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07.09.16

Links 9/7/2016: Skype Hype, Wine 1.9.14

Posted in News Roundup at 7:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Use Linux or Tor? The NSA might just be tracking you

    But it seems those intent on keeping pesky government agencies out of their online business may well be shooting themselves in the virtual foot.

    As documents related to the XKeyscore snooping program reveal, the US’s National Security Agency has started focusing its snooping efforts on Linux Journal readers, Tails Linux, and Tor users.

  • Desktop

  • Kernel Space

    • Happy Birthday! Linux turns 25

      Sometime in 2016 Linux will be 25 years old. Exactly when is a matter of opinion.

      We could consider Linux’s 25th birthday to be August 25th. That’s because on that date in 1991, Linus Torvalds made his announcement to the minix community to let them know that he was working on a modest new OS. He had started the work in April. By October 5th, he felt that his new OS was usable and ready for the community at large.

    • Graphics Stack

      • Radeon/AMDGPU Updates For The Linux 4.8 Kernel

        Alex Deucher has submitted the main feature pull request for DRM-Next of the Radeon and AMDGPU DRM driver changes for the next kernel cycle, Linux 4.8.

        Some will be sad though, the AMDGPU material for Linux 4.8 doesn’t contain the huge DAL display abstraction layer code that’s needed for bringing the open-source AMDGPU driver display capabilities more on par with the former closed-source driver stack and also necessary for supporting new features like FreeSync/Adaptive-Sync.

      • Wayland Founder Kristian Høgsberg Is The Latest Open-Source Developer Leaving Intel

        Sadly, another blow to report on with regard to Intel’s open-source efforts… Just days after reporting on Intel losing its chief Linux/open-source technologist, Dirk Hohndel, there’s another high profile departure in the open-source world.

      • Mesa 12.0 Released With OpenGL 4.3 Support, Intel Vulkan & Many Other Features

        While it’s coming late, the huge Mesa 12.0 release is now official! Mesa 12.0 is easily one of the biggest updates to this important open-source user-space OpenGL driver stack in quite some time and will offer much better support and features especially for Intel, Radeon, and NVIDIA open-source Linux desktop users/gamers.

      • Mesa 12.0.0 3D Graphics Library Released with Vulkan Driver for Intel Hardware

        Today, July 8, 2016, Collabora’s Emil Velikov has had the honor of announcing the release of the final Mesa 12.0.0 3D Graphics Library for all GNU/Linux operating systems.

      • Initial Open-Source GeForce GTX 1000 “Pascal” Nouveau Driver Support

        While there isn’t yet any 3D/hardware acceleration support, the first milestone of open-source bring-up for the latest-generation NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1000 “Pascal” graphics processors is now available for Nouveau.

        Nouveau DRM maintainer Ben Skeggs has managed to publish initial open-source, reverse-engineered graphics driver support for Pascal (GP100 series) GPUs. Ben Skeggs at Red Hat continues to do this without official documentation from NVIDIA Corp but rather just receiving hardware samples and the hard process of reverse engineering.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

  • Distributions

    • UBOS beta 7 makes running TLS-enabled web apps even easier on EC2, Raspberry Pi 3, others, with more apps
    • Linux Lite 3: The Ideal Platform for Old Hardware and New Users

      One of the greatest aspects of Linux is its flexibility—it can be whatever you need it to be. It can be a massive server for big data, a desktop for rendering video or editing audio. A graphic designer’s studio. An every-day, get things done machine.

      Or something in between.

      For every job, you’ll find a distribution. For every need, you’ll find a tool. For every piece of hardware, you’ll find a version of Linux ready to make it work for you. Whether you’re working working with big iron or a low-end, aging desktop or laptop…there’s a Linux for the job.

    • OpenSUSE/SUSE

      • openSUSE Tumbleweed Receives Mesa 12.0.0, LibreOffice 5.2 RC1 and PulseAudio 9.0

        openSUSE developer Dominique Leuenberger today, July 8, 2016, informed the openSUSE Tumbleweed community about the latest GNU/Linux technologies and software components that landed in the repositories.

      • Linux at 25, Windows Alternatives, Tumbleweed Latest

        Today in Linux news Sandra Henry-Stocker looked at how far Linux has come since its humble beginnings 25 years ago. Elsewhere, Lifehacker.com has four alternatives to Windows 10 and Matt Asay wrote that Red Hat is the only profitable Open Source company because they sell piece of mind rather than software. Tumbleweed is poised to accept recently released Plasma 5.7 and Slackware received two security updates this week.

      • openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the Week 2016/27

        Summer holiday is here (at least in the northern hemisphere) – and we can see a slightly reduced beat for new snapshots. I can ‘only’ report 3 instead of the usual 4 releases for this week (0701, 0703 and 0705), but the changes were still rather substantial. The slowness seems to be less an issue of package submissions as compared to OBS having trouble getting the stagings completely built. There seem to be a couple PowerPC workers missing.

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Debian 8.5 vs. Debian Testing Benchmarks – July 2016

        Here is the latest look at the performance of Debian GNU/Linux 8.5 vs. Debian Testing on the same system for showing how the performance is looking for Debian 9 “Stretch” ahead of its release next year.

        Originally I was planning to do a Debian GNU/Linux vs. GNU/kFreeBSD comparison too, but the Debian Testing GNU/kFreeBSD installer was yielding problems… So for this article is just a fun look at clean installs of Debian 8.5 versus the current Debian GNU/Linux testing on the same hardware and using each OS release out-of-the-box.

      • Debian’s DebConf 16 Ends This Weekend, Watch The Videos Online
      • twenty years of free software — part 11 concurrent-output
      • Managing container and environment state

        I was naively thinking that the way autopkgtest would work is that it would set the current working directory of the schroot call and the ensuing subprocess call would thus take place in that directory inside the schroot. That is not how it works. If you want to change directories inside the virtual server, you have to use cd. The same is true of, at least, environment variables, which have their own specific handling in the adt_testbed.Testbed methods but have to be passed as strings, and umask. I’m assuming this is because the direct methods with qemu images or LXC containers don’t work.

      • The End Of Ian Murdock

        Ian Murdock, the founder of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution of Free/Libre Open Source Software operating system and repository, died by suicide according to a medical examiner’s report.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Fancy an Ubuntu-powered rival to Apple’s Siri?

            If you have ever wanted an application like Apple’s Siri working on open-source software and hardware, you are in luck.

            Mycroft is just that: open-source software that functions exactly the same way as Siri does, but it is housed within its own hardware operating off of a Raspberry Pi 2 and Arduino. The best part, since it’s based on open-source software, is that it runs on Ubuntu’s Snappy Core.

          • Star Cloud PCG03U is a compact Ubuntu PC for $90

            Chinese device maker has been offering tiny Windows and Android computers for a few years, but the company first came to my attention back in 2012 when I learned that the Android-powered Mele A1000 TV box was also able to run Linux.

            This year the company started selling some products with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed, and the latest is the PCG03U, a compact computer/TV box with 2GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, an Intel Atom Bay Trail processor, and Ubuntu 14.04 Linux.

          • BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition Tablet Review: Remarkably Unsatisfying Review

            The only good reason to buy the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition is if you’ve been dying for an Ubuntu tablet and don’t want to install the operating system yourself. For $312, you’re getting an underpowered tablet with an operating system that you can install on a plethora of other devices for free.

            For $155, you can get the Acer Iconia One 10 running Android and install Ubuntu on it yourself (or, of course, use Android). It uses a similar, underpowered processor, but at least you’re getting a deal. Those who are interested in a viable desktop mode might want to consider the Microsoft Surface 3 while it’s still available. The $386 2-in-1 runs full Windows, works as a tablet and is roughly the same size, at 10.8 inches. You could even install Ubuntu if you’re so inclined.

            All things considered, almost anything is better than the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition. Between its weak CPU and a suite of apps that lack touch optimization, the company fell woefully short of the mark.

          • The days of 32-bit Linux appear to be numbered

            Should Linux distributions continue to issue 32-bit images any longer or phase them out over a year or two? This question was resurrected recently by Ubuntu developer Dimitri John Ledkov, with a cutoff date of October 2018 proposed.

            At that time, Ubuntu would have been around for 14 years and it is increasingly getting more and more bloated. The same goes for many other distributions.

            So, even if anyone wanted to run Ubuntu on an older machine, it would not be a good idea. Computing would have to be done at a rather glacial speed.

            The idea of dropping the 32-bit build was first raised on the Ubuntu mailing lists in February by Bryan Quigley. Several other distributions like Fedora and openSUSE have already dropped their 32-bit images.

          • Ubuntu Is Now the Preferred OS for Pivotal’s Cloud Foundry
          • Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) reaches End of Life on July 28 2016

            Ubuntu announced its 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) release almost 9 months ago, on October 22, 2015. As a non-LTS release, 15.10 has a 9-month month support cycle and, as such, the support period is now nearing its end and Ubuntu 15.10 will reach end of life on Thursday, July 28th. At that time, Ubuntu Security Notices will no longer include information or updated packages for Ubuntu 15.10.

          • 4 Best Alternatives For Windows 10 Users

            Ubuntu is world’s most popular free Operating System. It is Linux based and used very widely across the globe. Noticeably, many important government agencies across Europe and Asia use Ubuntu in their offices.

            The fact that Ubuntu gets a free upgrade every year and it comes with familiar apps like Firefox and Thunderbird along with free MS Office alternative called Libre Office makes it a very valuable alternative.

            Additionally, Ubuntu requires very fewer system resources enabling it to run quite well on older systems and are mostly free of viruses and malware.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon Review: They Did it Again!

              Linux Mint is one of the most popular (GNU/Linux) operating systems around, and according to Distrowatch.com‘s popularity ranking factor, for many years now Linux Mint has been on the top 3 most popular distributions (now it’s actually the number one!, surpassing Debian and Ubuntu. By the way, Fedora’s ranking is sinking fast, no surprise there though. Fedora is just a distribution for the coding elite of the GNU/Linux world and not for the average user, there I said it!). And there’s a good and a sensible reason for it (in my opinion anyway).

            • LXLE 16.04 “Eclectica” Distro Will Be Based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Beta Out Now

              It looks like the developers of the lightweight LXLE distribution are working hard on the next major update for the Lubuntu-based computer operating system, and they’ve just released the first Beta in the LXLE 16.04 series.

            • The Linux Setup – Cassidy James Blaede, elementary OS/System76

              Cassidy works for elementary OS AND System76, so he’s what those of us in the business call a double threat. I haven’t spent much time with elementary, so it’s nice to hear about someone using it for so much day-to-day work. It’s also nice to hear how good System76’s hardware is. It’s an important reminder for people looking to have Linux easily installed while also supporting the Linux economy.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • World’s smallest quad-core SBC starts at $8

      FriendlyARM launched an $8 open-spec, 40 x 40mm “NanoPi Neo” SBC that runs Ubuntu Core on a quad-core Allwinner H3. It’s Ethernet-ready, but headless.

      With the NanoPi Neo, FriendlyARM has released what appears to be the world’s smallest quad-core ARM based single-board computer, and one of the smallest ARM SBCs we’ve seen. This open spec, 40 x 40mm sibling to the $11, 69 × 48mm NanoPi M1 has the same 1.2GHz, quad-core, Cortex-A7 Allwinner H3 SoC with 600MHz Mali 400MP2 GPU, and the higher-end, $10 model has the same 512MB of DDR3 RAM. However, in order to slim down, the Neo sacrifices the HDMI port, the camera and CVBS interfaces, DC jack, and Raspberry Pi compatible expansion connector.

    • Phones

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open source effort gives indigenous language an official typeface

    Santali, an aboriginal South Asian language, has a brand new freely licensed font and set of cross-platform open source input tools on the way.

    More than 6.2 million people in four South Asian countries (India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan) speak Santali. In India, it is one of the 22 major languages as mentioned in the eighth schedule of the Indian constitution. However, Santali is not the official language in regions where it is largely spoken, nor is it widely taught in schools. A large segment of the native speakers are socially and economically disadvantaged, which doesn’t help either.

  • 6 Tips for Leveraging Open Source Technology

    To understand the impact that open source technology has made on the enterprise, one need only look to the numbers. With over 35 million GitHub repositories, 1,961,460 lines of code on Hadoop and over a thousand Apache Spark contributors, the open source ecosystem is home to some of the world’s most innovative and impressive tech collaborations. With some of the biggest names in tech leading the charge — Apple’s Swift programming language, IBM’s machine learning technology SystemML and Facebook’s Relay JavaScript framework were all made public in the past year — open source technology is set to change the way we process, stream and analyze data.

    In this slideshow, IBM VP of Big Data and Analytics on z, Dinesh Nirmal, and IBM VP of Offerings, Big Data and Analytics, Ritika Gunnar, outline several tips to help enterprises make the most of their open source strategy.

  • Google BigQuery Now Allows to Query All Open-Source Projects on GitHub

    A full snapshot of more than 2.8 million open source project hosted on GitHub is now available in Google’s BigQuery, Google and GitHub announced. This will make it possible to query almost 2 billion source files hosted on GitHub using SQL.

  • How to Easily Load Test With Open Source Tools

    If you’ve been here for the past few years, it would have been hard for you to miss the digital stampede from ticket-based processes to continuous delivery. But somehow, this transition has skipped over load-testing processes. This is probably because performance problems are hard to fix, as they are removed from the code.

  • 8 ways to get started in open source

    During his time recruiting young programmers on college campuses, one of the questions Chris Aniszczyk would hear a lot is, “How do I get involved in open source?”

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Google Is Working To Save Your Chrome Browser From Evil Quantum Computers

        Google has launched a new encryption algorithm in its Chrome web browser to fend off attacks launched by powerful quantum computers. Called the New Hope algorithm, this “post-quantum cryptography” is being tested in Chrome Canary builds to develop a stronger security algorithm within two years. The new encryption adds just 2KB of extra data that is sent in each direction when a new HTTPS connection is made.

  • SaaS/Back End

    • Architectural Considerations for Open-Source PaaS and Container Platforms

      Less than a year ago, Wikibon published a series of research focused on Structured and Unstructured platforms, with a focus on how these platforms were designed to help developers build cloud-native applications. The evolution of PaaS and Container platforms has significantly evolved over the past 9-12 months. While some platforms are still highly Structured, the growing trend has been for the previously Unstructured platforms to become more “composable” or even Structured. Wikibon defines “composable” as a packaged offering that leverages a set of modular open source projects, but is more tightly integrated as a set of services that accelerate developer productivity and application deployments. Composable platforms are becoming more “opinionated” in their architectural choices, but they still allow architects, developers and operators some amount of architectural flexibility that may not be present in Structured platforms.

    • Bridging Tech’s Diversity Gap

      Recently, the OpenStack Foundation conducted a survey to dig deeper into who was actually involved with its community. The results were quite shocking, showing that only 11 percent of the entire OpenStack population identify as women. Team leaders across the industry took notice, with many asking how they could improve diversity not only within their communities but their hiring practices.

    • 3 Cutting-Edge Frameworks on Apache Mesos

  • CMS

    • WordPress Stays Focused on Security, More Open Source CMS News

      WordPress upgraded to version 4.5.3 last month with a security release for all versions of the content management system. But it quickly discovered a number of vulnerabilities.

      A total of 17 bugs were found in the last three releases from this year, many of which allowed attackers to take over websites running on WordPress. And according to the latest estimates from BuiltWith, 48 percent of the top million websites globally run on WordPress. But popularity has a price: It is also one of the most hacked platforms.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Public Services/Government

    • Spanish Ciudad Real to switch to open source

      The city of Ciudad Real is to switch to using free and open source software. A resolution by the city’s Ganemos party to use open source for all of the city’s 400 PC workstations, got a majority of the votes in a meeting on 23 May. The city will begin with an inventory of the potential hurdles, according to press reports.

    • New site to promote proven open source ICT tools

      Adullact, the French organisation for public administrations using free software, has unveiled a new website, Comptoir du Libre.org, which aims to raise the interest of public administrations’ IT decision makers.

    • First iVIS services to launch in September

      iVIS provides an open ICT platform for a fully digital school administration. The software is developed and made available as open source, so anyone is free to use the code, adjust it, and build their own modules, applications and mobile apps on top of it.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

Leftovers

  • Farewell to Microsoft’s Sun Tzu: Thanks for all the cheese, Kevin Turner

    Kevin Turner’s departure as Microsoft’s chief salesman after 11 years marks the final passing of the Redmond old guard.

    Chief operating officer Turner – KT, as he was known – was a chief of the old-school corporate kind; sales, marketing and Microsoft’s stores all reported into Turner.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Liverpool: Mamadou Sakho has doping case dismissed by Uefa

      Liverpool and France defender Mamadou Sakho has had a doping case against him dismissed by Uefa.

      The 26-year-old served a provisional 30-day suspension after testing positive for a ‘fat burner’ in March.

      Sakho admitted taking the substance, but Uefa had to investigate whether it was actually prohibited.

      Its control, ethics and disciplinary body dismissed the case after a hearing including experts from World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited laboratories.

      “I am happy that this is finally over,” Sakho said. “It’s been a difficult time for me but I knew I had done nothing wrong.

  • Security

  • Defence/Aggression

    • My son died in vain. But at least the world now sees Blair’s moral guilt

      The Iraq war was a fiasco waged on the basis of scandalous lies. My son Tom, aged 20, died serving his country in this war. If I didn’t already know it before today, I know it now: Tom died in vain. He and his comrades died brutal deaths in a conflict that did not have to take place. Even now, I watch the reports from Iraq: 250 people blown up last weekend on the streets of Baghdad in this war without end. Is this what our soldiers fought for?

    • International Criminal Court Investigates Human Rights Abuses by British Forces in Iraq

      The long anticipated Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War released Wednesday contains stinging indictments of Britain’s role in the U.S.-led invasion, detailing failures starting with the exaggerated threat posed by Saddam Hussein through the disastrous lack of post-invasion planning. An element conspicuously missing from the report, however, are allegations of systemic abuse by British soldiers — accusations that are currently being considered by a domestic investigative body as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC).

      The claims center on alleged violations committed against Iraqis while held in detention by British soldiers between 2003 and 2008. Based on the receipt of a dossier outlining numerous incidents, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in 2014 reopened a preliminary examination into abuse allegations. The same examination, a step below an official investigation that could yield court cases at the Hague, had initially been closed in 2006 for lack of evidence.

      Presented to the court by the British firm Public Interest Lawyers and the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human rights, the January communication was followed up by a second batch of cases in September of 2015, submitted by PIL. By November of last year, the ICC reported that it had received 1,268 allegations of ill treatment and unlawful killings committed by British forces. Of 259 alleged killings, 47 were said to have occurred when Iraqis were in UK custody.

    • Take it from a whistleblower: Chilcot’s jigsaw puzzle is missing a few pieces

      Following the damning Chilcot report, much will be said about the decision to go to war in Iraq. But one thing will be missing: the information I leaked in the runup to the war. It won’t get an airing because I was never questioned or asked to participate in the Chilcot inquiry.

      Back in early 2003, Tony Blair was keen to secure UN backing for a resolution that would authorise the use of force against Iraq. I was a linguist and analyst at GCHQ when, on 31 Jan 2003, I, along with dozens of others in GCHQ, received an email from a senior official at the National Security Agency. It said the agency was “mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN security council (UNSC) members”, and that it wanted “the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises”.

      In other words, the US planned to use intercepted communications of the security council delegates. The focus of the “surge” was principally directed at the six swing nations then on the UNSC: Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan. The Chilcot report has eliminated any doubt that the goal of the war was regime change by military means. But that is what many people already suspected in 2003.

    • Iraqis Want You To Know The Names Of Baghdad’s ISIS Victims

      The enormous toll of Saturday’s bombing in Baghdad has stunned even the war-weary residents of the Iraqi capital.

      At the end of a bloody week of attacks in Lebanon, Turkey and Bangladesh, a car bomb ripped through a crowded shopping center in Baghdad, igniting an inferno that raged all weekend.

      After days of sifting through the ashes, Iraq’s health ministry announced Tuesday that 250 people were confirmed killed. It was the deadliest car bomb attack since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

      At first, Sajad Jiyad, an Iraqi analyst living in Baghdad, felt numb after the attack and had “an intense feeling of déjà vu,” he wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. “Relatives, friends or someone I know have been killed or injured in every year since 2003,” Jiyad says.

      On Sunday, Jiyad learned that his friend, Ahmed Dia, was among the burned bodies pulled out of the mall, and his grief over the attack became searingly personal. “He was going to achieve so much, he should not be dead,” Jiyad writes.

      Some Iraqi activists have expressed an intense frustration and dismay that the names and stories of victims like Dia are little known outside of Iraq.

    • The Baghdad Bombings, Islamic State and What America Still Hasn’t Learned

      The suicide bombings in Baghdad by Islamic State, timed for maximum violence, are only the latest reminders that the United States should not downplay the group.

      Since the wave of Islamic State suicide bombings in May – killing 522 people inside Baghdad, and 148 people inside Syria – American officials have downplayed the suicide bombing strategy as defensive. Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy in the fight against Islamic State, said the group “returned to suicide bombing” as the area under its control shrinks. The American strategy of focusing primarily on the “big picture” recapture of territory seems to push the suicide bombings to the side. “It’s their last card,” stated a compliant Iraqi spokesperson in response to the attacks.

    • A New Fight Over Syria War Strategy

      President Obama has signaled a willingness to join Russia in going after Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front in Syria, but neocons and other hawks are fighting the policy shift, reports Gareth Porter.

    • Are You Planning Your Retirement? Forget About It. You Won’t Survive To Experience It.

      At the recent St. Petersburg International Economic Conference, President Putin excoriated Western Journalists for endlessly repeating Washington’s lies that are driving the world to nuclear war. He asked Washington’s bought-and-paid-for-whores, the scum who comprise the Western news media: “How do you not understand that the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction toward nuclear war?”

      Yes, indeed, how is it possible for the Western media to be totally blind? The answer to this question is that Americans live in the system of lies that comprise The Matrix, and media are paid to support the system of lies. The determining questions are: Can Americans escape their captivity in time to save life on earth? Do Americans have what it takes, or are Americans already a proven failed people who cower in ignorance under the threat of implausible “foreign threats”?

    • NATO Marches Toward Destruction

      As the West’s elites growl about “Russian aggression” – as they once did about Iraq’s WMD – NATO leaders meet in Poland to plan a costly and dangerous new Cold War, while shunning the few voices of dissent, John V. Walsh warns.

    • Time to Rethink NATO

      Formed in the early years of the Cold War, 1949, with the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, UK, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France, by 1952 this post-WWII alliance included Greece and Turkey, and had rejected the Soviet Union’s request to join. In 1956, when West Germany was admitted to NATO membership, the USSR formed the Warsaw Pact in response and the Cold War was then on, full-blown. Missiles and nuclear weapons from each side pointed menacingly at each other, with the United States parking nuclear weapons in five NATO countries (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Turkey), where they remain to this day. NATO doctrine provides that nuclear weapons will be used if necessary, at will, on behalf of all its members.

    • Putin’s manoeuvres make man of peace Trudeau into warmonger against all his inclinations

      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made no secret his heart is set on taking Canadian soldiers to Africa, with perhaps a sideshow in Colombia.

      It is part of a grand strategy to burnish his reputation as a gentle agent of change, with the ultimate goal of winning Canada a temporary seat on the UN Security Council.

      That may not sound like much of an achievement — permanent members Washington, Beijing, Moscow, London and Paris all wield vetoes and shape global discourse on the council. But the seat in New York would be the crowning glory of Trudeau’s first term in office and proof Canada is back on the world stage — although the truth is Canada has not punched above its weight since a few years after the Second World War.

    • Navy: SEAL Chris Kyle never earned a 2nd Silver Star

      The Navy has concluded there is no evidence that famed Navy SEAL Chris Kyle received two of the valor awards he had claimed in his best-selling memoir, including a second Silver Star.

      In an unusual move, the service has re-issued the DD-214 discharge paperwork to support the medals that the late Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) Chris Kyle received during his 10-year Navy career, finding no records for two of six Bronze Stars with combat ‘V’ and the second Silver Star, two of which he had claimed in “American Sniper.” However, the renowned SEAL sniper had earned the Silver Star and four Bronze Stars, the review confirmed.

    • Hillary’s Responsibility for the Libyan Disaster

      I am going to share with you four devastating emails sent and received by Hillary Clinton on the subject of Libya. You can find these posted at Wikileaks. It is clear in reading these exchanges that, in the glow of the fall of Qaddafi, Hillary embraced the call to spike the football and clearly was planning to use Libya as evidence of her leadership and skill that qualified her to become President.

      The attack on our diplomats and CIA officers in Benghazi on 11 September 2012 however, destroyed that dream. The dream became a nightmare and Hillary has scrambled to pretend that she was not the mover and shaker that destabilized Libya and made it a safehaven for ISIS aka radical Islamists.

    • How the Dallas Police Used an Improvised Killer Robot to Take Down the Gunman

      Following the tragic deaths of five police officers in Dallas, Texas, during a rally for Alton Sterling and Philando Castile on Thursday night, the Dallas Police Department deployed a small robot designed to investigate and safely discharge explosives.

      Officers attached a bomb to the robot ad hoc style — detonating it and killing the sniper while keeping the investigators out of harm’s way.

      According to companies who manufacture bomb disposal robots interviewed by The Intercept — none were aware of their bots ever being turned into lethal weapons, though one company acknowledged the robots can be adapted to hold weapons.

    • EXCLUSIVE: ‘Both lights were clearly on’ – Witness rubbishes police claim that black man whose death was streamed on Facebook had busted taillight on his car when he was pulled over

      Video filmed in the aftermath of Philando Castile’s fatal shooting has revealed that his car’s two tail-lights appear to have been working – despite police saying he was stopped because one was busted.

      Gregory Ford, 42, took multiple videos of Castile’s Oldsmobile Aurora after he arrived on the scene in Falcon Heights, Minnesota within the hour of the fatal shooting taking place.

      He had been taking a ride on his motorcycle after finishing work and happened to drive up Larpenteur Avenue.

      He told Daily Mail Online: ‘I got there after they had taken him [Castile] away about 9.50pm. There were roughly five other people there with me.’ Castile, 32, later died of multiple

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • NSA Whistleblower: Clinton Emails Damaged U.S. National Security Much More than Manning, Assange Or Any Other Whistleblower

      FBI director Comey said today that Hillary Clinton running emails containing government information on an unsecured, private server was not as bad as former CIA director Petraeus sharing classified documents with his lover.

      But the highest-level NSA whistleblower in history, William Binney – the NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information, who served as the senior technical director within the agency, who managed six thousand NSA employees, the 36-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency and the NSA’s best-ever analyst and code-breaker, who mapped out the Soviet command-and-control structure before anyone else knew how, and so predicted Soviet invasions before they happened (“in the 1970s, he decrypted the Soviet Union’s command system, which provided the US and its allies with real-time surveillance of all Soviet troop movements and Russian atomic weapons”) – explains why Comey’s statement is nonsense.

      By way of background, recall that – when the American press reported that U.S. intelligence services tracked Bin Laden through his satellite phone – he stopping using that type of phone … so we could no longer easily track him.

    • Appeals Court Says Government Email Stored On Private Servers Is Still Subject To FOIA Requests

      A recent decision by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals may not directly reference the Hillary Clinton email fiasco, but the conclusion reached set off irony detectors all over as it arrived the same day FBI director James Comey announced that Clinton’s private email server may have been a stupid idea, but not a criminally stupid one.

      There were indications that Clinton’s use of a private email address was an attempt to route around FOIA requests. As her server was being set up, communications from both her staff and the State Department’s noted that an account in her name existed already, but would be subject to FOIA requests.

      This has been a problem elsewhere. Several government officials have conducted an inordinate amount of government business using private email accounts or personal devices in hopes of skirting public records requests. The DC Circuit Court’s case deals with a little-known government agency, but an all-too-familiar dodge by public officials.

  • Finance

    • The two Article 50 legal claims – the current details

      I believe the permanent injunction sought is so as to restrain the UK government from taking (or purporting to take) such a decision under the royal prerogative and/or making the notification under Article 50(2).

      The interim injunction sought is to have an order in place stopping the UK government taking (or purporting to take) a decision under the royal prerogative and/or making the notification under Article 50(2) until the High Court has dealt with the case.

    • Hundreds of Thousands Call on Leader Pelosi to Block the Undemocratic TPP

      EFF has joined with partners including MoveOn, CREDO, Daily Kos, and Demand Progress to call on Democratic Party Leader Nancy Pelosi to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) from going to a vote during the “lame duck” session of Congress following the November election.

      As we explained in a press conference yesterday, the TPP is simply bad for tech users and innovators: it exports the most onerous parts of U.S. copyright law and prevents the U.S. from improving them in the future, while failing to include the balancing provisions that work for users and innovators, such as fair use. Outside of these copyright provisions, it does nothing to safeguard the free and open Internet, by including phony provisions on net neutrality and encryption, trade secrets provisions that carry no exceptions for journalism or whistleblowing, and a simplistic ban on data localization that enabled the USTR to buy off big tech.

    • You thought TTIP was dead? With Brexit we’ll get the same thing, on steroids

      It was a fallacy that withdrawing from the EU would save us from the corporate power grab symbolised by TTIP. This week we’ve discovered that not only might another massive EU trade deal be imposed on us before we Brexit, but our whole trade strategy could be handed over to big finance, egged on by true believers in the free market within the Tory party.

    • After Brexit, Achieving Trade Justice For All

      We can and must build a radically different trade agenda that serves ordinary working people in the UK and the wider world.

    • Supreme Court Eliminates Political Corruption! (By Defining It Out of Existence)

      Three out of four Americans think government corruption is widespread. Donald Trump became the Republican nominee for president in part by claiming he couldn’t be bought. Bernie Sanders almost grabbed the Democratic nomination away from one of the most famous and powerful people on earth by decrying the influence of big money.

      Yet by overturning the bribery conviction of Bob McDonnell, the former governor of Virginia, the Supreme Court this week just extended its incredible run of decisions driven by the concern that America has too many restrictions on money in politics.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Two Days, Two Shootings, Two Sets Of Cops Making Recordings Disappear

      There are cameras everywhere. But when cops start shooting, it’s usually bullets and never footage. The first recordings that ever make their way to the public are those shot by bystanders. Anything else captured during a shooting remains under strict control of law enforcement… even when the recordings don’t belong to law enforcement.

    • Unconstitutional: The One Word That Describes Alabama’s Attempts to Block Abortion Access Statewide

      The ACLU is suing the state of Alabama in an effort to stop two unconstitutional abortion restrictions from taking effect.

      The Supreme Court’s decision last week in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt was a monumental victory for women.

      For years, extremist politicians around the country have done everything in their power to block a woman from obtaining an abortion, passing law after law designed to close down clinics or to shame, humiliate, and put barriers in the way of a woman trying to access reproductive healthcare services — more than 300 abortion restrictions since 2010 alone.

    • EFF Takes on The Eleventh HOPE

      EFF staffers will spread the online freedom message at 2600 Magazine’s biennial Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference from July 22 to July 24. The Eleventh HOPE will take place at the historic Hotel Pennsylvania in New York and host numerous presentations on such diverse topics as automobile software hacking, pervasive surveillance, the blockchain, and fostering community.

    • One Simple Change to the Law Could Make Prosecuting Killer Cops Easier

      Graphic video illustrating gruesome police killings of African-American men in Louisiana and Minnesota has set off promises of a federal investigation, at least in the former case, but many are skeptical that it will lead to any prosecutions.

      Police involved in even these high-profile cases of abuse have rarely faced successful indictments, let alone prosecutions.

      However, at the federal level, a simple change to the law would make it more likely that abusive cops face punishment for their behavior.

      Currently, police abuse is subject largely to one federal statute enacted in 1866: Title 18 U.S. Code, Section 242, which punishes anyone who “willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

    • Tweeted Photo Exposes Secret Islamophobic Plans of British PM Finalist

      The race to be the next leader of Britain’s ruling Conservative Party, and hence prime minister of the United Kingdom, was whittled down to two candidates on Thursday: Theresa May, the home secretary, and Andrea Leadsom, deputy energy minister.

      As the two lawmakers with the most support from their colleagues, they will now spend the next two months trying to win the votes of the party’s members, a tiny portion of the British electorate thought to number less than 150,000. (In comparison, more than 33.5 million people voted in last month’s referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union.)

      While May has been a high-profile member of the government for the past six years, Leadsom is a relative newcomer, who was first elected to Parliament in 2010 after a career in banking.

      However, some clues about the kind of campaign Leadsom might run appear to have been accidentally made public on Thursday by a supporter who was spotted on the London underground studying what looked like notes laying out her strategy.

    • Piecing Together Witness Accounts of the Dallas Attack

      In the immediate aftermath of the deadly attack on police officers at a protest march in Dallas that left at least five officers dead, social networks were flooded with witness accounts of what happened, in video clips and livestreams, photographs and text updates. The Intercept is assembling pieces of that mosaic here, starting with the accounts below, and will add more as we see them. Input from readers is welcome.

      [...]

      Before he died, according to the police chief: “The suspect said he was upset about Black Lives Matter. He said he was upset about the recent police shootings. The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”

      The gunman also told officers that he had left improvised explosive devices for them to find. Brown said. “The suspect stated that he was not affiliated with any groups,” the police chief added, “and he stated that he did this alone.”

    • Busted

      Tens of thousands of people every year are sent to jail based on the results of a $2 roadside drug test. Widespread evidence shows that these tests routinely produce false positives. Why are police departments and prosecutors still using them?

    • System Failures

      The Houston cases shed light on a disturbing possibility: that wrongful convictions are most often not isolated acts of misconduct by the authorities but systemic breakdowns — among judges and prosecutors, defense lawyers and crime labs.

    • Should A Court Allow A Case To Disappear Entirely Because The Person Regrets Filing It?

      We write about lots of nutty court cases around here, and semi-frequently, parties engaged in those lawsuits aren’t always happy about our coverage. Not too long ago, we received a series of emails and phone calls and more from an individual who was involved in some lawsuits that we covered. Without providing too many details at all, the individual in question made a pretty straightforward case that he or she absolutely regretted filing the lawsuits, and provided some additional information about why it had happened, while also noting that the Google searches on this person’s name were now linking to the few news stories that covered the lawsuit, including the court documents that we had posted. It was explained that these search results were making life difficult for this person who was trying to get his or her life back on track and believed that Google searches on the name were making it harder to find a job.

      The story was compelling, and we were asked to remove our post as well as the links to the documents, something that we won’t do. However, there was one intriguing bit to the communication, telling us that the court in question had “sealed the case” and asking us to respect that decision. That seemed odd to us. We’ve certainly seen filings sealed. And even some instances where almost all of the details in a docket were done under seal, but the case would still exist. Usually, though, those were cases involving at least a semi-plausible claim of national security. This was a case where someone just regretted filing questionable lawsuits (for a good reason). Even more amazing, after searching through PACER, it appeared that the judge in question did not just seal documents in the case, but made the entire case disappear. This happened for at least three cases. They do not exist in the court’s electronic records system at all. It is as if the cases never happened at all.

    • Governor says Philando Castile wouldn’t have been shot if he was white

      A suburban police officer likely wouldn’t have shot dead a black motorist if he had been white, Minnesota’s governor has said, joining the national debate in the US over how law enforcement treats black people.

    • Andrea Leadsom suggests she would make better PM as she has children

      Andrea Leadsom has suggested that she would be a better prime minister than her Conservative leadership contest rival Theresa May because she has children and May does not.

      In comments that were strongly denounced by some fellow Tories, Leadsom told the Times in an interview that being a mother was an advantage in the election because it showed that she had a “a very real stake” in the future of the country.

      Leadsom, an energy minister who has only emerged within the last week as a serious contender to replace David Cameron, said that she did not want to capitalise on May’s childlessness because to do so would be “really horrible”.

    • Muslims face fines up to £8,000 for wearing burkas in Switzerland

      A controversial Swiss law prohibiting Islamic dress has been used to fine a Muslim convert and a businessman, who protested the ban.

      The rule, which came into effect in Ticino on Friday, was voted in by referendum and outlaws face-covering headgear.

      Nora Illi and Rachid Nekkaz, who are prominent campaigners for the rights of Muslims, walked in the streets of Locarno in full Islamic dress soon after the rule was introduced.

    • Officials confirm Chelsea Manning has been hospitalized, lawyer says

      Lawyers for Chelsea Manning, the US soldier who covertly provided secret diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, are no longer in the dark about their client’s condition after several days of demanding information from military authorities on reports that Manning had been hospitalized.

      Manning, who is six years into a 35-year military prison sentence for revealing state secrets, alarmed her attorneys and outside contacts earlier this week when all contact stopped for at least 36 hours. The total loss of contact came on the heels of unconfirmed media reports that Manning had experienced a health crisis, and lawyers for the soldier railed against the defense department for keeping them in the dark while details of Manning’s medical status apparently leaked.

    • When victims of tragedy go off script, media struggles

      Anyone who’s ever gone to the movies is accustomed to watching characters’ instant reaction to tragedy: Tears. Hysteria. Rage.

      Diamond Reynolds wasn’t in a movie.

      In her Facebook Live posting, viewed by more than 5 million people, she is relatively calm, polite and clearheaded as she speaks into her cellphone seconds after her boyfriend, Philando Castile, had been shot and killed by a Falcon Heights police officer during a traffic stop.

      The lack of immediate emotion — the tears would come 10 minutes later while her 4-year-old daughter comforted her — set off a fiery debate on the media’s role in interpreting such an intimate, and unexpected, testimonial.

    • Philly PD Releases One Document About Its Fake Google Car: The Journalist’s Own Open Records Request Email

      Earlier this year, computer science professor and cryptography expert Matt Blaze happened across a Pennsylvania state-owned vehicle attempting to d/b/a a Google Street View… um, SUV. Taking that info, local reporter Dustin Slaughter dug deeper into the origins of that fake Google Street View vehicle.

    • State Supreme Court Says ‘Smashmouth Journo’ Teri Buhl Must Go To Jail For Posting Teen’s Journal Pages

      Journalist Terri Buhl — who gained a bit of Techdirt infamy by claiming her public tweets couldn’t be republished (which led to wild claims of copyright infringement and defamation) — is still dealing with some legal woes of her own, stemming from the posting of someone else’s actually private information to Facebook.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Comcast Continues To Claim It’s ‘Not Feasible’ To Offer Its Programming To Third-Party Cable Boxes

      We’ve been talking a lot about how the FCC is pushing a new plan that would force cable providers to provide their programming to third-party hardware vendors. The idea is to put an end to the $21 billion in annual rental fees consumers have to pay for often outdated cable boxes and create some competition in the cable box space, resulting in better, cheaper hardware for everyone. Given it’s a hugely profitable monopoly and third-party boxes would be more likely to direct users to competing services, the cable industry has shelled out big bucks for misleading editorials and high test Congressional whining.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

07.08.16

Links 8/7/2016: Kubernetes 1.3, New Linux Foundation Events

Posted in News Roundup at 4:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Releasing our own source code, Free as in Freedom

    Today we release all of our own source code as Free/Open Source Software.

  • Wise Awards 2016: Why we need more women in open source
  • Tsuru open source PaaS puts developers first

    A new open source PaaS, Tsuru, is out to ease the application deployment process by reducing it to little more than a Git push command.

    The workflow for Tsuru, according to its documentation, consists of writing an app, backing it with resources like databases or caching, and deploying it to production with Git. Tsuru handles the rest, including crating up the apps in Docker containers and managing their workloads. Its creators claim it can be deployed both locally and on services like AWS, DigitalOcean, or Apache CloudStack.

  • Mouser Now Stocking the Hexiwear Open Source IoT Platform from MikroElektronika and NXP

    Mouser Electronics, Inc. is now offering Hexiwear wearable platform products from MikroElektronika. Completely open source and developed in partnership with NXP, the Hexiwear device incorporates a low-power NXP Kinetis K64 microcontroller, Bluetooth® low energy (BLE) and wireless connectivity, and six onboard sensors into a compact wearable form factor for developers who need a complete Internet of Things (IoT) toolkit. With Hexiwear’s low-power yet versatile hardware, compatible smartphone and iOS apps, and cloud connectivity, developers can prototype and build devices such as cloud-connected edge nodes, wearable devices, or complex controllers for industrial IoT applications.

  • A Discussion on Contributing to Open Source

    Are you wondering how to get involved in an open source project? Maybe this episode from the Mondern Web podcast will give you some ideas.

  • Events

    • GIMP at Texas LinuxFest

      I’ll be at Texas LinuxFest in Austin, Texas this weekend. Friday, July 8 is the big day for open source imaging: first a morning Photo Walk led by Pat David, from 9-11, after which Pat, an active GIMP contributor and the driving force behind the PIXLS.US website and discussion forums, gives a talk on “Open Source Photography Tools”. Then after lunch I’ll give a GIMP tutorial. We may also have a Graphics Hackathon/Q&A session to discuss all the open-source graphics tools in the last slot of the day, but that part is still tentative. I’m hoping we can get some good discussion especially among the people who go on the photo walk.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Tor Privacy settings coming to Firefox

        Mozilla works on uplifting privacy settings of the Tor browser project to the Firefox web browser to provide privacy conscious users with additional privacy-related options.

        While the Tor browser is based on Firefox ESR, it is modified with additional privacy and security settings to protect users of the browser while using the program.

      • Announcing Rust 1.10

        The Rust team is happy to announce the latest version of Rust, 1.10. Rust is a systems programming language focused on safety, speed, and concurrency.

      • Rust 1.10 Programming Language Update

        Version 1.10 of the Rust programming language is now available.

        Rust 1.10 brings the -C panic=abort flag as their most-requested feature for yielding 10% smaller binaries and about 10% faster compilation time. Rust 1.10 also brings the new cdylib crate type for compiling Rust as a dynamic library to be embedded in another language. Rust 1.10 also has build system changes to allow it to be built with Rust 1.9 and that trend will continue to be supported for future releases.

      • Buyer beware: Mozilla deal demands up to $1 billion after Yahoo’s sale, Recode says

        According to a contract seen by Recode, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer struck a deal with Mozilla in 2014 specifying annual payments of $375 million to the browser creator in exchange for Yahoo’s search engine appearing in the default position on Firefox. That $375 million price tag will be paid out every year until 2019 one way or another—even if Mozilla doesn’t like the company that buys Yahoo and decides to walk away.

        Of course, if Mozilla decides it likes whichever company buys the embattled search giant, then payments continue as before and the new owner of Yahoo’s search engine retains the default position on the browser.

      • Under Mayer deal, Mozilla could walk away and still get more than $1 billion if it doesn’t like Yahoo’s buyer

        Under terms of a contract that has been seen by Recode, whoever acquires Yahoo might have to pay Mozilla annual payments of $375 million through 2019 if it does not think the buyer is one it wants to work with and walks away.

      • Mozilla’s Context Graph Reimagines Browsing Experiences

        Mozilla has a way of popping up with unexpected projects that it opens up for community development, and it has now unveiled a project called the Context Graph. The effort is focused on the answer to this question: “What if web browsers were immediately useful instead of demanding input when you launched them?”

