Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 16/5/2014: HP Selling GNU/Linux PCs in China



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



Leftovers



  • Security



  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • The UK In The Dock
      International Criminal Court is to investigate war crimes committed by British armed forces in Iraq.




  • Censorship



    • The EU's Google Decision Destroys Search


    • European Court of Justice Google ruling gives the Dog a Bone


    • Google ruling 'astonishing', says Wikipedia founder Wales
      A ruling forcing Google to remove search results has been described as "astonishing" by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

      The European Courts of Justice ruled on Tuesday that an individual could demand that "irrelevant or outdated" information be deleted from results.

      Mr Wales said it was "one of the most wide-sweeping internet censorship rulings that I've ever seen".

      Google has said it is looking into the implications of the decision.


    • Health And Human Services Apparently Unable To Recognize Satire; Sends Bogus Legal Threat
      Another day, another story of someone with skin way too thin not comprehending satire and dashing off an angry legal threat. In this case, it's worse than usual because the bogus legal threat is coming from the US government. Popehat has the full story of how some of the legal geniuses at the Department of Health and Human Services have sent a bogus cease-and-desist letter over a pair of obviously satirical posts on the site AddictionMyth.com. While we've long been skeptical of the medical profession's desire to label all sorts of things "addictions," that particular site takes it to extreme levels, arguing that there's nothing that's addictive, and all talk of addictions (including drug and alcohol addictions) are just a big scam "perpetrated by law enforcement, rehab groups and the entertainment industry." I think that's nuts, but they certainly have their right to say so.




  • Privacy



    • Photos of an NSA “upgrade” factory show Cisco router getting implant
      A document included in the trove of National Security Agency files released with Glenn Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide details how the agency’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit and other NSA employees intercept servers, routers, and other network gear being shipped to organizations targeted for surveillance and install covert implant firmware onto them before they’re delivered. These Trojan horse systems were described by an NSA manager as being “some of the most productive operations in TAO because they pre-position access points into hard target networks around the world.”

      The document, a June 2010 internal newsletter article by the chief of the NSA’s Access and Target Development department (S3261) includes photos (above) of NSA employees opening the shipping box for a Cisco router and installing beacon firmware with a “load station” designed specifically for the task.


    • Encrypted Internet Traffic Surges in a Year, Research Shows
      Encrypted Internet traffic is surging worldwide according to data published by Canadian broadband management company Sandvine. After the Snowden revelations the bandwidth consumed by encrypted traffic doubled in North America, and in Europe and Latin America the share of encrypted traffic quadrupled.


    • Our privacy is interdependent
      Last week I gave a presentation at CommonsFest in the spirit of my Free Your Android post, trying to educate people on simple steps they can make to have better privacy on their mobile devices.

      A couple of days before my presentation I watched this great speech from Jillian York and Jacob Appelbaum (please go and watch this). At some point Jacob mentions that "our security is interdependent".


    • Rostock University Faculty to award Edward Snowden an honorary doctorate
      Members of the Faculty of Arts, Rostock University, Germany, have voted to award Edward Snowden an honorary doctorate degree.


    • The best way to read Glenn Greenwald's 'No Place to Hide'
      Journalist Glenn Greenwald just dropped a pile of new secret National Security Agency documents onto the Internet. But this isn’t just some haphazard WikiLeaks-style dump. These documents, leaked to Greenwald last year by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, are key supplemental reading material for his new book, No Place to Hide, which went on sale Tuesday.




  • Civil Rights



  • Internet/Net Neutrality



  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • Let’s all welcome the UK IP Crime Group! – Yet another “group” surrounding industry and IP?
        It has a .gov address and many of the people I talk to would advise against challenging government agencies/bodies (I believe because of an unwarranted fear of repercussions), suffice to say it doesn’t bother me at all and taking a closer look at the connections between industry and government is always worth doing, if it wasn’t then past “naughty” behaviour by others would never have been discovered.

        Is it a I scratch your back world? Who knows? But what is known is that there’s a growing trade (for want of a better word) in groups that live off “defending” others IP. Its worth noting that many of these groups don’t actually create anything at all and are funded to serve the interests of the businesses who pay them. Pay them I hasten to add in many cases on the back of huge profits.








