● 09.03.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 03/09/2022: grep 3.8 and Games, General News

Posted in News Roundup at 8:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Instructionals/Technical

• In this tutorial, we will be learning how to install Monit on Arch Linux.

• Monit is a small open-source utility for managing and monitoring Unix systems. Monit conducts automatic maintenance and repair and can execute meaningful causal actions in error situations.

• With Monit, systems status can be viewed directly from the command line, or via the native HTTP(s) webserver. It is able to do automatic maintenance, repair, and run meaningful causal actions in error situations.

• PyCharm is a robust Python integrated development environment (IDE) that is popular among Python developers. It has many essential tools, such as code analysis, debugging, and integration. It also has a command line interface, which makes it easy to use. PyCharm connects to databases, creates virtual environments, and manages your version control system (Git). It is an effective development tool with many Python developers’ essential features. However, it is important to note that PyCharm is not free software, and there is a cost associated with using it, depending on the version. Nevertheless, it is still worth considering if you are looking for a powerful Python IDE. Thanks to its wide range of features, PyCharm can help you be more productive in your Python development projects.

• The following tutorial will teach you how to install PyCharm on Fedora 36 Linux with options for Community, Professional, or Educational using the third-party repository by phracek/PyCharm or alternative third-party installation managers Flatpak and Snapcraft using the command line terminal.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PyCharm on Fedora 36. For those of you who didn’t know, PyCharm is an integrated development environment (IDE) used in computer programming, specifically for the Python programming language. The Community Edition is released under the Apache License, and there is also an educational version, as well as a Professional Edition with extra features (released under a subscription-funded proprietary license).

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the PyCharm IDE on a Fedora 36.

• ConfigServer eXploit Scanner (cxs) is a tool which performs an active scanning of files as they are uploaded to the server. CXS Should only work on a cPanel/WHM server per the product’s requirements. However, you can still install it on a ‘clean’ CentOS machine as long as the required perl libraries are provided.

• We’ve created an easy list of “copy & paste” actions for your convenience.

• Every once in a while a hosting provider has to change an IP address for a single user or even an entire server on the fly. If you’ll try do this the usual way, by changing the IP address in WHM you can expect downtime ranging from several minutes to several hours until the DNS cache is cleared.

• While cPanel does not officially allow accounts to have more than one IP address, there is no such restriction for Apache. So the solution is to override the default cPanel configurations with your own.

• In this tutorial, you will learn how to set static routes via an interface/IP on CentOS/Ubuntu systems. In a network, a route is a path between networks. Routes through which a packet, in a packet-switching network, uses to travel from one network to the other is decided by a router in a specific network. So, how can one set static routes via an interface/IP on CentOS/Ubuntu systems?

• As hosting providers, you sometimes have to deal with huge account backups (over 100GB per account for example). JetBackup will make your life easier backing up these huge accounts, however restoring them is not always something we want to do.

• PHP Selector is a CloudLinux component integrated on top of CageFS. It allows each user to select a unique PHP version and modules based the user’s needs. PHP Selector requires an active account and CageFS to be enabled.

• A cPanel user is allowed to change php.ini settings from his cPanel GUI. However the changes are limited to what CloudLinux permits by default.

• You can easily edit Cloudlinux’s settings file and add any needed settings.

• Make sure that the user has a cagefs enabled cPanel account. Login to the server via SSH as root user and edit the following file: “/etc/cl.selector/php.conf”

Games

• Vampire Survivors entered Steam Early Access in December 2021, and was described by the developer as “a gothic horror casual game with rogue-lite elements.” The game skyrocketed to success almost immediately, and at time of writing has over 100,000 Steam reviews and an Overwhelmingly Positive rating.

• Want some games that will test your brain and perhaps help you learn a little in the process? The Level Up and Learn: Programming Games bundle from Humble Bundle will do just that.

• Is the hype of Wordle over yet? Okay good. Need something new to try each day? Why not take a little look over at Farmbound.

