EditorsAbout the SiteComes vs. MicrosoftUsing This Web SiteSite ArchivesCredibility IndexOOXMLOpenDocumentPatentsNovellNews DigestSite NewsRSS

04.01.14

UEFI is Bricking Computers When One Removes Spyware With Back Doors (Microsoft Windows)

Posted in GNU/Linux, Hardware, Microsoft at 5:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

UEFI logo with monopoly

Summary: UEFI ‘secure’ boot is bricking laptops again, showing that there are worse aspects to UEFI than the anti-competitive (anti-GNU/Linux) nature of it

THERE IS a new UEFI nightmare scenario, which relates somewhat to the fact that the NSA can remotely destroy (as in brick) computers with UEFI, provided they use a ‘faulty’ implementation of UEFI [1] (UEFI ‘secure’ boot is faulty by design). “”Beware Samsung laptops” is a lesson the Linux community has already learned,” says the author of the article, but why not name UEFI also? “For Swedish Linux users,” he says, “the main lesson seems to be “Ask your big-box store salesperson to certify in writing that the machine she sells you is capable of running Linux equally well as it runs Windows”.”

This is becoming a serious issue. Germany has already pretty much banned machines with UEFI ‘secure’ boot, perhaps realising the potential hazards. Here in the UK there is concern about Windows in general, even among CESG staff (the CESG’s Web site has been down for half a day now, seemingly after getting cracked, following a migration to Windows 2 years ago). To quote CESG: “Local authorities connect to central government systems through a Public Services Network (PSN), via which they can share essential services in an effort to drive efficiency. GCHQ IT security arm CESG provides advice and certification for councils using the PSN.

“According to Gartner’s public sector research director Neville Cannon, CESG rules state that in order to connect to the PSN, authorities must run “patchable” software, which means those running XP after D-day could be in serious trouble.”

This again is an NSA back door. The security panic leads some major entities to migrating to Linux [2,3] and Microsoft’s UEFI-equipped (and Linux-hostile) hardware is now declared dead, perhaps because nobody really wanted it and it self-bricked, due to UEFI 'secure' boot'. This is a “so-so article but points to an interesting attitude,” iophk said, but it basically shows that the ‘new’ “Surface” is a failure as big as the ‘old’ and clumsy “Surface”, which was dubbed a “big ass table” and vanished quietly about half a decade ago.

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Swedish Linux Users: Avoid Elgiganten

    As detailed here before, a few Samsung laptop models have a firmware bug that makes them liable to becoming inert bricks if you install Linux. It’s a one-way process. This happened to me when I bought an ultrabook from the Elgiganten big-box store last summer. Both Samsung and the store refused to reimburse me for the loss of my machine’s use. At the suggestion of my home municipality’s consumer advisor (konsumentrådgivare), I took the matter to Allmänna reklamationsnämnden, the National Board for Consumer Disputes (complaint no 2013-10081).

  2. The Death of Windows XP Won’t Kill the ATM Industry, or Help Bitcoin

    The second alternative is to go for an alternative OS altogether.

    This is not as farfetched as it sounds: Linux has a much smaller footprint than Windows 7 and, as a result, some ATM operators are considering a switch to Linux rather than the Microsoft product.

    This would not be the first time ATMs have transitioned to a different OS. Before the industry moved to XP, most ATM’s were running IBM’s OS/2 operating system.

  3. Banks turning to Linux to replace Windows XP on their ATMs

False Spokespeople for Free Software

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software at 5:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Still speaking ‘on behalf’ of Free/Open Source software (FOSS)

Future of Open Source Forum

Summary: Companies with a history of FOSS bashing are presenting themselves as representatives of FOSS

Last year we wrote about some relatively new entity called WhiteSource spreading FUD against FOSS. It is now running something called “Open Source Usage Practices Survey” [1] while presenting itself as “a leading provider of automated tools for open-source license compliance and security risk management” (misleading).

