● 02.11.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 11/02/2023: GNU Health Hospital Management 4.2 and Diffoscope 235 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 9:39 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Applications

• Email clients offer a variety of features. Many email clients offer a slew of features, some stick with just the basics. At the end of the day, what is important is that you find an email client that offers what you need, it is reliable, and works well on your computer. Thunderbird is widely regarded as an exceptional open source desktop email client, especially on Linux. It is highly customizable, has a rich set of features, and is geared for both novices and professional users. Our only real disaffection with Thunderbird is that it can feel a bit sluggish on inexpensive hardware. If you are looking for an alternative first-rate graphical email client that works with limited system resources, you have come to the right place.

• Here is our take on the finest lightweight and user-friendly graphical email clients that can be widely used from beginners to power users. They are all released under an open source license.

Instructionals/Technical

• Linux is a powerful operating system that is widely used for both personal and professional purposes. One of the key features of Linux is its networking capabilities, which allow users to connect to the internet and other networks.

• Linux is a popular open-source operating system that has been widely adopted by many organizations and individuals worldwide. One of the key benefits of using Linux is the flexibility it offers to administrators and users, who can customize the operating system to their specific needs and requirements.

• This step-by-step guide explains how to install Dropbox on Arch Linux. Read on to keep your files in sync!

• Having full packet captures of a device or an entire network can be extremely useful. It is also a lot of data to go through and process manually.

• As a Linux user, you may sometimes find yourself needing to disable or enable an interface on your system. This could be for a number of reasons such as security or network troubleshooting. In this article, we will discuss the steps involved in disabling and enabling an interface on a Linux system.

• When it comes to network communication, the maximum transmission unit (MTU) plays a crucial role in determining the maximum size of a data packet that can be transmitted over a network. In simple terms, the MTU is the largest packet size that can be sent over a particular interface without fragmentation.

• The nmcli command is a powerful tool for managing and configuring network connections on Linux systems. This command-line tool can be used to create, modify, and delete network connections, and it offers a wealth of options and features for network administrators and users.

• Similarly to any other Computer, you have the power of choosing your preferred Raspberry PI OS and trying different flavours of open-source systems.

• Cron jobs are a crucial component of many Linux systems. They allow administrators to automate repetitive tasks, freeing time for more important tasks. However, not everyone knows how to set up a cron job, especially to run at specific intervals like every 5, 10, or 15 minutes.

• Website speed and efficiency are crucial for a positive user experience and for improving website rankings on search engines. One effective way to achieve this is by enabling Gzip compression in Nginx on Linux.

• CURL is a powerful command-line tool widely used for transferring data from or to a server. It supports various protocols, including HTTP, FTP, SMTP, and more. However, sometimes, when using CURL, you might come across an error message that says “Could not find CURL error.”

• The Linux “find” command is one of the most powerful and versatile tools in a system administrator’s arsenal. It can be used to search for files based on a variety of criteria, such as name, size, date, and permissions, and perform various actions on those files, such as delete, copy, or execute.

• The “Argument list too long” error is a common problem faced by Linux users when working with large numbers of files. This error occurs when a command is passed too many arguments, exceeding the limit set by the operating system.

• The ‘find’ command in Linux is a powerful tool for searching for files based on various criteria. When used in combination with the ‘xargs’ command, the ‘find’ command can be even more efficient, allowing you to parallelize file operations and process many files at once.

• A lightweight virtual machine implementation, Minkube is one of the few ways to easily deploy a local Kubernetes environment for

• In Linux, every file and directory has an owner and a group assigned to it. The owner of a file has complete control over the file, including the ability to read, write, and execute the file. The group, on the other hand, is a collection of users who have similar permissions for the file.

• In today’s digital age, having a website is crucial for businesses and individuals to showcase their products and services to a wider audience.

• The Linux operating system has many powerful tools and utilities that allow you to perform complex tasks efficiently.

