Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 25/8/2014: China's Linux Revolution Imminent



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Does open source boost mental health?
    Walk into any makerspace around the world and you'll encounter this infectious optimism. You'll see people playing with their Raspberry Pis, their Arduinos, their CNC machines, and their 3D printers. You'll encounter people intently focused on assembling something, their mind so engaged as to be in a state of flow.


  • What does an open design studio look like?
    I'm really interested in open source philosophies. I like the camaraderie of the communities and the open collaboration. I like being able to have a direct effect on the development of products that I use. I like the idea of the freedom behind the licensing. I like the idea of supporting the underdog fighting picaresquely against the corporate giants. I like that the whole point of open source is being allowed to see (and modify) the code. In simple terms, with open source as a development model it allows access to a product's plans/blueprints through using a permissive license.


  • Need PCI Compliance? Try Open Source
    In a recent presentation, security professionals unveiled a proposed Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) compliance model that is based on open source technology. The system is designed, they said, to help reduce expenses, enhance scalability and make it easier to manage the technological infrastructure that supports PCI compliance.


  • Web Browsers



  • SaaS/Big Data



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



  • Openness/Sharing



  • Programming



    • Free Nvidia CUDA 6.5 Packs ARM64 Support
      Improved debugging for CUDA Fortran applications (preview) is also here; this includes new debugging support for Fortran arrays (Linux only), improved source-to-assembly code correlation, and improved documentation.


    • Emacs verus notification area, again
      Ages and ages I wrote about letting Emacs code access the notification area. I have more to say about it now, but first I want to bore you with some rambling thoughts and some history.

      The “notification area” is also called the “status icon area” or the “systray” — it is a spot that holds some icons that are under control of various applications.


    • PHP 5.5.16 Officially Released


    • Out in the Open: How Animated GIFs Can Turn You Into a Web Coder
      Basically, all the site’s image effects are stored by a community of developers, much like any other open source software. Anyone can not only use these effects, but build their own and share them with the community by way of the code hosting and collaboration site GitHub. “Since everyone likes glitch art and animated GIFs, it’s a creative outlet for developers to create something new that’s outside their usual field,” say Jen Fong-Adwent, the creator of revisit.link. “But it’s also a way for new people to learn basics.”


    • Programming in Rust
      Discover Rust, the systems programming language developed by Mozilla that’s fast, and wants to be better than C and C++!






Leftovers



  • Security



    • Extra staff for OpenSSL group after Heartbleed drama
      ABOUT four months after the discovery of the Heartbleed bug, the group overseeing the widely used OpenSSL software has added a new full-time staffer and is preparing for a comprehensive code audit.

      Steve Marquess, co-founder and president of the OpenSSL Software Foundation, said the organisation’s team of 14 now had two full-time employees — one started this week — and planned to add two more by the end of the year.


    • Security advisories for Monday




  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND JOURNALISM
      Last week, Turkish media reported that "the former employee at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), Edward Snowden, has revealed that British and American intelligence and Mossad worked together to create the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)." Snowden said intelligence services of three countries created a terrorist organization that is able to attract all extremists of the world to one place, using a strategy called "the hornet's nest."

      NSA documents refer to recent implementation of the hornet's nest to protect the Zionist entity by creating religious and Islamic slogans.

      According to documents released by Snowden, "The only solution for the protection of the Jewish state "is to create an enemy near its borders." Leaks revealed that ISIS leader and cleric Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi received intensive military training for a whole year at the hands of Mossad, besides courses in theology and the art of speech."

      Indeed, this is a scandalous claim, one that has been seen on numerous Turkish news websites worded differently. Daily Sabah first reported it with a small news article, and later Daily Sabah columnist HaÅŸmet BabaoÄŸlu wrote about it in the first paragraph of one of his articles. The first paragraph of his article titled "Who benefits from ISIS's existence in the Middle East?" stated, "Regardless of whether you are enthusiastic about conspiracy theories or not, Global Research's claim that 'former National Security Agency (NSA) systems analyst Edward Snowden recently revealed that the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was trained by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence and spy agency' is a topic worthy of debate."

      It seems to me that the current phenomena gives more striking signals than conspiracy theories, however.

      [...]

      The news first appeared in French on July 9 on a Hezbollah website with Lebanon's Hezbollah-sponsored channel, Al Manar, claimed as the source. After a short while, the news was translated into English, but, the source was now claimed to be Iran's Fars News Agency. According to the news article, former analyst of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), Edward Snowden, proved with leaked documents that ISIS was a MI6, CIA and Mossad joint project. However, there were no indications of when and where Snowden made those remarks.

