- cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Multiple Vulnerabilities (systemd, thunderbird, sudo, etc.)
by destroyer 15 Mar '20

15 Mar '20

https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-10 (thunderbird) https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-12 (sudo) https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-20 (systemd) https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-16 (SQLite) https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-18 (Libvirt)

1 0

[rms@gnu.org: Re: list of people censored on lists.debian.org]
by Zenaan Harkness 15 Mar '20

15 Mar '20

----- Forwarded message from Richard Stallman <rms(a)gnu.org> ----- From: Richard Stallman <rms(a)gnu.org> To: Zenaan Harkness <zen(a)freedbms.net> Cc: daniel(a)pocock.pro, cypherpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org, wayward4now(a)gmail.com, chevhq(a)gmail.com, dan(a)geer.org, lwn(a)lwn.net Reply-To: rms(a)gnu.org Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2020 23:07:17 -0400 Subject: Re: list of people censored on lists.debian.org [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > This is depressing to see - from Linus Torvalds and the Linux > Foundation, to Git in recent times, to Richard Stallman (RMS), > founder of the Free Software Foundation (USA) being "resigned" by > the so-called "FSF community" I resigned from the FSF board and management to spare the FSF from the damage that the mob that was attacking me were likely to do. Please do not accuse the FSF of treating me badly. That is untrue and unjust. -- Dr Richard Stallman Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) ----- End forwarded message -----

1 0

A Coventry Moment
by Peter Fairbrother 15 Mar '20

15 Mar '20

A Coventry Moment There is a story that Winston Churchill let Coventry burn under German bombing in order to protect the secret that the Nazi Enigma codes had been broken. He made a hard decision to spend lives now, in order to promote the greater good later. On TV recently we have seen Boris Johnston looking Churchillian, having apparently made a similar sort of decision about the coronavirus epidemic - spending 400,000 British lives now in order to gain some future advantage. The problem is that we don't know what that advantage is. It all seems a bit nebulous. - At the start of the epidemic, when we thought that it would prove impossible to stop the infection, the policy of delay made some sense - spread the peak to decrease maximum hospital load and thereby save lives. That 400,000 or so (a million in real numbers) people would die was unfortunate, but inevitable. There was nothing we could do about it. But then the Chinese stopped their epidemic, showing that there was no need for 400,000 people to die, and everything changed. Except the policy. - Herd immunity is just what happens if you don't do anything to stop any disease which leaves the patient immune after it has run its course. It is at best a distraction. One possible line of Government thinking is that after we implement strong containment we would then have a still-vulnerable population, giving rise to the fear that we might have to continue strict measures indefinitely. Possible, but what measures? Strict universal isolation is almost certainly not necessary once the disease is under control, though strict attention to detail will still be necessary. Proper control of entry to the country with quarantine where appropriate is the major continuing need; but other countries will be doing something similar, and international travel will not be easy for years anyway. Better social distancing - the elbow or foot tap, enlarging personal space, avoiding contact where possible; protective measures like handwashing and handrub, masks and respirators, perhaps gloves and goggles; widespread testing and diligent contact tracing once the epidemic is under control (with short-term but mandatory isolation/quarantine for those testing positive) are probably all that is needed. But we can follow the Chinese example as they relax controls, and limit measures here to those which are necessary and which work. Medium term, if people get "isolation fatigue", and the disease spreads? We would still be better off if we implement strict confinement now. We would have had time to make a billion masks, time to prepare a hundred million tests, time to open hospital beds, time to get the needed equipment - and most of all time to research the disease. For instance, how much would closing schools help? To answer that we need to know whether and to what extent children get the disease in a very mild form and pass it on, or do they just not get it at all - and we do not know the answer to that question. How long does the virus stay active on various surfaces? We don't know. What are the most important secondary and minor routes of infection? We don't know. Why are older people more likely to die, and can anything be done to prevent this? We don't know. How do we immunise the population? We don't know. How do we cure the disease? We don't know. But we do know how to stop it. - Mr Johnston is not Winston Churchill. Churchill himself never faced the "Coventry Dilemma", that was just one of many similar teaching stories used to emphasise the need for secrecy at Bletchley Park. It wasn't real. Many hard life-and-death balancing decisions were made by Churchill during the war, but the "Coventry Dilemma" was not one of them. As for COVID-19, there is no sacrifice here to be made for the greater good. Any sacrifice of lives would just be an unconscionable waste, somewhere between manslaughter with reckless disregard for life and pointless mass murder. There is no greater good to be had. We can kill the disease. We do not need to kill the population, or 400,000 or a million of it. The Chinese have effectively killed the disease in China. Pretty soon they will be thinking about quarantining people entering the country, if they aren't already. That is the kind of turnaround we should be trying for. - As an aside, the real hard decision would not have been to focus efforts on amelioration at the cost of many lives, for some greater eventual good; but instead to implement strong confinement on ethical grounds, even if we thought it couldn't work. But we know strong containment can work. It has been done. It worked. There is no obvious downside to doing it. There is no hard decision to make. There is no Coventry Moment. There never has been. Peter Fairbrother