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • CMS

  • Healthcare

    • Push to promote open source software in healthcare

      Belgian, British and German advocates of open source in healthcare want to join efforts, hoping to raise interest, and to strengthen the network of software healthcare specialists. A conference is tentatively being planned in London (UK) early next year.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • gdbm Switch to Git
    • Friday Free Software Directory IRC meetup: July 8th

      Join the FSF and friends Friday, July 8th, from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory.

      Participate in supporting the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on freenode.

      Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

  • Public Services/Government

    • France’s Inria unveils open source preservation project

      France’s national computer science institute, Inria, has unveiled its Software Heritage archive. The project aims to “collect, organise, preserve, and make accessible all the source code for all available software”.

    • Bulgaria passes law requiring all government-developed software to be open source

      Bulgaria has signed into law a new rule that will require all software developed for, and used by, the government to be open source.

      Bozhidar Bozhanov, a software engineer who has been advising the deputy prime minister, blogged that the Electronic Governance Act has been amended to state that “all software written for the government [is] to be open source and developed as such in a public repository”.

      Bozhanov continued: “That does not mean that the whole country is moving to Linux and LibreOffice, neither does it mean the government demands that Microsoft and Oracle give the source to their products.

    • Bulgarian Government Embraces Open Source

      Bulgaria’s Parliament recently passed legislation mandating open source software to bolster security, as well as to increase competition with commercially coded software.

      Amendments to the Electronic Governance Act require that all software written for the government be Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)-compliant. The new provisions reportedly took effect this week.

      Software developer Bozhidar Bozhanov, advisor to one of Bulgaria’s four deputy prime ministers, orchestrated the new law.

    • The ‘Bad Guys’ Have An Advantage In Bulgaria’s New Open Source Government

      This move is supposed to improve government transparency, give citizens a tangible return on their tax dollars, and improve the quality and security of sometimes-shoddy bespoke government software. The law was seen as a win by advocates of open source software, but it also means Bulgaria must face the double edge of open sourcing.

    • New European contest to promote IT reuse

      The European Commission will reward software and services that have been proven to be shared and reused in the public sector and which have a potential for wider reuse in Europe.

    • Italy to stop emphasising open ICT architecture

      The government of Italy will stop highlighting the importance of an open, interoperable ICT architecture. The government will no longer require the Agency for the Digitalisation of the Public Sector (Agenzia per l’Italia Digitale, AGID) to assess public administration’s ICT plans, and is also scrapping publication and maintenance of a list of open ICT standards that are to be used by public administrations.

  • Programming/Development

    • [Pulp] Sprint Demo 4 — July 7, 2016
    • 10 Biggest Mistakes in Using Static Analysis

      Static analysis was introduced to the software engineering process for many important reasons. Developers use static analysis tools as part of the development and component testing process. The key aspect of static analysis is that the code (or another artifact) is not executed or run, but the tool itself is executed, and the input data to the tool provides us with the source code we are interested in. Static analysis started with compilers and derived technologies that are well established in the software development world. Each technology applicable for static analysis can choose between several alternatives, set up its own rules, and benefit from using them. What is most surprising to me is that even with a huge set of tools and possibilities, static analysis is not properly used and disregarded in most projects.

    • LiveCode Ltd.’s LiveCode

      The new features in LiveCode 8 are intended to empower a new audience of app makers. Some of these include nine pre-made widgets, 46 new extensions, the all new LiveCode Builder language, a 3.5x performance boost, Script Only stacks for better version control and working in teams, LiveCode for HTML5 and a new Feature Exchange for community funding of new features, among others.

Leftovers

  • Two YouTubers About To Learn That Trust Is A Valuable Commodity That You Can Only Lose Once

    While we’ve had some reservations in the past about the FTC’s guidelines on endorsements and testimonials in the online arena, our concerns have tended to be about the grey areas of the law. The way that reviews for books, music and games often work falls into this grey area, with products and media handed out for review, and the disclosure guidelines the FTC laid out seem overly intrusive. Whatever our reservations about those guidelines, however, the goal of preventing the surreptitious pimping of a product or service by a trusted source that has direct connections with it was laudable.

    Which brings us to two YouTube personalities, TmarTn and Syndicate Project, whose real names are Trevor Martin and Tom Cassell. These two have spent a great deal of time urging their followers to use the CSGO Lotto website while, at best, barely disclosing the site’s sponsorship, and never even coming close to acknowledging that they are executives of the company behind the site.

  • Microsoft

    • Microsoft’s attempt to recruit interns is a barrel of cringe

      The best, by which I mean worst, part of the e-mail is that it gets the lingo wrong. “Drank” does not mean “drink.” “Drank” means “cough syrup;” specifically, cough syrup containing codeine and promethazine that is consumed recreationally. Opioids like codeine are routinely abused to get high, and, when combined with the antihistamine promethazine, can produce feelings of euphoria.

    • A Longtime Microsoft Exec Just Left the Company

      Kevin Turner, Microsoft chief operating officer for the past 11 years, is moving to Citadel Securities, where he will be chief executive officer. He will also be vice chairman of Citadel, the parent company.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • ‘Sham’ GMO Bill Advances in Senate Amid Widespread Opposition

      Despite opposition from consumer advocacy groups, a controversial bill on the labeling of genetically modified (GM or GMO) food passed a cloture vote in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, even as critics warned the legislation is needlessly complicated and bends to the agriculture lobby interests.

    • Drug and Device Makers Find Receptive Audience at For-profit, Southern Hospitals

      Where a hospital is located and who owns it make a big difference in how many of its doctors take meals, consulting and promotional payments from pharmaceutical and medical device companies, a new ProPublica analysis shows.

      A higher percentage of doctors affiliated with hospitals in the South have received such payments than doctors in other regions of the country, our analysis found. And a greater share of doctors at for-profit hospitals have taken them than at nonprofit and government facilities.

    • The Dig: Investigating the Safety of the Water You Drink

      Today, The Dig dives into water. Pun totally intended. I’ve received a lot of questions about applying investigative reporting techniques to figuring out whether your water is safe — the stuff in your taps, the stuff in your rivers, the stuff at the beach. Flint, Michigan, has made us all want to be water sleuths.

    • E-Cigarettes Keep Blowing Up In People’s Faces

      E-cigarettes or vaporizers have surged in popularity in recent years, especially among teenagers. But the tobacco-alternative comes with an unexpected health risk: the devices can explode and cause severe burns, according to a slew of lawsuits filed against manufacturers.

    • A Blood Test To Determine When Antibiotics Are Warranted

      Scientists can distinguish between a viral and a bacterial infection by assaying just seven human genes, according to a study published this week (July 6) in Science Translational Medicine. A clinical test based on these findings would enable doctors to more appropriately prescribe antibiotics, which are ineffective against viruses.

      This May, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that doctors prescribe antibiotics when they’re not needed in around 30 percent of cases examined. Overuse of these drugs may promote more widespread antibiotic resistance.

      To address the problem, scientists at Stanford University looked at more than 1,000 patient blood samples to identify gene activation signatures associated with either bacterial or viral infections.

    • The Real Harm of Environmentally Poisonous Lands

      The year 2003 was a game changer when two Pennsylvania State Correction facilities were shut down and relocated to a new facility, the State Correctional Institute at Fayette (SCI Fayette), outside the town LaBelle, which was built directly on top of an old coal mine and adjacent to a fly ash dump – fly ash is “the powdery residue left over from coal combustion” – Kevin Williams reports for Al Jazeera. After thirteen years of operation and many health problems, nothing is being done to combat the effects of the toxic waste site known as the old coal mine. As Williams notes in his article, “‘Poisonous Lands’: Pennsylvania Prison Built Next to Toxic Dump,” prisoners and townsfolk alike are being harmed by the debris.

      Prisons being built on toxic lands are nothing new, but the adverse health effects are not just harming the prisoners. The local townsfolk and the correction officers are also being affected by the state’s choice to cut costs and save money. Although the scale of impact seems to be contained to only this relatively small area, the actuality is that as consumers we are creating this problem. The coal mine site has higher contaminant recordings than the federal and state standards of lead, mercury, arsenic, etc. (Williams, 2016). These contaminants are causing the individuals to develop cancer at a statistically significant rate higher than the general populous. The individuals in this area are experiencing medical issues involving skin, eye, throat, and nose irritation.

  • Security

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Chilcot Report and 7/7 London Bombing Anniversary Converge to Highlight Terrorism’s Causes

      Eleven years ago today, three suicide bombers attacked the London subway and a bus and killed 51 people. Almost immediately, it was obvious that retaliation for Britain’s invasion and destruction of Iraq was a major motive for the attackers.

      Two of them said exactly that in videotapes they left behind: the attacks “will continue and pick up strengths till you pull your soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq . . . . until we feel security, you will be targets.” Then, less than a year later, a secret report from British military and intelligence chiefs concluded that “the war in Iraq contributed to the radicalisation of the July 7 London bombers and is likely to continue to provoke extremism among British Muslims.” The secret report, leaked to the Observer, added: “Iraq is likely to be an important motivating factor for some time to come in the radicalisation of British Muslims and for those extremists who view attacks against the UK as legitimate.”

    • The Iraq War Was an Act of Military Aggression Launched on a False Pretext: Remarks on the Chilcot Inquiry Report

      Before addressing the issues raised in the Iraq Inquiry report, I would like to remember and honour the 179 British servicemen and women killed and the thousands maimed and injured during the Iraq war, and their families as well as the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq launched by the US and British governments 13 years ago.

      Yesterday I had a private meeting with some of the families of the British dead as I have continued to do over the past dozen years.

      It is always a humbling experience to witness the resolve and resilience of these families and their unwavering commitment to seek truth and justice for those that they lost in Iraq.

    • MH-17 Probe’s Torture-Implicated Ally

      The Ukrainian intelligence service at the center of the inquiry into who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is accused by a top U.N. official of blocking a probe into Ukrainian government torture, reports Robert Parry.

    • Blissful Bush Celebrates Birthday with No War Crime Reckoning

      Almost as if it were planned, former U.S. President George W. Bush rang in his 70th birthday on Wednesday with a remarkable gift: a reminder of his seemingly eternal impunity for war crimes committed in Iraq and beyond.

      The long-awaited publication of the Chilcot Inquiry—the UK government’s investigation into the lead-up to and execution of the Iraq War—amounted to a searing indictment of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, accusing him of deceiving the public and British Parliament about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction and following the United States blindly into an “illegal” war.

    • Donald Trump, Who Now Praises Saddam Hussein, Once Called Him a “Madman”

      Donald Trump praises Saddam Hussein these days. “He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good,” Trump said on Tuesday. Last fall, Trump said that the world would be “100 percent” better if Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi were still in power.

      But you know when Trump was really angry at Saddam? Back in the early 1990s, when Trump—deep in debt and piling on loans in the midst of a recession—blamed the Iraqi leader for his business woes.

      In August 1990, Trump couldn’t break even on his Taj Mahal casino hotel and the Trump Shuttle airline—but it wasn’t his fault. “Nobody projected that oil prices would go through the roof because of some madman in the Middle East,” Trump said, according to Newsday. “This just adds to and makes the recession worse.”

      Trump owed his creditors $245 million for the Trump Shuttle, and he had had missed a $1.1 million interest payment. The airline merged with another company in 1992.

    • Chilcot Report on Iraq Invasion Shows Threat of Lesser Evils

      After almost a decade of waiting, the Chilcot report is finally being released today promising to uncover the real reasons for the UK’s disastrous decision to invade Iraq. While British political elites are dealing with the aftermath of this political bombshell, the media and population are once again demanding answers for this costly and unnecessary war.

      Perhaps the most salacious expectation is the possibility that top leaders such as Tony Blair could be brought up on charges as a “war criminal”. For many families of the fallen and citizens in general, it is an opportunity to hold politicians to account for the real casualties of their policies. When it comes to tens to hundreds of thousands of death at home and abroad, electoral defeat is simply not punishment enough.

    • Obama Delays U.S. Withdrawal From ‘Precarious’ Afghanistan (Video)

      Barack Obama has delayed his planned troop withdrawal in Afghanistan, meaning there will now be 8,400 US forces in the country when he leaves office in January.

      The US president’s most recent estimate for that figure was 5,500. In 2012, he promised that the war would be over by 2014.

      In a surprise White House statement on Wednesday, Obama warned that a “precarious” security situation in Afghanistan could yet provide support to terrorists some 15 years after the September 11 attacks that first led to western military intervention.

    • Death Squad Revelations and the New Police in Honduras

      On June 21, 2015 the London-based Guardian newspaper published an article describing the testimony of a soldier who says he deserted the army after his unit was given an order to kill activists whose names appeared on two lists. He reported seeing one list given to his Military Police unit that formed part of the Xatruch task force, and a second for a Military Police unit that formed part of the National Force of Interinstitutional Security (FUSINA) task force. The second contained the name of Lenca indigenous leader Berta Caceres, murdered on March 3, 2016.

    • The Chilcot Report about the Iraq War

      Here is an interview I did yesterday about the long-awaited Chilcot

    • The General Who Lost 2 Wars, Leaked Classified Information to His Lover—and Retired With a $220,000 Pension

      It’s been more than a year since I first tried to connect with the retired four-star general and ex–CIA director—and no luck yet. On a recent evening, as the sky was turning from a crisp ice blue into a host of Easter-egg hues, I missed him again. Led from a curtained “backstage” area where he had retreated after a midtown Manhattan event, Petraeus moved briskly to a staff-only room, then into a tightly packed elevator, and momentarily out onto the street before being quickly ushered into a waiting late-model, black Mercedes S550.

    • Bangladesh Eid day attack: Liberal cleric was target, suspect police

      Thursday’s suspected militant attack on Bangladesh’s biggest congregation to celebrate Eid was possibly aimed at a liberal cleric who has led a public campaign against Islamist radicals in the country, police said.

      Maulana Farid-uddin Masud, the chief cleric of the main mosque in Kishoregunj town that was attacked, collected more than 100,000 signatures, including from leading Islamic scholars and intellectuals, against a recent wave of extremist attacks in the country targeting atheists, religious minorities.

      Masud had described radical Islamists as pursuing “empty Islam” and said those perpetrating violence in the name of the faith would “go to hell”.

      “We believe he was the target,” Tofazzal Hossain, assistant superintendent of police in Kishoregunj, told Hindustan Times.

    • Interview with psychologist Nicolai Sennels: “Muslims instinctively see our lack of reaction as fear, its an invitation to attack”
    • The Truth About Chilcot

      The death toll from the horrific recent Iraq bombings has risen over 250. If Blair had not been absolutely determined to attack Iraq on the basis of a knowing lie about WMD, they would be alive now, along with millions of other dead. ISIS would never have taken control of territory in Iraq and Syria. Al Qaeda would never have grown from an organisation of a few hundred to one of tens of thousands. We would not have a completely destabilised Middle East and a massive refugee crisis.

      Do not expect a full truth and a full accounting from the Chilcot panel of establishment trusties today. Remember who they are.

    • Thoughts After Chilcot

      Blair is still a creature of absolute self-serving slime. His attempt yesterday to justify the invasion of Iraq as an effort to prevent a 9/11 on British soil is dishonest in every way. Blair knew full well that Iraq had nothing at all to do with 9/11 – that was his still friends and financiers the Saudi elite. The intelligence advice in advance of the invasion he received was unequivocal that it would increase the threat to the UK, and it directly caused the attacks of 7/7.

    • More Obscuration From The British Establishment

      Remember, there was a leaked memo from the head of British intelligence that the intelligence justifying the Iraqi Invasion was “fixed” or orchestrated to produce the justification for the invasion, a war crime under the Nuremberg standard established by the United States. Chilcot’s job was to make this fact go away or assume less importance and to protect the Butler Inquiry’s orchestrated verdict that, despite the word of the head of British intelligence, the intelligence was not fixed.

    • Putin LOSES IT, Warns Journalists of War

      The Russian president was meeting with foreign journalists at the conclusion of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 17th, when he left no one in any doubt that the world is headed down a course which could lead to nuclear war.

      Putin railed against the journalists for their “tall tales” in blindly repeating lies and misinformation provided to them by the United States on its anti-ballistic missile systems being constructed in Eastern Europe. He pointed out that since the Iran nuclear deal, the claim the system is to protect against Iranian missiles has been exposed as a lie.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • The CIA Is Preventing Congress from Learning that the Worst Allegations against Hillary Pertain to Drones

      You probably heard that Jim Comey testified to the House Oversight Committee for over four hours today. You’ll see far less coverage of the second panel in that hearing, the testimony of Inspector Generals Steve Linick (from State) and Charles McCullough (from the IC).

      In addition to OGR Chair Jason Chaffetz suggesting the committee convene a secrecy committee akin to the one Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan convened back in the 1990s (which would be very exciting), McCullough revealed something rather startling regarding a letter he sent to Congress back in January (this was first reported by Fox). The letter was his official notice to Congress that some of the information in Hillary’s emails was claimed by an agency he didn’t name to be Special Access.

    • Jim Comey, Poker Face, and the Scope of the Clinton Investigation(s)

      I write this post reluctantly, because I really wish the Hillary investigations would be good and over. But I don’t think they are.

      After having watched five and a half hours of the Clinton investigation hearing today, I’ve got new clarity about what the FBI has been doing for the last year. That leads me to believe that this week’s announcement that DOJ will not charge Clinton is simply a pause in the Clinton investigation(s). I believe an investigation will resume shortly (if one is not already ongoing), though that resumed investigation will also end with no charges — for different reasons than this week’s declination.

      First, understand how this all came about. After the existence of Hillary’s server became known, State’s IG Steve Linick started an investigation into it, largely focused on whether Hillary (and other Secretaries of State) complied with Federal Records Act obligations. In parallel, as intelligence agencies came to complain about State’s redactions of emails released in FOIA response, the Intelligence Committee Inspector General Charles McCullough intervened in the redaction process and referred Clinton to the FBI regarding whether any classified information had been improperly handed. As reported, State will now resume investigating the classification habits of Hillary and her aides, which will likely lead to several of them losing clearance.

    • FBI Director James Comey Breaks Federal Prosecutor Rules by Smearing but Not Indicting Clinton Over Emails

      Comey, a Republican appointed as FBI director by President Obama, crossed all three of those lines. Very few commentators noted that Comey shouldn’t have said anything at all, and how unusual it was that he did. One exception was Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of the Lawfare blog and a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

    • Darrell Issa Calls For Government Shutdown If Hillary Clinton Is Not Charged

      Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) once claimed that he “never voted for a [government] shutdown and never will.” But Issa is so angry the FBI recommended Hillary Clinton not be indicted for using a private server for her email that he suggested on Wednesday that he is rethinking his promise. He proposed that now might be a good time for the Republican leadership to shut down the federal government, in protest of what he called “an imperial president” who will not “enforce criminal charges against a criminal.”

    • FBI Vacuums Up Local Law Enforcement Documents To Block Open Records Requests About Orlando Shooting

      Presto! Instant blanket exemption from disclosure at both federal and state level. The FBI takes care to point out which Florida Sunshine Law exemption local agencies can use to withhold documents from requesters.

      There’s significant public interest in these documents, especially those related to EMS/police response to emergency calls. This obviously conflicts with the FBI’s determination that its ongoing investigation — which now apparently contains every document created by every responding law enforcement agency in Florida — should preempt any and all requests for documents via Florida open records laws.

      Not for nothing have there been several efforts mounted to alter blanket exemptions like the one the FBI is using to insert itself into local level records requests. Unfortunately, it’s very likely the FBI’s wielding of this “open investigation” exemption will be granted deference by the federal court currently presiding over an open records lawsuit between the Orlando Sentinel and the City of Orlando, even though this fight never should have included a federal agency conducting its own concurrent investigation of the mass shooting.

    • Loose Lips Sink Ships: Clinton’s Criminal Negligence Hurts More Than the Election
    • Lawyer: Here’s To The ‘Hillary Defense’ … Because Many People Have Been Punished For Doing Much Less
    • Ex-NSA Lawyer: Clinton Aides Can Be Punished
    • James Comey Has Been Covering Up The Clintons’ Messes For Decades

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Wisconsin Said Frac Sand Mining Is Safe In A Report That Groups Say Used Industry Data

      Ever since the hydraulic fracturing boom began in the mid-2000s, Wisconsin has been a leader in mining the silica sand the fracking industry uses in a watery mix with other chemicals to extract oil and gas trapped in shale rock. And similar to fracking, some have long worried that sand mining harms the environment and public health, polluting air and water.

    • Past presents warning on greater warming

      Reconstruction of climate events long before the Ice Ages shows that failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could eventually lead to temperatures rising by up to 10 degrees.

    • SEC Charges “Frack Master” Chris Faulkner, Shale CEO and Industry Advocate, with $80 Million Fraud

      At the start of June, Chris Faulkner, Chief Executive Officer of Breitling Energy, was a high-flying shale company executive and media darling, often interviewed on CNN, Fox Business News and even the BBC. During his most recent appearance on CNN on June 2nd, he weighed in on the financial prospects for drillers who survive low oil prices despite the spate of bankruptcies sweeping the shale industry.

    • Sweden should keep coal in the ground, not sell it off

      The history of the fossil fuel industry can feel like it is told in complicated deals the public isn’t meant to understand. This is what is happening in Sweden. The government-owned energy company, Vattenfall, is demanding the sale of its coal mines and power plants based in Germany to a Czech company, EPH. The deal includes some of Germany’s largest coal mines – and three of the top 10 most polluting coal plants in Europe. They are going to a deeply unattractive buyer – EPH, a company hell-bent on burning as much coal as possible.

      In the next couple of weeks, Swedish prime minister, Stefan Löfven, is facing a stark choice. On one hand, he could approve the sale of the most climate-destroying assets in Europe, breaking his own election promises in the process. Or, he could promote a transition to keep coal in the ground – and support a liveable climate – in an unprecedented decision by a government to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Coal is the most polluting of all fossil fuels, and lignite or ‘brown coal’ is the most polluting type of coal and the greatest threat to EU climate goals.

    • Will Democrats Get It Right on Climate Before It’s Too Late?

      Democrats need to get serious about climate change—and time is running out for them to do so.

      Environmentalists see the upcoming full Democratic Platform Committee meeting in Orlando as a final opportunity to ensure the party takes meaningful action on climate change over the next four years.

  • Finance

    • Commission’s CETA proposal violates EU law

      The Commission’s proposal on provisional application of the Canada-EU trade agreement (CETA) violates EU law.

      The EU can only provisionally apply those parts of the international agreement over which it has exclusive powers. However, in today’s proposal, the Commission is seeking to provisionally apply CETA in its entirety. This violates the founding treaties of the EU.

      The Commission has already shown it is not sure it has the power to do this, by asking EU judges to rule on the division of power in the EU-Singapore Free Trade deal. This judgement is expected later this year or early next year.

      Instead of waiting for this important Court ruling, the Commission is hastily pushing for a decision that may be contrary to what the ECJ decides.

    • Commodifying Dissent: Media, the Arts and the Hope in Cooperatives

      But it is just another day at the office for the 1%. They own the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government. As Chris Hedges frequently stresses: “We’ve undergone a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion. And it’s over. We’ve lost, and they’ve won.”

    • Brexit: Which Kind of Dependence Now?

      But, as usual, things are more complicated. We should hope that, in one respect, Britain’s exit from the EU will create a kind of dependence that did not exist while it was still a member of the union.

    • Brexit and the Derivatives Time Bomb

      Sovereign debt – the debt of national governments – has ballooned from $80 trillion to $100 trillion just since 2008. Squeezed governments have been driven to radical austerity measures, privatizing public assets, slashing public services, and downsizing work forces in a futile attempt to balance national budgets. But the debt overhang just continues to grow.

    • My 350 on BREXIT: Fighting for youthful minds in Latvia

      The most disappointing consequence of Brexit for foreigners living in the UK has become the unexpected rise of xenophobia. According to the behavior of locals, the EU open door policy has completely failed. Brits have made it clear that foreigners are not welcome. Not only immigrants from conflict areas, but people from Poland and Baltic States face insults or even physical violence, hear offensive words and the call to pack their bags and leave.

    • Britain supports EU free trade deal with Canada despite Brexit

      Britain supports EU free trade deal with Canada despite Brexit: Freeland

      Britain has assured Canada it will push for speedy ratification of the mammoth free trade deal with the European Union, despite its intention to leave the 28-country bloc, says International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland.

    • Greenwashing the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Fossil fuels, the environment, and climate change

      There has been much controversy over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a plurilateral trade agreement involving a dozen nations from throughout the Pacific Rim – and its impact upon the environment, biodiversity, and climate change.

      The secretive treaty negotiations involve Australia and New Zealand; countries from South East Asia such as Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Japan; the South American nations of Peru and Chile; and the members of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Canada, Mexico and the United States. There was an agreement reached between the parties in October 2015. The participants asserted: ‘We expect this historic agreement to promote economic growth, support higher-paying jobs; enhance innovation, productivity and competitiveness; raise living standards; reduce poverty in our countries; and to promote transparency, good governance, and strong labor and environmental protections.’ The final texts of the agreement were published in November 2015.

    • U.S. trade chief says China offer falls short, UK could join TPP
    • ‘Largest-ever’ Silicon Valley eviction to displace hundreds of tenants

      Iris Milano could hardly sleep after she got the news that her family would be kicked out of their two-bedroom apartment in San Jose.

      “You’re always thinking and worrying. It’s something that is always with me,” said Milano, 47, a skin-care technician who lives with her husband and 14-year-old son in an apartment protected by rent control in the northern California city. “We are being forced to move. This is our home.”

      Milano, who is originally from Venezuela and has lived in the area for 13 years, is one of roughly 670 tenants who are being displaced from their homes in what local housing advocates believe to be Silicon Valley’s largest-ever mass eviction of rent-controlled tenants.

      The 216-unit complex called the Reserve Apartments that is being demolished to make way for a development of market-rate housing – located five miles away from Apple’s headquarters, 14 miles away from Google and 20 miles away from Facebook – is the latest example of rising income inequality in a region home to many of the world’s wealthiest technology companies.

    • Consumer confidence ‘falls after Brexit vote’

      Consumer confidence has seen its sharpest drop in 21 years after the UK vote to leave the EU, a survey suggests.

      The market research firm GfK conducted a one-off online survey of 2,000 people after the result was known.

      Its confidence index fell by eight points to minus nine, a drop not since seen December 1994.

      Less confident consumers tend to curb their spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of the UK economy.

      It is also one measure watched by the Bank of England when deciding its next move on interest rates. Governor Mark Carney has already warned the UK’s economic outlook is “challenging” following the decision to leave the EU.

      The Gfk survey also suggested that 60% of consumers expect the general economic situation to worsen over the next year, compared with 46% in June. Just 20% expect it to improve, down from 27% last month.

    • Democrats and the TPP: Who Speaks for the Future?

      Texas populist Jim Hightower will present the Democratic Party platform committee with a Bernie Sanders-sponsored amendment to the draft platform when it meets in Orlando this Friday and Saturday. It will read:

      It is the policy of the Democratic Party that the Trans-Pacific Partnership should not get a vote in the lame duck session of Congress and beyond.

      This should be a no-brainer. All of the Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination were opposed to the TPP trade deal, as of course is Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Jill Stein’s Green New Deal Deserves to Be Heard by Widest Audience Possible

      This is a crucial time for Dr. Jill Stein. It’s a test of whether she can move her presidential campaign from the fringes into the mainstream of an election that she says “has tossed out the rule book.”

      “We are here to keep the revolution going,” Stein, the prospective Green Party presidential candidate, told me in a telephone interview Tuesday. “Bernie [Sanders] supporters are grieving over the loss of the campaign, of their hard work, their vision, but they are remobilizing. Our events are absolutely mobbed with Bernie supporters.”

      We spoke in the morning, before FBI Director James Comey threw yet another twist into the presidential race by announcing that while the bureau would not recommend criminal charges in the Hillary Clinton email affair, she had been “extremely careless” with her use of a personal email address and a private server for sensitive communications.

    • Sanders Files Permit Request for Huge Rally on Eve of Democratic Convention

      Bernie Sanders’ next signature rally may take place in Philadelphia—the night before the Democratic National Convention.

      The Vermont senator’s campaign has applied for a permit to hold an event that will reportedly host between 15,000 to 40,000 people on July 24 at Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park. It is one of 10 such pro-Sanders events requesting permission from the Philadelphia mayor’s office, the Burlington Free Press reports.

      Sanders spokesperson Michael Briggs said last month that the senator was planning to deliver a “victory statement” in Philadelphia, but said on Wednesday that plans for the rally are still being finalized.

      The campaign is gearing up for the convention, where Sanders has promised to bring a floor fight over the Democratic National Committee (DNC) platform after a slew of his proposals—including banning fracking and blocking U.S. Congress from voting on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)—were overruled or watered down during previous negotiations.

    • How political megadonors can give almost $500,000 with a single check

      On May 17, Donald Trump announced an arrangement with the Republican National Committee (RNC) that will allow individuals to donate almost $500,000 each to a joint fundraising committee between Trump, the RNC and 11 state Republican parties. In 2012, Mitt Romney’s joint fundraising committee could only raise $135,000 from each individual. What happened in the last four years to make these numbers so much higher?

    • Voters Have Heavy Responsibility In November

      It seems like a nightmare, but it is reality: The Democratic Party has chosen a criminal as its presidential candidate. And the liberals said that Reagan wore teflon!

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • When Free Speech Signifies Nothing

      The United States touts its commitment to free speech but American discourse has degenerated into self-absorbed info-tainment and trivia, ignoring many of the most pressing issues of the day, writes Michael Brenner.

    • Apple’s IP Lawyers May Force YouTube MacBook Repair Videos Offline Over Schematic

      It’s no secret that Apple does not want you to monkey around with your device’s innards or to take it anywhere but to its own stores for repairs. The company has continually screwed around with the screws that keep its hardware together in an effort to prevent DIYers and non-Apple-approved repair shops from opening its devices.

      Now, Apple can’t legally prevent anyone from utilizing third parties for repairs, as explained in this Motherboard article by Jason Koebler. A 40-year-old piece of legislation states companies can’t void warranties simply because the devices have been opened.

    • The censorship must stop

      Over the past two months, the public broadcaster has been embroiled in unconstitutional pronouncements aimed at compromising and more importantly censoring information intended for public consumption.

    • Israeli Opposition Leader Calls for Censorship of MK Zoabi’s Speeches

      ‘I would recommend that Knesset TV not broadcast her words as a matter of principle,’ Zionist Union’s Herzog. MK Freige: Herzog a ‘useful idiot’ for Netanyahu and the right.

    • CPJ Advocacy Director Testifies at HRC hearing on Blasphemy Laws and Censorship

      Hearing: Blasphemy Laws and Censorship by States and Non-State Actors: Examining Global Threats to Freedom of Expression

    • Reddit Moderators Censor Refugee Rape Stories

      Reddit’s World News moderators have censored a story about a German woman who didn’t report her rape due of fear of inciting “racism against refugees” while allowing the posting of a story about a young girl lying about about a refugee sex attack.

      The story of the German activist and leader of left wing German youth movement Solid lying about the identities of the men who raped her was reported on by The Washington Times. The article was removed from /r/WorldNews under the belief that it did not constitute worldwide news and was marked as “local news”.

    • Chinese game developers aren’t happy about new censorship rules

      The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) of the People’s Republic of China announced a rule that meant all games had to be pre-approved by SAPPRFT before going live.

      SAPPRFT has also allowed a three month grace period in which existing games must be submitted and post-approved.

      However, one games developers grievances have been shared around the internet as his game was denied for having English words in it.

    • UK ISP Sky is about to start censoring the web for all of its customers

      The UK government is on a mission to protect the young of the country from the dark recesses of the web. And by the darker recesses, what is really meant is porn. The main ISPs have long been required to block access to known piracy sites, but porn is also a concern — for politicians, at least.

      As part of its bid to sanitize and censor the web, Sky — from the Murdoch stables — is, as of today, enabling adult content filtering by default for all new customers: Sky Broadband Shield. The company wants to “help families protect their children from inappropriate content”, and in a previous experiment discovered — unsurprisingly — that content filtering was used by more people if it was automatically enabled.

      The government has proposed that all money-making porn sites that operate in the UK need to have an age verification system in place, and in many ways Sky’s scheme is just an extension of the idea. Sky’s approach, however, the reverse of similar systems used by other ISPs, Rather than asking customers if they want to enable the content filter, the question is flipped on its head so they are asked if they want to disable the option.

    • As Live-Streaming Of Violent Events Becomes More Common, How Are Social Media Companies Handling It?

      The aftermath of the police shooting of Philando Castile, 32, was broadcast to the world when his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds used Facebook Live to document the traffic stop turned fatal in St. Paul, Minnesota. Castile’s death is the latest of a string of police-involved shootings of African Americans, but it’s also part of a growing trend: live-streaming violent events. And social media companies are now being scrutinized for how they handle them.

      Reynolds filmed for 10 minutes, starting just seconds after Castile was shot and slumped over in the driver’s seat, until her phone died. “The only thing y’all didn’t see is when he was shot,” she said during a subsequent Facebook Live broadcast Thursday.

    • Icasa to make ruling on SABC censorship
    • Icasa to rule on SABC’s violence ban
    • ICASA strike enters day four
    • Previous Advocate Of Censorship Appointed To North Carolina Board of Education

  • Privacy/Surveillance

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Standards Body Whines That People Who Want Free Access To The Law Probably Also Want ‘Free Sex’

      You would think that “the law” is obviously part of the public domain. It seems particularly crazy to think that any part of the law itself might be covered by copyright, or (worse) locked up behind some sort of paywall where you cannot read it. Carl Malamud has spent many years working to make sure the law is freely accessible… and he’s been sued a bunch of times and is still in the middle of many lawsuits, including one from the State of Georgia for publishing its official annotated code (the state claims the annotations are covered by copyright).

      But there’s another area that he’s fought over for many years: the idea that standards that are “incorporated by reference” into the law should also be public. The issue is that many lawmakers, when creating regulations will often cite private industry “standards” as part of the regulations. So, things like building codes may cite standards for, say, sheet metal and air conditioning that were put together by the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors National Association (SMACNA), and say that buildings need to follow SMACNA’s standards. And those standards may be great — but if you can’t actually read the standards, how can you obey the law. At one point SMACNA went after Malamud for publishing its standards. And while they eventually backed down, others are still in court against Malamud — including the American Society for Testing & Materials (ASTM), whose case against Malamud is set to go to trial in the fall.

    • Israel Targeting Palestinian Protesters on Facebook

      On the morning of August 28, 2014, two days after the end of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Sohaib Zahda hopped into a shared taxi in Hebron that was going to Ramallah, where he had a job interview.

      Thirty-three-year-old Zahda, who owns a paintball company, is an unlikely terrorist. An avid cyclist who speaks Arabic, Italian, French, and English, he is a member of Youth Against Settlements, a nonviolent organization that protests against Israeli settlers who live in and around Hebron. He is opposed to Hamas firing rockets into Israel. He likes to tell visitors his grandfather had Jewish friends in Hebron in the 1920s.

      Hebron and Ramallah are about 25 miles apart. To get between them, Palestinians must pass through the “container checkpoint,” manned by Israeli soldiers on a road that connects the southern West Bank to its central and northern cities. At the checkpoint — named for a shipping container once located at the barrier — Palestinian pedestrians queue up to get their IDs checked, while cars wait for inspection and for soldiers to wave them through. When Zahda’s taxi drove up, masked Israeli soldiers stopped the vehicle, asked him to get out, and then handcuffed him.

    • Reimagine and Rebuild Our Broken Democracy—in Time for the Nation’s 250th Anniversary

      “I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions,” Thomas Jefferson wrote. “Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. … [They] must advance … and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

      Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence 240 years ago on July 4. Today, we often congratulate ourselves for serving as the model of democracy for the rest of the world, yet our country has perhaps never been so polarized, so divided and so dysfunctional. More and more Americans have a vague and increasing sense that our government is simply incapable of addressing basic challenges like immigration, guns, entitlements, trade, climate and environment, privacy and security, the federal budget, spiraling inequality, money in politics … or even a health emergency like the Zika virus. It is no longer hyperbole to say that American democracy is broken.

    • Missing the Biggest Story about Trump’s Twitter Images

      It’s no accident that Trump’s social media feeds keep using neo-Nazi imagery; he’s actively courting hate.

    • Ohio Court Sanctions Lawyer For Sharing Publicly-Available Court Documents With Journalists

      Pattakos’ mild urging that a Scene writer “get their reporting pants on” is akin to shouting “Fire!” in a crowded forest… and then walking away while it burns? Because the defendants claimed this single article adversely affected its settlement attempts, the court has decided this lawyer should be punished for doing something lawyers do every day — and something that is apparently permitted by the rules governing attorney conduct.

      But the opening of the same decision condemning Pattakos’ behavior opens with a recitation of the events leading up to this decision, which includes a period of three years (February 2012-January 2015) where the defendants made zero effort to make counteroffers to the plaintiff’s settlement demands. It appears the defendants truly believed the jury would side with it and allow it to escape litigation without having to pay a settlement and are now looking for someone to blame because it ended up paying out $400,000 to the plaintiff and opposing counsel.

    • ‘Circumstances’ So ‘Exigent’ Narcotics Agents Could Have Watched ‘Gone With The Wind’ And Had Time To Spare

      So, four hours of narcotics agents milling around, trying to find an excuse to search a residence without a warrant. And nothing to show for it but claims that the appellant sometimes sold pseudoephedrine to one of the people who answered the knock and talk, a bag of opened OTC drug packages, and a white, non-illicit powder.

    • Appeals Court Says That Sharing Passwords Can Violate Criminal Anti-Hacking Laws

      Remember David Nosal? He was the former Korn/Ferry executive looking to set up his own competing firm, but one that mainly relied on Korn/Ferry’s big database of people. As part of that process, after he left the company to head out on his own, he had some former colleagues who were planning to join him log into their Korn/Ferry accounts to access information. Then after those employees left, they got another former colleague to share her password so they could continue to log in. He was charged with violating the criminal portion of the CFAA, under the theory that convincing his former colleagues to gather info for him was a terms of service violation — and that meant he had “exceeded authorized access” under the statute. This became a key case in determining whether merely violating a terms of service could be considered criminal hacking under the CFAA. Thankfully, back in 2012, the 9th Circuit rejected such a broad ruling of the CFAA, pointing out that such an interpretation would “unintentionally turn ordinary citizens into criminals” and that couldn’t be the intent from Congress. This was a huge win that helped limit some of the worst abuses of the CFAA.

      However, the US government was not yet done with Nosal. It then filed new CFAA charges against him, not over the original information sharing, but rather for getting that last colleague to share her password with Nosal. The feds argued that this fell under the other prong of the CFAA, that it was a version of accessing a computer system “without authorization” (as opposed to exceeding authorization). Unfortunately, the 9th circuit appeals court has ruled that merely sharing a password can be a CFAA violation.

    • Password Sharing Is a Federal Crime, Appeals Court Rules

      One of the nation’s most powerful appeals courts ruled Wednesday that sharing passwords can be a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a catch-all “hacking” law that has been widely used to prosecute behavior that bears no resemblance to hacking.

      In this particular instance, the conviction of David Nosal, a former employee of Korn/Ferry International research firm, was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who said that Nosal’s use of a former coworker’s password to access one of the firm’s databases was an “unauthorized” use of a computer system under the CFAA.

      The decision is a nightmare scenario for civil liberties groups, who say that such a broad interpretation of the CFAA means that millions of Americans are unwittingly violating federal law by sharing accounts on things like Netflix, HBO, Spotify, and Facebook. Stephen Reinhardt, the dissenting judge in the case, noted that the decision “threatens to criminalize all sorts of innocuous conduct engaged in daily by ordinary citizens.”

    • Password-sharing case divides Ninth Circuit in Nosal II
    • Outrage after video captures white Baton Rouge police officer fatally shooting a black man
    • Feds asked to investigate live-streamed death of motorist killed by cop

      Gov. Mark Dayton of Minnesota on Thursday asked the Department of Justice to investigate the killing of a black motorist shot by a white police officer. Philando Castile’s dying moments were live-streamed on Facebook, and the incident prompted a comment from President Barack Obama.

      Dayton said he wanted an “immediate independent federal investigation into this matter.” The governor suggested that racism was to blame for the killing of Castile, a 32-year-old school cafeteria manager, who was shot at least four times by a police officer after being pulled over for a broken taillight in Falcon Heights.

      “Would this have happened if those passengers, the driver and the passengers, were white?,” Dayton told a news conference Thursday. “I don’t think it would have. So I’m forced to confront, and I think all of us in Minnesota are forced to confront, that this kind of racism exists.”

    • Dallas police shooting: Five officers killed, six hurt by gunmen

      Five Dallas police officers have been killed and six wounded by gunmen during protests against the shooting of black men by police, authorities say.

      Three people are in custody and one man who was in a stand-off with police shot himself dead, US media have reported.

      Gunfire broke out at around 20:45 local time on Thursday (01:45 GMT Friday) as demonstrators marched through the city.

      The protests were sparked by the deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana.

    • There Is No Excuse For The American Police

      If unaccountalbe police brutality continues, will American citizens come to the conclusion that cops are criminal thugs of great danger to the public and must be shot down on sight before they murder again?

      The goon thugs have done a good job of proving that Amerians would be far safer in the absence of police who during 8 years of the iraqi War killed more Americans than we lost troops in combat.

    • France Extending State of Emergency Spells Trouble for Future Freedoms

      On February 17th, 2016, French Parliament voted to extend the nation’s state of emergency for three months.

    • Donald Trump Backs Off Muslim Ban, But It’s Already Way More Popular Than He Is

      Donald Trump may be backing off elements of his proposed temporary ban on all Muslim immigration to the United States, but in the meantime his original proposal has become way more popular than he is, according to many national polls.

      Trump most recently said he was calling for a temporary ban on immigration from “areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States”– rather than all Muslims from anywhere.

      But Trump’s poll numbers have been dropping lately; the Huffington Post’s aggregate of polling data shows that Trump has a 35 percent favorability rating, down from 37 percent in late May. Meanwhile, Reuters/Ipsos’s rolling five-day poll as of July 1 showed that 46 percent of Americans favor temporarily banning all Muslims from entering the country, up from 40 percent in late May.

      An NBC News-SurveyMonkey poll conducted shortly after the deadly shooting in Orlando showed that 50 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat supported the ban, while 46 percent opposed it.

    • Two More Black Victims of Police Violence Become Hashtags #PhilandoCastile #AltonSterling

      As my colleague Liliana Segura noted on Twitter this morning, the documented killing of black Americans by police officers has become so routine that it is hard for even the racists who seek to justify the slaughter in online comment threads to keep up.

      [...]

      That’s why the first reports on the killing of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old cafeteria supervisor at a Montessori School in St. Paul, Minnesota, who was shot while reaching for his license during a traffic stop on Wednesday night, included a comment from a Facebook spokesman. The aftermath of the shooting, as Castile bled to death in the front seat of a car, was streamed live on the social network from the phone of Castile’s distraught girlfriend.

