02.06.14
Posted in GNU/Linux at 11:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Recent news items which demonstrate just how big and influential a platform GNU/Linux has become
A few days ago, albeit not for the first time, the Linux Foundation, essentially an advocacy group that allocates some wages, did some rather effective marketing, demonstrating to many that it has become inane to joke at Linux and dismiss it as a hobbyists’ project [1-4] (there is an OpenDaylight Summit at the moment [5-7]). Sure, this won’t prevent IDG, CBS and other corporate press (with payments from Microsoft) from belittling Linux, charactering it as an underdog in this age of Android domination. Good sites like Phoronix, LXer, Linux Foundation and others provide a news stream that contradicts the stigma, but bait-loving marketing companies like QuinStreet will continue to use “Linux”-named domains to delete old articled by the truckload. Other sites like LinuxPlanet and Datamation, a former employer of mine (before it was acquired), may carry on provoking and then spying on visitors to help drive sales (QuinStreet, a marketing company, bought “IT Business Edge, Datamation, Small Business Computing, Internet News, Server Watch, InfoStor, Enterprise Storage Forum, Enterprise Networking Planet, Enterprise Apps Today, CIO Update, Database Journal, eSecurity Planet, Webopedia and Linux Today”). It’s all business to them.
It’s just too easy to grow cynical and sceptical of the press when its top priority is to make money (by agenda, advertising, etc.) and we are still seeing some GNU/Linux FUD which is not hinged on facts, such as the fact that Chrome OS is a GNU/Linux distribution.
An article titled “What will drive mainstream desktop Linux?” [8] has come out from Red Hat and it mentions Chromebooks, which play a major role in making GNU/Linux mainstream on desktops and laptops. People should not feel like “zealots” or “deluded” when they say that GNU/Linux on many desktops and laptops is already a reality. Just go to a store and watch how many computers there have Chrome OS preinstalled. One of our readers sent us a message about his observations some days ago. He said: “I was in an appliance store today and noticed that none of the notebook computers mentioned OS either on the case or on the signage. There were none of the Windows stickers on the machines, most of which ran Vista8. There were CPU stickers though. Then the signs next to each machine with the price and some of the technical specifications mentioned just
about everything except OS. There were two Chromebooks hidden in all that.
“Two things might be happening and they are not mutually exclusive. One is that the name Windows is becoming a liability like the name Microsoft has become. The other is that they are trying to hide the Chromebooksby adopting the Chromebooks’ lack of stickers.
“The corresponding ad in the paper show off the Chromebooks but make it look like just another version of Vista. “anti-virus included” The two Chromebooks were snappy and responsive, even the ARM model.
“If only the Chromebooks lacked OS stickers, they would stand out and, worse, let people know that there are better non-MS options out there. By taking the OS stickers off their Vista8 machines, they are able to hide the Chromebooks in the crowd of other unlabeled machines.”
Chrome OS widely deployed now [9,10,11], it’s hardly an underdog anymore. And it’s not just Chrome OS, it’s other GNU/Linux distributions also [12], demonstrating that it pays to sell GNU/Linux hardware [13]. Sometimes GNU is omitted. For instance, Dell is working on Android PCs on a HDMI sticks [14], showing that combined Android and GNU/Linux will probably continue to surge in Web usage [15] (many such surveys come from US-based companies that are biased and receive payments from Apple, Microsoft, or both).
Sites like ZDNet (CBS) will continue to present a false choice between “Windows XP and Windows 8″ [16], whereas other sites may dare to suggest that “Windows XP home users should upgrade to Linux — not Windows 8.1″ [17]. It has become apparent that there’s an information war being fought; those who don’t want to see GNU/Linux succeeding will continue to deny the reality of Free software renaissance. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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About once a year, the Linux Foundation analyzes the online repository that holds the source code of the kernel, or core, of the Linux operating system. As well as tracking the increasing complexity of the ever-evolving kernel over a series of releases from versions 3.0 to 3.10, the report also reveals who is contributing code, and the dominant role corporations now play in what began as an all-volunteer project in 1991.
