● 05.25.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 25/05/2023: IBM as Leading Wayland Pusher

Posted in News Roundup at 11:01 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

• The computer world looks different from behind a TeleType or other hardcopy terminal. Things that tend to annoy people about Unix or Linux these days were perfectly great when you were printing everything the computer said to you. Consider the brevity of most basic commands. When you copy a file, for example, it doesn’t really tell you much other than it returns you to the prompt when it is done. If you are on a modern computer working with normal-sized files locally, not a big deal. But if you are over a slow network or with huge files, it would be nice to have a progress bar. Sure, you could write your own version of copy, but wouldn’t it be nice to have some more generic options?

Desktop/Laptop

• Microsoft has made the switch to Windows 11, but if you are sick of embedded advertisements, constant updates, data collection, and rising hardware requirements, we don’t blame you. There is a very real possibility your Windows 10 machine can’t even upgrade to the next iteration of Windows, so what are you supposed to do?

• If you have ever considered making the jump to a different operating system, now is the perfect time. But if you don’t want to pay more for a Mac, it’s important to remember that you are not stuck with the Windows-macOS binary or even have to settle for the browser-based Chrome OS.

• Instead, with a little patience and some command line acumen, you can turn to the world of Linux. Despite what you may think, it’s easier to make the jump than you may think. Here’s how to install a Linux distro and then download and manage apps to get you started.

Audiocasts/Shows

• This week, Linux Out Loud chats about our Linux workflow. Welcome to episode 64 of Linux Out Loud. We fired up our mics, connected those headphones as we searched the community for themes to expound upon. We kept the banter friendly, the conversation somewhat on topic, and had fun doing it.

Kernel Space

• The Linux CPU scheduler will let realtime tasks hog the CPU to the exclusion of everything else — except when it doesn’t. At the 2023 Open Source Summit North America, Joel Fernandes covered the problems with the kernel’s realtime throttling mechanism and a couple of potential solutions. As a bonus, since the room was unscheduled for the following slot, attendees were treated to a spontaneous session on adaptive spinning in user space run by André Almeida.

The 2023 LSFMM+BPF Summit: the first set of reports from the annual gathering of storage, filesystem, memory-management, and BPF developers. Sessions written up so far include:

Applications

• A large population of Linux users are primarily software developers, enthusiasts, and people who are just getting started with Linux. One of the most popular apps for everyone on Linux is a text editor. Now, Windows comes with Notepad and other third-party text editors, and so does Linux. The difference is, because Linux is not very popular, the text editors on the platform are not very well recognized. Hence, in this article, let’s look at some of the 10 best text editors on Linux.

• We recommend a variety of different Bluetooth tools besides BlueZ, the official implementation of the Bluetooth protocol stack.

• Spleeter is a source separation library with pre-trained models written in Python. It’s free and open source software.

• Changes to Pip mechanism, stress testing CPU and other Linux tips and tutorials in this edition of FOSS Weekly.

Instructionals/Technical

• Brad Frost noted on Twitter how he recently made a website with plain HTML, CSS, JS, etc., and found himself missing some of the ergonomics from Sass.

• Having mostly abandoned Sass on personal projects, I was curious what he felt was missing.

• In my views on protocols and encryption, I called SMTP and IMAP ‘stream based protocols’ without really explaining what I meant and why this mattered (and why NFS v3 isn’t really one, even though it’s also transported over TCP). While writing a comment on that entry I came to a realization about this in the context of encryption. The short version is that stream based protocols have context, or equivalently that a specific connection for such a protocol has state, state that’s not explicitly specified in each of the messages that are exchanged over the connection (but instead established from the sequence of messages).

• In today’s diverse workplace, Microsoft Teams has become an invaluable tool for seamless communication and effective collaboration. While commonly associated with Windows and macOS, Ubuntu users have also recognized the power and versatility of this platform.

• Hello, friends. In this post, you will learn how to set up a DHCP server on Debian 11. The process is simple; however, many options depend on the needs of the network.

• Popsicle is a free and open-source USB file flasher for parallelly flashing multiple USB devices. It has a simple, themeable user interface with a straightforward

• XAMPP is a local server environment that is useful for developers or anyone who want to test some web application locally, either to develop further or experience it before using it in production. It offers a complete LAMP stack that includes Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl.

• Etherpad is a free and open-source alternative to Google Docs and Zoho Writer services. Etherpad is a collaborative and real-time text editor for your team, it’s accessible from anywhere at any time because Etherpad is a web-based text editor.

• Introduction Kubernetes has become the go-to platform for deploying and managing containerized applications at scale. Originally developed by Google, Kubernetes has been adopted by major organizations like Microsoft, IBM and Red Hat as a vital component of their cloud infrastructures.

• Introduction Kubernetes is a powerful container orchestration system that can help organizations achieve greater efficiency and scalability in their application development processes. However, managing the networking infrastructure of a Kubernetes cluster can be challenging, particularly as the size and complexity of the cluster grows.

• Log monitoring and analysis is an essential part of server or container infrastructure and is useful when handling complex applications. One of the popular logging solutions is the Elasticsearch, Fluentd, and Kibana (EFK) stack.

• CodeIgniter is a fast, lightweight, and open-source PHP framework used for developing web applications.

• Introduction As more and more applications are deployed as microservices, Kubernetes has become a popular choice for container orchestration. One of the key features of Kubernetes is its ability to automatically load balance traffic between multiple instances of an application.

• Introduction Kubernetes has emerged as the most popular container orchestration platform, providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure for deploying and managing containerized applications. One of the essential components of Kubernetes is its networking model, which enables the communication between different pods, services, and nodes in a cluster.

• Introduction Kubernetes is a powerful container orchestration platform that enables the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Helm is a tool that adds another layer of functionality on top of Kubernetes by providing an efficient way to package, deploy, and manage applications in your Kubernetes environment.

• Gain a deeper understanding of Linux file and directory permissions. Master the chmod command in Linux to change file and directory permissions with our comprehensive guide.

Games

• While we’ve talked a great deal now about Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, most of the focus has been on how three major regulatory bodies are handling approving, or not, the purchase. But those regulatory bodies are not the only ones challenging the purchase. A small group of gamers filed their own private suit to block the acquisition, arguing that they would be negatively impacted if it were approved. That was earlier this year and the judge dismissed the suit, stating that the plaintiffs had not provided enough specific evidence of harm in its complaint to allow the suit to move forward. However, the court also provided the plaintiffs with the ability to re-file the suit and told them what the court would be looking for in an amended complaint.

• Google is testing Steam games for entry-level Intel Alder Lake N100/N200 Chromebooks in alpha. Chromebooks require specific hardware to provide a quality experience for Steam games, and not all Chromebooks are compatible with Steam. For the initial launch, Google has prepared a list of 100 Steam games they have tested on various Chromebooks. However, Steam on ChromeOS is currently only in beta testing, so there may be some issues while Google is still improving the experience.

