Editors • About the Site • Comes vs. Microsoft • Using This Web Site • Site Archives • Credibility Index • OOXML • OpenDocument • Patents • Novell • News Digest • Site News • RSS

10.15.14

Links 15/10/2014: KDE Plasma 5.1 is Out, GOG Reaches 100-Title Mark

Posted in News Roundup at 5:13 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • 7 free tools every network needs

    From device discovery to visibility into systems, networks, and traffic flows, these free open source monitoring tools have you covered

  • Free Bassel Khartabil

    Apparently, working for a free and open Internet also caught the attention of the Syrian government, which sadly wasn’t as enamored with Bassel’s work as was Foreign Policy magazine. On March 15, 2012, Bassel was detained in a wave of arrests in the Mazzeh district of Damascus, Syria.

  • Proud Sponsors of the 2014 New Zealand Open Source Awards

    Catalyst are once again delighted to be the main organisers and Platinum sponsors of the awards. Don Christie, Director of Catalyst and the chair of the NZOSA judging panel states “As New Zealand’s and Australasia’s leading open source company Catalyst and our clients benefit hugely from the generosity of spirit that is represented by the open source software community. These awards are an acknowledgement of that spirit and one small way in which we can recognise and promote the open source software community in general.”

  • Women in Open Source award open for nominations
  • Five open source alternatives to popular web apps

    Remember when Sun Microsystems proclaimed that “the network is the computer”? Many people guffawed at that proclamation. What was once a clever slogan is now a reality thanks to the proliferation of web-based applications.

    Chances are you use more than a couple of web apps in your daily life—email, storage, office applications, and more. What’s great about web apps is that you can use them anywhere and with any computer or mobile device. On the other hand, with most of those apps you’re locked in a closed ecosystem. Or worse, you may be handing over the rights to your content and your files when you agree to the terms of service. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

  • Open source startup targeting DevOps-defined networking

    A software startup debuted this week proposing software-defined networking to Docker, the open source software for creating Linux application virtualization containers.

    SocketPlane was founded by former Cisco, Red Hat, HP, OpenDaylight and Dell officials. In the open source world, their names are well known: Madhu Venugopal, John Willis, Brent Salisbury and Dave Tucker.

  • SDN News: Flexible NEC Pricing, HP Cloud, Industry Predictions and More

    The above are just a sampling of this week’s SDN and NFV news, attesting to the industry interest in the emerging technologies, interest that was further evidenced by yesterday’s announcement from Dell’Oro Group that SDN datacenter sales will grow more than 65 percent this year. “With architectures ratified and production deployments under way, network security appliances and Ethernet switches will continue to comprise the majority of SDN’s impact, with SDN gaining a foothold outside of the major cloud providers,” the research firm said while hawking a for-sale report.

  • Setting the SDN Agenda

    So what are going to be the hot topics of debate this week? I’ve been here a day, sitting in on the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) workshop and chatting to a number of companies with a vested interest in SDN’s future success, and there are a number of debates likely to rage all week:

  • Events

    • Why Open Source is Replacing Open Standards

      “Companies are now as the norm using open source to shed comunity R&D, to do collective innovation, particularly at the infrastructure layer, for almost every aspect of technology, not just Linux – SDN, IOT, network functions virtualisation, cloud computing, etc. What you have seen as a result is this proliferation of organisations who facilitate that development, on a very large professional scale. That’s a permanent fixture of how the tech sector operates. We launch a new one of these about every 3 months. Next year we’ll have many many more of these type of projects.”

    • Open Networking Foundation Foresees Open-Source Software as Route to Network Standards in 2015

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Firefox 33 Has Been Officially Released. How To Install Firefox 33 On The Most Popular Linux Systems

        Also worth mentining, Firefox 33 comes with optimizations for session respore, JavaScript and HTML5 enhancements, search suggestions on either the Firefox Start (about:home) and new tab (about:newtab) pages, a new CSP (Content Security Policy) backend, support for connecting to HTTP proxy over HTTPS and new features for developers.

      • Firefox 33 gets released with Openh264

        Today Firefox 33 has been released, among it’s main features is OpenH264, an open source, Cisco provided solution for viewing H.264 content over webRTC. OpenH264 is a free H.264 codec plugin that Firefox downloads directly from Cisco. Cisco published the code to Github making it open source. Mozilla and Cisco have set up a process where the binary is verified to be built from the source on Github so that users trust the integrity of the binary that is shipped with the browser.

      • Firefox 33 Officially Released

        Mozilla has just released Firefox 33, the next iteration of the famous Internet browser. As it was to be expected, users will find an assortment of features and various changes that really make the update worthwhile.

      • Mozilla Releases Firefox 33.0 for Android, Linux, Mac, and Windows

        Mozilla has updated its Firefox browser for both mobile (Android) and desktop (Linux, Mac, Windows) platforms, bringing it to version 33.0. The update adds some new features to revamp the video streaming and viewing experience for users, apart from assorted bug fixes and performance improvements.

      • Send videos from Firefox for Android straight to your TV

        We make Firefox for Android to give you greater flexibility and control of your online life. We want you to be able to view your favorite Web content quickly and easily, no matter where you are. That’s why we’re giving you the option to send supported videos straight from the Web pages you visit in Firefox for Android to streaming-enabled TVs via connected devices like Roku and Chromecast.

