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Links 5/6/2014: Alpine Linux 3.0.0, More OpenSSL Bugs Fixed





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • The sought after Linux professional
    There's no such thing as "just a Linux sysadmin," which is what makes Linux professionals so incredibly valuable. We've all been hearing that the demand for Linux professionals is "at its highest ever!!!" for years. In recent years, though, it hasn't just been Linux nuts like me saying it. You may reference the 2014 Linux Jobs Report by The Linux Foundation and assume they're biased, but a quick search over at Monster.com shows that the demand for Linux professionals is a real thing.


  • Server





  • Kernel Space



    • Linux 3.16: New Synaptics Driver, Improved Sony DualShock 4 Driver
      The HID/input pull request for the Linux 3.16 merge window has been sent in with some useful additions.

      First up for the HID Linux 3.16 pull is an RMI driver, which is for supporting Synaptics RMI4 devices over USB or I2C. The RMI driver right now uses its own RMI4 implementation but will ultimately become a transport driver for the RMI4 library once it's been merged upstream. This driver was developed by Synaptics along with Red Hat and other independent kernel contributors.


    • Linux Kernel 3.12.21 LTS Officially Released
      After a period when Linux kernel updates were smaller than usual, the developers have started once again to send patches and fixes, even for slightly older kernels, like 3.12.x. This is the most advanced Long Term Support kernel version and it's expected to see more changes than the rest of them.


    • KVM Gets Improved For S390, POWER & MIPS
      The KVM virtualization update for Linux 3.16 brings improvements mostly for less common CPU architectures. With the Linux 3.17 kernel should come more interesting work for x86 fans but KVM on IA64 is likely to get the boot.

      Paolo Bonzini sent in the Kernel-based Virtual Machine changes this morning for the Linux 3.16 kernel. This pull request brings a lot of changes for IBM's S390 architecture with regard to optimizations, support for migration, GDB support, and other improvements. Within the ARM space the only noteworthy change was support for the PSCI 0.2 hyper-call interface.


    • Linux Foundation Releases Program for LinuxCon and CloudOpen North America


    • The Linux Kernel: An Explanation In Layman’s Terms
      There are so many Linux distributions out in the wild, but there is only one de facto thing that they have in common: the Linux kernel. But while it’s often talked about, a lot of people don’t really know exactly what it does.

      Let’s take a look at what the Linux kernel really does and why it’s needed, with as few geeky terms as possible.


    • From pre-history to beyond the global thermonuclear war
      This is a short and vague glimpse to the interfaces that the Linux kernel offers to user space for display and graphics management, from the history to what is hot and new, to what might perhaps be coming after. The topic came current for me when I started preparing Weston for global thermonuclear war.


    • Linux GPU Drivers Prepare For Global Thermo-Nuclear War


    • Graphics Stack



      • Nouveau On Linux 3.16 Will Allow You To Try Re-Clocking
        The Nouveau DRM graphics driver for open-source NVIDIA support hasn't seen any fundamental re-clocking support breakthroughs for the upcoming Linux 3.16 kernel but the support can be easily enabled for select GeForce GPU models.


      • Radeon H.264 VCE Video Encoding With OpenMAX Lands In Mesa
        In continuation of the Phoronix article from a few days ago about AMD Adds Gallium3D H.264 Profile Encoding Support, that work has now landed within Mesa's Git code-base.


      • KMSCUBE Now Runs On NVIDIA's Jetson TK1


      • X.Org Server "Strawberry Shortcake" Released
        X.Org Server 1.16 is expected to be officially released in early July. This major X.Org Server update clears over one thousand compiler warnings, lands in-server GLAMOR support and many GLAMOR-related improvements, works better without root privileges, improves Ultra HD 4K monitor support, and has many other changes.


      • Open-Source NVIDIA Changes Are Exciting For Linux 3.16
        Besides being able to try out re-clocking with Linux 3.16, there's also several other changes lined up for this next kernel release cycle when it comes to the Nouveau driver providing open-source NVIDIA graphics support.

        Here's the key changes currently living within the Nouveau DRM repository that should be pulled into DRM-next and land within the Linux 3.16 merge window:




    • Benchmarks



      • The Performance-Per-Watt, Efficiency Of Intel/AMD/NVIDIA GPUs On Open-Source Drivers
        To complement the initial results yesterday of trying 60+ graphics cards on the open-source Linux GPU drivers -- with today being the ten year birthday of Phoronix -- here's the second round of our mass open-source graphics driver testing. While in Wednesday's article were the raw OpenGL results for the wide-range of graphics processors on the open-source Intel, Radeon, and Nouveau articles, in today's article are complementary results providing a brief look at the system power consumption, performance-per-Watt, CPU usage, and GPU thermal information when testing the hardware in the same configuration.






  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments/WMs



    • Enlightenment 0.19 Now In Alpha With Better Wayland Support
      Enlightenment 0.19 Alpha was just tagged as the very latest desktop / window manager work that includes improved Wayland support for E19.


    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt



    • GNOME Desktop/GTK



      • AstroWeather – a GNOME Shell extension for astronomical weather forecasts
        In the time off over Christmas and the New Year I decided to investigate & learn about the creation of GNOME Shell extensions. As an amateur astronomer, I have an interest in knowing what the “seeing conditions” will be like in the forthcoming nights. There are a number of different websites which provide forecasts, as well as apps for Android and iPhone. I use the Android AstroPanel application quite frequently, but most of the day I’m sitting in front of my laptop and would rather have the data presented there, alongside the regular weather forecast, rather than on my phone. So after finding that extensions are quite simple to create, I decided to create an extension for displaying an astronomical weather forecast for GNOME Shell.


      • From GNOME 3 to GNOME Classic in 3 extensions, or why GNOME Classic has become redundant
        GNOME Classic is a GNOME 3 desktop designed to offer the look-and-feel of a GNOME 2/MATE desktop, that is, of a traditional or classic GNOME desktop.

        It’s for people who are not fond of the default GNOME Shell. It comes with every installation of GNOME 3, offered as an option in the login screen’s Session menu.


      • GNOME 3.14 to Replace Message Tray with Better Notification System
        GNOME developers are making some very important changes that will come into effect with the release of the 3.14 branch, and it looks like the notification system will also get an overhaul.

        The current notification system that is being used in GNOME is not all that bad, but it could be better. In fact, there are quite a few extensions that change the way notifications are handled in GNOME, so it stands to reason that the developers can make some improvements.


      • GNOME 3.14 to Finally Get an Improved Icon Theme
        The GNOME developers have finally decided that the time to upgrade the icon theme has arrived, and it looks like the 3.14 release will see some changes in this department.

