The volume slider on our virtual desktops is a skeuomorphic callback to the volume sliders on professional audio equipment on actual, physical desktops. [Maker Vibe] decided that this skeuomorphism was so last century, and made himself a physical audio control box for his PC.

Since he has three audio outputs he needs to consider, the peripheral he creates could conceivably be called a fader. It certainly has that look, anyway: each output is controlled by a volume slider — connected to a linear potentiometer — and a mute button. Seeing a linear potentiometer used for volume control threw us for a second, until we remembered this was for the computer’s volume control, not an actual volume control circuit. The computer’s volume slider already does the logarithmic conversion. A Seeed Studio Xiao ESP32S3 lives at the heart of this thing, emulating a Bluetooth gamepad using a library by LemmingDev. A trio of LEDs round out the electronics to provide an indicator for which audio channels are muted or active.

Those Bluetooth signals are interpreted by a Python script feeding a software called Voicmeeter Banana, because [Maker Vibe] uses Windows, and Redmond’s finest operating system doesn’t expose audio controls in an easily-accessible way. Voicmeeter Banana (and its attendant Python script) takes care of telling Windows what to do.

The whole setup lives on [Maker Vibe]’s desk in a handsome 3D printed box. He used a Circuit vinyl cutter to cut out masks so he could airbrush different colours onto the print after sanding down the layer lines. That’s another one for the archive of how to make front panels.

If volume sliders aren’t doing it for you, perhaps you’d prefer tocontrol your audio with a conductor’s baton.

youtube.com/embed/e0OYAANYKug?…

hackaday.com/2025/07/09/volume…

[Cal Bryant] hacked together a home automation system years ago, which more recently utilizes Piper TTS (text-to-speech) voices for various undisclosed purposes. Not satisfied with the robotic-sounding standard voices available, [Cal] set about an experiment to fine-tune the Piper TTS AI voice model using a clone of a single phrase created by a commercial TTS voice as a starting point.

Before the release of Piper TTS in 2023, existing free-to-use TTS systems such as espeak and Festival sounded robotic and flat. Piper delivered much more natural-sounding output, without requiring massive resources to run. To change the voice style, the Piper AI model can be either retrained from scratch or fine-tuned with less effort. In the latter case, the problem to be solved first was how to generate the necessary volume of training phrases to run the fine-tuning of Piper’s AI model. This was solved using a heavyweight AI model, ChatterBox, which is capable of so-called zero-shot training. Check out the Chatterbox demo here.
As the loss function gets smaller, the model’s accuracy gets better
Training began with a corpus of test phrases in text format to ensure decent coverage of everyday English. [Cal] used ChatterBox to clone audio from a single test phrase generated by a ‘mystery TTS system’ and created 1,300 test phrases from this new voice. This audio set served as training data to fine-tune the Piper AI model on the lashed-up GPU rig.

To verify accuracy, [Cal] used OpenAI’s Whisper software to transcribe the audio back to text, in order to compare with the original text corpus. To overcome issues with punctuation and differences between US and UK English, the text was converted into phonemes using espeak-ng, resulting in a 98% phrase matching accuracy.

After down-sampling the training set using SoX, it was ready for the Piper TTS training system. Despite all the preparation, running the software felt anticlimactic. A few inconsistencies in the dataset necessitated the removal of some data points. After five days of training parked outside in the shade due to concerns about heat, TensorBoard indicated that the model’s loss function was converging. That’s AI-speak for: the model was tuned and ready for action! We think it sounds pretty slick.

If all this new-fangled AI speech synthesis is too complex and, well, a bit creepy for you, may we offer a more 1980s solution to making stuff talk? Finally, most people take the ability to speak for granted, until they can no longer do so. Here’s a team using cutting-edge AI to give people back that ability.

hackaday.com/2025/07/09/how-to…

Tom Hayden never intended to become a journalist. But in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hayden decided to look into how his local school district in Evanston, Illinois, was making decisions about when to send kids back to school.

