Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 14/10/2014: CAINE 6, New RHEL, Dronecode





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • OpenDaylight Helium gets out of the gate
    OpenDaylight is an open source SDN controller. In its short lifetime, OpenDaylight has gained support from a diverse set of companies and individuals who are eager to see an open source controller serve the networking needs of traditional IT, cloud infrastructure platforms, traditional virtualization management, and fleets of containers. Cisco released the initial code in 2013 and the project now includes 41 paying members.


  • OPNFV Project Begins Planning Open Source NFV Solutions
    The Open Platform for Network Functions Virtualization (OPNFV), the collaborative partnership for advancing open source software-defined networking and data centers that the Linux Foundation announced last month, is now officially live. Here's what it's up to so far, and what it hopes to becomes over the coming months and years.


  • 11 open source security tools catching fire on GitHub
    The famous tenet “all bugs are shallow” is a cornerstone of open source development. Known as Linus’s Law, the idea that open code leads to more effective bug detection in one’s projects is often the first thing IT pros think of when it comes to the security upside of the open source model.


  • Jono Bacon: Open Source is Where Society Innovates
    Throughout history, social and technological progress has been the result of people working together for change. Today community is just as important and instrumental as ever – enabled by the internet and social media, said Jono Bacon, senior director of community at XPRIZE and former Ubuntu community manager, in his keynote Tuesday at LinuxCon and CloudOpen Europe in Dusseldorf.


  • Amazon Getting More Involved With Open Source
    Amazon is not resting on their laurels though. They have rapidly adopted Docker into several AWS offerings, and are constantly improving the platform.


  • Amazon Web Services Aims for More Open Source Involvement
    In 2006, Amazon was an e-commerce site building out its own IT infrastructure in order to sell more books. Now, AWS and EC2 are well-known acronyms to system administrators and developers across the globe looking to the public cloud to build and deploy web-scale applications. But how exactly did a book seller become a large cloud vendor?


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla



      • Zen Web to Join Firefox OS Phone Players in India
        Mozilla seems to be staying very focused on the low end of the smartphone market with its Firefox OS platform, despite the high-end evolution of iOS and Android. Recently, Firefox OS phones have been arriving in India, priced well under $50, and promising to put phones in the hands of users who have never had them before.


      • Zen Web to Join Firefox OS Phone Players in India
        Now, Zen Mobile has announced it will arrive in the Firefox OS market in India with a low cost mobile phone available later this month.


      • Now, Zen Mobile to launch low cost Firefox smartphone in October
        Just few weeks into the unveiling of the first Firefox OS device in the the Indian market, Mozilla announced further partnerships with popular mobile device brands and app partners in India to launch new smartphones and content services.


      • Firefox 33 Brings OpenH264 Support
        Most notable about the Firefox 33 web browser update is that it integrates OpenH264 sandboxed support via Cisco's H.264 open-source support.






  • SaaS/Big Data



    • Hadoop, Trove to Take Center Stage in the OpenStack Arena
      Slowly but surely, database-as-a-service functionality has been emerging as an important component of the evolution of the OpenStack cloud computing platform. When the OpenStack Icehouse version arrived in April, the Trove database-as-a-service project was one of the under-the-hood offerings. And now, the OpenStack Juno version is slated to arrive on Oct. 16, featuring a significatnly improved version of Trove.


    • EMC Snaps Up OpenStack Startup Cloudscaling




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • BSD



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



    • JIT Support Is Closer To Landing For GCC
      Since last year there's been an initiative for an embeddable GCC JIT compiler and ambitions to mainline the JIT support with LLVM long having been promoted for its Just-In-Time compilation abilities. Now with new patches, GCC JIT is a step closer to being mainlined.




  • Public Services/Government



    • Where new European Commission leaders stand on open source
      Many policy makers at senior levels—particularly those without experience in ICT—are not expected to have a firm grasp of issues surrounding open source and open standards. Nonetheless, Ansip displayed facility on these issues during his hearing, calling for software produced by the EC to be made open source. When he was initially asked about "free software," he responded by talking about "open source." Although a minor point, it provides indication that he is not new to these issues.


    • Nearly all of Romania’s universities use Moodle
      The vast majority (85 percent) of Romania’s 105 universities are now using Moodle, an open source e-learning platform, reports the country’s Moodle community manager, Herman Cosmin. “They appreciate its world-wide community and the involvement of the national community.”




