● 10.17.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 17/10/2022: Tails 5.5 and Mozilla Firefox 106

Posted in News Roundup at 12:06 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

• This week was all about software releases as VirtualBox 7.0 arrived with major changes, followed by the KDE Plasma 5.26 desktop environment, which is already hitting the stable repositories of popular distributions, as well as Ardour 7.0 digital audio workstation with its awesome new features for music production.

• On top of that, we got new maintenance updates of the KDE Gear 22.08 software suite and LibreOffice 7.4 office suite, a new feature-branch NVIDIA graphics driver, and new kernel security vulnerabilities for Ubuntu users.

Audiocasts/Shows

• In this backyard boomer vlog, I want to talk a little bit about how the early world wide web was better than today’s web. It had more variety and diversity when the web was young. Oddly, as it grew, the web became a much smaller place…

• Cowsay lolcat fortune espeak linux

• Bill likes his new job. We received a lot of feedback from listeners trying Linux for the first time.

• Linus Tech Tips blows it again, and we clean up. Plus, we push System76′s updated Thelio Workstation to the breaking point.

Kernel Space

• Linux kernel boss Linus Torvalds has released the first release candidate for version 6.1 of the project and added an appeal for developers to make his life easier by adding code earlier in the development cycle.

• Work on each new cut of the kernel commences with a two week “merge window” during which developers are encouraged to add whatever it is they want included in the next version.

• In his weekly state of the kernel update Torvalds declared version 6.1 “isn’t actually shaping up to be a particularly large release: we ‘only’ have 11.5k non-merge commits during this merge window, compared to 13.5k last time around.”

• He therefore rated version 6.1 “not exactly tiny, but smaller than the last few releases. At least in number of commits.”

• Linux 6.0 has been released two weeks ago, and Linux 6.1-rc1 is already out of the door, but we didn’t get the chance to look at the contributions made by Bootlin to the Linux 6.0 release. Before we do that, let’s provide our usual must-read articles on Linux 6.0: the Linux 6.0 merge window part 1 and Linux 6.0 merge window part 2 LWN.net articles and the KernelNewbies.org article.

Benchmarks

• If you want to perform a benchmark test on a USB thumb drive or other external USB hard drive, the procedure is quite similar to doing a benchmark test on an ordinary, internal storage device. All that we need to do is measure the read and write speed of the USB drive. In this tutorial, you will see how to benchmark test a USB drive via command line and GUI on a Linux system.

Applications

• The significant feature of Linux — is its transparency and openness to change. But users pay for it with the standardization of the command process.

• Windows and macOS systems have a graphical interface. But the Linux system is only partly graphic. You will have some apps with beginner-friendly interfaces, but you should apply for some orders in the terminal. It is the price that Linux users pay for the ability to customize the system.

• There are many benefits provided by the internet, however, it also introduced new risks and challenges. The threat to our privacy is one of the most common and notable risks users have to face online. Many users have the belief that their browser, search engine, and antivirus programs are protected, but rarely is enough actually being done. This article will discuss some great security tools that can help protect your privacy online.

•  Apple Terminal provides a command line interface to control the UNIX-based operating system that lurks below macOS. Terminal offers several features that access macOS APIs and features offering access to macOS Help search function to find manual pages and integration with Spotlight.

• Terminal is proprietary software. Let’s explore the best free and open source alternatives.

• Pika Backup is a lightweight free program that allows you to back up your files to any USB storage medium without worrying about configuration or complex commands.

• It is a straightforward app with a simple interface. Just, Plugin your USB drive and let the Pika do the rest for you.

• Pika is compatible with Gnome desktop, but it works also with KDE and XFCE.

• The file manager (or file explorer) is the application that displays directories and files on a Linux system. Most people think of GUI applications when it comes to file managers, but there are also some command line utilities that can be used as file managers. Finding the right file manager for your needs is important, since they all come with different features and options.

• In this tutorial, we have compiled a list of our favorite file managers for Linux. Check out our picks below to find one that suits you best.

• Using the terminal is one of the main draws that attracts users to a Linux system. It is very powerful and allows you to do many tasks just from your keyboard. But you can get even more use out of the command line if you have a good terminal to go along with it. Some terminals make things easier or allow you to split windows to increase your workflow efficiency, etc.

• In this tutorial, we have compiled a list of our favorite terminals for Linux. Check out our picks below to find one that suits you best for your command line and administrative needs.

