Summary: Stuxnet is allegedly part of a plan to infect computer systems in Iran for political reasons, according to an increasing body of evidence
SO, it’s starting to look like Stuxnet [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] was part of a plot to derail Iran’s nuclear programme [1, 2]. Stuxnet makes use of zero-day Windows vulnerabilities rather than back doors. Will governments finally realise that foreign governments can use Windows against them? Software freedom is essential to one’s autonomy.
The debate about Stuxnet and Iran is only starting. So far we’ve come across the following reports (there are many more):
The sophisticated computer worm called Stuxnet, which has been targeting industrial operations around the world, was likely designed to take out Iran’s new Bushehr nuclear reactor, cybersecurity experts say. It’s the first known cyber-super-weapon designed to destroy a real-world target, reports the Christian Science Monitor.
Researchers studying the worm say it was built by an advanced attacker with plentiful resources — possibly a nation-state. Initially, experts thought it was designed for industrial espionage, but upon examining its code, they now think it was built for sabotage.
Contrary to reports, a bug that Microsoft patched last week had been publicly discussed a year and a half ago, security researchers said this week.
Microsoft confirmed Wednesday that it overlooked the vulnerability when it was revealed last year.
The vulnerability in Windows Print Spooler service was one of four exploited by Stuxnet, a worm that some have suggested was crafted to sabotage an Iranian nuclear reactor.
A highly sophisticated computer worm that has spread through Iran, Indonesia and India was built to destroy operations at one target: possibly Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor.
That’s the emerging consensus of security experts who have examined the Stuxnet worm. In recent weeks, they’ve broken the cryptographic code behind the software and taken a look at how the worm operates in test environments. Researchers studying the worm all agree that Stuxnet was built by a very sophisticated and capable attacker, possibly a nation state, and it was designed to destroy something big.
[...]
One of the things that Langner discovered is that when Stuxnet finally identifies its target, it makes changes to a piece of Siemens code called Organisational Block 35. This Siemens component monitors critical factory operations, things that need a response within 100 milliseconds. By messing with Operational Block 35, Stuxnet could easily cause a refinery’s centrifuge to malfunction, but it could be used to hit other targets too, Byres said. “The only thing I can say is that it is something designed to go bang,” he said.
Whoever created Stuxnet developed four previously unknown zero-day attacks and a peer-to-peer communications system, compromised digital certificates belonging to Realtek Semiconductor and JMicron Technology, and displayed extensive knowledge of industrial systems. This is not something that your run-of-the-mill hacker can pull off. Many security researchers think that it would take the resources of a nation state to accomplish.
[...]
Now that the Stuxnet attack is public, the industrial control systems industry has come of age in an uncomfortable way. And clearly it will have more things to worry about. “The problem is not Stuxnet. Stuxnet is history,” said Langner. “The problem is the next generation of malware that will follow.”
Any politically-motived Windows worm shows that technology and politics cannot be separated and they come at a high cost to the public (a side effect). Some people point fingers at Israeli hackers.
Malware believed to be targeting Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant may have been created by Israeli hackers
[...]
However Graham Cluley, senior consultant with the online security company Sophos, warned against jumping to conclusions about the target of the attack, saying “sensationalist” headlines were “a worry”. Clulely is wary of reports linking Stuxnet with Israel: “It’s very hard to prove 100% who created a piece of malware, unless you are able to gather evidence from the computer they created it on – or if someone admits it, of course.”
But he said that its characteristics did not suggest a lone group. “I think we need to be careful about pointing fingers without proof, and I think it’s more appropriate – if true – to call this a state-sponsored cyber attack rather than cyber terrorism.”
Stuxnet works by exploiting previously unknown security holes in Microsoft’s Windows operating system. It then seeks out a component called Simatic WinCC, manufactured by Siemens, which controls critical factory operations. The malware even uses a stolen cryptographic key belonging to the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer RealTek to validate itself in high-security factory systems.
Should the whole world be flooded with Windows worms just because of political altercations of few nations? Should a better operating system like GNU/Linux be used to mitigate international threats. When does the cyber threat become greater than nuclear threats in an age when everything from food production to energy extraction [1, 2] and travel depends on connected computers? Without energy and transportation, food cannot be grown, cultivated, and delivered; that is where the most fundamental needs can or cannot be met, especially at times of natural disaster or war, so leaving one’s critical systems (that’s almost any system) under Microsoft’s reign is a strategic blunder. Proprietary software is subjected to the sovereignty of its sole maker. █
“We are going to cut off their air supply. Everything they’re selling, we’re going to give away for free.”
–Paul Maritz, former Microsoft Vice President (not VM_Bware CEO)
Summary: Another risky step from Microsoft helps alienate the people who helped protect Windows from its own failings
“Microsoft [is] sticking the knife deeper into the anti-virus businesses,” Oiaohm told us this morning while pointing to this article.
In its “Partner SMB Community” blog, Microsoft has announced that, in early October, the Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) anti-virus suite will become available to small businesses with up to 10 Windows PCs free-of-charge. As MSE has so far been intended for non-commercial use only, the main choice for Microsoft corporate customers has been Forefront Security.
Small business is a huge market for the anti-malware business. That’s where all kinds of operations cannot afford to hire their own IT and depend on third parties to keep their IT running. If M$ is giving it away for $0 how will Symantec etc. stay alive? M$ was already giving it away for $0 to consumers.
After the Symantec buyout rumour this is interesting. Why should security be sold separately from an insecure product in the first place? █
Summary: Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are bribing for laws that exempt themselves from tax, bribing to promote their products (while labelling that “charity”), and bribing publications to cover important matters in a way that suits them (portraying investments as “philanthropy”)
MICROSOFT, the company which quietly raises debt, has certainly produced some rich people. But it’s clear based on history that it’s not unusual for a company to be left bankrupt whilst its founders become filthy rich. The two sides — people and business — are most certainly correlated, but they need not move in harmony. There are stories of companies that collapse while paying the management obscenely high wages (SCO is one example).
