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Links 28/12/2015: Corporate Media Associates Linux With N. Korea and Abuses, Linux 4.4 RC7 Released





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • SaaS/Big Data



    • On the OpenStack Scene, Get Credentials to Get Hired
      As part of its efforts to grow the OpenStack talent pool and global community, the OpenStack Foundation has announced a new professional certification program that is meant to provide a baseline assessment of knowledge and be accessible to OpenStack professionals around the world. Some of the first steps in advancing the program are taking place now, and other companies are also advancing OpenStack certification plans. Here is a sampling of the educational opportunities.






  • Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)



  • BSD



  • Licensing

    • What topped the GitHub charts in 2015
      It’s been a year of open-source projects. Both enterprises and startups have been releasing their code into the wild as a way to grow their capabilities. It’s not just the code that’s important; it’s the programmers and contributors that can get their hands on it, alter it, fix it, and make it better.


    • Best of Opensource.com: Law


    • Answer to a Frequently Asked Question
      Q: Which open source license is best?

      A: Unlike bilateral copyright licenses, which are negotiated between two parties and embody a truce between them for business purposes, multilateral copyright licenses — of which open source licenses are a kind — are “constitutions of communities”, as Eben Moglen and others have observed. They express the consensus of how a community chooses to collaborate. They also embody its ethical assumptions, even if they are not explicitly enumerated.




  • Openness/Sharing



  • Standards/Consortia



    • Switzerland Wants a Single, Universal Phone Charger by 2017
      Apple’s Lightning cable cartel be damned: Switzerland is moving forward with a plan for a single, universal phone charger across the country, standardizing phone chargers across the board. While the exact standard hasn’t been mentioned yet, it wouldn’t be hard to guess the standard: Micro USB, used across phone platforms, most especially Android, which has a gigantic chunk of the cell phone market worldwide.






Leftovers



  • Security



    • Security Researchers Offer Warnings About Hackable Railroads
      The well-being of critical infrastructure and transportation has long been the elephant in the room when it comes to cybersecurity: plenty of researchers have warned about the possibility of attacks on power-plants, the national grid, and, more recently, even the emergence of internet connected cars.

      Now, researchers are warning of the gaping holes in the security of railroad systems. On Sunday at Chaos Communication Congress, a security, arts and politics conference held annually in Hamburg, Germany, members of the SCADA StrangeLove collective presented a long list of problems with railroad systems that attackers could exploit.


    • DLL Hijacking Just Won’t Die
      To make a long and complicated story short, a bad guy who exploits this vulnerability places a malicious DLL into your browser’s Downloads folder, then waits. When you run an installer built by an earlier version of NSIS from that folder, the elevation prompt (assuming it runs at admin) shows the legitimate installer’s signature asking you for permission to run the installer. After you grant permission, the victim installer loads the malicious DLL which runs its malicious code with the installer’s permissions. And then it’s not your computer anymore.


    • CA Council to Improve Internet Certificate Security in 2016
      At the heart of much of the Internet's security is the use of Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS), which provides encryption for data in motion. Certificate Authorities (CAs) are the trusted entities that issue TLS certificates, and as a group, the CAs are gearing up for big year in 2016, with multiple efforts designed to improve the security of the Internet.


    • Backspace Flaw Enables Linux Zero-Day Attack


    • Monday's security updates




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife



    • Thousands More Homes Face Flooding Threat
      Thousands of homes are being evacuated in York after "unprecedented" levels of rain caused the Foss and Ouse rivers to burst their banks and the city's flood barrier to be lifted.


    • UK flooding: Government rejected warnings of high flood risk from own advisers
      Minsters were warned by the Government’s own climate change advisers that they needed to take action to protect the increasing number of homes at high risk of flooding - but rejected the advice.

      The decision not to develop a comprehensive strategy to address increased flood risk came in October just a few weeks before the flooding in Cumbria before Christmas and the most recent flooding in Lancashire and Yorkshire.


    • Why Engineers Can’t Stop Los Angeles' Enormous Methane Leak
      One of the biggest environmental disasters in US history is happening right now, and you’ve probably never heard of it.