WhiteSource has nothing to do with Open Source, it is just exploiting FOSS and uses fear of FOSS to make money. It is similar to Microsoft-tied entities like Black Duck, which is also claiming to be running a survey under the banner “Future of Open Source” (we showed what it really is about). The only new (ish) thing here is the involvement of another entity, North Bridge. To quote the press release: “North Bridge Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm, together with Black Duck Software, the trusted partner for open source software adoption, management and governance, will unveil the findings of the eighth annual Future of Open Source survey during a webinar, “2014 Future of Open Source Survey Results Revealed,” scheduled for Thursday, April 3rd, at 2 p.m. ET.”

So later this week we will be told what to think about FOSS based on a proprietary software company and a financial firm. How apt. This is becoming a real issue and more journalists should look into it. Since real journalism is dying whereas corporate press is thriving, it is likely that many sites will just parrot whatever Black Duck says.

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Open Source Usage Practices Survey: Last Chance to Participate

DMCA Offender Microsoft Has a Culture of Censorship Inside the Company, Not Just Customer-facing

Posted in Microsoft at 5:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Microsoft demonstrates its embrace of excessive censorship and its disregard for copyright law, which it abuses in order to censor the competition, too

SITES such as BoingBoing point out that not only British ISPs are censoring news sites like TorrentFreak. According to TorrentFreak, “Microsoft Censors TorrentFreak For Security Reasons” (news sites are not a security risk).

“Same “security” reasons Microsoft flunkies remove FB and TB from work computers,” iophk pointed out, adding links to show just how far the British police now goes to censor sites without even a court order [1,2,3].

“Maybe there should also be some criminal charges against companies like Microsoft, e.g. for issuing bogus DMCA takedowns against Google.”Next time when discussing Bing censorship we should remember that Microsoft very much welcomes censorship, even within the company. Microsoft went as far as using bogus DMCA takedown requests against Google, essentially trying to censor the competition. It’s no wonder that sites which reported this, such as TorrentFreak, are being blocked by Microsoft. TorrentFreak is also reporting right now that Google DMCA takedowns are hurting real companies.

“They should be billing for processing takedowns with higher fees for false reports,” iophk notes. Maybe there should also be some criminal charges against companies like Microsoft, e.g. for issuing bogus DMCA takedowns against Google. It is widely known that bogus DMCA takedowns are an offence, but the law is rarely enforced against commercial entities (especially large ones) that resort to bogus DMCA takedowns.

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Police blacklist aims to cut off ad funding to piracy sites
  2. London police want to stop good firms from advertising on bad websites

    THE CITY OF LONDON POLICE is asking advertisers to stop hawking their wares on what are viewed as “illegal websites”.

  3. UK Police Launch Pirate Site Blacklist for Advertisers

Canonical Breaks Up With Amazon Over CIA Connections

Posted in Ubuntu at 4:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Mark Richard Buranov Shuttleworth
Photo from Space Facts

Summary: Future versions of Ubuntu omit linkage to Amazon are are illegal to host in AWS, as per Mark Shuttleworth’s new vision

“WE have lost confidence in Amazon,” said Mark Shuttleworth at a press conference in London this morning. “Not only is its owner now running the Washington Post to cleanse the reputation of the CIA but Amazon is also the CIA’s partner of choice.

“We cannot maintain a relationship by which Amazon is harvesting the IP addresses of Ubuntu users and what they are searching for, let alone host their data and playlists on Amazon’s servers. Effective immediately, we break up with Amazon and we will no longer enable Amazon to host Ubuntu virtual machines, to which they have back door access inside the datacentres.”

“Putting Ubuntu in virtual machines hosted by Microsoft makes as much sense as putting Huawei routers inside the Pentagon.”
      –Mark Shuttleworth
Mark Shuttleworth recently experienced or at least witnessed what it's to be abused and witch-hunted by secret services and police and he then made the first step towards the goal of abolishing Amazon, but these latest moves sure are likely to cause controversy, for fears that Mr. Shuttleworth is becoming radical and Amazon-hostile like Richard Stallman.

Bloggers, however, have welcomed Shuttleworth’s policy, noting that “the controversial ‘search everything’ home scope is gone which was sending data to Canonical servers and instead it will become the ‘Application scope’ which will show applications. It will show installed apps as well as apps available for download – makes perfect sense.”

