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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

    They Tell Us Slop Replaces Workers, But the Reality Is, US Debt Has Surged 2,300 Billion Dollars in Six Months (the Economy is Collapsing)
    Oligarchy already entertains the option of running away to (or colonising) some other planet without pitchforks and "unwashed masses"
    Reddit as a Hive of Trolls, Social Control Media Curated (Many Voices Censored and Banned) by Marketing Firm of GAFAM
    Typical Reddit
    The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Delusion - Part III - Women Failing Women to Help Violent Americans From Microsoft
    Summed up, SRA will gladly prioritise the "legal industry" over women strangled, raped etc
    The World Gets Smaller, as Does Its Real Economy ('Human Resources') and So-called 'Natural Resources' (What Humans Call the Planet)
    Don't talk about "AI"
     
    Getting the European Court of Justice to Annul the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Kangaroo Court (UPC)
    We're still working on it
    Forbes: BitCoin, Cryptocurrency pages removed from investment database, links stop working
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Bitcoin warning followed immediately by network outage
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Money Funneled to Protection of Software Freedom, But Nothing Really Lost
    Crossposted from personal site
    Mozilla Firefox Sinks to Just 1.5% in the United States
    According to analytics.usa.gov
    We're Still Fast
    The site is even faster than the BBC's despite being on shoestring budget with only a small technical team
    Gemini Protocol is Not a Waste of Time of Effort
    We see more and more GNU/Linux- or BSD-focused bloggers turning to Gemini
    Our Gemini Protocol Support Turns 5 Today
    today is a rare anniversary for us
    In Today's World, One Must be Tough and Principled to Get Ahead Morally
    But not financially (sellouts)
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 07, 2026
    IRC logs for Saturday, February 07, 2026
    The Right Wing in the United States Does Not Support Free Speech, It Supports Its Own Speech
    Free speech is often opposed by those who also oppose Free software
    IRC is a Lot Better Than Social Control Media (They're Not the Same at All)
    A good social analogy for IRC is, there are many buildings with a party in each building
    Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' is 'Dead Meat'
    Or 0xDEADBEEF as some geeks might call it
    When Identifying "Low Performers" and "PIPs" Aren't About Improving Performance But Reinforcing a Clique in Your Company/Organisation
    It's very troubling to see once-respectable brands like IBM and institutions like the EPO resorting to this
    Slop and Flop (IBM), Slopfarms and Hybrids (Linuxiac)
    Did Bobby Borisov assume he would never get caught?
    Crowdfunding vs Bitcoins: donations are better investment than digital tulip mania
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Links 07/02/2026: Misinformation by Slop, Overrated Slop Causes Stock Market Panic
    Links for the day
    Gemini Links 07/02/2026: Diode Function Generators and Panic Over Buzzwords and Slop
    Links for the day
    A Can of WORMS - Part III - Envying the Influence and Accomplishments of RMS, Socially Deleterious Attacks on Popular Movements
    the actions are deliberate and coordinated, not some 'organic' or grassroots behaviour
    Crisis teams assembled as financial regulators anticipate Bitcoin implosion
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Converting FOSDEM Talk on Software Patents in Europe Into Formats That Work for "FOS" and Don't Have Software Patent Traps
    transcoded version of the video
    Links 07/02/2026: More White House Racism, "Europe Accuses TikTok of Addictive Design"
    Links for the day
    Silent Mass Layoffs: It's Not the Revolution, It's the Loophole and the Hack ("Low Performers" or "Underperformers")
    Layoffs by another approach
    Mark Shuttleworth (MS) Pays Salaries to Microsoft (MS) Employees
    Canonical selling Microsoft
    Links 07/02/2026: Windows TCO Rising, Lousy Patents Invalided
    Links for the day
    Microsoft Leadership: Stop Taxing Us, Tax Only Poor People
    Does Microsoft create jobs?
    Biggest "AI Companies" (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft) Borrowed (Additional Debt) About $100,000,000,000 in a Year
    Who will be held accountable for all this?
    In Case You've Missed It (ICYMI), Google's Debt More Than Doubled in a Year
    Wait till it "monetises" billions of GMail users with slop
    In 2009 Microsoft Was Valued at ~150 Billion Dollars, Now They Tell Us Microsoft Lost ~1,000 Billion Dollars in Value. Does That Make Sense?
