● 06.09.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 09/06/2023: JDBC FDW 0.3.1 and Godot 4.1 Beta

Posted in News Roundup at 7:13 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

• Hello and welcome to the 505th installment of Linux in the Ham Shack.

• Ubuntu gets serious about the immutable desktop, red flags from Red Hat, and the little tricks Apple used to patch Wine.

• AsiaBSDCon 2023 Trip Report, Converting My X201 ThinkPad into a Slabtop, Stream your OpenBSD desktop audio to other devices, The Gnome and Its “Secret Place”, ttyload, and more

Kernel Space

Applications

• Readme.so is a free and open-source documentation generator that uses Markdown and a drag-and-drop editor to build professional-looking documentation.

• Feature

• * Easy-to-use editor

• * Comes with dozens of useful section

• * Choose from a list of sections to add to your readme docs

• * Edit the contents of each section

• * Change section orders

• HTTrack is an offline browser utility that allows users to download a website from the Internet to a local directory. This free and easy-to-use software is licensed under the GPL, or General Public License, which means that users have the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the software.

• 13

• I did some research into open source text to speech solutions recently. As part of that I spent a while trying out Coqui TTS and, while I was trying to get it to sound nice, I learned a few things about voice synthesis.

• Coqui TTS provides some speech models which are pre-trained on specific datasets. For text-to-speech, each dataset contains text snippets paired with audio recordings of humans reading the text.

• Notes app is a free and open-source note-taking app for those who want to effortlessly and confidently jot down their thoughts and ideas. Built-in C++ with Qt, this app is both lightning-fast and stunningly attractive, allowing users to record their ideas seamlessly without any lag.

Instructionals/Technical

• Virt-manager still appears to be the most powerful tool in regards of deployment and managment of KVM guests. Also sometimes it seems to be more functional rather then Cockpit Web console, in my very personal opinion. In particular, it allows to configure some features required by Windows 11 KVM Guest in the most recent builds of Fedora Linux 38,37.

• In the vast world of cybersecurity, Content Security Policy (CSP) serves as a formidable front-line defence. Introduced to augment the web’s native security capabilities, CSP empowers web developers to establish guidelines or “policies” that regulate how content is handled on a particular webpage.

• In the world of cybersecurity, one name that invariably pops up when discussing web application vulnerabilities is Cross-Site Scripting, popularly known as XSS.

Distributions and Operating Systems

BSD

• This year I had the opportunity to attend BSDCan in Ottawa and assist with the video streaming for the conference. The FreeBSD Foundation was kind enough to cover my accommodation for the trip, which I am very grateful for.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

• Organizations are concerned about the security of our SAP system, as it is the backbone of our business operations. They recognize the importance of having a secure SAP environment.

Fedora Family / IBM

• Note: this commercial post was approved by the Fedora Council

• If you’ll be attending Flock to Fedora — Fedora’s annual contributor conference — in Cork, Ireland this August then I want to sign a copy of Program Management for Open Source Projects for you. Use the online order form before 22 June (and use promo code FLOCK2023 for a $5 discount).

• It’s that time of the month again, when some clueless guy tries to write a hit-piece about Flatpak and we all get dejavus.

• One of my favorite past-time activities for a while now has been seeing people on the internet trying to rationalize concepts and decisions, and instead of asking why things ended up the way they did, what where the issues and goals of system A, and design B, and what were the compromise, they just pick the first rational that comes to their mind and go with it.

• For example, a very common scenario is that someone picks a random Proprietary application and points out all the sandbox holes it needs to function and thus declares the sandbox as useless. At no point does one of them ever ask, “Hey why does Flatpak allow to punch such holes”, “What developments have been done to limit that”, “What tools are available to deal with that”, “Why am I a cherry-picking an evil proprietary application as my example that no distribution would be able to distribute anyway and I wouldn’t want any person to use” and “What went wrong with my life that I have to write hate posts to get attention and feel any kind of emotion”. These are just a few of the question that should have come up and given one pause, way before getting anywhere near the the publish button.

• Now I can answer most of these questions, and you would be happy to know that even Chromium and Electron have been adopting more and more of the sandboxed Portal APIs as the years pass. But there isn’t any point in talking about it cause none of the delirium is about the technical decisions behind Flatpak or how it works. None.