It was a contentious issue in town and deserved journalistic inquiry. But Hayden realized the decline of local media left a void that someone needed to fill. So he decided to step up and launch his Substack newsletter FOIA Gras, which as the name implies, focused on public records-based, Freedom of Information Act-related reporting.

“Ten years ago, a board meeting would have had reporters from suburban beats that are all gone now,” Hayden said. “Now, you just see the high school beat reporter.”

Hayden’s side gig as a journalist was a big success, and his focus expanded beyond pandemic issues. “Our local board initially hated me, but now they consider me like their inspector general,” Hayden said in March. “I’m able to get records that they don’t even know about. I break stories to them about lawsuits that they don’t even know about.”

But soon after we spoke, and after he completed his coverage of Evanston’s school board elections, Hayden announced that he was ending his experiment with citizen journalism. “It’s rendered a considerable toll on my mental well-being, my professional day-to-day career, my finances, and my relationships. I always told myself if the fun is gone, I can walk away, and the fun is gone,” he wrote.

‘Throwing darts’ at public records

Hayden was familiar with FOIA requests before venturing into journalism, from seeking records as part of his day job in the corrosion industry. So, when families started moving out of Evanston to nearby towns where schools had reopened, Hayden put on his citizen-journalist hat and started pulling records.

“I started kind of just throwing darts, looking mainly at lists of public records from the board meetings, which are public, and they immediately hit,” Hayden said.

Under Illinois’ public records laws, requesters are not charged fees for most records requests (aside from copying costs for large document sets). It’s a powerful law, Hayden said, as long as you are diligent and know what you are looking for.

“Our local board initially hated me, but now they consider me like their inspector general. I’m able to get records that they don’t even know about.”

Tom Hayden

Hayden said the records he requested showed that then-superintendent Devon Horton had been misappropriating funds and steering contracts to business partners, misleading Evanstonians about financing for a school in Evanston’s Fifth Ward, and more.

With longstanding disparities in achievement gaps and funding, Hayden felt that Horton had used promises of championing diversity to divide the public rather than address the issues. “Equity is about lifting oppressed communities, not using them as a shoulder to lift yourself to a better job,” he wrote.

Hayden said he intended to use the truth to “try to find a way to bridge the people in this town that have political street fights over this.” Instead of bickering, he thought, “Let’s go get the actual records.”

To do so, Hayden launched FOIA Gras. Quickly, Hayden became a go-to source for Evanstonians to find out what was happening in the board meetings and within the district, for parents and board members alike.

A fork in the road

As a citizen journalist and his own boss, Hayden was able to set his own parameters. Despite the success of the newsletter, however, Hayden announced he was closing down FOIA Gras in April, when the work outweighed the fun and backlash against his editorial choices started affecting his personal life.

“Ultimately, for me, I sort of reached the point where this project reached a fork in the road,” Hayden said, “where I have to decide, ‘Am I a professional journalist, or am I a citizen-journalist-slash-parent-slash-community-member?’”

In one particular case, in 2022, a middle schooler was caught making nooses out of jump ropes outside of a school while a protest was going on inside over some teachers being transferred. The incident blew up in Evanston, but Hayden decided not to cover it at the time to protect the children’s identities.

“The reality is that nobody knows why the student did it,” Hayden said, but the incident became part of a narrative around a school anti-racism initiative.

Hayden FOIA’d a copy of the associated police report, which he said police provided, but improperly, because it contained information on a minor.

“The incentives are broken. This is a massive national issue — there is very little money in the pursuit of truth.”

Tom Hayden

After obtaining the report, Hayden reached out to the parents involved for comment and began writing a story about the district’s response to the nooses incident. Through his reporting, Hayden became uncomfortable continuing to report on a story based on speculation and decided to stop. Unfortunately, that made some of his readers angry.

