• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Why Linux Is Poised for Domination

Could 2010 be Linux’ breakout year? Linux is already making huge waves in mobile computing, with the rise of the Android operating system, the momentum behind Meego, a bevy of Linux-powered netbooks, and an army of Linux-toting tablets on the horizon. With Web-based computing becoming the norm, flexible and robust Linux could finally become the OS of choice for device manufacturers.

New CSP Program Launched by Linux Professional Institute

Now you can advance your proficiency in free and open source software solutions as the Linux Professional Institute (LPI (News – Alert)) has launched a brand new program for it service organizations and other technical solutions providers.

Canvas Specs: Audience Measurement, Web Apps, Linux On-Board

“Devices shall be built using the Linux operating system with either glibc or uClibc” (libraries of the C language).

Interview Of The Week: Man With An IT Mission

All new projects would involve GNU/Linux based operating systems. “The state has a successful history of GNU/Linux adaptation, and has a near cent-percent success rate,” observes Dr. Ajay Kumar. “We avoid proprietary software as much as possible. However some applications need legacy software, which are proprietary. In such cases, we are forced to use proprietary softwares,” he admits.

Server

• Autocue Introduce Affordable Video Servers At Ibc 2010

  Autocue will show its first four standalone, Linux-based video servers.

• IBM Adds New SSD and Fat SFF Disk to Power Systems

  The AIX and Linux operating systems support either raw disk in 200 GB format or RAID mirroring performed by the operating system in 177 GB format for the new SSDs. The IBM i platform assumes you will use RAID mirroring, either RAID 0 mirroring of whole controller and SSD ensembles or RAID 5 or RAID 6 data protection within a single ensemble. (RAID 5 means striping across all four SSDs in the unit, while RAID 6 means striping across three drives in the set and keeping one as a hot spare.) You cannot mirror hard disks and SSDs against each other no matter what operating system you choose.

• Advantages of Linux Web Hosting

• ARM Aims Disruptive Technology at HPC Market

Kernel Space

• Good News for Linux Users From Broadcom

  Make no mistake: Broadcom didn’t open source this driver to support peace, love and Linux. Companies who have included their drivers in the mainline Linux kernel do so because it benefits them. Once the driver is included in the mainline, the maintenance costs associated with keeping up with kernel changes drop considerably. Also, as Katherine points out, they undertook this work because they see a market and realize that many of their competitors, like Intel, have been enjoying an advantage their open-ness affords them.

• Strace — The Sysadmin’s Microscope

  Sometimes as a sysadmin the logfiles just don’t cut it, and to solve a problem you need to know what’s really going on. That’s when I turn to strace — the system-call tracer.

  A system call, or syscall, is where a program crosses the boundary between user code and the kernel. Fortunately for us using strace, that boundary is where almost everything interesting happens in a typical program.

Applications

• A Quick Look at Shutter 0.86.4 – Powerful Desktop Screenshot Application

  Shutter is probably the most powerful screenshot application for Linux, and the main reason for this is that it comes with tons of configuration options for the final process of taking a simple screenshot. And why not, considering there are people out there who need to take a screenshot of a single window or a desktop region instead of fullscreen only, like the GNOME default screenshot program. Of course, there is KSnapshot which offers these two options too, but that’s where similarities stop.

• Shotwell 0.7.2 update addresses crucial bugs

  The Yorba developers have released version 0.7.2 of their open source Shotwell photo manager for the GNOME desktop. According to the developers, the latest update to their free digital photo manager includes several “crucial” fixes and includes translation updates.

  Shotwell 0.7.2 addresses a “major startup problem” caused by users having a symbolic link in their Pictures directory and a potential crashing bug related to directories containing a large number of subdirectories. Other changes include copying and linking updates, PicasaWeb fixes for passwords containing a ‘+’ character and other bug fixes.

• Proprietary

  • ‘Highly Disruptive’ Service Offers Live TV on the Web

    The ivi TV player allows users to select a channel by using a simple channel guide, the company said. The TV player can be downloaded to any Windows, Mac, or Linux computer. ivi says it will soon be available on platforms such as mobile devices, tablets, and set-top boxes.

  • Paessler Launches Version 8 of PRTG Monitor

    Paessler’s PRTG Network Monitor Version 8 adds new agents for physical and virtual machines along with new methods to monitor Linux-based systems.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • How to take a Screenshot from the Command Line

  • Delete Cached Packages To Save Drive Space On Your Linux PC

  • Power management software for Linux lovers

  • Paragon Software Introduces Highest Performance Cross-platform Technology for Linux-based PCs

  • Nautilus Terminal Keeps the CLI Handy in Your File Browser

  • Simplify LDAP with Fedora’s 389 Directory Server

  • Dealing with write protected documents in TestAutomation

  • Linux Class Planned At Zerger Hall

    A Linux class, based on Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition, will be offered. The first session starts Wednesday. All computer classes cost $20. The sessions are for those 55 or older. The classes are taught by members of the Licking County Computer Society.

• Games

  • TORCS Review – The Open Racing Car Simulator for Linux

    As the title suggests, TORCS is a free and open-source racing simulator available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. I’ll list here some of its features:

    - 3D graphics using OpenGL
    - 42 different car models
    - 30 racing tracks
    - 6 racing types
    - different camera angles

  • Indie adventure Machinarium to hit WiiWare

    It’s also available for Linux.

  • Frictional Nails The Fear Factor

    I played this game at 12:30 AM, in a dark room with the door closed and using high quality head phones. It scared the crap out of me. No, I mean it scared me. Not a simple sneak-up-from-behind-and-yell-boo scared. I’m talking about crescendo-swelled music and sound effects. I mean, they let you know the horror is approaching and it still frightens you when you see the threat.

Desktop Environments

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

  • Clementine Is a Simple, Amarok-Inspired Music Player for All Platforms

  • do plasma widgets dream of krita wallpapers?

    It’s really impressive how good Krita is getting these days. A look through the Krita showcase demonstrates quite admirably what someone can do with it. What strikes me most while looking through those images is how not all of them look like they were done with a computer, but could just as easily be scans of natural media artwork.

    I have Plasma on the brain, however, so of course I immediately jumped into thinking about what this could mean from a Plasma perspective. Yes, I’m aware that any connection between a great natural media painting app and a component framework for building primary user interfaces is probably not immediately obvious. No, I wasn’t thinking about how to use Plasmoids in Krita, either.

  • plasma documentation writing, friday and saturday

    How will it work? Each attendee can pick the Plasmoid or aspect of Plasma Desktop of their choice, announce their intentions in the irc channel and then start writing about it. You’ll have the support of KDE people to answers technical questions, proof-read and help with wiki-fu as needed. Personally, I’ll be working on documenting the new Activies features and user interface.

Distributions

• New Releases

  • SystemRescueCd 1.6.0 Has Been Released

  • SystemRescueCd 1.6.0 released

    The SystemRescueCd developer and Partimage author François Dupoux has released version 1.6.0 of the SystemRescueCd Linux distribution. Based on the Gentoo LiveCD and using Xfce as its default desktop, the SystemRescueCd is configured as a tool kit for administering or repairing an operating system and recovering data after a system crash. Supported file systems include Ext2, Ext3 and Ext4, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, VFAT, NTFS, ISO9660 and Btrfs.

