● 07.07.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 07/07/2023: KDE Gear 23.04.3 and EasyOS 5.4.6

Posted in News Roundup at 12:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

• Which file system should you choose when installing a new Linux distro? Let’s take a look at some of the best options.

• Choosing the right file system for your computer can be a difficult process. It’s easy to wonder: why do file systems matter at all? Is there a specific file system that works best for installing Linux?

• As it turns out, there are two file systems that stand out as the best general-purpose options for installing Linux.

Desktop/Laptop

• Building upon the success of its predecessors, the InfinityBook 16 Pro Gen8, from TUXEDO Computers, combines sleek design, top-notch performance, and advanced capabilities to deliver an outstanding user experience. In this blog post, we will explore the key features of this powerhouse laptop that make it a compelling choice for Linux professionals and enthusiasts alike.

• The stability of Linux is one of the main advantages. The system is known for its reliability and durability, compared to some other operating systems. It’s designed for use with a wide variety of hardware, from personal computers to servers, that can handle massive amounts of work and do not experience crashes or other problems.

• [...]

• You can expect to see further improvements in your favorite Linux desktop applications such as GNOME, KDE and Cinnamon in 2023-2024. It is expected that more flexible settings will be available for personalization and a smoother, cleaner look in GNOME. More improvements to the overall performance of your desktop environment and greater compatibility with Wayland’s display server will be introduced when GNOME 42 is released.

• On the other hand, KDE Plasma is known to offer a wide range of customization options. With new widgets and plugins, we’re going to have even more room for customization by the year 2024. Efficiency, device integration and privacy are going to continue to be emphasized by KDE. In addition, the Wayland display server integration will ensure a smooth rendering of graphics and platform stability.

Server

• Linux powers the enterprise. From the cloud to containers and to the backbone of your network, Linux is there working tirelessly to keep your business humming. Whether you use Linux in your AWS, Azure, Google Cloud or your on-premise data center, you use Linux.

Applications

• libstrangle is a Linux utility that lets you cap the FPS of a game. It’s free and open source software written in C.

• Univer is an open source collaborative solution, which aims to empower the collaboration capability into all systems. With Univer, users can synchronously edit the file content, making files flowing smoothly within different types of systems and avoid downloading and uploading Microsoft Office files anymore.

Instructionals/Technical

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Google Chrome on Debian 12. For those of you who didn’t know, Google Chrome stands as one of the most popular web browsers globally, providing users with a powerful, feature-rich, and user-friendly experience.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Cinnamon Desktop Environment on Debian 12. The Cinnamon Desktop Environment offers a remarkable user experience, combining elegance, efficiency, and customization options.

• If you’re fairly new to Linux, you might need some help getting started on the command line. But you made it here, so let’s run through a number of ways that you can get comfortable and up to speed fairly quickly.

• If you’re new to Linux, you’re probably hesitant to use the command line. When you finally realize the power of the CLI, you’ll discover it has a lot of cool tricks up its sleeve — including this one.

• It’s not an isolated issue, as one person commented WiFi 6 and Bluetooth were not working in Linux on a Beelink mini PC with the N100 in an article about the T9 Plus, and I found out many people complained about the lack of Linux drivers for the AX101 on Intel community forums. They also left various solutions some of which work, some don’t.

• If you are using Ubuntu or Debian, the easiest way seems to update the kernel to the latest Linux 6.4 as follows…

• Hopefully, the latest iwlwifi drivers will further improve support for AX101 WiFi and Bluetooth module and will be officially released on the Intel website (Note the AX101 is currently missing). Linux 6.5 may ship with an updated version, meaning it may be good revisiting the issue around the end of August when the latest kernel is expected to be released, besides monitoring the Intel website for new drivers…

• In the dynamic landscape of web technology, security is paramount. Ensuring that your web server is secure is not only vital for your peace of mind but also for the trust and safety of your users. This guide zeroes in on securing your Debian Nginx Server installation with a free Let’s Encrypt Certificate.

• Nitrux is a new Linux distro that is based on Debian, and it uses KDE Plasma as desktop environment. Nitrux also comes with a new Desktop called NX Desktop, which is a customized desktop based on Plasma.

• OpenJDK 21 is set to be a game-changer in the Java landscape when it launches on September 19, 2023. It is the upcoming long-term support (LTS) release of Oracle’s standard Java implementation and brings many features to improve the Java development experience.

• In today’s fast-paced technological environment, working with metadata is essential for various purposes, including image organization and data analysis. Enter ExifTool, a robust and versatile command-line application written in Perl that allows you to read, write, and edit metadata in various files.

• TL;DR: pip install is on the way out. Installing Python packages must be done via APT, aka. Kali Linux’s package manager. Python packages coming from other sources should be installed in virtual environments.

• Long story below.

• In the Linux operating system, services are programs that operate in the background. These services can be initiated either on-demand or during the system boot process. As a Linux user or developer, you will interact with various services such as web servers, SSH, or cron.

• Kickstart.nvim is a starter configuration for Neovim that is small, single-file and well-documented. You can use it as a starting point to create your custom configuration.

