Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links - Copyright Maximalists turn on Libraries, Other Horrors. Will Yang Return to Yahoo?

Reader's Picks



  • Security



    • Another Nugget from M$
      Days ahead of the patch folks all around the world have been able to take over almost any PC on a LAN running that other OS just by placing a malicious .dll on some networked storage device. The mind boggles. I can see SANs intended to share files among the group to be used to own the whole LAN.


    • Google sheds some light on Iran's involvement with the Diginotar cert incident.
      It means that somebody in Iran had gone to great lengths to intercept supposedly secure Internet traffic, including Gmail messages. ... [Iran] remains one of the few nations that would have a need to defraud Western companies in order to conduct such surveillance. Many governments, including countries with a poor reputation for defending freedom of expression or privacy, are able to generate any number of fake digital certificates on their own authority. The current dependence of secure Internet traffic on a few, potentially insecure commercial companies is a profound flaw.

      Richard Stallman notes, "I am sad to report that the Chrome browser that this was done with is nonfree software."



  • Defence/Police/Aggression





  • Finance



  • Anti-Trust



    • Yahoo co-founder urged to help oust chairman
      A major Yahoo Inc. shareholder is recruiting company co-founder Jerry Yang to join a crusade to oust Chairman Roy Bostock amid the upheaval triggered by the recent firing of CEO Carol Bartz. The shareholder, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, sought Yang's help in a letter sent Wednesday.


    • MICROSOFT DONATES $8 MILLION GRANT TO THURGOOD MARSHALL COLLEGE FUND[sic]
      Microsoft Corporation has recently announced that it will be renewing its partnership with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund through an additional $8 million software grant. This recent grant brings the total donation amount given by the Microsoft Corporation to $29 million, and will provide software for TMCF’s 47-member network of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. ...

      There may be a hardware component to this dumping/indoctrination, but the value is a tax avoidance fiction and the hardware will be a liability using the software that comes with it.





  • Censorship



    • Child Pornography Bill Makes Privacy Experts Skittish
      The bill requires all Internet service providers to save their customers' IP addresses — or online identity numbers — for a year. The bill's stated purpose is to help police find child pornographers, but critics say that's just an excuse for another step toward Big Brother.




  • Privacy

    • Massachusetts track car location by automatically scanning license plates from police cars.
      Civil libertarians are raising the alarm over the state’s plans to create a Big Brother database that could map drivers’ whereabouts with police cruiser-mounted scanners that capture thousands of license plates per hour.

      I'm not sure why the system would have to be in police cars and could not be operated from other cameras like the red light cameras at every major intersection. People should be concerned about those too.





  • Civil Rights



  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • WIPO Broadcasting Treaty Returns From The Grave
      The current draft Treaty would grant exclusive, 50-year intellectual property rights to distributors of information that apply in parallel with copyright protections, even when transmitters have had no role in creating the content being transmitted.

      The treaty and article use the propaganda term Intellectual Property, and the treaty is more than an extension of copyright.



    • Copyrights



      • PJ Notes a lawsuit to prevent universities from making digital libraries, which objects even to digitization of orphaned works.
        Well, the more they try to assert their Most Holy rights, and the rights of people no one can find, the more certain I am that copyright law will end up reformed. It's like Righthaven. Or patent trolls. When people get disgusted by excessive use of the law, they decide to do something about it. Maybe it's time to go back to the prior copyright system, where you had to register your copyright to have one?

        Guardian source article intentionally not linked.







  • Comments

    Recent Techrights' Posts

    2026 Microsoft Mass Layoffs in So-called 'AI' Datacentres, Why Doesn't the Mainstream Media Cover The News?
    What does this tell us about the state of the media?
    "Over 1,100 Law Firms Gone in Five Years" in the United Kingdom (UK) Alone
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    Microsoft FUD From Microsoft Site Helps Distract From Actual Microsoft Back Doors
    Published on a Sunday
    IBM is Killing Red Hat's Portfolio - Including Linux - to Prop Up Ponzi Scheme ("AI")
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    EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part V - Jobs at the EPO for Those Connected to Cocaine Addicts (Skills Not Required)
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    the lapdog (of the "litigation industry") that is meant to be perceived as a watchdog
     
