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Links 09/06/2023: Tor Browser 12.0.7 and Many Linux Devices



  • GNU/Linux

    • Server

      • Kubernetes BlogBlog: dl.k8s.io to adopt a Content Delivery Network

        We're happy to announce that dl.k8s.io, home of the official Kubernetes binaries, will soon be powered by Fastly.

        Fastly is known for its high-performance content delivery network (CDN) designed to deliver content quickly and reliably around the world. With its powerful network, Fastly will help us deliver official Kubernetes binaries to users faster and more reliably than ever before.

        The decision to use Fastly was made after an extensive evaluation process in which we carefully evaluated several potential content delivery network providers. Ultimately, we chose Fastly because of their commitment to the open internet and proven track record of delivering fast and secure digital experiences to some of the most known open source projects (through their Fast Forward program).

    • Applications

      • It's FOSS10 Best Virtualization Software for Linux

        Virtualization software is prevalent because of its use cases and benefits. You get to experiment, test, or run software that requires a specific OS version.

        Virtualization provides an abstract concept of computer hardware to help you create virtual machines (VMs), networks, storage, and more. The benefits include isolation, security, and the freedom to test things to your heart's extent.

        Different types of virtualization software cater to desktop users, server administrators, and enterprises.

        While I list all kinds of virtualization software, I mention who it is for.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • University of TorontoLet's Encrypt (really ACME) has a decent reason for (still) using CSRs

        As I found out a while back (in this entry), the ACME protocol that Let's Encrypt invented and used submits its actual requests for TLS certificates as Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs), despite CSRs being famously complicated things that are theoretically full of information that Let's Encrypt and ACME don't care about. The story I heard was that this was initially done because Let's Encrypt worried that the Certificate Authority Baseline Requirements might require CSRs to properly issue a TLS certificate, but recently Matthew McPherrin shared a different and great reason on the Fediverse: [...]

      • GeshanA beginner's guide to running Elasticsearch with Docker and Docker Compose

        Elasticsearch is a powerful, open-source search and analytics engine built on top of the Apache Lucene library. It provides a distributed, scalable, and high-performance platform for storing, searching, and analyzing data in real time. With Elasticsearch, you can quickly index large volumes of data and retrieve relevant information using complex queries. Its versatility makes it suitable for a wide range of use cases, including logging, monitoring, and e-commerce applications.

      • Terence EdenCan you follow your own getting started guide?

        And there is was! I changed a false to a true and everything started working. Being the good netizen that I am, I sent a pull request to fix the documentation.

        And then it struck me.

        There's no CI/CD for documentation.

      • OSTechNixHow To Dual Boot Windows And Pop!_OS

        Welcome to the comprehensive guide on setting up Dual Boot Windows and Pop!_OS. Whether you're a Linux enthusiast looking to explore the world of Pop!_OS or a Windows user who wants to dip your toes into the open-source ecosystem, this guide is here to assist you every step of the way. In this guide, we will walk you through the step-by-step process of setting up a dual-boot configuration with Windows 10 and the latest release of Pop!_OS, version 22.04.

      • LinuxiacHow to Upgrade to openSUSE Leap 15.5 from Leap 15.4

        This guide shows you the step-by-step process to upgrade to openSUSE Leap 15.5 from Leap 15.4 to enjoy the latest features and improvements!

      • Own HowToHow to fix unzip command not found on Linux

        If you tried to unzip a zip file recently and you couldn't get it done because of the errors " unzip command not found or "bash: /usr/bin/unzip: No such file or directory"

        These errors indicate that unzip is either not installed on your system,

      • nixCraftHow to upgrade OpenSUSE 15.4 to 15.5 using the CLI

        The latest version of OpenSUSE Linux, version 15.5 "Leap," has been released. This version offers unparalleled stability due to its use of the SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) source and community developments. Hence, this makes it the best choice for a stable Linux experience for users, developers, and system administrators. This page explains how to upgrade from OpenSUSE 15.4 to 15.5 using the CLI.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install Microsoft SQL Server on Ubuntu 20.04 [Ed: No, it does not run on GNU/Linux, it runs on DrawBridge, so this headline is misleading, relaying Microsoft's deception]

        Microsoft SQL Server is a premier relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Microsoft Inc. Renowned for its sophisticated capabilities and robust structure, it primarily operates on the structured query language (SQL) to manage, manipulate, and retrieve data within various types of databases.

      • PurismThe Silicon Valley Matrix- How To Break Free From Internet Centralization!

        The Silicon Valley Matrix Has You... Like the movie the Matrix, internet end users have been enslaved to produce highly valuable information by the very tech giants the internet end user patronizes with their trust, loyalty, and hard-earned money.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install Express.js on Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04

        In the pantheon of modern web development, Express.js holds a distinguished position as a premier framework.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install Node.js on Rocky Linux 9/8

        Node.js is a powerful, open-source JavaScript runtime built on Google’s high-performance V8 JavaScript engine. What sets it apart is its ability to execute JavaScript outside the context of a web browser, hence extending the boundaries of JavaScript from just client-side scripting to crafting server-side applications and command-line tools.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install Chromium Browser on Rocky Linux 9/8

        As we navigate the expansive digital landscape, having a reliable and adaptable web browser is not just a convenience, it's a necessity.

      • How to Set Timezone on Ubuntu?

        Having an accurate timezone is crucial for streamlining processes on a Linux-based or a Debian-based Operating system, especially if you are running VPS Servers or scheduled cron jobs. Moreover, if you are a Linux System Administrator executing pipeline integration (for example, Jenkins), then having the correct timezone becomes all the more important. This tutorial will illustrate the process of setting the timezone in Ubuntu using different methods.

      • UNIX CopBlocking IPs on Nginx

        Hello, friends. In this post, you will learn about blocking IPs in Nginx. This allows you to have a very exhaustive control over the access to the server. Nginx is one of the best web services available today. Its speed in processing requests makes it very popular among sysadmins.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install ImageMagick on Rocky Linux 9/8

        In the ever-expanding world of software tools and libraries, ImageMagick stands tall as a premier solution for image processing. This open-source software suite, known for its flexibility and robust functionality, handles an impressive array of image formats and operations.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install PyCharm on Linux Mint 21/20

        As an integral part of the JetBrains family, PyCharm is a widely recognized Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that offers a suite of tools exclusively for Python developers. It leverages a compelling combination of first-class features designed to improve developer efficiency, such as intelligent code assistance, smart code navigation, and seamless version control integration.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install GNU Emacs on Linux Mint 21/20

        Among the myriad of open-source tools that power the digital universe, GNU Emacs stands out as a legendary text editor in the realm of Unix and Linux operating systems.

      • Linux LinksAlternatives to popular CLI tools: ps

        We explore free and open source alternatives to ps, a command that reports a snapshot of the current processes.

    • Games

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Web Browsers/Web Servers

      • [Repeat] APNICRIPE 86 bites — QUIC and active network management

        While 90% of the volume of traffic is encrypted, the majority of this traffic is TLS session payload encryption layered above a TCP substrate. This implies that the outer IP wrapper and the TCP control parameters are still exposed to the network. The two communicating parties are still exposed in the IP address header, and while one end of the network transaction might be a shared CDN service point, the Server Name Indication (SNI) in TLS setup is still passed over the network in the clear, so the service point being accessed by the user is still exposed.

