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04.17.15

Black Duck’s Latest Self-Promotional Propaganda (for Proprietary Software) Still Fools Journalists

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software at 5:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Stop treating Black Duck like a Free/Open Source software (FOSS) expert

Ducks

Summary: Under the traditionally misleading title “Future of Open Source” Black Duck expresses its desire for proprietary software sales, salivating over fearful managers who may get bamboozled into buying the patents-’protected’ Black Duck ‘product’

THE nasty proprietary software firm called Black Duck is doing it again. Not enough journalists have grasped what this firm is all about.

ECT has just given a platform (again) to this FUD firm and so has SJVN in ZDNet. Do journalists not realise that the so-called “Future of Open Source Survey” (we wrote about this misnomer before [1, 2, 3]) is conducted by a proprietary software company (anti-copyleft)? They should stop pretending they’re a FOSS firm, they are a proprietary software company with software patents. It’s a company that essentially came from Microsoft and continues to serve Microsoft’s agenda in many ways. When Black Duck says many companies use FOSS it’s just basically telling its investors, “look, we have lots of market share to which to sell proprietary software blobs to.”

“These firms don’t produce any Free software, they merely exploit it and spread fear of it, in order for them to make money.”When people like Katherine Noyes write about it in IDG they legitimise Black Duck and have us listen to some proprietary softare company with anti-GPL roots as if we are going to learn about FOSS from its foes. There have been some more coverage of this from Microsoft-friendly and Microsoft-hostile sources. Black Duck writes about FOSS being widespread for the same reason anti-swine flu vaccine manufacturer would tell us swine flu spreads and is a huge/growing risk.

Here is the press release [1, 2] that got it started, preceded by this this shameless self promotion. The Linux Foundation gave spotlight to the former OSDL head who now works for Black Duck. The Linux Foundation did this without disclosing Black Duck payments to the Linux Foundation.

Incidentally, Veracode, which recently had its key staff join Black Duck, keeps shoving “Heartbleed” nonsense (branding for FUD) into headlines again, joining the new chorus that keeps "Heartbleed" in the public's mind.

These firms don’t produce any Free software, they merely exploit it and spread fear of it, in order for them to make money.

Just because a firm has access to source code or talks about source code doesn’t mean it’s a FOSS proponent. Today in New Zealand we see the manager of a proprietary software company, Github (just monetising FOSS/Git), defending proprietary software. One needs to be careful in distinguishing Free software proponents from Free software parasites, especially those whose business model depends on creating fear (or increasing fear) of Free software. █

04.16.15

Links 16/4/2015: Opera for 32-bit GNU/Linux, New Chromebook Site

Posted in News Roundup at 6:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • C/C++ dependency manager biicode becomes open-source project

    Biicode plans to progressively release every part of its codebase as part of a comprehensive open-source strategy.

  • Halogenics bets on Javascript, open source

    Melbourne-based software developer Halogenics is hoping within the next few months to have prototype versions of the next-generation of its Genotrack application.

    Genotrack, which helps biomedical research institutions manage animal tracking, breeding and reporting, is currently based on a classic client-server architecture.

    Genotrack 2 will be a Web application built with open source components including MongoDB for the database component and a Node.js-based application server with a Sencha Ext JS interface.

  • How to embrace the open source workforce

    Enterprises learned an important lesson on their way to embracing open source software: they could benefit from work that came from outside of their own rosters of employees. Now businesses are beginning to recognize that open source lessons apply beyond software development, and they are finding new ways to seek out talent beyond their walls.

  • 3 steps to writing an open source project case study

    Case studies about open source project participants and users are a great way to showcase your project and how it works in the real world.

    Such studies will highlight interesting features of your software, demonstrate different (and potentially unique) ways your project is in use, and foster positive communication among members of your community.

    Case studies are also about transparency: while talking to the end user of your software, you can also learn about things that are not necessarily running smoothly in your project. And although no one loves to hear about the things that are going wrong, such feedback can also be invaluable to you and your team.

  • 3 steps to writing an open source project case study

    Case studies about open source project participants and users are a great way to showcase your project and how it works in the real world.

    Such studies will highlight interesting features of your software, demonstrate different (and potentially unique) ways your project is in use, and foster positive communication among members of your community.

    Case studies are also about transparency: while talking to the end user of your software, you can also learn about things that are not necessarily running smoothly in your project. And although no one loves to hear about the things that are going wrong, such feedback can also be invaluable to you and your team.

  • Events

    • Flisol David, Chiriqui 2015

      Event started at 9 with a full house we started talks about free software, Fedora, Firefox OS, Mozilla, Docker and many other topics, we talk with students and teachers who were really into learning about Fedora and Free Software.

    • GNOME.asia 2015

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Google Chrome 42 Eschews Some Extensions…Java in the Crosshairs

        In 2013, Google decreed that the longstanding Netscape Plug-in API (NPAPI), which extensions have worked with for many years, is the source of many of the problems. And, Google decreed that extensions in the Chrome Web Store would be phasing out NPAPI support. Now, the latest release of the Chrome web browser, version 42, will block Oracle’s Java plugin by default as well as other extensions that use NPAPI. Some analysts are even calling it an effor to “push Java off the web.”

      • Chrome 42 for Android arrives with push notifications and home screen banners

        Want to master the CMO role? Join us for GrowthBeat Summit on June 1-2 in Boston, where we’ll discuss how to merge creativity with technology to drive growth. Space is limited and we’re limiting attendance to CMOs and top marketing execs. Request your personal invitation here!

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • OpenStack: Can the open-source platform still win private cloud?

      “I think that doing open source work in a full committee style is often like pouring 1,000 engineers into a barrel and hoping they’ll produce the works of Shakespeare. The monkeys in the barrel just don’t manage to get it together, everybody wants to be the king and the directions and the priorities change.

      “It’s a very different situation to something like Linux, where you have a benevolent dictator Linus Torvalds controlling everything, or like Docker, where there is a corporate entity ultimately controlling the road map.”

    • Is Apache Spark Enterprise Ready?

      While Apache Spark could supplant Hadoop’s MapReduce engine, it is not yet enterprise ready, some experts say.

      Apache Spark is making headlines as potentially the next big thing in Big Data. Coverage has focused on Spark’s speed and its potential as a replacement for Hadoop’s famously difficult MapReduce engine.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Hungary universities move to EuroOffice and ODF

      The Eötvös University and Szeged University in Hungary are increasing their use of EuroOffice and the Open Document Format (ODF), reports MultiRáció, the Budapest-based ICT firm that develops EuroOffice. Together, the two universities have about 45,000 students. In February the company signed a licence and support contract for 34,000 copies of EuroOffice.

    • LibreOffice 4.3.7 RC1 Arrives with Lots of Fixes for Microsoft Office Formats

      The Document Foundation has just released the first Release Candidate for LibreOffice 4.3.7, which is a stable and established branch of the office suite.

  • CMS

    • Drupageddon: SQL Injection, Database Abstraction and Hundreds of Thousands of Web Sites

      On October 29, 2014, the Drupal Security Team released advisory identifier DRUPAL-PSA-2014-003. This advisory informed administrators of Drupal-based Web sites that all Drupal-based Web sites utilizing vulnerable versions of Drupal should be considered compromised if they were not patched/upgraded before 2300 UTC on October 15, 2014 (seven hours following the initial announcement of the vulnerability in SA-CORE-2014-005).

      In the case of the Drupageddon vulnerability, the database abstraction layer provided by Drupal included a function called expandArguments that was used in order to expand arrays that provide arguments to SQL queries utilized in supporting the Drupal installation. Due to the way this function was written, supplying an array with keys (rather than an array with no keys) as input to the function could be used in order to perform an SQL injection attack.

  • Funding

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GNU Hurd 0.6 released

      To compile the Hurd, you need a toolchain configured to target i?86-gnu; you cannot use a toolchain targeting GNU/Linux. Also note that you cannot run the Hurd “in isolation”: you’ll need to add further components such as the GNU Mach microkernel and the GNU C Library (glibc), to turn it into a runnable system.

      This new release bundles bug fixes and enhancements done since the last release.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Slovakia includes Open Education and Open Justice in its 2nd Action Plan

      Slovakia joined the OGP project in 2011 and then published its first Action Plan for 2012-2013. Since then, the Slovakian government has implemented several measures to fight against corruption and promote transparency and eParticipation in political life: a national Open Data portal (data.gov.sk) and its “Guidelines for the involvement of the public in the creation of public policies” – to promote a participatory approach in ministries. A participatory budget has also been implemented in Bratislava, the Slovakian government said in a statement.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Radeon LLVM Code Generation Improvements Being Worked On

      It’s been a while since last having any major breakthroughs to talk about for the open-source Radeon Linux graphics driver stack, but steady work continues. Some recent Mesa commits to Git highlight some code generation improvements.

Leftovers

  • Box adds depth through Verold 3D modelling acquisition

    The INQUIRER spoke recently to representatives from the NHS looking to standardise document format and compatibility across systems in the national infrastructure through Vendor Neutral Archiving, while Apple and IBM have also made significant announcements in the tech arena this week.

  • Culture/DRM

    • Music Services Overtake CDs for First Time

      Revenue from digital-music downloads and subscriptions edged out those from CDs for the first time in 2014, holding overall sales steady at about $15 billion globally, a trade group said.

      Sales of CDs and other physical formats declined 8%, to $6.82 billion, while digital revenue grew nearly 7%, to $6.85 billion, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said in a report on Tuesday. Each of those represented 46% of overall music revenue. The other 8% came from sources such as radio airplay and licensing songs for television shows and films.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Here’s the Real Problem With Almonds

      Almonds: crunchy, delicious, and…the center of a nefarious plot to suck California dry? They certainly have used up a lot of ink lately—partly inspired by our reporting over the past year. California’s drought-stricken Central Valley churns out 80 percent of the globe’s almonds, and since each nut takes a gallon of water to produce, they account for close to 10 percent of the state’s annual agricultural water use—or more than what the entire population of Los Angeles and San Francisco use in a year.

  • Security

    • Security advisories for Wednesday
    • Microsoft Patch Tuesday: The patches just keep coming

      For Microsoft, the vulnerabilities just keep popping up, and appear to be surfacing more quickly than ever before.

      Like last month, Microsoft issued a fairly large number of security bulletins for April Patch Tuesday—11 bulletins addressing 26 vulnerabilities. Last month brought 14 bulletins from Microsoft, covering 43 vulnerabilities.

    • Labs: Securing Your Home Fences

      You don’t have to be an ICT security professional these days to know that your Internet access device at home has not the best security reputation.

    • Metal Detectors at Sports Stadiums

      As a security measure, the new devices are laughable. The ballpark metal detectors are much more lax than the ones at an airport checkpoint. They aren’t very sensitive — people with phones and keys in their pockets are sailing through — and there are no X-ray machines. Bags get the same cursory search they’ve gotten for years. And fans wanting to avoid the detectors can opt for a “light pat-down search” instead.

  • Finance

    • When work isn’t enough to keep you off welfare and food stamps

      We often make assumptions about people on public assistance, about the woman in the checkout line with an EBT card, or the family who lives in public housing. We make assumptions about how they spend their resources (irresponsibly?), how they came to rely on aid (lack of hard work?), how they view their own public dependence (as a free ride rather than a humbling one?).

      We assume, at our most skeptical, that poor people need help above all because they haven’t tried to help themselves — they haven’t bothered to find work.

    • 15 Companies That Paid Zero Income Tax Last Year (Despite $23 Billion In Profits).

      Due to completely messed up U.S. tax policies, some even got a rebate check. Only small businesses pay taxes. Big companies often pay nothing at all.

    • ALDI Is A Growing Menace To America’s Grocery Retailers

      ALDI is hard at work redefining the rules of shopper engagement and, in the process, eating away at the market share of many of America’s most venerable food retailers — and food manufacturers. Through a relentless pursuit of perfecting its own store brands portfolio and unique shopping experience, ALDI has become more than a nuisance — it is a major force that is on the verge of changing the grocery retailing landscape. One should not underestimate ALDI in the U.S. market.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Assange on Scotland

      Julian Assange has asserted that MI5 are active against Scottish nationalists, as the independence movement is seen as a threat to the UK. Happily, Julian being Julian there is now some traction for this in the corporate media. When I posted on it last week I received nothing from the corporate media except dismissal and abuse over twitter.