One parent “reached out to me as a source and provided me some information about his child, who was only tangentially involved, but not the kid who made the nooses,” Hayden said. But the parent then provided the story to a national outlet, The Free Press, because, said Hayden, it fit its agenda of having “anti-woke stories.” That outlet ultimately ran the story.

“Very little money in the pursuit of truth”

The Free Press reported that, according to its sources, the child who made the noose was dealing with mental health issues and didn’t know about the racial connotations of hanging nooses. It accused Superintendent Horton of turning a child’s cry for help into a self-promotion opportunity during the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement. It framed Evanston — known for the country’s first municipal reparations program, among other racial justice initiatives — as an example of wokeness going too far (not long after the article, the Trump administration launched an investigation of the school district).

The drama surrounding the noose incident and Free Press article was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Hayden. People began ascribing nefarious motives to his decision not to cover the story, when in reality he just didn’t want to contribute to putting middle schoolers in the middle of a public spectacle. Hayden decided he’d close down FOIA Gras after the school board election in April. He continues to both work full-time and teach data governance at Northwestern University.

“There’s a set of ethical rules that a professional journalist has to follow, especially when it comes to editorial decisions and injecting my own opinion into stories,” Hayden said. “I just reached that fork in the road.” His preference was always to report on verifiable data — that’s why he felt so at home with FOIA. But fact-based reporting wasn’t enough for his readers, and the aforementioned “political street fights” continued despite his efforts.

Ultimately, despite the important news he broke, the experience left Hayden cynical about the future of the profession he dabbled in. “I don’t feel good about the future of journalism,” he wrote in his departing announcement. “The incentives are broken,” Hayden said. “This is a massive national issue — there is very little money in the pursuit of truth.”

This is fourth in a series of profiles of independent journalists who use public records to hold local governments accountable. The third, about Michelle Pitcher’s reporting on the Texas criminal justice system, is here. The second, about Hannah Bassett of the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, is here. The first, about Lisa Pickoff-White of the California Reporting Project, is here.

freedom.press/issues/the-rise-…

We always enjoy [FloatHeadPhysics] explaining any math or physics topic. We don’t know if he’s acting or not, but he seems genuinely excited about every topic he covers, and it is infectious. He also has entertaining imaginary conversations with people like Feynman and Einstein. His recent video on tensors begins by showing the vector form of Ohm’s law, making it even more interesting. Check out the video below.

If you ever thought you could use fewer numbers for many tensor calculations, [FloatHeadPhysics] had the same idea. Luckily, imaginary Feynman explains why this isn’t right, and the answer shows the basic nature of why people use tensors.

The spoiler: vectors and even scalars are just a special case of tensors, so you use tensors all the time, you just don’t realize it. He works through other examples, including an orbital satellite and a hydroelectric dam.

We love videos that help us have aha moments about complex math or physics. It is easy to spew formulas, but there’s no substitute for having a “feeling” about how things work.

The last time we checked in with [FloatHeadPhysics], he convinced us we were already travelling at the speed of light. We’ve looked at a simple tensor explainer before, if you want a second approach.

youtube.com/embed/k2FP-T6S1x0?…

hackaday.com/2025/07/09/no-ten…

This week Jonathan chats with Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss about KDE’s eco initiative and the End of 10 campaign! Is Open Source really a win for environmentalism? How does the End of 10 campaign tie in? And what does Pewdiepie have to do with it? Watch to find out!

• * End Of 10 campaign: endof10.org/
• * KDE Eco project: eco.kde.org/

youtube.com/embed/COdArYxZWgg?…

Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.

play.libsyn.com/embed/episode/…

Direct Download in DRM-free MP3.

If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode.

Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast:

• Spotify
• RSS

Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

hackaday.com/2025/07/09/floss-…

Questo mese, gli sviluppatori Microsoft hanno corretto 137 vulnerabilità nell’ambito del Patch Tuesday. Nessuno di questi bug è stato utilizzato in attacchi, ma i dettagli di una vulnerabilità zero-day in Microsoft SQL Server sono stati resi pubblici prima del rilascio della patch.

