● 01.25.22

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● Links 25/1/2022: Git 2.35 and New openSUSE Hardware

Posted in News Roundup at 7:14 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Kernel Space

• With the increase of more Linux developers working on the upcoming Linux 5.17 kernel, a lot of AMD-based features will see some significant improvements and will usher in newer advancements in terms of AMD compatibility and processing in Linux.

Applications

• If you are using a Linux Desktop such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint, CentOS, RedHat… and want to access SSH using a GUI client then here are some best ones to try.

• The Secure Shell (SSH) is a protocol that allows programs (clients) to access a remote computer and execute commands or actions on it. This is very common in PCs and servers running Linux or any other Unix-like operating system and is the preferred choice for many administrators for remotely configuring and maintaining a computer. Due to its high functionality and efficiency, SSH has established itself as one of the most popular tools for accessing a computer over the network. In addition, the majority of Internet Service Providers (ISP) offer their customers web hosting with SSH to provide an easy and flexible way to access their files. Well, operating ssh is pretty easy, however, the remote server or pc must have an active SSH server such as OpenSSH, then only we can access them remotely using any SSH client.

• There’s no doubt that Skype is arguably one of the most popular instant messaging and video calling applications there is out there. Whether it’s keeping in touch with your friends and family or having conversations with clients or team members, Skype is a widely used tool.

• However, not everyone fancies Skype, and some users would prefer other applications to Skype. In this guide, we feature some of the widely used Skype alternatives for Linux desktops.

Instructionals/Technical

• Solid State Drive (SSD) have made it big and have made their way not only in desktop computing but also in mission-critical servers. SSDs have proved to be a break-through in IO performance and leave HDD far far behind in terms of Random IO performance. Random IO is what most of the database administrators would be concerned about as that is 90% of the IO pattern visible on database servers like MySQL. I have found Intel 520-series and Intel 910-series to be quite popular and they do give very good numbers in terms of Random IOPS. However, its not just performance that you should be concerned about, failure predictions and health gauges are also very important, as loss of data is a big NO-NO. There is a great deal of misconception about the endurance level of SSD, as its mostly compared to rotating disks even when measuring endurance levels, however, there is a big difference in how both SSD and HDD work, and that has a direct impact on the endurance level of SSD.

• I will mostly be taling about MLC SSD, now let’s start off with a SSD primer.

• I’m regularly made fun of when teaching DNSSEC because I tell people I use a “napkin” when creating DNSSEC keys to jot down the key tags (or key IDs), and it’s true: also during trainings I have the “napkin” – to be precise it’s a sheet of A4 paper on which I note modifications to schedule, timezones, whether I still owe answers to questions, and of course, the key IDs of DNSSEC keys.

• PCloud offers a range of affordable storage plans that are pocket-friendly to anyone. It also provides a compelling size of free cloud storage and gives users complete control over their privacy, something many, if not all, users are looking for.

• Since pCloud is a Swiss-based application, it must adhere to strict Swiss privacy laws, meaning more protection for your files. However, it also puts forward a superb option for most personal and business users, hence an excellent option for all users. This software also interfaces with your browser via pCloud “save,” an extension for Opera, Firefox, and chrome. This extension allows you to directly save images to your particular “pCloud save” folder by only right-clicking on them.

• To add on, this app offers a pCloud web service for users who want to access their files but are away from their PCs. It works exactly like the pCloud app; there are menu links for browsing your files, accessing your public folder, pCloud rewind, backups from other cloud services, and your trash folder.

• Under this are links for accessing your shared folder, download links, crypto folder, and your audio files. To add a file to your web browser interface of pCloud, drag and drop the files into the specific folder by hovering over them, and pCloud will open an upload screen that displays your files uploading to the specified folder.

• PDF (Portable Document Format) was invented many years ago by Adobe. It is currently the most popular format for sharing information due to its ease of use, security, reliability, and compatibility with all devices we use on a daily basis.

• This format ensures that a file does not alter its original structure under no circumstances when we open it on, for example, computers, tablets, smartphones, etc. Moreover, PDF makes it possible to add fields that other users can fill out with the required information.

• LAMP is a collection of open-source software commonly used to serve web applications that have been around since the late 1990s. LAMP is an acronym that stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL/MariaDB, and PHP and provides the components needed to host and manage web content and is still arguably the most utilized stack deployment for developers and web applications today.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the LAMP stack (Apache, MariaDB/MySQL, PHP) on Rocky Linux 8 Workstation or Server.

• UNRAR is widely known and used amongst Windows users. RAR files are much smaller archives and compress better than ZIP for most files by compressing files “together,” saving more space. UNRAR does not come pre-installed natively on Ubuntu, but it is available to install from its repository.

• The following tutorial will show you how to install UNRAR on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Desktop or Server, along with the most commonly used commands.

• R is an open-source programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphical representation created and supported by the R Core Team and the R Foundation. R’s popularity is widely used among statisticians and data miners for software developers’ statistical and data analysis.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install R using the CRAN repository and install packages from R’s CRAN repository or PPA cran2deb4ubuntu on Linux Mint 20.

• Hi guys, In this article we will show you how to count the number of files and sub-directories in a directory using a tree command.

• In this post, you will learn how to Find Top 10 IP Addresses Accessing Your Apache Web Server-

• The monitoring access to your web server is the existence of access log files that store information about every access activities happen in the server.

• Working with log files is always very important, because they give you an account of everything that has happened within a system or application in this case your Apache web server. In case of any performance or access related problems, then log files can help you point out what could be wrong or is happening.

• In this article, we will show you how to find the top 10 addresses that accessing your apache web server.

• Telnet can perform a few things that can be very helpful for Linux network administrators, like testing the open port over the remote system for troubleshooting, which is not possible in SSH protocol.

Games

• After being an Epic Games exclusive for its first year, HITMAN III launched on Steam last week. While there isn’t a native Linux port for HITMAN 3, it does run wonderful under Steam Play with Proton for enjoying this Windows game on Linux complete with Vulkan API rendering. Here are some initial benchmarks of HITMAN 3 on Linux with NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon graphics cards.