        So, while the exact nature of the transaction is opaque to the network observer, the metadata of the transaction, including the service name and port, the client IP address, the time of day, session profile and duration, is still available to the network observer.

      • Chromium

        • Wladimir PalantAnother cluster of potentially malicious Chrome extensions

          That extension wasn’t alone. I kept finding similar extensions until I had a list of 109 extensions, installed by more than 62 million users in total. While most of these extensions didn’t seem to contain malicious code (yet?), almost all of them requested excessive privileges under false pretenses. The names are often confusingly similar to established products. All of these extensions are clearly meant for dubious monetization.

      • Mozilla

        • 9to5LinuxThunderbird 115 Reaches Beta with Updated UI and Improved OpenPGP Support

          The Mozilla Thunderbird team teased us for some time now with their Thunderbird “Supernova” release (a.k.a. Thunderbird 115) that promised a revamped calendar and Firefox Sync support.

          Now, users can finally take the Thunderbird 115 release for a test drive, but the first beta version only offers an updated user interface designed to be more modern and customizable, with code that is easier to maintain and improve.

        • TorSelf-hosting the Tor Project users forum

          A year and a half ago, we launched the Tor Project users forum, a new discussion platform based on Discourse, allowing us to continue to grow the Tor community and experiment new ways to gather feedback and provide support.

          Today, we're happy to announce the forum will soon migrate from the free cloud hosting graciously provided by the team behind Discourse to the Tor Project's own server infrastructure.

        • TorNew Release: Tor Browser 12.0.7

          Tor Browser 12.0.7 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

          This release updates Firefox to 102.12.0esr, including bug fixes, stability improvements and important security updates. We also backported the Android-specific security updates from Firefox 114.

        • TailsImproving Tails for human rights defenders in Latin America

          Between 2021 and 2023 Tails, Tor, and the Guardian Project partnered to organize training and usability tests in Ecuador, Mexico, and Brazil. Our goals were to:

          Promote our digital security tools and train human rights defenders in the Global South.

          Learn from their experiences and needs to help us prioritize future work.

          Improve the usability of our tools based on their feedback.

    • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

    • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

      • Open Data

        • Sumana HarihareswaraOpening AED Location Data in New York City: Progress Update

          Two months ago, I wrote about a new bill aiming to help New Yorkers find out where our nearest defibrillators are. Great news: the text of the bill has been revised and is a lot better, and the New York City Council's Committee on Health will vote on it tomorrow. So now's a good time to tell your councilmember you support Intro 814, "The HEART Act."

    • Programming/Development

      • Daniel LemireParsing IP addresses crazily fast

        So the optimized function is six times faster than the standard one using GCC. Switching to clang (LLVM), you go seven times faster. The fact that LLVM has such an edge over GCC warrants further examination.

        I suspect that my code is not nearly optimal, but it is definitively worth it in some cases in its current state. I should stress that the optimized function includes full validation: we are not cheating.

      • RlangUpdate to Data Science Software Popularity

        I’ve updated The Popularity of Data Science Software‘s market share estimates based on scholarly articles. I posted it below, so you don’t have to sift through the main article to read the new section.

      • Daniel StenbergParallel curl tests

        In May 2001 we changed the file format for individual tests and this is still today the format we use. During the Twenty-two years that have passed we have added some 1600 test cases to the collection and we make sure that they can run on virtually any platform and that each test case themselves specify what curl features they require to work so that builds with those features disabled can skip those tests.

        Only a thorough test suite provides the necessary confidence you need to promise to users that we keep existing behaviors and yet we still can and do repeatedly rewrite, refactor and replace large chunks of the internals.

      • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

        • Martin HeinzThe Right Way to Run Shell Commands From Python

          Python is a popular choice for automating anything and everything, that includes automating system administration tasks or tasks that require running other programs or interacting with operating system. There are however, many ways to achieve this in Python, most of which are arguably bad, though.

          So, in this article we will look at all the options you have in Python for running other processes - the bad; the good; and most importantly, the right way to do it.

  • Leftovers

    • Science

      • HackadayOp-Amp Challenge: Measuring PH, No Code Required

        When you see a project with a digital display these days, you’ll be forgiven for assuming that there’s some kind of microcontroller behind the scenes. And while that’s often the easiest way to get a project from idea to completion, it’s rarely the most interesting way.

      • NatureFaster sorting algorithms discovered using deep reinforcement learning

        Fundamental algorithms such as sorting or hashing are used trillions of times on any given day1. As demand for computation grows, it has become critical for these algorithms to be as performant as possible. Whereas remarkable progress has been achieved in the past2, making further improvements on the efficiency of these routines has proved challenging for both human scientists and computational approaches. Here we show how artificial intelligence can go beyond the current state of the art by discovering hitherto unknown routines. To realize this, we formulated the task of finding a better sorting routine as a single-player game. We then trained a new deep reinforcement learning agent, AlphaDev, to play this game. AlphaDev discovered small sorting algorithms from scratch that outperformed previously known human benchmarks. These algorithms have been integrated into the LLVM standard C++ sort library3. This change to this part of the sort library represents the replacement of a component with an algorithm that has been automatically discovered using reinforcement learning. We also present results in extra domains, showcasing the generality of the approach.

      • BrrThe Last Egg

        As I talked about in Frost, we have a huge amount of cold storage, and a smaller but still significant amount of DNF (Do Not Freeze) storage. The majority of our food is ordered years in advance, shipped here in bulk, and deep-frozen until needed.

        Fun fact – when we bring up a tub of ice cream from storage, it takes multiple days to carefully warm it to “normal” freezer temperature, so it can be served. If you’ve ever tried to serve ice cream that has been stored on dry ice or in a misconfigured freezer, you’ll understand the struggle.

    • Hardware

      • HackadayGesture Sensor Teardown Reveals Intel Heritage

        A few years ago, there was a rush of products on the market to detect motion. The idea being you could interact with your computer like they do on science fiction movies, with giant expressive hand motions in the air. Most of these were aimed at desktop computer users but one company, YouSpace, wanted to bring this technology to retail stores. [IMSAI Guy] got one of their sensor devices and decided to see what was inside it. You can see, too, in the video below.

      • GPU sales are down almost 40% year on year, the lowest in years, according to new report

        Sales for discrete PC graphics cards or GPUs are in a dire state, with a new report from Jon Peddie Research stating that total AIB shipments decreased by 38.2% in Q1 2023 compared to the same quarter from last year. According to the report, this still equates to roughly 6.3 million units, down from the previous quarter's 7.16 million units.

      • HackadayNissan 300zx Dash Given A New Language

        You don’t have to be a car enthusiast to recognize that the 1984 Nissan 300x dash is a work of art. The graceful swoops and multisegment VFDs evoke an aesthetic that reminds us of a particular era. Rather than replace his dash with something drab and modern, [Evan] modified his dash to accept input from newer devices. Many of the sensors that feed directly into the dash are becoming harder to find as the years wear on, and rather than spoof every old device, [Evan] looked at each gauge.

      • HackadayOp-Amp Challenge: A Logic-Free BCD

        Of digital electronics, a wise man once said that “Every idiot can count to one.” Truer words have rarely been spoken, because at the end of the day, every digital circuit is really just an analog circuit with the interesting bits abstracted away. And to celebrate that way of looking at things, we’re pleased to present this BCD to seven-segment converter that uses no logic chips.

