● 07.21.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 21/07/2023: GStreamer 1.22.5 and ArcticFox 42.1 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 8:38 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Kernel Space

• We are pleased to announce that we will have a CXL MC this year at Plumbers, and hereby invite the community in our call for participation.

• Compute Express Link is a cache coherent fabric that in recent years has been gaining momentum in the industry. CXL 3.0 launched just before Plumbers 2022 (where very early discussions took place),  bringing new challenges such as dynamic capacity devices and large scale fabrics, two features that bring significant challenges to Linux. There also has been controversy and confusion in the Linux kernel   community about the state and future of CXL, regarding its usage and integration into, for example, the core memory management subsystem. Many concerns have been put to rest through proper clarification and setting of expectations.

• The Compute Express Link microconference focuses on how to evolve the Linux CXL kernel driver and userspace components for support of the CXL 2.0 spec (and beyond). The microconference provides a  pace to open the discussion, incorporate more perspectives, and grow the CXL community with a goal that the CXL Linux plumbing serves the needs of the CXL ecosystem while balancing the needs of the  Linux project. Specifically, this microconference welcomes submissions detailing industry and academia use cases in order to develop usage model scenarios. Finally, it will be a good opportunity to have  existing upstream CXL developers available in a forum to discuss current CXL support and to communicate areas that need additional involvement.

Applications

• In 2020, Apple began the Apple silicon transition, using self-designed, 64-bit ARM-based Apple M1 processors on new Mac computers. Maybe it’s the perfect time to move away from the proprietary world of Apple, and embrace the open source Linux scene.

• Grapher is proprietary software and not available for Linux. We recommend the best free and open source alternatives.

• You probably all know that you can easily access files on connected devices using the sidebar items in the Files application. Most of you also know that the Other Locations view provides access to internal storage and some other discovered services. But I have recently noticed that some people are completely unaware of the ability to connect to locations that are not propagated by our volume monitors or discovery backends. And even if people are aware of this option, they often don’t know which locations are supported. So I decided to write this blog spot to summarize what all URI schemes are handled by the GVfs project for use by the Files and other GNOME applications.

• LibreOffice is made by a worldwide community, comprised of volunteers, certified developers, ecosystem companies and many other people. Coordinating the project is The Document Foundation, a small non-profit entity registered in Berlin, which has a team of 16 people (thanks to generous donations).

Instructionals/Technical

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install FTP Server on Debian 12. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) servers play a crucial role in the seamless transfer of files between clients and servers. This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly,

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Opera Browser on Fedora 38. For those of you who didn’t know, Opera browser has gained immense popularity among users due to its rich features, impressive performance, and sleek design.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install VMware Workstation Pro on Debian 12. Virtualization has become an indispensable tool for developers, IT professionals, and enthusiasts, allowing them to run multiple operating systems on a single physical machine.

• Apache web server is one of the most popular and widely used open-source web servers thanks to its stability and reliability. The web server commands a huge market, especially in web hosting platforms.

• Be that as it may, you may get a “Forbidden – You don’t have permission to access / on this server” error on your browser after setting up your website. It’s quite a common error and a good chunk of users have experienced it while testing their site. So what is this error?

• Netstat – derived from the words network and statistics – is a command-line utility used by system administrators for analyzing network statistics.

• It displays a whole manner of statistics such as open ports and corresponding addresses on the host system, routing table, and masquerade connections.

• In an earlier article, we reviewed 9 best file comparison and difference (Diff) tools for Linux and in this article, we will describe how to find the difference between two directories in Linux.

• Normally, to compare two files in Linux, we use the diff – a simple and original Unix command-line tool that shows you the difference between two computer files; compares files line by line and it is easy to use, comes with pre-installed on most if not all Linux distributions.

• Sudo (Superuser Do) is a powerful tool that allows users to run commands as root. This can be useful for administrative tasks such as installing software, configuring system settings, or troubleshooting problems. However, it is important to use sudo carefully, as it can also be used to make unauthorized changes to the system. One way to control who has access to sudo is to grant or deny sudo access to groups. This can be useful for organizations that want to give a group of users specific administrative privileges, or for system administrators who want to restrict sudo access to a specific set of users. In this tutorial, we will show you how to allow or deny sudo access to a group in Linux.

• OpenLDAP is a software implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to install OpenLDAP Server on an AlmaLinux 9, so you can get started with ease.

• Fleet is an open-source osquery manager that can be used to maintain secure workstations and servers, and keep an accurate inventory of all your devices. In this tutorial, you will install Fleet Osquery Manager on an Ubuntu 22.04 server.

• There are several Linux tools we can use to identify all of the processes on our system, and that’s what we’ll be covering in this guide.

• How to Install Nessus on Kali Linux 2023 Hello friends, Welcome again!

• If you are using Linux Mint on your computer, you may already know that Linux Mint released the 21.2 version called “Victoria”.

• Visual studio code can be installed on OpenSUSE by using the terminal. The process of installation is very simple, basically you import the microsoft key first, add the vscode repository and then install vscode.

• In this tutorial, you will learn how to install visual studio code on OpenSUSE.

• Need help with stuck user sessions on Linux? Here’s how to terminate them and keep your system running smoothly and securely.

• The htpasswd command-line utility is used to create or update password files that store users and their corresponding hashed passwords. Primarily used for authentication files in the Apache HTTP server to protect users access to certain directories or applications on a web server.

• Linux, a versatile and powerful operating system, offers an ideal environment for programming and, of course, for many other things. However, for newcomers transitioning from Windows to Linux, the installation of C/C++ tools can pose significant challenges.

• Upgrade kernel on  SparkyLinux  2023.07  up to 6.4.4-sparky8 via Synaptic Manager . Then atcivate Debian 12 repo per https://linuxiac.com/virtualbox-7-0-10-released/

• Now proceed as follows : [...]

