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Links 8/8/2013: Ubuntu Edge Gets Priced at $695, Bloomberg Backs It





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Open Source Code At Heart of Wall Street Programmer’s Bust
    Programmers and Wall Street haters alike may join together to support a convicted computer programmer from Goldman Sachs after reading the full-throated defense he receives at Vanity Fair by noted financial journalist Michael Lewis.

    [...]

    During the last six weeks of his employment, Aleynikov emailed himself four times the source code he was working with. The files contained open source code, code that the programmer had tweaked and Goldman Sachs proprietary coding. The government claims the programmer sent himself 32 megabytes of code, but it was essentially the same 8 megabytes of code sent four times over. Goldman Sachs’ entire system contains more than one gigabyte of code—so what the Russian took was minuscule in comparison to the whole.


  • Boffin Provides a List of Open Source Audio Recorder Software for Its Readers


  • List of Open Source Email Software Published by Boffin Today


  • Open Source Chat Software Listing Released In SoftwareReviewBoffin.Com


  • Is This Finally the Year of Open Source...in China?
    One of the long-running jokes in the free software world is that this year will finally be the year of open source on the desktop - just like it was last year, and the year before that. Thanks to the astounding rise of Android, people now realise that the desktop is last decade's platform, and that mobile - smartphones and tablets - are the future. But I'd argue that there is something even more important these, and that is the widespread deployment of open source in China.


  • For The Greater Good
    I often wonder about the motivations of others involved with the open source community, as I did last month. Linux.com reposted an article by Jeremy Kahn titled Open source as a civic duty that answers the question in the best way possible. Open source is not about you, it's about us, all of us.


  • Open Source Poised for Innovation Explosion
    Open source software is now a common component in most organizations' IT infrastructure, particularly at the server OS layer where Linux has made significant inroads. Now open source software is becoming more common in other data center realms such as storage, and is poised for significant growth.


  • Open-Source Apache Flex Finally Comes to Linux
    NEWS ANALYSIS: The Flex Framework for rich Internet application development continues its evolution beyond Adobe's confines as adoption and interest grows.


  • Colosa Partners with OSSCube on Open Source BPM Workflow Solution
    Colosa, which develops the ProcessMaker Open Source Process Management (BPM) and Workflow Suite, has announced a channel partnership with OSSCube aimed at integrating Colosa's Business BPM platform into enterprise application software environments.


  • Say something to the youth of America about open source
    Selena Deckelmann, a data architect and contributor to PostgreSQL, gave a keynote speech at the Computer Science Teachers Association conference this year called, What open source communities can do for teachers. At the end she encouraged the audience (of teachers) to connect with free and open source developers in their communities to work with them to schedule 15-20 minute talks about their work students.


  • Big IT comes together to open source some IBM hardware and software
    Google, IBM, Mellanox, NVIDIA and Tyan today announced plans to form the OpenPOWER Consortium — an open development alliance based on IBM’s POWER microprocessor architecture. The Consortium intends to build advanced server, networking, storage and GPU-acceleration technology aimed at delivering more choice, control and flexibility to developers of next-generation, hyperscale and cloud data centers.


  • Boffin Provides a List of Open Source Audio Recorder Software for Its Readers


  • Is Apache the Most Important Open Source Project?
    Back in the mists of time - I'm talking about 2000 here - when free software was still viewed by many as a rather exotic idea, I published a book detailing its history up to that point. Naturally, I wrote about Apache (the Web server, not the foundation) there, since even in those early days it was already the sectoral leader. As I pointed out:


  • Solari Update: Open Source Ecology with Marcin Jakubowski
    This Thursday we will post my interview with Marcin Jakubowski. Marcin is a physicist and technologist who became a farmer. After learning the economics of small farming in rural Missouri, Marcin started Open Source Ecology (OSE) to apply open source techniques to small farm and enterprise hardware. His vision of 50 open source blueprints is called the Global Village Construction Set - radically lowering the cost of machines and tools that ensure the success of small farms and communities.


  • How open source is your business / team / developer?