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To begin with, take a look at the chart above (which was compiled by IEEE Spectrum, incidentally). The graph shows the breakdown of all patches contributed to the Linux kernel, between versions 3.0 and 3.10. You can clearly see that over 80% of all contributions are from developers who are paid by a large, commercial company. The report says that the number of unpaid developers contributing to the Linux kernel has been slowly declining for many years, now sitting at just 13.6% (it was 14.6% in the last report).
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“Who writes Linux? Corporations, more than ever,” said InfoWorld’s story headline on Monday. Out of all the highlights of the Linux Foundation’s latest Linux Kernel Development report, the corporate angle sang out as noteworthy, dispelling an old notion that Linux, the historic shining star of open source endeavor, is brought to you courtesy of impoverished programmers in post-midnight dens cranking out development work for free, and for the mere spirit of it all. The report, fully titled “Linux Kernel Development: How Fast It is Going, Who is Doing It, What They are Doing, and Who is Sponsoring It,” is the fifth update of this ongoing development story, which has been published since 2008. An increasing number of companies are working toward the improvement of the kernel.
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Santa Clara, CA: When the Linux Foundation announced that it had gotten ever-warring networking vendors to agree to work together on the open-source software-defined network (SDN) project, OpenDaylight, the haters spoke loud and clear. The “OpenDaylight Project will likely delay the adoption of enterprise software-defined networking solutions and stifle innovation,” said Gartner.
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“A world without open source would be a pretty grim world,” Zemlin said. “85 percent of the world’s stock exchanges would shut down, you wouldn’t have any friends – Facebook runs on Linux, and you’d have to go the bookstore to buy books, since Amazon runs on Linux.”
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There are a couple significant reasons why Linux is a distant third, which I’ve covered elsewhere. However, one important area that needs to be addressed, which I haven’t covered before, is product development. I’m going to pretend that I am a NFL analyst assessing each Linux distro’s product and explaining what each distro needs to improve on to be appealing enough for the average consumer. Now when I go through this analysis, I need to assess each distro as if I am buying a branded PC with that distro. Why? Because that’s how most consumers expect to purchase a PC. The difficult part with a lot of the Linux distros is that there is not that “appliance” that “works out of the box” perception that consumers get when they use it. After all, many people are used to using Windows PCs, Macs, and tablets that just work, including apps that came with each device. They expect that same kind of reliability when they use any PC. So let’s start the analysis with the latest device that comes very close to that, which is the Chromebook.
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When Asus jumps into the increasingly hot Chrome OS market by shipping its $179 Asus Chromebox in March, it will likely be the new price leader among computers that run Google’s Linux-based Chrome Operating System. It’s $20 cheaper than the hot-selling, $199 Acer C720 Chromebook, although it lacks the latter’s screen and keyboard. You get the same 4th Generation (“Haswell”) dual-core Intel Celeron 2955U, clocked at 1.4GHz, as you do with the C720, complete with integrated Intel HD graphics. Later this year, there will also be a Core i3-4010U version, as well as a Core i7 model that will not be offered in the U.S.
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Dubbed the ThinkPad 11e family, it comprises four models: two traditional notebooks, and a pair of Yoga convertible systems that can function as either laptop or tablet. A Chromebook version of either form factor will be available. (Dell announced a education Chromebook last month.)
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When it comes to Linux-friendly hardware vendors one of my favorite companies to deal with at Phoronix is CompuLab. The Israeli PC vendor isn’t just rebadging some OEM systems and slapping on a Tux sticker nor are they assembling some x86 systems that individuals could easily build at a lower cost. We have reviewed several interesting low-power Linux PCs from them in the past and today may be one of their most interesting products yet, the Freescale i.MX6-based Utilite. In this review is a look at the Utilite Pro, which is my new favorite pre-assembled ARM Linux desktop.