• Version 23.2 of Ora2Pg, a free and reliable tool used to migrate an Oracle database to PostgreSQL, has been officially released and is publicly available for download.

• This release fix several issues reported since past height months and adds some new features and improvements.

• AgensGraph is a new-generation multi-model graph database for the modern complex data environment. AgensGraph is a multi-model database, which simultaneously supports the relational and graph data model and enables developers to integrate the legacy relational data model and the flexible graph data model in one database. AgensGraph supports ANSI-SQL and openCypher. SQL and Cypher queries can be integrated into a single query in AgensGraph.

• AgensGraph is based on the powerful PostgreSQL RDBMS and is very robust, fully featured, and ready for enterprise use. AgensGraph is optimized for handling complex connected graph data and provides plenty of robust database features essential to the enterprise database environment including ACID transactions, multi-version concurrency control, stored procedure, triggers, constraints, sophisticated monitoring, and a flexible data model (JSON). Moreover, AgensGraph leverages the rich ecosystems of PostgreSQL and can be extended with many outstanding external modules, like PostGIS.

• System monitoring tools allow users and administrators to keep tabs on CPU and memory usage, storage availability, hardware temperatures, network activity, and other helpful information on a Linux system. Your system will not always let you know what it is doing, so keeping an eye on this information can give you insight into what it is doing behind the scenes. In this tutorial, we have compiled a list of our favorite system monitoring tools for Linux. Check out our picks below to find one that suits you best.

• Setzer is a free Libre open-source software for LaTeX document editor for GNU/ Linux desktops.

• It is a lightweight app for Linux system that is compatible with Gnome deskop.

Instructionals/Technical

• dnf-automatic is a tool that helps to manage automatic unattended updates of Rocky Linux system.

• This tool is a help for many sysadmins to automate updates on a server.

• So, it is worth knowing this tool.

• VirtualBox 7.0 is the latest free and open-source (FOSS) hypervisor version. Among the most notable changes in VirtualBox 7.0 is the remote control of VMs hosted in the cloud and support for encrypted VMs. The GUI has been streamlined, with better integration of help and error messages and the ability to easily tweak settings such as the number of CPU cores during VM creation. The new version also includes several other features, such as support for high-resolution displays, support for multiple monitors, and the ability to print from a VM. Overall, the new version of VirtualBox is a significant improvement over previous versions and should be welcomed by users. VirtualBox has long been one of the most popular FOSS hypervisors thanks to its ease of use and wide range of features.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install VirtualBox 7.0 on Linux Mint 21 LTS release by importing the official virtual box repository and installing the most up-to-date version using the command line terminal. The extra benefit for users using this method is that you will receive them instantly from the VirtualBox repository when updates drop.

• Pluma is a free, open-source great option for those who need to edit multiple text files simultaneously. The Unicode UTF-8 encoding makes it easy to work with diverse languages, and the simple user interface makes it easy to find the needed features. Pluma supports standard features, such as Highlands’ advanced word processing tools. Pluma is an excellent choice if you’re looking for an easy-to-use, general-purpose editor. Thanks to its support for multiple languages and standard features, Pluma is a versatile tool that can meet the needs of many users.

• The following tutorial will teach you how to install Pluma Text Editor on Linux Mint 21 release series using the command line terminal for an alternative text editor or those familiar with MATE desktop applications.

• In this guide, we will discuss some of the practical examples of the egrep command. After following this guide, users will be able to perform text searching more efficiently in Linux.

• Have you ever been frustrated because you are unable to find the required information in the logs? Extracting the required information from a large data set is a complex and time-consuming task.

• Things become really challenging if the operating system doesn’t provide the right tools and here comes Linux to rescue you. Linux provides various text-filtering utilities such as awk, sed, cut, etc.

• However, egrep is one of the most powerful and commonly used utilities for text processing in Linux, and we going to discuss some examples of the egrep command.

• The symbolic link, also known as soft link or symlink, in Linux is a special type of file that works as a shortcut to another file.

• You can create a soft link using the ln command. But what about deleting them?

• There is no special command for removing symbolic links in Linux. You can use the rm command which is also used for deleting files and directories.

• In this article, we will explain how to install VirtualBox 7.0 on Debian 11 and Debian 10 distributions using VirtualBox’s own repository with an apt package manager.

• VirtualBox is a most popular x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization software for organizations as well as home users with an highly feature rich, high performance software solution that is freely available as Open Source product under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

• VirtualBox extends the capabilities of your existing computer (running the host operating system) so that it can run multiple operating systems, inside multiple virtual machines, simultaneously.

