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Links 8/6/2017: Chrome 59, Tor Browser 7.0





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Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Google releases open-source platform Spinnaker 1.0
    Google is giving the open-source community another tool for continuous delivery and cloud deployments. This week, Google released Spinnaker 1.0, an open-source multi-cloud continuous delivery platform, which companies can use for fast, safe and repeatable deployments in production.

    Back in November 2015, Netflix and Google collaborated to bring Spinnaker, a release management platform, to the open-source community. Since that initial release, Spinnaker has been used in several organizations like Netflix, Waze, Microsoft, Oracle, and Target.


  • Colu Open-Sources Protocol to Help Central Banks Issue Digital Currencies
    VC-backed startup Colu is open-sourcing its banking infrastructure known as Bankbox in an effort to remove the technical barriers and reduce costs for central banks that want to issue digital currencies.

    The Israeli firm’s technology was previously based on the bitcoin blockchain, but the company is overhauling its approach for its Colored Coins initiative, evolving into a more blockchain-agnostic platform.


  • Despite call for open source software, SF approves $30M contract for Microsoft products [Ed: Microsoft corruption is powerful enough at San Francisco]


  • 'Unforgivably negligent' not to adopt open source
    While few organisations are able to adopt open source tools and technologies for everything IT at present, it is "unwise" not to at least consider doing so as much as possible – and it will be "unforgivable negligent" to fail to do this within a few years.

    This is the view of Paul Miller and Lauren E Nelson, authors of Forrester Research's "Open Source Powers Enterprise Digital Transformation" report.


  • SoftBank's 'Open Source' Source Is a Slovakian Startup
    Founded last year, and based in the Slovak capital of Bratislava, Frinx claims to offer a "fully supported" version of OpenDaylight and is one of a crop of new companies that sees a business opportunity in open source technology.

    For anyone that's forgotten, OpenDaylight is an open source SDN platform that is managed by the Linux Foundation. The project includes some of the biggest names in the technology industry, with Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD), Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC), Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) and ZTE Corp. (Shenzhen: 000063; Hong Kong: 0763) all listed as "platinum" members on the organization's website.


  • Help us celebrate 23 years of FreeDOS
    This year on June 29, FreeDOS will turn 23 years old. That's pretty good for a legacy 16-bit operating system like DOS. It's interesting to note that we have been doing FreeDOS for longer than MS-DOS was a thing. And we're still going!

    There's nothing special about "23 years old" but I thought it would be a good idea to mark this year's anniversary by having people contribute stories about how they use FreeDOS. So over at the FreeDOS Blog, I've started a FreeDOS blog challenge.


  • Open Source Software and Hardware for the Internet of Things
    Fast forward to the present and Torvalds’ open source operating system has been adapted for use in embedded components, routers, access points, devices and data center applications — all important aspects of generating, transmitting and receiving the huge amount of data produced by the booming Internet of Things.


  • coreboot Joins Conservancy as a Member Project
    Software Freedom Conservancy proudly welcomes coreboot as Conservancy's newest member project. coreboot is is an extended firmware platform that delivers a lightning fast and secure boot experience on modern computers and embedded systems.


  • Coreboot Joins The Software Freedom Conservancy
    Coreboot has joined the Software Freedom Conservancy as a member project.

    The Software Freedom Conservancy as a reminder is the non-profit working to promote FLOSS projects and takes care of managerial tasks and other non-development/documentation related tasks for the project. Basically, member projects are absorbed by this non-profit and provide some legal representation, among other services.


  • LZ4m: Taking LZ4 Compression To The Next Level
    The developers behind LZ4m plan to use this new compression algorithm for a real-world in-memory compression system. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any code for LZ4m yet nor much more besides this white paper for the 2017 IEEE conference. Hopefully we will learn more soon and see a useful code drop. Thanks to markg85 pointing out this work.


  • Google's Brotli Compression Format Nearing v1.0
    This LZ77-derived open-source data compression library used by all the major web browsers has made much progress since its public debut in 2015 for HTTP compression and other purposes.


  • Web Browsers



    • Chrome



    • Mozilla



      • Tor Browser 7.0 is released
        The Tor Browser Team is proud to announce the first stable release in the 7.0 series. This release is available from the Tor Browser Project page and also from our distribution directory.

