Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 27/2/2016: New ROSA, Ireland National Library Goes FOSS





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



Leftovers



  • Tesla Fan 'Incivility' Forces Indiana To Back Off Direct Sales Ban... For Now
    We recently noted how Indiana was just the latest state to try and pass auto industry-backed bills banning Tesla's direct-to-consumer sales model. Under the latest GM-backed bill, Tesla's dealer license would have expired in 2018, forcing the company to embrace the traditional franchise dealership model -- or stop selling cars in the state entirely. Telsa had been reaching out for the last few weeks to Tesla fans in the state, quite-correctly highlighting how GM was buying protectionist law instead of competing.


  • Hardware



    • Data Backup Devices for Small Businesses
      You already know you need to back up your small business data regularly, but you may get stuck figuring out the best way to manage the process. Fortunately, you don't need to spend a scary amount of money to buy and set up a reliable data backup system.




  • Security



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife



    • New York investigates radioactive leak in groundwater near city
      Radioactive material has leaked into the groundwater below a nuclear power plant north of New York City, prompting a state investigation on Saturday and condemnation from governor Andrew Cuomo.

      Cuomo ordered an investigation into “alarming levels of radioactivity” found at three monitoring wells at the Indian Point energy center in Buchanan, New York, about 40 miles north of Manhattan.


    • Old Nuclear Reactor Leaks Radiation
      Nuclear fission reactors are expensive to build and decommission so it’s natural to keep them running as long as possible to optimize the economic benefit. The licence for the old Indian Point reactor in New York state has been extended and while there have been occasional problems, the reactor was considered reliable. News that a leak of tritium in the ground water has been discovered is a whole new ball-game however. Tritium is a short-lived radioisotope of hydrogen so it’s possible the contamination may not leave the site in dangerous concentrations.






  • Finance



    • TTIP Negotiations: 12th Round Ends With Plan To Hurry Between Official Rounds
      By July trade negotiators from the United States and the European Union want to present a draft text that only has brackets for the “most sensitive issues” in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This was announced by Ignacio Bercero, chief negotiator for the European Union, and his US counterpart Dan Mullaney during a press conference today after this week's 12th round of TTIP negotiations in Brussels.




  • Censorship



    • Self-censorship runs amok on local television
      It should have been a regular live broadcast of a Putri Indonesia pageant show, but those who tuned in were surprised when private station Indosiar decided to completely blur the torsos of contestants who wore the body-hugging Javanese kebaya dress.

      But many considered that local television stations had gone too far when one of them blurred a scene from a popular cartoon show, simply because one of its characters wears a short skirt, and questions began to be raised about why the local channels were taking that conservative turn.


    • Video: Is Canadian self-censorship preventing open debate on racism, discrimination and other important issues?
      Conversations That Matter features former B.C. premier and free speech advocate Ujjal Dosanjh. He argues that people in power in Canada are self-censoring and in doing so are preventing open and honest discourse about issues that form the fabric of Canadian society. Dosanjh has been attacked and beaten for saying what he thinks and continues to do so because he maintains if we cower from vigorous debate then we deprive ourselves.


    • National TV Channel Denies Actor’s Censorship Allegation
      Tunisian actor, Majd Mastoura has accused Wataniya TV of censoring part of his acceptance speech following his win at the Berlinale Film Festival in Germany.

      During an emotional speech, Mastoura paid tribute to the martyrs of the Tunisian Revolution. However, during its showing upon the national channel, the actor’s closing remarks were cut from the broadcast of his award.


    • Twitter Accused Of Censoring Anti-Hillary Hashtag
      Political censorship or coincidence? Activists on Friday were in full pitchfork mode after Twitter users alleged the social media site removed #WhichHillary from its trending topics in an apparent kowtow to the Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign. The collective uproar managed to inspire another Clinton-themed hashtag, #WhichHillaryCensored.


    • Hillary Vs. Hillary: Hashtag Pits Clinton Against Her Past Self
      Hillary Clinton is facing one of her biggest rivals online today: Hillary Clinton. A hashtag mocking the candidate for her flip-flops over the years rocketed to the the top of Twitter’s trending list Thursday—driven not by Republicans but supporters of her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders.


