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Links 19/8/2015: LinuxCon Everywhere



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



Leftovers



  • News Corp.'s Amplify education experiment: What went wrong?
    That write-down comes nearly five years after it purchased Wireless Generation for $360 million in 2010 and renamed it Amplify. At the time, News Corp. was going to bet about $500 million on Amplify to dominate the market. Amplify was led by Joel Klein, the former head of the New York City Department of Education.


  • Avoiding Amazon? The 5 best alternatives to the online bookseller giants


  • You probably don't want to work for Amazon
    'Amazon is where overachievers go to feel bad about themselves.'


  • The Missing ‘Leadership Principle’ at Amazon


  • Amazon’s 24/7 Hell Is the Future of Work
    Working at Amazon may be hell, but so is working everywhere else. Or at least it will be soon. The blockbuster New York Times report documenting Amazon’s “bruising” white collar culture is a fine piece of labor reporting, yet its revelations shouldn’t be too surprising. Amazon is revealed to be a more efficient and more unpleasant formulation of the standard modern workplace; one shaped by globalization, digitalization, and increasingly limitless expectations placed on the plugged-in worker.


  • Health/Nutrition



  • Security



    • Security updates for Monday


    • Security advisories for Tuesday


    • DDoS attacks on the rise as Akamai warns that 'mega attacks' are coming
      THIS IS THE DAWN of the mega denial-of-service (DoS) attack, according to security firm Akamai and its second quarter threat report.

      We wait every three months for the Akamai State of the Internet report, and we are never disappointed. Its content is pretty good too, and allows for a summary of the past quarter and a reminder about things like Shellshock and web perennials like Flash, WordPress themes and application attacks.



    • Ransomware goes open source
      Turkish security bod Utku Sen has published what seems to be the first open source ransomware that anyone can download and spread. The 'Hidden Tear' ransomware, available at GitHub, is a working version of the malware the world has come to hate. It uses AES encryption to lock down files and could display a scare warning or ransom message to get users to pay.




  • Transparency Reporting



    • Julian Assange and the Value of WikiLeaks: Subverting Illusions
      Above and beyond Assange’s personal freedom, what’s at stake includes the impunity of the United States and its allies to relegate transparency to a mythical concept, with democracy more rhetoric than reality. From the Vietnam War era to today — from aerial bombing and torture to ecological disasters and financial scams moving billions of dollars into private pockets — the high-up secrecy hiding key realities from the public has done vast damage. No wonder economic and political elites despise WikiLeaks for its disclosures.






  • Finance



    • Richard D. Wolff | Déjà Vu: Germany Tightens Its Economic Power Over Europe
      Germany's leaders herded their European counterparts into imposing harsh austerity on Greece. It was the price, they insisted, that Greece had to pay to receive bailout credits from the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Europeans required those bailout credits to be used mostly to pay back loans the Greek government had gotten earlier from private banks (chiefly German, French and Greek). Those credits could not be used to get Greece out of the 2008 crash that afflicted all of Europe.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • Scott Walker's False Promise of Racial Unity
      When asked about race relations on the first anniversary of Michael Brown's killing at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, Walker replied:

      “I think in general if anyone focuses on racial discord we’re going to get more," he said. "If we focus on unity we’re going to get more of that."

      In other words, acknowledging systemic problems like the documented wave of police killings of unarmed black men, or the racial wealth gap, or disparities in sentencing and incarceration, creates "discord." During the GOP debate, he similarly dodged a question about the Black Lives Matter movement, which even Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly called "the biggest civil rights issue of our time."


    • 70 Awful Displays Of Sexism On Fox News
      On the 95th anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, Media Matters looks back at Fox News' many displays of sexism, ranging from hosts suggesting young women should not exercise civic duties like participating in jury duty because they "don't get it," to Erick Erickson's claim that "the male typically is the dominant role."