Debian Family

• Debian (I might as well say “we”, this is the beauty of it) is about to release Debian 12 aka Bookworm. Let’s take a quick look at what is new in Debian Qt land.

• Bookworm has Qt 5.15.8, which is nothing but great news. KDE will be switching to Qt 6 sooner than later and Qt 5 has been a fun ride, but Dmitry Shachnev and I needed a break, or at very least not handling two Qt versions. But in the end I need to be fair: you REALLY need to thank Dmitry for Qt 5. He has been the man power behind it in 99.5% of the cases.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• If you’re a regular reader you’ll have expected this. I revealed earlier this year that Ubuntu developers wanted to make the Tiling Assistant GNOME extension part of the default install.

• Well, now they have.

• The (renamed) Ubuntu Tiling Assistant extension is rolling out to Ubuntu 23.10 daily builds, and will, barring any unexpected issues, ship out-of-the-box on new installs.

• So what does this extension provide?

• Well, in current versions of Ubuntu when you drag a window to either side of your screen you’re able to “snap” it to 50% of the horizontal space. This lets you view two apps side-by-side. You can also drag windows to the top of the screen to maximise it fully.

• Handy, but limited when compared to the multitude of window tiling layouts that are available to users of Windows and ChromeOS.

• The Linux Mint 21.2 Beta ISOs are currently undergoing testing according to the Linux Mint Community website. This usually indicates that the Beta ISOs will be ready for download in a couple of days.

Open Hardware/Modding

• Epi 32U4 is a tiny Arduino-compatible development board based on a Microchip ATmega32U4 8-bit AVR microcontroller with just a USB-Type-C port and 23 I/O pins accessible through castellated holes that can be soldered to headers or another PCB. The board also includes some protection such as a fuse, ESD protection, a ferrite bead, and a low-pass filter for the analog reference voltage.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Multiple important denial of service (DoS) vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-0464 and CVE-2023-2650) have been discovered in the OpenSSL Secure Sockets Layer toolkit. These bugs are easy to exploit and have a high availability impact.

• These flaws could be exploited to carry out DoS attacks resulting in loss of system access and potential compromise.

• An OpenSSL security update that fixes these vulnerabilities has been released. We strongly encourage all impacted users to apply the OpenSSL updates issued by their distro(s) now to protect against attacks leading to system downtime and compromise.

SaaS/Back End/Databases

• We have just released version 0.3.1 of the Foreign Data Wrapper for databases with JDBC interface.

• This release can work with PostgreSQL 13, 14 and 15.

• This FDW is implemented in C language with JDK.

• This release improves the following features [...]

Licensing / Legal

• Today, OSS Capital is starting a project to collect community input on a definition of Open Weights. We have published our initial effort at https://github.com/Open-Weights/Definition. Here is the TLDR: It is critical for the industry to develop and standardize on “Open Weights” licensing frameworks. These frameworks should align closely with the Four Freedoms…

Programming/Development

• Switching gears into the bug-fixing mode, here’s the first beta of Godot 4.1, and a great opportunity to try the new version of the engine ahead of the official release.

• In R, the file.info() function is a useful tool for retrieving file information, such as file attributes and metadata. It allows programmers to gather details about files, including their size, permissions, and timestamps.

• RPMs of PHP version 8.2.7 are available in remi-modular repository for Fedora ≥ 36 and Enterprise Linux ≥ 8 (RHEL, Alma, CentOS, Rocky…) and in remi-php82 repository for EL 7.

• RPMs of PHP version 8.1.20 are available in remi-modular repository for Fedora ≥ 36 and Enterprise Linux ≥ 8 (RHEL, Alma, CentOS, Rocky…) and in remi-php81 repository for EL 7.

Leftovers

• After wrecking the stadium with careless use of fertilisers, the authorities in Lithuania’s Kaunas may be forced to spray-paint the pitch that will host the national team.

*

• Geological experts said they were likely caused by underground cavities below a depth of 1,300m.

Science

• In space, no one can hear you erase.

Education

• At the beginning of the next school year, schools will lack nearly 1,000 teachers, according to the results of the survey conducted by the Saeima Education, Culture and Science Committee. The largest shortage of teachers is in Latvian language, literature, and math subjects, Latvian Radio reported on June 8.