  • Privacy

    • Months After Appeals Argued, NSA Cases Twist in the Wind

      Three cases that likely lay the groundwork for a major privacy battle at the U.S. Supreme Court are pending before federal appeals courts, whose judges are taking their time announcing whether they believe the dragnet collection of Americans’ phone records is legal.

      It’s been more than five months since the American Civil Liberties Union argued against the National Security Agency program in New York, three months since legal activist Larry Klayman defended his thus far unprecedented preliminary injunction win in Washington, D.C., and two months since Idaho nurse Anna Smith’s case was heard by appeals judges in Seattle.

    • Intelligence Bill: Mass Opposition to Mass Surveillance!

      The Intelligence Billis currently being debated at a fast pace in the French National Assembly and the debates will continue until Thursday 16 April. However, both the French Government and rapporteur Urvoas refuse to hear the growing opposition pointing out the dangers of this unacceptable text. La Quadrature du Net calls on citizens to act and Members of Parliament to face their responsibilities by opposing this text altogether and mass surveillance in general.

    • No encryption? How very rude.

      It struck me today that when I email a new con­tact I now reflex­ively check to see if they are using PGP encryp­tion. A hap­pily sur­pris­ing num­ber are doing so these days, but most people would prob­ably con­sider my circle of friends and acquaint­ance to be eclectic at the very least, if not down­right eccent­ric, but then that’s prob­ably why I like them.

      There are still alarm­ing num­bers who are not using PGP though, par­tic­u­larly in journ­al­ist circles, and I have to admit that when this hap­pens I do feel a tad miffed, as if some basic mod­ern cour­tesy is being breached.

      It’s not that I even expect every­body to use encryp­tion — yet — it’s just that I prefer to have the option to use it and be able to have the pri­vacy of my own com­mu­nic­a­tions at least con­sidered. After all I am old enough to remem­ber the era of let­ter writ­ing, and I always favoured a sealed envel­ope to a postcard.

      And before you all leap on me with cries of “using only PGP is no guar­an­tee of secur­ity.…” I do know that you need a suite of tools to have a fight­ing chance of real pri­vacy in this NSA-saturated age: open source soft­ware, PGP, TOR, Tails, OTR, old hard­ware, you name it. But I do think the wide-spread adop­tion of PGP sets a good example and gets more people think­ing about these wider issues. Per­haps more of us should insist on it before com­mu­nic­at­ing further.

    • FAA investigating Florida mailman’s landing of gyrocopter on U.S. Capitol lawn

      Doug Hughes, a 61-year-old mailman from Ruskin, told his friends he was going to do it. He was going to fly a gyrocopter through protected airspace and put it down on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol, then try to deliver 535 letters of protest to 535 members of Congress.

      The stunt seemed so outlandish that not even his closest friend thought he would pull it off.

      “My biggest fear was he was going to get killed,” said Mike Shanahan, 65, of Apollo Beach, who works with Hughes for the Postal Service.

    • Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg: I’m bringing free internet to Europe ['free' surveillance]

      Mark Zuckerberg has revealed he will bring Facebook’s free internet project to Europe, saying that the service will be made available to anyone “who needs to be connected” to the web.

    • What is Internet.org and will it really come to Europe?

      Facebook’s CEO suggested in a Q&A yesterday that the company’s Internet.org project could come to Europe, but it is unlikely to happen any time soon

  • Civil Rights

    • Nigel Farage believes in a Britain which doesn’t exist

      At best Ukip believes in a Britain which never really existed. A Britain of bland food and pale faces. A Britain where the roads are all empty, and the voices are all English.

    • Cop who shot fleeing suspect not eligible for lethal injection

      The North Charleston, South Carolina policeman who was filmed April 4 shooting a fleeing suspect in the back is not eligible for the death penalty, prosecutors say.

      Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said there are no so-called “aggravating circumstances” present for the authorities to even consider the ultimate punishment for a shooting death that was viewed millions of times on social media and broadcast and cable television.

    • Lawyer representing whistle blowers finds malware on drive supplied by cops

      An Arkansas lawyer representing current and former police officers in a contentious whistle-blower lawsuit is crying foul after finding three distinct pieces of malware on an external hard drive supplied by police department officials.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • The Attack on Net Neutrality Begins

      The United States Telecom Association has filed a lawsuit to overturn the net neutrality rules set by the Federal Communications Commission this past February. In its Monday morning Press Release USTelecom, who represents Verizon and AT&T among others, said it filed a lawsuit in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia joining a similar law suit filed by Alamo Broadband Inc.

    • Why Not? AT&T Adds Its Name To The Pile Of Lawsuits Against The FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

      On Monday, the FCC’s net neutrality rules officially went into the Federal Register, which was also known as the starters’ gun for rushing to the courthouse to sue the FCC over those rules. Trade group USTelecom got there first with its filing, while a bunch of other trade groups, representing big cable companies (NCTAA), small cable companies (ACA) and big wireless companies (CTIA — ignoring the claims of its members Sprint and T-Mobile) were right behind them. Not to be left out, AT&T has also formally sued the FCC using the same basic complaint (“arbitrary and capricious, yo!”)

    • AT&T, but not Verizon and Comcast, sue FCC over net neutrality

      Out of the many lawsuits filed this week against the Federal Communications Commission, just one came from a major Internet service provider: AT&T.

      AT&T made no secret of its opposition to the FCC’s net neutrality order, but it was reported last month that trade groups rather than individual ISPs would lead the legal fight against the FCC. That has mostly been the case so far, with AT&T but not other big ISPs like Comcast or Verizon filing suit. Lawsuits have been filed by four consortiums representing cable, wireless, and telecommunications companies. One small provider in Texas called Alamo Broadband sued the FCC as well.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • California Bill Would Require Libraries Post Scary Warning Signs Not To Do Infringy Stuff With 3D Printers

        For a few years now, folks like Michael Weinberg have been pretty vocal about warning the world not to screw up 3D printing by falling for the same copyright/patenting mistakes that are now holding back other creative industries. Trying to lock up good ideas is not a good idea. Just recently we noted how 3D printing was challenging some long held beliefs about copyright, and we shouldn’t simply fall into the old ways of doing things. At our inaugural Copia Institute summit, we had a really fascinating discussion about not letting intellectual property freakouts destroy the potential of 3D printing.

04.15.15

Links 15/4/2015: Plasma 5.3 Beta, Docker’s New Funding

Posted in News Roundup at 4:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • 5 Linux Laptops for Small Business

    A Linux laptop makes all kinds of sense for a small business. Not only is Linux the most secure computing platform, it’s highly efficient, which means that computing power goes toward doing actual work instead of powering a bloated operating system.

    It’s also very customizable without requiring a computer science degree. You can install and remove software with the click of a button, and Linux vendors don’t lard down their systems with junkware which, as we learned last month in Lenovo’s SuperFish Security Gaffe, delivers little value and big troubles. You just get good software that lets you go about your business.

  • Desktop

    • The Last 80 Days In Malta

      GNU/Linux share of page-views on the desktop are trending upwards thanks to the schools. There’s nothing like reaching the market when it is young.

    • Dell has a Linux version of its sleek XPS 13 laptop

      The nearly bezel-less Dell XPS 13 is one of our highest rated laptops, thanks namely to its compact size, attractive design and fast performance. But if Windows just isn’t your preferred operating system, now there’s another option to choose from: Linux. As part of its commitment to the platform, which took off with the introduction of Project Sputnik, Dell’s announced a Ubuntu-based developer edition of its sleek 13-inch laptop. Naturally, you’ll have a myriad of configurations to choose from, with prices ranging from $949 all the way to $1,849, depending on how specced out you want your Linux machine to be.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

      • Toutou SlaXen 6.0 RCX Is Based on Puppy Linux Slacko 5.9.3 and Openbox 3.5.2

        Jean-Marie Josselin informed Softpedia about the immediate availability for download of the final version of his Toutou SlaXen 6.0 RCX computer operationg, a lightweight distribution of Linux based on the upstream Puppy Linux Slacko 5.9.3 distro.

      • Windows Lookalike Q4OS Is Almost at Version 1.0

        Q4OS is a Linux a distribution that’s been developed to provides a close experience as that of a Windows operating systems, which is something that’s not usually done in the open source world. Now a new update has been made available and it looks like developers are finally closing in the final version.

      • Clonezilla Live 2.4.1-6 Now Supports Cloning of Disk Partitions Bigger than 16TB

        Steven Shiau announced on April 14 the immediate availability for download and testing of a new development version of his Clonezilla Live operating system, version 2.4.1-6.

      • Hanthana Linux 21 (Sinharaja) released

        This new release Hanthana Linux 21, is ship with several Desktop Enviroments such as Gnome, KDE, XFCE, Sugar and LXDE. There are several editions in Hanthana 21, for general usage (Hanthana 21 LiveDVD) , educational purpose you can use Hanthana 21 Edu and Hanthana 21 Dev can be use for Software Development purposes. For those who just use Office packages can download either Hanthana 21 Light) or Hanthana 21 Light2. Each of these editions comes with both i686 (32bit) and x86_64 (64bit) architectures and 10 ISO images available for download.

      • Semplice 7.0.1 bugfix release

        It’s my pleasure to announce the immediate release of the first bugfix release of Semplice 7.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Fermilab’s Scientific Linux 7.1 Is Out and Ready for Download

        Scientific Linux 7.1 is a recompiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux put together by various labs and universities around the world, including Fermilab, is finally stable after a couple of RCs.

      • ‘Data scientists are very scarce,’ says Red Hat CIO

        It’s difficult to hire good data scientists as the right candidates are “very scarce” because universities and colleges have failed to adapt to meet the needs of the enterprise.

        That’s according to Lee Congdon, CIO of open source software provider Red Hat, who is attempting to shift the Raleigh, North Carolina-based firm towards a more “data driven” business model.

      • RDO OpenStack Simplifies Deployment and Stays Humble

        In an OpenStack arena where big players like HP and Red Hat itself are seeking to offer distinguished enterprise support for OpenStack, a support-less strategy may not seem promising, but RDO continues to have its fans. Any business with servers running RHEL or a similar platform can take advantage of it.

      • Fedora

        • ABRT and virtualization Test Days this week!

          This week in Fedora QA we have two Test Days! Today (yes, right now!) is ABRT Test Day. There are lots of tests to be run, but don’t let it overwhelm you – no-one has to do all of them! If you can help us run just one or two it’ll be great. A virtual machine running Fedora 22 is the ideal test environment – you can help us with Fedora 22 Beta RC2 validation testing too. All the information is on the Test Day page, and the abrt crew is available in #fedora-test-day on Freenode IRC (no, you darn kids, that’s not a hashtag) right now to help with any questions or feedback you have. If you don’t know how to use IRC, you can read these instructions, or just use WebIRC.

        • FUDCon Pune Planning meeting minutes: 2015-04-14

          We had our regular weekly FUDCon planning meeting today and most of the volunteers were present. We went through all the discussion topics and agendas. As the conference is approaching fast, we spent pretty decent time on travel section and it is high time for people who need sponsorship for travel and/or accommodation, please open a Fedora trac ticket for funding request here.

        • The Linux Setup – Kevin Fenzi, Fedora Infrastructure Leader

          I’m Kevin Fenzi, and I have been using Linux since about 1996 or so (Red Hat Linux 3.0.3 was my first Linux distro). Currently I am employed by Red Hat as Fedora Infrastructure Leader. Basically I maintain (with my team and the community) all the Fedora servers, including the build system, downloads, compose machines, end-user applications and so on. It’s a great place to work and a great community to be involved in. I’m also involved in lots of other places in Fedora.

    • Debian Family

      • Hello Debian Planet and Jessie’s question

        In Jessie we no longer have update-notifier-common which had the /etc/kernel/postinst.d/update-notifier script that allowed us to automatically reboot on a kernel update, I have apt-file searched for something similar but I haven’t found it, so… who is now responsible of echoing to /var/run/reboot-required.pkgs on a kernel upgrade so that the system reboots itself if we have configured unattended-upgrades to do so?

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • ​The five biggest changes in Ubuntu 15.04, Vivid Vervet

            While the new Ubuntu isn’t due out until April 23rd, the second beta is more than mature enough to see what we’ll be getting in the Vivid Vervet. A vervet, for those of you who are wondering, is an East African monkey.

            Based on my work with the beta over the last few days, here are the most important changes in Ubuntu 15.04. I’ve been using Ubuntu since the first version, 2004′s Ubuntu 4.10. These days, I use it on desktops, servers, and cloud. In other words, I know Ubuntu.

