• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Linux pros saw a giant salary leap in 2012: Dice

Following up on its January 2012 study that found tech salaries had finally started to climb again, IT careers site Dice today published an annual update showing not just a continuing trend in that respect, but also a huge boost for those in the Linux field.

Will 2013 finally be the Year of Linux ?

There has been some debate and consideration in recent years about when the Linux gaming platform will officially gain ground? Critics and market skeptics have wondered when it will really take off and it will be Linux’s turn to procure large portions of the market share. New games and gaming consoles geared toward this system have left many asserting that 2013 will finally be the “year of Linux.” But why?

OpenArtist Is a Linux Distro Prodigy

Despite its youth, openArtist is the picture of a full-fledged Linux distro with a slew of specialty features for graphics production. Among its strong points is the universal approach it takes toward bundling software. If it’s useful to graphic artists, openArtist makes it accessible. Open source, freeware, public domain, abandonware, commercial, even — gasp — Windows programs are included.

Kernel Space

• Linux Foundation Puts Out Linux 3.4 “LTSI” Kernel

  From the Linux Foundation’s Consumer Electronics Workgroup is a Linux 3.4 kernel that’s part of their Long-Term Support Initiative. The LTSI Linux 3.4 kernel will be maintained for two years while back-porting some of the features of newer Linux kernel releases.

• Graphics Stack

  • Nouveau Can Beat NVIDIA With Cairo In Select Cases

    Chris Wilson has shared his testing experience of Cairo with NVIDIA ION hardware on the open-source Nouveau driver and the closed-source NVIDIA blob. In certain situations, the Cairo performance does better with Nouveau than the official NVIDIA Linux driver.

Applications

• Record Your Linux Desktop Experience with FDesktopRecorder

• Professional Graphics Creation on Linux

  There is far more to multi-media production on Linux than GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), the beloved drawing and painting program, though it seems that is all there is because it gets all the attention. GIMP is wonderful, but there is an entire universe of profession-level multi-media creation applications in all creative arenas: drawing and illustration, photography, desktop publishing, music, and movies and videos. Today we’ll look at my recommend Linux distributions for multi-media production, graphics creation applications. Then in future installments in this series we’ll dive into audio production, video production, CAD, 3D printing, and other industrial programs.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • How to Learn Linux and Become a Tech with Levinux

  • How To Quickly Secure A CentOS Web Server

  • Restarting GNOME Shell using Terminal, or How to use SIGHUP

  • ikog: An extensive to-do list

  • Parole – Simple media player

  • Rsync guide & tutorial

  • Introduction to GNU R on Linux Operating System

  • How to build a Linux router

  • Installing Nginx With PHP5 (And PHP-FPM) And MySQL Support On Fedora 18

• Games

  • Valve urges users to get Ubuntu and join Linux beta for Steam

  • Open Source Game Consoles: Defiinitely Coming Soon

    As we’ve been reporting, hardware devices running gaming platforms built on open source are quickly heading our way. Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, which makes Steam for Linux and very popular game platforms and bundles for Windows and the Mac, has recently confirmed rumors that Valve will release its own Linux-based gaming hardware, and an early prototype was displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Desktop Environments/WMs

• The many Profiles of Enlightenment’s E17

  There are many desktop environments in active development, but none is as customizable as the E or Enlightenment Desktop Environment. But of all those desktop environments, its development (or public releases) has been comparatively slow.

  Enlightenment is one of those projects that caught my attention years ago, but which I decided, after playing with it for sometime, that it was not yet ready for prime time. I’ve been quietly tracking its development since.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • NetworkManager in GNOME beta supports AP operation

    In the latest GNOME 3.8 beta, NetworkManager makes the transition from version 0.9.6.4 to a pre-release version of NetworkManager 0.9.8. In addition to setting up an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network, where the Wi-Fi hardware and drivers support it, it is now able to set up an access point. The next major release of the network configuration program, which is used in many other desktop environments, also supports 4G LTE network modes, bridge master devices and bridge ports. It is also able to automatically activate a VPN for certain network connections. The recently released Fedora 18 already uses a pre-release version of NetworkManager 0.9.8 which includes these features.

Distributions

• Kali Linux – A Teaser into the Future.

  Originally, BackTrack Linux was developed for our personal use but over the past several years, it has grown in popularity far greater than we ever imagined. We still develop BackTrack for ourselves because we use it every day. However, with growth and a huge user base, we have an obligation to ourselves, our users, and the open source community to create the best distribution we possibly can.

  With this in mind, about a year ago a bunch of us at Offensive Security started thinking about the future of BackTrack and brainstormed about the features and functionality we’d like to see in the next and future revisions. One of our main topics of conversation was the option of swapping out our custom development environment for a fully fledged Debian-compliant packaging and repository system.

• BackTrack rebuilt as Kali Linux

  Penetration testing platform BackTrack has been relaunched as Kali Linux after a major restructure.

  The creators of Backtrack told SC details of the new Debian platform are being kept under wraps, adding the system is a “fully fledged Debian-compliant packaging and repository system”.

• Exe GNU/Linux, New Distro with Trinity

  No three letters look any more strange to Linux users than exe, which is why a new distro named Exe GNU/Linux caught me by surprise in today’s Distrowatch Weekly. Ladislav Bodnar, our exalted Keeper of the Record, recently added Exe to the Distrowatch.com database and that was my cue to boot it up.

• SolusOS Shows off GNOME Fork in New Alpha

  It’s hardly been a week since the developers at SolusOS announced their fork of GNOME Classic. Dubbed Consort, it set the Linux world abuzz last week. Today the team announced the first release with that new desktop: SolusOS 2 Alpha 7.

• New Releases

  • Cinnarch 2013.01.23

  • BackBox 3.01

• Red Hat Family

  • Red Hat expands cloud management services

    Today, anyone can set up a cloud. Managing it, though, is another story. So it came as no surprise last year, when Linux-giant Red Hat announced updates to its open hybrid cloud solutions portfolio, following the acquisition of ManageIQ, a leading provider of enterprise cloud management and automation solutions.

  • Red Hat Strengthens Its Presence In Cloud With ManageIQ

    Cloud is the future and depending on who you are and how you use it, it can be good or bad for you. Talking strictly about enterprises cloud is the way to go. Red Hat, the most successful open source company continues to strengthen it’s cloud portfolio and signed an agreement to acquire ManageIQ last moth.

  • Fedora

    • Fedora Linux considering switching out MySQL for MariaDB

    • Blu Ray Ripping on Fedora 18

      After doing so searching on Blu Ray ripping on Linux I found that no one seemed to have a good how to for Blu Ray Ripping on Fedora 18. I also was not finding a method that worked consistently for free, or close to free. I found a great piece of software called MakeMKV. I was able to get Blu Ray ripping working fast and easy.

      MakeMKV is free to try for 30 days, after that the ask for 50$ for the purchase. I really think this is a good buy. It was one of the better programs I have found for Blu Ray ripping and they support Linux.

    • Fedora 18 revisited: Cinnamon, Xfce, LXDM, and a ‘wow’ for anaconda

    • Gnome 3.6 System Settings Changes for Fedora 18

      The system settings manager has received some attention for the release of Gnome 3.6. The settings manager itself has been improved with larger and more visible icons. Many of the settings modules have been upgraded as well. There are now several new options and preferences to choose from, so be sure to look around.

    • Fedora 18 Spherical Cow Gnome Review: Stable and efficient with professional looks but has Gnome 3 agonies!

      Fedora has always intrigued me to keep track of the latest happenings in the Linux world and especially what’s brewing at the RHEL stable! Also, if I think of a comparable distro to Ubuntu, Fedora is the only legitimate choice! Just like Ubuntu, Fedora also inspires innumerable spins (like Kororaa, Fuduntu, of which I am a big fan now!). So, when the release note of Fedora came on 15th Jan, I was quick to download all the four versions (Gnome, KDE, XFCE and LXDE). This is the first review of the series and I start with the Gnome spin.

    • Weekend Project: Setting up MythTV on Fedora 18

    • Anaconda “fun” moment

    • End Of MySQL Begins? Fedora Linux Switches To MariaDB

      There is serious time ahead for Oracle owned technologies such as MySQL, Java and many more. MySQL’s open source nature was questioned recently and now Fedora seems to be putting the first nail as the project is planning to switch to MariaDB. Jaroslav Reznik (Red Hat’s Fedora project manager) stated that “MariaDB, which was founded by some of the original MySQL developers, has a more open-source attitude and an active community. We have found them to be much easier to work with, especially in regards to security matters.”

• Debian Family

  • First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu considers “huge” change that would end traditional release cycle

        In the nine-year history of Ubuntu Linux, a new version of the operating system has come out every six months. But Canonical, Ubuntu’s developer, is considering ditching that model in favor of one that produces an entirely new version only once every two years—while speeding up the overall pace of development by adopting a “rolling release” cycle in between.

      • Ubuntu Video Q&A This Week

      • Community Driven Ubuntu Phone Core Apps

Devices/Embedded

• Phones

  • Android

    • Android Candy: WiFi Analyzer

Fifty shades of open source

To many, open source is black and white — software is either open or not. Jack Wallen sees the new world order in shades of gray and begs the open source community to be more open in their attitude.

Monetizing open source platforms — something new?

Sharing software code via free open source has been around since the 1980s and has enjoyed much success. Open source has been applied to content, websites, technological parts, and other materials. Can and should an open source platform be monetized?

element22 Launches φmod Open Source Conceptual Data Model Project

9 Things That Are Never Admitted About Open Source

You might think that a group of intelligent people like the members of the free and open source software (FOSS) community would be free of hidden taboos. You might expect that such a group of intellectuals would find no thought forbidden or uncomfortable—but if you did, you would be wrong.

Like any sub-culture, FOSS is held together by shared beliefs. Such beliefs help to create a shared identity, which means that questioning them also means questioning that identity.

Open Source Camera On Its Way

Because when we talk about software, we don’t talk about something made of physical objects, we talk about basically ideas and concepts, that never get out of the digital realm (or don’t usually get out). Making hardware is not easy — there are so many external factors over which you have no control – and usually it requires decent financial investment. So it’s a really big thing when someone actually makes open source hardware.

Open Source Skills Continue to Have Clout in the Job Market

Career site Dice.com is out with results from its 2013-2012 Salary Survey, which confirms that times are getting much better for people seeking technology-focused jobs. And, in particular, the results reflect a trend that we saw gaining pace last year, which is that skills with open source platforms and tools can greatly increase your likelihood of getting hired and commanding a top salary. Here is more on what Dice found.

2013-2012 Dice Salary Survey

Events

• PowerLinux Users Group: Founding Meeting

  Every renaissance starts with one thing that you can point your finger at and say “that’s where it all began.” Sometimes you realize that moment while you are right in the middle of it, but most times you can’t define it until well after it happens.

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Mozilla Unveils Firefox OS Developer Phones

    Mozilla today unveiled two new developer preview phones that feature the browser maker’s Firefox OS.

    The phones – dubbed Keon and Peak – are being developed via Spanish phone maker GeeksPhone in partnership with Telefonica.

    “This week we are announcing our new Firefox OS developer preview phones because we believe that developers will help bring the power of the web to mobile,” Mozilla said in a blog post.

  • Mozilla unveils open source Firefox smartphone

  • Mozilla Unveils First Two Firefox OS Phones

    After news of its development throughout all of last year, Mozilla’s Firefox OS platform for smartphones has made an official debut on two phones that will ship to developers working on apps. The phones will ship to developers in February, but won’t become available to everybody until later this year. As we’ve reported, Mozilla is primarily targeting emerging markets with the phones, but there have been signs that they may be marketed throughout Europe and in the U.S. Here are more details.

    You can find Mozilla Hacks’ post on the new phones here. According to the post, the phones have the following specs and names:

Business

• Small Business Trends: Linux & Open Source in 2013

  A lot of small businesses are reluctant to try Linux because they think it means moving away from Microsoft Windows, and you can’t blame them. Change is disruptive, and while a lot of software applications are cross-platform, most aren’t, so leaving Windows often means leaving favorite software behind.

Funding

• Open-source handheld seeks support

Public Services/Government

• German public Projektgruppe advocates Interoperabilität

  A parliamentary committee in Germany has called for a change in national laws to enable ‘public administrations’ to open source their software and make it free to the private sector.

  According to parliamentary member Jimmy Schulz, government departments in Germany are currently prohibited from being part of the free software development process.

• As Obama heads back to office, a battle rages over the tech that got him reelected

Openness/Sharing

• Open Source Design Tools for Human Rights Activists

  The world’s premier human rights organizations often have entire communications teams with dedicated graphic designers to celebrate their work. But not every organization can afford to have a designer. Even those organizations that do have design gurus may decide, for strategic reasons, to keep tight control over their workflow so that they are not bombarded with too many requests. Not to worry! There are several open source design tools that allow anyone to create killer flyers, posters, icons, or campaign — the only limit is your imagination. More importantly, learning basic design allows you to approach your human rights work more creatively and reach audiences with more diverse forms of storytelling.

• Open Hardware

  • Interview with Jenn Karson, co-founder of Vermont Makers

    I am the founder of two small studios, Sesamedia and Studio Ju Ju. I’m also a co-founder of Vermont Makers. I was introduced to open source technologies and Arduino (and SparkFun) in 2007 when I was working toward an MFA in Design and Technology at the San Francisco Art Institute. I mainly use the Arduino to build interactive sound installations and sound art pieces, and I also help creative and community initiatives use open-source software like Joomla! and WordPress.

  • How Electric Vehicles Could Gain From Open Sourcing

    Can carmakers learn from the open source industry? Yes, if they build a strong business model around it and throw away discarded business practices.

Programming

• GitLab 4.1 adds sign-up pages and public repositories

Wikipedia Moving Data Centers

The Wikimedia Foundation is moving its data center today away from their original home in Tampa, Florida to Virginia. According to the Wikimedia technical team, even though all reasonable precautions have been taken, it is still prudent to expect major disruptions in service during the transition. The move today culminates a plan that began nearly four years ago.

The Enemization of Everything or an American Story of Empathy & Healing?

Beijing’s stellar Idle No More coverage: The SinoFile

Maybe this is China’s way of telling Harper: ‘Hey, we’re not so different, you and I.’

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• Greater transparency in police forces

  In a greater step towards transparency, South Yorkshire and Cleveland Police Forces have announced that they will publish full details of dismissals and resignations due to disciplinary circumstances on their websites.