• As a Linux user, you often need to move files and directories around your file system, and this can be done quickly with the Linux mv command. This comprehensive guide will explore the different ways to use the Linux mv command, including basic usage, advanced techniques, and common scenarios.

• CURL is a free and open-source library that helps retrieve and extract information from an URL over various protocols.

• Hello, friends. In this post, you will learn how to use ethtool Command to correctly manipulate your Ethernet card on Linux. We will also use examples to help you better understand the content. Let’s go. Introduction Ethtool is a tool to manage the parameters of our network card on a Linux system.

• Introduction RabbitMQ is a popular open-source message broker software that implements the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP).

• Are you a new Ubuntu user who has just installed version 22.04? Congratulations! You are now part of the growing family of Linux users.

• Are you looking to add additional security to your AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux 8/9 system? Arpwatch is a useful tool for logging and reporting changes in the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) traffic on a network segment.

• The Transmission BitTorrent client released version 4.0.0 a few days ago. Here’s PPA repository contains the package for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Linux Mint 21/20.

Distributions and Operating Systems

SUSE/OpenSUSE

• Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,

• 7 days – 7 snapshots. No surprise there, is it? Tumbleweed keeps on delivering snapshots in predictable ways. Nevertheless, there was a small surprise to me this week: a new glibc version (2.37) was submitted. I already feared that this would be blocking staging for weeks to come. But wrong I was! Just 54 hours after the SR was created, the update found its way into openSUSE:Factory – and 24 hours later it’s available to the users to install after passing openQA. Of course, that’s not the only thing that happened though, it’s just the most recent thing that stunned me.

Debian Family

• It’s been a year since I started exploring HLedger, and I’m still going. The rollover to 2023 was an opportunity to revisit my approach.

• Some time ago I stumbled across Dmitry Astapov’s HLedger notes (fully-fledged hledger, which I briefly mentioned in eventual consistency) and decided to adopt some of its ideas.

• First up, Astapov encourages starting a new journal file for a new calendar year. I do this for other, accounting-adjacent files as a matter of course, and I did it for my GNUCash files prior to adopting HLedger. But the reason for those is a general suspicion that a simple mistake with those softwares could irrevocably corrupt my data. I’m much more confident with HLedger, so rolling over at years end isn’t necessary for that. But there are other advantages. A quick obvious one is you can get rid of old accounts (such as expense accounts tied to a particular project, now completed).

• In the first year, I periodically imported account data via CSV exports of transactions and HLedger’s (excellent) CSV import system. I imported all the transactions, once each, into a single, large journal file.

Open Hardware/Modding

• A new RISC-V laptop concept is in the works, that is built entirely on open standards and will be cheap to purchase.

• The Pico W launched in June 2022, but it is just getting Bluetooth support now.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