        One of the first things a user sees when starting a distribution powered by GNOME is the icon set used. You would imagine that developers paid more attention to something that is responsible with first impressions, but you would be wrong.






  • Distributions



    • Build your own distro part two
      Canonical provides a minimal Ubuntu install CD. It’s smaller than the regular installation ISO and it installs a minimal version of the distribution. At its most basic, it gives the user a command line, network connectivity and not much else. From this bare-bones beginning, it’s possible to selectively add components while leaving out most of the cruft that tends to come with a standard distribution.


    • Kali Linux Improves Penetration Testing
      There are a lot of tools and applications available to security researchers to conduct penetration testing. Many of those tools run on the open-source Linux operating system, though not every distribution is properly configured to be a proper platform for security research. That's where the Kali Linux distribution comes into play as an optimized Linux distribution built for security researchers. The Kali Linux 1.0.7 distribution was officially released on May 27, providing users with a number of new features. Kali Linux was originally known as Backtrack Linux, before being renamed and rebuilt in March 2013. One of the primary new features in Version 1.0.7 is the introduction of encrypted USB persistence for Live images. With that feature, Kali Linux can be installed onto a USB storage key, with user storage that can be updated and fully encrypted. One of the key benefits of Kali Linux is that it assembles in one place many tools that security researchers need. Tools for information gathering, vulnerability analysis, Web applications, password attacks, stress testing and even hardware hacking are all included. In this slide show, eWEEK takes a look at some of the features of the Kali Linux 1.0.7 release.


    • New Releases



      • Backup and Recovery OS Clonezilla Live 2.2.3-17 Now Available for Download
        The Clonezilla team released a new development version for their Linux distro with just a small update for the Debian base and a couple of changes.

        “The underlying GNU/Linux operating system was upgraded. This release is based on the Debian Sid repository, as of June 2, 2014,” reads the official announcement.


      • Alpine Linux 3.0.0 Is an OS for Terminal Aficionados


      • Alpine 3.0.0 released
        We are pleased to announce Alpine Linux 3.0.0, the first release in v3.0 stable series.

        This is the first release with musl libc instead of uClibc and is not ABI compatible with earlier versions, so special care needs to be taken when upgrading. See http://alpinelinux.org/edge-musl on how to upgrade.


      • Hands-on with Makulu Linux 6.1 Xfce: Big, beautiful and fun
        This has been a rocky couple of weeks for the Makulu Linux distribution, but with the release this week of Makulu 6.1 Xfce, things are looking good again.

        With the initial 6.0 Xfce release they switched to the LMDE installer, and that seemed to lead to a plethora of problems. The lead developer, Jacque Raymer, spent what must surely have been a week in Hell fixing the problems, improving the integration of the Mint Installer with the Makulu distributions, and rewriting the post-installation setup scripts. The result of that massive effort is the Makulu Linux Xfce 6.1 release.

        The release announcement mentions some of the problems and explains some of the work that went into solving them. The release notes, which are actually the original 6.0 notes with some additional 6.1 information on the end, give a much more complete overview of the 6.x Xfce releases.




    • Screenshots



    • Red Hat Family



      • New Sandboxing Features Come To Systemd
        Lennart Poettering has added two new service sandboxing features to systemd.

        For improving the security of Linux services, Lennart added ReadOnlySystem and ProtectedHome settings for services. ReadOnlySystem will mount /usr and /boot as read-only for the specific service. The ProtectedHome setting mounts /home and /run/user as read-only or replaces it with an empty, inaccessible directory.


      • BizCloud(R) Joins Red Hat OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure Partner Network


      • Cerner Enhances Critical Healthcare Application Hosting Services with Red Hat
        Red Hat, Inc., (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Cerner Corporation, a global health care information technology company, has successfully leveraged Red Hat Enterprise Linux to enhance the stability and performance of its world-class application hosting services. Combined with a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and improved scalability, Red Hat Enterprise Linux has helped Cerner meet the healthcare industry’s growing demand for IT solutions and services.


      • Fedora



        • Tracking your time and tasks on Fedora
          Being a research student is really tough. I mean tough! The most difficult part is keeping up the self discipline, day after day, week after week. As a research student, you make your own schedule, you even make your own syllabus pretty much. I handle the syllabus part just fine, but I struggle with maintaining a disciplined schedule. It takes a while to get into a stable rhythm where you work according to plan and remain focussed on the task at hand, for however long it takes. On the other hand, it’s really easy to upset said rhythm: a late night coding spree, a night out with friends, an unexpected task that makes you diverge from your plan for the day etc. are often sufficient to make me sleep late and mess up the next day. Self discipline requires commitment, and a lot of hard work. Luckily, I’m not alone in this struggle. Here’s a helpful post on improving self discipline: http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/self-discipline/. Since I spend most of my day at a computer, I went around and looked for tools that would help me keep focussed on my work; keep me away from distractions (yes, Facebook is a distraction); and help me work according to the plans I make.


        • Core DNF Plugins 0.1.0 Released


        • Red Hat's Fedora Linux Operating System Gains New Leader


        • Upcoming: OpenStack workshop at Fedora Flock conference, Prague (Aug 6-9, 2014) | Kashyap Chamarthy






    • Debian Family





  • Devices/Embedded



    • Pi-based private cloud storage device runs Linux
      A $149 “Sherlybox” NAS debuted on Kickstarter today, based on a Raspberry Pi core, and offering a secure VPN that creates an invite-only cloud service.


    • Learn about 20 Amazing Raspberry Pi projects on our new digital Pi project bookazine
      Over the past couple of years we’ve been able to bring our readers an amazing array of Raspberry Pi projects that we are genuinely proud of. From big projects such as building your own robot and quadcopters down to the little stuff like making melodies with Sonic Pi or making Pong.


    • Arynga and Mentor Graphics Showcase Over-The-Air Updates for Linux-Based Infotainment Systems at the 2014 Telematics Update Conference, Detroit
      Arynga, Inc. , an innovator and leader in the delivery of intelligent vehicle software management solutions, announced its recent partnership with the Embedded Software Division of Mentor Graphics€® , a leader in Linux-based infotainment, automotive software and network design. The two companies publicized this partnership today at the 2014 Telematics Update Conference in Detroit, where Mentor debuted the integration of CarSyncâ„¢ , Arynga’s software update management platform, with the Mentor Embedded Automotive Technology Platform (ATP) .