1 0

Chelsea Manning Supporters Raise A Quarter Million Dollars In Two Days
by Razer 15 Mar '20

15 Mar '20

YewBETCHA! "In the likely event that you need some news to give you a bit of faith in humanity today, you should know that supporters of whistleblower Chelsea Manning have raised over a quarter million dollars to pay the cruel, draconian fine that was heaped upon her for her principled stand against testifying at corrupt secret grand jury proceedings. In just two days after Manning was released from prison, more than six thousand donors banded together to pay off the $258,000 fine assigned at a thousand dollars a day by a federal judge on top of imprisonment to coerce her to testify. Fundraising was so enthusiastic that it had overshot the goal and reached $267,002 before the GoFundMe was closed. Those of us who support Manning have been looking at this more as a fine on us than on her, because of course we were never going to let a heroic whistleblower spend the rest of her life under crushing debt. The fact that the money came together so quickly and easily, though, says a lot about the beauty of humans in my opinion." https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/chelsea-manning-supporters-raise-a-quart…

1 0

The Fates of American Presidents Who Challenged the Deep State
by Ryan Carboni 15 Mar '20

15 Mar '20

https://apjjf.org/2014/12/43/Peter-Dale-Scott/4206.html I believe that a significant shift in the relationship between public and deep state power occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, culminating in the Reagan Revolution of 1980. In this period five presidents sought to curtail the powers of the deep state. And as we shall see, the political careers of all five—Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter—were cut off in ways that were unusual. One president, Kennedy, was assassinated. Another, Nixon, was forced to resign. To some extent the interplay of these two forms of power and political organization is found in all societies. The two were defined by Hannah Arendt in the 1960s as “persuasion through arguments” versus “coercion by force.” Arendt, following Thucydides, traced these to the common Greek way of handling domestic affairs, which was persuasion (πείθειν) as well as the common way of handling foreign affairs, which was force and violence (βία)." The two represent not just different techniques of government but different cultures and mindsets, in fundamental tension with each other. This tension increases, and predictably tips toward violence, if a well-organized open community expands beyond its own borders and is increasingly occupied with the business of supervising an empire. It is repeatedly the case that progressive societies (like America) expand. As their influence expands, their democratic institutions, based at bottom upon persuasive power among equals, are supplemented by new, often secret, institutions of top-down violent power for the control of alien populations abroad, often speaking different and unfamiliar languages. The more the society expands, the more these institutions of violent power encroach upon and supplant the original democracy.

1 0

All free men obey authority to the extent that it is unjust
by Ryan Carboni 14 Mar '20

14 Mar '20

All free men obey authority to the extent that it is unjust, beware the situation in which you cannot respond to their just arguments.

1 0

[OT] [COVID-19] Pornhub's Premium Content Is Free All Month to Italians Stuck in Coronavirus Lockdown
by Cecilia Tanaka 14 Mar '20

14 Mar '20

Pornhub's Premium Content Is Free All Month to Italians Stuck in Coronavirus Lockdown https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2020/03/pornhub-premium-subscriptions-free-italy/ I love Italy and PornHub is pure love, awww... All VPNs changed to Italy right now, hahahaha!!! ;D

2 1

Woar Poarn: Fw: Russian vs Turk air power and defence - [PEACE]
by Zig the N.g 14 Mar '20

14 Mar '20

Russia's air force capabilities are simply stunning .. ----- Forwarded message from Zenaan Harkness <zen(a)freedbms.net> ----- From: Zenaan Harkness <zen(a)freedbms.net> Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2020 23:01:25 +1100 Subject: Russian vs Turk air power and defence Wow. This is an amazing difference. Without NATO, Turkey is cooked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEeYk65jzko Short article here: http://thesaker.is/one-russian-airbase-could-take-down-turkeys-entire-fight… .. What it is important to keep in mind is not only that Turkey needs Russia far more than vice versa – but also that, in regards to Syria, the balance of power between the two parties remains extremely one-sided. While NATO’s willingness to overtly support Turkey should it provoke an armed conflict with Russian forces remains highly questionable, an assessment of the military capabilities of both parties shows a tremendous Russian advantage in the field in the event of an armed conflict – with the far smaller size of Russian units in Syria compensated for by overwhelming technological supremacy. ... ----- End forwarded message -----