After yesterday’s news that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has given $100,000 to the Defeat I-1098 campaign, Seattle news site PubliCola declared him “biggest hypocrite” of the day. Why? Because Ballmer has spoken time and time again about the need for more education funding in Washington state.
Initiative 1098 would establish an income tax on individuals who make more than $200,000 a year (and couples who make $400,000 a year) and use most of the money to fund … wait for it … education. Washington is one of just seven states without a tax on income.
In this post from Microsoft Nick he adds the following:
One of the richest men in the world, Gates Jr. has so far been silent on the income-tax issue. But odds are he’d side with his father, don’t you think?
What Nick and the rest of the Seattle bloggers neglect to point out is that he is exempted from tax [1, 2, 3, 4] because of the Gates Foundation. So of course he wants everyone but himself to pay a lot more tax to make up for his absence from duty. The biggest mistake people in Washington make is assume that Gates Jr. and Gates Sr. are pushing for themselves to be taxed more heavily.
“The biggest mistake people in Washington make is assume that Gates Jr. and Gates Sr. are pushing for themselves to be taxed more heavily.”All that “lobbying” is essentially a form of bribery. These people spend millions which percolate through the system and find their way in one form or another into the pockets of decision makers (or those whose full-time job is to brainwash/charm and thus effectively replace them, sometimes by offering future favours). Let’s face it, it’s corruption and to pretend otherwise it to be a victim of euphemisms. Bluntly enough, Chips B. Malroy told us last night that “[i]t would see[m] that the only way MS can increase marginally the share of Bing in the USA, is to bribe users or pay OEM’s to make it the default search.” Microsoft already does that with Verizon for example [1, 2, 3, 4].
There is a new and familiar scheme right now. Yes, “Microsoft has another go at Bing bribes,” says the new headline from The Inquirer (“bribe” is the correct, straight term, which was used by some other publications like CNET [1, 2, 3, 4]).
SOFTWARE GIANT Microsoft is having another crack at bribing people to use its Bing search engine.
“The Gates Foundation has funded many news organizations to cover its work…” –Richard StallmanRMS (Richard Stallman) has just caught up with the news that one of his favourite newspapers, The Guardian, sold out to Bill Gates. Yes, the Gates Foundation/Fund is already controlling coverage of itself by paying this publication (and there was evidence to show it just days after the announcement). “The Gates Foundation has funded many news organizations to cover its work,” Richard Stallman wrote in his blog earlier today (after I had mailed him many pointers about it).
Techrights will continue to cautiously cite The Guardian. Whenever it advertises for the Gates Foundation in the designated new site, we will certainly point this out and pressure the The Guardian to report straight news and abolish a PR function (which it carries out in exchange for undisclosed payments from Gates).
Collusion and price fixing, that’s what. It is absolutely unlawful for competitors to act together to keep other competitors out of the market, or to discuss ways to keep prices under control. And that appears to be exactly what this group is doing.
This isn’t minor league stuff. We’re talking about federal crimes and civil prosecutions if in fact that’s what they’re doing. I had a quick call with an attorney this morning, and he confirmed that these types of meetings are exactly what these laws were designed to prevent.
I’m not going to say who was at the meeting since at least a couple of the attendees are saying they were extremely uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going. But like I said, it included just about every major angel investor in Silicon Valley.
On a side note, this is a difficult post to write, because I call nearly every person in that room a friend. But these actions are so completely inappropriate it has to be called out.
Oracle and Apple too are a noteworthy pair. We’ll write about them later. █
Posted in Microsoft at 1:01 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Yet another concurrent rumour
Summary: As Microsoft keeps shrinking (less workers, fewer products, lower wages, no benefits) there is expectation that more layoffs will be announced very soon
“Hearing lots of rumors of more layoffs next week or the week after,” says this new comment at Mini-MSFT, a blog occupied by many anonymous Microsoft employees. Previously, such claims from Mini-MSFT comments turned out to be true. This one is not an isolated claim, either. There are several others which we wrote about a few days ago in the context of layoffs. Microsoft results are coming shortly (to be misreported for sure) and given bad expectations from a Standard & Poor’s analyst and from Credit Suisse, these rumours make sense.
The Dow’s worst performers include Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) that is trading at $24.48 or -2.66% from the previous close. Shares of Microsoft, the maker of Windows operating software have defined support at $23.32 and resistance at $25.53.
Java is not a first-class citizen in Linux distributions. We generally have decent coverage for Java libraries, but lots of Java software is not packaged at all, or packaged in alternate repositories. Some consider that it’s because Linux distribution developers dislike Java and prefer other languages, like C or Python. The reality is slightly different.
[...]
There are a few other issues I didn’t mention in this article, to concentrate on the “distributing distributions” aspect. The tarball distributions don’t play nice with the FHS, forcing you to play with symlinks to try to keep both worlds happy (and generally making both unhappy). Maven encourages projects to pick precise versions of libraries and stick to them, often resulting in multiple different versions of the same library being used in a given project. Java code tends to build-depend on hundreds of obscure libraries, transforming seemingly-simple packaging work into a man-year exponential effort. Finally, the same dependency inflation issue makes it a non-trivial engagement to contractually support all the dependencies (and build dependencies) of a given software (like Canonical does for software in the Ubuntu main repository).
Munich had some of the same problems but they kept working and are arriving late but under-budget. Munich discovered they had more problems than the OS, a fragmented IT system barely able to interoperate with itself. They used their extra time to tune everything up. GNU/Linux is now icing on the cake, a solid cake filled with fuit and nuts, not an “air-cake”. Solothurn, it seems, had similar problems it did not address. The cause of the failure was a failure to plan portable/open-standards-based IT in the first place and not fixing the problems first.
The one thing I have learned about IT is that a migration to GNU/Linux is always possible and worthwhile in the long run. Sometimes it is a long run because there are so many problems but fixing one problem at a time works. You can either fix the whole system in a provably-correct method developed in advance in detail or you can fix one problem at a time as fast as you can do it. If you always opt for open standards, the end-result will be the same but the latter will cost you a lot less time and energy and money. Trying to keep closed systems and lock-in is a recipe for disaster sooner or later.