Hardware

• Lordstown Motors is preparing to sue Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturer once considered a savior to the beleaguered EV maker.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Hong Kong will take “rigorous measures” to restrict food imports from Japan if Fukushima’s nuclear wastewater is released into the sea, the city’s Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan says.

• As more countries elevate women’s rights, they allow women better access in agriculture. Afghanistan’s acute hunger proves the point.

• Good tips for non-billionaires.

• Multiple astronauts show the same thing.

• They’re so damn cool.

• A recent study from researchers at U-M’s Kresge Hearing Research Institute suggests relief may be possible for those suffering from tinnitus.

• Advisers to the agency overwhelmingly agreed that a new treatment would help to prevent a potentially lethal respiratory illness in very young children.

• American officials say they uncovered a countrywide scheme by government officials to divert food aid, in a country where 20 million people rely on donated relief.

• It is the second time the country has confirmed a cholera outbreak this year.

• The UN’s health agency on Thursday declared an end to a nearly four-month epidemic of Marburg virus in Equatorial Guinea, saying the disease, a cousin of Ebola, had caused 35 confirmed or suspected deaths.

Proprietary

• Matthew Russell Lee (Inner City Press) has what appears to be a live-Tweet transcript of the hearing, as it progressed; I can’t be certain that it’s accurate, but it seems credible enough to link to.

• The memorandum of law, filed by the lawyer’s counsel, is here. It seems quite well argued, though I don’t agree with the backup argument (in Part II.E) that the lawyer’s reliance on ChatGPT as a source for the supposed text of precedents was not just innocent but “reasonabl[e].” Here’s the opening paragraph of the introduction [...]

• An order governing filings before Magistrate Judge Gabriel A. Fuentes (N.D. Ill.), adopted May 31 (paragraph breaks added): The Court has adopted a new requirement in the fast-growing and fast-changing area of generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) and its use in the practice of law.

• US senators on Thursday introduced two separate bipartisan artificial intelligence bills on Thursday amid growing interest in addressing issues surrounding the technology.

Windows TCO

• Exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in MOVEit Transfer, criminals have deployed web shells on vulnerable file transfer servers and gained access to a variety of high-profile organizations. More than a week since remediation instructions were published, Netcraft has discovered web shells still present on servers associated with energy, healthcare, and finance companies.

• Web shells are control panels used by criminals to exfiltrate data from compromised servers, run exploits, and maintain remote access, often persisting long after the original vulnerability has been fixed.

• Using zero-day vulnerabilities to install web shells is not a new tactic. We previously reported on web shells installed via the Microsoft Exchange ProxyLogon and ProxyShell vulnerabilities in 2021. Two years later, Netcraft continues to detect new installations of web shells on still-vulnerable Microsoft Exchange servers.

• Progress has issued a second patch for additional SQL flaws that are distinct from the zero-day that Cl0p ransomware gang is exploiting.

Linux Foundation

Security

• Researchers believe North Korea-linked Lazarus Group has stolen at least $35 million in cryptocurrency from Atomic Wallet.

• Vulnerabilities found by a researcher in a Honda ecommerce platform used for equipment sales exposed customer and dealer information.

• Cisco releases fixes for a critical-severity vulnerability in Expressway series and TelePresence Video Communication Server (VCS).

• Barracuda Networks is telling customers to immediately replace hacked ESG email security appliances regardless of the patches they installed.

• Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai says it has taken systems offline after falling victim to a ransomware attack.

Privacy/Surveillance

• Evidence found in encrypted messages helped speed the fall of Milo Djukanovic in Montenegro. His successor, Jakov Milatovic, says he plans to clean up the country.

• The planned facility could amplify Beijing’s technological capacity to monitor military operations across the Southeastern states.

• China is planning to pay the Cuban government several billion dollars in exchange for its support of a signals intelligence facility on the island nation that will be able to eavesdrop on military and other communications in the southern US, according to the Wall Street Journal.

• Edward Snowden describes how surveillance tools have become more powerful in the past decade

Confidentiality

• The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday in Dubin v. United States that in order to constitute aggravated identity theft, the use of a person’s identity must be at the “crux” of what makes the conduct criminal, reversing a lower court decision.

Defence/Aggression

• Joran van der Sloot, who had been in prison in Peru, was sent to the United States to face charges related to Ms. Holloway, who went missing during a 2005 trip to Aruba.

