Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 03/09/2022: Encrypted Audio and Video Calls With Kaidan



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • VideoDoes GNOME Really Want To Destroy Theming? - Invidious

        Even today I still here people saying that GNOME wants to destroy theming or you can't theme Libadwaita so let's actually look at the facts and see what it's like

      • VideoIs it Time to Retire the OTB [OldTechBloke] Channel? - Invidious

        This is my first video upload for three months and during that time I've received many messages and comments asking about my health, what's happening with the channel, and yes, implying that possibly I may be thinking the channel has reached the end of its natural life. Well in this video I will be answering those questions as well as giving an update on my biking experiences over the last few months and, of course, touching on Linux in the process.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Make Use OfHow to Install and Use Homebrew on Linux

        Homebrew is a free and open-source package manager for Linux and macOS. Although different Linux distros ship with their own package managers, such as APT, DNF, Pacman, etc., to facilitate software installation, you'll want Homebrew on your system if you wish to install programs that aren't available in the default Linux distro repositories.

        Let's check out Homebrew and the steps to install and use it on Linux.

      • OMG UbuntuHow to Make Console Your Default Terminal App on Ubuntu - OMG! Ubuntu!

        Ubuntu developers have decided not to make GNOME’s Console the default terminal emulator in the upcoming Ubuntu 22.10 release, but that doesn’t meant you can’t.

        Console is billed as a “simple user-friendly terminal emulator for the GNOME desktop” and, by all accounts, that’s exactly what it is. Functionally speaking, it’s not as avanced as GNOME Terminal, which is the VTE Ubuntu and most Linux distros that ship the GNOME desktop environment use.

        But honestly? Speaking as a Linux user who uses the terminal daily for package management, system monitoring, and playing around with awesome command line tools like ncdu, mapscii, and musikcube, I’m yet to encounter anything Console can’t do.

      • ELinuxExclude ai1wm-backup folder from Softaculous backups | Linux Webhosting blog

        For WordPress websites that use both Softaculous backups and AllInOne Migration plugin backups, Softaculous backups include the .wpress files created by the ai1wm plugin and therefore this will significantly increase the size of Softaculous backup files. To exclude ai1wm-backup folder from Softaculous backups SSH into your server and navigate to the following path:

      • ELinuxHow to move email accounts from G-Suite to cPanel | Linux Webhosting blog CPanel / WHM

        In this guide I will be using IMAPSync tool to move emails from G-Suite to cPanel.

      • ELinuxHow to Create Secure Passwords from the Terminal | Linux Webhosting blog

        Studies on passwords show that people are still using the same passwords even through several years.The worst passwords are the same. This is a danger in our security, sooner or later we could be hacked. Take a look of the summary of the worst passwords from Wikipedia.

      • ELinuxHow to enable comodo WAF modsecurity in cpanel for free

        Login to WHM > ModSecurity™ Vendors and under “OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set V3.0” click on the “+ install” link and to add a third-party rule set click on “Add Vendor” button.

      • ELinuxHow to create bulk email accounts in cpanel server

        Here is how to bulk create email accounts in cPanel under a single domain name.

      • MakeTech EasierHow to Hide the Top Bar and Side Panel in Ubuntu - Make Tech Easier

        You decided to try Ubuntu 22.04 and the Gnome desktop environment that comes with it. You feel, though, that Gnome’s top bar and side panel are always in the way and would prefer your apps to take up the whole screen. Learn how to hide the top bar and side panel in Ubuntu 22.04.

      • ELinuxHow to stop xmlrpc ddos attack on wordpress in cpanel and whm

        xmlrpc.com is a WordPress file that was intended to be used for API’s but lately it’s more and more used as a way for hackers to brute-force WordPress installations.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Encrypted Audio and Video Calls - Kaidan

          Kaidan will receive a grant by NLnet for adding encrypted audio and video calls.

          The calls will be end-to-end encrypted and authenticated via OMEMO. Furthermore, Kaidan will support small group calls. We strive for interoperability between Kaidan and other XMPP apps supporting calls. In order to achieve that, we will implement a large number of XEPs (XMPP Extension Protocols). They make it possible to have a modern call experience.

          Calls have become more widespread over the past few years in free XMPP chat apps. Especially, grants by NLnet made that possible. The development speed and interoperability between different apps have increased. Such an intense development often results in improved specifications. But sometimes the development overtakes the standardization. In that case, the standardization needs to catch up what has already been implemented.

          We have to handle that circumstance with group calls and invitations to calls at the moment. There are some adjustments that are not yet official. To make calls from Kaidan to other apps already supporting them, we have to base our work on those changes. If those unofficial adjustments are being modified later to become official, we will need to modify Kaidan as well. But we see the evolution of calls in XMPP as a huge progress and are ready for adaption!

