● 06.03.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 03/06/2023: Qubes OS 4.2.0 RC1 and elementaryOS Updates for May

Posted in News Roundup at 8:41 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Server

Kernel Space

• Unlike Microsoft’s Windows 11, next-gen Linux will not only support older AMD Ryzen processors, but they could even get some decent performance boosts too. This is suggested by a recent patch.

Applications

• A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. We recommend the best Linux fonts.

• This is the May 2023 update for Niepce.

• Life comes at you fast. And hit hard. tl;dr not as much progress as I wished: I had to put this project a bit more on the sideline.

• This will be a short update.

• Some small bits:

• Some fixing in the metadata processing on import, notably a better handling of raw files. Turns out the previous logic broke getting metadata from video files.

• sftpgo is a free open-source fully featured and highly configurable SFTP server with optional HTTP/S, FTP/S and WebDAV support…

• ranger is a console file manager with VI key bindings.  It provides a minimalistic and nice curses interface with a view on the directory hierarchy. It ships with rifle, a file launcher that is good at automatically finding out which program to use for what file type.

• Orchid is a free and open-source Laravel package that abstracts standard business logic. This package is a great tool for developers to create back-office applications, admin/user panels, and dashboards quickly.

• What is Laravel?

• Laravel is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It is designed for building web applications with the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture pattern. Laravel is written in PHP and is based on the Symfony framework.

Instructionals/Technical

• The Squid proxy server is an open-source, high-performance proxy caching server for web clients that supports FTP, HTTPS, and HTTP data objects. It is mainly designed to accelerate content delivery by caching frequently requested data and freeing bandwidth.

• Squid is a powerful and flexible proxy server and web cache daemon. It can be used for various purposes, from speeding up web servers by caching repeated requests to filtering web content and blocking certain websites.

• Introduction Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is a security feature that is included in many Linux distributions. SELinux provides a mechanism for enforcing mandatory access controls (MAC) on processes and files. It is an essential tool that helps protect systems against unauthorized access, malicious software, and other security threats.

• The Importance of Access Control Access control is a crucial aspect of computer security that ensures only authorized entities can access specific resources on a system. It is used to restrict unauthorized access to system components, data, and functions while simultaneously ensuring that legitimate users can carry out their intended tasks. Access control helps to […]

• The Popularity of Docker Docker is a tool that allows developers to create, deploy, and run applications in containers. These containers are lightweight and portable environments that can run on any machine with Docker installed.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• A week before the release of Debian 12 (Bookworm), users can rejoice – they will receive the most recent version of KDE Plasma 5.27.5 LTS.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

• After releasing the GNOME 44.2 desktop environment earlier this week, the GNOME Project now also released updates for the most important components in GNOME, the Mutter 44.2 window and composite manager, as well as GNOME Shell 44.2.

• GNOME Shell 44.2 is here to further improve the built-in screen recorder functionality, as well as the Bluetooth menu in Quick Settings, which received support for user-defined names. Moreover, it addresses some glitches in the calendar widget when using large text, fixes an issue with the authentication dialog getting stuck in remote sessions, and patches other minor bugs and a crash.

Distributions and Operating Systems

• This month we have mostly minor maintenance updates as we gear up for a feature-filled future release. Enjoy a mild May because this summer is going to get hot!

• Calculator now follows keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste, even when the main text entry isn’t focused, thanks to Leo! It will no longer preserve extra white space on the right side of the window when used with alternative window button layouts. And Calculator will now always use the elementary stylesheet and icons, even when run on a different operating system, to prevent breakage related to missing assets.

• A new version of Security & Privacy settings has been released that now supports the Location portal. This is a more secure method for apps to request access to location services and is the latest FreeDesktop.org standard for doing so. If you’ve had trouble with sideloaded apps accessing location services before, this change will most likely fix that issue. You can adjust location settings in System Settings → Security & Privacy → Location Services. If the main switch here is turned off, apps will not be allowed to even ask for permission, so make sure it’s turned on if you are using apps that make use of location data.

New Releases

• We’re pleased to announce that the first release candidate for Qubes OS 4.2.0 is now available for testing. This minor release includes several new features and improvements over Qubes OS 4.1.0. Qubes 4.2.0-rc1 is available on the downloads page.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

• Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,

• First off, apologies for not having the weekly review since May 5th. There were some personal days off, some travels to conferences and things just lined up to fall through the cracks. But more importantly, than the weekly reviews, I’m sure you have all noticed that Tumbleweed has not been stopped. Au contraire: with people being all in the same time zones and proximity, we managed to resolve some of the long-standing issues in stagings and progress on. I’ll try to give an overview of what happened in the last 4 weeks.