• What do you get if you combine classic Diablo with Vampire Survivors? Well one developer decided to show you with an unholy combination in Halls of Torment.

• Hollow Knight and Cuphead fused together in a post apocalyptic setting? Yes please. Exil not only sounds good but it looks the part too. It will also have full Linux support.

• There’s a lot to be interested and excited about when it comes to Godot Engine, the free and open source game engine and now Unity game devs may want to keep watch. Shared on Twitter, which seems to have raised the eyebrows of and excited many developers, is a new project that aims to let you import Unity projects into Godot.

• One sticking issue with GOG currently is GOG Galaxy, and how it has no support for Linux. Now the Comet project aims to bridge the gap.

• Between 2023-05-17 and 2023-05-24 there were 36 New Steam games released with Native Linux clients. For reference, during the same time, there were 312 games released for Windows on Steam, so the Linux versions represent about 11.5 % of total…

Desktop Environments/WMs

• A few weeks ago the annual X.Org Foundation Board of Directors election took place. The Board of Directors has 8 members at any given moment, and members are elected for 2-year terms. Instead of renewing the whole board every 2 years, half the board is renewed every year. Foundation members, which must apply for or renew membership every year, are the electorate in the process. Their main duty is voting in board elections and occasionally voting in other changes proposed by the board.

Distributions and Operating Systems

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

• A new beta build of Mageia 9 is available for testing.

Fedora Family / IBM

• You’re probably familiar with the frustration that comes with software that just won’t install. Unfortunately, this is something that almost every Linux user has encountered once or twice—and that’s where application distributors like Flatpak come in handy.

• Here are some of the best advantages you can enjoy when installing Linux software with Flatpak.

• The Fedora KDE Plasma spin will boldly move to go all-in on Wayland, dropping X11 when Plasma 6 comes out. Here’s why.

• With all the work going on right now to get Linux to properly support HDR, another patch set has landed to hopefully get some of it hooked up. This is the second attempt, after the first Request For Comments was sent in April.

• InstallationI am happy to announce that Intel’s IPU6 camera stack has been packaged in rpmfusion and now can be installed under Fedora 37 and newer with a single `dnf install` command.

Debian Family

• The Sparky Conky Manager updated up to version 0.2.0. What is Sparky Conky Manager? Sparky Conky Manager is a small, Yad based tool which lets you launch or stop Conky and edit its configuration file. This version features 4 more Conky configs, alongside to the Sparky’s default one, to be launched via the GUI tool.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• Kubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distros, especially among those running the KDE desktop environment (DE), and for good reason.

• Kubuntu is often described as the “just works” distro, earning a solid reputation for reliability and stability.

• KDE Neon is the official KDE distro and one of the more unusual Linux distros, especially among those based on Ubuntu.

• …add Azure Linux node pools to existing Ubuntu clusters, or migrate your Ubuntu nodes to Azure Linux nodes.

• Last month, I wrote an article on the release of Ubuntu 23.04 (aka Lunar Lobster). After going through the release notes and its press release, there were a few new features that I wanted to investigate further: its new installer (Flutter); its new desktop environment (GNOME 44); and its support for Azure Active Directory (AAD) for logon authentication. To get a better idea of how well these new features functioned, I worked with it a bit.

• If you are a fan of Ubuntu but not a fan of Gnome, what can you do? You should know that you are not stuck using the Gnome version of Ubuntu.

• The Open Source Community Africa Festival (OSCAFEST) is a prestigious yearly conference that garners a significant turnout of students, developers, designers, and corporate entities. It encompasses an array of talks, workshops, and initiatives aimed at promoting the growth of open source culture, contribution, development, community, etc., across the continent. This year’s event will take place in the incredible city of Lagos, Nigeria on June 15-17th.

• Canonical is a proud sponsor of OSCAfest and will be providing several workshops this year:

• From 9 to 12 May this year, people from 165 countries gathered virtually for the Women in Tech Global Conference. The conference is the flagship event of the WomenTech Network, a community for women in tech worldwide. Canonical was a gold event sponsor, and several team members participated as keynote speakers, networking hosts and attendees.

• When looking at the agenda in the weeks leading up to the conference, the number of speakers and sessions listed already hinted at the appetite for networking with a community of women, underrepresented groups and their allies in tech, science and engineering. A spirit of collaboration was palpable throughout the event, with close to 12,500 attendees participating across time zones. Participants’ willingness to share lessons learned and mistakes made gave many presentations a refreshing sense of authenticity.

Devices/Embedded

• There is a seemingly endless number of RTOSes used with embedded MCUs, most of which have their own proprietary functionally as well as a unique API. Some of the APIs are good, and some not quite as good. In reality, the delta between a good and less-good RTOS API is quite small — most RTOS APIs will do the trick. As I look back on my last 30+ years, I’ve come to realize propriety RTOS APIs have had and continue to have a profound negative impact on embedded development and on our industry as a whole.

• Recently, Centerm, a core subsidiary of Star-net Group(SZ.002396), launched new products Q7 smart POS and B70 Linux POS in Seamless 2023. Its booth no. is 20, Sheikh Saeed Halls 1 – 3 & Trade Arena, DWTC.

• Bootlin has just released the Snagboot open-source recovery tool for embedded platforms designed to work with multiple vendors, and currently STMicro STM32MP1, Microchip SAMA5, NXP i.MX6/7/8, Texas Instruments AM335x and AM62x, and Allwinner “sunxi” processors are supported.

• Silicon vendors usually provide firmware flashing tools, some closed-source binaries, that only work with their hardware. So if you work on STM32MP1 you’d use STM32CubeProgrammer, while SAM-BA is the tool for Microchip processors, NXP i.MX SoC relies on UUU, and if you’ve ever worked on Allwinner processors you’re probably family with sunxi-fel. Bootlin aims to replace all those with the Snagboot recovery tool.

• Things started to change when the Robot Operating System (ROS) – an open-source software platform founded in 2007 by Willow Garage, the Stanford AI Laboratory, and Open Robotics – started reappearing in research papers. ROS helped open the door to R&D scalability across industry and academia, enabling a means to abstract robotics hardware, while also bringing a modularity and notion of abstraction and reproducibility to the robotic research space.

• CrowdSupply featured today the new AntSDR E200 software-defined radio (SDR) educational platform optimized for applications involving Wi-Fi, GSM, LTE and other wireless solutions.

Open Hardware/Modding

• The bulk of the device is comprised of the drum which has many round slots placed around its inner circumference that coins can travel within. It is set at an angle that matches the stationary underside, and this is necessary because the coins should only fall through when the drum reaches the top half of its cycle. Since each coin denomination is slightly bigger or smaller, the series of rectangular slots have varying sizes to separate the denominations, and every drop is picked up by an infrared distance sensor when it detects a change in light levels caused by the passing coin.