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For years I have watched the web-stats for GNU/Linux languish in Mexico. No longer. In the summer of 2013, retailers, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer and Canonical got together in Mexico and sold PCs.It does pay to have actual salespeople and retail shelf-space. Obviously the PCs are selling. I hope other countries get going on this, mine, for instance…
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But the old certainties are being swept away. PCs are no longer the automatic choice for business, thanks to the rise of the tablet. Neither is Windows, with Android desktops and Chromebooks also on an upward trajectory. And, thanks to BYOD, most firms are already used to staff turning up with iPads and Kindle Fire tablets; Microsoft’s desktop dominance is already fraying around the edges.
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Yes, Linux is far less intensive than the arguably bloated Windows. And so, if a user wants a supported operating system that should work well on their existing, but aging hardware, a Linux-based OS may be the best choice. The problem is, what distribution should a user choose? What software is available? No worries, I’m here to help.
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Kernel at 7:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Photo by Alex Dawson, 2002
Summary: Cult of Personalities takes over the news again — news which, if anything, proves Stallman’s points to be valid
EARLIER this week Nvidia made an important announcement [1] that was picked up by the press [2-8]. Nvidia shows some signs of changing, conceding its purely proprietary culture. Finally there is a response with actions, not just words. Interestingly enough, a little message from Torvalds in Google+ almost generated more headlines than the original news [9-11] (a lot of the aforementioned links overemphasise Torvalds), especially because he previously gave Nvidia the finger (as in, “up your rectum”). Imagine what the reaction would be if Stallman had done that. When Torvalds does provocative stuff in order to attract attention then it’s portrayed as “cool” or “funny”, whereas the father of GNU gets smacked down if he even dares to try. The person who all along preached in favour of source code freedom is Stallman, not Torvalds, who had also created Linux as a proprietary kernel at first (so basically the same as Nvidia). █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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This Tegra K1 Nouveau support is still proof-of-concept but it is a sign that Nvidia is getting more open saucy having committed to better open source graphics support in September.
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Chip maker NVIDIA has a long history of making sure there are Linux drivers for its graphics cards. But they’re usually closed-source drivers which means they’re not easy for OS developers and open source enthusiasts to work with. Linux founder Linus Torvalds was not amused by this approach.
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“This time I’m raising a thumb for Nvidia. Good times,”Torvalds said Sunday night on Google+, a strong contrast to a June 2012 speech in which Torvalds instead offered Nvidia a middle finger for its non-cooperation. Nvidia has preferred to offer proprietary binary drivers to let operating systems use its graphics chips, not open-source software that others can adapt, modify, and debug.
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Mandriva at 6:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Mageia 4 is out, PCLinuxOS is promoted at the expense of Ubuntu, and ROSA is being reviewed
As we had noted a week or so in advance, Mageia 4 was released in time for FOSDEM [1] and it received some press coverage [2]. There are galleries of screenshots online [3,4] and also some reviews [5,6]. These are generally very positive and they serve to show that the team did good work.
Other than that, PCLinuxOS received a recommendation [7]. It is said to be better for Windows XP users and judging by my father’s experience it is probably true. Windows XP users easily and quickly get accustomed to PCLinuxOS. The similarity in structure and appearance sure helps.
Speaking of another Mandriva derivative, ROSA is being reviewed again [8,9] and it’s looking good. Mandriva is now based in Russia and ROSA is a Russian distribution, whereas Mageia is mostly French and PCLinuxOS is developed in the US.
Don’t dismiss the Mandriva camp. It may not have a strong brand like Ubuntu’s or a development community as vast as Debian’s, but it sure is doing well. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Right on time, and just in time for the first day of FOSDEM 2014, we have the great pleasure of announcing Mageia 4. We’re still having a grand time doing this together, and we hope you enjoy this release as much as we’ve enjoyed making it. And if you’re at FOSDEM, come and help us celebrate!
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Default desktop of Mageia 4 GNOME has some flowery ornaments on the deep-blue background. As usual in GNOME, there is no dedicated menu, but there is an all-screen search tool. You may notice that there is no network indicator on the panel.
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A few years ago (September 2010 to be exact), when things got really crazy with the Mandriva distribution, some of the core developers and users announced that they were establishing a fork to continue the development and distribution with the new name Mageia. That has proven to be a very good decision, because they have just made their fourth major release.