GNU Projects

GNU ☛ health @ Savannah: GNU Health Hospital Management 4.2 series released!Dear community:I am excited to announce the release of series 4.2 from the GNU Health Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) component!The 4.2 series is the result of one year of work and cooperation with the community. Many new exciting features are included, bugs fixed and new translations are now in place.What is new in GNUHealth Hospital Management 4.2 seriesThe following is a summary of the main new features included in GH 4.2 .Enhanced Medical Imaging functionality and ergonomics. Introduced GNU Health “Focus on” section on patient main form. Key health indicators that put our attention on the patient main health conditions. The main indicators are Cardiovascular (excl hbp), HBP, Nutrition, Cognitive, Social, Cancer and Immuno. Surgery package has been vastly revised and enhanced. Thanks to the collaboration with our colleagues from Cirugia Solidaria, the surgery package is now being used in thousands of operations and all the new functionality is available in this 4.2. Enhanced Insurance and billing functionality. Now, in one view we can integrate all product policies from a particular insurance company plan. The 4.2 release also allows to include a fixed prices on product or category. The Vital Record System (VRS) can now issue reports on birth and death certificates. Demographics can now accept entering estimate age / DoB. Health services has now the functionality of “grouping” all the tests from a single order – lab and medical imaging -. It allows automatically updating the service document directly right from the request order wizard. There a new “ungroup” checkbox that, when set, it will behave as today, ie, giving the option to the manager. Improved Patient encounter / evaluation. Medical interventions, DDx and secondary conditions. A new report is now available that summarizes the key information from the evaluation. Weblate translations holds 35 languages! Instance and connection information visible at the GTK client title On the technical side, we have improved unit testing on each package, speedup load times on large datafiles and using python-sql for most queries. Last but not least…. GNU Health is now REUSE (Free Software Foundation Europe) compliant! This is a great step forward, since REUSE facilitates documenting and sharing licenses of Libre projects like GNU Health. It’s been quite a bit of work, but definitely worth! Upgrading from GNU Health 4.0The GNUHealth 4.2 will benefit from the stability of using Tryton 6.0! Still, at GH level there are significant changes on the data dictionary and kernel.As usual:Make a FULL BACKUP your kernel, database and attach directories !!! Follow the instructions on the Wikibooks. Development focusIn addition of the GH HMIS server, we will focus the development in thefollowing  areas of the GNU Health ecosystem:The Documentation Portal. We now have a dedicated server that will host the documentation for the GNUHealth ecosystem components. The docmentation portal is a read-only resource, focusing on stability and high-quality. We will also keep using Wikibooks as a community wiki, as well as development.MyGNUHealth: The GNU Health app for desktop and mobile devices Thalamus and the Federation Portal. The GNU Health Federation integrates information from many health institutions and individuals from a region or country. The GH Federation portal will  allow to manage resources, as well as the main point for **analytics** and **reporting** of massive demographics and epidemiological data generated nationwide. People, health centers and research institutions will benefit from the GNU Health Federation and the GNU Health ecosystem in general. As always, no matter how hard we try to avoid them, there will be bugs, so please test the new system, upgrade process, languages, and give us your feedback via them viahealth@gnu.orgThe community server has been already migrated to 4.2.0, so you just need to download the GNU Health HMIS client.Happy and Healthy Hacking !–Dr. Luis Falcon, M.D.President, GNU SolidarioAdvancing Social Medicinehttps://www.gnuhealth.org

Programming/Development

• Brace yourself. Funny pictures are coming.

Leftovers

• Rescuers in Turkey pulled two women alive from the rubble of collapsed buildings after they were been trapped for 122 hours following the region’s deadliest quake in two decades, authorities said on Saturday.

• Todd Hayen Yet another quirk of human behaviour is this propensity to follow leaders without much scrutiny as to who that leader is. This is not only to be observed in following political leaders, but in infatuations with any sort of authority (doctors) or even celebrity.

• February 10th is OffGuardian’s birthday. As of today we are eight years old.

• Rescue crews on Saturday pulled more survivors, including entire families, from toppled buildings despite diminishing hopes as the death toll of the enormous quake that struck a border region of Turkey and Syria five days ago surpassed 28,000. Rescuers also pulled a two-month-old baby and an elderly woman from the rubble on Saturday. Read our live blog to see how all the day’s events unfolded.

• Armenia has sent humanitarian aid to earthquake-stricken Turkey across the long-closed border separating the two historic enemies, the government in Yerevan said.

• The assistance consists of 110 tons of supplies and is valued at 826 000 dollars.

• According to the Syrian Ministry of Health, the death toll so far stands at 1 387, with some 2 326 injured.

• The death toll has now topped 25,000, but rescuers saved at least nine people, including a family of five, from the rubble on Saturday.

• The UNHCR is now focusing on the provision of shelter and relief items to ensure that the centers for the displaced have adequate facilities, such as tents, plastic sheeting, thermal blankets, sleeping mats and winter clothing.

