If you're looking for a version of Ubuntu that includes Flatpak support out of the box, there's one clear option.

A ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this week marks a new low in judicial deference to classification and national security, even against the nearly inviolable First Amendment right to be free of prior restraints against speech. In Twitter v. Garland, the court ruled that it was not a violation of the First Amendment for the Justice Department to censor a draft transparency report on the aggregate number of national security demands Twitter received in the second half of 2013. It’s a disappointing, dangerous opinion that may well empower even broader uses of government power to censor speech by unwilling participants in government investigations. Background In 2014, Twitter submitted its draft transparency report to the FBI to review. The FBI redacted the report, prohibiting Twitter from sharing the total number of foreign intelligence surveillance orders the government had served within a six-month period in aggregate bands such as 1-99. In response, Twitter filed suit in order to assert its First Amendment right to share that information. To be clear, Twitter did not plan to share any detail about the requests such as the targets or other identifying information. In April 2020, a federal district court dismissed Twitter’s First Amendment claim. Among the several concerning aspects of the opinion, the judge devoted only a single paragraph to analyzing Twitter’s First Amendment right to inform the public about law enforcement orders for its users’ information. Twitter appealed to the Ninth Circuit, and EFF and the ACLU filed an amicus brief in support of the appeal. A Dangerous Precedent Not only did the Ninth Circuit uphold the lower court’s ruling, it went out of its way to find that a large, well established body of prior restraint law did not apply. As we wrote in our amicus brief, when the government seeks to stop the publication of speech, it must satisfy “extraordinarily exacting” scrutiny. This includes a substantive demonstration both that the prior restraint is truly the only means of preserving the government’s interest, and a series of procedural requirements designed to ensure that a censor’s decisions are quickly and adequately reviewed by an independent court. But the Ninth Circuit applied a much more deferential test for the government’s need for a gag. Worse still, it held that exacting procedural protections against prior restraints do not apply to “the disclosure of information transmitted confidentially as part of a legitimate government process, because such restrictions do not pose the same dangers to speech rights as do traditional censorship regimes.” We’ve fallen a long way from the Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in the Pentagon Papers case. There, the Supreme Court upheld the New York Times’ right to publish classified reports about the failure in Vietnam despite strenuous government claims that it would seriously damage national security. This Ninth Circuit decision deepens a trend of “prior restraint lite” cases, in which the government can silence speakers who wish to talk about their involvement in government investigations in ways that would be completely unthinkable in other contexts of censorship. This is, in fact, the crux of the Ninth Circuit’s rationale: because transparency reports originate out of a company’s involvement with the government’s own classified doings, rather than a creative or journalistic endeavor like a movie or news article, the government supposedly has more control over the information. According to the opinion, gags on recipients of national security demands do not “present the grave dangers of a censorship system” like film licensing boards. But it does little to explain why the government’s interest in limiting discussion of its secret investigations—legitimate as that might be—presents no risk of overreaching censorship. The history of the national security state—from the Pentagon Papers to the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program—suggests the opposite. The creation of national security exceptions to the Constitution are worrying enough, but they must not be allowed to migrate into other areas of law. We’ll be watching for any attempts to rely on this latest decision to justify restrictions on transparency reporting and other speech by participants in government investigations outside of the national security context. Related Cases: Twitter v. Holder

Database servers are the core of many web applications on the Internet. Their resource efficiency and great performance allow many users to read and write to websites simultaneously without issue. MySQL is one of the most popular database management platforms in the world. In this tutorial, we’ll be going over every step of how to install MySQL on AlmaLinux.

I have jails with both IP4 and IPv6 addresses. Lately, I’ve been noticing this in /var/log/messages: And this in console messages: Looking in the jail, it had IPv6 addresses. What gives? In this post: FreeBDS 13.1 The jail example I had a jail, similar to this: After the jail started, I could see both IP … Is your jail not getting an IPv6 address soon enough? Blame DAD. Read More »

Scientists say that low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations like Starlink continue to pose a dire threat to astronomy and scientific research, and that too little is being done to address the issue. Last fall, scientists declared satellite constellations an “existential threat for astronomy.” In short, the reflection and light pollution (Musk claimed would never happen in […]

In this step-by-step tutorial, we’ll demonstrate how to install the open-source JavaScript library ReactJS on Debian 11 OS. The post How to Install ReactJS on Debian 11  appeared first on Linux Today.

Campaign uses carefully crafted LinkedIn accounts that mimic legit people.

Here’s your weekly Fedora report. Read what happened this week and what’s coming up. Your contributions are welcome (see the end of the post)! The F38 Beta is go for release on the early target date (2023-03-14). I have weekly office hours most Wednesdays in the morning and afternoon (US/Eastern time). Drop by if you […] The post Friday’s Fedora Facts: 2023-10 appeared first on Fedora Community Blog.

Here are the five most read articles on FOSS Force for the week ending March 3, 2023. The post Top Five Reads on FOSS Force for Week Ending March 10, 2023 appeared first on FOSS Force.