      • [Repeat] TediumBad News Beepers

        Today in Tedium: There’s always a point of constant debate that happens in education around the smartphone. As anyone who has played Candy Crush or dragged a thumb through TikTok can tell you, it is a highly distracting tool, but it is also basically impossible to extract from the hands of teenagers these days, for one important reason: Parents want them to have it, so they can reach them—a discussion point of a recent Atlantic piece. “I asked why they couldn’t just ban phones during school hours,” writer Jonathan Haidt, an ethicist at New York University’s Stern School of Business, wrote. “They said too many parents would be upset if they could not reach their children during the school day.” But it was not always this way, and in fact there was a period where mobile electronics were effectively banned in most schools. And one of the most interesting devices of this type to be banned was the beeper or pager. For those of you who don’t remember when beepers ruled the land, today’s Tedium offers a primer. — Ernie @ Tedium

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Michael West MediaFarmers want wriggle room on asset write-off deadline

        Farmers say the federal government’s refusal to extend the deadline for the instant asset write-off will leave them short-changed.

        The tax write-off and temporary full expensing arrangements were introduced by the previous coalition government as an€ incentive to stimulate the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

      • YLEPedestrians and cyclists most often killed in urban traffic, 44% of pedestrians died on zebra crossings

        Fifty-seven percent of those killed in urban accidents were pedestrians and cyclists. Over the decade, there were 156 fatal accidents involving pedestrians and 104 fatalities involving cyclists. Nearly half (44 percent) of fatal pedestrian accidents in built-up areas happened on pedestrian crosswalks.

    • Proprietary

      • Apple tries to distance itself from Meta, competition: Don’t call it a headset
      • TechdirtOpenAI Sued For Defamation Over ChatGPT ‘Hallucination’; But Who Should Actually Be Liable? [Ed: Those are not "hallucinations"; lies, errors, defamation... why this thing ought not be used by sane people, but it is falsely marketed by Microsoft and Microsoft-bribed 'journalists' for 6 months already]

        Lots of people have been waiting for this, but it’s finally happened: someone has sued ChatGPT maker OpenAI over an AI “hallucination” (i.e., confidently spewing out something that is blatantly wrong). The complaint, filed by Mark Walters, in state court in Georgia, argues that OpenAI made up false and defamatory claims about himself. From the complaint itself:

      • QuartzOpenAI has been sued for libel over hallucinations by ChatGPT [Ed: Those are not "hallucinations"; they're lies and defamation. The problem is that Microsoft and its bribed media falsely advertised their lousy chatbot.]
      • NPRTennis stars get lots of hate online. The French Open gave them AI 'bodyguards'

        "It's an individual sport," he said. "So if you lose a game, that's your fault. You're very exposed because a lot of people are actually betting on sport and tennis specifically, which means a lot of haters going after you if you lose a point, if you lose a set or if you lose a game."

      • Adriaan RoselliNo, ‘AI’ Will Not Fix Accessibility

        Large language models are habitual liars. Meanwhile, automated image descriptions aren’t much better. To give them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps these tools simply lack context.

        A chocolate Rice Krispie treat sits on a saucer in a darkened room, a single lit birthday candle sticking out of it. Also on the table and in shadow to the right is a drill, to the left is a pack of candles, and behind it a set of drill bits. As image tools get better at describing every detail of a picture, as language models do a better job of conveying an emoji-laden tweet in actual words, they are still not the authors of that content. That have no sense of why it was created. They cannot tell you that a series of vertical lines is meant to signify a wall in a meme. They don’t know that the gag of a photo of a Rice Krispie treat with a birthday candle is the power drill in the background.

      • Gregory HammondWhy I’ve changed website hosts (aka why I left Cloudways and why you may want to as well)

        The major reason I didn’t want to continue with them was because DigitalOcean operates at a net loss every year (according to their annual income statements). Which means they aren’t profitable.

        Why is being profitable important? There isn’t infinite money available in either funding or grants and without making a profit, the company may have to make decreases in staff (which will mean less new features and worst customer service) or increase prices.

      • Silicon AngleMark Zuckerberg lays out Meta’s grand ambitions for generative AI

        Zuckerberg’s pep talk, which was first reported by Axios, comes at a troubled moment for Meta, which recently let go about 10,000 staff. The layoffs have reportedly shaken the confidence of employees, and the CEO took the opportunity to reassure them of the company’s plans, laying out a roadmap for the future that’s heavily focused on incorporating the latest advances in generative AI, which creates new content and images based on natural language prompts.

    • Security

      • Krebs On SecurityBarracuda Urges Replacing — Not Patching — Its Email Security Gateways

        It’s not often that a zero-day vulnerability causes a network security vendor to urge customers to physically remove and decommission an entire line of affected hardware — as opposed to just applying software updates. But experts say that is exactly what transpired this week with Barracuda Networks, as the company struggled to combat a sprawling malware threat which appears to have undermined its email security appliances in such a fundamental way that they can no longer be safely updated with software fixes.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • CNX SoftwareSilicon Labs FG28 Sub-GHz wireless and 2.4 GHz BLE SoC supports Amazon Sidewalk, Wi-SUN, etc…

          Silicon Labs dual-band FG28 Cortex-M33 SoC comes with sub-Gigahertz and 2.4 GHz Bluetooth LE radios that support long-range networks and protocols like Amazon Sidewalk, Wi-SUN, and other proprietary protocols, as well as a built-in AI/ML accelerator for machine learning inference and SiLabs Secure Vault technology. The chip looks to be an update to the sub-GHz FG25 Cortex-M33 microcontroller with an additional 2.4 GHz BLE radio, but somehow less program memory (up to 256KB) and storage (up to 1024 KB).

        • Soylent NewsSnowden Ten Years Later - Schneier on Security - SoylentNews
        • EFFEFF and Allies Send Letters to Senate Judiciary Opposing Bill to Require Messaging Platforms to Report Users to the DEA

          The bill would require private messaging services, social media companies, and even cloud providers to report their users to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) if they find out about certain illegal drug sales.

          Even with the proposed amendments, S. 1080 would weaken an already insufficient privacy law and would provide a roadmap for more sweeping and overbroad carveouts. Its vague requirements and criminal penalties would result in companies over-reporting users to the DEA for innocent, protected speech. History shows it may also encourage companies to engage in dragnet scanning of user communications, which would result in even more errors and sweep up the same voices Congress is trying to protect.

          Rather than addressing a pressing health crisis caused by fentanyl overdoses, this bill does an end run around the Fourth Amendment€  by requesting user information from online services in the form of mandatory reporting and voluntary disclosures. This puts online services in the position to decide whether their users have engaged in a sale of or intent to sell illicit substances and then decide how much to report to the DEA. The bill also expressly undermines the already limited warrant or subpoena and notice requirements of the Stored Communications Act.€ € 

        • TechdirtMany Of The States Endlessly Freaking Out About TikTok Still Have State Websites That Funnel Sensitive Data To TikTok [Ed: TikTok is bad not for privacy reasons as much as the other factors of TikTok (Fentanylware)]

          By now we’ve noted several times how the folks most vocally calling for a nationwide TikTok ban are putting on a dumb performance designed to distract you from our lack of competent internet privacy laws and our complete unwillingness to regulate the sleazy data broker space.