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



    • Chrome



    • Mozilla



      • Firefox 23 Adds Features, Security to Open-Source Browser


        Mozilla adds new social-sharing features, issues 13 security advisories and deploys a mixed-content security capability to limit the risk of mixing unencrypted data with secured content. The open-source Mozilla Foundation is out today with its Firefox 23 Web browser for multiple platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux and Android devices. The new release comes just six weeks after the last major Firefox release, and brings a number of feature and security updates to the browser.


      • Firefox 23 Out: Comes with Social API, Network Monitor
        It's finally up for grabs! After about one and a half months since its last stable release, Firefox is out in its new avatar, version 23. FF 23 brings in a whole lot of changes, apart from new logo; not precisely a new logo, but a retouched one (last change was made in FF 3.5). Among a myriad of changes are—Social share functionality, Network Monitor (a developer tool), and mixed content blocking (http stuff on https page).


      • Firefox 23 released for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android users
        Mozilla Corporation has released an updated Firefox – Firefox 23 – for its Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android users.


      • Firefox 23 lands with a new logo and mixed content blocking
        Firefox 23, released today, contains the usual mix of security work, standards conformance improvements, and minor bug fixes that we've come to expect from the regular browser releases. On top of these, it sports a trio of changes that you might actually notice.


      • End of an era as Firefox bins 'blink' tag


      • The blink tag is finally dead, killed off by Firefox 23
        When Mozilla released Firefox 23 on Tuesday, the updated browser put an unofficial end to one of the annoyances of the early Web—the “blink” tag.

        According to the release notes for the new browser, Firefox 23 completely drops support for the “blink” element, preventing browsers from rendering text that, well, blinks.


      • Firefox says goodbye to the blink tag


      • Mozilla and Bango Bring Phone Bill-based Payments to Firefox OS Users
        Bango PLC, a mobile payment and analytics company, has announced the integration of its Bango Payments Platform with Mozilla's Firefox Marketplace. Among other things, the news represents an important step forward for Mozilla's Firefox OS strategy, because it will allow users of Firefox OS-based mobile phones to pay for the apps they buy directly from their phone bills.






  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Why open hybrid clouds are the future
      A well-designed hybrid cloud enables organizations to take advantage of the scalability and cost efficiency of a public cloud, and retain the data governance, security and control of a private cloud


    • IBM Hardware Furloughs: Blame Cloud Computing
      IBM will furlough U.S. hardware employees to cut costs in late August and early September 2013. Employees will take a week off with one-third pay, Bloomberg reported. Ouch. The key takeaway: Cloud computing is squeezing IBM's hardware business, and the value of IBM's x86 server business could be falling -- even more -- each quarter.


    • Drilling into Big Data with Apache Drill
      Apache’s Drill goal is striving to do nothing less than answer queries from petabytes of data and trillions of records in less than a second.




  • Databases



  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • CMS

    • Destination in sight for Flight Centre's Drupal journey
      Brisbane-headquartered travel agency Flight Centre is undergoing a wholesale transition to the open-source Drupal Web platform for its network of websites, which collectively handle millions of page views per week.

      The shift, away from IBM Web Content Manager has been underway for about 12 months now, according to Flight Centre's area leader of digital solutions, Jamie Glenn. The travel company is about two-thirds of the way through the transition, Glenn said. The company has around 30 brands and some 60 websites.




  • Business



  • Funding



  • BSD



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • First batch of videos from LibrePlanet 2013 published!
      The first round of videos from LibrePlanet 2013 is now available for streaming and downloading. LibrePlanet is an annual conference sponsored and organized by the Free Software Foundation, with LibrePlanet 2013 being the best one yet. All current associate members of the FSF enjoy the perk of being able to attend LibrePlanet without paying an entry fee. This year we set out to make sure LibrePlanet featured fully functioning live video streaming using only free software, and it was a great success. The videos are now available for viewing in VP8/Vorbis, both free media formats, and are hosted on an instance of GNU MediaGoblin, the social media sharing platform which many of you helped support.


    • Go Ahead and Try to Lead a Secure, Private Online Life
      E-mail is the obvious starting point and, if you don’t trust that government agencies won’t get their hands on Microsoft (MSFT) and Google’s (GOOG) master keys, you should set up your own private e-mail service. A good package is Mozilla’s Thunderbird client, combined with the Enigmail security extension and the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG). Here’s a guide to setting these up. Follow those instructions and set up a self-hosted e-mail server such as Kolab (not a trivial task), and you’re about as protected as you can get on that front.