    • Enea AB: Expanded embedded Linux training portfolio from Enea
      Enea (NASDAQ OMX Nordic: ENEA), a leading operating system solution vendor for telecom infrastructure equipment, today announced its partnership with the Linux Foundation concerning embedded Linux training courses. Enea is one of four announced training partners to date, and can thereby offer Linux professionals the full range of Linux Foundation courses, in addition to its own training curriculum.


    • AMD G-Series processors get more security
      Embedded Linux development and commercial support for the AMD G-Series family is available through Mentor Embedded Linux and Sourcery CodeBench, as well as no-cost Mentor Embedded Linux Lite.


    • Presentation slides from seven talks at ELC 2014
      The talks cover a wide range of challenges and issues associated with porting Linux or Android to new embedded hardware platforms and SoCs. Topics include overviews of Buildroot, Yocto, and the Device Tree; discussions of issues such as SMP support and boot-time reduction; and an example of supporting a new ARM-based SoC from Allwinner.


    • 10 essential upgrades for your Raspberry Pi
      If you’re anything like us – and dear Lord we hope you are not – you sometimes sit staring at your Raspberry Pi, willing it to do more. Unfortunately our mental prowess is not powerful enough to materialise extra features or tweak the performance of the ARM chip, so we instead turned to the internet and looked for ways to upgrade our Pi.

      We came away with ten items that can help make your Raspberry Pi usage just that little bit better; from the simplest of USB cable switches to full-on touch screen LCD displays for the Pi. We then wrote a feature about it which you can read all about in the latest issue of Linux User & Developer.


    • Phones



      • In the Matrix of Mobile, Linux Is Zion
        In mobile we are losing the free world called the Web and the Net. How do we save it?

        Already most of us spend more time on mobile devices than we do on desktops and laptops, put together. We also can do a lot more stuff, in a lot more places, on mobile devices than on computers. There were more than a million iOS apps on the shelves of Apple's store in October 2013, and I'm guessing there are at least that many Android apps on Google's shelves by now.

        Meanwhile, app development on computers is slacking off—so is Web development, except as required to accessorize mobile apps. And on mobile devices, use of the Web is fading as well. According to Flurry Analytics, the Web's share of mobile use dropped from 20% in 2013 to 14% in 2014. In "The Decline of the Mobile Web", Chris Dixon writes.


      • Android TV Pegged for June Appearance
        Android TV "certainly shows Google's character as an organization," said Brett Sappington, director of research for Parks Associates. "I don't know of any other organization that would take three tries to get it right. Google embraces risk more than other organizations do." The challenge is getting the mix of user interaction and ease of use right, he added.


      • Ballnux



        • Samsung's 'OS of Everything' Tizen still has little to offer
          The first smartphone running the Linux-based Tizen OS is here, even if it will likely be a long time before most of us can get our hands on it. But forget about phones – Tizen is also about cars, TVs, home automation, wearables, and more.


        • Developers get 100% Revenue and In App purchases Revenue share in the Tizen Store
          Hey developers, do you want another good reason to join the Tizen Store and sell your applications? During the Tizen Developer Conference the Tizen store has launched a great revenue share promotion in which you receive 100% of the sales revenue for applications and In App Purchase sold during the promotion period. You get all the money for a full year. Check below for additional information










Free Software/Open Source



  • Upstream serves up conversations with people who move open source forward
    Upstream is a new podcast featuring interviews and conversations with people who are moving open source forward. The podcast is produced by Red Hat's Open Source and Standards team. In their first episode, Joe Brockmeier talks with Leslie Hawthorn of Elasticsearch about her Sunday morning keynote at the Twelfth Annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE 12x) in February this year. In Why Checking Your Privilege is Good For You, Leslie asks how we can use our level of privilege—whether in our field, in our community, or in our job—to help others, with lower levels of privilege in said field, community, or workplace, to get involved and succeed.


  • New OpenLMI Web Site


  • Red Hat Software Collections 1.1 Now Generally Available


  • Red alert for Linux programmers: Red Hat Software Collections 1.1 released


  • Red Hat Software Collections 1.1 Updates Tools, Language Support
    Red Hat has announced the general availability of Software Collections 1.1, their update of common web development tools, dynamic languages, and open-source databases. Red Hat Software Collections provide newer versions of these key open-source packages than what is offered by default in RHEL while being backed by three years of Red Hat support.


  • Are open-source projects the pathway to better security?
    A common challenge to the security of open-source software is the ability of teams to focus on writing and testing the code. Counter this with organizations that dedicate entire teams solely to testing and improving the quality of the product.

    As James pointed out in our discussion, the difference is often the passion. OSS projects appeal to the craft of solving a problem. It provides an opportunity to contribute, to collaborate, to improve.


  • OSSEC 2.8 has been released
    OSSEC is a cross-platform host intrusion detection system. Hence it’s also known as OSSEC HIDS. It is Free software released under the GNU General Public License, and features log analysis, file integrity monitoring, rootkit detection and real-time active responses. If you intend to run a server anywhere, this is one of the first applications you want to install on it.

    OSSEC is a much better security application than Fail2ban, another popular host intrusion prevention application. OSSEC offers a centralized management server with support for agent and agentless monitoring. A complete description of its features are available here.


  • Fujitsu Labs: Is Trend Open-Source or Cloud-Labor?


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



    • Chrome



      • Best Chrome Apps and Extensions for Developers
        Google Chrome, the world's most loved web browser has come a long way. Once touted as a faster alternative to Firefox has turned itself into a significant player in the OS marketplace. With the launch of Chromebooks, Google has ensured that pretty much everything you do on your desktop can be done in your web browser. Taking this vision further, the search behemoth turned the web browser into a full-fledged operating system. Running on top of Linux, Google Chrome OS has become a crowd favorite. Its ability to sync seamlessly across all devices has made the initial naysayers give Chrome OS a second chance.




    • Mozilla



      • PlayCanvas takes its WebGL video game engine open source
        Video game creators will be pleased to hear that the WebGL PlayCanvas Engine has been open-sourced. Mozilla announced the move today on its developer blog and you can access the entire engine sourcebase right now over on GitHub.


      • Mozilla Open-Sources Their PlayCanvas Gaming Engine


      • Hack the web: No Flash
        I am a hipster Flash hater. I hated Flash before Steve Jobs told it was bad. I hate Flash before Adobe said there would be no Flash 7 for Linux. I don't have Flash on my machine. I even coined "fc;dw".


      • Mozilla Leads New Cyber Security Initiative, Complete with Funding
        Mozilla is starting a new research project targeted to usher in better security on the Internet. The Cyber Security Dephi initiative, announced in a blog post from advocacy director Dave Steer, will leverage resources from experts in academia and computer security companies to develop new online security strategies.