• Want to play Epic games on Linux, there this blog will help you for it.

• To push changes into the GitLab, move to the local repository> list content> set the remote URL> run the “git push <remote-name> <branch-name>” command.

• Practical tutorial on the methods to install and use SQLite on Rocky Linux 9 to provide an efficient, reliable, fast solution for various database requirements.

• Practical guide on the ways to install and use the Docker on Rocky Linux 9 to enable an efficient application development, testing, and deployment processes.

• The post 20 Useful ‘apt-get’ Commands for Ubuntu Package Management first appeared on Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides .

• The apt-get command was the primary package management command used in Debian-based Linux distributions prior to the introduction of the apt command.

Games

• According to the statistics released by Steam’s Hardware Survey for the month of June, the share of AMD CPUs in Linux systems has increased by around 7.6%, reaching a total of 67.15% share. Intel comes behind AMD in Linux, with a market share of 32.84%. Well, the reason behind the inclination of Linux consumers towards AMD is the company’s commitment to open-source technologies.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

libQuotient version 0.8 releasedI’m excited to announce the release of version 0.8 of libQuotient, the Qt library for building software using Matrix.This release brings to youGenerated documentation, browsable at quotient-im.github.io/libQuotient/Coinstallability of Qt5 and Qt6 buildsVarious stability improvementsUpdated Matrix APIs

• Coming a month after KDE Gear 23.04.2, the KDE Gear 23.04.3 release is here to improve the Gwenview image viewer so that it no longer crashes when opening RAW image files in the NEF (Nikon) format, fix a few issues with reminders in the Kalendar app, as well as to fix board position in portrait mode in the KReversi app.

• KDE Gear 23.04.3 also improves the Falkon web browser with a new option in Preferences to allow you to set the default search engine by default, add an icon for boat/ferry reservations in Itinerary’s calendar, and add support for one-page booking PDFs and improve the handling of Flixbus train tickets in the KItinerary library.

• Over 120 individual programs plus dozens of programmer libraries and feature plugins are released simultaneously as part of KDE Gear.

• Today they all get new bugfix source releases with updated translations, including…

• KDE e.V. makes it known that the KDE League is to be wound down and dissolved. Remaining assets of the League are to be transferred to KDE e.V. Interested parties are invited to comment.

• KDE e.V., the legal entity representing the KDE community, and KDE League, Inc. (the “League”) are about to enter into an agreement to wind down and dissolve the League and transfer all of its remaining liquid assets (after paying the costs of dissolution) to KDE e.V.

• It should be said occasionally: the Qt Commercial License is terrible.

• It might not be all that expensive, but it’s rather clunky for device creation, and most importantly, comes with a “Prohibited Combination” definition that says “any effort to use .. Licensed Software with any software created with .. Open Source Qt”. I certainly can’t interpret that in any other way than “there is a tremendous amount of valuable Open Source software, developed entirely independently, like KDE Frameworks, Kirigami, libQuotient, .. and you can’t use it.” It really drives home the negative value of a Qt Commercial License. – Which is why I’m glad I care only about the Open Source bits.

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

• Version 5.4.5 was released on June 30:

• https://bkhome.org/news/202306/easyos-kirkstone-series-version-545.html

• Newcomers are recommended to read the 5.4 announcement:

• Various fixes since 5.4.5, see release notes:

• https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/kirkstone/2023/5.4.6/release-notes.htm

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

• When you see this while updating through Synaptic, press the close button, relaunch Synaptic and you will be fine. You must perform this update before the end of the month or you will lose you ability to update your installation.

• stable: 6.4.2 2023-07-05 stable: 6.3.12 2023-07-05 longterm: 6.1.38 2023-07-05 longterm: 5.15.120 2023-07-05 longterm: 5.10.186 2023-06-28 longterm: 5.4.249 2023-06-28

Arch Family

• blendOS 3 is here to enhance its ability to run other GNU/Linux distributions inside blendOS via Distrobox/Podman by adding support for a total of 9 distros, including Arch Linux, AlmaLinux OS, Crystal Linux, Debian GNU/Linux, Fedora Linux, Kali Linux, Neurodebian Bookworm, Rocky Linux, and Ubuntu Linux.

• Another major new feature in blendOS 3 is support for no less than 7 desktop environments, including KDE Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, LXQt, Cinnamon, MATE, and Deepin, and the ability to easily and instantaneously switch between them with system track.

Fedora Family / IBM

• The Fedora project is considering a Fedora 40 change proposal to add limited, opt-out telemetry to the workstation edition. The proposal is detailed; it is clear that the developers involved understand that this will be a hard sell in that community.

Debian Family

• Maybe the DBUS developers have a point: desktops are like buses… you wait for ages, then two of them come along at once: Lomiri on Debian, and GSDE, the GNUstep Desktop Environment.