        This release brings us up to date with Firefox 52 ESR which contains progress in a number of areas:

        Most notably we hope having Mozilla's multiprocess mode (e10s) and content sandbox enabled will be one of the major new features in the Tor Browser 7.0 series, both security- and performance-wise. While we are still working on the sandboxing part for Windows (the e10s part is ready), both Linux and macOS have e10s and content sandboxing enabled by default in Tor Browser 7.0. In addition to that, Linux and macOS users have the option to further harden their Tor Browser setup by using only Unix Domain sockets for communication with tor.


      • Firefox-Based Tor Browser 7.0 Officially Released for Anonymous Web Surfing






  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)



  • BSD



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



    • GNU Taler 0.3.0 released
      We are happy to announce the release of GNU Taler 0.3.0.

      GNU Taler is a free software electronic payment system providing anonymity for customers. Payments can in principle be made in any existing currency, or a bank can be launched to support new currencies. Merchants are not anonymous, and--due to income-transparency--the state can perform effective tax audits.


    • Taler 0.3 Released: GNU Still Striving For A Free Software Payment System
      Among the lesser-known GNU projects is Taler, which is trying to be a free software electronic payment system. Today marks its v0.3 release, but it only works so far with toy currencies.


    • Reports from the fellowship group in Vienna
      We organised an FSFE information booth on Linuxwochen Wien from 4 to 6 of May and at Veganmania at the MQ in Vienna from 24 to 27 May. Like every year it went very well and especially at Veganmania we could reach many people not yet familiar with free software. Since during the Veganmania there was a Wikipedia event in Vienna at the same time we even encountered some people from all over the world. For example an FSF activist from Boston in the US.




  • Public Services/Government



    • Study: Dutch govt should reverse attitude to ICT
      Public administrations have to understand the importance of ICT for their core processes, and must be able to implement ICT themselves, a Dutch government advisory group says. Dutch politicians, policy makers and officials are underrating the importance ICT, the group writes: ‘Government digitalisation requires a radical reversal of attitude.’

      [...]

      The report, published in April, is written by 13 ICT policy experts from the commercial and public sector. They recommend following the UK’s 'Government as a Platform policy'. This includes embracing open ICT standards and breaking-up large-scale ICT projects into small reusable services and components. The group promotes the agile development method, experimenting and creating public development projects that involve citizens and the private sector.


    • Italy approves 3-year digital transformation plan
      According to Diego Piacenti, a former VP at Amazon who heads the Digital Transformation Team, the 3-year plan outlines the technological vision of a public sector operating system. Key words include agile development methods, mobile first, security, interoperability, scalability and reliability, he writes, adding that “open source and collaboration are the new paradigm.”




  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration



    • Tanzania: Strengthening Farmers' Seed System Through 'Open Source'
      The National Plant Genetic Resources Centre (NPGRC-Tanzania), in collaboration with Hivos, Bioversity International, Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Africa and other partners are currently implementing a project, which explores possibilities of the 'open source seed systems'.

      When someone mentions open source, you automatically think software, an open source software movement, which was a response to increased concentration of power of a few large multinational profit oriented corporations, limiting innovation by making software a proprietary resource.


    • Open Hardware/Modding



      • Open hardware groups spread across the globe
        After our group of friends founded a small open hardware community in El Salvador a few years ago, we felt alone in the region. The open hardware movement had developed in a creative explosion of projects and (thanks to the popularization of 3D printing and digital technologies such as Arduino) under a common understanding of how to develop new physical products.


      • Why you should certify your open hardware
        The open source hardware movement has been gaining momentum since 2010 with new industries joining the community at a rapid pace. In fact, the maker and 3D printing markets are expected to become a US$ 8.5 billion market by 2020.






  • Programming/Development



    • HHVM 3.20
      HHVM 3.20 is released! This release improves compatibility with PHP7, and adds a couple new features. Packages have been published in the usual places; see the installation instructions for more information.


    • HHVM 3.20 Released With Performance Improvements, Better PHP7 Compatibility
      Facebook developers have released HHVM 3.20 as the newest release of their alternative PHP interpreter and also what serves for their Hack programming language.