        • TechdirtAppeals Court Awards Half A Win To Professor Wrongfully Arrested For Sharing ‘Secret’ Tech With Chinese Entities

          Being abnormally suspicious of anything Chinese isn’t new. There’s a wave of hysteria-based lawmaking happening right now involving TikTok, but deciding Chinese nationals and Chinese entities are inherently suspicious has been part of this nation’s cultural fabric since the construction of railroads back in the mid-19th century.

        • Bruce SchneierParagon Solutions Spyware: Graphite

          We’re never going to reduce the power of these cyberweapons arms merchants by going after them one by one. We need to deal with the whole industry. And we’re not going to do it as long as the democracies of the world use their products as well.

        • Terence EdenCan this device make a phone call?

          This practice has been discredited for over a decade. UA Strings tend to lie. And, even when they don't lie, they're not very precise.

        • Scoop News GroupAI chatbots want your geolocation data. Privacy experts say beware.

          Concerns about sharing location data with AI models speak to the “wild west” nature of a rapidly growing industry that is beholden to few regulations and largely opaque to consumers and lawmakers. Consumer technologies such as Bard are less than a year old, making it largely unclear what repercussions they could have for privacy down the line.

          The rapid growth in the industry has left regulators in the U.S. and abroad sorting out how the technology exists under current privacy regulations. OpenAI, a leader in the field, landed in hot water in Italy earlier this year after the country’s data protection authority accused it of violating the EU’s data protection rules. More recently, U.S. regulators have warned AI companies “sprinting” to train their models on more and more data that existing consumer protections still apply and failing to heed them could lead to enforcement.

        • The HillWhy senators are concerned about Twitter’s data security

          Lawmakers and privacy experts have grown increasingly concerned about Twitter’s data security and privacy safeguards after the departure of top company officials.

          Last week, a group of Democratic senators sent a letter to Twitter raising concerns that recent resignations of top data security executives could put consumer privacy and data security in jeopardy and potentially violate a 2022 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

      • Confidentiality

        • uni StanfordEU Member States Still Cannot Agree About End-to-End Encryption

          The proactive detection requirement likely renders the CSA Regulation (called “Chat Control” by its opponents) illegal in its current draft form. That’s according to no less an authority than the Council’s own legal service (whose April analysis reaching that conclusion was also leaked) as well as the EU’s own data protection supervisor, which condemned the current draft last year. For one, existing EU law forbids the imposition of a general content monitoring obligation on online platforms; for another, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights restricts how individuals’ rights may be limited by the state. Mandating the suspicionless monitoring for CSAM of all online communications, and particularly private interpersonal communications (as distinguished from publicly-available content), would impermissibly violate the prohibition against general monitoring as well as Europeans’ fundamental privacy rights. The latter includes the rights of European children, as I pointed out in comments I submitted last May. A year later, the debate over the CSA Regulation continues. One sticking point: what to do about end-to-end encryption.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • GizmodoSenators Think TikTok's CEO Lied to Congress

        At least three US senators think TikTok’s CEO may have violated federal law. In recent letters, the lawmakers say Shou Zi Chew lied about the company’s data storage practices during a combative Congressional hearing earlier this year. The renewed focus on Chew’s wishy-washy answers follows a series of news reports which suggest Chinese TikTok and ByteDance employees, and even Chinese Community Party officials, had greater access to US user data than previously known.

      • Tim ColwillSatire Without Purpose Will Wander In Dark Places

        Despite not providing any specifics or referencing Talavera by name, the message from the company was clear: if any “real-world hate groups” were to theoretically show up at a Games Workshop event, it could only be because those people had failed to grasp the inherently satirical nature of Warhammer 40,000.

        But there’s one small issue with proclaiming that Warhammer 40,000 and its protagonist The Imperium of Man are “satire”: it’s not true.

        Broadly labelling the entirety of Warhammer 40,000 as “satire” is no longer sufficient to address what the game has become in the almost 40 years since its inception. It also fails to answer the rather awkward question of why, exactly, these fascists who are allegedly too stupid to understand satire are continually showing up in your satirical community in the first place.

        At best, Games Workshop is guilty of muddled and mixed messaging; corporate custodian of a narratively top-heavy fictional universe, trying its best to plot a course through almost four decades of social change. But at its worst, the company is carelessly complicit in the open laundering of fascist ideologies and aesthetics — a slick marketing machine uncritically promoting the talking points and perspectives of the totalitarian right, in crass pursuit of greater profits.

      • The Register UKMicrosoft injects ChatGPT into 'secure' US government Azure cloud [Ed: Microsoft pandering for BAILOUTS again... military ("defence") budget]

        The generative AI boom has reached the US federal government, with Microsoft announcing the launch of its Azure OpenAI Service that allows Azure government customers to access GPT-3 and 4, as well as Embeddings.

        Through the service, government agencies will get access to ChatGPT use cases without sacrificing "the stringent security and compliance standards they need to meet government requirements for sensitive data," Microsoft explained in a canned statement.

      • The NationCornel West Should Not Be Running for President

        What does West bring to the race? A roster of legitimate complaints, but without any plan for achievable change. “I am running for truth and justice as a presidential candidate for the People’s Party to reintroduce America to the best of itself—fighting to end poverty, mass incarceration, ending wars and ecological collapse, guaranteeing housing, health care, education, and living wages for all!” Who could disagree? It could all be the sort of idealistic word-collage we get from Marianne Williamson, but in West’s case, running as a third-party candidate poses a far more serious risk to Biden’s reelection and to the fate of the country. Just be clear: He will only take votes away from Biden and help elect a Republican.

      • VOA NewsUS Sees Islamic State Affiliates Pooling Resources, Growing Capabilities

        Specifically, the United States is raising concerns about the group’s General Directorate of Provinces, a series of nine regional offices set up over the past several years to sustain the group’s reputation and global capabilities.

        The U.S. State Department on Thursday highlighted the threat posed by these regional offices, designating the leaders of the offices in Iraq and in Africa’s Sahel region as Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

      • The Telegraph UKPark stabbing joins France’s long list of violent attacks

        Since Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists – the French-born brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi – slaughtered 11 people in the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015, more than 250 people have been killed in Islamic violence in the country.

      • Scheerpost9/11 Families Horrified by PGA-LIV Golf Saudi ‘Sportswashing’ Deal

        "PGA Tour leaders should be ashamed of their hypocrisy and greed."

      • ScheerpostIn China, German Lawmaker Calls for End to Sanctions, an ‘Instrument of War’ (That Backfires for Europe)

        “Sanctions are an instrument of modern warfare”, says leftist member of the German Bundestag Sevim DaÄŸdelen, warning in a speech in China that economic war is backfiring and hurting European workers, fueling unemployment and de-industrialization.

      • RTLRTL Today - Toddlers stabbed : Two children 'still critical' after France knife attack
      • One soldier loses his life in armed combat in Siirt

        Specialized sergeant Aydın Ceylan lost his life during a clash in the rural area of Pervari, Siirt.

      • Five-year-old fatally struck by military vehicle in Hakkari

        The sergeant operating the vehicle has reportedly been placed under custody. In the last ten years, at least 22 children in Kurdish-populated areas of the country have lost their lives due to incidents involving military vehicles.

