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02.15.13

Obama Promises Patent Reform While Nominating a Software Patents Proponent for Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC)

Posted in Patents at 1:35 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Obama and Jobs

Summary: Corporations-funded presidency continues to promote more of the same (if not worse) while publicly pretending to care for citizens’ plea

THERE IS no genuine intention of changing the USPTO, but the people at the USPTO sure put together a nice show. They have a ’roundtable’ — one that excludes key stakeholders. This has become a familiar sight, whether it’s a panel, a webcast of a panel, a series of articles, etc. The people who actually innovate just barely count.

The other day we saw President Obama, the person who advocates CISPA with an executive order*, putting together a nice show (at Google Plus) to save face on matters of so-called ‘IP’ (the Obama administration is heavily funded by the copyright lobby). Here is some coverage we found:

• President Obama Admits That Patent Trolls Just Try To ‘Extort’ Money; Reform Needed

As we noted yesterday, President Obama is holding a “Fireside Hangout” via Google Plus today. In a bit of a surprise turn, he took a question about patents and patent reforms, with a specific question about software patents. And, his response was surprising. He admitted that there was a problem, and that there were some companies who were clearly not doing anything other than trying to “extort” money from others. Furthermore, while he pointed to the patent reform bill that passed in 2011, he also admitted that it really only went “halfway” towards reforming the patent system as far as it needed to go. If you click on the video, this takes place around 43:30 in the video.

• Obama: We’re only halfway there on patent reform

• Obama nominates one insider, one outsider for top patent court

President Barack Obama has nominated two longtime government attorneys to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), the nation’s top patent court. One of them, Raymond Chen, has been a lawyer at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) since 1998. The other, Todd Hughes, is more of a wildcard in the patent field. His background is doing commercial litigation at the Department of Justice, where he has been since 1994.

Chen has argued some of the key patent cases on behalf of the USPTO, including In re Bilksi, in which he more or less urged the Federal Circuit to dodge the issue of when computer and software-related inventions became too abstract to get patents.

That last report is telling. Coming from the man who claims to be all about transparency while criminalising and/or leading to deaths of whistleblowers (i.e. people who antagonise abuses), we ought to assume the above is keeping up appearances. Almost 5 years ago Obama said he would close Gitmo and recently, instead of closing Gitmo in an overly belated fashion, he shut down the group made responsible for shutting down Gitmo (articles already included in our daily links).

I am not a Republican and I don't dislike the US, but to be realistic here, the same president who boosts everything ‘IP’ should not be trusted when he merely makes promises. His track record is not good. █
___
*Adding to FISA, NDAA, torture, assassinations and other abuses of the Constitution from this constitutional lawyer.

USPTO’s Software Patents ‘Roundtable’ is Rigged

Posted in Patents at 1:04 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Hand idea

Summary: Debates about software patents in the United States are still not permitting particular views’ representation

THE USPTO does not really want change. But the public is increasingly dissatisfied with the USPTO’s function, so USPTO executives need to save face. Recently we warned that the USPTO’s so-called debate on the subject of software patents was paralysed by design; the central question was not whether such patents should be valid but what ‘quality’ they have.

Not too shockingly, based on one who was apparently a witess, the roundtable is somewhat of a sham:

At the USPTO’s #swpat roundtable. So far everyone agrees that patents should be high quality. OK. I also support motherhood and apple pie.

Here is what a lawyers’ site wrote about this recent roundtable:

Law360, New York (February 12, 2013, 5:14 PM ET) — The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office needs to more aggressively scrutinize software patent applications to ensure that it issues fewer broad, vague patents favored by so-called patent trolls, business leaders and computer programmers told the office at a forum Tuesday.

Gérald Sédrati-Dinet, a European activist against software patents, wrote:

Disclosing algorithms is good, but it is not THE solution…

The subject of software patents is quite hot in New Zealand at the moment and Dave Lane wrote about it as follows:

After stating support for #swpat exclusion, how does Minister Foss reconcile the fact that only the pro-patents lobby endorses his SOP120?

Here is the corresponding article about the “as such” loophole:

Has Craig Foss come good on software patents?

[...]

So there we have it: clear, emphatic assurances from the Minister in charge of the Patents Bill that following passage of the new law (as amended by Mr Foss), computer programs will no longer be patentable in New Zealand. Which is great, right? After all, isn’t this what New Zealand software developers have overwhelmingly demanded?

Well yes, but the problem is that Minister Foss’s latest assurances contradict his earlier comments that his “as such” amendment would create a legal “grey area“ and allow “hundreds of software patents” to continue to be granted in New Zealand. It also confirms that Minister Foss is squarely at odds with leading IP lawyers who have said that his “as such” amendment will allow software patents.

There seems to be no limit on the scope of patenting if lawyers and lawyers-turned-politicians call all the shots. Over in Australia, the steep decline continues in parallel to the US; the patent monopolies industrial complex spreads like cancer: [via]

More patents over human genetic material could be granted after a landmark ruling in the federal court in Sydney on Friday morning.