  • Tiny Core Linux 3.1 released

    Tiny Core lead developer Robert Shingledecker has released version 3.1 of Tiny Core Linux. Tiny Core is a minimal Linux distribution that weighs in at just over 11 MB in size. The “tiny frugal” desktop distribution features the BusyBox tool collection and a minimal graphics system based on Tiny X and JWM. The core can run entirely in RAM, allowing for very quick booting. With the help of online repositories, Tiny Core Linux can be expanded to include additional applications.

• Red Hat Family

  • Cloud Linux Inc. Reaches Major Milestone and is Now Deployed on over 1000 Servers

  • UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) Analysts Upgrade Red Hat (NYSE: RHT)

    The collectively developed software is distributed under open source licenses, such as the GNU General Public License and GNU Lesser General Public License, permitting access to the human-readable software source code. These licenses also provide rights for licensees to use, copy, modify and distribute open source software.

  • Fedora

    • Fedora defers systemd to F15

• Debian Family

  • Canonical/Ubuntu

    • Shuttleworth answers Ubuntu Linux’s critics

      I might add, which Shuttleworth didn’t spell out, that if you need help to do anything with Linux, you’re more likely to find online help on how to do it on Ubuntu than openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, or any other Linux. Ubuntu’s popularity combined with that attitude of helping everyday users get the most from Linux has made it the go-to Linux for users who want and need a helping hand.

    • Upgrading to Ubuntu Lucid

      Notwithstanding these moments of suspense, the upgrade was surprisingly trouble-free. My applications work just as they did before. My scanner and printer both work as well, and because Lucid kept my desktop settings, my windows control buttons are on the right side, and not on the left where Lucid puts them by default.

      All in all, it’s worth going the upgrade route because the longer installation time is more than offset by the time you save from not having to reinstall programs and tweaking your system all over again. In my case, that could mean a savings of a day or more.

    • Save Money for Other College Costs with a Used Laptop and Ubuntu

      CrunchGear, TechCrunch’s hardware-focused sister site, makes a compelling argument for buying a “janky old computer” off Craigslist or from another source, then simply loading it up with Ubuntu and classifying it as a simple work/email/Facebook/MP3 machine.

    • Founder: Ubuntu’s contribution goes beyond the code tree

      Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth shot back against detractors today, pointing out that his project has made Linux more marketable and successful on the desktop.

Devices/Embedded

• CUPP debuts ARM-x86 Hybrid PC

  As expected, the x86 processor runs Windows 7 Pro, while the ARM TI OMAP powers Ubuntu LXDE, Midori Web Browser and Gimp.

• Boxee Box to launch in UK in November

• Boxee Set Top Box Features 1080p Video, QWERTY Remote

• Boxee Box to Ship in November

• Boxee puffs up with thousands more free movies

• D-Link Boxee Box now available for pre-order

  D-Link’s Boxee Box can now be ordered from Amazon for November delivery (to US destinations only). Additionally, the company disclosed today that its device is based on an Intel Atom processor CE4100, representing a significant triumph for Intel over ARM Ltd.

• To boldly go where no TV has gone before

• Pandora gaming handheld device pre-order is back

  The Linux-powered gaming handheld known as Pandora is now available for pre-order, ever since the first 1,000 pre-orders have already been shipped ever since they became available back in May. Why Linux? Well, it was done so in order to take advantage of existing open source software, and the fact that Linux is a primary target for home-brew development is not lost on the Pandora as it is a miniature computer device which off Linux.

• Pandora Linux Handheld Gaming Console Back on Pre-Order After Sell Out

  Pandora, the Linux-based gaming handheld, is back on pre-order. The first 1,000 pre-orders have been shipped since they became available in May.

• Pandora Handheld Sold Out, Back On Pre-Order

• SeaChange Bows New Play-to-Air Systems

  The Universal MediaLibrary 7200 has a 10GigE storage infrastructure and has Linux-based servers that offer constant access to all drivers with a massive storage capacity of up 144 terabytes.

• Linux version of Full-flow analog IC design suite from Tanner EDA

  Tanner EDA has released a Linux version of the company’s HiPer Silicon full-flow design suite, giving designers a complete analog design flow from schematic capture, circuit simulation, and waveform probing to physical layout and verification. HiPer Silicon v15.02 includes all the functionality of the recently-introduced HiPer Silicon v15 while allowing customers to choose between the Windows and the Linux platforms.

• IBC 2010: Blackmagic Design ships DaVinci Resolve 7.0

  Both Mac OSX and Linux systems now support read and write of DNxHD files with the optional DaVinci Resolve DNxHD Update. This optional $500 update allows native DNxHD media files to move instantly between Avid and DaVinci Resolve.

• EchoStar Europe Integrates OpenTV’s Linux Client Solution From Nagravision

  Smith added, “We are delighted that we now support the OpenTV Linux-based client middleware and look forward to continuing our successful relationship with Nagravision”.

• Echelon’s Linux Based Software Platform Extends Smart Grid Beyond Metering

• Phones

  • Where is the elusive Open phone?

    But most of the Android powered phones (interesting usage this), are really powered by a Qualcomm chip. According to Harald Welte, who lead the team of developers that gave us the Neo 1973, the problem with the Qualcomm chips, from a Free Software point of view, is that the company is very secretive about their products. Their lack of public documentation, and the ever-increasing integration between the application processor (AP) and baseband processor (BP), make it more difficult to run custom software on phones powered by these chips.

    Qualcomm is a member of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) and proud of its Android innovation success story. Sy Choudhury, Product Manager at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, who is heading up the company’s involvement in the OHA, reasons that due to Android’s open source nature, “developers can find and debug problems much easier and quicker because they can see the code and understand how it works.”

  • CounterPath Reports First Quarter Fiscal 2011 Financial Results

    – The launching of a retail version of the Bria for Linux softphone and the deployment of the enterprise version by two Fortune 500 customers. Bria for Linux gives enterprises a new option for extending VoIP across multiple operating systems and enabling them to reduce communications and travel costs, while improving productivity and responsiveness.

  • Intel/Nokia/MeeGo

    • First MeeGo tablet to hit market next week

      The first tablet to feature the MeeGo operating system is set to hit the shelves next week.

      Initially the WeTab will only be available in Germany, but Intel – which launched the OS with Nokia back at Mobile World Congress in February – is hoping the device will catapult the operating system into the consciousness of consumer and business alike.

    • Fingers-On With WeTab: Mind-Blowing, High-Def MeeGo Tablet

      What makes the German-exclusive WeTab so special? First, its 1366 x 768, 11-inch capacitive touch screen is over an inch larger than the iPad’s and has a lot more screen real estate. Considering that a 720p video is 1280 x 720, the WePad more than makes the cut, while the 1024 x 768 iPad and the 1024 x 600 Samsung Galaxy tab have to downscale. Amongst 10 and 11-inch tablets we’ve seen, only the Viliv X10, which hasn’t come to market yet, has a resolution this high.

    • Neofonie WeTab slated to start selling Sept 21

    • DeviceVM Splashtop to use MeeGo Linux

      DeviceVM’s Splashtop quick boot software is designed to let you run a handful of apps including a web browser, Skype, and email software without waiting for Windows to boot on your computer. It comes preloaded on a number of netbooks and laptops from major PC makers. Today DeviceVM announced that future versions of Splashtop, which is already based on Linux, will use MeeGo Linux technology.

