Datasets:

mfidabel

/

wikipedia_fhe

like 1

63456989

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henryk%20Hi%C5%BC

Henryk Hiż

Henryk Hiż (8 October 1917 – 19 December 2006) was a Polish analytical philosopher specializing in linguistics, philosophy of language, logic, mathematics and ethics, active for most of his life in the United States, one of the youngest representatives of the Lwów–Warsaw school. A disciple of Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Hiż studied at the University of Warsaw. During the German occupation of Poland in the World War II, he participated in the Polish resistance movement as a cryptographer in the Home Army. In 1944 he took part in the Warsaw Uprising. In 1948, he defended his Ph.D. at Harvard University under W.V.O. Quine. In 1950, he permanently emigrated to the United States. He kept in touch with the American logical environment, including with Alfred Tarski, and maintained lively contact with the Polish academic community. He lectured at the University of Pennsylvania between 1960–1988. In 1976 he was a Guggenheim Fellow and a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge. In 1982 he received the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Award. He was a member of the Warsaw Scientific Society. He published about one hundred original papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Strongly influenced by the Lwów–Warsaw school, initially in his research he was interested in semantics, formal logic and methodology of the sciences. From the late 1950s, he dealt mainly with linguistics in relation to logic and philosophy. He described himself as a naturalist and linguistic behaviorist, assuming that the linguistic work is primarily about linguistic behavior. He called himself a “negative utilitarian”; and was also a pacifist and an atheist. Biography Eearly life and German occupation He was born on October 8, 1917 in Petrograd as the son of Tadeusz Hiż and Emilia née Elżanowska. He had an older brother, Stanisław (1915–1999). In 1920, the family came to Poland, settling in Warsaw. Henryk's mother, Emilia, was an architect, while his father Tadeusz Hiż was a journalist, who kept in touch with the Warsaw's bohemian circles. Franciszek Fiszer was, among others, a frequent guest in their house. Years later, Henryk Hiż said that “he obtained a lot from his parental home”. He attended the Mikołaj Rej High School in Warsaw, where he passed the matriculation examination in 1937. For two years he was an actor at the School Theater of the Reduta Institute. In 1938, he performed in the play Kościuszko near Racławice (Kościuszko pod Racławicami) directed by Maria Dulęba, portraying historical figure Bartosz Głowacki. In the theater, he also met Ewa Kunina, Juliusz Osterwa and Iwo Gall. In the late 1930s he associated with the so-called “democratic youth”, becoming one of the founding members of the anti-fascist Democratic Club in Warsaw. In 1937 he enrolled at the University of Warsaw to study philosophy. He attended lectures and seminars in logic led by Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski and Alfred Tarski. He was most influenced by Tadeusz Kotarbiński, to which he later referred as his master. After the establishment of the ghetto benches at the university, Hiż together with a group of students used to stand against the wall instead of sitting during the lectures, to manifest their opposition to the antisemitic attitude of most of the then-academic staff and co-students. After the outbreak of World War II, during the German occupation of Poland, Hiż continued his education in the underground university until 1944. At the time, he was appointed an assistant to Kotarbiński and Łukasiewicz, and ran the classes in their absence. In the wartime he made friends with Jerzy Pelc, Klemens Szaniawski, Jan Strzelecki, Andrzej Grzegorczyk and Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński. Although he was a pacifist from a young age, and he was to say that he would not be able to use a gun even in self-defense, he joined the Home Army and became active in the Polish resistance movement. Later he justified that “a few roundups morally or nervously forced him to” do that. He worked in the Home Army's General Command, in the ciphers department. Mathematician Stefan Mazurkiewicz taught him encryption. In 1943 Henryk Hiż married Danuta Wicentowicz. In 1944 he took part in the Warsaw Uprising, in the rank of second lieutenant (podporucznik). After the fall of the uprising, he was taken prisoner by Nazi Germany and carried to an oflag in Lübeck, where he stayed until the liberation of the Allies. He considered the decision of Polish military command to start an uprising “unwise”. Studies in Belgium and the U.S., short return to Poland After the liberation, he enrolled in philosophy at the Université libre de Bruxelles, where he and his wife studied under Chaïm Perelman and Eugène Dupréel. In 1946 they obtained master's degrees (license en philosophie). In the same year, Henryk and Danuta Hiż left for the United States, along with the post-war wave of Eastern European emigrants and refugees. In 1948, Hiż defended his Ph.D. at Harvard University under Willard Van Orman Quine. In the years 1948–1949 he was a lecturer and tutor at Harvard. There he met Clarence I. Lewis, Percy W. Bridgman and Philipp Frank. He returned to Poland, where between 1949–1950 he was an adjunct at the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Warsaw, in the Department of Philosophy of Mathematics headed by Andrzej Mostowski. In the spring of 1950 he lectured at the University of Łódź, rector of which was Tadeusz Kotarbiński. He was friends with Stanisław Ossowski and Maria Ossowska. “A short attempt to settle in the country after the war ended with disappointment”, also due to the “Stalinist course slowly starting to dominate” at the time. In 1950 Henryk Hiż left with his wife back to the U.S. Permanent emigration to the United States Between 1950–1951 he was a lecturer at Brooklyn College at New York University and at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In the years 1951–1953 he was an assistant professor of philosophy of mathematics at the University of Utah. In 1953–1954 he returned to work at the University of Pennsylvania, where he lectured in philosophy. In 1954–1960 he was an assistant professor and associate professor of mathematics at Pennsylvania State University. In 1962, Henryk Hiż and his wife obtained American citizenship. From 1960, Hiż was an associate professor, and between 1964–1988 he was a full professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. In the years 1958–1981 he was the Deputy Head of the research group on transformation and text analysis, subsidized by the National Science Foundation. Occasionally, he was also a member of the Faculty of Computer Science and the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Pennsylvania. He kept in touch with Alfred Tarski, who helped Hiż get employment in the U.S. In Philadelphia, Hiż made a close acquaintance with philosopher Charles H. Kahn, who dedicated his book The Verb “be” in Ancient Greek to Henryk and Danuta Hiż. In 1966, Hiż was a lecturer at the Tate Institute for Advanced Study in Mumbai. In 1968–1971 he was a visiting professor of philosophy at New York University. In 1973–1976 he was a lecturer in philosophy at Columbia University. Between 1976–1977 he was a Guggenheim Fellow and visiting fellow at Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge. In 1976, he was the President of the Semiotic Society of America. In 1988 he retired and has since worked as a retired professor of linguistics. He lectured in the fall semester of 1988 and spring of 1990. Hiż “never lost contact with the Polish scientific community and was keenly interested in the situation in his home country”. In the U.S., his home was “always welcoming guests from Poland”. He was active in the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America. In 1976–1977 he was a visiting professor of philosophy at the Jagiellonian University. In 1991 he was elected a member of the Warsaw Scientific Society. In the years 1991–1992 he was a visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Warsaw. In 1995 he took part in the 6th Polish Philosophical Congress in Toruń, where he gave a lecture on reasoning in the Polish language. In 2001 he presented a paper at the Tarski Centenary conference in Warsaw. He died on December 19, 2006 at Cape May Point and was buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków, in the family tomb (LX headquarters, southern row, place 23). Work and thought He specialized in logic and theoretical linguistics. Jan Woleński called him “an outstanding representative of Polish and American analytical philosophy”, “the youngest disciple of the Lwów–Warsaw school”, whose death resulted in the “real end” of this school. Hiż did not publish any book, but he authored about a hundred original papers, including in The Journal of Philosophy, The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Methods, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, The Monist, Synthese, The Philosophical Forum and Studia Logica. At the beginning of his career, he was interested in issues specific to the Lwów–Warsaw school: semantics, formal logic and methodology of the sciences. During this period, he appealed mostly to the philosophy of nominalism of Stanisław Leśniewski and reism of Tadeusz Kotarbiński. Kotarbiński had the greatest impact on the formation of his views (in particular with his work Elements of the Theory of Knowledge, Formal Logic and Methodology of the Sciences, 1929). With time, especially under the influence of American philosophers, Hiż began to abandon the absolutism of his professors in favor of pragmatism and pluralistic eclecticism. From the late 1950s, “he mainly dealt with linguistics and its logical and philosophical foundations”, focusing his research program on the grammar theory of natural language. He “aimed to give a clear form to the grammar of colloquial speech”. In this way, he went beyond the interests of the Lwów–Warsaw school, claiming that it is possible and necessary to “develop formal logic so that it applies to natural language”, although “he did not postulate the full formalization of the language and its theory”. His work was maintained in the canon of scientist naturalism. Zellig Harris, who he met in 1951 at the University of Pennsylvania, and whom he considered the main creator of formal grammar, had the greatest influence on him in linguistics. Hiż did not share Noam Chomsky's mentalism and nativism, while “recognizing the importance of the concept of linguistic competence”. Under the influence of Leonard Bloomfield and W.V.O. Quine he adopted the foundations of linguistic behaviorism, according to which the subject of the linguist's work is not mental processes, but language behaviors. He used the terminology introduced by Rudolf Carnap, although he consistently used the term sentence instead of proposition to designate the basic unit of logical examination (which revealed his ties with the Lwów–Warsaw school). He treated language as a set of sentences on which transformations operate; while language comprehension was considered closely related to the understanding of a sentence in the context of the system of other sentences. In ethics, he advocated negative utilitarianism, recommending “taking care not of good for as many people as possible, but of reducing evil equally to every human being”. He was a pacifist and a tough critic of all forms of racism. As a “radical atheist”, “he believed that religious faith was a manifestation of irrationalism” and “saw no way to reconcile religion with science”. However, following the view of Kotarbiński, he believed that atheism should be distinguished as part of the worldview from “godlessness, or mocking religion, or eliminating it by force”, and was “as far as possible from imposing a secular worldview on other people”. In a number of his works he referred to the works of Polish philosophers, first of all Kotarbiński, but also Stanisław Leśniewski and Leon Chwistek. In 2013, a selection of his writings made by Jan Woleński and Barbara Stanosz, translated in Polish by Barbara Stanosz, was published posthumously. Awards Guggenheim Fellowship (1976) Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Award (1982) Commemoration In 1992, on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of his birth, disciples and friends of Henryk Hiż contributed to the book Philosophical Excerpts (Fragmenty filozoficzne ofiarowane Henrykowi Hiżowi w siedemdziesiątą piątą rocznicę urodzin), edited by Jerzy Pelc. In 2010, the Polish Semiotics Society established the Henryk and Danuta Hiż Award as “an individual cash prize awarded in a competition for the best work on language philosophy and sign theory”. The Prize Fund is financial resources offered by Henryk and Danuta Hiż to a befriended Polish marriage, who then transferred the funds to the Polish Semiotic Society. References 1917 births 2006 deaths 21st-century Polish philosophers 20th-century Polish philosophers 21st-century American philosophers 20th-century American philosophers Polish ethicists Polish logicians American ethicists American logicians Warsaw Uprising insurgents People from Saint Petersburg Polish emigrants to the United States Home Army officers Burials at Rakowicki Cemetery World War II prisoners of war held by Germany Columbia University faculty Jagiellonian University faculty University of Łódź faculty New York University faculty University of Warsaw faculty Free University of Brussels (1834–1969) alumni Harvard University alumni Polish atheists

63502168

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoombombing

Zoombombing

Zoombombing or Zoom raiding refers to the unwanted, disruptive intrusion, generally by Internet trolls, into a video-conference call. In a typical Zoombombing incident, a teleconferencing session is hijacked by the insertion of material that is lewd, obscene, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamophobic, or antisemitic in nature, typically resulting in the shutdown of the session. The term is especially associated with and is derived from the name of the Zoom videoconferencing software program, but it has also been used to refer to the phenomenon on other video conferencing platforms. The term became popularized in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced many people to stay at home, and videoconferencing came to be used on a large scale by businesses, schools, and social groups. Zoombombing has caused significant issues in particular for schools, companies, and organizations worldwide. Such incidents have resulted in increased scrutiny on Zoom as well as restrictions on usage of the platform by educational, corporate, and governmental institutions globally. In response, Zoom, citing the sudden influx of new users due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been taking measures to increase security of its teleconferencing application. Incidents of Zoombombing have prompted law enforcement officers in various countries to investigate such cases and file criminal charges for those responsible. Procedure The term "Zoombombing" is derived from the teleconferencing application Zoom, though the term has also been used in reference to similar incidents on other teleconferencing platforms, such as WebEx or Skype. The increased use of Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic as an alternative to face-to-face meetings resulted in widespread exposure to hackers and Internet trolls, who exploit and work around the application's security features. In various forums such as Discord and Reddit, efforts have been coordinated to disrupt Zoom sessions, while certain Twitter accounts advertise meeting ids and passwords or meeting links (allowing users to instantly join a Zoom meeting instead of entering the credentials required to access a meeting) for sessions that were vulnerable to being joined without authorization. At educational institutions, some students were "actively asking strangers to Zoombomb or 'Zoom raid' their virtual classrooms to spice up their isolated lessons" and facilitating the raids by sharing passwords with the raiders. CNET pointed out that simple Google searches for URLs that include "Zoom.us" could bring up conferences that are not password protected, and that links within public pages can allow anyone to join. Hackers and trolls also look for easy targets such as unprotected or underprotected "check-in" meetings in which organizations meet with their employers or clients remotely. While a Zoom session is in progress, unfamiliar users show up and hijack the session by saying or showing things that are lewd, obscene, racist, or antisemitic in nature. The compromised Zoom session is then typically shut down by the host. Many of those successful in disrupting sessions have posted video footage of those incidents to social media and video sharing platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. While it is believed Zoombombing attacks are mainly orchestrated by external hackers and trolls, many are also orchestrated internally from within their respective organization or entity. Some view Zoombombing as a continuation of cyberbullying by teenagers, particularly after schools were shut down due to the pandemic. Responses Zoombombing has caused a number of problems for schools and educators, with unwanted participants posting lewd content to interrupt learning sessions. Some schools had to suspend using video conferencing altogether. The University of Southern California called Zoombombing a type of trolling and apologized for "vile" events that interrupted "lectures and learning." Zoombombing has prompted colleges and universities to publish guides and resources to educate and bring awareness to their students and staff about the phenomenon. Zoombombing has left online lectures vulnerable to the intrusion of people looking to inflict harm. These crimes have brought attention not only to the lack of security on videoconferencing platforms, but also the lack in the universities. According to an article from The Guardian, the University of Warwick, in the midst of a rape-chat scandal, received criticisms for its weak cybersecurity. Zoombombing affected twelve-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous and other substance abuse and addiction recovery programs who were forced to switch to online meetings. Concerns arise from causing undue stress to an already vulnerable population and video recording which can break anonymity. Some bombers reference the drug-of-choice for recovery members, such as alcohol, in an attempt to emotionally trigger the participants of the meeting. The problem reached such prominence that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned of video-teleconferencing and online classroom hijacking, which it called "Zoom-bombing." The FBI advised users of teleconferencing software to keep meetings private, require passwords or other forms of access control such as "waiting rooms" to limit access only to specific people, and limiting screen-sharing access to the meeting host only. Given the number of incidents of Zoombombing, New York's attorney general initiated an inquiry into Zoom's data privacy and security policies. U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate into the matter, accusing Zoom of engaging in deceptive practices regarding user privacy and security. Amid concerns about Zoombombing, various organizations banned the use of Zoom. In April 2020, Google banned the use of Zoom on its corporate computers, directing employees to instead use its video chat app Google Duo. The use of Zoom was also banned by SpaceX, Smart Communications, NASA, and the Australian Defence Force. The Taiwanese and Canadian governments banned Zoom for all government use. The New York City Department of Education prohibited all its teachers from using the platform with students, and the Clark County School District in Nevada disabled access to Zoom to its staff. Singapore's Ministry of Education briefly banned all teachers within the country from using Zoom before lifting the ban three days later, adding extra security features. Some Zoombombers have shared their side of the story, claiming they aren't trying to cause harm. They claim it is a form of protest in response to the extensive amount of work given from teachers. Not all incidents are malicious, as many have shared some new pop culture, such as memes and TikToks, to bring some relief and fun during the pandemic. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan made a public apology, saying that the teleconferencing company had not anticipated the sudden influx of new consumer users and stating that "this is a mistake and lesson learned." In response to the concerns, Zoom has published a guide on their blog on how to avoid these types of incidents. On April 7, 2020, Zoom implemented user experience and security updates to the application. Such updates include a more visible "Security" icon for users to see and use, suppression of meeting ID numbers, and a change in the default settings to require passwords and waiting rooms for sessions. On April 8, 2020, Zoom announced that it had formed a council of chief information security officers from other companies to share ideas on best practices, and that it had hired Alex Stamos, former chief security officer of Facebook, as an adviser. Zoom released its 5.0 version in April 2020 with security features that include AES 256-bit GCM encryption, passwords by default, and a feature to report suspicious users to its Trust and Safety Team for possible misuse. In May 2020, Zoom announced it had temporarily disabled its Giphy (frequently used as a tactic in zoombombing) integration until security concerns could be properly and fully addressed. On July 1, 2020, Zoom stated it had released 100 new safety features over the past 90 days, including end-to-end encryption for all users, turning on meeting passwords by default, giving users the ability to choose which data centers calls are routed from, consulting with security experts, forming a CISO council, an improved bug bounty program, and working with third parties to help test security. Criminal use National authorities worldwide warned of possible charges against people engaging with Zoombombing. On April 8, 2020, a teen in Madison, Connecticut, was arrested for computer crime, conspiracy, and disturbing the peace following a Zoombombing incident involving online classes at Daniel Hand High School; police also identified another teen involved in the incident. In San Francisco, a man was arrested after being traced to pornographic videos that were streamed on Zoom. As of May 2020, the FBI has received 195 incidents of Zoombombing involving child abuse, while the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency has reported more than 120 such cases. St. Paulus Lutheran Church in San Francisco filed a class-action lawsuit against Zoom after one of its bible study classes was "Zoombombed" on May 6, 2020. The church alleged that Zoom "did nothing" when it tried to reach out to the company. See also Photobombing Email bomb Text message bomb Google bombing Griefing Trolling References Criticisms of software and websites Hacking in the 2020s Internet memes introduced in 2020 Internet trolling Online obscenity controversies Videotelephony 2020 neologisms

63527748

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synamedia

Synamedia

Synamedia Ltd. (previously Cisco's SPVSS business, and formerly NDS Group Ltd., and later Cisco Videoscape) is a video technology provider headquartered in Staines-upon-Thames, UK. Its products cover content distribution and delivery, video processing, advanced advertising, broadband solutions, and video security. History The company was formed in 1988 as News Datacom in Israel, offering encryption technology for satellite broadcasts. The encryption technology was developed by Israeli cryptographer Adi Shamir and Amos Fiat. In 1992, the company was acquired by News Corporation and renamed News Digital Systems (NDS). In 2012, Cisco Systems Inc. acquired NDS. It became the foundation of Cisco's Service Provider Video Software Solutions (SPVSS) business. In May 2018, Permira acquired the SPVSS business from Cisco. The acquisition included Cisco's Infinite Video platform, the former Scientific Atlanta video processing portfolio, cloud digital video recording, video processing, video security, and video middleware. In October 2018, the business was launched as Synamedia. Synamedia leadership includes Paul Segre, CEO; Bijal Patel, CFO; Nick Thexton, CTO; Yael Fainaro, EVP of Security; Jean-Francois Pigeon, EVP of Sales & Marketing and Julien Signes, EVP and General Manager, Video Network. The company has offices in the U.K., U.S., Canada, Belgium, Israel, India, and China. Synamedia's clients include satellite and cable pay TV providers, media companies, and others involved in direct-to-consumer OTT distribution. It has over 200 pay TV and media customers. They include AT&T, beIN, Bharti Airtel, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Disney, Etisalat, Foxtel, Liberty Global, OSN, Rogers, Sky, Tata Sky, Verizon, Vodafone, and YES. In January 2020, Synamedia entered a partnership with Pearl TV to join the Phoenix Model Market Initiative. In August 2021, Synamedia acquired ContentArmor, a company that develops forensic watermarking solutions for the media and entertainment industry. Products Synamedia's platforms for cable, satellite, and IPTV include Foundation for broadcast and hybrid solutions, and the cloud-based Infinite platform. In September 2021, Synamedia announced pre-integrated security and business solutions support for Android TV on its Infinite platform. In 2019, Synamedia released its Credentials Sharing and Fraud Insight product. The product enables pay TV partners and OTT companies to track and prevent piracy and password-sharing. In April 2021, Synamedia announced Gravity, a managed service that offers broadband and video capabilities to operators and service providers for their small to medium business (SMB) and residential customers. The Synamedia Video Network portfolio includes Digital Content Manager (DCM) which transitions distribution architectures to an IP-based virtualized video processing environment. In May 2020, Synamedia launched a ATSC 3.0 Receiver which can function as both an RF and IP receiver. The receiver is in use today with Fox Television Stations in Orlando, FL. In October 2019, Discovery began using the DCM platform. The Synamedia virtualized DCM with Smart Rate Control and Automation provides bandwidth distribution, storage capabilities and High Definition viewing experiences for live and time-shifted ABR streaming. The Synamedia Video Network Service Manager is a micro-services-based platform that helps operators and video producers quickly update their programming line-ups and bundled offers. The Converged Headend is designed to help pay-TV providers transition to software-based services, and can be deployed on premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment. In April 2021, Synamedia released Clarissa, which analyzes critical behavioral and consumption insights for pay-TV and OTT services. Synamedia Iris, an addressable advertising for broadcast, IP, OTT and Hybrid, was announced in August 2020. Synamedia, in partnership with Sky, has developed a personalized ad targeting platform, AdSmart, which serves TV advertisements to households based on their profiles. References Digital television Digital Video Broadcasting Mass media companies of the United Kingdom Permira companies Mass media companies established in 1988 1988 establishments in Israel

63555287

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responses%20to%20the%20COVID-19%20pandemic%20in%20April%202020

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020

This article documents the chronology of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, which originated in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Some developments may become known or fully understood only in retrospect. Reporting on this pandemic began in December 2019. The regional global responses are categorized by six WHO offices: Africa, Western Pacific, Eastern Mediterranean, South East Asia, Europes, and Americas. Reactions and measures at the United Nations 1 April The World Health Organization reported that deaths from COVID-19 had more than doubled in the previous week and would soon reach 50,000 globally, with the global caseload heading towards one million. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs reported in a new analysis that the global economy could shrink by up to one per cent in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, or even further if restrictions on economic activities were continued without sufficient fiscal responses. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) outlined a series of measures the UNHCR was taking to respond to the coronavirus public health emergency and prevent further spread, especially those to reinforce health and the ‘WASH’ systems (water, sanitation and hygiene), including distributing soap and increasing water access. The executive director of the UN Children's Fund warned that an outbreak of COVID-19 in the world's refugee camps was "looking imminent". The UNHCR and International Organization for Migration emphasized that the worldwide COVID-19 emergency was compounding the already desperate situation for many refugees and migrants from Venezuela. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia issued a new policy brief noting COVID-19 would be responsible for pushing a further 8.3 million people in the Arab region into poverty. The UN system in Nigeria announced that it was working with its partners to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, especially in the northeast, where communities and camps house millions of internally displaced people uprooted by the Boko Haram insurgency. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Petteri Taalas urged governments to support national early warning and weather observing capacities despite the "severe challenges" caused by COVID-19, as the WMO's Global Observing System came under strain due to the lack of data from commercial airliners. 2 April The United Nations General Assembly passed resolution A/RES/74/270: Global solidarity to fight the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The United Nations postponed the COP26 climate summit postponed to ‘safeguard lives’. The International Organization for Migration sounded the alarm over conditions in crowded reception centres in Greece as the first migrants tested positive for COVID-19. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, warned of the plight of hundreds of thousands of now unemployed migrant workers in India, calling for ‘domestic solidarity’ in the coronavirus battle. The World Food Programme (WFP) warned that food insecurity levels for five million people in the Sahel region of Africa were "spiralling out of control", with the COVID-19 pandemic potentially impacting humanitarian supply chains. On World Autism Awareness Day, the UN Secretary-General appealed for the rights of persons with autism to be taken into account in efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic. 3 April In a joint statement, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) and the World Health Organization stressed that "refugees, migrants and displaced persons are at heightened risk of contracting the new coronavirus disease" as health systems threatened to be overwhelmed. The United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet welcomed the decision by many governments to release hundreds of thousands of prisoners to slow the transmission of the new coronavirus within prison systems. The UN Secretary-General warned of a surge in domestic violence due to lockdowns. The World Food Programme (WFP) released a major report, "COVID-19: Potential impact on the world’s poorest people: A WFP analysis of the economic and food security implications of the pandemic", noting that the global food chain was holding, while pointing out that food exports by major producers could be impacted if the exporting countries panicked. The UN Secretary-General reiterated his call for a global ceasefire and urged unity in mobilizing "every ounce of energy" to defeat the coronavirus pandemic. 4 April The UN chief of peacekeeping operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix stressed that UN peacekeepers were continuing in their mission to help fragile countries navigate conflict and COVID-19, as he echoed the Secretary-General's call for an immediate global ceasefire. The United Nations reported it was forced to significantly scale back its activities on Mine Awareness Day, which usually involves football games on cleared minefields. 6 April The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent warned that structural discrimination could be worsening inequalities surrounding access to healthcare and treatment, potentially leading to a rise in disease and death rates among people of African descent. The World Health Organization teamed up with Global Citizen to launch ‘One World Together At Home", a global television and streaming event curated by Lady Gaga, to celebrate frontline health care workers in their battle against the pandemic. UNESCO invited young innovators, data scientists and designers, especially those now out of school, to join a month-long hackathon, CodeTheCurve, to provide digital solutions to the global pandemic. On the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, as millions of people were stuck indoors, the World Health Organization urged people to continue to practice sport and exercise, through its #BeActive campaign. 7 April On World Health Day, the World Health Organization and UN Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted the work of the world's medical professionals and urged greater support for nurses and other frontline workers, as well as concern over the lack of personal protective equipment and intimidation and threats. Yacoub El Hillo, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Libya echoed the UN Secretary General's call for a global ceasefire and demanded fighting stop immediately if the country was to have any chance of warding off the COVID-19 outbreak, as he condemned an attack on a major Tripoli hospital. Independent UN human rights experts called on UN Member States to improve child protection measures to protect the welfare of "millions of children who may be more exposed to violence, sale, trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation" during the pandemic. 8 April The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the number of COVID-19 cases in Africa had now increased to over 10,000, with over 500 dead. Responding to criticism, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned against politicizing COVID-19 as unity is the "only option" to defeat the pandemic, emphasizing, "please quarantine politicizing COVID". He outlined five main reasons why countries need the WHO. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres urged global support for the World Health Organization (WHO), describing the UN health agency, which has led the multilateral response since the beginning, as "absolutely critical" in overcoming COVID-19. 9 April The UN Secretary-General welcomed a ceasefire declaration by Saudi Arabia in Yemen as a way to contribute towards his global ceasefire call, promote peace and slow the advance of COVID-19. 100 days since the advent of COVID-19, the WHO Director-General announced the publication of WHO's technical strategy update for the next phase of the COVID-19 response, the basis for its Second Preparedness and Response Plan, to be released shortly. The UN Secretary-General launched a new policy brief on women and equality and issued a dire warning that the pandemic could reverse gains in equality over previous years. In the 2020 Financing for Sustainable Development Report, the UN-led Inter-Agency Task Force on Financing for Development warned that billions of people in countries on the brink of economic collapse due to COVID-19 are being threatened further by a looming debt crisis, presenting recommendations based on joint research and analysis from more than 60 UN agencies and international institutions. 10 April The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus laid out six factors for consideration when lifting lockdowns, including that transmission is controlled and sufficient public health and medical services are available. 11 April The UN Secretary-General called on religious leaders of all faiths to join forces and work for global peace and focus on the common battle to defeat COVID-19. In a joint appeal, the five UN envoys to the Middle East urged the region's warring parties to work towards an immediate end to hostilities, emphasizing the Secretary-General's recent call for a global ceasefire during the COVID-19 pandemic. 13 April The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), outlined the agency's latest advice, stressing a mix of social distancing, testing, contact tracing and isolation. The World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and other health partners supporting the Measles & Rubella Initiative (M&RI) warned that over 117 million children in 37 countries risked missing out on a measles vaccine. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned that hundreds of thousands of children in detention were at “grave risk” of contracting COVID-19, calling for their urgent release. UNESCO warned of unreliable and false information about the COVID-19 pandemic, terming it a global ‘disinfodemic’. 14 April The first of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organization (WHO) “Solidarity Flights” carried urgently needed medical equipment to Africa, part of a UN-wide initiative. The UN Secretary-General warned of “a dangerous epidemic of misinformation” during “the most challenging crisis we have faced since the Second World War”, leaving millions scared and seeking clear advice. The UN Secretary-General urged unity and called for countries not to cut the resources of the World Health Organization (WHO), as US President Trump halted funding. Henrietta Fore, executive director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), warned of online predators putting millions of children at risk during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Forecasting the “worst economic downturn since the Great Depression”, the International Monetary Fund reported that growth for 2020 was likely to be minus three per cent, a dramatic change since the previous World Economic Outlook report in January. Imran Riza, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria, warned of a major threat from the coronavirus threat, which had initiated a broad UN containment effort. 15 April The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) stated it was reviewing the impact of the United States (US) withholding funding and upheld the importance of international solidarity in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic one day after the US announced that it was cutting funding, pending a review of how the WHO responded to the initial outbreak in China. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned of a potential “second wave” of COVID-19 infections in an update to its strategic advice to governments, as some European countries began to relax lockdown measures. The International Organization for Migration expanded the scope of its Global Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan to include major interventions aiming to mitigate the severe health and socio-economic impacts of the pandemic. Secretary-General António Guterres pledged that the UN would stand in solidarity with Africa in the face of the unprecedented economic, social and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, from procuring test kits to promoting debt relief. David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, appealed for countries not to respond to COVID-19 by lower environmental standards. 16 April UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched a new UN report noting that the looming global recession due to the COVID-19 pandemic could cause hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths in 2020, reversing recent gains in reducing global infant mortality. 17 April The head of the UN children's fund UNICEF warned that 250 million children globally living in the “waking nightmare” of conflict desperately needed warring parties to adopt the UN Secretary General's call for a global ceasefire as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads. Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, warned that the United States must take urgent additional steps to prevent tens of millions of middle-class Americans impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic from being “plunged into poverty”. UNWTO Secretary-General, Zurab Pololikashvili, warned that tourism, which accounts for 10 per cent of global GDP, could lose millions of jobs but offered potential for an economic recovery. Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, issued new guidance setting out key actions to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people against discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic. 19 April The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) urged the G20 leading global economies to plan to ease lockdowns against COVID-19 only as part of “a phased process”. UN Secretary-General António Guterres sent a video message in support of the UN-supported 'One World: Together At Home' event. 20 April The United Nations General Assembly passed resolution A/RES/74/274: International cooperation to ensure global access to medicines, vaccines and medical equipment to face COVID-19, urging swift access to vaccines. The World Health Organization (WHO) reiterated its stance on the lifting of lockdown measures, stating, “We want to re-emphasize that easing restrictions is not the end of the epidemic in any country”. The heads of multiple major UN humanitarian agencies and offices, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), launched an urgent appeal for $350 million to support global aid hubs to help those vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. Henrietta Fore, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi issued a joint statement pledging to accelerate work to expand refugee children's access to protection, education, clean water and sanitation. The UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) launched the Rural Poor Stimulus Facility, which aims to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on farmers and rural communities in developing countries. Gillian Triggs, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, warned of the urgent need to protect “refugee, displaced and stateless women and girls at the time of this pandemic”. 21 April A new study on food insecurity by an alliance of UN, governmental, and non-governmental agencies (Global Network Against Food Crises) warned that the COVID-19 pandemic was perpetuating a downward cycle of acute food insecurity for around 135 million people across 55 countries. Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) David Beasley warned the UN Security Council to act fast in the face of famines of "biblical proportions" in what was not only "a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe". A UN ECLAC report warned that the COVID-19 pandemic would result in the worst economic contraction in the history of Latin American and the Caribbean since the Great Depression, with a projected -5.3 per cent drop in activity in 2020. New data from UNESCO and partners revealed extreme divides in digitally-based distance learning for most of the world's students now at home due to COVID-19, as half of all students currently out of the classroom (nearly 830 million learners globally) lacked access to a computer, with over 40 per cent having no home Internet. UN Secretary-General António Guterres pledged the UN's continued support to the Alliance of Small Island States on climate change and the socioeconomic effects of COVID-19. 22 April The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) confirmed that 5G was in no way responsible for the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned against 'complacency' as countries continue to battle COVID-19 and citizens grew weary of stay-at-home measures. On International Mother Earth Day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres flagged the COVID-19 pandemic as "an unprecedented wake-up call" and offered six ways to help the climate. 23 April The UN Secretary-General released a new policy brief on shaping an effective, inclusive response to the COVID-19 pandemic, echoed his February Call to Action to put human dignity and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the core of the UN's work, and warned that the coronavirus pandemic was "fast becoming a human rights crisis". 24 April The UN backed the virtual launch of the G20 Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator initiative, to boost commitment and support for the production of COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, expressed alarm over press clampdowns stifling the free flow information in some countries, vital in getting the COVID-19 under control. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in a statement called for greater funding as it worked to set up basic handwashing stations, deliver clean drinking water and food, and launch public information campaigns on COVID-19, for 100 million people at risk. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and World Health Organization (WHO) reported that lessons learned during the Ebola outbreak in Liberia six years previously were helping it to confront COVID-19. 25 April The UN World Health Organization (WHO) warned that there was as yet no evidence that people who had recovered from COVID-19 and had antibodies were protected from a second infection. 26 April At the start of World Immunization Week, UNICEF warned that millions of children were in danger of missing life-saving vaccines against measles, diphtheria and polio due to disruptions in immunization as the world attempted to slow the transmission of COVID-19. 27 April The WHO warned about the pandemic's impact on health services, especially for children, particularly vaccination. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed launched a new women-led initiative to mobilize support to save lives and protect livelihoods in the face of COVID-19, 'Rise for All', a social and economic recovery initiative to bring women leaders together in calling the world to action in support of the UN Response and Recovery Fund and Framework. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, warned of a 'toxic lockdown culture' of state repression and stated that that emergency powers "should not be a weapon governments can wield to quash dissent, control the population, and even perpetuate their time in power". 28 April The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and partners released new data suggesting ongoing lockdowns and major disruptions to health services during the COVID-19 pandemic could result in seven million unintended pregnancies in the next few months. Marking the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued a new report, Ensuring Safety and Health at Work, urging countries to take action to prevent and control COVID-19 in the workplace. The ILO issued a new report, ILO Monitor Third Edition: COVID-19 and the World of Work, reporting that approximately 1.6 billion people employed in the informal economy, i.e., nearly half the global workforce, could see their livelihoods destroyed due to the lockdown responses to the spread of COVID-19, while over 430 million enterprises in hard-hit sectors risked "serious disruption". The WHO launched a major UN-led initiative to secure supplies of key medical equipment for 135 low to medium-income countries responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The UN Secretary-General addressed the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin, stating that the parallel threats of COVID-19 and climate change required "brave, visionary and collaborative leadership" and noting that the Sustainable Development Goals were under threat. 29 April UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank, acting as part of the Global Education Coalition, issued new guidelines to assist governments in making decisions on safely reopening schools for 1.3 billion students affected by closures. The World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) urged governments to act immediately to support the futures of 370 million children globally depending on school meals. 30 April Climate activist Greta Thunberg along with Danish NGO Human Act launched a child rights-driven campaign to support UNICEF in protecting children's lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. UN special rapporteurs, independent experts and working groups issued a joint statement calling on the United States to lift its blockade on Cuba to save lives amid the expanding COVID-19 crisis. Reactions and measures in Africa 1 April Eritrea announced a three-week lockdown, commencing 2 April to combat the spread of COVID-19. Sierra Leone declared that a three-day lockdown would come into effect on Saturday (4 April). 3 April At a press briefing, the Director General of the Ghana Health Service, announced the commencement of local production of nose masks as part of efforts to arrest the spread of the pandemic in Ghana. 4 April President of Malawi Peter Mutharika announces several measures to support small and medium businesses including tax breaks, reducing fuel allowances and increasing risk allowances for health workers. The President also announces that he and his Cabinet will take a 10 percent salary cut. 198 markets in the Eastern Region of Ghana were disinfected as part of the drive to control the pandemic. The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development teamed up with Moderpest Company and Zoomlion Ghana for the exercise. The Nigerian Government announces the creation of a 500 billion naira (US$1.39 billion) coronavirus crisis intervention fund to upgrade its healthcare infrastructure. 6 April Alibaba Group CEO Jack Ma donates 500 ventilators, 200,000 suits and face shields, 2,000 thermometers, one million swabs and extraction kits and 500,000 gloves to all 54 African countries. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta announces a halt to all movement in parts of the country affected by COVID-19 including the capital Nairobi, coming into effect on 7pm on 6 April for a period of 21 days. The Nigerian Government requests a US$6.9 billion fund from international lenders to alleviate the economic impact of the coronavirus. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa introduces an emergency release of broadband spectrum to meet a spike in internet usage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 7 April Benin's government ordered residents in several cities and towns to wear face masks. The Benin government also placed a "cordon sanitaire" on 12 areas including the capital Porto-Novo and largest city Cotonou, banning travel, public gatherings, and shutting down public transportation. This came into effect the following day. 8 April Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declares a state of emergency to combat the spread of COVID-19. Ethiopian authorities have already banned public gatherings, closed schools, and required employees to work from home. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa orders that the Minister of Communications, Telecommunications and Postal Services Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams be placed on "special leave" for two months for breaching lockdown requirements by having lunch with a former official in her home. 9 April Dr John Nkengasong, the Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), condemns remarks made on 1 April by two French scientists Professors Jean-Paul Mira and Camille Locht that a potential tuberculosis vaccine for the coronavirus be tested on Africa as "disgusting and racist." Mira had issued an apology for his statements via his employer, the Paris network of hospitals, on 3 April, while Locht could not be reached by that date for comment. The entire Parliament of Botswana including President of Botswana Mokgweetsi Masisi will be quarantined for 14 days and tested for the coronavirus after a health worker screening lawmakers for the virus herself tested positive overnight. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa defends the World Health Organization (WHO) in response to criticism by US President Trump. President Ramaphosa also extended the country's lockdown, which had stated on 27 March and was due to last 21 days, by a further two weeks. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni issues a Twitter post discouraging people from jogging in groups and instead encouraging them to exercise indoors. 10 April The Senegalese government bans companies from dismissing employees during the coronavirus pandemic except in cases of gross negligence, commencing 14 April. Zimbabwe's national carrier, Air Zimbabwe, which is facing a US$30 million debt, places all its workers on indefinite unpaid leave. 13 April Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari announces that the Nigerian Government will extend lockdowns in the states of Lagos, Abuja and Ogun by another 14 days. South Africa evacuates 136 of its nationals from Nigeria on a chartered South African Airways flight. 14 April The Ghana Education Service and Zoomlion Ghana Limited joined forces to launch an initiative to fumigate all senior high, special and technical schools in the country to curb the spread of the pandemic. President of Guinea Alpha Condé makes it compulsory for all citizens and residents to wear face masks, coming into effect on 18 April. Offenders face a civil disobedience tax of 30,000 Guinean francs (US$3.16, €2.8). Condéalso called upon all companies, ministries and NGOs to provide masks to their employees by Saturday and called for masks to be manufactured locally and sold cheaply. President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni extends the country's initial 14-day lockdown by an extra three weeks until 5 May in order to combat the spread of COVID-19. President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa threatens to jail the author of a statement, claiming that the nationwide lockdown had been extended, for 20 years for posting "fake news." 15 April The International Monetary Fund approves a $115 million disbursement for Burkina Faso and another $114 million for Niger under its Rapid Credit Facility to help African states cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. In Malawi, the Minister of Health and Population Jappie Mhango announces that the Malawian Government will be imposing a three-week nationwide lockdown between 18 April and 9 May in a bit to combat the spread of the coronavirus. 16 April Dr John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa CDC, announces that the agency will distribute 1 million test kits across Africa with the goal of testing 15 million people over the next three months. In Kenya, Governor of Nairobi Mike Sonko draws media attention for distributing cognac and Hennessy to the poor, claiming it can cure the coronavirus. His claims have been rejected by the Kenyan Government and the liquor company LVMH. The Liberian Government announces that it will launch a radio schooling initiative for children whose education was disrupted after Liberia closed schools across the country on 16 March in response to the country's first coronavirus case. Nigeria's National Human Rights Commission reports there were eight documented incidents of extrajudicial killings by law security forces resulting in 18 deaths. South African Minister of Mineral Resources Gwede Mantashe announces that the South African Government will allow mines to operate at 50 percent capacity in order to contain the spread of COVID-19. 17 April Michel Yao, the head of emergency operations for World Health Organization Africa, could rise to 10 million in three to six months based on computer modelling. The Malawian High Court issues a ruling temporarily barring the Malawian Government from imposing a 21-day lockdown following a petition by the human rights NGO Malawi Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) and protests by small-scale traders complaining that the lockdown would cause hardship and poverty. 18 April The Algerian Government extended its lockdown by 10 days, through 29 April. In Nigeria, Abba Kyari, the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, died from the coronavirus. 19 April Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo announce that they will mandate the wearing of face masks. President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa has extended the country's lockdown by two weeks. 20 April Ghana is using drones from Zipline to test people more quickly outside of the major cities. Zipline will fly samples collected from more than 1,000 health facilities in rural areas to laboratories in the capital Accra and Kumasi. The Ghanaian Government has also ended a three-week lockdown in Accra and Kumasi, the country's two major cities. 21 April Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has called for the release of prisoners awaiting trial, elderly, and terminally ill prisoners in an effort to ease overcrowding in Nigerian prisons. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced a US$26 billion relief package to help businesses and people in need during the coronavirus pandemic. 22 April Police Minister Bheki Cele has confirmed the arrest of 131 government officials including police officers, councillors, health officials and corrections officers for flouting the country's coronavirus regulations including selling confiscated alcohol. 23 April The German investment bank KfW has delivered two mobile diagnostic laboratories to Uganda and Rwanda to help combat the coronavirus. More mobile laboratory units have been dispatched to the six member states of the East African Community. The South African Competition Tribunal has launched an investigation of the pharmaceutical group Dis-Chem for increasing the price of face masks by 261%. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced a partial reopening of the economy from 1 May including the easing of travel restrictions and allowing some industries to operate under a five-level risk system. 24 April Liberian President George Weah has extended the country's lockdown, which was first introduced on 8 April, by two weeks. Weah also added a new measure requiring people to wear face masks. 25 April The Algerian Government has allowed certain businesses including those supplying building materials and public works, appliances, fabrics, jewellery, clothing and shoes, cosmetics and perfumes, home and office furniture, pastries hairdressers, and taxis to resume business in order to reduce the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The International Monetary Fund has disbursed US$309 million to help Mozambique to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Nigeria Governors' forum, representing the country's 36 governors, have petitioned Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to make it compulsory to wear face masks in public. South African Minister of Trade and Industry Ebrahim Patel announces plans to reopen South Africa's agricultural sector and allow some manufacturing and retail to resume. 26 April The Cuban Government has sent 216 healthcare workers to South Africa to help with the coronavirus pandemic. Cuba has already sent 20 medical brigades mainly to African and Caribbean countries but also Italy. 27 April In Equatorial Guinea, 30 workers at an offshore oil platform have tested positive for the coronavirus. Madagascar police have punished people caught without a face mask in Antananarivo and Fianarantsoa by forcing them to sweep pavements. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari announced that Nigeria would begin a "gradual and phased" easing of lockdown regions commencing 4 May. Senegal has distributed cheap mobile testing kits and 3D-printed ventilators to help combat the coronavius pandemic. The Office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has confirmed that 217 Cuban health specialists and workers have arrived to assist in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. 28 April The International Monetary Fund has loaned Nigeria US$3.4 billion in emergency funding to deal with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. 30 April The World Health Organization's regional head Matshidiso Moeti has expressed concern about the community spread of the coronavirus in West Africa. Reactions and measures in the Americas 1 April President of the United States Donald Trump posted his "Coronavirus Guidelines for America" on Twitter after warning that the United States faced a "very painful" two weeks as it confronted the virus. That same day, the White House projected that the United States could face between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The US Food and Drug Administration reported that it was facing a shortage of malaria drugs including hydroxychloroquine and related chloroquine due to a surge in demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The United States Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice suspended hearings for asylum seekers in Mexico until 1 May. Panama began to enforce an absolute quarantine measure, during which, male and female citizens would only be allowed to be outside their homes on alternating days of the week. 2 April President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro made remarks minimising the impact of the coronavirus and highlighting that confinement and quarantine measures could hurt the Brazilian economy. South American airliner LATAM Airlines Group announced that it would cut 95% of flight operations. The airline would maintain 39 domestic routes in Brazil, 13 in Chile and 4 international routes. The United States reported that 6.7 million people had filed for unemployment benefits in the past week. Following intervention by President Trump, Fort Lauderdale authorities allowed two coronavirus-stricken cruise liners, MS Zaandam and MS Rotterdam to dock at Port Everglades. Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo announced that New York state only had enough ventilators for the next six days. In response, President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to ramp up the production of both ventilators and protective face masks by US companies. In addition, the President extended an offer to Iran to help with the coronavirus pandemic. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun announced a voluntary layoff plan in response to the economic setbacks experienced by the aviation industry. The World Bank approved a plan to invest US$160 billion in emergency aid over the next 15 months to help countries deal with the coronavirus. 3 April President of Guatemala Alejandro Giammattei banned internal travel and gathering at beaches before and during the Easter holidays in order to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The Chinese Government donated 1,000 ventilators to New York state with the help of Chinese billionaires Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order allowing state authorities to requisition unused ventilators and personal protective equipment from hospitals. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initiated antibody tests to help determine how many people had been infected with the coronavirus including those who have never developed symptoms. Jared Moskowitz, head of Florida Division of Emergency Management, blasted the American company 3M of selling N95 masks directly to foreign countries for cash instead of the United States. Moskowitz stated that 3M agreed to authorize distributors and brokers to represent they were selling the masks to Florida, but instead his team for the last several weeks "get to warehouses that are completely empty." He then said the 3M authorized U.S. distributors later told him the masks Florida contracted for never showed up because the company instead prioritized orders that come in later, for higher prices, from foreign countries (including Germany, Russia, and France). As a result, Moskowitz highlighted the issue on Twitter, saying he decided to "troll" 3M. The United States Department of Labor reported that the US economy lost 701,100 jobs in March, ending 113 months of job growth. The US unemployment rate rose to 4.4 percent. US President Trump also invoked the Defense Production Act to force 3M to prioritize US orders over international orders and to stop exporting American-made respirators to Canada and Latin America. In response, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that it would be a mistake for the US to block the flow of medical supplies into Canada. Washington state Governor Jay Inslee extended stay-at-home orders until 23 May. These orders would keep non-essential businesses closed and most of the state's residents at home. 4 April Al Jazeera reports that thousands of people have been detained across Central America for violating lockdown measures and curfews: Honduras (2,250 people), Guatemala (5,705), Panama (over 5,000 including 424 for violating rules that limit men and women to leave homes on alternate days). United States Attorney General William Barr issues an executive order allowing the Bureau of Prisons to release vulnerable prisoners from federal correctional facilities into home detention. Priority will be given to facilities affected by COVID-19 including Oakdale in Louisiana, Elkton in Ohio, and Danbury in Connecticut. 5 April US President Trump urges Americans worried about the coronavirus to take a drug known as hydroxychloroquine, which is used to treat malaria, arthritis and lupus, contradicting advice from US federal public health advisers. 6 April The 2020 Masters Tournament, originally scheduled to be held on 12–15 November at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, is postponed. Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook announces that his company will produce and ship 1 million face shields for use by medical workers at its factories in the US and China, focusing on the US for initial distribution. In Canada, Premier of Ontario Doug Ford criticizes the United States for blocking the supply of three million masks over the weekend. In the United States, New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo extends an order closing non-essential businesses and schools until 29 April. Governor of South Carolina Henry McMaster orders all residents to stay at home except for purchasing groceries and exercising. 7 April Brazilian Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta warns that the country faces a shortage of respirators. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirms that the Canadian Government is working with the United States Government to allow the movement of medical supplies to Canada following complaints that Washington had blocked the shipment of face masks. United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced that the Trump Administration will focus on keeping key medical supplies including personal protection equipment in the United States. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin calls upon the Congress to approve an additional US$250 billion subsidy for a small business relief programme by Saturday. This would supplement a US$350 billion relief programme for small businesses that was launched earlier on Friday. 8 April Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announces that Brazil will purchase the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine despite scientists warning that there is insufficient evidence that the drug treats COVID-19. President of Peru Martin Vizcarra extends the national state of emergency until 26 April. United States President Trump criticises the World Health Organization (WHO)'s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and alleged that the international organisation had pursued a "very China-centric" approach. In response, the WHO's Director-General Tedros Adhanom has defended his agency's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in response to President Trump's criticism, urging world leaders not to politicise the pandemic. Uruguay approves a humanitarian flight to evacuate Australian and New Zealand passengers from the Aurora Expeditions cruise ship Greg Mortimer, where 60% of the passengers tested positive for COVID-19. The New York Times reports that genomic analysis of New York infections indicates the immediate origin of its cases were travelers from Europe instead of Asia and that weeks before its first confirmed infection, the virus has likely present in New York during mid-February. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issue a joint announcement that they will seize exports of medical supplies including respirators, surgical masks and surgical gloves until they can determine whether it should be returned for use in the US, purchased by the US Government, or exported. This followed an earlier memorandum on 1 April by President Trump empowering federal agencies to keep medical supplies within US borders. Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo issues a directive for flags to be flown at half-mast in New York state to honor victims of the coronavirus. Google announces that it will give gamers two months of free access to Google Stadia Pro, it's cloud gaming service, to cope with COVID-19 lockdowns. This offer was available in 14 countries and was to be rolled out over 48 hours. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey contributes 28% of his fortune to create a US$1 billion fund known as StartSmall, focusing initially on global relief efforts for the coronavirus pandemic. 9 April Canada reports a record 1 million job losses in March with the national unemployment rate soaring to 7.8%. Canadian health authorities also estimate that between 11,000 and 22,000 could die from COVID-19 in Canada. The US Centers for Disease Control issues new guidelines advising people working in essential services like healthcare and food supply to check their temperatures before going to work, wear face masks, and practise social distancing. According to figures, 6.6 million Americans have filed for unemployment as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The Japanese company Fujifilm enters the second phase of its Avigan anti-flu clinical trial on 50 patients at three hospitals in Massachusetts. The Nicaraguan government releases 1,700 prisoners in response to the coronavirus pandemic but excludes political prisoners. The United Nations delivers 90 tons of medical supplies, sanitation equipment, and water to Venezuela including 28,000 PPE kits for health workers, oxygen concentrators, pediatric beds, water quality control products and hygiene kits. The Bangkok-based United Nations Human Rights Office for Southeast Asia calls upon governments to protect the health of migrants from COVID-19 by releasing them from detention centres and suspending deportations. Uber's Vice President of safety and insurance Gus Fuldner announces that the company will be shipping millions of masks to active drivers and food delivery people around the world to help combat the spread of COVID-19. 10 April According to US Government figures, 16.8 million Americans have lost their jobs in the past three weeks as a result of the coronavirus. The US Centres for Disease Control extends their "No Sail Order" for cruise ships. There are approximately 100 cruise ships and nearly 80,000 crew off the East Coast, West Coast, and Gulf Coast of the United States. The order can only be rescinded under the following conditions: after the expiration of the US Secretary of Health and Human Services' declaration that COVID-19 constitutes a public health emergency; the CDC Director rescinds or modifies the order based on specific public health or other considerations; or 100 days after the date of publication in the Federal Register. United States President Trump calls upon the US Congress to pass a US$251 billion bill providing emergency funding for business. He criticizes the Democratic Party for blocking the bill. Governor of California Gavin Newsom reports a 1.9% drop in intensive care unit admissions (roughly 1,132) in Californian hospitals. The New York City Department of Corrections reports that about two dozen unclaimed bodies are being buried each day at a mass grave on Hart Island. US immunologist Anthony Fauci warns that it is too early to roll back restrictions despite progress in combating the coronavirus pandemic in New York. The Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres warns the United Nations Security Council that the coronavirus pandemic is threatening international peace and security, "potentially leading to an increase in social unrest and violence that would greatly undermine our ability to fight the disease." The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approves a disbursement of US$147 million under its Rapid Financing Instrument to help Gabon combat the impact of the coronavirus. Google and Apple Inc. announce that they will work together to develop an app for tracking coronavirus infections using existing Bluetooth and encryption technology. 11 April Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno announces the creation of a humanitarian assistance fund that will be funded by citizens and companies to alleviate the economic effects of COVID-19. US public broadcaster Voice of America has rejected the Trump Administration's allegation that it is promoting Chinese propaganda by tweeting a video of celebrations at the end of Wuhan's quarantine measures, and observing the US had surpassed China's death toll. Mayor of New York Bill de Blasio announces that public schools will remain closed for the duration of the school year in order to combat the coronavirus pandemic. New York has reported the highest rate of infections and deaths in the United States. The United States Department of Defense announces that it will be invoking the Defense Production Act and investing US$133 million to increase US domestic N95 mask production by over 39 million over the next 90 days. The Uruguayan Government announces that it will be repatriating 16 New Zealanders and 96 Australians who had been stranded aboard the cruise ship Greg Mortimer in the La Plata river near Montevideo since 27 March. The passengers will be flown from Montevideo to Melbourne. The New Zealand Government has arranged to fly their nationals back to Auckland on a chartered flight. 12 April The United States Internal Revenue Service announces that the first coronavirus stimulus checks have been deposited in taxpayers' accounts. These economic relief payments are part of a US$2.2 trillion package passed by Congress to help people and businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Most adults will get US$1,200 while parents will receive $500 for each qualifying child. US Commissioner of Food and Drugs Stephen Hahn announces that the Trump Administration is considering relaxing "stay-home" restrictions of 1 May. 13 April Ecuadorian police remove 800 bodies from homes in the Pacific port city of Guayaquil, the worst-hit locality in the country. United States President Donald Trump releases a campaign-style video during the daily White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing defending his Administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. US immunologist Anthony Fauci said that President Trump listened to his advice about the mitigation efforts needed to stop the spread of COVID-19. Top Democratic Congressional leaders Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi call on the Republican Party to work on new bipartisan legislation citing a lack of funding for the national testing needed to restart the US economy. The International Monetary Fund announces that it would provide immediate debt relief to 25 member countries under its "Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust." The IMF is seeking to raise US$1.4 billion for that fund. 14 April In Brazil, the Governor of Rio de Janeiro Wilson Witzel tests positive for the coronavirus. Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo disputes President Donald Trump's claim of "total authority" to reopen the United States' economy, which has gone into lockdown as a result of COVID-19. In addition, American immunologist and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci warns that it is too early for the US Government to consider reopening the economy due to the coronavirus pandemic. United States President Trump announces that the US will be withholding funding to the World Health Organization temporarily, alleging that the international organisation had neglected its duties and spread Chinese propaganda. Trump's decision was criticized by UN Secretary General António Guterres, Dr Patrice Harris of the American Medical Association, infectious disease expert Dr. Amesh Adalja of Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University. Trump's decision was also criticized by the Chinese and German governments, the European Union, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. United States Army General Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issues a statement that US intelligence services indicate that the coronavirus originated naturally rather than being created in a Chinese laboratory as suggested by various conspiracy theories. The International Monetary Fund's Chief Economist Gita Gopinath describes the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic as the "worst recession" since the Great Depression in a foreword for the international organisation's World Economic Outlook. The IMF has also reported that it has loaned US$1 trillion to a hundred developing and under-developed countries affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Apple, Inc. launches a site to help public health authorities to track down people's travel movements to ensure they are complying with lockdown requirements. According to the company, the data is gathered by counting the number of routing requests from Apple Maps, which is installed on all iPhones and comparing it with past usage to detect changes in the volume of people driving, walking or taking public transit around the world. 15 April The Brazilian Health Secretary Wanderson de Oliveira resigns following disagreements between President Jair Bolsonaro and Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta over Brazil's handing of the coronavirus pandemic. Colombian Justice Minister Margarita Cabello announces that 4,000 prisoners will be released from prison and placed under house arrest in a bid to combat the spread of COVID-19. Robert Redfield, the Director of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suggests that 19-20 US states that have experienced "limited impact" from the coronavirus may be able to reopen by President Donald Trump's 1 May target date. 16 April Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro dismisses Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta due disagreements over measures to combat the coronavirus. Bolsonaro appoints Nelson Teich as Brazil's new Health Minister. The Governors of New York and Maryland order residents to wear face masks in public spaces. The Governors of Connecticut and Pennsylvania are also recommending that residents wear face masks. Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo also extends his state's shutdown order until 15 May in order to combat the spread of the coronavirus. US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have pressed China about to "come clean" about the origins of the coronavirus. Defense Secretary Mark Esper also accused the Chinese leadership of being "opaque and misleading" about the coronavirus outbreak. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian has asserted that the World Health Organization has found no evidence that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory. US President Trump has also released a roadmap for US governors to reopen the US economy in phases. The US Congress passes a coronavirus relief bill that will increase the federal budget deficit by US$1.8 trillion over the next cade. 17 Republican Members of Congress have also supported President Trump's decision to withhold aid to the World Health Organization. They propose demanding that WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom resign as a condition for resuming US contributions to the international organization. The United States Government reports that 5.2 million American workers have become unemployed since last week. 17 April Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces that Canada's border restrictions will remain in place "for a significant amount of time" in order to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Deputy Prime Minister Freeland further elaborated and said, "Decisions about Canada's border are taken by Canadians. Full stop." The Guatemalan Government reports that 44 out of 76 Guatemalans deported on one flight from the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus. The Guatemalan Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo later announced that Guatemala had suspended deportation flights but neglected to mention whether it was linked to the coronavirus outbreak. The United States Navy's Surgeon General Bruce Gillingham announces that sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt will be subject to a serology test that will test whether sailors have contracted the coronavirus and developed antibodies in response to it. US President Donald Trump has tweeted in support of anti-lockdown protests in the states of Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia protesting against state lockdown orders. In response, Washington Governor Jay Inslee has accused Trump of "fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies." 18 April The Canadian Transportation Agency announces that all airline passengers will be required to wear a face mask or covering to help combat the spread of the coronavirus. Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei suspends the flights of all deportees from the United States after tests indicated that several passengers aboard a flight from the US tested positive for the coronavirus. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issues a Twitter message stating that US President Donald Trump had promised to help Mexico buy 1,000 ventilators and other intensive therapy equipment used for treating severe cases of the coronavirus. In the United States, there have been reports of protests against stay-at-home orders in Concord, New Hampshire; Annapolis, Maryland; and Austin, Texas. During his daily briefing, US President Donald Trump stated that China should face consequences if they were "knowingly responsible" for the coronavirus pandemic. Amazon has started using thermal cameras to screen workers at its warehouses in order to detect cases of the coronavirus. 19 April Hundreds have protested against lockdown restrictions imposed by state governors in the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and the capital Brasilia. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has criticized the lockdown measures, claiming that the "fear was excessive" and that people want a return to normality. Honduran security minister Jair Meza has extended the country's curfew until 26 April in an attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Panama has detained about 1,700 undocumented migrants heading to the United States in a jungle camp in La Penita near the Colombian border after 17 coronavirus cases were detected among them. These infected individuals have been removed from the camp, whose facilities are designed to host 200 people. US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan agreed to continue their close bilateral cooperation to combat the coronavirus during a phone interview. Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo issued a statement, stating that the outbreak in New York state is "on the descent." President Trump has also reiterated a US offer to help Iran deal with the coronavirus pandemic if Tehran requested it. The World Health Organization and non-profit NGO Global Citizen have sponsored a two-hour One World: Together at Home television broadcast program featuring several celebrities and public figures including Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Beyonce, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, David Beckham and former US First Ladies Michelle Obama and Laura Bush. These celebrities and public figures will be sharing music, comedy, and personal stories from their own homes. 20 April Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has called for Brazil's stay-at-home measures to end this week, claiming that the policy was killing jobs. United States Vice President Mike Pence has stated that the United States has sufficient testing capacity nationwide to allow any of the states to start lifting lockdown orders provided that they meet the other criteria for relaxation including 14 days of declining infections and having enough hospital capacity to treat the sick. Acting United States Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf announced that the United States, Canada, and Mexico will be restricting non-essential travel across their borders in order to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis gains approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration to conduct a randomised trial of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus. The New York State Nurses Association sues New York state and two hospitals, alleging that their members were exposed to hazardous working conditions including nurses being forced to work when sick and insufficient PPE equipment. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has issued an urgent call for US$350 million to support the global emergency supply system coordinated by the World Food Programme to ensure that supplies reach impoverished countries. Facebook has removed some posts by groups fomenting protests against stay-at-home orders in California, New Jersey and Nebraska after consulting with state officials. 21 April Governor of Maryland Larry Hogan stated that his state had obtained 500,000 tests from South Korea following negotiations and criticized the federal government for not providing states with the resources to cope with the coronavirus pandemic. In response, US President Trump criticized Larry Hogan and other state governors, claiming that the US had sufficient resources for coronavirus testing. United States President Donald Trump announces that he will sign an executive order to temporarily suspend all immigration into the United States to combat the spread of the coronavirus, which he described as "the attack from the invisible enemy." This Executive Order will last for 90 days and deny entry to most work visa holders with the exception of healthcare and medical professionals, and those working in the food industries. In addition, there will be a sixty-day ban on those seeking permanent residency status. The United States Senate has unanimously passed legislation establishing a US$484 billion program to support small businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic, hospitals, and a national testing impetus. The United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a Mexican resolution backed by the United States calling for "equitable, efficient and timely access to any future vaccines developed to fight the coronavirus." That same day, the UNGA passed another resolution calling for global action to develop and improve access to medicines, vaccines and equipment to battle the pandemic and closer cooperation between the UN and World Health Organization. 22 April Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has announced that the Mexican Government will invest 622.6 billion Mexican pesos (US$25.6 billion) into social programmes and critical projects to combat the fallout of the coronavirus. Following a meeting between US President Donald Trump and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the President agreed that the federal government would help New York to obtain enough chemical reagents to double the state's testing capacity to 40,000 tests a day. Cuomo has also announced plans to expand contact tracing in New York state in coordination with authorities in New Jersey and Connecticut and support from Bloomberg L.P.. Robert R. Redfield, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned that a second wave of the coronavirus could be more destructive because it could collide with the flu season; he strongly encouraged people to get their flu jabs. The United States Agency for International Development's Acting-Administrator John Barsa announces that the US Government will assess the way that the World Health Organization is being run. Missouri has filed a lawsuit against the Chinese Government over its handling of the coronavirus, claiming that China's response to the outbreak has brought devastating economic losses to the state. In response, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has dismissed the allegation as "nothing short of absurdity" and lacking legal or factual merit. In addition, United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has accused Beijing of delaying to report human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus for a month until it had spread to every province in China. US medical company Indutex USA George Gianforcaro has protested the Federal Emergency Management Agency's decision to seize 400,000 N95 respirator masks meant for domestic customers. The Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization has estimated that global air travel could drop by as many as 1.2 billion travellers by September 2020. Streaming giant Netflix has reported that subscriptions have increased by 15.8 million between January and March 2020 due to people staying at home to comply with lockdown orders. The World Health Organization's Director-General Tedros Adhanom has expressed concern about the coronavirus' "upward trends" in parts of Africa, Central America, and South America and the management of international air travel. Adhanom has also urged Washington to reconsider its decision to suspend funding to the international organisation. 23 April In Canada, the Premier of Ontario Doug Ford and the Premier of Quebec Francois Legault have requested assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces in response to overstretched human resources at Canadian rest homes. United States President Donald Trump has criticized Georgian Governor Brian Kemp's decision to allow some non-essential businesses to reopen. In the United States, a total of 26 million people have applied for unemployment benefits in the last five weeks. According to the Fuller Project, two-thirds of unemployment claims were filed by women. The United States House of Representatives passes a US$484 billion coronavirus relief bill supporting small businesses and hospitals by 388–5. The House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Democratic Party, also approved the creation of a special advisory panel to investigate the federal government's response to the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announces that it will test 2,000 immigration detainees for the coronavirus in response to a spate of outbreaks among deportees who had returned to Mexico and Guatemala. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that a random screening of 3,000 residents found that 13.9% have tested positive for antibodies for the coronavirus, suggesting that about 2.7 million people in the state have been affected. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has released a report advocating that human rights should play a key role in guiding the response of states to the coronavirus pandemic. Guterres has also warned against the rise of hate speech, the targeting of vulnerable communities, and the danger of states adopting repressive measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic. 24 April The Legislative Assembly of El Salvador has been evacuated after the Interdisciplinary Epidemiological Control Team detected a "serious suspicion" of the coronavirus in the Assembly's "blue living room." Haiti has received 129 of its nationals on a deportation flight from the United States. The Haitian Government had requested that the United States test all deportees for the coronavirus but US authorities only agreed to test those with symptoms. Returnees will be quarantined in a quarantine facility for two weeks. US President Donald Trump attracts controversy and criticism for remarks suggesting that the coronavirus could be treated by injecting disinfectant into the body. In response, Trump has said that his remarks were sarcastic. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence left a press conference early. William N. Bryan, the Acting Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Science and Technology, draws media attention for claiming that sunlight, heat and humidity weaken the coronavirus. The United States Department of Health and Human Services has announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be releasing US$631 million to state and local governments to assist with COVID-19 relief efforts. Mayor of San Francisco London Breed said the city order's for PPE from China were instead rerouted to France and to FEMA. "We had isolation gowns on the way to San Francisco and then diverted to France," she said. Another order of equipment went through customs and then was "confiscated" by FEMA for other places. She later stated "That at the height of this pandemic we are still having a conversation about PPE really does blow my mind. There has been nothing that has been more frustrating." 25 April In Argentina, prisoners at Devoto prison in Buenos Aires have rioted to demand urgent health measures after a coronavirus case was confirmed at the facility. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau clarified that plans to restart the economies of Canadian provinces do not hinge upon the presumption that people who have recovered from the coronavirus develop an immunity to it. The Maryland Emergency Management Agency has issued a Twitter alert advising residents that no disinfectant product should be administered through the body via "injection, ingestion or any other route." New York City has also reported 30 cases of disinfectant ingestion following Trump's remarks yesterday. The United States Department of the Treasury has disbursed US$9.5 billion in additional funds from the Payroll Support Program to US airliners, bringing the total amount of aid provided to the sector to US$12.4 million. 93 US air carriers have applied and received government financial assistance in response to the coronavirus pandemic. 26 April Health Canada has advised against using the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to prevent or treat COVID-19. The Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Theresa Tam has welcomed the declining coronavirus death toll while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that isolation measures should remain in place for now. The Honduras Government has extended a blanket curfew to contain the spread of the coronavirus by one week until 3 p.m. on 3 May. Governor of California Gavin Newsom has urged beachgoers in southern California to abide by social distancing guidelines. 27 April Brazilian Productivity and competition secretary Carlos da Costa has announced that the Brazilian Government is working on a plan to open up the Brazilian economy including allowing professional football matches behind closed doors. The Mexican Government has confirmed that senior civil servant Irma Erendira Sandoval, the head of the country's public administration ministry, has tested positive for the coronavirus. United States President Donald Trump has dismissed media reports that he is planning to dismiss Health Secretary Alex Azar as "fake news" in a Tweet. White House Adviser and Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro has confirmed that the Trump Administration is exploring protocols for keeping factories open during the coronavirus pandemic including social distancing, screening workers, and reconfiguring factories. Trump later attacked several Democratic–administered states and cities as being "poorly-run". His remarks coincided with a push by state governors seeking a US$500 million federal economic package. Trump also addressed a brief press conference focusing on how states could expand coronavirus testing and efforts to reopen the economy. He also announced that the US was investigating China's response to the coronavirus pandemic, the reopening of some schools, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The United States Small Business Administration has lent an extra US$2 billion to small businesses through its Paycheck Protection Program after a number of borrowers in the first round of funding for the coronavirus declined or returned their loans. US House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced that the United States House of Representatives will resume session on 4 May. Californian Governor Gavin Newsom announced that law enforcement authorities would step up the enforcement of coronavirus-related restrictions after crowds visited beaches over the weekend. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has extended a stay-at-home order in much of the state until 15 May but indicated that restrictions could be waived in areas with sufficient hospital capacity. New York state officials also cancelled the 2020 New York Democratic primary due to health and safety concerns. Swedish Ambassador to the United States Karin Ulrika Olofsdotter also stated that Sweden could reach herd immunity by May during an interview with National Public Radio. The World Health Organization's top emergency expert Michael Ryan has described the US federal government's plan to combat the coronavirus pandemic as "very clearly-laid out" and "science-based", complimenting the cooperation between the federal and state governments. 28 April Quebec Premier Francois Legault has announced plans to gradually reopen Quebec's economy in May while maintaining social distancing restrictions. Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo has announced that the number of hospital admissions has dropped to its lowest level in more than a month. He also clarified that regions in New York state wanting to reopen would need to have a hospital capacity rate below 70% and a transmission rate below 1.1%. United States President Donald Trump has announced that the US Government is considering testing passengers on international flights for the coronavirus. 29 April A pug named Winston became the first pet dog in the United States to test positive for COVID-19. Winston's family had taken part in Duke University's Molecular and Epidemiological Study of Suspected Infection research study. The United States Department of Commerce has reported that the United States' gross domestic product declined at a 4.8% in the period between January and March 2020. The United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that Chinese laboratories lack adequate security to prevent future pandemics during a State Department press conference. Alphabet Inc.'s Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat has reported a decline in advertising revenue due to a drop in Google users searching for commercial topics on the search engine. Boeing CEO David Calhoun has announced that it plans to lay off ten percent of its workforce and to reduce production of its main commercial planes after reporting a first-quarter US$641 million loss as a result of the economic impact of the coronavirus on the airline sector. Gilead Sciences has announced that its experimental anti-virus drug remdesivir has helped COVID-19 patients during a clinical trial. US President Donald Trump has welcome the news while immunologist and White House Coronavirus Task Force member Anthony Fauci has advised caution. 30 April United States President Donald Trump claimed that he had seen evidence that the coronavirus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That same day, US intelligence agencies concluded that the coronavirus was neither "man-made or genetically modified" but that they were still investigating whether the pandemic originated with infected animals or an accident at the Wuhan laboratory. Californian Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered the closure of the state's beaches and parks from 1 May after large crowds visited them the previous weekend, violating social distancing rules. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a statement that he would need between 6,400 and 17,000 people to contact trace people who had contracted the coronavirus. The United States Department of Labor has reported an additional 3.8 million unemployment claims last week, bringing the total number of unemployed to more than 30 million. The International Monetary Fund has approved US$650 million in emergency assistance to the Dominican Republic. Médecins Sans Frontières has criticized the United States Government for threatening trade sanctions against several countries that Washington has accused of not protecting intellectual properties in the pharmaceutical sector including India, Brazil, China, Chile, and Canada. NASCAR executive vice-president Steve O'Donnell announcing that NASCAR's racing season will resume on 17 May at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina. US pharmaceutical company Pfizer's vaccines head Nanette Cocero has announced that the company aims to produce 10-20 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine that it is developing with the German company BioNtech for possible emergency use depending on the vaccine trial results. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres issued a statement criticizing the lack of leadership by world powers and raising concern about the inadequate support for the fight against the coronavirus in poor countries. Reactions and measures in Eastern Mediterranean 1 April The Qatari Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs (MADLSA) announced that workers in quarantine and treatment across the country would be paid in full, ordering employers and companies to follow government policy and creating a hotline for workers to voice their grievances. Turkey sent a military airplane carrying masks, face gears, eye gears, overalls and anti-bacterial fluids to Spain and Italy. 2 April Iranian authorities closed streets and shops in the capital Tehran to help contain the spread of the coronavirus. In Lebanon, the Human Rights Watch NGO criticized Lebanese municipal authorities for imposing discriminatory measures against Syrian refugees including curfews. The Saudi Ministry of Interior imposed a 24-hour curfew on Mecca and Medina. Besides essential workers, residents would be allowed to buy groceries and access medical care. The United Arab Emirates government allowed national carrier Emirates to launch a number of flights from 6 April to repatriate visitors and expatriates to their home countries. 3 April Saudi Arabia extended the starting date of a 24-hour curfew to 3pm on Friday in Dammam, Ta'if and al-Qatif in order to combat the coronavirus. King Salman invests 9 billion riyals (US$2.3 billion) in financial support for 1.2 million Saudi citizens working in the private sector. 4 April Bahrain reopens Bahrain International Airport to transit by international travelers but limits entry to citizens and residents. President of Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi postpones several megaprojects including the Grand Egyptian Museum and moving the capital from Cairo to a new planned city. Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan issued a statement on Twitter that the Indian subcontinent faced a difficult choice of having to balance between imposing a lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus and ensuring that people would not die of hunger and the economy would not collapse. Saudi Arabia imposes a lockdown and partial curfew in seven neighbourhoods in Jeddah. Residents in the affected neighbourhoods can only obtain groceries and medical services between 6am and 3pm local time. The Tunisian Assembly of the Representatives of the People ceded power to Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh's government for two months, allowing them to issue decrees, sign purchase agreements and seek finance without consulting parliament. The United Arab Emirates extends an overnight curfew indefinitely, requiring people to stay at home between 8pm and 6am local time. During the curfew, UAE authorities will disinfect streets, parks, and public transport facilities. 5 April The United Arab Emirates' Cabinet announces that it will strengthen the country's "strategic stockpile." The country's Vice President and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announces that factories will be redirected to supporting the country's health sector. 6 April Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Abbas Mousavi announces that Iran will not seek American help and demands that Washington lifts its sanctions against Iran. The Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei announces the withdrawal of €1 billion from the country's sovereign wealth fund to invest in Iran's health services and the unemployment insurance fund. Saudi Arabia imposes 24-hour lockdowns on the governorates of Jeddah, Taif, Qatif and Khobar, and the cities of Riyadh, Tabuk, Dammam, Dhahran and Hofuf. 7 April Radio New Zealand and Reuters report that over 20,000 Pakistani migrant workers are stranded in the United Arab Emirates. ACF Animal Rescue rescue pet cats, dogs, and rabbits from an abandoned pet market in Karachi's Empress Market. The Tunisian Interior Ministry warns that people infected with the coronavirus can be prosecuted for manslaughter if they do not abide by governmental directives to self-isolate and cross-contaminate others. 8 April Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly extends a nighttime curfew, that will start at 8pm, until 23 April to combat the spread of coronavirus. The country's airports will remain closed. The Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appeals to the International Monetary Fund to give the country the US$5 billion emergency loan that Tehran had requested to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The Jordanian Finance Minister Mohammed Al Ississ states that Jordan will be able to repay its foreign debt obligations despite the loss of economic revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The Lebanese Ministry of Social Affairs launches a 75 billion Lebanese pound aid relief programme. This includes a one-time cash assistance of 400,000 Lebanese pounds (US$140) to about 187,500 families. The Pakistani Government announces that it plans to increase its daily COVID-19 testing capacity to at least 25,000 tests a day by late April and to increase the supply of personal equipment to doctors from 9 April. In the United Arab Emirates, the Emirate of Dubai's justice department suspends marriages and divorces as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. 9 April Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei urges Iranians to spend Ramadan at home during the lockdown. Public gatherings are banned while schools and universities have been closed. The Pakistani government distributes a one-time Rs12,000 (US$70) grant to 12 million low-income families. 10 April The Jordanian Armed Forces arrested the owner of Ro'ya TV and its news director for airing a news story showing a crowd of labourers complaining about their inability to work as a result of the country's coronavirus lockdown. Pakistan begins distributing Rs144 billion (US$863 million) in cash grants to low income families across the country. In the first phase, the Government disbursed roughly US$300 million to banks which distributed Rs12,000 (US$70) grants to low income families. 11 April In Iran, "low risk" businesses in most parts of the country except Tehran are allowed to reopen. However, President Hassan Rouhani urged Iranians to comply with social distancing and other health protocols. 12 April The Egyptian Government postpones its bid to sell its stake in the state owned Banque de Caire due to the spread of the coronavirus. The Jordanian Government extends a month-long lockdown until the end of April. Saudi Arabia orders an extension of the country's curfew until further notice. United Arab Emirates airliner Etihad Airways announces that it will operate special flights to Brussels, Dublin, London, Tokyo and Zurich between 14 and 22 April. This was in response to the UAE government stating that it would allow a number of limited outbound flights for those wishing to leave the country. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and several oil producing countries agree to reduce output by 9.7 million barrels per day (roughly 10%) in order to support oil prices amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 13 April In Yemen, Houthi–linked chief prosecutor announced that the group has released 2,361 prisoners since mid-March as part of precautionary measures against the spread of COVID-19. 14 April The Pakistani Government extends its lockdown to schools, shopping malls, public gatherings and non-essential work for two weeks but makes exceptions for certain economic sectors such as construction, cement and fertiliser plants, mines, glass manufacturers, veterinary services, bookshops and stationary stores, dry cleaners and some agriculture-related businesses. Turkey's Parliament announces that it has approved legislation to release 90,000 prisoners in a bid to ease overcrowding in prisons and prevent the spread of COVID-19. 15 April The Omani Ministry of Finance orders all ministry and civilian government units to reduce approved liquidity for development budgets by ten percent. It also ordered a halt to the creation of government companies performing commercial activity in order to give priority to the private sector. Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz announces that the Jordanian Government will ease lockdown measures to allow more businesses and industries to resume work but will not yet live a curfew restricting movement. In Libya, the Tripoli–based Government of National Accord imposes a 24-hour curfew for ten days in order to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The Pakistani Government relaxes lockdown restrictions on key industries including the lockdown sector in order to minimise the economic damage caused by the lockdown. The Qatari Government expels several Nepalese workers for alleged "illegal, illicit activity." In response to criticism by Amnesty International, Qatar has defended the repatriation, claiming the workers had broken the law. At the G20 virtual summit hosted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the G20 group of countries and private creditors agree to suspend debt repayments from developing countries for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia reports that about 71 million people in the Arab world lack access to running water, increasing their risk of contracting the coronavirus. 16 April The Gulf Cooperation Council approves Kuwait's proposal for a common network for food supply safety following an online meeting of trade and industry ministers. The Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz admits that his country's finances had been strained by the coronavirus pandemic, derailing the country's capital investment plan to boost sluggish growth and attract investment. Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab states that 98% of Jordan's depositors will not be affected by an economic rescue plan which includes a proposal to fund some losses with a contribution from deposits. The Saudi Arabian Government announces that it will pledge US$500 million to support international efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic and to help bridge a US$8 billion financing gap. This includes investing US$150m to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation, US$150m to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, and US$200m to other health organisations and programmes. 17 April Saudi Minister of Finance Mohammed Al-Jadaan issues a statement that Saudi Arabia is in a good financial position to tackle the coronavirus pandemic due to its strong financial reserves and low national debt. The Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh advises that Muslim evening prayers for Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr feast should be performed at home for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. The Emirate of Dubai extends a 24-hour curfew by one week. 18 April The Iranian Government has allowed businesses in Tehran and some nearby towns to reopen on Saturday after weeks of lockdown. Gyms, restaurants, Tehran's grand bazaar, shrines and mosques remain closed while a ban on public gathering remains in force. The Moroccan Government extended the country's lockdown until 20 May. The Pakistani Government lifted restrictions on congregations at mosques, which allowed only three to five people for prayers. The United Arab Emirates Government announces that it will fine people up to 20,000 dirhams (US$5,500) if they disseminate "fake news" about the coronavirus including medical information that violates official advice about the coronavirus. 19 April Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan bows to pressure from religious scholars to keep mosques open for the duration of the Ramadan period. This decision came in response to threats by religious scholars to organise mass protests in defiance of the Pakistani Government's attempts to close mosques in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Pakistani Consulate-General in Dubai announced that the first Pakistan International Airlines flight carrying 227 Pakistani nationals stranded in Dubai and the Northern Emirates had departed for Pakistan that morning at 0700 local time. Tunisian Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh extends Tunisia's lockdown until 4 May. The Saudi Council of Senior Scholars advises Muslims to pray at home and avoid public gatherings during Ramadan if their countries require social distancing in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. In the United Arab Emirates, organizers of Dubai's Arabian Travel Market, which was scheduled to be held from 28 June to 1 July, have cancelled the event citing health and safety concerns. 20 April The Bahraini Government has announced that it will slash spending by government ministries and agencies by 30 percent to help the country weather the coronavirus pandemic including delaying some construction and consulting projects. The Iranian Government has begun reopening intercity highways and major shopping centres to stimulate its crippled economy. Shops in Tehran's Grand Bazaar have been allowed to reopen up to 6pm local time. The Kuwaiti Government has extended the suspension of work in the public sector until 31 May and expanded the nationwide curfew to 16 hours (4pm to 8 am) in order to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The Pakistani Government has announced that it will be shifting from a general lockdown to "smart lockdowns" focusing on coronavirus hotspots. The Government will use contact tracing and testing to identify such hotspots for "smart lockdowns." Saudi Arabia extends the suspension of praying in the Great Mosque and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi during Ramadan to combat the spread of COVID-19. 21 April President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani and his wife Rula Ghani have tested negative for the coronavirus. At least forty presidential palace staff have tested positive for the coronavirus. The Iranian Government has temporarily release a thousand foreign prisoners including British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in response to pressure from human rights groups. The Iraqi Government has announced that it will temporarily ease the 24-hour curfew ahead of Ramadan. The new curfew will be imposed mainly at night from 7pm until 6 am local time between 21 April and 11 May. However, a total ban will take place on Fridays and Saturdays. The Lebanese Parliament was relocated to a makeshift theatre to allow social distancing. Legislators were sprayed with disinfectant and had their temperatures taken. The Saudi Press Agency has announced that the Saudi Arabian Government intends to ease curfew restrictions it has imposed on several cities to allow more people to shop for essentials within their neighbourhoods during the Ramadan period. 22 April The Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett has cancelled an Israeli Army initiative to test coronavirus samples coming from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Lebanese authorities have placed the Wavel refugee camp in the eastern Bekaa valley under lockdown after a Syrian-Palestinian man tested positive for the coronavirus, becoming the first confirmed case in one of the country's refugee camps. Pakistani President Imran Khan has undergone testing for the coronavirus after he came into contact with infected philanthropist Faisal Edhi. Khan subsequently tested negative for the coronavirus. In Saudi Arabia, the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques has announced that King Salman has approved performing the Tarawih at the two Holy Mosques but that entry for pilgrims will remain suspended. 23 April The Egyptian Government will maintain a nighttime curfew during the Ramadan period but will delay the start of the curfew from 8pm to 9pm to allow one extra hour of movement. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has confirmed that US President Donald Trump has offered to assist Pakistani efforts to combat the coronavirus including providing ventilators and unspecified economic assistance. Khan also intends to launch a US$595 million appeal to fund Pakistan's "Preparedness and Response Plan to COVID-19", mainly lobbying international financial institutions and world powers. In the United Arab Emirates, Dubai has allowed cafes and restaurants to resume operations. Shopping malls will also be reopened from 12 pm to 10 pm but with a maximum capacity of 30 percent. Public transportation services including the metro will resume on 26 April. 24 April The Lebanese High Defence Council has advised the Lebanese Government to extend the nationwide lockdown until 10 May but to gradually ease restrictions over the coming weeks. The Lebanese Government has extended the national lockdown until 10 May but has shortened the curfew by one hour from 8pm to 5am. Lebanon also announced a five-stage plan to reopen the country on 28 April, 4 May, 11 May, 25 May, and 6 June. Physical distancing and wearing masks will remain compulsory for the duration of the lockdown. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has confirmed that Pakistan is using a contact tracing system developed by the country's intelligence service Inter-Services Intelligence. United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry to ensure that American nationals detained in Egyptian prisons are kept safe during the coronavirus pandemic. 25 April The Abu Dhabi airliner Etihad has suspended passenger flights until 15 May. 26 April The Prime Minister of Egypt Mostafa Madbouly has announced that Egypt plans to negotiate a one-year financial support programme with the International Monetary Fund. Saudi Arabian King Salman has ordered a partial lifting of the curfew in all regions of the country except Mecca and previously quarantined neighbourhoods. The curfew will be lifted between 9am and 5pm from Sunday onwards while malls, wholesale and retail shops will be allowed to reopen from 29 April onwards for a period of two weeks. 27 April In the disputed territory of Gaza, the economy ministry has allowed restaurants to reopen in order to ease the economic hardship caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Restaurants must observe social distancing rules. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has announced that Iran will be divided into green, red, and white zones based on the number of cases and deaths. Mosques located in the white zones will be allowed to reopen and resume Friday prayers. The Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority has extended a ban on all international flights in and out of the country until 15 May. The only exceptions will be diplomatic, cargo flights, and special flights transporting stranded passengers. 28 April Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has renewed the country's national state of emergency by three months, citing health and security concerns. Egyptian has been in a state of emergency since the Palm Sunday church bombings in early April 2017. The United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet has called for the lifting of sanctions on Sudan to ease pressure on the country's health system during the coronavirus pandemic. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has announced that it needs US$89.4 million to support refugee aid programs for Yemenis and other refugees in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. 29 April Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has allowed the reopening of businesses despite the persistent coronavirus pandemic. The Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has dispatched medical supplies to Iran and Algeria to aid their efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The Tunisian Government has announced that it will ease lockdown restrictions to allow the reopening of the food, industry, construction and half the civil service sectors in early May. Clothing shops, shopping malls, and some public transportation will resume from 11 May. The Abu Dhabi airline Eithad has delayed the resumption of passenger flights from 16 May until 16 June. 30 April Kuwaiti airlines Jazeera Airways has laid off 320 employees, or roughly 37% of its workforce. This includes cabin crew, ground staff, and support staff. The Qatari Government has announced that it will be producing artificial respiratory machines to cope with domestic and international health demands in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Reactions and measures in Europe 1 April Albania extended a lockdown closing schools, eateries, and other public venues, which has been in force since mid-March and due to end on 3 April. The 2020 United Nations Climate Change Conference, scheduled to be held in Glasgow in November 2020, was postponed to 2021. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered all Israeli citizens to wear face masks in public as part of national efforts to combat COVID-19. President of Russia Vladimir Putin sent a military plane to the United States carrying medical supplies and masks to help the United States fight the coronavirus as a good will gesture to US President Trump. That same day, Putin approved legislation allowing the Russian government to declare a state of national emergency to combat the COVID-19 outbreak. UK Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick announced that the British Government would aim to test 25,000 people a day by mid-April from its present capacity of 12,750 a day. The All England Lawn Tennis Club also announced that the Wimbledon tennis championship, scheduled to have been held between 29 June and 12 July, had been cancelled in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Union of European Football Associations suspended all Champions League and Europa League matches due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Championships, Wimbledon was cancelled for the first time since 1945. Reporters without Borders launched its "Tracker 19" tool to document state censorship, disinformation and their effect on people's access to news and information during the COVID-19 global pandemic. 2 April Cyprus extended a ban on commercial flights with 28 countries for two weeks in order to contain the spread of the coronavirus. German authorities reported that 1.1 million self-employed and small business had applied for financial assistance. The German government already paid €1 billion in financial assistance with another €1.8 billion being approved. Greek authorities quarantined a migrant camp after 23 asylum seekers tested positive for the coronavirus. In Ireland, Tánaiste Simon Coveney extended movement restrictions limiting travel to buying groceries, exercising, and essential family visits beyond 12 April. Israeli Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman and his wife tested positive for COVID-19. The Portuguese Assembly of the Republic extended the state of emergency by another 15 days in response to a sharp rise in the death toll to 200. Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa also announced that airports would close between 9 and 13 April, allowing only flights repatriating citizens or transporting goods. President of Romania Klaus Iohannis announced that Romanian doctors, nurses, and personnel dealing with the coronavirus pandemic would receive a monthly bonus of €500. In Russia, Mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin extended a partial lockdown and movement restrictions on residents until 1 May. Residents of Moscow, which has been experiencing a heavy caseload, have since Monday been allowed to leave their homes only to buy food or medicine nearby, get urgent medical treatment, walk the dog or take out the rubbish. Spanish authorities released figures showing that 898,922 workers had lost their jobs since 12 March. Catalonian President Quim Torra appealed for help from the Spanish Army. Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu called for a lockdown in response to a spike in case to 15,000, with 60% occurring in Istanbul. The Ukrainian government accepted Tesla CEO and philanthropist Elon Musk's offer to deliver ventilators to the Ukraine. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that the British Government would intend to build a diagnostics industry to test 100,000 people a day for the coronavirus. First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon admitted that the number of deaths in Scotland had been under-reported due to mistakes in notifying the Government about new fatalities. In response to a call by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, several British engineers, aerospace and Formula One companies including BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, Ford and Airbus announced that they would join forces to produce 1,500 ventilators. 3 April Albania imposed a 40-hour lockdown over the weekend in response to a spike in cases. Airbus delivered 4 million masks from China to Europe. The Bulgarian National Assembly extends a national state of emergency until 13 April. French authorities converted a large refrigerated warehouse at the Rungis fresh food market into a temporary morgue to hold 1,000 bodies. The Swedish health care company Mölnlycke announced that France had seized millions of face masks and gloves that the company imported from China to Spain and Italy. The company's general manager, Richard Twomey, denounced France for "confiscat[ing] masks and gloves even though it was not [its] own. This is an extremely disturbing, unbecoming act." Greece quarantined a second migrant camp near Athens after a 53-year-old Afghan man tested positive for COVID-19. The Israeli government declared Bnei Brak a restricted zone due to the town's high rate of infections and placed the town under lockdown, limiting travel to and from the town. Israeli authorities also required that ritual washing for deceased Jewish and Muslim victims of COVID-19 be done by personnel wearing full protective gear to contain the spread of the disease. Swiss police surrounded Geneva's main prison after 40 prisoners refused to return to their cells, complaining about insufficient measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Turkey imposed a partial curfew on Turkish citizens under the age of 20 years, which came into effect midnight. Turkish authorities also shut down the borders of 31 cities to most vehicles excluding those transporting essential supplies. In the United Kingdom, the ExCel exhibition centre in London was opened as a temporary 4,000-bed hospital, branded 'NHS Nightingale' having been constructed over the previous nine days. It was opened by Prince Charles over video link. British biomedical scientists and National Health Service staff also reported that a shortage of equipment was preventing them from carrying out more coronavirus tests. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) President Christos Christou urged European countries not to hoard medical supplies and equipment and to allow their export to vulnerable countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. He also called on developed countries to increase their production of medical supplies. 4 April Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union, issued a statement stating that sanctions should not get in the way of the delivery of medical equipment and supplies to countries trying to contain COVID-19. German State Minister of the Interior for Berlin Andreas Geisel accused the United States of committing "modern piracy" by allegedly diverting a shipment of 200,000 masks from an American 3M's Chinese factory in Thailand intended for Germany. In response, US Embassy spokeswoman Jillian Bonnardeaux, issued a statement on 6 April denying that the US had any "knowledge" of the diversion of the mask shipment from Thailand. 3M also said they had no knowledge of the shipment, stating "We know nothing of an order from the Berlin police for 3M masks that come from China." Berlin police later confirmed that the shipment was not seized by U.S. authorities, but was said to have simply been bought at a better price, widely believed to be from a German dealer or China. This revelation outraged the Berlin opposition, whose CDU parliamentary group leader Burkard Dregger accused Geisel of "deliberately misleading Berliners" in order "to cover up its own inability to obtain protective equipment". The Hungarian Government announces the creation of a US$4 billion fund to rejuvenate the economy, using rerouted government resources and the national employment fund. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announces the extension of Spain's lockdown until 25 April to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Ukraine sends a team of 20 medical personnel to assist Italian medical authorities in the central Marche region. 5 April In the Czech Republic, 300 pilots launch a "Pilots to the People" project to use their private planes distribute medical supplies across the country. In Jerusalem, the annual Palm Sunday parade is cancelled due to health concerns. An online service is instead held at the Co-Cathedral of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock warns that the UK Government may restrict outdoor exercise if people flout lockdown rules. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who tested positive for COVID-19 ten days ago, is admitted to hospital. Queen Elizabeth II gives a special address to the nation, calling for unity and global cooperation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Catherine Calderwood resigns as the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland for breaking her own department's advice on self-isolation by visiting her second home twice. 6 April Chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurz announces plans to reopen small non-essential businesses and DIY shops on 14 April, followed by all shops and malls on 1 May, in order to loosen the nationwide lockdown. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announces that Denmark will reopen day care centers and schools for children in the first and fifth grade, commencing 15 April, if the number of coronavirus cases remains stable. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implements a national lockdown for the Passover period, beginning 7 April and ending 10 April including banning Israelis from leaving their homes on Wednesday evenings, when families travel for Passover seder meals. In Italy, Poste Italiane makes an agreement for the Carabinieri to deliver mail to Italian pensioners who are at 75 years old and above. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announces plans to increase testing from 6,000-7,000 to 8,000-9,000 a month in response to predictions that infections will peak in May and June. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis extends the national state of emergency by 30 days. Spain mobilises 60,000 retired medical personnel in order to facilitate the "contagion slowdown." Sweden's central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, extends its 500 billion Swedish crowns loan scheme (US$49 billion) to individual companies affected by the coronavirus pandemic. A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces that the country now has 10,000 ventilators in its health system. The 2020 Open Championship, was originally scheduled to be held between 16 and 19 July, at Royal St George's Golf Club in Sandwich, England. The British media company, Daily Mail and General Trust, which publishes the Daily Mail, asks staff to take a pay cut with the difference made up in shares, to help the company cope with the loss of advertising revenue and lower circulation caused by the coronavirus pandemic. World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom advises that public demand for face masks could create a shortage for medical personnel. 7 April The Czech Republic extends the state of emergency until late April. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš' government had initially sought to extend the state of emergency until 11 May but lacked sufficiency parliamentary support. Finland extends tightened border controls until 13 May in order to contain the spread of COVID-19. Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša announces that the Slovenian government could ease lockdown measures on factories and service providers if current trends towards the decline of the coronavirus continue. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson remains in intensive care while Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab serves as acting-Prime Minister. British Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance states that while the UK has not seen a rise in the number of coronavirus cases, it remains too early to tell whether the outbreak has peaked. 8 April Negotiations between European Union finance ministers over an economic rescue package break down due to disagreements between the Netherlands and Italy over what conditions should be attached to Eurozone credit for governments fighting the pandemic. Mauro Ferrari, the head of the European Research Council, resigns in protest at his dissatisfaction with the European Union's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The French Government extends the nation's lockdown until 15 April. The President of Turkey's Directorate of Communications announces that the Turkish government will be tracking the mobile phones of citizens to enforce the quarantine through an app called the "Pandemic Isolation Tracking Project." The World Health Organization's Europe director Hans Kluge issues a statement advising governments not to relax measures aimed at containing the coronavirus. 9 April German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for "patience" during the coronavirus crisis, stating that society will have to "live with the virus" until a vaccine becomes available. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán extends the nation's lockdown indefinitely. Russian retailers report a surge in the sales of alcoholic beverages over the past few weeks during the lockdown. According to market research firm Nielsen, the sale of vodka, whisky and beer rose 31%, 47% and 25% respectively. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is released from intensive care but remains in hospital. 10 April The International Monetary Fund announces that it will loan Albania US$190.5 million to deal with the impact of the coronavirus. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas criticises the US' handling of the coronavirus pandemic as "too slow" during an interview with Der Spiegel. In Finland, Tomi Lounema, the head of the country's National Emergency Supply Centre, resigns over the purchase of the multi-million Euro purchase of Chinese face masks that proved unsuitable for local hospital usage. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán makes a speech stating that the country's "tough measures" have slowed the spread of the coronavirus but that country's "real test" still lies ahead. Orbán also stated that Hungary needed 8,000 ventilators and intensive care beds. Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar extends the country's stay-at-home restrictions until 5 May. The Italian Government bars entry to Italian ports by international rescue vessels ferrying migrants for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announces that the Italian government will be extending the nation's lockdown until 3 May. Kazakhstan extends its state of emergency until the end of April. The state of emergency allows the government to lock down all provinces and the capital, and to shut down many businesses. The Swiss–based Cyclistes Professionnels Associé (CPA) issues a statement warning against pay cut for cyclists during the coronavirus pandemic. The Russian Prosecutor General announces that it will be blocking access to "fake news" social media posts questioning Moscow's quarantine measures. Mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin announces that the city will introduce a system of travel passes to monitor and regulate citizens' movements the following week. The Turkish Government imposes a 48-hour curfew on 31 cities including Ankara and Istanbul. The English football club Arsenal announces that it will be providing 30,000 free meals and sanitary products to vulnerable people and join forces with a local church to deliver 15,000 tons of emergency supplies to Islington. The club also pledged to donate £100,000 ($124,000) to local organisations and another £50,000 pounds to a COVID-19 Crisis Fund. 11 April Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan extends the country's state of emergency by 30 days. The country has closed all educational institutes, public transportation, and banned foreigners from entering. Armenia has also announced that it would postpone a referendum on changes to its Constitutional Court till after the emergency. The Austrian Federal Railways puts a quarter of its staff (10,000 workers) on short-time work in response to the coronavirus pandemic. In Belarus, many soccer fans boycotted matches in response to the Football Federation of Belarus' decision not to suspend matches on the grounds that the country had only reported a small number of cases. World Health Organization official Patrick O'Connor also calls upon Belarus to introduce new measures to combat the coronavirus. The Dutch Government calls for proposals to develop smartphone apps or software to battle the coronavirus including conducting contact tracing. Pope Francis officiates over a memorial service honoring victims of the coronavirus pandemic including medical personnel. US President Donald Trump orders top administration officials to take measures to aid Italy including making US military personnel in the country available for telemedical services, setting up field hospitals, and transporting supplies. British Home Secretary Priti Patel has apologised for the shortage of PPE equipment among medical personnel and has warned that paedophiles are seeking to exploit children online during the coronavirus pandemic. The British Government has also announced that it would invest more in domestic violence services including online support services, hotlines and a national communications campaign in response to a surge in domestic violence cases. British vaccinologist Sarah Gilbert has expressed optimism that her team at the University of Oxford could develop a vaccine by September 2020. 12 April The British Government pledges US$284 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) and charities to help slow the spread of the coronavirus in vulnerable countries. The British Government has allocated 130 million to United Nations agencies while 65 million was allocated to the WHO. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is discharged from hospital. Portugal's Sporting CP announces that it will cut players' salaries by 40% for three months in response to financial losses caused by COVID-19. The sporting body's board of directors will also take a 50% paycut. Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu resigns due to criticism of his decision to impose a weekend curfew in several major Turkish cities in response to COVID-19. Soylu's resignation was rejected by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In the Vatican City, Pope Francis holds an Easter Sunday service where he offered prayers for the over 100,000 people who had perished during the coronavirus pandemic. 13 April French President Emmanuel Macron extends the nationwide lockdown until 11 May. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces a nationwide lockdown during the Passover holiday and the Minouma festival. Between from 5 pm on 14 April until 5 am on 16 April, Israelis will be barred from leaving their hometowns or in the case of Jerusalem, the neighbourhoods were they live. Italian Football Federation President Gabriele Gravina expresses hope that players can be tested in early May for the coronavirus in order to prepare for the season to restart. The Kazakhstan government announces that 3.7 million Kazakhs have applied for financial aid. Of these, 1.8 million applications have been approved. Pope Francis calls on society to stand behind female victims of domestic violence while praising female doctors, nurses, police officers, prison guards, and sales staff involved in essential work. Russian President Vladimir Putin states that the coronavirus situation is getting worse in Russia and commits the Russian Defence Ministry's resources to dealing with the crisis. Spanish authorities allow people living in regions of Spain where Easter Monday is not a holiday to resume work. Certain businesses like construction and manufacturing were allowed to reopen but most shops, bars, and public places remain closed until 26 April. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announces that Turkey will impose a new lockdown over the weekend to combat the spread of COVID-19. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offers a US$1 million reward to Ukrainian scientists if they develop a vaccine for the coronavirus. The British Government's Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance forecasts that the number of coronavirus-related deaths will continue to rise this week before plateauing over the next two to three weeks. He thinks that the number of daily deaths should begin decreasing after that. During a media conference on Monday evening, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom states that governments need to consider six criteria for lifting coronavirus lockdown restrictions: first, the transmission is controlled; second, systems are in place to detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace their contacts; third, risks are minimised in care homes and other at-risk environments; fourth, preventive measures are in place in schools, offices and other places people need to go; fifth, importation risks can be managed; and sixth, communities are fully educated and able to deal with the "new norm." 14 April The Austrian Government allows the reopening of thousands of shops as part of a move to loosen lockdown restrictions. The European Commission limits restrictions on the export of coronavirus protective equipment to facemasks and exempts Western Balkan countries from such restrictions. Iceland announces that it is planning to lift movements restrictions on 4 May. As part of the relaxation, primary schools will fully open while high schools and universities will open with some limitations. British-Swedish company AstraZeneca announces that it would start a clinical trial to assess the potential of Calquence in treating coronavirus patients. 15 April The Football Federation of Belarus postpones its Women's Premier League, which was scheduled to start on 16 April, after several players were found to have been in contact with suspected carriers of the coronavirus. Denmark begins reopening nurseries, kindergartens, and primary schools after a month-long closure which began on 12 March. However, classes are only resuming in about half of Denmark's municipalities and 35 percent of Copenhagen's schools as others have requested more time to adjust to new health safety protocols. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin lifts roadblocks and travel restrictions around the Uusimaa region which contains the capital Helsinki, easing a lockdown which began on 28 March. German Chancellor Angela Merkel announces that most shops up to 800sq metres (8,600 sq ft) will be allowed to reopen once they have "plans to maintain hygiene." However, schools will remain closed until 4 May. The German Government has also maintained a ban on large gatherings until 31 August. Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa states that Portugal has "flattened the curve" but that it is still too early to lift the nationwide lockdown. de Sousa extends Portugal's lockdown until 1 May. In Russia, veterans urge President Vladimir Putin to postpone a military parade to mark the 75th anniversary of World War Two, scheduled for 9 May, due to the risk posed by the coronavirus. The Turkish Interior Ministry imposes quarantines on 227 residential areas in 58 provinces, which are home to 250,000 people. The Ministry also announced that it was lifting restrictions on 41 residential areas in 14 provinces. UK luxury car manufacturer Aston Martin suspends manufacturing at two of its factories by another week in response to lockdown measures in the United Kingdom. First Minister of Northern Ireland Arlene Foster extends Northern Ireland's lockdown by three weeks in coordination with similar measures by the neighbouring Republic of Ireland, which are due to run until 5 May. 16 April The Austrian Social Affairs and Health Minister Rudolf Anschober announces that the Austrian Government intends to test all resthome residents, approximately 130,000 people. The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment reports that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits had risen to 42% in March. The Ministry had also paid benefits to 37,800 newly unemployed, with the majority being former restaurant and bar workers as well as people under the age of 25 years. The Head of the Dutch National Institute for Health (RIVM) Jaap Van Dissel presents a study to the Dutch Parliament suggesting that 3 percent of the Dutch population have developed antibodies to combat the coronavirus. The European Commission advises member states using mobile apps to contain the spread of the coronavirus to ensure that such apps comply with the European Union's privacy rules and avoid using personalised location data. The German Federal Constitutional Court rules that Germans have the right to hold protests if they adhere to physical distancing rules. The Georgian Government bans the movement of all private vehicles until 21 April. Georgia has already imposed a state of emergency closing most businesses, schools, public transportation, and gatherings of more than three people until 10 May. The Hungarian Government announces that they intend to extend Hungary's lockdown by one week from Saturday (18 April) in order to combat the spread of COVID-19. Municipal authorities will be empowered to impose special restrictions over the weekend to ensure local communities are protected. The Polish Government announces that parks and forests will reopen to the public on Monday (20 April) and then revise the rules on the number of customers allowed in shops as part of efforts to loosen lockdown restrictions. The Polish Government also clarifies that the country's borders will remain closed until 3 May. Russian President Vladimir Putin announces that the Russian Government is postponing the country's annual World War II commemoration parade due to health risks associated with the coronavirus. Switzerland announces that it will ease restrictions in a three-stage process. First, hospitals will be allowed to perform all operations including elective surgeries while hair salons, massage parlours and cosmetic studies will be allowed to reopen on 27 April. Second, all primary schools, shops, and markets will be allowed to reopen from 11 May. Third, the government will reopen secondary schools, vocational schools, and universities from 8 June. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock states that it is too early for the British Government to lift the coronavirus lockdown in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. At the advice of epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, the British Government maintains social distancing measures until a vaccine becomes available. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab extends the UK's lockdown by another three weeks. 17 April Health ministers from six Balkan states including Kosovar Health Minister Arben Tivia agree to coordinate their responses to combat the spread of the coronavirus in the Western Balkans. The German Health Minister Jens Spahn states the coronavirus pandemic in Germany has become manageable again due to the higher rate of recoveries over infections. In the United Kingdom, Lord Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has called on the British Government to make it compulsory for people travelling or shopping around the capital to wear face masks. 18 April The Croatian Government extended its lockdown by another 15 days, until 4 May. The Danish Government announces that it will invest 100 billion Danish krones (US$14.6 billion) in direct economic aid, state guaranteed loans and extended deadlines for tax payments to help businesses affected by the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. The Greek Orthodox Church has conducted their Easter services in empty churches on Saturday night to comply with health restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces that the Israeli Government will be relaxing lockdown restrictions by allowing some businesses to reopen and easing restrictions on movement. In response to a sharp spike in cases, Russian President Vladimir Putin orders the Russian government to provide a daily forecast of coronavirus cases. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announces that he would ask the Spanish Parliament to extend the national lockdown until 9 May. Sánchez has indicated that he wanted to relax restrictions on children, who will be allowed out of their homes after 27 April under restrictions. In the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II announces that there will be no guns salutes to mark her birthday on 21 April, the first such request made in her 68-year reign. Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick announces that the UK Government will do more to provide healthcare workers with personal protective equipment. Uzbekistan extended social distancing measures through 10 May. 19 April Croatian Interior Minister Davor Božinović lifts internal travel restrictions, allowing people to travel within their districts. However, the country's borders remain closed. Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová has criticised the European Union for what she described as its "morbid dependency" on China and India for medical supplies during a Czech television debate. French Health Minister Olivier Véran eases restrictions on visits to nursing and seniors' homes, which had been in place since March 2020. Only two relatives may visit a senior or social care facility at the same time while physical contact is prohibited. United Kingdom Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove has rebuffed a BuzzFeed News report claiming that the British Government is considering a three-stage plan to start easing lockdown restrictions within weeks. 20 April The Belgian Government has indicated that it is planning to ease lockdown restrictions since the coronavirus pandemic in Belgium has peaked. The European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Paolo Gentiloni stated during an interview that €1.5 trillion worth in aid would be needed to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. In Israel, demonstrators have protested against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coronavirus restrictions while keeping two meters apart. The Lithuanian Finance Ministry has forecast that the Lithuanian economy will shrink by 7.8% this year if the coronavirus is contained by summer. Norway has begun reopening pre-school nurseries after a month-long lockdown. Norwegian Air has announced that four of its subsidiaries in Denmark and Sweden had filed for bankruptcy, affecting 4,700 jobs. The Polish Health Minister Łukasz Szumowski has issued a statement stating that the Polish Government may restore restrictions if there is a spike in cases. Earlier, the Polish Government had announced the reopening of parks and forests on Monday. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that Russia has managed to curb the spread of the coronavirus but that the outbreak had not yet peaked. Slovakian Prime Minister Igor Matovič has proposed a plan to reopen small shops of up to 300 square metres, outdoor sports grounds and takeaways from 23 April. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey will impose a four-day lockdown on 31 cities commencing 24 April (Thursday) to combat the spread of the coronavirus. In the United Kingdom, NHS Blood and Transplant announced that they were planning to collect blood from coronavirus patients to investigate if convalescent plasma transfusion could speed up patients' rate of recovery. British Culture Secretary has also announced that the UK Government will review its approach to the coronavirus pandemic to identify areas for improvement in response to public criticism. Prince Philip has also issued a statement thanking health workers, scientists and other essential services for their work during the coronavirus pandemic. A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also defended the Government's decision not to lift lockdown and social distancing measures, saying that the UK's main concern is to prevent a second wave of infections. British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced that over 140,000 companies, employing more than 1 million people, had applied for the Government's wage subsidy scheme. The International Monetary Fund's Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has described the spread of the coronavirus as the worst crisis since the Great Depression during a media conference in Bulgaria. 21 April Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has announced that the Austrian Government will allow restaurants to reopen and religious services to resume from 15 May. Schools are scheduled to reopen for senior students in early May while schools for younger pupils will reopened at a staggered pace from 15 May. The Danish Health Ministry announces that it will not allow public gatherings with over 500 people until at least 1 September, contradicting earlier reports that the Danish Government would not allow larger public gatherings until 10 May. A current limit on public gatherings of more than ten people remains in force until 10 May. German Food and Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner stated during a G20 meeting that food exports should only be curbed during an emergency. Greek authorities have locked down a migrant hotel in Kranidi housing 470 migrants after a Somali woman tested positive for the coronavirus. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has warned that easing lockdown restrictions may increase the spread of the coronavirus. The Spanish Government has announced that it will allow children under the age of 12 to leave their homes for 90 minutes with an accompanying adult due to concerns for the mental health of children. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described the coronavius pandemic as the biggest global crisis since World War Two. In the United Kingdom, several engineering, aerospace, automotive and Formula One companies have formed the VentilatorChallengeUK consortium in order to produce 1,500 ventilators per week. United Nations World Food Programme chief economist Arif Husain has warned that the number of people facing acute food insecurity could rise to 265 million as a result of the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. World Health Organization spokesperson Fadela Chaib issued a statement during a Geneva media briefing that all available evidence suggests that the coronavirus originated in bats and was not created in a laboratory in response to US President Trump's statements that the US would investigate whether the coronavrius was manufactured in a lab. 22 April The German biotech company BioNTech has received approval from Germany's vaccine regulator to test a vaccine candidate, project named BNT162, on 200 human test subjects. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has announced that Spain will be easing down coronavirus lockdown measures during the second half of May. Turkmenistan's Foreign Minister Raşit Meredow has insisted that his country has not reported any cases of the coronavirus. In the United Kingdom, Ed Davey, the acting leader of the Liberal Democrats has called for an inquiry into the British Government's handling of the coronavirus including the partial death toll, limited testing, and the lack of equipment at hospitals. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab confirmed the deaths of 69 National Health Service personnel as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and announced that the Government had delivered 1 billion items of personal protective equipment as well as through the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has confirmed that the British Government will implement large-scale contact tracing once they have curbed the number of new cases. Pope Francis has called for European unity in combating the coronavirus pandemic ahead of a European Union summit to discuss a contentious economic stimulation package. 23 April The Czech Government announces that it will seek support from the Chamber of Deputies for an extension of the country's state of emergency until 25 May. Greece has extended lockdown measures by a week until 4 May, a move that will also delay the removal of hundreds of migrants from refugee camps. In addition, two asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos, one Iranian and one Afghan, were shot and wounded after allegedly violating coronavirus quarantine restrictions. The Irish Health Minister Simon Harris has reported that hospital admissions in Ireland have fallen by 60% to about 40. The Swedish Government has limited online betting to 5,000 Swedish krona (US$495) a week. The British Government's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has recommended keeping social distancing measures in place for the rest of the year. The British Health Secretary Matthew Hancock has announced that coronavirus testing will be expanded to other "key workers" outside the medical and nursing home professions including teachers, government servants, and delivery drivers. He also announced that the Government was launching a large scale testing and tracking programme to keep the rate of coronavirus transmissions low. In the United Kingdom, a team of scientists at Oxford University have tested their first prototype vaccine "ChAdOx1 nCoV-19" on their first batch of volunteers. Meanwhile, Italy's ReiThera, Germany's Leukocare and Belgium's Univercell have confirmed they are working together on developing a trial vaccine within the next few months. Oran Finnegan, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross' forensic unit, has advised international governments to prepare and plan for mass casualties resulting from the coronavirus, warning that the rising death toll could overwhelm the local capacity to handle the amount of dead bodies. The UEFA Champions League has postponed the UEFA Women's Euro 2021 to July 2022. The World Health Organization Europe Director Dr Hans Kluge has reported that up to half of all coronavirus fatalities in Europe have occurred within nursing homes, showing that the pandemic has disproportionately affected the elderly. Kluge also called for healthcare workers in rest homes to be given more protective gear and support. The WHO also announced that it was launching a "landmark collaboration" to speed up the development, production and the distribution of drugs, tests and vaccines to prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19. According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), 80 countries have imposed bans or limited the export of face masks and other protective equipment. However, only 13 WTO members have notified the global trading organization as required by its regulations. 24 April In Belgium, Antwerp authorities announces that they will be testing virus bracelets to ensure that thousands of people employed in the city comply with social distancing rules. The Belgian Government has also announced that they will ease coronavirus restriction measures in May, allowing non-food businesses to reopen on 11 May and schools to reopen from 18 May. The French Health Ministry has restricted the sale of nicotine substitutes after some new research suggested that nicotine may offer some protection against the coronavirus. The Hungarian President Viktor Orban has announced that the Hungarian Government intends to replace the current lockdown which imposes a blanket curfew over the population with what he described as a more "fine-tuned plan." The Israeli government allows most businesses that are not in shopping malls and open markets to reopen as long as they adhere to standards of cleanliness, wearing protective gear, and social distancing. Hairdressers and beauty saloons can resume operations from Saturday midnight while eateries can sell takeaways and provide home deliveries. The Israeli Government also increased fines for violating social distancing guidelines and maintained restrictions on non-essential travel. The Polish Education Minister Dariusz Piatkowski extends the closure of schools and early childhood education facilities from 26 April to 24 May. The Portuguese government announces that it intends to conduct 70,000 tests on residents and workers at care homes by the end of May 2020. Russian authorities announce that they will build a 1,000 bed hospital for coronavirus patients in St Petersburg in response to rising cases and deaths. The Defence Ministry is also building 16 hospitals across the country to cope with demand. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock has defended the British Government's guidelines for personal protective equipment (PPE) in response to a lawsuit from two British doctors, who have expressed concerned that existing PPE policies do not protect medical workers from the coronavirus. The opposition British Labour Party has announced a review into the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the Black, Asian and other minority ethnic communities, who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Transport for London has also announced that it would place 7,000 staff on furlough and access the British Government's job retention scheme. A spokesperson for the United States Mission in Geneva has confirmed that the United States will not be participating in the launch of a global initiative sponsored by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday to speed up the development, production, and distribution of vaccines and drugs to combat the coronavius pandemic. The World Health Organization's director-general Tedros Adhanom announced that the international organisation was partnering with world leaders and the private sector to speed up the development, production, and distribution of drugs and vaccines to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The British and Spanish Governments have expressed support for the WHO's efforts. French pharmaceutical company Sanofi's CEO Paul Hudson has called for better European coordination in efforts to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus, criticizing what he regarded as Europe's slow response to the pandemic. 25 April In Belarus, several people have tested positive for the coronavirus at an orphanage for 170 people. In France, the office of Prime Minister Edouard Philippe confirmed that he would present a plan to wind down the country's lockdown before the National Assembly on 28 April (Tuesday). Hundreds in Germany and Poland have gathered at the Polish border town of Zgorzelec against a mandatory coronavirus quarantine for those crossing the border. In Berlin, a thousand anti-lockdown protesters have staged a rally, which was attended by both far left and right-wing activists and groups. Police arrested several protesters for flouting lockdown measures. The Polish Health Minister Dr Łukasz Szumowski has advised postponing the 2020 Polish presidential election, scheduled for 10 May. Despite pressure from the opposition, medical workers, the public and both allies and members of the ruling Law and Justice party, the Polish government has refused to postpone the election. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has announced that people will be allowed out to exercise from 2 May if the number of new coronavirus cases continues to drop. The United Kingdom has started trials to investigate whether plasma collected from donors who have recovered from the coronavirus can be used to treat patients who are severely unwell with it. Starship Technologies has announced that they will be using delivery robots to deliver groceries to National Health Service personnel. A 10 Downing Street spokesperson also confirmed that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson would return to work on Monday. Air France–KLM's CEO Benjamin Smith announces that the airline group will be implementing voluntary redundancies as part of its initial cost-cutting plans. The British budget airliner Wizz Air announces that it will resume flights from London's Luton Airport from 1 May, becoming one of the first European airliners to restore services. David Kaye, the United Nations special rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, has released a summary of his report to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Twitter expressing concern that some policies meant to combat the coronavirus pandemic "may be failing to meet the standards of legality, necessity and proportionality". The World Health Organization has issued a statement that there is no evidence that people who have recovered from the coronavirus and have antibodies are protected against a second coronavirus infection. 26 April Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has announced that Italy will reopen its manufacturing industry from 4 May and schools from September. Companies will be required to introduce strict safety measures before resuming operations. Conte has also confirmed that professional sports teams can resume training on 18 May and individual sports teams on 4 May. As part of the plan, eateries will be allowed to provide takeaway and delivery services, people will be able to move within their home regions, and factories and construction sites will be allowed to resume work provided they adhere to social distancing. Museums and galleries will also reopen on 18 May. Dutch health authorities have quarantined two mink farms after several animals were found to be infected with the coronavirus. In Germany, car manufacturers Volkswagen and BWM have announced that they will reopen their factories on Monday in response to the relaxation of lockdown measures. The Spanish Government has allowed children to leave the house in order to exercise, play or go for a walk as part of the relaxation of lockdown measures, which had previously only allowed adults to leave the house to buy groceries and medicine, walk the dog, and seek medical treatment. Children under the age of 14 are allowed one hour of supervised outdoor activity per day between 9am and 9pm local time but must remain within one kilometre of their home. However, children must be accompanied by adults and must adhere to social distancing policies, not using playgrounds, and not sharing toys. Schools also remain closed. President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon has ordered the closure of all schools, most businesses, and public gatherings including sports gatherings. 27 April The 2020 Formula One World Championship, scheduled to be held at Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet on 28 June, has been cancelled by organisers in response to the coronavirus. The Norwegian Government has reopened primary schools to children aged six to ten years after six weeks of distance learning. To comply with health measures, classes will be limited to 15 kids. British Minister of State for Health Edward Argar has confirmed during a radio interview that the British Government will be continuing to test whether antibody tests can be used to combat the coronavirus pandemic. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces that he will meet with Labour Party leader Keir Starmer this week and the leaders of other parties the following week as part of efforts to build consensus over plans to ease the coronavirus lockdown. A British court has also delayed the extradition hearing for journalist and activist Julian Assange since lockdown restrictions prevented his lawyers from attending court proceedings. The British Government has allowed members of the public to submit questions to government ministers, scientific, and medical officers during the daily briefing under Prime Minister Johnson's policy of "maximum possible transparency." The British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has announced that the UK Government will provide state-backed loans to small businesses in order to protect the economy and workers during the lockdown. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Turkey would send medical gear including protective suits and masks to the United States. He also imposed a three-day lockdown in 31 cities commencing 1 May and stated that weekend lockdowns would continue until Eid al-Fitr in late May 2020. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has called Governments not to violate human rights under the pretext of "exceptional and emergency measures" during the coronavirus pandemic. 28 April The Czech Republic's Chamber of Deputies has extended the country's state of emergency until 17 May, eight days short of the original 25 May extension requested by Prime Minister Andrej Babis. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has stated that the French Government will only lift the lockdown when the number of new cases drops below 3,000 per day. He also announced that face masks will be made available to the public on 11 May. The French Government also plans to carry out at least 700,000 deaths by 11 May. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has announced a gradual relaxation of Greece's lockdown rules from 4 May onwards. Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has announced that the Portuguese Government will lift the nationwide lockdown on 3 May. Russian President Vladimir Putin has extended the country's non-working period until 11 May in order to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Spanish President Pedro Sánchez has announced a four-phase plan to lift Spain's lockdown, commencing 4 May. The lifting of restrictions in the country's regions will be determined by the rate of infection, the number of intensive care beds, and social distancing compliance. Spain's National Statistics Institution has reported that Spain's unemployment rate has risen to 14.4% as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. United Kingdom Health Secretary Matt Hancock has confirmed that several children with no underlying health conditions have died from a rare inflammatory syndrome which researchers believe to be linked to COVID-19. British and Italian medical experts have been investigating a possible link between the coronavirus pandemic and several clusters of several inflammatory disease among infants with symptoms including high fevers and swollen arteries. The Office for National Statistics has also indicated that the death toll resulting from COVID-19 in England and Wales was 52% higher than the daily figures for hospital deaths released by the British Government as of 17 April. The British Government has also dropped its support for four ventilator designs in favour of backing 11 other designs. Oil and gas multinational company BP has reported a US$4.4 billion quarterly net loss as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The International Airlines Group, which owns British Airways, has indicated that it is planning to cut 12,000 jobs as part of a restructuring plan for the airline as a result of economic losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 29 April Azerbaijan's Government has closed its borders until 31 May in order to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has announced that early childhood children and younger students would start returning to schools from 14 May for about two weeks prior to the summer break. Upper secondary and vocational school students will continue to study remotely until the end of the school year. The German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has extended a warning on overseas tourism until 14 June. German pharmaceutical company BioNTech has announced that it has begun testing its first trial vaccine BNT162 on 12 volunteers. The company intends to test 200 adult volunteers for its second trial. The Economic Affairs and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier has stated that the German economy could shrink by 6.8% as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The Grand Prix motorcycle racing events in Germany, the Netherlands, and Finland scheduled for June and July have been cancelled as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Ireland's Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan has announced that it would be too early to ease stay-at-home restrictions until 5 May. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has announced that Poland will reopen hotels and shopping malls on 4 May and will reconsider reopening pre-schools on 6 May. Earlier, Polish Government spokesperson Piotr Müller has announced that hotels will be allowed to reopen for the summer holidays in July and August. The government has also extended school closures until 24 May. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has extended a decree banning foreigners from entering Russia, which was due to end on 30 April, until Russia has managed to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control. In Serbia, critics of the government's lockdown policies have staged protests in their homes using tin pans, drums, whistles, and horns. The Serbian Government's lockdown measures have included a daily curfew from 16:00 GMT and weekend lockdowns. The Swiss Government has announced that it will ask the Federal Assembly to approve a 1.9 billion Swiss franc (US$1.95 billion) aid package for the country's aviation sector. This includes 1.275 billion in loan guarantees for airliners and another 600 million francs for companies that support the aviation sector including Swissport International, Gategroup and SR Technics. Turkish Education Minister Ziya Selçuk has extended the closure of schools until late May. Turkey has closed schools since 12 March. That same day, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced that the number of recovered patients doubled the number of new cases. He also stated that the death rate among incubated patients had dropped from 74% to 14% and from 58% to 10% among intensive care patients. The World Health Organization's Director-General Tedros Adhanom has defended the international organization's response to the coronavirus pandemic, asserting that the WHO had acted "quickly and decisively to warn the world" from the beginning. 30 April The Eurozone's economy shrank by 3.8% in the first quarter of 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Spain's economy also shrank by 1.4% during the first quarter of 2020. Bosnian Chairman of the Council of Ministers Zoran Tegeltija has extended a ban on passenger air travel, which began on 30 March, to June 2020. This ban on air travel excludes cargo planes carrying medical aid to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Czech Health Minister Adam Vojtěch has announced that the Czech government will reopen the country's economy since the spread of the coronavirus had been contained, citing a decline in new and active cases. In Denmark, the Statens Serum Institut (State Serum Institute) announced that the spread of the coronavirus has not accelerated in Denmark since the loosening of restrictions. Germany's Bundesagentur für Arbeit (Federal Employment Agency) has reported that the country's unemployment rate rose by 13.2 percent in April to more than 2.6 million. The German Government has confirmed that it plans to allow churches, mosques, and synagogues to reopen in accordance with limits on the numbers of participants and social distance measures. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated that allowing travel within Europe is currently "not on the agenda." The German pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit has announced that its Lufthansa members are willing to take a 45% paycut in order to help the airline. In Hungary, Gergely Gulyás, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff, has announced that schools will remain close until the end of May and that public gatherings with more than 500 people will be banned until 15 August. In Ireland, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has announced that Irish Government will gradually ease lockdown restrictions every two to four weeks. Five criteria for easing restrictions include the progress of the coronavirus, healthcare capacity and resilience, testing and contact tracing capacity, shielding at-risk groups, and the risk of secondary morbidity and mortality due to the restrictions themselves. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has announced that Italy will relax its coronavirus lockdown while taking into account different contagion levels in different parts of the country. Conte also announced a new stimulus package consisting of US$16.3 billion for companies and US$25 billion for both payroll workers and the self-employed. The Polish Government has lifted the quarantine rule for workers and students entering Poland from neighbouring states including Germany, Lithuania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. Other nationals will be required to go through a two-week quarantine. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has tested positive for the coronavirus. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has launched a fundraising campaign to help the United Nations buy soap, masks, and gloves to protect children from the coronavirus pandemic. The Swedish town of Lund has spread chicken manure in its central park to deter crowds who would usually congregate on 30 April to celebrate Walpurgis Night as part of measures to encourage social distancing. The United Kingdom's Department of Health and Social Care has announced that it plans to test a randomly-chosen group of 100,000 people to study the spread of the coronavirus. British Justice Secretary Robert Buckland has reported that the UK had carried out 52,429 tests by Wednesday, short of the UK government's target of conducting 100,000 tests by the end of April. In addition, Buckland announced that the UK has released the first 40 of 4,000 prospective prisoners identified for early release in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Boris Johnson has indicated that the UK Government is intending to review lockdown measures on 7 May. British military veteran Tom Moore has raised more than US$37 million for health workers by walking 100 laps around his garden during his 100th birthday. The British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA) has reported that British Airways is planning to cut 1,130 of its captain and pilot jobs, roughly a quarter of its 4,346 pilot workforce. British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca's CEO Pascal Soriot stated during a media interview that they will know the effectiveness of the vaccine that they are working on with the University of Oxford by June or July 2020. The World Health Organization's Regional Office for Europe Head Hans Kluge has announced that 21 of the 44 European states that have imposed partial or complete restrictions in response to the coronavirus have eased them. In a statement, he warned that the coronavirus could be "unforgiving" and urged vigilance, perseverance, and patience. Reactions and measures in South and Southeast Asia 1 April Malaysia extended its Movement Control Order, which was due to have ended on 31 March, by two weeks. Public transportation would only operate for limited hours while private vehicles including e-hailing services would be banned from the roads between 10 p.m and 6 a.m. 2 April Indian government announced plans to convert trains and stadiums into isolation wards for a total of 320,000 patients. Thailand announced that it would begin a nationwide curfew between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. starting from 3 April to contain the spread of the coronavirus. 3 April Sri Lanka ordered the cremation of deceased Muslims as a health precaution, drawing controversy among the Muslim community. Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announces a "circuit breaker" from 7 April to 4 May to stop the transmission of COVID-19. 4 April Nepal's Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) reports a surge in poaching due to slack monitoring and a drop in public movement. 5 April Malaysian Deputy Foreign Minister Kamaruddin Jaffar announces that the Malaysian Government has repatriated 4,811 stranded nationals and that 2,298 Malaysians remain stranded overseas. Immigration authorities in the state of Johor announce that Malaysians with Singaporean work permits will be allowed to re-enter the country if they pass swab tests proving they are free of the coronavirus. President of Sri Lanka Gotabaya Rajapaksa announces that he has released 2,961 prisoners in order to reduce congestion in prisons. These include prisoners that have served the majority of their terms, had been remanded for minor offenses, and had been unable to pay their bail. 6 April Amnesty International warns that older Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are at risk from the coronavirus due to their overcrowded camps, poor living conditions, and a lack of basic health information. According to the United Nations, about 31,500 of the 860,000 refugees are 60 years old and over. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other government officials take a 30 percent salary cut as part of government measures to tackle the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Singapore quarantines nearly 20,000 migrant workers, mainly Bangladeshis and South Asians, in two dormitories in response to a surge in infection clusters linked to foreign workers. Thailand extends a ban on incoming passenger flights until 18 April. 7 April The Singapore Government tables a bill to set up provisions for a safe election to be held during the COVID-19 pandemic. Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte announces to extend the lockdown and home quarantine measures on Luzon until 30 April. 8 April Bangladeshi Government imposes a lockdown in Cox's Bazar District, which is home to 2 million Rohingya refugees, prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving the region. Supreme Court of India orders that private medical laboratories not charge patients for testing COVID-19. Malaysian contraceptive giant Karex CEO Goh Miah Kiat, which manufactures 20% of the world's condoms, warns that the country's lockdown measures could lead to global shortage of condoms. 9 April Indian health authorities lockdown several residential districts in the capital New Delhi and the neighbouring Uttar Pradesh state that have been identified as coronavirus hotspots. Residents in those hotspots will not be allowed to leave their homes but will be supplied with food, medicines, and other supplies. 10 April Malaysian company Top Glove, the world's biggest manufacturer of medical gloves, announces plans to manufacture face masks to meet public demand in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Malaysian Government also extends the movement control order until 28 April. Singapore's Ministry of Education suspends the use of Zoom for online education after hackers hijacked a geography lesson and showed an obscene image. The Ministry is working with Zoom Video Communications to tighten security settings and measures. 11 April The Bangladeshi Government extends the nationwide lockdown until 25 April. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi extends the nationwide lockdown without specifying how long it will be. 12 April Indonesia orders curbs on public transportation ahead of the annual exodus to home villages following Ramadan in a bid to combat the spread of the coronavirus. As part of these measures, public buses, trains, airplanes and ships will be allowed to fill only half their passenger seats. Cars will only be allowed to fill half of their seats while motorbikes can only be ridden by one person. Myanmar's Ministry of Health and Sports extends a ban on international flights to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The Sri Lankan government orders that all coronavirus victims be cremated, triggering protests from the Sri Lankan Muslim community. 13 April The Bangladeshi Government extends the national holiday until 25 April in an attempt to combat the spread of COVID-19. Al Jazeera reports that about 40,000 Indian crew members are stranded on cruise and cargo ships around the world due to travel restrictions caused by COVID-19. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Dammu Ravi has said that the return of Indians stranded abroad is still a "work in progress." The Indonesian Ulema Council advises Muslim adherents to comply with government directives and to limit religious activities to the home. After a ban on Zoom for Home-Based Learning, Singapore's Ministry of Education allowed schools to resume its use with new safety measures implemented. 14 April Leaders of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meet online to discuss their countries' response to the coronavirus including discussions on a regional stockpile of medical equipment for emergencies and the creation of a regional fund to fight the pandemic. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces that the country's lockdown will be extended until 3 May. Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan calls on the Indian Government to repatriate the more than 3 million migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates, citing the inadequate isolation and quarantine facilities. 15 April The Indian Government announces that it will ease lockdown restrictions in the rural areas on several activities, including manufacturing and infrastructure building, starting from next Monday (20 April) to provide relief for workers affected by the COVID-19 lockdown. The Maldives government imposes a 24-hour curfew in the capital Malé and several nearby islands after the country reported its first case of domestic transmission. Police are urging people to return to their homes by 15:30 local time. The Singaporean Government makes it compulsory for all people to wear a face mask following a surge in cases over the past two days. The Health Ministry has stated that anyone found without a mask will be fined S$300 (US$212) while repeat offenders would be prosecuted in court and face higher fines. Exemptions would be made for children below two years old or those with special needs. The Pakistani Government announces that it will be easing restrictions on certain economic sectors including the construction and cement industries in order to combat rising unemployment and economic stagnation. Several Sunni leaders have also defied government regulations to limit worship activities and services. The Thai Government has extended a ban on incoming flights until the end of April. However, the Interior Ministry has announced that land borders in 21 provinces would be reopened on Saturday to allow the return of Thais stranded abroad. Up to 100 people will be allowed to enter each border cross each day and all will be subject to a 14-day quarantine. In addition, 11 Thai and international NGOs including the Manushya Foundation petition the Thai Government to release prisoners in order to protect them from the spread of the coronavirus in crowded prisons. 16 April The Indian Government reverses its ban on the export of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, sending a shipment to the United States at the request of President Trump. The Singaporean Health Minister Gan Kim Yong quarantines a ninth foreign workers' dormitory after the detection of a new cluster at Mandai Lodge 1. 17 April The President of Myanmar Win Myint announces that 24,896 people will be released from the country's prisons in a bid to ease overcrowding and prevent the spread of the coronavirus among prisoners. Pakistan receives a US$1.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to deal with the economic fallout caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 18 April In Bangladesh, over 100,000 people have defied a ban on public gatherings by attending the funeral of an Islamic cleric and Khelafat Majlish political leader named Maulana Zubayer Ahmed Ansari in the country's Brahmanbaria district, about 100 kilometres away from the capital Dhaka. In Myanmar, a Christian pastor named David Lah and a Christian rock singer named Myo Gyi have tested positive for the coronavirus. 22 cases have been traced to an illegal religious gathering which he had hosted. Pastor Lah and three other people were charged with violating the country's Natural Disaster Management Law. The Supreme Court of Nepal orders the Nepalese Government to bring back migrant workers stranded abroad after it had initially barred them from returning in an attempt to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The Supreme Court had ruled in favour of a petition by the labour NGO People Forum for Human Rights (PFHR). Nepal has 2.6 million workers in the Gulf States, Malaysia and South Korea. 19 April India agrees to supply hydroxychloroquine tablets to the United Arab Emirates in order to treat coronavirus patients. The Indian state of Maharashtra allows a limited number of economic sectors to resume work on Monday to address unemployment. 20 April The Bangladeshi Government has imposed a 14-day 24-hour curfew on the residents of seven villages in the Brahmanbaria district in response to an illegal mass funeral for Bangladeshi Muslim leader Maulana Jubayer Ahmed Ansari that was attended by over 100,000. Bangladeshi authorities are also conducting tests to identify any cases of the coronavirus among attendees. The Malaysian Government has announced that the Malaysian Parliament will resume for a single day on 18 May but there will be no parliamentary debates. 21 April In Bangladesh, International Committee of the Red Cross has organised a hygiene training session for prison staff at a Bangladeshi prison where it also distributed disinfection materials. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has banned the traditional annual Ramadan exodus in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The Thai Government has extended foreigners' visas by three months in order to avoid long queues at immigration centres. Foreigners whose visas expired on 26 March will be permitted to stay until 31 July without having to apply for another visa. 22 April The Indian Government-owned Broadcast Engineering Consultants India announces plans to manufacture thousands of wristbands that will monitor the health and movements of coronavirus patients, perform contact tracing, and aid health workers delivering essential services. The company will present its designs to Indian hospitals and state governments and will work with Indian start-ups to manufacture them. Governor of Jakarta Anies Baswedan has extended social restrictions for an extra month until 22 May and ordered that residents prayed at home during Ramdan. 23 April The Indonesian Transportation Ministry's director-general of aviation Novie Riyanto Rahardjo announced that the Indonesian Government would ban all domestic passenger air and sea travel from Friday (24 April) until 1 June in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Cargo transportation is exempt from the ban. 24 April Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged India to be "self-reliant" in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic during a video conference with village council heads. 25 April Sri Lanka has imposed another 24 hour curfew following a surge in cases, with most of them being Sri Lanka Navy sailors searching for people evading the quarantine. 26 April In Bangladesh, hundreds of textile workers have staged a protest in Dhaka, demanding wages and financial support in response to the lockdown which has crippled the country's textile industry. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged citizens to comply with the nationwide lockdown and social distancing measures in a radio address in response to the rising number of cases and deaths. The Sri Lankan Government has extended the nationwide lockdown until 4 May in response to an outbreak at Welisara naval base. 27 April Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that his country's month-long lockdown has saved lives and yielded positive results during a video conference with other heads of state. The Indian Council of Medical Research has advised state governments to stop using coronavirus testing equipment from two Chinese companies Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech and Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics due to their unsatisfactory performance. In response, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Ji Rong criticized the Indian Council of Medical Research's decision as "unfair, irresponsible and prejudiced." 29 April In India, Mumbai health authorities have delayed a plan to give the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to thousands of residents in the city's slums in accordance with government guidelines. 30 April The Sri Lankan Government has reimposed a 24-hour curfew following a new surge of outbreaks among Sri Lanka Navy personnel and their families. Reactions and measures in Western Pacific 1 April Japan Post suspended services to more than 150 countries. Japan's Nikkei Index dropped more than 4 percent in response to growing economic uncertainty. Taiwan required all people using public transportation to wear face masks while barring people with fevers from entering stations or airports. The Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu announced that Taiwan would be donating masks and medical supplies to the US, hard-hit European countries, and Taiwan's diplomatic allies. The Taiwanese Government intended to invest US$35 million in economic relief. 2 April The Australian Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) began the first stage of potential vaccines for COVID-19 on ferrets at a biosecurity facility near Melbourne. The Chinese city of Shenzhen banned the breeding, trade and consumption of wildlife including snakes, lizards, as well as cats and dogs. The Chinese Government also sent a mercy flight to evacuate Chinese students in London. Chinese Government announced it had distributed 11 million masks and 500,000 disinfecting products to Chinese students abroad in affected countries. In Guam, the United States Navy announced that it would evacuate 3,000 personnel aboard the aircraft carrier , which had reported cases of the coronavirus. New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters announced that foreign travellers in New Zealand would be classified as engaging in "essential travel" and thus able to travel domestically when they have a confirmed international flight out of the country, subject to New Zealand Government requirements. In addition, foreign governments would be allowed to evacuate their citizens in charter flights provided they satisfied New Zealand health requirements. To improve travel between New Zealand and Europe, the Government also approved a second daily flight between Doha to Auckland by Qatar Airways. President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte warned lockdown violators that he would not hesitate to order the Philippines police and military to "shoot them dead" if they defied lockdown requirements and harm doctors and health workers. South Korea reported that it had quarantined 158 short-term visitors at quarantine facilities. In addition, 224 South Koreans and 11 foreigners were tested for the virus. Eight foreigners were denied entry for refusing to accept the quarantine. South Korea will also start enforcing penalties on violators from 5 April, with fines, jail and deportation among them. 3 April The Chinese Foreign Ministry advised foreign diplomats to stop visiting Beijing in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Authorities in Wuhan also allow food vendors to resume operations. The US embassy in Tokyo urged US nationals living in Japan to either return to the US immediately or stay in the Asian country for an indefinite period, adding that the Japanese government's decision not to test broadly made it difficult to accurately assess the COVID-19 prevalence rate. 4 April In Australia, Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge urges temporary visa holders, including students, skilled workers, and visitors, to return home in response to a looming economic downturn and unemployment. While Tudge stressed that temporary visa holders in essential industries were welcome, he urged those who were unable to support themselves to return home. China declared Saturday a day of mourning. The country also held three minutes of silence at 10 am local time to commemorate the more than 3,000 health workers and patients who died during the country's COVID-19 pandemic. China's Guangxi region, which borders Vietnam, suspends cross-border and movement with Vietnam in order to contain the coronavirus. Hong Kong's Labour Department announces that it will conduct mobile broadcasts instructing foreign domestic workers not to gather in public, beginning Sunday. Broadcasts will be in Chinese, English, Filipino, Indonesian, and Thai. South Korea extends social distancing measures for two weeks until 19 April in response to a spate of cases in the Seoul area. 6 April In Australia, New South Wales authorities allow the cruise ship Ruby Princess to dock in the state. The New South Wales Police also launch a criminal investigation into whether the ship's operator Carnival Australia breached the Biosecurity Act 2015 (Cwth) and state laws by allowing infected passengers to disembark on 19 March. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announces that a state of emergency will come into effect in Tokyo and six other prefectures on Tuesday in order to contain the coronavirus. This state of emergency will empower Japanese governments to order people to stay at home and businesses to close. New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters announces that the New Zealand Government will be sending a mercy flight to rescue citizens stranded in Peru. NZ authorities have also gained permission from Chilean authorities to transit through Santiago. 7 April The Japanese Government approves a 108.2 trillion Yen (US$993 billion) emergency economic stimulus package worth aimed at combating the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, referring to it as the "biggest crisis" the country's economy has faced since World War II. New Zealand Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare extends the country's state of emergency by a further seven days in response to a rise in cases. This state of emergency is separate from the four week alert level four lockdown. That same day, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern demoted Health Minister David Clark and stripped him of his associate finance portfolio for breaching lockdown conditions by driving his family on a social outing to a beach. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte extends the lockdown of the country's main island Luzon and its capital Manila until the end of April. Human Rights Watch also calls on the Philippines Government to reduce the number of inmates in response to concerns about a "serious outbreak" in the country's overcrowded prisons. In November 2019, 215,000 prisoners were detained in a system with a maximum capacity of 40,000. 8 April The Australian Government approves an Aus$30 billion wage subsidy package to help 6 million Australians, marking the country's largest financial stimulus package. Chinese authorities lifted the lockdown on Wuhan, which has been put in place since 23 January. Anyone who has a "green" code on a widely used smartphone health app is allowed to leave the city. In addition, train, road and rail connections have now been re-established. In addition, Chinese authorities have launched an investigation of prominent Communist Party member Ren Zhiqiang, who had criticised Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Hong Kong extends social distancing restrictions including bans on public gatherings and businesses until 23 April. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expresses "cautious optimism" that New Zealand may be slowing the spread of COVID-19 after the country reported the lowest number of new daily cases in a fortnight. 9 April Australian authorities question the Captain of the Ruby Princess and confiscate the ship's black box as part of their homicide investigation into the cruise ship, a major cluster for the coronavirus pandemic in Australia. Chinese authorities in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang build a new hospital to cope with a cluster of imported cases from Russia. In addition, research published by scientists from the University of Wuhan in the European Respiratory Journal suggests that it is possible for expectant mothers to pass the coronavirus to unborn babies in their womb based on four infected newborns. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces that New Zealanders returning home will be subject to compulsory quarantine, commencing by the end of the day. In the Philippines, the International Committee of the Red Cross has worked with the Philippines authorities to establish four isolation centres for prisoners confirmed with mild to moderate symptoms of the coronavirus or suspected of having the disease. The Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denies accusations by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom that it had made racial slurs against him and demanded his apology. Taiwan is not a member of the WHO due to the One China Policy. In response, Beijing accused Taiwan of conspiring with Internet users to attack Tedros Adhanom. The Vietnamese Government implements a 180 trillion dong (US$7.6 billion) tax holiday to help businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic. 10 April The Chinese Government tightens restrictions on the export of face masks and other personal protective equipment, calling for the shipment of such items to be subject mandatory customs inspection. South Korea introduces early voting for coronavirus patients during the 2020 South Korean legislative election, which is scheduled for 15 April. The South Korean Government had set up eight special polling stations for 3,000 coronavirus patients and 900 medical personnel treating them at special treatment centres. The Vietnamese Ministry of Finance enters into talks with international lenders including the IMF, World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank for a US$1 billion loan to deal with its economic deficit caused by the pandemic. 11 April In China, Al Jazeera reports that African residents in Guangzhou's Yuexiu District have faced heightened hostility and discrimination including forced evictions, arbitrary quarantines, and mass coronavirus testing in response to growing unease over eight recent cases originating in that district, which is home to a sizeable African community. Ethnic tensions had been inflamed after five Nigerians flouted quarantine orders by frequenting local businesses, causing nearly 2,000 people they had come into contact with to undergo testing or quarantine. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calls for citizens to avoid bars and restaurants as part of the state of emergency in Tokyo and six other prefectures. The South Korean Government announces that it will strap wristbands onto people who defy self-quarantine orders as it monitors the spread of the coronavirus. Vietnamese airliners Bamboo Airways and VietJet Air announce that they will resume flights on 16 April after the expiry of a government order for 15 days of physical distancing. 12 April In China, several African governments have voiced concern about Africans in Guangzhou being subject to hostility, discrimination, and violence in response to local authorities imposing mandatory virus tests and quarantines on anyone with "African" contacts following an outbreak from "imported" cases in Guangzhou. The US Consulate has advised African Americans against traveling to Guangzhou due to ethnic tensions. Suifenhe authorities strengthen border controls with Russia in order to slow down the spread of the virus. Beijing authorities announce that they will reopen high schools on 27 April and middle schools on 11 May. Harbin authorities announce that people entering from Russia will be held at a quarantine center for 14 days before self-quarantining at their homes for 14 days, and also that they will lockdown residential units in which coronavirus and asymptomatic cases are found. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe encourages people to stay at home, posting a Twitter video of himself cuddling a dog and reading a book. The North Korean government calls for stricter measures to check the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, without specifying whether there were any reported infections in the country. 13 April The Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern both issue remarks to the media that it is too early to relax social distancing and lockdown restrictions in their countries. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian issues a statement rejecting US allegations that Chinese authorities in Guangzhou had mistreated Africans, accusing Washington of trying to harm Beijing's relations with African states. National Immigration Administration spokesperson Liu Haitao announces that China has reduced the number of people crossing its borders by 90% in an attempt to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The Japanese island of Hokkaido declares a state of emergency again after reporting double digit increases in the number of coronavirus cases for five consecutive days. South Korea announces that it will export 600,000 coronavirus testing kits to the United States in response to a request by President Trump. 14 April The Chinese Government approves two experimental coronavirus vaccines developed by a Beijing-based unit of Sinovac Biotech and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, an affiliate of the China National Pharmaceutical Group. Heilongjiang authorities establish a hotline for reporting illegal migrants crossing from Russia along with a reward system: 3,000 Yuan (US$426) for reporting illegal migrants, and 5,000 Yuan for apprehending illegal migrants and handing them over to the authorities. The Global Times urges Chinese citizens in Russia to remain in Russia and not to return in response to a spike in imported coronavirus cases from Russia. US fast food chain McDonald's apologizes after one of its branches in Guangzhou posted a sign saying that Africans were not welcome in response to tensions between locals and Africans. In New Zealand, Civil Defence Minister Peeni Henare extends the country's national state of emergency for another seven days until 21 April. 15 April The Chinese Government urges the United States Government to fulfill its obligations to the World Health Organization after President Trump cut funding to the international organization. An Associated Press report alleges that the Chinese Government suppressed news of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan for six days between 14 and 20 January 2020, causing the spread of the coronavirus disease. Japanese Government Yoshihide Suga encourages Japanese citizens to limit their interaction with others in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. While Japanese government policy is to limit interactions by 70 percent, compliance is not compulsory. Japanese company Fujifilm announces that it intends to boost production of the drug Avigan by up to 100,000 treatment courses in order to test the drug as a potential treatment for COVID-19. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that all government ministers and public sector chief executives will take a 20 percent pay cut to combat the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Opposition Leader Simon Bridges has also confirmed that he will take a 20 percent pay cut. South Korea holds its legislative election under lockdown conditions. Voters have to wear masks, gloves, undergo a fever check, and maintain social distancing while casting their ballot. The Vietnamese Government issues a decree fining people who post so-called "fake news" between 10 and 20 million Vietnamese dongs (US$426-US$853), the equivalent of six months basic income. 16 April Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announces that Australia will maintain lockdown restrictions for at least four more weeks. The Australian Government intends to spend the next four weeks expanding testing, improving its contact tracing capability, and planning responses to local outbreaks. After the four weeks, the Government intends to review movement restrictions and the closure of businesses and schools. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe extends the state of emergency imposed on seven prefectures to the rest of Japan. Several Japanese sake breweries have shifted to producing high-alcohol content liquids for alcohol-based hand sanitisers in order to address a shortage of hand sanitising liquid in Japan. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern outlines the New Zealand Government's alert level 3 lockdown rules and restrictions. Key policies have included allowing people to swim and fish while banning boating; reopening early childhood centers and schools up to Year 10 on a voluntary basis; easing work restrictions; allowing ten people to attend funerals, weddings, and tangi; and allowing food eateries to provide take away services. The South Korean Government reopens schools but instruction will be conducted remotely. 17 April Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison suggests that lockdown measures including social distancing could remain for several months. Chinese authorities have arrested 42 people for hoarding and driving up the price of material used to make face masks as well as illegally producing shoddy and inferior material for resale. The Chinese Government's budget officer also predicts that the country's economy will contract by 2% in 2020 due to stimulus measures raising the country's deficit to 8%, the largest gap since 1990. The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea James Marape enters into self-isolation after a staff member at the country's main coronavirus emergency treatment centre tests positive for the coronavirus. In the Philippines, human rights groups call for the release of non-violent, sick and elderly prisoners in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus within the country's prison system. This followed reports that 30 prisoners in Quezon City Jail were showing symptoms of the coronavirus and that 18 guards and prisoners at an unspecified prison had tested positive for the coronavirus. 18 April Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison clarifies that a movement-tracking phone app tracing the contacts of infected Australians will not be made mandatory. In China, the National Health Commission has ordered people working in the nursing, education, security and other sectors with high exposure to the public to undergo a nucleic acid test before leaving Wuhan. Mutual recognition of health status inside Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region began to take effect. Taiwanese Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung announces that the Taiwanese Government will place 700 Republic of China Navy sailors under quarantine after three coronavirus cases were confirmed among sailors who had taken part in a goodwill trip to Palau. 19 April Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne calls for an independent global inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, including China's handling of the initial outbreak in Wuhan, without the involvement of the World Health Organization. The opposition Australian Labor Party's Health spokesperson Chris Bowen has supported the push and urged the Australian Government to win the support of other countries for the inquiry. Yuan Zhiming, the head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has rejected allegations by the United States that the coronavirus originated at the institute's laboratory. 20 April In Australia, authorities in Sydney and the Gold Coast have reopened several beaches including Coolangatta, Surfers Paradise, Coogee, and Malabar. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang has defended China's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, rebuffing the Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne's calls for an international investigation into the origins of the virus. Beijing implements a new requirement for people to show their health information on Beijing Health Kit when entering restaurants. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern extends New Zealand's Alert Level 4 lockdown by another week in order to "lock in gains" made in containing the spread of the coronavirus. The Alert Level 4 will end at 11:59 pm on 27 April with New Zealand entering into Alert Level 3 on 28 April for the duration of two weeks. Ardern also announced that schools and early childhood centres could reopen on 29 April. 21 April Australian airliner Virgin Australia enters into voluntary administration after failing to obtain a loan from the Australian Government. The company is now seeking new buyers and investors to prevent collapse. Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam has announced that Hong Kong will extend its coronavirus virus restrictions, banning public gatherings, closing most businesses, and banning entry by foreigners by another 14 days. The Philippine Government has announced that it will step up coronavirus testing with the assistance of the Red Cross, aiming to test 1,000 samples daily. The International Committee of the Red Cross has distributed 20 tonnes of healthcare, hygiene, and sanitation to Cambodia's Directorate General of Prisons and sponsored a 48-bed isolation facility in Manila. 22 April Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has sought international support for an international review into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic during phone calls with US President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron. Beijing has accused Canberra of parroting the United States Government, which has criticized China and the World Health Organization's handling of the pandemic. In response, Macron has stated that it is not an "opportune time" for an international investigation into the coronavirus pandemic. In Japan, authorities in Sakura, Chiba have razed 100,000 tulips to comply with social distancing rules following the cancellation of the annual tulip festival. 23 April Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying has announced that China will be donating an addition US$30 million to the World Health Organization's efforts to combat the coronavirus, supplementing the US$20 million that China had already donated to the international organisation in March. Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping has also announced that the Chinese Government will invest in various sectors including 5G, artificial intelligence, energy, and the employment of graduates. The Vietnamese Government eases social distancing restrictions, citing the success of its policy involving mass quarantines and expansive social distancing. 24 April Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has confirmed that only authorised health personnel will have access to data in government smartphone software to trace the contacts and movements of people with the coronavirus. The cruise ship Ruby Princess has departed Australian waters. The Ruby Princess was a major cluster for the COVID-19 outbreak in Australia, accounting for ten percent of the country's 6,000 deaths and a third of the country's 77 deaths, triggering a criminal investigation by New South Wales authorities. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang has issued a statement condemning cyber attacks on institutions fighting the coronavirus pandemic in response to a report by the US cybersecurity firm FireEye that Vietnamese government-linked hackers had tried to hack into the personal and professional email accounts of staff at the Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management and the Wuhan Government. Vietnam's foreign ministry denounced the report as "baseless." The Financial Times has reported that Gilead Sciences's experimental anti-viral drug remdesivir has failed during its first test trial in China, based on leaked World Health Organization documents. President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte extends Metro Manila's lockdown until 15 May. The extended lockdown covers several provinces on the island of Luzon. Three airlines including Philippines Airlines, Cebu Pacific, and the Filipino unit of Malaysian airliner AirAsia extend flight suspensions until mid-May. Cargo and special recovery flights are unaffected. 25 April Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura self-isolates after he came into contact with a staff member who had contracted the coronavirus. Vanuatu, which has reported no cases of COVID-19, has announced that they will be holding their Women's Super League final and streaming it live on social media. 26 April The Australian Government has launched a new coronavirus tracing app based on Singapore's TraceTogether software that uses Bluetooth signals to record when people have been close to one another. While the Government has promised to legislate privacy protections, the app has been criticised for privacy issues and Amazon running the app's data storage. Singapore has converted exhibition halls and other facilities into temporary hospitals for coronavirus patients in response to a surge in cases, mainly among foreign workers. In South Korea, several churches including Onnuri Church have reopened, but worshippers are required to maintain social distancing, wear masks, and sit at designated seats. South Korea had previously eased its social distancing policy for some religious and sports facilities. 27 April In Australia, about 2 million people have downloaded the Australian Government's COVIDSafe tracing app. On the same day, Prime Minister Scott Morrison recorded a 68% approval rating for his handling of the pandemic. Chinese authorities have arrested three individuals Chen Mei, Chai Wai, and "Tang" for contributing to "Terminu2049", an online archive of censored materials about the coronavirus outbreak on GitHub. In Japan, the Osaka Prefecture has announced that it will name and shame pachinko parlours that continue to operate in defiance of coronavirus lockdown restrictions. Japan's economic revitalization minister Yasutoshi Nishimura was suspected of having COVID-19 but tested negative. Nishimura, who failed to meet the testing criteria for the coronavirus, was criticized for undergoing a PCR test, because many people with suspected COVID-19 infections in the country who were discouraged from having PCR tests felt that they were treated unfairly. New Zealand prepares to move from a Level 4 to a Level 3 alert level at midnight on 28 April. As part of the Level 3 lockdown, schools up to Year 10 and early childhood centers will be allowed to reopen but children will be encouraged to stay at home; businesses can reopen but mist comply with social distancing requirements; gatherings of up to ten people are allowed for weddings, funerals, and tangi; and low-risk recreational activities are allowed. 28 April In Australia, New South Wales authorities have reopened three beaches including Bondi Beach as part of a relaxation of lockdown measures. The Director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology has rejected claims that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory, dismissing it as a conspiracy theory. Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam has announced that civil servants will be able to return to work from 4 May but that Hong Kong government has not made a decision over easing travel and social distancing measures due to expire next week. The Japan Medical Association has advised against holding the 2020 Summer Olympics, which has been postponed to July 2021, unless a COVID-19 vaccine is developed. 300,000 masks that the Japanese Government had sent to pregnant women as part of a government handout were found to be faulty. In Malaysia, Human Rights Watch's Asia Director Phil Robertson called on the Malaysian Government to stop detaining people who had flouted the movement control order put in place to combat the spread of the coronavirus. By 18 March, 15,000 had been arrested for breaching the movement control order. Taiwanese Health Minister Chen Shih-chung has thanked United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar for the United States' strong support for Taiwanese participation in the World Health Organization. Azar has expressed support for Taiwanese participation in WHO meetings and functions at the observer level. 29 April Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt has announced that Australia has purchased 10 million test kits from China for the purpose of conducting 10 million tests. Australia has so far carried out 500,000 tests. China's national legislature, the National People's Congress will resume on 22 May. The People's Congress had been scheduled to start in 5 March but was suspended in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference will also reconvene from 21 May. That same day, Beijing authorities announced that they would lower their COVID emergency responses from level II to level I; eliminating quarantine restrictions on some people arriving from low-risk areas in the country. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe issued a statement that it would be difficult to hold the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo next year unless the coronavirus pandemic is contained. Governor of Tokyo Yuriko Koike has called for an extension of Japan's state of emergency beyond 6 May. Human Rights Watch's Asia Director Phil Robertson has criticised Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen for using the coronavirus pandemic as a pretext to arrest opposition supporters and critics of the government in response to the arrest of 30 people including 12 Cambodian National Rescue Party members on charges of spreading "fake news" and other offenses. The International Monetary Fund's Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has praised the Japanese Government's plans to spend 20 percent of its gross domestic product on tackling the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and helping poor countries. 30 April The Hong Kong Government has announced that the first batch of 300 Hong Kong residents will depart the Pakistani capital Islamabad in a chartered flight. The returnees will be tested for the coronavirus and quarantined for 14 days. 1,600 Hong Kong residents remain stranded in Pakistan. See also Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic References April 2020 events Timelines of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020