        The announcement comes alongside Mozilla's Reset the Net initiative, which calls for a day of action to improve security against widespread surveillance.






  • SaaS/Big Data



  • CMS



    • What the History of Photography Teaches the Cloud
      The founder of open-source Drupal content management system details how the 100-year evolution of photography can inform open-source development and the upcoming Drupal 8 release. It took more than 100 years of evolution for the modern photography industry to reach its current state, and there are lessons from that century that apply to the modern world of cloud and Web development too. That's the message delivered by Dries Buytaert, founder of the open-source Drupal content management system (CMS), during his keynote address at the Drupalcon conference June 3 in Austin, Texas.




  • BSD



    • FreeBSD 9.3 Beta 1 Gets Support for Apple MacBook Products
      FreeBSD developers haven't forgotten about the 9.x branch of their operating system, even if they have already released 10.0. This is a strange and not very common situation, where a development branch is actually lower in version than the latest stable.

      This only shows the commitment of the developers to the people who are still using 9.x and who want to continue employing it. This means that several updates are needed and 9.3 Beta 1 is quite a big release.


    • DragonFly 3.8 released
      Binary dports packages for 3.8 have been built; they are available for download. (link goes to release versions of the packages.


    • DragonFlyBSD 3.8 Brings New USB Stack, Intel DRM Driver
      As expected, DragonFlyBSD 3.8 has been released. This release brings several new features to the popular BSD operating system but the 3.8 series will be the last to support 32-bit releases.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



  • Public Services/Government



  • Openness/Sharing





Leftovers



  • Security



    • Netskope: As Use of Cloud Services Grow, So Do Data Breach Probabilities
      A new study from Netskope and Ponemon Institute has revealed that IT and security professionals are expecting cloud services to increase the likelihood and economic impact of data breaches.


    • Court fight heats up over 52 pages of still-secret surveillance info
      The Electronic Frontier Foundation's long quest to make key rulings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) public is nearing its end.

      EFF lawyer Mark Rumold faced off with Department of Justice attorney Steven Bressler yesterday in the same courtroom they had sparred in 14 months ago. They were overseen by the same judge, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers.


    • Snowden, the Terminator, and Us
      One year ago day by day, a courageous young man named Edward Snowden sacrificed most of his life and his freedoms to show us the crude reality of the world we are living in. His ongoing revelations make us learn and understand how our relationship to technology has changed forever, and how the trust we place in machines shall never be the same. Edward Snowden also shows us a path for taking back control of the machines, an urgent task that no one today can ignore.


    • An essay concerning a post-Snowden utopia: Stop the surveillance state
      It's been almost a year since the June 5, 2013 revelation that the US government was collecting, in bulk, the telephone metadata of every telephone call to and from the United States. The National Security Agency leaks by whistleblower Edward Snowden would eventually expose surveillance programs, including Prism, XKeyscore, Tempora, and Muscular.


    • One year on, Snowden affair shows power of big data analytics
      A year ago today, June 5 2013, The Guardian, a UK newspaper, published the first of its exclusives based on documents leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

      Leaving aside the incendiary debate over whether Mr Snowden is a traitor and enemy of the state or a brave citizen who liberated millions of people from illegal surveillance activities, there is no argument over just how significant his activities were in the context of data security. That the phrase “post-Snowden” has passed into common parlance among security professionals is evidence enough.


    • A New Round Of OpenSSL Vulnerabilities Discovered


    • OpenSSL Security Advisory [05 Jun 2014]
      OpenSSL 1.0.0m and OpenSSL 0.9.8za also contain a fix for CVE-2014-0076: Fix for the attack described in the paper "Recovering OpenSSL ECDSA Nonces Using the FLUSH+RELOAD Cache Side-channel Attack" Reported by Yuval Yarom and Naomi Benger. This issue was previously fixed in OpenSSL 1.0.1g.


    • Heartbleed Redux: Another Gaping Wound in Web Encryption Uncovered


    • OpenSSL fixes another severe vulnerability
    • Chrome for Android Update
    • Early ChangeCipherSpec Attack (05 Jun 2014)
      The good news is that these attacks need man-in-the-middle position against the victim and that non-OpenSSL clients (IE, Firefox, Chrome on Desktop and iOS, Safari etc) aren't affected. None the less, all OpenSSL users should be updating.




  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • The Ukraine Junta’s Air Force massacre of unarmed civilians in Luhansk, 2 June 2014
      Kiev’s Junta “anti-terrorist op” has aimed principally to retake administrative or symbolic buildings held occupied by disaffected people in the Donbass region, which strongly reject the idea of being ruled by a government instrumented by fascists and Nazis. These buildings are meant to be retaken by force, as the Ukraine government refuses talks with the political representatives of the people of Donetsk, Luhansk, etc, and which have established autonomous administrations after their respective referendums on sovereignty.


    • Obama: Keep the Cannon Fodder Coming
      Translation - ”Thanks for sending so many young Scots to die in Iraq and Afghanistan for us. Look forward to seeing them die in Syria or Iran soon. Keep the cannon fodder coming. Sorry have to nip off now to approve some teenagers on a drone kill list. Keep storing those nuclear warheads for us.”


    • Remember the USS Liberty? The US and Israel wish you didn't
      Israel launched air attacks against Egypt's airfields at 7.45am on 5th June 1967. Within a couple of hours most of the Egyptian air forces was destroyed on the ground. At the same time, Israeli tanks scythed across the Sinai Desert heading for the Suez Canal and its troops initiated fighting on the borders with Syria and Jordan. False reports, meanwhile, claimed that Egypt had launched a major attack on Israel, which was fighting back in self-defence, a familiar refrain ever since. By mid-morning, Foreign Minister Abba Eban was telling the US ambassador in Tel Aviv "an ever larger curtain of lies" and claimed that Israel had "no intention of taking advantage of the situation to enlarge its territory." Another lie.


    • Steve King Not-So-Subtly Implies Susan Rice Works for al Qaeda
      In a nice li’l tweet, King railed against the incredibly controversial swap of five Gitmo prisoners for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier kept prisoner-of-war by a Taliban-aligned group in Afghanistan for the past five years. Upon his return, details have emerged that seemingly indicate Bergdahl defected from his troop before his capture, while the official narrative has always been that he was “taken in battle.”


    • Two Australians were killed by US drones. Of course that's our business
      The fact that finding yourself on a police watchlist can lead to a death penalty meted out on the other side of the world should worry our attorney-general. Why doesn't it?


