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01.10.16

Links 10/1/2016: New Tails, GNOME Airplane/WiFi Hot Key

Posted in News Roundup at 5:18 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open source makes Big Data analytics software appealing to SMEs

    Big Data Analytics software revenues will experience strong growth, doubling its current global 2015 revenue of $36.20 billion (US Dollars) to $73.77 billion by 2021 and reaching $81 billion by 2022, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12% in the next seven years, according to Strategy Analytics IoT Strategies report “Big Data Analytics: The Internet of Things (IoT) Differentiator.”

    Strategy Analytics says that much of Big Data Analytics software will be open source which is less expensive than proprietary software. It will also have the ability to run on commodity hardware, which OEM vendors are betting will help broaden its appeal to small and midsize (SMBs) and midsize enterprises (SMEs).

  • Events

    • Li-f-e at BITA Show 2016

      BITA IT Show, the biggest IT exhibition in western India is coming to town on 24-26 January, We will be there promoting Li-f-e. If you are in this part of the world, drop in to check it out.

  • CMS

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GCC 6 Will Warn You About Misleading Code Indentations

      As reminded this weekend by Red Hat developer Mark Wielaard, GCC 6 will warn you about misleading code indentations.

      Among the numerous GCC 6 features to have been built up over the past year was the new -Wmisleading-indentation warning. This warning will notify you when it appears there is code that wasn’t indented properly and so may not match the intended logic of the developer.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Yahoo planning 10% layoffs as early as this month, report says [Ed: Microsoft killed Yahoo]

    Yahoo plans to lay off 10 percent of its workforce as early as this month.

    The reorganization would eliminate 1,000 positions at the troubled company, according to Business Insider, citing sources close to the situation. Cuts are expected across the board, but will hit Yahoo’s media business, European operations and platforms-technology group harder than the rest of the company.

    “A team is working on it and they want to do it this quarter,” a source told Business Insider. The company has not commented on the report.

  • Super Thursday: what do the polls say about Britain’s bumper election day in May?

    Although we don’t yet know the date of the EU referendum, it is likely to be in 2016, and we already have had a great amount of polling for it. An average of EU referendum polls in December 2015 put the ‘Remain’ camp on 45.1%, the ‘Leave’ camp on 39.1% and ‘Don’t Knows’ on 15.4%. Excluding don’t knows, that’s a Remain-Leave split of 54%-46%. This lead is smaller than it was at other points in 2015, however; in June, the Remain campaign’s lead was 14 points. It’s now 6. In June, YouGov showed Remain leading by a 54-46 margin; they now show Leave leading by 51-49.

  • Twitter goes beyond 140 characters and I still hate it

    There have been a ton of reports in the media that Twitter developers are working on the ability of users to tweet longer messages that go far beyond the current 140 character limit. The company may even go as far as allowing a 10,000 character limit for tweets.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • 8 Signs Americans Are Moving Towards a Healthier, Saner Diet

      One of 2015’s food trends, in fact, was a craze for healthy maize. Organic, GMO-free corn products like Kiddylicious Sweetcorn Rice Rounds, Off the Cob Sweet Corn Tortilla Chips, Pipsnacks Popcorn and Pop Art Snacks Tandoori Yogurt Popcorn tantalized health-conscious taste buds at the 61st Annual Summer Fancy Food Show last summer in New York City.

    • Boozing is unsafe at ‘any level’, thunders chief UK.gov quack

      The government’s chief advisor on health ignored more than 80 studies to produce her new Puritanical guidelines on booze – which asks Britons to forego their Friday drink.

      Civil servant Dame Sally Davies has drawn up the lowest recommendations in the West: there is no “safe drinking level”, her team declared.

      The question is what justification was used to get there. The answer isn’t pretty for “evidence based” policy.

      Repeated studies have shown that alcohol in moderation prolongs life: it reduces the risk of heart disease and strokes. In fact the benefits of alcohol in preventing strokes and heart disease are far clearer than the negatives of drinking.

