elstel.org

Webstat-bash: now with better bot & spider recognition. The referers and seo-landing commands can now differ between Google-search and Google-Ads hits. The referers command is now also documented in the web description of webstat-bash.

Three new mutations of the Covid virus have emerged: a British variant, a South African variant and a Brazilian variant. The British variant is known to be far more contagious. However it is known not to be more serious. From the Brazilian variant it has now become known that a health executive in Salvador de Bahia was infected again and that the second infection was more serious. The mutation E484 prevents the docking of 9 of a total of 11 antibodies, the mutation F456 would prevent eleven of eleven. This is worrying and shows that the current vaccinations may not work with the Brazilian variant. The new stem will probably require a second, updated vaccination. In the meantime it has become known that four people have carried the Brazilian variant to Japan, although they were met with a quarantine there.

The linked letter from the head of policy from European Digital Rights (EDRi) is sufficiently short but worth to read. It points out very well why end-to-end encryption must not be abolished. Unfortunately that is what our politicians in the EU are currently negotiating about it behind closed doors. The consequences could be fatal not only for our personal and civil liberties but also for human rights, environmental organizations and business. On a business level it could favour industrial spionage. This is for mass surveillance only. Criminal investigations can already be fully conducted by ordering access to the end points of communications and that without any infringement. As always when new rulings shall come to infringe our civil rights and liberties the public is excluded from the negotiations. We already know this from TTIP/ISDS.

Their farms require massive amounts of artificial fertilisers, chemical pesticides, and antibiotics. This threatens our health, pollutes the countryside and destroys soil. Many small-scale farmers are giving up. We thought all was lost in October when the European Parliament agreed to this deal. But youth activists across Europe have been amazing in pushing powerful politicians to drop it. The Vice President of the Commission, Frans Timmermans, joined them saying. “The agricultural policy is not sustainable [and] cannot continue like this" [1]. We don't have much time left to tip the scales: This Saturday youth activists will rise up across Europe to put real pressure on the European Commission. Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission president, can still withdraw the deal but she won't do that unless a whole lot of us speak out [2].

2013: It became known that the USA had wiretapped Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone. Her fuss about it was somehow hypocritical and in fact had no consequences. When it comes to betraying German and European interests like at the industrial espionage against Airbus, Germany and the USA probably continued to make common cause (see the article on tt.com). There was even an NSA investigation committee in Germany at the time and several US intelligencers were uncovered. However the real problem are not individual informants in Germany or other EU states, but that the USA and Great Britain, as members of the Five Eyes, are actually backdooring all of the computers they design and produce by means of hardware on from their very production. As far as I know, there is no alternative to using their computers. It is hard to believe, but I've observed things that can prove exactly this. Besides this, the German secret service is said to still use mechanical typewriters today and they certainly will not do so in vain. Today I have also updated the link to a comment by Manfred Hiebel from 2015-07-15 on the espionage affair, so that it now really points to the article and not to the main page.