  • Openness/Sharing



    • Open Access/Content



      • Lulu CEO on the invention of the self-publishing business
        Lulu.com helped define modern publish-on-demand services. In my mind, they did define them; I remember printing my first photobook and sending it to Lulu to be sent back, spiral-bound. I was amazed. I had essentially put together a small markup language (DSL, or Domain Specific Language, even), processed it through a Scheme script, and spit out LaTeX that produced reasonably pretty pages that could be converted to PDF and submitted for publication. I think I bought two copies.




    • Open Hardware





  • Programming



    • Vagrant
      How many times you have been hit by unit tests failing because of environment differences between you and other team members? How easy is it to build your project and have it ready for development? Vagrant provides a method for creating repeatable development environments across a range of operating systems for solving these problems. It is a thin layer that sits on top of existing technologies that allows people working on a project to reproduce development environments with a single command: vagrant up.


    • Undertaker 1.6 Works For Linux Kernel Static Pre-Processor Code Analysis
      Undertaker is a project centered around static code analysis for code with C preprocessor directives. Undertaker is based on the VAMOS and CADOS research projects and is able to analyze the preprocessor directives of the Linux kernel.


    • Self-documentation of code
      The inadequacy or lack of documentation of software is a recurring issue. This applies just as often to proprietary software as it does to free software. Documentation of code has two main purposes: to make the code readable for other programmers, and to make the code useable. Good documentation of free software is vital for users, and contributing to the documentation (or translation to a minority language) of a free software project is a good way to get involved for those who don’t know where to start, or how to program, and want to know how it’s done. The problem is a shortage of recruits.






Leftovers



  • Psst: border mostly secure
    For the past 10 years, Congress has tried to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. And for 10 years, Congress has failed.

    One of the biggest obstacles to passing a law has been the insistence that the U.S.-Mexico border must be secure before any bill can be considered.

    While this demand has remained constant, the border has become more and more secure over the years, undermining the argument. Data released by the Department of Homeland Security confirm the Southern border is more secure than it has been in decades.


  • Health/Nutrition



    • Pakistan worried by surge in polio


    • Polio becomes 'public health emergency' in Pakistan as number of cases soars
      As world health officials struggle to respond to the Ebola epidemic, Pakistan has passed a grim milestone in its efforts to combat another major global health crisis: the fight against polio.


    • Polio on Rise in Northern Pakistan Following Taliban Ban on Polio Vaccinations
      In 2012, the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups banned polio vaccinations in the North Waziristan region; vaccinations are believed by some radicals to be cover for the sterilization of Muslim children, while paranoia may also have been provoked by the phony hepatitis vaccination campaign the CIA used to gain access to Osama bin Laden's compound before he was killed. (The doctor who helped the CIA organize the campaign is serving 23 years in prison on separate charges believed to be pretexts to punish him for aiding the U.S.)


    • Bomb kills two polio vaccinators in Mohmand Agency
      Nobody claimed responsibility for the bombing, but militants have been aggressively targeting immunisation workers across Pakistan. The militants allege polio vaccination is a cover for espionage or Western-conspiracy to sterilise Muslims. Those conspiracy theories gained further traction after the CIA recruited a local doctor to start a vaccination programme during the hunt for Osama Bin Laden which dismayed many aid and health workers.


    • Bomb blast kills two polio vaccinators
      Those conspiracy theories gained further traction after the CIA recruited a local doctor to start a vaccination programme during the hunt for Osama Bin Laden which dismayed many aid and health workers.


    • Pakistan Battling Not Only Polio, but Misinformation
      Pakistan is losing ground in the battle against polio, with the country suffering its worst outbreaks in more than a decade.

      Efforts to erase polio are hampered by suspicions that health workers are spies, following the CIA's use of a vaccination team to track Osama bin Laden. That legacy led to two polio workers being killed Wednesday.

      Since December of 2012, militants have killed several dozen health workers involved with the Pakistan vaccination program and the police officers escorting them.


    • Polio Spreads in Pakistan
      As Ebola rages on in West Africa, Pakistan is dealing with a terrible outbreak of polio. More than 200 people have contracted the disease this year, the worst infection rate in more than a decade, The Washington Post reported this week (October 7).

      “We want to limit the virus outside of our boundaries and want to work to control it in our boundaries, but it’s certainly a very challenging situation ahead,” Ayesha Raza Farooq, the polio eradication coordinator for Pakistan’s government, told the Post.