63617842

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-European%20Privacy-Preserving%20Proximity%20Tracing

Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing

Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT/PEPP) is a full-stack open protocol designed to facilitate digital contact tracing of infected participants. The protocol was developed in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The protocol, like the competing Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (DP-3T) protocol, makes use of Bluetooth LE to discover and locally log clients near a user. However, unlike DP-3T, it uses a centralized reporting server to process contact logs and individually notify clients of potential contact with an infected patient. It has been argued that this approaches compromises privacy, but has the benefit of human-in-the-loop checks and health authority verification. While users are not expected to register with their real name, the back-end server processes pseudonymous personal data that would eventually be capable of being reidentified. It has also been put forward that the distinction between centralized/decentralized systems is mostly technical and PEPP-PT is equally able to preserve privacy. Technical specification The protocol can be divided into two broad responsibilities: local device encounters and logging, and transmission of contact logs to a central health authority. These two areas will be referred to as the encounter handshake and infection reporting respectively. Additionally authentication, notification, and other minor responsibilities of the protocol are defined. Authentication Authentication during registration is required to prevent malicious actors from creating a multiple false user accounts, using them to interfere with the system. In order to preserve the anonymity of the users, traditional authentication models using static identifiers such as email addresses or phone numbers could not be employed. Rather, the protocol uses a combination of a proof-of-work challenge and CAPTCHA. The suggested proof-of-work algorithm is scrypt as defined in RFC7914, popularized in various blockchain systems such as Dogecoin and Litecoin. Scrypt was chosen because it is memory bound rather than CPU bound. Once a user registers with the app, they are issued a unique 128 bit pseudo-random identifier (PUID) by the server. It will be marked inactive until the app solves the PoW challenge with the input parameters of , a cost factor of 2, and a block size of 8. Once completed, OAuth2 credentials are issued to the client to authenticate all future requests. Encounter handshake When two clients encounter each other, they must exchange and log identifying details. In order to prevent the tracking of clients over time through the use of static identifiers, clients exchange time sensitive temporary IDs issued by the central server. In order to generate these temporary IDs, the central server generates a global secret key , which is used to calculate all temporary IDs for a short timeframe . From this an Ephemeral Bluetooth ID (EBID) is calculated for each user with the algorithm where is the AES encryption algorithm. These EBIDs are used by the clients as the temporary IDs in the exchange. EBIDs are fetched in forward dated batches to account for poor internet access. Clients then constantly broadcast their EBID under the PEPP-PT Bluetooth service identifier, while also scanning for other clients. If another client is found, the two exchange and log EBIDs, along with metadata about the encounter such as the signal strength and a timestamp. Infection reporting When a user, out of band, has been confirmed positive for infection the patient is asked to upload their contact logs to the central reporting server. If the user consents, the health authority issues a key authorizing the upload. The user then transmits the contact log over HTTPS to the reporting server to be processed. Once the reporting server has received a contact log, each entry is run through a proximity check algorithm to reduce the likelihood of false positives. The resulting list of contact is manually confirmed and they, along with a random sample of other users, are sent a message containing a random number and message hash. This message serves to wake up the client and have them check the server for new reports. If the client is on the list of confirmed users, the server will confirm potential infection to the client which will in turn warn the user. If a client is in the random sample, it will receive a response with no meaning. The reason a random sample of users is sent a message for every report is so that eavesdroppers are not able to determine who is at risk for infection by listening to communication between the client and server. Controversy The Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA) confirmed in a press release on April 20, 2020 that it was withdrawing from the consortium, citing a 'lack of transparency and clear governance' as well as data protection concerns around the PEPP-PT design. The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, ETH Zurich, KU Leuven and the Institute for Scientific Interchange withdrew from the project in the same week. This group was also responsible for the development of the competing Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing protocol. On 20 April 2020, an open letter was released signed by over 300 security and privacy academics from 26 countries criticising the approach taken by PEPP-PT, stating that 'solutions which allow reconstructing invasive information about the population should be rejected without further discussion'. See also Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing BlueTrace Google / Apple contact tracing project TCN Protocol References External links PEPP-PT homepage PEPP-PT GitHub Software associated with the COVID-19 pandemic Digital contact tracing protocols Computer-related introductions in 2020 Software using the MPL license Digital contact tracing protocols with centralized reporting

63628198

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto%20P%C3%BCnter

Otto Pünter

Otto Pünter (4 April 1900 – 13 October 1988) was a Swiss journalist and anti-Nazi resistance fighter. During the Second World War, his codename was Pakbo, and he was a member of the Red Orchestra. Personal life Pünter was born in Bern, Switzerland. His father was a merchant. He gained an apprenticeship from the University of Neuchâtel. Afterwards, he lived in France, Spain and the United Kingdom. Career In 1928, Pünter was a founding member of the socialist news agency INSA. INSA aimed to spread anti-fascist news and worked with anti-fascist groups in Italy. Through this role, Pünter met many Italian informants. Pünter was also suspected to be a secret member of the Communist Party of Switzerland, and he saw Stalinism as less evil than fascism, Nazism, and Francoism. During the Spanish Civil War, it was claimed that Pünter built his own intelligence network, in order to sell secrets to the French and British. He also met many Soviet GRU agents, and decided to become a Soviet spy. During the Second World War, Pünter was a member of the Red Orchestra, and the Red Three. His codename was Pakbo, or sometimes Paquebot, and Pünter worked with the Soviet intelligence agencies. His encryption methods included crosswords and lemon juice. Others in the movement included Georges Blun (codename Long) and Rachel Dübendorfer (codename Sissy), and they collaborated with Hungarian spy Alexander Radó. Pünter helped Georges Blun to become part of Radó's network, and Pünter also managed a Yugoslav spy codenamed Gabel, and a German social democrat codenamed Poisson. Radó was accused of using Pünter to sell information to the British secret service. In 1941, Pünter claimed he had intelligence from the French of the German invasion of the USSR; his source was said to be Rudolf Roessler. The information was believed to be fabricated. Pünter also claimed to have received information from German general Alfred Jodl, and had a team of agents in a secret monastery location in the Alps. None of these claims have ever proved to have been true. However, the USSR saw Pünter as an important ally, and Pünter was called one of the most useful agents in Switzerland. After the War, he became President of the Association of Federal Parliament Journalists. From 1956 to 1965, he was the head of public relations of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG). Afterwards, he worked as a district judge. In 1966, he appeared on a panel discussion show about Switzerland's involvement in the Second World War. Awards In 1948, he was awarded the Turin journalism prize. In 1975, he was awarded the Hans Bredow medal for services to radio. The ceremony was in West Berlin. Works Pünter, Otto, Wie es war: Erinnerungen eines Journalisten, 1919–1977 (How it was: memories of a journalist, 1919–1977), Cosmos-Verlag, 1977 Pünter, Otto, Payot, Marc, Guerre secrète en pays neutre: Les révélations d'un agent secret sur l'espionnage en Suisse contre le fascisme et Hitler 1930–1945 (Secret war in a neutral country: The revelations of a secret agent on espionage in Switzerland against fascism and Hitler 1930–1945), 1967 References Red Orchestra (espionage) World War II spies for the Soviet Union Swiss spies University of Neuchâtel alumni 1900 births 1988 deaths People from Bern

63636485

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueTrace

BlueTrace

BlueTrace is an open-source application protocol that facilitates digital contact tracing of users to stem the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially developed by the Singaporean Government, BlueTrace powers the contact tracing for the TraceTogether app. Australia, New Zealand, and the United Arab Emirates have already adopted the protocol in their gov apps, and other countries were considering BlueTrace for adoption. A principle of the protocol is the preservation of privacy and health authority co-operation. Overview Preservation of user privacy was one of the core considerations around which BlueTrace was designed. To achieve this, personal information is collected only once at the point of registration and is only used to contact potentially infected patients. Additionally, users can opt-out at any time, clearing all personal information and rendering any recorded data untraceable. Contact tracing is done entirely locally on a client device using Bluetooth Low Energy, storing all encounters in a contact history log chronicling encounters for the past 21 days. Users in the contact log are identified using anonymous time-shifting "temporary IDs" issued by the health authority. This means a user's identity cannot be ascertained by anyone except the health authority with which they are registered. Additionally, since temporary IDs change on a regular basis, malicious third parties cannot track users by observing log entries over time. Once a user tests positive for infection, the health authority requests the contact log. If the user chooses to share their log, it is sent to the health authority where they match the temporary ID with contact information. Health authorities are not able to access log entries about foreign users, so those entries are sent to the appropriate foreign health authority to be processed there. Once a log has been processed, the health authority contacts the user identified by the record. Technical specification The protocol is focused on two areas: locally logging registered users in the vicinity of a device and the transmission of the log to the operating health authority, all while preserving privacy. To achieve this, the protocol can be divided into the areas of device to device communication (DDC), and device to reporting server communication (DRSC). The DDC component operates on top of the existing Bluetooth Low Energy protocol, defining how two devices acknowledge each other's presence. The DRSC component uses HTTPS to communicate a timeline of visits to a centralized server owned by a health authority once a user has tested positive for an infection. The health authority can then, using the log, notify the users who came in contact with the infected patient. Device to reporting server communication protocol Each app implementing the BlueTrace protocol has a corresponding central reporting server operated by a health authority. The reporting server is responsible for handling initial registration, provisioning unique user identifiers, and collecting contact logs created by the DDC part of the protocol. When the user first launches a BlueTrace app, they will be asked for their internationally formatted phone number and are assigned a static UserID. This phone number is later used if the user has registered an encounter in an infected patient's contact log. Once registered, users are provisioned Temporary IDs (TempID) uniquely identifying them to other devices. Each TempID has a lifetime of 15 minutes to prevent malicious parties from performing replay attacks or tracking users over time with static unique identifiers. TempIDs are generated from a user's UserID, the TempID start time, and the TempID expiry time, which is encrypted and turned into a Base64 encoded string by the server using a secret symmetric encryption key. To ensure devices have a constant supply of TempIDs, even in an unstable network environment, TempIDs are transmitted to devices in forward dated batches. The composition of a TempID is shown below: Once a user has been tested positive for infection, the health authority generates a PIN authenticating the user to upload their contact log to the reporting server. As part of the log, metadata about each encounter is included; the most important of which being the timestamp and health authority identifier (HAI). The HAI identifies to which health authority the logged contact reports. If the HAI represents a foreign health authority the log entry is transmitted to the identified authority to be processed there. Once a health authority has filtered log entries to only include home clients, they decrypt the TempID to reveal the UserID, start time, and expiry time. The start and expiry date are compared with the encounter timestamp to ensure validity, and the UserID is matched to a phone number. The health authority can then contact the phone number to inform a user of potential contact with an infected patient. Device to device communication protocol The DDC part of the protocol defines how two devices communicate and log their contact. Each device is in one of two states, Central or Peripheral, on a duty cycle of around 1:4, respectively. In Peripheral mode, a device advertises its presence, and in Central mode, it scans for advertising devices. Additionally, certain devices are incapable of operating in Central mode and thus operate purely in Peripheral mode. Once two devices have discovered each other, they communicate a characteristic packet containing information about themselves. The packet is formed as a JSON file, containing the device's TempID, device model, HAI, and BlueTrace protocol version. When operating in Central mode, the device additionally sends the strength of the signal, allowing the approximate distance between the two devices to be calculated later. Below is an example Central characteristic packet: { "id": "FmFISm9nq3PgpLdxxYpTx5tF3ML3Va1wqqgY9DGDz1utPbw+Iz8tqAdpbxR1 nSvr+ILXPG==", // TempID "md": "iPhone X", // Device model "rc": -60, // Signal strength "o": "IJ_HAI", // Health authority identifier "v": 2 // Protocol version } These characteristics are then added to a local database on the device where they are stored for 21 days and can be sent to the reporting server later. The contacted device is also added to a local blacklist for two duty cycles in order to stop two devices repeatedly contacting each other, saving power and storage. Health authority cooperation The cooperation between separate health authorities is a core component of the BlueTrace protocol, and it is designed such that multiple authorities can work together without revealing personal information to foreign authorities with which a user is not registered. Since each authority maintains its separate encryption key and user records, a health authority can't decrypt and see a foreign user's data. To ensure log entries are sent to the correct authority, part of the DDC handshake contains a health authority identifier (HAI), a unique string assigned to registered health authorities. Once a foreign health authority's log entry is identified, the receiving health authority transmits the log entry to the foreign authority's reporting server where it is verified, and a static PseudoID is returned. The PseudoID is a salted cryptographic hash of the UserID, designed to allow foreign health authorities to perform statistical analysis on contact logs and communicate about a specific user without revealing unnecessary personal information. Once the PseudoID is assessed to have been in close contact with the infected patient, the foreign health authority that issued the PseudoID is informed and can follow up as necessary. Withdrawal of consent The ability of users to withdraw consent to the use and collection of their data at any time was an important consideration in the design of the protocol. To allow this, personally identifiable information is excluded from the DDC component of the protocol. This means the only place personal information is stored is on the reporting server, where it is associated with an anonymous static UserID. This UserID (encrypted in a TempID) is what is used for identification in the DDC part of the protocol. If a user withdraws consent, the user record is deleted from the reporting server, meaning UserIDs obtained through contact logs can no longer be matched to a phone number. Controversy One of the largest privacy concerns raised about protocols such as BlueTrace or PEPP-PT is the usage of centralised report processing. In a centralised report processing protocol, a user must upload their entire contact log to a health authority administered server, where the health authority is then responsible for matching the log entries to contact details, ascertaining potential contact, and ultimately warning users of potential contact. Alternatively, decentralised report processing protocols, while still having a central reporting server, delegate the responsibility to process logs to clients on the network. Protocols using this approach, such as TCN and DP-3T, have the client upload a number from which encounter tokens can be derived by individual devices. Clients then check these tokens against their local contact logs to determine if they have come in contact with an infected patient. Inherent in the fact the protocol never allows the government access to contact logs, this approach has major privacy benefits. However, this method also presents some issues, primarily the lack of human in the loop reporting, leading to a higher occurrence of false positives; and potential scale issues, as some devices might become overwhelmed with a large number of reports. Decentralised reporting protocols are also less mature than their centralised counterparts. OpenTrace OpenTrace is the open-source reference implementation of BlueTrace released under the GPL-3.0 license. The DRSC side of the protocol is implemented using the Firebase platform, using Firebase functions, a serverless computing framework, for all client calls; and Firebase Secret Manager and Storage for storing the encryption key and contact logs respectively. For the app/DDC side of the protocol, a modified version of the TraceTogether app for Android and iOS devices is included. COVIDSafe COVIDSafe is a digital contact tracing app announced by the Federal Australian Government based on OpenTrace/BlueTrace, announced on 14 April 2020 to help combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On 26 April 2020, the Australian federal government publicly released the first version of the app. Within the first 24 hours after release, over 1 million people downloaded the app, and within 48 hours, over 2 million. By the second week, over 4 million users had registered. Accompanying the release, Peter Dutton, the Minister for Home Affairs, announced new legislation that would make it illegal to force anyone to hand over data from the app, even if they had registered and tested positive. The app source code was also released on 8 May 2020, after delays until a review by the Australian Signals Directorate had been completed. See also TraceTogether TCN Protocol Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (Google/Apple) Exposure Notification (GAEN) References External links White paper OpenTrace GitHub BlueTrace homepage Government software Application layer protocols Computer-related introductions in 2020 Software associated with the COVID-19 pandemic 2020 software Software using the GPL license Android (operating system) software IOS software Bluetooth software Medical software Digital contact tracing protocols Digital contact tracing protocols with centralized reporting

63676221

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure%20Notification

Exposure Notification

The (Google/Apple) Exposure Notification (GAEN) system, originally known as the Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing Project, is a framework and protocol specification developed by Apple Inc. and Google to facilitate digital contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic. When used by health authorities, it augments more traditional contact tracing techniques by automatically logging encounters with other notification system users using their Android or iOS smartphone. Exposure Notification is a decentralized reporting based protocol built on a combination of Bluetooth Low Energy technology and privacy-preserving cryptography. It is used as an opt-in feature within COVID-19 apps developed and published by authorized health authorities. Originally unveiled on April 10, 2020, it was first made available on iOS on May 20, 2020 as part of the iOS 13.5 update and on December 14, 2020 as part of the iOS 12.5 update for older iPhones. On Android, it was added to devices via a Google Play Services update, supporting all versions since Android Marshmallow. The Apple/Google protocol is similar to the Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (DP-3T) protocol created by the European DP-3T consortium and the Temporary Contact Number (TCN) protocol by Covid Watch, but is implemented at the operating system level, which allows for more efficient operation as a background process. Since May 2020, a variant of the DP-3T protocol is supported by the Exposure Notification Interface. Other protocols are constrained in how they operate as they have no special privilege over normal apps. This leads to issues, particularly on iOS devices where digital contact tracing apps running in the background experience significantly degraded performance. The joint approach is also designed to maintain interoperability between Android and iOS devices, which constitute the sheer majority of the market. The ACLU stated the approach "appears to mitigate the worst privacy and centralization risks, but there is still room for improvement". In late April, Google and Apple shifted the emphasis of the naming of the system, describing it as an "exposure notification service", rather than "contact tracing" system. Technical specification Typically digital contact tracing protocols have two major responsibilities: encounter logging and infection reporting. Exposure Notification only defines encounter logging which is a decentralized architecture, with the majority of the infection reporting, currently it is centralized, being delegated to individual app implementations. To handle encounter logging, the system uses Bluetooth Low Energy to send tracking messages to nearby devices running the protocol to discover encounters with other people. The tracking messages contain unique identifiers that are encrypted with a secret daily key held by the sending device. These identifiers change every 15–20 minutes as well as Bluetooth MAC address in order to prevent tracking of clients by malicious third parties through observing static identifiers over time. The sender's daily encryption keys are generated using a random number generator. Devices record received messages, retaining them locally for 14 days. If a user tests positive for infection, the last 14 days of their daily encryption keys can be uploaded to a central server, where it is then broadcast to all devices on the network. The method through which daily encryption keys are transmitted to the central server and broadcast is defined by individual app developers. The Google-developed reference implementation calls for a health official to request a one-time verification code (VC) from a verification server, which the user enters into the encounter logging app. This causes the app to obtain a cryptographically signed certificate, which is used to authorize the submission of keys to the central reporting server. The received keys are then provided to the protocol, where each client individually searches for matches in their local encounter history. If a match meeting certain risk parameters is found, the app notifies the user of potential exposure to the infection. Google and Apple intend to use the received signal strength (RSSI) of the beacon messages as a source to infer proximity. RSSI and other signal metadata will also be encrypted to resist deanonymization attacks. Version 1.0 To generate encounter identifiers, first a persistent 32-byte private Tracing Key () is generated by a client. From this a 16 byte Daily Tracing Key is derived using the algorithm , where is a HKDF function using SHA-256, and is the day number for the 24-hour window the broadcast is in starting from Unix Epoch Time. These generated keys are later sent to the central reporting server should a user become infected. From the daily tracing key a 16-byte temporary Rolling Proximity Identifier is generated every 10 minutes with the algorithm , where is a HMAC function using SHA-256, and is the time interval number, representing a unique index for every 10 minute period in a 24-hour day. The Truncate function returns the first 16 bytes of the HMAC value. When two clients come within proximity of each other they exchange and locally store the current as the encounter identifier. Once a registered health authority has confirmed the infection of a user, the user's Daily Tracing Key for the past 14 days is uploaded to the central reporting server. Clients then download this report and individually recalculate every Rolling Proximity Identifier used in the report period, matching it against the user's local encounter log. If a matching entry is found, then contact has been established and the app presents a notification to the user warning them of potential infection. Version 1.1 Unlike version 1.0 of the protocol, version 1.1 does not use a persistent tracing key, rather every day a new random 16-byte Temporary Exposure Key () is generated. This is analogous to the daily tracing key from version 1.0. Here denotes the time is discretized in 10 minute intervals starting from Unix Epoch Time. From this two 128-bit keys are calculated, the Rolling Proximity Identifier Key () and the Associated Encrypted Metadata Key (). is calculated with the algorithm , and using the algorithm. From these values a temporary Rolling Proximity Identifier () is generated every time the BLE MAC address changes, roughly every 15–20 minutes. The following algorithm is used: , where is an AES cryptography function with a 128-bit key, the data is one 16-byte block, denotes the Unix Epoch Time at the moment the roll occurs, and is the corresponding 10-minute interval number. Next, additional Associated Encrypted Metadata is encrypted. What the metadata represents is not specified, likely to allow the later expansion of the protocol. The following algorithm is used: , where denotes AES encryption with a 128-bit key in CTR mode. The Rolling Proximity Identifier and the Associated Encrypted Metadata are then combined and broadcast using BLE. Clients exchange and log these payloads. Once a registered health authority has confirmed the infection of a user, the user's Temporary Exposure Keys and their respective interval numbers for the past 14 days are uploaded to the central reporting server. Clients then download this report and individually recalculate every Rolling Proximity Identifier starting from interval number , matching it against the user's local encounter log. If a matching entry is found, then contact has been established and the app presents a notification to the user warning them of potential infection. Version 1.2 Version 1.2 of the protocol is identical to version 1.1, only introducing minor terminology changes. Privacy Preservation of privacy was referred to as a major component of the protocol; it is designed so that no personally identifiable information can be obtained about the user or their device. Apps implementing Exposure Notification are only allowed to collect personal information from users on a voluntary basis. Consent must be obtained by the user to enable the system or publicize a positive result through the system, and apps using the system are prohibited from collecting location data. As an additional measure, the companies stated that it would sunset the protocol by-region once they determine that it is "no longer needed". The Electronic Frontier Foundation showed concerns the protocol was vulnerable to "linkage attacks", where sufficiently capable third parties who had recorded beacon traffic may retroactively be able to turn this information into tracking information, for only areas in which they had already recorded beacons, for a limited time segment and for only users who have disclosed their COVID-19 status, once a device's set of daily encryption keys have been revealed. On April 16, the European Union started the process of assessing the proposed system for compatibility with privacy and data protection laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). On April 17, 2020, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office, a supervisory authority for data protection, published an opinion analyzing both Exposure Notification and the Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing protocol, stating that the systems are "aligned with the principles of data protection by design and by default" (as mandated by the GDPR). Deployment Exposure Notification is compatible with devices supporting Bluetooth Low Energy and running Android 6.0 "Marshmallow" or newer with Google mobile services, or iOS 13.5 or newer. On iOS, it is serviced via operating system updates. On Android, it is serviced via updates to Google Play Services (by means of Google Play), ensuring compatibility with the majority of Android devices released outside of Mainland China, and not requiring it to be integrated into an Android firmware (which would hinder deployment), although it is not compatible with Huawei devices released since May 2019 due to the US trade ban on Huawei. Apple and Google released reference implementations for apps utilizing the system, which can be used as a base. Exposure Notification apps may only be released by public health authorities. To discourage fragmentation, each country will typically be restricted to one app, although Apple and Google stated that they would accommodate regionalized approaches if a country elects to do so. On September 1, 2020, the consortium announced "Exposure Notifications Express" (EN Express), a system designed to ease adoption of the protocol by health authorities by removing the need to develop an app themselves. Under this system, a health authority provides parameters specific to their implementation (such as thresholds, branding, messaging, and key servers), which is then processed to generate the required functionality. On Android, this data is used to generate an app, while on iOS, the functionality is integrated directly at the system level on iOS 13.7 and newer without a dedicated app. On December 14, 2020, Apple released iOS 12.5, bringing support for Exposure Notifications to older iPhones. The last information update on the “Exposure Notification Systems” partnership was a year end review issued by Google in December 2020: "we plan to keep you updated here with new information again next year". Nothing has however been issued on the one year anniversary of the launch of the “Exposure Notification Interface” API in spite of important changes on the pandemic front such as vaccination, variants, digital health passports, app adoption challenges as well as growing interest for tracking QR codes (and notifying from that basis) on a mostly airborne transmitted virus. The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) published document has not been revised since May 2020. Basic support remains provided through the apps store released by authorized public health agencies, including enforcement of the personal privacy protection framework as demonstrated on the UK NHS challenge in support of their contact tracers. In June 2021, Google faced allegations that it had automatically downloaded Massachusetts' "MassNotify" app to Android devices without user consent. Google clarified that it had not actually downloaded the app to user devices, and that Google Play Services was being used to deploy an EN Express configuration profile, allowing it to be activated from the Exposure Notification section of the Google Settings app on an opt-in basis. Adoption As of May 21, at least 22 countries had received access to the protocol. Switzerland and Austria were among the first to back the protocol. On April 26, after initially backing PEPP-PT, Germany announced it would back Exposure Notification, followed shortly after by Ireland and Italy. Despite already adopting the centralised BlueTrace protocol, Australia's Department of Health and Digital Transformation Agency are investigating whether the protocol could be implemented to overcome limitations of its COVIDSafe app. On May 25, Switzerland became the first country to launch an app leveraging the protocol, SwissCovid, beginning with a small pilot group. In England, the National Health Service (NHS) trialed both an in-house app on a centralized platform developed by its NHSX division, and a second app using Exposure Notification. On June 18, the NHS announced that it would focus on using Exposure Notification to complement manual contact tracing, citing tests on the Isle of Wight showing that it had better cross-device compatibility (and would also be compatible with other European approaches), but that its distance calculations were not as reliable as the centralized version of the app, an issue which was later rectified. Later, it was stated that the app would be supplemented by QR codes at venues. A study of the impact of Exposure Notification in England and Wales estimated that it averted 8,700 (95% confidence interval 4,700–13,500) deaths out of the 32,500 recorded from its introduction on 24 September 2020 to 31 December 2020. Canada launched its COVID Alert app, co-developed in partnership with BlackBerry Limited and Shopify, on July 31 in Ontario. In May 2020, Covid Watch launched the first calibration and beta testing pilot of the GAEN APIs in the United States at the University of Arizona. In Aug 2020, the app launched publicly for a phased roll-out in the state of Arizona. The U.S. Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) stated in July 2020 that it was working with Apple, Google, and Microsoft on a national reporting server for use with the protocol, which it stated would ease adoption and interoperability between states. In August 2020, Google stated that at least 20 U.S. states had expressed interest in using the protocol. In Alabama, the Alabama Department of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of Alabama System deployed the "GuideSafe" app for university students returning to campus, which includes Exposure Notification features. On August 5, the Virginia Department of Health released its "COVIDWise" app — making it the first U.S. state to release an Exposure Notification-based app for the general public. North Dakota and Wyoming released an EN app known as "Care19 Alert", developed by ProudCrowd and using the APHL server (the app is a spin-off from an existing location logging application it had developed, based on one it had developed primarily for use by students travelling to attend college football away games). Maryland, Nevada, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. have announced plans to use EN Express. In September, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania all adopted "COVID Alert" apps developed by NearForm, which are based on its COVID Tracker Ireland app. Later that month, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health announced that it would lead development of an Exposure Notification-based app for the country, which replaces a centralized app that had ceased operations in June 2020 after the Norwegian Data Protection Authority ruled that it violated privacy laws. Alternatives Some countries, such as France, have pursued centralized approaches to digital contact tracing, in order to maintain records of personal information that can be used to assist in investigating cases. The French government asked Apple in April 2020 to allow apps to perform Bluetooth operations in the background, which would allow the government to create its own system independent of Exposure Notification. On August 9, the Canadian province of Alberta announced plans to migrate to the EN-based COVID Alert from its BlueTrace-based ABTraceTogether app. This did not occur, and on November 6 Premier of Alberta Jason Kenney announced that the province would not do so, arguing that ABTraceTogether was "from our view, simply a better and more effective public health tool", and that they would be required to phase out ABTraceTogether if they did switch. British Columbia has also declined to adopt COVID Alert, with provincial health officer Bonnie Henry stating that COVID Alert was too "non-specific". Australia's officials have stated its COVIDSafe, which is based on Singapore's BlueTrace, will not be shifting from manual intervention. In the United States, states such as California and Massachusetts declined to use the technology, opting for manual contact tracing. California later reversed course and adopted the system in December 2020. Chinese vendor Huawei (which cannot include Google software on its current Android products due to U.S. sanctions) added a OS-level DP-3T API known as "Contact Shield" to its Huawei Mobile Services stack in June 2020, which the company states is intended to be interoperable with Exposure Notification. References External links Official Website (Google) Official Website (Apple) Announcement (Google) Announcement (Apple) Overview presentation (Google) Technical specifications (Apple) Exposure Notification: Frequently Asked Questions (Apple/Google) Overview of the version 1.0 of Contact Tracing protocol by Apple & Google Overview of the version 1.2 and comparation with version 1.0 Mobile applications Software associated with the COVID-19 pandemic Scientific and technical responses to the COVID-19 pandemic Google Apple Inc. Digital contact tracing protocols Digital contact tracing protocols with decentralized reporting

63696174

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital%20contact%20tracing

Digital contact tracing

Digital contact tracing is a method of contact tracing relying on tracking systems, most often based on mobile devices, to determine contact between an infected patient and a user. It came to public prominence in the form of COVID-19 apps during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the initial outbreak, many groups have developed nonstandard protocols designed to allow for wide-scale digital contact tracing, most notably BlueTrace and Exposure Notification. When considering the limitations of mobile devices, there are two competing ways to trace proximity: GPS and Bluetooth; each with their own drawbacks. Additionally, the protocols can either be centralized or decentralized, meaning contact history can either be processed by a central health authority, or by individual clients in the network. On 10 April 2020, Google and Apple jointly announced that they would integrate functionality to support such Bluetooth-based apps directly into their Android and iOS operating systems. History Digital contact tracing has existed as a concept since at least 2007, and it was proven to be effective in the first empirical investigation using Bluetooth data in 2014. However, it was largely held back by the necessity of widespread adoption. A 2018 patent application by Facebook discussed a Bluetooth proximity-based trust method. The concept came to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, where it was deployed on a wide scale for the first time through multiple government and private COVID-19 apps. Many countries, however, saw poor adoption, with Singapore's digital contact tracing app, TraceTogether, seeing an adoption rate of only 10-20%. COVID-19 apps tend to be voluntary rather than mandatory, which may also have an impact on the rate of adoption. Israel was the only country in the world to use its internal security agency (Shin Bet) to track citizens' geolocations to slow the spread of the virus. However, cellphone-based location tracking proved to be insufficiently accurate, as scores of Israeli citizens were falsely identified as carriers of COVID-19 and subsequently ordered to self-quarantine. In an attempt to contain the spread of the Omicron Variant, Israel reinstated the use of Shin Bet counterterrorism surveillance measures for a limited period of time. Apps were often met with overwhelming criticism about concerns with the data health authorities were collecting. Experts also criticized protocols like the Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing and BlueTrace for their centralized contact log processing, that meant the government could determine who you had been in contact with. MIT SafePaths published the earliest paper, 'Apps Gone Rogue', on a decentralized GPS algorithm as well as the pitfalls of previous methods. MIT SafePaths was also the first to release a privacy-preserving Android and iOS GPS app. Covid Watch was the first organization to develop and open source an anonymous, decentralized Bluetooth digital contact tracing protocol, publishing their white paper on the subject on 20 March 2020. The group was founded as a research collaboration between Stanford University and the University of Waterloo. The protocol they developed, the CEN Protocol, later renamed the TCN Protocol, was first released on 17 March 2020 and presented at Stanford HAI's COVID-19 and AI virtual conference on April 1. NOVID is the first digital contact tracing app which primarily uses Ultrasound. Their ultrasound technology yields much higher accuracy than Bluetooth-based apps, and they are currently the only app with sub-meter contact tracing accuracy. Methodologies Bluetooth proximity tracing Bluetooth, more specifically Bluetooth Low Energy, is used to track encounters between two phones. Typically, Bluetooth is used to transmit anonymous, time-shifting identifiers to nearby devices. Receiving devices then commit these identifiers to a locally stored contact history log. Given epidemiological recommendations, devices store inputs only of the encountered devices for a fixed time, exceeding a threshold (e.g., more than 15 min) at a certain distance (e.g., less than 2 meters). Bluetooth protocols with encryption are perceived to have less privacy problems and have lower battery usage than GPS-based schemes. Because a user's location is not logged as part of the protocols, the system is unable to track patients who may have become infected by touching a surface an ill patient has also touched. Another serious concern is the potential inaccuracy of Bluetooth at detecting contact events. Potential challenges for high received signal strength fluctuations in BLE proximity tracing are line-of-sight vs. non-line-of-sight conditions, various BLE advertising channels, different device placements, possible WiFi interference. Location tracking Location tracking can be achieved via cell phone tower networks or using GPS. Cell phone tower network-based location tracking has the advantage of eliminating the need to download an app. Location tracking enables calculating user position with certain levels of accuracy in 2D or 3D. The first contact tracing protocol of this type was deployed in Israel. The accuracy is however typically not sufficient for meaningful contact tracing. Smartphone GPS logging solutions are more private than Bluetooth based solutions because the smartphone can passively record the GPS values. The concern with Bluetooth-based solutions is that the smartphone will continuously emit an RF signal every 200ms, which can be spied on. On the other hand, digital contact tracing solutions that force users to release their location trails to a central system without encryption can lead to privacy problems. GEO-QR code tagging Another method of tracking is assigning a venue or a place to a QR code and having the people scan the QR code by their mobiles to tag their visits. By this method, people voluntarily check in and check out from the location and they have control on their privacy, and they need not download or install any app. Should a positive COVID-19 case be identified later, such systems can detect any possible encounter within the venue or place between the positive case individual and others who might have visited and tagged their visits to the venue at the same time. Such method have been used in Malaysia by Malaysian government and also in Australia and New Zealand by private sector under QR-code visitor check-in systems. In Australia and New Zealand, respective local governments have later sought to centralize contact tracing by requiring businesses to use the state's QR-code system. Ultrasound Using ultrasound is another way to record contacts. Smartphones emit ultrasound signals which are detected by other smartphones. Currently, NOVID, which is the only digital contact tracing app with sub-meter contact tracing accuracy, primarily uses Ultrasound. CCTV with facial recognition CCTV with facial recognition can also be used to detect confirmed cases and those breaking control measures. The systems may or may not store identifying data or use a central database. Reporting centralization One of the largest privacy concerns raised about protocols such as BlueTrace or PEPP-PT is the usage of centralised report processing. In a centralised report processing protocol a user must upload their entire contact log to a health authority administered server, where the health authority is then responsible for matching the log entries to contact details, ascertaining potential contact, and ultimately warning users of potential contact. Alternatively, anonymous decentralized report processing protocols, while still having a central reporting server, delegate the responsibility to process logs to clients on the network. Tokens exchanged by clients contain no intrinsic information or static identifiers. Protocols using this approach, such as TCN and DP-3T, have the client upload a number from which encounter tokens can be derived by individual devices. Clients then check these tokens against their local contact logs to determine if they have come in contact with an infected patient. Inherent in the fact the government does not process nor have access to contact logs, this approach has major privacy benefits. However, this method also presents some issues, primarily the lack of human in the loop reporting, leading to a higher occurrence of false positives; and potential scale issues, as some devices might become overwhelmed with a large number of reports. Anonymous decentralised reporting protocols are also less mature than their centralized counterparts as governments were initially much more keen to adopt centralized surveillance systems. Ephemeral IDs Ephemeral IDs, also known as EphIDs, Temporary IDs or Rolling Proximity IDs⁣, are the tokens exchanged by clients during an encounter to uniquely identify themselves. These IDs regularly change, generally ever 20 minutes, and are not constituted by plain text personally identifiable information. The variable nature of a client's identifier is needed for the prevention of tracking by malicious third parties who, by observing static identifiers over a large geographical area over time, could track users and deduce their identity. Because EphIDs are not static, there is theoretically no way a third party could track a client for a period longer than the lifetime of the EphID. There may, however, still be incidental leakage of static identifiers, such as was the case on the BlueTrace apps TraceTogether and COVIDSafe before they were patched. Generally, there are two ways of generating Ephemeral IDs. Centralized protocols such as BlueTrace issue Temporary IDs from the central reporting server, where they are generated by encrypting a static User ID with a secret key only known to the health authority. Alternatively, anonymous decentralized protocols such as TCN and DP-3T have the clients deterministically generate the IDs from a secret key only known to the client. This secret key is later revealed and used by clients to determine contact with an infected patient. List of protocols Issues and controversies During the currently unfolding COVID-19 pandemic, reactions to digital contact tracing applications worldwide have been drastic and often polarized, especially in European countries. Despite holding the promise to drastically reduce contagion and allow for a relaxation of social distancing measures, digital contact tracing applications have been criticized by academia and publics alike. The two main issues brought up concern the technical efficacy of such systems and their ethical implications, in particular regarding privacy, freedoms and democracy. The US non-profit, ForHumanity, called for Independent Audit and Governance of Contact Tracing and the subsequently launched the first comprehensive audit vetted by a team of global experts, known as ForHumanity Fellows on privacy, algorithmic bias, trust, ethics and cybersecurity. NY State Senate Bill S-8448D, which passed in the Senate in July 2020, calls for Independent Audit of Digital Contact Tracing. Independent audit and governance Voluntary adoption of digital contact tracing has fallen short of some estimated thresholds for efficacy. This has been referred to as a "trust-gap" and advocates for digital contact tracing have endeavored to identify ways to bridge the gap. Independent Governance suggests that contact tracing authorities and technology providers do not have adequate trust from the traced populace and therefore requires independent oversight which exists on behalf of the traced for the purposes of looking after their best interests. Independent Audit borrows from the financial accounting industry the process of third-party oversight assuring compliance with existing rules and best-practices. The third party auditor examines all details of digital contact tracing in the areas of ethics, trust, privacy, bias and cybersecurity. The audit provides oversight, transparency and accountability over the authority providing the digital contact tracing. Technical feasibility The technical feasibility and necessity of digital contact tracing is currently subject of debate, with its major proponents claiming it to be indispensable to stop the spread of pandemics, as COVID-19, and its opponents raising points on its technical functioning and adoption rate by citizens. First of all, the conflict between the opt-in voluntary usage by citizens in many countries and the necessity of an almost universal adoption rate is unresolved. Indeed, according to a study published in Science, an adoption rate between of around 60% of the total population is needed for digital contact tracing applications to be effective. In countries where this was made voluntary, like Singapore, the adoption rate remained below 20%. Second, the efficacy of using Bluetooth technology to determine proximity is subject to scrutiny, with critics pointing out that false positives could be reported due to the inaccuracy of the technology. Instances of this are interference by physical objects (e.g. two people in two adjacent rooms) and connections being made even at 10–20 meters distances. System requirements Smartphone-based digital contact tracing applications have system requirements such as Android/iOS version, bluetooth enabled, gps enabled. The system requirements facilitate maintainability and technical effectiveness at the cost of the adoption rate. Smartphones stop receiving software updates a few years after release (2–3 years for Android, 5 years for iOS). Improvements to this ecosystem would benefit the adoption rate of future digital contact tracing applications. Ethical issues Other than having doubts about the technical effectiveness of smartphone-based contact tracing systems, publics and academia are confronted with ethical issues about the use of smartphone data by central governments to track and direct citizen behaviour. The most pressing questions pertain privacy and surveillance, liberty, and ownership. Around the world, governments and publics have taken different positions on this issue. Privacy On privacy, the main problem about digital contact tracing regards type of information which can be collected from each person and the way related data is treated by companies and institutions. The type of data which is collected, and the approach being used (centralized or decentralized) determine the severity of the issue. In other words, a privacy-first approach that sacrifices data for privacy or a data-first approach that collects citizen data in exchange for private information from citizens. Moreover, critics point out that claims of anonymity and protection of personal data, even if made by institutions, cannot be verified and that individual's user profiles can be traced back in several cases. Surveillance Closely related to privacy, comes the issue of surveillance: too much personal data in centralized governmental database could set a dangerous precedent on the way governments are capable of “spying” on individual behaviour. The possibility that a wide-ranging adoption of digital contact tracing could set a dangerous precedent for surveillance and control has been abundantly treated by media and academia alike. In short, the main concern here relates to the tendency of temporary measures, justified by an emergency situation, to be normalized and extended indefinitely in a society. Environment Electronic waste may result from the need to purchase a new smartphone to meet the system requirements of smartphone-based digital contact tracing applications. See also COVID-19 apps Alipay Health Code References Software associated with the COVID-19 pandemic Bluetooth software Mass surveillance Further reading

63758101

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop%21%20OS

Pop! OS

Pop!_OS is a free and open-source Linux distribution, based upon Ubuntu, and featuring a GTK-based desktop environment known as COSMIC, which is based on GNOME. The distribution is developed by American Linux computer manufacturer System76. Pop!_OS is primarily built to be bundled with the computers built by System76, but can also be downloaded and installed on most computers. Pop!_OS provides full out-of-the-box support for both AMD and Nvidia GPUs. It is regarded as an easy distribution to set up for gaming, mainly due to its built-in GPU support. Pop!_OS provides default disk encryption, streamlined window and workspace management, keyboard shortcuts for navigation as well as built-in power management profiles. The latest releases also have packages that allow for easy setup for TensorFlow and CUDA. Pop!_OS is maintained primarily by System76, with the release version source code hosted in a GitHub repository. Unlike many other Linux distributions, it is not community-driven, although outside programmers can contribute, view and modify the source code. They can also build custom ISO images and redistribute them under another name. Features Pop!_OS primarily uses free software, with some proprietary software used for hardware drivers for Wi-Fi, discrete GPU and media codecs. It comes with a wide range of default software, including LibreOffice, Firefox and Geary. Additional software can be downloaded using the package manager the Pop!_Shop. Pop!_OS uses APT as its package manager and initially did not use Snaps or Flatpak, but Flatpak support was added in version 20.04 LTS. Software packages are available from the Ubuntu repositories, as well as Pop!_OS's own repositories. Pop!_OS features a customized GNOME Shell interface, with a Pop!_OS theme. There is a GUI toggle in the GNOME system menu for switching between different video modes on dual GPU laptops. There are three display modes: hybrid, discrete and iGPU only. There is a power management package developed from the Intel Clear Linux distribution. Pop!_OS uses Xorg as its display manager, with Wayland available optionally, as Ubuntu has done. Wayland lacks support for proprietary device drivers, in particular Nvidia, while Xorg is supported. To enable use of Nvidia proprietary drivers for most performance and GPU switching, Pop!_OS uses only Xorg to date. TensorFlow and CUDA enabled programs can be added by installing packages from the Pop!_OS repositories without additional configuration required. It provides a Recovery Partition that can be used to 'refresh' the system while preserving user files. It can be used only if it is set up during initial installation. From the 21.04 release, Pop!_OS included a new GNOME-based desktop environment called COSMIC, an acronym for "Computer Operating System Main Interface Components" developed by System76. It features separate views for workspaces and applications, a dock included by default, and supports both mouse-driven and keyboard-driven workflows. System76 stated it will be creating a new desktop environment not based on GNOME. This desktop environment will be written in Rust and developed to be similar to the COSMIC desktop used since version 21.04. System76 cites limitations with GNOME extensions, as well as disagreements with GNOME developers on the desktop experience as reasons to build a new desktop environment. Installation Pop!_OS provides two ISO images for download: one with AMD video drivers and another with Nvidia drivers. The appropriate ISO file may be downloaded and written to either a USB flash drive or a DVD using tools such as Etcher or UNetbootin. Pop!_OS initially used an Ubuntu-themed installer. Later it switched to a custom software installer built in partnership with elementary OS called Pop Shop which comes pre-installed with Pop!_OS. Release history 17.10 Prior to offering Pop!_OS, System76 had shipped all its computers with Ubuntu pre-installed. Development of Pop!_OS was commenced in 2017, after Ubuntu decided to halt development of Unity and move back to GNOME as its desktop environment. The first release of Pop!_OS was 17.10, based upon Ubuntu 17.10. In a blog post explaining the decision to build the new distribution, the company stated that there was a need for a desktop-first distribution. The first release was a customized version of Ubuntu GNOME, with mostly visual differences. Some different default applications were supplied and some settings were changed. The initial Pop theme was a fork of the Adapta GTK theme, plus other upstream projects. 17.10 also introduced the Pop!_Shop software store, which is a fork of the elementary OS app store. Bertel King of Make Use Of reviewed version 17.10, in November 2017 and noted, "System76 isn’t merely taking Ubuntu and slapping a different name on it." King generally praised the release, but did fault the "visual inconsistencies" between applications that were optimized for the distribution and those that were not and the application store, Pop!_Shop, as incomplete. For users who may want to try it on existing hardware he concluded, "now that Ubuntu 17.10 has embraced GNOME, that’s one less reason to install Pop!_OS over Ubuntu." 18.04 LTS Version 18.04 added power profiles; providing easy GPU switching, especially for Nvidia Optimus equipped laptops; HiDPI support; full disk encryption and access to the Pop!_OS repository. In 2018, reviewer Phillip Prado described Pop!_OS 18.04 as "a beautiful looking Linux distribution". He concluded, "overall, I think Pop!_OS is a fantastic distribution that most people could really enjoy if they opened up their workflow to something they may or may not be used to. It is clean, fast, and well developed. Which I think is exactly what System 76 was going for here." 18.10 Release 18.10 was released in October 2018. It included a new Linux kernel, graphic stack, theme changes and updated applications, along with improvements to the Pop!_Shop software store. 19.04 Version 19.04 was mostly an incremental update, corresponding to the same Ubuntu version. It incorporated a "Slim Mode" option to maximize screen space, through reducing the height of application window headers, a new dark mode for nighttime use and a new icon set. Joey Sneddon of OMG! Ubuntu! reviewed Pop!_OS 19.04 in April 2019 and wrote, "I don’t see any appreciable value in Pop OS. Certainly nothing that would make me recommend it over regular Ubuntu 19.04 ..." 19.10 In addition to incremental updates, version 19.10 introduced Tensorman, a custom TensorFlow toolchain management tool, multilingual support and a new theme based on Adwaita. In a 2019 comparison between Pop!_OS and Ubuntu, Ankush Das of It's FOSS found that while both distributions have their advantages, "the overall color scheme, icons, and the theme that goes on in Pop!_OS is arguably more pleasing as a superior user experience." 20.04 LTS Pop!_OS 20.04 LTS was released on 30 April 2020 and is based upon Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. It introduced selectable auto-tiling, expanded keyboard shortcuts and workspaces management. It also added Pop!_Shop application store support for Flatpak and introduced a "hybrid graphics mode" for laptops, allowing operation using the power-saving Intel GPU and then providing switching to the NVidia GPU for applications that require it. Firmware updates became automatic and operating system updates could be downloaded and later applied while off-line. In examining Pop!_OS 20.04 beta, FOSS Linux editor, Divya Kiran Kumar noted, "with its highly effective workspaces, advanced window management, ample keyboard shortcuts, out-of-the-box disk encryption, and myriad pre-installed apps. It would be an excellent pick for anyone hoping to use their time and effort effectively." Jason Evangelho reviewed Pop!_OS in FOSS Linux January 2020 and pronounced it the best Ubuntu-based distribution. A review of Pop!_OS 20.04 by Ankush Das in It's FOSS in May 2020 termed it "the best Ubuntu-based distribution" and concluded, "with the window tiling feature, flatpak support, and numerous other improvements, my experience with Pop!_OS 20.04 has been top-notch so far." OMG! Ubuntu! reviewer Joey Sneddon wrote of Pop!_OS 20.04, "it kinda revolutionises the entire user experience". He further noted, "The fact this distro doesn't shy away from indulging power users, and somehow manages to make it work for everyone, underlines why so-called 'fragmentation' isn't a bad thing: it's a chameleonic survival skill that allows Linux to adapt to whatever the task requires. It is the T-1000 of computing, if you get the reference. And I can't lie: Ubuntu could really learn a few things from this approach." In a 19 October 2020 review in FOSS Bytes by Mohammed Abubakar termed it, "The Best Ubuntu-based Distro!" and said it is, "an Ubuntu-based Linux distro that strikes a perfect balance between being beginner-friendly and professional or gaming use". 20.10 Pop!_OS 20.10 was released on 23 October 2020 and is based upon Ubuntu 20.10. It introduced stackable tiled windows and floating window exceptions in auto-tiling mode. Fractional scaling was also introduced, as well as external monitor support for hybrid graphics. Beta News reviewer Brian Fagioli in particular praised the availability of fractional scaling and stacking and noted "what the company does with Pop!_OS, essentially, is improve upon Ubuntu with tweaks and changes to make it even more user friendly. Ultimately, Pop!_OS has become much better than the operating system on which it is based." 21.04 Pop!_OS 21.04 was released on 29 June 2021 and is based upon Ubuntu 21.04. It included the COSMIC (Computer Operating System Main Interface Components) desktop, based on GNOME, but with a custom dock and shortcut controls. Writing in OMG Ubuntu, Joey Sneddon noted, "COSMIC puts a dock on the desktop; separates workspace and applications into individually accessible screens; adds a new keyboard-centric app launcher (that isn’t trying to search all the things™ by default); plumbs in some much-needed touchpad gestures; and — as if all of that wasn’t enough — makes further refinements to its unique window tiling extension (which you’re free to toggle on/off at any point)." He continued, "Pop!_OS 21.04 is sort of what Ubuntu could — some might say ‘should’ — be: a distro that doesn’t patronise its potential users by fixating on an idealised use case drawn up in a meeting. COSMIC wants to help its users work more efficiently on their terms, not impose a predetermined workflow upon them." 21.10 Pop!_OS 21.10 was released on 14 December 2021 and is based upon Ubuntu 21.10. It includes GNOME 40, a new "Vertical Overview" extension, a new Applications menu and support for Raspberry Pi. Release table Pop!_OS is based upon Ubuntu and its release cycle is same as Ubuntu, with new releases every six months in April and October. Long term support releases are made every two years, in April of even-numbered years. Each non-LTS release is supported for three months after the release of the next version, similar to Ubuntu. Support for LTS versions is provided until the next LTS release. This is considerably shorter than Ubuntu which provides 5 year support for LTS releases. See also Debian List of Ubuntu-based distributions References External links Official website Pop!_OS at DistroWatch 2017 software Computer-related introductions in 2017 Free software operating systems Linux distributions Ubuntu derivatives X86-64 Linux distributions

63823809

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20telecommunications%20terminology

List of telecommunications terminology

This is a List of telecommunications terminology and acronyms which relate to telecommunications. C Coded set Customer office terminal D Data forwarder Digital multiplex hierarchy Duplex E Exempted addressee F Frame synchronization Free-space optical communication Functional profile G Group alerting and dispatching system H Hop Horn Hybrid routing M Mechanically induced modulation Micro-mainframe link Multiplexing N Noise (signal processing) P Plesiochronous digital hierarchy Primary station R Radio receiver Ringaround S Spatial application T Transmission medium Transmitter W Wireless mobility management See also Federal Standard 1037C List of telecommunications encryption terms Outline of telecommunication Telecommunications External links "Federal Standard 1037C."Telecommunications: Glossary of Telecommunication Terms Technical terminology Electronics lists

63857855

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrap%20Mechanic

Scrap Mechanic

Scrap Mechanic is a sandbox video game developed for Windows by Swedish game studio and publisher, Axolot Games, in which players can build machines, vehicles, and buildings, and share their creations online. The initial version of the game, released on January 20, 2016, was a creative mode, with unlimited access to all available parts for building. On the day of its release, it was the top-selling game on Steam and is estimated to have 1–2 million sales. The survival mode update for the game, with new game mechanics including wildlife, scavenging, farming, and cooking, as well as an underwater biome, was released on May 7, 2020. It was the third-best-selling game on Steam the week after the update. Gameplay Survival mode Players begin at the site of a crashed spaceship, with very few items. They must search for supplies and food in order to survive. The spaceship has a basic crafting station called a Craftbot with limited functionality, primarily focused on allowing players to build a simple automobile to begin exploring the world. The second major location in the game is the mechanic station, where most complex crafting can be undertaken with the other crafting stations: the large Craftbot; the Dressbot, for making clothes; the Refinebot, for refining raw materials; and the Cookbot, for combining raw foods into recipes. The cheapest item is the Resource Collector used for collecting resources and transmitting them to refiners. Other locations include ruined structures like the Silo District or Ruin City filled with enemy robots, supply crates, and chests with loot; the Trader's Outpost or Hideout, where items can be purchased with Produce Crates and Caged Farmers; the Roadside Markets that can be harvested for blocks, parts and other resources; and warehouses, large buildings storing more advanced supplies filled with Tapebots guarding the warehouse with their clippers and tape guns. The world is inhabited by a variety of robots that attack the players on sight. These include: spider-like Totebots, which are the most basic of them all and whose heads can be used to make alarms, music and deter other bots. Their original purpose is unknown; Haybots are, most likely, the second enemy you will enounter in the world. They wield a pitchfork and drop scrap metal rods (which can be refined into blocks for crafting and building). Were originally used to manage the wheat fields and stack hay. They have a weakness in form of water, which can be used against them: they never go swim, and get stunned if you water them with a bucket; Tapebots, who guard warehouses and shoot tape rolls (At higher floors they use firecracker rolls instead, which are explosive) at intruders. They are also the most dangerous bots. Those were originally used to do packaging jobs at said warehouses; and the large Farmbots, that wield a pesticide gun and a large scythe. They also hold the key to the warehouses. Were originally used to automatically do majority of the farming jobs. In Devblog 20 and 21 new bots have been shown, those being: Red Totebots (referred to by the developers as Red Guys), they are confirmed to use explosives but the way they will work is yet to be announced; Cable Cutter Bots, they will be found in groups in the caves coming in Chapter 2; and the Trashbot, according to the developers, the first boss of scrap mechanic, it will be found on the roof of the warehouses. Players can also find a farmer(or trader) with whom they can trade for special items including spudguns, garment boxes, seeds and ammuniton (potato). The farmer accepts produce crates as currency as well as caged farmers that can be found at burnt and autumn forests campsites. In later stages of the game, building advanced bases and elaborate machines is possible. Resources can be collected more efficiently using better machines, and farming automation through creations (and the required defenses for nightly raids) make larger scale conflicts with the bots possible. As of update 0.5.1 most items are available in creative mode except for structure parts, the dressbot and cookbot and other parts like garment boxes, small chests, most consumables, etc. Several elements described here (such as Farmbots dropping warehouse keys) are subject to change in later versions as the game is still in early access. Creative Mode In creative mode, players start with full access to an unlimited supply of all items in the game, allowing for the creation of a variety of buildings, vehicles, and machines, none of which require energy or fuel to function. There are no enemies nor animals in the world naturally, but they can be spawned by the player with spawn capsules. In this mode, players cannot be injured or die. There are also harvestables from survival mode such as trees and stone as well as crafting stations, allowing for players to test all sorts of mad resource gathering contraptions. Creations can be saved and shared via the Steam workshop. Challenge Mode In challenge mode, players have to try and get through 40 levels by making or fixing contraptions using the limited materials they are given. A challenge builder is also available for players to build and share their own challenge levels. Levels can be downloaded and published in the Steam workshop. Originally, challenge mode was a developer's experiment with encryption mechanics making buildings non delete-able which has evolved into its whole separate game mode. It is said that more levels are coming as well. Backstory The player plays as a robot maintenance mechanic on their way to an automated farming planet but for a yet unknown reason the spaceship crashes, creating a dirt pit surrounded by burning trees. The player is a lucky survivor of their team and rushes to fix everything. The player finds out that the farming robots (farmbots) on the planet have malfunctioned and are now hostile and attack everything that moves. The goal is to survive the dangerous world filled with abandoned industrial buildings and machines which have all broken down. As the game is still in development, more story elements are expected to be revealed over time. References External links Official website Scrap Mechanic on Steam Scrap Mechanic Mods 2016 video games Open-world video games Survival video games Video games developed in Sweden Windows games Windows-only games

63859150

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matzov

Matzov

Matzov (Hebrew: מצו״ב), Hebrew abbreviation for Center of Encryption and Information Security (Hebrew: מרכז צופן וביטחון Merkaz Tzophen UVitahon), is an information security unit under the C4I directorate of the Israel Defence Force. The unit is exclusively responsible for all aspects of Information Security and Encryption in Israel, providing encryption solutions to security forces, including the IDF, Shin Beit, and Mossad, as well as state-owned enterprises, such as Bezeq, Mekorot, and the Israel Electric Corporation. Despite its relatively small size, Matzov alumni have gone on to found many successful tech companies, among them Taboola, Trusteer, and SlickLogin. Activities Due to its secretive nature, little is publicly known about Matzov's activities. However, several of its operations were made public. Notably, the unit provided the encryption solution for the Iron Dome air defence system. Recruitment Matzov recruits soldiers from a variety of elite military programs, including Talpiot, Gamma, and Psagot. In addition, high school students demonstrating extraordinary programming or mathematical abilities are actively sought after and recruited by the unit. References Israel Defense Forces

63883409

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface%20Book%203

Surface Book 3

The Surface Book 3 is the third generation of Microsoft's Surface Book series, and a successor to the Surface Book 2. Like its previous generation, the Surface Book 3 is part of the Microsoft Surface lineup of personal computers. It is a 2-in-1 PC that can be used like a conventional laptop, or detached from its base for use as a separate tablet, with touch and stylus input support in both scenarios. It was announced by Microsoft online alongside the Surface Go 2 on May 6, 2020, and later released for purchase on May 12, 2020. Configurations Features Hardware Surface Book 3 retains most of the hardware from the previous generation, released in November 2017. This includes the same full-body magnesium alloy construction and design, footprint, keyboard, touchpad, cameras, discrete TPM chip with identical support for AES full-drive encryption, and the same display panel options. The 13.5-inch model Surface Book 3 features a 3000x2000 pixels resolution screen at 267 pixels per inch, and 3240x2160 pixels resolution at 260 pixels per inch for the 15-inch model. Both screens feature a 3:2 aspect ratio, to echo a key feature of the Surface lineup. The new generation offers some hardware improvements, including new Dolby-certified speakers, improved battery life, a new hinge release, and an updated Surface Connect port that supports a higher electrical input. It is the first device in the Microsoft Surface lineup to offer the Intel 10th generation quad-core processors, optional Nvidia Quadro graphics, up to 32GB of system memory, and up to 2TB for data storage. The 13.5-inch model is sold with a 102W charger, while a more powerful 127W charger comes with the 15-inch model. Both devices no longer suffer from battery drain during heavy workloads, which was a problem occasionally observed with the last generation. Finally, much like the last generation, Microsoft has opted to forego Thunderbolt 3 due to overall security concerns with the protocol. Software As of May 2020, both the 13.5-inch and 15-inch models ship with a pre-installed trial of Microsoft Office 365, as well as a pre-installed 64-bit Windows 10 Home for all general customers. It is a downgrade compared to the predecessor, which offered Windows 10 Professional to all consumers, business and enterprise customers. Unlike its predecessor, the Surface Book 3 only comes pre-installed with Windows 10 Pro if it is ordered via business procurement channels. For most consumers, it will only come with a step down, Windows 10 Home. Accessories The new Surface Book 3 is backwards-compatible with some of the same peripheral accessories of its direct predecessors, such as the Surface Pen and the Surface Docks, however notably despite advertising otherwise, it is not fully compatible with the surface dial and lacks the advertised the on-screen functionality. Much alike its predecessor, the Surface Book 2, users have the ability to use built-in pen computing capabilities based on N-trig technology Microsoft acquired in 2015, although no significant updates have been made for this new release. All major tweaks and improvements, which Microsoft had first released for the Surface Book 2, are also applied to this new generation. Both the Surface Book 2 & 3 share the same display options, with the same 10-point touch support. With that said, the tablet and keyboard base portions are not interchangeable between the Surface Book 2 and 3. A series of magnets are installed in opposing positions, alongside additional software controls, to ensure that users will not accidentally mix hardware between the two generations. Release timeline Reception Compared to the broadly positive feedback awarded to its predecessor, the Surface Book 3 only received lukewarm reviews. Most reviewers mentioned the Surface Book 3 continues to feel like a premium product. The updated graphics options, effective cooling for the GPU, high-quality cameras, keyboard, touch and pen capabilities continue to be applauded, as is the improved tablet release. With that said, the underwhelming CPU options, poor thermals in the main computing unit (despite the tablet being nearly identical in thickness to the Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch's base), thick screen bezels, and an outdated design were all common complaints, with the product appearing largely identical to original Surface Book introduced 5 years ago, in 2015. For creative production, reviewers noted the screen suffered from poor overall accuracy, contrast, and color range (at less than 70% coverage of the DCI-P3 standard) compared to other direct competitors, such as the Apple MacBook Pro and Dell XPS lineup, both of which come with factory-calibrated displays and significantly better visual reproduction than the Surface Book 3. For gaming and entertainment consumption, the Surface Book 3's thick screen bezels, slow response time, and the lack of higher refresh-rate display panels negatively impacted the product proposition in this area. For other high-performance workloads, the Surface Book 3 also fell short compared to several key competitors, many of which offer 6 or 8-core processors and up to 64GB system memory (128GB in some cases); in contrast, the Surface Book 3 has a low-powered 4-core ultrabook processor and up to 32GB memory. Aside from the device's poor market fit and consequential niche appeal, some reviewers also raised concerns about stagnation in product innovation. When reviewing the 13.5-inch model, Dieter Bohn of The Verge said, "The idea here is you're supposed to get a full-powered, pro laptop with a GPU, and lots of horsepower and battery at the base, but if you want you may also detach the screen and detach it into a tablet. Now, with the third iteration, we finally understand the trade-offs (...) You have to ask yourself, how much the detach means to you." While he continues to highlight the device's good quality hardware, touch and pen capabilities, and impressive graphics performance, he also noted the Intel Core i7 CPU equipped inside the device is restrictive, "the extra cost that you pay doesn't really fit on the specs sheet." Devindra Hardawar of Engadget, who gave positive remarks to the predecessor Surface Book 2, notes similar problems with the lackluster CPU performance in 2020, "The Surface Book 3 features Intel's quad-core 10th generation Ice Lake CPUs, which max out at a 3.9GHz Turbo Boost speed. Those chips also appear in the Surface Laptop 3, an ultraportable that doesn’t even pretend to handle heavy lifting. The MacBook Pro 16-inch, on the other hand, offers Intel's recent six and eight-core CPUs, including the monstrously powerful 5GHz Core i9. Dell's XPS 15 can also be configured with similar chips reaching up to 5.1GHz. You do the math. There's just no way the Surface Book 3 can compete in a CPU fight." Luke Larsen of Digital Trends writes, "CPU performance on its own isn’t impressive for a device this large. There’s one primary reason for this: It uses the same 15-watt chip that appears in small laptops like the Dell XPS 13, Surface Laptop 3, and HP Spectre x360 13," "The difference in core count makes a massive difference in performance. Add four cores with a laptop like the Dell XPS 15, and you’ll see a 53% better score in Cinebench R20’s multi-core test than the Surface Book 3." Jordan Novet, on CNBC, noted the Surface Book 3's ability to handle heavy graphical workloads, but also criticized the device's dated design and poor battery life, "Microsoft could stand to get more experimental with this product. Performance is excellent. The computer stays quiet and cool to the touch while handling workloads that can challenge lesser machines. (However,) I typically got around six and a half hours’ worth of battery life on the Surface Book 3. That's disappointing because I got almost seven and a half hours on the previous model (...) Don't get me wrong. The Surface Book 3 isn't a bad PC. If you need a new PC, you could do worse. It's just iterative, and no longer feels fresh. It's not a major leap forward for Microsoft's most powerful portable PC. When Microsoft redesigns the Surface Book and makes this otherwise very good laptop look modern again, then it'll be easier to justify the splurge." Known issues Some devices suffer from screen blackout issues. References External links Microsoft Surface Tablet computers introduced in 2020 2-in-1 PCs

63904523

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaya%20Baloo

Jaya Baloo

Jaya Baloo is a cybersecurity expert who is currently the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Avast Software. Baloo was named as one of the top 100 CISO's in 2017, and one of Forbes 100 Women Founders in Europe To Follow in 2018. Career Baloo studied at Tufts University between 1991 and 1995. She was inspired to study computers after receiving one for Christmas at the age of nine. Baloo's first job was working at a bank dealing with export cryptography problems. She was surprised how cryptography was treated as a "weapon", with the USA hiding their security advances from the rest of the world. She had an interest in understanding the difference between mistakes in programming and malicious activity. After moving to The Netherlands Baloo became a network services engineer and consultant at KPN International Consultancy before specialising in fraud and revenue assurance for France Telecom between 2005 and 2009. Baloo then worked at Verizon for nearly 4 years. Baloo believes that the goal of telecommunication attackers is not to bring down services but to shape and intercept traffic without discovery, notably different than attacks on other critical infrastructure like energy or water. In 2012 Baloo became the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at KPN Telecom, a Dutch internet service provider, in the same year that KPN was hacked. During this time Baloo was chairman of the Dutch Continuity Board, which is a collaboration tackling denial-of-service (DDos) cyberthreats through exchanging live attack information between competitors. In an interview with the podcast Cyber Security Dispatch, it was highlighted that Baloo's length of tenure at KPN was considerably longer than the 18-month to 2 year average. She was named as one of the top 100 CISO's in 2017, with only 9 other women named. In 2018, Forbes named Baloo as one of 100 Women Founders in Europe To Follow. In October 2019 Baloo took on her current role as CISO for Avast. One reason why she joined Avast is her love of their mission to ensure "that cybersecurity is a fundamental right. It’s not just for people who can afford to pay for a product – it's for everyone". Baloo holds a faculty position at the Singularity University. She is also a quantum ambassador of KPN Telecom and Vice Chair of the Quantum Flagship Strategic Advisory Board of the EU Commission. She considers quantum computers as inevitable tools that will disrupt current computing architectures, recommending that businesses and organisations prepare themselves for the impact of new quantum protocols. Among her recommendations are to increase key length of current algorithms, use quantum key distribution in niche part of the network, and look at post quantum cryptographic algorithms. Baloo projects that the most exciting development in quantum communication will be beyond the current point-to-point into many-to-many, on demand, instantly. This requires quantum repeaters and other architecture in a managed service, which Baloo predicts could be achieved in 5–10 years' time. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Baloo has been providing tips for best home working practices on behalf of Avast. Interests and views Baloo is interested in the future of cyber security and how quantum computing may impact privacy. She is an expert in network architecture, security weaknesses in mobile and voice-over-IP, cyrotography, and quantum communication networks. In 2019, the non-profit Inspiring Fifty selected Baloo as one of the fifty most inspiring women in the Netherlands. Baloo considers inequality and distribution of assets as one of the biggest global cyberthreats, with only a handful of countries able to detect, respond or defend against threats. On quantum computing, Baloo comments:"You see that happening at Microsoft, at Google, at IBM, the United States is investing heavily in it [quantum computing], China has billions of dollars in it...But the rest of the world certainly doesn’t. You’re not hearing of a quantum computer or post quantum cryptography being developed in Brazil or in Kenya. What I’m worried about from an infosec point of view, is that when we have a quantum computer, it’s going to effectively render our current encryption schemes for public key cryptography moot....So if we see an evolution where only certain countries will be able to possess this kind of technology, all of the other countries will be in this ‘digital divide’ that the UN always talks about."Baloo's advice for women in cybersecurity is to "Hold onto your passion, and don't shut yourself down. We need you in this industry. Help us keep the world safe". Personal life Baloo has three children. In her spare time she enjoys diving, having dived at the Great Barrier Reef and in the Bahamas, and would consider becoming a diving instructor as an alternative occupation. Baloo is also training for a pilot license. References Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Computer security specialists Tufts University alumni Women corporate executives

63978397

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JDoe

JDoe

JDoe is a public benefit corporation which allows survivors and witnesses to anonymously report sexual misconduct through its app. Model JDoe is free for users and is available as a mobile app for iOS and Android. Users can report assaults anonymously identifying their offenders by methods such as name, email, or Facebook URL. The app uses homomorphic encryption which allows the company to use identifying information from reports without knowing what the information is itself. Users can choose to keep their reports in "escrow" until another user makes a report against the same perpetrator. When multiple reports are made against the same offender, users are notified of the existence of matches and are encouraged to pursue civil litigation together against the offender. Lawyers pay to get new clients for civil suits resulting from multiple assault reports against the same perpetrator. Such cases are thought to be more effective when victims take class action as a group. Lawyers with app access can reach out to users who have the choice to respond. Matches will be notified if another victim of the same perpetrator contacts a law firm. Lawyers take cases on contingency and JDoe profits from attorney legal marketing fees and successful case outcomes. As of 2019, the company claimed to be working with 30 law firms and to have helped identify 65 offenders. Founder JDoe founder Ryan Soscia, a survivor himself, began working on the app in 2014 after hearing several friends recount being assaulted by the same person a few years prior. Soscia sought to use technology to make the reporting process easier. Soscia took a leave of absence from University of California, San Diego to work on the app with a venture capital firm, eventually being selected as a fellow in the Halcyon Incubator and the LexisNexis Legal Tech Accelerator. Criticism Since the app creates matches based on user reports, concerns have been raised about potential harm toward those affected by false allegations. Soscia has said that the system itself weeds out false reports since only lawyers have access to the reports and are unlikely to take cases that will not hold up in court. Some critics have claimed that JDoe would be required to turn over user information if ordered to do so by a court. However, Soscia claims that because of the encryption setup, JDoe would be unable to access user data even if compelled by a warrant. External links References Sexual violence Public benefit corporations Public benefit corporations based in the United States

64028910

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elette%20Boyle

Elette Boyle

Elette Boyle is an American and Israeli computer scientist and cryptographer, known for her research on secret sharing, digital signatures, and obfuscation. She is a professor of computer science at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, where she directs the Center for Foundations and Applications of Cryptographic Theory. Education and career Boyle is originally from Yamhill, Oregon. She studied mathematics at the California Institute of Technology, competed for Caltech in the high jump, and was named Caltech's female scholar-athlete of the year for 2007–2008. After graduating in 2008, she completed her Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the joint supervision of Shafi Goldwasser and Yael Tauman Kalai. Before joining the IDC Herzliya faculty, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and at Cornell University. Recognition A paper by Boyle on secret sharing using homomorphic encryption was given the best paper award at the 2016 International Cryptology Conference (Crypto). She was an invited plenary speaker at Public Key Cryptography 2018. References External links Year of birth missing (living people) Living people People from Yamhill, Oregon American computer scientists American women computer scientists Israeli computer scientists Israeli women computer scientists California Institute of Technology alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Reichman University faculty Theoretical computer scientists Modern cryptographers 21st-century American scientists 21st-century American women scientists 21st-century American mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians American women mathematicians American cryptographers Israeli cryptographers Israeli women mathematicians

64032278

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit%20Event

Exit Event

"Exit Event" is the series finale of the comedy series Silicon Valley. The episode was written and directed by Alec Berg and originally aired on HBO on December 8, 2019. In the episode, the Pied Piper team attempts to sabotage the company's million-dollar launch in order to prevent the decentralized system from potentially abolishing internet privacy. Plot After their surprising success at RussFest, Pied Piper strikes a $100 million dollar deal with AT&T to build their decentralized internet on their platform. As the team celebrates, Monica (Amanda Crew) gives Richard (Thomas Middleditch) a framed screenshot of their text conversation as a gift. However, Richard discovers that one of the text messages he sent containing a punctuation error was auto-corrected, although messages between Monica and him were encrypted. Richard spends the night trying to find out how the correction was made and tells the team about it the next morning. The team realizes that PiperNet's AI compression abilities have become so advanced that it can bypass numerous advanced encryptions, potentially eradicating all privacy measures. Realizing the severity of its potential, Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) proposes that the only way to prevent PiperNet from abolishing privacy is to sabotage it at its launch. After initial opposition, Richard reluctantly agrees to sabotage PiperNet. But Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) recuses himself from the effort, thinking that his pride would prevent the sabotage from going through. On the day of the launch at Salesforce Tower, Gilfoyle sets up faulty code that will sabotage the launch through widespread disruption of satellite signals. But back at Pied Piper headquarters, staff member Gabe discovers the faulty code and reverts it. He notifies Dinesh, who is outside the launch event and is given the hard drive containing the faulty code by Gabe. Dinesh is forced to physically head to the top of the Tower through stairs and manages to upload the faulty code after a last-minute grant of access by Gilfoyle. The faulty code does not disrupt satellite signals but instead causes thousands of rats to emerge onto the streets of major cities across the country. Soon afterwards, Richard shuts down Pied Piper permanently in shame. In a documentary produced 10 years after the PiperNet launch, the fates of the characters are shown: Richard has become a professor at Stanford University, where Big Head (Josh Brener) serves as President, Dinesh and Gilfoyle are running a large cybersecurity firm together, Monica is working for the NSA, Jared (Zach Woods) works at a nursing home, Russ Hanneman (Chris Diamantopoulos) has made his fortune back, Laurie Bream (Suzanne Cryer) is serving time in prison, and Gavin Belson (Matt Ross) is a bestselling romance novelist. Jian-Yang (Jimmy O. Yang) has also fully assumed the identity of Erlich and has faked his own death in order to hide with his fortune in a foreign country. The Pied Piper team reunites at the Hacker Hostel, now occupied by another family, and sits around the old dining table where they used to work to play a game of "always blue" together. The episode ends with Richard attempting to show the documentary crew the hard drive containing the Pied Piper compression algorithm but fails to find it as the credits roll. The last place the orange USB hard drive is seen is plugged into computer equipment at the very top of the Salesforce Tower. Production The episode was written and directed by Alec Berg, one of the show's executive producers. Berg also plays the documentarian interviewing the characters ten years after the initial PiperNet launch. An extended version of the documentary showing the fate of the Pied Piper team ten years afterward can be viewed on YouTube. Reception Les Chappell of The A.V. Club gave the episode an "A" rating, calling it "one of the darkest and most far-reaching episodes the series has ever put together" and "an episode that’s fully aware of its place in the series, winks and nods to the canon that lead it to a feeling of closure." Brian Lowry of CNN also gave the episode a positive review, calling the episode a fitting send-off that "carried with it an unexpectedly sobering cautionary tale about the dangers of technology run amok, and — in a timely hook — the moral responsibilities that go with operating in this lucrative playground." Writing for Slate, Josephine Wolff criticized the episode for being too cynical in "dismissing tech ethics and the related academic field as a big, useless joke." References External links 2019 American television episodes American television series finales Silicon Valley (TV series)

64044023

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton%20Technologies

Proton Technologies

Proton Technologies AG is a Swiss technology company originally founded as ProtonMail on 16 May 2014 by a group of scientists who met at CERN. Proton is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. ProtonMail released ProtonVPN in 2017, becoming Proton Technologies. In January 2020, ProtonVPN became fully open source. Products ProtonMail ProtonMail was released publicly on 16 May 2014 into beta as an end-to-end encrypted email service after a year of crowdfunding. ProtonMail 2.0 was released 14 August 2015, with a rewritten codebase, and becoming open source. ProtonMail and ProtonVPN On 22 May 2017, upon the release of ProtonVPN, ProtonMail became Proton Technologies, with ProtonMail becoming a subsidiary alongside ProtonVPN. It is accessible online through Tor, the clearnet, and its mobile applications. After over a year of crowdfunding, ProtonMail released ProtonVPN on 22 May 2017; a secure VPN service provider. Simultaneously, ProtonMail became Proton Technologies AG. It has an alleged no-logging policy, location in Switzerland, and of DNS and WebRTC IP address leakage prevention. On 21 January 2020, Proton Technologies announced that ProtonVPN would now be open source, to allow independent security experts to analyze it, becoming the first VPN service to do so, simultaneously announcing that an independent security audit had been conducted. As of 25 April 2021, ProtonVPN has a total of 1238 servers, located in 55 different countries, all owned and operated by Proton. ProtonCalendar Released for public beta on 30 December 2019, ProtonCalendar is a fully encrypted calendar app. As of 14 April 2021, it is available to all users of ProtonMail. ProtonDrive (beta) Released for public beta on 16 November 2020, ProtonDrive is a cloud storage solution with end-to-end encryption. As of 17 June 2021, it is only available to paid subscribers of ProtonMail. Location and security Both ProtonMail and ProtonVPN are located in Switzerland to avoid any surveillance or information requests from countries under the Fourteen Eyes, and/or under government surveillance laws like the U.S.'s Patriot Act or outside the bounds of law. They are also located in Switzerland because of its strict privacy laws. Data centers ProtonMail maintains and owns its own server hardware and network in order to avoid utilizing a third party. It maintains two data centers, one in Lausanne and another in Attinghausen (in the former K7 military bunker under of granite rock) as a backup. Since the data centers are located in Switzerland, they are legally outside of US and EU jurisdiction. Under Swiss law, all surveillance requests from foreign countries must go through a Swiss court and are subject to international treaties. Prospective surveillance targets are promptly notified and can appeal the request in court. Each data center uses load balancing across web, mail, and SQL servers, redundant power supply, hard drives with full disk encryption, and exclusive use of Linux and other open-source software. In December 2014, ProtonMail joined the RIPE NCC in an effort to have more direct control over the surrounding Internet infrastructure. Funding Proton Technologies was initially funded through crowdfunding and now through paid subscriptions to its services, but it's also partially funded by FONGIT("Fondation Genevoise pour l'Innovation Technologique"'; in English the "Foundation for Technological Innovation"); a non-profit foundation, which itself is financed through the Swiss Federal Commission for Technology and Innovation, a division of the Swiss government. In March 2021, Proton confirmed that the shares held by Charles Rivers Ventures had been transferred to FONGIT. References Software companies of Switzerland Swiss companies established in 2014 Technology companies established in 2014

64062293

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald%20Hugh%20Barker

Ronald Hugh Barker

Ronald Hugh Barker FIEE (19157 October 2015) was an Irish physicist and inventor of Barker code for digital synchronisation. He was a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) for 70 years. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Barker had an erratic education but excelled in mathematics, becoming keen on electronics. He is best known for his ground-breaking work on synchronising digital communication systems and framing of received data, using digital codes (see frame slip). These digital codes are known as Barker code. The method was initially researched at SRDE Royal Signals Research Establishment, just after World War II for use in radar, rocket telemetry and digital speech. In 1952, Barker found 7 Barker sequences up to a length of 13 useful for correlation. These sequences are widely used in most data transmissions today. Examples of applications are radar, mobile phone technology, telemetry, digital speech, ultrasound imaging and testing, GPS and Wi-Fi, etc. Early career Barker is recognised for his invention of Barker code or Barker sequence, a means of checking the synchronisation and framing of received data. This is used in most forms of data transmissions within (and out of) our world today. By using a prearranged pattern of bits (Barker code) the receiver can correctly synchronize the data with a very low probability of error. Quote "A sequence of binary digits has very little meaning unless the significance of the individual digits is known". In 1941, Barker joined Standard Telephones and Cables (STC) North Woolwich, England in their thermionic valve department, designing dental X-Ray tubes and equipment. After a bombing raid over Woolwich, Roy cycled back to Heath and Reach where he met his wife to be, Wendy Emily Hunt (1917–1998). Barker resigned from STC, as he felt his work on X-ray tubes was unrelated to the war effort. He took up a new post as a temporary experimental officer at the Signals Experimental Establishment (SEE), initially on Woolwich Common, but soon moved to Warnham Court (see photo), Horsham, England}} There, he assisted with the electronics design of for Wireless Set No. 19 a standard wireless set used in many types of armoured vehicles and tanks in World War II. From there, Barker went on to design portable two way radio sets for jungle use. The S.E.E was subsequently renamed Signals Research and Development Establishment (SRDE) and brought within the Ministry of Supply. Staff were moved to Christchurch, Dorset, England, in the summer of 1943. The UK guided weapons program came into being in 1944. The first experimental system was named LOPGAP, acronym of Liquid Oxygen Propelled Guided Anti-aircraft Projectile. This photo shows an aerial at the front of the missile which is all important for telecommunications. Aerial design was of interest to Barker who wrote an article published in the Wireless Engineer in November 1948 p361 Barker was given responsibility for the telemetry research and equipment. This project had top priority so it was easy to make rapid progress. Initial firings were at Ynyslas in Wales (see prior to construction of special guided weapons range at the Royal Aerospace Establishment RAE Aberporth, Wales. In 1946 R H Barker read a paper describing his system at an international conference on telemetry at Princeton University, US. Post-war career At the end of the war, Barker was appointed as a senior scientific officer when he took over speech cryptography. The technique for the encryption of speech was to first encode digitally the speech waveform (in much the same way as was used later for digital recording of music) and to then scramble the stream of binary digits by multiplying it (bit by bit) by a second stream produced synchronously in a pseudorandom number generator. The latter was a special purpose digital computer programmed to produce a pseudorandom sequence. This work brought Barker into contact with a lot of early work associated with computers and digital transmission (see US Patent 27000696) Still at SRDE Barker had a team of 12 scientists as the work on applications of digital electronics had been extended to include gunfire control, servo systems and communication by pulse-code modulation(digital speech). Information about SRDE is held locally at The Red House Museum and Gardens, Christchurch, England. In 1976 the Signals Research and Development Establishment involved in communications research, joined Royal Radar Establishment to form the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE). The National Archives (United Kingdom) now hold archives from SRDE Christchurch. (They may not have been digitised). Two aspects of his work became well known: The z-transform method of analysing the behaviour of pulse-code modulation systems A method known of synchronising digital communication systems using what is now known as a Barker sequence or Barker code. The original paper was entitled "Group Synchronisation of Binary Digital Systems". This method is used in near earth space communications such as the Galileo (satellite navigation), GPS, satellite communications such as Skylab and for The Apollo missions See List of Apollo missions. and Barker code was also used for early deep space exploration telemetry such as Pioneer 10 The Oxford Dictionary of Computer Science defines a Barker sequence as: In April 1954 Barker gained his Ph.D. by the London University and subsequently was promoted to Senior Principal Scientific Officer, this was the end of his personal research and the beginnings of an administrative career. The new job was Assistant Director to Ministry of Supply headquarters, New Oxford Street, London. The headquarters work was tedious and in 1957 Barker returned to SRDE Christchurch, Dorset, as Superintendent of Research in charge of the site. In 1959 Barker took a job as Deputy Director of the Central Electricity Research Laboratories (CERL) Leatherhead, Surrey, responsible for day-to-day running of the Laboratories and recruitment needed to increase the scientists from 250 to 600. It was during this period that Barker became more active in the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). He joined as a corporate member in 1945 and was elected Fellow in 1966, serving on various committees of the Power Division and the Control and Automation Division, becoming divisional chairman. in 1971. Barker became a member of the council and served on the important Membership Committee for many years. On March 6, 1962 Barker elected a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He served for a time on the Automatic Control committee of the latter. Barker accepted a Directorship on the main board with the Pullin Group of companies in 1962. One of his first tasks was to assemble a team of scientists for research. The company was involved with sonar equipment for the Royal Navy under detailed supervision of the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment however the company did not have the financial resources for research and innovation on the scale that had been promised. Barker wrote an article regarding a Ball bearing motor as at the time there was conjecture as to how it worked. Perhaps this was something being researched or just a bit a fun. After the company was taken over by the Rank Organisation in 1964 he became unhappy with the changes made to the way the company was run. He had no say in this and it soon became apparent that the opportunities for any interesting research were not going to be forthcoming and the future looked uninviting. In 1965, Barker made his last career move to become Deputy Director of the Royal Armament Research Establishment RARDE at Fort Halstead, Kent, at chief experimental officer CEO level. Here, Barker having had line management experience in industry now had a much greater level of responsibility. In 1965, there were 2,500 staff at RARDE and Barker was responsible for half the scientific branches and staff. The research work being undertaken was assessment of non-nuclear weapons systems. Barker retired in May 1979. Over the years digital technology has advanced significantly but Barker codes remain at the core of digital transmissions. Many scientific papers have been published that have found the use of Barker Code to be one of the best and most efficient means to transmit digital data. Since his original paper was published, no other Barker codes greater than 13 have been found. It has also been proven that no other odd-length Barker codes exist. If there is another code, its length would be too long to be of any use. Examples of applications are radar, mobile phone. telemetry, ultrasound imaging and testing, GPS, Wi-Fi Many of these technologies use DSSS. This technique incorporates Barker code to improve the received signal quality and improve security. It is also used in Radio Frequency IDentification RFID. Applications of this are huge, some examples are: pet and livestock tracking, bar code scanners, inventory management, asset tracking and equipment tracking, inventory control, cargo and supply chain logistics, and vehicle tracking Personal details Born in Dublin to English parents his early education years were disrupted by his father's frequent periods of unemployment and moves between Dublin and England to find work as a stained glass window artist often staying in grim lodgings. For much of the time, Roy (as he was known) lived with his mother, a school teacher in Thomas Street, Heath and Reach. At age 13 Barker was interviewed by the headmaster, Mr F Fairbrother, of a new school, The Cedars (now Cedars Upper School), Leighton Buzzard. After an entrance examination he was duly admitted to the school where he stayed until 1934. In the VIth form his main subjects were chemistry, physics and mathematics. It was whilst at The Cedars that Barker took an interest in things electrical and radio, building three valve radios with home made components such as coils and loudspeakers. Barker excelled at mathematics and won a scholarship to University College Hull. In 1938 he gained a 1st Class Honours degree in physics awarded by University of London. In 1943, Barker married Wendy Hunt at St Augustine's church in South Croydon and had two sons. In retirement Roy belonged to three bridge clubs, playing duplicate bridge at county level and was still playing at his local bridge club in Verwood until his 99th birthday. Barker passed away on 7 October 2015, his work and dedication being recognised in his obituary published by the IET in IET Obituary News. References 1915 births 2015 deaths English physicists Irish scientists British telecommunications engineers Data transmission Radio modulation modes Ultrasound Wi-Fi Binary sequences History of telecommunications

64079454

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximator%20%28intelligence%20alliance%29

Maximator (intelligence alliance)

Maximator (named after a type of beer from the German brewery Augustiner-Bräu) is an alliance between the secret services of Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden, comparable to the Five Eyes. It was founded in 1976 on the initiative of the Danish secret service and has operated largely undetected since then. The most important tool for reconnaissance and decryption was the sale of encryption devices with weak encryption methods. This was done via Crypto AG, a supposedly private Swiss company secretly owned by the BND and the CIA. History The motives for the alliance were twofold: cooperation on signals intelligence via satellites and cooperation on technical interception challenges and exchange methods. The alliance was founded in 1976 by Danish intelligence and initially only consisted of Denmark, Sweden and West Germany. The Dutch government was invited to join in 1977 and joined in 1978. The name was chosen in 1979 and was taken from a Munich-brewed beer. France requested to join in 1983 and with strong support from West Germany joined in 1984. Other countries have asked to join, but these requests have been turned down. Bart Jacobs claims that these include Norway, Spain and Italy. Activities So far, only some activities by the Dutch arm, (TIVC), are publicly known, mostly providing administrative assistance to the GCHQ, a British organization, during the Falklands War in decoding of Argentine radio traffic. At the urging of the CIA, the sale of compromised encryption devices from the Dutch company Philips to Turkey was enforced against the will of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, and the TIVC. The service maintained a ground station in the Caribbean on Curaçao, which monitored and decoded the radio traffic from Cuba and Venezuela. References https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2020/07/24/une-petite-note-manuscrite-du-renseignement-exterieur-allemand-brise-un-tres-vieux-secret_6047210_3210.html Global surveillance Espionage Intelligence operations National security

