● 03.07.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 07/03/2023: Audacious 4.3 and Apt 2.6.0

Posted in News Roundup at 6:35 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

• Some Youtube/BSD recommendations.

Kernel Space

• Following the Linux Kernel 6.2 release two weeks back, the merge window for Linux Kernel 6.3 is now closed. While announcing the release candidate, Linus is fairly happy with a standard “two weeks” merge window without any significant events happening.

• Let’s take a look at what’s new.

• Welcome to the final post of this three-part series on real-time Linux. As market adoption of real-time computing continues to rise, real-time in the Linux kernel is emerging as a valuable solution on the software side.

• A real-time Linux kernel on its own, however, will not necessarily make a system real-time. We clarified this point in Part I and listed the common misconceptions and stack components. We then concluded Part I by discussing the role of real-time Linux in target verticals and applications, from industrial factories and telco workloads to automotive and healthcare.

Applications

• Audacious music player finally announced the release of version 4.3 after a few weeks of beta testing. As you may already know, the new release features PipeWire output plugin. Meaning Ubuntu 22.10 + users can switch sound output using the new low-level multimedia framework.

Instructionals/Technical

• A checksum value is a short data block derived from a larger one. MD5 (Message Digest 5) checksum values are used to verify the integrity of files in Linux.  MD5 checksums are 128-bit strings derived by running the MD5 algorithm on a file.

• Release news for GIMP Help Manual version 2.10.34

• If you a regular Linux command line user, I am sure you must have used the cat command. The tool is mostly used for displaying contents of a file, although it provides many other small but useful features. In this article, we will discuss the cat command in detail, explaining some of its key features.

• Wallabag is a read-it-later kind of service. It allows you to save webpages to read later at your leisure pace. This tutorial will cover installing and setting up Wallabag on a server running Ubuntu 22.04.

• OCS Inventory Server is open-source software that allows you to scan and inventory all devices in your environment or IT departments. It’s a free inventory and assets management solution that helps you keep track of all your devices and computers’ information.

• Git is a popular open-source version control system developedLinus Torvalds developed in 2005. It is designed to help developers track changes made to source code and collaborate on software development projects.

• A Linux swap file is a virtual memory file that helps to improve a system’s performance when the physical memory (RAM) is full. This guide is designed for novice to intermediate Linux users who want to learn how to create a Linux swap file on their system.

• For novice users of the Linux terminal and MySQL, resetting a forgotten MySQL root password can seem like a daunting task. However, with the right guidance, the process can be relatively straightforward and accomplished using command-line tools.

• Neofetch is a popular command line system information tool that provides a quick and easy way to display various system details on your Linux or Unix-based operating system.

• CentOS Stream is a popular Linux distribution used by many servers. One of the most important features of CentOS Stream is the ability to create a sudo user, which is a regular user with administrative privileges.

Distributions and Operating Systems

• Are you looking for a free Linux server for your small business? Then you stumble upon the right place.

New Releases

• LibreELEC 11 lightweight media center Linux distribution based on Kodi 20 “Nexus” has just been released with various improvements on x86 and Arm platforms.

• Kodi 20 was released and available for download in January with AV1 hardware video decoding in Android and x86 (VAAPI) platforms with AV1-capable GPU or VPU, FFMPEG 4.4, Pipewire support in Linux, and a few others. LibreELEC 11 enables you to have a dedicated, and fast booting, HTPC based on a mini PC, a Raspberry Pi SBC, or an Arm-based TV box with all features from the latest Kodi release.

BSD

• We were back at it again, promoting FreeBSD at FOSDEM and State of Open Conf’23 earlier this month. Drew Gurkowski, FF Marketing Coordinator, and I headed out to Brussels to help promote FreeBSD at FOSDEM. This was the first in-person FOSDEM since 2020, and you’d never know that anything happened in-between.

Fedora Family / IBM

Debian Family

• In a break from tradition, Debian is opting to go with the newest version of the KDE Plasma desktop for the testing branch. This goes against their previous method of exhaustive testing before a piece of software is released with a distribution.

• Debian is well known for shipping applications that seem to be out of date. The reason behind this is the focus of the “mother of all” distributions is primarily on stability. To that end, the developers have always ensured each release includes only software that can be trusted to run without problems.

Devices/Embedded

• Nessie Circuits’ Riotee board combines Raspberry Pi R2040 microcontroller and a Riotee module based on Nordic nRF52833 WiSoC with a 2.4 GHz radio and targets batteryless IoT applications thanks to a stackable design taking a capacitors add-on board and a solar panel. Batteries introduce maintenance costs and environmental issues with millions of batteries disposed of every day.