  • Public Services/Government

    • Open source as a civic duty
      I occasionally get asked why I spend so much of my free time writing software and giving it away for free. There are a number of reasons for this—I like to build things and I use it as an excuse to practice and improve my skills—but one of the most driving motivators for me is that I see open source contributions as a civic duty, a moral obligation to the rest of the world.


    • Radware adds open source DDoS protection to OpenDaylight Project
      Application delivery and security vendor Radware has contributed an open source distributed denial-of-service protection application to the OpenDaylight Project.


    • The good, the bad and the ugly of NHS open source adoption
      The drive to bring open source technologies into focus for public services and the NHS in particular has been a recurring theme for more than half a decade now.

      VP of Harris Healthcare EMEA Wayne Parslow has been calling on the NHS to "embrace" open platforms, standards and software -- but he also heeds that we need to take care.

      Parslow has spoken out on PublicService.co.uk highlighting the general reduction in software license fees that should be possible with any move to open technologies.

      There is also huge potential for the NHS to develop more custom built applications and IT solutions bespoke to its core needs.


    • NHS technology: Being open to open source
      An opinion piece debating the idea of implementing open source NHS technology in today's healthcare marketplace


    • When open source and drones mix: US Navy better than Army and Air Force
      The US Navy makes more efficient use of open source technology in complex unmanned aircraft than its counterparts in the Army and Air Force.




  • Licensing

    • What motivates free software developers to choose between copyleft and permissive licences?
      Free software licenses can be divided into two broad categories: copyleft licenses (like the GPL), which require derivatives of the software to be licensed under the same terms; and permissive licenses (like the MIT/X11 license), which allow the software to be reused in any project, even closed-source projects. There are variations, of course—the LGPL, for example, is a 'weak copyleft', allowing licensed works to be used in closed-source works, but requiring improvements to the work itself to be released under a copyleft license.




  • Openness/Sharing





Leftovers



  • Security



    • Network Security Remains a Blind Spot for Businesses
      Areas of blind spots within the typical enterprise are many, including applications, network traffic, network devices and user activity.


    • Fort Disco: The new brute-force botnet
      Internet security firm Arbor Networks reports that a new botnet, Fort Disco, is made up of over 25,000 Windows PCs and is targeting blog sites and content management systems (CMS)es. Once these are infected, they can then be used to spread the botnet's malware and to attack other systems.




  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • Ted Koppel and Terrorism
      OK–so the right way to deal with the threat of terrorism is to announce that the U.S. response to any act of terrorism anywhere will be to attack Iran.

      Who wrote this? Ted Koppel. Either his analysis is evolving, or he believes that threatening to unleash massive unprovoked military attacks on another country is not terrorism.


    • US Officials Cite Deadly Drone Strike in Yemen to Defend NSA Spying Operations
      US drones launched missiles at vehicles carrying four men, alleged to be members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen’s Marib province early Tuesday. The attack was the latest development in the global terror alert announced by the Obama administration last Friday. On Monday, the administration indicated that the alleged terror plot was centered in Yemen.


    • Happy Gulf of Tonkin Anniversary (and Thanks, NSA, for Lying about It for 40 Years)!
      So yesterday marked an unhappy anniversary: 49 years since Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing the Vietnam War. (H/T Caleb Brown.)

      LBJ compared the resolution to “grandma’s nightshirt” because it “covered everything.” Like the 2002 Iraq War Resolution, it was worded broadly enough to allow the president to make the final decision about war all by himself—and vaguely enough to allow those who voted for it to deny responsibility for the war they’d authorized.


    • 3 suspected US drones kill 12 militants in Yemen
      Three U.S. drone strikes killed a total of 12 suspected al-Qaida militants Thursday, a Yemeni military official said, raising to eight the number of attacks in less than two weeks as the Arab nation is on high alert against terrorism.


    • US Drone Strikes Kill 11, Yemen Says Plot ‘Foiled’
      According to Yemeni officials, AQAP plotted to take over several cities in southeastern Yemen, including key port towns and the major cities of Hadramaut Province, blowing up pipelines in an attempt to sew confusion.


