whereas Kevin’s plan was to control the motors himself. However, a tear-down of Billy Bass’s components, in which Kevin stripped out the existing wiring, showed a relatively simple circuit with three motors.

      • Jeff GeerlingBliKVM PCIe puts a computer in your computer

        This is the BliKVM PCIe, a full computer on a PCI Express card. This is an IP KVM (Internet Protocol Keyboard-Video-Mouse) that can be put inside another computer or server.

        Most server motherboards already have remote 'lights-out' management functionality built in. Most frequently this is referred to as IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface, but Dell calls it iDRAC, and HPE calls it ILO.

        But not all servers have it. And even if they do, sometimes you have to pay extra money to use it, or the version you have goes unmaintained and it would be a security risk to keep it running on your network.

        So that's where the BliKVM PCIe comes in.

      • AdafruitBringing a Open-Source Retro Rotary Cellphone Kit to Market

        In 2020, Justine Haupt turned a vintage rotary phone into a cellphone. When the project went viral, she started getting requests for turning the project into a product. After saying no for a while, she finally said yes.

        The result is the Rotary Un-Smartphone kit. In this video, Justine gives us a tour of the phone.

      • Raspberry PiAutonomous Robotics Platform for Raspberry Pi Pico review

        Kitronik’s Autonomous Robotics Platform caught our attention recently thanks to its usage of Raspberry Pi Pico, rather than the more common Raspberry Pi Model B or Zero models.

        The kit contains a robotics platform chassis with two TT motors pre-mounted. Two large yellow wheels are attached to the side, along with an ultrasonic sensor on the top and a line-following sensor underneath. Finally, a Pico or Pico W with a GPIO header soldered in can be mounted in the middle of the two motors. Four AA batteries are slotted in underneath to provide power to the motors and Pico.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

      • Kev QuirkRemember When Phones Were Cool?

        Look at that thing! It’s so cool looking, isn’t it? Granted, it may not be the most accessible of devices, but damn they were cool.

        It got to point where you looked forward to the latest phone being released, because you literally had no idea what you would be getting.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Licensing / Legal

      • BSDlyOpen Source in Enterprise Environments - Where Are We Now and What Is Our Way Forward?

        When in need, call in Legal (but make sure they understand the issues). Lawyers endure a lengthy education in order to pass the bar and turn to practicing law, but there is no guarantee that a person well versed in other business legalese has any competence at all when it comes to matters of copyright law. When you do turn to Legal for help, be very exacting and stern in insisting that they demonstrate a command of copyright basics and if at all possible have a reasonable real world understanding of how software is built.

        As in, you really do not want to spend an entire afternoon or more explaning the difference between static and dynamic linking and why this matters in the face of a certain license, or that specific terms of different licenses deemed open source by the Open Source Initiative may in fact be incompatible in practice.

    • Programming/Development

      • Lars WirzeniusNot breaking things is hard

        There is an ongoing discussion among software developers about stability versus making changes more easily. Some people get really frustrated by how hard it can be to get new versions of their software to people who want it. For those people, and their users, the cost of stability is too high. They want something that takes less effort and goes faster, and are willing to instead pay to cost of things changes frequently and occasionally breaking.

      • Easy JSON in Haskell

        This is the fun part of the post where I recommend using lenses within a section titled "The Easy Way". But honestly, I feel that quickly extracting a value from JSON is one of the best reasons to start exploring lenses as a user. And it’s really easy once if that’s all you’re trying to do! We’ll make use of the lens-aeson library, which is truly a joy.

  • Leftovers

    • Science

      • The ConversationThe horseracing industry is ignoring what science says about whipping

        When the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) released its recent whip consultation report, it claimed to have consulted the science. But it insists whipping doesn’t hurt horses and fails to recommend that the racing industry changes its approach.

        The BHA recognises two uses of the whip. For encouragement, to activate the horse or trigger a gear change in speed. And for safety of the horse and rider such as when jumping an obstacle. It recommends that whipping “for safety and encouragement” should continue. Industry leaders and jockeys say that whip use is essential to keep horses and jockeys safe.

