Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 20/2/2015: Bloomberg Joins Linux Foundation, ClearOS Community 6.6.0





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • 5 ethical open source hacking tools for business
    Many businesses routinely employ "ethical" hackers as a means of testing whether their systems are secure, paying the tech-savvy to break into their computers in what is known as penetration testing, or pen testing.


  • ONF launches open source community to bolster SDN software development


  • Graylog 1.0 Eliminates Cost Barriers to Unlocking Big Data
    HOUSTON — Graylog, Inc., the company behind the popular Graylog open source log analysis platform, today announced that it has released v1.0 of its Open Source Graylog product. This enterprise-grade platform enables organizations to store, search and analyze machine data collected from their IT infrastructures to quickly pinpoint and address the root cause of operational problems. Graylog is providing paid services/support to make it even easier for enterprises to deploy this affordable alternative to expensive log analysis tools such as Splunk.


  • Events



    • SCALE 13x Day 0: Exceeding expectations
      It was a first for the Southern California Linux Expo — a midweek start on Thursday for SCALE 13x, and those of us on the SCALE Team did not know what to expect. The day was composed of a variety of sessions — an all-day Intro to Chef, Puppet Labs held its separate-registration Puppet Camp LA, openSUSE held its mini-summit, PostgreSQL held the first of its two-day PostgreSQL days, Fedora held its Fedora Activity Day, and an all-day Apache session.


    • Collaboration Summit 2015 Keynote Speakers
      The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit 2015 took place Feb. 18-20 in Santa Rosa, Calif.




  • CMS



    • 4 tips for how to migrate to Drupal
      Well, to jump from your current CMS (or lack thereof) and make the transition to Drupal, you want to know much it costs and exacting what that migration entails. First, there are several factors that have to be taken into an account before any Drupal development company can give you a quote. But, while there isn’t an exact price range for migrating to Drupal, you can do some in-house work to keep your migration costs down and prepare your team for the migration, keeping headaches down too.




  • Openness/Sharing



  • Programming



    • Facebook Announces The Hack Specification
      Last year Facebook launched Hack, a new programming language derived from PHP and powered by their HHVM software. The Hack specification serves as official documentation for those wanting to come out with their own Hack implementation rather than relying upon HHVM. The Hack specification complements the existing Hack programming documentation.




  • Standards/Consortia





Leftovers



  • I gave up social media for Lent
    Could getting off Twitter be a religious experience?


  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • U.S. officials, in blunt language, say Israel is distorting reality of Iran talks
      The Obama administration on Wednesday accused the Israeli government of misleading the public over the Iran nuclear negotiations, using unusually blunt and terse language that once again highlighted the rift between the two sides.

      In briefings with reporters, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki and White House spokesman Josh Earnest suggested Israeli officials were not being truthful about how the United States is handling the secretive talks.




  • Transparency Reporting



    • How a Snowdenista Kept the NSA Leaker Hidden in a Moscow Airport
      Since spiriting NSA leaker Edward Snowden to safety in Russia two years ago, activist and WikiLeaks editor Sarah Harrison has lived quietly in Berlin. Sara Corbett meets the woman some regard as a political heroine—others as an accomplice to treason.

      Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport is, like so many international airports, a sprawling and bland place. It has six terminals, four Burger Kings, a sweep of shops selling duty-free caviar, and a rivering flow of anonymous travelers—all of them headed out or headed in or, in any event, never planning to stay long. But for nearly six weeks in the summer of 2013, the airport also housed two fugitives: Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who had just off-loaded an explosive trove of top-secret U.S. government documents to journalists, and a 31-year-old British woman named Sarah Harrison, described as a legal researcher who worked for the online organization WikiLeaks.


    • A Stronger Freedom of Information Act
      Congress came tantalizingly close last year to passing a bill to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, which allows journalists and the public to access federal government records. The legislation, which would have brought more transparency, was blocked in December when the House speaker, John Boehner, refused to hold a vote on the Senate bill with no explanation. Two months later, lawmakers have a second chance.






  • Finance



    • NYT Hopes India Can Avoid China's Plight: a High-Paid, Well-Educated Workforce
      There aren't a lot of numbers in the Times piece, so it's useful to pause here and note that according to the IMF database, China's per capita GDP (measured in terms of purchasing power) grew by 8.6 percent last year, vs. 6.0 percent for India. So any stumbling, slowing or faltering seen in China's economy is based on forecasts of future growth–which are notoriously unreliable, though often given great credence in articles like these.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • Op-Ed on Venezuela Slips Past NYT Factcheckers
      Krauze begins by claiming that the Venezuelan government, first under President Hugo Chávez and then his successor Nicolás Maduro, has taken control over the media. Chávez "accumulated control over the organs of government and over much of the information media: radio, television and the press," we are told, and then Maduro "took over the rest of Venezuelan television."