      [...]

      The best way to prevent this is to present the source. When we read BabaoÄŸlu's column, we see that he mentioned a website called www.globalresearch.ca. The site belongs to an organization called The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). They identify themselves as "an independent research and media organization based in Montreal. The CRG is a registered non-profit organization in the province of Quebec, Canada." They claim that their mission is to uncover "the unspoken truth."

      BabaoÄŸlu presented the news article of Global Research as a source, but what about their source? The claim was not based on evidence; however, this does not render his article worthless. After all, in his article, he speaks of who benefited from recent developments in the Middle East after ISIS's appearance with actual events. There are views mentioned of several experts as well. Not to mention, there are no inconsistencies and factual errors in the article.


    • Hayden: It's Just a Matter of Time Before ISIS Attacks America


    • ISIS attack on West 'a question of timing': Former CIA chief


    • How Much of a Threat is Isis to the West?


    • Daily Kos: ISIS ‘Politicians’ Are No Threat to U.S., So ‘Stop Freaking Out’ About Them
      In a Sunday-morning post, Daily Kos blogger Mark Sumner argued that the “threat ISIS represents to the United States” is “[e]xactly none” and urged us not to overreact now the way we supposedly did after 9/11 and consequently “hand over freedoms for an illusion of safety. The NSA reading your email and listening in on your phone, idiots mistaking a dropped t-shirt at the Mexican border for the prayer rug of invading Muslims, TSA workers who know you more intimately than your spouse. Those are bin Laden's victories.”


    • Edward Snowden the Most Wanted Man in the World


    • Venice Film Festival: Latin American Film Birdman to Open
      One of the movies that tackles these topics is “Good Kill”, from the U.S. director Andrew Niccol. This film explores the guilt of a man that controls militar drones to kill Taliban people.


    • Gaza live: Hamas finance official killed in Israeli strikes
      The Israeli army has released what it says is a page from a seized Hamas training manual that would appear to support its case that Palestinian militants deliberately use the cover of residential areas for combat operations.


    • Gaza live: Hamas manual backing civilians as shields found, claims Israel
      Israeli Army says it has found manual showing Hamas tactic of using civilians as shields


    • Gaza live: We will arm Palestine, says Iran as conflict spirals
      Tehran will "accelerate" arming Palestinians in retaliation for Israel deploying a spy drone over Iran, which was shot down, a military commander said on Monday.

      "We will accelerate the arming of the West Bank and we reserve the right to give any response," said General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, commander of aerial forces of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, in a statement on their official website sepahnews.com.


    • Three killed in Brazil prison riot
      Two prisoners were beheaded and another one died after being thrown off the roof in a riot that erupted in a jail in southern Brazil.


    • Militants Release U.S. Writer Held in Syria Since 2012
      U.S. freelance writer Peter Theo Curtis, who was abducted in Syria and held by militants from al Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front, was unexpectedly freed Sunday. Curtis went missing in October 2012 after crossing into northern Syria from Turkey. Negotiations for his release were mediated by Qatar, and the United Nations facilitated his handover in the Golan Heights Sunday evening. Curtis's release came just days after the Islamic State posted a video online showing the execution of U.S. journalist James Foley. After the video was released, reports emerged that European countries and organizations had paid ransoms averaging over $2.5 million to negotiate the release of more than a dozen citizens held with Foley. The terms of Curtis's release are unclear, but U.S. officials denied paying a ransom. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, "The U.S. government does not make concessions to terrorists."


    • Iran TV shows off allegedly downed Israeli drone


    • Iran Shoots Down 'Israeli Drone' Near Nuclear Site


    • Iran says it downed Israeli drone near nuclear site


    • Iran ‘will arm Palestinians’ after Israel drone downed


    • Israel targets 2 Gaza mosques in latest airstrikes


    • Netanyahu Warns Gazans to Leave Hamas Sites


    • Gaza tower block collapses after Israeli air strike
      A block of residential apartments in Gaza City has collapsed following an Israeli airstrike on Saturday night. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the building was being used as a command centre by Hamas, but local residents say it was purely residential.


    • Syrian govt 'ready to cooperate' with US on IS militants
      Any US air strikes against Islamist militants in Syria must be coordinated with the country's government, according to the Syrian foreign minister.


