● 08.24.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 24/08/2023: KDE Gear 23.08 and Ctrl IQ (CIQ) Lawsuit

Posted in News Roundup at 8:50 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

• FreeBSD Status Report Q2 2023, Klara Systems Recommended Summer Reads 2023, install Kanboard on OpenBSD howto, A bit of Unix history on ‘su -’, hints for splitting commits, Live from OpenBSD in Amsterdam, and more

• Hello and welcome to the 513th installment of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts review the radio-centric Linux distribution known as DragonOS.

Applications

• QEMU 8.1 open-source virtualization software is now available for download with a new PipeWire audio backend, multi-touch events for the GTK GUI, and many other changes.

• Flying Carpet is a highly efficient and intuitive application that has been specifically designed to cater to the needs of individuals and businesses alike.

• Even if most people ask me to compare systemd-journald vs. syslog-ng, I would say that they complement each other. Systemd-journald excels at collecting local log messages, including those of various system services. The focus of syslog-ng is on central log collection and forwarding the logs to a wide variety of destinations after processing and filtering. Combining the two gives you the most flexibility.

• The focus of systemd-journald (from now on: journald) is local log collection. It can collect not just logs sent by applications, but it also collects service logs: messages emitted by various services started by systemd. Previously there was no standardized and easy way of collecting these messages.

• Another major difference is that instead of text files, logs are collected into a message journal, a database file for log files. It stores not just a date and a message, but many name-value pairs to provide extra context for the log message. These databases can be queried using the journalctl command.

• Recently central log collection became available for journald. Central log collection is not a built-in feature of journald, you have to install some extra utilities for journal forwarding. The collected logs can be searched and viewed using journalctl.

• Even if most people ask me to compare systemd-journald vs. syslog-ng, I would say that they complement each other. Systemd-journald excels at collecting local log messages, including those of various system services. The focus of syslog-ng is on central log collection and forwarding the logs to a wide variety of destinations after processing and filtering. Combining the two gives you the most flexibility.

• Our recommended free and open source JavaScript web frameworks.

• GOverlay is a GUI tool used to manage MangoHud, vkBasalt and ReplaySorcery on Linux.

• Reputable gambling operators expand their influence on users of this open-source OS and provide numerous benefits.

• MM-Wiki is a lightweight software for enterprise knowledge sharing and team collaboration. It allows for quick building of a Wiki and team knowledge sharing platform. With easy deployment and user-friendly features, it helps teams create a collaborative environment for document management and information sharing.

• Outerbridge is a unique workflow automation application that offers low code/no code solutions. It is a platform that aims to integrate both on-chain and off-chain applications, making it an innovative solution in the market.

• Foswiki is a powerful Enterprise wiki solution that offers a wide range of features which are designed to help you create, organize, and share your company’s knowledge.

• SpiderFoot automates OSINT for threat intelligence and mapping your attack surface.

• Google Photos lets you store your images in the cloud for convenient access from anywhere. What are the best open source alternatives?

Instructionals/Technical

idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MongoDB Compass on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. In the dynamic landscape of database management, MongoDB emerges as a trailblazer in the realm of NoSQL solutions.

• In the world of Linux system administration, monitoring resource usage is a fundamental practice to ensure optimal performance and prevent potential issues. Among the critical resources, RAM (Random Access Memory) plays a crucial role in the overall responsiveness and efficiency of your Ubuntu system.

• In the realm of Ubuntu Linux, mastering package management is essential for maintaining a stable and efficient system. Often, you may encounter situations where installing a specific version of a package becomes necessary to ensure compatibility with other software or maintain a desired feature set.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Nano Text Editor on AlmaLinux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, In the world of Linux, a powerful text editor is an essential tool for developers, sysadmins, and enthusiasts.

• This guide explains VPN installation and configuration processes on Linux systems. We demonstrate these processes for OpenVPN, ProtonVPN, and NordVPN.

• This guide offers explanations and examples for important Linux commands. You will learn each command’s capabilities and practical use cases.

• Virtualization has become a cornerstone technology in modern computing environments, enabling the efficient utilization of hardware resources and the isolation of multiple virtual machines (VMs) on a single physical host.

• Virtualization has revolutionized the way we utilize computing resources, enabling us to run multiple operating systems on a single physical machine. Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and Quick Emulator (QEMU) are two powerful open-source tools that provide the foundation for virtualization on Linux systems.

• Running out of disk space is a frustratingly common occurrence for Linux users. As your media libraries swell with high resolution photos, videos, and music, and your work documents pile up, available capacity can vanish before you know it.

• Virtualization has become an integral part of modern computing, enabling the creation and management of multiple virtual environments on a single physical machine.

• In the world of computing, virtualization has become a cornerstone technology that enables running multiple operating systems and software instances on a single physical machine. This guide walks you through the process of enabling virtualization support in your system’s BIOS or UEFI firmware.