      A simple factcheck shows this to be false. The majority of media outlets in Venezuela--including television--continue to be privately owned; further, the private TV audience dwarfs the number of viewers watching state TV.




  • Censorship



  • Privacy



    • Lenovo caught installing adware on new computers
      It looks like Lenovo has been installing adware onto new consumer computers from the company that activates when taken out of the box for the first time.


    • Law enforcement divided over releasing StingRay docs
      State and local law enforcement agencies that use StingRays must weigh their obligations under public records statutes against nondisclosure agreements with the FBI and the device’s manufacturer. While some police departments have ruled that they cannot share any documents whatsoever, a handful of key disclosures in recent weeks — including the cleanest version of the NDA released to date — together shed new light on the FBI’s involvement in cell-site simulator deployments nationwide.


    • How to Remove Superfish Adware From Your Lenovo Computer
      We recently learned that PC manufacturer Lenovo is selling computers preinstalled with a dangerous piece of software, called Superfish, that uses a man-in-the-middle attack to break Windows' encrypted Web connections for the sake of advertising. (Here's a list of affected products.) Research from EFF's Decentralized SSL Observatory has seen many thousands of Superfish certificates that have all been signed with the same root certificate, showing that HTTPS security for at least Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari for Windows, on all of these Lenovo laptops, is now broken. Firefox users also have the problem, because Superfish also inserts its certificate into the Firefox root store.


    • Lenovo In Denial: Insists There's No Security Problem With Superfish -- Which Is Very, Very Wrong.
      Late last night, people started buzzing on Twitter about the fact that Lenovo, makers of the famous Thinkpad laptops, had been installing a really nasty form of adware on those machines called Superfish. Many news stories started popping up about this, again, focusing on the adware. But putting adware on a computer, while ethically questionable and a general pain in the ass, is not the real problem here. The problem is that the adware in question, Superfish, has an astoundingly stupid way of working that effectively allows for a very easy man in the middle attack on any computer with the software installed, making it a massive security hole that is insanely dangerous.


    • Lenovo accused of compromising user security by installing adware on new PCs
      The information extracted by Graham can now be used to break the security on every compromised Lenovo computer. This leaves infected users essentially open to any eavesdropping if they are using the net on a public Wi-Fi account, and also enables future malware authors to convince Lenovo owners that their software is produced by a trusted vendor, such as Microsoft.
    • Russian Researchers Uncover Sophisticated NSA Malware
      Over the weekend Russian IT security vendor Kaspersky Lab released a report about a new family of malware dubbed "The Equation Family". The software appears, from Kaspersky's description, to be some of the most advanced malware ever seen. It is composed of several different pieces of software, which Kaspersky Lab reports work together and have been infecting computer users around the world for over a decade. It appears that specific techniques and exploits developed by the Equation Group were later used by the authors of Stuxnet, Flame, and Regin. The report alleges that the malware has significant commonalities with other programs that have been attributed to Western intelligence agencies; Reuters subsequently released an article about the report in which an anonymous former NSA employee claims that the malware was directly developed by the NSA.


    • US and UK accused of hacking Sim card firm to steal codes
      US and British intelligence agencies illegally hacked into a major manufacturer of Sim cards to steal codes and facilitate eavesdropping on mobiles, a US news website says.
    • Snowden’s Revenge: New Mega-Spying Project Revealed
      A giant cellphone surveillance program is just one of the dark NSA secrets being dragged out into the light, thanks to a certain whistleblower and a Russian cybersecurity firm.


    • NSA, British spies hack Gemalto to tap mobile calls - Intercept
      Digital security company Gemalto NV was hacked by American and British spies to steal encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications, news website Intercept reported, citing documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
    • Sim card database hack gave US and UK spies access to billions of cellphones
      International row likely after revelations of breach that could have given NSA and GCHQ the power to monitor a large portion of world’s cellular communications


    • Edward Snowden reveals that NSA and GCHQ hacked SIM card manufacturer Gemalto: reports
      British and American spies stole the encryption keys from the largest SIM card manufacturer in the world, according to a government document handed to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
    • How to paint yourself into a corner (Lenovo edition)


    • Superfish: A History Of Malware Complaints And International Surveillance
      Superfish, a little-known “visual search” and ad tech provider from Palo Alto whose CEO was once part of the surveillance industrial complex, is about to learn what it feels like to face the unwavering wrath of the privacy and security industries. Lenovo will take much of the blame for potentially placing users at risk by contracting Superfish to effectively carry out man-in-the-middle attacks on users to intercept their traffic just to get the firm’s “visual” ads up during customers’ web searches.
    • Your Mobile Privacy is Under Threat Because of US and UK Spies
      One of the “biggest Snowden stories yet” has arrived today, according to journalist Glenn Greenwald.