    • PM slammed over terror comments
      The Prime Minister's claim that Kiwis are being converted to radical Islam and joining al-Qaida lacks credibility...


    • Australian killed in Yemen drone strike not radicalised in New Zealand, says Muslim preacher


    • New Zealand Stance on Drone Killings Attacked
      A Christchurch academic and lawyer has accused the Prime Minister of washing his hands of the killing of a New Zealander (Muslim bin John) and an Australian (Salma al Russi) in a US drone strike in Yemen.

      Speaking at a public lecture in Christchurch, David Small said that the moment New Zealand intelligence agencies hand over information to a country with an active kill-first-ask-questions-later drone campaign, the New Zealand government has a responsibility to ensure that the subject of that intelligence is not subject to extra-judicial killing.


    • Drone killings: IHC orders police to register FIR against ex-CIA station chief
      The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has ordered the police to register a First Information Report (FIR) against former Central Investigation Agency’s (CIA) station chief Jonathan Banks for his involvement in 2009 drone strike that killed family members of a tribesman.


    • CIA drone strikes: embarrassment for US as Pakistan court orders murder investigation
      Campaigners say court decision could open floodgates to more criminal cases against controversial strikes and call for international arrest warrant against American spy


    • Pakistan court orders police to charge ex-CIA station chief
      Islamabad's High Court on Thursday ordered police to press charges against the CIA's former station chief for murder, conspiracy and waging war against Pakistan.

      Judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui issued the orders following a 2010 court petition by drone activist Kareem Khan, whose brother and teenage son were killed in a US drone strike in North Waziristan tribal district.

      The former top spy left Pakistan in December 2010 after his identity was disclosed through the court case, and there is little expectation Islamabad will seek his return to face charges.


    • US military should publish all investigations of civilian deaths
      There is, in fact, an easy way for the Department of Defense to fulfill the president’s wishes. It could release redacted investigations of incidents in which civilians were killed during combat engagements involving the U.S. military. Although this is not well known, the DoD has conducted thousands of these investigations, generally in a thorough and professional manner. More important, most of them are already releasable by request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).


    • US Drone Strike Kills Four in Central Yemen
      The commander, identified as Jafaar al-Shabwani, was believed to be one of the four people killed in the strike, though the identities of the other three are completely unknown beyond being labeled “suspects.”


    • Grandfather of American drone victim abandons lawsuit against govt


    • Relative of Americans Killed by Drone Strikes: No Justice in U.S. Courts
      Having lost faith in the ability of U.S. courts to provide justice and accountability for their relatives' deaths, the family members of three U.S. citizens killed by drone strikes in Yemen in 2011 have decided not to appeal a court decision dismissing their lawsuit challenging the killings.


    • Taliban Claim U.S. Drone Strikes Almost Killed Bergdahl ‘Several’ Times
      The Taliban warned the U.S. during prisoner-exchange negotiations that led to the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl that U.S. drone strikes had come close on several occasions to killing the soldier while he was in captivity, U.S. officials said.


    • Taliban Warned U.S. That Drones Nearly Killed Bergdahl


    • Libyan renegade general Khalifa Haftar escapes suicide bombing


    • In Libya suicide bomber tries to kill General Hifter
      An attack by a suicide bomber on the home of the CIA-linked General Hifter who is leading a campaign against the government and Islamic militias called Operation Dignity killed three people.


    • Rogue Libyan general escapes suicide attack
      His two decades in exile in United States gave rise to accusations he was linked to the CIA first from the Gaddafi regime, and then from rival rebels.


    • Libyan rogue General Haftar survives assassination attempt
      But he remains a figure of suspicion for many veterans of the uprising, with his U.S. exile leading some of them to accuse him of links to the CIA, something also claimed by Gadhafi regime.
    • Hifter supports role for Egyptian army in Libyan conflict
      Al-Masry Al-Youm asked about his long period of exile in Virginia, where the CIA's headquarters are located. He maintained a steady tone, confirming that [claims he collaborated with the Americans] were lies launched by his opponents in the Muslim Brotherhood. He explained that if he was going to spy for anyone, it would have been [former President] Moammar Gadhafi when he was at his peak.


    • Concern over Irish troops in Syria3
      The 117 Irish soldiers based in Syria as part of the UN Disengagement Observer Force – the thin blue line separating Syrian and Israeli forces on the Golan Heights since 1974 – are coming under attack from Syrian rebels armed, trained and paid by the US, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The Government needs to protest loudly to these countries to protect the lives of its soldiers and the aims of the UNDOF mission.


    • The Real Villains of the Bergdahl Tale
      The right-wing media is denouncing Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl as a “deserter” who wasn’t worth ransoming from the Taliban, but the real villains are the architects of the disastrous Iraq and Afghan wars who frivolously put the many Bergdahls in harm’s way, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.


    • This Is Where Americans Planned to Spend the Nuclear Holocaust




  • Transparency Reporting



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife



    • Why is palm oil so controversial?
      Palm oil is everywhere. This globally traded vegetable oil is found in thousands of products you buy off the shelf, like ice cream, chocolate, biscuits, toothpaste, soap, cosmetics. Palm oil is in hundreds of products we routinely buy yet, environmentally, it’s incredibly destructive. Although palm oil is relatively cheaper to produce, animals and indigenous communities suffer tremendously due to the cultivation. Studies have proven that while palm oil is a very successful ingredient it has proven to be detrimental to the well being of the orangutans, causing a decrease of at least 90% along with other species


    • Keystone XL pipeline vulnerable to attacks, NextGen report says
      The Keystone XL oil pipeline would be vulnerable to attacks threatening water supplies for millions of homeowners and farmers, according to a report by NextGen Climate, a political group led by billionaire activist Tom Steyer.




  • Censorship



    • Media Self-Censorship Suppresses 3 Key Elements From Obama Foreign Policy Analysis
      Obama's first job after college in 1983 was with the CIA front company Business International Corp.


    • How Chinese Censorship Tries To Disappear References To Tiananmen Square
      We all know that China and their "Great Firewall" of censorship exist and we have a general idea of just how deep the censorship goes. We're also aware of the justifications that the Chinese government use for this censorship, including the notions that they're just protecting their innocent citizens from all the evil on the internet, as well as censorship committed by some of their antagonists (including the USA). But if you thought that this censorship was chiefly about pornography or current events, you're quite mistaken.


    • Privacy Online Should Be Expected
      We should begin to expect more transparency as more information is revealed in the wake of the revelations that the NSA has been spying on citizens, by recording their telecommunications and digital transmissions.