    • Running Your First Programs in C – Part 2
    • Python 101 session this Sunday
      There were around 10 participants, and all of them wrote code before in various languages. A few had previous experiences with Python. Because of different Operating Systems, and also not being able to install things on a corporate laptop, my idea of using Microsoft Azure notebook service in this session helped. This also made sure that all of us were using the same version of Python (3.6) and the same environment.




  • Standards/Consortia







Leftovers



  • [Old] On the Futility of Email Regex Validation


  • Science



    • NSF Cuts PhD Training Grant

      The federal science agency discontinued a funding stream for graduate students in environmental science because of administrative workload.



    • You Are Not Google

      This is not how rational people make decisions, but it is how software engineers decide to use MapReduce.



    • UK universities fall down global league tables after budget cuts
      Britain’s universities are being dragged down by falling levels of research funding and employing fewer highly qualified staff than their international rivals, according to the compilers of a prestigious world university league table.

      The QS world university rankings for 2018, published on Thursday, show the majority of British universities slipping down its table, with 57 of the 76 UK institutions receiving lower ratings than last year despite British universities occupying four of the top eight places.

      “Put simply, this year’s results indicate that the UK’s universities are becoming less competitive as research-driven institutions,” said Jack Moran, rankings auditor for QS, a London-based higher education thinktank.

      The UK’s relative performance has deteriorated because of weaker research performance, with fewer research citations received from fellow academics, and lower scores on academic reputation at home and abroad, according to QS researchers.


    • Tim Peake’s next trip to space is in doubt thanks to Brexit, the falling pound, and a spat with the European Space Agency
      Britain’s fight with Europe has far-reaching implications, stretching all the way into outer space.

      In January, the UK announced that it would send its star astronaut, Tim Peake, to the International Space Station for a second time. But the trip is now in doubt, according to the Financial Times, which reports (paywall) that the UK has denied a request to increase its contributions to the European Space Agency (ESA).




  • Security

    • Security updates for Wednesday


    • Vault 7: WikiLeaks exposes Pandemic, CIA infection tool for Windows machines
      After having disclosed information about CIA’s spyware tool Athena only last week, WikiLeaks has published new information from Pandemic, another alleged CIA project that “targets remote users by replacing application code on-the-fly with a trojaned version if the program is retrieved from the infected machine.”

      Part of the Vault 7 series of documents that were either leaked following an inside job or stolen from the CIA by hackers, Pandemic basically turns Windows machines from a targeted network into Patient Zero. It then covertly infects other computers linked to the system by delivering infected versions of the requested files. Because it is very persistent, the original source of infection is difficult to detect.


    • Hand in your notice – by 2022 there'll be 350,000 cybersecurity vacancies
      General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will force European organisations to expand their cyber workforce, causing demand to outstrip the supply of expertise.

      Two in five governments and companies will expand their cybersecurity divisions by more than 15 per cent in the next 12 months, according to a survey by the International Information System Security Certification Consortium, or (ISC)2. This will lead to a shortfall of 350,000 cyber workers across the continent by 2022.

      Europe's cyber workforce will expand faster than any other region in the world. Demand is driving record salaries with 39 per cent of UK cyber workers commanding annual salaries of more than €£87,000.


    • uCareSystem – All-In-One System Update And Maintenance Tool For Ubuntu/LinuxMint
      uCareSystem Core is a thin utility that automates the basic system maintenance activity, in other hand it will reduce system administrator task in many ways and save some good amount of time. It doesn’t have any GUI and offers purely command line interface to perform the activity.


    • Matt Mitchell of CryptoHarlem is building an open source tool to help organizations prepare for data breaches
      This morning on the stage of TC Sessions: Justice, Matt Mitchell of CryptoHarlem discussed his views on the link between surveillance and minority oppression and the importance of taking a preventative approach to security and privacy. Mitchell, a specialist in digital safety and encryption, is dedicating time to creating Protect Your Org, a free, open source, tool for all organizations to prepare for inevitable data breaches.


