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12.12.16

Links 12/12/2016: Linux Kernel 4.9, 6 Months of Nextcloud

Posted in News Roundup at 1:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • These Were The Best Linux App & Distro Releases in 2016

      As 2016 dims into embers, it’s take to take a misty-eyed look back over the past twelve months, and at some the best Linux releases that wowed, wooed and otherwise w-worded us.

      In 2016 there were a stack of apps and distribution updates, upgrades and releases. Some well known favourites improved, some new ones appeared in the wild, while others introduced us to new or better ways of doing things we regularly do.

    • The Linux Setup – Piers Anthony, Author

      I use Linux because I didn’t like being governed by Microsoft.

    • An Ode to Linux Desktop Users Everywhere

      Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels. The package makers, the man page writers. The rounded windows in Qt mixed with the less rounded windows of GTK. The ones who literally see things differently because of missing proprietary fonts.

    • My search for a MacBook Pro alternative

      Based on more than 100 user reviews, I could create a shortlist of 8 laptops that seemed to be solid alternatives. Based on my four requirements (Linux compatibility was a decisive factor), this list got narrowed down even further. Only three laptops survived!

      These 3 Linux ready models seems to have comparable workmanship and build quality as the MacBook Pro. They come with latest gen and upgradeable hardware and most of their users swear by them.

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux 4.8.14

      Turns out I’m going to be on a very long flight early tomorrow morning,
      so I figured it would be good to get this kernel out now, instead of
      delaying it by an extra day. So, I’m announcing the release of the
      4.8.14 kernel.

      All users of the 4.8 kernel series must upgrade.

      The updated 4.8.y git tree can be found at:
      git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.8.y
      and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser:

      http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-st…

    • Linux 4.4.38
    • Linux Kernel 4.8.14 Hits the Streets with Numerous Networking Improvements, More
    • It Looks Like There’s A Possible Data Corruption Bug For Btrfs Dating Back To 2009

      A Phoronix reader pointed out to us this weekend there’s been another Btrfs file-system data corruption bug discovered that dates back to around 2009.

    • Qualcomm Falkor (Centriq) Patches For The Linux Kernel

      This week Qualcomm announced they are now sampling the first 10nm 48-core ARMv8 SoC based upon their in-house “Falkor” design. With these SoCs branded as the Centriq 2400 series soon to reach partners and potential customers, Qualcomm has published some Falkor V1 patches for the Linux kernel.

      The ARMv8-based Falkor needs just some basic patches for the Linux kernel. There is the changes for cputype info followed by two patches to address errors with the hardware.

    • Celebrating the first 25 years of Linux
    • MuQSS CPU Scheduler Released For Linux 4.9

      Con Kolivas has announced the release of the MuQSS CPU scheduler v0.15 with support for the Linux 4.9 kernel. MuQSS is his evolutionary successor to the BFS scheduler.

    • Linux Kernel 4.9 Officially Released with Support for AMD Radeon SI/GCN 1.0 GPUs

      As expected, today, December 11, 2016, Linus Torvalds unleashed the final release of the highly anticipated Linux 4.9 kernel, a major update that introduces numerous exciting new features, updated drivers, and other under-the-hood improvements.

    • Linux 4.9 Kernel Officially Released

      The Linux 4.9 kernel has been officially released.

    • Linus Torvalds releases ‘biggest ever’ Linux 4.9, then saves Christmas

      Linux overlord Linus Torvalds has released Linux 4.9.

      “I’m pretty sure this is the biggest release we’ve ever had, at least in number of commits,” Torvalds writes on the Linux Kernel Mailing List.

      “If you look at the number of lines changed, we’ve had bigger releases in the past, but they have tended to be due to specific issues (v4.2 got a lot of lines from the AMD GPU register definition files, for example, and we’ve had big re-organizations that caused a lot of lines in the past: v3.2 was big due to staging, v3.7 had the automated uapi header file disintegration, etc).”

    • Linux Kernel 4.4.38 LTS Adds IPv6, IPv4 and L2TP Fixes, Updated Ethernet Drivers

      Immediately after the release of Linux kernel 4.8.14, renowned Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman was proud to announce the availability of a new maintenance update to the long-term supported Linux 4.4 kernel series.

      Just like Linux kernel 4.8.14, the Linux 4.4.38 LTS kernel release hit the streets only two days after the previous maintenance version, in this case Linux kernel 4.4.37 LTS, and it looks like it’s yet another small patch that changes a total of 35 files, with 242 insertions and 80 deletions, according to the appended shortlog and the diff since Linux 4.4.37.

    • Linux Lexicon — How Does Linux Kernel Work?

      This interface looks to programmers like any other function call but is special because it’s a system call. A system call is just a function that requests something from the kernel, this is where the kernel will carry out the request regardless of the underlying hardware. The Linux kernel implements the POSIX standard of systems calls.

    • Graphics Stack

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • How input works – creating a Device
      • Geotagging in digiKam with a Lazy Bash Script

        Sometimes, the easiest way to geotag photos in digiKam is to copy and paste geographical coordinates from an existing photo. I usually use Google Photos for that, as it conveniently displays geographical coordinates of the currently viewed photos in the information sidebar.

      • [Slackware] December packages… not Santa Claus but Plasma 5

        I wanted to have the last 16.08.x release of KDE Applications available in my repository before the new 16.12.x releases start coming. There are some big changes in Applications 16.12 for which I need to time to review, plan and build packages. Therefore you will probably not see packages for Applications 16.12.0 in 2016.
        So, my december release of the ‘ktown’ packages – KDE 5_16.12 – is sporting KDE Frameworks 5.28.0, Plasma 5.8.4 and Applications 16.08.3 for Slackware, built on top of Qt 5.7.0 which was recompiled with a patch which should improve stability. You can use the latest KDE 5 on Slackware 14.2 and -current.

      • No one “works” on Poppler

        I thought that was obvious, but today someone thought that i was “working” as “paid working” on it.

        No, I don’t get paid for the work i do on Poppler.

        It’s my computing hobby, and on top of that it’s not even my “primary” computing hobby, lots of KDE stuff take precedence over it, and i guess Gnome stuff may also take precedence for Carlos (second top commiter according to the git shortlog)

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • GNOME Music Is Being Revived

        Thanks in part to last month’s GNOME Core Apps Hackfest in Berlin, the GNOME Music application is being revived.

        GNOME Music, of course, being a music player for GNOME. The current GNOME Music was basically a prototype and not designed for scalability, thus GNOME Music is going back to being rewritten before focusing on new user features.

      • The future of GNOME Music

        GNOME Music is an app that I particularly fell in love. Not because it worked perfectly (it didn’t, at all), nor because it’s fast to the last bit (it isn’t, at all), neither because it’s written in a programming language that I love (i.e. C. And no, it isn’t).

        So why the hell did I invest my free time, energy and resources on it? If we look on how it is right now, it makes no sense. So for my dog’s sake, why?

        Simply because I want to push GNOME forward.

      • Examining User eXperience

        In most cases, usability and UX are strongly aligned. And that makes sense. If you can use the software to get your work done, you probably have a good opinion of the software (good usability, positive UX). And if you can’t use the software to do real work, then you probably won’t have a great opinion of it (bad usability, negative UX).

        But it doesn’t always need to be that way. You can have it the other way around. It just doesn’t happen that often. For example, there’s an open source software game that I like to play sometimes (I won’t name it here). It’s a fun game, the graphics are well done, the sounds are adorable. When I’m done playing the game, I think I’ve had a fun time. And days or weeks later, when I remember the game, I look forward to playing it again. But the game is really hard to play. I don’t know the controls. The game doesn’t show you what to do to move around or to fire the weapons. And for a turn-based game with a time limit, it’s important that you know how to move and shoot. Every time I play this game, I end up banging on keys to figure out what key does what action. It’s not intuitive to me. Essentially, I have to re-learn how to play the game every time I play it.

  • Distributions

    • Reviews

      • Manjaro 16.10 Xfce – Surprised me, I like

        Weird. I have never expected to be writing a conclusion to an Arch-based distro review and feel really pleased about the whole experience. But then, looking at how Manjaro behaved and how it delivered, I really don’t have much to complain. The list of bad things is not very long: Samba printing, Bluetooth, some cosmetic problems, and ultra-slow GRUB updates. Other than that, it was really good.

        You get a stable, fast distribution with a balanced kit of programs, media codecs and smartphone support out of the box, low resource utilization, very decent battery life, and even some perks, in the form of a new kernel that may resolve hardware and driver issues, if you have them. Plus, you can actually tame it if you feel like spending some time on the aesthetics front, and it won’t bite with random, unexplained errors. Most importantly, there’s a continuous trend of improvement and maturity in the distribution. Just look at my previous reviews, dating back to 2013. Everything seems to be in order, well, except this one really big thing.

        What’s next? Is this the sum of what the community can do – wants to do, or can we expect Manjaro to take a more commercial, more adult approach, and even become something that could one day appeal to non-Linux folks? That might not be the mission, and perhaps it will never happen, but I am always apprehensive around small distros, because changes can be painful and devastating, and as a user, you need to believe you have a solid, stable, long-term support behind you. This review cannot answer that, but at the very least, it gives you an indication what you can do with Manjaro 16.10 Xfce, if you feel like testing. Overall, 9.25/10 I would say, and it doesn’t take much to up the score. Quite a surprise for this bleak year of distro testing, and a most refreshing change for this no less dreary autumn season. Surpassed my expectations and bitterness. Well worth a ride. Get it, fellas, get it.

      • An Everyday Linux User Review Of Zorin 12

        This version of Zorin is a great step forward. It has a renewed sense of purpose and stands out in its own right as a decent Linux distribution.

        I think Zorin should follow Mint’s lead and stick with aligning itself to the Ubuntu LTS release. This gives the developers more time to push it along at their own pace.

        All in all a decent alternative to Linux Mint and Ubuntu.

      • Netrunner 16.09 Avalon – King Arthur wasn’t there

        Blade Runner? Say what. Nope. Netrunner. But not the Netrunner distro as you remember it. There are changes in the land of sprinters. The old system, which used to be based on Ubuntu LTS, is now a different fork and a separate entity called Maui, and it shall bear the scrutiny of my wits, senses and taste very soon.

        This means, today, we are testing Netrunner 16.09 Avalon, the latest semi-rolling edition based on Debian Stable. Now, my previous testing experience does not agree with this model. Netrunner 17 Horizon was a pretty good product, in fact good enough to be the honorable mention in the annual Plasma/KDE vote, but the rolling 2015.11 was a disaster that would not even install, and got a zero score. So, with less than high hopes, we proceed.

    • New Releases

      • Solus Project Announces Brisk Menu Applet for MATE Edition, Solbuild, and More

        Joshua Strobl from the Solus Project was extremely happy to publish today, December 11, 2016, the 40th installation of the project’s This Week In Solus (TWiS) weekly newsletter.

        We can’t say that TWiS is still a weekly thing lately, because it’s not, and that’s only because the team is hard at work planning new features for the rolling and independently-developed Linux-based operating system. As some of you might be aware, they recently announced Solbuild, the brand-new, faster package build system.

        But there are bigger news than that, especially for those who use the Solus MATE Edition, as the team is currently developing a new Applications Menu applet for the MATE desktop environment, which is entitled Brisk Menu. It aims to offer a traditional experience in the style of MAE, and you can see it in action in the attached screenshot.

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu 17.04 | Release Date & New Features

            Following the release of Ubuntu 16.10, Canonical is gearing up for the release of the next iteration of the world’s most popular open-source operating system, i.e., Ubuntu 17.04. This release is codenamed Zesty Zapus after a jumping mouse found in the North American region. While Zapus stands for the genus name of a mouse, Zesty is an adjective for ‘great enthusiasm and energy.’

            As the name suggests, this next short-term release will arrive in the month of April. If you’re an avid Ubuntu user, you must be knowing the significance of .04 in 17.04.

          • The 6 Biggest Ubuntu News Stories of 2016

            What a year it’s been — and I’m only talking about Linux, open source and related communities!

            2016 has been a pretty knock-out year for Linux. In this post we highlight 6 news stories from the past twelve months that relate specifically

            Ubuntu fans have had it especially cushy this year, with 2016 gifting not 1 but 2 convergent devices: a high-end Ubuntu Phone, and a mid-range Ubuntu tablet. This year was also host to a rock solid, super dependable LTS release in the form of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and a forward-looking short-term release in Ubuntu 16.10.

          • System 76 Talks With Ubuntu, WordPress Ups Game and More…

            This week we learned that Canonical has been working with another company that’s not located anywhere near Redmond for a change. Denver based System 76, the OEM that’s built it’s reputation marketing desktops and laptops preloaded with Linux, has been talking with Canonical to help developers at Ubuntu up their game on the desktop front. To be more specific, the two have been working together to increase HiDPI (High Dots Per Inch) support in Unity 7.

          • System76 Working with Canonical on Improving HiDPI Support in Ubuntu

            Last week System76 engineers participated in a call with Martin Wimpress of the Ubuntu Desktop team to discuss HiDPI support in Ubuntu, specifically Unity 7. HiDPI support exists in Unity 7, but there are areas that could use improvement, and the call focused around those. The conversation was primarily focused around bugs that still remain in the out-of-the-box HiDPI experience; specifically around enabling automatic scaling and Ubuntu recognizing when a HiDPI display is present so that it can adjust accordingly.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Mint lacks resources to maintain KDE Plasma version — turns to Kubuntu team for help

              There are too many dang Linux distributions and desktop environments nowadays. This is frustrating, as it spreads developer resources too thin. In other words, developers are often working on too many separate projects that further fragments the community. Linux on the desktop could be much further along if teams pooled resources and focused on a narrower field of development.

              Today, Clement Lefebvre, Linux Mint leader, concedes that his team simply doesn’t have the resources to meet its goals. You see, the team is finding it very difficult to maintain a KDE Plasma version of its operating system, so it has turned to the Kubuntu team instead. The question becomes, why bother? KDE users should simply use Kubuntu and the Linux Mint team should stay focused on Cinnamon and Mate. Am I right?

            • The Wait Is Almost Over: KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS Is Coming to Kubuntu, Linux Mint KDE

              Today, December 11, 2016, the Kubuntu and Linux Mint developers were proud to announce the availability of the KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS desktop environment in the Kubuntu Backports Landing PPA repository.

              It’s been a long time coming, but Kubuntu 16.04.1 LTS (Xenial Xerus) and Kubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) users will soon be able to update their beloved KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment to the latest, long-term supported KDE Plasma 5.8 release. The KDE Frameworks 5.28.0 and KDE Applications 16.04.3 software suite are available as well, and these KDE technologies are also available for Linux Mint 18 “Sarah” KDE users.

            • Ubuntu-Based KDE Neon User LTS Edition Distro Out Now with KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS

              The development team behind the KDE Neon GNU/Linux distribution have announced the availability of an LTS (Long Term Support) flavor of the KDE Neon User Edition operating system.

              As you might know, KDE Neon is usually distributed as User Edition and Developer Edition 64-bit Live ISO images. While the former is shipping with the latest stable KDE Plasma, Frameworks, and Applications releases, the latter is targeted at developers and bleeding-edge users who want to test drive the pre-release versions of these technologies.

            • Cinnamon 3.2.4 Desktop Environment Lands with Support for Rhythmbox, MATE Panel

              A new maintenance update of the Cinnamon 3.2 desktop environment has arrived this weekend, versioned 3.2.4, for the upcoming Linux Mint 18.1 “Serena” operating system, but also for users of Linux Mint 18 “Sarah.”

              Cinnamon 3.2.4 is now the latest stable release of the acclaimed desktop environment for GNU/Linux distributions, and lands approximately three weeks after the Cinnamon 3.2.2 update, and one day after the announcement of Cinnamon 3.2.3, which was a major version adding numerous improvements, new features, and bug fixes.

            • Making System Settings Access a Cross-Desktop Feature

              Corentin Noël has proposed a cross-desktop URL scheme specification for system settings and we’re excited to announce the first release of Switchboard (the system settings app in elementary OS) that makes use of it!

            • Ubuntu Budgie Minimal Edition Coming Soon for Those Who Love Customizing the OS

              We haven’t heard anything from the Ubuntu Budgie team since their beloved Linux-based operating system built around the Budgie desktop environment was accepted by Canonical as an official Ubuntu flavor.

              However, we’re aware of the fact that the Ubuntu Budgie team have a lot of work on their hands re-branding the entire project from the old name (budgie-remix) to the new one, and we can all agree it’s a huge effort. Also, they’re preparing for the distribution’s first release as an official Ubuntu flavor, as part of Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus).

              The first development snapshot of Ubuntu Budgie 17.04 might land later this month, on December 29, when some of the opt-in flavors will participate in the Alpha 1 release. Until then, it looks like the team is working on an ultra minimal version of Ubuntu Budgie, for those who love customizing their installations.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • PayPal Cuts Costs 10x With Open Source CI

    The bigger you are, the more small efficiencies add up. Manivannan Selvaraj’s talk from LinuxCon North America gives us a detailed inside view of how PayPal cut operating costs by a factor of ten, while greatly increasing performance and user convenience.

    Everything has to be fast now. We can’t have downtimes. No going offline for maintenance, no requesting resources with a days-long ticketing process. Once upon a time virtual machines were the new miracle technology that enabled more efficient resource use. But that was then. Selvaraj describes how PayPal’s VMs were operating at low efficiency. They started with a single giant customized Jenkins instance running over 40,000 jobs. It was a single point of failure, not scalable, and inflexible.

    The next iteration was individual VMs running Jenkins for each application, which was great for users, but still not an optimal use of hardware. Selvaraj notes that, “Only 10% were really used. The rest of the time, the resources were idle and if you think about 2,500 virtual machines, it’s millions of dollars invested in hardware. So, although it solved the problem of freedom for users and removed the single point of failure, we still had the resource management issue where we didn’t use the resource optimally.”

  • 6 months of Nextcloud

    Last Friday was the 6 month anniversary of Nextcloud, a good opportunity to look back and reflect on what we have achieved since we started. I also have some interesting news to share, including that Nextcloud GmbH is a profitable company already!

  • Web Browsers

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • FSFE Newsletter – December 2016

      In mid October, the lower chamber of the Russian Federation (“Duma”) approved a bill that will boost Free Software on multiple levels within the Russian Federation’s public sector. It requires the public sector to prioritise Free Software over proprietary alternatives, gives precedence to local IT businesses that offer Free Software for public tenders, and recognises the need to encourage collaboration with the global network of Free Software organisations and communities.

      The legislators made an extra effort to ensure a proper use of language. The bill talks about “Free Software”, explicitly mentions the four freedoms and even uses “GNU/Linux” to refer to the most widespread free operating system.

      As our Policy Analyst Polina Malaja puts it: “The bill is an example of public software procurement done right.”

  • Licensing/Legal

    • [Older] Licensing resource series: License Violations and Compliance
    • [Older] The Licensing and Compliance Lab interviews Micah Lee of GPG Sync

      This is the latest installment of our Licensing and Compliance Lab’s series on free software developers who choose GNU licenses for their work. In this edition, we conducted an email-based interview with Micah Lee of GPG Sync.

      GPG Sync is a recently launched project for managing the sharing of GPG keys, particularly within an organization. Micah Lee made the project internally at First Look Media and has now shared it with the world.

    • Apache and the JSON license

      The JSON license is a slightly modified variant of the MIT license, but that variation has led it to be rejected as a free-software or open-source license by several organizations. The change is a simple—rather innocuous at some level—addition of one line: “The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.”. Up until recently, code using the JSON license was acceptable for Apache projects, but that line and the ambiguity it engenders was enough for Apache to put it on the list of disallowed licenses.

      At the end of October, Ted Dunning brought up the license on the Apache legal-discuss mailing list. He suggested that classifying the JSON license as acceptable (i.e. on the list of Category A licenses) was an “erroneous decision”. That decision was made, he said, “apparently based on a determination that the no-evil clause was ‘clearly a joke’”. He pointed to a thread from 2008 where a “lazy consensus” formed that the “not evil” condition did not preclude Apache projects from using the license.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Government in France: an Empty Promise?

      As France is hosting the Open Government Partnership Global Summit, a number of Civil Society Organizations point out the inconsistencies of the French government. Some have decided not to attend.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Fuzzing OpenGL Shaders Can Lead To Some Wild Results

      Alastair Donaldson at the Imperial College London has been working on testing OpenGL shader compilers across vendors and operating systems with OpenGL shader fuzzing and has been finding some surprising — and sometimes comical — results. The results so far are interesting and show how some small code changes can cause big problems for some OpenGL shader compilers.

    • Google starts using HTML5 by default instead of Flash for some Chrome users

      Google has started disabling Flash and displaying HTML5 content instead on certain websites for a small number of people using its Chrome browser. People can still explicitly permit Flash to load on the affected sites — which are the top 10 that use Flash.

      Google has deployed the change for half of the people who are using Chrome 56 beta, which rolled out yesterday, Google technical program manager Eric Deily wrote in a blog post.

      Then, “in the next few days,” Deily wrote, the feature will be active for 1 percent of users of Chrome 55 stable.

Leftovers

  • ‘Clean your desk’ : My Amazon interview experience

    The whole experience was somewhat surreal. I remember in previous years, while applying for internships at Amazon, on being told that I have to take an automated test while being recorded through my camera, I’d recoiled at this intrusion of privacy. Now, I’d given a company complete access to my entire machine, just so I can apply to work there. If the video had worked, I would have proceeded with the interview, because at the time of doing the interview I was looking for a job and I 1) don’t live in the Bay Area, and 2) am not a citizen of a North American country, so good/interesting programming jobs aren’t plentiful.

  • Liberty in the Library – FAIFE Network Launches

    Libraries are increasingly places not just for reading, but also for creating and sharing. They are guardians of free access to information and free expression – two values which are inseparable from each other, and have fulfilled this role for centuries.

  • China suggests the construction of rail lines linking Afghanistan and Pakistan

    China has proposed that a railway line be built linking the Pakistani city of Quetta to the Afghani capital of Kabul, as well as from the Pakistani city of Peshawar to Kabul, according to Afghan Presidential Palace.

    The proposal was made by the Chinese Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Kong Xuanyou in a meeting with the Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani.

    Xuanyou emphasised the importance of Afghanistan to China’s New Silk Road.

  • Science

    • Dinosaur tail trapped in amber offers insights into feather evolution

      A length of fluffy plumage discovered within a piece of amber has been identified as part of a dinosaur tail, offering new insights into the evolution of feathers.

      Around 3.7cm long, with chestnut-coloured feathers on the top and pale feathers underneath, the tail was found complete with fossilised bones as well as traces of muscles, ligaments and mummified-looking skin.

      While researchers say it is not possible to determine the species to which the tail belonged, they say the dinosaur lived around 99 million years ago and was most likely a juvenile, non-avian theropod – a group of dinosaurs that includes velociraptors and tyrannosaurs.

    • John Glenn, First American To Orbit The Earth, Dies At 95

      The first American to orbit the Earth has died. John Glenn was the last surviving member of the original Mercury astronauts. He would later have a long political career as a U.S. senator, but that didn’t stop his pioneering ways.

      Glenn made history a second time in 1998, when he flew aboard the shuttle Discovery to become the oldest person to fly in space.

      Glenn was 95 when he died; he had been hospitalized in an Ohio State University medical center in Columbus since last week.

    • John Glenn, the last of the Mercury Seven astronauts, has died

  • Hardware

    • Qualcomm Debuts 10nm FinFET Centriq 2400 Processor With 48 Cores

      Qualcomm and its Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies subsidiary announced today that the company has already begun sampling its first 10nm server processor. The Centriq 2400 is the second generation of Qualcomm server SOCs, but it is the first in its new family of 10nm FinFET processors. The Centriq 2400 features up to 48 custom Qualcomm ARMv8-compliant Falkor cores and comes a little over a year after Qualcomm began developing its first-generation Centriq processors.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • What Do Flint And The Dakota Access Pipeline Have In Common? Water

      With all the attention lately on the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, some folks have wondered why more attention isn’t being spent on the Flint, Michigan, water crisis. While mainstream media has devoted a multitude of stories on the Flint water crisis, the same news outlets have paid little attention to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.

      [...]

      Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore hails from Flint, Michigan, and has a deep connection with the city. It is obvious that he cares tremendously about the city and its inhabitants. On his website, he gave a ten-point rundown of why the water crisis happened, to begin with, but it all seems to boil down to two things: greed and a gaping disregard for human life, particularly Black lives (Flint is a majority Black city).

      Several points in his essay were striking in how government officials, at both the state and federal level, seemed to disregard the lives of people who live in Flint.

  • Security

    • A ‘mystery device’ is letting thieves break into cars and drive off with them, insurance group says

      Insurance crime investigators are raising alarms over a device that not only lets thieves break into cars that use keyless entry systems but also helps start and steal them.

      Investigators from the National Insurance Crime Bureau, a not-for-profit organization, said in an interview they obtained what they called the “mystery device” from a third-party security expert at an overseas company.

      So far, the threat here may be mostly theoretical. The crime bureau said it heard of the device being used in Europe and had reports that it had entered the U.S., but said there are no law enforcement reports of a car being stolen using it in the United States.

    • Turkish hacking group offers tiered points rewards program for DoS attacks

      A TURKISH HACKING GANG is taking an unusual approach to funding denial of service attacks, and is soliciting for, and offering hackers rewards for taking down chosen pages.

      This is unusual, as far as we know, and it has led to the creation of comment from the security industry. Often these things do.

    • German judges explain why Adblock Plus is legal

      Last month, Adblock Plus maker Eyeo GmbH won its sixth legal victory in German courts, with a panel of district court judges deciding that ad-blocking software is legal despite German newsmagazine Der Spiegel’s arguments to the contrary. Now, the reasoning of the Hamburg-based panel of judges has been made public.

      According to an unofficial English-translated copy (PDF) of the judgment, Spiegel Online argued it was making a “unified offer” to online consumers. Essentially, that offer is: read the news content for free and view some ads. While Internet users have the freedom “not to access this unified offer,” neither they nor Adblock Plus have the right to “dismantle” it. Eyeo’s behavior thus amounted to unfair competition, and it could even wipe the offer out, Spiegel claimed.

      “The Claimant [Spiegel] argues that the Defendant’s [Eyeo's] business model endangers the Claimant’s existence,” reads the judgment, which isn’t final because it can be appealed by Spiegel. Because users aren’t willing to pay for editorial content on the Web, “it is not economically viable for the Claimant to switch to this business model.”

      Spiegel asked for an accounting of all the blocked views on its website and a fine to be paid—or even for managers Wladimir Palant and Till Faida to be placed in “coercive detention” of up to two years.

    • Op-ed: I’m throwing in the towel on PGP, and I work in security [Ed: Onlya tool would drop PGP for Facebook-controlled Whatsapp. The company back-doors everything under gag orders.]

      In the coming weeks I’ll import all signatures I received, make all the signatures I promised, and then publish revocations to the keyservers. I’ll rotate my Keybase key. Eventually, I’ll destroy the private keys.

    • 90 per cent of NHS Trusts are still running Windows XP machines

      90 PER CENT of the NHS continues to run Windows XP machines, two and a half years after Microsoft ditched support for the ageing OS.

      It’s Citrix who is ringing the alarm bells, having learnt that 90 per cent of NHS Trusts are still running Windows XP PCs. The firm sent Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to 63 NHS Trusts, 42 of which responded.

      The data also revealed that 24 Trusts are still not sure when they’ll migrate from Windows XP to a newer version of Microsoft’s OS. 14 per cent said they would be transitioning to a new operating system by the end of this year, while 29 per cent pledged to make the move sometime next year.

    • Ransomware blamed for attack that caused Lincolnshire NHS Trust shutdown

      RANSOMWARE is to blame for an attack which saw an NHS Trust in Lincolnshire that forced to cancel operations for four days in October.

      In a statement, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust said that a ransomware variant called Globe2 was to blame for the incident.

    • Researchers Find Fresh Fodder for IoT Attack Cannons

      New research published this week could provide plenty of fresh fodder for Mirai, a malware strain that enslaves poorly-secured Internet of Things (IoT) devices for use in powerful online attacks. Researchers in Austria have unearthed a pair of backdoor accounts in more than 80 different IP camera models made by Sony Corp. Separately, Israeli security experts have discovered trivially exploitable weaknesses in nearly a half-million white-labeled IP camera models that are not currently sought out by Mirai.

    • Your data is not safe. Here’s how to lock it down

      But some people worry that government surveillance will expand under a Donald Trump presidency, especially because he tapped Mike Pompeo, who supports mass surveillance, for CIA chief.

    • Tor at the Heart: Library Freedom Project

      Library Freedom Project is an initiative that aims to make real the promise of intellectual freedom in libraries by teaching librarians and their local communities about surveillance threats, privacy rights and responsibilities, and privacy-enhancing technologies to help safeguard digital freedoms.

    • Five-Year-Old Bait-and-Switch Linux Security Flaw Patched

      Maintainers of the Linux Kernel project have fixed three security flaws this week, among which there was a serious bug that lingered in the kernel for the past five years and allowed attackers to bypass some OS security systems and open a root shell.

    • The Internet of Dangerous Auction Sites

      Ok, I know this is kind of old news now, but Bruce Schneier gave testimony to the House of Representatives’ Energy & Commerce Committee about computer security after the Dyn attack. I’m including this quote because I feel it sets the scene nicely for what follows here.

      Last week, I was browsing the popular online auction site eBay and I noticed that there was no TLS. For a moment, I considered that maybe my traffic was being intercepted deliberately, there’s no way that eBay as a global company would be deliberately risking users in this way. I was wrong. There is not and has never been TLS for large swathes of the eBay site. In fact, the only point at which I’ve found TLS is in their help pages and when it comes to entering card details (although it’ll give you back the last 4 digits of your card over a plaintext channel).

    • PowerShell security threats greater than ever, researchers warn

      Administrators should upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft PowerShell and enable extended logging and monitoring capabilities in the light of a surge in related security threats, warn researchers [...] Now more than 95% of PowerShell scripts analysed by Symantec researchers have been found to be malicious, with 111 threat families using PowerShell.

    • Microsoft PowerShell Becomes a More Popular Malware-Spreading Tool

      Microsoft PowerShell is a really powerful tool for IT professionals running Windows, and the Redmond-based software giant is making it the default shell in the operating system, but security experts that cybercriminals are also increasingly using it for spreading malware.

      Security firm Symantec analyzed malicious PowerShell scripts and said that the number of threats is growing at a fast pace, especially in the case of enterprises where the shell framework is more widely used.

    • The dangers of stable/LTS/supported versions

      This means that people are running stable versions and thinking they are secure, but if we trust security specialists, [almost] every crash can be exploited, and I’m almost sure neither Ubuntu nor RedHat nor Debian have backported all of the crash fixes of the more than 20 releases and 2 years of development behind those *very old* versions they are shipping.

    • GStreamer and the state of Linux desktop security

      Recently Chris Evans, an IT security expert currently working for Tesla, published a series of blog posts about security vulnerabilities in the GStreamer multimedia framework. A combination of the Chrome browser and GNOME-based desktops creates a particularly scary vulnerability. Evans also made a provocative statement: that vulnerabilities of this severity currently wouldn’t happen in Windows 10. Is the state of security on the Linux desktop really that bad — and what can be done about it?

    • The State of Kernel Self Protection Project by Kees Cook, Google
    • 5-Year-Old Linux Kernel Local Privilege Escalation Flaw Discovered
    • Private Internet Access funds OpenVPN 2.4 audit by noted cryptographer Dr. Matthew Green

      Private Internet Access is happy to announce that an OpenVPN 2.4 audit is going to be completed by noted cryptographer Dr. Matthew Green, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute. Dr. Green has a long, distinguished history in the fields of applied cryptography and cryptographic engineering and has previously lead the Truecrypt audit.

    • [Older] Risky design decisions in Google Chrome and Fedora desktop enable drive-by downloads
    • The IoT: Gateway for enterprise hackers

      The risk of notoriously insecure Internet of Things devices is not so much that those devices themselves will be compromised, but that they provide dozens – perhaps hundreds – of openings that could allow attackers to get inside an enterprise network

    • Netgear users advised to stop using affected routers after severe flaw found
    • We must return transparency to voting [Ed: a real problem]

      With the passage of the Help America Vote Act in 2002, electronic voting systems became the law of the land. This law required proprietary electronic voting systems be used in America.

      It must be noted, however, that Americans would not be permitted to use open-source software to protect their right to vote. When proprietary electronic-voting systems are used for elections, Americans literally lost their right to vote.

      In America, our governments, whether local, state or federal, rely on elections that permit anyone to scrutinize the election process, including the vote count. Whether by paper ballot or electronic voting system, it is every American’s right to examine the vote count process to satisfy their personal demand that the vote count is accurate and verifiable.

    • CloudLinux 7 Kernel Update Patches 5-Year-Old Privilege-Escalation Vulnerability

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Mad Men: Trump May Be the Perfect Vehicle for Kissinger’s Philosophy

      Henry Kissinger was in Beijing just before president-elect Donald Trump decided to upend decades of diplomatic protocol and speak on the phone with the Taiwanese president. The details of Kissinger’s conversation with Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, were undisclosed, but clearly the aging statesman was trying to resurrect his role as a go-between between China and Washington. Perhaps he even conveyed to the Chinese sentiments similar to those he expressed to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, essentially trying to present Trump as a statesman without “baggage,” beholden to no one.

      Give Trump a chance, Kissinger said. Let’s not box him in. “We must give him time to develop his philosophy.” “We hope,” Kissinger told Xi in Beijing, “to see the China-U.S. relationship moving ahead in a sustained and stable manner.” Then Trump pulled the rug, raising doubts about Washington’s decades-long One China policy and confirming China’s worst fears. On Tuesday, Kissinger trekked to Trump Tower to huddle with the president-elect.

    • Around 1,500 European jihadists return from Mideast: report

      Around a third of the estimated 5,000 European jihadists who went to Syria and Iraq have returned to Europe, and some may have orders to attack, an EU report warned Wednesday.

      Up to 2,500 fighters from Europe remained on the battlefield but their massive return in the short term seemed unlikely, according to the report seen by AFP.

      Belgium expressed concern last month that jihadists were increasingly returning to Europe as US-backed coalition forces drive the Islamic State (IS) group from territory in Syria and Iraq.

      The report said between 15 to 20 percent of the Europeans have died on the battlefield, around 30 to 35 percent have returned and 50 percent remain in the battle theatre, which amounted to between 2,000 and 2,500 Europeans.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • 5 New Tactics In Civil Disobedience, Taught By Standing Rock

      If you’ve only been half-following the story of Standing Rock, you might not know much beyond some snarky Twitter memes about the cops going “a little overboard” (for instance, they nearly blew a woman’s arm off with a concussion grenade). The allegations of police brutality have been serious enough that the United Nations has opened an investigation. But the most important story from Standing Rock isn’t the police brutality, the evidence that protester’s phones were hacked, or even that this is the largest gathering of Indigenous Americans in modern history.

    • The Standing Rock Water Protectors Aren’t Leaving

      Temperatures in Cannonball, North Dakota are now at lethal lows, dipping well below freezing, with winds reaching up to 50 miles per hour. On December 4th, thousands of US veterans began to arrive at Standing Rock to join the Water Protectors in solidarity. Veterans announced they would serve as security for the Water Protectors at the front lines, pledging to defend them in the case of police attacks.

      As veterans began arriving by the busload, the Army Corp of Engineers announced that the Dakota Access Pipeline would not be granted a permit to continue pipeline construction. It’s widely speculated that this announcement was strategically timed to persuade the veterans to leave Standing Rock and that DAPL will not in fact cease construction. As the weather worsens, many wonder what lies ahead for the Water Protectors.

    • Open Pit Mine in Montana Kills Thousands of Migrating Snow Geese

      Thousands of snow geese have been killed by the toxic waters of the Berkeley Pit, a flooded former copper mine in Butte, Montana that is one of the most poisonous and acidic bodies of water in the United States.

      Unusually warm weather led the flock—tens of thousands of geese—to migrate south from Canada to the American Southwest later than usual, and they ran into a snow storm in Montana. The only open water in the area on which they could land was that contained in the Berkeley Pit.

      The geese landed in the pit, whose water is contaminated with arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, copper, iron, and zinc, in late November. The heavy metal contamination has resulted in water so acidic that the organisms able to survive within the pit are the objects of scientific study. Thousands of birds did not survive after touching down on the red-tinged toxic waste.

    • Donald Trump’s Interior Pick Thinks Climate Change Is ‘Creative Writing’

      Today, Donald Trump nominated his pick for Secretary of the Interior: Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican Conference, and a vocal climate change denier.

      Just days after selecting Scott Pruitt—an attorney general whose pockets have been lined by the fossil fuel industry—to head up the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump has beefed up his roster of pro-fossil fuel personalities. At this point, a larger theme is emerging. As president, Trump intends to undo the current administration’s climate legacy by unleashing Cabinet officials with experience systematically striking down climate regulations.

      According to the League of Conservation Voters, a national environmental nonprofit, McMorris Rodgers boasts a lifetime voting score of 4 percent. She’s voted to strike down bills that would limit emissions from power plants, protect communities from toxic coal ash, ban the sale of ivory products in the US, and protect threatened species like the lesser prairie chicken.

    • Trump team memo on climate change alarms Energy Department staff

      President-elect Donald Trump’s Energy Department transition team sent the agency a memo this week asking for the names of people who have worked on climate change and the professional society memberships of lab workers, alarming employees and advisors.

      The memo sent to the Energy Department on Tuesday and seen by Reuters on Friday, contains 74 questions including a request for a list of all department employees and contractors who attended the annual global climate talks hosted by the United Nations within the last five years.

      It asked for a list of all department employees or contractors who have attended any meetings on the social cost of carbon, a measurement that federal agencies use to weigh the costs and benefits of new energy and environment regulations. It also asked for all publications written by employees at the department’s 17 national laboratories for the past three years.

    • Trump team memo on climate change alarms Energy Department staff [Ed: same as above, widely syndicated]
    • Trump’s EPA Pick Is a Shill For the Oil Industry

      f all the people Donald Trump was considering to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), his eventual pick, Scott Pruitt, a fellow climate change denier, has the most dangerous ties to the fossil fuel industry. The news was announced today, after the Oklahoma attorney general beat out four other candidates, including climate change denier Myron Ebell.

      Like his competition, Pruitt, a lawyer, possesses the following characteristics: a staunch disbelief in man-made global warming, a disdain for the EPA’s regulatory power, and a strong yearning to undo President Obama’s environmental policy, such as the proposed Clean Power Plan.

      Pruitt, in his role as Attorney General, also has experience fighting environmental policies in court. His resume, according to the New York Times, notes him as “a key architect of the legal battle against Mr. Obama’s climate change policies.” Earlier this year, Pruitt spearheaded a 28-state lawsuit in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia against alleged constitutional overstepping by President Obama’s climate rules. The Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming, and is essential to meeting Paris Agreement goals, was criticized by opponents for being an illegal power-grab by the EPA. The case is expected to move to the Supreme Court.

  • Finance

    • Uber is treating its drivers as sweated labour, says report

      Uber treats its drivers as Victorian-style “sweated labour”, with some taking home less than the minimum wage, according to a report into its working conditions based on the testimony of dozens of drivers.

      Drivers at the taxi-hailing app company reported feeling forced to work extremely long hours, sometimes more than 70 a week, just to make a basic living, said Frank Field, the Labour MP and chair of the work and pensions committee.

    • Inequality Is Killing The American Dream

      Decades of rising income inequality and slowing economic growth have eroded a pillar of the American dream: the hope that each generation will do better than the one that came before, according to new research released Thursday.

      If the findings hold up, they have profound economic, social and even political implications. The decline in what economists call “mobility” — how easy it is to move up the income ladder over a lifetime or across generations — has been especially stark in the Rust Belt states that helped propel Donald Trump to victory in last month’s presidential election.

      In 1970, according to the research, conducted by Stanford economist Raj Chetty and several co-authors, roughly nine out of every 10 American 30-year-olds earned more than their parents did at the same age, after adjusting for inflation. In 2014, only half of 30-year-olds could say the same.1 The slowdown in mobility shows up in all 50 states and is true across the income spectrum. The biggest declines were among the children of middle-class families.

    • How Donald Trump’s Web of LLCs Obscures His Business Interests

      To be more precise, he has a revocable trust that owns 99% of a Delaware limited liability company that owns 99% of another Delaware LLC that owns a Scottish limited company that owns another Scottish company that owns the 26-year-old Sikorsky S-76B helicopter, emblazoned with a red “TRUMP” on the side of its fuselage.

    • We must stop the Tories from putting private profit before quality and safety of our railways

      When you arrive at the scene of a rail disaster the first thing that hits you is the loss. The loss of unfulfilled lives. The loss of parents, children, partners and other loved ones knowing they’ll never see them again.

      Then you feel pride. For the emergency workers who will work through the night to find the injured and the dead. Then you get angry. Angry that mindless privatisation and the profit motive had led to a train crash.

      As Shadow Transport Spokesman I saw at first hand the under-investment in British Rail by the Tory Government . In the 10 years before 1997, it was £1.2billion a year.

    • Wells Fargo is successfully convincing judges that forged arbitration agreements are legally binding

      When you sign up for a Wells Fargo account, you’re required to sign an arbitration “agreement” giving up your right to sue the company, and requiring you to have your case heard by an arbitrator paid for by — and dependent on — Wells Fargo instead.

      At least 2,000,000 times, Wells Fargo employees were pressured — on pain of termination and lifelong blacklisting from the finance industry — into opening fake accounts in their customers’ names. These accounts existed solely to accrue fees, which, in many cases, made their customers overdrawn (or simply generated suspicious seeming queries against their credit records), and when that happened, their credit records were dinged, which can cost you a job, a loan — even your house if you can’t refinance your mortgage.

      Now those millions of defrauded people are trying to sue Wells, and Wells is arguing that the binding arbitration agreements on accounts that you didn’t open are also binding — that by having your signature forged on a fraudulent application, you waived your right to sue.

    • Posti denies losing entire newspaper print run

      National mail carrier Posti has denied claims that it lost an entire print run of the Social Democratic Party weekly, Demokraatti. On Thursday the party organ said that it would provide free access to its digital paper because a Posti search for 10,000 copies of the weekly proved to be fruitless.

    • A mafia expert has named ‘the most corrupt country in the world’

      The UK is the most corrupt country in the world, according to journalist Roberto Saviano, who is an expert in the Italian Mafia.

    • UK firms ‘face more, not less, red tape if Britain exits customs union’

      UK businesses will have to deal with 60m more pieces of paperwork each year if Britain leaves the customs union as it departs the EU, according to research from a group campaigning to keep trade links with the bloc after Brexit.

      According to Open Britain, a hard Brexit could spark an “avalanche of paperwork” if thousands of importing and exporting businesses were forced to fill out similar forms to those required in moving goods and services beyond the union.

      The claim comes as the government faces another potential legal challenge to its Brexit plans, this time from two campaigners who are seeking a judicial review in the high court to keep Britain in the single market.

      Under the EU customs union, which deals with rules relating to trade, unified tariffs are levied on imports to the whole area, meaning no new charges or associated paperwork are needed for goods shipped between members.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • This Man’s First-Hand Account of the Michigan Recount Is Disturbing

      Over at Medium, Nick Sharp, a man who volunteered as an observer with Recount Michigan 2016, described his experience. It does not sound positive. In fact, he before the count was suspended by a federal judge, Sharp called it a “bloodbath.”

    • McCain: Tillerson relationship with Putin a ‘matter of concern’

      Sen. John McCain said Saturday that the relationship between Rex Tillerson, President-elect Donald Trump’s leading candidate for secretary of state, and Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “matter of concern” to him.

      In an interview with Fox News, the former GOP nominee and chairman of the Senate armed services committee said, “I don’t know what Mr. Tillerson’s relationship with Vladimir Putin was, but I’ll tell you it is a matter of concern to me. You want to give the president of the United States the benefit of the doubt because the people have spoken. But Vladimir Putin is a thug, a bully and a murderer, and anybody else who describes him as anything else is lying.”

    • Bernstein says Trump’s lies worse than Nixon’s

      Carl Bernstein, whose reporting broke open the Watergate scandal that led to former President Nixon’s resignation, said Sunday that Nixon’s lies were nothing compared to Donald Trump’s.

    • Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign cost a record $1.2B

      Hillary Clinton and her supporters spent a record $1.2 billion for her losing presidential campaign — twice as much as the winner, Donald Trump, according to the latest records.

      The president-elect, who confounded critics during the campaign by saying there was no need to raise or spend $1 billion or more, ended up making do with $600 million.

      Clinton’s expensive machine tore through $131.8 million in just the final weeks, finishing with about $839,000 on hand as of Nov. 28.

      Team Trump spent $94.5 million in the home stretch — from Oct. 20 to Nov. 28 — and had $7.6 million left.

      The figures include all spending by the campaigns, PACs and party committees.

      Trump contributed $66 million from his own pocket, $34 million less than he estimated he would shell out.

    • Freedom’s Just Another Word

      This is banana republic crap, people, that looks to negate the votes of some 62 million Americans. We no longer believe in our own system. When the candidate many people did not support wins, the response is to seek to negate the democratic process, via accusations that make McCarthy in the 1950s look like a sad amateur.

      What we have are anonymous voices at an intelligence agency supposedly dedicated to foreign intel saying the Russians helped elect our next president. That says the process is flawed and cannot be trusted, and that Trump will owe a debt to the Russians and can’t be trusted. It will keep alive the idea that Clinton should have won if not for this meddling and undermine for his term the legitimacy of Trump. Via the classification process, the CIA will only need to make public the snippets of info that support its contention.

      This is an attempted coup as sure as it would be if there were tanks on the White House lawn. The CIA might as well have tried to shoot Trump during his next trip to Dallas.

      To date, all of these accusations have been based on anonymous sources and leaks. The president of the United States remains silent.

    • Requiem for the Obama Administration, Trump Edition

      The problems many are now predicting under the Trump administration did not start on November 8. The near-unrestrained executive power claimed by the Obama administration will be transferred to the president-elect. Here’s what that means.

    • Worst False Equivalencies of 2016

      The general election was a tale of two scandals, often lumped side by side: the ongoing FBI investigation into Clinton’s mishandling of government emails and Donald Trump’s ever-expanding list of alleged sexual assault victims. While Clinton’s email scandal was certainly newsworthy (most FBI investigations of candidates are), its relative importance to her fitness for office was dwarfed by the torrent of allegations against the GOP nominee.

    • On International Human Rights Day, a Lesson for Trump

      Saturday is International Human Rights Day, commemorating the day in 1948 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The significance of the day and its history is something that President-elect Donald Trump should reckon with after running a campaign that demonstrated outright contempt for human rights, particularly his “love” of waterboarding.

      Right now, we don’t yet know what Donald Trump will try in office. But to fight against any policies embodying the islamophobia, xenophobia, racism, or misogyny that were embraced during his campaign, we know that we have decades of international human rights law on our side. And no president can undo that because ratified treaties are not just lofty aspirations — under the Constitution they’re “the supreme law of the land.”

    • Jill Stein in Detroit: Michigan’s election ‘a hot mess’

      “We are fighting for the right to vote and to make sure that every vote counts,” said Stein, 66, who triggered historic recount efforts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin after voters in those states shifted to Republican after many years of voting Democratic.

    • This is what happens when Donald Trump attacks a private citizen on Twitter

      About a year ago, 18-year-old college student Lauren Batchelder stood up at a political forum in New Hampshire and told Donald Trump that she didn’t think he was “a friend to women.”

      The next morning, Trump fired back on Twitter — calling Batchelder an “arrogant young woman” and accusing her of being a “plant” from a rival campaign. Her phone began ringing with callers leaving threatening messages that were often sexual in nature. Her Facebook and email inboxes filled with similar messages. As her addresses circulated on social media and her photo flashed on the news, she fled home to hide.

      “I didn’t really know what anyone was going to do,” said Batchelder, now 19, who has never discussed her experience with a reporter until now. “He was only going to tweet about it and that was it, but I didn’t really know what his supporters were going to do, and that to me was the scariest part.”

      This is what happens when Trump targets a private citizen who publicly challenges him.

    • Trump’s Presidency Is Shaping Up to Be an American Tragedy

      They’re already building the inaugural stand on the west side of the Capitol building. In six weeks, Donald Trump will stand on it, in front of thousands, and take the oath of office to become the 45th president of the United States.

    • Gary Cohn: Donald Trump expected to pick Goldman Sachs president as National Economic Council director

      Donald Trump has reportedly chosen Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn as his pick for director of the National Economic Council.

      While the President-elect has promised to “drain the swamp” of bureaucracy and lobbying powers in Washington DC, Americans may question Mr Trump’s choice of the leader of one of the largest banks in the US to lead a government agency. Mr Trump repeatedly criticised Wall Street banks during the presidential campaign, and called for Hillary Clinton to release the transcripts of her paid speeches at Goldman.

      Also on Friday, Mr Trump said he would name Andrew Liveris, chairman and chief executive of Dow Chemical Co, to head the Manufacturing Council, a private sector group that advises the US secretary of commerce.

      Mr Trump made the announcement during a rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he introduced Mr Liveris, 62, a dual US-Australian citizen who said he had accepted the appointment.

    • Without these ads, there wouldn’t be money in fake news

      It’s never been easier to launch a wildly profitable online media empire. Whether you’re an aspiring mommy blogger or political pundit, $10 gets you a URL and online storage. Fill out a short form and copy-paste some code to get ads on your website.

      Lure in some readers and you’ll have no trouble making money.