• In our tutorial, we will install OpenVPN on a Debian 12 server and configure it to be accessible from a client machine, and create a VPN connection between them to redirect all the traffic from the client through the OpenVPN server.

• Dropbox is one of the most popular file hosting service, that you can use to store your files in the cloud.

• Dropbox provides a terminal app and a GUI app that you can use on Linux Mint to transfer your files to Dropbox.

• Wiki.js is an open-source, modern and powerful wiki app based on Node.js, Git, and Markdown. Wiki.js runs on the blazingly fast Node.js engine and is optimized to conserve CPU resources.

• The phpMyAdmin is a free and open-source web application tool for managing the MySQL or MariaDB database. The phpMyAdmin is primarily written in PHP and allows you to manage your MySQL/MariaDB databases from the web browser. You can easily create, update, import, and export your MySQL/MariaDB databases from one place dashboard.

• Pagekit is a modern, intuitive, modular, and flexible open-source (MIT license) CMS built with Symfony components and Vue.js. It gives you the tools to create beautiful websites. It has a rich theme and plugin system.

• ExpressionEngine is a flexible, feature-rich, free, open-source content management system (CMS) written in PHP. With ExpressionEngine, you can build full-featured websites, create a web app, or serve content to mobile applications. All without requiring complex programming skills.

• The Xrdp server is the RDP tool (Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol) for Linux distributions. You can install it on your Linux system to connect your server or desktop over the internet. The Xrdp server lets you use the multi-channel connection through a graphical user interface (GUI).

• PostgreSQL or Postgres is a powerful high-performance object-relational database management system (ORDBMS) released under a flexible BSD-style license. PostgreSQL is well-suited for large databases and has many advanced features. pgAdmin4 is an open-source PostgreSQL management tool designed for multiple PostgreSQL database versions.

• Magento is a widely used Open Source e-commerce software and content management system for e-commerce websites based on the PHP Zend Framework. It uses MySQL or MariaDB as the database backend. The Magento development was started in 2008 by Varien.

• The “fsck” command (which stands for “file system check“) is a Linux command-line utility used to check and repair the integrity of a file system on storage devices like HDDs or SSDs.

• Navigating files and directories in the terminal using ls and cd commands may seem efficient but can be unproductive, especially for those immersed in them all day.

• Virtualization has revolutionized the way we deploy and manage applications and services. Among the many virtualization technologies available, Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) stands out as a robust and efficient solution, often used in conjunction with the libvirt management toolkit.

• Optimizing hardware performance is a critical aspect of computer science and engineering. In this tutorial, we will delve into a comprehensive case study that takes us through the journey of enhancing system performance from the basic BIOS settings to benchmarking the final results.

• In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, virtualization has emerged as a fundamental concept that revolutionizes how we utilize hardware resources. Whether you’re a software developer, IT professional, or simply an enthusiast, creating a seamless virtualization environment is crucial for maximizing efficiency, reducing costs, and ensuring optimal resource utilization.

• Virtualization technology has revolutionized the way we utilize hardware resources, allowing multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine. But what if you could take this concept even further? That’s where nested virtualization comes into play.

• Modern processors have evolved far beyond their initial role of performing arithmetic and logic operations. With the rise of virtualization and the need for efficient resource utilization, technologies like Intel VT-x and AMD-V have become integral features in contemporary processors.

• Virtualization has revolutionized the IT industry by enabling the creation of virtual instances of computer systems, allowing for efficient resource utilization, isolation, and scalability. At the heart of virtualization lies CPU virtualization extensions, a crucial technology that empowers hypervisors to efficiently manage multiple virtual machines on a single physical host.

Games

• Between 2023-08-16 and 2023-08-23 there were 23 New Steam games released with Native Linux clients. For reference, during the same time, there were 308 games released for Windows on Steam, so the Linux versions represent about 7.5 % of total…

• The Linux community has created a clone of SteamOS 3, called Bazzite in an effort to bring the SteamOS 3 desktop experience and Linux gaming experience to desktop gaming PCs.

• Has it really been that long? Apparently so. Valve originally announced their rebranding of Steam Play with Proton back on August 21st, 2018. Seems like a good time for a quick reflection being halfway to a decade old now.

• The problem: before, during and just after the original Steam Machine push developers just weren’t porting many games to Linux, and on the whole really when you look back Linux gaming was in a period of mostly stagnation. Nothing much was happening. A lot of the early porting work that came along was slowly dying off since the Steam Machines didn’t provide the boost Valve and Linux gamers were hoping for.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• What is a Linux desktop if it ain’t filled with eye candy?

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• KDE Gear 23.08 is here to improve the Dolphin file manager with the ability to open a duplicate tab by double-clicking on it, new context menu items and keyboard shortcuts in the Split View mode, the ability to display the progress of the calculation of an item’s size in real time, the ability to show information of a selected file in the information panel, as well as the ability to hide temporary and backup files for an uncluttered view.