• Fast forward to now, and Liam and his colleagues Duncan Quincey and Mark Smith have published their full findings: Evaluation of low-cost Raspberry Pi sensors for structure-from-motion reconstructions of glacier calving fronts. They’ve also showcased their affordable Raspberry Pi-based setup at an international climate summit in Peru, and encouraged local and national governments to adopt this kind of glacial monitoring to help them adapt to climate change challenges.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

• This year marks the 5th year since I started the /e/OS project! And we have gone from a few articles about the inital intention to a smartphone OS and a private cloud used by tens of thousands of users.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers/Web Servers

• For widely used, widely distributed open source project such as curl, we often have little to no relation at all with our users and therefore it is hard to get feedback and learn what works and what is less good.

• Our best and primary way is thus simply to ask users every year how they use curl.

• Tor Browser 12.5a6 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

• This release updates Firefox 102.11.0esr, including bug fixes, stability improvements and important security updates. There were no Android-specific security updates to backport from the Firefox 113 release.

Mozilla

• Hello Thunderbird Family! After nearly 20 years, we are thrilled to share a completely redesigned Thunderbird logo that honors our history and vital connection to Mozilla, while carrying us forward into the next 20 years.

• It’s no secret that after many years of being viewed as stagnant, Thunderbird is enjoying a resurgence. Our project is thriving with a renewed sense of purpose, and we see an invigorating energy bubbling up from our users, our community of contributors, and our core team.

• Just like the software, the current Thunderbird logo has seen small, iterative improvements throughout the last 20 years. But now the software is evolving into something more modern (while retaining its powerful customization) and we believe it deserves a fresh logo that properly represents this revitalization.

• But you should never forget your roots, which is why we asked Jon Hicks, the creator of the original Firefox and Thunderbird logos, to re-imagine his iconic design in light of Thunderbird’s exciting future.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

Open Access/Content

• Here was the problem. The pre-release version of the plugin consolidated pagination for many tables in one place. That was a good thing, but the downside was that there was only one Steampipe table which represented what should have been many of them. So you could say select * from mastodon_timeline but then you had qualify with where timeline = ‘home’ or where timeline = ‘local’ and so on. For a user of the plugin this was awkward, you’d rather say select * from mastodon_timeline_home or select * from mastodon_timeline_local, and reserve the where clause for more specific purposes. The v1 plugin made separate tables, but duplicated the pagination logic on a per-table basis. It worked, and was good enough to ship the plugin in time to demo at FediForum, but it obviously needed improvement.

Programming/Development

Python

• There are several ways to get the file size in Python such as using the “os.path.getsize()”, “os.stat()”, or “pathlib.Path().stat()” method.

• Everything here uses only Meson. There are no external dependency managers, unix userland emulators or special terminals that you have to use.

• In theory this could work on macOS too, but the code is implemented in C++23 and Apple’s toolchain is too old to support it.

• dupeGuru is a cross-platform (Linux, OS X, Windows) GUI tool to find duplicate files in a system. It’s written mostly in Python 3 and has the peculiarity of using multiple GUI toolkits, all using the same core Python code. On OS X, the UI layer is written in Objective-C…

• In part one of the tale, Brandt Bucher looked specifically at the CPython optimizations that went into Python 3.11 as part of the Faster CPython project. More of that work will be appearing in future Python versions, but on day two of PyCon 2023 in Salt Lake City, Utah, Mark Shannon provided an overall picture of CPython optimizations, including efforts made over the last decade or more, with an eye toward the other areas that have been optimized, such as the memory layout for the internal C data structures of the interpreter. He also described some additional optimization techniques that will be used in Python 3.12 and beyond.

Leftovers

• We’re guessing that quite a few of our readers have a surprising amount of redundant test gear, and we ourselves have to admit that more than one instrument adorns our benches. But we are mere dilettantes, amateurs if you will, compared to [Volke Kloke]. He’s got 350 of them in his average American home, and we have to say, among them are some beauties.

• Jordan Neely was a (black) “normal nerdy kid” who loved street performing as Michael Jackson; after he “lost it” from seeing his mother murdered, he became an unhoused, under-served, mentally ill man whose distress one day was so discomfiting that (big, white) Daniel Penny – who “love(s) all people” – saw fit to choke him to death on the floor of a subway car. In a stand-your-ground country of fear and rage and self-appointed judge, jury and executioner, thus do we become “a people without empathy.”

• Few things hold as much promise as the old coin jar. Unfortunately, what’s generally promised is tedium, as one faces the prospect of manually sorting, counting, and rolling the accumulated change of cash transactions past. Unless, of course, you’ve got a fancy automatic coin sorter like this one.

• If many millions of years of evolution is good for anything, it is to develop microscopic structures that perform astounding tasks, such as the marvelous biology of insects. One of these structures are the ears of the lesser wax moth (Achroia grisella), whose mating behavior involves ultrasonic mating calls. These can attract the bats which hunt them, leading to these moths having evolved directional hearing that can pinpoint not only a potential mate, but also bat calling sound.

• You may have heard of a heart of glass or have a glass jaw, but have you ever seen a glass robot?

Science

• It’s an objective view into the brain.

Education

• Facing chronic absenteeism, how are high schools helping students cross the graduation finish line? Often, it comes down to three words: connection, flexibility, and relevance.

• For the first time this year, new upper- secondary school graduates will now receive an electronic diploma, which can be downloaded free of charge online.

• There are certain things I do not quite get since Special Counsel John Durham’s report on the epically corrupt conduct of Donald Trump’s enemies during the 2016 election campaigns went to Congress last week. Many things, actually. For all the ground Durham covers in his 306–page report, I […]

Hardware

• Days after releasing one of the most innovative notebooks ever released by a PC Company, Lenovo Group has moved to slash their workforce after reporting that net profit of the world’s largest personal-computer maker dropped 72% off the back of a 24% fall in revenues in the last quarter.

• Between five and nine percent of the Companies head count is set to be retrenched including staff in Australia, where the business is still looking for a new CEO following the promotion of former local CEO Matt Codrington.

• Net profits for the quarter slumped to US$114 million while revenue fell 24% to $12.635 billion.

• Even with all the talk about 8GB VRAM simply not being enough now for all the new games coming out, we’re still seeing multiple launches with it. Now with the AMD Radeon RX 7600 priced at $269.

• Flying a glider, or similarly piloting a paraglider or hang glider, can all be pathways into aviation with a lower barrier of entry than powered flight. Sacrificing one’s engine does generate a few complexities, but can be rewarding as the pilot searches for various means of increasing altitude like ridge soaring or thermaling. You’ll need a special instrument called a variometer to know just how much altitude you’re gaining though, like this one which is built into commercially-available handheld GPS units.