      • Play Awesome Indie Games Directly in Firefox Including the Award-Winning FTL

        Today, we’re announcing a promotion with Humble Bundle, one of the real innovators in game distribution, that brings eight hugely popular Indie games including the award-winning FTL directly to Firefox users. This promotion only runs for two weeks, so jump straight into the action here!

      • Mozilla and Humble Bundle Launch Game Collection Than Runs in the Browser

        In a surprising move today, Mozilla and Humble Bundle have partnered up to provide a new collection of games, but with a twist. With the help of some new technologies, it’s now possible to play some of the new games just in the browser.

      • Play Cool Games in Firefox, and Name Your Price for Them

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • CMS

  • Healthcare

    • Liberia: The Impact of Open Source Software in the Fight Against Ebola in Liberia

      Over the years there have been several discussions and literature over the impact of open source software (OSS) on economic development. Countries, international organizations including the United Nations, the USAID, the British DFID, have all touted the benefits of open source software on economic development, especially on developing countries. Yet, in Liberia, the discourse has not been as ubiquitous and widely embraced as it has been in other countries or in the literature. While open source software has made some progress in permeating the Liberian society over the years (Mozilla Firefox, Apache Webserver, PHP, Java, MySQL), its impact has not been felt as much as it has been in recent times.

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • For Ada Lovelace Day, highlighting FSF sysadmin Lisa Maginnis

      Today is Ada Lovelace Day, when we share stories of women in technology and their achievements.

      The holiday is named after a 19th-century English mathematician who is considered by many to be the first programmer. Though generations passed before her contribution was fully acknowledged, she was a pioneer both as a scientist and as a challenger of rigid gender roles. For this Ada Lovelace Day, we’re profiling Lisa Maginnis, who is the FSF’s senior systems administrator.

      As the leader of the technical team, Lisa is responsible for choosing, configuring, and maintaining the FSF’s office computers and servers. She uses extensive knowledge of hardware, networking, and electrical engineering to maintain a complex array of all-free software. An alert system sends text messages to her OpenMoko if servers have problems, and she’s no stranger to urgent after-hours trips to the office to get something back online.

    • New Autoconf Archive mirror at available github.com

      There is now a brand-new mirror of the GNU Autoconf Archive’s Git repository available at https://github.com/peti/autoconf-archive that those who enjoy this sort of thing can use to submit patches to the Archive by means of a Pull Request instead of going through Savannah’s patch tracker.

    • OpenACC 2.0 With NVIDIA PTX/CUDA Support Is Closer For GCC

      For the past year Code Sourcery / Mentor Graphics has been working with NVIDIA to bring OpenACC 2.0 support to GCC and to allow for this heterogeneous parallel programming API to be taken advantage of with NVIDIA GPUs from GCC. This work is closer to finally being realized for allowing OpenACC programs to be compiled with GCC and target NVIDIA GPUs on Linux.

  • Public Services/Government

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Source Biotech: Fund Anti-Cancer Research and Make Drugs Cheaper at the Same Time

      This is a very cool crowdfunding campaign – you can help create a new cancer drug and at the same make it much cheaper. How? The researchers will not patent the drugs. Like polio vaccine, which was never patented, therefore it was widely available. Check out the website and the video. I loved it and made a donation of $50, because I find projects like this can change the existing paradigm in healthcare when the existing drugs are just deadly expensive. I encourage you to support the project and share it with your friends.

  • Programming

    • undertaker 1.6
    • Apple Might Be Divesting Its Stake In LLVM

      Some weeks ago on Twitter a follower had mentioned a rumor that Apple was forcing its compiler developers to focus less on general LLVM work and to basically spend their time on Apple’s new Swift project. While there’s been a general slowdown of direct Apple contributions to LLVM, there’s the latest sign today they might be divesting their interest somewhat in direct management of this open-source compiler infrastructure.

Leftovers

  • Polly Toynbee, Counter-Revolutionary

    I have never been a great fan of Russell Brand’s media persona, and for a revolutionary to be shacked up with Jemima Khan’s millions is perhaps some kind of extended exercise in post-modern irony as performance art. But Brand’s perception that the neo-con political parties are all the same is absolutely correct, and his is almost the only voice the media will broadcast saying it. When I have been saying precisely the same thing for a decade it is not news. News, apparently, lies not in what is said, but whether or not it is a celebrity who says it.

  • The Digital Ripple Effect

    We must acknowledge that with any evolution in communications technology, there are those seeking to corrupt, misuse and exploit channels for sinister purposes and nowhere is this more prevalent than the Web. Privacy, cyber terrorism, online security and data theft are wedged firmly into the social consciousness of many Europeans and their complexity can further deter those who lack even a basic understanding of the issues. But like any societal ill, there is a treatment.

    [...]

    The company behind the FireFox browser – whose guiding principles are the promotion of openness, innovation & opportunity on the Web – run a Webmaker programme, which provides tools, events and teaching guides designed to train the informed Web creators of tomorrow. However, a more powerful byproduct of this is the building of an online/offline community, based around the processes that increase participation, accountability and crucially, trust.