• The Okular document viewer in KDE Gear 23.08 now lets you add signature metadata like “reason” and “location” to digitally signed PDFs, as well as to add a background image behind it, a new option to choose the default scaling mode when printing PDFs, and the ability to copy an annotation’s text to the clipboard using the context menu in the annotations sidebar.

• We create software for people, and the KDE Gear releases are the result of that. Every four months we publish new updates of a large number of KDE apps and software libraries. We create new programs to meet more of your needs, implement more features so you can adapt to an ever-changing digital world, and make our software faster, more efficient, more reliable. We also port it to more platforms so you can run it on more devices: your laptop, your game console, your phone, anywhere.

• Read on to find out what’s new in KDE Gear 23.08…

• No system is complete without a reliable file explorer. Dolphin lets you navigate your folders and files, move and copy things around, connect to servers, and in general manage everything in your storage local and remote.

• KDE Gear is a collection of software applications developed by the KDE community for the KDE Plasma desktop environment. These cover productivity, multimedia, graphics, communication, system management, and more. Four months after the previous major release, 23.04, KDE Gear 23.08 is here, so let’s see what’s changed.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

• The GObject type system has been serving the GNOME community for more than 20 years. We have based an entire application development platform on top of the features it provides, and the rules that it enforces; we have integrated multiple programming languages on top of that, and in doing so, we expanded the scope of the GNOME platform in a myriad of directions. Unlike GTK, the GObject API hasn’t seen any major change since its introduction: aside from deprecations and little new functionality, the API is exactly the same today as it was when GLib 2.0 was released in March 2002. If you transported a GNOME developer from 2003 to 2023, they would have no problem understanding a newly written GObject class; though, they would likely appreciate the levels of boilerplate reduction, and the performance improvements that have been introduced over the years.

• While having a stable API last this long is definitely a positive, it also imposes a burden on maintainers and users, because any change has to be weighted against the possibility of introducing unintended regressions in code that uses undefined, or undocumented, behaviour. There’s a lot of leeway when it comes to playing games with C, and GObject has dark corners everywhere.

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

• Kali Linux 2023.3 is here almost three months after Kali Linux 2023.2 and it bumps the kernel from Debian Bookworm’s long-term supported Linux 6.1 LTS to Linux kernel 6.3, which, unfortunately, reached end of life in early July 2023. However, the new kernel should offer better hardware support.

• There are nine new tools included in the Kali Linux 2023.3 release, namely Calico, a cloud-native networking and network security tool, cri-tools, command-line and validation tools for the Kubelet Container Runtime Interface, Hubble, a network, service, and security observability for Kubernetes tool using eBPF, and ImHex, a hex editor for reverse engineers and programmers.

• Today we are delighted to introduce our latest release of Kali, 2023.3. This release blog post does not have the most features in it, as a lot of the changes have been behind-the-scenes, which brings a huge benefit to us and an indirect positive effect to you as end-users. It always goes without saying, but there are a number of new packages and tools as well as the standard updates. If you want to see what’s new for yourself download or upgrade if you have an existing Kali Linux installation.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

• The OpenMandriva Team is pleased to offer new ROME 23.08 install images. These ISOs are also to be considered as upcoming OMLx 5.0 Release Candidate. A Plasma 6 Technical Preview (cooker) install media is provided as well.

• ROME is the rolling release designed mostly for individual users, it will receive the most up to date packages including recent security and bug fix upgrades.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

• This week’s openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshot updates remained steady and small other than the release of KDE Frameworks 5.109.0 in one of the snapshots.

• Daily snapshots were released this week other than the exception of one.

• The refreshable braille display package snapshot brltty 6.6 updated in snapshot 20230822, the introduced patches and updated the Application Programming Interface to enhance the BrlAPI service. The update addresses compatibility issues with Cython 3.0 to resolve a crash related to object finalization APIs. An update to libreoffice 7.6.0.3 brought several enhancements to include a convenient Page Number Wizard and improvements in paragraph style. The character properties from .DOCX to .ODT filename extensions were retained, and a new citation handling feature was introduced. Calc spreadsheet had fixes for conditional border color export, added support for drawing styles for shapes and comments and improved formula input. There were some enhancements for fontwork and improvement to the navigation panel for presentations with Impress and Draw. An update to the yast2-trans package update had Latvian and Catalan language updates via Weblate.

Fedora Family / IBM

• A recently unsealed lawsuit filed in the US by HPC software provider Sylabs accuses rival outfit Ctrl IQ (CIQ) and its founder Greg Kurtzer of violating Sylab’s trade secrets in order to start its business, and of filing its own patents based on that technology.