    • China tightens censorship of online TV programmes
      Beijing has further tightened its muzzle on mainland China’s internet after a senior media content watchdog official demanded all online programmes be censored as strictly as those of traditional television programmes.

      The move comes days after widespread audience dissatisfaction when popular shows, made and aired by Chinese video streaming sites, were removed or suspended until they had been censored to the satisfaction of the media content regulator.


    • Puritanical Facebook Censors Parody Publication, Makes Appeal Process A Threat
      I have no idea why, but there seems to be a sudden influx of stories concerning Facebook patrolling its site and taking down content over rather puritanical standards of offense and vulgarity. The most recent examples of this have concerned a couple of pieces of artwork that the Facebook Decency Office deemed to be to risque, despite the fact that neither of the art pieces could reasonably be described as particularly pornographic. The most recent example of this kind of censorious brigade is less to do with scary, scary sex, and more to do with parody content that some might find vulgar.


    • Mark Zuckerberg Angry At His Employees For Disrespecting ‘Black Lives Matter’ Movement




  • Privacy



    • Techdirt Needs Your Help To Fight Encryption Fearmongering


    • Poll: You Vote to Outlaw Tracking by Advertisers
      Back on February 15 when we ran an article calling for a ban on advertisers’ practice of tracking users who just happen to drive by an ad, much less click on it, we ran a poll to find out what you think. Actually, we were pretty sure we already knew what you thought. You tell us everyday, either in the comments section to our articles or by blocking ads here on FOSS Force. The poll was mainly to put some numbers to what we already knew.


    • FISA Court Accused of Failing to Restrain NSA
      A Washington spy court's "secret, ex parte proceedings" do not provide the oversight required to restrain the National Security Agency's Upstream program, a privacy group argued in a court filing Thursday.
    • 'GCHQ spy who raped us is still working there because police didn't take us seriously'
      A spy accused of rape by two women is still working at the heart of €­Britain’s security services after police ignored their claims.

      The spook’s first alleged victim, who met him through a dating website, today say detectives TWICE failed to act over her accusations – even after the second woman, who worked with him at the top secret GCHQ base, had come forward.


    • Katherine Jenkins Gives Spies Singing Treat [Ed: Katherine Jenkins has helped create femmewashing puff pieces for GCHQ - by associating with celebrities they created a dozen PR pieces]
      The classical music star hailed workers at Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, England as "heroes", before singing songs from her repertoire including Habanera from the opera Carmen.
    • Katherine Jenkins performs private show for GCHQ staff to thank them for keeping us safe


    • Obama Administration to Expand Sharing of NSA Data from Snooping
    • Obama To Allow FBI And CIA Access To NSA Data
      The Obama administration will soon allow the National Security Agency to share certain bulk collections of communications and satellite transmissions with other government intelligence agencies. This information includes phone calls and emails from foreigners within the U.S., as well as exchanges that involve or are about Americans collected by the NSA’s foreign intelligence programs.


    • Obama administration closing in on rules to let NSA share more freely with FBI, CIA
      The New York Times is reporting that Obama administration officials are close to agreeing on new rules that would allow the National Security Agency (NSA) to share surveillance information more freely with other federal agencies, including the FBI and the CIA, without scrubbing Americans’ identifying information first.

      In 2008, President George W. Bush put forth an executive order that said such a change to the rules governing sharing between agencies could occur when procedures had been put in place. When the Obama administration took over, it started "quietly developing a framework” to carry out the proposed change in 2009, according to the Times.

      For the past decade, the NSA has collected massive amounts of phone metadata, e-mail, and other information from a variety of sources—sometimes directly from the companies that make such communication possible, sometimes through overseas taps on lines that connect to data centers outside of the US. Currently when an agency wants information on a foreign citizen, it requests that data from the NSA, and the NSA theoretically scrubs it of any incidental references to American citizens who are not being targeted. This process is known as “minimization.”
    • Germany's New Citizen Monitoring Spyware May Be Creepier Than NSA's
      The new spyware Trojan virus recently approved by Germany's Interior Ministry may actually steal personal photos and notes stored on Germans' phones and laptops.

