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Links - New and Old Censorship, Anti-trust, Privacy Violations and Pollution.

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  • Anti-Trust

    • Pay TV piracy hits News
      The actions are documented in an archive of 14,400 emails held by former Metropolitan Police commander Ray Adams who was European chief for Operational Security between 1996 and 2002. The Financial Review is publishing thousands of the emails on its website at URL afr.com.

      The emails show that Murdoch used "piracy" as a competitive weapon, helping people to break the digital handcuffs of rival's pay TV boxes. The loss of face and revenue helped Murdoch to consolidate his media empire.



    • Microsoft all but buys Netscape with AOL patent acqusition

      This Microsoft friendly news source uses gloats over this superposed "end of the browser wars" and uses the term "intellectual property" while glorifying and validating software patents.



  • Censorship

    • The reason I'm helping Chris Hedges' lawsuit against the NDAA
      the Homeland Battlefield Bill has already a chilling effect upon my ability to investigate and document matters of national controversy that would ordinarily be subject to my professional inquiry. It has therefore prevented my readers from receiving the full spectrum of truthful reporting which, in a functioning democracy, they have a right to expect.


    • Iraq’s internet on the brink
      A year since the Arab Spring, the internet in the region is facing significant threats from governments trying to gain more control over it.


    • Media companies & ISPs outline plan to stop piracy

      Not so voluntary censorship is set to roll out on people in the US. Appealing accusations of sharing will cost people $35.



    • World Without Web
      ... we underestimate the alarming degree of contingency lurking behind ‘inevitable’ developments. ... The divergence point for this history is in 1983-1984, when the leadership of DARPA lied through its teeth to Congress about who was being allowed access to the Internet. ... what if DARPA had been caught in that lie, funding for its network research scaled back, and a serious effort made to kick randoms off the early net?


    • CISPA – The Sneaky Son Of SOPA

      A good collection of links about a nasty law against sharing.





  • Civil Rights



  • Privacy



  • Education Watch



  • DRM

    • How Adobe DRM Requires People to Pirate Library Books
      Open standards make sense. What makes no sense is that large companies in the field still do not understand this. ... It turns out that a majority of the 6,495 titles available at my local library were accessible only through a locked .acsm file format. ...you can think of a .acsm file as being very much like a .torrent file. If you use Windows or Mac, you can (theoretically) download and install Adobe Digital Editions (ADE). This software reads the .acsm file and then it will download the actual .epub book, complete with DRM. ... there is no legal way to access the content without breaking the law if you are using free (libre) software.

      Tell your local librarian to never use a system like this!





  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Another Patent Attack on Google with More Wild $$ Predictions ~pj
      Nokia and Microsoft. Partners at law, so to speak. Is this another Microsoft/Nokia outsourced production? Remember when Barnes & Noble told us that it views Microsoft and Nokia's patent campaign as an antitrust violation, a deliberate campaign to destroy Android and maintain Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop and extend it to smartphones, with Nokia piggybacking with its patents for weapons and MOSAID being brought in to do some of the dirty work? So when you read the scare headlines, remember this: Google is awesome at patent litigation. It tends to prevail. I told you that when Oracle first sued Google


    • Oracle’s Position is Worse Than I Thought


    • USPTO Issues Interim Mayo Guidance ~pj
      "...the claimed product or process amounts to significantly more than a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea with conventional steps specified at a high level of generality appended thereto." Why *wouldn't* that apply to software?


    • Mayo Decision Impacts Myriad Genetics - Judgment Vacated, Remanded ~pj
      Things are looking up in PatentLand


    • Prometheus bound: An important precedent for the next software patent case
      Plainly, this was not a dispute about software patents, but the Court’s unanimous opinion will guide it and lower courts as they analyze future software patent cases.


    • Copyrights

      • Judge rules file sharing is not a "conspiracy"
        The litigators are trying to get around the fact that judges aren't happy with allowing mass lawsuits, so what they are doing is taking one internet user to court but using that lawsuit as a pretext to subpoena other defendants who had participated in the same BitTorrent swarm. ... James Holderman of the Northern District of Illinois raised his eyebrow in disgust at this trick, saying that it was trying to get around the "stiffening judicial headwind."


      • 5000+ Artists Line Up For a Pirate Bay Promotion
        “We’re one of the worlds top 60 sites in the Internet. This brings us a responsibility to use the site to do something good. When I think about it, it’s insane that all the other top 100 sites only blast ads and self-centered stuff on their front pages. We do this for fun and for the love of culture, so we’re everything the major labels are not.”


      • 3 Major Publishers Sue Open-Education Textbook Start-Up

        See also this excllent summary

        To gain access to the digital alternatives, students select the traditional books assigned in their classes, and Boundless pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book. The company calls this mapping of printed book to open material “alignment”—a tactic the complaint said creates a finished product that violates the publishers’ copyrights.


