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Links 13/6/2016: Linux 4.7 RC3, Samsung's Tizen Focus





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



Leftovers



  • Health/Nutrition



    • Whistleblower: EPA Officials Covered Up Toxic Fracking Emissions for Years
      Why has the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) failed to take adequate action against disastrous, climate-warming methane emissions from the fracking industry?

      An environmental watchdog alleges that the answer may be a years-long, systematic cover-up of the true data surrounding these toxic emissions.

      That cover-up, the group says, was at the hands of at least one EPA researcher who accepted payments from the oil and gas industry.




  • Security



    • Deception Cybersecurity Pioneer illusive networks Adds Linux and Advanced Forensics in Latest Release


    • San Antonio’s Infocyte Takes Cybersecurity Threat Hunting to Linux


    • Lieberman Software Provides Security Automation at Scale for Linux
      Lieberman Software Corporation is advancing the security of the Linux enterprise by keeping the privileged attack surface in constant motion on Linux systems. The announcement was made at the Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit, where the company is exhibiting this week in booth #719.


    • Mozilla launches fund to vet open-source software
      More and more, developers are using open source tools when building applications and online services because it allows users to openly share and collaborate on code. Because it encourages crowdsourcing and collaboration, open source has opened the doors for amateurs and professionals alike to make better software faster than ever before.


    • Security advisories for Monday
    • Outdated authentication practices create an opportunity for threat hunter Infocyte
      “Having Linux allows us to look at web servers, for instance. If you’re going to bypass the biometrics, you’re going to need to get into that system itself,” Gerritz says. “That’s where we come in, is finding people who have inserted themselves under that authentication layer.”


    • Cable Sees NFV Enhancing Network Security
      Network functions virtualization is all the rage because of the money it can save, and because of the network flexibility it helps afford, but the cable industry is enthused about NFV for yet another, less publicized benefit: the potential NFV creates for improving network security.
    • IoT Consensus - A Solution Suggestion to the 'Baskets of Remote' Problem by Benedikt Herudek
      Bitcoin is able to integrate and have endpoints (in Bitcoin terminology ‘wallets’ and ‘miners’) seamlessly talk to each other in a large and dynamic network. Devices and their protocols do not have the ability to seamlessly communicate with other devices. This presentation will try to show where Bitcoin and the underlying Blockchain and Consenus Technology can offer an innovative approach to integrating members of a large and dynamic network.


    • Ready to form Voltron! why security is like a giant robot make of lions
      Due to various conversations about security this week, Voltron came up in the context of security. This is sort of a strange topic, but it makes sense when we ponder modern day security. If you talk to anyone, there is generally one thing they push as a solution for a problem. This is no different for security technologies. There is always one thing that will fix your problems. In reality this is never the case. Good security is about putting a number of technologies together to create something bigger and better than any one thing can do by itself.


    • Email Address Disclosures, Preliminary Report, June 11 2016
      On June 11 2016 (UTC), we started sending an email to all active subscribers who provided an email address, informing them of an update to our subscriber agreement. This was done via an automated system which contained a bug that mistakenly prepended between 0 and 7,618 other email addresses to the body of the email. The result was that recipients could see the email addresses of other recipients. The problem was noticed and the system was stopped after 7,618 out of approximately 383,000 emails (1.9%) were sent. Each email mistakenly contained the email addresses from the emails sent prior to it, so earlier emails contained fewer addresses than later ones.


    • Universities Become New Target for Ransomware Attacks [iophk: "Calgary has no excuse, given the particular tech activity headquartered specifically in their town. Some top Univ executives need firing +fines for having allowed Microsoft into their infrastructure."]
      This week the University of Calgary in Canada admitted paying C$20,000 (€13,900) to a hacker to regain access to files stored in 600 computers, after it suffered a ransomware attack compromising over 9,000 email accounts. In order to receive the keys, the school paid the equivalent of C$20,000 in Bitcoins.


    • Blue Coat to Sell Itself to Symantec, Abandoning I.P.O. Plans
      Blue Coat Systems seemed poised to begin life as a public company, after selling itself to a private equity firm last year.

      Now, the cybersecurity software company plans to sell itself to Symantec instead.