• In the Linux world, security and authentication are key components of a safe and effective working environment. This is where Kerberos, a network authentication protocol, comes into play, and more specifically, the kinit command. kinit is used to obtain and cache Kerberos ticket-granting tickets, making it an essential command for managing and utilizing Kerberos on a Linux system.

• Overview of Metagofil Kali Linux As per the official website, Metagoofil is an information-gathering tool designed for extracting metadata of public documents…

• Understanding the Linux File System Hierarchy is important for Linux users, particularly system administrators and developers.

• Understanding how to execute multiple commands at once in Linux can significantly improve your efficiency and productivity. This article will guide you through various ways you can run multiple Linux commands in a single line and even how to automate repetitive tasks.

• This blog will explain to you the NGINX timeouts, along with the procedure to install NGINX and disable its timeouts in Ubuntu.

• If you are a content creator, especially a video editor, then you have heard about DaVinci Resolve. It’s quickly become a go-to creative software among Linux creators. Since the software supports the Linux platform, you can download DaVinci Resolve in Linux and install it without having to jump through a bunch of hoops.

• Partition editing or making new file systems on Linux usually means one thing: installing the Gnome Parted partition editor (GParted). For most Linux users, this is the only way to go about it. Still, what if you could edit these partitions and file systems right in the terminal? You can! Here’s how!

• Ubuntu 23.04 and Debian 12 excluded rabbitvcs-nautilus package in their repositories, since RabbitVCS 0.18 does not support the GTK4 version of Nautilus file manager. Now, RabbitVCS 0.19 is released! Which, added back plugin support for the newer versions of Nautilus. The new release has been submitted into Debian new packages queue.

WINE or Emulation

• As expected, Proton 8.0-3 is here with support for more Windows games to play on your Linux box, including Propnight, Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy, Bloodrayne Terminal Cut 1/2, Breakout 13, Murasaki Tsurugi, PooShooter: Toilet Invaders, Purgo Box, Olympia Rising, and Summoners War: Chronicles.

• Also supported in this release are the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Minecraft Legends, Company of Heroes: Battle of Crete, STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN, Gunfire: Reborn, Super Bomberman R, and StreetStep: 21st Century Basketball video games.

Games

• Rock ‘n’ Roll, Babe! My goal of weaning myself off Windows is getting closer and closer. To wit, a lil’ tutorial showing how to set up and run Command & Conquer: Red Alert in Linux using the Steam Proton compatibility layer, covering graphics, audio, gameplay mechanics, in-game fonts, Steam Cloud save support, some other observations, and more. Battle control terminated.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• I just returned from blazing hot Thessaloniki, Greece where the KDE Community’s annual conference Akademy was held this year. Unlike last year I stayed in the same hotel as many fellow KDE people so the pre-Covid Akademy vibes finally returned in the form of evening hotel lobby hacking. Sadly, I caught a gastrointestinal infection on Monday which made me fly home early and miss the day trip to Mount Olympus I had been looking forward so much.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

• The meeting of GIMP developers is back!

• Release news for version GIMP 2.99.16

• Until GNOME Shell bakes in advanced window tiling features of its own it’s left to third-party extensions to step in and fill the gaps.

Distributions and Operating Systems

• Regarding Internet security and anonymity, the first name that comes to mind is Tails, a popular and widely used Linux distro among privacy-conscious users.

• However, in the same field, there is another name that, while less well-known, offers even greater anonymity and security in your Internet experience. Please, meet Whonix.

• We list the best five privacy-centric Linux Distributions of 2023 in this article to give you a heads-up before choosing one. Internet privacy has become a major concern with the Pandemic and work-from-home situations.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

Dominique Leuenberger ☛ openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the week 2023/29Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,This week is all in the spirit of some data center moves. OBS had been announced to have fewer worker powers and openQA is also in read-only mode, busy moving to a new home. This of course has some effect on the number of Tumbleweed snapshots: we won’t be publishing snapshots that cannot go through openQA. For this reason, we have only published 4 snapshots this week (0714, 0716, 0717, and 0718).The most relevant changes contained in these snapshots are:Mozilla Firefox 1150.2audit 3.1.1Linux kernel 6.4.3 (with full lockdown enabled)Libvirt 9.5.0Freetype2 2.13.1krb5 1.21.1Poppler 23.07.0

Fedora Family / IBM

• Release Candidate versions are available in testing repository for Fedora and Enterprise Linux (RHEL / CentOS / Alma / Rocky and other clones) to allow more people to test them. They are available as Software Collections, for a parallel installation, perfect solution for such tests, and also as base packages.

• This is a weekly report from the CPE (Community Platform Engineering) Team. If you have any questions or feedback, please respond to this report or contact us on #redhat-cpe channel on libera.chat.

• IBM reported earnings this week, which weren’t exactly stellar, but without Red Hat’s revenue, it could have been far worse.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• Ubuntu devs plan on making a notable typographic change in the upcoming release of Ubuntu 23.10 ‘Mantic Minotaur’. In an effort to improve the quality and (marginally) reduce the number of fonts a standard Ubuntu install comes with, the plan is to ship the Noto fonts package by default. This package includes sans-serif and serif fonts that cover a swathe of latin and non-latin scripts. In current versions of Ubuntu the DejaVu fonts package is pre-installed and pre-configured to handle non-latin scripts.

• According to a recent study, 96% of applications in the enterprise market use open-source software. As the open source landscape becomes more and more fragmented, the task to assess the impact of potential security vulnerabilities for an organisation can become overwhelming. Ubuntu is known as one of the most secure operating systems, but why? Ubuntu is a leader in security because, every day, the Ubuntu Security team is fixing and releasing updated software packages for known vulnerabilities. In fact, on average, the team is providing more than 3 updates each day, and the most vital updates are prepared, tested and released within 24 hours. To achieve that result, Canonical designed a robust process to review, prioritise and fix the most crucial software vulnerabilities first. Software vulnerabilities are tracked as part of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system, and almost all security updates published by the Ubuntu Security team (via Ubuntu Security Notices – USNs) are in response to a given public CVE.