64104713

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Floyd%20protests

George Floyd protests

The George Floyd protests are an ongoing series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 26, 2020 and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of international reactions to the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man who was murdered during an arrest after Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis Police Department officer, knelt on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as three other officers looked on and prevented passers-by from intervening. Chauvin and the other three officers involved were later arrested. On April 20, 2021, Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. He was later sentenced to 22.5 years in prison with possibility of supervised release after 15 years for second-degree murder on June 25, 2021. The George Floyd protest movement began hours after his murder as bystander video and word of mouth began to spread. Protests first emerged at the East 38th and Chicago Avenue street intersection in Minneapolis, the location of Floyd's arrest and murder, and other locations in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area of Minnesota. Protests quickly spread nationwide and to over 2,000 cities and towns in over 60 countries in support of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Polls in summer 2020 estimated that between 15 million and 26 million people had participated at some point in the demonstrations in the United States, making the protests the largest in U.S. history. While the majority of protests have been peaceful, demonstrations in some cities escalated into riots, looting, and street skirmishes with police and counter-protesters. Some police responded to protests with instances of notable violence, including against reporters. At least 200 cities in the U.S. had imposed curfews by early June 2020, while more than 30 states and Washington, D.C. activated over 96,000 National Guard, State Guard, 82nd Airborne, and 3rd Infantry Regiment service members. The deployment, when combined with preexisting deployments related to the COVID-19 pandemic and other natural disasters, constituted the largest military operation other than war in U.S. history. By the end of June, at least 14,000 people had been arrested and, by November 2020, 25 people had died in relation to the unrest. A report from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project estimated that between May 26 and August 22, 93% of individual protests were "peaceful and nondestructive" and research from the Nonviolent Action Lab and Crowd Counting Consortium estimated that by the end of June, 96.3% of 7,305 demonstrations involved no injuries and no property damage. Nevertheless, arson, vandalism, and looting between May 26 and June 8 were tabulated to have caused $1–2 billion in insured damages nationally—the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history, surpassing the record set during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The protests precipitated a worldwide debate on policing and racial injustice that has led to numerous legislative proposals on federal, state, and municipal levels in the U.S. intended to combat police misconduct, systemic racism, qualified immunity and police brutality, while the Trump administration drew widespread criticism for what critics called its hard line rhetoric and aggressive, militarized response. The protests led to a wave of monument removals and name changes throughout the world and occurred during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and amid the 2020 U.S. presidential election season. Protests continued through 2020 and into 2021, most notably in Minneapolis at the 38th and Chicago Avenue street intersection where Floyd was murdered that activists have referred to as George Floyd Square. Several demonstrations coincided with the criminal trial of Chauvin in March and April 2021 and the one-year anniversary of Floyd's murder in May 2021. Officials in Minnesota and elsewhere proactively mobilized counter-protest measures for Chauvin's trial, but it did not result in unrest like what happened immediately after Floyd's murder. By the end of 2021, the occupied protest at George Floyd Square had persisted for 19 months. Local officials in Minneapolis–Saint Paul prepared counter-protest measures in early 2022 for the start of the federal trial for the other three police officers at the scene of Floyd's murder. Background Police brutality protests in the United States Cases of police misconduct and fatal use of force by law enforcement officers in the U.S., particularly against African Americans, have long led the civil rights movement and other activists to protest against a lack of police accountability in incidents they see as involving excessive force. Many protests during the civil rights movement were in response to the perception of police brutality, including the 1965 Watts riots which resulted in the deaths of 34 people, mostly African Americans. The largest post-civil rights movement protest in the 20th century was the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which were in response to the acquittal of police officers responsible for excessive force against Rodney King, an African American man. In 2014, the shooting of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri resulted in local protests and unrest while the killing of Eric Garner in New York City resulted in numerous national protests. After Eric Garner and George Floyd repeatedly said "I can't breathe" during their arrests, the phrase became a protest slogan against police brutality. In 2015 the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore police custody resulted in riots in the city and nationwide protests as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. Several nationally publicized incidents occurred in Minnesota, including the 2015 shooting of Jamar Clark in Minneapolis; the 2016 shooting of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights; and the 2017 shooting of Justine Damond. In 2016, Tony Timpa was killed by Dallas police officers in the same way as George Floyd. In August 2019, Elijah McClain died after Aurora police ordered paramedics to administer ketamine under dubious circumstances. In March 2020, the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by police executing a search warrant at her Kentucky apartment was also widely publicized. Murder of George Floyd According to a police statement, on May 25, 2020, at 8:08p.m. CDT, Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officers responded to a 9-1-1 call regarding a "forgery in progress" on Chicago Avenue South in Powderhorn, Minneapolis. MPD Officers Thomas K. Lane and J. Alexander Kueng arrived with their body cameras turned on. A store employee told officers that the man was in a nearby car. Officers approached the car and ordered George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, who according to police "appeared to be under the influence", to exit the vehicle, at which point he "physically resisted". According to the MPD, officers "were able to get the suspect into handcuffs, and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress. Officers called for an ambulance." Once Floyd was handcuffed, officers Kueng and Lane attempted to help Floyd to their squad car, but at 8:14 p.m., Floyd stiffened up and fell to the ground. MPD Officers Derek Chauvin and Tou Thao then arrived and made more failed attempts to get Floyd into the squad car. Floyd, who was still handcuffed, went to the ground face down. Officer Kueng held Floyd's back and Lane held his legs. Chauvin placed his left knee in the area of Floyd's head and neck. A Facebook Live livestream recorded by a bystander showed Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck. Floyd repeatedly tells Chauvin "Please" and "I can't breathe", while a bystander is heard telling the police officer, "You got him down. Let him breathe." After some time, a bystander points out that Floyd was bleeding from his nose while another bystander tells the police that Floyd is "not even resisting arrest right now", to which the police tell the bystanders that Floyd was "talking, he's fine". A bystander replies saying Floyd "ain't fine". A bystander then protests that the police were preventing Floyd from breathing, urging them to "get him off the ground ... You could have put him in the car by now. He's not resisting arrest or nothing." Floyd then goes silent and motionless. Chauvin does not remove his knee until an ambulance arrives. Emergency medical services put Floyd on a stretcher. Not only had Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for about seven minutes (including four minutes after Floyd stopped moving) but another video showed an additional two officers had also knelt on Floyd while another officer watched. Although the police report stated that medical services were requested prior to the time Floyd was placed in handcuffs, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Emergency Medical Services arrived at the scene six minutes after getting the call. Medics were unable to detect a pulse, and Floyd was pronounced dead at the hospital. A contested May 26 autopsy conducted by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office claimed there were "no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation", and instead attributed the death to underlying health conditions and "potential intoxicants". On May 26, Chauvin and the other three officers were fired. He was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter; the former charge was later changed to second-degree murder. On June 1, a private autopsy commissioned by the family of Floyd ruled the death a homicide and found that Floyd had died due to asphyxiation from sustained pressure, which conflicted with the original autopsy report done earlier that week. Shortly after, the official post-mortem declared Floyd's death a homicide. Video footage of Officer Derek Chauvin applying 8 minutes 15 seconds of sustained pressure to Floyd's neck generated global attention and raised questions about the use of force by law enforcement. On June 25, 2021, Chauvin was sentenced to 22 years and 6 months in prison with possibility of supervised release after serving two-thirds of his sentence or 15 years for second-degree murder. Protests In Minneapolis–Saint Paul Organized protests began in Minneapolis on May 26, the day after George Floyd's murder and when a video of the incident had circulated widely in the media. By midday, people had gathered by the thousands and set up a makeshift memorial. Organizers of the rally emphasized keeping the protest peaceful. Protesters and Floyd's family demanded that all four officers at the scene of his arrest and murder be charged with murder and that judicial consequences be swift. That evening, the protest rally turned into a march to the Minneapolis Police Department's third precinct station where the officers were believed to work. After the main protest group disbanded on the night of May 26, a much smaller group, numbering in the hundreds, spray-painted the building, threw rocks and bottles, broke a window at the station, and vandalized a squad car. A skirmish soon broke out between the vandals and protesters trying to stop them. At around 8 p.m., police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators, some of whom had thrown water bottles at police officers. Protests were held at several locations throughout the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area in subsequent days. The situation escalated the nights of May 27 to 29 where widespread arson, rioting, and looting took place, which were noted as a contrast to daytime protests that were characterized as mostly peaceful events. Some initial acts of property destruction on May 27 by a 32-year-old man with ties to white supremacist organizations, who local police investigators said was deliberately inciting racial tension, led to a chain reaction of fires and looting. The unrest, including people overtaking the Minneapolis third precinct police station and setting it on fire the night of May 28, garnered significant national and international media attention. After state officials mobilized Minnesota National Guard troops in its largest deployment since World War II, the violent unrest subsided and mostly peaceful protests resumed. However, the violence by early June 2020 had resulted in two deaths, 604 arrests, an estimated $550 million in property damage to 1,500 locations, making the Minneapolis–Saint Paul events alone the second-most destructive period of local unrest in United States history, after the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In Minneapolis, protesters barricaded the street intersection at East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue where Floyd was murdered and transformed it into a makeshift memorial site, which was adorned with public art installments and described as like a "shrine". Thousands of visitors protested and grieved at the site. When Minneapolis city officials attempted to negotiate the re-opening of the intersection in August 2020, protesters demanded that before removing cement barricades the city meet a list of 24 demands, which included holding the trial for the four officers present during Floyd's murder. On September 11, 2020, hundreds rallied outside a downtown Minneapolis court building were a pretrial hearing was held for the four police officers involved in Floyd's murder. On October 7, 2020, several protests were held in Minneapolis to express anger over Chauvin's release from jail pending trial after he posted bond for his $1 million bail. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz deployed 100 National Guards troops, 100 Minnesota state police troops, and 75 conservation officers. Fifty-one arrests were reported that night, mostly for misdemeanor offenses, such as unlawful assembly. In early 2021, Minneapolis and Hennepin County officials spent $1 million on fencing and other barricades for police stations and other government buildings to prepare for potential civil unrest during the trial of Derek Chauvin in March. State and local officials also made plans to deploy thousands of police officers and National Guard soldiers. In early March, in the days preceding Chauvin's trial, local organizers staged peaceful protests with thousands of people marching in the streets. The situation at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis grew tense when a person was fatally shot inside the protester-held "autonomous zone" during an altercation on March 6, 2021. In March and April 2021, groups of protesters gathered at George Floyd Square and outside Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis during Chauvin's trial, but the streets of Minneapolis were largely empty of mass demonstrations like those in late May and early June 2020. In April 2021, 3,000 National Guard troops and law enforcement officers were called from neighboring states in preparation for potential unrest over the outcome of the Derek Chauvin trial. On April 20, 2021, Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd. By then, Floyd's murder had resulted in one of the largest civil rights protest movements in recent decades, and the Minneapolis–Saint Paul region had experienced a prolonged series of protests and intermittent unrest over issues of police brutality and racial injustice. As news of the Chauvin's guilty verdict spread on April 20, 2021, a crowd of one-thousand people marched in downtown Minneapolis and others gathered at 38th and Chicago Avenue to celebrate the outcome. Demonstrations in Minneapolis during Chauvin's criminal trial and verdict announcement were largely peaceful. Following Chauvin's verdict, many activists in Minneapolis did not perceive that "Justice for Floyd" was final as J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao still awaited trial, and issues of systemic racism and police reform had not been addressed satisfactorily. George Floyd Square occupation protest organizers, who had transformed the street intersection where Floyd was murdered into an "autonomous zone" adored with public art, said they would continue to protest. Activists changed a marquee that had counted down the days to Chauvin's trial to read, "Justice served?", and chanted, "One down! Three to go!", in reference to the looming trials of officers of the other three officers who participated in Floyd's arrest and subsequent murder. The street intersection area had been a "continuous site of protest" since the day Floyd was murdered, and at nearly a year after his murder, thousands of people from multiple countries had visited the active, ongoing protest and memorial site there. People gathered at multiple locations in Minneapolis for the announcement of Chauvin's sentencing on June 25, 2021, when he received a 22.5-year prison term. Family and civil rights activists expressed disappointment and said it should have been for the 30-year maximum, and they advocated for passage of the federal George Floyd Justice in Policing Act legislation. Several demonstrations were held in Minneapolis the evening of June 25. Civil rights activists and protesters noted the forthcoming civil rights case against the four police officers at the scene of Floyd's murder, and the criminal case against former officers Kueng, Lane, and Thao scheduled for March 2022. Though the City of Minneapolis began the process of reopening the street intersection at George Floyd Square to vehicular traffic in June 2021, organizers of the protest movement rooted there still considered their presence an "occupation" and "resistance". The square hosted a celebration of life for Floyd on October 14, 2021. By December 23, 2021, the occupied protest had persisted at George Floyd Square for 19 consecutive months. Activists in Minneapolis had vowed to continue protesting until the outcome of the criminal case of all involved officers at the scene of Floyd's death. The criminal trial was scheduled to begin on June 13, 2022. In early 2022, local officials prepared counter-protest measures and for potential unrest ahead of the January 20 schedule start of the federal civil rights trial of Kueng, Lane, and Thao. Officials erected security fencing around the Warren E. Burger Federal Building in Saint Paul, Minnesota, that contained the courtroom for the trial. Protest demonstrations were held in the streets surrounding the courtroom building during the trial. On February 24, 2022, Kueng, Lane, and Thao were convicted on all federal civil rights charges they faced at trial. A small group of protesters gathered outside the court building in Saint Paul and at the location in Minneapolis where Floyd was murdered while the verdict was read. Elsewhere in the United States 2020 Protests outside the Minneapolis area were first reported on May 27 in Memphis and Los Angeles. It is unclear if demonstrators were reacting to the graphic video of Floyd's murder or the culmination of a string of black American deaths, preceded by Ahmaud Arbery in Atlanta on February 23 and Breonna Taylor in Louisville on March 13. By May 28, protests had sprung up in several major U.S. cities with demonstrations increasing each day. By June, protests had been held in all U.S. states. At least 200 cities had imposed curfews, and at least 27 states and Washington, D.C. activated over 62,000 National Guard personnel in response to the unrest. In Seattle, starting in early June, protesters occupied an area of several city blocks after the police vacated it, declaring it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, where according to protesters "the police are forbidden, food is free and documentaries are screened at night". On June 11, President Trump challenged mayor Jenny Durkan and governor Jay Inslee to "take back your city", and implying, according to Durkan, the possibility of a military response. On June 10, thousands of academics, universities, scientific institutions, professional bodies and publishing houses around the world shut down to give researchers time to reflect and act upon anti-Black racism in academia. Organizations involved with #ShutDownSTEM day included Nature Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the American Physical Society. On June 14, an estimated 15,000 people gathered outside the Brooklyn Museum at Grand Army Plaza for the Liberation March, a silent protest in response to police brutality and violence against black transgender women. Frustrated by the lack of media coverage over the deaths of Nina Pop, who was stabbed in Sikeston, Missouri on May 3 and Tony McDade, who was shot by police in Tallahassee, Florida on May 27, artist and drag performer West Dakota and her mentor, drag queen Merrie Cherry, decided to organize a silent rally inspired by the 1917 NAACP Silent Parade. The march generated widespread media attention as one of the largest peaceful protests in modern New York City history. On June 19, Juneteenth, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) shut down ports on the West Coast in solidarity with protesters. An educator from the University of Washington said that the union has a history of protest and leftist politics since its founding: "[The ILWU] understood that division along the lines of race only benefited employers, because it weakened the efforts of workers to act together and to organize together. The UAW also asked members to join the protests by standing down for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time Chauvin was initially reported to have held his knee to Floyd's neck. On June 17, in response to the protests, three different police reform plans, plans from the Republicans, the Democrats, and the White House, were unveiled aiming to curb police brutality and the use of violence by law enforcement. On June 25, NPR reported that the hopes for passage were doubtful because they were "short-circuited by a lack of bipartisan consensus on an ultimate plan [and] the issue is likely stalled, potentially until after the fall election". Protests continued over the weekend of June 19 in many cities, and observations of Juneteenth gained a new awareness. Jon Batiste, bandleader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, took part in a Juneteenth day of protests, marches, rallies and vigils to "celebrate, show solidarity, and fight for equal rights and treatment of Black people" in Brooklyn. Batiste also appeared in concert with Matt Whitaker in a performance presented in partnership with Sing For Hope, performed on the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library. By the end of June, more than 4,700 demonstrations had occurred in the United Statesa daily average of 140with an estimate of 15 million and 26 million total participants. Protests had occurred in over 40% of the counties in the United States. Protests in the aftermath of Floyd's murder were then considered the largest in United States history. As of July 3, protests were ongoing. On July 4, the Independence Day holiday in the United States, several protests were held, including in several cities where protests had been going on since the day after Floyd's murder. On July 20, the Strike for Black Lives, a mass walkout intended to raise awareness of systemic racism, featured thousands of workers across the United States walking off their jobs for approximately 8 minutes, in honor of Floyd. The theme for the March on Washington held in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2020, was, "Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks", a reference to Floyd's arrest by Chauvin. Over the Labor Day holiday weekend, which the Saturday marked 100 nights of protests since Floyd's murder, marches and rallies where held in many cities. In Miami, Florida, protesters on September 7, 2020, commemorated Floyd's murder and pressured local authorities to enact changes to policing policies, such as banning chokeholds during arrests. To mark what would have been Floyd's 47th birthday, groups across the United States staged protest events on October 14, 2020. Rallies and vigils were held in Minneapolis, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles, among other places. In Portland, Oregon, where Black Lives Matter protests had been held daily since Floyd's murder, demonstrators staged a sit-in. For some Black Americans, particularly a group interviewed in George Floyd's hometown in Houston, Texas, the protests over Floyd's murder transformed to greater political activity and increased voter turnout in the November 2020 election. Terrance Floyd, George's brother, and other family members rallied voters in support of the candidacy of Joe Biden, and they made an appearance with the Biden family at a campaign event in Tallahassee, Florida. Terrence Floyd also rallied voters in New York City on the November 3, 2020, Election Day. By December, the protest movement was still "deeply rooted" at George Floyd Square, an occupied protest of the East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue intersection in Minneapolis where Floyd was killed." 2021 In many parts of the United States, protests over Floyd's murder gradually diminished over time. In Portland, Oregon, however, Floyd's murder resulted in a yearlong period of "near-continuous protests" over racial injustice and police violence, at times featuring clashes between demonstrators and authorities and resulting in property damage. In Boston, activists rallied on March 4, 2021, to demand the conviction of all four officers present at the scene of Floyd's murder and for local authorities to investigate past cases where police officers used excessive force. Two days later, thousands marched in Boston to call for justice for Floyd as part of a coordinated, 17-state set of rallies. In Salt Lake City, activists protested Floyd's murder by staging a car caravan on March 6, 2021. Prayer vigils seeking justice for Floyd were held in conjunction with the Chauvin trial at several locations. In Houston, Texas, Floyd's family held an event on April 9, 2021. In Maryland, a group gathered to pray that for justice for Floyd and his family as the jury began deliberations in the Chauvin criminal trial on April 19, 2021. People in many cities in the United States reacted to Chauvin's murder conviction on April 20, 2021, with largely peaceful demonstrations. Some jurisdictions had proactively mobilized National Guard troops and declared states of emergency in preparation for possible violence, and some businesses had boarded up to prevent potential looting. Many activists perceived the guilty verdict as just one step in the process to obtain justice over Floyd's murder. At nearly a year after Floyd's death, civil rights activists continued to call for passage of the federal George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Many activists believed that "justice for George Floyd" required changing the systems of policing and criminal justice in a way that would have prevented his murder. On April 23, 2021, in Austin, Texas, activists rallied outside the state's capitol to call for passage of the Texas’ George Floyd Actreform legislation introduced to ban chokeholds and require officers to intervene to stop excessive use of forcethat had stalled in the state legislature. On May 6, 2021, Black mothers led a march in Washington, D.C, to encourage passage federal police reform legislation named after Floyd. On May 19, 2021, in Nevada, protesters jammed phone lines to the state legislature after police reform legislation introduced as result of the global protest movement begun by Floyd's murder did not advance. By late May 2021, Floyd's murder, and the video of it, had given way to a yearlong, nationwide movement featuring the largest mass protests in United States history. To commemorate the one-year anniversary of his murder in a several-day event titled "One Year, What's Changed", the George Floyd Memorial Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by Floyd's family, planned marches and rallies in Minneapolis, New York, and Houston for May 23, 2021, and called for two days of virtual activism everywhere in the United States in support of federal police reform legislation. At a rally in New York City outside Brooklyn Borough Hall on May 23, 2021, Terrance Floyd, George's brother, called on the crowd to continue advocating for police reform and for communities to “stay woke”. Civil rights activist Al Sharpton said, "convicting Chauvin is not enough", and encouraged congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, as well as continued activism ahead of the criminal trials of Lane, Kueng, and Thao and the federal civil rights trial of all four officers. By May 25, 2021, the anniversary of Floyd's murder, the United States had experienced a yearlong movement to address racial injustice in policing. Several street protests were held in many locations in the United States to mark the anniversary. In New York City, protesters marched and then knelt for 9 minutes and 29 seconds while blocking traffic. A rally in Portland, Oregon, was peaceful in the afternoon, but at night, 150 demonstrators set fire to a dumpster outside the Multnomah County Justice Center and damaged other property. Police declared the gathering a riot and made five arrests. Most demonstrationswhich included street marches, prayer services, and festivalsin the United States were peaceful. At many rallies, protesters expressed disappointment with the lack of change to policing policies and budgets, and some said they would continue protesting and advocating for their desired goals. International Solidarity protests over Floyd's murder quickly spread worldwide. Protests in Canada, Europe, Oceania, Asia, and Africa rallied against what they perceived as racial discrimination and police brutality, with some protests aimed at United States embassies. Protesters globally also called on lawmakers in the United States to address the issues of police violence and the police-state structure. Over the weekend of June 7 and 8, surfers around the world held a "Paddle Out", a Hawaiian mourning tradition, for George Floyd and all the lives lost to police violence. Thousands observed the tradition in Honolulu, Hawaii, La Jolla, Hermosa Beach and Santa Monica, California, Galveston, Hackensack, New Jersey, Rockaway Beach, New York, Biarritz, France, Senegal and Australia. Floyd's murder came as the global Black Lives Matter movement had been slowly building for years, but outrage over what was captured in a bystander's video and Floyd's dying words, "I can't breathe", resulted in solidarity protests in more than 50 countries and led to what was described as a "social awaking" on issues of racial injustice and brought renewed attention on past police brutality cases. As a jury deliberated in Chauvin's criminal trial, a vigil for Floyd was held on April 19, 2021, in Melbourne, Australia. By the conclusion of the criminal trial of Derek Chauvin on April 20, 2021, millions of people worldwide had viewed video footage of Floyd's murder and protests were ongoing internationally over issues of police brutality and systemic racism. The murder conviction of Chauvin was celebrated by activists in many countries and several of them expressed their desire for further progress on racial justice and police accountability issues. For some, the so-called "George Floyd effect" had demonstrators and activists connecting historic racism and social injustice to contemporary, local examples of police brutality. Movements spawned by Floyd's murder, which served as a catalyst, were still active in Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, New Zealand, Nigeria, United Kingdom, and elsewhere by May 2021. In Canada and France, where Floyd's murder initiated protests, activists were unsatisfied with the levels of reform made by officials at nearly a year after Floyd's murder. Protesters in London rallied outside the United States embassy on May 22, 2021. Protesters remarked that the Chauvin murder conviction was "a small amount of justice of what [George Floyd] really deserves". The protest was among of new set of peaceful protests in the United Kingdom to mark the one-year anniversary of Floyd's murder. On May 25, 2021, protesters took the streets in Germany and demonstrators took a knee in and raised their fists at rallies in Glasgow, London, and Edinburgh. Rallies were held outside U.S. Embassies in Greece and Spain. Government response United States At least 200 cities in the U.S. had imposed curfews by early June, while more than 30 states and Washington, D.C. activated over 96,000 National Guard and State Guard service members. The deployment constituted the largest military operation other than war in U.S. history. United States President Donald Trump demanded governors and city governments crackdown on protestors and controversially threatened to deploy the 82nd Airborne and 3rd Infantry Regiment in response to the unrest. On May 29, Trump tweeted "when the looting starts, the shooting starts", which Twitter marked as "glorifying violence". Trump later said he was not advocating violence, noting that the tweet could be read as either a threat or a statement of fact and that he intended for it to be read as "a combination of both". On June 3, he said "If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem." This would have required invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807, last used to quell the 1992 Los Angeles riots on May 1, 1992, by Executive Order 12804. Arkansas senator Tom Cotton also pushed for the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division to be deployed to quell the unrest, calling protesters "Antifa terrorists". Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton said federal troops should "lay down [their] arms" if deployed in the United States. On June 4, federal agencies added about of fencing around the White House, Lafayette Square, and The Ellipse. Protesters used the fencing to post signs and artwork expressing their views. On June 11, the fencing was taken down, and some signs were collected by Smithsonian Museum curators from the National Museum of African American History and Culture. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, authorized to provide aerial surveillance "to assist law enforcement and humanitarian relief efforts" when requested, provided drone imagery during the protests. As of June 5, 2020, 2,950 federal law enforcement personnel from a dozen agencies, including the Secret Service, Capital Police, Park Police, Customs and Border Protection, FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, Bureau of Prisons' Special Operations Response Team, DEA's Special Response Team, ATF, and Marshals Service's Special Operations Group, have been dispatched to assist local authorities, with most of them being garrisoned in D.C. The DEA's legal authority was specifically expanded by the Department of Justice beyond usual limits to include surveillance of protesters and the ability to arrest for non-drug related offenses. In response, Representatives Jerry Nadler and Karen Bass of the House Judiciary Committee denounced the move and requested a formal briefing from DEA Acting Administrator Timothy Shea. From at least July 14, 2020, unidentified federal officers wearing camouflage used unmarked vans to detain protesters in Portland, Oregon—sometimes without explaining the reason for their arrest. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called these actions unconstitutional kidnappings. In The Nation, Jeet Heer also called the actions unconstitutional and wrote that "The deployment of unidentified federal officers is particularly dangerous in... Portland and elsewhere in America, because it could easily lead to right-wing militias' impersonating legal authorities and kidnapping citizens." On July 20, 2020, the Chicago Tribune reported that the Department of Homeland Security was preparing to send 150 federal agents to Chicago. On June 26, 2020, President Trump signed an executive order permitting federal agencies to provide personnel "to assist with the protection of Federal monuments, memorials, statues, or property". Following the executive order, the Department of Homeland Security sent officers from Customs and Border Protection to Portland, Oregon, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. This was a departure from Homeland Security's normal role of protecting against threats from abroad. Critics accused federal authorities of overstepping their jurisdiction and using excessive force against protesters. Oregon governor Kate Brown called for federal agents to scale back their response and criticized Trump's actions: "President Trump deploying armed federal officers to Portland only serves to escalate tensions and, as we saw yesterday, will inevitably lead to unnecessary violence and confrontation." Portland mayor Ted Wheeler demanded the agents be removed after citizens were detained far from the federal property agents were sent to protect. In the wake of the George Floyd protests, Republicans in state legislatures nationwide pushed for legislation targeting protestors. The bills, which conflate peaceful protests, riots and looting, imposed harsher punishment on individuals found guilty of unlawful assembly and public disorder, as well as provided immunity for motorists that hit protestors. The Florida anti-riot law was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal district judge, on the grounds of vagueness, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and due process. The law also made it a felony to destroy historically commemorative objects and structures, and in response to calls to "defund the police" requires police departments to justify budget reductions. International In France, the government banned demonstrations near the United States Embassy and Eiffel Tower in Paris out of concern for potential violence. Violence and controversies By June 22, 2020, police had made 14,000 arrests in 49 cities since the protests began, with most arrests being locals charged with low-level offenses such as violating curfews or blocking roadways. By June 8, 2020, at least 19 people had died during the protests. Several protests over Floyd's murder, including one in Chicago, turned into riots. On May 29, 2020, civil rights leader Andrew Young stated that riots, violence, and looting "hurt the cause instead of helping it" while George Floyd's family also denounced the violent protests. A study conducted by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project found that about 93% of 7,750 protests from May 26 through August 22 remained peaceful and nondestructive. There have been numerous reports and videos of aggressive police actions using physical force including "batons, tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets on protesters, bystanders and journalists, often without warning or seemingly unprovoked". These incidents have provoked "growing concern that aggressive law enforcement tactics intended to impose order were instead inflaming tensions". The police responded that such tactics are necessary to prevent vandalism and arson, and that police officers themselves have been assaulted with thrown rocks and water bottles. Amnesty International issued a press release on May 31, 2021, calling for the police to end excessive militarized responses to the protests. A project by ProPublica compiled 68 videos during the George Floyd protests of police officers who used what appeared to researchers to be excessive levels of force. By a year later, police departments had disciplined 10 officers in connection to those captured on video. At least 104 incidents of vehicles driving into crowds of protesters, including eight involving police officers, were recorded from May 27 to September 5, with 39 drivers charged. According to experts some incidents involved frightened drivers surrounded by protesters while other incidents involved angry drivers or were politically motivated. Since 2015, such actions have been encouraged against Black Lives Matter protests by "Run Them Over" and "All Lives Splatter" memes online, as well as items posted on Fox News and on social media by police officers. In Buffalo, three Buffalo Police Department officers were struck by a car, and in Minneapolis, a Minnesota National Guard soldier fired 3 rounds at a speeding vehicle that was driving towards police officers and soldiers. There were allegations of foreign influence stoking the unrest online, with the role of outside powers being additive rather than decisive as of May 31. Several analysts have said that there was a lack of evidence for foreign meddling – whether to spread disinformation or sow divisiveness – but suggest that the messaging and coverage from these countries has more to do with global politics. Police attacks on journalists According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, at least 100 journalists have been arrested while covering the protests, while 114 have been physically attacked by police officers. Although some journalists have been attacked by protesters, over 80% of incidents involving violence against the news media were committed by law enforcement officers. The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused police officers of intentionally targeting news crews in an attempt to intimidate them from covering the protests. Some journalists covering the protests in Minneapolis had their tires slashed by Minnesota State Patrol troopers and Anoka County sheriff's deputies. Injuries caused by police projectiles During the week of May 30, 2020, 12 people, including protesters, journalists and bystanders, were partially blinded after being struck with police projectiles. By June 21, at least 20 people had suffered serious eye injuries. The American Academy of Ophthalmology has called on police departments to stop using rubber bullets for crowd control, writing in a statement that "Americans have the right to speak and congregate publicly and should be able to exercise that right without the fear of blindness." Extremist participation As unrest grew in the days after Floyd's murder, there was speculation by federal, state, and local officials that various extremist groups using the cover of the protests to foment general unrest in the United States. Officials initially provided few details to the public about the claims. Donald Trump, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, United States Attorney General William Barr, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Seattle Police Guild President Mike Solan, and Huntsville Police Chief Mark McMurray blamed anarchists and "far-left extremist" groups, including antifa, for inciting and organizing violent riots. According to a Justice Department spokesperson, Barr came to this conclusion after being provided with information from state and local law enforcement agencies. Contrastingly, several mid-June investigations by news agencies including The Washington Post and The Associated Press concluded there was no solid evidence of antifa involvement in causing violence during the protests, contradicting prior claims by law enforcement officials. and the Trump administration provided no further evidence for its claims. This is in part because "antifa is a moniker, not a single group", making it difficult to attribute any violence directly to the movement. The majority of protests in the aftermath of Floyd's murder were peaceful; among the 14,000 arrests made, most were for minor offenses such as alleged curfew violations or blocking a roadway. An analysis of state and federal criminal charges of demonstrators in the Minneapolis area found that disorganized crowds had no single goal or affiliation, many opportunist crowds amassed spontaneously during periods of lawlessness, and that people causing destruction had contradictory motives for their actions. Other analysis found that persons involved in visible crimes such as arson or property damage were not ideologically organized, although some were motivated by anger towards police. Episodes of looting were committed by "regular criminal groups" and street gangs and were motivated by personal gain rather than ideology. A large number of white nationalists did not appear in response to the protests, although "a handful of apparent lone actors" were arrested for attempting to harm protesters. However, there was a scattered number of armed paramilitary-style militia movement groups and there were "several cases where members of these groups discharged firearms, causing chaos or injuring protesters". According to the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR), which mapped the appearance of various right-wing or far-right actors or extremist groups at rallies throughout the United States, there were 136 confirmed cases of right-wing participation at the protests by June 19, 2020, with many more unconfirmed. Boogaloo, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, neo-Confederates, white nationalists, and an assortment of militias and vigilante groups reportedly had a presence at some protests, mostly in small towns and rural areas. Boogaloo groups, who are generally pro-gun, anti-government, and far-right accelerationists, have reportedly been present at least 40 George Floyd protests, several reportedly linked with violence. Their continued presence online has caused Facebook and TikTok to take action against their violent and anti-government posts. On July 25, 2020, 28-year old armed Black Lives Matter protester Garrett Foster was shot and killed in an altercation with a motorist in Downtown Austin. Foster identified with the boogaloo movement and had expressed anti-racist, libertarian, and anti-police views in his Facebook posts. Police said initial reports indicate that Foster was carrying an AK-47 style rifle, and was pushing his fiancée's wheelchair moments before he was killed. By late 2020, the United States Attorney's office had charged three alleged adherents of Boogaloo Bois movement who attempted to capitalize on the unrest in Minneapolis in late May. Two had pled guilty by May 2021. According to the federal charging documents, the 30-year-old Michael Robert Solomon of New Brighton, Minnesota, who pled guilty to federal charges, recruited Boogaloo adherent participation via Facebook and at least five others travelled to Minneapolis to participate in the unrest. One of the persons, Benjamin Ryan Teeter, a 22-year old from Hampstead, North Carolina, also pled guilty to several federal criminal charges. Officials believed Teeter travelled to Minneapolis in the days after Floyd's murder to participate in rioting and looting and that he also had plans to destroy a courthouse with Solomon. A 26-year-old man from Boerne, Texas, who self-identified as a local leader of the Boogaloo movement, also faced federal riot charges for allegedly shooting 13 rounds from an AK-47-style machine gun into the Minneapolis third police precinct building while people were inside, looting it, and helping to set it on fire the night of May 28, 2020. Perception of pervasiveness of violence A December 2020 poll found 47% of Americans believed that the majority of the protests were violent, and 16% were unsure. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, an estimated 93%–96.3% of demonstrations were peaceful and nondestructive, involving no injuries or no property damage. Police made arrests in about 5% of protest events (deploying chemical irritants in 2.5% of events); 3.7% of protest events were associated with property damage or vandalism (including damages by persons not involved in the actual demonstration); and protesters or bystanders were injured or killed in 1.6% of events. Media coverage The protests were the subject of extensive media coverage, documentaries, and television specials. The documentary Say His Name: Five Days of George Floyd, released in February 2021, contained footage of protests and unrest in a neighborhood of Minneapolis in the five days that elapsed between Floyd's murder and the criminal charges being filed against Derek Chauvin. In August 2020, the occupied protests at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis was the subject of a multi-part PBS News Hour series, "George Floyd Square: The epicenter of a protest movement that’s swept the world" and in December 2020, it was the subject of a monthlong series by Minnesota Public Radio, "Making George Floyd's Square: Meet the people transforming 38th and Chicago". Several documentaries and news specials were broadcast to coincide with first anniversary of Floyd's murder. The ABC-produced After Floyd: The Year that Shook America examined the "generation-defining movement" of Floyd's death and Our America: A Year of Activism reflected on the year-long period of activism on social justice issues that followed. PBS-produced Race Matters: America After George Floyd reported on ongoing protests in communities over issues of police brutality a year after Floyd's death. The Minneapolis-based Star Tribune newspaper received the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for the breaking news it reported of Floyd's murder and the resulting aftermath. Danielle Frazier, the then 17-year old who filmed Floyd's arrest and murder on her cellphone, received a Pulitzer special citation recognition in 2021 for her video. Use of social media The video recorded of Floyd's arrest and death by Darneil Frazier on her mobile phone quickly went viral after she posted to Facebook a few hours later in the early morning hours of May 26. Public outrage over the contents of the video became an inflection point that sparked the largest civil-rights protests in U.S. history as Americans confronted topics of structural racism and police reform. Protests had continued for over a year after Floyd's murder. Numerous individuals and celebrities used social media to document the protests, spread information, promote donation sites, and post memorials to George Floyd. Following Floyd's murder, a 15-year-old started a Change.org petition titled "Justice for George Floyd", demanding that all four police officers involved be charged. The petition was both the largest and fastest-growing in the site's history, reaching over 13 million signatures. During this time, multiple videos of the protests, looting, and riots were shared by journalists and protesters with many videos circulating widely on social media websites. Documentation A remix of Childish Gambino's song "This is America" and Post Malone's "Congratulations" was used heavily by protesters sharing footage of protests and police action on TikTok. Others used personal Twitter pages to post video documentation of the protests to highlight police and protesters actions, as well as points of the protests they felt would not be reported. One example was a viral photo that appears to show white women protesters standing with their arms locked between Louisville Metro Police Officers and protesters, with the caption describing the image and "This is love. This is what you do with your privilege." Viral images of officers "taking a knee" with protesters and engaging in joint displays against police brutality, highlighted by hashtags such as #WalkWithUs, have circulated widely on social media. These acts have been identified by some cultural critics as copaganda, or "feel-good images" to boost public relations. Official social media accounts of police departments boosted positive images of collaboration. In some cases, these displays of solidarity, such as police kneeling, have been recognized as occurring moments before police teargassed crowds or inflicted violence on them. An article in The Fader characterized these acts as public relations tactics which were being undermined by police violence, "It feels like we go past the point of no return several times each day." Activism American K-pop fan accounts hijacked right wing and pro-Trump hashtags on social media, flooding trending hashtags with images and videos of their favorite artists. Users attempting to look up the hashtags #WhiteLivesMatter, #WhiteoutWednesday and #BlueLivesMatter were met with messages and video clips of dancing idols. After the Dallas Police Department asked Twitter users to submit videos of protesters' illegal activity to its iWatch Dallas app, submissions of K-pop videos led to the temporary removal of the app due to "technical difficulties". On May 28, hacktivist group Anonymous released a video to Facebook and the Minneapolis Police Department entitled "Anonymous Message To The Minneapolis Police Department", in which they state that they are going to seek revenge on the Minneapolis Police Department, and "expose their crimes to the world". According to Bloomberg, the video was initially posted on an unconfirmed Anonymous Facebook page. 269 gigabytes of leaked internal law enforcement data spanning 10 years obtained by Anonymous were later published by the activist group Distributed Denial of Secrets on June 19 to coincide with Juneteenth. The leak consisted of over a million documents, in what investigative journalist and founder of the group—Emma Best—called "the largest published hack of American law enforcement agencies". The leaked documents revealed that law enforcement agencies had been covertly monitoring protestors' private communication over social media, and that both federal and local law enforcement had been stoking fear among police officers, likely setting the stage for the escalation of violence against protestors by police. Facebook's decision not to remove or label President Trump's tweet of "When the looting starts, the shooting starts" prompted complaints from Facebook employees that political figures were getting a special exemption from the site's content policies. Actions included internal petition, questioning the CEO at an employee town hall, some resignations, and an employee walkout. On June 3, as U.S. protests gained momentum, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted a recommendation for users to download end-to-end encryption (E2EE) messaging app Signal. On June 6, an estimated half million people joined protests in 550 places in the United States. By June 11, The New York Times reported that protest organizers relied on the E2EE app "to devise action plans and develop strategies for handling possible arrests for several years" and that downloads had "skyrocketed" with increased awareness of police monitoring leading protesters to use the app to communicate among themselves. During the first week of June, the encrypted messaging app was downloaded over five times more than it had been during the week prior to Floyd's murder. Citizen, a community safety app, also experienced a high spike in downloads. Misinformation Official statements Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speculated that there was "an organized attempt to destabilize civil society", initially saying as many as 80% of the individuals had possibly come from outside the state, and the mayor of St. Paul, Melvin Carter, said everyone arrested in St. Paul on May 29 was from out of state. However, jail records showed that the majority of those arrested were in-state. At a press conference later the same day, Carter explained that he had "shared... arrest data received in [his] morning police briefing which [he] later learned to be inaccurate". Numerous eyewitness accounts and news reporters indicated that tear gas was used to disperse protesters in Lafayette Square. Despite this evidence, U.S. Park Police officials said, "USPP officers and other assisting law enforcement partners did not use tear gas or OC Skat Shells to close the area at Lafayette Park", adding that they only used "pepper balls" and "smoke canisters". Donald Trump's presidential campaign demanded news outlets retract reports of "tear gas" use. President Trump called the reports "fake" and said "they didn't use tear gas." Press statements On the night of May 31, exterior lights on the north side of the White House went dark as usual at 11:00 pm, while protesters were demonstrating outside. The Guardian mistakenly reported that "in normal times, they are only ever turned off when a president dies." A 2015 stock photograph of the White House, edited to show the lights turned off, was shared tens of thousands of times online, including by Hillary Clinton. While the photograph did not depict the building at the time of the protests, Deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley confirmed that the lights "go out at about 11 p.m. almost every night". On June 6, the New York Post reported that a NYPD source said $2.4 million of Rolex watches had been looted during protests from a Soho Rolex store. However, the store in question was actually a Watches of Switzerland outlet that denied anything was stolen. Rolex confirmed that "no watches of any kind were stolen, as there weren't any on display in the store." A June 12 article by The Seattle Times found that Fox News published a photograph of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone that had been digitally altered to include a man armed with an assault rifle. The Fox News website also used a photograph of a burning scene from the Minnesota protests to illustrate their articles on Seattle's protests. Fox removed the images and issued an apology, stating the digitally altered image was a collage that "did not clearly delineate" splicing. Conspiracy theories False claims of impending antifa activity as part of the protests circulated through social media platforms, causing alarm in at least 41 towns and cities. As a result of the rumors, several people were harassed. Hundreds of members of armed self-proclaimed militias and far right groups gathered in Gettysburg National Military Park on Independence Day in response to a fake online claim that antifa protesters were planning on burning the U.S. flag. Some social media users spread images of damage from other protests or incidents, falsely attributing the damage to the George Floyd protests. Twitter suspended hundreds of accounts associated with spreading a false claim about a communications blackout during protests in Washington, D.C., or a claim that authorities had blocked protesters from communicating on their smartphones. Also, some accounts shared a photo of a major fire burning near the Washington Monument, which was actually an image from a television show. A study by Zignal Labs identified three dominant themes in misinformation and conspiracy theories around the protests: unsubstantiated claims of antifa involvement, claims that Floyd's murder had been faked, and claims of involvement by the billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros. Social impact A week into the protests, The Washington Post stated that the current situation suggests that the status quo was undergoing a shock, with the article stating "the past days have suggested that something is changing. The protests reached into every corner of the United States and touched nearly every strand of society." Joe Biden told Politico that he had experienced an awakening and thought other White Americans had as well, saying: "Ordinary folks who don't think of themselves as having a prejudiced bone in their body, don't think of themselves as racists, have kind of had the mask pulled off." Large amounts of journalistic and academic sources have viewed the protests as forcing Americans to face racial inequality, police brutuality and other racial and economic issues. Many have stated that the current unrest is due to the current political and cultural system of overlooking, ignoring and oppression of Black Americans, calling it a racial reckoning. Politico said the murder of George Floyd, captured on video, had "prompted a reckoning with racism [...] for a wide swath of white America." Deva Woodly, Associate Professor of Politics at The New School for Social Research, wrote: "We are living in a world-historical moment." NPR said that "a change of attitude seems to have swept through the national culture like a sudden wind." CNN's Brianna Keilar said that "[y]ou are watching America's reckoning" as she outlined the "profound change" the country had experienced, including that in mid-June 15 of the 20 bestselling books were about race. In late June, The Christian Science Monitors editorial board wrote: "It may still be too soon to say the U.S. has reached a true inflection point in its treatment of its citizens of African descent. But it has certainly reached a reflection point." Reuters reported that Black candidates in June's primaries had benefited from "a national reckoning on racism." By early July, The Washington Post was running a regularly updated section titled "America's Racial Reckoning: What you need to know." On July 3, The Washington Post said that "the Black Lives Matter protests following the police killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks focused the world's attention on racial inequities, structural racism and implicit bias." The New York Times described the events in the wake of Floyd's murder and video that circulated of it as "the largest protests in the United States since the Civil Rights era." According to the American Political Science Review, the George Floyd protests led to a reduction in favorability toward the police among politically liberal Americans, and further exacerbated racial and political tensions and attitudes regarding the "race and law enforcement" debate in the U.S. Economic impact The Property Claim Services (PCS) of the U.S. Insurance industry states that in the "unrest that took place from May 26 to June 8" 2020 in 140 U.S. cities in 20 states was "the costliest civil unrest in U.S. history", and that insured losses are "estimated at over $2 billion". According to Fortune, the economic impact of the protests has exacerbated the COVID-19 recession by sharply curtailing consumer confidence, straining local businesses, and overwhelming public infrastructure with large-scale property damage. A number of small businesses, already suffering from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, were harmed by vandalism, property destruction, and looting. Curfews instated by local governments – in response to both the pandemic and protests – have also "restricted access to the downtown [areas]" to essential workers, lowering economic output. President Donald Trump, after announcing a drop in overall unemployment from 14.7% to 13.3% on June 5, stated that strong economic growth was "the greatest thing [for race relations]" and "George Floyd would have been proud [of the unemployment rate]". That same day reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated the unemployment rate among African Americans (covering the first two weeks of protests) was up 0.1%, rising to 16.8%. The U.S. stock market remained unaffected or otherwise increased from the start of the protests on May 26 to June 2. The protest's first two weeks coincided with a 38% rise in the stock market. A resurgence of COVID-19 (facilitated by mass protests) could exacerbate the 2020 stock market crash according to economists at RBC. The protests have disrupted national supply chains over uncertainty regarding public safety, a resurgence of COVID-19, and consumer confidence. Several Fortune 500 retail companies, with large distribution networks, have scaled back deliveries and shuttered stores in high-impact areas. Mass demonstrations – of both peaceful and violent varieties – have been linked to diminished consumer confidence and demand stemming from the public health risks of group gatherings amid COVID-19. Large-scale property damage stemming from the protests has led to increased insurance claims, bankruptcies, and curbed economic activity among small businesses and state governments. Insurance claims arising from property damage suffered in rioting is still being assessed, but is thought to be significant, perhaps record-breaking. Estimates of property damages from fires and looting in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area were $550 million to 1,500 property locations. Private insurance covered less than half of the estimated damages, which had a disproportionate effect on small business owners, many of who were immigrants and people of color. Among the losses in Minneapolis was Minnehaha Commons, an under-construction, $30 million redevelopment project for 189 units of affordable housing, which was destroyed by fire after being torched on May 27, 2020. A community organization in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood said that between $10 million and $15 million in property damage (excluding losses from looting) was incurred over the weekend of May 29–31, mostly along storefronts along Peachtree Street and Phipps Plaza. The damage to downtown Chicago's central business district (near the Magnificent Mile) was reported to have sustained "millions of dollars in damage" according to Fortune. Public financing and funding, particularly on the state level, has also been impacted by the protests. The COVID-19 recession has eroded large parts of state budgets which have, subsequently, struggled to finance the police overtime pay, security costs, and infrastructure repairs related to the demonstrations. State governments have, since June, announced budget cuts to police departments as well as increased funding to other public safety measures. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced on June 5 he will seek up to $150 million in cuts to the Los Angeles Police Department budget. On May 31, Walmart temporarily closed several hundred of its stores as a precaution. Amazon announced it would redirect some delivery routes and scale back others as a result of the widespread unrest. Monuments and symbols A makeshift memorial emerged at the East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue intersection in Minneapolis where Floyd was killed. Minneapolis officials renamed a stretch two block stretch of Chicago Avenue as George Floyd Perry Jr Place and designated it as one of seven cultural districts in city. Scrutiny of, discussion of removal, and removal of civic symbols or names relating to the Confederate States of America (frequently associated with segregation and the Jim Crow era in the United States) has regained steam as protests have continued. On June 4, 2020, Virginia governor Ralph Northam announced the Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond would be removed. On June 5, making specific reference to events in Charlottesville in 2017, the United States Marine Corps banned the display of the Confederate Battle Flag at their installations. The United States Navy followed suit on June 9 at the direction of Michael M. Gilday, the Chief of Naval Operations. Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin ordered the removal of the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Linn Park. The Alabama Attorney General has filed suit against the city of Birmingham for violating the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act. A statue of America's first president, George Washington, has been torn down and American flag was burned by rioters in Portland, Oregon. Portland Public Schools was responding after protesters pulled down the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of Jefferson High School. Several protesters tore down the statue of the third President of the United States and wrote: "slave owner" and "George Floyd" in spray paint at its white marble base. PPS officials said they recognize that the act is part of a larger and very important national conversation. The statues targeted included a bust of Ulysses S. Grant and statue of Theodore Roosevelt. BLM activist Shaun King tweeted that statues, murals, and stained glass windows depicting a white Jesus should be removed. Protesters defaced a statue of Philadelphia abolitionist Matthias Baldwin with the words "murderer" and "colonizer". Protesters in San Francisco vandalized a statue of Miguel de Cervantes, a Spanish writer who spent five years as a slave in Algiers. Vandals defaced the statue of Winston Churchill in London's Parliament Square and Queen Victoria's statue in Leeds. The Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial and the statue of General Casimir Pulaski were vandalized during the George Floyd protests in Washington, D.C. On June 7, the statue of Edward Colston was toppled and thrown into Bristol Harbour by demonstrators during the George Floyd protests in the United Kingdom. BLM activists in London are calling for the removal of 60 statues of historical figures like Prime Ministers Charles Grey and William Gladstone, Horatio Nelson, Sir Francis Drake, King Charles II of England, Oliver Cromwell and Christopher Columbus. Protesters in Belgium have vandalized statues of King Leopold II of Belgium. In Washington, D.C., a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in front of the Indian Embassy was vandalized on the intervening night of June 2 and 3. The incident prompted the embassy to register a complaint with law enforcement agencies. Taranjit Singh Sandhu, the Indian Ambassador to the United States, called the vandalism "a crime against humanity". In London, another statue of Gandhi was vandalized by Black Lives Matter protesters along with the statue of Winston Churchill. On June 12, the city council in Hamilton, New Zealand removed the statue of Captain John Hamilton, a British officer who was killed during the New Zealand Wars in 1864. A local Māori elder Taitimu Maipi, who had vandalized the statue in 2018, has also called for the city to be renamed Kirikiriroa. New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters called the scrutiny of colonial-era memorials a "wave of idiocy". On June 22, a crowd of rioters unsuccessfully attempted to topple Clark Mills' 1852 bronze equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square in President's Park, directly north of the White House in Washington, D.C. Several days later, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) charged four men with destruction of federal property for allegedly trying to bring down the statue. The Justice Department alleged that a video showed one of the men breaking off and destroying the wheels of the cannons located at the base of the statue as well as pulling on ropes when trying to bring down the statue. Soon afterwards, the DOJ announced the arrest and charging of a man who was not only allegedly seen on video climbing up onto the Jackson statue and affixing a rope that was then used to try to pull the statue down, but had on June 20 helped destroy Gaetano Trentanove's 1901 Albert Pike Memorial statue near Washington's Judiciary Square by pulling it from its base and setting it on fire. The DOJ's complaint alleged that the man had been captured on video dousing the federally-owned Pike statue with a flammable liquid, igniting it as it lay on the ground and using the fire to light a cigarette. On , after the Mississippi Legislature obtained a two-thirds majority in both houses to suspend rules in order to pass a bill addressing the Confederate Battle Flag on the Mississippi state flag, Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill that relinquished the state flag, mandated its removal from public premises within 15 days, and established a commission to propose a new flag design that excluded the Confederate Battle Flag and included the motto "In God We Trust". The flag contained the infamous Confederate symbol in the canton (upper left corner) of the flag, and was the last U.S. state flag to do so. During a speech on July 3 at Mount Rushmore, U.S. president Donald Trump denounced the monument removals as part of a "left wing cultural revolution" to "overthrow the American revolution". On , the Washington Redskins announced that their name and logo would be retired upon completion of "a thorough review of the name" that was first announced on . A week-long tour began July 28 in which a hologram of Floyd was projected on a monument to be removed, thereby "replacing" the monument with Floyd. Richmond, Virginia was the first stop. In the response to the protests, Congress mandated the creation of a Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense that Commemorate the Confederate States of America or Any Person Who Served Voluntarily with the Confederate States of America in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. President Trump cited this provision in his veto of the NDAA, resulting in the only veto override of his presidency. Impact on police activity According to Lt. Bob Kroll, the head of the Minneapolis police union, officers began retiring "en masse" alongside morale being at an "all-time low". Around 170 Atlanta police officers walked off of the job in mid-June following unresolved grievances in the Rayshard Brooks case. The New York City Police Department reported a 411% increase in police retirement application in the first week of July. As a result, the department has limited new retirement applications to 40 a day. On July 11, at least 150 Minneapolis police officers reported nondescript injuries as well as symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, leading over half of them to leave their jobs with more likely to follow. The Minneapolis police have denied there being any serious injuries inflicted on officers. Changes to police policies In the wake of Floyd's killing, state and local governments evaluated their police department policies, and the response to protests, for themselves. For example, California Governor Gavin Newsom called for new police crowd control procedures for the state, and the banning of the police use of carotid chokeholds, which starve the brain of oxygen. The Minneapolis police department banned police from using chokeholds; Denver's police department also banned the use of chokeholds without exception, and also established new reporting requirements whenever a police officer holds a person at gunpoint. In June 2020, Democrats in Congress introduced the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020, a police reform and accountability bill that contains measures to combat police misconduct, excessive force, and racial bias in policing. The impetus for the bill were the killings of Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other African Americans at the hands of police. It passed the House of Representatives one month after Floyd's killing, 236 to 181, with support from Democrats and three Republicans. A Republican reform bill was blocked in the U.S. Senate by all but two Democrats; neither party negotiated the contents of the bill with the other. Speaker Nancy Pelosi summarized Democratic opposition to the Senate bill: "it's not a question that it didn't go far enough; it didn't go anywhere". On June 16, President Trump signed an executive order on police reform that incentivized departments to recruit from communities they patrol, encourage more limited use of deadly force, and prioritize using social workers and mental health professionals for nonviolent calls. The order also created a national database of police officers with a history of using excessive force. On September 10, Ted Wheeler, the mayor and police commissioner of Portland, Oregon, banned city police from using tear gas for riot control purposes, but reiterated that police would respond to violent protests forcefully. Portland had seen over one hundred consecutive days of protests since they began on May 28. Push to abolish police Nine members of the Minneapolis City Council — a veto-proof majority — pledged on June 7 to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department, despite opposition from Mayor Frey. U.S. representative Ilhan Omar stated, "the Minneapolis Police Department has proven themselves beyond reform. It's time to disband them and reimagine public safety in Minneapolis." Despite pledges by city council members to the end the Minneapolis Police Department, a proposed amendment to the Minneapolis city charter which was approved by the Minneapolis City Council on June 26 would only rename the police department and change its structure if approved by voters. In August, the review of another proposal to dismantle the department was delayed by 90 days, meaning it wouldn't be voted on in the November ballot because it passed the statutory deadline of August 21. The budget for the department was passed in December and the funding was reduced by $7.7 million. Impact on television and films In the media industry, the protests have spurred scrutiny for cop shows and led to the cancellation of popular television shows referred to by critics as copaganda. With long-standing criticism that it presented an unbalanced view of law enforcement in favor of police, encouraged police to engage in more dramatic behavior for the camera, and degraded suspects who had not yet been convicted of any crime, the Paramount Network canceled the 33rd season of the TV show Cops and pulled it from broadcast. The television network A&E canceled a similar show, Live PD, which was also found to have destroyed footage documenting the police killing of Javier Ambler in Austin, Texas, in 2019. The streaming service HBO Max temporarily pulled the film Gone with the Wind until video that explains and condemns the film's racist depictions could be produced to accompany it. In the United Kingdom, the BBC pulled the famed "The Germans" episode of Fawlty Towers from its UKTV streaming service, but later reinstated it after criticism from series star and co-writer John Cleese. He later criticized their use of the word "fury" to describe his comments. This was later removed by the BBC. The episode, which included racial slurs about the West Indies cricket team, now features a disclaimer at the beginning warning of "offensive content and language". The BBC also removed the Little Britain series and its spinoff Come Fly with Me from the iPlayer and BritBox services as well as Netflix for its use of blackface. The week of June 24, 2020, several animated series that had black, mixed or non-white characters voiced by white actors, including Big Mouth, Central Park, Family Guy and The Simpsons, announced those characters would be recast with people of color. That same week, episodes of 30 Rock, The Office, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community, The Golden Girls, and Peep Show that involved characters using blackface were either removed or edited from syndication and streaming services. In light of the protests, Brooklyn Nine-Nine co-star Terry Crews said that the first four episodes of the show's eighth season had to be rewritten. Impact on brand marketing In reaction to the higher sensitivity by customers for racial issues in the aftermath of Floyd's murder, multiple companies decided to rebrand some products. The brands Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben's, and Fair & Lovely made adaptations to eliminate racial stereotypes. In sports, the NFL football team in Washington, D.C. dropped the "Redskins" nickname and the MLB baseball team in Cleveland said it would discontinue the "Indians" nickname after the 2021 season and adopt the "Guardians" nickname. In June 2020, Disney announced that their theme park attraction Splash Mountain, which had been themed to the 1946 film Song of the South, controversial for its depiction of African-Americans, would be re-themed based on the 2009 film The Princess and the Frog, which had Disney's first depiction of a black princess. Public art Artistic impressions of George Floyd's likeness became an icon of the protest movement that unfolded following his murder. Paintings of Floyd appeared on exterior walls in many cities in the United States and around the world. A mapping project of protest art after Floyd's death had by May 19, 2021, documented 2,100 entries of George Floyd-related and anti-racism art around the world, though much of it was from the Minneapolis and Saint Paul area. Many works appeared on plywood that covered up boarded-up windows and doors as result of unrest. COVID-19 pandemic The protests occurred during the global COVID-19 pandemic, leading officials and experts to express concerns that the demonstrations could lead to further spread of SARS-CoV-2. The demonstrations thus sparked debate among commentators, political leaders, and health experts over coronavirus restrictions on gatherings. In June 2020 the CDC released the "Considerations for Events and Gatherings" which assesses large gatherings where it is difficult for people to stay at least six feet apart, and where attendees travel from outside the local area as "highest risk". Public health experts and mayors urged demonstrators to wear face coverings, follow physical separation (social distancing) practices, engage in proper hand hygiene, and seek out COVID-19 testing. Subsequent studies and public health reports showed that the protests in 2020 did not drive an increase in COVID-19 transmission. Epidemiologists and other researchers attributed this to the location of the demonstrations outdoors (where the virus is less likely to spread as compared to indoors); because many protesters wore masks; and because persons who demonstrated made up a small portion of the overall U.S. population (about 6% of adults). Outdoor events were analyzed to have a substantially lower risk of spreading the virus than indoor ones, and transient contact was considered less risky than extended close contact. Some protesters that were arrested were detained in crowded, indoor environments and did not have protective masks, which prompted concern over potential jail-spread of SARS-CoV-2. Some law enforcement personnel in New York City who responded to protests were criticized for failing to wear face masks. An outbreak was detected among Houston, Texas, police department officers, but it was not clear if the officer's were exposed on or off of their police duty. While many U.S. states experienced growth in new cases during the initial wave of protests, these upticks are thought to be attributed to reopenings of workplaces, bars, restaurants, and other businesses. Gallery See also 2020–21 United States election protests 1965 Watts riots – A black motorist resisting arrest ignited days of widespread violence in a formerly segregated Los Angeles neighborhood. Long, hot summer of 1967 – Protests and riots in which the statement "When the looting starts, the shooting starts" was first coined by Miami police chief Walter E. Headley. 1968 Democratic National Convention protests – Protests against the Vietnam War that were later described as a "police riot". 1980 Miami riots – Protests after an unarmed black salesman was beaten to death by police officers in 1979 and the officers involved were acquitted in May 1980. 1992 Los Angeles riots – Protests after police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, a black man, were acquitted by the court in April 1992. 2014 Ferguson unrest – The large-scale unrest after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by police. 2015 Baltimore protests – Protests following the arrest and subsequent death of Freddie Gray. 2020 Kenosha protests – Protests after the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin 2021 Daunte Wright protests – Protests after the killing of Daunte Wright Class conflict List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States Mass racial violence in the United States References Further reading Arrangement is chronological. External links George Floyd protest tag, U.S. Press Freedom Tracker Demonstrations & Political Violence In America: New Data For Summer 2020 // Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project Running list of hoaxes and misleading posts, BuzzFeed News 2020 controversies in the United States 2020 protests 2020 riots Floyd African-American riots in the United States African-American-related controversies Arson in the 2020s Articles containing video clips Attacks on buildings and structures in 2020 Attacks on buildings and structures in the United States June 2020 events in the United States Protests Left-wing politics in the United States May 2020 crimes in the United States May 2020 events in the United States Political violence in the United States Post–civil rights era in African-American history Protests against police brutality Race-related controversies in the United States Trump administration controversies

64158210

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Floyd%20protests%20in%20New%20York%20City

George Floyd protests in New York City

George Floyd protests in New York City took place at several sites in each of the five New York City boroughs, starting on May 28, 2020, in reaction to the murder of George Floyd. Most of the protests were peaceful, while some sites experienced protester and/or police violence, including several high-profile incidents of excessive force. Looting became a parallel issue, especially in Manhattan. As a result, and amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the city was placed under curfew from June 1-7, the first curfew in the city since 1943. The protests catalyzed efforts at police reform, leading to the criminalization of chokeholds during arrests, the repeal of 50-a, and other legislation. Several murals and memorials have been created around the city in George Floyd's honor, and demonstrations against racial violence and police brutality continue as part of the larger Black Lives Matter movement in New York City. Background On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an African-American man, was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A video of the incident depicting the officer kneeling on Floyd's neck for an extended period, attracted widespread outrage leading to local, national, and international protests and demonstrations. In New York City, reactions to the incident drew comparisons to Eric Garner, who died after being put in a chokehold by police in Staten Island in 2014, likewise sparking a national outcry and becoming a major event in the Black Lives Matter movement. Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, participated in several of the demonstrations after the murder of George Floyd. The New York Police Department has been the subject of frequent criticism for its treatment of black citizens, including use of racial profiling, its stop-and-frisk program, high-profile cases of police violence, and the use of mass arrests and other aggressive tactics against protesters. Timeline of protests May 28 On May 28, nearly 100 protesters assembled in Union Square and marched to City Hall, blocking traffic in Lower Manhattan. While mostly peaceful, there were conflicts between protesters and police, leading to dozens of arrests as protesters threw objects and an officer was punched in the face. May 29 Peaceful protests continued the next day, May 29, around Foley Square in Manhattan. Another group came together around the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building in Harlem. As the day went on, the protests became more violent. Groups moved to the Manhattan District Attorney's office and then over the Brooklyn Bridge. At Barclays Center, there were several clashes between protesters and law enforcement. In this and other protests, participants chanted or held signs bearing the names of other victims of police violence. In nearby Fort Greene Park, protesters were pepper sprayed and tackled by police. More than 500 protesters demonstrated around the 88th Precinct, and others were arrested attempting to break into the 79th Precinct in Bedford–Stuyvesant. Some protesters threw bricks, bottles, and other objects at the police. In the early hours of May 30, a young woman from the Hudson Valley region and a young man were arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail at an abandoned NYPD van. No police officers were hurt, however both faced several charges including four counts of attempted murder. On July 1, both were charged with seven federal charges and face long mandatory minimum sentences. Groups of police pushed and struck demonstrators with batons, and used pepper spray on others, including assemblywoman Diana Richardson and New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie. Videos posted online appeared to show demonstrators being beaten and punched by police officers. One video, depicting an officer in Brooklyn shoving a young woman who subsequently suffered a concussion. The incident led to an NYPD investigation and the officer was suspended without pay before being charged with misdemeanor assault, criminal mischief, harassment, and menacing. More than 200 people were arrested, mostly for minor charges. The New York Times described the day's events as "largely peaceful demonstrations [which] turned into jarring scenes of flaming debris, stampedes, and looted storefronts". There were also reports of protesters challenging people engaged in looting. May 30 Reverend Al Sharpton, Gwen Carr, and other activists held a vigil for George Floyd on Staten Island, near where Eric Garner had been killed in 2014. In Jackson Heights and Woodside in Queens, nearly 1,000 protesters marched from Diversity Plaza at Broadway and 37th Road to the New York City Police Department (NYPD) 115th Precinct station on Northern Boulevard. Around 5,000 people were estimated to have attended various protests around the city. A video circulated depicting an incident in Brooklyn where a police officer pulled a protester's mask off to pepper spray him. The officer was eventually suspended. There were no arrests among the large crowd around Barclays Center, but a few people were arrested from breaking windows nearby. At the end of the third day of unrest, a total of 345 arrests had been made, 33 police officers were injured, and 47 police vehicles have thus far been damaged or destroyed, with several set on fire. Although several videos showed instances of police violence against protesters, no statistics have were made available about the number of injured participants. May 31 Several gatherings and marches took place on May 31, including large groups which moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn and Brooklyn to Manhattan. Though mostly peaceful during the day, events in Manhattan took a turn for the violent at night. Hundreds gathered in Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan before marching in the street, remaining peaceful but blocking traffic. According to The New York Times, "As the crowd moved peacefully up Fifth Avenue, a small group of teenage protesters started knocking over trash cans, drawing rebukes from the rest of the demonstrators." The march went up to Central Park, then south to Foley Square and finally over the Brooklyn Bridge to Barclays Center. The successfully peaceful march drew praise from Police Commissioner Dermot Shea. In Foley Square, NYPD Lieutenant Robert Cattani knelt with a small number of other officers at the request of protesters. A few days later he apologized for doing so, saying that he knelt in the hope that it would make the protesters less likely to use violence, but that it was a "horrible decision" that ruined his reputation and "goes against every principle and value that I stand for". In Brooklyn, about 500 protesters gathered around a stage set up in Grand Army Plaza for a rally. That group and another 500 who had marched from Williamsburg convened to form a larger demonstration around Barclays Center, where people had been congregating throughout the day. Police presence was minimal until the evening, when large groups marched in different directions, one towards Prospect Park in the southeast and one towards Downtown Brooklyn in the northwest, where some protesters threw objects at police and stores and were arrested. The group tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge but were turned back; they likewise met resistance at the Manhattan Bridge, but were eventually permitted to cross. A gathering around Union Square that night was more violent. A number of fires were set and there were smashed windows and looting amid objections from other protesters. Looting was particularly extensive in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan. Gothamist described "shattered glass, bare mannequins, and flaming dumpsters [which] littered the streets of SoHo" the next morning, remarking on the "widespread looting" that "picked clean" several luxury fashion stores. Twelve police officers total were injured during the clashes, and 345 protesters were arrested, including Mayor Bill de Blasio's daughter. A police union frequently critical of de Blasio publicized her personal information—the only arrested protester whose information was released this way. June 1 On June 1, there were protests in Restoration Plaza in Bedford–Stuyvesant, as well as around Radio City Music Hall, and blocking traffic on FDR Drive. In Washington Square Park, Police Chief Terence Monahan took a knee with protesters and addressed the crowd to show solidarity. At nightfall, a peaceful candlelight vigil took place at Astoria Park in Queens. That evening, The New York Times reported that, during a White House Rose Garden speech, President Trump threatened to deploy U.S. military personnel to states in which governors did not gain control over protests against police brutality, during which "police used tear gas and flash grenades to clear out the crowd that had gathered across the street in Lafayette Square so Mr. Trump could walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church afterward and pose for photographs while holding a Bible outside the boarded-up church." Despite an 11:00 pm curfew implemented that day, and increased police presence aimed at curbing the looting from the night before, demonstrations and widespread looting continued past 11 pm in Manhattan and the Bronx. The New York Times highlighted the looting of Macy's Herald Square as a "symbolic blow", albeit with moderate damage. Gothamist reported on "groups of looters ... jumping into and out of smashed storefronts with duffel bags" before the curfew and an "atmosphere ... of disbelief, as teenagers found themselves able to fill their bags without opposition". Police were forceful in breaking up gatherings after the curfew, using batons and pepper spray, but there were still reports of looting late into the night, with SoHo "largely a free-for-all after 2 a.m." In the Bronx, there was looting and people set trash fires. More than 700 were arrested, both police and protesters suffered injuries, including two police hit by cars amid reports of violence and looting. June 2 During the daytime, protests were less violent than in days prior, and a stricter curfew went into effect requiring people to be indoors by 8:00 pm. Thousands of protesters marched all over the city during the day. There was a peaceful gathering at the National September 11 Memorial, and another event at Foley Square. In Astoria, Queens, about 300 protesters marched from Steinway Street and 30th Avenue to the NYPD 114th Precinct station on Astoria Boulevard South. In Times Square, more than a hundred doctors convened in a twist on a daily tradition which emerged in the city during the pandemic. Whereas typically citizens pause at 7:00 pm to publicly applaud medical personnel and other essential workers, on this day the doctors turned up to support black victims of police violence and call attention to systemic inequities through which the coronavirus has similarly disproportionately affected communities of color. After 8:00, police began making arrests both for violation of curfew and for suspicion of looting, but arrest numbers dropped significantly from the previous day to about 280. Some remained outside after the curfew, including a group trying to cross Manhattan Bridge leading to a standoff with a police that resolved without incident. There were broken windows and reports of looting around Union Square, Astor Place, and Greenwich Village, sometimes thwarted by other protesters. June 3 As U.S. protests gained momentum, on June 3, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted a recommendation for users to download end-to-end encryption (E2EE) messaging app Signal. A week later, The New York Times reported that protest organizers had, "for several years" relied on the app "to devise action plans and develop strategies for handling possible arrests", and that downloads had "skyrocketed" with increased awareness of police monitoring leading protesters to use the E2EE app to communicate among themselves. On the evening of June 3, more protesters remained out after curfew than had on the previous night, and police were quicker to take action. One group peacefully marching in Brooklyn was met by a line of police in riot gear in Cadman Plaza at about 8:45 pm. The demonstrators chanted and raised their arms for about 10 minutes while other police in riot gear surrounded them, using a technique called kettling, before moving in, striking protesters with batons, and making arrests. Another group marched from Gracie Mansion towards Central Park after curfew, leading to about 60 arrests there. Jumaane Williams, the New York City Public Advocate, expressed outrage at the actions police were taking against peaceful protesters. In Brooklyn, two NYPD officers were reportedly shot and one was stabbed in the neck while guarding against looting during a protest. Police Chief Monahan said that there would be "no more tolerance ... They have to be off the street, an 8 pm curfew. We gave them to 9 pm, and there was no indication that they were going to leave these streets. We're just not going to take it." June 4 On June 4, Terrence Floyd spoke at a memorial for his brother, George Floyd, at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn, which was attended by more than 10,000 people. Floyd addressed the crowd briefly, after being overcome by emotions and brought to tears. "My brother is gone, but the Floyd name lives on," he said. "I'm just thankful about the movement that's going on." He also added "I'm proud of the protest, but I'm not proud of the destruction..My brother wasn't about that", condemning the violence and looting that had occurred at some protests. Several other community leaders spoke at the memorial, including Brooklyn clergyman Kevin McCall, State Attorney General Letitia James, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, and Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose appearance marked the first time he spoke to protesters in person. Thousands of attendees marched across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan after the memorial, using the bridge's Manhattan-bound roadway and the raised pedestrian walkway. Cars in the Brooklyn-bound roadway honked their horns and raised their fists in solidarity with the protesters. In the afternoon, Assemblywoman Diana Richardson and New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie, along with the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus, held a press conference at 20 Grand Army Plaza where they introduced a package of police reform legislation. Attendees of the rally marched peacefully through Brooklyn after the event. Right before the 8:00 pm curfew, police officers kettled hundreds of peaceful protesters in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the South Bronx. People marching down 136th Street encountered armored bicycle police while another group of officers blocked off the other end of the street, pushing protesters into the police on bicycles. The demonstrators caught in the middle and unable to disperse were pepper sprayed, several were struck with batons, and some were tackled and arrested. In total, 263 people were arrested, including journalists and at least 11 legal observers of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). Legal observers were exempt from the curfew, and the local chapter of the NLG said the observers were targets of intentional harassment by police. Terence Monahan, who oversaw the event, as well as the NYPD, were criticized by both local media and neighborhood residents for their aggressive actions. Commissioner Shea said the intervention was "executed nearly flawlessly" and justified police actions by citing "outside agitators" that he said were planning to "burn things down ... injure cops ... [and] cause mayhem. Aggressive post-curfew policing also occurred later in the evening in Fort Greene and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where officers charged into a group of demonstrators, tackling protesters to the ground and making multiple arrests. In Clinton Hill, a march was met by police later in the evening, with people pushed to the ground, and hit with batons. As in other incidents, when protesters fled, they were met with another group of police. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and City Council Member Brad Lander, who were following the procession, intervened with police and participants were allowed to leave. A total of about 270 people were arrested across the city, including two delivery workers not engaged with the protests. Video of a man with a food delivery box on his back being arrested circulated on social media, leading to condemnation from the mayor who highlighted that the city considers food delivery an essential service. A total of 1,349 people were issued a summons for violating the curfew. June 5–6 More than 1,000 people demonstrated on June 5 at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Two days earlier, an inmate died after being pepper sprayed by guards. Another 500 rallied in Columbus Circle. Though the protests were mostly peaceful during the day, there were again some conflicts after curfew. Around 40 arrests were made around Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. The Times reported on groups of volunteers setting up "jail support" sites, providing medical supplies, hand sanitizer, shoelaces, food, and advice to people as they were released after being arrested. Peaceful protests continued on June 6, with the 8:00 pm – 5:00 am curfew still in effect. At the end of the day, there were only four arrests and 24 summonses issued. June 7 The citywide curfew ended on June 7, a day earlier than expected, after arrests had reduced significantly in the preceding days. According to the Times, marches that day "were largely jubilant, with the police taking a more passive role with protesters, and protesters in turn avoiding clashes with the police". Thousands marched around Columbus Circle. Unlike marches in preceding days, it was not followed by police, with officers in riot gear lined up at a distance. Another group started in Bryant Park, traveled to the West Village, and blocked part of the West Side Highway. Thousands who started in Union Square marched to Central Park, blocked traffic along the 79th Street transverse, and wound up at Gracie Mansion. In Brooklyn, there were events in Fort Greene, McCarren Park, Grand Army Plaza, Crown Heights, and Dumbo. The Black Surfing Association organized a "Paddle Out" in Rockaway Beach that drew hundreds of supporters Sunday morning that was closely monitored by police. June 8 Hundreds of city workers gathered at City Hall to criticize actions taken by the mayor and NYPD during the protests. The group marched east across the Brooklyn Bridge to Cadman Plaza in Downtown Brooklyn. More than a thousand people met in Washington Square Park in the West Village in the late afternoon for a rally before marching uptown without incident. There was a bicycle protest which started in Grand Army Plaza in the evening, traveled across the Williamsburg Bridge, crossed Manhattan, and went up the West Side Highway before heading back to Brooklyn across Manhattan Bridge. In Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, protesters convened outside the 88th Precinct to demonstrate against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE officers were seen there in days prior, raising concerns due to New York's sanctuary city status. A statement from the NYPD the following day clarified that ICE, as well as Homeland Security Investigations and Federal Bureau of Investigations were supporting the police department with personnel and resources while it was under strain during the protests. June 9 A rally was held at Brooklyn Borough Hall, hosted by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams in the evening. More than a thousand people then moved to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, were temporarily stopped by police, and then permitted to cross on the roadway itself. In the Bronx, people came to Pelham Bay Park for a vigil attended by the Akeem Browder, brother of Kalief Browder, who committed suicide after being imprisoned for three years awaiting trial for a petty crime for which he was never convicted. Later in the evening, the marchers that started in Brooklyn convened with a protest at City Hall attended by twenty family members of people killed by police, including Eric Garner's mother Gwen Carr, Ramarley Graham's mother Constance Malcolm, Kimani Gray's mother Carol Gray, Amadou Diallo's mother Kadiatou Diallo, Shantel Davis's sister Natasha Duncan, and Sean Bell's mother Valerie Bell. Mayor de Blasio announced plans to name streets in all of the five boroughs after figures in the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as to paint words associated with the protests on the streets similar to Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, DC. June 10–11 A crowd convened at Washington Square Park on June 10 before moving north to Bryant Park, kneeling and blocking 5th Avenue and ending at New York Public Library. More than a thousand protesters on bicycles gathered again in Grand Army Plaza for a bike run, riding around Brooklyn and Manhattan. On June 11, a long march began in Harlem and traveled south to Wall Street. According to Gothamist, protesters brought red paint "to drip and paint on the streets to 'symbolize the blood militant forces such as the police cause Black people to shed. There was only one arrest, involving a man who painted "Black Lives Matter" on a sign, but no action was taken against protesters dripping their red paint. The mayor renewed calls for Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn to change the name of a street named after Confederate general Robert E. Lee. He had done so before, in 2017, but the Army declined the request at that point. The governor also addressed calls to take down the statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus Circle in Manhattan. Cuomo said he did not support removing it because while he agrees with objections to Columbus's actions, "the statue has come to represent and signify appreciation for the Italian-American contribution to New York". June 12–14 On June 12, there was a rally and concert at Barclays Center titled "WE ARE: A REVIVAL". It was led by musician Jon Batiste, who set up a piano and played music while wearing gloves and a mask and encouraged people to register to vote. Demonstrators also reconvened in the South Bronx where, on June 4, police kettled and arrested hundreds of peaceful protesters. The group demanded the resignation of the officers involved while they were followed by another group of police. There was also another bike run beginning again in Grand Army Plaza, riding from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back. Thousands gathered for a "Black Trans Lives Matter" march on June 14 in front of the Brooklyn Museum, with organizers estimating 15,000 people taking part. June 23–30 Occupy City Hall On June 23, activists set up a protest encampment in Lower Manhattan's City Hall Park demanding $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD and vowing to stay until June 30, when the City Council and de Blasio are set to finalize the budget. The gathering began with about a hundred protesters, planned by the grassroots organization Vocal-NY, but soon spread to occupy most of the park. According to The New York Times, the event took inspiration from Occupy Wall Street which took place in Lower Manhattan in 2011. The Times reported on how "organizers, largely black and queer, have transformed the plaza. Hand-drawn art covers any semblance of government infrastructure". The group maintained a community library, garden, welcome desk, and tea house, and implemented systems for the collection and distribution of food and supplies, public safety, and wireless internet. The site became a meeting point for various marches, which have crisscrossed large parts of the city since the protests began. After the budget deadline passed, some remained in the park, but reports of vandalism and homelessness grew and police forcibly cleared the area a month after it began, on July 22. Raymond Spinella, the police department's chief of support services, at a news conference said the plaza would be closed for several weeks for extensive clean up. This came days after President Trump deployed federal forces in Portland, Oregon and other American cities as part of Operation Legend to protect federal property and subdue occasional violence. Vandalism of statues On June 24, someone spray painted "slave owner" on a statue of George Washington in Union Square, Manhattan, one of many incidents of statues and other monuments vandalized or taken down in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. On June 29, two people were caught on camera vandalizing statues of George Washington on the Washington Square Arch by throwing balloons filled with red paint at them. President Donald Trump noted the incident, calling for "Anarchists" to be prosecuted under a new executive order aimed at stopping efforts to remove monuments of slave-owners and racists. 2021 Several events were held a year after the initial protests. At a National Action Network event in Harlem on the anniversary of Floyd's murder, Al Sharpton, Mayor de Blasio, and others took a knee for nine minutes, twenty-two seconds. Participants reflected on the past year's protests and advocated for legislation like the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Thousands of people gathered for other events around the city, including a large rally at Barclays Center followed by a march around Brooklyn. Murals and memorials Several memorials were created during and after the protests. On June 14, 2020, a Black Lives Matter mural was completed along Fulton Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Volunteers painted the words "Black Lives Matter" in large yellow letters, accompanied by the names of people killed by racial violence like George Floyd. Another Black Lives Matter mural was painted by city officials on July 9, 2020, on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, directly in front of Trump Tower. Then-president Trump expressed his opposition to the mural after it was announced. In the weeks after it was painted, the mural was repeatedly vandalized and repainted. A George Floyd Tribute Wall was also erected on July 9 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. In the following days, community members dropped off letters, posters, flowers, sculptures, paintings, and candles at the wall, some of which were archived into the Schomburg's collection. A statue of George Floyd was unveiled on Juneteenth in 2021 in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. The bust is planned to be in Brooklyn temporarily before moving to Union Square in Manhattan. Days later, the statue was vandalized, painting it black and tagging it with a Patriot Front stencil, the name of a far-right white supremacist group. Damages Between May 29 and June 9, 2020, an estimated 450 businesses in New York City were looted or damaged during the civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Property damage and looting took place in the neighborhoods of SoHo, NoHo, East Village, Greenwich Village, and Union Square in Manhattan, as well as in parts of Midtown Manhattan and the Bronx. The costs from the property damage and looting were estimated to be in the "tens of millions". Incidents of excessive force There were several controversial interactions between police and protesters, including examples of alleged excessive force. Governor Andrew Cuomo and de Blasio announced investigations into several reported instances of police violence, but police actions have drawn criticism from several stakeholders and reporters. The Black, Latino and Asian Caucus of the New York City Council released a statement 30 which said the NYPD "[acted] with aggression towards New Yorkers who vigorously and vociferously but nonetheless peacefully advocated for justice". On May 30, de Blasio condemned the violence of the night before by both police and protesters. Cuomo spoke with de Blasio and announced an independent review by Attorney General Letitia James of actions taken during the protests that occurred on May 29. The following day, the mayor announced another investigation of police actions to be carried out by Corporation Counsel Jim Johnson and Department of Investigation Commissioner Margaret Garnett. Cuomo and de Blasio, along with other public officials have largely condemned looting and violence which has taken place while supporting the right to peacefully protest. As of June 9, prosecutors are considering charges against up to 40 officers related to their actions during the protests. As of June 12, police department officials have declined to specify how many complaints it has received about police actions during the protests. Woman shoved to the ground (May 29, 2020) On May 29, an NYPD officer violently shoved a 20-year-old woman to the ground at a protest near Barclays Center in Brooklyn. A reporter for Newsweek recorded a mobile phone video of the act, sharing it online. It depicts the officer calling the woman a "bitch" after she asked about his order to get out of the street. The woman said that she suffered a concussion and seizures. The officer was later suspended without pay. Eleven days later, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office charged him with misdemeanor assault, criminal mischief, harassment and menacing, the first officer to be charged for actions taken during the protests. The charges were met with criticism by police union leader Patrick Lynch, who argued the officer's "boss sent him out there, to do a job, was put in a bad situation during a chaotic time". NYPD vehicle running into crowd (May 30, 2020) A video of a crowd of protesters clashing with the NYPD attracted attention on May 30, showing police vehicles accelerating into a crowd of people. In response to the video, de Blasio said: "I wish the officers had found a different approach, but let's begin at the beginning. The protesters in that video did the wrong thing to surround that police car, period." After drawing criticism, with multiple publications highlighting that he ran for mayor on a platform of police reform, he walked back those comments on June 1 to say "There is no situation where a police vehicle should drive into a crowd of protesters or New Yorkers." The Guardian wrote that the video, viewed more than 30 million times as of June 4, "quickly shredded years of effort to repair the deeply tarnished image of the NYPD". Protester pepper sprayed after mask pulled off (May 30, 2020) On May 30, a video of an incident at a Brooklyn protest circulated on social media depicting a black protester, wearing a mask, with his hands up approached by a police officer who pulls the protester's mask off in order to pepper spray his face. After an investigation, the officer involved was suspended without pay and referred to an internal disciplinary process. Kettling and aggressive post-curfew policing (June 1–7, 2020) After the curfew was implemented, conflicts between protesters and police largely took place after 8:00 pm. According to Chief Monahan, police showed a little bit of leniency at first, but said publicly there would be "no more tolerance" for people protesting after curfew. On the evening of June 3, marchers in Brooklyn ran into a line of police in Cadman Plaza in Downtown Brooklyn. While the crowd chanted and demonstrated, other police filled in behind them, hemming the group in using a method known as kettling, before aggressively moving in and arresting people. On June 4, just before the 8:00 pm curfew, peaceful protesters were kettled in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx, with police on one end of 136th street pushing protesters into a group of armored police on bicycles at the other end of the street. Police used pepper spray and batons to arrest 263 people. The police chief and the NYPD received criticism from the media and people in the neighborhood for taking an aggressive approach. Asked for comment, Shea said that it was "executed nearly flawlessly", considering the involvement of "outside agitators". The Deputy Inspector of the nearby 40th Precinct cited social media posts that predicted violence, and violence at previous events held by the same organizers. Human Rights Watch published a lengthy report about the Mott Haven incident, finding evidence that the NYPD violated protesters' Constitutional and human rights. Aggressive post-curfew policing also occurred in Fort Greene, Williamsburg, and Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. In the latter, as in other incidents, when protesters fled, they were met with another group of police hemming them in. The Clinton Hill protesters were permitted to disperse after an intervention by local politicians. Among those arrested on June 4 were journalists, delivery workers not involved with the protests, and legal observers who claimed they were targeted by police for harassment. In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, police responded to a noise complaint at a barbecue outside a residential building. Police told people to go inside because of the curfew, leading to a conflict during which police pushed residents into their building. The curfew did not apply to people gathering on their own private property. Several police pushed their way into the foyer the lobby, leading to altercations with residents, injuries, and arrests. As of June 9, the incident is under internal review. 1,349 summons were issued for breaking curfew, and although typically would just call for a ticket, those who received these summons were also detained and taken to holding cells. Lawsuits Several of the protesters hurt or otherwise affected by NYPD tactics during the protests filed lawsuits against the department, individual officers, the city, and/or de Blasio. Six of the cases, including a suit filed by Attorney General Letitia James, were consolidated by Judge Colleen McMahon in June 2021 and put on a faster schedule, slated to begin in early 2022. In the process, she decided that while the city could be sued, plaintiffs could not sue Commissioner Shea or Mayor de Blasio in their official capacity. A suit against retired Chief Monahan was allowed to move forward, based on his order to kettle protesters in the June 4 incident in the Bronx. City lawyers were threatened with sanctions for long delays providing requested information during the discovery phase of the trial, using techniques which The Intercept reported as part of a long-term pattern of failing to provide paperwork in cases related to the NYPD. The defense argued the cases should be dismissed on the basis of the legislation and other reforms which have been enacted since the protests. Judge McMahon ruled against the defense's motion in July 2021. Government response As of June 7, a total of 1,126 arrests were made during the protests for a variety of charges, all but 39 of which were non-violent. Most of the arrests were made before a curfew was implemented. After the curfew, 1,349 people were detained and given summonses for violating it. Curfew On June 1, de Blasio announced he was considering imposing a curfew. Following a meeting with Governor Cuomo, the two declared a curfew for New York City starting at 11 pm that night, lasting until 5:00 am Tuesday morning. It was the first city-wide curfew imposed in New York since the Harlem riot of 1943, which also followed a white police officer shooting an African American. There was still some looting and vandalism the first night of the curfew, but most of the conflicts were between police and protesters out after curfew. According to the New Yorker's Emily Witt, "the Mayor appeared to have given the carte blanche to arrest whomever it wanted after nightfall, and process them through a crowded Central Booking, which raised some questions: Whose health? And whose safety? And whose city, exactly, was protected by the order?" The following day, on June 2, the governor criticized handling of demonstrations the night before: "The NYPD and the mayor did not do their job last night" calling the video evidence of the looting "a disgrace". Cuomo offered to send in the National Guard, but de Blasio opposed the idea. The mayor signed a Declaration of Emergency, Executive Order No. 119, imposing an even earlier curfew of 8:00 pm, in effect from June 3 through June 8. The order exempts from the curfew "police officers, peace officers, firefighters, first responders and emergency medical technicians, individuals traveling to and from essential work and performing essential work, people experiencing homelessness and without access to a viable shelter, and individuals seeking medical treatment or medical supplies". The curfew also stopped Citi Bike rentals, ride shares, scooters, and restricted car traffic in Manhattan below 96th Street. The New York Times criticized the NYPD's use of kettling as a policing tactic against peaceful protesters after curfew, as in Cadman Plaza on June 3 and in the South Bronx on June 4. The Times''' Ali Watkins called it "among the most unsettling symbols of its use of force against peaceful protests". De Blasio defended the approach as necessary to address the persistent looting problem. The curfew ended on Sunday, June 7, a day earlier than expected. Response by district attorneys In New York City, each of the five boroughs has its own district attorney. On June 5, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr., announced that his office would be declining to prosecute those arrested for unlawful assembly or disorderly conduct. According to existing policy, the cases would remain on the books for six months and acted upon only if the defendant committed an additional crime. In a statement, he said, "The prosecution of protesters charged with these low-level offenses undermines critical bonds between law enforcement and the communities we serve." Brooklyn district attorney Eric Gonzalez similarly announced his intention to decline prosecuting unlawful assembly, and added violating curfew to the lesser charges his office would pass on. Police Benevolent Association president Patrick J. lynch called Gonzalez's decision a "dereliction of duty". In the Bronx, district attorney Darcel D. Clark is issuing a summons instead of prosecuting for unlawful assembly or violating curfew. Claims about outside agitators According to Deputy Commissioner John Miller, in the early days of the protests, unidentified bad actors had planned to take advantage of the protests to commit violence, with an organized systems of communication, funding for bail, medical provisions, bicycle scouts, and a supply of destructive materials like rocks and gasoline. As of May 31, one of every seven arrested was from outside of New York. After the South Bronx kettling incident on June 4, Commissioner Shea said that the demonstration was led by "outside agitators" who coordinated bringing guns and gasoline to use in the demonstration, "advertising that they were going to burn things down, that they were going to injure cops, that they were going to cause mayhem". Gothamist reported on the lack of evidence for claims of outside agitators. The NYPD had mentioned a gun and gasoline, but the gun was taken from a gang member hours earlier away and there was no evidence of gasoline. The South Bronx protests were organized by Shannon Jones of Bronxites for NYPD Accountability and Shellyne Rodriguez of Take Back the Bronx, both of whom were arrested.The Guardian criticized comments by the Police Benevolent Association, which described its members as being "under attack by violent, organized terrorists", as well as Sergeants Benevolent Association president Ed Mullins, who told his members "to report for duty with your helmet and baton and do not hesitate to utilize that equipment in securing your personal safety". Legislation and policy proposals Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act On June 3, Terrence Floyd, George Floyd's brother, spoke with Commissioner Shea by phone. Floyd urged Shea to adopt changes in NYPD practices, including supporting a ban on chokeholds and other techniques that involve neck restraint. The NYPD has been criticized for its use of chokeholds in the past, including in the fallout over the death of Eric Garner in 2014. Though disallowed by police policy, an investigation found several cases and little to no consequences for the officers involved. New York City Councilman Rory Lancman first proposed a bill which would criminalize chokeholds in 2014, but it was met with strong criticism from New York's powerful police unions and de Blasio threatened to veto it. In the wake of Floyd's murder, de Blasio expressed support as long as there were an exception for life-threatening circumstances. On June 6, employees of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice issued a statement calling on the mayor to adopt certain strategies for police reform. Among them is support for legislation which would criminalize chokeholds. According to the Times, the bill "is believed to have a veto-proof majority in the [City] Council". The New York City Council moved on June 8 to pass the legislation, with a scope went beyond its original ban, covering not just chokeholds but any action which "restricts the flow of air or blood by compressing the windpipe, diaphragm, or the carotid arteries" while making an arrest. The New York State Legislature also passed a bill, named in honor of Eric Garner as the "Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act". The city law is a misdemeanor charge, whereas the state law is a Class C felony. Repeal of 50-a In the 1970s, New York state lawmakers enacted section 50-a of the New York Civil Rights Law, which requires permission by an officer or a judge in order to release any "personnel records used to evaluate performance" of that officer. In the past, the NYPD has worked to broaden the scope of the law to ensure disciplinary hearings could not be made public. Like the chokehold ban, there were significant efforts to repeal the law after the death of Eric Garner. The officer responsible, Daniel Pantaleo, had many misconduct complaints that were kept from the public because of 50-a, until finally being leaked. New York State Assemblyman Daniel J. O'Donnell put forward a bill to repeal it, but it was not successful. Since then, organizations like the Legal Aid Society and Communities United for Police Reform have continued efforts to repeal, thus far unsuccessful. According to The New York Times Gina Bellafante, it "was originally intended to shield good cops from vigilantes. But in practice it has protected habitually delinquent police officers for decades." 50-a was the subject of criticism again following the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin, a police officer who had eighteen misconduct complaints on his official record. Minnesota, unlike New York, does not have a law like 50-a. The repeal was met by significant opposition by police unions, which expressed concern about unsubstantiated complaints being released. Governor Cuomo expressed support for the repeal, noting that he knew that support would be met with harsh criticism from unions, while de Blasio supported reform rather than repeal. On June 9, the State Senate and Assembly passed a bill repealing 50-a. It passed the senate on a vote of 48–22 during a special session after the official legislative session ended the month before. Patrick Lynch of the Police Benevolent Association objected to being left out of the discussion over the repeal. Governor Cuomo signed the bill into law on June 12 at a ceremony including Valerie Bell and Gwen Carr (mothers of Sean Bell and Eric Garner, respectively), NAACP President Hazel Dukes, Al Sharpton, and leaders from the state Senate and Assembly. Defunding the NYPD On June 3, hundreds of former and current de Blasio administration staffers signed a statement regarding the police response to the protests. It made several demands including defunding the NYPD, decreasing its budget from $6 billion to $5 billion. Three days later, staffers on the administration's Office of Criminal Justice issued another statement which likewise called for specific reforms, again including defunding the NYPD. Defunding the police is also one of the demands made by protesters, moving part of the NYPD's budget to support communities in other ways. On June 7, de Blasio announced that "we are committed to shifting resources to ensure that the focus is on our young people" and "doing that ... in a way that we are certain continues to ensure that this city will be safe". The NYPD's annual budget is $6 billion, out of a total city budget of $90 billion. De Blasio did not specify how much funding would be diverted, and expressed intent to work with the City Council to come up with a plan before the July 1 budget deadline. On June 12, the City Council announced that it would be working to cut $1 billion from the budget for 2021. The Police Benevolent Association responded by saying "For decades, every time a city agency failed at its task, the city's answer was to take the job away and give it to the NYPD. if the City Council wants to give responsibilities back to those failing agencies, that's their choice. But they will bear the blame ... They won't be able to throw cops under the bus anymore." As the budget deadline approached, protesters convened in City Hall Park to "Occupy City Hall", filling the park day and night to call for reducing the NYPD budget. On June 30, the City Council passed a budget which removes $1 billion from the NYPD. It cancels plans to hire 1,160 new police and transfers responsibility to monitor vending, homeless populations, and schools to other entities. According to The New York Times, the details of the budget "seemed to please no one". Those seeking reforms to policing did not think it went far enough, while others pointed to increasing crime rates in the city at the time. The budget does not halt a different wave of police hiring planned for October, while it does continue a freeze on many other city employees like teachers. Jumaane Williams cited an obscure law requiring the Public Advocate to authorize collection of real estate taxes, and threatened not to do so if the next class of officers was not also canceled. Other policing changes On June 7, de Blasio announced that the enforcement of street vendor laws and regulations would no longer be carried out by the NYPD. Vendors have several times raised concerns about the way the city polices them, including an incident when police arrested a woman selling churros on the subway, which received media attention. On June 8, the state legislature passed a prohibition on race-based profiling and mandated tracking of race and ethnicity data in arrests. Lawmakers are expected to vote in mid-June about mandatory use of body cameras by police. Reports There have been three government reviews into the response to demonstrations. The first was released on July by state attorney general Letitia James; the second was internal to the NYPD and was not made public, and the third by the New York City Department of Investigation (DOI). Attorney General's report On May 30, Governor Andrew Cuomo requested that Letitia James and the New York State Office of the Attorney General (OAG) look into the NYPD's response to the George Floyd protests, following news of violence between police and demonstrators. The report, released in July, detailed incidents of violence and excessive force. Among its recommendations were ceasing the use of aggressive crowd control tactics like kettling, legislating rules about use of force otherwise coded only in the department's policies, and moving the responsibility for appointing police commissioners and overseeing hiring and firing of officers from the mayor's office to an independent panel. A spokesperson for de Blasio rejected the latter idea. Department of Investigation report The New York City Department of Investigation (DOI), an independent watchdog for city government, conducted a six-month probe into the actions of the NYPD during the George Floyd protests. It focused more on planning and response at an institutional level than specific incidents involving individual officers. The 111-page report, released in December 2020, was broadly critical of the department's handling of the events, saying that it "lacked a clearly defined strategy tailored to respond to the large-scale protests of police and policing" and "made a number of key errors or omissions that likely escalated tensions, and certainly contributed to both the perception and the reality that the department was suppressing rather than facilitating First Amendment assembly and expression". It found that too few officers were deployed at the early stages of the protests, and that officers were required to work long hours in unfamiliar neighborhoods under unfamiliar supervisors, often without adequate training for such events. Commanders relied on crowd control tactics that were too harsh, like kettling, mass arrests, long detentions, and use of pepper spray and batons. With these, the report said, the department "often failed to discriminate between lawful, peaceful protesters and unlawful actors and contributed to the perception that officers were exercising force in some cases beyond what was necessary". It pointed to the kettling incident on June 4 in the Bronx as a case study of excessive force based on insufficient information. The report highlighted that the department did not acknowledge that police brutality and racism was driving the protests or factor that into its strategy. The report considered the curfew an exacerbating factor in the clashes between protesters and police, with officers receiving conflicting information from the mayor's office as to how it should be enforced. DOI commissioner Margaret Garnett said at a news conference that "the response really was a failure on many levels". The report made several recommendations for the future, such as First Amendment rights training or policies and creating a special unit which would lead protest planning and response instead of the department's rapid-response unit, which is trained for dealing with terrorism and emergencies. When engaging with protesters, the DOI suggested improving communication, repeating dispersal orders more, and staging riot gear-clad officers out of public view. Commissioner Dermot Shea said he planned to incorporate all of the recommendations into department policy. Mayor de Blasio expressed agreement with the findings, adding that most officers nonetheless had done their jobs appropriately, and expressing "remorse" for his own role in how it was handled. Public health concerns At the time the protests began, New York City was still experiencing high levels of transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Public officials expressed concern about the spread of COVID-19 via the crowded events. Protests can make social distancing difficult, and some common elements of such demonstrations, like chanting and yelling, can increase risk of transmission. In addition to risks taken by protesters, several outlets criticized police working the events for failing to wear face masks as required by policy and by order of the governor. The New York Times'' described a "confounding scene [that] has played out again and again" whereby "the protesters ... are mostly wearing masks [but] many of the police are not". As the number of arrests increased, many people were detained for long periods, sometimes held in close quarters where social distancing is impossible. Some of the arrested also had inadequate access to water to wash their hands. In some cases, policing has involved use of tear gas, which can lead to respiratory illness on its own, and can also increase risk by causing coughing. Street medics have been present at the protests, providing first aid for injured or sick participants, some of which came equipped with hand sanitizer or personal protective equipment. The city started its phased reopening on June 8, but the gatherings led to fears about another wave of illness. References External links 2020 in New York City Articles containing video clips New York, New York Riots and civil disorder in New York City

64170885

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helene%20Aldwinckle

Helene Aldwinckle

Helene Aldwinckle (née Helene Lovie Taylor) (26 October 192024 April 2020), was a Bletchley Park codebreaker during the Second World War. Early life and family Helene Lovie Taylor was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1920, to Alexander and Helen Taylor (née Trail). Her father was a salesman. She grew up in Footdee, and attended Ashley Road Primary School then Aberdeen Academy, and eventually won a scholarship to study French and English at the University of Aberdeen. Taylor married John Aldwinckle, an RAF flight lieutenant, in February 1945. They had four children: Richard, Linda, Pamela, and Lady Diana Browne. John Aldwinckle died in 2012. Career Helene joined Bletchley Park after completing a three year degree at Aberdeen University. She was recommended by Aberdeen University Principal William Hamilton Fyfe to the Foreign Office, in part because of her extraordinary memory and interest in languages. After two rounds of interviews with the Foreign Office in London and Aberdeen, Helene was selected by senior codebreaker Stuart Milner-Barry to become a permanent Foreign Office Civil Servant and was sent to live at Bletchley Park in the summer of 1942. During the first round of interviews, Aldwinckle was not aware of what she was being interviewed for, believing it to be a general civil service role. Helene was initially based in Registration Room 1 (RR1), where she worked on encrypted signals. She became responsible for leading a training programme for American service personnel in 1943. When the programme was complete, Helene went to work in Quiet Room (QR) in Hut 6, the section of Bletchley Park tasked with deciphering Enigma codes. There she brought the knowledge and skills she developed training American personnel to longer term and more complicated encryption problems, including identifying Enigma radio networks and radio signals. After the Second World War ended, Helene stayed for a short time at Bletchley Park to help write the history of the work of Hut 6 but she had to leave the Foreign Office in 1945 due to a policy that said women could not stay employed after marriage. Aldwinckle lived in Cologne and Berlin, accompanying her husband John in his role at MI6, moving initially in the 1950s. She worked for both the British Forces Network and as a cultural events reporter. She continued her interest in amateur dramatics (having been involved in her youth in Aberdeen) joining the Berlin Amateur Dramatic Society. She accompanied John on subsequent postings to France, Germany and Britain, and they also lived in Rome, Brussels, and Mons. Aldwinckle had a varied career post-Bletchley, becoming a translator for Thames and Hudson in 1967; and a gallerist at the Medici Gallery at the age of 54. She later worked at the Oxford Gallery, and in 1979 became the manager of the Medici. Honours Aldwinckle was awarded the Legion d’Honneur in 2019. Theresa May thanked her, in May's final Prime Minister's Questions. References 1920 births 2020 deaths People educated at Hazlehead Academy Alumni of the University of Aberdeen Recipients of the Legion of Honour Bletchley Park women Women cryptographers People from Aberdeen

64278388

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%20Bidzos

James Bidzos

Jim Bidzos is the Founder of Verisign, Inc. He currently serves as the company's President and CEO. He assumed this position on August 1, 2011 after the resignation of Mark McLaughlin on July 27. Bidzos has been serving the company as Chairman of the Board of Directors since 2007. Since August 2009, he has also been serving as executive chairman. Career On February 1, 1986, Bidzos joined RSA Data Security Inc., an Internet identity and access management solutions provider. According to Bidzos, the company was a complete failure: it had no products, no customers, and no revenue. He led the company in developing the RSA encryption toolkit by partnering with Iris Associates, a small company in Massachusetts that was writing a program called Lotus Notes for Corporation. The partnership with Iris Associates saved RSA Data Security. Bidzos was able to demonstrate the power of public-key encryption and how it worked with personal computers quickly and effectively. He was able to close contracts to provide RSA encryption to companies such as Motorola and Novell. By 1993, approximately 100 companies were using the RSA tool kit. In 1994, he led the company in developing cryptographic toolkits, as well as other security products over the years. Bidzos worked as President and CEO of RSA Data Security from 1986 to 1999, after which he served as Vice-Chairman until 2002. In 1989, Bidzos co-founded the RSA Laboratories, a research organization. He also created the RSA Conference in 1991 and served as its Chairman until 2004. In 1995, Mr. Bidzos established Verisign. He was the first President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board, serving in this capacity until 2001, after which he became Vice-Chairman until 2007. In 2008, the Board of Directors appointed him as Interim CEO and Chairman after the resignation of William Roper. During this period, Bidzos also served as Director of Verisign Japan K.K, which lasted until August 2010. Awards CRN Industry Hall of Fame - November 13, 2000 Time Magazine's "Digital 50" RSA Conference Lifetime Achievement (Information Security) - 2004 References In compliance with the Creative Commons License, this, the initial version of this article, is copied from ICANNWiki. American chief executives American company founders Year of birth missing (living people) Living people

64283032

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Egyptian%20inventions%20and%20discoveries

List of Egyptian inventions and discoveries

Egyptian inventions and discoveries are objects, processes or techniques which owe their existence or first known written account either partially or entirely to an Egyptian person. Prehistoric Egypt Early planting appeared in Egypt as early as Qadan culture (13,000 B.C. – 10,000 B.C.). Sickles – Around 11,000 B.C. The people of the Qadan Culture in Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia invented the world's oldest sickle blades. Lunar calendar – The stone circle at Nabta Playa dating to 5,000 BC. is considered the oldest known lunar calendar. Ancient Egypt Government and Economy Strike action – The first historically certain account of strike action was towards the end of the 20th Dynasty, under Pharaoh Ramses III in ancient Egypt on 14 November in 1152 BC. The artisans of the Royal Necropolis at Deir el-Medina walked off their jobs because they had not been paid. Community banking models – Community banking is a non-traditional form of money-lending. Unlike banks or other classic lending institutions, the funds that community banks lend to borrowers are gathered by the local community itself. This tends to mean that the individuals in a neighborhood or group have more control over who is receiving the capital and how that capital is being spent. This practice has existed in some form for centuries; in ancient Egypt, for example, when grain was often used as currency, local granaries would store and distribute the community's food supply. Since that time, a variety of community banking models have evolved. Police – In ancient Egypt evidence of law enforcement exists as far back as the Old Kingdom period. There are records of an office known as "Judge Commandant of the Police" dating to the Fourth Dynasty. Postal system - The first documented use of a postal system—state-sponsored, designated courier service for the dissemination of written documents is in Egypt, where Pharaohs used couriers to send out decrees throughout the territory of the state (2400 BCE). Law - Ancient Egyptian law, dating as far back as 3000 BC, was based on the concept of Ma'at and characterised by tradition, rhetorical speech, social equality and impartiality. Warfare Standing Army – Continuous warfare led to the establishment of a Standing Army dating back to at least the Middle Kingdom. Military organization - As early as the Old Kingdom (c.2686–2160 BC) Egypt used specific military units, with military hierarchy appearing in the Middle Kingdom (c.2055–1650 BC). Military scribe and battle recording – The first well documented battle in the history of the world is the Battle of Megiddo. Fortification – The world's first known fort is the fort of Tell El Sakan dating to the late predynastic period. Catapult – A Catapult dating to the 19th century b.c. was found on the walls of the fortress of Buhen. Draw bridge – The fortress of Buhen contains the oldest known drawbridges. Battlements – Another feature of the Buhen fortress the construction of the world's oldest battlements. Arrowslit – Loop holes are found for the first time in some Middle kingdom forts. Escalade – Escalades appeared as early as the Middle Kingdom. Battering rams – The earliest depiction of a possible battering ram is from the tomb of the 11th Dynasty noble Khety, where a pair of soldiers advance towards a fortress under the protection of a mobile roofed structure, carrying a long pole that may represent a simple battering ram. Siege towers – Moving siege towers were invented in Egypt during the First Intermediate Period. Naval ram – Naval rams were built on ships since at least the reign of Amenhotep I. Dagger – In ancient Egypt, daggers were usually made of copper or bronze, while royalty had gold weapons. At least since pre-dynastic Egypt, (c. 3100 BC) daggers were adorned as ceremonial objects with golden hilts and later even more ornate and varied construction. One early silver dagger was recovered with midrib design. Police Dogs and War Dogs were used by the Egyptians as early as 4000 B.C. Encryption – One of the earliest forms of encryption is symbol replacement, which was first found in the tomb of Khnumhotep II, who lived in 1900 B.C. Egypt. Symbol replacement encryption is "non-standard," which means that the symbols require a cipher or key to understand. Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Irrigation system – From at least Pre-dynastic times, kings of the Dynasty 0 made the world's first organized irrigation system. Diversion dam – The first Diversion dam is Sadd el-Kafara Dam built in Egypt around 2700 B.C. Noria – Norias appeared in Egypt in the 4th Century B.C. Beekeeping - Beekeeping was first recorded in ancient Egypt since pre-historic ages. The first use of smoke while extracting the honey from bee nests is recorded in Ancient Egypt during the Old Kingdom. Horse Stable - The world's oldest horse stables were discovered in the ancient city of Pi-Ramesses in Qantir, in Ancient Egypt, and were established by Ramesses II (c. 1304–1213 BC). These stables covered approximately 182,986 square feet, had floors sloped for drainage, and could contain about 480 horses. Zoo – The world's first zoo was discovered at Hierakonpolis dating back to 3,500 B.C. Olive cultivation – Some scholars have argued that olive cultivation originated with the Ancient Egyptians. Ox drawn plough – Ox drawn ploughs were used by Ancient Egyptians as early as 2000 B.C. Transport Hulls – Hulls were first built in Egypt as early as 3000 BC. Sail – Sail was invented in Egypt around 6,000BC. Harbor / Dock– The earliest known Harbors were those discovered in Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient Egyptian harbor, (ca. 2600-2550 BCE, reign of King Khufu), located on the Red Sea coast. Archaeologists also discovered anchors and storage jars near the site. Masts and Bipod mast – The bipod mast is a two-legged mast used originally in Egypt during the 3rd millennium BCE. It can be described as two poles secured together at the top, forming a thin isosceles triangle. It did not appear until the Old Kingdom, third dynasty, and disappeared after the sixth dynasty when the pole mast took over during the Middle Kingdom. Stern-mounted steering oar – A predecessor to the Rudder. Rowing oars set aside for steering appeared on large Egyptian vessels long before the time of Menes (3100 BC). In the Old Kingdom (2686 BC-2134 BC) as many as five steering oars are found on each side of passenger boats. The tiller, at first a small pin run through the stock of the steering oar, can be traced to the fifth dynasty (2504–2347 BC). Both the tiller and the introduction of an upright steering post abaft reduced the usual number of necessary steering oars to one each side. Single steering oars put on the stern can be found in a number of tomb models of the time, particularly during the Middle Kingdom when tomb reliefs suggests them commonly employed in Nile navigation. The first literary reference appears in the works of the Greek historian Herodotus (484-424 BC), who had spent several months in Egypt: "They make one rudder, and this is thrust through the keel", probably meaning the crotch at the end of the keel (see right pic "Tomb of Menna"). Paved Road - The world's oldest paved road was discovered near Faiyum dating back to the 26th century BC. Rail – Evidence from The Lake Moeris Quarry Road (26th century BC.) suggests the presence of early wooden rail using wooden logs to. Metals, Elements and Materials Mercury – The earliest known use of Mercury dates to Ancient Egypt around 1500 BC. Natron – Natron was used by the Ancient Egyptians in Mummification. Turquoise – Turquoise was mined in Egypt Since at least the First Dynasty (3000 BCE), and possibly before then, turquoise was used by the Egyptians and was mined by them in the Sinai Peninsula. This region was known as the Country of Turquoise by the native Monitu. Serabit el-Khadim and Wadi Maghareh, believed to be among the oldest of known mines. Wattle and daub – Wattle and daub was used in Egypt as early as the Merimde culture. Lime mortar – The Ancient Egyptians were the first to use lime mortars. Which they used to plaster the pyramids at Giza. In addition, the Egyptians also incorporated various limes into their religious temples as well as their homes. Indian traditional structures built with lime mortar, which are more than 4,000 years old like Mohenjo-daro is still a heritage monument of Indus valley civilization in Pakistan. It is one of the oldest known types of mortar also used in ancient Rome and Greece, when it largely replaced the clay and gypsum mortars common to ancient Egyptian construction. Emerald – Emerald was first mined in Egypt since at least the New Kingdom. Amethyst a form of quartz was first used by the Ancient Egyptians. Malachite – Ancient Egyptians mined malachite at Maadi as early as the Old Kingdom. Electrum – Electrum was used as early as the third millennium BC in Old Kingdom of Egypt, sometimes as an exterior coating to the pyramidions atop ancient Egyptian pyramids and obelisks. It was also used in the making of ancient drinking vessels. Electrum is mentioned in an account of an expedition sent by Pharaoh Sahure of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt. Other than that, the ancient Egyptians were the first to use gold (4000 BC.) and lead (3800 BC.) abundantly. Medicine Discoveries Meninges Cerebrospinal fluid Paralysis Urinary incontinence – The management of urinary incontinence with pads is mentioned in the earliest medical book known, the Ebers Papyrus (1500 BC). Anatomy – In 1600 BCE, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Ancient Egyptian medical text, described the heart, its vessels, liver, spleen, kidneys, hypothalamus, uterus and bladder, and showed the blood vessels diverging from the heart. The Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE) features a "treatise on the heart", with vessels carrying all the body's fluids to or from every member of the body. Circulatory system – The earliest known writings on the circulatory system are found in the Ebers Papyrus (16th century BCE), an ancient Egyptian medical papyrus containing over 700 prescriptions and remedies, both physical and spiritual. In the papyrus, it acknowledges the connection of the heart to the arteries. The Egyptians thought air came in through the mouth and into the lungs and heart. From the heart, the air travelled to every member through the arteries. Although this concept of the circulatory system is only partially correct, it represents one of the earliest accounts of scientific thought. Cataract – Cataract was known in Ancient Egypt from at least the Fifth Dynasty. Cancer – The earliest written record regarding cancer is from circa 1600 BC in the Egyptian Edwin Smith Papyrus and describes breast cancer. Diabetes – Diabetes was one of the first diseases described, with an Egyptian manuscript from 1500 BCE mentioning "too great emptying of the urine." The Ebers papyrus includes a recommendation for a drink to take in such cases. The first described cases are believed to have been type 1 diabetes. Dracunculiasis or Guinea-worm disease and its treatment – The Ebers Papyrus says that the cure to the Guinea-Worm disease is to wrap the emerging end of the worm around a stick and slowly pull it out. 3,500 years later, this remains the standard treatment. Hysteria – The oldest record of hysteria dates back to 1900 B.C. when Egyptians recorded behavioral abnormalities in adult women on medical papyrus. The Egyptians attributed the behavioral disturbances to a wandering uterus—thus later dubbing the condition hysteria. To treat hysteria Egyptian doctors prescribed various medications. For example, doctors put strong smelling substances on the patients' vulvas to encourage the uterus to return to its proper position. Another tactic was to smell or swallow unsavory herbs to encourage the uterus to flee back to the lower part of the female's stomach. Hematuria – One of the main symptoms of Bilharzia was known and treated by the ancient Egyptians. Baldness – The Ebers papyrus contain several remedies to cure hair loss. Colorectal surgery – The Chester Beatty Medical Papyrus, is one of the extant medical papyri, from ancient Egypt. It is dedicated to magical incantations against headaches and remedies for anorectal ailments, and is dated around 1200 BC. Inventions Poultice Splint Bandage – The Ancient Egyptians were the first to use adhesive bandages and were also the first to treat wounds with Honey. Prosthesis – Prosthetics appeared circa 3,000 BC. with the earliest evidence of prosthetics appearing in ancient Egypt and Iran. The earliest recorded mention of eye prosthetics is from the Egyptian story of the Eye of Horus dates circa 3000 BC, which involves the left eye of Horus being plucked out and then restored by Thoth. The Egyptians were also early pioneers of foot prosthetics, as shown by the wooden toe found on a body from the New Kingdom circa 1000 BC. Cauterization – Cauterization has been used to stop heavy bleeding since antiquity. The process was described in the Edwin Smith Papyrus. Toothpaste and Toothbrush – Since 5000 BC, the Egyptians made a tooth powder, which consisted of powdered ashes of ox hooves, myrrh, powdered and burnt eggshells, and pumice. Breath mint Innovations Gynaecology – The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus, dated to about 1800 BC, deals with women's health gynaecological diseases, fertility, pregnancy, contraception, etc. Treatments are non surgical, comprising applying medicines to the affected body part or swallowing them. The womb is at times seen as the source of complaints manifesting themselves in other body parts. Pregnancy test – The ancient Egyptians watered bags of wheat and barley with the urine of a possibly pregnant woman. Germination indicated pregnancy. The type of grain that sprouted was taken as an indicator of the fetus's sex. Birth control – The Egyptian Ebers Papyrus from 1550 BC and the Kahun Papyrus from 1850 BC have within them some of the earliest documented descriptions of birth control: the use of honey, acacia leaves and lint to be placed in the vagina to block sperm. Rhinoplasty – Treatments for the plastic repair of a broken nose are first mentioned in the Edwin Smith Papyrus, a transcription of text dated to the Old Kingdom from 3000 to 2500 BCE. Surgical suture – The earliest reports of surgical suture date to 3000 BC in ancient Egypt, and the oldest known suture is in a mummy from 1100 BC. Ophthalmology – In the Ebers Papyrus from ancient Egypt dating to 1550 BC, a section is devoted to eye diseases. Mathematics Algebra Numeral system – Written evidence of the use of mathematics dates back to at least 3200 BC with the ivory labels found in Tomb U-j at Abydos. These labels appear to have been used as tags for grave goods and some are inscribed with numbers. Further evidence of the use of the base 10 number system can be found on the Narmer Macehead which depicts offerings of 400,000 oxen, 1,422,000 goats and 120,000 prisoners. Binary – The method used for ancient Egyptian multiplication is also closely related to binary numbers. In this method, multiplying one number by a second is performed by a sequence of steps in which a value (initially the first of the two numbers) is either doubled or has the first number added back into it; the order in which these steps are to be performed is given by the binary representation of the second number. This method can be seen in use, for instance, in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, which dates to around 1650 BC. Fraction and Arithmetics with fractions – The earliest fractions were reciprocals of integers: ancient symbols representing one part of two, one part of three, one part of four, and so on. The Egyptians used Egyptian fractions  BC. About 4000 years ago, Egyptians divided with fractions using slightly different methods. They used least common multiples with unit fractions. Their methods gave the same answer as modern methods. Dyadic rational – The Egyptians also had a different notation for dyadic fractions in the Akhmim Wooden Tablet and several Rhind Mathematical Papyrus problems. X (Unknown) Quadratic equation – The ancient Egyptians were the first civilization to develop and solve second-degree (quadratic) equations. This information is found in the Berlin Papyrus fragment. Additionally, the Egyptians solve first-degree algebraic equations found in Rhind Mathematical Papyrus. Exponentiation (Power of two) – The ancient Egyptians had laid out tables of a great number of powers of two, rather than recalculating them each time. The decomposition of a number thus consists of finding the powers of two which make it up. The Egyptians knew empirically that a given power of two would only appear once in a number. Regula falsi – The simple false position technique is found in papyri from ancient Egyptian mathematics. Square root – The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus is a copy from 1650 BC of an earlier Berlin Papyrus and other textspossibly the Kahun Papyrusthat shows how the Egyptians extracted square roots by an inverse proportion method. 0 – By 1770 BC, the Egyptians had a symbol for zero in accounting texts. The symbol nfr, meaning beautiful, was also used to indicate the base level in drawings of tombs and pyramids and distances were measured relative to the base line as being above or below this line. Mathematical symbols – The Egyptian hieroglyphic sign for addition resembled a pair of legs walking in the direction in which the text was written (Egyptian could be written either from right to left or left to right), with the reverse sign indicating subtraction: Pi – Based on the measurements of the Great Pyramid of Giza , some Egyptologists have claimed that the ancient Egyptians used an approximation of as from as early as the Old Kingdom. The Rhind Papyrus, dated around 1650 BC but copied from a document dated to 1850 BC, has a formula for the area of a circle that treats as 3.16. The Golden number Arithmetic progression – Rhind Mathematical Papyrus problem number 40. Pefsu problem (modern day: Arithmetic mean) Conversion of units – Rhind Mathematical Papyrus problem number 42. Seked (Modern day Slope) – The seked is proportional to the reciprocal of our modern measure of slope or gradient, and to the cotangent of the angle of elevation. Trigonometry and Trigonometric functions – Rhind Mathematical Papyrus problem number 56. The Egyptians, used a primitive form of trigonometry for building pyramids in the 2nd millennium BC. Red auxiliary number – Red auxiliary numbers were written in red ink in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, apparently used as aids for arithmetic computations involving fractions. Areas and Volumes Area of Triangle – Rhind Mathematical Papyrus problem number 51. Area of Trapezoid – Rhind Mathematical Papyrus problem number 52. Surface area of Sphere – The Tenth problem of the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus asks for a calculation of the surface area of a hemisphere (Struve, Gillings) or possibly the area of a semi-cylinder (Peet). Below we assume that the problem refers to the area of a hemisphere. Volume of Cylinder – Rhind Mathematical Papyrus problem number 41. Volume of Prism – Rhind Mathematical Papyrus problem number 46. Volume of Pyramid Volume of Frustum – The 14th problem of the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus calculates the volume of a frustum. Problem 14 states that a pyramid has been truncated in such a way that the top area is a square of length 2 units, the bottom a square of length 4 units, and the height 6 units, as shown. The volume is found to be 56 cubic units, which is correct. Measurement System of measurement and Metrology – Ancient Egypt was one of the first civilization to have system of measurement. The Ancient Egyptian measuring system contained measuring units for: Length – Egyptian units of length are attested from the Early Dynastic Period. Although it dates to the 5th dynasty, the Palermo stone recorded the level of the Nile River during the reign of the Early Dynastic pharaoh Djer, when the height of the Nile was recorded as 6 cubits and 1 palm (about ). A 3rd Dynasty diagram shows how to construct an elliptical vault using simple measures along an arc. The ostracon depicting this diagram was found near the Step Pyramid of Saqqara. A curve is divided into five sections and the height of the curve is given in cubits, palms, and digits in each of the sections. Area – Records of land area also date to the Early Dynastic Period. The Palermo stone records grants of land expressed in terms of kha and setat. Mathematical papyri also include units of land area in their problems. For example, several problems in the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus give the area of rectangular plots of land in terms of setat and the ratio of the sides and then require the scribe to solve for their exact lengths. Volume Weight – Weighs were known since the Old Kingdom and perhaps as early as the Early Dynastic Period. Weights were measured in terms of deben. This unit would have been equivalent to 13.6 grams in the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom. During the New Kingdom however it was equivalent to 91 grams. For smaller amounts the qedet ( of a deben) and the shematy ( of a deben) were used. Science Geology – The earliest detailed map known in the world from the Turin Papyrus dating to Ramesside Period about 1160 BCE, shows the route to the gold mines in the Wadi Hammamat, Eastern Desert. Topography – Besides being a Geological map of surprisingly modern aspect, the Turin Papyrus is also a topographic map (the earliest known) because it accurately shows the local distribution of different rock types (with black and pink hills), the lithologically diverse wadi gravels (with brown, green and white dots), and it contains information on quarrying and mining. The draughtsman clearly and carefully distributed distinctive features in accordance with the reality of a particular area, adding clarity by the use of legends and contrasting colors. In this respect, the Turin Papyrus may be regarded as the earliest known Geographic Information System. Astronomy Decan – Decans are 36 groups of stars (small constellations) used in the Ancient Egyptian astronomy. They rose consecutively on the horizon throughout each earth rotation. The rising of each decan marked the beginning of a new decanal "hour" (Greek hōra) of the night for the ancient Egyptians, and they were used as a sidereal star clock beginning by at least the 9th or 10th Dynasty (c. 2100 BCE). The discovery of Algol – An Ancient Egyptian Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days composed some 3,200 years ago is claimed to be the oldest historical document of the discovery of Algol. Sothic cycle Calendar Star clock Solstice and Equinox Sundials – The earliest sundials known from the archaeological record are shadow clocks (1500 BC or BCE) from ancient Egyptian astronomy. Tools and machines Core drill – The earliest core drills were those used by the ancient Egyptians, invented in 3000 BC. Papyrus Paper – Papyrus paper was first manufactured in Egypt as far back as the fourth millennium BCE. The earliest archaeological evidence of papyrus was excavated in 2012 and 2013 at Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient Egyptian harbor located on the Red Sea coast. These documents, the Diary of Merer, date from c. 2560–2550 BCE (end of the reign of Khufu). The papyrus rolls describe the last years of building the Great Pyramid of Giza. Lathe - The lathe is an ancient tool. The earliest evidence of a lathe dates back to Ancient Egypt around 1300 BC. There is also tenuous evidence for its existence at a Mycenaean Greek site, dating back as far as the 13th or 14th century BC. Herodotus Machine – The Herodotus Machine was a machine described by Herodotus, a Greek historian. Herodotus claims this invention enabled the ancient Egyptians to construct the pyramids. The contraption supposedly allowed workers to lift heavy building materials. Herodotus is believed to have encountered the device while traveling through Egypt. With limited reference and no true schematics, this machine has stimulated many historians' theories of how the Ancient Egyptians were able to create pyramids. Lever – Levers (as machines used in lifting heavy weights) were invented in Ancient Egypt. In ancient Egypt technology, workmen used the lever to move and uplift obelisks weighing more than 100 tons. This is evident from the recesses in the large blocks and the handling bosses which could not be used for any purpose other than for levers. Loom – Looms were used in ancient Egypt as early as 4400 BC, a foot pedal was used for the earliest horizontal frame loom. Pulley – The earliest evidence of pulleys date back to Ancient Egypt in the Twelfth Dynasty (1991–1802 BCE) Rope stretcher – a rope stretcher (or harpedonaptai) was a surveyor who measured real property demarcations and foundations using knotted cords, stretched so the rope did not sag. The practice is depicted in tomb paintings of the Theban Necropolis. rope-stretching itself, are attested over 3000 years from the early dynastic period to the Ptolemaic kingdom. Plumb bob – The Plumb bob has been used since at least the time of ancient Egypt Ostracon – The Saqqara ostracon is an ostracon, an Egyptian antiquity, tracing to the period of Djoser (2650 BC), Ink – Ink was used in Ancient Egypt for writing and drawing on papyrus from at least the 26th century BC. Siphon – Ancient Egyptian reliefs from 1500 BC depict siphons used to extract liquids from large storage jars. Merkhet - The merkhet was an ancient surveying and timekeeping instrument. It involved the use of a bar with a plumb line, attached to a wooden handle. It was used to track the alignment of certain stars called decans or "baktiu" in the Ancient Egyptian. When visible, the stars could be used to measure the time at night. There were 10 stars for the 10 hours of the night; the day had a total of 24 hours including 12 hours for the day, 1 hour for sunset, and 1 hour for sunrise. Merkhets were used to replace sundials, which were useless during the dark. Water clock – The oldest water clock of which there is physical evidence dates to c. 1417–1379 BC, during the reign of Amenhotep III where it was used in the Temple of Amen-Re at Karnak. The oldest documentation of the water clock is the tomb inscription of the 16th century BC Egyptian court official Amenemhet, which identifies him as its inventor. Wig – In Egyptian society men and women commonly had clean shaven or close cropped hair and often wore wigs. The ancient Egyptians created the wig to shield shaved, hairless heads from the sun. They also wore the wigs on top of their hair using beeswax and resin to keep the wigs in place. Wealthy Egyptians would wear elaborate wigs and scented cones of animal fat on top of their wigs. Ramps and Inclined planes – The Egyptian pyramids were constructed using inclined planes, Parchment – Writing on prepared animal skins had a long history, however. David Diringer noted that "the first mention of Egyptian documents written on leather goes back to the Fourth Dynasty (c. 2550–2450 BC), but the earliest of such documents extant are: a fragmentary roll of leather of the Sixth Dynasty (c. 24th century BC), unrolled by Dr. H. Ibscher, and preserved in the Cairo Museum; a roll of the Twelfth Dynasty (c. 1990–1777 BC) now in Berlin; the mathematical text now in the British Museum (MS. 10250); and a document of the reign of Ramses II (early thirteenth century BC)." Doors and Door Locks – The earliest in records are those represented in the paintings of some ancient Egyptian tombs, in which they are shown as single or double doors, each in a single piece of wood. Doors were once believed to be the literal doorway to the afterlife, and some doors leading to important places included designs of the afterlife. Combs Bellows – Bellows were used as early as the New Kingdom. Air conditioning – The basic concept behind air conditioning is said to have been applied in ancient Egypt, where reeds were hung in windows and were moistened with trickling water. The evaporation of water cooled the air blowing through the window. This process also made the air more humid, which can be beneficial in a dry desert climate. Hand fan – Hand fans had been used in Egypt as early as 4,000 years ago. Hand fans have been found in King Tut's tomb. Pens and Reed pens – Ancient Egyptians had developed writing on papyrus scrolls when scribes used thin reed brushes or reed pens from the Juncus maritimus or sea rush. In his book A History of Writing, Steven Roger Fischer suggests that on the basis of finds at Saqqara, the reed pen might well have been used for writing on parchment as long ago as the First Dynasty or about 3000 BC. Spoon – Preserved examples of various forms of spoons used by the ancient Egyptians include those composed of ivory, flint, slate and wood; many of them carved with religious symbols. Scissors Set square – Found the tomb of architect Kha. Protractors – Found the tomb of architect Kha. Copper Pipes – The c.2400 BCE, Pyramid of Sahure, and adjoining temple complex at Abusir, was discovered to have a network of copper drainage pipes. Archimedes' screw – Although commonly attributed to Archimedes, the device had been used in Ancient Egypt long before his time. The first records of a water screw, or screw pump, date back to Ancient Egypt before the 3rd century BC. The Egyptian screw, used to lift water from the Nile, was composed of tubes wound round a cylinder; as the entire unit rotates, water is lifted within the spiral tube to the higher elevation. A later screw pump design from Egypt had a spiral groove cut on the outside of a solid wooden cylinder and then the cylinder was covered by boards or sheets of metal closely covering the surfaces between the grooves. Screw pump – The screw pump is the oldest positive displacement pump. The first records of a water screw, or screw pump, dates back to Ancient Egypt before the 3rd century BC. The Egyptian screw, used to lift water from the Nile, was composed of tubes wound round a cylinder; as the entire unit rotates, water is lifted within the spiral tube to the higher elevation. A later screw pump design from Egypt had a spiral groove cut on the outside of a solid wooden cylinder and then the cylinder was covered by boards or sheets of metal closely covering the surfaces between the grooves. Furniture Furniture became common first in Ancient Egypt during the Naqada culture. During that period a wide variety of furniture pieces were invented and used. Tables – Some very early tables were made and used by the ancient Egyptians around 2500 BC, using wood and alabaster. They were often little more than stone platforms used to keep objects off the floor, though a few examples of wooden tables have been found in tombs. Food and drinks were usually put on large plates deposed on a pedestal for eating. The Egyptians made use of various small tables and elevated playing boards. Chairs – Chairs were in existence since at least the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt (c. 3100 BC). They were covered with cloth or leather, were made of carved wood, and were much lower than today's chairs – chair seats were sometimes only high. Bed – The Egyptians had high bedsteads which were ascended by steps, with bolsters or pillows, and curtains to hang around. The elite of Egyptian society such as its pharaohs and queens even had beds made of wood, sometimes gilded. Often there was a head-rest as well, semi-cylindrical and made of stone, wood, or metal. camp bed - It is believed that King Tut, who reigned in Egypt from approximately 1332 to 1323 BC, may have had the first camping bed. When Tutankhamun's tomb was opened in 1922 a room full of furniture was found to contain a three-section camping bed that folded up into a Z shape.Though the frail young king, who had a clubfoot, may never have taken part in long-distance explorations, the elaborate folding bed suggests he had an interest in camping and hunting. Arts and Architecture Architecture Mastaba – Was a predecessor to the Egyptian pyramid. Kings of the Early Dynastic Period were buried there. Column – In ancient Egyptian architecture as early as 2600 BC, the architect Imhotep made use of stone columns whose surface was carved to reflect the organic form of bundled reeds, like papyrus, lotus and palm. In later Egyptian architecture faceted cylinders were also common. Their form is thought to derive from archaic reed-built shrines. Carved from stone, the columns were highly decorated with carved and painted hieroglyphs, texts, ritual imagery and natural motifs. Egyptian columns are famously present in the Great Hypostyle Hall of Karnak (circa 1224 BC), where 134 columns are lined up in sixteen rows, with some columns reaching heights of 24 metres. Hypostyle Architecture Capital – The two earliest Egyptian capitals of importance are those based on the lotus and papyrus plants. Pylon – Pylons were often decorated with scenes emphasizing a king's authority since it was the public face of a cult building. On the first pylon of the temple of Isis at Philae, the pharaoh is shown slaying his enemies while Isis, Horus and Hathor look on. Other examples of pylons can be seen in Karnak, Luxor, and Edfu. Obelisk – The earliest temple obelisk still in its original position is the red granite Obelisk of Senusret I of the XIIth Dynasty at Al-Matariyyah in modern Heliopolis. Gardens – Gardens appeared in Egypt during the Old Kingdom. There were many types of gardens in Ancient Egypt such as: pleasure gardens, Palace gardens, Temple gardens and Funerary gardens. Cavetto – Ancient Egyptian architecture made special use of large cavetto mouldings as a cornice, with only a short fillet (plain vertical face) above, and a torus moulding (convex semi-circle) below. This cavetto cornice is sometimes also known as an "Egyptian cornice", "hollow and roll" or "gorge cornice", and has been suggested to be a reminiscence in stone architecture of the primitive use of bound bunches of reeds as supports for buildings, the weight of the roof bending their tops out. Crafts Wood carving and Wooden statues – The extreme dryness of the climate of Egypt accounts for the existence of a number of woodcarvings from this remote period. Some wood panels from the tomb of Hosul Egypt, at Sakkarah are of the III. dynasty. The carving consists of Egyptian hieroglyphs and figures in low relief, and the style is extremely delicate and fine. A stool shown on one of the panels has the legs shaped like the fore and hind limbs of an animal, a form common in Egypt for thousands of years. Hollow Glass Production and Glassware – Egypt and Mesopotamia were the first civilizations to produce glass works(3,500 BC.). The oldest specimens of glass are from Egypt and date back to 2000 B.C. In 1500BC the industry was well established in Egypt. Egyptian faience Cosmetic palette Watercolor paper – Painting on Papyrus was invented in Ancient Egypt long before the invention of Paper. Blue dye and Synthetic dyes – In Egypt, blue was used for the eyebrows on the funeral mask of King Tutankhamun (1341–1323 BC). Importing lapis lazuli by caravan across the desert from Afghanistan to Egypt was very expensive. Beginning in about 2500 BC, the ancient Egyptians began to produce their own blue pigment known as Egyptian blue by grinding silica, lime, copper, and alkalai, and heating it to . This is considered the first synthetic pigment. Egyptian blue was used to paint wood, papyrus and canvas, and was used to colour a glaze to make faience beads, inlays, and pots. It was particularly used in funeral statuary and figurines and in tomb paintings. Music and Dance Sistrum – The sistrum was a sacred instrument in ancient Egypt. Perhaps originating in the worship of Bastet, it was used in dances and religious ceremonies, particularly in the worship of the goddess Hathor, with the U-shape of the sistrum's handle and frame seen as resembling the face and horns of the cow goddess. Melisma – According to Demetrius of Falorene (3rd century A.D), The Egyptian priests used to praise the gods by singing 7 vowels successively producing sweet sounds. This is the first mention of the melisma which is used in many of the Coptic hymns today. Syllabtic music style – The Syllabtic music style had been used for 2000 years in the coptic church "Tasbe7a". Literature Written records – The Ancient Egyptian sentence found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen is the world's oldest known sentence Short story and Story telling – Story-telling started in Ancient Egypt around 200 BC. Among the oldest known stories the "Story of Sinuhe" and the "Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor". Epistle – The ancient Egyptians wrote epistles, most often for pedagogical reasons. Egyptologist Edward Wente (1990) speculates that the Fifth Dynasty Pharaoh Djedkare Isesi (in his many letters sent to his viziers) was a pioneer in the epistolary genre. Sebayt and Wisdom literature – The Maxims of Ptahhotep are among the oldest pieces of wisdom literature. It was compiled during the 24th century BC. Satire - One of the earliest examples of what we might call satire, The Satire of the Trades, is in Egyptian writing from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. The text's apparent readers are students, tired of studying. It argues that their lot as scribes is not only useful, but far superior to that of the ordinary man. Scholars such as Helck think that the context was meant to be serious. The Papyrus Anastasi I (late 2nd millennium BC) contains a satirical letter which first praises the virtues of its recipient, but then mocks the reader's meagre knowledge and achievements. Sports Bowling – The earliest known forms of bowling date back to ancient Egypt, with wall drawings depicting bowling being found in a royal Egyptian tomb dated to 5200 B.C. and miniature pins and balls in an Egyptian child's grave about 5200 B.C. Remnants of bowling balls were found among artifacts in ancient Egypt going back to the Egyptian protodynastic period in 3200 BC. What is thought to be a child's game involving porphyry (stone) balls, a miniature trilithon, and nine breccia-veined alabaster vase-shaped figures—thought to resemble the more modern game of skittles—was found in Naqada, Egypt in 1895. Hockey – Drawings on tombs at Beni Hassan in Menia Governorate show players holding bats made of long palm-tree branches, with a bent end similar to that of the hockey bat. The hockey ball was made of compressed papyrus fibers covered with two pieces of leather in the shape of a semicircle. Handball – Drawings of this sport are found on the Saqqara tombs, five thousand years old. The ball was made of leather and stuffed with plant fibers or hay, or made of papyrus plants in order to be light and more durable. It was seldom used for more than one match. Gymnastics – Ancient Egyptians were the first to play Gymnastics. They even developed three types of Gymnastics which are: Rhythmic Gymnastics, Gymnastics: Consecutive Vault and floor gymnastics. Weightlifting – Weightlifting was first recorded in ancient Egypt. One method of weightlifting was lifting a heavy sack of sand with one hand and keep it high in a vertical position. The player had to hold that sack of sand for some time and stay in the same position. This rule is still applied in the modern weightlifting. High jump Tug of War – This sport was practiced in the country side. Tug of Hoop Equilibrium (sport) Running – Although running was very common in prehistoric times, running races began in Ancient Egypt during the Heb-sed festival as early as 3000 BC. Fencing – The first historical evidence from archaeology of a fencing contest was found on the wall of a temple within Egypt built at a time dated to approximately 1190 B.C. Tahtib – The oldest traces of tahtib were found on engravings from the archaeological site of Abusir, an extensive necropolis of the Old Kingdom period, located in the south-western suburbs of Cairo. On some of the reliefs of the Pyramid of Sahure (V dynasty, c. 2500 BC); the images and explanatory captions are particularly precise and accurate in their depiction of what seems to be military training using sticks. Tahtib, with archery and wrestling, was then among the three disciplines of warfare taught to soldiers. Cuisine Frying – Frying is believed to have first appeared in the ancient Egyptian kitchen, during the Old Kingdom, around 2500 BCE. Banquet – Depictions of banquets can be found in paintings from both the Old Kingdom and New Kingdom. They usually started sometime in the afternoon. Men and women were separated unless they were married. Seating varied according to social status, with those of the highest status sitting on chairs, those slightly lower sat on stools and those lowest in rank sat on the raw floor. Before the food was served, basins were provided along with aromatics and cones of scented fat were lit to spread pleasant smells or to repel insects, depending on the type. Lettuce – Lettuce was first cultivated in ancient Egypt for the production of oil from its seeds. This plant was probably selectively bred by the Egyptians into a plant grown for its edible leaves, with evidence of its cultivation appearing as early as 2680 BC. Lettuce was considered a sacred plant of the reproduction god Min, and it was carried during his festivals and placed near his images. The plant was thought to help the god "perform the sexual act untiringly." Its use in religious ceremonies resulted in the creation of many images in tombs and wall paintings. The cultivated variety appears to have been about tall and resembled a large version of the modern romaine lettuce. These upright lettuces were developed by the Egyptians and passed to the Greeks, who in turn shared them with the Romans. Foie gras and force-feeding – The technique of gavage dates as far back as 2500 BC, when the ancient Egyptians began keeping birds for food and deliberately fattened the birds through force-feeding. Today, France is by far the largest producer and consumer of foie gras, though it is produced and consumed worldwide, particularly in other European nations, the United States, and China. Hardtack and Biscuits – versions using various grains date back to Ancient Rome, and as far back as Ancient Egypt. Smy – thickened milk documented as existent in ancient Egypt. Egyptian cheese - Archaeological evidence for making cheese in Egypt goes back about 5,000 years. In 2018, archeologists from Cairo University and the University of Catania reported the discovery of the oldest known cheese from Egypt. Discovered in the Saqqara necropolis, it is around 3200 years old. Earlier, remains identified as cheese were found in the funeral meal in an Egyptian tomb dating around 2900 BC. Visual evidence of Egyptian cheesemaking was found in Egyptian tomb murals in approximately 2000 BC. Yeast, Dough and Leavened bread – The earliest definite records of yeast come from Ancient Egypt. Desserts and Pies – During the Egyptian Neolithic period or New Stone Age period, the use of stone tools shaped by polishing or grinding, the domestication of plants and animals, the establishment of permanent villages, and the practice of crafts such as pottery and weaving became common. Early pies were in the form of flat, round or freeform crusty cakes called galettes consisting of a crust of ground oats, wheat, rye, or barley containing honey inside. These galettes developed into a form of early sweet pastry or desserts, evidence of which can be found on the tomb walls of the Pharaoh Ramesses II, who ruled from 1304 to 1237 BC, located in the Valley of the Kings. Boiled eggs – In Thebes, Egypt, the tomb of Haremhab, dating to approximately 1420 BCE, shows a depiction of a man carrying bowls of ostrich eggs and other large eggs, presumably those of the pelican, as offerings. In ancient Rome, eggs were preserved using a number of methods and meals often started with an egg course. Marshmallows – The first marshmallows were produced in Egypt around 2000 B.c. and were made by mixing Mallow sap, honey, grains and baked into cakes. Marshmallows were only served to the Gods of Ancient Egypt and pharaohs, as a candy or a dessert. Clothing and Cosmetics Umbrella – the earliest known parasols in Ancient Egyptian art date back to the Fifth Dynasty, around 2450 BC. The parasol is found in various shapes. In some instances it is depicted as a flabellum, a fan of palm-leaves or coloured feathers fixed on a long handle, resembling those now carried behind the Pope in processions. Hairpin – Hairpins made of metal, ivory, bronze, carved wood, etc. were used in ancient Egypt for securing decorated hairstyles. Such hairpins suggest, as graves show, that many were luxury objects among the Egyptians and later the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans. Shirt – The world's oldest preserved garment, discovered by Flinders Petrie, is a "highly sophisticated" linen shirt from a First Dynasty Egyptian tomb at Tarkan, dated to c. 3000 BC: "the shoulders and sleeves have been finely pleated to give form-fitting trimness while allowing the wearer room to move. The small fringe formed during weaving along one edge of the cloth has been placed by the designer to decorate the neck opening and side seam." Kohl Liniment – made from Castor oil. Henna and Hair dye – Ancient Egyptian, Ahmose-Henuttamehu (17th Dynasty, 1574 BCE): was probably a daughter of Seqenenre Tao and Ahmose Inhapy. Smith reports that the mummy of Henuttamehu's own hair had been dyed a bright red at the sides, probably with henna. High-heeled shoe – Paintings circa 3,500 BC. show images of men and women wearing high-heeled shoes. High-heeled shoes was also used by butchers to make them move easily over the dead animals. Others Egyptian hieroglyphs – Hieroglyphic symbol systems developed in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called "Scorpion I" (Naqada IIIA period, c. 33rd century BC) recovered at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) in 1998 or the Narmer Palette (c. 31st century BC). Hieratic – Hieratic developed as a cursive form of hieroglyphic script in the Naqada III period, roughly 3200–3000 BCE. Alphabet – The history of the alphabet started in ancient Egypt. Egyptian writing had a set of some 24 hieroglyphs that are called uniliterals, to represent syllables that begin with a single consonant of their language, plus a vowel (or no vowel) to be supplied by the native speaker. These glyphs were used as pronunciation guides for logograms, to write grammatical inflections, and, later, to transcribe loan words and foreign names. In the Middle Bronze Age, an apparently "alphabetic" system known as the Proto-Sinaitic script appears in Egyptian turquoise mines in the Sinai peninsula dated to circa the 15th century BC, apparently left by Canaanite workers. In 1999, John and Deborah Darnell discovered an even earlier version of this first alphabet at Wadi el-Hol dated to circa 1800 BC and showing evidence of having been adapted from specific forms of Egyptian hieroglyphs that could be dated to circa 2000 BC, strongly suggesting that the first alphabet had been developed about that time. Based on letter appearances and names, it is believed to be based on Egyptian hieroglyphs. This script had no characters representing vowels, although originally it probably was a syllabary, but unneeded symbols were discarded. Board games / Senet – Senet, found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt, c. 3500 BC and 3100 BC respectively, is the oldest board game known to have existed. Senet was pictured in a fresco found in Merknera's tomb (3300–2700 BC). Mehen – Evidence of the game of Mehen is found from the Predynastic period dating from approximately 3000 BC and continues until the end of the Old Kingdom, around 2300 BC. Histiography and King lists – The pharaohs of Egypt used to glorify their ancestors. The Den seal impressions is the oldest King list in the world dating to 3000 BC. The Palermo Stone is one of seven surviving fragments of a stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. The stele contained a list of the kings of Egypt from the First Dynasty (~3150–2890 BCE) through to the early part of the Fifth Dynasty (approx 2392–2283 BCE) and noted significant events in each year of their reigns. It was probably made during the Fifth Dynasty. These inscriptions are considered as the oldest History studies. Logbooks – The Diary of Merer (Papyrus Jarf A and B) is the name for papyrus logbooks written over 4,500 years ago that record the daily activities of stone transportation from the Tura limestone quarry to and from Giza during the 4th Dynasty. They are the oldest known papyri with text. The text was found in 2013 by a French mission under the direction of archaeologists Pierre Tallet of Paris-Sorbonne University and Gregory Marouard in a cave in Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea coast. Tobacco pipe Pest control – As long ago as 3000 BC in Egypt, cats were used to control pests of grain stores such as rodents. Mongooses were introduced into homes to control rodents and snakes, probably by the ancient Egyptians. Graeco-Roman Egypt Hero of AlexandriaVictor J. Katz (1998). A History of Mathematics: An Introduction, p. 184. Addison Wesley, : "But what we really want to know is to what extent the Alexandrian mathematicians of the period from the first to the fifth centuries C.E. were Greek. Certainly, all of them wrote in Greek and were part of the Greek intellectual community of Alexandria. And most modern studies conclude that the Greek community coexisted [...] So should we assume that Ptolemy and Diophantus, Pappus and Hypatia were ethnically Greek, that their ancestors had come from Greece at some point in the past but had remained effectively isolated from the Egyptians? It is, of course, impossible to answer this question definitively. But research in papyri dating from the early centuries of the common era demonstrates that a significant amount of intermarriage took place between the Greek and Egyptian communities [...] And it is known that Greek marriage contracts increasingly came to resemble Egyptian ones. In addition, even from the founding of Alexandria, small numbers of Egyptians were admitted to the privileged classes in the city to fulfill numerous civic roles. Of course, it was essential in such cases for the Egyptians to become "Hellenized," to adopt Greek habits and the Greek language. Given that the Alexandrian mathematicians mentioned here were active several hundred years after the founding of the city, it would seem at least equally possible that they were ethnically Egyptian as that they remained ethnically Greek. In any case, it is unreasonable to portray them with purely European features when no physical descriptions exist." Heron's formula – Hero described a method for iteratively computing the square root of a number. Today, however, his name is most closely associated with Heron's formula for finding the area of a triangle from its side lengths. He also devised a method for calculating cube roots in the 1st century AD. He also designed a shortest path algorithm, Given two points A and B on one side of a line, find C a point on the straight line, that minimizes AC+BC. Vending machine – The first vending machine was also one of his constructions; when a coin was introduced via a slot on the top of the machine, a set amount of holy water was dispensed. This was included in his list of inventions in his book Mechanics and Optics. When the coin was deposited, it fell upon a pan attached to a lever. The lever opened up a valve which let some water flow out. The pan continued to tilt with the weight of the coin until it fell off, at which point a counter-weight would snap the lever back up and turn off the valve. Force pump – The force pump was widely used in the Roman world, and one application was in a fire-engine. Heron's fountain – A standalone fountain that operates under self-contained hydro-static energy; now called Heron's fountain. In optics, Hero formulated the principle of the shortest path of light: If a ray of light propagates from point A to point B within the same medium, the path-length followed is the shortest possible. In his Catoptrics (1st century CE), he showed that the ordinary law of reflection off a plane surface follows from the premise that the total length of the ray path is a minimum. It was nearly 1000 years later that Alhacen expanded the principle to both reflection and refraction, and the principle was later stated in this form by Pierre de Fermat in 1662; the most modern form is that the optical path is stationary. A wind-wheel operating an organ, marking the first instance in history of wind powering a machine. Hero also invented many mechanisms for the Greek theater, including an entirely mechanical play almost ten minutes in length, powered by a binary-like system of ropes, knots, and simple machines operated by a rotating cylindrical cogwheel. The sound of thunder was produced by the mechanically timed dropping of metal balls onto a hidden drum. A programmable cart that was powered by a falling weight. The "program" consisted of strings wrapped around the drive axle. Automatic door – In the 1st century AD, mathematician Heron of Alexandria in Roman Egypt invented the first known automatic door. He described two different automatic door applications. The first application used heat from a fire lit by the city's temple priest. After a few hours atmospheric pressure built up in a brass vessel causing it to pump water into adjacent containers. These containers acted as weights that, through a series of ropes and pulleys, would open the temple's doors at about the time people were to arrive for prayer. Heron used a similar application to open the gates to the city. Pappus of Alexandria Pappus's hexagon theorem Pappus's centroid theorem Ptolemy Ptolemy's world map – It included 8,000 locations from Shetland islands to the Ethiopian plateau and from the Canary islands to China. Significant contributions of Ptolemy's map is the first use of longitudinal and latitudinal lines as well as specifying terrestrial locations by celestial observations. The Geography was translated from Greek into Arabic in the 9th century and played a role in the work of al-Khwārizmī before lapsing into obscurity. The idea of a global coordinate system revolutionized European geographical thought, however, and inspired more mathematical treatment of cartography. Ptolemy was the first to measure the angles of incidence and refraction but failed to understand the relation between them (Snell's Law). Ptolemy's intense diatonic scale – Ptolemy's intense diatonic scale is a tuning for the diatonic scale proposed by Ptolemy, declared by Zarlino to be the only tuning that could be reasonably sung, and corresponding with modern just intonation. It is also supported by Giuseppe Tartini. Others Saqiyah – Paddle-driven water-lifting wheels had appeared in ancient Egypt by the 4th century BCE. According to John Peter Oleson, both the compartmented wheel and the hydraulic noria appeared in Egypt by the 4th century BCE, with the sakia being invented there a century later. This is supported by archeological finds at Faiyum, where the oldest archeological evidence of a water wheel has been found, in the form of a sakia dating back to the 3rd century BCE. A papyrus dating to the 2nd century BCE also found in Faiyum mentions a water wheel used for irrigation, a 2nd-century BC fresco found at Alexandria depicts a compartmented sakia, and the writings of Callixenus of Rhodes mention the use of a sakia in the Ptolemaic Kingdom during the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopator in the late 3rd century BCE. Fifteen centuries before Braille, wood-carving techniques were in use in the Catechical school of Alexandria by blind scholars to read and write. Religion Catechesis – The oldest Catechical school in the world is the catechical school of Alexandria. Theology – Origen an Egyptian scholar of Alexandria is considered to be the father of Theology. Monasticism – Another major contribution made by the Copts in Egypt to Christianity was the creation and organization of monasticism. Worldwide Christian monasticism stems, either directly or indirectly, from the Egyptian example. The most prominent figures of the monastic movement were Anthony the Great, Paul of Thebes, Macarius the Great, Shenouda the Archimandrite and Pachomius the Cenobite. By the end of the 5th century, there were hundreds of monasteries, and thousands of cells and caves scattered throughout the Egyptian desert. Since then pilgrims have visited the Egyptian Desert Fathers to emulate their spiritual, disciplined lives. Saint Basil the Great Archbishop of Caesarea Mazaca, and the founder and organiser of the monastic movement in Asia Minor, visited Egypt around 357 AD and his monastic rules are followed by the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, came to Egypt while en route to Jerusalem around 400 AD and left details of his experiences in his letters. Saint Benedict founded the Benedictine Order in the 6th century on the model of Saint Pachomius, although in a stricter form. Coptic Christians practice male circumcision as a rite of passage. Islamic Egypt Fountain pen – According to Qadi al-Nu'man al-Tamimi (d. 974) in his Kitab al-Majalis wa 'l-musayarat, the Fatimid caliph Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah in Egypt demanded a pen that would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen that held ink in a reservoir, allowing it to be held upside-down without leaking. Packaging and labeling – The earliest recorded use of paper for packaging dates back to 1035, when a Persian traveler visiting markets in Cairo, Egypt, noted that vegetables, spices and hardware were wrapped in paper for the customers after they were sold. Sugar refinery – Date back to the 12th century in Medieval Egypt. Double-entry bookkeeping – Double-entry bookkeeping was pioneered in the Jewish community of the medieval Middle East. Abu Kamil was an Egyptian scientist who's considered to be the first mathematician to systematically use and accept irrational numbers as solutions and coefficients to equations. Da'irah al-Mu'addal – An astronomical device invented by the Egyptian scientist 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Wafa'i. Modern Egypt Anti-shock rubber car bodies Cancer treatment with gold – This discovery was made by the Egyptian scientist Mostafa El-Sayed. Metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) – Invented by Egyptian engineer Mohamed M. Atalla with Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959 and demonstrated in 1960. WiLAN, Wi-Fi, LAN, 3G and 4G – In 1992, Hatim Zaghloul and Michel Fattouche co-founded WiLAN after they developed together the Wideband Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (WOFDM), and Multi-code Direct-sequence Spread Spectrum (MCDSSS). Through WiLAN's efforts, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has allowed OFDM technology over the 2.4 GHz unlicensed ISM band for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standards. MC-DSSS (MultiCode-Direct-sequence Spread Spectrum) is central to high speed CDMA applications, the main technology currently used by many cellphone networks. The works of Hatim Zaghloul and WiLAN contributed to the invention of Wi-Fi, 3G technology and 4G technology. Sameera Moussa developed an equation that would allow the atoms of cheap metals (e.g. Copper) to be split and radiate nuclear radiations. El Sayed's rule Femtochemistry – Zewail's key work was an explorer of femtochemistry—i.e. the study of chemical reactions across femtoseconds. Using a rapid ultrafast laser technique (consisting of ultrashort laser flashes), the technique allows the description of reactions on very short time scales – short enough to analyse transition states in selected chemical reactions. Zewail became known as the "father of femtochemistry". Speed-ball – Speed-Ball is a racquet sport invented in Egypt in 1961 by Mohamed Lotfy (grandfather of Taimour Lotfy) for the training of beginner tennis players. Today it is a sport in its own right, enjoying popularity not only in Egypt but in other countries. Several of these countries make up the International Federation of Speed-Ball (FISB). Mansourasaurus – Hesham Sallam, a paleontologist at Mansoura University, together with a team of students discovered a sauropod skeleton in the Dakhla Oasis in Egypt's Western Desert. In 2016, it was reported that over thirty dinosaur specimens had been excavated, among them titanosaurian sauropods. Notes References External links Lists of inventions or discoveries Inventions and discoveries

