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Submission + - Mozilla releases local machine translation tools (mozilla.org)

Submitted by Artem S. Tashkinov
Artem S. Tashkinov writes: In January of 2019, Mozilla joined the University of Edinburgh, Charles University, University of Sheffield and University of Tartu as part of a project funded by the European Union called Project Bergamot. The ultimate goal of this consortium was to build a set of neural machine translation tools that would enable Mozilla to develop a website translation add-on that operates locally, i.e. the engines, language models and in-page translation algorithms would need to reside and be executed entirely in the user’s computer, so none of the data would be sent to the cloud, making it entirely private.

The result of this work is the translations add-on that is now available in the Firefox Add-On store for installation on Firefox Nightly, Beta and in General Release. It currently supports 14 languages. You can test the translation engine without installing the add-on.

Comment Re:Honestly (Score 4, Informative) 38

by jrepin (#62251263) Attached to: KDE Plasma 5.24 Released
Absolutely. I use KDE Plasma on my work laptop computer and all my home computers. Simply the best desktop environment there is no matter which OS you look at. Beautiful, powerful, fast, very flexible/customizable. And it is very impressive it manages to offer al this while being one of the most lightweight DEs. It has lately become also the desktop environment I install and recommend by default when setting up computers for my family and friends.

Submission + - KDE Plasma 5.24 (kde.org)

Submitted by jrepin
jrepin writes: Plasma is a popular desktop environment, which will also be powering the desktop mode on Steam Deck hand-held gaming console. Today KDE Community announced release of KDE Plasma 5.24 , a Long Term Support (LTS) release that will receive updates and bugfixes until the final Plasma 5 version, before transition to Plasma 6. This new Plasma release focuses on smoothing out wrinkles, evolving the design, and improving the overall feel and usability of the environment. Highlights include: Overview effect for managing all your desktops and application windows, easy discovery of KRunner features with the help assistant, and unlocking screen and authentication using fingerprint reader. You will also notice a new Honeywave wallpaper, the ability to pick any color for accent, and critically important Plasma notifications now come with an orange strip on the side to visually distinguish them from less urgent messages.

Submission + - System76-Scheduler Is A New Pop!_OS Rust Effort To Improve Desktop Responsivenes (phoronix.com)

Submitted by slack_justyb
slack_justyb writes: Quietly making its v1.0 debut yesterday was system76-scheduler as a Rust-written daemon aiming to improve Linux desktop responsiveness and catering to their Pop!_OS distribution

The daemon will work with the kernel's CFS scheduler to give priority to components that System76 deems important for it's distro. Out of the box the scheduler will assign priority to the X.Org Server and desktop window managers / compositors, while pushing compilers and other background tasks lower. However, the scheduler will be configurable via Rusty Object Notation (RON) files found in /etc/system76-scheduler/assignments/ and /usr/share/system76-scheduler/assignments/. Over on the github page for the project, the team indicates that they are indeed making a trade off from the default CFS to benefit Desktop configurations over the typical load a server might see.

Submission + - Slackware 15.0 released (slackware.com)

Submitted by saxa
saxa writes: After a long long development cycle we now have a new Slackware 15.0 release. Yeah that's it, Slackware 15.0 is out. See more on www.slackware.com

Submission + - Slackware, Oldest Actively Maintained Linux Distro, Releases Slackware 15.0

Submitted by sombragris
sombragris writes: Slackware, the oldest actively maintained Linux distributon, released version 15.0 yesterday after a long release cycle which comes all the way back from 2016, where the last version (14.2) was released. As the release notes said, the whole spirit of this release is: "Keep it familiar, but make it modern".

Among the news, this release offers kernel 5.15.19, PAM, PipeWire and PulseAudio, and Wayland and X11 graphical systems, Rust and Python 3. As graphical environments, both Xfce 4.16 and the latest Plasma 5 (Plasma 5.23.5, Frameworks 5.90, KDE apps 21.12 running under Qt 5.15.3) are available, with Cinnamon and Mate also available from third parties. The main compilers are gcc-11.2 and llvm 13.0. The default browser is Firefox 91.5esr, with Chromium available as a third-party repository. And... no systemd at all.