      Spies from the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) and the United Kingdom's Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) “hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe.” The information was obtained from top-secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden.




  • Civil Rights



    • Proposed Florida Body Camera Law Riddled With Exceptions At Behest Of Police Union
      Florida's legislators are pushing through bills mandating body camera use by the state's law enforcement officers. So far, so good, except for the fact that law enforcement officers aren't really looking for greater transparency or accountability, at least not according to Florida Police Benevolent Association chief Gary Bradford.


    • Why a Reporter’s ‘Epic Rant’ on Twitter Gets No Argument Here
      Mr. Risen, an investigative reporter for The Times, was writing in response to Mr. Holder’s statements in a National Press Club speech Tuesday defending the Obama administration’s record on press rights. Mr. Risen, who narrowly escaped jail time as he insisted on protecting a confidential source, begged to differ – in no uncertain terms.

      Referring to the Obama administration as “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation,” Mr. Risen called the attorney general “the nation’s top censorship officer.”

      Although the wording of the Risen tweets was outside the tacitly accepted norm for Times reporters on social media, The Times declined to criticize them and issued a statement in his support.

      I followed up in a conversation with the standards editor, Philip Corbett, and some email correspondence with Mr. Risen.


    • Did the US Prison Boom Lead to the Crime Drop? New Study Says No
      Louisiana — a state whose motto is Union, Justice and Confidence — is known for many things. The Bayou State is the birthplace of jazz, Creole, and Cajun food, and New Orleans is the site of the country’s largest annual Mardi Gras Carnival. But as the Times-Picayune found in a major series years ago, Louisiana is also “the world’s prison capital,” with an incarceration rate that is “nearly five times Iran’s, 13 times China’s and 20 times Germany’s.”


    • FBI Flouts Obama Directive to Limit Gag Orders on National Security Letters
      Despite the post-Snowden spotlight on mass surveillance, the intelligence community’s easiest end-run around the Fourth Amendment since 2001 has been something called a National Security Letter.


    • Yes, Eric Holder Does Do the Intelligence Community’s Bidding in Leak Prosecutions
      The second-to-last witness in the government’s case against Jeffrey Sterling, FBI Special Agent Ashley Hunt, introduced a number of things she had collected over the course of her 7.5 year investigation into James Risen’s chapter on Operation Merlin. That included a few things — most notably two lines from Risen’s credit card records from 2004 — that in no conceivable way incriminated Sterling.


    • Hacker Claims Feds Hit Him With 44 Felonies When He Refused to Be an FBI Spy
      A year ago, the Department of Justice threatened to put Fidel Salinas in prison for the rest of his life for hacking crimes. But before the federal government brought those charges against him, Salinas now says, it tried a different tactic: recruiting him.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality



    • Net neutrality: UK Lords call for internet to be reclassified as a utility
      THE HOUSE OF LORDS IS BACKING the idea of a free and gloriously open internet that is available to all, and is - rather less exciting sounding - reclassified as a utility.

      The plans come on the heels of similar noises from the US where Title II reclassification is a hot and contentious topic.

      Here we have the Lords releasing a report advocating that the government takes the internet and makes it a ;utility service' much like it is in Estonia where it is considered a human right, and much as people like Tim Berners-Lee would appreciate.


    • Former FCC Boss Turned Top Cable Lobbyist Michael Powell Blames Everyone But Himself For Current Net Neutrality Mess
      You might recall that top cable industry lobbyist Michael Powell, formerly head of the FCC, got much of the current Title II debate rolling back in 2002 when he reclassified cable broadband as an "information service." This effectively opened the door to a massive era of broadband deregulation Powell and friends at the time insisted would usher forth an immense new wave of broadband competition. If you've checked your broadband bill or oh, stepped outside lately, you may have noticed that this utopian broadband landscape never materialized.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Cerf Warns Of A 'Lost Century' Caused By Bit Rot; Patents And Copyright Largely To Blame
      The main obstacles to creating software that can run old programs, read old file formats, or preserve old webpages, are patents and copyright. Patents stop people creating emulators, because clean-room implementations that avoid legal problems are just too difficult and expensive to carry out for academic archives to contemplate. At least patents expire relatively quickly, freeing up obsolete technology for reimplementation. Copyright, by contrast, keeps getting extended around the world, which means that libraries would probably be unwilling to make backup copies of digital artefacts unless the law was quite clear that they could -- and in many countries, it isn't.