      Blue Coat said late on Sunday that it would sell itself to Symantec for $4.65 billion. As part of the deal, Blue Coat’s chief executive, Greg Clark, will take over as the chief executive of the combined security software maker.

      To help finance the transaction, Blue Coat’s existing majority investor, Bain Capital, will invest an additional $750 million in the deal. The private equity firm Silver Lake, which invested $500 million in Symantec in February, will invest an additional $500 million.




  • Defence/Aggression



    • The Chinese Hackers in the Back Office
      At the N.S.A., Mr. Falkowitz had worked with teams that detected North Korean missile launches. Much of that early work was done with satellites that would look for sudden heat blasts.

      Eventually, Mr. Falkowitz’s team tried a more proactive approach. If they could hack the computers that controlled the missile launch systems, they could glean launch schedules. Area 1 is now taking a similar approach to digital attacks, tapping into the attackers’ launchpads, as it were, rather than waiting for them to attack.

      Hackers don’t just press a big red “attack” button one day. They do reconnaissance, scout out employees on LinkedIn, draft carefully worded emails to trick unsuspecting employees to open them and click on links or email attachments that will try to launch malicious attacks.

      Once they persuade a target to click — and 91 percent of attacks start this way, according to Trend Micro, the security firm — it takes time to crawl through a victim’s network to find something worth taking. Then they have to pull that data off the network. The process can take weeks, months, even years and leaves a digital trail.


    • Before Nightclub Shooting, FBI Pursued Questionable Florida “Terror” Suspects
      The attack on a gay club in Orlando in which 50 people were killed and more than 50 wounded — now the largest mass shooting in U.S. history — demonstrates how potential threats are escaping the FBI’s vast counterterrorism dragnet.

      While it’s unclear whether gunman Omar Mateen’s inspiration was hatred of gays, the Islamic State, or something else, attackers like him are the intended targets of the FBI’s post-9/11 prevention program. Federal law enforcement’s top priority today is to stop the attacker of tomorrow.

      But Mateen’s mass shooting is an example of how dangerous men slip past the FBI’s watch while federal agents focus on targets of questionable capacity.


    • Orlando Pulse Open Thread
      There is so much we need to fix in this country: the guns, the homophobia. But I fear we’re most likely to just throw more policing in the mix, rather than addressing the underlying issues.


    • Omar Mateen and Rightwing Homophobia: Hate Crime or Domestic Terrorism
      US law enforcement is at least initially categorizing the horrific Orlando shootings as “domestic terrorism.”

      I don’t think it probably was terrorism in any useful sense of the term.


    • The Orlando Horror
      Terrorism is a reality – but endless war is not the answer


    • Recent Events in Honduras
      This week’s program looks at recent events in Honduras, including the 2009 coup, the 2012 killing of four villagers by a joint US-Honduran patrol at Ahuas, and the March 2016 assassination of indigenous environmental campaigner Berta Caceres. The guests examine some of the underlying institutions and circumstances there, including the heavily militarized Honduran police, the US “drug war,” and US willingness to use drug trafficking accusations to bring down critics of the country’s ruling party.


    • Hillary Clinton’s ‘Entangled’ Foreign Policy
      Besides bashing Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton offered few specifics in her big foreign policy speech which stressed the value of “friends.” But those “entangling alliances” helped create today’s global chaos, writes Daniel Lazare.


    • Gun Industry Describes Mass Shootings Like Orlando as a “Big Opportunity”
      In recent corporate presentations, leading gun makers celebrated the fact that consumers bought more firearms because of the December terrorist attack in San Bernardino. And, prior to the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Saturday night, executives were telling investors to expect another big bump — because of the upcoming elections.

      The surge in sales after mass shootings, as we’ve reported, is nothing new: Mass shootings lead to talk of gun control; the National Rifle Association — the gun advocacy group funded significantly by gun and ammunition manufacturers — uses its influence in Congress to block any legislative action; but gun owners, irrationally terrified that the government will restrict or ban firearms, rush out to buy more guns and ammo.


    • Donald Trump Calls Obama Complicit in Orlando Shooting, Escalating Years of Anti-Muslim Rhetoric
      Donald Trump’s first response to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando was to congratulate himself “for being right on radical Islamic terrorism.”