Remember IdeaStorm – “Where Your Ideas Reign” – Dell’s brave venture into the scary world of crowdsourcing? Amazingly, it’s still going, although it doesn’t seem to be the hive of activity it once was. One of the reasons why IdeaStorm was so important was that it allowed people to voice one of their key requests to the company: to be able to buy GNU / Linux-based systems. To its credit, Dell listened, and started selling them.
[...]
If you go to Dell UK’s site, the front page has nary a mention of Ubuntu or Linux. If you use the search box, there are some hits for Ubuntu – mostly netbooks, but a few other systems too. Excitingly, some of these systems even mentioned Ubuntu 9.10 in the technical specifications. However, when I tried to buy these systems, the “Customise” feature did not include an Ubuntu option (sometimes I received the ominous message “The page you requested may no longer exist on Dell.com”.)
Compiz is to the Linux desktop as HiDef is to the world of television. Is it necessary? Not at all. Will it enhance your experience? Absolutely. Compiz is a compositing window manager that adds tons of functionality to the desktop — from the stellar Desktop Cube to the various window switchers and everything in between, on top, on bottom, and around the corner. If you haven’t experienced Compiz, you have no idea what the PC desktop can really do.
This is a guide containing the most popular and useful ways of using the APT and DPKG commands, and it applies to both Ubuntu and Debian (and their derivatives). I mentioned where super user privileges are required, the ones without a mention can be executed as normal user. If you’re using Ubuntu, precede a command with sudo in order to gain root privileges (and enter your user password); on Debian, type su, enter the root password, and then type in the commands as shown below.
One of the biggest culprits of a cluttered hard disk are images taken with a digital camera. This device enable users to take literally hundreds or even thousands of photos storing them on a single small memory device. The photos are then transferred to a computer hard disk for sharing with family and friends, editing, and to print to a photo printer or one of the many online digital photo printing services.
The HTC Linux community now offers their second built of Ubuntu for the HD2. At the moment, there are drivers for the touchscreen, the Wi-Fi and the phone including 3G communication. There is, however, no audio driver and therefore no sound, even not in calls. It also includes USB host drivers, which support mass storage, audio and networking devices.
On my phone, the boot process lasts 86 seconds until the desktop and its icons appear. The build uses its own Wi-Fi software (Wicd). You can switch between portait and landscape mode and access the Micro SD card. There is also an onscreen keyboard for text inputs.
At 64 Studio, we use the Linux kernel with real-time patches to ensure reliable, glitch-free I/O for our customers’ demanding audio applications. Having source code and full control over the design of the system means that we can tweak the machine for the best possible performance on the target hardware. Typically, our end users are in the “pro audio” market–music production, recording, or broadcast. When an audio engineer switches on their new mixing desk, they probably don’t realise that it’s actually an embedded GNU/Linux device, albeit one that weighs a few hundred times as much as their Android phone.
Recently, we’ve been working on a rather different product which makes use of the same real-time Linux features that pro audio users already enjoy. We’d presented our work on real-time audio for mobile devices at the Linux Audio Conference in Parma, Italy in 2009. Following that presentation, we had an enquiry from Giso Grimm, a researcher on hearing augmentation algorithms at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. The trouble with designing next-generation digital hearing aids is that optimization and hardware miniaturisation are very expensive. If you pick a sub-optimal algorithm and build it into a hearing aid, you’ve just wasted a lot of money on a product that won’t deliver. So researchers at the Haus des Hörens R&D facility in Oldenburg field test new algorithms on standard PC hardware, using a specialized multi-channel USB audio interface with I/O cables that connect to ear pieces.
Using a general-purpose operating system in place of highly optimized hardware presents a potential performance challenge. The PCs can run either GNU/Linux or Windows, but fortunately the real-time Linux kernel delivers better latency performance than Windows can. In a digital audio context, latency means the delay imposed by processing on the sound that the user hears. We can get away with a few milliseconds of delay, but if latency is too high, the brain begins to notice. The effect of excessive latency is not unlike watching a badly-dubbed movie, in which the lips of the actors are out of sync with the words; clearly, this would be unacceptable in a hearing aid field test.
Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) just knocked the cover off another quarterly report, and the market is sitting up to take notice.
In the second quarter of fiscal 2011, the inveterate Linux vendor reported 20% stronger sales year over year and roughly flat earnings; improving business conditions led management to raise guidance significantly. The stock reacted strongly to the news and is one of the biggest gainers on the market today. In fact, Red Hat is trading at 10-year highs now and looks set to run even higher.
If you bought Red Hat when I told you to act on a temporary dip six months ago, you’re sitting on a 40% gain today. Over the same time period, that beats even fellow high-tech highfliers like Informatica (Nasdaq: INFA), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), or nearly any other market darling. Not bad for a company that makes a living selling software you can get for free.
Shares of Red Hat gained $3.32 (+9.03%) to $40.07. The stock closed at $36.75 in the last trading session and today the shares of RHT opened at $39.33. So far today, the stock has hit a low of $39.33 and high of $41.48.
“We’re not selling software, right? The software is free,” Whitehurst said. “We have to add value around the software, beyond the software. The point is, are your applications certified? Is EMC (NYSE: EMC) certified to work with that? All of that work goes into taking the open-source development model and making that into an enterprise-class, stable ecosystem that’s just gonna work.”
Whitehurst continued: “We recognize that we don’t sell functionality because that’s free. We’re adding value around that. That’s important, and I think that’s missed by a lot of people.”
this report structure (an example of which is here for the Translations method of contribution), and I have asked the following people to lead this assessment process in these different types of contribution:
* Total Beginner (this is people who are entirely new to Ubuntu in the first place) – Jorge Castro
* Translations – David Planella
* Packaging – Daniel Holbach
* Documentation – Matthew East
* Advocacy – Laura Czajkowski
* Support – TBC
* Art – Martin Owens
* Quality – Ara Pulido
* Server – Ahmed Kamal
E-mail notification on the desktop has come a long way from the quaint era of ‘keeping an ear out for some faint sound effect’ to herald the arrival of new mail.