A couple of months back, we discussed YouTube pulling a Twitch and changing up its content policies for its streaming community in a way that was not well-announced nor understood by that community. The new policy made a number of changes, all of which had an impact on how monetization of content was to be […]

siduction 2022.1.1 is here to bump the kernel packages to the latest Linux 6.2 release, shipping with Linux kernel 6.2.2 by default. The post siduction 2022.1.1 Brings Linux Kernel 6.2, KDE Plasma 5.27 appeared first on Linux Today.

Basil Cousins, the co-founder and director of OpenForum Europe has died after a long illness. The post OpenForum Europe Mourns Passing of Co-Founder Basil Cousins appeared first on FOSS Force.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to use the Rsync command on Linux. For those of you who didn’t know, Rsync is a powerful and versatile command-line tool for synchronizing files and directories between local and remote systems. ... The post How To Use Rsync Command on Linux appeared first on idroot.

Age verification systems are surveillance systems. Mandatory age verification, and with it, mandatory identity verification, is the wrong approach to protecting young people online. It would force websites to require visitors to prove their age by submitting information such as government-issued identification. This scheme would lead us further towards an internet where our private data is collected and sold by default. The tens of millions of Americans who do not have government-issued identification may lose access to much of the internet. And anonymous access to the web could cease to exist.  Why We Are Against Age Verification Mandates Age verification laws don’t just impact young people. It’s necessary to confirm the age of all website visitors, in order to keep out one select age group.  Once information is shared to verify age, there’s no way for a website visitor to be certain that the data they’re handing over is not going to be retained and used by the website, or further shared or even sold. While some age verification mandates have limits on retention and disclosure of this data, significant risk remains. Users are forced to trust that the website they visit, or its third-party verification service, both of which could be fly-by-night companies with no published privacy standards, are following these rules.  Further, there is risk that website employees will misuse the data, or that thieves will steal it. The more information a website collects, the more chances there are for it to get into the hands of a marketing company, a bad actor, or someone who has filed a subpoena for it. This would inevitably lead to further data breaches, because these laws won’t just affect companies that are big enough to have robust data protection. If a website misuses or mishandles the data, the visitor might never find out. And if they do, they might lack an adequate enforcement mechanism. For example, one recent age verification law requires a user to prove  “damages resulting from” the unlawful retention of data, in order to hold the website accountable in court—a difficult bar to reach.  These mandates wouldn’t just kick young people offline. There are tens of millions of U.S. residents without a form of government-issued identification. They could also be kept offline if age verification is required. These are primarily lower-income people who are often already marginalized, and for whom the internet may be a critical part of life.  No Age Verification Method Is Foolproof Last year, France’s Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority ordered several sites with adult content to implement age verification. Then France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberty, CNIL, published a detailed analysis of current age verification methods. It found that no method has the following three important elements: “sufficiently reliable verification, complete coverage of the population, and respect for the protection of individuals' data and privacy and their security.” In short, every age verification method has significant flaws.  Whether it’s called “age assurance,” “age verification,” or “age estimation,” there are only a few ways the technology can work. Verification usually requires a website or its contractor to analyze every user’s private information, like the information on government-issued identification cards. A potential alternative is for the website to communicate with third-party companies like credit agencies, but they are known for often having mistaken information. A third option is age estimation via facial analysis, which is used by Instagram. But such face recognition technology has its own privacy and other problems, including clear evidence that errors abound. EFF and many other privacy organizations have been concerned about age verification laws for decades. We opposed a previous federal law, COPA, the Child Online Protection Act, which included an age verification requirement. It was struck down as unconstitutional nearly twenty years ago for limiting the First Amendment rights of adults.  No one should have to hand over their driver’s license just to access free websites. That’s why EFF opposes mandated age verification laws, no matter how well intentioned they may be.  Dozens of bills currently being debated by state and federal lawmakers could result in dangerous age verification mandates. We will resist them.

As we’ve been covering, there are a slew of laws across the country (and around the globe!) looking to required websites to “age verify” their visitors. And, it seems to be something that has support from all around the political spectrum, as “protect the children” moral panics know no political boundaries. Just recently Utah passed […]

AMD today published Radeon ProRender SDK 3.1 as the newest version of this cross-platform and open-source physically-based rendering engine...

Starting March 13, GitHub will gradually introduce the 2FA enrollment requirement to groups of developers and administrators. Learn more here. The post GitHub to Introduce Mandatory 2FA Starting March 13 appeared first on Linux Today.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve covered the UK’s “Online Safety Bill” extensively. And for good reason, seeing as it has the potential to effectively outlaw end-to-end encryption, and create an unworkable mess for any service (and it’s pretty much all of them) engaging in content moderation. The bill was originally called the “Online […]

Uncomplicate app development with the world’s easiest app builder. AppMySite offers an intuitive app development environment that makes building and managing apps effortless. Enjoy building personalized mobile app designs or upload your own artwork to create the perfect mobile app. AppMySite gives you access to an extensive image library and easy customization. With next-gen app […]

Founder will open a 25-year bottle of Scotch and chat about its history and future.