GNU News (December-January)
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-01-21 10:28:00 UTC
- Modified: 2014-01-21 10:28:00 UTC
Summary: GNU, FSF, and Free software news from the past month or so
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Richard Stallman today met Mr Rahul Gandhi, Vice President of the Indian National Congress and shared his views on digital surveillance system, unique identification project, free software in education and governance in a meeting that went on for one hour. Mr Joseph Mathew, Secretary of SPACE also participated in the meeting. Mr Gandhi showed keen interest in Stallman's views on various issues relating to information technology.
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To commemorate the occasion of GNU completing 30 years and SPACE 10 years, the free software community in Thiruvananthapuram is also organising an exhibition on free software and free knowledge on Education Freedom Day, which falls on January 18 at the Museum. The exhibition will focus on free software and free hardware for education and privacy protection. Various free software projects like Fedora, WoMoz, and HackerSpace will be part of the exhibition.
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GnuCash is more than a simple checkbook register, although it can be used for that purpose. Its real power is in the features supporting small business use and managing multiple accounts. Its basic features are intuitive, but if you don't have a bookkeeping background, be prepared to spend some time with the user guide in order to fully appreciate its advanced capabilities.
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But the researchers, including Adi Shamir, a co-inventor of the widely-used RSA encryption algorithm, have shown how within one hour it was possible to extract a 4096-bit RSA private key used to decrypt email from a laptop running the OpenPGP-based mail encryption tool, GNU Privacy Guard.
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After earlier this month delivering LLVM Clang 3.3/3.4 benchmarks for the new compiler infrastructure out of Apple, today are results that directly compare the new LLVM Clang 3.4 performance against the stable GCC 4.8.2 compiler and GCC 4.9.0 development compiler under various C/C++ benchmarks.
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An Intel engineer has published a patch-set providing a new GCC compiler architecture target for Intel's upcoming Broadwell CPUs.
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Novena Project aims to create an entirely open source laptop, from the iron down to the bits, and a prototype already exists
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The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today awarded Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification to Gluglug X60 laptops. The RYF certification mark means that the product meets the FSF's standards in regard to users' freedom, control over the product, and privacy. This is the first laptop to receive RYF certification from the FSF.
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FOSS is the last place to suspect “back doors” or traps.
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Computer scientists have devised an attack that reliably extracts secret cryptographic keys by capturing the high-pitched sounds coming from a computer while it displays an encrypted message.
The technique, outlined in a research paper published Wednesday, has already been shown to successfully recover a 4096-bit RSA key used to decrypt e-mails by GNU Privacy Guard, a popular open source implementation of the OpenPGP standard. Publication of the new attack was coordinated with the release of a GnuPG update rated as "important" that contains countermeasures for preventing the attack. But the scientists warned that a variety of other applications are also susceptible to the same acoustic cryptanalysis attack. In many cases, the sound leaking the keys can be captured by a standard smartphone positioned close to a targeted computer as it decrypts an e-mail known to the attackers.
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The Free Software Foundation today has come out for "the first time we've ever been able to encourage people to buy and use a laptop as-is." The Free Software Foundation now backs one laptop model as respecting the customer's freedoms, but are the hardware specs any good?
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GNU Binutils was updated this morning and some of the major changes for these binary tools updates include supporting several new processors.
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To read more about all of these and see the honorable mentions not listed here, make sure to head back to the full hive five feature.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- US Government: 6.1% of Site Visitors Use GNU/Linux
- GNU/Linux has a considerable share and it is growing
- Why the FSF No Longer Recommends Debian, as Explained by Richard Stallman This Month
- some weeks ago
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- Psychiatrist confession: Germanwings crash & Debian toxic culture recognized before suicides
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 19/10/2025: Scentjacking 101, Slop Hype Boosters, and Steam Next Fest
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: The Serial Slopper, LinuxSecurity, and Google News
- Let's hope slopfarms die as soon as possible
- Links 19/10/2025: Cambodia Scam Centres, Slop Hurting Wikipedia Traffic
- Links for the day
- As Economies Crumble Free as in Beer Will Matter, Not Just Free as in Freedom/Libre (Libertad)
- French regions choosing to embrace Software Freedom
- 25 Years Ago, an Explanation of How Reducing Free Software to 'Apps' Would Interfere With Freedom Goals
- there's nothing unreasonable about it
- A List of 63 Known Gemini Clients (Software to Browse Geminispace Content With Gemini Protocol)
- Not counting browser plugins for Web browsers
- Gemini Links 19/10/2025: "Firma Odin Is Transforming" and Bot Attacks While "AFK"
- Links for the day
- LLM Slop Could Not Rise to Prominence Without Media Complicity and Artificial Hype
- Inane garbage disguised as "journalism"
- All the Latest Half Dozen Articles by Mehedi Hasan (UbuntuPIT) Only Admit at the End That He's Using LLM Slop
- Disclosure is OK, but the practice of using slop is not
- The 'Modern' Web of Fake Security and Easy Censorship of Whole Domains
- Each year it gets worse
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 18, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, October 18, 2025
- The Term "AI" is Not New and What Today's Media Calls "AI" Isn't Even AI
- Only the hype was new... and totally artificial
- Gemini Links 18/10/2025: "Planetary Rings", Steam, and PSU Replacement
- Links for the day
- Defeating LLM Abuse (State-of-the-Art Plagiarism) in the Area of Linux and GNU, Free Software, BSD, Security and So On
- The aim is to get them to stop using LLMs to rip off other people's work
- Links 18/10/2025: Russell Vought in Charge, US Government Leans to Russia Again
- Links for the day
- Credit Where It's Due: LinuxConfig.org Quit Doing LLM Slop, Back to Original and Real Articles
- We waited for a while to say this, now it seems conclusive
- Of Note: UbuntuPIT Aware of Critics of Slop, Adds Disclosure of Use of LLMs
- We appreciate the honesty
- Links 18/10/2025: Madagascar's President Flees and ICE Arrests Protest Comedian Robby Roadsteamer
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman Near the European Patent Office (EPO) in 3 Days From Now
- It'll be a good opportunity for patent examiners to listen, ask questions, and maybe greet him in person
- From Scholar to Booster of Slop (and Even Slop in His Own Blog)
- We're going to keep an eye on future posts of his
- End of Vista 10 Also Good News for the BSDs
- There are many news sites that recommend trying GNU/Linux this month
- What's Wrong With Liking Parrots or Birds as Pets?
