Like putting Windows on every computer sold (and forcing people to pay for it)
Summary: The difference between Google Search and Microsoft is that many people actually want to use Google (and don’t have to)
With a humongous amount of code added and removed (hundreds of thousands of lines per year) the freedom to study the source code becomes almost moot (too much in one place and changing far too fast)
Summary: StrongSwan on Debian 10 (Buster) is hard; systemd isn’t helping, it’s mostly getting in the way and as it turns out this is part of a much broader problem introduced by Red Hat’s system-wide “D”isruption
“BUSTER” is great! It really is. Well done, Debian team! What a great operating system! Far better than anything which comes out of Microsoft and Apple. I even installed on it all the available desktop environments (bar GNOME). They work. They work very, very well. Polish is noteworthy.
But with claims of perfection no room is left for improvement, so this is going to be a rant. Not about Debian. Not about Red Hat (now IBM), either.
This rant will be focused on one project alone. It’s the project one isn’t meant to be criticising (without risk of retaliation of some kind). This project probably stole took a lot of my time (hence not many articles in Techrights lately).
First of all, let’s be clear that Debian 10 works and I am generally happy with many things about it (almost everything worked perfectly out of the box), but when things don’t go smoothly, they can be downright distressing and almost impossible to diagnose/debug/resolve.
I think that the views of Bruce Perens have been clear (when he spoke about it at the end of last year). He focused on reliability aspects. Purely technical aspects.
One thing I’ve long noticed about systemd is that any system with it takes ages to boot and shut down — something I’ve experienced only since systemd was put there by default (the time it takes isn’t slightly longer — we’re talking about something like 4 times longer!).
No wonder Chromebooks don’t use systemd…
One could go make oneself coffee while rebooting a machine with systemd… and still be back to an almost ready system.
But never mind the coffee breaks. Those take only minutes. When things do not work as expected, they can end up taking hours or days to fix.
Consider StrongSwan. I’ve already spent about 6 hours on this (net time, putting aside distractions). I finally got to the point where I can either get only to the VPN’s internal realm or the ‘outside world’ (not both). I spoke to the developers about it as the subject is very scarcely documented on the Web; there are hardly any Web pages about it (like a HowTo for StrongSwan on Debian 10).
It’s hard to debug. Here’s some fun with StrongSwan:
And StrongSwan entries in the log:
Does that say what goes wrong? No. Nowhere.
When using older systems I was at least getting some error message showing somewhere, but systemd is truly disruptive to what one already knows. Debian is not Red Hat, but it adopted a massive piece (blob?) of IBM/Red Hat and now needs to grapple with it.
I never had to spend so much time — with help from technical networking people — just to set up something reasonably simple.
Judging by what I see online, not only do other Debian users have had similar issues in recent years; those same issues are inherited ‘downstream’ and by recent versions of Ubuntu and its derivatives. I could cite about half a dozen examples. At times you see reports from entire companies that have issues related to this.
At the moment I have something that almost works, but I still lack complete and clear documentation to explain what I’ve done so far to almost make it work. It has been rather chaotic an experience.
/home/ will soon be conquered by systemd, maybe /var/log/ too (so producing the above will require yet more learning and retraining, maybe coping with new bugs as well).
Whatever one thinks of systemd, it’s hard to make or form a fully informed opinion because systemd is vast and it touches almost everything in the system. Maybe it’s great and innovative, but the disruption it has caused is very much real and it’s hard to believe anyone but Red Hat (now IBM) shareholders will profit from it. Those shareholders probably don’t use GNU/Linux themselves, certainly not on their desktops/laptops — a form factor they almost certainly don’t care for as “there’s no money on it!” (ask the Linux Foundation how many people in it even use the operating system).
Special gratitude and credit goes out to @thermicorp (who helped me in the process). █
“For most people, if you wanted to get on the internet, you just clicked on the big blue E on the desktop. It was right there, it worked, and that’s all that mattered.” (Gates was grilled, in his grueling deposition, about admitting this would be the strategy; he put that in writing)
Same strategy as WSL in Vista 10
Summary: A reader’s explanation of what Microsoft is trying to accomplish with its so-called ‘embrace’ and what steps will come next (how they manifest themselves)
THIS may sound strange, but it is absolutely true. Take a moment to think about it. Read carefully because our reader seems to have hit the nail right on the head.
Last week a reader told us what he had seen at the local store, a British shop (large chain) that sells loads of magazines.
That same reader has sent us more input after researching the matter even further.
To put it very succinctly, Microsoft nowadays uses the freedom of Free software to attack both this software and our collective freedom. The company did not change. It is still run by liars, criminals and crooks (ask the US government as it has just fined them for it).