• [...]

• Most fascinating with the results is how well the performance is out of the Radeon “RADV” Vulkan driver with HITMAN 3 and stronger than NVIDIA RTX 30 series with their proprietary Vulkan driver. While not having a Radeon RX 6900 XT for testing (never received a review sample), the RX 6800 XT with HITMAN 3 could even outperform the GeForce RTX 3090.

Distributions

BSD

• There are many alternative operating systems to Linux and the *BSD family is varied and complete. FreeBSD, in my opinion, today is the “all rounder” system par excellence, i.e. well refined and suitable both for use on large servers and small embedded systems. The other BSDs have strengths that, in some fields, make them particularly suitable but FreeBSD, in my humble opinion, is suitable (almost) for every purpose.

• So back to the main topic of this article, why am I migrating many of the servers we manage to FreeBSD? The reasons are many, I will list some of them with corresponding explanations.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

• The openSUSE Project added an enormous amount of compute power for its projects this past year thanks to SUSE, which is the project’s main sponsor. The added hardware will help with open-source development.

• The project now uses around a thousand build workers for x86, which will help with creating and distributing software for major Linux distributions in the Open Build Service.

Debian Family

• PureOS 10, codename: Byzantium, is the new stable release of PureOS. PureOS 10 is likely not a newcomer to everyone, it’s been around for a while as a rolling release or a “testing” release. It has been shipping on Purism’s new hardware. We’ve moved our kernel forward. We prefer to take the upstream, mainline, package kernel as that offers more stability and features for PureOS users.

• In 2021, we moved from one stable distribution to another stable distribution, from PureOS 9 to PureOS 10. This is a milestone for PureOS as previously we moved from testing distributions to stable. We strongly recommend upgrading to PureOS 10, but it is not a requirement. PureOS 9 will still get limited updates, but most users will want to upgrade to the new stable release to receive the benefits it brings.

Devices/Embedded

• SB Components’ StackyPi is a development board based on Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU that happens to follow the Raspberry Pi Zero form factor.

• The board is equipped with 8MB SPI flash for the firmware, a MicroSD card socket, a micro SB port, two buttons, and a 40-pin GPIO header that makes it compatible with some Raspberry Pi uHAT and HAT expansion boards.

Open Hardware/Modding

• SB Components has been busy kicking off 2022 with a new selection of Raspberry Pi-based boards and we couldn’t be more excited. Just yesterday, we covered the new StackyPi project which features the RP2040 in a Pi Zero form factor. Today we’re sharing a couple of cool, “well-rounded” boards, including an RP2040 creation SB Components shared to Twitter with plans for an unspecified future release.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• An application server is computer software which provides the business logic for an application program. It offers services such as management of large distributed systems, data services, load balancing, transaction support, and network security. The application server is one part of a three-tier application, consisting of a graphical interface server, an application (business logic) server, and a database / transaction server. Many application servers support the Java platform, but they can be found in other environments.

• There are good reasons to deploy an application server in a corporate environment. At a high level, an application server enables updates and upgrades to applications to be distributed to all users. System administrators also benefit from the fact that changes to application configuration can take place centrally, which greatly simplifies technical support and ultimately the end user experience. Application servers also simplify user management, avoiding the need to set up and maintain user-management systems for applications. This type of software also enhances scalability and resource usage, and exposes business components via different deployment wrappers.

Events

• We had a meetup in the conference room of Flying Dodo, Bagatelle, on Saturday 22 Junuary 2022. Luboš Kocman, the Release Manager for openSUSE, who came to Mauritius on vacation was kind enough to spare a few hours and meet us.

• [...]

• Luboš told us about some new things that will be coming to Leap in the future. He explained his role as a Release Manager for openSUSE and how the community as a whole is regarded as a SUSE partner. He explained the relationship between SUSE and the openSUSE community. He also talked about SUSE Liberty Linux, a new offering by SUSE which offers support for mixed Linux environment, like RHEL, CentOS and SLES.

• Luboš showed us code.opensuse.org/leap/features/issues where community members can request the features they want most in openSUSE Leap. Hence, contributing to making openSUSE distributions better.

FSF

Licensing/Legal

• This settlement establishes that any decision-making around netfilter-related enforcement activities should be based on a majority vote. Thus, each active coreteam member [5] at the time of the enforcement request holds one right to vote. This settlement covers past and new enforcement, as well as the enforcement of contractual penalties related to past declarations to cease-and-desist.

• The netfilter project continues to endorse “The Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement” [6]. Therefore, this settlement does not release third parties from their obligations to comply with the license [7] hereinafter.

Programming/Development

• Git 2.35 is out today as the newest update to this widely-used, open-source distributed version control system.

• There is a wide assortment of changes in Git 2.35, including items such as:

• - The git stash sub-command now has a “–staged” mode to make it easier to stash changes into a staging area and nothing else.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

• Writing shell scripts used to be a major, major pain for me. I remember many frustrating sessions, where I tried to find a misplaced quote or a missing backtick. I cursed shell script and only used it as a last resort.

• In those days, I would never, ever have thought, that I would write 100K lines of shell script code for a project and not even mind very much doing so.

• The main reason for this change of mind is ShellCheck. Combined with a colorizing syntax highlighter in an editor like Sublime Text ShellCheck makes the previously tedious search for that elusive missing backtick or doublequote super easy, barely an inconvenience: [...]

Leftovers

• The traditional Ethiopian Gojo is a circular domed dwelling constructed from a central vertical beam, and a surrounding structure of curved beams made from wood or bamboo. A covering of dried grass and mud completes the outer structure. These buildings are found everywhere in rural areas, due to their ease of construction, and availability of cheap materials. One major problem living in rural areas in developing countries is access to water. Ethiopian inventor [Anteneh Gashaw] knows a thing or two about the practicalities of living in a developing nation, and has come up with an ingenious take on the traditional Gojo. The idea is to replace the outer structure with pipes capable of storing rainwater. A collector plate on the top of the roof directs rain water into the pipes — with some small balancing tubes connecting them at the bottom — distributing the stored water evenly. A tap at the bottom of structure allows the pipes to be emptied on demand. Another interesting point about this design, is that the water adds some extra weight, for free, which gives the structure much improved stability in high winds, increasing safety.

