Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 05/04/2023: EasyOS 5.2.1 and Shotcut 23.04; Donald Trump in Police Custody



  • GNU/Linux

    • GamingOnLinuxSystem76 CEO teases in-house Linux laptop code-named 'Virgo'

      Linux hardware vendor and creator of the Pop!_OS distribution, System76, have made their own desktop for a while now but they're moving onto a custom laptop next. Something they've been planning for some time, as they've gradually scaled up their in-house manufacturing.

      On Mastodon, System76 Founder and CEO Carl Richell, showed off two photos of the panel for the LCD...

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Events

    • Web Browsers/Web Servers

      • Mozilla

        • MozillaExtensions for cleaning up a chaotic desktop

          Clutter isn’t just material stuff scattered about your floor and shelves. Clutter can consume us in digital form, too — from an overabundance of browser bookmarks and open tabs to navigating a world wide web that’s littered with junk.

        • Linux CapableHow to Install Firefox Beta on Linux Mint 21/20

          Mozilla Firefox is a popular and widely used open-source web browser that continually evolves to provide users with better performance, enhanced security, and innovative features. To achieve this, Mozilla offers a pre-release version of Firefox called Firefox Beta.

    • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

    • Programming/Development

      • ButtondownThe Capability-Tractability Tradeoff

        The more things your system can represent, the less you can say about the things that are represented.

        ie, if you store strings as ASCII then you can’t represent “∀∃🦔”, while if you store strings as Unicode then the string’s length isn’t well-defined. We’ll say that Unicode is more capable while ASCII is more tractable.

        This is one of the most important tradeoffs in CS, up there with space-time tradeoffs. It has a pretty simple reason, too: the more things your system can represent, the fewer things they all have in common, and the more likely any assertion about that set will have a counterexample.

      • Request Page Redesign - Two More Action Types and Better Comments on Changes

        We are back to working on the request page redesign. This time we have focused on improving comments on lines in the Changes tab, enhancing the requests with multiple actions and supporting requests that intend to delete projects/packages and to change the development package of a package. The request redesign is part of the beta program. We started the redesign of the request workflow in August 2022.

      • Python

        • Didier StevensUpdate: 1768.py Version 0.0.18

          This new version of 1768.py brings an option to try out all 256 xor keys if a non-standard XOR key is used to encode the configuration. Like this sample (key !): 1768_v0_0_18.zip (http)MD5: 323D6D20483257D76D7F9DAD07AAF630SHA256: 653CB75FF59C27FB9A2FD651DDE2EC81A4F577F7F9050353CB0B75DF6CA95773

  • Leftovers

    • US News And World ReportRupert Murdoch and Ann Lesley Smith Call off Engagement
    • Robert HeatonI thought I knew what I was doing this time: how our second son was born

      This is part 17 of a series about my experiences being a parent. Read the rest here.

      Gaby, my wife, a few weeks before the birth:

      Before Oscar was born, I was entirely excited that we were going to have a child. I liked my life, but it was a good time to change everything. My job was fine, but I wasn’t worried about putting it on hold or even losing it. We were about to move to London, so my social circle, hobbies, and routines were going to get warped anyway. I’d have to rebuild, with or without a baby.

    • Silicon AngleIs the focus on developer experience over infrastructure damaging the industry?
      Developers are the modern enterprise’s beating heart. And with things like the pervasiveness of open-source code and application programming interfaces, they’re basically served the tools and resources they need to produce at a high level.
    • Container JournalDon’t Stop Your Cloud-Native Migration Too Early

      Cloud-native migrations can be intense. Steps are complex and intertwined and system complexity can slow you down and introduce problems and concerns. It may not be clear that everything will eventually smooth itself out. It may not be clear that your migration will be successful.

    • Container JournalUpbound Unfurls Managed Crossplane Control Plane Service

      Upbound today made generally available a namesake multi-tenant instance of a control plane management service based on the open source Crossplane project.