• SEV-SNP is a new security feature that is available on AMD’s EPYC processors. It stands for Secure Encrypted Virtualization Secure Nested Pages. SEV-SNP provides a new level of protection for firmware by encrypting the memory pages that contain the firmware code.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers/Web Servers

Mozilla

• Work on implementing hardware-accelerated H.264 video decoding on Linux for the AArch64 (ARM64) hardware architecture, which is used by the popular Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer, was kicked off a couple of months by David Turner.

• At the moment, the Firefox web browser relies on software decoding for video playback on the Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer, despite the fact that Raspberry Pi 4 has capable hardware video decoding accelerators.

• The amount of content to translate for Mozilla projects is constantly growing, with overlapping and often demanding deadlines. We want to support our community of volunteers by making their life easier, in particular when it comes to using translations that have already been reviewed and approved before, but also by bootstrapping translation for brand-new content.

• As part of this effort, over 3 years ago we started working on the foundation layers to support pretranslation in Pontoon, and we’re almost ready to open this feature up to all supported locales.

• Before we dive in, what is pretranslation, and how does it work? If pretranslation is enabled for a combination of locale and project, when a new string is added in Pontoon:

• Working on most platforms! ArcticFox 42.1 is out. /blockquote>

Programming/Development

• Qt Creator 11 open-source, free, and cross-platform IDE is now available for download with an integrated terminal, GitHub Copilot support, Axivion Suite support, and more.

Leftovers

• Along with giving me more hope for the future than my Millennial generation managed, Zoomers have also been helpful for questioning some assumptions I didn’t even realise I was making.

• I was watching a Hakos Baelz stream recently, and she realised midway through her introduction that her framerate had been set at 24. She voiced genuine surprise, made a change to OBS, and began streaming at 60 FPS. Based on the feedback from chat, the relief was immediate and overwhelming for everyone involved.

Science

• So much of what is considered [cough] bulletproof evidence in criminal cases is nothing more than pseudoscience dressed in a lab coat. For years, prosecutors have presented science-y sounding “evidence” derived from lab techniques that had never undergone any sort of peer review or blind testing. The government — especially the DOJ — has also allowed its hand-selected “experts” to vastly overstate the veracity of their findings.

• Here’s an unusual concept: a computer-guided mechanical neural network (video, embedded below.) Why would one want a mechanical neural network? It’s essentially a tool to explore what it would take to make physical materials work in nonstandard ways. The main part is a lattice of interlinked mechanical components. When one applies a certain force in a certain direction on one end, it causes the lattice to deform in a non-intuitive way on the other end.

Hardware

• The Game Boy Camera, while perhaps not the most technologically advanced piece of equipment, left a huge mark on video game and electronics culture. The grayscale photographs are still highly prized, and there are an untold number of projects which interface with original hardware to download authentic Game Boy Camera pictures to modern computers. There are others that look to recreate the feel and style of these images, and the latest comes to us on a Game Boy-like platform as well, the Playdate.

• In most places around the world, electricity is getting ever more expensive. Cutting back on your usage is one of the easier ways to escape this pain. This smart powermeter from [JGAguagdo] may prove a useful tool to achieve that goal.

• With the recent passing of Don Lancaster, I took a minute to reflect on how far things have come in a pretty short period of time. If you somehow acquired a computer in the early 1970s, it was probably some discarded DEC, HP, or Data General machine. A few people built their own, but that was a stout project with no microprocessor chips readily available. When machines like the Mark-8 and, more famously, the Altair appeared, the number of people with a “home computer” swelled — relatively speaking — and it left a major problem: What kind of input/output device could you use?

• We’ve seen a few makers 3D scan themselves, and use those to print their own action figures or statuettes. Some have gone so far as building life-sized statues composed of many 3D printed parts. [Ivan Miranda] is no regular maker though, and his custom 3D printer is big enough that he can print himself a life-sized statue in one go.

• The Apple II was at the forefront of the home computer revolution when it came out in 1977. In its era, nobody really cared about hooking up the Apple II to a VGA monitor, but these days, it’s far easier than sourcing an original monitor. The V2 Analog is a useful tool that will let you do just that, plus some other neat tricks, besides.

• The late 1980s–early 1990s were a fascinating period of computer history. I feel like I say that about every time period, but you get the idea. I only wish sometimes I was either alive or old enough to understand what was evolving at that time.

• [...]

• By 1993, graphics cards were reaching even EISA’s improved bandwidth limits, so VESA went back to ISA and implemented the VESA local Bus, or VLB. As I mentioned on Mastodon, I only learned this week this wasn’t a tonuge-in-cheek initialism for Very Long Bus, on account of the sheer size of these cards.

• Love them or hate them, the crop of cheap hand-held amateur radio transceivers is here to stay. They’re generally horrible radios, often smearing spurious emissions across the spectrum, but they’re cheap enough to throw in a glove box for emergencies, and they invite experimentation — for instance, modifying the firmware to add functionality the OEM didn’t think to offer.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Australians live longer, are happier in their jobs and trust each other more than they did two decades ago.

• But more people are battling chronic disease, struggling to make ends meet and having bad experiences online.

• 7/20/1990: Justice William Brennan resigns.

• Join Reason on YouTube and Facebook Thursday at 1:30 p.m. Eastern for a discussion with Matt Ridley of new documents that reveal how and why scientists downplayed the possibility of a COVID lab leak scenario.

• Scorching temperatures have threatened the health of the elderly and pushed them inside, while governments are trying to take extraordinary steps to protect them.

• COVID relief funds helped almost 75% of U.S. hospitals post positive operating income during the height of the pandemic, according to a new analysis that questions if the federal aid was too generous or misdirected.

Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Some Amazon employees will be forced to relocate to fulfill a company policy requiring three days per week of in-office work, according to sources speaking with Bloomberg. Those affected will include workers hired for remote positions and those who moved during peak pandemic days.

• Remote Amazon workers will have to report to “main hub” offices, including company headquarters in Seattle, New York and San Francisco (and possibly other locations), as The Wall Street Journal reported. However, decisions on who has to relocate, and where, will be decided on a departmental basis. The company reportedly hasn’t yet established how many employees will have to uproot themselves.

• In a recent development over the past week, tech giant Microsoft reportedly laid off over a thousand employees, overshooting its previously announced figure of 10,000 layoffs for this year. Sources privy to the circumstances, who chose to remain anonymous due to the delicate nature of the situation, revealed this to news outlet Insider on Wednesday.

• Microsoft is set to be formally investigated by the EU over claims it is unfairly bundling its Teams videoconferencing app with its Office software…

• You can disable a self-driving car by putting a traffic cone on its hood:

Pseudo-Open Source

Openwashing

Linux Foundation

• Welcome to the July edition of the Linux Foundation Newsletter! We have exciting announcements this month, including the launch of the Ultra Ethernet Consortium and two new reports on maintainers and standards from LF Research. Plus, don’t miss the Embedded Open Source Summit highlights and exclusive training and certification discounts. As always, stay updated with the latest news from our Linux Foundation projects.

• [...]

• (Jason Perlow, Bing Image Creator)

Security

• New Delhi, July 21: Microsoft took the top spot in the second quarter (Q2) of 2023 as the most impersonated brand for phishing scams, a new report showed on Friday.

• Car thefts in dozens of cities across the U.S. have skyrocketed so far this year, according to a new report on crime.

• Why it matters: Motor vehicle thefts are up by roughly 34% from the same period last year, underscoring how crime patterns have evolved as the country has emerged from the pandemic.

• A Russian prosecutor requested an 18-year prison sentence for Ilya Sachkov, founder of cybersecurity firm Group-IB.

• Prosecutors have asked the Moscow City Court to convict and sentence Ilya Sachkov, the head of a leading Russian cybersecurity company, to 18 years in prison on a high treason charge.

• The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version 245. This version includes the following changes:

• * Don’t include file size in image metadata; it is, at best, distracting and it is already in the directory metadata. * Move to using assert_diff in ICO and JPEG tests. * Update copyright years.

• North Korean hackers are targeting employees at technology firms with repository invitations and malicious NPM packages.

• A North Korean state-backed hacker group attacked JumpCloud, a US software company, in an attempt to steal information about its cryptocurrency clients. JumpCloud first reported that a “nation-state actor” carried out a security breach in late June, and yesterday (July 20) the company confirmed North Korean actors…

• Tampa General Hospital has started informing patients that their personal information was stolen in a ransomware attack.

• CISA says the new Citrix zero day vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-3519 has been exploited against a critical infrastructure organization.

• VirusTotal has provided clarifications on the recent data leak that resulted in the exposure of information on 5,600 of the threat analysis service’s customers.

• Weekly cybersecurity news roundup that provides a summary of noteworthy stories that might have slipped under the radar for the week of July 17, 2023.

• Three vulnerabilities in Apache OpenMeetings could be exploited by attackers to take over an administrator account and execute arbitrary code remotely.

• While the P2PInfect P2P worm targets the Redis instances using CVE-2022-0543 vulnerability.

• This week we dig in on two topics that will make the internet of things friendlier for consumers. The first is the newly announced cybersecurity label plan from the White House that will create a way for consumers to see if their planned IoT purchase meets adequate cybersecurity standards.

• The Atlantic Council released a detailed commentary on the White House’s new “Implementation Plan for the 2023 US National Cybersecurity Strategy.” Lots of interesting bits.

Privacy/Surveillance

• Open Rights Group has responded to last night’s debate on the Online Safety Bill in the House of Lords.

• More than 200,000 OpenAI LP credentials have been discovered for sale on the dark web, according to new research. Bleeping Computer reported Wednesday that the figure came from researchers at security company Flare Systems Inc., which analyzed dark web forums and marketplaces, shady sites reachable with special software.

• Personal tracking devices like AirTag and Tile were designed to help avoid mishaps such as lost keys, but they’re raising alarms about privacy and security.

• Why it matters: Mounting accounts of the devices’ misuse have prompted Apple and Google to try helping users identify and thwart tracking without consent — as states pass legislation outlawing this intrusion.

• Apple Inc. warned today that if British surveillance laws change with the upcoming Online Safety Bill, it might have no choice but to pull iMessage and FaceTime from the country. Under the new bill, there will be significant changes to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.

• Watching last night’s debate in the House of Lords was a disappointing experience as peers failed to protect the privacy of the 40 million British people who use private chat service.

• EU Parliament’s LIBE committee voted on its position on the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) and failed to call for a total ban on the use of spyware against journalists.

• The actions are the first major initiative on spyware since Biden issued an executive order restricting on government use of surveillance software.

• Guest Post: Essential steps in developing your breach plan.

• LetMeSpy, a provider of spyware for mobile devices, has been hacked, resulting in the theft of data from users and the victims they spied on. The service, as the name suggests, is “stalkerware,” a form of software that can be used to spy on a mobile device.

Defence/Aggression

• Beginning at midnight on July 21, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry will consider all ships traveling to Black Sea ports in Russia or Russian-occupied territories to be carrying military cargo “with all the corresponding risks.”

• France’s National Court of Asylum has ruled that Russian nationals who left the country due to the threat of mobilization and mobilized men who refused to take part in the war with Ukraine and deserted have the right to refugee status in France.