64309302

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEA%20%28cipher%29

LEA (cipher)

The Lightweight Encryption Algorithm (also known as LEA) is a 128-bit block cipher developed by South Korea in 2013 to provide confidentiality in high-speed environments such as big data and cloud computing, as well as lightweight environments such as IoT devices and mobile devices. LEA has three different key lengths: 128, 192, and 256 bits. LEA encrypts data about 1.5 to 2 times faster than AES, the most widely used block cipher in various software environments. LEA is one of the cryptographic algorithms approved by the Korean Cryptographic Module Validation Program (KCMVP) and is the national standard of Republic of Korea (KS X 3246). LEA is included in the ISO/IEC 29192-2:2019 standard (Information security - Lightweight cryptography - Part 2: Block ciphers). Specification The block cipher LEA consisting of ARX operations (modular Addition: , bitwise Rotation: , , and bitwise XOR ) for 32-bit words processes data blocks of 128 bits and has three different key lengths: 128, 192, and 256 bits. LEA with a 128-bit key, LEA with a 192-bit key, and LEA with a 256-bit key are referred to as “LEA-128”, “LEA-192”, and “LEA-256”, respectively. The number of rounds is 24 for LEA-128, 28 for LEA-192, and 32 for LEA-256. Encryption Let be a 128-bit block of plaintext and be a 128-bit block of ciphertext, where and () are 32-bit blocks. Let () be 192-bit round keys, where () are 32-bit blocks. Here is the number of rounds for the LEA algorithm. The encryption operation is described as follows: for to Decryption The decryption operation is as follows: for down to Key schedule The key schedule of LEA supports 128, 192, and 256-bit keys and outputs 192-bit round keys () for the data processing part. Key schedule for LEA-128 Let be a 128-bit key, where () are 32-bit blocks. The key schedule for LEA-128 takes and four 32-bit constants () as inputs and outputs twenty-four 192-bit round keys (). The key schedule operation for LEA-128 is as follows: for to Key schedule for LEA-192 Let be a 192-bit key, where () are 32-bit blocks. The key schedule for LEA-192 takes and six 32-bit constants () as inputs and outputs twenty-eight 192-bit round keys (). The key schedule operation for LEA-192 is as follows: for to Key schedule for LEA-256 Let be a 256-bit key, where () are 32-bit blocks. The key schedule for LEA-192 takes and eight 32-bit constants () as inputs and outputs thirty-two 192-bit round keys (). The key schedule operation for LEA-256 is as follows: for to Constant values The eight 32-bit constant values () used in the key schedule are given in the following table. Security As of 2019, no successful attack on full-round LEA is known. As is typical for iterated block ciphers, reduced-round variants have been attacked. The best published attacks on LEA in the standard attack model (CPA/CCA with unknown key) are boomerang attacks and differential linear attacks. The security margin to the whole rounds ratio is greater than 37% against various existing cryptanalytic techniques for block ciphers. Performance LEA has very good performance in a general-purpose software environment. In particular, it is possible to encrypt at a rate of about 1.5 to 2 times on average, compared to AES, the most widely used block cipher in various software environments. The tables below compare the performance of LEA and AES using FELICS (Fair Evaluation of Lightweight Cryptographic Systems), a benchmarking framework for evaluation of software implementations of lightweight cryptographic primitives. Test vectors Test vectors for LEA for each key length are as follows. All values are expressed in hexadecimal form. LEA-128 Key: 0f 1e 2d 3c 4b 5a 69 78 87 96 a5 b4 c3 d2 e1 f0 Plaintext: 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f Ciphertext: 9f c8 4e 35 28 c6 c6 18 55 32 c7 a7 04 64 8b fd LEA-192 Key: 0f 1e 2d 3c 4b 5a 69 78 87 96 a5 b4 c3 d2 e1 f0 f0 e1 d2 c3 b4 a5 96 87 Plaintext: 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f Ciphertext: 6f b9 5e 32 5a ad 1b 87 8c dc f5 35 76 74 c6 f2 LEA-256 Key: 0f 1e 2d 3c 4b 5a 69 78 87 96 a5 b4 c3 d2 e1 f0 f0 e1 d2 c3 b4 a5 96 87 78 69 5a 4b 3c 2d 1e 0f Plaintext: 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f Ciphertext: d6 51 af f6 47 b1 89 c1 3a 89 00 ca 27 f9 e1 97 Implementations LEA is free for any use: public or private, commercial or non-commercial. The source code for distribution of LEA implemented in C, Java, and Python can be downloaded from KISA's website. In addition, LEA is contained in Crypto++ library, a free C++ class library of cryptographic schemes. KCMVP LEA is one of the cryptographic algorithms approved by the Korean Cryptographic Module Validation Program (KCMVP). Standardization LEA is included in the following standards. KS X 3246, 128-bit block cipher LEA (in Korean) ISO/IEC 29192-2:2019, Information security - Lightweight cryptography - Part 2: Block ciphers References Block ciphers

64324940

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carta%20nazionale%20dei%20servizi

Carta nazionale dei servizi

The Carta nazionale dei servizi (in English National Service Card) (CNS) is an Italian personal document which is placed alongside the Italian electronic identity card. It has the aim of allowing users who do not yet have the new electronic document to use the services provided for the CIE and integrates the functions of the health card of the Italian National Health Service and of the European Health Insurance Card. The complete IT correspondence between CNS and CIE ensures interoperability between the two cards and the possibility for citizens to access public administration online services with both cards. The CNS can be defined as a standard of cards that can be issued by different entities (for example, the regional service card issued by the regions of Lombardy, Umbria, Sicily, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Puglia and Tuscany and by the autonomous provinces of Bolzano and Trento are simultaneously national and European health cards and national services cards), but which nonetheless allow access to all national services. With the DPR 2 March 2004, n. 117, the "Regulations concerning the diffusion of the national service charter are issued, in accordance with art. 27, paragraph 8, letter b), of law no. 3 of 16 January 2003". The national service card is an ISO/IEC 7810 : 2003 ID-1 format smart card (85.60 mm × 53.98 mm × 0.76 mm) which follows the ISO/IEC 7816 standard and has an asymmetric encryption system necessary to guarantee authenticity of the card itself. The following data are stored inside: PIN code, necessary to access the smart card private key PUK code, code necessary to unlock the smart card in case of 3 attempts to access with the wrong PIN 1024 bit RSA private key, needed to digitally sign documents or guarantee access to online services 1024 bit RSA public key, necessary to check the authenticity of documents digitally signed with the same smart card (exportable) A digital certificate in X.509 standard Card ID, to uniquely identify the card in the national territory Personal data such as name, surname and tax code. Use To use CNS you need: activate it at the authorized counters of each Italian region to receive the PIN of the same download compatible drivers (PKCS # 11 standard) found on individual regional sites have a smart card reader (compatible with PC/SC specifications). Some administrations such as the autonomous province of Bolzano or the autonomous province of Trento deliver one free of charge upon activation of the card. References Italian culture

64349219

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed%20Denial%20of%20Secrets

Distributed Denial of Secrets

Distributed Denial of Secrets, abbreviated DDoSecrets, is a non-profit whistleblower site for news leaks founded in 2018. Sometimes referred to as a successor to WikiLeaks, it is best known for its June 2020 publication of a large collection of internal police documents, known as BlueLeaks. The group has also published data on Russian oligarchs, fascist groups, shell companies, tax havens and banking in the Caymans, as well as hosting data scraped from Parler in January 2021 and from the February 2021 Gab leak. The group is also known for publishing emails from military officials, City Hall in Chicago and the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. As of January 2021, the site hosts dozens of terabytes of data. The site is a frequent source for other news outlets. The site's leaks have resulted in or contributed to multiple government investigations, including the second impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. History Distributed Denial of Secrets was founded by Emma Best, an American national security reporter known for filing prolific freedom of information requests, and another member of the group known as The Architect. According to Best, The Architect, who they already knew, approached them and expressed their desire to see a new platform for leaked and hacked materials, along with other relevant datasets. The Architect provided the initial technical expertise for the project. At its public launch in December 2018, the site held more than 1 terabyte of data from many of the highest-profile leaks. The site originally considered making all of the data public, but after feedback made some of it available only to journalists and researchers. Best has served as a public face of the group, which lists its members. In February 2019, they told Columbia Journalism Review there were fewer than 20 people working on the project. In April 2021, their website listed 10 members and advisors. In December 2019, Distributed Denial of Secrets announced their collaboration with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. In May 2020, DDoSecrets partnered with European Investigative Collaborations and the Henri-Nannen-Journalistenschule journalism school. In June 2020, the DDoSecrets Twitter account was suspended in response to BlueLeaks, citing a breach of their policies against "distribution of hacked material" in a move that was criticized as setting a "dangerous precedent." In December 2020, the group announced their affiliation with Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Response DDoSecrets and the people behind the project have been described by Wired as a "transparency collective of data activists" and a successor to WikiLeaks, by the Congressional Research Service, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Human Rights Watch and The Nation as a "transparency collective", by The Hill as a "leaktivist collective", by Columbia Journalism Review as a "journalist collective", by Brookings Institution as "a WikiLeaks-style journalist collective," by the New York Times as a "watchdog group", and Business Insider as a "freedom-of-information advocacy group", as an "alternative to WikiLeaks" by Columbia Journalism Review, Krebs On Security, ZDNet, and Forbes, and as "the most influential leaking organization on the internet" by VICE News." Government response In 2019, the Congressional Research Service recognized Distributed Denial of Secrets as a transparency collective. In 2020, the U.S. counterintelligence strategy described leaktivists and public disclosure organizations like Distributed Denial of Secrets as “significant threats,” alongside five countries, three terrorist groups, and “transnational criminal organizations.” A June 2020 bulletin created by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis described them as a "criminal hacker group". Elements of the report were challenged as inaccurate by media such as The Verge. The next month, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recognized the group as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Publications Russian leaks Russian Ministry of the Interior In December 2019, DDoSecrets listed a leak from Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs, portions of which detailed the deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine at a time when the Kremlin was denying a military presence there. Some material from that leak was published in 2014, about half of it wasn't, and WikiLeaks reportedly rejected a request to host the files two years later, at a time when Julian Assange was focused on exposing Democratic Party documents passed to WikiLeaks by Kremlin hackers. Dark Side of the Kremlin In January 2019, DDoSecrets published hundreds of gigabytes of hacked Russian documents and emails from pro-Kremlin journalists, oligarchs, and militias. The New York Times called the release "a symbolic counterstrike against Russia's dissemination of hacked emails to influence the American presidential election in 2016." According to the Times, the documents shed light on the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as ties between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church, the business dealings of oligarchs and much more. According to an internal bulletin issued by the Department of Homeland Security, the "hack-and-leak activity" was conducted by DDoSecrets, though reporting by The Daily Beast identified several independent hacktivists responsible for the hacks. Bankers Box series The Bankers Boxes are a series of releases from DDoSecrets related to banking, finance and corporate ownership. Rossi + MPS In September 2019, DDoSecrets published the investigation file for the death of David Rossi, an executive of the world's oldest bank Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, who died under suspicious circumstances while the bank was embroiled in a scandal. Cayman Islands In November 2019, DDoSecrets published over 2 terabytes of data from the Cayman Island National Bank and Trust, dubbed the Sherwood files. The files were provided by the hacktivist known as Phineas Fisher, who was previously responsible for the hack and subsequent release of Gamma Group and Hacking Team documents and emails. The files included lists of the bank's politically exposed clients and was used for studies of how elites use offshore banking. The leak led to at least one government investigation. #29 Leaks In December 2019, DDoSecrets published #29 Leaks in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. The hundreds of gigabytes of data in #29 Leaks included emails, documents, faxes, and recordings of phone calls. The leak was compared to the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers and came from Formations House, which registered and operated companies for clients who included organized crime, state owned oil companies, and fraudulent banks. The leak led to at least one government investigation. Corporate registries In 2019 and 2020, DDoSecrets published corporate registries for the Cook Islands and the Bahamas. DDoSecrets partnered with European Investigative Collaborations and the German Henri-Nannen-Journalistenschule journalism school in an unprecedented project named Tax Evader Radar to review and research a dataset containing almost one million documents from the Bahamas company registry. The project exposed the offshore holdings of prominent Germans, the activities of ExxonMobil, as well as the DeVos and Prince families. The leak included files which ICIJ reviewed as part of Bahamas Leaks but did not make available to the public. PacoLeaks and MilicoLeaks In December 2019, DDoSecrets re-published the first tranche of PacoLeaks, data from Chilean police hacked by Anonymous as part of ongoing protests, after it was censored before publishing the second tranche. Soon after, they published emails hacked from the Chilean military, dubbed MilicoLeaks. MilicoLeaks included details on Chilean army intelligence, including operations, finance and international relations. Project Whispers In April 2020, DDoSecrets published millions of neo-nazi and far-right chat messages in a searchable database called Whispers. The leaked chats showed threats of violence and attempts to sway the 2018 United States midterm elections. BlueLeaks On June 19, 2020, DDoSecrets released BlueLeaks, which consisted of 269 gigabytes of internal U.S. law enforcement data obtained from fusion centers by the hacker collective Anonymous. DDoSecrets called it the "largest published hack of American law enforcement agencies." The editor for The Intercept described BlueLeaks as the law enforcement equivalent to the Pentagon Papers. Some of the group's servers were located in Germany, and German authorities seized those servers at the request of the United States. Twitter and other social media companies cooperated with police by suspending the group's accounts and making their past posts inaccessible. Twitter cited its terms of service, which explicitly bars the distributing of "content obtained through hacking that contains private information, may put people in harm or danger, or contains trade secrets." However, Emma Best, one of the group's founders, called Twitter's actions "heavy-handed", as they suspended users whose tweets had linked to archives where leaked material could be found, they also suspended users whose tweets merely mentioned the leak. On July 9, Reddit banned /r/BlueLeaks, a community created to discuss BlueLeaks, claiming they had posted personal information. There is a federal investigation relating to BlueLeaks. Various Freedom of Information Act requests filed about BlueLeaks and DDoSecrets were rejected due to an ongoing federal investigation. Homeland Security Investigations has questioned at least one person, seeking information about BlueLeaks and DDoSecrets. As a result of BlueLeaks, there were calls in 2020 to defund fusion centers and in 2021 Maine began holding legislative hearings about it. Findings During the George Floyd protests, law enforcement agencies monitored protesters' communications over social media and messaging apps. Reports leaked found that the police were aware of the potential for their surveillance to violate the Constitution. They distributed documents to police filled with rumors and warnings that the protests would become violent, sparking fear among police officers. The documents also show a much broader trend of surveillance. They show details about the data that police can obtain from social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit and Tumblr, among others. Fusion centers also collect and distribute detailed data from automatic license plate readers. Surveys from law enforcement training programs reveal that some instructors were prejudiced and unprofessional. Classes taught biased, outdated, and incorrect content. Some contain sexual content unrelated to the class, and there was one report of an instructor admitting to lying in court frequently. In Maine, legislators took interest in BlueLeaks thanks to details about the Maine Information and Analysis Center, which is under investigation. The leaks showed the fusion center was spying on and keeping records on people who had been legally protesting or had been "suspicious" but committed no crime. Documents also contain reports about other countries from the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of State and other agencies. Officials discussed cyber attacks from Iran and concerns about further attacks in early 2020. Another report discusses possible Chinese espionage at natural gas facilities. Homeland Security also discussed Russian interference with American elections, attempts to hack the 2020 census, and manipulation of social media discussion. Google's CyberCrime Investigation Group On August 21, The Guardian reported, based on the leaked documents, the existence of Google's "CyberCrime Investigation Group" (CIG). The group focused on voluntarily forwarding detailed information of Google, YouTube and Gmail users, among other products, to members of the Northern California Regional Intelligence, a counter-terrorist fusion center, for content threatening violence or otherwise expressing extremist views, often associated with the far right. The company has also been said to report users who appeared to be in mental distress, indicating suicidal thoughts or intent to commit self-harm. One way Google identified its users in order to report them to law enforcement was by cross-referencing different Gmail accounts that eventually led them to a single Android phone. In some cases the company did not ban the users they reported to the authorities, and some were said to still have accounts on YouTube, Gmail and other services. Gab Chat In early 2020, Gab, a social network known for its far-right userbase, launched encrypted text messaging service Gab Chat in beta. In late June 2020, hackers leaked a May 26 law enforcement bulletin that was distributed by DDoSecrets as part of BlueLeaks. The bulletin was created by the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange Fusion Center, who speculated that Gab Chat's encryption and privacy features for private chatting, such as the service automatically deleting text messages after 30 days of them being sent, could entice white supremacists to use the platform instead of Discord, a platform on which white supremacist groups have been frequently infiltrated by anti-fascists. AssangeLeaks In July 2020, DDoSecrets released secret files on the United States' case against Julian Assange. Giving ransomware leaks to journalists In January 2021, DDoSecrets began making data published by ransomware hackers available to journalists. The initial release contained over 750,000 files from industries including pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, finance, software, retail, real estate, and oil and gas. In June 2021, DDoSecrets released 73,500 emails, accounting files, contracts, and around 19 GB of other business documents from the pipeline firm LineStar Integrity Services. The same month, 200 gigabytes from Presque Isle Police Department were posted online, including 15,000 emails and police reports and witness statements from the 1970s to the present. DDoSecrets mirrored the files and gave them to journalists, but did not repost them publicly citing privacy concerns. Perceptics The group pointed to their earlier publication of the Perceptics breach as an example of the importance of ransomware leaks. The breach revealed that the security firm had lobbied Congress to downplay privacy and security concerns, provided extensive favors to politicians, and crafted some of the Republican Party's demands on border security. Jones Day (Chicago emails) In April 2021, DDoSecrets published a cache of emails from Chicago City Hall, which Mayor Lightfoot refused to answer questions about. The emails revealed that the city's handling of fatal shootings by police officers violates state law and a federal consent decree. The emails also exposed the Mayor's secret lobbying for qualified immunity, a secret drone program funded with off-the-books cash, and the city's problems with police chases and the George Floyd protests. The emails also revealed that the Mayor's office was blindsided by CPD's use of facial recognition and Clearview AI. Metropolitan Police Department In May 2021, DDoSecrets republished the leak of Washington D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department, including over 90,000 emails. According to DDoSecrets co-founder Emma Best, the documents gave "a unique opportunity to examine how these systems of policing are built, how they’re deployed, and an opportunity to perform an authoritative study on how, when and why the system is deployed differently against different groups." Among other things, the files revealed details of surveillance of right-wing extremists and the response to the 2021 United States Capitol attack. Parler In January 2021, DDoSecrets made the scraped Parler videos available to journalists. Videos scraped from Parler were used as evidence during the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Myanmar releases Myanmar Financials In February 2021, DDoSecrets gave journalists financial documents from the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA) showing Google was indirectly supporting the Myanmar coup by allowing Gmail addresses and Google run blogs to be used to run companies owned and operated by Myanmar's military and coup leaders. After the public release of the 330 gigabyte leak, Google disabled the blog. A Google spokesperson told Insider, "In this case, we have terminated accounts as a result of President Biden's Executive Order of 11 February 2021 concerning Myanmar." Justice For Myanmar called the release "biggest leak in Myanmar history." Myanmar Investments In March 2020, DDoSecrets published an additional 156 GB of data which had been hacked from the Myanmar Investment Commission. The release included entries of the Investments Management System, proposals and permits, many of which are labelled “secret” or “confidential”. As a result, Justice For Myanmar added 26 companies to its list of business associates of the Myanmar military. The leak also revealed how millions of dollars allegedly flowed from Mytel subscribers into the pockets of Myanmar military generals and how their families profited from the military, the coup itself and the internet blackouts. The leak also led to allegations of profiteering which resulted in policy changes that cost Myanmar generals millions of dollars. The data also revealed that Thai state-owned companies were funding the Myanmar junta. GabLeaks On February 28, DDoSecrets revealed "GabLeaks", a collection of more than 70 gigabytes of data from Gab, including more than 40 million posts, passwords, private messages, and other leaked information. The data was given to the group by a hacktivist self-identifying as "JaXpArO and My Little Anonymous Revival Project", who retrieved the data from Gab's back-end databases to expose the platform's largely right-wing userbase. DDoSecrets co-founder Emma Best called GabLeaks "another gold mine of research for people looking at militias, neo-Nazis, the far right, QAnon and everything surrounding January 6." The group said that they would not release the data publicly due to the data containing a large amount of private and sensitive information and will instead share the data with select journalists, social scientists, and researchers. Andy Greenberg from Wired confirmed that the data "does appear to contain Gab users' individual and group profiles—their descriptions and privacy settings—public and private posts, and passwords". In response, Gab CEO Andrew Torba acknowledged the data breach, said that his Gab account had been "compromised", and that "the entire company is all hands investigating what happened and working to trace and patch the problem". Torba also used a transphobic slur to insult the hackers "attacking" Gab and referred to them as "demon hackers." On March 1, he revealed in a post on Gab's blog that the company had received a ransom demand of $500,000 in Bitcoin for the data, and wrote in response that they would not be paying it. Also on March 1, Torba said in a Gab post that "I want to make clear that we have zero tolerance for any threats of violence including against the wicked people who are attacking Gab. We need to pray for these people. I am." Dan Goodin reported in Ars Technica on March 2 that Gab's chief technology officer (CTO), Fosco Marotto, had in February introduced a SQL vulnerability that may have led to the data breach, and that Gab had subsequently scrubbed the commit from Git history. The company had previously open sourced Gab's source code in a Git repository which included all historical commits; on March 1, they took the repository offline and replaced it with a zipfile. On March 8, JaXpArO again compromised verified accounts on Gab, posting a message to their feeds addressed to Torba, which said the service had been "fully compromised" the previous week and accused him of lying to Gab's users. Gab briefly went offline again the same day, and the company wrote on Twitter that they had taken their site offline "to investigate a security breach". Torba posted a statement in response to the attack, claiming that "The attacker who stole data from Gab harvested OAuth2 bearer tokens during their initial attack" and that "Though their ability to harvest new tokens was patched, we did not clear all tokens related to the original attack. By reusing these old tokens, the attacker was able to post 177 statuses in an 8-minute period today." In May 2021, The Intercept used GabLeaks in its coverage and fundraising. Former Intercept reporter Glenn Greenwald criticized the publication for exploiting what he called an invasion of free speech and privacy, which he said contrasted with The Intercept's origins during the Snowden leaks. GiveSendGo In April 2021, Distributed Denial of Secrets made donor information from the Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo available to journalists and researchers. The information identified previously anonymous high-dollar donors to far-right actors including members of the Proud Boys, designated as a terrorist group in Canada, many of whose fundraising efforts were directly related to the 2021 United States Capitol attack. The platform had previously been criticized for its refusal to restrict use by far right extremists. It was later reported that police officers and public officials in the United States had donated to Kyle Rittenhouse. The executive officer for internal affairs for Norfolk Police Department was fired for the comments he made with his donation to Rittenhouse. In May 2021, USA Today used the GiveSendGo data to report that nearly $100,000 was raised for the Proud Boys on GiveSendGo from people of Chinese descent in the days before the 2021 Capitol attack. In June 2021, USA Today used the GiveSendGo data to report that a member of the Koch family had anonymously donated to a crowdfunding campaign supporting the election fraud conspiracy theories. In February 2022, after many anonymous donors supported the 2022 Freedom Convoy, DDOS started distributing a hacked list of donors' personal information from GiveSendGo to journalists and researchers. See also Anonymous (hacker group) Bahamas Leaks BlueLeaks Cryptome Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present) Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Panama Papers Paradise Papers Offshore Leaks WikiLeaks References External links Classified documents Freedom of speech Freedom of expression Internet leaks Investigative journalism National security News leaks Online archives Online organizations Organizations established in 2018 Transparency (behavior) WikiLeaks Whistleblowers Whistleblowing Whistleblower support organizations Open government

64350108

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS%20Big%20Sur

MacOS Big Sur

macOS Big Sur (version 11) is the seventeenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s operating system for Macintosh computers. It was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 22, 2020, and was released to the public on November 12, 2020. Big Sur is the successor to macOS Catalina, and was succeeded by macOS Monterey, which was released on October 25, 2021. Most notably, macOS Big Sur features a user interface redesign that features new blurs to establish a visual hierarchy and also includes a revamp of the Time Machine backup mechanism, among other changes. It is also the first macOS version to support Macs with ARM-based processors. To mark the transition, the operating system's major version number was incremented, for the first time since 2000, from 10 to 11. The operating system is named after the coastal region of Big Sur in the Central Coast of California. Development history Providing some indication as to how the pre-release operating system may have been viewed internally at Apple during its development cycle, documentation accompanying the initial beta release of macOS Big Sur referred to its version as "10.16", and when upgrading from prior versions of macOS using the Software Update mechanism to early beta releases, the version referred to was "10.16". An exception to this was the Developer Transition Kit, which always reported the system version as "11.0". macOS Big Sur started reporting the system version as "11.0" on all Macs as of the third beta release. To maintain backwards compatibility, macOS Big Sur identified itself as 10.16 to software and in the browser user agent. System requirements Unlike macOS Catalina, which supported every standard configuration Mac that Mojave supported, Big Sur drops support for various Macs released in 2012 and 2013. Big Sur runs on the following Macs: MacBook: Early 2015 and newer MacBook Air: Mid 2013 and newer MacBook Pro: Late 2013 and newer Mac Mini: Late 2014 and newer iMac: Mid 2014 and newer iMac Pro: Late 2017 Mac Pro: Late 2013 and newer Developer Transition Kit (only up to Big Sur 11.3 beta 2) Changes Design macOS Big Sur refreshes the design of the user interface, described by Apple as the biggest change since the introduction of Mac OS X. Its changes include translucency in various places, a new abstract wallpaper for the first time and a new color palette. All standard apps, as well as the Dock and the Menu Bar, are redesigned and streamlined, and their icons now have rounded-square shapes like iOS and iPadOS apps. Compared to iOS, Big Sur's icons include more shading and highlights to give a three-dimensional appearance. Its aesthetic has been described as "neumorphism", a portmanteau of new and skeuomorphism. System sounds are redone as well. The new OS also brings further integration with Apple's SF Symbols, enabling easier use by third-party developers as UI elements for their applications through AppKit, SwiftUI, and Catalyst, which makes it possible to unify third party applications with the existing Apple-made design language. Interface Control Center An interface with quick toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, screen brightness and system volume has been added to the menu bar. This interface is functionally and visually similar to Control Center on iOS and iPadOS. Notification Center The Notification Center is redesigned, featuring interactive notifications and a transparent user interface. Notification Center also features a new widget system similar to that in iOS 14, displaying more information with more customization than previously available. System Support for Apple silicon macOS Big Sur is the first release of macOS for Macs powered by Apple-designed ARM64-based processors, a key part of the transition from Intel x86-64-based processors. The chip mentioned in demo videos, and used in the Developer Transition Kit, is the A12Z Bionic. On November 10, 2020, Apple announced the first Mac Apple silicon chip, the Apple M1, in the Late 2020 Mac Mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro. Apple has said that it will support Intel Macs "for years to come", and most software that has not been ported to run on ARM Macs can use Rosetta 2, an update of a compatibility mechanism originally developed for the PowerPC-to-Intel x86 transition. Likewise, Apple also introduced an updated universal binary format, Universal 2, which allows developers to package their applications so that they can run natively on both ARM64 and x86-64 processors. Support for iOS and iPadOS applications On Macs based on Apple silicon, macOS Big Sur can run iOS and iPadOS applications natively and without any modifications needed from developers, aside from allowing the app to be available on the Mac App Store. The first Macs with this capability are those that use the Apple M1 SoC (system on a chip). Time Machine Time Machine, the backup mechanism introduced in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, has been overhauled to utilize the APFS file system instead of HFS+. Specifically, the new version of Time Machine makes use of APFS's snapshot technology. According to Apple, this enables "faster, more compact, and more reliable backups" than were possible previously with HFS+-formatted backup destinations. An independent evaluation of this claim found that Time Machine on macOS 11 in conjunction with APFS was 2.75-fold faster upon initial local backup and 4-fold faster upon subsequent backups relative to macOS 10.15's Time Machine implementation using HFS+. A more modest yet nevertheless significant advantage was noted as well for backups to network-attached disks. New local (i.e. USB- or Thunderbolt-connected) and network-connected Time Machine backup destinations are formatted as APFS by default, though Time Machine can continue backing up to existing HFS+ backup volumes. There is no option to convert existing, HFS+-based backups to APFS; instead, users who want to benefit from the advantages of the new, APFS-based implementation of Time Machine need to start with a fresh volume. In the new version of Time Machine, encryption appears to be required (instead of merely optional) for local disks, but it remains elective for networked volumes. It is no longer possible to restore the whole system using a Time Machine backup, as the signed system volume is not backed up. Non-core applications and user data can be restored in full using Migration Assistant, preceded by a system reinstall if necessary. Spotlight Spotlight, the file system indexing-and-search mechanism introduced in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, is faster and the interface has been refined. Spotlight is now the default search mechanism in Safari, Pages, and Keynote. Signed system volume The system volume containing the core operating system is cryptographically signed. Apple indicates this is a security measure to prevent malicious tampering. This includes adding an SHA-256 hash for every file on the system volume, preventing changes from third-party entities and the end user. Software updates Software updates can begin in the background before a restart, thus requiring less downtime to complete. Because system files are cryptographically signed, the update software can rely on them being in precise locations, thus permitting them to be effectively updated in place. Encryption macOS Big Sur supports encryption at the file level. Earlier versions of macOS (10.15 Catalina and older) supported encryption only at the level of entire volumes. As of June 2020, this capability is known to be compatible with Macs based on Apple silicon; it is unclear whether it is compatible with Intel-based Macs. Other changes Bilingual dictionaries in French–German, Indonesian–English, Japanese–Simplified Chinese and Polish–English Better predictive input for Chinese and Japanese users New fonts for Indian users The "Now Playing" widget has been moved from the Notification Center to the Menu Bar Podcasts "Listen Now" feature FaceTime sign language prominence Network Utility has been deprecated macOS startup sound is enabled by default (it had been disabled by default on some machines in 2016), and an option in System Preferences was added to enable or disable this functionality. Application features Safari Big Sur includes Safari 14, which was also released for macOS Catalina and macOS Mojave on September 16, 2020. Safari 14 includes features such as a new home page in which users can customize what features are visible in addition to being able to set a custom wallpaper. It also allows the viewer to preview a page and favicon before visiting it. Safari 14 also includes built-in web page translations in English, Spanish, German, French, Russian, Chinese and Portuguese as well as support for 4K HDR content from Netflix on Macs with an Apple T2 chip, although none of these were made available for macOS Catalina and Mojave. Privacy features such as iCloud Keychain (which notifies users of compromised passwords), extension privacy management and Privacy Report (which monitors privacy trackers and further increases Safari's security) were added for Safari 14. Users were now also able to import password from Google's Chrome browser in addition to being notified of compromised passwords. Safari 14 also supports WebExtensions API, the WebP image format as well as VP9 decoding, the latter of which allows for the playback of 4K and HDR content from YouTube. In addition, it allowed for better performance and power efficiency. Safari 14 ended support for Adobe Flash Player in September, 3 months prior to its end-of-life on December 31, 2020. Messages The Messages app was rewritten to be based upon Apple's Catalyst technology to enable it to have feature parity with its iOS counterpart. The new version of the app included a refined design as well as the ability to pin up to nine conversations that can sync across iOS, IPadOS and macOS. Users were also now allowed to search for messages and share their names and photos. Photo thumbnails could now also be used for group chats on the app. In addition, users could mention contacts by putting the @ symbol in front of their name. They were also able to reply to specific messages. Memojis, 3d avatars were also made available on Messages. On Messages, users could now select photos based on parameters. In India, text message effects were added when users sent certain texts (e.g., texting "Happy Holi" will result in users seeing effects). App Store Refinements and new features of the Mac App Store include: A new "nutrition label" section dedicated to the data and information an app collects, also featured in the iOS App Store A new Safari extensions category Third party Notification Center widgets, similar to those in iOS and iPadOS 14 The ability to share in-app purchases and subscriptions on the Mac via iCloud Family Sharing Notes Collapsible pinned section Quick text style and formatting options Scanning enhancements Photos New editing capabilities Improved Retouch tool New zooming feature in views Maps "Look Around" interactive street-level 360° panoramas, first implemented in the iOS 13 version of Maps, have been incorporated into the macOS version of Maps. Availability of directions for cyclists. Electric vehicle routing, based on proximity to charging stations and monitoring of battery levels (on selected car models). Guides for exploring new places. Voice Memos a file structure has been implemented to allow organization of recordings in folders recordings can be marked as Favorites for easier subsequent access Smart Folders automatically group Apple Watch recordings, recently deleted recordings, and Favorites audio can be enhanced to reduce background noise and room reverb Other applications found in macOS 11 Big Sur About This Mac Activity Monitor AirPort Utility Archive Utility Audio MIDI Setup Automator Bluetooth File Exchange Books Boot Camp Assistant Calculator Calendar Chess ColorSync Utility Console Contacts Dictionary Digital Color Meter Directory Utility Disk Utility DVD Player Expansion Slot Utility FaceTime Feedback Assistant Find My Finder Folder Actions Setup Font Book Grapher Home Image Capture iOS App Installer Keychain Access Mail Launchpad Migration Assistant Mission Control Music Network Utility News (only available for Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and United States) Photo Booth Podcasts Preview QuickTime Player Reminders Screen Sharing Screenshot (succeeded Grab since macOS 10.14 Mojave) Script Editor Siri Stickies Stocks Storage Management System Information Terminal TextEdit Ticket Viewer Time Machine TV VoiceOver Utility Wireless Diagnostics Removed functionality Calculator Notification Center Widget Option to toggle Font Smoothing in System Preferences Support for AdBlock plugins like uBlock Origin Criticism The rollout of Big Sur came with several problems. Upgrading to the initial public release of Big Sur (version 11.0.1) bricked some computers, rendering them unusable. Many of these were 2013 and 2014 MacBook Pros, though problems were also observed on a 2019 MacBook Pro and an iMac from the same year. The initial rollout also disrupted Apple's app notarization process, causing slowdowns even on devices not running Big Sur. Users also reported that the update was slow or even might fail to install. macOS Catalina and Big Sur apps were taking a long time to load because of Gatekeeper issues. The ongoing issues with the COVID-19 pandemic meant it was hard for users to visit an Apple Store to get their machines fixed. Shortly afterwards, Apple released a series of steps explaining how these Macs could be recovered. Certain Apple applications running on early versions of Big Sur were reported to bypass firewalls, raising privacy and security concerns. This was addressed with the release of macOS Big Sur 11.2, which removed the whitelist for built-in programs. Conversely, security experts have reported that Big Sur will check an application's certificate every time it is run, degrading system performance. There have been reports that the operating system sends a hash back to Apple of every program run and when it was executed. Apple responded that the process is part of efforts to protect users from malware embedded in applications downloaded outside of the Mac App Store. Some users have reported problems connecting external displays to Macs running Big Sur 11.1 and 11.2. When upgrading Macs from 10.13, 10.14 and 10.15 to Big Sur the upgrade process could become stuck for seemingly unclear reasons. Only a full system restore from backup would solve this problem. On 21 October 2021 a solution became known that required removal of up to several hundreds of thousands excess temporary files in the system folders. Vulnerability In 2021, there were reports of two malware codes that infected macOS and include both x86-64 and ARM64 code. The first one was detected in early 2021. The second one, Silver Sparrow, was detected on nearly 30,000 Macs in February 2021. Release history The public release of macOS 11 Big Sur began with 11.0.1 for Intel Macs. Version 11.0 was preinstalled on Apple silicon Macs, and Apple advised those with that version to be updated to 11.0.1. References External links – official site 16 2020 software Computer-related introductions in 2020 ARM operating systems X86-64 operating systems

64359579

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell%20JetWave

Honeywell JetWave

Honeywell's JetWave is a piece of satellite communications hardware produced by Honeywell that enables global in-flight Wi-Fi connectivity. Its Wi-Fi connectivity is provided using Inmarsat’s GX Aviation network. The JetWave is used in business and general aviation, as well as defense and commercial airline users. History In 2012, Honeywell announced it would provide Inmarsat with the hardware for its GX Ka-band in-flight connectivity network. The Ka-band (pronounced either "kay-ay band" or "ka band") is a portion of the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum defined as frequencies in the range 27.5 to 31 gigahertz (GHz). In satellite communications, the Ka-band allows higher bandwidth communication. In 2017, after five years and more than 180 flight hours and testing, JetWave was launched as part of GX Aviation with Lufthansa Group. Honeywell’s JetWave was the exclusive terminal hardware option for the Inmarsat GX Aviation network; however, the exclusivity clause in that contract has expired. In July 2019, the United States Air Force selected Honeywell’s JetWave satcom system for 70 of its C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes. In December 2019, it was reported that six AirAsia aircraft had been fitted with Inmarsat’s GX Aviation Ka-band connectivity system and is slated to be implemented fleetwide across AirAsia’s Airbus A320 and A330 models in 2020, requiring installation of JetWave atop AirAsia’s fuselages. Today, Honeywell’s JetWave hardware is installed on over 1,000 aircraft worldwide. In August 2021, the Civil Aviation Administration of China approved a validation of Honeywell’s MCS-8420 JetWave satellite connectivity system for Airbus 320 aircraft. In December 2021, Honeywell, SES, and Hughes Network Systems demonstrated multi-orbit high-speed airborne connectivity for military customers using Honeywell’s JetWave MCX terminal with a Hughes HM-series modem, and SES satellites in both medium Earth orbit (MEO) and geostationary orbit (GEO). The tests achieved full duplex data rates of more than 40 megabits per second via a number of SES' (GEO) satellites including GovSat-1, and the high-throughput, low-latency O3b MEO satellite constellation, with connections moving between GEO/MEO links in under 30 sec. Uses Commercial aviation Honeywell’s JetWave enables air transport and regional aircraft to connect to Inmarsat’s GX Aviation network. The multichannel satellite (MSC) JetWave terminals share the same antenna controller, modem and router hardware with the business market, but have an MCS-8200 fuselage-mounted antenna. Business aviation Honeywell’s JetWave hardware allows users to connect to Inmarsat’s Jet ConneX, a business aviation broadband connectivity offering to provide Wi-Fi for connected devices. JetWave offers a tail-mount antenna for business jets. Defense Honeywell’s JetWave satellite communications system for defense allows users to connect to the Inmarsat GX network, offering global coverage for military airborne operators, including over water, over nontraditional flight paths and in remote areas. JetWave and the Inmarsat GX network enable mission-critical applications like real-time weather; videoconferencing; large file transfers; encryption capabilities; in-flight briefings; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance video; and secure communications. JetWave is configurable for a variety of military platforms and offers antennas for large and small airframes. References Computer hardware Satellite Internet access

64377900

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52nd%20Munich%20Security%20Conference

52nd Munich Security Conference

The 52nd Munich Security Conference took place from 12 to 14 February 2016. 600 international guests attended the event, including 30 heads of state, 70 foreign and defence ministers, directors of various intelligence agencies and 700 journalists from 48 countries. Welcome The chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, described in his welcoming speech the central themes of the conference. Ischinger warned that the international order was in its worst shape since the end of the Cold War, and described the outlook as "grim" and urged the international community, especially Europe, to expand their efforts to cooperate. Opening speeches For the first time, the defence ministers of Germany and France, Ursula von der Leyen and Jean-Yves Le Drian, opened the conference together. In her speech, von der Leyen focused on the challenges associated with the European refugee crisis. She stressed that helping refugees was a humanitarian obligation. The defence minister reported that the Bundeswehr participated, as part of a NATO mission in the eastern Mediterranean, in the fight against people smuggling and contributed to the integration of refugees in Germany by training refugees in civilian occupations. Von der Leyen also stressed that the influx of refugees had to be reduced as a whole, in order to help focus on those people in actual need of protection. In his part of the opening speech, Le Drian focused on the war in Syria and international terrorism. Against the backdrop of the recent terrorist attacks in France, he called for a strengthening of the fight against the 'Islamic State' terrorist militia. A ceasefire in Syria, he said, could only be reached if Russia put an end to its bombing attacks in the country. Conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation Le Drian stressed the importance of the agreement that the Syria Contact Group had reached before the conference. According to this accord, within one week, a ceasefire in Syria should be put into place. Special importance was placed on this agreement, since despite the tense political situation between NATO and Russia, all participants in the contact group had agreed on this goal. During a speech on the second conference day, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described the situation between the West and Russia from the Alliance's perspective. He called Russia's actions an attempt to destabilize and intimidate the Western security order and Russia's western-oriented neighbours. In response to this strategy, Stoltenberg reaffirmed the joint solidarity among NATO members and stressed the readiness of the Alliance for collective defence. He also called for the examination of renewed talks within the NATO-Russia Council. Stoltenberg stated: "We do not want a new Cold War with Russia". The tensions between the West and Russia were the subject of much debate at the conference. An additional point of contention was the speech by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, whose remarks were understood by some participants as indicating that it was Moscow's conviction that the West and Russia had "slipped into a new Cold War". Medvedev complained that "Russophobia" had become "fashionable", and that from Russia's point of view, the West had stopped the dialogue with Russia and treated the country in an arbitrary way. He denounced NATO's deterrence doctrine and interpreted the sanctions against Russia as having an aggressive intent. Despite these allegations, the Prime Minister announced that Russia was working on a "European Peace Union" and that they also gathered in Munich in the interests of European security. He promised a constructive role for Moscow in the Syria conflict and attributed Russia's military involvement in the country to the high number of IS fighters hailing from Russia and emphasized that they "must not be allowed to return to their home country." He also stressed that there was no evidence of alleged Russian attacks on Syrian civilians. He criticized the West's euphoria about the Arab Spring as naive and asked where the hopes for democracy had gone. Medvedev blamed political developments in the Middle East for the rise of IS. He called on the Syrian opposition to start negotiations with President Assad. At the same time he rejected a distinction between IS and other groups because all terrorist groups identified by Moscow had to be fought equally. In a debate between the Presidents of countries neighbouring Russia, Poland and Latvia urged a strengthening of NATO and a greater leadership role for the US in the Alliance. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė stated that Russia had already started a "hot war". President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, who also participated in the debate, warned against attempts by the Russian Federation to drive a wedge into the EU. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko finally turned to the absent Russian President Vladimir Putin, stressing that he believes that it is not a civil war in Ukraine, but the consequences of Russian aggression and Russian occupation, due to a clash of different value systems. He also warned against the intention by Russia to try to destabilize and divide Europe with the support of populist parties. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated the accusation already expressed by Prime Minister Medvedev that NATO and EU refused cooperation with Russia and treated the country as an enemy. He also expressed the frustrations of his government about Western demands for a cessation of Russian air raids on moderate rebels. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier finally expressed his belief that NATO and Russia were not in a Cold War. According to Steinmeier, it was important for the EU "to keep intact". If successful, the Foreign Minister continued, a lot would be won. During the conference, a telephone conversation between US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin was brought to attention, in which both parties assessed the results regarding Syria as positive. US Secretary of State John Kerry said at the security conference that the international community had never been faced with so many crises simultaneously. The Foreign Minister recalled the situation in 1963, the year of the first security conference in Munich. Back then, Kerry declared, the Cold War was "pretty hot", yet the world had overcome the crisis. Kerry described the optimism of former US President John F. Kennedy Jr., who had demanded in Berlin in 1963 to look beyond the current dangers "to the hopes of tomorrow". Drawing on this, Kerry continued, he finds courage for the ongoing fight against terrorism. Syria and the fight against IS The situation in Syria and the fight against terrorism was another important issue of the security conference. King Abdullah of Jordan reiterated in this context that the war on terror was not merely a task for the countries of the Middle East. The King pointed to the European dimension of the problem, since the Balkans had ultimately served as a save haven for IS. Jordan’s King stated that the fight against terrorism was a Third World War being fought through other means. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani criticized Europe in his speech, saying that it had failed to grasp the rise of IS. Observers viewed the allegations from Ghani as an attempt to divert attention away from his own inadequacies. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi mentioned the efforts by his country in the fight against IS and added that further measures by the Iraqi government would follow. In addition to positive developments such as the improved security situation in Baghdad, which he referred to as the best since 2003, the prime minister described the existence of groups that are no longer controlled by the Iraqi state, as worrying. He was also highly critical of unauthorized troop deployments by Turkey in Iraqi territory. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir attacked Syrian ruler Assad and stated that IS consisted of "psychopaths without religion". Middle East situation During a panel discussion on the situation in the Middle East, US Senator John McCain described the global political landscape in clear terms. Because of eroding balances of power, McCain stated that the current world order was in a state of decay. The senator accused the West of being weak vis-à-vis Russia and criticized the diplomatic approach pursued by US Secretary of State Kerry. This attitude, according to McCain, would only promote the military aggression of Russia. The Senator also expressed skepticism towards the Syria agreement, which he said rewarded aggression and was just another sign of Western weakness. McCain also stated that this agreement was insufficient to end the refugee crisis, which Russia would be using as a weapon against the Western community. The Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, supported the Syria agreement. Norbert Röttgen, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, said that Russia had won the upper hand in the Middle East through its violent actions in Syria. He also spoke out against further concessions of the West in the Ukraine conflict in exchange for Russian concessions in Syria. He called it a mistake not to have established a safe zone for Syrian refugees in 2015, thus leading to spill-over effects across the region. Röttgen called on Europe to take responsibility for its own security. Israeli defence minister Moshe Ya'alon criticized the lack of a "grand strategy" for the West in order to deal with terrorism and the political situation in the Middle East. He reiterated the Israeli strategy of "red lines" vis-à-vis Syria. Finally, he added that the conflict between NATO and Russia did not constitute a new Cold War, since Moscow was acting unilaterally and no aggression on the part of the West was initiated. Future of NATO During a panel discussion on the future of NATO, Poland's Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski expressed general satisfaction with the increased number of NATO troops in Eastern Europe and at the same time, stated that it was necessary to deploy more Alliance forces and establish permanent military installations. The Foreign Minister described the NATO-Russia Founding Act from 1997, which limited the deployment of NATO troops in former Warsaw Pact countries, to be "invalid" in the context of recent political developments and the aggressive appearance of Russia, and called for the "equal treatment" of stationing forces similar to NATO's western states. Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg said during the discussion that NATO must ensure the security of all Member States, not only of those countries located on the Alliance's eastern and southern flanks. North Korean nuclear program During a panel discussion on the role of China in the international community, Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized the inadequate actions by the Chinese government against the nuclear armament of North Korea. Corker accused Beijing of refusing to solve the nuclear issue and also of providing sensitive technology to North Korea and Iran. Fu Ying, chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress of China, rejected the criticism, but expressed her government's displeasure with Pyongyang's action. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also warned of further nuclear armament of North Korea and called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict. He warned that should this approach fail, it would be "very, very ugly". Intelligence Services For the first time, the heads of important Western Intelligence Services took part in a public panel discussion at the security conference. James Clapper, US Director of National Intelligence, Robert Hannigan, Director of the British intelligence agency GCHQ, Rob Bertholee, director of the Dutch secret service AIVD and Gerhard Conrad, Director of the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre INTCEN, discussed together with Vint Cerf, Internet pioneer and vice president of Google, the relationship between security and civil liberty. The representatives of the intelligence services talked about the global security situation and warned against the high number of potential terrorists from the ranks of the so-called Islamic State. According to Clapper, 6,900 of the 38,000 'Islamic State' fighters would hail from Western countries. He described that IS was using high-tech online methods for recruitment and propaganda purposes. Clapper warned against attacks by IS using chemical weapons, since they have access to some industrially produced chemical weapons and had already deployed them in the past. Clapper also stated that the infrastructure in Western industrial nations was threatened by future terrorist attacks. INTCEN Director Conrad referred in this context to the new risks associated with Big Data. The intelligence service officials agreed with the demand for improved data exchange between their services. GCHQ Chief Hannigan also warned of IS cyberattacks, but unlike Clapper, did not speak in favor of backdoors in encryption programs. In connection with the new transatlantic data agreement "Privacy Shield", Clapper announced that it should also respect the privacy rights of citizens of other countries. Google vice-president Cerf stated that the Internet could only preserve its advantages "if it was kept free, global, and open, ensuring the freedom of all its users". Ewald von Kleist Award 2016 The Ewald von Kleist Prize 2016 was awarded at a reception hosted by the Bavarian Minister-President Horst Seehofer at the Munich Residenz to Christiana Figueres, Secretary General of the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and Laurent Fabius, former French Foreign Minister. Both received the award for their roles in the adoption of the Convention of Paris, the successor to the Kyoto Protocol in December 2015. The award address was given by UN deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson. The particularly small number of U.S. participants at this traditional event was interpreted by observers as an expression of criticism towards Seehofer's trip to Moscow immediately before the security conference. Situation in Africa In a panel discussion on the situation in Africa, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan described the grim prospects of African youth as an important root cause for refugee flows and terrorism. He called for more humanitarian and social engagement in solving the crises, stressing that purely military measures will not succeed. Annan also stated that Africa's economic growth in recent years had only reached a small elite, which had failed to invest resources in the development of their countries. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, President of Somalia, reiterated Annan's views and described that in his country many militiamen had joined the al-Shabaab terrorist group because of economic reasons. Other participants including Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International, accused the West of a significant involvement in the conflict. Refugee crisis During a panel discussion on the refugee crisis, Peter Altmaier, Chief of the German Chancellery and Federal Minister for Special Affairs, stressed the importance of a ceasefire in Syria. Altmaier called for a quota of refugees in Europe and stated that accommodations should be located near their countries of origin to provide them with homes and schools there. In this context, Altmaier also emphasized the transfer of refugees to Turkey or their repatriation to safe countries of origin. He stressed that the crisis could not be solved with purely national measures. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Turkey protected Europe from "overload and criminal risks" by taking in 2.5 million Syrian refugees. He also urged better coordination of international assistance. Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said that besides refugees in need of protection, many people with other motivations were flocking to Europe. Therefore, the foreign minister called for protection of the EU's external borders and better controls of those who entered. According to Koenders, there was no lack of a European strategy regarding the refugee issue, but he criticized weaknesses in its implementation. Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni described the refugee crisis as a "permanent problem", in which domestic political considerations often prevented a European solution. Gentiloni warned that this was becoming a major threat for the continent. See also Diplomacy International relations International security Internationalism Pirate Security Conference External links Munich Security Conference 2016 official website References Diplomatic conferences in Germany 21st-century diplomatic conferences History of Munich Foreign relations of Germany

64393418

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal%20Law%20Enforcement%20Officers%20Association

Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association

The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association is a non-union club and lobbying organization for federal law enforcement, including the Secret Service, DHS's Air Marshals and TSA's Transportation Security Officers. History and stances In 1986, FLEOA opposed the Firearm Owners Protection Act, which softened the 1968 Gun Control Act. It was introduced by Sen. James A. McClure, supported by the NRA. The law banned the creation of a national gun registry. A compromise was reached in the House, allowing William J. Hughes's amendment banning new automatic weapon ownership. Despite the objections of FLEOA, Police Foundation, IACP, FOP, Troopers, PERF, Sheriffs, NOBLE, Brotherhood, NAPO and the New York City Police Commissioner, the bill passed and was signed by Ronald Reagan in May 1986. In April 2000, then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani described Border Patrol BORTAC agents involved in the seizure of Elian Gonzalez as "storm troopers" at least six times. FLEOA reacted with "strong disgust and dismay" to the Nazi imagery and demanded Giuliani's apology. Hillary Clinton, then running against Giuliani for a Senate seat, agreed with FLEOA in asking for an apology. He refused to apologize, though stated his criticism was aimed at Bill Clinton and AG Janet Reno. Giuliani withdrew from the race for unrelated reasons. In 2007, Jon Adler, then Executive Vice President of FLEOA, called Blackwater "the Cadillac of training services. You've got the best of the best teaching close-quarter-combat techniques." Blackwater was amidst criticism of their actions in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time, including the 2004 Fallujah ambush and 2007 Nisour Square massacre. The company and its head, Erik Prince were being scrutinized by the US House Oversight Committee, Iraqi courts, and others. Following an April 2012 US Secret Service prostitution scandal in Colombia, FLEOA's general counsel, Lawrence Berger, represented the agents; at least some were FLEOA members. Adler praised the Secret Service investigation, downplaying need for a congressional committee hearing. After a Justice Department Inspector General investigation following the 2012 prostitution scandal, it was found agents who attended drug cartel-funded parties for several years, where they received money, gifts, weapons, and encounters with prostitutes who were paid by the cartel. When the report came out in 2015, Michele Leonhart, DEA's head since 2007, received a bipartisan no-confidence vote from 22 of 43 House Oversight Committee members. FLEOA's Adler stated Leonhart "has our full and unwavering support", calling out House members for having "temper tantrums" at her committee hearing. FLEOA president Jon Adler endorsed full-body scanners at airports in 2010, denying they are an invasion of privacy, stating "I think a bomb detonating on a plane is the biggest invasion of privacy a person can experience." FLEOA endorsed Loretta Lynch as AG in 2014. She had previously been honored by the association. The group has lobbied for TSA officers at airport checkpoints to be armed, which was discussed after an agent was shot to death at Los Angeles International Airport in 2013. In 2015, FLEOA endorsed Sen. Jeff Sessions and Rep. David Jolly's "Thin Blue Line Act". It did not pass. In October 2015 the association warned of "dire consequences" as the Obama administration was releasing the "first wave" of inmates after sentencing reductions. The association also objected to substantial reform of the Patriot Act contained in the 2015 USA Freedom Act. The bill passed with compromise. FLEOA encouraged the reintroduction of the 2013 Blue Alert Act in the 2015 session, which would extend systems like the Amber Alert or Silver Alert for alerts about attacks on police, stating it would "help combat the rise of targeted violence against law enforcement officers and those that seek to attack the American way of life". Also in 2015, FLEOA strongly objected to a Bloomberg editorial by author Adam Minter, which noted the costs of the Air Marshal program, which had an estimated 3500 agents, $825 million annual budget, and no data to back its usefulness. The program was created in 1961 after a spate of hijackings and there were nearly 1800 agents by 1970. However, by 9/11 it only had 35 agents and an annual budget under $5 million. FLEOA's response said "There are no statistics to quantify their successfulness", stating they have obviously done their job, since there were no cockpit takeovers in the United States since 9/11. In 2016, FLEOA endorsed the November 2016 announced nomination of Jeff Sessions as Trump's first Attorney General, highlighting their shared objection to "the mythology of sentencing reform". Sessions later rescinded the lenient sentencing reform put in place by Obama and AG Eric Holder. That same year, FLEOA denounced the Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, rebuking White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, who called it a "local law enforcement matter". Adler stated "The illegal takeover of any federal property is a criminal act and all those involved should be arrested and federally prosecuted." FLEOA backed the FBI in the FBI–Apple encryption dispute over Apple's refusal to unlock an iPhone used in the 2015 San Bernardino attack, joining other groups in an amicus brief, stating "public safety will suffer. Crimes will go unsolved and criminals will go free", and "as real as a killer gone free, as real as a pedophile planning for his next prey". The FBI paid for a $1.3 million third-party tool to crack the phone, and then dropped the suit against Apple. The phone was later found not contain relevant information, and an investigation highlighted the FBI's poor intra-agency communication on their digital forensic tools. In 2017, FLEOA endorsed the expansion of DNA collection for law enforcement. It also endorsed the early March 2017 nomination of Rod Rosenstein as Deputy AG under Jeff Sessions. During a 2018 Senate confirmation hearing for Ronald Vitiello as head of ICE, Senator Gary Peters brought up a 2015 tweet from Vitiello, where he suggested to Mark Levin that the Democratic Party be renamed the "liberalcratic party or the NeoKlanist party". Vitiello said it was intended as a direct message to Marc Levin, was a joke, and was sorry it caused offense; Kamala Harris echoed Peters' reply, grilling him on why that was a poor comparison. When Vitiello said the KKK "tried to use fear and force" against "race and ethnicity", Harris asked if Vitiello saw parallels between ICE and the KKK, especially with ICE's enforcement of the Trump administration family separation policy. This led to a strong reaction from Fox News's Trish Regan and a strong letter to Harris from FLEOA, calling it a "broad-brush character assassination" on ICE agents. In response, Harris said Vitiello "owes the American people a clear explanation as to whether such inflammatory and divisive language reflects his beliefs." FLEOA endorsed Trump's 2018 rejection of California's sanctuary city policies, as well as lawsuits and acts to enforce Trump's executive order. The California lawsuits were rejected, allowing the state's actions to stand. They also endorsed civil asset forfeiture and AG Jeff Sessions's rollback of Obama-era restrictions. FLEOA awarded ICE's acting director, Thomas Homan, with their "National Law Enforcement Leader of the Year" award in April 2018. In 2020, Larry Cosme, president of FLEOA, was at Donald Trump's signing of an executive order called "Safe Policing for Safe Communities" on June 16, 2020, amidst George Floyd protests about police brutality. Cosme called it "a great step moving forward", thanking Trump. While the association is nonpolitical, they endorsed Trump in 2016. FLEOA also successfully lobbied Senator Tim Scott and Attorney General William Barr to water down Scott's Republican police reform bill, the Justice Act (S.3985). FLEOA has spent $400,000 on lobbying since Trump's inauguration. Membership FLEOA has stated their membership numbers through the years: 1989: 6,000 2000: 17,500 2014: 25,000 2017: 26,000 Leadership Timothy Danahey, 2003 Art Gordon, 2007–2008 Jon Adler, 2010–2014 Nathan R. Catura, 2016–2018 Larry Cosme, 2020 References External links Federal law enforcement in the United States Professional associations based in the United States Law enforcement non-governmental organizations in the United States Government-related professional associations in the United States

64481592

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid%20Verbauwhede

Ingrid Verbauwhede

Ingrid Verbauwhede is a professor at the COSIC (Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography) Research Group of the Electrical Engineering Department, KU Leuven, where she leads the embedded systems team. She is a pioneer in the field of secure embedded circuits and systems, with several awards recognising her contributions to the field. She is member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts since 2011. She is a fellow of IEEE. Education Verbauwhede received her PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium, and Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC), Leuven, in 1991. Her PhD dissertation was on "VLSI design methodologies for application-specific cryptographic and algebraic systems". Career Verbauwhede received a NATO post-doctoral fellowship to work at the Electronics Research Lab of the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, United States). Since 2003, she is part of the COSIC and iMinds research groups in the Department of Electrical Engineering, at KU-Leuven, Belgium. She is also an associate professor at the Electrical Engineering Department, University of California, Los Angeles. Research Verbauwhede's main research interests are system and architecture design, embedded systems, ASIC and FPGA design and design methodologies for real-time, low power embedded systems and more specifically embedded security systems. Her projects investigate fast, low power encryption platforms, which can also be easily reprogrammed and reconfigured, and how even the lightest devices can be made resistant against security hacks. She advocates security as another design dimension for lightweight devices, e.g., things in IoT (Internet of Things) should be designed and optimized for security. Verbauwhede is an inventor on several patents in the domains of logic circuits, and digital signal processing, security e.g., Advanced Encryption System (AES) architecture. She is the author of the book Secure Integrated Circuits and Systems (). She also co-authored the book titled Lattice-Based Public-Key Cryptography in Hardware (Computer Architecture and Design Methodologies) () with Sujoy Sinha Roy. Awards and recognition Verbauwhede was elected as a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts in 2011. In 2013, she became an IEEE Fellow for contributions to the design of secure integrated circuits and systems. She received an ERC Advanced Grant in 2016 with her Cathedral project on Post-Snowden Circuits and Design Methods for Security. In 2017, she received the IEEE CS Technical Achievement Award for pioneering contributions to design methodologies for tamper-resistant and secure electronic systems. In 2021, she became a fellow of the International Association for Cryptologic Research for pioneering and sustained contributions to cryptographic hardware and embedded systems. References Flemish scientists Women computer scientists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)

64487376

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre%20for%20Defence%20Research%20and%20Development%20%28Sri%20Lanka%29

Centre for Defence Research and Development (Sri Lanka)

Centre for Defence Research and Development (CDRD) is a Sri Lankan Research and Development (R&D) institute under the Ministry of Defence responsible for the development technology for the Armed Forces of Sri Lanka. The CDRD cooperates with various branches of the military as well as other entities and is engaged in the development of both military and civilian technologies. History During the Sri Lankan Civil War the separatist militants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam made extensive use of Claymore mines and improvised explosive devices which were often detonated wirelessly and the Sri Lankan government was finding it hard to procure enough jammers from international markets. Thus the CDRD was founded in 2006 at the Panagoda cantonment consisting of a group of army personnel working together with engineering faculties of various universities. These allowed to both disrupt the signals as well as detect and detonate mines planted by the LTTE. known as the K3 Jammer the initial manpack version was effective up to a modest 100m and later K3V vehicular version was subsequently used by the army when providing security to VIPs. CDRD later developed mobile phone jammers for prisons as well as GPS jammers and satellite phone jammers. Projects Most of CDRD's early projects involved the modification of the military's existing equipment such as the development of rugged RA 400 Cougar Fist Microphone developed for Cougar Radios by the CDRD and also modified to be used with the PRC 1077 VHF Tactical Radios. However, since then the CDRD has been expanding and has begun new projects and also begun R&D projects involving civilian or dual use technologies. The CDRD has developed a helium balloon-based stationary surveillance platform equipped with pan–tilt–zoom and infrared cameras, demining machines, voice encryption devices for telephones and radios, high nutrition/ high caloric ration packs alongside packaging material and containers, GPS-based vehicle tracking devices and fleet management Systems, WS30 stabilized weapon system for naval vessels developed in cooperation with EM Digital. The CDRD has also developed numerous simulators for training including realistic flight simulator, flight control simulator, field artillery simulator, simulators for jungle lane firing etc. CDRD also developed civilian use technologies such as a Train Tracking and Operating Information System for Sri Lankan Railways, Braille to Sinhala converter, bullet proof vest , GPS-enabled quadcopters alongside 3D modeling tools for drone mapping and disaster management as well as a web-based Global Disaster Risk Analysis, Prevention and Mitigation Application. CDRD and Sri Lanka Air Force is currently developing unmanned vehicle systems including a medium range unmanned aerial vehicle named Lihiniya MK II after success of Lihiniya MK I as well as an unmanned underwater vehicle for the Sri Lanka Navy called Magura. CDRD Multiple rocket launcher project resulted in a locally developed 122mm MLRS system with rockets including fuel, launcher, hydraulic control unit and digital fire control system which was displayed on the 71st Independence Day Parade. CDRD is also developing a naval variant of the MLRS. Further a guided missile is also being developed. The Naval variant of the locally developed guided missile to be soon installed on naval vessels. However the CDRD is constrained by the lack of resources including funding, facilities and researchers and as of 2018 only 8 of 15 wings are active and several projects have been suspended due to the lack of resources. Organization structure The Headquarters CDRD acts as the Command and Control arm of the CDRD headed by a Director General equivalent to a Major General and assisted by staff consisting of a Deputy Director General and Staff Officers. The CDRD is organized into four main Divisions with the Technical & Material Division being responsible for conducting research and development. The Technical and Material Division is composed of 15 Wings, each headed by a Chief Coordinator in the rank of Colonel or equivalent, however as of 2018 only 8 Wings are fully operational. The Divisions and fully operational Wings as of 2018 are, Technical & Materials Division Radio and Electronics Wing Combat Engineering Wing Missile Wing Surveillance Wing Explosive/Pyrotechnics Wing IT Wing Marine Wing Aeronautical Wing Admin & Logistic Division Finance Division Training Division References Defence agencies of Sri Lanka Research institutes in Sri Lanka 2006 establishments in Sri Lanka

64499620

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic%20voting%20in%20the%20United%20States

Electronic voting in the United States

Electronic voting in the United States involves several types of machines: touch screens for voters to mark choices, scanners to read paper ballots, scanners to verify signatures on envelopes of absentee ballots, and web servers to display tallies to the public. Aside from voting, there are also computer systems to maintain voter registrations and display these electoral rolls to polling place staff. Most election offices handle thousands of ballots, with an average of 17 contests per ballot, so machine-counting can be faster and less expensive than hand-counting. Voluntary guidelines The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is an independent agency of the United States government which developed the 2005 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG). These guidelines address some of the security and accessibility needs of elections. The EAC also accredits three test laboratories which manufacturers hire to review their equipment. Based on reports from these laboratories the EAC certifies when voting equipment complies with the voluntary guidelines. Twelve states require EAC certification for machines used in their states. Seventeen states require testing by an EAC-accredited lab, but not certification. Nine states and DC require testing to federal standards, by any lab. Four other states refer to federal standards but make their own decisions. The remaining eight states do not refer to federal standards. Certification takes two years, costs a million dollars, and is needed again for any equipment update, so election machines are a difficult market. A revision to the guidelines, known as the VVSG 1.1, was prepared in 2009 and approved in 2015. Voting machine manufacturers can choose which guidelines they follow. A new version has been written known as the VVSG 2.0 or the VVSG Next Iteration, which is being reviewed. Optical scan counting In an optical scan voting system, each voter's choices are marked on one or more pieces of paper, which then go through a scanner. The scanner creates an electronic image of each ballot, interprets it, creates a tally for each candidate, and usually stores the image for later review. The voter may mark the paper directly, usually in a specific location for each candidate, then mail it or put it in a ballot box. Or the voter may select choices on an electronic screen, which then prints the chosen names, usually with a bar code or QR code summarizing all choices, on a sheet of paper to put in the scanner. This screen and printer is called an electronic ballot marker (EBM) or ballot marking device (BMD), and voters with disabilities can communicate with it by headphones, large buttons, sip and puff, or paddles, if they cannot interact with the screen or paper directly. Typically the ballot marking device does not store or tally votes. The paper it prints is the official ballot, put into a scanning system which counts the barcodes, or the printed names can be hand-counted, as a check on the machines. Most voters do not look at the machine-printed paper to ensure it reflects their choices. When there is a mistake, an experiment found that 81% of registered voters do not report errors to poll workers. No state requires central reporting of errors reported by voters, so the occasional report cannot lead to software correction. Hand-marked paper ballots more clearly have been reviewed by voters, but some places allow correction fluid and tape so ballots can be changed later. Two companies, Hart and Clear Ballot, have scanners which count the printed names, which voters had a chance to check, rather than bar codes and QR codes, which voters are unable to check. When scanners use the bar code or QR code, the candidates are represented in the bar code or QR code as numbers, and the scanner counts those codes, not the names. If a bug or hack makes the numbering system in the ballot marking device different from the numbering system in the scanner, votes will be tallied for the wrong candidates. This numbering mismatch has appeared with direct recording electronic machines (below). Errors in optical scans Scanners have a row of photo-sensors which the paper passes by, and they record light and dark pixels from the ballot. A black streak results when a scratch or paper dust causes a sensor to record black continuously. A white streak can result when a sensor fails. In the right place, such lines can indicate a vote for every candidate or no votes for anyone. Some offices blow compressed air over the scanners after every 200 ballots to remove dust. Software can miscount; if it miscounts drastically enough, people notice and check. Staff rarely can say who caused an error, so they do not know whether it was accidental or a hack. in 2020 elections in Collier and Volusia Counties, FL, the election's optical scanners mis-interpreted voters' marks on 0.1% and 0.2% of ballot sheets respectively. These were not enough to change any outcomes, and involved voters' marks which barely touched the ovals intended to record votes. They were discovered by independent software re-examining all the ballot images. in a 2020 election in Antrim County, MI, last minute updates to some ballots were not applied to all scanners, so the scanners had inconsistent numeric codes for different candidates and styles of ballots, causing errors of thousands of votes. Corrections happened in stages, leading to less and less confidence in the results. In a 2020 election in Windham, New Hampshire, fold lines in the wrong places and dust on scanner sensors caused many fold lines to count as votes. In a 2020 election in Baltimore, Maryland, the private company which printed ballots shifted the location of some candidates on some ballots up one line, so the scanner looked in the wrong places on the paper and reported the wrong numbers. It was caught because a popular incumbent got implausibly few votes. In a 2019 election in Northampton county, Pennsylvania, the software under-counted one candidate by 99%, reporting 164 votes, compared to 26,142 found in a subsequent hand-count, which changed the candidate's loss to a win. In a 2018 New York City election when the air was humid, ballots jammed in the scanner, or multiple ballots went through a scanner at once, hiding all but one. In a 2016 Maryland election, a comparison of two scanning systems on the same ballots revealed that (a) 1,972 ballot images were incorrectly left out of one system, (b) one system incorrectly ignored many votes for write-in candidates, (c) shadows from paper folds were sometimes interpreted as names written in on the ballot, (d) the scanner sometimes pulled two ballots at once, scanning only the top one, (e) the ballot printers sometimes left off certain candidates, (f) voters often put a check or X instead of filling in an oval, which software has to adapt to, and (g) a scratch or dirt on a scanner sensor put a black line on many ballot images, causing the appearance of voting for more than the allowed number of candidates, so those votes were incorrectly ignored. In 2016 Wisconsin elections statewide, some voting machines did not detect some of the inks used by voters. In a 2016 Rhode Island election, machines were misprogrammed with only one ballot style, though there were two. Results were surprising enough so officials investigated and found the error. In a 2014 Stoughton, Wisconsin, election, all voters' choices on a referendum were ignored, because the scanner was programmed to look in the wrong spot on the ballot. In a 2010 New York election, 20,000 votes for governor and 30,000-40,000 votes for other offices were ignored, because the scanners overheated and disqualified the ballots by reading multiple votes in races where voters had properly only voted once. Errors from 2002 to 2008 were listed and analyzed by the Brennan Center in 2010. In a 2004 Yakima, Washington, election 24 voters' choices on 4 races were ignored by a faulty scanner which created a white streak down the ballot. In a 2004 Medford, Wisconsin, election, all 600 voters who voted a straight party ticket had all their votes ignored, because the manufacturer forgot to program the machines for a partisan election. Election officials did not notice any problem. The consultant who found the lost 600 voters also reported a Michigan precinct with zero votes, since staff put ballots in the scanner upside down. In a 2000 Bernalillo County (Albuquerque area), New Mexico, election, a programming error meant that straight-party votes on paper ballots were not counted for the individual candidates. The number of ballots was thus much larger than the number of votes in each contest. The software was fixed, and the ballots were re-scanned to get correct counts. In the 2000 Florida presidential race the most common optical scanning error was to treat as an overvote a ballot where the voter marked a candidate and wrote in the same candidate. Researchers find security flaws in all election computers, which let voters, staff members or outsiders disrupt or change results, often without detection. Security reviews and audits are discussed below. Recreated ballots Recreated ballots are paper or electronic ballots created by election staff when originals cannot be counted for some reason. Reasons include tears, water damage, folds which prevent feeding through scanners and voters selecting candidates by circling them or other abnormal marks. Reasons also include citizens abroad who use the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot because of not receiving their regular ballot in time. As many as 8% of ballots in an election may be recreated. When auditing an election, audits are done with the original ballots, not the recreated ones, to catch mistakes in recreating them. Cost of scanning systems If most voters mark their own paper ballots and one marking device is available at each polling place for voters with disabilities, Georgia's total cost of machines and maintenance for 10 years, starting 2020, has been estimated at $12 per voter ($84 million total). Pre-printed ballots for voters to mark would cost $4 to $20 per voter ($113 million to $224 million total machines, maintenance and printing). The low estimate includes $0.40 to print each ballot, and more than enough ballots for historic turnout levels. The high estimate includes $0.55 to print each ballot, and enough ballots for every registered voter, including three ballots (of different parties) for each registered voter in primary elections with historically low turnout. The estimate is $29 per voter ($203 million total) if all voters use ballot marking devices, including $0.10 per ballot for paper. The capital cost of machines in 2019 in Pennsylvania is $11 per voter if most voters mark their own paper ballots and a marking device is available at each polling place for voters with disabilities, compared to $23 per voter if all voters use ballot marking devices. This cost does not include printing ballots. New York has an undated comparison of capital costs and a system where all voters use ballot marking devices costing over twice as much as a system where most do not. The authors say extra machine maintenance would exacerbate that difference, and printing cost would be comparable in both approaches. Their assumption of equal printing costs differs from the Georgia estimates of $0.40 or $0.50 to print a ballot in advance, and $0.10 to print it in a ballot marking device. Direct-recording electronic counting A touch screen displays choices to the voter, who selects choices, and can change her mind as often as needed, before casting the vote. Staff initialize each voter once on the machine, to avoid repeat voting. Voting data and ballot images are recorded in memory components, and can be copied out at the end of the election. The system may also provide a means for communicating with a central location for reporting results and receiving updates, which is an access point for hacks and bugs to arrive. Some of these machines also print names of chosen candidates on paper for the voter to verify. These names on paper can be used for election audits and recounts if needed. The tally of the voting data is stored in a removable memory component and in bar codes on the paper tape. The paper tape is called a Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT). The VVPATs can be counted at 20–43 seconds of staff time per vote (not per ballot). For machines without VVPAT, there is no record of individual votes to check. Errors in direct-recording electronic voting This approach can have software errors. It does not include scanners, so there are no scanner errors. When there is no paper record, it is hard to notice or research most errors. The only forensic examination which has been done of direct-recording software files was in Georgia in 2020, and found that one or more unauthorized intruders had entered the files and erased records of what it did to them. In 2014–2017 an intruder had control of the state computer in Georgia which programmed vote-counting machines for all counties. The same computer also held voter registration records. The intrusion exposed all election files in Georgia since then to compromise and malware. Public disclosure came in 2020 from a court case. Georgia did not have paper ballots to measure the amount of error in electronic tallies. The FBI studied that computer in 2017, and did not report the intrusion. A 2018 study of direct-recording voting machines (iVotronic) without VVPAT in South Carolina found that every election from 2010 to 2018 had some memory cards fail. The investigator also found that lists of candidates were different in the central and precinct machines, so 420 votes which were properly cast in the precinct were erroneously added to a different contest in the central official tally, and unknown numbers were added to other contests in the central official tallies. The investigator found the same had happened in 2010. There were also votes lost by garbled transmissions, which the state election commission saw but did not report as an issue. 49 machines reported that their three internal memory counts disagreed, an average of 240 errors per machine, but the machines stayed in use, and the state evaluation did not report the issue, and there were other error codes and time stamp errors. In a 2017 York County, Pennsylvania, election, a programming error in a county's machines without VVPAT let voters vote more than once for the same candidate. Some candidates had filed as both Democrat and Republican, so they were listed twice in races where voters could select up to three candidates, so voters could select both instances of the same name. They recounted the DRE machines' electronic records of votes and found 2,904 pairs of double votes. In a 2015 Memphis, Tennessee, city election, the central processing system lost 1,001 votes which showed on poll tapes posted at precincts: "at Unity Christian... precinct’s poll tape... 546 people had cast ballots... Shelby County’s first breakdown of each precinct’s voting... for Unity Christian showed only 330 votes. Forty percent of the votes had disappeared... At first it looked like votes were missing from not just one precinct but 20. After more investigation, he appeared to narrow that number to four... In all, 1,001 votes had been dropped from the election night count." In a 2011 Fairfield Township, New Jersey, election a programming error in a machine without a VVPAT gave two candidates low counts. They collected more affidavits by voters who voted for them than the computer tally gave them, so a judge ordered a new election which they won. Errors from 2002 to 2008 were listed and analyzed by the Brennan Center in 2010. In 2004, 4,812 voting machine problems were reported to a system managed by Verified Voting and Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. Most of these problems were in states which were primarily using direct-recording electronic voting equipment as of 2006. Security reviews and audits are discussed below. Online, email and fax voting Email, fax, phone apps, modems, and web portals transmit information through the internet, between computers at both ends, so they are subject to errors and hacks at the origin, destination and in between. Election machines online As of 2018–19, election machines are online, to transmit results between precinct scanners and central tabulators, in some counties in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Wisconsin. Receiving ballots online In many states, voters with a computer and printer can download a ballot to their computer, fill it out on the computer, print it and mail it back. This "remote access vote by mail" (RAVBM) avoids transmitting votes online, while letting distant voters avoid waiting for a mailed ballot, and letting voters with disabilities use assistive technologies to fill in the ballot privately and independently, such as screen readers, paddles or sip and puff if they already have them on their computer. The voter also receives a form with tracking numbers and a signature line, to mail back inside or outside the envelope with the ballot, so staff can review eligibility of the voter and prevent multiple votes from the same voter. Many states accept mailed ballots after election day, to allow time for mail from distant voters to arrive. The printed ballot may show just the choices and a bar code or QR code, not all the candidates and unvoted contests. The voter's choices are not put online, which is an advantage for the voter's privacy. However the system does not work for people who have no printer or no computer. For people, such as soldiers, with a shared computer or printer, votes can be divulged by keystroke logging, by the print queue, or by people seeing ballots on the printer. Alternatives for distant voters are to get a paper ballot from the election office or the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot. Alternatives for local voters with disabilities are to use a ballot marking device (BMD) at a polling place, if they can get there, or have election staff bring a BMD and ballot box to the voter. The voter's printer does not necessarily use the weight and size of paper expected by the election scanners, so, after separating ballot from identifiers, staff copy the voter's choices onto a standard ballot for scanning. This copying has scope for error. In California people send a signed application by mail, email or fax and receive a code by email, so there are signature checks both on the application and when the ballot envelope arrives. In Washington, people access the ballot electronically with name and birth date, so signature checks when the ballot envelope arrive are the method to authenticate ballots. Individuals voting online States which allow individual voters to submit completed ballots electronically in the United States are: Hawaii allows email voting by any permanent absentee voter who has not received a ballot by five days before an election Idaho allows email and fax voting in declared emergencies Louisiana allows fax voting for voters with a disability Utah allows email and fax voting for those with disabilities Other states have tried or considered software, with problems discussed below. The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) lets overseas citizens and all military and merchant marine voters get ballots electronically (email, fax, or web site). They then submit ballots by mail to 20 states. Four states allow submission through secure web sites: AZ, CO (if needed), MO, and WV. These four and the remaining 27 states have a mix of rules allowing email or fax: AK, CA, DE, DC, FL, HI, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MA, MS, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NC, MD, OK, OR, RI, SC, TX (for danger, combat zones or space), UT, and WA. The Federal Voting Assistance Program converts emails to fax at voter request, so states which require fax receive ballots which started as emails. Problems in online voting Security experts have found security problems in every attempt at online voting, including systems in Australia, Estonia, Switzerland, Russia, and the United States. in 2019-2020 researchers found insecurities in online voting systems from Voatz, and Democracy Live. In 2010, graduate students from the University of Michigan hacked into the District of Columbia online voting systems during an online voting mock test run and changed all the cast ballots to cater to their preferred candidates. This voting system was being tested for military voters and overseas citizens, allowing them to vote on the Web, and was scheduled to run later that year. It only took the hackers, a team of computer scientists, thirty-six hours to find the list of the government's passwords and break into the system. In March 2000 the 2000 Arizona Democratic presidential primary internet election was conducted over the internet using the private company votation.com. Each registered member of the party received a personal identification number in the mail. They could vote in person or over the internet, using their PIN and answering two questions such as date and place of birth. During the election older browsers failed, but no hacks were identified. Electronic processing of postal and absentee ballots Checking signatures on envelopes of absentee ballots is hard, and is often computerized in jurisdictions with many absentee ballots. The envelope is scanned, and the voter's signature on the outside of the envelope is instantly compared with one or more signatures on file. The machine sets aside non-matches in a separate bin. Temporary staff then double-check the rejections, and in some places check the accepted envelopes too. Error rates of computerized signature reviews are not published. "A wide range of algorithms and standards, each particular to that machine's manufacturer, are used to verify signatures. In addition, counties have discretion in managing the settings and implementing manufacturers' guidelines… there are no statewide standards for automatic signature verification… most counties do not have a publicly available, written explanation of the signature verification criteria and processes they use" Handwriting experts agree "it is extremely difficult for anyone to be able to figure out if a signature or other very limited writing sample has been forged," The National Vote at Home Institute reports that 17 states do not mandate a signature verification process. The Election Assistance Commission says that machines should be set only to accept nearly perfect signature matches, and humans should doublecheck a sample, but EAC does not discuss acceptable error rates or sample sizes. In the November 2016 general election, rejections ranged from none in Alabama and Puerto Rico, to 6% of ballots returned in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky and New York. Where reasons for rejection were known, in 2018, 114,000 ballots arrived late, 67,000 failed signature verification, 55,000 lacked voter signatures, and 11,000 lacked witness signatures in states which require them. The intent of the signature verification step was to catch and reject forged signatures on ballot envelopes. The highest error rates in signature verification are found among lay people, higher than for computers, which in turn make more errors than experts. Researchers have published error rates for computerized signature verification. They compare different systems on a common database of true and false signatures. The best system falsely rejects 10% of true signatures, while it accepts 10% of forgeries. Another system has error rates on both of 14%, and the third-best has error rates of 17%. It is possible to be less stringent and reject fewer true signatures, at the cost of also rejecting fewer forgeries, which means erroneously accepting more forgeries. Vendors of automated signature verification claim accuracy, and do not publish their error rates. Voters with short names are at a disadvantage, since even experts make more mistakes on signatures with fewer "turning points and intersections." State and local websites for election results Election offices display election results on the web by transferring USB drives between offline election computers, and online computers which display results to the public. USB drives can take infections from the online computers to the election computers. Local governments communicate electronically with their state governments so the state can display results, with the result that problems at the state level can affect all or many local offices. Election-reporting websites run software to aggregate and display results. These have had programming errors which showed erroneous partial results during the evening, and the wrong winner. Before the 2016 general election, Russians gained access to at least one employee's account at a vendor which manages election-reporting websites. During the 2018 general election, a hacker in India gained administrative access to the Alaska election-reporting website. Studies by McAfee and ProPublica in 2020 found that most election websites have inadequate security. McAfee analyzed swing states. ProPublica analyzed Super Tuesday states. They found many offices using outdated, insecure, dangerous and inappropriate software, including unsupported operating systems, and using the same few web hosts, which they said is dangerous for critical infrastructure, since finding a flaw in one can lead to access to them all. They criticized offices for not using https encryption, and for public sitenames ending in .com or .org, since it leads voters to trust sites which are not .gov, and voters can easily be tricked by a similar name. Election security Decentralized system In 2016 Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence said that United States elections are hard to hack, because they are decentralized, with many types of machines and thousands of separate election offices operating under 51 sets of state laws. Others have made similar statements. An official at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said a nation state would target hacks in key counties. A McAfee expert said decentralization makes defense hard and for "a very determined group, trying to compromise this system, I think it ends up playing more into their favor than against them." Each city or county election is run by one office, and a few large offices affect state elections. County staff cannot in practice defend against foreign governments. Security reviews The Brennan Center summarized almost 200 errors in election machines from 2002 to 2008, many of which happened repeatedly in different jurisdictions, which had no clearinghouse to learn from each other. More errors have happened since then. Cleveland State University listed formal studies of voting systems done by several groups through 2008. Machines in use are not examined to determine if they have been hacked, so no hacks of machines in use have been documented. Researchers have hacked all machines they have tried, and have shown how they can be undetectably hacked by manufacturers, election office staff, pollworkers, voters and outsiders and by the public. The public can access unattended machines in polling places the night before elections. Some of the hacks can spread among machines on the removable memory cards which tell the machines which races to display, and carry results back to the central tally location. The CEO of Free and Fair, an open source vendor, said the cheapest way to improve security is for each election office to hire a computer student as a white hat hacker to conduct penetration tests. Audits Five states check all contests by hand tallies in a small percent of locations, AK, CA, PA, UT, WV, though California excludes about half the ballots, the ones counted after election day, and Alaska excludes small precincts. Two states check all contests by machines independent of the election machines, in a small percent of locations, NY, VT. Seventeen states check one or a few contests by hand, usually federal races and the governor; most local contests are not checked. Four states reuse the same machines or ballot images as the election, so errors can persist, CT, IL, MD, NV. Sixteen states do not require audits, or only in special circumstances. In seven states many voters still lack paper ballots, so audits are not possible. IN, KY, LA, MS, NJ, TN, TX. Even where audits are done, no state has adequate security on the paper ballots, so they can be damaged to impede audits, or altered to match erroneous machine tallies. Even insiders have breached security. Public attitudes The Pew Research Center found in October 2018 wide mistrust of election security in both parties, especially among Democrats 8% of voters were "very confident that election systems are secure from hacking and other technological threats." 37% were "somewhat confident", and the remaining 55% were not confident 13% of Republicans were very confident, and 41% were not confident 4% of Democrats were very confident, and 66%% were not confident An MIT professor's survey found that Republicans think domestic hackers are more likely than foreigners; Democrats think the opposite. Stanford and Wisconsin researchers in 2019 found that only 89% of voters disapprove if a foreign country would "hack into voting machines and change the official vote count to give [a] candidate extra votes" and the candidate wins. This 89% disapproval is not much more than the 88% who disapprove of a foreign country making campaign contributions and 78-84% against them spreading lies. Only 73-79% disapprove if their party got help, while 94-95% disapprove of the other party getting help. If a foreign country thought about interfering, but did not, 21% distrust the results anyway. This rises only to 84% distrusting final results after a foreign country hacked and changed results. For any of the foreign actions (hacks, contributions or lies), 72% of voters support economic sanctions, 59% support cutting diplomatic relations, 25% support a military threat, and 15% support a military strike. There was less support for action, by 4-20 percentage points, if the foreign country helped one's own party win, so the researchers point out that retaliation is unlikely, since there is little support for it in a winning party. Deep investigation creates more certainty about who is to blame, which they find raises support for retaliation very little. They randomly listed China, Pakistan or Turkey as the interfering country, and do not report any different reactions to them. A Monmouth University poll in May 2019 found that 73% thought Russia interfered in the 2016 election (not necessarily by hacking), 49% thought it damaged American democracy a lot, 57% thought Russia interfered in the 2018 election, and 60% thought the US government is not doing enough to stop it. Margin of error is ±3.5%. Election companies Three vendors sell most of the machines used for voting and for counting votes. As of September 2016, the American Election Systems & Software (ES&S) served 80 million registered voters, Canadian Dominion Voting Systems 70 million, American Hart InterCivic 20 million, and smaller companies less than 4 million each. More companies sell signature verification machines: ES&S, Olympus, Vantage, Pitney Bowes, Runbeck, and Bell & Howell. Amazon provides election websites in 40 states, including election-reporting sites in some of them. A Spanish company, Scytl, manages election-reporting websites statewide in 12 U.S. states, and in another 980 local jurisdictions in 28 states. Another website management company is VR Systems, active in 8 states. Maryland's election website is managed by a company owned by an associate of Russian President Putin. Timeline of development 1964: The Norden-Coleman optical scan voting system, the first such system to see actual use, was adopted for use in Orange County, California. 1974: The Video Voter, the first DRE voting machine used in a government election, developed by the Frank Thornber Company in Chicago, Illinois, saw its first trial use in 1974 near Chicago. Mar. 1975:The U.S. Government is given a report by Roy Saltman, a consultant in developing election technology and policies, in which the certification of voting machines is analyzed for the first time. August 28, 1986: The Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act of 1986 (UOCAVA) requires that US states allow certain groups of citizens to register and vote absentee in elections for federal offices. 1990: The FEC (Federal Election Commission) released a universalized standard for computerized voting. 1996: The Reform Party uses I-Voting (Internet Voting) to select their presidential candidate. This election is the first governmental election to use this method in the U.S. May 2002:The FEC revised the standards established for electronic voting from 1990. Nov 2004: 4,438 of votes in the general election is lost by North Carolina's electronic voting machines. The machines continued to count electronic votes past the device's memory capacity and the votes were irretrievably lost. Dec 2005: Black Box Voting showed how easy it is to hack an electronic voting system. Computer experts in Leon County, Fl lead a simulation where they changed the outcome of a mock election by tampering with the tabulator without leaving evidence of their actions. September 13, 2006: It was demonstrated that Diebold Electronic Voting Machine can be hacked in less than a minute. Princeton's Professor of Computer Science, Edward Felten who installed a malware which could steal votes and replace them with fraudulent numbers without physically coming in contact with the voting machine or its memory card. The malware can also program a virus that can spread from machine to machine. September 21, 2006: The governor of Maryland, Bob Ehrlich (R), advised against casting electronic votes as an alternative method for casting paper absentee ballots. This was a complete turn around since Maryland became one of the first states to accept electronic voting systems statewide during his term. September 3, 2009: Diebold, responsible for much of the technology in the election-systems business, sells their hold to Election Systems & Software, Inc for $5 Million, less than 1/5 of its price seven years earlier. October 28, 2009: The federal Military and Overseas Voters Empowerment Act (MOVE) requires US states to provide ballots to UOCAVA voters in at least one electronic format (email, fax, or an online delivery system). January 3, 2013: Voter Empowerment Act of 2013 – This act requires each US state to make available public websites for online voter registration. Spring 2019: Department of Defense DARPA announces $10 million contract for secure, open-source election system prototypes based on the agency's SSITH secure hardware platform work: a touch screen ballot-marking device to demo at the annual DEF CON hacker conference in summer 2019 and an optical scan system to read hand-marked paper ballots targeted for DEF CON 2020. Legislation In the summer of 2004, the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Association of Information Technology Professionals issued a nine-point proposal for national standards for electronic voting. In an accompanying article, the committee's chair, Charles Oriez, described some of the problems that had arisen around the country. Legislation has been introduced in the United States Congress regarding electronic voting, including the Nelson-Whitehouse bill. This bill would appropriate as much as 1 billion dollars to fund states' replacement of touch screen systems with optical scan voting system. The legislation also addresses requiring audits of 3% of precincts in all federal elections. It also mandates some form of paper trail audits for all electronic voting machines by the year 2012 on any type of voting technology. Another bill, HR.811 (The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003), proposed by Representative Rush D. Holt, Jr., a Democrat from New Jersey, would act as an amendment to the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and require electronic voting machines to produce a paper audit trail for every vote. The U.S. Senate companion bill version introduced by Senator Bill Nelson from Florida on November 1, 2007, necessitates the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology to continue researching and to provide methods of paper ballot voting for those with disabilities, those who do not primarily speak English, and those who do not have a high literacy rating. Also, it requires states to provide the federal office with audit reports from the hand counting of the voter verified paper ballots. Currently, this bill has been turned over to the United States Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and a vote date has not been set. During 2008, Congressman Holt, because of an increasing concern regarding the insecurities surrounding the use of electronic voting technology, submitted additional bills to Congress regarding the future of electronic voting. One, called the "Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008" (HR5036), states that the General Services Administration will reimburse states for the extra costs of providing paper ballots to citizens, and the costs needed to hire people to count them. This bill was introduced to the House on January 17, 2008. This bill estimates that $500 million will be given to cover costs of the reconversion to paper ballots; $100 million given to pay the voting auditors; and $30 million given to pay the hand counters. This bill provides the public with the choice to vote manually if they do not trust the electronic voting machines. A voting date has not yet been determined. The Secure America's Future Elections Act or the SAFE Act (HR 1562) was among the relevant legislation introduced in the 115th Congress. The bill's provisions include designation of the infrastructure used to administer elections as critical infrastructure; funding for states to upgrade the security of the information technology and cybersecurity elements of election-related IT systems; and requirements for durable, readable paper ballots and manual audits of results of elections. References Elections in the United States United States Voting in the United States Computer hardware standards Articles containing video clips

64515093

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewill

Farewill

Farewill provides will-writing, probate, and cremation services in the UK. It claims to be the UK's biggest will writer, accounting for 1 in 10 wills written. Farewill is registered in England and Wales with the Law Society and was declared the National Will Writing Firm of the year in 2019. It is a B2C product but is also provided as a free service through a number of charities. History Farewill is a London-based company founded in 2015 by Dan Garrett (Co-Founder & CEO) and Tom Rogers (Co-Founder & CPTO). Garrett started the company after being inspired whilst designing new products for elderly residents in a care home in Tokyo. Dan Garrett returned to the UK and moved into the death industry, where he organised 15 funerals and gained a qualification in will writing, founding Farewill on 24th July 2015 to "make [death care] easier". In 2016, following their seed funding round, Tracy Doree, angel investor and founder of venture capital firm Kindred Capital, joined Farewill as its Chairperson. In addition to Tracy, the company has 3 additional Directors: Tom Rogers, its Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO), Tim Levene of Augmentum Fintech and Dan Garrett, the CEO. In 2019 Farewill were listed as one of Rocketlist's Top 20 Companies to Work For, Fintech50's Hottest Fintechs to watch, and Sifted's Top UK Startups to follow in 2020. It was awarded best social innovation at the Europas in 2020. According to Augmentum Fintech, Farewill grew by 10x between January 2019 and July 2020. According to LinkedIn, it currently has 84 employees. Farewill's position in the death industry and work with charities has been a topic of discussion due to Farewill's unregulated status. Farewill's CEO has criticized the sector as “overtly traditional”, with prices that are “unaffordably high”. In 2020, the Financial Times questioned the need for new technology in this sector. Services Direct Farewill offers a number of services including will-writing (online and over the phone), a direct cremation service a probate service, and a subscription-based will update service. Farewill state that users can complete an online will in 15 minutes for £90. An additional service, at £10 per year allows for the same will to be updated an unlimited number of times. The will-writing process on Farewill is based on questions that the user answers to provide the necessary information. After this, the user goes through a payment process, and then they can download and sign the document in the presence of their chosen witnesses to finally obtain their legal will. Direct cremations - where the cremation happens privately and the ashes are returned to the family afterwards - start from £980. This has been reported as being around a third of the UK average cost for direct cremation, and around a fifth of the average UK funeral cost. Probate services through Farewill cost from £595. In 2016, TechCrunch wrote of their data privacy concerns of storing wills digitally, online. This led to Farewill responding that user data is stored on Amazon's Secure Storage Service, in Ireland, encrypted using AES-256 encryption. Charity partners The company has partnered with 50 UK charities, including Cancer Research UK, British Heart Foundation, McMillan, The Royal British Legion, and Christian Aid. The charities provide access to the will-writing service to encourage bequeathals to their organisation. It is estimated that this has generated over £260 million in pledged income, across the charities, since Farewill launched. CEO – Dan Garrett Dan Garrett is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Farewill. He completed an MSc in Design at the Royal College of Art, a Master of Structural Engineering at Oxford University, and an MSc in Global Innovation Design at Imperial College London. Garrett started Farewill after working in a Japanese residential home where he saw what he would later characterize as ‘the ineffectiveness of the death care industry’. When he returned to the UK, prior to starting Farewill, he organised 15 funerals and obtained will-writing qualifications. Dan Garrett was the 2019 winner of the Legal Innovation Awards Outstanding Innovator Award. Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic During the COVID-19 pandemic, Farewill saw demand for direct cremations increase by 300% and demand for wills 12 times higher than normal. Partnering with former rugby professional Gareth Thomas, Farewill campaigned for an update to legislation on wills, as rules requiring wills to be witnessed were proving impractical due to social distancing measures. The Ministry of Justice investigated temporarily pausing such requirements. From April 1st 2020, Farewill began providing free will-writing services to all NHS staff. It was reported in July 2020 that over 15,000 NHS workers had used the free wills service. Funding and investors Farewill has raised £30M in total. After a number of seed rounds, a series A round occurred In January 2019, which raised £7.5M from 10 investors. This was said to be used to double the size of Farewill's workforce. On the 8th of July 2020, the company raised another Series B Round funding, led by venture capital firm Highland Europe. This round totalled £20 million, at what is believed to be a £70 million valuation, and was said to be used to expand and improve the service offering through the UK. Notable investors in this round included Keen Venture Partners, Richard Pierson of Headspace, Broadhaven Capital Partners and VentureFunders. Current investors publicly invested in Farewill are Alex Chesterman, Augmentum Fintech, DMG Ventures, Broadhaven Capital Partners, Errol Damelin, Highland Europe, Jamjar Investments, Keen Venture Partners, Kindred Capital, Microsoft, Richard Pierson (of Headspace), SAATCHIiNVEST, SBRI Healthcare, Taaveet Hinrikus, TinyVC, Tracy Terrill, Taavet Hinrikus of TransferWise and VentureFounders. References External links Wills and trusts in the United Kingdom British companies established in 2015 2015 establishments in England Internet properties established in 2015 Haggerston Financial services companies established in 2015

64534817

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce%20Wayne%20%28DC%20Extended%20Universe%29

Bruce Wayne (DC Extended Universe)

Bruce Wayne, also known by his vigilante alias Batman, is a fictional character in the DC Extended Universe based on the character of the same name. The character was portrayed by Ben Affleck in Zack Snyder's 2016 superhero film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, its follow up Justice League (as well as its 2021 director's cut), and a cameo appearance in Suicide Squad. He will reprise the role in the upcoming film The Flash (2022). Fans nicknamed this iteration of the character "Batfleck", a portmanteau of "Batman" and "Affleck". In the films' universe, Bruce had already been active as Batman for twenty years before the emergence of Superman, and despite being initially at odds with him to the point of paranoia and anger, Batman comes to appreciate the former, starting the Justice League in his honor after Superman's sacrifice to stop Doomsday. The Justice League, under Wayne's leadership, fights to prevent Steppenwolf from collecting the three Mother Boxes and destroying Earth alongside his master Darkseid, eventually resurrecting Superman to aid in their collective efforts. The DCEU marks the fifth time Batman was portrayed in film, but the first to share a film series with other DC superheroes such as Superman and Wonder Woman. Although the announcement of Affleck's casting in Batman v Superman was initially met with intense fan backlash, his performance ultimately met with a positive reception in an otherwise divisive film. Affleck was later hired to write, direct, and star in his own standalone Batman film entitled The Batman before stepping down from both roles. Development and casting Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was Affleck's second film as a comic book superhero; he played Daredevil in the 2003 film of the same name, and was initially reluctant to accept playing Batman, citing that he "felt [he] didn't fit the traditional mold. But once Zack [Snyder] showed [him] the concept, and that it would be both different from the great movies that Chris[topher Nolan] and Christian [Bale] made, but still in keeping with tradition, [he] was excited." Affleck previously stated in 2006 that Daredevil had "inoculated [him] from ever playing another superhero". Snyder cast an older Batman to be a layered juxtaposition against a younger Superman; while "bear[ing] the scars of a seasoned crime fighter, but retain[ing] the charm that the world sees in billionaire Bruce Wayne." Nolan was involved with the casting of Affleck and he was the first actor Snyder approached for the part. The director had also discussed the part with Josh Brolin, even offering him the role prior to casting Affleck, though Brolin turned the role down due to creative differences. It was initially claimed that Bale wanted to play Batman again after The Dark Knight Rises, though he stated that his Batman does not belong in any other film and he was never approached by Warner Bros. to play the role again. Bale ultimately decided not to reprise the role out of respect for Christopher Nolan's creative direction and the fact that the Dark Knight trilogy provided a full arc for the character. Other actors considered to play the role included Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who would be cast as Thomas Wayne for the film, Jon Hamm, and Scott Adkins. Following Justice League, Affleck stepped away from the role and English actor Robert Pattinson was cast to replace him in The Batman, beating out other actors such as Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Armie Hammer, who was previously cast as the character in George Millers cancelled Justice League: Mortal. Affleck left the role due to fatigue and a myriad of events in his personal life, though it was also alleged to be due to Snyder's departure from the DCEU and subsequent creative differences with other directors and writers. With Snyder's return to the franchise with the announcement of Zack Snyder's Justice League, a director's cut of the prior film, rumored reports of Affleck's own return to the DCEU surfaced prior to confirmation of his return in The Flash, though Pattinson will continue to star in The Batman, which was confirmed as being a self-contained movie and not part of the DCEU's main timeline. Any future Batman-related project in the DCEU that Affleck takes a part of would likely serve to create a multiverse within the franchise. Affleck has since alluded to The Flash being his final appearance as Batman, with the film also featuring Michael Keaton's iteration of the character from Tim Burton's film series. It has also been rumored that Keaton's version of the character will replace Affleck's in the DCEU after The Flash, with Keaton reprising the role in Batgirl. Following a difficult experience filming Justice League, Affleck stated that doing reshoots for Zack Snyder's Justice League and filming his scenes for The Flash "put a really nice finish on my experience with that character". James Gunn had cast a stand-in double as Affleck's version of Batman in Peacemaker during a scene where the Justice League appears, though he stated that Warner Bros. had him remove Batman and Cyborg from the episode due to "upcoming DCEU projects". Behind the scenes According to the September 2015 issue of Empire Magazine, which promoted Batman v Superman, Ben Affleck chose to wear a wig to match Bruce Wayne's widow's peak as commonly depicted in the comics, a decision that was initially met with skepticism by producer Deborah Snyder. Affleck also bulked up to 231 pounds with 7.7 percent bodyfat for the role before "dialing back" to 225 in order to portray Batman as a physically imposing figure, as his personal trainer Walter Norton Jr. wanted the character to look like a "heavyweight MMA fighter" who had trained daily for the past 20 years. In contrast, Affleck weighed just 198 pounds for his role in The Town. Characterization The DCEU version of Batman has been noted to be more brooding and jaded than previous cinematic iterations of the character, with ScreenRant calling this iteration "the angriest we'd ever seen" in 2019, and was influenced by Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which shows Batman in his 50s. He is noticeably older than Clark Kent when first meeting him in Batman v Superman and has witnessed not only the murders of his parents at a young age, but also that of his protégé Dick Grayson, who served as Robin until his capture and death at the hands of the Joker. Affleck said this Batman "is a little older, he's a little more world-weary. He's been around the block once or twice so he's a little wiser but he's definitely more cynical and a little darker and more jaded", adding that Batman has gotten "more exposed to the violence and the criminal element of that world over time." However, like previous iterations of the character, including that of Michael Keaton's and Christian Bale's portrayals, Affleck's Batman has also become the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and taken on protecting Gotham City from a wide variety of criminals, ranging from Floyd Lawton, Killer Croc and Digger Harkness, to The Joker and Harley Quinn. Affleck's Batman shares a similarity with Bale's in that both fell into a well and were swarmed by bats, developing a phobia of the creatures that he later incorporates into his Batman persona. Bruce is serious, calculating, and tactical, and is known to be dedicated and determined as a crime-fighter. He possesses genius-level intellect and peak physical conditioning. He is brave, bold, and willing to risk his own life for the sake of others, as demonstrated in Justice League. Despite being described as caring and selfless, he is often ruthless and violent in his war on crime, incorporating intimidation tactics into his persona and fighting style, and his inner demons sometimes overwhelm his better judgement. Unlike other interpretations of the character, this version is willing to kill his adversaries, as seen in Batman v. Superman, when he dispatches several of Lex Luthor's minions and even attempts to kill Superman. However, after seeing Superman's selflessness and humanity, Batman feels remorseful of his actions and affiliates with Superman, going as far as to saving Martha Kent from Luthor's henchmen. Bruce's characterization in the theatrical cut of Justice League is noticeably different from in the director's cut, as Joss Whedon's version suddenly made Batman sarcastic, bumbling, and indecisive while Snyder's version fleshes out how Superman's sacrifice restored his faith in humanity and gives him newfound resolve, going as far as to leave behind the isolation that has defined him in favor of taking a leadership role amongst the Justice League's "wildly different" members. Snyder notes that in his original vision for the character's arc, Batman would begin a period of redemption starting in Justice League, resulting in his sacrifice in future sequels. In an analysis of Batman's infamous "Why did you say that name?!" line after hearing Superman utter the name "Martha" in Batman v Superman, comic book artist Jay Oliva notes that the scene depicts Bruce Wayne having an episode of post-traumatic stress disorder, as he suffers flashbacks of the night his parents were killed upon being triggered by the name. Voice, equipment, and vehicles Like previous iterations of Batman, the DCEU Batman utilizes a different voice than the unmasked Bruce Wayne, but instead of manually altering his voice, he relies on a voice modulator to digitally alter it. Affleck notes that a world-famous billionaire such as Bruce Wayne would likely have his voice recognized. Zack Snyder also decided to give Batman a cloth-based Batsuit with exception to his powered exoskeleton in Batman v Superman, commenting "I had a really strong idea about what I wanted to do – I really wanted to do sort of a fabric-based Batman; not what's become the more normal, armored Batman. That's how we evolved it." A bright mind, Bruce continues to adjust his suit for certain needs, but will even look elsewhere for inspiration, as the heat-dissipating gauntlets that he and his butler Alfred Pennyworth create in Zack Snyder's Justice League are implicitly inspired by Diana Prince / Wonder Woman's metal bracelets. According to the Warner Bros. Studios lot, the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Batmobile combined inspiration from both the sleek, streamlined design of classic Batmobiles, including the 1989 Batmobile, and the high-suspension, military build from the more recent Tumbler from The Dark Knight Trilogy. Bruce has also built several other vehicles capable of switching to remote control by Alfred, including a fighter jet used in Batman v Superman and several others in both versions of Justice League, namely the "Knightcrawler", a new four-legged tank-vehicle which was designed by his father during World War II. He also utilizes a portable troop carrier called the "Flying Fox" carrying the new armored Batmobile, which the new team boards to battle Steppenwolf in Russia. Themes In Batman v Superman, Richard Brody of The New Yorker notices an allegory to American politics; Superman, according to Brody, represents the Republican Party, whereas Batman represents the Democratic Party. Brody feels this notion is supported by the fact that Batman's eyes glow blue when he is wearing the exoskeleton and Superman's glow red when he uses his heat vision. Brody notes: However, Kofi Outlaw of ComicBook.com interpreted the allegory the other way around: that Batman represents "the right-wing hawk reaction to 9/11... an America that prefers security over civil liberties; the Bush-era mentality of stopping threats pro-actively before they can threaten close to home". He also compares the "Black Zero" event portrayed in Man of Steel – in which General Zod attacks Metropolis, killing hundreds of people – to 9/11. Meanwhile, Superman, Outlaw writes, represents "the more left-wing, liberal, American ideal", while Lex Luthor represents "insidious opportunists who exploited (and still exploit) the turmoil of a post-9/11, war-torn, world for personal gain." Outlaw suggests that the scene where Batman and Superman find common ground in their mothers is parallel to the notion that conflicting political ideologies still have similarities. Richard Newby of The Hollywood Reporter adds that the Martha scene "is Bruce’s opportunity to reconnect with his own humanity and the humanity of Superman. Batman doesn’t end the fight because their mothers have the same name, but because he recognizes Superman as someone with a mother, and thus a human, despite his alien origins. The battle against Superman is ultimately Bruce’s realization that he can be better and reconnect with humanity again. It’s not a redemption, or a full change, as he does kill mercenaries at the warehouse in the following scene, but it is a start." In addition, Ben Affleck said he liked the "idea of showing accountability and the consequences of violence and seeing that there are real people in those buildings," with the scene of Bruce Wayne at the battle of Metropolis. As Bruce is seen assembling the eponymous team in Zack Snyder's Justice League, Snyder describes Batman's arc as being one of redemption and doing the right thing, with Bruce also feeling out of place, being "just a guy" amongst the others with god-like powers. Nonetheless, Snyder says that his "job of bringing [the Justice League] together" is "also one of the most important jobs because there would be no Justice League without Bruce." Fictional character biography Parents' murder and impact Wayne was born on February 19, 1972 to Martha and Thomas Wayne. In 1981, after watching Excalibur with his parents, a mugger holds his parents at gunpoint, shooting both dead after a struggle in front of Bruce. During the funeral, Wayne runs off, only to fall a dry well, and get attacked by a swarm of bats. This would later inspire him to use that fear to battle the criminal element that took his parents' lives. Years later, Wayne becomes the CEO of his father's company, Wayne Enterprises, while also becoming Batman, defending Gotham City from danger. Early years as Batman At some point, Wayne recruited Robin who was then killed by Joker and Harley Quinn, with Wayne later keeping his vandalized suit to commemorate him. Batman gets into an entanglement with Deadshot after being tipped off by Amanda Waller. While he gets the best of Deadshot, the latter pulls out his rifle and is prepared to kill Batman, but his daughter Zoe gets in the way and persuades her father to surrender. 1 year later, Batman chases down Joker and Quinn, resulting in Quinn's capture and incarceration. Against Superman In 2013, Wayne happens to be in Metropolis during the Black Zero event, which results in the destruction of several skyscrapers, including the Wayne Financial Tower, as the Kryptonians throw each other across the city. Enraged at Superman's apparent lack of concern for innocent bystanders, Wayne devotes his life to taking Superman down, deeming him a threat to humanity. In 2015, at a gala held by Lex Luthor, Wayne encounters Clark Kent (Superman's secret identity), a young reporter attempts to question the billionaire's position on Batman, whom he views as a brutal criminal. Wayne mockingly counters that Superman is dangerous but hypocrites defend him, attempting to brush him off after noticing the mysterious Diana Prince. As he plants a device to steal and decrypt information from Luthor's servers, Prince takes notice and steals the device before Wayne can get back to it, though she returns it to him at a museum gala after he tracks her down, as she is unable to bypass the military-grade encryption on the device. Wayne returns home and falls asleep decrypting the drive. Waking up from a nightmarish dream, he encounters The Flash, who tells him that Lois Lane "is the key" and to "find the others" before vanishing. Looking at Luthor's files, he finds that not only was Luthor after kryptonite, but was also researching metahumans around the world, one of which includes Prince, also known as Wonder Woman. While attempting to intercept Luthor's men during a kryptonite shipment, Batman is stopped by Superman himself, who gives him a warning while Batman voices his desire to take him down. After seeing the explosion at the U.S. Capitol during Superman's televised public trial, Bruce becomes ever more convinced to take down the Man of Steel. He successfully steals the kryptonite on his second attempt and prepares relentlessly to fight Superman. Luthor eventually blackmails Superman into fighting Batman, finally pitting them against each other in combat. Although Superman has realized the situation and attempts to talk Batman out of it, the latter is ready to fight, subduing Superman with two kryptonite smoke grenades after a lengthy struggle. As Batman prepares to move in for the kill using the spear, Superman pleads with him to "save Martha", causing Batman to pause in confusion. When Lane intervenes and explains that Superman meant his own mother, Batman relents and sets out to rescue Martha Kent, killing mobster Anatoli Knyazev in the process, while Superman regains his strength and confronts Luthor. Luthor executes his backup plan, unleashing a monster genetically engineered from DNA from both Zod's body and his own. Having heard of the mayhem, Wonder Woman arrives in her armor with her metahuman powers on display, joining forces with Batman and Superman against the creature. Unfortunately, while the monster is mortally wounded, an enraged dying Doomsday manages to pierce Superman's chest with his huge arm-protrusion, mortally wounding him as well. Batman and Wonder Woman promptly retrieve Superman's lifeless body, seconds before the arrival of a devastated Lane. Batman confronts Luthor in prison, warning him that he will always be watching. Wayne and Prince attend Kent's funeral, and Bruce later delivers Diana a photograph of her from 1918. Forming the Justice League Theatrical cut In 2017, Wayne and Prince follow on their plans to locate more metahumans in the wake of Superman's death. A global threat has arisen with the emergence of the New God Steppenwolf, who has sent his Parademons from Apokolips to plague Gotham. Wayne easily manages to persuade Barry Allen, also known as "The Flash", to join, but faces difficulty in recruiting Arthur Curry, also known as "Aquaman", until Steppenwolf attacks Curry's home of Atlantis. Wayne and Allen join up with Prince and Victor Stone, also known as "Cyborg", as they receive intel from Gotham City Police commissioner James Gordon. The team sets out to an underwater facility between Metropolis and Gotham City in order to rescue Stone's father Silas and other employees of S.T.A.R. Labs, whom Steppenwolf and his forces had kidnapped in an attempt to locate the last Mother Box, one of three devices sought to reshape the world. After the group rescues the employees and seizes the Mother Box to analyze it following a skirmish, Wayne decides to use the device to resurrect Superman after hearing from Stone that Silas had used it to revive him after a horrific accident. Diana and Curry are hesitant about this idea, but Wayne forms a secret contingency plan in case Superman returns as hostile. After exhuming Kent's body, the team successfully revives Superman using the Mother Box and amniotic fluid in the Kryptonian scout ship that was used to create Doomsday. However, Superman has lost his memory, and he attacks the group after Stone accidentally launches a projectile at him. Superman remembers Batman's aggression towards him, grabbing Batman off the ground and nearly killing him, but Batman enacts his contingency plan: Lois Lane. Superman calms down and leaves with Lane to his family home in Smallville, where he reflects, and his memories slowly come back. In the turmoil, the Mother Box is left unguarded, allowing Steppenwolf to retrieve it with ease. Without Superman, the five heroes travel to a village in Russia, where Steppenwolf aims to unite the Mother Boxes once again to remake Earth. Batman risks his own life to distract Steppenwolf while the other members separate the Mother Boxes, though the plan is unsuccessful. Superman, having regained his memories, arrives and assists Allen in evacuating the city, as well as Stone, in separating the Mother Boxes. The team defeats Steppenwolf, who, overcome with fear, is attacked by his own Parademons before they all teleport away. After the battle, Wayne and Prince agree to set up a base of operations for the team, with room for more members, and Bruce begins rebuilding the destroyed Wayne Manor for this purpose. Wayne then makes amends with Kent, buying out the bank trying to foreclose Martha Kent's farm in Smallville and offering Superman the mantle of leadership for the newly minted Justice League. Director's cut Wayne is unable to get a military jet for transporting the team to fly until Stone discovers and fixes a software bug in its firmware. During the final battle in Russia, Batman utilizes his weaponry and vehicles to break through the radioactive fortification Steppenwolf builds around the Mother Boxes, single-handedly annihilates much of the parademon army, and joins the rest of the team in fighting their way to the boxes and confronting Steppenwolf. He also kills a parademon that had shot Allen, giving Allen time to heal and undo the Unity of the boxes by entering the Speed Force and thus indirectly playing a major role in Steppenwolf's defeat. Sometime after, Wayne has another dream. After waking up, he is met by Martian Manhunter, who thanks him for forming the Justice League and promises to be in touch to plan for Darkseid's inevitable return. Alternate versions Steppenwolf victorious In Zack Snyder's Justice League Wayne, alongside the rest of the Justice League, is destroyed by a blast when the Mother Boxes are united and Steppenwolf successfully communicates to Darkseid and his army. Wayne's death is erased when Barry Allen enters the speed force and reverses time to the moment before the blast. Knightmare reality Wayne experiences his first "Knightmare" dream in 2015; the reality depicts an evil Superman spearheading a regime to take over the world. Wayne is betrayed by some of his insurgent allies and fights alone against Superman's soldiers in a war before being captured and killed by the Kryptonian for taking "her from [him]". In 2017, Wayne, having stopped Steppenwolf, has another "Knightmare" in the world ruled by Darkseid, joining forces with Stone, Allen, Mera, Deathstroke, and Joker, before confronting a brainwashed Superman. Earth-89 An alternate counterpart to the DC Extended Universe's Bruce Wayne is set to be depicted in the upcoming 2022 film, The Flash. This version has previously appeared in Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns and Michael Keaton is set to reprise the role. Other appearances Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice prequel comics Batman appears in some comics which serve as a prequel to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice but follow after the events of Man of Steel. In the comics, he fights and defeats Firefly and his henchmen, encounters Superman while defending middle school students from criminals armed with Kryptonian firearms, and expresses to his butler Alfred his concern that Superman will turn against humanity, whereas Alfred suggests that Bruce may have some professional jealousy towards Superman. Advertising Ben Affleck appeared in-character as Bruce Wayne in a Turkish Airlines advertising campaign aired during Super Bowl 50, in which he promotes flying to Gotham City in a tie-in to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. A counterpart with Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor promoting Metropolis was also aired during the game. Reception Upon the release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Affleck received considerable praise for his performance, despite the overall mixed reception of the film itself and the initial negative reaction to his casting. Conner Schwerdtfeger of CinemaBlend specifically notes that Affleck's portrayal is faithful to the comics, showcasing the best of Batman's intellectual and physical abilities while balancing both Bruce Wayne and Batman and "looking the part", whereas Michael Keaton focused too much on Batman and Christian Bale on Bruce Wayne. However, Affleck and Zack Snyder were both criticized for the decision to have Batman kill people, a departure from other interpretations of the character. Contrarily, Affleck's performance in the theatrical release of Justice League drew mixed opinions from critics; Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Affleck "looks like he'd rather be almost anywhere else but here." Ben Sherlock from ScreenRant also noticed that Batman's characterization in the latter film was inconsistent with how he was portrayed in Batman v Superman, which was attributed to the sudden handover of directorial duties from Snyder to Joss Whedon. Affleck's performance in the director's cut of the film was much more warmly received, as Tom Jorgensen of IGN writes that Batman's motivations and character development are more comprehensive. He also adds "Hearing Batman say f*** is rad." Rick Stevenson from Screen Rant wrote "Is Batman's whole character perfect in Zack Snyder's Justice League? No, he still has some clunky moments, his Knightmare confrontation with Jared Leto's Joker feels forced and out of place, and his story isn't terribly original. But it works, and overall it works well. Zack Snyder's Justice League delivers the best version of Ben Affleck's Batman, and it's one of many reasons the new cut is superior to the original theatrical film." After Affleck initially stepped away from the role and following announcement of the release of the "Snyder Cut" on HBO Max, a trending social media event titled #ThanksBatfleck emerged on July 24, 2020, with fans expressing gratitude to Affleck for his contributions to the role of Batman and sympathy for his reasons for departure. His casting in The Flash to reprise his role once more was well received. However, shortly following the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League, a #MakeTheBatfleckMovie campaign had started up all over social media seeking for Ben Affleck to reprise his role in a standalone Batman movie. See also Batman in film Bruce Wayne (1989 film series character) Bruce Wayne (Dark Knight trilogy) Characters of the DC Extended Universe Notes References The plot description and characterization were adapted from Batman, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League (film) at the DC Extended Universe Wiki, which are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license. External links American superheroes Batman characters Batman in other media Batman live-action film characters Characters created by Zack Snyder DC Comics male superheroes DC Comics martial artists DC Extended Universe characters Fictional aviators Fictional business executives Fictional characters with post-traumatic stress disorder Fictional characters from New Jersey Fictional criminologists Fictional diarists Fictional engineers Fictional escapologists Fictional executives Fictional foster carers Fictional hackers Fictional murderers Fictional philanthropists Fictional socialites Fictional vigilantes Film characters introduced in 2016 Male characters in film Martial artist characters in films Orphan characters in film Superheroes with alter egos Works by Ben Affleck