• Video metadata contains information like author, title, genre, comment, and creation date. This information is embedded in the video file itself, but it not really a common practice for video releases to contain a lot of metadata info. If nothing else, there is usually some copyright information. In this tutorial, you will see how to get and change video metadata on a Linux system. This can be accomplished from both command line and GUI. We will cover both methods below.

• Learn the commands to install the 0 A.D game on Debian 11 Bullseye Linux to play a real strategy game on your PC or Laptop.

• The real-time strategy game “0 A.D.” (pronounced “zero ey-dee”) transports you to the year 500 BC. Similar to the model, in the classic game Age of Empires 2, you control a people that you gradually lead to a world power through skillful management and strategic warfare. In “0 A.D.” you play either in a campaign against the AI or against friends in the local network. With the included level editor, you can even make your maps and scenarios.

• 0 A.D. is an open-source real-time strategy game. Special emphasis is placed on the historical events of civilizations. Thus, the peoples differ not only in appearance but also in their units, structures, technologies, and special buildings. The latest version currently contains ten different civilizations, such as the Hellenic States, and the Celtic Tribes of the Roman Republic.

• The SeaMonkey project was launched in 2005 to create a free, open-source Internet suite. It is based on the same source code as the former Mozilla Application Suite, which grew out of Netscape Communicator. SeaMonkey suite includes a browser, email and newsgroup client, IRC chat client, and simple HTML editor. All of your Internet needs can be met in one easy-to-use package. The SeaMonkey project is committed to delivering seamless integration of Internet applications, and it is continually evolving to meet the changing needs of its users. If you’re looking for an all-in-one solution for your Internet needs, SeaMonkey is the answer.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install SeaMonkey on Linux Mint 21 LTS desktop with the official Ubuntuzilla Repository APT repository using the command line terminal and instructions on updating and removing the software in the future if required.

• Files with the .RPM extension are software packages intended for installation on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or one of its derivative Linux distributions, such as CentOS, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, or Fedora. When you install software by using an RPM file, your system may need to install dependencies for it to run correctly. This is common behavior for the dnf package manager as well, so you may already be familiar with package dependencies. In this tutorial, we will show you how to check the package dependencies for an RPM file on RHEL and similar distros.

• A file that has the .DEB file extension is a Debian software package file. They contain software to be installed on Debian Linux or another Debian-based Linux distro such as Ubuntu Linux. When you install software from a DEB file, your system may need to install dependencies for it to run correctly. This is common behavior for apt package manager as well, so you may already be familiar with package dependencies. In this tutorial, we will show you how to check the package dependencies for a DEB file on Debian and Ubuntu via the Linux command line.

• Google Chrome is a popular web browser that can be installed on Ubuntu systems. However, updates for the browser are not handled through the browser itself as with Windows and macOS; instead, they are handled through the system’s updater tool. When a new update becomes available, Ubuntu will notify you of this and provide an option to install it.

• Alternatively, you can also update Google Chrome from the command line using the apt tool. Before going into the details, follow our article on how to install google chrome on various Linux distros if you want to install it on your system. So without any further ado, let me describe all the possible ways to update google chrome in your Ubuntu Linux.

• Docker Swarm is a container orchestration built on top of Docker Engine.

• WebApps are a special type of applications. They are not fully-fledged programs on the desktop like your image editor or multimedia player, but instead, they are just websites contained in a window.

• Many websites like WhatsApp, Messenger or Office 365 are usually opened by users all the day. They want to access them quickly at anytime, and writing the URL of the website each time or searching for it on Google is a huge waste of time.

• That’s why the idea of WebApps came into life; a standalone window in the applications menu of your system that instantly opens the desired website whenever you just click it. You can leave this window opened all the day if you wish.

• In this quick tutorial, we will see how we can install WebApps easily on Linux without much hassle.

• The Yocto Project allows users to create custom Linux distributions for emedded and IoT software. It is an open source project, calloborated on by the Linux foundation and other big names in the tech industry. Its big advantage is that it can work on a variety of architectures including some that are not as mainstream or widespread, like ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, x86, and x86-64.