    • Ransomware: UK firms hoarding Bitcoin in fear of attacks

      A survey of 500 IT decision-makers in British companies that have more than 250 employees has found that 42% are stockpiling digital currencies, like Bitcoin, in anticipation of a ransomware attack.



    • Internet cameras have hard-coded password that can’t be changed

      Security cameras manufactured by China-based Foscam are vulnerable to remote take-over hacks that allow attackers to view video feeds, download stored files, and possibly compromise other devices connected to a local network. That's according to a 12-page report released Wednesday by security firm F-Secure.





  • Defence/Aggression



    • German spy agency warns of Saudi intervention destabilizing Arab world


      The BND document entitled "Saudi Arabia - Sunni regional power torn between foreign policy paradigm change and domestic policy consolidation" singled out Saudi Arabia's defense minister, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as trying to strengthen his place in the royal succession while putting Saudi Arabia's relationship with erstwhile regional allies in jeopardy.

      "The careful diplomatic stance of older members of the Saudi royal family has been replaced by an impulsive policy of intervention," the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) said.

      The spy agency accused bin Salman, second in line to the throne, and his father, King Salman, as trying to create an image of Saudi Arabia being the leader of the Arab world. The BND added that bin Salman's quest to cement his place in the nation's leadership could also irritate other members of the royal family.


    • FactCheck Q&A: Is Saudi Arabia funding ISIS?
      The conversation about Islamic extremism should begin with “Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have funded and fuelled extremist ideology,” Jeremy Corbyn has said.

      The accusation is common: that the House of Saud is allowing a flow of money to finance ISIS. But the Saudi government has completely rejected the “false allegations”, dismissing them as a “malicious falsehood”.

      We can’t answer this one with absolute certainty, since any financing is highly secretively. All we can do is weigh up the documents and research that are currently available.


    • Islamist Perpetrator of Attack at Paris Cathedral Was Award-Winning Journalist in Sweden
      The Islamist terrorist who attacked a police officer outside the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on Tuesday was an award-winning journalist who previously worked as freelancer for Swedish public radio, Swedish media outlets reported on Wednesday.

      The suspect in the attack, 40-year-old Algerian-born Farid Ikken, is said to have moved to Sweden in 2004 after marrying a Swedish woman.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature





  • Finance



  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Trump Can Commit All the High Crimes He Wants. Republicans Aren’t Going to Impeach Him.

      To imagine Republicans might turn on Trump over the Russia scandal to the point of deposing him from office is to misunderstand how they have been thinking about Trump and the presidency all along.



    • Trump Is Sending a Murderer to Do a Diplomat’s Job

      About one out of every four of those killed by drones during that time where blithely labeled “other militants,” by the CIA. In other words, the CIA had no idea whom they were killing.



    • The Three Scenarios For The U.K. Election

      On the morning of the U.S. presidential election, we pointed out that there were three scenarios for what might transpire that night, each of which were about equally likely.



    • Trump’s in way over his head: Ignorant Qatar tweets make a bad situation worse


    • Theresa May’s vanity election: What’s driving her political gamble?


    • Daily Mail devotes 13 pages to attack on Labour 'apologists for terror'


    • Jeremy Corbyn just ran the campaign of his life, while Theresa May led one of the worst in recent history
      Psephologists had puzzled for long hours over quite what last minute polling analysis had led Jeremy Corbyn to begin his final marathon day campaigning in Glasgow, and then pass through Runcorn, Colwyn Bay, Watford, Harrow and Wealdstone before the big Islington homecoming.

      Such people are not experts on West Coast Main Line stations.

      While Theresa May spent her last campaign day private-jetting between what expensively commissioned internal research indicated were seats that could still be swung her way, Team Corbyn’s strategy was less "our private polling indicates" and more "let’s get off every third stop".


    • PM's line on human rights is 'outrageous' - Amnesty chief
      British Prime Minister Theresa May's pledge to weaken human rights protections to fight terrorism is outrageous and a gift to autocratic strongmen globally, Amnesty International head Salil Shetty said on Wednesday.

      In the final days of an election campaign that has been interrupted by terror attacks in London and Manchester, May has stepped up her rhetoric against Islamist extremism, pledging to ensure security services had the powers they needed.