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Aside from the KDE and GNOME 3 desktop environments, Mageia 4 also features support for Cinnamon and MATE. This article presents screen shots from test installations of the Cinnamon, GNOME 3 and KDE desktops.
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This is not an attempt to disparage Ubuntu as it is a very good operating system and I would recommend it to most people. It is definitely a better step forward for Windows 7 users than Windows 8 would be.
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ROSA Desktop is one of several distributions that are derived from Mandriva Linux. The others are Mageia and OpenMandriva. The latter has more in common with ROSA Desktop than Mageia does; many applications developed by ROSA labs are available in the OpenMandriva repositories, but not in the Mageia repositories.
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However, in recent times the Russian company has introduced a new desktop lineup called ROSA “Fresh”. This desktop version is intended to be, as the name suggests, fresher in terms of software versions and therefore features etc whilst aiming to maintain stability and a good solid user experience and more than just KDE and Gnome versions have been made available.
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Posted in Asia, GNU/Linux at 6:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: New types of smears against GNU/Linux come from an unexpected angle which needs tackling
HATRED towards North Korea is cleverly being projected onto hatred against GNU/Linux. Nobody has done this as shamefully as the insidious BBC, which uses the news to insinuate that GNU/Linux is crazy, communist [1], or something like that (the BBC rarely covers GNU/Linux at all, perhaps because many managers in there came from Microsoft UK). It often seems like the BBC only ever covers GNU/Linux when it has something negative to say (we gave examples of this pattern before), or only when it’s “rogue” or associated with something rogue like a virus.
Interestingly enough, more hate towards GNU/Linux in North Korea comes from Apple fan sites [2-4] (not necessarily tied to Apple itself). Never mind the fact that North Korea in many ways resembles Apple and Android's founder/former chief seemingly compared Steve Jobs to North Korea's dead leader (Kim Il-sung). If something has got “North Korea” in it, then it’s automatically malicious. Generally speaking, if one wants to make peace with a country, then one should start by showing respect. To ridicule is to breed more tensions. The BBC’s smears are smears of hypocrisy. For instance, saying that North Korea counts years since the death of a leader neglects the fact that we in the West count the years since the death of Christ. Here is some North Korean coverage [5] and articles from IDG [6,7], the latter of which asking: “Should Linux look like Windows?”
It should probably look like neither Windows nor OS X for reasons we mentioned before. Users’ familiarity is probably outweighed by the need for unique and distinct identity. There are also associated risks, reinforced by Apple’s litigation over GUIs. Having seen North Korea’s operating system, I can’t say that it really resembles Apple’s. Apple did not invent the dock (it copied it), it was not the first with Brushed Metal and Aqua (I had those in GNU/Linux before OS X even existed), and North Korea’s operating system hardly even imitates those. When Apple accuses Android or Samsung (South Korean) of copying iOS it often turns out (in the courtroom) that it was actually Apple doing the imitation (of predecessors in Asia, for example LG in South Korea). █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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North Korea has upgraded the operating system used in the country – and it bears a striking resemblance to Apple’s Mac OSX platform.
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The Red Star OS is peppered with North Korean propaganda, and its calendar tells users it is not 2014, but 103 – the number of years since the birth of former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung.
An earlier version of Red Star OS was made available worldwide in 2010 after a Russian student posted it online.
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Red Star Linux, a Linux distribution used in North Korea, has been upgraded to version 3.0. With it comes an entire UI revamp, one that looks extremely similar to that of OS X. The menu buttons are placed on the lefthand corner of each window and many UI buttons have an “aqua” effect as seen in previous versions of OS X. Most notably however, is the addition of a dock on the bottom of the desktop that is almost identical to the dock seen in OS X.
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The real question here though is: Should Linux look more like Windows? My initial thought is no, it certainly should not look like Windows. After all, one of the big attractions of using Linux is to get away from Windows. Who wants to be reminded of an operating system that they just dumped because they didn’t want to use it any more?