        The BHA report says using a whip as a form of “encouragement” acts “as an aid to activate the horse, which motivates a horse to give of its best and realise its potential in a race”. This gives the impression that striking horses with a partially padded rod is in their interest, like making your children eat their vegetables. But the scientific research into how horses experience whipping reveals a different story.

    • Education

      • Teen VogueWhy Is There a Teacher Shortage in the US? Here's What's Causing it and What it Means for Students

        Another factor that has contributed to many teachers leaving the field: lack of competitive pay. In August, the Economic Policy Institute released data that found teachers make about 23% less in their profession than “comparable college graduates” in other fields. This low pay, combined with teaching during a pandemic and other stressors, has caused many teachers to resign.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Wine Industry Iconoclast Fred Franzia Dies at 79

        Franzia followed up on that: Bronco acquired numerous budget wine brands in the 1990s. However, his greatest success may have been acquiring the Charles Shaw name in 1995 for a mere $25,000. What had been a failed Napa Valley winery, he built into a $1.99-a-bottle empire ($2.99 outside California), arguably creating a new market segment for ultra-budget wines, and streamlining distribution exclusively through the Trader Joe's grocery chain as an additional cost-saving measure. Franzia famously retorted when asked how he made wine cheaper than a bottle of water, "They're overcharging for the water. Don't you get it?"

    • Proprietary

      • ViceThis Song Will Break Your MacBook’s Speakers

        The speakers of a MacBook Air can be damaged just by playing a really, really loud song, and a loud sound for 40 seconds, according to a researcher who pushed the laptop’s speakers to their limits.

      • ABC[Cracker] claims to breach Uber, security researcher says

        “It seems like they've compromised a lot of stuff,” said Sam Curry, an engineer with Yuga Labs who communicated with the hacker. That includes obtaining complete access to the Amazon and Google-hosted cloud environments where Uber stores its source code and customer data, he said.

      • Patrick BreyerCyber Resilience Act: Protecting digital security works differently

        Today, the EU Commission presented the “Cyber Resilience Act”, draft legislation which would oblige manufacturers of products “with digital elements” to guarantee cyber security throughout the entire product life cycle.[1] This way, the Commission wants to ensure that digital products are designed more securely from the beginning of the devices‘ life cycle and contain fewer vulnerabilities in order to be better equipped against cyber attacks.

      • RNZEducation technology harvesting children's data - UK report

        The foundation told RNZ small countries like New Zealand should follow the likes of the Netherlands, and look to curb education technology that spies on children.

        Its investigation concludes that just how exposed kids are varies between schools, but in general digital classrooms are flouting data protection laws to exploit children's data "for commercial gain".

      • Helsinki TimesPolice investigating series of frauds, computer break-ins linked to error at S Bank

        The perpetrators, for example, exploited the vulnerability to access the online banking services of other customers, use their log-in credentials to access other online services and to make unauthorised payments, indicates a press release issued by S Bank on Tuesday. The system error, it said, enabled a “small group of customers” to log in to the online banks of others “in certain circumstances”.

    • Linux Foundation

      • I ProgrammerLinux Foundation Announces Open Wallet Initiative [Ed: This past week has truly been the Linux Foundation openwashing week. And none of that was about Linux at all!]

        The Linux Foundation is setting up a new foundation. The aim is for the new OpenWallet Foundation to encourage the development of open source software to support interoperability for a wide range of wallet use cases.

        The Linux Foundation is a global nonprofit organization that works to enable innovation through open source software. The foundation says the latest initiative already has strong support from leading companies across technology, public sector, and industry vertical segments, and standardization organizations.