    • Washington Foreign Policy Hands Make The Case For The Unthinkable: An Alliance With Assad
      Revenge of the realists. “It is not in our interest to defeat Assad as long as groups like ISIS will be winners.”






  • Finance



  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



  • Privacy



    • Casualties of Cyber Warfare
      American and Chinese companies are getting caught in the crossfire of the brewing cyber war.


    • Germany spying on Turkey for ‘38 years’
      German foreign intelligence agency has been tapping Turkey for almost four decades, reports Focus amid the ongoing spy scandal between Berlin and Ankara. Some German officials defend the practice, saying that not all NATO allies can be treated as friends.


    • Facebook Messenger Hoax: Illegal Conversations Are Being Automatically Sent To Police
      A new Facebook Messenger hoax claims that illegal conversations being held over private messenger conversations are being analyzed and automatically sent to police. The hoax specifically targets users of the new Facebook Messenger app, and it claims that 250 have already been arrested for their illegal conversations.


    • Spying blind: How polls provide cover for domestic espionage
      Using inappropriately vague and misleading questions, polls have found an American public evenly divided in their support of NSA domestic espionage — and on whether Edward Snowden’s role in revealing the breadth and depth of it makes him a patriot or a traitor. Closer scrutiny indicates these divisions are more likely the result of systemic methodological biases in the polls than an expression of genuine opinion. This points to a far more troubling problem: Bad polls subvert a fair and balanced public debate on mass government spying, resulting in potentially anti-democratic remedies.


    • What others say: USA Freedom Act a testimony to informed public debate
      A little more than a year after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the federal government was collecting and storing the telephone records of millions of Americans, Congress is poised to end the program and provide significant protection for a broad range of personal information sought by government investigators.

      Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has proposed a version of the bill that is significantly more protective of privacy than one passed by the House in May. Like the House bill, Leahy’s proposal would end the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone “metadata” — information about the source, destination and duration of phone calls that investigators can “query” in search of possible connections to foreign terrorism.
    • A closer look at the issue of the NSA and building spyware into apps


    • The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google
      The National Security Agency is secretly providing data to nearly two dozen U.S. government agencies with a “Google-like” search engine built to share more than 850 billion records about phone calls, emails, cellphone locations, and internet chats, according to classified documents obtained by The Intercept.

      The documents provide the first definitive evidence that the NSA has for years made massive amounts of surveillance data directly accessible to domestic law enforcement agencies. Planning documents for ICREACH, as the search engine is called, cite the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration as key participants.

      ICREACH contains information on the private communications of foreigners and, it appears, millions of records on American citizens who have not been accused of any wrongdoing. Details about its existence are contained in the archive of materials provided to The Intercept by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

      Earlier revelations sourced to the Snowden documents have exposed a multitude of NSA programs for collecting large volumes of communications. The NSA has acknowledged that it shares some of its collected data with domestic agencies like the FBI, but details about the method and scope of its sharing have remained shrouded in secrecy.


    • Corporations Spy on Nonprofits With Impunity
      Here's a dirty little secret you won't see in the daily papers: Corporations conduct espionage against U.S. nonprofit organizations without fear of being brought to justice.

      Yes, that means using a great array of spycraft and snoopery, including planned electronic surveillance, wiretapping, information warfare, infiltration, dumpster diving and so much more.

      The evidence abounds.

      For example, six years ago, based on extensive documentary evidence, James Ridgeway reported in Mother Jones on a major corporate espionage scheme by Dow Chemical focused on Greenpeace and other environmental and food activists.

      Greenpeace was running a potent campaign against Dow's use of chlorine to manufacture paper and plastics. Dow grew worried and eventually desperate.

      Ridgeway's article and subsequent revelations produced jaw-dropping information about how Dow's private investigators, from the firm Beckett Brown International (BBI), hired:

      ● An off-duty DC police officer who gained access to Greenpeace trash dumpsters at least 55 times;

      ● a company called NetSafe Inc., staffed by former National Security Agency (NSA) employees expert in computer intrusion and electronic surveillance; and,

      ● a company called TriWest Investigations, which obtained phone records of Greenpeace employees or contractors. BBI's notes to its clients contain verbatim quotes that they attribute to specific Greenpeace employees.

      Using this information, Greenpeace filed a lawsuit against Dow Chemical, Dow's PR firms Ketchum and Dezenhall Resources, and others, alleging trespass on Greenpeace's property, invasion of privacy by intrusion, and theft of confidential documents.