• [I] Doesn’t Exist is an up-and coming text-based game by LUAL Games that will combine old-school adventuring with modern design, most notably a narrative AI that promises to smooth out the player experience. We caught up with the developers at Gamescom 2022 in Cologne, Germany to see how this ambitious project is progressing.

• Paradox Interactive has announced some more goodies coming for Stellaris with the Toxoids Species Pack and a free update landing on September 20th.

• Splitgate, the first-person shooter with portals, is no longer getting actively developed as the developer has seemingly given up with it to move onto a new game.

• After waiting quite some time, Project Killswitch from dbrand for the Steam Deck is finally coming but there’s been a few changes and it seems not everyone is happy with it.

• Valve continues tweaking and improving the Steam Deck software both the Steam Client and SteamOS. A new Beta is available with more improvements to Steam Input. This is available for anyone in the Beta or Preview update channels. You can change it in Settings >System >Steam Update Channel.

• The GOG Sale Finale is on and another game is being given away. This time it’s Immortal Redneck, a pretty good FPS set in Egypt with rogue-lite elements. The giveaway will last until Monday, September 5th, 1 PM UTC. To claim it, you need to be logged in on GOG and scroll down the homepage to find the banner.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• digiKam 7.8 is here about two and a half months after digiKam 7.7. It’s based on KDE Frameworks 5.96 and features an updated internal RAW processor based on libraw 2022-07-14, which adds support for new cameras like Canon EOS R3, Canon EOS R7, Canon EOS R10, Fujifilm X-H2S, Fujifilm X-T30 II, Olympus System OM-1, Leica M11, Sony A7-IV, DJI Mavic 3, and Nikon Z9.

Distributions and Operating Systems

BSD

• My next attempt is to lock memory mappings. The current working name is mimmutable(void *addr, size_t len). This identifies all current mapped memory in a region, and tags the mappings. Such mappings can never be unmapped. No new mmap can be done on top of the mappings. And the permissions cannot be changed. Other than that, the underlying storage memory works fine, it is just the mapping that is locked.

• This (great, convenience) feature was previously unavailable in the base system, but could be found in ports such as pstree(1).

Arch Family

• Arch Linux’s September 2022 ISO release is out now for those who want to deploy the lightweight and powerful GNU/Linux distribution on new computers. Arch Linux devs release a new ISO image every month, but the September 2022 snapshot is special because it ships with Linux kernel 5.19 by default.

• Linux kernel 5.19 brings new features like support for AMD’s Secure Nested Paging feature, support for ZSTD-compressed firmware files, initial support for Loongson’s “LoongArch” RISC ISA CPU architecture, support for the ARM Scalable Matrix Extension (SME), as well as new and improved security features.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

GNU Projects

Leftovers

• Relearning an old sport, or starting a new one, can be challenging for amputees. Besides the obvious physical aspects, custom prosthetics or adaptors might need to be made and fitted, which can be very expensive. With the power of 3D printing and some machining, [Ian Davis] was able to build a custom prosthetic golf club to get a quadruple amputee back on the greens.

• The reverie of Dexter Gordon’s “As Time Goes By” expands soulfully: Augustine’s distension animi…

Science

• We know that pretty much everybody in the Northern hemisphere has had a hellish summer, and there’s little room for sympathy when someone busts out with, “Oh yeah? You think THAT’s hot? Well, lemme tell you…” But you’ve got to pity someone who lives in north Texas and has a steel Quonset hut for a shop. That’s got to be just stupidly hot.

• Sweaty feet can be uncomfortable, and the smell generated in one’s shoes isn’t much to admire, either. In an effort to help solve this issue, [Revoxdyna] has created a cooler for one’s feet that should help out in hot conditions.

Hardware

• Global shipments of PCs and tablets are in steep decline, but will pick up again in 2024, according to a new study by IDC.

• Shipments of traditional PCs are forecast to decline 12.8% to 305.3 million units in 2022, while IDC expects tablet shipments will fall 6.8% to 156.8 million. The combined market for PCs and tablets will decline by 2.6% in 2023 before returning to growth in 2024, according to IDC.