• The measure would allow parents to cancel the contracts underlying their children’s accounts on sites like TikTok, Instagram, Roblox and YouTube.

• Following troubling reports about the alleged storage of TikTok creators’ sensitive financial information in China, U.S. senators from both sides of the aisle are calling out the video-sharing app’s alleged “pattern of misleading or inaccurate responses.”

• A local prosecutor said there was “no apparent sign of a terrorist motive” after a knife-wielding man violently assaulted people in a park in the southeastern city of Annecy.

• “The nation is in shock,” President Macron said and called the act an “attack of absolute cowardice.”

• President López Obrador said soldiers seen on video killing civilians and then planting weapons near their bodies would soon be in custody.

• North Korea has tolerated the widespread use of more stable foreign currencies like U.S. dollars and the Chinese yuan since a bungled revaluation of the won in 2009 triggered runway inflation and public unrest. The so-called  “dollarization” phenomenon helped ease inflation and stabilize foreign exchange rates. But experts say the currency substitution may hurt leader Kim Jong Un’s authority by undermining the government’s control of the money supply and its ability to set monetary policies. Now, observers say Kim may be trying to roll back use of the dollar and yuan to tighten his grip on the economy, a move that could backfire by just confusing and angering the public.

• A man armed with a knife stabbed six people, including four preschool children, by a lake in the French Alps on Thursday in an attack that sent shock waves through the country. The suspect, who was arrested, did not have a terrorist motive, according to the local prosecutor.

• The attack involved the destruction of property and homes of Saudi employees.

• The Sudanese government has declared United Nations envoy Volker Perthes “persona non grata”, two weeks after the army chief accused him of stoking the country’s civil conflict and sought to have him removed from his post.

• Sources in Tajikistan’s government entities told RFE/RL on June 8 that dozens of armed Afghan citizens, including former Afghan military personnel, have been apprehended by Tajik law enforcement and security troops in the Central Asian nation’s southern Khatlon region.

• An explosion has torn through a mosque in the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan during a funeral service for a Taliban official, killing at least 19 people, including the former Taliban security commander in the city of Baghlan, and wounding 38 others.

• Lawyers for four Hong Kong pro-democracy figures in a landmark national security trial have asked judges to dismiss a subversion charge, saying the prosecution failed to provide enough evidence to build a case against their clients under the security law.

• The non-combat drills will take place near Indonesia’s Natuna Islands in September.

• ‘Dangerous’ incidents in South China Sea and Taiwan Strait made worse by Beijing’s refusal to talk, official says.

• More than 30 Chinese warplanes entered Taiwan’s air defence zone over the course of about six hours, the island’s defence ministry said Thursday, a sharp ramp-up in single-day incursions by China’s military. China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to take it one day — by force if necessary.

• Until the end of June, the African Union military mission will withdraw 2,000 troops in line with the implementation of the Somali Transition Plan.

• Kid Rock told Tucker Carlson that former President Donald Trump sought his advice about how to handle North Korea.

• The Wall Street Journal of March 31, 2023 (page A20, if you must know) featured this headline: “Turkey’s Parliament Ratifies NATO bid.”

Environment

• Fossil fuel companies try to present a green face when advertising to consumers. British regulators are now cracking down on the oily practice.

• European Commission Speech Saaremaa, 08 Jun 2023 Good morning to all of you! Greetings from Brussels.

• Fifty-three million years ago, the Earth was much warmer than it is today. Even the Arctic Ocean was a balmy 50 °F—an almost-tropical environment that looked something like Florida, complete with swaying palm trees and roving crocodiles.  Then the world seemed to pivot. The amount of carbon in the atmosphere plummeted, and things began to…

• Global North countries could be liable to pay US$170 trillion in compensation by 2050 to ensure climate targets are met.

• European Commission Speech Prague, 08 Jun 2023 We will not manage the climate transition if we don’t also stop and reverse the dramatic loss of biodiversity. We need nature to store carbon, to cool our cities, and help reduce the impact of the climate crisis. We have to focus on what needs to be done, now, to ensure a liveable future.

• The debt ceiling bill introduces changes to reform the permitting process in the United States. But the legislation will do little to clear blockages in the permitting queue. To meet climate targets, legislators must adopt additional measures that are specific to transmission and renewable interconnection.