Wakoopa is an online service which has a local tracker client specifically for Windows, Mac and Linux users. It tracks your usage of different applications and gives you a detailed picture of how you used it, your most used apps etc. And based on your usage patterns, Wakoopa even recommends new applications you might want to check out.
Ubuntu announced its 9.04 release almost 18 months ago, on April 23, 2009. As with the earlier releases, Ubuntu committed to ongoing security and critical fixes for a period of 18 months. The support period is now nearing its end and Ubuntu 9.04 will reach end of life on Friday, October 23, 2010. At that time, Ubuntu Security Notices will no longer include information or updated packages for Ubuntu 9.04.
I posted this to the maemo community mailing-list before, but I guess it’s worth blogging, too. The long awaited Bugzilla 3.4 for bugs.maemo.org landed in trunk, including maemo.org specific customizations (avoiding it where possible) and a maemo.org skin for a (somewhat) consistent branding.
Ever tried writing a full blog post via your mobile device? I have, and I quickly gave up. I am sure we can all agree that typing on mobile devices isn’t always the easiest task. If you find yourself typing a lot on your phone while on the move then check out this gadget.
TrackDropper, or ‘Piracy’, is a tiny, open-source Android app that is a proof of concept more than anything else. In essence, it is simply geocaching but with digital music files.
Like geocaching, TrackDropper lets you leave something in a place that you’ve visited — but instead of a keepsake in a Tupperware box, you leave digital tracks in a virtual space. Other TrackDropper users can then visit the location of your musical ‘booty’ and listen to it — and leave another song in its place! There’s a cute video of it in action after the break.
Having shaken up the mobile phone market, Google is now preparing to compete head-on with Apple and Microsoft in laptop computers with a range of Google-based “netbooks” due out this year.
Glen Murphy, the Australian lead designer on Google’s Chrome operating system (OS) and web browser projects, said the first Chrome computers would go on sale this year. The big vendors have signed up including Samsung, Acer, Asus, Toshiba and HP.
Diaspora isn’t screwed because the open source community is unreliable or unknowledgable. Diaspora is screwed because there isn’t just one open source community: communities develop around individual projects. And Diaspora blew the best chance they had to have an engaged, active community, today.
There are two reasons why this is a wise course of action. First, it sends the right signal to the open source community – including those who might be engaged on other projects that are currently supported by the company in question. Oracle’s high-handed approach to open source is fast making it Public Enemy Number 1 as far as free software is concerned (yes, even relegating Microsoft to second place). This means that people working on the MySQL or OpenOffice.org projects are going to be far warier, and more distrustful of the company’s moves in future.
This international plugfest is jointly organized by the Federal State, the Regions and Communities of Belgium. The event will be held in Brussels on the 14th and 15th of October 2010. The conference room in the “Boudewijn”-building – kindly provided by the Flemish Government – is conveniently located near the Brussels-North railway station.
Starting today, you can sign up for a Google Checkout merchant account via your developer dashboard. If you’re planning to use Chrome Web Store Payments to charge for apps, you’ll need to complete this setup before you can accept payments. If you already have a merchant account with Google Checkout, you’ll be able to associate it with your items in the store. Signing up for Chrome Web Store Payments is currently available to developers based in the US who have a US bank account. We’re working hard to also enable payments for international developers and will update you with a blog post once we have more details. If you have more questions about setting up your merchant account, see this help article we created.
Since Mozilla Labs launched the Concept Series with an open call for participation we’ve had thousands of people join in, share ideas and develop concepts around Firefox, the Mozilla projects and the Open Web as a whole.
In response to our open call Billy May, in early 2009, produced a throw-away concept for an “Open Web Concept Phone”. Working directly off of that community feedback, Billy has since finished the exploration with his concept “Seabird”.
hey say privacy doesn’t exist on the Web — but that doesn’t mean you can’t try to safeguard your personal information. Our computers are loaded with details about our personal and business lives, and it’s definitely not acceptable to reveal them haphazardly. With hackers becoming ever more sophisticated, you have to take precautions.
Oracle’s ambitions were on display all week in San Francisco, along with its proprietary attitude, best summed up by the adage “what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is none of your business.”
Today sees the publication a report from NWLG CEO Gary Clawson on the savings that would follow from a move to open source, open services and open content in schools and across local authorities. Gary argues that a switch to open source and open content would offer 25% savings on IT spend with relative ease, with a further 30-35% if LAs looked seriously at re-modelling how ICT is implemented and supported. Across a local authority with some 20 secondaries and 120 primaries, this would amount to over £1.4M pa.
The coaltion government has set out policies to promote small business procurement in the public sector, the Deputy CIO Bill McCluggage told delegates at the 360IT conference in London earlier this week.
Open science must be partnered with a strong accountability system, perhaps more formal than the “Internet-as-public-record” variety used to establish reputation in open source software development communities.
The obvious answer is to make these things matter. Research funders have the most power here in that they have the power to influence behaviour through how they distribute resources. If the funder says something is important then the research community will jump to it. The problem of course it that in practice funders have to take their community with them. Radical and rapid change is not usually possible. A step in the right direction would be to provide funders and researchers with effective means of measuring and comparing themselves and their outputs. In particular means of measuring performance in previously funded activities.
As high-performance computing (HPC) becomes more important in helping financial services companies deal with a rising tsunami of data, there’s growing angst on Wall Street about a dearth of skilled programmers who can write for multicore chip architectures and parallel computing systems.
Curiously, Cleese’s formula for creativity somewhat contradicts another recent theory put forth by historian Steven Johnson who, while discussing where good ideas come from, makes a case for the connected mind rather than the fenced off creative oasis as the true source of creativity.
On September 22, 2010 the staff members of the Kokand teachers college were informed that all of them will join the cotton picking campaign, including the women with little kids, the residents of Kokand informed Ferghana.Ru.
“We face the lawlessness again – says one indignant woman in Kokand. – We already got used to the fact that we join the cotton picking campaign and get no money for our labor. This became a norm. Now we see new form of abuse: from now on the mothers with little children are required to pick the cotton! Who is going to take care of kids while we are working? What is the government motivated by? In the Soviet Union there never was such barbarism against the motherhood. All actions of local authorities here directly contradict the decisions of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. The Kokand authorities commit the sabotage. How can we talk about the health of future generations when the mothers are sent to the cotton fields with little kids?”