In totale, a luglio sono state risolte 14 vulnerabilità critiche, dieci delle quali riguardavano problemi di esecuzione di codice in modalità remota, una era un problema di divulgazione di informazioni e due erano correlate ad attacchi side-channel su AMD. L’unica vulnerabilità pubblicata prima del rilascio della fix è stata scoperta in Microsoft SQL Server.

Ricordiamo che Microsoft classifica come 0-day:

• Vulnerabilità che vengono già sfruttate (“exploited in the wild”) prima che l’azienda rilasci una patch.
• Oppure vulnerabilità rese pubbliche (ad esempio da ricercatori o gruppi hacker) senza che ci sia ancora una correzione ufficiale.

E tale definizione va in contrasto con il concetto classico di vulnerabilità 0day che significa una falla di sicurezza per la quale non esiste ancora una patch ufficiale al momento in cui viene scoperta o sfruttata attivamente.

Il CVE-2025-49719 è un problema di divulgazione di informazioni in Microsoft SQL Server. Il problema potrebbe consentire a un aggressore remoto e non autenticato di accedere ai dati da una memoria non inizializzata. “Una convalida impropria degli input in SQL Server potrebbe consentire a un aggressore non autorizzato di divulgare informazioni”, ha spiegato Microsoft. Gli amministratori possono mitigare la vulnerabilità installando la versione più recente di Microsoft SQL Server e Microsoft OLE DB Driver 18 o 19.

Si noti inoltre che questo mese Microsoft ha corretto una serie di bug RCE critici in Microsoft Office (tra cui CVE-2025-49695 , CVE-2025-49696 , CVE-2025-49697 e CVE-2025-49702 ) che possono essere sfruttati semplicemente aprendo un documento creato appositamente o tramite il riquadro di anteprima. Gli sviluppatori sottolineano che le patch per questi problemi non sono ancora disponibili in Microsoft Office LTSC per Mac 2021 e 2024 e dovrebbero essere rilasciate a breve.

Inoltre, Microsoft ha corretto una vulnerabilità RCE critica in Microsoft SharePoint (CVE-2025-49704) che potrebbe essere sfruttata su Internet semplicemente avendo un account sulla piattaforma. Il punteggio CVSS più alto di questo mese (9,8 punti) è stato ottenuto da un altro bug critico: CVE-2025-47981. Questo errore viola i protocolli di sicurezza Microsoft Simple and Protected GSS-API Negotiation Mechanism (SPNEGO) utilizzando un overflow del buffer heap, che consente l’esecuzione di codice remoto.

Un bug nei componenti del file system NTFS ha permesso a un aggressore di aggirare i meccanismi di difesa di Windows. Una potenziale vittima avrebbe dovuto solo aprire un disco virtuale appositamente predisposto affinché l’aggressore potesse sfruttare la vulnerabilità e ottenere il pieno controllo del sistema. “Per sfruttare la vulnerabilità CVE-2025-49686, un aggressore non avrebbe bisogno di aumentare i privilegi di sistema o di ottenere diritti di accesso speciali. Basterebbe indurre l’utente a eseguire un programma dannoso che sfrutta una vulnerabilità nel driver che garantisce la comunicazione tra i dispositivi in rete. Poiché l’errore ha causato l’accesso tramite un puntatore errato, potrebbe causare una chiusura anomala del programma e, di conseguenza, un errore di sistema. Di conseguenza, l’accesso alle risorse aziendali sarebbe limitato, il che potrebbe potenzialmente compromettere le operazioni dell’organizzazione”.

L'articolo Microsoft Corregge 137 Vulnerabilità nel Patch Tuesday di Luglio. Nessuna sotto attacco attivo proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

In un periodo in cui si parla molto di “terre rare” e “minerali critici” appare di interesse il documento redatto nel maggio 2025 dal Research and Trend Analysis Branch dell’United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), ovvero l’Ufficio delle Nazioni Unite contro la Droga e il Crimine dal titolo Global Analysis on Crimes that Affect the Environment – Part 2b: Minerals Crime: Illegal Gold Mining.