      Every 1,000 visitors earns you at least a dollar or two with traditional banner ads sold through Google — boxes typically pitching products that readers have browsed online. But the same readership generates three times the income through recommended content ads. Usually displayed in a familiar grid, they couple crazy headlines with scintillating pictures — a must-click combination dubbed chum.

    • The FBI Is Investigating Me Because I Tweeted A Joke About Fake News

      This is a story about how the FBI came to investigate a joke I tweeted about fake news.

      I’m a journalist, and I’ve written lots of stories about the FBI. I don’t think the bureau is retaliating against me for critical coverage. But I’m astonished that the nation’s top domestic law enforcement agency has launched such an obviously frivolous investigation — and worried that other people are being targeted for similarly silly reasons.

      Journalists benefit from special protections because the Justice Department doesn’t want to embarrass itself by picking a fight with people who buy server space by the terabyte. Non-journalists in my position have fewer ways to fight back — and lots of reasons to worry. They don’t have easy access to millions of readers. Many companies are more likely to fire an employee for causing trouble than to provide legal counsel. Many people feel compelled to talk to the bureau even though saying the wrong thing can lead to a felony charge for lying to the FBI.

    • Fake news peddlers and muckrakers risk “sickness of coprophilia,” says Pope

      The Pope’s pop at phony folk who run fake news stories on the Web—published mostly to stir up bizarre and frenzied smears against politicians and other public figures—sits at the extreme end of clickbait and, for many commentators, it left a skid-mark over the recent US election.

      “I believe that the media should be very clear, very transparent, and not fall prey—without offence, please—to the sickness of coprophilia, which is always wanting to communicate scandal, to communicate ugly things, even though they may be true,” he told Belgian Catholic weekly newspaper Tertio. “And since people have a tendency towards the sickness of coprophagia, it can do great harm.”

      The Oxford English Dictionary describes coprophilia as an “Abnormal interest and pleasure in faeces and defecation,” while the word coprophagia refers to people who eat faecal matter.

    • Stop worrying about fake news. What comes next will be much worse

      In my exploration of “fake news”, I’ve found some troubling things. And it’s not just the rightwing news network that’s worrying. I’ve recently gone back and taken a preliminary look at the leftwing media ecosystem, trying to map the hyperlinks between these sites – so I’m not trying to establish causation or assign blame as to what kinds of content these sites circulate. There are plenty of other people willing to do that. What I’m really looking for is a way forward.

      I’m primarily interested in the larger network that has enabled fake news to become such a salient topic. What I’ve found most troubling about fake news so far isn’t the factual errors, the misinformation, or the propaganda involved. It’s not the politics either . And no, it’s not Trump.

      What’s scary about fake news is how it is becoming a catch-all phrase for anything people happen to disagree with. In this regard, fake news is sort of the stepbrother of “post-fact” and “post-truth”  –  though not directly related, they’re all part of the same dysfunctional family.

      Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have been accused of being responsible for the result of the US election, the Brexit referendum outcome or events such as Pizzagate – which led Hillary Clinton this week to describe fake news as “a danger that must be addressed”. The worst part of this debate has been obscured by politics-as-usual, techno-dystopian Fahrenheit 451 tropes – and to some degree, more misinformation.

    • GOP elector: Not all of us are voting for Trump

      A Republican presidential elector from Texas says he won’t be the only Republican elector who won’t vote for President-elect Donald Trump, ABC News reported.

      “I don’t think I will be the only one voting for someone other than Donald Trump who is carrying a Republican elector ticket,” he said.

      Christopher Suprun says other electors have reached out to him about other potential picks besides Trump. He said the “faithless electors” haven’t selected an alternative yet, after Ohio Gov. John Kasich told electors earlier this week not to write his name down.

      “As electors come forward, and I have had conversations with other Republican electors in particular, I think we will start discussing names specifically and see who meets the test that we could all get behind,” Suprun said.

    • The CIA’s Absence of Conviction

      I have watched incredulous as the CIA’s blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story – blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it. There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton’s corruption. Yes this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also.

      A little simple logic demolishes the CIA’s claims. The CIA claim they “know the individuals” involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks. The anonymous source claims of “We know who it was, it was the Russians” are beneath contempt.

      As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two. And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.

    • Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House [Ed: Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller are still mouthpieces of the CIA]
    • Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America

      The CIA officially determined that Russia intervened in our election, and President-elect Donald Trump dismissed the story as if it were a piece of fake news. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” his transition team wrote in a statement. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again’.”

      It wasn’t one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history, so presumably that’s another red-herring lie to distract from Trump treating the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States like it is some rogue blogger to be cast to the trolls. A foreign government’s interference in our election is a threat to our freedom, and the President-elect’s attempt to undermine the American people’s access to that information undermines the very foundation upon which this country was built. It’s also nothing new.

      Trump won the Presidency by gas light. His rise to power has awakened a force of bigotry by condoning and encouraging hatred, but also by normalizing deception. Civil rights are now on trial, though before we can fight to reassert the march toward equality, we must regain control of the truth. If that seems melodramatic, I would encourage you to dump a bucket of ice over your head while listening to “Duel of the Fates.” Donald Trump is our President now; it’s time to wake up.

      “Gas lighting” is a buzzy name for a terrifying strategy currently being used to weaken and blind the American electorate. We are collectively being treated like Bella Manningham in the 1938 Victorian thriller from which the term “gas light” takes its name. In the play, Jack terrorizes his wife Bella into questioning her reality by blaming her for mischievously misplacing household items which he systematically hides. Doubting whether her perspective can be trusted, Bella clings to a single shred of evidence: the dimming of the gas lights that accompanies the late night execution of Jack’s trickery. The wavering flame is the one thing that holds her conviction in place as she wriggles free of her captor’s control.

    • Libraries become new domestic terrorism target in Trump wave of hate crimes

      Authorities say in recent weeks there has been an unprecedented wave of hate crimes targeting library buildings, books, and the people who read them. The officials told the New York Times they’d rarely seen such before. These crimes are intended to terrorize, and they follow a recent report by the F.B.I. which says hate crimes against Muslim people in America shot up over the past year.

    • Michigan Supreme Court denies Stein’s recount appeal

      The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday denied Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s appeal to restart a partially completed presidential election recount, meaning President-elect Donald Trump’s 10,704-vote victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton stands.

      In a 3-2 ruling, the state’s highest court said the Michigan Court of Appeals correctly ruled that Stein was ineligible to pursue a recount.

      Republican-nominated justices Stephen Markman, Brian Zahra and David Viviano denied the appeal. Zahra and Viviano wrote a concurring opinion that further explained why the Court of Appeals was correct to rule that Stein is not an “aggrieved” candidate who could request an appeal. She finished a distant fourth behind Trump and Clinton.

      “Thus, petitioner failed to allege that she has been harmed or that her legal rights have been infringed in any way whatsoever,” Zahra and Viviano wrote in the majority opinion.

    • Michigan Supreme Court denies Jill Stein’s appeal in recount case

      The Michigan Supreme Court has denied Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s appeal to restart the statewide presidential recount, exhausting what’s likely the last legal option for the Stein campaign.

      In a 3-2 order issued Friday evening, the court ruled a recount petition in Michigan “must allege both that fraud or mistake exists and that the alleged fraud or mistake caused the candidate to be aggrieved.”

      The majority order concurs with a State Court of Appeals ruling that ordered Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers, which certifies election results and handles other election-related issues, to reject the recount on grounds that Stein was not sufficiently “aggrieved” as required under state statute earlier this week.

    • Georgia says it’s traced an attempted voter hack to the Department of Homeland Security

      Georgia’s secretary of state says the state was hit with an attempted hack of its voter registration database from an IP address linked to the federal Department of Homeland Security.

      The allegation by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp is one of the more bizarre charges to come up in the recent spate of alarms about voting-system hacks. He said in a Facebook post on Thursday that he had been made aware of the failed attempt to breach the firewall protecting Georgia’s voter registration database. The attack was traced to an Internet Protocol address associated with DHS, he said.

      “This morning I sent a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson demanding to know why,” he said in the post.

      The DHS said it had received the letter. “We are looking into the matter. DHS takes the trust of our public and private sector partners seriously, and we will respond to Secretary Kemp directly,” the department said in a statement.

    • Michael Moore: It’s possible Trump doesn’t become president

      After predicting Donald Trump would win the presidency, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore speculated as to whether Trump will make it to the Oval Office.

      “Nothing anyone has predicted has happened,” Moore said of the 2016 election on Wednesday night’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers”. “The opposite has happened.”

      Moore described the unpredictable nature of the election, telling Meyers that anything could happen between now and the inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017.

      “So is it possible, within the next six weeks, that something else might happen? Something crazy? Something that we’re not expecting?” Moore asked.

      Without specifying what that “something crazy” might be, Moore described the Electoral College as a “stopgap” meant to keep a “madman who wants to be king” from becoming president.

      Moore, a staunch opponent of Trump, made waves in July with a post on his website that predicted Trump would win the presidency. He also correctly predicted the Rust Belt — Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — would turn red for Trump.

    • Trump defends wealthy Cabinet: ‘I want people that made a fortune’

      President-elect Donald Trump defended himself on Thursday for picking a number of wealthy people to serve in his Cabinet.

      “One newspaper criticized me, ‘Why can’t we have people of modest means?’ ” Trump said at a “thank you” rally in Des Moines, Iowa. “Because I want people that made a fortune. Because now they’re negotiating with you.”

      The president-elect also likened wealthy Cabinet members to top athletes.

      Trump, whose campaign was built on railing against elites, has received criticism for tapping a number of extremely wealthy people for positions in his Cabinet. NBC News reported on Wednesday that the nascent administration already has a combined wealth of $14.5 billion.

      “These people are giving up fortunes of income in order to make a dollar a year, and they’re so proud to do it,” Trump said.

    • Theresa May’s bunker: only the meekest courtiers are allowed in

      The Downing Street press office has given selected journalists “exclusive” interviews with our new prime minister. By one of those million-to-one coincidences that must make spin doctors believe a supernatural power watches over them, every journalist they graced with their favours interviewed Theresa May on bended knee.

      “It must be hard for someone so reserved and modest to become one of the most public figures in the world,” gulped the reporter from the Sunday Times, as her head ducked so low, onlookers must have feared whiplash injuries to the neck. “How do you steel yourself for making tough decisions?”

      The Financial Times had no doubt she could take them. “The word ‘queen’ attaches itself easily to Theresa May,” its reporter began, not least because the historical figure she identifies with is “Elizabeth I”.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • urandom.pcap: Belarus (finally) bans Tor

      We have recently heard of network anomalies in Belarus. Tor has been finally blocked in December 2016, although it had been explicitly declared that Tor should be blocked since February 2015.

    • Here’s when Swedish Youtube star PewDiePie will delete his channel

      Swedish Youtube star PewDiePie has set a time for when he will close his channel, suggesting he will follow through on a protest against the video hosting site that would mean the end of its most-watched outlet.

    • Facebook court filings hint at possible political future for Mark Zuckerberg

      Mark Zuckerberg may intend to pursue government service while retaining control of Facebook, according to recently unsealed court filings in a case pitting the CEO against minority investors.

      The class-action lawsuit was first filed in late April, after Zuckerberg proposed a corporate shake-up that would dilute the voting power of shareholders – giving him “eternal control” of the company, in the words of the shareholders’ lawyers. Text messages excerpted in the court documents reveal that Zuckerberg and two board members discussed the CEO’s possible government service, and argued about how to present it to shareholders.

      Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, one of the company’s most prominent investors, texted Zuckerberg in March to say that the “biggest issue” of the corporate proposal was “how to define the gov’t service thing without freaking out shareholders that you are losing commitment”.

    • Lawsuit: Texts between Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Andreessen say the Facebook founder may want to go into government

      Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has considered plans to go into government, according to court documents seen by Bloomberg.

      The documents were filed as part of a shareholder lawsuit accusing Facebook’s board of failing to represent the best interests of those holding Facebook’s common stock.

      The lawsuit focuses on a change to Facebook’s stock structure earlier this year. Zuckerberg holds a majority share of voting Facebook stock, giving him control of the company. But he wanted to be able to sell this off to fund his new philanthropy efforts — the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — without losing this control. (The Financial Times reports that the plaintiffs are accusing Zuckerberg of a “self-interested agglomeration of power.”)

    • New “Online Edition” of the Freedom of Thought Report launched today

      The world’s only global report focusing on discrimination and persecution faced by the non-religious has a new “Online Edition”, launched today at the European Parliament.

    • How Wartime censorship hinders reporting Blitz in 1940

      We arrive at the Second World War in our nightly lookback at some of the Big News of the day to mark the East London Advertiser’s 150th anniversary. The Blitz begins in 1940 in the East End with the Lutfwaffe bombing of the London Docks and the brave firemen in the thick of it reporting “the whole bloody world’s on fire”…

    • HBO Issues Takedown For Artwork Made By Autistic Teenager Because Bullies Gonna Bully Y’all

      It’s well-known at this point that HBO guards its intellectual property on the Game of Thrones franchise more jealously than a direwolf with a freshly harvested bone. To that end, the company often times treats some of its biggest fans with disdain, such as when it killed off viewing parties that would otherwise generate more interest in the show, or the times it abused the DMCA process as a way to keep spoilers from the show from permeating. These actions are indeed annoying, but they lack a certain something in the pure evil department.

      Unlike, say, HBO issuing a takedown on some art produced by a thirteen-year-old autistic child just because that art included a trademarked catchphrase from the show.

    • Facebook Suppresses Truth

      o far 564 people believe they have shared on Facebook my article conclusively refuting the CIA’s invention of lies about Russia hacking the DNC, using the share button on this site. Another 78 have tried to share it from my Facebook page. Between them those 650 people will have. according to the Facebook average, about 200,000 friends. The total amount of incoming traffic from these 200,000 friends? 22 people. Almost nobody can currently reach this site through Facebook, as the “came from” interface on my statcounter below shows. Nothing from Facebook. Facebook are actively colluding in preventing social media from contradicting the mainstream media lies about Russian involvement in the US election campaign.

    • ISPs: Blocking The Pirate Bay is Dangerous Censorship

      Two major Swedish ISPs are warning that a possible court-ordered Pirate Bay blockade will introduce a dangerous and unwarranted form of censorship. Instead, they encourage copyright holders to collaborate with them to find better solutions to the piracy problem.

    • Promising no censorship, social network Gab draws ‘alt-right’

      Squeezed out of Twitter and other social media websites cracking down on hate speech, far-right activists are finding a home on a new platform that promises never to censor content.

      Launched in August, Gab has become known as a safe haven for the “alt-right” movement dominated by the white supremacists who are helping fuel America’s deepening polarization.

      The social network currently has 100,000 members and another 200,000 on its waiting list, according to the company.

    • Ghost Banning on Social Media – the start of systematic censorship

      We are told it is called “ghost banning” – meaning you are present, though invisible in plain sight, and the user is completely unaware. The goal is frighteningly obvious: deny an “offending” website traffic to the point that it disappears from public view. We suspect The Duran is among the many sites targeted in this new form of censorship.

      This is the new business model of the old art of controlling what is considered acceptable speech by the power-that-be. As a result, legacy news outlets that comprise of the world of corporate mainstream media are propped, crowding out alternative views and dissent. Freedom of speech faces an existential threat.

    • EFF To Canadian Court: Order Allowing Worldwide Censorship of Google Search Results Violates Users’ Free Speech Rights

      The court is hearing arguments in Google v. Equustek, a trade secret case in which a British Columbia court issued an order forcing Google to block certain websites from its search results around the world, setting a dangerous precedent for online free expression. Equustek Solutions sued a group of defendants for allegedly misappropriating designs for its routers and selling counterfeit routers online. While Google isn’t a party to the case and had done nothing wrong, Equustek obtained a court order telling the search engine company it must delete search results that directed users to the defendants’ websites, not just in Canada but from all other local domains such Google.com and Google.go.uk. EFF filed a brief in the case siding with Google.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Eavesdropping at 10,000 Feet: NSA Airplane Tapping Shows Need for Data Security

      Revelations that British and American intelligence agencies spied on passengers aboard civil aircraft demonstrate the importance of data security in the face of technological improvements in surveillance, cyberstrategy expert Yannick Harrel told Sputnik France.

    • Librarians, Act Now to Protect Your Users (Before It’s Too Late)

      Books checked out from a library and terms searched on library computers can reveal a teenager’s questions about sexual orientation, a neighbor’s religious leanings, or a student’s political interests. Libraries across the country, particularly public libraries, make it part of their mission to serve the most vulnerable and underserved user groups, including users who are homeless, unemployed, or recent migrants or refugees. And when government agents come looking, these library users need librarians to have their back.

      Libraries and librarians have long been stalwart guardians of the rights of free expression and inquiry. As part of their profession, librarians protect their users’ ability to access even the most controversial information and ideas free from government scrutiny. Since the passage of the Patriot Act in particular, librarians have purged user records when necessary to fight against unconstitutional government demands and pushed back against (unconstitutional) National Security Letters (NSLs). Librarians also stood with EFF and the ACLU when we worked to pass the California Reader Privacy Act in 2011.

    • Former NSA head: Employees leaving agency for private sector

      The former head of the National Security Agency said the agency’s employees “are increasingly leaving in large numbers” for better opportunities in the private sector.

      At a Dec. 6 forum hosted by the University of Maryland, former NSA Director Keith Alexander told a gathering of journalism students, reporters and military officials that the agency headquartered at Fort George G. Meade faces a significant challenge in competing with the allure of higher salaries outside of government.

      “Of course they’re going to make a ton more money on the outside,” Alexander said. “I am surprised that people with cyber experience at some of these large companies make up to seven figures. That’s five times what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs (of Staff) makes.”

    • Ex-NSA Director: Agency Can’t Compete for Talent With Private Sector
    • ePrivacy: unraveling the lobbies’ falsehoods

      The review of the European ePrivacy directive on the confidentiality of electronic communications may not have reached the limelight yet, but this doesn’t mean that the influence work and the fight over interests haven’t started. On the contrary, as the draft text is tabled by the European Commission to be published in January 2017, interest groups are at the doors of the European executive power to get their two cents in the upcoming text.

      To get an idea of the content of the discussion happening in high places, we just need to read the open letters, the position papers and others common declarations of ETNO, GSMA, DIGITALEUROPE and other lobbies of the digital and telecom industries: all call for the plain and simple repealing of the directive.

      Much as during the negotiations for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), expounding our arguments is not enough in the face of the industry’s means and striking capacity, we need to review and examine all their misleading arguments, one by one.

    • Release Notes 2.13.1: Bug fixes and more browser support

      Today’s release again contains a couple of bug fixes as well as the possibility to login from not officially supported browsers.

    • Microsoft Said to Use German Site to Appease EU Over LinkedIn

      Microsoft Corp. agreed to add Xing AG, Germany’s biggest professional-networking site, to its Windows software to eliminate opposition in the European Union antitrust review of its $26.2 billion bid to buy LinkedIn Corp, according to two people familiar with the matter.

      Xing’s app will appear on the Windows 10 start menu and add-ins for e-mail software Outlook in German-language versions of Microsoft software sold in Germany, Austria and Switzerland for the next five years, according to one of the people who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    • The Future of Privacy

      I’ve never been able to fit the concepts of privacy, history and encryption together in a satisfying way, though it continues to seem that I should. Each concept has to do with information; each can be considered to concern the public and the private; and each involves aspects of society, and perhaps particularly digital society. But experience has taught me that all I can hope to do with these three concepts is demonstrate the problems that considering them together causes.

      Privacy confuses me, beyond my simplest understanding, which is that individuals prefer, to different degrees, that information about them not be freely available to others. I desire privacy myself, and I understand why other individuals want it. But when the entity desiring privacy is a state, a corporation or some other human institution, my understanding of privacy becomes confused.

    • Microsoft wants to enable cellular PCs, but will carriers bite?

      Microsoft is aiming to help with that by supporting the installation of non-removable programmable SIM cards and data radios in PCs and Windows tablets. In the company’s vision, users will then be able to purchase cellular data for those cards through the Windows Store. The announcement was made Thursday at the company’s WinHEC conference for device manufacturers in Shenzhen, China.

    • The political fight behind Facebook and Google’s new terrorist content database

      This week, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter announced a new database for images and videos that promote terrorism. The database, which is hosted by Facebook, is designed as a defense against propaganda videos and imagery by terrorist groups — a tactic ISIS has aggressively embraced. Flag a single image on a single service, and any of the participating companies will be able to find and remove copies, potentially erasing it from the most popular places on the web in a single stroke. But the implementation of the database is far more fraught, the result of a complex and ongoing negotiation between tech companies and European governments looking to rein them in.

    • Snowden leaks reveal NSA snooped on in-flight mobile calls

      GCHQ and the NSA have spied on air passengers using in-flight GSM mobile services for years, newly-published documents originally obtained by Edward Snowden reveal.

      Technology from UK company AeroMobile and SitaOnAir is used by dozens of airlines to provide in-flight connectivity, including by British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, and many Arab and Asian companies. Passengers connect to on-board GSM servers, which then communicate with satellites operated by British firm Inmarsat.

      “The use of GSM in-flight analysis can help identify the travel of a target—not to mention the other mobile devices (and potentially individuals) onboard the same plane with them,” says a 2010 NSA newsletter.

    • Microsoft’s vision for LinkedIn is about tying its business data into Office and other services

      Now that Microsoft’s massive $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn has officially closed, it’s time for the next step: figuring out how its massive store of business information can best be used by Microsoft and its customers.

    • Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust plans beacon network to provide location-aware patient services

      Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust has upgraded its network infrastructure with a view to providing location-aware services to outpatients via wireless beacon technology.

      Navigating labyrinthine hospital corridors is often a challenge for patients and can lead to delayed or missed appointments. The Plymouth trust’s large Derriford hospital building is no exception, with 200 wards spread over 12 floors.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Actor Judge Reinhold arrested on disorderly conduct charge at Dallas Love Field

      Actor Judge Reinhold was arrested Thursday afternoon on a charge of disorderly conduct at Dallas Love Field.

      Reinhold, 59, was selected by Transportation Security Administration agents for a random pat-down around 2 p.m., according to an official at the city-owned airport, and he was not happy about it.

      He was told he could be taken to a private screening room, but refused — and then became belligerent, officials said. At that point, Dallas police were called.

      Officers again tried to calm him, but he was again antagonistic toward officers, authorities said. They decided enough was enough and arrested him.

    • Women’s March on Washington Won’t Be Happening at the Lincoln Memorial

      The Lincoln Memorial has been the site for many of the United States’ most historic rallies, from the civil rights and anti-Vietnam protests of the 1960s to the Million Man March in 1995. However, for the thousands of women planning to march on Washington following Donald Trump’s inauguration, the landmark won’t be available for rallying.

      The National Park Service, on behalf of the Presidential Inauguration Committee, months ago reserved access to the landmark by filing a “massive omnibus blocking permit.” Permits for inaugural events have traditionally reserved most of the National Mall, Pennsylvania Avenue, the Washington Monument, and of course, the Lincoln Memorial, for days and weeks before, during, and after the inauguration, which will take place on Jan. 20, 2017.

    • Where European democracy goes to die

      The EU is pushing more of its lawmaking out of public view.

      Its stated motivation is to prove to an increasingly Euroskeptical public that it can move quickly when it needs to. Critics say it’s dumping oil on the Euroskeptic pyre.

      Next week, the heads of the Commission, Parliament and the sitting president of the Council are expected to embrace “priority treatment” for about 40 draft laws, including the end to mobile roaming fees in Europe and eurozone budget reform.

      In effect, that means legislators, under pressure from EU leaders, will be forced to agree on the most sensitive issues in closed-door “trilogues,” confirming a recent trend that has seen less public scrutiny of far-reaching legislation in parliamentary committees and the plenary.

    • What happens when you opt out of the “voluntary” pornoscanners at Berlin’s Schönefeld airport

      Yesterday morning, Matthias Kirschner opted out of the “voluntary” full-body scanners at Berlin’s Schönefeld, and discovered that “voluntary” means that “if you don’t do it, they will barrack you endlessly about your choice, punitively repeatedly perform the same searches over and over, and attempt to delay you so you almost miss your flight.”

      This is also the case at Heathrow in London: the times I’ve opted out there, I’ve been told to sit and wait for a supervisor (fair enough), but then the screeners took it upon themselves, singly and in bunches, to loom over me and tell me how foolish I was being, how the machines were safe and had good information security, etc — insisting at first that this was their duty (“to find out why I was opting out”), and then admitting (after I flashed my National Union of Journalists press-card and started writing down their names) that this was the job of their supervisor and it was merely recreational abuse on their part.

    • 74% of ‘underage’ asylum seekers in Denmark are adults, teeth & bone tests show

      The Danish Immigration Service has questioned the age of some 800 asylum seekers who said they are younger than 18. In almost three out of four cases, ‘unaccompanied minors’ proved to be adults, according to a report.

      Experts at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Forensic Medicine have been investigating the age of unaccompanied asylum seekers who arrived in Denmark this year and said they are under 18, Jyllands-Posten daily reported.

    • German court rules Muslim girls must take part in swimming lessons

      Germany’s highest court has ruled that ultra-conservative Muslim girls must take part in mixed swimming classes at school, finding against an 11-year-old pupil who had argued that even wearing a burkini, or full-body swimsuit, breached Islamic dress codes.

      The constitutional court in Karlsruhe on Wednesday rejected an appeal by the girl’s parents that she should be excused from the classes because a burkini did not conform with Islam’s ethic of decency, German media reported.

    • Humanists Call For Scotland’s Blasphemy Law To Be Scrapped

      It’s 170 years since it was last invoked, but Scotland’s law against blasphemy still exists – and it’s high time it was scrapped, according to a leading Scottish humanist group.

      The Humanist Society Scotland are calling on the Scottish Government to repeal the antiquated law, which was last put into practice in 1843, when an Edinburgh bookseller was jailed for 15 months for selling blasphemous literature.

      Gordon MacRae, the chief executive of Humanist Society Scotland, said that having a blasphemy law “should be a badge of shame for any progressive nation.”

      After consultation with the Church Of England, England and Wales threw out blasphemy laws back in 2008 when the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act abolished the common-law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

    • TSA: Little People With Power

      The TSA is sold to us as security, but it is anything but.

      It’s a way to make us docile in the face of having our constitutional rights violated.

      It’s a way for crony capitalists to lobby expensive machinery into the Federal budget.

      It’s a jobs program for people who’d otherwise be working in a fast food window or a mall food court. (People of this caliber provide “security” like I could provide defense for an NFL team.)

      Because these are people who’d never interact with — and certainly never have power over — so many of the people who go through their line, they so often use some minor mistake (if even that) as reason to punish someone with an invasive search.

    • Building a Prison-to-School Pipeline

      The first day of his first semester at the University of California, Berkeley, Danny Murillo walked into the Cesar Chavez building and saw a white man with tattoos on his arms. Something about the man felt familiar. He could tell from the tattoos that the man was, like him, from Los Angeles, and he was around his own age, mid-thirties, but it was something else that he recognized. He went up to the man and said, “Damn, I feel old around all these youngsters.” The man said, “Yeah, me, too.” Murillo said, “I haven’t been in school for a long time.” The man said, “Yeah, me, too.” Murillo said, “I was on vacation.” The man said, “Yeah, me, too.” Murillo said, “I was in the Pelican Bay SHU.” The man said, “Yeah, me, too.”

    • How Sari Roti became the most hated bread brand amongst Muslims in Indonesia

      Recently, you may have seen calls to boycott bread producers Sari Roti, which is one of the most popular bread brands in Indonesian supermarkets and whose jingle you probably hear at least once a day in your neighborhood, being blasted by their ubiquitous mobile hawkers.

      [...]

      Well, this all began with the December 2 mass protest against Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama for his alleged blasphemy against Islam. On that day, Sari Roti won praise from many Muslims in Indonesia after its street hawkers gave out free bread to the protesters.

    • Erdoğan’s fifth column in Europe

      The plain, simple and bitter truth is that Turkey’s Islamist rulers have supported and maintained parallel networks in Europe; thrown political, diplomatic and financial support to front NGOs whose role is to promote hatred; and run a campaign of intimidation and curtailed free speech in European nations that are home to large Turkish and Muslim expatriate communities.

    • TechCongress Announces Second Class of Congressional Innovation Fellows

      TechCongress, a nonpartisan initiative dedicated to building 21st century government and developing cross-sector technology leaders, is pleased to announce its 2017 class of Congressional Innovation Fellows. This year’s class of fellows bring experience from public interest organizations, private sector companies, government, journalism, and tech startups. Fellows have deep technical expertise, and will find a placement with a Member of Congress or Congressional Committee to gain firsthand knowledge about the legislative process and bring in-depth technical experience to policy challenges. The inaugural class of fellows worked with the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, and the House Oversight and Government Reform IT Subcommittee.

    • Learning how policy is made in the legislative branch

      During my seven years in Washington D.C., I’ve worked for the nation’s premier privacy regulator—the Federal Trade Commission—and for one of the top civil liberties organizations in the United States—the American Civil Liberties Union. These have both been great experiences, but I now want to learn first-hand how policy is made in the legislative branch.

      After more than four years at the ACLU, I’ll be leaving the organization on January 6, 2017 to join the new class of TechCongress Congressional Innovation Fellows.

    • If We Were ‘Staggered’ by Police Brutality, Wouldn’t Walter Scott Mistrial Have Knocked Us Over?

      Corporate media reported the mistrial in the case of South Carolina police officer Michael Slager, whom video showed shooting unarmed African-American Walter Scott eight times in the back in April 2015, handcuffing him on the ground, and then dropping a taser alongside his body—this after Slager stopped Scott for a broken tail light.

      Mostly there were dry headlines like “Mistrial Declared in Black Motorist’s Shooting by Officer.” An AP piece got the headline that many were “at a loss” at the outcome; other headlines had them “stunned.” The story itself included comments that started to get at the depth of folks’ despair: “There’s a jury full of people and they cannot decide if it’s illegal to shoot someone who is running away from you?” asks one source. “What do you say about a country that feels this way about black people?” “Do we really have anything that can seriously be called the administration of criminal justice?” asks another.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • FCC Trump troll promises to take “weed-whacker” to net neutrality

      DWARF-HANDED (allegedly) President Elect Donald Trump has yet to appoint his new head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) but it is widely expected to be existing commissioner and staunch Republican Ajit Pai.

      Mr Pai made barbed comments yesterday about the future of net neutrality and they weren’t pretty. As you may recall, net neutrality was protected under legislation under the Obama administration, but it is widely expected that it could be reversed under Trump.

      Recently, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston made a plea to Donald Trump to do the right thing.

      But in a speech, Mr Pai told the Free State Foundation that he will take a “weed-whacker” to regulations, saying

      “In the months to come, we also need to remove outdated and unnecessary regulations. As anyone who has attempted to take a quick spin through Part 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations could tell you, the regulatory underbrush at the FCC is thick. We need to fire up the weed whacker and remove those rules that are holding back investment, innovation, and job creation. Free State and others have already identified many that should go. And one way the FCC can do this is through the biennial review, which we kicked off in early November. Under section 11, Congress specifically directed the FCC to repeal unnecessary regulations. We should follow that command.”

  • DRM

    • The World Wide Web Consortium at a Crossroads: Arms-Dealers or Standards-Setters?

      The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has a hard decision to make: a coalition including the world’s top research institutions; organizations supporting blind users on three continents; security firms; blockchain startups; browser vendors and user rights groups have asked it not to hand control over web video to some of the biggest companies in the world. For their part, those multinational companies have asked the W3C to hand them a legal weapon they can use to shut down any use of online video they don’t like, even lawful fair use.

      Is the W3C in the business of protecting the open web and its users, or is it an arms-dealer supplying multinational companies with the materiel they need to rule the web? We’re about to find out.

      The W3C makes the open standards that allow anyone to make a browser that can read all the documents on the web, and anyone to make a document that can be read by any of those browsers. But in 2013, the W3C started work on a project to give entertainment companies control over who could make a browser that could show streaming videos, creating a standard for “encrypted media extensions” (EME) that Hollywood would control. Even if you make an EME-capable browser that doesn’t violate any copyright laws, it will only show you videos if it also gets the blessing of some of the biggest media companies in the world.

      Like all businesses, media companies have a mix of commercial preferences and legal rights. For example, companies have the legal right to prevent people from making and distributing copies of their videos, with important exceptions. The same copyright law that gives them that right also gives you—the viewer—legal rights, like the right to record a video to watch later, or to convert the video to a format that can be enjoyed by blind people. Maybe they’d prefer that you not record videos for later (for example, so they can charge extra for a “home recording” feature), but that’s just a preference, not a right.

      For decades, media companies have tried to convert their commercial preferences to legal rights, by invoking a 1998 law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it illegal to bypass software that locks up copyrighted works, even when you’re doing something totally legitimate, like converting a video you’re allowed to watch so it will play on an unsupported device. Companies design their products so that locking software (called “Digital Rights Management” or DRM) enforces their preferences, then argue that breaking the DRM is illegal, anything that displeases them is therefore a crime.

    • DOOM Removes Denuvo DRM

      Well this is an interesting news post for a couple of reasons. Personally, I dislike DRM. A lot. It’s software that reduces end-user rights, as both consumers and potentially even as members of society after copyright expires (depending on how judges, and the Librarian of Congress, interpret whether fair use or expiration will override the DMCA’s felony clauses). It’s especially annoying when you see DRM on content that was pirated prior to the official launch, because ticking off your customers and screwing with archivists will really help you if you can’t even secure your own supply chain.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Unknowingly Linking to Infringing Content is Still Infringement, Court Rules

        A court in Germany has held the operator of a commercial website liable after it unknowingly linked to infringing content hosted elsewhere. The Hamburg Regional Court found that the link to a Creative Commons image, posted to another site without the correct attribution, amounted to a copyright infringement.

      • Alleged KickassTorrents Owner Leaves Prison for Hospital

        Facing severe health issues, alleged KickassTorrents owner Artem Vaulin has been transferred from Polish prison to a local hospital. While he is now able to receive proper care, his conditions are far from ideal. Vaulin is permanently guarded by four officers and is handcuffed to his bed at night, which may cause nerve damage according to doctors.

      • BREIN Settles With Private Torrent Tracker Uploaders

        BREIN has signed settlements with eight people who were uploaders at a local private torrent tracker. The pirate group agreed to pay 60,000 euros in total. The private tracker and an unlicensed radio station, where two uploaders were DJ’ing, were closed as well.

12.10.16

Links 10/12/2016: KDE neon User LTS Edition, AsteroidOS in Headlines Again

Posted in News Roundup at 6:15 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • 5 Things To Expect From The World Of Linux In 2017

    Linux has come out of oblivion to become a mainstream technology today – making its presence felt in the world of marketing, finance, operations and in every other domain. The New Year 2017, should hold promise for Linux, as Bryan Lunduke said recently. There will be some crucial outcomes of the Linux Foundation-Microsoft partnership as well, which made waves in the tech circles the world over. From the predictions available, there will be increased focus on some areas, while the others will witness a lot of trial and error, and even predictive failure, for that matter.

  • Desktop

    • The Libreboot C201 from Minifree is really really really ridiculously open source

      Open source laptops – ones not running any commercial software whatsoever – have been the holy grail for free software fans for years. Now, with the introduction of libreboot, a truly open source boot firmware, the dream is close to fruition.

      The $730 laptop is a bog standard piece of hardware but it contains only open source software. The OS, Debian, is completely open source and to avoid closed software the company has added an Atheros Wi-Fi dongle with open source drivers rather than use the built-in Wi-Fi chip.

  • Server

    • Docker 1.13.0 Just Around the Corner as Docker 1.12.4 Enters Development

      Victor Vieux from the open source Docker app container engine released new development versions of the upcoming Docker 1.13.0 major milestone and Docker 1.12.4 maintenance update for the current stable series.

      The third Release Candidate (RC) version of Docker 1.13.0 arrived a couple of days ago with numerous minor tweaks and fixes to polish the software before it’s tagged as ready for production and hits the streets, which should happen in the coming weeks. Docker 1.13.0 RC3 comes two after the release of the second RC build.

    • Pet Containers: You’re Not Doing it Wrong

      The conventional wisdom of Linux containers is that each service should run in its own container. Containers should be stateless and have short lifecycles. You should build a container once, and replace it when you need to update its contents rather than updating it interactively. Most importantly, your containers should be disposable and pets are decidedly not disposable. Thus the conventional wisdom is if your containers are pets, you’re doing it wrong. I’m here to gently disagree with that, and say that you should feel free to put your pets in containers if it works for you.

    • Best Open Source Hosting Control Panels

      Most website owners use web hosting control panels to manage their hosting environment. The fact is, the control panel facilitates the server administration and allows users to manage multiple websites without hiring an expert. Today, with so many options available, you don’t have to be a command line guru in order to host a simple website. All you need is a server and a web hosting control panel. There are paid control panels like WHM/cPanel or DirectAdmin which are very powerful, but if you don’t like to pay for a control panel you can simply choose one of the open source alternatives. In this guide, we will present to you some of the most popular open source hosting control panels.

    • ZEPL Announces $4.1M Funding to Accelerate Innovation and Adoption of Apache Zeppelin For End-to-End Analytics Workflow
    • Apache Zeppelin Gets Commercial Backing from ZEPL

      NFlabs rebrands as ZEPL and announces $4.1M in funding in support of open-source Apache Zeppelin data analytics project.

      The open-source Apache Zeppelin project is an increasingly popular, web-based notebook for interactive data analytics that directly integrates with the Apache Spark project for Big Data analytics. Among the commercial backers of Zeppelin is ZEPL, formerly known as NFLabs. On December 8, the newly branded ZEPL announced that it has raised $4.1 million in an initial funding round.

      The funding round was led by Vertex Ventures and it included the participation of Translink Capital, Specialized Types and Big Basin Capital. The funding is set to be used to help ZEPL build a successful business model. Sejun Ra, co-founder and CEO at ZEPL said that the plan for the new money to help his company build and develop a single platform for end-to-end data analytics workflow.

    • New Amazon Web Services Region Opens in Canada

      Amazon launches AWS Canada (Central) Region in Montreal, extending Amazon’s cloud infrastructure to 15 regions and 40 availability zones around the world.

      At long last, the cloud is coming to Canada. Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced on December 8, the official launch of the new AWS Canada (Central) Region, providing cloud infrastructure from data centers in Montreal, Quebec. The new AWS region is set to help serve customers in Canada with Amazon already highlighting a number of well-known organizations including National Bank of Canada, Porter Airlines and clothing retailer Lululemon.

    • MEF, TM Forum Unite With Open Source Groups on Network Vision

      MEF Thursday announced the release of a new white paper – “An Industry Initiative For Third Generation Network and Services“ – spearheaded by MEF and co-authored by ON.Lab, ONOS, OPEN-O, OpenDaylight (ODL), the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV), and TM Forum. The white paper describes an industry vision for the evolution and transformation of network connectivity services and the networks used to deliver them. MEF refers to this vision as the “Third Network,” which combines the agility and ubiquity of the Internet with the performance and security of CE 2.0 (Carrier Ethernet 2.0) networks.

    • The New Role of Assurance for Virtualized Networks

      For as long as any of us can remember, fulfillment and assurance were two independent processes, mostly because they were conceived, operated and purchased by separate departments. As Alfred D. Chandler demonstrated in his classic book “Strategy and Structure,” operations and even business structure follow organizational charts and vice-versa. Fulfillment and assurance are no exceptions, with those organizations driving processes and supporting software purchases. While many know that its not ideal, the situation has mostly worked.

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux 4.8.13

      I’m announcing the release of the 4.8.13 kernel.

      All users of the 4.8 kernel series must upgrade.

      The updated 4.8.y git tree can be found at:
      git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.8.y
      and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser:

      http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-st…

    • Linux 4.4.37
    • Linux Kernel 4.4.37 LTS Is a Minor Patch with AArch64 Changes, Updated Drivers
    • Linux Kernel 4.8.13 Launches with ARM64 and AMDGPU Improvements, KVM Fixes

      A few moments ago, renowned Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman had the pleasure of announcing the general availability of the Linux kernel 4.8.13 and Linux kernel 4.4.37 LTS maintenance updates.

      While many rolling GNU/Linux distributions have just received the Linux 4.8.12 kernel, it looks like Linux kernel 4.8.13 is now available with more improvements and bug fixes, but it’s not a major milestone. According to the appended shortlog and the diff since last week’s Linux 4.8.12 kernel release, a total of 46 files were changed, with 214 insertions and 95 deletions.

    • Linux Foundation adds an open source networking specialist to the team

      In recognition of the increasingly central role open source technology has played for the networking sector, the Linux Foundation today named Arpit Joshipura as its general manager for networking and orchestration.

      Joshipura, a veteran tech executive who has worked at Dell, Ericsson, and Nortel, among others, is considered by the organization to be a foundational contributor to open source software in general and networking in particular. Currently, he’s the chief marketing officer for Prevoty, an application security startup in Los Angeles.

    • The Linux Foundation Appoints Veteran Networking Professional as General Manager, Networking & Orchestration
    • Three serious Linux kernel security holes patched

      The good news is developers are looking very closely at Linux’s core code for possible security holes. The bad news is they’re finding them.

      At least the best news is that they’re fixing them as soon as they’re uncovered.

      The latest three kernel vulnerabilities are designated CVE-2016-8655, CVE-2016-6480, and CVE-2016-6828. Of these, CVE-2016-8655 is the worst of the bunch. It enables local users, which can include remote users with virtual and cloud-based Linux instances, to crash the system or run arbitrary code as root.

    • At Long Last, Linux Gets Dynamic Tracing

      When the Linux kernel version 4.9 will be released next week, it will come with the last pieces needed to offer to some long-awaited dynamic thread-tracing capabilities.

      As the keepers of monitoring and debugging software start using these new kernel calls, some of which have been added to the Linux kernel over the last two years, they will be able to offer much more nuanced, and easier to deploy, system performance tools, noted Brendan Gregg, a Netflix performance systems engineer and author of DTrace Tools, in a presentation at the USENIX LISA 2016 conference, taking place this week in Boston.

    • It’s Been A Quiet Year-End For BUS1, The Proposed In-Kernel IPC For Linux

      With the Linux 4.10 kernel merge window expected to open this weekend, I was digging around to see whether there was anything new on the BUS1 front and whether we might see it for the next kernel cycle.

      While I have yet to see any official communication from the BUS1 developers, it doesn’t look like it’s happening for BUS1. In fact, it’s been a rather quiet past few weeks for these developers working on this in-kernel IPC mechanism to succeed the never-merged KDBUS.

    • Intel Working On 5-Level Paging To Increase Linux Virtual/Physical Address Space
    • IBM building blockchain ecosystem

      IBM believes blockchain technology, with its capability to create an essentially immutable ledger of digital events, will alter the way whole industries conduct transactions. To make that happen, Big Blue asserts, requires a complete ecosystem of industry players working together.

      To that end, IBM today said it is building a blockchain ecosystem, complete with a revenue sharing program, to accelerate the growth of networks on the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric. IBM envisions the ecosystem as an open environment that allows organizations to collaborate using the Hyperledger Fabric.

    • Graphics Stack

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • KDE neon User LTS Edition Out Now

        KDE Plasma 5.8 is designated an LTS edition with bugfixes and new releases being made for 18 months (rather than the normal four months). This will please a category of user who don’t want new features on their desktop but do want it to keep working and bugs to be removed. Because Neon aims to service Plasma and its users in every way we have now created the KDE neon User LTS Edition.

      • neon User LTS, openSUSE Upgrades, Best Distro Poll

        Jonathon Riddell today announced a new release of KDE Plasma flagship neon, KDE neon Long Term Supported. neon LTS features Plasma 5.8 and will not change to 5.9. Elsewhere, two users shared their methods for upgrading from openSUSE Leap 42.1 to 42.2 and Tumbleweed received several interesting updates this week. Dedoimedo posted a best distro poll and Sourceforge said watch out for your project founder’s “mentality.”

      • KDE Neon User LTS Edition Released, Powered By Plasma 5.8

        Jonathan Riddell has announced the KDE Neon User LTS Edition availability. Rather than tracking the bleeding-edge KDE developments as KDE Neon traditionally does, the User LTS Edition tracks Plasma 5.8 LTS.

      • KDE e.V. Community Report – 2nd Half of 2015

        The KDE e.V. community report for the second half of 2015 is now available. It presents a survey of all the activities and events carried out, supported, and funded by KDE e.V. in that period, as well as the reporting of major conferences that KDE has been involved in.

  • Distributions

    • Antivirus Live CD 21.0-0.99.2 Helps You Protect Your Computer Against Viruses

      4MLinux developer Zbigniew Konojacki proudly informs Softpedia today about the general availability of the Antivirus Live CD 21.0-0.99.2 bootable ISO image for scanning computers for viruses and other malware.

    • Best distro of 2016 poll

      Time for you to express yourselves. It’s been another year full of ups and downs, good distros and bad distros. Or if I may borrow a quote from a movie, Aladeen distros and Aladeen distros. Indeed.

      The rules are very similar to what we did in years gone past. I will conduct my own annual contest best thingie wossname, with a sprinkling of KDE, Xfce and other desktops, having their separate forays. But then, I will incorporate your ideas and thoughts into the final verdict, much like the 2015 best distro nomination. Let us.

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

      • ROSA Desktop Fresh R8 Plasma 5: is it near-perfect?

        ROSA is a Linux distribution forked some time ago from Mandriva Linux by a team of Russian developers, Rosa Lab, or officially LLC NTC-IT ROSA.

        I reviewed their distributions several times: ROSA KDE R7, ROSA Desktop 2012 and even interviewed the ROSA team.

        The most recent release of ROSA is now ROSA Desktop Fresh R8, which is available in several flavours: MATE, GNOME 3, KDE 4 and Plasma 5. I decided to try the Plasma 5 edition of this distribution, especially as my interest to Plasma increased after the good impression Kubuntu 16.10 left on me.

        There are links to the ISO images available on the ROSA download page, and I used it to get my own version of this Linux distribution. The size of ROSA Desktop Fresh R8 Plasma 5 64-bit image is 1.9 Gb. The dd command helped me to “burn” the image to the USB stick.

        So, the USB drive is attached to my Toshiba Satellite L500-19X laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let’s go!

    • Arch Family

      • Manjaro Deepin 16.10.3 released

        Manjaro Deepin is an edition of Manjaro Linux that uses the Deepin Desktop Environment, which is a desktop environment that originated from the Deepin Linux, a desktop distribution that’s based on Ubuntu.

        The main edition of Manjaro uses the K Desktop Environment (KDE). Manjaro Deepin is just one of many community-supported desktop environments available to users of the Arch Linux-based desktop distribution. The others are: Budgie, Cinnamon, GNOME 3, i3, LXQt and MATE.

    • OpenSUSE/SUSE

      • openSUSE Says Goodbye to AMD/ATI Catalyst (fglrx) Proprietary Graphics Drivers

        openSUSE developer Bruno Friedmann, informed the community of the openSUSE Linux operating system about the fact that he’s planning to remove the old ATI/AMD Catalyst (also known as fglrx) proprietary graphics drivers.

      • openSUSE Tumbleweed Users Get Git 2.11, Xfce 4.12.3, FFmpeg 3.2.1 & Mesa 13.0.2

        openSUSE’s Douglas DeMaio reports on the latest Open Source and GNU/Linux technologies that landed in the repositories of the openSUSE Tumbleweed rolling operating system.

      • Git, Kernels, LightDM, More update in Tumbleweed

        Topping the list of updates for snapshot 20161129 was the update to Light Display Manager 1.21.1, which added an Application Programming Interface (API) version to the greeter-daemon protocol for future enhancements. Other updates in the snapshot include openVPN, which added a recommended utility for network and traffic protocols, and subpackages for systemd relevant for 32-bit users. Desktop manager xfdesktop updated to version 4.12.3 and introduced rotating wallpaper images if the images contain rotation information.

        The programming language vala, which aims to bring modern programming language features to GNOME developers without imposing any additional runtime requirements, updated in the 20161129 and 20161201 snapshots.

      • openSUSE Leap 42.1 upgrade to Leap 42.2
      • openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the Week 2016/49

        I’m sure nobody doubted it, but Tumbleweed is back on the roll! And in fact, we did the impossible and released 8 snapshots in a week. This review will cover {1201..1208}.

    • Slackware Family

      • Based on Slackware 14.2, Absolute 14.2.2 Linux Is Out with Updated Kernel, X.Org

        Paul Sherman, the developer of the Absolute Linux distribution based on Slackware, has announced the availability of the second point release to the stable Absolute 14.2 series.

        Absolute 14.2 launched in mid-September 2016, and it’s based on the latest and most advanced Slackware 14.2 operating system, but from time to time there’s need for updated installation medium in case you want to deploy the OS on new computers without the need to download any updates. That’s why Absolute 14.2.2 is here, bundled with all the latest kernel and graphics stack updates released for Slackware 14.2 since its July launch.

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

    • Devices/Embedded

      • ST launches sensor module and open source dev kit

        ST unveiled a Cortex-M4F based “SensorTile” sensor and BLE module plus an open source dev kit that adds audio, micro-USB, and an Arduino-like interface.

        STMicroelectronics (ST) announced its SensorTile sensor module at its developer conference in October where it was one of the highlights of the show. Now the company has officially launched the 14 x 14mm SensorTile module along with an open source “STEVAL-STLKT01V1” development kit. The kit can be used for developing wearables, gaming accessories, smart-home, and other Internet of Things devices.