      • EngadgetMeta is spinning off the Pytorch framework into its own AI research foundation

        In 2016, Meta (then but a simple country Facebook) launched its open-source AI research library, the Pytorch framework. Six years and 150,000 projects from 2,400 contributors later, Meta announced on Monday that the Pytorch project will soon spin out from the company’s direct control to become its own entity, the Pytorch Foundation, a subsidiary within the larger Linux Foundation nonprofit hegemony.

      • Silicon AngleLinkedIn’s open-source Feathr feature store for machine learning joins the LF AI & Data Foundation [Ed: 'Linux' Foundation works for Microsoft. Openwashing services for a malicious and proprietary surveillance machine.]

        Microsoft Corp.-owned professional networking site LinkedIn is donating another project to the open-source community.

      • Silicon AngleLinux Foundation announces OpenWallet Foundation for interoperable open-source digital wallets - SiliconANGLE

        The Linux Foundation today announced plans to form a new collaborative initiative called the OpenWallet Foundation to support the development of interoperable open-source digital wallets.

    • Security

      • EngadgetMicrosoft Teams has been storing authentication tokens in plaintext

        Microsoft Teams stores authentication tokens in unencrypted plaintext mode, allowing attackers to potentially control communications within an organization, according to the security firm Vectra. The flaw affects the desktop app for Windows, Mac and Linux built using Microsoft's Electron framework. Microsoft is aware of the issue but said it has no plans for a fix anytime soon, since an exploit would also require network access.

      • SANSVirusTotal Result Comparisons for Honeypot Malware, (Mon, Sep 12th) [Ed: Does it detect Microsoft malware like Windows? Or is Microsoft exempt?]

        VirusTotal has become an important tool for researchers and defenders alike. Unusual executables or files can be uploaded to get an idea of how different antivirus vendors will classify it. Keeping the discovery of customized malware secret is also important and, in those cases, file hashes can be used to find any preexisting results. It should always be assumed that any file submitted to VirusTotal is being looked at by someone. The malware seen by public honeypots, such as the DShield honeypot, generally are not considered sensitive. Malware seen by these devices is being broadly used around the world in an attempt to compromise IoT (Internet of Things) devices.

      • Of0xThoughts on the use of noVNC for phishing campaigns

        Dear Fellowlship, today’s homily is a rebuke to all those sinners who have decided to abandon the correct path of reverse proxies to bypass 2FA. Penitenziagite!

      • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

        • Xe's BlogPush notification two-factor auth considered harmful

          I think that issuing everyone in the company a Yubikey and making every internal system work with that would be a better option. I think this because of the core problem of phishing: it works best when you are less vigilant. Many two factor authentication mechanisms lend themselves to phishing because of how they work. Here are my cynical thoughts about some common ones.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Environment

      • SalonPatagonia founder donates entire company to fight against climate change

        Launched over 50 years ago, the company is now worth upwards of $3 billion and will be transferred over to a collective that will oversee that all non reinvested profits will be put to use as Chouinard intends.

      • Earth is now our only shareholder.

        Here’s how it works: 100% of the company’s voting stock transfers to the Patagonia Purpose Trust, created to protect the company’s values; and 100% of the nonvoting stock had been given to the Holdfast Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature. The funding will come from Patagonia: Each year, the money we make after reinvesting in the business will be distributed as a dividend to help fight the crisis.

      • NPRThe number of hungry people has doubled in 10 countries. A new report explains why

        "Less than 18 days of those profits would cover the entire $48.82 billion U.N. humanitarian appeal for 2022," the report states.

        [...]

        "The food system is heavily oriented toward the corporate model of production. Meanwhile, smallholders who are minimal contributors to climate change and use sustainable techniques don't get the support they need." Farr said.

      • RTLNew UNICEF ambassador seeks to give louder voice to climate change victims

        UNICEF says about half of the world's children -- roughly 1 billion -- live in one of 33 countries classified as "extremely high risk" due to climate change impacts.

      • Counter PunchMonumental Plans to Fix the Planet

        Now that the broken climate system has been recognized as a serious threat, as a general rule, if something is broken, it can be fixed. There’s no other plausible outcome. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible to build it in the first instance, or looked at another way, if it can be built, it can be fixed.