• Five Days Before Latest College Shooting, TX Legislator Introduced ALEC/NRA Bill to Allow Guns on Campus

• End the drone strikes against children in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

• The DOJ’s Torturer-Protection Program

  Scott Shane at the New York Times reports that “in more than six decades of fraught interaction between the agency and the news media, John Kiriakou is the first current or former C.I.A. officer to be convicted of disclosing classified information to a reporter.” Kiriakou succumbed to mounting legal bills and months of pressure from federal prosecutors by agreeing to a plea bargain under which he will serve thirty months for the crime of confirming to a reporter the identities of two former colleagues associated with the agency’s Bush-era extraordinary-renditions and torture programs: Deuce Martinez and Thomas Donahue Fletcher. The former was involved in harsh interrogations and later went to work with the principal architects of the CIA’s torture program, Bruce Jessen and James Elmer Mitchell. The latter was a principal coordinator of the extraordinary-renditions program. Shane’s report ably recounts the essential facts surrounding the Kiriakou case. It falls a bit short, however, in examining the broader policy issues raised by the case.

• Spy Bases: 9 Secretive HQs of the World’s Intelligence Agencies

• Law Blog Fireside: Jeh Johnson On War, Zero Dark Thirty, and Paul Weiss

• Former CIA Officer John Kiriakou: Justice Department is Targeting Whistleblowers

• Dirty Wars: Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley’s New Film Exposes Hidden Truths of Covert U.S. Warfare

• Afghanistan’s colossal intelligence failure

  Close observers of Afghanistan are not likely to be surprised by recent allegations contained in a United Nations report that the Afghan National Security Directorate, the CIA’s leading counterterrorism partner in South Asia, used whips and electric shocks to squeeze confessions out of suspected insurgent detainees. There are many ways to describe the directorate, or NDS as it is locally known, but a model of modern intelligence gathering and investigative efficiency is not one of them.

• Feds dispute CIA leaker’s contrition

  Former CIA officer John Kiriakou—who’s expected to be sentenced Friday to two and a half years in prison for giving a journalist the name of another CIA officer involved in the terrorist interrogation program—is trying to minimize the seriousness of his actions and is falsely claiming to be a whistleblower, prosecutors charged in a court filing last week.

• What Zero Dark Thirty gets wrong about Guantánamo lawyers

• Gitmo prosecutor not backing down

• Thoughts on John Kiriakou whose Portrait will be Unveiled January 23, 2013, in Washington, D.C.

• ‘Dirty Wars’ Film Brings Global War on Terrorism Out of the Shadows

  “The world is a battlefield,” is the tagline for Dirty Wars, a documentary that premiered days ago at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The film produced by Nation national security correspondent Jeremy Scahill and Big Noise Films director Rick Rowley attempts to bring the US global war on terrorism out of the shadows by spotlighting the CIA agents, special forces operators, military generals and US-backed warlords who are waging this war. The film also follows Scahill as survivors of night raids and drone strikes are located and interviewed about their experiences.

• Rather than Lying to Congress, CIA Now Blows It Off

  Five months into Obama’s first term, then-CIA Director Leon Panetta caused a scandal by telling Congress about Blackwater-staffed assassination squads deployed under the Bush Administration; we would ultimately learn the program was run by a still-active mafia hitman.

• Why would President Obama say a “decade of war” is over when it isn’t?

  President Obama’s inaugural address made him sound like a new man. “We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war,” he said. He told us that “a decade of war” is ending under his watch.

  How did Americans hear that pledge? If you’ve been paying attention to the United States’ increasingly dangerous shadow wars, its proxy wars, its drone wars — or “kinetic operations,” as some call them — you were likely very surprised and put off to hear the President say that “lasting peace” doesn’t “require perpetual war.”

  “We see what you are doing, Mr. President,” I thought to myself. “How could you say such a thing?” Hearing such a blatant misrepresentation of reality made me feel as if I was a child again, and my parents were telling me what they thought to be a harmless lie.

• The problem with torture

  Torture has racial underpinnings. Rarely do those that torture do so to individuals like themselves.

• Obama misleads over end to war

• THE WAR THAT OBAMA FORGOT

• Panetta: U.S. Assistance to French in Mali Could Serve as Model

• Anarchists: the FBI thinks you are paranoid

  The ACLU has published an internal FBI “Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit” publication titled “Anarchist Extremism Overview.” It lists a number of First Amendment protected activities that supposedly dangerous anarchists engage in, including “creat[ing] a political statement” and “generat[ing] media coverage for their cause.” The presentation is heavily redacted.

• Sh*t the FBI says

• Obama’s Inaugural Speech Misleadingly Suggests End to Perpetual War

  President Barack Obama delivered his inaugural address for his second term. It was a veritable stew of historical quotes from American history laced with several nods to progressive positions and achievements. It acknowledged past struggles launched by US citizens for equality and justice but mostly lacked a vision for what Obama hoped to accomplish in his second term.

• The Audacity of Fluff: A Critical Reading of Obama’s Inaugural Address

  President Obama’s Second Inaugural Address is unlikely to be much remembered by future generations. Its authors have a talent for “rhetorical craftsmanship,” as James Fallows astutely noted. But to what end?

  Were hard truths expressed? Were complicated concepts rendered in clarifying language? Were the disagreements that divide us insightfully characterized? Was an argument advanced? No, the craftsmanship was marshaled in place of substance rather than in support of it. The president expertly associated himself with certain ideas and evoked certain impressions.

  He burnished his brand rather than acting like a leader.

• Undermining International Humanitarian Law

• Mohamud Trial: FBI Agents Detail Involvement In Alleged Bomb Plot

  Undercover agents worked with Mohamud on a plan to bomb Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square two years ago.

• Half-Jewish, Half-Arab Woman Sues FBI, TSA, Frontier Airlines Over 9/11 Strip Search

  A half-Jewish, half-Arab Ohio woman is suing Frontier Airlines, the FBI, TSA and other government agencies after she says was removed at gunpoint from a flight on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, strip-searched and jailed because of her ethnicity.

• White House Keeps Secrets as CIA Agent Goes to Prison

• Obama’s CIA Director Pick Called for Censoring the Media

  Naturally he meant in the Muslim world. He certainly wouldn’t apply that formula to the United States or Rush Limbaugh.

• John Kiriakou Hopes Aaron Swartz’s Death Sparks Discussion Of Prosecutorial Overreach

• CIA nominee once wrote censorship was acceptable, denied absolute rights exist

• Brennan at the CIA Might Surprise Us

• John Brennan Said What? CIA Nominee Denied Existence Of Universal Human Rights

  Current counterterrorism adviser to the president and CIA director nominee John Brennan wrote in his 1980 graduate thesis unequivocally that “absolute human rights do not exist.” r. In answering the question, “Are there universal human rights?” he sums up over 200 years of classical liberal thinking in the English Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. To refute this he just cites Edmund Burke and Jeremy Bentham in dismissing natural rights as simple nonsense. To this he concludes that human rights are subjective, and that “the reality of human rights is therefore determined by the morality of the individual and the legal code of the state.”

• CIA FOIA Request Denied before Hillary’s Benghazi Testimony

• Inside the Ring: CIA in Benghazi

• JI chief slams US free hand to CIA on drone strikes

• Govt giving CIA free hand: PTI

• Pak seeks US explanation on manual allowing CIA to launch drone strikes in country

  Pakistan has asked the US to halt its highly controversial drone campaign following reports that US President Barack Obama’s administration was planning to give the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) a “free hand” to continue its remotely-controlled war in tribal regions.

  According to a foreign ministry official, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar raised the issue in a meeting with Richard Olson, the US ambassador in Islamabad, reports The Express Tribune.

• CIA admits full monitoring of Facebook, Google, Youtube and other social networks

• Drones in Our Time – by Rosa Brooks

• Nine killed in US assassination drone attacks in Yemen

  At least nine people have been killed in two separate US assassination drone attacks in Yemen.

• Yemen minister urges ground ops, not drones, against militants

  A cabinet minister criticized on Tuesday the use of pilotless U.S. drones against suspected al Qaeda militants in Yemen, a tactic that has outraged communities in targeted areas, and urged a move to ground operations to avoid hurting civilians.

• PBS’s Rise of the Drones charts robots among us

  The ever-shifting lines between ground-breaking technology and morality and ethics are being drawn into sharp focus once again, both in the shadowy world of cyberspace and in the more mundane day-to-day details of everyday living, as this week’s Nova program Rise of the Drones illustrates.

• UN To Investigate Impact Of Drones

• Human Rights Minister condemns use of drones in Yemen

• Activists protest in Des Moines against drone plan

• Activists protest Iowa Air Guard drone plans

  Peace activists called Wednesday for the Air Force to drop plans to establish a drone operation center in Des Moines.

  Waving signs that said “No War Drones, Des Moines,” about 20 activists protested outside the Des Moines Air National Guard Base. The military plans to pilot drone aircraft at the base, now that the 21 F-16 jets based there will be removed.

• Schumacher targets drones with bill

• Inauguration Day: Two Nobel Laureates, Drones Apart

  In the most blatant act of symbolism, as Africa is now threatened by a President who touted the importance of his African roots four years ago, Obama reaffirmed his Presidential oath today on both Abraham Lincoln’s Bible – and that of Martin Luther King – on the day dedicated to Martin Luther King.

• Author Teju Cole: Twitter Strike on Drones

  “Why Twitter? Why not Twitter?” Nigerian-American author Teju Cole tells anchor Marco Werman about his latest series of tweeted tales. The topic: drone strikes. A heavy topic for just 140 characters but Cole says it’s the best platform to get the word out there. With more than 70,000 followers, perhaps he’s right.

• Civilian Drones in US Could Possibly Be Hijacked for Use in Attacks

• Former Obama Official Defends Drone Program, Calls For More Transparency

• ‘Drones make US extremely unpopular in Pakistan’

• Charlottesville City Council Talks Drones, Stormwater and More

• The drone warrior

  There is a lot of angst about President Obama’s selection of former Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., for Secretary of Defense. There are several complaints about Hagel, some of them legitimate, but the biggest seems to be that he learned the same lesson about the Iraq war that most of the country did — that it was a colossal mistake.

Cablegate

• Postcards from Julian Assange

• WikiLeaks Legal Adviser: “We Steal Secrets” Overlooks Key Facets of Julian Assange’s Persecution

  Alex Gibney’s new documentary, “We Steal Secrets,” bills itself as “the Story of WikiLeaks,” but our guest Jennifer Robinson, a legal adviser to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, claims it misses key facts

• Assange’s extradition is only the tip of the iceberg

  Frank Symeou explained how his 21-year-old son, Andrew, spent a year in horrendous prison conditions in Greece. Eighteen months after he was extradited he is still waiting for the trial to start.
  Edmond Arapi described his 12-month battle against extradition to Italy where, with no notice whatsoever, he had been sentenced to 16 years for murder. Ultimately, Italian judges were persuaded that Arapi could not possibly have committed the crime and the wrong man had been convicted. He had spent weeks in custody, torn from his young family.

• Justice for the PayPal WikiLeaks protesters: why DDoS is free speech

  There is no weapon on the planet more powerful than speech.

  In recent years, the digital revolution has led to new and unique ways for people to express themselves, and speech has flourished around the world, bringing it closer together. As a lawyer and as someone who promotes the advancement of individual liberties, I was fascinated by the advent of online speech, which was quickly followed by the advent of online protest.

• The Uses of Paul Farmer: The Doctor and the Haitian Machine

  We spoke cordially for two hours. Farmer said he hoped his words would give me pause. But they haven’t.

  I found him to be defensive, wishy-washy and self-contradictory.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• From Walden to the White House

  For civil disobedience to be justified, something must be so wrong that it compels the strongest defensible protest. Such a protest, if rendered thoughtfully and peacefully, is in fact a profound act of patriotism. For Thoreau, the wrongs were slavery and the invasion of Mexico. For Martin Luther King, Jr., it was the brutal, institutionalized racism of the Jim Crow South. For us, it is the possibility that the United States might surrender any hope of stabilizing our planet’s climate.

• “We will respond to the threat of climate change” – Looking ahead from the Inaugural Address

Finance

• Global Inequality Skyrockets: Report Says Top 1% Have Increased Wealth By 60% Over Last Two Decades

  The world should work to end extreme wealth by 2025 and reduce the massive inequality has has skyrocketed over the past twenty years, the anti-poverty group Oxfam states in a new report [pdf].

  While discourse on inequality has grown more prominent in recent years thanks to Occupy Wall Street and major institutions highlighting the problem of extreme inequality, the focus has largely been on only one-half of the problem: ending extreme poverty. Though Oxfam praises the efforts to eradicate extreme poverty, the group urges people to “demonstrate that we are also tackling inequality- and that means looking at not just the poorest but the richest.”

• How Goldman Sachs beat the Volcker Rule

  It has no been more than 2½ years since President Obama signed the Volcker Rule into law, as part of the broader Dodd-Frank financial reform package. And in that time Wall Street bankers have learned a very important lesson: Don’t be too quick to honor Washington’s wishes.

  The Volcker Rule was intended to prevent banks from taking too many risks with their own money, including in areas like private equity and hedge fund investing. The idea was that banks primarily exist to serve clients rather than to enrich themselves via levels of proprietary and principal account investing that could (theoretically) lead to another Lehman-style collapse.

• Councillor resigns in protest of use of ‘lie detector’ tests

  A councillor from Cornwall Council has resigned in protest of the council’s use of lie detectors to help catch benefit cheats. We congratulate Councillor Ferguson for taking the the moral high ground when it comes to privacy and proportionality in councils.

  Councillor Ferguson took exception to the Council signing up to a contract with Capita to provide “voice risk analysis” as part of a scheme to help combat benefit fraud. The contract comes at a cost of £50,000 with the Council promising that the system could save at least £1 million. However, there is little evidence to suggest that this technology actually even works.

• An Example of Petty Corruption and Cronyism at State

  Part of the the Department of State, the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA), among other things, issues all U.S. passports. Passports are a huge cash cow, generating enough money alongside visa fees to self-fund the Bureau.

• Report: DOJ Criminal Chief Lanny Breuer Stepping Down

• The Untouchables: How the Obama administration protected Wall Street from prosecutions

  A new PBS Frontline report examines a profound failure of justice that should be causing serious social unrest

• White House won’t block short-term debt-limit increase

• New Audits Reveal VBA Crisis Worsening

  In a new audit, Veterans’ Disability Benefits: Timely Processing Remains a Daunting Challenge, the GAO notes that VBA’s paper-based claims processing system involves “multiple hand-offs, which can lead to misplaced and lost documents and can cause unnecessary time delays.”