      • Open Source Smartwatch Operating System AteroidOS Alpha 1.0 Released (video)
      • With Android Wear critical, open source AsteroidOS offers smartwatches a life line
      • AsteroidOS is an Open Source OS for Smartwatches

        Florent Revest is a French computer science student who has been working on an open source operating system for smartwatches for the last two years. Yesterday, he officially launched version 1 of the alpha for AsteroidOS.

        The goal for the platform was to create something that gave smartwatch owners more control over their privacy, as well as the hardware they purchased.

        Florent feels that the current proprietary platforms do not guarantee this, and this was the basis for AsteroidOS. He wanted his open source smartwatch operating system to provide freedom with free software, more privacy than other wearable platforms offer, interoperability so it could communicate with other devices, modularity that enabled the user to tweak and change the OS as they see fit, the ability to port the software to as many devices as possible, and gathering a community who is passionate about the platform.

      • AsteroidOS Brings Open Source Functionality To Smartwatches

        Smartwatches may not have taken off like companies were hoping, but they have come quite far in terms of what they can offer and what sorts of features are available for the many different models of smartwatches that are out there. Even with the updated functionality of options like Samsung’s Gear S lineup and Android Wear platforms, though, smartwatches can still feel a little bit limiting, and part of this undoubtedly includes the reason that the operating systems aren’t as open as platforms like Android. That is now changing thanks to a platform called AsteroidOS which is an open source operating system for smartwatches.

      • AsteroidOS alpha release gives Android Wear smartwatches a new hope
      • AsteroidOS is an alternative open source OS for your Android Wear device
      • Mini Apollo Lake module takes the heat — and the cold

        Congatec’s “Conga-MA5” is a Linux-ready COM Express Compact Type 10 Mini module with Apollo Lake SoCs, up to 128GB eMMC 5.1, and -40 to 85°C support.

        Congatec was one of the first embedded vendors to announce computer-on-modules based on Intel’s Atom E3900 and other Apollo Lake Pentium and Celeron SoCs. The offerings included a Qseven module, a SMARC 2.0 module, and a COM Express Compact Type 6 Conga-TCA5. The company has now followed up with a COM Express Compact Type 10 Mini Conga-MA5 module.

      • Conexant voice board lets you summon Alexa from a Raspberry Pi

        Conexant and Amazon have launched an Alexa Voice Service development kit for the Raspberry Pi 3. The kit includes a Conexant AudioSmart CX20921 voice board.

        Since Amazon opened up access to its Alexa Voice Service (AVS) agent inside the Amazon Echo smart speaker/IoT hub, including an open source port to the Raspberry Pi, several projects have emerged for creating Echo-like devices built around the RPi. For example, earlier this year, a Novaspirit Tech hack along these lines was promoted by the Raspberry Pi blog. Now Conexant Systems and Amazon have teamed up on a higher end “AudioSmart 2-mic Development Kit” for the RPi that’s designed specifically for voice-controlled smart home IoT functionality.

      • New Smartwatch OS Debuts on GitHub

        Can a new smartwatch operating system based on Linux breathe some new life into the smart wearables market? Florent Revest hopes so.

        Revest, a French computer science student, on Wednesday announced the alpha release of AsteroidOS, an open source operating system that will run on several Android smartwatch models.

        “Many users believe that the current proprietary platforms can not guarantee a satisfactory level of control over their privacy and hardware,” noted Revest, who has been working on his OS for two years. “Hence, I noticed a need for an open wearable platform and AsteroidOS is my attempt to address this issue.”

      • Rugged EBX single board computer sets off on the Bay Trail

        VersaLogic’s Linux-friendly, EBX style “Viper” SBC offers a Bay Trail Atom E3800, up to 16GB DDR3L, -40 to 85°C support, and MIL-STD-202G ruggedization.

      • Upcoming Retro Console Promises To Play Almost All Classic Games Across All Consoles, Supports 4K
      • RetroEngine Sigma release date, specs, latest news: Crowd-funded retro gaming device can emulate 28 different consoles
      • Doyodo RetroEngine Sigma Release Date, News & Update: Linux-Powered Emulation Console For Classic Games Soon To Launch!

        Doyodo has launched a mini-console RetroEngine Sigma that can run classic video games and soon to release in the market. The mini-console is said to directly compete with Nintendo’s NES Classic Edition console.

        Doyodo, a design company has introduced its crowd funding campaign console called RetroEngine Sigma. The mini-console is also a plug-and-play media player that is capable of running thousands of classic video games using an emulator.

      • Make Raspberry Pi Portable With 5-inch Touch Screen

        You can be your own Geordi La Forge and build yourself a fully capable GNU/Linux pocket computer with this uber inexpensive five-inch touch screen and a Raspberry Pi.

      • Phones

        Free Software/Open Source

        • Apache Zeppelin open-source analytics startup reveals new name, fresh funding

          The team behind the Apache Zeppelin open-source notebook for big data analytics visualization has renamed itself ZEPL and announced $4.1M in Series A funding.

          ZEPL, which swears a certain professional football organization had nothing to do with it ditching its former name (NFLabs), is one of numerous companies smelling blood in the water around Tableau, the $3.5 billion business intelligence and analytics software vendor that has stumbled financially in recent quarters and seen its stock price plummet accordingly. The pitch from ZEPL entering my email inbox read: “Is Open Source project eating Tableau’s lunch?”

        • OpenMake Software turns its ARA solution into open-source offering

          OpenMake Software wants to improve how developers use the Continuous Delivery pipeline with its recently open-sourced Application Release Automation (ARA) solution, Release Engineer, which is based on version 7.7 of the ARA solution and offered under the FreeBSD license.

        • Open source needs social freedoms for business to thrive

          When open source was first introduced in 1991 with Linux, it was considered a novelty in the industry, a new toy for developers to play with. Today, it’s a fundamental driver of technology innovation across all software companies, according to Dirk Hohndel, VP and chief open source officer at VMware Inc.

          “Open source is more than software development methodology; open source is how a group of people interact and how you create fantastic technology,” said Hohndel.

        • 6 organizational growing pains you can avoid

          Everything has a season, and as organizations age—communities, charities, companies, churches and more—they face similar diseases of time. These are emergent patterns of failure that arise not from mistakes but from the consequences of earlier success. In open source, we are seeing the same patterns emerge; this should not be a surprise.

          Some of them are unavoidable. Understanding them helps leaders reduce the risk that will arise and helps identify them when they do. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but we have encountered all of these modes of systemic failure, some of them often.

        • Maximizing the benefits of open source in IoT

          With the dawn of the Internet of Things, software is making its way into every product, into every industry. And along with software come developers, who bring their beliefs, attitudes, expertise, and habits along with them. One of those is open source technology — a staple in the software industry since the 1980s, but a new and often scary concept for many traditional industries, whose businesses are built on protecting their assets and intellectual property.

          In this article, we will illustrate how open source technologies permeate every part of the IoT development stack, and outline how open source can be used as a means of market control as well as a booster of innovation and a way to tap into the IoT developer talent pool. The data have been collected from 3,700 IoT developers in 150 countries across the globe, surveyed in Q4 2015 and shines a light on how big a deal open source really is in IoT, why developers love it, and how companies can create a successful commercial strategy around the use of open source by aligning themselves with the values of that core stakeholder group that are developers.

        • A tour of Google’s 2016 open source releases

          Open source software enables Google to build things quickly and efficiently without reinventing the wheel, allowing us to focus on solving new problems. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and we know it. This is why we support open source and make it easy for Googlers to release the projects they’re working on internally as open source.

          We’ve released more than 20-million lines of open source code to date, including projects such as Android, Angular, Chromium, Kubernetes, and TensorFlow. Our releases also include many projects you may not be familiar with, such as Cartographer, Omnitone, and Yeoman.

        • Why this CTO believes open source should be the new norm for all software companies

          Open source is personally very important to me, and my team has a long track record of contributing to open source projects, so it was a simple decision to open source our platform. Doing that encourages transparency and community engagement, which is key for any product that has security at its core. We had a vision to be a secure and completely transparent messaging app and we stuck to it.

        • Google’s Open Embedded Projector is a Cool Data Visualization Tool

          With 2016 closing out, there is no doubt that cloud computing and Big Data analytics would probably come to mind if you had to consider the hot technology categories of the year. However, there is an absolute renaissance going on right now in the field of artifical intelligence and the closely related field of machine learning. In fact, in its top 10 strategic technology trends for the year 2017, Gartner put AI and machine learning at the top of the list.

          Google is among several companies making big contributions in this space. It recently gathered some compelling AI and machine learning demonstrations and placed them in its Google AI Experiments showcase. Now, Google has announced that it is open sourcing its data visualization tool, Embedding Projector. The tool will aid machine learning practioners as they visualize data without having to install and run Google’s TensorFlow tool (also open source, which we covered here).

        • Nextcloud’s Promising Advances Continue

          The extremely popular ownCloud open source file-sharing and storage platform for building private clouds has been much in the news lately. CTO and founder of ownCloud Frank Karlitschek resigned from the company a few months ago. His open letter announcing the move pointed to possible friction created as ownCloud moved forward as a commercial entity as opposed to a solely community focused, open source project. Karlitschek had a plan, though. He came out with a fork of ownCloud called Nextcloud, and we’ve reported on strong signs that this cloud platform has a bright future. In recent months, the company has continued to advance Nextcloud.

          Now, if you’re running the Nextcloud platform, a convenient new addition is coming your way. The Nextcloud 9.0.54 and 10.0.1 releases come with a new updater. This new updater allows reliable upgrading to new Nextcloud versions via the web and in the upcoming 11 release even via the command line interface.

        • Don’t Let Your Project Suffer Because of Founder’s Mentality

          There’s a certain mentality that can creep up and slowly destroy open source project development. It’s dangerous in a way that nobody really notices it’s there or that it is destructive, except at the very last moments. It’s the founder’s mentality.

        • How Gratipay helps solve the ‘free rider’ problem
        • Rhizome is working on an open-source tool to help archive digital content

          “The stability of this kind of easy archiving for document storage, review and revision is a great possibility, but the workflow for journalists is very specific, so the grant will allow us to figure out how it could function.”

          Another feature of Webrecorder that journalists might find appealing, and one of the software’s core purposes, is to preserve material that might be deleted or become unavailable in time.

          However, the tool is currently operated under a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Takedown policy. This means any individual can ask for a record of their web presence or materials to be removed, so Rhizome will be working to “answer the more complicated questions and figure out policies” around privacy and copyright with the latest round of funding.

        • An ode to releasing software

          There is one particular moment in every Free and Open Source Software project: it’s the time when the software is about to get released. The software has been totally frozen of course, QA tests have been made, all the lights are green; the website still needs to be updated with the release notes, perhaps some new content and of course the stable builds have to be uploaded. The release time is always a special one.

          The very day of the release, there is some excitement and often a bit of stress. The release manager(s), as well as everyone working on the project’s infrastructure are busy making sure everything is ready when the upload of the stable version of the software, binaries and source, has been completed. In many cases, some attention is paid to the main project’s mirror servers so that the downloads are fluid and work (mostly) flawlessly as soon as the release has been pushed and published.

        • Events

          • Diversity Scholarship Series: My Time at CloudNativeCon 2016

            CloudNativeCon 2016 was a wonderful first conference for me and although the whirlwind of a conference is tiring, I left feeling motivated and inspired. The conference made me feel like I was a part of the community and technology I have been working with daily.

        • Web Browsers

        • SaaS/Back End

          • Spark and Hadoop Training Can Lead to Top Job Prospects

            In the tech job market race these days, hardly any trend is drawing more attention than Big Data. And, when talking Big Data, the subject of Hadoop inevitably comes up, but Spark is becoming an increasingly popular topic. IBM and other companies have made huge commitments to Spark, and workers who have both Hadoop and Spark skills are much in demand.With all this in mind, several providers are offering free Hadoop and Spark training.

        • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

          • Michael Meeks: 2016-12-08 Thursday.

            Mail chew; really encouraged to see Kolab’s lovely integration with Collabora Online announced and available for purchase. Wonderful to have them getting involved with LibreOffice, doing testing, filing and triaging bugs up-stream and so on, not to mention the polished marketing.

          • LibreOffice Goes Online

            Well, Meeks and company have done it. What was at first a rather limited demonstration of LibreOffice running in a browser window is now available as a Docker image for everyone to try out. I haven’t yet, because I’m under the weather with yet another winter cold, but that shouldn’t delay you.

        • CMS

          • WordPress 4.7 Content Management System Provides New Design Options

            WordPress is among the most widely used open-source technologies in the world, powering more than 70 million websites. WordPress 4.7 was released Dec. 6, providing a new milestone update including new features for both users and developers. As is typically the case with new WordPress releases, there is also a new default theme in the 4.7 update. The 2017 theme provides users with a number of interesting attributes including the large feature image as well as the ability to have a video as part of the header image. The Theme Customizer feature enables users to more intuitively adjust various elements of a theme, to fit the needs of websites that use will upgrade to WordPress 4.7. In addition, the new custom CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) feature within a theme preview lets users quickly see how style changes will change the look of a site. As an open-source project, WordPress benefits from participation of independent contributors and for the 4.7 release there were 482 contributors. In this slideshow eWEEK takes a look at some of the highlights of the WordPress 4.7 release.

        • Education

          • Psychology Professor Releases Free, Open-Source, Preprint Software

            The Center for Open Science, directed by University of Virginia psychology professor Brian Nosek, has launched three new services to more quickly share research data as the center continues its mission to press for openness, integrity and reproducibility of scientific research.

            Typically, researchers send preprint manuscripts detailing their research findings to peer-reviewed academic journals, such as Nature and Science. The review process can take months or even years before publication – if the research is published at all.

            By contrast, “preprinting,” or sharing non-peer-reviewed research results online, enables crucial data to get out to the community the moment it is completed. That, said Nosek, is critical.

        • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

        • BSD

          • GCC 6.2/7.0 vs. LLVM Clang 3.9/4.0 SVN Compiler Performance

            Earlier this week I published some GCC 5.4 vs. GCC 6.2 vs. GCC 7.0 SVN development benchmarks with a Core i7 6800K Broadwell-E system. For those curious how the LLVM Clang compiler stack is comparing, here are some tests on the same system when running fresh benchmarks of LLVM Clang 3.9 as well as LLVM Clang 4.0 SVN.

            These tests were done with LLVM Clang 3.9 and 4.0 SVN added in to the GCC results from this Core i7 6800K system running Ubuntu 16.10 with the Linux 4.8 kernel. The CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS were maintained the same throughout all testing with the “-O3 -march=native” flags.

          • LLVM 3.9.1 Expected For Release Next Week

            While LLVM 4.0 isn’t coming until its planned release in Feburary, the LLVM 3.9.1 point release is expected this coming week.

            Tom Stellard of AMD released LLVM 3.9.1-rc3 on Friday and anticipates this being the last release candidate. This 3.9.1-rc3 build just has some ARM/AArch64 fixes compared to his earlier RC2 milestone.

        • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

          • GCC Patch To Support Google’s Fuchsia OS

            It’s been a while since last hearing anything of Google’s experimental Fuchsia OS but it looks like things are moving along as they are now looking to merge support for it into the GCC compiler.

        • Public Services/Government

          • Slovenia voting analysis tool shared as open source

            The President of the Parliament of Slovenia, Milan Brglez, last Monday unveiled Parlameter, a web-based software solution that displays in the National Assembly voting results and helps analyse them. The software, made available as open source, is developed by ‘Danes je nov dan’ (Today is a new day) an NGO focusing on eParticipation, openness and government oversight.

          • Bulgaria to make EUPL preferred open source licence

            Next week, the government of Bulgaria will make the European Union Public Licence (EUPL) the preferred licence to be used for governmental software development projects. An ordinance, to be adopted on Wednesday, will allow projects to use around ten popular free and open source software licence approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) – an open source advocacy organisation.

          • Bulgaria, France, UK, US support OGP free software policy

            The United States of America and three EU Member states – Bulgaria, France and the United Kingdom – have pledged support for the open source policy, making it an official part of the ‘Paris Declaration’, the outcome of the 4th Global Summit of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), taking place in Paris this week. The open source policy is also supported by the city of Austin (USA).

        • Licensing/Legal

          • Open Source Software A Core Competency For Effective Tech M&A

            Imagine your company just acquired its competitor for $100 million. Now imagine the company’s most important asset – its proprietary software – is subject to third-party license conditions that require the proprietary software to be distributed free of charge or in source code form. Or, imagine these license conditions are discovered late in the diligence process, and the cost to replace the offending third-party software will costs tens of thousands of dollars and take months to remediate. Both scenarios exemplify the acute, distinct and often overlooked risks inherent to the commercial use of open source software. An effective tech M&A attorney must appreciate these risks and be prepared to take the steps necessary to mitigate or eliminate them.

            Over the past decade, open source software has become a mainstay in the technology community. Since its beginnings, open source software has always been viewed as a way to save money and jumpstart development projects, but it is increasingly being looked to for its quality solutions and operational advantages. Today, only a fraction of technology companies do not use open source software in any way. For most of the rest, it is mission critical.

          • Facing down copyright claims, Doom roguelike fan game goes open-source (correction)
          • Doom-inspired roguelike goes open-source in a bid to outrun Zenimax lawyers

            Last week news broke that Zenimax is threatening legal action against the developer of DoomRL, a free Doom-inspired roguelike. Now, DoomRL’s creator is open-sourcing it in an attempt to put it beyond the reach of Zenimax’s legal team.

            Many devs will probably appreciate the symbolic resonance of this move, given that id Software open-sourced the original Doom code almost twenty years ago.

          • DoomRL creator makes free roguelike open-source to try and counter Zenimax legal threat
          • DoomRL Goes Open-Source in Face of Copyright Claims

            Earlier this week, ZeniMax Medi hit DoomRL, a popular roguelike version of the original first-person shooter, with a cease-and-desist order. This order instructed producer ChaosForge to remove the free downloadable game to prevent further legal action. Instead of taking it down, co-creator Kornel Kisielewicz turned the game open-source.

        • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

        • Programming/Development

          • This Indian software company just partnered with the world’s biggest open source community

            In what can be called a major motivation for Indian tech firms, Amrut Software, an end-to-end Software, BPO services and solutions provider has become a GitHub distributor for India region.

            GitHub hosts world’s biggest open source community along with the most popular version control systems, configuration management and collaboration tools for software developers. It has some of the largest installations of repositories in the world.

          • Python 3.6 released with many new improvements and features

            Python,the high-level interpreted programming language is now one of the most preferred programming language by beginners and professional-level developers.So,here Python 3.6 is now available with many changes,improvements and of course the ease of Python was not left in the work list.

        Leftovers

        • Health/Nutrition

          • Els Torreele Named Executive Director Of Global MSF Access Campaign

            Veteran public health advocate Els Torreele of Belgium has been named the new executive director of the high-profile Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) Access Campaign, based in Geneva.

          • Spain: Brexit Britain must pay for expats’ healthcare

            Britain will have to reach a deal to pay for the healthcare of its citizens in Spain once the country leaves the EU, Spain’s foreign minister has said.
            Speaking at a conference in Alicante, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said Spain would try to reach a deal for the UK to pay for the healthcare of the estimated 800,000 Brits living in the country.

            “We must reach an agreement for residents to access health services in Spain, but covered by the United Kingdom” he told the conference held by accountancy firm PWC, according to Spanish news site Estrella Digital.

        • Security

        • Defence/Aggression

          • What if the terrorists won?

            Like 9/11 for New Yorkers, the Paris attacks of November 2015 have become that rare thing for city slickers — a topic of conversation in which everyone can participate. There are two million Parisians, each of whom has a story about the night suicide bombers and gunmen killed 130 people at cafés, restaurants, the Stade de France and the Bataclan music hall.

            Some offer a poignant mix of tumult and tragedy, like the one my high school friend tells of diving under a table at a café when a terrorist opened fire on drinkers with an assault rifle. (She performed CPR on a shooting victim who ended up dying from loss of blood). Others, like mine, are less riveting. After making sure my friends and family were safe, I got to work covering the story. The tales all have one thing in common: a moment in which the person recounting it is struck by the enormity of what occurred.

        • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

          • Julian Assange issues statement, destroys Sweden’s rape case

            In the statement Assange also complains at considerable length about what he says is the oppressive behaviour of the Swedish authorities towards him: reviving a rape investigation after it was closed down, issuing an arrest warrant against him without proper cause and in breach of due process, and insisting on his extradition from Britain to Sweden instead of questioning him in Britain, as he had repeatedly offered.

            In this part of the statement Assange says that the Swedish prosecutor’s decision to interview him in the Ecuadorian embassy in London – something which the Swedish prosecutor had previously consistently refused to do – was the result of a decision in March 2015 of the Swedish Supreme Court that she was in potential breach of her duties, and of the February 2016 decision of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the UN Human Rights Council that he has been illegally denied his freedom as a result of her actions and of the actions of the British authorities.

            Assange’s statement is obviously partly intended to give his side of the story after years of legally enforced silence.

            As Assange rightly complains, numerous stories about him and about his case have appeared in the Western media, some undoubtedly leaked to the media by the Swedish authorities. These leaks and stories were clearly designed to ruin his reputation, and have in fact been very effective in doing so.

          • Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence

            The Washington Post late Friday night published an explosive story that, in many ways, is classic American journalism of the worst sort: the key claims are based exclusively on the unverified assertions of anonymous officials, who in turn are disseminating their own claims about what the CIA purportedly believes, all based on evidence that remains completely secret.

            These unnamed sources told the Post that “the CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.” The anonymous officials also claim that “intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails” from both the DNC and John Podesta’s email account. Critically, none of the actual evidence for these claims is disclosed; indeed, the CIA’s “secret assessment” itself remains concealed.

        • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

          • In U.S., there are twice as many solar workers as coal miners

            SolarCity, the largest installer of residential solar systems in the U.S., nearly doubled its workforce last year, hiring 4,000 people to do everything from system design and site surveys to installation and engineering.

            The hiring spree at SolarCity isn’t slowing; it’s picking up speed as the company attempts to install twice as many rooftop solar systems than last year and readies its 1.2 million-square foot factory in New York, which is scheduled to reach full production in 2017.

          • Trump team’s demands fuel fear of Energy Department ‘witch hunt’

            Donald Trump’s transition team wants the Energy Department to provide the names of any employees who have worked on President Barack Obama’s climate initiatives — a request that has current and former staffers fearing an oncoming “witch hunt.”

            The president-elect’s team sought the information as part of a 74-point questionnaire that also asked for details about how DOE’s statistical arm, the Energy Information Administration, does the math on issues such as the cost-effectiveness of wind and solar power versus fossil fuels. POLITICO obtained the document Friday, after Trump’s advisers sent it to the department earlier in the week.

        • Finance

          • TPP, TTIP And CETA Are Disasters For The Public: Are There Better Ways To Do Trade Deals?

            As well as calling for truly independent and impartial judges, the Declaration also wants any dispute resolution mechanism to be available to small companies and even members of the public.

            The Namur Declaration is mostly of interest because it grew out of Magnette’s personal experience with CETA (article in French). The fact that a few dozen leading academics have lent their names to it adds weight, but is unlikely to bring about major changes to the way that trade negotiations are conducted. However, seismic political developments on both sides of the Atlantic are already doing that; let’s hope these provide an opportunity to debate and maybe even adopt some of the Declaration’s bold ideas.

          • Trump’s Labor Pick, Andrew Puzder, Is Critic of Minimum Wage Increases

            President-elect Donald J. Trump on Thursday chose Andrew F. Puzder, chief executive of the company that franchises the fast-food outlets Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. and an outspoken critic of the worker protections enacted by the Obama administration, to be secretary of labor.

            “Andy Puzder has created and boosted the careers of thousands of Americans, and his extensive record fighting for workers makes him the ideal candidate to lead the Department of Labor,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.

            Mr. Puzder, 66, fits the profile of some of Mr. Trump’s other domestic cabinet appointments. He is a wealthy businessman and political donor and has a long record of promoting a conservative agenda that takes aim at President Obama’s legacy. And more than the other appointments, he resembles Mr. Trump in style.

          • Italy’s banking nightmare just came true

            The road back to health for Italian banks just became rockier. A lot rockier.

          • Why It’s Pointless For Trump To Renegotiate TPP, Even If He Wanted To, And Even If He Could

            Last month, we pointed out that that pretty much everyone agrees that TPP is dead… except that some still cling to the hope that Trump might be persuaded to carry out another swift U-turn and revivify the zombie deal. As Mike noted, Trump doesn’t seem to be against these kinds of mega-trade deals in principle, it’s just that he says the US generally concedes too much in them. That means he’d need some kind of high-profile win to make TPP 2.0 compatible with his earlier condemnation of TPP 1.0′s terms.

            The hope amongst true TPP believers seems to be that Trump could reopen the negotiations, talk tough, and strike a deal that is far more favorable to the US, which he could then ratify, holding it up as another Trump triumph. But in an article on the Cobram Courier site, the Australian ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, says it would be “fanciful” to think the other TPP nations would happily reopen negotiations so that Trump could rewrite it in his favor.

        • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

          • A ‘Political Horror Show’ of Recounts, 16 Years After Hanging Chads

            The recount of the presidential election ended on Wednesday night as abruptly as it had begun. By Thursday, workers were packing away canvas bags of ballots, board records and tables and chairs. A legal battle halted proceedings before all of Michigan’s votes were counted again, but not before a flood of perplexing peculiarities emerged.

            An effort to recount the votes here and in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin led by Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, was never viewed as very likely to change Donald J. Trump’s election to the presidency, but it revealed something else in stark terms: 16 years after a different presidential recount in Florida dragged on for five agonizing weeks, bringing the nation close to a constitutional crisis, recounts remain a tangle of dueling lawyers, hyperpartisanship and claims of flawed technology.

            States still have vastly different systems for calling recounts and for carrying them out. Counting standards are inconsistent from state to state, and obscure provisions, like one in Michigan that deems some precincts not “recountable,” threaten to raise more public doubt about elections than confidence. Some of the most basic questions — is it better to count by hand, or with a machine? — have not been settled.

          • Green Party’s Jill Stein on Obstacles to Vote Recount: “This is Not What Democracy Looks Like”

            A Wisconsin judge is set to decide if a recount of the state’s presidential vote can proceed. We speak with Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, who has requested recounts in three states where Donald Trump narrowly beat Hillary Clinton: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. But Stein has faced obstacles in all three states. Today’s hearing in Wisconsin comes after two pro-Trump groups, the Great America PAC and the Stop Hillary PAC, filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stop the recount process. Meanwhile, in Michigan, a judge has already halted the recount. Another hearing will be held in Pennsylvania today to decide if a recount there can begin.

          • Redo Election For POTUS
          • Jill Stein: US election recount is vital to reform our broken voting system

            The election didn’t end on 8 November, it just morphed into a crisis whose resolution is not in sight. Hillary Clinton’s campaign was impacted by an October surprise delivered by a partisan FBI, but November was not short on surprises, and there may yet be one in December. A little more than a week ago, while people were wondering what it would take to get the Clinton campaign to pursue a recount, Jill Stein’s campaign amazed everyone by taking on the job. Exuberance for the idea immediately inspired small donors to contribute $6.5m in about 48 hours.

          • The Michigan Vote Recount Halt Isn’t Distracting Jill Stein From Her Main Post-Election Goal

            A Michigan judge ordered that the state start its vote recount on Dec. 5, but by Dec. 7, he had changed his tune and halted that very same recount. You might think this effectively knocks out Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s recount effort, but according to her team, the Michigan vote recount isn’t stopping Stein.

            U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith had originally ordered the ballot recount to start at noon on Dec. 5 so as to complete the recount by the Dec. 13 soft deadline before the Dec. 19 Electoral College vote. But the case came back to him when a Michigan Court of Appeals panel rejected the recount after determining that Stein was not considered an “aggrieved party” in the election. (Due to her fourth place finish in the state with around 1.1 percent of the votes, it wasn’t considered realistic that Stein could have actually won the election.) Goldsmith upheld this decision and lifted his previous order, citing the lack of evidence of “significant fraud or mistake” in his decision.

            Interestingly enough, Stein chose to spearhead vote recounts in battleground states rather than her opponent Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote over President-elect Donald Trump. And for Clinton, whose campaign agreed to cooperate with Stein’s effort, not winning Michigan’s electoral votes in the recount effectively puts her out of the running to overturn Trump’s Electoral College victory. (She needed to win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania to put her vote count ahead of Trump’s.)

          • Constitutional Lawyer: It’s an “Outrage” That Judge Halted Michigan Presidential Election Recount

            On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered Michigan’s Board of Elections to stop the state’s electoral recount. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith said he would abide by a court ruling that found that former Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein could not seek a recount. Goldsmith concluded, “A recount as an audit of the election has never been endorsed by any court.” Stein has pledged to continue to push for a recount. Michigan is one of three battleground states where Stein had demanded a recount. The other two states are Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. President-elect Donald Trump narrowly defeated Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton in all three states. For more, we’re joined by John Bonifaz, attorney and political activist specializing in constitutional law and voting rights. He was one of a group of leading election lawyers and computer scientists calling for a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

          • Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s final campaign spending revealed

            Donald Trump’s campaign spent about $94m in its final push for the White House, according to new fundraising reports.

            The Republican continued his campaign-long trend of spending far less than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Her campaign spent almost $132m in its closing weeks, according to reports filed on Thursday with the Federal Election Commission. The latest reports cover 20 October to 28 November.

            Over the course of the primary and general elections the Trump campaign raised about $340m including $66m out of his own pocket. The Clinton campaign, which maintained a longer and more concerted fundraising focus, brought in about $581m.

          • Obama orders full review of Russian hacking during the 2016 election

            President Obama has ordered a full review of foreign-based digital attacks that U.S. intelligence agencies say were aimed at influencing this year’s presidential election, a top White House official said Friday.

            The disclosure came after President-elect Donald Trump again dismissed a blunt U.S. intelligence assessment that concluded senior Russian authorities had authorized the digital theft of emails from Democratic Party officials and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager during the campaign.

          • Obama orders review of Russian election-related hacking

            President Barack Obama has ordered a full review into hacking aimed at influencing US elections going back to 2008, the White House said Friday.
            “The President has directed the Intelligence Community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process. It is to capture lessons learned from that and to report to a range of stakeholders,” White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser Lisa Monaco said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters Friday. “This is consistent with the work that we did over the summer to engage Congress on the threats that we were seeing.”

            White House spokesman Eric Schultz added later that the review would encompass malicious cyber activity related to US elections going back to 2008.

          • Russia Hacked Republican Committee but Kept Data, U.S. Concludes

            American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.

            They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.

            In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.

            Republicans have a different explanation for why no documents from their networks were ever released. Over the past several months, officials from the Republican committee have consistently said that their networks were not compromised, asserting that only the accounts of individual Republicans were attacked. On Friday, a senior committee official said he had no comment.

          • A Clinton Fan Manufactured Fake News That MSNBC Personalities Spread to Discredit WikiLeaks Docs

            The phrase “Fake News” has exploded in usage since the election, but the term is similar to other malleable political labels such as “terrorism” and “hate speech”; because the phrase lacks any clear definition, it is essentially useless except as an instrument of propaganda and censorship. The most important fact to realize about this new term: those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

            One of the most egregious examples was the recent Washington Post article hyping a new anonymous group and its disgusting blacklist of supposedly pro-Russia news outlets – a shameful article mindlessly spread by countless journalists who love to decry Fake News, despite the Post article itself being centrally based on Fake News. (The Post this week finally added a lame editor’s note acknowledging these critiques; the Post editors absurdly claimed that they did not mean to “vouch for the validity” of the blacklist even though the article’s key claims were based on doing exactly that).

            Now we have an even more compelling example. Back in October, when WikiLeaks was releasing emails from the John Podesta archive, Clinton campaign officials and their media spokespeople adopted a strategy of outright lying to the public, claiming – with no basis whatsoever – that the emails were doctored or fabricated and thus should be ignored. That lie – and that is what it was: a claim made with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard for its truth – was most aggressively amplified by MSNBC personalities such as Joy Ann Reid and Malcolm Nance, The Atlantic’s David Frum, and Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald.

          • Rather Than Exposing Propaganda, WaPo Shows How It’s Done

            As the Hillary Clinton campaign slogged toward victory in the long primary campaign against Sen. Bernie Sanders, word came from WikiLeaks that it had scored a trove of hacked emails to and from the Democratic National Committee. Among other things, they proved that DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, along with their organizations, had been working hand-in-glove to skew the primaries in Clinton’s favor.

            The day before the party’s convention opened in Philadelphia on July 24, Wasserman-Schultz had to resign her post or face a floor revolt. Sanders delegates were so angry at what they were learning from WikiLeaks about the sabotage of their candidate that hundreds walked out on the second day of the convention, tossing away their delegate credentials over the security fence and vowing never to support Clinton.

          • Washington Post Issues Correction To “Fake News” Story

            The Washington Post has been under fire for its publication of an article entitling “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say.” The article by Craig Timberg relied on a controversial website called PropOrNot, which published what is little more than a black list of website that the authors deemed purveyors of fake news including some of the largest sites on the Internet like Drudge Report. However, the previously unknown group was itself criticized for listing “allies” that proved false. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton ramped up the call for action against “fake news” which she described as an epidemic. Now the Washington Post has published a rather cryptic correction to the fake news story. The controversy is the subject of my latest column in USA Today.

            The organization listed a variety of news sites as illegitimate. It included some of the most popular political sites from the left and right Truthout, Zero Hedge, Antiwar.com, and the Ron Paul Institute. It even includes one of the most read sites on the Internet, the Drudge Report. Notably, it also included WikiLeaks, which has been credited with exposing political corruption and unlawful surveillance programs.

          • Trump says U.S.-China relationship must improve

            President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States needed to improve its relationship with China, which he criticized for its economic policies and failure to rein in North Korea.

            “One of the most important relationships we must improve, and we have to improve, is our relationship with China,” Trump told a rally in Iowa. The United States and China are the world’s two biggest economies.

            “China is not a market economy,” he said. “They haven’t played by the rules, and I know it’s time that they’re going to start.”

          • Trump has declined many intelligence briefings offered to him according to Senate aide

            Intelligence community officials have confirmed that president-elect Donald Trump has declined many of the daily intelligence briefings that have been offered to him, a Senate aide confirmed to CBS News’ Margaret Brennan. The Washington Post first reported that Mr. Trump was turning away intelligence briefings in the weeks after the election.

            Two key Senate Democrats — Ben Cardin of Maryland and Dianne Feinstein of California — expressed dismay about this in an op-ed published Thursday by USA TODAY.

          • Russia Hacked Republican Committee but Kept Data, U.S. Concludes

            American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.

            They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.

            In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.

            Republicans have a different explanation for why no documents from their networks were ever released. Over the past several months, officials from the Republican committee have consistently said that their networks were not compromised, asserting that only the accounts of individual Republicans were attacked. On Friday, a senior committee official said he had no comment.

          • Attorney Calls For Florida Voters To Demand A Hand Recount Of All Ballots

            On December 11th, 2016, voters around the state will demand that their votes be counted and will respectfully request that the courts approve a full hand count of the paper ballots of the 2016 Florida Presidential Election.

          • Michigan owes Jill Stein a refund since recount stopped

            Green Party candidate Jill Stein is in line for a big check from the state of Michigan after the recount she requested was stopped by a federal judge and the state Board of Canvassers after only three days of counting ballots.

            Under state law, Stein had to pay $125 per precinct — or $973,250 — to count Michigan’s 7,786 in-person and absentee voting precincts. That check was delivered to state officials when she requested the recount last week.

            Now, with only a fraction of the recount completed, Michigan’s Secretary of State is prepared to refund a portion of that amount, said Fred Woodhams, spokesman for Secretary of State Ruth Johnson. Stein will have to pay for the precincts in Michigan that were counted, but she will not be charged for the precincts that couldn’t be counted because of problems with the ballot containers.

        • Censorship/Free Speech

          • Breitbart News pushes deeper into Europe

            A NOTABLE American commentator, Charles Krauthammer, once explained Rupert Murdoch’s success in founding Fox News, a cable channel, by pointing out that he had found a niche market—half the country. The same may be true of Breitbart News, a conservative website whose fortunes have risen with those of Donald Trump, and whose chairman, Stephen Bannon (pictured), is Mr Trump’s chief strategist.

            Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor at Breitbart, explained after Mr Trump’s victory that half of voters are “repulsed by the Lena Dunham, Black Lives Matter, third-wave feminist, communist, ‘kill-all-white-men’ politics of the progressive left.” Breitbart saw it coming a while ago, he added. The company’s expansion plans suggest it sees something coming in Europe, too. It already has a website in Britain and in January it will launch French and German sites.

          • Fake News About Fake News Leads To (Fake?) Defamation Threat

            So, it seems like “fake news” is all the rage these days. As we’ve discussed, the sudden focus on fake news is a silly distraction. It’s not likely to be changing many minds — and the talk about fake news seems mostly to be leading to calls for censorship. And a big part of the problem is that “fake news” is such a broad and vague label. It’s been applied to outright propaganda, to satire, to serious reporting, to serious reporting people don’t like… and to serious, but mistaken, reporting. The problem is that when you lump all those things together, things get pretty damn messy.

            Take, for example, this “fake news” story that got a lot of attention when it came out right around Thanksgiving: the Washington Post claimed that some “experts” had shown that Russian propagandists were behind the fake news explosion during the election. Which experts? The story doesn’t say. What evidence? The story doesn’t say. The article is focused on a brand new organization called “PropOrNot” that claimed to be run by experts, but won’t identify who’s involved, and the Washington Post didn’t seem to care. But still it made incredibly broad claims about “fake news” and Russian propaganda.

          • The Thin Line Between Political Censorship and Fighting Fake News in Iran

            The Iranian government is reportedly taking steps to expand regulations on large public news channels on the instant messenger Telegram. The move would apparently affect groups with more than 5,000 subscribers.

            It remains unclear, however, if state officials seek dramatic changes to controls on these online communities (ostensibly in the battle against “fake news”), or if the government merely plans to extend and continue existing Internet controls.

            As reported by Tasnim News, a hardline news agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, Iranian ICT Minister Mahmoud Vaezi made the announcement at a press conference during the National Conference on Public Service. Vaezi cited the dangers “unofficial news channels” pose in Iran’s rural and less developed regions, where fake news and misinformation have gained sizeable audiences.

          • Tunisian-American Comic Pokes Fun at the Censorship of Corrupt State-Sponsored News During the Arab Spring

            In February 2011, Arab Spring protests spread from Tunisia and Egypt to Zitounia, a fictional island-nation in the Mediterranean. At least that’s the plot line for “Good Morning, Zitounia!” a new off-Broadway play from comic and activist Leila Ben-Abdallah.

            Ben-Abdallah takes the audience back to a time when protests raged and reporters maintained their propaganda directed by the corrupt government. Despite extreme restrictions, state-owned media did their best to cover the news; a phenomenon some American journalists seem to be emulating in an all-Trump era.

            “This show is for anyone who doesn’t want to read the news because it is too sad, or wants to learn more about the Middle East and North Africa, but is afraid it is too dense or boring,” Ben-Abdallah explained.

          • The Attack on “Fake News” Is An Outright Campaign for Censorship of the Truth

            The buzzword “fake news” has popped into the popular lexicon in recent weeks.

            We’ve been using that term for years, though, when referring to the mainstream media.

            While poll numbers show that about 9 out of 10 people don’t trust the information they get from the mainstream media, they likely still have no idea just how fake it all is.

            As someone who travels the world, I often walk by a television program and it’s called program for a reason, with the local media and can’t even believe what I am seeing or hearing.

          • Application of problematic CJEU ruling on copyright infringement by hyperlinks is getting out of hand

            That’s just unbelievable. I have read this sentence over and over again, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that in a U.S. ruling, let alone by higher courts. It happens in all jurisdictions that concepts get conflated or confused, but the words “conflation” and “confusion” are by far not strong enough to describe this.

            It’s highly illogical that unrelated factors such as a profit motive and knowledge of an infringement cold have any bearing on the term “communication to the public.” You either communicate (including that you make available) something to the public or you don’t, but that is unrelated to whether you do it for profit, for fun, or pro bono, just like it has nothing to do with whether you do it on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Also, a “communication to the public” (including a “making available”) is a communication to the public regardless of whether it’s legal or illegal. That is a subsequent question then.

          • Information Warfare: Chinese Software Supports Subtle Censorship
          • Jihad crackdown slippery slope of censorship
          • Another View: Introducing censorship on social media can be a slippery slope
          • Slippery slope of censorship

        • Privacy/Surveillance

        • Civil Rights/Policing

          • Geert Wilders guilty of incitement

            Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders was on Friday found guilty of incitement and encouraging discrimination, but was not given a penalty.

            A judge said that freedom of expression is fundamental to a democracy, but said there were limits to how far people could go.

            The case against Wilders dates back to 2014 when, during a rally of his Freedom Party (PVV), he asked supporters if they wanted more or fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands. The crowd responded by chanting “Fewer! Fewer! Fewer!”

            Wilders answered them by saying, “We’ll take care of that.”

            Prosecutors asked for a €5,000 fine to be the penalty for Wilders and argued that he deliberately tried to distinguish Dutch citizens of Moroccan origin from others, calling his comments “unnecessarily offensive.”

        • Intellectual Monopolies

          • In Search of Evidence: The IP Statistics For Decision Makers Conference (IPSDM) 2016

            The already existing problem of cross-licensing agreements and also the problem of “cluttering” of patent or trade mark registers, particularly in the information technology and life sciences industries.

          • Trademarks

            • Will Iceland’s EU trade mark end up on ice?

              As the Northern European weather turns to a cold chill, a trade mark dispute is just starting to heat up…

              Iceland is known for its chilly temperatures and occasional financial difficulties. It is also the name of a Nordic country.

              You might think that a supermarket which primarily sells frozen foods would not be readily confused with a country which is known (in no particular order) for Bjork, hot springs, Northern Lights* and the pirate party. But a recent war of words (the main word being “Iceland”) has erupted like a geyser and once again brought trade mark law to the mainstream media’s attention.

            • Indian Trade Marks Registry to widen its doors for recording “well known” marks

              The role of recordation of well-known marks varies across jurisdictions. Against that backdrop, the step about to be taken by the Trade Marks Registry in India in connection with recording well-known marks is especially noteworthy. Kat friend Ranjan Narula, of RNA Intellectual Property Attorneys, describes what can be expected to shortly take place.

          • Copyrights

            • It Begins: Congress Proposes First Stages Of Copyright Reform, And It’s Not Good

              The House Judiciary Committee has been “exploring” various copyright reform proposals for a few years now, asking for feedback, holding a “listening tour” and more. Through it all, it seemed pretty clear that the Judiciary Committee is (reasonably) fearful of getting SOPA’d again, and thus was trying to figure out some less controversial proposals it could push forward first to see how they worked. Two, in particular, have been brought up multiple times: moving the Copyright Office out of the Library of Congress… and creating a “small claims court” for copyright infringement. And it appears that’s what the Judiciary Committee is now moving forward on, even though both are pretty bad ideas.

            • Coming in 2017: Reforms to Copyright Law and the Copyright Office
            • CBS Sues Public Domain For Existing

              This is of course not the first time we’ve seen such an attempt to nibble (or chomp) away at the edges of the public domain. Other examples include the high-profile fight over Sherlock Holmes, and the recent loss over Wizard Of Oz promotional materials. But each is subtly different, and together they form a trifecta that snuffs out giant swathes of the public domain.

              In the case of Sherlock Holmes, we’ve got the rule that early works falling into the public domain can be freely used, but if you’re building on them or adapting them, you can’t incorporate character traits or story points from later works that are still under copyright. While this still raises a huge host of “perpetual copyright” concerns, at its core it seems… somewhat reasonable. The Wizard Of Oz situation is similar, stemming from the idea that just because some materials from the film have fallen into the public domain doesn’t mean everything else is fair game. But, it pushed the borders: the court didn’t simply say that building on the public domain material with other still-copyrighted material from the film becomes infringing, but that building on it with anything or changing it in any way makes it infringing.

    • 12.08.16

    Links 8/12/2016: Korora GNU/Linux 25, SparkyLinux 4.5.1

    Posted in News Roundup at 7:20 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

    GNOME bluefish

    Contents

    GNU/Linux

    • Desktop

      • Remembering Linux Installfests

        Ah, yes. I remember the good old days when you had to be a real man or woman to install Linux, and the first time you tried you ended up saying something like “Help!” or maybe “Mommmmyyyyy!” Really, kids, that’s how it was. Stacks of floppies that took about 7,000 hours to download over your 16 baud connection. Times sure have changed, haven’t they?

        I remember Caldera advertising that their distribution autodetected 1,500 different monitors. I wrote an article titled “Monitor Number 1501,” because it didn’t detect my monitor. And sound. Getting sound going in Linux took mighty feats of systemic administsationish strength. Mere mortals could not do it. And that’s why we had installfests: so mighty Linux he-men and she-women could come down from the top of Slackware Mountain or the Red Hat Volcano and share their godlike wisdom with us. We gladly packed up our computers and took them to the installfest location (often at a college, since many Linux-skilled people were collegians) and walked away with Linuxized computers. Praise be!

    • Server

    • Kernel Space

      • Linux Foundation events expand with Open Source Summits

        The Linux Foundation released its 2017 schedule, including an Embedded Linux Conference in Portland on Feb. 21-23 that needs proposal ideas by Dec. 10.

        This year, Linux Foundation events attracted over 20,000 “developers, maintainers, sysadmins, thought leaders, business executives and other industry professionals from more than 4,000 organizations across 85 countries,” and 25,000 are expected in 2017, says the not-for-profit Linux advocacy organization. In truth, the LF is now more of an open source advocacy organization as it spreads into non-Linux projects like Zephyr. Fittingly, the co-located LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen events in Japan, North America and Europe have this year combined into new umbrella events called Open Source Summits.

      • Why Is Microsoft Showing So Much Interest In Linux? [Ed: Someone needs to explain to Mathew Lodge what EEE is and how it works. Is the Linux Foundation (including Torvalds as well) still permitted to criticise Microsoft or is it frowned upon internally?]
      • Linux on the Mac — state of the union

        The MacBook Pro introduction in October caused unusually negative reactions among professional users due to the realization that Apple no longer caters equally to casual and professional customers as it had in the past [YouTube video]. Instead, the company appears to be following an iOS-focused, margin-driven strategy that essentially relegates professionals to a fringe group. This has well-known developers such as Salvatore Sanfilippo (of the Redis project) consider a move back to Linux. Perhaps that’s a good moment to look at the current state of Mac hardware support in the kernel. While Macs are x86 systems, they possess various custom chips and undocumented quirks that the community needs to painstakingly reverse-engineer.

      • How well does the Linux kernel support Mac hardware?

        There is an interesting subset of Linux users that prefer to run it on a Mac. Yes, a Mac. That might seem odd given how Apple is known for its closed ecosystems and high cost hardware, but the Linux on Mac folks really do exist out there.

        But how well does the Linux kernel support Mac hardware? LWN.net has a “state of the union” article for Linux on the Mac that could be quite helpful if you are thinking about installing Linux on your Mac.

      • New Kernel Vulnerability Allows Local Root For Unprivileged Processes

        There is yet another new Linux kernel vulnerability being disclosed today that allows for unprivileged processes to gain kernel code execution abilities.

        This new vulnerability is CVE-2016-8655 but it doesn’t seem to be getting too much attention yet. CVE-2016-8655 comes down to a race condition within the af_packet.c code for gaining local root access. The researcher that found it was able to write an exploit to gain root shell on an Ubuntu 16.04 LTS system and defeats SMEP/SMAP protection too.

      • Avoiding CVE-2016-8655 with systemd

        Just a quick note: on recent versions of systemd it is relatively easy to block the vulnerability described in CVE-2016-8655 for individual services.

        Since systemd release v211 there’s an option RestrictAddressFamilies= for service unit files which takes away the right to create sockets of specific address families for processes of the service. In your unit file, add RestrictAddressFamilies=~AF_PACKET to the [Service] section to make AF_PACKET unavailable to it (i.e. a blacklist), which is sufficient to close the attack path. Safer of course is a whitelist of address families whch you can define by dropping the ~ character from the assignment. Here’s a trivial example:

      • The Best Features Of The Linux 4.9 Kernel
      • Another nasty Linux kernel bug surfaces [Ed: Did you know that local priv. escalation is a “nasty” bug? CVE isn’t so sexy. Give it a logo, name, and Web site maybe? Look what a disgusting thing the security ‘industry’ and reporting have become…]
      • Don’t have a Dirty COW, man: Android gets full kernel hijack patch

      • Graphics Stack

      • Benchmarks

        • Linux Distributions vs. BSDs With netperf & iperf3 Network Performance

          With now having netperf in the Phoronix Test Suite as well as iperf3 for the latest open-source benchmarks in our automated cross-platform benchmarking framework, I couldn’t help but to run some networking benchmarks on a system when trying out a few different Linux distributions and BSDs to see how the performance compares. The operating systems ran with these networking benchmarks included Debian 8.6, Ubuntu 16.10, Clear Linux 12020, CentOS 7, and Fedora 25. The BSDs tested for this comparison were FreeBSD 11.0 and DragonFlyBSD 4.6.1.

    • Applications

    • Distributions

      • Kali Alternative: BackBox Linux 4.7 Arrives With Updated Hacking Tools

        BackBox Linux is an Ubuntu-based operating system that’s developed with a focus on penetration testing and security assessment. If you take a look at our list of top 10 ethical hacking distros, BackBox ranks in top 3.

        This alternative of Kali Linux operating system comes with a variety of ethical hacking tools and a complete desktop environment. The software repositories of the hacking tools included in BackBox Linux too are frequently updated. Earlier this year in May, we witnessed the release of BackBox Linux 4.6 that was based on kernel 4.2 and Ubuntu 15.10.