      At the moment, the ruling is directed at Europeans, and Google is reported to be receiving more than 10,000 daily requests. However, globally, other citizens can also expect the effect to be assimilated throughout the virtual ecosystem, as the discussion about online privacy is ignited.
    • Search Engine Yandex Shows Allegiance With Moscow Listing
      Shares in Russian internet search engine Yandex will begin trading in Moscow on Wednesday in a move that will please the Kremlin and could shield the Nasdaq-listed company from any tightening of Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia.




  • Privacy



    • Google moves to boost email privacy by releasing end-to-end encryption tool
      End-to-end encryption offers another layer of security by encrypting data leaving a user’s browser until it is decrypted by the recipient. The service has been available for some time via tools including Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) and Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG), but such tools have failed to become mainstream as they require a higher level of technological know-how.


    • Google announces end-to-end encryption for Gmail (a big deal!)


    • Websites, privacy groups mount “Reset The Net” campaign against NSA spying


    • Reset The Net – 05 june 2014
      When you are on-line, act consciously, and think before you do. Guard your privacy and respect that of others. No, Edward Snowden is not a traitor. He sacrificed a lot in order to get the truth out there, and we should have respect for that, too.


    • Judge rejects suit but questions NSA surveillance
      A federal judge raised privacy questions while dismissing a lawsuit filed by an Idaho woman against President Barack Obama regarding the collection of cellphone information by the National Security Agency.
    • Judge Says Supreme Court Should Overturn Awful Surveillance Precedent, But Until It Does, He Has To Reject Case Against NSA
      We've written plenty about the case Smith v. Maryland, which established the dangerous Supreme Court precedent that there is no 4th Amendment expectation of privacy to be found in any data or information you give to a third party. Judge Richard Leon, back in December, ruled that the NSA surveillance efforts were so different from the situation in Smith (involving police getting dialing information on a single person from the phone company) that it wasn't an applicable precedent in the case in front of him, brought by Larry Klayman. That case is now being appealed.


    • US Marshals Step In To Keep Florida Police Department's Stingray Documents Out Of The Hands Of The ACLU


    • U.S. Marshals Seize Local Cops’ Cell Phone Tracking Files in Extraordinary Attempt to Keep Information From Public
      A run-of-the-mill public records request about cell phone surveillance submitted to a local police department in Florida has unearthed blatant violations of open government laws, including an incredible seizure of state records by the U.S. Marshals Service, which is part of the Justice Department. Today the ACLU and the ACLU of Florida filed an emergency motion in state court to preserve the public’s right of access to government records.


    • NSA Chief Defends Facial Recognition Database By Denying Claims That Weren't Made
      In terms of collecting images, no one stated anything to the contrary. The collection is likely operating like many other NSA collections -- on a large scale that increases the likelihood that incidental collection of American data and content will occur. The "appropriate legal steps" are the same ones that have been used as talking points over the last year.

      Likewise, no one suggested in the article that the NSA targeted US citizens. In fact, one of the biggest complaints about the NSA's programs is the fact that they're clearly untargeted. The NSA doesn't select a person and start the surveillance from that point. The surveillance is pervasive and ongoing and any selection tends to occur long after tons of data/communications have been collected. It's the after-the-fact nature of the programs that makes them so dangerous. Further, the lack of solid minimization rules means tons of data from bulk collections sits around in NSA servers just waiting for someone to find a reason to look through it. So, while the NSA may not "unilaterally target American citizens," it has the mechanisms in place to do so.

      As for Roger's last non-denial, it was clearly stated in the New York Times article that there was no indication that the NSA had access to US drivers license databases. Rogers' last denial addresses "some people" (whoever they are) that have a clearly wrong interpretation of the leaked documents, but doesn't address what was actually written. And it completely avoids the undeniable fact that, with as many "input" channels as the NSA has, collecting the sort of information a drivers license database holds would be simple enough, even without direct access.


    • Volume of encrypted email rising amid spying fears
      The volume of email cloaked in encryption technology is rapidly rising as Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other major Internet companies try to shield their users' online communications from government spies and other snoops.


    • NSA can easily bug your switched-off iPhone: Here's how you can stop them
      Edward Snowden’s recent revelation that the NSA can bug cell phones even when they are turned off left some experts split on whether it is true or not. But a group of hackers claim that at least there is a way to protect your phone from spies’ ears.

      Snowden, who exposed the American government’s secret mass surveillance program, has been making headlines in the media for almost a year with shocking details about the scale of snooping by the National Security Agency (NSA).


    • NSA-Mocking Easter Egg Found In Google’s New Email Encryption Plug-In


    • Google Mocks NSA In Easter Egg
      It was last October that the Washington Post mentioned about leaked slides from the NSA’s top secret MUSCULAR data interception program, sharing details on how the NSA was able to step in and intercept data from Google’s cloud servers through an exploitation in an SSL gap. That particular slide has proven to raise a fair amount of controversy, especially so where Google employees are concerned. The comment read, “SSL added and removed here :)”, and did not go endear itself to Google employees. Of course, revenge is a dish best served cold, and Google has not forgotten about that, having hit back in a latest Easter Egg in their latest email encryption plug-in.


    • Holder Prioritizing Domestic Terrorism, but Silent on Role of NSA
      US Attorney General Eric Holder announced Tuesday he was reconstituting a task force to coordinate the work of several Department of Justice agencies on thwarting homegrown terrorism within the US.


    • German server lockbox scores MEELLION dollar seed-smashing record
      Cheers and laughter could be heard late last night through the walls of a small Hamburg office as staff celebrated an unlikely win; their punt to build a NSA-subverting server that encrypts everything a small business might do in the office had made bank with a record-breaking $US1 million in crowdfunding sourced in 89 mins.


    • Berlin must practice what it preaches


    • Schneier: 'Most of the world is under surveillance'
      Security technologist Bruce Schneier tells DW why he finds it curious that the German BND is getting a free pass on surveillance and why Europe should take the lead on protecting privacy in the digital age.


    • Looking at NSA & GCHQ as role models: German intelligence plans their own mass spying program
      Last week, leaked secret documents revealed that the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German equivalent to the NSA, has asked the German Parliament for an additional 300 million Euros to extend its surveillance program in an effort to rival that of the U.S. and U.K.


    • Opinion: German prosecutor worthy of praise
    • Merkel won't be quizzed in NSA probe


    • Germany to Probe US Spies for Bugging Merkel's Phone


    • Bomb plot convict seeking new trial
      The government’s secret surveillance program becomes an issue in the Portland case


    • Man convicted in car-bomb plot seeks new trial, citing warrantless wiretapping
      The purported plot was actually an FBI sting and the bomb was a fake.