What a disaster. As we’ll show in the next post, the US is undergoing some kind of self-assessment/introspection when it comes to patents. That’s the sort of dynamics we need to strive for. Rigged roundtables won’t make a difference but perpetuate the status quo, so more people in the development community ought to get involved and become vocal. █

UEFI Disasters Are Microsoft’s Fault, Stop Blaming Linux or Samsung

Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, Kernel, Microsoft at 8:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Pointer

Pointing the finger at the real culprit

Summary: Spin regarding UEFI and complicity among some has been responsible for tarnishing the name of Microsoft’s competition (Linux), not just suppress or altogether block its adoption

Linux developers who are serving Microsoft’s agenda with UEFI restricted boot are typically former Novell staff. These are people who in the past too worked on Microsoft software, interjecting Microsoft agenda into Linux because Microsoft was paying Novell for it.

This damaging work is reinforcing the weird notion of “Windows 8 PCs”, as if hardware should no longer be software-agnostic, even on desktops. A more reasonable response would have been an antitrust complaint, not legitimisation of anti-competitive practices that brick hardware. A FOSS basher and occasional Microsoft booster writes about it as though it’s good news, leading others to parrot the official line that has Microsoft controlling the platform, containing the competition (Linux).

We should really be smarter about it. Once Microsoft controls Linux at boot time it can abuse Linux at will. Here is a memorable lesson from WordPerfect, which had to depend on Windows (needless to say, Windows clearly discriminated against WordPerfect). The trial still goes on and here is the latest:

It’s going to be David Boies himself speaking for Novell in the Novell v. Microsoft WordPerfect antitrust appeal before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

The basis of this antitrust trial is, Microsoft used its API control (similar to restricted boot control) to penalise and suppress WordPerfect. UEFI restricted boot enables similar abuse of power, so pundits who give their opinions about it should take into account Microsoft’s historical behaviour. Dr. Garrett too should be aware that his work is helping Microsoft, more recently generating coverage like this or this, blaming Samsung rather than Microsoft (which masterminded the whole thing) after it helped generate negative publicity for Linux, the kernel (later it turned out that Linux [can be] acquitted in Samsung laptop UEFI deaths). Sure, Samsung is Ballnux (Microsoft-taxed Linux) anyway, so it oughtn’t be endorsed, but with coverage like this we lose sight of the real culprit. Microsoft is guilty for shoving this nonsense down OEMs’ throats and the Linux Foundation’s endorsement for Microsoft’s tactics is in no way helpful. More fiascos are surely on their way and we must remember to blame the company which pushed for it, not those who failed to follow orders from Redmond. █

BBC Against the World Wide Web, Definitely Still for Microsoft Agenda

Posted in DRM, Microsoft at 8:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Microsoft BBC

Summary: The BBC promotes the same DRM push that Microsoft lobbied for so as to accommodate DRM in HTML5

DR. GLYN Moody may have been misled by copyleft spin, but he does pay attention to a shameful statement from the MSBBC (Microsoft BBC, as many managers there are from Microsoft UK) — a statement which supports Microsoft and its DRM alter-ego. To quote Moody:

That the companies behind this extraordinary idea of adding DRM to HTML – Google, Microsoft and Netflix – are more interested in their control than your freedom will come as no surprise; after all, they are profit-based concerns, and money talks. But the last organisation I would have expected – or, perhaps, hoped – to see adding its support to this fundamental perversion of the open Web would be dear old Auntie – the BBC. And yet here is a submission from last week where it does precisely that:

The BBC supports the publication of the first draft of the Encrypted Media Extensions Proposal.

The outragous thing is that British taxpayers are required — if not forced — to fund the BBC while the BBC deceives the public on behalf of megalomaniacs/plutocrats that bribe for it [1, 2, 3]. █

Shining Light on Microsoft Propaganda Against Copyleft

Posted in FUD, GPL, Microsoft at 8:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Glow

Summary: Copyleft licences such as the *GPL family are under attack and perpetrators against copyleft often have strong links to Microsoft

THERE are some companies out there whose main output is articles about how “expensive” it is to comply with copyleft licences. One such company, Protecode (see this latest press release), does not seem like it’s connected to Microsoft, unlike other such firms (headed by or founded by Microsoft veterans). It’s quite a new wave of FUD and it seems to be well coordinated. Bruce Perens calls the FUD "BS" although he appears not to even know about the Microsoft connections (he pointed this out in relation to OpenLogic, but not Black Duck, both of which have very strong Microsoft connections).

Recently, a member of the Asay family disseminated some copyleft FUD, receiving some resultant coverage (i.e. seeding the ideas) from unexpected people, including Glyn Moody. Here are some articles that I humbly do not recommend because they are hinged on the idea that copyleft FUD is in fact true:

  • More Attempts To Undermine FLOSS

    FLOSS is about Freedom, allowing the recipient of the software to examine the code, run it, modify it and to distribute it under the same terms. A move to put Free Software in the public domain undermines that. A monopolist can take public domain software, tweak it to be incompatible with Free Software that is in the public domain and use leverage to enslave users. Free Software needs copyright as a lingua franca for licensing so that no monopolist can hide the code and force millions into slavery. Public domain would be great if there were no evil people in the world trying to take advantage of people to complete their power-trip.

  • Why it’s time to stop using open source licences

    Of course, moving to PD wouldn’t mean that today’s free software licences disappear – they will still be there for those who wish to use them. As ever, choice and personal freedom are crucial. But I hope that people will think twice about introducing new licences, or even updating old ones. In particular, I hope that there will never be a GNU GPL version 4. Instead, we need to complete the revolution that Richard Stallman began nearly three decades ago by making free software truly free, placing it in the public domain, and severing the chains that still bind it to that three-hundred-year-old monopoly called copyright.