Questo rapporto fa parte di una serie di analisi globali sui crimini che colpiscono l’ambiente. In particolare, la Parte 2b si concentra sul crimine minerario, con un focus sull’estrazione illegale dell’oro. Il documento è stato redatto in risposta alla crescente preoccupazione per:

- l’aumento della domanda di minerali critici per la transizione energetica,

- l’infiltrazione di gruppi criminali organizzati nelle catene di approvvigionamento minerario,

- i gravi impatti ambientali e sociali dell’estrazione illegale,

- e le lacune normative e di enforcement a livello globale.

Il documento si basa su:

- una revisione di oltre 160 fonti aperte,

- analisi di dati commerciali (UN Comtrade),

- casi giudiziari,

- e contributi di esperti internazionali.

Il rapporto analizza i crimini legati al settore minerario, con particolare attenzione all’estrazione illegale dell’oro. Questi crimini includono attività illecite lungo tutta la catena di approvvigionamento dei minerali: dall’esplorazione all’estrazione, raffinazione, commercio e produzione finale. L’obiettivo è comprendere le dinamiche criminali, i danni ambientali e sociali, e proporre risposte politiche efficaci.

In particolare:

Domanda crescente e vulnerabilità: la transizione energetica globale aumenta la domanda di minerali critici (rame, litio, cobalto, ecc.). Questa pressione crea opportunità per attività criminali, corruzione e instabilità nelle catene di approvvigionamento.

L’oro come caso emblematico: l’oro è particolarmente vulnerabile a traffici illeciti per via del suo alto valore, facilità di trasporto e difficoltà di tracciabilità dopo la raffinazione. Le raffinerie internazionali sono punti critici per l’intervento normativo.

Attori coinvolti: gruppi criminali organizzati (OCGs), aziende legittime coinvolte in pratiche illecite, commercianti, raffinerie e minatori artigianali. Le OCGs usano l’oro per finanziare altre attività criminali e mantenere il controllo territoriale.

Impatto ambientale e sociale: uso di mercurio e sostanze tossiche, deforestazione, inquinamento di acqua e suolo.

Violazioni dei diritti umani: lavoro forzato, sfruttamento sessuale, lavoro minorile, violenza e sfollamenti.

Corruzione e riciclaggio: frodi documentali, concessioni ottenute illegalmente, uso di società di comodo per riciclare proventi illeciti. Le lacune normative e la scarsa trasparenza facilitano l’infiltrazione criminale.

Dall’analisi emergono alcune Raccomandazioni Politiche:

Transizione energetica giusta: risposte mirate per ogni tipo di minerale e contesto geografico.

Due diligence e trasparenza: rafforzare i controlli nelle raffinerie e nei centri di commercio. Sistemi di tracciabilità, audit indipendenti e divulgazione pubblica dei dati.
Risposte adattate al contesto locale

Distinguere tra attività illegali e informali: incentivare la formalizzazione dei minatori artigianali.

Responsabilità aziendale: le aziende devono garantire il rispetto dei diritti umani e ambientali lungo tutta la catena.

Rafforzare l’applicazione della legge: maggiore cooperazione internazionale, uso di tecnologie (droni, AI, blockchain), formazione e risorse per le forze dell’ordine.

Migliorare la raccolta dati: standardizzazione dei dati, criminalizzazione uniforme dei reati minerari, cooperazione tra Stati.

Il crimine minerario, in particolare l’estrazione illegale dell’oro, rappresenta una minaccia globale che richiede risposte coordinate e multisettoriali. È essenziale garantire catene di approvvigionamento trasparenti e responsabili per sostenere una transizione energetica equa e sostenibile.

