● 06.17.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 17/06/2023: Daniel Ellsberg Dies, SparkyLinux 7.0 is Out

Posted in News Roundup at 1:38 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

• New AI Interface coming to Makulu Max soon, here’s a preview :

• What we really like in Debian 12, the big players backing RISC-V, and the improvements in NextCloud Hub 5.

• Sun Ray laptops, MIPS and getting root on them, OpenZFS for HPC Clusters, Self-Hosted Bookmarks using DAV and httpd on OpenBSD, Terraform + Proxmox + OpenBSD = <3, WOL Plex Server, Against innovation, and more

Applications

• One of the basic utilities supplied with any operating system is a desktop calculator. We cover the best graphical tools.

• LaTeX is a document preparation system and document markup language for high-quality typesetting. We feature the best LaTeX tools.

• A common misconception is that bibliography tools are really only useful for academics. However, this type of software is a type of reference manager offering the ability to collect large amounts of metadata.

• Open source has been an alternative driving force for transparency & good in computing for decades.

Instructionals/Technical

• In this guide, we are going to learn how to install ownCloud Server on Debian 12.

• I am a big fan of tmux, but there is – without adding plugins – a way to save and restore sessions or layouts. For this reason, I’ve decided to work on a bash script that restores and builds my favorite tmux layout at the start of the session. I’ve been testing it for the last couple of days, and it works well and saved me a ton of time.

• Everyone has different requirements. I explain the commands so you can rebuild your favorite layout or session. And please remember that there are multiple ways to solve this.

• The demo layout can be found at the bottom of this post.

• It’s time to get me up to speed with modern CSS. There’s so much new in CSS that I know too little about. To change that I’ve started #100DaysOfMoreOrLessModernCSS. Why more or less modern CSS? Because some topics will be about cutting-edge features, while other stuff has been around for quite a while already, but I just have little to no experience with it.

• Unbound is what is called a recursive DNS server and is a way of improving your privacy when browsing the internet.

• Simply put, a recursive DNS server such as Unbound calls the DNS root servers directly and then recursively follows the path until it resolves to an IP address your Raspberry Pi can connect to.

• This differs from a normal DNS service in which Pi-Hole and your Raspberry Pi will send the entire path to a service such as Cloudflare and then accept the resolved IP Address it returns.

• Here is a summary of my progress for writing OpenKuBSD. So far, I’ve had a few blockers but I’ve been able to find solutions, more or less simple and nice, but overall I’m really excited about how the project is turning out.

• Debian 12, codenamed Bookworm, is released a few days ago! This Step-by-Step guide explains how to upgrade to Debian 12 bookworm from Debian 11 bullseye from command line. From updating repositories to backing up your data, we’ll cover all the necessary steps to ensure a successful Debian 12 upgrade.

• The zip command in Linux is probably the simplest and most intuitive way to work with ZIP files on the command line. And not just that, the ZIP file format is universal — almost every OS out there has a native program that can work with it. Here’s all the ways you can use this command in any Linux command line.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Yarn on Fedora 38. If you’re a Fedora user and a JavaScript developer, you might be interested in using Yarn as your package manager.

• Git is a powerful tool that enables developers to collaborate on code, manage versions, and track changes. However, managing notes in Git can be a bit tricky, especially when working with remote repositories.

• Git is a widely used version control system that allows teams of developers to work on projects collaboratively. It provides a centralized repository where all members can access and make changes to the codebase. This makes Git an important tool for software development, enabling distributed teams to work more efficiently and effectively.

• Git is a distributed version control system widely used in software development to keep track of file changes over time.

• Git notes are a powerful tool that can enhance collaboration and overall productivity among team members. These notes allow developers to attach additional information to a specific commit, such as annotations, reminders, or even links to external resources.

• Git is an open-source distributed version control system that has become the industry standard for software development. It allows developers to work collaboratively on projects, creating a centralized repository for code changes.

• Learn how to install Portainer and take control of your Docker containers with this step-by-step guide. Simplify container management today!

• In Linux, command-line operators can unlock a world of possibilities, making your workflow more efficient and powerful. From file management to process control, these operators are the bedrock of many operations. In this article, we’ll explore ten essential command-line operators in Linux and explain their functions. With a clear understanding of these operators, you’ll be better equipped to handle and manipulate your Linux environment.

• The ‘source’ command, an integral part of Linux and Unix-like systems, is a shell built-in that reads and executes commands from a file in the current shell environment. While it may seem a trivial part of your command-line experience, ‘source’ is instrumental in various critical tasks such as setting environment variables, reloading shell profiles, or running scripts. In this guide, we will delve into the practical applications of the ‘source’ command, demonstrating its role in enhancing your Linux shell interactions.

• Welcoming a significant milestone in the Linux distribution realm is the release of Linux Mint 21.2, endearingly known as “Victoria”. This latest update underscores the steady progression of Linux Mint, striking a balance between enhanced user experiences and impeccable stability.

• Do you want to tee the output of a command to a file, but see it in your terminal too, without buffering? The stdbuf command can do this for you:

• If you’ve re-installed your operating system (or moved to a new machine) and you have a collection of VirtualBox virtual machines on a secondary drive, you can easily add them one at a time.

• Upgrading the Linux kernel lets you experience some of the latest cutting-edge technology on your PC. No matter which Linux distro you use, chances are you need to switch between or upgrade kernel versions to gain the maximum possible benefits from the OS.

• If you are an avid Ubuntu user and want to upgrade your kernel to the latest available version, here’s how to manually achieve this simple yet valuable task.

• To secure the Linux kernel from unauthorized access, the operating system provides the option of creating different users with different privileges. You can easily switch users in Linux using commands. In this article, we will explore some different methods on how to switch users right from your Linux terminal, regardless of if you want to perform administrative tasks or simply need to execute commands as a super user.

Games

• A change that Valve missed in the big recent upgrade of the Steam client, is that on Linux systems either desktop or Steam Deck, removing non-Steam apps should now be cleaner.

• Good news for Steam Deck and gamepad fans, as official controller support is coming to Factorio and you can try it out right now. Released in experimental v1.1.83 they note you just need to change over the input method in the settings -> controls menu. Then you will get proper gamepad controls and glyphs telling you what to do.