    • Silicon AngleDigital assets startup Bakkt completes acquisition of Apex Crypto for $200M [Ed: Why prop up a massive fraud perpetrated by the wife of Jim Zemlin? [1, 2]]
      Bakkt LLC, a digital asset startup founded by New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange Inc., announced Monday that it finalized its acquisition of crypto trading firm€ Apex Crypto LLC. Apex Crypto provides a turnkey platform for integrated cryptocurrency trading designed to meet the needs of financial institutions and trading customers such as neobanks.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • QuartzTikTok’s failure to monitor children's use of the platform is costing it $16 million

        TikTok was fined €£12.7 million ($15.9 million) for failing to protect children’s data on the social media platform, said the UK’s data regulator in a statement released on April 4.

      • QuartzThe FTC ordered Illumina to unravel its $7 billion Grail purchase

        >The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ordered Illumina, a leading DNA-sequencing firm, to unravel its $7 billion acquisition of Grail, a developer of cancer-screening tests, stating the deal would hurt innovation and competition in the market.

      • The Kent StaterHow to beat burnout

        With the end of the semester approaching, many students are experiencing burnout as they anxiously await for the semester to come to a close. “Burnout is a syndrome of work-related stress that has not been successfully managed.

      • Off GuardianThe New Normal Left

        CJ Hopkins So, I went to London to speak to the Left … no, not “the Left” you’re probably thinking of. Not the mask-wearing, Ukrainian-flag-flying Left. Not the pronoun-using, segregationist Left. Not the WEF, WHO, FBI, CIA, DHS, and MI6-loving Left. Not the global-capitalist New Normal Left. The other Left. The old-school Left.

      • NYPostThe CDC keeps pushing COVID boosters on kids despite real health risks

        The CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci keep pushing hard for all healthy children to have four doses of the COVID vaccine despite the lack of clinical-outcomes data to support the recommendation.

      • New York TimesModerate Drinking Has No Health Benefits, Analysis of Decades of Research Finds

        The review found that the methodology of many previous studies was flawed and that risk of myriad health problems increased significantly after less than two drinks a day for women and after three for men.

    • Proprietary

      • Ars TechnicaApple joins Amazon, Google, and Microsoft in tech industry layoffs

        Apple, which has thus far avoided the sweeping layoffs that have taken place at rival companies like Microsoft and Google, is eliminating some roles after all, according to a report in Bloomberg.

        The number of heads eliminated is believed to be relatively small, and they are all within the company's "corporate retail teams," with a focus on workers who are responsible for the "construction and upkeep" of Apple's retail locations and other physical facilities.

      • Silicon AngleApple to cut small number of jobs in its corporate retail teams
      • Apple to cut jobs in corporate retail teams

        Apple is cutting a small number of roles within its corporate retail teams in a streamlining effort.

        The layoffs relate to the tech giant’s development and preservation teams, Bloomberg said, citing people familiar with the matter.

        Although it’s currently unclear how many roles would be impacted, the number will likely be “very small”. According to Bloomberg, the cuts are presented internally as a way of improving operational efficiency rather than a cost-cutting measure.

        The event sets a precedent for Apple, which has so far managed to steer clear of job cuts affecting most other tech corporations.

        Additional reports suggest that eliminated roles are in the division that handles building and upkeep for Apple’s retail stores. All impacted employees can apply for other positions at the company until the end of the week or receive up to four months of severance pay.

      • McDonald's is laying off corporate staff to free up resources for growth, experts say | Daily Mail Online

        The fast-food company is closing its offices this week to terminate staff remotely as part of a previously announced restructuring, with the number of corporate job cuts reportedly in the hundreds.

      • WiredMicrosoft’s New Campus Drove Up Home Prices. Where Are the Jobs?

        The tech giant’s project in Atlanta is on an “indefinite pause,” leaving locals with the inflated prices but none of the jobs and investment.

      • Tech companies plan hundreds more Bay Area job cuts as layoffs worsen

        Roku, Lucid Group and Microsoft have revealed plans for fresh Bay Area job cuts, together adding hundreds of workers to the region's worsening layoffs.