• Both the new offerings focus on Debian for now, although that may well change in time, and although both are quite different to more mainstream offerings, they each have roots in tech that’s been around for some time. Lomiri is the now cross-platform desktop environment that was formerly called Unity 8, which Canonical cancelled in 2017. As we covered back in February, Lomiri’s Ubuntu dependencies – and trademarks – have been cleaned up. Along with changing its name, now it’s much more cross-platform, but we must confess that we missed the full significance of what lead developer Marius Gripsård told us at the time: [...]

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• When selected during initial install Ubuntu’s ‘minimal install’ gives users a complete, fully-functioning Ubuntu system with fewer pre-installed apps. The exact same ISO also delivers a ‘full installation’ mode stacked with swathe of software – this is the default, recommended option.

• So having added a feature that users like Ubuntu is now, umm, thinking about removing it.

Open Hardware/Modding

• There are two RISC-V computers on my desk – photos eventually – and they are moving towards “just work” state, but they do occasionally swerve back into the default state of single-board-computers everywhere: there’s a serial port and you’re gonna like it.

• From work a few years back with all the Pine64 boards, I have a handful of USB-to-serial converters (and just ordered another one from Pine as a backup), but getting the pins right is always a pain. I’ve considered wiring up better connectors, but never really gotten around to it.

• As a stop-gap, I’m going to post (possibly for my own benefit as a backup easy-to-find resource) pinouts for the StarFive VisionFive V2 and the Pine64 Star64 boards. Now that I’ve written this down, I can finally remember “6=GND, 8=TX, 10=RX”.

• The latest release of PureBoot, Release 27, now boots memtest86+, Debian netinst, and other OSes that rely on framebuffer output!

• We worked with the Heads team to implement this change upstream, and it is now in our latest release. Update your firmware with our update instructions!

• If you’ve ever tried to boot from PureBoot, and the system seemed to hang after “Starting the new kernel”, this was often the cause.  The OS was booting, but it couldn’t display anything.

• Although a large percentage of our trash can be recycled, only a small percentage actually makes it to the proper facility due, in part, to being improperly sorted.

• Discovering new music is difficult, making it a frustrating experience for both listeners and services. Identifying what one person liked about a specific song is a challenge when music is so subjective.

• Fingerpunch has made a beautiful set of PCBs for custom split ergonomic keyboards that rely on dual RP2040 processors.

• We invited Global Clubs Partners to calls with our researchers to discuss new findings about computing education in primary schools.

• At first sight upon seeing [Don]’s HX2023 cyberdeck project one might be sad at the destruction of a retrocomputer, but in fact its classic Epson shell comes from a pile of spare parts left after restoring many other of the classic HX20 notebook computers to working order. The result stays true to the original but gives us so much more in the shape of a Raspberry Pi, and it’s worth cracking it open to see what components make this happen.

• We’ve already seen Rockchip RK3566 system-on-modules that follow the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 with the likes of Pine64 SOQuartz and Radxa CM3. But there’s at least one more Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 alternative based on the RK3566 SoC with the LuckFox Core3566 going for as little as $23.99. I found out about the new module after checking out the upcoming Orange Pi Compute Module 4 (another CM4 alternative based on RK3566), and the LuckFox Core3566 is offered with 2GB or 4GB RAM, an optional 32GB eMMC flash, and an optional WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 module.

• SB Components’ Micro RP2040 is a tiny module based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 Arm microcontroller with up to 23 GPIOs and a USB Type-C port for easy powering and programming. Ever since the Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller was released, companies have been making tiny modules based on it. Some come with a USB Type-C port such as the Pimoroni Tiny 2040 and the Adafruit QT Py RP2040 boards, while others focused on providing a smaller form factor for soldering only with design such as the RP2040 Stamp or the minuscule 12x12mm Femto module.

• Dawn DuPriest has created a Raspberry Pi-powered companion cosplay that plays music with RFID chips and makes faces.

• Nathan from NathanBuildsDIY is using a Raspberry Pi to control unwanted weeds with the power of the sun.

• Sboger is using a Raspberry Pi Pico W to remotely monitor radiation and outputs the current readings in real-time.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Been away for family reasons, hence missing the previous updates and being slightly late with this one. Post highlights: new releases of darktable, Blender, BlenderBIM, Flowblade, Ardour.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

• WordPress 6.3 Beta 3 is now ready for download and testing!

• This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you test Beta 3 on a test server and site.

GNU Projects

• The team from Cirugía Solidaria has completed another successful campaign in the African continent.

• The project took place in the hospital of Maragua, in Muranga county, Kenya. Dr. Victor López, from Cirugía Solidaria, describes the experiences during the seven day mission:

• “In our latest project in Maragua, Kenya, we had 406 patient evaluations, and 142 of these patients underwent surgery. Some relevant information on the surgical procedures were 32 pediatric surgeries, 22 goiter, 11 cervical masses and 13 oncological surgeries. In addition, we detected 36 patients with cancer that were referred to the Kenya National Cancer Registry for treatment and followup.”

Programming/Development

• Practical guide on how to implement non-blocking IO with the “select” function in C and its basic usage using a programming example to explain its application.

• Oh <insert expletive here>!