• In this tutorial, you will learn the basics of how to use Yocto. We will take you through the step by step instructions to get started with creating your own Linux distribution for an embedded system.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install WineHQ on Rocky Linux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, WineHQ is a program that can be used to run Windows software on Linux. Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on the fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows applications into your desktop. In general, Wine is a handy tool for anyone who needs or wants to run Windows applications on another platform. Recently, the Wine team proudly announced the stable release of 7.0 and made it available for download in source and binary packages for various distributions.

• 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 WineHQ on Rocky Linux. 9.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install the Pluma text editor on Linux Mint 21. For those of you who didn’t know, Pluma is a small and lightweight UTF-8 text editor for the MATE environment. It fully utilizes the Unicode UTF-8 encoding for international characters, making it easy to work with diverse languages. Pluma is an excellent choice if you’re looking for an easy-to-use, general-purpose editor.

• 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 Pluma text editor on Linux Mint 21 (Vanessa).

• Shortcut keys provide an easier and quicker method of navigating and executing commands on the command line.

Games

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• This year at Akademy, I took the plunge and decided to run for a seat on the KDE e.V.’s board of directors.

• What is the KDE e.V.? It’s the nonprofit organization that represents the KDE community in legal and financial matters. It has several paid employees who work on KDE stuff, most notably promotion & marketing, project management, and event planning. You can see more at https://ev.kde.org/corporate/staffcontractors.

• By the way, in case you were wondering (as I did at one point), “e.V.” is short for “eingetragener Verein” which is German for “registered association”–basically a type of nonprofit entity.

Distributions and Operating Systems

•  Rhino Linux will be the successor of Rolling Rhino Remix. A Linux distro built by http.llamaz that offered a rolling-release unofficial variant of Ubuntu.

• To clarify, the project was never aimed to replace other stable distributions and was purely a passion project made for fun.

• Considering people started using it as a daily driver and expected more from it, the developer has decided to turn this into a serious project.

• Rhino Linux is its next step for it. So, what can you expect?

New Releases

• We’re pleased to announce that the 20221001 image set has been promoted to current and is now generally available.

• You can find the new images on our downloads page and on our many mirrors.

• Special thanks for this image set goes out to @CameronNemo for work in fixing some of the issues with networking in the installer and @paper42 for various improvements to the live image contents.

• Also in this release, the Raspberry Pi platform images are now condensed into one image per architecture. See here for more details about which image to use for which Raspberry Pi model.

Fedora Family / Red Hat / IBM

• Apache Kafka Streams allow you to implement event-driven and event streaming applications in a distributed environment. Red Hat OpenShift Streams for Apache Kafka takes those capabilities to the next level by eliminating the complexity and management involved in implementing and maintaining Kafka instances.

• If you’re using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host your Red Hat OpenShift cluster or Red Hat OpenShift Streams for Apache Kafka, you’ll be pleased to know that the AWS Marketplace now offers Red Hat OpenShift Streams for Apache Kafka for AWS (Figure 1).

• Over the last few years, people have had to contend with major life stressors – balancing health concerns, childcare challenges, and family issues while working from home – on top of ever-changing work environments and professional responsibilities. The risk of burnout at all levels of the organization remains high and can have a catastrophic impact on team culture.

• Helping teams navigate stress is critical to keep a healthy team environment in which all employees can thrive. At Liberty Mutual, we do this by focusing on three things: we live our values, we empower employees, and we focus our teams on outcomes for our customers over outputs.

• Sometimes technology goes beyond boosting business returns and productivity and directly impacts people’s lives. For me, it was artificial intelligence: My young daughter requires medical devices to stay alive. A few months ago, she started using a new pump that stops delivering insulin when it predicts low blood glucose and delivers more insulin when it predicts high levels (both situations are dangerous and can lead to death).

• The introduction of the IBM i Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration, or Merlin, was the big attraction this spring with the launch of IBM i version 7.5 and 7.4 TR6 (it was later made available for IBM i 7.3). The offering, which combines a lightweight VSCode development environment running in a Web browser along with DevOps tooling from ARCAD Software served up via containers running in a Red Hat OpenShift environment, has spurred an immense amount of interest, says IBM’s Alison Butterill, the longtime IBM i product manager.

• There aren’t that many companies that are in the IBM i business and that are publicly traded, but Data Storage Corporation, based in Melville, New York, out on Long Island, is one of them. Just down the road from another big software giant with a legacy history – Computer Associates, which is now part of semiconductor design company Broadcom.