    • Fox News Turns To Infamous Racist For Perspective On Alton Sterling’s Death

      On Wednesday, the world woke to a scene that is all too familiar in America: A black man, Alton Sterling, was shot and killed by the police (an alarm tragically repeated again on Thursday). A cellphone video shows Sterling pinned to the ground beneath two police officers when he is shot several times at point-blank range.

      Protesters immediately gathered outside the convenience store where Sterling was killed. Outrage has mounted online; his death has been called a murder, an assassination, and a lynching. The Department of Justice announced that they would open a civil rights investigation into the case.

    • In Alton Sterling’s Baton Rouge, “Blue Lives Matter”

      Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards called for a federal civil rights investigation on Tuesday into what was at that point the latest fatal police shooting of a black man in the United States.

      But in May, Edwards signed a bill into law that makes targeting a police officer a hate crime. Passage of such bills at the state level is a top priority of a national organization called Blue Lives Matter, which was formed in response to the Black Lives Matter movement .

      Alton Sterling, 37, was shot in the chest at point-blank range by Baton Rouge police early Tuesday morning; it was captured on video by witnesses. Philando Castile, 32, was shot after police stopped his car outside St. Paul, Minn.; his girlfriend livestreamed his death on Facebook.

      But it is the civil rights of police officers that Edwards was concerned about in May, as if theirs were being routinely violated.

    • What Kind of Democracy Is That

      We’re out of words. Two more black men – Alton Sterling, Philando Castile – murdered by police. Two more sorrowful hashtags, two more bloody videos, two more sets of weeping families, two more outraged cities and many more in spirit, two more barrages of tragic parallel stories: They were good guys, they were doing nothing wrong but being black, their awful deaths prove, one more awful time, that whiteness is blindness, and cops are America’s terrorists, and black people are tired and hurting – but, alone amidst a well-armed population, not allowed to have guns. We have been here so long that Malcom X spoke of it 55 years ago, and he’s still right. We’re out of words. Here are his.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Verizon ‘Competes’ With T-Mobile By Raising Prices, Then Denying It’s A Price Hike

      For years T-Mobile has been making some welcome changes to U.S. wireless service, implementing everything from free data while roaming internationally, to rollover data plans that let you keep unused data. T-Mobile’s strange, new tactic of treating consumers well has paid incredible dividends for the company, which has been adding significantly more postpaid wireless subscribers per quarter than any other major carrier. Between the elimination of consumer pain points and its foul-mouthed CEO, T-Mobile’s been a welcome change for the sector (just ignore its attack on the EFF and failure to support net neutrality).

  • DRM

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Generic Manufacturing Deals For HIV And Hepatitis C Treatments Signed At Medicines Patent Pool

      Today the Medicines Patent Pool announced the signing of nine new sub-licensing agreements for the generic manufacturing of key HIV and hepatitis C treatments.

      According to the MPP press release, it signed licences with Aurobindo (India), Desano (China), Emcure (India), Hetero Labs (India), Laurus Labs (India), Lupin (India) and a new partner, Zydus Cadila (India).

      Aurobindo signed two new sub-licences for lopinavir and ritonavir (both HIV treatments) for Africa. Desano, a Chinese manufacturer and Emcure also signed licences for those treatments.

    • French Bill Could Open Door For Sharing, Selling Of Seeds In Public Domain

      Next week, the French Senate is due to consider a bill on biodiversity for the third time. That bill, which could be modifying several legislations, might allow for the sharing and selling by non-governmental organisations of seeds in the public domain to non-commercial buyers, which is so far not permitted under the current French legislation, according to sources.

    • Trademarks

      • CJEU says that operators of physical marketplaces may be forced to stop trade mark infringements of market-traders

        Can operators of physical marketplaces be considered “intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property right”, so that “rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction” against them, pursuant to the third sentence in Article 11 of the Enforcement Directive? Put it otherwise: how does the landmark decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in L’Oréal v eBay [noted here, here, and here] apply in an offline context?

    • Copyrights

07.07.16

Links 7/7/2016: New Information About Ian Murdock, New Snap Desktop Launchers

Posted in News Roundup at 4:20 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • Who needs a GUI? How to live in a Linux terminal.

      Ever consider the idea of living entirely in a Linux terminal? No graphical desktop. No modern GUI software. Just text—and nothing but text—inside a Linux shell. It may not be easy, but it’s absolutely doable. I recently tried living completely in a Linux shell for 30 days. What follows are my favorite shell applications for handling some of the most common bits of computer functionality (web browsing, word processing, etc.). With a few obvious holes. Because being text-only is hard.

    • Not Your Mother’s Linux

      As someone who’s primarily used Windows since the early ’90s (with some minor dabbling in OS X), I’ve found Ubuntu MATE Linux to be pretty intuitive during my month or so of casual experimentation. I would even go so far as to say it’s been easier to figure out than recent iterations of Windows — which I hope says more about how clunky that old operating system has become and less about how woefully incompetent I might be with computers.

      I have a confession to make — one that will come as no surprise to anyone who’s read this column in the past. I’m not really a computer person. My mother would disagree, but she’s never owned a computer — no matter how many times I’ve tried to get her on board for the admittedly selfish reason of being able to communicate with her in a fashion that avoids phone companies and post offices. She insists it’s because she “doesn’t like to type,” but I know her mistrust of technology goes far beyond computers (and if I got her a tablet, she’d be annoyed at the endless invasion of fingerprints — a complaint to which I can relate).

    • Full-screen Nagware: Microsoft’s Final Attempt To Push Windows 10 Is Its Worst Yet

      Microsoft has been able to convince millions of users to install Windows 10 on their PCs. To grab more user base, Microsoft is now showing full-screen upgrade pop-ups notifying the people to perform the upgrade before 29.

  • Kernel Space

    • Doing for User Space What We Did for Kernel Space

      I believe the best and worst thing about Linux is its hard distinction between kernel space and user space.

      Without that distinction, Linux never would have become the most leveraged operating system in the world. Today, Linux has the largest range of uses for the largest number of users—most of whom have no idea they are using Linux when they search for something on Google or poke at their Android phones. Even Apple stuff wouldn’t be what it is (for example, using BSD in its computers) were it not for Linux’s success.

      Read more

    • More Polaris & Tonga Fixes For Linux 4.7

      Another batch of AMDGPU DRM driver fixes has been sent in for landing in Linux 4.7.

      These latest AMDGPU fixes are for taking care of some PowerPlay issues for Radeon RX 480 “Polaris” and Tonga (e.g. Radeon R9 285) graphics cards. There are no other changes outside of these Polaris/Tonga PowerPlay fixes.

    • Stale Data, or How We (Mis-)manage Modern Caches by Mark Rutland
    • Taming the Chaos of Modern Caches

      “If you’re a bit tired, this is a presentation on cache maintenance, so there will be plenty of opportunity to sleep.” Despite this warning from ARM Ltd. kernel developer Mark Rutland at his recent Embedded Linux Conference presentation, Stale Data, or How We (Mis-)manage Modern Caches, it was actually kind of an eye opener — at least as far as cache management presentations go.

    • Graphics Stack

      • AMD’s Linux Driver Will Likely See A Power Change For The Radeon RX 480 Too

        By now you may have heard that there is the potential for the Radeon RX 480 to draw more power from the PCI-E bus than it’s rated to provide. In rare situations, this could potentially cause problems for the system. AMD/RTG is preparing to release a Windows driver fix while I checked in with AMD about addressing this situation under Linux.

      • AMD improves its Linux drivers

        It looks like AMD has finally got the memo when it comes to Linux machines. Its new AMDGPU-PRO 16.30 driver offers day-one support for its new Radeon RX 480 from day one.

        The new driver is currently available for download from AMD’s website. It is officially supported on 64-bit versions of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. It’s very similar to the earlier beta release and AMD still calls it a beta, but apparently it is stable and there are installation instructions on the website.

      • Dirk Hohndel Is No Longer Intel’s Chief Linux/OSS Technologist

        Well this somehow slipped under our radar last week and comes as a big surprise… Dirk Hohndel has left Intel Corp after being their chief Linux and open-source technologist the past number of years.

        Dirk Hohndel had been working at Intel since 2001 where he had been leading the Linux/open-source charge. Dirk frequently spoke at Linux/FLOSS conferences about Intel’s involvement in these areas. Given his tenure at Intel and his frequent involvement in the Linux/open-source communities, it comes as a surprise to see him leave. Prior to Intel, he was CTO at SUSE.

      • OpenChrome 0.5 Has Working Support For Multiple Monitors

        For those still leveraging VIA x86 hardware on Linux, the DRM/KMS driver hasn’t been restored yet but there is a new xf86-video-openchrome DDX feature release now available.

        Kevin Brace has continued taking up the maintenance of the OpenChrome X.Org driver. Three months ago he released xf86-video-openchrome 0.4 while now available is OpenChrome 0.5.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • GNOME and Flatpak

      • GNOME Calendar supports alarms

        In another of my (appearently common) insomnia nights, I decided to add a cool new to my pet application – Calendar.

      • GNOME Calendar Will Support Alarms, GNOME Software to Better Handle Flatpaks

        The GNOME developers are hard at work this summer to bring you the latest innovations and technologies for the modern GNOME 3 desktop environment, as part of the GNOME 3.22 release.

        GNOME 3.22 is in heavy development until the end of September, when the final release will hit the streets, but it will take a while (~two or three weeks) for it to arrive in the main software repositories of some of the most popular GNU/Linux operating systems, Arch Linux being among the first, but it will worth the wait.

      • Flatpak, Snap and AppImage

        Over the past few months we have been hearing a lot about two new package formats, Flatpak and Snap (aka Snappy, aka snaps). These two new methods of packaging software have been getting a lot of attention, especially in the Ubuntu and Fedora communities. Both package formats attempt to make packaging easier for developers as all of an application’s dependencies can be bundled in the one portable package. Both Flatpak and Snap also claim to be (in theory at least) universal. The idea here is that any distribution which provides the Snap framework will be able to run any Snap package. Likewise, any Linux distribution with the Flatpak software installed should be able to run any Flatpak package. This should make it possible for developers to make one package for their software which will run on any distribution.

  • Distributions

    • This Week in Solus – Install #30

    • Reviews

      • Running Linux on the Acer Switch Alpha 12

        The Acer Switch Alpha 12 is a 2-in-1 tablet with a high-resolution display, a detachable keyboard cover, an optional pressure-sensitive pen, and after having reviewed the tablet, I can say it offers the kind of performance you’d expect from a mid-range laptop… but in a 2 pound, fanless package.

        Best of all, the Switch Alpha 12 is reasonably priced: you can buy one for about $600 and up.

    • New Releases

    • OpenSUSE/SUSE

    • Red Hat Family

      • New toolset makes it possible to build and ship Docker containers within Ansible

        A new project from the creators of the system automation framework Ansible, now owned by Red Hat, wants to make it possible to build Docker images and perform container orchestration within Ansible.

        Ansible Container, still in the early stages of development, allows developers to use an Ansible playbook (the language that describes Ansible jobs) to outline how containers should be built; it uses Ansible’s stack to deploy those applications as well.

      • Red Hat, Eurotech collaborate on IoT cloud platform
      • Red Hat expands cloud management solution

        Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, has announced the general availability of Red Hat CloudForms 4.1, the latest version of its award-winning open hybrid cloud management solution.

      • What You Missed at DevNation & Red Hat Summit 2016
      • Red Hat’s Ansible Container Aims to Streamline Container Workflows

        The system automation framework Ansible, which is under the wing of Red Hat, has given rise to a new way to build Docker images and perform container orchestration within Ansible. Ansible Container allows for the complete creation of Docker-formatted Linux containers within Ansible Playbooks, eliminating the need to use external tools like Dockerfile or docker-compose.

        The new toolset is now available on GitHub. Here is more on what it can do.

      • A brief guide to hiring with culture in mind

      • Finance

      • Fedora

        • Upgraded from F23

          It was my first upgrade from a previous release and all went fine and smooth.

        • Event report: Fedora Cloud FAD 2016

          Around a month back the Fedora Cloud Working Group met in Raleigh for two days for Cloud FAD. The goal of the meet was to agree about the future we want, to go through major action items for the coming releases. I reached Raleigh one day before, Adam Miller was my room for this trip. Managed to meet Tom after a long time, this was my first visit to mothership :) I also managed to meet my new teammate Randy Barlow.

        • Summer training 2016 is on

          The 9th edition of dgplug summer training started few weeks back. This year in the IRC channel (#dgplug on freenode) we saw around 186+ nicks participating in the sessions. Till now we have went through communication guidelines, IRC, mailing list how to, a text editor ( Vim in this case), blogging, basic bash commands, a few more bit advanced bash commands. We also learned about reStructured Text, and Sphinx. We also managed to live demos to all students from the mentor’s terminal.

    • Debian Family

      • The State Of Systemd In Debian (2016)

        Debian developer Michael Biebl has presented a status update on systemd in Debian at this week’s DebConf 16 event in Cape Town, South Africa.

        On Tuesday was a presentation by Biebl about systemd in Debian and the progress that’s been made with systemd as the default init system for the past year. The video presentation has yet to be uploaded, but there are PDF slides for those interested.

      • Mysterious death of software pioneer Ian Murdock ruled suicide

        Ian Murdock, the Linux programmer who died under mysterious circumstances after claiming he was beaten by police, hanged himself.

      • New Details Emerge About Debian Founder Ian Murdock’s Death
      • Murdock Death Ruled Suicide, Terrible Linux Regressions

        CNN’s Jose Pagliery today reported that Ian Murdock’s death was officially ruled a suicide. Murdock, who founded Debian GNU/Linux in 1993, became despondent after a run-in with San Francisco police. He took to social media to accused police of brutally beating him and threaten suicide. Murdock was found hours later face down with an electrical cord tied around his neck. The investigator said he found no obvious signs of trauma although the autopsy directly contradicts that statement. Pagliery reported that no announcement had been made publicly and that the details of his body being covered in bruises only came out in the autopsy report obtained by CNN. “The autopsy records also note his body was covered in bruises — on his chest, abdomen, back, arms and legs.”

      • twenty years of free software — part 9 small projects
      • Avoiding SMS vendor lock-in with SMPP

        There is increasing demand for SMS notifications about monitoring alerts, trading notifications, flight delays and other events. Various companies are offering SMS transmission services to meet this demand and many of them aggressively pushing their own proprietary interfaces to the SMS world rather than using the more open and widely supported SMPP.

      • Derivatives

        • Debian Edu / Skolelinux Jessie

          Then Debian Edu is for you. The teachers themselves or their technical support can roll out a complete multi-user multi-machine study environment within a few days. Debian Edu comes with hundreds of applications pre-installed, but you can always add more packages from Debian.

          The Debian Edu developer team is happy to announce Debian Edu 8+edu0 “Jessie”, the latest Debian Edu / Skolelinux release, entirely based on Debian 8 “Jessie”, update 8.5. Upgrades from previous beta releases of Debian Edu Jessie to this release are possible and encouraged!

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Review: Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS shines

            Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) represents the first release from Canonical to deliver long-term support since 2011 (version 14). While the latest improvements may not be entirely revolutionary, Ubuntu 16.04 rounds up exciting features to fortify the server base and enhance the desktop experience. InfoWorld reviewed the new desktop release in April. In this review, I’ll focus on the server.

            One of the key updates in this release comes by way of the new Snap package archive. Canonical’s LTS repositories are notoriously outpaced by modern software release cycles. It’s the classic trade-off for stability: Canonical moves slowly to adopt new versions of packages in order to vet applications and ensure they don’t muck up your system. Unfortunately, that induces a lag time that leaves users waiting as the latest and greatest software passes them by.

          • Ubuntu Linux to be bundled as preferred OS with Pivotal Cloud Foundry app platform

            Canonical and Cloud Foundry developer Pivotal have agreed a partnership in which Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux will become the preferred operating system for running Cloud Foundry, with secure certified Ubuntu images included.

            Cloud Foundry is one of the most popular platform-as-a-service suites for developing and deploying cloud-native applications, and versions of it are integrated in a number of platforms such as IBM’s Bluemix developer cloud and HPE’s Helion Stackato.

          • Pivotal Adds Ubuntu to Cloud Foundry

            The steady shift to cloud native infrastructure continues with a partnership between enterprise software vendor Pivotal and Linux specialist Canonical that will provide secure images from Canonical’s Linux distribution Ubuntu on the Pivotal Cloud Foundry.

          • uNav GPS Navigation App for Ubuntu Phones Now Offers Offline Maps, Convergence

            Today, July 6, 2016, Marcos Costales has had the great pleasure of announcing the release and immediate availability of a new update of his uNav GPS navigator app for Ubuntu Phone devices.

          • Nexus 6 Is Now an Unofficial Ubuntu Phone, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth Support Coming Soon

            We told you the other day that Ubports’ Marius Gripsgård is on vacation, which means that he has a lot of time on his hands to improve the unofficial Ubuntu Touch port for various devices.

          • Linux Distributions Are Soon Dropping The Support For 32-bit Computers

            Today, few people are using the hardware that can’t run 64-bit CPUs. A recent proposal by Ubuntu’s Dimitri John Ledkov states that Canonical will be killing the 32-bit hardware support soon. This move is also inspired by the fact that 32-bit testing needs double effort and turns out to be costly for an open source project.

          • Canonical-Pivotal partnership makes Ubuntu preferred Linux distro for Cloud Foundry
          • Ubuntu Announces New Snap Desktop Launchers

            Canonical developers have been working on new Snap desktop launchers for improving integration of Snap GUI packages with the converged Ubuntu desktop.

            These new Snap desktop launchers provide a closer and more unified level of integration among packaged desktop applications. Didier Roche, Ubuntu Desktop Technical Leader at Canonical, explained, “The goal was to streamline the experience and ensuring that all following user visible features are working, independent of the toolkit or technology you are using.”

          • Announcing new snap desktop launchers

            Integrating desktop applications with snaps has been a little bit challenging in terms of getting them looking and behaving as part of the system. This means following general desktop theming, having global application menu integration, getting the icon caches, getting configuration keys and such. Also, the technologies and toolkits like GTK, Qt, demand a little bit of expertise on that front.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Mint 18 – Forgetting Sarah Linux

              Linux Mint. Version 18. Sarah. Cinnamon Edition. This was supposed to be the sweetest LTS yet. Only it’s very buggy, it’s worse than the previous edition and the three before, or maybe all of them. It’s even buggier than Ubuntu, and it’s been released a good two months after its parent. There are so many regressions in the system. And I know I’m trying every trick in the English language and scientific method to explain and convince you that this has nothing to do with my hardware, because with the same nuts and bolts in place, you can still baseline, calibrate, evaluate, and compare over time.

              With none of the other parameters changed – my box and me – Mint 18 Sarah is just not a very good release. The live session is awful. I don’t have any smartphone support, at all. Quite a few other aspects of the desktop experience are missing or lacking, and they are just not as refined as they used to be. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, yesterday you told me about the blue blue distro. This season is bad. There’s no other way of putting it. And my experience was so unrewarding, there are many other aspects of this system that I just did not evaluate in any depth, like the x applications and such. What’s the point?

              I wish I could tell a different story. But the simple reality is, I can’t. It defies logic that the previous releases of Mint or perhaps Xubuntu 15.04 or whatever give me everything I need, but this new LTS struggles in roughly 6 out of 10 critical areas. Read it any way you will, think what you want of me, seek flaws in my methods, seek affirmation in my words, there’s no escaping the awful and painful conclusion. One, I’m shattered. Two, this season is absolutely terrible. Three, Sarah Cinnamon deserves only about 3/10. Please stick with the R-releases, and do not upgrade.

            • Upgrading Linux Mint 17.3 to Mint 18 In Place

              Okay, I thought I could wait, but I couldn’t, so yesterday I decided to do an “in place” upgrade of my office desktop from Linux Mint 17.3 to Mint 18.

              It didn’t go smoothly.

              First, let me stress that the Linux Mint community strongly recommends a fresh install every time you upgrade from one release to another, and especially when it is from one major release, like Mint 17, to another, i.e. Mint 18. They ask you to backup your home directory and package lists, base the system and then restore. The problem is that I often make a lot of changes to my system which usually involves editing files in the system /etc directory, and this doesn’t capture that.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Florida Doctor Pleads Guilty to Fraud — Years After Complaints About His Prescribing

      Seven years after a U.S. senator cited him as a national example of aberrant practices, the onetime top prescriber of antipsychotic drugs in Florida’s Medicaid program is in federal custody awaiting sentencing on fraud charges.

      The second-highest prescriber is serving a four-year term in federal prison after pleading guilty to fraud charges in 2012, but he only relinquished his license to practice medicine in Florida last fall.

      Taken together, the cases illustrate how long it can take regulators and law enforcement to take action against problem doctors — and how those physicians can continue prescribing drugs paid for by taxpayers in the meantime. In 2011, ProPublica wrote about the suspicious prescribing patterns of the two Miami-area psychiatrists, Fernando Mendez-Villamil and Huberto Merayo.

    • Ghostbusters, GMOs and the Feigned Expertise of Nobel Laureates

      The letter is a defense of “Golden Rice”, a GMO said to address vitamin deficiencies associated with blindness in the Global South and perhaps one of the worst of the frequent scientific frauds perpetrated by biotechnology interests. The Nobel Prize recipients fell for a zombie rice story that refuses to die and persists as a central legitimizing narrative in the pseudo-humanitarian rhetoric that regularly spews from the pro-GMO propaganda machine. I have written about this in the past to show how Monsanto and the other Gene Giants are spending hundreds of millions on a deceptive campaign to misinform the public about the fake scientific consensus they spin based on inadequately designed industry-led studies of risk, toxicology, and food safety (see the post of May 2, 2014).

    • Activists Expose Monsanto’s Senate Lackeys Minutes Before DARK Act Vote

      Just before a controversial genetically modified (GM or GMO) labeling bill came up for a cloture vote in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, food and consumer advocates dropped over $2,000 on the chamber floor in a symbolic protest against what they are calling the “Deny Americans the Right to Know” (DARK) Act.

    • What Percentage of Doctors at Your Hospital Take Drug, Device Payments?

      Where a hospital is located makes a big difference in how many of its doctors take payments from drug and medical device companies. See how your state compares and look up your hospital below.

  • Security

    • Security advisories for Wednesday
    • Java Deserialization attacks on JBoss Middleware

      Recent research by Chris Frohoff and Gabriel Lawrence has exposed gadget chains in various libraries that allow code to be executed during object deserialization in Java. They’ve done some excellent research, including publishing some code that allows anyone to serialize a malicious payload that when deserialized runs the operating system command of their choice, as the user which started the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The vulnerabilities are not with the gadget chains themselves but with the code that deserializes them.

    • Linux Mint 18 improves security, but at a cost

      The default update settings of Linux Mint would not update the Linux kernel or notify the user when security updates and bug fixes were published upstream (from Ubuntu, which Mint is directly based on, or Debian, which is the basis of Ubuntu). This default behavior left users vulnerable to root exploits, and potential hardware issues for which patches were issued alongside security fixes. Other upstream updates were also blacklisted from Linux Mint for conflicting with the design of the Cinnamon desktop.

    • Safer automotive software through Open Source?

      Linux is about to conquer one of the last blank spots in the world of open source software: The car. EE Times Europe talked with Dan Cauchy, General Manager of Automotive at the Linux Foundation, about intentions and status of Automotive Grade Linux.

    • GnuTLS 3.5.2

      Released GnuTLS 3.3.24, GnuTLS 3.4.14, and GnuTLS 3.5.2 which are bug fix releases in the old, current and next stable branches.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Obama Makes It Official: Either Trump or Clinton Gets to Keep Longest War in US History Going

      Confirming that either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will inherit the longest war in U.S. history, President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that over 8,000 troops will stay in Afghanistan after he leaves the White House.

      The figure is thousands more than the 5,500 soldiers he said in October 2015 would remain in the country.

    • Confessions of a War Propagandist

      Scheunemann was the public relations mastermind and one of the most influential behind the scenes operators in Washington during the winter of 2002-2003. Many of the talking points (“We will be greeted as liberators,” “Sadaam has used chemical weapons on his own people,” “Rogue state rollback”) came right out of our office. A former aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Majority Leader Trent Lott, Scheunemann proudly displayed a signed letter and framed photograph from President Clinton on his office wall, thanking him for his drafting of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the stated goal of which was regime change. A frequent visitor to our office was Ahmad Chalabi, the American educated Iraqi dissident who provided much of the information that was passed directly to the Department of Defense and the White House through our office.

    • ‘Military action was not a last resort’: Chilcot finally releases Iraq War report

      Britain chose to join the invasion of Iraq in 2003 before peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted, the Chilcot Inquiry has found. Sir John Chilcot’s seven-year inquiry concluded that military action “was not a last resort.”

      The massively delayed and hugely controversial Chilcot Inquiry, reporting back on Wednesday, was tasked with examining the first eight years of the war, starting with the run-up to hostilities and including the period of occupation.

    • U.K. Iraq Inquiry Criticizes Blair and Spies Over War Failures

      Britain’s involvement in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was a failure, carried out before peaceful options had been exhausted and based on intelligence that was overstated, an official inquiry concluded.

      The investigation into the build-up to the war, its execution, and aftermath is highly critical of government ministers, the intelligence services and the military. But the biggest impact of the report, published Wednesday by former civil servant John Chilcot, will be on the reputation of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, the man responsible for Britain’s involvement.

    • Chilcot report: 2003 Iraq war was ‘unnecessary’, war was not ‘last resort’ and Saddam Hussein was ‘no imminent threat’

      The long-awaited official report into Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War has delivered a scathing verdict on Government ministers’ justification, planning and conduct of a military intervention which “went badly wrong, with consequences to this day”.

    • Jeremy Corbyn apologises on behalf of Labour for ‘disastrous decision’ to join Iraq War

      Jeremy Corbyn has apologised on behalf of the Labour Party for Tony Blair’s “disastrous decision” to go to war in Iraq.

      “The decision to go to war in Iraq has been a stain on our party and our country,” the Labour leader said after apologising at a private meeting with families of some of the 179 British servicemen and women killed in Iraq, veterans of the military operation and Iraqis who lost family members.

    • 5 takeaways from Chilcot Report on Tony Blair’s Iraq war

      Thirteen years on and the magnitude of the Iraq war continues to grow.

      The 2003 invasion and its devastating aftermath now infects every sinew of British politics. Trust in government is shot, the special relationship undermined, Britain diminished.

      Despite widespread public acceptance that the invasion has proved a disaster, Wednesday’s official judgement remained shocking for the sheer force of its condemnation.

      After seven years and £10 million of public money, Sir John Chilcot finally produced his findings and certainly pulled no punches. No element of the British establishment escaped unscathed, least of all former prime minister Tony Blair.

      The British army had been let down and humiliated, Chilcot found. Blair’s cabinet had been supine and the intelligence was just wrong.

    • The Tragedy of Tony Blair

      The scathing Chilcot verdict on Tony Blair’s contribution to the war on Iraq brings to mind a more awful tragedy: that more politicians – notably of the American variety – have not suffered the public, private and utter disgrace now falling on Perfidious Albion.

    • Tariq Ali on Chilcot Iraq Report: Tony Blair is a War Criminal for Pushing Us into Illegal War

      While Iraq is marking a third day of mourning, a long-awaited British inquiry into the Iraq War has just been released. The Chilcot report is 2.6 million words long—about three times the length of the Bible. Using excerpts from private correspondence between former Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush, the report details how Blair pushed Britain into the war despite a lack of concrete intelligence. For example, eight months before the invasion, Blair wrote to Bush: “I will be with you, whatever.” Then, in June 2003, less than three months after the invasion began, Blair privately wrote to Bush that the task in Iraq is “absolutely awesome and I’m not at all sure we’re geared for it.” Blair added, “And if it falls apart, everything falls apart in the region.” For more, we speak with British-Pakistani writer, commentator and author Tariq Ali.

    • Tony Blair unrepentant as Chilcot gives crushing Iraq war verdict

      A defiant Tony Blair defended his decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 following the publication of a devastating report by Sir John Chilcot, which mauled the ex-prime minister’s reputation and said that at the time of the 2003 invasion Saddam Hussein “posed no imminent threat”.

    • Hacked Former NATO General Defends Plotting to Push Obama to Escalate Tensions With Russia

      Former NATO Commander Philip Breedlove defended himself on Saturday after The Intercept reported on leaked emails that showed him plotting to push President Obama to escalate tensions with Russia. “I think what you see is a commander doing what commanders ought to do,” Breedlove told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

    • Merkel Urged to Temper NATO’s Belligerence

      U.S. intelligence veterans are calling on German Chancellor Merkel to bring a needed dose of realism and restraint to the upcoming NATO conference, which risks escalating the dangerous new Cold War with Russia.

    • General Breedlove and the Russophobes
    • Israel’s New Open-Fire Rule Authorizes ‘Extra-Judicial Execution’ of Palestinian Youths

      Israeli police are officially permitted to use deadly force against stone-throwing Palestinian teenagers, according to updated regulations made public on Tuesday by an Israel-based human rights organization.

      The new open-fire regulations, revealed by Adalah, a rights organization and legal center that defends Palestinians living in Israel as well as the occupied territories, state that “an officer is permitted to open fire [with live ammunition] directly on an individual who clearly appears to be throwing or is about to throw a firebomb, or who is shooting or is about to shoot fireworks, in order to prevent endangerment.”

    • Yemeni Drone Victim Responds to President Obama’s Civilian Casualty Figures
    • Happy Flag-Waving Drone Document Dump

      ODNI (update–and now I Con the Record) has released its report on the number of drone deaths. The overview is that the US intelligence community is reporting (more on that in a second) far, far fewer drone deaths than credible outside researchers do.

    • The Nonviolent History of American Independence

      Independence Day is commemorated with fireworks and flag-waving, gun salutes and military parades . . . however, one of our nation’s founding fathers, John Adams, wrote, “A history of military operations . . . is not a history of the American Revolution.”

      Often minimized in our history books, the tactics of nonviolent action played a powerful role in achieving American Independence from British rule. Benjamin Naimark-Rowse wrote, “the lesson we learn of a democracy forged in the crucible of revolutionary war tends to ignore how a decade of nonviolent resistance before the shot-heard-round-the-world shaped the founding of the United States, strengthened our sense of political identity, and laid the foundation of our democracy.”

    • Chilcot Report: Tony Blair Told George W. Bush, “If We Win Quickly, Everyone Will Be Our Friend.”

      The Chilcot Report, the U.K.’s official inquiry into its participation in the Iraq War, has finally been released after seven years of investigation.

      Its executive summary certainly makes former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the British push for war, look terrible. According to the report, Blair made statements about Iraq’s nonexistent chemical, biological, and nuclear programs based on “what Mr. Blair believed” rather than the intelligence he had been given. The U.K. went to war despite the fact that “diplomatic options had not been exhausted.” Blair was warned by British intelligence that terrorism would “increase in the event of war, reflecting intensified anti-US/anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the West.”

    • From Paris to Istanbul, More ‘War on Terror’ Means More Terrorist Attacks

      At least 41 people were killed in the recent bombing of Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport.

      The day before, suicide bombers killed five people in Qaa, a small village in Lebanon. And while the Saudi-led and U.S.-backed war in Yemen continues to rage, an ISIS affiliate claimed responsibility for attacks in the Yemeni port city of Mukalla that killed at least 12.

    • In Political Fights Over Chilcot Report, Iraqi Lives Don’t Matter

      The bitter political debate over the 2003 Iraq war resumed once again on Wednesday in the United Kingdom and the United States, thanks to the release of a report on the British role in the invasion and occupation.

      Parsing the report, prepared by a committee of Privy Counsellors chaired by Sir John Chilcot, will take time since it runs to 2.6 million words, but the reaction online has already begun. Partisans for and against the war are sifting through the text for new details that might support their original positions, a reminder that Iraq has only ever mattered to most Americans and Britons as material for attacks on their political opponents.

      That becomes glaringly obvious when you compare the intensity and volume of commentary on the report to how relatively little was said about a suicide bombing in Baghdad on Sunday that killed 250 Iraqis.

    • Terrorism’s Murky Message

      Moreover, there are different scales on which to measure sophistication besides the number of people involved. Success in killing people other than oneself might be one of those ways of measuring. The recent attacks have presented a mixed picture in this regard. The triple suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia don’t look very sophisticated. One of the bombers managed to kill four security guards, but the other two blew up no one but themselves.

    • Bush, Blair and the Lies That Justified the Illegal Iraq War

      In front of the assembled 1,500 journalists, Bush showed a series of slides of himself looking under papers, behind drapes and out the window of the oval office. A smiling Bush narrated, “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere,” followed by, “Nope, no weapons over there,” and “Maybe under here?” The transcript shows that this stand-up routine was greeted with “laughter and applause.”

    • Lost in the Military-Industrial Complex

      Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have ducked any serious discussion of America’s escalating military spending, suggesting that whoever wins will be captive of President Eisenhower’s “Military-Industrial Complex,” writes Chuck Spinney.

    • Where Are The Drone Casualty Figures the White House Promised Months Ago?

      Despite months of repeated promises, the White House has yet to release its estimate of civilian casualties from the administration’s drone program – a delayed disclosure the New York Times Editorial Board described as “too little, too late.”

      In March, Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama chief counterterrorism adviser, announced that the White House would “in the coming weeks” release an “assessment of combatant and non-combatant casualties” from U.S. drone strikes since 2009. Monaco doubled down on the commitment in a second speech a few weeks later.

      The figures are likely to show aggregate numbers of people killed by country in nations not recognized as battlefields – like Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya – according to the Washington Post. Death tolls in Iraq and Afghanistan will not be included.

      The President is also expected to sign an executive order requiring the release of annual casualty figures going forward.

  • Classification

    • FBI: Clinton “Extremely Careless” Handling Classified Info, But No Charges Recommended

      The bureau also revealed it was likely that Clinton’s personal email server was compromised by foreign hackers.

    • The Department of Political Justice

      Is it worth impairing the reputation of the FBI and the Department of Justice to save Hillary Clinton…

    • FBI: Hillary Clinton Broke the Law, But Don’t Prosecute Her

      The latest in shocking but not surprising news came yesterday as FBI Director Jim Comey formally recommended not indicting Hillary Clinton for her alleged mishandling of classified information.

      Given America’s less-than-stellar track record of prosecuting the powerful, this outcome has been a virtual certainty for some time. Even so, the event is still important. It offers the clearest evidence to date that the rule of law does not exist. One set of rules applies to the politically connected, and an entirely different set applies to everyone else. Nothing could illustrate this fact better than the Clinton email scandal.

    • In a Rigged System, Hillary Clinton Is Too Big to Indict

      The long-roiling question finally has been answered: Hillary Clinton will not be indicted for using a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Period. Full stop. Pause a moment, and let it sink in.

      FBI Director James Comey delivered the word in a surprise news conference Tuesday morning, exactly three days after Clinton’s 3½-hour interview Saturday at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C.

      There was plenty of evidence that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and her staff had been “extremely careless” in their handling of classified and sensitive information, Comey said, but not enough to prove they had acted with the criminal intent or willfulness needed to secure a conviction. “No reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” he concluded.

      While the FBI’s evaluation technically is not binding on the Justice Department, any indictment is now clearly off the table. Last week, following her embarrassing and ethically suspect encounter with Bill Clinton on the tarmac at the Phoenix airport, Attorney General Loretta Lynch publicly pledged to follow the bureau’s lead. And the bureau, via Comey, has spoken.

    • Commentary: What the FBI didn’t say about Hillary Clinton’s email

      Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey’s recommendation that no charges be brought against Hillary Clinton for her use of an unclassified email server while secretary of state is significant, but what he did not address is equally important.

    • Why Hillary Clinton Should be Prosecuted for Reckless Abuses of National Security

      Yesterday FBI Director James Comey described Hillary Clinton’s email communications as Secretary of State as “extremely careless.” His statement undermined the defenses Clinton put forward, stating the FBI found 110 emails on Clinton’s server that were classified at the time they were sent or received; eight contained information classified at the highest level, “top secret,” at the time they were sent. That stands in direct contradiction to Clinton’s repeated insistence she never sent or received any classified emails.

      All the elements necessary to prove a felony violation were found by the FBI investigation, specifically of Title 18 Section 793(f) of the federal penal code, a law ensuring proper protection of highly classified information. Director Comey said that Clinton was “extremely careless” and “reckless” in handling such information. Contrary to the implications of the FBI statement, the law does not require showing that Clinton intended to harm the United States, but that she acted with gross negligence.

      The recent State Department Inspector General (IG) report was clear that Clinton blithely disregarded safeguards to protect the most highly classified national security information and that she included on her unprotected email server the names of covert CIA officers. The disclosure of such information is a felony under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

    • Hillary Clinton’s Wanton Disregard for US Laws and National Security

      There is a new poster child for the U.S. government’s double standard in dealing with violations of public policy and public trust—former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who will receive no punishment for her wanton disregard of U.S. laws and national security. Clinton merely received a blistering rebuke from FBI director James Comey, who charged her with “extremely careless” behavior in using multiple private email servers to send and received classified information as well as using her personal cellphone in dealing with sensitive materials while traveling outside the United States. Some of these communications referred to CIA operatives, which is a violation of a 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act to protect those individuals working overseas under cover.

    • Hillary Clinton as Damaged Goods

      FBI Director Comey’s judgment that Hillary Clinton was “extremely careless” but not criminal in her sloppy email practices leaves her limping to the Democratic nomination and stumbling toward the fall campaign, writes Robert Parry.

    • FBI Recommends ‘No Consequences’ for Clinton’s Reckless Email Handling
    • FBI Declares ‘No Charges Are Appropriate’ in Hillary Clinton Email Investigation

      Comey noted in his statement: “To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences.”

    • Judge Responds To Open Records Request By Having Requester Indicted, Arrested

      We’ve seen government officials do some pretty questionable things to avoid turning over documents to FOIA requesters. The most common method is just to stick requesters with a bill they can’t pay. Stonewalling is popular, too — so much so that the federal government sends out “Still interested?” notices to people whose requests have been backburnered for years.

      More rarely, officials will race requesters to the courthouse, hoping to secure a judgment in their favor stating that they’ve already fully complied with a FOIA request — even when they’ve done nothing but withhold and redact. Stripped of all the legal wrangling, this is basically the government suing individuals for asking for documents, forcing taxpayers to go out-of-pocket if they hope to counter the officials’ assertions.

    • WikiLeaks Releases Over 1,200 Clinton Emails on Iraq War

      WikiLeaks on Monday marked the yearly celebration of American independence by releasing over 1,200 private emails belonging to former secretary of state and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton pertaining to the Iraq War.

      The whistleblower platform announced the new archive in a tweet, noting that the emails would be made public just two days before the UK government is set to release its official inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq, initiated by former U.S. President George W. Bush with substantial backing from then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

      Adding even more fuel to the speculation surrounding the Chilcot Inquiry, WikiLeaks on Monday also released a complete list of British MPs who voted to invade Iraq.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Climate Change Deniers Can Rest Easy Knowing The Democratic Party Isn’t Out To Prosecute Them

      Last week, a couple right-leaning news publications published headlines suggesting that the Democratic Party wants to prosecute individual people who disagree with the scientific consensus on climate change.

      This is not true, and the stories themselves don’t suggest it. But the headlines are conspicuously misleading. “Dem Party Platform Calls For Prosecuting Global Warming Skeptics,” screamed one headline from The Daily Caller. Townhall’s headline read nearly the same. The Washington Times went with “Democrats force Clinton’s hand on prosecution of climate skeptics.”

    • Big Coal Just Saw One Of Its Favorite Loopholes Closed

      The Obama Administration last week took a closely-watched first step in its effort to reform the federal coal program by issuing a rule that will make it harder for coal companies to dodge royalty payments when mining on taxpayer-owned public lands.

      The rule, issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR), closes a loophole that enabled coal companies to sell coal to their own subsidiaries — and then pay royalties on that artificially depressed price. Through these self-dealing transactions, coal companies have been able to shortchange U.S. taxpayers and state governments millions of dollars in royalty payments that are owed on federal coal.

  • Finance/Brexit

    • Sterling falls to new low against the dollar in Asia trade

      The pound has hit a new low in Asian trading as concerns about the UK’s vote to leave the European Union continue to weigh on investor confidence.

      It touched 1.2798 against the dollar on Wednesday, a 31-year low, before recovering slightly to $1.2963.

      The pound has now fallen about 14% against the dollar since hitting $1.50 ahead of the referendum result.

    • How Brexit Will Affect U.S. Foreign Policy

      British voters’ decision to leave the European Union last week caused panic in world financial markets, with stocks dropping like a stone around the world. The British pound and the euro sank, and many “experts” lamented the beginning of the end of the EU. Maybe it’s true that Brexit will lead to a period of instability in stock markets, currencies and European politics. But there’s a bigger issue at play—European foreign policy in support of U.S. interventions around the world.

      As Chris Hedges eloquently noted in a recent Truthdig column, the U.K. is generally viewed as the closest ally of the United States. Washington uses that relationship to push its foreign policy under the guise of European and Western unity.

      Is Libya falling apart? The U.S. and EU intervene, and it’s all a show of unity.

    • Brexit: the cost of bad governance

      What has come to pass in the United Kingdom with the referendum on membership of the European Union would be called bad governance and patronage anywhere across the developing world. Short-sighted self-interest and political ambition have trumped long-term vision and the collective good. This is, by definition, the problem besetting all those countries that the UK and other international donors work with in efforts to help them become more effective – as well as fairer and more inclusive.

    • Lionel Messi handed jail term in Spain for tax fraud

      Argentina and Barcelona footballer Lionel Messi has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for tax fraud, Spanish media say.

      His father, Jorge Messi, was also given a jail term for defrauding Spain of €4.1m (£3.5m; $4.5m) between 2007 and 2009.

      They also face millions of euros in fines for using tax havens in Belize and Uruguay used to conceal earnings from image rights.

      However, they are likely to avoid jail.

    • CETA will be voted on by EU member states after all, perhaps thanks to Brexit

      In an unexpected move, the European Commission has announced that national parliaments will be given the chance to vote on the CETA trade deal with Canada. As Ars reported last month, it was widely expected that the commission would try to claim that CETA was an “EU-only” agreement, meaning it would therefore be only need to be ratified by the three main EU institutions: the Commission itself, the Council of the European Union, and the European Parliament.

      In a press release announcing its formal proposal for the signature and conclusion of the EU-Canada trade deal, the European Commission explains its decision as follows: “To allow for a swift signature and provisional application, so that the expected benefits are reaped without unnecessary delay, the commission has decided to propose CETA as ‘mixed’ agreement”—that is, requiring all of the individual EU governments to ratify the deal as well.

    • TTIP impossible in 2016, French minister says

      It will be “impossible” for the European Union and the United States to conclude negotiations on a trade deal by the end of 2016, France’s junior minister for trade and commerce said on Tuesday (5 July).