      • Democracy Now“World’s Deadliest Wars Go Unreported”: Journalist Anjan Sundaram

        The acclaimed war correspondent Anjan Sundaram joins us to discuss the state of conflict reporting and why some of the world’s deadliest wars go unreported. We cover conflict in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, as well as the future of the international media economy. Due in part to the lingering “colonial” structure of global media, Sundaram says, “these enormous wars, some of the biggest in our world today — and some of the greatest since World War II — are still relatively underreported in the international news.”

      • War in Ukraine

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Environment

      • Rolling StoneThe Climate Crisis Was Always Real. Now It’s in Your Lungs

        Al Gore once told me, “When it comes to climate change, everyone has an ‘oh shit moment’ — that moment when it gets real, when they realize what is at stake.”

        East Coasters are having an ‘oh shit moment’ right now. You look up at the sky and it’s orange, like Mars. And it’s deadly. The World Health Organization defines particulate levels above 10 ug/m3 as unhealthy. Yesterday New York City hit 800. “The air quality in New York City was at its worst ever recorded, with apocalyptic scenes being observed,” climate activist Peter Dynes tweeted. “This is not a simulation or a scene from a movie; this is the current climate reality. Time for the masses to realize the severity of this crisis.”

      • The NationOn a Rapidly Warming Planet, Home Is a Luxury

        Greenville Calif.—Pines and firs parched by a three-year drought had been burning for days on a ridge 1,000 feet above my remote mountain town. On August 4, 2021, the flames suddenly flared into a heat so intense it formed a molten cloud the color of bruised flesh. As that sinister cumulus rose above an oval-shaped reservoir, it collapsed, sending red-hot embers down the steep slopes toward Greenville in a storm of torched trees and exploding shrubs. It took less than 30 minutes for the Dixie fire to transform my town’s tarnished Gold Rush charm into a heap of smoldering hand-hewn timbers and century-old brick walls.

      • European CommissionCircular economy: Commission recommends actions to boost recycling in 18 Member States at risk of missing waste targets*

        European Commission Press release Brussels, 08 Jun 2023 In a report published today, the Commission identifies Member States at risk of not meeting the 2025 preparing for re-use and recycling targets for municipal and all packaging waste and the 2035 landfilling target.

      • Energy/Transportation

        • Michael West MediaDrivers face pump pain as profits fuel inflation debate

          Petrol prices are set to surge above $2 a litre€ this long weekend as new details emerge about what is really driving inflation.

          Motorists€ have been urged to sniff around for bargains before the King’s Birthday break, with analysis uncovering as much as 45 cents difference between the cheapest and most expensive fuel.

        • Michael West MediaACT bans new gas connections, but BBQs have green light

          An Australian-first law to ban new gas network connections has been passed in the ACT but households can still fire up the gas barbecue.

          Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Shane Rattenbury said the ACT was leading the way on climate change action, with Canberra aiming to be a zero-emissions capital.

        • DeSmogDeSmog Launches Industrial Aquaculture Project

          At first glance, fish might seem like a climate-friendly alternative to meat for a world that needs to shift away from carbon-intensive cattle. At least the seafood farming (or ‘aquaculture’) industry would have you see it that way.Right now the market for farmed fish like salmon is booming. In fact it’s the fastest-growing food sector in the world. This is thanks in no small part to excellent marketing that brands this fish as the ‘chicken of the sea’: low-carbon, easy to cook and sustainable.

          But there’s a hitch with this ‘sustainable protein’ spin. Like other intensive farming sectors, aquaculture has been dogged by controversy, and accused of varied ecological and social harms including animal welfare concerns, pollution and highly complex, extractive supply chains, which source the feed that farmed fish rely on.

        • European CommissionEU among first to accept WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies

          European Commission Press release Brussels, 08 Jun 2023 The EU today formally accepted the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies on behalf of its 27 Member States.

        • DeSmogHow Fishmeal Factories Put Food Out of Reach for Communities in The Gambia

          The fishmeal trade is undermining human rights and putting jobs at risk in The Gambia, a new report has found.

          Research by Amnesty International has uncovered a range of social and environmental problems caused by the country’s three fish processing factories, which are strung out along the small West African country’s 30 kilometre coastline.€ 

        • DeSmogThey’re not energy companies – they’re fossil fuel companies

          If Marty McFly and Doc were to travel from the past to spring 2023, they’d think that the Delorean had gotten the date wrong; it’s just too hot for this time of year. But thermometers don’t lie. Spain and several Mediterranean countries registered heat in April that would be “almost impossible” without climate change, as an attribution study recently indicated. The same specialists found that the period of extreme temperatures endured by several South Asian regions was at least 30 times more likely the result of global warming. The situation is the same across the world.

        • DeSmogReplace fossil fuels — with more fossil fuels? That’s one major utility’s plan.

          By Katie Myers, Grist. This story was originally published in Grist, and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate crisis.

          Austin Wall was attending an environmental law conference at the University of Tennessee not long ago when, during a discussion of natural gas pipeline projects, a map appeared on the screen and gave him a surprise.

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • ScheerpostYou Sure You Want To Eat That Sentient Being? (w/ Peter Singer)

          Peter Singer’s classic work on animal welfare, remastered for the modern age, remains a timeless source of the lessons he has passionately conveyed for the past 50 years.

        • TwinCities Pioneer PressHow safe is the air? Here’s how to check and what the numbers mean

          The Environmental Protection Agency monitors the air around the country and compiles an air quality index, or AQI.

        • uni StanfordComing to our Senses: Nature Connection As a Shift in Perspective

          The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained. – David Bohm A friend told me about an experience she had, which I return to often.

        • Democracy Now“Airpocalypse”: David Wallace-Wells on Red Skies, Raging Wildfires & Pollution Link to Climate Crisis

          Record-breaking Canadian wildfires continue to fill skies across much of North America with smoke, putting about 100 million people under air quality alerts. New York City recorded the worst air quality of any major city in the world as a result of the haze. Around the world, air pollution is already responsible for as many as 10 million deaths per year, and the problem is likely to get worse, says New York Times opinion writer David Wallace-Wells. He explains how today’s smoky skies are a glimpse of our future in the climate crisis, when warmer temperatures and dry conditions will continue to increase the size and severity of wildfires across the globe. “It’s not just that we’re getting more fires, and it’s not even that they’re getting larger. They’re also getting much more intense, which means that they are cooking much of the landscape,” says Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. We also hear from Cree/Iroquois/French journalist Brandi Morin, who just returned from reporting on the wildfires raging in the remote Indigenous community of Fort Chipewyan in Canada’s North, which she calls the “epicenter of the effects of climate change because it’s downstream from one of the largest oil production developments in the world, Alberta’s oil sands.”

        • ScheerpostNew York Reports Worst Air Quality in the World as Smoke Creeps Along the Coast

          Canadian wildfires send smoke and air pollution to more than 55 million Americans.

        • HackadayRobotic Fox Is Part Dog, Part Cat — Just Like The Real Thing

          Foxes are cat software running on dog hardware, or so they say. And [Will Cogley] seems to have taken that to heart with this 3D-printed robotic fox, which borrows heavily from projects like Boston Dynamics Spot robodog. True, the analogy breaks down a bit when you include MIT’s Cheetah on the inspiration list, but you get the point.

