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
- Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) Does Not Support Women, It Imitates Authentic Organisations, Embraces Misogynists, Then Projects
- They try to monetise for personal gain at the expense of unpaid volunteers
- When You're Evil and You're Publicly Attacking Something, That Something Will Become More Popular
- when an oppressor becomes openly oppressive and does anything to squash/censor critics, the outcome will typically be detrimental to the oppressor
- Links 10/08/2026: "Against Oligarch" and "The Invisible Women"
- Links for the day
- Social Control Media Deathwatch: After Nearly a Million Posts Sent EchoFeed Shuts Down
- EchoFeed is hardly unique
- When the LLM Chatbots Industry (Trillions in the Red) Quits Paying the Media for FOMO
- fear of missing out, or FOMO for short
- Microsoft Killing Morale
- branding the process “inhumane” and “demoralizing”
- Google's "AI Overview" as Proprietary Censorship Engine and Gatekeeper
- People do not choose to use this, Google is just shoving that in people's faces, encouraging laziness and misinformation
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 145 Out of 200: They Tried Hard to Hide the Fact Their Client Had Been Sued, Twice Even
- A month ago Brett Wilson LLP tried to take my wife "to the side" (in effect isolated) to make her an offer
- statCounter: GNU/Linux Up to 8.95% Globally
- So the estimates are being "corrected" upwards, not downwards
- Explaining How Someone Attempted to Cancel RMS This Year (and Failed)
- The process itself involved debunking some falsehoods
- Microsoft's "XBOX Ranks Last", IBM is Headed for Extinction
- If Microsoft cannot dominate its own "home turf", what prospects are there elsewhere?
- DebConf6 fight denied by Google artificial intelligence
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 09, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, August 09, 2026
- Gemini Links 10/08/2026: A Mild Monday, Sleepy Saturday, OUYA, and Moving to GNU/Linux
- Links for the day
- Links 09/08/2026: US Blackouts (Energy Wasted), Slop to Evade Accountability, and Software Patents Framed as "Hey Hi"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 09/08/2026: Parakeets in Britain and Rant About 'Modern' Washing Machines
- Links for the day
- Links 09/08/2026: Social Control Media Weaponises Immigration, Europe Suffers Severe Drought, and "Internet of Stuff" Explained
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 144 Out of 200: The "Hired Guns" ("Media" at BW) Shrank Almost Three-Fold Since They Sued Us in 2024
- No wonder they're so visibly outnumbered
- 10 Days Ago Red Hat Formally Terminated Employment of About 500 Technical Workers (the Media Didn't Mention This)
- IBM has nothing left to do except fire people (in secret) whilst attacking sites that give these people a voice
- Freenode Continues to Shed Off Servers and Users, Good Thing We Abandoned It
- you cannot sell communities. It leads to chaos
- Daniel Pocock in the Sunday Times (Today)
- Expect the attacks (from Pocock's haters, motivated by envy) to intensify
- Controlling One's Platform
- We need to strive for or actively pursue a Web where everyone has their own platform/s and where censors ("moderators") have no direct control over these platforms
- Improving the Static Site Generator (SSG), Fixing Bugs
- Next month the site's SSG turns 3
- Gemini Links 09/08/2026: Meatballs (1979), Gopher, RSS Experiment
- Links for the day
- 2026: The Year Richard Stallman Came Back to American Campuses
- There's more on the way
- IBM's "Next Step" Program
- Apparently close to 1,000 people being laid off by IBM wasn't worth reporting
- XBox is Rotting Away, Technical Issues for Second Time in Two Weeks
- XBox is dying
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 08, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, August 08, 2026
- Red Hat is in Need of a 'Jolla', as an IBM-Controlled Red Hat is Becoming Like the Microsoft-Infiltrated Nokia
- Dying fast, partly by design
- Gemini Links 08/08/2026: Gigs, Poems, SREs, and Shared Passion
- Links for the day
- If GNU/Linux Rising is Just "Bots" (It's Not, Many Surveys Show the Same), Why Does Microsoft Rush to Lie About System Requirements of Vista 11?
- The real reason is, GNU/Linux is rising
- Kompromat Tactics in GNU and Linux
- Kompromat as a concept was covered here in the past in relation to Microsoft
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 143 Out of 200: After Nearly 10 Attempts to Settle With Us and Over a Million Pounds Spent on Lawyers and Barristers
- We are in no particular hurry
- 20 Years and 43 Years
- GNU/Linux is not just code, it's a philosophy, licence (copyleft), and community
- GNU/Linux Turns 43 Next Month, Many Distros Actively Maintained
- A lot of Debian-based distros are still actively maintained (we talk about this in IRC this evening), so the stability of the Debian Project is important
- Links 08/08/2026: GAFAM Colonialism "Paved Over Protected Wetlands", Slop Companies Hoard Software Patents as Debt Soars to Trillions
- Links for the day
- Links 08/08/2026: "Palantir Paid No Federal Income Tax" and "Who's Responsible for This Mess?"
- Links for the day
- Retained: The Time IBM's Red Hat Tried to Hijack or Take Offline Site of Critics, Failed on All Grounds (Meritless Action Intended to Harass Critics)
- Replicated from adrforum.com
- IBM's 'Final Solution': Censor Sites Not Controlled by IBM, Sites Where Dissent is Expressed
- IBM has no culture of free speech
- More Mass Layoffs Coming IBM's Way (Ones IBM Cannot Hide, Cannot Convince Enough People to Leave or Unjustifiably PIP Them When They Say No)
- The company that was like a "father of modern computing" is now stingy when it comes to travel. Not a good sign.
- What Will it Take for Mainstream Media to Report Silent or Secret Layoffs at IBM?
- "Silent" or "secret" sometimes because the media won't cover them
- Is the Future of IBM Red Hat Temporary Staff, Contractors?
- They want cheap, obedient lemmings
- Gemini Links 08/08/2026: Tribute to Lloyd Center, Radio Amateurism, Homeworlds
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 07, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, August 07, 2026