• Knowing his friend is a first-person shooter enthusiast, [Solderking] came up with a unique modified XBox controller as a gift. Tongue in cheek, you could argue that this controller is fully analog, as all of the buttons have been removed and replaced with analog sticks — each stick emulating four different buttons with its four different directions.

• We techie types are quite often much more comfortable in front of a keyboard knocking out code, than out in the yard splitting logs for winter, and even the little jobs like cutting the grass are sometimes just too much like hard manual labour for our liking. The obvious solution is a robot mower, but they’re kinda boring, with their low-tech spinning metal blades. What we need is a big frickin’ laser. YouTuber [rctestflight] has been experimenting with using a 40W blue diode laser module to cut the weeds, (Video, embedded below) and it sort of works, albeit in a rather dangerous fashion.

• 3D printed gearboxes are great for experimental designs, but due to roughness and inaccuracies in the printed surfaces, they can wear quickly and be rather noisy. As a possible alternative, [Resetman] is experimenting with magnetic 3D printed gearboxes that work without physical contact between the rotating wheels, and can also be “geared” for different ratios in some interesting ways.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Jackson, the state capital of Mississippi, has a population of over 150,000 people, more than 80% of whom are African American. Mississippi is the poorest state in the country. Jackson residents, already under a water boil notice for over a month, have now had no running water for days, to drink, to bathe in, or to flush toilets. The Pearl River flooded following record rainfall, overwhelming the city’s water treatment plant. On Sunday, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba urged city residents, “If you are capable of getting out now, get out now.” Jackson has been paralyzed by the confluence of racism, classism, and the worsening climate crisis.

Proprietary

• Google has quietly expanded its “User Choice Billing” pilot to let more developers of non-gaming Android apps offer third-party payment options as alternatives to Google Play’s. Developers will see their service fees of 15 to 30 percent reduced by 4 percent when users select a new third-party billing option, which the developer — not Google — must support in case of customer issues. The news was first reported by 9to5Google.

• Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced on Thursday that the state government is working with police to investigate a possible illegal selling of a voter assist terminal.

• “We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate allegations of an illegal attempt to sell a voter assist terminal acquired in Michigan. Voter assist terminals are not used to tabulate ballots, but are typically used by voters with disabilities who need assistance marking their ballot privately at polling places.

• Look beyond the boom and bust of consumer tech, though, and you see the real successes. The market for the infrastructure technology that underpins people’s daily lives, such as cloud computing, cybersecurity and digital payments, is thriving. The cloud-computing industry is expected to grow to almost $500bn this year, up from $243bn in 2019. Amazon’s cloud offering, the largest in the world, is still growing at 33% each year. It accounted for three-quarters of the firm’s operating income over the past 12 months, and is propping up the tech giant’s ailing e-commerce business. Its closest rivals are the cloud services of Microsoft and Google. Their annual sales are growing by 40% and 36%, respectively.

• According to a statement from Microsoft, the issues began after Ubuntu 18.04 (bionic) VM users installed an update called “systemd version 237-3ubuntu10.54″.

• After installing the update, the impacted users began experiencing domain name system (DNS) errors.

• Tech giant Google has allowed social media network Park back into its Play Store, this a year after it banned the platform in the wake of 2021 Capitol violence.

• The tech giant had pulled down the app popular with American conservatives days after the violent attack on the seat of US government on January 6 last year, alleging the platform allowed content that could incite more violence, AFP reported.

• The social media platform Parler is available again for users to download from the Google Play Store a year and a half after the app was removed, the company said Friday.

• Parler, which boasts its limited content moderation measures, was banned from the app store since January 2021 over a lack of moderation on posts that were deemed to incite violence around the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

Security

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

• Damien Miller (djm@) notes that all (new) commits to the portable OpenSSH repository are now signed using git’s SSH signature support.

Privacy/Surveillance

• The suit – filed on behalf of four Americans who visited Assange – seeks damages personally from then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo for violating the plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. The suit also seeks damages against a Spanish security firm contracted to protect the embassy, and its CEO, alleging that they abused their position to illegally spy on visitors and passed on the surveillance data they collected to the CIA, which is also named a defendant in the suit.