  The official report concludes in all-too familiar fashion that waiting times have increased for veterans in part because VBA regional offices have shifted resources away from appeals and toward claims in recent years. The GAO confirms that VBA processes new and easy claims first, which often leaves older, complicated claims gathering dust.

• Hungary students win dispute over tuition fee

• An action-packed thriller is about to unfold in Davos, Switzerland

  In secret meetings in tiny rooms, the rich plot to get even richer

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• In the Fight for Secrecy, Are the Koch Brothers Like Rosa Parks?

  Civil rights organizations like the NAACP and groups dedicated to overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision have found common ground in recent months, coming together under the “Money Out, Voters In” banner to fight the dual threats of money in politics and voter suppression. But on the other end of the political spectrum, right-wing activists like Karl Rove are drawing parallels between heroic African-American civil rights activists in 1950s Alabama and privileged 1%ers like the Koch brothers, arguing that a 1958 Supreme Court ruling protecting the NAACP’s membership list should allow the super-rich to write million dollar checks without the public ever knowing.

• Another Walker Aide Sentenced to Prison in Secret “John Doe” Investigation

  Another top official to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker during his tenure as Milwaukee County Executive has been sentenced to two years in prison for embezzling funds intended for families of veterans. The sentencing appears to close a chapter in the ongoing “John Doe” investigation into corruption and misconduct in the Walker County Executive’s office, but the book remains open.

Censorship

• GitHub blocked in China

  The project hosting site GitHub is currently inaccessible from China, cutting off the country’s developers from the valuable resource. A ViewDNS.info check shows that the service cannot be looked up throughout China. The blocking is frustrating many Chinese developers who cannot access one of the world’s major repositories of open source software. As the country’s firewall controllers rarely give any information on why sites are blocked, it is suggested by some that github.com is being blocked because of a dispute over a train ticket booking plugin.

• Valley gun manufacturer: BOA froze funds over product

Privacy

• Facebook Is Recycling Your Likes To Promote Stories You’ve Never Seen To All Your Friends

  If Facebook‘s new Graph Search feature has you thinking a little harder about what you’ve “liked” for fear that an ironic dalliance in years past could come back to embarrass you, here’s one more thing to worry about. Facebook is now recycling users Likes and using them to promote “Related Posts” in the news feeds of the user’s friends. And one more thing, the users themselves have possibly never seen the story, liked the story or even know that it is being promoted in their name.

• Google Transparency Report shows rise in data requests

  That is 17% up on the same period the previous year, and 71% more than 2009′s corresponding months.

• Google & Your Data

• Why Skype (real-time) is losing out to WeChat (async)

  I would agree with most of your points about why WeChat is more usable than skype. Time and time again, we see that the reasons why specific apps are more popular can be explained in terms of usability. But it’s also important to see that user features are deeply embedded in existing cultural norms.

• Alert: Our Privacy About to be Destroyed in Brussels?

  The consideration of the “data protection” privacy regulation is in progress in the European Parliament, with a vote in the consumers committee (IMCO) on Wednesday. It is the object of an unprecedented lobbying campaign, mostly driven by US companies. If citizens don’t act, banks, insurance companies and Internet service operators will have a free hand to collect, process, store and sell all of our personal data, which will enable them to know and direct all that we do online and offline.

• US Corporations Win Against Privacy in EU Parliament Consumer Committee

  The “consumer” (IMCO) committee of the European Parliament just voted to soften protection of EU citizens’ privacy, caving in to the lobbying of giant US companies1. This is the first of many upcoming votes and tells us a lot about the balance of powers in the Parliament. It should act as a wake up call for citizens to defend their right to privacy against the illegitimate collection, process and trade of their personal data.

Civil Rights

• A Letter I Wish Progressive Groups Would Send to Their Members

  With President Obama’s second term underway and huge decisions looming on Capitol Hill, consider this statement from Howard Zinn: “When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them.”

  [...]

  Corporate power, climate change and perpetual war are running amok while civil liberties and economic fairness take a beating. President Obama has even put Social Security and Medicare on the table for cuts.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • Review: What to expect from Mega’s free 50GB of cloud storage

  • Opinion: January 22, 2013: To the MIT community

    President Reif has asked me to lead a review of our involvement in the events that began in Fall 2010, when the library system learned that large numbers of articles were being downloaded from JSTOR, up through Aaron Swartz’s shocking suicide on January 11. Among the thousands of news articles and postings over the past week — many strongly critical of MIT — there was at least one comment that saw a glimmer of encouragement that the administration has assigned this task to a faculty member strongly identified with the ideals of free and open access to information on the Net, the same ideals that Aaron championed so passionately. I’m grateful and humbled by President Reif’s expression of confidence, and I’ll try to approach this review with fairness and with respect to Aaron’s memory, to his family, and to our community.

  • My thoughts on Aaron Swartz, and the benefits of openness

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Linux Now Has “Double” the Market Share of Windows

Valve Telling Windows Users To Try Linux!

It’s always a third player who disrupts the market or changes the market equations. Valve, the popular game distributor, has made GNU/Linux a viable platform for the gaming community. While Google has already turned it’s Android and ChromeOS into household names bringing Linux to the living room, Canonial is still struggling.

Valve starts promoting Steam for Linux to Windows users

Steam is now being used by thousands of gamers running a Linux OS, and Valve has got to the point where they are happy to start urging Windows users to make the switch.

Proof of that comes from the screenshot you see above. It’s the Steam website, and placed prominently near the top of the page is a “Join the Beta” promotion suggesting you try Steam for Linux. There’s even a download link to get Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, which removes yet another barrier to entry.

Lenovo, Linux, and the Coming of the Chromebooks

Lenovo’s announcement that it would start selling Chromebooks to schools caused quite a buzz in FOSS-Land. It’s being interpreted as a nail in Microsoft’s coffin. “I would say, What took you so long, Lenovo?” Google+ blogger Alessandro Ebersol. “Chromebooks are hot, and it’s their prime time. You see, all that BS that the netbook is dead, is, indeed, just BS.”

Lenovo’s new Thinkpad X131e Chromebook can take licking, keep ticking

Linux & Open Source Dominate North Korea?

You may or may not have heard of Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was visiting the secretive country North Korea. His daughter posted a blog about N-Korea which became quite popular.

Recent Large Shifts in the Market for Technology

Probably the biggest event in the software wars was the evident dominance of Android/Linux v iOS in smart thingies. While Apple came to dominate this space with slick gadgets and promotion,

Valve Suggesting Windows Users to Try Ubuntu and Steam Linux Beta

When visiting Steam download page from a web browser running on a Linux based OS, you are pointed to Linux version of Steam and a promo ad about Steam Linux beta is shown.

A taste of Guacamole on Linux

This is a new and interesting project that could be really useful both for companies that for private users, Guacamole is an HTML5 remote desktop gateway that provides access to desktop environments using remote desktop protocols like VNC and RDP. A centralized server acts as a tunnel and proxy, allowing access to multiple desktops through a web browser.

BlenderArt Magazine Issue 40 Is Here For Download

Meet PicUntu, a lightweight Linux designed for tiny PCs

Linux Top 3: GNOME 3.8 Moves Forward, Consort Falls Back

Eric Schmidt blogs about his trip to the country, full of Linux and restrictions.

Eric Schmidt blogs about his trip to the country, full of Linux and restrictions.

Server

• Interview: IBM’s Linux chief tech officer Paul McKenney

• Valve starts push toward Linux gaming

Audiocasts/Shows

• Going Linux Jan 19: #196 Computer America #58

• Open Ballot: Podcast changes

  We want to refresh it a bit, so we thought we’d ask you, dear listeners, what new category you’d like to hear. Perhaps an old on that you’d like reinstated, or something new that you think would fit in with the TuxRadar style. Or perhaps you think we’re perfect and wouldn’t change a thing.

  Whatever it is, pop it in the comments and we’ll bear it in mind when we start the new series later in the week.

Kernel Space

• Linux 3.8-rc4

• Linux 3.8-rc4 Kernel: Things Are Calming Down

• Linux Kernel 3.7.3 Is Available for Download

• LTSI v3.4 Released

• 30 Linux Kernel Developers in 30 Weeks: Paul McKenney

• Kernel Log – Coming in 3.8 (Part 1)

  Linux now supports F2fs, a filesystem that is specially designed for storage media with flash chips. The developers say that Btrfs is now faster to complete certain tasks and that Ext4 is more efficient when handling small files.

• Linux Still Being Ported To The Synopsys ARC CPU

  The Linux kernel is still being ported to new hardware. One of the latest processor families that has been receiving a Linux kernel port is the Synopsys ARC700 series.

• Google Continues Working A Lot On Coreboot

  Last year I wrote about Google becoming more involved with the Coreboot project for an open-source BIOS replacement for many motherboards/laptops. Google has been very interested in Coreboot since for their Chrome OS on the OEM Chromebooks they can achieve “super fast boot times” while being stable, secure, and can be quite customized with the open-source project. Google continues to invest heavily into the upstream Coreboot project.

• HDA Intel Audio To Improve A Lot In Linux 3.9 Kernel

  With we are only about half-way through the development of the Linux 3.8 kernel, there’s already exciting features beginning to enter the development spotlight for Linux 3.9. One of the features coming to the Linux 3.9 kernel will be grand changes to the very common “HDA Intel” audio codec drivers.

  HDA Intel is widely-used for integrated sound adapters and providing HDMI/DisplayPort audio support. The Linux driver for HDA Intel supports around 50 different controllers and 300+ different codecs. Up to this point it’s been a maintenance burden handling all of the differences in this audio kernel driver as part of ALSA, but it’s to be largely improved with Linux 3.9.

• Aggressive Low Memory Booster For The Linux Kernel

  Last week on the Linux kernel mailing list was a proposal for an Aggressive Low Memory Booster. This is potentially an interesting feature for Linux systems with limited amounts of RAM.

  A developer from Samsung India, Pintu Kumar, proposed introducing an “Aggressive Low Memory Booster” feature for the Linux kernel to boost the available free memory of the system when under extreme memory pressure, which should particularly benefit embedded Linux devices with limited amounts of RAM.

• Intel Releases Its 19th Driver In The 2.20 Series

  On Sunday was the release of the xf86-video-intel 2.20.19 DDX driver. This is the 19th point release in the long-standing Intel X.Org 2.20 series that’s been largely led by Chris Wilson out of Intel OTC.

• DRM KMS Locking Rework Readied For Linux 3.9

• Graphics Stack

  • AMD’s Catalyst Legacy Linux Driver Updated To 13.1

  • Intel Graphics See Some Gains On Fedora 18

  • NVIDIA Certifies 310.32 Linux Graphics Driver

  • Mesa Update Makes Radeon MSAA Much Faster

  • AMD Catalyst 13.1 For Linux Officially Does X.Org 1.13

    Catalyst 13.1 for Linux was released on Thursday as the first AMD Linux binary blob of 2013. This driver is notable since it officially supports X.Org Server 1.13.

  • NVIDIA ION: Nouveau Competes With The NVIDIA R310 Driver

    It’s been quite a while since delivering any Linux graphics benchmarks of the NVIDIA ION, the platform for pairing integrated NVIDIA graphics with an Intel Atom processor for small form factor PCs. While NVIDIA’s ION is basically defunct, for those still having a nettop or netbook that’s ION-based, here’s a performance comparison of the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics between the open-source Nouveau driver and the NVIDIA 310.xx binary Linux graphics driver.

  • AMD Fights Back and Releases ATI Catalyst 13.1 Driver for Linux

    AMD is getting back in the Linux game with a huge driver release that should be able to save face on the open source platform.

    It’s not clear why AMD chose to virtually ignore the Linux platform in the last couple of years, but it seems they are back with a vengeance.

  • AMD’s Linux drivers offer improved gaming performance

    Version 13.1 of AMD’s proprietary Linux graphics drivers apparently fixes a performance issue with Valve games. The new version of Catalyst is also said to solve a similar problem with graphics cards in the “Southern Islands” generation. Both problems are listed in the “Resolved Issues” section of the new version’s release notes, although no details are given. Some information is available in the release notes for the Catalyst 12.11 beta that preceded version 13.1 – according to this document, the driver offers significant performance improvements with the Linux variant of Left for Dead 2; however, this version of the game has yet to be released by Valve.

  • LLVMpipe Gallium3D Sees A Bit Of New Activity

    A bit of new code was committed this week for Gallium3D’s LLVMpipe software driver that attempts to provide modest OpenGL performance as a software fallback by taking advantage of LLVM to exploit multiple CPU cores and the latest instruction set extensions on modern processors. Unfortunately, the rate of advancement for LLVMpipe still isn’t too fast.

    As can be seen when looking at the Mesa LLVMpipe changes through the Git web front-end, hitting mainline Mesa yesterday was enabling integer texture support, fixes for integer color buffers, and some trivial code clean-ups. Going back further, there’s been some more fixes, Automake support for LLVMpipe, and some other minor work, but unfortunately nothing too exciting.

  • Intel’s Mesa Driver Gets New Performance Patch

  • Freedreno Gallium3D Now Handles Running XBMC

  • Intel Driver Now Enables Floating-Point Textures

    Intel’s Mesa DRI driver now is unconditionally enabling floating-point textures. Up to this point, the floating-point textures feature of GL3 hasn’t been enabled by default due to patent worries.

  • Intel Driver To Play A Bit Better With S3TC Compression

    In addition to the Intel driver now always enabling floating-point textures, a patented feature but something that’s required for GL3 compliance, the Intel DRI driver is set to play better with S3TC, the also patent-troubled but widely-used S3 Texture Compression.

    Ian Romanick sent out three new patches today on the mesa-dev list about “Enable some S3TC” for Intel’s open-source Linux graphics driver. “This is mostly a re-spin of the patch that I sent out many months ago. The main change is that when on-line compression is not available, only a subset of extension strings is advertised. This was based on feedback from a developer whose application does submit uncompressed data with the expectation that the driver will compress it.”

• Benchmarks

  • Intel Releases 13 New Linux Benchmarks

    Courtesy of Intel’s Open-Source Technology Center are 13 new Linux micro-benchmarks that have been created based upon the Phoronix Test Suite and OpenBenchmarking.org. These brand new test profiles provide test coverage of systemd boot performance, timing of various common system tasks, GPU residency times, PowerTop wake-up monitoring, and much more.

Applications

• FlareGet – Download Manager for Linux

  flareGet is a full featured, multi-threaded and multi-segment download manager and accelerator for Linux. It supports in-built browser integration with all the browsers.