      • Silicon AngleIRS-approved tax filing site eFile.com found delivering malware to users for a week
        A U.S. Internal Revenue Service-approved tax filing site called eFile.com has been found to be delivering malware to users for weeks. Suspicions that the site was serving malware first appeared on Reddit on March 18, with confirmation provided by security researcher Johannes Ullrich on April 3.

      • Silicon AngleGoogle spending cuts include no more laptops, only Chromebooks, and fewer services
        After laying off thousands of its employees in January, Google LLC is looking to rein in its expenses elsewhere, with a number of cost-cutting measures being implemented across the company, including reductions in spending on equipment, supplies and some employee services.

      • MichaÅ‚ WoźniakDoes ChatGPT gablergh?

        Imagine coming across, on a reasonably serious site, an article that starts along the lines of:

        After observing the generative AI space for a while, I feel I have to ask: does ChatGPT (and other LLM-based chatbots)… actually gablergh? And if I am honest with myself, I cannot but conclude that it sure does seem so, to some extent!

        I know this sounds sensationalist. It does undermine some of our strongly held assumptions and beliefs about what does “to gablergh” actually mean — and what classes of entities can, in fact, be said to gablergh at all. Since gablerghing is such a crucial part of what many feel it means to be human, this is also certainly going to ruffle some feathers!

        But here’s the thing: so far, after thousands of years of philosophical thought and scientific research, we have not been able to clearly define “gablerghing”. Thus, we simply cannot say for certain that some simpler animals, like ants, do not gablergh in some relevant sense. Gablerghing happens on a spectrum, from clearly gablerghing organisms like humans and dolphins, through animals like dogs or cats who I think we would mostly agree do gablergh, down to ants where this is maybe more fraught a statement.

        So why couldn’t “a set of scripts running on top of a corpus of statistically analyzed internet content” be said to, in some sense, gablergh?

        Naturally, your immediate reaction would not be to make a serious thinking face and consider deeply whether or not GPT indeed “gablerghs”, and if so to what degree. Instead, you would first expect the author to define the term “gablergh” and provide some relevant criteria for establishing whether or not something “gablerghs”.

        Yet somehow when hype-peddlers claim that LLMs (and tools built around them, like ChatGPT) “think”, nobody demands of them clarification of what they actually mean by that, and what criteria they might possibly use (beyond “the output seems human-made”). This allows them to weaponize the complexity of defining the term “to think”, with all its emotional and philosophical baggage, and using it to their advantage.

        “Well you can’t say it doesn’t think” — the argument goes — “since it’s so hard to define and delineate! Even ants can be said to think in some sense!”

      • Silicon AnglePresident Biden says tech firms must ensure their AI products are safe
        U.S. President Joe Biden today met with his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to discuss the potential risks and opportunities introduced by rapid advancements in the development of artificial intelligence recently.

    • Privatisation/Privateering

      • Breach MediaEverything wrong with Ontario’s health care privatization law

        Transcript: And here’s what’s at stake for the people of Ontario because of Bill 60. More costs for patients and more uncertainty about what those out of pocket costs might be. Private clinic surgeries have cost taxpayers more than double what they would in the public system.

    • Security

      • LWNSecurity updates for Monday [LWN.net]

        Security updates have been issued by Debian (duktape, firmware-nonfree, intel-microcode, svgpp, and systemd), Fedora (amanda, dino, flatpak, golang, libldb, netconsd, samba, tigervnc, and vim), Red Hat (nodejs:14), Slackware (ruby and seamonkey), SUSE (drbd, flatpak, glibc, grub2, ImageMagick, kernel, runc, thunderbird, and xwayland), and Ubuntu (amanda).