    • It’s Not Just Shkreli: Another Pharma Giant Hikes Drug Prices

      Former pharma CEO Martin Shkreli, widely reviled for dramatically hiking the price of a life-saving drug used by HIV and cancer patients, is in good company.

      Starting at the beginning of 2016, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. quietly jacked up the U.S. prices of over 100 of its drugs, some by nearly a fifth.

      Reuters reported the findings on Friday, citing statistics from the information services company Wolters Kluwer that were included in a research note from by UBS Securities.

      “UBS said Pfizer increased prices by 20 percent for anticonvulsant Dilantin, hormone therapy Menest, angina drug Nitrostat, Tykosyn for irregular heartbeat, and antibiotic Tygacil,” Reuters noted.

      “The analyst report said U.S. prices were raised on a total of 105 Pfizer drugs,” the outlet continued. “No price reductions were reported.”

      Pfizer’s drug hike is consistent with broad industry trends.

    • Could Getting Rid Of Helmets Actually Make Football Safer?

      These days — thanks to mounting scientific research and the Hollywood movie Concussion — the public is much more aware of the fact that playing football can damage your brain. So now the question is: What, if anything, can be done to make the most popular sport in America safer?

      Recent research suggests the answer to that question might be counter-intuitive: getting players to take off their helmets.

      Researchers at the University of New Hampshire found that regular helmetless-tackling drills reduced the number of overall head impacts suffered by the participating players by 28 percent. This reduction was the result of removing helmets only for five minutes of drills after a few select practices — in this case, twice a week during the three-week preseason and once a week during the regular season.

      [...]

      “In football there are so many head impacts because their heads are protected,” Swartz told ThinkProgress. “The helmets, while they do serve a function, also introduce a false sense of security.”

  • Security

    • 602 Gbps DDoS Attack On BBC Proves That 2016 Isn’t Going To Be Any Different

      On New Year’s eve, the BBC website and iPlayer service went down due to a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. The attack peaked up to 602 Gbps, according to the claims made by the New World Hacking group, who took the responsibility of the attack. In another recent attack, the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s main campaign website was also targeted by the same group.

    • Fatally weak MD5 function torpedoes crypto protections in HTTPS and IPSEC

      If you thought MD5 was banished from HTTPS encryption, you’d be wrong. It turns out the fatally weak cryptographic hash function, along with its only slightly stronger SHA1 cousin, are still widely used in the transport layer security protocol that underpins HTTPS. Now, researchers have devised a series of attacks that exploit the weaknesses to break or degrade key protections provided not only by HTTPS but also other encryption protocols, including Internet Protocol Security and secure shell.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • North Korea: How Many Wake-Up Calls Will It Take?

      As the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have repeatedly warned, “We must abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us.” This will require good faith negotiations to end the nuclear arms race and achieve nuclear zero. And these negotiations must be convened and led by the US and Russia, the two most powerful nuclear-armed countries in the world.

    • Defense Industry Revenue Forecast Gushes Over Global Turmoil

      The global aerospace and defense industry is out of its doldrums. According to a new report by the accounting firm Deloitte, “the resurgence of global security threats” promises a lucrative “rebound” in defense spending.

      The report alerts investors that “revenue growth” is “expected to take a positive turn” due to the terrorism and war in the Middle East and the tensions in Eastern Europe and the South China Sea.

    • ‘I went to join Isis in Syria, taking my four-year-old. It was a journey into hell’

      Sophie Kasiki stared at the photograph of a young English-speaking boy in a camouflage uniform and black bandana covered in Arabic calling for unbelievers to be killed in the latest Islamic State propaganda.

      Her eyes welled and she swallowed hard. “That could have been my son,” she said, her firm voice wavering. “That’s hard for me to say and makes me want to cry. I would have killed us both rather than let him become a killer, rather than let him fall into the claws of those monsters.”