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • NRA’s Ted Nugent Calls For The “Evil Carcasses” Of Obama And Other Democrats In Gun Groups Pitch

      Ted Nugent called for “freedom” or the “evil carcasses” of President Obama and other progressive politicians in a Facebook post where he told followers to support the National Rifle Association and discredited gun advocate John Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center.

    • Somerset woman guilty on 2 of 3 federal charges for NSA drone protest

      A Somerset woman and two co-defendants were acquitted on one charge but convicted on two others, albeit with reduced penalties, related to a recent drone targeting protest outside the National Security Agency office at Ft. Meade, Maryland.

      Manijeh Saba of Franklin Township, and Ellen Barfield and Marilyn Carlisle, both of Baltimore, spoke openly in court for nearly three hours, showing photographic evidence of NSA drone targeting, naming names and mourning children killed by drones, and asserting their First Amendment rights and Nuremberg justifications.

    • Local peace activist jailed

      A local peace activist is spending 90 days in a Syracuse-area jail for protesting the country’s use of drone warfare.

      Jack Gilroy of Endwell was one of 31 people arrested during an act of civil disobedience outside of the Hancock Airbase near Syracuse in April of last year.

    • Expert: Military intervention not the answer for Middle East violence

      Foreign military intervention heightens problems in the Middle East, internationally recognized expert Rami Khouri said.

    • Killing for Peace

      Since 9-11-01, the United States, by any objective assessment a globe-girdling military empire, has been sucked into an ongoing global civil war between brutal extremists (often fighting among themselves) and those, including us, they perceive as their mortal enemies. We are rightfully outraged by cruel beheadings videotaped for Internet distribution. The beheaders and suicide bombers are equally outraged by our extensive military presence in their ancestral homelands and drone attacks upon weddings.

      Meanwhile, though the government of our mighty empire can read our emails and tap our telephones, the worldwide nonviolent movement to bring about positive change somehow flies completely under its supposedly all-seeing radar screens. The peoples of the earth are overwhelmingly against war, and they want their fair share of the earth’s resources and the possibilities of democratic governance.

    • The Madness of Endless War

      Our media narrows discourse and fans the flames by only allowing U.S. citizens to see through the narrow lens of exceptionalism, polarization and violence. Fear mongers, legion in our culture, insist that adherents of ISIS are hardly human. But we should keep their humanity in our hearts even as we abhor their acts, just as we ought to abhor our own descent into torture and extra-judicial killings. People do not do what those ISIS fighters do without having been rendered desperate and callous by some painful sense of injustice. As Auden wrote, “Those to whom evil is done/do evil in return.” The question for us is how we can best respond to evil without rationalizing our own evil behavior.

    • Killer drones, killer robots

      War is becoming faceless. Warfare in general is becoming increasingly automated. There is a race to develop weapons that can be used without human intervention. Killer drones and robots are such weapons.

    • Fighting extremism with extremism

      In his speech last month to the United Nations, President Obama summoned foreign leaders to join his “campaign against extremism.” While his clarion call was spurred by beheadings by the terrorist group the Islamic State, Mr. Obama has repeatedly invoked the “extremist” threat since taking office in 2009. However, the president’s own record makes it tricky for him to pirouette as the World Savior of Moderation.

      [...]

      Although Mr. Obama campaigned in 2008 criticizing the bellicosity of his predecessor, he has bombed seven nations since taking office. Mr. Obama justified pummeling Libya in 2011 so that that nation would not become “a new safe haven for extremists” — but there are far more violent terrorists there now than before the United States intervened. Mr. Obama has written himself a blank check to expand bombing in Iraq and Syria owing to extremist perils — even though the U.S. government previously covertly armed some of the same extremists it is now trying to destroy. The notion that the U.S. government is entitled to bomb foreign lands based solely on the president’s decree — regardless of congressional opposition — would have been considered extremist nonsense by earlier generations of Americans.

    • U.S. drones kill 8 in Pakistan’s tribal region as strikes surge

      At least 110 people have been killed in 16 American drone strikes in Pakistan so far this year, according to the Washington-based think tank New America Foundation, which has documented at least 2,174 deaths as a result of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. It includes at least at least 258 civilians, but the actual figure is thought to be higher.

    • Drone supporters, opponents gather outside air base on Saturday

      Members of local VFW 917 gathered once again to support the 107th Airlift Wing drone program at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station on Saturday.

      “It’s not just getting the program,”said Les Carpenter, retired Air Force. “When you get it, you have to support it.”

      He was joined by Army veterans Sgt. Major Vince Canosa, Bill McKewon, and Post Chaplain Eugene Ashley.

      “We come out once a month and then for beer and bologna sandwiches at the VFW,” Carpenter said.

      The members held signs at the station entrance: ISIS beheads with knives, we behead with tomahawks (in reference to the ballistic missile), Predators vs. Aliens, coming soon to a border near you, and KILL FOR PEACE.

    • America’s counter-terrorism lie: Waging war with secret rules, hypocrisy and worse

      Our latest bombings in the Middle East remind us of a scary truth: Here’s what the “war on terror” is really about

    • International Human Rights: -Dispelling the Myths

      There is now a growing international movement for developing an international convention on drones and similar technology.It is time that based on the evidence available we move the international system to start putting the brakes.