      • LWNSecurity updates for Tuesday [LWN.net]

        Security updates have been issued by Fedora (openbgpd and seamonkey), Red Hat (httpd:2.4, kernel, kernel-rt, and pesign), SUSE (compat-openssl098, dpdk, drbd, ImageMagick, nextcloud, openssl, openssl-1_1, openssl-3, openssl1, oracleasm, pgadmin4, terraform-provider-helm, and yaml-cpp), and Ubuntu (haproxy, ldb, samba, and vim).

      • Ukrainian Hackers Spend $25,000 of Russian Funds on Sex Toys

        The Ukrainian hacking collective, Cyber Resistance announced yesterday that it successfully hacked into the AliExpress account of pro-Russian mil blogger Mikhail Luchin.

        The blogger, who runs the “Misha From Donbas” Telegram channel, apparently had a significant amount of funds he had raised to purchase drones for Russian troops.

        Now, what exactly did the Ukrainian hackers do to sabotage Russian military efforts?

        They bought a lot of sex toys with the funds. Around $25,000 dollars worth of them.

      • IT News AUTAFE data breach uncovered by SA Police

        TAFE South Australia has revealed a data breach that was discovered when SA Police seized “devices containing electronic scanned copies of TAFE SA student identification forms”.

        TAFE SA said the identification forms included credentials such as driver's licences and passports for enrolments prior to 2021 across all campuses.

      • Data BreachesUnitedLex hit by d0nut ransomware team, 200 GB of corporate files leaked

        The d0nut ransomware team seems to be ramping up their activity and leaks. Last week, they contacted DataBreaches about Montgomery General Hospital in West Virginia. Today, they reached out to this site about UnitedLex, a firm that describes itself as helping legal teams modernize “with a consultative framework that brings together legal subject matter expertise, data science, and technology to solve operational challenges across multiple legal disciplines.”

      • Krebs On SecurityFBI Seizes Bot Shop ‘Genesis Market’ Amid Arrests Targeting Operators, Suppliers

        Several domain names tied to Genesis Market, a bustling cybercrime store that sold access to passwords and other data stolen from millions of computers infected with malicious software, were seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) today. Sources tell KrebsOnsecurity the domain seizures coincided with “dozens” of arrests in the United States and abroad targeting those who allegedly operated the service, as well as suppliers who continuously fed Genesis Market with freshly-stolen data.

        [...]

        But sources close to the investigation tell KrebsOnSecurity that law enforcement agencies in the United States, Canada and across Europe are currently serving arrest warrants on dozens of individuals thought to support Genesis, either by maintaining the site or selling the service bot logs from infected systems.

        The seizure notice includes the seals of law enforcement entities from several countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

        When Genesis customers purchase a bot, they’re purchasing the ability to have all of the victim’s authentication cookies loaded into their browser, so that online accounts belonging to that victim can be accessed without the need of a password, and in some cases without multi-factor authentication.

        “You can buy a bot with a real fingerprint, access to e-mail, social networks, bank accounts, payment systems!,” a cybercrime forum ad for Genesis enthused. “You also get all previous digital life (history) of the bot – most services won’t even ask for login and password and identify you as their returning customer. Purchasing a bot kit with the fingerprint, cookies and accesses, you become the unique user of all his or her services and other web-sites. The other use of our kit of real fingerprints is to cover-up the traces of your real internet activity.”

      • Bleeping ComputerNew Money Message ransomware demands million dollar ransoms

        A new ransomware gang named 'Money Message' has appeared, targeting victims worldwide and demanding million-dollar ransoms not to leak data and release a decryptor.

        The new ransomware was first reported by a victim on the BleepingComputer forums on March 28, 2023, with Zscaler's ThreatLabz soon after sharing information on Twitter.

        Currently, the threat actor lists two victims on its extortion site, one of which is an Asian airline with annual revenue close to $1 billion. Additionally, the threat actors claim to have stolen files from the company and include a screenshot of the accessed file system as proof of the breach.