    • Splashtop Getting More Flexible, Useful

    • DeviceVM Goes MeeGo-Compliant with Their Popular Splashtop Product

    • Palm designer poached by Nokia for MeeGo experience

    • Nokia poaches former Palm executive

    • Nokia hires Peter Skillman, former Palm Design VP, as MeeGo user experience chief (update: confirmed)

    • Intel AppUp Store Exits Beta

      Intel’s AppUp application portal for apps running on the MeeGo and Windows OSes has come out of beta and gone gold, and soon will be available on Samsung and Asus netbooks.

    • Intel officially launches AppUp center app store for Atom-based computers

    • Nokia vows to take on iOS, Android

    • Nokia N900 With Maemo 5 Operating System

    • At Nokia World, developers ask: ‘Where’s MeeGo?’

      Amidt the turmoil in the executive ranks – with first its chief executive exiting abruptly on Friday, and then its recently-appointed head of mobile resigning on Monday – the question for developers is a much more simple one: what phones is Nokia going to offer, will there be compelling reasons to develop for them, and will people want to buy or use apps on them?

      Nokia has been showing off its new N8, C7, C6 (two of them; you tell them apart because one has the -00 an the other has the -01 suffix, obviously) and E7 models. They all run on Symbian^3, the latest version of Symbian.

      Speaking to some of the developers on the floor it’s clear that quite a few had been hoping – and expecting – to see something using MeeGo, which is a Linux-based mobile OS that is going to be part of another strand in Nokia’s smartphone attack.

    • License Compliance Tool for Mobile Open Source Developers

      Open source license compliance in general has been a hot topic in recent years. Multiple vendors have had legal suits brought against themfor non-compliance. In an effort to help developers and vendors comply with open source licensing requirement the Linux Foundation recently launched a new compliance program in an effort to make compliance easier to achieve.

    • Intel hopes new chipset will change PC industry

      The world’s biggest chip maker, Intel, has unveiled the chipset it is banking its immediate future on and one it hopes will shake up the market.

      The product, code-named Sandy Bridge, is Intel’s first architecture to merge a microprocessor and graphics processor onto a single chip.

  • Android

    • android-notifier might save your sanity

    • Android Notifier Makes Sure You Never Miss an SMS or Voice Message

    • No Squatting At Apple: Thanks Android

      The company is now going ‘tough’ against App Store name warehousing. App Store may be bloated with many app names without any binaries being uploaded. These name hogs keep other developers from creating and uploading genuine apps with the same names for the App Store.

    • Taking the App to Market, Part 2

      In our last article we examined the steps required to prepare an Android application for publication to the Android Market, or for that matter, any number of other venues for distributing Android applications.

      This article picks up where the prior article left off as we demonstrate the steps required to upload a signed and packaged application to the Android Market.

    • gvSIG Mini for Android 1.0.0 released

      gvSIG Mini development team is proud to announce the release of the stable version gvSIG Mini for Android 1.0.

      This version offers, among other features, the ability of a direct download of maps from the phone to the storage card, for a further map displaying in offline mode, with no data connection.

• Sub-notebooks

  • GNU/Linux netbook share 24pc in 2009, trending lower

    Jeff Orr told iTWire: “The tally at the end of 2009 had global netbook shipments consisting of around 24 percent for all types of Linux compared to 76 percent for all versions of Windows.

Open Source Tools For Professional Photographers

If you are a professional photographer or an aspiring one, then the article Photography with Open Source / Linux will be a great help for you. This article written by Nathan Willis delves deep into the various tools that aid you to create photographic masterpieces.

Events

• Draft Document Educonf 2010

• FOSS.in turns 10

  Bangalore’s premiere Linux event, FOSS.IN, turns 10 this year. What started out as Linux Bangalore in 2001, organised by a group of hackers and Linux technology enthusiasts from the Bangalore Linux Users Group, is today a well-attended conference. In 2004, it was re-christened as FOSS.in.

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Five Features to Look Forward to in Firefox 4.0

    Firefox 4.0 is still a bit away from final release, but the time to think about switching is now. The Mozilla Project is releasing Firefox 4.0 beta 6 this week, and the current builds are really good. Why switch? I’ll give you five excellent reasons to jump on the 4.0 train today.

    One of the great things about open source development is that you don’t have to wait for the final product to ship to get your hands on it. Case in point, I’ve been running development builds of the Firefox 4.0 series off and on for weeks. You can too, if you don’t mind some rapid changes and possible instability.

SaaS

• German researchers accelerate Hadoop

  At the VLDB conference in Singapore, researchers from Saarland University have presented the results of the Hadoop++ project which aims to accelerate the distributed computing framework Hadoop when performing analytical queries. The technique involves plugging a kind of query planner into Hadoop using hooks provided for the purpose.

Oracle

• New: OOo-DEV 3.3.x Developer Snapshot (build OOO330m7) available

Healthcare

• A Wikipedia/Linux for global healthcare information?

  The open source movement already has produced innovations like online encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Linux operating system.

  By creating a free or “open” platform that allows people to share and analyze information, the system can tap the collective intelligence of the world to improve technology and solve global problems.

  In other words, 6 billion brains are better than one.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• More Than 60 Schools in Kaohsiung City Signed the Software Freedom Manifesto

  Principals from more than 60 elementary, junior high, and senior high schools of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, signed a “Software Freedom Manifesto” at the invitation of the city’s Education Bureau on Sep 9 Thursday morning in a press conference. Also announced in the conference are the the upcoming events of International Conference on Open Source (ICOS), and the “mother tongue tux usb key” workshops designed for the growing population of Vietnamese mothers in Taiwan.

Licensing

• Linux developer in solo bid to enforce GPL

  Red Hat employee Matthew Garrett says he has written to the US Customs about the fact that Fusion Garage, the maker of the Joojoo tablet, has not provided him with the source code for the operating system that runs the device.

  Garrett sent the letter based on advice offered by former Linux Journal publisher Don Marti on a web forum.

Openness/Sharing

• Attention Companies: Your Users Are Your Competitors

  “I can design with tools as good as those that the car companies use, that Intel uses. It’s just cheap software that lets me design, simulate and test,” he said. “Communication costs are also dropping because of the Internet. That lets users actually undertake bigger problems because each one does a chunk of the work. I can do part of Linux. You can do another part of Linux.”

Programming

• Cloud-based source code host adds Git

  Git, he said, is becoming popular because of its association with Linux and its speed, said Marion. Git was authored by Linux founder Linus Torvalds, Marion noted.

• Smalltalk web framework Seaside reaches version 3.0

  The developers of the Seaside web framework for Smalltalk have announced version 3.0. What had originally begun as development work for a 2.9 version turned out to be such a significant change that the developers say it justified relabelling the release a 3.0. They believe Seaside 3.0 to be a “solid foundation for the foreseeable development” of the Smalltalk web framework.

Road deaths among children spiralling in poorest nations, says report

More schoolchildren are daily being killed by traffic on the highways of the world’s poorest nations than by deadly infectious diseases such as Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, prompting campaigners to call for a UN-backed target to halt the spiralling numbers of traffic fatalities by 2015.

New Release of Oracle Secure Global Desktop Now Available

Applications and desktops that run on Windows, Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux, and other UNIX and Linux versions are supported, as well as mainframe and midrange applications.

Security/Aggression

• I Am Detained By The Feds For Not Answering Questions

  I was detained last night by federal authorities at San Francisco International Airport for refusing to answer questions about why I had travelled outside the United States.

  The end result is that, after waiting for about half an hour and refusing to answer further questions, I was released – because U.S. citizens who have produced proof of citizenship and a written customs declaration are not obligated to answer questions.