Slackware can be downloaded from a variety of mirrors, with a list available at http://mirrors.slacware.com./ BitTorrent dowloads are going to be available too.

I've used Slackware for 20 years and always impressed me with its stabilitty and speed. I encourage everyone interested to try it.

Submission + - Inside the Plot To Kill the Open Technology Fund (vice.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: OTF’s goal is to help oppressed communities across the globe by building the digital tools they need and offering training and support to use those tools. Its work has saved countless lives, and every single day millions of people use OTF-assisted tools to communicate and speak out without fear of arrest, retribution, or even death. The fund has helped dissidents raise their voices beyond China’s advanced censorship network, known as the Great Firewall; helped citizens in Cuba to access news from sources other than the state-sanctioned media; and supported independent journalists in Russia so they could work without fear of a backlash from the Kremlin. Closer to home, the tools that OTF has funded, including the encrypted messaging app Signal, have allowed Black Lives Matter protesters to organize demonstrations across the country more securely.

But now all of that is under threat, after Michael Pack, a Trump appointee and close ally of Steve Bannon, took control of USAGM in June. Pack has ousted the OTF’s leadership, removed its bipartisan board, and replaced it with Trump loyalists, including Bethany Kozma, an anti-transgender activist. One reason the OTF managed to gain the trust of technologists and activists around the world is because, as its name suggests, it invested largely in open-source technology. By definition, open-source software's source code is publicly available, meaning it can be studied, vetted, and in many cases contributed to by anyone in the world. This transparency makes it possible for experts to study code to see if it has, for example, backdoors or vulnerabilities that would allow for governments to compromise the software's security, potentially putting users at risk of being surveilled or identified. Now, groups linked to Pack and Bannon have been pressing for the funding of closed-source technology, which is antithetical to the OTF's work over the last eight years.

Submission + - New Mac Ransomware Is Even More Sinister Than It Appears (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: THE THREAT OF ransomware may seem ubiquitous, but there haven't been too many strains tailored specifically to infect Apple's Mac computers since the first full-fledged Mac ransomware surfaced only four years ago. So when Dinesh Devadoss, a malware researcher at the firm K7 Lab, published findings on Tuesday about a new example of Mac ransomware, that fact alone was significant. It turns out, though, that the malware, which researchers are now calling ThiefQuest, gets more interesting from there. In addition to ransomware, ThiefQuest has a whole other set of spyware capabilities that allow it to exfiltrate files from an infected computer, search the system for passwords and cryptocurrency wallet data, and run a robust keylogger to grab passwords, credit card numbers, or other financial information as a user types it in. The spyware component also lurks persistently as a backdoor on infected devices, meaning it sticks around even after a computer reboots, and could be used as a launchpad for additional, or "second stage," attacks. Given that ransomware is so rare on Macs to begin with, this one-two punch is especially noteworthy.

Though ThiefQuest is packed with menacing features, it's unlikely to infect your Mac anytime soon unless you download pirated, unvetted software. Thomas Reed, director of Mac and mobile platforms at the security firm Malwarebytes, found that ThiefQuest is being distributed on torrent sites bundled with name-brand software, like the security application Little Snitch, DJ software Mixed In Key, and music production platform Ableton. K7's Devadoss notes that the malware itself is designed to look like a "Google Software Update program." So far, though, the researchers say that it doesn't seem to have a significant number of downloads, and no one has paid a ransom to the Bitcoin address the attackers provide. [...] Given that the malware is being distributed through torrents, seems to focus on stealing money, and still has some kinks, the researchers say it was likely created by criminal hackers rather than nation state spies looking to conduct espionage.

Submission + - Firefox 78.0 is out (and the ESR too) (theregister.com)

Submitted by williamyf
williamyf writes: FireFox 78.0 is out.

The Register reports:
" Among the most important user facing features is Protections Dashboard, a screen which shows trackers and scripts blocked, a link to the settings, a link to Firefox Monitor for checking your email address against known data breaches, and a button for password management."

There are also plenty of goodies for Developers.

Also, since this relase IS an ESR, it means that, if you stick with it, you get no changes (only security patches) for a year, and also the blessing (or curse) of having flash installed and functioning until about Aug/Sept 2021

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