• Proprietary

  • Opera To Release WebKit-Based Web Browser

    Next month Opera will be rolling out “Opera Ice”, a new web-browser for smart-phones and tablets. This mobile Opera browser won’t be built on their Presto engine but rather the popular WebKit engine. Initially this WebKit-browser is just targeting the mobile space but it’s expected to eventually land on the desktop too.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • The unsolved problem of the init scripts

  • Rotating Backup with rsync

  • How To Use Xfce4 Terminal 0.6.x As A Drop-Down Console (Guake-style)

  • How to Change the Length of the Add-ons Install Countdown in Firefox

  • Switch Between your Gnome Shell Desktops using Mouse Scroll Wheel

  • How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type

  • Fedora 18 Tips and Tricks

  • Setting the wireless regulatory domain in Linux on your laptop

  • How to straighten out firewall configuration on Fedora 18

  • How Steam and Android Will Change Gaming Forever

  • Everyday Linux User Review of Manjaro Linux

  • Android Programming for Beginners: User Menus

  • Distributed Storage Across Four Storage Nodes With GlusterFS 3.2.x On CentOS 6.3

  • Setting up apt proxy Server Approx on Ubuntu Linux

  • Introduction to GNU R on Linux Operating System

  • How To Upgrade From Fedora 17 To Fedora 18 With FedUp (Desktop & Server)

  • Temporarily Unavailable: /tmp: filesystem full

  • Linux Terminal: pidstat, know everything about your processes

  • Debian Wheezy Local Git Server With Git Lite Workflow

  • How to straighten out firewall configuration on Fedora 18

  • Introduction to GNU R on Linux Operating System

  • Install ROSA Launcher on Fedora 18 KDE

  • Striping Across Four Storage Nodes With GlusterFS 3.2.x On CentOS 6.3

  • How to Secure SSH with Google Authenticator’s Two-Factor Authentication

  • How to build a Linux router

  • Please Join Us: The 100 Linux Tutorial Campaign

    We know that the Linux community is growing. It’s getting bigger every year as it moves across industries and geographies. Our Who Writes Linux paper documents each year the increasing number of contributors, sponsors and the pace of development. Only the collaborative development model can deliver and support this kind of rapid growth.

• Wine or Emulation

  • Let’s Play: Street Fighter X Tekken

  • Wine 1.5.22 released

  • Wine 1.5.22 Handles 64-bit ARM, Mac Graphics Driver

  • Interesting Insights Into Wine’s Development

    Wine, the widely-known open-source software for running Microsoft Windows programs on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, now weighs in at more than three million lines of code. In this article is some insight into its pace of development, how the CodeWeavers company dominates Wine’s development, and other intriguing statistics about this project that’s been around for two decades.

• Games

  • The Catch 22: Growing The Linux Gaming Market

    The word on the street seems to be that Linux is set to be a commercially viable gaming platform. And the way it looks right now, this might actually prove to be true. There’s still some uncertainty amongst both developers and gamers though. At the core of a lot of it is this: Developers are hesitant to make games for a market as small as this, and gamers are hesitant to adopt it as a gaming platform because there are so few games for it.

  • Steam10,000,000 hopefully coming to Linux via Steam

  • Two Tribes Are Hunting For Linux Interest

  • Planetary Annihilation desert biome concept released!

  • Cheese Talks To Double Fine (about cross-platform game development)

  • More Developers Invited For Desurium Application

    Desurium, an open source Desura client, is looking for more developers. The announcement was posted in the Linux Gaming subreddit. Currently, the Desurium client on Linux outperforms the official Desura client, but there are many bugs which needs fixing and more features need to be added.

  • Gear Up coming to Linux

  • Open Source Handheld GCW-Zero Nears Kickstarter Goal

    There’s only 8 days until the end of Game Consoles Worldwide’s Kickstarter campaign for their open source handheld, GCW-Zero. With another $28,000 to go, the GCW-Zero is very close to hitting it’s funding goal of $130,000; but also dangerously close to missing it.

  • GCW-Zero open-source handheld needs a Kickstart

  • New Crowdfunding wiki is up

    Hi everyone I decided to do a wiki for Crowdfunded games instead of doing a page like our game sales page as that only needs to track “current” stuff so here’s our new wiki for it!

  • AMD Releases Proprietary Linux Graphics Driver, Patches Steam Issues

    Just how important has Linux become? Very. Just weeks after hearing that Steam would be launching for the world’s favorite open-source desktop OS, AMD has just announced new Catalyst drivers made specifically for — you guessed it — Linux. The Catalyst 13.1 Proprietary Linux Graphics were just let loose into the wild, and it provides budding Linux gamers with bona fide GPU support for a huge swath of AMD Radeon graphics cards. Everything from the Radeon HD 5000 series to the Radeon E6760 embedded family is supported, as well as cards that are stuffed within all-in-one PCs, integrated GPS, and AMD Mobility GPUs.

  • This 22-day-old open-source Minecraft-cloning game builder runs in Javascript in your browser

    It’s not every day that a reporter’s interview is derailed by an 85-year-old drunk woman who hits a power pole in Oakland, cuts power to a developer’s home office, and forces him to Mi-Fi on a Skype call while his laptop’s battery slowly dies.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• Linux & Windows 8: So Far the Penguin Is Ahead

  There’s no real way to compare how the various desktop Linux distros are doing against Windows 8, Microsoft’s newly crowned flagship product, since Linux isn’t offered preinstalled in any meaningful way by the major OEMs. What we do know is that the new Windows would seem to be failing to excite buyers; folks haven’t been rushing to the big box stores to purchase a new desktop or laptop running the new operating system.

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • KDE 4.10 RC 3 released

    The final KDE 4.10 release candidate is now out, with features for the final release including faster indexing, better notifications, and Qt Quick

  • 10 Year Old KDE Bug Finally Gets Fixed

    It turns out that KDE’s “Reject Cross-Domain Cookies” feature of the KDE Libraries has been broken since 2002 and was only fixed yesterday. Thiago Macieira dived into the problem yesterday to see why all of his web cookies would be forgotten after a kded restart. The problem originates within KDE’s KCookieJar within the HTTP KIOSlave of kdelibs.

  • KDE Ships Third Release Candidate of Plasma Workspaces, Applications and Platform 4.10

  • Amarok 2.7 Released, Codenamed ‘Minor Tune’

    Amarok team has released 2.7 version of Amarok, the ‘feature rich’ music player which is part of the KDE project. This version fixes more than 500 bugs after the 2.6 release. The version is code named “minor tune” because list of new features added in Amarok are not pages long. Some of these changes were made during the Google Summer of code 2012.

  • Amarok 2.7 Fixes 470+ Bugs, 15+ New Features

  • Amarok 2.7 gets semantic with Nepomuk

    Amarok 2.7 is available on a wide range of Linux platforms; a Mac OS X port is still in development and a Windows port of 2.7 is not available yet. Download and installation instructions are available. Source code is available as a tarball or from the KDE git repository. Amarok is licensed under the GPLv2.

  • KDE Plasma, Applications And Workspace 4.10 RC 3 Available For Kubuntu

  • 10 Year Old And Forgotten KDE Bug Fixed

    KDE developers have fixed a bug which has been there for almost a decade. “Reject Cross-Domain Cookies” feature of KDE was broken since 2002 and has been fixed this week. This bug was responsible for loss of cookies after a kded restart. KDE’s KCookieJar within the HTTP KIOSlave of kdelibs was responsible for this bug.

  • KDE 4.10′s third and final release candidate arrives

  • Qt5 Packages Available For Arch Linux

    Qt packages in Arch Linux official repository are out of date, and it will take sometime for the packages to compile it and push it to repositories. However, if you are too impatient, you can download the packages for Arch Linux x64 from this dropbox folder. All the Qt components have been packaged, except qtdocs and qtwebkit.

  • SDDM: A Lightweight QML-Based Display Manager

    A Phoronix reader has announced his work on SDDM within the Phoronix Forums this weekend. SDDM is a very lightweight display management that takes advantage of Qt’s QML.

    SDDM doesn’t have feature parity to GDM, KDM, or LightDM, but is just focusing upon being a lightweight display manager that gets the job done for most Linux desktop users while being very slim in terms of code size and dependencies. SDDM just depends upon PAM, Xlib, and Qt but none of the KDE libraries or anything else. This new display manager forgoes any support for remote connections, XDMCP, and other advanced functionality supported by many of the alternatives albeit seldom used by a majority of Linux desktop users.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Direction Of GNOME To Be Discussed Next Month

    Vincent Untz will be speaking at FOSDEM early next month in Brussels to “clarify the directions the GNOME project is taking, and to explain the rationale for various decisions.” He’s hoping that after this Belgian conference people will better understand the course of the GNOME desktop and begin to rebuild trust in the project.

    The second set of 2013 interviews for the annual Free Open-Source Developers’ European Meeting conference were posted to the FOSDEM web-site this week. Perhaps the most interesting interview is that of Vicent Untz talking about his main track talk.

  • GNOME SysAdmin Andrea Veri about GNOME Infrastructure

    Andrea Veri is one of the five SysAdmin of GNOME Web-Infrastructure and GNOME Foundation Membership Committee Chairman.

  • Does GNOME 2 nostalgia harm the future of the free desktop?

    For a desktop that was supposed to become defunct two years ago, GNOME 2 remains surprisingly alive. Linux Mint offers a direct fork in Mate, and recreates GNOME 2 with a series of extensions in Cinnamon. A new distribution called SolusOS now offers Consort, a fork of GNOME fallback, which resembles GNOME 2. Meanwhile, the GNOME project prepares to support a set of core extensions to reproduce the GNOME 2 experience. Hardly a week goes by without some distribution announcing a release that includes some form of GNOME 2.

    All this activity is understandable, and even admirable to a degree. It’s testimony to users’ anger over GNOME 3 and the ability of free software to empower users.

    However, increasingly I worry about the effect that these efforts will have on the future of the desktop. In the stampede to return to the past, the ability to innovate frequently seems to be trampled without anyone caring.

  • Gnome 3.7.4 Development Release Is Here

    The Gnome development team has announced the release of Gnome 3.7.4. This is adevelopment release, and stricrtly recommended for those who are willing to test the upcoming Gnome 3.8 features. That said, not everything has been updated in this relase. Some of the core applications such as Nautilus, Tracker and Gnome Boxes have not been updated for this release because of some build bugs and other problems.

  • Gnome 3.8 Progress Update

    Gnome 3.8 is the next major release of Gnome desktop environment, and one of its lead developer, Matthias Clasen has published some interesting information about its current status. For our readers, the good news is that most apps are ready for the next release, just some minor fixes here an there. If you want to test the release now, grab the Gnome 3.7.2 sources and compile them. The 3.7.2 tarballs were released just a few days before.

  • Upload Images To Flickr Directly From Nautilus

Distributions

• New Releases

  • Snowlinux 4 (E17)

  • Alpine 2.5.2 released

    The Alpine Linux project is pleased to announce the immediate availablity of version 2.5.2 of its Alpine Linux operating system.

    This is a bugfix release which contains various security fixes, fixes for the r8169 NIC driver and fixes for squid.

  • Release Notes for CRUX 3.0

• Screenshots

  • openSUSE 12.3 Beta 1 Screenshots

  • UberStudent 2.0 Lightweight Screenshots

• PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

  • Linux distro spotlight: Mageia

    Mageia’s creators came away from the experience of Mandriva with a firm commitment to creating a Linux distribution with strong community governance

• Red Hat Family

  • PayPros Selects Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 to Create PayPros Innovo Next-Generation Payment System

  • Fedora

    • Fedora 18 Spherical Cow review – Bad bad bad

    • Upgrading Experience from F17 to F18 (Spherical Cow)

      After a long waiting and continuous delay, finally fedora 18 got release on 15 Jan (f18 Schedule), as per blogs/ML communications this delay is due to critical bug in Anaconda, Windows 8 secure boot, fedup (Fedora Upgrader) …etc, but it’s always good to delay instead of buggy release.

    • Almost workable Fedora 18 desktop

    • Fedora 18 Review – Great Bovine Spheres!

      After much delay, the Spherical Cow graces us with its presence. How does the final version of Fedora 18 stack up?

    • Fedora 18 with Xfce: My first impressions from live media

      Fedora 18 has finally appeared in its final form after many delays. Largely responsible: a new Anaconda installer that has seen much criticism, mostly from users who like complicated manual partitioning. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    • Fedora May Replace MySQL With Maria DB In Schrodinger’s Cat

      The next release of Fedora, Fedora 19 may ship with MariaDB as the default database instead of the more popular MySQL. This decision is mainly taken because Fedora developers have always strived to ship the latest and greatest open source software in Fedora Operation System, and steps taken by Oracle are making MySQL to move more towards being closed source.

    • Fedora 18 Fails At ARM Wrestling Arch, Ubuntu, Linaro

      Fedora 18 was officially released this week for x86/x86_64, but the ARM version of Fedora 18 “Spherical Cow” is still under development. Fedora 18 for ARM went into beta last week and since then benchmarks were carried out comparing Spherical Cow on ARM to other popular ARM Linux distributions.

• Debian Family

  • Debian Project News – January 21st, 2013

  • Derivatives

    • Tails Linux version 0.16 – Firewall Disabling Script Waits For Exploitation

      The file, if ran with correct permissions, will completely disable your firewall! So much for the idea that Tails always routes everything through Tor! Where this news has been posted and comments allowed, mysterious “anonymous” users have expressed their low brow intelligence leaving comments such as, “Well you need to be root to run it so it doesn’t matter, if you have root you can do anything!”

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu 13.04 Adds New Launcher Options

      • Thoughts on Ubuntu Smartphones

      • Unity Changes – Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

        As you probably know, there will be no alpha milestones for Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail and Unity has got some minor, but interesting changes since the Raring development has begun, so I though I’d make a video showing some of these features so you can see what’s new.

      • All 100 Edubuntu computers in Ghana have been deployed!

        Back in October I spent 2 weeks in Ghana helping a team begin a deployment of 100 desktops shipped to Africa ICT Right in Ghana by Computer Reach based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately due to a series of unforeseen events, we weren’t able to see the deployment of all 100 systems to completion. While we were able to do a lot of useful work, when the last of the Computer Reach team left only 10 had actually been fully deployed. I summarized our trip here. In November I wrote this update which described the pickup of the systems for other regions, and the deployment of another 10 systems to Madina No.1 School.