    • Pakistan says NATO helicopters violated its airspace

      Two gunship helicopters belonging to the NATO-led international coalition forces have violated the airspace of Pakistan, according to security officials.

      The officials quoted by local media agencies have said that the helicopters remained in the Pakistani territory for at least ten minutes.

    • Pakistan says NATO helicopters violated its airsprace
    • Pakistan, U.S. appear once again to be cooperating on drone strikes

      A series of CIA drone strikes launched last week against Taliban insurgents in Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas provide the clearest demonstration yet that the U.S. intelligence agency and Pakistani security forces are once again cooperating on defeating the insurgents.

    • Niger Is key to West Africa’s future security

      Following the lead of Ethiopia, Chad, and Djibouti, Niger has recently permitted the US and France to operate drones from an air base in its capitol, Niamey. The US military will also be establishing a second drone base in the northern desert city of Agadez, not far from the Algerian border. A major security partner of the US, Algeria’s security forces have already had success in scaling up surveillance and patrol along their border with Niger.

    • Obama’s War and the Limits of Reason

      In recent weeks, Obama has “reluctantly,” for the 7th time since taking office, begun bombing a predominantly Muslim country (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, and now Syria), testing, once again, the “limits of reason.” This begs the question: How far beyond such limits is our political-military elite willing to reach to initiate militarism in our name?

    • In the last days of ‘Operation Protective Edge’ Israel focused on its final goal — the destruction of Gaza’s professional class

      The spectacle of disproportionate force wielded against exclusively civilian targets in the heart of Gaza City had only begun.

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • CBS News Sacrifices All Journalistic Integrity To Be Pure PR For CBS PrimeTime TV?

      We’ve written a few times now about Walter O’Brien, the claimed inspiration for the CBS primetime TV show Scorpion. As our reporting has shown, a very large number of the claims about O’Brien’s life simply don’t check out when you look into the details, and in many cases appear to be flat out false. As we’ve said repeatedly — though people keep bringing this up — we don’t care at all about Hollywood folks exaggerating a “based on a true story” claim. What concerns us is (1) the journalistic integrity of those engaged in promoting the false claims about Walter O’Brien for the sake of a TV show and (2) the fact that O’Brien has been using this to promote his own business, which may lead people to giving money to him under questionable pretenses. Each time I write about him, more people who have known him in the past come out of the woodwork to repeat the same claims: nice enough guy, but always massively exaggerating nearly everything.

    • WSJ Vilifies Efforts To Increase Corporate Political Transparency As “Partisan Agitprop”

      The Wall Street Journal is dismissing efforts to convince corporations to be more transparent about their political contributions as “partisan agitprop,” despite the fact that the conservative justices of the Supreme Court reaffirmed the need for such transparency in 2010′s Citizens United decision.

    • Randa Redux: Federal Judge OK’s Dark Money Coordination in WI

      Wisconsin candidates can now coordinate with “dark money” nonprofits that accept secret, unlimited donations and run sham “issue ads,” under a ruling from the same federal judge who blocked the criminal coordination investigation into Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker earlier this year.

    • ISIS in Texas?! ABC Fails an Easy Factcheck

      The thing about factchecking is that the person making a claim actually has to have evidence that what they’re saying is true; if they can’t produce any, then there’s not much left to say. Honestly believing that something false is true, or a spokesperson insisting that a lawmaker stands by a claim, doesn’t actually matter. But ABC manages to cloud up an issue that should be crystal clear.

    • “Kill the Messenger’’ is the kind of movie that gives newspaper editors bad dreams

      The three most influential papers in the country at the time — the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and the Washington Post — apparently were embarrassed by critics who accused them of missing the story and reacted by devoting resources to essentially knock it down.

  • Censorship

    • How Australia’s New ‘Anti-Terror’ Censorship Law Could Cover Up Botched Intelligence Operations

      As we reported a few weeks ago, Australia has passed a dreadful “anti-terror” law that not only allows the authorities to monitor the entire Internet in that country with a single warrant, but also threatens 10 years of jail time for anyone who “recklessly” discloses information that relates to a “special intelligence operation.” But what exactly will that mean in practice? Elizabeth Oshea, writing in the Overland journal, has put together a great article fleshing things out.

    • The new ASIO laws: some examples to consider

      The parliament has passed legislation that permits the Attorney General to authorise certain activities of ASIO and affiliates as ‘special intelligence operations’. We can only assume that ASIO will seek such authorisation when its operatives plan to break the criminal or civil law – the whole point of authorising an operation as a special intelligence operation is that participants will be immune from the consequences of their unlawfulness. It will also be a criminal act to disclose information about these operations.

  • Privacy

    • Silk Road Judge Won’t Examine FBI’s Warrantless Server Hacking; Dismisses Suppression Motion On ‘Privacy Interest’ Technicality

      Judge Katherine Forrest has shot down Ross Ulbricht’s defense team’s motion to suppress evidence it claims was acquired illegally by the FBI. The FBI asserted in its response to the motion that Ulbricht had expressed no privacy interest in the alleged Silk Road servers located in Iceland. The FBI further claimed that it needed no legal permission (i.e., a warrant) to hack foreign servers during criminal investigations.