War in Ukraine

• Deliberate provocations of a nuclear rival, coups d’état, colour revolutions, broken promises, broken treaties, escalation of tensions, demonization, invective, double-standards — all this while asserting adherence to international legal norms and playing innocent about our aggressions, our violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions…

• Cosmetics company Avon is looking into reports that leaflets from the paramilitary group Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), which fights for Ukraine, are being distributed in boxes containing the brand’s products, the company told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

• Riga East Clinical University Hospital (RAKUS) has received victims of the Russian war in Ukraine for the fifth time. Through a charity project organized by M-Help.com, another 20 victims, four of whom have suffered very serious injuries, will start treatment in Latvia.

• Over the last seventeen months, it’s become customary for those who disagree with US foreign policy on the Ukraine war to preface every objection to that policy with at least one, possibly two, disclaimers.

• Vladimir Putin’s pariah status has been confirmed after he was forced to cancel plans to attend a summit of BRICS leaders in South Africa over fears that he may be arrested for war crimes, writes Peter Dickinson.

• The Ukrainian tech industry has been the standout performer of the country’s hard-hit economy following Russia’s full-scale invasion and continues to play vital economic and defense sector roles, writes David Kirichenko.

• As Ukraine’s counteroffensive makes slow progress in the south and southeast, it’s the Russians who’ve gone on the attack in the northeastern Kharkiv region. In recent days Russian forces have advanced by a kilometre or more towards the Ukrainian-held town of Kupyansk. FRANCE 24 correspondent Gulliver Cragg reports.

• When six-year-old Anna-Maria was reunited with her parents after more than a year spent living in Russian-occupied Ukraine, she referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as “Uncle Vova” and believed him to be “president of the world” – the result, say her parents, of a brainwashing programme by Russia targeting Ukraine’s children.

• Lithuania rejects Russia’s request to ease the existing EU sanctions in exchange for an agreement on the safe export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea.

• Ukrainian Culture and Information Policy Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko announced his resignation on Facebook on July 21.

• Ukraine’s government has purchased Sense Bank, which is linked  to sanctioned Russian oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven, for 1 hryvnia (2 U.S. cents) after the central bank (NBU) ruled to remove the institution from the Ukrainian financial sector.

• This bank’s majority shareholder is the billionaire Mikhail Fridman, who has been the target of Western sanctions for keeping ties with Russia.

• The Zelensky regime announced all ships in Black Sea waters bound for Russian ports will be considered suspected of transporting military materiel.

• Taiwan aims to build more than 3,200 military drones by mid-2024 with the help of private companies.

• EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels on Thursday to discuss Russia’s continued aggression as well as the union’s security commitments to Ukraine.

• Some areas in the northwestern and southeastern parts of the Black Sea have been temporarily declared dangerous for navigation.

• The United Kingdom has removed sanctions on Russian billionaire Oleg Tinkov, who has called Moscow’s war against Ukraine “crazy,” and renounced his Russian citizenship in November last year.

• Russia has still not provided UN nuclear experts at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in Ukraine access to the rooftops of the occupied facilitie’s reactors, the agency said on July 20.

• On the world stage, Iran needs friends. So Tehran seized the chance to flip the script with its powerful patron Russia, becoming a supplier of drones for Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Has it been worth the diplomatic cost?

• At a Monitor coffee, Ilya Ponomarev expressed gratitude for U.S. weapons and aid to Ukraine – but said “regime change” is a cause for Russians alone.

• A White House official said Moscow might stage an attack on a commercial ship and blame Ukraine.

• Mariupol State University, an oasis amid the war, has graduated its newest class, more than a year after fleeing its devastated home city.

• The arrest was a sign that Russia was clamping down further on dissent, even among prominent nationalists, after last month’s brief mutiny by Wagner mercenaries.

• Moscow terminated a deal this week that allowing Ukraine to export its food crops, an agreement that had helped to stabilize grain prices and to ease a global food shortage.

• Moscow withdrew from a deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain across the Black Sea despite a wartime blockade, and warned that ships sailing around Ukrainian ports would be seen as military targets.

• Russian police have detained the former leader of Moscow-backed separatists in Ukraine, Igor Strelkov (aka Girkin), on extremism charges, his wife said on Telegram on July 21.

• Up to 20,000 Russian convicts recruited by the Wagner mercenary group were killed in fighting in Bakhmut over the past few months, British intelligence said in its daily report on July 21.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dismissed his country’s ambassador to Britain without giving reasons for the move.

• A Moscow court has opened an “incitement to terrorism” case against former soldier Timofei Rudenko, who spoke out against the war in Ukraine, his mother said on July 21.

• A fourth day of Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian Black Sea port installations on July 21 set grain storage facilities in the Odesa region on fire and destroyed a huge amount of food stored for export, causing damage and injuries, regional officials and the military said, as fighting continued along the whole eastern front.

• China’s Foreign Ministry says it is closely following developments after its consulate in Odesa was damaged in a Russian missile strike.

• As the EU mulls a new package of sanctions for Belarus, Lithuania hopes the latest restrictions will be similar to those imposed on Russia.

• The United States has imposed new Russia-related sanctions targeting 18 individuals and dozens of entities in a move aimed at inhibiting Russia’s access to products that support its war efforts.

• President Putin said that his country will respond to any aggression against Belarus with “all the means” available.

• The decree “On the use of special economic measures in foreign trade” is extended for two years.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused NATO member Poland of having territorial ambitions in the former Soviet Union, and said any aggression against Moscow’s neighbor and close ally Belarus would be considered an attack on Russia

• CIA head William Burns says he expects Russian President Vladimir Putin to bide his time and wait before seeking retribution against Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, following his aborted mutiny against Russia’s military leadership last month.

• Imprisoned Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has been placed in a punitive solitary confinement cell for the 17th time since  last August, his lawyer Vadim Kobzev said on July 21.