      • Early Ubuntu 13.04 Benchmarks On The Intel Atom

        On Friday benchmarks were delivered of the Atom-based NVIDIA ION platform with the Nouveau driver against NVIDIA’s binary blob. Those results were favorable towards the reverse-engineered, open-source NVIDIA driver. For finishing off the week are more benchmarks from this aging NVIDIA ION system but this time seeing how well the low-end 64-bit Ubuntu performance is when comparing the latest 13.04 development image to the 12.10 and 12.04.1 LTS releases.

      • South Africa: Mobile Ubuntu – a Unix Powered Smartphone

      • South Africa: Ubuntu Coming to Phones

      • Head-to-Head Desktop Comparison: Ubuntu 12.10 vs. OS X Mountain Lion

        Over the years, many people have speculated about when Ubuntu will be ready for the casual computer user. Some individuals have compared Linux distributions to other operating systems, such as OS X.

        In this article, I will be offering a unique comparison between Ubuntu 12.10 and OS X Mountain Lion. Since I have access to both operating systems in my home office, I was able to take the time to narrow down where each operating system excels and where improvement is still needed. I have also attempted to do so without bias or platform-specific hype.

      • Head-to-Head Desktop Comparison: Ubuntu 12.10 vs. OS X Mountain Lion

      • Ubuntu 13.04 to Receive New Window Docking Animations – Screenshot

        The maximize and minimize transitions for windows in the Ubuntu operating systems have been perfected over time, but now a patch has been implemented for Compiz to further refine the effects.

      • Ubuntu 12.04 Advertised on the Official Steam Website

      • 13.04 wallpaper contest

      • ‘Ubuntu Packages’ Site Finally Gets Revamped

      • Ubuntu Decides To Turn On Intel SNA

        If you are an Ubuntu Linux user and rely upon Intel integrated graphics, Ubuntu developers could use your help in trying out Intel’s SNA as they decide whether to enable this experimental acceleration architecture in Ubuntu 13.04.

      • Flavours and Variants

        • Review: Linux Mint 14 MATE Edition

          My last review of Linux Mint was for the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint 13 “Maya”. Linux Mint 14 “Nadia” was released back on Nov. 20, 2112, but with all of the hustle and bustle of the winter holidays, I didn’t have time to install it and write up a review until now.

        • Ultimate Edition 3.5 Review: Ugly but fully loaded!

          My first exposure to Ultimate edition was with 3.4. I installed the 64-bit one to my newly bought Core i7 3rd gen. laptop with 8 GB RAM last year, but had to remove it bugged by it’s instability. First the default interface is devoid of much aesthetics, Second, effects are too loud and most important, third, instability – not a single day passed with something or the other crashing in the background or my laptop suddenly stopped responding and would require a hard reset. First two issues on aesthetics and too much of effects I took care myself with 24 hours of usage but I couldn’t handle the third one and replaced it with supremely stable Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon.

        • BodhiLinux 2.2.0 Review | E17 Stable Release

        • Reviews: First look at Fuduntu 2013.1

        • Lubuntu 13.04 Wallpaper Contest

Devices/Embedded

• Weird and wonderful Raspberry Pi hacks

• Your First Bite of Raspberry Pi

  I have to give Kyle Rankin all the credit for my Raspberry Pi collection. I never really felt geeky enough to do anything with an Arduino, and for some reason I mentally lumped the RPi into the same world. Boy was I short-sighted! Thankfully Kyle showed me the light, and I managed to snag some of the new 512MB model B units. You’ll be hearing about the Raspberry Pi from Kyle as well, but this month, I want to introduce the RPi to those folks who have been hesitant to buy one, thinking they weren’t geeky enough. I had to ask a lot of dumb questions when my Raspberry Pis arrived; hopefully, I can save you that embarrassment.

• Phones

  • Ballnux

    • Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini with NFC to launch this month

      If you’ve been looking at your options for a new phone, and have been considering a Galaxy S3 Mini, chances are you noticed the lack of NFC support in the current model. Later this month, however, that will change, and Samsung is launching an NFC-capable version in the UK this month.

    • HTC M7 revealed in high-resolution render

    • [Exclusive] This May Actually Be The HTC M7 With Sense 5.0

    • LG’s Optimus G Pro revealed in leaked image with 5-inch 1080p display, 3,000mAh battery and LTE

    • LG announces 1 million sales of its flagship Optimus G smartphoneLG announces 1 million sales of its flagship Optimus G smartphone

    • Rumor: KONA, SANTOS and ROMA new expected tablets from Samsung

    • Samsung’s ‘Godiva’ phone appears on blurrycam with Verizon branding, no physical keyboard

    • EXCLUSIVE: SamMobile confirms specifications of the GT-N5100 Galaxy Note …..

      6.3″ Samsung Galaxy Note III to have Exynos 5 Octa CPU. Samsung looks to China to replace Apple orders

      Samsung eyes China for chip business

      Samsung mobile head confirms 8-inch Galaxy Note

      JK Shin confirms that a midsize stylus-powered Note tab will be released as soon as February.

      EXCLUSIVE: Samsung to announce 5.8” Android smartphone

  • Android

    • Nexus 4 sold 10 times more than expected

      As everyone knows, Google’s flagship device made by LG, the Nexus 4, is a pretty hard catch. It seems that Google was a little bit skeptical about LG being able to sell the new member of the Nexus family, both parties having all kinds of rumours (like halting the production for a revmaped device) to deal with.

    • Sony Xperia Tablet Z(SO-03E) equipped with Full HD Display has been leaked

    • HTC M7: first image of the 2013 flagship

    • Nexus 4 vs Galaxy Nexus: The Evolution Continues

      So in the world of Google Nexus devices I can honestly say that yes, the Nexus 4 is still being made and is still being delivered to those who ordered them. The rumors of the phones having evaporated or production being halted are just not true. I received mine two days and and since I own other Nexus devices I couldn’t help but put it to a full comparison test against my Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7 to see just how it fits into the Nexus family.

    • Sending huge files from one Android device to another

      Android 4.1 and above has a nifty feature–Wi-Fi Direct–which lets you send a file from one Android device to another quickly, conveniently and free.

    • Rock and Paper, the Android Personal Computer’s new looks

    • VIA’s tiny Android-powered ARM motherboard gets a pair of upgrades

      Earlier this year, VIA released a tiny $49 ARM-powered motherboard it called the Android PC System (APC) in an effort to ride the wave the Raspberry Pi Foundation accidentally started with its $35 Linux computer for budding young developers. Today, it’s announcing a pair of follow-ups: the APC Rock is a $79 bare motherboard, and the APC Paper is a $99 version that is identical, except it loses the VGA port and comes in a recycled cardboard case designed to look like a small hardcover book. The Rock is available now, and the Paper has a March pre-order date. The original APC will continue to be sold with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) for $49.

    • Experimental XBMC Android build adds hardware-accelerated video for most devices

    • Official Android Community app launched: we go hands-on

    • What is Google cooking up for Google I/O 13?

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • Archos GamePad coming to the United States February 2013

    Our friends in Europe have been enjoying the Archos GamePad since December, but Archos wasn’t interested in letting us US folks in on the fun at the same time. Heck, the company didn’t even give a peep as to when we might be seeing the gaming tablet in the United States at CES. We knew it’d be Q1, but had no clue which month to expect it.

  • Ubuntu Powered Nibbio Tablet Dual Boots With Android

    The tablet market may be saturated with Android tablets, but it’s not very often that you find a well-spec’d tablet boasting Ubuntu. Italian company DaVinci Mobile Technology has opened up pre-orders for its new 10.1 inch, full HD tablet. The tablet will feature a dual boot system with Android 4.0 installed alongside Ubuntu 12. Named, Nibbio (Kite in Italian), the tablet is available in Wifi and 3G versions, both costing €309. The cost of securing a pre-order however, is a mere €29. What’s more, placing a pre-order entitles you to an additional year on your tablet’s warranty. The tablets will begin shipment midway through March 2013.

  • Build An App For Aakash Tablet And Win Upto 50,000 Rupees

  • Kogan announces $149 unlocked Android smartphone with 5-inch screen

    The Agora offers some interesting specs, including dual SIM slots and a phablet-size display. It’s scheduled to reach U.S. shores in about a month.

IF YOU CARE ABOUT FREEDOM, RAMP UP YOUR HAM

I think it’s interesting how most people who claim to care about freedom don’t have a ham radio (amateur radio) license, especially you folks in open source.

You reject and rebel against the Monopolists in Redmond and the Fruit Devices from Cupertino recognizing that they are dictating how you will and will not use the thing you are spending all your money on.

cbarylick
The open source movement, marketing and finally saying “Hello” to the mainstream

It goes without saying that the open source software movement has created some amazing things in the decades it’s been active and running. Where code has been shared, random developers have come up with some great new ideas and features and the open source goal of contribution has achieved its mission.

ITA signs agreement with Intel to promote open source software

In line with ITA’s efforts in spreading a Free and Open Source software culture for the past two years, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in support of the Open Source Intel Global Challenge in Oman was signed here recently between the Information Technology Authority (ITA) and Intel Corporation.

Vert.x heading for Eclipse Foundation

The future home of Vert.x will most likely be at the Eclipse Foundation. Project leader Tim Fox recommended that the JVM-polyglot asynchronous event-driven framework should look to the Eclipse Foundation as a “little more ‘business friendly’” home for the project’s assets and governance. Mike Millinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, welcomed Fox’s recommendation. A call for a +1/-1 vote from the original Vert.x community, seems so far to be predominantly +1, with no serious objections.

Wikipedia is moving

On the Wikimedia Foundation’s tech blog, Technical Communications Manager Guillaume Paumier has announced that Wikipedia and other services will move from Tampa, Florida to the company’s new primary data centre in Ashburn, Virginia over the coming days. With this move, the company aims to “improve the technical performance and reliability of all Wikimedia sites”. Paumier said that service limitations are expected during the transition: “Our sites will be in read-only mode for some time, and may be intermittently inaccessible.” Migration will begin on 22 January and is scheduled to be completed by 24 January.

ITA to support Intel’s Open Source competition

Opening up the open source community

I’ve mentioned the reported decline in Wikipedia contributors, and wondered out loud whether the organization sees the dip as an acceptable price to pay for heightening the standards for content contributions to its open source encyclopedia. “Our No. 1 strategic priority, as a movement,” she continues, tapping the table for emphasis, “is to increase contributorship.”

Open Source Computing Brings Everybody’s Favorite Droid To Life

I think we can all agree that R2-D2 is one of the most lovable robots ever created. Compared to his more terrifying contemporaries, the little guy just oozes charm. Now one man has made his very own R2-D2 using a Raspberry Pi linux computer.

CommuniGate Updates Open-Source cPanel Adaptor Kit

Twitter’s Whisper Systems now an open source project

Whisper Systems, the mobile security startup Twitter acquired in late 2011, is now an open source project which has a new official home outside the microblogging service.

Events

• Free Geek provides jobs and free classes to the community

  Here in the District of Columbia, a loosely-knit group comprised of social workers, librarians, technologists, environmentalists, disability rights advocates, and educators has come together in the past few years. This coalition, known as the Broadband Bridge, sees digital justice and digital inclusion as a cornerstone towards self-determination in traditionally underserved communities.

• Kyle Rankin to Keynote SCALE 11x

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Mozilla Announces Firefox OS Developer Phone

    Three major players are battling for a spot in the highly competitive smartphone market with their open source operating systems — Jolla, Mozilla and Canonical. While Jolla has some deals to bring their devices to the market, Mozilla has a lead here.

  • Mozilla Announces Firefox OS Developer Phone

    Three major players are battling for a spot in the highly competitive smartphone market with their open source operating systems — Jolla, Mozilla and Canonical. While Jolla has some deals to bring their devices to the market, Mozilla has a lead here.

  • Mozilla Announces Firefox OS Developer Phone

    Three major players are battling for a spot in the highly competitive smartphone market with their open source operating systems — Jolla, Mozilla and Canonical. While Jolla has some deals to bring their devices to the market, Mozilla has a lead here.

  • Announcing the Firefox OS Developer Preview Phone!

  • Mozilla develops Minion security testing framework

    The Mozilla Foundation is developing an open source security framework called Minion and plans to release a beta version in the first quarter of 2013. Minion will allow developers to subject their web applications to a security check. The framework will target applications with well-established pen testing tools such as OWASP’s Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP), Skipfish and NMAP. Further testing tools are planned to be incorporated into the framework as plugins.

  • Mozilla stabilises Firefox 18

    Mozilla has released Firefox 18.0.1, a first update to Firefox 18, which was released ten days ago. According to the release notes, and the lack of any additional entries on the security advisories page, the release is a stability update addressing three issues.

  • Mozilla picks JavaScript titan Eich to lead charge against ‘Droid, iOS

    He’s taking over as Mozilla fights for the hearts and minds of devs who might once have defaulted to Firefox, but are now being dazzled with open-source choices.

SaaS/Big Data

• WiFi + USB Drive = Your Own Mini-Internet (Freedom)

  Worried about draconian Internet laws? Creeping surveillance? The inability to share with others without being criminalized? The Internet is still a tool of tremendous power, but a deep rot has set in. We have caught it early and we are fighting to stop this rot, but there are other options we can begin exploring to hedge our bets, enhance our current efforts of fighting against corporate monopolies, and eventually, build an Internet of the people, by the people, for the people – big-telecom monopolies not welcomed.

• Open Compute Summit: New Members, Technologies

  The Open Compute Project, backed by Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), is gaining momentum, as evidenced by the increasing attendance at the Open Compute Summit. This week, the summit attracted more than 1,900 attendees that were interested in checking out the latest and greatest in Open Compute Project technologies, innovations and products. There has been a bit of buzz about some of the innovations unveiled at the show, and this can only mean good things for the open source cloud computing market.

• HP Cloud Leader Biri Singh Exits: Should Partners Worry?

Databases

• Tui airline Jetair moves to open source with SkySQL

  Jetair, the expanding Belgian arm of the Tui Group, is bringing in open source database technology supplier SkySQL.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• Six new features coming in LibreOffice 4.0

  It’s hard to believe LibreOffice has only been around about two years, so thoroughly has it come to dominate as the leading free and open source productivity suite, but late last week a release candidate for its next major version appeared.