• Legal experts, including a former senior intelligence official, told Newsweek that the allegations in the lawsuit, if proven, show the CIA crossed lines drawn to protect American citizens from surveillance by overzealous intelligence agencies.

• EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit last year to learn more about how the FBI uses Geek Squad employees to flag illegal material when people pay Best Buy to repair their computers. The relationship potentially circumvents computer owners’ Fourth Amendment rights.

• The documents released to EFF show that Best Buy officials have enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the agency for at least 10 years. For example, an FBI memo from September 2008 details how Best Buy hosted a meeting of the agency’s “Cyber Working Group” at the company’s Kentucky repair facility.

• Agents paid managers in the retailer’s device repair unit to pass along information about illegal content discovered on customers’ devices, according to documents posted online by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital rights group sued the FBI for the documents last year after the bureau denied a Freedom of Information Act request.

• The EFF filed the lawsuit to learn the extent to which the agency trains and directs Best Buy Geek Squad employees to conduct warrantless searches of customers’ devices during maintenance. The EFF said it was concerned that use of repair technicians to root out evidence of criminal behavior circumvents people’s constitutional rights.

• Over the past few years, international law enforcement has been cracking down on encrypted device purveyors. We’re not just talking about regular device encryption, which has been mainstream for several years now. These would be specialized manufacturers that appear to cater to those seeking more protection than the major providers offer — services that ensure almost no communications/data originating from these phones can be obtained from third-party services.

• We’re just going to keep getting kids killed in America. We’ll never stop throwing money in the direction of the problem, but not directly at the problem. Nothing gets safer. It just gets more budget line items.

Confidentiality

• For many years our work was mainly financed by donations and smaller projects. Now we have reached a point where we can benefit from a continuous revenue stream to maintain and extend the software without asking for donations or grants. This is quite a new experience to us and I am actually a bit proud to lead one of the few self-sustaining free software projects who had not to sacrifice the goals of the movement.

Defence/Aggression

• Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency are used to risky missions — from the radioactive aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in Japan to the politically charged Iranian nuclear program. But their deployment amid the war in Ukraine to Zaporizhzhia takes the threat to a new level and underscores the lengths to which the organization will go in attempts to avert a potentially catastrophic nuclear disaster.

• Video circulating on social media shows the gun emerging from the crowd as Ms Fernández de Kirchner approaches. She initially appears confused by what is going on, ducking down to retrieve an object dropped on the floor.

• In another video, people in the crowd appear to try to block Ms Fernández de Kirchner from the suspected gunman, who came within inches of her.

• Journalists Chris Hedges and Robert Scheer discuss Mikhail Gorbachev, his life, his role in the end of the Cold War and his legacy today.

• So what are we to say about Mikhail Gorbachev, who passed away on August 30?

• NPR ran several stories on Afghanistan to mark the anniversary of the August 2021 US withdrawal, even sending host Steve Inskeep to the country to produce a series of pieces. His visit happened to coincide with Biden’s claimed assassination of Ayman al-Zawahiri; Inskeep says that he and his team were staying in close proximity to the Al Qaeda leader.

• Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive to recover territories in the southern Kherson region is now underway, but the situation at the front remains under wraps. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has barred journalists from reporting in front-line areas and has urged the press “not to question the actions of the command and not to serve as additional tools in the hands of Russian propaganda.” (Russian state media claimed that the counteroffensive had failed before it had even begun.) In this context, one of the only ways to assess the situation on the ground is to sift through and verify bits and pieces of open-source information. Military analyst Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), has been meticulously gathering operational data ever since Russia began its full-scale invasion in February. Meduza sat down with Rob Lee to talk about Ukraine’s push to liberate the Kherson region from Russian occupation.

• 45 percent of Russians believe Ukraine’s Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions should become part of Russia, according to a new survey from the independent Levada Center that was published by Novaya Gazeta Europe. 21 percent of respondents said they believe the regions should become independent states, while 14 percent said they should remain part of Ukraine.