• Soulstone Survivors is one of my favourite games in the spirit of Vampire Survivors, and it just got a lot bigger with the new Path of Ascension upgrade. While similar to VS in basic gameplay mechanics and the loop, it expanded on the idea in a few ways with more skill-based gameplay.

• Here’s an easy chance to get PAYDAY 2 and a whole bunch of DLC super cheap thanks to the latest Humble Bundle so here’s the details. While they recently removed the Native Linux version, they have given a statement on their plans to support it in Proton. In my own testing – it did work perfectly with Proton!

• It’s here in Beta! A big upgrade for Valheim to let you change how you can play it, so here’s a run over what’s new and improved. This was teased recently and comes after a stable update that improved performance.

• Having Steam UI scaling issues? You may want to have a look at the Steam Client Beta that was released June 15th and see how you get on. Valve are constantly updating the Beta, and they only just launched a major update with the new Steam Overlay but they’re right back to it on the Beta with fresh upgrades and fixes.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• There’s some of interesting Plasma 6 news, but I’m saving it for another post in a day or two, so it doesn’t distract from all the great work that KDE contributors landed on other things this week! So let’s dig into that…

• Okular’s digital signature workflow has been improved, and now offers you the opportunity to add various pieces of metadata such as “reason” and “location” to the signature, and also to optionally add a background image behind it…

Distributions and Operating Systems

BSD

• We’re so excited to announce that the online version of the FreeBSD 30th Anniversary special edition of the FreeBSD Journal will be available on Monday, Jun 19, 2023 … Just in time to celebrate FreeBSD’s 30th Anniversary! The content for the issue is exceptional. The editorial board definitely outdid themselves.

• This week, we’re celebrating 30 years of FreeBSD! The Foundation took a look back through the Project’s history and, with the collaboration of the FreeBSD Journal team, created a new FreeBSD timeline.

• Want to celebrate 30 years of FreeBSD in style? Check out some of the anniversary merchandise on our brand new Shopify store. We unveiled our 30th Anniversary design at the recent BSDCan 2023, but if you weren’t able to make it, you can now order them online.

• It’s June and for many of us in North America, we’re starting to see a glimmer of summer peaking around the corner. I cherish all the seasons, even the cold of winter, but summer is by far my favorite season of the year.

• 30 Years! Can you believe it? June 19, 2023 marks 30 years since the FreeBSD operating system got its name. As you may know, the anniversary of FreeBSD has been named FreeBSD Day.

Fedora Family / IBM

Debian Family

• CrunchBang++ 12.0 sees the Linux distro rebase atop the recent Debian 12 release. This sees the distro inherit all of the underlying benefits that the release brings, including, notably, Linux kernel 6.1 LTS, newer graphics drivers, and an updated package set.

• Yet when Frans Pop died in August 2010, the now infamous Debian Day Volunteer Suicide, they only dedicated one component of the release to him, the Debian installer, but only the beta version. He is missing from the full release announcement. He is missing from the subsequent announcements about the Installer.

• This feels like a snub. People actively discussed it on the debian-private leaked gossip emails. Some of their emails are copied below as evidence. Nonetheless, when everybody else was getting a system upgrade, Frans Pop received a downgrade.

• If you are a fan of the Sparky Linux distribution, I have some exciting news– version 7.0 is finally available for download. This release is based on — and fully compatible with — the Debian 12 “Bookworm” operating system. For users with ancient hardware, Sparky 7.0 still provides support for x86 (32-bit) machines. But seriously, folks, just buy a 64-bit PC already…

• By leveraging the stability and reliability of Debian, Sparky 7.0 inherits a rock-solid base that ensures a smooth and secure user experience. This compatibility allows users to seamlessly access the extensive Debian software repositories, opening up a world of possibilities for software installations and updates.

• Keeping up with the latest developments in the Linux ecosystem, Sparky 7.0 incorporates updated packages from both the Debian “Bookworm” and Sparky “Orion Belt” repositories as of June 15, 2023. This commitment to package updates guarantees that users have access to the most recent software versions, bug fixes, and security patches, providing a secure and up-to-date computing environment.

• Sparky 7.0 comes equipped with the Linux kernel 6.1.27 LTS as the default option, ensuring compatibility with a wide range of hardware configurations. For users seeking bleeding-edge features, kernel versions 6.3.8 and 5.15.117 LTS are available in the Sparky unstable repositories. This flexibility allows users to choose the kernel that best suits their specific needs.

• The counter of the FAI.me build service has reached 20.000. This counter was added shortly after the service was started in November 2017. Since then, this service has built more than 21.000 installation images and more than 1300 cloud disk images. In the last few month we had averaged 100 requests per week.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• One of the most frequent questions we get during conversations with our customers is “What’s the difference between security maintenance and support?” The word “support” has a wide range of meanings and can be interpreted in different ways depending on where it is used.

• Especially in the open source landscape, the terms “security maintenance” and “support” are often used interchangeably, even if they represent distinct aspects of protecting an organisation’s assets.

• In this blog post, we will delve into the differences and the synergy between security maintenance and support, highlighting their unique roles and importance in safeguarding our digital environments.

• ‘E’s not pinin’! ‘E’s passed on! This base is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is software processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket (not S3), ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-BASE!!

• Every few years, five to be more precise, an LTS release of Ubuntu goes out of the main support and into the extended support. Effectively, what this means for developers using Snapcraft is that snaps built using an older base may now be in a delicate state. Core18 is a base aligned to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, which has just recently met its Parrot Sketch demise. In this blog post, we’d like to tell more about what happens now.

• Carmakers are facing numerous challenges on the path towards software-defined vehicles (SDVs), such as legacy vendor dependence, which is leading to a lack of scalability, and high maintenance costs. Adopting a software-centric approach should reduce complexity and costs, accelerate time to market, improve product quality, increase flexibility, and provide more robust cybersecurity.

• Carmakers need to fundamentally transform their processes and organisational structures, focusing on software development and services. Collaboration between different departments, as well as external entities, will be key in delivering exceptional products and experiences to customers. This is what highly competitive brands should be aiming for.