• Balena Etcher is an Electron-based app. I posted that have removed it from the AppImage Installer:

• https://bkhome.org/news/202306/goodbye-balena-etcher-appimage.html

• However, still experimenting with it, some error messages on the terminal at startup. Then I made an awful discovery: [...]

• I was investigating the Dolphin file manager flatpak, as Federico has reported that it has many limitations. One major limitation is that it cannot access any drive partitions. It looks like the ‘udisks2′ package is required.

• A very long time ago, I took a look at udisks, and decided that I didn’t want anything to do with it. But it looks like KDE apps want it. OK, so I embarked on the journey of compiling it in OpenEmbedded/Yocto …several hours later, got it done.

• Developer Tools help developers write and debug websites on Firefox. This newsletter gives an overview of the work we’ve done as part of the Firefox 115 Nightly release cycle.

Rust

• Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust!

Leftovers

• You hear some… things sitting at a coffee shop. Today’s very loud conversation concerned real estate:

• The houses down there are insane LAUGHS. If I can’t drive there, what’s the point? LAUGHS. Build another damn freeway and more houses, stop faffing about.

• It’s important I hear stuff like this; it gives me valuable perspective I otherwise lack in my comfy bubble of sustainable urban planning and public transport. I have this caricature of a suburbanite in my head that earnestly believes “one more lane, bro”… but they do exist.

• The conversation shifted soon after, but the bulk of what they discussed concerned traffic, a hatred of apartments, and the sky-high cost of living in Australia right now. A few times I felt like they were on the verge of an epiphany, but then they went to hating on buses and trains for the “people [who travel] on them”.

• (Not wanting to take public transport because of “gross poor people” is one of the reasons I gave up giving someone adjacent to the family any of my attention. Leaving aside the fact investment bankers with expensive watches share my train to Wynyard each morning, what a horrible thing to think about your fellow human beings. Public transport is wonderful precisely because it helps everyone. And frankly, my experiences with them have been near universally nicer than entitled arses who equate morals with money… and then show themselves as having none of the former).

• Walmart Can’t Balance a Tire Due to Air from Canada I’ve got another car problem. A wheel weight came off and my right front tire is now imbalanced causing a slight wobble on acceleration sometimes.

Hardware

• Diabolic Drive may look like a 64GB USB flash drive and show as such when you insert it into your computer, but it’s actually a wireless keystroke injection tool with a Microchip ATmega32U4 8-bit AVR microcontroller and an Espressif Systems ESP8266 WiFi SoC. Egypt-based UNIT 72784 says their cyber security tool enables Red Teaming – the practice of rigorously identifying an attack path to breach a device’s security – as it behaves like a flash drive while being able to deploy keyboard strokes wirelessly through the ESP8266 WiFi MCU. Diabolic Drive specifications: MCUs Microchip ATmega32U4 microcontroller @ 16 MHz (5V) acting as a Serial Bridge Espressif Systems ESP8266EX microcontroller @ 160 MHZ (3.3V) with WiFi 4 support ATmega32U4 and ESP8266 are connected via Serial and I2C protocols thanks to an LDO regulator.

• Remember the scene from Blade Runner, where Deckard puts a photograph into a Photo Inspector? The virtual camera can pan and move around the captured scene, pulling out impossible details. It seems that [Ben Wang] discovered how to make that particular trick a reality, but with audio instead of video. The secret sauce isn’t a sophisticated microphone, but a whole bunch of really simple ones. In this case, it’s 192 of them, arranged on long PCBs working as the spokes of a wall-art wheel. Quite the conversation piece.

• LILYGO T-Vending is an ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth IoT board designed for vending machines with an RS485 terminal block, a microSD card slot, and support for an optional cellular mPCIe module. As I understand the board is connected to the vending machine through the RS485 terminal block to control vend motors (potentially via an additional board to control multiple motors) and a 10-pin connector for power (12V/24V), signals to/from a coin mechanism and other parts. The board also adds a Grove connector and an unpopulated 12-pin GPIO header for expansion.

• Photographic enthusiasts will invariably amass an extensive collection of lenses, and in their communities there are near-mythical and sought-after lenses that change hands for incredible prices. It’s probably the oldest photographic adage though, that the best camera in the world is the one in your hand when the scene presents itself, and probably one of the simplest cameras in the world remains the disposable film camera. Their tiny plastic lenses are not in the same league as the pricey ones, but can they be used by a more serious photographer? [Volzo] set out to find out.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Here we go again with the old antivax “no saline placebo” trope.

Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• It has certainly been a rocky road for 343 Industries’ most recent effort to revitalize the iconic Halo franchise. At present, the game’s player count on Steam is at around 6,000. Which is about 2% of its all-time peak on that platform of 256,000 concurrent players. This according to Steam Chartz.

• While this data isn’t necessarily representative of how Halo Infinite is doing on PC at large, or on Xbox, it is telling that the launch of season 4: Infection has done little to reignite interest in the open world FPS among Steam players. Recent data shared on Reddit indicated that the game has barely remained in the top 200 games list on Steam.