        • DeSmogOil and Pipeline Companies Are Backing a ‘Water Quality Restoration’ Project in North America’s Biggest Swamp

          Covering a million acres along Louisiana’s central southwest coast, the Atchafalaya Basin is the largest contiguous swamp in North America. It’s home to centuries-old tupelo and cypress trees, along with dozens of species of shellfish and fish, from shrimp and crawfish to freshwater drum and catfish.

          This abundance makes the Basin one the most important points on the Mississippi Flyway, a bustling migratory route that millions of birds travel annually, stretching from breeding grounds in Canada to wintering grounds in Central and South America.

      • Overpopulation

        • The EconomistRussia’s population nightmare is going to get even worse

          War is not the sole—or even the main—cause of these troubles, but it has made them all worse. According to Western estimates, 175,000-250,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the past year (Russia’s figures are lower). Somewhere between 500,000 and 1m mostly young, educated people have evaded the meat-grinder by fleeing abroad. Even if Russia had no other demographic problems, losing so many in such a short time would be painful. As it is, the losses of war are placing more burdens on a shrinking, ailing population. Russia may be entering a doom loop of demographic decline.

    • Finance

      • Caution for Indian IT Professionals: 9 US Companies with the Highest Layoffs of Indian Professionals
      • Study: Washington state 22nd in the nation for increasing unemployment claims
      • Michael West MediaEurozone slips into slight recession

        Eurozone economic output contracted for two consecutive quarters, according to official revised figures, meaning it has entered a technical recession.

        Gross domestic product (GDP) dropped by 0.1 per cent over the first three months of 2023 compared to the fourth quarter of 2022.

      • Michael West MediaBusiness Lobby's War on Albo
      • Massive Tech Layoffs In 2023: Major Companies & Startups Slash Jobs

        The tech industry’s reckoning from last year continues.. Tens of thousands of tech workers lost their jobs in significant layoffs in 2023, but this time, the biggest names in the industry, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, Meta, and Zoom, were responsible Startups have also announced layoffs in every industry, from enterprise SaaS to cryptocurrency.

        The macroeconomic environment and the need for discipline on a bumpy road to profitability are frequently the causes of workforce reductions.

      • India TodayByju’s is said to fire 1,000 more employees to cut costs

        Byju’s is said to fire hundreds of more employees at the company. A new report claims that the Edtech startup is planning to layoff 1,000 more employees, as part of its cost-cutting measures and to streamline operations. The latest round of layoffs will be impacting a few departments and some third-party staffers. Here is everything we know so far.

        Byju’s first announced the layoff of 2,500 employees back in October 2022 and now, the company is ready to let go of more workers, as per an ET report. The employees who were working on a contractual basis in the on-ground sales teams will be affected the most.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Marcy WheelerProsecutors Interviewing Witnesses Who Knew Trump Was Hoarding Documents

        The WaPo story reporting that most stolen documents charges will be filed in Florida is more reliable than the report promising an indictment today.

      • Hollywood ReporterLongtime Amazon Executive Jeff Blackburn Elected to Roku Board of Directors

        Blackburn most recently served as Amazon’s svp for global media and entertainment, where his purview included Prime Video, Amazon Studios, Amazon Music, Audible and Twitch, among other divisions. The executive retired from Amazon earlier this year after more than two decades at the company, which he first joined in 1998 after helping Amazon with its IPO while working at Deutsche Bank.

      • Vice Media GroupPornhub Tells Users to Take Action Before Politicians Take Their Porn Away

        The laws — Virginia SB 1515, Mississippi SB 2346, and Arkansas SB 66 — are copycats of a law passed in Louisiana in January that makes porn sites liable for content that’s “harmful to minors,” and punishes site owners if they don’t doesn’t install age verification technology. For Pornhub viewers in Louisiana, this means submitting to an age check using their driver’s license or other government-issued ID. Privacy experts have called these kinds of laws a “time bomb” for identity theft.

      • DroidGazzetteApple wants to build 324,000 square feet of office space in North Carolina

        The campus, which could house more than 3,000 workers, calls for buildings up to 73 feet tall, up to 8 stories, and sits on 281 acres of land.

        According to WRAL Tech Wire, Apple filed the paperwork on May 30, and had begun applying for permits within Wake County in August 2022. The permits were related to clearing land and managing stormwater before construction officially began.

      • WRAL TechwireApple files plans for 324,000 square feet of office space at RTP campus

        An application shows plans for a 324,000-square-foot office, calling for professional space with buildings up to 73 feet tall, roughly 6 to 8 stories. Apple filed the site work plans on May 30 in order to start moving dirt.

        For context, 324,000 square feet is about twice the size of the average Walmart Supercenter.

        Apple was previously awarded $1.2 billion in an incentive package from the state.

      • Common DreamsWe Love the Smell Of Indictments In the Evening

        Oh yeah. Thank God, Jack Smith, the Boxes Hoax and just this once the media for the news twice-impeached, once-indicted, sedition-attempting, legally liable for sexual abuse grifter, mobster, rancid heap of human garbage and cameo actor in Home Alone 2 Donald Trump has been indicted, this time reportedly on seven federal charges ranging from willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act to conspiracy to obstruct justice to making “false statements.” Espionage! Good times.

      • The NationMike Pence’s Presidential Amnesia

        In the old model of right-wing leadership, a tour as vice president served as a major selling point in a pitch for the presidency. It was, after all, the sole basis for Richard Nixon’s claim to Serious Leader status and the only conceivable explanation for George H.W. Bush’s election. Even Bush’s own achievement-challenged second in command, Dan Quayle, felt more or less obliged to half-heartedly launch his own presidential bid in 2000.

      • Michael West MediaPM defends Gallagher on Higgins text allegations

        Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended his Finance Minister Katy Gallagher amid allegations she misled parliament about when she knew about ex-Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation.

        Ms Higgins reached a compensation agreement with the Commonwealth in December 2022 after she launched legal action against her employers in the previous coalition government.

      • The NationNew CNN Logo/Tattoo
      • The NationDoes Fatima Mousa Mohammed Oppose Israel’s Very Existence?

        Fatima Mousa Mohammed said many things during her 12-minute commencement address to the City University New York School of Law graduating class of 2023, earning her a ferocious rebuke—some of it right, much of it wrong—from Ted Cruz, Eric Adams, various Jewish organizations, and CUNY itself, among others. A student speaker selected by her peers, Mohammed made relatively little mention of the “fascist NYPD” compared to her heavy focus on Israel, which broadly commingled the Jewish state with white supremacy, and her calls for the end to “capitalism, racism, imperialism, and Zionism around the world.” She had previously tweeted: “may every Zionist burn in the hottest pit of hell.”

      • The NationHow the John Birch Society Won the Long Game

        Even at the peak of its influence in the early 1960s, the John Birch Society was regarded as something of a joke by liberals and conservatives alike. The Birchers were so extreme that many of them thought Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon were too soft. One California Bircher opined that if Nixon won the Republican gubernatorial primary, “we might as well teach our children how to count in rubles.” Robert Welch, the ex-candymaker and Harvard Law dropout who founded the John Birch Society, became infamous for describing Dwight Eisenhower as a “dedicated, conscious agent of the communist conspiracy.”