      His second response was to accuse President Obama of complicity.

      “Look, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind,” Trump told Fox News early Monday. “There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on. … He doesn’t get it or he gets it better than anybody understands — it’s one or the other and either one is unacceptable.”


    • As FBI Was Rolling Up Ibragim Todashev and Friends in Orlando, Omar Mateen Claimed a Tie
      Described as a tie to the brothers behind the Marathon killing, the claim is just wacky. But perhaps not as much when you consider the close FBI focus on Orlando’s Muslim community. The FBI killed Todashev in May of 2013, and started rounding up and deporting his friends shortly thereafter.


    • Stop Exploiting LGBT Issues to Demonize Islam and Justify Anti-Muslim Policies
      In the late 1990s, Eric Rudolph – raised Catholic and affiliated for a time with a Christian Identity sect – bombed abortion clinics and a gay bar, insisting they were venues of immorality and evil. Last July, an Orthodox Jewish Israeli attacked the marchers in the Jerusalem LGBT pride parade, stabbing six of them, and one of them, a teenager, died of her wounds; justifying his attacks by appealing to Talmudic punishments for homosexuality, he had just been released from a 10-year prison term for doing the same in 2005. Yesterday, a Christian pastor from Arizona, Steven Anderson, praised the slaughter of 49 people in an Orlando LGBT club on the ground that “homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts” and are “pedophiles.”
    • Was Orlando Shooter’s Domestic Violence History a Missed Warning Sign?
      The ex-wife of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen described him as a volatile and violent spouse who abused steroids and beat her during their brief marriage. “He started abusing me physically, very often, and not allowing me to speak to my family, keeping me hostage from them,” Yusufiy told reporters gathered in front of her home yesterday. After four months of marriage, Yusufiy was physically rescued from Mateen by her parents and, she said, filed a police report about his abusive treatment.


    • America’s Many Mideast Blunders
      Official Washington’s neocon foreign policy establishment looks forward to more “regime change” wars in the Mideast and more “blank checks” for Israel, but ex-Ambassador Chas W. Freeman Jr. sees such actions as a continued march of folly.


    • Globalization and the American Dream
      Implicit in all the rhetoric promoting globalization is the premise that the rest of the world can and should be brought up to the standard of living of the West, and America in particular. For much of the world the American Dream – though a constantly moving target – is globalization’s ultimate endpoint.


    • A Tale of Two Terrorists
      Nearly 15 years since its fiery debut, Bush’s “War on Terror” has somehow (and for some time now, too) been banalized into the humdrum of Obama’s permanent war; in light of this, as terrorism continues to simultaneously deviate from and reflect social norms, it seems entirely fitting that the two people vying for the presidency of the United States should be terrorists themselves.


    • Campaign 2016’s Brave New World
      As the U.S. election shapes up as a battle between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the prospect for the public hearing anything approaching a truthful exchange of ideas appears hopeless, writes David Marks.




  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting



    • Newly Released Clinton Email Was Marked Classified When It Hit Clinton’s Unclassified Server
      When her use of an unclassified email server first broke in March 2015, Hillary Clinton’s earliest statements were that no classified information was sent or received.

      She quickly changed her standard reply to say nothing sent or received was marked classified at the time. As recently as Wednesday of last week, she told reporters, “nothing that I sent or received was marked classified. And nothing has been demonstrated to contradict that. So it is the fact. It was the fact when I first said it. It is the fact that I’m saying it now.”

      (The statement is itself an outright lie. Some information — the names of CIA undercover personnel, imminent drone strikes, details on U.S. NSA sources and methods, for example — is inherently classified and does not need to be marked to restate that. In addition, many suspected classified documents that were marked as such were simply retyped minus the marker when they were sent to Hillary. Leaving the marker off does not “declassify” information, and is in fact a national security crime.)




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature



    • Ten Degrees Above Average, Alaska is Having Its Hottest Year Since Records Began
      Like the rest of the world, Alaska has been unusually hot this year—and it's about to get hotter.

      That's according to the most recent data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as Climate Central reported.

      Between March and May of this year, the meteorological spring, the entire state has been about 10 degrees hotter than normal, with an average temperature of 32€°F.