• Looking at all of May 2023, there have been a total of 29 snapshots published. The only ones skipped were 0516 and 0528. Snapshots 0501 through 0504 had been covered in week 2023/18’s review and I’ll skip them today. This brings us to this overview of what happened in the last weeks in Tumbleweed: [...]

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers/Web Servers

Chromium

Standards/Consortia

• This week, I have been tinkering with Natural Language Processing (NLP) to build an index for my personal website. While I was creating this project, I explored various techniques to help me find words relevant enough to be featured in the index.

Leftovers

• More than half a dozen house boats momentarily caught fire at a popular boating destination on the Utah-Arizona line on Friday. The fire ignited while tourists and jet skiers stood by. The flames are now extinguished. Video from observers shows the decks of boats docked at Wahweap Marina on Lake Powell smoldered as black plumes of smoke wafted into the air and above the red rock walls that form its perimeter. Information from the National Park Service shows more than two million visitors go boating on Lake Powell annually.

• How a nude egg captured all our hearts.

Science

• China is embarking on a journey into the earthy unknown.

• There are two purposes for the borehole: one is for scientific exploration and the other is to find oil and gas.

• A taste for blood.

• Even annoying creatures have a purpose.

• It’s not just the moms.

• “I was actually stunned.”

• Now for some good news.

• The Supreme Court is agnostic on questions of science, but clear and resolute on questions of law.

• “It’s a large region that is very rich in structures and we’re basically studying them one at a time,” said one researcher.

Hardware

• CrowVision is an 11.6-inch IPS capacitive touchscreen display with 1366×768 resolution that is designed to work not only with the Raspberry Pi but most single board computers with mounting holes within a 100 x 80 mm rectangle.

• First introduced in 2022, the Khadas VIM4 SBC will now sell with an Amlogic A311D2-N0D Cortex-A73/A53 processor equipped with a 3.2 TOPS NPU, and the version without AI accelerator will be phased out. I reviewed the Khadas VIM4 with both Android 11 and Ubuntu 22.04 last year, and really liked the user experience notably thanks to the OOWOW system that makes it really easy to try different operating systems downloaded from Khadas servers, although some features like support for GPU acceleration still needed to be worked on at the time.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Major chemical producers have agreed to pay billions of dollars to settle claims from U.S. water providers over toxic “forever chemicals” pollution.

• Why it matters: The settlements are a significant step forward in the effort to reduce potentially dangerous chemicals in water systems across the country.

• A U.S. request for USMCA settlement consultations takes both countries a step closer to trade war over Mexico’s planned phaseout of GM corn.

• The National Institute of Health, the main US government agency working on health research, is the largest biomedical founder. It employs nearly 20,000 people across 27 institutes and centers, financing research in the full range of medical issues.

• The county said the Minnesota Department of Health advised the closing as a precautionary measure.

• Nearly 20 countries have abolished or lowered “tampon taxes,” consumption taxes levied on menstrual products, following Kenya’s decision in 2004. But even amid a push for access to sanitary products, some countries hesitate to relinquish the revenue.

• An underdiscussed issue with forced mental health care.

• Huge potential!

• The new law dictates a life sentence for anyone caught having gay sex and the death penalty for anyone convicted of “aggravated homosexuality.”

Proprietary

• After watching Democracy Now’s segment on artificial intelligence I started to wonder – am I out of step on this topic?

• When people claim artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence and thus threaten humanity with extinction, they seem to be referring specifically to advances made with large language models.

• [...] But, let’s be clear, the narrative that AI is poised to surpass human intelligence and make humanity extinct is a dangerous distraction that runs counter to a much more important story about “the very real and very present exploitative practices of the [companies building AI], who are rapidly centralizing power and increasing social inequities.”.

• Maybe we should talk about that instead?

• A recent NY Times article, “In Battle Over A.I., Meta Decides to Give Away Its Crown Jewels,” reported that Meta, — the technology giant that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — made the decision to open source LLaMA, its state-of-the-art large language model (LLM), making the code available to academics, government researchers and others once they’d been properly vetted. Meta’s actions are quite different from those of Google and OpenAI, its chief AI rivals, who’ve been keeping the software underpinning their AI systems proprietary.

Security

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

• I was nearly scammed while selling a car on AutoTrader. Here’s how the whole thing went…

• Owning cars is a pain in the arse; they’re money pits and I hate dealing with them. My wife and I need a car each, so the problem is compounded by running 2 cars in the household.