      An enormous amount of harmful methane gas is currently erupting from an energy facility in Aliso Canyon, California, at a startling rate of 110,000 pounds per hour. The gas, which carries with it the stench of rotting eggs, has led to the evacuation 1,700 homes so far. Many residents have already filed lawsuits against the company that owns the facility, the Southern California Gas Company.






  • Finance



  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • Bill O'Reilly Had A Terrible 2015
      Numerous Journalists Took Apart O'Reilly's Falklands War Tales. O'Reilly has repeatedly attempted to bolster his reporting credentials by claiming over the years that he reported "in the Falklands" during the 1982 Falklands War. A Mother Jones exposé, however, found that O'Reilly fabricated his reporting resume and his former colleagues said he was actually 1,200 miles away in Buenos Aires. O'Reilly also claimed to have reported on a 1982 Buenos Aires protest in which "many were killed," but numerous journalists who reported from the scene and a historian disputed his story. Furthermore, O'Reilly claimed to have helped an injured CBS photographer during the protest, but his colleagues have no recollection of that incident.




  • Censorship



    • True or false, decide through self-censorship, says minister
      He said self-censorship was important to see that the information they received and believed were valid and not detrimental and disruptive to harmony in society and country.


    • Public should practice self-censorship on social media, says minister
      Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Dr Salleh Said Keruak today called on the people to use their power of self-censorship to reject or accept any information posted on the social media.

      He said self-censorship was important to see that the information they received and believed were valid and not detrimental and disruptive to harmony in society and country.

      “The important thing is, we should not be confused between news and views. Views are people’s own and not necessarily accurate and our views could differ from each other’s. But news contain facts, the veracity of which are verified before being disseminated.


    • Anonymous Attacks Asia Pacific Telecommunity website to protest Internet censorship
      The global hacktivist group, Anonymous has now turned its eyes to the varying degrees of censorship being practised in Asia. The Asia Pacific Telecommunity website (apt.int) has not only been hacked by members of the Anonymous hacker collective, and they also have got entry to the site’s admin panel (running Drupal), and also have been able to get their hands on a database dump.


    • Anonymous Hacks Asia Pacific Telecommunity Against Internet Censorship in Asia
      Anonymous hacker collective has attacked the official website of Asia Pacific telecommunity and defaced it in protest against growing plans for internet censorship in Asia.

      The hackers gained access of the website’s admin panel (running Drupal) and from there, leaked all the data stored on the website along with defacing the site with one of their own pages.


    • Court Orders Shutdown of Libgen, Bookfi and Sci-Hub


      A New York District Court has granted Elsevier's request for a preliminary injunction against several sites that host academic publications without permission. As a result the site's operators are now ordered to quit offering access to infringing content, while the associated registries must suspend their domain names.


    • Amidst censorship row, two "porn-coms" are releasing in India in January
      India's 2016 film calendar will begin on a controversial note. Two Bollywood adult comedies starring the same actor are releasing within a week of each other in January. Both Maastizaade and Kya Kool Hain Hum 3 are releasing after facing considerable objections from India's censor board.


    • The Splinternet: A New Era of Censorship, Surveillance, and Cyberwarfare
      For more than a decade, the internet has become a seemingly borderless land of free flowing information. It began as a not so open U.S. military data system decades ago, but it evolved over time into the public digital domain it has become.


    • On the Aggressive, Hilarious Theorizing in 'Censorship Now!!'


    • Harvard Law Review Freaks Out, Sends Christmas Eve Threat Over Public Domain Citation Guide
      In the fall of 2014, we wrote about a plan by public documents guru Carl Malamud and law professor Chris Sprigman, to create a public domain book for legal citations (stay with me, this isn't as boring as it sounds!). For decades, the "standard" for legal citations has been "the Bluebook" put out by Harvard Law Review, and technically owned by four top law schools. Harvard Law Review insists that this standard of how people can cite stuff in legal documents is covered by copyright. This seems nuts for a variety of reasons. A citation standard is just an method for how to cite stuff. That shouldn't be copyrightable. But the issue has created ridiculous flare-ups over the years, with the fight between the Bluebook and the open source citation tool Zotero representing just one ridiculous example.