Education

Hardware

• This is no ordinary heart-shaped PCB pendant project! To us, it’s also symbol representing the striking amount of love that [SaltyPaws] has put into its design and documentation. He tells us that he designed it for the two daughters he is raising, as an electronics and general STEAM introduction – with outstanding educational and aesthetic qualities, giving insights into a wide range of topics while looking . The PCB is mostly through-hole, making for easy soldering and quick return on the effort investment. The project is thought-out beyond the PCB, however – this pendant is designed to be wearable day-to-day, which is why it’s accompanied by a 3D-printed frame, protecting its wearer from sharp PCB edges and through-hole lead ends!

• 3D printers have come a long way from cranking out things like bottle openers and coat pegs, and [E. Soderberg]’s Print in Place Geared Hinge is a pretty nifty demonstration of that. This hinge is designed as a print-in-place part, meaning it is 3D printed as a single piece, requiring no assembly. Not only that, but the herringbone gears constrain the sturdy device in a way that helps it support heavy loads.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• This is true, and it needs to factor into our public health response. Instead, it’s often used to suggest that the loss of these lives is somehow less serious — and more acceptable.

• “The overwhelming number of deaths” among vaccinated people, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told Good Morning America about a recent study, “occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities, so really these are people who were unwell to begin with.”

• School districts serving more than 350,000 students in Virginia filed a lawsuit against Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Monday, the day his executive order making face coverings optional in schools—against the guidance of public health experts—took effect.

• Seven districts filed the lawsuit in the Circuit Court for the County of Arlington, arguing that the governor cannot “unilaterally override” the authority given to local school boards by Article 8, Section 7 of the state constitution and accusing Youngkin of endangering students and school staffers by revoking an earlier mask mandate for public schools.

• Even though non-Hispanic white people make up 60% of the population, racial and ethnic minorities in the United States have borne significantly higher risks of COVID-19 infections than white people, as well as hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19.

• So a conversation is raging among doctors, health researchers, public health officials, policymakers and activists about how to address the social determinants of health that are driving this unequal toll on communities of color.

• The director-general of the World Health Organization on Monday cautioned the international community against accepting the increasingly common view that peaking Omicron cases signals the approaching end of the global Covid-19 pandemic, which is still killing more than 8,000 people a day.

• “Eighty-six percent of the population of Africa is yet to receive a single dose of vaccine.”

• At the end of the first week of January, as Covid-19 surged through the country’s newly reopened schools, a group of students at the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) came together to demand “a safe learning environment.” In a public letter, the students made it clear that they are “not comfortable going to school with the rising cases” and demanded that the district provide them with basic Covid protections—including KN95/N95 masks for every student, twice-weekly PCR and rapid tests, and more outdoor spaces so kids could eat safely—or let them return to online learning. “If these demands are not met, we will be striking by not attending school,” the letter reads. “We will be striking until we get what we need to be safe.”1

• The United States is the product of an accountability movement that was never fully realized. Thomas Paine called the country into being with Common Sense, a pamphlet that invited the beleaguered residents of 13 British colonies on the eastern shore of North America to indulge their fury at the imperial abuses of King George III. He ridiculed the “men of passive tempers” who “look somewhat lightly over the offences of Great Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, ‘Come, come, we shall be friends again for all this.’” Rejecting the prospect of reconciliation with “the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land,” Paine encouraged Americans to ask themselves pointed questions: Adapted from John Nichols’s new book, Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis (Verso).Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

• This was about more than refusing to shake hands with the murderers, however. It was, Paine recognized, about forging a new mentality that would see beyond the lie of reconciliation with those who abused positions of authority to the detriment of the people.

• Public health experts on Monday urged Pfizer to prioritize the equitable distribution of its highly effective Covid-19 treatment and warned the pharmaceutical giant that if it refuses to provide a timely and adequate supply of its lifesaving antiviral pill to low-income nations, it will replicate the injustice of global vaccine apartheid.

• “No African country has yet to purchase the treatment at all.”

• At 8:00 a.m. Eastern on January 21, a magnitude 3.4 earthquake shook Culberson County in West Texas midway between Odessa and El Paso, the U.S. Geological Society reported. That’s the kind of earthquake that’s generally strong enough to be felt, but not rattling enough to cause damage.

• Texas is not known for its seismic activity – or it wasn’t historically. Nearly 4,000 quakes, the majority relatively minor, have swarmed the oil-rich state over the past year. The most powerful among them was a 4.5 magnitude quake that rattled Midland in late December, tying for the second-strongest in a decade.

• The 36-year-old decided at the end of last year that getting rid of her handset would improve her mental health. So, over Christmas she told her family and friends that she was switching to an old Nokia phone that could only make and receive calls and text messages.

• She recalls that one of the pivotal moments that led to her decision was a day at the park with her two boys, aged six and three: “I was on my mobile at a playground with the kids and I looked up and every single parent – there was up to 20 – were looking at their phones, just scrolling away,” she says.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

• Apple has failed to satisfy the requirements set by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) regarding payment systems for dating-app providers. ACM has come to this conclusion following an investigation into Apple’s statements of January 15, 2022. This means that Apple now has to pay ACM the first penalty payment of 5 million euros.

• Apple must adjust its conditions for access to the Dutch App Store for dating-app providers. In the App Store, dating-app providers must also be able to use payment systems other than Apple’s payment system. In addition, dating-app providers must have the ability to refer to payment systems outside of the app. This had been laid down in an order subject to periodic penalty payments that ACM imposed on Apple in August 2021. On December 24, 2021, the court ruled that this part of the order could be published.