- They'd demonise people for speaking about freedom, no matter what they say or do
- Digital Sanitation Good Practices
- leave behind Microsoftism
- 10 Days Ago Richard Stallman Gave a Long Interview in French (linuxfr.org)
- English translation
- Science, Not Fast Food/Junk Food
- The commercial exploitation of users won't stop until users exercise full control over their software or - more broadly - their computing (including data)
- The Free Software Foundation, Which Has Appointed a 43-Year-Old President, is Looking to Add Another Board Member (or Treasurer)
- expect the FSF to add more people
- Richard Stallman Confirms Next Week's Talk at Technical University of Munich, We Urge EPO Staff to Attend
- That's probably late enough for EPO staff to attend after work
- Gemini Links 18/10/2025: Notifications and Geminaut
- Links for the day
- Many Red Hat People Are Leaving, But It'll Be Framed Publicly as Leaving IBM
- Similarly, IBM layoffs (or "RAs" as they're called) include Red Hat layoffs
- Expect More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs This Month (at Least Two Rounds Confirmed Already)
- From what we can gather, assuming the recent rumours about XBox are true, there will be at least 3 waves of Microsoft layoffs this month alone
- Security Issues in Cisco and Jenkins Passed Off as "Linux" Problems
- Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) tactics
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 17, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, October 17, 2025
- [Video] Dr. Richard Stallman at Technické Univerzitě v Liberci
- New/via libre-liberec.cz
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal (Slashdot Media), UbuntuPIT, and Google News (Noise)
- egregious plagiarism
- Links 17/10/2025: Better Answers Sought After Air Crashes, "China Fans Patriotic Sentiment as Trade War With U.S. Heats Up"
- Links for the day
- Security is Desirable, But Not When the Term Security is Misused to Imply Centralisation of "Trust" (Whose?)
- 'Security' is not an excuse for vendor lock-in
- Links 17/10/2025: Fentanylware (CheeTok) Causing Problems, Japanese Government Blasts Slop
- Links for the day
- The Linux Foundation Seems to Have Turned Linux.com Not Only Into a Spamfarm But Also LLM Slopfarm
- it's polluting the Web, even important domains like Linux.com, with spam and LLM slop
- Links 17/10/2025: UK’s Largest Breach Penalty and Windows TCO Examples
- Links for the day
- Go Watch Video About Librephone, Get Microsoft Ads
- Very ethical company...
- Campaign of Defamation Against the People Who Built NixOS (and Are Now Pushed Out From Their Own Project)
- We've already grown familiar with - and resistant to - such tactics
- Links 17/10/2025: Nestlé Crisis, Canada Post Versus 'Gig Economy' [sic] and Vista 11 Breaks Itself
- Links for the day
- Tux Machines Has Helped Separate Opinions/Analysis From News
- In September 2023 we decided to split things apart and not repeat links in both sites
- Tux Machines Has Improved Navigation of GNU/Linux and BSD News
- Some more 'wiring' work
- What a World Would Look Like If Everyone Used Free Software Only
- Freedom is what matters, not "Open".
- The Media Helps Microsoft, Amazon and Others (GAFAM and Beyond) Lie About Mass Layoffs Amid Valuation Bubble
- The media, instead of saying that there's an "AI bubble" crashing the economy might instead choose the narrative of "jobs replaced by AI"
- Bad Tempered? You Might Have Just Given Away That You're Losing the Argument
- Brett Wilson LLP is fully aware that it is being investigated
- Richard Stallman (RMS) is a Target of Defamation Campaigns Because of His Views on Software (But Politics Are the Excuse for Defaming Him)
- Here in this site we try to refrain from politics, except in Daily Links
- End of Vista 10 and Rise of GNU/Linux as Client Side Operating System
- It seems certain GNU/Linux will grow in popularity over time
- Taking Stock of a Week's Worth of EPO Leaks
- We remain committed to exposing EPO corruption as long as it keeps happening
- Mathieu Parreaux claims FINMA knew since day one
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Calumny, Libel, Joerg Jaspert & debian-private untouchable cyberbullies
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 16, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, October 16, 2025
- Techrights Turns 19 in 3 Weeks
- coverage of suppressed topics and protecting all sources/whistleblowers
- International E-Waste Day Same Day as End of Vista 10
- message from Akira Urushibata
- The EPO's Central Staff Committee Presents Evidence That Staff Compensation Lowered While the Office Increases Income by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents
- These people become millionaires by doing illegal things
- Second or Third Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in October 2025, This Time Portugal
- Those are just the ones we know about, there may be several more
- 'Help Net Security' (helpnetsecurity.com) May Have Become a Slopfarm as Well
- Zeljka Zorz, Editor-in-Chief at Help Net Security, was reported to us
- Gemini Links 17/10/2025: Rant About Network Solutions, Strange Anomaly on Lagrange
- Links for the day