  • Privacy



    • Why ownCloud's CEO isn't worried about the death of Safe Harbor [Ed: Katherine Noyes should be smarter than that and not quote Microsoft propagandist Enderle]


    • Windows 10: Microsoft hits new low with 'Upgrade Now' or 'Upgrade Tonight' pop-up [Ed: how to push spyware]
      The latest pop-up message to consumers, outed on Reddit, removes the explicit option to opt out of the upgrade, instead offering two options: 'Update Now' or 'Update Tonight'. Simply closing the box will make it go away (we're still trying to ascertain for how long) but it seems that this is a deliberate attempt to prey on the less tech savvie.


    • The Tax Sleuth Who Took Down a Drug Lord
      “I’m not high-tech, but I’m like, ‘This isn’t that complicated. This is just some guy behind a computer,’” he recalled saying to himself. “In these technical investigations, people think they are too good to do the stupid old-school stuff. But I’m like, ‘Well, that stuff still works.’ ”

      Mr. Alford’s preferred tool was Google. He used the advanced search option to look for material posted within specific date ranges. That brought him, during the last weekend of May 2013, to a chat room posting made just before Silk Road had gone online, in early 2011, by someone with the screen name “altoid.”


    • China passes law requiring tech firms to hand over encryption keys
      Under the guise of counter-terrorism, the controversial law is the Chinese government's attempt to curtail the activities of militants and political activists. China already faces criticism from around the world not only for the infamous Great Firewall of China, but also the blatant online surveillance and censorship that takes place. This latest move is one that will be view very suspiciously by foreign companies operating within China, or looking to do so.


    • New Chinese law takes aim at encryption
      A new law passed by China's Parliament on Sunday requires technology companies to assist the government in decrypting content, a provision that the country maintains is modeled after Western law.

      A new law passed by China's Parliament on Sunday requires technology companies to assist the government in decrypting content, a provision that the country maintains is modeled after Western law.

      ISPs and telecommunication companies must provide technical assistance to the government, including decrypting communications, for terrorism-related investigations, according to Xinhua, China's official news agency.
    • China Using US Encryption Fight To Defend Its New Encryption Backdoor Mandate
      So, again, to all the politicians and lawmakers supporting backdooring encryption, what's your response when China uses it to say that's why they're doing it as well?


    • Senator Richard Burr: Confused And Wrong On Encryption
      Right, except so far officials haven't been able to show evidence of any of those cases actually using encryption. Similarly, law enforcement has failed to show that criminals using encryption have really been that much of a problem either. And that's because it's not a problem. Even in the (still mostly rare) cases where encryption is being used, criminals still reveal plenty of information that would allow law enforcement to track them down. It's called doing basic detective work.




  • Civil Rights



  • Internet/Net Neutrality



    • India Tells Facebook To Shut Down Controversial Zero Rating Program 'Free Basics'
      The Indian government has spent much of the last year trying to craft net neutrality rules, and had recently been fielding public comment on whether or not Facebook's zero rating effort, Free Basics, violates net neutrality. As we've covered at length, Facebook's been trying to corner the developing nation ad market with a zero rated program that offers free access to curated, Facebook approved content. Critics and Free Basic content partners alike haven't been comfortable with giving Facebook that much control.


    • How the Internet of Things Limits Consumer Choice


    • Why India's Net Neutrality Activists Hate Facebook
      Facebook Inc. Chairman Mark Zuckerberg made a personal appeal in one of India’s leading newspapers for the country to allow a free Internet service that has stirred controversy and invited questions from regulators.

      Facebook’s proposed Free Basics plan allows customers to access the social network and other services such as education, health care, and employment listings from their phones without a data plan. Yet activists say the program threatens the principles of net neutrality and could change pricing in India for access to different websites.