• Allwinner is mostly known for its low-cost Arm processor running Android or Linux, but the Allwinner R128 is a wireless audio SoC with a C906 64-bit RISC-V application core, an Arm Cortex-M33 real-time time core, a HiFi 5 DSP, and built-in WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. The SoC also comes with 1MB SRAM, up to 16MB flash, up to 32MB PSRAM, display and camera interfaces, support for microphone arrays, and plenty of I/Os that should make it suitable for smart speakers and other voice-controlled home appliances with or without display.

• Elfin EW11/EW11A is a small WiFi to RS485 unit with Modbus TCP/IP support that works either in the 5 to 18V DC (EW11) or the 5 to 36V DC (EW11A) input range. The WiFi to RS485 adapter is offered with either an internal or external WiFi antenna, the RS485 interface is exposed through an RJ45 port, and an RJ45 to terminal block cable is usually included, as well as a DIN Rail mount.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

• Zimbabwe is Android country. That has been the case since the beginning and is not about to change anytime soon. Or is it? Back in November 2021, we looked at the inroads that iOS is making in Zimbabwe.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Events

• ChiBUG is meeting in the normal place tomorrow.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

• Watch this ‘live product demo’ recording with release squad members Anne McCarthy and Rich Tabor as they share exciting enhancements anticipated for the WordPress 6.2 release.

Programming/Development

• In a previous article, I wrote about Wikipedia’s rich history as a repository of open knowledge. Supporting Wikipedia as a platform ensures that the information it contains is available to everyone, but it’s a big job. In this article, I’m going to introduce you to the vastness of Wikipedia’s technology landscape and the technical community behind it. I’ll examine the role of developer advocacy in supporting the technical community through dedicated open source software mentoring programs and events, awards and ceremonies, grants and partnerships, a developer portal, and more. This helps us engage with volunteer developers using the technology behind Wikipedia and its sister projects. Through this article, you’ll understand what developer advocacy can look like for a nonprofit organization, and gather new ideas for building stronger developer communities.

Leftovers

• It’s been a month since two devastating earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 50,000 people. Many hospitals and clinics in Turkey are full of injured patients, while other facilities are heavily damaged, making it difficult to provide much-needed routine medical treatment to other residents. Our reporters Thameen Al-Kheetan, Julien Chehida and Brice Agier-Grégoire followed a team of French volunteer paramedics who are visiting remote quake-hit villages in southern Turkey to offer medical treatment to those who need it.

• Greece will seek additional EU funding for urgent safety upgrades to the rail network, the government said on Monday, as public sector workers planned a widespread walkout to protest the country’s worst train crash that killed 57 people last week.

• The stationmaster implicated in Greece’s deadliest rail crash, which killed at least 57 people, was charged and taken into custody Sunday, hours after the prime minister asked for forgiveness for the disaster.

• In her new book, Jenny Odell argues that structural forces have commodified our moments, days, and years. Can our lost time be reclaimed?

• Before the Turkish earthquake, Abdullah Senel had nerves of steel. But these days, just being inside a house makes him nervous — and it only takes the sound of a plane flying overhead to put him on edge.

Science

• “Technology has always enabled us to record moments and get back to them,” Wist’s developer said.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• France extracts approximately 31 billion cubic metres of fresh water from its natural sources each year. Faced with an ongoing winter drought that could lead to water restrictions this summer, FRANCE 24 looks at the different ways the country consumes water.

• GB News said if the show “was guilty of anything, it was nothing more than a rather forceful tone”.

• Just two hospitals in the state run abortion services, forcing women and their GPs to make dozens of calls to private providers searching for an appointment.

• The street value of the imported cannabis totalled some four million euros.

• Two anonymous sources told Yle that Minister Lintilä seemed to be under the influence when he gave a speech at an energy company association seminar last April.

• Rates of ADHD diagnosis vary across Finland.

Proprietary

• ChatGPT can break its own rules to generate BDSM role-play, and when pushed further, sometimes adds in scenes of child exploitation.

• ChatGPT is a fountain of boundless depravity—if you deceive it into bending the rules.

Security

• The DoppelPaymer ransomware gang is considered one of the world’s most dangerous after it was linked to the death at a hospital in Germany.

• On 28 February 2023, the German Regional Police (Landeskriminalamt Nordrhein-Westfalen) and the Ukrainian National Police (Націона́льна полі́ція Украї́ни), with support from Europol, the Dutch Police (Politie) and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations, targeted suspected core members of the criminal group responsible for carrying out large-scale cyberattacks with the DoppelPaymer ransomware.

