● 06.16.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 16/06/2023: PL/Java 1.6.5 and Citus 11.3 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 8:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Applications

• Blue Recorder is an open-source screen recording application for Linux systems, which allows users to capture their screen activity and save it as a video

Instructionals/Technical

• WireGuard® is an extremely simple, fast and modern VPN that uses state-of-the-art cryptography. Its goal is to be faster and simpler than other implementations like IPSec and OpenVPN.

• YugabyteDB is a PostgreSQL-compatible Open-Source Distributed SQL database. It adds horizontal scalability to applications built for PostgreSQL. It offers all the benefits of a typical relational database (e.g. SQL, strong consistency, ACID transactions) with the advantages of a globally-distributed auto-sharded database system (e.g., NoSQL document databases).

• Last Updated on June 15, 2023 by itsubuntu Step by step to encrypt a drive in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS In this tutorial post,we will show you the step by step guide to encrypt a drive in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS after the installation of the Ubuntu in your Laptop or Desktop.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install ProcessWire CMS on Ubuntu 22.04 OS. ProcessWire is a free, open-source content management system written in PHP. It offers many features such as jQuery-styled API, scaling, templates, multi languages, drag-and-drop page lists, and many more that are largely used for developing websites and applications.

• Those who are using Ubuntu 22.04 Server Linux and want to install its default Ubuntu Desktop environment then here are the step to follow: Ubuntu 22.04 which is also known as Jammy JellyFish is the long-term version and successor of Ubuntu 20.04.

• If you’re a Linux Mint user in the market for a multifunctional, cross-platform document viewer, look no further than Okular. Created as a part of the KDE project, Okular combines a rich suite of features and a wide range of supported formats, setting it apart from a simple document viewer.

• Kdenlive, standing for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor, is a sophisticated software that has proven its mettle in the realm of video editing. Utilizing the Qt and KDE frameworks, Kdenlive benefits from the power and flexibility of the open-source community.

• In this blog post, we are going to explain to you in step-by-step detail how to install XWiki on Debian…

• In the ever-evolving world of technology, keeping track of ideas, reminders, and digital content can become a daunting task. Enter Joplin, a versatile, open-source application for note-taking and to-do management. With Joplin, your digital notes are secured, organized, and easily accessible, revolutionizing your productivity landscape.

• This guide explains the steps required to install Microsoft Edge Browser in Ubuntu and Other Linux. We explain both graphical and CLI / command line methods.

Distributions and Operating Systems

SUSE/OpenSUSE

• This article is part of a series of articles focusing on SUSE Documentation and the minds that create the manuals, guides, quick starts, best practices and many more helpful documents.

• As digital transformation accelerates at an unprecedented pace, several design patterns and architectural choices have emerged to keep up with the rapid change.

Fedora Family / IBM

• I’ve moved to having containers be first-class citizens on my home network, so any local machine (laptop, phone,tablet) can communicate directly with them all, but they’re not (by default) exposed to the wider Internet. Here’s why, and how.

• After I moved containers from docker to Podman and systemd, it became much more convenient to run web apps on my home server, but the default approach to networking (each container gets an address on a private network between the host server and containers) meant tedious work (maintaining and reconfiguring a HTTP reverse proxy) to make them reachable by other devices. A more attractive arrangement would be if each container received an IP from the range used by my home LAN, and were automatically addressable from any device on it.

Devices/Embedded

• The Station P2S, a compact and versatile mini PC that runs on the 64-bit RK3568 SoC. Moreover, the new mini PC offers flexible storage options and it supports dual GbE LAN, dual-band Wi-Fi, and 4G LTE network compatibility.

• The new Station P2S comes in a similar form-factor and it’s powered by the same processor as its predecessor (Station P2) launched in 2021.

• In terms of OSes supported, the Station P2S supports Android 11.0, Ubuntu 18.04, Linux + QT, and Station OS, providing flexibility for different application requirements. The product page of the previous Station P2 indicates that it supports Armbian Linux so the new version might also support it in the future.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Invidious lets users browse YouTube without being tracked. Its developers say they won’t make changes until they have to.