• Five days after two powerful earthquakes hours apart caused thousands of buildings to collapse, killing more than 28,000 people and leaving millions homeless, rescuers were still pulling unlikely survivors from the ruins.

• People in Finland say they believe global problems will worsen over the coming decade, a new survey finds.

• Finland is preparing to deliver material aid to Syria, according to the Interior Ministry.

• The death toll from this week’smassive earthquakes and aftershocksin Syria and Turkey surpassed 24,400 on Friday, as hope for finding survivors trapped under toppled buildings began to fade.

• Trucks carrying humanitarian aid passed the bridge at the border gate in the morning. The rescue team that arrived from Armenia earlier this week rescued today an eight-year-old girl alive in Adıyaman together with AFAD rescue teams.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• In November 2022, thousands of young Chinese people took to the streets to protest repeated Covid-19 lockdowns, constant PCR tests and to demand greater freedom. The movement was stifled in a few days and authorities abandoned their strict zero-Covid policy. But if China’s youth took the risk to voice their anger, it’s because their frustration goes well beyond Covid rules. FRANCE 24′s Lou Kisiela, Antoine Morel and Yan Chen report.

• Seniors are increasingly left to protect themselves as the rest of the country abandons precautions: “Americans do not agree about the duty to protect others.”

Security

• On February 7, 2023 OpenSSL released a security advisory regarding several security vulnerabilities that were recently discovered and fixed, including a high-severity address type confusion bug that could be exploited by attackers to read memory contents or enact a denial of service (DoS).

• OpenSSL is a software library for applications that contains an open-source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols and provides secure communications over computer networks. It is widely used by Internet servers, including the majority of HTTPS websites, making it critical that users are aware of the recent OpenSSL flaws that have been discovered, how to determine if they are at risk, and how to protect against them. That’s why we’re providing you with the information you need to know to understand and defend against the OpenSSL vulnerabilities discovered this week.

• The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version235. This version includes the following changes:

• Your fortnightly rundown of AppSec vulnerabilities, new hacking techniques, and other cybersecurity news

• Munster Technological University is being blackmailed and held to ransom by a group of hackers believed to be based either in Russia or part of the former Soviet Union, the High Court has heard.

• The cyber attack on MTU’s IT system, which was detected in recent days, is believed to have been carried out by individuals in a ransomware group known as ALPHV aka BlackCat or Noberus, the court heard.

• The Edmonds School District said a “data event” is to blame for the technical problems that left the Edmonds schools without internet for nearly two weeks.

• On Friday, Edmonds said an investigation by third-party forensic specialists into the data event found that an “unauthorized actor” was able to get into the school’s network and view personal information between Jan. 16 and Jan. 31.

• Medical records of Garrison Women’s Health patients were recently “subject to unauthorized third-party activity,” according to information released Friday evening by Wentworth-Douglass Hospital.

• For 4,158 patients, data such as appointment records and some personal health information cannot be restored, according to Adam Bagni, spokesperson for the hospital. The hospital states “there is no evidence” the information was viewed or taken, citing a forensic investigation by Global Network Systems, which hosted the records on its servers as the practice’s technology service provider.

• On the plus side, the cybersecurity incident at Troutman Pepper does not appear to have compromised any client data. So, in a sense, the system worked.

• But as a damage recovery matter, leaving attorneys using personal email accounts and locally saved documents for over a day highlights that for all the talk about protecting data, the unheralded impact of a cyber breach tends to be leaving the firm technologically adrift for extended stretches while tech professionals perform clean up.

• A Reddit employee’s credentials were stolen in a targeted phishing attack, an administrator for the website hasrevealed, and hackers were able to infiltrate its systems on February 5th.

• The Islamic Republic marked the 44th anniversary of the Iranian revolution on Saturday with state-organised rallies, as anti-government hackers briefly interrupted a televised speech by President Ebrahim Raisi.

• In a defiant message on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said nationwide anti-government protests have been defeated.