        • GSOC Update 3

          These last few weeks have been a good learning experience with Krita as I try to implement a node visitor and save context classes. First we want to create a saveContext class for svg called KisScalableVectorGraphicsSaveContext that will be used to save to the file when visiting all nodes. This class is fairly cookie cutter and takes a KoStore to use to write to a specified file. The real work will happen in our node visitor class KisScalableVectorGraphicsSaveVisitor. Most of this right now includes some template visit functions like visit(KisPaintLayer *layer) that just calls saveLayer(KisLayer *layer) to save the specific type of layer. One small quirk here was when trying to find out where vector layers are processed. After experimenting with the ora plugin I found out this would be visited under the group layer function visit(KisGroupLayer *layer) so I similar for the svg plugin.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Beta NewsChinese-made deepin 20.7 Linux distro is ready to replace Windows 11 on your PC

      Once of the most beautiful and user-friendly operating systems is a Linux distribution from China called deepin. If you are dissatisfied with Windows 11 or macOS, and you are intrigued by Linux, deepin can be a great choice if you highly value beauty and well-designed user interfaces.

      The newest version of that operating system, deepin 20.7, is now ready to be downloaded, and it is chock-full of bug fixes and new features such as improved Grand Search with Google integration and an enhanced Mail app with new calendar functionality. Yes, this looks to be the best version of deepin yet!

      "In deepin 20.7, we have developed and integrated a great number of practical functions based on the community users' feedback, synchronized with the upstream kernel version, fixed underlying vulnerabilities, upgraded the Stable kernel to V5.15.45, added the HWE 5.18 kernel to be compatible with more devices, and further improved system compatibility and security," explains the development team.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Programming/Development

      • Linux Links8 Top Free and Open Source Kotlin Web Frameworks - LinuxLinks

        One of the types of software that’s important for a web developer is the web framework. A framework “is a code library that makes a developer’s life easier when building reliable, scalable, and maintainable web applications” by providing reusable code or extensions for common operations. By saving development time, developers can concentrate on application logic rather than mundane elements.

        A web framework offers the developer a choice about how to solve a specific problem. By using a framework, a developer lets the framework control portions of their application. While it’s perfectly possible to code a web application without using a framework, it’s more practical to use one.

        Kotlin is a cross-platform, statically typed, general-purpose programming language with type inference. Kotlin is a more modern version of Java. It adopts functional ideas such as immutability and first-class functions, out of the box, and it is also object oriented.

      • Barry KaulerBaCon 4.5.1pre and utilities now compile in OE
      • Bozhidar BatsovSetting up Emacs for OCaml Development - (think)

        I’ve promised you articles about OCaml and here they come! The first order of business when learning a new programming language is to setup Emacs for effective programming in it.

      • More recursive definitions
      • Perl / Raku

        • PerlDeath: A Terminal Experience | Saif [blogs.perl.org]

          A program being executed, self terminating on encountering an non-viable condition is a typical scenario in Perl programs. The death sentence can deliver information about the departed application to the user as justification and demand appropriate resolution for the subsequent reincarnation.

          Now I know my code fails more often than it succeeds, and it is for this reason I am planning an alternative wake for the programmed parting of my future terminal applications. As a once-in-a-run-time event, death might be more elaborately delivered, something to be celebrated. The last words of a dying application softens the developers ensuing grief, while encouraging resuscitation with an appropriately delivered injection of code.

    • Standards/Consortia

      • Jim NielsenValidating HTML - Jim Nielsen’s Blog

        To bluntly answer the question: I validate, but only when I encounter a perplexing cross-browser issue I can’t seem to solve.

        In those cases, I’ll copy the one-off HTML document I’m dealing with and paste it into the W3C’s browser-based markup validation service to check for any errors I can’t seem to spot.

        While that service is useful for manually validating individual documents, it’s not particularly practical for systematically validating HTML as part of an automated software development pipeline.

        That said, a while back I discovered the W3C Nu HTML Checker which also validates HTML. It has a HTTP API which you can leverage to automate the process of validating multiple HTML documents.

        I wrote a little script to interface with the API and check the HTML files output by my static site generator, but it kept returning 503 errors on many of the files.