      The German government's new computer virus intended for spying in criminal cases has drawn scrutiny because of its potentially unlimited abilities.


    • Barack Obama to allow NSA to share contents of intercepted phone calls and emails
      The Obama administration is planning to allow the National Security Agency to share more of the raw information it acquires through wiretapping with other intelligence agencies.

      The rule change, which would allow intelligence agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Central Intelligence Agency to access the unedited contents of phone calls and emails without having the information filtered by the NSA, was first reported by the New York Times Friday.




  • Civil Rights

    • Kos Bishop: Foreign Reporters Pay Refugees to Play Victims of Drowning
      Foreign reporters pay refugees 20 euros to act as if they have drowned, said Bishop of Kos and Nisyros Nathanael.

      The unusual testimony was made during a radio interview on Alpha 98.9 on Wednesday. Bishop Nathanael said that, “I witnessed with my own eyes foreign television reporters paying people (refugees) 20 euros to play victims of drowning.”


    • A blunt defense of interrogations, targeted killings and domestic spying


    • Former CIA Chief Warns Against Donald Trump
      In an interview with the BBC, ex-CIA boss Michael Hayden warned against the dangers of having, Republican front-runner, Donald Trump as President of the United States of America.


    • Ex-CIA, NSA chief: 2016 GOP rhetoric 'scares me'
      Former CIA and National Security Agency Director Gen. Michael Hayden says the rhetoric from the GOP candidates in the presidential race is scary -- and he suspects the rest of the world is concerned, too.

      Hayden was responding Thursday to a question from CNN's Michael Holmes about the rhetoric on the campaign trail, with Holmes mentioning Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's promise of carpet bombing ISIS and GOP front-runner Donald Trump's praise for waterboarding and harsher interrogation techniques as well as a proposed temporary ban on foreign Muslims.


    • Court Monitor Finds NYPD Still Performing Unconstitutional Stops
      The NYPD is more in its element when it's creating terrorism/dissent-focused task forces or shipping its officers halfway around the word to get in the way of local investigators. What it's less interested in doing is ensuring its officers live up to the Constitutional expectations of Judge Shira Scheindlin's order from nearly three years ago.


    • Estragon’s boot: the Conservatives delay the repeal of the Human Rights Act
      According to a news report today, the Conservative government has “shelved” the proposals to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a “British Bill of Rights”.

      This is not a surprise. It was never going to be an easy task.

      In the last week or so, the proposals – as well as a daft and dappy “Sovereignty Bill” proposal – have been nothing other than tokens in a political game between the Prime Minister and other Conservative politicians about supporting and opposing Brexit. But the tokens turned out to have no value and no purchase in this game.

      Last May this blog set out the “seven hurdles” for repeal of the Human Rights Act. These hurdles included the facts that the Good Friday Agreement requires the European Convention on Human Rights to have local effect in Northern Ireland and that Scotland would have a veto on the replacement legislation.


    • Saudi Arabia sentences a man to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his atheism on Twitter
      A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a man to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his atheism in hundreds of social media posts.

      The report carried in Al-Watan says the 28-year-old man admitted to being an atheist and refused to repent, saying that what he wrote reflected his own beliefs and that he had the right to express them. The report did not name the man.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • AT&T Sues To Keep Google Fiber Competition Out Of Louisville
      We recently noted how the city of Louisville had voted 23-0 to let Google Fiber bring ultra-fast broadband competition to the city. As part of the vote, the city revamped its utility pole-attachment rules, which previously forced competitors through a six-month bureaucratic process to connect to the poles, an estimated 40% of which are owned by AT&T. The new policy streamlines that down to one month, letting competitors like Google Fiber move hardware already attached to the poles, while holding them financially accountable for any potential damages.