“To put it very succinctly, Microsoft nowadays uses the freedom of Free software to attack both this software and our collective freedom.”An associate of ours takes note of this “spam” this morning (his words) and it comes from The Verge, a site which was edited by Bill Gates some years ago. As one might expect, nowadays it does lots of ads for Microsoft, but they’re cleverly disguised as articles with insights. We’ve named some British ‘news’ sites that do the same for Microsoft. The summary says “Microsoft’s new browser takes on Chrome with some different features.”
What are those features? Let’s find out…
Our associate has meanwhile taken note of a similar problem (almost identical but at the OS rather than browser space). Some Microsoft-leaning, WSL-promoting “spam” (his word) is being published. People are supposed to think that WSL is a replacement for GNU/Linux? What a joke…
Or that nobody needs to download a browser for Windows anymore? Because of “EDGE”?
“Get a load of this self-serving garbage from Microsoft,” our reader explained to us today. “The new Microsoft Edge… is twice as fast as legacy Edge” (tall claims from Microsoft Paul).
“People are supposed to think that WSL is a replacement for GNU/Linux? What a joke…”Get ready for the epic fake ‘benchmarks’… the ones Microsoft paid so-called ‘analysts’ to make about GNU/Linux, especially to make GNU/Linux seem inadequate for servers.
Our reader researched the MSEdge repository and posited that: “translation: Bury core functionality in a Windows DLL that loads at boot, hide the API calls from third-party developers, then sing the praises of the faster and better graphics/media playing of Microsoft Edge. Have these people no shame? That’s a rhetorical question…”
To quote the puff piece: “Outside the Microsoft Edge browser, users of other browsers on Windows PCs sometimes face inconsistent feature-sets and performance/battery-life across device types. Some browsers have had slower-progress to embrace new Windows capabilities like touch and ARM processors…”
Time for EEE, right? WSL style…
“Time for EEE, right? WSL style…”Our reader responds: “translation: As Microsoft Edge DLLs gets loaded at boot, they’re not counted as impacting battery performance. Any such battery saving features we have buried in Microsoft Edge and are not of course shared with third-party developers. This is the same shuffle we’ve been playing on you poor fools since the dawn of the personal computer and as long as you still let us, we’ll go on fooling you.
“Incidentally, I seriously doubt that Bill Gates has fully withdrawn from Microsoft. The willful distortions and historical revisionism coming out of Redmond has all the hallmarks of his speech patterns. Remember when he welcomed Mozilla onto the Internet, after Microsoft tried to buy Mozilla and then had to settle with licensing Spyglass, who Bill Gates of course cheated out of revenue. (It’s in one of the Comes documents)
“Isn’t it amazing, someone could go into a magazine shop and come out with a DVD containing all the software they would ever need. That software is at least equal if not better than the Microsoft innovation. And yet every year, the world spends billions on Microsoft licenses.” █
Recent: Can We Quit Celebrating DRM in GNU/Linux?
Summary: Browser monopolies are being cemented due to DRM, which the DRM giants nowadays label ‘cross-platform’
Google is also working for the government, right?
Summary: Just because Google is not Microsoft and it often (in many different areas) competes against Microsoft does not mean that we should tolerate or actively support Google
GOOGLE is probably — at least as far as GNU/Linux is concerned — the least harmful among GAFAM and Microsoft by far the worst. Why? Because Google spreads Linux through Android and GNU/Linux through Chrome OS. Of course it also spreads DRM to the Linux kernel, but that’s just one of very many bad things Google does.
“When it comes to listening devices or bugs (often referred to as “smart” “assistants”) people are given ample ‘choice’ between brands. Which of GAFAM is your ‘favourite’?”The cult of personalities or of brands is very dangerous. Association with brands, personal pride in branding, personification and idol-like worship of muchly-groomed [sic] individuals can become hardly any different or distinguishable from religion. In the arena of government it’s sometimes referred to as “identity politics”…
When it comes to listening devices or bugs (often referred to as “smart” “assistants”) people are given ample ‘choice’ between brands. Which of GAFAM is your ‘favourite’? Pick your poison, the US government will receive and perpetually keep copies of all the audio. Maybe even your local police department will receive it all, without as much as a warrant.
“It’s disappointing to see Debian receiving money from Google (not only through event sponsorships), then covering the whole thing up.”The way I’ve long seen it, Google was evil but a convenient ally against Microsoft monopoly (Windows, Office). It’s hard to imagine a Google that actually promotes software freedom — neglecting GSoC ‘guilt money’ or ‘silence money’ (appeasing people and/or quelling dissent) — and the company’s patent stance is hardly any better. It actively helps the European Patent Office (EPO) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) with patent maximalism.
If you care about software freedom (or privacy, peace etc.), then Google is not your friend. Its founders are long gone (the actual geeks).