BSD

• FreeBSD And NetBSD Images Available For Raspberry Pi

  FreeBSD and NetBSD are UNIX variants that are known for their stability and performance. If you are using a GNU/Linux distro in Raspberry Pi for sometime, and want to try something new, you can now download these images from the Raspberry Pi site and try them. Make sure you have a 4 gB or more SD card to dd these images into. Also, as they are bleeding edge releases, be sure to expect some bugs and crashes.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• GNU Hurd Is Still Moving, Albeit Slowly

  Since last week when writing about the LLVM/Clang compiler being ported to GNU Hurd, readers have asked via the forums, email, etc about the state of this open-source kernel backed by the Free Software Foundation. GNU Hurd and its Mach micro-kernel continue to be developed, just not at a rapid pace like the Linux kernel.

• The Year in Emacs

• Gnuaccounting 0.8.2 improves its document management

  Version 0.8.2 of the cross-platform accounting and bookkeeping package Gnuaccounting has been released. The Java-based application supports the creation of invoices, shipping notices and receipts with OpenOffice and LibreOffice and can interface with online banking accounts through FinTS (formerly HBCI) as well as store data in MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.

Project Releases

• OpenCart v1.5.5 released

  OpenCart v1.5.5, a free PHP shopping cart system, released with a lot of new features and fixed issues.

Public Services/Government

• Government tech stakeholders gather at state hackathon

  Great things for open government happened last year on November 15-16 at the 4th annual Capitol Camp event, organized and hosted by the New York State Senate and the New York State Office of Information Technology Services, in collaboration with the Center for Technology in Government.

• Norway’s municipalities run open source apps from open source cloud

  The Norwegian free software association for municipalities, Friprogforeningen, is starting to offer cloud-based open source applications. This means municipalities can use open source tools such as the Redmine project management and bug-tracking tool and the OTRS service management and helpdesk software, without having to install and maintain the applications. The cloud itself is running free and open source software.

Openness/Sharing

• Crowdfunding push for EZ-EV open source electric kit car

  Electrical engineer Gary Krysztopik has been driving his self-built, open-framed, three-wheeled electric “hotrod” on the roads and highways of San Antonio (TX) for over three years now, but folks still can’t help staring as he zooms past. While also working on gas-to-electric conversions (including a VW Bug and a Porsche Carrera), he’s been busy refining and tweaking the design for his “battery box on wheels” and is now preparing to release the EZ-EV car as open source plans, build-it-yourself kits and complete vehicles.

• Open Access/Content

  • Hiding your research behind a paywall is immoral

    As a scientist your job is to bring new knowledge into the world. Hiding it behind a journal’s paywall is unacceptable

  • For Our Information: Politicians Need To Let Go

  • How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture

    The visitor was clever — switching identifications to avoid being blocked by M.I.T.’s security system — but eventually the university believed it had shut down the intrusion, then spent weeks reassuring furious officials at Jstor that the downloading had been stopped.

    [...]

    He described attending two meetings with the chancellor of M.I.T., Eric Grimson. Each time there also was a representative of the general counsel’s office. At both meetings, he said, members of M.I.T.’s legal team assured him and the chancellor that the government had compelled M.I.T. to collect and hand over the material. In that first meeting, he recalled, “I said to the chancellor, ‘Why are you destroying my son?’ He said, ‘We are not.’ ”

  • Carmen Ortiz’s Husband Criticizes Swartz Family For Suggesting Prosecution Of Their Son Contributed To His Suicide

    Dolan has since deleted his entire account after he either came to his senses or someone suggested strongly that he think better of it. While you can understand his desire to defend his wife’s efforts, the tweets aren’t just somewhat offensive following Aaron’s suicide, but misleading as well. To argue that the prosecution was fair because they offered him a 6 month plea deal is complete and utter hogwash. As many have pointed out, it doesn’t appear that Aaron should have been facing any federal charges at all. The 35 years is completely relevant, because that’s part of the hammer that his wife was using to pressure him into taking the 6 month plea deal so that she and her assistant could get a big headline about another “guilty” plea. To act like the 6 month offer is some sort of “leniency” is insane when you know the details of the case and everything else that came with it.

    Dolan also — conveniently — ignores that the government supposedly told Aaron’s lawyers that if he didn’t take the deal, the next one they’d come back with would be worse, and that if the case actually got to court, they’d try to get the judge (notorious for strict sentences) to throw the book at Swartz.

Programming

• 9 of the Best Free PHP Books

  Learning the PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) programming language from scratch can be an arduous affair. Fortunately, budding developers that want to code in this language have a good range of introductory texts available to read, both in-print and to download. There are also many quality books that help programmers that have reached an intermediate level deepen their understanding of the language.

Standards/Consortia

• W3C Invites Chinese Web Developers, Industry, Academia to Assume Greater Role in Global Web Innovation

  W3C announces Beihang University as a new center for W3C technical staff and leadership activities in China. W3C anticipates that a dedicated presence in China will enhance opportunities for collaboration among Chinese companies, Web developers, and research institutes, and W3C’s full international community, including Members from more than 40 countries.

  “China is in the midst of an innovation boom,” said Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO. “In IT, Chinese companies have excelled in instant messaging, online games, smartphones, and search, and there is a flourishing Chinese browser ecosystem. In the past two years W3C has benefited from greater Chinese participation, and we look forward to that trend accelerating through the efforts of local industry and Beihang University. Global participation in W3C enables our community to identify global needs for the Web, and drive solutions.”

  In its new capacity, Beihang University invites Chinese Web developers, industry, and academia to assume a greater role in global Web innovation.

• Vint Cerf appointed to National Science Board by President Obama

Is Facebook Graph Search A Concerning Matter?

Is Facebook Graph Search A Concerning Matter?
Syn Waker’s picture
Posted by Syn Waker on20Jan2013

As we all heard about, Facebook started to roll out a beta version of its Graph Search, a feature that “gives people the power and the tools they need to search through the content on the site”. At what cost?

We’ve already seen how Facebook “handles” the privacy of the humble Facebook users (see face recognition and social web), but now, Mark’s social network has made a bold step by making impossible to hide your timeline from being indexed in the ‘walled’ search results (altough individual posts can be hidden), and those who opted out before this feature would be disabled, they would still be forced to change the privacy settings for every single post they wanted to be hidden from curious eyes.

Media freedom is a delicate flower

I am delighted to have read over the weekend, and to have been officially presented today, with a keenly awaited report into the practice of media freedom and pluralism in the European Union. The lead author is Prof. Vaire Vike Freiberga (The other members were Professor Herta Däubler-Gmelin, Professor Luís Miguel Poiares Pessoa Maduro and Ben Hammersley)

It is remarkably wide-ranging; it touches on the work of many of my Commission colleagues.

Google Handwrite gets easier and faster

Since we launched Google Handwrite last summer for smartphones and tablets, we’ve been improving recognition quality and also working on a number of features to make it easier and faster to handwrite your searches on Google. You can now distinguish between ambiguous characters, overlap your characters, and write multiple characters at a time in Chinese.

What Gates Foundation Should Have Said in Its MET Teacher Evaluation Report

No matter how you mix it, it’s better to go with Value-Added, student surveys, or both: As Dropout Nation noted last year, the accuracy of classroom observations is so low that even in a multiple measures approach to evaluation in which value-added data and student surveys account for the overwhelming majority of the data culled from the model (72.9 percent, and 17.2 percent of the evaluation in one case), the classroom observations are of such low quality that they bring down the accuracy of the overall performance review. This point is raised again in the latest group of models floated by Gates in its final MET study. Only one model matches the level of accuracy Value-Added has on its own — and that’s because observations only account for two percent of the data in the model. The usefulness of the next model, one of the three Gates prefers because observations account for a quarter of the data used (while Value-Added accounts for half), declines by nine-hundreds of a standard deviation based on Dropout Nation‘s analysis of the MET report’s data; another model, in observations, Value-Added and student surveys account for one-third each, the loss of accuracy is nearly two-tenths of a standard deviation.

Yet the Gates Foundation insists on pushing a “multiple measures approach” that is useless to teachers, school leaders, families, and children alike:

Science

• Symbolic computation in the small: Math on mobile

Health/Nutrition

• Refugees in Canada have poorer access to health care than in refugee camps

  Has the day come when access to basic health care is worse in Canada than in a refugee camp? It has, thanks to cuts to the Interim Federal Health Program. Refugee claimants from 27 designated countries of origin, announced on Dec. 15, will now be denied almost all health care services.

Security

• Security advisories for Monday

• The ghost of a Spring Framework bug haunts old code

  There are reports of the discovery of a remote code execution flaw in the Spring Framework, but many are not mentioning that the flaw in question was fixed over a year ago and that what has been found is actually a new way to exploit that old flaw. In 2011, a “variable” severity flaw, identified as CVE-2011-2730, was discovered by two researchers in versions 3.0.0 to 3.0.5, 2.5.0 to 2.5.6SEC02 and 2.5.0 to 2.5.7SR01. The flaw involved Expression Language (EL) and its use in JSP; EL expressions were evaluated by default and in some circumstances were evaluated twice, which could lead to information disclosure to an attacker if there was a location in an application where an unfiltered parameter was placed in a tag that would be evaluated. A paper covered the details.

• No, availability is not security!

  Security is a very important factor in my choice of distributions and software solutions, and I tend to hold a very strict view of what it means from a modern computing standpoint. In one sentence, my stance on security is this: A sound and complete security posture has to take both physical and network security into account.

  Anything less will not fly. So when I came across an article that attempts to sell that view short for the sole purpose of promoting a product, it didn’t sit well with me. The offending article was written by Frank Karlitschek, founder and CTO of Owncloud, a cloud storage service and solution.

  In More to Security than Encryption, he takes this skewed stance that it is (somewhat) ok to say something is secure even though it lacks encryption. He then makes several points to support that stance.

• Oracle’s Java patch leaves a loophole

• 29c3: Hacking Politics

  Every year at the end of December, computer hackers from all over the world gather in Germany – this time in Hamburg – for the Chaos Communication Congress, four days of talks, meetings and workshops.

  With “Not my department,” as the theme of the year – a tongue in cheek reminder that hackers should accept their responsibilities when it comes to politics and social justice – 29c3, short for 29th Chaos Communication Congress, reveals the growing influence of a certain type of hacker, one increasingly aware of its political role.

• Security guards attack man for shooting video of subway track

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• The Shadow That Hangs Over Obama’s Second Term

  On Monday, President Obama will talk about protecting children during his speech. But he knows that over the next four years he will be asked to make decisions that will result in the killing of the children, not because he is an evil man but rather because he has readily and rationally accommodated himself to the necessity of evil.

• Terror Threat Prompts U.S. Rethink on Africa

• Suspected US Drone Kills 8 in Yemen

  Yemeni military officials say eight people have been killed in two suspected U.S. drone strikes in Abieda valley in central Marib province.

  Residents contacted by The Associated Press say that at least two of the eight people killed in Saturday evening’s strikes were known al-Qaida militants of Saudi nationality. They identified one as Ismail bin Jamil.

  They say at least three of the bodies were charred beyond recognition.

• Drone strikes in Yemen, 8 killed

• Locals identify one al-Qaeda militant killed by US drone

  Four suspected al-Qaeda militants in Marib province were killed by an American drone strike early this evening. An earlier drone strike in the same area had missed the target.

  [...]

  The first attack that missed the militants was in a populated area, and angered the locals.

• Suspected US drone strike kills 8 in Yemen, at least 2 are alleged al-Qaida militants

• Drone strikes ‘to be exempted’ from CIA terror ‘playbook’

  …CIA’s controversial drone operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan would effectively be given an exemption…

• CIA’s free reign on targeted killing: Pakistan exempted from agency’s drone ‘playbook’

• CIA drone strikes will get pass in counterterrorism ‘playbook,’ officials say

  Among the subjects covered in the playbook are the process for adding names to kill lists, the legal principles that govern when U.S. citizens can be targeted overseas and the sequence of approvals required when the CIA or U.S. military conduct drone strikes outside war zones.

• Drone hits to continue for now: Olson

  US Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson said Saturday the US respects Pakistan’s integrity and will not leave Pakistan alone.

• US Drone Strikes Cause ‘Blowback’

• Should drone strikes be considered lawful?

  The US has been using armed drones in the ‘War on Terror’ since the year 2001. Though they are used in targeted killing, civilian casualties cannot be prevented. This raises legal and ethical questions.

• ‘DRONE WAR WILL TRIGGER NEW ARMS RACE’

  The increasing resort to drones by President Barack Obama will over the long term usher in “a new arms race and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent, destabilized and polarized between those who have drones and those who are victims of them”, a leading terrorism expert has warned.
  One of the distinctive elements of President Obama’s approach to counterterrorism has been his embrace of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to target terrorist operatives abroad, says Michael J Boyle in an article for International Affairs, a British journal published every two months.

• Panetta Signals Scaled Back Drone Program

  Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta can see a world in which the use of drones is no longer a staple in the United States’ counterterrorism toolkit, according to an interview with ABC News.

• OP-ED: Rally, March, and Die Against Drone Wars in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Tuesday

  1. Take 30 seconds to join 60,000 others in pushing for a ban on weaponized drones.

• SHOCKING VIDEO: MAN JUMPS ONSTAGE & POINTS GUN AT BULGARIA PARTY LEADER

  The leader of Bulgaria’s ethnic Turkish party survived a brazen attack after a man jumped onstage and leveled a gas pistol at him while he was delivering a speech during a party gathering in the capital Saturday.

• Zero Dark Thirty’s ‘Almost Journalism’: Another Word For Propaganda

  Why aren’t film director Kathryn Bigelow’s claimed government sources, including employees of the CIA, in jail like Pfc. Bradley Manning? Or, at the very least, being investigated for their role in one of the most damaging leaks of national security information in U.S. history?

• Burn, burn – Africa’s Afghanistan

  One’s got to love the sound of a Frenchman’s Mirage 2000 fighter jet in the morning. Smells like… a delicious neo-colonial breakfast in Hollandaise sauce. Make it quagmire sauce.

  Apparently, it’s a no-brainer. Mali holds 15.8 million people – with a per capita gross domestic product of only around US$1,000 a year and average life expectancy of only 51 years – in a territory twice the size of France (per capital GDP $35,000 and upwards). Now almost two-thirds of this territory is occupied by heavily weaponized Islamist outfits. What next? Bomb, baby, bomb.

• New UN report highlights ongoing problem of torture in Afghan detention facilities

  Torture remains a serious concern in numerous detention facilities across Afghanistan, despite significant efforts by the Government and international partners to address the problem, according to a new United Nations report released on Sunday.

  The report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) states that more than half of 635 conflict-related detainees interviewed experienced ill-treatment and torture, particularly in 34 facilities of the Afghan National Police (ANP) and the National Directorate of Security (NDS) between October 2011 and October 2012.