      • New Releases

        • SparkyLinux 4.5.1 MinimalGUI

          There is an update of Sparky 4.5.1 MinimalGUI available to download.

          The Sparky Advanced Installer doesn’t work as it should in the MinimaGUI edition, if you are trying to install an additional desktop. The installer calls a ‘desktop-installer’, but it does not coming back to the main installer with right privileges after. It used to do before, but not any more.

        • SparkyLinux 4.5.1 MinimalGUI ISO Respin Improves the Sparky Advanced Installer

          Only four days after the official release of the Debian-based SparkyLinux 4.5 operating system, the development team published an update MinimalGUI ISO image dubbed SparkyLinux 4.5.1.

        • Kodi-Based LibreELEC 8.0 “Krypton” Sees New Alpha Powered by Linux Kernel 4.8.12

          The development of the open-source and platform-independent LibreELEC (Libre Embedded Linux Entertainment Center) operating system based on the latest Kodi media center software received a new Alpha milestone on December 6, 2016.

      • OpenSUSE/SUSE

        • Announcing openSUSE’s GPG Key Server – keyserver.opensuse.org

          Does it happen to you, too, that there are moments where you ask yourself why others want something from you that is there already since a while? Exactly this happened with https://keyserver.opensuse.org/: the original machine was set up a long time ago to make it easier for people attending the openSUSE GPG key-signing parties, but it looks like nobody officially announced this “new service” for our users…

          …and so here we are: the openSUSE Heroes team is pleased to announce that keyserver.opensuse.org is up and running as public GPG keyserver. We are of course also part of the official keyserver pool, which means that some people might already noticed us, as they got redirected to our server with their requests. (And for those who are interested to setup their own SKS keyserver: we have also written a nice monitoring plugin that helps you keeping an eye on the pool status of your machine and the ones of your peers.)

        • OpenSUSE Ends Support For Binary AMD Graphics Driver

          Bruno Friedmann has announced the end to AMD proprietary driver fglrx support in openSUSE while also announcing they don’t plan to support the hybrid proprietary AMDGPU-PRO stack either.

          Friedmann wrote, “Say goodbye fglrx!, repeat after me, goodbye fglrx… [In regards to the newer AMDGPU-PRO stack] I will certainly not help proprietary crap, if I don’t have a solid base to work with, and a bit of help from their side. I wish good luck to those who want to try those drivers, I’ve got a look inside, and got a blame face.”

      • Slackware Family

        • Absolute 14.2.2 released

          The update is for the 64-bit version. Updated kernel and Xorg, as well as taking care of security and functional fixes (such as tweaks to pulse audio, network manager, battery management.) Installer also updated to correct error of sometimes not finding drives for autoinstall. All Slackware updates in current included and several programs recompiled to keep up with dependency changes.

      • Red Hat Family

        • New CloudLinux 7 Kernel Released, Rebased to Red Hat’s OpenVZ Linux 3.10 Kernel

          CloudLinux’s Mykola Naugolnyi announced the general availability of an updated kernel package for the enterprise-ready CloudLinux 7 operating system based on the freely distributed sources of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

          CloudLinux is the operating system of choice for hosting providers and data centers, powering over 20 million websites. It’s a super-platform designed for stability, security, and efficiency in shared hosting by isolating each occupant and giving them allocated server resources.

          A new kernel version, tagged as build 3.10.0-427.36.1.lve1.4.26, has been announced earlier for those who are using the CloudLinux 7 release on their server infrastructures, and it’s now available for installation from the updates-testing repository. It’s been rebased on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7′s OpenVZ rh7-3.10.0-327.36.1.vz7.18.7 kernel.

        • Finance

        • Fedora

          • Fedora 25: Bleeding edge and bloody brilliant

            I honestly never thought I’d consider Fedora a rock solid enough distribution to serve as a daily driver for anything but developing and testing. This came with good reason: Fedora was always released as a bleeding edge platform, a playground for testers and developers.

            That was the Fedora of old. What they have created with their 25th iteration is some sort of magical confluence of bleeding edge and bloody brilliant.

          • Developers Discuss Future Of CD/DVD Optical Images For Fedora

            With more laptops abandoning DVD drives, USB-based flash drive installers being well supported and widely-used, and CD/DVDs just being far less popular these days, Fedora developers are discussing the future of the official status for optical images in future Fedora releases.

            While Fedora developers continue discussing the possibility of making their release cycles longer, the latest post-F25 topic is the official state for the optical Fedora images. In particular, Fedora QA wondering about future requirements given the significant time requirements spent on testing Fedora CD/DVD images.

          • Korora 25 ‘Gurgle’ Fedora-based Linux distribution now available for download

            I regularly try many Linux-based desktop operating systems on my computers, just so I can be familiar with them. Ultimately, I always return to my favorite — Fedora. While that distribution is very good, it can also be a bit difficult to use — for some. Don’t get me wrong, it functions well ‘out of the box’, but once a user begins needing some non-free packages, it can be tough going. In other words, setting it up can sometimes be a chore.

          • Elections 2016: Nominate community members to Fedora leadership

            With Fedora 25 out the door a couple of weeks ago, Fedora is once again moving ahead towards Fedora 26. As usual after a new release, the Fedora Elections are getting into gear. There are a fair number of seats up for election this release, across both the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) and the Fedora Council. The elections are one of the ways you can have an impact on the future of Fedora by nominating and voting. Nominate other community members (or self-nominate) to run for a seat in either of these leadership bodies to help lead Fedora. For this election cycle, nominations are due on December 12th, 2016, at 23:59:59 UTC. It is important to get nominations in quickly before the window closes. This article helps explain both leadership bodies and how to cast a nomination.

          • Endless Sky now available on Fedora

            Endless Sky is a 2D space trading and combat game similar to Escape Velocity. The game sets you as a beginning pilot, just having made a down payment on your very first starship. You’re given a choice between a shuttle, a freighter or a fighter. Depending on what ship you choose, you will need to figure out how to earn money to outfit and eventually upgrade your ship. You can transport passengers, run cargo, mine asteroids or even hunt pirates. It’s an open-ended game that blends the top-down action of a 2D space shooter with the depth and replayability of a 4X.

          • Analysis is confusing

            I’ve known of affinity mapping, and even tried to use sticky notes to figure out some of my data in the first UX project I did. Unfortunately, as I found out at the time, analysis of the data I get in UX research doesn’t really lend itself to being done alone. Much like statistics, I suspect. I’m not at all sure how UX consultants do their analyses, given this!

          • Korora 25 Linux Released, Based on Fedora 25 Ships with Cinnamon 3.2, MATE 1.16

            On December 7, 2016, the development team behind the Fedora-based Korora Linux operating system proudly announced the release and general availability of Korora 25.

          • Remembering a friend: Matthew Williams

            One of the things about working in open source software communities is that you are always moving forward. It’s hard not to get a sense of momentum and progress when it seems you are constantly striving to improve and build on the work you and others have done before.

            But sometimes you have to pause to reflect, because sometimes there is loss.

      • Debian Family

        • Day trip in Cape Town, part 2

          Let me get some interesting tit-bits not related to the day-trip out-of-the-way first –

          I don’t know whether we had full access to see all parts of fuller hall or not. Couple of days I was wondering around Fuller Hall, specifically next to where clothes were pressed. Came to know of the laundry service pretty late but still was useful. Umm… next to where the ladies/gentleman pressed our clothes, there is a stairway which goes down. In fact even on the opposite side there is a stairway which goes down. I dunno if other people explored them or not.

        • Derivatives

          • Second Parsix GNU/Linux 8.15 “Nev” Preview Out Now with Linux Kernel 4.4.35 LTS

            Today, December 7, 2016, the development team behind the Debian-based Parsix GNU/Linux operating system have announced the release of the second preview version of the upcoming Parsix GNU/Linux 8.15 “Nev” distribution.

            Still based on the Debian GNU/Linux 8 “Jessie” repositories, Parsix GNU/Linux 8.15 “Nev” Test2 is here one and a half months after the previous development release, and ships with more recent technologies and Open Source software projects, including the latest GNOME 3.22.2 desktop environment and Linux 4.4.35 LTS kernel.

          • Welcome to Parsix GNU/Linux 8.15-TEST-2 Release Notes

          • Canonical/Ubuntu

            • This $90 Kit Converts an ODROID board into a Touchscreen Ubuntu PC

              We’ve seen what the Raspberry Pi can do when you throw in some extra hardware, and we recently heard about what the Pine64 is going to do once it’s inside a laptop casing.

            • Ubuntu Touch OTA-14 Released, This Is What’s New

              Ubuntu OTA-14, the latest over the air update to Ubuntu phone and tablet, has begun to roll out to supported devices. “This time not so many changes released in overall but with the goal of introducing less regressions,” says Canonical’s Lukasz Zemczak in the release announcement mailing list post.

            • How Do You Install Ubuntu: USB, or DVD?
            • What New Is Going To Be In Ubuntu 17.04 ‘Zesty Zapus’

              Right on the heels of Ubuntu 16.10 ‘Yakkety Yak’ is Ubuntu 17.04 Zesty Zapus. Ubuntu 17.04 is currently scheduled for release on April 13, 2017 but know that this is only an estimate. One thing to know is that all things being equal, it is going to be released in April 2017. Ubuntu Zesty Zapus will be supported for only 9 months until January 2018 as it is not a LTS (long term support) release.

            • Ubuntu Core has the keys to IoT security

              In October, a DDoS attack on Dyn’s infrastructure took down a big chunk of the internet, making sites like Amazon and Twitter inaccessible. It was the first major attack involving IoT (internet of things) devices. Fortunately, it was also a benign attack: no one got hurt, no one died.

              However, the next attack could be catastrophic. No one knows when it will happen. No one knows the magnitude.

              There are billions of IoT devices out there: web cameras, thermostats, doorbells, smart bulbs, refrigerators, heaters, ovens, and much more. IoT devices are low hanging fruits for cybercriminals because for all theoretical and practical purposes a majority of these IoT devices are insecure by design, they are insecure by default. It should be called IIoT: insecure internet of things.

            • Flavours and Variants

              • Zorin OS 12 Ubuntu-based Linux distribution now available — a Windows 10 alternative

                Windows 10 is a really great desktop operating system, but it is not for everyone. For those that care deeply about security and privacy, an open source Linux-based operating system is a wise alternative. The problem? Learning a new user interface can be hard for some. If you have always used a Windows OS in the past, moving to a desktop environment like GNOME or Unity can be confusing and scary.

                Luckily, for those that have difficulty with change, there are some Linux-based operating systems that are designed for Windows-switchers. One fairly popular such offering, Zorin OS, has now reached version 12. It is designed to be familiar to former users of Microsoft’s OS. While the company does charge for an “Ultimate” version, the “Core” edition of Zorin OS 12 is entirely free.

    • Devices/Embedded

    Free Software/Open Source

    • Communicating To The World: Why Open-Source Could Help Your Small Business

      Just as groundbreaking advancements in technology in the ‘90s and 2000s have fundamentally changed the way film, music and television are produced and distributed today, more recent tech innovations have also provided entrepreneurs with the tools they need to compete in the global marketplace. Here is a look at some of the open-source solutions that you can use in order to realize your entrepreneurial ambitions.

      [...]

      The rise of high quality open-source web utilities has made it possible for anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of web design to make a quality site. In fact, open-source content management systems like WordPress are so easy to use and comprehensive, companies like Best Buy and Xerox use them to maintain their web presences. Additionally, open-source business management and accounting program Solegis, customer relationship management app ConcourseSuite and e-commerce solution Zen Cart all exist to empower entrepreneurs with limited resources.

    • What lies ahead for open source technology in 2017?

      2016 has been a polarising year. A year when the unexpected and largely unpredicted has occurred, shocking people worldwide. We have lurched into a post-truth era, where emotion transcends logic, and maintaining the status quo is no longer a given.

      Change is inevitable and there are vast swathes of global society who are disappointed and apprehensive about what lies ahead. In times of uncertainty, an increased focus on collaboration and community is appealing and desirable.

      The internet has long been a polarising force, a connecting platform that allows individuals to find kindred spirits they might not have been able to find before, regardless of their allegiances and views.

    • Financial tech-ops chief: open source is a recruitment talent imperative

      Developers don’t want to take what companies tell them at face value: they want to look under the bonnet, and assess the quality and design of the code for themselves. If you want to win credibility among the developer community and encourage the right people to your brand, you need to share your work and demonstrate best practice, not just talk about it.

      The benefits to an open source approach don’t end with the positive impression it can help foster among developers.

    • Speaking in Tech: Did an open source guru just ask us to join Amazon?
    • FOSS DOS for 21st Century Hardware

      The founder and coordinator of the FreeDOS Project writes about FreeDOS 1.2, which is scheduled for a Christmas Day release. There is good news for classic gamers and nostalgia buffs: this one’s got games.

    • 4 open source drone projects

      Over the past few years, interest in both civilian and commercial use of drones has continued to grow rapidly, and drone hardware sits at the top of many people’s holiday wish lists.
      Even just within the civilian side of things, the list of unmanned aerial devices which fit the moniker of drone seems to be constantly expanding. These days, the term seems to encompass everything from what is essentially a cheap, multi-bladed toy helicopter, all the way up to custom-built soaring machines with incredibly adept artificial intelligence capabilities.

    • Lenovo Cloud Director: Open Source Technologies Are The Glue That Binds The Hybrid Cloud

      Hardware giant Lenovo is banking on a future where both public and private clouds are critical in driving IT innovation, and the glue binding those hybrid environments is mostly open source technologies.

      Dan Harmon, Lenovo’s group director of cloud and software-defined infrastructure, encouraged solution providers attending the NexGen Cloud Conference & Expo on Wednesday to explore opportunities to engage Lenovo as its products stock the next generation of cloud data centers.

      Both public and private clouds are growing rapidly and will dominate the market by 2020, Harmon told attendees of the conference produced by CRN parent The Channel Company.

    • Web Browsers

      • Chrome

      • Mozilla

        • A Look At Async/Await JavaScript For Firefox 52

          While Chrome 55 has JavaScript async/await support, the Firefox support isn’t coming until the Firefox 52.0 stable release in March while currently it’s available in the latest Firefox Developer Edition and early alpha builds.

          Mozilla developer Dan Callahan wrote a post today on hacks.mozilla.org for the async/await support in Firefox and can be used if you are running the latest Firefox Developer Edition. Check it out if you’re interested in JavaScript async await support for more asynchronous programming for the web.

    • SaaS/Back End

      • Cloudera Ratchets Up its Training for Top Open Source Data Solutions

        Recently, we’ve taken note of the many organizations offering free or low cost Hadoop and Big Data training. MIT and MapR are just a couple of the players making waves in this space. Recently, Cloudera announced a catalog of online, self-paced training classes covering the company’s entire portfolio of industry-standard Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark training courses. The courses, according to Cloudera, allow you to learn about the latest big data technologies “in a searchable environment anytime, anywhere.”

        Now, Cloudera has announced an updated lineup of training courses and performance-based certification exams for data analysts, database administrators, and developers. The expanded training offerings address the skills gap around many top open source technologies, such as Apache Impala (incubating), Apache Spark, Apache Kudu, Apache Kafka and Apache Hive.

    • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

      • Microsoft Office, Google Docs beware: This open-source startup is after your users

        “That was one of the reasons why we chose an open-source model. We want be open, want people to trust us, want to overcome that barrier they have in mind, those strong beliefs that there’s nothing but Microsoft Office, that nothing better could be created. We won’t change our mind about open source.”

        Bannov says he ultimately sees OnlyOffice becoming a firm that provides consulting, technical support and remote managed services to companies using its open-source products.

      • Collabora Online 2.0 Puts LibreOffice In the Cloud, Adds Collaborative Editing

        Today, December 7, 2016, Collabora Productivity, through Michael Meeks, is proud to inform Softpedia about the general availability of the long anticipated Collabora Online 2.0 office suite based on the LibreOffice, Nextcloud, and ownCloud technologies.

        After being in development for the past six months, Collabora Online 2.0 is finally here as the powerful cloud-based office suite that promises to protect users’ privacy and freedom of expression while editing various documents formats online. Collabora Online is mainly targeted at the enterprise world, hosting and cloud businesses.

    • CMS

      • Family Farming and Open Source Wireless Networking

        Open source methods are being covered more often on television and radio these days, as witnessed by this recent story posted Monday on YouTube by CNBC that mentions Drupal-based Farm OS and covers the story of Dorn Cox, an organic grain grower at Tuckaway Farm in Lee NH; the Director of Green Start, an organization working towards food and fuel security; and co-founder of Farm Hack, an open source community for resilient agriculture.

      • WordPress 4.7 Provides Improved Customization

        WordPress 4.7 was released on December 6, providing the tens of millions of internet users that rely on it, with a long list of new features.

        As always with every new major WordPress milestone, there is a new theme. For WordPress 4.7 the new theme is Twenty Seventeen, which provides users with video headers and features images.

    • Education

      • High School’s Help Desk Teaches Open Source IT Skills

        The following is an adapted excerpt from chapter six of The Open Schoolhouse: Building a Technology Program to Transform Learning and Empower Students, a new book written by Charlie Reisinger, Technology Director for Penn Manor School District in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. In the book, Reisinger recounts more than 16 years of Linux and open source education success stories.

        Penn Manor schools saved over a million dollars by trading proprietary software for open source counterparts with its student laptop program. The budget is only part of the story. As Linux moved out of the server room and onto thousands of student laptops, a new learning community emerged.

    • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Public Services/Government

      • City of Rome: all new software should be open source

        The city of Rome, the fourth-largest city in the European Union, will increase its use of free and open source software, it decided in October. All new software solutions should be based on open source, and the city is to consider replacing existing proprietary solutions by open source alternatives.

      • Dutch govt should consider sharing all its software

        The Dutch government is to create a vision document on how all software developed for and by public administrations can be made available as open source. On Tuesday, the Lower House of the Dutch Parliament agreed that sharing software developed for or by the government has significant benefits, including information security, efficiency and openness.

    • Licensing/Legal

      • Open Compliance in the Enterprise: Why Have an Open Source Compliance Program?

        Traditionally, platforms and software stacks were implemented using proprietary software, and consisted of various software building blocks that originated as a result of internal development or via third-party software providers with negotiated licensing terms.

        The business environment was predictable and companies mitigated potential risks through license and contract negotiations with the software vendors. It was very easy to know who was the provider for every software component.

    • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Programming/Development

      • Why You Should Have a Personal CI Server

        As a developer, I rely on a CI server to take care of the day-to-day routine of building, testing and deploying software…so much so that I often find myself committing code after every new class or group of methods as a “fire and forget” signal to the CI server to go ahead and run my tests, check my code for style violations, and push a new version to the dev server. When I have finished my train of thought, I can jump into the CI server and either be greeted with a green tick or have a handy (and more importantly authoritative) list of issues to be addressed.

        However, for all the convenience that a central CI server brings, there are times when this environment lets me down. Maybe my jobs are at the end of the queue, I can’t deploy to the dev servers during a certain time frame, or the configuration of the build just doesn’t quite do what I want it to do but I don’t have the authority to change it.

    • Standards/Consortia

    Leftovers

    • First Time Anywhere: 12 Biggest Tech/Media Platforms by Audience Reach, aka the 2 Billion Plus Club

      Time to publish another first, as the first ever source for a statistic related to tech, mobile, media and advertising. As I do my various workshops and seminars, my clients invariably love my numbers and the one they have most asked for, was a comparison of the different media and communication platforms. Because there wasn’t one. And it was a difficult task to try to do. Now I have done it. We have the 12 tech and media with largest reach.

    • Hardware

    • Health/Nutrition

      • No Decision On WTO Plain Packaging Dispute Before May 2017

        The much-awaited decision of the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Body on Australia’s law requiring that tobacco products be sold in plain packages, challenged by four countries, has been postponed and is now expected “not before May 2017.”

      • UNAIDS Board Considers Recommendations On Access To Medicines

        The Board of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) this week is considering a report calling for the 11 cosponsor agencies of the programme to follow the recommendations of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines to improve policy coherence, and to produce reports on the use of intellectual property at country and regional levels, including the use of flexibilities.

    • Security

      • Security advisories for Wednesday
      • There’s a new DDoS army, and it could soon rival record-setting Mirai

        For almost three months, Internet-of-things botnets built by software called Mirai have been a driving force behind a new breed of attacks so powerful they threaten the Internet as we know it. Now, a new botnet is emerging that could soon magnify or even rival that threat.

        The as-yet unnamed botnet was first detected on November 23, the day before the US Thanksgiving holiday. For exactly 8.5 hours, it delivered a non-stop stream of junk traffic to undisclosed targets, according to this post published Friday by content delivery network CloudFlare. Every day for the next six days at roughly the same time, the same network pumped out an almost identical barrage, which is aimed at a small number of targets mostly on the US West Coast. More recently, the attacks have run for 24 hours at a time.

      • Open source Roundcube webmail can be attacked … by sending it an e-mail

        The developers of open source webmail package Roundcube want sysadmins to push in a patch, because a bug in versions prior to 1.2.3 let an attacker crash it remotely – by sending what looks like valid e-mail data.

        The authors overlooked sanitising the fifth argument (the _from parameter) in mail() – and that meant someone only needed to compose an e-mail with malicious info in that argument to attack Roundcube.

        [...]

        Roundcube posted a patch to GitHub at the end of November, and issued a version 1.2.3 here.

      • Open Source Flaws Found in Security Software

        Yet another industry survey has flagged open source software that according to one estimate accounts for half of the global code base as a growing security threat. Moreover, a review released by Flexera Software also found that the very security products designed to protect IT infrastructure are themselves riddled with vulnerabilities embedded in open source software.

      • Latest Android security update fixes Dirty COW, GPS vulnerabilities
      • News in brief: DirtyCOW patched for Android; naked lack of security; South Korea hacked
      • Millions exposed to malvertising that hid attack code in banner pixels

        Researchers from antivirus provider Eset said “Stegano,” as they’ve dubbed the campaign, dates back to 2014. Beginning in early October, its unusually stealthy operators scored a major coup by getting the ads displayed on a variety of unnamed reputable news sites, each with millions of daily visitors. Borrowing from the word steganography—the practice of concealing secret messages inside a larger document that dates back to at least 440 BC—Stegano hides parts of its malicious code in parameters controlling the transparency of pixels used to display banner ads. While the attack code alters the tone or color of the images, the changes are almost invisible to the untrained eye.

      • Backdoor accounts found in 80 Sony IP security camera models

        Many network security cameras made by Sony could be taken over by hackers and infected with botnet malware if their firmware is not updated to the latest version.

        Researchers from SEC Consult have found two backdoor accounts that exist in 80 models of professional Sony security cameras, mainly used by companies and government agencies given their high price.

        One set of hard-coded credentials is in the Web interface and allows a remote attacker to send requests that would enable the Telnet service on the camera, the SEC Consult researchers said in an advisory Tuesday.

      • I’m giving up on PGP

        After years of wrestling GnuPG with varying levels of enthusiasm, I came to the conclusion that it’s just not worth it, and I’m giving up. At least on the concept of long term PGP keys.

        This is not about the gpg tool itself, or about tools at all. Many already wrote about that. It’s about the long term PGP key model—be it secured by Web of Trust, fingerprints or Trust on First Use—and how it failed me.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Email cache proves Turkish oil minister’s links to Isis oil trade, WikiLeaks claims

        WikiLeaks has released a cache of thousands of personal emails allegedly from the account of senior Turkish government minister Berat Albayrak, son-in-law of the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which it says shows the extent of links between Mr Albayrak and a company implicated in deals with Isis-controlled oil fields.

        The 60,000 strong searchable cache, released on Monday, spans the time period between April 2000 – September 23 2016, and shows Mr Albayrak had intimate knowledge of staffing and salary issues at Powertrans, a company which was controversially given a monopoly on the road and rail transportation of oil into the country from Iraqi Kurdistan.

        Turkish media reported in 2014 and 2015 that Powertrans has been accused of mixing in oil produced by Isis in neighbouring Syria and adding it to local shipments which eventually reached Turkey, although the charges have not been substantiated by any solid evidence.

      • Wikileaks: Turkish Energy Minister Indirectly Involved In ISIS Oil Trade

        WikiLeaks published on Monday a searchable archive of nearly 58,000 emails from the private email account of Berat Albayrak – Turkey’s incumbent energy minister and son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – revealing the influence Albayrak has in Turkey and his correspondence regarding Powertrans, a company implicated in oil imports from ISIS-controlled oil fields.

        The emails encompass 16 years between April 2000 and September 23, 2016. A search by the ‘Powertrans’ keyword in the published WikiLeaks emails returns 32 results, including emails sent to Albayrak regarding personnel and salary issues at Powertrans.

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

      • Exclusive: ‘He will fight to the last breath’: Julian Assange’s mother speaks out six years after his arrest

        Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s mother Christine has told SBS News she feels “angry” but she’s still fighting six years after her son was arrested in relation to sexual assault allegations.

        Assange handed himself in to police in London on December 2010 and was released on bail.

        However, in June 2012 he broke his bail and sought asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London over fears he would be extradited to the US to face possible espionage charges.

        Since then police have kept the embassy surrounded, preventing him from leaving to Ecuador.

      • Pressure Builds for UK and Sweden to Release WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange

        WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been in confinement for over 2,100 days without being charged with a crime. Since 2012, Assange has been under asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after he faced extradition to Sweden for questioning related to sexual offenses against two women, which Assange has consistently denied. Assange feared that if extradited to Sweden, he would subsequently be extradited to the United States, where he would likely face criminal charges for his work at WikiLeaks.

        Since its founding in 2006, WikiLeaks has published millions of documents exposing corruption in governments around the world, most notably the United States. WikiLeaks has shown light on the mass surveillance conducted by the NSA, torture in Guantanamo Bay, civilian deaths at the hands of the U.S. military, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) rigging the primaries for Hillary Clinton, and many other revelations. This has, in turn, provided WikiLeaks and Assange a despised reputation among the United States government officials implicated in their releases.

        The New York Times and Washington Post, who previously coordinated with WikiLeaks to publish documents, assisted in propagating a narrative that Assange was a Russian ally due to the damage resulting from the leaks of DNC and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s emails. Assange and his allies affirm that the abrasive attitude toward WikiLeaks from U.S. officials have been a primary cause of Assange’s prolonged detention by the U.K. and Sweden.

      • On Assange, Following the Rules or Flouting Them?

        It should not have been terribly surprising to Sweden or the United Kingdom that the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that the various forms of confinement suffered by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange violate his human rights. The Working Group has many times warned that it is unlawful to force someone to choose between liberty and a fundamental right, such as asylum, which Assange now enjoys only so long as he stays inside the walls of the Ecuadorean embassy.

        What is news are the deplorable rhetorical parries from the UK and Swedish governments, who both stated not just disagreement, but that the Working Group opinion would have absolutely no effect on their actions. This is not what one expects from democratic governments who usually support the UN mechanisms and international law.

      • Assange’s mother pleads for his release

        The mother of Julian Assange has pleaded with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to secure her son’s release, six years to the day after he was arrested.

        Christine Assange made phone calls to the PM’s and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s offices on Wednesday to ask for their help in releasing the WikiLeaks founder from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, six years after he was arrested in the UK on December 7, 2010.

        ‘Today he has been detained six years without charge,’ Ms Assange told AAP on Wednesday. ‘It’s time for the Australian government to stand up for my son’s human and legal rights.’

      • Julian Assange defies Swedish prosecutors by releasing rape statement

        Julian Assange has thumbed his nose at Swedish investigators, who he says have robbed him of his freedom for six years, by releasing the answers he gave to them under questioning in Ecuador’s London embassy last month.

        The decision to issue the statement, which contains for the first time a detailed account by the WikiLeaks founder of his encounter with a woman in August 2010 who made rape allegations against him, marks a fresh twist in a case in which Assange claims an early leak of information from the Swedish police has shaped opinion.

      • Julian Assange’s Defence Statement

        Julian Assange has published his statement given to the Swedish prosecutor. I give it in full below. I do implore you to read it. This is the first time his defence has been made public, although the media have been delighted to report the leaked allegations against him in detail.
        His defence will not be given in the same detail in the media.

        It is worth noting that under Swedish law the identity of both the accuser and the accused ought to be protected, but that did not prevent Swedish police and prosecutors leaking details to a complicit media, or the women concerned selling their story to the tabloids.

        You really do owe it to yourself, to justice and to personal honesty to read Julian’s side of the story.

    • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

      • Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s choice to lead the EPA, is a literal stenographer for the oil and gas industry

        Sometimes we say that so and so is a “mouthpiece” of some special interest, meaning that they’re in cahoots, that they express their views. Or maybe we say someone’s a “puppet” of industry. Most of the time these are metaphors.

        But sometimes they’re literal. Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s pick to head the EPA, is a mouthpiece and a puppet of the fossil-fuel industry. He’s a stenographer.

        How do we know this? We know this because in 2014 Pruitt sent a letter to that same EPA in his capacity as attorney general of Oklahoma. The letter argued that the agency was dramatically overstating how much pollution new gas wells in his state were causing.

      • Climate Deniers’ Top 3 Tactics

        Climate deniers don’t just want to deny global warming and its danger. They want you to deny it too.

        But man-made climate change is real, the danger is extreme, so they have to use guile to persuade you otherwise. There are three tried-and-false tactics they use often, and to great effect. Let’s take a close look at these misdirection methods, so you can arm yourself for defense against the dark arts.

      • Met Police is still running Windows XP on 19,000 PCs [Ed: I wrote about this before [1, 2, 3]. iophk says, “still running Microsoft at all is a problem”]

        THE METROPOLITAN POLICE SERVICE (MPS) is still running Microsoft’s now-defunct Windows XP operating system on 19,000 PCs.

        This figure, confirmed to the INQUIRER’s sister site V3, marks a decrease of 7,500 from the 27,000 MPS PCs that were running Windows XP in August.

        This means a total of 15,500 machines have been upgraded from XP, although only to Windows 8.1, rather than Microsoft’s newer Windows 10 platform.

      • Trump taps Oklahoma attorney general to lead EPA

        President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate Scott Pruitt, the Republican attorney general of Oklahoma and a frequent legal adversary to President Obama, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a transition official told The Hill.

        If confirmed by the Senate to oversee the 15,000-employee agency, Pruitt would take the lead on dismantling the EPA regulations that Trump targeted throughout his campaign as job killers that restrict economic growth.

        Reuters first reported the news Tuesday.

    • Finance

      • Boeing Sweats Under Trump Spotlight as SoftBank Feels Warmth

        First came Ford and Carrier. Now Boeing and SoftBank are experiencing the power of Donald Trump’s Twitter feed.

        The president-elect jumped into corporate affairs again Tuesday, tweeting first to criticize one company and then to hail another. He began at 8:52 a.m. New York time by calling out Boeing Co. over costs to develop new Air Force One jets. Just over five hours later he celebrated a $50 billion investment in the U.S. by Japanese telecommunications firm SoftBank Group Corp.

        The tweets, coming after Trump last week announced a deal with United Technologies Corp. to cancel plans to close a U.S. factory, dominated news and moved markets even as details in both cases remained sketchy and the impacts unclear. Trump again showed a willingness to use his bully pulpit to criticize or congratulate companies over actions affecting American workers and government spending.

      • British workers living in poverty ‘at a record high’

        The number of workers living in poverty has reached a record high as the UK’s housing crisis fuels growing insecurity, a think tank has warned.

        Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) showed that 3.8 million workers, or one in eight, live in poverty.

        Low wages are regularly cited as the cause of in-work poverty, but the rising cost of rented housing is also pushing working people into extreme financial difficulty. A total of 7.4 million people, including 2.6 million children, are living in poverty despite being in working households, the report claims.

      • Sports Direct hits out at ‘extreme campaign’ as profits fall 25%

        Sports Direct’s chairman has accused the media, unions and politicians of a damaging “campaign” against the company amid its working practices and governance crisis.

      • The big money behind Trump’s tech deal is from Saudi Arabia

        Donald Trump has taken credit for a Japanese tech conglomerate’s plan to invest $50 billion in America.

        True, Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder and CEO of SoftBank (SFTBF), pledged Tuesday to invest the huge sum in U.S. startups. But that’s only part of the story.

        In reality, a big chunk of the cash is likely to come from the Saudi government.

        In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Son said the source of the investment would be a $100 billion fund SoftBank launched in October with Saudi Arabia.

      • Opting Out of Uber’s Forced Arbitration (The Clock is Ticking)

        You have until December 21st. That’s it. But you can opt out.

        Here’s the deal: Uber changed its terms of service to force people into arbitrations, taking away consumers’ rights to sue the ride sharing company if something goes wrong. Like plow into another car because the driver was looking at his phone to see where his next right might come from.

        That kind of thing.

      • Excellent, deep series on Uber’s Ponzi-scheme economics

        For the past week, Naked Capitalism has run a series of articles by transportation industry expert Hubert Horan on the economic shenanigans of Uber, which cooks the numbers it shows investors, drivers and the press to make it seem like something other than a black box that uses arrogance and lawlessness to make a bet on establishing a monopoly on transport in the world’s major cities.

        Horan started with four articles on Uber’s economics: Understanding Uber’s Bleak Operating Economics; Understanding Uber’s Uncompetitive Costs; Understanding False Claims About Uber’s Innovation and Competitive Advantages and Understanding That Unregulated Monopoly Was Always Uber’s Central Objective — today, he finishes (?) up with a fascinating Q&A with the commentators who’ve followed the series.

      • How to Expose Trump’s Dastardly Bait-and-Switch

        Trump is not an economic populist, he’s just playing one on TV.

        [...]

        Trump’s opening speech of his “thank you tour” in Ohio laid out the bait. While putting forth his “action plan to make America great,” Trump dished out nationalist and populist themes with a characteristic mix of racist signaling. Trump promised to put America first: “There is no global anthem. No global currency. No certificate of global citizenship. We pledge allegiance to one flag and that flag is the American flag. From now on it is going to be: America First,” Trump said. “Never anyone again will any other interests come before the interest of the American people. It is not going to happen again.”

        Trump echoed Bernie Sanders with his focus on the “forgotten” American worker. Trump felt their pain, and indicted trade deficits and flight of manufacturing jobs. He promised good jobs. He will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and take on China. He bragged about the Carrier deal, and pledged a 35 percent tariff on companies that offshore jobs and try to ship products back into the United States.

        Like Sanders, Trump proposed a major plan to rebuild America, including “our inner cities.” His plan will have “two simple rules”: “Buy America” and “Hire America,” phrases that too many Democrats would choke on.

        The conservative core of his program—corporate tax cuts, deregulation, reviving coal and oil, repealing Obamacare—is wrapped in this populist gauze.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Donald Trump just insulted a union leader on Twitter. Then the phone started to ring.

        Jones, a union leader in Indianapolis, represents the Carrier workers whose jobs Donald Trump has pledged to save. He said the sudden attention from the country’s next leader didn’t feel real.

        “My first thought was, ‘Well, that’s not very nice,’ ” he told The Washington Post on Wednesday night. “Then, ‘Well, I might not sleep much tonight.’ ”

        Jones, president of the United Steelworkers Local 1999, told The Post on Tuesday that he believed Trump had lied to the Carrier workers last week when he visited the Indianapolis plant. On a makeshift stage in a conference room, Trump had applauded United Technologies, Carrier’s parent company, for cutting a deal with him and agreeing to keep 1,100 jobs that were slated to move to Mexico in America’s heartland.

        Jones said Trump got that figure wrong.

      • Michigan election officials refuse to count ballots from black counties

        In Michigan, where Donald Trump won by just 10,704 votes, election officials are refusing to recount ballots in counties Hillary Clinton won handily.

      • U.S. judge reverses order requiring vote recount in Michigan

        A federal judge in Michigan on Wednesday revoked his order requiring a recount of the state’s presidential vote sought by Jill Stein, siding with a state appeals court that found the Green Party candidate had no grounds to mount the challenge.

        U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith’s ruling has the effect of halting the recount in Michigan, at least for now, following conflicting rulings a day earlier by federal and state appeals courts.

        The Michigan Court of Appeals on Tuesday ordered the recount stopped, while the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Goldsmith’s earlier decision and said the process should proceed. The dueling rulings had both sides claiming victory but left the future of Stein’s bid unclear.

        Goldsmith, in deferring to the Michigan appeals court, said Stein had not presented valid reasons for him to override that court’s decision, which found that she was not an “aggrieved” candidate with standing to demand a recount.

        The Stein campaign said in a statement following Goldsmith’s ruling that it had appealed again, to the Michigan Supreme Court, and sought to disqualify two justices there because they had been mentioned by Republican President-elect Donald Trump as potential nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court.

      • US judge reverses order requiring vote recount in Michigan

        A federal judge in Michigan on Wednesday revoked his order requiring a recount of the state’s presidential vote sought by Jill Stein, siding with a state appeals court that found the Green Party candidate had no grounds to mount the challenge.

        US District Judge Mark Goldsmith’s ruling has the effect of halting the recount in Michigan, at least for now, following conflicting rulings a day earlier by federal and state appeals courts.

        The Michigan Court of Appeals on Tuesday ordered the recount stopped, while the US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Goldsmith’s earlier decision and said the process should proceed. The dueling rulings had both sides claiming victory but left the future of Stein’s bid unclear.

      • As it spreads online and off, Pizzagate gets weirder and more dangerous

        This past Sunday, a man fired a rifle into Comet Ping Pong, the Washington, DC pizza place at the center of an internet conspiracy theory dubbed Pizzagate that claims, in part, that the restaurant is a haven for a child abuse ring. The gunman surrendered to police after he realized there were no children being illegally harbored in the restaurant. What should have been an end to one of the internet’s strangest conspiracy theories appears to be just another moment in its convoluted timeline.

        This week, conspiracy theorists have named other pizza parlors as willing participants in the cover-up. DNA Info reports that New York pizzeria Roberta’s in Brooklyn received a threatening phone call last week after the restaurant was linked to Pizzagate.

      • Colorado electors sue state in effort to block Trump

        Two Democratic electors from Colorado filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday, challenging a state law that requires they vote for the winner of the state’s popular vote, the Denver Post reports.

        Polly Baca and Robert Nemanich had pledged to support Democrat Hillary Clinton, the winner of Colorado’s nine electoral votes.

        But now they are joining so-called “Moral Electors” in other states and say they’ll shift their Democratic votes to a consensus Republican pick — if one emerges.

        The “Moral Electors” want to persuade Republican electors in other states to vote for a third-party candidate, the Post reports, in an attempt to keep Donald Trump from receiving 270 electoral votes.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Women in Lebanon protest law allowing rapists to marry their victims to escape punishment

        Women in Lebanon are protesting for the removal of a law that allows rapists to escape punishment for their crimes as long as they marry the survivor.

        The outdated statute from the 1940s currently says that rape is punishable by up to seven years in prison. The penalty for raping a minor or someone with mental or physical disabilities is higher – but Article 522 of the law creates a loophole which says that criminal prosecution is suspended if the two people involved get married.

        The law is up for debate on Wednesday after it was raised by a member of parliament. Lebanon’s diverse Christian and Muslim political representatives are currently energised by the election of a president after a more than two-year-long paralysis which meant legislation could not be passed – and activists are optimistic something can be done.

      • Five Afghan teenagers are arrested after a boy is gang-raped at knifepoint for more than an hour in a forest in Sweden

        Five Afghan teenagers have been arrested after a boy was gang-raped at knifepoint in a forest in Sweden, it has emerged.

        The victim, who is under 15, was filmed during the attack, which happened in woodland in Uppsala, south east Sweden.

        He was beaten and dragged out to the forest at knifepoint before being subjected to an ordeal lasting more than an hour, prosecutors say.

      • Obama Leaves Trump a Mixed Legacy on Whistle-Blowers

        Back in 2008, Senator Barack Obama promised that, if elected, he would run the most transparent Administration in history and would champion the cause of whistle-blowers. “Such acts of courage and patriotism . . . should be encouraged rather than stifled,” Obama said of whistle-blowers during his campaign.

        Eight years later, these words ring hollow to admirers of dissenters such as Edward Snowden and Thomas Drake, two of eight national-security “leakers” who have been charged with violating the 1917 Espionage Act during Obama’s Presidency. His Justice Department has prosecuted more such cases against whistle-blowers than all previous Administrations combined, setting a precedent that some fear Donald Trump will invoke—and drastically build upon—to further muzzle dissent.

      • ‘The Moms’ co-host Denise Albert, who is battling cancer, says she felt ‘violated’ during TSA search

        A breast-cancer patient said she felt violated and humiliated in a public TSA search at Los Angeles International Airport Sunday after two security agents put her through what she called an aggressive pat down.

        Denise Albert, a frequent guest on the PIX11 Morning News and co-host of “The Moms,” was traveling through LAX security when two TSA agents pulled her aside for a manual search because she was trying to bring a necessary medical cream with her on her flight, Albert said.

        “I always let them know I have a medical port and that I am wearing a wig,” says Albert.

      • The Person Who Deciphered the Order to Shoot at Kent State

        Stuart Allen died on November 22, 2016. I learned of his death by way of an email from Laurel Krause, whose sister Allison was gunned down by the National Guard on May 4, 1970, just after the noon hour during a demonstration against the U.S. incursion into Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

        Stuart Allen would not like to be called a hero, although he certainly was one. Stuart was both an audio and video expert, with degrees in both fields and worked out of his lab and business in New Jersey that offers expert analyses of that kind of data. Stuart often worked for law enforcement, including the Justice Department and the FBI.

        In 2010, both Stuart and another forensic audio expert, Tom Owen, provided information at the request of the Cleveland Plain Dealer (“New analysis of 40-year old recording of Kent State shootings reveals that Ohio Guard was given an order to prepare to fire,” May 9, 2010) about a new analysis of the famous Strubbe tape, a recording of the events that led up to the death of four students and the wounding of nine others during a demonstration against the U.S. incursion into Cambodia.

        The tape that Stuart analyzed, and the results with which Tom Owen concurred, yielded dramatic new information. Using state-of-the-art forensic audio tools, one of which was developed by the Soviet KGB prior to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Stuart found that a sequence of orders was given to the National Guardsmen as they reached the top of Blanket Hill on the campus of Kent State University, turned in unison, and fired 67 times at unarmed student demonstrators below the hill.

      • How a Muslim Group Shut Down Christmas Celebrations in Bandung

        A Christmas celebration led by preacher Stephen Tong at Sabuga Building in Bandung, West Java, on Tuesday (06/12) was forced to end after a Muslim hardliner group disrupted services.

        The group, identifying as Defenders of Ahlus Sunnah (PAS), forced organizers to end the event and claiming the religious service should be held in a church, not a public building.

      • Arrest of leading Egyptian feminist Azza Soliman sparks anger

        Human rights activists in Egypt have reacted angrily to the arrest of prominent women’s rights advocate Azza Soliman, saying it marked a “chilling escalation” of pressure on civil society organisations.

        Soliman, the founder of the Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA), is one of a number of activists, lawyers and journalists to have been prevented from leaving Egypt in the past month.

        The rights lawyer and leading feminist said last week that she had been turned back on 19 November at Cairo airport. Soon after, Soliman discovered that her personal assets and those of her group had been frozen. On Wednesday, her foundation and a security source said she had been detained by police.

      • Tensions are rising, there are cracks in the façade, and change is in the air. When and how will things snap?

        Tensions between the industrial-age establishment and the networked people-at-large have been rising for years, if not for two decades. Politicians and elites striving to paint themselves on moral high horses are seen as increasingly isolated from the real world, enriching themselves at the expense of everybody else – not just expense in a monetary sense, but even more so in a liberty sense. With a perceived establishment increasingly insisting on their worldview, using an increasing amount of political violence and in contrast with people at large, major changes are inevitably in the cards.

        There are many signs that the political establishment is losing touch with reality – basically, losing touch with everything that happened since the Internet. The political structures they’re a part of were built to solve the problems of a different era, and those organizations are institutionally incapable of realizing that today’s conflicts are completely different from those that defined the industrial age. Therefore, politicians do two things – they keep hammering home messages that come across as increasingly irrelevant, while at the same time strengthening their own reality bubble where they are denying that the world is changing, has already changed, around them.

        [...]

        The UK is preparing for ten years in prison for teenagers who share music and movies directly, as people have always done but in violation of the copyright distribution monopoly, on the basis that they theoretically may have caused somebody to not earn as much money as they feel they should have. This is a prime example of a “let them eat cake” moment: in a referendum, would such a draconian measure even get a single percentage point of support?

        [...]

        When I can’t walk home safely, I just get angry when the taxation money I’ve worked hard for is being spent on things like gender pronoun awareness campaigns and parental leave bonuses within the administration instead of on fixing basic security and foundational liberty in the streets. The elites are now so far isolated from the common people, they’re not even aware that they’re working at the utterly wrong level of the Maslow Pyramid of Human Needs: politicians and establishment are operating at level five (self-emancipation) with society at large at level two (basic safety concerns).

      • Federal judge kills recount effort in Michigan

        A federal judge has stopped the hand recount of nearly 5 million ballots in Michigan, a decision that seems to secure Donald Trump’s narrow victory in the traditionally blue state.

        U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith, who effectively ordered the recount to begin Monday, sided with a state appeals court Wednesday in halting the effort, ABC News reported.

        On Tuesday, a Michigan appeals court ruled 3-0 that Green Party candidate Jill Stein should not have been allowed to demand a recount because she is not an “aggrieved candidate.” Goldsmith, after hearing arguments from the state Republican Party and GOP attorney general, agreed.

        “Because there is no basis for this court to ignore the Michigan court’s ruling and make an independent judgment regarding what the Michigan Legislature intended by the term ‘aggrieved,’ plaintiffs have not shown an entitlement to a recount,” Goldsmith said.

        The Stein campaign’s lead lawyers in Michigan said they were “deeply disappointed” with the ruling.

    • Intellectual Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • Court: Usenet Provider is Not Liable for Piracy

          After several years, the appeals court has reached a final decision in the case between anti-piracy group BREIN and Usenet provider NSE. The court ruled that the Usenet provider is not liable for the copyright infringements of its users. However, it also requires the service in question to offer a fast and “effective” takedown procedure.

        • YouTube’s $1bn royalties are not enough, says music industry

          YouTube has said it has paid the music industry $1bn (£794m) in royalties this year – but record companies have responded by claiming it is not enough.

          The spat began on Tuesday, when YouTube’s chief business officer Robert Kyncl posted a blog highlighting the site’s contribution to the industry.

          He said YouTube had distributed $1bn in advertising royalties alone, arguing that “free” streaming was as important as subscription sites like Spotify.

          But record labels were not impressed.

        • IFPI Sneers at YouTube’s $1 Billion Music Industry Revenue Payout

          Google has just announced that during the past 12 months, YouTube paid out $1 billion to the music industry from advertising alone. However, the IFPI remains unimpressed, accusing the platform of taking advantage of artists and producers. YouTube exploits loopholes in the DMCA, the industry group argues, while calling for legislative change to address the “value gap.”

        • Proposed EU Commission Copyright Reform Detrimental To Authors, CEIPI Says

          The opinion explains that recent empirical evidence from national implementation of publishers’ neighbouring rights confirmed a negative impact on small publishers. However, news aggregators might have a positive effect on online news sites, they said.

    12.07.16

    Links 7/12/2016: ROSA Desktop Fresh R8 Plasma 5, Ubuntu Touch OTA-14

    Posted in News Roundup at 7:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

    GNOME bluefish

    Contents

    GNU/Linux

    Free Software/Open Source

    • NIPS conference: Google releases open-source, AI, 3D game-development project

      Today, on the opening day of the marquee AI conference Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference in Barcelona, Google announced in a blog post the release of its DeepMind Lab project available to the AI community under open source licensing terms.

      Artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) are the next two computing platforms. DeepMind Lab is a 3D AI platform for building virtual games that bring these two platforms together in multiple dimensions. DeepMind Lab uses a special kind of AI, called machine learning (ML). And within the field of ML, it uses an advanced form of machine learning called deep reinforcement learning (DeepRL).

    • 7 cool little open source projects that stood out in 2016

      In the early days of the open source movement, a lot of the attention was on operating systems, and later on large content management systems. These days, containers are mentioned regularly even in mainstream news outlets. The big tech stories are great, but they miss the other great activity in the niches of the open source space. I’ve rounded up seven interesting lesser-known projects from the past year. You can see more articles about projects like this in my Nooks and Crannies column.

    • The most in demand skills you need for an open source job

      With coding and software development in serious need of talent, it’s essentially a graduate’s market, but you still need the right combination of skills and attributes to beat the competition. When it comes to open source and DevOps, a deeper understanding is essential.

    • Why the Open Source Cloud Is Important

      To this end, foundations such as the Cloud Foundry Foundation, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and Open Container Initiative (OCI) at The Linux Foundation are actively bringing in new open source projects and engaging member companies to create industry standards for new cloud-native technologies. The goal is to help improve interoperability and create a stable base for container operations on which companies can safely build commercial dependencies.

    • AI Platforms Welcome Devs With Open Arms

      Two leaders in the field of artificial intelligence have announced that they’re open-sourcing their AI platforms.

      After investing in building rich simulated environments to serve as laboratories for AI research, Google’s DeepMind Lab on Saturday said it would open the platform for the broader research community’s use.

      DeepMind has been using its AI lab for some time, and it has “only barely scratched the surface of what is possible” in it, noted team members Charlie Beattie, Joel Leibo, Stig Petersen and Shane Legg in an online post.

    • Open source is so much more than free code

      In 2011, the Department of Veterans Affairs officially moved its most critical software, the VistA electronic health record system, into open source by establishing the Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA). Along the way, VA officials solicited and followed advice from numerous open source experts, including Red Hat, Carnegie Mellon University and the Industry Advisory Council.