      • CPRRorschach – A New Sophisticated and Fast Ransomware - Check Point Research



        While responding to a ransomware case against a US-based company, the CPIRT recently came across a unique ransomware strain deployed using a signed component of a commercial security product. Unlike other ransomware cases, the threat actor did not hide behind any alias and appears to have no affiliation to any of the known ransomware groups. Those two facts, rarities in the ransomware ecosystem, piqued CPR interest and prompted us to thoroughly analyze the newly discovered malware.

        Throughout its analysis, the new ransomware exhibited unique features. A behavioral analysis of the new ransomware suggests it is partly autonomous, spreading itself automatically when executed on a Domain Controller (DC), while it clears the event logs of the affected machines. In addition, it’s extremely flexible, operating not only based on a built-in configuration but also on numerous optional arguments which allow it to change its behavior according to the operator’s needs. While it seems to have taken inspiration from some of the most infamous ransomware families, it also contains unique functionalities, rarely seen among ransomware, such as the use of direct syscalls.

      • Jerusalem PostIsraeli cyber security website briefly taken down in cyberattack

        One of Israel's largest cyber-security companies, Check Point, was taken down by a group of hackers calling themselves "Anonymous Sudan" on Tuesday afternoon.

        However, after a short while, the website seemed to return to operating as normal.

        Earlier in the day, the websites of multiple major universities in Israel were also attacked by the same group, and were down for several hours.

      • Trend MicroUnpacking the Structure of Modern Cybercrime Organizations

        The last 20 years have seen the cyberthreat landscape transform markedly: From an era of cyberattacks with damaging payloads, the cybercrime space has evolved to one where malicious actors have organized themselves into groups, mainly driven by financial gain.

        Consequently, organizations now contend with a new breed of cybercriminals fiercely competing among themselves to claim a bigger stake in a highly lucrative market. Given present circumstances, malicious actors have organized themselves in ways that show a remarkable resemblance to legitimate corporations. Our research findings show that as revenues and membership of cybercriminal groups expand, their organizational structure becomes more complex because new tiers in the hierarchy inevitably arise in the process.

      • Western Digital says hackers stole data in 'network security' breach

        Data storage giant Western Digital has confirmed that hackers exfiltrated data from its systems during a "network security incident" last week.

        The California-based company said in a statement on Monday that an unauthorized third party gained access to "a number" of its internal systems on March 26. Western Digital hasn’t confirmed the nature of the incident or revealed how it was compromised, but its statement suggests the incident may be linked to ransomware.

        “Based on the investigation to date, the company believes the unauthorized party obtained certain data from its systems and is working to understand the nature and scope of that data,” Western Digital said.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Environment

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • AxiosView from Taipei: Two presidential visits captivate Taiwan

        TAIPEI, Taiwan — Current Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's visit to the U.S. and former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou's unprecedented trip to China have reignited debate within Taiwan about the island's future — and the nature of its relationship with mainland China.

        Why it matters: With Taiwan's next presidential election less than a year away — and pressure from China growing — Taiwanese voters will soon face a choice between keeping the close U.S. ties forged by Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party and reverting to the rival Beijing-friendly stance of Ma's Kuomintang party.

      • Off GuardianTrump’s Indictment and the Downfall of America

        Karen hunt I arrived at Lake Arenal, Costa Rica, this little hideaway paradise, last Thursday. The next day, I found that, sure enough, Trump has been€ indicted€ by a New York grand jury.

      • QuartzDisney’s feud with Florida’s Ron DeSantis keeps escalating

        When Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ newly-elected board took control of Disney’s special tax district, they were in for a rude awakening: The Mouse House had only surrendered control of roads and basic infrastructure maintenance, and nothing else.

      • CS MonitorAbortion, voting rights in question in Wisconsin Supreme Court race

        The Wisconsin Supreme Court has been under conservative control for 15 years, and the race this year has become one of the most expensive contests in U.S. history of its kind. The stakes are high as the winner will serve a 10-year term.

      • New York TimesThis Wisconsin Court Race Is Highly Partisan. It Wasn’t Always That Way.

        Supreme Court races were once more swayed by endorsements from legal and law enforcement officials. Now they’re indistinguishable from other elections.

      • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

    • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Monopolies

      • AxiosAfter nine months of layoffs, Big Tech sees signs of a turnaround [Ed: Loaded, misleading headline; companies buying back their own shares is embezzlement and Wall Street is a creator of bubbles, which eventually facilitate the plunder of the middle class]
        Data:€ Layoffs.fyi; Chart: Jacque Schrag/Axios

        Tech layoffs are way up — and so are tech stocks. Two charts tell this story.

        The big picture: The tech industry's layoffs began last year and have kept up a relentless stream of bleak announcements — in some companies' cases, like Meta's, coming in multiple waves.


        • The industry, which had overhired during the pandemic, started trimming its workforce last year, just as the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates to cool the inflation-rattled U.S. economy.

        Between the lines: Layoffs are often understood as an indicator of incipient recession, and stock prices typically fall in step with both of those trends.

      • Patents

        • Dennis Crouch/Patently-OSkilled Searcher Test Allows Estoppel for Unknown References

          Ironburg Inventions Ltd. v. Valve Corp., — F.4th —, 21-2296 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 3, 2023)

          The recent decision in Ironburg Inventions Ltd. v. Valve Corp. has significant implications for post-IPR estoppel under 35 U.S.C. ۤ 315(e)(2).

        • Precarity at the European Patent Office

          Due to the highly specific technical and legal skills requested from the majority of staff at the EPO, it has long been considered that fixed-term contracts were not the appropriate form of employment for this Office. The need of a lengthy and thorough training of new employees is a condition “sine qua non” to grant quality patents. This necessary time and resources investment could be lost for the organisation if fixed-term contracts were the norm, let alone the knowledge accumulated and shared by the newly recruited staff. Furthermore, at the individual level, “a Golden Cage Syndrome” exists at the EPO, since after some years of employment, staff tend to specialise in the field of patents and lose their general expertise. The expertise in the field of patents is not easily recognised in other fields. Staff leaving the EPO after some years of employment could find it very difficult to find employment elsewhere at comparable conditions. These considerations were valid in the past and are still valid today.

        • Social Security at the EPO: an overview

          The EPO, the second largest European organisation after the Commission in terms of the number of employees, is a substantially independent body, which is neither part of the European Union nor attached to it in any way like the EU agencies. Its member states include the 27 EU member states, but also 11 non-EU states. It is also not one of the Coordinated Organisations, although some links exist or were planned[1].

          In contrast to other European international organisations, which are mostly financially dependent on their member states, the EPO is entirely self-financing through the annual fees and royalties generated by (applications for) patents and even generates money for its member states. Being a typically scientific and technical organisation, its political visibility is lower, so that the management and the Administrative Council, which represents the member states, can operate relatively far from the public eye.

        • History of SUEPO

          SUEPO (Staff Union of the European Patent Office) was born in 1979 out of the “Syndicat du Personnel de l’Institut International des Brevets” (SP- IIB) which was founded in 1969, following the creation of the European Patent Office (EPO) in 1977, and the merging of the IIB into the EPO.

          In agreement with its 1979 Constitution (SC), SUEPO comprises four local sections, at the four EPO sites: Munich, The Hague, Berlin and Vienna. A Congress, a Central Bureau and an Audit Board were established as central bodies of SUEPO. Despite the existence of these central bodies, the local sections enjoy quite a lot of autonomy and can be considered as quasi-independent entities. Some of them have legal status under their respective national law, like SUEPO-TH under Dutch law.

        • Agora Survey

          The overall trend is clearly quite negative, and the situation appears to be deteriorating. Only on a very few items the conditions have statistically stayed the same or improved a bit (“Understanding of managers”: positive replies 87% up from 84% in the past; “Did your employer provide the necessary equipment?”: negative replies 18% down from 21% in the past survey).

          Despite the fact that still a majority of the respondents consider regular teleworking as a benefit, the results of this second survey and the trends confirm and amplify the alarming signals of the first survey.