• Last month, Flutterwave, Africa’s largest startup by private valuation, was involved in a hack that resulted in over ₦2.9 billion (~$4.2 million) missing from its accounts, according to local tech publication Techpoint Africa.

• According to the documents seen by the publication and reviewed by TechCrunch, unknown actors transferred the funds across 28 accounts in 63 transactions in early February. Police investigations are ongoing as Flutterwave, via legal counsel and law enforcement parties, has filed a motion and seeks to freeze accounts across 27 financial institutions that interacted with the missing funds, Techpoint Africa reported.

• “We won’t pay them a cent,” said Catalan Telecommunications Director Sergi Marcen, adding that the hackers have not asked for payments in exchange for the data yet.

• One of the largest private sector banks in India, HDFC Bank, has allegedly fallen victim to a data breach. A user on a well known underground hacker forum has posted 7.5GB of HDFC Bank data for download. There is no payment required to download the data, which means the hacker is not really selling the data; in fact, he is giving it away for free.

• Last week the Biden Administration released a new National Cybersecurity Strategy (summary here). There is lots of good commentary out there.

Privacy/Surveillance

• As AI hiring tools get more popular, they’ve attracted scrutiny for potential biases—and lawsuits claiming they can discriminate on the basis of age, gender, and race.

• When the first rockets struck outside Vasyl Bilous’s apartment building, in Kharkiv, he was already at the front.

Defence/Aggression

• The news that China was the fourth largest source of car imports to Australia in 2022 would have come as a surprise to all but the closest observers of the automotive industry.

• The military junta in Mali has alienated regional and international security partners amid escalating violence by militant Islamist groups, leading to a spike in civilian fatalities.

• Ukrainian military leaders are vowing to hold onto Bakhmut as Russian forces encroach on the devastated eastern city. The Kremlin has sought to capture it for six months at the cost of thousands of lives. Less than a week ago, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian defenders might retreat from Bakhmut and fall back to nearby positions.

• An expert panel has warned Australia needs to urgently strengthen its military and national security capabilities as China increasingly asserts itself in the region.

• Eleven years ago, a documentary catapulted the name Joseph Kony onto the global stage. The controversial film Kony 2012 told the story of a Ugandan warlord whose forces are believed by the United Nations to be responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 people…

• Algerian Islamist Abu Obeida Youssef al-Aanabi, the current leader of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), granted an exclusive interview to FRANCE 24 in which he officially confirmed his group is holding French journalist Olivier Dubois, who was kidnapped in Mali in 2021, and discussed the role of jihadism in the Sahel.

• Between 12 and 14 people were killed last week in northern Burkina Faso, a region that has been battered by jihadist insurgents, local inhabitants said Monday.

• Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on March 6 that it prevented the assassination of businessman Konstantin Malofeyev, an active supporter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

• The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, says anti-aircraft forces there downed three missiles on March 6.

• Ukraine has deployed a weapons system so advanced that the country who makes it doesn’t even have one yet.

• Amnesty International has urged the UN Human Rights Council to address “relentless abuses” by the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan.

• For many foreigners, the Hesa Fredrik alarm test is the most, well, alarming, thing to happen on arrival in Sweden. We’ve collected stories of people’s first times.

• South Korea announced plans Monday to compensate victims of Japan’s forced wartime labour, aiming to end a “vicious cycle” in the Asian powers’ relations and boost ties to counter the nuclear-armed North.

• On February 20, 2023, a man convicted of murder was pardoned moments before he was supposed to be executed in the Marib region of central Yemen. Many locals have been sharing the story on social media as a source of inspiration and to ease the burden in a country scarred by nine years of war. Our Observer told us that the pardon was granted after a woman intervened and that her gender played an important role.

• Four jihadist prisoners escaped the central prison in Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott on Sunday night after an exchange of gunfire there in which two national guards were killed, the interior ministry said.

• The military budget is just over a quarter of planned US spending this year.

• Ukrainian authorities have called for a war crimes investigation after a video that surfaced on social media appeared to show Russian forces killing a Ukrainian prisoner of war.

• The war in Ukraine has apparently created a surge in demand for inflatable fake armaments that can be deployed as decoys.

• Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Prosecutor’s Office has filed a case against Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik for denial of genocide in the massacre of 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia in 1995.

Environment

• What are the implications of China’s expanding involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa’s investment, trade, cultural, and security landscape?

• With just 1.4 millimetres of rain across December, January and February, the 2022-23 summer was unusually dry.