    • U.S. Dropped 23,144 Bombs on Muslim-Majority Countries in 2015

      Council of Foreign Relations resident skeptic Micah Zenko recently tallied up how many bombs the United States has dropped on other countries and the results are as depressing as one would think. Zenko figured that since Jan. 1, 2015, the U.S. has dropped around 23,144 bombs on Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, all countries that are majority Muslim.

    • Latin America Has to Fight and Win!

      Indigenous people of Bolivia are proudly in possession of their own land.

      Venezuela has been inspiring the entire Latin America and the world by its internationalism and determined struggle against Western imperialism.

      Chile, step by small step, has been dismantling the grotesque legacy of Pinochet’s dictatorship, moving firmly towards socialism.

    • Though GOP Blames Obama, North Korea Developed Its Nuclear Program Under Republicans

      Despite claims to the contrary, strong stances have not always worked in the past against North Korea. Ronald Reagan was in office in 1986 when plutonium was first produced in a North Korean reactor. They continued their program under President George H.W. Bush, producing enough plutonium to make 1-2 bombs.

      During Bill Clinton’s presidency, North Korea froze its nuclear production, though it continued testing missiles until deterred by American pressure.

      In 2002, President George W. Bush took a strong stance against North Korea by including them in the “Axis of Evil” with Iran and Iraq. A year later, Pyongyang restarted their reactor and by 2005 produced another 15 kg of weapons grade plutonium. In 2006, North Korea is believed to have had between 4 and 13 nuclear bombs and tested a nuclear weapon for the first time.

    • Escalating Cold War, US Flies B-52 Bomber Over South Korea

      The U.S. military flew a B-52 bomber over South Korea on Sunday, in a Cold War-style show of force that was met with concern by human rights campaigners.

      American forces made the gesture amid climbing tensions following North Korea’s widely-disputed claim that it detonated a hydrogen bomb test on Wednesday.

    • Deaths Reported as MSF-Linked Hospital Bombed in Yemen

      A Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)-supported hospital in northern Yemen was bombed Sunday morning, killing at least four people and wounding eleven—marking the third attack in as many months against a facility associated with the medical charity.

      MSF said in a statement that it “cannot confirm the origin of the attack” on the Shiara Hospital, which is located in the Razeh district. But the organization noted that “planes were seen flying over the facility at the time.”

    • Russian Strike on al-Qaeda Lair kills 51 at Prison, as US hypocritically slams Moscow

      The Russian air war against al-Qaeda in Syria (the Nusra Front or the Support Front) took a tragic turn on Saturday when a missile hit a downtown government building complex and prison in Maarat al-Numan. It left some 51 or more dead and 70 wounded. The Russians also bombed nearby towns of Saraqib and Khan Shikhun.

      Presumably the inmates in a prison run by al-Qaeda were a mixture of other radicals (perhaps Daesh [ISIL, ISIS] and liberals of the former Free Syrian Army. Whether what we would consider criminals were in the prison I don’t know. Al-Qaeda runs its territory in Syria in a Taliban-like way, with morals police and social regimentation. So some prisoners could just be people who didn’t go along with the al-Qaeda state practices. Alarabiya is reporting that some of those killed or wounded were in the downtown market adjacent to the government buildings. Russia needs to be more careful or it will end up simply alienating all the ordinary Sunnis in Syria with these blunt tactics. Locals are demanding that Russia be charged by the international community with war crimes.

    • The Exultation of Lethal Violence in American Culture

      Up to now Obama has shed no public tears for the victims of police violence, whether black, Hispanic, white, or any other. Moreover, when others have championed the right of the victims of police violence to justice, they have come under sustained attacked from the right wing media establishment and the powerful police unions. Consider how the filmmaker Quentin Tarantino was threatened with a nationwide boycott of his movies by police unions across the States after he attended a Black Lives Matter march and rally in New York towards the end of last year.