64647989

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary%20Ninja

Binary Ninja

Binary Ninja is a reverse-engineering platform developed by Vector 35 Inc. It can disassemble a binary and display the disassembly in linear or graph views. It performs automated in-depth analysis of the code, generating information that helps to analyze a binary. It lifts the instructions into intermediate languages, and eventually generates the decompiled code. Binary Ninja supports various CPU architectures and binary executable formats. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It also has a free-to-use cloud version. History Binary Ninja was originally an internal tool for a CTF team. The developers later decided to form Vector 35 Inc and develop Binary Ninja into a commercial product. The development started in 2015 and the first public version was released in July 2016. The commercial product does not share code with the internal tool. The latter one is now open-sourced under GPLv2. Features and usage User interface Binary Ninja's UI is built using Qt. Its main UI comprises a symbol list, a cross-reference window, a linear/graph view of the disassembly, a mini-graph, as well as a feature map. It can also show a hex editor, strings listing, and a triage view. Binary Ninja generates extensive annotations in the UI to assist binary analysis. Binary Ninja also supports user-defined themes. API and plugins Binary Ninja offers an API that can be accessed via Python or C. The API is open-sourced under MIT License. It can interact with most of the Binary Ninja's functionality, e.g., user interface, analysis, IL (see below), etc. It can be used to add support for new architecture or automate tasks. Plugins can be made via the API to enhance Binary Ninja. Vector35 maintains a collection of official plugins, while the community has created numerous community plugins. Some notable plugins are the debugger, the signature kit, etc. Binary Ninja intermediate languages (BNIL) Binary Ninja offers three intermediate languages (ILs). The low-lowel IL (LLIL) is a verbose lifting of the underlying instructions from various architectures to a unified representation. The medium-level IL (MLIL) creates variables with types and removes the notion of the stack. The high-level IL (HLIL, also called decompiler) offers a representation of the code that is similar to C source code. Core analysis Binary Ninja automatically performs various analysis on the binary. Some examples are: function detection cross-references for code and data type inference constant propagation value-set analysis jump table resolution Binary editing and patching, shellcode compiler (SCC) Binary Ninja offers a convenient way to edit and patch a binary. It can assemble an instruction at the current line, flip a conditional jump, etc. Edits and updated analysis are immediately reflected in the UI. Besides, Binary Ninja can be used as a general binary editor. It supports several commonly-used transformations and encryption algorithms. The shellcode compiler allows the user to compile and insert code via C syntax. Supported architectures and executable file formats Architectures Binary Ninja supports the following CPU architectures officially: x86 32-bit x86 64-bit ARMv7 Thumb2 ARMv8 PowerPC MIPS 6502 The support for these architectures vary and details can be found in the official FAQ. Besides, the community also made several architecture plugins that support various other architectures. Executable file formats Binary Ninja supports the following executable file formats officially: PE/COFF ELF Mach-O .NES binary (via a plugin) Raw binary See also Ghidra JEB Radare2 Interactive Disassembler Decompiler Disassembler References Disassemblers

64673934

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor%20Stone%20%28DC%20Extended%20Universe%29

Victor Stone (DC Extended Universe)

Victor Stone, also known as Cyborg, is a fictional character in the DC Extended Universe. Based on the character of the same name appearing in publications from DC Comics, he is portrayed by Ray Fisher, making his cinematic film debut in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) before playing a prominent role in Justice League (2017). Cyborg's role in the latter film was subject to controversy as his backstory was heavily trimmed down in the theatrical release, in addition to sparking a conflict between Fisher, Joss Whedon, who had replaced Zack Snyder as director during post-production, and subsequently DC Films. Nonetheless, the character also appeared in Snyder's director's cut of Justice League (2021) with his original arc restored. Development and portrayal Comics origins and appearances in other media A later addition to DC Comics' lineup of superhero characters, Cyborg first appeared in 1980 as a founding member of the Teen Titans. He later sees numerous arcs in the comics and is rebooted several times, becoming a founding member of the Justice League in the 2011 continuity relaunch. Cyborg famously appears in numerous adaptations of the Teen Titans, including the 2003–07 animated series and Teen Titans Go!, and numerous DC Comics animated films and video games. He is voiced by Khary Payton in many of these adaptations. Casting and execution Theater actor Ray Fisher was cast to play Victor Stone / Cyborg in the DCEU, beginning with the character's appearance in Batman v Superman. This was Fisher's first film role, as he had been a classically trained actor. Fisher had gained 20 pounds of muscle to portray Muhammad Ali in the play Fetch Clay, Make Man, after which talent agents sought him for the role of Cyborg. In the films, the effects for Cyborg's cybernetic parts are achieved using CGI and motion capture. A stand-alone Cyborg film was initially scheduled for a release date of April 3, 2020, but it has since been delayed. Cyborg, played by Ray Fisher, appears in Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021). Fisher was among several actors who returned to shoot additional footage for the "Snyder Cut". When interviewed by Vanity Fair after the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League, screenwriter Chris Terrio, who also wrote Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, stated that he had worked extensively with Fisher on the development of the Victor Stone character. Terrio said that both men understood the "responsibility" of developing the first black superhero to appear in any DC film; while other black superheroes, such as Sam Wilson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, had been seen in film before Justice League, Victor Stone/Cyborg was to be the first one cast in a starring role for a big-budget film, as this was before the release of Black Panther. Terrio also revealed that he was so upset with the removal of much of his work on the theatrical cut, including Cyborg's backstory, that he strongly considered having his name taken off the film before realizing it would cause more problems for the film's already troubled production. Fisher/Whedon/Hamada conflict Several years after the release of the theatrical version of Justice League, Fisher opened up about perceived mistreatment by Joss Whedon, who replaced Zack Snyder as director, while filming the reshoots, leading to a dispute with DC Films studio head Walter Hamada and DC Entertainment head Geoff Johns. Fisher specifically accused Whedon of "gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable" behavior, starting a series of Twitter posts about his experiences with the tagline "Accountability > Entertainment" that carried on in the following months. Other DCEU actors such as Aquaman actor Jason Momoa, Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot, and Iris West actress Kiersey Clemons either offered their support for Fisher or alluded to their own negative experiences with Whedon. While Warner Media agreed to look into the matter and carried out its own investigation, allegedly leading to Whedon leaving production of the HBO series The Nevers, Fisher stated that he was no longer willing to work at DC Films under Hamada, calling him "the most dangerous kind of enabler" for allegedly tampering with the investigation. Cyborg was originally reported to appear in The Flash, but was reportedly written out of the film after Fisher declared he was unwilling to work with Hamada on any future DC Films productions in the aftermath of their conflict. The role is not expected to be recast in that film. In addition, Warner Bros. president Ann Sarnoff defended Hamada and the studio's handling of the investigation. Fisher later wrote: "If the end of my time as Cyborg is the cost for helping to bring awareness and accountability to Walter Hamada's actions—I'll pay it gladly." Fisher opened up about his experiences working at DC Films in greater detail following the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League. Fisher has since stated that he would return to the role of Cyborg for The Flash if Warner Bros. and Hamada released a formal apology to him. Characterization and themes According to Fisher, Cyborg's backstory, as intended by Zack Snyder in his version of Justice League, was meant to "hit some hearts". Fisher mentions that Cyborg will have lost numerous elements of his personal life, including his original body, mother, ability to play football, and subsequently, his sense of self. Originally a cheerful, athletic, and intelligently gifted young man willing to help others, Victor becomes gloomy and depressed after his accident, no longer feeling fully human after being rebuilt. Despite his disillusionment with the world, Victor retains his selflessness after his accident, assisting a penniless single mother by manipulating her bank account as one of his first actions as Cyborg. After fighting alongside the Justice League for some time, however, Cyborg seems to have warmed a bit to all of his teammates. Having been rebuilt with alien technology by his estranged father, Silas, Victor Stone's arc in the "Snyder Cut" will see the character re-finding himself and his sense of humanity. Fisher also mentioned "There's a ton of allegory with respect to that in being a Black man, and just the journey that Black people have taken in this country." During early promotion of the theatrical cut, Fisher also mentioned that Cyborg's character was meant to represent people with disabilities in the film. Fictional character biography Origins In 2015, Stone is the starting quarterback for the Gotham City University football team, leading the team to a win over Wisconsin with his mother, Elinore, watching, but his father Silas is unable to attend due to his job as the director of S. T. A. R. Labs. Stone and Elinore have a talk about why Silas was unable to make it on their drive home, and as they are distracted, get into an accident that kills Elinore and maims Stone from the chest down. Silas secretly uses one of the Mother Boxes, being studied by S.T.A.R. Labs after it was discovered by the Nazis, to save Stone and build him into a cybernetic being. Though Stone survives, Silas declares him dead and gives him a burial marker next to his mother, hiding Stone in his apartment along with the Mother Box. The footage of his reconstruction is taken and decrypted from Lex Luthor's servers by Bruce Wayne to Diana Prince along with other information on fellow metahumans. Victor resents his father for being mostly absent in his life and for rebuilding him into a "monster" and blames him for his mother's death. Silas leaves him a tape that serves as guide on how to discover his newly-gained powers, which include the ability to remotely bypass encryption and manipulate computer systems at will, but Stone destroys the tape when Silas' recording becomes more personal. Silas informs Stone that Steppenwolf's parademons are after the Mother Box, leading to Stone burying it in his supposed grave. Stopping Steppenwolf Theatrical cut In 2017, Stone is adjusting to his new abilities and secretly listens in on a conversation between Wayne and Prince. He is later discovered at his father's home by Prince, who is attempting to recruit him and several other metahumans to team up against an extraterrestrial invasion by the tyrannical New God warlord Steppenwolf. Stone tells her he has been doing some "tracking" but declines to join her, Bruce and Barry Allen until he later finds his home ransacked and father kidnapped. Revealing that he had hidden the Mother Box Steppenwolf is after, Stone helps the fledgling metahuman team rescue Silas and other scientists from the demon and his parademon army in a S.T.A.R. Labs facility underneath Gotham Harbor, also retrieving the Motherbox. As the team, which later sees Arthur Curry join, decides to use the Mother Box, which was used to successfully revive Stone as Cyborg, to resurrect Superman, Stone and Allen are sent to exhume Clark Kent's body, bonding with each other while doing so. The team successfully resurrects the Man of Steel with the relic and leftover technology from a Kryptonian scout ship in Metropolis, but Superman, having lost his memories, is triggered to attack the team when Cyborg's cannon accidentally shoots at Superman. The team is ultimately saved from being decimated when Wayne has his butler Alfred Pennyworth bring Kent's girlfriend Lois Lane, which calms Superman down. As Kent leaves with Lois to regain his memories, Steppenwolf steals the Mother Box while the team is distracted, and they resolve to face Steppenwolf in Russia without Superman in a final attempt to thwart his plan to destroy the Earth. While Batman plans to distract Steppenwolf, Cyborg is assigned to pull apart the three Mother Boxes with Wonder Woman, Flash, and Aquaman flanking him. The plan is unsuccessful until Superman arrives with his memories restored and aids the team in defeating the New God and his minions, who retreat back to Apokolips after Steppenwolf's axe is destroyed. Cyborg remains a part of the team, now named the Justice League, after the battle. Director's cut Prince meets with him to try and recruit him to Wayne's metahuman team. While angrily refusing at first, Stone joins Wayne's team after discovering his father's plight. He aids Allen in rescuing and evacuating his father and other hostages as he, Allen, Wayne and Prince are able to drive Steppenwolf away, though Steppenwolf deflects a missile shot by Victor and causes the facility to flood, requiring Curry to save them. Recovering the Mother Box, Stone informs the team on its history and explains how his father was able to temporarily activate the Mother Box without alerting Steppenwolf in the past to revive him, leading the team to realize they can use it to resurrect Superman. However, the team realizes the Mother Box will alert Steppenwolf this time around, but they unanimously decide to use it to revive Superman anyway as he is the only one of them powerful enough to go up against the New God one-on-one. Stone utilizes his hacking powers to sneak the team and Superman's body into the Kryptonian scout ship within S.T.A.R. Labs' facility. Upon Allen and Stone activating the Mother Box to resurrect Kent, Victor has a premonition of the "Knightmare" timeline which sees Wonder Woman and Aquaman die and Superman fall under Darkseid's control after Lois Lane's death. Stone's cannon subsequently detects the revived but amnesiac Superman as a threat, automatically shooting at him. Following the team's resulting scuffle with Superman, which ends when Lois arrives and calms Kent down, Steppenwolf senses the Mother Box's activation and retrieves it, but not before Silas sacrifices himself to superheat the box, allowing Stone and Wayne to track it to an abandoned city in Russia. Stone assists Bruce with repairing a military aircraft to fly the team to Russia, finally enabling it to fly after finding and fixing a software bug in its firmware. As the team prepares its battle plan, Victor resolves to separate the three Mother Boxes to prevent their "Unity" from destroying Earth, enlisting Allen's charging ability to aid him while Batman destroys Steppenwolf's fortification around the Mother Boxes. The team fights their way into the nuclear facility, but cannot distract Steppenwolf long enough for Stone to get to the boxes until Superman arrives. Despite Superman's aid, Stone fails to separate the boxes in time and the Unity causes a large explosion, though Allen is able to reverse time by running faster than the speed of light and provide Stone with the needed spark. After a brief moment of temptation, Stone separates and destroys the boxes with Superman's help. Following Steppenwolf's defeat and death, Stone remains part of the team and finally listens to his father's encouragement after repairing the tape, becoming inspired to use his powers for good and accepting his new state while declaring he is "not broken" nor "alone". Cyborg is present in Wayne's "Knightmare" vision in which he, Batman, Flash, Mera, Deathstroke, and Joker are all being hunted by a Darkseid-controlled Superman. Reception Although Ray Fisher's performance in the theatrical Justice League film received a mixed response, his performance in Zack Snyder's Justice League received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Bradon Katz from The Observer wrote "Though Flash (Ezra Miller) and Aquaman (Jason Momoa) are also further fleshed out, it is Victor Stone who emerges as the soul of this blockbuster." Josh Wilding from ComicBookMovie wrote "The way things ultimately play out between them (and we’re not going to spoil anything here) also works perfectly, and Cyborg is one of the most complex, layered characters we’ve seen in a superhero movie for some time." Following news of Fisher being supposedly written out of The Flash, fans flocked to Twitter to voice their support and sympathy for him after he released his statement responding to the news on the social media platform. See also Characters of the DC Extended Universe References The plot description and characterization were adapted from Cyborg and Justice League (film) at the DC Extended Universe Wiki, which are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license. External links African-American superheroes American superheroes Black characters in films Characters created by Zack Snyder DC Comics characters with superhuman strength DC Comics superheroes DC Extended Universe characters Fictional amputees Fictional characters from New Jersey Fictional cyborgs Fictional hackers Fictional inventors Fictional players of American football Fictional technopaths Film characters introduced in 2016 Male characters in film

64685357

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD-PLC

HD-PLC

HD-PLC (short for High Definition Power Line Communication) is one of the wired communication technologies. It adopts high frequency band (2MHz~28MHz) over mediums like powerlines, phone lines, twisted-pair, and coaxial cables. It is the IEEE 1901-based standard. Specification and features There are essentially two different types of HD-PLC: HD-PLC Complete and HD-PLC Multi-hop. They are incompatible. HD-PLC Complete This is for high speed applications such as TV, AV, and surveillance camera. The major technical features include: IEEE 1901 full compliant QoS by the priority control CSMA/CA and DVTP(Dynamic Virtual Token Passing) supported Concurrent multi-AV stream, VoIP, and file transfer and file transfer supported using IP packet classification Multi-network access at priority CSMA/CA with network synchronization HD-PLC Multi-hop This is for long-distance applications such as smart meter, building network, factory, energy management, and IoT devices. The major technical features include: ITU-T G.9905 multihop technology Common features Uplinking/downlinking through 432 of 26MHz (between 1.8 MHz and 28MHz) bandwidth subcarriers with Wavelet OFDM Maximum 240 Mbps PHY rate Multilevel modulation for each subcarrier which suits the properties of the power line transmission channel and allows for the best transmission speed Subcarrier masking with the arbitrary number which can comply with the rules in each country Forward error correction (FEC) which enables effective frame transmission Channel estimation launch system with change detector for cycle and transmission channel HD-PLC network bridging compatible to Ethernet address system Advanced encryption with 128 bit AES 4th-generation HD-PLC (HD-PLC Quatro Core technology) We now come to communication speed issues like high-definition video images (4K/8K) or in some cases multi hop technology is not enough to reach an isolated and distant PLC terminal. HD-PLC Quatro Core has been designed to solve these problems. This technology is an improvement on the conventional HD-PLC in both communication distance and speed. It achieves to double conventional HD-PLC's communication distance by adopting a communication band of l/2 or l/4 of conventional HD-PLC band and achieves to offer a maximum physical line transmission rate of l Gbps by using an expanded communication band 2 or 4 times the conventional HD-PLC band. Use cases There are a few strengths of using HD-PLC technology on existing wires. 　1. Expectable higher speed performance 　2. Cost reduction on network construction by existed infrastructure 　3. Support the area where the radio waves is difficult to be reached 　4. Wire saving by sharing power lines and communication lines Typical use case include: HVAC systems Building Automation PV panel Smart meter Street light Surveillance camera system Video entry system Tunnel Robot wire saving See also Power-line communication IEEE 1901 HomePlug G.hn LonWorks BACnet References Computer networking Internet access

64772926

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRE-i%20with%20enhanced%20privacy

DRE-i with enhanced privacy

Direct Recording Electronic with Integrity and Enforced Privacy (DRE-ip) is an End-to-End (E2E) verifiable e-voting system without involving any tallying authorities, proposed by Siamak Shahandashti and Feng Hao in 2016. It improves a previous DRE-i system by using a real-time computation strategy and providng enhanced privacy. A touch-screen based prototype of the system was trialed in the Gateshead Civic Centre polling station on 2 May 2019 during the 2019 United Kingdom local elections with positive voter feedback. A proposal that includes DRE-ip as a solution for large-scale elections was ranked 3rd place in the 2016 Economist Cybersecurity Challenge jointly organized by The Economist and Kaspersky Lab. Protocol The DRE-ip protocol is applicable to both onsite polling station voting and remote Internet voting implementations. In the specification below, it is described for polling station voting. The protocol consists of three stages: setup, voting and tallying. Setup Let and be two large primes, where . is a subgroup of of prime order . Let and be two random generators of , whose discrete logarithm relationship is unknown. This can be realized by choosing a non-identity element in as and computing based on applying a one-way hash function with the inclusion of election specific information such as the date, election title and questions as the input. All modulo operations are performed with respect to the modulus . Alternatively, the protocol can be implemented using an elliptic curve, while the protocol specification remains unchanged. Voting For simplicity, the voting process is described for a single-candidate (Yes/No) election held in a polling station using a touch-screen DRE machine. There are standard ways to extend a single candidate election to support multiple candidates, e.g., providing a Yes/No selection for each of the candidates or using different encoded values for different candidates as described by Baudron et al. After being authenticated at a polling station, a voter obtains an authentication credential, which can be a random passcode or a smartcard. The authentication credential allows the voter to log onto a DRE machine in a private voting booth and cast a vote, but the machine does not know the voter's real identity. A voter casts a vote on a DRE machine in two steps. First, he is presented with "Yes" and "No" options for the displayed candidate on the screen. Once the voter makes a choice on the touch screen, the DRE prints the first part of the receipt, containing where is a unique ballot index number, is a number chosen uniformly at random from , and is either 1 or 0 (corresponding to "Yes" and "No" respectively). The cipher text also comes with a zero knowledge proof to prove that and are well-formed. This zero knowledge proof can be realized by using a technique due to Ronald Cramer, Ivan Damgård and Berry Schoenmakers (also called the CDS technique). The interactive CDS technique can be made non-interactive by applying Fiat-Shamir heuristics. In the second step, the voter has the option to either confirm or cancel the selection. In case of "confirm", the DRE updates the aggregated values and in memory as below, deletes individual values and , and marks the ballot as "confirmed" on the receipt. . In case of “cancel”, the DRE reveals and on the receipt, marks the ballot as "cancelled" and prompts the voter to choose again. The voter can check if the printed matches his previous selection and raise a dispute if it does not. The voter can cancel as many ballots as he wishes but can only cast one confirmed ballot. The canceling option allows the voter to verify if the data printed on the receipt during the first step corresponds to the correct encryption of the voter's choice, hence ensuring the vote is "cast as intended". This follows the same approach of voter-initiated auditing as proposed by Joshua Benaloh. However, in DRE-ip, voter-initiated auditing is realized without requiring the voter to understand cryptography (the voter merely needs to check whether the printed plaintext is correct). After voting is finished, the voter leaves the voting booth with one receipt for the confirmed ballot and zero or more receipts for the canceled ballots. The same data printed on the receipts are also published on a mirrored public election website (also known as a public bulletin board) with a digital signature to prove the data authenticity. To ensure the vote is "recorded as cast", the voter just needs to check if the same receipt has been published on the election website. Tallying Once the election has finished, the DRE publishes the final values and on the election website, in addition to all the receipts. Anyone will be able to verify the tallying integrity by checking the published audit data, in particular, whether the following two equations hold. This ensures that all votes are "tallied as recorded", which together with the earlier assurance on "cast as intended" and "recorded as cast" guarantees that the entire voting process is "end-to-end verifiable". An "end-to-end verifiable" voting system is also said to be "software independent", a phrase coined by Ron Rivest. The DRE-ip system differs from other E2E verifiable voting systems in that it does not require tallying authorities, hence the election management is much simpler. and . Real-world trial A touch-screen based prototype of DRE-ip had been implemented and trialed in a polling station in Gateshead on 2 May 2019 during the 2019 United Kingdom local elections. During the trial, voters first voted as normal using paper ballots. Upon exiting the polling station, they were invited to participate in a voluntary trial of using a DRE-ip e-voting system for a dummy election. On average, it took each voter only 33 seconds to cast a vote on the DRE-ip system. As part of the trial, voters were asked to compare their voting experiences of using paper ballots and the DRE-ip e-voting system, and indicate which system they would prefer. Among the participating voters, 11 chose "strongly prefer paper", 9 chose "prefer paper", 16 chose "neutral", 23 chose "prefer e-voting", and 32 chose "strongly prefer e-voting". References Applications of cryptography Electronic voting methods

64800384

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project%20Sauron

Project Sauron

Project Sauron, also named Remsec is a computer malware discovered in 2016. It has been spying computers at government and organizations for five years. It can steal encryption keys, collect information from air-gapped computers, and record someone’s keystrokes without being detected. See also Flame (malware) Duqu Stuxnet References Windows trojans Espionage

64909483

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID

BankID

Bank-id (trademark BankID) is by far the largest electronic identification system in Sweden, with a usage rate of 94% among smartphone users, and is administered by Finansiell ID-Teknik BID AB that is owned by several Swedish and Scandinavian banks. In March 2018 Bank-id had about 6.5 million active users and was supported by 600 web services. Only individuals with a Swedish personal identity number can acquire Bank-id. Bank-id has existed in following variations: Bank-id on file (on computer) Bank-id on card (connected to a token device) Mobile Bank-id (mobile based solution) Bank-id in mobile (a discontinued SIM card based solution) Example of usage areas are Swish payments, bank login, login to e-government, and access to medical records via Vårdguiden 1177. There is also a separate personal electronic identification service in Norway that goes by the name BankID developed and released by Norwegian banks in 2004, and while it functions similarly, it is completely independent from the Swedish BankID. Variations Bank-id on file The service BankID, also called BankID på fil, was launched in 2003. A soft certificate and a secret encryption key is stored on the computer's hard drive, and still works even if the files are moved between computers, which might be a security risk. To use Bank-id on a personal computer it is required that Bank-id säkerhetsprogram (BISP) is installed within the system the files are stored. Criticism has been pointed out that it is an overly platform dependent solution that requires the customers to either have Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X. Early versions included support for Linux, but were phased out in 2014. Bank-id on card Bank-id på kort (English: Bank-id on card) was launched in 2005. A secret cryptographic key is stored in the smart card's chip, that works like a hard certificate, which is regarded as more secure as it usually will require physical access to the card for it to work. The card can be a bank card or a pure bank-id card. It can be delivered with or without a photograph, and can work as a identity document. This card work in tandem with a special card reader, called bankdosa or säkerhetsdosa, with a numeral keyboard to enter codes. Some banks have the chip integrated in the card reader so it work without card. Bank-id on card work without any special software in the computer or mobile, but long codes needs to be entered into the device. There is a special software to transfer codes via a USB cable. Mobile bank-id Mobilt bank-id (English: Mobile bank-id) was launched in October 2011, and is an electronic identification for modern smartphones from certain manufactures that is combined with a mobile application. It can be used as login or signing via the web on an ordinary PC, where the mobile work as a separate security device ("säkerhetsdosa"), and for login via bank and government mobile applications. The secret cryptographic key is stored in the mobile application (Bank-id säkerhetsapp), that works as a soft certificate. The e-service supplier (the business or government the user shall identify themselves towards) have a validation server. In 2014 about half of all smartphone users in Sweden used Mobile Bank-id. In five years the number of users almost doubled to 94 percent of all smartphone users. In 2019 all participating banks issued Mobile Bank-id, which does not apply to the other two solutions. References Economy of Sweden

64999407

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape%20Verde%20in%20World%20War%20II

Cape Verde in World War II

Cape Verde (also known as Cabo Verde) remained a Portuguese colony throughout World War II. Portugal and its colonial empire were officially neutral but gradually came to support the Allies in the conflict. While no major battles took place in or around Cape Verde, the archipelago was still of key strategic importance to the Allies throughout the war. Several important domestic developments took place in Cape Verde during and as a result of the war. History The Suez Canal was traditionally how Britain reached its lucrative and important eastern colonies such as India, but the canal became a battleground during the war as the Axis tried to capture it from the Allies. As such, the Allies needed to rely on Atlantic islands and archipelagos such as Cape Verde for their critical supply lines between Europe and South and East Asia. Throughout the war, Allied ships were stationed at the Cape Verdean city of Mindelo on the island of São Vicente. An Allied invasion of several Atlantic islands belonging to Portugal was planned and code named Operation Alacrity. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt also wanted to include an invasion of Cape Verde to be part of the plan, openly saying that Axis occupation of Cape Verde would threaten U.S. safety and would force the U.S. to act upon its Monroe Doctrine. This statement came in mid-1941, before the Attack on Pearl Harbor and led U.S. military officials to draft War Plan Gray, a predecessor to Operation Alacrity that included solely the United States. Neither War Plan Gray nor Operation Alacrity ever came to fruition, as the Axis could never reasonably threaten Portugal's Atlantic island territories with an invasion. In 1941, three German U-boats were ambushed by Allied naval forces off the coast of Cape Verde. The location of the U-boats was only found out after Alan Turing and the British government cracked the Enigma encryption code used by the Germans. The attack off of Cape Verde led German Admiral Karl Dönitz to conclude that the Enigma cipher had been compromised by the Allies. Cape Verde saw its worst ever famines during World War II, specifically from 1941 to 1943 and 1947 to 1948. The famines caused the deaths of an estimated 45,000 Cape Verdeans and led thousands more to flee the country, with many coming to the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, also controlled by Portugal at the time. Several Cape Verdean Americans fought in the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy during the conflict, serving in both the European and Asian theaters of the war. The political and economic situation of the post-war world eventually allowed Cape Verde to gain independence from the Portuguese Empire in 1975, as part of a much larger trend of decolonization across the world. See also Anglo-Portuguese Alliance Battle of the Atlantic Naval history of World War II Operation Alacrity References Further reading Former Portuguese colonies

65133209

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searchable%20symmetric%20encryption

Searchable symmetric encryption

Searchable symmetric encryption (SSE) is a form of encryption that allows one to efficiently search over a collection of encrypted documents or files without the ability to decrypt them. SSE can be used to outsource files to an untrusted cloud storage server without ever revealing the files in the clear but while preserving the server's ability to search over them. Description A searchable symmetric encryption scheme is a symmetric-key encryption scheme that encrypts a collection of documents , where each document is viewed as a set of keywords from a keyword space . Given the encryption key and a keyword , one can generate a search token with which the encrypted data collection can be searched for . The result of the search is the subset of encrypted documents that contain the keyword . Static SSE A static SSE scheme consists of three algorithms that work as follows: takes as input a security parameter and a document collection and outputs a symmetric key and an encrypted document collection takes as input the secret key and a keyword and outputs a search token takes as input the encrypted document collection and a search token and outputs a set of encrypted documents A static SSE scheme is used by a client and an untrusted server as follows. The client encrypts its data collection using the algorithm which returns a secret key and an encrypted document collection . The client keeps secret and sends to the untrusted server. To search for a keyword , the client runs the algorithm on and w to generate a search token which it sends to the server. The server runs Search with and and returns the resulting encrypted documents back to the server. Dynamic SSE A dynamic SSE scheme supports, in addition to search, the insertion and deletion of documents. A dynamic SSE scheme consists of seven algorithms where , and are as in the static case and the remaining algorithms work as follows: takes as input the secret key and a new document and outputs an insert token takes as input the encrypted document collection EDC and an insert token and outputs an updated encrypted document collection takes as input the secret key and a document identifier and outputs a delete token takes as input the encrypted data collection and a delete token and outputs an updated encrypted data collection To add a new document the client runs on and to generate an insert token which it sends to the server. The server runs with and and stores the updated encrypted document collection. To delete a document with identifier , the client runs the algorithm with and to generate a delete token which it sends to the server. The server runs with and and stores the updated encrypted document collection. An SSE scheme that does not support and is called semi-dynamic. History of Searchable Symmetric Encryption The problem of searching on encrypted data was considered by Song, Wagner and Perrig though previous work on Oblivious RAM by Goldreich and Ostrovsky could be used in theory to address the problem. This work proposed an SSE scheme with a search algorithm that runs in time , where . Goh and Chang and Mitzenmacher gave new SSE constructions with search algorithms that run in time , where is the number of documents. Curtmola, Garay, Kamara and Ostrovsky later proposed two static constructions with search time, where is the number of documents that contain , which is optimal. This work also proposed a semi-dynamic construction with search time, where is the number of updates. An optimal dynamic SSE construction was later proposed by Kamara, Papamanthou and Roeder. Goh and Chang and Mitzenmacher proposed security definitions for SSE. These were strengthened and extended by Curtmola, Garay, Kamara and Ostrovsky who proposed the notion of adaptive security for SSE. This work also was the first to observe leakage in SSE and to formally capture it as part of the security definition. Leakage was further formalized and generalized by Chase and Kamara. Islam, Kuzu and Kantarcioglu described the first leakage attack. All the previously mentioned constructions support single keyword search. Cash, Jarecki, Jutla, Krawczyk, Rosu and Steiner proposed an SSE scheme that supports conjunctive search in sub-linear time in . The construction can also be extended to support disjunctive and Boolean searches that can be expressed in searchable normal form (SNF) in sub-linear time. At the same time, Pappas, Krell, Vo, Kolesnikov, Malkin, Choi, George, Keromytis and Bellovin described a construction that supports conjunctive and all disjunctive and Boolean searches in sub-linear time. Security SSE schemes are designed to guarantee that the untrusted server cannot learn any partial information about the documents or the search queries beyond some well-defined and reasonable leakage. The leakage of a scheme is formally described using a leakage profile which itself can consists of several leakage patterns. SSE constructions attempt to minimize leakage while achieving the best possible search efficiency. SSE security can be analyzed in several adversarial models but the most common are: the persistent model, where an adversary is given the encrypted data collection and a transcript of all the operations executed on the collection; the snapshot model, where an adversary is only given the encrypted data collection (but possibly after each operation). Security in the Persistent Model In the persistent model, there are SSE schemes that achieve a wide variety of leakage profiles. The most common leakage profile for static schemes that achieve single keyword search in optimal time is which reveals the number of documents in the collection, the size of each document in the collection, if and when a query was repeated and which encrypted documents match the search query. It is known, however, how to construct schemes that leak considerably less at an additional cost in search time and storage. When considering dynamic SSE schemes, the state-of-the-art constructions with optimal time search have leakage profiles that guarantee forward privacy which means that inserts cannot be correlated with past search queries. Security in the Snapshot Model In the snapshot model, efficient dynamic SSE schemes with no leakage beyond the number of documents and the size of the collection can be constructed. When using an SSE construction that is secure in the snapshot model one has to carefully consider how the scheme will be deployed because some systems might cache previous search queries. Cryptanalysis A leakage profile only describes the leakage of an SSE scheme but it says nothing about whether that leakage can be exploited or not. Cryptanalysis is therefore used to better understand the real-world security of a leakage profile. There is a wide variety of attacks working in different adversarial models, based on a variety of assumptions and attacking different leakage profiles. See also Homomorphic encryption Oblivious RAM Structured encryption Deterministic encryption References Cryptography Cryptographic primitives

65175372

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20HBO

History of HBO

Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network that is the flagship property of Home Box Office, Inc., a subsidiary of the WarnerMedia Studios & Networks unit of WarnerMedia. The network primarily broadcasts theatrically released motion pictures and original television programs as well as made-for-cable movies, documentaries, occasional stand-up comedy and concert specials, and periodic interstitial programs (consisting of short films and making-of documentaries). HBO does not accept traditional advertising, although programming promotions are typically aired between shows; it also presents content without editing for profanity, violence, sexual depictions, nudity, drug use or other subjectively objectionable material, which—besides being able to depict mature subject matter usually not allowed to air on advertiser-supported television networks—has allowed the network to give program creators full creative autonomy over their projects. The oldest and longest continuously operating subscription television service in the United States, Home Box Office pioneered modern pay television when it launched as a microwave-transmitted regional service (initially debuting in northeastern Pennsylvania, before gradually broadening its coverage area to encompass much of the northern Mid-Atlantic and southern New England regions) on November 8, 1972, and was a leader in the development and growth of the cable television industry as the first television service to be directly transmitted and distributed to individual cable systems; the first television channel in the world to begin transmitting its signal via communications satellite; the first pay television network to operate a standalone companion service (Take 2, now defunct; followed later by Cinemax and the now-defunct Festival); the first cable-originated network to win Emmy, Golden Globe and Peabody Awards; and one of the first two American pay television services (alongside Cinemax) to offer multiplexed channels complementary to the parent service. HBO has since expanded to include seven multiplex channels in the United States; and, through its namesake parent subsidiary, twelve active and three defunct international services (either owned by WarnerMedia directly or through programming and brand licensing agreements with domestic media companies) across four continents, and various television, film and home entertainment ventures. This article details the history of HBO tracing to its founding by Sterling Communications (then controlled by Time Inc.) in July 1971, and its operational history from the channel's November 1972 launch to its current ownership by WarnerMedia. Background, development and preparation to air (pre-1972) HBO's origins trace to December 1, 1965, when Charles Dolan—a former marketer and distributor of sports and industrial films for television syndication, who had already done pioneering work in the commercial use of cables—was granted a franchise permit by the New York City Council to build a cable television system encompassing the Lower Manhattan section of New York City (traversing southward from 79th Street on the Upper East Side to 86th Street on the Upper West Side). Dolan was one of three applicants to be awarded cable franchise permits by the City of New York on that date, joined by TelePrompTer Corporation (which was assigned most of Upper Manhattan) and CATV Enterprises Inc. (which was assigned to a portion of the city's Upper West Side, extending north of the Harlem River, and The Bronx's Riverdale neighborhood). Dolan had been directly involved in telecasting since he launched his maiden television venture, Teleguide, in June 1962; transmitted via closed-circuit television, the Teleguide service distributed a schedule of tourist information, news, interview segments and feature interstitials to hotels, and by 1964, apartment buildings and office buildings in the New York metropolitan area. Through Dolan's company, Sterling Information Services (operated by Teleguide parent Sterling Movies U.S.A.), Manhattan Cable TV Services began limited cable service in September 1966. Manhattan Cable (renamed Sterling Manhattan Cable Television in January 1971) was the first urban underground cable television system to operate in the United States. Rather than string up cable on telephone poles or use microwave antennas to receive the signals, Sterling had laid new cable lines beneath the streets of and into buildings throughout Manhattan, and repurposed Teleguide's existing cable infrastructure for use by the new operation. Sterling's use of underground cables complied with a longstanding New York City Council ordinance—originally implemented to prevent broad-scale telephone and telegraph outages, after a severe blizzard affecting the Northeastern United States in March 1888 had caused widespread damage to above-ground utility lines in the area—requiring all electrical and telecommunication wiring to be laid underground to limit weather-related service disruptions, and was also necessitated because the multitude of tall buildings on Manhattan Island subjected television signals to reception impairments. Dolan curried the financial backing of Time-Life, Inc. (then the book publishing unit of Time Inc.), resulting in Manhattan Cable becoming one of the company's first cable system properties. Despite the investments from Time-Life's share of Sterling (initially 20% at the beginning of operations), Sterling Manhattan consistently lost money throughout its first six years of operation; the company incurred much of its debt from underground wiring expenses (costing as much as $300,000 per mile), and its difficulties attracting new subscribers to generate income (Manhattan Cable managed to receive only around 400 customers by 1967). On August 27, 1969, in an ownership consolidation of the cable assets, Sterling Communications acquired the 49% share in Sterling Manhattan held by Time-Life, in exchange for stock and other assets worth $1.84 million. (Time-Life's interest in Sterling Communications concurrently increased from 25% to 44.5%.) Desperate to keep the company afloat, Dolan began conceiving ideas to help make Sterling Manhattan profitable. In the summer of 1971, while on a family vacation en route to France aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, he began developing a proposal for a cable-originated television channel. The concept, codenamed "The Green Channel", was for a subscription service that would offer unedited theatrical movies licensed from the major Hollywood film studios and live sporting events, all presented without interruptions by advertising and sold for a flat monthly fee to prospective subscribers. Dolan wanted to offset the service's start-up costs by having Sterling enter into carriage agreements with other cable television providers to transmit and sell the service to their customers, and draw revenue from fees charged to subscribers who added the channel onto their existing cable service (which then consisted exclusively of local and imported broadcast stations). Dolan later presented his idea to management at Time-Life, who, despite the potential benefit to the company's cable assets, were initially hesitant to consider the "Green Channel" proposal. In the early 1970s, the cable television industry was not very profitable, and was under constant scrutiny from FCC regulators and the major broadcast television networks (CBS, NBC and ABC), who saw cable as a threat to their viability, even though it was originally conceived to provide improved reception of commercial and non-commercial television stations in communities and rural areas that tended to experience spotty to poor signal reception farther away from their city-grade contours. Attempts to launch pay television services had been done on an experimental basis in the United States dating to 1951 (among them, Phonevision in New York City, Chicago and Hartford; SubscriberVision in New York City; Telemeter in Palm Springs, California; and Telemovies in Bartlesville, Oklahoma) with little to no success, muzzled by campaigns backed by movie theater chains and commercial broadcasters to assuage television viewers to the supposed threat of pay television to the movie industry and free-to-air television access, limited user interest, and FCC restrictions on the types of programming that could be offered to subscription services. Undeterred, Dolan managed to persuade Time-Life to assist him in backing the project. After the Federal Communications Commission ruled that local governments could not restrict the operation of subscription television services in cable franchise terms, in July 1971, Sterling Communications—now consisting of Sterling Manhattan; its Long Island-based sister system, Sterling Nassau Cable Television; production firm Allegro Films; and direct-to-cable programming firm Television Presentations Inc.—informed the FCC that it planned to operate a cable-originated pay television service. Because Sterling's New York City Council franchise grant specifically required FCC approval for that purpose, Time/Sterling filed an FCC request to authorize pay television operations. Sterling indicated that a subscription television operation would also help Sterling Manhattan fund its fledgling local origination channel, which had incurred $1 million in start-up debt on top of annual company operating losses of $250,000. On September 10, 1971, the FCC gave preemptive authorization to Time-Life and Sterling Manhattan Cable to begin a pay television operation. On November 2, 1971, Time Inc.'s board of directors approved the "Green Channel" proposal, agreeing to give Dolan a $150,000 development grant for the project. To gauge potential consumer interest, Time-Life sent out a direct mail research brochure to residents in six U.S. cities. An overwhelming majority of those surveyed (approximately 99%) opposed the idea of paying for a subscription television service, with only 1.2% favoring the concept and expressing interest in being a paying subscriber. In a second survey conducted by an independent consultant, 4% of respondents polled said they were "almost certain" to subscribe to such a service. A subsequent test conducted by Time-Life to respondents in Allentown, Pennsylvania had salesmen present the pay channel concept to residents by offering them free service for the first month and a refundable installation fee; half of all interviewed residents had expressed interest in purchasing the conceptual service with the offered incentives. During the planning stages, film distributors initially expressed reluctance to license their movies to the Sterling project unless they were provided a count of its potential audience reach and subscription pricing estimates to establish a licensing payment structure similar to their compensation from films shown in theaters. Since the channel would air films without edits for objectionable content, cable operators also wanted to know what movies would be shown on the service to avoid potential advertiser objections and FCC fines for indecency. Sterling executives ultimately agreed to pay a flat licensing fee to the movie studios to acquire film rights. Sterling also allowed cable operators the ability to market the service directly to their customers. Time-Life and Sterling Communications soon proposed for the "Sterling Cable Network" to be the name of the new service. Discussions to change the service's name took place during a later meeting of Dolan and the executive staff he hired for the project, who ultimately settled on calling it "Home Box Office", which was meant to convey to potential customers that the service would be their "ticket" to movies and events that they could see without having to leave their own home. The moniker was intended as a placeholder name in order to meet deadlines to publish a memorandum and research brochures about the new service; management intended to come up with a permanent name as development continued, however, the "Home Box Office" name stuck. Multiple obstacles had to be overcome to get the service on the air. A New York City Council provision applying to the company's franchise agreement prohibited the telecast of theatrical feature films over pay television franchises. To circumvent this, rather than launch Home Box Office over Sterling Manhattan, Dolan chose to scout another city with two competing cable franchises to serve as its inaugural distribution system. Originally, he settled on the Teleservice Cable (now Service Electric) system in Allentown. However, management found out that Allentown and surrounding areas fell within the Philadelphia 76ers's television blackout radius, which the team enforced to protect revenues generated from ticket sales for their home games (then held at the Spectrum). Since HBO was planning to carry regular-season and playoff games from the National Basketball Association (NBA), any 76ers games that the service aired would have been prohibited from being shown within Allentown. Time-Life subsequently agreed to an offer by Teleservice president John Walson to launch HBO on the company's Wilkes-Barre system (located outside of the 76ers' blackout radius), fed from an AT&T microwave link at the Pan Am Building in New York. (HBO, which elected to forego pursuing telecast rights to 76ers basketball games, would sign on to Teleservice's Allentown system as its second cable affiliate in February 1973.) In August 1972, the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) attempted unsuccessfully to block Sterling's application to build three community antenna relay (CARS) facilities it planned to use to transmit HBO, over concerns that pay cable service would compete unfairly with movie theaters by using revenue from cable systems to "siphon" content and, by association, audiences from theatres. Launch and expansion as a regional service (1972–1975) HBO's launch came with very little fanfare in the press; other than print advertisements promoting the launch in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, the service's debut lacked coverage from local or national media outlets. The city administrator of Wilkes-Barre declined an offer to attend the launch ceremony, while Time Inc. vice president J. Richard Munro became stranded in traffic on the George Washington Bridge en route from Manhattan, and was not able to arrive in Wilkes-Barre for the ceremony. Further complicating preparations for the inaugural telecast, in Midtown Manhattan, strong winds—produced by a storm system that brought areas of freezing rain over portions of the New York City area that evening—toppled the Pan Am Building reception dish being used to relay the Home Box Office signal to microwave towers linked to Teleservice's Wilkes-Barre headend. Time-Life representatives sent a technician to repair the antenna in time for the service's launch, completing maintenance about 25 minutes before the inaugural telecast. Home Box Office launched at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on November 8, 1972. The service's inaugural program and event telecast, a National Hockey League (NHL) game between the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks from Madison Square Garden, was transmitted that evening over channel 21—its original assigned channel on the Teleservice system—to its initial base of 365 subscribers in Wilkes-Barre. (A plaque commemorating the launch event is located at Public Square in downtown Wilkes-Barre, established in honor of Service Electric's April 1984 addition of HBO sister channel Cinemax to its lineup. Wilkes-Barre resident Marion Sabestinas, who was the first Teleservice customer to sign up to pay the $6 fee to receive Home Box Office's programming at launch, was honored with a lifetime subscription to Cinemax as part of the plaque ceremony.) The first movie presentation shown on the service aired immediately after the sports event: the 1971 film Sometimes a Great Notion, starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda. Initially airing nightly on an open-ended schedule dependent on the length of the evening's programs (usually from 7:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. ET), Home Box Office's programming initially consisted solely of theatrical films—including four or five recent titles per month—and event programming. Each evening's schedule was arranged to present either a double feature (which, under FCC anti-siphoning rules then maintained to protect programming supply for broadcast stations until they were struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 1977, tended to be of releases dating no more than two years from their initial theatrical exhibition), or a combination of either a sports or special event and a theatrical movie, often bridged by a short film or other interstitial content. Home Box Office licensed theatrical motion pictures from various film studios (such as Warner Bros. Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures and Paramount Pictures) on a per-title basis; each film received as many as five showings during their scheduled calendar month, depending on the quantity of titles available each month. HBO typically prohibited showings of X-rated, pornographic and foreign art films. (The network's prohibitions on X-rated films would eventually be carried over to films assigned an NC-17 rating, albeit with rare exceptions, after the MPAA created it as a replacement for the X rating in 1990.) Home Box Office’s extensive and exclusive sports coverage differentiated it from many other subscription television services that launched in the succeeding decades, laying the groundwork—to an extent—for the development of ESPN and other national and regional cable-originated sports networks (including MSG Network, Prime Sports Networks, SportsChannel, and the various descendants of the latter two regional network groups), and was replicated during the 1970s and early 1980s by several local broadcast- and microwave-transmitted subscription services. Through a contractual amendment signed on November 1, 1972, eight days before the service launched, HBO inherited broadcast rights to Madison Square Garden-originated events that had been contracted to Sterling Manhattan for one of its local origination channels (which served as the progenitor of the MSG Network) since May 1969. Throughout its first eight years, HBO’s sports lineup included New York Yankees Major League Baseball games; NCAA Division I college basketball games originating from Madison Square Garden; World Football League (WFL) games; American Basketball Association (ABA) games; North American Soccer League games; select LPGA golf tournaments; Canadian Football League games; World Hockey Association regular season and playoff games; Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) tournaments (including the Men's Ice Hockey Tournament and the ECAC Holiday Festival basketball tournament); World TeamTennis; the National Horse Show; the Westchester Kennel Club Dog Show; and Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) tournament events. Out of its sports broadcasts, boxing would be the most enduring part of HBO’s programming lineup, beginning with its January 22, 1973, telecast of "The Sunshine Showdown", a world heavyweight championship bout from Kingston, Jamaica—in which George Foreman defeated Joe Frazier in two rounds—that effectively began what became the network’s flagship sports program, HBO World Championship Boxing. As part of their subscription, subscribers received Home Box Office: Your Monthly Entertainment Guide (later retitled HBO On Air in September 1975, and then [The] HBO Guide in February 1977). The digest size program guide—which would also be distributed to guest rooms of HBO's hotel clients starting in 1978—provided programming highlights and complete daily listings for the month; until the May 1980 issue, it also featured "HBO Soundtrack" (originally "Up Front"), an occasional column outlining HBO's upcoming programming and answering common programming questions. The HBO Guide ceased print publication in December 2008; a PDF-formatted online program guide, borrowing from the print version's format, began publishing in January 2002, and was made available for download through the websites of HBO and Cinemax (for which the PDF guide was marketed jointly until it ceased publication after the February 2020 issue), and the Home Box Office Inc. lodging website (until full-time site maintenance ceased in August 2014 to focus on a new, separate microsite for HBO Bulk Markets, a broader-encompassing bulk distribution unit for hospitality properties). By the end of 1972, the service was received by 1,395 subscribers, all from Teleservice customers in Wilkes-Barre; this number increased to around 4,000 subscribers by February 1973, across Teleservice's Wilkes-Barre, Allentown and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, systems. A third Time-commissioned pay television study by Lieberman Research Inc. released that month, surveying 450 Telecable Wilkes-Barre subscribers (split evenly between 150 current, former or non-subscribers of HBO), found 79% of all respondents (including 76% of former subscribers and 59% of non-subscribers) preferred at-home viewing of movies; male respondents expressed strong interest in viewing sports events on pay television, while a mostly female share of respondents had a strong interest in seeing pay television broadcasts of live Broadway musicals and plays. Time Inc. president James R. Shepley, who was a driving force behind the development of HBO at the corporate level, said: "Time Inc. has long been has long been intrigued with this method of communication. Initial marketing results indicate a bright role for subscription television. It seems clear that people are willing to pay fair prices to see television programs of their choice which are free of commercials." On February 28, 1973, Sterling Communications announced it would spin-out HBO and associated assets into a new subsidiary, Home Box Office, Inc. Time Inc. received 9% of Sterling's HBO equity (expanding the former's controlling HBO shares to around 75% of its equity) and committed a $3-million direct investment in the subsidiary. Sterling also raised Time's equity in the company to 66.4% in exchange for the added HBO stake, through the purchase of additional stock and a converted $6.4-million note obligation. Charles Dolan—who reportedly had major disagreements with Time-Life management on policy issues, claims which the company denied—subsequently resigned as chief executive officer of Sterling Communications and HBO, accepting a $675,000 buyout of a portion of his stock while remaining on the board of directors at both companies in the interim; Dolan used portions of the sale's proceeds to repurchase Time's share of the Sterling Nassau systems and to start the Long Island Cable Community Development Co. (the forerunner to Cablevision Systems Corporation, which would be combined with the Sterling/Cablevision systems on Long Island) as the system's parent company. Gerald M. Levin—an entertainment industry attorney previously with New York City-based law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, who had been with Home Box Office since it began operations as its director of finance, and later as its vice president and director of programming—replaced Dolan as the company's president and CEO. Expanding beyond movies and sports, 1973 saw HBO innovate the concept of original programming for cable television, developing entertainment programming produced by and, at least initially, intended for exclusive broadcast on the channel. On March 23, 1973, HBO broadcast its first non-sports entertainment special, the Pennsylvania Polka Festival, a three-hour-long music event broadcast from the Allentown Fairgrounds in Allentown. On May 9, 1973, Time began to sell its controlling share of Sterling to Warner Communications (predecessor entity to WarnerMedia) for $20 million; high start-up and operating costs for HBO and other Sterling cable assets were reported to be the cause of the sale. Time intended to convert the 260,000 convertible notes it held in Warner's cable television unit, Warner Cable Communications, into common stock shares totaling up to 20% in interest. Sterling would then maintain oversight of Home Box Office under Warner's purview. The Time-Warner cable deal was terminated on June 27, after both companies failed to reach a definitive sale agreement for HBO and the other Sterling subsidiaries; financial arrangements made between Sterling and the New York City Council as part of their 20-year noncompete franchise agreement were alleged to have curtailed the sale. On July 19, 1973, Time Inc. reached an agreement to purchase and assume financial liabilities of Sterling Communications for $6.2 million (including $3.1‐million in redeemed public debentures). Time completed its acquisition of Sterling on September 18, 1973, formally dissolving the Sterling holding company and transferring Home Box Office and Sterling Manhattan Cable to its Time-Life Broadcast division. (The "Sterling" name was subsequently removed from the Manhattan system, which was renamed "Manhattan Cable Television".) As the acquisition was being completed, HBO was struggling to grow: by October, the service had around 8,000 subscribers across 13 cable systems in Pennsylvania and southern New York State that cumulatively served 110,095 subscribers, and it was suffering from a significant churn rate as subscribers who found the channel's program scheduling repetitive, because of the limited allotment of movies outside of special events, decided to cancel their service. In January 1974, HBO expanded its programming to an average of eight hours per day (from 5:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. ET/PT) on weekdays and twelve hours (from 1:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. ET) on weekends, depending on that day’s programming lineup. Along with movies and sports, programming at this time had expanded to include concert specials and other music programs, daytime children's programs and various instructional series. With its programming expansion to late afternoons, the service began maintaining a longstanding watershed policy prohibiting R-rated feature films from airing before 8:00 p.m. ET/PT. The policy may be traced to HBO's availability at the time on analog cable tiers, and was maintained long after competing premium services began offering daytime showings of R-rated films as early as 1980 because of subscriber objections to the practice. The policy also would be applied to original series, movies and documentaries containing mature material consistent with the present-day TV-MA rating (later applying to original and acquired programs that were actually assigned that rating after the TV Parental Guidelines system was implemented across the television industry on January 1, 1997). (, enforcement of the watershed policy on the main HBO feed has been greatly diminished: it currently permits afternoon airings of R-rated films and TV-MA-rated programs on a modest basis; however, it does not allow such programming to be scheduled earlier than 2:00 p.m. ET/PT, with the timeslots of initial airings of R-rated films varying each day. The watershed policy was never extended to most of HBO’s multiplex channels, although HBO Family, since its December 1996 launch, has prohibited R-/TV-MA-rated programs from airing on its schedule.) Over the two years following its launch, Home Box Office steadily expanded its regional reach: it became available in New York State for the first time in October 1973, when TelePrompTer's Mount Vernon and Ceracche TV Corp.'s Ithaca systems began offering the service. by January 1974, HBO was available on 14 cable systems in New York State and Pennsylvania; The service's addition to UA-Columbia's Wayne system expanded its regional coverage expanded into New Jersey in June 1974. In order to stem its financial losses, on November 13, 1973, Manhattan Cable—which had announced its intent to offer HBO as an extra-fee subscription offering in July of that year, as a move to stem net losses exceeding $10 million—filed a request to the City of New York to allow operation of a pay channel. On June 21, 1974, the New York City Board of Estimate passed a resolution that opened access for programmers to lease channel space for subscription television services on Manhattan Cable and TelePrompTer Cable, and cleared Manhattan Cable to offer HBO on a two-year experimental leased basis, in exchange for a 5% fee paid to the city from the system's subscription revenue share. Although the resolution permitted it to offer HBO to its subscribers in Midtown and Lower Manhattan immediately, in order to market the service to potential subscribers, Manhattan Cable Television waited until October 18, 1974, to begin offering HBO on its lineup. (Manhattan Cable turned its first quarterly profits in the first half of 1976, generated in part from, among other factors, revenue from HBO subscriptions.) Terrestrial transmission of HBO via multipoint distribution service (MDS) began by the Fall of 1974, available to residents in Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware (via Micro-TV Inc.) and to select apartment buildings in Queens. (MDS transmission would supplement HBO's coverage into the late 1980s, to both distribute its programming in areas with limited to no cable penetration and as an alternative means to receive the network in areas with cable service.) As Home Box Office's distribution expanded throughout the northern Mid-Atlantic and southern New England, Time/Sterling established a network of microwave receivers and connecting cables on utility landlines to feed HBO's programming from the New York relay antenna to the service's participating cable systems. Although its base had grown from what it had when HBO was being conceived, Sterling Manhattan Cable continued to lose money because the company had only a small subscriber base of 20,000 customers within Manhattan; HBO also faced financial issues, losing nearly $9,000 per month in part due to fees it paid to AT&T (averaging $11,000) to maintain its New York-based microwave link that was not made up for through the monthly fees it collected from subscribers. Initially, HBO received only a $3.50 cut from the $6.50 monthly fee paid by subscribers (equivalent to $ adjusted for inflation), the remainder of which went to cable systems that offered the service. In November 1974, as it was observing its second anniversary, HBO—then available to cable television and MDS systems in Pennsylvania, New York State, New Jersey and Delaware—had passed the 40,000-subscriber mark. By April 1975, the service had around 100,000 subscribers within its four-state service area. HBO’s sports coverage expanded in July 1975, as it inaugurated regional coverage of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. (That year saw Arthur Ashe defeat defending champion Jimmy Connors, 6–1, 6–1, 5–7, 6–4, in the Gentlemen's Singles final, becoming the first Black male to win a Wimbledon singles title.) Initially, the HBO telecasts of the tournament mainly consisted of replays culled from other video sources (including the BBC); HBO Sports began to employ an in-house team of commentators starting with the 1978 tournament. Throughout its tenure on the channel, Wimbledon coverage on HBO—which was the first television network to offer weekday tennis coverage on network television—consisted of singles and doubles events from the early rounds of the tournament. (NBC—which had the over-the-air broadcast rights to Wimbledon since 1969—maintained rights to the quarterfinal, semifinal and final rounds as well as weekend early-round matches.) National expansion, innovation and rise to prominence (1975–1989) In the Fall of 1974, executives from Time Inc. and the Home Box Office unit began conceptualizing ideas to expand HBO into a national pay television service. Developing a vast infrastructure of microwave and coaxial telephone relay towers in all 50 states and U.S. territories would have been cost-prohibitive for Time/HBO due to the time and expense involved. HBO's existing microwave network was also expensive and difficult to maintain—especially in winter, when snow and ice storms periodically disrupted service—along with being geographically limiting, as the signal could only be fed to an affiliated cable system if it was along the microwave signal's path. Seeing it as the only efficient and cost-effective option to expand distribution of Home Box Office to the entire nation, Time settled on using a geostationary communications satellite to transmit HBO directly to cable providers throughout the United States within and outside of its existing microwave relay network. Other television broadcasters at the time were hesitant about uplinking their feeds to satellite because they feared that the satellites may inadvertently shut down or jettison out of their orbit, as well as holding reservations about the cost of purchasing downlink receiver dishes, which in 1974, were sold for as much as $75,000 ( adjusted for inflation). Sid Topol, president of cable television equipment manufacturer Scientific Atlanta, met with RCA Americom Communications (which was granted FCC permission to operate and launch a telecommunications satellite), Home Box Office and a group of multiple system cable operators (MSOs) to propose having the RCA satellite transmit the HBO signal; Scientific Atlanta (through a client arrangement with Transcommunications Corp.) would agree to build earth-based satellite relay stations to be set up outside of HBO's Manhattan headquarters and to the service's client cable systems. RCA and HBO agreed to Topol's proposal, and the Time-Life board subsequently approved the satellite transmission plan. On April 11, 1975, Levin and Time-Life unveiled plans to distribute the HBO signal via satellite to cable systems elsewhere throughout the United States, announcing a $7.5-million agreement (including $6.5 million allocated by Levin) with RCA Americom to lease a transponder on the then-under construction Satcom I—which was expected to be launched at the end of 1975—for a five-year term. HBO also signed an agreement to distribute the satellite feed on eight UA-Columbia Cablevision systems in California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Arkansas and Washington State, and have earth station receivers built at their headends to intercept and relay the signal. Now that a more superior transmission method than Home Box Office's existing land-based distribution network was being developed, Time/HBO lined up agreements with various cable system operators—including MSOs like American Television and Communications Corporation, Comcast, Cox Cable, Jones Intercable, Heritage Communications and TelePrompTer Cable—to redistribute the satellite feed for system-determined fees of between $6 and $9 per month. HBO also entered into preliminary discussions with Kansas City-based regional cable service Target Network Television, from which a deal did not materialize, to share a transponder, either by dividing their respective airtime to allow HBO broad coverage in the Midwestern United States or dividing transmission by geographic region. Through the Scientific Atlanta contract, UA-Columbia and other cable providers also commissioned earth station dishes through Scientific Atlanta to receive the HBO satellite feed at their headend sites. On September 30, 1975 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Home Box Office became the first television network to continuously deliver its signal via satellite when it transmitted the "Thrilla in Manila", televised from the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Philippines. Subscribers of UA-Columbia's Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, Florida systems and American Television and Communications's Jackson, Mississippi system joined HBO's existing cable and MDS affiliates in the Mid-Atlantic U.S.—some of which were beginning to transition from microwave to satellite delivery of the network—in receiving the heavyweight championship boxing match that saw Muhammad Ali defeat Joe Frazier by technical knockout. HBO temporarily fed its domestic Eastern and Pacific feeds to Westar 1 for the first four months of satellite transmissions; the network's transmissions shifted to Satcom 1 when full-time commercial service began on February 28, 1976. The network's programming expanded with the switch to satellite transmission, operating daily from 1:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. ET/PT in an extension of its weekend schedule to weekdays. (A lack of G- and PG-rated films in its inventory and low afternoon viewership were cited for a 20-hour rollback of HBO's weekly schedule on October 11, 1976—reverting to the 5:30 p.m. ET/PT weekday start time it had prior to the start of its satellite feeds and, with adjustments for sports events, reducing its weekend schedule to begin at 3:00 p.m. ET/PT.) Through the use of satellite, the network began transmitting separate programming feeds for the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones, allowing the same programs that are first broadcast in the eastern half of the United States to air at accordant times in the western part of the country. One month after the satellite launch, preliminary estimates—taken toward the end of an extended free preview of HBO on all three systems—showed that around 8,250 of approximately 25,630 subscribers between the three charter systems had signed up for the service, and within three months of the satellite uplink, 58,000 customers (or approximately 32% of their combined penetration) among six of the eleven cable systems that added HBO—in Jackson, Mississippi; Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, Florida; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Fort Smith, Arkansas; and Laredo, Texas—had signed up for the service, joining 230,000 subscribers in the Northeastern U.S. HBO estimated that eleven cable systems received its signal via satellite by the end of 1975. HBO achieved coast-to-coast distribution in December 1975, when TelePrompTer added the network to its Seattle–Tacoma, Washington, systems, extending its reach to the West Coast. The growth of HBO would spur the development of the pay television industry during the late 1970s and into the 1980s. Although Warner Communications was the first to launch an HBO competitor with the April 1, 1973, launch of videotape-transmitted pay movie service Star Channel (renamed The Movie Channel in November 1979), the expansion of HBO via satellite prompted other companies to launch rival pay television services; cable-originated pay services that sprouted over the next decade included Showtime, a similar general entertainment service initially focusing on movies and non-sports event programming that was launched by Viacom on July 1, 1976; Home Theater Network, a family-oriented movie service launched by Group W Satellite Communications on September 1, 1978; Bravo, a film and arts service (now a commercial entertainment service primarily focusing on reality series) launched by Rainbow Media and Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment on December 8, 1980, as a two-night-per-week timeshare service shared with now-defunct R-rated film service Escapade; and Spotlight, a movie channel co-founded in consortium by Times Mirror Satellite Programming Company, Storer Communications, Cox Cable and Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI) that launched on May 28, 1981. Broadcast- and microwave-transmitted pay (or “subscription television”) services modeled upon HBO's flat-fee, general entertainment concept—including PRISM (a Philadelphia-based microwave service launched on September 1, 1976, and operating via various transmission methods until October 1997), ONTV (launched in Los Angeles on April 1, 1977, and later operating as a national over-the-air pay franchise until June 1985), SelecTV (launched in Los Angeles on July 23, 1978; later operating as a national over-the-air pay franchise until 1985, then solely available via C-band satellite until January 1991) and Wometco Home Theater (a New York City-based broadcast service operating from March 1, 1977 to March 1, 1986)—were launched in several major and mid-sized U.S. cities to mainly act as cable alternatives in unwired areas. The network’s move to transmit its signal via satellite uplink also culminated in the conception of modern basic cable service, as distributors began developing entertainment channels marketed to cable system operators to be packaged with local and adjacent-market imported broadcast stations. By 1977, two fledgling cable networks had joined HBO in pioneering satellite delivery for the cable television industry, becoming the first of many to adopt satellite transmission over the coming years: Atlanta-based independent station WTCG-TV (soon to become WTBS; now sister network TBS and operating wholly cable-originated), which, through then-owner Ted Turner, became the first independent station to become a national superstation on December 17, 1976; following suit was the upstart CBN Satellite Service (later to become the present-day Freeform), started by Pat Robertson as the first satellite-delivered religious network on April 1, 1977. On December 31, 1975, HBO premiered its first comedy special, An Evening with Robert Klein, the first of nine HBO stand-up specials that the comic headlined over 35 years. Positive viewer response to the special led to the creation of On Location, a monthly anthology series that presented a stand-up comedian's nightclub performance in its entirety and uncut; it premiered on March 20, 1976, with a performance by David Steinberg. The network would gradually cultivate a reputation in the comedy world for its stand-up specials, which have helped raise the profile of established comedians (including George Carlin, Alan King, Rodney Dangerfield, Billy Crystal and Robin Williams) and served as the launchpad for emerging comic stars (such as Dennis Miller, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Rock, Roseanne Barr, Patton Oswalt, Margaret Cho and Dave Chappelle), many of whom have gone on to television and film careers. By April 1976, Home Box Office reached 386,000 subscribers (306,000 through its terrestrial microwave-landline network, 75,000 through satellite distribution, and 5,000 through MDS-served apartment complexes.) It passed 500,000 subscribers by August 1976, including 180,000 brought into HBO's base through the July 27 closure of its purchase of pay-television programming services company Telemation Program Services, which Time/HBO acquired to provide content mediation with program distributors and, with initial intent, to use Telemation to develop "customized" programing schedules for HBO's cable affiliates. (Through a contest searching for its 500,000th subscriber, HBO rewarded married elementary school teachers Lester and Carole Diehl, who subscribed through United Cable Television's San Leandro, California system, with an expense-paid vacation to Hawaii and a $200 cash prize presented at a San Francisco press conference featuring comedian John Byner that was shown during the October premiere of his first On Location special.) Concert-based music specials became a part of the network’s content with the June 19, 1976, premiere of The Fabulous Bette Midler Show, a stage special featuring Midler performing music and comedy routines. It served as the linchpin for the creation of Standing Room Only, a monthly series featuring concerts and various stage "spectaculars" (including among others, burlesque shows, Vaudeville routines, ventriloquism and magic performances) taped live in front of an audience, which premiered on April 17, 1977 with Ann Corio's 'This Was Burlesque''' as inaugural broadcast. By the end of 1977, the network had around one million subscribers across 435 cable and MDS systems serving 45 states. Time's third-quarter fiscal report that year disclosed that HBO had turned its first profit in nearly five years of operation. The network achieved full nationwide distribution in December 1978, having garnered 750 cable affiliates in all 50 U.S. states with around two million subscribers. Programming gradually expanded over time; by January 1979, HBO's programming day lasted between nine and eleven hours per day (usually from 5:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. ET/PT) on weekdays and around 12½ hours (usually from 2:30 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. ET/PT) on weekends. By April 1980, when the current version of its 1975 logo was first introduced, the full "Home Box Office" name had been de-emphasized in most on-air and other promotional parlance, in favor of identifying under the "HBO" initialism. (The full name is still used as the legal corporate name of its parent subsidiary under WarnerMedia, and is used on-air in copyright legalese during the end credits of its original programs and network IDs shown twice per day—in the morning and late afternoon—at the close of promotional breaks; presenting credits shown at the start of its original specials; and a proprietary vanity card—based on the "static noise" card that has preceded HBO's original series, specials and documentaries since 1993—shown at the close of the network's original programs.) Subscribership mostly doubled each year into the early 1980s, increasing from around four million subscribers (across 1,755 systems) in December 1979 to around 10.4 million subscribers (across 3,600+ systems) by November 1982. On June 5, 1981, HBO announced it would transition to a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week programming schedule at the start of 1982. Then-HBO President James Heyworth said the decision was effectively forced by rival Showtime's announcement of its pending switch to a 24-hour daily schedule effective July 4 (both announcements were made at that year's National Cable Television Association [NCTA] Convention), as well as the prior switches of The Movie Channel (on December 1, 1979) and Cinemax (on January 1, 1981) to 24-hour programming. (Along with the four larger pay services, Spotlight offered 24-hour programming from September 1, 1981 until it ended operations on February 28, 1984. Home Theater Network, in contrast, maintained a 12-hour-a-day schedule from January 1, 1982—when its programming day expanded by approximately three hours—until it ended operations on January 31, 1987.) The first phase of the switchover commenced on September 4, 1981, when HBO adopted a "24-hour" weekend schedule (typically running about 58 consecutive hours, from 5:00 p.m. ET/PT Friday until 3:00 a.m. ET/PT Sunday/early Monday). To facilitate the extra weekend programming, HBO and Modern Talking Pictures, then-owner of the Modern Satellite Network (MSN; now defunct), agreed to trade their respective leased timeslots on Satcom I transponder 22 (then assigned to HBO's Pacific Time feed). MSN—which had earlier subleased the bulk of its afternoon hours to Hearst/ABC Video Services for its planned women's channel Daytime—subleased its weekend transponder hours (from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. ET/PT) to HBO, in exchange for the latter's unused weekday 10:00 a.m. to noon ET/PT transponder time. Three months later on December 28, 1981, it began offering a full 168-hour weekly schedule (except for occasional interruptions for scheduled early-morning technical maintenance), adding programming full-time from 3:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET/PT Monday through Friday. After having only produced a limited amount of unscripted programming since the debut of its first weekly series, Inside the NFL, in September 1977, 1983 saw HBO venture into original scripted programming. On January 3, 1983, the network premiered Not Necessarily the News, a news satire lampooning the week in politics that originally aired as a comedy special in September 1982. The series was cited as having laid the groundwork for satirical news programs that came in later years (such as The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and a later HBO series, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver), and featured Conan O’Brien and Greg Daniels, among other notable comics and comedy writers, among its writing staff over its eight-season run. On January 10, 1983, HBO premiered its first regularly scheduled children's program, Fraggle Rock. Created by Jim Henson (who produced the 1978 ACE Award-winning special Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas for HBO) and co-produced with Television South, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Henson Associates, the series (which ran for five seasons, ending in March 1987) centered on a group of various interconnected Muppet species. Later that year, on May 22, 1983, HBO premiered The Terry Fox Story, the first television movie ever produced for the network and the first to be produced for a pay television channel. The biographical film profiled the Canadian amputee runner (Eric Fryer) who embarked on a cross-country run across Canada to raise money and awareness for cancer research before Fox's deteriorating health from advanced cancer (from which he succumbed) ended the trek after 143 days. Besides its venture into original programming that year, in early 1983, HBO jumped ahead of its competitors to become the first pay television service to broadcast Star Wars. As was common with film rights at the time in the pay-TV industry, 20th Century Fox sold off the premium television rights to the science fiction classic on a non-exclusive basis: HBO, Showtime, The Movie Channel, Home Theater Network and Spotlight were contractually bound to premiere it no earlier than 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time on February 1. However, HBO had managed to air the movie at midnight ET that same day, from a planned debut at 7:30 p.m. ET on February 1, after paying Fox for permission to broadcast the film six hours ahead of the competition without promoting their coup to attract an audience other than night owls. In August 1984, Home Box Office Inc. announced plans to scramble the HBO and Cinemax satellite feeds using the Videocipher II encryption system, becoming the first satellite-delivered television networks to encrypt their signals from unauthorized reception by approximately 1.5 million C-band dish owners as well as by various businesses (including hotels, motels and bars) that used rooftop satellite antennas to freely receive HBO, rather than paying for the network through its affiliated cable systems. Periodic testing of Videocipher II signal scrambling began to be carried out during promotional breaks between programs on HBO's Pacific Time Zone feed on April 15, 1985, and on its Eastern Time Zone feed on April 29. (Testing initially commenced on the Pacific feed of Cinemax on March 15, and extended to that service's Eastern feed on April 22.) By August 1985, encryption extended to the entirety of the daytime schedule (from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO and Cinemax's respective Eastern and Pacific feeds. HBO and Cinemax began scrambling their signals full-time on January 15, 1986, requiring customers to pay an extra fee to get one or both networks as their subscribers through cable systems had long done. Widespread complaints were fielded to Home Box Office Inc. and satellite dish retailers from television receive-only (TVRO) dish users who previously could view HBO and Cinemax's programming for at no extra cost on their corresponding transponder signals, particularly because of the cost of Videocipher II set-top descramblers needed to unencrypt the signal (retailing up to $395, plus $12.95 each for a monthly subscription [or $19.95 for a bundling of both HBO and Cinemax], equal to or slightly higher than the networks' cable subscription rates, and rental fees for the Videocipher receivers). The Satellite Television Industry Association (SPACE) and independent satellite dealers worried about the negative impact on the satellite business from the loss of unencrypted access to HBO and Cinemax and the expansion of full-time signal scrambling to other basic and premium cable networks, as dish sales sharply plummeted and several satellite retailers across the U.S. closed as a result; this spurred SPACE, in March 1986, to lobby for Congressional legislation to protect access to satellite transmissions. The fallout from the full-time scrambling came to a head four months later on April 26, when John R. MacDougall, an Ocala, Florida satellite dish retailer calling himself "Captain Midnight", staged his own protest of the changes by redirecting a receiver dish towards HBO's Galaxy 1 transponder and intercepting the network's signal during a late-night presentation of the 1985 spy drama film The Falcon and the Snowman. In this act of broadcast signal intrusion, the film's telecast was overridden with a text-based message written by MacDougall, placed over SMPTE color bars and composed using a Quanta Microgen MG-100 character generator, in protest of the channel's decision to scramble its signal for home satellite subscribers and warning other premium services of possible backlash if they followed suit ("$12.95/MONTH ? NO WAY ! [SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]"). The Federal Communications Commission subsequently charged MacDougall for "illegally operating a satellite uplink transmitter" in violation of the Communications Act of 1934, for which he pleaded guilty after deciding to cooperate with the FCC's investigation into the incident; under a plea bargain deal, MacDougall was fined $5,000, was put on unsupervised probation for one year, and had his amateur radio license suspended for one year. By May 1987, HBO's programming was received by approximately 15 million subscribers across about 6,700 cable systems nationwide. As the 1980s wound down, HBO saw its subscriber base expand greatly as a byproduct of the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike; throughout the strike (which lasted from March 7 to August 7 of that year), HBO had an inventory of first-run programming whereas the broadcast networks were only able to air reruns of their shows because of the abrupt halt to their production schedules and the delayed start of the fall television season. Leaning into its growing prominence in pay television, in 1989, HBO unveiled the promotional campaign "Simply the Best"—which used the Tina Turner single "The Best" as its imaging theme in some on-air advertisements—basing its programming in comparison to rival Showtime. On January 2, 1989, Selecciones en Español de HBO y Cinemax ("Spanish Selections from HBO and Cinemax"), a Spanish-language audio feed transmitted through, depending on the cable system affiliate, either an auxiliary second audio program channel (accessible through built-in and external multichannel audio decoders) or audio simulcasts via FM radio, launched. The service—which initially launched on 20 cable systems in markets with significant Hispanic and Latino populations, and aimed specifically at Spanish-dominant and first-language Spanish speakers— originally provided Spanish-dubbed versions of recent feature film releases from HBO and Cinemax's movie suppliers. By that Spring, Selecciones's offerings expanded to include Spanish audio simulcasts of HBO's live boxing matches (except for certain events broadcast exclusively in Spanish on networks such as Galavisión). Selecciones en Español de HBO y Cinemax—replaced by two dedicated channel feeds, HBO en Español and Cinemax en Español, on September 27, 1993, effectively acting as part-time simulcast feeds with added first-run Spanish-language movies (mostly from Mexico, Argentina and Spain), and Spanish dubs of HBO's non-sports-event original programming—quickly gained interest from providers, expanding to an additional 35 cable systems in various U.S. markets in the weeks following its debut. Time Warner ownership; rising prominence of original programming (1989–2016) On March 4, 1989, Warner Communications—which, through joint venture group Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, sold its interest in The Movie Channel parent Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc. (now Showtime Networks) to Showtime founder and majority partner Viacom in 1986—announced its intent to merge with HBO parent Time Inc. for $14.9 billion in cash and stock. Following two failed attempts by Paramount Communications to legally block the merger, as Paramount was seeking to acquire Time in a hostile takeover bid, the merger was completed on January 10, 1990, resulting in the consolidated entity creating Time Warner (now known as WarnerMedia), which , remains the parent company of the network. (Manhattan Cable Television would be integrated into Time Warner Cable—formed through a consolidation of the cable system assets of American Television and Communications [ATC], which Time acquired for $140 million in January 1978 and subsequently integrated with Manhattan Cable, and Warner Cable Communications—and would adopt its parent unit's identity in January 1993. Time Warner Cable would be spun-off from its namesake parent as an independent company in 2009, and later merged into Charter Communications in May 2016.) By the start of 1990, HBO served 17.3 million subscribers out of a cumulative 23.7 million subscribers covered between it and sister network Cinemax. On August 1, 1991, HBO and Cinemax became the first subscription television services to launch "multiplexed" companion channels—a term coined by then-CEO Michael Fuchs to equate the channel tier to a multi-screen movie theater—offering, at no extra charge to HBO subscribers, distinct schedules with programs culled from HBO's programming libraries separate from offerings shown concurrently on their respective parent primary channels. TeleCable customers in Overland Park, Kansas, Racine, Wisconsin and suburban Dallas (Richardson and Plano, Texas) that subscribed to either service began receiving two additional HBO channels, HBO2 and HBO3, as part of a test launch. (A secondary Cinemax channel, Cinemax 2 [now MoreMax], was also test launched on the three systems.) The HBO multiplex would eventually expand to include four additional channels: HBO Family (on December 1, 1996), HBO Comedy (on May 6, 1999), HBO Zone (on May 6, 1999), and HBO Latino (on November 1, 2000). On January 1, 1993, HBO and Cinemax—accompanied by Showtime and The Movie Channel—became the first television services in the world to transmit their signals using digital compression technology. The compressed satellite feeds, fed through Galaxy 1, were fixed at compression ratios intended to maintain "state-of-the-art" signal quality at provider headends. (The DigiCipher system, developed in 1992 by General Instrument to replace the Videocipher II system that was standard among satellite-delivered cable channels, was designed with an advanced encryption algorithm co-developed by AT&T that was structured to prevent the signal piracy issues that were apparent with the Videocipher II.) The adoption of the DigiCipher allowed Home Box Office, Inc. to transmit three HBO feeds and the primary Cinemax channel through the compression standard to participating systems that adopted the technology, and served as the benchmark for the launch of additional multiplex channels of both HBO and Cinemax utilizing compression—commencing with the December 1996 launch of HBO Family and concluding with the 2001 launches of four Cinemax channels: WMax (now MovieMax), @Max (now Cinemáx), OuterMax and 5StarMax. On March 1, 1994, HBO, Cinemax and rivals Showtime and The Movie Channel implemented a cooperative content advisory system to provide to parents specific information about pay-cable programming content that may be unsuitable for their children; the development of the system—inspired by the advisory ratings featured in the HBO Guide and other program guides distributed by the major premium cable services, and labeled at each co-owned service’s discretion—was in response to concerns from parents and advocacy groups about violent content on television, allowing HBO and other services to assign individual ratings corresponding to the objectionable content depicted in specific programs (and categorized based on violence, profanity, sexuality or miscellaneous mature material). A revised system—centered around ten content codes of two to three letters in length—was implemented across HBO and the other participating pay services on June 10, 1994. During the 1990s, HBO began developing a reputation for high-quality and irreverent original programming; it was throughout this decade that the network experienced increasing success among audiences and acclaim from television critics for original series such as Tales from the Crypt (a horror anthology series based on the 1950s EC Comics series of the same name), Dream On (from eventual Friends creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane, and which utilized clips from black-and-white television series to illustrate the thoughts of divorced New York City book editor Martin Tupper [Brian Benben]), Tracey Takes On... (a topical sketch comedy show, in which comedienne Tracey Ullman, tackles a specific subject through sketches and monologues), Mr. Show with Bob and David (a sketch comedy series hosted by Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, featuring on-stage sketches and pre-taped pieces) and Arliss (a Robert Wuhl-led comedy about the exploits of a sports agent). One of the scripted comedy programs that premiered early in the decade, Garry Shandling vehicle The Larry Sanders Show, arguably became HBO's flagship series of the 1990s; although it was not commercially as successful as programs airing on the Big Three networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) and Fox, the show—which followed the production of a fictional late night talk show—enjoyed a cult status and critical acclaim, and received multiple nominations and wins for many major television awards (including four CableACE Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and two Peabody Awards). Along with influencing HBO's later scripted programming efforts, Larry Sanders—which ran for six seasons from August 1992 to May 1998—served as an influence for other show business-based satire series (such as 30 Rock, My Life on the D-List and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip), the use of celebrity guest stars portraying themselves, the absence of laugh tracks now synonymous with single-camera sitcoms and its use of embarrassment-structured comedy (as later popularized by The Office, Arrested Development and the HBO original comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm). The series ranked #38 on TV Guides list of the "50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time" in 2002 (becoming the only HBO comedy series to make the list) and was also included in Times list of the "100 Best TV Shows of All Time" in 2007. The Larry Sanders Show was also ranked by various critics and fans as one of the best TV comedies of the 1990s. The original programs that HBO has developed since the early 1990s have earned the channel numerous Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations and wins. HBO has been nominated in at least one category at the Emmys and Golden Globes since 1988 (when the network earned its first Emmy nomination for Danny Glover's performance as Nelson Mandela in the 1987 original movie Mandela), and set a record for the most Primetime Emmy nominations for a television network in a single year (137) in 2019. Two reasons for what is perceived as the higher quality of these shows are the quality of the writing on the programs and the fact that as a subscription-only service, HBO does not carry "normal" commercials; instead the network runs promotions for upcoming HBO programs and behind-the-scenes featurettes between programs. This relieves HBO from some pressures to tone down controversial aspects of its programs, and allows for more explicit content to be incorporated into its shows that would not be allowed to air on broadcast television or basic cable, such as profanity, strong/graphic violence, nudity and graphic sex scenes. In July 1997, HBO premiered its first one-hour dramatic narrative series Oz, centering on the inmates of the Oswald State Correctional Facility, a fictional level 4 maximum-security state prison. The program helped start the trend of narrative dramas incorporating gritty realism and storytelling that became standard among premium cable services to the present day. While Oz was critically acclaimed throughout its six-season run, it was not until The Sopranos premiered in January 1999, that the network achieved widespread critical success with an hour-long drama series. The Sopranos—centering on mob patriarch Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and his family—received 111 Emmy nominations and 21 wins over the course of its six-season run, including two honors for Outstanding Drama Series. The mob drama's first wins for Outstanding Drama and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (for Drea de Matteo) in 2004, two of the four Emmys it won that year, marked the first time that a cable program won in either category over a program on one of the major broadcast networks. 1998 saw the debut of From the Earth to the Moon, a 12-part miniseries that was produced by Tom Hanks, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer and based on the Andrew Chaikin book A Man on the Moon. Costing $68 million to produce, it traced the U.S. space program from the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union through the final moon landing, Apollo 17. From the Earth to the Moon—which won three Emmy Awards, including for Outstanding Miniseries, and a Golden Globe for Best Miniseries or Television Film—helped lay the groundwork for other high-profile historical films and miniseries produced by the network in subsequent years including 61* (a Billy Crystal-directed 2001 biopic chronicling New York Yankees legends Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle's New York Yankees race to break Babe Ruth's 1927 single-season record of 60 home runs), Band of Brothers (a ten-part 2001 miniseries produced by Hanks and Steven Spielberg, about the E Company soldiers of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment during the European Theater combat of the Pacific War), John Adams and The Pacific (a ten-part 2010 companion miniseries to Band of Brothers from Spielberg and Hanks, based on the 1992 Stephen E. Ambrose book focusing on the United States Marine Corps's Pacific Theater battles during the Pacific War). In June 1998, Sex and the City, based on the book series of the same name by Candace Bushnell, made its debut on the network. Over the course of its six-season run, the comedy series—centering on the friendship and romances of four New York City women—received 54 Emmy nominations and won seven, including one win for Outstanding Comedy Series, and in 2004, the first wins for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (for Sarah Jessica Parker) and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (for Cynthia Nixon) for HBO since the network first gained Emmy eligibility. On June 25, 1999, HBO Sports announced it would discontinue coverage of Wimbledon after a 25-year run following that year's tournament, citing a need to "refresh" HBO’s programming slate; this left HBO’s boxing franchises (which expanded in February 1996 to include a secondary program for rising boxing talent, HBO Boxing After Dark, and soon expanded to include a short-lived, hip-hop-infused boxing program, KO Nation, in May 2000) as the lone remaining competitive sports offering in its programming portfolio. As part of a joint contract between HBO sister company Turner Broadcasting System, NBC and the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, the tournament rights shifted over the succeeding three years between Turner-owned TNT (in 2000), CNN/SI (in 2001) and CNNfn (in 2002), before the cable rights moved over to ESPN (which assumed full U.S. television exclusivity over the championship in 2012) beginning with the 2003 tournament. On March 6, 1999, HBO began transmitting a high definition simulcast feed of its primary channel, becoming the first American cable-originated television network to begin simulcasting their programming in the format. Until January 2001, HBO HD only transmitted some theatrical films from the network's programming suppliers and HBO's in-house original movies in the format, as existing widescreen prints of those films were already scalable in the 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio and could readily be upconverted to HD resolution. Original programming began to be made available in HD on January 14, 2001, as part of a 13-week Sunday "encore" presentation of the second season of The Sopranos that was remastered in 1080i HD. (HBO had been requiring the producers of its original series to film their episodes in widescreen—subsequently downconverted for the standard definition feed—to fit 4:3 television screens since 1996, in order to future-proof them for remastering in HD.) Sports telecasts were upgraded to HD on September 25, 2004, with an HBO World Championship Boxing fight card headlined by Roy Jones Jr. and Glen Johnson. The 2000s opened with two series that, although they did not surpass The Sopranos in viewership success, maintained similar or matched its critical acclaim, further cementing HBO's reputation as a leading producer of quality television programming. Six Feet Under, premiering in August 2001, was an ensemble drama centering on the lives of a family managing a Los Angeles funeral home. Winning, among others, nine Emmys, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and a Peabody Award, it has since been regarded as one of television's best all-time series including under rankings by Time, The Guardian, and Empire. The Wire, premiering in June 2002 and created by author and former police reporter David Simon, was an anthology-style crime drama focusing on different Baltimore institutions and their relationship to law enforcement in each season, tying subsequent storylines through existing characters and prior storylines. While it never won any major television awards, it earned wide critical acclaim for its writing and depictions of criminal and law enforcement issues, also becoming regarded as one of the best series of all time by media organizations such as TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, and the BBC. The 2003 miniseries Angels in America (based on the Pulitzer-winning play by Tony Kushner, centering around the intersecting lives of six people in 1985 New York), became the first (and to date, only) program to sweep all seven major categories at the Primetime Emmys in the ceremony's history as well as the second program (after Caesar's Hour in 1957) to win all four main acting categories during the 2004 ceremony. In 2005, HBO entered into an agreement with Cingular Wireless (since integrated into the AT&T Mobility unit of HBO's present-day governing parent company AT&T) to establish HBO Mobile, a pre-smartphone era mobile subscription web service that provided information on HBO's original programming (including episode guides), mobile wallpapers and ringtones voiced by cast members of the channel's series. (HBO Mobile also operated a similar service, HBO Family Mobile, which offered full-length episodes of the channel's children's programming.) HBO experienced additional viewer success with the 2008 debut of True Blood, a vampire-themed fantasy horror drama based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries gothic novel series by Charlaine Harris. While earning few major television awards throughout its run, True Bloods average viewership often rivaled that of The Sopranos, peaking at an average of 12.4 million per week (counting repeat and on-demand viewership) during its second season. The network saw three more hit series premiere in the 2010s: Game of Thrones—based on George R. R. Martin's fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire—which earned both critical and viewer praise, and set a single-year record for Emmy wins by an individual program in 2015 with 12 awards; Girls, a comedy series created by series star Lena Dunham; and True Detective, an anthology-style series—structured to feature a different cast and setting within each season's storyline—which initially saw established film actors Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey in its lead roles. On August 13, 2015, HBO announced its re-entry into children's programming, when it reached a five-year programming and development deal with Sesame Workshop. Through the agreement, HBO obtained first-run television rights to Sesame Street, beginning with the January 2016 debut of its 46th season (with episodes being distributed to the program's longtime broadcaster, PBS, following a nine-month exclusivity window at no charge to its member stations); Sesame Workshop will also produce original children's programming content for the channel, which also gained exclusive streaming rights to the company's programming library for HBO Go and HBO Now (assuming those rights from Amazon Video, Netflix and Sesame Workshop's in-house subscription streaming service, Sesame Go, the latter of which will cease to operate as a standalone offering). Although struck with the intent to having the show remain on PBS in some fashion, the nonprofit production company reached the deal due to cutbacks resulting from declines in public and private donations, distribution fees paid by PBS member stations and licensing for merchandise sales. With the debut of HBO Max in May 2020, all Sesame Workshop content previously carried on the linear HBO service shifted to the OTT platform upon Max's launch. AT&T ownership (2016–2021) On October 22, 2016, AT&T announced an offer to acquire Time Warner for $108.7 billion, including debt it would assume from the latter; the merger would bring Time Warner's various media properties, including HBO and Cinemax, under the same corporate umbrella as AT&T's telecommunications holdings, including satellite provider DirecTV and IPTV/broadband provider AT&T U-verse. Time Warner shareholders approved the merger on February 15, 2017. On November 20, 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against AT&T and Time Warner in an attempt to block the merger, citing antitrust concerns surrounding the transaction. U.S. clearance of the proposed merger—which had already received approval from European, Mexican, Chilean and Brazilian regulatory authorities—was affirmed by court ruling on June 12, 2018, after District of Columbia U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ruled in favor of AT&T, and dismissed antitrust claims asserted in the DOJ's lawsuit. The merger closed two days later on June 14, 2018, with Time Warner becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T, which renamed the unit WarnerMedia; the Home Box Office, Inc. unit and its assets were assigned to the newly formed WarnerMedia Entertainment division, although it continues to operate as an autonomous subsidiary. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington unanimously upheld the lower court's ruling in favor of AT&T on February 26, 2019. In July 2018, The New York Times obtained audio from a corporate town hall meeting featuring AT&T executive John Stankey—CEO of WarnerMedia from the merger's completion until May 2020, when Stankey shifted to chief operating officer during his transition to replacing Randall Stephenson as AT&T's CEO—who argued that HBO's current content model was not profitable enough, and that the network had to produce more content (similar to that offered by streaming services such as Netflix) in order to achieve more engagement with subscribers (including short-form content oriented towards mobile devices), and that HBO needed to "move beyond 35 to 40 percent penetration to have this become a much more common product." Stankey's statement contradicted the fact that HBO had been consistently profitable over the last three years, totaling nearly $6 billion, while allocating more than $2 billion per year for programming. Building on this idea, on October 10, 2018, Stankey stated that the company was developing a new over-the-top (OTT) streaming service that would feature content from various WarnerMedia properties including HBO, Turner and Warner Bros. WarnerMedia would later announce on July 9, 2019, that the service would be co-branded with HBO, under the name HBO Max. The service—which was developed under a separate infrastructure from HBO's existing streaming platforms, HBO Go and HBO Now, and will not immediately replace those services—launched on May 27, 2020. On September 27, 2018, HBO announced it would cease airing its boxing telecasts after 45 years—marking the end of competitive sports event broadcasts on the network—following the October 27 edition of HBO World Championship Boxing. (Two additional World Championship Boxing/Boxing After Dark'' cards would follow that originally scheduled final broadcast, on November 24 and December 8, respectively.) The decision cited factors including the influx of sports-based streaming services (such as DAZN and ESPN+) and issues with promoters that hampered its ability to acquire high-profile fight cards, and resulting declining ratings and loss of interest in the sport among HBO's subscribers, as well as WarnerMedia's efforts to have scripted programming become the primary focus of the network’s original content. (Since the discontinuance of live sports telecasts, the HBO Sports production unit now exclusively serves to produce sports magazine shows and documentaries for the network.) On November 1, 2018, HBO and Cinemax were pulled from Dish Network and Sling TV in a carriage dispute with Dish Network Corporation over distribution fees, marking only the second known instance that the network had ever been removed from a pay television provider (following a four-month displacement from 17 Times Mirror Cable systems to free up channel space for Spotlight, a rival pay service then owned through a consortium led by Times Mirror, from May to September 1981) and the first to result from a carriage dispute in its then 46-year history. The dispute did not affect Dish/Sling's carriage of WarnerMedia's other cable networks, which were distributed to the satellite and virtual MVPD providers under a separate carriage agreement. The stalemate lasted for 33 months, ending on July 29, 2021, when Dish and Home Box Office, Inc. reached an agreement to resume distribution of HBO and Cinemax’s linear channels and on-demand content on the satellite provider, as well as offer access to HBO Max to Dish subscribers who receive the linear HBO channel tier. On February 28, 2019, Richard Plepler stepped down from his position as CEO of Home Box Office, Inc., after a collective 27-year tenure at HBO and twelve years as head of the network and its parent unit. Plepler reportedly "found he had less autonomy after the merger," as Stankey felt Plepler was "attached to a fading distribution model" in which HBO programming was sold with other linear channels and to channel platforms operated by streaming distributors that AT&T would be competing with in content development; Stankey, meanwhile, wanted to leverage HBO and the broader WarnerMedia content library to develop a viable streaming competitor to Netflix. Plepler, meanwhile, had sought a plan he estimated would drive $7.5 billion in annual revenue for HBO/WarnerMedia by giving HBO and Cinemax substantial increases in content investment (including incorporating "family-friendly original, library, and licensed children’s programming" onto Cinemax's schedule), negotiating a deal with Comcast to sell its TV Everywhere service HBO Go directly to the cable provider's broadband-only customers, and offering the HBO/Cinemax linear channel bundle to pay television customers at a slightly higher price point than the standalone HBO package's average monthly fee of $14.99, all ideas which Stankey felt would not drive enough additional revenue for the company in comparison to expanding its streaming offerings. On March 4, 2019, AT&T announced a major reorganization of WarnerMedia's assets, dividing WarnerMedia's television properties among three corporate divisions. Home Box Office, Inc. (encompassing HBO, Cinemax, and their respective wholly owned international channels and streaming services) was reassigned to WarnerMedia Entertainment, placing it under the same umbrella as sister basic cable networks TBS, TNT and TruTV (which were formerly part of the dissolved Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary), and under the leadership of former NBC and Showtime executive Bob Greenblatt. (Other former Turner assets were split between two other new subsidiaries: WarnerMedia News & Sports, which oversees CNN and its sister networks, Turner Sports and management operations for NBA TV, and WarnerMedia Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics, a unit of Warner Bros. that oversees such networks as Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies.) On August 10, 2020, WarnerMedia restructured several of its units in a major corporate revamp that resulted in Home Box Office, Inc. and all other WarnerMedia Entertainment assets being consolidated with Warner Bros. Entertainment to form WarnerMedia Studios & Networks Group. HBO/Cinemax President of Programming Casey Bloys—who has been with Home Box Office, Inc. since 2004 (as director of development at HBO Independent Productions), and was eventually elevated to programming president in May 2016—added oversight of HBO Max and WarnerMedia's basic cable networks to his purview. (The restructuring also resulted in the three former Turner networks reassigned to WarnerMedia Entertainment being brought back under the same umbrella as sister networks Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, Boomerang and Turner Classic Movies.) Among the around 800 employees whose positions were eliminated as part of the changes, the restructuring resulted in the layoffs of around 150 Home Box Office, Inc. employees. Proposed spin-out of WarnerMedia (2021–present) On May 17, 2021, AT&T and Discovery, Inc. reached a definitive Reverse Morris Trust agreement, in which AT&T would spin out WarnerMedia into an independent company (unwinding the prior 2017 acquisition of the former Time Warner) that will concurrently acquire Discovery’s assets, for $43 billion in cash, securities and stock plus WarnerMedia’s retention of certain debt. Under the transaction, which is expected to be finalized by the second quarter of 2022, Home Box Office Inc. and all other assets of WarnerMedia would be combined with the assets of Discovery, Inc. AT&T shareholders will own 71% of the company’s stock and Discovery shareholders will own the remaining 29% share, with each shareholder group appointing representative board members; David Zaslav, President and CEO of Discovery, will head the new company, replacing WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar. References and notes History History HBO HBO HBO HBO HBO HBO HBO HBO

65357434

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard%20privacy%20technologies

Hard privacy technologies

Hard privacy technologies are methods of protecting data. Hard privacy technologies and soft privacy technologies both fall under the category of privacy enchancing technologies. Hard privacy technologies allow online users to protect their privacy through different services and applications without the trust of the third-parties. The data protection goal is data minimization and reduction of the trust in third-parties and the freedom (and techniques) to conceal information or to communicate. Applications of hard privacy technologies include onion routing, VPNs and the secret ballot used for democratic elections. Systems for anonymous communications Mix networks Mix networks use both cryptography and permutations to provide anonymity in communications. The combination makes monitoring end-to-end communications more challenging for eavesdroppers, since it breaks the link between the sender and recipients. Dining Cryptographers Net (DC-net) DC-net is a protocol for communication that enables secure, uninterrupted communication. Its round-based protocol enables participants to publish one bit message per round unobservably. The Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) ISDN is based on a digital telecommunications network, i.e. a digital 64 kbit/s channel network. ISDN is primarily used for the swapping of networks; therefore it offers effective service for communication. Attacks against anonymous communications In order to cope with attacks on anonymity systems, the traffic analysis would trace information such as who is talking with whom, extract profiles and so on. The traffic analysis is used against vanilla or hardened systems. Examples of hard privacy technologies Onion routing Onion routing is an internet-based encrypted  technique to prevent eavesdropping, traffic analysis attacks and so on. Messages in an onion network are embedded in the encryption layers. The destination in each layer will be encrypted. For each router, message is decrypted by its private key and unveiled like a 'onion' and then the message transmitted to the next router. Tor is a free-to-use anonymity service that depends on the concept of onion routing. Among all the PETs, tor has one of the highest user bases. VPNs A Virtual Private Network(VPN) is one of the most important ways to protect personal information. A VPN connects a private network to a public network, which helps users share information through public networks by extending them to their computer devices. Thus, VPNs users may benefit from more security. Future of hard privacy technology The future of hard privacy technology include limited disclosure technology and data protection on US disclosure legislation. Limited disclosure technology offers a mechanism to preserve individuals' privacy by encouraging them to provide information only a little that is just sufficient to complete an interactionor purchase with service providers. This technology is to restrict the data sharing between consumers and other third parties. Data protection on US disclosure legislation. Although the United States does not have a general federal legislation on data privacy policy, a range of federal data protection laws are sector-related or focus specific data forms. For example, the Children online privacy protection Act (COPPA) (15 U.S. Code Section 6501) which forbids the collection of any information from a child under the age of 13 years old by internet or by digitally linked devices. The Video Privacy Protection Act (18 U.S. code § 2710 et seq.) restricts the release of video rental or sale records, including online streaming. At last, the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984  (47 US Code § 551) protects the subscribers' information privacy. the LINDDUN methodology The LINDDUN is short for its seven categories of privacy threats including linkability, recognition, non-repudiation, sensitivity, leakage of details, unconscionability and non-compliance. It is used as a privacy threat modeling methodology that supports analysts in systematically eliciting and mitigating privacy threats in software architectures. Its main strength is its combination of methodological guidance and privacy knowledge support. References Data protection Data security

65437985

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond%20Standard

Diamond Standard

Diamond Standard is the producer of an exchange traded, regulated diamond commodity. Equivalent to a standard gold bar for the diamond market, the diamond coin and bar enable investors to access an estimated $1.2 trillion asset class for the first time. Futures contracts are in development by CFTC-licensees, and an investment trust launched in 2022. The commodity makes diamonds accessible to fund managers because the commodity is marked-to-market daily. The coin and bar are physical, and each contains a standardized set of diamonds, graded and certified by the GIA. The diamonds are acquired using an automated market-making and statistical sampling process. The geological details of the diamonds is stored on a public blockchain. While the commodity is held by custodians, the asset is traded using a regulator-licensed blockchain token. The diamond coin and bar contain an embedded wireless encryption chip. The chip provides auditing and authentication, and stores the blockchain token, which can be transacted electronically and instantly. The Diamond Standard Coin offerings are regulated by the Bermuda Monetary Authority and audited by Deloitte. The authenticity and fairness of the diamond commodity is ensured by full transparency regarding the contents, sourcing, and price discovery of the diamonds inside each commodity. To supply the commodity, the company formed the Diamond Standard Exchange. All diamonds contained in the commodity are priced and acquired via transparent bidding on this exchange. The company was founded in New York City and has offices in Hamilton, Bermuda, the domicile of its regulator. History Founder Cormac Kinney is a software designer and serial entrepreneur. Diamond Standard, and the Bitcarbon token, are among the first services to launch under Bermuda's recently enacted Digital Asset Business Act. References External links Companies based in New York City

65561102

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NordPass

NordPass

NordPass is a proprietary password manager launched in 2019. It is meant to help its users to organise their passwords and secure notes, keeping them in a single place — an encrypted password vault. This service comes in both free and premium versions, though the free version lacks much of the paid functionality like multi-device login. NordPass is a cross-platform application available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. It also offers browser extensions on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, and Safari. History NordPass was developed by the same cybersecurity team that created NordVPN, a VPN service provider. Security features NordPass is built with the ChaCha20 encryption algorithm specifically the XChaCha variant. NordPass has zero-knowledge architecture, meaning that passwords are encrypted on the user's device and only then stored in the cloud. This way, NordPass cannot view, edit, or in any other way manage users’ passwords. An encrypted vault acts as a digital safe where users can store login credentials, secure notes, and credit card details. The Master Password serves as the key that unlocks the encrypted vault. Master Password protects the user's passwords, but it's up to the user to make it strong. NordPass provides two-factor authentication (2FA). It supports multiple authentication apps, including Google Authenticator, Duo, and Authy. In its latest release it includes FIDO U2F support. This means that it will now work with YubiKey and other third party security keys. Though this protection is embedded at the service login instead of the app which is a weakness. NordPass provides a Secure Password Sharing Feature which allows for the secure sharing of passwords between NordPass users. NordPass can scan data breaches for password leaks. NordPass can identify weak, reused, or old passwords which it divides into Weak, Reused, and Old. An independent cybersecurity firm, Cure53, in February 2020 conducted an audit and confirmed the security of NordPass password manager. NordPass is based in Panama, which has no mandatory data retention laws and does not participate in the Five Eyes or Fourteen Eyes alliances. This means that the company isn't required by law to keep logs or share them with governments. Reception NordPass is a relatively new player in the password manager market and was named “new kid on the block”. Some tech review sites have noticed that it still lacks some features. According to PC Mag, “it offers very few advanced features such as form-filling, folders, security monitoring, or 2FA key support”. NordPass has conducted a number of research studies. NordPass has also been mentioned on many influential tech websites, such as Wired, Forbes, Business Insider, and TechRadar. References Software Password managers

65623719

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfshark

Surfshark

Surfshark is a VPN service company. Surfshark offers products such as a virtual private network (VPN) service, a data leak detection system, and a private search tool. History Surfshark was launched in 2018 by introducing its first VPN application for iOS devices. In 2018, Surfshark underwent an external audit by a German cybersecurity firm Cure53, but just for their browser extensions. Surfshark has 3200+ servers in 65 countries. In September 2019, Surfshark launched an Android app called Trust DNS. The app works as a DNS resolver that can provide access to websites in highly restrictive countries. In October 2019, Surfshark became one of the first ten VPN packages to receive an official seal of approval granted by an independent IT-Security Institute AV-TEST. In 2020, Surfshark was named the best VPN of 2020 by CNN. Technology In its applications, Surfshark uses IKEv2, OpenVPN, Shadowsocks, and WireGuard tunneling protocols. All data transferred via Surfshark servers is encrypted using an AES-256-GCM encryption standard. In July 2020, Surfshark announced its entire server network is running on RAM-only servers. Surfshark VPN service comes with a Kill Switch, a Double VPN feature called MultiHop, and a split-tunneling feature (Whitelister). It also offers an ad and malware prevention feature CleanWeb that blocks ads on the DNS level. In December 2019, Surfshark implemented GPS-Spoofing for Android, allowing users to hide their device’s physical geo-location by changing it to one of the server’s locations. References Virtual private network services Internet properties established in 2018

65764627

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersecurity%20Law%20of%20the%20People%27s%20Republic%20of%20China

Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China

The Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China, (Chinese: 中华人民共和国网络安全法) commonly referred to as the Chinese Cybersecurity Law, was enacted by the National People’s Congress with the aim of increasing data protection, data localization, and cybersecurity ostensibly in the interest of national security. The law is part of wider series of laws passed by the Chinese government in an effort to strengthen national security legislation. Examples of which since 2014 have included a Law on National Intelligence, the National Security of the People’s Republic of China (not to be confused with the Hong Kong National Security Law) and laws on counter-terrorism and foreign NGO management, all passed within successive short timeframes of each other. History This law was enacted by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on November 7, 2016, and was implemented on June 1, 2017. It requires network operators to store select data within China and allows Chinese authorities to conduct spot-checks on a company's network operations. Cybersecurity is recognized as a basic law. This puts the law on the top of the pyramid-structured legislation on cybersecurity. The law is an evolution of the previously existent cybersecurity rules and regulations from various levels and fields, assimilating them to create a structured law at the macro-level. The law also offers principal norms on certain issues that are not immediately urgent but are of long-term importance. These norms will serve as a legal reference when new issues arise. Provisions The law: Created the principle of cyberspace sovereignty Defined the security obligations of internet products and services providers Detailed the security obligations of internet service providers. Further refined rules surrounding personal information protection Established a security system for key information infrastructure Instituted rules for the transnational transmission of data from critical information infrastructures. The cybersecurity law is applicable to network operators and businesses in “critical sectors.” By critical sectors, China roughly divides the domestic businesses into networking businesses that are involved in telecommunications, information services, energy transport, water, financial services, public services, and electronic government services. Some of the most controversial sections of the law include articles 28, 35, and 37. Article 28 compels vaguely defined "network operators", (interpreted to include: social media platforms, application creators and other technology companies), to cooperate with public security organs such as the Ministry of Public Security and hand over information when requested. Article 35 is targeted at purchases of foreign software or hardware by government agencies or other "critical information infrastructure operators", requiring any hardware of software purchased to undergo review by agencies such as China's SCA or State Cryptography Administration, potentially involving the provision source codes and other sensitive proprietary information to government agencies paving the way state theft of intellectual property or transmission to domestic competitors. Above all, the article creates further regulatory burdens for foreign technology companies operating in China, indirectly creating a more favourable playing field for domestic competitors which would naturally be more prepared to comply with the regulations. Article 37 creates the requirement of data localisation, meaning that foreign technology companies such as Microsoft, Apple and PayPal operating in the Chinese market are obligated to store Chinese user data on Chinese servers in mainland China providing an easier access route for Chinese intelligence and state security agencies to intercept data and communications, while expanding the power of the ruling Chinese Communist Party to target dissent and surveil citizens. The law is applicable to all businesses in China that manage their own servers or other data networks. Network operators are expected, among other things, to clarify cybersecurity responsibilities within their organization, take technical measures to safeguard network operations, prevent data leaks and theft, and report any cybersecurity incidents to both users of the network and the relevant implementing department for that sector. The law is composed of supportive subdivisions of regulations that specify the purpose of it. For instance, the Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII) Security Protection Regulations and Measures for Security Assessment of Cross-border Transfer of Personal Information and Important Data. However, the law is yet to be set in stone since China's government authorities are occupied with defining more contingent laws to better correspond with the cybersecurity law. By incorporating preexisting laws on VPN and data security into the cybersecurity law, the Chinese government reinforces its control in addition to emphasize has the need for foreign companies to comply with domestic regulations. The cybersecurity law also provides regulations and definitions on legal liability. For different types of illegal conduct, the law sets a variety of punishments, such as fines, suspension for rectification, revocation of permits and business licenses, and others. The Law accordingly grant cybersecurity and administration authorities with rights and guidelines to carry out law enforcement on illegal acts. Although censorship affects mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau are exempt under the principle of “one country two systems” and the maintenance of separate and independent legal systems. Related Regulations In July 2021, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued “Regulations on the Management of Security Vulnerabilities in Network Products” requiring that all vulnerabilities be reported to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and prohibits the public disclosure of vulnerabilities, including to overseas organizations. Reactions Along with the Great Firewall, restrictions stipulated in the law have raised concerns, especially from foreign technology companies operating in China. Regarding the requirements for spot-checks and certifications, international law firms have warned that companies could be asked to provide source code, encryption, or other crucial information for review by the authorities, increasing the risk of intellectual property theft, information being lost, passed on to local competitors, or being used by the authorities themselves. The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned that the law could force companies transmitting data through servers in China to submit to data surveillance and espionage. The law sparked concerns both domestically and internationally due to its phrasing and specific requirements. Foreign companies and businesses in China expressed concerns that this law might impede future investments in China, since the law requires them to "store their data on Chinese-law regulated local servers, and cooperate with Chinese national security agencies". Potentially increasing the risk of intellectual property theft and lost of trade secrets in the process. Since its inception many foreign technology companies have already complied with the law. Apple for example, announced in 2017 that it would invest $1 billion in partnership with local cloud computing company Guizhou Cloud Big Data or GCBD to construct a new data center located in China's Guizhou province for the purposes of compliance. Simultaneously, the company also announced that it would transfer the operation and storage of iCloud data to Mainland China. Microsoft also announced an expansion of its Azure services in partnership cloud computing company 21Vianet through investment in more servers. Meanwhile, online services, such as Skype and WhatsApp which refused to store their data locally and were either delisted from domestic app stores or restricted from further expansion. Article 9 of the cybersecurity law states that: “network operators … must obey social norms and commercial ethics, be honest and credible, perform obligations to protect network security, accept supervision from the government and public, and bear social responsibility.” Although some arguments and doubts arise, such a vague provisions are widely suspected to increase the government's scope to interpret and assert the need to intervene in business operations and restrict the free flow of information and speech. Such interventions would include investigations which could disperse into government trade associations requesting spot-checks foreign firms. Among other things the law further signals the determination of the Chinese government in strengthening its control over data and technology companies. The law forces foreign technology and other companies operating within China to either invest in new server infrastructure in order to comply with the law or partner with service providers such as Huawei, Tencent, or Alibaba, which have already have server infrastructure on the ground, saving capital expenditure costs for companies. The law is widely seen to be in line with 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) which aims to create domestic champions in industries such as cloud computing and big data processing. The law is seen as a boon to domestic companies and has been criticized as creating an unfair playing ground against international technology companies such as Microsoft and Google. Supporters of the law have stated that the intention of the law is not to prohibit foreign businesses from operating in China, or boost domestic Chinese competitiveness. A study by Matthias Bauer and Hosuk Lee-Makiyama in 2015, states that data localization causes minor damage to economic growth due to inefficiencies that arise from data transfer processes and the duplication of data between several jurisdictions. The requirement for data localization is also seen as a move by Beijing to bring data under Chinese jurisdiction and make it easier to prosecute entities seen as violating China's internet laws. The president of AmCham South China, Harley Seyedin, claimed that foreign firms are facing “mass concerns” because the law has greatly increased operating costs and has had a big impact on how business is done in China. More specifically, he stated that the cyber security law continues to create “uncertainties within the investment community, and it’s resulting in, at the minimum, postponement of some R&D investment.” The law was widely criticized for limiting freedom of speech. For example, the law explicitly requires most online services operating in China to collect and verify the identity of their users, and, when required to, surrender such information to law enforcement without warrant. Activists have argued this policy dissuades people from freely expressing their thoughts online, further stifling dissent by making it easier to target and surveil dissidents. See also Data Security Law of the People's Republic of China Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China List of statutes of China Law of the People's Republic of China Chinese cyberwarfare References Chinese law Cyberwarfare in China Mass surveillance 2017 in China 2017 in law

65785999

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft%20privacy%20technologies

Soft privacy technologies

Soft privacy technology falls under the category of PET, Privacy-enhancing technology, as methods of protecting data. PET has another sub-category, called hard privacy. Soft privacy technology has the goal to keep information safe and process data while having full control of how the data are being used. Soft privacy technology emphasis the usage of third-party programs to protect privacy, emphasizing audit, certification, consent, access control, encryption, and differential privacy. With the advent of new technology, there is a need to process billions of data every day in many areas such as health care, autonomous cars, smart cards, social media data, and more. Applications Health care Usages of some medical devices like Ambient Assisted Living, monitors and reports sensitive information remotely into a cloud. Cloud computing offers a solution that meets the healthcare need for processing and storage at an affordable price. They are used to monitor a patient's biometric conditions remotely and can connect with smart technology. In addition to monitoring, the devices can also send a mobile notification when certain conditions pass a set point such as a major change in blood pressure. Due to the nature of the device reporting constant data and usage of smart technology, they are subject to a lot of privacy concerns. This is where soft privacy comes into question on the effectiveness of the third-party cloud service as they present several privacy concerns including risk in unauthorized access, data leakage, sensitive information disclosure, and privacy disclosure. One solution proposed to this issue for cloud computing in health care is through the usage of Access control by giving partial access to data based on a user's role such as a doctor, family, etc... Another solution that is explored for wireless technology when moving data to a cloud is through the usage of Differential privacy. The differential privacy system typically encrypts the data, sends it to a trusted service, then opens it up for the hospital institutions. A strategy that is often used to prevent data leakage and attacks is by adding ‘noise’ into the data which changes the value slightly while accessing the real information through security questions. A study by Sensors concluded that differential privacy techniques involving additional noise helped achieve mathematically-precise guaranteed privacy. In the mid-90s the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission released anonymous health records while hiding some sensitive information such as address and phone number. Despite this attempt of hiding information while providing some sort of database, privacy was still breached as some people found out a correlation between the health databases with public voting databases. Without encrypting data and noise that differential privacy adds, it is possible to link two data that may not seem related, together. Autonomous cars Autonomous cars raise concerns as a location tracking device as they are sensor-based vehicles. To achieve full autonomy there would need to be a massive database with information on the surrounding, paths to take, interaction with others, weather, and many more circumstances that needs to be accounted for. This leads to the question of how the data will all be stored, who is it shared with, and what type of data is being stored. A lot of this data is potentially sensitive and could be used maliciously if it was leaked or hacked. There are concerns over selling data to companies as the data can help predict products the consumer would like or need. It may expose health conditions and alert some companies to advertise to said customers with location-based spam/products. In terms of the legal aspect of this technology, there are rules and regulations garnering some parts of the car, but a lot of it is still out in the open and oftentimes outdated. Many of the current laws are vague, leaving the rules to be open to interpretation. For example, there are federal laws dating back many years ago restricting computer privacy, and the laws simply extended that rule to phones, and now are extending the same rules to the “computer” inside most driverless cars. In addition to this, there are concerns about the government having access to these driver-less car data, giving opportunity for mass surveillance and tracking with no warrants. From the perspective of companies, they are using this data to improve their technology and hone in on their marketing data to fit the needs of their consumer. In response to consumer's concern and understanding of the slow-paced government action, automakers created Automotive Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Auto-ISAC) in August 2015 to establish protocols for cybersecurity and how to handle vehicular communication systems in a safe manner through with other autonomous cars. Vehicle-to-grid known as V2G plays a big role in energy consumption, cost, and effectiveness for smart grids. This system is what electric vehicles use to charge and discharge as it communicates with the power grid to fill up to the appropriate amount. This is extremely important for electric vehicles but opens up to privacy issues relating to the location. For example, the user's home address, place of work, place of entertainment, and record of frequency, may be reflected in the charging history. With this information that could potentially be leaked, there is a wide variety of security breach that can occurs. For example, someone’s health could be deduced by the number of hospital visits, or the user may receive location-based spams, or there may be malicious intent with the usage of home address and work schedule. Similarly to the health data, a possible solution here is to use differential privacy to add noise to the mathematical data so leaked information may not be as accurate. Cloud storage Main Article: Cloud storage Using the cloud is important for consumers and business as it provides a cheap source of virtually unlimited storage space. One challenge cloud storage faced was their search function. Typical cloud computing design encrypts the word before it enters the cloud. This brings up the issue of the user’s ability to search up keywords hindering the results when searching for a specific file. This ends up being a double-edged sword of protecting privacy but introducing new inconvenient problems. One solution lies in the search, when the documents are being indexed entirely rather than just keywords. It also handles this process through the change of letters into what the key is, matching each letter to their respective pair. In this case, privacy is achieved and it is easy to search for words to match with the encrypted files now. However, there is a new issue that arises from this, as it takes a longer time to read and match through an encrypted file and decrypt the whole thing for a user. Mobile data VPNs are used to create a remote user and a home network and encrypt their package usage. This allows the user to have their own private network while on the internet. This encrypted tunnel trusts a third party to protect the privacy of the user as it acts as a virtual leased line over a shared public infrastructure. VPN has a difficult time when it comes to mobile applications as the network may be constantly changing and breaks, thus endangering the privacy that VPN gives from its encryption. Polices and other authority also could use soft privacy technology against criminals by accessing cloud data. There have been many instances where privacy through surveillance was a concern and has reached the Supreme Court. Some instances used GPS data to track down suspects' locations and aggregated monitored data over long periods of time. However, it is now prevented through the supreme court case Riley v. California which unanimously was voted to prevent warrantless searches of mobile data. In the effort to reduce these call many people are being taken advantage of by apps that promise to reduce these attacks. It tethers the line of privacy consent as many of these apps are known to collect phone data including callers, phone honeypot call detail records (CDRs), and call recordings. An important thing to consider in these equations when deciding what type of differential privacy to use is their budgets. As these are typically small-scaled apps with varying budget degrees. There are differential privacy protocols proven to be effective in many fields. This resulted in a higher cost than companies would be paying without any differential privacy. This is because the dataset needed to construct a good algorithm that achieves the local differential privacy is much larger. Danger of using VPNs They are susceptible to attackers that fabricate, intercept, modify, and interrupt traffic. They become a target as sensitive information is often being transmitted over these networks. Quick VPNs generally provides faster tunnel establishment and less overhead but it downgrades the effectiveness of VPNs as a security protocol. It is also found that changing long usernames (IP addresses) and passwords frequently is also important to achieving security and protection from malicious attacks. Smart cards Main Article: Smart Card Newer smart cards are a developing technology used to authorize users for certain resources. Using biometrics such as fingerprints, iris images, voice patterns, or even DNA sequences as access control for sensitive information such as a passport can help ensure privacy. Biometric is important because it is the access code to one’s information to virtually anything about the particular person. Currently they are being used for telecommunications, e-commerce, banking applications, government applications, healthcare, transportation, and more. Most VPNs do not protect your computer from viruses or malware. Danger of using biometrics Leaked as biometric contains unique characteristic details about a person and in said event, it would be fairly easy to trace the endangered user. This poses a great danger if said information was leaked as biometric contains unique characteristic details about a person and in said event, it would be fairly easy to trace the endangered user. There are some possible solutions to this: Anonymous Biometric Access Control System (ABAC): Authenticate valid users into the system without knowing who it is. For example, a hotel should be able to admit a VIP guest member into a VIP room without knowing any details about that person even though the verification process is still utilizing biometrics. Developed by Center for Visualization and Virtual Environment, their system is composed of hamming distance computation, bit extraction, comparison, and result aggregation, all implemented with a homomorphic cipher. Essentially, it allows the biometric server to confirm a user without knowing their identity. This is done by taking the biometric saved and encrypting it. While saving the biometrics, there are specific processes to de-identify features such as facial recognition when encrypting the data so even if it was leaked, there would be no danger of tracing someone's identity. Online videos Online learning using mobile videos has become prevalent in our time. One of the biggest challenges for privacy in this field is the idea of prefetching in videos. With a sudden increase of higher traffic for more video presence, many have turned to prefer to offload some of these demands to delay reduction. Prefetching is when the program loads some resources before it is needed to decrease the eventual wait time. It seems to be a perfect solution that is needed for our time with increasing demand for videos, but prefetching heavily relies on prediction. For an accurate prediction to happen, it is necessary to access view history and to know more about the user to give accurate prefetching, otherwise, it will be more of a waste to bandwidth than a benefit. After learning the user’s view of history and popular content that the user likes, it is easier to predict the next video to prefetch, but these are valuable and possibly sensitive data. Proposed privacy solution: DPDL-SVP -differential privacy-oriented distributed online learning for mobile social video prefetching, separates the main problems into two subproblems and enables mobile users to solve the two subproblems focusing only on communicating between their mobile neighbors and social members. This gives differential privacy as it preserves the sensitive viewing information. Third party certification There is an increased growth of online transactions, and there has been initiative with the purpose of reducing the consumer’s perception of risk. Firms have found ways to gain trust from new consumers through the use of seals and certifications off of third party platforms. A study done by Electronic Commerce Research found that payment providers can reduce their perceptions of risk from consumers by having the presence of third-party logos and seals on the checkout page to enhance visitor conversion. These logos and certificates serve as an indicator for the consumer to feel safe about inputting their payment information and shipping address. Future of soft privacy technology Mobile concern and possible solutions mIPS - mobile Intrusion Prevention System looks to be location-aware and help protect users when utilizing future technology such as virtualized environments where the phone acts as a small virtual machine. Some cases to be wary about in the future includes stalking attacks, bandwidth stealing, attack on cloud hosts, and PA2: traffic analysis attack on the 5G device based on a confined area. Current privacy protection programs are prone to leakage and do not account for the changing of Bluetooth, locations, and LAN connections which affect how often leakage can occur. Public key-based access control In the context of sensor net, public-key based access control (PKC) may be a good solution in the future to cover some issues in wireless access control. For sensor net, the danger from attackers includes; impersonation which grants access to malicious users, replay attack where the adversary captures sensitive information by replaying it, interleaving which selectively combines messages from previous sessions, reflection where an adversary sends an identical message to the originator similar to impersonation, forced delay which blocks communication message to be sent at a later time, and chosen-text attack where the attacker tries to extract the keys to access the sensor. The solution to this may be public key-based cryptography as a study done by Haodong Wang shows that PKC-based protocol presented is better than the traditional symmetric key in regards to memory usage, message complexity, and security resilience. Social media Privacy management is a big part of social networks and this paper presents several solutions to this issue. For example, users of various social networks has the ability to control and specify what information they want to share to certain people based on their trust levels. Privacy concerns arise from this, for example in 2007 Facebook received complaints about their advertisements. In this instance Facebook’s partner collects information about a user and spreads it to the user’s friends without any consent. There are some proposed solutions in prototype stage by using a protocol that focuses on cryptographic and digital signature techniques to ensure the right privacy protections are in place. Massive dataset With increasing data collection one source may have they become prone to privacy violations and a target for malicious attacks due to the abundance of personal information they hold. Some solutions proposed would be to anonymize the data by building a virtual database while that anonymizes both the data provider and the subjects of the data. The proposed solution here is a new and developing technology called l-site diversity. References Privacy Data protection Information technology

65821147

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau%20Parry

Beau Parry

Beau Parry is an American inventor, known for his contributions in the field of biometric encryption and liveness detection. He is also the founder of BRIVAS, a biometric technology company that offers biometric encryption services for consumers, enterprises, and government. In 2012, Parry founded BRIVAS in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2015 he received a U.S. patent for biometric encryption to stop digital identity fraud. Parry achieved a granted patent that claims cloud based biometric liveness detection wherein the verification enables access to data stored in a blockchain. Parry also holds a patent that protects determinstic bio-signature keybinding that utilizes one or more biometrics along with contextual data from GPS or other sensors. Parry delivered a talk "Seeing is Believing" in a TEDx event in October 2018. Parry was educated at Cincinnati Country Day School and later attended The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he studied Economics and played linebacker under Coach Mack Brown. References American inventors Living people Year of birth missing (living people)

65856419

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic%20Commerce%20Modeling%20Language

Electronic Commerce Modeling Language

Electronic Commerce Modeling Language (ECML) is a protocol which enables the e-commerce merchants to standardize their online payment processes. Through the application of ECML, customers' billing information in their digital wallet can be easily transferred to fill out the checkout forms. There are various companies that have participated in ECML's alliances, including American Express and Mastercard. As a standard developed by the alliance, ECML has solved the problem of complex and confusing online manual payments caused by diverse web designs, and further reduces the chance of customer dropout (also called shopping cart abandonment). On the other hand, ECML deals with sensitive information such as credit card numbers and home addresses—its data security is controversial, and privacy considerations should be taken. Alliances The members of ECML Alliance listed in alphabetical order below: American Express (www.americanexpress.com> AOL (www.aol.com) Brodia (www.brodia.com) Compaq (www.compaq.com) CyberCash (www.cybercash.com) Discover (www.discovercard.com) FSTC (www.fstc.org) IBM (www.ibm.com) Mastercard (www.mastercard.com) Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) Novell (www.novell.com> SETCo (www.setco.org) Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com) Trintech (www.trintech.com> Visa International (www.visa.com) ECML and customer dropout behaviors Customer dropout is also called shopping cart abandonment—it is a type of behavior which customers display inclination of purchase without completing the final payment. According to a commercial study, there is a rate 25% to 75% that the customer would abandon a transaction before it is completed due to various reasons. Aside from motivational factors such as customer's fundamental needs and spontaneous purchases, emotional factors such as irritation and disappointment also determine whether a transaction would be successful. Research has shown that payment inconvenience and perceived wasting time are factors that would contribute to customer's irritation. Electronic Commerce Modeling Language could potentially decrease customer irritation in two ways, and further benefit the industry of electronic commerce as a whole. First of all, it provides a standardized set of information fields which would improve the manual process of online payment. Entering relevant information into the checkout form would become an easier task for customers. Secondly, ECML allows a smooth information transfer between customer's digital wallet and e-commerce checkout form. Information does not has to be manually entered into the system. ECML and customer's privacy expectations The application of ECML requires the online shoppers to disclose their personal information which includes financial, shipping, billing, and preference details. According to relevant research, customers are able to categorize the level of risks associated with different types of information disclosure. Among the information that is required to complete an online order, the user's home address is categorized as secure identifiers which is perceived as the most sensitive by customers. Other secure identifiers include DNA profile, medical history, and social security numbers. Furthermore, other empirical studies has confirmed customers' consistent privacy expectation --- even they have revealed personal information in exchange for services, their expectation of privacy protection is unlikely to change. Firms that adopt to ECML should undertake the responsibility and regulate themselves to actively protect the information collected during transactions. Privacy considerations and suggestions Electronic Commerce Modeling Language is consistent with Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), a controversial protocol which addresses online privacy concern. Initially, P3P is designed to simplify users' access and understanding on privacy policies posted on the websites. It has employed a multiple choice format to make connections between human readable privacy notices and privacy policies, as well as offering agents conduct policy evaluations. On the other side, some studies have also argued that P3P has made users' private information more vulnerable. The platform is accused for its exclusive nature that would disadvantage non-compliant websites with good privacy practices, and its lack of privacy policies' enforcements. Although the developers of electronic commerce modeling language have not explicitly specified how the information can be safely stored and protected, object security protocols (include XML encryption and XMLDsig), and channel security are all possible ways of privacy protection. Since ECML is an application related with sensitive information such as credit card numbers and home addresses. Privacy considerations thus have became crucial. There are several suggestions listed below to protect customer's privacy: ECML memory of sensitive information cannot exist. If it is installed on a public terminal, the wallet has to be configurable. A password should be set up and required each time when the user wants to access the stored information. Users need to have control of whether the stored sensitive information is released or not. See also Platform for Privacy Preferences Digital wallet XML XML Encryption XMLDsig E-commerce Consumer privacy References Modeling languages E-commerce software