• When Russian students returned to school this week, many of them learned that Mondays are now going to look a little different from what they’re used to. First of all, each week will start with a flag-raising ceremony and the Russian national anthem. After that, the Education Ministry wants teachers to give lessons from the new government-designed curriculum package “Conversations About What’s Important.” The class is intended to teach students about topics “related to key aspects of life in modern Russia” — including the war in Ukraine.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• McBride said BYU Athletics staffers have been combing through the school’s video recordings of the match to find anyone responsible.

• “However, we have been unable to find any evidence of that person using slurs in the match,” he said.

• Similarly, BYU Police Lt. George Besendorfer told the Tribune that his agency did not find proof that the man yelled slurs, after reviewing video records.

Environment

Energy

• “We are pleased to see this well-reasoned order in such an important case,” the groups—which were represented by Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC), and defended the administration’s postponements and leasing pause—said in a statement.

• G7 finance ministers announced that they have agreed to implement a price cap on Russian oil in an effort to inhibit Russia’s ability to finance its war against Ukraine. The level at which the prices will be capped has not yet been determined; the bloc’s official statement said the ceiling will be “set at a level based on a range of technical inputs.”

• A mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) examined the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant’s emergency systems, its diesel generators, and the shields around its power units, IAEA and delegation leader Director General Rafael Grossi reported on Friday. According to Grossi, the “physical integrity” of the plant has been violated multiple times, but it wasn’t clear whether the damage was intentional or accidental.

Overpopulation

• IT is a nightmare scenario that is fast unfolding. Yet the threat that population explosion presents to national security is missing from our policy discourse. Aside from a fleeting reference to population management, there is not enough recognition of the gravity of the problem in the recently launched integrated National Security Policy (NSP). There is no clear strategy on how to deal with the exponential population growth that continues to have a destabilising effect on our society.

Finance

• The housing crisis is worsening in Los Angeles, where an estimated 60,000 people remain unhoused in Los Angeles County and thousands more are on the cusp of evictions, even as 20,000 hotel rooms remain vacant across the region. This comes as a new ballot measure could require hotels to house homeless people in vacant rooms. The measure is backed by California’s largest hospitality union, UNITE HERE Local 11, and attempts to revive a statewide pandemic policy known as Project Roomkey, which, now set to end, provided vouchers for people experiencing homelessness to use at hotels and motels. “Project Roomkey is one piece of the puzzle,” says Kurt Petersen, co-president for UNITE HERE Local 11, who, along with UCLA professor Ananya Roy, notes massive investments are desperately needed to secure permanent affordable housing. We also speak with former Echo Park Lake encampment resident Will Sens Jr., who is in Project Roomkey and says the program provided stability for him and others.

• As a teenager, I was an avid reader of Judith Martin, the columnist more commonly known as Miss Manners. I was particularly fascinated by esoteric topics that seemed to belong to another era, such as how to address a formal wedding invitation to a woman doctor and her non-physician husband, or which fork is ideal for serving wedges of lemon (a three-tined lemon fork, of course). Martin taught me that etiquette is best viewed as a means of conveying appreciation and respect for others: Lemon forks may not always be necessary but thank-you notes will never go out of style.

• “Those who continue to struggle with student debt are in need of updated undue hardship guidance.”

• “With more than 80% of countries around the world seeing inflation above 6%, socioeconomic risks are reaching critical levels.”

• “That this retrograde solution would be considered in this day and age is appalling.”

• “There are a number of innovative ideas I would support,” Johnson (R-Wis.) said during a tele-town hall with constituents on Wednesday as he’s locked in a close reelection race with Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes in the key battleground state of Wisconsin.