    • Neoliberalism Raises Its Ugly Head in South America: As Washington Targets Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina

      Politically, the neoliberal vision will mean an overturning and restructuring of the current Supreme Court, possible changes to the existing Constitution, and attempts to remove the duly-elected president from office before his term by various means. Apart from plans to stack the judiciary, as in Argentina, Venezuela’s new business controlled National Assembly will likely follow their reactionary class compatriots in Brazil, and move to impeach Venezuela president, Maduro, and dismantle his popular government – just as they are attempting the same in Brazil with that country’s also recently re-elected president, Rousseff.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • ‘Huge Ovation’: Citing #ExxonKnew, Vermont Governor Calls for Fossil Fuel Divestment

      ‘Owning ExxonMobil stock is not a business Vermont should be in,’ declared Gov. Peter Shumlin during State of the State address

    • After At Least 2,300 Home Evacuations, Big Methane Leak Causes State Of Emergency

      The Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles is officially in a state of emergency, according to a declaration by California Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday. The area has been suffering from the effects of a methane gas leak at the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility since late October. At least 2,300 homes have been evacuated, with many more requests pending.

      Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas), which owns and operates the storage facility, has been constructing a relief well to stop the leak, which the company was unable to plug in the days and weeks immediately following the breach. The escaping methane has been treated with an odorant and is allegedly causing headaches, nausea, rashes, and other health problems among local residents. The company anticipates completing the relief well by March 15.

    • Oil Price Super-Cycle Collapse: Party Like It’s 1998?
    • Weather extremes slash cereal yields

      Climate change may have already begun to take its toll of agriculture. New research suggests that drought and extreme heat in the last 50 years have reduced cereal production by up to 10%. And, for once, developed nations may have sustained greater losses than developing nations.

      Researchers have been warning for years that global warming as a consequence of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – in turn, a pay-off from increased fossil fuel combustion – will result in a greater frequency or intensity in extremes of weather.

    • Heat Waves And Drought Are Already Having A Devastating Impact On Important Crops

      For all the wrong reasons, the summer of 2012 was a historic one for the American Midwest. Plagued by the worst drought the region had seen in decades, as well as weeks of high temperatures, one of the country’s most productive agricultural regions faced massive shortages in its annual corn crop, driving corn prices to a record high.

    • In Age of Extreme Weather, Industrial Farming Threatens Us All

      The study is the latest evidence of the impacts of climate change, coming just a month after global leaders gathered in Paris to finalize an agreement aimed at curbing greenhouse gases.

      Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to push for maligned deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which critics have called a “giveaway to big agribusiness and food companies that want to use trade deals to attack sensible food safety rules, weaken the inspection of imported food and block efforts to strengthen U.S. food safety standards.”

      Over the past 50 years, 75 percent of the world’s biodiversity, soil, and water have been destroyed through the proliferation of mass food production and agrochemicals like pesticides and other synthetics, among other measures.

    • Environmental Damage Is Bad Enough To Create A New Geologic Period

      For over a decade, both climate activists and scientists have used one word to describe the mass-level changes humans are causing on Earth: Anthropocene. But whether or not this word actually describes a real, measurable geologic time period has been the source of major scientific debate.

      Now, a new study is adding fuel to that debate, finding that human influence on the environment changed the planet so dramatically that the world recently moved into a new geological epoch. In other words, there’s scientific proof that we’re living in the Anthropocene, the study’s researchers say.

    • Why James Hansen Is Wrong About Nuclear Power

      Those interested in what new nuclear power can and cannot plausibly contribute to stopping global warming should start with the most objective, independent, and comprehensive analysis done in recent years — the 2015 “Technology Roadmap” from the IEA and NEA. Those agencies’ bottom is line is that, if the industry gets its act together — a big IF, given recent history — new nuclear power can play an important but limited role. This just happens to be what I’ve been arguing consistently on Climate Progress for a long, long time.

      [...]

      A key reason new reactors are inherently so expensive is that they must be designed to survive almost any imaginable risk, including major disasters and human error. Even the most unlikely threats must be planned for and eliminated when the possible result of a disaster is the poisoning of thousands of people, the long-term contamination of large areas of land, and $100 billion in damages.

