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04.25.14

Links 25/4/2014: Steam Desktop Client Updated, GNU/Linux in Swiss Schools

Posted in News Roundup at 1:09 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • Intel NUC sports 5W Atom, offered as kit or SBC

      Intel announced a fanless mini-tower “NUC” mini-PC for thin clients, equipped with a 5-Watt Atom E3815 SoC and a new custom expansion interface.

      The Linux-compatible Intel NUC Kit DE3815TYKHE is Intel’s first fanless member of its NUC (Next Unit of Computing) family of mini-PCs. The computer is also available as a single board computer (SBC) called the NUC Board DE3815TYBE.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Netanyahu Continues Vicious

      But even with all that, the appalling smug reaction of Netanyahu is sickening. Israel at no stage had the slightest intention of entering any meaningful peace process, stopping settlement building, or reducing the dispossession and discrimination suffered by Arabs of all sorts within Israel itself. The World’s most vicious and unrelenting theological and racist state continues to be just that. The United States was not in any sense genuinely involved in abetting a peace process; it was managing the process of genocide of the Palestinians, drawn out over decades, just conducted with enough disguise to allow the mainstream media to pretend it is not happening.

    • Gerhard Schroeder Buys Holiday Home in Crimea

      Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has purchased a 1250 square meter holiday home in Crimea.

      According to a report in the Sepastabol Times, Schroeder bought the beachfront property in Crimea’s Yalta district last Tuesday for €1.2 million in an all-cash deal. The posh mansion reportedly has 7 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, and an indoor olympic-sized swimming pool

      Sources close to Schroeder say he intends to spend his summers in Yalta and is unconcerned about the international controversy surrounding Russia’s annexation of the territory from Ukraine last month.

    • Drones cannot replace politics

      The overriding fact, however, is that drone warfare by the U.S. is achieving the opposite of what it was meant to do. Under the 2001 Authorisation for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), the U.S. government can engage in targeted killings, including attacks on U.S. citizens (three of whom have been killed by drones), without further warrant; even the targets, namely “associated forces” of al-Qaeda, are loosely defined.

    • An Artist’s Attempt to Plot Out All Drones Using Satellite Images

      Drones — known for their stealthiness and secret operations — are becoming exposed photo by photo by one artist.

      James Bridle, 33, is using open-source satellite imagery to show the location of drones around the world to increase overall visibility. He consults news articles, Wikipedia pages, Google Maps, Google Earth and other publicly available satellite maps to locate the drones and snap photos.

    • FOIA win against government on drones

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

    • The French Sensation: Income Inequality in 700 Pages and a Hundred Graphs

      The hottest book everybody is talking about, that no one has read and no can get their hands on, is a giant, data-packed tome on income inequality covering three hundred years of history by the French economist Thomas Piketty. Is there a reason he’s getting the rock star treatment? Is it the symptoms that resonate (our drift into oligarchy), or is it the cure (a progressive tax on wealth)?

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • New leak exposes how the FBI directed Anonymous’ hacks

      Dozens of pages of previously unreleased documents pertaining to the prosecution of hacktivist Jeremy Hammond have been released, further linking the United States government to a gamut of cyberattacks waged against foreign nations.

      Hammond, 29, made waves last November when he defied a US federal judge’s order and told a packed New York City courtroom on the day of his sentencing that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had relied on an undercover informant to direct members of the amorphous hacking collective Anonymous to target the websites of adversarial nations.

      The latest releases now lend credence to Hammond’s claims that the FBI guided Anonymous into conducting cyberattacks at their behest, regardless of the sheer illegality involved. The documents — a previously unpublished statement purported to be authored by Hammond and never-before-seen court files —now corroborate the role of the feds in these proxy cyberwars of sorts.

      Using the internet alias “Sabu,” the turncoat — Hector Xavier Monsegur of New York — supplied Hammond with lists of vulnerable targets that were then compromised, Hammond said in his courtroom testimony on Nov. 15. Data and details were pillaged and exploited, Hammond said, and then shared with the informant and, ergo, the FBI.

    • Muslim Americans Who Claim FBI Used No-Fly List to Coerce Them Into Becoming Informants File Lawsuit

      Naveed Shinwari is one of four American Muslims who filed suit against the government this week for placing them on the U.S. “no-fly list” in order to coerce them into becoming FBI informants. The plaintiffs say the government refuses to explain why they were named on the no-fly list. They also believe that their names continue to be listed because they would not agree to become FBI informants and spy on their local communities. “It’s very frustrating, you feel helpless,” Shinwari says. “No one will tell you how you can get off of it, how you got on it. It has a profound impact on people’s lives.” We are also joined by Shayana Kadidal, senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is seeking to remove the men from the no-fly list and establish a new legal mechanism to challenge placement on it.

    • Jackson: Gun owner unarmed, unwelcome in Maryland
    • Man Claims Police Searched Vehicle For Licensed Handgun Kept At Home

      A Florida man and his family were returning home from a wedding and Christmas celebrations in New Jersey when they were allegedly pulled over, forced out of their vehicle and searched by several Maryland police – all because John Filippidis is licensed to carry a firearm.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Our Internet Needs More Than “Internet Governance”

      Under the influence by governments and corporations, the final outcome document of the NETmundial forum became a weak, toothless and disappointing text. Despite the Brazilian president’s courageous speeches, NETmundial illustrates just how farcical and pointless efforts for a “global multistakeholder Internet Governance” are. If anything, the Net should be “governed” by citizens directly, independently of these circles and without waiting for the “global consensus”. Our shared communications infrastructure must be considered a common good, politically defined as such and defended.

    • IPv4 Space Almost Completely Allocated

      In February of 2011, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated its final two /8 IPv4 address blocks of address space. That event marked the end of the so called “free pool” availability of IPv4 address space available to Regional Internet Registries (RIR), but it didn’t mean that IPv4 had become unavailable.

    • NETmundial puts us on the right track

  • Intellectual Monopolies

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