• I am pleased to announce we will celebrate the final release of Fedora Linux 37 with a virtual Release Party. The virtual release parties are a great way to learn more about the latest Fedora Linux release. More importantly, they’re a chance to spend time with the wonderful Fedora community. Please register on Hopin and join us on November 4th and 5th for a short program of informational sessions and social activities. Make sure to save the dates, share the registration, and show up to party with Fedora Friends!

Debian Family

• Recently, a serious kernel vulnerability has been discovered in the Linux kernel. This is currently exploitable in Tails.

• The Tails OS team has announced the availability of Tails 5.5. It comes with Tor Browser 11.5.4 which includes bug fixes on several platforms. Unfortunately, the team did warn that a serious kernel vulnerability was recently discovered and that this is currently exploitable in the latest version of Tails – hopefully, fixes should be integrated in time for the next Tails release.

• Interestingly, Tails users may not have to wait too long for Tails 5.6 because the release calendar says that it’s due around October 25th following the availability of Firefox 102.4. While you wait for a fix to the kernel vulnerability, it’d be wise to stay off untrusted Wi-Fi networks.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• I first installed Ubuntu when Ubuntu 6.06 LTS “Dapper Drake” was released. I was brand new to Linux. This was Ubuntu’s first LTS release; the very first release of Ubuntu was only a year and a half before. I was impressed by how usable and useful the system was. It soon became my primary home operating system and I wanted to help make it better.

• On October 15, 2009, I was helping test the release candidates ISOs for the Ubuntu 9.10 release. Specifically, I tested Edubuntu. Edubuntu has since been discontinued but at the time it was an official Ubuntu flavor preloaded with lots of education apps. One of those education apps was Moodle, an e-learning platform.

• When testing Moodle, I found that a default installation would make Moodle impossible to use locally. I figured out how to fix this issue. This was really exciting: I finally found an Ubuntu bug I knew how to fix. I filed the bug report.

• This was very late in the Ubuntu 9.10 release process and Ubuntu was in the Final Freeze state. In Final Freeze, every upload to packages included in the default install need to be individually approved by a member of the Ubuntu Release Team. Also, I didn’t have upload rights to Ubuntu. Jordan Mantha (LaserJock), an Edubuntu maintainer, sponsored my bug fix upload.

• Kubeflow summit aims to bring together users, contributors and professionals who benefit from the open-source MLOps platform. After two unusual years, in 2022 the community decided to take a step further and organise two days that will be all about…Kubeflow

• So…where and when do we meet? Either virtually or in person, at AMA Conference Center in San Francisco, the Kubeflow summit takes place between 18-19 October. The Kubeflow community are the organisers. The summit is free of charge but registration is required.

• VeraCrypt is a cross platform encryption solution. It can create encrypted containers to protect your files, or you can encrypt an entire disk partition on a Linux system. VeraCrypt uses the latest encryption standards, so many users place their trust in it. In this tutorial, you will see the step by step instructions to encrypt an entire disk on Ubuntu Linux.

• Autonomous vehicles are all over the media these days. But what of the technologies that make them possible? In a previous blog post, we covered the many fascinating use cases for digital twins and their applications for the development of self-driving cars. But with the race towards autonomy becoming fiercer, the costs to use these new enabling technologies are rising exponentially. Moreover, the need for talent and experts across the world is forcing companies to shift to remote work. You’ve probably heard of virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) and vGPUs (virtual GPUs), but why would you need one and how could they help your company?

Devices/Embedded

• Seeed Studio is now selling the “A203 Mini PC” industrial Linux mini PC based on an NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX module with 8GB RAM, and a 128GB SSD loaded with JetPack 5.0.2 (Ubuntu 20.04).

• If the name is familiar it’s because it is based on the Leetop A203 carrier board introduced about a year ago, with HDMI, two USB 3.0 ports, RS232, and other I/Os. The mini PC also offers Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth connectivity, and is designed to operate in the -20°C to 80°C temperature range for embedded, industrial, and functional safety applications.

•  IWave Systems provide a Linux BSP with Petalinux and Vivado Design Suite 2020.1, as well as a bare-metal BSP with Vivado 2020.1 only. There’s also a hardware development kit named the iW-RainboW-G30D with an SFP+ cage for 10Gbps Ethernet, dual Gigabit Ethernet, a DisplayPort connector, HD BNC connectors for video in and out, a PCIe Gen2 x4 slot, two FMC high-pin count (HPC) connectors, two PMOD connector, and more.