    • TTIP’s threat to our privacy and culture

      TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) is a trade agreement currently being negotiated behind closed doors between the United States and the European Union. The agreement is supposed to “increase trade and investment” but there are significant concerns around its potential negative impact on democracy, the rule of law, innovation, culture and privacy.

    • Press coverage from Don’t Spy On Us event
    • Anonabox bundles OpenWrt with Tor for anonymous Web browsing
    • Anonabox Promises Total Online Anonymity That’s Easy, Open Source, and Cheap

      Nobody likes giving up their privacy. But as much as we complain about it, relatively few of us are willing to put time, money, or effort into consistently protecting our privacy online. And it’s not like it’s that hard, relatively speaking: the Tor Project offers excellent, free software that lets you browse the Internet in complete anonymity, if you use it properly. With Tor, data you send over the Internet are encrypted and stripped of any identifying information (namely, your IP address) before reaching their destination. It’s one of the most reliable methods that you can use to protect your identity online. However, it does take some amount of experience to use, along with a conscious decision to choose security over convenience. If that sounds like too much work (and it sure sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?), the Anonabox could be exactly what you need.

    • Tiny $51 Tor router runs OpenWRT Linux

      A Kickstarter project called “Anonabox” offers a tiny Tor router for anonymous Internet use, running OpenWRT Linux on a MediaTek MT7620n WiFi chipset.

      The Anonabox is a “completely open source and open hardware” networking device that provides anonymous Internet access and encryption, says Chico, Calif.-based project leader August Germar on the Anonabox Kickstarter page. The device has already blasted past Germar’s $7,500 funding goal, which was intended to “help us move out of our garage, into full production.” With the $340,000 the Anonabox has garnered so far, Germar should be able to afford some nicer digs, indeed.

    • Edward Snowden’s girlfriend living with him in Moscow, film reveals

      She was still in Hawaii when news broke from Hong Kong that he was the whistleblower. Days earlier, authorities, suspicious about his prolonged absence from work, had visited their home.

      On her blog, subtitled, ‘Adventures of a world-travelling, pole-dancing superhero,’ she wrote that she felt “sick, exhausted and carrying the weight of the world”. Shortly afterwards, she took the blog down.

      The two appear to have been together since at least 2009, living part of the time near Baltimore before moving to Hawaii in 2012.

    • Silk Road Judge Won’t Examine FBI’s Warrantless Server Hacking; Dismisses Suppression Motion On ‘Privacy Interest’ Technicality
    • NSA Finally Releases Keith Alexander’s Financial Disclosure Documents; National Security Remains Uncompromised

      The CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence both complied. Keith Alexander, via the NSA’s refusal to turn over the documents, is the lone holdout.

    • Edward Snowden: It was worth it

      NSA leaker Edward Snowden on Saturday defended his disclosure of reams of classified information and said his actions were worth fleeing his seemingly idyllic life in Hawaii and ending up in hiding in Russia, where he was joined by his girlfriend in July.

    • After allegations that the service was hacked, Dropbox blames unrelated services

      News that Dropbox credentials had been obtained and leaked by an unknown attacker spread on Reddit yesterday, just days after Edward Snowden advised people to ditch Dropbox, Google and Facebook. Dropbox quickly reacted to the the allegations that it had lost the data and said that 3rd parties were responsible for losing the users data, unrelated to Dropbox.

    • Grooming Students for A Lifetime of Surveillance

      The same technologists who protest against the NSA’s metadata collection programs are the ones profiting the most from the widespread surveillance of students.

    • Privacy International files criminal complaint on behalf of Bahraini activists targeted by spyware FinFisher

      Privacy International today has made a criminal complaint to the National Cyber Crime Unit of the National Crime Agency, urging the immediate investigation of the unlawful surveillance of three Bahraini activists living in the UK by Bahraini authorities using the intrusive malware FinFisher supplied by British company Gamma.

    • Privacy International Files Criminal Complaint Against FinFisher Spyware Company

      Techdirt has been reporting on the disturbing rise in the use of malware by governments around the world to spy on citizens. One name that keeps cropping up in this context is the FinFisher suite of spyware products from the British company Gamma. Its code was discovered masquerading as a Malay-language version of Mozilla Firefox, and is now at the center of a complaint filed in the UK…

  • Civil Rights

    • Vladimir Putin is no saint, but G20 is a club full of sinners

      Among its least savoury members is a feudal state that regularly murders people. Saudi Arabia beheads individuals for the crime of sorcery, among other things. Don’t try to hold a church service there unless it’s of the approved variety – the Saudis officially go in for a medieval, hard-line interpretation of Islam. It’s the country that won’t even let women drive cars. Adultery? Compared with Saudi Arabia, Russia is a bastion of democracy, a beacon of equality, a paragon of human rights.

    • Being Malala

      Recipients of humanitarian awards often invite controversy. In Pakistan, religious and political identities are valued more than the contributions of such recipients. Malala Yousafzai may have the Nobel Peace Prize, but she remains the target of criticism from Pakistani conservatives and also many ‘progressives’.