      "That may sound cold," Climate Central noted, "but warmth is a relative term. That temperature handily beat the previous record hot spring of 1998 by 2€°F (1€°C), according to NOAA."


    • Mobilizing for COP21
      Tom Goldtooth is a Diné and Dakota environmental activist based in Minnesota. He has worked on environmental justice issues with tribal governments since the 1980s, and is widely respected as a grassroots leader throughout North America. In addition to serving as Executive Director of Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), he is a founder of the Durban Group for Climate Justice, co-founder of Climate Justice NOW!, co-founder of the U.S. based Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative, and a regular policy advisor to indigenous communities. In 2010, he was honored by the Sierra Club and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as a “Green Hero of Color.” Last year, just weeks before COP21, he was awarded the Gandhi Peace Award, bestowed upon leaders who strive for world peace.


    • Nuclear 'Ticking Time Bomb' Is a Real Threat to New York, But the Feds Don't Seem to Care
      A little more than a year ago, a transformer fire and oil spill reminded the world that Indian Point, an aging nuclear power plant, sits only about 45 miles north of midtown Manhattan. Later it was revealed that the fire was caused by a short circuit due to insulation failure in a high-voltage coil in the transformer.


    • Revealed: New evidence shows palm oil giant flouting rules to prevent Indonesian forest fires
      One of the world’s largest producers of palm oil appears to have defied instructions from the Indonesian government to stop practices that could cause a repeat of the extreme forest and peat fires of 2015, a new investigation has revealed.

      In November last year, the Ministry of Environment prohibited the palm oil industry from planting commercial crops on already burned land and instructed companies to ensure primary canals are blocked to prevent land being drained.

      Evidence unearthed by a Greenpeace Indonesia field investigation in April suggests that IOI has in fact violated these new rules.


    • Peabody Coal Bankruptcy Reveals Climate Denial Network Funding
      Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company, has provided funds to a network of individuals, scientists, non-profits and political organizations espousing climate change denial and opposition to efforts to tackle climate change, according to newly available documents reviewed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD/PRWatch).

      The recipients of funding from Peabody Energy were made public in the company's recent bankruptcy filings.


    • Revealed: How This Coal Giant Became Treasury Dept. for Climate Denialists
      Peabody Energy, the largest coal producer in the U.S., funded dozens of groups spreading skepticism about climate change, according to new figures that reportedly surprised even environmental advocates with their scale.

      A Guardian analysis of the company's filings reveal that Peabody gave money to at least two dozen companies including trade associations, lobbying groups, conservative think tanks, and other organizations that campaigned against climate science and fought President Barack Obama's plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions.


    • Now THAT's going to make you saddle sore! Hundreds of cyclists ride naked through London in protest against car culture






  • Finance



    • Walmart Canada to stop accepting Visa cards due to 'unacceptably high' fees
      Walmart says it intends to join the list of retailers in Canada that don't accept Visa cards, citing high fees for transactions. It's a move one retail analyst has said will cause "pain on all sides."

      All credit cards charge fees to retailers, which generally are between one per cent and 2.5 per cent of the cost what's being sold. The fees vary depending on the type of card the customer is using — cash-back and premium cards generally have higher fees — and the type of retailer they're shopping at.


    • EU referendum: Gordon Brown urges Labour voters to stay in
      Former PM Gordon Brown is to tell Labour voters they have the "most to gain" if the UK stays in the European Union, as the party seeks to rally its supporters behind the Remain campaign.

      In a speech later, he will say the EU can deliver policies close to their concerns including tackling corporate tax avoidance and creating jobs.

      Mr Brown will make what he is calling the "positive" case for staying in.


    • Left-Wing Party In Spain Borrows Ikea Style to Promote Anti-Austerity Manifesto
      The Spanish anti-austerity political party Podemos has an interesting idea to make its new platform the "most-read manifesto ever produced": put it in the form of an Ikea catalog.

      Across pages of photographs depicting the party's leaders relaxing or working in their sun-dappled homes, Podemos outlines its proposals (pdf) on key political issues, covering familiar ground with plans to reduce unemployment and increase taxes on the wealthy.