• Ahead of the second Russia-Africa summit, which is taking place in Saint Petersburg from July 27 to 28, FRANCE 24 takes a closer look at Russian influence in Africa. In a special edition of Reporters, we investigated pan-African influencers, who are suspected of relaying Kremlin ideology. Who are they, what are their networks and how strong is their political influence? Watch an excerpt of “Africa under Russian influence”, on the eve of its online publication on Friday July 21 and TV premiere on Saturday July 22.

• Russian influence in Africa has deep historical roots, from supporting an attempted coup in Ghana to spreading fake political news in Algeria and training African fighters in Crimea. FRANCE 24 looks back on four little-known Soviet operations aimed at furthering Russian interests in Africa during the Cold War

• Wagner mercenaries, who arrived in Belarus following the group’s short-lived rebellion in Russia, have reportedly begun training Belarusian troops at a military range just three miles from the Polish border, a cause of fear and anxiety for residents in the Polish border town of Kolpin-Ogrodniki, who are close enough to hear the aircraft and gunfire.

• The decision was announced after a meeting between President Sauli Niinisto and the Ministerial Committee on Foreign and Security Policy.

• “…the batch will cover the needs of all patients in the country who require insulin treatment for a period of up to three months…”

• My full immersion in Putin’s propaganda

• Dadaab, one of the largest refugee camps, demonstrates how the global food crisis exacerbates malnutrition in refugees fleeing famine-hit regions. Decreased foreign aid and Russia’s end to the grain deal led Somali refugees to find more scarcity in Kenya.

• William J. Burns gave the most detailed public account yet by a U.S. official of the damage done to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia by last month’s uprising by the mercenary group.

• In France, pan-African influencers are gaining more and more followers on social media. Advocating a radical anti-Western ideology, some of them claim responsibility for the recent coups in Mali and Burkina Faso. Their narrative is similar to that of the Kremlin, which is trying to place its pawns on the African continent. FRANCE 24 profiles two French influencers who seem to have taken sides with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• The weapons are being used in the southeast, the officials say.

• A number of Latvian ambassadors will soon change, including the long-term ambassador to Russia Māris Riekstiņš, who will be Latvia’s envoy to NATO, LSM reported Friday.

• Despite their Russia-based forces being relocated to Belarus after their failed mutiny, Wagner Group is still alive and active in Africa, including ahead of a referendum in the Central African Republic.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• Because cops are the frailest of creatures and are actively harmed by people, you know, looking at them, legislators have made sure they’re ultra-protected by enacting super shitty laws that elevate cops above the people they serve.

Environment

• All of recorded history has occurred within the latter half of the Holocene epoch. The first written records appear around 5,000 years ago, and the first cities just over 4,000 years before that. They are all contained in a sliver smaller than 4 percent of Homo sapiens’ full history. This is because the Holocene, beginning about 11,700 years ago, brought more hospitable weather patterns, allowing humans to store large-scale agricultural surpluses, which in turn enabled the construction of the world we know today. Those conditions have come to an end. In the 1950s, human population, greenhouse gas emissions, chemical production, and infrastructure development began shooting upward, with biodiversity, cultural diversity, and wild habitat mirroring them downward. Nuclear fallout from bomb testing and ash from fossil fuel combustion spread around the world, leaving a thin layer of human-caused sediment in the geological record. As a result of all this, geologists recently took one step closer to designating a new epoch, the Anthropocene.

• The Forever Dangers of Small Modular Reactors.

• The “dangerous, long-lived, and record-breaking” heat wave is set to continue in the U.S. Southwest “well into next week” and spread to more southern states by the weekend, the National Weather Service warns.

• The big picture: Over 123 million people were under heat alerts in the U.S. Friday morning, as health officials report a spike in callouts and Emergency Department visits due to the extreme weather.

• Scientists aren’t sure of the exact rate at which the Batagaika crater is expanding.

Energy/Transportation

• An energy trade association that represents and promotes gas boilers and manufacturers is behind a barrage of negative press attacking heat pumps, DeSmog has learned.

• Over the past two years, the Energy and Utilities Association (EUA) has paid a public affairs firm to generate hundreds of articles and interviews to lobby the UK government on energy policy.

• Campaigners have called on the EU to urgently reform its rules around lobbying transparency after DeSmog revealed that a US oil-linked advocacy group has been lobbying against major green reforms in Europe, without declaring its activities.

• A complaint was sent on Wednesday by transparency watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory to the president of the European Parliament, accusing the EU of failing to tackle secretive lobbying by Consumer Choice Center and similar outfits.

• California, Oregon, and Washington have all passed laws and enacted policies that require utilities to dramatically cut carbon pollution over the next decade.

• But TC Energy, the Canadian owner of a major regional gas pipeline, has asked federal regulators to approve a plan that would dramatically expand the line’s capacity, flooding the region for decades with new supplies of methane gas – even as demand dwindles.

• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, and Moscow’s subsequent throttling of natural gas supplies to Europe, threw global energy markets into disarray.

• The British government will cut the proportion of funds going to the royal family from the Crown Estate after King Charles said he wanted bumper wind farm profits to go to the “wider public good”.

• Each year, the royals receive a “Sovereign Grant” to cover the costs of running their households and for official travel expenses, which is based on surplus revenue of the Crown Estate, a property portfolio belonging to the monarchy but which is independently run with its profits going to the Treasury.

• If you didn’t know better, you’d think Lloyd Marbet was a dairy farmer or maybe a retired shop teacher. His beard is thick, soft, and gray, his hair pulled back in a small ponytail. In his mid-70s, he still towers over nearly everyone. His handshake is firm, but there’s nothing menacing about him. He lumbers around like a wise, old hobbling tortoise.

• An advertisement by Australia’s gas lobby has been taken off the airwaves after it was found to mislead viewers with environmental claims.

• The television campaign, aired in June and run by the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), claimed natural gas is “50 per cent cleaner” and “together with renewables it gets emissions down”.