Devices/Embedded

• Last weekend I received ADLINK’s i-Pi SMARC 1200 development kit powered by MediaTek Genio 1200 Octa-core Cortex-A78/A55 AIoT processor, checked out the hardware and wanted to install the Yocto Linux image but stopped in my tracks because it looked like I had to install Ubuntu 18.04 first in a Virtual Machine or another computer. But finally, the documentation has been updated to clarify “Ubuntu 18.04 or greater” is required, and I had no problem flashing the image from a Ubuntu 22.04 laptop after installing dependencies and tools as follows

• That’s it for the tools. Eventually, the development kit will support three images: Yocto Linux, Android 13 (July 2023), and Ubuntu 20.04 (Q3 2023). So that means only the Yocto Linux image is available from the download page at this time, and that’s what I’ll be using today. We’ll need to connect the micro USB to USB cable between the host and the board, as well as the 12V power supply, before running the command to flash the image

• PX5 RTOS with a native implementation of the industry standard POSIX pthreads aims at developers working on demanding embedded applications. What makes this new RTOS so attractive – and why is test driven development still the best approach to create high-quality code?

• The ESP32CAM-PSRAM is a portable development board featuring an ESP32 microcontroller and a 2 Megapixel camera. The new embedded device from M5Stack is capable of supporting image transmission via Wi-Fi and it can be debugged using a USB Type-C port.

• 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.

Open Hardware/Modding

• Because Raspberry Pi is small, affordable, and hackable, we find ourselves popping up in the wildest corners of the planet, monitoring the natural world around us. We’re everywhere from the rainforests of Borneo to the Antarctic home of Adelie penguins. We’ve even been attached to the backs of turtles. Yes, really.

• The game concept is similar to the horse race arcade game, except players run to influence the success of their respective racers. Those racers are little 2D people figures instead of horses. Everyone can run on their own schedule. Then, once everyone completes their run, the game shows the results by moving the figures across the track. This links to Strava, which is an app for tracking runs using popular devices like smartphones and smartwatches. Each player just has to complete a run as part of the group that Underwood set up for this purpose.

• At Arduino’s booth #1346, our experts will be on hand to showcase the Pro line of products with a few notable demonstrations. Our own Guneet Bedi to keynote on the innovation open environments offer to businesses, in addition to two other talks on agtech and the CHIPS Act. We look forward to sharing our business solutions for digital transformation with Arduino’s ease of use and open-source philosophy. We invite you to stop by the booth during the show or join us for one of our networking receptions.

• Once the bootloader is programmed on OLIMEXINO-STM32F3 it allows firmware updates via UART, USB, CAN and SD-CARD

• Jim Keller is an American microprocessor engineer who is best known for his work at AMD and Apple. He is credited with designing some of the most important microprocessors in recent history, including the Athlon K7, AMD K8, AMD K12, the revolutionary AMD Zen architecture, the Apple A4, and Apple A5 used in best-in-class mobile devices at the time. He is also the co-author of the x86-64 instruction set and the HyperTransport interconnect. Currently, he is working as the president at TensTorrent, a company focused on bringing innovative hardware solutions for AI workloads – which most of it based on RISC-V architecture.

• He was recently interviewed by EE Times and he gave many insightful comments that I decided to break down the key quotes into smaller video chunks for convenience. If you can afford to watch the whole interview, it’s even better, but if you want the TLDR, this article will probably cover most of it.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Events

• The registration for this year’s Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC) is now open. It will be held November 13-15 in Richmond, Virginia in the US. The attend page has all of the details. Meanwhile, some of the calls for proposals are still open, though the microconferences CFP is closed; this year’s proposed microconference topics are listed here. Those who want to attend should note: “”As usual we expect to sell our rather quickly so don’t delay your registration for too long!””

• For those attending the Embedded Open Source Summit, Xen Summit registration will be available as an add-on, allowing participants to extend their experience and dive deeper into the latest Xen Project developments. Attendees can expect a range of activities and opportunities to engage with the very active Xen community. This includes face-to-face interactions where developers share updates, discuss architectural designs and tackle community development issues. The event serves as a platform for networking, knowledge sharing and receiving valuable feedback on proposed changes for Xen.

Web Browsers/Web Servers

• One of the things that we do every so often is put together some little ‘web application’ that has to be under some sort of access control or access restrictions. Even today, CGI scripts remain the easiest way to write and deploy a simple web application; you write a script in the language of your choice and (with the right Apache configuration) put it in an appropriate place with an appropriate filename extension, and you’re done. That leaves the access control.

Programming/Development

• Cross-compilation is the process of compiling your program on a different host than the target system. This enables developers to build binaries for different architectures without using those specific architectures themselves. For example, with cross-compilation, you can compile a binary for ARM-based devices like a Raspberry Pi on your standard x86-64 development machine.

• When cross-compiling your software, CMake and the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) can be helpful. CMake is a robust build system generator that uses configuration files to create cross-compiled binaries, and GCC is a toolchain that includes compilers for various programming languages, including C, C++, Objective C, and Fortran.

• In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to build a simple C++ program and then cross-compile it for AArch64 or ARM64-based devices using CMake and GCC.

• This blog is about what’s on my mind, and recently I’ve been thinking about aeroplane flights, and limiting how many I take every year.

• I’m not trying to make anyone feel impressed or ashamed here, or create rules that I insist everyone needs to live by. And I am no expert in climate science, but we need to start talking about this stuff more – as you probably spotted, the climate is uncomfortably hot now, caused mainly by all the “greenhouse gases” that we keep producing in our industrious human civilization.

Perl / Raku

Python

• The developers working on improving the speed of the CPython interpreter have posted a plan describing their objectives for the Python 3.13 release. The biggest piece appears to be the tier-2 optimizer, which will optimize larger chunks of Python code

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

• Open a Unix or Linux terminal emulator. If you are using Terminal.app on macOS, ensure that the “Use Option as Meta Key” option is enabled in its “Preferences” section. Now type foo bar baz followed by meta+b (alt+b or option+b on modern keyboards). In a modern shell like Bash, Zsh, etc., the cursor should move backward by one word. Now type esc b. The cursor should move back again by one word. Finally type ctrl+[ b and the same thing should happen again. How are we able to perform the same operation in three different ways?