• Ex-Army Officer Accuses CIA of Obstructing Pre-9/11 Intelligence-Gathering

  A decorated ex-clandestine operative for the Pentagon offers new revelations about the role the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) played in the shut-down of the military’s notorious Able Danger program, alleged to have identified five of the 9/11 hijackers inside America more than a year before the attacks.
  Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer joins a growing list of government officials accusing former CIA director George Tenet of misleading federal bodies and sharing some degree of blame for the attacks. Shaffer also adds to a picture emerging of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit as having actively prevented other areas of intelligence, law enforcement and defense from properly carrying out their counterterrorism functions in the run-up to September 2001.

• Torture and Zero Dark Thirty

  Zero Dark Thirty is a spy thriller about the tracking and killing of Osama Bin Laden. Good police work did it, the film says, and it aims to show what (in the extraordinary circumstances) good police work amounts to. Action movies have been the director Kathryn Bigelow’s métier, and Zero Dark Thirty is tense and well-paced. It has the kind of proficiency one associates with, say, The Hunt for Red October. It does not mean to compete with a film like The Battle of Algiers. There is no question here of taking up a complex historical subject and exploring it with a semblance of human depth. Rather, the movie accepts the ready prejudices and fears of its American audience, and builds up pressure for two hours to prepare the thrill and relief at the raid on Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. The first two hours skip forward selectively to cover the trajectory of ten years. The final twenty-five minutes of action are portrayed almost in real time.

• The Institutionalization of Tyranny — Paul Craig Roberts

  Republicans and conservative Americans are still fighting Big Government in its welfare state form. Apparently, they have never heard of the militarized police state form of Big Government, or, if they have, they are comfortable with it and have no objection.

• Sundance capsule: ‘Dirty Wars’

  We’ve all been over-inundated with coverage of war, whether it be in Iraq or Afghanistan for a decade. We see the stories on television and in the movies and read the articles in magazines. Slowly, a portion of the populace becomes desensitized to the violence. It is a sad casualty of a seemingly never-ending struggle, and an indictment on our ability to compartmentalize and put our heads in the sand.

• Dirty Wars: Sundance Review

• Torture accusations against UK troops in Iraq echo the scandal of Abu Ghraib

• John Brennan’s Rules: John Brennan Doesn’t Have to Play by the Rules

• The Obama administration’s inexplicable mishandling of Marine Gen. James Mattis

  Why the hurry? Pentagon insiders say that he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way — not because he went all “mad dog,” which is his public image, and the view at the White House, but rather because he pushed the civilians so hard on considering the second- and third-order consequences of military action against Iran. Some of those questions apparently were uncomfortable. Like, what do you do with Iran once the nuclear issue is resolved and it remains a foe? What do you do if Iran then develops conventional capabilities that could make it hazardous for U.S. Navy ships to operate in the Persian Gulf? He kept saying, “And then what?”

• Homeland Security’s Failed Attempt to Pervert the Freedom of Information Act Process

  Over a week ago, a federal judge ruled documents the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was ordered to produce in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit could not be subjected to a protective order.

  The development has received minimal attention, but the case seems important, as the government sought to use an innovative tactic to provide documents it owed an organization while at the same time preventing the public from reading the documents. Had the judge allowed the protective order or “clawback,” it would have been a complete perversion of FOIA.

  The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) submitted a FOIA request on July 26, 2011, for documents “regarding a joint National Security Agency (“NSA”) and Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) pilot program, which has not been publicly named, designed to monitor all internet traffic routed to several defense contractors and attempts to detect whether there are malicious programs within this internet traffic designed to compromise the defense contractor security.”

• Terrorism Charges Dismissed for Imam

• Mali conflict exposes White House-Pentagon split

• Binyamin Netanyahu rejects calls for Palestinian state within 1967 lines

• Virginia drone regulation being pushed by diverse coalition

  A diverse coalition of organizations and lawmakers said Tuesday that the use of drones by police and government agencies must be regulated to protect Virginians’ privacy rights.

• Rutherford Institute Issues Model Drone Resolution Establish Limits on Spying

• Rockler: Domestic police departments’ drone usage should be limited

• U.S. Drone Strike Policies

• Casualties Reported In Afghan Drone Attacks

• Watch Heems’ new anti-drone video for ‘Soup Boys’

• Imran criticises US drone policy

  “These strikes have not reduced militancy; in fact are a major stimulant to terrorism,” said PTI Chairman Imran Khan.

• ‘REAL NEWS’: WILL DRONE STRIKES AND ‘KILL LISTS’ DEFINE OBAMA’S DEFENSE POLICY?

  Shortly after the election last November a striking–yet quickly pushed under the rug–report came out that the Obama administration had hastily put together a “rules of engagement” manual for a potential Romney administration as they relate to the president’s extensive use of drones strikes in countries that harbor terrorists.

• Drone protest closes street downtown

• At least 13 militants killed in Yemen in blast and drone attack

• Pentagon wants drone technology be used by navy troops

  The drone technology realized in Iraq and Afghanistan may be further exploited by the US navy troops, as it follows from a release made public on January 11 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a federal agency responsible for the development of new technologies. Interested vendors are invited to sign up for a research “in the area of distributed unmanned sensors and systems for maritime applications”.

• CODEPINK’s Medea Benjamin Brings Voices of Pakistani Drone Victims to Obama’s Inauguration

  Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of the activist group CODEPINK, recently returned from Pakistan, where she traveled with families of the victims of U.S. drone strikes. Speaking at Sunday night’s Peace Ball in Washington, D.C., Benjamin urged progressives to remember the plight of U.S. victims abroad.

• Drone Strikes Fuel Anti-Americanism and Do Far More Harm Than Good

  …“military aged males” who are killed in a drone-strike target to likely be a militant until proven otherwise.

• US drone strikes amount to war crime: Political analyst

  US assassination drone attacks amount to “war crime” against innocent civilians by a government that claims moral leadership of the world, a political analyst tells Press TV.

• European Drone Plan Seeks Political Backing as in Boost to EADS

  France and Germany are set to renew efforts to work on a joint unmanned aerial vehicle, supporting European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. (EAD) in its attempt to compete in a market now dominated by Israeli and U.S. companies.

• Is it time for Congress to clip drones’ wings?

  Robert Naiman, policy director of Just Foreign Policy, was at DePaul University last week to talk about U.S. policy on drones.

• US drone strikes on Qaeda kill eight people in Yemen

  “The bodies of the four dead were charred,” he said, requesting anonymity, adding that only the body of Ismail bin Jamil, a local Al-Qaeda chief, was identified.

• U.S. Military Shapes Film Industry’s Portrayals On Big Screen

  The CIA and the Pentagon pulled out all the stops for the creators of “Zero Dark Thirty,” staging interviews with officials and a Navy SEAL for an inside account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

  Critics praised the movie’s gritty and gripping feel but, with the film due for release in major European markets this week, controversy has erupted over claims that it justifies US agents’ use of torture on detainees.

  The access granted to director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal has turned the Oscar-nominated movie into the most detailed public account that exists of the May 2011 raid on a Pakistani compound to kill Bin Laden.

Cablegate

• ‘Gillileaks’ and Australia’s Hypocrisy Over Julian Assange

  Fast forward three years, and it would appear the Australian government has had a road to Damascus experience. Leaks it appears aren’t all bad, especially when they damage foreign governments threatening Australian corporate interests. Indeed so profound is the conversion that the Gillard government is now in the Wikileaks game itself.

  Let me provide the political context. In 2001 Australian mining giant BHP Billiton signed over its shares in the Papua New Guinea (PNG) copper mine, Ok Tedi, to a charitable trust, PNG Sustainable Development Program (PNGSDP). In return, the PNG government agreed to indemnify BHP over the environmental disaster its mine had caused.

• WikiLeaks says Aaron Swartz may have been a ‘source’

• Aaron Swartz named as possible WikiLeaks source

• Swartz May Have Been a WikiLeaks Source

  Aaron Swartz may have been a WikiLeaks source, the group said on its Twitter feed over the weekend. In a series of tweets, WikiLeaks said that activist and hacker Swartz, who committed suicide earlier this month while awaiting trial on computer fraud charges, “assisted” the organization and “was in communication with Julian Assange, including during 2010 and 2011,” Mashable reports. But the tweets did not go so far as to name Swartz as a WikiLeaks source, only saying, “We have strong reasons to believe, but cannot prove, that” he was.

• WikiLeaks reveals association with Aaron Swartz

• Fact Sheet: Julian Assange, his asylum, and the Swedish investigation

• Aaron Swartz: A Julian Assange for the academic crowd

• Exclusive: Meet Robin Bachmann, the 8 year old who is helping Julian Assange escape the Ecuadorian embassy

• Online activists and exemplary punishment

  Across the world, authorities are wildly overreacting to the threat posed by online activism. History says it won’t work. Expect more Aaron Swartzs, Bradley Mannings and Kim Dotcomes in coming years.

• CHRISTINE’S COMPELLING COMEBACK

  ‘A women’s university group have organized to protest Julian’s speech at the Sam Adam’s awards, with one key organizer stating that his inclusion is ‘inappropriate’ and contributes to the ‘casualness with which rape allegations and accusations are treated in our society’.
  As co-founders of WACA (WikiLeaks Australian Citizens Alliance), as women, mothers and feminists we respect the right of all to protest but urge those considering attending this protest to not be blinded by statements that are, in the light of clear and indisputable facts, inflammatory and inaccurate.
  Here are just a few of those facts for people to consider:Julian Assange and his organization WikiLeaks have revealed a myriad of war crimes, human rights abuses, corporate and government collusion and corruption that ultimately impacts millions of women and children around the world on a daily basis and this is why Julian Assange has been asked to speak this year.

• Why Wasn’t Bob Woodward Jailed Like Bradley Manning?

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Minamata Convention Agreed by Nations

  International effort to address mercury-a notorious heavy metal with significant health and environmental effects-was today delivered a significant boost with governments agreeing to a global, legally-binding treaty to prevent emissions and releases.

• If Right-Wing Violence Is Up 400%, Why Is the #FBI Targeting Environmentalists?

  Violent attacks by right-wing groups and individuals have increased by 400% since 1990, and dramatically in the last five years, according to a new report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center.

  When examined side-by-side with FBI reports on domestic terrorism, the data from this study shows that the FBI has been either grossly miscalculating, or intentionally downplaying, murders and violent attacks by right-wing extremists while exaggerating the threat posed by animal rights activists and environmentalists, who have only destroyed property.

Finance

• Oxfam seeks ‘new deal’ on inequality from world leaders

  The 100 richest people in the world earned enough last year to end extreme poverty suffered by the poorest on the planet four times over, Oxfam has said.

  Ahead of next week’s World Economic Forum in Switzerland, the charity urged world leaders to tackle inequality.

  Extreme wealth was “economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive”, the report said.

  [...]

  “From tax havens to weak employment laws, the richest benefit from a global economic system which is rigged in their favour.”

• How to get $12 billion of gold to Venezuela

  Ever since the news broke last week that Hugo Chávez wanted to transport 211 tons of physical gold from Europe to Caracas, I’ve been wondering how on earth he possibly intends to do such a thing.

• Goldman Raises CEO’s Stock Bonus 90% to $13.3 Million

  Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) boosted Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein’s stock bonus 90 percent to $13.3 million, topping JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s Jamie Dimon for the first time in five years, as profit climbed (GS).

• Snakes and Ladders: Investment Banking on the Brink

  Banks manipulated the LIBOR interest rate, which affects financial transactions worth hundreds of trillions of dollars. They foisted risky assets on customers and became involved in money laundering and tax fraud. Traders like Kweku Adoboli (UBS), Jérôme Kerviel (Société Générale) and Bruno Iksil (JPMorgan Chase) gambled away billions through risky transactions, either on their own or with their departments.

• Rich Pickings: Goldman Sachs cashes in, world on brink of food crisis

• Goldman Sachs made up to £250 million from betting on food prices in 2012

  Goldman Sachs made up to an estimated £251 million (US$400 million) in 2012 from speculating on food including wheat, maize and soy, prompting campaigners to accuse the bank of contributing to a growing global food crisis.
  Goldman Sachs is recognised as the leading global player in financial speculation on food and other commodities, and created the first commodity index funds which allow huge amounts of money to be gambled on prices.

• The “Swiss Bank Accounts” of the 2012 Elections: How Secret Donors Are Corrupting Democracy

  The corrosive influence of money in politics was amplified in 2012 by the fact that in many cases we don’t know which individuals or which corporations actually provided much of the funding to affect election results. “Dark money” — election spending where we don’t know the source of the funds — played a bigger role in 2012 than in any other presidential election since Richard Nixon’s.

  A new report from the Center for Media and Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) has helped expose more about what we call “the swiss bank account” of American elections, where wealthy elites attempt to secretly influence the outcome of our elections through non-profit groups that keep their donations hidden, and increasingly, through “straw” or “shell” corporations that appear to exist for no reason other than to anonymously pour millions into elections.

• Open Letter to Mike Duke, CEO of Walmart

  Walmart, your gigantic company, is increasingly being challenged by your workers, government prosecutors, civil lawsuits, communities (that do not want a Walmart), taxpayers learning about your drain on government services and corporate welfare, and small businesses and groups working with unions such as SEIU and UFCW. Thus far, Walmart is successfully playing rope-a-dope, conceding little while expecting to wear down its opposition.

• Goldman bankers get rich betting on food prices as millions starve

  Goldman Sachs made more than a quarter of a billion pounds last year by speculating on food staples, reigniting the controversy over banks profiting from the global food crisis.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Researcher Tears Apart Gates Foundation Teacher Evaluation Study

  University of Arkansas education professor Jay P. Greene has weighed in on the BIll and Melinda Gates Foundation’s conclusions about its teacher evaluation study.

  Greene says the foundation’s conclusions were based on the politics of convincing teachers and school districts of the merits of evaluations, and not data.

• Understanding the Gates Foundation’s Measuring Effective Teachers Project

  But the folks at the Gates Foundation, afflicted with PLDD, don’t see things this way. They’ve been working with politicians in Illinois, Los Angeles, and elsewhere to centrally impose teacher evaluation systems, but they’ve encountered stiff resistance. In particular, they’ve noticed that teachers and others have expressed strong reservations about any evaluation system that relies too heavily on student test scores.