      “I think a deal in 2016 is impossible and everyone knows it, including those who say otherwise,” said the minister, Matthias Fekl in a statement highly critical of the deal.

      Fekl’s position doesn’t seem to be a big surprise. France has already said that TTIP talks are likely to grind to a halt because of Washington’s reluctance to make concessions. But the real reason seems to be that France will hold presidential elections in April-May 2017 and the incumbent president François Hollande doesn’t want this issue to be part of the campaign.

    • The TTIP and the privitization of health

      The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Treaty (TTIP) may present a genuine threat to health and to the outcomes we have reached in the healthcare systems today. With all its problems, the National Health Care System (SNS) that we know today, is internationally recognized as one of the best and most efficient in the world. In the State of Spain, Osakidetza holds recognized prestige in this field. Experts agree that “universal health systems with public property and management and based on Primary Care are those that offer the best results in health and are also the most efficient, the fairest and the most humane”.

    • SRSLY: BoJo, The #Brexit Bro

      BoJo is the tousle-haired towhead who went to the most haute of all British high schools for boys — it costs $13,000 just to drop out in the middle of a term, and that’s a bargain thanks to the falling value of the Great British pound — and yet, he managed to convince vast swaths of the plebeian old country (and I do mean old: “Leave” crushed among British seniors) that he should be their medium for social change. Johnson was previously the mayor of London, which voted heavily to stay, before he became the hair of the Leave Campaign.

      [...]

      He later lost a political appointment for lying to a superior about an affair he was having with a columnist at the magazine he was editing. He might’ve gotten away with that one if, according to the Daily Mail, the columnist hadn’t been a famous socialite whose mother revealed publicly an abortion stemming from the affair with Johnson. Johnson had previously dismissed the affair rumors as an “inverted pyramid of piffle.” Natch.

    • Despite Anti-Trade Rhetoric, Donald Trump’s Campaign Team Includes Pro-Trade Lobbyists

      Donald Trump denounced the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement on Tuesday and charged that Hillary Clinton, a long-time supporter of the deal, is deceiving voters when she says she now opposes it.

      Trump wasn’t wrong to charge that Clinton has surrounded herself with members of the global elite who promote and benefit from deals such as TPP. In fact, many members of Clinton’s inner circle have continued to advocate for the trade agreement.

    • Donald Trump’s Evil Twin Brother

      Just to clarify, Carl Icahn couldn’t actually be Trump’s biological “twin” because at age 80, he’s ten years older than his fellow billionaire. Still, in regard to swinish greed, naked ambition, and unvarnished contempt for working men and women, he surpasses Donald in almost every category, which is saying something, and which is why, even in hard-bitten business circles, Icahn has been described as “evil.”

      Carl Icahn gained fame in the 1980s with his “raider mentality” and highly publicized hostile takeovers of corporations. He would borrow enormous sums of money to purchase a company, then pay off the accrued debt by breaking it up and selling its components, basically destroying the company. One can’t help but recall Harold Wilson’s reference to Edward Heath: “He reminds me of a shiver looking for a spine to run down.”

    • New York Isn’t Telling Tenants They May Be Protected From Big Rent Hikes

      In February of 2015, Lilian Piedra received a letter with devastating news: Her landlord was jacking up the rent for her four-bedroom apartment in Manhattan’s Washington Heights from $2,100 a month to $3,500.

      The notice did not say she faced eviction, but Piedra immediately understood that’s what it meant. She and her husband were already struggling to raise three young children on her salary as a bank customer service representative and his as a parking garage manager.

    • Sports Direct reports worse-than-forecast 15 percent drop in profit

      British retailer Sports Direct (SPD.L) posted a worse-than-expected 15 percent drop in annual profit on Thursday, blaming tough conditions on the high street and negative publicity about its working practices.

      The company, which is not paying a dividend, said current political uncertainty after Britain voted to leave the European Union last month was likely to act as a continuing drag on consumer confidence.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Hillary Rebuffs Bernie’s Policy Demands

      Eager to hold the political “center,” Hillary Clinton has budged little on Bernie Sanders’s policy proposals beyond nice-sounding platitudes, a strategy that could lead to clashes at the Democratic convention, says Lawrence Davidson.

    • In the Bloodpot of Human Hearts: Standing Up Against Old Man Trump and His Creepy Racist Son Too

      The lyrics, scribbled by Guthrie over 60 years ago but just discovered earlier this year, describe the racist rental policies of Trump Sr.’s housing project Beach Haven. Notes Guthrie, “I suppose/Old Man Trump knows/Just how much/Racial Hate he stirred up/In the bloodpot of human hearts/When he drawed/That color line.” In honor of the release, Morello shot a video in which he proclaims, “I’m standing up against Old Man Trump.” He goes on vis a vis the son who followed in his father’s – and grandfather’s – bigoted footsteps, “When it comes to race relations, he’s like an old-school segregationist. When it comes to foreign policy, he’s like an old-school napalmist. When it comes to women’s issues, he’s like a frat-house rapist. So let’s not elect that guy.”

    • Clinton’s Pro-Charter School Comments Draw Boos from Teachers Union

      Hillary Clinton was booed at a National Education Association (NEA) event on Tuesday after suggesting that public schools have something to learn from their charter counterparts.

      “When schools get it right, whether they’re traditional public schools or public charter schools, let’s figure out what’s working and share it with schools across America,” she said to the labor union’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., provoking audible boos. “Rather than starting from ideology, let’s start from what’s best for our kids.”

    • The GOP’s Date from Hell

      For a half century, Republicans pandered to Americans angry about racial integration and other social change – even as GOP elites got rich off the “base” – leading to Donald Trump, the party’s date from hell, says Michael Winship.

    • Sanders Reportedly Booed by House Dems Who Just Want Clinton Endorsement Already

      Bernie Sanders spoke to Democratic members of the House of Representatives on Wednesday but was reportedly booed as he attempted to explain that his endorsement of presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton might not fit into an easy timeline and that transforming the nation is about more than one election.

      While providing anonymity to all of its sources, Politico reported how “one person inside the room” said there were “boos from lawmakers” while Sanders was addressing questions about endorsing Clinton.

      One unnamed “senior Democrat” described being personally frustrated that Sanders used the meeting to talk about the central issues of his historic campaign while refusing to simply say when Clinton would receive his blessing publicly. “It was frustrating because he’s squandering the movement he built with a self-obsession that was totally on display,” the individual said.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Europol’s online censorship unit is haphazard and unaccountable says NGO

      Europol’s Internet Referral Unit (IRU) celebrated its first birthday at the weekend, but civil liberties organisations are worried that it goes too far in its efforts to keep the Web free from extremist propaganda.

      The IRU has been up and running since July 2015 as part of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) in the Hague. The unit is charged with monitoring the Internet for extremist propaganda and referring “relevant online content towards concerned Internet service providers” in particular social media. Much was made of how the IRU could “contact social network service provider Facebook directly to ask it to delete a Web page run by ISIS or request details of other pages that might be run by the same user.”

    • DA Demands Answers for SA’s UN Vote Against Internet Freedom

      South Africa’s vote against a United Nation (UN) resolution promoting Internet freedom is disturbing but unsurprising, given the ANC-government’s penchant for censorship.

      Last week, the South African government’s representatives at the UN voted against a resolution that sought to promote and protect human rights on online platforms. Part of the resolution sought to condemn the intentional disruption of Internet access to the public. In voting against this resolution, South Africa has joined the ranks of China, Russia and North Korea, countries that have poor human rights track records and are the biggest practitioners of censorship.

    • Selected-Information Age: The new face of censorship

      South Africa voted with China and Russia against a UN resolution on freedom of the internet. It is ironic that censorship is flourishing in the information age.

      Two beliefs exist about modern journalism. One is that the digital revolution is the most powerful force disrupting the news media. The second is that the internet and the social media platforms it spawned, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, are shifting power from high authorities to civil society and to bloggers, or rather, “citizen journalists.”

    • Helen Suzman Foundation launches court case against SABC censorship

      On Monday 4 July, News24 reported that the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF) has launched an urgent court bid to stop the SABC from implementing its decision to censor reporting of protests.

      The application is against the SABC, its board, COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng and Communications Minister Faith Muthambi, the HSF said in a statement on Monday.

    • Anti-censorship picketers to SABC: Cooperate or face more demonstrations

      An anti-censorship picket is underway outside the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) offices in Auckland Park, despite SABC management refusing to meet with protesting organisations.

      The picket is being led by the Save Our SABC (SOS) Coalition, together with the Gauteng South African Communist Party (SACP).

    • SABC protests to continue this week

      Protests will continue for the rest of the week in connection with SABC censorship and the dismissal of SABC journalists.

      The protest campaigns are being organised by civil societies such as Right2Know Campaign and SOS Coalition as well as Support Our SABC campaign.

    • Has Subaru’s SiriusXM ‘Censorship’ Crossed a Line?

      “Subaru has no business monitoring what I listen to and resetting my radio every time I turn off the car, when, in Subaru’s high and mighty opinion, I’m listening to something questionable,” remarked Patton.

    • UK High Court Upholds Blocking Of Infringing Websites In Trademark Cases

      Internet service providers can be ordered to block websites that offer counterfeit goods for sale despite the lack of an express law to that effect in trademark cases, the UK Court of Appeal for England and Wales said in a 6 July decision.

    • Professor breaks silence in University of Northern Colorado academic freedom case
    • University of Northern Colorado President Kay Norton’s letter to campus community
    • EXCLUSIVE: Transcript of Bias Response Team Conversation with Censored Professor
    • Colorado ‘Bias Response Team’ Threatened Prof To Change His Lessons
    • UNC prof shares tale of censorship by Bias Response Team
    • Campus opinion police

      The latest low point in higher education comes from the University of Northern Colorado, where the campus Bias Response Team came down on two professors for merely suggesting supposedly controversial viewpoints to students.

      The professors didn’t argue their opinions. And they didn’t compel students to do so, either. They simply suggested them. But that was enough for offended students to report them.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Shaping Traffic and Spying on Americans

      At the Intercept earlier this week, Peter Maass described an interview he had with a former NSA hacker he calls Lamb of God — this is the guy who did the presentation boasting “I hunt SysAdmins.” On the interview, I agree with Bruce Schneier that it would have been nice to hear more from Lamb of God’s side of things.

      But the Intercept posted a number of documents that should have been posted long, long ago, covering how the NSA “shapes” Internet traffic and how it identifies those using Tor and other anonymizers.

      I’m particularly interested in the presentations on shaping traffic — which is summarized in the hand-written document to the right and laid out in more detail in this presentation.

      Both describe how the NSA will force Internet traffic to cross switches where it has collection capabilities. We’ve known they do this. Beyond just the logic of it, some descriptions of NSA’s hacking include descriptions of tracking traffic to places where a particular account can be hacked.

      But the acknowledgement that they do this and discussions of how they do so is worth closer attention.

      That’s true, first of all, because of wider discussions of cable maps. In discussing the various ways to make Internet traffic cross switches to which the NSA has access, Lamb of God facetiously (as is his style) suggests you could bomb or cut all the cable lines that feed links to which the NSA doesn’t have access.

    • Secret Rules Make It Pretty Easy for the FBI to Spy on Journalists

      Secret FBI rules allow agents to obtain journalists’ phone records with approval from two internal officials — far less oversight than under normal judicial procedures.

      The classified rules, obtained by The Intercept and dating from 2013, govern the FBI’s use of National Security Letters, which allow the bureau to obtain information about journalists’ calls without going to a judge or informing the news organization being targeted. They have previously been released only in heavily redacted form.

      Media advocates said the documents show that the FBI imposes few constraints on itself when it bypasses the requirement to go to court and obtain subpoenas or search warrants before accessing journalists’ information.

    • FBI Must Not Sidestep Privacy Protections For Massive Collection of Biometric Data

      The FBI, which has created a massive database of biometric information on millions of Americans never involved in a crime, mustn’t be allowed to shield this trove of personal information from Privacy Act rules that let people learn what data the government has on them and restrict how it can be used.

      The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed comments today with the FBI, on behalf of itself and six civil liberties groups, objecting to the agency’s request to exempt the Next Generation Identification (NGI) database from key provisions of federal privacy regulations that protect personal data from misuse and abuse. The FBI has amassed this database with little congressional and public oversight, failed for years to provide basic information about NGI as required by law, and dragged its feet to disclose—again, as required by law—a detailed description of the records and its policies for maintaining them. Now it wants to be exempt from even the most basic notice and data correction requirements.

      NGI includes prints and face recognition data from millions of everyday people who’ve committed no crime but have had their biometric data collected when they needed a background check for a job, applied for welfare benefits, registered for immigration, or obtained state licenses to be a teacher, realtor, or dentist. For example, NGI holds millions of photographs searchable through facial recognition and accessible by 20,000 foreign, federal, state, and municipal-level law enforcement agencies.

    • EFF and ACLU-led Coalition Opposes Dangerous “Model” Employee and Student “Privacy” Legislation

      EFF, ACLU, and a coalition of nearly two-dozen civil liberties and advocacy organizations and a union representative are urging the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) to vote down dangerous model employee and student privacy legislation.

      The bill, the Employee and Student Online Privacy Protection Act (ESOPPA), is ostensibly aimed at protecting employee and student privacy. But its broad and vaguely worded exceptions and limitations overshadow any protections the bill attempts to provide. As our joint letter explains, ESOPPA will result in only further invasions of student and employee privacy.

      The ULC is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to researching, drafting, and promoting the enactment of uniform state laws, which it drafts and circulates as “models.” The ULC will vote on ESOPPA on July 11 at its annual meeting, and if it passes, the ULC will circulate the bill to legislators across the country in the hope of uniform adoption in all fifty states. But ESOPPA falls far short of its goal and does not live up to the prevailing standard for protecting social media privacy currently being enacted by the states and as required by the U.S. Constitution.

    • Go Big, Go Global: Subject the NSA’s Overseas Programs to Judicial Review

      The next round of surveillance reform is a time for the United States to go big – and to go global. We should get out of our defensive crouch and show the world how to balance robust intelligence capabilities with rules to protect privacy and civil liberties in the digital age.

      Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorizes collection of data inside the United States, so long as the direct targets are foreign citizens located outside the United States, with judicial review on a programmatic basis. Section 702 expires at the end of 2017. The debate over reauthorizing it pits supporters ­– who argue the law is vital and should be extended without change – against civil libertarians who urge its expiration or at least significant reforms. This paper is an effort to reframe that debate.

    • India’s High-Tech Billion-Person Aadhaar Identity System Can’t Cope With Real-Life Biometrics

      It sounds like getting India’s 1.29 billion population to use the Aadhaar system for routine daily transactions is going to be something of a challenge, to put it mildly.

    • Going Underground – the Snoopers’ Charter

      Here is a recent interview I did for the RT UK’s flagship news channel, “Going Underground” about the horrors of the proposed Investigatory Powers Bill – the so-called “snoopers charter” – that will legalise previously illegal mass surveillance, mass data retention, and mass hacking carried out by GCHQ in league with the NSA…

    • “Only Facts Matter:” Jim Comey Is Not the Master Bureaucrat of Integrity His PR Sells Him Has

      There’s an intimately related effort Comey gets some credit for which in fact led to fairly horrible conclusions: torture. Jack Goldsmith, with Comey’s backing, also withdrew the shoddy John Yoo memo authorizing waterboarding and other torture (Goldsmith also prevented Yoo from retroactively authorizing more techniques).

    • Federal Court Hears Long Overdue Arguments Over 2008 Surveillance Law

      More than seven years after President George W. Bush signed a law authorizing warrantless surveillance of international communications, a federal appellate court heard arguments challenging the 2008 law for the first time.

      Congressed passed the FISA Amendments Act in the wake of revelations that the Bush administration was wiretapping all Americans’ transnational communications. Rather than reigning in the program, Congress effectively legalized it – providing legal immunity to the phone companies involved, and allowing the government to conduct surveillance without a court order, as long as the “target” was a foreigner living overseas.

      In 2013, documents from by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the government cites the law as the legal authority for its PRISM and Upstream programs – which collect Americans’ emails and browsing histories with individuals and websites hosted overseas.

    • Author adds perspective to NSA’s covert activities

      The intelligence community hasn’t always escaped study. Long before Snowden became the patriot or goat, depending on perspective, the Church Committee in the U.S. Senate took a look into the government’s spy agencies after Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon put the CIA and NSA on personal projects.

    • The Secrets that Remain about Journalist NSLs

      Which brings me back to the other point about NSLs I keep harping on. The 2014 NSL IG report showed that the FBI was not reporting at least 6.8% of their NSLs, even to Congress, much less to the Inspector General. When asked about that, FBI said an accurate number was really not worth trying to do, even while it admitted that the uncounted NSLs were “sensitive” cases — a category that includes journalists (and politicians and faith leaders).

    • Facebook’s Flip-Flop: Is It a Law Enforcement Thing?

      It started when — as increasingly happens in her work — someone came to her with a scary problem. Facebook recommended he friend someone he had only just met for the first time at a meeting for parents of suicidal teens. In response, Facebook confirmed they do use co-location for such recommendations.

    • Massive Security Boost: TOR Privacy Features Are Coming To Mozilla Firefox

      In order to make your web browsing experience a lot better, Mozilla is integrating some key privacy features of TOR browser into its Firefox web browser. These features will go live with the final Firefox 50 release and make it a better Google Chrome alternative.

    • Court to Hear Case on NSA’s Warrantless Spying Program

      On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in U.S. v. Mohamud, where a man is fighting his conviction for Attempted Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction after undercover agents caught him attempting to remotely detonate a fake bomb that agents had provided. Mohamed Osman Mohamud is appealing, saying that federal agents illegally monitored his online activity during their investigation, getting data through an NSA surveillance program, Reuters reported. Through that program, the NSA collected information from online communications and international phone calls of Americans without a warrant.

    • Senate Funding Bill For State Dept. Asks It To Figure Out Ways To Stop Bad People From Using Tor

      It would appear that Congress is not so happy that the State Department is a major funding source for the Tor project. Tor, of course, is the internet anonymyzing system that was originally developed with support from the US government as a way to promote free and safe access to the internet for people around the globe (mostly focusing on those under threat in authoritarian countries). Of course, other parts of our government aren’t huge fans of Tor, because it doesn’t just help activists and dissidents in other countries avoid detection, but also, well, just about anyone (except on days when the FBI decides to hack their way in).

      There has, of course, always been some tension there. There are always the conspiracy theorists who believe that because Tor receives US government funding it is by default compromised. Those tend to be tinfoil hat wearing types, though. The folks who work on Tor are not exactly recognized for being particularly friendly to intrusive government surveillance. They tend to be the exact opposite of that. And, of course, part of the Snowden revelations revealed that Tor was one tool that still stymied the NSA in most cases.

    • 9th Circuit To Hear ‘Christmas Tree Bomber’ Appeal Wednesday
    • ‘Christmas tree bomber’ will appeal conviction
    • Mohamed Mohamud case and challenge to electronic surveillance go before appeals court
    • Oregon Lawyers Question American Surveillance Tactics
    • Appeals court hears warrantless spying case. Could it change surveillance law?
    • Warrantless surveillance in Portland holiday tree-lighting bomb plot challenged in court
    • US defends warrantless spying in Christmas tree bomber case
    • Man convicted of Portland tree-lighting bomb plot wants sentence overturned
    • Appeals court hears challenge to use of NSA data in criminal cases
    • Christmas bomber case appeal challenges NSA surveillance
    • Attorneys debate use of warrantless surveillance in Portland bomb appeal
    • Mohamed Mohamud back in court today to appeal conviction

      Mohamed Mohamud, the young Somalian American convicted in 2014 of trying to bomb Portland’s downtown square during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in November 2010, is back in court today where an appeal of his conviction will be heard.

      The appeal will be heard today by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit at 11 a.m. at the Pioneer Square Courthouse in Portland.
      Mohamud is serving a 30-year prison sentence. The appeal argues the sting operation was a setup. It also claims the FBI surveillance of Mohamud violated his constitutional right against unlawful search and seizure. Mohamud’s lawyers are seeking a reversal of his conviction or a new trial.

      Prosecutors are standing firm, saying Mohamud intended to commit an act of terrorism.

    • U.S. court to hear arguments in warrantless NSA spying case

      A U.S. appeals court will weigh a constitutional challenge on Wednesday to a warrantless government surveillance program brought by an Oregon man found guilty of attempting to detonate a bomb in 2010 during a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.

      The case before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the first of its kind to consider whether a criminal defendant’s constitutional privacy rights are violated under a National Security Agency program that allows spying on Americans’ international phone calls and internet communications.

      Mohamed Mohamud, a Somali-American, was convicted in 2013 of plotting to use a weapon of mass destruction and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

    • VIDEO: Oh I do like to spy beside the seaside – GCHQ invites bids for learn-on-the-job cash [Ed: puff piece]
    • NSA Looks to IT Industry to Harden Vulnerable U.S. Nets [Ed: Another “NSA is the Good Guys” puff piece; they actively undermine networks’ security]
    • Protect your privacy: Resist mass cracking by US law enforcement

      In 2014, the Judicial Conference of the United States, which frames policy guidelines for courts in the US, proposed changes to Rule 41 of the FRCrmP that gives federal magistrate judges the authority to issue warrants for cracking and surveillance in cases where the targeted computer’s location is unknown. That means law enforcement could request warrants allowing mass cracking of thousands of computers at once. The Supreme Court, which oversees the Rules, submitted the changes to the US Congress in April. This is an unprecedented, broad government cracking authorization, and it is dangerous to the privacy and security of all Internet users.

    • The single reason I trust Google with my data
    • The Two Reasons I Don’t Trust Google With My Data
    • Should you trust Google with your data?

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Former Police Chief Pushes Through Legislation To Keep Body Cam Footage Out Of The Public’s Hands

      Whatever accountability and transparency could be achieved with the deployment of police body cameras often seems to be undercut by legislative activity. Minnesota legislators, prompted by law enforcement, tried to cut the public out of the process. So did a sheriff-turned-legislator in Michigan. The LAPD preemptively declared its body cam footage would not be considered “public records,” which means legislators will have to act to roll back the PD’s policy. And in Illinois, a law enforcement agency decided to stop using body cameras altogether because accountability is just too much work.

      Over in North Carolina, one legislator is sponsoring a bill that would exempt body cam footage from public records laws. His concern, of course, is the privacy of all involved.

    • Chelsea Manning ‘rushed to hospital after trying to take own life’

      Chelsea Manning, the military whistleblower serving a 35 year sentence, has been rushed to hospital after reportedly trying to take her own life.

      A US media report said that Manning, who is being held at in a cell at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, was taken to hospital early on Tuesday morning. CNN said that it was believed that the 28-year-old had tried to take her life. There was no immediate independent confirmation of this.

    • Police Claim They Arrested Man Who Burnt American Flag Because Of Threats He Received

      Meet Bryton Mellott. Bryton’s just a guy from Urbana, IL. A guy with a Facebook page that he uses to share stuff with friends, post hilarious memes, and post a picture of himself burning the American flag on the 4th of July, the anniversary of when President Washington personally haymaker-punched the King of England right in the face (I think), thereby setting all some Americans free of our British overseers.

      As you can imagine, lots of people didn’t like Bryton’s picture. Some called the police about it for reasons we will get into in a moment. Others threatened him with violence and death. Still others threatened him with violence and death at his place of work. A few meager folks stuck up for him. You know, Facebook.

      And at the end of the day, Bryton was arrested by Urbana police.

    • Whitewashing Sharia councils in the UK?

      In an Open Letter to the UK Home Secretary, hundreds of women’s human rights organisations and campaigners warn against a further slide towards privatised justice and parallel legal systems.

    • From Captive to Captor: A Journalist’s Journey from Prisoner to Prison Guard

      Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer has spent much of his career reporting on criminal justice. For years he’d been frustrated by the secretive nature of the American private prison industry. Tired of old-fashioned document-hunting, he tried an unconventional approach. He went undercover, spending four months as a prison guard at Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana.

      His 35,000-word story provides a rare, harrowing look at the closed world of private prisons — a system that holds 131,000 people nationwide. What he saw still haunts him: men stabbing each other with handmade knives as guards looked on; officers in tactical gear storming the prison’s dormitories; an assault victim writhing in panic as he pleaded for protection from a predatory inmate; a prisoner whose gangrene went untreated so long he had to have his legs amputated.

    • Tomgram: Nick Turse, Revolving Doors, Robust Rolodexes, and Runaway Generals

      Here’s an oddity: Americans recognize corruption as an endemic problem in much of the world, just not in our own. And that’s strange. After all, to take but one example, America’s twenty-first-century war zones have been notorious quagmires of corruption on a scale that should boggle the imagination. In 2011, a final report from the congressionally mandated Commission on Wartime Contracting estimated that somewhere between $31 billion and $60 billion U.S. taxpayer dollars were lost to fraud and waste in the American “reconstruction” of Iraq and Afghanistan (which undoubtedly will, in the end, prove an underestimate). U.S. taxpayer dollars were spent to build roads to nowhere; a gas station in the middle of nowhere; teacher-training centers and other structures that were never finished (but made oodles of money for lucky contractors); a chicken-plucking factory that never plucked a chicken (but plucked American taxpayers); and a lavish $25 million headquarters that no one ever needed or bothered to use. Thanks to tens of billions of U.S. dollars, whole security forces were funded, trained, armed, and filled with “ghost” soldiers and police (while local commanders and other officials lined their pockets with completely unspectral “salaries”). And so it went.

    • Alaa Abd El Fattah Must Be Released, Says UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

      Nearly two years ago, along with the Media Legal Defence Initiative and with consent and input from his family, we submitted a petition to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) for the release of Egyptian coder, blogger, and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah. Abd El Fattah was arrested on November 28, 2013, two days after participating in a peaceful demonstration against a law allowing Egyptian civilians to be tried in military courts. His arrest was conducted without a warrant, he was beaten by police officers, and authorities raided his home while his wife and child were present. He was later sentenced to five years in prison.

    • Brazil’s Globo Attacks Protesting Cops to Protect Its Olympics Payday

      Police officers and firefighters in Rio de Janeiro protesting their lack of pay as the Olympics approach are engaged in “ethically reprehensible” actions “bordering on terrorism,” according to an editorial on Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro’s largest newspaper, O Globo. The newspaper, a property of Grupo Globo, which is owned and controlled by the billionaire Marinho family, is Brazil’s dominant media conglomerate and a primary sponsor and beneficiary of the 2016 Summer Olympics.

      In attacking the police, the paper was not criticizing the epidemic of police killings of black and brown youth, nor the militarized occupation of many of Rio’s slums that has failed to improve public security, nor the criminal gangs of off-duty and former officers, known as milícias, that violently control and extort vast swaths of the city. Instead, Globo’s indignation was targeted at public servants nonviolently demonstrating for a basic worker’s right — being paid — as part of a protest that happens to threaten Globo’s own business interests worth hundreds of millions of dollars, a fact the paper neglected to disclose to its readers.

      “Welcome to Hell. Police and firefighters don’t get paid; Whoever comes to Rio de Janeiro will not be safe,” read a sign in English held by disgruntled police officers in Rio’s international airport on Monday, just weeks before the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympics. The state of Rio, after wasting billions on lavish corporate tax breaks and delayed, over-budget Olympic construction contracts with notoriously corrupt firms, has declared a financial emergency, forcing it to cut benefits, postpone paying salaries and pensions to public workers, and slash operating budgets. Police and firefighters have for months been in conflict with the state over budget shortfalls. The state’s teachers union has been on strike for nearly four months.

    • ‘What Is a Journalist if Not an Advocate on Behalf of the Public?’

      Today’s US news watchers might not recognize that the pretense of objectivity in journalism, the view that reporters should strive to report the news as if from nowhere, is—besides not being possible—not a value that adheres to journalism the world around, or that has even always held sway in this country. Many of those thought of as the giants of the profession — Ida B. Wells, Lincoln Steffens — were advocacy journalists before that term was considered not just a pejorative, but an oxymoron. Things seem to be changing again, though, with a growing awareness that if taking a side against poverty or racism or climate change means breaking some rule of straight journalism, then it’s the rules that ought to change.

    • Does More Security at Airports Make Us Safer or Just Move the Targets?

      At Ataturk airport, passengers pass through metal detectors and their bags are scanned as they enter the terminal.

      This differs from the procedures at most American airports, where anyone can enter the terminal without being screened.

      Turkish officials said the attackers initially tried to enter the building, but were turned away at the security screening.

      They returned with “long-range rifles” from their suitcases. Two of the attackers entered the terminal in the ensuing panic.

      One set off his explosives on the arrivals floor of the terminal; the other detonated his on the departures floor one level above. A third attacker blew himself up outside the terminal as people fled.

    • Falcon Heights shooting: Facebook video captures aftermath of fatal police encounter in Minnesota

      Ms Reynolds described the sequence of events repeatedly throughout the video, during which she said the officer asked the driver for his license and registration.

      “He told him that it was in his wallet, but he had a pistol on him because he’s licensed to carry. The officer said don’t move. As he was putting his hands back up, the officer shot him in the arm four or five times,” she said.

    • Senate Bill Would Force Red Cross to Open Books to Outside Oversight

      Legislation introduced in the Senate today would open the American Red Cross to outside oversight that it has long resisted.

      The bill was introduced by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, following a lengthy investigation by his staff that raised questions about the charity’s spending after the 2010 Haiti earthquake and documented how Red Cross leaders resisted an earlier congressional inquiry. Grassley launched his probe in response to reporting by ProPublica and NPR.

      Grassley’s American Red Cross Transparency Act, would amend the group’s congressional charter to allow unfettered access to its records and personnel by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The Red Cross operates as a private nonprofit but was created by Congress over 100 years ago and has a mandated role to work alongside the federal government after disasters.

    • Major New Brazil Events Expose the Fraud of Dilma’s Impeachment — and Temer’s Corruption

      From the start of the campaign to impeach Brazil’s democratically elected President Dilma Rousseff, the primary justification was that she used a budget trick known as pedaladas (“peddling”: illegal delay of re-payments to state banks) to mask public debt. But this week, as the Senate conducts her impeachment trial, that accusation was obliterated: The Senate’s own expert report concluded there was “no indication of direct or indirect action by Dilma” in any such budgetary maneuvers. As the Associated Press put it: “Independent auditors hired by Brazil’s Senate said in a report released Monday that suspended President Dilma Rousseff didn’t engage in the creative accounting she was charged with at her impeachment trial.” In other words, the Senate’s own objective experts gutted the primary claim as to why impeachment was something other than a coup.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • FCC Pressure Helps Bring Netflix To Comcast Cable Boxes

      We’ve long noted how Comcast is a bit of an anti-competitive jackass on both the TV and broadband fronts. When the nation’s biggest cable provider isn’t using usage caps to hinder streaming video competitors, it’s busy finding new and creative ways to prevent paying customers from wandering too far outside of Comcast’s well-cultivated walled garden. And while many global cable companies have joined the year 2016 by integrating Netflix functionality into their cable boxes for consumer benefit, Comcast has historically fought such a move, instead trying to drive consumers to its own Netflix knockoff.

    • Dish Sues Tribune Because It Called The Company ‘Dishgusting’

      For years now, consumers have been stuck in the middle of increasingly-ugly carriage fee disputes between broadcasters and cable companies. Usually they go something like this: a broadcaster demands a massive rate hike from cable companies to carry their channels. Cable TV providers balk, and the broadcaster pulls access to the channels in question until the cable provider pays up. Consumers not only lose access to content they’re paying for (refunds are never provided), but they’re also hammered by ads from both sides trying to get consumers to call and bitch at the other guy for being greedy.

  • DRM

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

      • The USPTO Moves to Clear “Trademark Deadwood”

        Is there a “trademark deadwood” problem? The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) thinks there is a “trademark deadwood” problem in its register. On June 22, 2016, the USPTO announced its intention to make new rules requiring additional documentation under section 8 and section 71 of the Trademark Act to ensure that a party is actually using the mark in commerce.

        It is axiomatic in the United States that use is a prerequisite for trademark rights. With respect to some limited exceptions, use is required to obtain rights at common law and to secure federal registration on the Principal Register. Fundamentally, if there is not use, there is ordinarily less opportunity for goodwill to develop or for a likelihood of confusion to arise.

    • Copyrights

      • Kim Dotcom Hints at Second Coming of Megaupload

        Kim Dotcom has confirmed to TorrentFreak that he has a brand new cloud storage site under development. After an extended planning period, the entrepreneur says the platform will be his best creation yet. It could launch next January with a name that “will make people happy.”

      • UK Bill Introduces 10 Year Prison Sentence for Online Pirates

        The UK Government’s Digital Economy Bill, which is set to revamp current copyright legislation, has been introduced in Parliament. One of the most controversial changes is the increased maximum sentences for online copyright infringement. Despite public protest, the bill increased the maximum prison term five-fold, from two to ten years.

      • Porn sites will require age verification checks in the UK by 2017

        THE UK GOVERNMENT has unveiled the Digital Economy Bill that includes plans for age verification requirements on porn websites.

        The government has long been keen on this idea. We’re still none the wiser as to how such checks will be implemented, but the Digital Economy Bill explains that sites will be required to obtain age verification from visitors to stop children accessing such websites accidentally or purposefully.

        This is unlikely to go down well with privacy advocates, and the Open Rights Group has previously spoken out about the porn age check plans.

      • Mike Huckabee paying $25,000 for playing ‘Eye of the Tiger’

        Failed presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is paying $25,000 for playing “Eye of the Tiger” at a rally last year without the band’s permission, CNNMoney has discovered.

      • Mike Huckabee Settles For Five Figures With Survivor Over Copyright Infringement

        The claim that the rally was a religious gathering and not connected to the Huckabee campaign reportedly fell apart because he had listed the rally as a campaign expense on his records. Interestingly, despite Huckabee’s claim that it was not a campaign event, that it was so will allow him to use his campaign’s warchest to pay off the settlement.

      • American Copyright Trolls Continue To Abuse Canadian Courts In Search Of Easy Settlements

        In the United States, copyright trolls are finding it more difficult to save on filing fees by pursuing file sharers en masse. More than a few judges have shot down attempts to file infringement suits against “Does 1-30,” etc., ruling that these defendants are improperly joined.

        Meanwhile, in Canada, copyright trolls are trying a novel approach to suing alleged file sharers in big bunches: the reverse class action. Voltage Pictures is suing a nominative “class” of Does yet to be named for copyright infringement. This is its attempt to route around restrictions placed on it by another court, as well as the costs associated with complying with the demands.

        But in doing so, Voltage Pictures is making a mess of Canadian privacy laws. Rogers, the service provider standing between Voltage and the subscriber information it’s demanding, wants to know why the studio is abusing Canada’s “notice and notice” system to obtain information it’s not supposed to be able to acquire without a court order.

      • Why The Latest Supreme Court Ruling In Kirtsaeng May Have A Much Bigger Impact On Copyright & Fair Use

        Earlier this month, we wrote briefly about the Supreme Court’s second Kirtsaeng ruling, which focused on the issue of fee shifting in copyright cases. We didn’t spend that much time on it (and hadn’t covered the run up to the Supreme Court either). We had basically assumed that the first Kirtsaeng ruling from the Supreme Court, about whether or not the First Sale Doctrine applied to goods outside the US, was the real legacy of the Kirtsaeng fight, rather than a more mundane issue about fee shifting — especially when the more recent Kirtsaeng ruling was basically just “courts need to look at more than just if the original lawsuit was ‘objectively reasonable’” (but fails to give much guidance about what else should be looked at). Yes, we noted, this may ward off some bogus copyright lawsuits, depending on what standards the courts start to coalesce around, but there wasn’t much big news in the ruling.

      • UK Proposes To Tighten IP Protections Online

        The United Kingdom Digital Economy Bill, floated this week, aims to “enable access to fast digital communication services for citizens and businesses, to enable investment in digital communications infrastructure, to shape the emerging digital world to the benefit of children, consumers and businesses, and to support the digital transformation of government, enabling the delivery of better public services, world leading research and better statistics,” the UK government said in the document.

07.06.16

Links 6/7/2016: KDE Plasma 5.7, DigiKam 5.0

Posted in News Roundup at 4:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Linux: An Evolving Trend That Is High On Demand

    When we discuss the advancement of Linux, well then several companies along with developers are playing their part in bringing up the technology, especially desktop, the area where Linux strived hard to excel. Stack Overflow conducted a survey of more than 50,000 developers that stated that nearly 21.7% choose Linux, in particular to develop on the LAMP stack. In spite of the fact that 50% of developers use the same, the rate is steadily depleting, making the competition effortless for Linux.

  • When Linux is the face of kindness

    My late father, Lou Shapiro, was an early leader of UNICEF, so relief work was baked into the genetics of my family. His work was centered on emergency relief for the survivors of earthquakes and other natural disasters. Whenever there was an earthquake in the world, I knew dad would be coming home late from work—and I was so proud that some family experiencing trauma would be sleeping in a dry tent, with warm blankets and clean water, because of my dad’s work. Following in my father’s footsteps, my own relief work has been centered on digital inclusion—and open source is the tool I turn to most often.

    Let me share two stories with you in that regard. In April, a young dad visited the public library where I work. He appeared interested in using the public computers our library offers. It turns out someone had stolen his family’s only computer, a Macbook, and his tax return was due that day. When I learned about his predicament, I asked, “Would you like to borrow a Linux laptop until your family buys another laptop?” He perked up and asked, “Does this library lend laptops?” I replied, “The library doesn’t, but I do. You can bring this back to me after you’re done with it.”

  • 4 open source tools I used to write a Linux book

    I spent the past year or so writing Learn Linux in a Month of Lunches, which is designed to introduce desktop Linux to non-technical users. This is a rundown of the tools I used to create the book, with the HUGE caveat that tools are just that—tools. They don’t actually do any work or planning for you. However, the right tools make the work much easier. These are the tools that were right for me.

  • Desktop

    • Can Desktop Linux Conquer its Challenges?

      Despite countless inroads made by today’s best and brightest Linux distributions, it’s still difficult for the Linux desktop to get ahead. In this article, I’ll talk about the biggest challenges I’ve seen and what can be done to overcome them.

    • Windows 10 to Linux

      There is a lot of noise at the moment about Microsoft’s new operating system called Windows 10. Without repeating all the details you can have a look, say here or here or here. The essence of the story is that Microsoft is making it very difficult to avoid the new operating system. The advice being given is to not install the upgrade – which is anything but easy, since Windows 7 is supported until 2020.

    • A Windows zealot trashes Linux

      Linux has always been a fantastic alternative to Windows for many users. But there are some people who are so attached to Windows that the very idea of Linux offends them. So it was with one woman who became outraged when a Linux user tried to help her mother with some computer problems related to Windows 10.

    • The New Fullscreen Windows 10 Upgrade Nagging Reminder
    • Microsoft’s final Windows 10 nagware gets up close and personal

  • Server

    • LzLabs launches product to move mainframe COBOL code to Linux cloud

      Somewhere in a world full of advanced technology that we write about regularly here on TechCrunch, there exists an ancient realm where mainframe computers are still running programs written in COBOL.

      This is a programming language, mind you, that was developed in the late 1950s, and used widely in the ’60s and ’70s and even into the ’80s, but it’s never really gone away. You might think it would have been mostly eradicated from modern business by now, but you would be wrong.

      As we march along, however, the pool of people who actually know how to maintain these COBOL programs grows ever smaller by the year, and companies looking to move the data (and even the archaic programs) to a more modern platform could be stuck without personnel to help guide them through the transition.

    • Java on the Mainframe – on z/OS rather than Linux – An opportunity well worth researching, if you run a Mainframe

      There is suddenly new interest in monitoring Java on mainframes – I’m not talking about running lots of Java VMs on Linux but about running Java against big mainframe systems on z/OS. This might be about modernising legacy COBOL applications (Java skills are easier to find than COBOL skills these days) or about extending the legacy with new business functionality. JAVA is very flexible, you can use it in DB2 stored procedures, or in CICs, or even in IMS programming (yes, IMS database is still in active use). According to BMC’s 2015 Mainframe Survey, 46% of those surveyed say that Java usage on their mainframe has increased by over 10% in the past two years; and 70% of respondees reporting growth indicated that writing new applications in Java was a key factor in this.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • KDE neon Adds KDE Games

        Are you feeling too productive in your day? Then try the latest addition to KDE Neon! I’ve added the KDE Games applications to our repositories.

      • digiKam 5.0.0 is published…

        After two year of work, the digiKam team is proud to announce the final release of digiKam Software Collection 5.0.0. This main version introduces a new cycle of releases, which will be shortly released to quickly include all the fixes reported by end users.

        This release marks almost complete port of the application to Qt5. All Qt4/KDE4 code has been removed and many parts have been re-written, reviewed, and tested. Porting to Qt5 required a lot of work, as many important APIs had to be changed or replaced by new ones.

      • DigiKam 5.0 KDE Photography Software Released

        After two years of development, DigiKam 5.0 has been released as the digital photography management software from the KDE camp that’s now been ported to Qt5.

        The Qt5 port alone makes this a huge release and it does remove around 80% of the KDE-specific dependencies as in the future the developers are looking at making it Qt5-only. The dropping of many KDE dependencies is being used to make it easier to port and maintain this digital photography software on Windows, OS X, and other operating systems.

      • digiKam 5.0.0 Powerful Image Editor Officially Released, Ported to Qt5

        Today, July 5, 2016, the development team behind the digiKam open-source and cross-platform image editor software proudly announced the final release of digiKam 5.0.0.

        digiKam 5.0.0 comes two years after the release of digiKam 4.0.0. During these years, it received numerous snapshots that brought various nifty features and improvements, all of which are now present in this final build, which is available for download right now for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

      • KDE Neon 5.7 Lets You Taste the New KDE Plasma 5.7 Desktop Environment, Qt 5.7

        After informing us the other day about the availability of new ISO respins of the KDE Plasma Wayland images, ex-Kubuntu leader Jonathan Riddell has now announced the release of KDE Neon 5.7.

        For those behind on their KDE Neon reading, we’ll take this opportunity to inform them that the open-source initiative promises to offer ISO images as well as a repository that can be added on top of Kubuntu or any other Ubuntu flavor, with the most recent KDE Plasma, KDE Applications, and KDE Frameworks technologies.

      • KDE Plasma 5.7 Officially Released with Great Wayland Improvements, Many Changes

        Today, July 5, 2016, KDE has had the enormous pleasure of announcing the availability of the final KDE Plasma 5.7 desktop environment release.

        Yes, that’s right, the Beta testing phase is now over, and the final release of the highly anticipated KDE Plasma 5.7 desktop environment, which is used by default in numerous GNU/Linux operating systems, including openSUSE Leap, PCLinuxOS, Fedora, and many others, has hit the streets.