Rust

• Stack Overflow 2023 Developer Survey finds that JavaScript and Python are the most used and most desired languages, but they fall far short of Rust in satisfying their users.

Leftovers

• The time comes when I need to communicate back. Ask a question. Schedule an appointment. Request assistance. Offer feedback. In that situation, the quality of communication fell way off. A question goes unanswered, or the answer is lackluster, or you feel shooed away. They communicate to you in 5 different mediums but only accept communication in 1 (and it’s something horrible like the phone). You can tell they aren’t ready and willing to meet you where you are and help you directly however you need to be helped. Maybe they aren’t staffed for it. They didn’t plan for it. They don’t empower people well enough. Whatever the reason, it ends up being a turn-off. It makes those great incoming communication efforts feel like a barb.

• In a YouTube video, “speedcuber” Max Park proudly displayed his win at the Pride at Long Beach 2023 World Cube Association Competition last weekend, finishing the puzzle in a lightning-fast 3.13 seconds.

• Park’s hands move almost too fast to follow in the video. It’s over almost immediately, with an elated Pak slamming his palms on the table to stop the clock.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• In this post, I detail those principles as well as my specific protocols (masking, ventilation, self-testing, and so on), including links to examples and product vendors.

• The most recent survey carried out by the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) found that nearly one in three teenage girls considered suicide in 2021. The report also showed that a staggering 13 per cent of teenage girls had attempted suicide one or more times in 2021.

• The number of adolescent girls that had contemplated suicide in 2021 had increased by 60 per cent since 2011.

• The CDC’s report, which was released in 2023, stated that 57 per cent of high school girls reported experiencing “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year”.

• When you do have the opportunity to get in touch with nature, there is a relatively new take on an established concept call Forest Bathing that can literally take you a step further by not taking steps. A Japanese tradition called shinrin-yoku, which means “forest bath”, is not about a destination nor miles afoot on the trail. And even though it implies one needs to be in the forest, all that is required is a step outside your door. One critical ingredient to Forest Bathing, however, is a tree. And the more, the merrier.

Proprietary

• After weeks of burning through users’ goodwill, Reddit is facing a moderator strike and an exodus of its most important users. It’s the latest example of a social media site making a critical mistake: users aren’t there for the services, they’re there for the community. Building barriers to access is a war of attrition.

• As moderators take their subreddits dark in protest of the social network’s plan to charge for access to its API, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has gone on a media blitz in an apparent effort to save face before the company’s upcoming IPO — and, it seems, send a warning to those who’ve dared defy him.

• In one such interview with NBC News, Huffman bizarrely compared mods to, uh, “landed gentry” before threatening their power.

• Publisher Gannett plans to include generative artificial intelligence in the system it uses to publish stories as it and other news organizations begin to roll out the popular technology that may help save money and improve efficiency.

• But the largest U.S. newspaper publisher with over 200 daily outlets said it will include humans in the process so that the technology can’t be deployed automatically, without oversight. Generative AI is a way to create efficiencies and eliminate some tedious tasks for journalists, Renn Turiano, senior vice president and head of product at Gannett said in a recent interview with Reuters.

• Licenses are increasingly heralded as a solution to this problem. However, not only does restricting the use of open-source code with additional licenses contradict the core principle of the open-source community that code should be accessible to everyone, but it could also damage the collaborative environment that’s been fundamental to the open-source community’s ability to speed up technological development.

• There’s also a lot of doubt as to whether ethical licenses will actually reduce the risk of code being used for nefarious purposes. Many countries already have human rights laws, and individuals or organizations violating those laws should be prosecuted accordingly, regardless of the method or technology used to perpetrate the abuse. If such laws do not deter these violators, then it’s unlikely that a licensing agreement would have any impact on the course of their actions.

• Google cited “efforts to sharpen our focus” in selling the Google Domains registrar business, which launched in 2014 as a big proponent of HTTPS and top-level domains (TLDs) as of late. The service exited beta in 2022.

• I’ve been following the press and social media coverage of Apple’s pricey new Vision Pro Augmented Reality headset, which now totals hundreds of stories and thousands of comments and I’ve noticed one idea missing from all of them: what would Steve (Jobs) say? Steve would call the Vision Pro a “hobby,” just as he did with the original Apple TV.

• You know I’m correct about this.

• Better preparation for cyberattacks might include limiting employees’ access to certain devices, apps or software that are deemed risky. For instance, the government recently banned TikTok – the Chinese-owned social media app – from all government devices over concerns around the sharing of sensitive information. It is still permitted for use on personal devices, although the app is blocked if used on parliament wi-fi on any device.

Windows TCO

• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said it’s working with “several federal agencies” affected by a flaw in the file transfer software.

• Suspected state-backed Chinese hackers used a security hole in a popular email security appliance to break into the networks of hundreds of public and private sector organisations globally, nearly a third of them government agencies including foreign ministries, the cybersecurity firm Mandiant said Thursday.

• Online attackers with clear links to China are behind a vast cyber espionage campaign targeting government agencies of interest to Beijing, Google subsidiary Mandiant said on Thursday.

• As iTWire reported on 6 June, the Cl0p ransomware group was claimed to have been carrying out attacks, using this vulnerability to gain access, from 27 May onwards.

• The vulnerability was announced by the company that makes the software, Progress Software Corporation, on 31 May, according to a post from the Google-owned Mandiant security firm.

• The man, Ruslan Magomedovich Astamirov, 20, of Chechen Republic, Russia, who was arrested in Arizona, allegedly owned, controlled, and used multiple IP addresses, email addresses, and other online accounts to deploy the LockBit ransomware and communicate with victims.

• FBI agents have arrested a Russian man suspected of being part of the Lockbit ransomware gang. An unsealed complaint alleges the 20-year-old was an Apple fanboy, an online gambler, and scored 80 percent of at least one ransom payment given to the criminals.

Security

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, openjdk-17, and wireshark), Fedora (iniparser, mariadb, mingw-glib2, perl-HTML-StripScripts, php, python3.7, and syncthing), Oracle (.NET 6.0, c-ares, kernel, nodejs, and python3.9), Slackware (libX11), SUSE (amazon-ssm-agent and chromium), and Ubuntu (gsasl, libx11, and sssd).