SaaS/Back End/Databases

• PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2023 will take place in Prague, Czechia, on December 12–15, 2023. Our Call for Papers is now open.

• We are accepting proposals for talks in English. Each session will last 45 minutes, and may be on any topic related to PostgreSQL. The submission deadline is September the 1st 23:59:59 CEST. Selected speakers will be notified before September 28th, 2023.

• When managing a PostgreSQL database, the process of creating and managing users is a fundamental task. This article will cover everything from creating a basic user to creating a superuser, as well as setting passwords, permissions, and more.

• The CloudNativePG Community has released a new update for the supported 1.20, 1.19 and 1.18 versions of the CloudNativePG Operator.

• Versions 1.20.1, 1.19.3 and 1.18.5 are patch releases containing a few bug fixes and minor enhancements, including: [..]

• 1.6.5 is the latest PL/Java release, bringing functions, triggers, aggregates, types, operators, etc. in Java to PostgreSQL (15 back to 9.5). PL/Java 1.6.5 will build and operate with Java versions 9 through (so far) 20. It need not operate with the same Java version used to build it, and can run application code ranging from pre-Java-9 legacy code, to code using the latest features of the Java version present at run time.

• 1.6.5 adds support for PostgreSQL 15, fixes several bugs, and will now permit methods declared on interfaces as well as on classes. More on some selected changes may be found below.

• Now you can monitor the tenants of your multi-tenant SaaS application. Use citus_stat_tenants to quickly locate the noisy neighbor in your cluster. Also in 11.3, execute shard moves in parallel from different co-location groups, and MERGE between co-located, distributed tables. Plus improved metadata syncing for very large numbers of tables. Read Marco’s blog post for all the info. Or if you’re more interested in the code you can check out the Citus database GitHub repo (feel free to give the project a star to show support :).)

Programming/Development

Andy Wingo: parallel futures in mobile application developmentGood morning, hackers. Today I’d like to pick up my series on mobile application development. To recap, we looked at:Ionic/Capacitor, which makes mobile app development more like web app development;React Native, a flavor of React that renders to platform-native UI components rather than the Web, with ahead-of-time compilation of JavaScript;NativeScript, which exposes all platform capabilities directly to JavaScript and lets users layer their preferred framework on top;Flutter, which bypasses the platform’s native UI components to render directly using the GPU, and uses Dart instead of JavaScript/TypeScript; andArk, which is Flutter-like in its rendering, but programmed via a dialect of TypeScript, with its own multi-tier compilation and distribution pipeline.Taking a step back, with the exception of Ark which has a special relationship to HarmonyOS and Huawei, these frameworks are all layers on top of what is provided by Android or iOS. Why would you do that?

• As announced in the progress report for the previous month, in May we mostly worked on a new account setup experience. To learn more about that and what else has happened in the world of K-9 Mail as it evolves to Thunderbird For Android, read on.

• [This month’s progress report was co-written by cketti and Wolf]

• In our continued efforts to enhance the user experience, we have redesigned the account setup UI. This is the first point of contact for our users and we wanted to ensure it is as intuitive and straightforward as possible. We integrate Thunderbird’s Autoconfiguration for seamless email account setup, start the transition of our app’s UI from XML Android layouts to Jetpack Compose, and adopt Atomic Design principles for a cohesive, intuitive design.

• At the heart of this transformation is the integration of Thunderbird Autoconfig. This system enables automatic configuration of most email accounts, simplifying the user experience by making the connection to email servers effortless. Users only need to enter their email address and the server settings are obtained via multiple methods. They can be sourced from a central database (ISPDB), retrieved directly from ISPs through a configuration server, drawn from provided configuration files. In cases where these methods are unsuccessful, the configuration is derived from common server names. If all else fails, manual configuration is always available. With this powerful tool, setting up an email account becomes a breeze.