    • Events

    • Databases

      • SQL Server on Linux signals Microsoft’s changing development landscape [Ed: This headline is wrong. There is no SQL Server on Linux; it runs on a Windows compatibility layer and it's entirely proprietary.]
      • Exploring the Trend Towards Open Source Database Management Systems

        The popularity of open source DBMSs, as measured by the DB-Engines Ranking, has reached a new record. So, we’re going to analyze the underlying details.

        We have 154 open source systems in our ranking, slightly less than the 156 commercial systems. If we add up the popularity scores of all the open source systems, we get 46% of the overall scores, whereas 54% goes to commercial systems.

      • Cloud convenience is killing the open source database

        Open source has never been more important or, ironically, irrelevant. As developers increasingly embrace the cloud to shorten time to market, they’re speeding past open source, making it even harder to build an open source business.

        After all, if open source were largely a way for developers to skirt legal and purchasing departments to get the software they needed when they needed it, the cloud ups that convenience to the nth degree. In Accel’s annual business review, the vaunted venture capital firm writes: “‘Product’ is no longer just the bits of software, it’s also how the software is sold, supported, and made successful.” The cloud is changing the way all software is consumed, including open source.

    • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • CMS

      • WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, More: Keeping Up With Open Source CMS

        Due to its organic nature, the world of open source software is in constant flux, which makes it difficult to keep tabs on.

        To keep you in the loop, I’m kicking off a monthly roundup of open source CMS news, starting today.

        Here are your latest open source CMS highlights.

      • 4 open source peer-to-peer marketplaces

        What happens if your startup can’t afford one of these proprietary solutions or you need customized features? You go look for an open source alternative that could open the space for new solutions and modules. Here are four peer-to-peer marketplaces that are working to become the WordPress or Prestashop of their kind.

      • WordPress 4.7 “Vaughan”

        Version 4.7 of WordPress, named “Vaughan” in honor of legendary jazz vocalist Sarah “Sassy” Vaughan, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. New features in 4.7 help you get your site set up the way you want it.

    • Education

      • Pencils down: Why open source is the future of standardized testing

        Administering standardized tests online is trickier than it sounds. Underneath the facade of simple multiple choice forms, any workable platform needs a complex web of features to ensure that databases don’t buckle under the pressure of tens of thousands of test takers at once. On top of that, it also needs to ensure that responses are scored correctly and that it’s impossible for students to cheat.

    • BSD

    • Public Services/Government

    • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

      • Why your teams may be failing at the collaboration game

        When we think about skills needed to build open structures and establish open mindsets, collaboration jumps to mind immediately. In order to collaborate effectively, communication—or rather, clear communication—is imperative to making it all work.

        Communication can be defined as a transfer of information from one space or person to another—but it can look like dialogue, conflict resolution, listening skills, or even a knowledge commons. In open organizations, we look for timely transfers of information to all members so that they may do their jobs effectively and efficiently.

      • Open Data

        • Portugal’s AMA publishes two open data guides

          The Portuguese Agency for Administrative Modernisation (Agência para a Modernização Administrativa, AMA) has published two national open data guides.

          As its title implies, the ‘Open Data Introduction Guide’ is aimed at the general public or those interested in learning about the subject.

          The ‘Open Data Guide’ is the official government publication on the subject of public sector data openness. It addresses theoretical issues and practices relevant to the development of open data in Portugal. The topics include open movements, the potential of data openness, processes of opening information, ways of reuse, and an introduction to technical issues. This document is aimed at the various stakeholders in the Portuguese open data ecosystem, such as public agencies, researchers, journalists, citizens and companies interested in reusing or analysing public sector information.

        • Poland looking for new Digital Services and Open Data director

          The Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs is looking for a new director for its Department of Development of Digital Services and Open Data. The director is expected to be a “creative and proactive person who will set out the directions and lead the way for the most important and boldest changes in the state administration”.

      • Open Hardware/Modding

        • Accelerating Innovation: Michigan Tech patent database/app promotes open-source hardware

          Open-source innovation is making the traditional patent system obsolete. Michigan Technological University associate professor Joshua Pearce and his team work with what is called open-source hardware development.

          “What that means is sort of developing technologies that don’t rely on patents,” Pearce said. “We work collaboratively with engineers and scientists all over the world, and (it’s) fairly successful. And the reason it’s successful is because if you have thousands of people working on something, it tends to get pretty good pretty fast.”

          Pearce said the concept began some time ago with open-source software.

        • Non-profit creates open-source drinking water filter for 1/10th of the cost

          The high-tech vision of open-source software meets low-tech design at non-profit organization OHorizons, an international coalition of innovators working to solve persistent global challenges. The team’s most recent invention is the open-source Wood Mold, designed to allow even the least experienced person to create a BioSand Filter that can deliver clean water at 1/10th of the cost of the traditional method. The Wood Mold is designed to be accessible by anyone who has the DIY, open-source construction manual that OHorizons offers for free online.

    • Programming/Development

    Leftovers

    • The Operating System Fountain of Youth: iOS

      When I returned to the store this week, the display was gone. Still, the idea is in the air, the two individuals mentioned didn’t know about the Microsoft product.

      The Microsoft implementation might be too kludgy, or immature, or the concept itself could just be a doomed Rube Goldberg fantasy. Back to reality, we’re likely to pick up fresher clues on iOS direction when new iPads show up, probably next quarter.

    • 15+ Stunning Satellite Photos That Will Change How You See Our World

      Every single day, Grant shares one satellite photo from Digital Globes to change the way we see our planet. “With a focal length 16 times longer than a standard DSLR camera, the cameras are so powerful that you can take a picture of a beach ball on the Golden Gate Bridge in full resolution…from Los Angeles,” Grant told Bored Panda. “I try to present the images with no bias and let people decide what these altered landscapes mean, based on the facts and the visual evidence in the frame. I believe that this perspective is a means to start a conversation about the condition of our planet and how we can better protect it.”

    • Science

      • Teachers’ union ‘concerned’ over Pisa results

        Finland has slipped down the Pisa rankings in recent years, and that trend continued in the latest set of the OECD educational charts released on Tuesday. Although Finland was the only country where girls outperformed boys in science, the number of poor performing students was up and there were fewer high-achievers.

        Finland’s teaching union, the OAJ, says it is concerned about the development in Finnish Pisa results.

        “Finnish results have declined clearly when compared to previous years,” said OAJ expert Jaakko Salo. “The biggest concern in this is that our cornerstone—equality in education—looks to be crumbling.”

    • Health/Nutrition

      • Why is a banned pesticide that harms bees actually being used more?

        Goulson called it “sinister” last week when made aware of the silence, but now concludes it was probably an innocent error. Bob Maurer, chairman of the show, told me the event has never received any sponsorship from the big chemical companies that manufacture neonicotinoids. He believes an accidental “technical hitch” by the video producer was responsible.

        Concern over this coincidence can be dismissed as a conspiracy theory, but what cannot be dismissed is the solid scientific evidence that Goulson is helping to produce, showing how neonicotinoids harm bees and other insects.

      • Civil rights commission to discuss Flint water crisis report

        The Michigan Civil Rights Commission will discuss an early version of its report about the lead-contaminated water crisis in Flint at its next meeting.

        The commission, which meets Monday morning at the University of Michigan Detroit center, is expected to check on progress and provide feedback. The report is scheduled to be released next month.

      • California bill would require reporting of ‘superbug’ infections, deaths

        A California state senator introduced a bill on Monday that would mandate reporting of antibiotic-resistant infections and deaths and require doctors to record the infections on death certificates when they are a cause of death.

        The legislation also aims to establish the nation’s most comprehensive statewide surveillance system to track infections and deaths from drug-resistant pathogens. Data from death certificates would be used to help compile an annual state report on superbug infections and related deaths.

        In September, a Reuters investigation revealed that tens of thousands of superbug deaths nationwide go uncounted every year. The infections are often omitted from death certificates, and even when they are recorded, they aren’t counted because of the lack of a unified national surveillance system.

        “The (Reuters) story highlighted some of the problems that have come from the lack of information, the lack of reporting, especially deaths,” said state Senator Jerry Hill, who introduced the bill. “I wasn’t aware that on death certificates, antibiotic-resistant infections have never been called out.”

        Because there is no federal surveillance system, monitoring of superbug infections and deaths falls to the states. A Reuters survey of all 50 state health departments and the District of Columbia found that reporting requirements vary widely.

    • Security

      • HP shutting down default FTP, Telnet access to network printers

        Security experts consider the aging FTP and Telnet protocols unsafe, and HP has decided to clamp down on access to networked printers through the remote-access tools.

        Some of HP’s new business printers will, by default, be closed to remote access via protocols like FTP and Telnet. However, customers can activate remote printing access through those protocols if needed.

      • Google Chrome 55 Fixes Flaws, Blocks Flash
      • Cyberattacks are going to get a lot worse, former NSA official says

        The face of cybercrime is changing. Healthcare has gone from a declared mission of stealing personal data to much more disruptive issues. In fact, healthcare has seen the largest jump in ransomware attacks than in any other industry.

        When Joel Brenner opened the HIMSS Privacy & Security Forum in Boston Monday morning, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology research fellow – who focuses on cybersecurity, privacy and intelligence policy – and former senior counsel at the National Security Agency, didn’t sugarcoat the state of healthcare security.

        The government isn’t going to sort out that problem until we suffer some great losses, Brenner said.

      • Chrome 55 Now Blocks Flash, Uses HTML5 by Default

        Chrome 55, released earlier this week, now blocks all Adobe Flash content by default, according to a plan set in motion by Google engineers earlier this year.

        Back in May, Google’s staff announced that starting with Q4 2016, Chrome would use HTML5 by default, while Flash would be turned off.

        While some of the initial implementation details of the “HTML5 By Default” plan changed since May, Flash has been phased out in favor of HTML5 as the primary technology for playing multimedia content in Chrome.

      • Google Debuts Continuous Fuzzer for Open Source Software

        A new Google program aimed at continuously fuzzing open source software has already detected over 150 bugs.

        The program, OSS-Fuzz, currently in beta mode, is designed to help unearth programming errors in open source software via fuzz testing. Fuzz testing, or fuzzing is when bits of randomly generated code is inputted into programs as a means to discover code and security flaws.

      • Google Opens Up a Powerful FOSS Security Tool

        Back in 2014, public exposure of the OpenSSL Heartbleed security bug created a stage for security experts and commentators to field opinions on the open source error that left an estimated two thirds of the internet unsecured. We followed up back then with a guest post for OStatic from Eren Niazi, founder of Open Source Storage, where he discussed the security implications for the open source community.

      • Google Finally Patches ‘Dirty COW’ Linux Vulnerability With December Android Security Update [Ed: Google patches don’t matter to news sites until there’s some stupid brand with logo and Web site]
      • Google patches Dirty Cow vulnerability in latest Android security update
      • Docker CEO: Docker Already Is a Security Platform (with Swarm, That Is)

        In a reinforcement of his company’s marketing message that containerization as an architecture is more secure by design, Docker Inc. CEO Ben Golub [pictured right above, with HPE Executive VP Antonio Neri] told attendees at HPE’s Discover London 2016 event last Tuesday morning that the Docker platform addresses and ameliorates its users’ security concerns just by its very architecture.

      • Tuesday’s security updates
      • On CVE-2016-4484, a (security)? bug in the cryptsetup initramfs integration

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste

        The Pentagon has buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste in its business operations amid fears Congress would use the findings as an excuse to slash the defense budget, according to interviews and confidential memos obtained by The Washington Post.

        Pentagon leaders had requested the study to help make their enormous back-office bureaucracy more efficient and reinvest any savings in combat power. But after the project documented far more wasteful spending than expected, senior defense officials moved swiftly to kill it by discrediting and suppressing the results.

        The report, issued in January 2015, identified “a clear path” for the Defense Department to save $125 billion over five years. The plan would not have required layoffs of civil servants or reductions in military personnel. Instead, it would have streamlined the bureaucracy through attrition and early retirements, curtailed high-priced contractors and made better use of information technology.

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

      • Julian Assange defies Swedish prosecutors by releasing rape statement

        Julian Assange has thumbed his nose at Swedish investigators, who he says have robbed him of his freedom for six years, by releasing the answers he gave to them under questioning in Ecuador’s London embassy last month.

        The decision to issue the statement, which contains for the first time a detailed account by the WikiLeaks founder of his encounter with a woman in August 2010 who made rape allegations against him, marks a fresh twist in a case in which Assange claims an early leak of information from the Swedish police has shaped opinion.

        The transcript of a police interview with the woman was leaked to media in December 2010, which the Australian, who has not been charged with any crime, says helped to establish an aura of guilt around him.

        Since then, Assange has repeatedly asked to be allowed to tell his side of the story to prosecutors, but until recently they insisted he come to Sweden for questioning. Assange has been confined to Ecuador’s cramped London embassy since June 2012, after claiming asylum to avoid extradition over the allegations.

      • Julian Assange says texts show he is ‘entirely innocent’ of rape; WikiLeaks founder criticises Swedish prosecutor

        The ABC has obtained a copy of the statement the WikiLeaks founder gave prosecutors from his refuge inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London on November 14.

    • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

      • A threat to rainforests in Indonesia: Big banks

        In early 2015, scientists monitoring satellite images at Global Forest Watch raised the alarm about the destruction of rain forests in Indonesia.

        Environmental groups raced to the scene in West Kalimantan province, on the island of Borneo, to find a charred wasteland: Smouldering fires, orangutans driven from their nests, and signs of an extensive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

        “There was pretty much no forest left,” said Dr Karmele Llano Sanchez, director of the non-profit International Animal Rescue’s orangutan rescue group, which set out to save the endangered primates. “All the forest had burned.”

      • Republicans Vow to Finish the Dakota Access Pipeline Under Trump

        This weekend the Army Corps of Engineers said Dakota Access Pipeline won’t go through as planned since it could have destructive environmental consequences. But, as activists know, that doesn’t mean Republicans are done fighting for the oil pipeline.

        President-Elect Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan were among pipeline supporters who emphasized their commitment to the project, and promised to approve the project in the next term. Trump has suggested in prior speech he would push an oil pipeline through during his first 100 days in office, according to the Wall Street Journal.

      • Five things to watch in Dakota Access pipeline fight

        The Obama administration halted construction on the Dakota Access oil pipeline Sunday, saying it would hold off on granting the final easement for the project while it conducts a thorough environmental review.

        Both the developer and President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have vowed to finish construction, while protesters say they could bring the conflict to court.

        Here are five things to watch in the unfolding fight.

        Trump’s strategy

        When Trump and his administration take office, approving Dakota Access probably won’t be as simple as signing a piece of paper.

        The Army Corps of Engineers ordered an environmental impact statement for the project Sunday. Experts say that because of that, Trump’s administration will have to either complete the yearslong process or find a way to remove the requirement for testing the environmental impact. Doing the latter, however, would be a rare move that could subject the pipeline to a lawsuit.

      • Melting Permafrost Could Affect Weather Worldwide

        Melting permafrost is causing significant changes to the freshwater chemistry and hydrology of Alaska’s Yukon River and could be triggering global climate impacts, according to a U.S. Geological Survey report released yesterday.

        Researchers say the study, which analyzed more than 30 years of data, sheds light on how climate change is already affecting the Arctic.

        According to the report, the Yukon River and one of its major tributaries have accumulated increasing levels of calcium, magnesium and sulfates over the last three decades due to thawing permafrost.

      • Standing Rock protesters asked to ‘go home’ by Sioux leader

        The chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has asked the thousands of “water protectors” gathered in encampments along the Missouri river to “go home” after the US Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for the Dakota Access pipeline to drill under the river.

        In a video statement Dave Archambault thanked the thousands of Native American and environmental activists who travelled to North Dakota to help the tribe fight back against the pipeline, which they feared would contaminate their water source and destroy sacred sites.

        But after the “huge victory” of the Army Corps decision, Archambault said: “There’s no need for the water protectors or for anyone to be putting ourselves in unsafe environments.

      • Indonesia takes new step to combat loss of forests, fires

        Indonesia has strengthened its moratorium on converting peat swamps to plantations in a move a conservation research group says will help prevent annual fires and substantially cut the country’s carbon emissions if properly implemented.

        President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s amendment to the moratorium regulation, which was issued on Monday, expands it to cover peatlands of any depth and orders companies to restore areas they’ve degraded.

        Indonesia’s move was welcomed by Norway, which in 2010 pledged $1 billion to help the country stop cutting down its prized tropical forests but has released little of it. As a result of the expanded regulation, Norway said it would give $25 million to Indonesia to fund restoration of drained peatlands and another $25 million once an enforcement and monitoring plan is ready.

        Draining of peat swamps by palm oil and pulp wood companies is a big contributor to destruction of tropical forests in Indonesia and the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. The land conversion worsens annual dry season fires that release huge amounts of carbon stored in the peat. Many of the fires are deliberately set to clear land of its natural vegetation.

      • Britain could slash environmental and safety standards ‘a very long way’ after Brexit, Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg says

        Britain could slash environmental and safety regulations on imported products after it leaves the EU, a Tory MP has suggested.

        Jacob Rees-Mogg said regulations that were “good enough for India” could be good enough for the UK – arguing that the UK could go “a very long way” to rolling back high EU standards.

        The idea, floated at a hearing of the Treasury Select Committee, was immediately rejected by an economist, who said such a move would likely cause “quite considerable” difficulties.

    • Finance

      • The Soviet Union collapsed overnight. Don’t assume western democracy will last forever

        Below the medieval citadel in Kazan, two vast frozen rivers turn the landscape white. On a Saturday afternoon there are a few hardy locals shuffling through the icy sludge to take selfies against the mosque, the Christmas lights and the Soviet-era statues.

        It’s 25 years since I was last in Russia, trying and failing to revive the left during the chaotic first days of Boris Yeltsin’s economic reforms. Half a lifetime later I am here to address a room full of people who want to talk about replacing capitalism with something better – and suddenly we have something in common: now we both know what it’s like to see a system that once looked permanent collapsing.

        Since I’ve been here, almost everyone who has chosen to come and hear me is involved in either contemporary arts or philosophy. The journalists who want to interview me – a public critic of Putin’s policy in Syria and Ukraine – mainly write for cultural magazines. These, if not exactly the new rock’n’roll, are the safest intellectual spaces in which critical thought can take place.

      • Tar Heel heist: How the charter school industry is hijacking public education

        If the American Dream is still alive – the one that includes a good job and a house with a yard, kids, and a two-car garage – you can see it taking shape in Wake County in the heart of the state of North Carolina. Signs of surging prosperity are everywhere this morning as I make my way to West Lake Middle School in Apex, NC, on the outskirts of Raleigh.

        What were once sleepy two-lane country roads are now teaming with impatient commuters, school busses, and mini-vans. New housing developments, shopping centers, and office buildings are transforming the rolling Piedmont landscape.

      • TPP May Be Dead – But Its Impact Lingers

        Despite the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) being – to all-intents-and-purposes – dead in the water, pursuit of some of the most egregious objectives of the corporate interests driving the TPP agenda rolls on. Pharma is persisting in its push for countries to adopt not just TRIPS-Plus, but in some cases even TPP-Plus intellectual property rules – presumably groundwork for the later emergence of a ‘son-of-TPP’ agreement.

      • India ready to resume BTIA talks with EU without preconditions

        Government is committed to an early and balanced outcome of India-EU Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) negotiations and is willing to resume talks without any preconditions, Parliament was informed today.

        “The European Union (EU) has expressed willingness to re-engage with India in India-EU Broad based Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) negotiations subject to certain conditions.

      • The Mafia State

        The list of financial titans, including Trump, who have profited from a rigged financial system and fraud is endless. Many in the 1 percent make money by using lobbyists and bought politicians to write self-serving laws and rules and by forming unassailable monopolies. They push up prices on products or services these monopolies provide. Or they lend money to the 99 percent and charge exorbitant interest. Or they use their control of government and the courts to ship jobs to Mexico or China, where wages can be as low as 22 cents an hour, and leave American workers destitute. Neoliberalism is state-sponsored extortion. It is a vast, nationally orchestrated Ponzi scheme.

        This fevered speculation and mounting inequality, made possible by the two ruling political parties, corroded and destroyed the mechanisms and institutions that permitted democratic participation and provided some protection for workers. Politicians, from Reagan on, were handsomely rewarded by their funders for delivering their credulous supporters to the corporate guillotine. The corporate coup created a mafia capitalism. This mafia capitalism, as economists such as Karl Polanyi and Joseph Stiglitz warned, gave birth to a mafia political system. Financial and political power in the hands of institutions such as Goldman Sachs and the Clinton Foundation becomes solely about personal gain. The Obamas in a few weeks will begin to give us a transparent lesson into how service to the corporate state translates into personal enrichment.

      • We don’t need a charter-school lobbyist as education secretary: Stephen Henderson

        In Detroit, parents of school-age children have plenty of choices, thanks to the nation’s largest urban network of charter schools.

        What remains in short supply is quality.

        In Brightmoor, the only high school left is Detroit Community Schools, a charter boasting more than a decade of abysmal test scores and, until recently, a superintendent who earned $130,000 a year despite a dearth of educational experience or credentials.

        On the west side, another charter school, Hope Academy, has been serving the community around Grand River and Livernois for 20 years. Its test scores have been among the lowest in the state throughout those two decades; in 2013 the school ranked in the first percentile, the absolute bottom for academic performance.

      • Jill Stein Takes Long-Shot Recount Campaign to Trump Tower

        Jill Stein went to Trump Tower on Monday to press her case for long-shot recounts in three closely contested states in last month’s presidential election.

        Ms. Stein, the Green Party presidential nominee and now the leader of the recount campaign, appeared emboldened by an early morning federal court ruling that ordered Michigan elections officials — over the protests of President-elect Donald J. Trump and his allies — to begin a recount by noon Monday.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Republican ‘faithless elector’ says he will not cast his vote for Donald Trump as he is ‘unfit for presidency’

        A REPUBLICAN presidential elector has issued the shock claim that he will not cast his vote for Donald Trump in an attempt to block his path to the White House.

        Christopher Suprun said in an article for the New York Times that he could not approve Mr Trump in good conscience as he felt the president-elect was unfit for public office.

        “Mr Trump urged violence against protesters at his rallies during the campaign,” he wrote. “He speaks of retribution against his critics.”

        “I owe no debt to a party. I owe a debt to my children to leave them a nation they can trust.”

      • Trump’s lawyer suggests the president-elect’s fraud claim isn’t true

        As you’ve probably heard, there are progressive efforts underway to force recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania – three traditionally “blue” states where Donald Trump narrowly prevailed. Had these three states, where literally every independent poll showed Hillary Clinton ahead in the months leading up to Election Day, voted Democratic, Trump would’ve lost.

      • Jill Stein charges ahead with recount efforts

        Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is vowing to move ahead with recount efforts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, despite legal setbacks and growing opposition from Republicans and other Donald Trump allies in each state.

        “We will not give in to intimidation, to legal maneuvering and to bureaucratic obstruction,” Stein said at a news conference outside of Trump Tower on Monday.

        Her vow came as Stein’s campaign on Monday morning filed a federal lawsuit in Pennsylvania — an attempt to revive the push there after Stein and other Pennsylvania voters dropped a state-based lawsuit to try to force a recount. They gave up on the state-based lawsuit when a judge raised the bond to $1 million, a price Stein panned as exorbitant .

        But even as she railed against the roadblocks in Pennsylvania, Stein lauded developments in Michigan, which was to begin its recount by noon Monday.

      • Trump’s Threat to the Constitution

        On July 7, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, met privately with House Republicans near the Capitol. I was present as chief policy director of the House Republican Conference. Mr. Trump’s purpose was to persuade the representatives to unite around him, a pitch he delivered in a subdued version of his stream-of-consciousness style. A congresswoman asked him about his plans to protect Article I of the Constitution, which assigns all federal lawmaking power to Congress.

        Mr. Trump interrupted her to declare his commitment to the Constitution — even to parts of it that do not exist, such as “Article XII.” Shock swept through the room as Mr. Trump confirmed one of our chief concerns about him: He lacked a basic knowledge of the Constitution.

      • Michigan recount begins, as Jill Stein’s legal battle moves to Pennsylvania

        Presidential candidate Jill Stein’s fight to force presidential recounts in three states focuses Monday on Pennsylvania, where her Green Party is seeking an emergency federal court order for a statewide recount, and Michigan, where a federal judge has ordered a hand recount to begin by noon.

        The recount is underway in Wisconsin.

        President-elect Donald Trump narrowly defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in all three states. The recounts were not expected to change enough votes to overturn the result of the election.

        Stein says her intent is to verify the accuracy of the vote. She has suggested, with no evidence, that votes cast were susceptible to computer hacking.

      • The Frankfurt School Knew Trump Was Coming

        Shortly after the Presidential election, a small piece of good news came over the wire: the Thomas Mann villa in Los Angeles has been saved. The house, which was built to Mann’s specifications in the nineteen-forties, went on the market earlier this year, and it seemed likely to be demolished, because the structure was deemed less valuable than the land beneath it. After prolonged negotiations, the German government bought the property, with the idea of establishing it as a cultural center.

        The house deserves to stand not only because a great writer lived there but because it brings to mind a tragic moment in American cultural history. The author of “Death in Venice” and “The Magic Mountain” settled in this country in 1938, a grateful refugee from Nazism. He became a citizen and extolled American ideals. By 1952, though, he had become convinced that McCarthyism was a prelude to fascism, and felt compelled to emigrate again. At the time of the House Un-American Activities Committee’s hearings on Communism in Hollywood, Mann said, “Spiritual intolerance, political inquisitions, and declining legal security, and all this in the name of an alleged ‘state of emergency.’ . . . That is how it started in Germany.” The tearing down of Mann’s “magic villa” would have been a cold epilogue to a melancholy tale.

      • 9 Things Obama Can Do Before Leaving Office to Prepare for the Trump Takeover

        In less than seven weeks, President Barack Obama will hand over the government to Donald Trump, including access to the White House, Air Force One, and Camp David. Trump will also, of course, inherit the infamous nuclear codes, as well as the latest in warfare technology, including the Central Intelligence Agency’s fleet of killer drones, the National Security Agency’s vast surveillance and data-collection apparatus, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s enormous system of undercover informants.

      • Why is Donald Trump delegitimizing an election that he won?

        On the other hand, what he DOES is important. When he settled the Trump University for 25 Million, despite prolonging it for multiple years and putting all of the plaintiffs through years of frustration and debt, the news stories lasted less than 12 hours before being drowned by the Hamilton Tweets. My own reaction to the tweet was reflexively the same as others: Our President-elect is so sensitive that anything even slightly negative is considered an insult. But, you have to work HARD to find a story today talking about the settlement (or the fact that some are contesting it), but the fallout from the tweets lasted days. Looking back, more than once a fundamental issue concerning Trump was obscured by Tweet reactions. Nude underage beauty contestants, Manafort Russian connections, a debate that clearly showed Trump unprepared, unpresidential, and unhinged turned immaterial as the world reacted to his tweets about Alicia Machado.

      • Jill Stein On What’s Next With the Recount Effort in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania

        Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has initiated recount efforts in three states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan — where Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by a combined margin of 103,519 votes. (A fourth, partial recount is underway in Nevada, by independent presidential candidate Roque De La Fuente).

        Though considered an “extreme long shot” by the New York Times, Stein’s campaign raised her initial goal of $7 million — twice as much as she raised in her failed campaign bid — in just a matter of days. Clinton’s campaign has cooperated with the effort.

      • Bob Dole’s Law Firm Was Paid $20,000 A Month To Lobby For Taiwan

        The Taiwanese representative office in Washington paid the law firm of former Sen. Bob Dole $20,000 a month to advance its interests in Washington, public filings show. Dole said on Monday his firm helped broker a controversial phone call between President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.

        Dole told the Wall Street Journal on Monday that his law firm “may have had some influence” on the phone call, which broke decades of diplomatic precedent, but has been widely praised by China hawks for the tough signal it sends to Beijing. An unnamed Trump transition team official told the paper that Dole had arranged the call.

      • US Power Will Decline Under Trump, Says Futurist Who Predicted Soviet Collapse

        Johan Galtung, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated sociologist who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, warned that US global power will collapse under the Donald Trump administration.

        The Norwegian professor at the University of Hawaii and Transcend Peace University is recognized as the ‘founding father’ of peace and conflict studies as a scientific discipline. He has made numerous accurate predictions of major world events, most notably the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

      • Half of Detroit votes may be ineligible for recount

        One-third of precincts in Wayne County could be disqualified from an unprecedented statewide recount of presidential election results because of problems with ballots.

        Michigan’s largest county voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, but officials couldn’t reconcile vote totals for 610 of 1,680 precincts during a countywide canvass of vote results late last month.

        Most of those are in heavily Democratic Detroit, where the number of ballots in precinct poll books did not match those of voting machine printout reports in 59 percent of precincts, 392 of 662.

      • Mismatched numbers means Mich. precincts can’t be recounted

        A single missing ballot was enough to scuttle the recount of a Michigan precinct Monday.

        The computerized poll book in Rochester Hills precinct 11 listed the names of 848 voters who cast ballots there, but the ballot box contained just 847 ballots. So where is the other ballot? The poll workers’ notes offered no explanation.

        “It didn’t match on the canvass and it doesn’t match now,” said Joe Rozell, Oakland County’s director of elections. “This precinct is not recountable.”

        Two Michigan counties began the recount process Monday, hours after a federal judge ordered the immediate start of the presidential recount. Six counties are expected to start the recount process Tuesday, with the last batch of counties to start Dec. 12.

      • How the Electoral College Really Started
      • Florida voters sue for recount

        Three central Florida voters are mounting an unlikely bid to overturn the presidential election result in the Sunshine State.

        In a lawsuit filed Monday in Leon Circuit Court, they assert that Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, actually won Florida. The plaintiffs, who live in Osceola and Volusia counties, say the state’s official election results were off because of hacking, malfunctioning voting machines and other problems.

        They’re asking for a hand recount of every paper ballot in Florida, at the expense of defendants including Trump, Gov. Rick Scott and the 29 Republican presidential electors from Florida.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • 3 Tips for Teachers to Help Teens Distinguish Fact From Fiction

        The rise in websites dispensing false information has become a problem for Facebook. But for one high school teacher, having students take misinformation at face value is nothing new – though it’s gotten worse.

        “I’m constantly got kids coming to me, ‘Did you know?’ insert whatever conspiracy theory,” says Dave Stuart Jr., who teaches world history at Cedar Springs High School in Michigan. “Ranging from the Apollo missions to the moon never happened, to current events-related stuff.”

        The Common Core standards focus strongly on skills that should prepare students to detect fake news – the standards emphasize the need for students to write and read arguments using and looking for strong reasoning and evidence, says Dana Maloney, an English teacher at Tenafly High School in New Jersey.

      • Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube team up to stop terrorist propaganda

        Four of the largest tech companies—Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and YouTube—are coming together to stop the spread of terroristic content on social media.

        The plan is to create a shared database and track the digital fingerprints of accounts who share propaganda for terror networks helping them identify the content and easily remove photo or videos from their sites.

        “Our companies will begin sharing hashes of the most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos we have removed from our services — content most likely to violate all of our respective companies’ content policies,” the companies announced in a joint statement Monday night.

      • Pakistani Cinema’s Censorship Problem

        Actor Hameed Sheikh, known for his phenomenol performance in Jami’s Moor, spoke about the difficulty he faced while trying to release the movie

      • Hacker News calls for “political detox,” critics cry censorship

        Can social media even exist without political debate? What about trolls? Hacker News, the social news site run by Y Combinator, is trying to find out.

        The head of the Hacker News community since 2014, Daniel Gackle (whose HN handle is “dang”) on Monday initiated a site-wide “Political Detox Week.”

      • With a new Star Trek TV series incoming, we revisit the show’s long history of censorship at the BBC…

        Star Trek is not a franchise you’d normally associate with controversy. Nevertheless, between 1969 and 1994, four episodes of the original series – Empath, Whom Gods Destroy, Plato’s Stepchildren and Miri – were not aired on the BBC, and other episodes were heavily redacted.

      • Internet giants will join forces to stop online sharing of terrorist material

        Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube have announced that they will be working together to curb the dissemination of terrorist material online. The Web giants will create a shared industry database of hashes—digital fingerprints that can identify a specific file—for violent terrorist imagery and terrorist recruitment materials that have previously been removed from their platforms.

        According to a statement the four companies have jointly released, the hope is that “this collaboration will lead to greater efficiency as we continue to enforce our policies to help curb the pressing global issue of terrorist content online.”

      • I’m a Journalist and I Was Stopped From Covering Standing Rock

        It was an assignment that I barely prepared for. I didn’t think I had to.

        For most reporting trips I have made in the last decade, I would think long and hard about where I was going and what the variables were. If I was heading to a conflict zone, I would need body armor and a trauma kit. If it was a natural disaster, I would bring a satellite phone and spare food. If I was heading to an authoritarian country where journalism was not allowed, I would need a mix of burner phones, encrypted hard drives and a disposable laptop. I felt I was prepared for every eventuality. But I never thought that I would have to think about these things so close to home.

        For my recent assignment heading from Canada to the U.S. to cover the anti-oil pipeline protests in Standing Rock for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, I didn’t prepare for anything extraordinary. But at the border, after handing over my Canadian passport I was taken aside. I wasn’t worried. Why should I be? I had nothing to hide, and I felt like it was the one border in my travels where I could proudly proclaim that I was a journalist to safe ears.

      • Ahead of 2022 World Cup, Qatar doubles down on internet censorship and blocks independent news website

        Last week, an independent news website in Qatar, Doha News, discovered that they had been blocked in Qatar. While there has been no official news on why this block has happened, Doha News stated that they suspect that the block happened at the behest of the government. The news site has a reputation for toeing the line in Qatar, and had previously done such “unprecedented” things in the emirates such as publishing an anonymous article by a homosexual Qatari man. Ahead of the 2022 World Cup, it is more than possible that this is just the first of many censorship actions by Qatar. Another famous international media site that is based in Qatar is none other than Al Jazeera.

        Doha News confirmed that Qatar’s two ISPs, Ooredo and Vodaphone, have blocked Doha News. The independent news source tried to create a new domain name to get past the block but that new website was quickly blocked as well. Doha News’s editor, Shabina Khatri was forced to use a different Medium to communicate after the block.

      • Facebook reportedly testing new tool to combat fake news

        Facebook appears to be testing a tool designed to help it identify and hide so called “fake news” on the social network, in an attempt to quell increasingly vocal criticism of its role in spreading untruths and propaganda.

        The tool, reported by at least three separate Facebook users on Twitter, asks readers to rank on a scale of one to five the extent to which they think a link’s title “uses misleading language”. The articles in question were from reliable sources: Rolling Stone magazine, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Chortle, a news site which reports on comedy.

      • Facebook and Google make lies as pretty as truth

        If you asked Google who won the popular vote just after the election, there’s a chance you would have been sent to a conspiracy blog with bogus results. And the site is likely to have looked as legitimate as any other.

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • NSA’s best are ‘leaving in big numbers,’ insiders say

        Low morale at the National Security Agency is causing some of the agency’s most talented people to leave in favor of private sector jobs, former NSA Director Keith Alexander told a room full of journalism students, professors and cybersecurity…

      • Who Are The NSA’s Elite Hackers?

        Last week, a mysterious group calling itself The Shadow Brokers dumped online a series of hacking tools associated with the NSA. The leak provided an unprecedented look into the actual tools that the NSA uses to hack its targets, and in the process, put the spotlight on a little-known team that works inside the spy agency—its elite-hacking unit.

        Known as Tailored Access Operations, or TAO, its existence was barely—if at all—discussed in public until 2009, when intelligence historian and author Matthew Aid described it in his book about the history of the NSA as a “super-secret” unit that taps into “thousands of foreign computer systems” and accesses “password-protected hard drives and email accounts of targets around the world.”

      • Appeals Court to Hear Argument in ACLU Challenge to NSA Internet Surveillance

        A federal appeals court will hear oral argument Friday in Richmond, Virginia, in the case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a broad group of organizations challenging the National Security Agency’s mass interception and searching of Americans’ international internet communications.

      • German Investigation Committee ‘Protracting’ Inquiry Into NSA Spying Scandal

        WikiLeaks published 2,400 documents on the NSA spying affair, according to which Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) was involved in the creation of the spy software that was later used by the NSA to tap top-ranking officials. It was also said that BND used the software in its work.

      • Court upholds warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens under Section 702

        The U.S. federal appeals court has ruled in United States v. Mohamud, a case that began with a 2010 holiday bomb plot and will end with unique implications for the private digital communications of American citizens.

        Digital privacy advocates had hoped that the appeals case might prompt reform for a contentious portion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) known as Section 702. The provision accommodates U.S. surveillance of foreign targets located abroad, although its many detractors argue that Section 702 allows the U.S. government to collect the bulk communications of Americans in the process.

      • United States v. Mohamud
      • No Appeal For US Man Believed Convicted With Warrantless NSA Evidence

        A U.S. man convicted after his emails were revealed by the NSA’s PRISM program, the first public case of its kind, will not have his case overturned, an appeals court has found.

      • German spy agency penetrated by ISIS

        My recent interview about the German domestic spy agency, the BfV – the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, ironically – being allegedly infiltrated by ISIS.

      • Canada Wants Software Backdoors, Mandatory Decryption Capability And Records Storage

        The new Canadian government is looking to further expand its surveillance powers by requiring decryption capabilities for all services, mandatory storage of both internet and phone records for service providers, backdoors that allow interception, and warrantless access to basic subscriber information.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Saudi journalist banned from media after criticising Trump

        Saudi authorities banned journalist Jamal Khashoggi from writing in newspapers, appearing on TV and attending conferences, the Alkhalij Aljadid reported in Arabic.

        This came after Khashoggi’s remarks during a presentation he made at a Washington think-tank on 10 November in which he was critical of Donald Trump’s ascension to the US presidency.

        Two weeks ago, an official Saudi source was cited by the Saudi News Agency as saying that Khashoggi did not represent the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in his interviews or statements.

      • Michael Coe, associate of hate preacher Anjem Choudary, jailed for 28 months

        An associate of hate preacher Anjem Choudary has been jailed for 28 months for knocking a schoolboy unconscious because he cuddled his girlfriend in the street.

        Michael Coe, a Muslim convert, has a long record of violent offences starting when he was 16, including assaults, burglary, robbery and violent disorder.

        The married father of two was convicted in August of attacking the boy after he took exception to the 16-year-old cuddling his teenage girlfriend in Newham, east London, in April.

      • Coincidence? German Stats Show Surge in Sex Crime Rate Around Refugee Centers

        A group of German activists have carried out a study which found that rates of sexual offenses increase significantly in the vicinity of asylum reception centers, Germany’s Journalistenwatch news portal reported.

      • Afghan migrant woman ‘hunted down to Europe by abusive husband’

        Forced into marrying a man 25 years her senior after he had allegedly raped her, this 23-year-old Tajik woman from Kabul is now in a Greek camp for migrants.

        But Lina told the BBC that the abusive husband she ran away from is now following her, threatening to kill her for disobeying him.

        Her story was corroborated by volunteers for a Spanish refugee charity.

        Lina’s husband is one step behind her and her two small children, having reached the Greek island of Lesbos shortly after she was transported to mainland Greece.

      • Muslims are failing to integrate because men keep marrying abroad, major report warns

        Muslim communities remain isolated even after decades in the UK because men keep marrying foreign wives, a Government adviser has warned.

        Dame Louise Casey said that there is a “first generation in every generation” phenomenon in Muslim communities which is acting as a “bar” to integration.

        The review also accuses Labour and local authorities of having “ignored or even condoned” harmful cultural traditions for fear of being branded “racist or Islamaphobic”.

        It reports concerns that Sharia Courts in the UK have been “supporting the values of extremists, condoning wife-beating [and] ignoring marital rape”.

      • British ‘subjects’ did not deserve legal equality with their colonial masters: Interview with Marieme Helie Lucas on Sharia Courts in Britain

        Today, the British law of the land applies to all citizens, be they Catholics, Protestants, atheists, etc. Not one single citizen is beyond the law. Except for the former ‘natives’, be they actually British citizens or migrants: those – and those only – are, once more, entitled to laws of their own, because, beyond their official citizenship, they are still seen as ‘different’ from – and inferior to – the (former?) colonial master. ‘Let them have their own customs, it is their way’.

        ‘Proper’ British citizens are ruled by laws they have voted on, that they can change if they come together and press their MPs. How can ‘Sharia laws’ be changed by the will and vote of citizens? A significant proportion of British citizens are now under supposedly religious laws that they have neither voted for, nor can change through a democratic process. Democracy for ‘proper’ British citizens but unchangeable ‘tribal native customs’ for others?

      • European Union Directive on counterterrorism is seriously flawed

        European Union Member States must ensure that a new effort to standardise counterterrorism laws does not undermine fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, a group of international human rights organisations said today.

        Amnesty International, the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), European Digital Rights (EDRi), the Fundamental Rights European Experts (FREE) Group, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and the Open Society Foundations (OSF) are warning that the overly broad language of the new EU Directive on Combating Terrorism could lead to criminalising public protests and other peaceful acts, to the suppression of the exercise of freedom of expression protected under international law, including expression of dissenting political views and to other unjustified limitations on human rights. The Directive’s punitive measures also pose the risk of being disproportionately applied and implemented in a manner that discriminates against specific ethnic and religious communities.

      • Amber Rudd says EU nationals in post-Brexit UK will need ‘form of ID’

        More than 3 million European Union citizens living in Britain after Brexit will have to be issued with “some form of documentation”, the home secretary has said.

        Amber Rudd told MPs she would not yet set out the details for any new EU ID card, but said: “There will be a need to have some sort of documentation. We are not going to set it out yet. We are going to do it in a phased approach to ensure that we use all the technology advantages that we are increasingly able to harness to ensure that all immigration is carefully handled.”

        The home secretary’s statement came in response to Labour’s Hilary Benn, who told MPs that EU citizens already in the UK would need to be documented so that employers and landlords could distinguish them from EU citizens arriving after Brexit.

        During Home Office questions in the Commons, Rudd also said she was aware of the need to continue the seasonal agricultural workers’ scheme after Brexit, but again ruled out demands to remove international students from the annual net migration target.

      • Diverse yet divided: UK is growing apart, Casey report finds

        The UK is becoming more divided as it becomes more diverse, a Government-commissioned review has claimed.

        In the report by Dame Louise Casey, it is revealed that the ‘pace of immigration in some areas has been too much’.

      • Theresa May’s government condemned for driving ‘more austerity and more racism’ after integration review

        Campaigners have condemned a review of integration for “adding to the politics of racism and scapegoating” after it called for immigrants to swear an oath to the UK and children to be taught “British values” in schools.

        Dame Louise Casey’s review, which was commissioned by the Government, found the country is becoming more divided amid growing “ethnic segregation” and that Muslim women in particular were being marginalised by limited English language skills.

      • Sorry, Louise Casey, but Muslim women are held back by discrimination

        Despite the fact that more British Muslim women than men are getting degrees, we are the most disenfranchised group in the country. Not only are we subject to high levels of unemployment and poverty, but discrimination on the basis of our faith, gender and ethnic background hinders our entry into the labour market.

      • Governor Vetoes Bill That Would Have Allowed Agencies To Withhold Names Of Officers Who Deploy Deadly Force

        Last month, Pennsylvania legislators wrapped up a little gift for the state’s law enforcement agencies: a bill that would have allowed agencies to withhold the names of officers involved in deployments of deadly force for at least 30 days. This was just the mandatory withholding window. The bill never stipulated a release date past that point, meaning “never” was also an acceptable time frame.

        The normal concerns for “officer safety” were given as the reason for the new opacity. Rather than see disclosure as an essential part of maintaining healthy relationships with the communities they served, law enforcement agencies saw disclosure as just another way to hurt already very well-protected officers.

        The DOJ itself — often a defender of entrenched police culture — recommended a 72-hour window for release of this information. State legislators, pushed by local police unions, felt constituents would be better served by being kept in the dark. Given the back-and-forth nature of public sentiment, it was unclear how Governor Tom Wolf would react to the passed proposal.

      • Theresa May urged to raise human rights concerns on Gulf visit

        Theresa May has been urged to confirm she will put human rights reform on her agenda when she meets Saudi and Bahraini leaders on Tuesday, after announcements on her two-day trip to the Gulf were squarely focused on trade and security.

        Rights campaigners in Bahrain argue that although the UK has been assisting Bahrain with judicial and police reform since 2012, current levels ofengagement on rights issues have not prevented crackdowns on journalists and pro-democracy activists in the country.

        May said: “I think the UK has always had the position, and we continue to have the position, that where there are issues raised about human rights, where there are concerns, we will rightly raise those.

      • The terrible human rights records of the countries Theresa May is having dinner with tonight

        Theresa May is visiting Bahrain to meet with leaders of Gulf states, who are in the country for a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

        She will attend a dinner with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman on Tuesday, before addressing the plenary session of the summit on Wednesday.

        The Prime Minister will use the visit to announce a new working group with regional nations to combat the financing of terrorists. The UK will provide three specialist cyber experts to the Gulf states to help deal with extremism.

      • Please, Theresa May, save my husband from death in Bahrain

        In 2014 Mohammed was arrested at Bahrain’s airport where he worked as a police officer. My husband believes in human rights, democracy and transparency. He attended peaceful marches in Bahrain calling for our government to respect these values. As a state employee, he knew that it was risky for him to go to these protests. But he believes in reform and so he went anyway.

        After Mohammed was taken into custody, our family heard nothing for four days – we had no idea where he was, or even if he was alive. Eventually, two weeks later, we were allowed to see him, but only with three guards watching us on a surveillance camera. As soon as we saw him, it was clear that Mohammed had been tortured by the security services.

        Mohammed seemed weak and exhausted, and his body was trembling; this suggested to us that he had been subjected to extreme torture. But no one would tell us the reasons for his arrest or the charges against him.

      • Angela Merkel Calls for Ban on Full-Face Veils in Germany

        To loud applause, Chancellor Angela Merkel told her party members on Tuesday that Germany should ban full-face veils “wherever legally possible” and that it would not tolerate any application of Shariah law over German justice.

        Accepting her party’s nomination as its candidate for another four-year term, the chancellor used the moment to broaden her stance on banning the veil, trying to deflect challenges from far-right forces that have made some of their deepest gains since World War II.

        In welcoming nearly one million asylum seekers to Germany a year ago, Ms. Merkel emerged as a powerful voice for tolerance across a Europe gripped by anxiety over waves of arriving migrants and fears of terrorism.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • Will Donald Trump Dismantle the Internet as We Know It?

        Talking about net neutrality is so boring, the comedian John Oliver once quipped, that he would “rather listen to a pair of Dockers tell me about the weird dream it had” than delve into the topic.

        So it’s unsurprising that Donald Trump—an entertainer with a flair for the dramatic and little interest in wonky details—has stayed away from the issue almost entirely.

        If you want to captivate a nation, discussing thorny telecommunications policy is generally a terrible way to do it. (For those who have managed to avoid reading up on net neutrality thus far, the term refers to open-web principles aimed at curbing practices that give certain companies competitive advantages in how people access the internet. The FCC formally established rules last year that allow the agency to regulate broadband the way it oversees other public utilities. Those rules ban internet service providers from throttling—or slowing—connections to certain content online, and prohibit providers from offering faster connections to corporations that can afford to pay for premium web services. The rules also discourage zero-rating—in which an internet service provider subsidizes a consumer’s cost of going online but often does so in exchange for a competitive advantage.)

      • Millions in US still living life in Internet slow lane

        Millions of Americans still have extremely slow Internet speeds, a new Federal Communications Commission report shows. While the FCC defines broadband as download speeds of 25Mbps, about 47.5 million home or business Internet connections provided speeds below that threshold.

        Dealing with speeds a bit lower than the broadband standard isn’t too horrible, but there are still millions with speeds that just aren’t anywhere close to modern. Out of 102.2 million residential and business Internet connections, 22.4 million offered download speeds less than 10Mbps, with 5.8 million of those offering less than 3Mbps. About 25.1 million connections offered at least 10Mbps but less than 25Mbps.

        54.7 million households had speeds of at least 25Mbps, with 15.4 million of those at 100Mbps or higher. These are the advertised speeds, not the actual speeds consumers receive. Some customers will end up with slower speeds than what they pay for.

    • DRM

      • W3C at a crossroads: technology standards setter or legal arms-dealer?

        The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an amazing, long-running open standards body that has been largely responsible for the web’s growth and vibrancy, creating open standards that lets anyone make web technology and become part of the internet ecosystem.

        Since 2013, the W3C has been working on a very different kind of standard: Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), designed to enable DRM for streaming video, is more than a technology standard. Thanks to US-propagated laws that give DRM makers the right to sue people who break DRM, even for legal purposes, EME will — for the first time in W3C history — give its members the power to sue security researchers, accessibility toolmakers, and competitors who improve EME implementations, regardless of whether these improvements enable copyright infringement or other illegal outcomes.

    • Intellectual Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • Pirate Bay Blocking Case Heads Back to Court in Sweden

          In 2015, a coalition of copyright holders lost a court case which demanded an ISP blockade of The Pirate Bay in Sweden. A year later and Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music and Nordisk Film are back, hoping for a victory in a brand new court that could open the floodgates for widespread website blocking.