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is defending against a $10 million lawsuit after denying recertification to a registrar linked to a company that many Canadian domain name holders will be familiar with.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson is maintaining his seemingly inexhaustible attacks against what the Conservatives perceive as weaknesses in Canada’s justice system with new crime bills this fall on top of nine pieces of legislation that remained when Parliament adjourned for the summer.
The briefing note, which can be downloaded from the site of the UN’s Special Rapporteur’s on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, shows that a significant portion of the increases in price and volatility of essential food commodities can only be explained by the emergence of a speculative bubble.
A Brooklyn man standing in front of his apartment was hit with a trespassing ticket, even after cops watched him use his key to get inside.
Lindsey Riddick, still fuming over the bizarre Aug. 18 incident, said he showed police his identification. And when he opened the door to the Flatbush home, his girlfriend and two daughters greeted him and then ran outside the apartment.
Supporters who aren’t near one of the 16 19 cities hosting events for our International Days of Action have been contacting us asking: what can we do? Should I book a flight to, say, Quantico?
Don’t worry, supporters – you can still be part of the International Days of Action in support of alleged whistleblower and ethical human being Bradley Manning. You can do it from your own hometowns!
In the remaining 47 states, the law is clearer: It is generally legal to record the police, as long as you don’t physically interfere with them. You may be unfairly harassed, questioned, or even arrested, but it’s unlikely you will be charged, much less convicted. (These are general observations and should not be treated as legal advice.)
MUMS and dads are being stopped from watching their children play sport in Coventry.
The ban affects dozens of after-school clubs and sports centre sessions for under-eights.
Bosses at Coventry Sports Foundation, which runs the coaching lessons, say children need a more relaxing environment “without pressure from the sidelines”.
They also say the ban is needed for ‘‘child protection’’ reasons.
Hundreds of British Muslims leaving and returning from holidays abroad face harassment and intimidation by security forces when they pass through UK airports and seaports, an investigation by The Independent has found.
One man interrogated by police over his British credentials was asked whether he watched Dad’s Army, while another was questioned over the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.
After a six-month test, Italy’s government will drop the use of full-body scanners for security checks in airports, judging them slow and ineffective, Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported Thursday.
The scanners in the airports of Rome, Venice and the southern city of Palermo are no longer in use and Milan’s airport is likely to stop using the machines in the near future.
I can also recommend this post on the New Statesman blog from David Allen Green, whose legal firm are providing pro bono assistance to Paul during his appeal.
David rather sweetly equates Paul’s tweet with the words of one of England’s finest poets, John Betjeman.
“Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!”
Which, if nothing else, is the perfect way of demonstrating the complete and utter stupidity of Paul’s treatment and conviction.
Every year, Rancho Nuevo, 900 miles southwest of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, sees a spectacular phenomenon: the arribada—mass nesting—of the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, which has already neared extinction. This year, thousands of baby ridleys swam off toward a deadly new enemy.
THE summer dry-season, now drawing to an end, is when the Amazon rainforest gets cut and burned. The smoke this causes can often be seen from space. But not this year. Brazil’s deforestation rate has dropped astoundingly fast. In 2004 some 2.8m hectares (10,700 square miles) of the Amazon were razed; last year only around 750,000 hectares were.
Inhabitants protest next to the coffin of Leoncio Fernandez, a demonstrator who died during clashes in Espinar, province of Cusco, in southern Peru. Peruvians are protesting against an irrigation project that would leave them with no water.
Ever go to the beach and not think of slapping together a sand castle? And who doesn’t enjoy the feeling of wet, warm sand between her toes?
According to federal authorities who recently intercepted an oil-hunting reporter on a Florida beach, those activities have been deemed “illegal.”
The officers’ legal revelation (which is not actually true) came as something of a surprise to Dan Thomas, reporter for WEAR ABC 3 in Pensacola, Florida, who was visiting the Gulf Islands National Seashore for a special report.
The closer it comes, the worse it looks. The best outcome anyone now expects from December’s climate summit in Mexico is that some delegates might stay awake during the meetings. When talks fail once, as they did in Copenhagen, governments lose interest. They don’t want to be associated with failure, they don’t want to pour time and energy into a broken process. Nine years after the world trade negotiations moved to Mexico after failing in Qatar, they remain in diplomatic limbo. Nothing in the preparations for the climate talks suggests any other outcome.
A meeting in China at the beginning of October is supposed to clear the way for Cancún. The hosts have already made it clear that it’s going nowhere: there are, a top Chinese climate change official explains, still “huge differences between developed and developing countries”. Everyone blames everyone else for the failure at Copenhagen. Everyone insists that everyone else should move.
The environment minister is the redoubtable Maria Fernanda Espinoza, who is grappling with the contradictions of having a revolutionary new constitution that guarantees the rights of nature and all living entities, yet depends on vast oil reserves. She is adamant that Ecuador wants to find ways to get out of the petrol economy and invest in renewables to avoid climate change.
One plan is to guarantee to leave nearly one billion barrels of oil – nearly 20% of the country’s reserves – in the ground if rich countries and individuals give them $3.6bn, half the oil’s value. The money from the Yasuni project would go to a UN-run fund to pay for national park conservation, as well as health and education. It would save nearly 400m tonnes of emissions and is being hailed as an innovative climate change solution.
At last, the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is threatening action following the release last month of the independent audit commissioned by Sinar Mas, which showed that the company had been breaking Indonesian law and RSPO rules.
Yesterday, the RSPO uploaded to its website a statement confirming that they were taking Sinar Mas to task. However, before that happened they accidentally uploaded the letters they’d sent to Sinar Mas. These were strongly worded and pointed out that significant breaches of the RSPO’s principles and criteria had been made by several Sinar Mas companies holding RSPO membership.
Lobbying by “powerful” big food companies is blocking reforms which would improve human health and the environment, a director of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned.