• Worse than Gary McKinnon

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• “NEW OIL WAS SURFACING” and BLACK crude “SUDDENLY” came ashore — 16 MILES of beaches and marshes hit in Louisiana

  The Times-Picayune reported yesterday, “A new wave of black oil suddenly came ashore west of the Mississippi River on Friday and Saturday, coating beaches and fouling interior marshes, according to anglers’ reports.”

• Ixtoc spill still contaminates coastlines; is that northern Gulf’s fate?

  Like BP PLC’s Maconda well, which spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the Ixtoc spill began with rig explosion and a failed blowout preventer.

• Increased recycling could create 50,000 jobs, report finds

  Ambitious targets to increase the amount of rubbish recycled in the UK could help create more than 50,000 jobs, a report suggested today.

  The study by Friends of the Earth said 51,400 jobs could be created if 70% of waste collected by local councils were recycled.

• Shark attack survivors fight to save endangered species

  The nine victims want a ban on finning, a gruesome practice in which fishermen cut off a fin for shark fin soup and then dump the fish back in the water to drown or bleed to death. An estimated 73 million sharks are killed by finning each year. Nearly a third of all shark species are threatened or near threatened with extinction, conservationists said.

• Non-OPEC Crude Oil Update: First Half 2010

  Unsurprisingly, the inability of global oil production to have bested the peak year of 2005 is being driven by its largest component: Non-OPEC supply.

Finance

• Economic Sense: Why Don’t People Have Any?

  First of all, I’m not calling anyone out to put them down. I have had a long time to think about these topics. I’ve been in the workforce for over thirty years now, including a long period in which I earned the absolute minimum or close to it (in some cases more, in some cases less).

  I earned two associate’s degrees (one of which was in business administration), on bachelor’s degree (business administration), and one master’s degree (information technology) during that time. This means that I have typically had years more education than my bosses. But most of the time, this had little impact on my bottom line.

  During this time, I’ve been a voracious reader with a desire to know and understand what and how and why in things related to business and the economy (and computers, but that’s a different article).

  No matter what your instructor tells you, you have to look deeper. Look at real world data. Very often, what you’ve heard is factually wrong. When I was sitting around with business school classmates who commiserated about the low quality of applicants, I could tell them directly that they chose the worst applicants out of the bunch, because many times I had been one of those they chose not to hire.

  There are very many personal and group decisions that should be made with an understanding of economic principles. It is a pity that so few people ever learn them.

Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

• Haystack vs How The Internet Works

• More on Internet Intellectuals and the Haystack Affair

  So the Haystack Affair (is there a Wikipedia page named after this already?) continues generating food for thought for those of us working at the intersection of free expression, Internet censorship, and media development.

  Yesterday I blogged about what the Haystack Affair suggested about the responsibility of “Internet intellectuals”. Ethan Zuckerman, who was one of the intellectuals I singled out in that post, eloquently responded to my criticism on his blog.

  “I’ve not published on Haystack for a very simple reason: I haven’t been able to conduct a proper evaluation of either the tool or the protocols behind it,” wrote Ethan.

• Google Confirms Firing Engineer For Privacy Violations

  Google released a statement confirming it fired teen-stalking engineer David Barksdale for “breaking Google’s strict internal privacy policies,” as Gawker first reported earlier today. Our original exclusive, about Barksdale spying on minors’ Google Voice and Talk accounts, has been updated.

• Censorship resistance attacks and counterattacks

  Related to the recent Haystack hubbub, here’s a basic overview of censorship resistance tools, of which Haystack was an example (unfortunately a fairly broken one).

• Anti-censorship program Haystack withdrawn

  Software created to help Iranians escape government control of the web has been withdrawn over security fears.

  Haystack was designed to help people in the country communicate via the web without revealing their identity.

• GCreep: Google Engineer Stalked Teens, Spied on Chats (Updated)

  David Barksdale, a 27-year-old former Google engineer, repeatedly took advantage of his position as a member of an elite technical group at the company to access users’ accounts, violating the privacy of at least four minors during his employment, we’ve learned. Barksdale met the kids through a technology group in the Seattle area while working as a Site Reliability Engineer at Google’s Kirkland, Wash. office. He was fired in July 2010 after his actions were reported to the company. [Update: Google has confirmed the security breach. An update appears below.]

Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

• HDCP ‘master key’ supposedly released, unlocks HDTV copy protection permanently

  Just as the MPAA is preparing to offer movies to customers at home while they’re still in theaters by limiting playback to DRM-protected digital outputs only, the HDCP protocol they rely on may have been cracked wide open. All devices that support HDCP, like Blu-ray players, set-top boxes and displays with HDMI inputs, have their own set of keys to encrypt and decrypt protected data and if keys for a particular device are compromised, they can be revoked by content released in the future which will then refuse to play. Now, posts have been floating around on Twitter about a supposed “master key” which renders that protection unusable since it allows anyone to create their own source and sink keys.

• Make your voice heard on Net neutrality!

  Make you voice heard by responding to the European Commission’s public consultation on Net neutrality! The more citizens and NGOs submit their own responses to the questionnaire, the more chance we have to collectively weigh in the EU policy-making process to ensure that the Internet remains a free and open communications architecture. You have until September 30th to send your submission and tell the Commission to protect the Internet.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • Digital Economy (UK)

    • Piracy Bill – Has Ed Vaizey actually considered this issue at all?

      The Telegraph is reporting today on how the Digital Economy Act will be met in order to tackle online piracy or copyright infrigement. You can read the Telegraphs article here. People may remember that its proposed that alleged infringers of copyright are sent a number of warning letters before sanctions and eventually a ban is put on their connection.

      [...]

      Now maybe here Mr Vaizey is making a joke that I don’t get. If the ISP is to pick up the tab for 25% of the costs for this “enforcement” where does he think the money will come from if not passed onto the customer? Whilst that may be fair for the repeated copyright infringer, how is that fair on me or anyone else who thinks that the material “infringed upon” is not even worth a download for “free” and on the rare occasion when they are interested in a title, actually goes out and buys it? – I think far from help enforce an anti-piracy message, many people will just say “stuff it, Im footing the bill, I may as well jump in too”. Just like in my view, the person who came up with the idea of knock off Nigel, when you get people who really don’t know the subject trying to solve it, you only end up looking silly when it backfires. (For those that don’t know, Knock off Nigel was an ad campaign against piracy, that turned into a cult classic and even gave piracy a little kudos)

    • Rights-holders bear brunt of costs of chasing pirates

      Rights-holders will bear the brunt of the costs for tackling copyright infringers, the UK government has said.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

TurnKey Linux Create a Smart Backup and Migration Tool

As someone without a technical background, I’m often skeptical of promises like “one-button setup” and “installs in 2 minutes.” Just because it’s easy or obvious for the developer, doesn’t mean it’s easy for the end-user. “Turnkey” isn’t always “turnkey.”

Old School Monday: Linux Manifesto

He’s been listed as one of The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time, and was a 2008 inductee to the Computer History Museum.

In 2004, he was called one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine. In 2000, he ranked #17 in Time’s Person of the Century Poll.

That same year he was awarded an honorary dotor status at the University of Helsinki, a Lovelace Medal and an Award for Industry Achievement by Infoworld.

But back in 1998, Linus Torvalds was a man with a manifesto and he sat down with boot to discuss the future of open source software and Linux.

Does the Linux desktop matter?