        • Court: ‘Falsely’ Accused ‘Movie Pirate’ Deserves $17K Compensation

          An Oregon District Court has sided with a wrongfully accused man, who was sued for allegedly downloading a pirated copy of the Adam Sandler movie The Cobbler. According to the court’s recommendations, the man is entitled to more than $17,000 in compensation as the result of the filmmakers “overaggressive” and “unreasonable” tactics.

        • Wild Boys Sometimes Lose It: Duran Duran fail to reclaim their US copyright

          A few weeks after his eighteenth birthday, Duran Duran co-founder Nick Rhodes signed a music publishing agreement assigning his existing and future copyrights to a publisher, as did the other band members. None of them was aged more than 21 at the time.

        • Aussie Celebrities Join Campaign to Oppose Fair Use

          A campaign has been launched in Australia to prevent proposed changes to copyright law and the introduction of a “fair use” doctrine. Australia currently has a “fair dealing” provision but the royalties and anti-piracy group APRA AMCOS and its celebrity supporters are opposing rules that would provide more freedom.

        • Ten Years in Jail For UK Internet Pirates: How the New Bill Reads

          The Digital Economy Bill is currently at the report stage. It hasn’t yet become law and could still be amended. However, as things stand those who upload any amount of infringing content to the Internet could face up to 10 years in jail. With the latest bill now published, we take a look at how file-sharers could be affected.

    12.05.16

    Links 5/12/2016: Linux 4.9 RC 8, DeepMind as FOSS

    Posted in News Roundup at 6:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

    GNOME bluefish

    Contents

    GNU/Linux

    • Eight great Linux gifts for the holiday season

      Do you want to give your techie friend a very Linux holiday season? Sure you do! Here are some suggestion to brighten your favorite Tux fan’s day.

    • More Random Gift Ideas For Linux Enthusiasts & Others Into Tech
    • Which open source gift is at the top of your holiday wish list?
    • 7 Linux predictions for 2017

      Last year I made a set of predictions of events that I thought would happen in the tech world (focused primarily on Linux and free software). I was mostly right. This has emboldened me to make another set of predictions for 2017. I have no inside knowledge on any of these—I am basing this entirely on the twin scientific principles of star maths and wishy thinking.

    • Kernel Space

      • Linux 4.9-rc8

        So if anybody has been following the git tree, it should come as no
        surprise that I ended up doing an rc8 after all: things haven’t been
        bad, but it also hasn’t been the complete quiet that would have made
        me go “no point in doing another week”.

        Extra kudos to Arnd, who actually root-caused the incredibly annoying
        “modversions do not work with new versions of binutils”, bisecting it
        to a particular change to symbol handling in binutils, and then adding
        a small one-liner patch to the kernel to work around the issue. We
        already had other workarounds in place, but it’s always good to know
        exactly what in the tool chain changed to cause things like this.

      • Linux Kernel 4.9 Slated for December 11 Release as Linus Torvalds Outs RC8
      • Linux 4.9-rc8 Kernel Released
      • Linus Torvalds finds 163 reasons to wait a week for a new Linux

        Linus Torvalds told the world that if it wanted a new Linux he needed a quiet week. But he didn’t get it and now the world has an eighth release candidate of Linux 4.9 to consider.

        The Linux Lord’s weekly what’s up with Linux post says “things haven’t been bad, but it also hasn’t been the complete quiet that would have made me go ‘no point in doing another week’.”

      • Linux Foundation’s Blockchain Collective Hyperledger Hits 100 Members

        Hyperledger aims to enable organizations to build robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support their individual business transactions by creating an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework and code base.

      • The Blockchain Milestone You May Have Missed
      • Sasken becomes member of Automotive Grade Linux

        Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd has announced its membership with Automotive Grade Linux as its bronze member.

        This will enable Sasken to provide solutions to customers on Automotive Grade Linux (AGL). Sasken will provide product development and system integration services for automotive customers spanning in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), instrument cluster, heads-up display and telematics.

      • Graphics Stack

        • Mesa 12.0.4 Promises 15% Performance Boost for Radeon Users on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

          The Mesa problem in Ubuntu Linux is about to be resolved very soon, after the game developers behind the UK-based Feral Interactive video game publishing company urged Canonical to update the software to a most recent version.

          The Mesa 3D Graphics Library is a unique open-source implementation of the OpenGL graphics API for Linux-based operating systems, and it includes drivers for Intel, Radeon, and Nvidia graphics cards. But it looks like Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) was shipping with a pretty old version of Mesa.

        • The Favorite Open-Source Vulkan Projects Of Phoronix Readers
        • Mesa 12.0.5 Released, End Of Road For Mesa 12

          Mesa release manager Emil Velikov announced the availability today of Mesa 12.0.5, just another point release and what he expects will be the last of the Mesa 12.0.x releases.

        • [ANNOUNCE] mesa 12.0.5

          Mesa 12.0.5 is now available.

        • The future of xinput, xmodmap, setxkbmap, xsetwacom and other tools under Wayland

          This post applies to most tools that interface with the X server and change settings in the server, including xinput, xmodmap, setxkbmap, xkbcomp, xrandr, xsetwacom and other tools that start with x. The one word to sum up the future for these tools under Wayland is: “non-functional”.

          An X window manager is little more than an innocent bystander when it comes to anything input-related. Short of handling global shortcuts and intercepting some mouse button presses (to bring the clicked window to the front) there is very little a window manager can do. It’s a separate process to the X server and does not receive most input events and it cannot affect what events are being generated. When it comes to input device configuration, any X client can tell the server to change it – that’s why general debugging tools like xinput work.

        • Please don’t use pastebins in bugs

    • Applications

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • 7 Things to do After Installing KDE Plasma

          Even for other Linux users, KDE Plasma can seem like a different operating system. Except for a few standards like LibreOffice, the apps are different, and so is the design philosophy, which tends to cram in every possible feature. As a result, once they install, users are likely to wonder what to do next.

        • KDE Framworks 5 Content Snap Techno

          In the previous post on Snapping KDE Applications we looked at the high-level implication and use of the KDE Frameworks 5 content snap to snapcraft snap bundles for binary distribution. Today I want to get a bit more technical and look at the actual building and inner workings of the content snap itself.

          The KDE Frameworks 5 snap is a content snap. Content snaps are really just ordinary snaps that define a content interface. Namely, they expose part or all of their file tree for use by another snap but otherwise can be regular snaps and have their own applications etc.

          KDE Frameworks 5’s snap is special in terms of size and scope. The whole set of KDE Frameworks 5, combined with Qt 5, combined with a large chunk of the graphic stack that is not part of the ubuntu-core snap. All in all just for the Qt5 and KF5 parts we are talking about close to 100 distinct source tarballs that need building to compose the full frameworks stack. KDE is in the fortunate position of already having builds of all these available through KDE neon. This allows us to simply repack existing work into the content snap. This is for the most part just as good as doing everything from scratch, but has the advantage of saving both maintenance effort and build resources.

        • Calligra 3.0 Is Ready As A Qt5 / KDE Frameworks 5 Office Suite

          It’s been quite a while since last having anything to report on the KDE Calligra open-source graphics/office suite while surprisingly this morning it was pleasant to see Calligra 3.0 tagged for release.

        • KDE Applications 16.12 Up to Release Candidate State, Final Arrives December 15

          The KDE development team was proud to announce the availability of the Release Candidate (RC) build of the upcoming KDE Applications 16.12 software suite for the KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment.

          Work on KDE Applications 16.12 started about a month ago, on November 10, when the third and last maintenance update of the current stable KDE Applications 16.08 release was announced, marking the end of life of the series. Until today, KDE Applications 16.12 received a Beta development version, tagged as build 16.11.80, and now we’re seeing the Release Candidate, tagged as build 16.11.90.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • GTK Lands A Big Refactoring Of OpenGL Code

          In addition to Red Hat’s Benjamin Otte working on a Vulkan renderer for GTK4′s GSK, he’s also been working on a big refactoring of the OpenGL code that’s now been merged to master.

          OpenGL is very important for GTK4 as it will play a big role in rendering with GSK. With this “large GL refactoring”, a big clean-up was done of the OpenGL GDK code, affecting the X11, Win32, Wayland, and Mir code too. Some of the specific work includes no longer using buffer-age information, passing the actual OpenGL context, and simplifying the code. More details via this Git commit.

        • A Vulkan Renderer For GNOME’s GTK+ GSK Is In Development

          A Vulkan back-end is in development for GNOME’s GTK’s tool-kit new GTK Scene Kit (GSK) code.

          Benjamin Otte has begun experimenting with a Vulkan back-end for GTK’s GSK code with GTK Scene Kit being one of the big additions in development for the major GTK+ 4.0 milestone. GSK implements a scene graph to allow for more complex graphical control of widgets and other improvements to its graphics pipeline. GSK was merged back in October and currently uses OpenGL for rendering while there is now a branched Vulkan renderer.

        • GNOME loves to cook

          With the upcoming 20th birthday of GNOME next year, some of us thought that we should make another attempt at this application, maybe as a birthday gift to all of GNOME.

          Shortly after GUADEC, I got my hands on some existing designs and started to toy around with implementing them over a few weekends and evenings. The screenshots in this post show how far I got since then.

    • Distributions

      • Linux Top 3: SparkyLinux 4.5, Mageia 5.1 and Peppermint 7

        SparkyLinux is (yet another) Debian based Linux distribution. The SparkyLinux 4.5 update codenamed “Tyche’ was released on December 3, providing users with multiple desktop choice other than GNOME. SparkLinux 4.5 ships with KDE, LXDE, LXQt, MATE and Xfce.

      • Upcoming Linux Distributions Releasing In December 2016

        In December 2016, a big Linux distribution release is taking shape in the form of Linux Mint 18.1 Serena, flavored by Cinnamon 3.2. It’ll be accompanied by the release of security and privacy-focused Anonymous Live CD Tails 2.9.

      • New Releases

        • 4MLinux 20.1 Linux Distro Released with Kernel 4.4.34 LTS to Restore PAE Support

          4MLinux developer Zbigniew Konojacki is happy to inform Softpedia today about the immediate availability of the first point release of the 4MLinux 20 stable series of his independently-developed GNU/Linux distribution.

          4MLinux 20.0 was officially released a month ago, on the first day of November, and it’s currently the most advanced version of the Linux-based operating system, shipping with the long-term supported Linux 4.4 kernel and many recent GNU/Linux technologies and Open Source software applications.

      • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

      • OpenSUSE/SUSE

        • openSUSE Leap 42.2 gets 64-bit Raspberry Image

          The latest release from openSUSE has new images available for the Raspberry Pi and joins SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for Raspberry Pi in becoming the initial distributions with 64-bit for the Raspberry Pi 3.

          The 64-bit image of openSUSE Leap 42.2 for the Raspberry Pi 3 has been out for a couple weeks.

          “The ARM and AArch64 Images for openSUSE Leap 42.2 are not a once-only release,” said Dirk Mueller. “They get continuously updated and include fixes as the Leap 42.2 port matures over time. These are the first usable images, and more variants with more fixes will come over time.”

        • OpenSUSE Leap 42.2 Does A 64-bit Spin For The Raspberry Pi 3

          Following SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as being available in a 64-bit edition catered to the Raspberry Pi 3, openSUSE developers have now released a 64-bit image of Leap 42.2 for the RPi3.

        • SUSE Buys HPE’s OpenStack and Cloud Foundry Assets, Talent

          Back in November, the Cloud Foundry Foundation, home of an industry-standard platform for cloud applications, announced that SUSE had increased its engagement and support of Cloud Foundry by becoming a Platinum member.

          Now, SUSE has entered into an agreement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to acquire technology and talent that will expand SUSE’s OpenStack Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution. In addition, the company announced that it will accelerate its entry into the growing Cloud Foundry Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) market, and said that the acquired OpenStack assets will be integrated into SUSE OpenStack Cloud.

      • Red Hat Family

        • Why Red Hat takes an ‘upstream first’ approach

          Red Hat has been an open source solution provider since 1993 and is 100% open source-focused. Today, the company has more than 80 offices in more than 40 countries around the globe and employs about 10,000 people.

        • Singapore IT Decision Makers Turn to Open Source for Digital Innovation

          Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the results of a commissioned study by Forrester Consulting, on behalf of Red Hat, about the use of open source in digital innovation initiatives in the Asia Pacific region. The results, highlighted in the study Open Source Drives Digital Innovation revealed that IT decision makers in Singapore are turning to open source to drive better efficiency and digital innovation.

        • Linux Pathshala received Red Hat awards
        • Red Hat OpenStack Platform

          The adoption of OpenStack in production environments has burgeoned, necessitating increased requirements for enhanced management and seamlessly integrated enterprise capabilities.

        • Red Hat’s Paul Smith: Open Source the Basis for Gov’t Digital Transformation

          Paul Smith, senior vice president and general manager of Red Hat‘s (NYSE: RHT) U.S. public sector business, has noted that the government utilizes open source technology as the development model for digital transformation efforts, ExecutiveBiz reported Tuesday.

          “Digital transformation is an unstoppable force as constituents and consumers are demanding more value and a greater user experience,” Smith said Nov. 2 at the 2016 Red Hat Government Symposium in Virginia.

        • Finance

        • Fedora

          • Fedora and GNOME at the Engineering Week of UPIG

            I was invited today to present two Free software projects: GNOME and Fedora at UPIG (Universidad Peruana de Integración Global). They celebrated the event during the whole week the “Engineering Week”. This was the advertisement they used to announce the workshop that last two hours. It was offered free admission with certification fee of s/.25.

          • Fedora 25 review

            Even when dealing with the various Wayland oddities and issues, Fedora 25 is a great distribution. Everything is reasonably polished and the default software provides a functional desktop for those looking for a basic web browsing, e-mail, and word processing environment. The additional packages available can easily turn Fedora into an excellent development workstation customized for a developer’s specific needs. If you are programming in most of the current major programming languages, Fedora provides you the tools to easily do so. Overall, I am very pleased using Fedora 25, but I am even more excited for future releases of Fedora as the various minor Wayland issues get cleaned up.

          • Try Fedora in the cloud for free with Dply

            Fedora 25 is now available on Dply. Dply is a new experimental cloud provider which lets you run an instance for two hours at a time — for free, with no catch. That means that with a few clicks, you can try Fedora 25 from the comfort of your home, school, or coffeeshop.

      • Debian Family

        • My Free Software Activities in November 2016

          This was my ninth month as a paid contributor and I have been paid to work 11 hours on Debian LTS, a project started by Raphaël Hertzog.

        • Derivatives

          • Debian-Based SparkyLinux 4.5 Brings Support for exFAT Filesystems, systemd 232

            The developers of the Debian-based SparkyLinux distribution announced this past weekend the release and immediate availability for download of the SparkyLinux 4.5 operating system.

            SparkyLinux 4.5 comes more than three months after the SparkyLinux 4.4 “Tyche” release and promises to offer users fully updated installation mediums for its KDE, Xfce, LXDE, LXQt, and MATE flavors, which have been synced with the upstream Debian GNU/Linux repositories as of November 29, 2016. The SparkyLinux 4.5 ISO images are powered by Linux kernel 4.8.7.

          • Debian/TeX Live 2016.20161130-1

            As we are moving closer to the Debian release freeze, I am shipping out a new set of packages. Nothing spectacular here, just the regular updates and a security fix that was only reported internally. Add sugar and a few minor bug fixes.

          • Canonical/Ubuntu

            • Canonical Releases Snapcraft 2.23 Snap Creator for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 16.10

              Canonical’s Snappy development team have released a new maintenance version of the Snapcraft 2.x tool that lets applications developers package their apps as Snap packages for Ubuntu and other GNU/Linux distributions that support Snaps.

            • Canonical to sue cloud provider over Ubuntu images

              Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution, has said it plans to sue an European cloud provider for distributing unofficial images of its cloud distribution despite several warnings.

              The company offers certified cloud images of Ubuntu that are guaranteed to run on specific cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure or Google.

              Performance is optimised and integrated with underlying cloud requirements, with input from the host’s cloud engineers.

            • Pico-ITX SBC runs Ubuntu on Braswell

              DFI announced an Intel Braswell based “BW051” Pico-ITX SBC with up to 8GB DDR3L, mini-PCIe, SATA 3.0, mSATA, and Linux support.

              DFI, which earlier this year tapped Intel’s “Braswell” generation of SoCs for its BW968 COM Express Compact Type 6 module, has now chosen Braswell for a Pico-ITX SBC. The 100 x 72mm BW051 ships with 4-6W Braswell processors including dual or quad-core Celeron models, the quad-core 1.6GHz Pentium N3710, and quad-core, 1.04GHz Atom x5-E8000.

            • Must have Ubuntu Packages

              For most people, any default Ubuntu installation will meet their needs. Ubuntu provides users with Web browsing, email, along with various communication tools right out of the box. Heck, even basic backups are provided…although you must take the time to configure it.

              Putting all of that aside for a moment, let’s consider which “must have Ubuntu packages” aren’t included by default. In this article, I’ll share my top list of must have Ubuntu packages and explain why I rely on each of them.

            • Canonical yells at European cloud provider

              Open saucy outfit Canonical is in the middle of a legal dispute with an unnamed “a European cloud provider” over the use of its own homespun version of Ubuntu on their cloud servers.

              Canonical is worried that the implementation disables even the most basic of security features and Canonical fears that when something bad happens, the great unwashed will not blame the cloud provider but will instead blame Ubuntu.

              Writing in the company bog, Canonical said that it has spent months trying to get the unnamed provider to use the standard Ubuntu as delivered to other commercial operations to no avail. It said that Red Hat and Microsoft wouldn’t be treated like this.

            • Flavours and Variants

              • Ubuntu-Based ExTiX OS Updated for Intel Compute Sticks with Improved Installer

                GNU/Linux developer Arne Exton announced this past weekend the release of an updated build of his Ubuntu-based ExTiX Linux distribution for Intel Compute Stick devices.

                Last month, we reported on the initial availability of a port of the ExTiX operating system for Intel Compute Sticks, boasting the lightweight and modern LXQt 0.10.0 desktop environment and powered by the latest Linux 4.8 kernel, tweaked by Arne Exton for Intel Atom processors.

                And now, ExTiX Build 161203 is out as a drop-in replacement for Build 161119, bringing a much-improved Ubiquity graphics installer that should no longer crash, as several users who attempted to install the Ubuntu-based GNU/Linux distro on their Intel Compute Stick devices reported.

              • Should Linux Mint be discontinued?

                Linux Mint has been quite popular with many users for a very long time. But changes to Linux Mint in recent years have one redditor wondering exactly what the point of using it is these days. Distributions like Fedora, Ubuntu and others have also stolen some of Linux Mint’s thunder with notable improvements and popular spins.

    • Devices/Embedded

    Free Software/Open Source

    Leftovers

    • Health/Nutrition

    • Security

    • Defence/Aggression

      • 20 houses of Hindus set on fire in Bangladesh

        At least 20 houses of Hindus were set on fire in Bochaganj upazila of Dinajpur in Bangladesh early Saturday.

        A report published in The Daily Star said that houses of seven families of Hindus were set on fire in Railway Colony.

        Fortunately, no one was injured as residents managed to escape on time.

        A person named Jewel was held by the locals, who allegedly set the fire.

      • Exclusive: WikiLeaks documents highlight sinister relations between Erdogan and ISIS

        The connection of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan΄s family with the oil smuggling of the “Islamic State” is revealed after Wikileaks΄ revealing of emails from the Turkish energy minister, and Erdoğan΄s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak. Albayrak΄s emails seem to confirm the not-so-recent accusations, since the energy minister is appealing to be the “unofficial” owner of the oil company Powertrance which is importing oil from the Isis΄ land in Northern Irak to Turkey.

      • 5 Bizarre Groups That Run Entire Foreign Countries

        Nippon Kaigi is an ultra-nationalist group whose members believe the Japanese are a superior race. They want to alter Japan’s history — like denying the rape and pillage of Nanjing, an onslaught with an estimated 200,000 Chinese victims. And they want to change the constitution, scrapping Japan’s pacifist policies, getting rid of foreigners, keeping women at home, bringing back corporal punishment, and generally doing away with a whole bunch of basic human rights, like freedom of speech.

        That headline about how Japan’s PM likes Trump makes a bit more sense now, doesn’t it?

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

      • Police “legally mug” gang boss to grab unlocked iPhone

        The Metropolitan Police have debuted a new tactic to beat Apple’s iPhone encryption—by mugging a suspect while he was making a call and then keeping the screen alive while they downloaded all the data from the phone.

        The technique, which bears all the hallmarks of a real mugging, is apparently legal and seems set to be adopted as a standard means of gathering evidence from devices that might otherwise be locked to investigators.

        The evidence gathered from the tactic helped jail five men involved in a major fake credit card operation. Officers from Operation Falcon, the specialist London unit tackling major fraud and other related online crime, seized the phone from one of the ringleaders, Gabriel Yew, whose gang were suspected of manufacturing false bank and credit cards and using them across mainland Europe to buy luxury goods.

    • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

      • Federal Officials to Explore Different Route for Dakota Pipeline

        Federal officials announced on Sunday that they would not approve permits for construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline beneath a dammed section of the Missouri River that tribes say sits near sacred burial sites.

        The decision is a victory for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of protesters camped near the construction site who have opposed the project because they said would it threaten a water source and cultural sites. Federal officials had given the protesters until tomorrow to leave a campsite near the construction site.

        In a statement on Sunday, the Department of the Army’s assistant secretary for Civil Works, Jo-Ellen Darcy, said that the decision was based on a need to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.

        “Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it’s clear that there’s more work to do,” Ms. Darcy said. “The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.”

      • Nigeria and Morocco Sign Gas Pipeline Deal to Link Africa to Europe

        Nigeria and Morocco have signed a joint venture to construct a gas pipeline that will connect the two nations as well as some other African countries to Europe, Nigeria’s minister of foreign affairs said on Saturday.

        The agreement was reached during a visit by the Morocco’s King Mohammed to the Nigerian capital Abuja, Geoffrey Onyema, the minister, said, adding that the pipeline project would be designed with the participation of all stakeholders.

      • Sanders sings Obama’s praises for stopping Dakota pipeline

        Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders applauded President Obama Sunday evening for halting the Dakota Access Pipeline.

        Sanders, who has been an outspoken opponent of the pipeline, shared his message on Facebook.

        “I appreciate very much President Obama listening to the Native American people and millions of others who believe this pipeline should not be built,” the post read.

        “In the year 2016, we should not continue to trample on Native American sovereignty. We should not endanger the water supply of millions of people. We should not become more dependent on fossil fuel and accelerate the planetary crisis of climate change. Our job now is to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels, not to produce more greenhouse gas emissions.”

      • Sadiq Khan to spend £770m on London cycling initiatives

        London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has promised to spend £770m on cycling initiatives over the course of his term, saying he wants to make riding a bike the “safe and obvious” transport choice for all Londoners.

        Following criticism that Khan has not been as bold as his predecessor, Boris Johnson, in committing to new bike routes, and amid increasing worries about air quality in London, Khan’s office has set out what is described as a hugely ambitious programme to boost cyclist numbers.

        The proposed spending of about £17 per person per year gets near the levels seen in cycle-friendly nations such as the Netherlands and Denmark.

        Among the plans are proposals for two new cycle superhighways, routes on which riders are largely separated from motor traffic by kerbs and dedicated traffic lights, the first of which were built under Johnson and have proved hugely popular.

    • Finance

      • Trump’s pick to lead Treasury tried to kick woman out of her house over 27 cents

        Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s pick to lead the Treasury, worked for Goldman Sachs for 20 years. In 2008 Munchin and his partners founded a bank (funded in part by George Soros) that tried to evict a 90-year-old woman from her home because she underpaid a bill by 27 cents.

      • India’s Modi Defends Clampdown on Cash Economy

        Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday defended his crackdown on the cash economy that has left businesses, farmers and families suffering, saying it was necessary to keep inflation in check and ensure basic amenities for all.

        Modi’s decision last month to scrap 500 rupee and 1,000 rupee banknotes as part of a crackdown on tax dodgers and counterfeiters has caused a currency crunch in a country where most people are paid in cash and buy what they need with cash.

        With a small stock of smaller notes available and new bills of 500 and 2,000 rupee in short supply, Indians are being forced to stand in queues outside banks and cash machines to change their old notes.

      • More farmers going bankrupt

        Eero Vilokki from Kiuruvesi in central Finland lost his family dairy farm after declaring bankruptcy in June when the derivative interest rates his bank suggested on his loans grew impossible to pay. He was kicked off his family farmstead by the new owners in late August.

        The locks on the buildings were changed the very same day.

        “My workers’ belongings and computers, along with my clothing and possessions, were all left behind. All I had was the work clothes on my back. No one bothered to ask if I had a place to stay or food,” Vilokki told Yle.

        Before Vilokki was forced to leave, the farm had been transferred to a company with four equal owners. The value of the farm was estimated at 400,000 euros, with an additional 151,000 euros added on for the property’s office space. The farm’s forest property was valued at 24,000 euros.

        “It was highway robbery. The forest land alone was worth 178,000 euros,” Vilokki said.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Austria rejects far-right candidate Norbert Hofer in presidential election

        Austria has decisively rejected the possibility of the European Union getting its first far-right head of state, instead electing a former leader of the Green party who said he would be an “open-minded, liberal-minded and above all a pro-European president”.

        Alexander Van der Bellen, who ran as an independent, increased his lead over the far-right Freedom party candidate, Norbert Hofer, by a considerable margin from the original vote in May, which was annulled by the constitutional vote due to voting irregularities.

      • Bernie Sanders: Trump didn’t win the election, the Democrats lost it

        “I look at this election not as a victory for Mr. Trump, who wins the election as the most unpopular candidate in perhaps the history of our country, but as a loss for the Democratic Party.” -Senator Bernie Sanders, speaking to a sold-out crowd in San Rafael, CA.

      • The Democratic Party has Tuned Out the Jihad… if it Ever Tuned it in to Begin With

        Or, to be more precise, for many Americans it did not really happen because they simply don’t care about Islamic theological violence against their fellow Americans. The reason that many Americans, particularly of the progressive variety, tend not to care about this kind of violence is because to do so is considered “racist” by president Obama, the leadership of the Democratic Party, and the elite media.

        Koranically-based attacks on innocent Americans are, therefore, perceived like the weather. A typhoon or a flood or an earthquake may happen now and again, but what can you do? You cannot dwell on such things. They are simply “acts of God” and there is very little to be done or said, for most of us, beyond, “Gee, how unlucky.”

      • Jury finds Brandon Hall guilty of election fraud

        It took less than an hour Wednesday for a jury to convict political activist Brandon Michael Hall on 10 counts of election law fraud, following a day-and-a-half trial in Ottawa County Circuit Court.

        According to the Grand Haven Tribune, the 27-year-old Grand Haven resident, author of the West Michigan Politics blog and self-admitted political junkie, said the verdict wasn’t a surprise.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • The war on ‘fake news’ is all about censoring real news

        Scrambling for an explanation for Donald Trump’s victory, many in the media and on the left have settled on the idea that his supporters were consumers of “fake news” — gullible rubes living in an alternate reality made Trump president.

        To be sure, there is such a thing as actual fake news: Made-up stories built to get Facebook traction before they can be debunked. But that’s not what’s really going on here.

        What the left is trying to do is designate anything outside its ideological bubble as suspect on its face.

      • Academic witch hunts are back: The new McCarthyism, a sign of the stupidity of the post-truth era

        In late November three blocks from the White House, a group of leaders from the so-called alt-right, who many consider to simply be white supremacists, gathered for an annual conference called the National Policy Institute. Their goal was to discuss and debate the opportunities offered by a Donald Trump presidency for their white nationalist plans. In the wake of a rise in hate crimes, the meeting sent a chill throughout the nation.

        But making America whiter “again” is not the only thing we need to fear with a Trump administration. Only two days after the alt-right convention in D.C., Turning Point USA launched Professor Watchlist, a website designed to call out college professors who “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”

      • The UK government’s latest deluded idea: ‘banning’ underage sexting on social media

        When the UK government is not busy looking for ways to invade internet users’ privacy, it’s looking for ways to restrict what they are able to do online — particularly when it comes to things of a sexual nature.

        The health secretary Jeremy Hunt has made calls for technology companies and social media to do more to tackle the problems of cyberbullying, online intimidation and — rather specifically — under-18-year-olds texting sexually explicit images. Of course, he doesn’t have the slightest idea about how to go about tackling these problems, but he has expressed his concern so that, in conjunction with passing this buck to tech companies, should be enough, right?

      • Defriend everyone on Facebook if you really want to see the world as it is

        Messing around on Facebook recently, I was appalled to see a man I used to work with gleefully posting about Trump’s election win. I went through a mixture of emotions. First, there was the shock that I had allowed myself to be friends with such a man, because my capacity to make everything about me is impressive, even for a comedian. Second, I couldn’t believe that he could have the temerity to post something that disagreed with what we had all agreed on Facebook was “The Official Viewpoint”. Third, I realised that I probably shouldn’t be on Facebook at my wife’s birthday dinner.

        What I should have done was thank him. It was the first time in ages that I had felt anything approaching an emotion on Facebook. Because I’ve only made friends with people who think like me, my newsfeed is nothing but the sound of people high-fiving each other for having the same opinion. It isn’t even an echo chamber. I am basically part of a Borg hive, speaking in unison on everything. If anyone disagreed with me, I would send them to unfriend exile, as if I were running some sort of Facebook North Korea, or Trump’s America.

      • In these turbulent times, take a break from social media to find comfort

        Five days after the election of Donald Trump, I stood in line at the airport wanting to kill time. I glanced at Twitter on my phone, almost by instinct, to snuff out a momentary feeling of boredom. What greeted me shouldn’t have been a surprise, given what I had read all week: a steady stream of hate promised, chronicled, photographed as it was unleashed throughout America, filled my timeline.

        As the plane began its taxi, my mind spiraled down an abyss of dark thoughts. Was the America I knew, loved, and once lived in, now a place I should viscerally fear? Would I witness this hate firsthand? Would I walk by unsettling graffiti, or feel the string of racism shouted as I spoke in front of crowds of strangers? My stomach churned as the plane climbed, and when the seatbelt sign turned off, I had to lock myself in the bathroom for a few minutes, taking deep breaths to stop my whole body from shaking.

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • UK Police Circumventing Cellphone Encryption By ‘Mugging’ Suspects While Their Phones Are Unlocked

        So, it’s come to this: lawful mugging. Still, it’s not a terrible solution to the problem. Sometimes the best methods are lo-tech, as anyone swinging a $5 Password Acquisition Tool can tell you.

        This method will work in the UK. It may not in the US. UK law enforcement would likely find compelling a suspect to unlock a device a long and possibly fruitless endeavor, but there’s no Riley decision standing in the way of seizing/searching phones on the hoof (as it were).

        Courts here in the US have interpreted the Supreme Court’s Riley decision in diverse ways, but a motion to suppress evidence might succeed if US law enforcement began engaging in this novel form of encryption circumvention. In one case, a judge found that simply opening a flip phone constituted a search under Riley. Keeping a phone “alive” until evidence can be retrieved from it might run afoul of the Fourth Amendment, even if the seizure itself is completely lawful.

        It’s still a better idea than making encryption backdoors mandatory or requiring device manufacturers to make a second set of keys for the government. The solution isn’t elegant but it works. And it will only work in certain circumstances, so there’s not much potential for abuse. It might encourage rougher arrests than usual, if only to separate the cellphone from the suspect, but the small number of arrests where this process would work shouldn’t result in a sharp uptick in excessive force deployment.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Amazombies: Seven seconds to find an item, every move filmed and blistering 12-hours shifts with timed toilet breaks… what YOUR Christmas order does to your ‘worker elves’

        Amazon was last night accused of ‘dehumanising’ its staff battling to deliver gifts to millions of customers in time for Christmas.

        Workers at the internet shopping giant’s distribution centres face disciplinary action if they lose a punishing race against the clock to track down items ordered by online shoppers.

      • Enclaves of Islam see UK as 75% Muslim

        Britain is an Islamic country where the majority of people share their faith, according to a report to be published this week.

        Evidence gathered by Dame Louise Casey, the government’s community cohesion tsar, will lift the lid on how some Muslims are cut off from the rest of Britain with their own housing estates, schools and television channels.

      • Three surprising ways to challenge violence against women

        It’s been more than 20 years since the UN General Assembly committed to eradicating violence against women. Yet today, it’s estimated that one in three women has experienced some form of sexual or physical violence, often at the hands of an intimate partner. This apparent lack of progress doesn’t mean, though, that people aren’t trying to do something about it – sometimes by pretty creative means.

      • Female Genital Mutilation in Pakistan

        World Health Organization defines Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as “procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” FGM is classified into four types. Clitoridectomy includes partial or total removal of the clitoris. 85% of the FGM procedures are of this type. The second type is excision which is performed to partially or totally remove the clitoris or the labia minora (inner folds of vulva). Infibulation, the third type, refers to the narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The fourth type can include other harmful procedures like piercing, pricking, scraping, incising or cauterizing. More than 200 million girls across the world have undergone the torturous plight of having their genitals sewn up, removed or mutilated.

        The humiliating practice of FGM is carried out in 30 countries of Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is rampant. The migrants from these regions take along their belief-systems, family rituals and customs to their new settlements and influence other people from their communities to practice the same. Many a religious heads, doctors, community leaders and other medically-trained professionals facilitate this oppressive custom either by indulging in genital-cutting or by sanctifying its prevalence. FGM manifests itself in regressive religious practices, community cultures and traditions. The procedural circumcision which is seen as a coming of age custom for a girl in many cultural rituals incurs life-threatening harm to the girl’s body on which it is performed, putting her at a risk of multiple health-hazards and psychological ill-effects. In religious terms, the practice is performed as a mark of entry for a girl-child from childhood to adulthood.

      • “Eliminating FGM is an essential step to realizing other SDGs”—Lakshmi Puri

        Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is one of the most serious violations of human rights of women and girls and no amount of sophistry by its proponents and apologists can change that.

        In 2015, 194 countries at the highest level of government at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit have declared that it must be eliminated and that it’s a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target. So that’s final!

      • The Plot to Sideline Gambia’s First Female Presidential Candidate

        In early September, Gambian feminist activist Isatou Touray stood before a crowd of reporters in the seaside town of Kololi and chastised the administration of President Yahya Jammeh, who has ruled over Gambia with an iron fist since he took power through a bloodless coup in 1994. Touray accused Jammeh of pilfering the country’s natural resources for his own benefit, purposely failing to uphold the rule of law and delegating power to a small and exclusive circle of corrupt men.

        Then she declared her plans to push him out of office in the December 1 presidential election by running for his seat herself. “It is time for him to leave,” she said.

      • The Lesson from Standing Rock: Organizing and Resistance Can Win

        Less than two hours earlier, news came that the Army Corps of Engineers had turned down the permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline to be built under the Missouri River. The company will have to find an alternate route and undergo a lengthy environmental assessment.

        Ever since, the network of camps now housing thousands of water protectors has been in the throes of (cautious) celebration and giving thanks, from cheers to processions to round dances. Here, at the family home of Standing Rock Tribal Councilman Cody Two Bears, friends and family members who have been at the center of the struggle are starting to gather for a more private celebration.

        Which is why the dishes must be done. And the soup must be cooked. And the Facetime calls must be made to stalwart supporters, from Gasland filmmaker Josh Fox to environmental icon Erin Brockovich. And the Facebook live videos must, of course, be made. Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard—here as part of a delegation of thousands of anti-pipeline veterans—is on her way over. (“Exhilarated,” is how she says she feels when she arrives.) CNN must, of course, be watched, which to the amazement of everyone here gives full credit to the water protectors (while calling them “protesters”).

      • Analysis: The Assange case in the context of Sweden’s feminist foreign policy for international trade gains

        A previous analysis concluded that Sweden most likely would persist in neither undertaking nor recognizing the international criticism for its rejection of the UN conclusion regarding the arbitrary detention of Mr Julian Assange [See UNGWAD full document in Appendix 1]. That is to say, it will not do so at least in the nearest future.

        Further, the article hypothesizes that –in the eventuality of a positive intervention by the upcoming Trump administration regarding the case Assange – from the Swedish side the case will be likely used as a tool in a bargain including issues of economic interest, support by the US towards Swedish stances in the Security Council (as publicly anticipated by foreign minister Margot Wallström) [1] and other items already put forward by the letter of PM Stefan Löfven to President-elect Donald Trump. [2]

      • Mistrial in murder case against cop who shot Walter Scott

        A South Carolina judge declared a mistrial Monday after jurors said they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the case of a white former North Charleston police officer charged with murder in the death of black motorist Walter Scott.

        The mistrial came just a few hours after Circuit Judge Clifton Newman had ordered jurors to continue deliberating. But the jurors reported later that they were hopelessly unable to reach a unanimous consensus, the Associated Press and CNN reported. The jury had deliberated about 22 hours over four days.

    • Intellectual Monopolies

      • WIPO Committee On Traditional Knowledge Agrees On Revised Text For Further Discussions

        World Intellectual Property Organization delegates last week agreed on a revised set of draft articles to be further discussed at the next session of the committee working on a potential treaty to protect traditional knowledge. Views differed on the achievements of the week. For the proponents of a binding treaty, the text reflects a better understanding of issues, and some reduction in differences. However, for some developed countries not in favour of a treaty, gaps are still wide open and much work remains.

      • Will The Voice Of Indigenous Peoples Disappear From WIPO Discussions To Protect Their Knowledge?

        What would be the credibility of the World Intellectual Property Organization committee negotiating a system of protection for traditional knowledge held by indigenous peoples, if none of their representatives could participate in the meetings? That has been a recurring question asked by indigenous peoples and the organisation over the years. But now, if no voluntary contributions are made by governments or others, the next committee meeting could very well be first in 16 years held without a single observer from an indigenous community.

      • Copyrights

        • Every Website Needs To Re-register With The Copyright Office, Who Can’t Build A Functioning System

          As we mentioned last month, the Copyright Office — despite being warned this was a bad idea — has decided to implement a brand new system for websites to register DMCA agents, and has done so in a way that will undoubtedly fuck over many websites. It’s already ridiculous enough that in order to be fully protected under the DMCA’s safe harbor rules (that say you’re not liable if someone posts infringing material to your website), you need to register a designated “DMCA agent” with the Copyright Office. The idea behind this is that by registering an agent, copyright holders will be able to look up who to send a takedown notice to. And, sure, that makes sense, but remember that this is the same Copyright Office that supports not requiring copyright holders to register their works, meaning that there may not be any legitimate way to contact copyright holders back.

          The reason for the new system is that the old system was just ridiculous — on that everyone can agree. You had to fill out a paper form, sign it, and send it in. The Copyright Office has been way behind on digitizing everything, so moving to a web based system is a good thing. Also, the old system required payment of over $100, while the new one is just $6. That’s all good. The problem is twofold: first, the Copyright Office has said that it is throwing out all the old registrations, and if you want to retain your safe harbors, you need to re-register. There’s a grace period through the end of next year, but plenty of sites who don’t follow the Copyright Office’s every move are going to miss this, and will no longer have an officially registered agent with the Copyright Office (it’s possible that, should this issue go to court, a platform could reasonably argue that it still did meet the statutory requirements in the original registration, but why force site owners through that hoop in the first place). The second problem, is that this new system will toss out records every three years, so if you forget to renew, you once again can lose your legal safe harbors. This puts tons of websites at serious risk, removing key protections and opening them up to lawsuits from copyright trolls.

    12.04.16

    Links 5/12/2016: SparkyLinux 4.5 Released, Kondik Exits Cyanogen (Destroyed After Microsoft Deal)

    Posted in News Roundup at 12:30 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

    GNOME bluefish

    Contents

    GNU/Linux

    Free Software/Open Source

    • Did Amazon Just Kill Open Source?

      Back in the days, we used to focus on creating modular architectures. We had standard wire protocols like NFS, RPC, etc. and standard API layers like BSD, POSIX, etc. Those were fun days. You could buy products from different vendors, they actually worked well together and were interchangeable. There were always open source implementations of the standard, but people could also build commercial variations to extend functionality or durability.

      The most successful open source project is Linux. We tend to forget it has very strict APIs and layers. New kernel implementations must often be backed by official standards (USB, SCSI…). Open source and commercial implementations live happily side by side in Linux.

      If we contrast Linux with the state of open source today, we see so many implementations which overlap. Take the big data eco-systems as an example: in most cases there are no standard APIs, or layers, not to mention standard wire protocols. Projects are not interchangeable, causing a much worse lock-in than when using commercial products which conform to a common standard.

    • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

      • Linux & Open Source News Of The Week — Comma.ai, Patches For Firefox and Tor, And OSS-Fuzz
      • Open Source Malaria helps students with proof of concept toxoplasmosis pill

        A team of Australian student researchers at Sydney Grammar School has managed to recreate the formula for Daraprim, the drug made (in)famous by the actions of Turing Pharmaceuticals last year when it increased the price substantially per pill. According to Futurism, the undertaking was helped along by an, “online research-sharing platform called Open Source Malaria [OSM], which aims to use publicly available drugs and medical techniques to treat malaria.”

        The students’ pill passed a battery of tests for purity, and ultimately cost $2 using different, more readily available components. It shows the potential of the platform, which has said elsewhere there is, “enormous potential to crowdsource new potential medicines efficiently.” Although Daraprim is already around, that it could be synthesized relatively easily without the same materials as usual is a good sign for OSM.

      • Open Hardware/Modding

        • Growing the Duke University eNable chapter

          We started the Duke University eNable chapter with the simple mission of providing amputees in the Durham area of North Carolina with alternative prostheses, free of cost.

          Our chapter is a completely student-run organization that aims to connect amputees with 3D printed prosthetic devices. We are partnered with the Enable Community Foundation (ECF), a non-profit prosthetics organization that works with prosthetists to design and fit 3D printed prosthetic devices on amputees who are in underserved communities. As an official ECF University Chapter, we represent the organization in recipient outreach, and utilize their open sourced designs for prosthetic devices.

    Leftovers

    • Science

      • Global Warming Research in Danger as Trump Appoints Climate Skeptic to NASA Team

        One of NASA’s most high-profile projects has been to track historical average global temperature. In January 2016, the agency released data that showed 2015 had been the hottest year on record. “Today’s announcement not only underscores how critical NASA’s Earth observation program is, it is a key data point that should make policy makers stand up and take notice — now is the time to act on climate,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in a statement at the time. Since then, NASA’s monthly updates on temperature delivered a steady dose of dread as month after month was declared the hottest recorded.

        Now Donald Trump’s first NASA transition team pick is Christopher Shank, a Hill staffer who has said he is unconvinced of a reality that is accepted by the vast majority of climate scientists: that humans are the primary driver of climate change. Shank previously worked for Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican congressman who played a key role in dragging out debates on the basic nature of climate change at a time when the science is settled and action is urgent.

        Shank has criticized the type of scientific data NASA regularly releases. As part of a panel in September 2015 at Arizona State University’s Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, he said, “The rhetoric that’s coming out, the hottest year in history, actually is not backed up by the science — or that the droughts, the fires, the hurricanes, etc., are caused by climate change, but it’s just weather.”

    • Health/Nutrition

      • Federal judge to Michigan: You must deliver bottled water to Flint

        On the same day that researchers said Flint’s water is improving with “amazing progress,” a federal judge delivered a legal blow to state officials in ordering them to deliver bottled water to Flint whether they like it or not.

        In a 12-page ruling, U.S. District Judge David Lawson ruled that Flint’s water is still unsafe to drink for certain residents and that the state must deliver bottled water to those households without properly installed or maintained filters until the problem is cleared up.

        Defendants in the case, Michigan Treasurer Nick Khouri and the state-appointed Flint Receivership Transition Advisory Board, had asked the court to stay that Nov. 10 order, arguing it was unreasonable, overly broad and too expensive — $10.5 million per month — to deliver bottled water door to door in Flint. Those officials, represented by attorneys from the office of Attorney General Bill Schuette, also had argued that bottled water can be picked up as needed at distribution centers and those who can’t pick it up can call 211 to arrange for delivery.

      • New Report Exposes “Patient Advocacy” Groups as a Big Pharma Scam

        “Patient advocacy” groups have a unique power on Capitol Hill. They claim to represent the true voice of constituents, untainted by special interest bias. Politicians and the Food and Drug Administration use their endorsements as reflective of genuine public support.

        But a new study shows that nearly all of these patient advocacy groups are captured by the drug industry.

        David Hilzenrath at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) reports that at least 39 of 42 patient advocacy groups who participated in discussions with the FDA over agency review processes for prescription drugs received funding from pharmaceutical companies. And at least 15 have representatives of drug or biotechnology companies on their governing boards.

        The study is particularly notable now because Congress is poised to pass the 21st Century Cures Act, which trades temporary additional funding for the National Institutes of Health and the FDA for permanent weakening of the FDA’s approval process. Over 1,400 lobbyists have been working on this bill, which would be a major financial boon to the drug and medical device industries.

      • Jeremy Hunt wants to ‘Amazonise’ our pharmacies – and 3000 face the chop as a result

        The future of 3,000 community pharmacies hangs in the balance as a round of cuts starts to be imposed on them this month, despite earlier hints of compromise.

        The cutbacks to key pharmacy service subsidies – part of a 12% reduction in overall money allocated to the sector – were first announced in December 2015 and a row has been underway ever since. In September, minister David Mowat appeared to back away from the cuts. But the following month the reductions were confirmed.

        The cuts coincide with longer-term concerns over a planned online centralisation or ‘Amazonisation’ of high-street pharmacy care in England.

        Perplexingly, there appears to be no way of knowing which pharmacies will be forced to close, nor what the government’s rationale for the distribution of the reduced public pharmacy spending is. Rural practices are set to be hit particularly hard.

    • Security

      • What’s the most secure operating system?

        Deciding what operating system (OS) to keep your computer running smoothly—and with the highest level of security—is a controversial yet frequent question many business owners, government officials, and ordinary Joes and Janes ask.

        There are many different operating systems—the software at the base of every computer, controlling the machine’s array of functions—like Mac OS10, which comes pre-loaded on Apple laptops and desktops, and Microsoft Windows that’s on the majority of personal computers. Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS for mobile devices are designed specifically for devices with smaller touchscreens.

        Whatever OS you use—and many users are very loyal to their operating system of choice and will argue that their’s is the best—it’s not entirely secure or private. Hackers are still infiltrating systems every day, and they can easily target victims with malware to spy on users and disable their operating system altogether.

        Because of this, choosing a secure system is essential to staying secure online. Below are the top three secure operating systems that will help users take the next step to ensure proper cyber and hardware security.

      • New IoT Botnet, Attackers Target Tor, and More…

        Firefox’s emergency security patch: If you use Firefox at all, and I’m assuming that most of you do, you might want to run an update to get the latest security patch from Mozilla. The patch was rushed to market on November 30 to fix a zero day vulnerability that was being exploited in the wild to attack the Firefox based Tor browser.

        In a blog post on Wednesday, Mozilla’s security head Daniel Veditz wrote, “The exploit in this case works in essentially the same way as the ‘network investigative technique’ used by FBI to deanonymize Tor users…. This similarity has led to speculation that this exploit was created by FBI or another law enforcement agency. As of now, we do not know whether this is the case. If this exploit was in fact developed and deployed by a government agency, the fact that it has been published and can now be used by anyone to attack Firefox users is a clear demonstration of how supposedly limited government hacking can become a threat to the broader Web.”

      • Ransomware: Windows is the elephant in the room

        Ransomware has slowly become the most common and most difficult threat posed to companies and individuals alike over the last year.

        And there is one common thread to practically all ransomware attacks: Windows.

        Microsoft acolytes, supporters and astro-turfers can scream till they are blue in the face, but it is very rare to see ransomware that attacks any other platform.

        Of course, these Redmond backers are careful to say that ransomware attacks “computer users”, not Windows users.

        But statistics tell the truth. In 2015, the average number of infections hitting Windows users was between 23,000 and 35,000, according to Symantec.

        In March, this number ballooned to 56,000 with the arrival of the Locky ransomware. And in the first quarter of 2016, US$209 million was paid by Windows users in order to make their locked files accessible again.

      • GCC Tackling Support For ARMv8-M Security Extensions

        GCC developers have been working to support the compiler-side changes for dealing with ARMv8-M Security Extensions.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Man Who Claimed to be CIA Asset Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison in Arms Deal Sting

        Flaviu Georgescu arrived at U.S. District Court in Manhattan Friday afternoon in a beige prison jumpsuit, shackled around the waist and hands, with his head bowed.

        Earlier this year, a jury convicted Georgescu in this same courtroom on terrorism charges. Federal prosecutors accused Georgescu of helping organize a complex weapons deal involving DEA informants posing as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a designated terrorist organization.

        Since his arrest, Georgescu has maintained his innocence, claiming that he had been working undercover for the CIA and pointing to phone calls he had made to the agency as proof of his cooperation.

        Georgescu faced a possible life sentence.

      • The Coming War on China

        When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. At a quarter past eight on the morning of 6 August, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite. I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, unforgettably. When I returned many years later, it was gone: taken away, “disappeared”, a political embarrassment.

        I have spent two years making a documentary film, The Coming War on China, in which the evidence and witnesses warn that nuclear war is no longer a shadow, but a contingency. The greatest build-up of American-led military forces since the Second World War is well under way. They are in the northern hemisphere, on the western borders of Russia, and in Asia and the Pacific, confronting China.

        The great danger this beckons is not news, or it is buried and distorted: a drumbeat of mainstream fake news that echoes the psychopathic fear embedded in public consciousness during much of the 20th century.

      • Clinton’s ‘Russia Did It’ Cop-out

        The Clinton machine – running on fumes after Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid – is pulling out all remaining stops to block Donald Trump’s inauguration, even sinking into a new McCarthyism.