      • Energy

        • David RosenthalMiners' Extractable Value

          According to the official Ethereum website "Maximal Extractable Value" (MEV) is a feature not a bug. MEV is a consequence of the fact that it is the miners, or rather in almost all cases the mining pools, that decide which transactions, from the public mempool of pending transactions, or from a dark pool, or from the mining pool itself, will be included in the block that they mine, and in what order. The order is especially important in Turing-complete blockchains such as Ethereum; allowing miners to front-run, back-run or sandwich transactions from elsewhere. The profit from doing so is MEV. MEV is being renamed from Miners Extractable Value to Maximal Extractable Value since it turns out that miners are not the only actors who can extract it.

        • NPRThe White House calls for more regulations as cryptocurrencies grow more popular

          President Biden's administration is pushing for more regulations on digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, and it's advocating for tougher oversight at a time when the popularity of virtual money continues to grow.

          In a series of new reports released Friday that lay out recommendations, the White House pointed to the volatility of virtual currencies and a recent slump that has led to trouble across the [cryptocurrency] landscape.

    • Finance

      • TruthOutCapitalism Fuels Disease, Trauma and Addiction. How Can We Heal?
      • Counter PunchIt's a Capitalism-Induced Ecological Crisis

        But in telling this truth, we are faced with a terrible political reality that few are willing to admit. Many of us understand the science. We know that Earth’s ability to host humans depends on a very delicate balance of physical and ecological conditions that have only been present for a short time during the Earth’s lifespan. The Earth has been around for billions of years, but modern humans, as we know them, have only been here for some 200,000. Humanity is just a blip in our planet’s lifetime. The ecosystems that support human life are now in free-fall in terms of planetary time. We’re in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction, but this time, it’s because of human activity, fossil fuel extraction, and the unsustainable abuse of land, air and water. We’re in this terrible predicament because of an extractive economy that requires constant environmental destruction in order to fuel economic growth.

      • Insight HungaryEU chief recommends cutting billions of funds for Hungary

        "We must fight for our democracies... I would like to focus on corruption, "European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in her annual policy speech, confirming that the executive will freeze funding for members damaging democracy. The suspension could mean $22.44 billion)worth of cohesion funds earmarked for Hungary from the 2021-27 budget.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Björn WärmedalRe: Sneakernets

        I feel like we're not talking about the same things, though. I guess I was pretty vague about my thoughts even though I tried. Primarily I failed to convey (or highlight) two things:

        What I mean by a "Free, Developed Society" or "democratic countries in the developed world"

        What I mean by "sneakernet". Note that I am well aware of the actual definition, but I intended my post to address a specific subset of use cases, and I tried to state so.

        When I talk about "sneakernet" in this post I don't mean the occasional file moved on a USB thumb drive between friends once in a while (even though that technically counts). I'm thinking about organised sneakernets between several actors, be they individuals or organisations.

      • NPRAlex Jones' defamation trials show the limits of deplatforming for a select few

        A growing body of research suggests deplatforming toxic actors or online communities does usually reduce audience size significantly, with the caveat that this smaller audience migrates to less regulated platforms, where extremism then concentrates, along with the potential for violence.

        Gauging the effectiveness of deplatforming is complicated, in part because the word itself can refer to different things, says Megan Squire, a computer scientist who analyzes extremist online communities for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

        "There's losing your site infrastructure, losing your social media, losing your banking. So like the big three, I would say," says Squire. She says they've all had different impacts depending on the specific case.

      • Broadband BreakfastFTC Forum Hears Evidence that U.S. Should Follow European Union Privacy Model

        The FTC proposed last month to use its authority under Section 18 of the FTC Act to bring “commercial surveillance” – the act of entities collecting personal information and selling them to third-party data brokers – under its authority to further regulate technology platforms. Section 18 is a statute of the FTC Act that grants the commission the authority to implement trade regulation rules for businesses that use tactics that are considered “unfair” or harmful to consumers.