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Posted in Free/Libre Software at 6:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Phones and tablets with Firefox OS are said to be on their way and Firefox 27 is out
Mozilla has just released Firefox 27 [1,2], which is quickly improving owing to expansion features [3,4] (I find it a little buggy under Android, still). Firefox OS, which is based on Linux, has been making headlines and it is still coming along nicely [5] while Mozilla asks for help in delivering a tablet with Firefox OS [6]. To Mozilla’s credit, as we noted before, the company throws the P word around quite a lot (privacy is the P word), even in NPR [7]. Some readers noted that Mozilla is actually just pretending to care about privacy, but compared to Google, Apple, and especially Microsoft, Mozilla has shown a good track record on privacy. Sure, it relies to some degree on advertisers and Google, but Mozilla itself is not doing the spying. Moreover, it provides tools for blocking surveillance, even as part of the browser’s core. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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There are 13 security advisories attached to the Firefox 27 release, four of them ranked as being critical. As is common in nearly all Firefox release updates, one of the critical updates is for a group of vulnerabilities that Mozilla labels “Miscellaneous memory safety hazards.”
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The smartphone is currently dominated by two big systems; Android and iOS. But there are others in the run. With Microsoft struggling to get anyone to voluntarily use Windows Phone, maybe Sailfish OS, Ubuntu Touch and/or Firefox OS will make a difference. It’s this last one I attended a talk about at FOSDEM. So here it goes; The current state of Firefox OS, and what we can expect for the future.
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The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) took place recently in Las Vegas, and Mozilla officials made headlines there as they revealed plans to take the Firefox OS mobile platform to devices other than smartphones, and a new deal between Panasonic and Mozilla to drive smart, HTML 5-fluent televisions. It’s all part of Mozilla’s ongoing effort to focus on mobile technology and new platforms.
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The scandal over NSA snooping has caused many adverse reactions, but one of the more notable ones has just come from Mozilla’s chief privacy officer Alex Fowler. Speaking with NPR, with the interview coming just after President Obama’s public comments about government surveillance reform, Fowler said that the threat of a balkanized Internet is real. And indeed, some countries are proposing limitations on Internet use that would effectively keep users dealing with information produced within their own countries’ borders.
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Posted in Red Hat, Security at 6:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: News about Red Hat, including renewed suspicions that the company is too close to the NSA, not merely a business partner
wE BEGAN writing about Red Hat and NSA as its major client only a few months ago [1,2], mainly because we had found a claim by Red Hat staff that patches from the NSA were being passed to Torvalds via Red Hat. We later had that confirmed by Red Hat staff. This definitely does not inspire confidence because we already know that the NSA wanted to put back doors in Linux.
The latest such post about Red Hat and the NSA comes from FOSS Force, where Christine concludes: “If Red Hat isn’t working hand-in-hand with the NSA in its efforts to spy on us, then this poll obviously represents a public relations problem for the Raleigh, North Carolina based company. Although it’s doubtful that many, if any, of those taking this poll are Red Hat customers, we can only assume that results such as we’re seeing here indicate a potential problem of perception even outside the free software community. It wouldn’t bode well for Red Hat if these sentiments were to spread to include it’s user base.”
Christine is being very kind to Red Hat. She may be right, but many of her readers seem to agree that Red Hat could have been used by the NSA for back doors. Less than 40% trust Red Hat.
In other news about Red Hat (more positive news), here are the latest press releases, which barely received any press coverage:
News about Red Hat also still revolves around CentOS (the CentOS news is old, but it’s still abound [1]), OpenStack [2,3,4], or ‘cloud’, which usually means surveillance-friendly setups, sometimes with CIA in the loop [5]. Virtualisation too is in Red Hat’s pitch [6,7,8], not to mention Red Hat staff [9]. There seems to be a recruitment drive in Red Hat’s OpenSource.com, with emphasis on women this month [10-17]. Only one other site [18] seems to have dedicated an article to women in FOSS/software in the same period of time. There is nothing wrong with that, it’s just an observation.