          • Shuttleworth: Linux 4.0 coming to Canonical Ubuntu in October

            CANONICAL BOSS Mark Shuttleworth has confirmed that Linux Kernel 4.0 should be making its debut in Ubuntu products before the end of the year.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Raspberry Pi gains an E-paper display

      A Kickstarter project is pitching a HAT add-on for the Raspberry Pi that provides a 2.7-inch E-paper display, as well as a battery backed real time clock.

      For educators, one of the coolest things about the Raspberry Pi is the HDMI port, which let you easily plug in to a monitor. But for embedded gizmos, a more modest display is often more suitable. It doesn’t get much more modest than Percheron Electronics’s E-Paper HAT Display, a Raspberry Pi add-on board that drives a 2.7-inch, 264 x 176-pixel E-paper display from Pervasive Displays.

    • Phones

      • Tizen

        • Accuweather for Samsung Z1 Tizen Smart Phone

          Most of time we need to refer to the weather, what to wear, where to go, umbrella or no umbrella? This is where a reliable weather app comes in handy.

        • Nuance Clinical Documentation Tool Florence for Samsung Gear S

          Nuance Communications have announced their newest innovations that brings clinical documentation to smart devices, smart watches and the Internet of Things.

        • Game of Games for the Tizen Samsung Z1

          Here is a new game with a new twist. What you have to do is “Look at the image and guess the game”. A simple game that lets you learn and explore a trivia app that promises to cover every classic game!

        • ShareNote for Samsung Z1 Tizen SmartPhone

          ShareNote is an app that lets you easily store all the information that you might need as go by your day-to-day business. anything that comes to mind can be easily stored for future retrival

        • Redbend Provides Over-the-Air Software Management Solutions for Samsung’s Tizen Smartphones

          Redbend, is a company that catalyzes change in the connected world and boasts the ability of keeping more than 2 billion automotive, IoT and mobile devices updated, has announced that it will be providing its Over the Air (OTA) solution to the Tizen based Samsung Z1. Redbend’s OTA updating solutions will enhance the reliability and performance of the platform and software on Samsung Tizen handsets.

      • Android

        • Opera Mini finally behaves like a native Android web browser

          If you’re an Opera fan on Android, you no longer have to choose between Opera Mini’s super-efficient web browsing and the native interface of its full-size sibling. The company has overhauled Mini to finally give it the Android-friendly look and core features of the regular browser, including redesigned Speed Dial shortcuts, a private browsing mode and a customizable design that scales nicely to tablet sizes. There’s also a much-needed, Mini-specific data gauge so that you know how many megabytes you’re saving. Give it a spin if you’re trying to squeeze the most you can out of a capped cellular plan.

        • WhatsApp for Android gets a much-needed Material Design makeover, bringing cleaner layouts and new icons
        • ‘Hearthstone’ Arrives On iOS And Android Phones At Last
        • Nexus 7 Android 5.1 Update Release Continues

          The Nexus Android 5.1 Lollipop update is finally starting to make some moves and today, the Nexus 7 Android 5.1 Lollipop update that’s begun to roll out for another one of Google’s variants. Just not the one that most people were expecting.

        • Google wants Android developers to make more kid-friendly apps

          Amazon has had a hard time keeping up with the sheer breadth of Google Play’s app selection, but it’s done a pretty great job when it comes to putting a spotlight on kid and family content. There’s FreeTime Unlimited, a (cheap) monthly subscription service that gives younger users access to a wide selection of age-appropriate ebooks, movies, TV shows, educational apps, and games. And the company puts a worry-free guarantee behind its Fire HD Kids Edition; break the thing at any point over the course of two years, and Amazon will replace it for free.

        • New Android App Unlocks Your Phone At The Sound Of Your Voice

          The Android 5.0 Lollipop already lets you skip the traditional lock screen via Trusted Face, which uses facial recognition to make sure you’re you, or if you’re connected to a Trusted Device, like a specific Bluetooth. Now, Google is adding a new smart lock: Trusted Voice, which uses voice recognition to check your identity.

        • LTE-Equipped Nexus 7 2013 (Razorg) Finally Gets The Android 5.1 Update

          It’s been, what, five weeks since Google announced Android 5.1? In all that time the update has still not arrived on many of Mountain View’s Nexus devices. At least one more is joining the 5.1 club today, and it’s a little unexpected—the LTE Nexus 7 2013. No, the WiFi version still hasn’t popped up.

        • LG G2 Android 5.0 Lollipop Update Problems & Fixes

          Over the past few months LG and its partnering carriers have been busy pushing the LG G2 Android 5.0 Lollipop update out to owners around the globe. And while most of the feedback has been positive, the Android 5.0 Lollipop update is also causing problems for many. The LG G2 in the US received Android 5.0 in February on AT&T, it hit Verizon in late March, and starting today is rolling out to T-Mobile owners.

        • This amazing secret trick will give any Android phone a huge speed boost

          We could spend all day counting all of the things that make Android a great platform, but for real smartphone enthusiasts, the operating system’s tweakability is surely somewhere near the top of the list. If there’s functionality you’re looking for that your Android smartphone doesn’t have out of the box, the odds are pretty good that an app or a tweak is waiting to solve your problem.

        • Brussels to investigate Google’s Android

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Security

    • Tuesday’s security updates
    • Researchers try to hack the economics of zero-day bugs

      If you’re looking to reduce the pool of possible zero-day vulnerabilities that could potentially be used for criminal or state-sponsored breaches of computer and network security, throwing people and money at the problem isn’t necessarily going to solve it. At least, that’s the conclusion from a team of researchers at MIT, Harvard, and the security firm HackerOne (the organization that runs the Internet Bug Bounty program). At next week’s RSA Conference, HackerOne Chief Policy Officer Katie Moussouris and Dr Michael Siegel of MIT’s Sloan School will present a study on the economics of the marketplace for “zero-day” vulnerabilities in software and networks, showcasing a model for how that market behaves. Spoiler: their model isn’t simply driven by supply and demand.

      [...]

      At last year’s Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, Dan Geer—a computer security analyst and chief information security officer of the CIA-backed venture capital firm In-Q-Tel—suggested that the US government should simply corner the market on vulnerabilities, offering “six-figure prices” to compete with the black market for zero-days. Geer also said this approach would only work if vulnerabilities were scarce; if they are plentiful, there would be no amount of money that could possibly buy up all the potential attack vectors.

    • Maine Police Pay Ransomware Demand in Bitcoin [Windows]

      In an effort to keep their computer files from being destroyed, a group of cooperative police departments in Maine paid a $300 ransom demand—in bitcoin.

      According to local news station WCSH-TV, the shared computer system of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and four town police departments was infected with the “megacode” virus.

    • Former Security Director For Lottery Charged With Tampering Equipment Before Secretly Buying $14.3 Million Winning Ticket

      If someone hasn’t already sold the movie rights to the story of Eddie Raymond Tipton, expect it to happen soon. Tipton, an Iowa-based former “security director” for the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), is accused of trying to pull off the perfect plot to allow himself to win the lottery. It didn’t work, but not for the lack of effort. MUSL runs a bunch of the big name lotteries in the US, including Mega Millions and Powerball. It also runs the somewhat smaller Hot Lotto offering, which was what Tipton apparently targeted. When he was arrested back in January, the claims were that it had to do with him just playing and winning the lottery and then trying to hide the winnings. Lottery employees are (for obvious reasons) not allowed to play. However, late last week, prosecutors in Iowa revealed that it was now accusing Tipton of not just that, but also tampering with the lottery equipment right before supposedly winning $14.3 million. Because of these new revelations, Tipton’s trial has been pushed back until July. However, the details of the plot and how it unraveled feel like they come straight out of a Hollywood plot.

    • Prosecutors: Evidence indicates lottery vendor employee tampered with equipment

      Prosecutors believe there is evidence indicating a former information-security director for a lottery vendor in Iowa tampered with lottery equipment before buying a Hot Lotto ticket that would go on to win $14.3 million, according to court documents filed Thursday.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Scrap fossil fuel subsidies now and bring in carbon tax, says World Bank chief

      Poor countries are feeling “the boot of climate change on their neck”, the president of the World Bank has said, as he called for a carbon tax and the immediate scrapping of subsidies for fossil fuels to hold back global warming.

      Jim Yong Kim said awareness of the impact of extreme weather events that have been linked to rising temperatures was more marked in developing nations than in rich western countries, and backed for the adoption of a five-point plan to deliver low-carbon growth.

      Speaking to the Guardian ahead of this week’s half-yearly meeting of the World Bank in Washington DC, Kim said he had been impressed by the energy of the divestment campaigns on university campuses in the US, aimed at persuading investors to remove their funds from fossil fuel companies.

    • Tribes say no to Keystone

      Native Americans are pressuring the Obama administration to reject the Keystone XL pipeline, warning the project could infringe on their water rights, harm sacred land and violate America’s treaty obligations.

      Tribes sent more than 100 pages of letters to the Interior Department earlier this year raising concerns about the project, which would carry oil sands from Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Reporting on Russia’s Troll Army, Western Media Forget West’s Much Bigger, Sophisticated Troll Army

      If this appears to be a coordinated messaging effort on behalf of a US military psychological operation, that’s because it almost certainly is. On cue, despite the anonymous sourcing, and the utter staleness of the “revelation” in question, the media uncritically ran with the US government-backed report. In all these stories, however, the rather glaring fact that the US has a long-documented history of manipulating social media is not mentioned once. In fact, the Pentagon’s efforts alone–to say nothing of other US intelligence agencies or other NATO nation states–spent at least 200 times more than Russia, according to the last available figures (Guardian, 3/17/11)…

      [...]

      Israel has students” “defending” it online. The UK has “warriors” countering “enemy propaganda.” The Kremlin has “trolls” spreading “propaganda.” The general public’s ignorance of how these complicated mechanisms of online infiltration work is heavily shaped by how they’re framed. Notice, for example, the images that go with these reports on Israel vs. Russia paying people en masse to spam comment sections and social media. On one side, you have a daytime shot of patriotic young people waving flags outside Auschwitz…

      [...]

      Reading Western press, however, one would get the distinct impression the US–with a military budget greater than the next 15 countries combined–is really a scrappy underdog looking to catch up to the mass of Kremlin troll hordes. This impression, while making for a neat story, does little to provide proper context or truly explain the informational challenge posed by social media manipulation.

    • Scott Walker’s Supreme Court Coup

      Walker and the Republican controlled legislature set about systematically destroying this clean election structure. They dismantled Wisconsin’s 34-year-old partial public financing system for other statewide and legislative elections. They repealed the Impartial Justice law which provided public financing for state Supreme Court elections. That same year they enacted one of the most extreme and restrictive voter photo ID laws in the nation, which threatens to disenfranchise some 300,000 Wisconsinites, and passed 19 other “model” bills lifted from the American Legislative Exchange Council playbook.

  • Censorship

    • UK Government Can Now Hand Out Two-Year Sentences For Revenge Porn, Online Trolling

      Fortunately, the law contains affirmative defenses, including one for journalistic entities or other disclosures in the public interest. It also appears to keep the burden of proof (mostly) where it should be: on the entity bringing the charges.

      However, this amendment seems to be more borne of social pressure than actual need. Trafficking in revenge porn has been punished successfully under the UK’s harassment laws. This law just feels extraneous — a way to “do something” that increases penalties for violating existing harassment laws. There’s a two-year maximum sentence attached to this amendment, which is far lower than the surprising 18 years handed to revenge porn site operator Kevin Bollaert, but far more than a previous “revenge porn” prosecution under the UK’s already existing laws, which only netted a 12-week sentence.

      The enacted amendments also give UK Justice Secretary Chris Grayling what he wanted: increased penalties for the crime of being a jerk online. The UK has jailed trolls before, but now the government has a new upper limit on sentencing – quadrupling the former 6-month maximum.

    • Music Industry Wants Cross Border Pirate Site Blocks

      Music industry group IFPI released its latest Digital Music Report today. Documenting the latest developments in the ongoing piracy battle, the report suggests that pirate site blockades are hugely effective. According to the music group it’s now time for blocking orders to have a cross border effect.

  • Privacy

    • Confronting the surveillance state

      By Memorial Day weekend, Congress will likely have decided whether the federal government’s mass surveillance programs — exposed first by The New York Times in December 2005 and more broadly by National Security Agency contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 — will be partially reined in or will instead become a dominant, permanent feature of American life.