• If you haven’t been watching the controversy surrounding Asus recently, the company’s high end AMD motherboards have been implicated in a series of catastrophic CPU failures.

• There was a time not that long ago when every tool was cordless. But now, cordless power tools have proliferated to the point where the mere thought of using a plain old wrist-twisting screwdriver is enough to trigger a bout of sympathetic repetitive injury. And the only thing worse than that is to discover that the batteries for your tools are all dead.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• A possible second wave of virus could delay reopening of vital trade with China.

• Contactless vending machines grew popular during the Covid-19 pandemic, with some of them incorporating AI.

• The topic of children using mobile phones in schools is on the agenda in government talks this month.

• We reveal the common fruit fly mistakes you could be making – and what to do instead

• In a 19-page report, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy said on Tuesday that while social media offered some benefits to younger people, including the ability to connect with communities, it also exposed them to potential harms, such as cyberbullying and content that promotes eating disorders, self-harm and other destructive behavior. Social media also hurts exercise, sleep and other activities, he said.

Proprietary

• Layoffs are underway at Nuance Communications, the speech-recognition company acquired by Microsoft for $19.7 billion, as the company directs its attention towards its healthcare business.

• According to the Boston Globe, Nuance CEO Mark Benjamin informed employees about the job cuts through an internal memo, without providing specific details regarding the number of affected staff members or departments.

• Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is facing criticism from employees over its decision to forego salary increases for full-time workers this year, according to Business Insider.

• The Redmond tech giant told employees on May 10 that it wouldn’t give raises or increase its budget for bonuses and stock awards, according to an email from CEO Satya Nadella.

• The same day, Microsoft disclosed in a filing with Washington state that it was laying off 158 workers at its Redmond headquarters, after completing its 10,000-employee companywide workforce reduction between January and March.

• There seems to be news from the AI world every single day. It’s often confusing and almost always super technical, so I’ve been assuming (or at least hoping) that some folks with ethics were keeping tabs on everything from the inside.

• For my final post of last year, I wrote about the many reasons to be optimistic about a better future, one of which was that we were seeing the crumbling of some large, bureaucratic (enshittified) companies, and new competitive upstarts pushing the boundaries. One of those areas was in the artificial intelligence space. As I noted in that piece, a few years ago, if you spoke to anyone about AI, the widespread assumption was that there were only four companies who could possibly even have a chance to lead the AI revolution, as (we were told) it required so much data, and so much computing power, that only Google, Meta, Amazon or Microsoft could possibly compete.

• Its staff has been whittled down to just about 10% of what it was before Musk’s acquisition, following mass layoffs and hundreds of others quitting. Outages have become far more common. Overall system bugginess has also become the norm for many users.

• Note: I wrote the following post on November 4, 2022, the day I deleted my Twitter account, but decided not to publish it. It seemed unnecessary because there was already a huge wave of migration off Twitter. Unfortunately, lots of people I know have stayed on, too, and seem in denial about what Twitter now is. Charlie Warzel’s piece, Twitter Is a Far-Right Social Network, made me reread this draft and realize it’s only become truer in the past half year. I still prefer Mastodon and compatible fediverse services, but Bluesky, despite its issues, is now another less-bad alternative.

• In December, I argued that if we are to judge Musk strictly by his actions as Twitter’s owner, it is accurate to call him a far-right activist. As a public figure, he has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the right’s culture war against progressivism—which he refers to as “the woke mind virus”—and his $44 billion Twitter purchase can easily be seen as an explicitly political act to advance this specific ideology. Now the site itself has unquestionably transformed under his leadership into an alternative social-media platform—one that offers a haven to far-right influencers and advances the interests, prejudices, and conspiracy theories of the right wing of American politics.

• At first, Musk launched the Twitter Space from his account, but it never worked properly. After just over 21 minutes, the broadcast was cut off. Those who stayed tuned to that link would not have been able to hear the candidate. David Sacks, who was acting as moderator, opened another broadcast and after another three minutes, for those who found out that the initial link was not valid and went to the new one, the rebroadcast was available.

• Later in the botched event, Musk seemed to be discussing technical issues with the broadcast. “So just to simplify this, we’re just going to use—” he said at one point, the audio then shutting off. He commented that there were “just so many people” on the call, and that Twitter was “reallocating” server resources to deal with the exceptionally large audience. As the troubleshooting continued for 20 minutes, instrumental music occasionally played.

Windows TCO

• Proofpoint warns that APT actors linked to Russia, Iran and North Korea are increasingly targeting small- and medium-sized businesses.

• Microsoft says it has caught Chinese government hackers siphoning data from critical infrastructure organizations in Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean.

• China has never acknowledged [breaking] into American networks, even in the biggest example of all: the theft of security clearance files of roughly 22 million Americans — including six million sets of fingerprints — from the Office of Personnel Management during the Obama administration. That exfiltration of data took the better part of a year, and resulted in an agreement between President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping that resulted in a brief decline in malicious Chinese cyberactivity.

• “States conduct long-term intrusions into critical infrastructure to prepare for possible conflict, because it may simply be too late to gain access when conflict arises,” said John Hultquist, the chief analyst at Mandiant Intelligence at Google Cloud, noting that “preparation does not mean that attacks are inevitable.”

Pseudo-Open Source

Openwashing

• Meta trained LLaMA on publicly available data sets, such as Wikipedia and Common Crawl. The code to run LLaMA is GPLv3-licensed, but to obtain the full weights of the model, users were required to fill out a form and agree to a “non-commercial bespoke license”. Moreover, Meta proved to be quite selective in granting access. But within a week, the weights were leaked on BitTorrent, and LLaMA kickstarted the development of a lot of derivatives. Stanford University introduced Alpaca 7B, based on the LLaMA model with seven billion parameters and supplemented with instructions based on OpenAI’s text-davinci-003 model of the GPT-3.5 family. Both the data set and the model were released under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license and thus do not permit commercial use. One reason for this is that OpenAI’s terms of use disallow the development of models that compete with OpenAI.

Security

• Qt Network incorrectly parses the strict-transport-security (HSTS) header, allowing unencrypted connections to be established, even when explicitly prohibited by the server. This happens if the case used for this header does not matching directly. Unencrypted connections are susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks. Those connections could be established by using URLs with the http instead of the https scheme. With HSTS, the https scheme must be used regardless.

• Kali Linux is a popular distribution of Linux, most famously used in the field of cybersecurity. This article is about vulnerability testing using Kali Linux. We go through how to install the uniscan vulnerability scanner, and then test the vulnerabilities of a website using this tool.