• Anyway, a few days ago I booked my wife’s car in for it’s annual service, as well as it’s MOT (an annual safety test that all cars older than 3 years on UK roads need to pass).

• Her car is an old, 2008 Hyundai Santa Fe – it’s a big old tank of a 4×4. We had it serviced, and it required 2 new tyres to pass the MOT.

Privacy/Surveillance

• Clearview AI is redefining our privacy. The New York-based tech company is working to identify and compile the faces of every human being on the planet. Clearview AI claims that the database will serve as a force for good, helping to solve crimes and prevent espionage. But the risks it carries are immense. FRANCE 24’s Jessica Le Masurier and Romeo Langlois have this special report.

• The FTC fines Amazon over Ring and Alexa privacy violations: The Federal Trade Commission is gunning for Amazon with a $5.8 million fine for its Ring security business and a $25 million fine for Alexa. The FTC had filed a lawsuit against Ring over what it called deceptive trade practices surrounding Ring’s collection of facial data [...]

Defence/Aggression

• The military attache corps in South Africa recently got a close-up taste of Rheinmetall Denel Munition’s (RDM’s) artillery rounds, mortar bombs and grenade launcher ammunition through a live demonstration at the company’s Boskop facilities.

• The United States announced sanctions Thursday on Sudanese leaders it blames for the breakdown of US and Saudi-brokered ceasefire efforts after shelling and air strikes killed 18 civilians at a Khartoum market.

• The Council is expected to extend the mandate of the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission, which expires on Saturday.

• A handful of former German pilots are apparently now in China to provide military training – and are earning huge salaries for their services. Their activities have raised sensitive questions for German security officials.

• A group of citizens in the western Iranian city of Abdanan, took to the streets chanting anti-government slogans on June 1 to protest the suspicious death of 21-year-old student Bamshad Suleimankhani. Several protesters were injured when security forces opened fire on them, local sources reported.

• >With the handover of command of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), leaders hope to continue the momentum against the extremist group Boko Haram. But observers warn that other groups in the region might prove harder to defeat.

• “Beginning this June 2, this day will honor the victims of gun violence…”

• Army troops were deployed to parts of the Senegalese capital Dakar on Friday as the city braced for more unrest after a jail sentence for opposition leader Ousmane Sonko sparked one of the deadliest days of violence in the country’s recent memory.

• American Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says Washington would not stand for any “coercion and bullying” of its allies and partners by China, while assuring Beijing that the United States remains committed to maintaining the status quo on Taiwan and would prefer dialogue over conflict. Speaking Saturday at the so-called Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual forum bringing together top defense officials, diplomats and leaders, Austin lobbied for support for Washington’s vision of a “free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific within a world of rules and rights” as the best course to counter increasing Chinese assertiveness in the region.

• He said “risky intercepts” by Chinese planes in international airspace would not deter the United States and allies from patrolling, and he restated U.S. support for Taiwan.

• The nuclear order established during the Cold War is under more stress than at any point since 1962, but efforts to negotiate with Beijing are unlikely to succeed anytime soon.

• Taiwan and the US on Thursday inked the first part of a new trade pact. Negotiated under the beak of a hawkish China, the pact is hailed by involved parties as the most significant trade deal between Taipei and Washington since Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization in 2002.

• Beijing hits back at Austin, accusing the U.S. of destroying stability in the Taiwan Strait.

• Defense Secretary Austin called refusal to meet ‘unfortunate’.

• China is upgrading its nuclear arsenal even as its relationship to the U.S. is deteriorating. George Yeo, the former foreign minister of Singapore, discusses the ongoing power struggle in the Pacific region.

• The loss in human connections from such a decoupled relationship is clear.

• They say they have been finding it increasingly tough to operate in China as tensions with the US continue to rise.

• Paid nearly worthless wages, police exploit their positions to extract bribes to survive

• Australia’s most decorated living war veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith resigned Friday from his position with Seven West Media following a guilty verdict in a historic defamation case against multiple news companies, who accused Roberts-Smith of committing war crimes during his enlistment in Afghanistan.

Environment

• Forecast warn an additional 1–3 inches of rainfall is possible in South Florida through Sunday.

• By purchasing high-quality carbon credits, companies can support the sustainable growth of low- and middle-income populations in the world’s fastest-growing regions.

Energy/Transportation

• Investments in clean energy will be record-breaking in 2023, with $1.74 trillion of global investment so far, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The increase continues a trend since 2020 of clean energy investments outpacing those in fossil fuels.

• New Fortress Energy also signed a 15-year, US $5.7 billion contract with CFE to export LNG from the Gulf of Mexico until 2028.