• Our redesigned account setup UI has been written using Jetpack Compose. Although XML layouts have long been the standard for building Android UIs, the Android ecosystem is transitioning towards Jetpack Compose as the new norm. This declarative UI toolkit has enabled us to build UIs more efficiently, with less boilerplate code and reduced likelihood of bugs. Jetpack Compose defines UI elements as composable functions written in Kotlin code. This results in more intuitive, expressive, and readable components and promotes the reuse of UI components, streamlining the UI design process. This aligns well with the implementation of our new design system.

• In my recent post about data archiving to removable media, I laid out the difference between backing up and archiving, and also said I’d evaluate git-annex and dar. This post evaluates git-annex. The next will look at dar, and then I’ll make a comparison post.

• What is git-annex?

Leftovers

• I’ve been fascinated by this global shift towards mass remote work since Covid, and how we’ve adapted to video conferencing calls being a normal, routine, and expected part of so many of our lives.

• I wrote back in 2020 about a study that indicated that video calls place a higher cognitive overhead on participants than phone calls, and that we don’t deal with latency well. I’ve witnessed the horror of one where Zoom’s mute button didn’t work, and others have responded with glee when a video conferencing service (pardon, product!) goes down. They’ve even changed the perception of work.

• Japan has been hit by a crime spree involving Pokemon cards, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Hardware

• Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari announced Iran had deployed quantum computers to aid in its military operations. But the “Quantum Processing Unit” displayed to grand fanfarre was just an ARM-based, Amazon-available development board.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Plus: Court using anti-pornography software to track a criminal defendant, $25 million verdict against Starbucks over fired employee, and more…

Security

• The U.S. government agency in charge of improving the nation’s cybersecurity posture is ordering all federal agencies to take new measures to restrict access to Internet-exposed networking equipment. The directive comes amid a surge in attacks targeting previously unknown vulnerabilities in widely used security and networking appliances.

• CISA and the NSA have published new guidance to help organizations harden baseboard management controllers (BMCs).

• Attacks exploiting the Barracuda zero-day CVE-2023-2868 have been linked to a Chinese cyberespionage group that has targeted government and other organizations.

• Fake security researcher accounts seen distributing malware disguised as Chrome, Signal, WhatsApp, Discord and Exchange zero-day exploits.

• LockBit ransomware operators launched 1,700 attacks in the US and received roughly $91 million in ransom payments.

• A Russian national has been arrested in Arizona on charges alleging that he was involved in multiple LockBit ransomware attacks against victims in the U.S., Asia, Europe and Africa. The LockBit ransomware gang, which first emerged in 2020, operates on a ransomware-as-a-service model where affiliates use already developed ransomware to execute attacks.

• U.S. officials say the Department of Energy is among a small number of federal agencies compromised in a Russian cyber-extortion gang’s global hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments. They say the impact is not expected to be great. Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters that the hacking campaign was short, opportunistic and caught quickly. A senior CISA official said neither the U.S. military nor intelligence community was affected. Known victims to date include Louisiana’s Office of Motor Vehicles and Oregon’s Department of Transportation.

• The TV outlet said the US Department of Energy was among those hit but a CISA spokesperson did not offer any comments when asked who was responsible and how many agencies had been affected.

• The number of victims targeted by the Clop ransomware gang’s targeting of a critical vulnerability in Progress Software Corp.’s MOVEit file transfer software continues to grow, with the revelation today that the victims now include several U.S. government agencies.

• Over the years, I have come across many blogs that claim Linux is impenetrable by security attackers too many times to count. While it is

• It is more than somewhat ironical that HWL Ebsworth, the Australian law firm that is reeling after a ransomware attack that led to massive data theft, has a slogan on its website saying, “We’re not your typical law firm”.

Privacy/Surveillance

• This op-ed follows the publication of our article ʻCriminalization of encryption: the 8 december caseʼ. It has been signed by more than 130 individuals and organisations. The full list of signatories is available here. It has been published yesterday on the website of the newspaper Le Monde.

• As part of a legal settlement, Google agreed to pay $23 million to users who clicked on a search link from 2006 to 2013. Individual payments are estimated to be less than $8.