    Or Microsoft lost 700 billion dollars in "value" in less than two weeks
    PIPs and Silent Layoffs at IBM (and Red Hat) Still Going on, It's "Forever Layoffs" (to Skirt the WARN Act)
    American workers out
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 06, 2026
    IRC logs for Friday, February 06, 2026
    Stressful Times for Team Campinos ("Alicante Mafia") at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
    Keep pushing
    Growing Discrimination in the European Patent Office (EPO)
    it's a race to the bottom, basically
    Google News Drowning in (or Actively Promoting) Slopfarms Again
    LLM slop is a nuisance
    Microsoft Stock Crashed When Alleged Vista 11 Numbers Disclosed
    And last summer Microsoft indicated that it had lost 400 million Windows users
    Gemini Links 07/02/2026: "Choosing a License for Literary Work" and "Social Media Is Not Social Networking (Anymore)"
    Links for the day
    Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Git and Email Patches; MNT Pocket Reform
    Links for the day
    Geminispace Net Growth in 2026 About a Capsule a Day
    A pace like this means net gain of ~300 per year, i.e. about the same as last year
    It's Not About Speed, It's About the Message (or Its Depth)
    Better to write news than to just link to news if there's commentary that the news may merit
    Benjamin Henrion Warned About the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Court (UPC) in FOSDEM 2026
    Listen to Benjamin Henrion
    Economies Crashing Not Because of Slop Improving 'Efficiency' (That's a False Excuse) and 'Expensive' (Read: Qualified) Workers Discarded in Race to the Bottom
    Actual cocaine addicts are pushing out moral people
    IBM's CEO Speaks of Layoffs, Resorts to Mythical (False) Excuses
    This has nothing to do with slop
    Links 06/02/2026: Voter Intimidation and Press Shutdowns in US, Web Traffic Warped by LLM Sludge
    Links for the day
    Does Linux Torvalds Regret Having Dinners With Bill 'Russian Girls' Gates?
    See, the rules that govern the Linux Foundation and its big sponsors aren't the same rules that apply to all of us
    IBM: Cheapening Code, Cheapening Staff, Cheapening Everything
    IBM's management runs IBM like it's a local branch of McDonald's. IBM is a junk company with morbid innards.
    GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in One of the World's Largest Nations
    Democratic Republic Of The Congo
    Linux Foundation Operative Says We and Our Software All "Owe an Enormous Debt of Gratitude" to a Software Patents Reinforcer
    The only true solution is to entirely get rid of all software patents
    Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part IV - EPO Can Get Away With Murders, Suicide Clusters, and Systematic and Prolonged Bullying by 'Team Campinos' ("Alicante Mafia" as Insiders Call It)
    Nobody in the Council or the EU/EC/EP gives a damn as long as laws are broken to fabricate 'growth'
    Jeff Bezos Isn't Just Killing the Washington Post, He's Killing Thousands of News Sites/Newsrooms (in Dozens of Languages) That Rely on It for Many Decades Already
    Not just slopfarms; even the Ukraine-based reporters are culled by Bezos, who's looking to please the dictators of the world
    Central Staff Committee Confronted António Campinos for Giving His Cocaine-Addicted Friend Over 100,000 Euros to Do Nothing, Just Pretend to be Ill, While Cutting the Salaries of Everybody Else
    "On the agenda: Amicale framework & Financial assistance for courses"
    How to Win Lawsuits in 5 Simple Steps
    Keep issuing threats every week and send 60 kilograms of legal papers to the target
    More Than 99% of "AI" Companies Aren't AI, They're Pure BS
    We need to discard those stupid debates about "AI" and reject media that gets paid to participate in such overt narrative control (manipulation like The Register MS)
    AI Used to Save Lives, Now "AI" is a Grifting Scheme That Burns the Planet and Will Crash the Economy
    What the media calls "AI" (it gets paid to call it that) is the same stuff that could instead be dubbed "algorithms"
    Living in Freedom When 'False Flag Operations' Like EFF Get Captured by Billionaires to Take Freedom Away
    There are many ways to think of Software Freedom
    Amutable is a Microsoft Siege Against Freedom in GNU/Linux, Just Like the People Who Brought You 'Secure Boot' Controlled by Microsoft
    Do whatever is possible to avoid Amutable and its "products"
    Growing Focus on Publication
    Over the past ~10 days we always served more than a million Web hits per day
    "Going to be a large number of Microsoft layoffs announced soon"
    Everybody knows a giant wave of layoffs is coming Microsoft's way
    End of the 'GPU Bubble' and NVIDIA Finally Admits It Won't Bail Out Microsoft OpenAI Anymore
    circular financing (financial/accounting fraud)
    Corrupt Media Won't Hold Accountable Rich People for Role in Pedophilia
    Journalistic misconduct or malpractice is a real thing
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 05, 2026
    IRC logs for Thursday, February 05, 2026
    EPO Management ("Alicante Mafia") Not Properly Sharing Information on Scale of Strikes by EPO Staff
    disproportionate (double) deductions in salaries against people who participate in strikes, which are protected by law
    Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Slop/Microslop, Home Assistant, and Valid Ex Commands
    Links for the day
    Blackmail evidence: Debian social engineering exposed in ClueCon 2024 talk on politics
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Bitcoin crash: opportunity or the end game?
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Changes at the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
    SRA is basically a waste of money
    Claims That IBM Will Lay Off 20% (or 15%) of Its Workforce This Year Unless It Finds a Way to Push Them All Out by Threats, Shame, Guilt
    Where are the articles about IBM layoffs?
    IBM Isn't a Serious Company Anymore, It's a Ponzi Scheme Operated by a Clique and It Misuses Companies It Acquires to Prop Up or Legitimise the Scheme
    IBM seems like it's nothing but a "Scheme"
    Google News Drowning in Slop About "Linux" (Slopfarms Galore)
    Google should know better than to link to any of these slopfarms, but today's Google is itself a pusher of slop