When it all boils down, does Linux on the desktop really matter? Last week, I touched on the problems counting the number of Linux desktops, but the real question is does it really matter?

Over the weekend I made my annual pilgrimage to Columbus, Ohio for the Ohio LinuxFest (OLF). While I’m skeptical that the Linux desktop has more than 5% of the market (all desktops in use) in the general population, the Linux desktop had about 95% of the OLF-attending population. Yet at least two of the talks, including Stormy Peters’ keynote, asked the question “does the Linux desktop even matter?”

Server

• Do the Webminimum

  Learning to administer a new operating system is intimidating. We are expected to combine home experimentation, job experience and vendor certifications to get any real understanding of how operating systems, applications and devices work. With a few exceptions, education programs provide little more than a cursory overview of operating system admin. Major strains of Linux place files in different locations, use different configurations for fundamental tools and are based on different package managers. Many of the skills learned in one major strain will port to another; but coming to grips with the differences is not easy.

Kernel Space

• Linus Torvalds becomes US Citizen

Applications

• Security update for Samba 3.5

  The Samba developers have released version 3.5.5 of Samba, a security update that addresses a buffer overrun vulnerability in their open source file and print server software. According to the developers, the vulnerability affects the sid_parse() function and the related dom_sid_parse() function which do not correctly check their input lengths when reading binary versions of a Windows Security ID (SID); a file share connection – authenticated or unauthenticated – is needed to exploit the issue.

• Audio Player Review: Qmmp

  Final conclusion: if you like XMMS and use KDE, then Qmmp can be a perfect choice. On the other hand, for those used with collection-oriented players like Amarok will probably not like this player.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Painless Merge Conflict Resolution in Git

  • A Bushel of Useful Resources for the Powerful Inkscape Graphics App

Distributions

• Tuesday’s security updates

• Red Hat Family

  • Piper Jaffray Downgrades Red Hat (RHT) to Neutral; Sector Call & Current Valuation

    Piper analyst says, ” Shares have appreciated 394% in the past 22 months, versus 49% for the S&P 500, and we believe they are now fairly valued…We remain optimistic on near-term trends and believe the company is well-positioned for continued growth…However, our sector-wide analysis indicates growth rates for the current cycle are peaking in 2H:10, and as such, deceleration is likely to develop in the subsequent 3 to 6 months.”

  • Mid-Day US Stocks Alert! (Hologic, Inc., Red Hat, Inc., NWL, CDII)

  • Fedora

    • Re: Broadcom wifi drivers in F-14?

      That’s still true of the b43 firmware for older (pre-802.11n) devices, but the firmware to go with their new driver is now in linux-firmware.git.

      Their *original* offering of that new firmware had a stupid licence — you could only distribute it if you promised to indemnify and defend Broadcom from all related third-party lawsuits. They fixed that though, and I merged it.

• Debian Family

  • Resolution: welcome non-packaging contributors as Debian project members

    Of all those topics, one topic *might* have consensus already: accepting as DDs contributors which have contributed a lot to Debian doing non-packaging work, which intend to continue doing so, and which are ready to uphold our Foundation Documents. My feeling of consensus on that builds upon: in person feedback, private mails, and a growing number of requests on that direction hitting Front Desk (which FD has kindly shared with me). I do have an impression of consensus, but I don’t have any “quantitative” evidence.

  • Canonical/Ubuntu

    • Getting physical

      During a small exploration we did internally few months ago, we thought about how Ubuntu could behave if it was more aware of its physical context. Not only detecting the tilt of the device (like iPhone apps) but also analysing the user’s presence.
      This wasn’t really a new concept for me, in 2006 I experimented with a user proximity sensitive billboard idea. I reckon there is a value on adapting the content of the screen based on the distance with who is watching it.

    • Looking back over the past few months…

      I’m pretty new as a Canonical employee overall, only having been with the company for about 7 months, but I must say I’m really thrilled to be part of a large gang of people so involved in making Ubuntu great; with so much pride in all the work accomplished. If there’s one thing that has been constantly motivating me, it has to be the prospect of working every day with the community and with other Canonical employees on making Ubuntu better.

    • The new Ubuntu 10.10 default wallpaper

      After the rather luke-warm reception that greeted the first ‘default wallpaper’ for Ubuntu 10.10 (through no fault of the Design team, more on that here) the latest iteration – and a much more pleasing one at that – has been revealed.

    • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 210

      In This Issue

      * How Ubuntu is Made
      * Daily Dose of Scribus Trunk
      * Edubuntu Gets a New Installer
      * Magic Trackpad Drivers Land in Ubuntu Maverick and Upstream!
      * Making Usability Part of the Development Process
      * Ubuntu Stats
      * Free Banner for Approved LoCo Teams
      * OLF Day 1: Ubucon
      * Recent posts from Planet Launchpad
      * Measuring the Value of Canonical’s Launchpad
      * Cleansweep Updates
      * GTK Impression – Nautilus Breadcrumbs
      * New in Quickly for Maverick
      * Ohio Linuxfest 2010
      * Ruby packaging in Debian and Ubuntu: Mythbusting and FAQ
      * Running Ubuntu on an Amazon “micro” Instance
      * Some progress on Daily Builds
      * This week in design – 10 September 2010
      * In The Press
      * In The Blogosphere
      * Canonical’s Attention to Detail Starting To Show Up Big Time
      * Fluendo DVD Player For Sale in Ubuntu 10.10
      * Linaro Beta Released !
      * OMG! Ubuntu! interviews GNOME co-founder, Frederico Mena
      * TurnKey unveils a new kind of smart backup/restore system, powered by Amazon S3
      * Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
      * Upcoming Meetings and Events
      * Updates and Security
      * Sneak Peek
      * And Much Much More

    • Apple Magic Trackpad drivers land in Ubuntu 10.10 – even supports 10 finger touch!

    • Flavours and Variants

      • A Quick Look at Kubuntu 10.10

        While Kubuntu received some polish this time, the latest version of KDE that powers it (version 4.5.1) might actually work against it. During my testing of KDE 4.5, I found it to have severe graphics problems with certain video cards (this laptop’s Intel card being one of them). The problems I had with KDE 4.5 include window thumbnails being so bright they cannot even be read, slow repainting of the panel (over ten seconds), distortion within transparent objects, and a complete plasma lock up when changing some settings under System Settings. Unfortunately, Kubuntu inherited all of those problems by adopting KDE 4.5, though thankfully the Kubuntu developers somehow fixed the thumbnail issue. I’m hoping that Kubuntu includes the upcoming KDE 4.5.2 release (which might fix these issues) but considering the timeframe for release, I doubt it will. Another downside is that the Plymouth splash screen (which is showed during boot) still doesn’t show anything other than a blinking cursor for me. I hope this gets fixed before release.

        Although Kubuntu 10.10 isn’t out until next month, it’s already a very stable release from what I’ve seen so far. The only problems that Kubuntu has are those caused by using KDE 4.5, and as a result you may experience glitches in graphics, unless KDE 4.5.2 is included or the developers include some of their own tweaks. Other than that, it appears that Kubuntu may finally be on the right track! I’m excited to see how this release turns out come October 10th.

Devices/Embedded

• Competition nears for upcoming Apple TV from Google, Roku, Boxee

  Apple’s drastically updated Apple TV won’t ship until late this month. But home viewers looking for simple ways to enjoy Internet video and audio on their HDTVs will get a few other new options soon afterward — or in one case, maybe before Apple TV’s retail rebirth.