          In particular since the beginning of the COVID crisis, 40% of the respondents had to cope with a higher workload or more working hours (31% in the first survey), and/or an increase in work related stress (49%, against 46%). A significant number cannot easily disconnect outside working hours (36%, was 34%) and the great majority of the respondents (80%, was 73%) felt, respectively, not connected (15%, was 11%) or more or less connected (65%, was 62%) to their colleagues.

          It is clear that these factors and negative trends will inevitably have dramatic consequences on the health and well-being of, at least a substantial number, of staff of the European Public Service, if suitable and urgent measures are not applied implemented and effectively to resit and reverse this.

        • Unified PatentsPatent Dispute Report: Q1 2023 in Review
          Overview

          No matter the world’s economic situation, patent litigation appeared to be the one constant. However, the number of assertions in Q1 has stumbled for the first time in years. While LIE (Litigation Investment Entity) assertions are down, new assignments are up (see Blackberry’s recent announcement). Are LIEs loading up on assets to be litigated later?

          Highlights:
          • With only 588 cases thus far, 2023 litigation is projected to be down 51% compared to 2022.

          • Q1 saw at least 18% of NPE (Patent Assertion Entities) where the patent asserted had been assigned and funded to a LIE.€ € 

          • The Western District of Texas continued to be the most popular venue in 2023, with Judge Albright leading all patent litigation.

          • IP Edge's two filings are a significant contributor to the decrease in new assertions.

          • Dynamic IP Deals and Jeffrey Gross have been the most litigious entities, with 24 assertions each.€ 

          • In Interdigital vs Lenovo, the UK court rejected InterDigital’s Top-Down approach while applying its own comparable analysis.

          • FRAND disputes will likely rise as Wi-Fi 6 adoption (and its core 3GPP technologies like beamforming, MU-MIMO, and OFDMA) increases.

      • Software Patents

        • Unified PatentsDatanet file backup patent challenged

          On April 3, 2023, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 8,473,478, owned and asserted by Datanet, LLC. The ‘478 patent is directed to an automatic real-time file management method and apparatus.

      • Trademarks

        • Dennis Crouch/Patently-OSmall Jazz Musician Foils Apple Music Trademark Registration

          Bertini v. Apple Inc., — F.4th — (Fed. Cir. 2023)

          Apple Records was founded by The Beatles in 1968 and quickly became a success, producing many hit records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Apple Computer Company was founded in the mid-1970s and almost immediately sued for trademark infringement by Apple Corps (the parent company of Apple Records).€  The companies eventually settled the case with Apple Computer paying $80k and agreeing to stay out of the music business.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Album #12: Pet Shop Boys - Actually

        This is a review posted for one I listened to before starting trying to write about every album. Initially I skipped it, because I was somewhat familiar, but later realised that part of the excercise of this list is challenging that sort of believe. 'Actually' beats 'Very' for me - in comparison it's a little more stripped back, a little catchier, and much more consistent.

      • Album #225: Pet Shop Boys - Very

        The Pet Shop Boys mix together genres I don't care or and occasionally come up with gold. Very feels like exactly what I'd have expected from a Pet Shop Boys album before listening to any - occasionally catchy, sentimental, danceable pop.

    • Technical

      • Fixing Slow Shell Launch With TLP

        My laptop battery has been showing some noticeable signs of wear recently, so I've just setup TLP to try to get every bit of juice I can out of it.

        Not long after I enabled TLP I felt like I could notice my battery usage decreasing. That's either placebo or my battery really is just that bad, and I'm not sure which it is.

      • Getting Gemini to the school

        My current school offers free Wi-Fi (and laptops) while I study there. However, the network doesn't allow Gemini (or any protocol that isn't HTTP or doesn't go through port 443). So, in order to be able to continue taking care of my plant and following gemlogs while at school, I decided to make Lagrange work with this restrictive network.