      • TediumQueen Elizabeth II’s First Move: Allowing TV Cameras at Her Coronation

        We take for granted a lot in this world—the access to information we have, the access to people we have. Especially if they’re famous. Over the last 20 years or so, any day of the week, you likely had a pretty good idea of what Queen Elizabeth II was doing, because of the closeness in which she was followed by the media. In many ways, the queen and the media were made for one another, which makes her death last week something of a big blow for a certain contingent who appreciated the formerPrincess Elizabeth of York. She lived an extremely long life, one full of cameras and speculative news articles on the way she lived, her family, and how the way her family lived affected the way she lived. A lot of that was enabled by technology—and it’s likely the tech played a way in how we embraced the queen almost from the very start. With that in mind, let’s take a look at one of Queen Elizabeth II’s first big decisions—her decision to let television cameras capture her first moments as queen, despite rules against it.

      • Counter PunchTwitter: Platform of Exchange … Vehicle of Duplicity

        The move from the abstract philosophical debate in the United States to practical First Amendment application finds its genesis in the dissenting opinion of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Abrams et. al v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919) an early case in which a constitutional challenge was raised to the conviction of anti-war dissidents under the Espionage Act for distributing leaflets calling for a strike at U.S. munitions plants. In finding such acts to be protected political speech enshrined under First Amendment jurisprudence, Holmes noted “that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas — that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.”

      • Counter PunchJarman’s Jubilee: Funeral Music for Elizabeth Windsor

        Although the Silver Jubilee’s observances are absent from Jubilee, every scene crackles with scorn for the celebration and the queen.

      • TruthOutVideo Shows Marjorie Taylor Greene Kicking a Teen Activist
      • Misinformation/Disinformation

        • New York TimesFor Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine

          More and more young people are using TikTok’s powerful algorithm — which personalizes the videos shown to them based on their interactions with content — to find information uncannily catered to their tastes. That tailoring is coupled with a sense that real people on the app are synthesizing and delivering information, rather than faceless websites.

        • Bjoern BrembsScholarly Societies Partly To Blame For Post-Truth Age?

          The same cannot be said of his successors in today’s many scholarly societies. Prioritizing revenue, it was not lost to them that technologies such as email and browsers would allow them to copy their mail and journal distributions onto a digital format, at huge savings. Judging from their public messaging since then, for the exact same financial reasons, they have refused to invest even the smallest amount of innovation or progressive thought into what broader opportunities internet technology might provide for their mission going forward. Instead, it looks as if all of that intellectual energy flowed into conserving outdated concepts and demonizing digital progress into a threat for every scholarly society’s revenue. For nearly three decades now, scholarly societies, collectively, appear to have been preoccupied with looking back, at the expense of looking forward. Not even after 2006, when the term “social media” should have provided an etymological prompt even for the dimmest of professional “society” administrators, was there a change of direction. Apparently, the best some of our societies can do these days is installing forum technology from the late 1990s and call it “community“.

        • Telex (Hungary)Hungarian PM Orbán awarded highest state honour of Serbia
    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Techdirt5th Circuit Rewrites A Century Of 1st Amendment Law To Argue Internet Companies Have No Right To Moderate

        It is difficult to state how completely disconnected from reality this ruling is, and how dangerously incoherent it is. It effectively says that companies no longer have a 1st Amendment right to their own editorial policies. Under this ruling, any state in the 5th Circuit could, in theory, mandate that news organizations must cover certain politicians or certain other content. It could, in theory, allow a state to mandate that any news organization must publish opinion pieces by politicians. It completely flies in the face of the 1st Amendment’s association rights and the right to editorial discretion.

      • New York TimesA federal court clears the way for a Texas social media law.

        Lawmakers in Washington have pushed for changes to a law, known as Section 230, that shields platforms from liability for the content users post, to nudge the companies to either be more forceful or more lenient. But those proposals have gained little traction.