  • Finance

    • Update to BLS December Payroll Jobs Report: It is even worse than I reported — Paul Craig Roberts

      Good middle class jobs are continuing to decline. The new jobs are jobs that pay considerably less and often are part-time jobs devoid of benefits. Moreover, the new jobs are going to people outside the prime working age. The unavoidable conclusion is that for the majority of Americans, economic prospects are declining.

    • The CARD Act Has Saved Us $12 Billion Per Year

      Who do credit card companies make the most money from? Answer: the poor, by far, because they rack up the highest fees and the highest interest expense. Card issuers also make some money on the rich, because they buy a lot of stuff. This generates interchange fees (usually 2-3 percent of the amount charged) that exceed the cost the reward points they dole out to attract these customers.

    • US stocks suffer their worst first week of the year since records began

      Standard & Poor’s 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 6% and 6.2%, respectively, in the biggest ever fall for the first five days of January

    • Less Work, More Leisure

      The next Administration should make reducing work time a major focus. In addition to mandated paid sick days and paid family leave — proposals that have received some welcome attention thus far on the presidential campaign trail — policymakers should go much further and enact measures aimed at shortening workweeks and work years. Reducing our workweek and work years will lead to a whole host of benefits, including reduced stress and higher levels of employment.The United States has become an outlier among wealthy countries in having had little reduction in the length of the average work year since 1980. According to the OECD, between 1980 and 2013, the number of hours in an average work year fell by 7.6 percent in Belgium, by 19.1 percent in France, and by 6.5 percent in Canada. By comparison, it declined by just 1.4 percent in the United States. The average worker puts in 26 percent more hours a year in the United States than do workers in the Netherlands and 31 percent more hours than workers in Germany, a difference of more than 400 hours a year.

      [...]

      Reducing the workweek can also have another benefit: It will bring us to full employment faster.

    • Ben Carson Says He Wants To Help Working Families, Hands Massive Tax Break To The Wealthiest Instead

      On Monday, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson released his tax plan, the center of which is a flat tax of 14.9 percent.

      Rather than different tax brackets for different income levels and categories, the flat tax levies the same rate on all personal and business income, although Carson’s 14.9 percent rate would only apply to people who have incomes above 150 percent of the poverty level, or $36,375 for a family of four. Those who make less would have to make a small tax payment: “Even those who earn little income will pay taxes, no matter how small their contribution might be,” Carson says in his plan. Currently, 46 percent of Americans don’t have to pay federal income taxes because their incomes are too low.

    • Why ‘Going Negative’ on Bernie Sanders is a Very Dangerous Move

      Going negative against Bernard Sanders is a bad career move. Every time a political opponent has attacked Sanders, it has served only to strengthen him. We have come to accept attack ads as standard fare in presidential politics. When threatened, Hillary Clinton sharpens her knives and airs ads to eviscerate opponents, while Donald Trump hurls noisy epithets daily. They might want to choose another way to weaken Sanders, because direct, personal attacks tend to backfire.

      In 1980, when Sanders ran for Burlington mayor the first time, he started out lower than a long shot, a newcomer running against an entrenched Democratic machine. How could a 39-year-old Jewish guy from Brooklyn attract voters in a small town dominated by native French Canadians and Irishmen?

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • CNN’s Van Jones Calls Out Donald Trump For Inspiring Support From White Supremacists

      Jones: “My Deep Concern Is That Donald Trump Is Beginning To Legitimate Some Of The Dark Things That Have Been In Our Country For A Long Time”

    • White Nationalist PAC Blankets Iowa With Robocalls For Trump

      Some registered voters in Iowa received robocalls Saturday from a white nationalist super PAC that urged them to support Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

      “I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America,” Jared Taylor said on the robocall, paid for by the American National Super PAC. “We don’t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.”

    • 5 European Leaders Who Are Kindred Spirits With Donald Trump

      The Donald has already professed his admiration for Vladimir Putin. He’d get along famously with Marine Le Pen.