Defence/Aggression

• The talks reflect a resumption of diplomacy between the United States and Iran after the collapse of negotiations to restore the 2015 nuclear deal.

• The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) says two of its members have died in separate incidents in Iranian Kurdistan amid clashes in the region.

• Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Friday at the start of a visit aimed at boosting bilateral ties and the oil kingdom’s standing in the international community. But human rights groups warn that the Saudi’s gain is France’s loss on an increasingly divided global stage.

• Russia has succumbed to authoritarianism: the existing regime has effectively outlawed the country’s political opposition. Its key figures are now in prison or else looking for ways to continue their work from abroad. Meanwhile, the debate about whether Russia’s disparate opposition forces should sacrifice their differences for the sake of building a coalition has become a central question of Russian political life in exile. Graeme Robertson has studied the dynamics of protest and opposition activity in Russian for the past two decades. His most recent book is “Putin v. The People,” published by Yale University Press in 2019. In conversation with Meduza’s special correspondent Margarita Liutova, Robertson spoke about what can and cannot be achieved by an exiled opposition, why opposition is comprised of “disagreeable people,” and what it takes to unite them in a coalition. His remarks have been condensed and edited for clarity.

War in Ukraine

• Russia again told the UN Security Council that it wants an international investigation into explosions last September on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

• Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the president of Ukraine, has said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive has not yet begun and that Ukrainian troops’ offensive operations are currently aimed at identifying weaknesses in the Russian army. Russian president Vladimir Putin said on June 9 that the counteroffensive had started.

• During the weekend of June 10-11 in Vienna, Austria, over 300 people representing peace organizations from 32 countries came together for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine to demand an end to the fighting.

• The hypocrisy gets starker by the day. The same western media that strains to warn of the dangers of disinformation – at least when it comes to rivals on social media – barely bothers to conceal its own role in purveying disinformation in the Ukraine war.

• The bill would grant permanent residency rights to many thousands of Ukrainians who have entered the US since 2014. But its exact scope is unclear.

• The lessons that Washington and Beijing appear to be learning from Russia’s war against Ukraine could set the stage for a crisis over Taiwan in the next few years.

• As the Ukrainian counteroffensive continues in Ukraine’s south and east, false narratives calling it unsuccessful fail to gain traction on Twitter.

• The African presidents aiming to bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine can be a part of the solution to a global problem rather than sit on the sidelines of geopolitics as collateral victims.

• African leaders are expected in Ukraine on Friday in a self-professed bid to broker peace between Kyiv and Moscow, despite three presidents dropping out and Ukraine’s counteroffensive overshadowing the mission. Kyiv claims it has retaken 100 square kilometres in the past few days, and there are reports of fierce fighting in parts of eastern Donbas.

• UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi has said a “number of measures” are being taken to ensure security at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia power plant in southern Ukraine following a breach in the nearby Kakhovka dam last week. Grossi’s visit to the nuclear plant comes as Ukrainian forces intercepted one cruise missile and 20 explosive drones launched by Russia in its latest nighttime attack.

• A video widely shared on social media in late May shows a man, wearing a bulletproof vest marked with the logo of a Mexican cartel, carrying a weapon that looks like an AT4 anti-tank rocket launcher. The Russian ambassador to Mexico joined in the debate about the video on Twitter, hypothesising that the weapon was likely sent to Ukraine by the West and that the cartel had bought it on the black market. We investigated this video.

• South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will lead a delegation of African leaders on a peace mission to Ukraine and Russia this week amid attempts to assuage Western concerns that South Africa is siding with Russia in the conflict despite its proclaimed neutrality – which has Ramaphosa doing a round of diplomatic damage control.

• A Russian court began hearing the case against more than 20 Ukrainian soldiers from the Azov battalion, seized in May 2022 from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. The members of the Azov battalion—including eight women—face charges of involvement with a terrorist organization and participating in action to overthrow Russian authorities.

• Former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen (2009-2014), who is currently advising Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, insists that Kyiv must be offered an invitation to become a NATO member at next month’s summit in Vilnius.