    • Millions Missing From DEA Money-Laundering Operation
      At least $20 million went missing from money seizures by law enforcers, critical evidence was destroyed by a federal agency, a key informant was outed by a US prosecutor — contributing to her being kidnapped and nearly killed — and at the end of the day not a single narco-trafficker was prosecuted in this four-year-long DEA undercover operation gone awry.




  • Security



    • Security advisories for Monday


    • VeraCrypt a Worthy TrueCrypt Alternative
      If you're reluctant to continue using TrueCrypt now that the open source encryption project has been abandoned, and you don't want to wait for the CipherShed fork to mature, one alternative that's well worth investigating is VeraCrypt.

      VeraCrypt is also a fork of the original TrueCrypt code, and it was launched in June 2013. IT security consultant Mounir Idrassi, who is based in France, runs the project and is its main contributor.


    • DEFCON Router Hacking Contest Reveals 15 Major Vulnerabilities
      It's clear from the fact that the list spans many different manufacturers that the problem is not unique to any one company. It affects nearly all router makers, and a huge percentage of Internet users. And if these brand names are not familiar, that doesn't mean you're safe: the Actiontec Q1000, for example, is provided by Verizon Communications to its customers.


    • Too many secrets, not enough service
      The Secret Service these days is performing about as well as the Iraqi security forces have been against the Islamic State. On both fronts, the White House is saying that this time it will work better. But nothing has really changed.


    • Rep. Cummings: Many African-Americans Fear Obama Security Decreased Due To Race




  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • Propaganda War on Islamic State Militants
      Washington uses ISIS/ISIL/Islamic state (IS), Nusra Front, Al Qaeda and likeminded groups strategically as enemies and allies. At times, simultaneously.

      In the 1980s, CIA-recruited mujahideen fighters battled Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers.

      Ronald Reagan called them "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." They're today's Taliban despite distinct differences between them. Longstanding US support enhanced radical Islamic strength. Extremist groups were natural Cold War allies.


    • Cubana Flight 455: Remembering the Victims of US-Supported Terrorism
      October 6th, is the 38th anniversary of the first act of terrorism against civilian aviation in the western hemisphere – the unparalleled Cubana air disaster on the coastline of Barbados on October 6, 1976 – the Barbados crime. Cubana flight 455 was hit by two C-4 explosives bombs just after the aircraft took off from the then Seawell Airport (now the Grantley Adams International Airport) in Barbados at an altitude of 18,000 feet.


    • Cuba Mourns Anniversary of Terrorist Bombing of Cubana Flight 455


    • ​Hasta siempre, Comandante! Che Guevara’s ideas flourish decades on


    • Che Guevara: The Rorschach Revolutionary


    • Branfman revealed U.S. bombing of Laos
      Fred Branfman, the first person to draw public attention to a previously unknown U.S. bombing campaign inside Laos during the Vietnam War and who later became a leading anti-war activist in Washington, has died at a medical facility in Budapest, where he had lived for several years. He was 72.


    • Larry Berman and the “Perfect Spy” (Part 1)
      At first he did not want me to write the book. He did not want anyone to write the book. Many people who knew him during the war are famous journalists like Stanley Karnow and others. They offered An $500,000 to write his memoirs. And An kept saying "No, because if I tell the secrets, too many people would be hurt".


    • Anything that flies on anything that moves
      In transmitting President Richard Nixon's orders for a "massive" bombing of Cambodia in 1969, Henry Kissinger said, "Anything that flies on everything that moves". As Barack Obama ignites his seventh war against the Muslim world since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the orchestrated hysteria and lies make one almost nostalgic for Kissinger's murderous honesty.


    • From Pol Pot to ISIS
      The Americans dropped the equivalent of five Hiroshimas on rural Cambodia during 1969-73. They levelled village after village, returning to bomb the rubble and corpses. The craters left monstrous necklaces of carnage, still visible from the air. The terror was unimaginable. A former Khmer Rouge official described how the survivors “froze up and they would wander around mute for three or four days. Terrified and half-crazy, the people were ready to believe what they were told … That was what made it so easy for the Khmer Rouge to win the people over.”


    • Australia's new secret police
      When Greg James QC recently launched Frank Walker’s book Maralinga on British nuclear tests in Australia, the former NSW Supreme Court judge said the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation was involved in an associated program to collect the bones of dead children without the parents’ permission.