Black Duck, unlike Protecode, is connected to Microsoft, but that is not the main point. The main point is that selection bias in reporting and also in data gathering has helped manufacture that FUD which Microsoft so badly craved. We showed this about 4 years ago when Microsoft signed some deals that feed data bias. Moreover, it has served as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy since 2009, deterring developers from picking copyleft licences. The FSFE’s founder has already responded to Glyn Moody, saying to him the following things:

“Since all the “evidence” for that comes from neo-proprietary proponents, I remain sceptical. My experience tells me the opposite.” [Source]

“..the are the main beneficiaries of the “let’s not use Copyleft anymore” approach. No more CAs required.” [Source]

“but then: Apple also did not fare so badly with its “only take what’s not Copyleft” approach. And Google also is not a fan.” [Source]

“So I see a pattern here, and a marketing/image campaign by the primary beneficiaries of a move away from Copyleft.” [Source]

“”oddly”, I would say. ;) I think I saw this particular wave of spindoctoring peak after GPLv3 came out. What a coincidence.” [Source]

Some former Microsoft staff trying to exaggerate costs of “compliance” is not news. We wrote about OpenLogic almost half a decade ago. There is an agenda there. We need to expose those who are serving this agenda. More importantly, we need to spread awareness that this is happening. In some cases we see Microsoft funding academic staff to manufacture copyleft FUD, corrupting public trust in government-run institutions (Microsoft was also Obama’s #2 funder in the 2012 elections). █

Microsoft Partners IDC and Trustwave Spread GNU/Linux FUD

Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 7:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Building

Summary: IDC and Trustwave two of the latest spinmeisters whose ties to Microsoft are well documented

THE DAYS of mobile FUD from the Gartner Group may be behind us, but IDG publishes something for its offspring entity, IDC, and it sounds like the familiar spin from Gartner, which denies that Android uses Linux.

More interesting, however, is this bit about Red Hat patches. It comes from Trustwave, which is not naming its partners in the site but invites companies to join. The analysis of patching from Microsoft is typically flawed because Microsoft famously cheats and admits it. Many sources are complicit as they do not talk about it. It ought to be noted that Trustwave is a Microsoft friend. In recent months alone we see press releases like this and that. Recently, a former Microsoft employee also used the "malware"-themed smear against Android. We need to watch out for this kind of stuff. On many occasions before that we have highlighted cases of former Microsoft staff developing firms whose sole purpose is to produce Microsoft spin (through seemingly “independent” sources). Here is just one memorable example. █

02.14.13

Links 15/2/2013: PengPod Tablets Are Out, HelenOS Update

Posted in News Roundup at 9:36 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Palantir: An Open Source Development Success Story

    In late 2007 Palantir launched Gotham, a new geospatial and comprehensive analytics platform designed to meet the challenges of their vast array of customers. This article provides more information on Gotham that enables data integration, search and discovery, knowledge management, secure collaboration, and algorithmic analysis across a wide variety of data sources.

  • Kaltura Finds its Groove with Open Source Video Play
  • 5 Popular Open Source Test Management Tools
  • Robot Operating System heading to foundation

    ROS, the open source Robot Operating System created by Willow Garage, is now in the process of moving under the governance and ownership of the Open Source Robotics Foundation. The move comes after Willow Garage, which also manufactures the PR2 robot, announced it was pivoting into a “self-sustaining company” and looking for commercial opportunities.

  • HelenOS Micro-Kernel OS Still Marching On

    While not one of the most well known multi-server micro-kernel operating systems compared to GNU Hurd and others, HelenOS continues to move forward as a general purpose BSD-licensed operating system that dances to its own beat.

  • Events

    • Interview: Bob Reselman

      Tech documentation writer Bob Reselman will give a talk entitled “How to Make Technical Documentation Work in Your Organization” at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 24, in the LaJolla Room. The SCALE Team caught up with Bob for a brief interview.

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Chrome stops declaring Linux systems obsolete

        Badly chosen warning messages caused some consternation with Google recently as its Chrome browser began declaring supported Linux systems such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 obsolete. The problem was brought to public attention by Red Hat evangelist Jan Wildeboer in a Google+ posting when his browser announced “Google Chrome is no longer updating because your operating system is obsolete”.

    • Mozilla

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Databases

    • Database Integrity and Web Applications

      NoSQL, the catchall phrase for non-relational databases, is all the rage among Web developers. However, it’s somewhat unfair and unhelpful to use the term NoSQL to describe them, given the variety of technologies involved. Even so, there are some fundamental differences between traditional relational databases and their NoSQL counterparts. For one, as the name implies, NoSQL databases don’t use the standard SQL query language, and use either their own SQL-like language (for example, MongoDB) or an object-oriented API. Another difference is the lack of two-dimensional tables; whereas SQL databases operate solely with such tables, NoSQL databases eschew them in favor of name-value pairs or hash-like objects. And finally, NoSQL databases typically lack the features that led to the development of relational databases, namely transactions and data integrity.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Open source community heckles Oracle Linux update
    • LibreOffice 4.0 And The Power of Brands

      LibreOffice 4.0 was launched last week, and the news reports and activity on social media were massive, more than any release of LibreOffice or OpenOffice before, with better coverage than many of Microsoft’s well-funded introductions. There were numerous links sent around to the usual sites like LinuxToday.com, but also TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Time Magazine, etc. A fair amount of the chatter was people wondering what the difference is between the two versions. Some have basic questions like whether LibreOffice can import their OpenOffice documents.