    • Double-Tap Drone Strikes In Pakistan Killed Rescuers, Report Says
      The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) published a report last week confirming that the Central Intelligence Agency appears to have briefly revived its controversial “double-tap” drone tactic in a Pakistani region in mid-2012.


    • CIA: more Libyan secrets coming out


    • CIA, FBI, and NSA taking steps to limit intelligence leaks


    • Amazon’s CIA cloud renews questions around what is a private cloud


    • Jay Carney on CNN’s big CIA/Benghazi scoop: I don’t know nothing ’bout nothing
      Via Ace, consider this post an apology to our readership. A few days ago I led you to believe that it was somehow important for the White House press corps to ask the press secretary about one of the biggest foreign policy scoops in weeks. That was obviously in error, as I suspected at the time. It wasn’t important; this guy wouldn’t give you a straight answer on what his favorite color is (“I would refer you to my kindergarten finger-paintings on that”), never mind accusations about top-secret CIA activity linked to a major terror attack. Like I said in the earlier post, the press briefing now operates not as the White House’s conduit to the public but rather as an opportunity for the media to show the public that it’s asking worthwhile questions of the president even though there’s not a whisper of a chance that they’ll get useful information from them. The Brits have question time with the prime minister in parliament, we have this travesty. Second look at monarchy?


    • CIA official terms Syria war biggest threat to US security
      The war in Syria poses the greatest threat to US security because of the risk of the government falling and the country becoming a weapons-rich haven for Al Qaeda, according to a CIA official.


    • Did the CIA Just Run an Intel Operation on the Daily Beast?
      Today the Daily Beast reported that an intercepted conference call between “more than 20 al Qaeda operatives” led nearly two dozen U.S. embassies scattered across Southwest Asia and North Africa to shut down over the weekend, a precautionary measure that American officials later extended through August 10. Based on testimony from three unnamed U.S. officials, reporters Eli Lake and Josh Rogin say al Qaeda lieutenants in Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Egypt and Islamic Maghreb discussed vague plans of attack with al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri and the terrorist group’s Yemeni leader, Nasser al-Wuhayshi. One of the unnamed officers compared the call to a meeting of the "Legion of Doom."


    • Syria war biggest threat to US security: CIA official




  • Transparency Reporting



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Japan says Fukushima leak worse than thought
      Highly radioactive water from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is pouring out at a rate of 300 tons a day, officials said on Wednesday, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered the government to step in and help in the clean-up.






  • Finance

    • Group builds tiny homes for local homeless
      Madison resident Betty Ybarra has never owned a home, but that'll soon change.

      "I was very skeptical this could even happen” she tells NBC15 about her new home she's currently helping to build through an Occupy Madison project.

      The group is currently building small homes. It isn't much. Each are about 100 square feet. But it's enough to help someone get back on their feet.


    • President announces ‘Guaranteed Minimum Income’ for all citizens
      PRESIDENT Nicos Anastasiades on Friday announced the complete reform of social policy based on the principle of securing a Guaranteed Minimum Income for all citizens.

      It should be fully in place by June 2014, he said.


    • WSJ Pretends Public Infrastructure Spending Has No Positive Effect On Economy
      The Wall Street Journal claimed that because private investment typically precedes infrastructure projects, President Obama's call for increased infrastructure investments is misguided. This position, however, ignores the historically positive effect of public investment on private activity and the nation's current need for infrastructure improvements.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Covering Weiner
      A candidate running well behind in New York's Democratic mayoral primary is not usually someone national media pay attention to. But when the candidate is a former Congressman now involved in his second sex scandal, the media's level of interest is considerably greater.

      [...]

      See, it turns out that spending so much time talking about Weiner is important– it gives corporate journalists a way to handicap the 2016 election.



    • Media Matters Founder David Brock Calls On NBC, CNN To Cancel Clinton Specials


    • ALEC's Chicago Conference Incites Protest, Multiple Arrests
      Six people were arrested Monday when protesters descended upon the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago to push back against the impending visit of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), whose conservative agenda, activists say, promotes policies and legislation that protects corporate interests and disenfranchises workers and voters.


    • The Conservative Strategy To Defeat Wendy Davis: Sexism
      Erick Erickson doubled down on his sexist attack on Texas State Senator Wendy Davis as "Abortion Barbie," writing on RedState that the moniker "fits perfectly" and recommending it be used on the campaign trail.