      Jones later explained that he obtained this previously unpublished information, although not precise details, while representing military veterans exposed to radiation from the tests in 50s and 60s. However, the book provides a powerful reminder of the harm that can be done by using national security to conceal indefensible behaviour.

      Walker sets out how 22,000 bones, mostly of babies and young children, were removed from corpses as part of a secret program to examine the effects of the radiation, which the tests spread across large parts of Australia. The program, that began in 1957 and lasted 21 years, was kept secret until 2001.


    • Leon Panetta reveals nuke plan for South Korea
      The U.S. government discussed a plan with the Lee Myung-bak administration to use nuclear weapons if North Korea invaded the South, a former U.S. defense secretary and CIA director has disclosed.


    • Pittsburgh protests new round of wars
      On October 4, Pittsburgh anti-war forces braved bitter cold rain and hail to stand against a new round of wars in the Middle East. Over 50 demonstrators gathered at Schenley Plaza on University of Pittsburgh’s campus for a rally organized by ANSWER Coalition, the Anti-War Committee of the Thomas Merton Center, and many other local peace groups. Protesters connected the wars abroad to the cuts in social services at home by chanting “Money for jobs and education, not for wars and occupation!”


    • Report recommends controversial American-Iranian policy changes
      The Iran Project is a non-governmental organization seeking to dissolve American-Iranian differences.


    • Request for release of info in ’96 TWA crash denied
      The First US Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a District Court finding that the CIA was permitted to keep the material secret, under exemptions in the FOIA law.


    • Rushing to War in the Wrong Places
      Andrew Bacevich has done a tally of the number of countries in the Islamic world that, since 1980, the United States has invaded, bombed or occupied, and in which members of the American military have either killed or been killed. Syria has become the 14th such country. Several of the countries have been the scene of U.S. military operations more than once.


    • Historic museum vote exposes rift among Bay of Pigs veterans
      For nearly 30 years, the renovated Little Havana duplex off Calle Ocho has been home to artifacts and images from the failed CIA-backed attempt in 1961 by Cuban exiles to overthrow the communist regime of Fidel Castro. It has hosted international politicians, movie stars and grade school students and held memorials for the dozens who died during the Bay of Pigs invasion.


    • Stop the U.S. blockade of Cuba now!
    • The real reason it’s nearly impossible to end the Cuba embargo
      “I think we should—we should advocate for the end of the embargo” on Cuba, Hillary Clinton said in an interview this summer at the Council on Foreign Relations. “My husband tried,” she declared, “and remember, there were [behind-the-scenes] talks going on.” The way the pre-candidate for president recounts this history, Fidel Castro sabotaged that process because “the embargo is Castro’s best friend,” providing him “with an excuse for everything.” Her husband’s efforts, she said, were answered with the February 1996 shoot-down of two US civilian planes by the Cuban air force, “ensuring there would be a reaction in the Congress that would make it very difficult for any president to lift the embargo alone.”

      The history of this dramatic episode is far more complicated than Hillary Clinton portrays it. But she is correct about one thing: Should she become president, it will be far harder for her to lift the 50-year-old trade embargo against Cuba than it would have been when her husband first assumed the office. The person most responsible for that, however, is Bill Clinton.


    • Biden continues to apologize; first Turkey, now UAE
      Vice President Joe Biden apologized to the United Arab Emirates Sunday for charging that the oil-rich ally had been supporting al Qaida and other jihadi groups in Syria's internal war, his second apology in as many days to a key participant in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State extremists.


    • VP Biden Apologizes for Telling Truth About Turkey, Saudi and ISIS


    • US Vice President Joe Biden Apologizes After Calling Sunni Allies 'Largest Problem in Syria'
      US Vice President Joe Biden has once again got himself in hot water, this time with key Sunni allies, after blaming them for indirectly facilitating the growth of the Islamic State militants in Syria.


    • Biden’s Admission: US Allies Armed ISIS
    • During Month of Gaffes, Vice President Biden Says Something Brilliant
      Mr. Biden’s remark also reveals the arrogance of American foreign policy. By always looking for the next Jefferson or Madison we refuse to recognize that other countries may have other models or paths to follow, and that the American experience is not universal — a belief that may spring from good intentions and a generosity of spirit, but also reflects an unwillingness to accept real differences between people and countries. It is the political equivalent of believing that everybody everywhere can speak English if you just speak it loudly and slowly enough.