    Links 02/03/2026: Claude Code Causes a Mexican Government Cyberattack, "London Repair Week" Noted
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    It's a scheme, a scam, an elaborate fraud
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    It 'unpersoned' the developer
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    Those networks are selling something. And that something is not peace because peace does not sell "attention".
    Microsoft Users Drowning in Slop, If They Complain Microsoft Censors Them
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    Over at Tux Machines...
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    IRC logs for Sunday, March 01, 2026
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    Dr. Andy Farnell on "Good Tech"
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    Gemini Links 01/03/2026: Simpler Software and Announcing OFFLFIRSOCH (OFFLine-FIRst SOftware CHallenge) 2026
    Links for the day
    Booz Allen Hamilton, the Former Employer of Edward Snowden (NSA Contractor), is Drowning in Debt
    Can Supreme Leader Cheeto bail it out like he does slop companies?
    On the Concept of "Protected Class" (or Race) at IBM
    It's self-harming as in practice it imperils the company and harms the reputation/brand
    The Mass Layoffs at Microsoft That Nobody in the "News Industry" Wants to Talk About (and TheLayoff.com Censored, Then It Censored the Evidence of the Censorship)
    They basically cover up how they censored the news about Microsoft layoffs
    Richard Stallman to Give at Least Three Talks in Switzerland, Starting This Week
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    On Who 'Speaks for' Techrights
    typically a case of misrepresenting the site
    'FSFE' an Imposter in Europe, Paid by GAFAM to Represent GAFAM Interests
    The Microsoft-sponsored 'FSFE', which violates the terms of use of its name, is causing confusion [...] formally-recognised institutions got tricked into thinking that the Microsoft-sponsored 'FSFE' is the FSF
    Lots of Lies From the Slop Industry
    The slop industry relies on fake news to give a notion or fake demand
    Links 01/03/2026: American Plutocrats Buy American Media While American Constitution Shredded
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    Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Inaction and Incompetence - Part I - Introduction
    The SRA is a sham. Many people know this already, but we want to document our own experiences with it.
    Live Simply, Live Better
    Life isn't about "collecting" possessions; it's about doing things that matter and accumulating knowledge so as to make better choices
    Now That XBox is Pretty Much Dead and There Are Mass Layoffs at Microsoft
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    Gemini Links 01/03/2026: "In the Spirit of OFFLFIRSOCH" and "Delete Patreon"
    Links for the day
    ACM Lowers Its Standards for Age of Autocracy
    IBM is more than happy to work with autocracies
    The term FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) was created to describe IBM's tactics and IBM is doing it again
    Rob Thomas or "RT"
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 28, 2026
    IRC logs for Saturday, February 28, 2026
    Slop is Distraction
    LibreWolf will never include any of this slop nonsense, no matter if toggled on or off
    Cult inquiry: Parliament of Victoria, last chance to have your say
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Turns 37.5
    Can IRC reach age 75?
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    Two EPO Strikes in March (Maybe More)
    As per the SUEPO diary [...] We still have an ongoing series about the EPO, with several more series to start later
    Why We Are Concerned About the SRA's Failure and What That Means to the Profession of Lawyers in the UK
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    Over 10,000 Pages/Articles Per Year?
    Probably my most productive month, ever
    Keeping Techrights Online 99.99% of the Time
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    Richard Stallman, Founder of the Free Software Movement, Will be Giving Public Talk in Bern (Switzerland) in Less Than 12 Days
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    Still Lots of IBM Departures
    It's not that we lack evidence of IBM layoffs. It's just that we have ample evidence of the press not doing its job (or barely existing anymore).
    The Register MS Standards: Promote a Ponzi Scheme in Exchange of Money
    Once upon a time it was a serious publisher. Months ago it was taken over by a Microsoft person.
    Slopfarms' Demise Looks Like the Beginning of the End (Lowered Demand for Slop)
    Slop about "Linux" has gotten hard to find this past week
    Dr. Andy Farnell: Time to Pull the Plug?
    insightful, as usual
    Links 28/02/2026: "Tehran’s Two-Tiered Internet", "Internet Under Fire"
    Links for the day
    When an Entire News Site is About One Topic (and One Topic Only)
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    Links 28/02/2026: Bill Epsteingate Admits Sex With Young Girls, "Epstein Files Are the Horror That Keeps on Giving"
    Links for the day
    IBM: Where Companies Come to Perish
    thelayoff.com is censoring stories
    Tech Layoffs Are Not Because of Slop, They're an Effect of a Rotting Economy and Tech Giants Being Too Deep in Debt
    Block is rapidly sinking in debt
    The Slopfarms' Business Case (or Business Model) Never Existed and Nowadays, in 2026, They've Mostly Collapsed
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    March in London Today Against Slop's Harms to Society (and the Environment), Starting at 12:00 GMT at the Microsoft OpenAI Office
    Today there is a protest in London (UK)
    Microsoft Mass Layoffs Have Officially Resumed, Microsoft's Waggener Edstrom/Frank Shaw Lied
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    Over at Tux Machines...
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    IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 27, 2026
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