    • NSA Defenders Take to the Airwaves
      The vague-yet-apparently-very-serious intelligence about a possible Al-Qaeda attack became a big issue on the Sunday chat shows–and a chance for supporters of National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs to claim that the agency's controversial tactics are working.


    • ALEC 2013 Agenda Harkens Back to a Bygone Era


    • ALEC at 40: Turning Back the Clock on Prosperity and Progress
      Today, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released a new report: "ALEC at 40: Turning Back the Clock on Prosperity and Progress." The report identifies and analyzes 466 American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) bills introduced in 2013.


    • A Side of Climate Change Denial with Your Coffee? ALEC Dishes up Some Hard to Swallow Spin with the Heartland Institute
      This morning in Chicago hundreds of primarily Republican state legislators are getting more indoctrination against doing anything about climate change from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

      This year, ALEC has chosen its long-time partner, the Heartland Institute, to help host the session. Heartland is so extreme on the issue of climate change that it sought to equate people who believe the climate is changing with the Unabomber, through a billboard campaign that featured a mugshot of Ted Kaczynski with the line: "I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?" Heartland lost numerous funders in response to a citizens campaign about the ad last year.




  • Privacy

    • Tox: A Replacement for Skype and Your Privacy?
      In the era of NSA spying and the rise of widespread government monitoring programs or even just the era of Skype, if you’re looking for something new and secure alternatives then Tox Messaging is coming soon for you.


    • Won’t someone think of the students…?
      For privacy campaigners, the issue of big data has been a cause for some time, with a growing trend of governments, businesses and other institutions gathering increasing amounts of data which is then analysed, often without consent from individuals.

      It seems that universities are increasingly thinking about using the vast amount of data collected to analyse how facilities are used and identify students who may fail or drop out of their course. By doing this, universities are acting like they don’t require permission to use the data in this way and are seriously undermining student trust.


    • New Legislation To Make Smart Meters Mandatory For Entire Nation
      There is a sinister agenda underway to forcibly convert every standard electric meter in the U.S. to the “smart” variety under the guise of promoting renewable energy interests.

      [...]

      Landis Gyr recently had a company voicemail message that admitted smart meter technology is part of the NSA’s “PRISM” spying and surveillance program. Since gaining national attention about this admission, Landis Gyr has apparently altered its company voicemail message to omit this indicting information.


    • NSA PRISM: provides direct access to servers of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and others
      It is just a matter of time before unauthorised, real-time access to information about the behaviours and habits of you and your family at home are put under the microscope via Smart Meter data. Don’t give them the chance to put privacy-violating infrastructure in your home which can at any time be compromised and used against you by any number of parties – foreign and domestic. You have the right to refuse Smart Meters – use it! - See more at: http://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/nsa-prism-provides-direct-access-to-servers-of-google-facebook-microsoft-yahoo-apple-and-others/#sthash.gMYZYr3G.dpuf


    • Open Source Encryption for everybody
      With an increasing importance placed on communication via social media, privacy is imperative now more than ever over the Internet. The NSA scandal has shown that there is a great demand for secure communication on the Internet. However, many people do not try to protect their privacy by any means either because encryption is difficult to implement in social media or simply because they are unaware of the resources out there for encryption. Encryption needs to be made easily available for everyone so that privacy is no longer a concern.


    • NY Times Reveals NSA Searches All Emails In & Out Of The US; Will It Offer Up Its Source For Prosecution?
      Again this is the kind of thing that many people had assumed was going on, but it hadn't been confirmed until now. Of course, the NSA's response was not to talk about whether or not this was true, but to claim, yet again, that everything it's doing is "authorized," which is a way of deflecting the fact that it's almost certainly unconstitutional. In this case, the claim is that the NSA isn't storing these emails, but rather: "temporarily copying and then sifting through the contents of what is apparently most e-mails and other text-based communications that cross the border," and the whole process only takes "a small number of seconds" before the records are deleted.