      • KDE Plasma 5.7 Officially Released
      • KDE Plasma 5.7
      • Animations on lock screen – Plasma Wallpaper support

        With Plasma 5.7 released I’m allowed to blog about new features in Plasma 5.8. One of the features missed by many users in the Plasma 5 series was the lack of animations in the lock screen architecture. With Plasma 5 we dropped support for the old XScreenSaver and went QtQuick only. Now technically it was always possible to have animations on the lock screen. Our lock screen architecture loads the QtQuick files through the lookandfeel package mechanism, which means that one could provide an animation in a lookandfeel package.

      • Synchronizing the X11 and Wayland clipboard
      • News from Randa, Café and next release
      • Interview with Matteo Pescarin

        It was a couple of years ago, I’ve grown disillusioned with the quality of the work I was able to get out of The GIMP from an artistic point of view until I started reading a couple of reviews of Krita online and decided to try it.

      • KDE Applications 16.08 Software Suite for KDE Plasma 5.7 to Land August 18, 2016

        Now that the release cycle of the KDE Applications 16.04 software suite is coming to an end, as the third and last maintenance update will arrive on July 12, it’s time for the KDE developers to concentrate their efforts on the next series.

        We’ve always wondered what will be the next version of the KDE Applications software suite for KDE Plasma 5.7, and now we know, as the release schedule of KDE Applications 16.08 has been published recently in the usual places.

      • Chakra GNU/Linux Users Can Now Test KDE Plasma 5.7, Qt 5.7 & KDE Frameworks 5.24

        The developers of the Chakra GNU/Linux rolling operating system are informing the community today, July 5, 2016, about the availability of the just released KDE Plasma 5.7.0 and Qt 5.7.0 in the testing repositories.

        As we reported earlier today, the KDE project has had the great pleasure of announcing the release of the final KDE Plasma 5.7 desktop environment, which already landed in the testing repos of the Arch Linux operating system, as well as today’s KDE Neon 5.7 User Edition Live ISO images. Now Chakra GNU/Linux devs have uploaded the latest KDE Plasma 5.7 packages, along with Qt 5.7 on their testing repositories.

      • KDE Plasma 5.7 released with more progress towards Wayland

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

      • Shining design – available and yet as well to come!

        The current vibrant coloured bg/theme is not the final one we’re going to release in GA. It has been intended for celebrating the new (and great) Plasma5, the default OMLx3 desktop.

        As always, we do our best possible to provide the users with an overall nice and stylish look for our loved distro.

    • Slackware Family

      • Slackware 14.2

        Slackware was familiar. I could easily go back to using it. However, I have been spoiled by my experience with opensuse. With slackware, there are no configured repos. Any install of addition software takes additional effort, though perhaps just unpacking a tar file. And security updates require periodic checking for announcements and then manual installing.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Lenovo G50 & CentOS 7.2 KDE – Really nice and cool

        CentOS 7 is an excellent choice for home use, even on a laptop that’s not Linux friendly, and it does its work well despite the challenges, the likes of Realtek, UEFI and other buzz words. Now, if only different distros could blend the good elements from their peers. In this case, Ubuntu and friends are more media friendly, and you have better smartphone support. But CentOS does the basics much better, and this means stability, consistency, and weirdly, hardware support.

        It’s like being asked whether you want to lose an arm or a leg, and you can’t have both. In theory, Ubuntu is supposed to give you that LTS fun plus the latest and greatest software, but in reality, this is not happening with Xerus. Yes, Trusty is there, and it’s still the best overall candidate for desktops, in whatever guise. CentOS comes rather close. Yes, it does have its antiquities and enterprise idiosyncrasies, but the problems are solvable. That’s a really nice thing. You can actually fix issues, and there are no surprises waiting for you the next day.

        I did invest a significant amount of energy in making CentOS 7 work on the G50 machine. We can’t ignore that. But the yield is highly positive. The outcome is worth the effort. You need the right network support and some extra repos, but after that, you can add new software, codecs, bells and whistles, drivers for other filesystems and protocols, and anything else you fancy. Well, almost. All considered, this is far more than you’d ever expect. There’s still more work to be done. I will address all sorts of issues in follow up articles, including stuff like MTP, Flash performance, adblocking, volume control, and more. And I think you will be amazed how far you can take CentOS if you set your mind to it. Hint, Gnome edition perhaps?

        Which makes it a darn good candidate for your systems. For one reason only. It needs fixing only once. It does not regress. For me, this is a hugely important attribute for anything I may consider for my production setup. CentOS 7, the biggest and most pleasant surprise this awful spring testing season. Modern hardware, here you go. Off to you guys. Do it. Do it.

      • Red Hat Wants To Repeat The Magic of Linux With Containers

        At the recently held Red Hat Summit, Red Hat’s annual user conference, containers took the center stage. The keynotes emphasized the importance of containers, both for the company, and the broader open source ecosystem.

      • The State of Flatpak In GNOME Software

        Richard Hughes of Red Hat has written a post about Flatpak and GNOME Software. His new post covers the per-user and system-wide plugins for dealing with Flatpak packages, GNOME Software interoperates well with the Flatpak command-line utility, and various other details about the current state of Flatpak integration for GNOME Software.

      • Red Hat, Eurotech Team Up On IoT Platform

        Red Hat and Eurotech have announced a jointly sponsored Eclipse Foundation project: a multi-device IoT platform based on donated Eurotech code.

      • Flatpak and GNOME Software
      • Red Hat CEO: Avoiding bloody noses, hammering home open source participation, and why Microsoft is trying to stay relevant

        Whitehurst believes that virtually all of the newer innovations in technology are happening on Linux first.

        “If you look at Hadoop – Linux only, Microsoft paid Hortonworks to port it to Windows but I don’t know anybody who actually runs it on Windows, if you look at everything happening round SDN or containers, they are Linux containers,” said Whitehurst.

        Microsoft’s plays were described as a company that is effectively playing catch-up, chasing the pack and trying to re-ignite the domination of the 90s that came about because the Microsoft Developer Network started building on Windows, said the CEO.

        Whitehurst said: “I think they are recognising that all the developers, all the cool kids, are developing on Linux now, so there is a nexus of innovation happening there and they are trying to figure out how to work in that new system.”

        Microsoft has made a play to try and stay relevant with developers that are increasingly comfortable with open source tooling and Linux as the operating system.

      • A childhood’s dream

        I will be joining the Platform Operations Team at Red Hat as a System Administrator starting from mid-July! Being part of a great family which cares about Open Source and its values makes me proud and I would really like to thank Red Hat for this incredible opportunity.

      • Finance

      • Fedora

        • Fedora 24 – It isn’t for everybody, but then, it doesn’t try to be

          On June 23, after installing Fedora for my first ever look at the distro for this review of Fedora 24, I pinged a friend who writes about Linux seeking help for a pesky configuration problem. I was trying to get GNOME to quit demanding a password every time I walked away from the computer for five minutes or so, which I thought should be easy, but wasn’t. After finding sort of a solution for the problem, I sent him another email.

          “I would expect Fedora to have an easy way to deal with this,” I wrote. “Actually, I find very few configuration tools in this installation of Fedora, which surprises me. This must be what you get when you have server people supervising the development of a desktop OS.”

          “Exactly,” he pinged back with record speed. “I’ve never cared much for it myself. Never really found it that compelling. Arch/etc I get; Ubuntu/Mint, I also see the appeal. But Fedora and SuSE always lost me. Nothing negative about them, rather, I fail to see the appeal unless you’re someone who uses these at work.”

        • Nvidia Drivers Install Fedora 24
        • Armadillo 7 and Nikola 7.7.9 now in Fedora 24

          A new update is available in Fedora 24 fedora-updates-testing repository. This is a major version change from version 6 to 7 and since this implies an .so (dynamic library) major number bump we had to rebuild all the packages that link with armadillo:

    • Debian Family

      • Debian Bullseye, More Obnoxious Windows 10, Slack 14.2 Notes

        Today in Linux news Debian announced version 10 codename at DebConf16 currently in session. In other news Microsoft was just kidding about that whole easier-to-decline thing and Li-f-e may be switching base from openSUSE to Ubuntu. Elsewhere, several reviews warrant a mention besides Neil Rickert’s and my own thoughts on Slackware 14.2.

      • twenty years of free software — part 8 github-backup

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • IBM SoftLayer Now Ubuntu Certified Cloud Partner

            IBM’s SoftLayer cloud infrastructure division has partnered with Ubuntu to offer users certified Ubuntu Linux images, giving access to all the latest Ubuntu features, compliance accreditations, and security updates to SoftLayer customers.

          • Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux Looks To Ditch 32-Bit

            Canonical is the latest software maker looking to end support for Intel’s once-great 32-bit platform

          • E-Shelter Offers Up Managed Ubuntu OpenStack Through Canonical

            Canonical and NTT Communications-owned data centre business e-shelter have launched a joint managed OpenStack private cloud service for e-shelter customers. Advertising.

          • Ubuntu 16.10 Unity 8 – Keyboard navigation
          • Fairphone 2 and OnePlus One Ubuntu Phones Receive Bluetooth, Voice Call Support

            Marius Gripsgård was happy to announce the biggest Ubports update ever for many of the unofficial Ubuntu Phone devices that he and other contributors to this project are maintaining.

          • Canonical Announces Snappy Sprint Event in Germany to Shape Up Universal Snaps

            Today, July 5, Canonical’s David Planella has informed Softpedia about an upcoming event that aims to gather together developers and contributors from various well-known projects to work on shaping up the universal Snaps.

            Last month, Canonical informed the media about Snaps becoming universal binary format for various GNU/Linux distributions that decide to adopt it in addition to various other similar formats, such as Flatpak or AppImage.

            Snaps are currently enabled by default in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system, but Canonical made it possible for users of various other operating systems, including, but not limited to, Arch Linux, Debian, and elementary OS, to use it as well.

          • Linux distros look to drop 32-bit support
          • Linux distros to ditch 32-bit support

          • Flavours and Variants

            • First Thoughts on Linux Mint 18 “Sarah”

              I am a big fan of Linux Mint and I look forward to every release. This week Mint 18 “Sarah” was released. I decided to try it out on my Dell XPS 13 laptop since it is the easiest machine of mine to base and they really haven’t suggested an upgrade path. The one article I was able to find suggested a clean install, which is what I did.

              First, I backed up my home directory, which is where most of my stuff lives, and I backed up the system /etc directory since I’m always making a change there and forgetting that I need it (usually concerning setting up the network interface as a bridge).

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • Goodwill is the source code at this open coder collective

    About a year ago, Gautam Rege decided that he wanted to do something to give back to the open source community.

    Rege, along with Sethupathi Asokan, is the cofounder of Josh Software, is among the top companies working on the Ruby on Rails framework in India.

    “With an experience of many years in the open source world, we realised that there is a need to build a platform for measuring the open source contributions, which coders make every day across the world,” Rege told ET.

  • Moving from a traditional product/release focused delivery model to a rolling model

    GDP was born as a “demo” project. The main goal was to provide a platform to show the software components for automotive that the different GENIVI Expert Groups were developing. This was done through a delivery model focused on publishing a stable and easy to consume version of the project every few months, a major release.

    Strictly speaking, GDP is a derivative. It is based on poky and uses Yocto tools to “create” the Linux based platform, adding the different components developed by the GENIVI Alliance together with upstream software. For the defined purpose, the release centric model works fine, especially if you concentrate your effort is very specific areas of the software stack with a small number of dependencies on the other areas, and a limited number of contributions and environments where the system should work.

    During this 2016, the GDP has grown significantly. We have more software, more contributors, more components and more target boards to take care of. Although the above model has not been not challenged yet, it was just a matter of time.

  • Why Google Stores Billions of Lines of Code in a Single Repository

    This article outlines the scale of that codebase and details Google’s custom-built monolithic source repository and the reasons the model was chosen. Google uses a homegrown version-control system to host one large codebase visible to, and used by, most of the software developers in the company. This centralized system is the foundation of many of Google’s developer workflows. Here, we provide background on the systems and workflows that make feasible managing and working productively with such a large repository. We explain Google’s “trunk-based development” strategy and the support systems that structure workflow and keep Google’s codebase healthy, including software for static analysis, code cleanup, and streamlined code review.

  • IoT Security: What IoT Can Learn From Open Source

    When personal computers were introduced, few manufacturers worried about security. Not until the early 1990s did the need for security become widely understood. Today, the Internet of Things (IoT) is following the same pattern — except that the need for security is becoming obvious far more quickly, and manufacturers should have known better, especially given the overwhelming influence of open source.

    The figures speak for themselves. In 2014, a study by Hewlett-Packard found that seven out of ten IoT devices tested contained serious security vulnerabilities, an average of twenty-five per device. In particular, the vulnerabilities included a lack of encryption for local and Internet transfer of data, no enforcement of secure passwords, and security for downloaded updates. The devices test included some of the most common IoT devices currently in use, including TVs, thermostats, fire alarms and door locks.

  • Nextcloud 9 update brings security, open source enterprise capabilities and support subscription, iOS app
  • ​Nextcloud adds enterprise support and iOS appliance

    The ownCloud fork, Nextcloud is aggressively seeking private cloud business customers.

  • Nextcloud Improves Security, Adds Enterprise Support

    A month ago, Frank Karlitschek, founder of the ownCloud project, forked the code to create a new company called Nextcloud. Now in its first platform release the company’s technology is getting enterprise support.

    In keeping with ownCloud’s numbering, the new release is Nextcloud 9, though the release brings more than what is available in the ownCloud 9 release that debuted in March.

    “Nextcloud is building open-source replacements for the ownCloud closed-source enterprise-only features,” Karlitschek told eWEEK. “With this release, 80 percent is done and the rest will be coming soon.”

    Nextcloud isn’t simply replicating features that already exist in ownCloud. Karlitschek said Nextcloud is also developing its own set of new and innovative features.

  • Project aims to store publicly available software

    A French organisation dedicated to computational sciences has started a project to collect, organise, preserve, and make easily accessible the source code of all publicly available software.

    Inria has dubbed the project Software Heritage and says it will adopt distributed infrastructure in order to ensure long-term availability and reliability.

  • Events

    • How to write an excellent event recap
    • HaL deadline extended

      There is this long-running workshop series Haskell in Leipzig, which is a meeting of all kinds of Haskell-interested folks (beginners, experts, developers, scientists), and for year’s instance, HaL 2016, I have the honour of being the program committee chair.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Support Public Education and Web Literacy in California

        Web literacy — the ability to read, write, and participate online — is one of the most important skills of the 21st century. We believe it should be enshrined as the fourth “R,” alongside Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. From our open source learning tools to our free educational curriculum, we are dedicated to empowering individuals by teaching Web literacy.

        In 2015, 65% of California public schools offered no computer science courses at all. Public schools should do more to expose students to Web literacy: a paucity of funding and the elimination of digital skills classes and curriculum are a disservice to students and the state’s future.

        On June 30, we submitted an amicus letter to the California Supreme Court urging review of the case Campaign for Quality Education v. State of California. The issue in this case is whether the California Constitution requires California to provide its public school students with a quality education. We wrote this letter because we believe that California students risk being left behind in our increasingly digitized society without a quality education that includes Web literacy skills.

  • SaaS/Back End

  • Databases

    • Formula E championship drives on Intellicore & Basho Riak TS

      Basho Technologies has announced Intellicore’s adoption of its Riak TS to power its Sports Data Management Platform, used by the FIA Formula E Championship to provide real time race analysis to its customers.

    • MongoDB Sets Up Real-Time Analytics Muscle with Apache Spark Connector

      The MongoDB World meetup took place last week, and there were a lot of interesting announcements made, including ones related to connecting open source database functionality to Apache Spark. From cloud developers working to incorporate databases with their deployments to enterprises that want more flexibility from their data repositories, open source databases are flourishing, and MongoDB is a leader in this area.

      At last week’s event, the MongoDB Connector for Apache Spark was announced. It is billed as “a powerful integration that enables developers and data scientists to create new insights and drive real-time action on live, operational, and streaming data.”

    • Why object storage is eating the world

      The traditional file system-and-database web backend is no longer adequate, and must make way for storage systems that manage unstructured data. In this article we will learn about the differences between structured and unstructured data, and why web storage backends must evolve to manage unstructured data.

      Traditionally, web applications use file systems and databases to store user data. This is simple to manage, as web applications generate structured data by accepting text input in forms, and saving the input to a database. However, times are changing; with the advent of social media, cloud storage, and data analytics platforms, increasing quantities of unstructured data are being pushed onto the Internet.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • Public Services/Government

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

Leftovers

  • Science

    • Japan Says Yes To Mirrorless Cars

      It’s clear that, at one point, glass mirrors will be a thing of the past, as companies will drop them in favor of video screens, but until then, they’ll have to wait for the legislation to change.

      Last month, however, the idea came closer to reality in Japan, which became one of the first countries to allow vehicles to use cameras instead of mirrors, as AutoNews reports.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Swedish politicians consider opening population’s medical-research DNA database for private insurance companies

      Since 1975, Sweden has taken a DNA sample from all newborns for medical research purposes, and asked parents’ consent to do so for this research purpose. This means that over time, Sweden has built the world’s most comprehensive DNA database over everybody under 43 years of age. But now, politicians are considering opening up this research-only DNA database to law enforcement and private insurance companies.

    • The Dutch & Pharma Policy: A Groundbreaking Presidency

      For the next steps, the European Commission seems rather hesitant to deliver on the tasks mandated by the Council. Drugmakers certainly feel uncomfortable with the debate around intellectual property and have even threatened to move their businesses out of Europe, should there be any changes to the IP regime. National governments, including the Netherlands, therefore will need to stand firm and prove that they are serious about what they signed off on June 17. They should guarantee that the European Commission delivers a bold and meaningful report and not another self-congratulatory inventory. And it remains to be seen how the political momentum will be maintained during the upcoming Slovak and Maltese Presidencies… In other words, June 17 was just the start rather than the end of the journey.

    • Celebrated eye hospital Moorfields lets Google eyeball 1 million scans

      Famous eye hospital Moorfields has agreed to give Google’s DeepMind access to one million anonymous eye scans as a part of a machine learning study intended to spot early signs of sight loss.

      Explicit patient consent is not required because the scans are historic, meaning the results won’t affect the care of current patients. Under the project, the hospital will also have access to related anonymous information about their eye conditions and disease management.

      DeepMind is a British AI company founded in London in 2010 and acquired by Google in 2014 for £400m. DeepMind Health was launched in February 2016 to work with clinicians in the NHS and other health services.

    • Google’s DeepMind AI to use 1 million NHS eye scans to spot common diseases earlier

      Google’s DeepMind division has announced a partnership with the NHS’s Moorfields Eye Hospital to apply machine learning to spot common eye diseases earlier. The five-year research project will draw on one million anonymous eye scans which are held on Moorfields’ patient database, with the aim to speed up the complex and time-consuming process of analysing eye scans.

      The hope is that this will allow diagnoses of common causes of sight loss, like diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration, to be spotted more rapidly and hence be treated more effectively. For example, Google says that up to 98 percent of sight loss resulting from diabetes can be prevented by early detection and treatment.

    • VA Officials Pledge New Studies Into Effects of Agent Orange

      The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is expanding its efforts to determine how Vietnam veterans and their children have been affected by exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange.

      The VA will conduct its first nationwide survey of Vietnam veterans in more than three decades and request an outside panel of experts to continue its work studying the health effects of Agent Orange on veterans, their children and their grandchildren. Both initiatives were discussed Thursday in Washington at a forum hosted by ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot on the possible multi-generational impacts of Agent Orange.

      Vietnam veterans have argued for years that their exposure to the toxic herbicide has damaged their health as well as their children’s. From 1965 to 1970, some 2.6 million U.S. service members were potentially exposed to Agent Orange, which contained a dangerous strand of the chemical dioxin. While the VA has linked Agent Orange exposure to a host of diseases in Vietnam vets, experts and veterans advocates have criticized the lack of research into the effects on future generations.

      “I believe that these individuals deserve an answer,” Linda Spoonster Schwartz, the VA’s assistant secretary for policy and planning, said in response to a question about the lack of research. “I believe that we need to at least ask the question. … This is the right thing to do.”

    • Fate of Vermont’s Historic GMO-Labeling Law in US Senate’s Hands

      As the nation’s first GMO labeling law takes effect, food policy experts are warning that its benefits could be “fleeting,” should the U.S. Senate pass a so-called “compromise” bill this week that would nullify Vermont’s historic law as well as other state efforts in the works.

  • Security

    • Security updates for Tuesday
    • But I have work to do!

      There’s a news story going around that talks about how horrible computer security tends to be in hospitals. This probably doesn’t surprise anyone who works in the security industry, security is often something that gets in the way, it’s not something that helps get work done.

      There are two really important lessons we should take away from this. The first is that a doctor or nurse isn’t a security expert, doesn’t want to be a security expert, and shouldn’t be a security expert. Their job is helping sick people. We want them helping sick people, especially if we’re the people who are sick. The second is that when security gets in the way, security loses. Security should lose when it gets in the way, we’ve been winning far too often and it’s critically damaged the industry.

    • Lenovo ThinkPwn UEFI exploit also affects products from other vendors [Ed: Intel and Microsoft told us UEFI was about security but it wasn’t]

      A critical vulnerability that was recently found in the low-level firmware of Lenovo ThinkPad systems also reportedly exists in products from other vendors, including HP and Gigabyte Technology.

      An exploit for the vulnerability was published last week and can be used to execute rogue code in the CPU’s privileged SMM (System Management Mode).

      This level of access can then be used to install a stealthy rootkit inside the computer’s Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) — the modern BIOS — or to disable Windows security features such as Secure Boot, Virtual Secure Mode and Credential Guard that depend on the firmware being locked down.

      The exploit, dubbed ThinkPwn, was released by a security researcher named Dmytro Oleksiuk last week without sharing it with Lenovo in advance. However, since then Oleksiuk has found the same vulnerable code inside older open source firmware for some Intel motherboards.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Why the Sanders ‘Revolution’ Must Take on the Permanent War State

      The Sanders campaign never explicitly raised the issue of the permanent war state during the primary election contest, either. He did present a sharp contrast to Hillary Clinton when they debated foreign policy, effectively demolishing her position urging a more militarily aggressive policy in Syria. He called for a policy that “destroys ISIS” but “does not get us involved in perpetual warfare in the quagmire of the Middle East.”But he never talked about ending the unprecedented power that national security institutions have seized over the resources and security of the American people.

    • Is Coup Against Corbyn a Plot to Spare Blair from War Crimes Probe?

      In the tumultuous wake of Brexit, why has the Labour Party turned on leader Jeremy Corbyn for campaigning for the “Remain” camp, while the Conservatives have welcomed new leader Theresa Mays for doing exactly the same?

      Alex Salmond, former Scottish First Minister, has proposed one damning theory by suggesting that the Labour Party’s coup against Corbyn is an orchestrated attempt to stop him from “calling for Tony Blair’s head” when the Chilcot Report, the government’s official inquiry into the Iraq War, is published on Wednesday.

      In a blistering op-ed published Sunday in Scotland’s Herald, Salmond writes, “It would be a mistake to believe that Chilcot and current events are entirely unconnected. The link is through the Labour Party.”

    • Truth and Fiction in Elie Wiesel’s “Night”

      “According to Seidman’s account, published in the scholarly journal Jewish Social Studies”, Cohen wrote, “Wiesel substantially rewrote the work between editions — suggesting that the strident and vengeful tone of the Yiddish original was converted into a continental, angst-ridden existentialism more fitting to Wiesel’s emerging role as an ambassador of culture and conscience. Most important, Seidman wrote that Wiesel altered several facts in the later edition, in some cases offering accounts of pivotal moments that conflicted with the earlier version. (For example, in the French, the young Wiesel, having been liberated from Buchenwald, is recuperating in a hospital; he looks into a mirror and writes that he saw a corpse staring back at him. In the earlier Yiddish, Wiesel holds that upon seeing his reflection he smashed the mirror and then passed out, after which ‘my health began to improve.’)”

    • Report Shows How War Profiteers Are Now Refugee Profiteers, Too

      As Europe comes to terms with a Brexit vote fueled in large part by anti-immigrant hate-mongering, a new report exposes how war profiteers are influencing EU policy to make money from unending Middle East conflicts as well as the wave of refugees created by that same instability and violence.

    • Iraq Mourns After Weekend Bombing Deathtoll Rises Above 200 People

      The deathtoll from a massive truck bomb detonated in a Baghdad shopping district over the weekend has climbed to over 200 people, with hundreds more injured and scores still missing, making it one of the deadliest such attacks in the recent history of war-torn Iraq.

    • Iraqis want crackdown on ‘sleeper cells’ after huge Baghdad bomb

      By Monday evening, the toll in Karrada stood at 175 killed and 200 wounded, according to police and medical sources. Rescuers and families were still looking for 37 missing people.

    • Poll Disputes Claim of Obama’s Weakness

      Democrats’ hawkishness is fed by fear that Republicans will attack them as doves, a concern heightened by the charge that President Obama is disdained globally for not using more military force, a point disputed by ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

    • Iraq Inquiry: Chilcot says ‘careful analysis needed before war’

      The chairman of the UK’s inquiry into the Iraq war says he hopes future military action on such a scale will only be possible with more careful analysis and political judgement.

      His 12-volume report on the Iraq War is due to be released later – more than seven years after the inquiry began.

      Sir John Chilcot told the BBC it would criticise individuals and institutions.

      He said he hoped it would help families of the 179 Britons who died between 2003 and 2009 answer some questions.

    • Grandfather fears Iraq War report will be a cover-up

      The grandfather of a Devon soldier killed in Iraq fears the long-awaited report into Britain’s role in the conflict will just be a cover-up.

      Sir John Chilcot is due to publish his long-awaited report into the war today, seven years after hearing evidence from his first witness.

      David Godfrey, who runs a fundraising shop in Cullompton, can’t believe it’s taken so long. For him, the UK should never have gone to war in the first place.

    • Families of Iraq War dead hope British inquiry will criticise ex-PM Blair

      A British inquiry into the Iraq War delivers its long-awaited report on Wednesday, with critics of the U.S.-led invasion hoping it will condemn former Prime Minister Tony Blair while some families of slain soldiers fear it may be a whitewash.

      To be published seven years after the inquiry was set up when the last British combat troops left Iraq, the report runs to 2.6 million words – about three times the length of the Bible – and will include details of exchanges Blair had with then U.S. President George W. Bush over the 2003 invasion.

    • WikiLeaks publishes more than 1,000 Hillary Clinton war emails

      WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website, has released more than 1,000 emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server pertaining to the Iraq War.

      The website tweeted a link to 1,258 emails on Monday that Clinton sent during her time as secretary of state. According to the release, the emails were obtained from the US State Department after they issued a Freedom of Information Act request. The emails stem from a State Department release back in February, The Hill reports.

    • Wikileaks publishes Clinton war emails

      WikiLeaks on Monday published more than 1,000 emails about the Iraq War from Hillary Clinton’s private server during her time as secretary of State.

      The website tweeted a link to 1,258 emails that Clinton, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, sent and received. They stem from a trove of emails released by the State Department in February.

      WikiLeaks combed through the emails to find all the messages that reference the Iraq War.

    • For Hillary Clinton’s Campaign, “Extremely Careless” Is a Soundbite to Celebrate

      When Hillary Clinton first acknowledged in March 2015 that she had indeed used a private email account — and her own server — to conduct official government business as secretary of state, it would have been hard to imagine that her campaign would 16 months later pronounce itself “pleased” that an FBI investigation concluded that she and her aides “were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

    • Washington Has Been Obsessed With Punishing Secrecy Violations — until Hillary Clinton

      Secrecy is a virtual religion in Washington. Those who violate its dogma have been punished in the harshest and most excessive manner – at least when they possess little political power or influence. As has been widely noted, the Obama administration has prosecuted more leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined. Secrecy in DC is so revered that even the most banal documents are reflexively marked classified, making their disclosure or mishandling a felony. As former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden said back in 2000, “Everything’s secret. I mean, I got an email saying ‘Merry Christmas.’ It carried a top secret NSA classification marking.”

      People who leak to media outlets for the selfless purpose of informing the public – Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Drake, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden – face decades in prison. Those who leak for more ignoble and self-serving ends – such as enabling hagiography (Leon Panetta, David Petreaus) or ingratiating oneself to one’s mistress (Petraeus) – face career destruction, though they are usually spared if they are sufficiently Important-in-DC. For low-level, powerless Nobodies-in-DC, even the mere mishandling of classified information – without any intent to leak but merely to, say, work from home – has resulted in criminal prosecution, career destruction and the permanent loss of security clearance.

    • Misunderstanding Russia and Russians

      Western media has demonized Russia and President Putin with unrelenting propaganda that has dazed and confused many Russians, a condition that retired U.S. Col. Ann Wright encountered on a recent visit.

    • Chilcot Report: Parents of major killed in Iraq say Blair must now face legal action

      The parents of the 95th British serviceman to be killed in Iraq have said there would be “something terribly wrong with our political process” if the Chilcot Report did not produce grounds for the families of dead soldiers to take legal action over the Iraq war.

      Roger and Maureen Bacon lost their son Matthew, 34, a major in the Intelligence Corps, when his Snatch Land Rover was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) in Basra on 11 September 2005.

      Speaking to The Independent hours before the long-awaited publication of Sir John Chilcot’s report on the Iraq War, Mr and Mrs Bacon accused Tony Blair of betraying their son and misleading Britain into a war that was “a total and utter catastrophe”.

    • Blair Can Be Tried For War Crimes

      There is no requirement in international law for the appropriate jurisdiction of a tribunal – or even the tribunal itself – to be in place before a crime is committed, in order for it to try that crime. The most obvious evidence of this is the Nuremburg Tribunal, which did not even exist when the crimes which it tried were committed. But in fact international law has a long tradition of arbitration or judgement by bodies which were set up after the event, but judging by the law applicable at the time of the event. It is the crime itself which must be a crime at the time it is committed. The jurisdiction of the body which tries the criminal can be created after the crime itself.

      Total nonsense has been written widely that it would be retroactive law, and thus unacceptable, for Tony Blair to be tried at the Hague for the crime of waging aggressive war. But the crime itself was very plainly already in existence when Blair committed it.

    • The 179 British personnel who died during the Iraq war

      The invasion of Iraq led to the deaths of 179 British personnel between March 2003 and February 2009.

      Tony Blair told the Chilcot Inquiry into the conflict he had “deep and profound regret” about the loss of life suffered by British troops and the countless Iraqi civilians.

    • With Brexit, Israel Loses a Major Asset in the European Union

      Britain helped moderate and balance EU decisions about the peace process, blunt criticism and even harness the member states against anti-Israel moves at the UN; voices sympathetic to the Palestinian cause could now become more dominant.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Does Jim Comey Think Thomas Drake Exhibited Disloyalty to the United States?

      As you’ve no doubt heard, earlier today Jim Comey had a press conference where he said Hillary and her aides were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information” but went on to say no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute any of them for storing over 100 emails with classified information on a server in Hillary’s basement. Comey actually claimed to have reviewed “investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information” and found no “case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts.”

      [...]

      I can only imagine Comey came to his improper public prosecutorial opinion via one of two mental tricks. Either he — again, not the prosecutor — decided the only crime at issue was mishandling classified information (elsewhere in his statement he describes having no evidence that thousands of work emails were withheld from DOJ with ill intent, which dismisses another possible crime), and from there he decided either that it’d be a lot harder to prosecute Hillary Clinton (or David Petraeus) than it would be someone DOJ spent years maligning like Sterling or Drake. Or maybe he decided that there are no indications that Hillary is disloyal to the US.

      Understand, though: with Sterling and Drake, DOJ decided they were disloyal to the US, and then used their alleged mishandling of classified information as proof that they were disloyal to the US (Drake ultimately plead to Exceeding Authorized Use of a Computer).

      Ultimately, it involves arbitrary decisions about who is disloyal to the US, and from that a determination that the crime of mishandling classified information occurred.

    • FBI Director Comey Preempts Justice Department By Advising No Charges for Hillary Clinton

      FBI Director James Comey took the unprecedented step of publicly preempting a Justice Department prosecution when he declared at a press conference Tuesday that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server.

      The FBI’s job is to investigate crimes; it is Justice Department prosecutors who are supposed to decide whether or not to move forward. But in a case that had enormous political implications, Comey decided the FBI would act on its own.

      “Although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case,” he said. Prosecutors could technically still file criminal charges, but it would require them to publicly disagree with their own investigators.

    • FBI Recommends “No Charges” Against Hillary Clinton

      In a surprising statement which concluded moments ago, FBI director James Comey announced that Federal officials have decided not to pursue federal charges against Hillary Clinton for her private email setup, an announcement that will send a shockwave throughout national politics.

    • FBI: Clinton ‘Should Have Known’ Private Email Server ‘No Way To Handle Classified Info’, But No Charges Will Be Sought

      But at the end of it all, the FBI found Clinton’s use of private email server to be severelty stupid, rather than criminal. Comey says the FBI found no signs of “intentional misconduct” by lawyers during personal email deletions or routine purges. Likewise, there was “no clear evidence of intentional misconduct by staffers,” but Clinton’s emails were “clearly mishandled.”

      The FBI’s final conclusion is damning, but only in terms of harsh words, not actual punishment. Clinton and her staff “knew or should have known” a private email server was “no way to properly handle classified email” — especially when housed on private server with “no full-time staff” or anything approaching the level of service one would equate with email services like Gmail. Comey also noted that Clinton used her personal domain “extensively” outside of the US, needlessly exposing sensitive information in the “presence of hostile actors.”

      James Comey also took a little time to bash her agency, stating that the FBI found the “security culture” of the State Department to be “lacking.”

    • ‘No Charges Are Appropriate’: Statement by FBI Director Comey on Clinton Email Probe
    • ‘Most Transparent’ President Signs Into Law FOIA Reform Bill That Won’t Affect His Administration

      While this is cause for some celebration, let’s not overlook what’s actually happened here. Obama has signed a bill he can saddle his successors with. Neither leading candidate seems particularly amenable to openness and transparency — not Donald Trump with his big ideas on how to change laws to make things better for him rather than for the nation, and not Hillary Clinton, who set up her own email server to route around FOIA requests.

      While touting his administration as the Openest Place on Earth, FOIA responsiveness actually took several steps backward during his tenure. His administration also spent several years fighting FOIA reform, something that was ironically uncovered by documents obtained via a FOIA request.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • How the Great Lakes Observing System Supports Regional Health, Safety, Economy

      The Great Lakes are a vital shipping channel for the U.S., annually carrying billions of dollars of cargo to and from the Atlantic. They also contain 20 percent of the world’s freshwater, have 10,000 miles of coast, and—much like the ocean—the waters of the Great Lakes heavily influence the climate in the region. Knowing what’s happening and forecasting what’s to come in Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario keep us safer, healthier, and economically sound.

  • Finance/Brexit

    • Despite What Media Says, TPP Isn’t About Free Trade — It’s About Protecting Corporate Profits

      The news media and advocates of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement have repeatedly described opponents of the deal as “protectionist” or opposed to trade itself.

      For instance, after Donald Trump pressed Hillary Clinton to swear off passage of the deal, the New York Times reported that Trump was embracing “nationalistic anti-trade policies.” The Wall Street Journal said Trump expressed “protectionist views.” President Obama warned that you can’t withdraw “from trade deals” and focus “solely on your local market.”

      But opposition to the TPP is not accurately described as opposition to all trade, or even to free trade.

      In fact, the deal’s major impact would not come in the area of lowering tariffs, the most common trade barriers. The TPP is more focused on crafting regulatory regimes that benefit certain industries.

      So the most consequential parts of the deal would actually undermine the free flow of goods and services by expanding some protectionist, anti-competitive policies sought by global corporations.

      “We already have trade agreements with six of the 11 countries. Canada and Mexico — our two biggest trading partners — are in there. The tariffs are almost zero [with those countries] anyhow,” Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told The Intercept. “What’s in the deal? Higher patent and copyright protection! That’s protectionism.”

    • More in hope, less about immigration: why poor Britons really voted to leave the EU

      A popular Brexit narrative is that those left out of rising prosperity lashed out at the establishment because they could take no more punishment. They had suffered years of recession and austerity exacerbated by a Dutch auction – in which the asking price is lowered until there’s a buyer – driven by rising immigration.

      The latest NatCen British Social Attitudes Survey shows the true extent of concerns about immigration. Clear majorities thought migrants were having a net negative effect on British schools and the NHS. This was an area where there was substantial agreement between people with different levels of education. Another area in which the public was even more of one mind was in their awareness that the NHS has a funding problem.

      To find out where those left out of rising prosperity differed from the rest, however, we need to look at other survey questions. These introduce two important caveats to the popular narrative: that at least until the eve of the referendum campaign, poor Britons were not sure that leaving the EU would reduce immigration; and that it wasn’t just rising prosperity that they felt excluded from.

    • Like imperialists of old, Nigel Farage blundered ignorantly in and nicked our country from under our noses

      So farewell, for now and for a while, to the anti-Martin Luther King.

      With his charming poster of Syrians queuing forlornly in that distant corner of the UK that will forever be Slovenia, Nigel Farage reminded us that he too has a dream, albeit the reverse of Dr King’s.

      Nigel dreamed of a land where people are judged not by the content of their character, but by the colour of their skin. He also dreamed of taking this country back to the Fifties, and he has doubled out splendidly on that.

      We are transported back to the mid-1950s, of course, after the end of bread rationing but before large scale immigration from the former colonies. That mythical Elysium, sun-dappled age of innocence when Pop Larkin thought everything “perfick”, and boarding house owners had no need to express their absolute right as Her Britannic Majesty’s free born subjects to announce which potential guests they found undesirable.

    • How Nigel Farage pocketed a £7,500 pay rise after Brexit

      Shameless Nigel Farage has pocketed a whopping £7,500 pay rise by getting Britain to leave the EU.

      The outgoing UKIP chief has seen the value of his MEP wages soar since we voted for Brexit , because he is paid in euros by the Brussels Parliament.

      The shock result sent the pound plunging in value, and as of Tuesday it was down almost 9% against the Euro since the June 23 poll.

      As Mr Farage lives in leafy Kent it means his salary has effectively rocketed from £75,295 to £82,707 in just 11 days.

    • How remain failed: the inside story of a doomed campaign

      On Friday 10 June, five men charged with keeping Britain in the European Union gathered in a tiny, windowless office and stared into the abyss.

      Just moments before, they had received an email from Andrew Cooper, a former Downing Street strategist and pollster for the official remain campaign, containing the daily “tracker” – the barometer of support among target segments of the electorate. It had dropped into the defeat zone. The cause was not mysterious. “Immigration was snuffing out our opportunity to talk about the economy,” Will Straw, the executive director of Britain Stronger In Europe, recalled.

    • Canada, Europe trade deal at risk as EU gives 38 parliaments a binding say

      The European Union put its landmark free-trade accord with Canada on a slow track for approval, increasing the risk of a veto amid an anti-globalization backlash across Europe.

      The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, proposed that its first trade agreement with a fellow member of the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries face ratification by national parliaments in the 28-member bloc. A total of 38 different national parliamentary chambers, including in some cases regional assemblies, will have a binding say.

    • [Old] ‘France is totally bankrupt’: French jobs minister Michel Sapin embarrasses Francois Hollande with shocking statement on state of the country’s economy

      France’s employment minister Michel Sapin has admitted the country is “totally bankrupt”.

      The unexpected news came during a radio interview yesterday and is thought to have sent the country’s business leaders into a state of shock.

      “There is a state but it is a totally bankrupt state,” Mr Sapin said. “That is why we had to put a deficit reduction plan in place, and nothing should make us turn away from that objective.”

      Mr Sapin’s “totally bankrupt” statement is likely to cause huge embarrassment for President Francois Hollande, who will be left to undo the potential damage to his socialist government’s reputation.

    • About 100 BBC Monitoring jobs to be axed amid £4m cuts

      At least 98 jobs at the BBC Monitoring department are to be cut ahead of a £4m reduction in funding.

      The department, which has 320 staff, analyses local media from 150 countries in 100 different languages, but the operation is to be scaled down.

      The World Service said the Mazar-i-Sharif bureau in Afghanistan will be closed and new bases will open in Istanbul and Jerusalem.

      The team will relocate from Caversham Park in Reading, its base since 1942.

      The BBC said it would begin consultations with unions shortly.

      The loss of jobs will mean a reduction of nearly a third.

    • Aviva Investors says suspends UK property trust

      Aviva Investors, the fund arm of insurer Aviva (AV.L), has suspended its UK Property Trust with immediate effect, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

      “The extraordinary market circumstances, which are impacting the wider industry, have resulted in a lack of immediate liquidity in the Aviva Investors Property Trust. Consequently, we have acted to safeguard the interests of all our investors by suspending dealing in the fund with immediate effect,” a spokesman said.

      The suspension of the 1.8 billion pound fund comes a day after Standard Life Investments, the fund arm of insurer Standard Life (SL.L), suspended its 2.9 billion pound UK real estate fund.

    • EU rivals vie to wrest drug and banking agencies from London

      Milan’s new mayor Giuseppe Sala will fly into London on Wednesday, stepping up a battle between European cities competing to wrest two prestigious European Union agencies from London in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the bloc.

      The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Banking Authority (EBA) together employ more than 1,000 skilled staff from across the EU. Both are expected to relocate as a result of the so-called Brexit decision.

      The agencies are prized not only for jobs but also for their potential to act as hubs for finance and pharmaceuticals, two of Europe’s most important industries.

      That has set off a battle from Madrid to Stockholm to Warsaw as EU members seek to grab one or other organisation, in the knowledge that banks and drugmakers will want to maintain close ties with key regulators.

    • Universities take a knock post-Brexit

      European academic bodies are pulling back from research collaboration with UK academics, amid post-Brexit uncertainty about the future of UK higher education.

      While post-Brexit Britain might remain inside the European research funding system, academics in other countries are nervous about collaborating with UK institutions.

      UK-based academics are being asked to withdraw their applications for future funding by European partners.

      BBC Newsnight is aware of concerns raised by academics at Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge, Exeter and Durham.

      Chris Husbands, the vice-chancellor at Sheffield Hallam, says that his researchers are already seeing significant effects.

    • Hillary’s National Security Alliance for Quivering Over Bank Prosecutions

      Again, I’m okay if Hillary wants to spend her time fearmongering about the dangers of Trump.

      But to do so credibly, she needs to be a lot more cognizant of the dangers her own team have created.

    • So long, Nigel Farage, the latest rat to jump from the sinking Brexit ship

      Hot on the heels of ‘Don’t Be A Quitter’ Dave and ‘Stabbed In The Back’ Boris, another politician leaves us to deal with the mess they created

    • ‘Brexit’ and the Democracy Myth

      There’s a theory going around that referenda are the ultimate in direct democracy. There’s something about masses of people voting for or against some major issue that causes would-be populists to go weak in the knees. But the theory is pure myth, as the Brexit debacle shows. Rather than raising democracy to a new level, referenda often drag it down.

      The classic example occurred in the early 1850s when Napoleon III, nephew of the more famous Napoleon I, engineered back-to-back plebiscites that allowed him to institute a dictatorship for nearly 20 years. Instead of democracy, France got the opposite – political prisoners by the thousands, foreign adventures, and a disastrous war with Germany.