      "What I’ve been clear about is if human rights law gets in the way of doing those things which I think are necessary as the threat evolves then we will change those rules," she said on Wednesday, the eve of the election.


    • Go out and vote today, but know this – our grotesque system needs reform
      Canvassers out today on a frantic door-knock to get their vote out will often hear that heart-sinking refrain: “What’s the point? Voting makes no difference.” Or “I’m not political”, as if it were an optional hobby. Earnest volunteers may want to wring the necks of the apathetic, the clueless and the idle who are so hopelessly indifferent to the value of democracy.

      But pause a moment and consider how right people are to be dubious. Whether they precisely know it or not, phlegmatic non-voters may intuit how useless most votes will be today. Under our grotesque voting system very few ballot papers will make a difference to the result. First-time voter? Here's everything you need to know in one handy guide | Hannah Jane Parkinson Read more

      In 2015 the Conservatives won with a seven-point lead, but so distorted is our electoral system that the Electoral Reform Society says if just 639 voters in only six Tory seats had switched their vote from Tory to Labour, there would have been a hung parliament. Just 639!


    • General election: Would rain on voting day be bad for Labour?


      Labour voters are said to be more likely to be put off going out to vote if it is raining. But is it true?

      “Bands of rain or showers affecting the UK, with the risk of hail and thunder on Thursday,” says the Met Office. Traditionally, this is said to be bad for Labour, as its voters are supposed to be more likely to be put off by the rain. Shami Chakrabarti, a member of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, blamed the rain in Copeland for Labour’s defeat in the by-election there in February, because Labour voters are less likely to have cars.

      But is it true? It seems to be true in the United States, where a 2007 study of 14 presidential elections found an association between turnout and the weather. An inch of rain reduced turnout by 1 percentage point. This tended to hurt the Democratic candidate more than the Republican, and may have helped George Bush beat Al Gore in 2000.




  • Censorship/Free Speech



    • Most UK ISPs block Private Internet Access by default
      VPN websites, like that of Private Internet Access, are actively being censored by internet service providers (ISPs) in the United Kingdom (UK). The website blocks were first put into place by UK ISPs on government order in an effort to censor pornography in 2014. Since then, more ISPs have joined in default blocking. However, research has shown that the blocks are overreaching – with 1 in 5 websites being blocked when the censorship program first rolled out. UK ISPs initially incorrectly blocked everything from civil rights blogs to used car sales sites; what’s worse, these blocks are on by default.

      Open Rights Group, a London-based organization, created a tool at blocked.org.uk that allows you to check whether or not a website is being blocked by UK ISPs. This crucial tool has revealed that most UK ISPs block Private Internet Access by default if the content filter is on.


    • Where’s the outrage over the killing of Christians?


      Christians around the world are being slaughtered by Islamists. They need our solidarity.

      [...]

      All of this is simply the manifestation of a reality about Islamist militants that we have long known from their actions in Syria and Iraq: their special hatred for Christians, whom ISIS recently declared its ‘favourite prey’. Wanton rape, torture and murder have all played a part in the concerted effort of religious cleansing in the Middle East and anywhere else Islamists have been able to gain a foothold. However much such ideologues violently loathe and attempt to attack the West, it pales in comparison, both in terms of scale and intensity, with the bloody persecution of Christians across the world, and most especially in the Middle East.




  • Privacy/Surveillance



    • EU could give police direct access to cloud data in wake of terror attacks


      The European Union is seeking to make it easier for police and law enforcement agencies to retrieve electronic evidence from US tech firms, including directly from cloud storage.

      In the wake of terrorists attacks across Europe, the European Commission is proposing new legislation to speed up the transfer of crucial data from companies such as Facebook and Google, even when it is stored in another EU member state – which is often a slow process.

      The EC is set to propose three options that will form the basis of a future legislative proposal.


    • Surveillance Intermediaries

      Interesting law-journal article: "Surveillance Intermediaries," by Alan Z. Rozenshtein.

    • Uber executive fired amid reports he obtained rape victim's medical records

      A top Uber executive who reportedly obtained the medical records of a woman who was raped by her Uber driver was only fired after journalists learned of the incident, it emerged on Wednesday.