• Elon Musk can’t pay, or rather is not willing to pay a lot of the bills that running Twitter accrues. That may be one of the reasons why Twitter has set a limit on reading tweets, and why he wants only Twitter Blue users to have access to TweetDeck…

Security

• HWL Ebsworth was hit by the Alphv ransomware gang earlier this year. The attackers released the first lot of stolen data, including passport copies and other documents, on the dark web on 2 June.

• Guest Post: New vendor guide for embedding IoT security.

• We are glad to announce the upcoming Reproducible Builds Summit, set to take place from October 31st to November 2nd, 2023, in the vibrant city of Hamburg, Germany.

• This year, we are thrilled to host the seventh edition of this exciting event following the success of previous summits in various iconic locations around the world, including Venice (2022), Marrakesh (2019), Paris (2018), Berlin (2017), Berlin (2016) Athens (2015).

• If you’re excited about joining us this year, please make sure to read the event page which has more details about the event and location. As in previous years, we will be sending invitations to all those who attended our previous summit events or expressed interest to do so. However also without receiving such a personal invitation please do email the organizers and we will find a way to accommodate you.

• Cyber security. It’s complicated.

• Technical information has emerged for a serious vulnerability affecting multiple Linux kernel versions that could be triggered with “minimal capabilities.” The security issue is being referred to as StackRot (CVE-2023-3269) and can be used to compromise the kernel and elevate privileges.

• A new bug in the Linux kernel (CVE-2023-3269) known as StackRot has been fixed in versions 6.1-6.4.

• Mostly targets obsolete Linux servers or are in service with inappropriate settings and also involved in supply chain attacks.

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (golang-yaml.v2, kernel, and mediawiki), Fedora (kernel and picocli), SUSE (bind and python-sqlparse), and Ubuntu (cpdb-libs).

• Kirkland and Am Law 50 peers K&L Gates and Proskauer Rose are among the latest victims of a sweeping cyber breach. “It proves that nobody is immune” said Zach Olsen president of communications firm Infinite Global.

• The new interim leader for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department started her role with news about a 5-year-old data breach the department says it learned about just last month. TPCHD’s Cindan Gizzi announced the news immediately after being appointed the department’s interim director during Wednesday’s Tacoma-Pierce County’s Board of Health meeting. TPCHD provided further details to The News Tribune after the meeting in response to questions.

• Law enforcement has detained a suspect believed to be a key member of the OPERA1ER cybercrime group, which has targeted mobile banking services and financial institutions in malware, phishing, and Business Email Compromise (BEC) campaigns.

• The gang, also known as NX$M$, DESKTOP Group, and Common Raven, is suspected of having stolen between $11 million and $30 million over the last four years in more than 30 attacks spanning 15 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

• [...]

• Researchers at Symantec also found links between OPERA1ER and a cybercriminals group they track as Bluebottle that used a signed Windows driver in attacks against at least three banks in French-speaking African countries.

Defence/Aggression

• Terrorism is a global problem affecting many countries. Until 2017, however, southern Africa was largely spared from this phenomenon. The bloody conflict sparked by Ansar al-Sunna in northern Mozambique has since changed the region’s security landscape.

• Observers say such sales abet junta war crimes and suppliers should be held accountable.

• When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with US President Joe Biden in the White House last month, many observers saw the makings of an evolving alliance against China.

• The US State Department released 24 pages of its 85-page After Action Review (AAR) report Friday on the controversial US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The remaining 61 pages of the report are still classified.

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday reiterated US support for an international force to help stabilize Haiti, agreeing with Prime Minister Ariel Henry on the “urgency” for such a UN-authorized operation, but again not offering to lead it.

• A Hong Kong lawyers’ group has said it is investigating allegations related to one of its members who is among the eight overseas activists wanted by national security police.

• On June 22-23, 2023, Sochi (that’s in Russia for my fellow Americans) hosted the fourth international conference “Global Biosecurity Challenges: Problems and Solutions”, one of several global initiatives organized around the UN’s Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).

• In 2020, Iranian missiles struck a Ukraine Airlines flight, killing all 176 people on board. Four countries have filed suit in The Hague demanding a credible account and full compensation.

• Speeches by top trade officials last month highlight the rift that has opened up between the US and Australia on trade policy, and the implications for national security.

War in Ukraine

• Multiple people were killed or wounded Thursday in the largest attack on Lviv’s civilian infrastructure since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, destroying entire floors of a residential building that was struck and leaving the streets below covered in rubble.

• Four were killed and nine others injured, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko reported Thursday, as emergency service workers searched in the debris for more people trapped.

• When NATO leaders descend on Vilnius for next week’s annual summit, they will demonstrate that the organisation, newly united behind support for Ukraine, is far from ‘brain dead’ [...]

• Russian state TV on Wednesday launched a fierce attack on Yevgeny Prigozhin, the exiled mercenary leader of an aborted armed mutiny last month, and said an investigation into what had happened was still being vigorously pursued.

• Russian investigators have opened a criminal probe into an attack on award-winning journalist Elena Milashina, who was badly beaten in Chechnya on July 4 along with lawyer, Aleksandr Nemov, while the two were on a business trip to the Caucasus region.