      • DRM is crushing indie booksellers online


      • MPAA Lines Up With Porn Studio in Steamy Copyright Dispute

        A video site that published movies as urls is surprised that people would download those movies. They also found a judge that agrees enough to shut down a website where users share the urls, sometimes as embedded movies.







  • Recent Techrights' Posts

    Microsoft's Bing Falls to Fourth in the Europe/Asia-Based Turkey, Share Halved Since LLM Hype, Now Only 1% (Sometimes Less)
    Turkey (Eurasia) is another example of Microsoft failing with LLM hype and just burning a lot of energy in vain (investment without returns)
    Backlash and Negative Press After Microsoft Tells Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) People to DIE
    Follow-up stories
    Censorship as Signal of Opportunity for Reform
    It remains sad and ironic that Wikileaks outsourced so much of its official communications to Twitter (now X)
    The World Wide Web Has Been Rotting for Years (Quality, Accuracy, and Depth Consistently Decreasing)
    In the past people said that the Web had both "good" and "bad" and that the good outweighed the bad
    Comoros: Windows Plunges to Record Low of About 6% in Country of a Million People (in 2010 Windows Was 100%)
    Many of these people earn a few dollars a day; they don't care for Microsoft's "Hey Hi PC" hype
    The Mail (MX) Server Survey for July 2024 Shows Microsoft Collapsing to Only 689 Servers or 0.17% of the Whole (It Used to be About 25%)
    Microsoft became so insignificant and the most astounding thing is how the media deliberate ignores it or refuses to cover it
    Windows Down From 98.5% to 22.9% in Hungary
    Android is up because more people buy smaller mobile devices than laptops
    Microsoft Windows in Algeria: From 100% to Less Than 15%
    Notice that not too long ago Windows was measured at 100%. Now? Not even 15%.
    Microsoft Windows "Market Share" in New Zealand Plunges to 25%
    Android rising
    SUSE Goes Aryan: You May Not Use the Germanic Brand Anymore (It's Monopolised by the Corporation)
    Worse than grammar Nazis
    Gratis But Not Free as in Freedom: How Let's Encrypt is Dying in Geminispace
    Let's Encrypt is somewhat of a dying breed where the misguided CA model is shunned
     