• Earlier this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) published an update to its rulemaking agenda indicating that it does not plan to approve two proposed cyber rules until at least October 2023 (the agenda’s timeframe is an estimate). The proposed rules in question address disclosure requirements regarding cybersecurity governance and cybersecurity incidents at publicly traded companies and registered investment advisers and funds.

• The Rural Hospital Cybersecurity Enhancement Act made it out of committee and will now head to the Senate floor.

• The bipartisan legislation sponsored by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic Sens. Josh Ossof and Gary Peters would require the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency to develop workforce recruitment and cybersecurity training materials for rural hospitals.

• A proposed settlement of $988,550 has been reached in a class-action lawsuit relating to patient health records being wrongfully accessed by former employees at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre more than a decade ago.

• On Thursday the hospital announced the proposed settlement, noting a court hearing is scheduled on Aug. 30 at 8:30 a.m. to determine whether the settlement will be approved.

• Under Oregon law, some driver information is actually a public record — like an Oregonian’s name, address, phone number, and driver’s record. And under Oregon law, the state can, and actually does, sell that information to certain types of entities. So could criminals set up a fake private investigation service to buy data from the state that could be used in conjunction with the data that has been hacked? Yes, and hopefully the states will be extra diligent about checking the credentials of any entities that apply to purchase public records data, but even without that data, this is a breach where data may be misused.

• The Department of Energy and several other federal agencies were compromised in a Russian cyber-extortion gang’s global hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments, but the impact was not expected to be great, Homeland Security officials said Thursday.

• But for others among what could be hundreds of victims from industry to higher education — including patrons of at least two state motor vehicle agencies — the hack was beginning to show some serious impacts.

• Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters that unlike the meticulous, stealthy SolarWinds hacking campaign attributed to state-backed Russian intelligence agents that was months in the making, this campaign was short, relatively superficial and caught quickly.

Privacy/Surveillance

• The authorities have intensified efforts to enforce the Islamic dress code as more women flout the law. They have been emboldened by nationwide antiestablishment protests that erupted in September 2022 following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini soon after she was arrested by the morality police for allegedly violating the hijab law.

• During the demonstrations, women and girls have removed and burned their head scarves, while students, who have also been at the forefront of the demonstrations, have flouted the law on campuses, sparking a crackdown by school security.

• Illinois Governor JB Pritzker on Friday signed HB 3902, which allows the US state’s law enforcement agencies to use drones at some public events – but prohibits equipping them with facial recognition software or weaponry, with some exceptions.

• The new state law, dubbed the Drones as First Responders Act, takes effect immediately. Pitched as a public safety measure, it has the support of the Illinois Association of Police Chiefs and other state public safety officials.

• The lawsuit, filed just over a decade ago, accused Google of “storing and intentionally, systematically and repeatedly divulging” users’ search results and histories to third parties, a violation of privacy laws.

• These queries contained sensitive data, the lawsuit argued, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and even social security numbers, something that “increases the risk of identity theft.”

Confidentiality

• Put simply, quantum computers — with the ability to factor extremely large prime numbers — could one day break into these algorithms, helping adversaries access all sorts of critical information, including personal data about U.S. citizens and critical scientific and military secrets.

• “If we can build large-scale quantum computers that run exactly as physics predicts that they should,” explains Ryan O’Donnell, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, “then they will be able to break most of the cryptography that was in use up until now.”

Defence/Aggression

• Daniel Ellsberg, a whistleblower famed for exposing government deception over the United States’s war in Vietnam and an outspoken opponent of nuclear weapons, has died at the age of 92 from pancreatic cancer.

• The Washington Post was the first to report that Ellsberg died on Friday, citing a statement from his family.

• The Permanent Joint Mechanism between Finland, Sweden, Turkey, and NATO established after the NATO bids of the two Nordic countries in 2022 met again in Ankara.

• China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure-eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in real time, the three officials said. The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images, the officials said.

• The three officials said China could have gathered much more intelligence from sensitive sites if not for the administration’s efforts to move around potential targets and obscure the balloon’s ability to pick up their electronic signals by stopping them from broadcasting or emitting signals.

War in Ukraine

• The Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA) has said it is disappointed that the United States has, without consultation, put it on a sanctions list for “activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States” as the TFASA trains Chinese fighter pilots.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• Ellsberg angered the Nixon White House in 1971 when he handed over documents from a top-secret report about US involvement in Vietnam, from 1945 to 1967, to the press.

• He had worked on the report after being sent to Saigon for the State Department. His Harvard education as well as serving in the Marine Corps and working at the Pentagon made him a top candidate for the job.

• But he had also become disillusioned by the war and realized that the US could not win.

• He began copying pages from the 7,000-page report and eventually leaked it to The New York Times, which published a first installment in 1971. This unleashed the fury of the Nixon administration which tried to block further publication.

• This eventually resulted in a freedom-of-the-press showdown at the Supreme Court that Nixon lost, marking a turning point for the role of the media in US life and politics.

• The Pentagon Papers had been commissioned in 1967 by then-Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, a leading public advocate of the war who wanted to leave behind a comprehensive history of the U.S. and Vietnam and to help his successors avoid the kinds of mistakes he would only admit to long after. The papers covered more than 20 years, from France’s failed efforts at colonization in the 1940s and 1950s to the growing involvement of the U.S., including the bombing raids and deployment of hundreds of thousands of ground troops during Lyndon Johnson’s administration. Ellsberg was among those asked to work on the study, focusing on 1961, when the newly-elected President John F. Kennedy began adding advisers and support units.

• Long before Edward Snowden and Wikileaks were revealing government secrets in the name of transparency, Ellsberg let Americans know that their government was capable of misleading and even lying to them. In his later years Ellsberg would become an advocate for whistleblowers and leakers and his “Pentagon Papers” leak was portrayed in the 2017 movie “The Post.”

• Ellsberg secretly went to the media in 1971 in hopes of expediting the end of the Vietnam War. It made him the target of a smear campaign by the Nixon White House. Henry Kissinger, who was then the president’s national security adviser, referred to him as “the most dangerous man in America who must be stopped at all costs.”