The bottom line is this: we need clarifications from Red Hat where it matters. The silence on this matter has been deafening and if Red Hat says nothing to alleviate these worries, then this may actually contribute further to distrust. Red Hat is developing many core components in GNU/Linux systems and when NSA is using Red Hat to submit patches (created by the NSA) we do need some reassurances. It’s not just SELinux. Red Hat should identify very clearly which patches have come from the NSA so that extra scrutiny can be applied. Knowing what the NSA has done to NIST, RSA etc. it would also be wise to ostracise the NSA when it comes to patches. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Among the several reasons for Red Hat to embrace CentOS, its erstwhile copycatting nemesis, one explanation has largely been overlooked: The cloud made them do it. More specifically, OpenStack made them do it.
Red Hat had all but sewn up the market for Linux in the data center. But in the cloud, the market for Linux is both wide open—and perhaps nonexistent.
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If the advent of object-based storage à la OpenStack Swift is one sign of the decline of traditional storage technologies, the momentum of software-defined storage is yet more evidence that the future of data storage for the cloud and the enterprise is changing. And open source giant Red Hat (RHT) is the latest vendor to jump on board, with the announcement of new software-defined storage options for Red Hat partners that could have a wide impact across the channel.
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The RHEV 3.3 release is built on top of the open-source oVirt project, which is led by Red Hat. The new release adds support for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 platform, improves performance and supports a wider array of systems.
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I believe that the open source community as a whole would benefit if more open source developers considered the API and associated bindings as primary and the CLI as of secondary importance. Ideally, applications would be designed from the start with a well-defined API, a set of bindings that evolved with the API, and a CLI (if one was necessary) that was defined in a scripting language that made use of the bindings. Not only would this make the application ripe for automation, but it would likely have the added benefit of making the API better defined and more robust.
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There are few women developers and even proportionately less working in open source communities. However, a career in OSS is ideal for women who are seeking balance in their lives whether the balance is starting a family or maintaining balance with friends and a strenuous and engaging hobby. It’s well established that there’s a shortage of women pursuing careers in computer science. UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute found that just 0.3% of students majoring in technology-related fields are female, despite the high demand for those skills. As few as 1.5% of open source contributors are women.
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Marie Nordin is one of the OPW interns for the Fedora Project. She is the visual designer currently in charge of badge design for Fedora Badges, an open badges based web application that helps to encourage contributors in the Fedora community by awarding them with badges for their efforts. (For example, Marie is the proud recipient of the “Pixel Ninja” badge for her work on the Fedora Design team.) I interviewed Marie, and she shared how she came to open source, what open source projects she’s currently involved with, and her advice for other young women interested in getting involved.
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In the open source world, a women-only event seems counter-intuitive. Yet I am finding reasons for such events the more I attend them.
At the OpenStack Summit, a twice-a-year event where OpenStack contributors get together to plan the next release, the Women of OpenStack group has set up events where we invite the women first. Men aren’t excluded, but our hope is to get more OpenStack women together. I can hardly capture the value of getting together with other women in OpenStack at the Summit, but here goes.
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We’re familiar with the statistics, and we’ve seen the photos from the tech conferences. Seas full of men. It requires patience to scan for the odd female in those auditoriums. It’s a popular topic, this scarcity of women in technology, one of the hip things to whine about these days. It’s politically correct to blame the male “priesthood” in Silicon Valley. Ask Paul Graham. He took it in the ribs after a few reckless comments about the funding practices of his startup seed accelerator, Y Combinator. He was quoted as saying, “God knows what you would do to get 13 year old girls interested in computers. I would have to stop and think about that,” in a recent article. Ouch. But, really, is he so wrong?
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The Joomla! community, inside and outside the company, is diverse and multi-cultural. It is made up of all sorts of people with two things in common: a love for Joomla! and a willingness to reach out and help others on the other side of the keyboard.
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Whether the big media producers like it or not, digital technologies have made it easier than ever for popular culture fans to create remixes or derivative works from their favorite movies, TV shows, books, and other media. And the participatory nature of the Internet has arguably helped broaden the popular definition of a “fan community” from something exclusive to comic and sci-fi fans to being inclusive of many genres and people. This includes giving wider exposure to a vast and yet often overlooked demographic in pop fandom—women—and their influence on mainstream media stories.
