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

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  • Security



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  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife





  • Finance





  • 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

    Comparing U.E.F.I. to B.I.O.S. (Bloat and Insecurity to K.I.S.S.)
    By Sami Tikkanen
    New 'Slides' From Stallman Support (stallmansupport.org) Site
    "In celebration of RMS's birthday, we've been playing a bit. We extracted some quotes from the various articles, comments, letters, writings, etc. and put them in the form of a slideshow in the home page."
    Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
    Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
    António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
    António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
    Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
    one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
     
    People Don't Just Kill Themselves (Same for Other Animals)
    And recent reports about Boeing whistleblower John Barnett
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
    IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
    Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
    Links for the day
    Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
    Examples of boasting about the association
    Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
    "I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
    [Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
    fake elections
    Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
    Windows TCO?
    Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
    Links for the day
    Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    [Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
    EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
    Catspaw With Attitude
    The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
    'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
    decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
    Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
    Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
    Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
    Links for the day
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
    IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
    Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
    Links for the day
    Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Our Plans for Spring
    Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
    Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
    Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
    RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
    This is totally normal, right?
    USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
    Not joking!
    The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
    the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
    Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
    There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
    Not About Linux at All!
    nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
    Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
    Links for the day
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
    IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
    Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
    Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
    Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
    Links for the day