  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics



    • Going Global: Bernie Sanders’s Challenge
      As Bernie Sanders ponders his next step, he could fall in line behind the Clinton bandwagon or break free and take his critique of economic injustice to a global stage, starting with a challenge to Brazil’s pro-corruption coup, writes Sam Husseini.


    • How Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Others Used Social Media to Reframe News of Orlando Shooting
      As news updates rolled in about Sunday’s shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, politicians, public figures, activists and journalists took to Facebook and Twitter to send out unfiltered statements about the significance of the massacre.

      For prominent politicians in and seeking office, the shooting represented an obligation to comment as well as a challenge, as the tragedy touched on several highly charged issues and themes in the public sphere, including but not limited to: LGBTQ rights, homophobia, Islamophobia, gun control and terrorism.




  • Censorship/Free Speech



  • Privacy/Surveillance



    • Embarrassed German intelligence official trying to discredit Snowden
      German intelligence mandarin Hans-Georg Maassen of the Verfassungsschutz has told the Bundestag’s NSA committee that it is “highly plausible” that whistleblower Edward Snowden is a Russian spy.

      Obviously, it is very hard if at all possible to know if anyone is a Russian spy. There are even speculations about Chancellor Merkel (who is of East-German descent). But speculations are just speculations.


    • DOJ Warns Calexico Police: Fix Institutional Problems Before Adopting Surveillance Tech
      Law enforcement agencies should not expand their electronic surveillance capabilities until they have addressed core problems of corruption, incompetence, poor oversight, and inadequate training.

      Echoing concerns long raised by EFF, that’s the message the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sent the Calexico Police Department (CPD) following a years-long investigation into alleged corruption by officers.
    • NSA interested in exploiting internet-connected medical devices, spying on IoT
      The NSA has new tricks up its sleeve, looking for ways to exploit the Internet of Things and connected biomedical devices like pacemakers in order to monitor targets and collect foreign intelligence.

      At the Defense One Tech Summit on Friday, NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett said, “We’re looking at it sort of theoretically from a research point of view right now.”

      If that involves hackers from the NSA’s Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), then it’s practically a done deal when you consider the wide range of devices previously pwned and listed in the ANT division catalog of exploits. It surely wouldn't be too difficult for the group, since IoT and wireless medical devices are notoriously insecure.

      Ledgett, according to The Intercept, claimed surveillance via biomedical devices might be “a niche kind of thing … a tool in the toolbox.” He reminded the audience that there are easier ways for the NSA to spy on targets.


    • NSA targets the Internet of Things as a new data source
      The Internet of Things (IoT) may be the US National Security Agency’s next potential target for spying and collecting data according to a comment made by its deputy director at a recent military technology conference.

      During the conference, which was held in Washington DC on 10 June, deputy director of the NSA Richard Ledgett said that the agency is considering potential ways it could collect data from internet-connected devices such as smart appliances and pacemakers. According to the Intercept, he said: “We’re looking at it sort of theoretically from a research point of view right now.” IoT technology has yet to become truly mainstream and as such the NSA exploring ways it could utilise this new wave of devices to collect information is in line with the agency’s past activities.
    • Snowden leak reveals Scottish links to GCHQ spy programme
    • Snowden exposes mass surveillance in Scotland by “unknown” government agency
    • Politicians and researchers raise questions over secret Scottish surveillance system


    • Apple vs FBI: NSA reveals why it couldn't hack San Bernardino iPhone
    • NSA Explains Why It Couldn’t Hack San Bernardino iPhone
    • Could FBI Again Struggle To Get Access To Orlando Terrorist's Phone?
    • BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,' insider says
      A specialized unit inside mobile firm BlackBerry has for years enthusiastically helped intercept user data — including BBM messages — to help in hundreds of police investigations in dozens of countries, a CBC News investigation reveals.

      CBC News has gained a rare glimpse inside the struggling smartphone maker's Public Safety Operations team, which at one point numbered 15 people, and has long kept its handling of warrants and police requests for taps on user information confidential.