      The creation of what many refer to as the “American Surveillance State” began in secret, just days after the Sept. 11 attacks. As the wreckage of the Twin Towers smoldered, President Bush and his top national security and intelligence advisers were making decisions that would trigger a constitutional crisis over surveillance programs that the public was told was essential to combating terrorism. The first act in this post-Sept.11 drama began on Capitol Hill.

    • No Fly List: Govt Offers New Redress Procedures

      The government will no longer refuse to confirm or deny that persons who are prevented from boarding commercial aircraft have been placed on the “No Fly List,” and such persons will have new opportunities to challenge the denial of boarding, the Department of Justice announced yesterday in a court filing.

    • An unlikely hack lands Edward Snowden in The White House

      After turning up as a sculpture in Brooklyn Park and making an appearance on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Edward Snowden has finally returned home. In fact, if you look at Google Maps right now, it appears he’s marched all the way to the president’s office, presumably to find out exactly who has copies of his dick pics.

      In its mobile app and on desktop, Google is showing a business listing for a fake shop named “Edwards Snow Den” slap bang in the middle of The White House. Could this be the search giant’s way of suggesting a rapprochement between the US administration and the famed whistle blower? Unfortunately not: the out-of-place Snow Den is simply the result of someone changing the location of a verified business listing after it’s gone live on Google Maps.

  • Civil Rights

    • CBS4 Investigation: TSA Screeners At DIA Manipulated System To Grope Men’s Genitals

      A CBS4 investigation has learned that two Transportation Security Administration screeners at Denver International Airport have been fired after they were discovered manipulating passenger screening systems to allow a male TSA employee to fondle the genital areas of attractive male passengers.

      It happened roughly a dozen times, according to information gathered by CBS4.

      According to law enforcement reports obtained during the CBS4 investigation, a male TSA screener told a female colleague in 2014 that he “gropes” male passengers who come through the screening area at DIA.

      “He related that when a male he finds attractive comes to be screened by the scanning machine he will alert another TSA screener to indicate to the scanning computer that the party being screened is a female. When the screener does this, the scanning machine will indicate an anomaly in the genital area and this allows (the male TSA screener) to conduct a pat-down search of that area.”

      Although the TSA learned of the accusation on Nov. 18, 2014 via an anonymous tip from one of the agency’s own employees, reports show that it would be nearly three months before anything was done.

    • New Mexico Passes Law Saying Law Enforcement Can’t Steal Your Property Without A Criminal Conviction

      We’ve been talking for a while about the ridiculousness of the civil asset forfeiture system in the US, whereby law enforcement can basically steal what they want (and some cops will even admit that, to them, it’s shopping for stuff they want). If you don’t remember, it basically just involves police taking stuff and then insisting that it was ill-gotten goods from some sort of law breaking activity — which would be kept by filing a civil lawsuit against the stuff itself rather than the person. There didn’t need to be any criminal conviction at all. Earlier this year, Eric Holder tried to limit the DOJ’s assistance of such shopping sprees by law enforcement, but police were still open to using the process to take stuff.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Council of The European Union To Kill Net Neutrality : We Must Act!

      On 3 April, the European Parliamant voted a text in favour of Net Neutrality, protecting a free and open Internet, but Member States gathered at the Council of Ministers have come back on the progress made. The legislation process continues in the form of negotiations to lead in an agreement between the European Parliament, European Commission and the Council of the European Union. In order to protect and guarantee all the advances from last year’s vote, a coalition of civil society organisations have launched the campaing website savetheinternet.eu and urge citizens to call their eurodeputy to defend their rights and freedoms

    • Despite Claiming To Want To Negotiate A Net Neutrality ‘Compromise,’ Many Republicans Rush In To Kill New Rules

      It’s getting rather ridiculous to have to keep repeating it at this point, but it’s fairly ridiculous that net neutrality/open internet is a partisan issue at all. The public overwhelmingly supports net neutrality, no matter which party they’re associated with. It’s only the politicians who think this is a red team vs. blue team issue. But, for whatever reason (and much of it appears to do with campaign fundraising), net neutrality has become partisan, with Republicans “against” it and Democrats “for” it. So, with the rules now officially in the Federal Register, not only have the lawsuits begun, but so has the Republican wrangling in Congress to try to kill the laws.

    • Wireless, Cable Industries Show Their Love Of An ‘Open Internet’ By Suing To Overturn Net Neutrality Rules

      Now that the FCC’s net neutrality rules have been published in the Federal Register, the broadband industry has fired its litigation cannons and filed the expected lawsuits via all of the major trade organizations (see suits for the NCTA, ACA and CTIA, pdfs). All of the suits proclaim that the FCC’s new net neutrality rules, and its reclassification of broadband providers as common carriers under Title II are an “arbitrary and capricious” implementation of “outdated utility style regulations” that will harm the greater Internet, sector innovation and industry investment (claims even the industry itself has admitted are bunk, yet never seem to go away).

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Kim Dotcom Megaupload case falters over sharing Canadian data

        More than three years have passed since Canadian police seized 32 Megaupload servers on behalf of U.S. authorities seeking to prosecute company founder Kim Dotcom in one of the world’s largest copyright infringement cases.

        Still, no one — except perhaps officials with the file-sharing company itself — knows what’s on the servers.

        At issue now is how much of this seized Canadian data can be shared with the U.S. Department of Justice, which is very eager to press its case against Dotcom, who is currently fighting extradition from New Zealand, where he’s a permanent resident.

04.14.15

Microsoft is Still Googlebombing the Term Open Source and Fooling Politicians Who Now Think Microsoft is Open Source

Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Windows at 11:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Pretending to be a journalist, actually a Microsoft ‘asset’

Todd Bishop and Bill Gates
Todd Bishop meets his maker

Summary: Microsoft’s attempt to assimilate (to confuse) bears some fruit and the Microsoft-linked media plays a considerable role in it

SOME READERS of ours, commenting on a recent headline, were not yet familiar with the term Google bomb, which was mentioned here over the weekend. When we say that Microsoft is “Googlebombing” (iophk’s interpretation of it) we mean to say that it is trying to make proprietary software come up (highly ranked) in search results for “open source”. It’s rebranding or reinvention by confusion and ambiguity.

Microsoft’s booster Todd Bishop (we have written a lot about him over the years, including financial support from Microsoft) continues this ugly campaign by openwashing a Windows font (yes, font!). Well, to be accurate, this font isn’t even a part of Windows, but it doesn’t prevent Bishop, who literally meets and chats with the highest-ranked Microsoft officials (like Brad Smith the other day), from spreading these misleading headlines in Microsoft-linked media, only to be repeated by other Microsoft boosting Web sites.

“It’s rebranding or reinvention by confusion and ambiguity.”We have grown rather tired of seeing Microsoft’s reckless and shameless attempts to associate itself with the competition. That’s how Microsoft hopes to devour the competition. We were disappointed to see complicity — not merely a waste of space — in Linux Journal today. It’s about .NET. Linux Journal is labeling it “FOSS” despite the reality which very is different, as explained here repeatedly before. Those who insist that Microsoft .NET is “Open Source” should try to fork it (not possible), then redistribute. Good luck with the patents. Phoronix also helped the openwashing of .NET a day or so ago. Microsoft is using other people’s code to openwash .NET, so Michael Larabel jumped into the trap and made a story out of it. “They also intend to improve LLVM’s support for C#,” he writes. This is more like an “embrace and extend” approach. Microsoft is trying to make Free software merely a client (or tool) of proprietary software. What’s there to celebrate?

Based on what Martin told us yesterday in the IRC channels, Microsoft is now pressuring governments in Europe to adopt proprietary software with data in NSA PRISM (Azure) by pretending it’s Open Source. The “look but don’t touch” interpretation of ‘Open Source’ by Microsoft is, based on sources, now being used to bamboozle governments in Europe. If people who demand Free software (“Open Source” they say) don’t understand what it means — let alone understand technology on general — then they’re easy to fool. The pressure (lobbying) from Microsoft in Europe is capable, combined with enough openwashing and Googlebombing (misleading headlines), surely fools EU politicians. Microsoft is reportedly (the reports are not in English) using back room (closed doors) deals in East Europe to sell back doors (pun intended) to the EU, reminding us that Microsoft is still fighting very hard against Free software and GNU/Linux. Microsoft is also fighting very hard to keep it all secret, bias the media, and so on.

Don’t be Microsoft’s “useful idiot”. Microsoft is not a friend, it’s a predator. █

“I would love to see all open source innovation happen on top of Windows.”

–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

Back Doors/Bug Doors in All Versions of Microsoft Windows Need a Name, a Logo, and Branding Too

Posted in FUD, Microsoft, Security, Windows at 10:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Microsoft gets a free pass for insecurity

Michael S. Rogers
“I don’t want a back door. I want a front door.” — Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), only days ago

Summary: All versions of Microsoft Windows are found to have been insecure since 1997, but the bug responsible for this is not named as candidate for back door access, let alone named (with logo and marketing) like far less severe bugs in Free/libre software such as OpenSSL

WHILE many journalists still refuse to call out Windows (see this new piece from Dan Goodin, who writes about crackers hoarding Windows hosts by the millions — in botnets — while mentioning the word “Windows” only once, very deep inside the article), some have no choice by to acknowledge that not every single computer runs Windows and therefore we should call out Windows when it’s clearly to blame.

“This wouldn’t be the first time it happens; recall how Google had to alert Microsoft for 3 months about a serious flaw while Microsoft did absolutely nothing (as if the intention was to keep Windows insecure, albeit secretly, very much like Apple).”Although there is no “branding” yet (as Microsoft buddies from a a Microsoft-linked firm like to do to Free/libre software bugs), there is a very serious bug in all versions of Windows (even the one still in development) that Microsoft’s allies at the NSA must be very happy about, especially as the bug is 18 years old (meaning that Windows has allowed remote access since 1997, or around the time Microsoft was seeking to appease the US government after it had shamelessly broken many laws).

The bug was found not by Microsoft but by this team (press release), which probably has no access to Windows source code. This wouldn’t be the first time it happens; recall how Google had to alert Microsoft for 3 months about a serious flaw while Microsoft did absolutely nothing (as if the intention was to keep Windows insecure, albeit secretly, very much like Apple).

ISPs should now restrict or ban Windows use, as it poses a huge risk (botnets and DDOS, never mind risk to all data stored on machines running Windows). Here is some early coverage of this [1, 2], some correctly emphasising that it’s a 18-year-old vulnerability [1, 2].

Let’s see if this starts a big debate about the insecurity of proprietary software (as other bugs with “branding” did to Free software, by means of gross generalisation). This “New Security Flaw Spans All Versions Of Windows” (similar wording in this headline). 18 years, eh? It even predates 9/11. It’s older than some readers of this Web site.

Watch this disgraceful piece titled “Will Microsoft’s Security Measures in Windows 10 Tarnish Open-Source Development?”

Yes, it’s more propaganda; The disingenuous openwashing of Windows continues, as we’ll show in our next post. █

“Our products just aren’t engineered for security.”

–Brian Valentine, Microsoft executive

OnePlus (or OnePlus Customers) Should Wipe CyanogenMod From Existing Devices and Install Something Else

Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 10:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

CyanogenMod Microsoft

Summary: A call for OnePlus to reconsider any future updates from Microsoft’s Trojan horse, Cyanogen

LAST MONTH we wrote about speculations that Microsoft is about to buy Cyanogen. We wrote a lot about Cyanogen prior to this, noting that Microsoft was using Cyanogen to disrupt (as in interfere) with Android using words and actions. OnePlus dumped CyanogenMod very soon afterwards because it had developed and quickly turned to its own version of Android (not a Microsoft proxy) and according to this new article, despite OnePlus moving away from Cyanogen, this Microsoft proxy (CyanogenMod) keeps trying to embed itself in OnePlus phones. Users of OnePlus (or owners of such devices) should be smarter than this. They ought to avoid any of CyanogenMod altogether. Cyanogen became a Microsoft proxy that harms users in many ways as we’ve explained over the past month.

“Remember that Replicant is based on Android, perpetually living in coexistence.”Microsoft does not need to bribe/buy Cyanogen if it can get friends to ‘invest’ in it and then pump money (bundling “deal”) to pay these friends back through Cyanogen. This seems like a clever passage of payments. Cyanogen is inherently destroyed. It’s like Nokia, Yahoo, Novell and so on after their Microsoft deals.