Security

• Two security vulnerabilities that impact the Control Web Panel (CWP) software can be chained by unauthenticated attackers to gain remote code execution (RCE) as root on vulnerable Linux servers.

• CWP, previously known as CentOS Web Panel, is a free Linux control panel for managing dedicated web hosting servers and virtual private servers.

• CISA has published an infographic to emphasize the importance of implementing network segmentation—a physical or virtual architectural approach that divides a network into multiple segments, each acting as its own subnetwork, to provide additional security and control that can help prevent or minimize the impact of a cyberattack.

• Hello and welcome to the 449th installment of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this short-topics episode, the hosts discuss results from the 2021 QSO parties, the FCC tech advisory council, the proliferation of Linux malware, SDR++, programming in Python and much more. Thank you for listening and have a fantastic week.

Privacy/Surveillance

• A private company, that leveraged a bold (unproven) claim about $400 billion in pandemic unemployment fraud into government contracts allowing it to (mistakenly) lock people out of their unemployment benefits, is hoping to use both of these dubious achievements to secure even more government contracts.

• What’s the greatest threat to children since the invention of contraceptives? Why, encryption, of course. Just ask (almost) anyone. FBI directors have pointed to device and end-to-end encryption as an aider and abettor in child sexual abuse. Government leaders from around the world have claimed the addition of end-to-end encryption to Facebook’s messaging service will result in millions of abused kids. Others who find the chanting of “national security concerns” just isn’t getting the job done have often chosen to lean on abused children to make their points (badly) about the “dangers” encryption poses.

• Given the continuing importance of transatlantic data transfers, it’s not surprising that the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), which coordinates the application of the GDPR across the EU, has tried to clarify the current situation with a series of recommendations for companies. It’s striking that the best it can come up with is “you must verify on a case-by-case basis whether (or not) the law or practice of the third country of destination undermines the safeguards” of the GDPR, and whether “supplementary measures may fill the gap”. If you can’t do that, well, “you must not start transferring personal data to the third country concerned on the basis of your chosen transfer tool”. If that advice all seems a bit vague, the Austrian Data Protection Authority has kindly provided a practical demonstration of just how far-reaching it is in reality.

• Attorneys general from Washington, D.C. and three states plan to sue Google on Monday, accusing the tech giant of deceiving consumers about the security of their location data in order to boost its digital advertising profits.

• “Google uses tricks to continuously seek to track a user’s location,” said D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine (D). “This suit, by four attorneys general, on a bipartisan basis, is an overdue enforcement action against a flagrant violator of privacy and the laws of our states.”

• The Internet Society joins the UK England Chapter in calling for a redraft of the UK’s Online Safety Bill so that it protects strong encryption and recognises its vital role in protecting users online.

• Despite claims it seeks to protect users online, the recent draft of the Bill threatens to drive strong encryption from the market and place UK Internet users at greater risk than ever before.

• The draft Online Safety Bill will force service providers to weaken or remove encryption to meet new content identification and removal requirements. A newly published Internet impact brief co-authored by the Internet Society and UK England Chapter identifies how, by weakening encryption, the Bill will undermine critical elements that make the Internet an open, globally connected, secure and trustworthy resource for everyone.

Defence/Aggression

• President Biden has so far failed to take consequential action during his first year in office to fulfill his pledge of closing the prison before his term ends. His administration has in fact done the opposite and is now reportedly spending millions of dollars to upgrade it.

• Without taking bold action, Biden risks following in President Obama’s footsteps of empty promises that ultimately perpetuate an untenable status quo. Meanwhile, the remaining 39 prisoners and our nation’s rule of law still languish.

• “The Russian Government is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine,” the UK Foreign Office said in a statement released on Saturday, January 22. The British authorities pointed to former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevhen Murayev as a “potential candidate,” while also claiming to “have information that the Russian intelligence services maintain links with numerous former Ukrainian politicians.” Commenting on this information, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab warned that there would be serious consequences should Russia try and invade Ukraine and install a puppet government. However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken declined to comment on the British intelligence report. In turn, Yevhen Murayev himself vehemently dismissed the allegations as “nonsense and stupidity.” Meduza examines what is known about Murayev and the other former Ukrainian politicians the UK Foreign Office named.

• The United States, UK, and Australia have started to withdraw the family members of embassy staff in Ukraine, as tensions between Russia and NATO countries continue to rise. On Monday, January 24, NATO confirmed that member countries had sent additional ships and jets to enhance deployments in Eastern Europe. In turn, the Kremlin’s spokesman accused the alliance of provoking “an escalation of tensions.” Meanwhile, the ruble’s exchange rate against the U.S. dollar dropped significantly, prompting Russia’s Central Bank to halt foreign currency purchases.

• The 2021/22 crisis is a logical continuation of the expansionist policies that NATO has pursued since the demise of the Soviet Union, as numerous Professors of international law and international relations have long indicated — including Richard Falk, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Kinzer and Francis Boyle.  NATO’s approach implements the US claim to have a “mission” to export its socio-economic model to other countries, notwithstanding the preferences of sovereign states and the self-determination of peoples.

• Although the US and NATO narratives have been proven to be inaccurate and sometimes deliberately mendacious on numerous occasions, the fact is that a majority of citizens in the Western World uncritically believe what they are told.  The “quality press” including the New York Times, Washington Post, The Times, Le Monde, El Pais, the NZZ and FAZ are all effective echo chambers of the Washington consensus and enthusiastically support the public relations and geopolitical propaganda offensive.  I think that it can be said without fear of contradiction that the only war that NATO has ever won is the information war.  A compliant and complicit corporate media has been successful in persuading millions of Americans and Europeans that the toxic narratives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs are really true. We believe in the myth of the “Arab Spring” and “EuroMaidan”, but we never hear about the right of self-determination of peoples, including the Russians of Donetsk and Lugansk, and what could easily be called the “Crimean Spring”.