    • BlackBerry: We're Here To Kick Ass And Sell Out Users To Law Enforcement. And We're (Almost) All Out Of Users.
      Back in mid-April, it was discovered that Canadian law enforcement (along with Dutch authorities) had the ability to intercept and decrypt BlackBerry messages. This level of access suggested the company had turned over its encryption key to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. BlackBerry has only one encryption key for most customers -- which it maintains control of. Enterprise users, however, can set their own key, which cuts BlackBerry out of the loop completely.

      BlackBerry CEO John Chen -- despite publicly criticizing Apple for locking law enforcement out of its phone with default encryption -- refused to provide specifics on this apparent breach of his customers' trust. Instead, he offered a non-denial denial, stating that BlackBerry stood by its "lawful access principles."
    • US government asks to join key EU Facebook privacy case brought by Schrems
      The US government has asked to be joined as a party in the Irish High Court case between the Austrian privacy activist and lawyer Max Schrems, and the social network Facebook. In a press release, Schrems called this "an unusual move."

      He told Ars that there are no documents relating to the "amicus curiae"—friend of the court—request yet. "The US government simply appeared via a barrister at the first (administrative) hearing today," he said. "They will be able to file the documents until the 22nd."

      Schrems speculated that the US government has made this move because it wanted to defend its surveillance laws before the European Courts. "I think this move will be very interesting," he told Ars. "The US has previously maintained that we all misunderstood US surveillance."



    • Now, please focus on Tor and its future
      Having seen the Swedish and the German Pirate Parties going down in flames after infighting, I can recognize some sort of underlying tone in the Tor dispute. Conflicts in tech-oriented communities often tend to spiral out of control and reason.
    • Snowden: Scotland has its own NSA conducting mass surveillance of phone and internet activity
      Documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal that Scottish authorities have been engaged in gathering data about phone and internet usage in much the same way as the NSA and GCHQ.


    • Secret police phone tap unit was run by Strathclyde Police




  • Civil Rights/Policing



  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Experts, scientists urge Kerala govt to include IPR in curriculum
      Now, the IPR experts and scientists have submitted a representation to the new Kerala government to include IPR in the educational curriculum from the school level and to set up an IPR Academy. Thiruvananthapuram: Since the last seven years, a proposal to set up an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Academy in Kerala remains only on paper. IP literacy is still very low even after two decades since we signed the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) at World Trade Organisation. "The proposal to include it in educational curriculum and to set up an IPR Academy will be taken forward by the new government and a clear picture on its modalities will emerge soon," he said. IPR is already an optional subject for Law students in Kerala.


    • Why you just can’t have a one-size-fits-all IPR policy
      The National IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) policy was released on May 11. This 38-page document will give directions to the government to promote ‘creative and innovative India’. Questions have been raised in some quarters about the need for a new policy now, as extensive legislation has been passed amending patent, copyright, trademark and design laws. Was the report released because of the Prime Minister’s US trip? Will it play into the pharmaceutical lobby?


    • Alongside UN Commitments To End AIDS, Event On Access Brings Tears, Vision
      Last week, United Nations members agreed on a political declaration on ending AIDS by 2030, with some new and old commitments. Alongside the 8-10 June High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS, a side event looked at issues of access and got into intellectual property rights issues.


    • Myriad Genetics Refuses To Accept That People Have A Right To Access Their Own DNA Sequences
      One of the biggest victories on the patent front was when the US Supreme Court finally ruled that naturally-occurring DNA cannot be patented. The company involved in this case, Myriad Genetics, didn't give up at this point, but tried to claim that despite this ruling, its patents on genetic testing were still valid. Fortunately, the courts disagreed, and struck down those patents too.


    • Love IP enforcement? Come to Brussels next week for the Commission's IP Enforcement Conference!
      The AmeriKat currently has a four dedicated IP passions - SPCs, the UPC, trade secrets and remedies. Luckily for her 2016 has so far been an exciting year for all four. In particular, IP remedies in Europe is undergoing a potential renaissance in the form of the Commission's Consultation on the IP Enforcement Directive (2004/48/EC) which closed on 15 April 2016 (see here).