Open Hardware/Modding

• The company is known for its robots for education such as the myBuddy 280 or MechArm Pi 270 robotic arms based on Raspberry Pi 4 SBC, and while the roboBeats is more like a toy for children and adults alike, the ESP32 wireless microcontroller powering the desktop robot can also be programmed with the Arduino IDE.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers/Web Servers

Mozilla

• While it’s still missing the long-anticipated two-finger swipe horizontal gesture for navigating back and forward on a website without having to hold down the Alt key, the Mozilla Firefox 106 release is here to introduce annotation capabilities in the built-in PDF viewer that let you write text, draw, or add signatures to PDF files.

• This feature has been in testing for a while now, but it’s enabled by default in Firefox 106. The PDF annotation capabilities are pretty basic in this release, allowing you to write text or draw. You’ll be able to change the size and color of the text tool, as well as the thickness, opacity, and color of the draw tool.

Programming/Development

• The 6.4 release makes Qt for WebAssembly a supported platform. In this post we’ll take a look at how to port an existing application to this platform, using the Slate pixel art drawing app as an example. Slate is a Qt Quick-based application which means Qt Quick will be the focus of this blog post, however Qt for WebAssembly supports Qt Widgets as well and a lot should carry over to that module.

• How do you design a programming language to be powerful yet still easy to use? Rexx offers one example. This article describes how Rexx reconciles these two seemingly contradictory goals.

• This article discusses issues caused by reusing error variables in Go code. I will begin by illustrating the problem with a fictional company called ACME Corporation and its software engineer Wile E. Then I will present trivial examples to reveal the problem and how to avoid it.

• The open source roots of DevOps tools are undeniable, even with a prediction that the global DevOps market will reach $17.8 billion by 2026. The changing world of work, security, and compliance concerns, along with venture capital firms, are pushing the market to DevOps platforms where development teams can access a complete end-to-end DevOps toolchain in the cloud.

• If you are going to automate application development and operations like a hyperscaler, it is not as simple as moving code to a Git repository and then you are done. Security is critical to DevOps – so much that people are now calling it DevSecOps to highlight that fact – and testing is the only way of ensuring security.

• So, again, if you aren’t automating your testing, then you are not really doing DevOps in an automated way like the Googles and Facebooks and Amazons of the world, and like you should be able to do because the tools existing for you – even in the IBM i market – do automate all aspects of the application pipeline.

Python

• Python has become a popular language in recent years. Its flexibility, with its ease of learning and use, makes it very appealing to newbie and professional SQL programmers alike.

• Structured Query Language (SQL) has become a staple in database technology. The most commonly used Relational DataBase Management Systems (RDBMS) today, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft’s SQL Server, and Oracle, all use SQL to manipulate their databases. Do note that although they all use SQL as their base query language, they are not all equal. Queries for a specific database will likely need slight alterations to function in other databases.

Leftovers

Proprietary

• This gap in coverage left users vulnerable to a certain type of attack called BYOVD, or bring your own vulnerable driver. Drivers are the files your computer’s operating system uses to communicate with external devices and hardware, such as a printer, graphics card, or webcam. Since drivers can access the core of a device’s operating system, or kernel, Microsoft requires that all drivers are digitally signed, proving that they are safe to use. But if an existing, digitally-signed driver has a security hole, hackers can exploit this and gain direct access to Windows.

• We’ve already seen several of these attacks carried out in the wild. In August, hackers installed BlackByte ransomware on a vulnerable driver used for the overclocking utility MSI AfterBurner. Another recent incident involved cybercriminals exploiting a vulnerability in the anti-cheat driver for the game Genshin Impact. North Korean hacking group Lazarus waged a BYOVD attack on an aerospace employee in the Netherlands and a political journalist in Belgium in 2021, but security firm ESET only brought it to light late last month.

• Microsoft has been accused of using a huge network of tax havens and subsidiaries to minimise the quantum of tax it pays in Australia, a report from a tax transparency group claims.

• The Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research said in a 36-page report that while Microsoft reported an operating profit of more than 30% to shareholders, the financial reports from its subsidiaries in the UK, Australia and New Zealand among other countries listed profit as being between 3% and 5%.

• The report, which needs to be read in its entirety to understand the scale of these tax-minimisation operations, pointed out that Microsoft’s Irish subsidiaries took in profits from around the world and paid nothing in corporate taxes.

