What I'm Reading 4/30/2020 - Not much security stuff today mostly Coronavirus and some news about treatment of it

cnbc - Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more -

Lyft is laying off 982 employees and furloughing 288 others in an effort to reduce operating expenses and adjust cash flows due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company announced Wednesday in a regulatory filing. 

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The layoffs account for 17% of the workforce, Lyft said. Lyft also has implemented reductions in base salary for employees exempt from the layoffs and furloughs for a 12-week period. The salary cuts, which begin in May, will consist of a 30% reduction for executive leadership, 20% for vice presidents and 10% for all other exempt employees, Lyft said

 Al Jazeera - 'A drug can block coronavirus': Gilead's remdesivir raises hopes -

An experimental drug has proved effective against the new coronavirus in a major study, shortening the time it takes for patients to recover by four days on average, United States government and company officials announced Wednesday.

CNN - Elon Musk criticizes coronavirus stay-at-home orders, calling them 'fascist' -

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is railing against stay-at-home orders meant to slow the coronavirus pandemic, calling them "fascist" and likening them to "forcibly imprisoning people in their homes" during a Tesla (TSLA) earnings call Wednesday.

"I would call it, 'forcibly imprisoning people in their homes' against all their Constitutional rights, in my opinion, and breaking people's freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why people came to America or built this country," Musk said. "It's an outrage."

"Give people back their goddamn freedom," he added.

 National Review - The World Is Awaking to the Ugly Realities of the Chinese Regime -

In short, the world finally seems to be recovering from its decades-long love affair with the PRC, which peaked with the rise of Xi, who was initially viewed as a reformer who would bring China onto the world’s stage as an equal, responsible actor. The true nature of the regime is becoming more apparent, and the world doesn’t like what it sees: the dreadful treatment of ethnic minorities and the rural poor; the obvious interference in Taiwan’s recent presidential election; the belligerence toward Hong Kong as the “one country, two systems” agreement is systematically dismantled and pro-democracy leaders are arrested or just disappear; the bullying of emerging economies through debt diplomacy; and now what is very likely a global pandemic caused by Chinese negligence.

 NBC - Coronavirus vaccine by January is 'doable,' Dr. Anthony Fauci says -

Dr. Anthony Fauci says it's not out of the question that the United States could have a viable coronavirus vaccine by January.

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Scientists at England's Oxford University said Wednesday that the vaccine they are developing could potentially be ready by September.
Manufacturing a potential vaccine would be on an accelerated timeline in order to get it to people as fast as possible.

Politico - Trump administration lists some of Amazon's foreign websites as 'notorious' counterfeit markets -

The Trump administration Wednesday included Amazon’s foreign websites in Canada, the U.K., Germany, France and India in its annual report on “notorious markets” for counterfeit foreign goods, the first time a U.S. company’s overseas operations have been listed.

The inclusion does not carry any penalty, other than the embarrassment for Amazon of being listed alongside other websites and physical markets where counterfeit goods are sold.

The Register - Microsoft unveils simpler, easier Windows Virtual Desktop: You no longer need to be a VDI expert to make this work -

"The previous experience," Anderson admitted, "was very much almost a developer experience. It was not a simple experience for someone who was not an expert in VDI [Virtual Desktop Infrastructure] to walk through."

As such, Microsoft has opted to conceal the greasy nuts and bolts of the process behind a shiny new interface aimed at making the technology easier for administrators to deploy. We're sure rival virtual app and desktop slinger, Citrix, which has pinned its hopes on "extending the value" of Microsoft's WVD via its own management tools is beyond delighted.

Threatpost - High-Severity Cisco IOS XE Flaw Threatens SD-WAN Routers -

Cisco has patched a high-severity vulnerability in its router software, which if exploited could enable a local, authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges.

The flaw exists in Cisco IOS XE. This Linux-based version of Cisco’s Internetworking Operating System (IOS) is used in Cisco software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) routers. Affected routers include the Aggregation Services Routers (ASR) 1000 models, Integrated Services Routers (ISR) 1000 models, ISR 4000 models and Cloud Services Router 1000V models. These are all used by small businesses and enterprises alike.

Wired - 'Expert Twitter' Only Goes So Far. Bring Back Blogs -

When confined to Twitter, pandemic experts mainly express themselves through 15- or 20-tweet long threads. Not only is this format cumbersome to consume, it also can’t easily be updated. To make matters worse, these threads are quickly pushed out of view by the downward pressure of the growing user timeline. A page or post on a blog, on the other hand, allows the expert to more easily write long-form content, including links to their articles and rich graphics, they can easily update as new information arises. In addition, a stable section of core articles can be maintained at the top of the site where they will be immediately visible and not pushed out of view by new content.

Medium - 11 Tips for Improving Productivity using OneNote -

OneNote allows you to capture just about anything. Type notes, record audio, create a quick sketch, add pictures, videos, and any other document. Then organize everything into notebooks, sections, and pages. OneNote can be as structured or as unstructured as you want it to be. And because all your notes are in the cloud, OneNote lets you switch devices and pick up right where you left off.

Last but certainly not least, integration! You can take note in OneNote while on a phone call, quickly add check-boxes turning the notes into a to-do list. Then, add an Outlook flag to remind you to follow up later. Or link an Outlook calendar appointment to a OneNote page and share the notes to everyone in the meeting. The possibilities are endless.

One Notes is one of those tools that you can tell has a ton of potential but actually using it effectively has a step learning curve.  This article is one of the better succinct writeups I have seen on the subject.