    • Sanctifying Malala: The Nobel Prize and Moral Alibis

      Those getting it will always be marred by the contradictions any peace prize suggests. The greatest of all remains the fact that the dynamite guru – Alfred Nobel himself – did as much for the cause of war as he decided his profits would supposedly do for peace. Peace was a sentimental afterthought. Many winners of the prize have since kept this legacy alive: that of war maker turned peace maker; a fair share of hypocrisy, with a good share of feigned sincerity.

    • Missing Malala’s Message of Peace: Drones Fuel Terrorism

      On October 10, Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai–who received worldwide attention after being attacked by the Taliban for her advocacy for girls’ education–was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi. Yousafzai’s work on educational equity is well-known. But less well-known is what she said to Barack Obama about how his wars were undermining the fight against terrorism.

    • Nobel for Malala and Kailash

      Malala has not restricted her struggle to sending girls to school. She has stood up for children killed in drone attacks and has expressed her determination to get the prime ministers of India and Pakistan to sit together in dialogue. When meeting with President Obama, she spoke against war and militarization. Perhaps if the Nobel committee had awarded Malala for her anti-war spirit, it would have delivered a strong message to the war-torn world in keeping with the spirit of Sir Alfred Nobel.

    • The (Socialist) Malala Yousafzai the US Media Doesn’t Quote

      Now that Malala Yousafzai has won her hard-earned and well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize, she and her amazing, tragic story is back in the spotlight. Per usual, nevertheless, the corporate media has taken this positive development and exploited it, in the service of US imperialism.

    • The Malala you won’t hear about

      Ben Norton describes how U.S. news outlets have selectively reported only the aspects of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai they want you to see.

    • This Year’s Nobel Peace Prize Winners Are Radicals

      It has been suggested that the recipients of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize are “safe choices” because they advocate for the rights of children and for the fair and respectful treatment of girls and women. Advocacy for an end to child labor, for universal education, for strong trade unions, for economic justice and social democracy, and for an end to war and violence should not be controversial.

    • Nabila Rehman: The Other Girl Who Deserves a Nobel Prize

      Is the global world in oblivion when it comes to Nabila because her story puts a face to what we often call ‘war victims’? Are we too insensitive to see the consequences of war and refuse to acknowledge the fact that these civilians are not even given the basic right to live, forget everything else. “When I hear that they are going after people who have done wrong to America, then what have I done wrong to them? What did my grandmother do wrong to them? I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Nabeela in her testimony. Well, no one has bothered to answer that question.

    • The other Pakistani girl: Malala got the Nobel peace prize; here’s why Nabila won’t

      Last week, the Nobel Peace Prize committee announced two winners: Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai and India’s Kailash Satyarthi for their struggle for the rights of children. While for most Indians K Satyarthi’s name was a bit of a mystery, Malala was already a widely known international figure, her personal story documented on magazine covers around the world.

    • A tale of two Pakistani girls: Malala Yousafzai and Nabila Rehman

      We all know about Pakistan’s braveheart Malala Yousafzai — the girl who defied Taliban and stood up for education and rights of girls in war ridden Pakistan. Recently, Malala received Nobel Peace Prize for her bravery alongwith Kailash Satyarthi and her ‘AWorldAtSchool’ campaign has received record number of petitions. But, do we know about Nabila Rehman — the girl who lost her grandmother due to a drone attack while her sisters were injured. Her only question to US senators being, ‘What was our fault’ which was largely ignored by most of the politicians.

    • We can learn more from Malala Yousafzai’s youthful wisdom than Obama’s messages

      A year ago, Malala met President Obama, who is himself a Nobel Peace Prize winner from 2009, and in another act of boldness, she told him that his drone policy was fueling terrorism.

      “Instead of soldiers, send books. Instead of sending weapons, send pens,” she said.

    • Again the Peace Prize Not for Peace

      The Nobel Peace Prize is required by Alfred Nobel’s will, which created it, to go to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” The Nobel Committee insists on awarding the prize to either a leading maker of war or a person who has done some good work in an area other than peace.

    • Somalia: The security situation remains fragile

      Al-Shabaab militants, who only two years ago controlled a broad swathe of Somalia, have been retreating from more than 20,000 advancing AMISOM troops as well as Somali government soldiers, whom the German army is helping to train. In early September a US drone killed al-Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane.

    • Montreal spends $110,000 on private lawyers to fight challenge to anti-protest bylaw

      As the city of Montreal tightens its belt-buckle and is cutting budgets, two Montrealers who are challenging the city’s regulations around demonstrations are questioning the amount of resources the city is putting in to defend the bylaws.

      “It seems like there is room for austerity measures around everything except repression,” said Julien Villeneuve, better-known as Anarchopanda, in an interview.

    • NYPD Officer Takes Cash From Man During Stop-And-Frisk; Pepper Sprays Him When He Asks To Have It Returned

      Apparently it’s OK to take money from uncharged individuals during stop-and-frisks as long as it’s: a) not very much money, and b) it’s vouchered at the station.

      What went unaddressed was the officer’s use of pepper spray to shut up both Joye and his sister, who were both asking for the return of the money taken by Montemarano.