In other news, Shuttleworth is beginning to consider removing all Ubuntu instances from Azure by rewriting software licences. “PRISM,” he said, “has shown us that Microsoft is not just complying with the NSA; Microsoft is leading the NSA towards a state of mass surveillance. Putting Ubuntu in virtual machines hosted by Microsoft makes as much sense as putting Huawei routers inside the Pentagon.”

Happy April First news.

03.31.14

Health and Environment News: Nature Still Not a Priority

Posted in News Roundup at 11:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Health and Nutrition

  • Surgeons perform ‘world’s first’ implant of entire 3D-printed plastic skull dome (VIDEO)

    Dutch surgeons have successfully placed an entire 3D-printed skull dome over the brain of a 22-year-old woman suffering from a rare bone disorder. Doctors say this surgery is unprecedented.

  • Homeopathic remedies recalled for containing real medicine

    The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recalled homeopathic remedies made by a company called Terra-Medica because they may contain actual medicine — possibly penicillin or derivatives of the antibiotic.

  • 7 million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution

    In new estimates released today, WHO reports that in 2012 around 7 million people died – one in eight of total global deaths – as a result of air pollution exposure. This finding more than doubles previous estimates and confirms that air pollution is now the world’s largest single environmental health risk. Reducing air pollution could save millions of lives.

  • Over 168,000 Gallons of Oil Spills into Ecologically Sensitive Galveston Bay

    A barge moving through Galveston Bay collided with another ship Saturday afternoon, spilling over 168,000 gallons of marine fuel oil. The spill is particularly devastating, even though it isn’t the largest in recent memory, because Galveston Bay is a migratory bird habitat and shorebird season is fast approaching. On top of that, the type of fuel that spilled is particularly difficult to clean up. The ship was being towed when it collided with the other vessel, though there are no details at this point on how the collision occurred.

  • U.S. fisheries dump 500 million pounds of bycatch back to the ocean annually: Report

    Seafood is an integral part of American cuisine. However, the ocean pays a steep price for every plate of tuna sashimi and every serving of grilled salmon that Americans consume.

  • Information poses bigger bioterrorism threat than microbes
  • Thanks, Anti-Vaxxers. You Just Brought Back Measles in NYC.

    Measles was considered eliminated at the turn of the millennium. Now it’s back, thanks to the loons who refuse to vaccinate their children.

  • With confirmed resistance, western corn rootworm worthy of being watched

    It isn’t an epidemic and it won’t shut down corn production anytime soon. However, researchers have confirmed that western corn rootworms have developed resistance to Bt corn hybrids that express the Cry3Bba trait in some areas of Nebraska.

  • Open Source Seeds

    Open-source software is now everywhere. For example, Android, Google’s open-source operating system, now accounts for 80% of the smartphone and tablet market. Our next guest dreams of the same kind of explosive success by applying the open-source model to one of humanity’s oldest technological achievements: agriculture. Jack Kloppenburg, a professor of community and environmental sociology at the University of Wisconsin, co-founded the Open Source Seed Initiative to help protect the public domain of seeds. He joined the Buzz on Monday, March 30th to tell us more about the project.

  • Scientists’ hidden links to the GM food giants

    He is group director at the Sainsbury Laboratory, and is also the founder of and adviser to biotech company Mendel Biotechnology, which counts Monsanto – a GM giant – as a major client. Mendel has been granted more than 20 biotechnology and GM patents.

  • CropLife America and the European Crop Protection Association discuss joint proposal during TTIP negotiations

    CropLife America (CLA) and the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) called for a more harmonized risk assessment framework for pesticide regulations during the fourth round of negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The comments follow the submission of a joint proposal on U.S. – EU regulatory cooperation that CLA and ECPA sent to Assistant United States Trade Representative Daniel Mullaney and Director of DG Trade for the European Commission Ignacio Garcia Bercero on March 7, 2014.

  • Watch an expert teach a smug U.S. senator about Canadian healthcare

    A U.S. politician’s I-don’t-need-no-stinkin’-facts approach to health policy ran smack into some of those troublesome facts Tuesday at a Senate hearing on single-payer healthcare, as it’s practiced in Canada and several other countries.