Il documento (in inglese) è reperibile qui: unodc.org/documents/data-and-a…

#CRIMINIAMBIENTALI #CRIMINEMINERARIO #ESTRAZIONEILLEGALE #ORO

@Ambiente - Gruppo sulla sostenibilità e giustizia climatica

La Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC) è una fondazione internazionale senza scopo di lucro, con sede all'Aia, nei Paesi Bassi, fondata nel 2015. La sua missione è contrastare e contribuire allo smantellamento delle reti criminali transnazionali organizzate che trafficano in specie selvatiche protette, legname e prodotti ittici.

La Wildlife Justice Commission: - Conduce indagini sotto copertura e basate su intelligence, utilizzando metodologie di polizia per raccogliere prove verificabili di crimini contro la fauna selvatica; - Fornisce queste prove a governi e forze dell’ordine per favorire arresti e processi contro i trafficanti di alto livello; - Supporta le autorità con assistenza operativa e crea pressione diplomatica sui governi riluttanti ad agire, anche organizzando audizioni pubbliche; - Collabora con enti governativi, organizzazioni intergovernative e ONG per rafforzare la capacità di contrasto ai crimini ambientali e promuovere soluzioni sostenibili.

Il traffico di specie selvatiche è una delle industrie criminali più redditizie al mondo, con un giro d’affari stimato di circa 20 miliardi di dollari l’anno, subito dopo il traffico di droga, esseri umani e armi.
La WJC si concentra sulle specie più vulnerabili, come tigri, rinoceronti ed elefanti, e sui criminali più prolifici, mirando a interrompere le reti criminali e la corruzione che le sostiene.

Nel suo Rapporto sulla attività svolta nel 2024 la Wildlife Justice Commission segnala come quello passato sia stato trasformativo per la WJC, con risultati significativi nella lotta contro il crimine ambientale e il traffico di fauna selvatica. L’organizzazione infatti ha:

- Smantellato 16 reti criminali transnazionali
- Supportato 84 arresti in Africa, Asia e Sud America
- Facilitato sequestri record, tra cui 12.214 kg di squame di pangolino (79% del totale globale)

Tra i Risultati Operativi Chiave vengono indicati:
Nigeria: Sequestrati 11.673 kg di squame di pangolino e 25 kg di avorio. Arrestati 12 sospetti, tra cui broker e spedizionieri di alto livello.
Mozambico: Condannati due noti trafficanti di corni di rinoceronte a 27 e 24 anni di carcere.
Thailandia: Sequestrati oltre 1.200 animali esotici (tartarughe, lemuri) e rimpatriati in Madagascar.
Sudafrica: Arrestato un trafficante vietnamita di grandi felini.
America Latina: Sequestrata oltre una tonnellata di cetrioli di mare e pinne di squalo.

I progetti Speciali attivati sono stati:
Project Galvanise: Rafforzata l’intelligence contro il traffico di fauna selvatica in 16 paesi. Creato l’Online Resource Center for Analysis (ORCA) per analisti di intelligence. Con riguardo alla Formazione: 16 programmi di formazione in Mozambico, Botswana, Filippine e Thailandia per rafforzare le capacità investigative locali.

La WJS ha:
- Partecipato a conferenze ONU e G20.
- Contributo a 5 politiche internazionali e alla nuova Convenzione del Consiglio d’Europa.
- Promosso il riconoscimento del traffico di fauna selvatica come crimine organizzato grave.

Il report (in inglese) è scaricabile qui: wildlifejustice.org/wp-content…

#trafficospecieprotette #wjc

@Ambiente - Gruppo sulla sostenibilità e giustizia climatica

52 civil society organisations, experts and academics have written to the European Commission to express their concerns about growing pressure to suspend or delay the implementation and enforcement of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act. Instead of unraveling the EU rulebook, which includes hard-won legal protections for people, the Commission should focus on the full implementation and proper enforcement of its rules, like the AI Act.

The post Open letter: European Commission must champion the AI Act amidst simplification pressure appeared first on European Digital Rights (EDRi).