  • Leftovers

    • Security

      • Ruben SchadeRubenerd: Hyundai’s AES key was lifted from an example

        The Register’s Thomas Claburn reported on a blog post by greenluigi1 where they investigate the feasibility of modifying the car’s In-Vehicle Infotainment system. It’s well written with clear steps and screenshots; I love reading through someone’s thought process when it comes to this stuff.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Internet Freedom FoundationComments on the consultation paper on the need for a new framework for governing telecommunications in India

        On July 23, 2022, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) released a consultation paper on the need for a new framework for governing telecommunications in India. Read our response engaging with specific issues such as internet shutdowns, net neutrality, and an overhaul of the surveillance framework contained in the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885.

        [...]

        The paper has been divided into 10 sections related to issues such as simplifying the regulatory framework, spectrum management, right of way, insolvency, and the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). The paper also indicates a need for a new law and a simplified regulatory framework. A bulleted summary of the paper highlighting its main suggestions may be accessed here. While the paper discusses certain essential issues which have to be addressed in this overhaul, it conspicuously misses certain important points.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Sirius Cybernetics

        Recently, I read about people who use the EV charging stations, but not for charging the batteries of their electric cars, just as a parking spot.

      • The dog and the typewriter.

        In the days after the cannery shut down, I had returned home. I found a typewriter. I made text together with it every day, and I felt as one with it.

        One day it stopped stamping letters when I pressed its keys. I had fear that it would never again be as it was before. I wondered what to do, and thought to ask someone for help. A dog of mine came by, and spoke to me.

      • ZEILRVC Wordo: TUNED
    • Politics

      • Nosegay

        Not a 1450s-ish English contraction of nose (meaning nose) and gay (meaning bringing joy), to make something which brings your nose joy which is clearly preposterous; not a word commonly used in bridal shops… but a sodding mountweazel if ever I saw one.

    • Technical

      • Late Night updates

        I work as the QA lead for the Vivaldi web browser. Being a small team I also have an additional role where I am responsible for much of the release process for our desktop browser, including version daily versions to a small external (volunteer) testing group, weekly public "snapshots" (sort of like beta releases for the upcoming version), and major and minor updates to our stable version.

      • How i alias git to manage my home directory (for dotfiles)

        I am writing this on the first Saturday of September 2022 but the solution described is in use since exactly two years ago already.

      • Roll and move



        Moving one marker along a track like Snakes and Ladders is basically a way to keep track of the sum of those moves. As a race game, that’s not fun, becomes just luck. But if that is combined with stuff you do outside of the track, like being far ahead (or far behind) or having passed/not passed certain thresholds, that might be interesting. Pondering about an idea where the movement track is central and looks like the main part of the game (to get the classic nostalgic roll-and-move feel) but there’s actually other things going on on the side (on cards or on smaller player boards) which is where the skill is actually hiding. Just green hat brainstorming but something like “winner has the most sets when anyone reaches the end” or “winner has the most sets when last person reaches the end”.

        There’s also variants in this category where there there is a random race but you don’t have your permanently own central markers, instead you bet on them or auction for them etc.

      • Managing a fleet of NixOS Part 2 - A KISS design

        Let's continue my series trying to design a NixOS fleet management.

        [...]

        The mechanism is so simple, it could be adapted to many cases, like using GitHub or any data source instead of a central server. I will personally use this with my laptop as a central system to manage remote servers, which is funny as my goal is to use a server to manage workstations :-)

      • Sneakernet in a Free, Developed Society

        Regardless, the coolness of the very idea of sneakernet is incredible. I just want to use one. For something! I don't even know what, just something. When I talk about "sneakernet" in this post I don't mean the occasional file moved on a USB thumb drive between friends once in a while (even though that technically counts). I'm thinking about organised sneakernets between several actors, be they individuals or organisations.

        But is there an actually useful purpose of sneakernets in democratic countries in the developed world?

        Suppose that you aren't persecuted or part of a criminal network. Which actual use do you have for a sneakernet then? It's super simple to set up a server with sftp or file upload and download through https. That's also a lot faster and less costly than posting microSD cards to each other.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • More Brainless Content Please

          A good chunk of people complaining about the world dumbing with YouTube click-bait no doubt saw the kind of nonsense I watch and thought 'the BBC showed much more enlightening and informative content than this modern drivel'. This comparison doesn't work.

          We shouldn't compare these videos to television, but to radio. Lots of us have large sections of the day where we sit in our little box-houses, clicking through spreadsheets, doing the dishes, and broadly doing jobs which machines can almost but not-quite perform. It'd be nice to spend this time learning a language, or how to perform quadratic equations, but the tasks demand just enough mental attention to prohibit any serious thinking, so we don't do serious thinking. I like Space Feather, Shaun, and anything related to Computerphile. Other people like Joe Rogan, or rants about what Jordan Peterson thinks about frogs, or why Jordan Peterson's opinions on frogs don't work.