“Free” as in Free Software

I’m constantly amused (and always slightly disappointed) when an Open Source proponent is dismissive of Free Software, or even worse, hostile towards Free Software. Team Apologista may harbor and encourage the worst of the group, but they are not the only ones.

Just a methodology

Consider this: if you think Open Source is “just a development methodology” and Free Software is “too idealistic”, it seems quite absurd to get all excited and promotional about Open Source.

I mean I know some bass players that get a bit preachy about how playing with a pick (instead of fingers) is a terrible affront, but:

1. No one is really that serious about it
2. Who cares what bass players think anyway?

If something is just a methodology or technique — even a far superior one — what is there to get so all fired-up about?

Open Source Groupware Comes To Japan

Open-Xchange, provider of business-class open source collaboration software, announced today an exclusive distribution agreement with Next IT for hosted and on-premises Open-Xchange products in Japan.

Next IT will expand its portfolio with Open-Xchange by offering customers either: Open-Xchange Hosting Edition to web-hosting companies, ISPs, telecommunication companies and IT service companies; or an on-premises version to be installed and run on the enterprises’, educational institutions’ and government authorities’ own computers.

A Call For Open Source

Bloglines includes an API that could be extended to provide these services. Even if the main interface, the thick reader part of Bloglines was not used, the API could be installed anywhere, on any server, like WordPress. That is, of course, assuming that Bloglines was written with open source tools, as most modern web services are. Ask.com has made a big decision to shut down Bloglines after all these years, but with that decision comes an opportunity to ensure that the code they worked so hard on remains relevant, useful, and popular. Ask.com should release the code to Bloglines as open source.

8 Stunning Blender Made Short Films And Animations

Blender is a free open source 3D modelling and graphics software widely used for making animated movies. Here is a nice collection of 8 short films and animations made using Blender which I think will give you an idea on Blender’s capabilities. Enjoy the ride.

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Mozilla renames Firefox 4 Beta 6 to Beta 7

    Firefox 4 Beta 6 will reportedly address a number of issues found in previous development releases, including a critical stability issue on Windows systems. Beltzner notes that a problem related to plugins on Mac OS X that caused rendering and keyboard/mouse focus issues, that left key presses ignored or overlaid grey panels that obscured web pages, has been corrected. Beta 7 will be considered to be the “feature freeze milestone” and is tentatively planned for the “2nd half of September”.

  • Firefox 4 may not get silent updates after all

    Firefox will still download updates automatically as it does now, and offer to install them prior to launching the browser. A silent method would have been nice, since it remove the possibility of a user simply clicking cancel or deny and running an out-of-date version. That system has certainly worked well for Chrome, though Chrome does have one advantage over Firefox when it comes to being “silent.”

Databases

• MongoDB is Web Scale

Government

• NPfIT – business as usual?

  With only hours notice the Department of Health called a press conference at its HQ in Whitehall. It said there was to be “an announcement on the future of the National Programme for IT”.

  At about the same time a ministerial statement was laid in Parliament; and by lunchtime the media was reporting the death of the NPfIT. The Department’s press release said a review of the National Programme for IT had “concluded that a centralised national approach was no longer required”.

Openness/Sharing

• Can hierarchy and sharing co-exist?

Twitter kills the password anti-pattern, but at what cost?

I’ve also long embraced the principle that motivates OAuth. You should never have to give your name/password credentials to a third-party application or service so that it can impersonate you. This so-called password anti-pattern is profoundly wrong. When legitimate applications and services ask for permission to impersonate us, we learn that it’s OK to do things that way. It isn’t. Malicious actors can and do exploit our willingness to give up our credentials.

Violent Video Games Are Good for You After All

A new British study of lads (and lasses?) who play shooting video games suggests that all that virtual spatial-navigation improves ability in driving, multitasking, and “reading the small print.” Sure you’re a dehumanized, sociopathic monster, but you drive so well!

Award-Winning Haystack Security System Could Risk Iranian Lives

The naive enthusiasm of an American marketing graduate, hyped by the world media, may have risked the lives of Iranian activists through over-reaching claims for an inadequately understood software system

EFF Says ‘Stop Using Haystack’

Don’t Let The Facts Get In The Way Of A Good Story

Humanizing the need generated roughly twice the amount of money as the case made with statistics (which I suppose explains those Sally Struthers commercials on late night cable TV).

But the study didn’t stop there.

It created a hybrid pitch that centered on Rokia but also included facts and figures.

Now, what do you suppose happened to the donations?

As you can see in the chart below. combining factual information with the child’s story actually lowered the donations compared to the money that came in from pure storytelling.

Damning Zuckerberg IMs confirmed

Steve Jobs Stopped at Japan Airport Over Ninja Stars, SPA! Magazine Says

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs said he’ll never return to Japan after officials at an airport barred him from taking Ninja throwing stars aboard his private plane, SPA! magazine reported in its latest issue.

A security scan at Kansai International Airport, near Osaka, detected the weapons inside the executive’s carry-on luggage in July as he was returning home to the U.S. from a family vacation in Kyoto, the Japanese magazine reported, citing unidentified officials at the airport and the transportation ministry.

Civil society: only the clampdown is transparent

World leaders will be meeting at the UN in New York later this month to review progress towards the UN millennium development goals (MDGs) and to chart a course for accelerated action between now and 2015. Today, with just five years to go, there are fears that the goals may not be achieved, due to a lack of will by governments to acknowledge the role of other stakeholders and to work in partnership with them.

Science

• Digital Agenda: EU grid project unlocks processing power of 200,000 desktop computers for European researchers

  EU researchers will have sustainable and continuous access to the combined processing power of over 200,000 desktop computers in more than 30 European countries thanks to the European Commission funded European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) project launched today. The Commission is contributing €25 million over four years to the EGI-InSPIRE project to link the processing capacity of desktop computers when they would otherwise be idle and so give researchers the processing power needed to tackle complex problems in environment, energy or health. The EGI, the largest collaborative production grid infrastructure for e-Science ever created, will enable teams of researchers in different geographical locations to work on a problem as if they were in the same laboratory

• Quantum Catfight

  Newton sought a deeper understanding of gravity in the concept of an Aetherial Medium with faster than light waves as illustrated in the quote from Opticks above. So too, the explanation for quantum mechanics may lie in some sort of faster than light waves that transmit signals between entangled particles. Another possibility is a “hyperspace” that connects all points in space-time together, bypassing normal space-time. Even more exotic possibilities may exist. Mathematically speaking, one is looking for a deeper, more fundamental equation or equations from which Schrödinger’s Equation can be derived.

• How galaxies are born inside computers

  The next time you feel like your computer is struggling to keep up with your workload, spare a thought for the physicists at the Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC).

  The researchers at the institute, based at Durham University, are tasking their machines with nothing less than recreating how galaxies are born and evolve over the course of billions of years.

Health/Nutrition

• The “Indian superbug”: Worse than we knew

  Just about a month ago, the disease-geek world was riveted by news of the “Indian superbug“: common bacteria carrying a newly recognized gene that confers profound multi-drug resistance, and that was linked to travel between Europe and South Asia, especially for medical tourism.

  The gene, which directs production of an enzyme called NDM-1 for short, was briefly Bug of the Week, the spur for alarmist headlines in every Internet echo chamber and the target of denunciations by Indian politicians, who vilified the discovery as a Western “pharma conspiracy” spurred by envy of lucrative medical tourism.