• Ignatius engages the commandant of the Marine Corps, General David Berger, and files a column seconding Berger’s claim of success in creating a “force of the future, not the past.”  Berger contends that his Marines have the systems and capabilities to “combat a modern, high-tech rival such as China.”  Then Ignatius spends time with some of Berger’s senior commanders and echoes their claims for newer systems that are “small, elusive, and sometimes unmanned” and harder-to-find.  Ignatius ignores the high technology of the Chinese military and seems to believe that the island-hopping strategy against Japan in World War II can be successfully deployed against China in East Asia.  The fact that the Marines haven’t conducted an amphibious operation since the Korean War more than 70 years ago begs the question of whether we even need a Marine Corps.

• The Post makes sure that Iganatius’ views are bolstered by guest writers.  On January 21, it featured an oped by Michael Vickers, a former CIA operations officer and assistant secretary of defense for special operations, that called for “moving U.S. combat aircraft and ships forward to Europe” to add to Putin’s uncertainty and to “change his strategic calculus.”  Does Vickers actually want to risk an air war on Russia’s borders that could lead to a European conflagration?  Vickers also wants to support the resistance to Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and to engage in covert action to “undermine Putin’s rule in Russia.”  Ukraine and Belarus represent vital interests to Russia, and Putin isn’t bluffing.  Vickers, meanwhile, is prepared to risk a major war in Europe that would have untold strategic consequences.

• U.S. President Joe Biden is reportedly weighing a Pentagon proposal to deploy thousands of American troops to the Baltics and Eastern Europe as progressive anti-war analysts and activists warn such a move would further inflame tensions in the region—and risk a full-blown war with Russia.

• “Ukraine demands a diplomatic and political resolution.”

• Despite warnings that U.S. actions not focused on diplomacy with Russia risked setting the stage for an “exceedingly dangerous quagmire,” the Pentagon announced Monday that roughly 8,500 U.S. troops have been put on “heightened preparedness to deploy” to Eastern Europe amid rising tensions with Russia over Ukraine.

• Speaking at a news briefing, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the “steps to heighten the readiness of… forces at home and abroad” were aligned with U.S. commitments to NATO.

• Before five men stand trial in March, prosecutors and defense lawyers are examining more than 1,000 hours of secretly recorded conversations.

• The Taliban have undertaken a systematic media crackdown to achieve their contradictory goals of presenting a softer face to the international community while violating Afghans’ rights.

• The group is forcing media to follow two of the Taliban’s dogmatic and moral regulatory bodies’ guidelines.

• The Taliban also announced the “11 journalism rules,” which include forbidding journalists from publishing or broadcasting stories that are “contrary to Islam” or “insult national figures.”

• About 40% of the country’s media sources have shut down, 6,400 journalists lost their jobs, including 84% of female journalists. Violence against media and journalists has again become widespread.

• Many other journalists have left the country.

• Few regions in the world wobble the tension of the tightrope governments walk between raw interests and principle in foreign and strategic policy more than Central America. And few have mattered less to Canberra over the decades, generally for sound, realist reasons going to Australia’s negligible commercial and strategic interests there.

• Nonetheless, it warrants a momentary excursion into the region’s exotic, intriguing if often tragic environs because it matters so much to the United States, and because of China’s changing relationship with it. This is especially evident in the spate of defections from Taipei—which until recently had enjoyed the recognition of virtually all the region’s nations—to Beijing, reshaping Central America’s economics and international policy settings.

Environment

• After campaigning on a historic climate and environmental agenda that went well beyond vowing to undo the Trump administration’s damage, President Joe Biden had a disappointing first year in office, the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund concluded Monday.

• “Biden’s environmental agenda is at a precipice.”

• We go to Nuku’alofa, capital of Tonga, to speak with Tongan journalist Marian Kupu on the humanitarian relief efforts underway after an undersea volcano erupted on January 14, blanketing the South Pacific island nation with ash and triggering a tsunami. Kupu was able to flee the worst effects of the initial eruption by driving to higher ground but now reports lingering aftereffects such as water tanks polluted by ash. Although the islands have prepared for hurricanes, climate change has exacerbated a newly volatile environment. “We have never been prepared for volcanic eruptions,” says Kupu. “This is something really new for us.”

• According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) July 2021 was the hottest month in recorded history for the world. The European Union (EU) satellite system also confirmed that the past seven years have been the hottest on record.

• Too much heat brings unanticipated problems of unexpected scale, putting decades of legacy infrastructure at risk of malfunctioning and/or total collapse. Nobody expected so much trouble to start so soon. Nobody anticipated such massive record-breaking back-to-back heat, north and south, to hit so soon on the heels of only 1.2C above estimated baseline for global warming.

Energy

• This observation comes within an AP story headlined: “Majority of US states pursue nuclear power for emission cuts”, and which has garnered significant pickup in numerous media outlets. (However, we never do learn the secret to precisely how nuclear waste risks can be “minimized”.)

• The agency surveyed “the energy policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia,” finding that “about two-thirds” plan to use nuclear power to replace fossil fuels.

• As Democrats sketch out a path forward for at least parts of President Joe Biden’s flagship Build Back Better Act, a group of over 260 companies on Monday called on Congress to urgently finalize negotiations on the legislation and seize “a once-in-a-generation opportunity” to deliver the “big, bold action to deliver the clean energy future Americans want and deserve.”

• “The time to act is now,” the energy firms wrote in a letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

• Range · So, here’s the thing: Range doesn’t matter. No, really, it doesn’t. What that linked piece explains, in 1,300 or so words, is that range only matters for long-hauling, that most modern EVs have plenty, and that charging speed matters way more. So…

Wildlife/Nature

• The problem with such ebullient pronouncements is that they fail to provide a full accounting of the carbon losses and emissions.

• A number of studies that reviewed carbon emissions conclude that logging and wood processing emits far more carbon than a fire.

• Government leaders in San Jose and San Francisco have called for PG&E to be taken out of investor control, and to be run by the  government or  its customers.