• The upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius should establish a High Level Group to design a roadmap for Ukraine’s fast-track membership.

• Food, fertiliser and fuel are among the reasons Africa needs the Russia-Ukraine war to end quickly. With Africa becoming an arena for geopolitical competition, the June mission of seven African countries to Ukraine and Russia was important, and represented a sea-change in continental diplomacy on non-African security crises.

• The head of the Wagner mercenary group is no longer in Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko told reporters on Thursday, adding that Yevgeny Prigozhin is currently in St Petersburg. Earlier, a Russian missile attack killed at least four people in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, with rescuers searching through the debris of an apartment building for survivors and casualties.

• President Gitanas Nausėda on Thursday awarded almost eighty Lithuanian and foreign citizens with orders and medals.

• Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used cluster munitions that have killed Ukrainian civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a report on July 6.

• The death toll from a Russian missile attack on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv climbed to four, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko reported on July 6. Another nine were injured.

• A man who detonated an explosive device on July 5 inside a district court in Kyiv was killed by the explosion and two members of a rapid-response security unit were injured, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

• Ukrainian and Russian officials differed on whether a military or civilian area had been struck. Earlier in the war, Russia lost dozens of soldiers, if not hundreds, in a strike on the city.

• The city’s mayor said an apartment building had been damaged and that the number of casualties was expected to increase.

• The Russian military said it downed several drones that attacked Moscow.

• Ukraine’s president said he had wanted to start the military push sooner, in an interview with CNN.

• The U.S. Air Force says Russian fighter jets flew dangerously close to several U.S. drone aircraft over Syria on Wednesday, setting off flares and forcing the MQ-9 Reapers to take evasive maneuvers. U.S. Air Forces Central released a video of the encounter, showing a Russian SU-35 fighter closing in on a Reaper, and later showed a number of the so-called parachute flares moving into the drone’s flight path. The flares are attached to parachutes. Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, says Russia’s violation of ongoing efforts to clear the airspace over Syria “increases the risk of escalation or miscalculation.”

• Russian forces’ June raid of since-exiled Wagner mercenary group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s home turned up an extensive collection of wigs and sledgehammers reportedly used to slaughter traitors, it was revealed Wednesday.

• Photos of the possessions were shared by Russian state media after Prigozhin this week retrieved his weapons cache, millions of dollars in cash and gold bars that were also confiscated during the June 24 search of his luxurious St. Petersburg estate.

• Jailed Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny tweeted on July 5 that lyrics from popular Russian hip-hop artist Morgenshtern have been entered as evidence in his current closed-door trial in which he faces an additional three decades in prison on charges of “extremism.”

• The two frigates – Gromkiy and Sovershenniy – made port at the financial hub of Shanghai on Wednesday.

• In late spring, an unlikely subculture found itself the latest target of attacks by Russian pro-war activists: amateur K-pop dancers. Aggressive war supporters disrupted filming sessions of videos by women’s K-pop dance cover groups on Moscow’s Nikolskaya Street three times in May alone, including one incident in which the attackers broke the dancers’ camera equipment and one in which a man physically assaulted a dancer. Nikolskaya is the city’s most popular site for K-pop dances, but fans of the genre have become fearful about performing there. Alya Kachalova, a journalist for the independent outlet Novaya Vkladka, looked into the attacks. Meduza is publishing an abridged translation of her report.

• Can a “new” Cold War between China and the U.S. turn nuclear? Will other authoritarian regimes follow Russia’s lead in openly waging wars to resolve territorial disputes? How have sanctions impacted Russian oligarchs? To answer these and other questions, Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar spoke with the American economist Nouriel Roubini, a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business, who served as a senior economist in the Council of Economic Advisers during U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration, and predicted the 2008 financial crisis. The interview was released on Zygar’s YouTube channel. Meduza is publishing an abridged summary of the conversation.

• The 46-year-old man a Moscow court jailed earlier this week on treason charges reportedly worked in Crimea as a private detective and was apparently involved in trafficking leaked personal data.

• Kommersant reports that the Russian Ministry of Transport is again considering the idea of an additional fee for passengers when booking tickets to create a “reserve fund to support passengers” in case airlines go bankrupt.

• The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case into the attack by masked assailants on Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina and lawyer Alexander Nemov in Chechnya on Tuesday.

• The German authorities will now regard traveling in a private car from Russia to Germany as grounds for arrest, reports Russian state broadcaster RBC, citing official customs statements.

• Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said on Telegram that the border town of Valuiki was hit by shelling in the early hours of July 5. “The air defense system went off, but there is destruction on the ground,” Gladkov wrote, adding that two private residences and five cars were badly damaged. Residents were reportedly unharmed.

• The Russian authorities have opened a misdemeanor case against Yandex General Director Artyom Savinovsky for allegedly distributing “LGBT propaganda” among minors, the independent outlet Mediazona reported on Wednesday, citing the Moscow City Court database.

