The creator of systemd (Lennart Poettering) has recently created a new company dedicated to bringing hardware attestation to open source software.

What might this entail? A previous blog post could provide some clues:

So, let's see how I would build a desktop OS. The trust chain matters, from the boot loader all the way to the apps. This means all code that is run must be cryptographically validated before it is run. This is in fact where big distributions currently fail pretty badly. This is a fault of current Linux distributions though, not of SecureBoot in general.

If this technology is successful, the end result could be that we would see our Linux laptops one day being as locked down as an Iphone or Android device.

There are lots of others who are equally concerned about this possibility: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572

I'm at a relatively stable point in my life (working part time, financially stable), so I'm thinking about trying out as a freelancer, but just casually to start out and see if I like it. I'm curious how people get started - primarily, how to find work and connect with people who have available work and are willing to hire.

Other things to have in place before getting started (professional website, portfolio, other things) would also be helpful to know, but since I'm pretty casual about trying this out, I would hesitate to do additional stuff unless it's really important and makes a serious difference in obtaining potential clients.

Thanks in advance!

Now the win with PSG has even more eyes on Al-Khelaifi, whose claim to be the most important man in football grows ever stronger.

As well as being president of PSG, the 51-year-old former tennis player is chairman of the European Clubs Association — which represents the interests of 700 European clubs — is on the executive committee of UEFA — which organizes European football including the Champions League — and on the organizing committee for the upcoming FIFA World Club Cup. He is also a minister without portfolio in the Qatari government and chairman of state-owned broadcaster BeIn Sports, which has bought the rights to the Champions League.

"Wherever I go, I find myself confronted with the accusations of double standards," said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell at Oxford University in May. At last year's Munich Security Conference (MSC), French President Emmanuel Macron said: "I am struck by how much we are losing the trust of the Global South."

Eisentraut makes this clear in her brief: The criticism of Western double standards is often justified. For example, countries from the Global South point out that the US and other Western states insist on the principle of the territorial integrity in Ukraine, but did not respect this principle during the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Western states have often disregarded human rights by carrying out illegal detentions as part of their war on terror. And the Europeans have made common cause with North African autocrats in order to prevent migration to Europe.

However, Eisentraut also points out that critics from countries such as China and Russia often use their accusations to relativize their own violations. Or they use them to justify an approach to foreign policy that is no longer based on moral principles at all, but only on their own interests. The result is that the value of universal rules is being questioned around the world.

A great introduction to what traces and spans are, how they work, and the OpenTelemetry Protocol

“We seem to have lost our belief in a market economy somewhat and our trust that letting go can lead to something great,” he said. “The government does not have to subsidise and compensate for everything. People flourish in freedom, as does innovation. And that is what we need to drive up productivity.”

Separate article with more details on the proposed budget.

The researchers found sweeping changes in overall brain neuroanatomy which unfolded week by week during the pregnancy.

Inside Chrastil's brain, grey matter volume, cortical thickness, white matter microstructure, and ventricle volume all changed.

The changes were all over the brain too — "over 80% of my brain regions showed reductions in grey matter volume," Chrastil said.

Neuroanatomical changes observed over the course of a human pregnancy. Published by Pritschet, L., Taylor, C.M., Cossio, D. et al. in Nature Neuroscience (September 2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-024-01741-0