• Record-high greenhouse gas emissions and diminishing air pollution have caused an unparalleled acceleration in global warming, 50 top scientists warned Thursday in a sweeping climate science update.

• Today is World Oceans Day. Global warming is causing sea levels to rise, and Miami is one of the US cities most vulnerable to this phenomenon. The sea level in south Florida has risen by 20cm since 1981 and is expected to continue rising. Even with optimal emission reduction efforts aimed at slowing global warming, Miami will continue to sink underwater. Are residents aware of the threat? What can be done to prepare for the inevitable? Fanny Allard and Kethevane Gorjestani report.

Energy/Transportation

• The Hydrogen Flight Alliance (HFA) has today (June 8) been launched by Australian aviation and green hydrogen players at Brisbane Airport, with eyes on commercial hydrogen-powered flight from 2026.

• It’s a long, long, long way down.

Wildlife/Nature

• New York City experienced its worst air quality on record. Here’s how to stay safe as the smoke spreads.

• Canadian wildfires are all over the headlines, but this latest dose of climate-related fear-porn is just another stage in a propaganda campaign aiming to “pivot from covid to climate”.

• Around 75 million people in the US are experiencing dangerous air conditions because of smoke from wildfires raging across Canada, and officials are urging people to limit time spent outdoors and mask up for safety.

• Strict pandemic lockdowns may have allowed animals to range more widely and spend time closer to roads, a new study suggests.

• Smartphone cameras use algorithms trained on normal landscapes, and aren’t prepared to capture the colors of a climate crisis.

• Scientists have long warned that global warming will increase the chance of severe wildfires like those burning across Canada and heat waves like the one smothering Puerto Rico.

• Prime Minister Trudeau said he spoke to President Biden by phone to offer thanks for the American firefighters on the scene.

• Of the more than 400 fires burning in Canada, more than one-third are in Quebec, which has little experience with so many and such large wildfires.

• Smoke from Canadian wildfires shrouded New York in a record-breaking apocalyptic smog Wednesday as cities along the US East Coast issued air pollution warnings and thousands evacuated their homes in Canada.

• Organizers of the Governors Ball festival have confirmed the event will continue as planned. Yesterday, the festival announced it was closely monitoring air quality concerns after wildfire haze from Canada engulfed New York.  New York City Mayor Eric Adams described the air quality as very unhealthy, suggesting many people should stay inside.

• Scientists in Norway have observed the effects of the fires, some of which have been burning for weeks.

• In March 2022, when Dyson announced its launch of the Dyson Zone—a wearable device combining both noise-cancelling headphones and an air purifier—it quoted World Health Organization estimate: that 9 in 10 people globally breathe air that exceed the WHO’s pollution guidelines.

• Canadian wildfires that have burned more than 9.8 million acres have cast an orange haze across much of the United States. Several events, including a Chris Stapleton performance and a Hamilton show were postponed.

• Smoke from Canadian wildfires has turned the New York skyline into an orange, poisonous haze. Some concerts have already been cancelled. What about the Governors Ball? “We’re closely monitoring the airy quality with weather experts and are in close contact with city officials,” says a representative for the music festival. >

• The scope and severity of the Canadian wildfire-induced smoke event that has enveloped the New York to Washington corridor is astonishing even sober-minded meteorologists and climate scientists.

• The big picture: Poor air quality records have been shattered in multiple cities and states, including the nation’s capital, which saw its first-ever “Code Purple” day for fine particulate pollution on Thursday.

• This week, elected officials can see for themselves why they must get serious about climate change.

• Schools across the US East Coast canceled outdoor activities, commercial airline traffic was slowed and millions of Americans were urged to stay indoors on Wednesday as smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted south, blanketing cities in a thick yellowish haze.

• Eight weeks ago, a camouflaged game warden came onto Josh Highlander’s land, scared his son, and stole his trail camera.

• Smoke from Canadian wildfires shrouded US cities in a noxious haze again Thursday, delaying flights and disrupting outdoor events in what President Joe Biden called a “stark reminder” of climate change.

• Canadian law students are reporting for JURIST on national and international developments in and affecting Canada. Mélanie Cantin is JURIST’s Chief Correspondent for Canada and a rising 3L at the University of Ottawa.

• The vaquita has long been skirting extinction, but a new survey of its habitat has produced some of the best news in years for its survival.