• The trial of 22 Ukrainian members of the Azov Battalion, who are accused of terrorist activities against Russia, began on June 15 in a military court in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

• Four Lithuanian dentists are heading to Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Blue/Yellow, a Vilnius-based NGO raising funds for Ukraine, said on Thursday.

• The Baltic states and Poland are pushing their NATO allies to provide Ukraine with a pathway to membership, according to the New York Times.

• Russia launched deadly missile and drone strikes over the previous day, the Ukrainian military reported early on June 16 after an air raid alert was declared shortly after midnight in Mykolayiv and the neighboring Kherson region.

• Legislation that would provide additional assistance to Ukraine by tapping into Russian assets frozen in the United States has been reintroduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

• On June 17, the Russian president will receive a delegation of leaders from several African countries to discuss their peace initiative on the Ukrainian conflict.

• The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency reportedly warned Ukraine not to sabotage the Nord Stream undersea gas pipelines last year after receiving a tip from the Netherlands’ intelligence agency that a plot was under way.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged Switzerland to allow the reexport of war materiel to Ukraine, saying the move would be vital in combating the Russian invasion.

• Zelensky has mounted a major effort to take back territory seized by the Russians. But he’ll have to do more than prevail on the battlefield.

• Australia’s Parliament has blocked the construction of a new Russian embassy that would be closer to the Parliament House. Australia, which has been a generous donor of aid to Ukraine, cited security concerns as reasons for passing the legislation.

• U.S. officials urge patience, describing a long, bloody, difficult fight.

• American and Ukrainian defense officials said the fight to dislodge dug-in Russian forces occupying southeastern Ukraine was expected to be brutal.

• The Ukrainian counteroffensive has enjoyed some early successes, but with every step forward, the soldiers are increasingly exposed to Russian firepower.

Environment

• The heatwave gripping most of Mexico is unlikely to end soon – with a fourth wave expected in July, say climate scientists at UNAM.

Energy/Transportation

• The International Energy Agency said that affluent nations must regain trust by financing clean energy in developing countries. In poorer nations, the implementation of net-zero goals faces significant financial hurdles.

• Intel has a big customer for its two-phase immersion cooling technology integrating coral structures and vapor chambers – the U.S. Department of Energy

• In Alberta’s election, the NDP’s campaign was stacked with operatives who lobby for coal, banks, and big tech

Overpopulation

• Latvia is not far from announcing an emergency in agriculture due to drought, Minister of Agriculture Didzis Šmits (United List) said in an interview with Latvian Radio on June 15.

• Residents of Tehran are reporting a fifth consecutive day of water cuts despite government claims that a shortage, which last year sparked demonstrations in many areas of the country, had been resolved.

Finance

• Crown has been slapped with a $20 million fine for failing to pay its fair share of Victoria’s casino tax.

• Victoria’s royal commission into Crown Melbourne found the casino giant improperly claimed tax deductions by including the costs of certain promotional activities as amounts paid out as winnings.

• World stocks have slipped from 18-month peaks and the US dollar pushed higher as traders watched the European Central Bank push through an eighth straight interest rate hike and signal that more could be on the way.

• The ECB’s move lifted interest rates to a two-decade high of 3.5 per cent.

• At the heart of the nation’s housing crisis is a tax rort that sees thousands of liveable homes left unoccupied, Tim Evans reports.

• The worst housing crisis in living memory is being fuelled by Airbnb owners, and other holiday rental groups, inappropriately or perhaps wrongfully claiming 100 per cent of running costs on properties that are actually rented for a fraction of the year.

• Unions have called it thoughtful and responsible but the business community is disappointed in South Australia’s big spending budget that focused on housing, health and hip-pocket relief.

• The Labor government still expects to return the state’s finance to surplus in the next financial year despite allocating $474 million for housing assistance, an extra $2.3 billion to health and $471m for cost-of-living support.

• For many years, American Millennials, the generation born between 1981 and 1996, have been the butt of the economy’s joke.