• On the morning of July 4, journalist Elena Milashina and lawyer Alexander Nemov were attacked by masked men in Chechnya, where they had flown to attend the sentencing of Zarema Musaeva, the mother of human rights activist Abubakar Yangulbayev and the alleged co-founder of the Chechen opposition movement Adat, Ibrahim Yangulbayev. More than 24 hours later, the Russian Investigative Committee has still not announced any criminal proceedings in connection with the attack, despite numerous Russian officials demanding an investigation. Milashina and Nemov were transported from Chechnya to Beslan before being flown in a private jet to Moscow’s Botkinskaya Hospital. The flight was paid for by “private individuals.”

• Some Russian residents who left the country because of the war have returned home after a brief exile. Meduza asked readers who’ve done just that, whether they thought it was the right decision — and asked them to tell us how Russia has changed over the past year and a half. We received hundreds of letters in response, and are publishing some here. We believe these letters are an important record, and we hope they’ll be informative for those working to end the war, trying to change the ruling regime in Russia, and wondering how to deal with people whose minds may never be changed.

Environment

Energy/Transportation

• Fuel storage tanks aren’t “sexy” but it is high time the Federal government spent as much attention to them as, say, a nuclear submarine or an F-35. Australia is running low on gas. Rex Patrick explains.

• Remember the pandemic when (unnecessary) panic buying meant you couldn’t get toilet paper? Now imagine a situation far, far worse; no fuel, no medicine, no food. Even a minor conflict in Asia could cause the latter, but the Federal government appears too busy buying $368B submarines to do much about it.

Finance

• Here’s the real reason Social Security is in danger that nobody’s talking about.

• It’s not just because too many boomers like me are retiring. It’s because of inequality.

• Now, I don’t want to alarm you. Social Security is still helping us oldies enjoy our golden years — but only for so long.

• Social Security is one of the most popular and successful government programs ever created, not only helping retirees — but it’s also keeping 26 million people out of poverty.

• Although Latvia’s economy is quite resilient, the labor market is rather strong and unemployment rates are very low, overall the economy will be very fragile this year, the Latvian central bank (Bank of Latvia) President Mārtiņš Kazāks said in an interview on Latvian Television July 6.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• The journalist of the independent YouTube platform program “Hoja De Ruta” activated the debate on the alleged exchange of individuals from the Galapagos Islands

• Mark Zuckerberg, otherwise known as the Musk of Meta, evidently wants some of the ex-Twitter users that Elon has been shedding from Twitter to join the fun on Instagram.

• Last weekend was tough for users of Twitter. Not surprisingly, this has led to another mini-exodus from the platform, with Mastodon reporting that more than 300,000 new users signed up over the weekend. The steady stream of users away from Twitter has evidently caught Meta’s attention, because they’re releasing Threads, a new mobile app that makes Instagram more Twitter-like.

• In case you missed it, here is what has been happening, Twitter introduced limits to the number of tweets users can see daily.

• Meta is all set to launch its Twitter killer, Threads, available now for pre-download on the iOS App Store, with a release date of July 6 for iOS and Android.

• If you’re fed up with Twitter’s rigid rules and verification system, there are Twitter alternatives that can meet your social networking demands while also allowing more flexibility and enjoyment.

• Twitter rate limits how many tweets you can view daily to stop data scraping. Find out how this impacts you and what other platforms you can use.

• Learn why you should verify your TweetDeck account right now. Verification protects your account from spam and abuse while also making you appear trustworthy to other users.

• Twitter is going to stop offering its web-based TweetDeck service for free, delivering a huge blow to users who relied on the platform for social media comparative analysis and content monitoring.

• As Elon Musk’s antics on Twitter continue to wreak havoc, some users have chosen to find refuge on alternative social media networks.

• Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is set to deliver a blow to Elon Musk as the tech billionaires’ rivalry goes live with the launch of Instagram’s much-anticipated Threads platform, a clone of Twitter.

• Analysts said investors were salivating over the possibility Threads’ ties to Instagram might give it a built-in user base and advertising apparatus that could siphon ad dollars from Twitter as its new CEO tries to revive the microblogging company’s struggling business.

• With Twitter already on the ropes, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has delivered another blow to Elon Musk, ramping up the tech billionaires’ rivalry with the launch of Instagram’s much-anticipated companion service Threads, a challenger to Twitter.

• “Let’s do this. Welcome to Threads,” Zuckerberg wrote on Thursday in his first post on the app, along with a fire emoji.

• Instagram Threads — it’s like Twitter, except it’s not run by Elon Musk.

• Here’s what to know about Instagram’s new app for public conversations and how it differs from Twitter.

• This unlikely tag team has helped kill the demand and the means for journalists to brand themselves.

• Facebook behemoth Meta officially launched Threads, its text-based rival to Twitter, on Wednesday, with more than five million sign-ups in the first few hours – but its release in Europe has been delayed over data privacy concerns.

• Meta Platforms Inc. today launched Threads, a microblogging and messaging app linked to Instagram that’s set to take on the increasingly troubled Elon Musk-owned Twitter Inc. Threads is being pitched as “Instagram’s text-based conversation app.

• As a Twitter addict, I’ve been worried by Elon Musk.