    • The Frontline of Hasbara is on PBS

      The film serves two purposes. Besides the aforementioned hasbara effect, it also tries to salvage what it can of the Obama legacy and create a post facto explanation for why this Presidency has been an almost complete disaster. In that regard, it shapes recent history into a bizarre narrative, failing to mention the words “Cast Lead” or “Protective Edge” while trying to float the preposterous idea that Obama tried to be ahead of history and support the Arab Spring. My own view, while perhaps incorrect, is that he instead succeeded in subverting the genuine democratic uprisings across the region to serve his own ends. When things in Egypt became far too complicated by having a Muslim Brotherhood government across the Sinai from besieged Gaza, a coup was initiated and al-Sisi installed.

    • Jim Hightower: The Corporate Media Is Basically Pretending Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Exist

      The Tyndall Report, a non-partisan media monitoring firm that has been tracking the nightly news broadcasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC, found that Trump is tromp, tromp, tromping over the airtime of everyone else.

      From last January through November, these dominant flagship news shows devoted 234 minutes of prime-time coverage to the incessant chirping of the yellow-crested birdbrain, with no other contender getting even a fourth of that.

    • Will Trump “Feel the Bern” at Campaign Stop in Sanders’ Hometown?

      Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is on Bernie Sanders’ turf of Burlington, Vermont—where the U.S. senator served as mayor for eight years—for a rally on Thursday night that has rankled police and the mayor while galvanizing the progressive spirit of the democratic socialist’s home base supporters.

    • How Corporate Political Spending Will Stay Secret in Wisconsin

      Wisconsin Republicans are insisting that they didn’t intend to allow corporate political donations to remain secret under the recent overhaul of the state’s campaign finance laws.

      But secrecy, in fact, has become the distinguishing characteristic of Wisconsin elections. And that is by design.

      Sweeping campaign finance changes signed into law by Governor Scott Walker last month allowed corporations, for the first time, to donate up to $12,000 directly to “segregated funds” created by political parties and legislative leaders.

  • Censorship

    • As Hollywood’s International Market Grows, Will Foreign Censors End Up Controlling U.S. Content?
    • Associated Press Self-Censors Anniversary Charlie Hebdo Cover

      Once you decide not to show an image for fear of offending people, the number of things people say they find offensive, and therefore worthy of silencing, may well multiply.

      So it goes today. On the cover of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo this week, the anniversary of the terrorist slaughter that killed much of its staff in Paris, you will not find any images of Mohammad. The image is a figure of God—the Judeo-Christian visualization of him—with an assault weapon strapped to his back. The text on it, translated from French, says “One year on: The killer is still at large.”

      Even though this image does not include Mohammad, the Associated Press, nevertheless, has decided not to pass along images of the cover of the issue to its many, many subscribing media outlets. There actually were some images available from AP content providers earlier, but they’ve been yanked.

    • ‘Cover-up’ over Cologne sex assaults blamed on migration sensitivities

      Public anger is growing in Germany over a series of sexual assaults against women in the centre of Cologne on New Year’s Eve, amid suggestions that authorities were slow to act due to political sensitivity surrounding the perpetrators’ ethnicities.

      Politicians and police were facing mounting questions on Wednesday over how a crowd of some 1,000 men “of North African or Arab appearance” was able to mass around the city’s main train station on New Year’s Eve, with roving gangs allegedly assaulting dozens of women with impunity.

    • German broadcaster sorry for slow reporting on mob assaults

      German public broadcaster ZDF has apologised for delays in reporting on a wave of sexual assaults blamed on men of Arab appearance amid accusations Wednesday of media self-censorship of the inflammatory issue.

      The rash of attacks and thefts in a New Year’s Eve crowd in the western city of Cologne was only widely covered by national media early this week, after police had initially reported no major incidents.

      News editors of ZDF’s flagship “heute” (today) evening news programme apologised on social media for not reporting on the incidents at least in its Monday evening bulletin, four days after the attacks.