    • Who 'Lost' Iraq? The Panetta Fantasy
      A growing number of high officials in American foreign policy engage in two all-consuming pastimes. One is the relentless pursuit of power, status and acclaim. The other is striving mightily, upon leaving office, to doctor the historical record so as to airbrush their misdeeds while striking a pose of statesmanlike wisdom and skill. The unforeseen rise of IS is provoking an outbreak of the latter.


    • Netanyahu Calls US Rebuke Over Jewish Settlements 'Un-American;' Praises Obama for Airstrikes Against ISIS
      Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a television interview that a recent White House rebuke of Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is "against American values," but he praised President Obama's decision to attack ISIS in Iraq and Syria.


    • 'US-trained ISIS militants used to reorganize Middle East'
      WE: It’s brought them to the point of war between Shia and Sunni. That certainly was not the case before 2003. There was an uneasy truce – but it was a truce. In Syria, you had Shia and Sunni living side by side, Alawites and so forth. Same in Turkey and in Iraq. And now? Look at what General Petraeus did in Iraq to create this holy war between Shia and Sunni there – with his strategic Hamlet-kind of insurgency, trainings, secret police, and what not. And now we are reaping the result. ISIS has been trained by US Special Forces in Georgia. They’ve recruited Chechens as soldiers, they trained them in secret NATO bases inside Turkey and Jordan. For the last year and a half, they have been developing what we now call ISIS (IS, ISIL or DASH) or whatever moniker you want to give it. It’s all made in Langley, Virginia (the CIA’s seat) and [by] the affiliates of Langley inside the Pentagon.


    • Opinion: Rebel effort in Syria still splintered
      The squabbling factions that make up the Syrian “moderate opposition” should get their act together. But so should the foreign nations — such as the United States, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan — that have been funding the chaotic melange of fighters inside Syria. These foreign machinations helped open the door for the terrorist Islamic State to threaten the region...


    • The Anglo-American Empire’s War of Conquest. The War on the Islamic State (ISIL) is a Lie


    • Three reasons Obama is relieved to have UK support against Isil
      With the RAF now flying combat missions over Iraq, President Obama's national security team is breathing a little easier. After all, even as UK participation in the coalition became likely, Parliament's August 2013 rejection of air strikes against Assad has lingered in Washington memory. The prevailing fear was that Britain could no longer be relied upon.


    • Parliament approves motion to send 600 Canadian soldiers, CF-18 jets to Iraq War against ISIS
      Harper has maintained that ground soldiers will not be deployed to the battle in an effort to limit Canadian casualties. However, the mission could be expanded to fight ISIL militants in Syria, although federal opposition parties have demanded for a new vote over any expansion of the combat mission into the neighbouring country.




  • Transparency Reporting



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife



    • How much leverage do donors really have on climate change?
      Kim himself will be participating in a panel focused on ways to boost renewable energy and in particular the role of the aid community in limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

      But how much influence do top development donors actually have in the fight against global warming? Very little, according to Jairam Ramesh, India’s chief negotiator at the 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen.






  • Finance



    • Los Angeles Minimum Wage Raise Process Begins
      There was confusion on Tuesday at the Los Angeles City Council meeting. Supporters of the minimum wage raise expected council members to vote on the motion to raise the minimum wage.


    • Russia and China team up to destroy the petro dollar
      Actions of the West in Eastern Europe and ongoing pressure on Russia may eventually intensify the movement to combat the petrodollar. The biggest danger to the oil currency is likely to be related to China and its plans to increase the role of the yuan in the world.

      Russia and China currently discuss the creation of a system of inter-bank transactions, which would be an analogue to the international system of bank transfers - SWIFT. This was announced by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov after talks in Beijing.

      "Yes, this idea was discussed and supported," he said, when asked about the possible creation of an analogue to SWIFT in bank transactions between China and Russia.

      SWIFT is an international interbank information transfer and payment system. The system is also known as SWIFT-BIC (Bank Identifier Codes), BIC code, SWIFT ID or SWIFT code. The system was founded in 1973; 239 banks from 15 countries acted as co-founders.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • Neo-Con Speed Dating
      The TV debates for the Westminster election will offer you a dazzling range of neo-con policies from right wing to very right wing. Conservative, Labour, Liberal or UKIP, any flavour of corporate neo-con control that you like. It is a kind of weird speed dating circle between Cameron, Clegg, Miliband and Farage.