Civil Rights/Policing

• A dissenting judge cited deepfake concerns in criticizing the First Amendment ruling.

• Today marks a historic moment in the lives of our nation’s pregnant workers: after more than a decade of advocacy on Capitol Hill, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), signed by President Biden in December 2022, goes into effect. PWFA mandates “reasonable accommodations” for pregnant workers unless providing them would impose an “undue hardship” on their employer. For millions of U.S. workers, the new law promises to assure they no longer will have to choose between their paycheck and a healthy pregnancy.

• Pregnancy is a normal condition of employment; more than 80 percent of all working women will have at least one child during their lives. But existing legal protections have been glaringly insufficient for workers whose duties may conflict with pregnancy’s physical realities — such as cashiers (prolonged standing), nurses (repetitive heavy lifting), custodians (exposure to chemicals), and firefighters (battling potentially lethal blazes). Under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), enacted in 1978, pregnant workers have been entitled to temporary job modifications only if their employer provides them to others “similar in their ability or inability to work.” That language long has been used to deny needed “accommodations” to pregnant workers, on the grounds that favored non-pregnant colleagues are insufficiently “similar.”

• At 13, Bianca stood a little over 5-foot-3 and had long brown hair. So did another girl at her private middle school in San Francisco. While they were both in class one day in 2013, a staff member entered the classroom, walked over to Bianca, took her school-issued iPad, and left. Later, the eighth grader was told to report to the principal’s office, and everyone watched her go. Apparently, the other girl had sent a naked photo of herself to a boy in the class, “and the person who received that, their mom saw, thought it was me, and reported it to the middle school head,” says Bianca (a pseudonym for privacy reasons), who is now a senior in college. Bianca was upset, but she was also brazen, sometimes jumping on her bike and riding home in the middle of the school day. She did just that, and no one called her departure a suspension. Her parents believed her, but it felt like they were the only ones, even though the picture wasn’t on her iPad. Bianca’s classmates started to look at her differently. The fallout had only just begun. Professor Joris Van Ouytsel contributed extensive information and health educator Christopher Pepper provided consultation for this article.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• In this blog post, we will introduce the concept of Confidential Computing (CC) to improve any computing environment’s security and privacy properties. Further, we will show how the Cloud-Native ecosystem, particularly Kubernetes, can benefit from the new compute paradigm.

• Confidential Computing is a concept that has been introduced previously in the cloud-native world. The Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC) is a project community in the Linux Foundation that already worked on Defining and Enabling Confidential Computing. In the Whitepaper, they provide a great motivation for the use of Confidential Computing:

• Confidential Computing aims to primarily solve the problem of protecting data in use by introducing a hardware-enforced Trusted Execution Environment (TEE).

• Spotify is cutting off existing App Store subscribers as the platform no longer accepts Apple’s billing service as a valid form of payment, even for legacy customers.

Monopolies

Patents

• On June 30, 2023, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 7,298,361, owned and asserted by IFPower Co., Ltd. The ’361 patent generally relates to a non-contact inductance circuit for a power source, e.g., for use in wireless charging devices. The patent is currently being asserted against products that are Qi-compatible and/or implement the Qi standard from Apple and Samsung.

• On July 3, 2023, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) granted Unified’s request, finding substantial new questions of patentability on the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 7,317,927 owned by WirelessWerx IP LLC, an NPE and Dynamic IP Deals LLC entity.

• The court’s decision here makes two important res judicata holdings that favor patent holders: (1) a final judgment as to claims of literal infringement do not preclude the patentee from later suing the same party for inducing infringement since “an induced infringement claim rests on evidence and elements beyond those required by direct infringement;” (2) res judicata cannot bar a patentee from filing a lawsuit against  a defendant’s actions occurred after the first lawsuit began. This is true even (as here) when the original lawsuit was largely declaratory in nature; the later actions involved the same set of operative facts; and the patentee arguably had notice of the upcoming actions during the first lawsuit.

• The EPO management has been under increasing criticism for its perceived lack of attention for the deteriorating quality of EPO patents. The subject was put on the agenda prominently last year in October by the Industry Patent Quality Charter (IPQC), a group representing a series of major and smaller international corporations…

Copyrights

• An Activision lawsuit alleging copyright infringement offenses against a group of alleged Call of Duty cheat makers has transformed from complex and controversial to somewhat chaotic. In February 2023, two of the EngineOwning defendants settled with the plaintiffs for a total of $3m and, shortly after, other defendants were partially successful in a motion to dismiss. Then, for reasons unknown, they stopped communicating with their own attorneys.

• Major Hollywood studios mostly tackle piracy by going after the major suppliers, including pirate streaming platforms. Adult entertainment company Strike 3 Holdings prefers a different approach; it tracks individual pirates and holds them responsible in court. With over 1600 lawsuits in the first half of this year, the company is on schedule to break its own record.

• An academic has analysed Google and Facebook’s payments to news publishers.

• This isn’t a huge surprise, as they’d already suggested they would do this, but Google has announced officially that it will block news links in Canada to avoid having to pay to send traffic to Canadian news sources.

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