Kamkar’s API comes just days after a lawsuit was filed against a company for making use of the HTML5 Web SQL database storage capabilities that come with Safari, Chrome, and Opera. First exposed by Ars Technica, this particular company (Ringleader Digital) made an effort to keep a persistent user ID even when the user deleted cookies and their HTML5 databases, telling Ars that the only way to opt out of the tracking was to use the company’s opt-out link (which gives the user no confirmation that they are, in fact, opted out.)
Then there are a number of previous lawsuits over zombie Flash cookies, which have the same goal when it comes to user tracking. They don’t want you to delete their info, so they work around it by storing the data in multiple places and restoring it once you delete.
While Internet users wait for software to protect against such extensive tracking, Kamkar did point out that the safe browsing mode in many browsers will probably help for now. “I found that using ‘Private Browsing’ in Safari stops all evercookie methods,” he said.
There was a time in the 1960s when the FBI’s illegal surveillance of left-wing groups seemed, and maybe even was, sinister if not broadly menacing. Parts of today’s Justice Department report on its more recent activities, however, evoke that old saw about history repeating itself as farce.
The Inspector General’s report covered a number of FBI targets following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: an antiwar rally in Pittsburgh; a Catholic peace magazine; a Quaker activist; and members of the environmental group Greenpeace as well as of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA.
Very strict curfew enforcement in several cities in Kashmir since 12 September has had a dramatic effect on the free flow of news and information and the ability of journalists to work. Several local publications and regional TV stations are paralysed because their personnel cannot leave their homes and several reporters have been beaten by police.
A total of 94 people have been killed since the violence and unrest erupted in Kashmir last June.
“Trying to maintain order should not be confused with preventing the media from working,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The Jammu and Kashmir state authorities and the security forces that are enforcing the curfew are failing to consider the importance of the local media’s work, or else there is an undeclared intention to prevent Kashmir’s media from operating during the protests.”
Human Rights Watch is concerned about the situation of the Tibetan minority nationality in the People’s Republic of China as they continue to be the target of systematic governmental repression. The Chinese government continues to drastically restrict access to the Tibetan areas of China aside from a handful of closely-supervised government-organized tours for selected international media or foreign diplomats.
In a new report issued on July 2010, Human Rights Watch documented the widespread abuses committed by Chinese security forces in suppressing the Spring 2008 wave of Tibetan protests. Human Rights Watch does not dispute that the Chinese government has the duty to maintain public order and prosecute violent protesters, and that a number of incidents in 2008 involved violence or had the potential to devolve into violence. Yet the report also found that Chinese security forces had used disproportionate force and acted with deliberate brutality during and after the protests.
When spectrum is sold, by contrast, only one company and its suppliers can innovate use of the spectrum. Manufacturers who want to improve service have to go through the spectrum owner, as a gatekeeper, and must deliver the same stuff across the network before service improves. A large investment is also required of the spectrum owner to improve service.
But in Canada, the idea is barely getting off the ground, and one of the biggest players in the industry is blaming royalties sought by major record labels.
“These rates … are astronomical,” Tim Westergren, founder of California-based Pandora wrote in an email to The Canadian Press.
“As long as rights societies take this approach, they will prevent Pandora from launching to Canadian users.”
The resulting change was highly prejudicial to recording musicians and to the great benefit of the record companies that control the RIAA. The amendment was later repealed under intense pressure from performing musicians such as Don Henley, Sheryl Crow and Courtney Love. The staffer in question was subsequently hired by the RIAA.
The MPAA has updated one of its more ridiculous pro-censorship arguments; five years ago, they were telling lawmakers that blocking P2P would help block child pornography. Now they’ve presented at an information meeting in Mexico on ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret, far-reaching copyright treaty that contains provisions for China-style censoring firewalls for every country. The MPAA wants these national firewalls to block sites like The Pirate Bay, but the case they’ve made to lawmakers for it is: “Bring in a censoring firewall to block piracy and you can use it to shut off sites that embarrass your government, like Wikileaks.”
You can almost imagine the MPAA rep dry-washing his hands and licking his lips like a grand vizier manipulating a gullible sultan as he utters these words. During the Bush years, the MPAA recruited a bunch of Republican stalwart, ultra-conservative foot-soldiers (one of them told me that he believed in the Young Earth and Creationism). I can imagine that if you’re one of these square-jawed rock-ribbed types, you could believe that the government had the right to cover up murder and torture by blocking Wikileaks.
This paper shows how the negotiations of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, have become the emblem of the maximum protection approach of intellectual property rights (IPR), reversing the public interest approach that underpinned IPR originally. It argues that if such a vision is realized, through ambiguous rhetoric and aggressive negotiating strategies, it could lead to a new international institutional framework that will hinder the realization of human rights.
The Tokyo round of negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has just begun. It could be the last one before the signature of the final agreement. The text, which is now close to completion, remains an alarming threat on fundamental freedoms online, and could lead to the generalization of anti-democratic legislation and governance.
Summary: “Improving your company’s total cost of ownership, reinvesting the savings to improve collaboration, and driving user innovation,” based on Red Hat’s VP of Open Source Affairs
Summary: Bill Gates’ lobbying in schools is taken up a notch, with more PR stunts, more AstroTurfing, and gains to be made also in Microsoft-based employment (libraries too)
YESTERDAY we received some encouraging feedback from the Seattle Education 2010 blog, which is run by parents of students who are concerned about schools falling into the hands of Gates’ private business, which gets advertised as a “charity” or “philanthropy”. There is this new blog post which points to a recent appearance in Democracy Now (turning schools into businesses, under the guise of “reform”).
“Decisions ought to be made by informed individuals with expertise in their field, not Napoleonistic men to whom the education system is something to be exploited at taxpayers’ expense.”A forum with Diane Ravitch, one of the notable critics [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] of the Gates Foundation’s interference in education (with endorsement from the government), is coming to speak very soon based on the Seattle Education 2010 blog.