    • NSA monitoring Americans' emails for mentions of terrorists: report


    • No domestic spying? How NSA collects Americans' cross-border emails


    • NSA captures Americans’ Internet content if it mentions overseas suspects


    • The NSA Is Collecting Emails and Texts for Just Mentioning "Targets"
      There's a story in the New York Times today that details how the NSA hasn't just been tracking communications to and from (potential) foreigners of interest—it's actually tracking all emails and text messages that potentially mention these targets. That dragnet just got a lot wider. This is the actualization of the tired and at one time absurd "oops better not say bomb on email" jokes.


    • The NSA Searches US Citizens’ Cross-Border Email That Mentions Foreign Targets
      It’s difficult to keep track of what the NSA does and doesn’t do, and today, the New York Times piled on. Citing “senior intelligence officials,” the paper is reporting that, under a broad interpretation of the FISA Amendments Act, the NSA intercepts communications of U.S. citizens whose communications cross borders and mention foreign targets. You don’t have to communicate with someone being targeted directly to potentially have the NSA collect and search your email.


    • US taxmen told to hush up shadowy drug squad unit laundering NSA intel
      A manual for America's taxmen detailing US drug squads' access to NSA intelligence has emerged - and revealed that the controversial supply of information has been an open secret in government for years.

      Reuters reports that the handbook, which was issued to IRS tax collectors between 2005 and 2006, instructs officials to omit reference to any tip-offs supplied by the US Drug Enforcement Administration's Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits and court proceedings.


    • U.S. officials say NSA leaks may hamper cyber policy debate
      Weeks of revelations about secret U.S. surveillance programs could stymie progress on negotiations over new laws and regulations meant to beef up the country's defences against the growing threat of cyber attacks, cyber security experts say.


    • The N.S.A. and Its Targets: Lavabit Shuts Down
      Not every suspension-of-service notice for an e-mail company comes with a link to a legal-defense fund. Ladar Levison, the owner and operator of Lavabit, whose clients, reportedly, have included Edward Snowden, made it sound today as though he could use the help. “I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit,” Levison wrote in a note posted on his site.


    • Fears over NSA surveillance revelations endanger US cloud computing industry


    • NSA spy leaks: US, Russia to hold talks despite Snowden
      Some members of Mr Snowden's family are applying for visas to visit him in Russia, his lawyer says.


    • If You've Communicated With Someone Outside Of the U.S., the NSA Has Spied On You


    • Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists
      The cyberscare, like the redscare or the greenscare of the ’90′s, is already under way. We’ve seen it take root with the fierce federal persecution of Aaron Swartz, the hefty charges and prison sentence facing LulzSec hacktivist Jeremy Hammond and the three-year jail sentence handed down to Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer for pointing out and sharing a vulnerability in AT&T’s user information network. On Tuesday, former NSA chief Michael Hayden put it into words.


    • Carney on email: 'It's not being read'


    • New revelations: Germany sends 'massive amounts' of phone, email data to NSA
      Germany’s BND intelligence service sends “massive amounts” of intercepts to the NSA daily, according to a report based on Edward Snowden’s leaks. It suggests a tight relationship has been developed between the two agencies – which the BND claims is legal.

      Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Snowden and obtained by Der Spiegel revealed that the 500 million pieces of phone and email communications metadata collected by the NSA in Germany last December were “apparently” provided with the BND’s approval.


    • IRS gets help from DEA and NSA to collect data
      The Internal Revenue Service reportedly received incriminating information on US citizens from the Drug Enforcement Agency, with the assistance of the National Security Agency, before concealing the paper trail from defendants.

      Details of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) program that provides tips to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and then advises them to “recreate the investigative trail” were published in a manual used by IRS agents for two years, Reuters revealed.


    • NSA 'dragnet' wider than previously suspected, says NYT


    • NSA after superconducting supercomputers


      According to Computerworld such a low-energy system move evolve into an exascale system, which would be about 1,000 faster than today's petaflop system.

      The US Director of National Intelligence published a notice asking for help to develop superconducting systems. Such a system can offer "an attractive low-power alternative" to current technology.


    • Spygate Will End the NSA and Invasion of Privacy by Our Government
      Thursday an NSA source informed the world of a primary and egregious lie by President Obama about the information collected by the program called PRISM. Obama’s ‘Spygate’ will force the end of the NSA operation, and end the invasion of privacy by our elected officials.