• The temporary levy on windfall profits of Lithuania’s banks introduced a month ago may weaken its reputation as a stable country, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Only three holders of the top executive offices in the country, the presidency and the vice presidency, have ever been tried in federal court.

• The British Sunday Times ran a piece fingering China using anonymous State Department sources, without noting that the State Department and USAID may themselves be culpable.

• Late last year, the right-wing nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) held an “all-Russian convention” that featured an unexpected guest: arms dealer Viktor Bout, who had returned to Russia from the U.S. after being swapped for American basketball star Brittney Griner in a prisoner exchange just days earlier. On the convention stage, Bout was given a party membership card by Leonid Slutsky, who became head of the party after the death of Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In the months since then, Viktor Bout has been traveling to regions of the country that are slated to elect new lawmakers this year, ostensibly to stump for his party’s candidates. But the LDPR has been unable to decide why and to what extent the party needs Viktor Bout, while the ex-con himself has been unable to turn his storied past into political influence. Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev explains why the “merchant of death” has failed to thrive in the world of Russian party politics.

• Only a day after independent senator Lidia Thorpe accused Senator David Van of sexual assault, former senator Amanda Stoker has accused him of inappropriately touching her.

• The fresh allegation was made public on the same day Senator Van was dumped from the opposition party room following allegations made by Senator Thorpe in parliament.

• Further allegations of inappropriate conduct have been raised against Senator David Van after two female parliamentarians accused him of improper sexual behaviour.

• Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said he had raised an additional allegation with Senator Van in making the decision to expel him from the Liberal party room.

• Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe has strongly opposed the upcoming voice referendum, telling parliament the proposed body would be window dressing.

• As the upper house continued debate on the Indigenous voice, the independent senator said the voice would not adequately address issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, instead urging the government to implement a treaty.

• Progressive activist and academic Cornel West grabbed headlines recently when he announced he would be running for President under the People’s Party banner. Now West has had a change of heart and will instead be running for the nomination of the Green Party.

• Reconciliation advocate and senator Pat Dodson has urged detractors to get behind the Indigenous voice, saying the referendum would acknowledge injustices.

• The WA Labor senator, who is currently on medical leave and unable to attend parliament to debate the voice referendum, sent a message that was read in the Senate by Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Thursday.

• A committee of lawmakers has harshly rebuked former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. In a report issued on Thursday, the House of Commons Privileges Committee said Johnson lied to Parliament about lockdown-flouting parties and was complicit in a campaign to intimidate those investigating his conduct during the coronavirus pandemic. The committee found Johnson’s actions were such a flagrant violation of the rules that they warranted a 90-day suspension from Parliament. That sanction would have been more than enough to trigger a by-election that could have cost Johnson his seat in Parliament. But the former prime minister avoided that ignominy by resigning last week after the committee gave him advance notice of its findings.

• The UK Parliamentary Privileges Committee released its report Thursday into Boris Johnson’s alleged breaching of parliamentary rules. Johnson is accused of violating Covid-19 lockdown restrictions throughout 2020 and 2021 and lying to Parliament about these violations.

• The report offered a damning verdict on Boris Johnson, the former British prime minister, who quit Parliament last week.

• More than 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children have grown up across the country even as their protection under an Obama-era program is threatened by the courts.

• Judge Aileen Cannon gave the defense team until Tuesday to begin the process, underscoring how classified information will be fundamental to the trial.

• Former US president Donald Trump pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to 37 criminal charges in a Miami, Florida federal court. Trump faces federal criminal charges including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal [...]

• Donald Trump was indicted in Florida. Could he also face charges in New Jersey?

• A courtroom is an inhospitable place for the former president’s efforts to define his own reality.

• Jill Lepore discusses the history of White House papers and returns to a perennial question: Is Trump worse than what we have seen before?

• In the Philippines, poverty has driven a surge in online sexual abuse against children. However, cybersecurity experts at the country’s largest telecommunications firm are working tirelessly to prevent access to exploitative images of children online.