    • Video Shows Cop Stealing Man’s Money, Then Pepper Spraying Him

      An NYPD officer stands accused of stealing more than $1,000 in cash from a Brooklyn man during a police stop.

      In a video obtained by the New York Times, an unnamed officer forces 35-year-old Lamard Joye against a fence surrounding a Coney Island basketball court and removes what appears to be a handful of cash from Joye’s pocket at the six-second mark.

    • Secret Courts – A silent start

      There are 2 major issues with the existence of secret courts. Firstly, it removes one of the fundamental tenets of the right to a fair trial – that the trial be conducted in public. As recently as 2011 in a landmark hearing (Al Rawi) the Supreme Court of the UK upheld the principle of open justice. The removal of this openness means that the accused can either never hear evidence which helps to convict them, removing them of the ability to accurately refute that evidence; or alternatively it means that they too are restricted from talking about certain aspects of the trial in public meaning that even if found to be innocent, they have restrictions placed on their freedom of speech.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Street Demonstrations In 21 European Countries Held To Protest Against TAFTA/TTIP; Another ACTA Revolt Brewing?

      Last month, the European Commission refused to accept a request to allow an official EU-wide petition called a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) to take place. This was a curiously maladroit move by the Commission: it would have been easy to allow the petition against TAFTA/TTIP and CETA to proceed, thank the organizers once it was completed, file it away somewhere and then ignore it. Instead, by refusing to allow it to take place, the European Commission has highlighted in a dramatic manner the deeply undemocratic way in which so-called trade agreements are conducted.

    • Copyrights

      • Teen Pirates Pay For Movies More Often Than Non-Pirates

        A new study carried out in Australia has found that most 12-17 year-old teens are not online pirates, with around 74% abstaining from the habit. However, those that do consume illegally tend to buy, rent and visit the movies more often than their non-pirating counterparts.

      • Police Drop Charges Against Industrial-Scale ‘Pirate’

        A raid and subsequent arrest hailed by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit as one of their most significant yet has taken an unexpected twist. After being accused of masterminding an “industrial scale” sports streaming operation, a UK man has had all of the charges against him dropped.

      • City Of London Police Drove 200 Miles To Arrest And Jail ‘Industrial’ Level Pirate… Only To Have Case Fall Apart And All Charges Dropped

        We’ve certainly questioned the efforts by the City of London Police to set themselves up as the legacy entertainment industry’s private police force. Over the past year or so, the police operation (which, yes, represents just one square mile of London, but a square mile with lots of big important businesses), has demonstrated that it will be extremely aggressive, not in fighting criminal wrongdoing, but in protecting the private business interests of some legacy companies, often with little to no legal basis. It also appears that the City of London’s famed Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) is not particularly technology savvy, and seems to just accept what big record labels, movie studios and the like tell it.

      • European Court Of Justice To Consider Legal Ramifications Of Offering Open WiFi

        Lawyer Martin Husovec has a post detailing an important case that has been referred to the EU Court of Justice, which could have a tremendous impact on legal liability for those who offer open WiFi in the European Union.

Share this post: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Reddit
  • co.mments
  • DZone
  • email
  • Google Bookmarks
  • LinkedIn
  • NewsVine
  • Print
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
  • Facebook

If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

Pages that cross-reference this one

What Else is New

  1. Links 10/1/2017: Synfig 1.2, Kodachi Linux 3.7

    Links for the day

  2. With Help From the US Supreme Court (Key Cases), Patent Trolls Are Going Away

    The demise of patent trolls in the United States, a trend partly attributable to Alice and other Supreme Court decisions, will likely accelerate soon (later this year) as the future of the Eastern District of Texas courts is at stake

  3. Patent Maximalism on Display: Patent Aggressor IBM Celebrated in the Media

    The patent lust at IBM, which is suing if not just shaking down companies using software patents, earns plenty of puff pieces from the corporate media

  4. FFPE-EPO, the EPO Management's Pet/Yellow Union, Helps Union-Busting (Against SUEPO) in Letter to Notorious Vice-President

    In a letter to Elodie Bergot (as CC) and Željko Topić, who faces many criminal investigations, FFPE-EPO ringleaders reveal their allegiance not to EPO staff but to those who perpetually attack the staff

  5. Links 9/1/2017: Civilization VI Coming to GNU/Linux, digiKam 5.4.0 Released

    Links for the day

  6. Links 9/1/2017: Dell’s Latest XPS 13, GPD Pocket With GNU/Linux

    Links for the day

  7. Update on Patent Trolls and Their Enablers: IAM, Fortress, Inventergy, Nokia, MOSAID/Conversant, Microsoft, Intellectual Ventures, Faraday Future, A*STAR, GPNE, AlphaCap Ventures, and TC Heartland

    A potpourri of reports about some of the world’s worst patent trolls and their highly damaging enablers/facilitators, including Microsoft which claims that it “loves Linux” whilst attacking it with patents by proxy

  8. Mark Summerfield: “US Supreme Court Decision in Alice Looks to Have Eliminated About 75% of New Business Method Patents.”