Recent Techrights' Posts

Snooping EPO Management, Sniffing Up Every Staff Action
It this a problem for whistleblowers? Of course.
Don't Do That
Options do exist. People should exercise freedom.
Iran Has Debunked GAFAM and Cloud Computing as Safety of Data
Cloud of smoke?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 188 Out of 200: Used, Then Discarded, by Microsoft (as We Predicted All Along, It's Always Like That)
The longer they carry on with it, the more scandalous this will get
43rd Anniversary of the GNU Project Announcement
Coming soon
SLAPP Censorship - Part 187 Out of 200: Reminding Ourselves of the Great Damage Garrett Did to Linux (for Microsoft)
he rejects freedom
 
Illegal and Unconstitutional Tribunal That SLAPPs Critics Does the Illegal and Unconstitutional: It "Rubberstamps Software Patents"
This is not a legal system. This is mafia.
Privilege in 'Linux' Foundation (Double Standards) and What the FSF Should Avoid Doing
If RMS can talk about politics, others too should be able to talk about politics
Seems Like Many Microsoft Layoffs Are Going On Right Now (Forever Layoffs)
Like IBM, Microsoft hopes shareholders will not know of morale and financial problems
More Threats From the Person of Restricted Boot Infamy
Remember this is the man who is the principal purveyor of restricted boot and who landed restricted boot in Linux
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 17, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, September 17, 2026
Linux Kernel Becoming a Slopfest - Part 3 - Besieged by LLM Bots, Now Hiding Behind a Wall of JavaScript
The series began 3 days ago
Gemini Links 18/09/2026: Modern Linguistic, Boxing, Turning 40, and Solar MiniServer
Links for the day
Links 17/09/2026: Studio Closures and Negative Rumours About Microsoft XBox Again
Links for the day
What's Wrong with Microsoft's GitHub, New Article by Jacob Bachmeyer and Richard Stallman
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
EBay is Going to Die Soon
Users will flee
Red Hat PIPs. The Only Question is, How Many?
Insiders know what's coming soon
This Week The Register MS Published a Page With "AI" 34 Times in It and It Was, as Usual, Paid SPAM!
Does The Register MS understand that it is doing harm to its audience (for temporary gains)?
General Assembly (Meeting of All Staff) Starts in Hour Ago to Discuss Strikes at Europe's Second-Largest Institution (EPO), Strikes to Last Until End of 2026 (If Not Further)
The media absolutely does not cover this and that's intentional
Cancel Culture is a Cancer That Harms Democracy, Justice, and Science. It's Designed to Help Corporations Vanish Their Critics.
"Codes of Conduct" sounds benign; in practice, however, it is not
Links 17/09/2026: Class Action Lawsuit Over GAFAM's "NameTag" and Automattic Hides What It Did to CEO Mullenweg (or Why)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/09/2026: Google Signals the End, ROOPHLOCH Coverage, EBay Uses Offensive Bots to Falsely Accuse Users of Stuff
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 16, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 16, 2026
IBM's Anderon Another Opportunity for Debt-Loading, Publicity Stunts, Maybe Hidden Layoffs
Anderon is like Theranos
In Praise of 7 Years of Alex Oliva in the FSF, Not IBM
Thank you, Mr. Oliva, for 7 years of uncompressing advocacy and perseverance
SLAPP Censorship - Part 186 Out of 200: Love (Always Commands)
This coming Friday we celebrate our wedding anniversary
With Half of September Finished Clownflare Radar Sees GNU/Linux at 7% "Market Share"
On desktops/laptops
Linux Kernel Becoming a Slopfest - Part 2 - Bribes From Slop Pushers Divide Us
Money can and does divide people
Gemini Links 16/09/2026: Cards, Nature, and Conspiracy Theorists
Links for the day
Links 16/09/2026: Proprietary Chatbots Company Lets Humans Moderate Chatbots, "Putin Looking to See How Far he Can Push NATO"
Links for the day
The Only Still-Supported Version of Windows Breaks Itself (Again), the Microsoft Layoffs Will Carry on in Secret
In the US they marked about 7% for removal just this past summer
Wikileaks Turns 20 Just 18 Days From Now
it's fair to say they've endured online, but aren't lively/active
The Cyber Show Debunks the Alleged Intelligence in Slop
It's shorter than usual
Expecting Failure
Some things would not happen to technology (tech) experts because they know how things work and what to expect (or watch out for)
Links 16/09/2026: US Running Low/Out of Some Ammo Due to Wars, Slop Bots "Are Using an Outrageous Amount of Electricity"
Links for the day
"AI Slowdown" is Code Word for Bubble Imploding (Trying to Make This Slowdown Seem Wilful, an Act of Safety and Responsibility)
They help one another by inflating the bubble and making false excuses when expansion stalls
SLAPP Censorship - Part 185 Out of 200: What Reputation?
Helping monopolies and working for monopolies never made anybody popular
Gemini Links 16/09/2026: Slovenia, Catastrophe Ethics, and ROOPHLOCH 2026
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 15, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 15, 2026