• Vulnerability testing is basically a software approach to test a system and evaluate the risks that are there in the system function, in order to take measures to mitigate and prevent these from actually happening. Now let us get started.

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (libssh and sofia-sip), Fedora (cups-filters, dokuwiki, qt5-qtbase, and vim), Oracle (git, python-pip, and python3-setuptools), Red Hat (git, kernel, kpatch-patch, rh-git227-git, and sudo), SUSE (openvswitch, rmt-server, and texlive), and Ubuntu (binutils, cinder, cloud-init, firefox, golang-1.13, Jhead, liblouis, ncurses, node-json-schema, node-xmldom, nova, python-glance-store, python-os-brick, and runc).

• In March and April 2023, the Python Software Foundation (PSF) received three (3) subpoenas for PyPI user data. All three subpoenas were issued by the United States Department of Justice. The PSF was not provided with context on the legal circumstances surrounding these subpoenas. In total, user data related to five (5) PyPI usernames were requested.

• It is, it seems, a week of Python Package Index (PyPI) news. On the PyPI blog, Director of Infrastructure at the Python Software Foundation (PSF), Ee Durbin, has posted an admirably detailed description of the organization’s response to three subpoenas it received for PyPI user information in March and April. The requests for information were quite broad and the PSF did produce the requested material (to the extent possible), which involved five PyPI user accounts, under the advice of counsel.

• “Financially motivated cybercriminal group Sangria Tempest (ELBRUS, FIN7) has come out of a long period of inactivity,” the company said in a series of tweets from the Microsoft Security Intelligence Twitter account.

• In July 2021, Professional Business Systems, Inc. d/b/a Practicefirst Medical Management Solutions and PBS Medcode Corp., a medical management company that processes data for health care providers, issued a press release about a hacking incident that occurred in December 2020. As DataBreaches noted at the time, it appeared that they likely paid ransom because one line in their statement was, “The actor who took the copy has advised that the Information is destroyed and was not shared.”

• The Cuba ransomware gang has claimed responsibility for this month’s cyberattack on The Philadelphia Inquirer, which temporarily disrupted the newspaper’s distribution and disrupted some business operations.

• The Philadelphia Inquirer is Philadelphia’s largest (by circulation) newspaper. It is the third-longest continuously operating daily newspaper in the U.S., founded in 1829, and it has won 20 Pulitzer Prizes for its journalistic excellence.

• A Dorchester school’s been hit by a cyber attack, with hackers demanding a ransom.

• The Thomas Hardye School’s IT systems and website went down on Sunday night (21st May) with the problem discovered before lessons started on Monday morning.

• HIPAA requires that covered entities notify HHS and affected patients of a reportable breach within 60 calendar days of discovery of a breach. Exceptions are made if law enforcement asks an entity to delay notification so as not to interfere with an investigation, but such requests are infrequent.

Privacy/Surveillance

• Employees of the Chinese-owned video app have regularly posted user information on a messaging and collaboration tool called Lark, according to internal documents.

• Montana is the first state in the United States to ban TikTok. It will fine tech giants $10,000 a day for keeping the app available for those in the state. Now the state’s attorney general weighs in. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed the first state-wide ban on TikTok into law last week.

• Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development has presented a policy paper on the country’s communications sector and a strategy for its development in 2024–2035, Forbes Russia reports.

• We’ve talked a lot about KOSA, the “Kids Online Safety Act” that has massive bipartisan support in Congress. The latest version was introduced with 26 Senators as sponsors or co-sponsors. We’ve explained over and over again how the bill is unconstitutional and will actually do a lot to harm kids.

Defence/Aggression

• Yevgeny Prigozhin has been ramping up pressure on Russia’s military leadership and extending his criticism to the country’s moneyed elites.

• The suspected offences include abuse of authority, service offence, illegal threats, assault and minor assault.

• The statement continued: “Although the Iraqi central government seems to be responsible for the recent escalation in the Maxmur refugee camp, the main force behind the attacks is Erdogan and his local collaborators. The attempt to turn the Maxmur camp, which is under the auspices of the United Nations Refugee Committee, into an open prison clearly shows that the UN is under the influence of expansionist and aggressive forces in the region. The increasing attacks against the Yazidi community in Shengal and the frequent resettlement of pro-ISIS people in the region aim at completely removing the Yazidi community from the region.”

• Pelšs also “called on China to exercise its influence as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council” to help end Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and “urged against giving any assistance to Russia – neither in the military sector nor in the circumvention of sanctions.”

• The Islamic Republic has been steadily improving and sharpening its cyber warfare, cyber espionage, and electronic sabotage abilities, staging complex operations that, while not always successful, show what experts in the field describe as devious inventiveness.

• In addition to its nuclear ambitions, its refining of missile technologies, and cultivation of armed ideologically motivated proxy paramilitary groups, Iran’s electronic warfare and intelligence operations are emerging as yet another worry about the country’s international posture.

• On May 24, pro-Kremlin political strategist Konstantin Dolgov released an extensive interview with Wagner paramilitary cartel head Evgeny Prigozhin in which the tycoon, in Dolgov’s words, answered “all the tough questions.” Over the course of the 77-minute conversation, Prigozhin criticizes the Russian Defense Ministry, describes his relationship to Russia’s elites, and gives his prediction for what the future of the war will hold. Meduza has translated some of the most notable quotes from the interview.

• Russia’s Defense Ministry said that Ukrainian naval drones attacked the Ivan Khurs ship, a part of the Black Sea Fleet, on the morning of May 24. According to the ministry, the ship was not damaged and all three drones that carried out the attack were destroyed.

• St. Petersburg’s historic Kresty jailhouse, built in the 19th century and notorious for the many political prisoners who had been kept there, is reportedly up for sale.

• A bombshell new investigation from The Intercept reveals that former U.S. national security adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was responsible for even more civilian deaths during the U.S. war in Cambodia than was previously known. The revelations add to a violent résumé that ranges from Latin America to Southeast Asia, where Kissinger presided over brutal U.S. military interventions to put down communist revolt and to develop U.S. influence around the world. While survivors and family members of these deadly campaigns continue to grieve, Kissinger celebrates his 100th birthday this week. “This adds to the list of killings and crimes that Henry Kissinger should, even at this very late date in his life, be asked to answer for,” says The Intercept’s Nick Turse, author of the new investigation, “Kissinger’s Killing Fields.” We also speak with Yale University’s Greg Grandin, author of Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman.

• The Biden administration is devoting what energy the State Department has aside from the effort to defend Ukraine to achieving diplomatic normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

• The war in Ukraine is well into its second year, and the United States is insistent on pumping billions more into the quagmire that has already seen thousands of lives lost and millions displaced.

• By recognizing that the question of NATO enlargement is at the center of this war, we understand why U.S. weaponry will not end this war. Only diplomatic efforts can do that.