    • Coming soon: Open source JavaFX for iOS, Android

      Oracle says it plans to open source the Android and iOS implementations of its JavaFX UI platform “over the next couple months,” which it says will allow Java developers to use the technology to write cross-platform smartphone apps for the first time.

    • Open source JavaFX coming for iOS and Android

  • CMS

  • Education

    • eScholar’s Mike Gargano: Nothing Can Stop Open Source

      “Even though the educational market is slow to adopt new things, I think it is inevitable that open source is going to work its way into education. There is no reason for the education field to stop it. There is really nothing wrong with it. People no longer see open source as a problem. I think as more people continue to use open source, it will work its way into the education field.”

  • Healthcare

    • ONC posts Connect 4.0 open source HIE tool

      Continuing to advance its health information exchange offerings, ONC posted Connect 4.0 on Monday and the latest iteration brings the HIE platform closer to a day when ONC might turn it over to the open source community.

      Connect is essentially gateway and adapter software designed, in conjunction with Direct and Exchange, to enable secure health information exchange.

  • Business

    • 6 Reasons to Pay for Open Source Software

      Last year, Red Hat announced that it plans to offer OpenStack on a subscription basis as a commercial, enterprise-grade product. OpenStack is an open source software project for building private and public clouds.

      Red Hat’s engineers contribute to the OpenStack project, and the company is an old-hand at productizing open source projects and offering them on a subscription basis. It is probably best known for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), a productized version of the open source Fedora Linux operating system, as well its JBoss Enterprise Middleware, based on JBoss community projects.

  • Project Releases

    • Chef 11 adds a serving of Erlang

      Opscode’s Chef, the open source, cloud-focused, configuration management framework, has received a major update in the recently announced Chef 11 and now sports a core API server written in Erlang. Erchef, as the new core API server is known, was created using the experiences Opscode had running its hosted Chef offerings. The company set out to make a server that was API-compatible with the Ruby version of the Chef server, but faster and more scalable. To that end, the developers have been working on API endpoints where they could get the most benefit from scaling and performance and have been deploying it with their private Chef customers. The Chef 11 release marks the point where the Erchef server is incorporated into Chef’s open source code base.

    • The Past, Present and Future of GIS: PostGIS 2.0 Is Here!
    • Slick 1.0 simplifies database access with Scala
    • Cairo 1.12.14 Fixes Various Issues
    • More Rails security fixes released

      The Ruby on Rails Developers have released updates to Rails 3.2, 3.1 and 2.3 and made users aware of an update to the JSON gem to close an important security flaw. Most notable of the problems is CVE-2013-0277, another problem with serialised attributes in YAML. The flaw, which only affects Rails 2.3 and 3.0, can be exploited so that a crafted request would deserialize arbitrary YAML inside the server with the risk of denial of service or remote code execution. The Rails developers have released a fix for Rails 2.3, 2.3.17, but there will be no fix for Rails 3.0 in line with maintenance policy. The advisory contains patches for various versions of Rails for use where users cannot upgrade easily.

    • Pidgin 2.10.7 Brings Numerous Fixes and Improvements

      Pidgin 2.10.7 has been released a few hours ago, February 13, and it brings numerous fixes, improvements, and a few new features, especially to MSN, Gadu-Gadu, MXit, Sametime, IRC and Yahoo! protocols.

  • Public Services/Government

    • City of Munich stands by its calculation: open source saves millions

      The City of Munich stands by its November 2012 cost estimates, which concluded that using free and open source software for desktops and office productivity for its 15,500 PCs is over 11 million euro cheaper, compared to the ubiquitous proprietary alternative. “There is no reason to correct this information”, the city’s IT department comments on 11 February to claims to the contrary.

    • Please explain prices: Parliament subpoenas Apple, Microsoft, Adobe

      Federal Parliament has issued documents formally compelling major technology vendors Apple, Microsoft and Adobe to compulsorily appear before its committee investigating price hikes on technology products sold in Australia, in a move that finally ends months of stalling by the vendors, who have proven unwilling to voluntary discuss their pricing strategies in public.

    • Bring openness to your local government with Code Across America

      Code Across America is scheduled for February 22-24. It will be a weekend of community building and moving the needle for more openness in local governments across the United States.

      Code Across America is a multi-day event that any municipality or community can join. Individuals and groups can participate through virtual and in-person activities around the country. The initiative is organized by Code for America and coincides with International Open Data Day on February 23.

    • Open Source Government & Engaged Citizens: Death Star Inspiration

  • Licensing

    • Creative Commons license liberates knowledge of ESIP community

      Erin Robinson, the Information and Virtual Community Director for the Foundation for Earth Science, the management arm of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (@ESIPFed), says that earth science matters to all of us. For example, when Hurrican Sandy devastated areas of the country, responders needed information on flood zones and what hospitals were available.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Why I Use Perl…and Will Continue to Do So

      It was alarming to read in the recent article The Rise and Fall of Languages in 2012 by Dr. Dobb’s editor, Andrew Binstock, that Perl was “continuing its long decline” and was in”an irretrievable tailspin,” based on statistics from Google searches. Nothing in the article discussed what was lacking feature-wise in the language that might be behind this decline. While I am not an authority on programming languages, I thought it was only appropriate to reflect on the strengths of Perl that I’ve relied on during my 14-year affair with the language.