    [Meme] The Warlord's Catspaw
    Thugs that troll us
    Microsoft Misogyny Will be the Fall of Microsoft (Covering Up for Misogynists is a Huge Mistake and Highly Misguided Short-term Strategy)
    Microsoft's undoing may in fact be its attitude towards women
    Red Hat Keeps Behaving Like a Microsoft Reseller (for Proprietary Stuff!), Microsoft Employees as Authors in redhat.com
    In some ways this reminds us of Novell
    UEFI 'Secure Boot' Once Again Bricking PCs and Fake Security Models Are Perishing in Geminispace
    Let's Encrypt has just fallen again
    Links 17/07/2024: New Attacks on the Press, European Patents Squashed Even at Kangaroo Court (UPC)
    Links for the day
    Gemini Links 17/07/2024: Proponents of Censorship and New Arrivals at Gemini
    Links for the day
    Links 17/07/2024: School Budget Meltdown and Modern Cars as Tracking Nightmares
    Links for the day
    This Should Certainly be Illegal, But the Person Who Helped Microsoft Do This is Still Attacking the Critics of It
    perhaps time for an "I told you so post"
    [Meme] A Computer With an Extra Key on the Keyboard Isn't Everyone's Priority
    (so your telling me meme)
    Africa as an Important Reminder That Eradicating Microsoft Doesn't Go Far Enough
    Ideally, if our top goal is bigger than "get rid of Microsoft", we need to teach people to choose and use devices that obey them, not GAFAM
    Billions of Computers Run Linux and Many Use Debian (or a Derivative of It)
    many devices never get updated or even communicate with the Net, so exhaustive tallies are infeasible
    [Meme] Microsoft is Firing
    Don't worry, Microsoft will have some new vapourware coming soon
    More DEI (or Similar) Layoffs on the Way, According to Microsoft Team Leader
    What happened shortly before Independence Day wasn't the end of it, apparently
    [Meme] Many Volunteers Now Realise the "Open" in "OpenSUSE" or "openSUSE" Was Labour-Mining
    Back to coding, packaging and testing, slaves
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 16, 2024
    IRC logs for Tuesday, July 16, 2024
    [Meme] Ein Factory
    A choice between "masters" (or "master race") is a false choice that results in mass exploitation and ultimately eradication (when there's little left to exploit)
    Links 17/07/2024: Open Source Initiative Lies and Dark Net Thoughts
    Links for the day
    Media Distorting Truth to Promote Ignorance
    online media is rapidly collapsing
    Android Rises to New Highs of Almost 80% in Cameroon
    How many dozens of nations will see Windows at under 10% this coming winter?
    Links 16/07/2024: TikTok Ban in Europe and Yandex Split
    Links for the day
    Gemini Links 16/07/2024: On Packrafting and on Trump Shot
    Links for the day
    [Meme] Firefox Users Who Think They Know Better Than Mozilla
    Enjoy Firebook
    Firefox Used to Have About Half the Market in Switzerland, But It Doesn't Stand a Chance Anymore (Chrome Surging This Summer)
    Mozilla has managed to alienate some of the biggest fans of Firefox
    Microsoft's Biggest Losses Are in Europe This Summer
    Microsoft's ability to milk a relatively rich Europe is fast diminishing
    How to Make Software Suck and Discriminate Against People at the Same Time
    ageism glorified
    Bing Was at 2.6% in Russia When LLM Hype Started. Now It's Down to 0.8% (for 3 Months in a Row Already)
    The sharp fall of Bing may mean that exiting the Russian market won't matter to anybody
    [Meme] Microsoft Seems to be Failing to Comply With WARN Act (by Refusing to Announce Mass Layoffs as They Happen)
    since when does Microsoft obey the law anyway?
    Microsoft Layoffs Are Still Too Frequent to Keep Abreast of and Properly (or Exhaustively) Classify
    The "HR" department knows what's happening, but whistleblowers from there are rare
    Bahamas Joined the "5% Windows" Club
    statCounter only traces back about 1 in 20 Web requests to Windows
    Links 16/07/2024: Salesforce Layoffs and Microsoft's DMARC Fail
    Links for the day
    Antenna Abuse and Gemini Abuse (Self-hosting Perils)
    Perhaps all this junk is a sign of Gemini growing up
    Possibly Worse Than Bribes: US Politicians and Lawmakers Who Are Microsoft Shareholders
    They will keep bailing out Microsoft to bail themselves out
    The Software Freedom Conservancy Folks Don't Even Believe in Free Speech and They Act As Imposters (Also in the Trademark Arena/Sense)
    Software Freedom Conservancy was already establishing a reputation for itself as a G(I)AFAM censor/gatekeeper
    Djibouti Enters the Windows "10% Club" (Windows Was 99% in 2010)
    In Africa in general Microsoft lost control
    GNU/Linux Share Doubled in the United States of America (USA) in the Past 12 Months
    Or so says statCounter
    Even in North Korea (Democratic People's Republic Of Korea) Google Said to Dominate, Microsoft Around 1%
    Google at 93.26%
    [Meme] The Red Bait (Embrace... Extinguish)
    They set centos on fire, then offer a (de facto) proprietary substitute for a fee
    Shooting the Messenger to Spite the Message
    segment of a Noam Chomsky talk
    [Video] Boston Area Assange Defense (Yesterday)
    It was published only hours ago
    Guinea: Windows Down From 99.3% to 2.7% 'Market Share'
    Guinea is not a small country
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 15, 2024
    IRC logs for Monday, July 15, 2024
    What's Meant by "Antenna Abuse" (Gemini)
    syndication is not a monopoly in Gemini and if one doesn't condone political censorship, then one can create one's own syndication service/capsule
    Microsoft Layoffs and Entire Unit Termination: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
    What an announcement to make just before Independence Day
    Links 16/07/2024: Old Computer Challenge and One Page Dungeon Contest
    Links for the day
    Microsoft Falls Further and Closer Towards 10% (Windows "Market Share") in Kuwait
    more countries entering the "single-digit Windows" (under 10%) club
    Gemini Links 15/07/2024: Antenna's Pro-Hamas Bias Revisited and Old Computer Challenge
    Links for the day
    [Video] Julian Assange, Over One Decade Ago, Cautioning About What the Internet Had Truly Become
    video is not new
    Homage to Malta
    Malta is probably easy for Microsoft to bribe
    IRC at 16
    Logging has been used for us and against us
    In Malta, Android/Linux Has Overtaken Microsoft Windows (According to statCounter)
    statCounter milestone?
    Links 15/07/2024: China’s Economic Problems, Boeing Under Fire
    Links for the day
    500 Days' Uptime Very Soon
    Good luck doing that with Windows...
    Windows Falls Below 20% in Tunisia
    A month ago we wrote about GNU/Linux in Tunisia
    Links 15/07/2024: Google Wants Wiz and Why "Sports Ruin Everything"
    Links for the day
    Gemini Links 15/07/2024: Old Computer Challenge and Sending Files via NNCP
    Links for the day
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 14, 2024
    IRC logs for Sunday, July 14, 2024