• Temperatures in the northernmost Finnish municipality plunged as low as -35 degrees.

Energy/Transportation

• While this year’s rally has boosted the confidence of many crypto investors, it seems likely that the good times might be coming to an end.

• Australians should accept that India needs secure supplies of coal and gas, Madeleine King says, despite calls to shut down these exports.

• Partners from Hydrogen South West (HSW) were recently joined by industry leaders, Members of Parliament and civil servants at a Westminster reception.

• The Spanish (Enagás), French (GRTgaz and Teréga) and Portuguese (REN) Transmission System Operators have signed the ‘Green2TSO’ initiative, which aims to transform the gas grid into a hydrogen grid.

• EverCharge and PassKey, both subsidiaries of South Korean conglomerate SK Group, are partnering to develop a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) to supplement EverCharge’s EV charging stations. The BESS will be used to store excess energy that is generated during periods of low demand or “off-peak” hours — such as overnight or during the middle of the day when fewer people are using electricity — and deploy the energy via EV charging stations during periods of high demand.

• The US government had a hand in creating some of the most iconic inventions of the last century, from personal computers to modern GPS. Now, it’s making a similar push for energy. The agency behind those breakthroughs was the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

Wildlife/Nature

• Government development and industrial concessions have also contributed to forest losses.

Finance

• In December, reports suggested that SiriusXM was preparing to reduce the size of its team after suffering a third-quarter subscribership decline. Now, with paid promotional subscribers having also fallen during Q4, the Pandora parent has laid off 475 employees.

• Strikes against bitterly contested plans to reform pensions in France continue on Tuesday, and this time unions have upped the ante. Unlike previous walkouts, this week’s industrial action has no pre-arranged end date.

• Swedish food prices increased more in February than in any single month since at least 2015, the year when food price comparison site Matpriskollen started keeping records.

• THE FINNISH Transport Workers’ Union (AKT) and Employers’ Federation of Road Transport (ALT) have reached an understanding on the terms and conditions of bus and coach drivers, putting an immediate end to the driver strike that began on Wednesday, 1 March.

• Ismo Kokko, the chairperson at AKT, told YLE on Friday that the board of the trade union has unanimously approved the agreement negotiated with ALT.

• When auction results are this strong, property prices usually stop falling. But after the sharpest rise in interest rates in a generation, is this time different?

• The French government said Monday that it had made a deal with major retailers to cap many food prices, in a bid to make inflationary pressures easier to bear for consumers.

• Cheap rentals are rapidly disappearing from Australia’s major capital cities as demand for rentals shifts back to urban centres. Low-cost rentals disappeared from regional areas more quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic, but new PropTrack data shows inexpensive rental accommodation is now vanishing from the capitals at a faster rate.

• On a day of sandbagging affluent Liberal strongholds in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Premier Dominic Perrottet has been confronted with the harsh reality of the state’s ever-growing housing crisis.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Twitter is experiencing a bevy of glitches as links stopped working, some users were unable to log in and Tweetdeck stopped working for others

• Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s centre-right Reform Party won Estonia’s general election by a wide margin on Sunday, according to near-complete results, beating out a far-right rival that had campaigned against further arms deliveries to Ukraine.

• Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s Reform Party won the general election by a large margin Sunday, scoring 31.6% against 16% for the far-right EKRE, according to near complete results.

• I stewed over this for many days, to be honest. I understood what it said but I didn’t understand it at the same time. That doesn’t make any sense but it is what it is. The United States extended its sanctions on Zimbabwe and it’s crazy to me. Let’s get one thing out of the […]

• “Look at us differently, considering us partners and not with a paternalistic look,” President Tshisekedi stressed to emphasize the importance of mutual respect.

• Since Britain left the European Union, Brits living in Denmark have been deported, forced to change their jobs, and faced a long list of new bureaucratic hassles. Here are some of the problems our readers have highlighted.

• Coop Bank has refused customers purely on the basis that they cannot speak Danish, according to a media report in Denmark.

• Researchers have uncovered a network of tens of thousands of fake Twitter accounts created to support former President Donald Trump and attack his critics and potential rivals. Those targeted by the bot network include a Republican candidate for president, Nikki Haley, and potential Trump rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

• In February, the landmark national security trial of 47 democrats began after some had spent almost two years in detention. The sedition case against now-defunct independent media outlet Stand News dragged on, as prosecutors grilled a former chief editor about the 2019 protests and his intentions in publishing certain opinion articles.

• Members of a Hong Kong pro-democracy party said police warned them not to attend a women’s rights march before it was abruptly cancelled a night before it was scheduled to take place.