It’s disappointing to see Debian receiving money from Google (not only through event sponsorships), then covering the whole thing up. As for the FSF? It apparently received some perks from Microsoft and Google in a GPL event despite the fact that both Microsoft and Google antagonise the GPL and discourage copyleft adoption. We complained when Google money landed on the EFF's lap and even some EFF board members cited our complaint; they too were unhappy. █
Two decades later
Summary: Now it’s official! Google is just a bunch of shareholders looking to appease the Pentagon at all costs
Summary: The EEErosion of Python’s independence is a known problem and Microsoft is not the sole culprit
Summary: Surveillance seems to have become so fashionable that its purveyors and intermediaries (sending one’s data to Microsoft, Google and so on) have a sense of humour strong enough or sufficient to call that “privacy”
THE OTHER DAY we wrote about further suspicious things about Startpage, which had been grabbed by a mass surveillance company that also owns Dogpile, WebCrawler, MetaCrawler and maybe lots more. The whole thing triggered a nerve when they made up something called ‘Privacy One Group’ — Orwellian doublespeak or newspeak for sure. It’s part of a spying company, System1.
“It’s part of a spying company, System1.”But wait, it gets worse…
“System1 has a “privacy” browser in the Google Play Store,” a reader told us. It’s called Hushbrowser. “See the linked app page there and the associated privacy policy. If that’s what System1 considers a privacy product…”
The link to the privacy policy (of the ‘app’) leads to a broken page (screenshot to the right), but if one goes to the site one can find the full text, which is a year old.
Let’s look/consider how the “app” presents itself: “Hush Browser is a mobile web browser for Android that keeps you in control of your session data. With user-first privacy in mind, we set out to create a super lightweight, fast web browser that gives you an easy way to remove your data. Most browsers hide this deep within app settings accessible through confusing user flows, but we wanted to make this functionality front and center, both on-demand in the main menu and automatically every time you close the app.”
Now let’s look at the actual policy and annotate it with a yellow marker:
Privacy Policy
Last modified: May 15, 2018
System1 LLC respects your privacy and we are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy. This policy also applies to our subsidiaries Infospace Holdings LLC and Qool Media Holdings LLC.
Our services include our websites and applications that link to this privacy policy. This policy describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you use our services and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.
This policy applies to information we collect:
- When you use or interact with our services.
- In your email, text, and other electronic messages with us.
- Through our mobile and desktop applications.
Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our services. By accessing or using our services, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy). Your continued use of our services after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.
EU-US Privacy Shield and Swiss-US Privacy Shield
System1 LLC, and certain of its controlled US affiliates, Infospace Holdings LLC and Qool Media Holdings LLC, comply with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-US Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information from European Union member countries and Switzerland. System1 has certified that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles of Notice, Choice, Accountability for Onward Transfer, Security, Data Integrity and Purpose Limitation, Access, and Recourse, Enforcement and Liability. If there is any conflict between the policies in this privacy policy and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern.
To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, and to view our certification page, please visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/
System1 is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Children Under the Age of 13
Our services are not intended for children under 13 years of age. No one under age 13 may provide any information to or through our services. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information through our services. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at:
Attn: Privacy Officer
1501 Main Street
Suite 201
Venice, CA 90291
Contact System1Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It
We collect several types of information from and about users of our services, including information:
- by which you may be personally identified, such as name, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number, or any other identifier by which you may be contacted online or offline (“personal information“);
- that is about you but individually does not identify you, such as your IP address, referral data, and browser and platform type; and/or
- about your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our services and usage details.
We collect this information:
- Directly from you when you provide it to us.
- Automatically as you use our services. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies.
- From third parties, for example, our business partners.
Information You Provide to Us
The information we collect through our services may include:
- Information that you provide by filling in forms through our services. This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our services, subscribing to our service, posting material, or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our services.
- Records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact us.
Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies
As you use our services, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:
- Details of your use of our services, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you use on our services.
- Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.
We also may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services (behavioral tracking).
The information we collect automatically is statistical data and does not include personal information, but we may maintain it or associate it with personal information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our services and to deliver a better and more personalized service.
The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:
- Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our services. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our services.
- Flash Cookies. Certain features of our services may use local stored objects (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on our services. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies.
- Web Beacons. Portions of our services may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that allow us, for example, to count users who have visited pages and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity).
We do not collect personal information automatically, but we may tie this information to personal information about you that we collect from other sources or you provide to us.
Third-Party Use of Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies
Some content or applications, including advertisements, on our services are served by third-parties, including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers, and application providers. These third parties may use cookies alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use our services. The information they collect may be associated with your personal information or they may collect information, including personal information, about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content.
We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly. For information about how you can opt out of receiving targeted advertising from many providers, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.
How We Use Your Information
We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:
- To present our services and its contents to you.