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Women use the Internet 17% more than their male counterparts yet are underrepresented in programming and open source. Public libraries (and public schools) have a critical role to play with improving the dearth of diversity in coding and open source.
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December 2013′s EOF, titled “Mars Needs Women”, visited an interesting fact: that the male/female ratio among Linux Journal readers, and Linux kernel developers, is so lopsided (male high, female low) that graphing it would produce a near-vertical line. I was hoping the piece would invite a Linux hacker on the female side of that graph to step up and move the conversation forward. And sure enough, here we have Susan Sons aka @HedgeMage.
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Posted in Law at 5:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Today’s and yesterday’s news items about mass surveillance and abuse
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British intelligence ran denial-of-service attacks against chatrooms used by Anonymous and LulzSec, according to an investigation by NBC News involving Snowden confidante Glenn Greenwald.
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In recent years we’ve learned that the FBI has no problem with using informants to organise, encourage, and assist computer hacking at a global level, and now it seems GCHQ has been in on the double-standards game too: launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against chat servers hosted by Anonymous in 2010/2011 in order to scare off supporters of the movement.
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Earlier today, we wrote about the latest Snowden docs, in which it was revealed that the UK spy agency, GCHQ, was engaged in DDoS attacks on people participating in Anonymous chats and other events, while also helping to identify certain participants, leading to their eventual arrests and convictions. Basically, it looks like GCHQ was engaged in widespread DDoSing, while at the same time helping to convict some kids for doing their own DDoSing. We’ve already questioned whether or not GCHQ is even supposed to be doing that to UK citizens (they’re supposed to be focused on foreign targets), but some of those convicted are already questioning how it’s right that they were convicted of the same thing that the GCHQ itself was doing to them.
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As Americans have grown increasingly comfortable with traditional surveillance cameras, a new, far more powerful generation is being quietly deployed that can track every vehicle and person across an area the size of a small city, for several hours at a time. Although these cameras can’t read license plates or see faces, they provide such a wealth of data that police, businesses and even private individuals can use them to help identify people and track their movements.
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Whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations have revealed that a huge capability resides within America’s National Security Agency to collect and analyse communications.
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After closely following the National Security Agency story for two years (16+ months before anyone ever heard the name, Edward Snowden), I can honestly say that blogger and journalist Marcy Wheeler’s real-time coverage of this incredible chapter in the Orwellian history of our nation’s clandestine underbelly blows the doors off of virtually everyone (as she’s again reminding us, in multiple stories over the past day), in terms of her intensive and incisive analysis of the hard information and public statements that are being released by our government in the wake of the Snowden document leaks this past June.
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At least four different Senate committees have jurisdiction over the leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden — and now Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wants to create one committee to rule them all.
McCain introduced legislation on Tuesday that would create a special new committee to investigate the NSA. He has been calling for the creation of such a committee since October, and the resolution is his first concrete step toward that goal.
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Glenn Greenwald and three other journalists who were the first to report on whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaked NSA files will receive a George Polk award for their work. That’s according to a source familiar with the plans to award the prestigious prize later this month.
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Whoever suggests the Snowden revelations mean nothing to the lives of ordinary black people either isn’t paying close attention, or is working for the police and prison state. The federal DEA, the Justice Department’s federal drug police, have passed tons illegal NSA spying data to local police agencies and cynically coached them to lie about the sources of their evidence. It’s not exaggeration or hype. You can view the manuals online for yourself.
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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he has sympathy for companies at odds with the NSA and its surveillance tactics, but that their own dependence on server farms is part of the problem.
“I think most companies, just like Apple, start out young and idealistic,” Wozniak said at the Apps World North America convention here. “But now all these companies are going to the cloud. And with the cloud you don’t have any control.”
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Citing worries about foreign surveillance efforts, the government of Switzerland has ordered tighter control methods on its own computer and phone technology systems in order to prevent Swiss communications from being monitored.