Security/Aggression

• Florida woman jailed, strip-searched after being mistaken for thief who stole her identity

  This is an amazing and scary story: Kimberly Shields, a 23-year-old-manicurist, was mistaken for the woman who stole her identity, locked up in jail, strip-searched, and deloused before the bureaucratic mixup was resolved and she was set free.

• White House Talk on Mexican Gun Violence Is Cheap

  It’s good to see the White House begin to acknowledge the seriousness of the drug gang violence in Mexico — especially in the cities and towns that border the United States — and which some observers consider a national security threat. But as long as our government officials fail to adopt, strengthen, and enforce laws that could help protect brave men like Edelmiro Cavasos, along with countless everyday Americans, the risks increase for all of us.

• Another Paris-Mexico flight barred from US airspace

  Despite being a party to international aviation and human rights treaties guaranteeing free passage through international airspace, the US government claims the right to require prior government permission (granted or withheld in secret, without due process, judicial review, or publicly disclosed standards) not just for travel to or from the USA but for transit through US airspace — even on nonstop flights that aren’t scheduled to land in US territory.

  Most such overflights of the US between other countries are to and from Canada, where US control and surveillance of overflights have provoked continuing controversy and opposition.

• British servicemen suspected of murdering Iraqi civilians

• US courts must lift lid on torture

  In his decision, Judge Raymond Fisher described the case as “a painful conflict between human rights and national security”. In the UK, we have seen some politicians conflate “national security” with “national embarrassment” – seeking to keep information secret not because its disclosure would create a risk to the nation, but rather because states do not want the details of their illegal activities revealed. Thankfully, British courts have proved relatively effective at policing this.

• 9/11 anniversary: New York Muslims insist that they are American too

  New York City woke up yesterday to a 9/11 anniversary like no other. Blue skies hummed with the buzz of helicopters as police conducted a major operation to patrol two rival midday protests about Park51, the planned Islamic centre close to Ground Zero. The noise of the aircraft mingled with the sound of church bells ringing across Manhattan, marking the exact time that the first plane struck the World Trade Centre.

• Robert Fisk: Nine years, two wars, hundreds of thousands dead – and nothing learnt

  Indeed, on this grim ninth anniversary – and heaven spare us next year from the 10th – 9/11 appears to have produced not peace or justice or democracy or human rights, but monsters. They have prowled Iraq – both the Western and the local variety – and slaughtered 100,000 souls, or 500,000, or a million; and who cares? They have killed tens of thousands in Afghanistan; and who cares? And as the sickness has spread across the Middle East and then the globe, they – the air force pilots and the insurgents, the Marines and the suicide bombers, the al-Qa’idas of the Maghreb and of the Khalij and of the Caliphate of Iraq and the special forces and the close air support boys and the throat-cutters – have torn the heads off women and children and the old and the sick and the young and healthy, from the Indus to the Mediterranean, from Bali to the London Tube; quite a memorial to the 2,966 innocents who were killed nine years ago. All in their name, it seems, has been our holocaust of fire and blood, enshrined now in the crazed pastor of Gainesville.

• Barack Obama to authorise record $60bn Saudi arms sale

  Barack Obama is to go ahead with plans to sell Saudi Arabia advanced aircraft and other weapons worth up to $60bn (£39bn), the biggest arms deal in US history, in a strategy of shoring up Gulf Arab allies to face any military threat from Iran.

  According to the Wall Street Journal, the administration is also in talks with the Saudis about possible naval and missile-defence upgrades that could be worth tens of billions of dollars more over five to 10 years.

• MoD silence raises fears of custody deaths in Afghanistan

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• GOP fills candidate slate with climate zombies who deny science

  A comprehensive Wonk Room survey of the Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate finds that nearly all dispute the scientific consensus that the United States must act to fight global warming pollution. In May, 2010, the National Academies of Science reported to Congress that “the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change” because global warming is “caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems.”

• Your role in wildlife crime

  WHEN 23 people drowned picking cockles on Morecambe bay, UK, in February 2004, it gave us a grim insight into the murky and frightening world of people trafficking.

  The cockle pickers had been smuggled into the UK from the Fujian province in China by transnational criminal networks and used as cheap labour to extract lucrative shellfish from the sands. They were working at night in dangerous conditions, paid just £5 per sack of cockles while their gangmaster Lin Liang Ren received three times as much from the seafood companies at the shoreline. The people who died had hoped that two or three years working in the UK would provide a better life for their families back home. How wrong they were. The case shocked the world.

  As well as highlighting the practice of people trafficking, the tragedy also revealed some stark realities about the international wildlife trade – how it is driven by wealth not poverty, and how it is inextricably linked with organised crime.

• Green groups press Barack Obama for 60MPG fuel efficiency standard

  Environmental campaigners focus on more modest goals as hopes of US climate legislation dwindle ahead of expected Republican gains

• Fireball tragedy in California suburb brings gas industry under scrutiny

  The natural gas industry is coming under intense scrutiny today, after a massive fireball ripped through a ruptured pipeline in a suburban town near San Francisco, killing at least four people, injuring dozens more, and burning more than 50 homes to the ground.

• Scientists investigate massive walrus haul-out in Alaska

  Researchers from the US Geological Survey (USGS), who have been tracking walrus movements using satellite radio tags, say 10,000 to 20,000 of the animals, mainly mothers and calves, are now congregating in tightly packed herds on the Alaskan side of the Chukchi Sea, in the first such exodus of its kind.

Finance

• The Mysteries of the Goldman Sachs Partnering Process, Revealed

  Like an emotionally distant lover, the less Goldman Sachs gives us, the more we want. In today’s New York Times, a Goldman spokesman declined to comment on the process by which the firm annually selects its partners, leading the Times to describe the process as “secretive” and driving us wild with curiosity. What kinds of sick things do they make potential partners do, for the firm to decline to speak about it entirely? What secrets lurk in the hearts of the hordes streaming in and out of the building on West Street? We asked a former Goldman Sachs partner to describe how this mysterious ritual works.

• Misreporting Venezuela’s economy

  The bulk of the media often gets pulled along for the ride when the United States government has a serious political and public relations campaign around foreign policy. But almost nowhere is it so monolithic as with Venezuela. Even in the runup to the Iraq war, there were a significant number of reporters and editorial writers who didn’t buy the official story. But on Venezuel, the media is more like a jury that has 12 people but only one brain.

• IMF warns of the ‘human cost’ of public spending cuts

  The International Monetary Fund undermined the main thrust of the UK coalition’s economic strategy today after it warned western governments that they risked holding back the recovery and creating a massive pool of disaffected labour if they pursued draconian cuts in spending.

  IMF director general, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, told a conference in Oslo that governments needed to identify ways to generate employment to prevent a generation of workers losing their skills and joining the long-term unemployed. He said cuts in public spending had a “human cost” and could result in “tragedy” for millions of young people.

• The bankers’ victory dance

  This week it is two years since the US bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, setting off a wave of panic that almost brought down the entire financial sector. It is a truism that the two most important forces in the world of money are greed and fear. For years, during the boom, greed had dominated; now, in the aftermath of the Lehman implosion, fear kicked in, and the world’s banks stopped lending to each other, and to us. The result was the banking crisis, which in turn triggered the recession, which in turn triggered the collapse in the public finances that is going to be the dominant issue in this country for years.