• When he went to Saigon for the State Department in the mid-1960s, Ellsberg had an impressive resume. He had earned three degrees from Harvard, served in the Marine Corps and worked at the Pentagon and the RAND Corporation, the influential policy research think tank.

• But espionage charges against Ellsberg were ultimately dismissed. “Daniel was a seeker of truth and a patriotic truth-teller, an anti-war activist, a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, a dear friend to many, and an inspiration to countless more. He will be dearly missed by all of us,” Ellsberg’s family said in a statement obtained by NPR.

• For decades, Ellsberg was a tireless critic of government overreach and military interventions.

• Here are five facts about Daniel Ellsberg: [...]

• Few people can say their actions helped to strengthen press freedom, end a war, and bring down a presidency. Daniel Ellsberg, who died today at the age of ninety-two, did just that.

• Ellsberg came to public prominence in 1971 when he photocopied a secret history of US involvement in the Vietnam War, what became known as the “Pentagon Papers,” and gave a copy to the New York Times. The New York Times’ decision to publish the papers set off a landmark press freedom battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

• Ellsberg became the first whistleblower indicted under the Espionage Act. In addition to seeking an indictment, Richard Nixon also set up a “White House Plumbers” unit to gather dirt on Ellsberg. This unit would later be at the heart of the Watergate scandal that resulted in Nixon’s downfall.

• “The only thing that I could personally hope to achieve by my own efforts was to make these documents available to the American public for them to read and to learn from,” Ellsberg told Reason. But he had a “very important secondary objective”: halting what he saw as a dangerous trend of “executive secrecy” that had allowed successive presidents to “steal away so much power from the Congress and the public and to free itself from the kinds of checks and balances that were intended in the Constitution.”

• By giving those 7,000 pages to The New York Times two years earlier, Ellsberg changed the course of a war and shifted the American public’s view of the presidency. He may not have succeeded in the larger project of containing executive power, but he earned a place in the whistleblower hall of fame: one of a select few who, when entrusted with damning secrets, recognized that his patriotic duty was to tell the American people a difficult truth their leaders would rather have kept hidden.

• It is with great sadness that ScheerPost has learned of the death of legendary American figure Daniel Ellsberg. His work as a whistleblower, activist and advocate for government transparency is irreplaceable and without him, the country would be missing a crucial part of its history. His courage, conviction and commitment to challenging government secrecy and ensuring accountability ushered in a lasting dialogue in American politics that led to the revelations of people like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. We send our condolences and best wishes to Daniel’s family and friends.

• The former military analyst talks about why he leaked the Pentagon Papers and why there aren’t more whistleblowers today.

• It’s tempting to view Ellsberg’s life, now that he has passed away, as a glide path to the actions he took. But the power of his memoir lies in its recognition of how contingent his decisions were. Ellsberg easily could have let others sacrifice to end the war, convincing himself that he was more valuable as an internal wrench in the war machine. Enjoying continued respectability, bureaucratic power, and technocratic prestige, Ellsberg could have reconciled his opposition to Vietnam with the broader thrust of US foreign policy, making it his mission to temper the excesses of the Cold War. After the Cold War, he might have made his peace with American primacy, as did so many liberals of Ellsberg’s generation, and reaped the luxuries that go with graybeard status.

• The disclosure of the Pentagon Papers — 7,000 government pages of damning revelations about deceptions by successive presidents who exceeded their authority, bypassed Congress and misled the American people — plunged a nation that was already wounded and divided by the war deeper into angry controversy.

• It led to illegal countermeasures by the White House to discredit Mr. Ellsberg, halt leaks of government information and attack perceived political enemies, forming a constellation of crimes known as the Watergate scandal that led to the disgrace and resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.

• And it set up a First Amendment confrontation between the Nixon administration and The New York Times, whose publication of the papers was denounced by the government as an act of espionage that jeopardized national security. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the freedom of the press.

• That’s been true of others who released top-secret information that they felt was evidence of official wrongdoing. While Ellsberg, who died Friday, will be remembered in a largely positive light, the reputations of more recent figures are still contested.

Environment

• Climate change is arguably the most pressing issue of our time, so it is probably good practice to look at how some of the most important things in life relate to it. How will health, education, or food change because of climate issues, or how should they change to make things better?

• Pressure to speed cuts in carbon pollution took a back seat at UN climate talks that ended late Thursday night, as emerging economies, including China, demanded that rich ones vastly scale up climate financing.

• A seed bank in Taiwan is home to more chili varieties than anywhere else on earth. In a warming world, we’re going to need them.

Energy/Transportation

• New York Attorney General Letitia James today recovered more than $1.7 million from COINEX (CoinEx) for failing to register as a securities and commodities broker-dealer and for falsely representing itself as a crypto exchange. Today’s agreement resolves Attorney General James’ lawsuit against CoinEx and requires the company to refund thousands of New York investors more than $1.1 million and pay more than $600,000 in penalties to the state. As part of today’s consent order, CoinEx is banned from offering, selling, or purchasing securities and commodities in New York and is prohibited from making its platform available in the state. In response to Attorney General James’ lawsuit, CoinEx publicly announced that it would withdraw its platform and services from the United States. Attorney General James has worked to increase oversight and regulation of cryptocurrency companies to protect New York investors, and has recovered more than $500 million from the cryptocurrency industry.

• A bus and a semitruck collided on a rural stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway in Manitoba on Thursday, the police said.

Wildlife/Nature

• Mexico has an enormously diverse number of orchid species — although many of these are now under threat from poaching and habitat loss.

• Hundreds of hives – and thousands of bees – are in danger in the heart of bustling Mexico City. But a group formed in 2018 called Abeja Negra SOS is relocating hives out of the city to ensure bees continue to pollinate ecosystems.

Finance

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s empowerment of his foreign and defence ministers, and the balancing of constructive diplomacy with military deterrence policy, have helped the government deliver a highly effective first year in international security [...]

• Planet A Bangladesh has secured US$500 million from the World Bank to strengthen climate-resilient agricultural practices and enhance food security.

• Communication chief accuses Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank of being run by Communist Party ‘hacks’.