    Some of the patent microcosm, or those who profit from the bureaucracy associated with patents, responds to claims made by Techrights (that software patents are a dying breed in the US)

  9. Eight Wireless Patents Have Just Been Invalidated Under Section 101 (Alice), But Don't Expect the Patent Microcosm to Cover This News

    Firms that are profiting from patents (without actually producing or inventing anything) want us to obsess over and think about the rare and few cases (some very old) where judges deny Alice and honour patents on software

  10. 2017: Latest Year That the Unitary Patent (UPC) is Still Stuck in a Limbo

    The issues associated with the UPC, especially in light of ongoing negotiations of Britain's exit from the EU, remain too big a barrier to any implementation this year (and probably future years too)

  11. Links 7/1/2017: Linux 4.9.1, Wine 2.0 RC4

    Links for the day

  12. India Keeps Rejecting Software Patents in Spite of Pressure From Large Foreign Multinationals

    India's resilience in the face of incredible pressure to allow software patents is essential for the success of India's growing software industry and more effort is needed to thwart corporate colonisation through patents in India itself

  13. Links 6/1/2017: Irssi 1.0.0, KaOS 2017.01 Released

    Links for the day

  14. Watchtroll a Fake News Site in Lobbying Mode and Attack Mode Against Those Who Don't Agree (Even PTAB and Judges)

    A look at some of the latest spin and the latest shaming courtesy of the patent microcosm, which behaves so poorly that one has to wonder if its objective is to alienate everyone

  15. The Productivity Commission Warns Against Patent Maximalism, Which is Where China (SIPO) is Heading Along With EPO

    In defiance of common sense and everything that public officials or academics keep saying (European, Australian, American), China's SIPO and Europe's EPO want us to believe that when it comes to patents it's "the more, the merrier"

  16. Technical Failure of the European Patent Office (EPO) a Growing Cause for Concern

    The problem associated with Battistelli's strategy of increasing so-called 'production' by granting in haste everything on the shelf is quickly being grasped by patent professionals (outside EPO), not just patent examiners (inside EPO)

  17. Links 5/1/2017: Inkscape 0.92, GNU Sed 4.3

    Links for the day

  18. Links 4/1/2017: Cutelyst 1.2.0 and Lumina 1.2 Desktop Released

    Links for the day

  19. Financial Giants Will Attempt to Dominate or Control Bitcoin, Blockchain and Other Disruptive Free Software Using Software Patents

    Free/Open Source software in the currency and trading world promised to emancipate us from the yoke of banking conglomerates, but a gold rush for software patents threatens to jeopardise any meaningful change or progress

  20. New Article From Heise Explains Erosion of Patent Quality at the European Patent Office (EPO)

    To nobody's surprise, the past half a decade saw accelerating demise in quality of European Patents (EPs) and it is the fault of Battistelli's notorious policies

  21. Insensitivity at the EPO’s Management – Part V: Suspension of Salary and Unfair Trials

    One of the lesser-publicised cases of EPO witch-hunting, wherein a member of staff is denied a salary "without any notification"

  22. Links 3/1/2017: Microsoft Imposing TPM2 on Linux, ASUS Bringing Out Android Phones

    Links for the day

  23. Links 2/1/2017: Neptune 4.5.3 Release, Netrunner Desktop 17.01 Released

    Links for the day

  24. Teaser: Corruption Indictments Brought Against Vice-President of the European Patent Office (EPO)

    New trouble for Željko Topić in Strasbourg, making it yet another EPO Vice-President who is on shaky grounds and paving the way to managerial collapse/avalanche at the EPO

  25. 365 Days Later, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas Remains Silent and Thus Complicit in EPO Abuses on German Soil

    The utter lack of participation, involvement or even intervention by German authorities serve to confirm that the government of Germany is very much complicit in the EPO's abuses, by refusing to do anything to stop them

  26. Battistelli's Idea of 'Independent' 'External' 'Social' 'Study' is Something to BUY From Notorious Firm PwC

    The sham which is the so-called 'social' 'study' as explained by the Central Staff Committee last year, well before the results came out

  27. Europe Should Listen to SMEs Regarding the UPC, as Battistelli, Team UPC and the Select Committee Lie About It

    Another example of UPC promotion from within the EPO (a committee dedicated to UPC promotion), in spite of everything we know about opposition to the UPC from small businesses (not the imaginary ones which Team UPC claims to speak 'on behalf' of)

  28. Video: French State Secretary for Digital Economy Speaks Out Against Benoît Battistelli at Battistelli's PR Event

    Uploaded by SUEPO earlier today was the above video, which shows how last year's party (actually 2015) was spoiled for Battistelli by the French State Secretary for Digital Economy, Axelle Lemaire, echoing the French government's concern about union busting etc. at the EPO (only to be rudely censored by Battistelli's 'media partner')

  29. When EPO Vice-President, Who Will Resign Soon, Made a Mockery of the EPO

    Leaked letter from Willy Minnoye/management to the people who are supposed to oversee EPO management

  30. No Separation of Powers or Justice at the EPO: Reign of Terror by Battistelli Explained in Letter to the Administrative Council

    In violation of international labour laws, Team Battistelli marches on and engages in a union-busting race against the clock, relying on immunity to keep this gravy train rolling before an inevitable crash

CoPilotCo

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

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

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

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

CoPilotCo

Recent Posts