    • Wine 1.6: This Year With These Interesting Features

      It’s going on two years since the release of PCC 1.0, but there hasn’t been any follow-on Portable C Compiler release nor is there much public-facing development activity happening.

      In writing recently about new GCC features, a new PathScale EKOPath compiler, and other compiler-related advancements, I was curious to see what was going on within the Portable C Compiler camp. I was also reminded of the compiler yesterday when seeing its being used within the HelenOS micro-kernel OS project.

    • Zend Server 6 puts Zend in DevOps movement

      Zend Enterprise, a company that has been among the main developers of PHP for many years, has released new versions of Zend Server and Zend Studio. New features in version 6 of Zend Server focus on handling the challenges that can arise in ensuring cooperation between developer teams and system operators.

      These new features position the company as a member of the DevOps movement, which aims to provide techniques and processes to improve communication, cooperation and integration between developers and system operators. These techniques are now more important than ever, as there is a trend towards companies having to release increasingly smaller changes more often and having to test their applications on an ongoing basis. To remain competitive, companies no longer focus on major annual releases, instead issuing updates and patches at short intervals.

Leftovers

  • Lawsuit: Student committed at St. Luke’s for 30 days after cursing at professor

    After cursing at a professor during a Spanish final, former Columbia-Juilliard student Oren Ungerleider was involuntarily committed to St. Luke’s Hospital and kept there against his will for 30 days, according to a lawsuit he filed against the University this month.

  • Security

    • When Security is Justice: Because the Bible Told Me So

      We humans constantly are telling ourselves stories about moral and immoral behavior. Many of the most memorable — if only because of repetition — are from the Bible. From them we learn about moral courage and cowardice, about wisdom and folly, about when to obey and when to rebel. And, of course, most Bible stories tell us to believe in God. But God — He/She/It — is so many things at once: God is Love, God is Nature, God is Truth. How can I believe in all these things at the same time? I’m more comfortable with each of those declarations about what God IS when the formula is reversed. For example, I prefer Nature is God. If that identifies me as a pagan, so be it. But the Bible stories still move me profoundly, especially when I try to apply them to the world around me.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • FAA seeks proposals to create 6 drone test sites
    • Obama: Americans need to know more about drone program
    • At Least We’re Not Measles: Rationalizing Drone Attacks Hits New Low
    • Giving president sole power to kill by drone is wrong
    • Drones of Death; Licensed to Kill With Apparent Impunity.
    • LIVE CHAT: THE ETHICS OF DRONE WARFARE
    • Hate Obama’s Drone War?
    • Would-Be Head of CIA Ready for War on All Fronts
    • Rand Paul threatens to hold nomination of CIA director over drone killings
    • Rand Paul Threatens To Block John Brennan’s CIA Nomination
    • Graphic: The Extraordinary Renditions – 54 Suspected Nations include Canada
    • Phuket: Panetta affirms ‘Tony Soprano’ as CIA boss
    • Unmanned killers: Details on drone strikes ‘incomplete’
    • PHC seeks details of collateral damage in drone attacks
    • Drone proponents promote blind faith in militarism

      In my years reporting on the intentional narrowing of political vernacular to guarantee specific outcomes, I have encountered no better example of Orwellian newspeak than that which now dominates the conversation about America’s drone war. Given that, it’s worth reviewing the situation because it is so illustrative of how militarist propaganda operates in the 21st century.

    • On The Execution of Christopher Dorner

      As we write, Christopher Dorner is most likely dying or dead, as the cabin in which he was trapped burns around him. A huge manhunt involving local, state and federal officials has culminated in what can only be described as an extrajudicial execution. We condemn Dorner’s murder at the hands of the state.

      People cheer Dorner because, whatever his motivations, he exposed the workings of a vicious white supremacist system that goes quietly unacknowledged most of the time. He declared war on a system that has waged an undeclared war on us, every day, for years; a system that holds millions of poor people and people of color in prisons, and guns them down in the street. He did what every young person of color in Los Angeles dreams of, when he or she comes home after getting fucked with by the cops, and starts a shootout on GTA V. He was celebrated for doing what many of us could not.

    • How Law Enforcement and Media Covered Up the Plan to Burn Christopher Dorner Alive

      At approximately 7 PM ET, I listened through a police scanner as San Bernardino Sheriffs gave the order to burn down the cabin where suspected murderer Christopher Dorner was allegedly hiding. Deputies were maneuvering a remote controlled demolition vehicle to the base of the cabin, using it to tear down the walls of the cabin where Dorner was hiding, and peering inside.

    • Israel assured Australia on prisoner’s rights, Carr says

      According to a statement on Wednesday from the Israel’s Justice Ministry, Ben Zygier’s Melbourne family was notified after he was detained. Zygier was reportedly known as ”prisoner X” in the high-security jail.

    • The Unending Gitmo Nightmare

      Conspicuously absent from Obama’s State of the Union was any mention of Guantanamo Bay or the 166 detainees still stuck there.

    • The ‘trust me’ administration
    • A READER’S WAR

      …C.I.A., and the Joint Special Operations Command have so far killed large numbers of people.