    • The Long Silence—The Cologne Sex Attacks And The German Media.

      It took four days for the German Mainstream Media to report New Year’s Eve mass sex assaults on women by up to 1000 heavily intoxicated immigrants of “Arab or North African origin “, as the German police describe the still-unapprehended perpetrators—now. The internet and social media alone forced the MSM’s hand. And the German political class has plans for that.

    • COLOGNE: Google, Facebook and Twitter Yield to German Govt Demand to Censor Anti-Migrant ‘Hate Speech’
    • Germany cracks down on speech by citizens enraged over its immigration policy
    • Germany cracks down on free speech when it comes to Muslim immigrants
    • Germany springs to action over hate speech against migrants

      Donald Trump may be testing the boundaries of tolerance on the U.S. campaign trail. But here in Germany, the government is effectively enforcing civility, taking aim at a surge of hate speech against refugees and Muslims.

    • Jews and Arabs Kiss in Protest against Banning of Novel

      Dorit Rabinyan’s novel Borderlife treats a love affair in New York between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man, which ends when they return to their respective homes. The novel began being assigned by those inveterate social radicals, the High School Teachers, in Israel. But then senior officials of the ministry of education banned the book. Later they said it wasn’t banned and could be taught, but would not form part of any examination. (In education systems with year-end examinations, elective material that cannot appear on the exam is usually not much taught).

    • What the Media Can Learn From Bill Maher: 1 Year After Hebdo Attack, Satirists Still Take Risks Media Won’t

      This week marks the one-year anniversary of the attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that killed 12 people, including eight of the magazine’s staff. In typical Hebdo form, the magazine has chosen to mark the event with a provocative cover that features a bearded man representing God with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, accompanied by the text: “One year later: the assassin is still out there.” Their point? Little has changed.

      [...]

      And yet, one year after some of their cartoonists were murdered for daring to draw the Prophet, they are still under fire for being intolerant of religion. The obsessive critique reveals two key issues: First, despite being attacked by terrorists, the Hebdo artists are still criticized for their worldviews more than the terrorists themselves; and second, leftist politics is caught in a tough bind when it comes to openly debating religion and conflict.

    • Canadian Prof Yanked From Teaching Intro Psych Class For Insisting on Foul Language

      Via Inside Higher Ed comes one of the weirder stories about college I’ve read in a while.

      For years, Michael Persinger has taught an introductory psychology class at Canada’s Laurentian University. Before his first lecture, he has students sign a waiver that they won’t freak out over the ribald and offensive language he uses.

    • Our generation will take care of censorship and ensure there is no restriction on art: Anshuman Jha
    • Tweets About Israel Land New Jersey Student in Principal’s Office

      A New Jersey high school student found herself in a social media storm on Wednesday after she live-tweeted and apparently secretly recorded a trip to her principal’s office.

      She said administrators warned her that her comments about Israel and a fellow student on Twitter might have violated a state law against bullying.

      The student, Bethany Koval, a 16-year-old Israeli Jew, said she had been reprimanded by administrators at Fair Lawn High School in Bergen County for a tweet that contained a string of expletives directed at Israel and expressed happiness that a pro-Israel classmate had unfollowed her Twitter account.

      New Jersey has some of the toughest anti-bullying laws in the nation. After the suicide of a Rutgers University freshman, Tyler Clementi, in 2010, it passed the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, a far-reaching law with stiff penalties for educators who do not sufficiently respond to complaints of harassment or intimidation.

  • Privacy

    • Juniper Networks NSA Hack: Tech Company Stops Use Of Suspected Eavesdropping Code
    • Networking Giant Pulls NSA-Linked Code Exploited by Hackers
    • Juniper drops NSA-developed code following new backdoor revelations

      The networking company said in a blog post published Friday that it will ship product releases in the next six months that remove the Dual_EC_DRBG random number generator from NetScreen firewalls. Security researchers have known since 2007 that it contains a weakness that gives knowledgeable adversaries the ability to decrypt encrypted communications that rely on the function. Documents provided by former NSA subcontractor Edward Snowden showed the weakness could be exploited by the US spy agency, The New York Times reported in 2013.