• The federal civil case was filed in the District Court for the Northern District of California under case number 5:23-cv-00849 in February, with the judge unsealing the complaint in July. The accusations are being refuted by CIQ and Kurtzer.

• Sylabs is a provider of software and services for high performance compute (HPC) environments, chiefly focused around container runtime technology. Kurtzer was formerly CEO at Sylabs, but left in March 2020 to found what would become CIQ, a company focused on “enterprise, hyper-scale, cloud and HPC technologies necessary for performance-intensive workflows.”

• Provisioning strong identities for every workload using X.509 certificates and establishing mutual TLS (mTLS) as a full stack solution for transport security without requiring any code changes is one of the many features offered out of the box by Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh (based on the upstream Istio project).

• In recent years, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in various fields has sparked new possibilities and advancements. One intriguing application of AI lies in generating domain-specific language (DSL) documents. DSLs are designed to address specific domains or problem spaces (such as enterprise integration), allowing developers to express solutions in a more natural way, removing the cognitive complexity related to boilerplate code. In this article, we will delve into the idea of leveraging AI to generate Apache Camel DSL.

• Red Hat OpenShift is an ideal location to re-platform Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (JBoss EAP) workloads. We discussed this topic in previous articles, such as Why you should migrate your Java workloads to OpenShift. Here’s a summary of the benefits: [...]

Debian Family

• There are legions of Ubuntu and Debian remixes out there, but most try to add stuff to the basic distro. Xebian is a refreshing change because it’s simpler than its progenitor.

• Xebian is a simple Debian-based distro with the Xfce desktop. It’s easy to install, and has a pleasing, fairly minimal desktop layout, very much like that of Xubuntu – which is doubtless because one of the developers behind it, known only as Unit 193, used to be part of the Xubuntu team.

• The distro is based on Debian’s “unstable” branch, codenamed Sid, which means you get more current components than Debian’s standard stable releases. For instance, it comes with the latest Firefox version 116 and kernel 6.4. The project released new installation images at the start of this month – both for x86-64 and x86-32, which is unusual in 2023 – so we thought we’d take a look.

• Apparently it’s nearly four years since I last posted to my blog. Which is, to a degree, the point here. My time, and priorities, have changed over the years. And this lead me to the decision that my available time and priorities in 2023 aren’t compatible with being a Debian or Ubuntu developer, and realistically, haven’t been for years. As of earlier this month, I quit as a Debian Developer and Ubuntu MOTU.

Devices/Embedded

• As microcontrollers become ever faster and cheaper, something we’ve been expecting has been an open source smartphone based not upon a high-end chip, but on a cheap commodity one. In the electronic badge arena we’ve come pretty close, but perhaps it’s left to [Gabriel Rochet] to deliver the first one that brings everything together. His Paxo phone is now on version 4, and while the French-language website link stubbornly resists translation with Google translate, English speakers can find a description of its capabilities along with the software in a GitHub repository.

• The hardware is surprisingly straightforward, with a resistive touch screen and a PCB featuring power management, an ESP32 main processor, and a GSM module. The 2G connectivity may not be the fastest, or even available in your country, but otherwise the feature set looks more than reasonable for a basic mobile phone.

• I was having an email conversation with Stoo Cambridge, and he mentioned that he was having trouble making his Linux machine display thumbnails of Amiga IFF/ILBM files. It turns out I have a solution for him, so I am sharing it here to help anyone else.

• Maybe you have a vintage old-school computer. Maybe you have a replica. Maybe you just want to run SIMH and relive the glory days of CP/M or VMS. The problem is, it looks kind of silly to have CP/M running in your beautiful X11 terminal window full of 3D animations, opacity effects, and special fonts. You could buy an old CRT monitor. That would be cool, too, because on a modern screen, you don’t get scan lines and all the crummy artifacts that go along with an electron beam and phosphor display device. Or you can grab retro-cool-term.

• The physical layer of the LoRa (LoRa PHY) is a proprietary standard owned by Semtech and people have been trying to reverse-engineer the LoRa standard for years with projects such as GR-LoRa, and over the year various people have taken over the works and new projects have come with the latest one being the gr-lora_sdr GNU Radio software-defined radio (SDR) implementation of a LoRa transceiver.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

• Omni-Notes is an incredibly powerful open-source note-taking application for Android that is both smart and simple. It boasts a clean and simple Material Design interface and is packed with a plethora of smart features.

• Qualcomm’s Snapdragon G3x Gen 2, G2 Gen 1, and G1 Gen 1 are meant to power devices that stream games from PCs and consoles – and play Android games.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Several new releases this week. You also get to see what’s coming to Ubuntu 23.10 in this edition of the FOSS Weekly.

Events

• The IoT Microconference is a forum for developers to discuss all things IoT. Topics include tools, telemetry, device drivers, and protocols in not only the Linux kernel but also Real-Time Operating Systems such as Zephyr.

• Since last year, there have been a number of new technical topics with significant updates.