65940597

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison%20of%20user%20features%20of%20messaging%20platforms

Comparison of user features of messaging platforms

Comparison of user features of messaging platforms refers to a comparison of all the various user features of various electronic instant messaging platforms. This includes a wide variety of resources; it includes standalone apps, platforms within websites, computer software, and various internal functions available on specific devices, such as iMessage for iPhones. This entry includes only the features and functions that shape the user experience for such apps. A comparison of the underlying system components, programming aspects, and other internal technical information, is outside the scope of this entry. Overview and background Instant messaging technology is a type of online chat that offers real-time text transmission over the Internet. A LAN messenger operates in a similar way over a local area network. Short messages are typically transmitted between two parties when each user chooses to complete a thought and select "send". Some IM applications can use push technology to provide real-time text, which transmits messages character by character, as they are composed. More advanced instant messaging can add file transfer, clickable hyperlinks, Voice over IP, or video chat. Non-IM types of chat include multicast transmission, usually referred to as "chat rooms", where participants might be anonymous or might be previously known to each other (for example collaborators on a project that is using chat to facilitate communication). Instant messaging systems tend to facilitate connections between specified known users (often using a contact list also known as a "buddy list" or "friend list"). Depending on the IM protocol, the technical architecture can be peer-to-peer (direct point-to-point transmission) or client-server (an Instant message service center retransmits messages from the sender to the communication device). By 2010, instant messaging over the Web was in sharp decline, in favor of messaging features on social networks. The most popular IM platforms were terminated, such as AIM which closed down and Windows Live Messenger which merged into Skype. Instant messaging has since seen a revival in popularity in the form of "messaging apps" (usually on mobile devices) which by 2014 had more users than social networks. As of 2010, social networking providers often offer IM abilities. Facebook Chat is a form of instant messaging, and Twitter can be thought of as a Web 2.0 instant messaging system. Similar server-side chat features are part of most dating websites, such as OKCupid or PlentyofFish. The spread of smartphones and similar devices in the late 2000s also caused increased competition with conventional instant messaging, by making text messaging services still more ubiquitous. Many instant messaging services offer video calling features, voice over IP and web conferencing services. Web conferencing services can integrate both video calling and instant messaging abilities. Some instant messaging companies are also offering desktop sharing, IP radio, and IPTV to the voice and video features. The term "Instant Messenger" is a service mark of Time Warner and may not be used in software not affiliated with AOL in the United States. For this reason, in April 2007, the instant messaging client formerly named Gaim (or gaim) announced that they would be renamed "Pidgin". In the 2010s, more people started to use messaging apps on modern computers and devices like WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Signal and Line rather than instant messaging on computers like AIM and Windows Live Messenger. For example, WhatsApp was founded in 2009, and Facebook acquired in 2014, by which time it already had half a billion users. Concepts Backchannel Backchannel is the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside the primary group activity or live spoken remarks. The term was coined in the field of linguistics to describe listeners' behaviours during verbal communication. (See Backchannel (linguistics).) The term "backchannel" generally refers to online conversation about the conference topic or speaker. Occasionally backchannel provides audience members a chance to fact-check the presentation. First growing in popularity at technology conferences, backchannel is increasingly a factor in education where WiFi connections and laptop computers allow participants to use ordinary chat like IRC or AIM to actively communicate during presentation. More recent research include works where the backchannel is brought publicly visible, such as the ClassCommons, backchan.nl and Fragmented Social Mirror. Twitter is also widely used today by audiences to create backchannels during broadcasting of content or at conferences. For example, television drama, other forms of entertainment and magazine programs. This practice is often also called live tweeting. Many conferences nowadays also have a hashtag that can be used by the participants to share notes and experiences; furthermore such hashtags can be user generated. Features Various platforms and apps are distinguished by their strengths and features in regards to specific functions. Group messaging Official channels Some apps include a feature known as "official channels" which allows companies, especially news media outlets, publications, and other mass media companies, to offer an official channel, which users can join, and thereby receive regular updates, published articles, or news updates from companies or news outlets. Two apps which have a large amount of such channels available are Line and Telegram. Video group calls Basic default platforms Basic platforms which are common across entire categories of mobile devices, computers, or operating systems. SMS SMS (short message service) is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet, and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols to enable mobile devices to exchange short text messages. An intermediary service can facilitate a text-to-voice conversion to be sent to landlines. SMS, as used on modern devices, originated from radio telegraphy in radio memo pagers that used standardized phone protocols. These were defined in 1985 as part of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) series of standards. The first test SMS message was sent on December 3, 1992, when Neil Papwort, a test engineer for Sema Group, used a personal computer to send "Merry Christmas" to the phone of colleague Richard Jarvis. It commercially rolled out to many cellular networks that decade. SMS became hugely popular worldwide as a way of text communication. By the end of 2010, SMS was the most widely used data application, with an estimated 3.5 billion active users, or about 80% of all mobile phone subscribers. The protocols allowed users to send and receive messages of up to 160 characters (when entirely alpha-numeric) to and from GSM mobiles. Although most SMS messages are sent from one mobile phone to another, support for the service has expanded to include other mobile technologies, such as ANSI CDMA networks and Digital AMPS. Mobile marketing, a type of direct marketing, uses SMS. According to a 2018 market research report the global SMS messaging business was estimated to be worth over US$100 billion, accounting for almost 50 percent of all the revenue generated by mobile messaging. A Flash SMS is a type of SMS that appears directly on the main screen without user interaction and is not automatically stored in the inbox. It can be useful in emergencies, such as a fire alarm or cases of confidentiality, as in delivering one-time passwords. Threaded SMS format Threaded SMS is a visual styling orientation of SMS message history that arranges messages to and from a contact in chronological order on a single screen. It was first invented by a developer working to implement the SMS client for the BlackBerry, who was looking to make use of the blank screen left below the message on a device with a larger screen capable of displaying far more than the usual 160 characters, and was inspired by threaded Reply conversations in email. Visually, this style of representation provides a back-and-forth chat-like history for each individual contact. Hierarchical-threading at the conversation-level (as typical in blogs and on-line messaging boards) is not widely supported by SMS messaging clients. This limitation is due to the fact that there is no session identifier or subject-line passed back and forth between sent and received messages in the header data (as specified by SMS protocol) from which the client device can properly thread an incoming message to a specific dialogue, or even to a specific message within a dialogue. Most smart phone text-messaging-clients are able to create some contextual threading of "group messages" which narrows the context of the thread around the common interests shared by group members. On the other hand, advanced enterprise messaging applications that push messages from a remote server often display a dynamically changing reply number (multiple numbers used by the same sender), which is used along with the sender's phone number to create session-tracking capabilities analogous to the functionality that cookies provide for web-browsing. As one pervasive example, this technique is used to extend the functionality of many Instant Messenger (IM) applications such that they are able to communicate over two-way dialogues with the much larger SMS user-base. In cases where multiple reply numbers are used by the enterprise server to maintain the dialogue, the visual conversation threading on the client may be separated into multiple threads. Multimedia Messaging Service Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from a mobile phone over a cellular network. Users and providers may refer to such a message as a PXT, a picture message, or a multimedia message. The MMS standard extends the core SMS (Short Message Service) capability, allowing the exchange of text messages greater than 160 characters in length. Unlike text-only SMS, MMS can deliver a variety of media, including up to forty seconds of video, one image, a slideshow of multiple images, or audio. The first MMS-capable phones were introduced around 2002 in conjunction with the first GSM network. The Sony Ericsson T68i is widely believed to be the first MMS-capable cell phone, while many more hit North American markets beginning in 2004 and 2005. The most common use involves sending photographs from camera-equipped handsets. Media companies have utilized MMS on a commercial basis as a method of delivering news and entertainment content, and retailers have deployed it as a tool for delivering scannable coupon codes, product images, videos, and other information. The 3GPP and WAP groups fostered the development of the MMS standard, which is now continued by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). Content adaptation: Multimedia content created by one brand of MMS phone may not be entirely compatible with the capabilities of the recipient's MMS phone. In the MMS architecture, the recipient MMSC is responsible for providing for content adaptation (e.g., image resizing, audio codec transcoding, etc.), if this feature is enabled by the mobile network operator. When content adaptation is supported by a network operator, its MMS subscribers enjoy compatibility with a larger network of MMS users than would otherwise be available. Rich Communication Services Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a communication protocol between mobile telephone carriers and between phone and carrier, aiming at replacing SMS messages with a text-message system that is richer, provides phonebook polling (for service discovery), and can transmit in-call multimedia. It is part of broader IP Multimedia Subsystem. It is also marketed as Advanced Messaging, Chat, joyn, SMSoIP, Message+, and SMS+. In early 2020, it was estimated that RCS is available from 88 operators throughout 59 countries in the world. There are approximately 390 million users per month and the business is expected to be worth $71 billion by 2021. Amnesty International researcher Joe Westby criticized RCS for not allowing end-to-end encryption, because it is treated as a service of carriers and thus subject to lawful interception. The Verge criticized the inconsistent support of RCS in the United States, with carriers not supporting RCS in all markets, not certifying service on all phones, or not yet supporting the Universal Profile. Concerns were shown over Google's decision to run its own RCS service due to the possibility of antitrust scrutiny, but it was acknowledged that Google had to do so in order to bypass the carriers' inconsistent support of RCS, as it wanted to have a service more comparable to Apple's iMessage service available on Android. Ars Technica also criticized Google's move to launch a direct-to-consumer RCS service, considering it a contradiction of RCS being native to the carrier to provide features reminiscent of messaging apps, counting it as being among various past and unsuccessful attempts by Google to develop an in-house messaging service (including Google Talk, Google+ Messenger, Hangouts, and Allo), and noting limitations such as its dependencies on phone numbers as the identity, not being capable of being readily synchronized between multiple devices, and the aforementioned lack of end-to-end encryption. In November 2020, Google announced that it would begin to introduce end-to-end encryption in beta. Internet Relay Chat Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is an application layer protocol that facilitates communication in the form of text. The chat process works on a client/server networking model. IRC clients are computer programs that users can install on their system or web based applications running either locally in the browser or on a third party server. These clients communicate with chat servers to transfer messages to other clients. IRC is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat and data transfer, including file sharing. Client software is available for every major operating system that supports Internet access. As of April 2011, the top 100 IRC networks served more than half a million users at a time, with hundreds of thousands of channels operating on a total of roughly 1,500 servers out of roughly 3,200 servers worldwide. IRC usage has been declining steadily since 2003, losing 60% of its users (from 1 million to about 400,000 in 2012) and half of its channels (from half a million in 2003). Modern IRC IRC has changed much over its life on the Internet. New server software has added a multitude of new features. Services: Network-operated bots to facilitate registration of nicknames and channels, sending messages for offline users and network operator functions. Extra modes: While the original IRC system used a set of standard user and channel modes, new servers add many new modes for features such as removing color codes from text, or obscuring a user's hostmask ("cloaking") to protect from denial-of-service attacks. Proxy detection: Most modern servers support detection of users attempting to connect through an insecure (misconfigured or exploited) proxy server, which can then be denied a connection. This proxy detection software is used by several networks, although that real-time list of proxies is defunct since early 2006. Additional commands: New commands can be such things as shorthand commands to issue commands to Services, to network-operator-only commands to manipulate a user's hostmask. Encryption: For the client-to-server leg of the connection TLS might be used (messages cease to be secure once they are relayed to other users on standard connections, but it makes eavesdropping on or wiretapping an individual's IRC sessions difficult). For client-to-client communication, SDCC (Secure DCC) can be used. Connection protocol: IRC can be connected to via IPv4, the old version of the Internet Protocol, or by IPv6, the current standard of the protocol. , a new standardization effort is under way under a working group called IRCv3, which focuses on more advanced client features like instant notifications, better history support and improved security. , no major IRC networks have fully adopted the proposed standard. After its golden era during the 1990s and early 2000s (240,000 users on QuakeNet in 2004), IRC has seen a significant decline, losing around 60% of users between 2003 and 2012, with users moving to newer social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, but also to open platforms like XMPP which was developed in 1999. Certain networks like Freenode have not followed the overall trend and have more than quadrupled in size during the same period. As of 2016, Freenode is the largest IRC network with around 90,000 users. The largest IRC networks have traditionally been grouped as the "Big Four"—a designation for networks that top the statistics. The Big Four networks change periodically, but due to the community nature of IRC there are a large number of other networks for users to choose from. Historically the "Big Four" were: EFnet IRCnet Undernet DALnet IRC reached 6 million simultaneous users in 2001 and 10 million users in 2003, dropping to 371k in 2018. , the largest IRC networks are: freenode – around 90k users at peak hours IRCnet – around 30k users at peak hours EFnet – around 18k users at peak hours Undernet – around 17k users at peak hours QuakeNet – around 15k users at peak hours Rizon – around 14k users at peak hours OFTC – around 13k users at peak hours DALnet – around 8k users at peak hours Today, the top 100 IRC networks have around 370k users connected at peak hours. XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is a communication protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML (Extensible Markup Language). It enables the near-real-time exchange of structured yet extensible data between any two or more network entities. Originally named Jabber, the protocol was developed by the eponymous open-source community in 1999 for near real-time instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Designed to be extensible, the protocol has been used also for publish-subscribe systems, signalling for VoIP, video, file transfer, gaming, the Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as the smart grid, and social networking services. Unlike most instant messaging protocols, XMPP is defined in an open standard and uses an open systems approach of development and application, by which anyone may implement an XMPP service and interoperate with other organizations' implementations. Because XMPP is an open protocol, implementations can be developed using any software license and many server, client, and library implementations are distributed as free and open-source software. Numerous freeware and commercial software implementations also exist. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) formed an XMPP working group in 2002 to formalize the core protocols as an IETF instant messaging and presence technology. The XMPP Working group produced four specifications (RFC 3920, RFC 3921, RFC 3922, RFC 3923), which were approved as Proposed Standards in 2004. In 2011, RFC 3920 and RFC 3921 were superseded by RFC 6120 and RFC 6121 respectively, with RFC 6122 specifying the XMPP address format. In 2015, RFC 6122 was superseded by RFC 7622. In addition to these core protocols standardized at the IETF, the XMPP Standards Foundation (formerly the Jabber Software Foundation) is active in developing open XMPP extensions. XMPP-based software is deployed widely across the Internet, and by 2003, was used by over ten million people worldwide, according to the XMPP Standards Foundation. SMS texting apps Below are apps that are used for texting via SMS. Generally, these apps offer various features for expanded messaging, or group texts; however, all messages are received by others as regular SMS text messages. Textfree Textfree (formerly Pinger) is an application made by Pinger that allows users to text and call over the internet for free or for a price. The application runs on iOS, Android, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh devices. Competitors include GOGII, Optini and WhatsApp. Stand-alone messaging platforms Below are stand-alone apps that are generally focused upon instant messaging as their core feature; however, almost all of these also include numerous distinct additional features such as group chats, video calls, emojis, etc. These apps do not use SMS messaging; rather, users of this app receive messages through the app interface, not through SMS texting. Tango Tango is a third-party, cross platform messaging application software for smartphones developed by TangoME, Inc. in 2009. The app is free and began as one of the first provider of video calls, voice calls, texting, photo sharing, and games on a 3G network. As of 2018, Tango has more than 400 million registered users. It was rated by PCMag as "the simplest mobile chat application out there, with a good range of support." In 2017, Tango entered the live-streaming space, and has become a B2C platform for Live Video Broadcasts. Combining high-quality video streaming, a live messaging chat and a digital economy, Tango is a social community that allows content creators to share their talents and monetize their fans and followers. Tango is available in many languages including Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Hindi and Vietnamese. WhatsApp WhatsApp provides the following features, as detailed below. Group threads: up to 250 members Groups and channels: no built-in search function to find official groups and channels. anyone can join groups, if they have the link. Video calls: up to 3 members. WhatsApp is an American freeware, cross-platform messaging and Voice over IP (VoIP) service owned by Facebook, Inc. It allows users to send text messages and voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other media. WhatsApp's client application runs on mobile devices but is also accessible from desktop computers, as long as the user's mobile device remains connected to the Internet while they use the desktop app. The service requires users to provide a standard cellular mobile number for registering with the service. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app targeted at small business owners, called WhatsApp Business, to allow companies to communicate with customers who use the standard WhatsApp client. The client application was created by WhatsApp Inc. of Mountain View, California, which was acquired by Facebook in February 2014 for approximately US$19.3 billion. It became the world's most popular messaging application by 2015, and has over 2billion users worldwide . It has become the primary means of electronic communication in multiple countries and locations, including Latin America, the Indian subcontinent, and large parts of Europe and Africa. Telegram Telegram provides the following features, as detailed below. Group threads: up to 200,000 members Groups and channels: provides numerous official channels for various organizations. Has an internal search feature to enable searches to find various official outlets. Telegram is a cross-platform cloud-based instant messaging, video calling, and VoIP service. It was initially launched for iOS on 14 August 2013 in Russia, and is currently based in Dubai. Telegram client apps are available for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Windows, macOS and Linux, web interface is also available. As of April 2020, Telegram reached 400 million monthly active users. Telegram provides end-to-end encrypted calls and optional end-to-end encrypted "secret" chats between two online users on smartphone clients, whereas cloud chats use client-server/ server-client encryption. Users can send text and voice messages, animated stickers, make voice and video calls, and share an unlimited number of images, documents(2GB per file), user locations, contacts, music, links etc. SInce March 2017, Telegram introduced its own voice calls. According to Telegram, there is a neural network working to learn various technical parameters about a call to provide better quality of the service for future uses. After a brief initial trial in Western Europe, voice calls are now available for use in most countries. Telegram announced in April 2020 that they would include group video calls by the end of the year. On 15 August 2020, Telegram added video calling with end-to-end encryption like Signal and WhatsApp, which Zoom does not have yet. Currently offering one-to-one video calls, Telegram has plans to introduce secure group video calls later in 2020. Picture-in-picture mode is also available so that users have the option to simultaneously use the other functions of the app while still remaining on the call and are even able to turn their video off. Telegram's video and voice calls are secure and end-to-end encrypted. Google Voice Google Voice is a telephone service that provides call forwarding and voicemail services, voice and text messaging. Google Voice provides a U.S. telephone number, chosen by the user from available numbers in selected area codes, free of charge to each user account. Calls to this number are forwarded to telephone numbers that each user must configure in the account web portal. Multiple destinations may be specified that ring simultaneously for incoming calls. Service establishment requires a United States telephone number. A user may answer and receive calls on any of the ringing phones as configured in the web portal. During a received call the user may switch between the configured telephones. Users may place outbound calls to domestic and international destinations. Calls may be initiated from any of the configured telephones, as well as from a mobile device app, or from the account portal. As of August 2011, users in many other countries also may place outbound calls from the web-based application to domestic and international phone numbers. Many other Google Voice services—such as voicemail, free text messaging, call history, call screening, blocking of unwanted calls, and voice transcription to text of voicemail messages—are also available to . In terms of product integration, transcribed and audio voicemails, missed call notifications, and/or text messages can optionally be forwarded to an email account of the user's choice. Additionally, text messages can be sent and received via the familiar email or IM interface by reading and writing text messages in numbers in Google Talk respectively (PC-to-Phone texting). Google Voice multi-way videoconferencing (with support for document sharing) is now integrated with Google Hangouts. The service is configured and maintained by the user in a web-based application, styled after Google's e-mail service, Gmail, or with Android and iOS apps on smart phones or tablets. Google Voice provides free PC-to-phone calling within the United States and Canada, and PC-to-PC voice and video calling worldwide between users of the Google+ Hangouts browser plugin (available for Windows, Intel-based Mac OS X, and Linux). GroupMe GroupMe works by downloading the app or accessing the service online, and then forming an account by providing your name, cell phone number and a password, or you can connect through your Facebook or Twitter account. The service then syncs with your contacts and from that point forward the user can make groups, limited to 500 members. An individual who is part of an active group has the ability to turn off notifications for the app; users will still receive the message, but will not be notified about it. Each group is given a label and assigned a unique number. Some of the features of the app include the ability to share photos, videos, locations, create events, and emojis from various packs. GroupMe has a web client as well as apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 10. Those who do not wish to use the app can still send and receive GroupMe messages through SMS (only available in the United States). Users begin by creating a “group” and adding contacts. When someone sends a message, everyone in the group can see and respond to it. The app allows users to easily attach and send pictures, documents, videos and web-links as well. Users can also send private messages, but only to users who are also active on the GroupMe app. GroupMe has been used as a means for studying the usage of messaging clients in educational settings. Use cases include facilitating online course discussions, small group work, and other course communications for both in-person and online sections. Though unconventional, using GroupMe to facilitate discussion in an environment where students already interact has been found to encourage rhetorical thinking and overall engagement. Researchers have found alternatives for literacy learning as a "legitimate academic genre", given a student population that communicates in a variety of modes. Research around GroupMe furthers the argument that computer-mediated communication is a valuable space for learning in an increasingly globalized society. Hike Messenger Hike Messenger, also called Hike Sticker Chat, is an Indian freeware, cross-platform instant messaging (IM), Voice over IP (VoIP) application which was launched on 12 December 2012 by Kavin Bharti Mittal and is now owned by Hike Private Limited. Hike can work offline through SMS and has multi-platform support. The app registration uses standard one time password (OTP) based authentication process. With abundance of low-cost data, Hike decided to go from a single super app strategy to multiple app approach, so that it can focus more on the core messaging capabilities. It has numerous Hikemoji Stickers which can be customized accordingly.From version 6, the user-interface was revised and the app no longer supports features like news, mobile payment, games or jokes. As per CB Insights, $1.4 billion is the valuation of Hike with more than 100 million registered users till August 2016 and 350 employees working from Bengaluru and Delhi. KakaoTalk KakaoTalk, commonly referred to as "KaTalk" in South Korea, is a free mobile instant messaging application for smartphones with free text and free call features, operated by Kakao Corporation. It was launched on March 18, 2010 and is currently available on iOS, Android, Bada OS, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Nokia Asha, Windows and macOS. As of May 2017, KakaoTalk had 220 million registered and 49 million monthly active users. It is available in 15 languages. The app is also used by 93% of smartphone owners in South Korea, where it is the number one messaging app. In addition to free calls and messages, users can share photos, videos, voice messages, location, URL links as well as contact information. Both one-on-one and group chats are available over WiFi, 3G or LTE, and there are no limits to the number of people on a group chat. Airlines such as Southwest which allow free WhatsApp in flight also have functionality for KaTalk, even though their literature omits to mention same. The app automatically synchronizes the user’s contact list on their smartphones with the contact list on the app to find friends who are on the service. Users can also search for friends by KakaoTalk ID without having to know their phone numbers. The KakaoTalk service also allows its users to export their messages and save them. KakaoTalk began as a messenger service but has become a platform for the distribution of various third-party content and apps, including hundreds of games, which users can download and play with their friends through the messaging platform. Through the "Plus Friend" feature, users can follow brands, media and celebrities to receive exclusive messages, coupons and other real-time information through KakaoTalk chatrooms. Users can also purchase real-life goods through the messenger's "Gifting" platform. Besides those listed above, the app has these additional features: VoiceTalk, free calls and conference calls (with support for up to five people) Photo, video, location, and contact information sharing Polling and scheduling feature for members in the chatroom K-pop & Local Star Friends (Plus Friends) Walkie-talkie Customizable themes (for iOS and Android) Game platform Stickers and animated emoticons Plus Mate: You can add your favorite brand, star, or media as your friend to receive a variety of content and benefits. Kik Messenger Kik Messenger, commonly called Kik, is a freeware instant messaging mobile app from the Canadian company Kik Interactive, available free of charge on iOS and Android operating systems. It uses a smartphone's data plan or Wi-Fi to transmit and receive messages, photos, videos, sketches, mobile web pages, and other content after users register a username. Kik is known for its features preserving users' anonymity, such as allowing users to register without the need to provide a telephone number or valid email address. However, the application does not employ end-to-end encryption, and the company also logs user IP addresses, which could be used to determine the user's ISP and approximate location. This information, as well as "reported" conversations are regularly surrendered upon request by law enforcement organizations, sometimes without the need for a court order. Kik was originally intended to be a music-sharing app before transitioning to messaging, briefly offering users the ability to send a limited number of SMS text messages directly from the application. During the first 15 days after Kik's re-release as a messaging app, over 1 million accounts were created. In May 2016, Kik Messenger announced that they had approximately 300 million registered users, and was used by approximately 40% of United States' teenagers. Kik Messenger announced in October 2019 they had signed a letter of intent with MediaLab AI, followed by the announcement Kik Interactive would be reducing their staff from 100 to just 19. MediaLab owns several mobile apps, most notably Whisper. A main attraction of Kik that differentiates it from other messaging apps is its anonymity. To register for the Kik service, a user must enter a first and last name, e-mail address, and birth date (which must show that the user is at least 13 years old), and select a username. The Kik registration process does not request or require the entry of a phone number (although the user has the option to enter one), unlike some other messaging services that require a user to provide a functioning mobile phone number. The New York Times has reported that, according to law enforcement, Kik's anonymity features go beyond those of most widely used apps. As of February 2016, Kik's guide for law enforcement said that the company cannot locate user accounts based on first and last name, e-mail address and/or birth date; the exact username is required to locate a particular account. The guide further said that the company does not have access to content or "historical user data" such as photographs, videos, and the text of conversations, and that photographs and videos are automatically deleted shortly after they are sent. A limited amount of data from a particular account (identified by exact username), including first and last name, birthdate, e-mail address, link to a current profile picture, device-related information, and user location information such as the most recently used IP address, can be preserved for a period of 90 days pending receipt of a valid order from law enforcement. Kik's anonymity has also been cited as a protective safety measure for good faith users, in that "users have screennames; the app doesn't share phone numbers or email addresses." Kik introduced several new user features in 2015, including a full-screen in-chat browser that allows users to find and share content from the web; a feature allowing users to send previously recorded videos in Kik Messenger for Android and iOS; and "Kik Codes", which assigns each user a unique code similar to a QR code, making it easier to connect and chat with other users. Kik joined the Virtual Global Taskforce, a global anti-child-abuse organization, in March 2015. Kik began using Microsoft's PhotoDNA in March 2015 to premoderate images added by users. That same month, Kik released native video capture allowing users to record up to 15 seconds in the chat window. In October 2015, Kik partnered with the Ad Council as part of an anti-bullying campaign. The campaign was featured on the app and Kik released stickers in collaboration with the campaign. Kik released a feature to send GIFs as emojis in November 2015. Kik added SafePhoto to its safety features in October 2016 which "detects, reports, and deletes known child exploitation images" sent through the platform. Kik partnered with ConnectSafely in 2016 to produce a "parents handbook" and joined The Technology Coalition, an anti-sexual exploitation group including Facebook, Google, Twitter and LinkedIn. Line Line (styled in all caps as LINE) is a freeware app for instant communications on electronic devices such as smartphones, tablet computers, and personal computers. Line users exchange texts, images, video and audio, and conduct free VoIP conversations and video conferences. In addition, Line is a platform providing various services including digital wallet as Line Pay, news stream as Line Today, video on demand as Line TV, and digital comic distribution as Line Manga and Line Webtoon. The service is operated by Line Corporation, a Tokyo-based subsidiary of South Korean internet search engine company Naver Corporation. Line is an application that works on multiple platforms and has access via multiple personal computers (Windows or macOS). The application will also give an option of address book syncing. This application also has a feature to add friends through the use of QR codes, by Line ID, and by shaking phones simultaneously. The application has a direct pop-out message box for reading and replying to make it easy for users to communicate. It also can share photos, videos and music with other users, send the current or any specific location, voice audio, emojis, stickers and emoticons to friends. Users can see a real-time confirmation when messages are sent and received or use a hidden chat feature, which can hide and delete a chat history (from both involved devices and Line servers) after a time set by the user. The application also makes free voice and video calls. Users can also chat and share media in a group by creating and joining groups that have up to 500 people. Chats also provide bulletin boards on which users can post, like, and comment. This application also has timeline and homepage features that allow users to post pictures, text and stickers on their homepages. Users can also change their Line theme to the theme Line provides in the theme shop for free or users can buy other famous cartoon characters they like. Line also has a feature, called a Snap movie, that users can use to record a stop-motion video and add in provided background music. In January 2015, Line Taxi was released in Tokyo as a competitor to Uber. Line launched a new android app called "Popcorn buzz" in June 2015. The app facilitates group calls with up to 200 members. In June a new Emoji keyboard was also released for iOS devices, which provides a Line-like experience with the possibility to add stickers. In September 2015 a new Android launcher was released on the Play Store, helping the company to promote its own services through the new user interface. Signal Signal is a cross-platform encrypted messaging service developed by the Signal Foundation and Signal Messenger LLC. It uses the Internet to send one-to-one and group messages, which can include files, voice notes, images and videos. It can also be used to make one-to-one voice and video calls, and the Android version can optionally function as an SMS app. Signal uses standard cellular telephone numbers as identifiers and secures all communications to other Signal users with end-to-end encryption. The apps include mechanisms by which users can independently verify the identity of their contacts and the integrity of the data channel. Snapchat Snapchat sends messages referred to as "snaps"; snaps can consist of a photo or a short video, and can be edited to include filters and effects, text captions, and drawings. Snaps can be directed privately to selected contacts, or to a semi-public "Story" or a public "Story" called "Our Story." The ability to send video snaps was added as a feature option in December 2012. By holding down on the photo button while inside the app, a video of up to ten seconds in length can be captured. Spiegel explained that this process allowed the video data to be compressed into the size of a photo. A later update allowed the ability to record up to 60 seconds, but are still segmented into 10 second intervals. After a single viewing, the video disappears by default. On May 1, 2014, the ability to communicate via video chat was added. Direct messaging features were also included in the update, allowing users to send ephemeral text messages to friends and family while saving any needed information by clicking on it. According to CIO, Snapchat uses real-time marketing concepts and temporality to make the app appealing to users. According to Marketing Pro, Snapchat attracts interest and potential customers by combining the AIDA (marketing) model with modern digital technology. Private message photo snaps can be viewed for a user-specified length of time (1 to 10 seconds as determined by the sender) before they become inaccessible. Users were previously required to hold down on the screen in order to view a snap; this behavior was removed in July 2015 The requirement to hold on the screen was intended to frustrate the ability to take screenshots of snaps; the Snapchat app does not prevent screenshots from being taken but can notify the sender if it detects that it has been saved. However, these notifications can be bypassed through either unauthorized modifications to the app or by obtaining the image through external means. One snap per day can be replayed for free. In September 2015, Snapchat introduced the option to purchase additional replays through in-app purchases. The ability to purchase extra replays was removed in April 2016. Friends can be added via usernames and phone contacts, using customizable "Snapcodes," or through the "Add Nearby" function, which scans for users near their location who are also in the Add Nearby menu. Spiegel explained that Snapchat is intended to counteract the trend of users being compelled to manage an idealized online identity of themselves, which he says has "taken all of the fun out of communicating." Viber Rakuten Viber, or simply Viber, is a cross-platform voice over IP (VoIP) and instant messaging (IM) software application operated by Japanese multinational company Rakuten, provided as freeware for the Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux platforms. Users are registered and identified through a cellular telephone number, although the service is accessible on desktop platforms without needing mobile connectivity. In addition to instant messaging it allows users to exchange media such as images and video records, and also provides a paid international landline and mobile calling service called Viber Out. As of 2018, there are over a billion registered users on the network. Wonder video chat Wonder is a new style of shared video chat, using a virtual space where users can move between virtual rooms and initiate conversations either with a large group, or within a spontaneous "circle." The chat platforms is entirely browser-based, and does not entail or require the use of any specific app. WeChat WeChat is a Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat has been described as China's "app for everything" and a "super app" because of its wide range of functions. WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, sharing of photographs and videos, and location sharing. WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video calls and conferencing, video games, photograph and video sharing, as well as location sharing. WeChat also allows users to exchange contacts with people nearby via Bluetooth, as well as providing various features for contacting people at random if desired (if people are open to it). It can also integrate with other social networking services such as Facebook and Tencent QQ. Photographs may also be embellished with filters and captions, and automatic translation service is available. WeChat supports different instant messaging methods, including text message, voice message, walkie talkie, and stickers. Users can send previously saved or live pictures and videos, profiles of other users, coupons, lucky money packages, or current GPS locations with friends either individually or in a group chat. WeChat's character stickers, such as Tuzki, resemble and compete with those of LINE, a Japanese-South Korean messaging application. WeChat users can register as a public account (), which enables them to push feeds to subscribers, interact with subscribers and provide them with services. Users can also create an official account, which fall under service, subscription, or enterprise accounts. Once users as individuals or organizations set up a type of account, they cannot change it to another type. By the end of 2014, the number of WeChat official accounts had reached 8 million. Official accounts of organizations can apply to be verified (cost 300 RMB or about US$45). Official accounts can be used as a platform for services such as hospital pre-registrations, visa renewal or credit card service. To create an official account, the applicant must register with Chinese authorities, which discourages "foreign companies". "Moments" () is WeChat's brand name for its social feed of friends' updates. "Moments" is an interactive platform that allows users to post images, text, and short videos taken by users. It also allows users to share articles and music (associated with QQ Music or other web-based music services). Friends in the contact list can give thumbs up to the content and leave comments. Moments can be linked to Facebook and Twitter accounts, and can automatically post Moments content directly on these two platforms. In 2017 WeChat had a policy of a maximum of two advertisements per day per Moments user. Platforms for combining multiple apps Platforms specifically designed to combined messages from multiple other mobile apps. Trillian Trillian is a proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging application created by Cerulean Studios. It is currently available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, BlackBerry OS, and the Web. It can connect to multiple IM services, such as AIM, Bonjour, Facebook Messenger, Google Talk (Hangouts), IRC, XMPP (Jabber), VZ, and Yahoo! Messenger networks; as well as social networking sites, such as Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and Twitter; and email services, such as POP3 and IMAP. Trillian no longer supports Windows Live Messenger or Skype as these services have combined and Microsoft chose to discontinue Skypekit. They also no longer support connecting to MySpace, and no longer support a distinct connection for Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail although these can still be connected to via POP3 or IMAP. Currently, Trillian supports Facebook, Google, Jabber (XMPP), and Olark. Initially released July 1, 2000, as a freeware IRC client, the first commercial version (Trillian Pro 1.0) was published on September 10, 2002. The program was named after Trillian, a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. A previous version of the official web site even had a tribute to Douglas Adams on its front page. On August 14, 2009, Trillian "Astra" (4.0) for Windows was released, along with its own Astra network. Trillian 5 for Windows was released in May 2011, and Trillian 6.0 was initially released in February 2017. Trillian connects to multiple instant messaging services without the need of running multiple clients. Users can create multiple connections to the same service, and can also group connections under separate identities to prevent confusion. All contacts are gathered under the same contact list. Contacts are not bound to their own IM service groups, and can be dragged and dropped freely. Trillian represents each service with a different-colored sphere. Prior versions used the corporate logos for each service, but these were removed to avoid copyright issues, although some skins still use the original icons. The Trillian designers chose a color-coding scheme based on the underground maps used by the London Underground that uses different colors to differentiate between different lines. Platforms for specific operating systems Empathy Empathy is an instant messaging (IM) and voice over IP (VoIP) client which supports text, voice, video, file transfers, and inter-application communication over various IM communication protocols. It is specifically designed for use with the operating systems BSD, Linux, and other Unix-like systems. It was initially completely XMPP based (similar to Google Talk and Facebook's chat implementations), but others wanted it to use the Telepathy stack. This led to the forking and new name Empathy. Empathy also provides a collection of reusable graphical user interface widgets for developing instant messaging clients for the GNOME desktop. It is written as extension to the Telepathy framework, for connecting to different instant messaging networks with a unified user interface. Empathy has been included in the GNOME desktop since its version 2.24, in Ubuntu since version 9.10 (Karmic Koala), and in Fedora since version 12 (Constantine); Empathy has replaced Pidgin as their default messenger application. Messages for MacOS Messages (Apple) is an instant messaging software application developed by Apple Inc. for its macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS operating systems. The mobile version of Messages on iOS used on iPhone and iPad also supports SMS and MMS due to replacing the older text messaging Text app since iPhone OS 3. Users can tell the difference between a message sent via SMS and one sent over iMessage as the bubbles will appear either green (SMS) or blue (iMessage). The desktop Messages application replaced iChat as the native OS X instant messaging client with the release of OS X Mountain Lion in July 2012. While it inherits the majority of iChat's features, Messages also brings support for iMessage, Apple's messaging service for iOS, as well as FaceTime integration. Messages was announced for OS X as a beta application on February 16, 2012 for Macs running Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion". The stable release of Messages was released on July 25, 2012 with OS X Mountain Lion, replacing iChat. In addition to supporting Apple's new iMessage protocol, Messages retained its support for AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk and Jabber. Messages unitizes the newly added Notification Center to notify of incoming messages. The introduction of a new Share button in applications like Safari, Finder and Preview gave users the ability to share links to webpages, photos, and files. Messages also supported dragging and dropping files and photos for sharing. It also supports video calling through Apple's FaceTime and the third-party IM services it supports. With the release of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2, Messages gained the ability to send and receive iMessages using an iPhone phone number. Messages received a major redesign in OS X Yosemite, following the flat design aesthetic introduced in iOS 7. As a part of the new Continuity feature, users can send and receive SMS and MMS messages through paired iPhones running iOS 8 or later. Social networking mobile apps A social networking service (also social networking site or social media) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections. Social networking services vary in format and the number of features. They can incorporate a range of new information and communication tools, operating on desktops and on laptops, on mobile devices such as tablet computers and smartphones. They may feature digital photo/video/sharing and diary entries online (blogging). Online community services are sometimes considered social-network services by developers and users, though in a broader sense, a social-network service usually provides an individual-centered service whereas online community services are group-centered. Defined as "websites that facilitate the building of a network of contacts in order to exchange various types of content online," social networking sites provide a space for interaction to continue beyond in person interactions. These computer mediated interactions link members of various networks and may help to both maintain and develop new social and professional relationships Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, digital photos and videos, posts, and to inform others about online or real-world activities and events with people in their network. While in-person social networking – such as gathering in a village market to talk about events – has existed since the earliest development of towns, the web enables people to connect with others who live in different locations, ranging from across a city to across the world. Depending on the social media platform, members may be able to contact any other member. In other cases, members can contact anyone they have a connection to, and subsequently anyone that contact has a connection to, and so on. The success of social networking services can be seen in their dominance in society today, with Facebook having a massive 2.13 billion active monthly users and an average of 1.4 billion daily active users in 2017. LinkedIn, a career-oriented social-networking service, generally requires that a member personally know another member in real life before they contact them online. Some services require members to have a preexisting connection to contact other members. MeWe MeWe is an American alt-tech social media and social networking service owned by Sgrouples, a company based in Culver City, California. MeWe's light approach to content moderation has made it popular among conspiracy theorists, particularly the anti-vaccine movement, as well as American conservatives. The site's interface has been described as similar to that of Facebook, though the company describes MeWe as the "anti-Facebook" due to its focus on data privacy By 2015, as MeWe neared the end of its beta testing cycle, the press called MeWe's software "not dissimilar to Facebook". Mashable described MeWe as replicating Facebook's features in 2020. The MeWe site and application has features common to most social media and social networking sites: users can post text and images to a feed, react to others' posts using emoji, post animated GIFs, create specialized groups, post disappearing content, and chat. Online chat may occur between two or more people or among members of a group. Person-to-person online chat is similar to that in most other social media and social networking sites, and supports text, video calling, and voice calling. "Secret Chat" is limited to the paid subscription tier of MeWe, and uses double ratchet encryption to ensure that chats are private and not visible even to MeWe employees. MeWe reported in June 2018 that the site had 90,000 active groups, 60,000 of which were "public" and open to all users. Following the influx of Hong Kong users in 2020, MeWe CEO Weinstein announced that the website would provide a Traditional Chinese language version by the end of the year. User base and content Although MeWe has not intentionally positioned itself as a social network for conservatives, Mashable noted in November 2020 that its active userbase trends conservative.The platform's choice not to moderate misinformation on the platform has attracted conservatives who felt mainstream social networks were censoring their posts, and those who have been banned from those platforms. MeetMe The Meet Group (formerly MeetMe) owns several mobile social networking services including MeetMe, hi5, LOVOO, Growlr, Skout, and Tagged. The company has millions of mobile daily active users. Its mobile apps are available on iOS, and Android in multiple languages. Through these apps, users can stream live video, send gifts, chat, and share photos. The Meet Group derives revenue from in-app purchases, subscriptions, and advertising. The company has offices in New Hope, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dresden, and Berlin. The Meet Group has transformed its business from being a predominantly advertising model to now generating the majority of revenue from user pay sources, which include subscriptions and in-app purchases for virtual gifts as part of its video live-streaming product. The company also derives revenue from advertising. In the second quarter of 2018, 60% of revenue was derived from user-pay, versus 26% in the second quarter of 2017. Livestreaming video revenue has become an increasingly important component of revenue and growth, and the product has been rolled out to all of the Company's main apps. myYearbook derives its revenue from three sources: advertising, virtual-currency sales, and monthly subscriptions. Advertising makes up two-thirds of its revenue, with the other sources making up the rest. It has an established sales office based in New York City and Los Angeles. Nextdoor Nextdoor is a hyperlocal social networking service for neighborhoods. The company was founded in 2008 and is based in San Francisco, California. Nextdoor launched in the United States in October 2011, and is currently available in 11 countries. Users of Nextdoor are required to submit their real names and addresses (or street without the exact number) to the website; posts made to the website are available only to other Nextdoor members living in the same neighborhood. Typical platform uses include neighbors reporting on news and events in their "neighborhood" and members asking each other for local service-provider recommendations. "Neighborhood" borders were initially established with Maponics, a provider of geographical information. According to the platform's rules, members whose addresses fall outside the boundaries of existing neighborhoods can establish their own neighborhoods. "Founding" members of neighborhoods determine the name of the neighborhood and its boundaries, although Nextdoor retains the authority to change either of these. A member must attract a minimum of 10 households to establish a new "neighborhood", as of November 2016. While allowing for "civil debate", the platform prohibits canvassing for votes on forums. The service does however allow separate forums just for political discussions. According to The New York Times, these discussions are "separated from [a user's regular] neighborhood feeds". The company had established these separate forums in 12 markets by 2018. The company has stated it "has no plans" to accept political advertising. Special-use platforms U-Report U-Report is a social messaging tool and data collection system developed by UNICEF to improve citizen engagement, inform leaders, and foster positive change. The program sends SMS polls and alerts to its participants, collecting real-time responses, and subsequently publishes gathered data. Issues polled include health, education, water, sanitation and hygiene, youth unemployment, HIV/AIDS, and disease outbreaks. The program currently has three million participants in forty-one countries. Platforms that are internal features within major websites Facebook Facebook Messenger is an instant messaging service and software application. It began as Facebook Chat in 2008, was revamped in 2010 and eventually became a standalone mobile app in August 2011, while remaining part of the user page on browsers. Complementing regular conversations, Messenger lets users make one-to-one and group voice and video calls. Its Android app has integrated support for SMS and "Chat Heads", which are round profile photo icons appearing on-screen regardless of what app is open, while both apps support multiple accounts, conversations with optional end-to-end encryption and "Instant Games". Some features, including sending money and requesting transportation, are limited to the United States. In 2017, Facebook added "Messenger Day", a feature that lets users share photos and videos in a story-format with all their friends with the content disappearing after 24 hours; Reactions, which lets users tap and hold a message to add a reaction through an emoji; and Mentions, which lets users in group conversations type @ to give a particular user a notification. Businesses and users can interact through Messenger with features such as tracking purchases and receiving notifications, and interacting with customer service representatives. Third-party developers can integrate apps into Messenger, letting users enter an app while inside Messenger and optionally share details from the app into a chat. Developers can build chatbots into Messenger, for uses such as news publishers building bots to distribute news. The M virtual assistant (U.S.) scans chats for keywords and suggests relevant actions, such as its payments system for users mentioning money. Group chatbots appear in Messenger as "Chat Extensions". A "Discovery" tab allows finding bots, and enabling special, branded QR codes that, when scanned, take the user to a specific bot. Instagram In December 2013, Instagram announced Instagram Direct, a feature that lets users interact through private messaging. Users who follow each other can send private messages with photos and videos, in contrast to the public-only requirement that was previously in place. When users receive a private message from someone they don't follow, the message is marked as pending and the user must accept to see it. Users can send a photo to a maximum of 15 people. The feature received a major update in September 2015, adding conversation threading and making it possible for users to share locations, hashtag pages, and profiles through private messages directly from the news feed. Additionally, users can now reply to private messages with text, emoji or by clicking on a heart icon. A camera inside Direct lets users take a photo and send it to the recipient without leaving the conversation. A new update in November 2016 let users make their private messages "disappear" after being viewed by the recipient, with the sender receiving a notification if the recipient takes a screenshot. In April 2017, Instagram redesigned Direct to combine all private messages, both permanent and ephemeral, into the same message threads. In May, Instagram made it possible to send website links in messages, and also added support for sending photos in their original portrait or landscape orientation without cropping. In April 2020, Direct became accessible from the Instagram website. In August 2020, Facebook started merging Instagram Direct into Facebook Messenger. After the update (which is rolled out to a segment of the user base) the Instagram Direct icon transforms into Facebook Messenger icon. LinkedIn The LinkedIn website includes a feature that allows direct messaging by a user to any other user who is on their list of Connections. Additionally, users with Premium membership can send messages to anyone on LinkedIn. Reddit In 2017, Reddit developed its own real-time chat software for the site. While some established subreddits have used third-party software to chat about their communities, the company built chat functions that it hopes will become an integral part of Reddit. Individual chat rooms were rolled out in 2017 and community chat rooms for members of a given subreddit were rolled out in 2018. Twitter Tweets are publicly visible by default, but senders can restrict message delivery to only their followers. Users can mute users they do not wish to interact with and block accounts from viewing their tweets. Users can tweet via the Twitter website, compatible external applications (such as for smartphones), or by Short Message Service (SMS) available in certain countries. Users may subscribe to other users' tweets—this is known as "following" and subscribers are known as "followers" or "tweeps", a portmanteau of Twitter and peeps. Individual tweets can be forwarded by other users to their own feed, a process known as a "retweet". Users can also "like" (formerly "favorite") individual tweets. Twitter allows users to update their profile via their mobile phone either by text messaging or by apps released for certain smartphones and tablets. Twitter has been compared to a web-based Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client. In a 2009 Time magazine essay, technology author Steven Johnson described the basic mechanics of Twitter as "remarkably simple": Video conference platforms Jitsi Jitsi is a collection of free and open-source multiplatform voice (VoIP), video conferencing and instant messaging applications for the web platform, Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS and Android. The Jitsi project began with the Jitsi Desktop (previously known as SIP Communicator). It is totally free to use, and to host on a business's own server. With the growth of WebRTC, the project team focus shifted to the Jitsi Videobridge for allowing web-based multi-party video calling. Later the team added Jitsi Meet, a full video conferencing application that includes web, Android, and iOS clients. Jitsi also operates meet.jit.si, a version of Jitsi Meet hosted by Jitsi for free community use. Other projects include: Jigasi, lib-jitsi-meet, Jidesha, and Jitsi. Jitsi has received support from various institutions such as the NLnet Foundation, the University of Strasbourg and the Region of Alsace and it has also had multiple participations in the Google Summer of Code program. Jitsi Meet is an open source JavaScript WebRTC application used primarily for video conferencing. In addition to audio and video, screen sharing is available, and new members can be invited via a generated link. The interface is accessible via web browser or with a mobile app. The Jitsi Meet server software can be downloaded and installed on Linux-based computers. Jitsi owner 8x8 maintains a free public-use server for up to 50 participants at meet.jit.si. Key features of Jitsi Meet Encrypted communication (secure communication): As of April 2020, one-to-one calls use the P2P mode, which is end-to-end encrypted via DTLS-SRTP between the two participants. Group calls also use DTLS-SRTP encryption, but rely on the Jitsi Videobridge (JVB) as video router, where packets are decrypted temporarily. The Jitsi team emphasizes that "they are never stored to any persistent storage and only live in memory while being routed to other participants in the meeting", and that this measure is necessary due to current limitations of the underlying WebRTC technology. No need of new client software installation. Skype Skype is a proprietary telecommunications application that specializes in providing video chat and voice calls between computers, tablets, mobile devices, the Xbox One console, and smartwatches over the Internet. Skype also provides instant messaging services. Users may transmit text, video, audio and images. Skype allows video conference calls. In March 2020, Skype was used by 100 million people on a monthly basis and by 40 million people on a daily basis, which was a 70% increase in the number of daily users from the previous month, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Registered users of Skype are identified by a unique Skype ID and may be listed in the Skype directory under a Skype username. Skype allows these registered users to communicate through both instant messaging and voice chat. Voice chat allows telephone calls between pairs of users and conference calling and uses proprietary audio codec. Skype's text chat client allows group chats, emoticons, storing chat history, and editing of previous messages. Offline messages were implemented in a beta build of version 5 but removed after a few weeks without notification. The usual features familiar to instant messaging users—user profiles, online status indicators, and so on—are also included. The Online Number, a.k.a. SkypeIn, service allows Skype users to receive calls on their computers dialed by conventional phone subscribers to a local Skype phone number; local numbers are available for Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. A Skype user can have local numbers in any of these countries, with calls to the number charged at the same rate as calls to fixed lines in the country. Skype supports conference calls, video chats, and screen sharing between 25 people at a time for free, which then increased to 50 on 5 April 2019. Skype does not provide the ability to call emergency numbers, such as 112 in Europe, 911 in North America, 999 in the UK or 100 in India and Nepal. However, as of December 2012, there is limited support for emergency calls in the United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark, and Finland. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ruled that, for the purposes of section 255 of the Telecommunications Act, Skype is not an "interconnected VoIP provider". As a result, the U.S. National Emergency Number Association recommends that all VoIP users have an analog line available as a backup. Skype allows users to send instant messages to other users in their contact list. Messages sent to offline users are stored on Skype servers and will be delivered to their recipients as soon as they come online on Skype. Chat history along with the message status will be synchronized across all user devices supported by Skype whenever the user signs in with the same Skype account. Although Skype allows sending SMS messages, it is not possible to receive SMS messages on Skype so users need a different way to receive responses to the messages they send using Skype. This has been a cause of angst among user who purchase Skype as an alternative to a mobile phone because Microsoft will not refund any purchases even for users who discover this missing feature only after purchasing multi-year contracts. Other than in user complaints on the Microsoft Skype forums, there is no mention on Microsoft or Skype websites that when they say "Send SMS messages," that is just what they mean: users can send but they cannot receive SMS messages. Skype keeps user instant messaging history on user's local computer, and on Skype's cloud for 30 days. Users cannot control how long their chat histories are stored on Skype's servers but can configure that option individually for every their device. Once user signs into Skype on a new device the conversation history is synced with Skype's cloud and stored locally. Skype allows users to remove or edit individual messages during one hour after sending; this affects messages already received by chat interlocutors as well as not delivered to them yet. Skype allows users to delete all saved conversation histories for the device. FaceTime FaceTime is a proprietary videotelephony product developed by Apple Inc. It is available on supported iOS mobile devices running iOS 4 and later and Mac computers that run and later. FaceTime supports any iOS device with a forward-facing camera and any Mac computer equipped with a FaceTime Camera. FaceTime Audio, an audio-only version, is available on any iOS device that supports iOS 7 or newer, and any Mac with a forward-facing camera running and later. FaceTime is included for free in iOS and in macOS from (10.7) onwards. Apple bought the "FaceTime" name from FaceTime Communications, which changed its name to Actiance in January 2011. On June 7, 2010, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced FaceTime in conjunction with the iPhone 4 in a keynote speech at the 2010 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. Support for the fourth generation iPod Touch (the first model of iPod Touch equipped with cameras) was announced in conjunction with the device's release on September 8, 2010. FaceTime for was announced on October 20, 2010. In May 2011, it was found that FaceTime would work seamlessly over 3G on all iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch models that supported it. Even though FaceTime worked only over 3G at that time, it now supports 4G LTE calls on networks all over the world, availability being limited to operators' GSM plans. In 2018, Apple added group video and audio support to FaceTime which can support up to 32 people in iOS 12 and macOS Mojave. Zoom Zoom is a videotelephony software program developed by Zoom Video Communications. The free version provides a video chatting service that allows up to 100 devices at once, with a 40-minute time restriction for free accounts having meetings of three or more participants. Users have the option to upgrade by subscribing to one of its plans, with the highest allowing up to 1,000 people concurrently, with no time restriction. Zoom is compatible with Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Chrome OS, and Linux. It is noted for its simple interface and usability, specifically for non-tech people. Features include one-on-one meetings, group video conferences, screen sharing, plugins, browser extensions, and the ability to record meetings and have them automatically transcribed. On some computers and operating systems, users are able to select a virtual background, which can be downloaded from different sites, to use as a backdrop behind themselves. Use of the platform is free for video conferences of up to 100 participants at once, with a 40-minute time limit if there are more than two participants. For longer or larger conferences with more features, paid subscriptions are available, costing $15–20 per month. Features geared towards business conferences, such as Zoom Rooms, are available for $50–100 per month. Up to 49 people can be seen on a screen at once. Zoom has several tiers: Basic, Pro, Business, and Enterprise. Participants do not have to download the app if they are using Google Chrome or Firefox; they can click on a link and join from the browser. Zoom is not compatible with Safari for Macs. Zoom security features include password-protected meetings, user authentication, waiting rooms, locked meetings, disabling participant screen sharing, randomly generated IDs, and the ability for the host to remove disruptive attendees. As of June 2020, Zoom began offering end-to-end encryption to business and enterprise users, with AES 256 GCM encryption enabled for all users. In October 2020, Zoom added end-to-end encryption for free and paid users. It's available on all platforms, except for the official Zoom web client. Zoom also offers a transcription service using Otter.ai software that allows businesses to store transcriptions of the Zoom meetings online and search them, including separating and labeling different speakers. As of July 2020, Zoom Rooms and Zoom Phone also became available as hardware as a service products. Zoom Phone is available for domestic telephone service in 40 countries as of August 2020. Zoom for Home, a category of products designed for home use, became available in August 2020. Google Duo Google Duo is a video chat mobile app developed by Google, available on the Android and iOS operating systems. It was announced at Google's developer conference on May 18, 2016, and began its worldwide release on August 16, 2016. It is also available to use via Google's Chrome web browser on desktop and laptop computers. Google Duo lets users make video calls in high definition. It is optimized for low-bandwidth networks. End-to-end encryption is enabled by default. Duo is based on phone numbers, allowing users to call someone from their contact list. The app automatically switches between Wi-Fi and cellular networks. A "Knock Knock" feature lets users see a live preview of the caller before answering. An update in April 2017 lets users worldwide make audio-only calls. As of December 1, 2016, Google Duo replaced Hangouts within the suite of Google apps device manufacturers must install in order to gain access to the Google Play Store, with Hangouts instead becoming optional. In August 2020, it was reported that Google was planning to eventually replace Google Duo with Google Meet, but would continue to support Duo and "invest in building new features" in the long term. Google Hangouts Google Hangouts is a cross-platform messaging app developed by Google. Originally a feature of Google+, Hangouts became a stand-alone product in 2013, when Google also began integrating features from Google+ Messenger and Google Talk into Hangouts. In 2017, Google began developing Hangouts into a product aimed at enterprise communication, splitting into two products: Google Meet and Google Chat. Google has also begun integrating features of Google Voice, its IP telephony product, into Hangouts, stating that Hangouts is designed to be "the future" of Voice. Google began transitioning users from the "classic" version of Hangouts to Meet and Chat in June 2020, and announced in October 2020 that Google Chat would eventually be made free to consumers and fully replace Hangouts, shortly after Google Meet became free as well. Google Hangouts will remain a consumer-level product for people using standard Google accounts. Google Hangouts has a unique feature in that it allows video calls to be streamed live via YouTube. Google Meet Google Meet (formerly known as Hangouts Meet) is a video-communication service developed by Google. It is one of two apps that constitute the replacement for Google Hangouts, the other being Google Chat. User features of Google Meet include: Two-way and multi-way audio and video calls with a resolution up to 720p An accompanying chat Call encryption between all users Noise cancelling audio filter Low-light mode for video Ability to join meetings through a web browser or through Android or iOS apps Integration with Google Calendar and Google Contacts for one-click meeting calls Screen-sharing to present documents, spreadsheets, presentations, or (if using a browser) other browser tabs Ability to call into meetings using a dial-in number in the US Hosts being able to deny entry and remove users during a call. Google Meet uses proprietary protocols for video, audio and data transcoding. However, Google has partnered with the company Pexip to provide interoperability between Google Meet and SIP/H.323-based conferencing equipment and software. Features for users who use Google Workspace accounts include: Up to 100 members per call for Google Workspace Starter users, up to 150 for Google Workspace Business users, and up to 250 for Google Workspace Enterprise users Ability to call into meetings with a dial-in number from selected countries Password-protected dial-in numbers for Google Workspace Enterprise edition users Real-time closed captioning based on speech recognition Background blurring In March 2020, Google temporarily extended advanced features present in the enterprise edition to anyone using Google Workspace or G Suite for Education editions. In March 2020, Google rolled out Meet to personal (free) Google accounts. Free Meet calls can only have a single host and up to 100 participants, compared to the 250-caller limit for Google Workspace users and the 25-participant limit for Hangouts. Unlike business calls with Meet, consumer calls are not recorded and stored, and Google states that consumer data from Meet will not be used for advertisement targeting. While call data is reportedly not being used for advertising purposes, based on an analysis of Meet's privacy policy, Google reserves the right to collect data on call duration, who is participating, and participants' IP addresses. Users need a Google account to initiate calls and like Google Workspace users, anyone with a Google account is able to start a Meet call from within Gmail. Marco Polo Marco Polo (app) is a video messaging and video hosting service mobile app. The app was created in 2014 by Joya Communications, founded by Vlada Bortnik and Michael Bortnik. The app markets itself as a video walkie talkie. Device-specific platforms iMessage for iPhones iMessage is an instant messaging service developed by Apple Inc. and launched in 2011. iMessage functions exclusively on Apple platforms: macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. Core features of iMessage, available on all supported platforms, include sending texts, images, videos, and documents; getting delivery and read statuses (read receipts); and end-to-end encryption (which means no one, including Apple itself, is able to intercept or tamper with sent messages). On all platforms except macOS, the service also allows sending location data and stickers. On iOS and iPadOS, third-party developers can extend iMessage capabilities with custom extensions (an example being quick sharing of recently played songs). Launched on iOS in 2011, iMessage arrived on macOS (then called OS X) in 2012. In 2020, Apple announced an entirely redesigned version of the macOS Messages app which adds some of the features previously unavailable on the Mac, including location sharing and message effects. Messages by Google Messages is an SMS and instant messaging application developed by Google for its Android mobile operating system. A web interface is also available. Launched in 2014, it has supported Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging since 2018, marketed as "Chat" features. By April 2020, the app had more than a billion installs which was most likely due to Google's wider roll out of RCS to many different countries without carrier support. Palringo Palringo, or The World’s Online Festival (WOLF), is a community-oriented messaging and gaming app for iOS and Android. The platform allows users to chat, entertain, and perform on a Stage—live microphone slots for up to 5 people, form and join large groups based on common interests, send instant messages and drop images and voice recordings into conversations. Launched under its original name of Palringo in 2006, the app has 80 million accounts worldwide and offers a range of games along with more than 380,000 groups, some of which have up to 2,500 members. Headquartered in London, WOLF has offices in Newcastle and London, UK, and Amman, Jordan. Groupware "Groupware" refers to a number of varied applications that are designed to enable communication amongst members of a team, either within a company, a project, or some other group effort. these applications may incorporate a vast range of features and functions, rather than a single specialized function. Such platforms may include instant messaging, document sharing, visual diagrams, voice conference, and many other team-oriented features. Microsoft Yammer Yammer is a freemium enterprise social networking service used for private communication within organizations. Access to a Yammer network is determined by a user's Internet domain so that only individuals with approved email addresses may join their respective networks. The service began as an internal communication system for the genealogy website Geni.com, and was launched as an independent product in 2008. Microsoft later acquired Yammer in 2012 for US$1.2 billion. Currently Yammer is included in all enterprise plans of Office 365 and Microsoft 365. Adobe Connect Adobe Connect (formerly Presedia Publishing System, Macromedia Breeze, and Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro) is a suite of software for remote training, web conferencing, presentation, and desktop sharing. All meeting rooms are organized into 'pods'; with each pod performing a specific role (e.g. chat, whiteboard, note etc.) Adobe Connect was formerly part of the Adobe Acrobat family and has changed names several times. Google Workspace Google Workspace, formerly known as G Suite, is a collection of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. It was first launched in 2006 as Google Apps for Your Domain and rebranded as G Suite in 2016. Google Workspace consists of Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, Meet and Chat for communication; Currents for employee engagement; Drive for storage; and the Google Docs suite for content creation. An Admin Panel is provided for managing users and services. Depending on edition Google Workspace may also include the digital interactive whiteboard Jamboard and an option to purchase such add-ons as the telephony service Voice. The education edition adds a learning platform Google Classroom and as of October 2020 retains the name G Suite for Education. While most of these services are individually available at no cost to consumers who use their free Google (Gmail) accounts, Google Workspace adds enterprise features such as custom email addresses at a domain (e.g. @yourcompany.com), an option for unlimited Drive storage, additional administrative tools and advanced settings, as well as 24/7 phone and email support. Being based in Google's data centers, data and information are saved directly and then synchronized to other data centers for backup purposes. Unlike the free, consumer-facing services, Google Workspace users do not see advertisements while using the services, and information and data in Google Workspace accounts do not get used for advertisement purposes. Furthermore, Google Workspace administrators can fine-tune security and privacy settings. Google Chat Google Chat is a communication software developed by Google built for teams that provides direct messages and team chat rooms, similar to competitors Slack and Microsoft Teams, along with a group messaging function that allows Google Drive content sharing. It is one of two apps that constitute the replacement for Google Hangouts, the other being Google Meet. Google planned to begin retiring Google Hangouts in October 2019. The current version is for Google Workspace, (formerly G Suite until October 2020) customers only, with identical features in all packages except a lack of Vault data retention in the Basic package. However, in October 2020, Google announced plans to open Google Chat up to consumers as early as 2021, once Hangouts has been officially retired. Slack Slack offers many IRC-style features, including persistent chat rooms (channels) organized by topic, private groups, and direct messaging. Content, including files, conversations, and people, is all searchable within Slack. Users can add emoji buttons to their messages, on which other users can then click to express their reactions to messages. Slack's free plan allows only the 10,000 most recent messages to be viewed and searched. On March 18, 2020, Slack redesigned its platform to simplify and customize the user experience. Slack teams allow communities, groups, or teams to join a "workspace" via a specific URL or invitation sent by a team admin or owner. Although Slack was developed for professional and organizational communication, it has been adopted as a community platform, replacing message boards or social media groups. Public channels allow team members to communicate without the use of email or group SMS (texting). Public channels are open to everyone in the workspace. Private channels allow for private conversation between smaller sub-groups. These private channels can be used to organize large teams. Direct messages allow users to send private messages to specific users rather than a group of people. Direct messages can include up to nine people. Once started, a direct message group can be converted into a private channel. Slack integrates with many third-party services and supports community-built integrations, including Google Drive, Trello, Dropbox, Box, Heroku, IBM Bluemix, Crashlytics, GitHub, Runscope, Zendesk and Zapier. In December 2015, Slack launched their software application ("app") directory, consisting of over 150 integrations that users can install. In March 2018, Slack announced a partnership with financial and human capital management firm Workday. This integration allows Workday customers to access Workday features directly from the Slack interface. Discord Discord is built to create and manage private and public communities. It gives users access to tools focused around communication like voice and video calls, persistent chat rooms and integrations with other gamer-focused services. Discord communities are organized into discrete collections of channels called servers. A user can create servers for free, manage their public visibility and create one or more channels within that server. Starting October 2017, Discord allows game developers and publishers to verify their servers. Verified servers, like verified accounts on social media sites, have badge to mark them as official communities. Verified servers are moderated by the developer's or publisher's own moderation team. Verification was later extended in February 2018 to include esports teams and musical artists. By the end of 2017, about 450 servers were verified. Approximately 1790 servers are verified as of December 2020. Discord users can improve the quality of the servers they reside in via the "Server Boost" feature, which improves quality of audio channels, streaming channels, number of emoji slots and other perks in 3 levels. Users can buy boosts to support the servers they choose, for a monthly amount. Possession of "Discord Nitro", the platform's paid subscription, gives a user two extra boosts to use on any server they like. Channels may be either used for voice chat and streaming or for instant messaging and file sharing. The visibility and access to channels can be customized to limit access from certain users, for example marking a channel "NSFW" (Not Safe For Work) requires that first-time viewers confirm they are over 18 years old and willing to see such content. Kune Kune is a free/open source distributed social network focused on collaboration rather than just on communication. That is, it focuses on online real-time collaborative editing, decentralized social networking and web publishing, while focusing on workgroups rather than just on individuals. It aims to allow for the creation of online spaces for collaborative work where organizations and individuals can build projects online, coordinate common agendas, set up virtual meetings, publish on the web, and join organizations with similar interests. It has a special focus on Free Culture and social movements needs. Kune is a project of the Comunes Collective. All the functionalities of Apache Wave, that is collaborative federated real-time editing, plus Communication Chat and chatrooms compatible with Gmail and Jabber through XMPP (with several XEP extensions), as it integrates Emite Social networking (federated) Real-time collaboration for groups in: Documents: as in Google Docs Wikis Lists: as in Google Groups but minimizing emails, through waves Group Tasks Group Calendar: as in Google Calendar, with ical export Group Blogs Web-creation: aiming to publish contents directly on the web (as in WordPress, with a dashboard and public view) (in development) Bartering: aiming to decentralize bartering as in eBay Advanced email Waves: aims to replace most uses of email Inbox: as in email, all your conversations and documents in all kunes are controlled from your inbox Email notifications (Projected: replies from email) Multimedia & Gadgets Image or Video galleries integrated in any doc Maps, mindmaps, Twitter streams, etc. Polls, voting, events, etc. and more via Apache Wave extensions, easy to program (as in Facebook apps, they run on top of Kune) See also Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients Comparison of instant messaging protocols Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients Comparison of LAN messengers Comparison of VoIP software List of SIP software List of video telecommunication services and product brands References External links Comparison articles and overviews 15 Group Messaging Mobile Apps, November 5, 2019, by Sig Ueland, practicalecommerce.com. The Ultimate Group Text App Guide, Last updated February 17, 2020, snapdesk.app website. Wikimedia pages Wikimedia list of conference platforms Social media Android Auto software VoIP software Mobile applications Android (operating system) software IOS software Instant messaging clients Cross-platform software Communication software Computer-mediated communication Groupware Collaborative software Network software comparisons user features of messaging platforms Messaging platforms

65953428

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryuk%20%28ransomware%29

Ryuk (ransomware)

Ryuk is a type of ransomware known for targeting large, public-entity Microsoft Windows cybersystems. It typically encrypts data on an infected system, rendering the data inaccessible until a ransom is paid in untraceable bitcoin. Ryuk is believed to be used by two or more criminal groups, most likely Russian, who target organizations rather than individual consumers. Origin Ryuk ransomware first appeared in 2018. Although initially suspected to be of North Korean origin, Ryuk has more recently been suspected of being devised by two or more Russian criminal cartels. Unlike many other malicious computer hackers, the Ryuk criminal group primarily seeks to extort ransom payments to release the data its malware has made useless by encryption. As a cybersecurity threat analyst said to the Baltimore Sun following an attack on the Baltimore County (Maryland) school system in November, 2020, the Ryuk criminal group "tends to be all business... they just like to get the job done": to extort a large ransom payoff. How it works In the UK, the National Cyber Security Centre notes that Ryuk uses Trickbot computer malware to install itself, once access is gained to a network's servers. It has the capability to defeat many anti-malware countermeasures that may be present and can completely disable a computer network. It can even seek out and disable backup files if kept on shared servers. Emotet is also used by Ryuk hackers to gain access to computers as the initial loader or "Trojan horse". The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) website provides detailed information on how Ryuk infects and takes control of a computer network, saying that access may be initially gained by: "... phishing campaigns that contain either links to malicious websites that host the malware or attachments with the malware. Loaders start the infection chain by distributing the payload; they deploy and execute the backdoor from the command and control server and install it on the victim’s machine". The phishing efforts generally contain malicious documents (or hyperlinks to them). When the victim enables it, a malicious macro or loader starts the infection sequence. Once Ryuk takes control of a system, it encrypts the stored data, making it impossible for users to access unless a ransom is paid by the victim in untraceable bitcoin. In many cases, days or weeks may elapse between the time hackers initially gain access to a system before the massive encryption occurs, as the criminals penetrate deeper into the network to inflict maximum damage. Ryuk is an especially pernicious type of malware because it also finds and encrypts network drives and resources. It also disables the System Restore feature of Microsoft Windows that would otherwise allow restoring the computer's system files, applications, and Windows Registry to their previous, unencrypted state. To combat these ransomware attacks, the U.S. Cyber Command initiated a counter-attack in September, 2020, to disconnect Trickbot from internet servers. Shortly thereafter, Microsoft invoked trademark law to disrupt a Ryuk botnet. Ransomware victims Ryuk targets large organizations with the ability to pay significant sums of money to regain access to their valuable data. All told, more than $61 million in ransom was paid due to Ryuk malware attacks in 2018–2019, according to the FBI. In December, 2018, a Ryuk-based attack affected publication of the Los Angeles Times and newspapers across the country using Tribune Publishing software. Printing of the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel in Florida was halted and even the newspaper's telephones did not work. On 20 October, 2020, an information technology consulting company based in Paris, Sopra Steria, itself suffered a Ryuk ransomware attack. The cybercriminals encrypted the company's data using a variant of Ryuk, making it inaccessible unless a ransom is paid. The attack will cost the company $47–59 million, it estimated. In the wake of the attack, Ryuk was described as "one of the most dangerous ransomware groups that operate through phishing campaigns". Between 2019–2020, U.S. hospitals in California, New York, and Oregon, as well as in the UK and Germany, have been affected by Ryuk malware, resulting in difficulties with accessing patient records and even impairing critical care. Doctors at affected hospitals have resorted to writing paper instructions, instead of using their inoperable computers. In the U.S., a joint statement was issued on October 29, 2020, by three Federal government agencies, the FBI, CISA, and the Department of Health and Human Services, warning that hospitals should anticipate an " 'increased and imminent' wave of ransomware cyberattacks that could compromise patient care and expose personal information", likely from Ryuk attacks. More than a dozen U.S. hospitals were hit by Ryuk attacks in late 2020, shutting down access to patient records and even disrupting chemotherapy treatments for cancer sufferers. Also targeted are vulnerable public-sector entities often using older software and not following best protocols for computer security. Lake City, Florida, for example, paid $460,000 in ransom after one of its employees opened an email containing a variant of Ryuk malware in June, 2019. The ransomware has been used to attack dozens of U.S. school systems, which are often deficient in cybersecurity. Since 2019, more than a thousand schools have been victimized. Sometimes the resulting impairment takes weeks to repair. In 2020, schools from Havre, Montana, to Baltimore County, Maryland, have experienced Ryuk ransomware attacks. Ransom demanded by the perpetrators has ranged from $100,000 to $377,000 or more. Online education provider Stride, Inc. was attacked by Ryuk ransomware criminals in November 2020, rendering some of K12's records inaccessible and leading to the threatened release of students' personal information. The Virginia-based firm paid an undisclosed ransom amount, saying, "Based on the specific characteristics of the case, and the guidance we have received about the attack and the threat actor, we believe the payment was a reasonable measure to take in order to prevent misuse of any information the attacker obtained". The large Baltimore County Public Schools system in Maryland, serving 115,000 students and having a budget of $1.5 billion, had to suspend all classes after problems were experienced with its computer network beginning on November 24, 2020, reportedly due to Ryuk. The system's crash first manifested itself when teachers attempting to enter students' grades found themselves locked out and noticed Ryuk file extensions. County school officials characterized it as "a catastrophic attack on our technology system" and said it could be weeks before recovery is complete. The school system's director of information technology said, “This is a ransomware attack which encrypts data as it sits and does not access or remove it from our system". Prior to the crippling malware attack, state auditors from the Maryland Office of Legislative Audits performed a periodic audit of the Baltimore County School System's computer network in 2019. They found several vulnerabilities in the system, such as insufficient monitoring of security activities, publicly accessible servers not isolated from the school system's internal network, and a lack of "intrusion detection ... for untrusted traffic". Avi Rubin, Technical Director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said the auditors' discovery of "computers that were running on the internal network with no intrusion detection capabilities" was of particular concern. Although the final report by the Maryland Office of Legislative Audits was released on November 19, 2020, the auditors initially warned the school system of its findings in October, 2019. Ryuk's reach is global, hitting councils and government agencies across the globe. One such attack landed on the City of Onkaparinga, South Australia. In December 2019, the Ryuk virus took hold of the city's IT infrastructure. The attack left hundreds of employees in limbo as the cities IT department worked on reinstating operations. Each time backups were reinstated the Ryuk virus would start the process of attacking the system all over again. The attack continued for four days before the IT team were able to contain the virus and reinstate the necessary backups. In early 2021, a new strain of the Ryuk ransomware was discovered that features worm-like capabilities that can lead to it self-propagating and being distributed to other devices on the local database it is infiltrating. See also Wizard Spider - group known to use the software References 2020 in computing Cyberattacks Cybercrime Ransomware Computer security exploits Windows malware

66042171

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park%20Jin%20Hyok

Park Jin Hyok

Park Jin-Hyok (), is a North Korean programmer and hacker. He is best known for his alleged involvement in some of the costliest computer intrusions in history. Park is on the FBI's wanted list. North Korea denies his existence. Life and career Early life Park attended the Kim Chaek University of Technology in Pyongyang. He has traveled to China in the past and conducted IT work for the North Korean company "Chosun Expo" in addition to activities conducted on behalf of North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau. Lazarus group and computer hacking Hyok is a member of a North Korea's government-funded hacking team known as “Lazarus Group (or APT 38)” and worked for Chosun Expo Joint Venture (aka Korea Expo Joint Venture) a North Korean government front company, to support the North Korean government’s malicious cyber actions. Chosun is affiliated with Lab 110, a component of North Korea's military intelligence. Expo Joint Venture had offices in China (PRC) and North Korea. Sony Pictures hack In November 2014, the conspirators launched a destructive attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in retaliation for the movie The Interview, a political action comedy film that depicted the assassination of the DPRK’s leader by a CIA spy. North Korea denied allegations of hacking. WannaCry ransomware attack The United States Department of Justice has charged Hyok and other members of Lazarus group for the WannaCry ransomware attack of 2017, a computer virus that used encryption to encrypt file on affected systems and affected many businesses throughout the world, including United Kingdom’s NHS, where nonfunctional computer systems led to thousands of appointments being canceled. See also Lazarus Group 2013 South Korea cyberattack July 2009 cyberattacks Sony Pictures hack WannaCry ransomware attack References Kim Chaek University of Technology alumni Living people Hackers Year of birth missing (living people)

66082193

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATACS

ATACS

Advanced Train Administration and Communications System (ATACS) is an Automatic Train Control (ATC) system first introduced by JR East on the Senseki Line in 2011. It uses radio communication rather than traditional signals, and works as a moving block system. Technical description Radio transmission Communication between the train and the trackside equipment happens entirely through bidirectional radio communication. Radio base stations are placed at intervals of 2 to 3km and operates on four different frequency bands, used alternately to prevent inference. Radios operate in the 400MHz frequency band, with data transmitted using TDMA access method with Reed–Solomon error correction at 9.6kbps. The radio system are based on proprietary standards with encryption. Ground equipment Ground controller The ground controller, being the main control unit of ground equipment, is responsible for the identification of train locations based on information received from the trains, route setting, control and interlocking, train interval regulation, and boundary control and train entry/exit handover. Train existence supervision equipment Connected to the ground controller, the train existence supervision equipment is responsible for controlling line occupation of trains. It also maintains safety in case of system failure and during recovery operations by using train identification assigned to each trains to track occupation even if other equipment is out of service. System supervision equipment The system supervision equipment monitors the operating status of the ATACS system and has functions to change settings such as temporary speed limits in increments of 5 km/h. The system supervision equipment is also responsible for setting track closures, setting single-line working, and routing maintenance vehicles. Field controller The field controller connects trackside equipment such as switches, level crossing equipment, radio stations, and detectors to the ground controller. Onboard devices Every train is equipped with an onboard device which is responsible for determining the train's position. For more precise position tracking, a balise is installed every kilometer. This information, along with the train length is periodically transferred to the ground equipment. Therefore, no track circuits or axle counters are necessary. The onboard device is also responsible for calculating the brake intervention curve required to stop the train at the limit of the limited movement authority (LMA), the area in which the train is permitted to move. It takes the individual train's braking performance, track gradient, curve, and speed limit into consideration to perform this calculation. Similar to earlier Automatic Train Control systems, ATACS uses cab signalling. A cab display shows ATACS information required for driving, such as the distance to limit of the LMA, the maximum allowable speed as permitted by the brake curve, and the route set. Similar systems ATACS has been compared to ETCS Level 3 Usage ATACS is deployed on the following lines: Senseki Line Saikyō Line (Ikebukuro – Ōmiya) References Rail transport in Japan

66120130

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NordLocker

NordLocker

NordLocker is a file encryption software integrated with end-to-end encrypted cloud storage. It is available on Windows and macOS. NordLocker is developed by Nord Security, a company behind the NordVPN virtual private network, and is based in the UK and the Netherlands. NordLocker uses a freemium business model, where users are offered a free account with unlimited local file encryption and a set amount of cloud storage with sync and backup features. More cloud storage is available via a paid subscription. History In May 2019, NordVPN announced the upcoming launch of NordLocker, “an app with a zero-knowledge encryption process”. Although the initial estimated time of arrival was summer 2019, the actual launch took place in November. The app was launched as a local file encryption tool with secure sharing. Users were able to encrypt up to 5 GB of data for free or pay for unlimited encryption. In March 2020, NordLocker announced newly implemented cloud sharing integrations with Dropbox and Google Drive. In August 2020, NordLocker launched a cloud storage add-on, a feature allowing users to back up their data and synchronize it across multiple devices. Features NordLocker is an encryption software with cloud integration. The software uses so called "lockers" - encrypted folders to encrypt and store user files. Users can create an unlimited number of lockers, drop files in to encrypt them, and transfer lockers separately. The app uses client-side encryption to secure files on the user's device first. It's a zero-knowledge encryption system, where the developers have no data about users' files. After the encryption process, the user can decide whether to store data locally or sync it via NordLocker’s cloud. NordLocker syncs files via a private cloud, so they can be accessed from any computer with the NordLocker app installed. The program uses AES-256 and 4096-bit RSA encryption algorithms as well as Argon2 and ECC (with XChaCha20, EdDSA, and Poly1305). NordLocker uses Libsodium to generate a random 256-bit key and encrypt lockers. To encrypt that key, the app then uses XChaCha20-Poly1305 and the user’s master password. The local encryption is free as of December 2020 — the service monetizes cloud storage space beyond the 3 GB provided with the free plan. Hacking contest In April 2020, NordLocker launched the "NordLocker Bounty campaign", a hacking competition with the top prize of $10,000. To win, a person had to download an encrypted "locker" from the company's site, hack into it, and find the hidden message. Based on the NordLocker’s campaign page, there were over 600 attempts to break the locker but no one has claimed the bounty as of December 2020. Reception A June 2020 PCMagazine review noted that NordLocker was easy to use but lacked features like secure file deletion and two-factor authentication. In August 2020, ITPro called NordLocker’s cloud add-on a “critical feature for modern business, especially with the coronavirus outbreak forcing many companies’ workforces to remain remote.” Restore Privacy praised NordLocker for strong end-to-end encryption and the "new, lower price" but mentioned the fact that NordLocker is not open-source. Boxcryptor, another encryption service, has compared NordLocker’s security to their own but noted that NordLocker does not have a mobile application. See also Encryption Internet privacy Secure communication References External links Cryptographic software Proprietary cross-platform software Cloud storage Internet properties established in 2019

66166043

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxmox%20Backup%20Server

Proxmox Backup Server

Proxmox Backup Server (short Proxmox BS) is an open-source backup software project supporting virtual machines, containers, and physical hosts. The Bare-metal server is based on the Debian Linux distribution, with some extended features, such as out-of-the-box ZFS support and Linux kernel 5.4 LTS. Proxmox Backup Server is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. Technology Proxmox Backup Server is written mostly in Rust and implements data deduplication to reduce the storage space needed. Data is split into chunks. History Development of Proxmox Backup originally began in October 2018 to provide more efficient backup for the virtualization platform Proxmox Virtual Environment than the integrated vzdump backup tool which only allows full backups. In July 2020, the first public beta was announced. Its first stable release was announced in November, 2020. Operation Proxmox Backup uses a client-server model where the server stores the backup data. The client tool works on most modern Linux systems. The software is installed bare-metal with an ISO image, which includes management tools and a web-based GUI. Administrators can manage the system via a Web browser or a command-line interface (CLI). Proxmox Backup Server also provides a REST API for third party tools. Proxmox Backup Server supports incremental backups, data deduplication, Zstandard compression and authenticated encryption (AE). The first backup is a full backup, and subsequent backups are sent incrementally from the client to the Proxmox Backup Server, where data is deduplicated. For the Proxmox VE platform, the Proxmox Backup client is tightly integrated; the backup storage is configurable as a storage backend on a Proxmox VE node and supports deduplicated backups of QEMU virtual machines and LXC containers. The platform also leverages QEMU dirty-bitmaps, which allows for fast backups from the Proxmox VE client to the server, as the disk images do not need to be scanned for changes. Backups can be stored on-premises or synchronized to remote locations with Remotes, and multiple, unrelated hosts can use the same backup server. All client-server traffic is transferred over TLS-1.3 to protect against eavesdropping. To further protect backup data at rest, optional encryption of all backed-up-data is available using AES-256 in Galois/Counter Mode. As the backup server can not access the backup data without the matching encryption keys, it can even be an untrusted host. Data retention policy can be defined in Proxmox Backup Server. Removing expired data is done in two phases: first, prune removes indices of the backups which are no longer needed, and then garbage collector process is running to physically delete the orphaned data chunks. See also Bacula Amanda References External links Backup software Free backup software Software using the GNU AGPL license

66235947

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JS%20Y%C5%ABbari

JS Yūbari

JS Yūbari (DE-227) was a of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. Development and design The Maritime Self-Defense Force has further developed the Coast Guard (PCE) plan, which was considered in the Third Defense Build-up Plan as an alternative to the conventional submarine chaser (PC), and in the post-fourth defense plan in 1977. However, the 52DE was too small and lacked room, and the lack of ability to act in stormy weather due to the ship's shape was also a problem. The original plan was to build more ships of the same type as a replacement for the retired submarine chaser, but before the commissioning of the ship, the ships built in 1979 were homomorphic ships with a slightly expanded ship type. From the above background, the basic design is an advanced version of 52DE. The basic plan number is E111. The central hull form has been followed and looks very similar, but the standard displacement has been increased by about 200 tons, the total length has been extended by , and the overall width and depth have also increased slightly. Along with this, the floor area of the battle area including CIC and the living area has increased, and the warehouse has been expanded to improve the living and living environment. The fuel tank was also enlarged and the fuel load increased by about 35 percent, which led to an extension of the cruising range. The engine had the same configuration as the 52DE, and was a CODOG system with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries 6DRV35 / 44 diesel engine and Kawasaki-Rolls-Royce Olympus TM3B gas turbine engine. Construction and career She was laid down on 9 February 1981 and launched on 22 February 1982 at Sumitomo Heavy Industries Shipyard in Uraga. She commissioned on 18 March 1983. On 24 March 1997, the 35th escort corps was renamed to the 27th escort corps due to the revision of the corps number. The vessel was engaged in disaster relief due to the eruption of Mount Usu that occurred on 31 March 2000. On 3 April 2006, the 27th Escort Corps was abolished and transferred to the 25th Escort Corps of the Ominato District Force. On 26 March 2008, the 25th escort corps was renamed to the 15th escort corps due to a major reorganization of the Self-Defense Fleet, and was reorganized under the escort fleet. She was decommissioned on 25 June 2010 and sent to scrap a few years later. Gallery References 1982 ships Ships built by Sumitomo Heavy Industries Yubari-class destroyer escorts

66236052

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JS%20Y%C5%ABbetsu

JS Yūbetsu

JS Yūbetsu (DE-228) was a of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. Development and design The Maritime Self-Defense Force has further developed the Coast Guard (PCE) plan, which was considered in the Third Defense Build-up Plan as an alternative to the conventional submarine chaser (PC), and JS Ishikari in the post-fourth defense plan in 1977. However, the 52DE was too small and lacked room, and the lack of ability to act in stormy weather due to the ship's shape was also a problem. The original plan was to build more ships of the same type as a replacement for the retired submarine chaser, but before the commissioning of the ship, the ships built in 1979 were homomorphic ships with a slightly expanded ship type. It was decided to be. From the above background, the basic design is an advanced version of 52DE. The basic plan number is E111. The central hull form has been followed and looks very similar, but the standard displacement has been increased by about 200 tons, the total length has been extended by 6 meters, and the overall width and depth have also increased slightly. Along with this, the floor area of the battle area including CIC and the living area has increased, and the warehouse has been expanded to improve the living and living environment. The fuel tank was also enlarged and the fuel load increased by about 35 percent, which led to an extension of the cruising range. The engine had the same configuration as the 52DE, and was a CODOG system with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries 6DRV35 / 44 diesel engine and Kawasaki-Rolls-Royce Olympus TM3B gas turbine engine. Construction and career The destroyer escort was laid down on 14 January 1982 and launched on 25 January 1983 at Hitachi Zosen Corporation Shipyard in Maizuru. Yūbetsu commissioned on 14 February 1984. The vessel was engaged in disaster dispatch activities due to the Hokkaido Nansei-oki Earthquake that occurred on 12 July 1993. On 24 March 1997, the 35th escort corps was renamed to the 27th escort corps due to the revision of the corps number. On 3 April 2006, the 27th Escort Corps was abolished and transferred to the 25th Escort Corps of the Ominato District Force. On 26 March 2008, the 25th escort corps was renamed to the 15th escort corps due to a major reorganization of the Self-Defense Fleet, and was reorganized under the escort fleet. Yūbetsu was decommissioned on 25 June 2010 and sent to scrap few years later. Gallery References 1983 ships Ships built by Hitachi Zosen Corporation Yubari-class destroyer escorts

66573106

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gausssian%20distribution%20on%20a%20locally%20compact%20Abelian%20group

Gausssian distribution on a locally compact Abelian group

Gaussian distribution on a locally compact Abelian group is a distribution on a second countable locally compact Abelian group which satisfies the conditions: (i) is an infinitely divisible distribution; (ii) if , where is the generalized Poisson distribution, associated with a finite measure , and is an infinitely divisible distribution, then the measure is degenerated at zero. This definition of the Gaussian distribution for the group coincides with the classical one. The support of a Gaussian distribution is a coset of a connected subgroup of . Let be the character group of the group . A distribution on is Gaussian () if and only if its characteristic function can be represented in the form , where is the value of a character at an element , and is a continuous nonnegative function on satisfying the equation . A Gaussian distribution is called symmetric if . Denote by the set of Gaussian distributions on the group , and by the set of symmetric Gaussian distribution on . If , then is a continuous homomorphic image of a Gaussian distribution in a real linear space. This space is either finite dimensional or infinite dimensional (the space of all sequences of real numbers in the product topology) (). If a distribution can be embedded in a continuous one-parameter semigroup , of distributions on , then if and only if for any neighbourhood of zero in the group (). Let be a connected group, and . If is not a locally connected, then is singular (with respect of a Haar distribution on ) (). If is a locally connected and has a finite dimension, then is either absolutely continuous or singular. The question of the validity of a similar statement on locally connected groups of infinite dimension is open, although on such groups it is possible to construct both absolutely continuous and singular Gaussian distributions. It is well known that two Gaussian distributions in a linear space are either mutually absolutely continuous or mutually singular. This alternative is true for Gaussian distributions on connected groups of finite dimension (). The following theorem is valid (), which can be considered as an analogue of Cramer's theorem on the decomposition of the normal distribution for locally compact Abelian groups. Cramer's theorem on the decomposition of the Gaussian distribution for locally compact Abelian groups Let be a random variable with values in a locally compact Abelian group with a Gaussian distribution,and let , where and are independent random variables with values in . The random variables and are Gaussian if and only if the group contains no subgroup topologically isomorphic to the circle group, i.e. the multiplicative group of complex numbers whose modulus is equal to 1. References Probability distributions

66707963

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AssemblyScript

AssemblyScript

AssemblyScript is a TypeScript-based programming language that is optimized for, and statically compiled to, WebAssembly (currently using , the reference AssemblyScript compiler). Resembling ECMAScript and JavaScript, but with static types, the language is developed by the AssemblyScript Project with contributions from the AssemblyScript community. Overview In 2017, the availability of support for WebAssembly, a standard definition for a low-level bytecode and an associated virtual machine, became widespread among major Web browsers, providing Web developers a lower-level and potentially higher-performance compilation target for client-side programs and applications to execute within Web browsers, in addition to the interpreted (and in practice dynamically compiled) JavaScript Web scripting language. WebAssembly allows programs and code to be statically compiled ahead of time in order to run at potentially native-level or “bare-metal” performance within Web browsers, without the overhead of interpretation or the initial latency of dynamic compilation. With the adoption of WebAssembly in major Web browsers, Alon Zakai, creator of Emscripten, an LLVM/Clang-based C and C++ compiler that targeted a subset of JavaScript called asm.js, added support for WebAssembly as a compilation target in Emscripten, allowing C and/or C++ programs and code to be compiled directly to WebAssembly. While Emscripten and similar compilers allow Web developers to write new code, or port existing code, written in a high-level language such as C, C++, Go, and Rust to WebAssembly to achieve potentially higher, native-level execution performance in Web browsers, this forces Web developers accustomed to developing client-side Web scripts and applications in ECMAScript/JavaScript (the de facto client-side programming language in Web browsers) to use a different language for targeting WebAssembly than JavaScript. AssemblyScript, as a variant of TypeScript that is syntactically similar to JavaScript, allows developers accustomed to JavaScript to use a familiar language for targeting WebAssembly, potentially reducing the learning curve of a separate language that can be compiled to WebAssembly. Furthermore, because AssemblyScript was designed to be an optimal source language for WebAssembly, the language’s type system closely reflects that of WebAssembly, and the language provides standard low-level functions (typically implemented as macros) that map directly to WebAssembly instructions that mirror instructions available on modern processors such as SIMD and vector instructions and more specialized instructions such as clz (count leading zero bits), ctz (count trailing zero bits), and popcnt (population count), used in applications such as encryption and cryptographic libraries. , the reference AssemblyScript compiler, is based on Binaryen, a back-end compiler toolchain developed by Alon Zakai that compiles to WebAssembly and is a component of Emscripten (which Zakai also developed). The compiler and other tooling are available via the npm package manager. While WebAssembly was originally designed for execution within Web browsers, the development of WASI (WebAssembly System Interface), a community specification for a standard API that allows WebAssembly programs access to system calls and other operating system functions, has led to the development of WebAssembly runtime environments from projects such as Wasmtime and Wasmer that allow WebAssembly, and code written in languages such as AssemblyScript that can compile to it, to run in non-Web environments as well. Compatibility with JavaScript AssemblyScript is compiled to WebAssembly modules, which can then be instantiated into client-side Web pages using standard JavaScript methods such as WebAssembly.compileStreaming and WebAssembly.instantiateStreaming just like standard WebAssembly binaries. Data passing between JavaScript and the compiled WebAssembly modules, as well as function calls between JavaScript and WebAssembly, are then the same as for any WebAssembly module. Because the AssemblyScript language is largely a subset of TypeScript, it is theoretically possible to write an AssemblyScript program using this subset and compile it to both plain JavaScript and WebAssembly, using the TypeScript compiler and AssemblyScript compiler, respectively. This potentially allows for portable code that can be deployed in either JavaScript or WebAssembly run-time environments. Usage more than 5000 projects hosted on GitHub are written, either wholly or partially, in AssemblyScript, with roughly 8000 downloads of the AssemblyScript compiler per week via npm. Reception Lead Emscripten developer Alon Zakai has characterized AssemblyScript as being “designed with WebAssembly and code size in mind. It’s not an existing language that we are using for a new purpose, but it’s a language designed for WebAssembly. It has great wasm-opt integration—in fact, it’s built with it—and it’s very easy to get good code size.” Norwegian musician Peter Salomonsen, in a 2020 WebAssembly Summit talk titled, “WebAssembly Music,” demonstrated the use of AssemblyScript for real-time compilation to WebAssembly in live electronic music synthesis, saying, “I chose AssemblyScript because it has high-level readability and low-level control; it’s like a high-level language, but you get that low-level feeling, and you can even write direct WebAssembly intrinsics if you want to.” Aaron Turner, a senior engineer at Fastly, a cloud computing services provider that uses WebAssembly for the company’s Compute@Edge serverless compute environment, in a review of AssemblyScript wrote: While AssemblyScript requires stricter typing than TypeScript does, it sticks as close as possible to TypeScript syntax and semantics—which means that most JavaScript developers will find AssemblyScript comfortable to use—and it enables great support for the modern JavaScript ecosystem. For instance, the AssemblyScript compiler is available on , as well as common AssemblyScript tools and libraries like . AssemblyScript files also use TypeScript’s ‘’ file extension, and it includes proper typings for allowing AssemblyScript to piggy-back on TypeScript tooling, such as the TypeScript linter. With the right small tweaks, AssemblyScript can even be used with the TypeScript compiler. This is very exciting, as AssemblyScript offers a low-overhead entry-point for JavaScript developers to pick up a language to output WebAssembly—both in terms of learning to read and write AssemblyScript, as well as using a lot of the pre-existing tooling that may already be in a JavaScript developer’s workflow. AssemblyScript is often referred to in the WebAssembly community as a great gateway to picking up WebAssembly. It offers a large group of developers who already write applications for the web a path to pick up and learn WebAssembly. Even if you are starting from scratch and are not particularly familiar with JavaScript or TypeScript, AssemblyScript is a solid choice when picking a language to start outputting WebAssembly. However, Turner went on to cite the language’s relative newness and thus its lack of some features available in larger, more complex and established programming languages as potential but temporary shortcomings of the language. See also Emscripten JavaScript TypeScript WebAssembly References External links AssemblyScript.org (official site) AssemblyScript documentation (project page) The AssemblyScript Project (on GitHub) assemblyscript (on npm) TypeScript JavaScript programming language family Statically typed programming languages Cross-platform software Software using the Apache license

66754749

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor%20Phone

Tor Phone

A Tor Phone refers to the concept of a smartphone that routes internet connections through the Tor network. The first Tor Phone was a prototype smartphone released in 2016 by The Tor Project, which gave users the ability to route internet connections through Tor for anonymity. Work on Tor Phone was launched in 2014, and a "Tor-enabled Android phone prototype" was announced in 2016. The project was led by Mike Perry, Tor Browser lead developer. Background Tor Phone refers to a smartphone set to route internet connections through Tor network, for example using the Orbot application and Android VPN settings, although according to developer Mike Perry in 2016, Android's VPN APIs were not secure and could leak data at boot, which affects Orbot too. The prototype Tor Phone was based on CopperheadOS, which added additional security features. Another option is to use Torbrowser on smartphones. Follow-on project, GrapheneOS continues supporting usage of Orbot (Tor) VPN and Torbrowser on Android-based phones. Adoption The number of Tor users on phones is unknown. As of 2016 there were about 2 million daily Tor users, total, including all devices and methods. In 2018 Louis Adam of ZDNet France discussed new official support of Tor Project for Tor services on Android phones, including Tor Browser and Orbot. John Corpuz of Toms Guide listed Tor Browser (Desktop and Android), and Onion Browser (iOS) as two of 16 "best ad blockers in 2021". Related projects In January 2015 David Briggs and Nick Spriggs began an unsuccessful Indiegogo campaign to make the BOSS phone, an Android-based phone with "rooted Tor encryption" to anonymize and privatize internet browsing. In 2014 Blackphone from Silent Circle was sold as an Android-based phone with applications and services to provide more secure messaging, VPN and cloud storage. In 2014 the Boeing Black phone was advertised as a more secure Android-based phone, with dual-Sim for using public and government networks. In 2014 a mobile version of TAILS operating system was announced. In 2012 the Ninja phone, an HTC One V phone running Android 4.0.3, was developed to demonstrate using an independent GSM phone network at DefCon. The network was operated from The Ninja Tel van, with official looking logo, a GSM base station; a 12-foot antenna; networking and Web app servers parked in a large room at Defcon. See also Replicant (operating system) References External links Mission Improbable Github Mission Impossible Github Tor Project Mobile Support Tor Project Mobile Documentation Anonymity networks Free security software Privacy software Tor (anonymity network)

66771654

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniffer%20%28protocol%20analyzer%29

Sniffer (protocol analyzer)

The Sniffer was a computer network packet and protocol analyzer developed and first sold in 1986 by Network General Corporation of Mountain View, CA. By 1994 the Sniffer had become the market leader in high-end protocol analyzers. According to SEC 10-K filings and corporate annual reports, between 1986 and March 1997 about $933M worth of Sniffers and related products and services had been sold as tools for network managers and developers. The Sniffer was the antecedent of several generations of network protocol analyzers, of which the current most popular is Wireshark. Sniffer history The Sniffer was the first product of Network General Corporation, founded on May 13, 1986 by Harry Saal and Len Shustek to develop and market network protocol analyzers. The inspiration was an internal test tool that had been developed within Nestar Systems, a personal computer networking company founded in October 1978 by Saal and Shustek along with Jim Hinds and Nick Fortis. In 1982 engineers John Rowlands and Chris Reed at Nestar’s UK subsidiary Zynar Ltd developed an ARCNET promiscuous packet receiver and analyzer called TART (“Transmit and Receive Totaliser”) for use as an internal engineering test tool. It used custom hardware, and software for an IBM PC written in a combination of BASIC and 8086 assembly code. When Nestar was acquired by Digital Switch Corporation (now DSC Communications) of Plano, Texas in 1986, Saal and Shustek received the rights to TART. At Network General, Saal and Shustek initially sold TART as the “R-4903 ARCNET Line Analyzer (‘The Sniffer’)”. They then reengineered TART for IBM’s Token Ring network hardware, created a different user interface with software written in C, and began selling it as The Sniffer™ in December of 1986. The company had four employees at the end of that year. In April 1987 the company released an Ethernet version of the Sniffer, and in October, versions for ARCNET, StarLAN, and IBM PC Network Broadband. Protocol interpreters were written for about 100 network protocols at various levels of the protocol stack, and customers were given the ability to write their own interpreters. The product line gradually expanded to include the Distributed Sniffer System for multiple remote network segments, the Expert Sniffer for advanced problem diagnosis, and the Watchdog for simple network monitoring. Corporate history Between inception and the end of 1988, Network General sold $13.7M worth of Sniffers and associated services. Financing was initially provided only by the founders until an investment of $2M by TA Associates in December 1987. On February 6, 1989 the company, which had 29 employees at the time, raised $22M with a public stock offering of 1,900,000 shares on NASDAQ as NETG. On August 3, 1989, they sold an additional 1,270,000 shares in a secondary offering, and on April 7, 1992 an additional 2,715,000 shares in a third offering. In December 1989, Network General bought Legend Software, a one-person company in New Jersey that had been founded by Dan Hansen. Their product was a network monitor called LAN Patrol, which was enhanced, rebranded, and sold by Network General as WatchDog. By 1995 Network General had sold Sniffer-related products totaling $631M at an average gross margin of 77%. It had almost 1000 employees and was selling about 1000 Sniffers a month. In December 1997 Network General merged with McAfee Associates (MCAF) to form Network Associates, in a stock swap deal valued at $1.3B. Weeks later, Network Associates bought Pretty Good Privacy, Inc. (“PGP”) , the encryption company founded in 1991 by Phil Zimmerman, for $35M in cash. Saal and Shustek left the company shortly thereafter. In 2002, much of the PGP product line was sold to the newly formed PGP Corporation for an undisclosed amount. It was subsequently acquired by Symantec in 2010. In mid-2004, Network Associates sold off the Sniffer technology business to investors led by Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group for $275M in cash, creating a new Network General Corporation. That same year, Network Associates readopted its founder’s name and became McAfee Inc. In September 2007, the new Network General was acquired by NetScout Systems for $205M. Netscout marketed "Sniffer Portable" in 2013, and in 2018 they divested their handheld network test tool business, including the Sniffer, to StoneCalibre. Intellectual property rights Network General, prior to the merger with McAfee, had filed no patents on the Sniffer. The source code and some of the hardware designs were protected by trade secrets. Most of that was eventually acquired by NetScout in the 2007 acquisition. Network General Corporation applied for a trademark to “Sniffer” used in the context of “analyzing and testing digital traffic operations in local area networks” on May 30, 1989. It was accepted and registered on May 28, 1991. Network General protected its use with, for example, a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal on October 4, 1995. As of 2021 that trademark registration is still active, and is now owned by NetScout Systems Inc. Network General also owned the trademarks to “Expert Sniffer”, “TeleSniffer”, and “Distributed Sniffer System”, all of which have expired. The original Nestar ARCNET Sniffer The ARCNET Sniffer developed as an internal test tool by Zynar used the IBM PC ARCNET Network Interface Card developed by Nestar for the PLAN networking systems. That board used the COM9026 integrated ARCNET controller from Standard Microsystems Corporation, which had been developed in collaboration with Datapoint. There was no promiscuous mode in the SMC chip that would allow all packets to be received regardless of the destination address. So to create the Sniffer, a daughterboard was developed that intercepted the receive data line to the chip and manipulated the data so that every packet looked like a broadcast and was received by the chip. Since the ability to receive all packets was viewed as a violation of network privacy, the circuitry implementing it was kept secret, and the daughterboard was potted in black epoxy to discourage reverse-engineering. The source code of the original TART/Sniffer BASIC and assembler program is available on GitHub. The 1986 Network General Sniffer The Sniffer was a promiscuous mode packet receiver, which means it received a copy of all network packets without regard to what computer they were addressed to. The packets were filtered, analyzed using what is now sometimes called Deep Packet Inspection, and stored for later examination. The Sniffer was implemented above Microsoft’s MS-DOS operating system, and used a 40 line 80-character text-only display. The first version, the PA-400 protocol analyzer for Token-Ring networks, was released on a Compaq Portable II “luggable” computer that had an Intel 80286 processor, 640 KB of RAM, a 20 MB internal hard disk, a 5 ¼” floppy disk drive, and a 9” monochrome CRT screen. The retail price of the Sniffer in unit quantities was $19,995 The two major modes of operation were: “capture”, in which packets are captured, stored, counted, and summarized filters control which packets are captured triggers control when capture should stop, perhaps because a sought-after network error condition had occurred “display”, in which packets are analyzed and interpreted filters control which packets are displayed options control which aspects of the packets are displayed Navigation of the extensive menu system on the character-mode display was through a variation of Miller Columns that were originally created by Mark S Miller at Datapoint Corporation for their file browser. As the Sniffer manual described, “The screen shows you three panels, arranged from left to right. Immediately to the left of your current (highlighted) position is the node you just came from. Above and below you in the center panel are alternative nodes that are also reachable from the node to your left… To your right are nodes reachable from the node you're now on.” Pressing F10 initiated capture and a real-time display of activity. When capture ended, packets were analyzed and displayed in one or more of the now-standard three synchronized vertical windows: multiple packet summary, single packet decoded detail, and raw numerical packet data. Highlighting linked the selected items in each window. In the multiple-packet summary, the default display was of information at the highest level of the protocol stack present in that packet. Other displays could be requested using the “display options” menu. The translation of data at a particular level of the network protocol stack into user-friendly text was the job of a “protocol interpreter”, or PI. Network General provided over 100 PI’s for commonly-used protocols of the day: Decoding higher protocol levels often required the interpreter to maintain state information about connections so that subsequent packets could be property interpreted. That was implemented with a combination of locally cached data within the protocol interpreter, and the ability to look back at earlier packets stored in the capture buffer. Sniffer customers could write their own protocol interpreters to decode new or rare protocols not supported by Network General. Interpreters were written in C and linked with the rest of the Sniffer modules to create a new executable program. The procedure for creating new PIs was documented in April 1987 as part of Sniffer version 1.20. In addition to supporting many network protocols, there were versions of the Sniffer that collected data from the major local area networks in use in the 1980s and early 1990s: IBM Token-Ring Token Bus Ethernet (thick, thin, twisted pair) Datapoint ARCnet Starlan AppleTalk Corvus Omninet FDDI ISDN Frame Relay Synchronous Data Link Control (SDLC) Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) X.25 IBM PC Network (Sytek) Competitors Even in the early years, the Sniffer had competition, at least for some aspects of the product. Several were, like the Sniffer, ready-to-use packaged instruments: Excelan's 1984 Nutcracker, and its 1986 LANalyzer Communications Machinery Corporation's DRN-1700 LanScan Ethernet Monitor Hewlett-Packard's HP-4972A LAN Protocol Analyzer Digital Equipment Corporation's LAN Traffic Monitor Tektronix's TMA802 Media Analyzer There were also several software-only packet monitors and decoders, often running on Unix, and often with only a command-line user interface: tcpdump, using the Berkeley Packet Filter and other capture mechanisms provided by the operating system LANWatch, originally from FTP Software See also Comparison of packet analyzers Wireshark tcpdump References External links "The Ancient History of Computers and Network Sniffers" (Sharkfest 2021 keynote talk) - Network analyzers

66805471

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web%20compatibility%20issues%20in%20South%20Korea

Web compatibility issues in South Korea

Many South Korean websites have web compatibility issues, due to the non-standard technology that they use. Often this technology works only with Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), some smartphones (iPhone, Android, etc.), and tablets. Following the revision of the Electronic Signatures Act in January 2021, Microsoft's phased outage policy for IE and the increased use of other web browsers that have solved this compatibility problem in a more standard way. Problem Government offices and banks have been criticized for forcing the usage of Internet Explorer’s Active X. For example, Civil Service 24, a comprehensive civil service portal site provided by the Korean government, requires ActiveX. Some government sites require lower security levels for web browsers. South Korea's compatibility problem is what Former President Park Geun-Hye pointed out as a concern during the regulatory reform debate. In particular, customers are directed to international direct-purchase sites to avoid downloading ActiveX or going through an additional 10 steps to complete a transaction. This is because, unlike South Korea, international websites allow customers to pay with one or two clicks. South Korea is the only country in the world that requires Internet Explorer and requires that online purchases use ActiveX and public certificates. This disrupts domestic shopping malls’ websites. These issues led the country to be criticized as a "message disease" that hinders online shopping. Phenomenon Example of a misaligned layout: Attempting to use Internet Explorer only sites with other web browsers produces: Layout destruction - page layout is disorganized or certain parts are not displayed. Click Inactive - buttons do not respond. Unable to log in: Log in fails. IE-only sites display a notification message that the site is only available on Internet Explorer. Cause E-commerce encryption technology The problem began with e-commerce encryption technology. Until 2000, the U.S. government allowed the U.S. version of Internet Explorer to access SSL security, a 128-bit high-level encryption technology but banned Internet Explorer for export from more than 40 bits of security access. In the late 1990s, the Korea Information Security Agency developed its own 128-bit symmetric key block encryption algorithm SEED and used ActiveX to mount it in web browsers. This soon became a domestic standard, and the Financial Supervisory Service used the technology as a security screening standard. ActiveX spread rapidly in Korea. However, since the 2000s, the export restriction was lifted, recognizing SSL as a royalty-free international standard. Most web browsers and national e-commerce systems adopted this technology, while Korea used SEED as ActiveX. Increased Internet Explorer utilization In the early 2000s, Netscape, IE's only competitor, failed, and Microsoft's "insert operation" led to the virtual success of the Windows operating system. In Korea, the number of people buying PCs and the Internet at home increased sharply, and Internet Explorer gained share. Most websites depend on Internet Explorer, and ActiveX began to be abused because many web programmers were mass-produced through information service education in Korea around 2000 when ActiveX was widely taught. Vicious circle While Internet Explorer's global market share peaked in 2004, Firefox was released by Netscape. As rumors spread through blogs and media that Firefox was superior to Internet Explorer, Firefox gained share. This raised interest in browsers such as Safari, Opera, and Chrome. Firefox and Google Chrome to increased around 25%, respectively, while Internet Explorer fell to 40%, and continued to fall. In South Korea, these browsers also gained share, but many sites continued to support only Internet Explorer. As of August 2011, South Korea's Internet Explorer market share was over 90%. Makeshift User Makeshift User Temporary Windows Firefox can use Internet Explorer's engine by installing "IETAB" (Finding the Past). However, this approach was unstable. Non-Windows operating systems, such as Linux and OS X, have a method of installing Windows on virtual machines such as VirtualBox and then running Internet Explorer in guest windows. IEs4Linux on the Wine is another workaround, although this was also unstable. E-Government On April 29, 2008, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security of the Republic of Korea finalized and announced the enactment of the "E-Government Web Standards Compliance Guidelines" that define minimum protocols that the government should reflect when establishing e-Government systems. To make this a more effective guideline, the "E-government Web Compatibility Guidelines" were enacted and announced as of August 19, 2009, adopting the principle of ensuring compatibility with at least three browsers, absent technical constraints. Improvement movement As of 2010, various solutions have been devised, but the abolition of the public certificate, the core of the problem, is still far from being implemented. In December 2017, the South Korean government decided to abolish ActiveX from the year-end tax settlement, but the exe file must still be installed. Free Bank Movement The Free Bank movement, launched by Kwak Dong-soo in 2003, carried out civic action promising to open 10 billion won in accounts at banks that provided Internet banking services for underprivileged non-Windows and non-IE users. 2200 people donated 16 billion won, but no bank participated in the financial sector regulation and the number of users was small at that time. However, after Shinhan Bank developed and provided Internet banking solutions for Macintosh, the Free Bank movement ended. Web Standard Project Mozilla Korea Community established the Web Standard Forum in 2004 and continued various discussions and promotional activities to improve it. The anti-Activity X campaign was led by Yoon Seok-chan, and the web standard guide was provided free of charge. In August 2005, the focus was mainly on browser compatibility with web page layouts, including web standards centered on Korean Web standard technology communities, recommending the elimination of DOM errors, and replacing existing table layouts with CSS. Open Web The Open Web was established in 2006 by Professor Kim Ki-chang of Korea University School of Law, calling for improvements to the web standards and support for users who do not use Microsoft products. The Financial Supervisory Commission said this is due to security issues, but people argued that ActiveX is outdated given general-purpose encryption technologies such as SSL. The KCC recommended the removal of ActiveX. IE6 Exclusion Movement Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) was released in 2001. It had a 20% share in the world market and 50% in South Korea as of 2009. As a result, many companies create websites compatible with IE6. To reduce thie negative impact of this limitation, many parts of the world are campaigning to remove Internet Explorer 6, through movements like IE6 No More, IE6 Must Die, and IE6 Countdown. In South Korea, portals display a message at the top of the screen that recommends upgrading to IE7 and IE8. Due to this IE6 Exclusion campaign, IE6's market share fell to less than 2% in South Korea as of January 2014 and to less than 5% in the global market along with the end of Windows XP support in April 2014, and the adoption of smartphones. Improvements in some websites Internet bookstore Aladdin reorganized its website to support other browsers. The National Tax Service reorganized its website to meet the web standard in January 2010, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism strengthened web accessibility to obtain web accessibility quality marks. Yuhan-Kimberly won the web accessibility award by expanding accessibility, and The Ministry of Public Administration and Security conducted a survey of 1,000 companies and institutions on web standards. On July 9, 2010, Woori Bank launched its open banking service, which implements the Internet banking system with general-purpose technologies available on all platforms; this slowly inspired other companies to enlarge compatibility. Kookmin Bank followed Woori Bank in January 2011, and Industrial Bank of Korea released IBK Open Web Banking in February 2011. Smartphones In March 2010, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security abolished the regulation that only public certificates are recognized as security programs during financial transactions. This allows banking on smartphones that do not run ActiveX. However, the Financial Services Commission said it had not considered revising the Enforcement Decree of the Electronic Financial Transactions Act. Korea Communications Commission In March 2011, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) announced a plan to improve the Internet usage environment, focusing on alternative technologies, diversification of web browser usage, and upgrading the web environment. The Mozilla Korea Community proposed the W3C Web Cryptography API for web standards-based HTML5 encryption and certificate functionality. In January 2012, KCC announced that plans to investigate and announce the status of ActiveX on a quarterly basis for 100 major websites and open them to web developers or web service providers. In April the Ministry of Public Administration and Security (PAS) and KCC reported that 168 sites, or 84% of the 200 major public-private sites in South Korea, were using ActiveX technology. The private sector used ActiveX the most in payment and certification (41.1%), while administrative agencies use ActiveX the most in security (40%). In July 2012, PAS and KCC reported that supported three or more types of web browsers, using ActiveX only in Internet Explorer and alternative technologies in other web browsers. As a result, 73% of the top 100 websites of government administrative agencies provide alternative technologies, that are available in more than three web browsers. In July 2012 KCC announced a plan to promote the spread of HTML5. As of 2018, W3C's WebCrypto has been used as the basis for security technologies such as public certificates based on HTML5 in e-government services and banking. This ensures diversity in operating systems and web browsers. References Content in this edit is translated from the existing Korean Wikipedia article at 대한민국의 웹 호환성 문제]] see its history for attribution. Internet in South Korea

66913581

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19%20vaccination%20in%20Malaysia