        • Early Internet

          I mourn the escapism of early internet. True and fun eureka moments in a environment which had no motives to provide information, except enthusiasm for sharing. A community waiting to be found, an outlet for conversation more specific than could have ever been had in near geography. A place where we could all grow together.

        • New Year 2023: Making the game fun

          I discovered a tiny gemini game full of nice ideas I feel like stea... *cough* reimplementing in 2023cards (yes, that's the short name of this project from now on). The game in question is Astrobotany [1].

      • Programming

        • The slacker’s guide to managing dotfiles

          In the past I was using Git for managing dotfiles, and it worked pretty well. Main advantages of this solution were a possibility of syncing settings between devices and an ability to easily experiment with different configurations in separate branches (let’s say switch your code editor to emacs and switch back by just changing a branch if emacs didn’t appeal to you).


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Biggest "AI Companies" (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft) Borrowed (Additional Debt) About $100,000,000,000 in a Year
Who will be held accountable for all this?
In 2009 Microsoft Was Valued at ~150 Billion Dollars, Now They Tell Us Microsoft Lost ~1,000 Billion Dollars in Value. Does That Make Sense?
Or Microsoft lost 700 billion dollars in "value" in less than two weeks
Microsoft Stock Crashed When Alleged Vista 11 Numbers Disclosed
And last summer Microsoft indicated that it had lost 400 million Windows users
It's Not About Speed, It's About the Message (or Its Depth)
Better to write news than to just link to news if there's commentary that the news may merit
Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part IV - EPO Can Get Away With Murders, Suicide Clusters, and Systematic and Prolonged Bullying by 'Team Campinos' ("Alicante Mafia" as Insiders Call It)
Nobody in the Council or the EU/EC/EP gives a damn as long as laws are broken to fabricate 'growth'
Jeff Bezos Isn't Just Killing the Washington Post, He's Killing Thousands of News Sites/Newsrooms (in Dozens of Languages) That Rely on It for Many Decades Already
Not just slopfarms; even the Ukraine-based reporters are culled by Bezos, who's looking to please the dictators of the world
Central Staff Committee Confronted António Campinos for Giving His Cocaine-Addicted Friend Over 100,000 Euros to Do Nothing, Just Pretend to be Ill, While Cutting the Salaries of Everybody Else
"On the agenda: Amicale framework & Financial assistance for courses"
 