        Two tech industry groups, NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, sued to block the law after it was approved last year, saying the social media companies have a First Amendment right to remove posts they consider inappropriate. A different federal court has blocked a similar law in Florida.

      • Texas claims victory in censorship fight — Analysis

        HB20, which prohibits platforms with more than 50 million users from censoring content posted by residents of the state based on viewpoint, marks one of the boldest efforts by Republican-controlled states to push back against Big Tech’s alleged anti-conservative bias. Texas had argued that Silicon Valley went so far as to muzzle federal elected officials – such as President Donald Trump – and even censored a congressional hearing that featured disfavored viewpoints.

      • CTV NewsCourt rules in favour of Texas censorship law targeting Twitter, Facebook and other social media

        The Texas law, signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott last year, has been challenged by tech trade groups that warn that it would prevent platforms from removing extremism and hate speech. A similar law was also passed in Florida and ruled unconstitutional by a separate appeal court.

        The final say is likely to come from the U.S. Supreme Court, which earlier this year blocked the Texas law while the lawsuit played out.

      • I was arrested after asking “who elected him?” at the proclamation of King Charles

        It was only when they declared Charles to be “King Charles III” that I called out “Who elected him?” I doubt most of the people in the crowd even heard me. Two or three people near me told me to shut up. I didn’t insult them or attack them personally, but responded by saying that a head of state was being imposed on us without our consent.

      • LBC'Who elected him?’: Man arrested for potentially causing ‘distress’ during King Charles III proclamation

        Man who was arrested for shouting anti-monarchist views tells Tom Swarbrick, “I seem to be arrested for expressing an opinion.”

      • Sahara ReportersPolice Arrest UK Lecturer For Shouting “Who Elected Him” During King Charles’s Proclamation

        Symon Hill, 45, who described his ordeal to Oxford Mail, expressed concern over the British people being forced to accept a Head of State without a democratic election.

      • Irish Independent‘Who elected him?’ – anti-monarchy protesters arrested as Charles proclaimed Britain’s new king

        Symon Hill accused police of abusing their powers, claiming the new police and crime law had created a draconian atmosphere that has “significantly reduced free expression and harmed democracy”.

        Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, a 22-year-old woman was arrested after a sign calling for the abolition of the monarchy was held up before the accession event in the Scottish capital.

      • Patrick BreyerChat control: Internal documents show how divided the EU member states are

        According to the paper, there is no explicit consent from a single member state for such chat control in encrypted communications. Germany and Austria are explicitly against it. Four states have unclear positions on this: The Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, and France.

      • ReasonGovernment Officials Bully Social Media Companies to Censorship

        In July 2021, President Joe Biden was asked by a reporter whether he had any message for platforms like Facebook. "They're killing people," he replied. "The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they're killing people."

        His press secretary at the time, Jen Psaki, and legions of Democrats rushed to his defense, saying Biden was referring to so-called "misinformation" spread on the platform by the "disinformation dozen"—some 12 or so accounts deemed responsible for the vast majority of the platform's vaccine-skeptical content. But Biden, Psaki, and others in the administration have frequently used White House podiums to make bold and inexact claims about the harm posed by social media companies, either implicitly suggesting or more explicitly demanding that these companies change their content moderation practices in line with the administration's preferences.

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • Counter PunchOn the Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh

        Unfortunately, there has been no independent, credible investigation.€  Two weeks ago, without providing any details, the Israeli government, after first blaming the Palestinians for Ms. Abu Akleh’s death, stated that she was likely shot, by mistake, by an unnamed Israeli soldier.€  The State Department has concluded that gunfire from Israeli Defense Force (IDF) positions was likely responsible, but that there was “no evidence to indicate her killing was intentional.”€  The Department acknowledges that conclusion was not the result of an investigation, but rather a review of information provided by the IDF and the Palestinian Authority (PA).€  We are told that “the Administration continues to believe that cooperation among Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the U.S. Security Coordinator (USSC) is the best path to support a thorough, transparent, and impartial investigation.”