Recent Techrights' Posts

Next Month 'New Techrights' Turns Two
Next month, on the fourth week, it'll be 2 years since the migration
Online Safety Act Tries to Accomplish the Impossible
All I can say is, "good luck with that!"
 
They Tell Us That "Cloud Storage" is Safe and Robust to Incidents Like Fires
Do you have backups? Where are they and who controls them?
"Allowing SDL to default to Wayland caused a number of customer issues so keep the default at X11 for now"
2025 is another year of Wayland ambitions. It's also a year of self-fulfilling prophecies.
In The United Kingdom (UK), Microsoft Search (Bing) Falls to All-Time Low
Grow? What grow??? It's collapsing.
GNU/Linux Reaches 5% in Oman
Some GNU/Linux distros are made in Oman
Google's "AI Mode" is a Pathetic Joke Prematurely Introduced in the UK (Like "Bard", Which Sank the Company's Shares)
what Google "thinks" about PCLinuxOS
What the Free Software Foundation Started Four Decades Ago is Becoming Mainstream
"Four decades; Four freedoms; For all users"
Doing a Better Job at Labelling Slop Images
we'll label screenshots that contain slop, typically with red-coloured text overlay
Social Control Media is Out of Style
What's your excuse for wasting time on (or in) it?
Maldives: GNU/Linux at All-Time High, Windows at New Lows
data from statCounter shows a reassuring trend
Efficiency is Good, So Why Won't Governments Cull LLM Companies Using Stronger, Stringent Policies?
Like every bubble that ever existed, including some recent ones, an end will come
The Defunct Site LinuxConfig Has Published a Fake Article About Richard Stallman Using LLM Slop, Which Stallman Calls "Bullshit Generator"
Worse yet, it is writing using a "Bullshit Generator" (the term used by Stallman) about Stallman's health
Microsoft Windows Falls to All-Time Lows in Morocco and Algeria
About 70% or even less
StopGenAI in the Cyber Show (C|S)
covering a theme that we too covered a lot lately
Gemini Links 03/08/2025: Once-a-Decade Couch Shopping and Blessings in Disguise
Links for the day
Links 03/08/2025: Political Catch-up, Global Warming, and Hunger
Links for the day
Brittany Day Entered LLM Slop Into LinuxSecurity.com and Something Hilarious Happened: The Site is "Exploited"
The brainless, effortless copypasta of "slop artists" shows its limits
Links 03/08/2025: Microsoft Exchange 0-day Exploited and Avoidable Nuclear Escalation
Links for the day
Definitely Not a Ponzi Scheme
Bitcoin v Microsoft
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a Billionaires' Lobby
Billionaires that control tech companies
Microsoft Borrows 3 Billion Dollars Per Month, a Company Truly Worth Trillions Would Not Do This
if Windows (and Office) "market share" fell from about 90% to barely 30%, how come Microsoft is now "valued" at 20 times more?
It's Even Worse Than Microsoft Lunduke Puts It; GNOME is SLAPPing Journalists
In our experience, GNOME is so malicious - some elements of it in particular - that it would launch multiple simultaneous SLAPP campaigns not only against journalists but also their spouses
GNU/Linux Adoption Reaches All-Time Highs in Chile, statCounter Indicates
This month marks 4 years since Vista 11 came out (as a fake "leak") and some surveys still measure its adoption at less than 40%
Slop Will Not Change the World
Some of us grow up sooner and leave that nonsense behind (or altogether avoid/skip it)
Gemini Links 03/08/2025: Nostalgia and TOFU
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 02, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 02, 2025
Google Throwing Out the Search Engine With the Bathwater is a Complete and Utter 'Shi---ow' as the Company Drowns in Debt, Layoffs, and Worse
The mainstream media almost never mentions GAFAM debt
Operating Systems' Statistics in New Zealand: GNU/Linux Up, Windows Down to All-Time Lows
Remember all this when the media says that Microsoft became like 10 times more valuable in those 15 years (from 400 billion to 4,000 billion in alleged "worth")
Microsoft Windows "Market Share" Measured Around 2.7% in Iraq, Plunges to 6.5% in Saudi Arabia
Microsoft isn't on the agenda in Iraq
GNU/Linux Share in Sweden Has Doubled Since PewDiePie, A Swede, Recommended It
months ago he moved to GNU/Linux, then told others to consider doing the same
GNU/Linux Hits Record High in Portugal
GNU/Linux picking up in Portugal