    • Cruz, Rubio Celebrate One Year Anniversary Of Net Neutrality Rules -- By Trying To Kill Them
      It has already been a year since the FCC voted to reclassify ISPs as common carriers under the telecom act. And despite the countless calories spent by the telecom industry and its various mouthpieces claiming Title II and net neutrality would demolish all Internet investment and innovation as we know it, you may have noticed that things by and large did not implode. In fact, while the FCC has been snoozing on things like zero rating and usage caps, the mere threat of rules helped the Internet by putting an end to the interconnection shenanigans causing Netflix performance degradation.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • 'The Dress' A Year Later: The Meme Has Faded, But The Copyright Will Last Forever
        Have you heard? Today is the anniversary of "the dress." You know the one. It was all over the internet exactly a year ago. White and gold or blue and black. It was a phenomenon. And, yes, I know a bunch of you are snidely mocking it as you read this, but shut up. It was a fun way to kill an afternoon a year ago and it made a bunch of people happy, so don't be "that person." A year ago, we wrote a short piece about it, noting that you had fair use to thank for it, because the dress was being shared widely, and that was possible due to fair use. And the timing was great, because it was fair use week -- as it is again.








Recent Techrights' Posts

Lies Need to be Corrected
the Court never invited us
Slopwatch: Guardian Digital (linuxsecurity.com), Slashdot, Google News, and More
Maybe one day, once the bubble pops completely, Google News will just outright delist all slopfarms
Lufthansa Modern Slavery, Joerg Jaspert (ganneff) & Debian NSB Softwareentwicklung charade
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 16/10/2025: US Starting More Trade Wars With China, CIA War on Venezuela
Links for the day
SUSE Blog is Still LLM Slop, Marketing Manager at SUSE Cannot Write
Would you buy from a company or seek support from a company that cannot even write (or fakes writing)?
Pretend You're Not Dead: Microsoft Spent Almost Two Decades Rebranding Things as "Cloud, Then "AI", Now "XBox" and "Quantum"
"AI" bubble pops, Microsoft harping about "quantum" already
IBM Allegedly Found New Tricks for Silent Layoffs: LPI, Then MIS (Not PIP)
Remember that "Red Hat layoffs" won't be reported after the bluewashing
Links 16/10/2025: Red Lines and Feeding of Microsoft Trolls
Links for the day
MIT as a Propaganda Mill of GAFAM, Paid by GAFAM
"the news" today
Links 16/10/2025: Lies Euphemised as ‘Dueling Versions of Reality’ and Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Resorts to Porn as No Business Model Was Found
Links for the day
The Local Staff Committee Munich (Representation of the EPO's Staff) Explains When Cluster of Pregnancies May Result in Reduced Pay
"...even one week of part-time working is sufficient to reduce the salary you perceive during the entirety of your maternity leave."
Another Black Eye for 'Secure Boot', Microsoft Media Tries to Blame "Linux"
It enables Microsoft to remotely control computers, even computers that don't run Windows and never had any Microsoft software installed
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, linuxsecurity.com, and Various Slopfarms in Google News Attacking "Linux"
A new survey of the Web said that the majority of the Web is now slop (that's being said in the news this week)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Links 16/10/2025: Increased Use of Social Control Media Surveillance in US, French Rage Over Pensions
Links for the day
Links 15/10/2025: Qantas Airways Loses Control of Sensitive Data and Software Patents Are Being Thrown Out
Links for the day
Vista 10 is 'Dead', Here's Why People Should Move to GNU/Linux (or the BSDs)
Today we try to make an outline of reasons move away from Windows to GNU/Linux
Our Sites Continue to Improve
LLM slop has had no noticeable impact on us
Gemini Links 15/10/2025: Neovim, Helix Compared and Gemlog.blue Now Closed
Links for the day
Links 15/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon, OneDrive Spyware Revved Up, More 'Gen Z Protests'
Links for the day
The EPO's Staff Engagement Survey 2025 is Already Tainted by Intimidation by EPO Management (Trying to Influence Outcomes by Scaring Genuine, Honest Critics)