The story of Microsoft and Android/Linux/Free software is very much like that of “The Scorpion and the Tortoise”. The ‘new Microsoft’ — if there was ever such a thing — learned to champion entryism, patent lawsuits by proxy, FUD by proxy, bribery, and lobbying. Do not believe for a second that Microsoft means well or comes in peace. It has become exceedingly obvious that disruption of Free software (Android for example) is the strategy of choice, not creating better products. There is also a lot of incitation, e.g. accusations of monopoly by Google. Microsoft manufactured several lawsuits over the years, aggravating and publicly vilifying Android backers, developers, etc. Android has been wrongly viewed as a destroyer of competing Linux-based mobile environments, but it can be complementary (for desktops too). Inciting GNU/Linux users — not just politicians and proprietary software users — against Android seems to have been one rather clever strategy against a leading platform that eats Microsoft’s lunch (cow cash). AOSP, Alien Dalvik, ARC Welder etc. dispel many villainous myths about Android as “bad” for GNU/Linux, despite it being a step in a good direction (not ideal, but at least good). Remember that Replicant is based on Android, perpetually living in coexistence. As long as Android is doing well, Replicant and F-Droid will be fine. █

Links 14/4/2015: 3DR Dronecode, Z1/Z2 Tizen

Posted in News Roundup at 7:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • Dramatic Takeoff of GNU/Linux On The Desktop In Malta

      Malta is one of those places where the small size allows one to see significant migrations to GNU/Linux desktop in their full glory. Notice the ascendance of GNU/Linux in the same week that school started that year.

    • Desktop Linux Made Easy

      Ask any casual Linux enthusiast whether Linux is easy to use and they’ll tell you once installed, it’s very simple to navigate. The problem with the Linux desktop in 2015 isn’t how easy the desktop environment(s) are to work with, but whether the applications provided are easy enough for the average user at a workstation.

  • Server

    • IBM Deepens its Cloud Services Entrenchment with the U.S. Government

      IBM is making further inroads into getting its cloud computing tools and infrastructure solidified with the U.S. government. Big Blue recently announced that the U.S. Army is using IBM Hybrid Cloud to power one of the biggest logistics systems in the federal government. The new hybrid cloud system will be part of an ambitious Army data center designed to connect the IBM Cloud to the Army’s on-premise environment to enable use of data analytics. The Army foresees cost savings of 50 percent over its current cost structure, based on migrations to IBM’s cloud tools.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • EFL 1.14 Beta Brings Ecore-DRM Improvements

      Just one week after the EFL 1.14 Alpha 1 release marks the availability of Enlightenment Foundation Libraries’ 1.14 Beta 1 debut.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • You can come to the Randa Meetings 2015 – Please register now

        The dates for the sixth edition of the Randa Meetings are set: Sunday, 6th to Sunday 13th of September 2015. The first Sunday will be the day of arrival and the last Sunday accordingly the day of departure.

      • Some Skrooge news

        I’ve been alerted a few weeks ago that the Skrooge web site had been hacked, using some URL Injection. After attempting some enquiry and cleanup, I gave up : I couldn’t find the compromised code, and was not able to fix it. This is how I realized that sysadmin is a real job, and I am not one ! After asking some help on kde-www, Albert quickly prompted me to kde-sysadmins, and Ben Cooksley offered to clean the website and host it on kde servers.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • The 5 best distros for the Gnome desktop

        Gnome 3.16 was released recently and I considered it to be one of the best Gnome releases ever. A few weeks ago we did an extremely popular story on some of the best distros which offer great Plasma experience. So I decided to check out which distros offer a similar kind of Gnome experience.

        I have been using Gnome 3.16 on several machines and I am extremely impressed with the improvements, though I think there is still a lot to be improved. From among all the distros that I used, I picked those that offered the best Gnome experience out of the box.

  • Distributions

    • Reviews

      • Exploring SuperX 3.0

        Version 3.0 of SuperX can be downloaded as a 1.6GB ISO file. There are two builds available, one for 32-bit and another for 64-bit machines. Booting from the live media brings up the KDE desktop environment. The desktop’s wallpaper is soft blue. On the desktop we find a single icon for launching the distribution’s system installer. At the bottom of the screen we find the application menu, task switcher and system tray. Clicking the application menu button brings up a full screen application menu with large, colourful icons. I want to talk about the application menu more, but first let’s briefly talk about SuperX’s system installer.

      • Linux Mint Debian Edition 2 Cinnamon review

        Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is a desktop distribution that’s based on Debian. It’s from the same folks responsible for Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu Desktop.

        The latest edition, Linux Mint Debian Edition 2 (LMDE 2), code-named Betsy, was released on April 10 (2015). Upgrading from LMDE 1 to 2 is not yet supported, but that should change soon. If you’re using Linux Mint 17, do not attempt to upgrade because the distributions are not compatible.

        Installation images for the Cinnamon and MATE desktop environments were made available for download. This article offers a very cursory review of LMDE 2 Cinnamon.

    • Gentoo Family

      • Review: Sabayon 15.02 KDE

        This weekend has been a little slower than usual for work, so I have a little more time to do a review. Several weeks ago, I downloaded the latest version of Sabayon and kept it for a time (as now) when I’d be free to do a review. Moreover, looking through the archives of this blog, I realized that it’s been almost 3 years since I’ve looked at Sabayon, so a fresh review is long overdue.

    • Arch Family

      • Latest Antergos Live CD Includes GNOME 3.16, Based on Arch Linux

        On April 12, the Antergos development team, through Dustin Falgout, announced the immediate availability for download of an updated installation media for their Antergos Linux distribution based on the upstream Arch Linux operating system and featuring the latest GNOME 3.16 desktop environment.

    • Red Hat Family

      • RDO OpenStack Promises Easy, Free Open Source Cloud Computing

        RDO is a version of OpenStack designed for use on CentOS, a Linux distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Actually, “based on” is a bit of a stretch, because CentOS is basically the RHEL source code recompiled by third parties—which is totally legal and kosher with Red Hat, of course, since the source is open. The only difference between CentOS and RHEL is that the former comes with no enterprise-class support or ecosystem integration.

      • Update: Short Interest of Red Hat, Inc. Drops by -6.6%

      • Fedora

        • Fedora 22 Virt Test Day is Thu Apr 16!

          It’s a great time to make sure your virt workflow is still working correctly with the latest packages in Fedora 22. No requirement to run through test cases on the wiki, just show up and let us know what works (or breaks).

    • Debian Family

  • Devices/Embedded

    • 9 ways Android Wear is better than the Apple Watch

      Right off the bat, you have many more Android Wear options because a bunch of different companies have taken their own shot at an Android-powered smartwatch, including Motorola, LG, Huawei, Samsung, and Sony. There are 8 different designs so far.

    • 3DR’s Solo Drone Boasts Dual Linux Computers Running Dronecode

      3DRobotics today announced its first Linux-based drone, a Solo quadcopter touted as the first Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to support full control of GoPro cameras and deliver live-streaming HD video to mobile devices. The ground controller, as well as the drone’s Pixhawk 2 autopilot, integrates a 1GHz Cortex-A9 computer running Linux. The Solo is available for pre-sale at $1,000, or $1,400 with a GoPro gimbal, with units shipping via 2,000 locations starting May 29.

    • Phones

      • Tizen

      • Android

        • Why is Android so different from Linux distros?

          Android is based on Linux, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the same as your average Linux distribution. A redditor wanted to know why Android is so different from the desktop distributions that we all know and love.

        • Verizon’s LG G3 Is Finally Getting Its Android 5.0 Update

          The wait for Android 5.0 to arrive on the LG G3 has varied widely based on carrier—AT&T managed to get it released rather quickly and T-Mobile just rolled it out a week or two ago. Now it’s Verizon’s turn to get the Lollipop update done.

        • ICYMI: You Can Soon Unlock Your Android Phone With Just Your Voice
        • Trusted Voice unlock is rolling out to some Android users

          When the latest version of Google’s Android app arrived last week, there was a hint that a new method for unlocking a device was on the way. Well, it seems the wait is over… for some.

        • LG G4 leaks: ‘Gorgeous’ Android flagship in real leather (and fake carbon fiber)

          If you’re waiting to see what the next LG flagship phone looks like, wait no longer. Here’s the LG G4, in all its leather-clad glory. It’s no clone.

          The secret site the images were snarfed from didn’t give much of a clue about the hardware specs — what was there were clearly placeholders — but if you like stitched leather, you’ll love the G4.

        • 4 ways your Android device is tracking you (and how to stop it)

          So there I was, poking around some of the more arcane settings on my Moto G, when I stumbled across something that took me aback: an archive of every voice command I’d ever spoken to my phone.

          Turns out that each time you say something to the Google Now search box, Android saves a copy of what you said in your “Voice & Audio” history. Your voice history can go back months or even years, and it includes a transcript of what you said plus a playback button, so you can relive the moment.

        • Motorola’s 5-incher finds the G-spot: Moto G 4G budget Android smartie

          Back in December 2013, I hailed the first generation Motorola Moto G as the best affordable smartphone on the market. If you want a reasonably compact 4.5-inch device, then, arguably, it still is the best, thanks to a midlife facelift that added a microSD slot and 4G reception.

        • Sony delivers Android 5.0 to Xperia Z3 Dual, Z1 and more

          Android 5.0 Lollipop is ready to roll on half a dozen Sony smartphones.

        • Deal alert: Get $100 off one of the world’s best Android Wear watches
        • Buy an Android smartphone and Moto 360 from Best Buy, get $100 off the total purchase

          Even though the successor to Motorola’s Android Wear smartwatch, the Moto 360, seems to be right around the corner, the original is still considered one of the better smartwatches currently available. Through Best Buy’s newest promotion, that purchase just became much more easygoing on your wallet.

        • Nexus 5 Android 5.1 Update: Is It Worth Installing Right Now?

          We’ve been using the Nexus 5 Android 5.1 Lollipop update for a number of weeks. And now that the update is rolling out in full force, Nexus 5 users are faced with a decision about whether to install Google’s latest firmware. With some experience under our belts, we want to help with your decision. This is our Nexus 5 Android 5.1 review at the three week mark.

        • Best new apps for Android and iOS (April 7th – April 13th 2015)

          Hey there, app hunters! As we do each week, we’ve combed through the Android and iOS stores once again to look for something interesting for you to download and play around with. Keeping track of the new apps that come out for the lighthearted, so should you desire to have a look at some fresh offerings each week, yet feel daunted by the heap of information you’d have to dig through, feel free to check back regularly.

        • Watch HBO Now on Android and Roku right now

          Think an iDevice is the only way to get HBO’s new streaming service? Think again. For $9.99 you can sling it just about anywhere — for three months.

        • 5 Things to Know About the Nexus 4 Android 5.1 Update

          Google’s Android 5.1 Lollipop update is missing for a number of Nexus devices though it looks like we can finally take the Nexus 4 Android 5.1 update off of the list. With an OTA in sight, we take a look at what users need to know, right now, about the Nexus 4 Android 5.1 Lollipop update.

        • These E3 Android Wear Watch Bands are Really, Really Nice

          Last week, Google announced a set of official partnerships with a handful of companies willing to make watch bands for Android Wear devices. One of those companies is E3 Motocycles, a shop out of Brooklyn, NY, who specializes in hand-made products that use quality materials like Horween leather. Out of the group that was announced by Google, the E3 watch bands were the closest to our personal tastes in watch bands, so we picked a few up. Man, these are incredible.

        • Android 5.0.2 pushed out for Sony Xperia Z1, Xperia Z1 Compact and Xperia Z Ultra

          Android 5.0.2 is now reaching the Sony Xperia Z1, Sony Xperia Z1 Compact and the Sony Xperia Z Ultra. The update is being disseminated to certain regions only, and offers build number 14.5.A.0.242. The update includes the new Material Design, Lock Screen notifications, the new 64-bit ART runtime compiler that will open apps faster, new “Recent Apps” screen, Project Volta for extended battery life, and more.

        • Some Nexus 5 Owners Afflicted By Camera Crashes Following Android 5.1 Update

          Updates get us excited, especially when they involve making the leap to the latest version of Android. But for some Nexus 5 users, the transition has come at the expense of their camera. Following the release of Android 5.1, they’ve been unable to reliably activate the camera without getting hit by crashes.

        • No, not that Cloud: Final Fantasy XIII now streaming to iOS, Android devices

          Square Enix games are hardly missing from mobile devices, but most of what you’ll see from the company are ports of its older games. Dragon Quest VIII, which originally launched on the PlayStation 2, was about as recent as it gets. At least it was until now.