• Set in the captivating city of Berlin, All Systems Go! is ready to explore foundational user-space Linux technologies after a 4-year hiatus.

Programming/Development

• GNU Parallel 20230822 (‘Chandrayaan’) has been released. It is available for download at: lbry://@GnuParallel:4

Python

• Guide on how to locate the index location of the maximum value in a DataFrame or Series using the Index.argmax(), Series.argmax, and DataFrame[‘column’].argmax.

• Practical guide on how to add the days to the dates in Pandas by utilizing three methods – pandas.DateOffset(), pandas.timeDelta(), and pandas.to_timeDelta().

Rust

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

Leftovers

• Shortly after sitting down at one of my local coffee shops this morning, I heard the loud sound of a compressor, followed by clouds of steam. I looked out the window and saw this contraption:

• [...]

• This is a high-pressure steam washer, designed to remove tough grime from surfaces like concrete and tiles. I remember we had these at a plant in Singapore for removing spills, albeit at a larger scale.

Hardware

• If you were to take a look at the car parked closest to where you are sitting, there’s an overwhelming probability that its main structural parts are made of steel. A few might be aluminium and fewer still composite materials, but by and large that’s it for automotive structures. This hasn’t stopped the inventive Russians at [Garage 54] from experimenting though, and in their latest they’ve made a car with a chassis made of wood. Not carefully sawn and assembled wooden structural components, oh no. These are wooden tree trunks and branches.

• The Semiconductor Industry Association, an American lobby group for the sector, has leaked claims that Chinese telecommunications equipment vendor Huawei Technologies is trying to get around US sanctions by acquiring chip factories and also constructing them.

Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• After Paris Marx pointed out the Ottawa article, Business Insider’s Nathan McAlone found several more howlers: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-removes-embarrassing-offensive-ai-assisted-travel-articles-2023-8 There was the article recommending that visitors to Montreal try “a hamburger” and went on to explain that a hamburger was a “sandwich comprised of a ground beef patty, a sliced bun of some kind, and toppings such as lettuce, tomato, cheese, etc” and that some of the best hamburgers in Montreal could be had at McDonald’s. For Anchorage, Microsoft recommended trying the local delicacy known as “seafood,” which it defined as “basically any form of sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including fish and shellfish,” going on to say, “seafood is a versatile ingredient, so it makes sense that we eat it worldwide.” In Tokyo, visitors seeking “photo-worthy spots” were advised to “eat Wagyu beef.” There were more. Microsoft insisted that this wasn’t an issue of “unsupervised AI,” but rather “human error.”

Security

• A ransomware campaign by the recently emerged Monti ransomware group is targeting victims with a new Linux variant of its malware. The threat group is the latest in a growing number of ransomware groups finding profit in going after Linux infrastructure.

• [...]

• Monti is among an increasing number of ransomware groups that tweaked its malware infrastructure to target Linux servers and operating systems. Eight in 10 web servers run on Linux. While the number of ransomware groups using Linux variants stood at 118 in the first half quarter of 2022, it increased by fourfold in 2023, a recent report from security firm Recorded Future found.

• Fraud and abuse online are pretty serious problems. How sites manage fraud is something of a mystery to most people. Indeed, as this post will show, that’s deliberate.

Privacy/Surveillance

• One of the groups said it had used Google’s tools to run a targeted ad campaign this month on children’s channels. Google has said it did not allow such ads on videos made for children.

Defence/Aggression

• The sanctions are in response to the military regime’s “violent airstrikes” against civilians.

• Members of the U.N. Security Council – minus China and Russia – are condemning the “unrelenting violence” and killing of civilians in Myanmar and again urging its military rulers to stop attacks, release ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and respect human rights. Thirteen of the 15 council members backed a joint statement Wednesday citing “insufficient progress” on implementing the first-ever Security Council resolution on Myanmar that was adopted last December. China and Russia, which have ties to the military that seized power from Suu Kyi’s elected civilian government in February 2021, abstained on that vote. The statement demands implementation including the immediate release of all “arbitrarily detained” prisoners and restoring democratic institutions.

Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

• US President Joe Biden suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have been behind the crash of a plane near Moscow.

• There is still a lot of speculation about the air crash in Russia, which could have killed the leader of the notorious mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin. In Ukraine’s media and blogger environment, this is another example that Russian leader Vladimir Putin cannot be trusted. the Latvian ambassador to Ukraine, llgvars Kļava, said in an interview to Latvian Radio on August 24.

• Russia’s longstanding denial of Ukrainian national identity and refusal to accept the reality of Ukrainian independence are now fueling an invasion that many view as genocidal in nature, writes Mercedes Sapuppo.

• His fate may have already been sealed.

• President Vladimir V. Putin said Russia would assume chairmanship of the group made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa next year and host a summit in the city of Kazan in October 2024.