"[W]e have received reports that, following the previous survey, teams with negative responses were reproached or questioned about their answers..."
The DDoS Attacks by Microsoft's Scam Altman and Other Slop Charlatans and Frauds is Hurting the FSF, Delinking It From Copyleft Projects
This impacts a lot more than access to the licences
Microsoft Scanning Faces in Photos People Upload to Microsoft (Even Unconsciously), Slashdot Turns Report About It Into "Microsoft Sez" (Says)
Or "let's repeat the lies from a PR person/Microsoft's publicist"
[Teaser] Angel Aledo Lopez the Manipulator (Nepotism, Poll Rigging, and Other EPO Corruption)
We'll discuss this later today or tomorrow, based on internal EPO material
Attacks on Techrights Are Only Making Techrights Bigger and Even More Popular
A week ago they offered to settle with us
Epic Metaphor for End of IBM: "The IBM Demolition is Down to the Last Shards!"
Nothing lasts forever
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 14, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Proprietary and DRM Prisons Spiralling Down the Sinkhole? Not Just Yet.
Let's hope that more people will flee to GNU/Linux
The European Patent Office (EPO), the Second-Largest Institution in Europe, is Cracking Down on Recreational Activities
Without AMICALE activities, and as staff already says it's pressured to work more for less, how can the EPO recruit bright people?
Transparency: FSFE financial reports exclude speaker fees and expenses
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Many Developers Have Many Political Views, They'll Never Agree on Everything
It's an effort to divide and destroy, not build
Gemini Links 14/10/2025: An Opportunity to Consider GNU/Linux and Another Simple IRC Client
Links for the day
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, LinuxSecurity, Google News, and the Serial Slopper Brian Fagioli
Nothing of merit here, just more slop
Links 14/10/2025: Lack of Trust in Slop and "Retirement Challenges"
Links for the day
EPO Staff Can Go Listen to Richard Stallman Next Week in Munich (Technical University of Munich, Rudolf-Diesel Hörsaal (MW2001) on Campus Garching at 18:00)
"The talk is open to the public and attendance is free. Registration is not required."
Rhonda D'Vine, Gerfried Fuchs, Pronouns & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
At IBM, Relocation Means Layoffs (Downsizing)
Silent or 'invisible' layoffs?
Central Staff Committee of the European Patent Office (EPO) Warns That EPO Management is Robbing or Manipulating Pension Funds Again
Faking "growth" is just about as bad as forgery
Probably a Lot Worse Than LLM Slop: GNOME Tying Itself to Divisive Politics, Even Where It's Clearly Not Relevant
Something has gone terribly wrong in GNOME
Links 14/10/2025: Microsoft OneDrive Scanning Faces in Photos (Without Asking First), "OpenAI Says It Will Move to Allow Smut"
Links for the day
They Generally Don't Like Scholars, as They're Less Compelled or Pressured to Repeat What Corporations and Oligarchs Say
People who loathe scholars have an agenda in mind that, unlike that of reasonable people, revolves around controlling people
Dystopian Trends in Technology Make Richard Stallman More Relevant Than Ever
It's good to see him attracting vast audiences
Belated New Article About Last Thursday's Lecture by Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
there are good reasons to pay with cash, not limited to privacy
Attacking Richard Stallman Has Become 'Career Suicide'
If you're going to viciously attack somebody, make sure your arguments are rock-solid
Microsoft's Failing XBox Business Has Turned Games Into Funerals
How does it feel to depend on Microsoft?
Yesterday's "Distinguished Lecture" by Richard Stallman Possibly Attended by Close to 1,000 People
The capacity of the place is about 900
Slop Poisons Everything
Imagine wanting to find what Torvalds has just said or what has just been released
Taking Software Freedom 'Mainstream'
interest in Software Freedom must have grown
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 13, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 13, 2025
Gemini Links 14/10/2025: Ada Lovelace Day, Sony CLIE PEG-TG50 Review, Why to Avoid Network Solutions
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Announced His Talk Less Than 24 Hours Before It Took Place and Still Filled Up the Auditorium at Sapienza Università di Roma
Photos from yesterday evening [...] It looks like it was a very successful event