1 0

World War III is a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation.
by Ryan Carboni 14 Mar '20

14 Mar '20

World War III is a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation. - Marshall McLuhan

1 0

Corona-Virus: A "Collective Fear Event"
by Razer 14 Mar '20

14 Mar '20

"In essence, then, we are dealing with a collective fear event. In our prosperous, technically controlled and automated world, we are no longer used to things being unpredictable. And so therefore we like to assume the worst." Opinion: We need to deal with our coronavirus panic It's right to take precautions; the coronavirus is not to be trifled with. Even without a vaccine, there's no need to panic. But we do so anyway, says DW's Jens Thurau after covering the outbreak. The taxi driver who drives me from our editorial office to the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin has her own view on the number one topic in Germany. She asks: "What happens if the newspapers write: 'Don't be afraid of the pink elephant! Then people will say: 'Oh God, we have pink elephants here?'" That is an accurate description of what Germany is currently experiencing with the new virus from China. Business trips are being canceled, including domestic ones. Bottles of disinfectant are suddenly mounted on office walls. People want to be tested even if they show no or only minor symptoms. Trade fairs are being canceled, party conferences are on the brink. And yet every morning the train is tortuously full as usual. And why wouldn't it be? Should we really follow the advice of scientists and go into closed quarantine? Do we have to stockpile now? No we don't. Although, the scientists are also right, strictly speaking: If everyone would sit still where they are for two weeks the virus would hardly stand a chance. But unlike in Italy, for example, the epidemic in Germany is, as the experts tell us, still in the "containment" phase. In other words, infected persons are isolated and treated, contact persons are tracked down. A kindergarten or a school might be closed down, but not the whole country. So do we have to do our "hamster-shopping" now, as some have already done here and there? When a whole society is gripped by fear, all good manners fall by the wayside: Unfortunately, one must say, especially German society. So people are hoarding protective face masks, even though, the experts tell us, they are of no use, but are urgently needed in hospitals and doctors' surgeries. Not only, it is obviously criminal to steal masks and sell them at a marked-up price on the internet. But it only works because people easily fall into hysteria and create the illegal market in the first place. At press conferences with Health Minister Jens Spahn or the experts from the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's main public health authority, questions are asked that actually only prove how stupid journalists can be. Why is there still no vaccine, one asked, with accusatory undertone? The virologist Christian Drosten, now known throughout Germany and a regular guest on television, who is feverishly researching a corona vaccine with his international colleagues, is forced to make an effort to control himself with difficulty and repeat the same lines: The virus is new, many things are still unknown, we are working on it, but there is no faster way. His expression shows that he thinks the press conference is wasting his time. So we grope our way through the epidemic. The ITB international tourism fair in Berlin is canceled, the Hannover industrial trade fair postponed. But the Bundesliga is still playing in full stadiums. The president of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, isn't really getting through with his message that most new infections are now happening within Germany, so people are hardly bringing the virus from abroad anymore. This is good news because it means that there are probably fewer contact people to find and the experts can concentrate on fighting the virus at home. <Infographic on ways to protect yourself from coronavirus> A collective fear In essence, then, we are dealing with a collective fear event. In our prosperous, technically controlled and automated world, we are no longer used to things being unpredictable. And so therefore we like to assume the worst. What we have been familiar with for a long time are the flu waves during the cold season. Just for comparison, as of Friday, March 5: Since the beginning of the year, over 100,000 people in Germany have fallen ill with flu and around 200 have also died of it. Among them are many old, already sick and weakened people. But this number does not make the headlines. It is like flying: Experts and statisticians never tire of pointing out that the airplane is the safest of all means of transportation. The risk of dying in road traffic is much higher. But the images of horrible plane crashes just keep on etching themselves onto our brains. The many thousands of successful take-offs and landings, every day, just happen, and aren't worth a headline. 'Chill out, Germany!' On the whole, my impression is that doctors, nurses and scientists in Germany are still managing the coronavirus well. Certainly, the health system has weaknesses, the health authorities in the municipalities are overstretched and short of staff. And globalization has its insane sides, which has become apparent by how many drugs are produced in China that we are now short of. When I get really upset about little things at home, my kids like to tell me: "Chill out, Dad!" Which really annoys me. But now I can say it too: "Chill out, Germany!" Let's take the virus seriously, listen to the experts, and keep our nerve. Don't forget to wash your hands, refrain from shaking hands in greeting, and instead smile nicely. And let's not assume the worst. https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-we-need-to-deal-with-our-coronavirus-panic/a-…

2 1