    • State of the Union Defends Targeted Killings

      The Senate and House armed services committees also receive briefings on drone strikes conducted by the U.S. military. However, the Senate foreign relations and House foreign affairs committees—who are supposed to provide oversight of all U.S. foreign policy—have repeatedly been refused general briefings about targeted killings by the White House, even though all relevant staffers have security clearances. As these committee members point out, it is impossible to exercise oversight over a country or region without insight into how the CIA or military conducts targeted killings. If President Obama wants to “continue to engage” with Congress, agreeing to hold closed-door briefings with these committees would be a good start.

    • Obama Still Clinging to 352,000 Afghan National Security Force Size Myth

      Before the outbreak of green on blue killings that eventually led to a significant interruption in the training of Afghan security forces last September, it was impossible to read a statement from the US military or NATO regarding future plans without encountering a reference to a required 352,000 force size for combined Afghan National Security Forces. It was our training of the ANSF that was touted as our primary reason for remaining in Afghanistan because we need those trained troops available to take over security responsibility as we withdraw. I have been insisting since the interruption that it will be impossible to continue to claim that a functional ANSF force size of 352,000 can be achieved, as the known high rate of attrition continued during the training interruption. No new troop size prediction has emerged, but it was significant to me that references to the 352,000 force size claim had seemed to disappear.

    • Obama’s State of the Union: Afghanistan Drawdown & the Covert Drone War

      President Barack Obama delivered his “State of the Union” address on Tuesday night. And though he suggested there may be minimal reductions to wartime spending, he jingoistically declared, “We will maintain the best military the world has ever known.”

      The speech renewed the US government’s commitment to a permanent war on terrorism. While it signaled the country would no longer be engaging in full-scale occupations or nation-building efforts while Obama was president, there was no indication that America’s dominance in the world would be reduced. America’s global military footprint of around 1,000 bases would be preserved.

    • New Al-Qaeda Generation May Be Deadliest One

      Despite Osama of bin Laden’s death, al-Qaeda has exploited the Arab Awakening to create is largest safe havens and operational bases in more than a decade across the Arab world. This may prove to be the most deadly al-Qaeda yet. And at the center of the new al-Qaeda remains the old al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri still hiding in Pakistan and still providing strategic direction to the global jihad.

    • The Iranians Are Coming – Aaaaargggh!

      The undertow of anti-Iranian fearmongering becomes stronger.

    • Kuwaiti report: Zygier took part in Mabhouh hit

      Western sources tell Kuwait’s Al-Jarida newspaper ‘Prisoner X’ took part in 2010 mission to kill top Hamas terrorist in Dubai. Attorney who met Zygier: There were no signs he was going to commit suicide

    • Congress Considers Special Drone Court; UN Investigates Deadly Drone Strikes

      During last week’s confirmation hearing for CIA director nominee John Brennan, senators discussed the establishment of a federal court with jurisdiction over the president’s death-by-drone program.

      As proposed by lawmakers, the so-called “drone court” would be tasked with approving the targeting (and, by extension, the assassination) of people on President Obama’s or the CIA’s respective kill lists.

    • Newsic Release: Think Humanity

      Siraj is currently rallying for a young man named Ziyad Yaghi who was taken away by U.S. authorities under the dreaded anti-American legislation known as the NDAA, or ‘National Defense Authorization Act’ which allows the United States to arbitrarily arrest and detain Americans without granting them due process, the NDAA is a torch hovering near our Constitution which guarantees protection from such diabolic actions.

    • The Appalling Sir Daniel Bethlehem

      Bethlehem first came to the attention of the general public as the man who advised the Israeli government that it was legal to build their “security” wall slicing through the West Bank and disrupting Palestinian communications and access to fields and water resources. Bethlehem was then the counsel to the Israeli government at the resulting case before the International Court of Justice.

      The International Court of Justice – along with the vast majority of reputable international lawyers – disagreed with Daniel Bethlehem, and Bethlehem and the Israeli government lost the case. The Israeli government however disregarded the court’s judgement and continued its illegal activity.

  • Cablegate

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • Waning Commitment to Government Transparency Evident in Obama’s ‘State of the Union’ Speeches

      In President Barack Obama’s first days as president, he pledged to have his administration create an “unprecedented level of openness in government.” His chief of staff, Jack Lew, has contended the administration is the “most transparent administration ever.” At a rally in 2010, he told the public, “We have put in place the toughest ethics laws and toughest transparency rules of any administration in history.”

      Despite the stated commitments and professions on transparency, the Sunlight Foundation found talk of “government integrity, transparency, and influence” was mostly absent in his “State of the Union” speech last night.

    • Are liberals being hypocrites about Obama’s wars?

      American liberalism has always been pro-intervention

    • The ACLU’s Pizza Video: 10 Years Later

      In 2004, the ACLU produced a satiric video called “Ordering Pizza in 2015” that has become the single most-downloaded piece of content we’ve ever produced (at least we believe in the absence of complete stats). I won’t describe it—you can watch it here if you haven’t seen it—but like many successful viral products, it combined humor with a biting commentary on an all-too-real set of trends. We got the idea from a humorous email someone sent us, and the voiceovers were performed by an entry-level ACLU staffer and a friend of our then-communications director.