• PG&E  often refuses to respond, an increasingly frequent reaction to government authorities  among the nation’s giant corporations and monied interests. It claims it needs no permits since vegetation management is mandated by state law.

Overpopulation

• According to the paper, the projected average temperature increase for these countries in the Middle East and North Africa will be 2.0 to 2.7 degrees C between 2040 and 2059.

• In specific areas, it may even become up to 3.3 degrees hotter.

• Moreso, since four-fifths of the region is desert or desert-like areas, the Mideast is already suffering from considerable drought, and additional environmental problems will exacerbate the situation further.

• Kelly: “We moved to El Segundo when it was the perfect fit for us — it was known in the area as ‘Mayberry.’ But with the popularity of the Silicon Beach area just north of us, crowds and high-density housing in the surrounding areas made the freeways impossible.”

Finance

• It’s no secret that Representative Henry Cuellar, the conservative Texas Democrat whose home and campaign office were raided as part of an FBI investigation this week, has deep corporate ties. Cuellar, a nine-term incumbent, is known as “Big Oil’s favorite Democrat.” He’s a top congressional recipient of oil and gas money, as well as private prison industry cash, and has been caught providing favors to lobbyists. Business interests, from Koch-linked groups to the immensely powerful US Chamber of Commerce, prop up Cuellar. And he returns the generosity, using his power in Congress to cater to their preferences and safeguard capital.

• In the face of rising inflation, the Biden administration has moved to use antitrust powers to combat corporate price hikes. This has led to pushback from prominent macroeconomists, including the disgruntled tweeting of former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

• A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on Monday urged the top Democrat and Republican in the House of Representatives to “swiftly bring legislation to prohibit members of Congress from owning or trading stock” to the floor.

• “This common-sense, bipartisan legislation is unfortunately necessary in light of recent misconduct.”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• President Joe Biden last week broke the record for the longest presidential press conference ever – going nearly two hours fielding question after question. He stood that long to prove his stamina and dispel bigoted charges of ageism.

• “We are a polarized nation!”  Seems self-evident, right?

• How did he do by his own standards? First, his opening remarks naturally touted the bright spots in the economy and the administration’s efforts to control Covid-19 during his first year in office. However, he missed an important opportunity to connect with the public and focus the tunnel-vision media on the serious legislation he wants to advance.

• For example, early on Biden proposed reversing some of the tax cuts for giant corporations and the super-wealthy that Trump rammed through Congress in 2017. Biden did not say why it is urgent for Congress to act on this matter or explain that these taxes are necessary not just for fairness, but to pay for the major proposals he has on Capitol Hill. Therefore, the media will not pay attention and assume he has given up.

• As we mark the end of the first year of the Biden presidency, pundits and interest groups of all sorts will be evaluating how successful he has been in advancing the agenda he set for his administration. Because I was involved in negotiations with the Biden team over the language that would shape its platform on Middle East–related issues, I want to focus on some of the commitments the Biden campaign made both in its platform and directly to Arab Americans—specifically those related to addressing the Israel/Palestine conflict.

• I mean it. Have you checked where you stand on the idea that the United States is inherently different from other nations, and that the ghastly things that happen elsewhere, like fascism, or authoritarian rule, can’t happen here?

• I thought about this recently when I had the pleasure of interviewing Arundhati Roy, the renowned Indian novelist, essayist and activist. This spring, the good people at Haymarket Books are publishing a second edition of Roy’s latest collection of essays. It’s called Azadi, Fascism, Fiction and Freedom in the Time of the Virus, and in it she brings readers up to date on, among other things, the state of democracy in India.

• “It’s bleak for democracy that the majority of people opted not to vote,” Sami Borg, an election researcher at Tampere University, remarked to YLE on Sunday.

• “This was hardly a surprise,” he added. “The most popular guess before the elections was that the turnout would land somewhere between the European and municipal elections. The European elections here have had a turnout of 40–42 per cent.”

• He also drew attention to the fact that voter turnout exceeded 50 per cent in only three of the 21 counties. The turnout rose the highest, to 53.8 per cent, in Ostrobothnia but fell short of even the 40-per-cent mark (39.2%) in the well-being services county of Vantaa and Kerava.

• South Korea confirmed that it has paid Tehran’s membership delayed dues, amounting to US$18 million, to the UN from Iranian funds frozen in the country.

Misinformation/Disinformation

• I’ve long lamented how physicians can practice quackery and promote pseudoscience and spread medical conspiracy theories while state medical boards only rarely do anything concrete to stop them. Indeed, so uncommon is it for a state medical board to suspend or revoke the license of even the worst quacks that, when a quack does suffer sanctions from his state medical board, we tend to write about it here. Examples include when Florida revoked the license of a “Lyme literate” doctor and New York sanctioned other promoters of the fake diagnosis that is “chronic Lyme disease“. Surprisingly to me, even pediatricians and other doctors who are leaders of the antivaccine movement have largely escaped discipline from their state medical boards, to the point that it is noteworthy when they are actually disciplined, with the example of Dr. Bob Sears and Dr. Paul Thomas coming to mind.

• First reported Oct. 20 by the Lansing State Journal, nearly 40 websites have appeared this fall, masquerading as local Michigan news outlets and maintaining a conservative-leaning tone.

• The different websites are nearly indistinguishable, sharing identical stories and using regional titles such as the Ann Arbor Times, Grand Rapids Reporter and Lansing Sun. The only articles with named authors contain politically skewed content. The rest of the articles on the sites are primarily composed of press releases from local organizations and articles written by the Local Labs News Service.

• We have been bombarded by news reports and announcements from President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent. On January 18, as he prepared to leave for Kyiv, Berlin and Geneva, Secretary of State Blinken, said “We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine.” A day later President Biden announced that he expected Russian President Vladimir Putin to order an invasion. And both backed their fear inducing warnings with the less than fully accurate claim of NATO unity and the threat that a Russian invasion of Ukraine will be met with “severe, and united response.”