    • Copyrights



      • “Piracy Monitoring Outfit Uses Flawed Tracking Technology”
        Every day anti-piracy outfits monitor millions of unauthorized BitTorrent transfers. Among other things, the data collected is used to sent stark warnings to alleged pirates. However, according to a torrent site owner the tracking methods of these companies are not all foolproof.
      • Neil Young Onstage: 'F--k You, Donald Trump'
        In a lengthy Facebook post, Neil Young cleared the air about how he feels about Donald Trump using his songs: "YOUNG CONTINUES TO DENY TRUMP PERMISSION TO USE HIS MUSIC," the rocker wrote, attaching a short clip of him yelling "Fuck you, Donald Trump" onstage.


      • Not The Onion: Morocco Bans Sharing Newspapers To Protect Publisher Business Models
        It's no surprise that traditional newspaper publishing is a struggling business. That's been the case for a long time, leading to a variety of silly proposals to try to prop up their failing businesses. There's been talk of changing copyright law to ban linking to or paraphrasing newspaper articles online. There's been a lot of focus on somehow harming search engines, as if they're the problem that newspapers face. There have been proposals to create a special version of the hot news doctrine to stop search engines from linking to stories. And, of course, over in the EU there's been a years-long push to "tax" links, which was so broad in Spain that Google News shut down in that country. That law, designed to protect newspapers, actually harmed them.

        However, I don't think any proposal we've seen is crazier than what's happening in Morocco, where apparently newspaper publishers are lashing out at anything they can think to blame in response to decreasing revenue -- including people in cafes sharing newspapers with others. And thus, a compliant government has now banned the practice. No one's putting any spin on this other than "OMG, newspapers are making less money, and let's 'protect' them."


      • Pure Bullshit: AMC Threatens Huge Fan Community With Copyright Claim Over 'Spoiler' Predictions
        What's up, Hollywood TV people? Hey, could you do everyone a favor and maybe stop being complete assholes to your biggest fans -- and especially completely abusing copyright law to harass and bully those people? Almost exactly a month ago we wrote about HBO abusing the DMCA process to go after people who were predicting what would happen in Game of Thrones, accusing them of violating copyright law in accurately predicting what would happen in the future. As we noted, that's not at all how copyright law works, but apparently AMC took a look at what HBO was doing and said "hey, let's do that too."
      • EU digital copyright consultation: Last chance to have your voice heard
        An important EU public consultation on copyright closes on Wednesday. As well as the official consultation page from the European Commission, there is an easy-to-use site set up by the Copyright for Creativity group that aims to facilitate the process by explaining what the questions really mean. It takes only a few minutes to complete, and automates the entire submission process. There are versions in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Polish.

        The consultation offers a rare chance for members of the public to help shape the EU's future digital copyright policy in two areas that are highly relevant for Ars readers. The first is the idea of placing a "Google tax" on snippets. More formally called a "neighbouring right" or "ancillary copyright," it would allow publishers to demand payment from search engines and content aggregators when the latter include short snippets that link to the original text. As Ars explained last year, the approach has been tried in Spain and Germany with disastrous results—a powerful argument not to extend it across the whole of the EU, as the European Commission is still considering.








← Report From Thursday Protest in EPO Munich Branch/Headquarters | New Essay: EPO “president and Council are morally corrupt” →