    • As Obama Touts Pathway to Citizenship, Record Deportations Leave Undocumented Immigrants in Fear
    • NDAA resolution introduced in San Francisco, CA
    • More Guantanamo Hijinks: First Secret Censorship, Now Eavesdropping on Atty-Client Communications
    • Do You Live In The Constitution-Free Zone Of The US?

      Earlier this week, we wrote about the latest defense by Homeland Security of their laptop search policies that (they claim) give them broad coverage to search laptops within 100 miles of the border. The latest bit of news was that an internal review found that there was minimal benefits to one’s civil liberties in not searching their laptops, so it was okay (think about that sentence for a bit).

    • NDAA – A Young Man from Virginia Takes a Stand Against Autocracy in New York City
    • States Join the Fight to Nullify Indefinite Detention Under NDAA

      President Barack Obama signed the latest National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law on January 2, renewing the power to apprehend and detain Americans indefinitely granted in the previous year’s version.

      In order to protect their citizens from being grabbed and imprisoned under the provisions of the NDAA, many state lawmakers are standing up to the federal government, proposing resolutions nullifying this unconstitutional power at the state borders.

    • Words Don’t Matter, Actions Do

      In the not-too-distant future, Congress passes a draconian, UK-style ban on all weapons. Or, maybe the Senate does it through an international treaty. Or, instead of Congress, maybe the president follows in the footsteps of FDR, who whipped up an executive order requiring people to turn in their gold.

      The method wouldn’t really matter. The end result would easily be one of the greatest attacks on liberty in American history.

    • San Francisco Opposes Federal Indefinite Detention Law

      A resolution introduced Tuesday at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors stands in opposition to a federal defense law that many fear undermines constitutional rights by allowing the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without charge or trial.
      The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed by Congress in 2007 and renewed each year, contains provisions authorizing the U.S. military to indefinitely jail terrorist suspects and those aiding them.

    • Daniel Ellsberg: Obama committed ‘impeachable crimes’
    • Nonbinding Resolution Opposing Indefinite Detention Of Americans Introduced At Board Of Supes Meeting

      A resolution was introduced at today’s meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors opposing provisions of a federal law that allows the indefinite detention of American citizens on U.S. soil without due process.

      The National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, signed by President Barack Obama in January after its approval by Congress, includes provisions that would permit indefinite military detentions without trial.

      Board of Supervisors president David Chiu, who authored the resolution against the NDAA, joined a few dozen people who gathered for a rally about the legislation outside City Hall prior to this afternoon’s board meeting.

    • Obama Continues War On Our Civil Liberties

      President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address contained very few surprises in the realm of national security and merely marked the continuation of the Bush-era war on terror policies despite their extraordinary fiscal toll, even as the American economy faces incredible duress under the deficit and the threat of congressionally-imposed sequestration.

      Despite the fact that the U.S. spends almost as much on its military as every other country in the world combined, Obama stated that the cuts would “jeopardize our military readiness.” In fact, U.S. military spending has never been higher than in the post-9/11 era, which saw rises in spending greater than Vietnam and the entirety of the Cold War. Furthermore, the 31% in defense cuts would be less than the 43%, 36%, and 33% cuts that came with the end of the Korean, Cold, and Vietnam wars respectively. In this light, the defense sequestration cuts are perfectly reasonable, and indeed necessary to alleviate our country’s economic crisis.

    • Going too far?

      They voted for him, yet a growing number of American liberals are angry over President Barack Obama’s reliance on the use of drones and his support for the National Defense Authorization Act. They argue that the president’s embrace of these policies is even more extreme and conservative than that pursued by his predecessor, George W. Bush.

      “If Bush had done the same things as Obama, then more people would have been upset about it,” Daniel Ellsberg observed. “He is a Democrat, though, and to an extent can get away with it.”

      Ellsberg, who is famous (or notorious, depending on one’s political preferences) for having leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, is among the plaintiffs in a court case challenging the NDAA. He and others have accused the Obama administration of using the law to grant itself unconstitutional new powers.

    • Is Obama’s use of drones to kill Americans unconstitutional?

      The rationale behind the administration’s “assassination by drone” program sounds eerily reminiscent to former V.P. Dick Cheney’s “one-percent doctrine.”

    • If There’s a ‘War Against Boys,’ Why Are Men Still Winning?

      Sommers labels as “understandable but misguided” the attitude, “Isn’t it time for women and girls to enjoy the advantages?” A more pertinent question to ask Sommers, though, is what advantages are women enjoying that suggest boys deserve an extra boost?

      After all, women who work full-time still make only 81 percent of what men do. And women own only 36 percent as much wealth as men do.

      Only 4 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, as are 17 percent of directors on Fortune 500 boards. Women are 18 percent of U.S. representatives and 20 percent of U.S. senators.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Bizarre ‘Attribution’ Troll Bullies Twitter Users Into Compliance With Baseless Legal Threats

      This post deals with a strange copyright troll, which bullies people into properly attributing a quoted poem. The troll runs across multiple social media platforms but does a bulk of its “work” at Twitter, where it can receive instantaneous feedback. Along the way, we’ll deal with the poet himself, a company called On Press Inc. and some other connections which seem to indicate the poet himself is behind the trolling, along with a threatened lawsuit against me for copyright infringement, defamation and false claims.