    • FBI scuttles contested $500 million, no-bid deal with Motorola
      In the face of multiple vendor protests, the FBI has cancelled plans to hand industry giant Motorola Solutions Inc. a sole-source contract worth up to $500 million, saying that it will reassess how to upgrade the bureau’s antiquated nationwide two-way radio network.

      The FBI had argued, in a justification for skirting competitive bidding requirements, that switching to another vendor would force the purchase of a complete new system costing $1.2 billion. The existing Motorola network has proprietary features that can’t interact with non-Motorola equipment, so the FBI said, sticking with Motorola would extend the use of equipment worth $300 million.
    • For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe
      Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent.





  • Civil Rights



    • Behold, John Brennan's Scary Memo!


    • Liberal candidates never seem to satisfy liberal voters' expectations: Farmer
      It seems the worst thing that can befall a liberal is to actually win an election for public office. Just ask President Obama or, better still, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

      Each man’s election was hailed by liberals as a kind of Second Coming, the arrival of Nirvana, the ultimate rejection, even repudiation, of their predecessors, George W. Bush and Michael Bloomberg, and of conservatism itself.


    • The Reclamation of Torture
      Torture ConceptTorture is making a comeback. Not the practice, at least in this country, but the word. For a decade, politicians and the media fenced the term off to keep it from contaminating their description of American behavior. But gradually, the word is being reclaimed. We should pay close attention to this development, for as we rediscover words that were once taboo, we define anew what it means to be an American.


    • The Ignored History of the Migrant Refugee Crisis
      Friday July 25 will not make history as the first time a war criminal was greeted at the White House. Nevertheless, this was the day that Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, who has been condemned for his role in the torture and murder of civilians by the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission as well as journalists and academics, sat down with President Obama. Along with the Presidents of El Salvador and Honduras, the Heads of State gathered to discuss the causes of the massive northern exodus from Central America, as well as the 50,000 migrants—largely women and children—that have already been detained by the US government for crossing the border. The silence about the literal skeletons in Molina’s closet reveals a much larger historical legacy that has been ignored in the discourse around the border crisis.


    • Mubarak resisted US pressure to give up the Sinai: The Secret Files
      Towards the end of his tenure, ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak resisted pressures from Washington to cede Egyptian territory in the Sinai Peninsula to help create a Palestinian state, former senior members of Mubarak’s ruling party told Asharq Al-Awsat.


    • Russia’s Humanitarian ‘Invasion’
      Official Washington’s war-hysteria machine is running at full speed again after Russia unilaterally dispatched a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian supplies to the blockaded Ukrainian city of Luhansk, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.


    • Americans are back on the war bandwagon
      Boosting US military involvement in Iraq will make matters worse.


    • Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they’re private corporations, immune from open records laws
      As part of the American Civil Liberties Union’s recent report on police militarization, the Massachusetts chapter of the organization sent open records requests to SWAT teams across that state. It received an interesting response.

    • Cornel West: “He posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit. We ended up with a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency”
      Cornel West is a professor at Union Theological Seminary and one of my favorite public intellectuals, a man who deals in penetrating analyses of current events, expressed in a pithy and highly quotable way.

      [...]

      And we ended up with a brown-faced Clinton. Another opportunist. Another neoliberal opportunist. It’s like, “Oh, no, don’t tell me that!” I tell you this, because I got hit hard years ago, but everywhere I go now, it’s “Brother West, I see what you were saying. Brother West, you were right. Your language was harsh and it was difficult to take, but you turned out to be absolutely right.” And, of course with Ferguson, you get it reconfirmed even among the people within his own circle now, you see. It’s a sad thing. It’s like you’re looking for John Coltrane and you get Kenny G in brown skin.


    • Cop Assigned To Ferguson Protests Threatens Attorney General Holder
      "AG Holder is in St. Louis Today. I should go in early and punch him in the nose for so many different reasons." - Tweet by Sgt. Mike Weston, Velda City Police

    • Student's Story About Shooting A Pet Dinosaur With A Gun Ends In Suspension, Arrest
      It would appear that Stone was only "disturbing" school officials who seemed intent on finding some evidence of his desire to shoot people and was understandably frustrated that they wouldn't believe it wasn't some sort of threat. Whatever disturbance Stone caused was limited to a single office. There was no reason for anyone to claim, much less believe, that his written assignment, or his behavior inside that office, was "disturbing" his classmates, other classes or anyone else not directly involved.