• Let’s be clear. The most important economic and political issues facing this country are the extraordinary levels of income and wealth inequality, the rapidly growing concentration of ownership, the long-term decline of the American middle class, and the evolution of this country into oligarchy.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• At the shows in the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, JC Crawford, the official MC of the MC5, would introduce the band. His words speak to us in our deeply troubled time: “Brothers and sisters, I want to hear some revolution out there, I want to hear some revolution. The time has come for each and every one of you to decide whether you are gonna be the problem, or whether you are gonna be the solution. You must choose, brothers, you must choose. It takes five seconds. Five seconds of decision. Five seconds to realize your purpose here on the planet. It takes five seconds to realize that it’s time to move. It’s time to get down with it. Brothers and sisters, it’s time to testify, and I want to know — are you ready to testify? Are you ready? I give you a testimonial, THE MC5!”

• Regardless, overseas voting changes are temporary. Allan is waiting for the findings of a panel of six experts reviewing the entire electoral system – apart from online voting and alternatives to MMP – before making such a move permanent.

• The state claimed the carrier’s decision was a commercial one, rather than a political one. But that seemed scarcely credible when the government was simultaneously moving to appease more conservative elements in society through content controls and to expand its taxation of the growing digital economy. Ministers were also explicitly calling for foreign digital companies to work through local partner companies.

• During an official EU meeting in Prague it has been decided that Russians will no longer be able to freely visit Europe for holiday as long as the War in Ukraine continues.

• Members of climate activist group Extinction Rebellion on Friday glued themselves to the Speaker’s chair in the UK House of Commons, calling for a “Citizens’ Assembly” to help shape environmental policy.

• The talks “reiterated the need to further accelerate climate action on all fronts, namely in adaptation, loss and damage, climate finance, and adopting more ambitious mitigation measures to keep the 1.5-degree target within reach,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who will chair the COP27, said in a statement.

• African countries are among the nations that are least to blame for the fossil-fuel gases that stoke global warming, accounting for less than four percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide.

• But they are also among the countries that are most exposed to climate impacts, such as worsening drought, floods and cyclones.

• Clara Sorrenti and those supporting her are hoping to open up Kiwi Farms to debilitating virtual attacks by demanding Cloudflare, one of its internet security service vendors, drop the site. Cloudflare has so far refused to budge.

• For much of the past year and a half, the folksy, feisty Joe Biden from the campaign trail seemed to have been replaced by a wooden stage prop. For months, as his popularity plummeted, nothing seemed to go right for the now-president. The man who told Trump to shut up during a live debate, who cried with affecting sincerity when he talked about his son Beau, looked worn, strained. When he spoke, it was the gaffes rather than the substance that made the headlines.

• In a primetime address Thursday, President Biden warned Donald Trump and his radical supporters are threatening the foundations of the republic. Biden said, “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” and that MAGA Republicans present a “clear and present danger to our democracy,” referring to Trump’s campaign slogan of “Make America Great Again.” We speak with Nancy MacLean, author and Duke University historian, who says Biden’s speech was a “wake-up call” for the nation and mainstream media. “He was absolutely right, in my opinion, that the Trump wing of the party and the MAGA Republicans have jumped the rails of constitutional democracy, of the factual universe and of representative democracy.”

• Young people—as revealed in poll after poll and conversation after conversation—despair of our democracy. Older people share some of that despair; until it happened, it was impossible for many of us to imagine American citizens trying to stage a coup. And yet, despite months of inaction, legislative packages now passing through Congress give those of us in college a glimmer of hope for a Washington that works for change, one that we’ve rarely seen in our lifetimes.

• On this week’s “Scheer Intelligence, Robert Scheer is joined by CODEPINK founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, rare voices of conscience confronting the bipartisan warmongers.

• An important debate has been playing out in recent days on The Bulwark, a national website to which I have been contributing since early June. It came down to this question: Should Donald Trump be tried at the ballot box, or in a court of law?

• Italy is scheduled to hold its general election on September 25, and “polls are led by Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, part of a right-wing coalition widely expected to secure a majority of seats,” historian David Broder, Jacobin’s Europe editor, explained Friday. “With her own party backed by around one-quarter of voters, Meloni looks likely to become prime minister.”

• “Continued inaction could abet interference in this historic referendum.”

• “Where did the classified content go?” asked Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), voicing a sentiment also expressed by reporters and watchdogs in response to the inventory, which indicates that the FBI retrieved from Mar-a-Lago 18 documents marked “top secret,” 54 marked “secret,” and 48 empty folders with “classified” banners.