      The backlash in India centers on net neutrality, the principle that all Internet websites should be equally accessible. Critics accused the world’s largest social networking company of favoring a limited swath of the Internet and excluding rival services. And Facebook’s broader Internet.org initiative, including Free Basics, is seen as an effective way to draw more users onto a social network already used by over a billion people.


    • Facebook's Zuckerberg: If You Oppose Our International Power Grab, You're An Enemy Of The Poor
      Last week we noted that India had shut down Facebook's Free Basics program, arguing the company's plan for zero rating Facebook-approved content and services is effectively glorified collusion; an attempt to eventually corner global ad markets under the banner of altruism. The country has been trying to craft net neutrality rules, and has slowly realized that whatever neutrality looks like, Facebook deciding what content Indians get access to isn't it.


    • Comcast Cap Blunder Highlights How Nobody Is Ensuring Broadband Meters Are Accurate
      For years now we've noted that while broadband ISPs rush toward broadband caps and usage overage fees, nobody is checking to confirm that ISP meters are accurate. The result has been user network hardware that reports usage dramatically different from an ISPs' meters, or users who are billed for bandwidth usage even when the power is out or the modem is off. Not only have regulators historically failed to see the anti-innovation, anti-competitive impact of usage caps, you'd be hard pressed to find a single official that has even commented on the problem of inaccurate broadband usage meters.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • El Paquete Semanal: How Offline Piracy Flourishes in Cuba


        For more than a decade many Cubans have been pirating the latest entertainment without a proper connection to the Internet. Instead, they have built their own person-to-person distribution network to share a weekly package of pirated material: El Paquete Semanal.








Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 2 Out of 200: Detailed Timeline From 2012 (Attack on Reporters That Question Restricted Boot) to 2024 (Lawsuit Against Reporter and His Wife in Another Continent)
we reproduce a document produced 2 years ago to give people more context and more facts
GNU/Linux in Laptops/Desktops Still Matters, It's Likely the Only Way to Achieve Software Freedom
Software Freedom requires all sorts of things at the "OS level"
 