• Central Asia has failed to harness its full hydropower capacity. But greater investments into the region can help unlock much of Central Asia’s potential.

• The underground rivers of Mexico’s southeast are one big system, some speleologists believe. The Maya train endangers that system, they say.

• Six labour unions in California, US, have called on the state Governor and legislative leaders to allocate 30% of the state’s Clean Transportation Plan Funds to help build 1,000 hydrogen refuelling stations.

• East Side Access, long delayed and over cost, finally opened, but it isn’t drawing new riders and may actually be scaring some away.

• At least 288 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a three-train collision in India, officials said Saturday, the country’s deadliest rail accident in more than 20 years.

Wildlife/Nature

• A nest was assaulted. Was it the cowbird or the sparrow?

• European Commission Speech Brussels, 02 Jun 2023 On the consultation; challenges for the sustainable development of protected areas (nature) and how to address them in practice, Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans gave a speech through video recording about restoring nature is about improving biodiversity everywhere and finding balance.

• The study compared catches and fishing hours before and after a ban on commercial fishing in the Revillagigedo marine park that began in 2017.

• Feline residents of Walldorf, Germany, can’t go outside when certain birds are breeding. Is it cruelty or conservation?

• It took 150 million years for feathered dinosaurs to master flight and become the birds we see overhead today.

• Alli Smith, of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, offers beginner tips for exploring the wide world of birds.

• Indian law students are reporting for JURIST on law-related developments in and affecting India. This dispatch is from Soumyabrata Chakraborty, a second-year law student at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

Overpopulation

• After seven consecutive years of annual decline, Japan posted its lowest-ever birth rate in 2022, according to the health ministry.

• But there were still 47,573 more births last year than there were in 2020.

Finance

• Customers of Chase’s online banking services have seen double transactions, fees and payments in their accounts. But by late Friday the bank said it had fixed the glitch. Numerous Chase customers had posted on social media that their rent or bill payments were taken out of their accounts twice and reported hold times with customer service approaching more than an hour. The New York-based bank is one of the country’s largest financial institutions with millions of online customers.

• Customers should not keep their money in apps like Venmo for the long term, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned weeks after three banks collapsed. Payment apps are not traditional bank accounts, so funds may not be covered by deposit insurance.

• Sales of new cars last month surpassed the numbers recorded in May 2019, demonstrating the industry’s recovery from the pandemic slump.

• The 2023 GI Conference attracted over 300 institutional investors, financial intermediaries and representatives of listed companies from China and abroad.

• France managed to avoid a fresh credit downgrade from a leading rating agency on Friday, despite mounting concern over the country’s surging national debt.

• WEIS 2023, the 22nd Workshop on the Economics of Information Security, will be held in Geneva from July 5-7, with a theme of Digital Sovereignty. We now have a list of sixteen accepted papers; there will also be three invited speakers, ten posters, and ten challenges for a Digital Sovereignty Hack on July 7-8.

• Recent years have witnessed a surge in the construction of predominantly small rental studios and one-bedroom apartments in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and Tampere. This information comes from the research conducted by Mari Vaattovaara and Pekka Vuori in their study titled “Changes in Housing Construction in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and Tampere in 2015-2021,” released today.

• I had never had money, and then I did. For three days in New York, I learned how not to use it.

• As lawmakers at the Capitol avoid financial catastrophe, our political roundtable looks at the debt-ceiling compromise and asks whether the center can hold in today’s rage-filled politics.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Gov. Ron DeSantis’ rage against CNN and MSNBC — along with former President Trump’s polling lead and distrust of Fox News — has created a deadlock over who will host the rest of the 2024 GOP presidential debates, and uncertainty over whether they’ll happen at all.

• Why it matters: Debates can make or break a presidential candidacy. And who hosts those debates can have a significant impact on which contenders chose to participate, and how they perform.

• In March, DOJ asked Trump for the Iran document he bragged he had at Bedminster in July 2021. He couldn’t find it.

• In April, DOJ asked for details of his business ties with, among other countries, the Saudis.

• Tayyip Erdogan was set to be sworn in as Turkey’s president on Saturday after winning re-election last weekend and will later name his cabinet, which is expected to signal a change to his unorthodox economic programme.

• This week, the government announced a new clerk of the Privy Council, an unsung role that is one of the most important in the federal government.

• The girl was taken from her Indian parents by German authorities in Berlin in September 2021.

• Three Europeans released from detention by Iran arrived in Belgium early Saturday, the latest in a series of prisoner swaps.

• European governments confirmed on June 2 that one Danish and two Austrian-Iranian citizens have been released by Iran after mediation efforts by Oman and Belgium.