    • Ore. man seeks new trial for car bomb plot; NSA data helped convict Mohamed Mohamud
      The purported plot was actually an FBI sting and the bomb was a fake.


    • Orwell or liberty: One year later, holders of power still ignore Snowden
      A year has passed since Edward Snowden started telling us what really was going on in the world. Since that date, various holders of power have been struggling - without success - to reclaim the control of the narrative, the control of the news flow.

      But in the age of the net, the power of narrative rests squarely with the many, rather than with the elite. People have become aware of mass surveillance, even if they haven't become aware of its full consequences yet. But the story is out. The proverbial cat isn't just out of the bag, but has left the entire city and is halfway across the continent. This hasn't prevented an ivory tower establishment from playing "no see, no hear, no speak" monkey games, pretending Snowden does not exist and that people don't already know what we know.


    • Citing Snowden Leaks, Colleges Nationwide Launch Anti-NSA Surveillance Protests


    • Students Are Willing To Die For Freedom, Liberty, Privacy
      It’s the day we began to learn just how incredibly intrusive government spying on average Americans had become in this technological age. June 5, 2013 – the day we began to understand what was at stake – our freedom, our privacy, our personal lives. The day the first of many news stories – courtesy of Edward Snowden – began to paint a picture of a shocking new world.


    • China state media calls for 'severe punishment' for Google, Apple, US tech firms
      US companies such as Yahoo Inc, Cisco Systems Inc, Microsoft Corp and Facebook Inc threaten the cyber-security of China and its Internet users, said the People's Daily on its microblog, in comments echoed on the front page of the English-language China Daily.


    • Weighing up the impact of Edward Snowden
      As you read this, the United States will be waking up to the one-year anniversary of Edward Snowden’s first leaks on his country's surveillance programs to the world’s newspapers.


    • Edward Snowden affair fallout still rocks US one year on
      A year after Edward Snowden revealed the vast scope of the US data dragnet, America is still reeling from the fallout, which damaged ties abroad and triggered fears of "Big Brother" government.

      In the latest twist since Snowden handed over thousands of US intelligence secrets last June, Germany has launched a criminal probe into snooping on Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone.


    • A snapshot of NSA intrusion
      The National Security Agency's digital face book may or may not include images scraped from Facebook. An agency spokeswoman declined to divulge that information to The New York Times.

      The agency has managed to intercept millions of images, "including about 55,000 'facial recognition quality images,'" according to documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Those documents describe the trove of data as presenting "tremendous untapped potential," the Times reported.


    • ​‘Snowden became most wanted by US injustice system’
      Thomas Drake: Well it generated a worldwide discussion and debate about surveillance and what is at stake in terms of individual sovereignty and privacy and how far the US in particular in partnership with others, including other countries and other security services as well as major telecommunication concerns and internet service providers in gathering data, collecting data and finding out everything there is to know about us. And much of it has been conducted in secret, and he was able are able to bring out significant documentation, prime evidence to actually prove it.


    • IBM, Lenovo Server Deal May Take Longer Than Expected
      Reports began to surface in early April that the IBM's sale of its x86 server business to Lenovo—which is based in Beijing, China—was getting close scrutiny from U.S. agencies around issues of national security. Government agencies, including the Department of Defense and the FBI, buy x86 servers from IBM, as do the largest telecommunications companies, such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless. - See more at: http://www.eweek.com/servers/ibm-lenovo-server-deal-may-take-longer-than-expected.html#sthash.m6Wan9Dl.dpuf


    • Op-Ed: Snowden is the definition of a patriot
      The opinion of Edward Snowden is wide ranging. Some call him a traitor, others call him a patriot. The truth sits firmly in the latter. Edward Snowden is a red, white and blue patriot whose act of civil disobedience came at a price everyone should revere.


    • Snowden publically supports Reset the Net campaign
    • Snowden sounds call to action for Reset the Net web protest
      The NSA document leaker joins Google, Mozilla, Reddit, and many others in a campaign and day of action that aims to help Internet users "take back" their privacy.


    • Year of the whistleblower: 10 things we didn’t know before Snowden


    • Bay Area man exposed government surveillance 8 years ago
      It was eight years ago that we first learned of a man named Mark Klein. He didn't work for the government; he worked for the phone company. When he started asking questions about a secret room in the building where he worked, there was no turning back.


    • Will the Government Finally Acknowledge Which Telecom Companies Cooperate With the NSA?
      Yesterday, advocates for government transparency argued for the release of more documents that could reveal how the Federal Intelligence Act Surveillance (FISA) Court has provided oversight of the US intelligence community and confirm which telecom companies cooperated with the government. It's the latest step in an uphill battle that's been waged by the Electronic Frontier Foundation since 2011 for records they say may reveal disputes between the FISA court and the intelligence community, confirm the existence additional surveillance programs, and provide official acknowledgment of some essential details of known programs that have been already revealed in the media.


    • The New York Times v. Glenn Greenwald
      Earth to Glenn Greenwald: If you write a book slamming the New York Times, it's naïve to expect favorable treatment in the New York Times Book Review. Been there, done that. Twice as a matter of fact.


    • Australia pleaded for more spying on its citizens, new book claims
      Australia ''pleaded'' with the US security agency to extend their partnership and subject Australian citizens to greater surveillance, a new book on whistleblower Edward Snowden claims.



    • The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Jail: The Spy Who Misspelled Me
      Things seem to have gone downhill since then. One NSA slide details a program called BLARNEY by which the agency pressures such U.S. corporate vassals as AT&T into assisting with the illicit surveillance of their customers. Seeing this for the first time, I had a flash of inspiration. The reader may recall how the ACLU kept trying to sue the NSA for the bulk warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, including presumably those American citizens who work for the ACLU, but the courts wouldn’t grant them standing to launch the suit since all of that was classified and thus couldn’t be revealed in court. What the ACLU needs to do now is track down whoever it is whose homemade St. Patrick’s Day block party invitations the NSA ripped off to get this BLARNEY logo and have them sue for copyright infringement.
    • Edward Snowden, a Year Later


    • Safety possible without surveillance
      Prof Kevin P.Clements calls for a New Zealand commission of inquiry to re-evaluate the value of the Five Eyes security arrangement.


    • Admiral Michael Rogers, New NSA Director Really Doesn't Get Why Americans Don't Want to Be Spied On
      As reported earlier this week, the National Security Agency is now collecting photos from online to create a massive facial recognition database. Americans shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about that, says new National Security Agency director Admiral Michael Rogers, according to Washington Post article today headlined, "New NSA chief seeks to reassure public on surveillance."