• United Russia has cleansed its supporter database in preparation for the 2024 presidential election. The party removed about 15 million people, says RBC, citing sources within the party.

• The composition of the 155 popularly elected delegates to the convention — half of them women — further cemented the sense that their efforts would be approved. As I was told again and again on a recent visit to Chile, the delegates “look like us, like the real country.”

Censorship/Free Speech

• Pressures from social reformers during an “era of scandal” led the industry to self-regulate by creating the organization in 1922 and paving the way for a Production Code that impacted film content and satisfied many anti-Hollywood activists for nearly two decades.

• This article attempts to summarize the development of the Islamic punishment for blasphemy in Muslim thought and life. Several essential primary sources of Islam are examined in this regard, including the Qur’an; the sunna (practice) of Muhammad, the messenger of Islam, as presented in early Muslim narratives and the traditions attributed to him; and Islamic Law. I also describe writings by later Muslim authorities that both explained the theological reasons for the prohibition against blasphemy, and sharpened the application of the punishment meted out to offenders. When these sources are taken together, it may be said that all of them reflect the extreme veneration that Muslims exhibit toward Muhammad.

• Apart from hundreds of social media users complaining about being unable to access YouTube, independent internet watchdog Netblocks ran network analysis tests in Pakistan through users which showed that YouTube was working for only 38 per cent of users who ran the test. This means that YouTube was accessible on only a few networks and not on others.

• Because the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has not made any public comments to the media or on its website regarding the outage, we have to evaluate the available evidence to determine how the censorship of YouTube over a short span of time panned out.

• In July of 1995, Time Magazine published one of its most regrettable stories ever. The cover just read “CYBERPORN” with the subhead reading: “EXCLUSIVE A new study shows how pervasive and wild it really is. Can we protect our kids—and free speech?” The author of that piece, Philip Elmer-Dewitt later admitted that it was his “worst” story “by far.”

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• “Most importantly, he isn’t upholding the values that he continues to preach.”

• Republicans are attacking the right to be safely queer in public at all levels of government. One of the key fronts in this assault against LGBTQ rights is in the schools. Conservatives are censoring teachers and students across the country, making it difficult for schools to be safe havens for queer youth. Florida recently passed a bill dubbed “Don’t Say Gay,” which bans the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in some elementary school grades and constrains it through the 12th grade. Other states are now pushing for similar legislation.

Civil Rights/Policing

• “As we approach Labor Day, it’s important to remember that workers are the backbone of our city and deserve the right to organize.”

• Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), it is illegal to fire workers for organizing a union. In response to losing our jobs, we filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB, alleging that we were fired in response to our union activity. To date, the NLRB has issued an official complaint against Starbucks on behalf of the seven of us who were fired in Memphis, and a Federal District Court Judge recently ruled that Starbucks must reinstate us.

• We are fighting to get our jobs back and fighting for the right to organize. We love our job at Starbucks and find joy in making our customers’ days. Starbucks claims to be a different kind of company – one that does everything “through the lens of humanity.” Starbucks’s mission and values include “challenging the status quo” and treating each other with “dignity and respect.” We do not believe that Starbucks has been living up to its mission and values and we are working to change that. In fact, since the return of interim CEO Howard Schultz, we’ve felt Starbucks has doubled down on efforts to stamp out unionization across the country.

• On Thursday, staff at the Secundaria Número 4 Ricardo Flores Magón school in Tijuana said that Acoyani, a 12-year-old student whose dark, braided hair reached all the way down his back, wouldn’t be allowed to continue attending classes. The reasons they gave were that he could be confused for a girl or that his long hair might encourage other male students to come to school with long hair.