        In joining a recount effort with slim hopes of reversing the election results, Clinton campaign counsel Marc Elias cited a scurrilous Washington Post article that relied on a shadowy anonymous group, called PropOrNot, that issued a “black list” against 200 or so Internet sites, including some of the most respected sources of independent journalism, claiming they are part of some Russian propaganda network.

      • A Trump Plus: Reduced Tensions with Russia
      • Trump Ponders Petraeus for Senior Job

        President-elect Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” of Washington seems forgotten — like so many political promises — as he meets with swamp creatures, such as disgraced Gen. David Petraeus, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

    • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

      • The trolling of Elon Musk: how US conservatives are attacking green tech

        He is the charismatic Silicon Valley entrepreneur who believes his many companies – including the electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors, solar power firm Solar City, and SpaceX, which makes reusable space rockets – can help resist man-made climate change.

        South African-born Elon Musk is a billionaire green evangelist, a bete noire of the fossil fuels industry who talks about colonising Mars and believes it may be possible that we’re living in a computer simulation.

        But having been feted by the Obama administration, he now faces an extraordinary barrage of attacks from rightwing thinktanks, lobbyists, websites and commentators. The character of the assault says much about which way the political wind is blowing in Washington – something that will have consequences that stretch far beyond the US.

        One of Musk’s most trenchant critics has been the journalist Shepard Stewart, who writes for a clutch of conservative online news sites. In several articles in September, not long after a SpaceX rocket exploded, Stewart attacked Musk for receiving billions in government subsidies “to make rockets that immediately self destruct” and branded him “a national disgrace”. As Musk fought back on Twitter, it became apparent that Stewart was an invention. Even his photo byline had been doctored from a LinkedIn profile of a tech entrepreneur. “Definitely a fake,” Gavin Wax, editor-in-chief of the Liberty Conservative, one of the websites that published Stewart, admitted to Bloomberg.

      • Indonesia VP blames foreign countries for destroying forests

        Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla has blamed foreign countries for destroying Indonesia’s forests, and wants them to pay to help restore the damaged land.

        “What happens here is not only our problem. The foreign people also destroyed our forests,” said Kalla when officiating the Indonesia Forest Congress in Jakarta on Wednesday (Nov 30).

        Kalla said he has brought up this point at various international forums, and is angry with those who accused Indonesia for not managing its forest well.

        “During a big conference in Tokyo, someone said that Indonesia has forests, but they are damaged and should be restored,” said Kalla. “I became angry in front of thousands of people. I said, ‘this is a chair, this is a door, this is a window from my country. You take, and pay $5, and you bring it here, and sell for $100. Indonesian companies just get $5’.

        “There is Mitsubishi from Japan, Hyundai and others, they finished what we have. I told them, ‘you have to pay, if not we will cut down all the trees, and let the world feel the heat’. So, the world must also be responsible.”

      • US House Science Committee tweets Breitbart climate misinformation

        The current leadership of the US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology has a fraught relationship with climate science. Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), who chairs the committee, has used its subpoena powers to target NOAA climate scientists whose temperature dataset he does not like. He has also gone after the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts, who are pursuing a securities fraud investigation of ExxonMobil related to its public denial of climate change.

        On Thursday, the committee’s Twitter account hopped on this anti-climate-science bandwagon. It tweeted a link to a story titled “Global temperatures plunge. Icy silence from climate alarmists” that was published by Breitbart—the hard-right, white-nationalist-supporting news outlet that saw its chairman, Steve Bannon, become President-elect Donald Trump’s chief strategist.

        The article was written by James Delingpole, a columnist who has made a career out of insult-laden polemics against climate science. (In an episode of BBC’s Horizon, Delingpole famously admitted that he never reads scientific papers and called himself “an interpreter of interpretations.”) In this case, Delingpole mostly tacked a few put-downs onto quotes from a Daily Mail story written by David Rose—who also has a long history of writing deeply misleading stories about climate science.

      • Kinder Morgan pipeline: Canadians intensify huge opposition to expansion

        Opponents of a contentious Canadian pipeline project are preparing for a lengthy, multifaceted battle that will see thousands take to the country’s streets, courts and legislatures to contest the government’s recent approval of the project.

        Prime minister Justin Trudeau announced on Tuesday that the Liberal government had cleared the way for Kinder Morgan’s C$6.8bn Trans Mountain Expansion project. Designed to transport Alberta’s landlocked bitumen to international markets via Vancouver’s harbour, the project will expand an existing pipeline to nearly triple capacity on the artery to 890,000 barrels a day.

      • Standing Rock Sioux Issue Emergency Proclamation

        The Standing Rock Sioux issued an emergency proclamation in support of Oceti Sakowin Camp in the face of ongoing threats by law enforcement.

        On Wednesday, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II issued an emergency proclamation calling on the United Nations and U.S. President Barack Obama to take “immediate action” to defend the water protectors at the Oceti Sakowin camp from “retaliatory actions and practices” by state law enforcement agencies, and to defend activists’ “rights to free speech and peaceable assembly.”

      • Police Attack on DAPL Demonstrators: A Hell of Ice and Tear Gas

        Hundreds of “water protectors” marched at dusk from Oceti Sakowin Camp toward police barricades on Highway 1806. Some in the crowd held plastic shields. Many wore googles and had scarves wrapped around their mouths. They massed in front of a barricade on a bridge. It consisted of a barbed-wire fence, a line of militarized police, the burned remains of a massive truck and at least one tank.

        Darkness had fallen when the first tear gas was fired. Spotlights, mounted by law enforcement on a ridge, illuminated the clouds that had started to engulf the crowd. Several people panicked. They were screaming.

        “Stand your ground! Stand your ground! Stand your fucking ground!” someone yelled.

        Amid the clouds and choking tear gas, people began to turn and run. The police kept lobbing tear gas canisters. They fired stun grenades at those running for safety. Overhead, planes and helicopters circled.

      • Naomi Klein, Tulsi Gabbard Travel to Standing Rock Alongside Thousands of Veterans

        The number of veterans traveling to North Dakota to support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in its stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline has swollen to over 3,000, an astonishing show of solidarity that aims to shield the water protectors from police violence.

      • #ExxonKnew About Climate Change And ExxonKnows How To Use Trade Deals To Get Its Way

        Public outrage has been brewing about the fact that ExxonMobil—one of the the world’s biggest oil companies—knew about climate change as early as 1977 and yet promoted climate denialism and actively deceived the public by turning “ordinary scientific uncertainties into weapons of mass confusion.”

        A little-known fact, however, is that while ExxonMobil was misleading the public about climate disruption, it was also using trade rules to increase its power, to bolster its profits, and to actively hamper climate action.

      • Donald Trump’s Swamp: Meet Ten Potential Energy and Climate Cabinet Picks and the Pickers

        One of President-elect Donald Trump’s most pressing current tasks is selecting who will serve in his new administration, especially his transition team and cabinet, though there are over 4,000 political appointees to hire for federal jobs in all.

        Much of the mainstream media attention so far has centered around Trump’s choices of Republican National Committee head Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and former Breitbart News CEO Steve Bannon as chief strategist and senior counselor. Congressional Democrats have called for Bannon to be banned from the White House, citing his personal bigotry and the bigotry often on display on Breitbart.com. Meanwhile, Bannon’s hire was praised by the American Nazi Party and KKK.

        Yet, perhaps just as troubling is the army of climate change deniers and fossil fuel industry lobbyists helping to pick or court a spot on Trump’s future climate and energy team.

        Trump is a climate change denier and so is Priebus, who recently told Fox News that climate denial will be the “default position” of the Trump administration.

    • Finance

      • Senate takes aim at ‘bots’ that snap up concert seats

        The Senate is cracking down on computer software used by ticket brokers to snap up tickets to concerts and shows.

        Senators passed legislation by voice vote Wednesday that would make using the software an “unfair and deceptive practice” under the Federal Trade Commission Act and allow the FTC to pursue those cases. The House passed similar legislation in September, but the bills are not identical so the Senate legislation now moves to the House.

        The so-called “bots” rapidly purchase as many tickets as possible for resale at significant markups. They are one of the reasons why tickets to a Bruce Springsteen concert or “Hamilton” performance can sell out in just a few minutes.

      • The True Cost of Your Uber Ride Is Much Higher Than You Think

        Uber’s become the generic trademark—right up there with Kleenex and “Google it”—for using your phone to get into strangers’ cars.

        But like most cheap commodities, what you’re paying for the sausage might not reflect the actual cost it takes to make it.

        Transportation industry expert Hubert Horan is building a case for why Uber will never become a profitable company on the Naked Capitalism blog. One of the most eyebrow-raising statistics, as gleaned from investor reports, is how little riders are paying of the true cost of their trips: “Uber passengers were paying only 41% of the actual cost of their trips; Uber was using these massive subsidies to undercut the fares and provide more capacity than the competitors who had to cover 100% of their costs out of passenger fares.”

      • How Many People Are In The Labor Force? Unemployment Rate Falls To 9-Year Low, But Participation Stays Down

        The unemployment rate hit 4.6 percent in November, its lowest level since August 2007, according to monthly data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but that figure only tells part of the story.

      • Trump’s Trickle-Down Populism

        Last Thursday President-elect Donald Trump triumphantly celebrated Carrier’s decision to reverse its plan to close a furnace plant and move jobs to Mexico. Some 800 jobs will remain in Indianapolis.

        “Corporate America is going to have to understand that we have to take care of our workers,” Trump told The New York Times. “The free market has been sorting it out and America’s been losing,” Vice President-elect Michael Pence added, as Trump interjected, “Every time, every time.”

        So what’s the Trump alternative to the free market? Bribe giant corporations to keep jobs in America.

        Carrier’s move to Mexico would have saved the company $65 million a year in wages. Trump promised bigger benefits. The state of Indiana will throw in $7 million, but that’s just the start.

      • Race and Class in Trump’s America

        Americans don’t do political introspection well for a reason. The ‘founding’ myth poses an improbable starting point before which history was erased and after which it was subsumed by the imposed unity of ‘nation.’ As Malcolm X put it, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, the rock landed on us” for American Blacks in particular, but in other dimensions of social relations as well. ‘Freedom’ in its Constitutional sense was / is the privilege to impose European property relations on people who were never asked for their consent and whose lives were overwhelmingly diminished and / or destroyed by it.

        The historical dodge that Malcolm X called to account was the tendency to ‘universalize’ the dominant culture’s history and interests as a means of subsuming contrasting experiences under an umbrella of implied consent. In most meaningful ways the interests of slave ‘masters’ and slaves were antithetical— slavers took the most by providing the least in return. This historicized formulation of capitalist ‘efficiency’ found its apologies in the imperial language of ‘the White man’s burden’ and through modern economists’ assertions that capital serves us all no matter how much human misery went into its accumulation.

      • Trump Effectively Gave Carrier Corp. a Tax Cut for Sending 1,300 Jobs to Mexico (Video)

        Donald Trump took credit for persuading the air conditioner manufacturer Carrier Corp. to keep more than 1,000 jobs in the U.S. But he effectively gave the company a tax cut for sending another 1,300 jobs to Mexico.

      • Everything you need to know about Trump and the Indiana Carrier factory

        Donald Trump scored an early public relations win this week as he took the credit for persuading a US firm not to outsource jobs to Mexico. But the case – and its implications – are more complex than they first appeared.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Three Men in a Room: The D.C. Edition

        For years, New York’s dysfunctional state government has been derisively called “Three Men in a Room.” The three men were the Governor, the New York State Senate Majority Leader and the New York State Assembly Speaker. The three have nearly unparalleled control of New York’s government. But as corrupt as Albany has been, the Governor never offered a job to the Speaker’s or Majority Leader’s wives.

        Now it looks like the country will have “Three Men in a Room” on a national scale. Starting in January, the three men will be President Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And the room is oval shaped. And two of the three are already off to a debauched start.

        As all three are Republicans, if they can agree on a legislative agenda, then federal laws could change quite rapidly as they pass the House and the Senate and are signed by the new President.

      • Trump and His Betraying Makeover

        Attention workers who voted for Trump, either eagerly or as a vote against the hawkish, Wall Street favorite, Hillary Clinton: Donald Trump, less than a month after the election, has already begun to betray you.

        You can often see where a president-elect is going by his nominations to high positions in his forthcoming administration. Across over a dozen crucial posts, Mr. Trump has chosen war hawks, Wall Streeters (with a former Goldman Sachs partner, Steven Mnuchin, as his pick for Treasury Secretary) and clenched teeth corporatists determined to jettison life-saving, injury and disease preventing regulations and leave bigger holes in your consumer pocketbooks.

        In addition to lacking a mandate from the people (he lost the popular vote), the president-elect continues to believe that mere showboating will distract from his breathtaking flip-flops in his campaign rhetoric. Remember his last big TV ad where he blasted “a global power structure” responsible “for robbing the working class” with images of Goldman Sachs flashing across the screen?

      • Deepening Contradictions: Identity Politics and Steelworkers

        Stein, it turns out, is a “pwogwessive” as Alexander Cockburn would have put it. She has written for In These Times, Dissent and The Nation—pillars of support for the Sanders campaign and uniting workers on a class basis. Such unity in her eyes precludes affirmative action since it would divide Black and white steelworkers. All lawsuits directed at the union and the corporations designed to promote equality were rejected by her since they were a plot by “Elite whites, possessing a potent brew of concern, guilt, and a desire to retain control of the social order. . .”

        Tired of being relegated to second-class citizenship in steel mills as janitors and other menial positions, Blacks supported affirmative action that would afford them preferential treatment to make up for discrimination endured in the past.

      • A Bare-Knuckle Fight Over Recounts

        The lobbying effort to blame Russia and get the electors to flip their votes is being accompanied by an intense media campaign.

        In the announcement that the Clinton campaign would join the recount, campaign counsel Elias aligned the campaign with an unverified Washington Post article based largely on a shadowy, anonymous group that blamed a list of 200 alternative media sites and political groups for spreading Russian propaganda to influence the election, without providing any evidence.

        “The Washington Post reported that the Russian government was behind much of the ‘fake news’ propaganda that circulated online in the closing weeks of the election,” Elias wrote.

        A Huffington Post article said one of the eight reasons the electors should overturn the election is because “Russian covert action influenced the election.”

        The staunchly pro-Clinton Daily Kos wrote that “Even if they never touched a voting machine, there’s absolutely no doubt: Russia hacked the election.”

        If evidence of hacking is found in the recounts, the Clinton campaign would be greatly aided in lobbying electors with confirmation from the Obama administration that Russia was behind it. But on the day before the Clinton team joined the recount, the Obama administration appeared to throw a wrench into the plan to blame Russia.

      • Trump Allies in Battleground States Rush to Stop Jill Stein’s Recount Efforts

        President-elect Donald Trump’s allies are trying to block the ballot recount being pushed by the Green Party’s Jill Stein.

        Late Thursday, two super PACs and a team of Trump attorneys filed lawsuits in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, respectively, to try to block the efforts in those states. And on Friday morning, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette followed suit, filing a lawsuit to stop the recount that is set to begin today.

        In Wisconsin, where the process is already underway, the Great America PAC, the Stop Hillary PAC, and an individual voter claimed the recount request Stein filed last week violates the due process of voters in the state, and could “unjustifiably cast doubt upon the legitimacy of President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s victory.” They also say the short window for the process could result in errors.

        Meanwhile, the lawsuit in Pennsylvania argues that Stein lacks a valid claim and only “alleges speculative illegality.”

      • As Hate Incidents Rise, Rights Groups Urge Trump to Denounce Bigotry

        Since the election of Donald Trump, an increased number of hate incidents have targeted minority groups in America, and the election results are having a negative impact on America’s schoolchildren, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

        On Tuesday, the SPLC revealed these findings at a press conference held in conjunction with a number of human rights and education leaders, calling on Trump to denounce racism and bigotry and to reconsider some of the high-level appointments he has made since the election.

      • Can Trump be checked and balanced?

        The US presidential system has been much heralded for its system of checks and balances. But Trump’s victory has given rise to a number of questions about the future of US democracy and world politics. The most important of these questions is arguably this: what checks and balances in the US political system will Trump face during his presidency? Based purely on the institutional setup of the US presidential system, how much damage can Trump cause? The answer, unfortunately, is quite a bit.

      • Steve Mnuchin: Evictor, Forecloser and Our New Treasury Secretary

        Throughout his presidential campaign, Donald Trump criticized Wall Street bankers for their excessive political influence and attacked hedge-fund managers for getting away with “murder” under the current tax code. “The hedge-fund guys didn’t build this country,” Trump said on Face the Nation. “These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky.”

        Now, however, Trump has tapped Steve Mnuchin, a 53-year-old Wall Street hedge-fund and banking mogul — and, since May, his campaign finance chair — to be the nation’s secretary of the Treasury.

      • Trump’s Treasury Secretary Pick is a Lucky Man. Very Lucky.

        The former Goldman Sachs banker nominated to become Donald Trump’s treasury secretary had the perspicacity to purchase a collapsed subprime mortgage lender soon after the financial crisis, getting a sweet deal from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Now, if he’s confirmed, he will likely be able to take advantage of a tax perk given to government officials.

        Mnuchin was born into a family of Wall Street royalty. His father was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs for 30 years, serving in top management. He and his brother landed at the powerful firm, too. After making millions in mortgage trading, Mnuchin struck out on his own, creating a hedge fund and building a record of smart and well-timed investment moves.

      • Why Trump Would Almost Certainly Be Violating the Constitution If He Continues to Own His Businesses

        Far from ending with President-elect Trump’s announcement that he will separate himself from the management of his business empire, the constitutional debate about the meaning of the Emoluments Clause — and whether Trump will be violating it — is likely just beginning.

        That’s because the Emoluments Clause seems to bar Trump’s ownership of his business. It has little to do with his management of it. Trump’s tweets last Wednesday said he would be “completely out of business operations.”

        But unless Trump sells or gives his business to his children before taking office the Emoluments Clause would almost certainly be violated. Even if he does sell or give it away, any retained residual interest, or any sale payout based on the company’s results, would still give him a stake in its fortunes, again fairly clearly violating the Constitution.

      • [Old] How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul

        It was January 1975, and the Watergate Babies had arrived in Washington looking for blood. The Watergate Babies—as the recently elected Democratic congressmen were known—were young, idealistic liberals who had been swept into office on a promise to clean up government, end the war in Vietnam, and rid the nation’s capital of the kind of corruption and dirty politics the Nixon White House had wrought. Richard Nixon himself had resigned just a few months earlier in August. But the Watergate Babies didn’t just campaign against Nixon; they took on the Democratic establishment, too. Newly elected Representative George Miller of California, then just 29 years old, announced, “We came here to take the Bastille.”

      • Intelligence Committee Senators Call On Obama To Declassify Evidence Of Russian Election Interference

        Of course, it needs to be noted that this will clearly be seen as a partisan effort. Of the seven Senators who signed on to the letter, six are Democrats, and the other, Senator Angus King, is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Basically it’s all of the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee except for Dianne Feinstein and Harry Reid. So, it’s easy for some to spin this as a case of sour grapes about the Democrats not winning the election, and even the idea that they’re now clinging to stories of Russian interference to explain what happened.

        But… that spin holds somewhat less weight when you look at the details. First off, the letter itself was put together by Senator Ron Wyden. And, yes, his name comes up a lot around here, but that’s because he has a pretty long history of being right on lots and lots of stuff. And that’s especially true when Wyden says that there’s some secret info that the public deserves to know about. He’s been right on that every single time he’s said it. So the track record is there. When Wyden says the public deserves to know something, pay attention.

        The second thing that provides more confidence here is that this isn’t just random conspiracy theories about “rigged” voting or whatever that some have been spewing. This is a specific request for more transparency by asking for specific information to be released to the public — specific information that the Senate Intelligence Committee members have seen.

      • Trump’s Taiwan phone call preceded by hotel development inquiry

        The woman, known only as Ms Chen arrived from the US in September to meet the mayor of Taoyuan, Cheng Wen-tsan, one of the senior politicians involved in the Aerotropolis project, a large urban development being planned around the renovation of Taiwan’s main airport, Taoyuan International.

        “She said she was associated with the Trump corporation and she would like to propose a possible investment project in the future, especially hotels,” said an official familiar with the project, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

        The official described the talks, conducted in both English and Mandarin, as a routine meeting with a potential investor. It took place in Taoyuan city hall, on the outskirts of the capital, Taipei, and lasted 15-20 minutes. Chen had not been in touch since.

        “One thing quite sure from her side was that she would like to bring the Trump corporation here to build the hotel,” said the official, who did not know if Chen had a Trump Organization business card.

      • Trump Kicks Off ‘Thank You’ Tour, Reveling in Crowd and Campaign Themes

        He boasted about himself in the third person. He sneered at the opponents he had vanquished. He disparaged journalists and invited angry chants from the crowd, grinning broadly at calls of “lock her up” and “build the wall.” He ridiculed the government’s leaders as stupid and dishonest failures.

      • Yes, you can blame millennials for Hillary Clinton’s loss

        Hillary Clinton’s campaign has lots of excuses for losing. There’s the electoral college, James Comey, the media’s alleged over-exuberance in digging into Clinton’s email server, etc. But Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said Thursday that one particular group is especially to blame: millennials.

      • The Latest: Stein urges federal judge to get recount moving

        Green Party candidate Jill Stein is asking a federal judge to order Michigan to quickly start a recount of presidential votes.

        It’s another legal action in the dispute over whether Michigan will take a second look at ballots from the Nov. 8 election. The recount could start Wednesday because officials say state law requires a break of at least two business days.

        Stein’s attorney, Mark Brewer, filed a lawsuit Friday. He says the law violates the U.S. Constitution. He says the delay means the recount might not be finished by a Dec. 13 deadline.

      • Disney’s Bob Iger Among Donald Trump’s ‘Strategic and Policy’ Advisory Committee

        Walt Disney Co. chairman and CEO Bob Iger is among the list of business leaders who will make up President-elect Donald Trump’s strategic and policy forum, with the first meeting slated for February at the White House.

      • The Real Risk Behind Trump’s Taiwan Call

        If you work in foreign affairs, you learn that a highly unexpected event is often the result of intent or incompetence. (You also learn that what looks, at first, like intent often turns out to be incompetence.) In the Donald Trump era, we may need a third category—exploitation—which has elements of both.

        In his first semiofficial act of foreign policy, President-elect Trump, on Friday, lobbed a firework into the delicate diplomacy of Asia by taking a phone call from Taiwan’s President, breaking thirty-seven years of American practice in a way that is sure to upset relations with China. It wasn’t clear how much he intended to abruptly alter geopolitics, and how much he was incompetently improvising. There is evidence of each; in either case, the way he did it is very dangerous.

        Some background: Taiwan broke away from mainland China in 1949, and the two sides exist in a tense equilibrium, governed by decades of diplomatic agreements that serve to prevent war in Asia. Under that arrangement, the U.S. maintains friendly relations with Taiwan, while Presidents since Ronald Reagan have deliberately avoided speaking directly with Taiwan’s President because the U.S. formally recognizes only the Beijing government.

      • So We’re Gonna Stop Thinking for Four Years?

        So we’re really going to do this? Years of not thinking?

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Media bigwigs converse about ratings and censorship

        Pakistan’s first and only production and entertainment conference, Focus PK ’16, kicked off on Saturday at a Karachi hotel, where discussions were held about the media industry and its future, with a tinge of nostalgia for the bygone days.

      • We need to resist censorship of cyberspace

        The hacking effort – aimed at prominent thinkers including New York Times Pulitzer laureate Paul Krugman , Stanford professor and former diplomat Michael McFaul, Newsweek political editor Matthew Cooper, New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait, and others – comes after Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails were stolen by Russian hackers and amid a new effort to create a national “watchlist” of liberal professors. Questions have also surfaced over whether the US presidential election was hacked.

        Together, these developments suggest something even more chilling: The halcyon WikiLeaks era when our chief fear was that the whole truth might emerge online is officially over. Cyberspace is rapidly becoming censored.

      • Sweden’s pioneering free press act turns 250

        Today marks the 250th anniversary of Sweden’s Freedom of the Press Act, and at a time where both freedom of information and questions over what the media publish are increasingly in the spotlight, the pioneering document is particularly relevant. Here are five facts you should know about it.

      • Thai Activist Arrested for Facebook Share About New King

        Police in Thailand arrested a student pro-democracy activist Saturday for sharing a story about the country’s new king that was posted on Facebook by the Thai-language service of the BBC.

        The arrest was apparently the first under the country’s tough lese majeste law since King Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun took the throne on Thursday, succeeding his late father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Lese majeste, or insulting the monarchy, carries a penalty of three to 15 years in prison.

        Duangthip Karith of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said that law student Jatupat “Pai” Boonpattararaksa was arrested while attending a Buddhist ceremony in the northeastern province of Chaiyaphum. Jatupat posted that he was being arrested and briefly broadcast the police reading the charge on a Facebook Live video stream.

      • Taslima Nasrin on being a writer in exile: Bans and censorship hurt; but banishment hurt the most

        Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin is back with a new book — this time, a memoir called Exile. Published by Penguin Randomhouse, Exile has Nasrin disclosing the series of events during the seven-month struggle that led to her ouster from West Bengal, Rajasthan and India; the time she spent under house arrest and the “anxious days (she) had to spend in the government safe house, beset by a scheming array of bureaucrats and ministers desperate to see (her) gone”.

      • The “fake news” furor and the threat of Internet censorship

        In the weeks since the November 8 election, US media reports on the spread of so-called “fake news” during the presidential campaign have increasingly repeated unsubstantiated pre-election claims that the Russian government hacked into Democratic Party email servers to undermine the campaign of Hillary Clinton. There is more than a whiff of McCarthyism in this crusade against “fake news” on social media and the Internet, with online publications critical of US wars of aggression and other criminal activities being branded as Russian propaganda outlets.

        A case in point is an article published in the November 24 edition of the Washington Post headlined “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say.” The article includes assertions that Russian “botnets, teams of paid human ‘trolls,’ and networks of web sites and social media accounts” were used to promote sites across the Internet “as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers.”

      • Political correctness debate centers around respect, not censorship

        The political correctness debate is no small misunderstanding. According to the Pew Research center, 59 percent of Americans believe that “too many people are easily offended these days over the language that others use.”

      • We Won’t Let You Forget It: Why We Oppose French Attempts to Export the Right To Be Forgotten Worldwide

        One country’s government shouldn’t determine what Internet users across the globe can see online. But a French regulator is saying that, under Europe’s “Right to be Forgotten,” Google should have to delist search results globally, keeping them from users across the world. That’s a step too far, and would conflict with the rights of users in other nations, including those protected by the laws and Constitution of the United States.

        EFF joined Article 19 and other global free speech groups in a brief to the Conseil d’Etat asking it to overturn that ruling by France’s data protection authority, the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés’ (CNIL). The brief, filed Nov. 23, 2016, argues that extending European delisting requirements to the global Internet inherently clashes with other countries’ laws and fundamental rights, including the First Amendment in the U.S.

        The European Union’s Court of Justice ruled in 2013 that Europeans have the right to demand that certain links be taken out of search engine results. But the French CNIL vastly expanded the effect of these requests when it said in 2015 that Google must remove links from not just search results returned within the EU, but from search results for everyone, anywhere in the world. This interpretation of the Right to be Forgotten runs contrary to policy and practice outside Europe, will harm the global Internet, and inherently undermines global rights, including those protected by the Constitution in the United States. For an in depth analysis, read our legal background document.

      • Senate Responds to Trump-Inspired Anti-Semitism By Targeting Students Who Criticize Israel

        After Donald Trump’s election emboldened white supremacists and inspired a wave of anti-Semitic hate incidents across the country, the Senate on Thursday took action by passing a bill aimed at limiting the free-speech rights of college students who express support for Palestinians.

        By unanimous consent, the Senate quietly passed the so-called Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, only two days after it was introduced by Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Tim Scott, R-S.C.

        A draft of the bill obtained by The Intercept encourages the Department of Education to use the State Department’s broad, widely criticized definition of anti-Semitism when investigating schools. That definition, from a 2010 memo, includes as examples of anti-Semitism “delegitimizing” Israel, “demonizing” Israel, “applying double standards” to Israel, and “focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations.”

      • The Orwellian War on Skepticism

        Under the cover of battling “fake news,” the mainstream U.S. news media and officialdom are taking aim at journalistic skepticism when it is directed at the pronouncements of the U.S. government and its allies.

        One might have hoped that the alarm about “fake news” would remind major U.S. news outlets, such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, about the value of journalistic skepticism. However, instead, it seems to have done the opposite.

      • Q&A: Russia, China Swapping Cybersecurity, Censorship Tips

        A series of joint events by Russia and China on cybersecurity has prompted speculation that Moscow is looking to the architect of the Great Firewall of China for inspiration on how to censor and otherwise regulate the Internet. But it’s a two-way street, and Beijing is learning from Moscow, too, says Andrei Soldatov, co-author of the book Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators And New Online Revolutionaries.

      • Qatari news site says website blocked, blames state censorship

        An independent English-language news site in Qatar accused the Gulf state of censorship on Thursday, saying two internet service providers had blocked access to its website.

        The Doha News, which stirred a debate about the limits of tolerance in the conservative country in August with an opinion column on gay rights in Qatar, said the two internet firms had simultaneously barred access to its website on Wednesday.

      • Qatari news website raises ‘censorship’ concerns
      • Blocked Qatari news site blames government censorship
      • Qatar accused of censorship after Doha News website blocked
      • Putin Promises to Halt Censorship of Artists in Russia
      • Vladimir Putin warns Russian artists against offending religious believers after Charlie Hebdo attack
      • Putin CRACKS DOWN on ART in Russia, warning against ‘DANGEROUS’ freedom of expression
      • Putin warns artists against ‘dangerous behavior’
      • Social media site Reddit censors Trump supporters
      • Reddit is censoring the pro-Donald Trump community
      • Reddit Censoring Donald Trump Subreddit From Front Page?

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • The Snowden Movie Illustrates Why I’m So Pessimistic About The Future

        Last night the cybersecurity firm F-Secure hosted a screening of Oliver Stone’s latest film, Snowden – a dramatisation of how the eponymous hero went from working deep inside the American Intelligence apparatus, to becoming an internationally famous whistleblower who has been lionised and demonised in equal measure. Essentially, F-Secure probably couldn’t have asked for a better sales pitch.

        Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Snowden, and the film skips back and forth between the tense days spent in a Hong Kong hotel room after he leaked his insider knowledge to Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and The Guardian, and flashbacks through his career and his relationship. It’s hard to know exactly what was real and what was a dramatic invention by the filmmaker – but it makes for a very powerful explanation of exactly what programmes the NSA is running, and what they are capable of, and the potential human consequences of such actions.

      • Tech Companies, Fix These Technical Issues Before It’s Too Late
      • Malware and Mysteries: Secret Surveillance in Argentina
      • Law Enforcement’s Secret “Super Search Engine” Amasses Trillions of Phone Records for Decades

        Although the government still hides too much information about a secret telephone records surveillance program known as Hemisphere, we have learned through EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits that police tout the massive database of private calls as “Google on Steroids” [pdf].

        Hemisphere, which AT&T operates on behalf of federal, state, and local law enforcement, contains trillions of domestic and international phone call records dating back to 1987. AT&T adds roughly four billion phone records to Hemisphere each day [.pptx], including calls from non-AT&T customers that pass through the company’s switches.

        The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and other federal, state and local police use Hemisphere to not only track when and who someone is calling, but to perform complicated traffic analysis that can dynamically map people’s social networks and physical locations. This even includes knowing when someone changes their phone number.

        And federal officials often do it without first getting permission from a judge.

        Indeed, Hemisphere was designed to be extremely secret, with police instructed to do everything possible to make sure the program never appeared in the public record. After using Hemisphere to obtain private information about someone, police usually cover up their use of Hemisphere by later obtaining targeted data about suspects from phone providers through traditional subpoenas, a process the police call “parallel construction” and that EFF calls “evidence laundering.”

      • The IP Act: UK’s most extreme surveillance law

        The Investigatory Powers Act will come into force at the start of 2017, and will cement ten years of illegal surveillance into law.

        It includes state powers to intercept bulk communications and collect vast amounts of communications data and content. The security and law enforcement agencies – including government organisations such as HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) – can hack into devices of people in the UK.

      • How to Protect Yourself From Government Surveillance and Criminal Hackers

        Even if you like to share thoughts and photos on social media, there are certainly plenty of things that you’d like to keep between yourself and a select few. ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project Director Ben Wizner sat down with our principal technologist Christopher Soghoian for a Facebook Live video Q&A on how to keep the government and other snoopers out of your private digital business.

      • CREDO Confirms It’s at Center of Long-Running Legal Fight Over NSLs

        Mobile Provider Battled Gag Order That Forced It to Keep Customers in the Dark

        San Francisco – CREDO Mobile representatives confirmed today that their company was at the center of the long-running legal battle over the constitutionality of national security letters (NSLs), and published the letters the government sent three years ago.

        The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has represented CREDO in this matter since 2013—and the case, bundled with two other NSL challenges, has reached the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Until now, CREDO was under a gag order, preventing CREDO officials from identifying the company or discussing their role in the case. In March, a district court found that the FBI had failed to demonstrate the need for this gag, and struck it down pending an appeal by the government. But earlier this month, the government decided to drop its appeal of that order, leaving CREDO free to talk about why the legal challenge is important to the company and its customers.

      • Fighting NSL Gag Orders, With Help From Our Friends at CREDO and Internet Archive

        Thanks to our clients and friends at CREDO Mobile and the Internet Archive, EFF was able to shine a rare light on national security letters (NSLs) this week. The FBI uses NSLs to force Internet providers and telecommunications companies to turn over the names, addresses, and other records about their customers. NSLs almost always come with a secrecy provision that bars the companies—in violation of the Constitution—from publicly disclosing the requests. Worse still, NSL gags generally last forever and are imposed by the FBI without any mandatory court oversight.

        The FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs since 9/11, and because of their secrecy, NSLs have become a totemic representation of the government’s overreaching surveillance powers.

      • The Problem of Our Surveillance Laws: Report Exposes Deeply Rooted Governmental Secrecy—Underscoring Why Obama Should Act Now

        Kafka wrote in his parable The Problem of Our Laws, “It is an extremely painful thing to be ruled by laws that one does not know.”

        By this standard, America has long been in pain. Secret law runs rampant in the United States, particularly when national security is concerned. It may be legitimate for the government to keep some information secret, like targets of investigations and specific intelligence strategies, but this should be a relatively short list. And it should not, except in the most extreme circumstance, extend to the law itself. A recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liza Goitein, however, exposes just how deep the problem of keeping even the law secret runs—with over-classification fostering constitutionally suspect legal reasoning and the rapid erosion of any meaningful check on governmental power.

        The Brennan Center report also confirms something we’ve been arguing for years—it’s time for some transparency and accountability in our laws. With only 48 days left in Obama’s presidency, the call to shed some light on the law purportedly supporting the government’s secret surveillance programs is all the more urgent. Opening the blinds is a practical step for protecting the democratic principles this country was founded on—especially as the power to invoke secrecy and surveil Americans is posed to pass into new and untested hands. President Obama, the time is now.

      • P/C Industry Warns China’s New Cybersecurity Law Could Hamper Foreign Business

        China’s new wide-ranging cybersecurity law is drawing some serious apprehension from the U.S. property/casualty insurance industry. Trade associations and experts alike caution that it will create business obstacles in the world’s second-largest economy.

        “Most insurers already find China a difficult market in which to get a toehold,” Michael Barry, vice president of media relations with the Insurance Information Institute, told Carrier Management via email. “This action will not make things easier.”

        As reported by Bloomberg and others, the new law was recently passed by China’s main legislative body, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. It takes effect in June and will implement a number of new requirements, such as mandatory testing and certification of computer equipment. Companies are also required to give government investigators complete access to their data if there is suspected wrong-doing, and Internet operators must cooperate in any national security or crime-related investigation.

      • WhatsApp to cut off support for millions of phones, tells people to buy new ones instead [Ed: better surveillance by Facebook]

        WhatsApp is about to stop working on millions of phones.

        Older devices are going to have their support cut off so that they’ll no longer be able to use the free chat app.

        Phones including the iPhone 3GS and Android handsets are about to stop being supported by WhatsApp’s engineers. And when that happens, owners will no longer be able to send or receive messages.

        WhatsApp first announced the change early this year. But it said then that it would be implemented by the end of the year, and so there are only relatively few days left before it happens.

      • Uber knows where you go, even after ride is over

        As promised, Uber is now tracking you even when your ride is over. The ride-hailing service said the surveillance—even when riders close the app—will improve its service.

        The company now tracks customers from when they request a ride until five minutes after the ride has ended. According to Uber, the move will help drivers locate riders without having to call them, and it will also allow Uber to analyze whether people are being dropped off and picked up properly—like on the correct side of the street.

      • Snapchat Maker Expands in London Ahead of Public Offering [Ed: proprietary. The British government will demand back doors. Avoid.]

        Snap Inc. recently posted nearly 20 job openings in London in areas including advertising, software engineering and legal, according to its website. The vacancies come after the company in February signed a 10-year lease on a four-story, 12,570-square-foot (1,168-square-meter) property in the U.K. capital. In October, Snap also opened an office in Paris for staff working on advertising and partnerships with French-language media organizations.

      • Families who sheltered Edward Snowden in Hong Kong say NSA whistleblower ‘gave them hope’

        The three groups of individuals who sheltered American whistle-blower Edward Snowden in Hong Kong after he leaked sensitive intelligence files in 2013, dream of leaving the city and being received by a third country, where they can find safety and rebuild their broken lives.

        “I don’t like staying here, because we are not ­allowed to have a life,” Nadeeka Dilrukski Nonis, an asylum seeker from Sri Lanka, said, holding her ­seven-month-old boy, still too small and fragile to understand his mother’s concerns. “We just want a place where my children can have a future. It can be anywhere, if there’s safety and freedom.”

        Some two months after their photos and names were plastered all over the world press, the families who housed Snowden for a couple of weeks in 2013 told the Sunday Morning Post they had no regrets about helping the former National Security Agency contractor. Although they are still facing the consequences of the exposure that came with it, they said their contact with Snowden gave them something that had been taken from them while in limbo in Hong Kong: hope.

      • GCHQ: from two old sites to one shiny new Doughnut

        When someone in Cheltenham says they work at GCHQ, you know where they mean – that big round building on the A40 – there’s a sign and everything – it’s even on the bus blinds.

      • Explosive document could REVEAL WikiLeaks whistleblowers behind German NSA paper release

        German experts claim one single document holds the key to every single person that helped Wikileaks, which notoriously publishes private and classified information, unveil papers which threaten to derail Angela Merkel’s hopes of dominating the EU.

        A German parliament spokesman warned a lead to informants could spark a criminal investigations, according to local reports.

        It comes after Wikileaks published a 90GB cache containing almost 2,500 top-secret documents, which sheds light on the murky relationship between Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and America’s National Security Agency (NSA).

      • Court Rubber Stamps IRS’s Demand To Get All Coinbase User Data

        A couple weeks back, we wrote about a ridiculous and massively overbroad demand from the IRS that virtual currency exchange/online wallet host Coinbase turn over basically all info on basically all Coinbase users. They did this because they saw evidence of a single person using Bitcoin to avoid paying taxes. Coinbase expressed concern over this, but Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley didn’t seem too concerned, and has granted the IRS’s request by literally rubber stamping the DOJ’s request. I know it’s not all that uncommon for judges to accept “proposed orders” but it’s still a bit disturbing to see it happen on something with potentially massive consequences.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • I, Barrett Brown, Have Returned

        Four years ago, after my overly dramatic arrest by the FBI, I vowed to return to Dallas at the time of its greatest peril, or anyway I meant to vow this. Now I have fulfilled the promise I definitely intended to make; my sentence complete, on Tuesday I rode from a South Texas prison with my mom and dad and Alex Winter for some reason to a halfway house 20 minutes south of downtown. I live in a room with five drug dealers. We have a TV and an Xbox 360. When I came in, they were watching the 1990 Charlie Sheen vehicle Navy Seals, a film of extraordinary obnoxiousness. Further reports will follow.

      • Drunk men screaming Trump’s name try to rip off Muslim student’s hijab as straphangers stand idly by on East Side subway, cops say

        Straphangers stood by and watched as three drunk white men repeatedly screamed “Donald Trump!” and hurled anti-Islam slurs Thursday at a Muslim Baruch College student before trying to rip her hijab off of her head on an East Side subway, the woman told the Daily News.

        Yasmin Seweid said she was stunned by the assault — and the fact that no one in the subway car came to her aid.

        “It made me really sad after when I thought about it,” she said. “People were looking at me and looking at what was happening and no one said a thing. They just looked away.”

        The terrified 18-year-old recounted her harrowing encounter with the hate-spewing trio.

      • Senator Feinstein Asks President Obama To Declassify Senate’s CIA Torture Report

        Could President Obama actually declassify and release the full 6,800 page report on the massive failures of the CIA’s torture program from a decade ago? While it seems unlikely, Senator Dianne Feinstein is urging the President to release the document, fearing that the massive report may disappear into the memory hole soon.

        Some background: While Feinstein has been historically awful on basically anything having to do with reining in the US intelligence community, the one area that really seemed to get her attention and raise concerns was the CIA’s torture regime. She assigned Senate Intelligence Committee staffers to work on a massive and detailed report on the CIA’s torture program after it came out that a key official involved in the program had deliberately deleted videotape evidence about the program. The research and writing of the report went on for years and cost millions of dollars, and then resulted in another big fight over releasing a heavily redacted version of just the executive summary of the report (not to mention that the CIA also broke into the staffers’ computers after it realized it had accidentally given the staffers a really damning document). The fight over releasing the paper was really, really ridiculous.

        There were fights over what ridiculous things to redact, and then the White House put on a full court press against releasing the document, insisting that publicly releasing even a heavily redacted executive summary would inspire terrorist attacks. Even after an agreement was reached on the redactions, John Kerry still tried to block the release, again warning of potential attacks in response.

      • How do you call something dystopic when dystopia keeps upgrading itself to something worse?

        Civil rights activists have a PR problem. When calling a bad development out as the worst seen in a democracy, that’s the strongest you can condemn something. The development thus called out may legitimately be the worst ever seen, and be rightfully called out as such, as a dystopia coming true. But next week, another law proposal appears which is even worse, and so you say again that this is the worst ever seen, again correctly. But when people just hear you saying that everything is the worst, all the time, it becomes a big communications problem and needs to be reframed.

        Every time you think the surveillance hawks have hit rock bottom and can’t possibly sink any lower, they surprise you with new levels of shamelessness. The problem here is the rapidly shifting window of normality.

      • These Big Native American Facebook Pages Are Actually Being Run By People In Kosovo And Vietnam

        As pipeline protesters at Standing Rock prepare to dig in for the winter, a growing network of dubious Native American Facebook pages is cashing in on the movement by selling stolen No DAPL T-shirt designs and by driving traffic to dubious clickbait websites, a BuzzFeed News investigation has found.

        The owners of these pages and websites reside in faraway countries such as Vietnam and Kosovo, and they are capitalizing on online interest in Standing Rock, and Native American culture in general, to make money. BuzzFeed News identified more than 60 Facebook pages with more than 6 million fans that are generating money either by selling counterfeit Native American merchandise, or by driving traffic to ad-filled websites that in some cases have little or nothing to do with Native American issues.

      • Liberal Moroccan Writer Said Nachid: Raif Badawi Is Forced to Pray and Attend Religious Classes in Prison

        Liberal Moroccan writer Said Nachid talked, during a conference of the Adhoc organization of liberal modern thought, held in Rome, about his friend Raif Badawi, who was arrested in 2012 and later sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for “insulting Islam through electronic channels.” Nachid said that in the early days of Badawi’s incarceration, when he still had his mobile phone, he used to call him and tell him about the religious guidance one is forced to attend, including mandatory prayers and lessons in the teachings of Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Taymiyya. The video was posted on Adhoc’s social media channels on November 13.

      • Slovakia bars Islam from becoming state religion by tightening church laws

        The government in Slovakia has approved a law effectively preventing Islam being registered as a state religion for a number of years.

        The bill was proposed by the Slovak National Party (SNS), and requires a religion to have at least 50,000 followers before it qualifies for state subsidies.

        According to the most recent census, there are currently around 2,000 Muslim people living in Slovakia out of a population of 5.4million, and there are no registered mosques.

      • Norway frees radical Islamist as Italy ends extradition bid

        Italy has cancelled a request for the extradition from Norway of controversial Iraqi Kurdish fundamentalist preacher Mullah Krekar, the Norwegian prosecution agency said on Wednesday, ordering his immediate release.
        The prosecution agency did not provide any explanation for Italy’s move, saying simply that the Italian justice ministry had informed its Norwegian counterpart in a letter that the request would be “withdrawn.”

      • Urgent Action Update: Jailed Filmmaker At Risk Of Flogging (Iran: UA 19/16)

        Iranian filmmaker Keywan Karimi was jailed on 23 November after being summoned to start serving his prison sentence. The authorities have told Keywan Karimi they also intend to carry out his flogging sentence of 223 lashes. He is a prisoner of conscience.

        Iranian filmmaker Keywan Karimi, from Iran’s Kurdish minority, began serving his prison sentence on 23 November. Although he had never received an official written summons, the Office for the Implementation of Sentences had repeatedly telephoned him since February 2016, ordering him to present himself to Tehran’s Evin Prison to begin serving his sentence. The authorities have also told him that they intend to implement his flogging sentence of 223 lashes.

      • UN to pursue further inquiry into death of Dag Hammarskjöld

        What caused the 1961 plane crash that killed former UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld? A Swedish-led UN inquiry the following year concluded that the plane, the Albertina, had crashed in northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) as a result of “pilot error”. But this failed to satisfy many who have long suspected foul play.

        There were claims that the Albertina, which was carrying Hammarskjöld and a 15-strong team seeking to negotiate a ceasefire in the breakaway African republic of Katanga, was riddled with bullets. Several witnesses said they saw as many as eight white men, armed and in combat fatigues, at the crash site.

      • Thanks To Months Of Doing Nothing, Senate Allows DOJ’s Rule 41 Changes To Become Law

        The FBI and others will be able to take advantage of the removal of jurisdictional limits to search computers anywhere in the world using a single warrant issued by a magistrate judge. It will also be granted the same power for use in the disruption of botnets — in essence, searches/seizures of devices owned by US citizens suspected of no wrongdoing.

      • Of 8 Tech Companies, Only Twitter Says It Would Refuse to Help Build Muslim Registry for Trump

        Every American corporation, from the largest conglomerate to the smallest firm, should ask itself right now: Will we do business with the Trump administration to further its most extreme, draconian goals? Or will we resist?

        This question is perhaps most important for the country’s tech companies, which are particularly valuable partners for a budding authoritarian. The Intercept contacted nine of the most prominent such firms, from Facebook to Booz Allen Hamilton, to ask if they would sell their services to help create a national Muslim registry, an idea recently resurfaced by Donald Trump’s transition team. Only Twitter said no.

        Shortly after the election, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty wrote a personal letter to President-elect Trump in which she offered her congratulations, and more importantly, the services of her company. The six different areas she identified as potential business opportunities between a Trump White House and IBM were all inoffensive and more or less mundane, but showed a disturbing willingness to sell technology to a man with open interest in the ways in which technology can be abused: Mosque surveillance, a “virtual wall” with Mexico, shutting down portions of the internet on command, and so forth. Trump’s anti-civil liberty agenda, half-baked and vague as it is, would largely be an engineering project, one that would almost certainly rely on some help from the private sector. It may be asking too much to demand that companies that have long contracted with the federal government stop doing so altogether; indeed, this would probably cause as much harm and disruption to good public projects as it would help stop the sinister ones.

      • In Stunning Reversal, Law Enforcement, Military, and Security Advisors Urge Homeland Security to Shift Away from Private Prisons

        In a surprise development, the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC), an expert panel of law enforcement, national security, military, and other experts who advise the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security voted on Thursday to recommend that the agency shift away from using private prisons to detain immigrants.

      • If Cops Don’t Turn on Their Body Cameras, Courts Should Instruct Juries to Think Twice about Their Testimony

        Since 2014, at least 14 people have been killed by police officers wearing body cameras that were either not turned on or not operational. Roughly two months ago, an officer in Charlotte failed to activate his body camera before fatally shooting Keith Lamont Scott. (On Wednesday, news broke that the officer who killed Scott will not face charges.) Days earlier, an officer in Washington, D.C., failed to turn on his body camera before fatally shooting Terrence Sterling. And this past July, an officer in Chicago failed to activate his body camera before fatally shooting Paul O’Neal in the back.

        These unrecorded killings threaten to undermine confidence in body cameras. If these cameras are only as good as the police officers and departments responsible for deploying them, then their contributions to police accountability will depend on the very people they are supposed to hold accountable.

        But it doesn’t have to be this way. As explained in “No Tape, No Testimony,” a new report by the ACLU of Massachusetts and the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, police officers and departments are not the only ones who can ensure that body cameras are used responsibly. Courts can do it, too.

        Courts can influence body camera usage through a tool that is unique to courts: jury instructions. Consistent with provisions the ACLU recommends that state legislators put into law, the new report proposes a model instruction that would discourage body camera mishaps by empowering juries to devalue or even disregard a police officer’s testimony if, in the jury’s view, the officer unjustifiably failed to record an interaction with a civilian. Courts should consider trying it, for at least three reasons.