    • Opposition May Bring Change to NSA


    • Tit-for-tat in dispute over NSA data sharing
      Germany’s opposition has condemned aspects of information-sharing between the country’s intelligence services and their US counterparts. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition-leading Christian Democrats have cried foul.


    • The NSA Searches Some Americans' Emails for Any Mention of Foreign Suspects


    • NSA examines 'all' cross-border text-based messages for 'target' keywords


    • Former NSA boss compares privacy activists to al Qaida terrorists
      Former NSA chief Michael Hayden, who ran the shady US spying bureaucracy from 1999 to 2009, responded to a question about Edward Snowden by painting privacy activists as terrorists and comparing them to al Qaida.

      "If and when our government grabs Edward Snowden, and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what does this group do?" Hayden asked, reffering to "nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twentysomethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years".

      He continued: "They may want to come after the US government, but frankly, you know, the dot-mil stuff is about the hardest target in the United States".


    • US: Snowden Leaked 20,000 Files from NSA
      There are many more revelations to come from the leaks about US spying from Edward Snowden, with journalist Glenn Greenwald testifying that he had received around 20,000 files from the American whistleblower and fugitive.

      Greenwald has been the journalist working with Snowden to release information about the US spying programmes both domestic and international that have caused such controversy around the globe. He has worked with The Guardian the UK to reveal secrets about NSA spying within US borders and on Western Europe, as well as with Brazillian newspaper O Globo, where he has focused his revelations on those affecting Brazil and South America.


    • Why believe anything the government says about the NSA?




  • Civil Rights

    • Putin opposes communist initiative for government dissolution
      Speaking at a youth camp President Vladimir Putin has hinted that he was not planning to sack the government in the foreseeable future and said that he was satisfied by its work.


    • August 2 Project Censored Show with Howard Zinn
      Mickey Huff in studio with Peter Phillips review the NEW award-winning documentary “Project Censored the Movie: Ending the Reign of Junk Food News” AND newly released interview outtakes with Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky talking about Project Censored, war, history, and the media. These are only available to the general public here and now for the first time!


    • Latvia to extradite alleged hacker to US despite sentence concerns
      The Latvian government says it will extradite a 28-year-old man accused of creating the Web injects for the highly destructive Gozi malware, which targeted over a million computers globally, specifically aimed at bank accounts. US prosecutors say the malware was used to steal millions of dollars from its targets.


    • [Old] No shooting at protest? Police may block mobile devices via Apple
      Apple has patented a piece of technology which would allow government and police to block transmission of information, including video and photographs, from any public gathering or venue they deem “sensitive”, and “protected from externalities.”


    • Senators ponder if bloggers deserve First Amendment protection
      As the U.S. Senate continues to debate a national law to protect journalists from protecting their sources, two Senators believe unpaid bloggers and websites like WikiLeaks shouldn’t get extended First Amendment protections.


    • NDAA opponents take fight to Coos Bay
      While local opponents of the National Defense Authorization Act won a partial victory at the county level last week, they may encounter an even tougher battle within the city limits.

      The Coos Bay City Council voted 5-2 Wednesday night to postpone further discussion of an anti-NDAA resolution until councilors had time to research the issue.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality



  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • Russia Prepares to Broaden Brand New Anti-Piracy Law
        Anti-piracy legislation introduced in Russia less than a week ago is already back with legislators. The Ministry of Culture says that the law will be amended to include not only movies and TV shows as previously planned, but a wide range of other creative content. Website owners will be required to make their contact details available to rightsholders in order to speed up complaints while tech companies such as Google have until Friday to put forward their suggestions.


      • Hollywood Keeps Censoring Pirate Bay Documentary, Director Outraged
        Over the past few months several Hollywood studios have asked Google to remove links to the “free-to-share” Pirate Bay documentary TPB-AFK. The film’s director, Simon Klose, has contacted the search engine in an attempt to have the links put back online but thus far without success. Meanwhile, film studios continue to submit new DMCA requests to censor the documentary.








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
 
GNOME GUADEC 2022 & Debian Albanian women trafficked to Mexico?
Reprinted with permission from the Free Software Fellowship
Sainsbury's: It Takes Us Up to Two Days to Respond to Customers Upon Escalation (and Sometimes Even More Than Two Days)
It not only does groceries but also many other things, even banking
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
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
[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