Silent Mass Layoffs: It's Not the Revolution, It's the Loophole and the Hack ("Low Performers" or "Underperformers")
Layoffs by another approach
Mark Shuttleworth (MS) Pays Salaries to Microsoft (MS) Employees
Canonical selling Microsoft
Links 07/02/2026: Windows TCO Rising, Lousy Patents Invalided
Links for the day
Microsoft Leadership: Stop Taxing Us, Tax Only Poor People
Does Microsoft create jobs?
In Case You've Missed It (ICYMI), Google's Debt More Than Doubled in a Year
Wait till it "monetises" billions of GMail users with slop
PIPs and Silent Layoffs at IBM (and Red Hat) Still Going on, It's "Forever Layoffs" (to Skirt the WARN Act)
American workers out
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 06, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, February 06, 2026
Stressful Times for Team Campinos ("Alicante Mafia") at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
Keep pushing
Growing Discrimination in the European Patent Office (EPO)
it's a race to the bottom, basically
Converting FOSDEM Talk on Software Patents in Europe Into Formats That Work for "FOS" and Don't Have Software Patent Traps
transcoded version of the video
Google News Drowning in (or Actively Promoting) Slopfarms Again
LLM slop is a nuisance
Gemini Links 07/02/2026: "Choosing a License for Literary Work" and "Social Media Is Not Social Networking (Anymore)"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Git and Email Patches; MNT Pocket Reform
Links for the day
Geminispace Net Growth in 2026 About a Capsule a Day
A pace like this means net gain of ~300 per year, i.e. about the same as last year
Benjamin Henrion Warned About the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Court (UPC) in FOSDEM 2026
Listen to Benjamin Henrion
Economies Crashing Not Because of Slop Improving 'Efficiency' (That's a False Excuse) and 'Expensive' (Read: Qualified) Workers Discarded in Race to the Bottom
Actual cocaine addicts are pushing out moral people
IBM's CEO Speaks of Layoffs, Resorts to Mythical (False) Excuses
This has nothing to do with slop
Links 06/02/2026: Voter Intimidation and Press Shutdowns in US, Web Traffic Warped by LLM Sludge
Links for the day
Does Linux Torvalds Regret Having Dinners With Bill 'Russian Girls' Gates?
See, the rules that govern the Linux Foundation and its big sponsors aren't the same rules that apply to all of us
IBM: Cheapening Code, Cheapening Staff, Cheapening Everything
IBM's management runs IBM like it's a local branch of McDonald's. IBM is a junk company with morbid innards.
GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in One of the World's Largest Nations
Democratic Republic Of The Congo
Linux Foundation Operative Says We and Our Software All "Owe an Enormous Debt of Gratitude" to a Software Patents Reinforcer
The only true solution is to entirely get rid of all software patents
How to Win Lawsuits in 5 Simple Steps
Keep issuing threats every week and send 60 kilograms of legal papers to the target
More Than 99% of "AI" Companies Aren't AI, They're Pure BS
We need to discard those stupid debates about "AI" and reject media that gets paid to participate in such overt narrative control (manipulation like The Register MS)
AI Used to Save Lives, Now "AI" is a Grifting Scheme That Burns the Planet and Will Crash the Economy
What the media calls "AI" (it gets paid to call it that) is the same stuff that could instead be dubbed "algorithms"
Living in Freedom When 'False Flag Operations' Like EFF Get Captured by Billionaires to Take Freedom Away
There are many ways to think of Software Freedom
Amutable is a Microsoft Siege Against Freedom in GNU/Linux, Just Like the People Who Brought You 'Secure Boot' Controlled by Microsoft
Do whatever is possible to avoid Amutable and its "products"
Growing Focus on Publication
Over the past ~10 days we always served more than a million Web hits per day
"Going to be a large number of Microsoft layoffs announced soon"
Everybody knows a giant wave of layoffs is coming Microsoft's way
End of the 'GPU Bubble' and NVIDIA Finally Admits It Won't Bail Out Microsoft OpenAI Anymore
circular financing (financial/accounting fraud)
Corrupt Media Won't Hold Accountable Rich People for Role in Pedophilia
Journalistic misconduct or malpractice is a real thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 05, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, February 05, 2026
EPO Management ("Alicante Mafia") Not Properly Sharing Information on Scale of Strikes by EPO Staff
disproportionate (double) deductions in salaries against people who participate in strikes, which are protected by law
Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Slop/Microslop, Home Assistant, and Valid Ex Commands
Links for the day
Blackmail evidence: Debian social engineering exposed in ClueCon 2024 talk on politics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Bitcoin crash: opportunity or the end game?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Changes at the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
SRA is basically a waste of money
Claims That IBM Will Lay Off 20% (or 15%) of Its Workforce This Year Unless It Finds a Way to Push Them All Out by Threats, Shame, Guilt
Where are the articles about IBM layoffs?
IBM Isn't a Serious Company Anymore, It's a Ponzi Scheme Operated by a Clique and It Misuses Companies It Acquires to Prop Up or Legitimise the Scheme
IBM seems like it's nothing but a "Scheme"
Google News Drowning in Slop About "Linux" (Slopfarms Galore)
Google should know better than to link to any of these slopfarms, but today's Google is itself a pusher of slop
Links 05/02/2026: EU Commission Gutting Net Neutrality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/02/2026: NixOS Books and Monochrome Emojis
Links for the day
Links 05/02/2026: Canadian Government Uses US LLMs to Override Expert Opinions, NVIDIA Troubles Due to Enablement of Mass Plagiarism ('Piracy') Misleadingly Obscured as "Hey Hi"
Links for the day
Explaining the Letter From JUDGE SYKES FRIXOU, Threatening Me Around the Time GNOME's Nat Friedman Lost His CEO Job at Microsoft GitHub and His Best Friend Got Arrested for Strangulation
this letter (with annotation) is critical
Linuxiac Not Rehabilitated, It's Still Full of LLM Slop (Part of a Trend)
The Web as a resource/source of information is perishing
"Sponsored by Azul" to Write Fake 'Article' About Azul, Quoting Azul Itself
The "journalism" industry [sic] became so utterly corrupt
JuristGate is for sale: three billion Swiss francs for a domain name
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Like Microsoft and IBM, the 'Alicante Mafia'-Governed EPO Does PIPs Nowadays (at the EPO, It's "Professional Incompetence Procedure")
So "PIPs" are definitely in the EPO and we saw letters sent to staff
Time for Change, More New Articles, Less Curation
The oligarchy wants to gut the real press and replace media with slop and social control media (or social control media with slop in it, i.e. their own voices, mechanised)
Gemini Links 05/02/2026: Coercion, Antibiotics, and LVDT Project
Links for the day
Almost 1,600 EPO Employees Went on Strike Last Week
There is another strike coming 2.5 weeks from now
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 04, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 04, 2026