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



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Gemini Links 13/11/2024: Magic of Walking and Lest We Forget
Links for the day
Links 13/11/2024: USPTO Director Kathi Vidal ('Former' Microsoft Rep) Resigning, Censorship After Car Ramming Attack in China
Links for the day
Microsoft: Layoffs, Outsourcing, and R.T.O. as Cover for Mass Layoffs Without Severance Pay
Microsoft had mass layoffs pretty much every month this year
[Meme] The Addicted Lolicon Throwing Stones
"They've found my RMS attack site"
Jonathan Carter & Debian betrayed Joel Espy Klecker
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 13/11/2024: Red Tape War and Programming Experiences
Links for the day
Links 13/11/2024: "Make Your Laptop Last FOREVER" With GNU/Linux, 23andMe Mass Layoffs, Intel 'Resignations' Layoffs Loophole
Links for the day
More Than 3 Years After Vista 11's Release More Chinese Computer Users Still Use Vista 7 (Than "11")
it was "officially" released October 5, 2021
Things That Still Work OK (But We're Being Shamed for Using)
Using old stuff is nothing to be shamed of (or afraid to do)
Free Software is About Collaboration
WordPress limits it
Even the Managing Editor of BetaNews is Doing Slop and Spam
A Fish Rots From The Head Down
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 12, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 12, 2024
PERA Bill in US Senate Strives to Crush Caselaw, Making Patents on Mathematics and Algorithms 'Great Again'
Follow the money
BetaNews is Beta-Testing the Site as LLM Slop With Microsoft Propaganda Thrown In
Many of the people there are Microsoft boosters and they use slop as "filler" (for marketing)
Evolution of euthanasia & WIPO UDRP similarities exposed by W. Scott Blackmer
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 13/11/2024: Phasing Out 3G, Brian Kernighan Books, Tcl/Tk, Time to Ditch x86
Links for the day
Links 12/11/2024: A Lot of Censorship and SWNS at 50
Links for the day
BetaNews, Inc. Became a Spam Operation/Web Site, LLM Spew (Slop) for SEO Disguised as "Articles"
Published 5 minutes ago by Brian Fagioli...
Gemini Links 12/11/2024: Invidious Down and YouTube Addiction
Links for the day
Links 12/11/2024: Hey Hi (AI) Failures and COP29 Fakers
Links for the day
Latest Rumours of Red Hat Layoffs
Rumours or gossip is how almost everything starts
WordPress is for the 'Old Web'; the New Web Necessitates Static Pages
There are purely practical reasons to move away from WordPress and the likes of it
Biggest Debt Leap in Years, More Than Half a Trillion Dollars in Just One Month
We remind people (almost every year) that it's also "buynothingday"
Windows Falling to All-Time Lows and Microsoft Has Nothing to Replace It With
It's mostly Android (Linux) replacing Windows
Cybershow Has a New 81-Minute Episode on Digital Sovereignty and International Cyber-Relations
it is a high-quality show
Activism in the Digital Realm Can Never (and Must Never) Rely on GAFAM
This simply means that tech activists must completely abandon any hopes of finding allies in Google or IBM or whatever...
Golden Dawn(ald) and What GAFAM Means to Liberal Techies
In one single screenshot
IBM CEO Says Donald Trump as President-Elect is Good for IBM in New Interview With CNBC
most unprincipled CEO ever?
GNU/Linux Up to 6.1% in Finland (Almost 9% If One Counts ChromeOS Too)
Home of Linux (the kernel)
BetaNews Has Become a SPAM/Slop Factory, Brian Fagioli Publishes Fake 'Articles'
everything is now suspect in BetaNews
It's Morbid to Talk About Living People as If They're Dead
What happens to LLM slop when Brian Fagioli dies?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 11, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 11, 2024
Free Software and Love of Nature
It's not a coincidence that many Free software activists are also lovers of nature
Silicon Valley and GAFAM Were Never Liberal
spineless CEOs and founders aren't against Trump
Windows and 'The Desktop' Floundering
Microsoft should be extremely worried
WordPress is Bad for the Planet (Even If Many Still Use It)
the costs nobody wishes to talk about