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Since the revelations about the NSA from Edward Snowden’s leaks last year, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, who authored the Patriot Act, has come out in opposition to certain NSA surveillance practices, particularly bulk collection of Americans’ telephone metadata.
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For a long time Verizon was dead silent regarding their cooperation with the NSA, with the only public comment at one point being to mock Yahoo and Google for demanding greater government transparency. R
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A flurry of new reports from major technology companies show that the government collects customer information on tens of thousands of Americans every six months as part of secret national security investigations. And the companies’ top lawyers struck a combative stance, saying the Obama administrative needs to provide more transparency about its data collection.
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Last week, the ACLU joined a constitutional challenge to the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA), the statute that allows the NSA to engage in dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international phone calls and emails. With the Federal Defenders Office, we filed a motion on behalf of Jamshid Muhtorov, the first criminal defendant to receive notice that he had been monitored under this controversial spying law. But Mr. Muhtorov received this notice only after the Department of Justice (DOJ) abandoned its previous policy of concealing FAA surveillance in criminal cases — a policy that violated both the statute itself and defendants’ due process rights.
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Revelations of National Security Agency surveillance programs have prompted state lawmakers around the United States to propose bills to curtail the powers of law enforcement to monitor and track citizens.
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Angry over revelations of National Security Agency surveillance and frustrated with what they consider outdated digital privacy laws, state lawmakers around the nation are proposing bills to curtail the powers of law enforcement to monitor and track citizens.
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“There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt was upholding the wisdom of our founding fathers. But we have governed our country by the opposite creed since 9/11.
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Based upon the disturbing revelations of the NSA power abuse that continue to come into the light of transparency, it is clear that significant changes and controls need to be made in how the NSA is allowed to conduct business.
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Last month, former Congressman Otis Pike died, and no one seemed to notice or care. That’s scary, because Pike led the House’s most intensive and threatening hearings into US intelligence community abuses, far more radical and revealing than the better-known Church Committee’s Senate hearings that took place at the same time. That Pike could die today in total obscurity, during the peak of the Snowden NSA scandal, is, as they say, a “teachable moment” —one probably not lost on today’s already spineless political class.
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Posted in News Roundup at 4:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Hot on the heels of the first CryEngine game Kingdom Come: Deliverance to support Linux, Linux just got another game in its steadily increasing repertory of big-budget games. This time too it is an open world RPG game named Cradle. The game is being developed by Pittsburg based Mojo Game Studios, founded by students of Carnegie Melon University. The game has been in development for a year and has now been put up on Kickstarter to secure the target funding of $350,000 in 17 days. It has also managed to secure a pledge of $75k, so the situation is looking quite plausible for it to secure the necessary funding within the time limit.
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Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, the highly anticipated sequel to the blood splattered and gory game Hotline Miami, will be released sometime around the third quarter of 2014. This bit of news comes from the official Twitter account of the gory top-down shooter.
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The Steam Music Beta is coming soon to Big Picture and SteamOS interfaces, with desktop features soon to follow. To express interest in beta participation, join the Steam Music community group. Group members will be invited in waves, until the feature is released to everyone.
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This will please big picture mode users and SteamOS/Steam Machine users alike, Steam is planning to add music controls built-in to Steam itself allow you to control music while gaming.
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In-Home Streaming was part of the SteamOS announcement Valve made back in September and beta invites to the functionality have been sent to some people around the internet. Luckily I was part of that group and I can share some of it with you!
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When Valve announced Steam Machines, many were concerned about the slew of different models that will be available to consumers. With so many different options and price schemes, it seems as though it may be bit muddled and perhaps problematic for Valve’s new software platform.
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PC World explores the benefits of Steam’s beta game streaming to ancient computers that can now be used for gaming.
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Linux has a prodigious library of free games many of which are released under an open source license. A large proportion of these open source games are eye catching. Popular games often have full motion video, vector graphics, 3D graphics, realistic 3D rendering, animation, texturing, a physics engine, and much more. Early computer games did not have these graphic techniques. The earliest video games were text games or text-based games that used text characters rather than vector or bitmapped graphics.
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