      • The NationThe Right’s Latest Target: No-Fault Divorce

        Republicans have been on quite a successful rampage against modern life: banning abortion, trying to make contraception harder to get, dumping books about race, sex, gender, and the Holocaust (the Holocaust?!) from school libraries, tormenting trans people. You’d think they’d take a break, but no—now they’ve set their sights on a new target: no-fault divorce. Leading the charge are Republican legislators in some of the worst states for women (looking at you, Louisiana!) and reactionary anti-feminist ranters like Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, and Steven Crowder. Fun story: Crowder went viral for portraying himself as a victim of no-fault divorce, expressing shock that his wife could divorce him without his permission even “in Texas”—shortly before a video emerged in which he berated his heavily pregnant wife for, among other domestic failings, not being “wife-worthy.” Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour!

      • The NationAmerica’s Suburbs Are Breeding Grounds for Fascism

        The Target closest to where I sit is in Torrington, Conn. It’s next to a Home Depot, a Wendy’s, a Walgreens, a Walmart, a Chipotle. Driving is the only option here, unless you’re willing to take the one available bus from downtown and then walk along one of two large highways that bisect the area. If you drive down a few miles, roads without sidewalks appear, on which sit houses for sale—four bedrooms, new construction, two-car garages, and gray exteriors.

      • Michael West MediaBarunga Voice Declaration calls on people to vote 'yes'

        Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney has been handed a declaration by the Northern Territory’s four land councils in support of a First Nations voice in the upcoming referendum.

        More than 200 representatives of the Northern, Central, Tiwi and Anindilyakwa councils are€ gathered on the traditional lands of the Bagala (Jawoyn) people southeast of Katherine for the Barunga Festival, which began on Friday.

      • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

        • NPRDeSantis campaign shares apparent AI-generated fake images of Trump and Fauci

          In a collage of six pictures of the two men, three appear to be AI-generated fakes depicting Trump and Fauci embracing. The other three are real photos of the two men together in March 2020, according to AFP, which first identified the fakes.

          "It was particularly sneaky to intermix the real and the fake images, as if the presence of the real image would give more credibility to the other images," said Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert and professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • The NationNew York’s Prison System Abruptly Halts a Policy Censoring Artists and Writers

        On May 11, New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) quietly issued Directive 4406, requiring incarcerated writers and artists to submit all creative works to the prison superintendent for approval before being sent to a nonprofit organization for publication or exhibition. Writers and artists would not be allowed to receive money, or even a nonfinancial prize such as a book, for their works. The directive defined creative works as including books, art, music, poetry, film scripts, and other writings. It allowed the superintendent to deny approval based on several vaguely worded criteria, including any depiction of the author or artist’s crime or victims, advocating rebellion against governmental authority, or portraying law enforcement or DOCCS “in a manner which could jeopardize safety and security.”

        “This is censorship,” Bellamy said. “If that directive had been in effect [when I was behind bars], the superintendent would not have let me publish about Covid or the death of Val Gaiter [New York’s longest-serving incarcerated woman],” he said.

      • TechdirtJim Jordan Further Weaponizes His Subcommittee On The Weaponization Of The Gov’t To Chill Speech

        Rep. Jim Jordan is at it again. You’ll recall that Jordan ignored subpoenas from the January 6th Committee and was referred to the House Ethics Committee for his failure to respond to those subpoenas. Of course, since being handed the keys to the brand new (created just for him) “Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Government,” Jordan has been furiously flinging spurious subpoenas left and right, and then threatening contempt proceedings for anyone who ignores them.

      • TechdirtTennessee Appeals Court Says Vanity License Plates Are Likely Protected Speech

        There have been lots of legal battles fought over proprietary blends of numbers and letters. States collecting a premium for vanity plates claim this is government speech, since it’s a state-issued plate. Or, if it’s not quite government speech, it’s the government’s tacit approval of this speech, even if the vanity plate really only contains statements made by plate owners.

      • MeduzaRussian authorities block all sites of human rights advocacy group OVD-Info — Meduza

        Russia’s federal censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, has blocked all of the websites run by the human rights advocacy group OVD-Info. The authorities have not provided a reason for the blockage, according to the organization’s statement.

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • 37signals LLCHybrid combines the worst of office and remote work

        The honeymoon for remote work is over, and managers who never liked the concept to begin with are plotting its complete reversal, so that things may return to how they were before The Great Remote Experiment. This experiment convinced millions of employees of how much better life could be without a commute or even having to live by the office, but also left uneasy the legions of managers whose skills and mindsets were anchored in the office.

        This reversal plot is know as hybrid work, and combines the worst of in-office and remote work worlds. The shrewd – but likely temporary – concession here is starting with three days in the office, two from home. By starting like this, managers who have no interest in remote work at all can claim to have "compromised", dulling the urge to revolt. Then once resistance has worn down, the last two days can be dropped, and a full-time office reality can once again reign supreme.

      • Patrick Breyer#Qatargate: New Ethics Body is toothless

        Today, the European Commission presented its plans for an inter-institutional Ethics Body in response to the “Qatargate” corruption scandal in the European Parliament to increase transparency in nine major EU institutions. But the proposed measures, such as a creating an ethics supervisory body without investigative and enforcement powers, are toothless, criticise MEPs from the Pirate Party, who recently presented their own proposals to increase transparency and integrity.

      • NPRCourts have long seen K-9 dogs as impartial. Now police bodycams hold them accountable

        A newly filed federal lawsuit in Texas shows cameras' potential to undermine K-9 unit legitimacy. Houston resident Alek Schott accuses Bexar County Sheriff's deputy Joel Babb of pulling him over on Interstate 35 on false pretenses, and then, when he refused to give permission to search his pickup truck, he says K-9 unit deputy Martin A. Molina III prompted his dog to "alert" to the scent of drugs.

        Historically, that claim would have been nearly impossible to prove. But in this case, Schott requested and received the officers' body camera footage, giving him almost the same view the K-9 handler had — including the moment the handler's right hand made a gesture toward the attentive dog, which then jumped up on the pickup's door.

      • Hollywood ReporterWriters’ Shut-It-Down Strategy Has Been Effective, Executives Privately Concede

        The focus on shutdowns, which rely on the cooperation of fellow workplace unions, is a remarkable shift for the Writers Guild. During its previous strike in 2007-08, when it found itself far more isolated and at odds with its nominal labor allies, there was no equivalent strategy. Now the guild finds itself the beneficiary of unity, in alignment with the fractious Hollywood worker caucus of other unions, each nursing their own set of at times overlapping grievances, and eager to soften the ground for their own contract negotiations. For its part, the WGA declined to “discuss the specifics” of the shutdown strategy.

        On average, a lost day of production costs companies between $200,000 and $300,000. Insurance policies don’t cover shutdowns that are caused by the strike. Leading industry underwriter Allianz notes to THR, “It is still early days and too soon to speculate on any impact on future insurance premiums.”

      • The NationThe Racist, Insulting Resurgence of Work Requirements

        The nation has averted an entirely manufactured financial crisis. Last week, President Biden signed a deal hashed out with House Republicans to raise the debt ceiling—an arbitrary limit Congress places on how much debt the Treasury can take on to pay for the bills Congress itself already incurred—which means a US default, which could have wrecked the economy, is off the table until 2025.

      • Michael West MediaSydney Cemetery War: meet the new boss, same as the old boss

        New Minister for Cemeteries, Steve Kamper, risks breaching the NSW Government’s direct dealings guidelines and a referral to ICAC over promises made to the Catholic Archdiocese before the March election. Callum Foote and Michael West report on the battle for control of Sydney’s cemeteries.