Privacy/Surveillance

• Imagine a world where your entire family has been detained or imprisoned, but you can’t find out why, or for how long. The police also have your DNA, voice samples and iris scans on file — along with biometric data on your children, your family and your whole community.

• Emerging Indian social media app Slick left an internal database containing users’ personal information, including data of school-going children, publicly exposed to the internet for months.

• Since at least December 11, a database containing full names, mobile numbers, dates of birth, and profile pictures of Slick users was left online without a password.

• Bengaluru-based Slick launched in November 2022 by former Unacademy executive Archit Nanda after pivoting from crypto and closing his earlier startup CoinMint. His latest venture, Slick, is available on both Android and iOS and works similarly to Gas, a compliments-based app that is popular in the United States. The app also allows school and college students to talk with and about their friends anonymously.

Defence/Aggression

• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he and President Biden ordered the object violating Canadian airspace to be taken down, a day after another aerial object was shot out of the sky near Alaska.

• Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the once secretive tycoon, is confounding Moscow’s Kremlin-allied elite by starting to dabble in politics alongside waging war in Ukraine.

• Recent developments indicate that America’s approach to international economic policy is undergoing a dramatic change. The pressing need for decarbonisation, creating high value manufacturing jobs and intense geopolitical confrontation has led to the reemergence of industrial policy in the US.

• At the outset, I am aware that the world is immersed in Russophobia and anti-Putin sentiment, and a negative view of Ukraine and Zelensky is sacrilegious.

• Despite stringent sanctions after invading its neighbouring Republic of Ukraine since February 24, Russia has been struggling to strike friendship in Asian and African regions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited the southern African countries late January, and this was followed by another snap visit to the Republic of Mali.

• The UK is weighing up whether to send fighter jets to Ukraine in a move that would pile pressure on other Western countries to step up their military support for Kyiv, writes Inews from London.

• The device was discovered Tuesday in a river crossing in Great Yarmouth.

• Wagner Group soldiers are attempting to encircle Bakhmut, Ukraine. Meanwhile on the southern flank, Russian armed forces are trying to consolidate their progression towards Ivaniske.

• Russia hit several regions with Iranian-made drones overnight, capping a day in which its forces unleashed a major barrage of missiles on critical sites around Ukraine.

• The war in Ukraine has conferred a new importance to the Baltic States and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe geographically closest to Russia – particularly Poland. Warsaw is determined to learn from Poland’s own history and help Ukraine win the war.

• Russian missiles hit power facilities on Friday across Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelenskiy returned from a tour of Western capitals and Ukrainian officials said a long-awaited Russian offensive was underway inthe east. Read our live blog to see how all the day’s events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).

• Thousands of Europe-based Iranians, including relatives of victims of repression in the Islamic republic, lawmakers, and campaigners, have urged the European Union at a rally in Paris to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a “terror” group.

• Polish President Andrzej Duda has ruled out the possibility of his country delivering fighter jets to Ukraine without first agreeing the move with allies, as the question divides backers of Kyiv.

• At least three people have been killed and 22 others injured in a suicide attack in northwestern Pakistan, officials told RFE/RL.

• The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan has said that NASA believes the bright green lasers were likely from a Chinese satellite.

• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that on his order a U.S. fighter jet has shot down an “unidentified object” flying high over northern Canada, acting a day after U.S. planes took similar action over Alaska

Environment

Energy/Transportation

• The president said the U.S. would finance the project through interest-free loans; the finished plants would be run by the CFE.

• Patrick Pouyanné said at an Atlantic Council event that the US took advantage of an “opportunity” in the energy transition by passing the IRA, so “let’s do the same in Europe.”

Wildlife/Nature

• A legal fight over the Arctic grayling shows how regs can hurt rather than help.

Finance

• The mortgage company Yave says its experience with credit agencies abroad means it can confidently assess foreigners’ creditworthiness.