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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.
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
Richard Stallman's Talk in Buenos Aires Scheduled for 16 November 2025 (a Month After FSF Turns 40)
they've just updated their site and Stallman is listed first
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, WebProNews, LinuxSecurity, and the Serial Slopper
The bubble needs to burst, but even then the Web will be left with residues of these slopfarms
Links 23/08/2025: Science, War, and Important Win for the British Media Against SLAPPers Who Abuse Women
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/08/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and Back to Oldschool
Links for the day
"Deserved Victory" for "Women That Suffered"
"GNM defended its reporting as being both true and in the public interest and in a judgment on Friday"
The US Government is Now in the Business (Literally!) of Saving Microsoft and Intel
This means that President TACO/Cheeto now has greater financial incentive to also prop up Microsoft and Windows
Links 23/08/2025: onmicrosoft.com as Spam Cannon, The Cheeto-Intel Deal Is Official
Links for the day
Wired Complained About LLM Slop Only Days Before It Got Caught Doing That Itself
Never throw stones in a glass house
IBM "Value" Down 14.16% in a Month, Red Hat Layoffs Allegedly Discussed 12 Days Ago
"IBM is a dinosaur. Dinosaurs get extinct when the don't keep up."
We're Seeing More Countries Where Windows Isn't Even in Second Place Anymore (Third or Worse)
In a way, Microsoft can barely even hold onto second place anymore
Microsoft Workers on Canonical's Payroll
If you want something that's sort of like Ubuntu but is not controlled by Canonical, then look into Linux Mint, Debian, or LMDE
GNU/Linux Climbs to 4% in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone isn't a very rich country (to say the least), but it's better off than some of its neighbours
The SLAPPS Run Out of Oxygen Because They're Abuse of Process
At the end of the day we plan to publish over 1,000 articles explaining what happened
The Register MS Gets Paid by the Employer of the Previous Editor in Chief to Promote the "AI" Ponzi Scheme, Which Does Considerable Damage to the Web and to Online Journalists
The Register MS can 'badmouth' slop all it wants; it gets paid to inflate this bubble. It's actively participating in it.
Soon It'll be Autumn, Time to Repair Things
Where they don't charge an arm and a leg
Doing Our Best to Cover Software Patents When the Mainstream Media Does Not
Even the FSF has its limits
Gemini Links 23/08/2025: August Questions and Network Solutions
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 22, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 22, 2025
Microsoft Has Issues in Guyana
It's not just Guyana
About 25% of the "Linux" News/Results in Google News Today Are LLM Slop, Almost 20% From the Same Rogue Operators of Slopfarms
Google, which tries to market itself as an LLM giant, apparently fails to understand what's wrong with it
Harassing People on Holiday
There are "no-go areas"; but that assumes all laws firms have ethical standards
The Great, Undeniable Value of Paper Trail, Not Purely Digital Systems
Suppose you have nothing but bits on someone else's computer and "word of mouth"...
The Company Behind Ars Technica, Reddit and Wired Caught Publishing LLM Slop (It Also Admits It Now)
Condé Nast busted
Links 22/08/2025: Lagrange 1.18.8, Wired Magazine and Business Insider Caught Resorting to LLM Slop
Links for the day
This Saturday It's Gonna be 3.5 Years* Since Russia Invaded Ukraine. No Microsoft Protests Against Microsoft Having Provided Russia With Services.
Companies do not have consistent policies and enforcement of "corporate values" is somewhat of an egg salad
Slopwatch: Sites Gone Rogue, Google Promoting Lies, and DDoS Attacks by Plagiarism Giants
Charlatans and frauds engage in a war against artistic industries, mislabeling plagiarism as "AI"
Links 22/08/2025: Cisco Layoffs, LA Times Says "AI Hype is Fading Fast"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/08/2025: K for Kentucky and Caddy Versus LLM Slopbots
Links for the day
The "End Software Patents" Initiative of the FSF Explains "WHY [to] ABOLISH SOFTWARE PATENTS"
We hope to cover patent-related issues more and more as the big anniversary of the FSF approaches
Freenode Sniffing
The grown-ups left the building
The Only Thing Worse Than Misinformation is Misinformation Sold to Everyone as "Intelligence"
Misplaced trust is worse than none at all
The Register MS Now Openly Admits LLM Hype Does Damage, But It's Also Being Paid to Participate in the LLM Hype (With Paid 'Articles' and 'Webcasts' for Paying Advertisers)
The Register MS gets paid to do this
End of the Smartphone Era? No.
Maybe the media should focus on producing accurate, factual news
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 21, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 21, 2025
Enshittification of Airports, Airlines, and Airplanes
If people are willing to tolerate standard declines and enshittification (nowadays sold as "pivot to AI" or "replaced by AI" or "AI layoffs") they will pay for it some other way
Latest Is Not Greatest: The Case of "Foldable" Tech
don't be shamed into abandoning old things just because the "fashion industry" of Apple and Samsung tells you to
Airlines and Their Tricks That Only Work in the 'Digital Age'
People sceptical of the direction technology has taken are not "Luddites"
Open Source Initiative (OSI), Which Became a Propaganda Front of Microsoft and "Hey Hi" (Hype, Misnomer), Wants You to Forget These Scandals
A lot of these issues won't be set aside until there's a resolution