        To borrow from The Who’s classic rock song, Won’t Get Fooled Again, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”, the Catholic hierarchy of the new Labor government under Chris Minns finds itself with the same grave challenges as the former government of Dominic Perrottet.

      • Pro PublicaTexas Lawmakers Quietly Pull Funding for Child ID Kits

        For months, Texas lawmakers were on track to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to continue distributing child identification kits to Texas schoolchildren, a program championed by state officials.

        In April, both the Texas House and Senate approved preliminary budgets that included money for the National Child Identification Program’s kits.

      • ScheerpostThe Cultural Looting of Gaza

        Human Rights activist Miko Peled on the theft of priceless archaeological treasures from Gaza, which he argues is part of a larger Israeli campaign of genocide and erasure.

      • ScheerpostSupreme Court Weakened Legal Protections for Striking. Only Jackson Dissented.

        Unions still have the right to strike, but eight Supreme Court members erected barriers to that fundamental right.

      • MeduzaCall it fascism Jonathan Littell on the trial of Oleg Orlov and why imprisoned dissidents are the freest people in today’s Russia — Meduza

        A new political trial started in Moscow on Thursday, June 8. The defendant is Oleg Orlov, a Russian scientist, scholar, human rights advocate, and co-founder of Memorial, Russia’s key civil liberties organization, awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. The Russian authorities are accusing Orlov of “rehabilitating Nazism” and “discrediting the Russian military” — because he’s dared to compare Vladimir Putin’s regime to the fascist regimes of the past century. The lifelong activist is now threatened with up to five years in prison. The French-American novelist Jonathan Littell, who conducted humanitarian work in Chechnya in the early aughts, witnessing the warfare of Putin’s early years in power, writes about Oleg Orlov, the self-contradictory nature of the charges he is facing, and the importance of defiant dissidents like Orlov and their apparently impractical determination to remain in Russia, facing prosecution. Meduza has translated Littell’s defense of Oleg Orlov originally published in French.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • APNICIPv6 in Pakistan

        Guest Post: How regulatory or policy support can support IPv6 deployment in Pakistan.

    • Monopolies

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • pet mortality

        I have to come to terms with my dog's aging and death.

        It's super hard on me to spot new things each month. Progression of his diseases, signs of old age, changes in his behavior or routines, changes in how he behaves on his walks. Sadly, 6 months are really, really long in a dog's life, accounted for their overall lifespan. For us, it's basically nothing, but for them and their bodies, it's like multiple years. So much can change in that time.

        [...]

        I just think it's heart breaking to see and know the dog from back then is still in there, but trapped in a failing meat suit, a prison. Thankfully he is still fine in the sense of eating well, pooping and drinking well, being playful, happy, wagging his tail, excited for walks, enjoying pets, and being talkative. But it's only a matter of months or weeks until he will probably enter the final stage of Cushings, in which he becomes too weak to walk properly, or becomes completely incontinent, pissing himself constantly. That is when it's time to let go.

      • is someone's opinion all that matters?

        Short answer, no. Everyone has different opinions on everything, and even when they do, it's usually because of different reasons. So if you care about the other person's opinions, it's usually because either you can only see people as big balls of different opinions (so that you'd think it's the only thing you can leech on to others), or you take your opinions more seriously than you probably should (as in all your identity is based around opinions). Otherwise even if the reasons are the same, it's still just 1 opinion, and there are many other opinions that exists within a person.

      • K-On!

        Girl joining school club, girls do stuff, girl learn guitar, perform, meet people, do more stuff, somehow everything goes smooth, drink tea, a lot of tea, get stupid reasons, resolve stupid reasons.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: ADHLOTU Wordo: FACTY
    • Technology and Free Software

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Gemini Identity

          @Morgan has a prototype implementation of an identity service for Gemini. This is certainly interesting! Some quick thoughts: * If this is something that people want to use, it should not rely on a single central server. Anyone should be able to self-host their identity service and servers should not assume a default one. * How does this mesh with people not wanting to be tracked across Geminispace? I suppose you can just opt not to use an identity service if you want to remain more anonymous.

        • BBS Comments on Cosmos

          Cosmos has been updated to check bbs.geminispace.org for comment posts. Let's see if this one appears in there!


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



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GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 06, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 06, 2024
Microsoft-Connected Publishers Want Us to Think That Linux is Some Sort of a Virus and a "Backdoor"
"The problem is with windows and the attack vector is via Windows"
We've Made it to 18! Here's to Another 18!
Going on for another 18 years means until some time at the end of 2042
Links 07/11/2024: Political Angst and Laptop Issues
Links for the day
Even LKML Subjected to Slop/SPAM by Guardian Digital, Inc (linuxsecurity.com)
They're really awful
Links 06/11/2024: BPF in RFC 9669, More Facebook Fines for Privacy Abuses
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Political Shock and Hermaic Encouragement
Links for the day
Planet Debian Allows Politics (But It Depends on Your Opinions and Debian's Big Sponsors)
Planet Debian is OK with politics... as long as all your political opinions are the "correct" ones and you add cute animals
What Makes RMS Such an Attractive Target ('Discreditisation' Campaigns)
Don't be so easily fooled
The Biggest OEMs or Vendors of GNU/Linux Stopped Competing With Microsoft (Which Pays Them to Promote Windows, Too)
Where are the competition authorities (or regulators for that matter)?
Let's Encrypt Falls to a New Low of Only 0.6% of Gemini Capsules Known to Lupa
In Gemini Protocol, certificates for encryption are required, but centralised Certificate Authorities (CAs) aren't needed
Computer-Generator Crap Flooding the Web, the Latest Example About "Linux"
Here's today's example
Links 06/11/2024: Election Disinformation and Legal Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Stargazing and Death on Hallowe'en
Links for the day
Would You Trust a Liar?
Why lie about the authorship?
Mass Layoffs at Mozilla Announced During US Elections
Maybe nobody will notice?
[Meme] Announcing "Results" Before Everyone Even "Played"
There is a "tech" angle to otherwise political news
US Polls Close in One Minute (Social Control Media Does Not Care, Will Not Wait)
US election results will be known in about 2 days
Concentration and Centralisation Versus Aggregation or Syndication
KDE has a history of burying old sites
Social Control Media, Even Hours Before Polls Have Closed
Has social control media controlled by CPC (TikTok) and the Trumpmobile guy (Musk's "X") done enough to convince people not to even vote (based on presumptive "results", presented a long time before all polls have closed)?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 05, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Wayland Pains in Community-Led Distros of GNU/Linux
Few people and companies use Wayland; there's hardly any technical or practical reason to choose it
IBM Still Conflating Microsoft With 'Security'
As a meme
Sanctions Cause Fragmentation in Software
some Chinese Linux developers are already subjected to restrictions similar to Russians'
Web Failing With Slop, Even in 'Linux' Sites (LLM Spam)
Add SEO prompting to the mix and the Web becomes a pool of slop, not knowledge
[Meme] State of the World Wide Web and Online Journalism
Technically a failure (DRM) and cannot even get basic things right
Trump's signature policy, building a wall, copied from Irish-Australian student politician
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linus Torvalds' self-deprecating LKML CoC mail linked to Hitler's first writing: Gemlich letter
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] Turning 18 in One Day
just one more day