  • MEPs reject draft seed regulation

    The European Commission’s proposal for plant reproductive material law, also known as the “seed regulation”, was voted down by Parliament on Tuesday, amid concerns that it would give the Commission too much power and leave EU countries without any leeway to tailor the new rules to their needs. Following the Commission’s refusal to withdraw its draft text and table an improved one, Parliament closed the first reading.

  • GM foods and application of the precautionary principle in Europe

    European regulations restricting the growth of genetically modified (GM) foods in the UK and across the continent are to be scrutinised in a new cross-party parliamentary inquiry launched today by MPs on the Science and Technology Committee.

    The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) believes that GM is one of several technologies necessary to foster a “vibrant sector” in UK agriculture. But the European Union’s application of the ‘precautionary principle’ has been criticized for holding back development of the technology, despite European Commission reports finding no scientific evidence associating GM organisms with higher risks for the environment or food and feed safety.

  • You’re Absorbing BPA From Your Receipts, Study Shows
  • Store Receipts on Thermal Paper Can Transfer BPA

    Volunteers who handled receipts containing the hormone-altering compound bisphenol A for two hours showed elevated BPA levels in their urine. Dina Fine Maron reports

  • ​Monsanto’s Roundup may be linked to fatal kidney disease, new study suggests

    The new study was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

    Researchers suggest that Roundup, or glyphosate, becomes highly toxic to the kidney once mixed with “hard” water or metals like arsenic and cadmium that often exist naturally in the soil or are added via fertilizer. Hard water contains metals like calcium, magnesium, strontium, and iron, among others. On its own, glyphosate is toxic, but not detrimental enough to eradicate kidney tissue.

  • Sweden to sue the Commission for delaying hormone-affecting criteria

    Sweden’s government is considering suing the European Commission for stalling on criteria which are required to stop hormone-affecting substances, says the minister for the environment, Lena Ek.

    In December, the Commission was supposed to publish the necessary criteria for banning different endocrine-disrupting substances found in anti-bacterial agents for shoes and clothes.

    However, Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potočnik has delayed the clearance. According to Ek, Potočnik has told the Swedish government that the Commission wants to make an impact analysis first.

  • China’s toxic air pollution resembles nuclear winter, say scientists

    Chinese scientists have warned that the country’s toxic air pollution is now so bad that it resembles a nuclear winter, slowing photosynthesis in plants – and potentially wreaking havoc on the country’s food supply.

    Beijing and broad swaths of six northern provinces have spent the past week blanketed in a dense pea-soup smog that is not expected to abate until Thursday. Beijing’s concentration of PM 2.5 particles – those small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream – hit 505 micrograms per cubic metre on Tuesday night. The World Health Organisation recommends a safe level of 25.

  • UN Report Says Small-Scale Organic Farming Only Way to Feed the World

    UN Report Says Small-Scale Organic Farming Only Way to Feed the World

  • Take a stand for Organic Farmers around the World!

    Right now an important case is being heard halfway around the world in Western Australia about organic farmer Steve Marsh, whose organic field was contaminated by his neighbor’s genetically engineered canola. As a result, Steve lost his organic certification and as much as 70% of his Steve’s farm has been contaminated with Monsanto’s patented genes.

Warming

Nuclear Energy

Pollution

  • Oil spills into Lake Michigan from BP refinery
  • Pollution Caused by Chip Fabrication

    It is a sobering fact that the chip fabrication industry which is so vital to our modern society is also the cause of a lot of pollution. This unglamorous topic doesn’t get much media attention. No one wants to be reminded that the hi-tech world of computers isn’t possible without the use of a lot of caustic chemicals.

  • Great Barrier Reef authority argued against dredge dumping, FOI reveals

    The dredging and dumping of 3m tonnes of spoil in Great Barrier Reef marine park waters posed an “unacceptable social and environmental risk”, the authority in charge of the world heritage area wrote in draft assessments just months before it approved the permit to carry out the disposal.

  • Is The Solution To Climate Change In Vancouver?