• Russia’s State Duma has passed in first reading a bill on restricting the right to foreign travel for people with access to state secrets.

• In recent months, Vladimir Putin has so rarely discussed strategic issues that it might give the impression he’s not interested in the future at all. Political scientist Tatiana Stanovaya suggests that behind Putin’s silence is the expectation that external foreign policy dynamics will change in his favor, which would allow him to go back to discussing the Kremlin’s strategic goals. While we shouldn’t call the Russian president’s expectations completely unfounded, it’s possible that Russia’s political class could soon lose their patience with Putin’s passive approach. With Carnegie Politika’s permission, Meduza is publishing Tatiana Stanovaya’s article in full.

• The United States faces a default on its debt in early June if a deal on the debt ceiling is not reached between the Biden administration and Republicans in Congress before then. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is pushing for sweeping budget cuts and new work requirements for recipients of government programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP. Notably, however, neither Republicans nor Democrats are proposing cuts to one of the biggest drivers of the nation’s debt: the massive U.S. military budget. “We’ve got to get this military-industrial lobby under control, but it’s hard to do, because it’s a bipartisan affair,” says our guest, economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose recent article is headlined “America’s Wars and the US Debt Crisis.”

War in Ukraine

• In an interview with the pro-Kremlin political consultant Konstantin Dolgov, Evgeny Prigozhin gave his estimate of Wagner Group’s casualties in the Bakhmut operation.

• A design engineer at a defense and industrial facility in Rostov-on-Don was arrested on suspicion of working with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate, claims the Russian FSB.

• The global tea industry has had its hands full with the economic implications of the Ukraine war. But hidden away is another problem it needs to handle: rights abuse in plantations.

• Asylum seekers from Ukraine continue to cross the Latvian border. The border inspection post to Grebneva also operates a border information point where the involvement of young volunteers is currently urgently needed. The situation is exacerbated by the need to provide assistance to citizens of other countries, Latgale Television reported on May 24.

• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky made an unexpected trip to Britain last week on a whistle-stop tour of European capitals, pleading for more powerful and longer-range weapons to use in his war against Russia.  What was hard to ignore once again was the extent to which the UK is playing an outsize role in Ukraine.

• U.S. President Joe Biden has picked a new NSA and Cyber Command leader to oversee America’s cyber warfare and defense.

• US President Joe Biden’s decision on 19 May to help facilitate Ukraine’s efforts to procure advanced fourth-generation fighter aircraft was a significant shift in America’s posture.

• FRANCE 24 spoke to exiled Russian opposition figure Ilya Ponomarev, the political representative of the Freedom of Russia Legion. This Ukraine-based paramilitary group of Russian volunteers has been involved in cross-border incursions into Russia’s Belgorod region in the past last few days. Ponomarev claimed the pro-Ukrainian, anti-Putin group “didn’t lose a single soldier” and is successfully making progress inside Russia. Ultimately, “our guys will be in Moscow and Putin will not be in the Kremlin,” he predicted.

• A Russian official in the southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine said Wednesday that the territory was targeted by numerous drones overnight, following an armed incursion into the territory from Ukraine. The news comes after the state TASS news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Russia would achieve all its goals in Ukraine via its “special military operation” or through other means. Read our live blog to see how all the day’s events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).

• Russian authorities on Tuesday announced an investigation into attacks in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, as Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine continues into its second year.

• Ireland is planning to tender for floating hotels and ships to house asylum seekers, the government says, as it struggles to accommodate an unprecedented number of arrivals amid a years-long housing crisis. Close to 100,000 people fleeing the war in Ukraine and other conflicts have arrived in Ireland in the last year, a 25-fold increase…

• Germany will buy 18 Leopard 2 tanks and 12 self-propelled howitzers to replenish stocks depleted by deliveries to Ukraine, a member of the parliamentary budget committee that approved the purchase on May 24 told Reuters.

• Norway will support training programs for Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, Norwegian Defense Minister Bjoern Arild Gram said on May 24

• In another sign of the widening fissure between the main Orthodox churches in Ukraine and Russia over the Kremlin’s war against its neighbor, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) has approved a switch to the revised Julian calendar, a move that will move Christmas forward to December 25.

• Denys Nikitin (aka Kapustin), a self-proclaimed commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, said the cross-border incursion from Ukraine into Russia was a “test of strength” by the group along with allied fighters of the group calling itself Freedom of Russia Legion.

• Russia’s Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don said on May 24 that five foreign nationals will be tried for joining Ukraine’s armed forces fighting against Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

• Japan held a ceremony on May 24 marking its planned donation of about 100 military vehicles to Ukraine, as Tokyo seeks to provide equipment that can be of broader military use than its earlier shipments of helmets and hazmat suits.

• Germany will make further contributions to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Romania on May 24.

• NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine’s accession to the Western military alliance will not happen while the war is going on but that the membership path is there for the future.

• On Monday, Ukrainian saboteurs supported by armored vehicles also launched a raid against this region which is north of the border with Ukraine.

• Since the Ukraine invasion, Russian speakers in Latvia are being wrongly stigmatized wholesale as pro-Moscow, deepening mistrust among ethnic Latvians.

• For its sheer destructiveness and unpredictability, war challenges faith. In Ukraine’s conflict, the fault lines cut directly through a religion that for centuries was synonymous with identity.

• The cross-border raid by Russian fighters based in Ukraine appeared intended in part to force Moscow to divert its soldiers from the battlefield.

• American spy agencies do not know exactly who carried out the attack this month, but suggest it was part of a series of covert operations orchestrated by Ukraine’s security services.

• Military analysts suggested that the two-day incursion was aimed at forcing Russia to divert troops from the front in southeastern Ukraine and embarrassing the Russian government.

• Seizing the city took 10 months and untold lives. Most likely, analysts say, Russia’s exhausted forces will settle into a defensive crouch, preparing for Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

• European Commission Speech Brussels, 24 May 2023 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

• At the end of April of this year, the two of us ventured together to Russia. We went with the purpose of fact-finding and also to make a point that we do not believe that Russia should be isolated from the world through sanctions and travel bans.

• Economic data is still coming out of Russia, and Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina and other financial elites have been pushing for making even more data available. But that’s changing.

• The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, sailed into Oslo on May 24, a first for such a U.S. ship, in a show of NATO force at a time of heightened tension between NATO and Russia.

• Anatoly Maslov, the first of three Russian hypersonic missile scientists from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk to be charged with treason, will go on trial on June 1, the St. Petersburg City Court said.

• A court in Russia’s southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don has sentenced another Crimean Tatar activist to 18 years in prison on terrorism charges.

• Volodymyr Zelensky’s communications advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said in a new interview with the Italian TV channel RAI that Ukrainian troops have already begun their counteroffensive.