• The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin eighteen months ago is best understood as the latest chapter in a dark saga of Russian imperial aggression against Ukraine that stretches back centuries, writes Peter Dickinson.

• Atlantic Council experts share their insights on the apparent death of Wagner Group founder Yevgeniy Prigozhin.

• Experts weigh in on what the mercenary leader’s apparent death will mean for the Russian state and Wagner’s operations abroad.

• Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a plane that crashed Wednesday in Russia’s Tver region, killing all 10 people on board, Russia’s aviation authority said.

• The big picture: Russian officials have not confirmed Prigozhin was killed in the crash. The mercenary boss in June led a short-lived rebellion in what was seen as the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule since he came to power more than two decades ago.

• The threat to Latvia of the military mercenary group Wagner is decreasing, but it should be noted that Belarus will try to increase pressure on the border with Latvia, Director of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence Jānis Sārts said in an interview with Latvian Television on August 24.

• Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is listed among passengers on board a plane that crashed north of Moscow, according to Russian state media.

• The head of the Wagner mercenary group, which in June attempted to topple Russia’s military leadership, was on board a plane that crashed on Wednesday, with all passengers killed, Russian officials said.

• The head of the Wagner group that in June attempted to topple Russia’s military leadership was on board the plane that crashed Wednesday, Russia’s aviation agency said.

• A private plane belonging to Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed in Moscow’s Tver region, killing all ten people on board, the Russian emergency services said Wednesday. Russia’s aviation agency says Prigozhin was on board. Reports of the crash came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to end Russia’s occupation of the Crimea peninsula and all other areas that Moscow controls in his country.

• Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of powerful Russian mercenary group Wagner, died in a plane crash on Wednesday, alongside the group’s alleged founder Dmitry Utkin.

• The internal challenges Wagner will face after the death of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin will divert the military company’s attention away from Lithuania, believes Laurynas Kasčiūnas, conservative MP and chairman of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defence.

• A private jet belonging to the Wagner mercenary group has crashed en route to St. Petersburg from Moscow, with officials saying the company’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was one of 10 people on the passenger list.

• In June, Yevgueni Prigozhin, 62, led a failed military rebellion against the Kremlin.

• International and Russian media has reported that a private plane, believed to have been carrying Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, crashed in the Tver region of Russia on Wednesday evening.

• The crash immediately raises suspicions since the fate of the founder of the Wagner private military company has been the subject of intense speculation ever since he mounted a mutiny earlier this year.

• The authorities did not confirm whether the Wagner mercenary leader, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, was on board when a private jet crashed north of Moscow on Wednesday, killing 10 people.

• All 10 people on a jet linked to Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the mercenary group, were killed on Wednesday, Russian officials said.

• Also, a paralyzed woman regains her voice.

• On Wednesday evening, people northwest of Moscow looked up and saw a plane falling out of the sky. In videos shared on social media, large hunks of metal are visible, plummeting toward Earth as smoke trails the falling objects. Judging by the sound in the footage, at least one of the aircraft’s engines is still working as it falls. Some parts of the plane, including a wing and the tail section, fall separately. A few hours later, Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency confirmed that mercenary leaders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin — the commanders of Russia’s infamous Wagner Group — were aboard the crashed aircraft. Meduza analyzes the early evidence about what caused the crash: a bomb or a missile?

• On the evening of August 23, a private jet belonging to Yevgeny Prigzohin crashed in Russia’s Tver region. The country’s Emergency Services Ministry reported that 10 people died in the crash, including three crew members. According to Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, the list of passengers onboard the aircraft included Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin. Meduza briefly outlines the life of the latter, whose callsign was the inspiration for Wagner Group’s name.

• A private jet belonging to Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed in Russia’s Tver region on Wednesday, August 23. Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency later reported that Prigozhin’s name was on the aircraft’s passenger list. According to Russian state media, at least seven bodies have been found at the crash site so far. Preliminary reports stated that there were at least 10 passengers on board, all of whom died in the crash. As of this writing, however, Prigozhin’s death or whereabouts have not been officially confirmed. To find out how Russia’s political elite are reacting to the possible death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev spoke to his sources close to the Kremlin. Here’s what they said.

• European Commission Press release Brussels, 23 Aug 2023 The European Commission has approved an approximately €800 million (CZK 19 billion) Czech scheme to support companies affected by increased energy costs in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

• President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday marked his country’s independence day with an address congratulating Ukrainians and praising the military personnel who are pushing back against Russian forces in the southern and eastern parts of the country. An early morning missile strike injured seven people in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, said Serhiy Lisak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.

• On Ukraine’s Independence Day, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed the contributions of all Ukrainians to the struggle to preserve their country’s freedom in the face of Russia’s unprovoked invasion as Moscow kept up its relentless attacks on civilian targets.

• Finnish political leaders have reaffirmed their continued support for Ukraine on the occasion of the nation’s Independence Day.

• Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (NCP) announced Finland will soon be sending Ukraine its 18th aid package since the war began.

• Drone attacks in Russian territory have become more frequent as Ukraine wages a grueling counteroffensive.

• Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday, to attend Ukraine’s Independence Day celebrations and the summit of the international Crimea Platform.

• A Moscow court on August 23 sentenced in absentia Maksim Kats, a self-exiled opposition activist, to eight years in prison on a charge of distributing “fake news” about Russia’s armed forces.

• Although the interest in joining the National Guard is lower than last year following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it is still high, Commander of the National Guard Kaspars Pudāns told Latvian Television on August 24.

• US President Joe Biden’s policy in the war in Ukraine has been clear from the beginning: to put Ukraine in the best position “on the battlefield [to] be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table” while being careful “not fight the third world war in Ukraine.”

• Only Vivek Ramaswamy and Gov. Ron DeSantis said they wouldn’t support additional aid to Ukraine. But both argued we should be more militarily engaged against China and Mexico.

• A coordinated asset-seizure program connected to Russian aggression and atrocities can build international consensus—increasing the effectiveness of economic responses to Russia’s war, eighteen months in.

• Leaders of some of the developing world’s most important economies turned Wednesday to the main business of their summit in South Africa, a day after a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the gathering an anti-Western tinge that officials had been hoping to avoid.

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• The Alexei Navalny Foundation has published an investigation into an Estonian company’s supply of parts for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s yacht. Some refurbishments for the vessel have been delivered to Kaliningrad via Lithuania, according to the investigation.

• Investigators continued to sift through wreckage of a private jet belonging to the Wagner group early on August 24 after it crashed en route to St. Petersburg from Moscow, leaving no survivors among a passenger list believed to include the leader of the private mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

• Russia’s civil aviation agency says mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was on a plane that crashed north of Moscow, killing all 10 people aboard. Prigozhin led a brief armed rebellion against the Russian military earlier this year. Wednesday’s crash immediately raised suspicions since the fate of the founder of the Wagner private military company has been the subject of intense speculation ever since he mounted the mutiny. At the time, President Vladimir Putin denounced the rebellion as “treason” and a “stab in the back” and vowed to avenge it. But the charges against Prigozhin were soon dropped, and the Wagner chief was allowed to retreat to Belarus, while reportedly popping up in Russia from time to time.

• Putin may burned his chef by way of Russian air defense missiles.

• Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, criticized Danish director Lars von Trier Wednesday after the filmmaker made an Instagram post reading “Russian lives also matter” in response to his country’s pledge to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

• Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko reported Wednesday that Russian forces launched a strike on a school in Romny, a city in Ukraine’s Sumy region. According to Denys Vashchenko, the head of the district administration, four people were killed.

• The economic bloc representing the nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) announced plans to consider membership for new countries during their annual summit.

• India has become the fourth nation to safely land a robotic explorer on the Moon, and the first to do so near the Moon’s south pole, a region that scientists and explorers are eyeing with deep interest.

• India on Wednesday made history when its Chandrayaan-3 lander successfully touched down on the Moon’s south pole, thought to be a potential source for water and oxygen, days after Russia’s mission failed.

• India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander successfully touched down on the surface of the Moon Wednesday, days after a Russian lander crashed into the lunar surface ahead of its landing attempt.

• Why it matters: The successful mission vaults India into a league with just a handful of other space agencies that have accomplished the hard feat of landing on the lunar surface. India has also become the first country to land in the Moon’s south polar region.

• Lithuania’s National Security Commission is considering banning some Lithuanian citizens from traveling to Russia and Belarus for security reasons.

• At least two civilians were killed when Russian air strikes hit an abandoned water pumping station in Syria’s rebel-held northwest, rescuers said Wednesday, amid a recent uptick in attacks by Damascus ally Moscow.

• Tbilisi condemned as “completely unacceptable” comments by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that the two Georgian breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia could be formally annexed by Moscow “if there are good reasons.”

• The Times tracked several months of Russian state messaging in the Kremlin’s effort to recruit soldiers.

• Russian officials announced on August 23 that self-exiled Chechen opposition activist Abubakar Yangulbayev has been placed on the wanted list.

• Three civilians were killed in a drone strike on a health resort in the village of Lavy in Russia’s Belgorod region.

• An informed source has confirmed to the Russian state media RIA Novosti that General of the Army Sergey Surovikin has been removed from his post as commander-in-chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces.

• Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed among the passengers on a plane that crashed while en route from St. Petersburg to Moscow, Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency reported on Wednesday.

• On Tuesday, August 22, officials of the State Border Guard prevented 143 people from attempting to illegally cross the border of Latvia-Belarus, the border guard said.

• Two individuals from Belarus have cut down camera poles observing the border from the Lithuanian side.

• Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya says she has not had any contact or cooperated with Olga Karach, a Belarusian activist who has been refused asylum in Lithuania last week.

• A prosecutor asked the Minsk City Court on August 23 to sentence Artsyom Lyabedzka, the son of self-exiled Belarusian opposition politician Anatol Lyabedzka, to 3 1/2 years in prison on a charge of financing an extremist group.

• Pro-government Telegram channels in Belarus said on August 23 that the Interior Ministry has labeled Minsk-based Vyasna human rights center, its online resources, and dozens of websites linked to it as extremist.

Environment

Energy/Transportation

• A big sticking point in contract talks between Detroit automakers and the United Auto Workers union is the popular assertion that it takes fewer workers to manufacture electric vehicles (EVs) than conventional cars.

Finance

• The Three Seas Initiative and its digital pillar currently lack the credibility needed to attract sustained investments.

• Goldman Sachs has entered the auction for sandwich shop chain Subway, teaming with existing suitors TDR Capital and Sycamore Partners, according to Bloomberg.

• Why it matters: This last-minute, deep-pocketed addition could move momentum away from Atlanta-based private equity firm Roark Capital Partners, which is seeking to become one of the world’s largest restaurant owners.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• While we’re all awaiting the next mugshot of a high profile charged co-conspirator, the key to understanding how all the strands of Trump’s attempt to steal the election fit together may lie with lower profile Georgia bail bondsman, Scott Hall, who was released yesterday on bail himself. The David Bossie brother-in-law had ties not just to Jeffrey Clark and the Coffee County caper, but also apparently to the effort to pressure Ruby Freeman.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Cardi B threatens legal action against a Twitter user claiming they have proof of Offset cheating on her in a clip many feel was AI-generated.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• The pretrial detention of U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is accused of espionage — a charge he, his employer, The Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. government have rejected — has been extended by a Moscow court for another three months.

• A Moscow court on Thursday extended the pretrial detention of the American reporter who has denied the espionage charges he faces. The U.S. says he has been wrongfully detained.

• Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was detained on espionage charges, arrived at a Moscow court Thursday for a hearing on a motion by the prosecution to extend his arrest.

Civil Rights/Policing

• My side went from about 10 to 23 percentage points, gaining about 13; Corey went from about 45 to 64%, gaining about 19, so he won.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• APNIC is focusing on ways to work together with the community to improve products and services.

Monopolies

Patents

• Printing company Agfa has sued luxury goods brand Gucci at the Hamburg UPC local division (case ID: ACT_561734/2023). The case concerns Agfa’s patent EP 3 388 490, which covers a manufacturing method for embellishing natural leather with a decorative image.

• On August 21, 2023, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 10,813,163, owned and asserted by 5G IP Holdings LLC, an NPE and IP Valuation Partners, LLC entity. The ’163 patent generally relates to discontinuous reception (DRX) and utilizing slots within subframes to adapt DRX to function within the 5G frame structure.

• On August 18, 2023, less than a month after Unified filed an ex parte reexamination, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) granted Unified’s request, finding a substantial new question of patentability on the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 8,719,101, owned and asserted by Adnexus, Inc., an NPE.

• This post initially appeared in the R Street Institute’s ITC Policy Project Series. The recently reintroduced Advancing America’s Interests Act (AAIA) revises the 19 U.S. Code § 1337 – Unfair practices in import trade (Section 337), which gives the International Trade Commission (ITC) patent-enforcement authority over imports.

• Steuben Food recently lost its infringement case against Shibuya Hoppmann with the district court holding (1) the doctrine of equivalents (DOE) cannot extend to cover the accused aseptic bottle filling technique and further (2) the reverse doctrine of equivalents shields the defendant against charges of literal infringement.  Steuben Foods, Inc. v. Shibuya Hoppmann Corp., No. 1:19-cv-02181-CFC, 2023 WL 2498810 (D. Del. Mar. 14, 2023) (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,209,591; 6,536,188; and 6,702,985) (Chief Judge Connolly). The case is now pending on appeal at the Federal Circuit with the successful defendant’s responsive brief due in mid-September.

Copyrights

• So, yesterday we had the story of how, at Elon’s personal request, exTwitter is moving to get rid of link and snippet text in what had been known as Twitter Cards for news organizations. Musk claims that it’s for “esthetic” reasons, though in our article, we noted the uncanny timing of this decision coming just a few weeks after the French news agency AFP had sued exTwitter in France, claiming that the snippets violate France’s neighboring rights law.

• With the recent departure of Judge Linda A. Kuczma and the addition of Judges Thomas L. Casagrande, Wendy Boldt Cohen, and Jennifer E. Elgin, the Board’s membership now stands at twenty-eight (28) Administrative Trademark Judges. The current roster is set forth below, beginning with Chief Judge Gerard F. Rogers and then proceeding alphabetically.

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