• The ramifications of the tech sector layoffs extend to remittance flows, considering that 36% of India’s remittances can be attributed to highly skilled migrants primarily in three high-income destinations: the US, UK, and Singapore

• Research from The ITAM Review – an independent global community for worldwide IT asset management, software asset management, and licensing professionals – has found the ongoing effects of COVID-19, rising inflation, soaring energy costs, and geopolitical instability have fueled price increases from software publishers across on-premises and SaaS product lines during the 2022/2023 financial year.

• Trying to understand the factors that fueled inflation is important, because whom we blame for inflation also shapes what we do about it. If inflation is caused primarily by overheated consumer demand, then it makes sense for the Fed to quell spending by hiking interest rates. But if corporations, rather than consumers, are driving inflation by raising their prices, then other tools may make more sense.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• China’s ruling Communist Party dominates the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and uses it to further its interests, a former executive has alleged in claims that prompted Canada to suspend participation in the institution.

• The Mail says there is no evidence Boris Johnson lied to parliament.

• The fallout from Bill C-11 has been the subject of several posts this week, including the demands from a wide range of services for exceptions to the law and warnings from streaming services such as PBS and AMC that they may block the Canadian market due to the regulatory burden imposed by the law. While those stories focus on the availability of services and content in Canada, a new Variety report points to another negative impact from the bill: less film and television production in Canada, at least in the short term. Throughout the Bill C-11 debate, there were concerns that the large streamers might pause their productions in Canada given the uncertainty over whether they would “count” for the purposes of new CRTC imposed contribution requirements. In other words, the bill could initially lead to less investment in Canada.

• The European Parliament has approved a draft of the EU’s AI Act, taking a major step toward what could be the first comprehensive set of regulations for AI in the West.

• However, the legislation did not pass unanimously, with the final vote at 499 in favor, 28 against, and 93 abstentions. While today’s vote marks a huge step forward in the regulation of AI technology, the draft legislation is still subject to change, with each EU country needing to agree on the bill before it becomes law.

• Ever since Elon Musk took over last October, the company has been skipping various payments, from real estate rents to vendor bills. It now looks like the company is starting to face the consequences of its unfulfilled obligation.

• There’s an important lesson there for Dems, whose establishment is volubly proud of its independence from its voters. The Biden administration is a weirdly perfect illustration of this “independence.” The Biden admin is a kind of referee, doling out policies and appointments to its competing wings, without any coherence or consistency.

• The humans are still in charge—for now. The European Parliament, the legislative branch of the European Union (EU), passed a draft law on Wednesday intended to restrict and add transparency requirements to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the twenty-seven-member bloc. In the AI Act, lawmakers zeroed in on concerns about biometric surveillance and disclosures for generative AI such as ChatGPT. The legislation is not final. But it could have far-reaching implications since the EU’s large size and single market can affect business decisions for companies based elsewhere—a phenomenon known as “the Brussels effect.”

• Below, Atlantic Council experts share their genuine intelligence by answering the pressing questions about what’s in the legislation and what’s next. [...]

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

• The report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that aims to counter online misinformation, found that Google earned an estimated $10.2 million from ads for fake abortion clinics in the past two years.

• The only person whose ties to the creator of the dossier that led the FBI to adopt false claims against Trump aides that Durham didn’t pursue was the guy, on whose behalf, Trump’s campaign regularly sent out internal polling data starting in May 2016, the guy, on whose behalf, Trump’s campaign manager briefed Russian agent Konstantin Kilimnik on the campaign’s plan to win swing states. The 2021 Treasury filing that stated, as fact, that Kilimnik is a, “known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf,” also stated, as fact, that in 2016, “Kilimnik provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy,” the very same polling data and campaign strategy he obtained from Trump’s campaign manager on Oleg Deripaska’s behalf. As I’ve laid out, John Durham never mentioned Kilimnik in his report, not once, to say nothing of how Kilimnik obtained internal polling data and a campaign strategy briefing and delivered it to Russian spies.

• A broad swath of the anti-vaccine universe celebrated Thursday, when Joe Rogan, the biggest podcaster in the country, hosted a three-hour conversation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vax luminary turned presidential candidate. The conversation was an orgy of unchecked vaccine misinformation, some conspiracy-mongering about 5G technology and wifi, and, of course, Rogan once again praising ivermectin, an ineffective faux COVID treatment. As RFK began his campaign by downplaying his anti-vaccine activism, the conversation represented a bit of a return to form. But the episode also conclusively demonstrates that Spotify, the platform that reportedly paid more than $200 million to host Rogan’s show, has completely given up on addressing his relentless torrent of medical misinformation, except in the most pallid and surface-level ways.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Matthew Garrett told me the other day on TechRights IRC that it’s unfortunate that American citizens can’t be arrested for talking about things he doesn’t agree with.

• [...]

• The United States can’t do much about people who blast the Freedom of Speech because they have the right to Freedom of Speech here.

• And yes, that is the same Freedom of Speech that allowed the Nazis to march in Skokie, but 40+ years later the Nazis are not well liked and don’t have a single member in the State or local governments in Illinois, even though they won their court case and were able to march in Skokie.

• Letting them march is the lesser evil. It reminds people that they’re there and they need to be vigilant to make sure they don’t come to power.

• Of course there are repercussions in the United States for being a Nazi, even though there is no law against it. If you openly admit it, you’re going to have a very hard time professionally. Nobody is going to elect you to anything.

• In Germany, where there’s no strong freedom of speech, they outlawed Nazi symbols, and parties, and ideologies, outlawed it, and there are Nazis in their legislature that just don’t wear swastikas and call themselves that. So big difference. They’re in the legislature introducing bills and voting on things, where they can actually do a lot of harm, as long as they don’t use symbols.

• This is my opinion of Matt, but I can’t figure out what else to call it when you say you support the Constitution and then go down the line saying that foundational pieces of it shouldn’t exist.

• If you didn’t agree to live under it, then I don’t believe for a minute that you should have filed an N-400.