• One of the more disingenuous arguments for overturning Roe v. Wade (1973) was the claim that it would take the contested social issue of abortion out of the hands of unelected courts and give it to the democratically elected Congress and state legislatures. When Roe was rescinded by the Dobbs decision in June, right-wing columnist Katie Pavlich wrote in The Hill, “Abortion law being returned to the states by the Supreme Court allows Americans to have more of a say and additional opportunities to engage in the democratic process. The overturning of Roe is not only a win for life, but for the restoration of the U.S. Constitution and democracy.”1

• An emergency at sea in May this year shows how Maltese authorities lets unseaworthy boats pass unrescued so that refugees are taken on board much later by neighbouring Italy or drown. Frontex’s acting Fundamental Rights Officer has clearer words for this than his predecessor.

• Putting cops in schools is still a bad idea. It turns regular disciplinary problems — ones handled for decades by administrators, teachers, and parents — into police matters, subjecting students to the whims of armed officers who have been trained to react with violence to nearly any misbehavior.

• 71% of Americans now approve of labor unions and 40% of union members say their membership is “extremely important.”

• In a new filing, the NLRB officer who presided over weeks of virtual hearings on Amazon’s election objections concluded that the corporation’s protests against the union’s landmark victory “should be overruled in their entirety.”

• Reports of the biggest rise in public support for unions in a half century is an encouraging response to the chokehold the policies of neoliberalism have held over U.S. workers for decades that led to a staggering inequality, the weakening of unions, and facilitated the ascendancy of the right.

• A 24-year-old man with developmental disabilities, Reichard was accustomed to workers at the state-run residential facility telling him what to do. But this time he didn’t obey.

• “What I am presently seeing occur at Choate and hearing occur at other facilities concerns me more than it has my entire career,” Barry Smoot, a decades-long IDHS employee, wrote to Illinois Department of Human Services Secretary Grace Hou on May 26, 2021. Among the recommendations he wanted to make: that cameras be installed inside the facility.

• Her death was announced on Twitter by her son, Ben Ehrenreich, and daughter, Rosa Brooks.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• For more than 40 years, Barbara kept our IPS family learning and laughing. As a staff member in the 1980s, she shared an office with longtime IPS Director John Cavanagh and gave him an education in feminism. In between writing books and essays, she pulled together progressive women leaders in a working group that published A National Agenda for Change: Toward Economic Justice for Women in 1985. John still keeps a copy in his office.

• The announcement means the FCC has committed over $6 billion from the $9.2-billion fund, which initially announced winners under a different-look commission in December 2020, but which was scrutinized over the past year-and-a-half due to claims that the winning bids would go to areas that don’t need the connectivity promised. Under new Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC has been purging the fund of what it sees as potential wasteful spending and provided those winning bidders with opportunities to let go of those bids.

• That’s not the only thing. With increased stress levels, I really need to reduce my social media use, as it simply does not make me feel better overall and also likely eats an uncomfortably large amount of time.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• You may recall that a few weeks back we discussed Ubisoft’s decision to shutdown game servers for several titles, including major AAA titles like Assassin’s Creed 3 and Far Cry 3. While server shutdowns are the norm after some period of time, as is the loss of certain online gaming features, notable in Ubisoft’s announcement was that anyone who bought the PC DLC for those games was simply going to lose all that bought DLC. Making matters worse, updated versions of the game on PC are available for purchase and include all that DLC, making it so that Ubisoft was tacitly telling gamers to just go buy the content all over again.

• We’ve noted more times than I can count how you no longer really own the things you buy. Whether it’s smart home hardware, or routers that become useless paperweights when the manufacturer implodes, or post-purchase firmware updates that actively make your device less useful, you simply never know if the product you bought yesterday will be the same product you think you own tomorrow.

Monopolies

Copyrights

• Bandcamp is bringing back its Bandcamp Fridays promotion where it waives its cut of any money you spend buying music from artists or their labels on its marketplace. Historically, the company ran the promotion on the first Friday of every month, and that appears to be the case this time around, too. According to its update page, it has Bandcamp Fridays scheduled for September 2nd, October 7th, November 4th, and December 2nd.

• Google has removed several popular YouTube rippers from its UK search results. The company took this action following a notice from local music group BPI, which pointed out that local ISPs are required to block the sites due to a High Court order. In response, Google voluntarily took the same action.

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