    • Swimming Against the Loan Sharks

      Federal regulators have proposed new rules to rein in payday lenders, and those of us who’ve been fighting these legalized loan sharks for years are bracing for a major backlash from the industry while also pushing for tougher standards.

      Issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the proposal comes after years of grass roots pressure – in the face of nasty opposition by loan predators.

    • Britain needs to hire foreign experts to redo all the trade deals it voted to ditch

      Now that Britain has voted to leave the European Union, it faces the daunting task of renegotiating a long list of trade deals as a newly independent entity: all the deals the EU already has with other countries, the ones the EU is currently negotiating, and a deal with the EU itself after it leaves the bloc.

      This work will require millions of hours of work by seasoned negotiators with experience of the complex, high-stakes art of top-level government deal-making.

    • Brexit: Dual nationality on the table for Britons?

      It is more than a week since Britain voted to leave the European Union, and there is still little certainty regarding the future status of EU citizens currently living in the UK, or of British people living elsewhere in the EU.

      While many British citizens are happy to potentially wave goodbye to freedom of movement within the EU, some Britons would like to hold on to the opportunity to live and work in the other 27 countries that make up the union.

      At the weekend, German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said the remaining members should not “pull up the drawbridge” for young Britons, who largely voted to remain, and so should consider offering dual nationality to young British citizens “who live in Germany, Italy or France, so that they can remain EU citizens in this country”.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Theresa May wins more than half of MPs’ votes as Stephen Crabb pulls out and Liam Fox is eliminated

      Theresa May has taken pole position in the race to succeed David Cameron, with a comfortable advantage after securing the backing of more than half of Conservative MPs in the first round of voting.

      If the Home Secretary can repeat her triumph by winning the support of Tory members, she will be installed in September as Britain’s second female Prime Minister, after Margaret Thatcher.

      Stephen Crabb, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pulled out of the race on Tuesday evening after finishing second last with 34 votes. He backed Mrs may for leader.

      Former Defence Secretary Liam Fox was eliminated from the contest after winning the support of just 16 MPs when the results were revealed at 6.30pm on Tuesday.

    • Theresa May is bad, but the other Tory candidates are worse

      Imagine Britain’s membership of the European Union as a cat. The cat is sealed in a box with an unstable radioactive element, “Article 50”. At some point the toxicity of A50 will kill the cat – an outcome that is confirmed on opening the box. But as long as the box is sealed, moggy is simultaneously dead and alive. This state is known as Schrödinger’s EU membership, after the Austrian physicist who described something similar in 1935 to elucidate the mysteries of quantum mechanics.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Censorship Crusade: Far-Right Politician, Parents Team Up To Ban Books In Va. Public Schools

      Some parents in a Virginia county are upset about a few books on public school summer reading lists – so much so that they’re calling for censorship.

      Chesterfield County, which is just south of Richmond, has been besieged for a second-straight year by a group that is clearly under the influence of the Religious Right.

      Last year, Shannon Easter and her allies protested the inclusion of multiple titles on the Chesterfield County summer reading lists for middle and high schoolers after Easter consulted materials she found online, which were produced by organizations affiliated with a prominent far-right group: Focus on the Family (FOF).

      In 2015, Easter and her allies made enough noise that four books were removed from the summer reading list, even though librarians in the county have noted that the books on the list are merely suggestions to encourage reading – no one is required to read any of them.

    • David Stratton on censorship, ‘Sandra’ and the Sydney Film Festival

      What I proposed to the Sydney Film Festival was that if any cuts were demanded in festival films they should be publicised. There should be a press release issued and interviews given and make as much noise about it as possible, because when something is done in secrecy you can get away with a lot more.

      The director of the festival at the time felt that he could not implement that motion, and there was a valid reason for it, actually. The festival had an agreement with the Customs Department, which allowed the festival to import films without paying customs duty.

    • How one filmmaker is battling censorship in Lebanon and encouraging others to do the same

      In making her short film I Say Dust, Darine Hotait wanted to explore Arab American identity from her perspective as a New York-based American Lebanese writer and director. It just so happened that her two lead characters would be women in their 20s who share a kiss. That kiss, however, has put I Say Dust at the centre of a long-standing discussion about censorship after it was recently banned from two film festivals in the Middle East.

    • SA sides with censorship countries, says DA

      The Democratic Alliance has expressed shock at South Africa’s move to vote against a UN resolution promoting Internet freedom.

      Last week, UN member states voted on the resolution which affirms political commitment to protecting human rights online.

      It also seeks to condemn the intentional disruption of Internet access to the public.

      South Africa voted against it, together with China and Russia amongst others.

    • South Africa’s ruling party condemns its own national broadcaster for censoring political violence

      South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), has condemned its own public broadcaster for practicing censorship by not broadcasting images of violent anti-state protests.

      The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) was initially accused by opposition parties of pro-government bias when it brought in a policy of self censorship when violence flared as local elections approached.

    • ANC condemns broadcaster for censorship

      South Africa’s ruling African National Congress said on Tuesday the public broadcaster, accused by opposition parties of pro-government bias as local elections approach, was exercising censorship by not broadcasting images of violent anti-state protests.

    • ANC does not condone SABC censorship – Mthembu
    • ‘ANC just as clueless as the public over SABC censorship’

      The African National Congress (ANC) says it believes the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) failure to consult it on policy changes being introduced is a sign of disregard.

      Speaking at Luthuli House, ANC Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu addressed developments at the public broadcaster and media freedom.

      The ANC says it believes it should have been notified about changes made at the broadcaster, because it’s the ruling party.

    • ANC Slams Censorship at South African Public Broadcaster

      South Africa’s ruling African National Congress said it hasn’t sought to influence news coverage at the national broadcaster, countering a claim by its former acting chief executive officer, and described its current leadership as “lacking.”

    • South Africa’s ruling ANC condemns public broadcaster for censorship

      South Africa’s ruling African National Congress said on Tuesday the public broadcaster, accused by opposition parties of pro-government bias ahead of local elections, was practicing censorship by not broadcasting violent anti-state protests.

      The comments by party chief whip Jackson Mthembu represent a U-turn and may point to schisms in the ANC, which in May welcomed the broadcast ban by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) as the “best decision.”

      “When property is burnt, people of South Africa need to be shown those images, that is the ANC view. Because when you don’t show those images, that amounts to censorship,” Mthembu said in a televised media briefing.

    • Media censorship is back in all its glory!

      Now since the SABC’s COO is above the law, and at the same time the person who single handedly decide what should and should not be shown on the local media, one can only assume the he is yet another deployed cadre not fit for the job!

      Now although education may not be the alpha and omega in Africa, most people in executive positions hold some sort of tertiary qualification!

      [...]

      Lest not forget, the SABC is there to serve all people of South Africa and not only the ANC leadership with their dysfunctional policies!

    • The reality of life under Turkey’s internet censorship machine

      Turkey, the world champion in Twitter censorship, presents a tough challenge for regular internet users thanks to its growing blacklist of 100,000 banned websites.

      But determined Turks are tough. After all, they are the ones who placed the #TurkeyBlockedTwitter hashtag on world’s top trends list—while Twitter was blocked nationwide.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • These Maps Show What the Dark Web Looks Like

      What does the dark web actually look like? Well, new research maps out the relationships between a load of Tor hidden services, and shows that many dark web sites, rather than being isolated entities, are perhaps more intimately intertwined than commonly thought.

      “The dark web is highly connected,” reads the latest OnionScan report published on Sunday. Made by security researcher Sarah Jamie Lewis, OnionScan is a tool for probing Tor hidden services for vulnerabilities and issues that might reveal identifying information about the site.

    • Ron Wyden: Obtaining ECTRs without a Warrant Is Almost Like Spying on Someone’s Thoughts

      The other thing obtaining ECTRs with NSLs would do, though, is avoid a court First Amendment review, which should be of particular concern with web search history, since everything about web browsing involves First Amendment speech. Remember, a form of emergency provision (one limited to Section 215’s phone chaining application) was approved in February 2014. But in the September 2014 order, the FISC affirmatively required that such a review happen even with emergency orders. A 2015 IG Report on Section 215 (see page 176) explains why this is the case: because once FISC started approving seeds, NSA’s Office of General Counsel stopped doing First Amendment reviews, leaving that for FISC. It’s unclear whether it took FISC several cycles to figure that out, or whether they discovered an emergency approval that infringed on First Amendment issues. Under the expanded emergency provision under USAF, someone at FBI or DOJ’s National Security Division would do the review. But FBI’s interest in avoiding FISC’s First Amendment review is of particular concern given that FBI has, in the past, used an NSL to obtain data the FISC refused on First Amendment grounds, and at least one of the NSL challenges appears to have significant First Amendment concerns.

    • UK Police Accessed Civilian Data for Fun and Profit, New Report Says

      More than 800 UK police staff inappropriately accessed personal information between June 2011 and December 2015, according to a report from activist group Big Brother Watch.

      The report says some police staff used their access to a growing trove of police data, which includes personal information on civilians, for entertainment and personal and financial gain.

      The report, which is based on Freedom of Information requests sent to all UK police forces, raises questions about the police’s ability to protect civilian data. Specifically, privacy advocates are concerned about access to Internet Connection Records, which is the new type of data that would be collected under the UK’s Investigatory Powers Bill.

      In several notable incidents, one Metropolitan Police officer found the name of a victim so funny that he attempted to take a photo of the driving license and send it to his friend over Snapchat. A Greater Manchester Police officer tipped someone off that they would be arrested, and one from North Yorkshire Police conducted a check on a vehicle on his phone whilst off-duty.

    • Paris attacks: Call to overhaul French intelligence services

      French intelligence services should be overhauled following last year’s terror attacks in Paris, a parliamentary commission of inquiry has recommended.

      Commission president Georges Fenech said all the French attackers had been known to authorities, but these had not communicated with each other.

    • 2015 Wiretap Report Doesn’t Have Much To Say About Encryption, But Does Show Feds Run Into Zero Judicial Opposition

      Whatever the government is doing with these other options can’t easily be examined by the general public because there are no reporting requirements tied to these, unlike wiretap warrants. So, the number of times where encrypted communications (not contained in locked phones) are holding up law enforcement cannot be nailed down with any certainty. The DOJ could collect and disseminate this data, but it would certainly prefer to keep its reporting requirements to a minimum, even if this data would back up Comey’s encryption histrionics.

      What hasn’t changed, however, is what wiretaps are used for: drugs. 3,367 or 4,148 issued in 2015 were for narcotics investigations. And for those of you who have followed the explosion of possibly illegal wiretaps originating from a single county courthouse in California, it’s no surprise the state issuing the most federal wiretap orders is that particular coastal “drug corridor.”

    • Thomas Jefferson’s Ghost Visits the White House

      “And so we pretty much trashed the Fourth Amendment and now spy on all Americans 24/7. The First Amendment, especially the right to free speech part, that hasn’t held up well, either,” said Obama. “And you have to take your shoes off at the airport but none of us remember why that is anymore.”

      “But Barack, a well-informed citizenry, secure in their persons and papers, who can assemble to speak truth to their government is essential,” Jefferson said. “Actually, that’s kinda the whole thing.”

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • To Find Out Why Schools Are Sending In Cops To Bust Third Graders, Ask The Local Prosecutor

      Who’s leading the installation of police officers inside schools and the implementation of zero tolerance policies? In New Jersey, the answer is the local prosecutor’s office.

      A little background: police were called to a third-grade class party because a nine-year-old allegedly made a racist remark when discussing the brownies they were eating. NO. REALLY.

    • Triggering Article 50 will plunge the UK into turmoil – and the EU with it. It’s mutually assured destruction

      With the rise of so many far-right parties across Europe, we could be seeing the return of fascism to the continent

    • Former Donald Trump Adviser Calls Racial Profiling “Common Sense”

      A former adviser to Donald Trump on Wednesday endorsed racial profiling and warned that mainstream Muslim American organizations are waging a covert war of cultural subversion against the United States.

      Sebastian Gorka teaches at Marine Corps University and advises law enforcement and national security officials on terrorism and irregular warfare. Last fall, he was paid $8,000 for policy consulting with the Trump campaign. On Wednesday, he spoke at the Family Research Council, a social conservative advocacy group, touting his new book Defeating Jihad: A Winnable War.

    • The Revolt Against Globalism

      There was William Galston at the European Council on Foreign Relations, listening to his fellow elitists and foreign policy honchos caviling about the rise of Donald Trump and bemoaning the fate of the European Union (EU) at the hand’s of Britain’s Euro-skeptics. As the assembled luminaries had a collective sad in their five-star hotel, wondering how the proles could’ve gotten so far out of hand, Galtson – longtime Democratic party hack, former domestic advisor to Bill Clinton, and a senior fellow at the “centrist” Brookings Institution – heard a call to arms. It was almost as if Cecil Rhodes, the British imperialist and original founder and financier of the Council on Foreign Relations, had spoken to him from on high – or, rather, from below – and commanded him to spread the Word far and wide:

    • MPs From All Parties Tell Theresa May: EU Citizens In The UK Must Not Be Kicked Out

      London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Lib Dem leader Tim Farron and Green MP Caroline Lucas are among those who have signed a statement urging protection for 3million EU citizens living in the UK.

      In a statement to HuffPost UK, representatives of Labour, the Conservatives, Lib Dems, SNP, Ukip and the Greens called on whoever takes over as Prime Minister to vow not to force EU nationals in the UK to leave the country.

      The future of EU migrants settled in the UK has been thrown into doubt after the front-runner for the Tory leadership, Theresa May, said their status could be part of any Brexit negotiation.

      Leadership rival Liam Fox has put forward the same view.

    • Theresa May under fire for threatening to deport EU migrants after Brexit

      The Government believes it would ‘unwise’ to guarantee EU migrants can stay in the UK

    • In Response to Trump, Another Dangerous Movement Appears

      Last week’s Brexit vote prompted pundits and social media mavens to wonder aloud if allowing dumb people to vote is a good thing.

      [...]

      In “How American Politics Went Insane,” Brookings Institute Fellow Jonathan Rauch spends many thousands of words arguing for the reinvigoration of political machines, as a means of keeping the ape-citizen further from power.

      He portrays the public as a gang of nihilistic loonies determined to play mailbox baseball with the gears of state.

      “Neurotic hatred of the political class is the country’s last universally acceptable form of bigotry,” he writes, before concluding:

      “Our most pressing political problem today is that the country abandoned the establishment, not the other way around.”

      Rauch’s audacious piece, much like Andrew Sullivan’s clarion call for a less-democratic future in New York magazine (“Democracies end when they are too democratic”), is not merely a warning about the threat posed to civilization by demagogues like Donald Trump.

      It’s a sweeping argument against a whole host of democratic initiatives, from increased transparency to reducing money in politics to the phasing out of bagmen and ward-heelers at the local level. These things have all destabilized America, Rauch insists.

    • TSA Scores Another PR Win With Assault Of Nineteen Year Old Brain Tumor Patient On Her Way To Treatment

      Rather than chalk this up to a big, bloody misunderstanding, the TSA and local authorities worked together to lock Hannah up overnight while her and her family’s baggage continued on to Chattanooga without them. Charges were dropped, but that’s not going to be the end of it. Cohen has filed a lawsuit against the TSA and Memphis law enforcement agencies.

      The TSA, meanwhile, took immediate steps to mitigate the damage by stating that Hannah’s parents should have called ahead if it didn’t want their child terrorized and tackled.

      [...]

      No apology. No admission that this might have been handled better. No recognition that the agents’ failure to listen to Hannah Cohen’s mother might have resulted in a brain tumor patient covered in less blood and fear. Just a bit of victim blaming where the TSA implies that agents may not have reacted so badly to a metal detector beep if only they’d been informed ahead of time that the alarm would go off and Hannah Cohen would react badly to swiftly escalating screening efforts.

      The most ridiculous thing about the spokesperson’s comment is that we’re supposed to believe the TSA will listen to parents of disabled travelers if they call ahead — when it’s plainly apparent they won’t listen to them when they’re STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO THEM.

    • The Death Penalty Is Largely Driven by a Small Number of Overzealous Prosecutors

      “Cowboy” Bob Macy was a legendary — and infamous — prosecutor in Oklahoma City. Elected the top law enforcer in his county five times, Macy, who died in 2011, was known for his wide-brimmed cowboy hat, his classic western bowtie, and carrying his gun in court. He was also known for his passionate advocacy in support of the death penalty. During his 21 years in office, Macy was personally responsible for sending 54 individuals to death row, an accomplishment that earned him the dubious distinction of deadliest prosecutor in America.

      Also part of Macy’s legacy was the high rate of misconduct allegations levied against him — misconduct was alleged in 94 percent of the death cases he prosecuted and substantiated in one-third of them. Courts overturned nearly half of the death convictions Macy obtained; three of those defendants were ultimately exonerated.

      The numbers paint a grim portrait of a prosecutor who once told members of a jury it was their “patriotic duty” to sentence a defendant to death. But Macy isn’t alone. He belongs to a small club of five so-called deadliest prosecutors identified in a new report released today by Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project. Together, the five prosecutors, only one of whom is still in office, secured 440 capital convictions — the equivalent of 15 percent of the nation’s current death row population.

    • The Fire Sprinkler War, State by State

      From New York to Minnesota, how homebuilders headed off mandatory fire sprinklers with help from friendly legislators.

    • Turkey’s cautionary tale

      The case of Academics for Peace in Turkey shows us academics trapped between authoritarianism and precarity, and why international solidarity has become crucial.

    • Theresa May and the love police

      Our country has failed Ahmed and many like him. And in one of the most worrying developments of all, there is increasingly little we can do about it. In recent years in a Europe-wide trend known as the ‘criminalization of solidarity’, we as ordinary citizens have lost our right to care about and help other people like him. In a seismic shift that has barely made the morning papers, we have lost our right to love certain categories of migrants.

    • Donald Trump Doesn’t Seem to Understand What Rape Is

      Donald Trump likened backers of international trade agreements to rapists on Tuesday. “The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country,” he said. “That’s what it is, too. It’s a harsh word: It’s a rape of our country.”

      It wasn’t the first time he’d used the word that way. He accused China of rape last month: “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country,” he said. “And that’s what they’re doing. It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world.”

      But looking at how Trump uses the word rape, and whom he accuses of it, reveals a pattern. He uses it to demonize his political targets. At the same time, he seems to lack empathy or understanding of what rape actually is.

      “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” he said last year about Mexican immigrants. He defended the statement by citing a Fusion report that an estimated 80 percent of Central American women coming across the border are raped. “I use the word rape and all of a sudden everyone goes crazy,” he said last July.

    • Iceland’s Soccer Team Is Great, Its Treatment of Asylum Seekers Less So

      Some of the facts of the men’s case were in dispute, like whether the younger of the two was 16 or 19, but the legal grounds for their detention and expulsion from the country was clear. The men, identified in the local press by their first names, Ali and Majed, had arrived in Iceland seven months ago after first applying for asylum in Norway. So, despite asking for permission to stay in Reykjavik, where there is a small community of Iraqi refugees, they were deported in accordance with a European agreement known as the Dublin Regulation, which requires anyone fleeing persecution in another part of the world to stay in the first European country they reach. The terms of that agreement excuse Iceland from having to even investigate the claims of those who say they are fleeing persecution in their home countries.

      [...]

      Toshiki Toma, the Lutheran Church of Iceland’s pastor for immigrants, told The Intercept by phone that the two men, who had converted to Christianity last week, were jailed on their return to Norway, and now expect to be returned to southern Iraq, which is considered safe by Norwegian authorities.

      Toma, a native of Japan who has lived in Iceland for more than 20 years, said that he and Kristín Tómasdóttir, the parish priest at Laugarneskirkja church in Reykjavik, had received permission from the Bishop of Iceland to offer shelter the two men, in the hope that the police would respect the ancient tradition of treating houses of worship as places of sanctuary.

    • Swedish politician: Migrant rape isn’t as bad

      Swedish Left Party politician Barbro Sörman has suggested that it’s “worse” when Swedish men rape women, than when immigrants do so.

      “The Swedish men who rape do it despite the growing gender equality. They make an active choice. It’s worse imo [in my opinion],” Sörman tweeted.

      Sörman, a self-described socialist and a feminist, made the observation in response to what she claimed was excessive media focus on the fact that most of the rapes in Sweden are committed by immigrants.

    • Saudi Arabia arrests two for holding ‘dog beauty contest’ in Jeddah

      Two men have been arrested in Saudi Arabia for trying to organise a beauty contest for dogs.

      The pair had been planning a show which would find the most beautiful dog in Jeddah, a port city on the Red Sea coast.

      According to local media, three awards had already been dished out in the competition’s early stages.

    • Appeals Court: A Bunch Of Mostly-Irrelevant Information Is Not ‘Probable Cause’

      A drug conspiracy with no drugs. A house searched because a car carrying no drugs was registered to the address. It’s little things like these that add up to a successfully suppressed evidence, even if it took defendant Ricky Brown a trip to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to achieve it.

      The DEA, working with Michigan State Police, pulled over two vehicles that had left a house they had under surveillance, apparently on their way to a heroin buy set up by an informant. One vehicle, a Chevy Silverado driven by Steven Woods, was searched after a MSP traffic stop and approximately 565 grams of heroin were recovered. The other vehicle, a GMC Yukon in which Brown was a passenger was stopped as well. However, there were no drugs in this vehicle, just four cell phones.

    • Directive on Terrorism: The EU on a Securitarian and Post-Democratic Drift?

      Yesterday evening, the LIBE Committee of the European Parliament (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs) adopted the draft Directive on Combating Terrorism proposed by the European Commission by 41 votes to 4 with 10 abstentions. The EPP (conservative) Rapporteur Monika Hohlmeier had turned the directive into a text that will give credence to the worst anti-terrorism and surveillance laws from across the European Union. She clearly bowed under pressure from the French Government (FR), who is seeking to whitewash its own controversial laws regarding surveillance and websites censorship at the European level. La Quadrature du Net denounces this “europeanisation” of extrajudicial surveillance and censorship, all the more considering that the process surrounding the directive is in and of itself a staggering denial of democracy: Indeed, the draft Directive will be further discussed in secret “trilogue” negotiations, which will preclude any substantial amendment during the plenary debate of the European Parliament. Under the guise of security, the European Union is undermining its own fundamental values.

    • ‘They’re Making Racism and Xenophobia Into a Legitimate Voice’

      The story of masses of Britons googling “What’s the EU?” seems to be apocryphal, unsurprisingly. But it is fair to say many people were shocked by referendum results calling for Britain to leave the European Union.

      In the wake of the vote, some say many proponents of a so-called Brexit didn’t really expect it to happen. So how did it? And what is there to be learned from the echoes between the racism and nativism demonstrated and exploited by some Leave campaigners, and certain stokers of those same sentiments closer to home?

    • Voting Rights for 70,000 Louisiana Felons Sought in Constitutional Challenge

      Kenneth Johnston, 67, served in Vietnam and attended University of New Orleans before becoming addicted to heroin in part to address the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder he acquired in Vietnam. He spent 22 years in prison after a felony conviction and has been out for 23 years. Because he is on parole for life he will never be allowed to vote.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Frontier Backs AT&T’s Lawsuit To Keep Google Fiber Out Of Louisville

      Earlier this year, we noted how companies like AT&T and Time Warner Cable were engaged in incessant whining about Google Fiber’s planned entry into Louisville, Kentucky. More specifically, the ISPs were upset that Louisville passed “one touch make ready” fiber rules that dramatically speed up fiber deployment times by letting licensed third-party contractors move other ISPs’ equipment when necessary. Such reforms generally help all ISPs by dramatically reducing the time it takes to deploy fiber infrastructure, often by as much as half a year.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • ‘Just’ 5% of UK Internet Users are Hardcore Pirates

        A report published by the Intellectual Property Office has revealed that around a quarter of all UK media consumers pirated at least one item during a three-month period earlier this year. Infringement of movies and TV shows are both up in 2016, but music has shown a marked decrease.

      • Internet piracy falls to record lows amid rise of Spotify and Netflix

        Internet streaming services such as Spotify and Netflix have resulted in online piracy falling to its lowest rate in years, an official report claims.

        Research commissioned by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), which is tasked with fighting copyright infringement, found that 15pc of internet users illegally accessed films, music and other material between March and May.

        This is down from 18pc a year ago and was the lowest recorded rate in the five years the study has been carried out.

      • Documentary About Freeing Happy Birthday From Copyfraud Comes Out The Day After Happy Birthday Officially Declared Public Domain

        You may recall that last fall, a judge ruled that Warner/Chappell did not hold the copyright on the song “Happy Birthday,” as the company had alleged for decades (and which it used to take in approximately $2 million in licenses per year). Of course, while many in the press immediately claimed the song was in the public domain, we noted that was not what the court actually said, and the song had actually become something of an orphan work, and theoretically, someone else could claim the copyright. Indeed, the heirs of Mildred and Patty Hill (who are often cited as the creators of the song) stepped up to claim the copyright. In December, all the parties agreed to settle the case with Warner agreeing to pay $14 million to go to some of the people who had falsely licensed the song. But, part of the settlement agreement was a stipulation that the song, finally, officially be declared in the public domain.

07.05.16

Links 5/7/2016: KDE Plasma 5.7 Released, GSK Demystified

Posted in News Roundup at 8:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla emits nightly builds of heir-to-Firefox browser engine Servo

        Mozilla has started publishing nightly in-development builds of its experimental Servo browser engine so anyone can track the project’s progress.

        Executables for macOS and GNU/Linux are available right here to download and test drive even if you’re not a developer. If you are, the open-source engine’s code is here if you want to build it from scratch, fix bugs, or contribute to the effort.

  • SaaS/Back End

    • Is my OpenStack ready for Cloud Foundry?

      This year’s first Cloud Foundry Summit took place in Santa Clara at the end of May. Beyhan Veli from SAP and I gave a presentation about the Cloud Foundry OpenStack Validator, a new tool we developed as one of the results of our collaboration with SAP on the BOSH OpenStack Cloud Provider Interface project.

  • CMS

    • German ecommerce software Shopware becomes open source

      Shopware, said to be the largest shop system manufacturer of Germany, released version 5.2 of its ecommerce software. One of the biggest changes is the elimination of encryption software ionCube, thus making its software 100 percent open source.

      Shopware made version 5.2 of its ecommerce software available for download. Aside from the switch to open source, Shopware also added numerous new features, which it says are the result of more than 70,000 members from its community submitting proposals for improvement. CEO Stefan Hamann: “For several years, we have encouraged an open dialogue with the community in order to more directly connect with their wishes for an ecommerce platform.”

    • Install Cockpit CMS on Ubuntu 16.04

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

    • Sources: Microsoft Tried To Buy Docker for $4B

      At last week’s DockerCon 2016 event in Seattle there was a lot of behind-the-scenes chatter about Microsoft wanting to buy Docker for billions of dollars. Microsoft’s bid for Docker was rumored to be as much as $4 billion for the 250-person container technology startup in the last six months, according to multiple sources with contacts close to both companies.

    • Uber Drives Gains With Open-Source Development

      The popular ride-sharing company adopts an open-source development platform to speed application coding and support more than five million trips per day.

  • BSD

    • PC-BSD’s Lumina Desktop Now In Beta For v1.0

      The Lumina Desktop Environment has made available their v1.0 beta release of the Qt-written desktop.

      PC-BSD developers and others continue working on Lumina as an alternative, lightweight desktop environment. While originating in the BSD world, Lumina continues to be designed to work on any Unix-like OS and is licensed under a 3-clause BSD license. Should you not be familiar with Lumina from our past articles, visit Lumina-Desktop.org to learn more about the project.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Bulgaria passes law requiring government software to be open source

      Amendments have been passed by the Bulgarian Parliament requiring all software written for the government to be open source and developed in a public repository, making custom software procured by the government accessible to everyone.

      Article 58 of the Electronic Governance Act states that administrative authorities must include the following requirements: “When the subject of the contract includes the development of computer programs, computer programs must meet the criteria for open-source software; all copyright and related rights on the relevant computer programs, their source code, the design of interfaces, and databases which are subject to the order should arise for the principal in full, without limitations in the use, modification, and distribution; and development should be done in the repository maintained by the agency in accordance with Art 7c pt. 18.”

    • Every country needs to follow Bulgaria’s lead in choosing open source software for governance

      The Bulgarian Parliament has passed amendments to its Electronic Governance Act which require all software written for the government to be open source and developed in a public repository.

    • Bulgaria Makes A New Law Requiring All Government Software To Be Open Source

      From the world of open source, here comes a great news. The Bulgarian government has passed a law that has made the use of open source software in government offices compulsory. We welcome this step and hope that other governments will take similar steps and make more information accessible to the users.

    • Bulgaria Got a Law Requiring Open Source

      Less than two years after my presentation titled “Open source for the government”, and almost exactly one year after I became advisor to the deputy prime minister of Bulgaria, with the efforts of my colleagues and the deputy prime minister, the amendments to the Electronic Governance Act were voted in parliament and are now in effect. The amendments require all software written for the government to be open-source and to be developed as such in a public repository.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • Building a water collection vessel from scratch

        The Engineering Academy program is offered to top students from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, as well as the School of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering in Singapore Polytechnic. The program aims to impart skills from a multitude of disciplines: electrical, electronics, mechanics, chemistry, design, and business.

        The project statement we were presented with at the beginning of the semester was: “Design a vehicle that can take two samples of water, at one meter and two meters underwater.” This posed a challenge to us as there were many intricacies of the vehicle that we had to think about, and it was a huge undertaking.

        However, we welcomed the challenge with open arms. We knew it would put all of our knowledge to the test and would necessitate the search for even more information on our own. This article will outline the very iterative process of planning and prototyping, and showcase the fruit of our labor.

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Tony Blair faces calls for impeachment on release of Chilcot report

      Senior figures from Labour and the Scottish National party are considering calls for legal action against Tony Blair if the former prime minister faces severe criticisms from the long-awaited inquiry into the war in Iraq.

      A number of MPs led by Alex Salmond are expected to use an ancient law to try to impeach the former prime minister when the Chilcot report comes out on Wednesday.

      The law, last used in 1806 when the Tory minister Lord Melville was charged for misappropriating official funds, is seen in Westminster as an alternative form of punishment that could ensure Blair never holds office again.

    • How the U.S. Military Promotes Its Weapons Arsenal to the Public

      A young boy “shoots” a machine gun from a Vietnam-era helicopter at the New York Air Show in 2015. There are no certain statistics for the number of Vietnamese casualties during the war, but at least 1 million died, and potentially 2 million or more. A 1991 survey found that Americans estimated that about 100,000 Vietnamese had been killed.

    • Hacked Emails Reveal NATO General Plotting Against Obama on Russia Policy

      Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, until recently the supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe, plotted in private to overcome President Barack Obama’s reluctance to escalate military tensions with Russia over the war in Ukraine in 2014, according to apparently hacked emails from Breedlove’s Gmail account that were posted on a new website called DC Leaks.

      Obama defied political pressure from hawks in Congress and the military to provide lethal assistance to the Ukrainian government, fearing that doing so would increase the bloodshed and provide Russian President Vladimir Putin with the justification for deeper incursions into the country.

      Breedlove, during briefings to Congress, notably contradicted the Obama administration regarding the situation in Ukraine, leading to news stories about conflict between the general and Obama.

      But the leaked emails provide an even more dramatic picture of the intense back-channel lobbying for the Obama administration to begin a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.

    • Refuse To Celebrate July 4th Militarism

      Did you know that 85 to 90 percent of war’s casualties are non-combatant civilians?

    • How Hillary Clinton Ignores Peace

      Despite neocon-instigated chaos and bloodshed across the Mideast (and now into Europe), Hillary Clinton continues to advocate more “regime change” wars with almost no fear from a marginalized anti-war movement, writes Robert Parry.

    • America Destroyed

      When I was young, America still existed. No more. Not even the blather from the 4th of July can hide the obvious fact.

      The young do not know that they have lost their country, because they are born into a time when the country is lost. To them that is normalcy.

      Besides, the young are too busy texting and describing themselves, often intimately, on social media to be aware of the fate that awaits them, lost as they are in their insouciance.

      When I was young, the police were the public’s friends. We could count on them to help us, not abuse us. False arrest was rare. Abuse of citizens even rarer. Today both are routine.

    • The Orlando Shootings: Police SWAT Team Involved in the Killings?

      The official FBI police report acknowledges shootings at 2am, it does not confirm the occurrence of killings of hostages prior to 5am. The killings started when the Police SWAT Teams stormed the Building at 5.13am. (see Timeline Below)

      The Orlando Police Department Timeline summarized in an FBI Tampa Press release not only suggests that no one was killed before 5.13am when the SWAT team broke into the building, it also confirms that the first deadly shots were fired at 5.14am and that the suspect was killed one minute later at 5.15am. This assessment was confirmed by Judge Napolitano in a Fox News report.

      [...]

      The Obama Administration, the FBI, the Media have casually dismissed the possibility of police involvement in the killings despite the statements emanating from police sources. Theater of the absurd: The official story is that the killings were ordered by the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) based in Raqqa, Northern Syria, which happens to be supported and financed by two of America’s staunchest allies, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in close liaison with Washington.

      The CCTV camera footage which is available to law enforcement officials will, most probably, not be made public.

    • The worst ISIS attack in days is the one the world probably cares least about

      First, they came for Istanbul. On Tuesday night, three suspected Islamic State militants launched a brazen assault on Turkey’s main airport, exploding their suicide vests after gunning down numerous passengers and airport staff. At least 45 people were killed. The world panicked; Istanbul Ataturk Airport is one of the busiest hubs in Europe and the Middle East, and it is among the most fortified. Are our airports safe, wondered American TV anchors. Could this happen here on the Fourth of July?

      Next, they came for Dhaka. Gunmen whom many have linked to the Islamic State raided a popular cafe in an upscale neighborhood in Bangladesh’s teeming capital. After a 10-hour standoff, authorities stormed the establishment; at least 20 hostages, mostly Italian and Japanese nationals, died at the militants’ hands. U.S. college students also were among the dead. The Islamic State’s reach is growing far from the Middle East, security experts fretted. Foreigners are at risk all over the Muslim world.

      Then, they attacked Baghdad. In the early hours of Sunday morning, as hundreds of Iraqis gathered during the holy month of Ramadan, a car bomb exploded in the crowded Karrada shopping district. The blast killed a staggering number of people — the latest death toll is at least 187 — including many children. The area is predominantly Shiite, making it a choice target for the Sunni extremist group.

    • Too Many Moments of Silence

      In silence we stop the world for an instant with a symbolic gesture lacking productive solutions. Courageous acts of integrity transform our intentions into new realities for ourselves and the world. When will we speak? When will we pay attention? Uncommon lives do more than stand and wait. When will we take time to really listen, learn and act upon what matters most? Do we know what that means anymore? Some say ours is a throw-away world. Do we see ourselves and others as disposable waste? Is that why we stand motionless and simply look on or look away? Perhaps we know too much about war and too little about peace.

    • Thomas Jefferson: America’s Founding Sociopath

      So, Jefferson perhaps more than any figure in U.S. history gets a pass for what he really was: a self-absorbed aristocrat who had one set of principles for himself and another for everybody else.

    • Public Eclipse of a Shining Patriot

      Such persecution continued for 88 days. The mainstream media (virtually the only media at that time) besieged Jewell’s private residence. Television networks spent $1,000 per day subletting an apartment of the tenant next door to Jewell’s so as to observe him. At any given time were an estimated 150 to 200 members of the press, some with high-intensity photo lenses, trained on every move Jewell made. The object of this maelstrom stated, “They had people over there who could read lips. They had a sound dish. They could hear everything that we said. They have a person writing down everything we said.”

      For three months this behavior was all but sanctioned by the FBI who allowed the media to be its willing handmaidens rather than act as a check on its power. That agency too kept both Richard Jewell and his mother under 24-hour surveillance as they allowed the real culprit to escape further and further away from justice. Agents lied to Jewell about seeking his participation in an anti-terror documentary to induce him to a police station where they promptly read him his Miranda rights. He correctly (and wisely) asked for an attorney. In the days which followed the FBI collected hair his samples, confiscated his truck, interrogated everyone he knew and compelled several to undergo polygraph tests.

    • President Obama’s New, Long-Promised Drone “Transparency” Is Not Nearly Enough

      The Obama administration released a summary today of the numbers of “non-combatants” it has killed outside actual war zones primarily through targeted killing strikes, as well as a new executive order aimed at creating new transparency and accountability rules for such strikes.

      Unfortunately, both the release and the new order fall far short of the standards for transparency and accountability needed to ensure that the government’s targeted killing program is lawful under domestic and international law.

    • Colombia’s Peace Finally at Hand

      With terrorist massacres hitting the news every few days, and financial markets reeling over the uncertain future of Europe, it’s no wonder pundits like Roger Cohen of the New York Times are warning that “the forces of disintegration are on the march” and “the foundations of the postwar world … are trembling.”

      But the news media have given only glancing coverage to one of the most positive developments of our time: the end to 52 years of armed conflict between the government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

    • Drone Death Figures Show the U.S. “Simply Doesn’t Know Who it has Killed”

      Responding to civilian casualty figures released by the White House today, international human rights organization Reprieve has expressed dismay at how little the Obama Administration appears to know about those it has killed in its covert use of lethal drones outside of war zones.

    • For Obama’s Secret Wars, the Record Suggests a Far Worse Reality

      The new White House data relates only to Obama’s first seven years in office – during which it says 473 covert and clandestine airstrikes and drone attacks were carried out in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya.

    • A Less-Secret Drone Campaign

      The public’s right to information about the drone campaign, and about counterterrorism policy more generally, should not depend on the grace of executive branch officials. Transparency should be required by law.

    • When will the White House tell us the whole truth about drone killings?

      The Situation Room, a commander-in-chief with rapidly graying hair, a cluster of grim-faced men and women debating the ethics and the legality of a killing. This is how the Obama administration has for years sought to portray its notorious global drone killing program: cautious, calculated and as conscientious as possible.

      The Obama administration just released numbers suggesting this depiction is closer to reality than fiction. It announced that drone strikes in countries excluding Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria have resulted in between at least 64 and 116 noncombatant deaths during his administration. The president also issued an executive order effectively directing his successor to do as he is doing, and publish this data going forward.

    • Obama Administration Finally Releases Its Dubious Drone Death Toll

      In a long-anticipated gesture at transparency, the Obama administration on Friday released an internal assessment of the number of civilians killed by drone strikes in nations where the U.S. is not officially at war.

      According to the data, U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya killed between 64 and 116 civilians during the two terms of the Obama administration — a fraction of even the most conservative estimates on drone-related killings catalogued by reporters and researchers over the same period. The government tally also reported 2,372 to 2,581 combatants killed in U.S. airstrikes from January 20, 2009, to December 31, 2015.

    • American Journalist in Rebel-Held Syria Reports Barely Dodging a Missile Strike

      An American journalist and documentary filmmaker reporting from Syrian rebel-controlled territory near Aleppo says he was nearly killed in what he suspects was a drone strike last Sunday. Bilal Abdul Kareem, an American citizen originally from New York, was sitting in a car with his driver outside the village of Khan Touman, he reports, when a missile struck nearby the vehicle.

      “We heard some drones traveling overhead about half an hour before, which is not uncommon, but there were none of the screams that you normally hear before an airstrike,” Abdul Kareem told The Intercept. “We were sitting in the car, and then all of a sudden, everything went black. It felt like the earth had split open and we’d fallen into it. In reality, the explosion had sent the car into the air.”

      A video Abdul Kareem posted after the bombing on his YouTube channel showed the damage to the vehicle, as well as his camera equipment. He says this is the fourth airstrike that has nearly hit him in the past month. Given the frequency of the near-misses, Abdul Kareem believes he is being targeted. “Locals had told me that I was being targeted by someone, but I hadn’t believed it before,” he says. “I just chalked it up to being in a war zone — bad things happen — but now it seems clear that someone is targeting me.”

      Abdul Kareem is one of the last Western journalists covering the conflict in Syria from rebel-controlled territory. Earlier this year, he helped produce a series of exclusive CNN reports from Syria with journalist Clarissa Ward. His reporting has also been featured on the British outlets Channel 4 and Sky News.

    • At Their Own Peril, Americans Are Fuzzy on History

      Because many people in the United States don’t value history very much, they tend to allow politicians to be selective in their remembering of historical events – usually to manipulate public nationalism (which now passes for patriotism) for their own dubious policy goals. For example, if Americans had focused more on the fact that historically, the Vietnamese had been fighting fiercely over the centuries to throw out foreign invaders – such as the Japanese, the Chinese, and recently the French – perhaps they would have demanded that their politicians think twice, even three times, about invading that country. And if Americans had known that the historically fractious Iraq, an artificial country that had been created by the greedy colonial powers after World War I to exploit the country’s oil reserves, they might have wisely rejected George W. Bush’s attempt at military social work in one of the most unlikely places in the Middle East for democracy to flourish.

    • In Hopeless Occupation, War Becomes its Own End

      Other occupations — Belgium in the Congo, Japan in China, France in Algeria, Russia in Afghanistan, etc. — provide ample, if imperiously unheeded warnings, because they all failed. Wasn’t British colonial rule overthrown by insurgent militias using unconventional methods against superior forces here? Milt Bearden, a 30-year CIA veteran, wrote for the New York Times, “[I]n the history of the 20th century, no nation that launched a war against another sovereign nation ever won. And every nationalist-based insurgency against a foreign occupation ultimately succeeded.” Not some, not most: every one.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Sadiq Khan pledges “urgent action” to clean up London’s air quality

      All cars built before 2005 are to be charged an additional £10 per day to enter central London, Mayor Sadiq Khan announced today.

      The levy, which will be in addition to the existing congestion charge and will apply to all vehicles with pre-Euro 4 emission standards, is one of a package of measures aimed at cleaning up London’s poor quality air.

      City Hall says the new fee, which it dubs the ’T-charge’, would “be the toughest crackdown” on polluting vehicles by any major city around the world when it comes into effect next year.

    • Climate Change’s Iniquitous Transmission of Urgency: The Gulf South

      The “South,” both as a global region and within industrialized countries, is where the people most vulnerable to climate catastrophe are located. It is here that we find the highest concentration of fossil fuel sacrifice zones, home to low-wealth citizens who enjoy little to no access to political power in their respective nations. And it’s here that we find some of the more efficacious models of climate resistance and resilience that you’ve never, or barely, heard about.

  • Brexit and Finance

    • Brexit: Which Kind of Dependence Now?

      The EU in essence is a cartel intended to suppress competition among the states of Europe — which is not to say it has had no liberalizing objectives or effects, such as freedom to move and work without visas, and disincentives for corporate subsidies. (I said this is complicated.) Competition, however, is too important to be suppressed because it reveals critical information we are unlikely to acquire otherwise. Since vital knowledge is disbursed among large numbers of people, competition is, as Nobel laureate economist F. A. Hayek put it, a unique “discovery procedure.” It’s not just a matter of freedom; it’s a matter of progress, and of life and death for those in the developing world.