  Given what a big deal the collapse of Lehman turned out to be, you would think that it makes sense for there to be a whole fat book of legislation on the statue books designed to prevent a repetition of the crisis by making banks smaller and safer and more focused on their wider public function. Well, you might have thought that; but if you had, you would have been wrong, because there have been exactly no new laws targeting the causes of the crash. The systemic risks are the same as they were two years ago.

Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

• We should stand up for Assange: Geoffrey Robertson

  The treatment of WikiLeaks’ spokesperson Julian Assange, facing investigations of harassment and rape, has been disgraceful, leading international human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has said from London, and the Australian government should make a formal protest to the Swedish ambassador on behalf of Assange, an Australian citizen.

• Daniel Ellsberg Calls for Release of Wikileaks “Whistleblower” Army Pfc. Bradley Manning

• Bradley Manning Case: Why We Can’t Have A Secret Trial

  Bradley Manning faces a court martial for allegedly releasing military documents and videos that expose what appears to be a military policy of shooting unarmed civilians in cold blood.

  It should be noted that the documents in question are nearly three years old and have little value except to historians and people who don’t want the truth to be known.

• CBC reconsiders online anonymity

  The CBC is considering a new policy whereby people commenting on news stories must use their real names, a corporation spokesman has said in response to complaints from an MP.

• International Days of Action for Bradley Manning – September 16 – 19

• How Brazil is Blazing a Trail for Electronic Democracy

  In the land of all-night samba clubs and soccer fanatics, Brazil is throwing its famously high-energy spirit into the untested waters of online democracy. Multimillion dollar budgets are being handed over to online “town halls,” and the federal government is crowdsourcing legislative consulting through interactive web tools.

• ACLU Action Alert – Protect Privacy

  Tens of thousands of supporters added their names to the ACLU’s Protect Our Privacy Petition—calling on Congress to update and strengthen the decades-old Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA).

Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

• For sale – one set of Accounts Software: One careful owner, FSH, MOT

  Reading a physical book, giving it to a friend or selling it to a secondhand bookseller doesn’t involve any copyright-restricted acts, so the copyright owner has no control over those acts. An eBook is entirely different: even reading it involves copying, and copying (generally) requires authorisation under the Copyright Act, (like all legal points, it’s not quite as simple as this, as there are some exceptions in the copyright legislation, but their scope is still open to argument) so the copyright owner has a lot more opportunity to intervene and control usage.

• The HDCP master key: game over, HDMI digital restrictions management

  Why? Simple: using this key — the secret piece of the puzzle — people can now build hardware and free software compatible with HDMI, that can decrypt the encrypted video traversing between HDMI-compliant equipment, without having to obey the restrictions imposed by the HDMI oligopoly. Game over — pirates 1, digital restrictions management AACSholes 0. One more note: using this key might be illegal in some parts of the world — but whoever cares about what’s right can’t afford to care about what’s legal.

• HDCP MASTER KEY

• Claimed HDCP master key leak could be fatal to DRM scheme

• HDCP ‘Master Key’ Found? Another Form Of DRM Drops Dead

• Why Broadband Prices Haven’t Decreased

  After a new technology is introduced to the market, there is usually a predictable decrease in price as it becomes more common. Laptops experienced precipitous price drops during the past decade. Digital cameras, personal computers, and computer chips all followed similar steep declines in price. Has the price of broadband Internet followed the same model? Shane Greenstein decided to look into it.

  Since there are no public data on what has happened to broadband prices over the last decade, Shane Greenstein, a professor of management and strategy at the Kellogg School of Management, and his co-author Ryan McDevitt, a graduate student at Northwestern University, analyzed the contracts of 1,500 DSL and cable service providers from 2004 to 2009. They found evidence of only a very small price drop, between 3 and 10 percent, nothing like the rates of price decrease that characterize the rest of the electronic world.

• HDCP Compromised, Time To End DRM?

Intellectual Monopolies

• Why It’s Important Not To Call Copyright Infringement Theft

  This is important. If you are seeking to understand what is happening and how to respond to it, calling it “theft” immediately shuts the door on a variety of important points. It closes off a path to understanding both what’s happening and how one might best deal with it. I find that incredibly dangerous from the perspective of a content creator. Calling infringement theft or not isn’t just a semantic argument from people who like to argue. It’s about actually understanding what’s going on, and that’s simply not possible when you put up a wall to understanding.

• Seeing Like a Movie Mogul

  Because libertarians reflexively (and correctly) favor strong enforcement of property rights, we need to be careful about too credulously accepting the “property rights” frame for proposals to create or expand legal privileges. Such arguments can be found in a wide variety of fields, including gene patents, the recording industry, and spectrum policy. Clear and predictable property rules are a tremendous engine of economic growth and individual liberty. But Seeing Like a State reminds us that the creation of new property rights can sometimes be a process of expropriation, with the state inventing new rights to transfer wealth to parties with political power.

  Reasonable people can disagree about whether the new property rights whose creation Scott describes in Seeing Like a State had positive consequences in the long run, but it’s hard to deny that some of the short-run consequences were deeply illiberal, transferring wealth from ordinary peasants to those who had the closest ties to the state. When large firms deploy the rhetoric of property rights in defense of creating new legal privileges for themselves, libertarians especially need to employ an appropriate degree of skepticism.

• Copyrights

  • Artists Make More Money in File-Sharing Age Than Before It

    An extensive study into the effect of digitalization on the music industry in Norway has shed an interesting light on the position of artists today, compared to 1999. While the music industry often talks about artists being on the brink of bankruptcy due to illicit file-sharing, the study found that the number of artists as well as their average income has seen a major increase in the last decade.

  • Gandi.net supports CC

    Some time ago, prompted by truly horrifying customer service and useless web interfaces of certain domain registrars, I decided to move all of CC’s domains to Gandi.net. I had had my personal domains with Gandi for quite some time, and had been very happy with the customer service and web management interface. Also, other people on the tech team at CC commented on the good experiences they had always had with Gandi.

  • How IP Enforcement Can Be Used To Suppress Dissent

    The NY Times ran a bombshell article over the weekend in which it reported that Russia has been using the pre-text of intellectual property enforcement to seize computers from NGO groups involved in advocacy and dissent. The article notes that the authorities have been receiving active assistance from Microsoft, which had been delivering statements describing the company as a victim and asking for criminal charges against the NGO groups. While human rights groups had been pressing Microsoft to address the issue for months, it only responded yesterday after the article’s publication. The company now says it will offer free blanket licences for its products to NGOs to prevent actions under the guise of IP enforcement. It will also establish a new legal assistance program to assist NGOs who need to respond to enforcement actions.

  • GooGoo Dolls Frontman Admits To Using Limewire; Says He Likes Fan-Made Video More Than His Official Video

    Stories like this always amuse me, because, of course, it wasn’t that long ago that all we heard was how evil such “infringers” were, in creating their own videos “using music that doesn’t belong to them.” It’s always nice to see musicians realize that fans making videos are fans making videos, rather than threatening them with infringement claims.

  • Everything is a Remix, Part 1

  • Digital Economy (UK)

    • Coalition pledges free appeals for filesharers

      People accused of unlawful filesharing by the music and film industries will have access to a free appeals system, the coalition government said today.

      Tory broadband minister Ed Vaizey said there will be no cost for the public to appeal against Digital Economy Act (DEA) copyright infringement notices, at least initially.

      However, the Department for Business will closely monitor the free appeals system, and reserve the right to introduce “small fees” later, because it “risks the possibility of large numbers of unnecessary appeals”. Appeals will be heard by a new tribunal.