Gemini Protocol is Not Dying, It's Growing
When people say things like "Gemini Protocol is dying" the data does not support them
GNU/Linux is Thriving This Summer
It is meanwhile acknowledged, even by Microsoft pushers, that many GNU/Linux PCs will get sabotaged next month
The End of Microsoft's Reign in Spain: Windows Falls to All-Time Lows in Spanish Web Traffic
Windows sank to new lows in Spain
The Bots Never Sleep: In The Weekends, Slopfarms Dominate Google News, Majority of Entries in Google Are Fake Articles About 'Linux'
Google is fast becoming an ocean of plagiarism; the same goes for Google News, which was supposed to have extra quality control
Russia's Yandex Has Caught Up With Bing in Terms of "Market Share"
Microsoft has been firing loads of Bing workers for over 2 years already
Canada: GNU/Linux Up to Records Highs, Windows Down to Record Lows
Microsoft already announcing some plans to shut down Vista 11
Gemini Links 02/08/2025: Transducers in Typed Racket and American ISPs
Links for the day
Links 02/08/2025: Microsoft Already Kills Vista 11 SE, Smartphone Sales Down, Truth Gets "You're Fired!" in the US
Links for the day
Video: The Rise of GNU/Linux and Free Software as Seen by RMS in 2004
DTP's founder argued that when Windows goes below 85% "market share", it'll lose its grip in the monopoly sense
Russia: GNU/Linux Rises to Highest Adoption Level Since Invasion of Ukraine
Moving up in the north
Microsoft's Latest Financial Report: We "Gained" 300 Million Dollars in "Goodwill" and Liabilities Grew by 32 Billion Dollars
Microsoft's debt has reached an all-time high
The Register US = The Register MS
Formerly The Register UK
Weeks After Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan Windows Falls to All-Time Lows
Only less than a month ago it was quietly revealed, based on laid-off staff, that Microsoft shut down in Pakistan
Criminal Behaviour is the Standard Operating Procedure at Microsoft
In the future I'll be able to tell how, when dealing with SLAPPs from Microsofters, their Microsoft services failed me and sometimes even blocked my contacts
GNU/Linux Rises to All-Time Highs in Europe
many people will get fired for buying Microsoft
All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux on the Client Desktop/Laptop, Based on Steam Survey
GNU/Linux rose to 2.89% in Steam
Links 02/08/2025: Blaugust 2025 and "Russia Declares Navalny Memoir ‘Extremist’"
Links for the day
Free Software is Not a Business Model
Go ahead, ask your friend, "how do you plan to monetise your children?"
When (Almost) One-Man Operations Are Disguised as Medium-Sized Companies
the CEO hides in the US (hiding from his ex-wives, 4 daughters from those wives, and Sirius staff that he defrauded)
LLM Slop Harms Real Literature, Real Web Sites, Real Journalism
LLM slop is a parasite and it'll run out of legitimate outputs
Upcoming OSI Scandal Series
The OSI is a rogue actor because it serves Microsoft in exchange for money
Slopwatch: The Issue Persists, But the Consensus in the Media Changes as Google Enrages It With LLM Plagiarism
We've meanwhile assessed the latest output from Linuxiac
Microsoft Actually in Trouble, Microsofters Unable to Obey Judges' Orders
For the second time in a week, Microsofters are unable to obey orders
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 01, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 01, 2025
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Links 02/08/2025: İstanbul Retail Inflation Reaches 42.48%, US FBI Opens Office in New Zealand
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/08/2025: ZFS, LLM Hype, and Fake Modules
Links for the day
Links 01/08/2025: Health, Conflict, and Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Microsoft's Debt Exploded by 15.4 Billion Dollars in the Past 9 Months Alone (Despite All the Layoffs)
As of minutes ago, at 6PM on a Friday, the numbers are made public
Meeting (Webchat) With Maria Arranz Gomez, Florian Grundies, Jürgen Janda and Konstantinos Kortsaris Confronts EPO Management About Breaking Promises and Crushing Workers
The lack of consistent messages suggests plans other than what's advertised and the lack of consultation (secrecy) likewise
Links 01/08/2025: "The Great British Firewall" and U.S. Army Sponsors Palantir
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