• THE CIA AND THE MEDIA

  How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up

Censorship

• EU Group Says Brussels Should Control Press Regulation, Attacks Cameron For Rejecting Leveson

• Leveson: EU wants power to sack journalists

  Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Clacton, attacked the report for making an “extraordinary, and deeply disturbing proposal”.
  “Having EU officials overseeing our free press – and monitoring newspapers to ensure they comply with “European values” – would be quite simply intolerable,” he said.
  “This is the sort of mind-set that I would expect to find in Iran, not the West. This kooky idea tells us little about the future of press regulation. It does suggest that the European project is ultimately incompatible with the notion of a free society.”

Privacy

• Ministers Express Doubts on Expanding Data Protection Laws

  E.U. justice ministers reacted coolly on Friday to a plan that would give consumers the ability to expunge the personal details Internet businesses have collected on them, essentially allowing individuals to block most kinds of online ads.

  During an informal meeting in Dublin, the ministers expressed reservations about elements of the proposal, which would impose new limits on data collection and profiling and give national regulators the ability to levy hefty fines equal to 2 percent of sales on companies that failed to comply.

• PayPal Gets A Slice Of £25m DWP Identity Contract

• I conceal my identity the same way Aaron was indicted for

  According to his indictment, Aaron Swartz was charged with wirefraud for concealing/changing his “true identity”. It sent chills down my back, because I do everything on that list (and more).

• Graph Search’s Dirty Promise and the Con of the Facebook “Like”

  It turns out as much as half of the links between objects and interests contained in FB are dirty—i.e. there is no true affinity between the like and the object or it’s stale. Never mind does the data not really represent user intent… but the user did not even ‘like’ what she was liking.
  How is this possible? Let me explain.

Civil Rights

• Terror Threat Prompts U.S. Rethink on Africa

• Student Expelled From Montreal College For Finding “Sloppy Coding”

  In what appears to be a more-and-more common occurrence, Ahmed Al-Khabez has been expelled from Dawson College in Montreal after he discovered a flaw in the software that the college (and apparently all other colleges across Quebec) uses to track student information.

• NDAA Would Have Sent MLK to Gitmo, Says Cornel West

  Firebrand black activist Dr. Cornel West gave a speech at the Tavis Smiley Presents Poverty In America series on Thursday that may surprise libertarians – in how much they agree with the “socialist radical.”

  Decrying the erosion of civil liberties today, Dr. West loudly lamented the “crypto-fascist” state developing in America – contrasting the federal government to crack addicts, whom he said at least “are honest about their addiction. The White House is addicted to power!”

Internet/Net Neutrality

• Cable Industry Finally Admits Caps Not About Congestion

  For years the cable industry insisted that they imposed usage caps because network congestion made them necessary. You’ll recall that Time Warner Cable insisted that if they weren’t allowed to impose caps and overages the Internet would face “brown outs.” Cable operators also paid countless think tanks, consultants and fauxcademics to spin scary yarns about a looming network congestion “exaflood,” only averted if cable operators were allowed to raise rates, impose caps, eliminate regulation or (insert pretty much anything here).

Intellectual Monopolies

• Supreme Court conundrum: How far does a soybean seed patent go?

  Vernon Hugh Bowman is the rare Indiana soybean farmer destined for immortality as a U.S. Supreme Court caption.
  Bowman had the temerity to attempt to outwit Monsanto, the giant agriculture company that, as you surely know, invested hundreds of millions of dollars and years of research in the creation of soybean seeds that are genetically modified to withstand the herbicide glyphosate, which Monsanto markets as Roundup. The genetically modified seeds, according to the Supreme Court brief Monsanto filed Wednesday, have been such a hit with farmers that more than 90 percent of the U.S. soybean crop begins with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds. Given that every soybean plant produces enough seeds to grow 80 more plants — and that soybeans grown from Roundup Ready seeds contain the genetic modification of glyphosate resistance — Monsanto has insisted that farmers sign licensing agreements with strict restrictions. Soybean producers are only supposed to use the Roundup Ready seeds they buy to grow crops in a single season, and they’re forbidden from planting second-generation seeds harvested from first-generation crops.

• US FTC Finds Sharp Rise In ‘Pay-For-Delay’ Deals Blocking Generics

  The Federal Trade Commission staff report [pdf] found that drug companies made 40 potential pay-for-delay deals in FY 2012 (1 October 2011 through 30 September 2012).

• The dynamics of free culture and the danger of noncommercial clauses

  Free licensing lowers the barrier of entry to creating cultural works, which unlocks a dynamic where people can realize their ideas much easier – and where culture can actually live, creating memes, adjusting them to new situations and using new approaches with old topics.

  But for that to really take off, people have to be able to make a living from their creations – which build on other works. Then we have people who make a living by reshaping culture again and again – instead of the current culture where only a few (rich or funded by rich ones) can afford to reuse old works and all others have to start from scratch again and again.

• Open, pop culture R&D lab for the public domain

• Court Definitively Rejects AFP’s Argument That Posting a Photo to Twitter Grants AFP a License to Freely Use It — AFP v. Morel

• It Will Be Awesome if They Don’t Screw it Up: 3D Printing

• Nokia backs 3D printing for mobile phone cases

• After a year in the grave, can SOPA and Protect IP return?

  CNET asked the leaders of the congressional committees that write U.S. copyright law, plus the groups that backed the controversial legislation a year ago, to tell us what will happen next.

• Copyrights

  • Fighting Back Against The DOJ

    They demurred on prosecuting war criminals (hey, they’re all government buddies and what’s a few prisoners tortured to death among friends?), but they sure as hell hounded Aaron Swartz to his death. It really speaks to how justice is so often these days a weapon of the powerful, not a defense for the powerless. The petition to hold Carmen Ortiz accountable for her bullying has now reached 38,000. Please sign it – and let the Obama administration know that this attack on dissemination of academic information is not acceptable.

  • Was Aaron Swartz Really ‘Killed by the Government’?

    Swartz’s case may not be as black-and-white as his loved ones suggest; no one person or entity “killed” Swartz. Suicide is caused by mental illness. But in bringing such tough charges against him, prosecutors do seem to have wrongly used their discretion. There is still more to be learned about how the Boston U.S. Attorney’s office made the choices it did, and Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has announced that his committee is investigating. Swartz’s actions were not above reproach. He appears to have been in the middle of a plan to “liberate” and disseminate privately owned articles. But the offense he was engaged in was not crime of violence or greed. It seems, rather, to have been an act of civil disobedience, or lawbreaking in the service of Swartz’s (and many people’s) idea of a more just world. That does not mean that Swartz had a right to do what he did or not to be punished. But his motives should have been an important part of the government’s calculus.

  • Aaron Swartz: cannon fodder in the war against internet freedom

    On 11 January, a young American geek named Aaron Swartz killed himself, and most of the world paid no attention. In the ordinary run of things, “it was not an important failure”, as Auden put it in Musée des Beaux Arts.

    About suffering they were never wrong,
    The old Masters: how well they understood
    Its human position: how it takes place
    While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along

  • Aaron Swartz memorial evokes strong emotions and political urgency

    Friends, family, and colleagues share their stories of the activist’s life and work

  • Dotcom’s Mega Launches To Unprecedented Demand

    The much anticipated rebirth of Megaupload took place in the last few hours with interest living up to expectations. In less than one hour the site picked up 100,000 new registrations, going on to 500,000 and beyond just a few hours later. As the site struggled to cope with demand it became unresponsive in the face of an unprecedented flood of users eager to test out the new file-hosting site. Just a few minutes ago the launch party at Kim Dotcom’s mansion began, with some interesting reveals.

  • Kim Dotcom’s Mega Gets 1 Million Users During Launch, Should You Use It?

    The Internet superhero Kim Dotcom has returned with MEGA, after the US government – under the influence of Hollywood — seized Megaupload servers and took ownership of legit user data. After initially hiccups (where under US influence the government of the African nation of Gabon seized Me.ga domain) Dotcom has released MEGA with a lavish and mega launch party.

  • Dotcom’s Mega Launches To Unprecedented Demand

  • Senator John Cornyn accuses Eric Holder of prosecuting Aaron Swartz as ‘retaliation’

  • Feds Hounded ‘Net Activist Aaron Swartz, Says EFF’s Parker Higgins

  • The Folly of Obama National Security Officials Making Their Own Drone ‘Rules’

  • Attack on Sovereignty

    Those concerned about “The New World Order” speak as if the United States is coming under the control of an outside conspiratorial force. In fact, it is the US that is the New World Order. That is what the American unipolar world, about which China, Russia, and Iran complain, is all about.

  • The International Relations Academy and the Beltway “Foreign Policy Community”—Why the Disconnect?

  • Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

    Congress prepares to slap down prosecutors linked to the suicide of Aaron Swartz

  • Dick Cheney Sounds Off on CIA Torture, Iraq, and More in New Sundance Documentary

    The World According to Dick Cheney, a new documentary by R.J. Cutler and Greg Finton, will make its premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. The film boasts hours of exclusive interviews with the ex–vice president, who remains unapologetic about his legacy—including CIA torture and the Iraq War.

  • The Fishing Expedition into WikiLeaks

    If, as WikiLeaks claims, Aaron Swartz:

    Assisted WikiLeaks
    Communicated with Julian Assange in 2010 and 2011
    May have contributed material to WikiLeaks
    Then it strongly indicates the US government used the grand jury investigation into Aaron’s JSTOR downloads as a premise to investigate WikiLeaks. And they did so, apparently, only after the main grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks had stalled.

  • Our Government’s UnPATRIOTic Investigation of Aaron Swartz

    As I noted back in December 2010, as soon as Eric Holder declared WikiLeaks’ purported crime to be Espionage, it opened up a whole slew of investigative methods associated with the PATRIOT Act. It allowed the government to use National Security Letters to get financial and call records. It allowed them to use Section 215 orders to get “any tangible thing.” And all that’s after FISA Amendments Act, which permits the government to bulk collect “foreign intelligence” on a target overseas–whether or not that foreign target is suspected of Espionage–that includes that target’s communications with Americans. The government may well be using Section 215 to later access the US person communications that have been collected under an FAA order, though that detail is one the government refuses to share with the American people.

  • Last picture of tragic internet guru: Reddit founder’s girlfriend tells of their last hours

    Taren insists Swartz killed himself because he was ‘tired’ of facing up to a merciless justice system that has ‘lost all sense of mercy’ and is driven by ‘vindictiveness’

  • Mega arrives: Hands-on with Kim Dotcom’s new cloud storage site

    Nearly one year after Kim Dotcom’s Megaupload storage site was shuttered on criminal charges filed by the United States government, the big man is back with a new cloud storage service, called simply Mega.

  • Australian Pirate Party Gets Approved and Russians are Denied (Again)

    It’s been an up and down week for Pirates, as official party status has been decided in two countries. In Australia it’s a big G’day to their Pirate Party, while the Russians yet again heard ‘Nyet’ from their Ministry of Justice.

    There is a certain level of symmetry to the world. When one part of the world has day, the other half has night. And more importantly, when one hemisphere gets summer, the other has winter. Right now it’s summer in the southern hemisphere and the sun is certainly shining on Australian Pirates.

  • Aussie Pirate Party Officially Enters Politics

    The Pirate Party officially becomes an Australian political organisation, stating that it “passed all tests by the Australian Electoral Commission”. For those who don’t know, a Pirate Party is, according to Wikipedia, a label adopted by political parties in different countries that supports civil rights, direct democracy and participation, free sharing of knowledge and freedom of information, advocating network neutrality and universal Internet access.

  • Mega hits 1 million users after one day as Kim Dotcom officially launches the service

  • Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ Video Taken Down On Internet Freedom Day

    We’ve been talking a lot today about Internet Freedom Day, and the anniversary of the SOPA/PIPA blackout. The folks at Fight for the Future noticed the proximity of Internet Freedom Day to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and decided an interesting form of celebrating internet freedom would be to share a video of MLK’s famous “I have a dream…” speech. As you may or may not know, Martin Luther King Jr.’s heirs have been ridiculously aggressive in claiming copyright over every aspect of anything related to MLK — and they seek large sums of money from people for doing things like quoting him. When the MLK Memorial was recently built in Washington DC, the family was able to get nearly $800,000 just to use his words and likeness.

  • Law Professor James Grimmelmann Explains How He Probably Violated The Same Laws As Aaron Swartz

    We’ve been discussing the ridiculousness of the prosecution against Aaron Swartz, including the fact that if a federal prosecutor decides to take you down, it’s not at all difficult to find something they can try to pin on you, especially when it comes to “computer” crimes. Law professor James Grimmelmann explains how it’s quite possible that prosecutors could go after him under the same laws as it went after Swartz. He notes that he used to run the (excellent) blog LawMeme (which we used to link to frequently). After it died, he wanted to preserve many of the articles, and so he wrote a script to pull the articles off of the Internet Archive.

  • Toward a Revolutionary Transformation of Society

  • isoHunt Turns 10 Years Old, Keeps on Fighting Copyright Cartels

    IsoHunt, one of the oldest BitTorrent sites on the Internet, turns 10 years old today. The site has been fighting Hollywood in court for more than seven years but has not backed down. IsoHunt founder Gary Fung is determined to protect and facilitate people’s right to share culture legitimately. “One would think the people of the Internet are losing to the copyright cartels, but I think different,” he says.

  • In memory of Aaron Swartz: Stealing is not stealing

    If Swartz had knocked over a bookstore with the intent of depositing the books in a library, he’d have received a mental health evaluation and been threatened with less time. Moreover, if he was caught in the act of knocking over the bookstore, he’d be guilty of an attempted crime and face even lesser penalties. But for some reason, cyber crime is considered deadly serious. He was facing 35 years. You could murder someone and get less time.

  • After Aaron Swartz

    Brilliant young hackers, striving to build tools to change the world, are killing themselves. Just last week: Aaron Swartz, co-founder of Reddit and fierce open access activist, took his life at 26. There have been other high-profile suicides in the tech world in recent years: Ilya Zhitomirskiy, co-founder of the distributed social network Diaspora, dead at 22. Len Sassaman, a highly-regarded cypherpunk who believed in cryptography and privacy as tools of freedom, dead at 31. Dan Haubert, co-founder of the Y-Combinator funded startup Ticketstumbler, dead at 25. If these young men were like the 100 people who kill themselves in this country every day, the biggest factor contributing to their deaths was likely under-treated depression.

  • Aaron Swartz’s Father: MIT Put ‘Institutional Concerns Ahead Of Compassion’

  • Fighting Back Against The DOJ

  • The Impact of “Aaron’s Law” on Aaron Swartz’s Case

  • The pushback against Aaron Swartz misses the point

  • Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”

  • A Moment of Silence for Aaron Swartz