There is this new article, “The Small Schools Myth”, which is saying that Gates does more harm than good to education. He ‘donates’ whilst actually wasting public money: [via]
Did Bill Gates waste a billion dollars because he failed to understand the formula for the standard deviation of the mean? Howard Wainer makes the case in the entertaining Picturing the Uncertain World (first chapter with the Gates story free here). The Gates Foundation certainly spent a lot of money, along with many others, pushing for smaller schools and a lot of the push came because people jumped to the wrong conclusion when they discovered that the smallest schools were consistently among the best performing schools.
Decisions ought to be made by informed individuals with expertise in their field, not Napoleonistic men to whom the education system is something to be exploited at taxpayers’ expense. Seattle Education 2010 has this message to teachers — a message expressed earlier this month:
The Elder himself, Bill Gates, carries a supply of Jay’s KIPP book to hand out to anyone interested in the Oligarchs’ choice of a final solution to educating the poor and the brown of urban America.
Will Mr. Gray talk with the voters to see what kind of public school the public wants, rather than reporting to the Broad Foundation and the Gates Foundation and the Walton Foundation? Parents and teachers don’t want schools to prepare mind-scrubbed test-takers and obsequious drones for the corporate state.
Broad Residency Receives $3.6 million Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to Help Execute Teacher Effectiveness Initiatives
It is not just the Gates-funded Broad which pushes Gates’ agenda like a lobbying arm. There is a lot more than that. “It was paid for and used by the Alliance for Education to fabricate the Astroturf “Our Schools Coalition” in order to put pressure on the teachers union to accept reforms that the Gates-puppet Alliance is pushing,” alertsSeattle Education 2010:
It was paid for and used by the Alliance for Education to fabricate the Astroturf “Our Schools Coalition” in order to put pressure on the teachers union to accept reforms that the Gates-puppet Alliance is pushing.
They apparently felt the need to try to trick teachers into caving into their demands at the bargaining table by creating the illusion of grassroots support for a discredited ed reform agenda that no parents or teachers asked for.
A big clue that this survey was a nonorganic, outside agenda being grafted onto Seattle is the survey’s out-of-the blue final suggestion of bringing “Teach for America” recruits to Seattle’s schools. (That’s “Teach for America, Inc.” by the way, a multimillion dollar enterprise with ties to the Broad Foundation and support from the Gates Foundation.)
Put on your dunce cap Arne Duncan and go sit in the corner! And while you’re at it, read a history book or two.
[...]
For Arne Duncan to even think that he could possibly consider himself on that level leads me to believe that he is either not in touch with this reality or his ego has been so overblown by the money and prestige afforded him by Broad and Gates that he truly has begun to believe that he is on the same level of a Rosa Parks or others equal to her stature.
I would strongly suggest that the city take all its financial resources (the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant, etc.) and put it where it will have a positive outcome.
The centerpiece of discussion was MCS’s $90 million blueprint (funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) to improve how teachers are hired, promoted and paid.
We wrote about what Gates was doing to Memphis schools in previous posts such as:
Characteristically, Gates cannot force people to change all on his own. He will be using some more politicians and celebrities as usual, in order to push his agenda (we gave many such examples of fake endorsements before). Gates’ latest front man seems to be talented singer John Legend, which AFP says “tout[s] education reform” (that would be ‘reform’ the Gates way):
Bill Gates, John Legend tout education reform
[...]
The pair joined David Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) for the international premiere at the Toronto film festival of his latest documentary “Waiting for Superman,” which follows five students as they try to navigate a broken US public school system.
Microsoft does something similar in the London Film Festival, for self gain (Vista 7 advertising). To quote the news, “Microsoft has agreed a deal with the British Film Institute (BFI) for Windows 7 to become the main sponsor of the 54th London Film Festival.”
It’s all about advertising and agenda-pushing.
Gates’ appearance in Toronto was not just about pushing his agenda in US schools. He is harming Canada too now (expansion of the same type of agenda), having recently formed some self-serving relationship with Harper. There is an article that seems like some kind of advertisement in the New York Times (“Bill Gates Stirs Up the Education Debate in Toronto”) and The Star (Canada) helps this convicted monopolist (not just lobbyist) by printing the article “Bill Gates Stirs Up the Education Debate in Toronto” (it’s propaganda regarding public policy).
Even the United Kingdom and Ireland cannot escape the influence of this dangerous man. The Belfast Telegraph says that the Employment Minister is going to meet Gates (it’s like he is part of government function now).
Empey set to meet Microsoft founder
A meeting with Bill Gates will be on the schedule as the Employment Minister visits New York, it has emerged.
The billionaire Microsoft founder will welcome Sir Reg Empey this week as the minister embarks on a US trip highlighting the local workforce.
Why is it that companies like Microsoft are setting the agenda in areas where they do not belong? It’s an intrusion. One reason for Microsoft’s co-founder to meet an employment minister is to ensure that employment — just like education — continues to depend on Microsoft products.
“[I]nstead of teaching pupils how to use computers as a generic tool to solve their particular problems, it becomes instead a dull exercise in committing to memory various ritual Microsoft sequences to achieve one specific task.” –Glyn MoodyWatch Chicago lobbying this month, starting with Microsoft indoctrination in the city. It’s one of those cases where people are taught to be servants of Microsoft and in turn demand Microsoft products from employers. This latter example says: “Jason got the highest score in the country on the Microsoft Office Specialist Excel 2003 Exam in February. He went on to compete in the 2010 Worldwide Competition on Microsoft Office in August and ranked fifth in the world.”
To quote this week’s article from Glyn Moody, “I know as a parent from years of interaction with the school system at various levels that what passes for computer teaching is in fact little more than rote learning of where the Open command is on the menu in Word and Excel. That is, instead of teaching pupils how to use computers as a generic tool to solve their particular problems, it becomes instead a dull exercise in committing to memory various ritual Microsoft sequences to achieve one specific task.” To make matters worse, by teaching young people to only use Microsoft (when they grow up) they are in turn endangering health, for example, with new Exchange flaws that are being reported and cause no alarm to those who irresponsible make healthcare dependent on Microsoft.
Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and billionaire global icon, visited the 5th floor of Chicago City Hall on Friday, perhaps signaling the future plans of retiring Mayor Richard Daley, a source close to City Hall confirmed.