        • Android 5.1 Lollipop OTA now available for the Nexus 4

          When Google announced Android 5.1 Lollipop last month, the new version of Android quickly began rolling out to multiple Nexus family devices. There are still a few Nexus handsets that have yet to see the update, but today we can check one more off the list – the Nexus 4. The OTA, which is available now, weighs in at only 174MB and will bring your device from build number LRX22C to LMY47O.

        • HTC One M8 Will Skip Android 5.0.2 And Go Straight To Android 5.1, HTC One M7 May Get 5.1 Too

          A new report indicates that HTC will skip Android 5.0.2 for the HTC One M8, which will go straight to 5.1 Lollipop at some time in the future. The older HTC One M7 may get 5.1 as well, despite a recent announcement that it will not.

        • Opera Launches Redesigned Opera Mini For Android

          Opera Mini, the little brother to Opera’s regular mobile browser, is getting a major makeover on Android today. The company says the new design, which is pretty much in line with the regular Opera mobile browser, is meant to give the browser a more native look and feel.

        • Samsung Galaxy S6 Review: The Best Android Phone Of All Time

          There has been something very surprising about the levels of interest I’ve seen with the S6 and S6 Edge, namely that the interest seems to be focused now, as the phone goes on sale, on the S6 instead of the Edge.

          This is the reverse of what I noticed when I published my initial hands-on reviews of the device from a pre-brief held in London ahead of their launch at Mobile World Congress. And indeed, I was at MWC – I was a guest of Samsung, covering the show for one of my British publishers – and the buzz there was all about the Edge.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Pivotal Open-Sources In-Memory Database Geode

    Geode and GemFire compete directly and indirectly in the market with SAP HANA, Teradata and Oracle products.

    Pivotal, EMC’s big data development platform-as-a-service (PaaS) division, on April 13 released Geode, a distributed in-memory database, to the open-source community as a key part of the eventual release of its entire big data platform to the community.

  • Pivotal Gets Open Sourcier

    You can’t help but wonder if EMC Federation boss Joe Tucci is reaching for his stress ball today. His company’s spawn, Pivotal Software, is open sourcing the core of GemFire, its distributed in-memory database.

    We asked Tucci to comment, but he hasn’t gotten back to us yet. And though his press spokesperson told us “we’re for it,” when it comes to open source, we suspect that it might feel a bit like watching your teenager turn your mansion into a commune.

  • PARCC Selects Open Source Platform for Non-Summative Assessments

    “Open source was a key requirement of the PARCC non-summative assessment tools delivery system because it allows us to more easily integrate the platform with other partners and opportunities in the future, as well as leverage the collective open source community contributions to the platform development,” said Jeff Cuff, director of technology at Parcc Inc., the nonprofit organization that manages the assessment system on behalf of the PARCC states, in a prepared statement. “Even more importantly, it is a highly economical approach for the states participating in the consortium, providing significant savings for maintenance compared to other options.”

  • Curoverse Begins Trial Run for Open Source Genomics Tool

    The move is the latest step for Curoverse, a startup that emerged from George Church’s Personal Genome Project at Harvard. The PGP was a plan led by Church to sequence more than 100,000 genomes in the U.S. and link them to individuals’ health information. (The same kind of aggregation, but of 1 million people’s genomic and other health information, is a goal of the Obama administration’s Precision Medicine Initiative.) Church needed a massive database to house all that information, and that’s what led to the creation of Arvados. It’s a database capable of storing giant amounts of genomic information, it’s shareable, it can run on both public and private cloud services, and it’s an open source platform, so anyone can use or modify the source code.

  • Hello Geode: Pivotal GemFire is now open source

    Making good on its promise from earlier in the year, Pivotal has released as open source the distributed in-memory database that powers GemFire, a featured part of Pivotal’s Big Data Suite Hadoop product.

    It’s another step on Pivotal’s road toward building an open source base for its Big Data Suite rather than keeping them on a proprietary leash. However, Pivotal still sees ways it could monetize its Hadoop products — even as advances in open source squeeze companies with proprietary offerings.

  • The Culture of Freedom: Free Software, Free Speech

    For the concluding part of may talk, I explored how this open source methodology manifested itself in the world of open publishing. The fact that it is net-based is hugely important, because it means that the barrier to publishing has been lowered almost to the point of disappearing. That matters, because as A. J. Liebling famously said: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one”. Today, thanks to the Internet, we have all the advantages of owning a press without any of the massive costs or organisational issues.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla Start Drafting Plans To Deprecate Insecure HTTP

        Barnes is hoping for more people to move to HTTPS by limiting new browser features from becoming available over insecure HTTP, in the name of security. He wrote in a mailing list post, “In order to encourage web developers to move from HTTP to HTTPS, I would like to propose establishing a deprecation plan for HTTP without security. Broadly speaking, this plan would entail limiting new features to secure contexts, followed by gradually removing legacy features from insecure contexts. Having an overall program for HTTP deprecation makes a clear statement to the web community that the time for plaintext is over — it tells the world that the new web uses HTTPS, so if you want to use new things, you need to provide security.”

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • HP: We’re not leaving the public cloud

      Several days after HP seemed to announce that it was going to stop offering public cloud services, the company is now stating that it will continue to offer its OpenStack-powered Helion public cloud.

    • Comcast has contributed 36K lines of code to a massive open source project called OpenStack

      Philly became the center of the action for those who use a massive open source project called OpenStack last month.

      Comcast hosted one of the OpenStack community’s regular meetups, drawing more than 150 developers from companies like Rackspace, Time Warner and Red Hat to The Hub in Rittenhouse Square for the two-day event.

  • CMS

  • BSD

  • Openness/Sharing

    • An Open Source Pinewood Derby Track

      There are a lot of reasons to consider reproducing. Tax breaks are near the top of the list, and a bizarre obligation to ensure the survival of the species following closely behind. The pinewood derby, though… Where else are you going to get a chance to spend hours polishing axles and weighing down bits of wood so they can roll faster?

    • The makerspace is the next open source frontier

      In this brave new world of heterogeneous projects that combine hardware, software, printed, cloud, and other pieces, we are going to see an cacophony of different tools for building these different parts of an idea and project. We have GitHub for collaborating around code, Thingiverse for 3D models, Trello for project management and coordination, Moqups and Balsamiq for user interface design, specific toolkits for building drivers and integrating with sensors, and more.

    • Open-source streetlamps from old soda bottles are making streets safer for women

      In the tiny barrio of San Luis, perched precipitously on the hills above Bogotá, a hundred university students are hard at work. Split into 10 groups, they glue, drill and screw things together to make 50 low-cost street lights.

      The lights’ beauty lies in their simplicity: A 3-watt LED lamp is connected to a controller and a battery pack, which is powered by a small solar panel. The light fixture’s protective casing is an old plastic soda bottle. Each lamp costs around 176,000 Colombian pesos ($70) to build, and nothing to run. Parts are sourced locally and the battery can power the lamp for three consecutive nights without charging. Once completed, the students install the lights throughout the neighbourhood, brightening dimly lit alleyways and dark clearings.

    • Open Data

  • Programming

    • Git Success Stories and Tips from Ceph Creator Sage Weil

      Git has changed the way that software is built — including the Ceph open source distributed storage platform, says Ceph Creator Sage Weil. Ceph has used the Git revision control system for seven years, since it switched from SVN. It has changed the project’s work flow and how they think about code.

      “Instead of thinking in files and lines, you think in flow of changes. Instead of having a single repository that everyone feeds from and into, everyone now has their own repository, their own branches. The meaning of branch changed,” said Weil, Ceph principal architect at Red Hat. “Everything just fell in place, as if the people who designed it really knew software development at scale.”

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • 32-Bit Integers and Why Old Computers Matter

      The number 256 is what broke the original arcade version of Pac-Man. As a game with no proper exit condition, Pac-Man relied on faith that players would eventually get tired of it before the 256th level. This was reasonable given that every single level after the 20th was just a repeat of level 20. But video games lend themselves to obsession like few things, even in 1980, so of course some players took it as a challenge—a test of endurance and concentration. Those that made it to 256 were in for a strange sight, what computer scientists would call “undefined behavior.” This was the result: ​

  • Security

    • Security advisories for Monday
    • Dear Apple: Your upgrade policy sucks

      While changes in technology are generally a mark of progress, they are not always immediately for the better. Certain hardware and software vendors would do well to understand that reality — Apple, for instance.

      Apple has long enjoyed a unique position in the marketplace in that it controls both the hardware and software running on its various platforms. This tight integration has allowed the company to produce some of the most stable and functional computer hardware ever made. This has also allowed Apple to make dramatic changes in both hardware and software without appearing to care a whit for its users, often condemning them to vast frustrations for no logical reason.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • In the Middle East, Bet on a Winner (Iran!)

      Think of it as the American half-century in the Middle East: from August 17, 1953, when a CIA oil coup brought down democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed the Shah as Washington’s man in Tehran, to May 1, 2003, when George W. Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of southern California. (The planes from that aircraft carrier had only recently dropped 1.6 million pounds of ordnance on Iraq.) There, standing under a White House-produced banner that read “Mission Accomplished,” the president dramatically announced that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” and hailed “the arrival of a new era.”

    • Emails Reveal Discord Over Blackwater Charges

      WASHINGTON — As prosecutors put the finishing touches on the 2008 indictment of Blackwater security contractors for a deadly shooting in Iraq, the F.B.I. agents leading the investigation became convinced that political appointees in the Justice Department were intentionally undermining the case, internal emails show.

    • Former Blackwater guards sentenced in ‘staggering’ massacre of unarmed Iraqis

      Three former employees of the US private military contractor once known as Blackwater were sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday and a fourth received a life sentence, closing a sordid chapter of the Iraq conflict relating to the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad.

    • Ex-Blackwater Guards Sentenced to Long Prison Terms in 2007 Killings of Iraqi Civilians

      One by one, four former Blackwater security contractors wearing blue jumpsuits and leg irons stood before a federal judge on Monday and spoke publicly for the first time since a deadly 2007 shooting in Iraq.

    • Florida Ex-Senator Pursues Claims of Saudi Ties to Sept. 11 Attacks

      The episode could have been a chapter from the thriller written by former Senator Bob Graham of Florida about a shadowy Saudi role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

      A top F.B.I. official unexpectedly arranges a meeting at Dulles International Airport outside Washington with Mr. Graham, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after he has pressed for information on a bureau terrorism inquiry. Mr. Graham, a Democrat, is then hustled off to a clandestine location, where he hopes for a breakthrough in his long pursuit of ties between leading Saudis and the Sept. 11 hijackers.

    • Frustrated with US meddling, Latin America seeks its own path

      President Obama is in Panama this weekend for the Summit of the Americas, where he’ll meet with regional leaders who have grown increasingly determined to assert autonomy from the US.

    • Why the details of the Iran deal don’t matter

      At heart, this is a fight over what to do about Iran’s challenge to U.S. leadership in the Middle East and the threat that Iranian geopolitical ambitions pose to U.S. allies, particularly Israel and Saudi Arabia.

    • Terrorism Case Renews Debate Over Drone Hits

      A Texas-born man suspected of being an operative for Al Qaeda stood before a federal judge in Brooklyn this month. Two years earlier, his government debated whether he should be killed by a drone strike in Pakistan.

      The denouement in the hunt for the man, Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, who was arrested last year in Pakistan based on intelligence provided by the United States, came after a yearslong debate inside the government about whether to kill an American citizen overseas without trial — an extraordinary step taken only once before, when the Central Intelligence Agency killed the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.

    • The world of threats to the US is an illusion

      When Americans look out at the world, we see a swarm of threats. China seems resurgent and ambitious. Russia is aggressive. Iran menaces our allies. Middle East nations we once relied on are collapsing in flames. Latin American leaders sound steadily more anti-Yankee. Terror groups capture territory and commit horrific atrocities. We fight Ebola with one hand while fending off Central American children with the other.

      In fact, this world of threats is an illusion. The United States has no potent enemies. We are not only safe, but safer than any big power has been in all of modern history.

      Geography is our greatest protector. Wide oceans separate us from potential aggressors. Our vast homeland is rich and productive. No other power on earth is blessed with this security.

    • Drone Victims Take Germany to Court for Abetting U.S. Murders

      Andreas Schüller is an attorney on the staff of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. He is the lead attorney on a suit being brought by ECCHR and Reprieve against the German government on behalf of three Yemeni survivors of a U.S. drone strike. The case will be heard May 27th in Cologne.