    • New NSA Chief Rejects Portrait of Snowden as Foreign Spy
      The new head of the National Security Agency has distanced himself from previous government suggestions that whistleblower Edward Snowden is a foreign spy. Officials including former NSA director Keith Alexander have contended that Snowden may have worked with Russian or other foreign intelligence agencies. But at a public forum with Bloomberg News, new NSA chief Michael Rogers shot down that theory.


    • Online privacy: Facebook is better than you think, Amazon not so much
    • ACLU: We now have the power to rein in NSA mass surveillance
      The American Civil Liberties Union is celebrating nearly a year after journalist Glenn Greenwald initiated a deluge of reporting on the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs, including a cache of NSA documents stolen by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
    • Binney, Wiebe and Ratner on the NSA
      CCR President Emeritus Michael Ratner and NSA whistleblowers J. Kirk Wiebe and Bill Binney examine the relationship between the NSA and U.S. global dominance, the stance of Democrats and Republicans towards surveillance, and mainstream media coverage of these issues
    • The impact of forced data localisation on fundamental rights
      A tool to target dissidents
    • Google to cover earth in Wi-Fi via $1 Billion+ worth of satellites
    • Google Using Encryption but Emails Still Not Private
      Google and other companies are using encryption on emails, but they are still not completely private. One thing that many people fail to realize is that the encryption is from the server side. It does not stop those at the email providers from reading the content of emails.
    • Most Americans applaud Snowden’s exposure of NSA mass surveillance – poll
    • SAPPHIRE: PRISM proves not all clouds were created equal, says SAP CEO


    • Today is the day we Reset the Net
      A pledge for developers and site operators: Here are best-practices for people who make mobile apps, host sites, and write code to make the Internet more secure against mass surveillance. For example, mobile developers can use cert pinning and end-to-end encryption to keep their users safe and private. And websites can use SSL to protect their users' privacy when they use the net.


    • As Snowden Leak Anniversary Approaches, Intelligence Community Prepares to Declare Victory
      As June 5 approaches — and with it the one year anniversary of the first reporting on Edward Snowden’s leaks — the privacy community is calling supporters to redouble efforts to improve the NSA “reform bill,” which I call the USA Freedumber Act, in the Senate.

      I explained here why the Senate is unlikely to improve USA Freedumber in any meaningful way. The votes just aren’t there — not even in the Senate Judiciary Committee.


    • Snowden provides U.S. with a reason for change
      Benjamin Franklin said it all: "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety."


    • The real NSA scandal is overseas
      More than 12 years after 9/11, the United States continues to have a foreign policy mindset that demands zero tolerance on terrorism and treats even minor threats like existential challenges. In the pursuit of perfect security and in meeting the demands of a hugely expansive view of American power, the U.S. has failed to consider the ultimate consequences and potential political fallout — both at home and abroad — of what achieving that goal means. And that’s a challenge that goes far beyond the NSA.


    • Is The NSA Building A Spy System Hitler Would Have Loved?
      Recent revelations that the government can remotely turn on a phone and listen to conversations come without press examination if this historic spying capability is being misused




  • Civil Rights



    • A New Form of Homicide in Canada’s Prisons: The Case of Ashley Smith
      Ashley Smith, a nineteen year old, mentally ill, inmate committed suicide while under suicide watch at a Correctional Institute in Canada. Ms. Smith was imprisoned at fifteen for throwing apples at a postal worker. During her imprisonment she suffered multiple cases of emotional and physical abuse. The first and mildest abuse she suffered was being denied sanitary products and adequate toilet paper during her menstrual cycle. The worst abuse she suffered was a combination of emotional and physical, and occurred when Ms. Smith was transferred between nine different institutions seventeen times. When she was transferred between institutes she was restrained by officers so she could be hooded and duct taped to her seat while she pleaded with them to stop hurting her.


    • Britain's first secret trial: this way lies trouble


    • Attorneys for terror suspect kicked out of ‘secret’ court hearing
      But in a groundbreaking ruling in January, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman granted Daoud’s attorney Thomas Durkin the right to examine secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act records, which Durkin hopes could provide grounds for having the case against Daoud thrown out.


    • Classified U.S. Document at Stake in Bomb Sting Appeal
      Daoud was arrested by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in September 2012 at the age of 18 after allegedly trying to detonate a device given to him by an undercover agent. He later pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and trying to damage or destroy a building with an explosive.


    • Obama Really Can Close Gitmo
      Over the weekend the government of Qatar brokered a dramatic deal between the US and the Taliban to swap five Guantánamo prisoners for Bowe Bergdahl, a US soldier held as a prisoner of war for almost five years. Flexing his political clout, President Obama demonstrated his ability to navigate with ease through the Congressional obstacles in the way of releasing prisoners from Guantánamo. Some House Republicans accused the President of breaking the law to get his way. But the Obama administration made it clear that the President had added a “signing statement” to the bill restricting the transfer of Guantánamo detainees, saying that the restrictions violated his Constitutional prerogative.


    • Washington Wants Maduro Dead
      He's Venezuela's democratically elected president. It doesn't matter. Washington's dirty war continues.

      It's done so since Chavez's December 1998 election. He became president in February 1999. He served until his March 5, 2013 death.

      He survived Washington's April 2002 coup attempt. A 64-day 2002 - 03 general strike and oil management lockout.


    • Return to Truman’s CIA, author Melvin Goodman says
      President Harry Truman established the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947.


    • Not a Liberal Democracy
      New Labour were the chief culprits in moving Britain away from a liberal democracy and into an authoritarian state.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality



    • Be Sure to Comment on FCC's NPRM 14-28
      I am writing in response to NPRM 14-28 — your request for comments regarding the “Open Internet”.

      I am a trained computer scientist and I work in the technology industry. (I'm a software developer and software freedom activist.) I have subscribed to home network services since 1989, starting with the Prodigy service, and switching to Internet service in 1991. Initially, I used a PSTN single-pair modem and eventually upgraded to DSL in 1999. I still have a DSL line, but it's sadly not much faster than the one I had in 1999, and I explain below why.


    • Will Member States Defend Net Neutrality, in Line with the European Parliament?
      On June 6, during the next Council meeting, ministers will be invited to share their position regarding the proposal for a Regulation on Net Neutrality. After the rise of eurosceptical forces in the recent European elections, will the European governments be ready to support the European Parliament's vote and defend our freedoms?




  • Intellectual Monopolies





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
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
 
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
[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