• Breeding in zoos fuses science and nature in striking ways.

• Researchers are only just starting to ask how wildfire smoke affects cognition.

• The photographer Siân Davey said, of her family’s plot in the South of England, “It felt like the potential for the whole world was held in that garden.”

• Mendes posted a photo of the smoke-covered Manhattan skyline less than 48 hours after the city was engulfed with smoke from raging Canadian wildfires.

Finance

• Think twice before using fingerprint impressions for any financial transaction. You may end up losing your bank savings. Police have busted a cyber fraud wherein two persons used fingerprint impressions to withdraw money from victims’ bank accounts.

• My friends, I know it’s all you have been talking about. An image circulating on social media raises the question – are Zimbabwean Nostro/FCA accounts recognised as forex accounts?

• It’s the fourth consecutive month that saw lower inflation than a year ago, suggesting that the central bank’s monetary policy is working.

• The latest data published on June 8 by the Central Statistical Bureau show that in May 2023, compared to May 2022, the average level of consumer prices in Latvia increased by 12.1 %.

• The world’s two leading powers have come to see their economic links to each other as risky, but disentanglement will come at a cost.

• New York City’s retail sector still has 11.1% fewer jobs than it did in February 2020—which hurts minority workers and the poorest New Yorkers the worst, according to a new study by the Center for an Urban Future, a public policy think tank.

• Opponents of French President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform failed on Thursday to pass a repeal bill, in their latest effort to maintain the retirement age at 62.

• Activist investor Ryan Cohen is taking the reins at GameStop in a dramatic day for the embattled retailer of meme stock fame.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• The Manhattan case stinks of partisan politics, but Trump faces more serious legal jeopardy on at least three other fronts.

• Scholars say it is important to hold the powerful legally accountable, but there are likely to be charges — well-founded or not — that prosecutors have political motives.

• The PGA Tour wants to team up with LIV Golf to eliminate competition. Federal antitrust enforcers aren’t going to like that.

• The US Supreme Court on Thursday handed a major victory to Black voters who challenged a Republican-drawn electoral map in Alabama, finding the state violated a landmark law prohibiting racial discrimination in voting and paving the way for a second congressional district with a Black majority or close to it.

• Former US President Donald Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury for retaining classified government documents and obstruction of justice, according to a source familiar with the matter.

• Abu Hatem Shaqra, one of the commanders of the organization accused of many violations and committing “war crimes” has registered at the university using another name. Shaqra can be seen in the photographs taken at the graduation ceremony.

• Unfortunately, our country is the place where ISIS militants, who have committed crimes against humanity and have solid evidence against them, feel most comfortable.

• Two lawyers who represented Donald Trump in the months before the former president was indicted on federal charges over his handling of classified documents quit working for him Friday morning.

• The kingdom has extended its soft power through several sporting projects. There are signs that an expansion into US professional leagues could be next

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

• Mediaite (Jamie Frevele), “New York Times Issues Lengthy Correction After Kai Spears’ Defamation Lawsuit,” reports; here’s the correction, from the Times site (posted Saturday): An article on March 16 about a fatal shooting that involved members of the University of Alabama basketball team misidentified the person who was in the car with one player, Brandon…

• The images, which at first glance appear genuine and are interspersed with real photographs in a campaign video, purport to show Donald Trump hugging and kissing Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Censorship/Free Speech

• The two Jewish students say they were booted from an on-campus sexual abuse survivors group over their support of Israel and Zionism.

• New Yorkers shouldn’t have to send involuntary contributions to a school that has become a megaphone for Jew-hatred. We deserve public higher education that promotes respect and inclusion instead of lionizing the next generation of antisemites.

• Doctor sanctioned for comments to journalists about transgender athletes

• Just published as part of the symposium on Media and Society After Technological Disruption, edited by Profs. Justin “Gus” Hurwitz & Kyle Langvardt.

• We’ll give you an answer within 14 days, and we can publish them within several weeks, if you’d like.

• So holds the D.C. Court of Appeals, D.C.’s equivalent of a state supreme court.

• From Monday’s decision in Hicks v. Grimmway Enterprises, Inc., by Judge Janis Sammartino (S.D. Cal.): In this putative class action, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant, a California agricultural corporation, misrepresented the environmental impact of its farming practices through its advertising and “Inaugural Report on Environmental, Social and Governance Actions” (“ESG Report”). Specifically, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s…

• Computer science major was arrested in 2017 for trying to evade censors and obtain ‘illegal information.’