      Their suit argues that it is illegal under German law for the German government to allow the U.S. air base at Ramstein to be used for drone murders abroad. The suit comes after the passage of a resolution in the European Parliament in February 2014 urging European nations to “oppose and ban the practice of extrajudicial targeted killings” and to “ensure that the Member States, in conformity with their legal obligations, do not perpetrate unlawful targeted killings or facilitate such killings by other states.”

      I’ve always thought of drone murders as illegal under the laws of the countries where the murders happen, as well as under the UN Charter and the Kellogg Briand Pact. I asked Schüller: Is your suit seeking prosecution for murder where (or in one of the places where) the act is committed from a distance?

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • A Lot Of Bottled Water Comes From Drought-Stricken California

      California’s in the middle of an epic drought — but that hasn’t stopped bottled water production in the state. Even as residents face mandatory cutbacks and fields lie fallow, companies continue pumping hundreds of millions of gallons of water every year into plastic bottles — sometimes straight from a municipal water supply.

    • Watch: Amid Drought, California Water Virtually Draining Away

      In California, alfalfa production has been scrutinized at a time when both exports of the crop and public awareness of the drought are growing. The expanding global dairy industry, particularly in China, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates, is driving demand for alfalfa as animal feed. Much of the alfalfa that the U.S. exports is grown in water-scarce western states.

  • Finance

    • Occupation at University of Amsterdam Challenges the Logic of Market-Driven Education

      When students kicked in the door of the main administrative building, the Maagdenuis, at the University of Amsterdam on February 25, the “New University” – or “De Nieuwe Universiteit” – movement introduced a new aesthetic dimension of protest.

      The Maagdenhuis occupation, a protest against the financialization of higher education and against the concentration of decision-making power at the university, disrupted the everyday flow of doing, changing the normal organization of human sense experience on campus. By taking a building and reorganizing human activity inside, with emphasis on dialogue, deliberation and shared decision-making, occupiers created new aesthetic conditions necessary for a new politics, as philosopher Jacques Rancière, who recently visited the Maagdenhuis to show solidarity with UvA students, suggests.

  • Privacy

    • Even if the Patriot Act expires, the worst surveillance will carry on
    • Amnesty International takes UK government to European Court of Human Rights over mass surveillance

      Amnesty International, Liberty and Privacy International have announced today they are taking the UK Government to the European Court of Human Rights over its indiscriminate mass surveillance practices.

    • A New Era at the Tor Project

      Andrew Lewman, our current Executive Director, is leaving The Tor Project to take a position at an Internet services company. While at Tor, Andrew was passionate about using our tools to help people from diverse backgrounds and points of view benefit from online privacy. We thank Andrew for his contributions and wish him well.

    • Police want to keep surveillance tech secret

      Time for law enforcement to come clean on how stingrays spy on Americans’ cellphones

    • Forget spying, now the NSA wants your password list

      The NSA isn’t interested in a sneaky back door into your smartphone or computer any more, it just wants you to leave the front door wide open. While arguments continue around just what the National Security Agency can and can’t get access to – dragging more than one big tech name into the controversy – the spy organization’s chief is suggesting a far more blunt approach: in effect, handing over the keys to encryption upfront.

    • CISPA Is Back With A Vengeance

      First introduced in the House of Representatives in 2011, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is once again back in play and is being considered for legislative action this month. Much of the same concerns that accompanied its introduction in 2011 remain specifically that it is a blank check for cybersurveillance dressed up as a bill to promote cybersecurity.

      The earlier version of both SOPA and CISPA were defeated due in part to staunch opposition from numerous corners of the internet. CISPA initially contained language that included intellectual property issues as falling under the act making it essentially SOPA-light.

  • Civil Rights

    • The Power of Lies

      Lincoln did not think blacks were the equals of whites.

    • The Boston Marathon Show Trial

      Tsarnaev’s attorney knew that evidence would play no role in the case and focused on trying to save Dzhokhar from a death sentence by blaming the older brother who was killed by police. Perhaps Dzhokhar’s attorney remembered what happened to attorney Lynne Stewart who was sentenced to prison for representing a client for whom the government only wanted a pro forma representation.

    • The Nasty Blowback from America’s Wars

      Rowley warned Mueller that launching unjustified war would prove counterproductive in various ways. One blowback she highlighted was that the rationale being applied to allow preemptive strikes abroad could migrate back home, “fostering a more permissive attitude toward shootings by law enforcement officers in this country.” Tragically, the recent spate of murders by police has proved Rowley right.

    • My Labia Will Send Logan Airport TSA Thug Melendy A Postcard

      TSA thug Melendy got all up the side between my thigh and my labia — four times.

    • Autistic 11-year-old arrested for leaving class early: “He slammed me down, and then he handcuffed me”s

      An autistic sixth grader in Lynchburg, Virginia was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, PRI’s Susan Ferriss reports.

    • The Real Arab Spring Is Happening in Israel

      The success of the Joint List is an example for the wider Arab world, says Ayman Odeh, its leader. Odeh, a 40-year-old lawyer from Haifa, is now one of the country’s best-known politicians. He won widespread accolades for his calm, reasoned response to being verbally abused on television by Avigdor Lieberman, a former foreign minister. “We live in the Middle East, in an era when people are being killed because they have a different ethnicity, religion or ideology. We have a different message: to accept differences, and work side by side to achieve our goals. We hope our example will affect all the Arab world,” he said.

      [...]

      The model is Martin Luther King, says Odeh. King and his supporters marched to Washington in 1963, demanding jobs and freedom. Odeh has prepared a 10-year plan to close the civic and economic gap between Israel’s Jewish and Arab population. “We intend to march to Jerusalem, to raise awareness for our 10-year plan and to demand democracy and justice for all.”

    • Why Does WaPo Protect Identities of Cops Who Tased a Shackled, Mentally Ill Woman Until She Died?

      The Washington Post knows who gave Natasha McKenna repeated high-voltage shocks just before she suffered a fatal heart attack–but it isn’t telling its readers.

      The Washington Post (4/11/15) ran a troubling story about an African-American woman who died after Fairfax County, Virginia, sheriff’s deputies repeatedly used a taser on her while she was already in shackles. The deputies administered four 50,000-volt shocks to Natasha McKenna, a prisoner at the Fairfax County jail who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, in an effort to force her into a chair for transport; minutes later, her heart stopped.

    • UAE Gave $1 Million to NYC Police Foundation; Money Aided ‘Investigations’

      The New York City Police Foundation received a $1 million donation from the government of the United Arab Emirates, according to 2012 tax records, the same amount the foundation transferred to the NYPD Intelligence Division’s International Liaison Program that year, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

      A 2012 Schedule A document filed by the New York City Police Foundation showed a list of its largest donors, which included several major financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase and Barclays Capital — but also a line item for the “Embassy of the United Arab Emirates.” The Intercept obtained a copy of the Schedule A document, which is not intended for public disclosure and only shows donors above the threshold of donating $1 million over four years.

    • John Legend launches campaign to end mass incarceration

      John Legend has launched a campaign to end mass incarceration.

      The Grammy-winning singer announced the multiyear initiative, FREE AMERICA, on Monday. He will visit and perform at a correctional facility on Thursday in Austin, Texas, where he also will be part of a press conference with state legislators to discuss Texas’ criminal justice system.

    • The Abuse of Satire

      My career—I guess I can officially call it that now—was not my idea. When my editor, Jim Andrews, recruited me out during my junior year in college and gave me the job I still hold, it wasn’t clear to me what he was up to. Inexplicably, he didn’t seem concerned that I was short on the technical skills normally associated with creating a comic strip—it was my perspective he was interested in, my generational identity. He saw the sloppy draftsmanship as a kind of cartoon vérité, dispatches from the front, raw and subversive.

      Why were they so subversive? Well, mostly because I didn’t know any better. My years in college had given me the completely false impression that there were no constraints, that it was safe for an artist to comment on volatile cultural and political issues in public. In college, there’s no down side. In the real world, there is, but in the euphoria of being recognized for anything, you don’t notice it at first. Indeed, one of the nicer things about youthful cluelessness is that it’s so frequently confused with courage.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Legal Responses May Be Imminent in Net Neutrality Face-off

      Back in March, the FCC’s 400-page net neutrality order arrived, and made waves because of the agency’s vote to reclassify broadband as a regulated telecommunications service. The FCC argued that it created “clear and enforceable rules” to protect consumers, but broadband providers and others bristled at the regulation proposals.

      Over this past weekend, the net neutrality rule was published in the Federal Register, the daily journal of U.S. government initiatives, and legal action from those opposing it could be imminent.

    • FCC fires the starting gun on net neutrality legal tussles

      The move follows the historic decision by the FCC to impose more stringent net neutrality rules than anyone had expected in a vote at the end of February which saw the motion pass by three votes to two.

    • Hollywood Seeks Net Neutrality Exceptions to Block Pirates

      The Motion Picture Association has written to Brazil’s Justice Minister seeking exceptions to the country’s fledgling “Internet Constitution”. In a submission to the government the MPA says that the Marco Civil’s current wording on net neutrality deprives courts of the opportunity to order the blocking of ‘pirate’ sites.

    • 6 Stupid Reasons Actual People Are Scared Of Net Neutrality

      According to the most popular British talk show host on American premium cable, net neutrality is one of the most important regulations for the future of telecommunications (and, by extension, all of humanity under the age of 50). Net neutrality is about making sure your ISP can’t control what you view on the Internet and how fast you view it — or, as the aforementioned talk show host put it, “Preventing Cable Company Fuckery.” How could anyone possibly be against something as basic as that? The answer, as the following reactions to net neutrality prove, is “by being hilariously stupid.”

04.13.15

Links 13/4/2015: Linux 4.0 Released; A Look at Antergos 2015.04.12

Posted in News Roundup at 11:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • The Real Reason Open Source Startups Fail

    The recent news around Nebula shutting its doors has stirred speculation that OpenStack startups are struggling because of the state of the OpenStack market. There is even a piece claiming that the OpenStack dream is on “life support.”

    This couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality is that winning in open source requires a playbook that is drastically different from one that most VCs investing in technology today are used to.

  • 3 best practices for bootstrapping an open source business

    I’ve felt this tension firsthand. My company, PencilBlue, an open source content management system, was instantly dismissed by a well-known venture capitalist because, as he put it, “No website creation tool makes money unless it completely gets rid of the need for developers.” This is someone who made seed investments in multiple household-name tech startups, and he had no clue that more than 70% of all websites are created by developers and that the $21 billion web development industry is ruled by open source platforms.

    That open source startups are hard to find in the investment-first ecosystem is not surprising, because they’re usually started by people who actually build the product. Most of the time, seeking early stage investment for an open source product doesn’t make financial sense. On the other hand, there’s much to be gained from the business and marketing knowledge in local startup communities, so being sequestered from them can put open source developers at a disadvantage.

  • Events

  • CMS

    • Presidential candidate website tech, compared

      Over the next year, political pundits will spend far too much time dissecting the horse race, scandals (real or imagined), the electoral college and more polls than you can shake a stick at. I’m doing none of that. I’m just looking at websites.

  • Business

    • Semi-Open Source

      • Pivotal sets the stage for open-source in-memory computing

        Opening up the code could give enterprise customers more input into what new features are added into future versions. For Pivotal, the move provides an entry to those corporate clients that have adopted policies of using open-source software whenever possible, said Roman Shaposhnik, Pivotal’s director of open source.

        The company also hopes the software, released under the name Project Geode, will find a wider user base, one looking for big data analysis technologies speedier than Hadoop or Spark, Shaposhnik said.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Git and GitHub for open source documentation

      We use git extensively for documentation in OpenStack so that we can “treat the docs like the code”—and I’m seeing this trend many places especially in the Write the Docs community.

Leftovers

  • Security

    • Hacked French TV network admits “blunder” that exposed YouTube password

      The head of the French TV network that suspended broadcasting following last week’s hack attack has confirmed the service exposed its own passwords during a TV interview, but said the gaffe came only after the breach.

      “We don’t hide the fact that this is a blunder,” the channel’s director general Yves Bigot, told the AFP news service.

      The exposure came during an interview a rival TV service broadcast on the TV5Monde attack. During the questioning, a TV5Monde journalist sat in front of several scraps of paper hanging on a window. One of them showed the password of for the network’s YouTube account. As Ars reported last week, the pass code was “lemotdepassedeyoutube,” which translates in English to “the password of YouTube.”