• Authors: Katie Harbath and Hui Hui Ooi*  2022 was a milestone year of change for the online ecosystem, with changes that have the potential to continue eroding democratic systems and values globally. Large technology companies dipped in value, leading to massive layoffs.

• A coming crackdown on $1.6 billion in unreported tips will continue the IRS’ long and ugly history of targeting low-income Americans.

• Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in France on Saturday in a fourth day of action against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, with unions planning to ramp up strikes if the plan is not dropped.

• Emmanuel Macron says the reform is “vital” to ensuring the viability of the pension system, but close to a million people have taken to the streets, with further protests planned.

• Republicans have blamed Joe Biden for inflation rates, and Biden has claimed credit for reducing them. But maybe neither is entirely deserved.

• An inquiry by UK MPs and peers has concluded that British banking giant HSBC has been complicit in rights abuses in Hong Kong by denying Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) pension payouts to those who went to live abroad.

• Most experiences of homelessness are hidden by design, but they reveal much about how communities work, or don’t.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Economic relations date back to the 17th century when the Dutch East India Company established a small trading post in Thatta, Sindh. In March 1652, Pieter de Bie sailed with his ship to Sindh and set up a trading post (factorij) in competition with the Portuguese and British.

• From democracy to the environment to UN Security Council reform, here are the big takeaways from Lula’s big day in Washington.

• President Joe Biden and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Friday at the White House that the two biggest countries in the Americas have successfully seen off attacks on their democracies and will now work together on fighting the climate crisis.

• Prime Minister Hun Sen takes two of his sons along on the visit to meet Chinese leaders.

• The answer to the most pressing Trump document theft story from yesterday — why did a former White House aide now working for Trump’s PAC have classified materials on her laptop — may answer the most pressing outstanding question from the Special Master review — who compiled a document with messages from a book author, a religious leader, and a pollster with classified documents?

• CJR’s Jeff Gerth series did not, as it claimed, “examin[e] the American media’s coverage of Trump and Russia in granular detail.” On the contrary: Via omission and error CJR created precisely the narrative they claim to critique.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

• Tik Tok, the popular social media appthat’s taken the world by storm, is increasingly living adouble lifein the U.S.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Russia’s sports minister said on February 11 that Ukraine’s call to ban Russian athletes from the 2024 Paris Olympics, which has gathered support from dozens of countries, was “unacceptable.”

Civil Rights/Policing

• Freedom’s Furies tells how three women offered their own unique defenses of individual liberty and how their disagreements anticipated the differences among libertarians and classical liberals today.

• “I pray wherever I go, inside my head, for the people around me,” said one priest. “How can it be a crime for a priest to pray?”

• Your employer might grant you paid leave for a doctor’s visit, funeral, and even special birthdays. These are the rules to be aware of.

• The boy’s mother shared the incident on Weibo this week as a second court case began.

• Anti-regime protests in Iran have ebbed and flowed. For now, fierce public expressions that harnessed women’s outrage have been brutally suppressed, but the resolve to find a path to change hasn’t.

Monopolies

Patents

• The industry has serious concerns about the deteriorating patent quality at the European Patent Office. The issue was discussed earlier this month between the EPO and the Industry Patent Quality Charter, an group representing major international corporations, law firms and patent offices.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

• Include needless words to the extent that the redundancy helps with clarity as opposed to just looking weird. One example of a good needless word that can help a reader understand is “instead”.

• It’s usually not logically necessary:

• “Baba is not you. Instead, Keke is you.”

• The word “instead” is needless there but it makes it clearer.

Technical

• In the ultimate form of marketing-capitalism, companies try to transform human workers into replaceable working machines and ask them to produce machines that should sound like they are humans.

• To achieve that, they build machines that learn from humans.

• While humans believe that, in order to gain success, they need to act like machines acting like humans. That’s because the success is defined by some counters created by the machines. The machines, themselves, are now learning from machines that act like humans instead of learning from humans.

• 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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