FSF Promoting Richard M. Stallman (RMS) Talk in Switzerland in Just Over a Day From Now
RMS may have more talks on the way
Why Slop Will Flop - Part IV - We've Seen the End of It
Some years ago they insisted blockchains would revolutionise everything
Android is Proprietary 'Linux' and It Becomes More Malicious Over Time, Google Only Delayed What It Planned All Along
Google is a proprietary software giant, GSoC is only a distraction and confusion
Links 04/03/2026: Scam Altman Causes Chatbot Sub Numbers to Plunge, "Stocks Drop as Inflation Risk Emerges"
Links for the day
Why Slop Will Flop - Part III - Our Relationship With Slop (and Yours)
I never - except inadvertently - "used" an LLM-based chatbot
Why Slop Will Flop - Part II - Devil in the Details
News sites or social control media sites which tolerate slop are digging their own grave
Simpler Means Faster
Do you know your bottlenecks?
Gemini Links 04/03/2026: About a Missing Symbol and "Good Manners"
Links for the day
The Register MS Takes Money From Chinese Surveillance Threat to Promote a Ponzi Scheme
"Sponsored by Huawei."
Nicaragua's GNU/Linux Usage Measured at Over 8% by statCounter
Nicaragua is a poor country, but it also has rich culture
Why Slop Will Flop - Part I - Slop Fatigue Prevalent
See, sooner or later people (audiences of colleagues) find out and as soon as they find out you are slopping, they will lose interest
Links 04/03/2026: "The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling" and a call to "Nationalize Amazon"
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Evidence of Abuse in Our IRC Network
IRC's freedom can sometimes be its 'weakness' if not properly guarded
High GNU/Linux Adoption in Brunei Darussalam
It's worth noting (or at least noticing) that Microsoft loses ground in some of the countries where the government contracts paid the most
Media Blackout Reducing or Preventing Press Coverage of Microsoft Layoffs in 2026
Worse yet, there will be gaslighting and deceit
Gemini Links 04/03/2026: The Garnet Star, The Hunt, The SYN Attacks
Links for the day
The EPO's General Consultative Committee (GCC) Discussion Illuminates How Much Worse Things Have Gotten ("on Strike and Participated in the 'Meeting'")
a videoconference - not a physical meeting - discussed EPO policies
Free Software Foundation Supports Its Founder, Advertises His Talks in Switzerland
When you suppress voices, assuming the reasons for suppression are bunk, it is always bound to backfire very badly
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 03, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 03, 2026
Over 1,500 EPO Workers Went on Strike Last Week
a new publication which celebrates some accomplishments of industrial actions and calls for further actions
Madame Streisand Wanted to Censor The Web, Instead She 'Created' a New Term, "Streisand Effect"
It is basically an own goal
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Failed to Detect Fraud in Law Firms... Until It Was Too Late
Earlier today we contacted some more politicians about this and received mail from them as well
Our EPO and IBM Coverage Bears Fruit
In case insiders want to get in touch with us, please ensure or at least try doing so securely
Defending Women Isn't a Crime, Everybody Can Agree on That
Their culture is unlike ours
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VI - Influx of Spaniards and Portuguese Workers (+77%) at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, Led by the 'Alicante Mafia'
There is now data supporting this assertion, new and complete data in fact
Links 03/03/2026: "Scam Altman in Damage Control" and Oil Traffic Disrupted
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/03/2026: Phones, LLMs, and Changes on the Web
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Confirms Talk in Bern Next Week
Dr. Stallman has just formally confirmed his third talk this month in Switzerland
Nobody is Safe at IBM (or Red Hat)
There is no job security at IBM
GNU/Linux at All-Time High in Guam
there are many computers in that island
Bad faith: Hugo Roy knew FSFE impersonating FSF before French tribunal, colleagues deceived
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 1 Out of 200: Claim No. KB-2024-001270 in a Nutshell
abuse of process by a law firm working for an American who was arrested for strangling women and another American whose own spouse calls a "rapist"
When EPO Team Managers (TMs) Are Harassing People Who Strictly Apply the European Patent Convention (EPC) in Patent Examination
There are two strikes planned for this month
Confirmed: Using Slop Gets You Fired
Let the story of Benj Edwards be a cautionary tale
Links 03/03/2026: "No one wants to read your AI slop" and "chatbots in the kill chain"
Links for the day
EPO and "Equivalent to More Than 100 Days of Strike"
The industrial actions continue and already have a positive effect
Streisand Effect, the Microsoft Way
Microsoft has once again proven the Streisand Effect
Keeping Track of IBM Layoffs in March 2026
IBM depends on bribery
GNU/Linux Measured at 7% in Yemen
Windows is too hostile and dangerous
Links 03/03/2026: Security Breaches, Iceland Wants EU Membership, and "Wall Street–Backed Lawmakers Want to Help Banks Gouge You"
Links for the day