      • Internet Archive Successfully Fends Off Secret FBI Order
      • Internet Archive Received National Security Letter with FBI Misinformation about Challenging Gag Order

        Potentially Thousands of Communication Providers Received Bad Instructions for Fighting Secrecy Provisions

        The Internet Archive published a formerly secret national security letter (NSL) today that includes misinformation about how to contest the accompanying gag order that demanded total secrecy about the request. As a result of the Archive’s challenge to the letter, the FBI has agreed to send clarifications about the law to potentially thousands of communications providers who have received NSLs in the last year and a half.

        The NSL issued to the Archive said the library had the right to “make an annual challenge to the nondisclosure requirement.” But in 2015, Congress updated the law to allow for more than one request a year, so that communications providers could speak out about their experience without unneeded delay. Represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Archive informed the FBI that it did not have the information the agency was seeking and pointed out the legal error. The FBI agreed to drop the gag order in this case and allow the publication of the NSL.

        “The free flow of information is at the heart of the Internet Archive’s work, but by using national security letters in conjunction with unconstitutional gag orders, the FBI is trying to keep us all in the dark,” said Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive. “Here, it’s even worse: that secrecy helped conceal that the FBI was giving all NSL recipients bad information about their rights. So we especially wanted to make this NSL public to give libraries and other institutions more information and help them protect their users from any improper FBI requests.”

        The Archive received this NSL in August, more than a year after Congress changed the law to allow more gag order challenges. In its letter removing the gag order, the FBI acknowledged that it issued other NSLs that included the error, and stated that it will inform all recipients about the mistake. Given that the FBI has said that it issued about 13,000 NSLs last year, thousands of communications providers likely received the false information, and potentially delayed petitioning the court for the right to go public.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • The Trans-Pacific Partnership Is Dead, and That’s Good for Internet Freedom

        The controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is on its deathbed. After international outcry and intense grassroots organizing, US lawmakers from both parties rejected the 12-country deal, including every leading presidential candidate. The president-elect has said he’ll withdraw from the pact on day one.

      • Presidential Commission Sounds Warning Over Botnet Threat

        The next U.S. administration should take immediate steps to prevent and, when possible, eliminate computer attacks like one that recently crippled some of the key systems that run the internet, a presidential commission recommended on Friday.

      • A blow against net neutrality: AT&T’s DirecTV Now service could trigger a sponsored-data arms race

        AT&T unleashed this week one of the most ambitious TV streaming service yet, and one that has piqued the interest of millions of cord cutters who are fed up with satellite and cable service providers, high-priced programming bundles and cumbersome set-top boxes.

        For an introductory offer of $35 a month, DirecTV Now’s “Go Big” 100-channel package gives subscribers access to ESPN and Fox Sports, cable news broadcasters CNN and MSNBC, basic cable channels like TNT and Discovery and popular programs like “The Walking Dead,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Empire,” all delivered to the digital screens of your choice. The company is also offering three larger bundles for up to $70 a month with programming from Univision, NBA TV and the Travel Channel.

        But critics of how AT&T is marketing DirecTV Now argue that America’s second-largest telecommunications company has just upped the ante in an ongoing effort to keep the Internet a level playing field.

      • After Zero Rating Backlash, Facebook Returns With New, Somewhat Murky ‘Express WiFi’ Initiative

        You might recall that earlier this year there was a massive backlash against Facebook for its often clumsy attempts to try and dominate emerging developing nation ad markets through what many saw as bogus altruism. The entire fracas bubbled over in India, where regulators banned Facebook’s attempt to create a sort of zero-rated, net neutrality-violating walled garden of Facebook-curated content under the pretense of helping the nation’s farmers. Facebook didn’t help itself by trying to drum up fake support for its initiatives while labeling those worried about the plan as extremists.

        Under the original idea, low-income families got access to a limited crop of Facebook-approved content; sort of a glorified AOL for poor people. However, net neutrality advocates and critics like Mozilla were (justly) concerned with this giving Facebook too much power over content, so they consistently argued that if Facebook was so desperately interested in helping the poor — the company and its Internet.org initiative should focus on providing actual broadband connectivity.

    • Intellectual Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • Mandatory Piracy Filters May Violate EU Law, Scholars Warn

          A group of prominent legal scholars has warned that the EU Commission’s plans to modernize copyright law in Europe appear to be incompatible with EU law. One of the main problems is the mandatory piracy filter Internet services are required to use, which largely ignore existing case law and human rights.

        • Antigua Says It Will Certainly, Absolutely, Definitely Use WTO Permission To Ignore US Copyright And Set Up A Pirate Site, Maybe

          One of the longest-running, and most extraordinary, sagas on Techdirt concerns the island of Antigua. Over 13 years ago, the country filed a complaint at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the US ban on online gambling, which Antigua said violated a trade agreement between the two countries. Long story short, the WTO not only agreed, but said that the Caribbean country could ignore US copyrights, and set up a WTO-authorized pirate site to obtain the $21 million in WTO sanctions that the US was refusing to pay as compensation for blocking Antigua’s online gambling sites. In 2013, Antigua was still saying it was definitely going to do this if it couldn’t come to some agreement with the US on the matter, and the US was still refusing to settle.

        • Third time lucky? Iceland’s Pirate party given chance to form government

          Iceland’s Pirate Party leader Birgitta Jonsdottir has been asked by the president to try to form a new government, local media reported on Friday, after the two largest parliamentary parties each failed to put together a coalition.

          Speaking to reporters after a meeting with President Gudni Johannesson, Jonsdottir said: “I am hopeful that we will find a way to work together.”

          The anti-establishment Pirate Party, which came third in an October election, will continue talks with four other parties represented in parliament, the Left-Greens, Social Democrats, Bright Future and the Reform Party.

          The Left-Greens suspended coalition negotiations last week. The Independence Party, which as the biggest party was given the first chance to form a governing coalition, said on Nov. 15 that it had failed to do so.

    12.03.16

    Links 3/12/2016: Mageia 5.1 Released, Mozilla Revenue at $421.3M

    Posted in News Roundup at 11:14 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

    GNOME bluefish

    Contents

    GNU/Linux

    Free Software/Open Source

    • Google Rolls Out Continuous Fuzzing Service For Open Source Software

      Google has launched a new project for continuously testing open source software for security vulnerabilities.

      The company’s new OSS-Fuzz service is available in beta starting this week, but at least initially it will only be available for open source projects that have a very large user base or are critical to global IT infrastructure.

    • Web Browsers

      • Mozilla

        • Mozilla Reports 2015 Revenue of $421.3M

          For its fiscal 2015 year, Mozilla reported revenue of $421.3 million, up from $329.6 million that it reported Mozilla’s revenue’s have grown significantly over the last decade. The first year that Mozilla ever publicly disclosed its financial status was for its 2005 fiscal year, when the open-source organization generated $52.9 million in revenue.

        • Mozilla is doing well financially (2015)

          Mozilla announced a major change in November 2014 in regards to the company’s main revenue stream.

          The organization had a contract with Google in 2014 and before that had Google pay Mozilla money for being the default search engine in the Firefox web browser.

          This deal was Mozilla’s main source of revenue, about 329 million US Dollars in 2014. The change saw Mozilla broker deals with search providers instead for certain regions of the world.

    • Healthcare

      • Open source wearable Angel shuts down

        “Well, looks like the Angel Sensor folks have (finally) officially thrown in the towel,” he wrote. “Not really a surprise, as they had gone silent for nearly a year after delivering their crowdfunded product over two years late. They did release code for their open-source SDK, and there is a community of developers who have forked it on GitHub3 to continue development. Too bad they gave up, as the promise of a truly open source wearable with an array of useful sensors is lacking in the QS space.”

    • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

      • The Three Software Freedoms

        The government can help us by making software companies distribute the source code. They can say it’s “in the interest of national security”. And they can sort out the patent system (there are various problems with how the patent system handles software which are out of the scope of this article). So when you chat to your MP please mention this.

      • Leapfrog Honoring the GPL
      • A discussion on GPL compliance

        Among its many activities, the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) is one of the few organizations that does any work on enforcing the GPL when other compliance efforts have failed. A suggestion by SFC executive director Karen Sandler to have a Q&A session about compliance and enforcement at this year’s Kernel Summit led to a prolonged discussion, but not to such a session being added to the agenda. However, the co-located Linux Plumbers Conference set up a “birds of a feather” (BoF) session so that interested developers could hear more about the SFC’s efforts, get their questions answered, and provide feedback. Sandler and SFC director of strategic initiatives Brett Smith hosted the discussion, which was quite well-attended—roughly 70 people were there at a 6pm BoF on November 3.

      • Join us as a member to give back for the free software you use

        At the FSF, we run our own infrastructure using only free software, which makes us stand out from nearly every other nonprofit organization. Virtually all others rely on outside providers and use a significant amount of nonfree software. With your support, we set an example proving that a nonprofit can follow best practices while running only free software.

      • The Free Software Foundation is in need of members

    • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

      • Open Hardware/Modding

        • HiFive1 Is an Open-Source, Arduino-Compatible RISC-V Dev Kit

          Bay Area startup SiFive has announced the Freedom Everywhere 310 (FE310) system-on-chip — the industry’s first commercially-available SoC based on the free, open-source RISC-V architecture, along with the corresponding low-cost, Arduino-compatible HiFive1 development kit.

        • Samsung Defection From ARM to RISC-V.

          It was always thought that, when ARM relinquished its independence, its customers would look around for other alternatives.

          The nice thing about RISC-V is that it’s independent, open source and royalty-free.

          And RISC-V is what Samsung is reported to be using for an IoT CPU in preference to ARM.

        • Neutralize ME firmware on SandyBridge and IvyBridge platforms

          First introduced in Intel’s 965 Express Chipset Family, the Intel Management Engine (ME) is a separate computing environment physically located in the (G)MCH chip (for Core 2 family CPUs which is separate from the northbridge), or PCH chip replacing ICH(for Core i3/i5/i7 which is integrated with northbridge).

    Leftovers

    • Science

      • Opinion: An Ethical Code for Conferences

        This fundamental form of scientific communication is threatened by modern recording technology and researchers who refuse to adhere to an age-old ethical code.

    • Health/Nutrition

      • Non-Corporate Entities Join Forces Against Adoption Of Plant Breeders’ Rights Regulations In Africa

        The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, civil society, and farmers’ representatives have raised serious concerns on the upcoming adoption of draft regulations of a protocol protecting breeders’ rights in Africa. Civil society groups and farmers’ representatives have been blocked from participating in the meeting expected to adopt the regulations, according to them. The Special Rapporteur is calling for a halt to the process, and for starting again with a more transparent, inclusive, and evidence-based process.

    • Security

      • Security updates for Friday
      • Understanding SELinux Roles

        I received a container bugzilla today for someone who was attempting to assign a container process to the object_r role. Hopefully this blog will help explain how roles work with SELinux.

        When we describe SELinux we often concentrate on Type Enforcement, which is the most important and most used feature of SELinux. This is what describe in the SELinux Coloring book as Dogs and Cats. We also describe MLS/MCS Separation in the coloring book.

      • The Internet Society is unhappy about security – pretty much all of it

        The Internet Society (ISOC) is the latest organisation saying, in essence, “security is rubbish – fix it”.

        Years of big data breaches are having their impact, it seems: in its report released last week, it quotes a 54-country, 24,000-respondent survey reporting a long-term end user trend to become more fearful in using the Internet (by Ipsos on behalf of the Centre for International Governance Innovation).

        Report author, economist and ISOC fellow Michael Kende, reckons companies aren’t doing enough to control breaches.

        “According to the Online Trust Alliance, 93 per cent of breaches are preventable” he said, but “steps to mitigate the cost of breaches that do occur are not taken – attackers cannot steal data that is not stored, and cannot use data that is encrypted.”

      • UK’s new Snoopers’ Charter just passed an encryption backdoor law by the backdoor

        Among the many unpleasant things in the Investigatory Powers Act that was officially signed into law this week, one that has not gained as much attention is the apparent ability for the UK government to undermine encryption and demand surveillance backdoors.

        As the bill was passing through Parliament, several organizations noted their alarm at section 217 which obliged ISPs, telcos and other communications providers to let the government know in advance of any new products and services being deployed and allow the government to demand “technical” changes to software and systems.

      • EU budget creates bug bounty programme to improve cybersecurity

        Today the European Parliament approved the EU Budget for 2017. The budget sets aside 1.9 million euros in order to improve the EU’s IT infrastructure by extending the free software audit programme (FOSSA) that MEPs Max Anderson and Julia Reda initiated two years ago, and by including a bug bounty approach in the programme that was proposed by MEP Marietje Schaake.

      • Qubes OS Begins Commercialization and Community Funding Efforts

        Since the initial launch of Qubes OS back in April 2010, work on Qubes has been funded in several different ways. Originally a pet project, it was first supported by Invisible Things Lab (ITL) out of the money we earned on various R&D and consulting contracts. Later, we decided that we should try to commercialize it. Our idea, back then, was to commercialize Windows AppVM support. Unlike the rest of Qubes OS, which is licensed under GPLv2, we thought we would offer Windows AppVM support under a proprietary license. Even though we made a lot of progress on both the business and technical sides of this endeavor, it ultimately failed.

        Luckily, we got a helping hand from the Open Technology Fund (OTF), which has supported the project for the past two years. While not a large sum of money in itself, it did help us a lot, especially with all the work necessary to improve Qubes’ user interface, documentation, and outreach to new communities. Indeed, the (estimated) Qubes user base has grown significantly over that period. Thank you, OTF!

      • Linux Security Basics: What System Administrators Need to Know

        Every new Linux system administrator needs to learn a few core concepts before delving into the operating system and its applications. This short guide gives a summary of some of the essential security measures that every root user must know. All advice given follows the best security practices that are mandated by the community and the industry.

      • BitUnmap: Attacking Android Ashmem

        The law of leaky abstractions states that “all non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky”. In this blog post we’ll explore the ashmem shared memory interface provided by Android and see how false assumptions about its internal operation can result in security vulnerabilities affecting core system code.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Hackers destroy computers at Saudi aviation agency

        Hackers destroyed computers at six important Saudi organizations two weeks ago, marking a reappearance of the most damaging cyberweapon the world has ever seen.

        Last time, it was used to destroy 35,000 computers at the oil company Saudi Aramco. U.S. intelligence quietly blamed Iran for that attack.

        This time around, the cyberweapon has attacked at least one Saudi government agency, as well as organizations in the energy, manufacturing and transportation sectors, according to two researchers with direct knowledge of the investigations into the attack.

      • Teacher at Tower Hamlets school ‘condoned Charlie Hebdo terror attack in front of pupils’

        A teacher faces a classroom ban after he allegedly “condoned” the Charlie Hebdo terror attack in front of pupils at a Tower Hamlets school.

        Hamza Jalal Tariq, 28, effectively said during a lesson that the victims murdered by Islamist gunmen “should be killed for insulting the prophet”, a professional conduct panel ruled.

        The panel heard Tariq made the comment in response to a student just days after 12 people were murdered in the French satirical newspaper’s Paris office in January last year.

        Tariq was a teacher at Tower Hamlets PRU, which has four sites across the east London borough, since 2013, but resigned after the accusations surfaced.

      • Don’t Say I’m Violent, Or I’ll Kill You

        Yesterday, I wrote about the thwarted mass murder at Ohio State University. To the Best Vice-President We Never Had, Tim Kaine, it was “a senseless act of gun violence”. To those under attack, it was in fact an act of automobile violence and machete violence. And to the perpetrator, it was not “senseless” but made perfect sense.

      • Donald Trump and the Taiwanese President Just Had an Unprecedented Phone Call

        Donald Trump has spoken with the president of Taiwan, a self-governing island the U.S. broke diplomatic ties with in 1979.

        It is highly unusual, perhaps unprecedented, for a U.S. president or president-elect to speak directly with a Taiwanese leader. The U.S. cut formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan when it shifted diplomatic recognition of China to the communist government on the mainland, although Washington still has close unofficial ties with Taipei.

    • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

      • A Catastrophic Amount of Carbon Could Leak From the Soil By 2050

        The term “snowball effect” is an unfortunate way to describe climate change, but a new study is predicting just that.

        Climate scientists warn that by 2050, an astonishing 55 trillion kilograms of carbon could be released into the atmosphere from the soil. To put things in perspective, that’s the emissions equivalent of adding another United States to the planet. And, like a rapidly tumbling snowball, more emissions mean more warming, and more warming means… well, you get it.

        Of course, this nightmare scenario hinges on our inability to curb carbon emissions—a fate that’s become significantly more realistic with Donald Trump, a vocal climate change denier and coal aficionado, about to enter the White House. Our failure to meet the goals mandated by the Paris Agreement would result in “about 17 percent more than the projected emissions due to human-related activities during that period,” Tom Crowther, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, said in a statement.

      • Climate change will stir ‘unimaginable’ refugee crisis, says military

        Climate change is set to cause a refugee crisis of “unimaginable scale”, according to senior military figures, who warn that global warming is the greatest security threat of the 21st century and that mass migration will become the “new normal”.

        The generals said the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency.

    • Finance

      • Corporate Welfare Will Bring Back Jobs vs. Jobs Will Never Come Back

        The story went on to say that Trump and Vice President–elect Mike Pence had promised Carrier they would be “friendlier to businesses by easing regulations and overhauling the corporate tax code.” Probably more to the point from Carrier’s point of view, Schwartz noted that the state of Indiana, where Pence is still governor, “also plans to give economic incentives to Carrier as part of the deal to stay.”

        So Trump’s job program involves cutting business taxes and regulations, plus a corporate-welfare package whose cost will presumably be declared after media attention wanders. This makes Trump “a different kind of Republican” how, exactly?

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Yer Fake News Garbage: Trevor Noah Knows Nothing About the Secret Service

        About 1:30 into the video above, Daily Show host Trevor Noah, as echoed by the Huffington Post, committed fake news.

        Well, to be fair, it was more like ignorance than fake, because Noah’s shock and accusations that Trump is going to charge the Secret Service $1.5 million in rent to help protect him at Trump Tower was only a couple of Googles away from being shown to be wrong.

        To begin, Noah appears somewhat surprised that a president-elect is protected, and that protection costs a lot of money. Noah seems somewhat offended that that protection will take place at Trump Tower.

        Surprise! Any president-elect has to live somewhere. It makes sense he’d stay living where he always does. There is no junior White House. Also, presidents do not give up their homes when they move into the White House. All have kept their own homes and the Secret Service has always protected them there. Reagan and Bush had their ranches, remember. Nothing new here.

      • I Don’t Like Trump or Racism
      • Why Are Media Outlets Still Citing Discredited ‘Fake News’ Blacklist?

        The Washington Post (11/24/16) last week published a front-page blockbuster that quickly went viral: Russia-promoted “fake news” had infiltrated the newsfeeds of 213 million Americans during the election, muddying the waters in a disinformation scheme to benefit Donald Trump. Craig Timberg’s story was based on a “report” from an anonymous group (or simply a person, it’s unclear) calling itself PropOrNot that blacklisted over 200 websites as agents or assets of the Russian state.

        The obvious implication was that an elaborate Russian psyop had fooled the public into voting for Trump based on a torrent of misleading and false information posing as news. Everyone from Bloomberg’s Sahil Kupar to CNN’s to Robert Reich to Anne Navarro to MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid tweeted out the story in breathless tones. Center for American Progress and Clinton advocate Neera Tanden even did her best Ron Paul YouTube commenter impression, exclaiming, “Wake up people.”

        But the story didn’t stand up to the most basic scrutiny. Follow-up reporting cast major doubt on the Washington Post’s core claims and underlying logic, the two primary complaints being 1) the “research group” responsible for the meat of the story, PropOrNot, is an anonymous group of partisans (if more than one person is involved) who tweet like high schoolers, and 2) the list of supposed Russian media assets, because its criteria for Russian “fake news” encompasses “useful idiots,” includes entirely well-within-the-mainstream progressive and libertarian websites such as Truth-Out, Consortium News, TruthDig and Antiwar.com (several of whom are now considering lawsuits against PropOrNot for libel).

      • If We Care About the Constitution, Trump Has to Sell His Empire

        Donald Trump is about to become president and immediately begin violating the Constitution. The Constitution explicitly prohibits the president from taking payments and gifts from foreign governments. (Can we stop using the term “emolument“? No one has used it for a hundred years. We want to be clear on what the Constitution means.)

        Donald Trump is right now and will continue to be taking payments and gifts from foreign governments in the form of benefits to his properties, unless he dumps the stuff. This is about as clear a violation of the constitutional provision imaginable, so why on Earth do we have Andrew Ross Sorkin (New York Times, 11/28/16) approvingly accepting Donald Trump’s nonsense claim in his letter to Mr. Trump?

      • Hillary Clinton’s “Corrupt Establishment” Is Now Advising Donald Trump

        “The establishment,” Donald Trump famously said during his closing argument for the presidency, “has trillions of dollars at stake in this election.”

        He described “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.”

        He asked the country to be “brave enough to vote out this corrupt establishment.”

        Now, less than four weeks after riding that line to victory, he formally invited the establishment into his administration.

        On Friday, Trump announced the creation of a “Strategic and Policy Forum” that will serve to advise him on domestic economic matters. The list of advisers is a who’s-who of corporate elites.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Commission responds to Ombudsman investigation on EU Internet Forum

        In April 2016, the European Ombudsman launched an investigation into the European Commission’s failure to disclose information of the “EU Internet Forum”. The EU Internet Forum brings together US internet companies (Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Google), government officials, and law enforcement agencies to discuss how to reduce the accessibility of undefined “terrorist material” (as defined by 28 different national laws that are not even properly implemented in some countries) and badly defined “hate speech” online.

      • Perils of Censorship in the Digital Age

        The ripple effects of the Donald Trump election victory in America continue to wash over many different shorelines of public opinion, like so many mini-tsunamis hitting the Pacific rim over the last few last weeks. The seismic changes have indeed been global, and not least in Europe.

        First up, the Eurocrats have been getting in a bit of a flap about the future of NATO, as I recently wrote. In the past I have also written about the perceived “insider threat” – in other words, whistleblowers – that has been worrying governments and intelligence agencies across the Western world.

        Currently the Twittersphere is lighting up around the issue of “fake news“, with Western mainstream media (news purveyors of the utmost unsullied probity, naturally) blaming Trump’s unexpected victory variously on the US alt-media shock jocks, fake news trolls and bots, and sovereign-state media outlets such as the Russian RT and Sputnik.

        In the wake of US Democrat claims that Russia was interfering in the election process (not a practice that the USA has ever engaged in in any other country around the world whatsoever), we now have the US Green Party presidential candidate apparently spontaneously calling for recounts in three key swing-states in the USA.

      • Self-Censorship: Free Society vs. Fear Society

        In the summer of 2005, the Danish artist Kåre Bluitgen, when he met a journalist from the Ritzaus Bureau news agency, said he was unable to find anyone willing to illustrate his book on Mohammed, the prophet of Islam. Three illustrators he contacted, Bluitgen said, were too scared. A few months later, Bluitgen reported that he had found someone willing to illustrate his book, but only on the condition of anonymity.

        Like most Danish newspapers, Jyllands-Posten decided to publish an article about Bluitgen’s case. To test the state of freedom of expression, Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten’s cultural editor at the time, called twelve cartoonists, and offered them $160 each to draw a caricature of Mohammed. What then happened is a well-known, chilling story.

      • Three ways Facebook could reduce fake news without resorting to censorship

        The public gets a lot of its news and information from Facebook. Some of it is fake. That presents a problem for the site’s users, and for the company itself.

        Facebook cofounder and chairman Mark Zuckerberg said the company will find ways to address the problem, though he didn’t acknowledge its severity. And without apparent irony, he made this announcement in a Facebook post surrounded – at least for some viewers – by fake news items.

      • Cameroonian Government Calls Social Media A ‘New Form Of Terrorism’

        But it didn’t stop there. As the Global Voices post notes, when government officials finally admitted that there had been an accident, social media continued to challenge the government version, which tried to play down the number of dead, and to lay the blame on allegedly-defective Chinese-made carriages.

      • China is censoring people’s chats without them even knowing about it

        China’s WeChat originated as a WhatsApp clone, but later evolved into the single-most important tool for connecting people in China. Yet it’s never been clear exactly how China’s internet censors have attempted to control information that spreads in the app. That’s partly because you likely wouldn’t know if you got censored in the first place.

      • Lawyer sues 20-year-old student who gave a bad Yelp review, loses badly

        When 20-year-old Lan Cai was in a car crash this summer, it was a bad situation. Driving home at 1:30am from a waitressing shift, Cai was plowed into by a drunk driver and broke two bones in her lower back. Unsure about how to navigate her car insurance and prove damages, she reached out for legal help.

        The help she got, Cai said, was less than satisfactory. Lawyers from the Tuan A. Khuu law firm ignored her contacts, and at one point they came into her bedroom while Cai was sleeping in her underwear. “Seriously, it’s super unprofessional!” she wrote on Facebook. (The firm maintains it was invited in by Cai’s mother.) She also took to Yelp to warn others about her bad experience.

        The posts led to a threatening e-mail from Tuan Khuu attorney Keith Nguyen. “If you do not remove the post from Facebook and any other social media sites, my office will have no choice but to file suit,” he told her, according to a report in the Houston Press on the saga.

      • China’s WeChat is censoring group chats without users’ knowledge
      • WeChat censorship offers a blueprint for Facebook but here’s why it should not enter China
      • Study: Chinese App WeChat Censors Chinese Users More
      • China’s WeChat is censoring group chats without users’ knowledge

    • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Trump national security pick once wrote Chelsea Manning should be tried for treason, executed if guilty

        KT McFarland, Donald Trump’s pick to be his deputy national security adviser, once wrote that former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning should be tried for treason and executed if found guilty.

        Manning was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison for handing over a trove of classified documents to Wikileaks. McFarland, a national security analyst and host of an online Fox News show for years, made the comments in a weekly column on the Fox News’ website.

      • NYT Protects Its Pundit Who Dismissed Trans Rights as ‘Boutique Issue’

        If Boylan didn’t catch the name of the commentator she saw, it was not hard to find; if I put “boutique issues November 9 MSNBC” into Google, the first thing that comes up is a piece on Breitbart (11/9/16) approvingly recounting the conversation.

        It seems more likely that the omission of Bruni’s name—a familiar one, of course, to regular readers of the Times op-ed page—was a deliberate choice. Note that Maher got different treatment—which seems to suggest a different standard for commentators who work for HBO vs. those who write for the New York Times.

      • Twitter Only Tech Firm of Nine to Say No to Helping Build Muslim Registry

        Out of nine technology companies, from Facebook to Booz Allen Hamilton, only Twitter confirmed it would refuse to help the Trump administration build a “Muslim registry,” The Intercept reported on Friday.

        The outlet contacted—or attempted to contact—the companies over the course of two weeks, asking if they would contract out their services to help create the hypothetical database, which President-elect Donald Trump’s national security adviser Kris Kobach has said would track immigrants entering the U.S from Muslim nations.

      • ACLU Suggests Jury Instructions Might Be A Fix For ‘Missing’ Police Body Camera Recordings

        We’ve written plenty of posts about police body cameras — how useful they can be and how useless they often are. What should result in additional law enforcement accountability has been turned into a mostly-optional documentation system. The new tech and its accompanying guidelines have done very little to increase accountability.

        Body cameras are pretty much mainstream at this point, but when excessive force and/or misconduct are alleged, footage captured by police is often nonexistent. Officers disable recording equipment, delete footage, or simply claim the camera “malfunctioned.” Some repeatedly “forget” to activate their cameras ahead of controversial arrests and interactions.

        But what can be done about it? So far, law enforcement agencies have done little but promise to create more policies and guidelines — ones that can continue to be ignored by officers who’d rather not create a permanent record of their actions. There’s been some discipline, but what little of it there is hasn’t been very severe. And stories of repeated tampering with recording devices in some agencies suggests what is in place isn’t much of a deterrent.

      • FBI Gains New Hacking Powers While GOP Congress Sits on Sidelines

        The FBI is now allowed to hack into computers anywhere in the world using only a single warrant, according to a new rule that was quietly implemented on Thursday.

        Prior to the new policy taking effect, federal computer investigators could only hack into a computer within the same district where they obtained a warrant from a judge. “Rule 41,” as it is known, changes those procedures, allowing feds to search potentially any computer, regardless of where the warrant was issued.

        Devices that investigators believe are part of a botnet or that are masking their location would be vulnerable to the new single-warrant intrusions.

        Authorities say the change is necessary for them to effectively investigate cyber-crimes, particularly ones involving botnets–devices that leverage multiple computers to carry out an attack. A side-effect of the rule, however, could lead to the hacking of innocent individuals whose computers were infected by malware making them unknowingly a part the attack.

      • Jakarta protests: Muslims turn out in force against Christian governor Ahok

        A crowd of at least 200,000 Muslim protesters has descended on Jakarta to demand the Christian governor of the Indonesian capital be arrested for insulting Islam.

        There was heavy security at the rally on Friday with authorities wary of the kind of violence that marred a similar demonstration in November.

        People headed towards a huge park in downtown Jakarta to protest against Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known by his nickname Ahok, who has become the target of widespread anger in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.

      • Saudi Woman Without Hijab Attacked: Execution Called For By Conservative Muslim Twitter Users

        A number of Saudi social media users reacted with anger when a woman posted Monday a picture showing her in Riyadh without the traditional body covering known as the abaya and headscarf known as the hijab.

        A 21-year-old student from the city of Dammam who called herself Sara Ahmed for fear that her real name could put her in danger shared the tweet of a woman named Malak Al Shehri photographed wearing a dark blue coat, bright multicolored skirt and boots. Next to the picture, she included screenshots of three tweets by accounts calling for justice and even violence against Shehri. All three tweets included an Arabic hashtag that translates to “We demand the imprisonment of the rebel Angel Al Shehri.” The name Malak translates to “Angel” in Arabic.

        “Kill her and throw her corpse to the dogs,” @ab_alshdadi wrote, while @ilQil tweeted “we want blood.” Many others insulted Shehri’s morals.

      • When a Saudi woman daring not to wear a hijab leads to calls for her beheading, maybe it’s time the UK paid attention

        Today it was reported that a Saudi women who posted a picture of herself on social media in public without wearing a hijab faced outrage on social media, including calls for her execution. One man memorably declared: “Kill her and throw her corpse to the dogs.”

        To the surprise of the some, Saudi Arabia – which has been bombing Yemen for 18 months, including one incident where the country’s fighters bombed a funeral, and which has arguably the worst record on women’s rights in the world – was recently re-elected to the Human Rights Council, the United Nations’ premier human rights body. There was, predictably, an outcry.

        Governing women’s clothing, whether on the beaches of Cannes or the streets of Riyadh, is a violation we should all stand against. And clearly people in the Islamic world believe this as ardently as atheists in the West. This year, men in Iran wore headscarves in solidarity with their wives who are forced cover their hair in public places. The campaign against the enforced hijab in Iran has seen women defying morality police in public and even shaving their hair. If men in Saudi Arabia campaigned in similar numbers and joined the fight, perhaps we’d see a change in the Middle East’s political landscape.

      • Jury deadlocked in trial of cop filmed killing fleeing suspect

        Defense attorneys for Michael Slager, a 35-year-old North Charleston officer, called for a mistrial in the murder case, while the judge has ordered the 12-member panel to continue deliberating. All the while, a single juror wrote a note to the presiding judge that he or she could not, “in good conscience, approve a guilty verdict.”

        “You have a duty to make every reasonable effort to reach a unanimous verdict,” Judge Clifton Newman told panelists, who began hearing the case a month ago. The jury began deliberating Wednesday.

        North Charleston police had officially defended Officer Slager until the footage surfaced. At the moment, the video doesn’t appear to be swaying all 12 jurors that the officer is guilty of murder or voluntary manslaughter.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • FCC doesn’t like AT&T, Verizon ‘zero rating’ their own video apps

        Specifically, the regulators said “zero rating” can hurt competition and consumers. In the letter obtained by the Associated Press, regulators make the case that other services could pay Verizon and AT&T to not eat into customers’ cell data. This could be bad for competing video services who aren’t in favor with the carriers, the FCC argues.

        AT&T launched DirecTV Now earlier this week. AT&T Mobility customers can stream video data over LTE without impacting their data allowance. Verizon offers something similar with its go90 service.

    • Intellectual Monopolies

      • Trademarks

        • Who Gets To Trademark Iceland?

          When you cover enough trademark disputes, you come to expect a fairly typical pattern to them. Entity X bullies entity Y over a vaguely similar use of a mark that often times is overly broad or generic, and then there is either a capitulation to the bullying, a settlement, or the rare instance of a trial that results in an actual ruling. The outcomes aren’t typically favorable for those of us that think trademark law has been pushed beyond its original intent, but the pattern persists.

          But every once in a while, you find a zebra amidst the thundering hooves of horses. Such is the case with a very strange dispute currently going on between Iceland Foods, a foodstuffs retailer, and Iceland, the island nation between Greenland and the rest of Europe. Due to the retailer’s aggressive protection of its trademark, which consists of a generic term preceeded by the name of a country, Iceland has petitioned to revoke the trademark Iceland Foods has on its name for all of Europe.

      • Copyrights

        • Court Overturns ‘Pirate’ Site Blockade Based on EU Ruling

          A site that was outlawed following mass court action against more than 150 domains has been cleared on appeal. Kisstube embeds movies, some of them infringing, hosted on other platforms such as YouTube. However, the Rome Court of Appeal found that according to an EU ruling, merely embedding pirated content is not illegal.

          Early November, police in Italy targeted more than 150 sites involved in the unauthorized streaming of movies and sports.

          The Special Units of the Guardia di Finanza obtained a mass injunction from a judge in Rome, heralding the largest ever blocking operation in the country.

        • The proposed new VAT rules on e-publications: do they have any implications for copyright and digital exhaustion?

          Yesterday – as part of its Digital Single Market Strategy – the EU Commission unveiled proposals for new tax rules with the objective of supporting e-commerce and online businesses in the EU.

          Among the measures proposed, there is one that may be of interest also from a copyright perspective.

    12.02.16

    Links 2/12/2016: Mint Betas, Chrome 55, KDevelop 5.0.3, PHP 7.1.0

    Posted in News Roundup at 9:55 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

    GNOME bluefish

    Contents

    GNU/Linux

    Free Software/Open Source

    Leftovers

    • Oracle kicks £1.1bn into European computer sciences and digital skills [Ed: Oracle cares not about education and research; look what it did to researchers who reverse-engineered stuff.]

      ORACLE IS PROVIDING $1.4bn (around £1.1bn) in direct, and what it calls ‘in-kind’ support for European computer sciences and skills.

      The cash is part of an $3.3bn kitty that applies worldwide and is designed to support digital literacy, something that we are often told is lacking.

    • Science

      • New standard helps optical trackers follow moving objects precisely

        Throwing a perfect strike in virtual bowling doesn’t require your gaming system to precisely track the position and orientation of your swinging arm. But if you’re operating a robotic forklift around a factory, manipulating a mechanical arm on an assembly line or guiding a remote-controlled laser scalpel inside a patient, the ability to pinpoint exactly where it is in three-dimensional (3-D) space is critical.

    • Security

      • Security Patches for Firefox and Tor Address Key Security Vulnerability
      • Mozilla Patches Zero-Day Flaw in Firefox

        Mozilla moves quickly to fix vulnerability that was being actively exploited in attacks against Tor Browser, which is based on Firefox.

        Late afternoon on November 30, Mozilla rushed out an emergency update for its open-source Firefox web browser, fixing a zero-day vulnerability that was being actively exploited by attackers. The vulnerability was used in attacks against the Tor web browser which is based on Firefox.

      • Thursday’s security advisories
      • ‘Fatal’ flaws found in medical implant software

        Security flaws found in 10 different types of medical implants could have “fatal” consequences, warn researchers.

        The flaws were found in the radio-based communications used to update implants, including pacemakers, and read data from them.

        By exploiting the flaws, the researchers were able to adjust settings and even switch off gadgets.

        The attacks were also able to steal confidential data about patients and their health history.

        A software patch has been created to help thwart any real-world attacks.

        The flaws were found by an international team of security researchers based at the University of Leuven in Belgium and the University of Birmingham.

      • Lenovo: If you value your server, block Microsoft’s November security update

        Lenovo server admins should disable Windows Update and apply a UEFI fix to avoid Microsoft’s November security patches freezing their systems.

        The world’s third-largest server-maker advised the step after revealing that 19 configurations of its x M5 and M6 rack, as well as its x6 systems are susceptible.

      • Symantec and VMware patches, Linux encryption bug: Security news IT leaders need to know
      • UK homes lose internet access after cyber-attack

        More than 100,000 people in the UK have had their internet access cut after a string of service providers were hit by what is believed to be a coordinated cyber-attack, taking the number affected in Europe up to about a million.

        TalkTalk, one of Britain’s biggest service providers, the Post Office and the Hull-based KCom were all affected by the malware known as the Mirai worm, which is spread via compromised computers.

        The Post Office said 100,000 customers had experienced problems since the attack began on Sunday and KCom put its figure at about 10,000 customers since Saturday. TalkTalk confirmed that it had also been affected but declined to give a precise number of customers involved.

      • New Mirai Worm Knocks 900K Germans Offline

        More than 900,000 customers of German ISP Deutsche Telekom (DT) were knocked offline this week after their Internet routers got infected by a new variant of a computer worm known as Mirai. The malware wriggled inside the routers via a newly discovered vulnerability in a feature that allows ISPs to remotely upgrade the firmware on the devices. But the new Mirai malware turns that feature off once it infests a device, complicating DT’s cleanup and restoration efforts.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • The New Red Scare

        “Welcome to the world of strategic analysis,” Ivan Selin used to tell his team during the Sixties, “where we program weapons that don’t work to meet threats that don’t exist.” Selin, who would spend the following decades as a powerful behind-the-scenes player in the Washington mandarinate, was then the director of the Strategic Forces Division in the Pentagon’s Office of Systems Analysis. “I was a twenty-eight-year-old wiseass when I started saying that,” he told me, reminiscing about those days. “I thought the issues we were dealing with were so serious, they could use a little levity.”

    • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

      • Signs Of A Creepy Government Conspiracy At Standing Rock

        That vague title leaves a lot open to interpretation. And if the internet has taught us anything, it’s that interpretation is not the average person’s strong suit … or even their medium suit, for that matter. “Clash” suggests an equal meeting of force, and that’s really not the case when one side has military hardware and the backing of a multi-billion-dollar corporation, and the other side … well … doesn’t. Reading that headline makes the story sound identical to every other protest of the last 20 years. But thanks to sites like Twitter, “water protectors” with drones can put video of how that “clash” really looked in front of thousands of eyes…

      • Indonesia: Human rights abuses on palm oil plantations

        The world’s most popular food and household companies are selling food, cosmetics and other everyday staples containing palm oil tainted by shocking human rights abuses in Indonesia, with children as young as eight working in hazardous conditions, said Amnesty International in a new report published today.

      • Indonesia’s Forest-Fire Problem Is Nowhere Close to Being Solved. Here’s Why

        Choking haze caused by Indonesia’s annual slash-and-burn forest fires affects millions of people. Wetter weather provided some relief in 2016, but tackling the fires properly will require monumental change

      • Climate change escalating so fast it is ‘beyond point of no return’

        Global warming is beyond the “point of no return”, according to the lead scientist behind a ground-breaking climate change study.

        The full impact of climate change has been underestimated because scientists haven’t taken into account a major source of carbon in the environment.

        Dr Thomas Crowther’s report has concluded that carbon emitted from soil was speeding up global warming.

        The findings, which say temperatures will increase by 1C by 2050, are already being adopted by the United Nations.

    • Finance

      • Panama Papers: Europol links 3,500 names to suspected criminals

        Almost 3,500 individuals and companies in the Panama Papers are probable matches for suspected criminals including terrorists, cybercriminals and cigarette smugglers, according to a document seen by the Guardian.

        The analysis, which was carried out by Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, sheds more light on the breadth of criminal behaviour facilitated by tax havens around the world.

        “The main point here is that we can link companies from the Panama Papers leaks not only with economic crimes, like money laundering or VAT carousels, but also with terrorism and Russian organised crime groups,” Simon Riondet, head of financial intelligence at Europol, told a committee of MEPs.

      • EU, RI look to negotiate CEPA points

        Indonesia will seek a win-win outcome for the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the European Union, having exchanged views on a number of crucial sticking points ahead of the next round of negotiations in January.

        The EU and Indonesia began earnest talks on the free trade pact in September following the signing of scoping papers earlier in April.

        Issues discussed in the negotiations include market access for trade in goods and services, customs and trade facilitation, sustainable development and dispute settlement.

      • Meltdown at the European Parliament

        The carefully calibrated “grand coalition” of Europe’s dominant political parties, which EU leaders have relied on to sustain their agenda and to manage a series of crises since 2014, this week imploded amid the collapse of a power-sharing deal in the European Parliament and the start of a bruising fight over the Parliament presidency.

        The rupture cast a shadow of uncertainty over Brussels, raising the prospect of weeks of distraction and legislative paralysis, and leaving European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk with little choice but to watch in dismay from the sidelines and brace for further turbulence.

      • Guggenheim Helsinki museum plans rejected by city councillors

        Venice and Bilbao will remain the only Guggenheim museums in Europe for the foreseeable future after Helsinki finally buried a controversial plan for a striking new shrine to modern and contemporary art on the city’s waterfront.

        After a stormy five-hour meeting lasting into the early hours of Thursday morning, city councillors voted by 53 to 32 to kill off the project, which had been fiercely contested in Finland since it was floated in 2011.

        Helsinki’s deputy mayor, Ritva Viljanen, who had supported the plans for a €150m (£126m) museum on a prime dockside site currently in use as a car park, said the project’s proponents would have to accept the decision.

        “Democracy has spoken, and in no uncertain manner; there can be no ifs or buts,” Viljanen told YLE, the state broadcaster. She said she was sorry feelings about the project had run so high, with some backers receiving threats of violence.

      • Revelations on tax avoidance of football stars: serious foul play against common good

        Today, the Spanish newspaper “El Confidencial” reports on leaked documents revealing tax avoidance practices by football stars like Cristiano Ronaldo. Although residing in Madrid, Ronaldo has been invoicing most of his advertising revenues through an Irish company. With this manoeuvre, he has benefitted from a significantly lower tax rate on his earnings. While Spain taxes at 43.5%, Ireland only charges 12.5%. MEP Sven Giegold, financial and economic policy spokesperson of the Greens/EFA group, comments on the so-called “football leaks”…

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Why the recount matters: Jill Stein

        There is nothing more important to our American way of life than our democracy. The lifeblood of this nation is the principle that each citizen’s vote is equal when it comes to choosing our president.

        But in the age of computerized voting machines and unprecedented corporate influence in our elections, our electoral system is under increasing threat. How can every citizen’s voice be heard if we do not know if every citizen’s vote is counted correctly?

        To help ensure it is, I have asked for a recount of the 2016 presidential election in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Our goal is not to change the result of the election. It is to ensure the integrity and accuracy of the vote. All Americans, regardless of party, deserve to know that this and every election is fair and that the vote is verified.

      • New evidence finds anomalies in Wisconsin vote, but no conclusive evidence of fraud

        Did the outcome of voting for president in Wisconsin accurately reflect the intentions of the electors? Concerns have been raised about errors in vote counts produced using electronic technology — were machines hacked? — and a recount may occur.

        Some reports involving statistical analysis of the results has been discussed in the media recently. These analyses, though, rely on data at the county level. Technology, demographics and other important characteristics of the electorate vary within counties, making it difficult to resolve conclusively whether voting technology (did voters cast paper or electronic ballots?) affected the final tabulation of the vote for president.

      • Chris Sacca: ‘Silicon Valley must stand up to Trump or risk destroying tech, America and the planet’

        Leading US venture investor Chris Sacca is calling on Silicon Valley to stand up and defend the technology industry from President-elect Donald Trump, or risk an unpleasant future where technology no longer provides solutions, but instead hurts people and spies on them, as well as potentially destroying the planet.

        “The hypocrisy is really risking what America stands for. I think the tech sector has to acknowledge that we’re making this problem worse. We can’t just be open source and say use [software, products and services] for whatever you want,” Sacca, an early seed investor in Twitter, Uber, Instragram, Twilio and Kickstarter told the audience at the Slush 2016 tech conference in Helsinki, Finland.

      • Teen becomes seventh ‘faithless elector’ to protest Trump as president-elect

        A teenager from Washington state has become the seventh person to indicate that she will break ranks with party affiliation and become a “faithless elector” in an attempt to prevent Donald Trump being formally enshrined as president-elect when the electoral college meets on 19 December.

        Levi Guerra, 19, from Vancouver, Washington, is set to announce that she is joining the ranks of the so-called “Hamilton electors” at a press conference at the state capitol in Olympia on Wednesday.

        The renegade group believes it is the responsibility of the 538 electors who make up the electoral college to show moral courage in preventing demagogues and other threats to the nation from gaining the keys to the White House, as the founding fathers intended.

      • Trump lawyers file objection to delay Michigan recount

        President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers have filed an objection to the recount in Michigan, delaying and potentially blocking a review that was slated to begin Friday.

        Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson (R) said that the state’s Bureau of Elections received the objection from Trump representatives on Thursday, a day after Green Party nominee Jill Stein filed for a recount.

      • Trump Spokesmonster Scottie Nell Hughes: ‘There’s No Such Thing as Facts’

        We have officially entered the post-fact American era. Donald J. Trump presidential surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes, known for being one of the most wack in Trump’s pack, explicitly said on public radio’s “The Diane Rehm Show” yesterday that lying is official Trump strategy.

      • Dr. Jill Stein, Alleged Election Spoiler, Defends Her Recount Battle

        On the heels of the most contentious presidential election in recent history, comes an equally contentious recount effort. Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate who won only 1 percent of the popular vote, is now attracting far more media attention than her campaign ever did, after she launched a controversial effort to initiate recount proceedings in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—three states where Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by roughly 1 percent.

      • Why a recount? Prof who sparked it explains

        How might a foreign government hack America’s voting machines?

        Here’s one possible scenario. First, the attackers would probe election offices well in advance in order to find ways to break into their computers. Closer to the election, when it was clear from polling data which states would have close electoral margins, the attackers might spread malware into voting machines in some of these states, rigging the machines to shift a few percent of the vote to favor their desired candidate.

        This malware would likely be designed to remain inactive during pre-election tests, do its dirty business during the election, then erase itself when the polls close. A skilled attacker’s work might leave no visible signs — though the country might be surprised when results in several close states were off from pre-election polls.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Assange’s dilemma: ‘The UK & Sweden are vassals of the United States’

        The rule of law has gone into the heap of history, and Julian Assange is one of the victims of that. I do hope the UK will come to its senses and start obeying international law, former CIA officer Ray McGovern told RT.

        A UN panel rejected an appeal from the British government in the case of Julian Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for more than four years.

        The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention upheld its earlier ruling that the WikiLeaks founder is being arbitrarily detained.

      • U.S. veterans to form human shield at Dakota pipeline protest

        More than 2,000 U.S. military veterans plan to form a human shield to protect protesters of a pipeline project near a Native American reservation in North Dakota, organizers said, just ahead of a federal deadline for activists to leave the camp they have been occupying.

        It comes as North Dakota law enforcement backed away from a previous plan to cut off supplies to the camp – an idea quickly abandoned after an outcry and with law enforcement’s treatment of Dakota Access Pipeline protesters increasingly under the microscope.

      • Toronto university Muslim group accused of anti-Semitism

        Voices from Toronto’s Jewish community are accusing a group of Muslim and pro-Palestinian university students of scuttling a vote by their union to commemorate Holocaust Education Week.

        The controversy unfolded during Tuesday’s general meeting of the Ryerson Student Union (RSU), which was set to vote on a Jewish student group’s motion to hold Holocaust Education Week events.

        According to a member of Hillel Ryerson, students from the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP Ryerson) and the Muslim Students Association (RMSA) first called for an amendment to the motion to include all forms of genocide.

        But then they walked out, causing the meeting to lose quorum and the vote to die, Hillel Ryerson’s Aedan O’Connor says. “Instead of going through with trying to amend it, they … decided to walk out,” he said Wednesday.

      • Call 6 Investigates Rafael Sanchez denied press credential to Carrier event

        Call 6 Investigates Chief Investigator Rafael Sanchez was denied press credential access to the announcement event at the Carrier plant that will detail the deal the west-side Indianapolis plant made with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence to keep more than half of the jobs of the original 1,400 slated to be moved to Mexico.

    • Intellectual Monopolies

      • Popcorn, Football And Chocolate – US Idea To Prompt Discussions At WIPO TK Committee

        What do popcorn, chewing-gum, football, syringes, and chocolate have in common? According to a United States paper tabled at the World Intellectual Property Organization, they are all rooted in traditional knowledge. While most efforts are geared this week towards trying to find consensual language on a treaty protecting traditional knowledge, the US said a discussion on what is protectable and what is not would be instructive. Some other delegations resubmitted proposals introducing alternative means of protection than a binding instrument.

      • Copyrights

        • Canada’s music lobby admits WIPO Internet Treaty drafters were “just guessing”

          Michael Geist writes, “The global music industry has spent two decades lobbying for restrictive DMCA-style restrictions on digital locks. These so-called “anti-circumvention rules” have been actively opposed by many groups, but the copyright lobby claims that they are needed to comply with the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Internet treaties. Now the head of the RIAA in Canada admits that the treaty drafters were just guessing and that they guessed wrong.”

        • Spain Announces New Campaign to Fight Internet Piracy

          Spain’s Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport has announced a new initiative for tackling piracy, especially online. Minister Íñigo Méndez de Vigo said a special prosecutor’s office will be developed alongside enhanced technological and human resources. An educational campaign targeting children is also on the agenda.

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