• The mining sector, international trade and tough border controls helped Western Australia’s economy thrive during the COVID pandemic, a new report says.

• WA’s economic resilience was the envy of other states, with goods exports in 2021-22 accounting for 59 per cent of the gross state product.

• The Australian mining company Energy Transition Minerals has filed a lawsuit before an arbitration court in Copenhagen after Greenland, which is part of Denmark, halted its project to extract rare minerals on the Arctic island.

• ETM wants to examine whether the governments in Denmark and self-governing Greenland have violated the law by stopping the project, according to a company statement issued on Thursday from its headquarters in Western Australia.

Wildlife/Nature

• Ellie, the country’s oldest captive Australian sea lion, and her dolphin neighbours may be forced from their home on the NSW coast amid financial difficulties.

• The Dolphin Marine Conservation Park in Coffs Harbour – midway between Sydney and Brisbane – entered voluntary administration this week citing a lack of funding.

Finance

• When will the layoffs end? The question is top of mind for anyone who works in the tech sector, whether they’ve watched friends and co-workers lose their jobs or been handed a pink slip of their own.

• Ukraine’s central bank says it will nationalise Russian-owned Sense Bank, one of the country’s top commercial banks, and put it under temporary administration.

• The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said in a statement on Thursday it decided to “withdraw from the market the systemically important” bank and submitted a proposal to the government on the state’s participation in the process.

• Aggressive interest rate hikes are doing little to solve supply-side drivers of inflation, a prominent economic advisory group warns.

• Deloitte Access Economics forecasts suggest the central bank has already lifted rates too far in the fight against sources of inflation over which it has minimal influence, only serving to dampen Australia’s economic growth outlook.

• “Restarting the fundamentally broken student loan system without first delivering on the relief promised to borrowers remains a grave mistake, and will only exacerbate already dire economic situations for millions.”

• Asian shares fell on Friday after Tesla and Netflix weighed on US tech shares after their earnings reports, while the dollar and Treasury yields held their gains ahead of an action-packed week that could see the end of the US tightening cycle.

• As well as the US Federal Reserve meeting next week, the Bank of Japan will meet amid speculation of imminent policy tweaks. Early on Friday, Japan’s inflation stayed above the central bank’s target of 2.0 per cent for the 15th consecutive month in June, but gains matched a median market forecast.

• Gold Coast’s bid to host the Commonwealth Games appears dead in the water as pressure mounts on Victoria to deliver billions of dollars to spurned regional towns.

• The Queensland city’s mayor Tom Tate has launched a late bid for the 2026 Games after Victoria pulled out of hosting the global sports event.

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on July 12 approved a much-awaited $3 billion bailout for Pakistan, the global lender said, a move that’s likely to save the impoverished Islamic state from defaulting on its debt repayments.

• An Ohio federal court sentenced former Ohio Republican Speaker of the House Larry Householder on Thursday to 20 years in prison for leading a complex racketeering and bribery scheme. Householder allegedly accepted over $60 million in bribes through the scheme by working to pass a nuclear plant bailout.

• After losing more than $100 million in a single year, Yellow Corporation got a $700 million pandemic assistance loan from the government. It has only paid $230 on the principal.

• The BBC has admitted 4 July Nigel Farage headline was wrong.

• As we just noted, satellite TV provider Dish Network’s planned pivot into streaming video and wireless isn’t going great. The company continues to bleed traditional satellite TV subscribers, new streaming subscribers, and wireless customers.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Sen. Chuck Grassley released a document detailing unverified claims about Hunter Biden’s dealings with Ukrainian firm Burisma. The move escalates the probe into President Biden and his son, despite these unverified allegations being previously discredited.

• Mr Blinken will discuss regional security and cooperation, and attend the Fifa Women’s World Cup.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Alexey Navalny tweeted that the state prosecutor is seeking for him to be sentenced to 20 years in prison in the “extremism” case against him. According to Navalny, the prosecutor is demanding that he serve his sentence in a special regime colony.

• Russian prosecutors on Thursday requested a jail term of 20 years for the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who denounced Russia’s “senseless war” in his last statement to the court. Read our blog to see how the day’s events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).

• One thing that should be evident by now is that every online community eventually learns the need for some level of “trust & safety” or basic moderation to take place. And they quickly find that things are a lot more complex than they seem from the outside. Just try to moderate a medium sized Facebook Group if you want an example. Or play our Moderator Mayhem game.

• Banks in the United Kingdom will be forced to explain and delay any decision to close an account under new rules announced by the finance ministry.

• The government has been looking into concerns that banks are blacklisting certain customers over their political views, after individuals including populist politician Nigel Farage said their access to finance was being cut.

• We speak with first-grade teacher Melissa Tempel, who was fired last week for a viral tweet in which she criticized the Waukesha, Wisconsin, board of education’s decision to ban her students from singing “Rainbowland” during a school concert earlier this year. The hit song about inclusivity by Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton includes the lyrics “We are rainbows, me and you / Every color, every hue / Let’s shine on through.” The school district said Tempel’s firing was not about the song but about the way she protested the decision. Tempel says the Waukesha school district’s so-called controversial content policy, which bans discussions about race, LGBTQ identity and other speech considered political, is “disturbing” and “dangerous.”

• The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), an organization that tracks online censorship, found Wednesday that access to social networks and messaging services had been restored to Ethiopia after five months of restriction.

• A prominent Russian hardliner who accused President Vladimir Putin of weakness and indecision in Ukraine was detained Friday on charges of extremism, a signal the Kremlin has toughened its approach with hawkish critics after last month’s abortive rebellion by the Wagner mercenary company.

• Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Khylyuk, who went missing last year after he was detained by occupying Russian troops, is in a penal colony in Russia’s Vladimir region, Reporters without Borders (RSF) said in a statement.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• As world leaders from the United States to France welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we look at press freedom in India under the leader of the Hindu nationalist party BJP. One of India’s last bastions of free media, NDTV, has been taken over by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, believed to have close ties to Modi. NDTV’s former executive editor and longtime anchor Ravish Kumar, one of India’s most prominent TV journalists who has reported critically on Modi’s Hindu nationalist policies, is the subject of Vinay Shukla’s film While We Watched, which is being released this week in theaters in the United States. We speak to Kumar and Shukla about the “anti-opposition, anti-minorities, anti-Muslim” state of media in India, where dissent is suppressed and pro-Modi nationalism is the de facto rule. “No sober society can afford to have a kind of rogue media, which is so weaponized,” says Kumar.

• Hong Kong journalist-turned activist Gwyneth Ho, one of the 47 pro-democracy figures accused of conspiring to commit subversion, has told a panel of handpicked national security judges that she had “no resentment” towards the government, as she stood by her claim that the rule of law no longer existed in the city.

• >There was a “change of wind” among candidates in the primary election at the centre of Hong Kong’s landmark national security case after top Beijing bodies condemned former lawmaker Dennis Kwok, ex-journalist Gwyneth Ho has said. Ho continued her testimony on Thursday.

• The university said M. Katherine Banks would retire “immediately” after political pushback over the appointment of Kathleen McElroy to lead its journalism program.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Atlanta—She’s a lawyer, but outside of a courtroom, Alex Joseph is not particularly confrontational.

• A court in Kazakhstan has sentenced Anet Baitursynov, a National Security Committee (KNB) officer, to 10 years in prison for beating to death 42-year-old Almas Mukashev during protests in January last year,

• Hong Kong Police National Security Department questioned on Thursday several relatives of two wanted activists, Dennis Kwok and Mung Siu-tat. They are among the activists wanted by Hong Kong authorities since July 3, when the Hong Kong Police Force announced a bounty for eight pro-democracy activists.

• In 2018, Jennifer and Sarah Hart drove themselves and their six adopted children off a cliff. The media blitz that followed focused on the question “How could these mothers do such a thing?” The Harts seemed unlikely murderers: They were white, gay, vegetarians, the caretakers of six Black kids; Jennifer made picture-perfect Facebook posts, parading her brood as an exemplar of love and tolerance; their adoption of two sibling groups, portrayed as horribly abused, gave the moms a moral air. In the aftermath, Glamour magazine released a podcast called Broken Harts, which examined the motivations and intentions of the perpetrators. In Facebook groups for discussion of the case, many users urged empathy for the relatable, “overwhelmed” killers.

• Don’t be surprised that Margot Robbie backs the SAG-AFTRA strike—she has deep roots in Australia’s labor movement.

• While our federal government backtracks, state and local lawmakers are increasingly taking action to repair racial divides through policies designed to address racial inequality.

• Protests ignited by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder of an unarmed black man (George Floyd) spread across the nation following that horrific event. And these protests against police violence went on for months, prompting a federal response from an irked president, who declared Portland, Oregon one of many “anarchy jurisdictions.”

• Security guards and others say the extreme temperatures in Athens and at other historical sites are dangerous for them and for tourists. The employees are stopping work at noon at least for now.

• As the writers and actors strikes continue, TV networks are cobbling together schedules for the fall season and putting their hopes on unscripted content.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• We’ve been cultivating a better internet for all users for over 30 years. Together, we till hard ground, plant the ideas, nurture the discussions, and nourish the movement we know today.

• But the seeds of digital freedom cannot be sown alone. Will you join us and help shape tech’s future for the users?

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• We noted how as Netflix growth has stalled internationally, the company has turned to nickel-and-diming its existing customers in order to give Wall Street its beloved quarterly returns at any cost. That has included not only last year’s price hikes, but this week’s decision to eliminate the company’s cheapest ad-free tier in both the US and UK.

• Yesterday, a disheartened Redditor shared their unfortunate experience with Apple’s repair services. Despite having AppleCare+ coverage on their iPhone 12, Apple denied their repair claim, accusing the user of “unauthorized modifications” to their device.

Monopolies

• The U.S. government is struggling to crack down on corporate concentration.

Patents

• On July 18, 2023, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 6,993,658, owned and asserted by Dynapass IP Holdings LLC.

• An increasing number of users are discovering the benefits of our MyEPO services and choosing to use our digital patent granting process

Copyrights

• There have been some ongoing debates (going back many years) in the copyright space regarding whether or not embedding infringing content into a website could be infringing in and of itself. If you understand what’s happening technically, this seems ludicrous. An embed is basically the same thing as a link. And merely linking to infringing content is unlikely to be infringing itself. All embedding is really doing is taking a link, and showing the content from that link. If embedding were found to be infringing, then there’s an argument that linking is infringing, and (as we’re seeing with various link tax proposals) that would break a fundamental part of how the internet works.

• The Timberland Boot trade dress case is pending before the Fourth Circuit, raising some interesting questions about the role of product trade dress vs design patents vs copyright vs utility patents.

• Timberland boots were first sold in the 1970s with a unique design that quickly resonated with consumers. The company has now sold more than $1.3 billion of the boots in the US, with more than $100 million in sales most years.  The boot design is well recognized as an icon.  The image above is not an actual boot sold by the company, but one created by an AI with the prompt “timberland boot.”

• In 2015 Timberland began the process of registering the boot design as a trademark.  The proposed registration filings focused on iconic elements of the boot, including the silhouette features shown above. But, the USPTO refused to register the mark.  The examiner found that the design lacks secondary meaning and is also too functional.  The TTAB affirmed, but only focused on the lack of secondary meaning. At that point Timberland filed a civil action under 15 U.S.C.

• A US Appeals Court has found Instagram not liable for copyright infringement for embedded photographs. Two photographers filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the social media giant after their photos appeared on BuzzFeed News and Time through Instagram’s embedding feature.

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