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • CBSIranian president orders probe after 22-year-old woman reportedly dies in custody of "morality police"

        According to reports by local media, Mahsa Amini, 22, was detained earlier this week by the so-called "morality police" after officers apparently found fault with her headscarf, or hijab.

      • CBCFuror in Iran after young woman slips into coma and dies while in custody, reportedly over headscarf rules

        But hard-liners have called for harsh punishment and even lashes, arguing that allowing women to show their hair leads to moral decay and the disintegration of families. The judiciary has, in recent years, urged people to inform on women who do not wear the hijab.

      • New York TimesIn Iran, Woman’s Death After Arrest by the Morality Police Triggers Outrage

        Her brother, Kiarash Amini, said he was waiting outside the detention center on the day of her arrest when he heard screaming from inside. An ambulance arrived and a witness coming out of the center told him security forces had killed a young woman inside, according to local news media.s

      • VOA NewsIranian Woman's Death After Morals Police Arrest Sparks Protests

        A young Iranian woman has died after falling into a coma following her detention by morality police enforcing Iran's strict hijab rules, sparking protests by Iranians on social media.

      • BBCFury in Iran as young woman dies following morality police arrest

        Her death comes in the wake of growing reports of repressive acts against women, including those judged not to be complying with Islamic dress code being barred from entering government offices and banks.

      • NBCIranian woman dies after being arrested by morality police, sparking protests

        In the past few months, Iranian rights activists have urged women to publicly remove their veils, a gesture that would risk their arrest for defying the Islamic dress code as the country’s hardline rulers crack down harder on “immoral behavior.”

        Videos posted on social media have shown cases of what appeared to be heavy-handed action by morality police units against women who had removed their hijab.

      • Counter PunchThe Post-Roe Horror is a Bipartisan Production

        The Post-Roe Hell

      • Counter PunchLet Us Now Praise Infamous Animals

        The defendants were indigent and the court appointed a lawyer to represent them. A few weeks later a trial was convened in Savigny’s seigneurial court. Before a crowded room, witnesses were called. Evidence was presented and legal arguments hotly debated. The justices considered the facts and the law and rendered a verdict and a sentence. The mother was pronounced guilty and ordered to be hanged to death by her legs from the limb of the gallows tree. Her six children, however, received a judicial pardon. The court accepted the defense lawyer’s argument that the youngsters lacked the mental competence to have committed a crime in the eyes of the law. The orphaned children were sent into custodial care at the expense of the state.

      • Counter PunchLuring Doctors from Poorer Countries is the UK's Quiet Scandal

        The exodus from there of medical professionals is high and getting higher. From the start, the National Health Service (NHS) has recruited from overseas. But within the last decade the influx has vastly increased, with the share of doctors recruited by the NHS from outside the UK and EU rising from 18 to 34 per cent and nurses from seven to 34 per cent between 2015 and 2021, according to statistics compiled by the BBC’s Shared Data Unit. The proportion of British-trained doctors in the health service has fallen from 69 to 58 per cent and nurses from 74 to 61 per cent over the same period.

      • Counter PunchAnother Noble Dream: AP African American Studies and the Objectivity Question

        Northwestern Professor of African American Studies Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor recently asked...

      • Counter PunchThe New Fight for Mobility Justice

        And as a testament to the power of community, even online communities, the “Fuck Cars” movement has not remained isolated to the caverns of Reddit, but is rather a real movement spearheaded by activists and organizers. While “Fuck Cars” was the way Reddit verbalized its discontent, the movement is called “mobility justice,” and it represents a coalition of nonprofits, activists, politicians, and community organizers working together to envision a safer and more accessible future. While the rest of society is driving their Fords and Toyotas, activists from a wide array of socioeconomic backgrounds, urban environments, and ethnicities have coalesced into a burgeoning movement to curb the influence of cars and their vested interests. But, the diversity of interests within the coalition has simultaneously created a diversity of aspirations and tactics. Much like the Reddit community battling against others to retain “Fuck Cars’” position on r/place, the mobility justice movement faces a variety of both internal and external challenges in its goal to usher in a greener more accessible future.

