GNU News (December-January)
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-01-21 10:28:00 UTC
- Modified: 2014-01-21 10:28:00 UTC
Summary: GNU, FSF, and Free software news from the past month or so
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Richard Stallman today met Mr Rahul Gandhi, Vice President of the Indian National Congress and shared his views on digital surveillance system, unique identification project, free software in education and governance in a meeting that went on for one hour. Mr Joseph Mathew, Secretary of SPACE also participated in the meeting. Mr Gandhi showed keen interest in Stallman's views on various issues relating to information technology.
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To commemorate the occasion of GNU completing 30 years and SPACE 10 years, the free software community in Thiruvananthapuram is also organising an exhibition on free software and free knowledge on Education Freedom Day, which falls on January 18 at the Museum. The exhibition will focus on free software and free hardware for education and privacy protection. Various free software projects like Fedora, WoMoz, and HackerSpace will be part of the exhibition.
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GnuCash is more than a simple checkbook register, although it can be used for that purpose. Its real power is in the features supporting small business use and managing multiple accounts. Its basic features are intuitive, but if you don't have a bookkeeping background, be prepared to spend some time with the user guide in order to fully appreciate its advanced capabilities.
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But the researchers, including Adi Shamir, a co-inventor of the widely-used RSA encryption algorithm, have shown how within one hour it was possible to extract a 4096-bit RSA private key used to decrypt email from a laptop running the OpenPGP-based mail encryption tool, GNU Privacy Guard.
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After earlier this month delivering LLVM Clang 3.3/3.4 benchmarks for the new compiler infrastructure out of Apple, today are results that directly compare the new LLVM Clang 3.4 performance against the stable GCC 4.8.2 compiler and GCC 4.9.0 development compiler under various C/C++ benchmarks.
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An Intel engineer has published a patch-set providing a new GCC compiler architecture target for Intel's upcoming Broadwell CPUs.
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Novena Project aims to create an entirely open source laptop, from the iron down to the bits, and a prototype already exists
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The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today awarded Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification to Gluglug X60 laptops. The RYF certification mark means that the product meets the FSF's standards in regard to users' freedom, control over the product, and privacy. This is the first laptop to receive RYF certification from the FSF.
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FOSS is the last place to suspect “back doors” or traps.
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Computer scientists have devised an attack that reliably extracts secret cryptographic keys by capturing the high-pitched sounds coming from a computer while it displays an encrypted message.
The technique, outlined in a research paper published Wednesday, has already been shown to successfully recover a 4096-bit RSA key used to decrypt e-mails by GNU Privacy Guard, a popular open source implementation of the OpenPGP standard. Publication of the new attack was coordinated with the release of a GnuPG update rated as "important" that contains countermeasures for preventing the attack. But the scientists warned that a variety of other applications are also susceptible to the same acoustic cryptanalysis attack. In many cases, the sound leaking the keys can be captured by a standard smartphone positioned close to a targeted computer as it decrypts an e-mail known to the attackers.
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The Free Software Foundation today has come out for "the first time we've ever been able to encourage people to buy and use a laptop as-is." The Free Software Foundation now backs one laptop model as respecting the customer's freedoms, but are the hardware specs any good?
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GNU Binutils was updated this morning and some of the major changes for these binary tools updates include supporting several new processors.
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To read more about all of these and see the honorable mentions not listed here, make sure to head back to the full hive five feature.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Bailing Out GAFAM, Giving Taxpayers' Money to Failing Companies, and Trying to Outlaw Lawsuits Against Them
- What would the late Lincoln have said?
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- The Register MS Has Apparently Shut Down Its Office
- It is basically a fake address on the face of it
- There Are Also Expectations of IBM Layoffs Very Soon With "Narrative Control."