- To provide you with information, products, or services that you request from us.
- To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it.
- To provide you with notices about your account, including expiration and renewal notices.
- To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
- To notify you about changes to our services.
- To allow you to participate in interactive features on our services.
- In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
- For any other purpose with your consent.
We may use the information we have collected from you to enable us to display advertisements to our advertisers’ target audiences. Even though we do not disclose your personal information for these purposes without your consent, if you click on or otherwise interact with an advertisement, the advertiser may assume that you meet its target criteria.
Disclosure of Your Information
We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.
We may disclose personal information that we collect or you provide as described in this privacy policy:
- To our subsidiaries and affiliates.
- To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business.
- To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us is among the assets transferred.
- To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it.
- For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
- With your consent.
We may also disclose your personal information:
- To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
- If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect our rights, property, or for our safety, and that of our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
- Under certain circumstances, we may be required to disclose your personal information in response to valid requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.
- System1’s accountability for data it receives pursuant to the EU-US and Swiss-US Privacy Shield and subsequent transfer of that data to third parties is detailed in the Privacy Shield Principles. In cases of onward transfer to third parties of data of EU or Swiss individuals received pursuant to the EU-US or and Swiss-US Privacy Shield, System1 is potentially liable. In particular, System1 remains responsible and liable under the Privacy Shield Principles if third-party agents that it engages to process the personal data on its behalf do so in a manner inconsistent with the Principles, unless System1 proves that it is not responsible for the event giving rise to the damage.
Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information
We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with the following control over your information:
- You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may then be inaccessible or not function properly.
- For some of our products, we use Google Analytics Advertising Features, including Remarketing with Google Analytics, Google Display Network Impression Reporting, DoubleClick Platform integrations, and Google Analytics Demographic and Interest Reporting. For information about Google Analytics currently available opt-outs, please click here.
- Some of our products may include advertisements from Microsoft. To learn more about information collected by Microsoft, please click here. You can opt-out of Microsoft’s personalized advertising services by following the instructions found here.
- We do not control third parties’ collection or use of your information to serve interest-based advertising. However, these third parties may provide you with ways to choose not to have your information collected or used in this way. You can also generally opt-out of receiving personalized ads from third party advertisers and ad networks who are members of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) or who follow the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising by visiting the opt-out pages on the NAI site and DAA site.
- System1 acknowledges that EU and Swiss individuals have the right to access the personal information that we maintain about them. An EU or Swiss individuals who seeks access, or who seeks to correct, amend, or delete inaccurate data, should direct their query to here. If requested to remove data, we will respond within a reasonable timeframe.
- We will also provide an EU or Swiss individuals with opt-out or opt-in choice before we share their data with third parties other than our agents, or before we use it for a purpose other than which it was originally collected or subsequently authorized.
- To limit the use and disclosure of your personal information, please click here.
Accessing and Correcting Your Information
We desire to keep you in control of the personal information you provide to us. Accordingly, you can review, correct, change, or remove the personal registration information you provide to us and that we control. To choose not to receive future communications from us, please contact System1.
You may also send us an email here to request access to, correct, or delete any personal information that you have provided to us. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.
Data Security
We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our services. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the services.
Dispute Resolutions
In compliance with the EU-US and Swiss-US Privacy Shield Principles, System1 commits to resolve complaints about your privacy and our collection or use of your personal information. European Union or Swiss individuals with inquiries or complaints regarding this privacy policy should first contact System1 here
System1 has further committed to refer unresolved privacy complaints under the Privacy Shield Principles to an independent dispute resolution mechanism, the BBB EU PRIVACY SHIELD, operated by the Council of Better Business Bureaus. If you do not receive timely acknowledgment of your complaint, or if your complaint is not satisfactorily addressed, please visit http://www.bbb.org/EU-privacy-shield/for-eu-consumers for more information and to file a complaint.
Under certain conditions, more fully described on the Privacy Shield website https://www.privacyshield.gov/article?id=How-to-Submit-a-Complaint, you may invoke binding arbitration when other dispute resolutions procedures have been exhausted.
Changes To Our Privacy Policy
It is our policy to post any changes we make to our privacy policy on this page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ personal information, we will let you know through a notice in our services. The date the privacy policy was last revised is found at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting this privacy policy to check for any changes.
Contact Information
To ask questions or comment about this privacy policy and our privacy practices, contact us at:
Attn: Privacy Officer
1501 Main Street
Suite 201
Venice, CA 90291
Contact System1
Looking at the above, one must wonder if the broken link isn’t an accident but intentional. Just to satisfy the requirements of listing this bogus ‘privacy’ ‘app’ in Google Play. Maybe better call it piracy ‘app’ because it steals all your data. █
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Guest Editorial Team
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