    • Who Is Intimidating Who?
      The cheerful cheddarheads who showed up at the Iowa State Fair "Soapbox" to razz Scott Walker got a rude reception. The Soapbox is a Des Moines Register tradition and peaceful protesters have long been a part of this exercise in free speech. But after Walker was punked by two young people with a fake $900 million Koch check weeks ago, Team Walker seems a bit tense. At the Soapbox, Walker supporters ripped a sign out of one protester’s hand which read “WARNING Don’t let him do to America what he did to Wisconsin.” Another protester told CNN ”I got pushed into a disabled woman. I fell on her wheelchair. She started screaming at me."


    • Donald Trump Praises Bill O'Reilly For His Focus On Immigrant "Crime Wave"




  • Censorship



    • MPAA Ducks Censorship Battle With Google, Twitter and Facebook


      The MPAA has dropped its request for a preliminary injunction that would require search engines, ISPs and hosting companies to stop linking or offering services to MovieTube. The decision comes a few days after prominent tech firms including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Yahoo branded the request as a broad censorship attempt.


    • U.S. Government Grabbed Dotcom’s Millions “As a Last Resort”


      The U.S. Government has informed the Court of Appeals that the civil forfeiture case against Megaupload and Kim Dotcom was launched as a last resort. The authorities feared that Dotcom and his colleagues would regain possession of the millions in seized assets and argue that they are properly labeled as "fugitives."




  • Privacy



    • Warrantless airport laptop search dooms Iran arms sales prosecution
      Federal prosecutors asked a federal judge in Washington on Tuesday to dismiss the government's prosecution of a South Korean businessman accused of illegally selling technology used in aircraft and missiles to Iran.

      The move comes three months after a judge ruled that the government unlawfully seized and searched the suspect's computer at Los Angeles International Airport as Jae Shik Kim was to catch a flight home in 2012. The government decided not to appeal and said it was "unable to continue prosecuting this matter."




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • Desperate Rightscorp Burns Through More Piracy Millions


        Piracy monetization company Rightscorp has published its results for Q2 2015 and it's yet another three months of misery for the company. At the same time as paying out just $117K to its copyright holder clients, Rightscorp managed to run up $1.95m in expenses, leaving the company with operating losses in excess of $1.72m.


      • Universal Music and Kim Dotcom Prepared a Deal to Tax Google


        A recording of Kim Dotcom and several Universal Music executives captured two days before the Megaupload raids has revealed the label planning to do a deal with the entrepreneur. Amid discussion of 'taxing' Google by diverting its ad revenue to the label, the execs offered to downgrade Dotcom from "evil" to "neutral" in return for dropping legal action over the "Mega Song".


      • Hollywood Keeps Breaking Box Office Records... While Still Insisting That The Internet Is Killing Movies
        Hollywood is still 100% focused on trying to blame the internet for any of its woes, mostly with bogus attacks on internet companies it doesn't like. And yet... it seems to keep on setting box office records. The latest is that Universal Pictures has broken a new record in bringing in $2 billion in box office revenue faster than any other studio in history, pushed over the top by the successful opening weekend of "Straight Outta Compton" (a movie that seems to have some big fans in Silicon Valley).










Recent Techrights' Posts

Creditors beware: VMS Enterprises Ltd vs Brexit Party (Reform UK Party Ltd)
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Slop-Posting is a New Form of S---posting
We recently caught several more "linux" sites (with "linux" in their domain name) turning to slop
 