    • CBS Evening News Offers False "He Said, She Said" Equivalence In Voter ID Report
      These types of strict voter ID laws are popular among Republican lawmakers, despite the fact that they are redundant and there is no evidence of widespread, in-person voter fraud -- the type of fraud voter ID laws are designed to prevent. Nevertheless, on the October 10 edition of CBS Evening News, correspondent Chip Reid's segment on the recent legal decisions affecting Texas and Wisconsin's voter ID laws failed to report this simple truth about voter suppression:


    • War on Witches: Reagan Judge Denounces Myth of Voter Fraud
      Voter ID is “a mere fig leaf for efforts to disenfranchise voters likely to vote for the political party that does not control the state government,” federal appellate Judge Richard Posner wrote in a scorching dissent published October 10.


    • ‘Panetta Is Trying to Rewrite History’
      Just as they did with Robert Gates, White House officials are trying to avoid too much of a public spat with Leon Panetta, the latest former high-level administration insider to criticize the president, in the not unreasonable hope that the less they say, the quicker the story will go away.

      But as they seethe quietly over what they consider the Pentagon chief’s disloyalty, administration officials are also bashing him in private, distributing a long raft of statements that he made as Obama’s CIA director and later as defense secretary that sometimes appear to contradict or undermine Panetta’s claims that he argued strenuously to keep U.S. troops in Iraq after 2011 and urged a military intervention in Syria.


    • Jim Newton leaves Times
      As editor at large, he brought his experience and knowledge to the paper’s editorial board. He is also co-author of “Worthy Fights,” the new book by Leon Panetta, former defense secretary and CIA chief.


    • Non-Denial Denials: The Most Ludicrous and the Most Heinous
      Some non-denial denials come incredibly close to flat-out lies, and that one sure did. It relied on a legalistic definition of “sexual relations” that Clinton later explained did not cover repeatedly receiving oral sex from Lewinsky, because, for his part, he had no “intent to arouse or gratify” her.


    • Leading German Journalist Admits CIA 'Bribed' Him and Other Leaders of the Western 'Press'
      Now that he has abandoned not just the anti-Islamic but the anti-Russian elements of traditional German culture, he no longer is welcomed among the conservative Germans who had helped him to build, and then, for decades, to advance, his successful long career as a 'journalist,' but which he now calls "propagandist."




  • Privacy



    • Unity3D Games "Phone Home" With Details Of Your Hardware & Software
      A tweet sent out by the Unity engine folks earlier about their stats page mentions that all Unity games automatically send your data to them on the first launch. This is interesting and worrying.


    • National ID system described as threat to privacy
      A proposed national ID system pending approval in the House of Representatives will threaten the privacy of ordinary citizens, a party-list lawmaker warned on Wednesday.


    • With This Tiny Box, You Can Anonymize Everything You Do Online
      No tool in existence protects your anonymity on the Web better than the software Tor, which encrypts Internet traffic and bounces it through random computers around the world. But for guarding anything other than Web browsing, Tor has required a mixture of finicky technical setup and software tweaks. Now routing all your traffic through Tor may be as simple as putting a portable hardware condom on your ethernet cable.




  • Civil Rights

    • What’s Driving the Hong Kong Protests
      As a progressive, Chinese-fluent journalist who has spent years working in China and especially Hong Kong, and who has spent decades exposing the secret workings of US agencies and their network of fake NGOs in support of US empire, as well as their anti-democratic activities here in the US, I can understand why people might be suspicious, but I want to explain that Hong Kong is not Ukraine or even Venezuela or Brazil.

      [...]

      I give this history to make it clear that there is a multigenerational history of struggling for and defending individual rights and of fighting for democratic rights in Hong Kong. Hong Kong people are not new to this stuff, and as an educated population with access to a world of information in their open media and wide open internet, they are not a population that is readily susceptible to the kind of manipulation and subversion practiced typically by the likes of the NED.


    • Sunflower protests about values, not fear of China: official
      Taiwan's student-led protest against a trade-in-services agreement with China earlier this year was held to preserve values cherished in Taiwan, not out of fear of China, a Taiwanese official stated in a response to an op-ed in the United States said Tuesday.