      • TruthOutWarren and Markey Urge Loosening of Restrictions on Testosterone Access
      • TruthOutGOP’s 15-Week Abortion Ban Is a Midterm Tactic -- But Not in the Way You Think
      • Pro PublicaColorado Halfway Houses Are a Revolving Door to Prison

        Fellow inmates cautioned him against entering Colorado’s community corrections system, saying it was overly punitive and too often a ticket back to prison. But after nearly 13 years behind bars — his entire adult life — Montano’s desire to embrace his long-term partner and start a career overshadowed those warnings.

      • Papers PleaseCountdown to a crackdown on flying without ID

        What — if anything — will really change at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints when this countdown clock runs out on May 3, 2023?

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • VarietyNetflix Is Overplaying Its Hand in Rushed Ad Negotiations

        Multiple reports, however, indicate that with the streaming space at large beginning to embrace a raft of new advertising innovations, including virtual product placement and increased targeting, Netflix is taking the opposite tack.

        The streamer is reportedly planning to simply run traditional video ads before and during content, and with limited targeting capabilities: Ad buyers told The Wall Street Journal that the personalization Netflix offers is “less granular” than typical online ads. In other words, the streamer is asking for premium rates while not even offering competitive levels of ad tech out of the gate.

    • Monopolies

      • CoryDoctorowCalifornia's antitrust case against Amazon

        Senator John Sherman said it well, when campaigning for his landmark 1890 Sherman Act, America's first comprehensive antitrust law: "If we will not endure a King as a political power we should not endure a King over the production, transportation, and sale of the necessaries of life."

      • Hollywood ReporterFrench TV Merger Called Off After Antitrust Probe

        The companies said Friday that after meeting with the antitrust watchdog it became apparent they would only receive approval for the deal on the condition they sold one of the two networks’ flagship channels: either TF1 or M6 channel.

      • Software Patents

        • [Old] Unified PatentsDefending Open Source: An 2022 Litigation Update

          Patents are tracked internationally by something called CPCs, i.e., the cooperative patent classification system. Each patent will be assigned multiple CPCs. When looking at patents bearing CPC codes related to Open Source Projects, NPE assertions have already nearly matched their 2021 totals as of June 6, 2022. In 2021, NPEs filed a total of 482 cases of patent infringement against open source packages; they have to date already seen 474 as of June of 2022. If this trend continues for the rest of the year, this would be an almost 100% increase from the previous year.

      • Copyrights

        • Hollywood ReporterDavid Zaslav’s Strategy Shift: Licensing Out Warners’ IP Treasure

          And while it isn’t going to be part of any larger live-action DC universe, Batman is still some of DC’s most popular IP [sic]. “Once you decide your streaming ambitions are not your ‘north star,’ why not license as much as possible?” ” Lightshed analyst Rich Greenfield wrote in an Aug. 10 research note. “Catalog only has value to streaming services if you can drive meaningful daily time spent where subscribers are getting lost in your service.”

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Technical

      • Into the Radius



        Into the Radius has pulled me back into VR lately. After only five hours with it that have seemed like they've flown by I can already tell it's going to be one of my favorite games.

        It's a survival shooter set somewhere in Russia in the zone of some anomalous black hole looking thing that dominates the sky. Everything's messed up. Dead plant life, vehicles and bits of buildings suspended frozen in the air, unnatural dark featureless creatures roam the landscape, and other telltale signs you're living in the apocalypse. I think it's a pretty neat setting as far as post-apocalyptic ones go, and I especially love that you're just dropped in and left to figure things out through exploration and environmental storytelling. Games that do that generally come closer to taking full advantage of the medium than ones that don't.


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



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