Gemini Links 01/10/2026: Gemini-to-Web Proxies Considered Harmful, ROOPHLOCH 2026 at Griffith Park Observatory
Links for the day
"SPONSORED FEATURE" of HPE and NVIDIA at The Register MS Has Just Mentioned "AI" 68 Times in One Page!
Meanwhile, grown-ups ignore the hype and get work done without slop
Microsoft's XBox Layoffs Not Finished, Won't be Finished, It's Called "Forever Layoffs"
Microsoft will shut down (XBox) after shrinking it, there's no need to sell anything (a straw man)
IBM's Red Hat Lost Lots of People Today, Chief People Officer (CPO) Dethroned
Headcount falls shortly in secret.
Microsoft is "Pushing Up Daisies" Amid Mass Layoffs (Secret Ones)
"Longtime Microsoft research leader Peter Lee and former LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky to depart"
Links 01/10/2026: "Lawyer Cites ChatGPT-Invented Fake Witnesses in Murder Appeal" and The 'Linux' Foundation Technical Advisory Board (TAB) Has Vacuum
Links for the day
Brigading Against Women - Part XIII - The Offer We Didn't Ask For (and Under Threats to a Lady at the Webhost, a Form of Extortion From America)
Two and a half months ago Garrett made an offer to my wife
Techrights Turning 20 Next Month
Our image is under attack, our finances are constantly under attack and so on
Links 01/10/2026: "Meat Proxies" and "Japan’s Far Right Is Courting Young Voters"
Links for the day
Red Hat Being Phased Out of Existence (Like Many Other Companies That IBM Bought)
The "Red Hat" brand (and badge) is being dissolved some more today [...] IBM is imploding 'creatively'.
IBM Layoffs Cover-up
thelayoff.com is censoring threads
"Restricted Boot" Garrett's State is Now Implementing Kill Switches (Just What We've Warned About All Along)
The underlying concept is hardly new
Brett Wilson LLP Has Had No Annual Report in 16 Months
A cynic might hint that they try to hide something
Reform UK last minute accounts filing
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 01/10/2026: "Babel With Better Hardware", Software Input That's Slop, and DWeb Cascadia 2026
Links for the day
Today is D-Day at Red Hat and People Leave in Droves
They said there would be "bluewashing", we're mostly seeing people announcing they're leaving
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 30, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Gemini Links 30/09/2026: Fish Leather, Slop Formation, and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
In a Lot of Europe (or EU) Android (With Linux) is Bigger Than Windows
For example in Greece
EPO Cocainegate: Lots of Money (Over a Million Euros) for Cocaine Addicts, Not for Children With Special Needs
Next month we'll bring out some more Campinos scandals
High Court victory: Nigel Farage is 'the Company's own candidate'
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
It Took GNOME's Code of Conduct Committee (CoCC) Over 8 Months to Realise CoC Reports Went Into /dev/null/
It would be ironic if the blunder's culprits were punished for it, would it not?
Links 30/09/2026: Microsoft "OpenAI Ignored Employees’ Warnings About Safely" and "Pentagon Personnel Agency Data Breach Impacts 3 Million People"
Links for the day
The Register MS "Events" As Paid Spam That Promotes and Keeps Afloat Hype About Slop
This dreary sort of media reads like a soup of words, i.e. like the thing it is advertising
Digital Independence in the UK and in Western Europe
We have the technical capacity and skilled personnel to achieve this
IBM's Anderon as a Mass Layoffs Ritual With a Bailout (From US Taxpayers to IBM) and Other Perks
Like those empty promises in the first term of the Cheeto dictator
Gemini Links 30/09/2026: David Bowie, Web Rendering Proxy, Ink and Letters, Gemlog Nostalgia
Links for the day
EPO Annual General Meeting (AGM) Will Speak of Financial State of the EPO's Union
Their work is needed because the EPO breaks the law
Rust Causes Upgrade Issues in Ubuntu
They could just keep GNU coreutils in place (nothing was broken about it) and avoid Microsoft's back doors and TPMs
Losses From Slop Are "Investment", Hundreds of Billions in Debt Are "Growth Opportunity", Layoffs Are "Great to See", and Loss of Business Means "We Need a Slowdown" (for "Safety")
Microsoft is removing staff, as investment is apparently the act of shrtinking
Brigading Against Women - Part XII - Toxic Masculinity, Hunting Women, Will Code for Sex
Who says things like these?
The Microsoft Lunduke Slop Problem
Microsoft Lunduke does not support Software Freedom; he serves to discredit many ideas championed by Free software or ideals articulated which are apolitical for the most part