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Transparency Reporting

    • From A to Z (Asteroids to Zombies), the British Just Want the Facts

      Government secrecy has long been a hallmark of Britain, where neither laws nor traditions made it easy to obtain the documents and records that are the underpinnings of any bureaucracy. But a decade ago, the doors were swung wide open to allow the sunshine of public scrutiny into agencies, bureaus and councils, and the result has been both gratifying and slightly alarming.

      While Britain’s Freedom of Information law has established itself as a potent tool to scrutinize the work of public authorities and hold those in power accountable, it has also had some expensive consequences — and, in some cases, revealed the absurdity of public whim.

      The hundreds of thousands of requests that have been received at various levels of government in the last decade have not only been time-consuming for agencies and councils, they have also proved extremely costly.

      Such, though, is the side effect of transparency, say the proponents of open government, who also argue that the benefits outweigh the burdens.

      “What people often forget is just how much F.O.I. saves money, because it exposes wasteful and extravagant spending,” said Paul Gibbons, a freedom of information campaigner and blogger. “Just one example: a local council in Scotland was spending thousands every year sending a delegation to Japan for a flower festival. Once F.O.I. came into force, they quickly realized they couldn’t justify doing that.”

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Snow-Capped Mountains and Rushing Rivers, but No Water to Drink in Nepal’s Capital

      Despite having among the highest water availability per capita in the world and holding about 2.7 percent of the world’s total fresh water reserves, Nepal suffers from a chronic water shortage.

      Set against a decade of political turbulence, acute mismanagement of water supplies and large in-migration from villages to the capital Kathmandu, the less socio-economically advantaged half of Nepal is increasingly left to fend for itself to gain access to clean water.

      In Kathmandu, the Nepalese government’s Central Bureau of Statistics shows that one out of five households do not have a domestic water source, while two-thirds live with a water supply which most probably would fail the standard for being ‘clean and safe.’

  • Finance

    • Dear Apple, Microsoft and Google, you owe Australia billions!

      As one watched representatives of the three most important IT companies in the world being grilled by an Australian Senate committee on tax avoidance last week, it soon became obvious that the whole show was a farce. The corporations have been fleecing Australia of billions of dollars in tax revenues for years and successive governments have been either powerless or unwilling to do anything.

      In the revenue leeching stakes, Apple is by far the worst offender followed by Microsoft, with Google bringing up the rear only by the virtue of its Australian R&D activities.

      The contempt with which all three companies view the Australian Government and the Australian people was obvious by the personnel they chose to front the Senate committee.

    • Dollar’s buying power plummets in first day of “official” WoW gold trading

      For most of World of Warcraft’s history, the only way to buy in-game gold with real currency was to go through one of many gray market third-party services (which technically goes against Blizzard’s terms of service for the game). That was true until yesterday, when Blizzard introduced a $20 game time token that can be sold for gold at the in-game auction house on North American servers (European servers will get the feature at a later date). While the real-world price of those tokens is fixed at $20, the gold price is “determined dynamically based on supply and demand,” as Blizzard puts it.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Noam Chomsky on the New York Times’ Media Bias

      A front-page article is devoted to a flawed story about a campus rape in the journal Rolling Stone, exposed in the leading academic journal of media critique. So severe is this departure from journalistic integrity that it is also the subject of the lead story in the business section, with a full inside page devoted to the continuation of the two reports. The shocked reports refer to several past crimes of the press: a few cases of fabrication, quickly exposed, and cases of plagiarism (“too numerous to list”). The specific crime of Rolling Stone is “lack of skepticism,” which is “in many ways the most insidious” of the three categories.

  • Privacy

    • ​Securing the web once and for all: The Let’s Encrypt Project
    • European court challenge to UK surveillance

      Rights groups have asked the European Court of Human Rights to rule on the legality of the UK’s large-scale surveillance regime.

      Amnesty International, Liberty and Privacy International filed a legal complaint with the court today.

      The scale of the surveillance carried out by GCHQ has been revealed by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

    • Brazil builds undersea internet cable to protect online privacy

      Angered by Edward Snowden’s revelations on the wiretapping habits of tri-lettered American agencies, Brazil is taking the internet into its own hands — and giving Uncle Sam the middle finger. Right now most internet traffic between South America and Europe travels through the overly inquisitive US, but that’s about to change. Next year, Brazil’s Telebrás and Spain’s IslaLink will begin laying £120 million worth of undersea internet cable to span the 5,600km of Atlantic Ocean between Fortaleza, Brazil, and Lisbon, Portugal. The Americans can just follow their allies’ activities on Facebook like everyone else.

    • Facebook admits it tracks non-users, but denies claims it breaches EU privacy law

      Social network claims privacy report commissioned by the Belgian privacy watchdog ‘gets it wrong multiple times’ over what Facebook does with user data

    • NSA dreams of smartphones with “split” crypto keys protecting user data

      The approach is only one of several options being studied by the White House. One alternative under consideration would have a judge direct a company to set up a mirror account so that law enforcement officials conducting a criminal investigation could read text messages shortly after they are sent. To obtain encrypted photos, the judge could order the company to back up the suspect’s data to a server while the phone is turned on and its contents are unencrypted.

  • Civil Rights

    • U.S. Air Force Fires General Who Threatened Airmen With ‘Treason’

      Three months ago, Maj. Gen. James Post — the deputy chief of Air Combat Command — warned airmen that talking to Congress about the A-10 Warthog is an act of “treason.”

      On April 10, the U.S. Air Force announced it had canned Post from his job.

      To be sure, the flying branch doesn’t like the A-10 and is locked in a battle with legislators over the attack plane’s future. But it certainly didn’t like Post making veiled threats. He made the comments during a January gathering of airmen at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

    • Dog Owners Threatened With $750,000 Fine Over Missing Dog Posters

      A D.C. dog owner did what anyone with a missing pet would do. He posted fliers — but then, he says, police threatened him with a $750,000 fine.

    • Access to justice a greater concern than free healthcare – poll

      The public is more concerned about access to justice than free healthcare, according to a poll commissioned by lawyers campaigning to reverse cuts to legal aid.

      The findings from a YouGov poll have been released as the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats vie to pledge more and more funding for the NHS.

    • Deputy who killed man after mistaking gun for Taser is an insurance exec who pays to play cop

      The reserve Tulsa County Sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot and killed a man last week when he thought he had pulled his Taser, is part of a group of wealthy donors who make large contributions to the department for the privilege of playing police officer.

      According to Tulsa World, Robert Bates, 73, who made the fatal mistake that cost a man his life, is a local insurance company executive who has donated multiple vehicles, weapons, and stun guns to the Sheriff’s Office since becoming a reserve deputy in 2008.

    • [Old] Shane Todd’s family says noose and towel used in U.S. engineer’s hanging death DESTROYED by police

      Police in Singapore destroyed two pieces of evidence tied to the death of Shane Todd, whose body was found in his apartment there in June 2012, according to the American engineer’s family.

      The 31-year-old’s parents, Rick and Mary Todd, have for months been demanding the Singapore government return the hand-made noose and towel around their son’s neck when his body was discovered by his girlfriend hanging from his bathroom door.

    • [Old] Experts: Engineer found dead didn’t write suicide notes

      Ever since the body of American engineer was found hanging in his Singapore apartment in June 2012, his mother Mary Todd has maintained that the five typewritten suicide notes found at the scene were not written by her son.

      “My son did not write those suicide notes,” Mary Todd has repeated to anyone who would listen.

    • [Old] Singapore gov’t destroyed evidence in US engineer’s death

      Two pieces of evidence central to the death of 31-year-old American engineer Shane Todd — whose body was found in his Singapore apartment in June, 2012 — have been destroyed by police on the island nation, according to an official letter sent to the Todd family lawyer earlier this month.

    • [Old] Shame In Singapore: If Edward Snowden Betrayed America, America Has Betrayed Shane Todd

      I can’t stop thinking about the strange circumstances surrounding the tragic death of a promising young American electric engineer in Singapore two years ago.

      His name was Shane Todd and his story is a cautionary tale for sanctimonious ideologues like Edward Snowden.

      Unlike Snowden, Todd defended America’s secrets and doing so may have cost him his life.

      While local authorities in Singapore claim that Shane committed suicide, his family is convinced he was murdered. For better or worse, so am I.

      Rather than recapitulating the circumstances surrounding Todd’s death, I would refer readers to an enormously compelling piece that appeared last year in the Financial Times about Todd’s death.

      Ironically, the only evidence I can add is taken from a classified diplomatic cable sent to the Central Intelligence Agency about seven years ago from a federal export controls official in China. The cable, which was made public by Wikileaks, reviews an application from a Chinese company for a license to export the technology that Shane had worked on in Singapore – a metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) epitaxial system for producing epitaxial materials like gallium nitride (GaN), a semiconductor circuit technology that offers disruptive capabilities in efficient microwave power generation.

    • [Old] Murder, international coverup alleged in new book

      “Mom, I might be paranoid, but I have the feeling that they are threatening my life if I don’t stay,” Shane said. “I am so naive. Coming to Singapore was the worst mistake of my life.”

      Just before his planned return to the United States, he was found hanged in his apartment. He already had a job lined up in the United States and had his family postpone celebrating Father’s Day and his brother’s birthday. He was going to be in a wedding in the summer.

      Rick and Mary Todd flew to Singapore, where they met with police. The official account of Shane’s apparent suicide soon unraveled.

    • [Old] 48 Hours: Did a son die protecting American secrets?

      The Singapore police told the Todds that Shane had hanged himself but, almost from the start, they did not believe it. Aside from having a new job, Shane had made summer plans with his brothers and had even asked his grandmother if he could use her car and apartment in the interim before he started his new job. He’d queried his future employer about the company policy regarding vacation time and publishing opportunities, Mary said.

      Even as Rick Todd staggered off the plane in Denver, devastated by the news of his son’s death, Mary and her sons already had hatched a plan to fly to Singapore immediately. There’s no doubt that the Todds had an advantage given that Rick flew for a major airline and the entire family had passports at the ready. Seemingly overnight, they were in Singapore asking pointed questions of police officials.

    • [Old] China, Hacking, And Murder
    • [Old] A Family Battles to Prove Their Son Died an American Hero in 48 HOURS: SPIES, LIES & SECRETS

      Peter Van Sant and 48 Hours return to a family’s quest to prove their son was murdered and did not commit suicide as officials in Singapore say, and they’re determined to clear his name in an updated edition of “Spies, Lies & Secrets,” to be rebroadcast Saturday, August 30 (10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

    • [Old] Did a son die protecting American secrets?
    • [Old] Hard Drive: An American engineer’s death in Singapore raised disturbing questions

      With the sheer determination of a mother on a mission, I made a beeline for Shane’s bathroom. As I looked into the bathroom, I was perplexed and shocked. Nothing I saw matched IO Khal’s description. “Oh my gosh, John, come quickly, you’ve got to see this,” I yelled.

      John ran to me and we both began to exclaim, “Where are the bolts, the ropes, and the pulleys? Why is the toilet not across from the door as Khal described it?” Perplexed, we ran our hands over the marble walls searching for holes that might have been patched, looking for anything that would back up what Khal had told us. Nothing!…

    • [Old] Hard Drive III: Shocking reason we were told Congressional investigation was unlikely

      A week and a half after we returned to Montana, we discovered through various media sources that Minister Shanmugam was still in Washington D.C. and was scheduled to meet with Senator Baucus, Secretary of State John Kerry, Attorney General Eric Holder, and various other government officials, including Arizona Senator John McCain.

      Prior to these meetings, USA Today cited Sen. Baucus, emphasizing that the SPF and Singaporean government “have been less than forthcoming” in the Shane Todd case and that evidence he had seen so far raised “very, very strong questions” and “deep concerns about national security.” …

    • [Old] Family investigates ‘whistleblower’ engineer’s mysterious death

      Mary Todd is coming to New York in her quest for justice.

      The mother of Dr. Shane Truman Todd, the American engineer found hanging in his Singapore apartment two years ago, has co-written a book, “Hard Drive: A Family’s Fight Against Three Countries,” with Shane’s cousin, Dr. Christina Villegas.

      The California women claim Shane was murdered and that authorities ruled his death a suicide for political reasons.

      “He had expressed fear for his life,” Villegas told me. “We don’t know who is responsible for his murder, but all three countries are guilty of destruction of evidence and the coverup.”

      Villegas, who is coming with Todd to New York on Sept. 5, said, “The US State Department is fully aiding the perversion of justice. As soon as John Kerry met with Singapore Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam, the FBI lost all interest in the case.”

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