    • Copyrights

      • Obama Administration Sides With Music Industry In Seeking To Uphold Draconian Award Against Minnesota Mother For Sharing Songs

        We have previously discussed how President Obama has repeatedly yielded to the “copyright hawks” who have steadily increased the penalties for copyright and trademark violations, including criminal penalties. Despite the abuse of average citizens by thuggish law firms and prosecutors, the Obama Administration continues to support draconian measures against citizens. Even after the abuse and death of Aaron Swartz by the Justice Department, the Obama Administration has decided to double down in a case of a young mother in Northern Minnesota who was hit with grotesque penalties for simply sharing 24 songs. She was told to pay $222,000 — over 100 times the actual damages for the songs. The Obama Administration has intervened before the Supreme Court to ask for it to allow the penalty to stand as lawful and correct.

      • Keep the pressure on the White House and US Copyright Office to fix anti-circumvention provisions

        When the Copyright Office announced its updated DMCA exemptions list, we were saddened to find that the office had abdicated its duty on multiple fronts. While that sad result was announced back in October, the downgraded exemptions list has just now come into effect. We need your voice in this fight.

Software Patents Debate Manipulated by Spin

Posted in Deception, Patents at 4:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Recent examples from the news show disparity between what patent lawyers are saying and what others have to say

Jon Potter believes that “Software patent trolls can be stopped by U.S. Patent Office and Congress” as he writes about mobile app developers (small businesses or even indie) who fall prey to software patents and trolls (which are seemingly a rising phenomenon). He says that “[w]hile app developers are angry with the trolls, they are also frustrated, rightly, with their government. The patent system was created to promote innovation and protect entrepreneurs. But in the trenches of the app development industry, people are intimidated and angered. App developers and entrepreneurs, the very people whom the patent system should protect, now consider software patents as inhibiting — rather than promoting — innovation.”

Another writer from the same area writes about expansion of USPTO regime to another place:

As the US Patent and Trademark Office prepares to open a Silicon Valley office, intellectual property stakeholders gathered at Stanford to tackle a big reason for USPTO’s enhanced regional presence: Software patents.

For shame. Google has been working against software patents recently. Over at Wired, yet another lawyer, Christal Sheppard, keeps the rigged ‘debate’ going. Those rigged debates almost always exclude the most important component: developers.

Patents are often misunderstood and badly explained by propagandists. In an article by Mike Masnick he says: “Despite plenty of research showing that patents do not, in fact, lead to increased innovation (but rather increased patenting), many still assume that there’s a direct linkage. Of course, it is true that many successful industries see high rates of patents, but there is evidence that patents tend to lag the actual innovation, rather than predate it. That is, once an area or industry is innovative and successful then everyone rushes in to get patents and try to extract their piece of the pie, often slowing down the pace of innovation.

“So it’s fairly disappointing that the Brookings Institution, which normally does pretty good work on these kinds of things has put out a study about patents and innovation, and appears to be confusing correlation and causation in saying that patents lead to innovation and even (more ridiculously) that areas that aren’t doing enough patenting need to beef up their patents to increase innovation:”

Dennis Crouch gives his 50 cents, but he too is a law person, who in his post “Of Smart Phone Wars and Software Patents” helps justify the spread of software patents:

Stuart Graham (USPTO’s Chief Economist) and Saurabh Vishnubhakat recently published an interesting short paper entitled Of Smart Phone Wars and Software Patents. The paper largely defends the USPTO’s examination of software patenting by showing that its approach in the software arts is essentially the same as in other fields.

The two charts below come from the article. The first shows the percentage of first office actions that are first-action allowances. This is calculated for each fiscal year as the (# of first action allowances) / (# of first actions). The second chart looks at the first “final” action in a case. For their study, a final action is either (1) a final rejection or (2) an allowance. And, the first final is whichever one of those came first.

So basically, for lawyers and by extension the legal sphere it is okay to have mobile patent wars. Apple is meanwhile retrying a ban of leading Android devices:

Apple has now filed a normal appeal, after being turned down for en banc review by the entire Federal Circuit, regarding Judge Lucy Koh’s refusal to order an injunction against Samsung in the first Apple v. Samsung case, no. 11-CV-1846. That’s the one where Apple got a jury to order a billion plus in damages. Although I doubt that figure will stand. Anyway, Apple wants an injunction too, and here’s the brief [PDF] asking for it. The order [PDF] it’s appealing is found here as text. And I’ll work on a text version for you of this appeal brief next.

A lawyers-run blog speaks of a mobile patents thicket and CAFC, another lawyers-run institute, may soon get to legitmise software patents again. Reuters articles about it [1, 2] say:

Lawyers squared off on Friday over U.S. rules for granting patents for software, or if software should be patented at all, in arguments in a case closely watched by Google Inc, Facebook Inc and other technology companies.

The lawyers’ sites, unlike some news site, have a bias which is expected. Even the press in New Zealand covered it as follows:

Lawyers have squared off over US rules for granting patents for software, or if software should be patented at all, in arguments in a case closely watched by Google, Facebook and other technology companies.

The full US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard arguments in the case, which involves whether patents for a computerised system for exchanging financial obligations are valid. The case has drawn wide interest because it could help determine parameters for software patent protection.

Disagreement was apparent among the 10 judges on the panel, and experts said they expected a divided decision, which could land the case before the US Supreme Court.

The lawyers, as expected, try to interject themselves into analysis of this news, vying to marginalise more proper news sites. Developers, sadly, are quiet, which leaves them vulnerable. █

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