• “The Irish subsidiary Microsoft Round Island One has previously made headlines for its US$315 billion (A$506.4 billion) annual profit – nearly equivalent to three-quarters of Ireland’s GDP – and a corporate tax bill of zero dollars, thanks, in part, to its tax residency in Bermuda,” the report claimed.

Security

• Australia’s second biggest telco Singtel Optus dropped its daily digital advertising spend from US$55,000 (A$88.1 million) on 21 September to less than US$5000 on 22 September, the day it announced a massive data breach, a data analytics company says.

• Digital marketing intelligence company Pathmatics said Optus’ decision to reduce its advertising did not come as a surprise as this is the normal response during a crisis.

• Ten days after the breach, the company had yet to re-ignite its advertising efforts. But since 14 October, the digital advertising spend has come back to normal levels.

• Security updates have been issued by Arch Linux (kernel, linux-hardened, linux-lts, and linux-zen), Debian (python-django), Fedora (apptainer, kernel, python3.6, and vim), Gentoo (assimp, deluge, libvirt, libxml2, openssl, rust, tcpreplay, virglrenderer, and wireshark), Slackware (zlib), SUSE (chromium, python3, qemu, roundcubemail, and seamonkey), and Ubuntu (linux-aws-5.4 and linux-ibm).

• CISA has released RedEye, an interactive open-source analytic tool to visualize and report Red Team command and control activities.

Civil Rights/Policing

• It’s easy to blame criticism of one’s performance on different factors: for example age, sexual orientation or one’s sex (male or female).

• That’s what Patricia Karvelas, the host of Radio National Breakfast, has done in an op-ed defending the choice of Fran Kelly — who formerly did what Karvelas is now doing — to host a chat show on Friday night, a time when weary TV viewers are looking for light entertainment.

• It’s telling that the ABC affords its staff platforms to defend their mates; one would think that they have more serious jobs to perform when they are being paid from the public purse.

• Kelly was selected to host the show — called Frankly in the best narcissistic tradition which is part and parcel of the ABC — over a number of other, younger possible hosts.

• In 2020, the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) issued several orders slowing down internet speed to 2G from 4G. Subsequently, the Union Territory has frequently been suspending the internet, without complying with directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020) 3 SCC 637. With legal assistance from IFF, the Private School Association of J&K (Association), an association of over 3800 schools, approached the Supreme Court challenging these orders, highlighting how the frequent suspension of internet services affects the right to education of students. Advocate on Record, Mr. Shadan Farasat appeared on behalf of the Association. On October 17th, 2022, a bench led by Justice Gavai of the Supreme Court heard Mr. Farasat, and directed the Home Department of J&K to provide their response within 4 weeks.

• [...]

• The Association’s petition, which was filed in 2020, but only came up for hearing on October 17, 2022, assails the legality of specific orders issued by the Union Territory of J&K restricting mobile data services to 2G in 18 out of 20 districts of J&K. While those orders which restricted mobile data services to 2G have now been withdrawn, the Petition also assails legality of all subsequent orders that have been passed or maybe passed, without adherence to Anuradha Bhasin guidelines. Although 4G mobile data services are available across J&K, the Executive continues to suspend the internet, regularly violating Supreme Court’s directions in Anuradha Bhasin.

• [...]

• The Court directed the Home Department of J&K to respond within 4 weeks. We are grateful to Advocate on Record, Mr. Shadan Farasant for appearing on behalf of the Association. He was assisted by Vrinda Bhandari, Abhinav Sekhri, Tanmay Singh, Krishnesh Bapat and Dhruv Bhatnagar.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

• I’m very much reaping what I’ve sown here and I’m truly grateful that everything is so amicable despite that. It’ll be some hard times ahead but I’m tentatively optimistic about the future for everyone involved.

• I think I’ll be starting to get back into things slowly now. For one thing I’m back at work after have taking Tuesday to Friday off last week.

Technical

• i’ve been puzzling over this setup for a while now. its been a dream of mine to launch an X session directly into tomo’s desktop shell. NOW YOU CAN! i’m using wmiv as my default shell until tomo shell is ready to take over as a desktop environment.

• My car has had the “4wd flashing lights” issue for nearly a year. Though in my case it hasn’t impacted the operation of the car (switching between 2wd and 4wd still works fine), it is mildly annoying to have my dash blinking at me everytime I drive it.

• The 4wd select system is a mix of vacuum tubes, solenoids, actuators and electrical wiring. The cause could be down to any of these systems and here[1] is an excellent guide that steps you through each one.

• Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter. Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

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