Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 16/1/2013: Kororaa 18 Coming, Embedded Linux Conference Videos





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



Leftovers

  • The MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco: PX00307 and DR-DOS
    There are many anti-trust exhibits and other articles on the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco and how it went from the original SDK released at the end of 1989 to "Microsoft Munchkins" and other unethical attacks that was worse than the Joint Development Agreement between IBM and Microsoft (where they worked on OS/2 together) ever was, which is part of why it took 10 years after Intel introduced the 386 before 32-bit programming became popular.


  • Security



  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • Hollywood’s Waterboard: Review of the CIA’s “Zero Dark Thirty”


    • John Brennan- The CIA -Zbigniew Brzezinski- Columbia University and Obama
      Brezinski was deeply involved in the U.S. aspects to support Osama Bin Laden against the Russians in Afghanistan.


    • CIA has list of greatest hits
      Let’s start with the CIA’s 1953 coup against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, whose democratically elected government had nationalized the country’s oil industry. It couldn’t be oilier, involving BP in an earlier incarnation, the CIA, British intelligence, bribery, secretly funded street demonstrations and (lest you think there’d be no torture in the film) the installation of an autocratic regime that went on to create a fearsome secret police that tortured opponents for decades after. All of this was done in the name of what used to be called “the Free World.” That “successful” coup was the point of origin for just about every disaster and bit of “blowback” — a term first used in the CIA’s secret history of the coup — in U.S.-Iranian relations to this day. Many of the documents have been released, and what a story it is.



    • Saved by the CIA
      That the CIA became the star: Is this art or entertainment?


    • CIA Drone Wars Protested at CIA


    • Group Protests at CIA Headquarters
      The Dolley Madison Boulevard entrance to CIA Headquarters was rendered impassable the morning of Saturday, Jan. 12, as more than three dozen people in orange prison jumpsuits and black hoods over their heads lined up to protest actions taken by the intelligence agency in recent years.

      #Members of Witness Against Torture planned the rally, their third at the CIA headquarters in recent years. In addition to the protesters in prison garb, others gathered to speak and pass out information about the activities they’re against.

      #"I wish this is something we could do every day, that would shut this place down," said Jack McHale of Burke, who had been fasting for the past week as part of the group’s protest."


    • CIA Nominee John Brennan Draws Fire From Civil Liberties and Human Rights Advocates


    • Murder Inc.: Obama Names Head of Drone Assassination Program to Lead CIA
      In an April 30 speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, he claimed that the drone strikes were legal under the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed by Congress after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the all-purpose pseudo-legal justification for war crimes and violations of the US Constitution used repeatedly by the Bush administration.


    • CIA drones have already killed at least 40 since the start of the year


    • $190 million drone coming to Australia


    • The Fake Catch-22 of Drone War Apologists
      The "substance" behind the criticism is, among other things, the fact that the specific drone war Obama is running is utterly lacking in transparency; bereft of adequate Congressional oversight; deadly to an unknown number of people; indefensible in its broad definition of militants; making enemies of countless foreigners, and killing "countless" innocent men, women and children. How does one literally acknowledge all those facts and then call the case of drone critics "substanceless"? The scary thing is that I think I actually know the dubious answer.

      [...]

      They've created for themselves a fake Catch-22.



    • Seven short stories about drones told through Twitter


    • Teju Cole: Seven short stories about drones


    • LETTER: Drones killing innocent people
      The use of drones by the U.S. to drop deadly explosives on innocent women and children in Pakistan and Afghanistan is a continuing abomination that has no place in a civilized society. These war crimes, which do nothing but create thousands of additional enemies for us, are carried out in secrecy and hidden for the most part from news broadcasts. If the people of this country could see with their own eyes the horrors being inflicted on these poor people who have never done anything against us, they would be outraged and demand that these actions end immediately.




  • Cablegate

    • Deafening Global Silence On Julian Assange – OpEd


    • Attack on Assange reveals a poor grasp of facts
      I doubt whether Henderson knows anything about Assange's accusers' political views. And would Henderson be putting pen to paper to criticise Assange if he was a right-wing blogger? No mention of the significant differences between the British and Swedish justice systems. Nor about the very different definitions of rape in Sweden.

      Henderson loves his left-wing conspiracy theories. David Hicks in my view was no left-winger but people supported him for his being denied justice in a military hell hole for five years. Nothing to do with his politics.

      Henderson's claim that the absence of supporters outside the Ecuadorian embassy early on a cold Sunday morning suggested ''his celebrity status was diminishing'' was plain silly.


    • WikiLeaks pretrial hearing focuses on trial delays
      An Army private charged with sending U.S. secrets to WikiLeaks contends that lengthy delays have violated his right to a speedy trial.






  • Finance

    • Goldman Sachs' Bankers Bonus Tax Dodge 'Depressing' - BoE's Mervyn King
      Goldman Sachs bankers delaying their bonus payments to avoid higher income tax rates have been condemned by Bank of England Governor Sir Mervyn King.

      King lashed out at the unconfirmed plans by Goldman in an appearance at the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee alongside other senior BoE staff.


    • Hitting the Debt Ceiling is Much Worse Than a "Government Shutdown"
      In recent days I’ve been tweeting critically about Republican leaders’ use of the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip in budget negotiations. Someone asked me “In your world, how will spending ever get cut?”

      It’s a good question. I share Republicans’ (and most Americans’) concerns about our unsustainable long-term budget outlook, and so I can certainly see why people would see the GOP’s tactics as a reasonable response to a serious problem. To understand why I think the Republicans’ approach is illegitimate, it’s important to distinguish the kind of garden-variety government shutdown that occurred during the Clinton administration (and almost happened in April 2011) from what would happen if the United States government reached the debt ceiling, as it almost did in August 2011 and might do in February or March of this year.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • The Freedom to Innovate Network - an 'Astroturf' Organisation
      Modern politics is often dominated by single-issue groups and parties, as recently seen in the UK with the fuel protests. This is seen by many as a counter to the power which big business wields, often overriding elected governments

      Needless to say, big businesses are well aware of this and have tried on several occasions to use the same technique for their own ends.




  • Privacy



  • Intellectual Monopolies





Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October