    • Women need protection from undercover officers
      Imagine the scenario. You meet someone and, from the outset, the attraction is mutual: silently shared smiles, lingering glances. You bond over shared interests and worldviews, and exchange telephone numbers. You start sleeping together and – as your pulse quickens every time the phone rings – you realise you are falling for each other. Days are spent together, walking in parks, trips to the cinema, romantic meals; time apart becomes difficult. Eventually, your partner moves in, and for years you share everything. Maybe you even have a child together. Then – suddenly – they appear depressed and become distant. One day, they are gone, leaving only an apologetic note on the kitchen table. You then discover everything you knew about them was false. They have invented a fake identity; their backstory, opinions, entire life, all a lie. They are undercover police officers, and were sent to spy on you and your friends.
    • Handcuffed Black Youth Killed Himself, Says Coroner
      A coroner’s report obtained exclusively by NBC News directly contradicts the police version of how a 22-year-old black man died in the back seat of a Louisiana police cruiser earlier this year -- but still says the man, whose hands were cuffed behind his back, shot himself.

      In a press release issued March 3, the day he died, the Louisiana State Police said Victor White III apparently shot himself in an Iberia Parish police car. According to the police statement, White had his hands cuffed behind his back when he shot himself in the back.


    • Cops admit to false reports in Malmö protest
      Police withdrew statements that ambulance personnel were attacked at the anti-Nazi demonstrations on Saturday, and reported themselves for investigation after trampling protesters.
    • Give Killer Cops a Break, Says NYT
      The message of a New York Times piece by Michael Wines and Frances Robles (8/22/14) was clear: Police officers who shoot unarmed civilians need to be be given the benefit of the doubt.


    • NRA News Praises White Vigilante Patrols That Shot African-Americans After Hurricane Katrina
      Cam Edwards, host of the National Rifle Association's news show, claimed that after Hurricane Katrina residents of the New Orleans neighborhood Algiers "were looking out for each other by walking the streets armed with firearms." But according to a federal hate crimes indictment and numerous media reports, after Katrina white gun-toting vigilantes in Algiers targeted African-Americans with racially motivated violence.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • Police Freeze Mega Shares in Money Laundering Investigation
        New Zealand authorities have placed 18.8% of the Kim Dotcom-founded cloud hosting service Mega under restraining order. The actions involve multi-millionaire William Yan, one of Mega's largest shareholders, who is alleged to be involved in money laundering. Mega itself is not suspected of wrong-doing.


      • Witness Offered $3.50/Hr to Testify Against Pirate Bay Founder
        Witnesses are being summoned to appear in the trial of Gottfrid Svartholm set to take place in September. A Cambodia-based former colleague of the Pirate Bay founder has been offered $3.50 per hour to attend, but heated emails with Danish authorities indicate he will not be traveling.








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Links for the day
For Second Day in a Row, Top Story in The Register MS is "Microsoft Says"
The editor in chief exercises control over everybody else
LLMs as Attack Method Against Free Software and Programming
DDoS in "hey hi" (slop) clothing
Stability and Reliability, Backward Compatibility
I don't fancy relying on social control media as "sources"
What "the News" Looks Like in 2025
The "says" (or "sez") phenomenon
History Will Be Distorted, Sometimes Intentionally, Under the Guise of Intelligence (Manipulated/Curated Slop)
Militarised misinformation or military-grade chaff is a national security threat, even domestically
Financial Engineering Companies: A Company Worth 4 Trillion Dollars Would Not Borrow 100+ Billion Dollars at Interest Rates Like Today's
Many headlines perpetuate the lie Microsoft had just 2 waves of layoffs
Microsoft is Googlebombing "Linux" While Paying Former News Sites to Publish SPAM
How much lower will IDG sink?
Google as a 'Bullshit Generator' Disguised as Intelligence
It'll probably cause Google to get sued a lot, both by individuals and companies
As Expected, Google in the UK Now Experiments With Slop Instead of Web Search
At this point more people ought to stop and think: Does Google's search engine deserve trust?
The Data You Don't Give Away is Your Advantage
stop sharing data that does not need to be shared
Being Obedient or Doing the Right Thing
The world always changes for the better because of people who think "Outside the Box", not the cogs
Gemini Links 01/08/2025: Happy Hacking Keyboards and New Gemini Arrivals
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 31, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 31, 2025