    • EU Accused of Trying to Push Through ‘Toxic’ Trade Deal Ahead of Brexit

      Trade campaigners in the UK have accused the European Commission of attempting to hasten attempts to push through a controversial trade deal between Canada and the EU ahead of the UK leaving the EU. The accusations come before a meeting tomorrow of the EU Commissioners in Brussels where it’s expected the implementation of the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) will be agreed upon.

    • Nigel Farage has said ‘the real me will come out’ now he’s resigned and people are terrifed by what that means

      The leader of Ukip – a political party whose primary platform had been to push the UK towards leaving the EU – seems to have stepped down.

    • Charlotte Church ‘Shocked’ At ‘Horrifying’ Abuse After Nigel Farage Tweet

      Charlotte Church has said she is “shocked” by “horrifying” abuse she has received after tweeting about Nigel Farage in the wake of his resignation as Ukip leader.

      After the Brexit campaigner stepped down saying he “wants his life back”, the singer was one of many well-known people who vented their anger.

    • David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage described as ‘rats fleeing a sinking ship’ after Brexit vote

      David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage have been described as “rats fleeing a sinking ship” following their resignations in the immediate aftermath of Britain’s historic European Union referendum.

      Guy Verhofstadt, the former Prime Minister of Belgium who now heads up the alliance of Liberal and Democrats for Europe, made the comparison the day after Mr Farage resigned as the leader of the UK Independence Party, saying “he couldn’t possibly achieve more”.

    • Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson are unpatriotic quitters, says Juncker

      Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, has accused Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson of being unpatriotic quitters, after the pair stood back from leadership positions after the UK’s historic vote to leave the European Union.

      “The Brexit heroes of yesterday are now the sad heroes of today,” Juncker told MEPs at the European parliament in Strasbourg.

      “Those who have contributed to the situation in the UK have resigned – Johnson, Farage and others. They are as it were retro-nationalists, they are not patriots,” he said.

    • Christoph Waltz calls Nigel Farage ‘head rat’ and condemns Brexit as ‘abysmal stupidity’

      Waltz criticised Mr Farage for not failing to see through and stand up for what he had been vigorously campaigning for throughout his political career.

    • Tax haven route won’t work for post-Brexit UK, OECD says

      The United Kingdom is unlikely to try to lure international investment by becoming a tax haven after it leaves the European Union, according to an internal memo prepared by the body responsible for the drafting international tax rules.

      The head of tax at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which advises developed nations on policy, said the UK could use its freedom from EU rules to slash corporate tax but the political price would be high.

      The idea the country may cut tax on multinational companies’ profits, which could also help them avoid tax on profits made elsewhere in the EU, has been raised by some accountants and policy experts since the country voted to leave the bloc.

      “The negative impact of the Brexit on UK competitiveness may push the UK to be even more aggressive in its tax offer,” the OECD’s head of tax, Pascal Saint-Amans said in the memo, details of which were seen by Reuters.

    • Business pessimism ‘doubles after Brexit vote’

      UK business confidence has fallen sharply in the aftermath of the vote to leave the EU, research suggests.

      The share of businesses that reported feeling pessimistic about the UK economy doubled in the week after the Brexit vote.

      The figure jumped from 25% the week before the referendum to 49%, according to YouGov and the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

      Falling confidence can lead companies to pull back on investment and hiring.

      Scott Corfe, director at the CEBR, said that the figures indicated a “significant shock reaction” among UK businesses following the vote last month.

    • Disaster capitalism: the shocking doctrine Tories can’t wait to unleash

      One of the most startling aspects of the Brexit debate is the rapidity with which the Conservatives have set it behind them. Within hours of the result David Cameron was on the steps of 10 Downing Street, describing this slim majority as “a very clear result” and proposing irrevocable steps to set it in motion. Within days his chancellor, who had threatened a punishment budget only weeks earlier, was falling into line.

      The referendum was manifestly won on the basis of misinformation, and puts the UK in an extremely dangerous situation, and there are several plausible scenarios for avoiding it. Yet among the candidates to succeed Cameron, even former remainers are now voting leave. “Brexit means Brexit,” Theresa May stated on joining the race on Thursday. “There must be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door, and no second referendum.” All the bloodshed in the Tory leadership contest masks an underlying consensus: they are all determined to block every exit from Brexit.

    • Does Article 50 require an Act of Parliament? A brief thought-experiment.

      Here is a question: would a decision by the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union require an Act of Parliament?

      On this question, one week or so after the referendum vote for Leave, it may be fairly said that “views differ”. Some constitutional lawyers say one thing, others say the other.

    • The Mishcon de Reya legal challenge on Article 50 – some thoughts
    • Post Brexit, trade unions must fight to protect NHS workers including those from the EU

      Trade unions must take immediate action to reassure NHS and social care staff from the EU that they are welcome and needed in the UK – and to protect the rights of all workers.

    • Sanders Organizing Grassroots Push Against TPP for DNC Platform Meeting

      Environmentalists oppose it. So do labor unions, medical professionals, and major religious groups, as well as every leading presidential candidate.

      So why hasn’t the Democratic Party gone on record opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)?

      That’s what Bernie Sanders wants to know.

    • New Jersey’s Student Loan Program is ‘State-Sanctioned Loan-Sharking’

      Amid a haze of grief after her son’s murder last year, Marcia DeOliveira-Longinetti faced an endless list of tasks — helping the police access Kevin’s phone and email, canceling his subscriptions, credit cards and bank accounts, and arranging his burial in New Jersey.

      And then there were his college loans.

      When DeOliveira-Longinetti called about his federal loans, an administrator offered condolences and assured her the remaining balance would be written off.

    • Austerity and ‘Benefits Street’ in Stockton-on-Tees

      The myths on which Benefits Street was based – namely the myth of so-called “workless communities” – are demonstrably false; however the furore it has generated demonstrates that the politics of class and representation still matter.

    • Obituary: British Austerity (2010-2016)

      Many, even on the Conservative backbenches, now question its utility. Growth in the UK stalled throughout the period, falling markedly below competitors in the global markets. The UK was positioned as the foremost adherent of this bastardised Keynesian policy which saw its own Government cannibalise its own functions in a maudlin effort to lose weight. Over the past six years spending fell 10% – similar crashes have been seen previously only in times of war or famine.

    • A Sad And Shameful Day For Puerto Rico

      “You never let a serious crisis go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel infamously said when he was President Obama’s White House chief of staff. So it is with the legislation that President Obama signs into law Thursday that offers Puerto Rico a process for managing its crushing debt.

      This bill is being heralded as a rare moment of bipartisan cooperation to solve a serious crisis, in this case the default by Puerto Rico on more than $1 billion of general obligation bonds on July 1. The island’s government has already missed payment deadlines on other bonds.

    • STRIKE! Nearly 1,000 Trump Taj Mahal Workers Walk-Off Job Ahead of Atlantic City’s Biggest Weekend of the Year

      Many workers at the Trump Taj Mahal, including those with years on the job, have seen only $.80 in total raises over the last twelve years. The cost of living in Atlantic City has risen over 25 percent in the same time period. Housekeepers, servers and other casino workers at the Taj Mahal earn an average of less than $12/ hour.

    • Them, Freeloaders.

      Comfort zones are available for us to shatter them, both physically and mentally.

    • Robert Reich’s Impossible Quest: to Save Capitalism for the Many

      Robert Reich’s latest book, Saving Capitalism For the Many, Not the Few, graphically details how current U.S. capitalism operates in stark contrast to the post-World War II period of the 50s, 60s and 70s. For Reich, the earlier period represented almost an ideal state: “the rules of the game were basically fair.” The rules defined a system in which “widely shared prosperity generates more inclusive political institutions, which in turn organize the market in ways that further broaden the gains from growth and expand opportunity.”

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Major Political News Outlets Offer Interviews for Sale at DNC and RNC Conventions

      For high-rolling special interests looking to make an impression at the presidential conventions next month, one option is to pay a lot of money to a media outlet. Lobbyists for the oil industry, for instance, are picking up the tab for leading Beltway publications to host energy policy discussions at the convention, including the Atlantic and Politico.

      And for the right price, some political media outlets are even offering special interviews with editorial staffers and promotional coverage at the convention.

    • The Busted Theory of ‘Broken Windows’ Still Has Media Defenders

      Broken Windows was always about constant police contact with vulnerable groups of people. A buffet of interactions, the theory was in some ways just a crude, physical form of surveillance. The fact that it never worked was secondary to what did work: creating a politically accepted justification for crackdowns on those populations. After all, the theory implied that the squeegee man, the subway dancers, the “loosie” sellers and the homeless were responsible for the murder rate. Broken Windows was not a failure but a hugely successful communications strategy that promoted the idea that the poor were dangerous and that the cops should be unshackled to deal with them.

      It’s time to bury that idea and reverse that strategy by listening to the stories of those who’ve been dealing with the fallout of decades of a law and order onslaught.

    • Back to the Future

      The priority now of the political “elite” is to ensure voters never again get the chance to make a choice the political class do not want. Jeremy Corbyn is the thing the political class want least.

      Do you remember when 184 Labour MPs refused to vote against the Tory benefit cuts that ruined lives and caused suicides? They did so on the grounds that their focus groups showed the public wanted benefit cuts, and so it would be wrong to oppose the Tory Welfare Reform and Work Bill.

    • Trump Taps Consultant Accused of Defrauding PAC to Lead Colorado Campaign

      Patrick Davis has denied allegations that he inappropriately steered hundreds of thousands of dollars raised by a conservative PAC to organizations linked to himself and his friends. Now he’ll lead Trump’s campaign in a key swing state.

    • On the Lost Art of Intellectual Honesty

      Politics has become a branch of PR. It is just about selling. The party, candidate or policy you are selling must be portrayed as the absolute epitome of excellence, with no flaws whatsoever. Political discourse has therefore become juvenile. It is about expensively dressed, well groomed salesmen with perfect teeth. Thought is positively frowned upon.

    • Hillary’s Mode of Governance: Boozy X Chromosomes Making Peace

      The NYT has an article describing how a bunch of apparently moronic Hillary aides believe they will govern when she becomes President. I say moronic not just because — in a week when Hillary’s spouse scored an enormous own goal by chatting up Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the tarmack in Phoenix — numerous Hillary aides said Hillary might keep Lynch as AG.

    • Theresa May, Your New Islamophobic Prime Minister?

      A quick Google news search for “Theresa May and “Abu Qatada” reveals over 2,000 mainstream media articles in the last three days combining both. This is hardly surprising, as in her speech announcing her candidacy for Tory leader (and thus PM) May dwelt on her deportation of Abu Qatada as evidence she was qualified for the job. The May supporting Tory MP who was put up for Sky to interview immediately afterwards managed to say “Abu Qatada” three times in a two minute interview.

      Abu Qatada should indeed be a powerful symbol – but not the symbol he has become, a hate figure. He should rather be a symbol of the hate-filled and intolerant place Britain has become, and the dreadful injustice meted out to individuals both by the state and the media.

    • How Unpatriotic Is Donald Trump?

      There is little in Trump’s rambling off-the-cuff speeches and media interviews, or in his reactionary stream-of-conscious tweets, that demonstrate his understanding of patriotism. Trump is a snake oil salesman, and he is arguably in the midst of his greatest pitch to date. Smart consumers should do their research to find out the truth about the “product” they are being sold by Mr. Trump.

    • Journalistic Standards at the Guardian

      Note Ms Hinshliff’s use of inverted commas there, indicating that “media conspiracy” was the actual phrase used. Except it wasn’t. Wadsworth never used the phrase, or indeed either of the words “media” and “conspiracy” separately. What he actually said is widely available, as is video footage of him saying it. I published it yesterday, along with what I hope was a very rational consideration of what the incident did and did not signify .

    • Thoughts on the Media and the EU Referendum

      a) I did not accept the argument that the BBC was biased in the referendum campaign towards Brexit. Indeed especially in the last few days, I thought it was biased towards Remain.
      b) However the BBC had been guilty of helping promote Brexit by giving Farage massive and disproportionate publicity for many years, from when UKIP was a negligible electoral force. They were always willing to give right wings views publicity but not left wing views.
      c) The right wing print media were indeed a major problem distorting democracy. However the solution to this should be to break up media ownership, not impose government control of content.
      d) Project Fear had not succeeded in the Scottish referendum. It had seen a 35 point unionist lead cut to a 10 point lead, making it one of the most disastrous campaigns in history. The question of why Project Fear “succeeded” in Scotland but not the EU referendum was therefore a false one.
      e) Media coverage focused on the despised political class rather than the facts.

    • Hillary Cheated

      Who are you going to believe: us, or your lying eyes? That’s the good word from Democratic Party powers that be and their transcribers in the corporate media, in response to the “allegations” by Bernie Sanders supporters that the nomination was stolen by Hillary Clinton.

    • Wow. Americans Really, Really Don’t Like Trump or Clinton

      Via a new Gallup poll, more evidence comes Friday that the nation’s electorate really doesn’t like this year’s leading presidential candidates.

      Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has the dubious distinction of being the most unfavorably viewed of any candidate over the past seven decades—displacing 1964 Republican candidate Barry Goldwater from the bottom spot.

      The poll offers no smug moment for Clinton: her scores put her among the bottom four presidential candidates, with scores barely better than those of Goldwater.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Court battle looming over SABC censorship

      The Helen Suzman Foundation has launched an urgent court bid to stop the SABC from implementing its decision to censor reporting of protests.

      The application is against the SABC, its board, chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng and communications minister Faith Muthambi, the foundation said in a statement on Monday.

      It would be heard in the high court in Pretoria. The provisional court date is 29 July, but it could be moved forward pending the availability of lawyers.

      “It is impermissible for the SABC to distort or refuse to cover important news, as a result of political partisanship or otherwise.

    • Are ad-blockers killing the media?

      In the summer 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine, Spiegel Online’s managing editor Matthias Streitz and Privacy International technologist Richard Tynan go head to head to debate the rise of ad-blockers.

      Many publishers have voiced concern that this software – which allows users to block online adverts from their screens – is damaging their revenue streams.

      “If you consume our content, you must allow us some means of monetisation,” said Streitz. While Tynan argued that online adverts pose a security risk and ad-blockers allow users to “retain control over who the communicate with, and [minimise] the amount of data companies collect on users’ online patterns”.

    • SABC facing court challenge on censorship

      The Helen Suzman Foundation has launched an urgent application asking the High Court in Pretoria to suspend the implementation of the policy until the court has decided whether it is lawful, or pending the finalisation of an inquiry by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) into the matter.

    • Icasa to rule on SABC’s ban on protest reports

      The SABC is likely to know on 7 July whether its contentious decision to ban coverage of violent protests is valid.

    • Sanity, Shami Chakrabarti and the Ruth Smeeth Affair

      On the Chakrabarti report itself, it seems to me a model of good sense. It is interesting to note that her recommendations on what areas (including holocaust denial and the Nazis) and what language to ban from discourse, end up very closely mirroring the same rules we have adopted over the years on this blog, effectively to bar anti-Semitism.

    • Censorship reform: a concession too far?
    • Of censorship and cyberbullying

      The recent clash between Brikkuni vocalist Mario Vella and OPM aide and blogger Glenn Bedingfield has once again exposed the limitations of freedom of speech.

      Vella is widely known to be outspoken and vitriolic in his public commentary. On this occasion, however, many felt that his comment about Michelle Muscat (which was both obscene and highly personal) had ‘crossed the line’.

    • Israel Says Facebook Has ‘Simply Become A Monster’

      Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said Facebook was responsible for a spate of Palestinian attacks on the country’s citizens.

      “Facebook today sabotages, it should be known, sabotages the work of the Israeli police, because when the Israeli police approach them, and it is regarding a resident of Judea and Samaria, Facebook does not cooperate” with the West Bank, Erdan said in a television interview Saturday, Reuters reported.

    • A contemporary twist to Khajuraho: A Bengaluru artist redefines censorship through art

      Applying censorship to illustrate censorship itself is what Akshita’s art intends to achieve.

    • Sony Locks Up The PSN Account Of A Man Named ‘Jihad’ Because You’ll Never Guess Why

      Terrorism is scary. That’s the entire point of terrorism, of course. The relatively meager bodycounts of acts of terror — compared with, say, most minor individual battles in either of the World Wars — are actually attempting to create some kind of political or social change amongst the victims. And guess what? It totally works! After all, western nations, the bastions of freedom and puppy dogs that we are, have reacted to what is ultimately a minor threat by reporting toddlers to the authorities, freezing the bank accounts of people with dogs whose names are a couple of letters off of the scary terror-enemy, and refusing online services to people with scary (read: Islamic) sounding names. Freedom, you see, isn’t free, and we have to pay for it with freedom.

      And the real lesson that should be learned from pretty much the entire early part of this century is that once you start the fear-ball rolling when it comes to terrorism, it gets really hard to prevent it from trampling a great deal of innocent people in some of the dumbest ways possible.

    • The SABC and censorship on Al Jazeera

      South Africa is embroiled in a national debate over media censorship. This, after the SABC made the editorial decision to stop airing video of violent protests. The SABC has maintained the move was to protect journalists from becoming victims while covering such events.

    • The SABC and media censorship
    • Like North Korea and China, SA is a huge fan of censorship, DA says
    • ‘SA unashamedly parades love for censorship on international stage’: DA

      What does South Africa have in common with China‚ Russia and North Korea? “Poor human rights track records” and they are the “biggest practitioners of censorship”‚ the Democratic Alliance’s Phumzile van Damme suggested on Tuesday.

    • ANCYL backs SABC management amid anti-censorship debacle
    • SABC facing court challenge on censorship
    • ANC is also a victim of SABC censorship: Mantashe

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • FBI Still Not Counting How Often Encryption Hinders Their Investigations

      The annual wiretap report is out. The headline number is that wiretaps have gone up, and judges still don’t deny any wiretap applications.

    • Federal Court: The Fourth Amendment Does Not Protect Your Home Computer

      In a dangerously flawed decision unsealed today, a federal district court in Virginia ruled that a criminal defendant has no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in his personal computer, located inside his home. According to the court, the federal government does not need a warrant to hack into an individual’s computer.

      This decision is the latest in, and perhaps the culmination of, a series of troubling decisions in prosecutions stemming from the FBI’s investigation of Playpen—a Tor hidden services site hosting child pornography. The FBI seized the server hosting the site in 2014, but continued to operate the site and serve malware to thousands of visitors that logged into the site. The malware located certain identifying information (e.g., MAC address, operating system, the computer’s “Host name”; etc) on the attacked computer and sent that information back to the FBI. There are hundreds of prosecutions, pending across the country, stemming from this investigation.

    • Your Favorite Website Might Be Discriminating Against You

      And because of a little-known law, it can be illegal to test for discrimination online.

      It can be pretty convenient when Facebook processes the gargantuan amount of personal data it has on you to show you ads for the precise lemon curd recipe you never knew you were craving.

      But what are the harms associated with this kind of targeting? It’s hard to answer that question — because an overbroad law actually prohibits the kind of studies best positioned to figure it out.

      The implications go far beyond dessert — studies have shown that people are being treated differently online based on their race, actual or perceived. Websites have been found to use demographic data to raise or lower prices, show different advertisements, or steer people to different content.

    • Security Tips Every Signal User Should Know

      There are dozens of messaging apps for iPhone and Android, but one in particular continues to stand out in the crowd. Signal is easy to use, works on both iOS and Android, and encrypts communications so that only the sender and recipient can decipher them.

    • Making Sense of a Troubling Decision: New Court Ruling Underscores the Need to Stop the Changes to Rule 41

      We wrote about a case last week that was deeply disturbing: a federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia held that individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy in a personal computer located inside their home. In this court’s view, the FBI is free to hack into networked devices (aka, pretty much everything) without a warrant.

      Fortunately, this is only the opinion of a single district court judge, so it’s not controlling precedent throughout the country. But the decision makes one thing clear: we need to stop the changes to Rule 41, amendments that will make it easier for the government to get a warrant to remotely search computers.

      First, the changes to Rule 41 are going to result in a lot more government hacking. And, as the decision in the Eastern District of Virginia illustrates, that dramatic increase in government hacking is going to occur in a legal environment where judges are struggling to understand the technology and the implications their decisions will have for people’s security and privacy. If law enforcement is going to be allowed to stockpile and exploit vulnerabilities to investigate domestic crimes, there need to be stringent safeguards on the circumstances when they can do this. And it’s up to Congress, not the courts, to create those rules. If Congress allows the changes to Rule 41 to go through, they’re effectively saying: “Courts, you figure it out.” As the recent court decision shows, that is a perilous path.

      Second, the changes to Rule 41 will encourage forum shopping. As we wrote before, under the changes, law enforcement will be able to apply for warrants before judges or in districts with the most flexible view on the Fourth Amendment and its requirements. And, if last week’s decision is any indication, the FBI has a very friendly venue conveniently located near its headquarters—the Eastern District of Virginia. If the FBI is looking to obtain an expansive warrant under the new Rule 41 to search a computer whose location is hidden by “technological means,” it won’t have to travel far.

    • FBI Cameras in Seattle Need to Be Regulated by the Public — Not Secretly Imposed on the Public

      While you’re strolling the Seattle streets this summer, take a moment to look up. Thanks to the FBI, there’s a new bird in town atop the maples and the power lines: surveillance cameras housed in birdhouse-like “concealments” attached to the city’s utility poles.

      The new species was first spotted in the wild last July, and a state public-records request by KIRO 7 yielded limited information from Seattle City Light in November. But most Seattleites likely weren’t aware of their presence in the city until recently, when the U.S. Department of Justice sued the city and Seattle City Light to prevent the release of additional information about the cameras, including their locations. A federal judge promptly blocked the release of the location information, at least for now.

      Whether that decision is correct as a legal matter is complicated. The government claims, “Every FBI pole camera is associated with a particular subject or particular investigation,” and that revealing a camera’s location would have a “devastating impact” on ongoing police work.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Disabled cancer patient slammed to the ground by TSA guards, lawsuit claims

      A disabled teenage cancer patient was injured during a violent arrest by security agents at Memphis international airport, her family has alleged in a lawsuit filed against the Transport Security Administration.

      Hannah Cohen, 18, at the time of her arrest on 30 June 2015, and her mother had been on their way home to Chattanooga from St Jude’s hospital in Memphis, where Hannah underwent her final treatment for a brain tumor.

      Hannah and her mother, Shirley, told the Guardian that the pair had made the trip hundreds of times, and knew the airport security routine well. Shirley would usually go through the scanner first and wait for Hannah on the other side, since Hannah’s tumor, and numerous surgeries and treatments since she was two years old, had left her easily confused and frightened in unfamiliar situations.

      According to the complaint, the warning alarm was triggered when Hannah passed through the body scanners. Hannah attributed the alarm to her shirt’s design.

    • Racial Bias and Arrest Tech

      Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court took away a little more of your right to be free from unlawful police searches. In a 5-3 decision in Utah v. Strieff, the Court held that if the police illegally stop and search you, they can use against you any evidence they find, as long as they determine—after they’ve stopped you—that you’re one of the 7.8 million Americans with an outstanding arrest warrant.

      Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a fiery and spot-on dissent that forcefully demonstrates the troubling links between racial discrimination, police stops of pedestrians and motorists, arrest warrant databases, and out-of-control police surveillance technologies.

    • I’m a Former Marine Who Was on the No Fly List for 4 Years — and I Still Don’t Know Why

      “You’re on the no-fly list,” the woman at the kiosk told me. It was a Wednesday, six years ago, at Midway Airport in Chicago. I was traveling to Spokane, Washington, for my job as a dog trainer.

      I had absolutely no idea how I could have ended up on the No Fly List. I waited for Ashton Kutcher to come out and tell me I was being Punk’d. No luck.

      At least 30 federal agents swarmed me. They didn’t handcuff or manhandle me, but the sheer number of them was intimidating. I was in a state of shock, looking at them confusedly. Their expressions turned puzzled, too, when they noticed my Marine Corps shirt.”You’re on the no-fly list,” the woman at the kiosk told me. It was a Wednesday, six years ago, at Midway Airport in Chicago. I was traveling to Spokane, Washington, for my job as a dog trainer.

      I had absolutely no idea how I could have ended up on the No Fly List. I waited for Ashton Kutcher to come out and tell me I was being Punk’d. No luck.

      At least 30 federal agents swarmed me. They didn’t handcuff or manhandle me, but the sheer number of them was intimidating. I was in a state of shock, looking at them confusedly. Their expressions turned puzzled, too, when they noticed my Marine Corps shirt.

    • ‘Vatileaks’ trio including mother of newborn facing jail terms

      Vatican prosecutors have demanded prison sentences for a senior clergyman, a communications consultant and a journalist accused of involvement in “Vatileaks” – the leak of sensitive Holy See documents.

      The prosecution called for three years and nine months’ prison for communications consultant Francesca Chaouqui, who had been involved in a review of Vatican finances and is accused of both “inspiring” and of ultimate responsibility for the leaks.

    • Directive on combating terrorism: LIBE Committee must oppose dangerous provisions!

      This evening the committee of the European Parliament on Civil Liberties (LIBE) will vote on the draft directive on combating terrorism. La Quadrature du Net already warned about the dangerous provisions of this text and urges once more MEPs to oppose this text.

    • America’s Female Prison Population Has Grown 800% and Nobody Is Talking About It

      Holly Harris may wear cowboy boots to work, but the Kentucky mom and Executive Director for the US Justice Action Network (USJAN) is far from your average southerner.

      This past Saturday, June 25th, Harris talked about her work to a group of journalists and bloggers who traveled to Washington D.C. from different corners of the country to hear from leaders of the criminal justice reform movement. Harris was the first speaker at FreedomWorks’ #JusticeForAll event, and as the leader of USJAN, she set the tone for what turned out to be a fascinating conference.

    • Time Served for a Non-Violent Drug Offense? Sorry, You Still Can’t Vote if You Live in Iowa

      When Americans go to the polls in November to elect the next president, more than 5.8 million of them will be unable to vote due to a past felony conviction.

      Many of them, like our client Kelli Griffin, were convicted of a non-violent drug offense and have since recovered from drug dependence, served their sentence, and returned to their communities. But because Kelli lives in Iowa — one of three states, along with Florida and Kentucky, that disenfranchise people for life after a felony conviction — she remains a second-class citizen denied full participation in the democratic process.

    • Donald Trump, Torturer in Chief

      Among the many controversial statements made by Mr. Donald Trump, his recent one on the use of waterboarding tops them all. Speaking at a rally in Ohio, when asked if the U.S. should use waterboarding to extract confessions from prisoners, Trump said, “I like it a lot. I don’t think it’s tough enough.” It was an irresponsible statement by a man who knows no moderation on serious issues.

      Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of a person, causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning. It causes not only extreme pain, but also damages the lungs and the brain due to oxygen deprivation. In addition, it may cause lasting psychological damage and death. It is among the cruelest forms of torture.

    • Because the Prosecutors Withheld Evidence, This Man Has Spent 30 Years on Death Row

      The prosecution denied its misconduct for decades. Then the Supreme Court gave Terry Williams a chance for a new trial.

      The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office intentionally withheld critical evidence in 1986 when it prosecuted 18-year-old Terry Williams and won a death sentence. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the Pennsylvania courts, putting the prosecution’s wrongdoing on display.

      At Terry’s trial, the prosecution told the jury a story: at age 18, Terry had killed 56-year-old Amos Norwood for “no other reason” than to rob him. The prosecutors described Norwood as a kind man who volunteered at church. But they knew much more about Norwood than they let on. When they withheld that information from the defense and from the jury, they violated the law.

      Terry had grown up in a terror-filled household, the victim of beatings by his mother and stepfather. He was six when an 11-year-old neighbor, someone he considered to be like a big brother, first lured him with promises of food — something that he often didn’t have at home — and then sexually assaulted him. Terry was repeatedly sexually abused and exploited by adults, including one of his middle school teachers.

    • Computer Crime Bill Stalls in Rhode Island

      Rhode Island legislators recently decided not to advance a bill that would have made that state’s bad “anti-hacking” law even worse. This is good news. But the struggle continues against other vague and overbroad computer crime laws.

      As EFF previously explained, this Rhode Island bill was a threat to many different kinds of innocent, common, and beneficial uses of computers. It would have further empowered prosecutors to bring charges against computer users who violate a corporate terms-of-service agreement to access confidential information, as well as whistle blowers and independent computer security researchers. It would have imposed a minimum of five years of incarceration for a first offense, even where there was no intent to obtain financial gain. It allowed for the stacking of charges, enabling prosecutors to seek even lengthier prison terms. And there was no showing that existing laws are insufficient to protect confidential computer data.

    • Independence Day Delusions

      The concept of “freedom” is at the very least ambiguous, and, at the most, destructive to those being deceived by false patriotism. The people who benefit from the uncontrolled pursuit of money push the concept of individual freedom on the rest of us, making us feel unpatriotic if we disagree. “Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself,” once blathered Milton Friedman, whose economic theories made America the most unequal developed nation.

    • July 4: What the Flag Means to Me on My Birthday

      It wasn’t until many years later, while reading an issue of the armed forces newspaper Stars and Stripes in Vietnam that I began thinking and feeling differently about the flag and what it represents. There was a story about an arrest and jailing for flag burning somewhere in the United States. I had recently experienced the horror of seeing numerous bodies of young women and children that were burned alive in a small Delta village devastated by napalm. Since the pilots had “successfully” hit their targets, they were feeling good and had received glowing reports that would bode well in their military record for promotions. I wondered why it was okay to burn innocent human beings 9,000 miles from my home town, but not okay to burn a piece of cloth that was symbolic of the US policies intentionally burning villagers to death with napalm. Something was terribly wrong with the Cold War rhetoric of fighting communism that made me question what our nation stood for. There was a grand lie, an American myth that was being fraudulently preserved under the cloak of our flag.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • How Do We Achieve an Open, Secure, Trustworthy, and Inclusive Internet?

      Today at the OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Digital Economy in Mexico, the Global Commission on Internet Governance released its final report, One Internet. Despite its important-sounding name, the Commission is not an official body, but a think tank convened in 2014 by the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and Chatham House, composed of a diverse panel of 29 invited experts from industry, government, academia, and civil society (including EFF Pioneer Award recipient Anriette Esterhuysen).

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

      • Aspartame is back–and is Pepsi playing by a new branding playbook?

        Nevertheless, it turns out that trademark strategy may sometimes be better viewed as the use of generic (or nearly so) terms without any apparent interest in whether or not they meet the requirements for registration. Case in point is the announcement last week by PepsiCo, as reported here, regarding changes to its soft drink line-up and the names assigned to these products. At the heart of these moves by Pepsi is the presence or absence of the artificial sweetener, aspartame. While used for a long time, aspartame has been challenged on various health grounds, so much so that in 2015 Pepsi removed it from the formulation for its Diet Pepsi soft drink product, in favor of sucralose. Pepsi thereby hoped to capture customers who are wary for health reasons of products containing aspartame. The problem is that the removal of aspartame from the Diet Pepsi soft drink did not blunt the continuing decline in sales. The solution—bring back the diet version with the aspartame ingredient.

    • Copyrights

      • [Older] California Legislature Drops Proposal to Copyright All Government Works

        You spoke, and the California Legislature listened. We’re happy to report that A.B. 2880 was amended in the State Senate to remove the dangerous sections that EFF and over 25 other organizations opposed. Your messages to the Legislature were vital to this effort.

        The prior version of A.B. 2880 that was passed by the State Assembly would have given state government agencies vast new power to assert copyrights and trademarks over government-created work. It also would have added a broad new exemption to the California Public Records Act, the state’s version of FOIA.

      • Pirating TV-Shows and a Movie Costs Finnish Man Over €32,000

        The so-called ‘copyright-trolling’ piracy lawsuits in Finland have claimed their first victim in court. Despite operating an open Wi-Fi network, a man has been ordered to pay more than 32,000 euros in damages and costs for sharing ten episodes of the TV show “Black Sails” and a movie.

      • With Canada’s Entry, Treaty for the Blind Will Come Into Force

        A groundbreaking international agreement to address the “book famine” for blind and print-disabled people is now set to go into force after passing another key milestone today. The agreement requires countries to allow the reproduction and distribution of accessible ebooks by limiting the scope of copyright restrictions.

        The Marrakesh agreement takes aim at the global shortage of ebooks available in suitable formats for the print disabled, which in some regions is as low as 1% of published books. At the time of its completion, only 57 of the 184 member countries of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) had copyright exceptions for this purpose, and inconsistencies between them made sharing books between countries nearly impossible.

      • EFF to Copyright Office: No New Barriers to DMCA Safe Harbors

        As the debate over the future of the DMCA safe harbors heats up, the US Copyright Office is proposing a plan that could undermine those safe harbors much sooner.

        One of the myriad conditions of DMCA safe harbor protection from copyright liability (protection on which thousands of intermediaries rely to survive) is to register an agent to receive DMCA takedown notices. Last month the Copyright Office announced that it would finally be implementing a new, much cheaper and streamlined electronic registration process.

      • Chilean Proposal for Unwaivable Payments to Authors Creeps Onward to Colombia

        EFF has observed an alarming trend: when certain parties face challenges in attempting to monetize their contributions to copyrighted works, lawmakers often attempt to address it by handing out new copyright-like veto powers. We’ve dubbed this trend “copyright creep”, and it’s running rampant all over the world.

07.04.16

Links 4/7/2016: VectorLinux 7.2 Beta, Linux 4.7 RC 6

Posted in News Roundup at 2:34 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Why PayPal bets on open-source

    The old way was to spend a lot of money on limited software and hardware. The new way, as PayPal’s Bill Scott, VP of next gen commerce found, is to scale out with lots of low-cost hardware and software. Open-source enables this, and to marvelously good effect.

    Scott, a firm believer in lean engineering, stands by the fact that it’s the secret sauce that fosters innovation and efficacy.

    Lean engineering, simply put, is becoming a part of the experimentation and learning cycle. The idea is to have rapid iteration and get feedback from customers quickly.

  • Distributed, Open Source Chat with Vector and Matrix

    When it comes to chat, you have many choices. Facebook Messenger, Google Talk, Whatsapp, Kik, and Slack are all viable options. However, all of these choices are proprietary, and require you to use servers that you can’t run yourself. They’re highly centralized, closed source tools.

    In the open source world, IRC has been the go to solution for chat for many years, and for good reason. Anyone can run a server, there’s many clients, and it’s built on open standards. But IRC comes from a pre-mobile world, and relies on clients to maintain persistent connections to the server. It’s not the best experience on a phone.

  • The Growth of the Linux and Open Source Channel since 1989

    The Linux kernel was born twenty-five years ago this summer. Since that time a thriving partner ecosystem has arisen around open source platforms built on Linux, GNU and other free and open source software products. Here’s a look at milestones in the evolution of the Linux channel and partner ecosystem.

  • Living, in Limbo [Ed: Pieter Hintjens, famous Free software developer, with terminal cancer]

    “Is he getting better, or is he dying?” asked my nephew of me. How to explain? The hospital sent me home three months ago with boxes of pain killers, oxygen, a medical bed, and home care. Palliative care: aim for quality of life, not return to normal. And yet here I am, not on oxygen, not taking the pain killers, and seeing medical staff only when it’s time for my biweekly chemotherapy.

    I’m clearly not dying yet. And still, slowly losing weight and muscle. A simple walk leaves me tired and needing to sit. I wake up, make an early morning cup of chicory/coffee, drink it, then lie down again, hit by the simple effort of standing up.

    We did a CAT scan a few weeks ago. Inconclusive. Things don’t seem worse. Yet the numerous little blobs of cancer are still there in my lungs, patient. Another scan in a month, and we’ll have a better idea.

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Back End

  • CMS

    • Arastta: Community Driven & Open Source eCommerce

      Arastta eCommerce is an open source project which is driven by its community. For a relatively new startup project Arastta has a great community sharing ideas, translating into different world languages, reporting issues and bugs, contributing the source code and helping to plan the future of the project.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • Public Services/Government

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Peerplays creates open-source profit sharing module

      Blockchain-based online gaming and wagering platform Peerplays, has created an open-source fee sharing module that will enable direct profit distribution to token holders by any Graphene-based blockchain platform.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • Wevolver Open Source 3D Printable Robots And More (video)

        …if you are interested in creating your own 3D printed robots using a little Arduino programming, open source coding or making in general. You might be interested in some new 3D printed open source robot projects which have been published to the Revolver website for all skill levels.

Leftovers

07.03.16

Links 3/7/2016: GNU/Linux Desktop Market Share Hype, Fedora 24 Release Party in Panama

Posted in News Roundup at 1:58 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Implementing NATO’s standards (STANAG)

    I recently joined Linnovate, and while working on one of the open source projects the company produces, we needed to process video content according to NATO’s standard agreement (STANAG) 4609: NATO Digital Motion Imagery Standard.

  • Cygwin library now available under GNU Lesser General Public License

    Today, we’re pleased to announce that the next release of the Cygwin library (version 2.5.2) will be available under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 3. The Cygwin library is the core of the Cygwin project, which includes a distribution of the popular GNU tools and other open source tools designed to enable easier porting of Linux applications to Microsoft Windows. This change to the Cygwin library, previously available under the GNU General Public License, opens up a variety of commercial opportunities for companies to use the newest Cygwin versions in their products.

  • Universal rendering with SwiftShader, now open source

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • This Week In Servo 69

        In the last week, we landed 84PRs in the Servo organization’s repositories.

        One of our contributors, Florian Duraffourg, landed a patch recently that switched our public domain list matching source and algorithm, resulting in a huge speedup in page load times (~25%!). Shing Lyu tracked down and measured this unexpectedly-large gain through a new automated page load testing performance infrastructure that he has been testing. It compares Servo daily builds against Firefox for page load on a subset of the Alexa Top 1000 sites. Check it out!

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • CMS

    • 4 Reasons an Open Source CMS Should Be Appealing to IT

      With an open source CMS, there’s a massive development community, which alleviates the constraint of a limited pool of technical resources. That coupled with full access to the code allows organizations to drive their technical needs based on their business requirements — not the other way around. A site built for the business user reduces the need for technical support in the first place, further enabling non-technical users to take control of their online presence.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • What’s up with nano?

      As expected, the recent state of events where nano transitioned maintainership to Benno Schulenberg, and the project left GNU, has a lot of people speculating about what happened, and more disappointingly, making some pretty nasty assertions about motivations. I want to try and give a brief update on them to hopefully calm things down.

    • User freedom in the age of computer-generated software

      Many of us share a vision for the way software, free or otherwise, is developed: software is written by a programmer as “source code” and transformed through some mechanisms into “object code.” As free software activists, we are used to thinking about our legal, development, and community processes and tooling in terms of this workflow. But what happens when software which used to be written manually by humans is developed generatively through other software? How does this affect software and user freedom?

    • Unifont 9.0.01 Released

      This release includes all Basic Multilingual Plane and Supplemental Multilingual Plane scripts that are easily drawn in a 16-by-16 pixel grid up through all new Unicode 9.0 scripts. This release also incorporates changes to scripts that The Unicode Consortium altered. See the ChangeLog file for full details.

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • The Macintosh is at a new crossroads

      Late last week, Apple announced it has discontinued its Thunderbolt Display, a once-groundbreaking 27-inch monitor that functioned not only as a monitor but as a hub for MacBooks and other Macs attached to it.

      The Thunderbolt Display, which hadn’t been updated since 2011, epitomized Apple’s Mac strategy at the time of providing high-capacity, high-speed peripheral connections to set Macs apart from the pokey peripheral buses then common on PCs. The Mac was for power users; the PC was not.

    • Inside Japan’s Future Exascale ARM Supercomputer

      The rumors that supercomputer maker Fujitsu would be dropping the Sparc architecture and moving to ARM cores for its next generation of supercomputers have been going around since last fall, and at the International Supercomputing Conference in Frankfurt, Germany this week, officials at the server maker and RIKEN, the research and development arm of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) that currently houses the mighty K supercomputer, confirmed that this is indeed true.

    • Fujitsu turns to ARM for Post-K supercomputer

      Alternative chip architectures are taking some thunder away from Intel’s x86 at this week’s International Supercomputing Conference in Frankfurt.

      China’s TaihuLight, which was ranked the world’s fastest supercomputer, has a homegrown chip. And the ARM architecture, which dominates mobile-device chips, will appear in Fujitsu’s next flagship supercomputer.

    • Intel: ARM Servers To Renew Their Attack

      Up until now, server chips based on ARM Holdings’ (NASDAQ:ARMH) architecture have had little impact on the data center market, and Intel’s (NASDAQ:INTC) Data Center Group has continued to grow. ARM server vendors are preparing the next wave of server chips based on 14-16 nm FinFET technology. These will be much more competitive and energy efficient and could start to erode Intel’s share of the data center by 2017.

  • Security

    • Progress Towards 100% HTTPS, June 2016
    • Exploiting Recursion in the Linux Kernel
    • Home Computers Connected to the Internet Aren’t Private, Court Rules [iophk: "MS Windows == insecure, therefore all computer are game"]

      A judge in Virginia rules that people should have no expectation of privacy on their home PCs because no connected computer “is immune from invasion.”
      A federal judge for the Eastern District of Virginia has ruled that the user of any computer that connects to the Internet should not have an expectation of privacy because computer security is ineffectual at stopping hackers.

      The June 23 ruling came in one of the many cases resulting from the FBI’s infiltration of PlayPen, a hidden service on the Tor network that acted as a hub for child exploitation, and the subsequent prosecution of hundreds of individuals. To identify suspects, the FBI took control of PlayPen for two weeks and used, what it calls, a “network investigative technique,” or NIT—a program that runs on a visitor’s computer and identifies their Internet address.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Hindu temple volunteer hacked to death in Bangladesh, say police

      A Hindu temple worker was hacked to death in western Bangladesh on Friday, police said, the latest in a series of attacks on religious minorities by suspected Islamists.

      Shyamananda Das, who helped to conduct prayers at the Radhamadan Gopal Bigraha Math in Jhenaidah district, was killed by three men on a motorcycle as he was walking on a highway adjacent to his temple early in the morning, police said.

    • Police blow up suspicious car near Stade de France

      French police used an explosive to blast entry to a car parked illegally near the Stade de France stadium in Paris where France and Iceland will play a Euro 2016 quarter-final match tonight.

      The blast by the stadium – which was targeted by terrorist attacks last November – caused jitters among fans arriving for the key game.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Palm oil companies ditch landmark Indonesian ‘zero deforestation’ pact

      Major palm oil companies that backed a landmark Indonesian “zero deforestation” pact on green practices have now ditched it in favour of less strict standards, triggering criticism the companies have caved into Indonesian government pressure.

      The companies signed the 2014 Indonesia Palm Oil Pledge, or Ipop, in an agreement hailed as boosting efforts to fight rampant deforestation and annual forest fires and the haze. As part of the pledge, the firms, which include top palm oil producers and traders, pledged no development of peatlands of any depth. Peatland fires are a major source of the haze.