[...]
Gates’ Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation raises and donates millions of dollars toward urban education systems, focused on making sure students are college-ready. Daley has long focused on improving Chicago’s public school system. Whether a partnership develops as a result of Gates’ visit Friday remains to be seen.
As money is being pushed into more schools (subscribers only) for control over decision-making, there are reasons to suspect that Gates will continue to corrupt them for Microsoft’s benefit and do so mostly at taxpayers’ expense (that’s what makes schools so appealing to him, it’s indoctrination parents pay for).
Based on The Tampa Tribune, Gates’ unique infiltration into Hillsborough schools carries on:
Among the district’s accomplishments under her supervision are achieving an A grade overall for the district in recent years on the state’s report card, earning national accreditation for the district for the first time, and landing a $100 million grant to improve teacher effectiveness from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Can’t they point out what Gates has to personally gain from this? Well, as we pointed out and showed here before, a lot of the education press the Gates Foundation simply funds (it’s PR which the foundation consistently calls “communication”). This is how it controls coverage and sets the agenda. This is why Web sites about schools and education overwhelmingly continue to kiss the foundation’s feet/shoes whereas it’s left just to small blogs like Seattle Education 2010 to shine some light.
Last month we pointed out that there is similar propaganda from Gates regarding libraries. Gates sponsors all sorts of self-serving ‘studies’ which are quoted everywhere (setting the agenda with their position papers and self-serving surveys/papers about public libraries) and this is how he takes over US libraries, even some in Greece. On the subject of Gates in libraries we wrote in posts such as:
Gates is still up to it, putting Windows-based computers on desks which will serve many thousands of people (each computer will):
The Gates grant is focused on helping libraries that are serving populations in need of the assistance and which are vulnerable to having their technological service become obsolete.
More here and also here, to name an example from the middle of the month:
State library getting federal money for broadband
[...]
The U.S. Commerce Department funding will cover most of the project’s cost. The rest is coming from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rasmuson Foundation.
Those who do not want to learn may choose to believe that Gates is a generous donator, but those who are insensitive to PR campaigns may remember Bill Gates saying “Get me into that and goddam, we’ll make so much money!” █
Summary: Some of the very latest developments in Novell’s sale saga and interpretation from various sources
NOVELL is at the stage where it must sell due to expectations from clients and investors (there is apparently an offer on the table). Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols says, based on reporting from Reuters, that “VMware’s Novell SUSE Linux buy out runs into a snag”. The thing about Novell is that the shares fell (Novell, Inc. (NOVL.O) was down $0.43/-6.61% yesterday with an additional -0.33% after hours) because a sale might not be so immediate.
“Novell’s board, which hired JPMorgan in March to look at strategic options for the whole company, is unwilling to part with its best performing unit SUSE Linux alone and be left with a shell of legacy assets, according to three sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the auction.”
“Novell is where companies and products came to die.”Novell is just too diverse for a simple sale to be made. Ron Hovsepian made things worse by further diversifying the company with the acquisition of other companies like Managed Objects (whose CEO quit Novell last year). It turns out she was not alone: “Prior to Playxpert, Manning was the vice president of product management at Managed Objects. Managed Objects was the industry leader in Business Service Management and was later acquired by Novell.”
Novell is where companies and products came to die. Hovsepian just had little clue what he was doing with the company and his technical chief/strategist quit the company earlier this year. Now the company is in a freefall, except of course if one considers the impact of the company’s sale on the stock. There are still many more articles about that sale (e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]). “Novell Could Sell for $2.8B,” says this one report and the effect on the stock got covered in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18].
But analysts say VMware’s apparent attempt to purchase SUSE Linux makes perfect sense, and will help VMware compete against Microsoft (MSFT), its primary rival, and also Red Hat, which claims VMware can’t offer a full cloud computing stack because it lacks an operating system.
If Microsoft Windows retains its current dominance, VMware may not be able to compete against Microsoft in the long run, says Burton Group analyst Chris Wolf.
Sam from ITWirewonders, “[i]f VMware buys Novell, what happens to the Microsoft deal?”
Novell sponsors this project with people, hardware and services. But OpenSUSE has its own board and along with community contributors has put together what it calls a list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It makes for extremely interesting reading.
How will VMware, which was once suspected of using code from Linux in its ESX Server and not releasing the source, handle the crowd of developers at OpenSUSE who are quite clearly not a docile lot?
There are other interesting questions that present themselves. What happens to Mono and Moonlight, both projects run by Miguel de Icaza, a vice-president at Novell, which aim to make it easier for Microsoft products to play with Linux, in particular SUSE?
Novell has long used these projects as a means of claiming better interoperability with Microsoft. Once VMware has its own operating system – as it would if it bought Novell’s Linux business, why would it care for projects like Mono and Moonlight?
Both projects, it must be added, have not increased Novell’s popularity among the free software and open source software communities. VMware can do without negative karma in these communities – it already has plenty.
It is long a article that does not actually answer the question presented in the headline. It is not entirely clear how such an acquisition would affect the Novell-Microsoft deal. As far is SUSE is concerned, the same rules would probably apply (e.g. the Microsoft-stuffed VM_Bware paying Microsoft for GNU/Linux sales).
OStatic incorrectly characterises Novell as an open source company and asks, “If VMware Buys SUSE Linux, Could Red Hat Feel the Heat?”
Could VMware indeed be a part of an acquisition plan for Novell, and if so, could that spell bad news for Red Hat?
Red Hat, of course, has been a market darling for some time now, continuing to post quarter after quarter of good financial results based on its basic business model of supporting Linux. It has always competed with Novell in the Linux business, but Novell’s Linux business has had spotty results in recent years, due in part to its partnership with Microsoft and dependence on Microsoft to help turn up Linux deals. Now, according to some, Novell may have only a few weeks left as an independent company.
If the worst case scenario that is possible occurs, I’m expecting to hear cries for interoperability and cross platform migration that will be similar to the cries heard in the 1960s and 1970s. Are we doomed to repeat this cycle over and over again?
Novell is about to be sold; the question is to who and under what conditions. █