    • Uber 'obtained rape victim's medical records'

      An Uber executive obtained the medical records of a rape victim in India, according to a report.



    • Apple hints it’s handed over metadata on UK terror suspects
    • Denmark’s eID moves to smartphone

      Such an app will supplement and not replace Denmark’s eID (NemID), explains the country’s Agency for Digitisation (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen - DIGST). “If the public accepts the application, they can use the app for mobile banking, but also to access numerous public web services that require NemID access”, the agency writes on its website.





  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • FCC security denies that guards pinned journalist against a wall

      The reporter who made the allegation stood by his account when contacted by Ars today.

    • Honesty About Ideology Of Islam, Not Candles And Teddy Bears

      Honesty about this is our best shot of doing anything about it.



    • Christian preachers' disappearance in Malaysia stokes fears of crackdown on religious minorities

      Months after they were abducted, human rights activists say police appear to have taken an uncharacteristically ‘casual’ approach to their cases



    • SFR Writer Indicted Following Inaugural Protest Coverage
      Aaron Cantú, a staff writer at the Santa Fe Reporter, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he participated in a riot while working as a journalist during protests in Washington, DC on Inauguration Day.

      Cantú faces eight felony counts—including inciting a riot, rioting, conspiracy to riot and five counts of destruction of property. The grand jury handed up the indictment last week.


    • Theresa May Vows To Tear Up Human Rights Laws To Tackle Islamist Terrorism
      Theresa May is vowing to tear up human rights laws that stand in the way of her fight against terrorism.

      In a speech this evening, the Prime Minister called for greater powers to restrict the movement of terror suspects - even if authorities are unable to convince a judge the measure is needed.

      May also called for longer prison sentences for people convicted of terrorist offences and promised to make it easier to deport foreign terrorists back to their home countries.


    • German NGO seeks arrest warrant for Donald Trump's deputy CIA director


    • May: I’ll rip up human rights laws that impede new terror legislation


      Theresa May has declared she is prepared to rip up human rights laws to impose new restrictions on terror suspects, as she sought to gain control over the security agenda just 36 hours before the polls open.

      The prime minister said she was looking at how to make it easier to deport foreign terror suspects and how to increase controls on extremists where it is thought they present a threat but there is not enough evidence to prosecute them.

      The last-ditch intervention comes after days of pressure on May over the policing cuts and questions over intelligence failures, following terror attacks on London Bridge, Manchester and Westminster.


    • Jury awards $6.7M to inmate raped by guard in Milwaukee County Jail, shackled during childbirth
      A federal jury Wednesday awarded $6.7 million to a woman who was raped repeatedly by a guard when she was being held in the Milwaukee County Jail four years ago.

      The guard, Xavier Thicklen, was acting under his scope of employment when the sexual assaults occurred and therefore Milwaukee County is liable for the damages amount, the jury determined.

      The jury also found there was "no legitimate government purpose" to shackle the woman during childbirth labor, but jurors did not find she was injured and therefore awarded her no monetary damages, according to Theresa Kleinhaus, a Chicago attorney who litigated the case with other attorneys from the firm.




  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Comcast Pinky Swears That The Death Of Net Neutrality Won't Hurt In The Slightest
      That ignores history. You'll recall that the FCC's original 2010 rules were demolished by the Verizon lawsuit, with the courts saying that the FCC couldn't impose such rules without first classifying ISPs as common carriers under Title II. So in 2015, former FCC boss Tom Wheeler did precisely that. Walking back that decision means stripping out the legal authority to actually enforce net neutrality, and Comcast certainly knows this. In fact we've repeatedly noted how the government's plan is to effectively gut privacy, net neutrality and other broadband consumer protections, and to replace them with the policy equivalent of wet tissue paper.


    • Net neutrality: Amazon among top internet firms planning day of action

      Amazon, Etsy, Kickstarter, Mozilla and Vimeo all intend to hold a day of protest on 12 July in opposition to plans by Donald Trump’s newly appointed telecoms regulator to neuter tough 2015 rules meant to protect “net neutrality” – the concept that all traffic should be equal online.