• The recently wound down Civic Party did not have a “unified party stance” on vetoing all government bills as a bargaining chip to push for the five demands advocated during the 2019 extradition bill protests and unrest, an ex-party member charged in a high-profile national security case has told the court.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

• Companies are moving headquarters and factories outside the country and cleaving off their Chinese businesses. It’s not clear the strategy will work.

Censorship/Free Speech

• An American playwright faces jail for two vanished tweets. Q&A with the author about his ugly present, and our probable future.

• The prosecutor in a high-profile trial in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Chechnya has asked a court in Grozny to sentence Zarema Musayeva, the jailed mother of three self-exiled outspoken Chechen opposition activists, to 5 1/2 years in prison for fraud and assaulting a law enforcement officer, charges that critics call politically motivated.

Civil Rights/Policing

• The use of domestic terrorism charges against the environmental and animal liberation movements set important precedents for the repression Atlanta’s ‘Stop Cop City’ movement faces today.

• The Supreme Court issued a landmark victory for tribal sovereignty by rejecting all the constitutional challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in Brackeen v. Haaland, requiring state courts to make active efforts to protect Native children and keep Native families together. Congress passed ICWA in 1978 to address the nationwide crisis of state child welfare agencies tearing Native children from their families and placing them in non-Native homes, in an attempt to force Native children to assimilate and adopt white cultural norms.

• Since 1978, 14 states have passed their own state ICWA laws to strengthen the implementation of all aspects of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Now that the Supreme Court has reaffirmed ICWA, it is time for states to take action and pass their own state laws building on the protections in the federal law. The map below shows where states have already enacted such state laws.

Monopolies

Patents

• A prima facie obvious combination of prior art chemical compounds can sometimes be deemed nonobvious if the result of the combination is sufficiently surprising, such as when a combination of pharmaceutical active ingredients results in an unexpected synergy. See, e.g., Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH v. Glenmark Pharms. Inc., USA, 748 F.3d 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2014).  In a recent Federal Circuit decision, In re Couvaras, Judge Lourie (writing for a unanimous panel) explains the important distinction between unexpected results in a pharmaceutical combination product as opposed to the mere recitation of an unexpected mechanism of action.

• The case is an appeal of a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision affirming an Examiner’s rejection of the claims at issue as obvious.  A representative claim recites: [...]

Trademarks

• By my count, the TTAB has affirmed about 84% of the Section 2(d) refusals it has reviewed on appeal this year. How do you think these latest three appeals came out? Results will be found in the first comment.

• In re Nanjing Linkwifi Network Technology Co., Ltd., Serial No. 79223580 (June 9, 2023) [not precedential] (Opinion by Deputy Chief Judge Mark A. Thurmon ). [Refusal to register WIFI MASTER KEY for “computer software for searching for wireless internet connectivity, wirelessly connecting to the internet, and sharing access to wireless internet connectivity,” wireless broadcasting; message sending; providing access to databases; computer aided transmission of messages and images; providing user access to global computer networks, software as a service (SaaS) services featuring software for searching for wireless internet connectivity” and “wireless broadcasting; message sending; providing access to databases; computer aided transmission of messages and images; providing user access to global computer networks” [WIFI disclaimed], in view of the registered certification marks WI-FI, in standard form, and WIFI in the design form shown below, for “Computer hardware and peripherals, namely, wireless local area networking products.”

• As discussed in a March TTABlog post [here], the TTAB has implemented a pilot program for holding a Final Pretrial Conference in selected cases. The Board will focus on cases with large or unwieldy records, “overly contentious” proceedings, and cases in which the parties or counsel are unfamiliar with TTAB practice. The parties will be required to file a detailed Final Joint Pretrial Order setting forth the issues, witnesses, exhibits, objections, etc., etc.

Copyrights

• Two men who helped run the once wildly popular pirating website Megaupload have each been sentenced by a New Zealand court to more than two years in prison.

• The sentencing of Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk ended an 11-year legal battle by the men to avoid extradition to the United States on more serious charges that included racketeering.

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