• The Moscow-installed head of the Russian authorities in annexed Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhoyev, said on Telegram that the city came under attack by drones on Wednesday night but that air defenses downed the weapons.

• Evgeny Prigozhin’s press service has published a new video in which the Wagner Group head announces the start of the paramilitary cartel’s withdrawal from Bakhmut.

• One of the participants in the May 22 raid on Russia’s Belgorod region told Novaya Gazeta Europe the story of the incursion in his own words. The source did not share his name with Novaya Gazeta Europe, and he also declined to say which group he was with (both the Freedom of Russian legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, groups of Russian nationals who fight for Ukraine, said they participated in the raid). He specified only that he is a citizen of Russia.

• At the start of September 2022, the Russian authorities began sending conscripts in large numbers to the country’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine. Technically, the young men are stationed “outside of the conflict zone,” as is required by law. In reality, however, they spend their days digging trenches and hiding from shellfire in dugouts, according to journalists from the independent outlet 7×7. The conscripts’ relatives have filed official complaints with the Defense Ministry and even held protests calling for the authorities to “pull their sons out” of the border area; officials have responded by threatening to prosecute the relatives and retaliate against the conscripts themselves. Meduza summarizes 7×7’s investigation.

Environment

• A new study by the environmental research group One Earth estimates the world’s top fossil fuel companies have emitted around 36% of all global emissions since 1988. That amounts to 403,092 metric tons of CO2 emissions, based on the group’s 2023 analysis that builds on the Carbon Majors 2018 data set.

• The aim of the study is to provide, for the first time, a methodology to quantify the economic impacts of individual companies’ damage to the climate. Estimates for the reparations are conservative, as they do not take into account factors including lives and livelihoods lost, species extinction, and biodiversity loss.

• Tuvalu, a small island state in the Pacific, is facing disaster due to rising sea levels. The island nation’s special envoy told DW there could be “total inundation” of the island within the century.

Energy/Transportation

• The discussion at the council meeting on Monday evening lasted for more than five hours.

• The level of wind power production in Finland has been rising at a rapid pace. Last year, wind-generated power on the market increased from 3,200 megawatts at the beginning of January to 5,200 megawatts by the end of the year. So far this year, it has gone up by yet another 500 MW.

Wildlife/Nature

Overpopulation

• A RECORD-BREAKING 49,998 people immigrated to Finland in 2022, according to Statistics Finland.

• The total represents an increase of 14,000–21,000 from previous years, an increase that may be partly attributable to the scrapping of entry restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic, Johannes Hirvelä, the director of development at the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri), stated to STT on Wednesday.

Finance

• Meta is slashing thousands more jobs next week in the third round layoffs as billionaire owner Mark Zuckerberg keeps his promise to make 2023 a ‘year of efficiency’ for the firm.

• The parent company of Facebook and Instagram announced the latest cuts in a question and answer session with employees on Thursday.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Meta Platforms Inc, owner of Facebook, slashed jobs across its business and operations units on Wednesday as it carried out its last batch of a three-part round of layoffs, part of a plan announced in March to eliminate 10,000 roles.

• Dozens of employees working in teams such as marketing, site security, enterprise engineering, program management, content strategy and corporate communications took to LinkedIn to announce that they were laid off.

• The Minnesota law is part of an omnibus bill and state legislators added the portions about repair to it on May 17. The new law will go into effect on July 1, 2024 and covers all electronics except video game consoles, cars, medical devices, cybersecurity tools, and farm and construction equipment.

• This draft act is open for feedback for 4 weeks. Feedback will be taken into account for finalising this initiative. Feedback received will be published on this site and therefore must adhere to the feedback rules.

• To put it mildly, it was a disaster. The audio feed cut in and out, users were continually kicked off the app, and, for the first 20 minutes, all anyone could hear was feedback, wait music, and occasional crosstalk as Sacks and Musk tried to figure out just what was going on. It was chaos and anarchy.

• Instead, the event began with more than 20 minutes of technical glitches, hot mic moments and drowned-out and half-said conversations before the livestream abruptly cut out. Minutes later, the livestream restarted as hundreds of thousands of listeners tried to tune in. Mr. DeSantis had not said a word at that point.

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign got off to a rocky start Wednesday when his announcement event on Twitter was plagued by technical difficulties, which persisted for more than 20 minutes before the governor was able to deliver his speech and participate in a question-and-answer session.

• It was beset with technical difficulties from the start. Many users reported being unable to log onto the event, and those who did had to struggle with audio that was interrupted, garbled, or dropped out entirely.

• For those who were able to listen live, the event turned into a cringe-fest.

• President Biden has nominated Air Force Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh to serve as the new head of the NSA and the U.S. Cyber Command, according to an Air Force notice seen by Politico.

• If confirmed, Haugh will replace Gen. Paul Nakasone, the current leader of the NSA and the U.S. Cyber Command. Haugh currently serves as the deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command.

• Hungary is not even close to the finish line on EU money, according to the EU’s budget commissioner, Johannes Hahn, Euronews reports.

• The European Commission has approved the amendment to the contracts for the construction of the new units of Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant, which will allow the acceleration of the Paks investment, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced on his Facebook page.

• Ferenc Gelencsér, president of Momentum said at a joint press conference of the parties and the teachers’ trade unions after Wednesday’s conciliation on the status law, which was convened by Interior Minister Sándor Pintér half an hour before the student protests last Friday.

• What mainstream outlets just can’t seem to see that is so glaringly obvious.

• Elon Musk has displaced Rupert Murdoch and Fox News as the king of conservative media in recent weeks.

• Why it matters: Fox News used to be the place where conservatives went to break news. But the right-wing ecosystem has turned on the network, leaving Twitter as the center of media gravity for the Republican Party just as the 2024 election heats up.

• Join Reason on YouTube Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern with Eli Lake to discuss what the Durham report tells us about the FBI, the media and U.S. politics.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

• Research by DW’s fact-checking team in cooperation with DW’s Turkish service shows that the video at the campaign rally was manipulated by combining two separate videos with totally different backgrounds and content.

• This video presented by Erdogan comes after experts warned of increased manipulation on Turkish social media ahead of the election.

• According to screengrabs circulating on social media, Reyes, or someone with access to his Instagram account, shared the photographs on his Stories. They appeared to be altered versions of photos Rosalía had originally taken and shared of herself.

Censorship/Free Speech

• In past instances of public criticism, the court has occasionally changed its ways.

• He was convicted of propaganda under Article 117 of the country’s Penal Code, which carries a minimum sentence of five years and a maximum of 12, after being found guilty of criticizing the government online.

• Bui, 39, who ran a beef noodle stall in Danang, achieved notoriety in 2021 after posting an online video mimicking the Turkish chef Nusret Gökçe, known as “Salt Bae.”