    • Taiwan's protests about values, not fear of China: official


    • Washington’s Ukrainian Puppet Regime Seeks NATO and EU Membership
      Despite the heightened state of tension between Russia and the West on the international stage, the Prime Minister of Ukraine – Arseny Yatsenyuk – recently called for Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). If Ukraine was to join the alliance in the near future it would signify a further escalation in a situation that is already beginning to spiral out of control, as it would directly threaten Russia’s strategic security.


    • Guantanamo judge: No need to order MRI of accused USS Cole bomber's brain
      CIA agents waterboarded al Nashiri and subjected him to a mock execution before his arrival at Guantanamo in 2006. He subsequently got a military medical diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder. A consultant who examined al Nashiri said the scan was necessary in order to determine how to provide him with proper health treatment at the prison.


    • Judge: Hearing to determine admissibility of terror suspect Anas al-Liby's statements
      A federal judge on Wednesday ordered a hearing on whether to suppress statements by a Libyan terror suspect who claims he was shell-shocked from being tasered and kidnapped by Delta Force operatives and subjected to a harsh shipboard CIA interrogation.


    • Suspected Bomb Plotter Challenges CIA Detention


    • Activist from Buvajda blackmailed by authorities
      The Uzbek authorities are threatening Negmatjon Siddikov’s imprisoned son Sadyr should the activist refuse to disassociate himself with Elena Urlaeva, the head of the Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan (PAU).


    • ‘Who the f**k authorized this?’ Obama’s chief of staff cursed Panetta over CIA torture probe
      Former CIA Director Leon Panetta says that he was cursed at by President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff after he agreed to cooperate with the Senate’s investigation into his agency’s torture tactics in the wake of 9/11.

      In passages taken from his new book and published online by the Intercept, Panetta explains the event that triggered the outburst, which flowed from the former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a man notorious for his profanity-laced tirades.


    • Panetta Says Rahm Emanuel Cussed Him Out for Cooperating With Torture Inquiry


    • Rosenberg letters at BU exhibition
      “I am well aware that we face many long days and difficult obstacles have to be overcome before we can really see victory,” Ethel Rosenberg wrote while behind bars in 1952, “but I’m still confident that we’ll win our freedom.” Of course, she and husband Julius , convicted in 1951 of conspiracy to commit espionage, did not win their freedom, and a year later they were executed in the electric chair.


    • US Counterterrorism Communications Center Running Public Diplomacy, Not Infowar
      The US State Department's Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) is conducting public diplomacy, not information warfare against the Islamic State (IS) and other terrorist organizations by contesting the space of digital communication and challenging extremist propaganda, the CSCC coordinator told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

      "It is 100 percent overt public diplomacy as the US government has been doing over decades. Everything we do is overt," Alberto Fernandez told RIA Novosti when asked if he considered the CSCC mission to be information warfare. Speaking of the CSCC efforts to counter terrorist and extremist messaging on the internet, he continued, "That's why we're seeking to contest the space, to unnerve the adversary, to change the conversation."


    • DEMOCRACY’S POROUS BORDERS: ESPIONAGE, SMUGGLING AND THE MAKING OF JAPAN’S TRANSWAR REGIME
      The world of espionage and undercover operations is the realm where the state – the maker of laws – deliberately breaks its own laws in the interest of self-preservation. In this sense, it forms part of the realm that Carl Schmitt, and more recently Giorgio Agamben, have termed “the state of exception”, and that Susan Buck-Morss calls the “wild zone of power” — the zone where power is above the law. This realm has become a greater and more important part of almost all political systems over the past half century. In an age of information, the possession and guarding of secrets is more than ever crucial to political power; and in a globalized age, the complexity of multilayered cross-border interactions impels the state to develop ever-more extensive information gathering systems, to guard against multiple challenges to its authority emerging from wide range of directions.


    • Asset seizures fuel police spending
      Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.
    • “It breaks my heart”: How a SWAT team upended my baby’s life — and got away with it
      A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old's chest -- and just got off scot-free. But here's why it gets even worse




  • DRM



  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • “Megaupload’s Imaginary Copyright Crimes Should be Dismissed”


        The U.S. Government is trying to get their hands on the assets of Kim Dotcom and his fellow defendants through a civil lawsuit, claiming that they are the proceeds of crime. Megaupload's legal team is striking back against these allegations and informs the court that the Government's case is built on nonexistent crimes.








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