      But on Friday (July 1), the companies said Ipop had run its course and was no longer needed. They supported the Indonesian government’s efforts to “transform the palm oil sector” and to strengthen the country’s own certification standards called the Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil, or Ispo.

  • Finance/Brexit

    • After Brexit, Germany Should Give Brits Citizenship: Minister

      Britain voted 52 to 48 percent on June 23 in favor of quitting the EU.

      Germany should offer citizenship to young Britons living in Germany given that it was largely older voters in England and Wales who voted for “Brexit” in last month’s referendum, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Saturday.

      Britain voted 52 to 48 percent on June 23 in favor of quitting the European Union, with the referendum splitting the country along several lines such as old versus young, England and Wales versus Scotland and Northern Ireland.

    • SPD urges Germany to offer citizenship to young British expats

      SPD member Sigmar Gabriel has said Britons living in Germany should get EU citizenship. His words come amid growing uncertainty in the wake of Britain’s decision to leave the EU.

    • Germany should offer young Britons EU citizenship after Brexit, says German Vice-Chancellor

      Germany should offer citizenship to young Britons living in Germany, since it was largely older voters who voted to leave the European Union, the German Vice-Chancellor has said.

      Speaking at a meeting with the Social Democratic Party in Berlin on Saturday, Sigmar Gabriel, who is also the Economy Minister, said the UK’s referendum was a further reason to campaign to relax the rules on dual citizenship in Germany.

      “Let us offer it to young Britons who live in Germany, Italy or France, so they can remain European Union citizens in this country,” he said.

    • The rest of the world is laughing at the UK – but one country is explaining why they love us

      It’s been a difficult week for the UK. After voting to leave the European Union in a historic referendum, our country seems to have been split down the middle.

      Remain voters are blaming Leave voters for ‘ruining their futures’, Leave voters are telling Remain voters to stop complaining, politicians are tearing each other to shreds.

      The Prime Minister has resigned, the shadow cabinet is falling apart, we’re not sure what’s happening to our economy and there are worrying reports of increased xenophobia.

      It’s fair to say we don’t have much cause to love the UK at the moment.

      We’ve also been made the butt of the joke all over the world.

    • ‘Let EU migrants stay’ say the British public, plus voices from business and politics

      The Government and nominees to be the next Conservative Leader faced new pressure today to make a clear and unequivocal statement to reassure the 3 million EU citizens living in the UK that they would be able to stay after Brexit, and that a similar deal would be pursued to protect the status of the 1.2 million British citizens living in other EU countries.

      New research from ICM for British Future finds that 84% of the British public supports letting EU migrants stay – including three-quarters (77%) of Leave voters. Among Conservatives, support for protecting the status of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in Europe is even higher at 85%, with 78% of UKIP supporters in agreement.

      Just 16% of the public think that EU citizens should be required to leave the UK and that UK citizens in Europe should return home, with 23% of Leave voters and 15% of Conservatives agreeing.

    • The Tories played with fire and you can hear the flames crackling round you

      Writing of the British intellectuals who fell for Stalin, George Orwell came up with a sentence that applies as well to today’s conservatives as to the socialists of the 1930s. “So much of leftwing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.” I was repeating it almost hourly as I watched the frivolous, dishonest, over-privileged and over-grown adolescents who presumed to govern us skip away from the consequences of their folly.

      At a moment when Britain is more fragile and angry than I have seen it, when parliament has been silenced by the referendum, and the opposition has collapsed, they have manured the soil in which extremism flourishes.

      Before I go on, I accept that you cannot get a hearing on immigration, race and the backlashes they inspire until you acknowledge hard truths. It is not the case that everyone who voted to leave was racist, or even primarily concerned about immigration. It is arguable that the origins of our crisis lie in the last Labour government’s decision to open Britain up to hundreds of thousands it never expected to arrive.

    • British Conservatives in Chaos Over Brexit, but Labour Party’s in No Position to Pounce

      Until Thursday, the political wrangling in Britain over how, or whether, to withdraw from the European Union — a move supported by a narrow majority of the voters in last week’s referendum, but opposed by 75 percent of the members of Parliament elected just last year — seemed likely to trigger a new general election.

    • Poll reveals young remain voters reduced to tears by Brexit result

      Almost half of voters aged 18 to 24 cried or felt like crying when they heard that the UK had voted to leave the European Union, according to polls conducted for the London School of Economics.

      The findings were released last night after tens of thousands of people demonstrated in central London against the results of the referendum.

      The polling by Opinium, conducted as part of an LSE electoral psychology initiative called “Inside the mind of the voter”, found that the electorate’s verdict on EU membership prompted a far more emotional reaction than the results of most other elections or referendums.

      Overall, out of a sample of 2,113 British adults questioned between 24 and 30 June, 32% of respondents said they cried or felt like crying when they discovered the result.

    • Douglas Carswell challenged by Leave voter over broken NHS pledge

      Ukip MP claims Vote Leave only ever promised £100m a week – despite £350m a week being at the top of his Twitter profile

    • Thousands of patients could be denied life-extending drugs and treatment in wake of Brexit

      Thousands of patients could be denied life-extending drugs and treatment in the wake of Brexit , the Sunday People reports.

      NHS bosses have delayed funding for vital medicines and services because the fall in the value of the pound means they may no longer be able to afford them.

      And kidney patient Abi Longfellow, the teenager who won her battle for a wonder drug thanks to a Sunday People campaign, is one of those hit by the devastating blow.

      The cost of Abi’s drug went up by £16,000 overnight due to Brexit . When the NHS first agreed to buy the drug form the US it cost £136,000.

      But the price has now shot up to £152,000 because the pound has slumped against the dollar.

      The delays also hit cancer patients, children with gender issues, HIV patients and stroke victims.

    • EU tells Swiss no single market access if no free movement of citizens

      The European Union is to show its determination to make no concessions to the UK on Brexit terms by telling Switzerland it will lose access to the single market if it goes ahead with plans to impose controls on the free movement of EU citizens.

      The Swiss-EU talks, under way for two years but now needing a solution possibly within weeks, throws up the exact same issues that will be raised in the UK’s exit talks – the degree to which the UK must accept free movement of the EU’s citizens as a price for access to the single market.

      The Swiss are desperate to strike a deal in order to give its politicians time to pass the necessary laws to meet a February 2017 deadline imposed by a legally binding referendum in 2014.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Jeremy Corbyn exclusively reveals why he’s offering Labour MPs a peace deal – in his own words

      Britain now faces an economic and political crisis.

      Since voters decided to leave the ­European Union, financial markets have been in a tailspin.

      Threats to living standards have grown. The Prime Minister has announced his resignation, the country is divided and the Government is in disarray.

      George Osborne has finally had to agree to ditch his job-destroying plan for a budget surplus, as Labour has been demanding.

      But Tory ministers have no EU exit plan. Instead, they are threatening to make working people pay for their ­failures, with more spending cuts
      and tax rises.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • MDA ticked off for irrational censorship by Festival Director and acclaimed photographer

      Newsha Tavakolian an acclaimed Iranian photojournalist and documentary photographer, and Singapore’s cultural medallion winner Ong Keng Sen have hot out at the Singapore authorities for the unnecessary censorship of works of artistic merits.

    • ICANN: We Won’t Pass Judgment on Pirate Sites

      Following more pressure from rightsholders, domain name oversight body ICANN has again made it clear that it will not act as judge and jury in copyright disputes. In a letter to the president of the Intellectual Property Constituency, ICANN chief Stephen Crocker says that ICANN is neither “required or qualified” to pass judgment in such cases.

    • Man arrested for posting picture insulting PM in WhatsApp group

      Police have arrested a man for sharing a crude photo insulting the Prime Minister in a WhatsApp group.

      Johor police chief Comm Datuk Wan Ahmad Najmuddin Mohd said that the man was arrested in Kampung Tunku, Petaling Jaya at around 12.15pm on Saturday.

      He said the suspect, who goes by the name Pa Ya, had uploaded the photo into a WhatsApp group called “Bicara Politik Melayu”.

      “The photo has insulted and hurt the feelings of Malaysians,” he said in a statement on Saturday.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Landlords, ISPs team up to rip off tenants on broadband

      Who would have thought that handing out free coffee and donuts in an apartment house would lead to Comcast reprimanding the building owners? That’s exactly what happened in Norcross, Ga., when cruller-baring Google representatives recently tried to tell residents about the company’s new fiber, high-speed Internet service.

      The landlord in question was reminded that he, like apartment building owners in many states, has an exclusive deal that deems Comcast the only company that can provide broadband to the building. Such deals with Comcast and other major ISPs effectively rob residents of the right to choose broadband providers, and they bar competitors from even setting foot in certain buildings.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

      • Comodo spat shows importance of effective PR around trademark strategies

        US-based Comodo Group is the world’s largest issuer of SSL digital certificates (which are small data files that allow secure website connections, usually with an annual cost). A new entrant to the market is non-profit Let’s Encrypt, which was founded in 2014 by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) and offers similar digital certificates for free. The rivalry between the organisations turned bitter last week after ISRG executive director Josh Aas revealed that Comodo had filed three trademark applications for the term LET’S ENCRYPT.

    • Copyrights

      • BitTorrent Protocol Turns 15 Years Old Today

        Fifteen years ago a developer named Bram Cohen posted a short message online, announcing his new file-sharing tool BitTorrent. Three years later his protocol was responsible for a quarter of all Internet traffic, and now it helps people to share hundreds of petabytes of data per day.

07.02.16

Links 2/7/2016: Kodi 17 Alpha 2, Slackware 14.2

Posted in News Roundup at 6:59 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Oracle Loses Again, Red Hat Competes With FOSS & More…

    Also included: LinuxQuestions.org has a birthday, six new distro releases, Ubuntu considering dropping 32-bit support and the feds were after Snowden.

  • Desktop

    • Is Your OS Working For You Or Enslaving You?

      Essentially, folks bought a PC to use, run their applications and browse their networks and MS has installed malware on them to advertise “10”. Malware. That’s what this is. If the guy who made your OS deliberately installs malware on your PC, what are you going to do?

    • Microsoft’s Windows 10 nagware goes FULL SCREEN in final push

      As the Windows 10 free upgrade period draws to a close, Microsoft is stepping up its operating system’s nagware to full-screen takeovers.

      The Redmond software giant confirmed today it will start showing dark blue screens urging people to install the latest version of Windows. The full-screen ads will pop up on Windows 7 and 8.1 desktops from now until July 30, when the free upgrade period ends.

  • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Check out ‘Why, Phil?’, new Linux audio webshow series

      Philip Yassin has recently started an upbeat Linux audio webshow series called ‘Ask Phil?’. Only recently started, the series has already notched up an impressive 7 episodes, most of which revolve around Phil’s favourite DAW, Qtractor.

  • Applications

    • Grammar and style-checking tools for Emacs

      Grammar be hard. Both for human beings and for software programs. These days, writers who use free software generally have their choice of reliable utilities for catching spelling mistakes, regardless of what editors or word processors they use. The outlook for grammar-and-style checking is not nearly as rosy. I recently explored the options available for Emacs, and was underwhelmed with the status quo.

    • Unblock Censored Websites Using Lantern Browser in Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint

      Lantern is an open source, free software that allows reliable and secure access to open Internet. It is Internet proxy tool developed to access blocked websites anywhere in the world and it is cross-platform available for desktop OS (Linux, Mac and Windows), as well as for Android. Lantern is built by the Brave New Software Project and lead by Adam Fisk as developer, a non-profit dedicated to creating software that tackles tough global challenges, the basic idea behind this project was to allow user an unfiltered Internet access.

    • VLC media player with skins for Ubuntu/Linux Mint/other Ubuntu derivatives

      VideoLAN and the VLC development team released the new major version of VLC, 2.2.2. With a new audio core, hardware decoding and encoding, port to mobile platforms, preparation for Ultra-HD video and a special care to support more formats, 2.2.2 is a major upgrade for VLC. Rincewind has a new rendering pipeline for audio, with better effiency, volume and device management, to improve VLC audio support. It supports many new devices inputs, formats, metadata and improves most of the current ones, preparing for the next-gen codecs.

    • Kodi v17 “Krypton” Alpha 2

      Since the dawn of time, or at least since 2008 each released version has received a code name next to the version number. Giving each development iteration a code name in a certain category is kind of a tradition that is not only applicable for software but also for hardware. Google does so for Android, Intel and NVIDIA also names their chips. Who are we to break this tradition and as such we follow in their steps with a theme that started out with mythical places or names. For our v17 release we actually let the public chose the name and with an overwhelming majority they chose the name “Krypton”.

    • Kodi 17 Alpha 2 Released
    • Kodi 17 “Krypton” Media Center Gets Ready for Android 6.0, Alpha 2 Out Now

      Today, July 2, 2016, the development team behind the popular Kodi open-source and cross-platform media center software has announced the release of the second Alpha build for the upcoming Kodi 17 “Krypton” series.

      Work on Kodi 17 started in early December 2015, but it took the developers about six months to push an Alpha build to public testers, which should have arrived in May 2016. Two weeks ago, on June 21, they announced that there are only ten days left until the first Alpha hits the streets.

      Well, today is the tenth day, but we didn’t get the first Alpha. Instead, we can download the second Alpha milestone, which should be more stable and offer us an early taste of what’s coming later this year in Kodi 17. This happened because of some code issues that needed to be fixed first.

    • The Numerous Features Coming To Ardour 5.0

      If you use Ardour as your digital audio workstation software, you’ll want to read this article about the features coming to Ardour 5.0.

      Last month we talked about Ardour 5.0-pre0 and since then Ardour 5.0 has continued moving along for release later this year. The developers behind Ardour for Linux and OS X have published a feature guide for this next release.

    • 5+ Linux Video Editing Tool Tips

      Finding a video editor in Linux that isn’t severely handicapped or come with an extreme learning curve is difficult. But this article isn’t about fancy video editors. As it turns out many of the things you need to get done are easiest with a few command-line tools. The packages you’ll want to install are mpv, ffmpeg, mencoder, normalize, and sox.

    • Pitivi 0.96 Video Editor Promises Fast and Accurate Editing for Any Video Format

      The road to Pitivi 1.0 continues, and the development team was proud to announce the release of the 0.96 milestone, which is yet another step in the development cycle of the powerful, open-source video editor.

      Therefore, Pitivi 0.96 arrives with the usual bug fixes and code cleanup maintenance stuff, but it also introduces a new feature, something that the Pitivi developers like to call “Proxy editing,” and that it promises fast and accurate editing with any video file format.

      “To provide the best experience, we decided to give you the ability to seamlessly work with media formats suitable for video editing,” explained the devs. “Now you can edit and render a video project with any video files with great accuracy, thanks to proxy files.”

    • Pitivi: An Open Source and Powerful Video Editor for Linux

      Pitivi is a well known video editor, the initial release was back in May, 2004 and still in active development. It is an open source, non-linear video editor for Linux developed by various contributors from all over the world, licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). It aims to be a powerful and flexible video editor that can attract to prosumers and professionals.
      In February, 2014 the project held a fundraising campaign through Gnome foundation, the goal was to raise €100,000 for further development. The fundraiser did not reach the goal but raised above €23,000 as of 2015, which allowed partially funded development.

    • Proprietary

      • Veeam Agent for Linux, the Beta is now available!

        At Veeam, we all love virtualization and truly believe that modern data centers should be virtualized to guarantee the highest degree of Availability. However, the reality is that not every workload is virtualized. Some workloads cannot be reached through the hypervisors they run on even when they are virtualized, like in public cloud environments.

        This is one of the reasons Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE has seen such tremendous success since its initial launch in 2015. Now, that’s just one side of the story –– especially when you consider that in public cloud the vast majority of deployed virtual machines (VMs) are running one of the many flavors of Linux.

    • Instructionals/Technical

    • Games

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

      • Locally-made Linux distro gets an upgrade

        You may not know it, but South Africa actually produces two maker-oriented boards offering an alternative to popular names like Arduino. One of those boards, the Blue Penguin, runs its own distro of Linux called “Guinnux”, and it just got an upgrade.

        The Blue Penguin and Guinnux is created by local company Keystone Electronic Solutions. Director and co-founder John Eigelaar runs us through the changes between the previous version, Guinnux 4, and Guinnux 5.

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

    • Arch Family

    • OpenSUSE/SUSE

      • GeckoLinux 421.160527.0

        GeckoLinux is one of the more recent distributions to land in the DistroWatch database. GeckoLinux (or Gecko, as I will refer to the distribution) is based on openSUSE. Gecko offers two key features above and beyond what its parent provides: patent encumbered software installed by default and live desktop editions. The openSUSE project avoids shipping software with licensing or patent restrictions and offers just two editions of Leap (a full DVD and a net-install disc). The Gecko distribution provides some extra packages, including multimedia support, and provides live discs for seven different desktop environments: Budgie, Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE and Xfce. For people who want something lighter, Gecko offers an eighth “Barebones” edition.

        I decided to try Gecko’s MATE edition which is available as a 966MB download. While I was downloading the ISO file, I looked into why Gecko uses such long version numbers, such as 421.160527.0. I learned the first part indicates which version of openSUSE Gecko uses as a base, in this case openSUSE 42.1. The second number is the date the ISO was created, 27th of May, 2016. The final number is reserved for revisions or re-builds. In this case the trailing zero indicates no rebuilds were necessary.

    • Slackware Family

      • Zenwalk 8.0 Is Based on Slackware 14.2, Gets New Desktop Layout for Xfce 4.12.1

        Jean-Philippe Guillemin, the developer of Zenwalk, proudly announced today, July 2, 2016, the final release of the Slackware-based Zenwalk 8.0 GNU/Linux operating system.

        Based on the just released Slackware 14.2 operating system, Zenwalk 8.0 is finally here, powered by Linux kernel 4.4.14 LTS, the same one that powers the monumental Slackware Linux, thus offering users support for the latest hardware devices. Zenwalk’s default desktop environment is Xfce 4.12.1, and it now ships with a new layout that’s more user-friendly than ever.

      • Slackware Release Announcement

        Slackware 14.2 brings many updates and enhancements, among which
        you’ll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available
        today: Xfce 4.12.1, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and
        easy to use desktop environment, and KDE 4.14.21 (KDE 4.14.3 with
        kdelibs-4.14.21) a stable release of the 4.14.x series of the award-
        winning KDE desktop environment. These desktops utilize eudev, udisks,
        and udisks2, and many of the specifications from freedesktop.org which
        allow the system administrator to grant use of various hardware devices
        according to users’ group membership so that they will be able to use
        items such as USB flash sticks, USB cameras that appear like USB storage,
        portable hard drives, CD and DVD media, MP3 players, and more, all
        without requiring sudo, the mount or umount command. Just plug and play.
        Slackware’s desktop should be suitable for any level of Linux experience.

      • Slackware 14.2 is Here, Mageia 6 STA1 is too

        Woohoo! Slackware 14.2 is here! Patrick Volkerding announced the release early July 1 saying it brings “many updates and enhancements.” Elsewhere, the Mageia project announced the first stabilization snapshot for upcoming version 6 and Dominique Leuenberger posted this week’s Tumbleweed review. The end of life for Fedora 22 is fast approaching and the end of an era is upon us as distributions drop 32-bit support.

      • Slackware 14.2 Officially Released

        Slackware 14.2 was released today to kick off July. Slackware 14.2 has been long in development while today it was christened.

        Slackware 14.2 features Xfce 4.12.1 and KDE 4.14.21 desktops, is powered by the Linux 4.4.14 kernel, glibc 2.23, BlueZ 5 for Bluetooth, GCC 5.3 is the default compiler, and various other updated packages. Slackware 14.2 is also notable for finally making use of PulseAudio.

      • Slackware 14.2 Released
      • Slackware Linux 14.2 Officially Released with Linux Kernel 4.4, without systemd

        After many months of hard work, two Betas and two RCs, Patrick J. Volkerding was extremely proud to announce today, July 2, 2016, the release and immediate availability for download of the final Slackware 14.2 Linux operating system.

        Slackware Linux 14.2 arrives two and a half months after the mid-April release of the second and last Release Candidate (RC) build, and it has now been declared stable and ready for deployment as your daily driver. Powered by the latest (at the moment of writing this article) long-term supported Linux 4.4.14 kernel, Slackware 14.2 ships with many up-to-date components and GNU/Linux technologies.

      • Slackware 14.2 released
      • sbopkg 0.38.0 is out for Slackware 14.2

        What a busy day today with all the releases for Slackware 14.2, MATE 1.14, Cinnamon 3.0 and now sbopkg 0.38.0.

        [...]

        We are finalizing SBo repository for Slackware 14.2, but at least you don’t have to wait 3 months just like previous cycle as we have prepared it since last January. Stay tune for SBo announcement on slackbuilds-user mailing list.

      • MATE 1.14 and Cinnamon 3.0 for Slackware 14.2

        Just hours since Slackware 14.2 is released, we proudly present to you MATE 1.14 and Cinnamon 3.0 for Slackware 14.2 users!!! We have been working under the hood of testing these two projects since they were released last April.

        The binary packages are compiled against Slackware 14.2 official ISO and it’s now uploaded to the usual repository in http://slackware.org.uk/msb and http://slackware.org.uk/csb. Thanks to Darren Austin for providing a place to host these two projects.

      • Bear is working for its money

        Since I made the new Slackware 14.2 data available 24 hours ago, the server has been pushing out 1.67 Terabytes of data, at an average of 155 MBytes/sec. Needless to say that this server was a good investment, I could never have managed this on my old platform.

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Realtek spins wireless oriented Arduino compatible SBC

      Realtek has launched a $25, Arduino compatible “Ameba” SBC, built around a 166MHz Cortex-M3 RTL8195AM chipset, and offering WiFi and NFC.

      When you think of Realtek Semiconductor, you probably think about audio codecs, but the company makes a wide variety of other ICs and MCUs that end up on hacker boards. Realtek is now trying its hand at its own Arduino compatible SBC: the Realtek IoT Ameba Platform. The board is backed by a community site with plenty of examples of robots, drones, home automation gizmos, and more that run on the Ameba.

    • That Open, Upgradeable ARM Dev Board Is Trying To Make A Comeback

      Remember that Improve Dev Board using an open-source, upgradeable design and running Mer from 2013~2014 before the project collapsed? It’s back now in the form of a new crowdfunding campaign with some changes to the hardware and the option of a build-your-own laptop.

    • Phones

      • Tizen

        • Tizen OS gets ported to Russia’s Elvees microprocessor

          During the Skolkovo Startup Village – Russia’s largest conference which took place last month, we had reported of a customized corporate version of Tizen OS being showcased on the Samsung Z3. Now, we have come across the news that the event also saw Tizen OS being implemented on the multi-core processor 1892ВМ14Я belonging to Russian manufacturer Elvees Multicore. The Tizen OS was ported to this ARM based processor thanks to a joint effort from the Russian consortium experts and engineers from Tizen.RU. The project proves to showcase the flexibility and open source nature of Tizen and according to the officials at the event, this implementation of Tizen OS in a Russian made hardware helps in leveraging security to higher levels, while we believe the intention is also to reduce the use of processors from foreign brands like mediatek, qualcomm, rockchip, etc.

      • Android

Free Software/Open Source

  • SourceForge eyes a comeback

    Years ago, SourceForge.net was the premiere hosting service for open-source and free-software projects. But, after changing hands several times, the site ran seriously afoul of the development community in 2015; its staff was accused of secretly commandeering inactive project accounts and of replacing project downloads with installers side-loaded with adware or even malware. In early 2016, however, the site changed hands yet again, and its new owners have set out to regain the community’s trust.

    To recap, SourceForge was launched in 1999 by VA Linux Systems, which was initially a hardware vendor. Over the next few years, the company acquired several other free-software related sites, including Freshmeat, Slashdot, and NewsForge (where I worked for several years). For a while, VA operated SourceForge.net for “community” open-source projects and offered a separate “enterprise” edition to corporate clients.

  • NEC establishes Open Source Software Technology Centre in India

    NEC Corporation and NEC Technologies India Private Limited (NTI) announced the establishment of the “OSS Technology Centre,” an organization specializing in technical support related to the use of open source software (OSS).

  • Why an international sports betting and gaming operator uses open source

    Enterprise business is one thing, but most people live down in the trenches. The common business doesn’t have a budget or staff to match the big dogs, but they do have the same needs. One of these needs is for solid, reliable server and data operations. The open-source movement has become a refuge for smaller companies, offering software and services that, in many cases, match what enterprise uses.

  • The WRT54GL: A 54Mbps router from 2005 still makes millions for Linksys

    In a time when consumers routinely replace gadgets with new models after just two or three years, some products stand out for being built to last.

    Witness the Linksys WRT54GL, the famous wireless router that came out in 2005 and is still for sale. At first glance, there seems to be little reason to buy the WRT54GL in the year 2016. It uses the 802.11g Wi-Fi standard, which has been surpassed by 802.11n and 802.11ac. It delivers data over the crowded 2.4GHz frequency band and is limited to speeds of 54Mbps. You can buy a new router—for less money—and get the benefit of modern standards, expansion into the 5GHz band, and data rates more than 20 times higher.

    [...]

    Linksys doesn’t bother promoting the WRT54GL much. But La Duca mentioned the continued production of the WRT54GL recently when I interviewed him for a story on Linksys’ project to let users install open source firmware on new routers without breaking the latest FCC anti-interference rules. The WRT54GL was the first wireless router I ever purchased about a decade ago; I was surprised that Linksys still produces them, so I asked the company for more details.

  • Events

    • Hadoop Summit Brings Big Data News

      Multiple Big Data vendors and efforts debut new Hadoop technologies at this week’s summit in California.

      It was a big week for Big Data, with multiple vendors making announcements at this week’s Hadoop Summit in San Jose.

  • Web Browsers

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Improving LibreOffice User Experience (UX)

      Effective from May 2016, Heiko Tietze has started working as a consultant to drive LibreOffice UX one step further.

      Heiko has been one of the most active UX volunteers during the last few years, and has been instrumental in a rather large number of the user interface improvements since LibreOffice 4.4.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

  • Programming/Development

    • Twisted in an asyncio world
    • Pyjion
    • Automated testing of CPython patches
    • Why is Python slow?

      Python users often complain that the language is slow. Kevin Modzelewski presented some of his findings on Python’s slowness at the 2016 Python Language Summit. He works at Dropbox on the Pyston just-in-time (JIT) compiled version of Python; that project has learned some interesting things along the way about what causes Python to be slow.

    • The Python JITs are coming

      Nathaniel Smith envisions a future where just-in-time (JIT) compiler techniques will be commonly used in Python, especially for scientific computing. He presented his ideas on where things are headed at the 2016 Python Language Summit. He currently works at the University of California, Berkeley on NumPy and other scientific Python projects. Part of what he has been doing is “working on the big picture of what JITs will mean for scientific computing”.

Leftovers

  • Security

    • 11 essential data security tips for travelers [iophk: "unfortunately VPNs have dated crypto"]

      I travel all over the world for my job, and for my hobbies. Although there are still plenty of places I haven’t been, I’ve visited enough foreign countries that I don’t deny it when someone calls me a world traveler. Over the years, I’ve experienced my fair share of foreign spying. I know what it’s like to be snooped on.

      I’m no longer surprised when I suddenly get gobs of spam from a country I’ve visited. My best guess is that someone in the country intercepted my email and recorded my email address. I still get porn spam in Arabic and ads for weight loss products in Mandarin. I’ve had my laptop and USB keys searched at countless borders.

    • Yet another letsencrypt (ACME) client

      Well, I apparently joined the hordes of people writing ACME (the Protocol behind Let’s Encrypt) clients.

      Like the fairy tale Goldilocks, I couldn’t find a client in the right spot between minimalistic and full-featured for my needs: acme-tiny was too bare-bones; the official letsencrypt client (now called certbot) too huge; and simp_le came very close, but it’s support for pluggable certificate formats made it just a bit too big for me.

    • Keynote – Complexity: The Enemy of Security
    • Security Holes Found in Widely-Used File Compression Library, Leaving Other Products Dangerously Exposed
    • StartEncrypt considered harmful today

      Recently, one of our hackers (Thijs Alkemade) found a critical vulnerability in StartCom’s new StartEncrypt tool, that allows an attacker to gain valid SSL certificates for domains he does not control. While there are some restrictions on what domains the attack can be applied to, domains where the attack will work include google.com, facebook.com, live.com, dropbox.com and others.

    • Unikernels Will Create More Security Problems Than They Solve

      Unikernels, the most recent overhyped technology in search of a problem to solve, have a number of claimed attributes that make them a “better choice.” One most often claimed is that they are “more secure.” This is the first in a series of articles bringing some light to the reality of unikernels so that you can think about them properly, employ them for what they are good for, and avoid the hype.

    • The Python security response team

      As the final presentation of the 2016 Python Language Summit—though it was followed by a few lightning talks that we are not covering—Christian Heimes led a discussion on the Python security response team. There have been some problems along the way that generally boil down to a need for more people working on the team.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Bangladesh siege: Twenty killed at Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka

      Twenty people, most said to be foreigners, have been killed in an attack on a cafe in Bangladesh claimed by so-called Islamic State.

      Gunmen stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in Dhaka late on Friday before troops entered almost 12 hours later.

      Six attackers were also killed and one was arrested, officials said. Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina has declared two days of national mourning.

      At least nine Italians and seven Japanese were among those killed.

      Italy’s Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said one other Italian was still unaccounted for. Many of the Italians reportedly worked in the garment industry.

    • Where To Invade Next by Michael Moore

      Europeans regard America as “exceptional” only in its social backwardness and lack of social compassion.

  • Finance

    • Joe Macare on Brexit, Rory O’Connor on the Danny Award

      UK politics are up in the air in the wake of a referendum calling for Britain to leave the European Union. The so-called Brexit campaign is drawing comparisons to that of Donald Trump, due to the nativism and racism that marked it, but what else is at work here? Joe Macare is publisher of Truthout, the news organization.

    • To Lump Him With Trump, Zakaria Lies About Sanders on Brexit

      It’s a subtle but potent lie. Sanders, unlike Trump, has long been opposed to Britain leaving the European Union. How can Zakaria casually claim two opposing positions are “largely indistinguishable”? How could the editors at Washington Post allow such a blatant falsehood to reach print?

      And it’s not an inconsequential one, either. If Brexit wreaks the havoc on the UK economy many are predicting, Washington Post’s millions of readers thinking Sanders supported such a measure would go a long way toward damaging both his credibility and that of the broader progressive movement.

      The piece, of course, is not really about Sanders or Trump. It’s clear the framing is a gimmick to hook the reader into hearing Zakaria’s boilerplate cheerleading for “free trade” while continuing the long tradition of lazy pundits lumping Sanders and Trump into the same ideological space.

    • Brexit supporters one week on: ‘It is ridiculous there was no plan’

      Under the headline “Take a bow Britain”, the paper’s edition last Saturday celebrated “the day the quiet people of Britain rose up against an arrogant, out of touch elite”.

    • In Brexit Britain the elites will run amok

      A week on from the referendum that was going to take back democracy from the elites, and we still don’t know exactly who will be taking back democracy for us. But it will be one representative of the elites or another. At the moment, it looks like Michael Gove or Theresa May will be their political face. Unless someone else in the Tory party offers them a better deal between now and September.

    • ‘We are the 48%’: tens of thousands march in London for Europe

      The hollow, bitter wit of the banners and placards was a fair indication of who took to the streets of London, in their tens of thousands, on the March for Europe on Saturday, hastily scrambled on Facebook. “And if this isn’t big enough,” said Jonathan Shakhovskoy, who is with a marketing firm in the music industry, “we’ll do it again next week, and the week after. Normalise the mood, make it less ugly.”

      “Un-Fuck My Future”, “No Brex Please, We’re British”, they read. Pictures of Whitney Houston with “I Will Always Love EU”, “Europe Innit” and “I wanna be deep inside EU”. “All EU Need is Love”, “Fromage not Farage”, “Eton Mess” and, more seriously, “Science Needs EU”. “Hell no, we won’t go!” they shouted, rounding Piccadilly Circus.

      No one was fooling themselves that these were the penitent huddled masses from Ebbw Vale or Sunderland come to beg after all for EU funding; this was a vocal segment of the 48% for whom departure from the EU is a disgrace, a catastrophe or both.

    • Post EU Referendum Racism Documented Online And It’s Really Scary
    • Brexit research suggests 1.2 million Leave voters regret their choice in reversal that could change result

      Up to 7 per cent of the people who voted for a Brexit in the EU referendum now regret their choice, new research has found.

      When the survey’s findings are projected on to last week’s vote, they would cut the Leave share by 1.2 million, almost wiping out the majority that gave Friday’s shock result.

      Research by Opinium found that 3 per cent of those who voted Remain also regretted their choice and that British people are now divided on the priorities in the negotiations ahead.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • SABC censorship allegations serious – ANC

      The allegations of censorship at the SABC are very serious and should be investigated, the ANC said on Friday.

      There was no place in a constitutional democracy for censorship and the ANC expected the SABC to deal with the allegations in a way that upheld freedom of the press, spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said.

      He said an entire institution should not be made into a problem because of one individual – SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

    • Security researcher gets threats over Amazon review

      For the average Amazon shopper, reviews are just a casual part of the experience. You might pay attention to a pun-filled review by George Takei or spend half an hour laughing at the parody reviews for “Fresh Whole Rabbit,” but you probably don’t thoroughly examine every review before buying a product.

      But for sellers, reviews are no laughing matter. Amazon retailers sometimes go to extreme lengths to guarantee good reviews, as security developer Matthew Garrett recently discovered when he wrote a one-star review of an internet-connected electric socket. When Garrett politely pointed out that the socket in question was woefully insecure, he received emails from the manufacturer claiming that the review would get employees fired and that other reviewers were campaigning to get Garrett’s review taken down.

      The socket in question is the AuYou Wi-Fi Switch, a $30 device that lets you turn the power from a wall outlet on and off using your phone. It’s a nice way to turn your lights on and off if you don’t want to invest in smart bulbs, or to turn other plugged-in devices on and off. The AuYou Switch works whether or not you’re home — so you can switch your lights on in your apartment while you’re still in your office.

    • Thin-Skinned Chinese Govt. Declares Media War On Lady Gaga For Meeting With The Dalai Lama

      It’s pretty common knowledge at this point that the Chinese government spends a great deal of time and effort attempting to censor the internet at its own whim. And, while the walls of censorship erected are penetrable with enough effort, it still results in much of the population being unable to search out information that might be embarrassing to the Chinese government, such as references to the Tiananmen Square incident, for instance. But while examples like that can make some measure of sense to outside observers, even as they still decry the censorship, the fact is that the Chinese government’s application of this censorship has been managed so erratically and unpredictably that the result is everyone watches where they step for fear of a takedown.

      Which naturally brings us to Lady Gaga, whose meeting with the Dalai Lama recently resulted in the Chinese government attempting to wipe her off of the China-facing interwebz.

    • Lawmakers Question Colorado University President Over Censorship of Students and Professors

      At least two Colorado state lawmakers have contacted the University of Northern Colorado’s president, expressing concerns after reporting by Heat Street revealed that the Bias Response Team’s behavior had restricted free speech on campus over the past two semesters.

    • ‘It is freedom of expression that gave us this vocation’ – Thandeka Gqubule

      The SABC’s economics editor, Thandeka Gqubule, who was suspended last week for challenging a decision in an editorial meeting not to show footage of violence at protests, was among journalists who picketed outside the public broadcaster’s offices in Auckland Park, Johannesburg, this morning.

      She addressed the crowd in a touching speech, which was met with resounding nods of agreement and ululation.

      In her speech, she called on the “ancestors” of journalism such as Ruth First, Peter Magubane and Can Themba to be with them in spirit as they marched to the Constitutional Court to defend freedom of expression.

    • Scores join censorship protest at the SABC
    • Crimes against journalism stop today – suspended SABC journalists
    • ANC leaders break ranks on SABC censorship
    • Zizi Kodwa slams media, starts #SaveOurSABC
    • Sanef plans to meet with MPs to discuss concerns over SABC censorship

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Run, don’t walk, from China’s Big Brother law

      China’s National People’s Congress has drafted a second version of a controversial cybersecurity law. It would bring a great deal of censorship for both foreign and domestic citizens and businesses, whether they use the cloud or not.

      China is a wasteland for the modern internet. Websites like Facebook and Google are blocked. Moreover, web traffic is monitored and censored by the government. It’s Big Brother for real.

    • People Support Ethical Automated Cars That Prioritize The Lives Of Others — Unless They’re Riding In One

      This social dilemma sits at the root of designing and programming ethical autonomous machines. And while companies like Google are also weighing these considerations, if utilitarian regulations mean less profits and flat sales, it seems obvious which path the AV industry will prefer. That said, once you begin building smart cities where automation is embedded in every process from parking to routine delivery, would maximizing the safety of the greatest number of human lives take regulatory priority anyway? What would be the human cost in prioritizing one model over the other?

      Granted this is getting well ahead of ourselves. We’ll also have to figure out how to change traffic law enforcement for the automated age, have broader conversations about whether or not consumers have the right to tinker with the cars they own, and resolve our apparent inability to adhere to even basic security standards when designing such “smart” vehicles. These are all questions we have significantly less time to answer than most people think.

    • In Bill Ford’s Future, the Cars Talk to Each Other

      Bill Ford’s seen the future, and it’s crowded.

      The great-grandson of both Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, now executive chairman of Ford Motor Co., certainly knows his way around cars. What he doesn’t know is how they’re going to get around in an increasingly congested world.

      “Some of it’s just mathematics,” Ford says. “We’re going from 7 billion people on the planet today to 9 billion by mid-century. At the same time, people are increasingly moving into cities. We’re going to see many megacities with populations of 10 million or more, and gridlock will accompany that growth.”

    • Facebook-Dependent Content Farms Will Finally Die

      Facebook has made the drastic and controversial announcement that it will value content from friends over content generated by pages of media outlets and brands. Truthfully, it’s only controversial if you are a publisher of content meant to invade the feeds of regular people.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Here’s how police arrested Lauri Love – and what happened next

      Lauri Love was arrested on suspicion of offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 early in the evening of 25 October 2013, when a National Crime Agency officer wearing dungarees and posing as a UPS courier told Love’s mother that Lauri himself had to come to the porch to collect his delivery.

      In his dressing gown and pyjamas, Love confirmed his identity and was then informed of the ruse and handcuffed. Over the next five hours a total of 14 NCA officers attended the property wearing agency-branded windbreakers, which were easy visible to the neighbours.

      Six of these officers had been tasked with searching for digital media which are alleged to contain evidence that the 28-year-old had criminally accessed private sector, military and government computer systems in the United States.

    • North Georgia newspaper publisher jailed over open records request

      A North Georgia newspaper publisher was indicted on a felony charge and jailed overnight last week – for filing an open-records request.

      Fannin Focus publisher Mark Thomason, along with his attorney Russell Stookey, were arrested on Friday and charged with attempted identity fraud and identity fraud. Thomason was also accused of making a false statement in his records request.

    • Cop who drew gun on man filming him says man deserved it

      In May, we told you of a lawsuit involving a Rohnert Park, California, cop who looked ready to fire his handgun at a man who was filming him. Last year’s standoff happened right outside the resident’s house. Claiming civil rights violations, the alleged victim sued (PDF) the officer and police department that is located about an hour north of San Francisco.

      The police department and officer, David Rodriguez, have now responded to the lawsuit. They essentially say it was resident Don McComas’ fault from the get go and that McComas’ own actions outside his house prompted the officer to draw his weapon on the Rohnert Park man.

      “And for a third, separate and affirmative defense, these answering defendants allege that the sole proximate cause of the injuries and damages, if any, claimed by plaintiff was the negligence and fault of the plaintiff…,” they responded in court documents. (PDF)

      Besides that, police claimed the suit should be tossed because the officer held an “objectively reasonable belief that the safety of the life of the defendants and others were imminently threatened… ” The authorities said McComas wasn’t complying with repeated orders to take his hands “out of his pocket.” McComas eventually complied, and the situation escalated. The officer continued wielding his weapon, according to the video.

    • ‘We the Prisoners’: The Demise of the Fourth Amendment

      In a carceral state—a.k.a. a prison state or a police state—there is no Fourth Amendment to protect you from the overreaches, abuses, searches and probing eyes of government overlords.

      In a carceral state, there is no difference between the treatment meted out to a law-abiding citizen and a convicted felon: both are equally suspect and treated as criminals, without any of the special rights and privileges reserved for the governing elite.

  • DRM

    • Encrypted Media Extensions and exit conditions

      In March, we reported on the contentious argument surrounding the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) framework developed by a working group at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). At the time, there were several active protest efforts underway to dissuade the W3C from renewing the charter for the working group in question, since that renewal was slated to come up for a vote soon. Since then, although public activism has quieted down significantly, there have been several important developments.

      To recap, the EME framework defines a set of APIs for Content Decryption Modules (CDMs) that implement some form of authentication scheme used to enable or disable playback of audio or video elements. While there is a simple, plain-text CDM defined in the specification (and even though open-source CDMs have been developed), the ultimate goal of EME is to allow media-delivery companies like Netflix or Hulu to deploy proprietary, binary-only CDMs that implement a DRM scheme.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Ford Dealership Swipes Game Image For Ad, Thinks It’s Kosher Because It Came From A DMCA Compliant Site

        A brief review of the many, many posts we’ve done here about the DMCA and its notice and takedown platform will reveal to even the casual reader that the whole thing is rife with complications, abuse, and inconsistencies. It can be a difficult realm to navigate, but there are times when an entity’s claims of ignorance just don’t ring true.

        Which brings us to one independent Ford dealership that decided to simply yoink an image from a relatively new video game and use it to advertise automobiles.

      • Video game art swiped this week by Beijing hockey team, Ford dealership

        On Wednesday, news hit the wire that a video game’s indistinguishable logo and art style had been lifted without permission, all done to advertise a wholly unrelated product. Sadly, the news brought on a real case of deja vu. As in: wait, didn’t this just happen?

        As it turns out, it had. Two very similar stories unfolded within 48 hours of each other, and they each speak to a pair of modern copyright issues: the ease with which images can be lifted and reappropriated by a lazy design firm, and how easy it is for such copycats to be busted by the court of public opinion.

      • EU to tax links to news

        Germany and Spain introduced in their legislation what some people call a “Google tax”. The idea came from the publishers. They claimed the right to get an additional copyright, “ancillary copyright”, on any news that are published online. The idea of this “tax” (that is actually not a tax) was to charge the online news sites who publish news snippets, short extracts of news, such as Google News. Even if the main target of publishers was Google News, the laws affect other similar services, for example meneame in Spain. Ultimately it could even undermine the whole concept of links to information.

        The result of this “Google tax” was a complete failure: Google decided to close Google News in Spain, while in Germany everyone except Google ended up paying the “tax”. Now, even after these clear failures, the European Commission (EC) is determined to make this error a European one; it’s considering implementing the ancillary copyright everywhere in the European Union (EU) – and on an even bigger scale than in Spain and Germany.

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