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
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
An Intel engineer has published a patch-set providing a new GCC compiler architecture target for Intel's upcoming Broadwell CPUs.
-
Novena Project aims to create an entirely open source laptop, from the iron down to the bits, and a prototype already exists
-
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.
-
FOSS is the last place to suspect “back doors” or traps.
-
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.
-
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?
-
GNU Binutils was updated this morning and some of the major changes for these binary tools updates include supporting several new processors.
-
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
- GNU/Linux and ChromeOS in Qatar Reach 4%, an All-Time High
- Qatar has money to spend, but not much of it will be spent on Microsoft, or so one can hope
- This 'Article' About "Linux Malware" is a Fake Article, It's LLM Slop (Likely Spewed Out by Microsoft Chatbot)
- They're drowning out the Web
- Early Retirement Age: Linus Torvalds Turns 55 Next Week
- Now he's almost eligible for retirement in certain European countries
-
- Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part XI
- By Dr. Andy Farnell
- Links 22/12/2024: Election Rants and More Sites Available via Gemini
- Links for the day
- Links 22/12/2024: North Pole Moving and Debian's Joey Hess Goes Solar
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 22/12/2024: Solstice and IDEs
- Links for the day
- BetaNews: Microsoft Slop is Your "Latest Technology News"
- Paid-for garbage disguised as "journalism"
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 21, 2024
- IRC logs for Saturday, December 21, 2024
- Links 21/12/2024: EU on Solidarity with Ukraine, Focus on Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court in the EU (UPC)
- Links for the day
- [Meme] Microsofters at the End of David's Leash
- Hand holding the leash. Whose?
- Deciphering Matt's Take on WordPress, Which is Under Attack From Microsofters-Funded Aggravator
- the money sponsoring the legal attacks on WordPress and on Matt is connected very closely to Microsoft
- Gemini Links 21/12/2024: Projections, Dead Web ('Webapps' Replacing Pages), and Presentation of Pi-hole
- Links for the day
- American Samoa One of the Sovereign States Where Windows Has Fallen Below 1% (and Stays Below It)
- the latest data plotted in LibreOffice
- [Meme] Brian's Ravioli
- An article per minute?
- Links 21/12/2024: "Hey Hi" (AI) or LLM Bubble Criticised by Mainstream Media, Oligarchs Try to Control and Shut Down US Government
- Links for the day
- LLM Slop is Ruining the Media and Ruining the Web, Ignoring the Problem or the Principal Culprits (or the Slop Itself) Is Not Enough
- We need to encourage calling out the culprits (till they stop this poor conduct or misconduct)
- Christmas FUD From Microsoft, Smearing "SSH" When the Real Issue is Microsoft Windows
- And since Microsoft's software contains back doors, only a fool would allow any part of SSH on Microsoft's environments, which should be presumed compromised
- Paywalls, Bots, Spam, and Spyware is "Future of the Media" According to UK Press Gazette
- "managers want more LLM slop"
- Google Has Mass Layoffs (Again), But the Problem is Vastly Larger
- started as a rumour about January 2025
- On BetaNews Latest Technology News: "We are moderately confident this text was [LLM Chatbot] generated"
- The future of newsrooms or another site circling down the drain with spam, slop, or both?
- "The Real New Year" is Now
- Happy solstice
- Microsoft OSI Reads Techrights Closely
- Microsoft OSI has also fraudulently attempted to censor Techrights several times over the years
- "Warning About IBM's Labor Practices"
- IBM is not growing and its revenue is just "borrowed" from companies it is buying; a lot of this revenue gets spent paying the interest on considerable debt
- [Meme] The Easier Way to Make Money
- With patents...
- The Curse (to Microsoft) of the Faroe Islands
- The common factor there seems to be Apple
- Electronic Frontier Foundation Defends Companies That Attack Free Speech Online (Follow the Money)
- One might joke that today's EFF has basically adopted the same stance as Donald Trump and has a "warm spot" for BRICS propaganda
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 20, 2024
- IRC logs for Friday, December 20, 2024
- Gemini Links 21/12/2024: Death of Mike Case, Slow and Sudden End of the Web
- Links for the day
- Links 20/12/2024: Security Patches, Openwashing by Open Source Initiative, Prison Sentence for Bitcoin Charlatan and Fraud
- Links for the day
- Another Terrible Month for Microsoft in Web Servers
- Consistent downward curve
- LLM Slop Disguised as Journalism: The Latest Threat to the Web
- A lot of it is to do with proprietary GitHub, i.e. Microsoft
- Gemini Links 20/12/2024: Regulation and Implementing Graphics
- Links for the day
- Links 20/12/2024: Windows Breaks Itself, Mass Layoffs Coming to Google Again (Big Wave)
- Links for the day
- Microsoft: "Upgrade" to Vista 11 Today, We'll Brick Your Audio and You Cannot Prevent This
- Windows Update is obligatory, so...
- The Unspeakable National Security Threat: Plasticwares as the New Industrial Standard
- Made to last or made to be as cheap as possible? Meritocracy or industrial rat races are everywhere now.
- Microsoft's All-Time Lows in Macao and Hong Kong
- Microsoft is having a hard time in China, not only for political reasons
- [Meme] "It Was Like a Nuclear Winter"
- This won't happen again, will it?
- If You Know That Hey Hi (AI) is Hype, Then Stop Participating in It
- bogus narrative of "Hey Hi (AI) arms race" and "era/age of Hey Hi" and "Hey Hi Revolution"
- Bangladesh (Population Close to 200 Million) Sees Highest GNU/Linux Adoption Levels Ever
- Microsoft barely has a grip on this country. It used to.
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 19, 2024
- IRC logs for Thursday, December 19, 2024