• For a brief moment of time, a judge in Arizona conspired with a vindictive politician to pretend the First Amendment didn’t exist. Senator Wendy Rogers — who was censured by the state senate last year for stating her political opponents should be hanged — took litigious offense at the methods deployed by journalist Camryn Sanchez, who covers the state senate for the Arizona Capitol Times.

• Lawmakers in the Alabama state legislature have voted for a bill that would require parental controls and NSFW content filters to be enabled on every phone and tablet sold in the state. House Bill (HB) 298, or the Protection of Minors from Unfiltered Devices Act, cleared the state House with an overwhelming 70-8 vote, with two dozen members abstaining from voting, last week. Now in the Senate, HB 298 is seeing success after the bill’s sole sponsor, state Rep. Chris Sells, failed in some previous legislative sessions to push this legislation to approval.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• The Blocked & Reported cohost talks about cancel culture, activism vs. truth, and why he quit Twitter.

• Once, tech platforms promised that “behavioral advertising” would be a bonanza for both media companies and their tech partners. Rather than paying commissioned salespeople to convince firms to place ads based on a publication’s reputation and readership, media companies would run ads placed by the winners of a slew of split-second auctions, each time a user moved from one page to another.

• These auctions would offer up the user, not the content, to an array of bidders representing different advertisers: “What am I bid for the right to show an ad to a depressed, 19 year old male Kansas City Art Institute sophomore who has recently searched for car loans and also shopped for incontinence pads?” In an eyeblink, every ad-slot on the page would be filled with ads purchased at a premium by advertisers anxious to reach that specific user. And that user will like it! They will be grateful for the process and all the “highly relevant” advertisements it dangled under their nose.

• Such an arrangement has numerous moving parts. The “ad-tech stack” includes [...]

Civil Rights/Policing

• Russian activists face escalating government scrutiny through digital surveillance, social media monitoring, and facial recognition systems. President Vladimir Putin’s administration utilizes technology to control and censor citizens.

• Russian scholars have urged Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova not to transfer the ancient Holy Trinity icon by medieval painter Andrei Rublev from Moscow’s state-run Tretyakov Gallery Arts Museum to the Russian Orthodox Church’s premises, saying the artifact will be damaged during the process.

• Clare Nowland, who had dementia, had been hospitalized in Coma in New South Wales state since her skull was fractured when she fell on May 17 after Constable Kristian White shocked her with a stun gun.

• Once again, a strike is happening during a period of widespread economic uncertainty spurred by inflation, concerns of a recession, and mass layoffs in media and entertainment. But this time around, there’s a twist: the ascension of generative artificial intelligence. If half the internet can be tricked by an AI-created Drake and The Weeknd collab, could that same tech write scripts and enable studios to create more content for less money?

• No-No Boy released their debut album “1942” in 2018, but it has since evolved primarily into a Saporiti project. Saporiti followed it up in 2021 with the album “1975,” which featured considerable vocal, musical, and production contributions from Emilia Halvorsen. The album title referred to the year Saigon fell.Similar to “1942,” Saporiti explored his own family heritage and connected that heritage to the. experiences of those in WWII Japanese internment camps. He linked this history to modern-day immigrant detention centers and refugee camps.

• Congress should be paying attention to AI technologies. Many are tools with extraordinary potential. They can help users distill large volumes of information, manage numerous tasks more efficiently, and change how we work – for good and for ill, depending on where you sit. Influential corporate and government actors recognize the ability of AI to redistribute power in ways they can’t control, which is one reason so many are seeking Congressional intervention now.

• But Congress should regulate with extreme caution, if at all, and focus on use of the tools rather than the tools themselves. If policymakers are worried about privacy, they should pass a strong privacy law. If they are worried about law enforcement abuse of face recognition, they should restrict that use. And so on. Above all, they must reject the binary thinking that AI technologies are going to lead to either C-3PO or the Terminator.

• Unfortunately, policymakers seem more inclined to move fast and break things.

Internet Policy/`utrality

• By now we’ve talked at length about the hot mess that has been the Biden administration’s attempt to properly staff the FCC. After an inexplicable 8 month delay, the Biden administration picked popular consumer advocate Gigi Sohn for the spot. But a relentless, often homophobic, multi-year smear campaign by telecom/media giants and their GOP allies scuttled Sohn’s chances.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• The company rolled out new pricing for tiered membership that ranges from $12.99 US to $24 US per month, and said that its app now offers the largest number of free classes since its launch in June 2018.

• In an email to its 70 million U.S. customers on Tuesday, Netflix said it will limit viewership of its programming to people living in the same household. Those who subscribe to Netflix’s standard or premium plans — which cost $15.50 US to $20 US per month — will be able to allow another person living outside their household to use their password for an additional $8 per month, a $2 discount from the company’s standard stand-alone plan.

Monopolies

Copyrights

• A new survey finds that nearly half of 15-24 year olds have engaged in some form of content piracy.

• A Mediavision survey reports a sharp rise in piracy rates across the Nordic region. Movie and TV show consumption, whether streamed or downloaded, is up in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. The largest number of pirates can be found in Sweden, where a quarter of 15 to 74-year-olds pirate content, levels last seen in 2016.

• The European Commission has published its biannual list of foreign countries with problematic copyright policies. One of the highlighted issues is a lack of pirate site blocking, which is seen as an effective enforcement measure. Interestingly, the EU doesn’t mention the United States, which is arguably the most significant country yet to implement an effective site-blocking regime.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

• It’s a game you almost certainly know. Let me tell you about it.

• By “one minute chess” I mean the standard game, but with about the fastest time control that’s playable: one minute on the clock. Total. For all of your moves.

• It’s a variant I discovered at Uni, and it makes the game fast, furious and a little bit insane. I’ve only played it online, I don’t know if it’s feasible on a physical board.

• Gameplay spoilers for Tears of the Kingdom start on Day ≤1, and plot spoilers start on Day 1. The introduction, right below, has minor gameplay spoilers for Breath of the Wild, the previous game. You should also expect even more plot and/or gameplay spoilers for BotW later on.

• In Ursula K. Le Guin’s “A Wizard of Earthsea”, names are power. The child-wizard Duny is given his true name, Ged, by his mentor Ogion. But thereafter he adopts the name Sparrowhawk, a self-selected name which acts as a shield, preventing a wizard from being seen and known as he truly is.

• The first time I remember using a name for myself that wasn’t my given one was at a jamboree in the early 90s. The tuck shop had facilities for making nametags. When I decided what I wanted to be called, I went with what some of the other campers called me. The name short-lived. Based on my appearance. I don’t think I’ve been called that before or after. But it was my first experience trying on a name that didn’t, in a legal or societal sense, belong to me. What is it? Doesn’t matter, it’s gone.

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.