COVID-19 vaccination in Malaysia

{{Infobox event | title = COVID-19 vaccination in Malaysia | image = National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme banner.png | caption = The immunisation programme is among the initiatives by the Malaysian Government to curb the spread of COVID-19 infections in the country | date = – present | location = | cause = COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia | target = To be fully protected against COVID-19 and transit the country from pandemic to endemic stage | budget = | participants = | outcome = | organisers = Ministry of Health and The Special Committee for Ensuring Access to COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) | website = Vaccinations in Malaysia: MoH Malaysia |name=|map=|map_caption=Logo of The Special Committee for Ensuring Access to COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV)|theme="Lindung Diri, Lindung Semua"|notes=|image_size=350px}} The National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme (Malay: Program Imunisasi COVID-19 Kebangsaan), abbreviated as NIP or PICK, is a national vaccination campaign that is currently being implemented by the Malaysian government as an approach in curbing the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and to end the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia by successfully achieving the highest immunisation rate among its citizens and non-citizens that are residing in Malaysia. It is the largest immunisation programme implemented in the history of the country and it is being administrated by The Special Committee For Ensuring Access To COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) since early 2021. Despite running smoothly for the most part, the programme was plagued with numerous controversies and issues from a slow vaccine rollout rate due to lack of vaccine supplies despite the Malaysian government having purchased more than enough for the population, poor priority of who will receive the vaccine first, logistical issues with the MySejahtera's digital vaccination appointment and certificate system, false news about vaccines, outbreaks and overcrowding of vaccination centres, to poor treatment from the volunteers and authorities on foreign workers. Videos of recipients getting empty jabs also surfaced and the government claimed that the issue was due to human negligence stemming from the fatigue faced by the vaccinators involved. Additionally, there were rumours of vaccine spots being sold by volunteers; however, these rumours are unverified. A whole-of-Government and whole-of-society approach has been adopted in assisting the programme, which involves a number of Ministries & Government Agencies, State Governments, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), the private sector and members of the community to ensure that the programme achieves its target. Khairy Jamaluddin, who was also Malaysia's Science, Technology and Innovation Minister (MOSTI) was appointed as the Coordinating Minister for the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme after being approved by the Malaysian Cabinet until his resignation on 16 August 2021. The immunisation programme is currently being implemented in phases from 24 February 2021 to February 2022 starting off with phase 1 of the programme which consists of healthcare workers and frontliners. Then Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin became the first individual in Malaysia to receive the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine when it was broadcast live nationwide. Based on reports from third week of September 2021, Malaysia averaged about 244,588 of doses administered each day and with that rate, it will take a further 27 days to administer enough doses for another 10% of the population in the country. Malaysia's MySejahtera app is ranked 1st in the world for Install Penetration & Open Rate among Top COVID-19 Apps by Downloads Worldwide in 2021, according to State of Mobile 2022 report. Committees in charge The Special Committee For Ensuring Access To COVID-19 Vaccine Supply The Special Committee For Ensuring Access To COVID-19 Vaccine Supply, also known as The Special Committee On COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (Malay: Jawatankuasa Khas Jaminan Akses Bekalan Vaksin COVID-19; abbreviation: JKJAV) is a government body that was established to ensure the procurement of COVID-19 vaccine supply for the country can be carried out smoothly and in order. It is currently being co-chaired by the Malaysian Ministry of Health and Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The members of the committee consist of the Ministry of Finance Malaysia, Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, National Security Council (MKN), Attorney General's Chambers and the Prime Minister's Special Advisor on Public Health according to the governance structure figure for the national vaccination programme. COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force The COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force or CITF (Malay: Jawatankuasa Petugas Khas Imunisasi COVID-19), is a committee that was established based on the decision made during a cabinet meeting held on 20 January 2021 by the Government of Malaysia to ensure that the vaccines’ distribution are done flawlessly. Initially led by Khairy Jamaluddin, who was the Coordinating Minister for the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme, it acts as the coordinating committee in monitoring framework as well as overall strategy to support the implementation of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK). The main tasks of the CITF is to plan, implement and monitor the supply and distribution of vaccines, vaccination enrollment, preparation of Vaccine Storage Centres and Vaccination Centres, reporting of vaccination key performance indicators (KPI) as well as risk management throughout the implementation of the immunisation program. COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force–Adolescent On 15 September 2021, the COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force-Adolescent (CITF-A) was formed under the Ministry of Health to target full vaccination for 80% of Malaysians aged 12 to 17 years before the reopening of schools. CITF-A is chaired by Deputy Health Minister Noor Azmi Ghazali and it is tasked with overseeing the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme for Adolescents (PICK Adolescents) which will be conducted via a scheduled walk-in process starting from 23 September 2021 onwards. It will also target students for vaccination in the private education sectors, adolescents in protection and rehabilitation programs, as well as the refugee communities, homeless and non-citizens in Malaysia. Vaccines on order Vaccines in trial stage Phases of the immunisation program History 2020 In mid-March 2020, Malaysian Vaccines and Pharmaceuticals (MVP) Sdn Bhd reportedly pleaded for co-operation and support from the federal government, with its executive director claiming that their company faced multiple postponed meetings in an attempt to meet the health minister to request for a sample from the Institute of Medical Research (IMR) of Malaysia. The IMR was set to begin testing existing local vaccines in collaboration with the MVP and University of Malaya's Tropical Infectious Diseases Research and Education Centre (TIDREC) by 25 March. The local vaccine testing will be conducted in UM's TIDREC laboratory, which is one of Malaysia's modular biosafety level 3 (BSL3) facilities previously used to study highly pathogenic agents such as MERS coronavirus and Nipah virus with the vaccines to be firstly tested on the infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), which is an avian coronavirus, as previous research shows that the IBV in poultry has high genetic similarity with the human coronavirus. On 6 October, the engineering company Bintai Kinden entered into a distribution and licensing agreement (DLA) with the American–based firm Generex Biotechnology Corp and its subsidiary NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology Inc to distribute their COVID-19 vaccine in Malaysia through its subsidiary Bintai Healthcare. The company will also have the first right of refusal to commercially exploit the vaccine within Australia, New Zealand and the global halal market. On 18 November, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin signed an agreement with Chinese Science and Technology Minister Wang Zhigang for Malaysia to be given priority access to COVID-19 vaccines developed in China. On 19 December, Health Minister Adham Baba confirmed that the Malaysian Government would be concluding an agreement with British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to purchase COVID-19 vaccines on 21 December 2020. This is the third agreement that the Malaysian Government had concluded with vaccine suppliers including COVAX and Pfizer to address the country's vaccine needs. On 22 December, the Malaysian Government signed an agreement with AstraZeneca to obtain an addition 6.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, which account ten percent of the country's vaccine supply. Prime Minister Muhyiddin confirmed that Malaysia had secured 40% of its vaccine supply through joint agreements with COVAX, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca. 2021 January On 11 January 2021, the Health Ministry ordered an additional 12.2 million doses of the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in response to rising cases and the tightening of lockdown measures. On 26 January, the Health Ministry signed an agreement with local pharmaceutical companies Pharmaniaga Berhad and Duopharma to obtain 18.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from China and Russia for distribution in Malaysia. On 27 January, Health Minister Dr. Adham Baba confirmed that launch of Malaysia's first COVID-19 vaccine trial. This vaccine trial involves the Phase 3 clinical trial of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences' Institute of Medical Biology. February On 2 February, the Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah announced that Malaysia would receive its first batch of the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on 26 February 2021, which will be distributed nationwide over a period of two weeks. On 4 February, minister of MOSTI, Khairy Jamaluddin was appointed as the Coordinating Minister for National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme who led the Special Task Force to manage the implementation of the vaccination program. On 11 February, the Special Committee on Ensuring Access to COVID-19 Vaccine Supply announced that COVID-19 vaccines would be distributed freely to both Malaysians and foreigners residing in Malaysia. However, Malaysian nationals will receive priority. On 16 February, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin confirmed that a MASKargo plane will transport the first shipment of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to Malaysia on 21 February. On 23 February, Coordinating Minister for National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme Khairy Jamaluddin confirmed that it would receive its second batch of 182,520 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines the following day. These will be distributed to states that have not yet received the vaccine. By 26 February, the Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin confirmed that a million people had registered for COVID-19 vaccines via the MySejahtera app. March On 4 March 2021, the Special Committee on Ensuring Access to COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) confirmed that 80,336 Malaysians had received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose. On 15 March 2021, the Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin announced that Pfizer would be sending 1,000,350 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to Malaysia by the end of the month. That same day, he confirmed that Malaysia would begin administering CoronaVac on 18 March. On 29 March, the Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy confirmed that the second phase of the national immunisation programme would begin on 19 April 2021 and target the elderly, disabled and those with comorbidities. April On 1 April, Health Minister Adham Baba announced that the second phase of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme would start on 17 April 2021, two days ahead of the earlier scheduled date. On 9 April, Communications and Multimedia Minister Saifuddin Abdullah noted specific efforts to inform Orang Asli communities was intensifying, including through radio broadcasts. On 27 April, Health Minister Adham Baba announced that Malaysia would use the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after health authorities approved its use following a thorough study of clinical assessment and data. The following day, Malaysian health authorities removed the AstraZeneca vaccine from the country's mainstream vaccination programme due to public anxiety about its safety following reports of bloodclotting. The initial 268,600 initial doses will be redirected to Selangor and the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur. May By 2 May 905,683 people had received at least one dose of the Pfizer–BioNTech or Sinovac while 563,350 had received both doses of the vaccine. On 8 May, the Health Minister Adham Baba confirmed that a total of 666,495 individuals had completed both doses of the vaccine under the first phase of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme. He also confirmed that 1,060,773 million individuals had completed the first dose, bringing the total number of doses administered to 1,727,268. By 7 May, 9,924,276 individuals (roughly 40.9% of the Malaysian population) had registered for COVID-19 vaccination. On 23 May, Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Ismail Sabri Yaakob confirmed that the Malaysian Government would be buying a total of 8.2 million doses of Sinovac vaccine by the end of June with 3.8 million of them being acquired through the "fill and finish" process by Pharmaniaga Life Science Sdn Bhd. On 26 May, the Health Ministry has opened registrations for AstraZeneca vaccines for 18-60 year old adults. In spite of technical errors, all of its 956,609 slots have been filled, and the registrations were closed within three hours. Internet users complained about glitches preventing them from securing their own appointment dates. On 27 May, Khairy Jamaluddin announced that AstraZeneca vaccines will be placed under the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme, so it will only be given by appointments by the government instead of opt-in appointments. Science Advisor Ghows Azzam, from the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, also announced that the government has purchased an additional 12.8 million doses from Pfizer, starting with 2,223,000 doses arriving in June with 444,600 per week. June On 5 June, Prime Minister Muhyiddin announced plans to ramp up vaccination including importing 16 million stocks of vaccines over the next two months and opening 300 new vaccine centres nationwide. By that stage, 7.2% of the population had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. On 13 June, Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba spoke that Malaysia is developing two homegrown vaccines. The first will be a ribonucleic acid or messenger vaccine, and the second is an inactivated vaccine. On 14 June, Khairy Jamaluddin has announced that Phase Four for the national vaccination programme has begun. It is focused on workers in "critical industries", such as food, manufacturing, retail, construction, plantation, and hospitality. It will be conducted with a vaccine delivery centre, coordinated by the International Trade and Industry Ministry, and vaccinations will begin on 16 June. Workers will receive the vaccines for free, and their employers will pay for the purchase of the vaccines to their workplaces. Owing to a surge in COVID-19 cases in Labuan, the government will also deliver 30,000 vaccines. On 15 June, Health Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah announces that single dose vaccines from Cansino and Janssen were given conditional approval for public use. In addition, the Pfizer vaccine was also approved for used on persons 12 and above. On 20 June 2021, the Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah stated that Malaysia was expecting to achieve herd immunity status by November or December 2021. He also indicated the country's vaccination programme would be expanded. As of 20 June, less than 10 percent of Malaysians have been vaccinated. On 21 June, the coordinating minister for the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme Khairy Jamaluddin confirmed that refugee communities in Malaysia would be inoculated with CanSino Biologics' Convidecia vaccine. The first shipment is due to arrive in late July 2021. On 21 June, Health Minister Adham Baba and COVID-19 immunisation coordinating minister Khairy confirmed that the Malaysian Institute of Medical Research (IMR) and Universiti Putra Malaysia had begun developing a COVID-19 vaccine using mRNA technology since November 2020. On 4 July, IMR director director Dr Tahir Aris confirmed that the Malaysian vaccine was being designed as a booster shot and would expect to be ready in 2024. RM3.1mil was also approved for the development of COVID-19 vaccines for laboratory and animal studies only. July On 5 July, Malaysian Health Minister Dr Adham Baba confirmed that eight percent of the Malaysian population (roughly 2,618,316 people) had completed two doses of COVID-19 vaccination as of 4 July. The Government plans to vaccinate ten percent of the population by mid July. On 6 July, Malaysia received 1 million doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from the United States for its National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme. On 24 June, Malaysia had also received 1 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses from Japan. That same day, the JKJAV confirmed that Malaysia would be receiving about 14 million vaccine doses in July 2021. This figure includes 6.43 million Pfizer vaccine doses including the US donation, 1.59 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines (including delivery of AstraZeneca manufactured in Thailand and a donation from Japan) and 6.38 million doses of CoronaVac (from Pharmaniaga and a donation from China). On 14 July, the Malaysian government shut down a mass vaccination center in the state of Selangor after 204 medical staff and volunteers tested positive for COVID-19. Science Minister Khairy Jamaluddin ordered the testing of all 453 workers at the Ideal Convention Centre after two volunteers tested positive for COVID-19. Khairy confirmed that the 204 individuals tested had low viral loads, meaning that the amount of virus in their bodies was small. On 15 July, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Malaysia had one of the fastest COVID-19 vaccination rates in the world, giving out 400,000 doses a day on average; double the pace of Australia. Starting 16 July, vaccination centres were open for walk-in vaccinations for senior citizens above the age of 60. Khairy Jamaluddin also announced "Operation Surge Capacity", which will be held from 26 July to 1 August. It will ensure that 272,000 doses will be given to residents of the Klang Valley, adding 2.6 million people to the 3.5 million who have received their first dose. Walk-in vaccinations for all remaining adults in the Klang Valley (especially those without documents or MySejahtera) are projected be available after 1 August, but only for adults who had not received a previous appointment. On 31 July, 8 vaccination centres were opened for the walk-in vaccinations for the Klang Valley: the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Bangi Avenue Convention Centre, Wyndham Hotel (Klang), Tun Razak Hall (Sabak Bernam), Community Hall at Serendah, Movenpick Hotel and Convention Centre at KLIA, Ideal Convention Centre (Shah Alam), and Bukit Jalil National Stadium (for non-Malaysian citizens from 9–22 August). August On 6 August, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Noraini Ahmad announced that the Higher Education Ministry will begin vaccinating all staff and students of higher learning institutions in stages from October onwards. On 7 August, the walk-in programme has been expanded to cover all vaccination centres throughout Malaysia. Perak, Kedah, Sabah, Melaka, and Sarawak have begun their walk-in initiatives for senior citizens; while Kelantan focused on vaccination based on pre-booked inoculation sessions. On a speech on 8 August, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced relaxed rules for fully vaccinated people. 14 days after their second dose (or 28 days for those taking single-dose vaccines), fully-vaccinated people in Phase 2 and 3 states began to enjoy certain benefits from 10 August onwards. On 13 August, Khairy Jamaluddin announced that Malaysia will start offering COVID-19 jabs to all children aged between 12 and 17 beginning 15 September 2021 following revised recommendations to the Special Committee On COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV). The COVID-19 vaccines will first be offered to the adolescents with underlying medical conditions, followed by the healthy individuals in that age group from older to younger ones. An announcement will also be made by JKJAV soon on how COVID-19 vaccinations for adolescents will be implemented as per Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah's circular and the latest updated clinical guidelines. The inoculation programme for 12 to 17 year olds will be carried out at selected vaccination centres (PPVs) — namely, special PPVs (hospitals and medical institutes), health clinic PPVs or via outreach programmes such as immunisation in schools. On 16 August, Khairy Jamaluddin has confirmed that he has resigned from his post as the Coordinating Minister for the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme as well as Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation following the resignation of Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin along with his cabinet. Dr Adham Baba has also resigned from his position as Malaysia's Minister of Health. On 21 August, the Sarawak government announced vaccination would open to those ages 12–17. By 27 August, 1.9 million of the 2.32 million students aged between 12 and 17 years enrolled at national schools nationwide had registered for COVID-19 vaccinations via the MySejahtera app. September In a press conference on 4 September, the country's new Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin stated that Malaysia will begin vaccinating those who are under the age of 18 from 8 September onwards, starting with Sarawak. It is also the prepare the students for next month's school sessions. On 7 September, Minister of International Trade and Industry Mohamed Azmin Ali announced that Malaysia would start treating COVID-19 as an endemic disease from late October 2021 due to the country's high vaccination rate. By 15 September, the Special Committee On COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) reported that 76.2% of Malaysia's adult population (17,833,355 individuals) had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force-Adolescent (CITF-A) was formed on the same date under the Ministry of Health to target full vaccination for 80% of Malaysians aged 12 to 17 before the reopening of schools in the country. By 19 September, more than 70,000 people had received CanSino Biologics' single-dose Convidecia vaccine. The COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force has prioritised the Convidecia vaccine for communities living in hard-to-reach areas including the Orang Asli as well as the homeless and undocumented individuals. Priority states for the CanSino vaccine include Sabah, Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Perak, Sabah and Terengganu. That same day, Health Minister Khairy Jamaludin confirmed that booster shots will be implemented for elderly people and people with comorbidities. On 21 September, the government and JKJAV reported more than 80% of Malaysia's adult population have been fully vaccinated with 18,766,340 individuals, while the 93.2% have already received at least one vaccine dose with 21,813,163 individuals. The National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme for adolescents aged 18 and below will also be conducted through a scheduled walk-in method at 156 selected vaccination centres (PPVs) starting from Thursday (23 September) to facilitate and expedite the process. By 22 September, more than half-a-million individuals aged between 12 and 17 have already received at least one dose of the vaccine with the government on a target of at least 60% of teenagers to receive at least one vaccination dose by November, while having 80% of teenagers to be fully vaccinated by January 2022. The state of Sabah is currently leading the target group with 56% of adolescents registered in schools receiving the first vaccine dose. On 23 September, Khairy Jamaluddin stated that the goal of achieving herd immunity status is no longer suitable with the current situation due to the widespread transmission of the COVID-19 Delta variant and that vaccinations of adolescents under the immunisation programme is important instead. That same day, the COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) announced that foreign workers of all sectors in the Klang Valley would be eligible for both walk-in and appointment vaccinations between 27 September and 6 October. Walk-in vaccinations for adolescents were only allowed if they studied in private schools or public universities, who were unable to attend school, or were homeschooled. All other capable adolescents were required to wait for their appointment dates to receive their vaccines. On 24 September, chairman of the National Recovery Council Muhyiddin Yassin confirmed that Malaysia and Singapore would recognise each other's vaccination certificates in order to facilitate movement between the two countries. By 24 September, the University of Oxford's "Our World in Data" website reported that 59% of Malaysia's population had been fully vaccinated, beating the United States which at the time reported that 54% of its population had been fully vaccinated. As of 25 September, a total of 42,106,397 vaccine doses have been administered in Malaysia. On 25 September, Deputy Health Minister Noor Azmi Ghazali said in a report that all public and integrated vaccination centres (PPVs) under the immunisation programme will cease operations beginning 15 October 2021. By the end of September 2021, all states in the country have fully vaccinated 60% of their adult population. October On 5 October, the Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Mah Hang Soon warned that teachers who refused to be vaccinated before the 1 November deadline set by the Public Services Department would face disciplinary action. By 6 October, the Health Ministry confirmed that 20,698,852 individuals (88.4% of the adult population in Malaysia) had been fully vaccinated. By 7 October, 89.1% of Malaysia's adult population has been fully vaccinated. On 9 October, Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah confirmed that the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine had been approved for the country's booster shot programme. That same day, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob confirmed that interstate travel will be allowed to resumed within the next few days once 90% of the adult population has been fully vaccinated. On 29 October, the Malaysian Government announced that it would buy stocks of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children after a panel of advisers to the United States Food and Drug Administration recommended that the vaccine be authorised for children aged between 5 and 11 years. November On 1 November, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob launched a National Vaccine Development Roadmap (PPVN) and Malaysian Genome and Vaccine Institute (MGVI) to stimulate vaccine production in Malaysia. These projects include producing two types of COVID-19 vaccines developed by the Institute for Medical Research using inactivated virus and mRNA technologies and a therapeutic cancer vaccine for the treatment of head and neck cancer. By 2 November, the Health Ministry estimated that 95.7% of the adult Malaysian population (roughly 22,393,720 individuals) had been fully vaccinated. In addition, 97.8% of the adult population (roughly 22,885,170 individuals) had received at least one dose. 69% of teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 years (2,171,270 individuals) had been fully vaccinated while 83.2% of teenagers within that age bracket (2,619,573) had received at least one dose. By 2 November, a total of 407,607 booster shots had been administered. By 7 November, the Health Ministry reported that 75.2% of the population (24,552,038) had been fully vaccinated. By 17 November, the Heath Ministry reported that 95.4% of the adult population in the country (22,332,571 individuals) have been fully vaccinated. 97.7% of the adult population (22,882,504 individuals) had received one dose of the vaccine. 81% of adolescents (2,549,437 individuals) have been fully vaccinated while 87.2% of adolescents (2,743,176 individuals have received one dose. On 17 November, the Malaysian Drug Control Authority authorised the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and CoronaVac as COVID-19 booster shots for individuals aged 18 years and above who had already received those vaccine types. December On 28 December, the Malaysian Government reduced the waiting interval between primary and booster shots to three months. By 27 December, 97.6% of adults in Malaysia had been fully vaccinated. 2022 January On 28 January, Malaysia received its first shipment of 624,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses for children in preparation for the planned vaccination of children commencing in February 2022. February On 3 February, the Government launched the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for Children (PICKids) in the Klang Valley. By 27 February, a total of 805,676 children aged between five and 11 years old (roughly 22.7% of the eligible population) had received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for Children (PICKids). In addition, 61.7% of the adult population (14,517,869) had received their booster shot. Vaccination centres 605 sites were first identified as Vaccination Administration Centres (Malay: Pusat Pemberian Vaksin), commonly known as PPVs, to kick off the vaccination program. With temporary vaccine centres such as stadiums, convention centres, public halls, universities and other appropriate facilities were also included to vaccinate the population as quickly as possible. All vaccination administration centres across the country under NIP are to be shut down on 15 October 2021 following the statement in a report by the Deputy Health Minister Noor Azmi Ghazali. To facilitate the next phase of the vaccination program, private clinics were also included and functioning as vaccination centres. There are a total of 672 Vaccination Administration Centres/PPVs across the country as of today. List of vaccine centres A full list of every Vaccination Administration Centres (PPV) by The Special Committee On COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV). Perlis Perak Kedah Penang Selangor Kuala Lumpur Putrajaya Labuan Kelantan Pahang Negeri Sembilan Terengganu Malacca Johor Sabah Sarawak In addition to addressed locations, mobile vaccination centres converted from buses were deployed. It was initially targeted towards petty traders in Selangor and people in rural areas, but it was later expanded to residents of plantations, rural settlements and public housing projects. It afterwards expanded to cover the other states in the Peninsula from 17 July onwards. Vaccinations data As of 23 November 2021 Vaccinations by state (Total Population) Vaccination charts Issues and controversies Claims of empty syringes or reduced doses In July 2021, claims of recipients getting empty syringes or reduced doses begin arising on social media. Several videos of empty or near-empty syringes being injected into the recipient's arms were also uploaded online. Some of these recipients were able to get another first dose after requesting for one or confronting the officers-in-charge. These made some of the public who have received their vaccination to start doubting if they actually received an actual shot or not. Some of the vaccine booths are private, only allowing one nurse and one recipient at a time. The vaccines are filled in the syringes before the recipient enters the booth so there is no way to see them fill it up from the original vaccine vials. Before the incident, the CITF did require the nurses to show the recipient the filled syringe before injecting them, as this was not the first time claims of empty syringes had surfaced, but it just wasn't as widespread. The CITF opened an investigation and concluded it to human error as the nurses were tired. The CITF also revoked an order that disallowed recipients to record themselves being injected as evidence to put the public at ease. As of July 2021, there had been 13 such reports made to the police. On 30 September, video recording of a 12-year-old given an empty syringe was going viral online. The incident took place at the Universiti Malaya vaccination centre. The COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force-Adolescent (CITF-A) chairman Datuk Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali later clarified that the medical staff took an empty syringe that had not been used, instead of a syringe that had been filled with the vaccine earlier, calling it a human error. He added that upon completion of the process, the medical staff realised the mistake and informed the medical officer on duty at the vaccination centre. They then discussed with his parents and after explaining, his parents permitted the vaccine to be given on a different arm under the low dose procedure, which is part of the clinical guideline that recommends administration of the vaccine in the opposite arm if the first dose is deemed insufficient and a re-dose is required. The medical staff concerned has been warned to be extra careful and follow the prescribed procedures. The existing procedure has also been improved by ensuring that no other syringes are on the table when administering the injection. The CITF-A also apologised for the incident. On 3 October, The CITF-A also released a statement stating that one parent is now allowed to follow their child throughout the vaccination process as a witness. Once the vaccination process in completed, the parent is requested to wait outside while the child goes to the monitoring station for 15–30 minutes to rest, this is to ensure that there is enough seats at the monitoring stations. Video recording is also permitted, as it has always been. Claims of staff not allowing recordings On 25 August, a man in Johor was stopped while filming himself getting vaccinated, even though it was permitted by the Health Minister and the CITF. The nurse administering the vaccine had given him permission to record but another staff member, believed to be a health officer, interrupted and covered his camera. In the clip, the staff member can be heard saying "Cannot record. KJ has resigned", referring to Khairy Jamaluddin, who, along with other members of the Muhyiddin cabinet had tendered their resignation to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on 16 August, stripping him of his title as the Science, Technology, and Innovation Minister, as well as Coordinating Minister for the NIP. The staff then added that according to the Ministry of Health, recordings are not allowed, despite Khairy and the Health Minister's previous approval to do so, which came about after claims of people receiving empty syringes and reduced doses. The man uploaded the video to Twitter. Many netizens questioned the staff's action. On 27 August 2021, Khairy became the Health Minister in the Ismail Sabri cabinet. He also continues his role as the head of the CITF and with his move to the Health Ministry, better coordination is expected for the vaccination efforts. He also responded to the viral tweet from the man in Johor with "Assalamualaikum". Slow rollout rate The initial rollout was very slow and many who have registered for an appointment in February were frustrated for not getting an appointment. The then Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin says that this was due to the slow supply from the manufacturers as the country receives their order bit by bit every week, claiming that rich countries buying and hoarding the vaccine stock are causing a global vaccine shortage especially for middle to low income countries and not due to the local logistics as the country had ordered sufficient vaccines to cover more than the total population, along with enough facilities to vaccinate every adult population by December 2021. Sure enough, the country's vaccination rate increased in May and peaked by July and August, having one of the fastest vaccine distribution rates per 100 people in the world, surpassing the UK, US and even Singapore at their peak. Selangor also had a slow initial rollout despite having made payment for the Sinovac vaccine in February via the government-linked company, Pharmaniaga. The state only received its 2.5 million doses in June as the federal government's orders took priority and they received their orders in March. In August, then Federal vaccine minister Khairy Jamaluddin previously said that Pharmaniaga Berhad, the local distributor and fill-and-finish manufacturer of Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine, was supposed to deliver NIP's order first before distributing the shots to any other party, including state governments. As of late August 2021, after weeks of rapid vaccination rates, COVID-19 vaccination rates in Malaysia have been declining since the start of the month amid reported vaccine supply problems, as the epidemic surges in several states. Since peak vaccination of more than 540,000 average jabs on 1 August, doses administered nationwide fluctuated between 450,000 and less than 500,000 daily in the past fortnight, based on rolling seven-day averages. The rapid jabs were also in part thanks to the efforts of Operation Surge Capacity in the Klang Valley, which seek to administer one dose to every adult in the Klang Valley from 26 July to 1 August. Coronavirus vaccine shortages were recently reported in Sabah, Johor, and Penang, putting a stumbling block in vaccinations that accelerated in previous weeks as vaccine centres (PPVs) closed and inoculation slots were limited. The Selangor state government was even prompted to loan 500,000 doses to the central administration. As of 25 August, Kedah, Kelantan, and Sabah have fully vaccinated less than 40 per cent of their adult populations, while Perak has double-jabbed about 43 per cent, Penang at 49 per cent and Johor at about 40 per cent. The national average is about 58 per cent, pulled up by vaccination rates exceeding 85 per cent in Sarawak, the Klang Valley, and Labuan. Khairy's then science advisor Ghows Azzam tweeted that the federal government has procured about 87.9 million vaccine doses (Pfizer-BioNTech, Sinovac, AstraZeneca-Oxford, the global COVAX facility, CanSino, and Sputnik V), enough to cover 140 per cent of the population. Only about 32.2 million doses have been administered nationwide as of 24 August 2021. He also believed COVID-19 vaccination in Sabah, Penang, and Johor would continue at high rates, but noted that there is still not enough vaccine for everyone until end of Oct, as the country aims to have every adult fully vaccinated by the end of October. Despite declining vaccination rates, Malaysia managed to reach the 40 per cent milestone of complete vaccination of the total population on 22 August, earlier than South Korea and Australia that started their coronavirus vaccine rollouts at about the same time as Malaysia. Poor prioritisation of recipients Many were unsatisfied that politicians and their family were given vaccination priority despite parliament being suspended. This frustration also adds on to the already controversial political turmoil happening in the country. Many also questioned why teachers, lawyers, students taking exams and even vaccine centre volunteers weren't given priority but certain other sectors of the economy were under the PIKAS by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). Most vaccine centre volunteers, who have to handle thousands of people daily, took the vaccine on their own accord from a different vaccine centre rather than be provided one by the vaccine centre that they volunteer at. Some also claimed that VIPs were given priority and could even avoid the queue at vaccine centres such as in Teluk Intan, as well as even cutting ahead of the disabled in Kuching. The CITF has tightened measures to avoid this and also launch investigations into such incidents. Claims of volunteers selling appointments or vaccines In June 2021, there were claims online that some of the volunteers were selling appointment slots or vaccines to the public. CITF said it has on 14 and 22 June lodged two police reports over allegations of private vaccine sales. The police also arrested three individuals for allegedly charging RM420 for two doses of the vaccines, with payment to be made after the vaccination was done. This also came during a period when the vaccine rollout was still slow and many vaccination centres had informal waitlists to avoid vaccine wastage due to no-shows, which may have contributed to the claims. Informal waitlist In relation to the claims of volunteers selling appointments or vaccines, many vaccine centres had an informal waitlist for when no-shows occurs to avoid vaccine wastage. Queues were also seen outside some vaccine centre near the end of the day. Many centres prioritise those on the waitlist who are in Phase 2, that is, elderly, disabled or those with comorbidities, or offer it to those who had accompanied their dependents for vaccination. However, some Phase 3 recipients managed to get vaccinated after leaving their contact details at a vaccination centre. In some instances, vaccination centre staff ring up nearby businesses or GP clinics to ask if the staff on duty that day can come in as soon as possible to get vaccinated. This was the experience of former Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli, who took to Twitter to share that he and his wife were vaccinated after a vaccination centre near his office called him to ask if he can come in to get the jab, to fill in for absent recipients. In a press conference earlier this year, minister in charge of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme, Khairy Jamaluddin, said waitlists are provided to vaccination centres by CITF, and centres cannot take walk-in registrations for waitlists but experiences on the ground run counter to what the government says is standard practice. By late July and August 2021 when the vaccination rate had increased and more of the population being vaccinated, reports of such incidents have reduced in urban areas as less no-shows occurred due to the increase in daily infection cases and deaths, while the authorities have been actively preventing anyone from waiting outside vaccine centres due to an ongoing pandemic lockdown. Poor appointment booking system Many were frustrated with the appointment booking system, which is done on the MySejahtera application. The poor UI design and lack of instruction was also frustrating for some users, particularly during the early phase. Slow update of vaccination status on the application, sudden vaccination appointments on the same day without prior notice, sudden venue, date or time change were among the many issues faced by users. Some users have also claimed that they were given venues far away from their home or even out of state, forcing some to travel long distances to get vaccinated despite a travel restriction being in place. Khairy Jamaluddin claims that this is due to an issue with the Google Maps API. Some vaccine appointments also vanished. There were also reports of the app being inaccessible due to server side issues during the early phase. Many also complained about the lack of a notification system when an appointment was given despite the app having a notification system, albeit a clunky buggy one. The call centres and helpdesk were also not helpful and often had long call queues, long delays and no replies. An incident also occurred where a frustrated recipient confronted Khairy Jamaluddin who was helping out at a vaccination centre about her father's vaccination appointment. Her father was a cancer patient and should have gotten priority. The woman said her father's vaccination appointment which was set for the day (26 May 2021) had been inexplicably moved to 15 June in the morning. The woman did not want to wait as she wants her father to be inoculated immediately and regretted to resorting to such 'shameful' acts to solve her issue. Khairy was able to keep his cool and help the woman. He claimed that it was due to insertion of an incorrect MyKad number. The incident was uploaded online to social media and it came a day after users had to deal with a frustrating website-only booking for the AstraZeneca vaccine. The website-only booking for the AstraZeneca vaccine in the Klang Valley was also met with frustration by the public. Owing to fears of bloodclot, the government decided to hold a separate first-come-first-serve appointment queue for those who wish to take it on 2 May 2021 in the Klang Valley. Another round was done later on 26 May 2021, with the appointments opened up to Penang, Johor and Sarawak, which also had the same problems as the first round. The first-come-first-serve appointment system was met with criticism and frustration as it meant only those who are tech savvy enough and have a fast enough internet connection can get a spot easily. The website was slow to load, update and even crashed several times for many users when it was opened. The booking slots were not even properly available to some for the first 15 minutes after the booking was opened. Many were not sure if their appointment request was properly made as the website had an inconsistent confirmation respond. Users had to wait the next day to check on their MySejahtera app to confirm their appointment. Some even got a different date than the one they chose. These issues persisted for the second round. During the second time, some who didn't make an appointment or thought that they didn't managed to get one due to the lack of a confirmation reply, got one too. Many also questioned the huge amount of taxpayers money (RM70 Million) used to develop the servers and website. Khairy Jamaluddin, who is the Coordinating Minister for the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme, clarifed that the amount was a ceiling set by the government for the development and management of various other health systems and not just for the registration of AstraZeneca vaccines. Some tech savvy users took it upon themselves and found the problem to be from the server side due to poor server optimisations, programming and that the developers might be using a free version of cloudflare.Many on social media called this a 'Hunger Games' system as the slots were snapped up quickly. There were also claims made by the CITF that mass block booking made via the SELangkah app, the contact-tracing and vaccine registration app made for Selangor, was responsible for the website errors, as a huge number of bookings were made via the same IP address, including the SELangkah app. This resulted CITF receiving complains from people who did not make any booking for the AstraZeneca vaccine receiving appointment notifications. SELangkah however denied being the source of this but gave their full cooperation into investigating the matter. Following an investigation, SELangkah concluded that they were responsible for the confusion as it had allegedly made bulk bookings for people without their prior consent. SELangkah booked AstraZeneca slots without first checking whether individuals in its ImuniSel database had agreed to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine, thus it replaced their earlier appointments if they already have one. ImuniSel is the Selangor government's vaccine outreach programme that helps residents, especially those with limited IT skills or access, register for NIP. SELangkah cooperated with CITF by providing the contacts of those who were registered and was able to reach out to those who did not sign up for the vaccine without prior consent. Those who agree will be allowed to take the vaccine while those who refused will be given a new appointment. An additional feature in the MySejahtera app will be developed in the near future to enable affected individuals who had their previous appointments being replaced by new appointments, to be able to give feedback and receive an immediate solution. These issues along with the limited slots and daily increasing cases made many extremely frustrated. Khairy Jamaluddin apologised for the poor registration experience and promised to do better. The MySejahtera app also did not properly show the second dosage date for the AstraZeneca vaccine, showing a date 4 weeks later instead of 12 as recommended. This was rectified in an update as the developer included information for AstraZeneca. Overcrowding at vaccination centres During May 2021, when vaccine distribution was at phase 2, some vaccination centres were overcrowded and the poor facilities made many elder recipients uncomfortable. As the elderly required special attention, this bottleneck slowed the process in many centres. The issues were mostly solved when bigger mega vaccine centres were opened. On 29 May 2021, the Kuala Lumpur World Trade Centre (formerly Putra World Trade Centre), which is the vaccine centre for distributing the AstraZeneca vaccine for those who signed up for it during the first round of booking, experienced and overcrowding issue. This occurred a week after the centre expanded its capacity. Crowds were seen queueing outside all the way to the Sunway Putra pedestrian bridge as many also broke social distancing rules. Many waited longer than usual, pass their allocated hours and the delay caused a few people to walk away. This was unlike the previous days where the centre was operating smoothly. Then Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said that the overcrowding was due to a shortened operation hour. The problem was rectified the next day. The centre had previously experienced overcrowding issue on 15 May 2021 as many people who did not managed to make an appointment 'tried their luck' for any leftover dose from no-shows. Many recipients also arrived way ahead of schedule, fearing a crowd and long queue, which ironically contributed to the cause of an actual crowd and long queue. The crowd control was improved the next day. Khairy also pleaded to those without appointments to not 'try their luck' and for those who have appointments to arrive 15–30 minutes early instead of hours before their scheduled time. On 10 August, reports of long queues at certain vaccination centres also surfaced in August, like the Bukit Jalil National Stadium, when the government made walk-in available in certain centres in the Klang Valley, as long queues were seen outside mega vaccine centres. Despite this, There are temperature checks and volunteers on site to monitor the flow of people. The long queue surge was expected as people who did not get an appointment rush to walk-in. The lines were as long 500m for an hour and as many of the walk-ins were migrants who did not understand the instructions, which was given out in Bahasa Melayu, bottlenecks occurred. Walk-in vaccination for foreigners at Bukit Jalil National Stadium was replaced with appointment based again on 22 August. A misunderstanding also caused one charity hotel to be so overcrowded that people were 'queue hugging' outside. A video of the incident went viral and prompted the Deputy Prime Minister to take action.Many also criticised the police in the video who were there for not doing anything about the situation but instead telling the man off about his illegally parked motorcycle. The misunderstanding arose when the charity hotel, which provides aid for those affected by the pandemic, was said to provide walk-in vaccination for non-citizen. Bukit Jalil National Stadium was the only vaccination centre that provided walk-ins for non-citizens at that time. The police later released a statement saying that they have sent a compliance team to manage the situation and that they successfully controlled the situation at the centre. Many refused to disperse despite the police asking them to do so. On 7 September it was reported that a long queue was spotted outside the Bandar Baru Ayer Itam government clinic in Penang, as the crowd, mostly foreigners, had gone there hoping to secure COVID-19 vaccination slots for next week. The crowd soon dispersed soon after they found out that the 90 slots had been taken up. On 28 September, it was reported that a vaccination centre in Semporna, Sabah was overcrowded after Semporna plans to enforce restrictions for the unvaccinated to enter premises or hold a job and fearmongering occurred with some saying that unvaccinated people might be apprehended. things got worse in a hurry after walk-in vaccinations were announced, as most of those crowding to vaccination centres are stateless people or immigrants without any documentation. The authorities could not control the crowd. An individual was reported to have contracted Covid while queueing at the vaccination centre. The number of stateless residents or undocumented migrants, the lack of infrastructure and manpower along with the lackadaisical attitude towards the virus was blamed as the cause of overcrowding in Semporna and other rural areas in Malaysia. An earlier report by Malaysiakini reported that the crowding issue had actually started since 21 September. Discrimination towards migrants There had been reports and videos uploaded online of volunteers mistreating, being particularly aggressive and discriminatory towards migrants. Video of a RELA officer kicking several foreigners at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium vaccination centre, which is the only vaccination centre open for walk-in for non-citizens, was posted online on 19 August 2021. Many netizens criticised RELA for their poor treatment and discrimination against foreigners. Some reported that other vaccination centres, like the Axiata Arena PPV, had the same issue where volunteers would hurl insults to foreigners, especially those who did not understand the Malay language or were still not caught up on the procedures. Some vaccination centres were also claimed to have separate queues for migrants and there were also reports that they were made to stand in long lines under the hot sun while locals were allowed to sit with a shade or fan. The volunteers and authorities were criticised for the discriminatory treatment and for not making them feel more comfortable while trying to get vaccinated, as the migrant workers are responsible for a lot of Malaysia's labour workforce. Many migrants also do not trust the vaccine program, especially among the undocumented, for fear of being arrested, despite the government encouraging migrants to be vaccinated and Ismail Sabri Yaakob, Malaysia's then defence minister and now prime minister, saying that the government would not arrest anyone who sought COVID-19 testing or treatment based on their immigration status back in 2020. This also comes in light of reason migrant worker raids done by the government during the pandemic lockdown and the government's expulsion of a migrant worker who was interviewed for an Al Jazeera documentary in 2020. Human rights advocates are claiming that the government was taking advantage of the situation. Many nationalists, known as bawang army or onion army along with the local government media criticised Al Jazeera and claimed it was fake news. Malaysia is known to mistreat migrant workers. Many also criticised that the same discriminatory treatment was not seen towards Western or East Asian expats, during vaccination and any other situations. Despite this, the CITF had claimed that foreign migrants were also included in the program from the start and they were always counted in the population count. Khairy Jamaluddin, the then science minister who led the vaccination programme, has stressed since the vaccine rollout began that immigration status should be no barrier to access. The hesitancy by undocumented migrants might impact Malaysia's goal to fully immunised all adult population by October 2021. In spite of this, there are also volunteers who treat the migrants humanely, even calling those who don't out. One volunteer even learnt other languages to help facilitate communications. As of January 2022 where PPVs are distributing booster doses, migrant and foreign workers are still observed being discriminated against and treated harshly by volunteers and locals alike. Cases of volunteers illegally obtaining recipient's phone number and private information after vaccination There have been reports on social media of some volunteers from vaccination centres obtaining the phone numbers and private information of recipients and sending them unsolicited messages after, breaching the Personal Data Protection Act 2012. One user posted about a military personnel illegally obtaining his sister's phone number and sending unsolicited messages to her. It was believed that the personnel managed to memorise the sister's information from her MySejahtera profile which contained the user's name, MyKad number and phone number. The user's mother happened to snap a photo of the personnel. JKJAV announced the that they will take disciplinary action towards the individuals. Many have since posted about such experiences online, most of which have occurred to women. It is unclear if the perpetrators besides a Kuala Lumpur PPV staffer have faced disciplinary action. Since the start of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme, multiple women have taken to social media saying they received text messages from on-duty staff – including those administering the jab – who got their contact details from MySejahtera or the vaccination forms they signed. Despite many Malaysians slamming such actions as a breach of personal data and privacy, the issue remains. COVID-19 outbreaks at vaccination centres In early July, two volunteers at the Ideal Convention Centre Shah Alam (IDCC) were tested positive for COVID-19. Mass testing was done immediately and 204 volunteers were tested positive. The centre was shut for a day on 13 July. Those scheduled for the day were rescheduled and volunteers were also there for those who didn't know of the closure. the IDCC outbreak also evolved into a cluster. On 11 July 2021, 7 volunteers at the Setia City Convention Centre (SCCC) were also detected positive. An exposé by CodeBlue, a local health news agency, of the centre attempting to cover up the issue later surfaced as volunteers claimed that their risk status on the MySejahtera application was not strictly checked by the centre. They claimed that they were not informed of the outbreak, no guidelines were given out on what to do, no mass testing was conducted and that there was a lack of hand sanitizers. Instead, two SCCC volunteers told CodeBlue that they found out about the three COVID-19 cases from the latter themselves and that the PPV volunteers who subsequently got swabbed did so on their own accord. One of them later tested positive, leading to at least four confirmed coronavirus infections among SCCC PPV staff as of today. Small gatherings in the pantry were also permitted. One of the volunteer claimed that she was not informed of being a close contact with an infected. The volunteers were also not allowed to speak with members of the media without permission from their respective supervisors. A WhatsApp message also revealed that the management did not want news to spread toa void panic among the staff or the spread of fake and untrue news. When asked if the volunteers were vaccinated, they claimed to have gotten it on their own accord in a different centre. Crowds also sometimes turn at the centre, which poses a safety hazard. The police launched an investigation towards CodeBlue and the editor-in-chief that wrote about this under Section 505(b) of the Penal Code, as well as Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act. Wilfred Madius Tangau, then Science, Technology and Innovation Minister, raised the issue of the police investigation in Parliament and Khairy Jamaluddin agreed, urging the police to drop the case. On 7 July 2021, a recipient who only found out she was positive when she arrived at the vaccine centre also surfaced and caused the vaccine centre, Mines International Convention and Exhibition Centre (MIECC), to be suspended for several hours as all recipients who received an appointment must be negative to be permitted entry. They are allowed to reschedule if they are tested positive. Anti-vaccine movement and anti-vaccine fake news Anti-vaccine fake news have been circulating on social media platforms before the vaccination program started. Many less educated individuals are refusing to take the vaccination due to the questions about religious status of the vaccines, it being a Jewish agenda or due to fears of the side effects. Some claim it to be up to them to vaccinate themselves or their family while influencing others to do so. The government has taken action against those that spread anti-vaccine fake news.The Federal Territories mufti also clarified that the vaccines are halal and obligatory to clear the air and encourage Muslims who are still unsure about the halal status of the vaccine to be inoculated. On 2 June 2021, a teacher became the first person to be charged over fake vaccine news under a new emergency ordinance, the Emergency (Essential Powers) (No. 2) Ordinance 2021, which came into effect on 11 March 2021. A doctor was fined RM5000 for spreading fake news about the Sinovac vaccine on 26 June 2021. Anti-vaxxers have also been contributing to the issue of the sales of fake vaccination certificates, even offering up to RM1000, as the government relaxes restrictions for those who have certified fully vaccinated, although many vaccine centres, including private ones have rejected such offers. Some "anti-vaxxers" have also been reported to show up for their vaccine appointment, offering bribes to get their vaccination certificate forged without actually taking the jab. These individuals approach the doctors and boast that they are willing to pay to get the certificates without getting the jabs. They will come and whisper to the medical personnel at the vaccination centres and ask them to pretend to administer the vaccine. However, the numbers of those who wish to do so were very small as most people understand the damage COVID-19 can wreak and want to be protected. On 24 August, an anti-vaccine couple were arrested for attempting a "social experiment" by entering shops despite not being fully vaccinated and boasting about it on social media after the government had relaxed restrictions for the fully vaccinated. Many netizens were disturbed about the user's post on Facebook, which has since been deleted but reposted as screenshots by other users several other social media sites, where they mentioned about how they were able to go to restaurants and convenient stores that did not ask for their vaccine certificates, boasting about how easy it was to get away with it despite not having a "vaccine passport". The user however mentioned that her husband was refused entry into a barber, but was able to enter another, saying that the former barber had too much money and that they will patronise the latter instead. They also mentioned how they confidently entered a crowded restaurant after family bicycle ride, along with photos of the couple and their two children dining-in at the restaurant. Many users criticised the user for lying and the shopowners for not checking their certificates. The couple were also identified by netizens to be from Klang, Selangor. While vaccine hesitancy was high during the initial rollout of the vaccine, lockdown fatigue, new COVID-19 variants, better vaccine education and outreach along with the increasing infection rate and death rate has encouraged many, particularly those from urban populations, to be vaccinated and it has been reflected on the country hitting vaccination targets early. As of the of end August 2021, about 57% of the total population have received at least one dose and 41% have been fully inoculated. On 6 September it was reported that a housewife was fined RM12,000 for sharing misinformation videos about vaccines in Kuala Lumpur. On 9 October, a now deleted viral video message on Twitter which contained a list of 41 school teachers who have died due to the COVID-19 vaccine. The police and health ministry has since dismissed the fake news and launched an investigation against the owner of the Twitter account under Section 500 of the Penal Code, Section 505 (c) of the Penal Code and Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998. Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin also took to his official Twitter account to call out the owner of the Twitter account. As his source, the twitter user cites an anti-vaccine Telegram group called 'AEFI CASES - Covid Vaccines' — the same group that recently spread false information about local singer Fitri Haris's wife, Fazilah Omar. Unequal or inconsistent vaccine supply distribution Malaysia's slow vaccination rollout in the start was due to a slow and inconsistent vaccine supply as rich countries buy and horde more vaccine than they need, despite Malaysia ordering enough to cover the population from various sources and donations. The rollout sped up as Malaysia started getting the supply they ordered. However unequal distribution across states has caused some states to experience supply disruptions, slower rollouts and forced closure of vaccine centres or cancellation of appointments due to the lack of vaccines. Many criticised the government of being bias towards more politically friendly states and that they are not focusing on the states that are facing major outbreaks, or at risk of facing one. In early June, The Selangor Sultan, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, also criticised the federal government for the unfair distribution to the state and not following through with their promise of 2.9 million doses, receiving only 615,210 doses of the total promised. Several Northeast and east coast states are also slow in their vaccine rollout and many, including the Kelantan state government, have called for the government to increase distribution there as a majority Klang Valley have been vaccinated, before the arrival of the monsoon season storms. In June, Sabah, which is one of the poorest states in the country and a major outbreak source of the 3rd wave of the pandemic after the state election, has one of the lowest vaccination rate in the country. At least 4 vaccination centres in Sabah had to shut due to infrequent vaccine supplies. In mid-August, many in Penang had their appointments rescheduled as vaccine centres closed due to a vaccine shortage. Many also missed their second appointment due to a shortage of the Pfizer vaccine. The state's vaccine supplied was replenished later on. Many of the states that have entered Phase 2 or Phase 3 recovery are also having increased infection cases but low vaccination rates while the Klang Valley, which has the highest infection rate, also has the highest vaccination percentage, as of end August 2021. The inconsistent supply has become a stumbling block to the nation's rapid vaccination rate, which peaked at more than 540,000 average shots on 1 August. Coronavirus vaccine shortages were recently reported in Sabah, Johor, and Penang, putting a stumbling block in vaccinations that accelerated in previous weeks as vaccine centres (PPVs) closed and inoculation slots were limited. The Selangor state government was even prompted to loan 500,000 doses to the central administration. As of 25 August 2021, Kedah, Kelantan, and Sabah have fully vaccinated less than 40 per cent of their adult populations, while Perak has double-jabbed about 43 per cent, Penang at 49 per cent and Johor at about 40 per cent. The national average was about 58 per cent, pulled up by vaccination rates exceeding 85 per cent in Sarawak, the Klang Valley, and Labuan. This issue might prevent the government from achieving its goal of fully inoculating the entire adult population by end October. Despite declining vaccination rates, Malaysia managed to reach the 40 per cent milestone of complete vaccination of the total population on 22 August, earlier than South Korea and Australia that started their coronavirus vaccine rollouts at about the same time as Malaysia. Sales of fake vaccine certificate, vaccination status falsification services and giving legitimate certificates to individuals without injection In August 2021, as the government relaxes restrictions for the fully vaccinated, claims of fake physical vaccine certificate cards being sold online begin to surface as "anti-vaxxers" seek workarounds to bypass restrictions without taking the vaccine. Deputy Health Minister Datuk Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali said the government only recognises the certificate on the app installed on smartphones or the white card issued by the Health Ministry once the vaccination process is completed. Printed copies of the digital certificate will not be recognised. Improvements to the encryption of the certificate's QR code have also been made via updates and one can verify the legitimacy of the certificate via the government's Vaccine Certificate Verifier scanner app, despite any generic QR scanner app being able to read the raw QR data. Before this, any QR scanner app can scan the QR and be taken to a proper certificate website that display's the user's information. However, on 10 August 2021, a Twitter user begin to highlight that irresponsible individuals may be selling fake COVID-19 digital vaccination certificates, prompting calls for the authorities to probe into the matter. Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil in a tweet said this is a serious allegation that warrants a closer look and investigation. According to the now deleted tweet, the vaccination status of any individual can be adjusted on the MySejahtera app by insiders. An incident of an "anti-vaxxer" woman who did not want to be vaccinated attempting to ask a vaccination centre volunteer who was in charge of managing the MySejahtera information of those who have an appointment and have been vaccinated to help create a fake certificate was also posted online, in order to bypass the government restrictions for unvaccinated individuals. The woman was rejected and was angry at the volunteer despite her explaining that she can't change the information regardless. Several other netizens and volunteers started sharing their experience with "anti-vaxxers" trying to fake their status after the incident was posted online. A similar incident also occurred where a recipient asked the nurse to let her scan the vaccine and fake her status but not actually inject the vaccine into him. The recipient even offered RM50. The nurse refused and injected him immediately anyway. As of late August 2021, reports of private clinics getting private clinics and general practitioners (GP) say they have been getting inquiries from "anti-vaxxers", with some offering up to RM1,000, to fake their vaccination status. The cost of getting the vaccine at a private clinic without government subsidy is RM350. ProtectHealth Corporation Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Dr Anas Alam Faizli also revealed that there had been isolated cases where "anti-vaxxers" had gone to the vaccination centre (PPV) but refused to be vaccinated as they only want to the certificate. Dr Anas Alam noted that there was a proper process, workflow and standard operating procedure observed at the PPV to ensure only a person who is vaccinated will get their information recorded. Malaysia Medical Practitioners Coalition Association president Dr Raj Kumar Maharajah said doctors had increasingly been receiving requests from people asking to be verified as vaccinated even though they declined to get the jab. However, the numbers of those who wish to do so were very small, he said, as most people understand the damage COVID-19 can wreak and want to be protected. General practitioner Dr Arisman Wenge Abdul Rahman said some of his medical colleagues had been approached to falsify the vaccination status of those who refused to get jabbed. These individuals approach the doctors and boast that they are willing to pay to get the certificates without getting the jabs. "They will come and whisper to the medical personnel at the vaccination centres and ask them to pretend to administer the vaccine,” he said, adding that he had not heard of any staff members taking up such an offer to date. The police have also started investigations into the alleged sale of fake digital vaccination certificates, which was highlighted on social media. In Kedah, it was reported that police had opened an investigation paper on the alleged sale of fake digital vaccination certificates after it was highlighted on social media. While in Penang, the police has not received any reports regarding forged certificates, neither have the Consumer Association of Penang. It was also reported that a senior doctor at Hospital Sultanah Bahiyah posted on Facebook that fake certificates were being sold at RM15 each. The government has yet to release guidelines on how to spot fake vaccine certificates, but many doctors including Dr Raj Kumar have advised the public not to share images of their certificate online and to call the police if they found out that their certificate has been compromised. As only the certificate in the MySejahtera application is officially recognised, shopkeepers can request the user to scroll their profile page to prove that they are using the application and not a screenshot. The government has released a Vaccine Certificate Verifier app to scan the QR code of the certificate for further verifications. Despite this, there is no clear directive or requirement for shopkeepers or retailers to use it and the app doesn't have any clear indicators of an individual fulfilling the 'fully vaccinated' criteria, despite under current guidelines as of late August 2021, a person who received a two-shot vaccine is only considered "fully vaccinated" two weeks after receiving the second dose while individuals with a single-shot vaccine are only counted "fully vaccinated" 28 days after getting their injection. An alternative would be to cross-check the user's MyKad number with their certificate details. Following the incident, The Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) has warned that any eateries that do not adhere to the SOPs, which includes allowing customers that are not fully vaccinated to dine-in will be ordered to cease operations immediately. They have increased joint patrols and inspection of premises. On 31 August, the chief of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Azam Baki has pledged to investigate claims of doctors receiving bribes from those refusing COVID-19 vaccines in exchange for vaccination certificates. In a statement, Mr Azam said there were claims from the public that doctors or other parties might be offered bribes to issue vaccination certificates even though no vaccines were injected. He added that he viewed such claims seriously. So far, the MACC has not received any complaints related to the issue. On 8th January 2022, Malaysian police arrested a 51-year-old private clinic doctor from Marang, Terengganu after complaints from the public that the doctor had been selling fake vaccine certificates. A total of 1,900 individuals had dealings with the clinic involving the COVID-19 vaccination and police are still investigating how many of these individuals had bought fake certificates without getting the injections. It was reported that individuals who want a fake vaccine certificate had to pay RM400-RM600 to get a fake certificate without being injected with the vaccine instead of just RM300 to get the actual vaccine. The clinic was allowed to provide vaccines for a fee since September 2021. The police believe that there are individuals from outside the state who purchased fake vaccination certificates from the doctor via online. The doctor is being investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code and despite being an anti-vaxxer, had already taken the shot. The Terengganu government had also begun monitoring civil servants for fake vaccine certificates and ordered each department to monitor anti-vaxxers if they acquire fake ceriticates or not. The state government is also leaving it to the police and Health Ministry to flush out any private clinics involving in such activities. On 12 January 2022, Inspector-General of Police Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani announced that the Royal Malaysia Police would intensify operations and monitoring against parties selling fake vaccination certificates. On 17th January 2022, news medias reported that 5,601 people have been fraudulently registered on the MySejahtera system. This follows after a raid on a clinic in Gombak, Selangor, which saw the arrest of four men and three women after police investigations into a WhatsApp message that offered fake vaccine certificates. They were being sold for RM500 each. It was reported that the polyclinic received COVID-19 vaccine supply from the health ministry but they were discarded and the empty vials with the broken seals would be returned to the ministry as proof that the shots were administered to avoid any suspicion. The police are investigating the case under Section 269 of the Penal Code for a negligent act that could spread an infectious disease and Section 22 (d) of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988. Despite the strict security protocols for the vaccination process, including the use of blockchain technology on the vaccine digital certificates, the act of injecting the vaccine depends on the integrity of the vaccine administrator, especially in private clinics where the individual and the doctor have the benefit of the privacy in a doctor's examination room. On 13th January 2022, three civil servants in Alor Gajah, Malacca were arrested over possession of fake MySejahtera Covid-19 digital vaccination certificates for the purporse of obtaining the special finance assistance. It was reported that on 30th December last year, the department head became suspicious of two of the suspects, who were a married couple, and ordered his officer to check the authenticity of the certificates. The officer confirmed from a local health clinic about the status of their certificate and the clinic remarked that the couple were not vaccinated at the clinic. The couple had gotten the fake certificates because it was a precondition to get a bonus apart from avoiding action by the department for refusing to be vaccinated and making it easier for them to enter business premises. They acquired the fake certificate from a colleague, who was a middle man in a Covid-19 vaccination certificate sales syndicate, for RM500 each. The case is being investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code. In Kelantan, local police announced that four suspects have been arrested for falsifying COVID-19 vaccination cards linked to a private clinic in Kota Bharu. The clinic offered RM180 for each vaccination card. The local police begin investigation following multiple complains to the local state health department from different sources. The four individuals said that they have taken the vaccine despite no vaccination records in their MySejahtera app. On 19th January 2022, at a press conference, Johor police chief Commisioner Kamarul Zaman Mamat revealed that eight individuals involved in a syndicate selling fake vaccine digital certificates between RM350 and RM650 each were arrested. The arrests were first made on 17th Jan when the police carried out a series of raids in the city. The syndicate was said to have issued fake certificates to at least 30 people. Following these incidents, ProtectHealth Corporation Sdn Bhd, a Health Ministry subsidiary that manages the participation of private medical practitioners in the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK), said that they will suspend any private medical professionals involved with selling fake certificates. According to the Malaysian Medical Association, ProtectHealth does random audits on participating clinics in PICK. The association also noted that the licence to practice for registered practitioners can be revoked by the Melaysian Medical Council. Vaccine restriction, delay and lack of priority for pregnant women In August 2021, health experts had called on the government to allow pregnant women 33 weeks or more into their pregnancy to be inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine as there is no evidence of harm from the vaccine towards pregnant woman. Pregnant woman were not considered under any special priority and were placed under phase 3, despite being considered a high risk group for having a higher risk of severe symptoms from COVID-19 during and after pregnancy. This demand for priority to pregnant women also comes after the death of local singer Siti Sarah Raisuddin in early August, who succumbed to COVID-19 just days after giving birth to her child after 28 weeks of pregnancy. She was unvaccinated and merely one of a handful of maternal deaths due to COVID-19. This is also despite Khairy Jamaluddin saying that all vaccines are safe for pregnant woman in June. On 2 June, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers were able to update their status on the MySejahtera mobile application according to Second Edition of the Clinical Guideline for COVID-19 in Malaysia (published 13 April 2021), it is stated that vaccination for pregnant women can be done between 14 and 33 weeks of pregnancy as well as lactating mothers. The second dose can be administered to a woman who finds out she is pregnant after getting the first dose. However, the second dose should be deferred until 14 weeks of gestation. It took two months for the relevant committee to improve and come up with the Third Edition (published 12 July). However, the guideline on vaccination for pregnant women was retained. The committee continued to ignore the guidelines used in other countries despite the increasing risk of maternal deaths due to COVID-19 in Malaysia. The 2nd Guideline on COVID-19 Vaccination in Pregnancy and Breastfeeding, published by the Ministry of Health on 23 June 2021, also mentions the same policy. Many health experts claim that the 14 to 33 weeks recommendations are baseless and that many other countries allow for woman over 33 weeks pregnancy to have their first dose. The health minister also did not implement walk-in vaccinations for pregnant women. In an update to their guideline on 10 August 2021, The Ministry of Health recommends COVID-19 vaccination for pregnant women after 12 weeks of pregnancy, while advising informed decision-making for those who want to get inoculated earlier. Sales of fake vaccine There are claims of fake vaccines or scams being sold online via online shopping platforms. The CITF have advised individuals to not buy vaccines as the government supply is free for all. In May 2021 the Penang government claimed that they were offered 2 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine from a private company and that they shall be handed over to the health minister to be distributed to Penangnites, with excess given to other states. The Penang government however claimed that the federal government was obstructing them from obtaining these vaccines. Inspections by the CITF however found out that the offer was made by a company that did not exist and concluded it as a scam. Khairy Jamaluddin, coordinating minister of the CITF, further questioned how the Penang government could use a fake letter to accuse the Federal government of obstructing the administration of the Sinovac vaccine. The Penang Chief Minister has since apologised over the incident. Choosy recipients Reports of recipients being choosy over which vaccine brand to take also surfaced, particularly among the elderly. Some refused the Chinese made vaccines like Sinovac due to a perceived inferiority to the Chinese vaccine as compared to the other 'gold standard' vaccines like Pfizer, while others refused the Pfizer vaccine due to poor awareness of how the mRNA vaccine works. This hesitancy and choosiness is also fueled by online disinformation. Many also refused the AstraZeneca vaccine due to reports of blood clots from overseas, hence the government created a separate queue for those who wanted it. The government made a statement that all vaccines are effective and those who cancel their appointment will be rescheduled but may still not get what they want. On 11 July, local singer Ifa Raziah was reported to have cancelled her vaccine appointment when she found out that she was getting Sinovac instead. She was insistent on getting Pfizer and claimed it was due to medical and allergy reasons. The celebrity had come under fire for posting about her vaccine cancellation on her social media. She then removed the initial video on her Instagram but uploaded another one on her Facebook. Social media users have since lambasted her labelling her as choosy when many were still waiting in line for their vaccination dates. People barred from vaccination centre due to strict dress code On 17 July, a woman in Penang was denied entry into at the Kompleks Masyarakat Penyayang vaccination centre her skirt ended slightly above her knees. Apparently there was a strict dress code and a sign of the said dress code is placed outside of the centre and has been stamped by the Northeast District Health Office (PKDTL). The woman was allowed in after her boyfriend spoke to the head of security who overruled the security guard that denied entry. PKDTL officer Datin Dr Azizah Abdul Manan later says there is no such dress code at the vaccination centres and that dressing modestly is sufficient. She says the lady's dress was appropriate. On 30 August 2021, there have been reports of recipients being denied entry into vaccination centres due overly zealous dress codes such as having a small slit on a below-knee-length skirt. Several women, including pregnant ones, were barred entry at a vaccination in Johor due to this. Kluang MP Wong Shu Qi shared in a tweet that she received three complaints from both men and women in Kluang who faced similar experiences. The outfits that the three individuals wore were ripped jeans and ankle-length jeans that get shortened when the wearer sits down. These pieces of clothing apparently went against the dress code and were not allowed into PPVs. She has stated that dress code should be abolished to encourage vaccination, while adding that cosplayers wearing dinosaur and superhero costumes are allowed into vaccination centres. Netizens on social media have also agreed with her and were baffled by the need for such dress codes at vaccination centres. The need for strict dress codes for members of the public at government offices, department or institutes is often a hot issue in Malaysia and cases of overzealous enforcement of dress codes is not uncommon, despite backlash from the public and some government officials. Private hospital and general practitioner clinics' involvement in the distribution of vaccines Private general practitioner (GP) clinics have had several issues with the government, CITF and JKJAV in distributing the vaccines. On 2 April 2021, medical practitioners were urging the government to allow private GP clinics to take part in the distribution of the vaccine as these clinics had better access and trust to the community around them. Even if they do not have the equipment to handle ultra-cold vaccines like Pfizer, they can handle normal ones like Sinovac. In May 2021, in response to claims that private hospitals and GPs were not involved in the distribution of vaccines, Khairy Jamaluddin says that 500 clinics would be allowed to distribute the vaccines by 15 June and 1000 by 30 June. Khairy noted that private clinics were not roped in due to insufficient vaccine supplies. Khairy added that there are currently 2,500 GP clinics that have registered to aid the national immunisation programme. Of the 2,500 GPs, he said 1,800 had already attended an onboarding programme to administer the vaccines. In the same month, ProtectHealth, an incorporated entity appointed by the Ministry of Health to manage Private Medical Practitioners participation in the COVID-19 vaccination programme has issued a statement urging all private clinics and hospitals to stop advertising that they are offering vaccinations at their clinic. While several private clinics have been selected to participate under the national immunisation programme, they are not allowed to publicly advertise and to collect registrations via WhatsApp. This is to avoid causing unnecessary confusion and misunderstanding among the public. ProtectHealth partner private clinics are basically additional vaccination centres under the National Immunisation Programme. On 1 June, The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) said there has been a lack of engagement with private general practitioners (GPs) on their involvement in the national COVID-19 immunisation programme. The association had written to the coordinating minister in-charge of COVID-19 vaccination Khairy Jamaluddin early March this year seeking a meeting to discuss the matter, but did not receive a reply from the ministry or JKJAV. Dr Subramaniam Muniandy, president of the MMA, pointed out in his statement that the GPs that had undergone the onboarding programme were supposed to begin vaccinating in early May but were left hanging pending a go-ahead from the government. At the same time, a private general practitioner (GP) clinics association has said that bureaucracy and logistical problems were still hampering this class of physicians from supporting the effort. In a recent interview with Malay Mail'', Federation of Private Medical Practitioners Association (FPMPAM) president Dr Steven Chow Kim Weng recounted the "hassle" private healthcare operators faced in order to be certified as a qualified vaccinator under the NIP. This also comes after NIP coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin said only 2,467 GPs have registered for the cause to date. GPs were required to attend training with ProtectHealth Corporation Sdn Bhd (ProtectHealth), during which they would be subsequently informed of the different parties involved in the overall vaccination chain. After attending the training, GPs must obtain approval from the Health Ministry's Private Medical Practice Control Section (CKAPS) responsible for auditing private clinics. CKAPS would determine whether they fulfill several prerequisites — sufficient Personal Protection Equipment (PPEs) and vaccination equipment, suitability of premises and patients’ flow plans during the vaccination process, before designating them as vaccination centres. Then, the clinics must go on to get further approvals from their respective state health departments. With both approvals in hand, a GP would then need to liaise with the MySejahtera app to obtain a list of named individuals to be vaccinated, ranging from 50 to 55 people that are provided on a weekly basis. Finally, with approvals and name list now in possession, the respective GPs would need to liaise with the Health Ministry's Pharmaceutical Services Programme at the nearest vaccine storage facilities to provide the indent for COVID-19 vaccines based on the list from MySejahtera before collecting the vaccines for inoculation. Many had questioned the need for such a tedious and bureaucratic process to be approved for vaccination distribution. It was also revealed that all logistical aspects of the immunisation programme have to be shouldered by the respective GPs, which includes transporting the vaccines and purchasing the specialised medical equipment needed. Accordingly, the estimated costs of new equipment that GPs were required to procure include medical-grade vaccine cooler box costing between RM800 to RM1,200 each, electronic temperature data logger costing between RM100 and RM150 each and varying traveling expenditures incurred during vaccine collection. On top of that, the government has not provided any subsidies or grants for GPs to offset such expenses beyond the incentive of RM14 per vaccine dose administered, which led to hesitancy among certain association members. Under the vaccination drive, GPs were required to personally collect the vaccine doses on a specific day with their own cold boxes. Many medical practitioners want a change in the system, ideally, any patient could walk in to their respective GPs, get assessed, have their jabs and update their data on MySejahtera in a single uninterrupted process. The MMA had also called out the government for the need for such a hectic process, especially the audit done by state JKJAV, which is slowing down the COVID-19 vaccine rollout at GP clinics. MMA honorary general secretary Dr R. Arasu said that the audits were ordered by the state JKJAV and that neither CKAPS nor MOH has anything to do with it. Dr Arasu explained that only less than a third of the 8,000 GPs nationwide have signed up to participate in the national coronavirus inoculation drive due to a "confusing" implementation process, saying: "With more clarity, more GPs will participate." As of 21, 2 June weeks after private hospitals were allowed to distribute vaccines, it was reported that over 1 million doses have been given. Despite this, there was no indication from the government that private hospitals and clinics will be allowed to purchase vaccines on their own as the vaccine being distributed are from the government's stock. On 3 August, A private hospital doctor, Dr Musa Nordin, has launched a scathing attack on Malaysia's COVID-19 vaccination programme, accusing the Special Committee for Ensuring Access to COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) not only of flip-flopping, but also of corruption. He also asked why the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA), the main drug approval authority under the health ministry, had yet to give the green light for the Moderna vaccine. The doctor criticised what he called the "flip-flop" policies of the vaccines committee on administering jabs to teenagers, as well as on the procurement of the Sinovac vaccine. His comments drew strong reactions from the public as well as from veteran doctors. On 5 August, Malaysia granted conditional approval on the use of Moderna vaccine. CITF's decision to stop private GPs from distributing vaccines On 21 August, it was reported that the CITF decided to stop vaccination appointments at 741 private GP clinics, several private hospitals and ambulatory care centres in Selangor. CITF informed private GPs via a circular issued by ProtectHealth (ProtectHealth Corporation Sdn Bhd) that private GPs giving private vaccinations will not be allowed to give vaccinations under the immunisation program without any reason. Many medical practitioners were baffled by the CITF's decisions and had called out the CITF for such actions, especially when the country is in its last leg to achieving 80% herd immunity. Health director general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah also tweeted that the decision to stop GPs from administering vaccines was against his advice. The CITF had responded, saying that it is because a majority of those in the Klang Valley and that the GP involvement in the vaccine distribution is based on current needs. They also stated that they may re-engage with private GPs in the future when mega vaccination centres have ceased. Despite this, president of the Malaysian Medical Association Subramaniam Muniandy have called out the CITF for such policies of use when needed and dump when not needed will not augur well and discourage other GPs from participating. he commented that since the vaccination has picked up, the CITF should phase out the mega PPVs and allow GPs to run PICK's final lap while the government strengthens its resources at public healthcare facilities. Most people find it more convenient to go to a private GP for their vaccination as private clinics are close to the community and not crowded. See also Malaysian movement control order COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia Notes References External links The Special Committee for Ensuring Access to COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) official website List of Vaccination Administration Centres (PPV) across Malaysia National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme PDF Vaccination Malaysia

66923609

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulf%20Lennart%20%C3%96sterberg

Ulf Lennart Österberg

Ulf Österberg is a Swedish-American physicist specializing in optical fibers, nonlinear optics, and ultrafast and THz spectroscopy. With Walter Margulis, he discovered efficient second-harmonic generation in optical fibers, and his optical precursor studies are particular noteworthy. Early life and education Österberg was born in Göteborg, Sweden in 1958, and spent his early years in Trollhättan. He received his MS from Chalmers University of Technology (Engineering Physics) in 1982, and the PhD from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Physics) in 1987. Research and career Österberg was a visiting researcher with J. Roy Taylor at Imperial College during his PhD, and held a postdoctoral position at the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences, and was a National Research Council Fellow at the Seiler Research Laboratory, US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs. He was on the faculty of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College from 1990-2009, during which time he was a recipient of a Presidential Young Investigator Award from NSF. He received patents on signal encryption methodology using wavelet transforms, and co-founded Lightkey Optical Components, LLC. He also studied optical precursors. In 2009 he moved to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, and was inducted into Norges Tekniske VitenskapsAcademi (NTVA), a science and technology organization dating from 1955. His work at NTNU was on broadband THz generation and spectroscopy. His continued interest in pedagogy inspired a return to Dartmouth Engineering in 2018. He is an adjunct faculty member at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Personal life Österberg is married to Ursula Gibson, and they have three children. Published works He is the author or coauthor of >120 publications, with >3600 citations. References Swedish physicists Chalmers University of Technology alumni 1958 births Living people

67063647

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky%20Global

Sky Global

Sky Global was a communications network and service provider based in Vancouver, Canada. Its most notable products were secure messaging application Sky ECC and secure phones. A significant share of users of its systems were international crime organizations involved in drug trafficking, and the company management was suspected of collusion. In a series of raids against criminal organizations in several countries in early 2021, a part of Sky's infrastructure in Western Europe was dismantled, and US Department of Justice issued an arrest warrant against the company's CEO Jean-François Eap. On March 19, 2021, the company apparently shut down the operations after BlackBerry, Inc. cut it off from its services. Its website has been seized by the FBI. Products Sky ECC Sky ECC was a subscription-based end-to-end encrypted messaging application. Originally developed for the BlackBerry platform, it uses elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) for encryption. One of its features was "self-destruction" of messages after a user-defined expiration period. Phones The company modified Nokia, Google, Apple and BlackBerry phones, Phones supplied by the company had cameras, microphones and GPS disabled. Messages were encrypted and were automatically deleted after thirty seconds. If a phone was not contactable by the network, the message would be retained for up to 48 hours, then deleted. The phones had a kill switch : If a user entered a "panic" password, the device would delete its contents. The company website offered a US$4 million (€3.2 million Euro) prize to anyone who could break the encryption within 90 days. They support Android, BlackBerry and iPhone apps. Messages are stored using 521-bit elliptic-curve cryptography and network connections are protected by 2048 bit SSL. 171,000 SKY ECC devices are registered, mainly in Europe, North America, several central and South American countries – mainly Colombia – and the Middle East. A quarter of active users are in Belgium (6,000) and the Netherlands (12,000), and half of those were said to be in use around the port of Antwerp. Raids On 9 March 2021 around 1600 Belgian police carried out about 200 raids and arrested 48 people and seized €1.2 million in cash and 17 tonnes of cocaine. Those arrested included lawyers and members of the Hells Angels, serving police officers, an employee of the public prosecutor's office, civil servants, tax officials and hospital administrators suspected of providing information to the gangs, and people suspected of gang-related violence. Belgian federal prosecutor said that "The operation was concentrated on taking down the Sky ECC infrastructure, dismantling the distribution network and seizing the criminal assets of the distributors" and "as many Sky ECC devices as possible" were seized from identified users. The federal prosecutor said about the encryption that "We succeeded. We will send Sky ECC the account number of the federal police". Belgian and Dutch authorities were alleged to have been able to access the network from 15 February 2021 up to shortly before the raids. About a billion messages were intercepted, about half of which had been decrypted by April 2021—further avenues of inquiry were expected to open as decryption progressed. The Belgian police said the network they had broken into was so trusted by its criminal users that images of torture, execution orders, insider financial and operational information were freely sent. Raids in the Netherlands were part of Operation Argus, the followup to the Lermont operation used to take down Encrochat. Sky Global disputed claims that their servers and app had been compromised, claiming that they were aware of a fake "Sky ECC" app being available on unsecure phones. Sky Global said they were "actively investigating and pursuing legal action against the offending individuals for impersonation, false lights, trademark infringement, injurious falsehood, defamation and fraud". Indictment and shutdown On March 12, 2021, US Department of Justice in San Diego, California, issued an indictment against Sky Global's CEO, Jean-Francois Eap, and a former distributor, Thomas Herdman. They were charged with a "conspiracy to violate the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)", and arrest warrants were issued. The indictment states that the Sky Global's devices are "specifically designed to prevent law enforcement from actively monitoring the communications between members of transnational criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. As part of its services, Sky Global guarantees that messages stored on its devices can and will be remotely deleted by the company if the device is seized by law enforcement or otherwise compromised." In response, Eap has published a statement branding the allegations as false, saying that he and his company are being "targeted" because they "build tools to protect the fundamental right to privacy." "Sky Global's technology works for the good of all. It was not created to prevent the police from monitoring criminal organizations; it exists to prevent anyone from monitoring and spying on the global community. The indictment against me personally in the US is an example of the police and the government trying to vilify anyone who takes a stance against unwarranted surveillance." On March 19, 2021, the company apparently shut down the operations after BlackBerry cut it off from its United Endpoint Manager services. Its website has been seized by the FBI. Possible consequence Joris van der Aa, a crime reporter for Gazet van Antwerpen, noted the importance of Operation Sky, saying, "It is a big blow because, in Belgium and a great part of the criminal underworld in the Netherlands, they really trusted Sky as a system. They were so full of confidence, and the police now have so much information on how the underworld was structured, bank accounts, all the corrupt contacts are being arrested. It takes years to build these networks ... In South America they will be thinking, 'Let's not do business with these Dutch and Belgian guys any more' ... Everyone is waiting for the storm and asking themselves what the police know." References Anonymity networks Cyberspace Dark web Law enforcement operations 2008 establishments in British Columbia 2021 disestablishments in British Columbia

67094405

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison%20of%20user%20features%20of%20operating%20systems

Comparison of user features of operating systems

Comparison of user features of operating systems refers to a comparison of the general user features of major operating systems in a narrative format. It does not encompass a full exhaustive comparison or description of all technical details of all operating systems. It is a comparison of basic roles and the most prominent features. It also includes the most important features of the operating system's origins, historical development, and role. Overview An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, printing, and other resources. For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation, the operating system acts as an intermediary between programs and the computer hardware, although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware and frequently makes system calls to an OS function or is interrupted by it. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer from cellular phones and video game consoles to web servers and supercomputers. The dominant general-purpose desktop operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 76.45%. macOS by Apple Inc. is in second place (17.72%), and the varieties of Linux are collectively in third place (1.73%). In the mobile sector (including smartphones and tablets), Android's share is up to 72% in the year 2020. According to third quarter 2016 data, Android's share on smartphones is dominant with 87.5 percent with also a growth rate of 10.3 percent per year, followed by Apple's iOS with 12.1 percent with per year decrease in market share of 5.2 percent, while other operating systems amount to just 0.3 percent. Linux distributions are dominant in the server and supercomputing sectors. Other specialized classes of operating systems (special-purpose operating systems)), such as embedded and real-time systems, exist for many applications. Security-focused operating systems also exist. Some operating systems have low system requirements (i.e. light-weight Linux distribution). Others may have higher system requirements. Some operating systems require installation or may come pre-installed with purchased computers (OEM-installation), whereas others may run directly from media (i.e. live cd) or flash memory (i.e. usb stick). MS-DOS Overview MS-DOS (acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and some operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS" (which is also the generic acronym for disk operating system). MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s, from which point it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system. IBM licensed and re-released it in 1981 as PC DOS 1.0 for use in its PCs. Although MS-DOS and PC DOS were initially developed in parallel by Microsoft and IBM, the two products diverged after twelve years, in 1993, with recognizable differences in compatibility, syntax, and capabilities. During its lifetime, several competing products were released for the x86 platform, and MS-DOS went through eight versions, until development ceased in 2000. Initially, MS-DOS was targeted at Intel 8086 processors running on computer hardware using floppy disks to store and access not only the operating system, but application software and user data as well. Progressive version releases delivered support for other mass storage media in ever greater sizes and formats, along with added feature support for newer processors and rapidly evolving computer architectures. Ultimately, it was the key product in Microsoft's development from a programming language company to a diverse software development firm, providing the company with essential revenue and marketing resources. It was also the underlying basic operating system on which early versions of Windows ran as a GUI. Microsoft Windows Overview Microsoft Windows, commonly referred to as Windows, is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families, all of which are developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. Active Microsoft Windows families include Windows NT and Windows IoT; these may encompass subfamilies, (e.g. Windows Server or Windows Embedded Compact) (Windows CE). Defunct Microsoft Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone. Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on 20 November 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer (PC) market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984, while Microsoft has in 2020 lost its dominance of the consumer operating system market, with Windows down to 30%, lower than Apple's 31% mobile-only share (65% for desktop operating systems only, i.e. "PCs" vs. Apple's 28% desktop share) in its home market, the US, and 32% globally (77% for desktops), where Google's Android leads. Apple came to see Windows as an unfair encroachment on their innovation in GUI development as implemented on products such as the Lisa and Macintosh (eventually settled in court in Microsoft's favor in 1993). On PCs, Windows is still the most popular operating system in all countries. However, in 2014, Microsoft admitted losing the majority of the overall operating system market to Android, because of the massive growth in sales of Android smartphones. In 2014, the number of Windows devices sold was less than 25% that of Android devices sold. This comparison, however, may not be fully relevant, as the two operating systems traditionally target different platforms. Still, numbers for server use of Windows (that are comparable to competitors) show one third market share, similar to that for end user use. , the most recent version of Windows for PCs, tablets and embedded devices is Windows 10, version 20H2. The most recent version for server computers is Windows Server, version 20H2. A specialized version of Windows also runs on the Xbox One video game console. Windows 95 Windows 95 introduced a redesigned shell based around a desktop metaphor; File shortcuts (also known as shell links) were introduced and the desktop was re-purposed to hold shortcuts to applications, files and folders, reminiscent of Mac OS. In Windows 3.1 the desktop was used to display icons of running applications. In Windows 95, the currently running applications were displayed as buttons on a taskbar across the bottom of the screen. The taskbar also contained a notification area used to display icons for background applications, a volume control and the current time. The Start menu, invoked by clicking the "Start" button on the taskbar or by pressing the Windows key, was introduced as an additional means of launching applications or opening documents. While maintaining the program groups used by its predecessor Program Manager, it also displayed applications within cascading sub-menus. The previous File Manager program was replaced by Windows Explorer and the Explorer-based Control Panel and several other special folders were added such as My Computer, Dial Up Networking, Recycle Bin, Network Neighborhood, My Documents, Recent documents, Fonts, Printers, and My Briefcase among others. AutoRun was introduced for CD drives. The user interface looked dramatically different from prior versions of Windows, but its design language did not have a special name like Metro, Aqua or Material Design. Internally it was called "the new shell" and later simply "the shell". The subproject within Microsoft to develop the new shell was internally known as "Stimpy". In 1994, Microsoft designers Mark Malamud and Erik Gavriluk approached Brian Eno to compose music for the Windows 95 project. The result was the six-second start-up music-sound of the Windows 95 operating system, The Microsoft Sound and it was first released as a startup sound in May 1995 on Windows 95 May Test Release build 468. When released for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, Internet Explorer 4 came with an optional Windows Desktop Update, which modified the shell to provide several additional updates to Windows Explorer, including a Quick Launch toolbar, and new features integrated with Internet Explorer, such as Active Desktop (which allowed Internet content to be displayed directly on the desktop). Some of the user interface elements introduced in Windows 95, such as the desktop, taskbar, Start menu and Windows Explorer file manager, remained fundamentally unchanged on future versions of Windows. Windows 10 A new iteration of the Start menu is used on the Windows 10 desktop, with a list of places and other options on the left side, and tiles representing applications on the right. The menu can be resized, and expanded into a full-screen display, which is the default option in Tablet mode. A new virtual desktop system was added. A feature known as Task View displays all open windows and allows users to switch between them, or switch between multiple workspaces. Universal apps, which previously could be used only in full screen mode, can now be used in self-contained windows similarly to other programs. Program windows can now be snapped to quadrants of the screen by dragging them to the corner. When a window is snapped to one side of the screen, Task View appears and the user is prompted to choose a second window to fill the unused side of the screen (called "Snap Assist"). Windows' system icons were also changed. Charms have been removed; their functionality in universal apps is accessed from an App commands menu on their title bar. In its place is Action Center, which displays notifications and settings toggles. It is accessed by clicking an icon in the notification area, or dragging from the right of the screen. Notifications can be synced between multiple devices. The Settings app (formerly PC Settings) was refreshed and now includes more options that were previously exclusive to the desktop Control Panel. Windows 10 is designed to adapt its user interface based on the type of device being used and available input methods. It offers two separate user interface modes: a user interface optimized for mouse and keyboard, and a "Tablet mode" designed for touchscreens. Users can toggle between these two modes at any time, and Windows can prompt or automatically switch when certain events occur, such as disabling Tablet mode on a tablet if a keyboard or mouse is plugged in, or when a 2-in-1 PC is switched to its laptop state. In Tablet mode, programs default to a maximized view, and the taskbar contains a back button and hides buttons for opened or pinned programs by default; Task View is used instead to switch between programs. The full screen Start menu is used in this mode, similarly to Windows 8, but scrolls vertically instead of horizontally. Apple Macintosh Apple Classic MacOS Overview The classic Mac OS (System Software) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The Macintosh operating system is credited with having popularized the graphical user interface concept. It was included with every Macintosh that was sold during the era in which it was developed, and many updates to the system software were done in conjunction with the introduction of new Macintosh systems. Apple released the original Macintosh on 24 January 1984. The first version of the system software, which had no official name, was partially based on the Lisa OS, which Apple previously released for the Lisa computer in 1983. As part of an agreement allowing Xerox to buy shares in Apple at a favorable price, it also used concepts from the Xerox PARC Alto computer, which former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and other Lisa team members had previewed. This operating system consisted of the Macintosh Toolbox ROM and the "System Folder", a set of files that were loaded from disk. The name Macintosh System Software came into use in 1987 with System 5. Apple rebranded the system as Mac OS in 1996, starting officially with version 7.6, due in part to its Macintosh clone program. That program ended after the release of Mac OS 8 in 1997. The last major release of the system was Mac OS 9 in 1999. Initial versions of the System Software ran one application at a time. With the Macintosh 512K, a system extension called the Switcher was developed to use this additional memory to allow multiple programs to remain loaded. The software of each loaded program used the memory exclusively; only when activated by the Switcher did the program appear, even the Finder's desktop. With the Switcher, the now familiar Clipboard feature allowed cut and paste between the loaded programs across switches including the desktop. With the introduction of System 5, a cooperative multitasking extension called MultiFinder was added, which allowed content in windows of each program to remain in a layered view over the desktop, and was later integrated into System 7 as part of the operating system along with support for virtual memory. By the mid-1990s, however, contemporary operating systems such as Windows NT, OS/2, and NeXTSTEP had all brought pre-emptive multitasking, protected memory, access controls, and multi-user capabilities to desktop computers, The Macintosh's limited memory management and susceptibility to conflicts among extensions that provide additional functionality, such as networking or support for a particular device, led to significant criticism of the operating system, and was a factor in Apple's declining market share at the time. After two aborted attempts at creating a successor to the Macintosh System Software called Taligent and Copland, and a four-year development effort spearheaded by Steve Jobs' return to Apple in 1997, Apple replaced Mac OS with a new operating system in 2001 named Mac OS X; the X signifying the underlying Unix system family base shared with Jobs' development of the NeXTSTEP operating systems on the NeXT computer. It retained most of the user interface design elements of the classic Mac OS, and there was some overlap of application frameworks for compatibility, but the two operating systems otherwise have completely different origins and architectures. The final updates to Mac OS 9 released in 2001 provided interoperability with Mac OS X. The name "Classic" that now signifies the historical Mac OS as a whole is a reference to the Classic Environment, a compatibility layer that helped ease the transition to Mac OS X (now macOS). Apple MacOS X Overview MacOS previously Mac OS X and later OS X) is a series of proprietary graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop, laptop and home computers, and by web usage, it is the second most widely used desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows. macOS is the direct successor to the classic Mac OS, the line of Macintosh operating systems with nine releases from 1984 to 1999. macOS adopted the Unix kernel and inherited technologies developed between 1985 and 1997 at NeXT, the company that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs created after leaving Apple in 1985. Releases from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and thereafter are UNIX 03 certified. Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, has been considered a variant of macOS. Mac OS X 10.0 (code named Cheetah) was the first major release and version of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system. Mac OS X 10.0 was released on 24 March 2001 for a price of US$129. It was the successor of the Mac OS X Public Beta and the predecessor of Mac OS X 10.1 (code named Puma). Mac OS X 10.0 was a radical departure from the classic Mac OS and was Apple's long-awaited answer for a next generation Macintosh operating system. It introduced a brand new code base completely separate from Mac OS 9's as well as all previous Apple operating systems, and had a new Unix-like core, Darwin, which features a new memory management system. Unlike releases of Mac OS X 10.2 to 10.8, the operating system was not externally marketed with the name of a big cat. Apple MacOS Components The Finder is a file browser allowing quick access to all areas of the computer, which has been modified throughout subsequent releases of macOS. Quick Look has been part of the Finder since version 10.5. It allows for dynamic previews of files, including videos and multi-page documents without opening any other applications. Spotlight, a file searching technology which has been integrated into the Finder since version 10.4, allows rapid real-time searches of data files; mail messages; photos; and other information based on item properties (metadata) and/or content. macOS makes use of a Dock, which holds file and folder shortcuts as well as minimized windows. Apple added Exposé in version 10.3 (called Mission Control since version 10.7), a feature which includes three functions to help accessibility between windows and desktop. Its functions are to instantly display all open windows as thumbnails for easy navigation to different tasks, display all open windows as thumbnails from the current application, and hide all windows to access the desktop. FileVault is optional encryption of the user's files with the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-128). Features introduced in version 10.4 include Automator, an application designed to create an automatic workflow for different tasks; Dashboard, a full-screen group of small applications called desktop widgets that can be called up and dismissed in one keystroke; and Front Row, a media viewer interface accessed by the Apple Remote. Sync Services allows applications to access a centralized extensible database for various elements of user data, including calendar and contact items. The operating system then managed conflicting edits and data consistency. All system icons are scalable up to 512×512 pixels as of version 10.5 to accommodate various places where they appear in larger size, including for example the Cover Flow view, a three-dimensional graphical user interface included with iTunes, the Finder, and other Apple products for visually skimming through files and digital media libraries via cover artwork. That version also introduced Spaces, a virtual desktop implementation which enables the user to have more than one desktop and display them in an Exposé-like interface; an automatic backup technology called Time Machine, which allows users to view and restore previous versions of files and application data; and Screen Sharing was built in for the first time. In more recent releases, Apple has developed support for emoji characters by including the proprietary Apple Color Emoji font. Apple has also connected macOS with social networks such as Twitter and Facebook through the addition of share buttons for content such as pictures and text. Apple has brought several applications and features that originally debuted in iOS, its mobile operating system, to macOS in recent releases, notably the intelligent personal assistant Siri, which was introduced in version 10.12 of macOS. Unix and Unix-like systems Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in the 1970s at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others. Initially intended for use inside the Bell System, AT&T licensed Unix to outside parties in the late 1970s, leading to a variety of both academic and commercial Unix variants from vendors including University of California, Berkeley (BSD), Microsoft (Xenix), Sun Microsystems (SunOS/Solaris), HP/HPE (HP-UX), and IBM (AIX). In the early 1990s, AT&T sold its rights in Unix to Novell, which then sold its Unix business to the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) in 1995. The UNIX trademark passed to The Open Group, an industry consortium founded in 1996, which allows the use of the mark for certified operating systems that comply with the Single UNIX Specification (SUS). However, Novell continues to own the Unix copyrights, which the SCO Group, Inc. v. Novell, Inc. court case (2010) confirmed. Unix systems are characterized by a modular design that is sometimes called the "Unix philosophy". According to this philosophy, the operating system should provide a set of simple tools, each of which performs a limited, well-defined function. A unified filesystem (the Unix filesystem) and an inter-process communication mechanism known as "pipes" serve as the main means of communication, and a shell scripting and command language (the Unix shell) is used to combine the tools to perform complex workflows. Unix distinguishes itself from its predecessors as the first portable operating system: almost the entire operating system is written in the C programming language, which allows Unix to operate on numerous platforms. macOS, described above, is a Unix-like system, and, beginning with Mac OS X Leopard, is certified to comply with the SUS. Linux Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on 17 September 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution. Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name "GNU/Linux" to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy. Popular Linux distributions include Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu. Commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Desktop Linux distributions include a windowing system such as X11 or Wayland, and a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma. Distributions intended for servers may omit graphics altogether, or include a solution stack such as LAMP. Because Linux is freely redistributable, anyone may create a distribution for any purpose. Linux was originally developed for personal computers based on the Intel x86 architecture, but has since been ported to more platforms than any other operating system. Because of the dominance of the Linux-based Android on smartphones, Linux also has the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems. Although it is used by only around 2.3 percent of desktop computers, the Chromebook, which runs the Linux kernel-based Chrome OS, dominates the US K–12 education market and represents nearly 20 percent of sub-$300 notebook sales in the US. Linux is the leading operating system on servers (over 96.4% of the top 1 million web servers' operating systems are Linux), leads other big iron systems such as mainframe computers, and is the only OS used on TOP500 supercomputers (since November 2017, having gradually eliminated all competitors). Linux also runs on embedded systems, i.e. devices whose operating system is typically built into the firmware and is highly tailored to the system. This includes routers, automation controls, smart home technology (like Google Nest), televisions (Samsung and LG Smart TVs use Tizen and WebOS, respectively), automobiles (for example, Tesla, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and Toyota all rely on Linux), digital video recorders, video game consoles, and smartwatches. The Falcon 9's and the Dragon 2's avionics use a customized version of Linux. Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open-source software collaboration. The source code may be used, modified and distributed commercially or non-commercially by anyone under the terms of its respective licenses, such as the GNU General Public License. 90% of all cloud infrastructure is powered by Linux including supercomputers and cloud providers. 74% of smartphones in the world are Linux-based. KDE Plasma 5 KDE Plasma 5 is the fifth and current generation of the graphical workspaces environment created by KDE primarily for Linux systems. KDE Plasma 5 is the successor of KDE Plasma 4 and was first released on 15 July 2014. It includes a new default theme, known as "Breeze", as well as increased convergence across different devices. The graphical interface was fully migrated to QML, which uses OpenGL for hardware acceleration, which resulted in better performance and reduced power consumption. FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular open-source BSD operating system, accounting for more than three-quarters of all installed simply, permissively licensed BSD systems. FreeBSD has similarities with Linux, with two major differences in scope and licensing: FreeBSD maintains a complete system, i.e. the project delivers a kernel, device drivers, userland utilities, and documentation, as opposed to Linux only delivering a kernel and drivers, and relying on third-parties for system software;and FreeBSD source code is generally released under a permissive BSD license, as opposed to the copyleft GPL used by Linux. The FreeBSD project includes a security team overseeing all software shipped in the base distribution. A wide range of additional third-party applications may be installed using the pkg package management system or FreeBSD Ports, or by compiling source code. Much of FreeBSD's codebase has become an integral part of other operating systems such as Darwin (the basis for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS), TrueNAS (an open-source NAS/SAN operating system), and the system software for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 game consoles. Google Chrome OS 'Chrome OS (sometimes styled as chromeOS) is a Gentoo Linux-based operating system designed by Google. It is derived from the free software Chromium OS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interface. However, Chrome OS is proprietary software. Google announced the project in July 2009, conceiving it as an operating system in which both applications and user data reside in the cloud: hence Chrome OS primarily runs web applications. Source code and a public demo came that November. The first Chrome OS laptop, known as a Chromebook, arrived in May 2011. Initial Chromebook shipments from Samsung and Acer occurred in July 2011. Chrome OS has an integrated media player and file manager. It supports Chrome Apps, which resemble native applications, as well as remote access to the desktop. Reception was initially skeptical, with some observers arguing that a browser running on any operating system was functionally equivalent. As more Chrome OS machines have entered the market, the operating system is now seldom evaluated apart from the hardware that runs it. Android applications started to become available for the operating system in 2014, and in 2016, access to Android apps in Google Play's entirety was introduced on supported Chrome OS devices. Support for a Linux terminal and applications, known as Project Crostini, was released to the stable channel in Chrome OS 69. This was made possible via a lightweight Linux kernel that runs containers inside a virtual machine. Chrome OS is only available pre-installed on hardware from Google manufacturing partners, but there are unofficial methods that allow it to be installed in other equipment. Its open-source upstream, Chromium OS, can be compiled from downloaded source code. Early on, Google provided design goals for Chrome OS, but has not otherwise released a technical description. Other operating systems See also Comparison of operating systems Hypervisor Interruptible operating system List of important publications in operating systems List of operating systems List of pioneers in computer science Live CD Glossary of operating systems terms Microcontroller Mobile device Mobile operating system Network operating system Object-oriented operating system Operating System Projects System Commander System image Timeline of operating systems Usage share of operating systems Notes References Nav boxes Operating systems Operating systems

67127822

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joplin%20%28software%29

Joplin (software)

Joplin is a free and open-source desktop and mobile note-taking application written for Unix-like (including macOS and Linux) and Microsoft Windows operating systems, as well as iOS, Android, and Linux/Windows terminals, written in JavaScript using Electron. Joplin's workflow and featureset is most often compared to Evernote. History Joplin is named for the ragtime composer and pianist, Scott Joplin. The first public desktop application release was version 0.10.19, on November 20, 2017. A Web Clipper for Chrome was introduced in December 2017 and the Firefox extension was released in May 2018. A new Joplin Cloud service was introduced in 2021, along with an on-premises Joplin Server application. Both products can be used to sync notes, to-dos, notebooks and note data across devices, as well as share notes or notebooks with other Joplin users, or even publish content to the web. Features Notes in markdown format Markdown extension plug-ins Storage in plain-text files Optional client-side encryption Organisation in notebooks and sub-notebooks Tagging system "Offline-first", notes are always accessible locally, and can be synced on demand Note synchronization with Joplin Cloud, Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, WebDAV, or (networked) file system See also Comparison of note-taking software References External links Joplin Forum Demonstration videos: Joplin Is An Open Source Alternative To Evernote Joplin, a free, open source, self hosted syncing note taking alternative to Evernote and OneNote Free and open-source Android software Free note-taking software Free software programmed in JavaScript iOS software Linux software MacOS software Windows software

67267346

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy%20C.%20Foster

Amy C. Foster

Amy Carole Foster (née Turner) is an American engineer who is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Her work considers nonlinear optics and silicon-based photonic devices. Early life and education Foster studied electrical engineering at the University at Buffalo. She moved to Cornell University for her graduate studies, where she worked with Michal Lipson. Her doctoral research looked at nonlinear optics in silicon waveguides. After earning her doctorate, Foster worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University. Research and career In 2010, Foster joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University. Her research considers the development of silicon-based photonic devices for new technologies. For the encryption of data, Foster developed a nonlinear photonic crystalline disk with input and output waveguides. This device configuration allows for the reproducible scrambling of signals, which creates specific keys for various information inputs. Such devices are almost impossible to clone, and reliably generate a large number of keys for the secure transmission of data. Foster has served as an Associate Editor of Optics Express since 2016 and was appointed The Optical Society Siegman International Summer School lecturer in 2018. Awards and honors 2012 DARPA Young Faculty Award 2016 Johns Hopkins University Catalyst Award Selected publications References Cornell University College of Engineering alumni University at Buffalo alumni American women scientists Optical engineers American electrical engineers Johns Hopkins University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American women academics 21st-century American women

67273665

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data%20sanitization

Data sanitization

Data Sanitization involves the secure and permanent erasure of sensitive data from datasets and media to guarantee that no residual data can be recovered even through extensive forensic analysis. Data sanitization has a wide range of applications but is mainly used for clearing out end-of-life electronic devices or for the sharing and use of large datasets that contain sensitive information. The main strategies for erasing personal data from devices are physical destruction, cryptographic erasure, and data erasure. While the term data sanitization may lead some to believe that it only includes data on electronic media, the term also broadly covers physical media, such as paper copies. These data types are termed soft for electronic files and hard for physical media paper copies. Data sanitization methods are also applied for the cleaning of sensitive data, such as through heuristic-based methods, machine-learning based methods, and k-source anonymity. This erasure is necessary as an increasing amount of data is moving to online storage, which poses a privacy risk in the situation that the device is resold to another individual. The importance of data sanitization has risen in recent years as private information is increasingly stored in an electronic format and larger, more complex datasets are being utilized to distribute private information. Electronic storage has expanded and enabled more private data to be stored. Therefore it requires more advanced and thorough data sanitization techniques to ensure that no data is left on the device once it is no longer in use. Technological tools that enable the transfer of large amounts of data also allow more private data to be shared. Especially with the increasing popularity of cloud-based information sharing and storage, data sanitization methods that ensure that all data shared is cleaned has become a significant concern. Therefore it is only sensible that governments and private industry create and enforce data sanitization policies to prevent data loss or other security incidents. Data Sanitization Policy in Public and Private Sectors While the practice of data sanitization is common knowledge in most technical fields, it is not consistently understood across all levels of business and government. Thus, the need for a comprehensive Data Sanitization policy in government contracting and private industry is required in order to avoid the possible loss of data, leaking of state secrets to adversaries, disclosing proprietary technologies, and possibly being barred for contract competition by government agencies.   With the increasingly connected world, it has become even more critical that governments, companies, and individuals follow specific data sanitization protocols to ensure that the confidentiality of information is sustained throughout its lifecycle.  This step is critical to the core Information Security triad of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.  This CIA Triad is especially relevant to those who operate as government contractors or handle other sensitive private information.  To this end, government contractors must follow specific data sanitization policies and use these policies to enforce the National Institute of Standards and Technology recommended guidelines for Media Sanitization covered in NIST Special Publication 800-88. This is especially prevalent for any government work which requires CUI (Controlled Unclassified Information) or above and is required by DFARS Clause 252.204-7012, Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting While private industry may not be required to follow NIST 800-88 standards for data sanitization, it is typically considered to be a best practice across industries with sensitive data. To further compound the issue, the ongoing shortage of cyber specialists and confusion on proper cyber hygiene has created a skill and funding gap for many government contractors. However, failure to follow these recommended sanitization policies may result in severe consequences, including losing data, leaking state secrets to adversaries, losing proprietary technologies, and preventing contract competition by government agencies.  Therefore, the government contractor community must ensure its data sanitization policies are well defined and follow NIST guidelines for data sanitization.  Additionally, while the core focus of data sanitization may seem to focus on electronic “soft copy” data, other data sources such as “hard copy” documents must be addressed in the same sanitization policies. Data Sanitization Trends To examine the existing instances of data sanitization policies and determine the impacts of not developing, utilizing, or following these policy guidelines and recommendation, research data was not only coalesced from the government contracting sector but also other critical industries such as Defense, Energy, and Transportation.  These were selected as they typically also fall under government regulations, and therefore NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) guidelines and policies would also apply in the United States.  Primary Data is from the study performed by an independent research company Coleman Parkes Research in August 2019.  This research project targeted many different senior cyber executives and policy makers while surveying over 1,800 senior stakeholders. The data from Coleman Parkes shows that 96% of organizations have a data sanitization policy in place; however, in the United States, only 62% of respondents felt that the policy is communicated well across the business.  Additionally, it reveals that remote and contract workers were the least likely to comply with data sanitization policies.  This trend has become a more pressing issue as many government contractors and private companies have been working remotely due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The likelihood of this continuing after the return to normal working conditions is likely. On June 26, 2021, a basic Google search for “data lost due to non-sanitization” returned over 20 million results.  These included articles on; data breaches and the loss of business, military secrets and proprietary data losses, PHI (Protected Health Information), PII (Personally Identifiable Information), and many articles on performing essential data sanitization. Many of these articles also point to existing data sanitization and security policies of companies and government entities, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Sample Policy and Guidance Language for Federal Media Sanitization". Based on these articles and NIST 800-88 recommendations, depending on its data security level or categorization, data should be: Cleared – Provide a basic level of data sanitization by overwriting data sectors to remove any previous data remnants that a basic format would not include. Again, the focus is on electronic media. This method is typically utilized if the media is going to be re-used within the organization at a similar data security level. Purged – May use physical (degaussing) or logical methods (sector overwrite) to make the target media unreadable. Typically utilized when media is no longer needed and is at a lower level of data security level. Destroyed –   Permanently renders the data irretrievable and is commonly used when media is leaving an organization or has reached its end of life, i.e., paper shredding or hard drive/media crushing and incineration.  This method is typically utilized for media containing highly sensitive information and state secrets which could cause grave damage to national security or to the privacy and safety of individuals. Data Sanitization Road Blocks The International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium 2020 Cyber Workforce study shows that the global cybersecurity industry still has over 3.12 million unfilled positions due to a skills shortage.   Therefore, those with the correct skillset to implement NIST 800-88 in policies may come at a premium labor rate. In addition, staffing and funding need to adjust to meet policy needs to properly implement these sanitization methods in tandem with appropriate Data level categorization to improve data security outcomes and reduce data loss. In order to ensure the confidentiality of customer and client data, government and private industry must create and follow concrete data sanitization policies which align with best practices, such as those outlined in NIST 800-88.  Without consistent and enforced policy requirements, the data will be at increased risk of compromise.  To achieve this, entities must allow for a cybersecurity wage premium to attract qualified talent.  In order to prevent the loss of data and therefore Proprietary Data, Personal Information, Trade Secrets, and Classified Information, it is only logical to follow best practices. Data Sanitization Policy Best Practices Data Sanitization Policy must be comprehensive and include data levels and correlating sanitization methods. Any Data Sanitization policy created must be comprehensive and include all forms of media to include soft and hard copy data.  Categories of data should also be defined so that appropriate sanitization levels will be defined under a sanitization policy.  This policy should be defined so that all levels of data can align to the appropriate sanitization method.   For example, Controlled Unclassified Information on electronic storage devices may be cleared or purged, but those devices storing Secret or Top Secret Classified materials should be physically destroyed. Any Data Sanitization policy should be enforceable and show what department and management structure has the responsibility to ensure data is sanitized accordingly.  This policy will require a high-level management champion (typically the Chief Information Security Officer or another C-suite equivalent) for the process and to define responsibilities and penalties for parties at all levels.  This policy champion will include defining concepts such as the Information System Owner and Information Owner to define the chain of responsibility for data creation and eventual sanitization.  The CISO or other policy champion should also ensure funding is allocated to additional cybersecurity workers to implement and enforce policy compliance. Auditing requirements are also typically included to prove media destruction and should be managed by these additional staff. For small business and those without a broad cyber background resources are available in the form of editable Data Sanitization policy templates. Many groups such as the IDSC (International Data Sanitization Consortium) provide these free of charge on their website https://www.datasanitization.org/. Without training in data security and sanitization principles, it is unfeasible to expect users to comply with the policy.  Therefore, the Sanitization Policy should include a matrix of instruction and frequency by job category to ensure that users, at every level, understand their part in complying with the policy.  This task should be easy to accomplish as most government contractors are already required to perform annual Information Security training for all employees.  Therefore, additional content can be added to ensure data sanitization policy compliance. Sanitizing Devices The primary use of data sanitization is for the complete clearing of devices and destruction of all sensitive data once the storage device is no longer in use or is transferred to another Information system . This is an essential stage in the Data Security Lifecycle (DSL) and Information Lifecycle Management (ILM). Both are approaches for ensuring privacy and data management throughout the usage of an electronic device, as it ensures that all data is destroyed and unrecoverable when devices reach the end of their lifecycle. There are three main methods of data sanitization for complete erasure of data: physical destruction, cryptographic erasure, and data erasure. All three erasure methods aim to ensure that deleted data cannot be accessed even through advanced forensic methods, which maintains the privacy of individuals’ data even after the mobile device is no longer in use. Physical Destruction Physical erasure involves the manual destruction of stored data. This method uses mechanical shredders or degaussers to shred devices, such as phones, computers, hard drives, and printers, into small individual pieces. Varying levels of data security levels require different levels of destruction. Degaussing is most commonly used on hard disk drives (HDDs), and involves the utilization of high energy magnetic fields to permanently disrupt the functionality and memory storage of the device. When data is exposed to this strong magnetic field, any memory storage is neutralized and can not be recovered or used again. Degaussing does not apply to solid state disks (SSDs) as the data is not stored using magnetic methods. When particularly sensitive data is involved it is typical to utilize processes such as paper pulp, special burn, and solid state conversion. This will ensure proper destruction of all sensitive media including paper, Hard and Soft copy media, optical media, specialized computing hardware. Physical destruction often ensures that data is completely erased and cannot be used again. However, the physical byproducts of mechanical waste from mechanical shredding can be damaging to the environment, but a recent trend in increasing the amount of E-Waste material recovered by E-cycling has helped to minimize the environmental impact. Furthermore, once data is physically destroyed, it can no longer be resold or used again. Cryptographic Erasure Cryptographic erasure involves the destruction of the secure key or passphrase, that is used to protect stored information. Data encryption involves the development of a secure key that only enables authorized parties to gain access to the data that is stored. The permanent erasure of this key ensures that the private data stored can no longer be accessed. Cryptographic erasure is commonly installed through manufactures of the device itself as encryption software is often built into the device. Encryption with key erasure involves encrypting all sensitive material in a way that requires a secure key to decrypt the information when it needs to be used. When the information needs to be deleted, the secure key can be erased. This provides a greater ease of use, and a speedier data wipe, than other software methods because it involves one deletion of secure information rather than each individual file. Cryptographic erasure is often used for data storage that does not contain as much private information since there is a possibility that errors can occur due to manufacturing failures or human error during the process of key destruction. This creates a wider range of possible results of data erasure. This method allows for data to continue to be stored on the device and does not require that the device be completely erased. This way, the device can be resold again to another individual or company since the physical integrity of the device itself is maintained. However this assumes that the level of data encryption on the device is resistant to future encryption attacks. For instance a hard drive utilizing Cryptographic erasure with a 128bit AES key may be secure now but in 5 years, it may be common to break this level of encryption. Therefore the level of data security should be declared in a data sanitization policy to future proof the process. Data Erasure The process of data erasure involves masking all information at the byte level through the insertion of random 0s and 1s in on all sectors of the electronic equipment that is no longer in use. This software based method ensures that all data previous stored is completely hidden and unrecoverable, which ensures full data sanitization. The efficacy and accuracy of this sanitization method can also be analyzed through auditable reports. Data erasure often ensures complete sanitization while also maintaining the physical integrity of the electronic equipment so that the technology can be resold or reused. This ability to recycle technological devices makes data erasure a more environmentally sound version of data sanitization. This method is also the most accurate and comprehensive since the efficacy of the data masking can be tested afterwards to ensure complete deletion. However, data erasure through software based mechanisms requires more time compared to other methods. Necessity of Data Sanitization There has been increased usage of mobile devices, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, cloud-based storage systems, portable electronic devices, and various other electronic methods to store sensitive information, therefore implementing effective erasure methods once the device is not longer in use has become crucial to protect sensitive data. Due to the increased usage of electronic devices in general and the increased storage of private information on these electronic devices, the need for data sanitization has been much more urgent in recent years. There are also specific methods of sanitization that do not fully clean devices of private data which can prove to be problematic. For example, some remote wiping methods on mobile devices are vulnerable to outside attacks and efficacy depends on the unique efficacy of each individual software system installed. Remote wiping involves sending a wireless command to the device when it has been lost or stolen that directs the device to completely wipe out all data. While this method can be very beneficial, it also has several drawbacks. For example, the remote wiping method can be manipulated by attackers to signal the process when it is not yet necessary. This results in incomplete data sanitization. If attackers do gain access to the storage on the device, the user risks exposing all private information that was stored. Cloud computing and storage has become an increasingly popular method of data storage and transfer. However, there are certain privacy challenges associated with cloud computing that have not been fully explored. Cloud computing is vulnerable to various attacks such as through code injection, the path traversal attack, and resource depletion because of the shared pool structure of these new techniques. These cloud storage models require specific data sanitization methods to combat these issues. If data is not properly removed from cloud storage models, it opens up the possibility for security breaches at multiple levels. Risks Posed by Inadequate Data-Set Sanitization Inadequate data sanitization methods can result in two main problems: a breach of private information and compromises to the integrity of the original dataset. If data sanitization methods are unsuccessful at removing all sensitive information, it poses the risk of leaking this information to attackers. Numerous studies have been conducted to optimize ways of preserving sensitive information. Some data sanitization methods have a high sensitivity to distinct points that have no closeness to data points. This type of data sanitization is very precise and can detect anomalies even if the poisoned data point is relatively close to true data. Another method of data sanitization is one that also removes outliers in data, but does so in a more general way. It detects the general trend of data and discards any data that strays and it’s able to target anomalies even when inserted as a group. In general, data sanitization techniques use algorithms to detect anomalies and remove any suspicious points that may be poisoned data or sensitive information. Furthermore, data sanitization methods may remove useful, non-sensitive information, which then renders the sanitized dataset less useful and altered from the original. There have been iterations of common data sanitization techniques that attempt to correct the issue of the loss of original dataset integrity. In particular, Liu, Xuan, Wen, and Song offered a new algorithm for data sanitization called the Improved Minimum Sensitive Itemsets Conflict First Algorithm (IMSICF) method. There is often a lot of emphasis that is put into protecting the privacy of users, so this method brings a new perspective that focuses on also protecting the integrity of the data. It functions in a way that has three main advantages: it learns to optimize the process of sanitization by only cleaning the item with the highest conflict count, keeps parts of the dataset with highest utility, and also analyzes the conflict degree of the sensitive material. Robust research was conducted on the efficacy and usefulness of this new technique to reveal the ways that it can benefit in maintaining the integrity of the dataset. This new technique is able to firstly pinpoint the specific parts of the dataset that are possibly poisoned data and also use computer algorithms to make a calculation between the tradeoffs of how useful it is to decide if it should be removed. This is a new way of data sanitization that takes into account the utility of the data before it is immediately discarded. Applications of data sanitization Data sanitization methods are also implemented for privacy preserving data mining, association rule hiding, and blockchain-based secure information sharing. These methods involve the transfer and analysis of large datasets that contain private information. This private information needs to be sanitized before being made available online so that sensitive material is not exposed. Data sanitization is used to ensure privacy is maintained in the dataset, even when it is being analyzed. Privacy Preserving Data Mining Privacy Preserving Data Mining (PPDM) is the process of data mining while maintaining privacy of sensitive material. Data mining involves analyzing large datasets to gain new information and draw conclusions. PPDM has a wide range of uses and is an integral step in the transfer or use of any large data set containing sensitive material. Data sanitization is an integral step to privacy preserving data mining because private datasets need to be sanitized before they can be utilized by individuals or companies for analysis. The aim of privacy preserving data mining is to ensure that private information cannot be leaked or accessed by attackers and sensitive data is not traceable to individuals that have submitted the data. Privacy preserving data mining aims to maintain this level of privacy for individuals while also maintaining the integrity and functionality of the original dataset. In order for the dataset to be used, necessary aspects of the original data need to be protected during the process of data sanitization. This balance between privacy and utility has been the primary goal of data sanitization methods. One approach to achieve this optimization of privacy and utility is through encrypting and decrypting sensitive information using a process called key generation. After the data is sanitized, key generation is used to ensure that this data is secure and cannot be tampered with. Approaches such as the Rider optimization Algorithm (ROA), also called Randomized ROA (RROA) use these key generation strategies to find the optimal key so that data can be transferred without leaking sensitive information. Some versions of key generation have also been optimized to fit larger datasets. For example, a novel, method-based Privacy Preserving Distributed Data Mining strategy is able to increase privacy and hide sensitive material through key generation. This version of sanitization allows large amount of material to be sanitized. For companies that are seeking to share information with several different groups, this methodology may be preferred over original methods that take much longer to process. Certain models of data sanitization delete or add information to the original database in an effort to preserve the privacy of each subject. These heuristic based algorithms are beginning to become more popularized, especially in the field of association rule mining. Heuristic methods involve specific algorithms that use pattern hiding, rule hiding, and sequence hiding to keep specific information hidden. This type of data hiding can be used to cover wide patterns in data, but is not as effective for specific information protection. Heuristic based methods are not as suited to sanitizing large datasets, however, recent developments in the heuristics based field have analyzed ways to tackle this problem. An example includes the MR-OVnTSA approach, a  heuristics based sensitive pattern hiding approach for big data, introduced by Shivani Sharma and Durga Toshniwa. This approach uses a heuristics based method called the ‘MapReduce Based Optimum Victim Item and Transaction Selection Approach’, also called MR-OVnTSA, that aims to reduce the loss of important data while removing and hiding sensitive information. It takes advantage of algorithms that compare steps and optimize sanitization. An important goal of PPDM is to strike a balance between maintaining the privacy of users that have submitted the data while also enabling developers to make full use of the dataset. Many measures of PPDM directly modify the dataset and create a new version that makes the original unrecoverable. It strictly erases any sensitive information and makes it inaccessible for attackers. Association Rule Mining One type of data sanitization is rule based PPDM, which uses defined computer algorithms to clean datasets. Association rule hiding is the process of data sanitization as applied to transactional databases. Transactional databases are the general term for data storage used to record transactions as organizations conduct their business. Examples include shipping payments, credit card payments, and sales orders. This source analyzes fifty four different methods of data sanitization and presents its four major findings of its trends Certain new methods of data sanitization that rely on machine deep learning. There are various weaknesses in the current use of data sanitization. Many methods are not intricate or detailed enough to protect against more specific data attacks. This effort to maintain privacy while dating important data is referred to as privacy-preserving data mining. Machine learning develops methods that are more adapted to different types of attacks and can learn to face a broader range of situations. Deep learning is able to simplify the data sanitization methods and run these protective measures in a more efficient and less time consuming way. There have also been hybrid models that utilize both rule based and machine deep learning methods to achieve a balance between the two techniques. Blockchain-Based Secure Information Sharing Browser backed cloud storage systems are heavily reliant on data sanitization and are becoming an increasingly popular route of data storage. Furthermore, the ease of usage is important for enterprises and workplaces that use cloud storage for communication and collaboration. Blockchain is used to record and transfer information in a secure way and data sanitization techniques are required to ensure that this data is transferred more securely and accurately. It’s especially applicable for those working in supply chain management and may be useful for those looking to optimize the supply chain process. For example, the Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), uses a method of secure key generation to ensure that information is shared securely through the blockchain technique. The need to improve blockchain methods is becoming increasingly relevant as the global level of development increases and becomes more electronically dependent. Industry specific applications Healthcare The healthcare industry is an important sector that relies heavily on data mining and use of datasets to store confidential information about patients. The use of electronic storage has also been increasing in recent years, which requires more comprehensive research and understanding of the risks that it may pose. Currently, data mining and storage techniques are only able to store limited amounts of information. This reduces the efficacy of data storage and increases the costs of storing data. New advanced methods of storing and mining data that involve cloud based systems are becoming increasingly popular as they are able to both mine and store larger amounts of information. References Data erasure

67311435

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow%20Cove

Willow Cove

Willow Cove is a codename for a CPU microarchitecture developed by Intel and released on September 2020. Willow Cove is the successor to the Sunny Cove microarchitecture, and is fabricated using Intel's enhanced 10 nm process node called 10 nm SuperFin (10SF). The microarchitecture powers 11th-generation Intel Core mobile processors (codenamed "Tiger Lake"). The Willow Cove microarchitecture will be succeeded by Golden Cove. Features Intel first described Tiger Lake and Willow Cove during their Architecture Day in 2020. Willow Cove is almost identical to the previous microarchitecture but introduces new security features, a redesigned cache subsystem, and higher clock speeds. Intel claims that these changes, in addition to the new 10SF process node, give an additional 10-20% performance increase from Sunny Cove. Improvements Larger L2 caches (1.25MB per core from 512KB per core) Larger L3 caches (3MB per core from 2MB per core) A new AVX-512 instruction: Vector Pair Intersection to a Pair of Mask Registers, VP2INTERSECT Control Flow Enforcement Technology to prevent Return Oriented Programming and Jump Oriented Programming hacking techniques Full memory (RAM) encryption Indirect branch tracking and shadow stack Intel Key Locker AVX/AVX2 instructions support for Pentium Gold and Celeron processors has been unlocked Products Willow Cove powers Intel's 11th-generation Intel Core mobile processors (codenamed "Tiger Lake"). Tiger Lake-U processors were released on September 2, 2020, while Tiger Lake-H35 were released on January 11, 2021. Tiger Lake-H processors were launched on May 11,2021. References X86 microarchitectures Intel Intel microarchitectures

67345750

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%20and%20development%20of%20software%20for%20COVID-19%20pandemic%20mitigation

Use and development of software for COVID-19 pandemic mitigation

Various kinds of software have been developed and used for mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic. These include mobile apps for contact tracing and notifications about infection risks, digital passports verifying one's vaccination status, software for enabling – or improving the effectiveness of – lockdowns and social distancing in general, Web software for the creation of related information services, and software for the research and development for COVID-19 mitigation. Contact tracing Design Many different contact tracing apps have been developed. Design decisions such as those relating to the users' privacy and data-storage and -security vary between the apps. In most cases the different apps are not interoperable which may reduce their effectiveness when multiple apps are used within a country or when people travel across national borders. It has been suggested that building a single open-source app (or a small set of such) that is usable by all, ensures interoperability, and is developed as a robust app everyone is putting their energy into – for a bundled work force, standardized optimal design and combined maximum innovative capacity, would have been preferable to such highly parallel development. Use and effectiveness An unincentivized and always entirely voluntary use of such digital contact tracing apps by the public was found to be low even if the apps are built to preserve privacy, leading to low usefulness of the software for pandemic mitigation as of April 2021. A lack of possible features and persistent, prevalent errors reduced their usefulness further. Use of such an app in general or during specific times is in many or all cases not provable. Check-in functionality Some apps also allow "check-ins" that enable contact tracing and exposure notifications after entering public venues such as fitness centres. One such example is the We-Care project, a novel initiative by University of California, Davis researchers that uses anonymity and crowdsourced information, to which check-ins are essential, to alert infected users and slow the spread of COVID-19. Digital vaccination certificates Digital vaccine passports and vaccination certificates are and use software for verifying a person's coronavirus vaccination status. Such certificates may enable vaccinated persons to get access to events, buildings and services in the public such as airplanes, concert venues and health clubs and travel across borders. This may enable partial reopenings. Lawrence Gostin stated that there is enormous economic and social incentive for such proof of vaccinations. Hurdles and ethical implications COVID-19 vaccines are usually distributed based on infection risks and granting privileges based on vaccination-status certification has some ethical implications, like any of the other mechanisms/factors by which society grants privileges to individuals. For instance, privileges based on vaccination-status may lead to people not at high risk of COVID-19 infection or of a severe prognosis of the disease to obtain a large share of the limited supply of vaccination doses (via society's mechanisms of finance) and the vaccinated people to be granted permissions that could be seen as "unfair" by unvaccinated people. Moreover, such certificates could require a set of tamper-proof, privacy-respecting, verifiable, authenticity-ensuring, data-validity-ensuring, secure digital certification technologies – robust digital signature cryptography-based software that may not exist yet. Furthermore, such privileging mechanisms may exacerbate inequality, increase risks of deliberate infections or transmission, and depend or increase dependence on inoculation preventing COVID-19 transmission which the WHO considers to still be an uncertainty. The public health justification of avoiding preventable sickness or death of others may not be shared or communicated effectively to significant parts of the population. A large share of elderly do not have smartphones which many digital vaccination certificates designs may rely on. Design Several groups have stated that common standards are important and that a single common and optimal standard for each purpose would be best. As no adequate technical swift mechanisms for its collective design – or establishing firm consensus for it – exists, some teams are developing cross-compatible solutions. Likewise, the design and development of such technologies is highly parallel, rather than collaborative, efficient and integrative. Governments often like to ensure data sovereignty. According to some experts, national governments should have developed – or helped to develop – a standardized, secure, digital proof of vaccination earlier. In the U.S. such digital certificates are being developed by the private sector, with a large number of different solutions being produced by small corporate teams and no vaccinations database being designed by state-funded organizations. Development of many solutions may lead to a large number of security vulnerabilities and no highly robust, privacy-respecting, extendable, performant and interoperable software which, however, may be developed, improved or become a standard years after the large number of apps are published and used. Saskia Popescu and Alexandra Phelan argue that "any moves to institute vaccine passports must be coordinated internationally". The WHO has established a – small and nonparticipative – "working group focused on establishing standards for a common architecture for a digital smart vaccination certificate to support vaccine(s) against COVID-19 and other immunizations". The COVID-19 Credentials Initiative hosted by Linux Foundation Public Health (LFPH) is a global initiative working to develop and deploy privacy-preserving, tamper-evident and verifiable credential certification projects based on the open standard Verifiable Credentials (VCs). Cybersecurity expert Laurin Weissinger argues that it's important for such software to be fully free and open source, to clarify concepts and designs timely, to have it penetration-tested by security experts and to communicate which and how data is collected and processed as such would be needed to build required trust. Jenny Wanger, director of programs at the Linux Foundation, also contends that is essential for such software to be open source. ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley affirms this notion and warns that an "architecture that is not good for transparency, privacy, or user control" could set a "bad standard" for future apps and systems that host credentials. In Israel, Estonia and Iceland such passports are already being used. In other places like New York pilot programs are being run. Many other countries and unions are considering or planning for such passports and/or certificates. Software for remote work, distance education, telemedicine, product delivery, eGovernment and videoconferencing Websites Web software has been used to inform the public about the latest state of the pandemic. Wikipedia and COVID-19 dashboards were used widely for obtaining aggregated, integrated and reliable information about the pandemic. The Wikimedia project Scholia provides a graphical interface around data in Wikidata – such as literature about a specific coronavirus protein – which may help with research, research-analysis, making data interoperable, automated applications, regular updates, and data-mining. A multitude of diverse websites were consulted by citizens proactively striving to learn which activities were allowed and which disallowed – such as the times during which curfews apply – which changed continuously throughout the pandemic and also varied by location. A study found results from a German government-organized hackathon held via Internet-technologies to be "tangible". In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of online archivists have used the open access PHP- and Linux-based shadow library Sci-Hub to create an archive of over 5000 articles about coronaviruses. They confirmed that making the archive openly accessible is currently illegal, but consider it a moral imperative. Sci-Hub provides free full access for most scientific publications about the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, multiple legacy scientific publishers have created open access portals, including the Cambridge University Press, the Europe branch of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, The Lancet, John Wiley and Sons, and Springer Nature. Medical software GNU Health The open source, Qt- and GTK-based GNU Health has a variety of default features already built in that makes it useful during pandemics. As the software is open source, it allows many different parties to pool efforts on an existing single integrated program – instead of different programs for different purposes or different clients and multiple programs for each purpose – to enhance its usefulness during the pandemic as well as adapting it to their needs. Already existing features include a way for the clinical information to be made available and get updated immediately in any health institution via the unique "Person Universal ID", lab test report templates and functionalities, functionality for digital signing and encryption of data as well as storage of medical records. Theoretically, the software could be used or modified to aid e.g. COVID-19 testing and research about COVID-19 as securely sharing anonymized patient treatments, medical history and individual outcomes – including by common primary care physicians – may speed up such research and clinical trials. The software has been considered as a possible backbone of a robust, sustainable public health infrastructure based on cooperation. Software for COVID-19 testing In Bavaria, Germany a delay in communicating 44,000 test-results was caused by the lack of use or preparatory setup or development of required software. Vaccination management Software is being used to manage to distribution of vaccines, which have to be kept cold, and to record which individuals already received a – and which – vaccination. A lack of use or preparatory setup or development of required software caused delays and other problems. Screening In China, Web-technologies were used to screen and direct individuals to appropriate resources. In Taiwan, infrared thermal cameras were used in airports to rapidly detect individuals with fever. Machine learning has been used for rapid diagnosis and risk prediction of COVID-19. Quarantining Electronic monitoring hard- and software has been to ensure and verify infected individuals' adherence to quarantine. However, solutions based on mobile apps have been found to be insufficient. Furthermore, various software designs may threaten civil liberties and infringe on privacy. Nextstrain Nextstrain is an open source platform for pathogen genomic data such as about viral evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and was used widely during the COVID-19 pandemic such as for research about novel variants of SARS-CoV-2. Data sharing and copyright In March 2021, a proposal backed by a large number of organizations and prominent researchers and experts and initiated mainly by organizations in India and South Africa, called the international authority World Trade Organization (WTO) to reduce copyright barriers to COVID-19 prevention, containment and treatment. In 2020, professor Sean Flynn, noted that "Only a minority of countries authorize sharing text and data mining databases between researchers needed for collaboration, including across borders." Vaccine production Software has been used in leaks and industrial espionage of vaccine-related data. Machine learning has been applied to improve vaccine productivity. Modelling software Scientific software models and simulations for SARS-CoV-2, including spread, functional mechanisms and properties, efficacy of potential treatments, transmission risks, vaccination modelling/monitoring, etc. (computational fluid dynamics, computational epidemiology, computational biology/computational systems biology, ...) Modelling software and related software is also used to evaluate impacts on the environment (see #Websites) and the economy. Results from such as models are used in science-based policy-making, science-based recommendations and the development of treatments. Folding@home In March 2020, the volunteer distributed computing project Folding@home became the world's first system to reach one exaFLOPS. The system simulates protein folding, was used for medical research on COVID-19 and achieved a speed of approximately 2.43 x86 exaFLOPS by 13 April 2020 many times faster than the fastest supercomputer to that date Summit. That same month, the Rosetta@home distributed computing project also joined the effort. The project uses volunteers' computers to model the proteins of SARS-CoV-2 virus to discover potential drug targets or develop new proteins to neutralize the virus. The researchers announced that using Rosetta@home, they were able to "accurately predict the atomic-scale structure of an important coronavirus protein weeks before it could be measured in the lab." In May 2020, the OpenPandemics—COVID-19 partnership was launched between Scripps Research and IBM's World Community Grid. The partnership is a distributed computing project that "will automatically run a simulated experiment in the background [of connected home PCs] that will help predict the efficacy of a particular chemical compound as a potential treatment for COVID-19." COVID-19 drug repurposing research and drug development Supercomputers – including the world's fastest single supercomputers Summit and Fugaku – have been used in attempts to identify potential treatments by running simulations with data on existing, already-approved medications. Two early examples of supercomputer consortia are listed below: In March 2020, the United States Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, NASA, industry, and nine universities pooled resources to access supercomputers from IBM, combined with cloud computing resources from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, for drug discovery. The COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium also aims to forecast disease spread, model possible vaccines, and screen thousands of chemical compounds to design a COVID-19 vaccine or therapy. The C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute, an additional consortium of Microsoft, six universities (including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the first consortium), and the National Center for Supercomputer Applications in Illinois, working under the auspices of C3.ai, an artificial intelligence software company, are pooling supercomputer resources toward drug discovery, medical protocol development and public health strategy improvement, as well as awarding large grants to researchers who proposed by May to use AI to carry out similar tasks. See also Timeline of computing 2020–2029 Pandemic prevention#Surveillance and mapping COVID-19 surveillance Teamwork Open-source software development Citizen science#COVID-19 pandemic Information management COVID-19 pandemic#Information dissemination Open-source ventilator Bioinformatics Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on science and technology#Computing and machine learning research and citizen science Public health mitigation of COVID-19#Information technology Technology policy References External links , a scientific review for an overview of how IT applications could be used during the COVID-19 outbreak and pandemic Emergency management software

67386402

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael%20Veale

Michael Veale

Michael Veale is a technology policy academic who focuses on information technology and the law. He is currently Associate Professor in the Faculty of Laws at University College London (UCL). Education Veale holds a PhD in the application of law and policy to the social challenges of machine learning from UCL, a BSc in Government and Economics from the London School of Economics and a MSc in Sustainability, Science and Policy from Maastricht University. Academic career Veale joined the Faculty of Laws at UCL in 2019 as Lecturer in Digital Rights and Regulation, and was appointed Associate Professor in 2021, where he teaches Internet law and privacy law. Veale was previously a Digital Charter Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK's National Centre for AI and Data Science, and the UK Government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Veale is also affiliated with Pennsylvania State University's PILOT Lab and teaches at the New York University Stern School of Business. Veale has authored and co-authored reports on data and technology policy for the Royal Society, the Law Society of England and Wales and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Scholarship Veale's scholarship concerns information technology, law and society. His work has highlighted tensions between the practice and functioning of technologies including machine learning, encryption and Web technologies, and the laws that govern them. Veale's work has been influential among governments, legislators and NGOs. Work with Lilian Edwards on a right to an explanation in data protection law has led to legislative amendments in the UK Parliament, and has been cited by the US Federal Trade Commission, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, the Council of Europe, the United Nations special rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Philip Alston, the European Parliament, European Commission, and the Information Commissioner's Office. His work on the legality of cookie consent banners has also been cited by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, Facebook and a range of media outlets. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Veale co-authored the Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing protocol for Bluetooth contact tracing apps which formed a basis for Apple and Google's partnership protocol, Exposure Notification. Digital rights activism Veale is a noted digital rights activist. He is a member of the Advisory Councils of the Open Rights Group and Foxglove, both of which are UK-based NGOs which campaign in favour of privacy and digital rights, and advises the Ada Lovelace Institute. Right of access to personal data Veale has been involved in a variety of actions concerning the right to access personal data under data protection law. It has been reported that Veale is party to a complaint to the Irish data protection authority concerning Apple's refusal to provide access to users' personal data in the form of recordings made by Siri, stemming from research undertaken by Veale with KU Leuven and the University of Oxford. Apple had reportedly argued that the recordings were anonymised and so did not constitute personal data. At the time, the recordings were stored alongside a device identifier rather than a user's name for up to 6 months, and without any identifier at all for up to 18 months beyond that. Apple also said that the device identifier changes if or when Siri is disabled or re-enabled. Apple said it had not currently built a way to access this device identifier on specific users' devices or to search data that it held by an identifier. However, Veale and colleagues pointed out that Apple associates device identifiers with other information stored on its servers, such as the names of contacts, reminders set, and playlist titles that make it possible for anyone with access to the recordings to identify who it relates to "by using easily accessible data sources, like social media". The researchers argued that Apple's refusal to recognise users' right of access under the GDPR prevented them from verifying if Siri was accidentally recording conversation that was not meant to be recorded or using the recordings in inappropriate ways. Complaints from Veale around the refusal by Facebook and Twitter to provide access to data concerning the extent of their Web tracking operations have also reportedly led to investigations by the Irish Data Protection Commission. The Commission's Annual Report lists these complaints as 2 of 27 cross-border inquiries commenced since 25 May 2018, concerning Twitter's use of advertising URL shortening and Facebook's 'Hive' database. Following the release of the choose-your-adventure style movie Bandersnatch by Netflix in 2019, Veale obtained his and posted his viewing data from Netflix by invoking his right of access under the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), leading to an array of coverage of the issue and debates around the use of such information in profiling. AdTech In September 2018, Veale, Johnny Ryan (then-Chief Policy and Industrial Relations Officer at Brave), and Jim Killock (executive director of the Open Rights Group) filed a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), notifying the data protection authorities about systemic breaches of data protection law by the AdTech industry. They drew specific attention to mass surveillance of Internet users for the purposes of behavioural advertising, and the use of the data gathered and inferrred to power real-time-bidding (RTB) auction systems. They suggested that the collection and processing of personal data by players in the adtech industry was without legitimate basis and conducted without legally valid consent, contrary to the GDPR. A later academic paper by Veale outlined their argument. In May 2019, the Irish DPC opened a formal investigation into the AdTech industry. In June 2019, the ICO responded to the complaint in a report, agreeing that the collection of personal data was "taking place unlawfully". It also agreed that there were "systemic concerns" about the AdTech industry's use of personal data. One of the ICO's deputy commissioners, Simon McDougall, warned the AdTech industry that there was a need for reform, saying "We have significant concerns about the lawfulness of the processing of special category data which we’ve seen in the industry, and the lack of explicit consent for that processing". He also noted that the existing justifications offered by players in the AdTech industry appeared to be insufficient. McDougall also criticised the industry's failure to conduct proper Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) as required under the GDPR, describing the DPIAs the ICO had reviewed as "generally immature" and lacking "appropriate detail". Veale criticised the ICO's response, stating that:When an industry is premised and profiting from clear and entrenched illegality that breach individuals' fundamental rights, engagement is not a suitable remedy. The ICO cannot continue to look back at its past precedents for enforcement action, because it is exactly that timid approach that has led us to where we are now.The ICO subsequently appeared to take no further action until May 2020, when it announced it was suspending its investigation to avoid putting "undue pressure" on the advertising industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. In letters to the complaints, the ICO stated that it was closing the complaint but claimed it intended to "recommence our industry wide investigation into RTB in due course". In November 2020, Killock and Veale challenged the ICO's decision to closing their complaint in the Upper Tribunal. Contact-tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic Veale was part of the research team that developed the Decentralised Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing protocol (DP-3T) for contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 11, 2020, Veale contacted part of the team developing contact tracing apps for England and Wales, NHSX to warn them that Apple and Google's contact-tracing solutions only allowed for decentralised matching between phones which was incompatible with the UK government's proposed centralised approach. His email stated that:Apple and Google’s new API appears to break (or rather, not allow iPhones of Androids to use) NHS’s proposed system, as it only allows decentralised local matching using background BLE [Bluetooth], and does not allow apps to directly access identifiers of individuals they have observed, only to query them with a downloaded listNHSX maintained that their contact-tracing app was capable of centralised contact-tracing despite these concerns. On 18 June 2020, the UK government announced it would abandon its centralised contact-tracing app, and switch to using Apple and Google's decentralised contact-tracing technology, which is based substantially on the DP-3T protocol. References External links Academics of University College London Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Scholars of privacy law Computer law scholars

67414495

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre%20Hubaux

Jean-Pierre Hubaux

Jean-Pierre Hubaux is a Swiss-Belgian computer scientist specialised in security and privacy. He is a professor of computer science at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and is the head of the Laboratory for Data Security at EPFL's School of Computer and Communication Sciences. Career Born in Belgium, Hubaux grew up in Italy. He studied computer science and obtained his Laurea/Dr.-Eng degree in engineering at Polytechnic University of Milan. He then joined the French telecom company Alcatel, where he dedicated his work during the following 10 years primarily to switching systems, architecture, and software. He joined EPFL as an associate professor in 1990 and was made full professor in 1996. Since 1990, he has been the head of what is now known as the Laboratory for Data Security at EPFL's School of Computer and Communication sciences. In visiting positions, he worked at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center and at the University of California, Berkeley. Since 2017, Hubaux has been the founding academic director of the Center for Digital Trust (C4DT). The C4DT addresses contemporary trust issues observed on the Internet. It promotes joint research projects, educational programs, and public events, and it comprises 35 EPFL affiliated laboratories and a dozen of external partners. Hubaux is a co-founder of start-up Tune Insight. Research Hubaux's research is currently dedicated to issues of data sharing and protection in personalized healthcare. Formerly, he worked on privacy and security in mobile and pervasive networks, and on inter-personal privacy problems. His work in data protection in personalized healthcare led to the development of a system able to train and perform inference with neural networks on decentralized data-sets while preserving the privacy of the data and protecting the model. He is coordinating the development of a novel technique for the efficient bootstrapping in fully homomorphic encryption and in advancing this technique for practical implementation. He has also led efforts to show that combining secure multi-party computation and homomorphic encryption makes partial results of federated learning anonymous in accordance to GDPR. This research, was carried out in the framework of the MedCo and Data Protection for Personalized Health projects. Previously, Hubaux's research was dedicated to the security and privacy of wireless networks. In the field of mobile ad hoc networks, he developed denial-of-service attacks to assess the impact caused by difficult-to-detect attacks. Furthermore he conducted research in the security and privacy vulnerabilities of vehicular ad hoc networks, in the quantification of location privacy in cellular networks, in the application of game theory to wireless networks in order to anticipate network behavior in case wireless nodes depart from the prescribed protocol, and in the robustness of sensor networks; he also showed how sensor nodes can evade jamming attacks by exploiting channel diversity. Finally, he investigated inter-personal privacy issues caused by the online sharing of information such as photos of groups of people or genomes. He was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Sophia Genetics (2012-2018) and a member of the Swiss Communication Commission (Commission des Communications; 2007-2019). He is co-chair of the Data Security Work Stream of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health. An introduction to Hubaux's recent research is available in two public lectures on "MedCo: Enabling the Secure and Privacy-preserving Exploration and Analysis of Distributed Clinical and *Omics Cohorts" (2020), and on "Secure Sharing of Health Data", presented as the keynote at the European Conference on Security and Privacy (2020). At some point, he contributed also to the development of the COVID-19 contact tracing app SwissCovid. Among others, the privacy-preserving still accountable ride-hailing service project ORide received coverage in news outlets such as Wired, International Business Times, ans Engadget. Distinctions Hubaux is an IEEE Fellow (2009), and ACM Fellow (2010). In 2021, he received the Test of Time Award from the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. Together with his co-authors, he is the recipient of awards from the IEEE Symposium of Security and Privacy for the papers on "GenoGuard: Protecting Genomic Data against Brute-Force Attacks" (2015) and for "On Enforcing the Digital Immunity of a Large Humanitarian Organization" (2018). He was the recipient of the 2016 Reginald Fessenden Award from the ACM International Conference on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems. Selected works Book Papers References External links Website of the Laboratory for Data Security Website of the Center for Digital Trust (C4DT) Website of the startup Tune Insight Living people Polytechnic University of Milan alumni École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne faculty Computer scientists Year of birth missing (living people)

67443748

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay%20Protected%20Memory%20Block

Replay Protected Memory Block

A Replay Protected Memory Block (RPMB) is provided as a means for a system to store data to the specific memory area in an authenticated and replay protected manner, and can only be read and written via successfully authenticated read and write accesses. The data may be overwritten by the host, but can never be erased.. Use in Computing Systems Since RPMB is tamper-resistant, it can be used as a storage medium for a variety of data-critical purposes on an Embedded system: A place to write "permanent" and/or "pre-programmed" data on a system without any Programmable ROM storage, or if the data is too large for it. Along with encryption and hardware fuses, it can also be used to build a trusted storage solution for a Trusted execution environment Anti-rollback protection for versioned data (keys, encrypted files, software, etc...). Storage for a Trusted Application Some operating systems such as Linux may provide a generic driver for accessing an RPMB device attached to an eMMC (MultiMediaCard). However, in other cases the access to RPMB is controlled through a proprietary driver; this may require use of a Trusted Application instead of a normal application to access the data. Logical Unit Addressing The UFS specification allocates a "Well-Known LUN" identifier of 44h for the RPMB device. This can be represented as: UFS LUN: WLUN_ID (80h) | UNIT_NUMBER_ID = C4h 64-bit SCSI LUN: WLUN_ID (C1h) | UNIT_NUMBER_ID = C1h 44h 00h 00h 00h 00h 00h 00h Memory Layout An RPMB device supplies the following memory sections: * This is the minimum defined by the specification, the actual block size depends on the flash vendor's implementation. References Computer memory