• Lithuania has issued 41,93 temporary residence permits on the basis of temporary protection to Ukrainian nationals, the country’s Migration Department said on Monday.

• One of 47 pro-democracy figures facing a charge under Hong Kong’s national security law has pleaded guilty to rioting in 2019 in a separate case and been remanded in custody.

• Chairman of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Mark Warner (D-VA) Sunday announced plans to introduce a bipartisan bill that would allow foreign technologies entering America to be banned. Warner’s announcement has generated attention since it explicitly mentions that the popular app TikTok could be subject to the ban.

• Amid concerns over safety of the video-posting network TikTok, Lithuania has no plans to ban the app from government phones. However, some argue recommendations for civil servants not to use the app are not enough.

• Advocates argue the proposed TikTok crackdowns would violate users’ rights to express themselves online and distract from broader debates about data privacy.

• Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez Saturday announced new equality legislation that will require equal representation between men and women in decision-making spaces within politics and business. This equality law would make Spain one of the only European countries with a statutory gender quota system.

• Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of the top 50 newsbrands in the UK.

• Metro editor Deborah Arthurs explains the changes being made to the paper and website.

• Key independent senator David Pocock also wants a requirement for the real-time disclosure of donations to the Yes and No campaigns.

Censorship/Free Speech

• VPNs protect the internet users’ privacy by making secure, encrypted connections between devices or networks.

• The Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office announced on March 6 its designation of one of the world’s leading anti-corruption nonprofits, German-based Transparency International, as an “undesirable organization.”

• Pakistan’s media regulator banned media broadcasts of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s speeches as police arrived at one of his homes to deliver another court summons for the ousted premier.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• Dozens of media outlets have fled to the capital of Latvia, only to encounter a distrustful public and a set of strictly enforced laws and regulations.

Civil Rights/Policing

• At this week’s 67th edition of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), Access Now will be working to advance gender equality in the digital age, raising concerns related to the gendered impact of internet shutdowns, targeted surveillance, and digital security.

• Following a ban on drag shows in Tennessee, Texas country-pun band Vandoliers played an entire show in drag. The group performed their set at the Shed in Maryville, Tennessee with all six members of the group wearing dresses, reports Rolling Stone. Tennessee has enacted a new law that would ban drag in public places.

• A court in Belarus on Monday sentenced exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tikhanovskaya to 15 years in prison after a trial in absentia on charges including conspiring to overthrow the government, the latest move in a months-long effort by the Belarusian government to suppress dissent.

• A court in Minsk has sentenced exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and four other leading opposition figures in absentia to lengthy prison terms on charges that are widely considered to be politically motivated.

• Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to neighbouring Lithuania in 2020, said the verdict was punishment for her efforts to promote democracy.

• Several Iranian civil and political activists who were recently released from prison under an amnesty decree signed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have been summoned again.

• Iran on March 6 expressed its readiness for a long-awaited prisoner swap with Belgium, days after the Belgian Constitutional Court green-lighted such a move.

• Iran’s supreme leader said Monday that if a series of suspected poisonings at girls’ schools are proven to be deliberate the culprits should be sentenced to death for committing an “unforgivable crime.”

• The arrested include 3 civil disobedience movement teachers.

• Knowledge is power, and until women realise they are underpaid, there is little they can do about it.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Tech Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more here. As soon as I wake up, I grab my phone to check any messages that have arrived overnight and thumb through news alerts before scrolling quickly through Twitter and Instagram.

Monopolies

Patents

• The Regional Court Düsseldorf’s 4C chamber has ruled that Cook’s endoscopic hemostasis clips, marketed under the brand Instinct, infringe Boston Scientific’s EP 30 23 061 (case ID: 4c O 68/21). The US medical device manufacturer’s patent covers compression clamps used for preventing or stopping bleeding.

Trademarks

• In another “key aspect” genericness case, the Board upheld a refusal to register the proposed mark NF-LIGHT for “specimen analysis kits containing reagents and assays for detecting neurological biomarkers in biological samples, serum, blood, plasma, saliva, and cerebrospinal fluid in human and animal samples used by medical and clinical researchers in labs and institutions,” finding the term to be generic for the goods. The Board first found that Applicant Uman’s ELISA kits are “a subset of the broad genus of goods identified in the application, and neurofilament light – the particular ‘neurological biomarker’ detected by applicant’s kit – is a subcategory and key aspect of the genus.” Then it found that the relevant consumers of the goods (clinical and medical researchers) understand NF-Light as a generic term referring to neurofilament light.

• 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

----------

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.