- Some of them mention Red Hat and how IBM failed to achieve anything substantial with that acquisition
- After at Least Two Rounds of Mass Layoffs in August Microsoft Said to Have "September Layoff Confirmed - Performance Based"
- Those "M5 level meetings" sound plausible
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 25, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, August 25, 2025
- Slopwatch: Slopfarms All Over Google News and Real News Sites Pushed Out of Visibility
- Google News is dying (as a tool of value)
- Gemini Links 25/08/2025: Numeric-only VM and Alhena 5.3.0
- Links for the day
- Links 25/08/2025: ‘Panama Playlists’ and Live Nation/Ticketmaster Suit Aims at Class Action
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 25/08/2025: Empathy Towards Autistic People and Old Gadgets
- Links for the day
- Links 25/08/2025: Datacentres Versus Water Supplies and "The IPv6 Divide"
- Links for the day
- Links 25/08/2025: Data Breaches, Politics, and Financial Strain
- Links for the day
- GNU/Linux Distros Ought to Replace Firefox (and Firefox ESR) With Something Like LibreWolf
- Perhaps it's come to replace Firefox
- Father of Julian Assange Said the US Government Was Trying to Bankrupt WikiLeaks, Now the Assange Family Promotes Fake Currencies
- Using the name for bad purposes?
- Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) Inc. Lost 2 Million Dollars Last Year and Its Chief Took a Salary Increase of Almost $6,000
- Another year or two like this... and the SFC will be bankrupt [...] Hallmark of mismanagement
- The "New Techrights" Turns Two Very Soon
- Accomplishing something each year is what's important, not merely "finishing" another year
- Gulf Nations Leave Microsoft Behind
- How much lower will Microsoft stoop in an effort to raise money from oil-rich lenders?
- How to Combat IRC Trolls (in Our Experience)
- Today I want to share my experience (or knowledge) of how to deal with IRC trolls
- The Register MS Needs to Stop Participating in the "Hey Hi" (AI) Hype, But It Gets Paid to Participate in This Hype
- the publisher (The Register MS) wants to have it both ways
- Gemini Links 24/08/2025: Living With Your Parents, Zürich Zoo, and Macondo
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 24, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, August 24, 2025
- Gemini Links 24/08/2025: Signal on OpenBSD and Keyboard Layouts Compared
- Links for the day
- Men Who Abuse Women Should Never Spend Over 3 Years of the UK High Court's Time
- This demonstrates that we need a reform in the UK
- Links 24/08/2025: Microsoft Settles Data Breach Lawsuits and Climate Change Causes Heatwaves, Water Shortages
- Links for the day
- CachyOS is Rising Fast, But Slopfarms Are 'Googlebombing' It
- CachyOS receives more media attention
- No Reason for Red Hat Relief Yet (Layoff Rumours)
- the execution could be stalled, delayed, or scheduled for some time after people come back from holiday
- GNU/Linux 6%, Windows 60% in Venezuela, Suggests statCounter
- The cash cows are dying
- Mass Layoffs Continue at Microsoft This Month (Remaining Workers See Conditions That Deteriorate)
- So far this month (one week remaining) we saw at least two waves of layoffs at Microsoft
- How SPAM E-mails With Windows-Centric Files Get Twisted as Linux Threats, Then Slopfarms Spread the Word
- Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation
- Links 24/08/2025: Heatwaves Threaten Workers, Maldives Versus Press freedom
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 24/08/2025: Digital Cameras and Printers
- Links for the day
- Links 24/08/2025: GAFAM Lie About Pollution and Slop's Carbon Footprint, The Guardian Says Slop ("Hey Hi") is a Bubble That Will Send Stock Markets Into a Freefall
- Links for the day
- 80% of the Sponsored (Fake) Articles in The Register MS Are Promotions of Ponzi Schemes (Unethical Money), the Rest is Banned Chinese Business
- Is that an ethical way to make money? No.
- The UEFI Restricted Boot 'Time Bomb' is About to Go Off in a Few Weeks
- Garrett was the first person to face sanctions (like muting) in our IRC channels because of his abuse; worse yet, he hijacked other people's names and then locked them out of their own accounts
- Should Currys PCWorld Start Voiding Warranties of Users of Vista 11?
- If a person's laptop has a mechanical issue, should this person replace GNU/Linux with Vista 11 for the repair shop? Only to damage the SSD?
- Newer is Not Always Better, and It's Possible That 'Peak' is the Past
- People creating their own platforms means progress, whereas centralisation (like moving from blogs to social control media) is the opposite of progress
- LLM Hype is Sowing Destruction: It Contributes to DDoS Attacks and Makes the Web Less Accessible (JavaScript "R U Human?" Tests)
- If it was googlebot, it would be possible to argue that you'd at least then get referral traffic from Google Search. With LLMs, all you get is plagiarised.
- Links 24/08/2025: New York Times Talks About Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 24/08/2025: Upgrading Debian and Mobile-indifferent Design
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 23, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, August 23, 2025