    Across America, the impacts of climate change are already being felt as temperatures rise, droughts are prolonged, and weather becomes increasingly severe and unpredictable. But solutions seem few and far between — and solutions that both sides can agree on even fewer. Outraged Republicans and recalcitrant conservative Democrats cut down the cap-and-trade bill in 2009; and President Obama’s promised regulations are probably destined for years of give-and-take between the Environmental Protection Agency, the courts, and the power industry. The result: America remains one of the few advanced nations with no national policy of any sort to curb its carbon dioxide emissions.

  • EU to force large companies to report on environmental and social impacts

    The negotiations were long and painful, but in the end a deal was done. EU member states finally agreed to back reforms that will mean large listed companies are required to report on their environmental and social impacts.

  • Excuse me, but we shouldn’t be moving on from West Virginia’s chemical spill

    America has grown a vast and complex regulatory and financial support system for cheap, dirty energy. This isn’t over

Misc.

  • Cameron’s Prime Aberdeen Angus Bullshit

    David Cameron is peddling bullshit of the premium Aberdeen Angus kind today. At today’s oil prices, recoverable North Sea oil is worth a minimum of 1.2 trillion and a maximum of 2.4 trillion dollars. Cameron is claiming that potential will not be released without government subsidy of 24 billion dollars, and that only the UK government’s “broad shoulders” can raise this.

  • A Small Little Bolt: The Tar Sands Poisoning of An Alberta Family
  • Nigeria ravaged by $20bn oil robbery

    It was 2am when a fireball pierced the inky night sky above a small community in the Niger delta. The explosion near Port Harcourt last June killed several people and released 6,000 barrels of crude oil. The cause: contractors hired by Royal Dutch Shell to stop pirates siphoning oil from a huge pipeline were themselves stealing fuel, and something went terribly wrong. The blast led to the shutdown… Shell, the largest foreign operator in the country, was responsible for more than 20,00 barrels of last year’s spills.

Financial News: Bitcoin and Financial Issues Around the World

Posted in News Roundup at 11:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Bitcoin

UK

Ukraine

EU

North America

Censorship News: Russia Mocks Copyright-driven Blocking, China Can’t Block Like Google and Microsoft Block

Posted in News Roundup at 11:15 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Copyright and Monopoly News

Posted in News Roundup at 11:11 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Copyrights

Trademarks

‘Trade’

  • US says India should prefer US business and workers for its solar plants
  • US is bent on raising the price of drugs in developing countries

    Recent developments by the Obama administration seem bent on making it more difficult to purchase top rated drugs in developing countries. The move follows patent rulings around the globe that may place U.S. drug companies at a disadvantage in the industry; a matter which is not taken lightly by the U.S. of course. India has made the news for ordering drug companies to give up their patent rights, all in an effort to help lower the spiraling costs of drugs. Canada, likewise, became something of a villain when several court rulings dismantled the patents of popular drug companies in favor of the country’s generic industry. The threat has been detected, and there is an urge to act, but it’s not that simple.

  • Networks Skip Controversial Trade Deal

    The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal has drawn heavy criticism. Over 500 labor, environmental and farm groups oppose granting the White House “fast track” authority to speed the pact through Congress. The deal, still being negotiated in secret, has spawned protests around the world. Even some Democrats are pushing back against the White House.

  • How Big Pharma (and others) began lobbying on the Trans-Pacific Partnership before you ever heard of it

    In 2009, four years before the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was a widely-debated trade deal, few would have noticed a new issue popping up in a handful of lobbying reports. That year, 28 organizations filed 59 lobbying reports mentioning the then far-off trade agreement. Almost half of those organizations were pharmaceutical companies or associations.

  • Obama Nominates Former SOPA Lobbyist to Help Lead TPP Negotiations

« Previous Page« Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries »Next Page »

Further Recent Posts

RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channels: Come and chat with us in real time

New to This Site? Here Are Some Introductory Resources

No

Mono

ODF

Samba logo






We support

End software patents

GPLv3

GNU project

BLAG

EFF bloggers

Comcast is Blocktastic? SavetheInternet.com



Recent Posts