Links 30/09/2026: "Understanding the LLM Bubble" and "Florida Senate Threatened Legal Action Against Newspapers"
Links for the day
It Looks Like Mass Layoffs at "Nordcloud, an IBM Company" Today (a Day Ahead of Red Hat)
Expect the same from Red Hat next
British Prime Minister Recognises Social Control Media as National Cohesion Problem
one has to wonder if addiction to social control media is not compatible with peace
The Future Isn't Social Control Media (Nothing Will be Left of It, Not Even Archives)
"Error code: 502 Bad Gateway"
GNU/Linux Usage in China is Increasing
China is leaving Microsoft and Windows behind
43 Years of GNU and GAFAM's (Especially Microsoft's) Attacks On It
GNU is very widely used (when people say "Linux commands" they typically mean "GNU programs"), hence it's being attacked a lot
CDMAG Covers Free Software, New Magazine From Decent People
If enough people accessed their site, they would not rely on social control media (third parties, censorship platforms)
Brigading Against Women - Part XI - An Abject Lack of Social Skills (and Not Knowing How to Handle Women)
GGG enjoy - if that's the right term - very bizarre or esoteric sex life
Gemini Links 30/09/2026: Accelerationism, "The Billionaire is Wrong", Rant About LLM-generated Support E-mails
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 29, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Black Brit on "Pictures Comparing Me to a Monkey" Because of Brett Wilson LLP Client
"Like Firm, Like Clients..."
President of the EPO Should be Kicked Out, Not Have His Term Terminated in 2028
The President is facing more scandals soon
David Gordon at The Register MS Keeps Feeding the Pyramid Scheme With Fake Articles That Say "AI" Dozens of Times
How can such a publisher still be taken seriously?
The Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) at the EPO Explains the Working Conditions and Crisis of Plunder (Less for Workers, a Lot More for Dictators Who Refuse to Leave Leadership Roles)
Next week will be epic
EPO Will Stop Working for 10 Days to Protest Against 'Cocaine King' and His Assault on Democracy, Lawfulness, Transfer of Power at EPO
Strikes, work stoppage, all rolled onto one
IBM Brings Avalanche to Red Hat October 1st 2026 (Thursday)
IBM is turning up the heat on staff
Links 29/09/2026: Mass Layoffs at Microsoft and Backlash Over Data Center Policy of Microsoft
Links for the day
Techrights is International
There are many sites that focus on local communities or nations. We're not one of those sites.
5 Years Ago (September 29, 2021) Richard Stallman's Talk in Ukraine Noted
Let's hope the war will end soon
Links 29/09/2026: Acceleration, Morale, and ROOPHLOCH 2026
Links for the day
Links 29/09/2026: "Scam Altman Is Driving Drunk" and Anthropic Lies About Slop Usage
Links for the day
Brigading Against Women - Part X - When Actions of American Men Are Not Judged by Other American Men
"There is not the slightest suggestion that either Dr or Mrs Schestowitz did anything to invite or deserve it. They are both clearly and justifiably angered, dismayed, distressed and hurt by it."
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: A Source of Pride for Portugal?
In this part our focus returns to the main theme of this series, namely the current reappointment campaign of the EPO President, as we consider whether Campinos can still expect to enjoy the same level of support from the Portuguese political establishment as he did during the earlier stages of his career
Computers Freeze Because of UEFI Restricted Boot
damage is also done to computers running Windows
It is Very Expensive to Slow Down Techrights
Garrett's expensive hearing (costing the British taxpayers about 120,000 pounds; he doesn't live here and does not pay tax here) slowed us down for a few days, but we've picked up the pace since
Linux Has Conquered Mobile, But Desktops and Laptops Matter More
When people say the desktop "doesn't matter" they seem to be missing the point that workplaces use desktops (or laptops) and a lot of the work gets done not on skinnerboxes but "workstations" or terminals
Brigading Against Women - Part IX - "What Are You, a Racist?"
Because behind every strong man is a strong opinion?
Gemini Links 29/09/2026: "Digital Sabbath", Starting a GemCapsule, and Sterrenkijker 1.1.0
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 28, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, September 28, 2026