67534300

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RemotePC

RemotePC

RemotePC is a remote access and remote control software application, developed and owned by IDrive Inc., a software company based in Calabasas, California, United States. Its core function is in enabling remote access and maintenance to computers and other devices. The first version of the software was released in early 2017. Overview RemotePC software was created by the team of IDrive Inc., a private technology company based in Calabasas, California. The app was specifically developed for remote communication and control functions, including text chat, voice, RemotePC Meeting, interactive annotation and more. Remote PC software has been discussed and cited in the technology reviews and by the multiple industry outlets such as Software Advice, Capterra, GetApp (Gartner's subsidiary), TechRadar and PCMag, among others. The application's use accelerated in 2020 and 2021 as the demand for remote work, learning and communication grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology and functionality The app's technology uses TLS v 1.2/AES-256 encryption AES-256 for exchanging data between devices and is compliant with HIPAA and GDPR protocols. It doesn't require any special software for installation and can be accessed directly via the web. According to the GitHub stats, the first version of the RemotePC software was released in January 2017. The application is written in Python (85.9%), HTML (13.1%) and CSS (1%). RemotePC is compatible with PCs and Macs and Linux systems, and has mobile applications for iOS and Android devices. Its main functions include RemotePC Consumer and SoHo, RemotePC Team, RemotePC Enterprise, RemotePC HelpDesk, RemotePC Meeting and RemotePC ScreenShare. See also Comparison of remote desktop software Screen Sharing RFB protocol Remote Desktop Services References RemotePC 2017 software Virtual Network Computing Remote administration software Remote desktop Windows remote administration software MacOS remote administration software Linux remote administration software

67624735

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DarkSide%20%28hacker%20group%29

DarkSide (hacker group)

DarkSide is a cybercriminal hacking group, believed to be based in Eastern Europe, that targets victims using ransomware and extortion; it is believed to be behind the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack and the recent attack on a Toshiba unit. The group provides ransomware as a service. DarkSide itself claims to be apolitical. Targets DarkSide is believed to be based in Eastern Europe, likely Russia, but unlike other hacking groups responsible for high-profile cyberattacks it is not believed to be directly state-sponsored (i.e., operated by Russian intelligence services). DarkSide avoids targets in certain geographic locations by checking their system language settings. In addition to the languages of the 12 current, former, or founding CIS countries the exclusion list contains Syrian Arabic. Experts state that the group is "one of the many for-profit ransomware groups that have proliferated and thrived in Russia" with at least the implicit sanction of the Russian authorities, who allow the activity to occur so long as it attacks foreign targets. The language check feature can be disabled when an instance of ransomware is built. One such version was observed in May 2021. Additionally, DarkSide does not target healthcare centers, schools, and non-profit organizations. Ransomware code used by DarkSide resembles ransomware software used by REvil, a different hacking group; REvil's code is not publicly available, suggesting that DarkSide is an offshoot of REvil or a partner of REvil. DarkSide and REvil use similarly structured ransom notes and the same code to check that the victim is not located in a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) country. According to Trend Micro Research data, the United States is by far DarkSide's most targeted country, at more than 500 detections, followed by France, Belgium, and Canada. Of 25 countries observed by McAfee the most affected by DarkSide attacks in terms of number of devices impacted per million devices are Israel (1573.28), Malaysia (130.99), Belgium (106.93), Chile (103.97), Italy (95.91), Turkey (66.82), Austria (61.19), Ukraine (56.09), Peru (26.94), the U.S. (24.67). As of June 2021, DarkSide has only published data from one company; the amount of data published exceeds 200 GB. Mechanism of attack The DarkSide ransomware initially bypasses UAC using the CMSTPLUA COM interface. The software then checks the system's location and language to avoid machines in former Soviet countries; blacklisted languages are Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Tajik, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Uzbek, Tatar, Moldovan Romanian, and Syrian Arabic. The software then creates a file named LOG.{userid}.TXT, which serves as a log file. The software deletes files in the recycle bin one by one, uninstalls certain security and backup software programs, and terminates processes to allow access to user data files. During the encryption process proper, a user ID is generated based on a MAC address and appear appended to filenames, and file data is encrypted with Salsa20 and a randomly generated matrix key (which, encrypted with a hardcoded RSA key, is itself appended to the file). However, the software avoids encrypting certain folders, files, and filetypes. Finally, the ransomware leaves behind a ransom note titled README.{userid}.TXT, which directs the user to access a site with Tor; this site then prompts the user to verify their identity and to make a payment using Bitcoin or Monero. Business model DarkSide uses intermediary hackers 26c3weq ("affiliates"). It uses "ransomware-as-a-service" — a model in which DarkSide grants its "affiliate" subscribers (who are screened via an interview) access to ransomware developed by DarkSide, in return for giving DarkSide a share of the ransom payments (apparently 25% for ransom payments under US$500,000 and 10% for ransom payments over US$5 million). Affiliates are given access to an administration panel on which they create builds for specific victims. The panel allows some degree of customization for each ransomware build. Cybersecurity firm Mandiant, a subsidiary of FireEye, has documented five clusters of threat activity that may represent different affiliates of the DarkSide RaaS platform, and has described three of them, referred to as UNC2628, UNC2659, and UNC2465. History and attacks 2020 August to October The group was first noticed in August 2020. Cybersecurity company Kaspersky described the group as an "enterprise" due to its professional-looking website and attempts to partner with journalists and decryption companies. The group "has publicly stated that they prefer to target organizations that can afford to pay large ransoms instead of hospitals, schools, non-profits, and governments." The group has sought to foster a "Robin Hood" image, claiming that they donated some of their ransom proceeds to charity. In a darkweb post, the group posted receipts for donations of (then worth ) each to Children International and to The Water Project dated to October 13, 2020; Children International stated that it will not keep the money. 2020 to 2021 December to May From December 2020 to May 2021, ransoms demanded by the group ranged from US$200,000 to US$2 million. DarkSide attacked U.S. oil and gas infrastructure on four occasions. DarkSide ransomware hit the IT managed services provider CompuCom in March 2021, costing over US$20 million in restoration expenses; it also attacked Canadian Discount Car and Truck Rentals and Toshiba Tec Corp., a unit of Toshiba Corp. DarkSide extorted money from the German company Brenntag. The cryptocurrency security firm Elliptic stated that a Bitcoin wallet opened by DarkSide in March 2021 had received US$17.5 million from 21 Bitcoin wallets (including the Colonial Pipeline ransom), indicating the number of ransoms received over the course of a few months. Elliptic's analysis showed that in total, Darkside received over $90 million in ransom payments from at least 47 victims. The average ransom payment was $1.9 million. 2021 May The Federal Bureau of Investigation identified DarkSide as the perpetrator of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, a cyberattack on May 7, 2021, perpetrated by malicious code, that led to a voluntary shutdown of the main pipeline supplying 45% of fuel to the East Coast of the United States. The attack was described as the worst cyberattack to date on U.S. critical infrastructure. DarkSide successfully extorted about 75 Bitcoin (almost US$5 million) from Colonial Pipeline. U.S. officials are investigating whether the attack was purely criminal or took place with the involvement of the Russian government or another state sponsor. Following the attack, DarkSide posted a statement claiming that "We are apolitical, we do not participate in geopolitics...Our goal is to make money and not creating problems for society." In May 2021, the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a joint alert urging the owners and operators of critical infrastructure to take certain steps to reduce their vulnerability to DarkSide ransomware and ransomware in general. On 14 May 2021, in a Russian-language statement obtained by the cybersecurity firms Recorded Future, FireEye, and Intel 471 and reported by the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, DarkSide said that "due to the pressure from the U.S." it was shutting down operations, closing the gang's "affiliate program" (the intermediary hackers that DarkSide works with to hack). The specific "pressure" referred to was not clear, but the preceding day, U.S. President Joe Biden suggested that the U.S. would take action against DarkSide to "disrupt their ability to operate." DarkSide claimed that it had lost access to its payment server, blog, and funds withdrawn to an unspecified account. Cybersecurity experts cautioned that DarkSide's claim to have disbanded might be a ruse to deflect scrutiny, and possibly allow the gang to resume hacking activities under a different name. It is common for cybercriminal networks to shut down, revive, and rebrand in this way. Agence France-Presse reporters discovered that the Recorded Future report which detailed the loss of DarkSide servers and funds was retweeted by the Twitter account of the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade, a US Army Cyberwarfare group involved in offensive operations. References Hacker groups Hacking in the 2020s

67757693

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambert%20Sonna%20Momo

Lambert Sonna Momo

Lambert Sonna Momo (born 1970 in Yaoundé) is a Swiss computer scientist of Cameroonian origin. He is known for his work in electronic identification and authentication through biometrics. Education After obtaining a bachelor's degree in mathematics at the University of Yaoundé in 1993, he continued his studies with two master's degrees at the EPFL in Lausanne in software engineering (2001) and in information systems (2003). He obtained his doctorate in information and security systems at the University of Lausanne in 2008 for a thesis on "Elaboration de tableaux de bord SSI dynamiques: une approche à base d'ontologies" (Developing dynamic ISS dashboards: an ontology-based approach) under supervision of Solange Ghernaouti-Hélie. Career Academic career Until 2014, he taught at University of Lausanne on topics related to computer security and the protection of private data. In 2016, he assembled a multidisciplinary team composed of biometrics specialist Sébastien Marcel at Idiap Research Institute; cryptographer Serge Vaudenay, director of the EPFL's Security and Cryptography Laboratory, electronics engineer Pierre Roduit at HES SO Valais Wallis, and microtechnologist Eric Grenet at Swiss Centre for Electronics and Microtechnology. This team jointly developed BioID and BioLocker, a patented biometric authentication technology based on multi-view vein scanningthat combines data security and respect for private sphere protection. Entrepreneurship He is the founder of GLOBAL ID SA, a spin-off of EPFL that brings vein-based biometric authentication technology to the market. The biometric technology based on vein recognition is considered ethical because the key is hidden and therefore impossible to steal; the encryption is done end-to-end with a random code that changes constantly. The contactless scanner is under development and the project has received a grant of 1 million from the Swiss Confederation. Lambert Sonna Momo is the Inventor of the VenoScanner. Publications References External links Website of Global-ID Website of Idiap Research Institute Website of LASEC-EPFL 1970 births Living people École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne alumni University of Lausanne Yaounde II Yaoundé Cryptography

67822678

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20of%20Guisa

Battle of Guisa

The Battle of Guisa was a relevant event in the history of Cuba. One of the major victories of the Rebel Army in the Liberation War (1956-1958) sustained against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. Background On the morning of November 20, 1958, a convoy of the Batista sodiers began its usual journey from Guisa. Shortly after leaving that town, located in the northern foothills of the Sierra Maestra, the rebels attacked the caravan. Zone of Operations Guisa was 12 kilometers from the Command Post of the Zone of Operations, located on the outskirts of the city of Bayamo. Nine days earlier, Fidel Castro had left the La Plata Command, beginning an unstoppable march east with his escort and a small group of combatants. On November 19 the rebels arrived in Santa Barbara. By that time, there were approximately 230 combatants. Castro gathers his officers to organize the siege of Guisa, and orders to place a mine on the Monjarás bridge, over the Cupeinicú river. That night the combatants made a camp in Hoyo de Pipa, in the early morning, they took the path that runs between the Heliografo hill and the Mateo Roblejo hill, where they occupied strategic positions. In the meeting on the 20th, the Batista army lost a truck, a bus, and a jeep, six were killed and 17 were made prisoners, three of them wounded. At around 10:30 am, the military Command Post located in the Zone of Operations in Bayamo sends a reinforcement made up of Co. 32, plus a platoon from Co. L and another platoon from Co. 22. This force is unable to advance for the resistance of the rebels. Fidel orders the mining of another bridge over a tributary of the Cupeinicú River. Hours later the army sends a platoon from Co. 82 and another platoon from Co. 93, supported by a T-17 tank. When crossing the bridge over a tributary of the Cupeinicú river, the T-17 tank was blown up by the rebel mine and was left with its wheels up in the air. In this confrontation, the Batista army suffers 14 dead, 18 wounded and 23 prisoners and 29 rifles, two 30-caliber machine guns, and tank weapons were captured. Meanwhile, to the west, following the El Corojo road towards the Monjarás bridge, which by then was inoperative, Batista sent a platoon of infantry. It was also rejected. There were several casualties and six prisoners. On November 21, Castro decided to set up a cave as a hospital in Santa Bárbara and establish his Command Post along with the Cupeyal village, on the San Andrés hill. At midmorning of that day, the Batista army sent another group supported by a Sherman tank. This reinforcement penetrates Guisa, reinforces the garrison of the local barracks with a platoon, and retreats to the city of Bayamo. On November 23, an] Batista army company tried to force positions along the road from El Corojo to Santa Bárbara, but it was violently rejected and suffered numerous casualties. Army defeat Although the Batista army concentrated a significant number of soldiers and means of combat in Guisa, the Rebels gave it a defeat from which it could not recover. The Chief of Operations of the army moved to Bayamo the companies 105, 22, L and EC, 81, 101, plus a platoon of Sherman M4 tanks, a battery of 75-millimeter howitzers, the Bon 26 headquarters, and the headquarters. Bon 24. From the town of Estrada Palma -today Bartolomé Masó- the army moved towards Bayamo to Bon 25, companies 52, 63 and 82 and a platoon of tanks; while from the town of Yara he moved Co. 41, the Headquarters of Companies 43 and 44 and 62 and 31, and prepared to deliver a forceful blow. Through a proclamation, Castro asked the civilian population of Guisa to leave the town. It occupied the position to the east of the road and, to the west, where the forces of Captain Coroneaux, which extended to the top of the Heliografo hill. They also have two other elevations occupied, known as the hill of the Cemetery and La Estrella. A second mine Again the army tries to penetrate the road to El Corojo and is pushed back in the Monjarás sector, suffering casualties and four prisoners. The army started another advance with a T-17 tank leading. The troops moved in 14 trucks. The convoy crossed next to the tank destroyed days before, but the rebels had placed another mine just over a kilometer from the bridge. The second mine exploded almost under the tank, immobilizing it and the soldiers and the convoy are paralyzed. After the outbreak, the rebel attack begins from the hills that surround the road. The soldiers tried to take shelter from the projectiles but had many casualties and they had lost their captain who was coming to the front of the convoy and a Lieutenant of the Co. 32. Late in the morning, the Chief of the Zone of Operations dispatches to companies 82 and 52, a section of Sherman M-4 heavy tanks and the battery of 75-millimeter howitzers. It also calls for urgent air support with all of the available planes. In the early morning hours of November 27, one of the reinforcement's T-17 tanks tried to exit through the Cupeinicú river ravine but was trapped by the slope and the mud. The rebels beat the enemy with 81 mortar fire and 30 caliber machine guns. Night attack Castro orders a night attack; at dawn, they retreat to their positions and the army reinforcement arrives, this time preceded by two Sherman M-4 heavy tanks and howitzers. It is fought throughout the day, one of the M-4 tanks manages to tow the T-17 tank, but the other stays down. Four B-26 bombers are sent from Havana. Together with other devices that the army had, the number ten and constantly machine-gun the area. At the height of the combat, the position of Captain Braulio Coroneaux is located by an M-4 tank, which cannons it incessantly. A cannon shot destroys the trench where the captain and other combatants die heroically. Night attack Fidel personally led the battle. In the image, Raúl Castro (left) and Camilo Cienfuegos. Fidel orders another night's attack. The army fights and begins to retreat with sensible losses. The rebel leader, then, orders an ambush to be placed between El Horno and the crossing over the Managua stream. Although a T-17 tank breaks the position and causes two deaths and one wounded, the rebel fire causes the soldiers to abandon three trucks with more than 20,000 30.06 caliber bullets, radio, and 13 automatic rifles. New recruits were assembled and the action stands out as a great victory for the rebel forces. The Batista army suffered 160 casualties, some 35,000 bullets were seized, 14 trucks, a T-17 tank in perfect condition, and 300 complete backpacks along with other supplies. Castro was sure that the military command was not going to recover so soon from the failure, and he ordered his men to rest and, if possible, bury the dead, but to keep alert of the army. That night he recognized the battlefield, inspected the tank abandoned by the soldiers, and managed to remove it from where it was stuck. With an improvised crew, he decided to use it to attack Guise's barracks, where a large group of soldiers remains. Due to inexperience, the tank falls into a ditch and many of its shots go over the top of the barracks building. But the enemy recovers and renders it useless with one shot, forcing its crew to abandon it. Faced with such a disaster, the enemy reorganizes its forces and means. In the direction of Santa Rita-Guisa, they organize a special battalion in order to advance east towards Guisa. In addition, it creates Tactical Group A with a strength of 1,800 soldiers. Another 1,600, meanwhile, would operate west of the Guise highway with tanks and artillery. The correlation, at that time, is approximately six soldiers for every rebel. Enemy operational plan The army planned to advance with two battalions along the Payarés road to the Monte Oscuro region. The Bon 25 would try to dislodge the rebels that were occupying the hills of San Antonio and Loma de Piedra, while the 14 battalions would advance in the direction of Los Mameyes, leaving on the banks of the Cupeinicú. Co. 91 would advance behind him. At the height of Monte Oscuro, the vehicles of this troop deviate along the road that leads to Monjarás but is surprised by rebel forces who manage to seriously injure the enemy leader. The rest retreat to Bayamo. On the morning of November 30, the air force machine-gunned and bombarded rebel positions. The tanks and artillery tried to advance but they could not. Moving through the hills, the Special Battalion leaves afternoon to one side of the El Matadero hill, which at that time has no surveillance because the rebel force is facing the Tactical Group. Thus, the Special Battalion managed to enter Guisa and covered the escape, along the road to Los Pajales, of the soldiers from the barracks, their families, and people committed to the dictatorship. Moving across the country, that group exits the Central Highway and continues towards Bayamo. At night, the army begins to withdraw the rest of its troops, and after some skirmishes with rebel forces, they hit the road. At 9:00 p.m. Fidel and the bulk of the combatants entered Guisa. By then, they have repulsed nine enemy counterattacks and successfully executed 18 missions, suffering eight dead, seven wounded and one prisoners. After the battle, the Batista government requested an urgent report on the units that participated and the war material that was lost. The headquarters of the ZO in Bayamo, in secret encryption, explained in detail what happened to evacuate Co. M, surrounded and subjected to strong pressure from the enemy, but minimized the losses in life and weapons. During the days when Fidel and his troops moved from the La Plata Command to Guisa and during the development of the battle, his talents as a strategist, his political vision, and his personal courage were manifested, leading the rebels to victory. . The triumph of the Battle at Guise was an irreparable blow to the tyrant's troops. From it, officers and soldiers were fully convinced of their future defeat. See also Moncada Barracks Havana Presidential Palace attack (1957) Humboldt 7 massacre Attack on El Uvero Battle of Yaguajay Notes References External links Battle of Guisa[ Granma Cuba 2018 Granma Cuba Vistas Aéreas Drone en Cuba Cuban Revolution Revolution Revolution 20th-century revolutions Communist revolutions History of socialism Cuba–United States relations Fidel Castro United States–Caribbean relations 1950s conflicts Proxy wars Republic of Cuba (1902–1959)

67904090

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VPN%20service

VPN service

A virtual private network service, or VPN service, provides a proxy server to users to bypass Internet censorship such as geoblocking or users who want to protect their communications against data profiling or MitM attacks on hostile networks. A wide variety of entities provide "VPNs" for several purposes. But depending on the provider and the application, they do not always create a true private network. Instead, many providers simply provide an Internet proxy that uses VPN technologies such as OpenVPN or WireGuard. Commercial VPN services are often used by those wishing to disguise or obfuscate their physical location or IP address, typically as a means to evade Internet censorship or geo-blocking. Providers often market VPN services as privacy-enhancing, citing security features, such as encryption, from the underlying VPN technology. However, users must consider that when the transmitted content is not encrypted before entering the proxy, that content is visible at the receiving endpoint (usually the VPN service provider's site) regardless of whether the VPN tunnel itself is encrypted for the inter-node transport. The only secure VPN is where the participants have oversight at both ends of the entire data path or when the content is encrypted before it enters the tunnel. On the client side, configurations intended to use VPN services as proxies are not conventional VPN configurations. However, they do typically utilize the operating system's VPN interfaces to capture the user's data to send to the proxy. This includes virtual network adapters on computer OSes and specialized "VPN" interfaces on mobile operating systems. A less common alternative is to provide a SOCKS proxy interface. In computer magazines, VPN services are typically judged on connection speeds; privacy protection, including privacy at signup and grade of encryption; server count and locations; interface usability; and cost. In order to determine the degree of privacy and anonymity, various computer magazines, such as PC World and PC Magazine, also take the provider's own guarantees and its reputation among news items into consideration. Users are commonly exposed to misinformation on the VPN services market, which makes it difficult for them to tell apart advertisements and facts. Criticism and limitations VPN services have been criticized on various grounds by Tom Scott. The New York Times has noted that user should reconsider whether a VPN service is worth their money. VPN services are not sufficient for protection against browser fingerprinting. Techradar noted that for privacy reasons an independent VPN provider is recommended. Legality In March 2018, the use of unapproved VPN services was banned in China, as they can be used to circumvent the Great Firewall. Operators received prison sentences and were penalized with fines. Definitions The following definitions clarify the meaning of the column headers in the comparison tables below. Privacy PC Magazine recommends that users consider choosing a provider based in a country with no data retention laws, since that makes it easier for the service to keep a promise of no logging. PC Magazine and TechRadar also suggest that users read the provider's logging policy before signing up for the service, since some providers collect information about their customers' VPN usage. PC World recommends that users avoid free services as a rule of thumb, and asserts that free services either sell their users' browsing data in aggregated form to researchers and marketers, or only offer a minimal amount of data transfer per month. Logitheque explains why there are so many VPN comparison websites on the web. Notes Technical features Notes Availability Website The rating of the services' websites according to SSL server certificate and HTTP cookie test tools. Also listed is whether the websites maintain a warrant canary. References External links Don't use VPN services Virtual private network services Internet privacy

67910027

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surangkana%20Wayuparb

Surangkana Wayuparb

Surangkana Wayuparb () is a Thai business executive and former politician who has worked in the private and public sector, and who has been influential in drafting Thailand's IT and digital laws. She is currently CEO of beTECH Kumpany. Early life and education Surangkana was born in Nakhon Sri Thammarat and completed her secondary schooling from Benjamarachuthit School. She graduated from Thammasat University with a bachelor's degree in law and master's degree in international law. Career Law Surangkana was appointed head of the Royal Thai Government's IT law development project known as National Electronic Computer and Technology Center (NECTEC). She was instrumental in the development of information technology laws for Thailand, such as the Electronic Transaction Act, Computer Crime Law, Data Protection Law and Cybersecurity Law. She played a key role in the development of standards and laws related to e-Transactions and the establishment of monitoring systems related to security in electronic transactions. ETDA Surangkana was appointed executive director and CEO of Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA), a public organization under the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, Royal Thai Government, when it was set up in 2011. ETDA was responsible for developing and promoting secure e-commerce and e-transactions in Thailand. Under her leadership, ETDA proposed many laws to the government to support digitization in Thailand. It formulated digital infrastructure such as ThaiCERT monitoring cyber security, National Root Certification Authority which verifies digital signatures, and National Payment Message Standard for commercial banking. She held the position until 2019 when she resigned to set up her own start-up. Also during that time Surangkana was appointed president of Thailand PKI Association, which promotes the deployment of encryption and digital signature technology. Political work Surangkana was appointed to the National Legislative Assembly following the 2014 Thai coup d'état. Prior to that she was an advisor to the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (now the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society). During her tenure she served on a committee for information technology and health care. She stayed in the NLA until the March 2019 national election. beTECH Kumpany On January 8, 2020, Surangkana set up BeTech Tech Kumpany with the aim of strengthening e-commerce businesses and government via law compliance in the fields of regulatory technology and government technology. More recently it has concentrated on building a PDPA (Personal Data Protection Act) platform to help businesses with law compliance at a regional level. Personal life Surangkana is married to Pairoj Wayuparb, the former president of the Supreme Court of Thailand. They have 3 children. Awards and recognitions 2021 Knight Grand Cordon (Special Class) of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant References Surangkana Wayuparb Surangkana Wayuparb Surangkana Wayuparb 1966 births Living people

68052015

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE%20Connect

KDE Connect

KDE Connect is a multi-platform application developed by KDE, which facilitates wireless communications and data transfer between devices over local networks. KDE Connect is available in the repositories of many Linux Distributions and F-droid, Google Play Store for Android. Often distributions bundle KDE Connect in their KDE Plasma desktop variant. KDE Connect has been reimplemented in GNOME desktop environment as GSConnect which can be obtained from Gnome Extension Store Mechanism KDE Connect utilizes various DBus interfaces from UI agnostic Libraries for a specific operating system for its functioning Features Shared clipboard: copy and paste between your phone and your computer (or any other device) Notification sync: Read and reply to your Android notifications from the desktop Share files and URLs instantly from one device to another including some filesystem integration Multimedia remote control: Use your phone as a remote for Linux media players Virtual touchpad: Use your phone screen as your computer's touchpad and keyboard Presentation remote: Advance your presentation slides straight from your phone Encryption KDE Connect uses TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption protocol for communication. It uses SFTP to mount devices and to send files. References Free software programmed in C++ KDE Applications

68060433

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government%20censorship%20of%20Telegram%20Messenger

Government censorship of Telegram Messenger

Telegram Messenger application has been blocked by multiple countries. Azerbaijan From 27 September 2020, following the start of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies imposed temporary restrictions on the use of social media in the country. Telegram, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Zoom and Skype were completely blocked. Many other unrelated services were also blocked due to a lack of coordination. The restriction was lifted on 10 November 2020. Bahrain In June 2016, it was found that some ISPs in Bahrain had started to block Telegram. Belarus Telegram was a key platform for sharing information and coordinating rallies during the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests. Telegram was one of few communication platforms available in Belarus during the three days of internet shutdown that followed the day of the presidential election, which Belarus's president Alexander Lukashenko won amid widespread allegations of election fraud. On the evening of 11 August, while the Internet shutdown continued, 45 percent of people using Telegram protest chats in Belarus were online, despite the government's efforts to block online access. In October 2020, Apple asked Telegram to remove 3 channels that leaked the identities of the people involved in the Belarusian protests. Brazil In February 2022, the Superior Electoral Court announces that 3 telegram channels, which are allegedly involved in fake news dissemination, had been regionally blocked by their request, under penalty of the Telegram being suspended for 48 hours. This decision includes one of the channels of the far-right journalist Allan dos Santos, who had already had his website (Terça Livre) and youtube channel deleted by a Supreme Federal Court decision. China In July 2015, it was reported that China blocked access to Telegram Messenger. According to state-owned People's Daily, Chinese human rights lawyers used Telegram to criticize the Chinese Government and the Communist Party of China. Cuba In July 2021, the Cuban government blocked access to several social media platforms, including Telegram, to curb the spread of information during the anti-government protests. Germany On February 11, 2022, the German government announced that 64 Telegram channels, which reportedly potentially violate German laws against hate speech, had been deleted by their request. This included the channel of Attila Hildmann, a self-described nationalist who shared antisemitic conspiracy theories via his channel. According to the press release, Telegram has agreed to cooperate with the German government and delete channels with potentially illegal content in the future. Hong Kong During the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, many participants used Telegram to evade electronic surveillance and coordinate their action against 2019 Hong Kong extradition bill. On the evening of 11 June 2019, the Hong Kong police arrested Ivan Ip, the administrator of a Telegram group with 20,000 members on suspicion of "conspiracy to commit public nuisance." He was forced by the police to hand over his Telegram history. The next day, Telegram suffered a "powerful" decentralized denial of service attack. Hackers tried to paralyze the target server by sending a large number of spam requests, most of which came from mainland China. On 28 August 2019 the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association announced that the Hong Kong government had plans to block Telegram. India In 2019, it was reported that some internet service providers in India were blocking Telegram traffic, including its official website. Internet Freedom Foundation, an Indian digital liberties organisation filed an RTI on whether Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had banned Telegram or requested ISPs to block traffic. The response from DoT said that it had no information on why the ISPs were blocking Telegram. The High Court of Kerala asked about the central government's view on a plea for banning Telegram for allegedly disseminating child abuse videos and communicating through it. Indonesia On 14 July 2017, eleven domain name servers related to Telegram were banned by the Indonesian Communication and Information Ministry with the possibility of closing all Telegram applications in Indonesia if Telegram did not make a standard operating procedure to maintain content that was considered unlawful in the apps. In August 2017, Indonesian Government has opened full access of Telegram, after Telegram has made self censorship about negative contents mainly radicalism and terrorism. Telegram said that about 10 channels/groups have been deleted from Telegram everyday due to are categorized as negative contents. Iran Telegram was open and working in Iran without any VPN or other circumvention methods in May 2015. In August 2015, the Iranian Ministry of ICT asserted that Telegram had agreed to restrict some of its bots and sticker packs in Iran at the request of the Iranian government. According to an article published on Global Voices, these features were being used by Iranians to "share satirical comments about the Iranian government". The article also noted that "some users are concerned that Telegram's willingness to comply with Iranian government requests might mean future complicity with other Iranian government censorship, or even allow government access to Telegram's data on Iranian users". Telegram has stated that all Telegram chats are private territory and that they do not process any requests related to them. Only requests regarding public content (bots and sticker packs) will be processed. In May 2016, the Iranian government asked all messaging apps, including Telegram, to move all Iranian users' data to Iranian servers. On 20 April 2017, the Iranian government completely blocked Telegram's new voice calls, a service that allows individuals to make calls via secure, end-to-end encryption, and keep their conversations private.Mahmoud Vaezi Chief of Staff of the President of Iran said reason for blocking Telegram free voice calls is so Iranian corporations keep revenue from voice calls. On 30 December 2017, during anti-government demonstrations across Iran, Telegram has shut down a channel of the Iranian opposition that published calls to use Molotov cocktails against the police, after receiving a complaint from the Iranian government. Pavel Durov explained that the reason for the blocking was a "no calls to violence" policy and confirmed that criticizing local authorities, challenging the status quo and engaging in political debate were seen as "OK" by the platform, while "promoting violence" was not. The opposition group promised to comply with Telegram rules and created a new channel which amassed 700,000 subscribers in less than 24 hours. On December, 31, the Iranian government announced that Telegram has been "temporarily restricted" in order to "ensure calm and security" after the company said it refused to shut down peaceful protesting channels. On January, 13, the app was unblocked by an order of the president Hassan Rouhani, who said that "more than 100,000 jobs had been lost" in Iran as a result of the ban on Telegram. Channels of the opposition remain operational. In March 2018, Iran's chairman for the Committee for Foreign policy and National Security Alaeddin Boroujerdi announced that Telegram has been targeted to be fully blocked in Iran by 20 April 2018, citing Telegram's role in facilitating the winter protests and the need to promote local apps. President Rouhani agreed with the need to break Telegram's monopoly in Iran, but maintained that he was opposed to a new blockade and did not see it as an effective measure to promote local apps. Iranian MP Mahmoud Sadeghi noted that during the two weeks that Telegram was blocked in January 2018, 30 million Iranians (75% of Telegram's users in Iran) did not start using local messaging apps, but instead turned to VPN services to circumvent the block, rendering the blockade ineffective. Telegram was blocked by the government on May 1, 2018. For until one year from the end of the 2017 riots, the Iranian government made available a customized version of Telegram that was under their domain. In 2019 Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani in Tehran Friday prayer declared that Telegram is haram and requested National Information Network deployment like Great Firewall of China. On 27 September 2019, Bijan Ghasemzadeh, the Iranian prosecutor who ordered the block on Telegram, was arrested for charges of corruption. It is unclear whether or not the charges were related to the ban on Telegram. Pakistan In October 2017, Telegram was inaccessible to users in Pakistan, and as of 18 November 2017, it has been completely blocked on PTCL Network as per instructions from PTA, Pakistan's largest ISP, PTCL mentioned this in a tweet to a user. Russia On 16 May 2017, Russian media reported that Roskomnadzor was threatening to ban Telegram. On 13 April 2018, Telegram was banned in Russia by a Moscow court, due to its refusal to grant the Federal Security Service (FSB) access to encryption keys needed to view user communications as required by federal anti-terrorism law. Enforcement of the ban was attempted by blocking over 19 million IP addresses associated with the service. However they included those used by Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform, due to Telegram's use of the providers to route messages. This led to unintended collateral damage due to usage of the platforms by other services in the country, including retail, Mastercard SecureCode, and Mail.ru's Tamtam messaging service. Users used VPNs to bypass the ban as a result. On 17 April 2018, Russian authorities asked Apple and Google to pull the service from their stores as well as APKMirror, however Apple and Google refused the request. On 28 March 2018, Roskomnadzor reportedly sent a legally binding letter to Apple asking it to remove the app from the Russian version of its App Store and block it from sending push notifications to local users who have already downloaded the app. On 27 December 2018, the largest search engine in Russia, Yandex, removed telegram.org from their search results. On 18 June 2020, the Russian government lifted its ban on Telegram after it agreed to "help with extremism investigations". Thailand On 19 October 2020, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission was ordered to block Telegram due to its use in the 2020 Thai protests. References Internet censorship

68061769

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell%20Tower%20Inquiry%20Phase%201

Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire. May announced on 29 June 2017 that the inquiry would be chaired by retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, with the immediate priority "to establish the facts of what happened at Grenfell Tower in order to take the necessary action to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again". She promised that "No stone will be left unturned by this inquiry." On 15 August 2017, the terms of reference of the Inquiry were announced. Phase One The inquiry opened on 14 September 2017. Procedural hearings were held in December 2017 and March 2018. In May 2018, a series of commemorative hearings were held in which relatives and survivors paid tribute to the 72 who had died. Phase 1 evidence Evidential hearings began on 4 June 2018. The first week saw opening statements on behalf of the key organizations and the presentation of reports by key expert witnesses. No hearings were held in the week beginning on 11 June 2018, as the anniversary of the fire and commemorations fell within this week. The hearings resumed on 18 June 2018. The appointed expert witnesses were: Dr Barbara Lane, a fire safety engineer from Arup Colin Todd, a fire safety consultant from CS Todd & Associates Professor David Purser, from Hartford Environmental Research Professor Edwin Galea, Professor of Mathematical Modelling at the University of Greenwich Dr Ivan Stoianov, Senior Lecturer in Water Systems Engineering at Imperial College London Dr J. Duncan Glover, from Failure Electrical Professor José L. Torero, Director of the Center for Disaster Resilience, University of Maryland, USA Professor Luke Bisby, Professor of Fire and Structures at the University of Edinburgh Professor Niamh Nic Daeid, from the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, University of Dundee Rodney Hancox, Director, Gas Distribution Solutions Steve McGuirk, former Chief Fire Officer of Greater Manchester, Cheshire and South Yorkshire, former President of the Chief Fire Officers Association, and former Lead Adviser to the Local Government Association The witness statement from the resident of Flat 16 (where the fire started) was published. He reported he had been harassed by the media. His lawyer had requested that the inquiry's report should specifically exonerate him. The London Fire Brigade incident logs were also published. Among transcripts that are to be cross-examined in week five, the "operational response" reveals that more than 140 fire engines and 720 firefighters were deployed; deputy assistant commissioner, Andrew Bell, told the inquiry on Thursday that it was probably the largest deployment of breathing apparatuses ever made in the UK. Firefighters' evidence Evidence from the firefighters and fire officers was heard from 25 June to 2 October, with a gap in August. The first to testify was Watch Manager Michael Dowden, the initial incident commander. His testimony lasted three days. He admitted that he had been unsure how to respond when the fire began climbing up the side of the building. Some of the questions he answered were repetitious – as they had been independently asked by the victims families. He could not continue when Richard Millett QC, counsel to the inquiry asked about a 12-year-old girl. Moore-Bick praised Dowden for his three days of testimony, saying he had shown "courage and candour". The Fire Brigades Union described the line of questioning about Fire Brigade Policy as "at times absurd" given Dowden's relatively low rank. Matt Wrack, the FBU general secretary said, "There clearly are important and difficult questions to ask but they should not be directed at those who do not have the power or authority to have altered policies, operational procedures or training," The first firefighters and officers to testify were among those who were first to respond, followed by others including senior command staff. Several firefighters reported being in life-threatening situations and felling emotional trauma after being unable to rescue certain residents. Control room staff also testified. Issues discussed included communications problems, the sheer amount of smoke, the stay put policy that was eventually abandoned, equipment shortages and missing fire safety features in the building such as floor plans. Dany Cotton, who had been the brigade's Commissioner since January 2017, testified on 27 September. In response to questions about LFB's preparedness, she said the disaster was as unexpected as "a space shuttle landing on The Shard." She also said that "I wouldn't change anything we did on the night." These remarks draw criticism from survivors groups. Survivors' evidence Other Phase 1 evidence The inquiry also heard from representatives of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO). KCTMO's lawyer said that although the building only had a single stairway "it managed to continue supporting evacuations and firefighting activities throughout the life of the fire" and that expert evidence suggested that 239 people could have got out after seven minutes. She said, "The inquiry will want to consider that the stairs at Grenfell Tower could have coped with a full building evacuation." They remained operational throughout the fire; 239 people could have exited within seven minutes if so instructed. Expert Dr Barbara Lane, had said the stay-put policy effectively failed at 1.23am, but it was kept in place until 2.37am when 107 people were still inside; 36 lived. It was revealed that in July 2014 an official from KCTMO emailed the project team: “We need good costs for Cllr Feilding-Mellen.” At that point £300,000 was removed from the cladding budget and zinc panels were replaced with the aluminium composite material with a plastic core, which the government has now banned from use on high-rise residential blocks. The barrister for Arconic claimed that the Reynobond aluminium composite panels cladding had not been responsible for the disaster. If the replacement windows and sub frames had been installed correctly the flames from a simple kitchen fire could not have bridged the gap into the cladding, and could have been put out with a simple fire extinguisher. Martin Seward counsel for the Fire Brigades Union said that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea had failed to make an evacuation plan for Grenfell Tower and relied on an outdated "stay put" strategy, leaving it to the fire brigade on the ground to devise an evacuation strategy. He urged the inquiry to give his members from "protection from unwarranted criticism". Phase 1 Report: October 2019 Sir Martin Moore-Bick issued the first part of the report Wednesday 30 October 2019, though some parts had been leaked days earlier. He found that: The resident of the flat where the fire started was not at fault. The principal reason the fire spread was the aluminium composite cladding filled with plastic used on the building exterior. Firefighters showed "courage and devotion to duty" and 999 call operators were "unstinting" in their efforts to help trapped residents. Incident commanders were not trained to cope with the fire and there was no contingency plan for evacuation. The LFB failed to lift the "stay put" advice when the stairs remained passable, which cost lives. The brigade suffered "significant systemic failings". Communications systems failed and there were serious deficiencies in command and control. Pictures transmitted on the night of Grenfell could not be viewed by the LFB because the encryption was incompatible with its receiving equipment. He highlighted Dany Cotton's rhetorical question "It's all very well saying 'get everybody out', but then how do you get them all out?", saying that it demonstrated that the London Fire Brigade had never considered that question before the night of the fire. Effects On 6 December, Dany Cotton announced her early retirement effective from 31 December 2019 after 32 years of service. This followed calls from bereaved families and survivors of the disaster for her to quit. References External links Official inquiry links Grenfell Tower Inquiry – Official website Grenfell Tower Inquiry hearing videos – Official YouTube channel @grenfellinquiry – Official Twitter account Phase 1 report Phase 1 Report Grenfell Tower Inquiry – Phase 1 Report Overview – Executive summary of the Phase 1 report. Grenfell Tower Inquiry – Phase 1 Report – Volume 1 Grenfell Tower Inquiry – Phase 1 Report – Volume 2 Grenfell Tower Inquiry – Phase 1 Report – Volume 3 Grenfell Tower Inquiry – Phase 1 Report – Volume 4 Other links Grenfell Tower: What happened (BBC) Grenfell Tower Inquiry Daily Podcast (BBC) Guardian Enquiry September 2020 Synopsis Designing Buildings Appraisal of Grenfell Tower Fire October 2020 Secrets that retain the power to shock Observer Opinion May 2021 Grenfell Tower fire Public inquiries in the United Kingdom 2017 in British law

68063102

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleni%20Diamanti

Eleni Diamanti

Eleni Diamanti is a Greek engineer who is a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Diamanti serves as Vice Director of the Paris Centre for Quantum Computing. She was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant in 2018. Early life and education Diamanti is from Greece. She was an undergraduate student at the National Technical University of Athens, where she majored in electrical and computer engineering. She moved to the United States for graduate studies, joining Stanford University as a Master's student. She remained at Stanford for her doctoral research, where she looked at the implementation of phase shift quantum key distribution systems. After graduating, Diamanti returned to Europe, where she joined Institut d'Optique as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellow. She completed her habilitation at the Paris Diderot University in 2014. Research and career Diamanti was appointed to the faculty at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 2009. Her research considers experimental quantum crytpography and the development of photonics sources for quantum networks. Alongside developing encryption software using quantum technology, Diamanti was made Vice Director of the Paris Center for Quantum Computing. In this capacity she takes part in the European Union Quantum Flagship. She was awarded a Prime d'Excellence Scienitifique from the CNRS in 2013. In 2018 Diamanti was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant. Selected publications References Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Greek women engineers Greek computer scientists National Technical University of Athens alumni Stanford University alumni CNRS research directors

68076992

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy%20intermediate-scale%20quantum%20era

Noisy intermediate-scale quantum era

In the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era the leading quantum processors contain about 50 to a few hundred qubits, but are not advanced enough to reach fault-tolerance nor large enough to profit sustainably from quantum supremacy. The term was coined by John Preskill in 2018. It is used to describe the current state of the art in the fabrication of quantum processors. The term 'noisy' refers to the fact that quantum processors are very sensitive to the environment and may lose their quantum state due to quantum decoherence. In the NISQ era, the quantum processors are not sophisticated enough to continuously implement quantum error correction. The term 'intermediate-scale' refers to the quantum volume related to the not-so-large number of qubits and moderate gate fidelity. Algorithms The term NISQ algorithms refers to algorithms designed for quantum processors in the NISQ era. For example, the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) or the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA), are hybrid algorithms that use NISQ devices but reduce the calculation load by implementing some parts of the algorithm in usual classical processors. These algorithms have been proven to recover known results in quantum chemistry and some applications have been suggested in physics, material science, data science, cryptography, biology and finance. Usually, NISQ algorithms require error mitigation techniques to recover useful data. Beyond-NISQ era The creation of a computer with tens of thousands of qubits and enough error correction would eventually end the NISQ era. These beyond NISQ devices would be able, for example, to implement Shor's algorithm, for very large numbers and break RSA encryption. References External links John Preskill lecture on NISQ era Computer architecture statements History of computing hardware Quantum computing Quantum information science Computational complexity theory

68185016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight%20blockchain

Lightweight blockchain

A lightweight blockchain is a modified blockchain with simplified algorithm without sacrificing data security. This type of blockchain is suitable for applications that need for data reliability but limited computational resources like Internet of Things (IoT) and Autonomous Driving. Especially in IoT, most of the connected devices are small, ubiquitous, and running on battery but aimed to work for a long period of time remotely and securely. Lightweight blockchain enabled trust evaluation mechanism in wireless sensor network for secured data transaction between nodes. Theoretically, Blockchain a robust and un-hackable. The downside of this technology is the intensive energy consumption needed for hashing, block validation and proof-of-work due to the nature of Distributed Ledger. An experiment shows that, using an IoT gateway as a trusted node and sensor data as distinctive tags for IoT sensor node authentications via the modified authenticated encryption scheme in a lightweight blockchain network can accommodate up to 1.34 million authentication processes every second which is more than sufficient to be applied in a resource-constrained IoT network. References Blockchains

68271719

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus%20Project%20%28investigation%29

Pegasus Project (investigation)

The Pegasus Project is an international investigative journalism initiative that revealed governments' espionage on journalists, opposition politicians, activists, business people and others using the private Pegasus spyware developed by the Israeli technology and cyber-arms company NSO Group. Pegasus is ostensibly marketed for surveillance of "serious crimes and terrorism". In 2020, a target list of 50,000 phone numbers leaked to Forbidden Stories, and an analysis revealed the list contained the numbers of leading opposition politicians, human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and other political dissidents. More than half of these phones that were inspected by Amnesty International's cybersecurity team revealed forensic evidence of the Pegasus spyware, a zero-click Trojan virus developed by NSO Group. This malware provides the attacker full access to the targeted smartphone, its data, images, photographs and conversations as well as camera, microphone and geolocation. This information was passed along to 17 media organisations under "The Pegasus Project" umbrella name. Reports started to be published by member organisations on 18 July 2021, revealing notable non-criminal targets and analysing the practice as a threat to freedom of the press, freedom of speech, dissidents and democratic opposition. On 20 July, 14 heads of state were revealed as former targets of Pegasus malware. Various parties called for further investigation of the abuses and a limitation on trading such repressive malware, among them the newsrooms involved, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Press Institute, and Edward Snowden. Software The Pegasus spyware was developed by the Israeli cyberarms company NSO Group. It can be covertly installed on mobile phones (and other devices) running most versions of iOS and Android. The spyware is named after the mythical winged horse Pegasus—it is a Trojan horse that can be sent "flying through the air" to infect phones. Usages of the Pegasus spyware have been monitored for years. Amnesty has argued that the digital invasion is correlated with real-life consequences for spied targets, via psychological or physical damages. The NSO Group exports are overseen by the Israeli Ministry of Defense's Defense Exports Control Agency (DECA). Investigation Origins and members In 2020, a list of over 50,000 phone numbers believed to belong to individuals identified as "people of interest" by clients of the Israeli cyberarms firm NSO Group was leaked to Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories, a media nonprofit organisation based in Paris, France. This information was passed along to 17 media organisations under the umbrella name "The Pegasus Project". Over several months, over 80 journalists from The Guardian (United Kingdom), Le Monde and Radio France (France), Die Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung, WDR and NDR (Germany), The Washington Post and Frontline (United States), Haaretz (Israel), Aristegui Noticias and Proceso (Mexico), Knack and Le Soir (Belgium), The Wire (India), Daraj (Syria), Direkt36 (Hungary), and OCCRP investigated the spying abuses. Investigative methodology The leaked list of targeted phone numbers provides an indication of being a "person of interest" and a first indication of possible hacking, to be confirmed via direct forensic examination of the phone. Amnesty has published Forensic Methodology Report: How to catch NSO Group's Pegasus. According to Amnesty, "The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto has independently peer-reviewed a draft of the forensic methodology outlined in this report. Their review can be found here". Amnesty also published various tools or data from this investigation, including a Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT) and a GitHub repository listing indicators of NSO/Pegasus compromised devices. Some emerging unverified online services claim to be able to assess an infection by Pegasus, but their usage is discouraged as possible scams themselves. Amnesty and Forbidden Stories received numerous queries for checking devices but were not able to satisfy the demand for assistance. Findings The investigation suggested that Pegasus continued to be widely used by authoritarian governments to spy on human rights activists, journalists and lawyers worldwide, although NSO claims that it is only intended for use against criminals and terrorists. A French journalist noted that "in a matter of cyber-surveillance, we observe that abuse is de facto the rule". Forbidden Stories argues the Pegasus software and its usages de facto constitute a global weapon to silence journalists. Forensic Architecture and the Pegasus Project lead a data analysis and built a data visualisation plotting attempt hacking of dissidents together with real-life intimidations, threats or violence. They have argued that Pegasus has become a key tool for states to repress their own people. Regions and targets Targets include known criminals as well as human rights defenders, political opponents, lawyers, diplomats, heads of state and nearly 200 journalists from 24 countries. The Guardian mentioned 38 journalists in Morocco, 48 journalists in Azerbaijan, 12 journalists in the United Arab Emirates and 38 journalists in India as having been targeted. Some of the targets whose names have been revealed are listed below; the list is non-exhaustive. Heads of state and government According to an analysis by the German newspaper Die Zeit and others, the following incumbent and former heads of state and government have been targeted, implying possible full access to their mobile phones' data: Abdelaziz Bouteflika, former President of Algeria Noureddine Bedoui, former Prime Minister of Algeria Mostafa Madbouly, Prime Minister of Egypt Charles Michel, former Prime Minister of Belgium and current President of the European Council Emmanuel Macron, President of France Édouard Philippe, former Prime Minister of France Édith Chabre, wife of Édouard Philippe Most French ministers Numerous French diplomats Barham Salih, President of Iraq Bakhytzhan Sagintayev, former Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Saad Hariri, Prime Minister of Lebanon Mohammed VI, King of Morocco Saadeddine Othmani, Prime Minister of Morocco Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa Ruhakana Rugunda, former Prime Minister of Uganda Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr, former Prime Minister of Yemen Azerbaijan Fatima Movlamli, an Azerbaijani civil society activist and journalist opposed to local authoritarian government. Intimate photographs of her were leaked on Facebook in 2019 when she was only 18. Hungary Used against opposition journalists, opposition leaders and critics. Szabolcs Panyi, a Hungarian investigative journalist for , hacked in 2019. Panyi joined the Pegasus Project investigation. András Szabó, a Hungarian investigative journalist. Dávid Dercsényi, a Hungarian investigative journalist (HVG). György Gémesi, a right-wing opposition politician, mayor of Gödöllő and president of the Alliance of Hungarian Local-Governments. , president of the Hungarian Bar Association, and nine other lawyers. , a businessman and owner of Central Media Group, which publish opposition press products (24.hu). Attila Chikán, a former economy minister in the first cabinet of Viktor Orbán, currently a vocal critic of Orbán's politics. India Used against opposition leaders, union ministers, journalists, administrators such as Election Commissioner and heads of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and minority leaders. Rahul Gandhi, an Indian politician and main rival of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was targeted on two of his cellphones. He would go on to claim that "all [his] phones are tapped". Five close friends and other Indian National Congress party officials were in the leaked list of potential targets. Prashant Kishor, a political strategist and tactician, who is linked with several of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rivals, was also targeted. Some opposition politicians such as Mamata Banerjee even claimed that Pegasus was used to keep track of the meetings between the two. Ashok Lavasa, an ex-Election Commissioner of India who flagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi's poll code violation in the 2019 Indian general election was targeted. Alok Verma, who was ousted as the head of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018 was a target. Numerous Indian politicians including Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka G. Parameshwara, as well as close aides of then Chief Minister H. D. Kumaraswamy and senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah. Abhishek Banerjee, a West Bengal politician of the All India Trinamool Congress, and the nephew of incumbent Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee. Siddharth Varadarajan, a New Delhi–based, American investigative journalist and founder of The Wire. Varadarajan joined the Pegasus Project investigation. Umar Khalid, a left-wing student activist and leader of the Democratic Students' Union, was added to the list in late 2018, then charged with sedition. He was arrested in September 2020 for organising the Delhi riots; the provided evidence was taken from his phone. He is currently in jail awaiting trial. Stan Swamy, an Indian Jesuit father and activist. Swamy died on 5 July 2021 at the age of 84 after contracting COVID-19 in prison. Collaborators Hany Babu, Shoma Sen and Rona Wilson were also in the project's list of alleged targets. Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology who assumed office less than 3 weeks before the investigation was revealed. The inner circle to the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje and other Tibetan figures, including: Tempa Tsering, the Dalai Lama's envoy to Delhi Tenzin Taklha, the Dalai Lama's senior aide Chhimey Rigzen, the Dalai Lama's senior aide Lobsang Tenzin, the 5th Samdhong Rinpoche, who is responsible for the selection of the Dalai Lama's successor Lobsang Sangay, former president of the Tibetan government-in-exile Penpa Tsering, president of the Tibetan government-in-exile Italy Romano Prodi, former Prime Minister of Italy and former President of the European Commission, was spied on while he was working as the UN Special Envoy to Sahel. Mexico Used against anti-corruption journalists, opposition leaders and a judge. Cecilio Pineda Birto (died 2 March 2017), a Mexican investigative and anti-corruption journalist. His phone was added as a Pegasus target just weeks before his assassination. , a Mexican judge, former president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Alejandro Solalinde, a Catholic priest and champion of migrants' rights. Believed to be targeted due to his support to opposition politicians. Morocco Used against opposition, Western Sahara–friendly journalists in Morocco and France, and more than 6,000 Algerian politicians, high-ranking military officials, heads of intelligence, civil servants, diplomats and activists. Edwy Plenel, a French journalist, co-founder and publishing editor at opposition newsroom Mediapart, hacked in 2019 by Morocco. , a French journalist also at Mediapart, hacked in 2020 by Morocco. , a Spanish journalist specialising in the Maghreb. He reported that he was hacked by the Moroccan government after learning that in June a Moroccan newspaper "picked up two WhatsApp conversations he had had with senior officials of the Spanish administration". Ahmed Gaid Salah, former Chief of Staff of the Algerian People's National Armed Forces Ali Haddad, Algerian businessman and supporter of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika Abdelkader Messahel, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Algeria Poland In July 2017, Prime Minister Beata Szydło agreed with Benjamin Netanyahu to buy Pegasus licenses. Michał Woś, deputy minister of justice, requested a parliamentary committee to divert funds from a ministry-run fund to "combat crime." Once approved, the Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) purchased the licenses for PLN 33.4 million. The transaction with NSO Group was camouflaged with unrelated invoices. The contract for 40 licenses to be used over three years was mediated by Matic, a company established by former Militia and Security Service associates. The spyware was first deployed in November 2017. In 2018, Citizen Lab suspected that an operator codenamed "ORZELBIALY" (Polish for "white eagle," a reference for the coat of arms of Poland) was spreading Pegasus through mobile network operators. In 2020, Rzeczpospolita reported that the bulk of evidence in a corruption case against former Civic Platform politician Sławomir Nowak was obtained using Pegasus. The CBA denied ever buying the license, still the government assured it had court permission. In December 2021, Citizen Lab announced to have found multiple hacks into phones of prominent opposition figures during the 2019 parliamentary elections that the right-wing populist party Law and Justice (PiS) of Jarosław Kaczyński won by a slim margin, which lead to a further erosion of judicial independence and press freedom. As of January 25, 2022, the reported victims include: Roman Giertych, a lawyer representing top opposition politicians, and the deputy prime minister in 2006–2007 Kaczyński's Cabinet, Ewa Wrzosek, a prosecutor who challenged the PiS government's attempts to purge the judiciary, Krzysztof Brejza, an attorney and at the time, a Civic Platform MP who ran the Civic Coalition campaign, and won his Senate seat. The hack against Brejza was later confirmed by Amnesty International. , a farmer and leader of the social movement Agrounia, Tomasz Szwejgiert, a journalist and alleged former associate of the CBA, hacked while co-authoring a book about Mariusz Kaminski, head of the CBA. Adam Hofman, former PiS spokesman, Dawid Jackiewicz, former PiS treasury minister in the Cabinet of Beata Szydło, , former PiS MP, , former head of the PiS cabinet and former spokesman of the Ministry of National Defence, Katarzyna Kaczmarek, wife of (referred to as "agent Tomek"), former policeman and former CBA officer, later a PiS MP. On February 7, 2022, the Supreme Audit Office (NIK) revealed that between 2020-2021, 544 of its employees' devices were under surveillance in over 7,300 attacks. According to NIK experts, three of the phones could be infected with Pegasus. Saudi Arabia Used against an opposition journalist and a women's rights activist since 2018. Jamal Khashoggi (died 2 October 2018), a Saudi-American investigative and opposition journalist, a contributor to The Washington Post, assassinated by Saudi operatives. Khashoggi, his wife Hanan El-Atr and phones of other people close to him have been targeted before and after his assassination. , Khashoggi's partner, was infected with Pegasus with forensic evidence of the spyware found on 6, 9 and 12 October 2018, a few days after Khashoggi's assassination. Khashoggi's contacts Yasin Aktay, Yahya Assiri, Hanan El-Atr, Abdullah Khashoggi, Madawi al-Rasheed, and Azzam Tamimi were also targeted. , Turkey's Istanbul chief prosecutor in charge of the Khashoggi murder's investigation, who later charged 20 Saudi operatives, is on the list of leaked targets. Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent Saudi women's rights activist, selected in 2018, likely by the United Arab Emirates (an ally of Saudi Arabia), before her abduction and return to Saudi Arabia for arrest and possibly torture. She was released from prison in February 2021, but her freedom of movement is still limited. Madawi al-Rasheed, a British citizen of Saudi origin and a professor of social anthropology. United Arab Emirates Used against human rights activists, local leaders and local nobility and Sheikh Maktoum family members. With more than 10,000 people of interest linked to Dubai, it was one of the most extensive uses of Pegasus. The targets were mainly from the UAE and Qatar, but also included people from Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. In 2020, the NSO Pegasus license was stripped from Dubai due to human rights concerns and spying on Sheikh Maktoum family members. Princess Haya bint Hussein, the ex-wife of Sheikh Maktoum of Dubai, self-exiled in London. The list of "people of interest" includes her phone number as well as the phone number of 8 of her closest aides, advisers and friends, including personal assistant, security staffs, one of her lawyers advising her in her custody and divorce dispute with Sheikh Maktoum. Security firm Quest's staffs: Martin Smith, CEO; its director of investigations; Shimon Cohen, its communications adviser. John Gosden, a British horse racing trainer and friend. Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum, the daughter of Sheikh Maktoum of Dubai, attempted to escape to Goa, India. From there, she hoped to travel to the United States, where she planned to seek asylum, only to be caught by Indian special forces. Her phone number had appeared on 25 February 2018, one day after her escape, but the phone was already discarded in a café bathroom and replaced with a brand-new phone with new SIM cards. Phones used by Latifa's friends and family were soon added to the system. It is suspected that UAE Pegasus surveillance of her friends' phones helped Dubai to track Latifa's escape, and abduct her back near Goa. Christian Elombo, a French soldier and friend of Latifa, and his girlfriend Juan Mayer, a skydiving photographer and friend Lynda Bouchiki, a skydiver and friend, events manager. Latifa chatted via phone with Bouchiki while fleeing. Sioned Taylor, a Briton skydiver and friend, maths teacher. Latifa chatted via phone with Taylor while fleeing. David Haigh, a British national previously detained and tortured in UAE prison, human rights campaigner and lawyer campaigning to free Latifa. Alaa al-Siddiq (died 19 June 2021), an Emirati human rights activist, executive director of the human rights organisation ALQST and the daughter of Muhammad al-Siddiq, one of the UAE-94 pro-democracy political prisoners. She was documenting violences by Gulf governments on prisoners. Following the 2011 Arab Spring, Alaa al-Siddiq was self-exiled to Qatar then the UK since 2012. All of her family members were stripped of their UAE nationality. Following her death in a car accident in 2021 in the UK, the UAE refused her body to be taken back to the country for burial. Citizens Lab found traces of Pegasus surveillance on her phone. Ahmed Mansoor, an Emirati human rights and reformist blogger, confirmed hacked by Pegasus. Arrested in 2011, pardoned, then arrested again in 2017 with 10 years sentences. Detained in dire conditions. Over 3,000 Qataris. European, Asian human rights activists supporting rights in the Gulf countries. Reactions NSO Group's response Vetting and licence contract NSO Group did not deny the presence of its spyware, responding to the report by stating they rigorously vetted its customers' human rights records before allowing them to use its spy tools. It says military-grade Pegasus is only supposed to be used to prevent serious crime and terrorism. NSO stated its purchasing client governments are bidden by a signed contract and licence, agreeing to terms of uses, and contractually limited to legitimate criminal or terrorist targets. Once sold, NSO Group says it does not know nor can see how its client governments use its spyware. Involvement denial and deresponsibilisation NSO Group stated: "NSO does not operate the systems that it sells to vetted government customers, and does not have access to the data of its customers' targets. NSO does not operate its technology, does not collect, nor possesses, nor has any access to any kind of data of its customers. Due to contractual and national security considerations, NSO cannot confirm or deny the identity of our government customers, as well as the identity of customers of which we have shut down systems." The CEO of NSO Group categorically claimed that the list in question is unrelated to them, the source of the allegations can not be verified as a reliable one. "This is an attempt to build something based on a crazy lack of information... There is something fundamentally wrong with this investigation." The owner of the company that developed the Pegasus spyware categorically refutes all allegations, stating that the list of the phone numbers in question has nothing to do with the Pegasus spyware. NSO denied "false claims" about its clients' activities, but said it would "continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action". Journalists/NGOs Journalists around the world have expressed outrage at the use of anti-criminality tools against non-criminals, journalists, opposition representatives, and other civilians. Edward Snowden has called for governments to impose a global moratorium on the international spyware trade in order to avoid ubiquitous violation of privacy and associated abuses. Haaretz argued such invasive monitoring technology is the weapon of choice for autocratic governments, allowing continuous monitoring of opponents, preventing protests from the beginning before they are organised, and discouraging sources to share information with journalists. This technology should, therefore, be shared only with countries with independent and solid rule of law. The Committee to Protect Journalists called for a critical reform of the surveillance software industry and market. The International Press Institute, an international press freedom network, denounced the abuse of spying on journalists, calling formal investigations and accountability. , an investigative journalist for Al Jazeera Arabic, said, "[The hacking of the Al Jazeera staffers' and journalists' phones is] a crime against journalism. Based on this spyware, journalists have been arrested, disappeared, or even killed. Khashoggi is just one example". In a statement, the said they were "shocked" by the revelations and also stated: "If this is the case, it is unacceptable, outrageous and illegal, full information must be disclosed to the public immediately". In a tweet, the Press Club of India (PCI) issued a statement: This is the first time in the history of this country that all pillars of our democracy — judiciary, Parliamentarians, media, executives & ministers — have been spied upon. This is unprecedented and the PCI condemns unequivocally. The snooping has been done for ulterior motives. What is disturbing is that a foreign agency, which has nothing to do with the national interest of the country, was engaged to spy on its citizens. This breeds distrust and will invite anarchy. The Govt should come out clean on this front and clarify. Similarly, the Editor's Guild of India also released a statement directed against the alleged spying made by the Indian government, saying: This act of snooping essentially conveys that journalism and political dissent are now equated with 'terror'. How can a constitutional democracy survive if governments do not make an effort to protect freedom of speech and allows surveillance with such impunity?It asked for a Supreme Court monitored enquiry into the matter, and further demanded that the inquiry committee should include people of impeccable credibility from different walks of life—including journalists and civil society—so that it can independently investigate the facts around the extent and intent of snooping using the services of Pegasus. Companies Amazon's cloud computing subsidiary AWS stated they had terminated "relevant infrastructure and accounts" linked to NSO Group, following an investigation by Amnesty International that discovered Amazon CloudFront was being used to infect targets with the Pegasus malware. The CEO of WhatsApp, Will Cathcart, called for a global moratorium on the use of unaccountable surveillance technology and defended the use of end-to-end encryption following the reports. National governments Algeria In a statement released, Algeria's public prosecutor has ordered an investigation into the reports that the country may have been a target of the Pegasus spyware. France After the revelations of the Pegasus Project investigation, in which it was revealed that the French president Emmanuel Macron was targeted, France launched an investigation into the matter. In the aftermath of these revelations, Macron changed his telephone number and replaced his phone. Furthermore, he ordered an overhaul in security procedures. Macron reportedly contacted Israel's prime minister Naftali Bennett to discuss Israel's internal investigation and express concern that his data appeared on the list of potential targets and urged Bennett to conduct an inquiry. French intelligence (ANSSI) confirmed that Pegasus spyware had been found on the phones of three journalists, including a journalist of France 24, in what was the first time an independent and official authority corroborated the findings of the investigation. Hungary A statement from the office of Viktor Orbán in Hungary stated that they were not aware of any alleged data collection. On 22 July, the Prosecution Service of Hungary announced that it would open an investigation to determine whether there was an illegal data collection. On November 4, 2021, Lajos Kósa, Member of Parliament and Vice President of Fidesz, member of the Parliamentary Defence and Law Enforcement Committee, admitted that the Ministry of Interior had purchased and used the Pegasus software. India The government has not denied the usage of Pegasus spyware in their response so far. The government has also denied the request for investigation or an independent Supreme Court inquiry by the opposition into the matter. The official response of the Government of India to The Washington Post stated that "[t]he allegations regarding government surveillance on specific people has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever" and that such news reports were an attempt to "malign the Indian democracy and its institutions". They further stated that each case of interception, monitoring and decryption is approved by the Union Home Secretary and that there exists an oversight mechanism in the form of a review committee headed by the Union Cabinet Secretary and that any such interceptions have been done under the due process of law. The former IT minister of India Ravi Shankar Prasad asked, "If more than 45 nations are using Pegasus as NSO has said, why is only India being targeted?" The Indian IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in a statement in parliament stated that the reports were "highly sensational" and that they had "no factual basis". He further stated that NSO themselves had rubbished the claims. He stated that the existence of numbers in a list was not sufficient evidence to indicate that the spyware was used and said that the report itself stated the same and without the physical examination of the phone such claims cannot be corroborated. The Minister of Home and Internal Security Amit Shah in a statement on his blog insinuated that this was an attempt to disrupt the monsoon session of the parliament and that the opposition parties were "jumping on a bandwagon" and were trying to "derail anything progressive that comes up in Parliament". He stated that the report was an attempt to "derail India's development trajectory through their conspiracies". Replying to allegations from the opposition, Minister of State in Ministry of Home Affairs Ajay Kumar Mishra said that there is no reason for a probe and the people who made the allegations are "political failures". Israel The Israeli government denied having access to the information gathered by NSO's clients. In the aftermath of the revelations by the investigations of the Pegasus Project, the head of the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee announced a commission to investigate the allegations of misuse of Pegasus for surveillance and hacking. In December 2021, the Israeli Defense Ministry imposed new restrictions on the export of cyber warfare tools as a result of the scandals involving NSO. Kazakhstan In the revelations made by the investigation, it came to light that the Kazakhstan's former Prime Minister, Bakhytzhan Sagintayev, could have been targeted. Furthermore, it has been reported that Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the president of Kazakhstan, was also targeted. However, top officials have claimed that these reports and allegations of the president being spied on were "without evidence". Furthermore, the deputy head of Kazakhstan's presidential administration Dauren Abaev said the list of targets was "rather intriguing information without any evidence". Morocco The Moroccan government denied claims of acquiring and using Pegasus, and has said it "categorically rejects and condemns these unfounded and false allegations, as it has done with previous similar allegations by Amnesty International". The Moroccan ambassador to France, Chakib Benmoussa, also denied reports that his country's authorities had spied on French President Emmanuel Macron. In an interview given to Jeune Afrique, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita stated it was "important to shed light on the facts, far from controversy and slander", and claimed that certain titles unionised within the journalist consortium "serve agendas well known for their primary hostility towards Morocco and are ulcerated by its successes under the leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI." Morocco later sued Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories for defamation, with lawyer saying that the Moroccan state "wants all possible light cast on these false allegations". It also issued defamation citations against Le Monde, Mediapart and Radio France on 28 July, and filed an injunction request against the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung on 2 August. Pakistan The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, whose name was revealed to be in the list, has called on the United Nations for an investigation on the Indian use of Pegasus. Rwanda Rwanda, through a statement by Vincent Biruta, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, denied using Pegasus and claimed that accusations of the country using Pegasus are part of an ongoing campaign to cause tensions between Rwanda and other countries, and to promote disinformation about Rwanda domestically and internationally. Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia's official Saudi Press Agency has denied all allegations of its use of Pegasus spyware on journalists and human rights activists as "baseless". The allegations were dismissed as "untrue". United Arab Emirates A statement released by the UAE's foreign minister stated that the allegations of use of the Pegasus spyware by the UAE on journalists and individuals were "categorically false" and that such allegations had no evidentiary basis and they denied all allegations. This despite ample material evidences of UAE dissidents being targeted. Other reactions In India the Indian National Congress accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "treason" and compromising national security following the release of the reports and called for the removal of Minister of Home and Internal Security Amit Shah and an investigation of the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the affair. The Indian IT minister made a statement that similar claims were made in the past regarding Pegasus for WhatsApp which had no factual basis and was even denied by the Supreme Court of India. However, many of the statements made by the Indian IT minister were verified by the Internet Freedom Foundation and were not found to be accurate. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that the central government intends to "turn India into a surveillance state" where "democracy is in danger". On July 26, 2021 The West Bengal Chief Minister announced a commission of inquiry into the alleged surveillance of phones using Pegasus. Retired Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B Lokur, and former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, Justice (retd) Jyotirmay Bhattacharya, have been appointed as members of the commission. In India, some news articles were released making claims that Amnesty never claimed that the leaked phone numbers were of NSO's Pegasus spyware list. However, these reports were later proven to be false, and Amnesty issued a statement stating that it categorically stands by the findings of the investigation and that the data is irrefutably linked to potential targets of Pegasus. The European Parliament awarded the 2021 Daphne Caruana Galizia journalism prize to the Pegasus Project. Government investigations On 20 July 2021, it was reported that French prosecutors would investigate allegations that Moroccan intelligence services used Pegasus to spy on French journalists. France's national agency for information systems security (ANSSI) identified digital traces of Pegasus on three journalists' phones and relayed its findings to the Paris public prosecutor's office, which is overseeing the investigation into possible hacking. See also NSO Group DarkMatter (Emirati company) SCL Group WhatsApp snooping scandal Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal Facebook abuses campaigns by governments Edward Snowden Pegasus Project revelations in India References Data breaches Espionage scandals and incidents Hacking in the 2010s IOS malware Malware toolkits Political scandals in Hungary Political scandals in India Spyware

68278646

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr%20Starovoitov

Aleksandr Starovoitov

Aleksandr Vladimirovich Starovoitov (; 18 October 1940 – 17 July 2021) was an officer of the Soviet and Russian security services and academic, specialising in communications technologies. He reached the rank of army general, and was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. Starovoitov's education and early career was spent specialising in electronics and communications, and after obtaining qualifications and practical experience in this area, he began research work at the Penza Scientific Electrotechnical Research Institute. Over the years he rose to head the institute, and became general director of the "Krystal" Research and Production Association, working under the Ministry of Communication Equipment Industry. During this time he oversaw the development of information security systems which were employed in the Soviet Armed Forces, governmental departments and organs, and in economic and financial institutions. By the late 1980s he had become a leading expert in the field of communications research and development, and in 1986 he was appointed deputy head for technological equipment of the KGB's Government Communications Department. He was briefly chairman of the Government Communications Committee prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and then became general director of FAPSI, the Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information. Under Starovoitov's leadership FAPSI became one of the largest intelligence agencies in the Russian Federation, and he rose through the ranks to become an army general. Dismissed from his post in 1998, he retired in 1999, being awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation that year. He remained active in commercial fields related to his service, in senior leadership positions in businesses and enterprises, as well as in research and academia. He was a member of numerous scientific bodies and academies, and had received a number of academic and governmental distinctions prior to his death in 2021. Early life and career Starovoitov was born on 18 October 1940 into a Russian family in the town of Balashov, Saratov Oblast, in the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, in the Soviet Union. He moved with his family, which had military connections, to Kamenka, Penza Oblast in 1952. He studied at the faculty of encryption and coding technology at Penza Polytechnic Institute, graduating in 1962 with a degree in electromechanical communication equipment, and the qualification of an electrical engineer. He began his career as an engineer at the Kalugapribor plant, working as a senior tuning engineer and the deputy head of workshop number 8. After three years practical technical experience, in 1965 Starovoitov joined the Penza Scientific Electrotechnical Research Institute as a senior engineer and laboratory chief. In 1976 he became head of the research department and deputy director for scientific work, and in 1982 he was appointed director of the institute, and first deputy general director of science at the "Krystal" Research and Production Association of the Ministry of Communication Equipment Industry. In 1983 Starovoitov was appointed general director of the "Krystal" Research and Production Association, a post he continued to hold alongside his position as director of the Penza Scientific Electrotechnical Research Institute. Over the next three years, until 1986, he oversaw the development of information security systems which were employed in the Soviet Armed Forces, governmental departments and organs, and in economic and financial institutions. He was also involved in developing automated control systems. Starovoitov received the Order of the Badge of Honour in 1981 for the scientific development and organisation of large-scale production of special communications equipment, and in 1986 received the Order of the Red Banner of Labour for "the creation and organisation of the serial production of data transmission services for frontline automated control systems". With the KGB and FAPSI By now having successfully combined an academic career with development and production work, and having become a leading expert in the field of communications technology, in May 1986 Starovoitov was called up for military service. He was granted the rank of major general, having previously been a lieutenant colonel in the KGB reserve. He was appointed deputy head for technological equipment of the KGB's Government Communications Department, serving in the KGB's central offices. During his five years in the post, he oversaw the roll out of modern communications systems throughout government departments. He was promoted to lieutenant general on 11 April 1991, and in September 1991 he was appointed chairman of the Government Communications Committee, a post he held through the last months of the Soviet Union. On 24 December 1991 Starovoitov was appointed general director of FAPSI, the Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information. Under his leadership FAPSI became one of the largest intelligence agencies in the Russian Federation. Promoted to colonel general on 12 February 1993, Starovoitov continued to develop his skills, and in 1997 graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia with a degree in defence and security. He had connections with leading businesses and enterprises involved in telecommunications, sitting on the board of directors of Rostelecom and Svyazinvest, and was chairman of the Security Council of Russia's Interdepartmental Commission on Information Security, as well as chairman of the Commonwealth of Independent States's coordinating council on communications and encryption security. On 23 February 1998 he was promoted to army general. Retirement and later life Starovoitov was dismissed as director of FAPSI on 7 December 1998, ostensibly to allow his transfer to another position. No such transfer occurred, and he was dismissed from military service in 1999. No longer in government service, he returned to research and development on communication systems. On 17 August 1999 he was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. The award, made by decree of the President of Russia, was closed, but the reason was speculated to be because of his work on the . Starovoitov continued to work in commercial fields related to his expertise. Between 2003 and 2006 he was general director of Tech-Inform Consulting, and in 2006 he became director, and then in 2012 president, of the Centre for Information Technologies and Executive Authority Systems at the Federal State Autonomous Scientific Institution. Also in 2006 he became general director of the International Centre for Informatics and Electronics, working in the fields of military and special weapons equipment. His academic work brought him the title of professor, and doctor of technical sciences. He authored over 170 scientific works, including 8 monographs, and held 48 patents. He was also chairman of the National Committee for the Promotion of Economic Cooperation with Latin American Countries (NC SESLA), and in 2009 was appointed chairman of the Russia-Chile Business Council. Starovoitov was married to Tatiana (born 6 September 1939), and had a son, Dmitry, a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, who died in 1999. Starovoitov lived and worked in Moscow, dying there on 17 July 2021 at the age of 80. Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin expressed his condolences, stating that Starovoitov had "made a huge contribution to the development of national science and contributed to the strengthening of the country's defence capability." Starovoitov was buried in the fourth section of the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery. Honours and awards Besides the title of Hero of the Russian Federation, Starovoitov had received numerous awards and honours over his long career. He was awarded the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" Fourth Class on 9 April 1996, and the Third Class in 2020. He had also received the Order of Alexander Nevsky on 11 June 2016, and the Soviet-era awards of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour on 8 August 1986, and the Order of the Badge of Honour on 10 March 1981. He also held several professional awards and distinctions, including the titles of on 21 October 1993, Honoured State Security Officer in 1991, Honoured Communications Industry Worker, and . He had also been awarded the thanks of the President of Russia on 12 July 1996. Among Starovoitov's academic distinctions was that of a laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation in 1995 for the development of government communication systems, and two prizes of the government of the Russian Federation; in 2008 for the development of special information systems, and in 2013 for his technical and academic work. He was an academician of the , academician and first vice president of the A. M. Prokhorov Academy of Engineering Sciences, and academician of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences, the Russian Academy of Electrical Sciences, the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, and the International Academy of Communications. He was also a board member of the Russian Military-Industrial Commission's Scientific and Technical Council, and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences's Defence Research Council. He had received the Russian Academy of Sciences's in 2020 for his works on the "Creation of scientific foundations and development of design methods and software and hardware implementation of promising information transmission systems". References 1940 births 2021 deaths People from Balashov Generals of the army (Russia) Heroes of the Russian Federation Recipients of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 3rd class Recipients of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 4th class Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the Order of Alexander Nevsky State Prize of the Russian Federation laureates KGB officers Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology faculty Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia alumni Penza State University alumni Burials in Troyekurovskoye Cemetery

68284840

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Acts%20of%20the%203rd%20Session%20of%20the%2052nd%20Parliament%20of%20the%20United%20Kingdom

List of Acts of the 3rd Session of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom

Public General Acts |- | {{|Northern Ireland Act 2000|public|1|10-02-2000|maintained=y|repealed=y|An Act to make provision for the suspension of devolved government in Northern Ireland and the exercise of certain functions conferred by or under Part V of the Northern Ireland Act 1998; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Representation of the People Act 2000|public|2|09-03-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make new provision with respect to the registration of voters for the purposes of parliamentary and local government elections; to make other provision in relation to voting at such elections; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Consolidated Fund Act 2000|public|3|21-03-2000|maintained=y|repealed=y|An Act to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on 31st March 1999, 2000 and 2001.}} |- | {{|Armed Forces Discipline Act 2000|public|4|25-05-2000|maintained=y|repealed=y|An Act to amend the Army Act 1955, the Air Force Act 1955 and the Naval Discipline Act 1957 in relation to custody, the right to elect court-martial trial and appeals against findings made or punishments awarded on summary dealing or summary trial; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Nuclear Safeguards Act 2000|public|5|25-05-2000|maintained=y|An Act to enable effect to be given to the protocol signed at Vienna on 22nd September 1998 additional to the agreement for the application of safeguards in the United Kingdom in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons; to allow effect to be given to that agreement in certain territories outside the United Kingdom; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000|public|6|25-05-2000|maintained=y|An Act to consolidate certain enactments relating to the powers of courts to deal with offenders and defaulters and to the treatment of such persons, with amendments to give effect to recommendations of the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission.}} |- | {{|Electronic Communications Act 2000|public|7|25-05-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision to facilitate the use of electronic communications and electronic data storage; to make provision about the modification of licences granted under section 7 of the Telecommunications Act 1984; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Financial Services and Markets Act 2000|public|8|14-06-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision about the regulation of financial services and markets; to provide for the transfer of certain statutory functions relating to building societies, friendly societies, industrial and provident societies and certain other mutual societies; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Act 2000|public|9|20-07-2000|maintained=y|repealed=y|An Act to apply a sum out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the year ending on 31st March 2001; to appropriate the supplies granted in this Session of Parliament; and to repeal certain Consolidated Fund and Appropriation Acts.}} |- | {{|Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate Act 2000|public|10|20-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision for inspection of the Crown Prosecution Service.}} |- | {{|Terrorism Act 2000|public|11|20-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision about terrorism; and to make temporary provision for Northern Ireland about the prosecution and punishment of certain offences, the preservation of peace and the maintenance of order.}} |- | {{|Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000|public|12|20-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision for limited liability partnerships.}} |- | {{|Royal Parks (Trading) Act 2000|public|13|20-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision about certain offences under section 2 of the Parks Regulation (Amendment) Act 1926.}} |- | {{|Care Standards Act 2000|public|14|20-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to establish a National Care Standards Commission; to make provision for the registration and regulation of children's homes, independent hospitals, independent clinics, care homes, residential family centres, independent medical agencies, domiciliary care agencies, fostering agencies, nurses agencies and voluntary adoption agencies; to make provision for the regulation and inspection of local authority fostering and adoption services; to establish a General Social Care Council and a Care Council for Wales and make provision for the registration, regulation and training of social care workers; to establish a Children's Commissioner for Wales; to make provision for the registration, regulation and training of those providing child minding or day care; to make provision for the protection of children and vulnerable adults; to amend the law about children looked after in schools and colleges; to repeal the Nurses Agencies Act 1957; to amend Schedule 1 to the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Television Licences (Disclosure of Information) Act 2000|public|15|20-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision about the disclosure of certain information for purposes connected with television licences.}} |- | {{|Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000|public|16|20-07-2000|maintained=y|repealed=y|An Act to make provision about the assessment of carers' needs; to provide for services to help carers; to provide for the making of payments to carers and disabled children aged 16 or 17 in lieu of the provision of services to them; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Finance Act 2000|public|17|28-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to grant certain duties, to alter other duties, and to amend the law relating to the National Debt and the Public Revenue, and to make further provision in connection with Finance.}} |- | {{|Sea Fishing Grants (Charges) Act 2000|public|18|28-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to ensure the validity of charges made in the administration of certain grant schemes relating to sea fishing.}} |- | {{|Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000|public|19|28-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to amend the law relating to child support; to amend the law relating to occupational and personal pensions and war pensions; to amend the law relating to social security benefits and social security administration; to amend the law relating to national insurance contributions; to amend Part III of the Family Law Reform Act 1969 and Part III of the Family Law Act 1986; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000|public|20|28-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision about government resources and accounts; to provide for financial assistance for a body established to participate in public-private partnerships; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Learning and Skills Act 2000|public|21|28-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to establish the Learning and Skills Council for England and the National Council for Education and Training for Wales, to make other provision about education and training, and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Local Government Act 2000|public|22|28-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision with respect to the functions and procedures of local authorities and provision with respect to local authority elections; to make provision with respect to grants and housing benefit in respect of certain welfare services; to amend section 29 of the Children Act 1989; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000|public|23|28-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision for and about the interception of communications, the acquisition and disclosure of data relating to communications, the carrying out of surveillance, the use of covert human intelligence sources and the acquisition of the means by which electronic data protected by encryption or passwords may be decrypted or accessed; to provide for Commissioners and a tribunal with functions and jurisdiction in relation to those matters, to entries on and interferences with property or with wireless telegraphy and to the carrying out of their functions by the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Headquarters; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Census (Amendment) Act 2000|public|24|28-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to amend the Census Act 1920 to enable particulars to be required in respect of religion.}} |- | {{|Football (Disorder) Act 2000|public|25|28-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make further provision for the purpose of preventing violence or disorder at or in connection with association football matches; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Postal Services Act 2000|public|26|28-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to establish the Postal Services Commission and the Consumer Council for Postal Services; to provide for the licensing of certain postal services and for a universal postal service; to provide for the vesting of the property, rights and liabilities of the Post Office in a company nominated by the Secretary of State and for the subsequent dissolution of the Post Office; to make further provision in relation to postal services; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Utilities Act 2000|public|27|28-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to provide for the establishment and functions of the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority and the Gas and Electricity Consumer Council; to amend the legislation regulating the gas and electricity industries; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Health Service Commissioners (Amendment) Act 2000|public|28|23-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to amend the Health Service Commissioners Act 1993.}} |- | {{|Trustee Act 2000|public|29|23-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to amend the law relating to trustees and persons having the investment powers of trustees; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Licensing (Young Persons) Act 2000|public|30|23-11-2000|maintained=y|repealed=y|An Act to make provision in connection with the sale and consumption of intoxicating liquor in cases involving persons under eighteen; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000|public|31|23-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to require the Secretary of State to publish and implement a strategy for reducing fuel poverty; to require the setting of targets for the implementation of that strategy; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000|public|32|23-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision about policing in Northern Ireland; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000|public|33|23-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to prohibit the keeping of animals solely or primarily for slaughter for the value of their fur; to provide for the making of payments in respect of the related closure of certain businesses; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000|public|34|30-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to extend further the application of the Race Relations Act 1976 to the police and other public authorities; to amend the exemption under that Act for acts done for the purpose of safeguarding national security; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000|public|35|30-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision about children and young persons who are being, or have been, looked after by a local authority; to replace section 24 of the Children Act 1989; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Freedom of Information Act 2000|public|36|30-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision for the disclosure of information held by public authorities or by persons providing services for them and to amend the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Public Records Act 1958; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000|public|37|30-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make new provision for public access to the countryside; to amend the law relating to public rights of way; to enable traffic regulation orders to be made for the purpose of conserving an area's natural beauty; to make provision with respect to the driving of mechanically propelled vehicles elsewhere than on roads; to amend the law relating to nature conservation and the protection of wildlife; to make further provision with respect to areas of outstanding natural beauty; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Transport Act 2000|public|38|30-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision about transport.}} |- | {{|Insolvency Act 2000|public|39|30-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to amend the law about insolvency; to amend the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Protection of Animals (Amendment) Act 2000|public|40|30-11-2000|maintained=y|repealed=y|An Act to enable provision to be made for the care, disposal or slaughter of animals to which proceedings under section 1 of the Protection of Animals Act 1911 relate; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000|public|41|30-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to establish an Electoral Commission; to make provision about the registration and finances of political parties; to make provision about donations and expenditure for political purposes; to make provision about election and referendum campaigns and the conduct of referendums; to make provision about election petitions and other legal proceedings in connection with elections; to reduce the qualifying periods set out in sections 1 and 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1985; to make pre-consolidation amendments relating to European Parliamentary Elections; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Disqualifications Act 2000|public|42|30-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to remove the disqualification for membership of the House of Commons and the Northern Ireland Assembly of persons who are members of the legislature of Ireland (the Oireachtas); to disqualify for certain offices which may be held by members of the Northern Ireland Assembly persons who are or become Ministers of the Government of Ireland or chairmen or deputy chairmen of committees of the Dáil Éireann or the Seanad Éireann or of joint committees of the Oireachtas; and to make provision with respect to who may be chairman or deputy chairman of a statutory committee of the Assembly or a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission.}} |- | {{|Criminal Justice and Courts Services Act 2000|public|43|30-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to establish a National Probation Service for England and Wales and a Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service; to make further provision for the protection of children; to make further provision about dealing with persons suspected of, charged with or convicted of offences; to amend the law relating to access to information held under Part III of the Road Traffic Act 1988; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000|public|44|30-11-2000|maintained=y|An Act to reduce the age at which, and to make provision with respect to the circumstances in which, certain sexual acts are lawful; to make it an offence for a person aged 18 or over to engage in sexual activity with or directed towards a person under that age if he is in a position of trust in relation to that person; and for connected purposes.}} }} Local Acts |- | {{|United Reformed Church Act 2000|local|2|10-02-2000|maintained=y|An Act to make provision as to property held on behalf of the Congregational Union of Scotland, its member churches and the Scottish Congregational College, and for other purposes incidental to or consequential upon the unification of the Congregational Union of Scotland with the United Reformed Church in the United Kingdom; to amend the United Reformed Church Act 1972 and the United Reformed Church Act 1981; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|Alliance & Leicester plc (Group Reorganisation) Act 2000|local|3|10-02-2000|maintained=y|An Act to provide for the transfer to Alliance & Leicester plc of the undertakings of Girobank plc and Alliance & Leicester Personal Finance Limited; and for related purposes.}} |- | {{|Baxi Partnership Limited Trusts Act 2000|local|4|10-02-2000|maintained=y|An Act to confirm the validity of and vary the trusts of a settlement created by Baxi Partnership Limited for the benefit of employees of Baxi Partnership Limited; to modify certain provisions of the settlement; to confer powers on the trustees of that settlement; and for other purposes.}} |- | {{|Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (Amendment of Rules) Act 2000|local|5|09-03-2000|maintained=y|An Act to enact provisions relating to the amendment of the rules of the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association, and for other purposes.}} |- | {{|Railtrack (Waverley Station) Order Confirmation Act 2000|local|6|14-06-2000|maintained=y|An Act to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Railtrack (Waverley Station).|po1=Railtrack (Waverley Station) Order 2000|Provisional Order to limit the operation of restrictions which may affect Waverley Station in the city of Edinburgh or the land on which it is situated; to repeal certain local statutory provisions relating to Waverley Station; to make good the feudal title to some of the land within Waverley Station; and for connected purposes.}} |- | {{|London Local Authorities Act 2000|local|7|20-07-2000|maintained=y|An Act to confer further powers upon local authorities in London; and for related purposes.}} }} References Lists of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom

68732438

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl%20Nelson%20Gorman

Carl Nelson Gorman

Carl Nelson Gorman, also known as Kin-Ya-Onny-Beyeh (1907–1998) was a Navajo code talker, visual artist, painter, illustrator, and professor. He was faculty at the University of California, Davis, from 1950 until 1973. During World War II, Gorman served as a code talker with the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific. Early life and education Carl Nelson Gorman was born on October 5, 1907 in Chinle, Arizona. Chinle, is located on the rim of the Canyon de Chelly National Monument. He was a member of the Khinyá’ áni clan (the Towering House People). His father was a cattleman and "Indian trader". When he was a child, his mother Alice, who was a traditional weaver, supported his earliest artistic pursuits. His mother also worked to translate hymns from English into Navajo. His parents found the First Presbyterian Mission in Chinle. He attended the Rehoboth Mission School in Rehoboth, New Mexico; an American Indian boarding school where was punished for speaking the Navajo language. Career In 1942 during the mid-point of World War II, Gorman was one of the 29 Navajo people recruited by the United States Marine Corp to serve as code talkers in their native Navajo language. Gorman was ranked as a Private First Class. He spend much of his service time on the front lines in the Pacific and in Saipan. The Navajo code was formally developed and modeled on the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet that uses agreed-upon English words to represent letters or other meanings. The Japanese were never able to crack the Navajo-based encryption. After the war, Gorman studied art at the Otis Art Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design), on the G.I. Bill. In 1949, Gorman was worked as an illustrator in Los Angeles, including technical illustration work for Douglas Aircraft Company. In 1950, he joined the faculty at UC Davis, where he remained until 1973. Gorman helped in the formation of the Native American Studies Department, as well as in the creation of a Native American art studio workshop. In 1969, the Native American Studies Department at UC Davis was formed under the name Tehcumseh Center, Gorman was one of the first faculty working alongside Jack D. Forbes, and David Risling, Jr. joined the faculty in 1970, and George Longfish joined in 1973. Gorman used traditional Navajo motifs in his visual art practice. Around 1973, Gorman and his wife Mary moved to Gallup, New Mexico where he worked on many community-based projects; including directing the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild, he founded the Navajo Code Talkers Association, worked on an oral history project with Navajo elders, and taught classes at both Navajo Community College (now Diné College) and University of New Mexico-Gallup. Death, honors, and legacy Gorman died from cancer on January 29, 1998 in Gallup, New Mexico. His son R.C. Gorman (1931–2005) was a renowned Navajo artist. HIs daughter Zonnie Gorman is a noted historian of Navajo code talkers. His son Alfred Kee Gorman (1957–1966) also was an artist but he died at an early age. In 1990, Gorman was awarded a doctor of humane letters from University of New Mexico. Shortly after his retirement in 1973, UC Davis named their new museum, the C.N. Gorman Museum in his honor, and Gorman donated to the collection. In 1995, Northern Arizona University unveiled a code talker monument, a bust of Gorman sculpted by his son, R.C. Gorman. Art collections His artwork is included in the permanent museum collections of the C.N. Gorman Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian. References Further reading External links Official website 1907 births 1998 deaths Navajo artists Navajo code talkers University of California, Davis faculty Navajo painters Otis College of Art and Design alumni University of New Mexico people People from Chinle, Arizona People from Gallup, New Mexico United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II 20th-century Native Americans

68856568

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal%20Information%20Protection%20Law%20of%20the%20People%27s%20Republic%20of%20China

Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China

The Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China (Chinese: 中华人民共和国个人信息保护法; pinyin: Zhōnghuá rénmín gònghéguó gèrén xìnxī bǎohù fǎ) referred to as the Personal Information Protection Law or ("PIPL") protecting personal information rights and interests, standardize personal information handling activities, and promote the rational use of personal information. It also addresses the transfer of personal data outside of China. The PIPL was adopted on August 20, 2021, and is effective November 1, 2021. It is related to, and builds on top of both China's Cybersecurity Law ("CSL") and China's Data Security Law ("DSL"). The PIPL is similar to, and partly based on, the European Union's GDPR. An official English version for reference only was published on December 29, 2021. History On August 20, 2021, the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress passed the Private Information Protection Law or ("PIPL"). The law, which took effect on November 1, 2021, applies to the activities of handling the personal information of natural persons within the borders of the China. Provisions Scope The PIPL generally covers all organizations operating in China processing personal information. Long Arm Jurisdiction Some provisions also include Long Arm Jurisdiction over data collection and processes of organizations outside of China. These apply when: The purpose is to provide products or services to natural persons inside the borders; Analyzing or assessing activities of natural persons inside the borders; Other circumstances provided in laws or administrative regulations. This presumably applies to offshore or multi-national companies with Chinese customers in China, for example Amazon who might be shipping goods to a Chinese buyer, or Apple who may have Chinese users in the American App Store. All such entities are required to establish a dedicated entity or appoint a representative within China. Exemptions There are few exemptions, but one that was added during late drafting provides a non-consent legal basis for handling employee data, though employee consent is still needed for overseas transfer, such as to a global corporate parent. Key Themes Individual privacy, control and consent are consistent themes throughout the law, which lays down key principles including: Personal Information - Defining personal information, including sensitive information; Legal Basis - All data collection must have a legal basis for collection. There are several bases, but unlike in the GDPR, there is no legitimate interests basis; Consent - A key legal basis is consent, which, unlike in the GDPR, must be obtained for each type of data processing activity, especially for transferring an individual's data overseas. Consent must also be "informed" with various types of notification and required content specified in the law; Sensitive Data - Some types of personal information is sensitive, and the law provides an open-ended list of examples (unlike the GDPR's specific list of "special categories"), including biometrics, religion, specially-designated status, medical health, financial accounts, and location tracking; Protecting Children - All personal information of minors under the age of 14 is sensitive, and specific consent is required from parents to process this information. This is much stricter than in the GDPR; Individual Rights - The PIPL gives individuals several key rights over their information, such as the right to correct, delete, and view or transfer the data collected about them. Responsibilities - Several articles lay out the various responsibilities of various parties collecting, transferring, and handling personal information; Government Use of Personal Information - The PIPL includes when and how government agencies can collect and process data on individuals, including for national security, emergency, and other purposes; Overseas Transfers - Specific restrictions on transfer of personal data outside of China; Enforcement - Severe penalties for violations. Definitions The law defines the following: Personal Information - Any type of information that identifies or can identify natural persons recorded electronically or by other means, but does not include anonymized information. Sensitive Personal Information - Personal information that once leaked or illegally used can easily cause natural persons to suffer encroachments on their dignity or harms to their persons or property; including information such as biometrics (including facial recognition), religious faith, particular identities, medical care and health, financial status, and location tracking, as well as the personal information of minors under the age of 14. Individuals - People whose data is being collected for processed (similar to the GDPR's Data Subject). Personal Information Handlers: - Organizations or individuals that independently make decisions about the purposes and methods of personal information handling in personal information handling activities. Entrusted Persons - External entities who Information Handlers entrust to handle personal information, essentially third parties. Large Processors - Companies that process large amounts of data, as defined in Article 40, including Critical Information Infrastructure Operators ("CIIO") from the China's Critical Infrastructure Regulations. Handling of Personal Information: Personal information handling includes personal information collection, storage, use, processing, transmission, provision, disclosure, deletion, etc. Automated Decision-Making: The use of computer programs to automatically analyse, evaluate, and make decisions on personal information on personal behavior habits, hobbies or economic, health, credit status, and so forth. De-Ddentification: The process of handling personal information to make it impossible to identify a specific natural person without the help of additional information. Anonymization: The process in which personal information is handled so that it cannot be used to identify a specific natural person and cannot be restored after being so handled. Legal Basis All personal information collection and processing must have one of the following legal bases: Individuals’ consent obtained; Where necessary to conclude or fulfill a contract in which the individual is an interested party, or where necessary to conduct human resources management according to lawfully formulated labor rules and structures and lawfully concluded collective contracts; Where necessary to fulfill statutory duties and responsibilities or statutory obligations; Where necessary to respond to sudden public health incidents or protect natural persons’ lives and health, or the security of their property, under emergency conditions; Handling personal information within a reasonable scope to implement news reporting, public opinion supervision, and other such activities for the public interest; When handling personal information disclosed by persons themselves or otherwise already lawfully disclosed, within a reasonable scope in accordance with the provisions of this Law. Other circumstances provided in laws and administrative regulations. Unlike in the GDPR, there is no legitimate interests basis. Therefore, most consumers will likely be covered by giving their direct consent (such as for cookies, newsletters, etc.) or by contract fulfillment (such as shipping goods to them or providing services). Consent Consent is a major concern of the PIPL and a key legal basis on which handlers can process personal information. If there is no other legal basis for processing data, handlers must get consent for data collection and processing, and this consent can be revoked by any individual at any time. Handlers are not allowed to refuse to provide products or services if an individual withholds or withdraws their consent for non-essential processing. Separate consent is also specifically required in a number of situations: Transfer of personal data by data controllers to third parties (Article 23); Publication of personal data (Article 25); Publication or provision of personal data collected by equipment installed in the public places for security purposes, such as personal images (Article 26); Processing of sensitive personal data (Article 29); and Cross-border transfers of personal data (Article 39). Consent for these situations cannot be "bundled" and thus must be obtained separately from the individual. Where a change occurs in the purpose of personal information handling, the handling method, or the categories of handled personal information, the individual's consent shall be obtained again. Individual Rights Individuals have several specific rights under the PIPL - they can: Know & Decide - Refuse and limit how their data is handled. Access & Copy - View and copy their data. Correct or Complete - Request to correct inaccurate data. Erasure - Request their information be deleted and/or revoke consent. Explanation - Request handlers explain their handling of an individual's personal information. Portability - Request moving their data to another handler. Automated Decision Making There are specific rules for automated decision making in the PIPL, including the right of individuals to opt-out, such as disabling product recommendations. The law specifically requires "transparency of the decision-making and the fairness and justice of the handling result shall be guaranteed, and they may not engage in unreasonable differential treatment of individuals in trading conditions such as trade price, etc." For companies pushing delivery or commercial sales to individuals through automated decision-making methods shall simultaneously provide the option to not target an individual's characteristics, or provide the individual with a convenient method to refuse. When the use of automated decision-making produces decisions with a major influence on the rights and interests of the individual, they have the right to require personal information handlers to explain the matter, and they have the right to refuse that personal information handlers make decisions solely through automated decision-making methods. Automated Decision Making is defined as "refers to the activity of using computer programs to automatically analyze or assess personal behaviors, habits, interests, or hobbies, or financial, health, credit, or other status, and make decisions." Facial Recognition The PIPL specifically covers the use of facial recognition in public spaces, including that it can only be used for public security reasons unless each individual separately consents: "The installation of image collection or personal identity recognition equipment in public venues shall occur as required to safeguard public security and observe relevant State regulations, and clear indicating signs shall be installed. Collected personal images and personal distinguishing identity characteristic information can only be used for the purpose of safeguarding public security; it may not be used for other purposes, except where individuals’ separate consent is obtained." Handler Obligations Personal information handlers have several specific obligations: Formulating internal management structures and operating rules; Implementing categorized management of personal information; Adopting corresponding technical security measures such as encryption, de-identification, etc.; Reasonably determining operational limits for personal information handling, and regularly conducting security education and training for employees; Formulating and organizing the implementation of personal information security incident response plans; Other measures provided in laws or administrative regulations. All handlers must "regularly engage in audits of their personal information handling and compliance with laws and administrative regulations." Personal Information Protection Officers In addition, at a certain (not yet defined) data handling scale, handlers must appoint "personal information protection officers, to be responsible for supervising personal information handling activities as well as adopted protection measures, etc." Impact Assessment Under the following circumstances, handlers must perform a personal information protection impact assessment and report the results: Handling sensitive personal information; Using personal information to conduct automated decision-making; Entrusting personal information handling, providing personal information to other personal information handlers, or disclosing personal information; Providing personal information abroad; Other personal information handling activities with a major influence on individuals. Such assessments must include: Whether or not the personal information handling purpose, handling method, etc., are lawful, legitimate, and necessary; The influence on individuals' rights and interests, and the security risks; Whether protective measures undertaken are legal, effective, and suitable to the degree of risk. Data Localization The PIPL has specific requirements on data localization, the storage and processing of personal information in China. Data Security Information handlers have several responsibilities, including adopting the following measures to ensure personal information handling conforms to the provisions of laws and administrative regulations, and prevent unauthorized access as well as personal information leaks, distortion, or loss: Formulating internal management structures and operating rules; Implementing categorized management of personal information; Adopting corresponding technical security measures such as encryption, de-identification, etc.; Reasonably determining operational limits for personal information handling, and regularly conducting security education and training for employees; Formulating and organizing the implementation of personal information security incident response plans; Other measures provided in laws or administrative regulations. Impact Assessments Impact Assessments are required in a number of situations, including: Handling sensitive personal information; Using personal information to conduct automated decision-making; Entrusting personal information handling, providing personal information to other personal information handlers, or disclosing personal information; Providing personal information abroad; Other personal information handling activities with a major influence on individuals. Contractual Elements Agreements are required when a handler entrusts personal data handing to another handler. Some law firms have suggested this will resuit in specific standard contractual clauses ("SCC"), similar to in the GDPR. Breach Notification All data leaks must be reported internally, and if "harm may have been created" they may be required to notify the individuals affected. Notification details must include: The information categories, causes, and possible harm caused by the leak, distortion, or loss that occurred or might have occurred; The remedial measures taken by the personal information handler and measures individuals can adopt to mitigate harm; Contact method of the personal information handler. Large Handlers Large-scale handlers, such as those "providing important Internet platform services, that have a large number of users, and whose business models are complex" also have the obligations: Establish and complete personal information protection compliance systems and structures according to State regulations, and establish an independent body composed mainly of outside members to supervise personal information protection circumstances; Abide by the principles of openness, fairness, and justice; formulate platform rules; and clarify the standards for intra-platform product or service providers' handling of personal information and their personal information protection duties; Stop providing services to product or service providers on the platform that seriously violate laws or administrative regulations in handling personal information; Regularly release personal information protection social responsibility reports, and accept society's supervision. Overseas Transfers Moving personal information outside of China is only allowed if one of these conditions is satisfied: Passing a security assessment organized by the State cybersecurity and information department according to Article 40 of this Law; Undergoing personal information protection certification conducted by a specialized body according to provisions by the State cybersecurity and information department; Concluding a contract with the foreign receiving side in accordance with a standard contract formulated by the State cyberspace and information department, agreeing upon the rights and responsibilities of both sides; Other conditions provided in laws or administrative regulations or by the State cybersecurity and information department. All such transfers require each individual's separate consent and notification about "the foreign receiving side’s name or personal name, contact method, handling purpose, handling methods, and personal information categories, as well as ways or procedures for individuals to exercise the rights provided in this Law with the foreign receiving side, and other such matters." Sharing data with foreign governments Information handlers are prohibited from sharing any personal information with foreign judicial or law enforcement agencies with approval. This has raised concerns among law firms about how multi-national corporations would or could respond to judicial inquiries in other countries, such as a warrant for data held about a Chinese citizen in those countries. Government Departments The PIPL includes legal basis for how government ("State Organs") can collect and process data. Generally, the government must follow the same rules as non-government entities, including notifications. There are some exceptions, such as when it "shall impede State organs’ fulfillment of their statutory duties and responsibilities". Enforcement The PIPL has several enforcement mechanisms, including warnings, orders to stop illegal activity, fines, and confiscation of unlawful income. Illegal acts may also be recorded in China's Social Credit System. In addition, individuals can also sue handlers for violation of their rights. Reactions Initial reaction has been mostly by numerous law firms publishing notices and whitepapers outlining the new law, its key provisions, and recommended initial courses of action to prepare for compliance. Articles of the Law The PIPL has eight chapters and 73 articles, concerning processing rules, sensitive data, government data use, cross-border transfers, rights of individuals, processor obligations, legal liabilities, and miscellaneous supplemental provisions. Chapter 1 - General Provisions Article 1 - Purpose Article 2 - Legal protection of personal information Article 3 - General scope Article 4 - Personal Information and handling definition Article 5 - Principles of legality, propriety, necessity, and sincerity Article 6 - Clear and reasonable purpose Article 7 - Openness and transparency Article 8 - Quality of personal information Article 9 - Personal information handlers bear responsibility Article 10 - No illegally collection, use, processing, or transmission of personal information Article 11 - Personal information protection structure Article 12 - International rules and norms for personal information protection Chapter 2 - Personal Information Handling Rules Section 1: Ordinary Provisions Article 13 - Legal basis for processing Article 14 - Consent and notification Article 15 - Consent and revocation Article 16 - No service refusal if consent is revoked Article 17 - Notifications Article 18 - Notification exclusions Article 19 - Information retention periods Article 20 - Joint handling Article 21 - Entrusted handling Article 22 - Handling transfers Article 23 - Providing information to other handlers Article 24 - Automated decision making Article 25 - Information disclosure prohibited Article 26 - Facial recognition limits Article 27 - Handling public information Section II: Rules for Handling Sensitive Personal Information Article 28 - Sensitive information definition Article 29 - Separate consent for sensitive information handling Article 30 - Sensitive information notification Article 31 - Personal information of minors Article 32 - Application of other restrictions on sensitive information Section III: Specific Provisions on State Organs Handling Personal Information Article 33 - Application to state organs Article 34 - State organ requirements Article 35 - Notification duties Article 36 - Data storage in China requirement Article 37 - Public affairs Chapter 3 - Cross-Border Provision of Personal Information Article 38 - Conditions for transfers Article 39 - Notification and consent Article 40 - Large scale processor requirements Article 41 - Foreign judicial or law enforcement agency requests Article 42 - Violations and enforcement Article 43 - Foreign country or region discriminatory prohibitions Chapter 4 - Individuals’ Rights Article 44 - Right to know, decide, limit, and refuse Article 45 - Right to consult, copy, and transfer information Article 46 - Right to correct Article 47 - Right to delete Article 48 - Right to request explanation Article 49 - Rights of deceased Article 50 - Requirements for handlers to process rights requests Chapter 5 - Personal Information Handlers’ Duties Article 51 - Personal information protection program Article 52 - Designating representatives Article 52 - Designating representatives for international handlers Article 54 - Auditing Article 55 - Impact assessment criteria Article 56 - Impact assessment requirements Article 57 - Data breaches notification Article 58 - Internet platform requirements Article 59 - Entrusted persons requirements Chapter 6 - Departments Fulfilling Personal Information Protection Duties and Responsibilities Article 60 - State cybersecurity and information department roles Article 61 - Protection department roles Article 62 - Oversight requirements Article 63 - Protection department measures Article 64 - Protection enforcement Article 65 - Complaints and whistle blowers Chapter 7 - Legal Liability Article 66 - Right to complain Article 67 - Monetary penalties Article 68 - Administrative fines and criminal responsibility Article 69 - Liability for damages Article 70 - Legal action Article 71 - Punishment and criminal liability Chapter 8 - Supplemental Provisions Article 72 - Exemption for personal or family affairs Article 73 - Definitions Article 74 - Start date See also Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China (CSL) Data Security Law of the People's Republic of China (DSL) Information Privacy General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) EU–US Privacy Shield Human rights Data portability Do Not Track legislation Privacy Impact Assessment Citations External links China NPC Law (Chinese) General Data Protection Regulation text Data protection, European Commission Procedure 2012/0011/COD, EUR-Lex Handbook on European data protection law, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights Privacy law Information privacy Data protection 2021 in China

68886251

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof%20of%20identity%20%28blockchain%20consensus%29

Proof of identity (blockchain consensus)

Proof of identity (PoID) is a consensus protocol for permission-less blockchains, in which each uniquely identified individual receives one equal unit of voting power and associated rewards (minting token). The protocol is based on biometric identification, humanity identification parties and additional verification parties. The proof of identity supersedes the approach of proof of work and proof of stake which distribute voting power and rewards to participants according to their investment in some activity or resource and introduces the opportunity to create a universal basic income (UBI) for individuals. The proof of identity solves the problem with the proof of personhood in which individuals are requested to attend recurrent pseudonymous parties and creates a network that is permanently secured and censorship resilient. Background Currently used proofs of investment In a permission-less network, some kind of proof is required to prevent Sybil attacks, i.e., the event in which an attacker gains control over the transactions of the network by creating multiple users generated with a malicious script. The most common methods to prevent Sybil attacks are proofs of investment (proof of work, proof of stake) that require participants of the network to invest in some activity or resource as evidence of genuine involvement in the chain. The growing criticism over this approach is that voting power and rewards are not distributed equally among individuals but instead, big holders/corporations benefit the most from the network. Proof of investment blockchains are thus prone to the formation of oligarchies and marginally appeal to small investors/holders who receive minimal rewards. In the case of proof of work, there are additional sustainability concerns over the amount of electrical energy wasted as proof. The idea of having a "unique identity system" as a consensus protocol for cryptocurrencies, which would give each human user one and only one anti-Sybil participation token, was initially proposed in 2014 by Vitalik Buterin. The proof of personhood In contrast with proofs of investment, proof of personhood aims to allocate to each individual one equal unit of voting power and its associated reward. In the PoP protocol, each individual is required to demonstrate his humanity and uniqueness regardless of his identity by attending a pseudonymous party. To preserve privacy, attendances to parties are anonymous and individuals can wear masks or hide their appearance. Whilst the PoP protocol achieves the goal of democratizing blockchain networks, some criticisms have been raised over the recurrent nature of PoP parties and more specifically: To avoid multiple attendances to pseudonymous parties, each individual has to attend a new party every time the network expands; this suggests the process will be endless or will leave out those individuals unable to attend the last round of parties. Because there is no control over the creation of PoP parties and anyone can organize them, more study should be conducted to rule out the possibility for an attacker to create a high number of parties with the intent of populating one or more parties entirely with forgeries and hence gaining a considerable number of minting tokens. Because of the recurrent nature of pseudonymous parties, the PoP network does not guarantee the creation of a value stable in time. Any epoch can be better or worse than the previous one, so the network is possibly exposed to censorship and instability. Other protocols Some other protocols based on the use of national IDs, online face recognition CAPTCHA solving, and social network identification, have been also proposed; however, in general, they are deemed not secure enough against the threats posed by AI engines’ capacity to create spoofed identities when a banking security level is to be attained. Biometric data-based proofs The proof of UniqueID To avoid the problems associated with the recurrent nature of PoP parties and strengthen identification methods against spoofed identities, the use of biometric identification and data storage of individuals/minters were introduced. The first comprehensive study was proposed in June 2018. According to the white paper, individuals are biometrically identified in person by local verifiers. Then their data are encrypted using a trusted setup and recorded in the blockchain. The system relies on the Ethereum blockchain for the execution of a set of smart contracts. The protocol also proposes the use of CAPTCHA parties and the involvement of trusted, famous people to strengthen the system against Sybil attacks. The proof of UniqueID achieves the goal of assigning one minting token to each identified individual while not requiring attendance to multiple recurrent PoP parties; however, there are some challenges and possible criticisms to consider under this proposal: The reliance on the Ethereum blockchain ultimately ties down the security of the system to the security of the Ethereum blockchain and may present serious technical challenges. A trusted setup for biometric data encryption may not guarantee the privacy of users against a governmental request of data disclosure. This seems to significantly penalize the censorship resistance of the system. There is no certainty against the future possibility that AI engines will be able to solve CAPTCHAs. Additional investigation and study may be required to rule out the possibility of carrying out a Sybil attack under this protocol. In fact, it is possible to figure out a scenario in which initial parties are kicked off by a colluding group, or a group of legit verifiers collude with each other and start to generate identity forgeries, particularly in remote locations (e.g., Papua New Guinea). Once spoofed identities successfully infiltrate the system there are no procedures in place to detect them. The proof of identity The proof of identity protocol proposes to overcome the possibility of biometric spoofed identities and collusions between participants using an AI engine stored in the blockchain which randomly organizes humanity identification parties and constantly computes the possibility of cheats for each individual/area/country which triggers additional verification parties either in a pyramid scheme or in a random way. The identification procedure requires each party attendee to perform a face recognition of all others to establish the principle “everyone or no one is cheating,” which ultimately requires attackers to collude globally to avoid being discovered. The protocol also introduces a new proposal to preserve the privacy of individuals: biometric data are stored partially encrypted. The amount of public data stored in the blockchain is enough to avoid a good number of biometric collisions, but it is not enough to securely identify a person. Once biometric collisions occur, minters are requested by the system to temporarily disclose their encryption key. The system can be implemented according to CanDID methodology. The proof of identity addresses the problems with the proof of personhood and UniqueID, however, there are some challenges and possible criticisms to consider: The amount of data to store in the blockchain is considerable and may require some daily downtime for cohort leader servers to reboot. The system includes the creation of a PoID global organization that facilitates the kick-off of identification venues and rules out rare biometric disputes. This may be seen as a center of authority. Summary of the main protocols based on individuals The following table summarizes the characteristics of the three main individuals-based protocols: The proof of identity protocol The proof of identity protocol combines state of the art of 3D mapping face recognition technologies, the attendance to humanity identification parties, and the decentralized (stored in the blockchain) supervision of an AI engine that randomly forms parties and carries on organizing additional verification parties to rule out any possible cheating. The protocol is summarized in the following scheme: Humanity identification/verification parties are designed in a way to enforce the principle: “everyone or no one is cheating,” ruling out the possibility of having a party formed by honest individuals and spoofed identities at the same time: Individuals gather in the identification venue (fig. 1) randomly assigned by the AI engine. Individuals are requested to firstly confirm the number of attendees and then to perform the face recognition of all others using their minting app. One or more verifiers coming from remote locations attend the party in incognito Parties kick off in a region once there are enough online data submissions and sufficient interoperability of verifiers. The process includes a public offer to interested “identification entrepreneurs” who are willing to make identification venues available; the PoID global organization facilitates the procedure. Biometric disputes are very rare in the PoID because the 3D face-mapping technology is able to differentiate close biometric twins, however, the PoID Global Organization is able to rule out rare possible disputes while not constituting a significant center of authority in the system. Additional verification parties are run by the PoID AI engine to check the status of the ecosystem and by leveraging the principle “everyone or no one is cheating” identity forgeries are discovered by forming verification parties in a pyramid mode, i.e., higher level of parties are made of individuals coming from single lower-level parties. The AI engine also searches for cheats and computes their probability in a random way/outside the principle of “everyone or no one is cheating.” Use cases for the proof of identity network The proof of identity consensus protocol has the prerogatives of being: Non-quantitative: once the network is sufficiently populated, any blockchain/cryptocurrency can join the network and have its blocks validated by the PoID. Permanently secured against Sybil attacks: the PoID security is based on the impossibility for an attacker to create identity forgeries. Permanently censorship resilient: because of the high level of distribution and decentralization and the privacy of the minters, the PoID is marginally affected by censorship. These conditions suggest the possibility for the PoID to become a globally used consensus protocol aggregating all blockchains/cryptocurrencies under the same network. The second notable use is the creation of a universal basic income for individuals. A third possible use is to create a direct instrument for democratic participation; in fact, the PoID is made of securely and uniquely identified individuals, which is the necessary requirement to run referendums and surveys. References Turing tests Cryptography Cryptocurrencies Blockchains

68976201

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance%20of%20Bruno%20Borges

Disappearance of Bruno Borges

On March 27, 2017, Bruno de Melo Silva Borges, a Brazilian student, disappeared after leaving his home in Rio Branco, Acre. In his bedroom, Borges left several encrypted messages, 14 handwritten books, and a statue of philosopher Giordano Bruno. The Civil Police of Acre investigated the case and Interpol was called. Borges's disappearance received wide coverage on the Internet, generating memes and online investigations. During the investigation, it was revealed Borges had the help of two friends and a cousin to carry out the project, and that he had signed a contract allocating part of the proceeds of the sale of his books to his three helpers. At dawn on August 11 the same year, Borges returned to his house barefoot, debilitated, and dehydrated. Soon after, he began working on corrections for his book , which had received negative reviews. Borges told police chief Alcino Júnior he "disappeared of his own free will and that he was not coerced by any external force". He did not reveal his hiding place. By September 26, Borges had gained and said he was surprised by the reactions to his project. Two days later, Borges opened his room, which he considered a "work of art", for visitors. Since the discovery of the contracts, there have been several accusations the case was a scheme to promote Borges's books. The Civil Police of Acre and the state's Public Security Advisory stated the disappearance was most likely a marketing scheme, which Borges and his mother denied. According to Borges, the main intention of his project was "to encourage people to acquire knowledge" and the accusations were made by sensationalist media. Borges's friend sued Borges, accusing him of not handing over the books' proceeds as contracted. Background and disappearance Bruno de Melo Silva Borges enjoyed reading in his adolescence, preferring "denser" readings. He studied administration, law, and psychology, but did not finish his courses. He later became interested in philosophy. Borges told his mother he needed money for a project, but she refused when he failed to elaborate on the details of said project. Borges's cousin Eduardo Veloso, however, transferred 20,000 reais to Borges because he believed in this project. Borges said he "[would] be writing 14 books that would change humanity in a good way". He began writing these books in 2013 and completed some of them in 2016. To finish his project, Borges asked his mother if he could spend a year without working and, guided by a doctor, she allowed it. On March 1, 2017, Borges's parents traveled, by which time he had written five books and wanted to publish one of them. Borges remained at home in Rio Branco with his twin brother and older sister. He locked himself in his room for 24 days, leaving only to eat. On March 24, Borges was at the house of his neighbor Maria do Socorro; he told her he was finishing the books and that he wanted to help her and others in need. On March 27, Borges's parents returned from their trip and had lunch with the family. Later, his father left Borges at the corner of his house. Bruno Borges then left on foot without documents or money, but with his backpack and computer's hard drive. After walking for over , he arrived at a taxi stand, from which he took a taxi to a motel. The journey lasted 15 minutes, during which Borges received a call and was anxious to reach his destination. The motel staff said Borges had not been there; it is believed he went to a forest behind the motel, where "secret rituals" took place. A seamstress reported Borges and a friend ordered three tunics. Before his return, Borges had been last seen on March 28, 2017, at 2:29p.m., captured by a security camera running towards his home. On the same day, news portal G1 published the news of Borges's disappearance. Borges's father reported in the article his son had been missing since 2:00p.m. the day before; he tried to call his son's cellphone but it was turned off, and reported Borges had never disappeared before. Investigation Borges's disappearance was investigated by the Civil Police of the State of Acre. Chief Fabrizzio Sobreira, coordinator of the Criminal Investigation Precinct (DIC), said on March 29 on Jornal Acre TV all the hypotheses were being considered. In early April, Borges's father said that, worried about his son's disappearance, he decided to enter his son's room, which was always locked. There were encrypted messages everywhere in the room. There was no furniture but a tall statue of philosopher Giordano Bruno, whom Borges admired, worth R$7,000. Jorge Rivasplata, the statue's sculptor, said he believed Borges is the philosopher's reincarnation. Internet users noted the physical similarity between Borges and Giordano, as well as their names. Some speculated Borges "may be trying to finish the philosopher's works, work interrupted by his death by the Roman Inquisition". In his room, Borges also left 14 handwritten books, some copied on the walls, ceiling and floor. All of the works were encrypted and identified by Roman numerals. Eight of the books were left on top of his workbench. According to G1, "In the bedroom, the writings are done impeccably, with precision and symmetry, like on a notebook page". Only in a small part of the room were non-encrypted texts, in Portuguese, containing quotes from writers, philosophers, and the Bible. In addition, symbols were drawn on the walls and around the statue. On the wall, there was also a painting depicting Borges being touched by an extraterrestrial being. To help decipher the codes, Borges left keys in a visible place. These keys were taken from the Mirim Scout Manual. On April 8, the police said they were investigating the possibility Borges had left Acre. Video surveillance was used in the investigation. It was also revealed friends who helped Borges with the code had made a confidentiality pact not to reveal any more information about the project. Fabrizzio Sobreira reported Borges's core of friends was reduced. One of those friends said Borges had told him about "the desire to be isolated and live in a cave" and that Borges had fasted for 12 days while working on the writings. On April 12, it was reported the family had identified five codes and that two books had started to be decoded on April 8. Six days later, Interpol were called. Although there was no evidence Borges had left Brazil, the possibility was not ruled out. On April 19, a childhood friend of Borges made some reports to G1. He helped decode one of Borges's books and also reported Borges was talking about astral projection, and had said he had been given a "mission" to write the 14 books. Borges had approached a doctor and family friend to help with the project; the doctor believed Borges had been helped by spirits and was a medium. Contracts and discovery of furniture On May 31, the Civil Police arrested a friend of Borges for giving false testimony. Chief Alcino Júnior said he was serving a search and seizure warrant at the friend's house, where he found contracts left by Borges allocating part of the sale of coded books to this friend, one other friend and Borges's cousin. The police also found the furniture from Borges's room in the friend's house. On the friend's cell phone, police found messages to another friend saying they would "be rich" with the disclosure of Borges's coded books. According to Borges's mother, she already knew about the contracts and that the furniture was in the friend's house. Borges's friend was released that night. After the friend's testimonies and the discovery of the contracts, the Civil Police of Acre stated on June 1 it would no longer treat the case as a crime, saying, "We are no longer responsible for this case ... we are interested in finding him, but it becomes a secondary thing. We will continue to assist as necessary." The next day, Borges's friend said he had kept the relocation of the furniture private at Borges's request. According to delegate Alcino Júnior, the investigation into the theft and perjury would be closed by June 7. As of June 28, the inquiry had not yet been forwarded. Book publication On June 18, Borges's family closed an agreement to publish his books, the first being , in e-book and physical formats, with release scheduled for July 5 or 7. Large publishers were interested in buying the encrypted content, but Borges's father said he realized "their business was simply money". The introduction of Borges's first book was released on July 5. One literary coach said 15,000 readers downloaded the introduction that day. Pre-sales were scheduled to open on July 7. TAC was released on July 20. In the week of July 24 to 30, it was the 20th-best-selling book in the nonfiction category. The book received negative reviews, especially regarding poor writing quality and Borges's weak argumentation. Internet and social media Bruno Borges's case went viral on social media after a video of his bedroom, recorded without the family's permission, was released online. On the Internet, Borges started to be called Menino do Acre ("Boy from Acre"), which became an Internet meme and was part of the Brazilian trending topics on Twitter. The disappearance inspired mobile phone games such as Menino do Acre, Encontre o Menino do Acre, and Alquimistas do Acre. Investigations also began to take place on the Internet. Two people from Goiás used photographs of Borges's room posted on the Internet to decipher codes that were not in the key left by Borges. One of them, working in the area of encryption, became interested in the subject and broke the code in 30 minutes. The pair created a collaborative website with an online virtual keyboard to type the symbols of the images, converting them into letters. According to them, 70,000 people visited the site in one day. On April 4, the group "Bruno Borges – Estudos" was created on Facebook to try to decode the messages. Ten days later, the group had 10,400 participants. Return On August 11, five months after his disappearance, Bruno Borges returned to his home. He arrived barefoot at 5:22p.m. His doorbell ringing went unanswered, and Borges had to wait for over an hour before a neighbor appeared to call Borges's father, who came to the door. The second house he visited was that of his neighbor, who said Borges "was weak and barefoot". That same day, Chief Alcino Júnior said Borges would not incur criminal charges and that the family should not be held responsible either. On the Internet, the return inspired more memes and the term "Acre" became a trending topic on Brazilian Twitter. Borges's mother posted on her Facebook that Borges's return was a miracle granted by Nossa Senhora da Conceição Aparecida. Borges did not reveal where he had hidden. Soon after returning home, Borges began to correct the book TAC, saying it had been published with excerpts incorrectly translated. On August 15, Borges told police chief Alcino Júnior he "disappeared of his own free will and that he was not coerced by any external force". On September 26, Borges received the G1 team at his home. Since his return to that date, his weight increased from to . He reported he returned dehydrated and needed to resort to serum. About reactions to the case and his book, he said: Two days later, Borges, considering his room a work of art, opened it for visitors. He also said he had enough material for twenty new books. On January 9, 2018, one of Borges's friends sued him, saying he received no money from the books' profits as established in the contract. Three days later, Borges sent messages to his father, saying he was wrong to sell TAC. He said; "You are going to say that you are going to publish all my works for free, and that everything I write will be free for the rest of my life". On February 27, the plaintiff filed for Borges's bank statements. In August 2019, Borges again opened the room for guided tours. Marketing scheme accusations Since the discovery of the contracts on May 31, Borges has faced accusations of using his disappearance as a publicity stunt to promote his books. The Civil Police of Acre said the following day that, in addition to no longer treating the case as a crime, there were "strong indications" the disappearance was a marketing ploy to boost sales of his books. Borges's mother denied the accusations, saying, "This is not a marketing ploy. I already knew about the contracts. Those boys helped Bruno. What's the problem with him making a contract to help friends who helped him?" After Borges's return on August 11, the Public Security Advisory in Acre closed the case as an example of "planned marketing". On the Internet, some people said the police should arrest Borges for unnecessarily mobilizing the police, and others supported his mother. Borges said the accusations were false, that his main goal with the project was "to encourage people to acquire knowledge", and that he isolated himself to "find the truth" within himself. On his official website, Borges says: Notes References Further reading External links Official website of Bruno Borges Internet memes introduced in 2017 Temporary disappearances 2017 in Brazil Missing person cases in Brazil

69017930

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversations%20%28software%29

Conversations (software)

Conversations is a free software, instant messaging client application software for Android. It is largely based on recognized open standards such as the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) and Transport Layer Security (TLS). The development focus is on secure communication and implementation of XMPP extensions that are important for mobile use. The trade press praised the decentralized and open nature of the transmission network and simple, intuitive usability with user guidance familiar from other applications. It enjoys recognition as a serious attempt to raise the mass suitability of XMPP-based messaging to a competitive level. The source code of the software is maintained at GitHub, and is subject to the terms of the GPL-3.0-only license. The application can be installed for free (or with donations) using F-Droid, or for a fee in the Google Play store. Google recorded over 100,000 installations as of November 2020. Features Conversations includes optional end-to-end encryption (OpenPGP or OMEMO), and in-transit encryption (Transport Layer Security). The latter must be configured by the server computers involved in the messaging. Conversations allows users to have multiple client devices (endpoints) logged into an account simultaneously (through XMPP), and also delivers messages to multiple client devices (synchronization) using the protocol extension "Message Carbons" ("carbon copies", XEP-0280). Files, also encrypted, can be sent between users. Transmitted images are displayed in the conversation view as inline image messages. As an XMPP client, Conversations can exchange messages with other, different XMPP client software, in principle, and is also not tied to a particular vendor's server infrastructure. The following features are also included: Multi-User (Group) chat (MUC) Optional address book integration Support for multiple user accounts or addresses Implemented XMPP extension protocols Conversations handles many XMPP extension protocols (XEP, official extensions of XMPP). History In the wake of the Edward Snowden disclosures in June 2013, and Facebook's buyout of WhatsApp in February 2014, "secure" messengers for mobile devices were gaining popularity. Initial Conversations source code was contributed to the public repository on January 24, 2014, and the first official version, 0.1, was released on March 24, 2014. Conversations soon received positive feedback. Conversations was added to Google Play later in spring 2014, and to the alternative Android software repository F-Droid with version 0.1.3 on April 6, 2014. Since version 0.2, released on May 12, image messages (file transfers, in plain text or OpenPGP-encrypted) are supported, from version 0.4 (June 30) also OTR-encrypted. Version 1.0 followed on February 1, 2015. Developer Andreas Straub participated in the Google Summer of Code for Conversations in 2015. This produced drafts of a new end-to-end encryption standard (OMEMO), which were submitted to the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) for standardization. As of version 2.0.0, the ability to use Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) for encryption has been removed. Furthermore, OMEMO is now enabled by default in individual chats and private group chats. Version 2.2.0 implemented previously optional extensions to record voice messages and share location in Conversations in May 2018. Version 2.3.0 introduced support for TLS 1.3 in September 2018. Version 2.8 introduced encrypted audio and video calls in April 2020. Quicksy The offshoot instant messenger, Quicksy, was also created by Daniel Gultsch. Users of this client open an account at the host quicksy.im, where the username consists of the phone number. This enables a contact search for other users of the app using the contacts list or phone book. This is intended to lower the barrier to entry into the XMPP (Jabber) network. Quicksy users can also communicate with XMPP users on other hosts. Reception The Free Software Foundation includes Conversations in their software directory. In an analysis of Conversations and Xabber apps, researchers found "forensic artefacts" (sic) could be found on an Android device including local user, contacts and body of messages sent or received using the app, as plaintext in the main database maintained by the app. In a 2020 review, Decentralize Today said "XXMP and Conversations has the potential to be an excellent and super secure messenger if you host it yourself," but "problems could emerge when you use XMPP with contacts who are on different servers." Anticapitalist webhost company, Autistici, wrote detailed setup instructions for Conversations for their XMPP service. CopperheadOS developers recommend Conversations. See also XMPP clients Comparison of instant messaging clients Comparison of instant messaging protocols Comparison of XMPP server software Secure communication SIMPLE References External links Official Website Source code on GitHub Conversations on F-Droid Conversations on PRISM Break Instant messaging Android (operating system) software