  • DRM



    • VMProtect Accuses Denuvo Of Using Unlicensed Software In Its Antipiracy DRM
      To date, the most remarkable aspect of the Denuvo story was the very brief stint it had as a successful DRM. Brief is the operative word, of course, as the past six months or so have seen Denuvo's vaunted status devolve into one more typical of DRM stories, with defeats for the security software coming at rates measured in days and weeks of a game's release.

      But now things have taken a turn towards the ironic. A security software firm called VMProtect, which makes software to protect against reverse engineering and developing cracks of applications, is accusing Denuvo of having used its software without properly licensing it. This is the kind of thing that folks who support DRM tend to call piracy. And, thus, Denuvo may have "pirated" another company's software to make its anti-piracy DRM.






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Links 22/10/2025: Amazon Plans to Replace Workers With Robotics, AWS and Clown Computing in General Ridiculed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/10/2025: Niri Completely Changes Multitasking and Overview of Diff-ers
Links for the day
Links 22/10/2025: Study on Misinformation by Slop and Heavily Debt-Sabbled Microsoft OpenAI (ClosedSlop) Uses "Browser" as Gimmick/Distraction
Links for the day
They've Already Spent Close to a Million Dollars on Lawyers and Sent Us About 50 KG of Legal Papers (Sponsored by Mysterious Third Party) to Try to Censor Techrights, Without Success
They try to overcompensate with sheer volume for a lack of solid, clear arguments (we are the victims here)
12 Months Ago the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Officially Went 'Tag-Team'
We're actually sort of flattered or proud that such despicable people are so desperate to censor us
"Cloud Computing" Was Always a Joke, But This Week Was the Punchline
Maybe stop following tech trends and fashions
"Cloud Computing" Does Not Mean Safety
Fault tolerance is related to the notion of software freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)
Sounds Like Fedora is Ready to Become Less of a Slave of Microsoft (GitHub)
This seems like a belated move in a positive direction
XBox is a Dead Microsoft Product in a Dying Industry
It's probable that another wave of XBox layoffs is just over the horizon (maybe even before month's end)
Progress on Techrights Site Search
Fun times
IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Means the Layoffs Are Silent, Barely Reported
Don't wait to hear about "Red Hat layoffs"
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Happy Disconnection, AWS Falling Apart, Closing of Gemlog Blue
Links for the day
Full Audio of Today's Richard Stallman Talk in the Technical University of Munich
Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society
Microsoft XBox is Just Vapourware (Promises of Hardware That Doesn't Exist), Real Products Perish
just as developers lose interest in developing for XBox Microsoft is increasing the costs imposed upon them
Slopwatch: Fake Articles (Slop) in "Linux" Clothing in Google News (Noise)
all about what Google does
Links 21/10/2025: Even "Inventor of Vibe Coding" Rejects Vibe Coding, USPTO Experiments With Slop in Examination
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Talk Now Available for Viewing (Archived Copy, Not Live-streamed)
This recording is over 2 hours old
Links 21/10/2025: AWS-Induced Chaos and Social Control Media Curbs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Programming, StarGrid, Brand-New Palm OS Strategy Game in 2025, and Chatbot as Addiction Mechanisms
Links for the day
The African Lion and the American Cowards
Safaris exist for people to watch and enjoy animals
Amazon Web Shenanigans Perfectly Timed for Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
Maybe listen to him instead of looking for excuses to ridicule the messenger
Mission:Libre Has Taken Off (Project by Carmen Maris)
there will be a lot more to report on next month (after the event)
Techrights to Publish More EPO Leaks Next Week
We're meanwhile also doing lots of work on search, whose interface now looks better
Links 21/10/2025: 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs and Twitter (X) to Enable Identity Theft (or Handle Theft) as a Service
Links for the day
Plagiarism With LLM Slop: Hindustan Times (HT Digital Streams Limited) Has Become a Slop Factory/Hub
What a disgrace
A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman
"The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place"
Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights
We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours
Happy hacking
"No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either)
"No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
Every Morning
Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?
very intellectually-dishonest human being
A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl
Perl also runs the sister site
The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims)
What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11
Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day
“Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs)
We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
What has Microsoft Canonical become?
More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week