• In the long and storied history of the United States Army, many young officers have served in many war zones. Few, I suspect, were as sublimely ignorant as I was in the summer of 1970 upon my arrival at Cam Ranh Bay in the Republic of Vietnam.

• Putin’s central message is the idea that Ukraine has always been part of Russia and must remain so. He routinely refers to Russians and Ukrainians as “one people” and frequently blames outside influences for manufacturing what he regards as an artificial divide between the two modern nations.

• In reality, while today’s Russia and Ukraine do indeed share long periods of common history, they have spent considerably more time apart than together. Ukraine’s experience of Russian rule is also much darker than Putin cares to admit and makes a mockery of his attempts to sanitize the imperial past. Far from being fraternal nations, many Ukrainians see their historical relationship with Russia as being more akin to that of an abused spouse in a forced marriage.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Network data from NetBlocks and third-party traffic data confirm significant disruptions to internet service in Burkina Faso on the morning of Sunday 23 January 2022. The incident comes amid reports of an uprising and gunfire at military camps on Sunday morning, and is ongoing as of Monday afternoon.

• Authorities initially denied a military coup attempt, however later on Monday state TV announced the resignation of President Roch Kabore and the suspension of the country’s constitution by the army.

• Last year, QUIC emerged as a new internet protocol for creating reliable connections and encrypting communications between clients over the new HTTP/3 protocol. Observing the emergence and growing deployment of HTTP/3, we want to enable OONI Probe to measure HTTP/3 censorship and monitor how censors respond and adapt to technical innovation.

• We therefore added HTTP/3 support (in early 2021) into OONI Probe (through our urlgetter research tool) to conduct measurements in China, Iran, India and Kazakhstan to investigate the state of HTTP/3 censorship in these countries.

• We discovered that the deployment of HTTP/3 censorship varies significantly between the observed countries and networks. While some censors do not filter HTTP/3 traffic at all and some collaterally block HTTP/3 hosts, we uncovered HTTP/3-targeting censorship in Iran.

• We collaborated with Kathrin Elmenhorst, who has described and analysed the measurements thoroughly in her Bachelor thesis. We have summarized the results in a short research paper and submitted it to AMC Internet Measurement Conference. Our paper was published and presented by Kathrin at the conference.

• Artist Sezen Aksu’s song “Living is a Wonderful Thing” was brought up 5 years after being written and used by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to threaten the singer. The president said: “We’ll cut your tongue off”.

• Sezen Aksu responded to the threats from the government and its supporters with the poem “Hunter”. This poem was translated into dozens of languages ​​in a short time.

• 217 people, including Latife Tekin, Nur Sürer, Pınar Aydınlar, Elif Şafak, Ece Temelkuran, Birhan Keskin and Sema Kaygusuz, supported Sezen Aksu with a joint statement.

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

• This is a developing story… Check back for possible updates…

• A U.K. court ruled Monday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal a December decision permitting his extradition to the United States, where the Department of Justice is attempting to prosecute the journalist for publishing classified information that exposed war crimes.

• In an extremely brief court hearing in London this morning, the UK’s High Court announced that it has certified a point of law for Julian Assange to be able to apply to appeal to the Supreme Court. The High Court ruled not to allow the appeal itself but to certify the question of what stage in the extradition hearing process ‘assurances’ can or should be introduced. Assange is now allowed to apply to appeal on that specific point to the UK Supreme Court.

• It feels like a recurring nightmare. On the sadly misnamed sleeper train once again, down to London and a dash to the Royal Courts of Justice to hear yet another judgement intoned. Julian not in court again and not in good health; Stella battling on but fighting to keep her health as well; Gareth Peirce her calm and unstoppable self; my friends from Wikileaks marshaling legal and media resources and remaining determinedly resolute and cheerful.

• This article was funded by paid subscribers of The Dissenter Newsletter, a project of Shadowproof. Become a paid subscriber and help us expand our work.

• WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange prevailed in his effort to obtain certification from the British High Court of Justice, which would allow him to appeal their prior decision to the Supreme Court.

• Support coverage of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s case. Become a paid monthly subscriber.

• A British judge has ruled that political dissident and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal his extradition to the United States. The ruling dealt a major blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to put Assange on trial for espionage charges. Assange has spent over 1,000 days locked up in the Belmarsh high-security prison in London, where he recently suffered a mini-stroke. The “politically driven” prosecution of Assange is punishing “a publisher for doing his work, for having published evidence of U.S. crimes,” says Stella Moris, Assange’s fiancée. “For every win that we get, Julian’s situation doesn’t change. And this is punishment through process.”

• The trial of Swedish programmer and internet activist Ola Bini, a friend of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who is accused of hacking the computer systems of Ecuador’s public telecommunications company CNT, has kicked off in Quito.

• “After almost three years (and) more than 100 violations of Ola’s rights, and thanks to the support of more than 100 organisations at the national and international level, including the United Nations, the Inter-American human rights system… we finally have the opportunity to appear before a court,” the defendant’s lawyer Carlos Soria said.

• But lawyers for Assange then challenged the decision, arguing that the country’s highest court should rule on “points of law of general public importance”.

• The British High Court will reveal on Monday, at 10:45 a.m. UK time, whether WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange is permitted to challenge its December ruling allowing for his extradition to the United States.

• A British court ruled on Monday that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal a decision that would allow for his extradition to the United States to face charges under the Espionage Act in connection with obtaining and publishing secret government documents.

• The latest twist in the long-running case comes after a decision last month that he could be extradited to the United States to face the charges, a reversal of a lower-court decision.

• A journalist was killed in Tijuana Sunday, the local prosecutor said, the second media worker murdered in less than a week in the northern Mexican border city.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Williams proposed “a firm commitment to basic rights as a condition of membership in the federation. We can begin with the Bill of Rights and move on through other political, and social and economic foundations of a democratic socialist community.”[1]

• There’s that scary word, to many at least. Socialism. Even buffered by “democratic,” it still raises images out of the Cold War, of repressive police states requiring gulags, and inefficient economies with lines for poorly made consumer goods. Having grown up in a conservative Roman Catholic family in the 1950s and ‘60s, I had it hammered into me. So I understand how people recoil from the word.