• Scheduled to debut on June 22, just in time for the upcoming Eid al-Adha holiday, the film’s release has been thwarted due to its failure to comply with the country’s strict censorship guidelines. One of the reasons cited for the ban is a blink-and-you-miss-it poster in the background of one frame, highlighting the importance of protecting trans lives. It seems this brief depiction clashed with the “local customs and values” that content in the region must adhere to, especially when targeted at younger audiences, as most animated films are.

• Nadim’s family believes he was targeted in retaliation for his May 2023 series of reports for Banglanews24 about Mahmudul Alam Babu, chair of a local government unit and member of the ruling Awami League party, according to those reports. Babu denied any involvement in the attack.

• The Motion Picture Association sees the open-source Android app Cloudstream as a gateway to pirated streams. This week, the anti-piracy group successfully removed two ‘infringing’ code repositories from GitHub but a stripped-down version of the application remains unscathed.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• The allegations were brought against the accused in relation to unspecified social media posts and videos by the journalists, according to copies of the first information reports, which cite sections of the penal code including criminal conspiracy and abetting mutiny, and the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, which carries a maximum punishment of death or life imprisonment.

• Hong Kong authorities have targeted the pro-democracy advocate and China critic since 2020 — partially in retaliation for the newspaper’s criticism of the Chinese government. Lai, 75, has been detained in a maximum-security prison since December 2020.

• His son Sebastien Lai said the resolution “sends a powerful message to Hong Kong that the targeting and imprisonment of my father and other prominent pro-democracy figures, in an attempt to silence them, is not going unnoticed by the international community.”

• An Iranian journalist who was jailed last year for conducting an interview with Mahsa Amini’s father said Thursday that she has been “terminated” from her position at the newspaper where she had just started working.

• Nazila Maroufian said the move came days after she shared on her public Twitter account allegations that a Special Forces officer made derogatory comments about her when she refused to comply with the mandatory hijab requirement.

• A London High Court judge rejected Wikileaks editor Julian Assange’s appeal against his extradition to the United States. He now faces up to 175 years in prison — despite public opinion around the world and in his home country, Australia. The UN has declared his detention “arbitrary,” which usually results in the release of the detainee, but not so far. The fate of the man who revealed so many of the hidden crimes of the US empire hangs in the balance. Brian Becker is joined by Joe Lauria, editor in chief of Consortium News.

Civil Rights/Policing

• A 64-year old woman accused by Hong Kong national security police of perverting the course of justice has appeared in court and been denied bail.

• But from the first day on the job, Gwin began to realize that he had made a mistake. HCL falls under Google’s Temp, Vendor, Contractor (TVC) umbrella; TVCs make up more than half of Google’s workforce, and the arrangement means that the tech giant is not legally responsible for either Gwin’s compensation or his working conditions.

• Nancy, the operations manager and team lead of Catalogs, the team Gwin was joining, rattles off a list of rules. Don’t tell anyone you work for Google — you work for HCL. Don’t eat the dinner offered to workers too often, and if you do, don’t eat too much. Aside from four hours of annual online training, you can’t work from home under any circumstances. Don’t ask your Google program manager for anything. Don’t ever talk to your Google supervisors. Don’t talk to Google employees. Don’t walk too fast past Googlers. Don’t talk too loud near Googlers.

Monopolies

• An evidentiary hearing will be held on June 22 for the judge to hear oral arguments about whether the injunction should remain in force until the FTC’s antitrust case is resolved. The ruling on the FTC’s request for an injunction comes six months after the FTC filed its initial antitrust case against the acquisition, arguing that if the deal were to go ahead, Microsoft would have an “increased incentive to withhold or degrade Activision’s content in ways that substantially lessen competition — including competition on product quality, price, and innovation.”

Patents

• On June 14, 2023, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Office’s final decision, in a summary Rule 36 affirmance, confirming that claims of U.S. Patent 10,476,868 was unpatentable. Owned by JustService Net LLC, the ’868 patent is related to cloud and data-storage technology and was asserted against Dropbox.

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruled in a precedential decision Wednesday that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) was correct to affirm a United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) examiner’s finding that the claims of U.S. Patent Application 15/131,442 were obvious in view of the prior art.

Software Patents

• As part of an ongoing series examining the patent holders and pools erroneously designating patents as essential, we highlight U.S. Patent 9,277,243 titled “Methods and apparatus for in-loop de-artifact filtering.” This patent is owned by InterDigital VC Holdings, Inc. InterDigital has designated the ’243 patent as essential to the AV1 standard as a part of SISVEL’s AV1 Patent Pool. See AV1 Patent List, AV1 Family AV1-056, available at https://www.sisvel.com/images/documents/Video-Coding-Platform/PatentList_AV1.pdf.

Copyrights

• AEG officially rebrands LA Live’s ‘Microsoft Theater’ to ‘Peacock Theater’ in a multi-year agreement that sees Peacock becoming the exclusive streaming partner of the downtown LA sports and entertainment district. /blockquote>

• Against that background, it’s disappointing that the report doesn’t make the crucial connection between many of the problems and challenges that it identifies for future development, and the outdated and harmful nature of copyright in a digital world. Although the word “copyright” is mentioned eight times, it seems throughout to be accepted as an inevitable part of the future artistic landscape. As readers of Walled Culture the book well know, that’s certainly not the case. Not only is creativity possible without copyright, but it is able to flourish far better without the legal and economic constraints born of copyright’s forlorn obsession with controlling digital copies.

• AI-only work is banned, but some music created with AI help may qualify in certain categories, the academy’s updated rulebook reads. “A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any categories.”

• Music creators must now contribute to at least 20% of an album to earn a nomination. In the past, any producer, songwriter, engineer or featured artist on an album could earn a nomination for album of the year, even if the person had a small input.

• The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy and member DISH Network have emerged victorious in a long-running lawsuit against pirate set-top box distributor Jadoo TV. This week a California court granted summary judgment, finding Jadoo TV and CEO Sajid Sohail liable for direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement. Personal liability for Sohail is significant given Jadoo TV’s ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal/Opinions

Technology and Free Software

Internet/Gemini

• Gemini is similar to the way the web was, around 1993. Gemini feels to him as though it is “devoid of human contact”. In this connection he mentions measures such as IndieAuth, feed aggregators and ActivityPub, which complement the basic web stack, and which afford some means of connection with other users.

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