• After officials in Orem, Utah, banned “heritage month” displays in the public library, it threatened to discipline librarians who criticized the censorship.

• The court decision to ban the platform comes after a massive social media campaign accusing OnlyFans and its content creators of “obscenity” and “immorality.”

Civil Rights/Policing

• The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers demanded the immediate release of Osman Kavala, Figen Yüksekdağ, and Selahattin Demirtaş, stating their detentions were unjustified and lacked reasonable grounds.

• Iran’s judiciary has handed down a five-year discretionary imprisonment sentence to labor activist Davood Razavi for organizing protests demanding better wages and working conditions.

• The EU needs to raise such cases in bilateral rights dialogue, Human Rights Watch says.

• Gov. Greg Abbott said the state will put a 1,000-foot string of buoys in the middle of the Rio Grande to deter migrants from entering the United States.

• 730 workers were killed on the job in the first five months of the year. Construction and transportation industries were the sectors with the highest death toll, while traffic and accidents involving employee services were the most frequent causes of death.

• Eight percent of female workers experience workplace burnout, along with about five percent of their male counterparts, according to the occupational health institute.

• Minor offenses result in a 5-day stint pulling weeds or planting rice.

• China is destroying Arab-style architectural features of mosques, such as domes and minarets. The tightened control on religion has been met with rare resistance.

• China jailed a human rights lawyer for three and a half years for state subversion, his family said Thursday, in the latest blow to the country’s embattled civil society under President Xi Jinping. Chang Weiping was sentenced by a court in northwestern China’s Shaanxi province, his wife Chen Zijuan confirmed to AFP.

• Chang’s wife says the sentence is a form of political persecution, amid ongoing fears for his health.

• Najib’s sons were in tears when they received the award on behalf of their father.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez appeared last night before the Senate committee studying Bill C-18, facing repeated questions about how his government will respond if Internet platforms such as Facebook block news sharing in response to bill’s system of mandated payments for links. Much like Prime Minister Trudeau earlier in the day, Rodriguez had few answers, relying instead on tough talk about not backing down against the tech companies or warnings that even talking about the risks was playing into their hands. Yet the reality is that the government has boxed itself into a corner with fatally flawed legislation that could leave Canadian news organizations  with lost revenues and Canadians with reduced exposure to reliable news.

Monopolies

• It looks like Microsoft is in trouble again with European Union regulators over anti-competitive practices, and it could sacrifice Teams in Windows 11 to avoid any conflicts.

Patents

• European Commission Speech Brussels, 08 Jun 2023 Today I want to present a proposal that will make a significant change.

• The U.S Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) has spurred a range of commentary and criticism—mostly the latter—from current and former members of Congress, former USPTO officials, the private sector, and experts across the US patent landscape.

• In an op-ed for RealClearPolicy, Unified’s CEO and Founder, Kevin Jakel, explains how the USPTO’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) could put the American economy at risk and limit access to government patent review for all. Many ANPRM proposals aim to restrict petitions for review of invalid patents. This would limit the work done by Unified, other third parties, and companies targeted by NPEs, which will lead to small and medium-sized businesses becoming vulnerable to increased NPE threats.

Trademarks

• The Supreme Court recently issued its pro-trademark-owner opinion Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC and unanimously vacated the Ninth Circuit favoring the accused comedic copycat.  Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court with concurring opinions from both Justice Sotomayor and Justice Gorsuch.  The holding is that the First Amendment does not require any special scrutiny in cases where the accused activity is “the use of trademarks as trademarks.

• So far this year, by my count, the TTAB has affirmed 31 of 33 Section 2(e)(1) mere descriptiveness (or disclaimer) refusals. How do you think the three appeals summarized below came out? Results will be found in the first comment.

Copyrights

• Our Mid-Year Fundraiser is launched, and the new postcards theme will be Machines.

• Was an alien woman really cast back into the sea after surfacing on the coast of Japan in 1803?

• An appellate court has officially rejected the prior approval of $1.7 million in legal fees for the attorneys who recovered $52,841.05 on behalf of rightsholders in a copyright infringement lawsuit against the new Napster (formerly Rhapsody International).

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