• Security personnel at a university in southwestern Iran appear to have severely assaulted a student, the latest in a series of violent attacks on school campuses amid anti-government protests led by young Iranians angered at the regime’s intrusions on their rights.

• Prosecutors issued a subpoena for a description of military options for Iran mentioned by the former president during an interview. But Mr. Trump’s legal team said they could find no such document.

• Fighting for change has cost Narges Mohammadi her career, separated her from family and deprived her of liberty. But a jail cell has not succeeded in silencing her.

• French Employment Minister Olivier Dussopt – who has played a key role in President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to push through an unpopular change to the pension system – will face a court hearing in November over allegations of favouritism, France’s financial prosecutor said on Friday.

• Republican governors and presidential candidates are scrambling to show who’s tougher on illegal immigration, as governors send National Guard troops to the southwest border and 2024 hopefuls tout harsh policies.

• In May, the city witnessed a series of disappearances: the Civic Party, Hong Kong’s second-largest pro-democracy party, voted to dissolve; a prominent political cartoonist had his comic strip suspended after 40 years; hundreds of books were purged from public libraries; and a monument commemorating Tiananmen Crackdown was seized by Hong Kong’s national security police.

• China’s expanded police engagements in Africa could have potentially far-reaching consequences for African security governance. Ugandan Special Forces and over 30 Chinese commandos conducted a joint operation in January 2022, leading to the capture and deportation of four Chinese citizens alleged to be part of a criminal ring.

• “Our accepting your $5 million will show the world you are not a pariah and may help you avoid a conviction like Bill Cosby.”

Censorship/Free Speech

• Demonstrators battled with the police to protest a two-year prison sentence given to a leading opposition figure. At least nine people died in the confrontations.

• A giant rubber duck art installation is set to return to Hong Kong’s waters, this time with an identical accomplice. Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s two inflatable sculptures will float up to Victoria Harbour on June 10. Hong Kong last played host to the 16.5 metre-high bathtub favourite in 2013.

• Avant garde street performance, politically charged theatre, pro-democracy music and poetry — powerful works of art dealing with China’s bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown that were once commonplace in Hong Kong have all but disappeared in recent years.

• Verdict: Misleading

• “If you don’t respect China, please get out of China and don’t come here to make money.”

• The students at an elite college in China found themselves on a collision course with the authorities amid a crackdown on gay and transgender expression.

• Belarusian tennis star Aryna Sabalenka skipped the post-match press conference at the French Open on June 2, citing mental health reasons.

• The spectre of a China-imposed national security law is pressuring businesses to stay silent.

• Hints or veiled comments pique curiosity, prompting them to uncover the truth.

• Chinese dissidents who took part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests unveiled a museum in New York on Friday dedicated to remembering the “democratic dreams of the Chinese people,” two days ahead of the 34th anniversary of the uprising’s “brutal suppression.”

• Twitter has lost its second head of trust and safety in six months, highlighting ongoing issues with the platform’s content moderation policies.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Employees of the low-cost airline allege delayed payments and reimbursement of expenses, and have asked to start talks with the company.

• In recent months, British rail workers have gone on strike several times to demand pay increases, as year-on-year inflation stands at 8.7 percent.

• Things are finally looking up for the American worker. Why does the government see that as a crisis?

• Fears of tuna cannery job losses and further economic decline in the territory highlighted by residents.

• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s alliance with Huda-Par, a hardline Kurdish Islamist party with a shadowy past, for the 2023 vote sparked howls of condemnations. It was part of a strategy to win the Kurdish vote, but women fear that they will pay the price.

Monopolies

Patents

• June 1 marked an historic day for patent protection in Europe with the entry into operation of the much anticipated Unitary Patent System, reports Labs of Latvia.

Trademarks

• Jay-Z has scored another win in his long-running legal battle with fragrance company Parlux.  The rapper inked a deal with the fragrance company to create a line called Gold Jay-Z back in 2012. While initial sales soared, the product line soon faltered.

• The USPTO refused to register the proposed mark RAILROAD RUM for “distilled spirits” (RUM disclaimed), finding confusion likely with the registered mark RAILROAD RED for “wines” (RED disclaimed). The Board found the marks to be confusingly similar, since they both are dominated by the word RAILROAD, the first and only distinctive word in each mark. But what about the goods? How do you think this came out? In re Wild West Spirits, LLC, Serial No. 90540784 (May 30, 2023) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Christen M. English).

Copyrights

• In the age of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, we are all extremely online.

• “I’ve seen her smirk on other faces.”

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