• Every December, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States composes a “Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary.” Despite the apparent ambition indicated by its title, it is meant to be boring. It is meant to be anodyne. It is not supposed to be the judicial version of the State of the Union so much as a trite message about how “great” things are going on the bench, usually with some boilerplate stats that show how hard judges are working.

• The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a pair of affirmative action cases related to college admissions, giving its right-wing supermajority an opportunity to strike down race-conscious selection policies in higher education.

• “Without programs like affirmative action, my whole life could have gone in an entirely different direction.”

• Driving down international boulevard, East Oakland’s main inner-city thoroughfare, it’s hard to miss the Intertribal Friendship House. With its mural-rimmed courtyard featuring larger-than-life portraits of Natives, both famous and unknown, the community center, which some call the “urban rez,” stands apart from its surroundings in Oakland’s Little Saigon. And like pretty much everything involving Indigenous Americans, it’s been here a while.

• As conservative justices on the Supreme Court threaten to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortions nationwide, we speak to the filmmakers and a subject of “The Janes” about life before Roe, when a collective of women in Chicago built an underground service for women seeking an abortion. Heather Booth, who founded the Jane Collective as a college student, speaks about adopting lessons from the civil rights movement and antiwar sentiments of the time. “You have to stand up to illegitimate authority,” says Booth. The directors of the film, Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin, speak about their motivation to encourage others to take action in the face of human rights under threat.

• In the winter of 2021, Russia was rocked by large-scale protests demanding the release of opposition leader Alexey Navalny. After spending months abroad recovering from chemical nerve-agent poisoning, Navalny had returned to Russia only to be thrown in jail. During the ensuing pro-Navalny rallies, thousands of people were detained. Police in Moscow made so many arrests that the capital’s detention centers were overflowing. As a result, many detainees were sent to a migrant detention center in Sakharovo, a village just outside of Moscow. The detainees shared striking accounts of how they were held on freezing buses outside the detention center for hours on end, only to be placed in overcrowded cells without bedding and basic hygiene products. Photographs taken inside the detention center drove these experiences home. At the same time, the detainees themselves recall the special atmosphere inside those same cells. One year later, Meduza reached out to those jailed in Sakharovo and asked for photographs of what went on there. Here are their snapshots.

• World-renowned Buddhist monk, poet, teacher and antiwar activist Thich Nhat Hanh has died in his native Vietnam at the age of 95. He was exiled from Vietnam for decades beginning in the 1960s after he spoke out publicly against the war. In 1966, he traveled to the United States and met with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., helping to persuade King to speak out against the U.S. War on Vietnam. King went on to nominate Thich Nhat Hanh for a Nobel Peace Prize a year later, calling him an “apostle of peace and nonviolence.”

• Of the nearly one million child care workers in the United States, in a recent white paper, my colleagues and I found that 31.2% – basically 1 out of every 3 – experienced food insecurity in 2020, the latest year for which we analyzed data. Food insecurity means there is a lack of consistent access to enough food. This rate of food insecurity is anywhere from 8 to 20 percentage points higher than the national average.

• An Afghan woman said a Taliban gunman once struck her mom across the face and left a bruise because she was outside without a male escort.

• A woman identified as Pahlawan said was walking with her mother in Kabul in November 2021 when a pickup truck pulled up next to them, the Washington Post reported.

• An 8-year-old girl was struck and killed by a stray bullet while walking with her mother on a Chicago street Saturday afternoon, reports said.

• Melissa Ortega was struck in the head by one of several rounds fired by a male suspect toward a 26-year-old known gang member near the intersection of 26th Street and Pulaski Road in Little Village just before 3 p.m., the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• We’re excited today to announce that we’ve received a grant from Grant for the Web to create a content series on Techdirt exploring the history (and future?) of web monetization, entitled “Correcting Error 402.” We’ll get more into this once the series launches, but lots of people are aware of the HTTP 404 Not Found error code — and some people are at least vaguely aware of 403 Forbidden. What most people probably don’t know about is the Error Code 402: Payment Required. It’s been in the HTTP spec going back decades, with “This code is reserved for future use.” But no one’s ever actually done anything with it.

• U.S. broadband suffers from significant regional monopolization, which directly results in the country being mediocre on nearly every broadband metric that matters… be it broadband prices, coverage, speeds, and customer service. This isn’t something to debate; the data is everywhere, and anybody who has spent much time dealing with giants like AT&T or Comcast knows the sector has major problems. By developing national standards U.S. broadband is slow, expensive, inconsistently available, with terrible customer support. The cause has always been regional monopolization and the state and federal corruption that protects it.

• Register now for our online event featuring Rep. Zoe Lofgren »

Monopolies

Copyrights

• Personal data and other records held by ISPs on their customers are highly sensitive and as such, can only be handed over to third parties when the law requires it. In movie piracy cases, judges often order this type of disclosure after consideration but in a new case involving CenturyLink customers, customer details could already be in the hands of some extremely litigious copyright holders.

• YouTube rippers FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com are contesting Magistrate Judge Buchanan’s recommendation to award $82 million in piracy damages to the RIAA. The YouTube-rippers cited a letter where the EFF defends the non-infringing nature of the youtube-dl software. The RIAA, however, argues that this letter is irrelevant and suggests that the EFF is far from a neutral expert.

• The internet has global ownership with people sharing more information and ideas than ever before; but not all sharing supports equity and the public’s best interests. Better Sharing involves a concerted effort and dedication to building a globally produced, open commons of knowledge, data, culture, and innovation that is universally applicable and accessible.

• For way too long now, short sighted publishers have insisted that ad blocking is “stealing.” That’s always been bullshit. Back before we turned off all our 3rd party ads last year, we were perfectly fine with people using ad blockers (and we even let you just turn off ads in your preferences, if you preferred that approach).

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