Queensland Health Payroll System: IBM billion-dollar-blowout inquiry
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 02, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, March 02, 2026
Gemini Links 03/03/2026: GrapheneOS and Keyboard Shortcuts
Links for the day
Tomorrow should be sunny (at long last!) and a generally productive dayProductive Week Ahead
Tomorrow should be sunny (at long last!) and a generally productive day
Only One Slopfarm Seems to Have Targeted "Linux" Today
It certainly does feel like the slop hype is reaching the "late life crisis" and companies that benefited from this bubble are overdue for a day of reckoning
Microsoft Mass Layoffs: Being Sacked at 1AM in the Morning
Watch what happens to Microsoft employees who get pregnant
Links 02/03/2026: More Social Control Media Bans, Climate Change Woes, and "Journalist With Germany's Deutsche Welle Arrested in Turkey"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/03/2026: Small Phones, "I 3D Printed My Brain", and "Managing 5 Servers at Once with tmux"
Links for the day
IBM is Trying to Hide Mass Layoffs, Not Only With NDAs and 'Scripted' LinkedIn Posts
From what we can gather (screenshot above), today many people leave IBM and Red Hat
Richard Stallman is Giving a Public Talk This Week (Friday in Lucerne School of Computer Science and Information Technology)
His birthday is just around the corner.
Windows Falls to New Low in World's Largest Population (India)
Windows is now down to 7%
Never Miss a Good Opportunity to Shut Up and Drink Coffee
Threats come at a cost; each time you issue a threat you stigmatise yourself as a bully
Last Month Matthew Garrett Said Ridiculous Things After His Spouse Had Called Him a "Rapist", Now He's Trying to Take the Site Offline and Put My Family in Prison
The real issue of concern to him (and his alleged reputation) is the spouse and the matter is to be dealt with in America, not the UK
Machine-Generated Legal Documents, Over 2,000 Pages Sent to Us Today Alone
We now know that the papers we receive are produced using bots (algorithms)
Reporting to Our Politicians/MPs the Failure of the SRA to Stop Hired Guns Who Help Americans (Men Who Attack Women and Nowadays Also Attack British Reporters)
About a month ago my wife wrote to politicians to get the ball rolling
The Topic Many People Don't Want to Talk or Write About
"DEI" is inherently about making racial and gender patterns better reflect society's
XBox is Virtually Dead Already, What Next Will Die at Microsoft?
Now that there are mass layoffs at Microsoft datacentres it is not premature to speculate about what dies after XBox
For the First Time, statCounter Measures Internet Explorer at 0.01% "Market Share"
What Microsoft replaced it with is just a Chrome clone with extra spyware
Was a Lot of "Windows" and "Unknown" in Iran Just GNU/Linux in Disguise?
more than 1 in 10 desktop/laptop requests is estimated to be GNU/Linux
"Here in the UK, GNU/Linux rose to all-time high at Windows' expense"
Will this entail Software Freedom as well? This depends on all of us
Links 02/03/2026: Claude Code Causes a Mexican Government Cyberattack, "London Repair Week" Noted
Links for the day
2026 Microsoft Mass Layoffs in So-called 'AI' Datacentres, Why Doesn't the Mainstream Media Cover The News?
What does this tell us about the state of the media?
Don't Fall for "Top X Law Firms" in "Discipline Y", They Pay $Z to Get False Endorsement/s
It's a scheme, a scam, an elaborate fraud
More Publishers Have Turned From Slop Boosters Into Slop Sceptics and Critics
There's a "hidden cost" when one participates (for profit) in "pump and dump" schemes
TeX Live Has New Release, But Planet Debian Won't Tell You That
It 'unpersoned' the developer
LLM Slop Does Not Know People (It Knows Nothing) and Cannot Distinguish Between People. It's a Recipe for Disaster.
no way of knowing who's who
"Over 1,100 Law Firms Gone in Five Years" in the United Kingdom (UK) Alone
There are basically way too many lawyers (looking for "business", e.g. threats and lawfare) and not enough positions to fill
Microsoft FUD From Microsoft Site Helps Distract From Actual Microsoft Back Doors
Published on a Sunday
Free Software Foundation Needs to Become More Active in Europe to Avoid Impersonation by Microsoft-Sponsored Groups
So far we've hardly seen the FSF saying anything at all about the US president
Links 02/03/2026: "Not Envious of Billionaires" and Palantir SLAPPs "Swiss Magazine For Accurately Reporting That The Swiss Government Didn't Want Palantir"
Links for the day
There Has Never Been a Better Time to Quit Social Control Media
Those networks are selling something. And that something is not peace because peace does not sell "attention".
Microsoft Users Drowning in Slop, If They Complain Microsoft Censors Them
Like an authoritarian regime
IBM is Killing Red Hat's Portfolio - Including Linux - to Prop Up Ponzi Scheme ("AI")
IBM is killing Red Hat
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 01, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, March 01, 2026
Speed of Sites Matters
Being easily accessible all the time matters to us
Gemini Links 02/03/2026: Weird Phone Calls, Small Phones, and Exploring Racket
Links for the day
Dr. Andy Farnell on "Good Tech"
in the age of "rent everything" and "own nothing"