    • You say advertising, I say block that malware

      The real reason online advertising is doomed and adblockers thrive? Its malware epidemic is unacknowledged, and out of control.

      The Forbes 30 Under 30 list came out this week and it featured a prominent security researcher. Other researchers were pleased to see one of their own getting positive attention, and visited the site in droves to view the list.

      On arrival, like a growing number of websites, Forbes asked readers to turn off ad blockers in order to view the article. After doing so, visitors were immediately served with pop-under malware, primed to infect their computers, and likely silently steal passwords, personal data and banking information. Or, as is popular worldwide with these malware “exploit kits,” lock up their hard drives in exchange for Bitcoin ransom.

      One researcher commented on Twitter that the situation was “ironic” — and while it’s certainly another variant of hackenfreude, ironic isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe what happened.

    • Juniper Plans to Repatch its Firewall to Root out Source of Flaw
    • Juniper will repatch its Netscreen operating system
    • What South Carolinians Think About Ryan’s Poverty Forum

      Billed as an opportunity for conservatives to outline their major plans on tackling poverty, the forum comes after months of heightened rhetoric on poverty and inequality—including a poverty tour by then-Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. These events are part of a concerted effort by conservative lawmakers and the media to paint the War on Poverty as a failure, even though the safety net reduced the poverty rate by more than half and lifted 48 million people above the poverty line in 2012.

    • Dismantling Nehru-Gandhi Film Censorship Regime

      The government had on January 1 constituted the panel to look into the revamp of the Censor Board functioning which has been mired in controversies in the recent past. The panel includes filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, adman Piyush Pandey and film critic Bhawana Somaaya. National Film Development Council MD Nina Lath Gupta and Joint Secretary (Films) Sanjay Murthy are also part of the panel.

    • The risks — and benefits — of letting algorithms judge us

      China is considering a new “social credit” system, designed to rate everyone’s trustworthiness. Many fear that it will become a tool of social control — but in reality it has a lot in common with the algorithms and systems that score and classify us all every day.

      Human judgment is being replaced by automatic algorithms, and that brings with it both enormous benefits and risks. The technology is enabling a new form of social control, sometimes deliberately and sometimes as a side effect. And as the Internet of Things ushers in an era of more sensors and more data — and more algorithms — we need to ensure that we reap the benefits while avoiding the harms.

    • FBI changes animal cruelty data collection practices

      As of Friday, Jan. 1, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) decision to begin collecting data on cases of animal cruelty as a Group A offense in the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) went into effect.

    • Facebook accused of crashing Android app to test users’ loyalty

      Facebook deliberately crashed its Android app for weeks at a time in a bid to test its users’ dedication to the social network, it has been reported.

    • New Zealand rules police raid on journalist Nicky Hager was illegal

      In a huge victory for press freedom, New Zealand’s High Court has ruled decisively in favor of independent journalist Nicky Hager in his case against the New Zealand government for raiding his house and seizing his family’s possessions in 2014.

      The court’s decision, which was released on December 17, 2015 just before the holidays, is not only a vindication for Hager and his work, but an important win for all journalists and whistleblowers in New Zealand.

    • Oregon Law Curbing Warrantless Collection of Cellphone Data Now in Effect

      On Jan.1, a new law prohibiting police from obtaining information from electronic devices without a warrant in most cases went into effect. The new law will not only protect privacy in Oregon, but will also address a practical effect of federal spying.

      Sen. Chip Shields (D-Portland), Rep. Jennifer Williamson (D-Portland), Sen. Tim Knopp (R – Bend) and Rep. John Huffman (R-The Dalles) introduced Senate Bill 641 (SB641) last February. The bill prohibits state and local law enforcement officers from using “forensic imaging” to obtain information contained in a portable electronic device except with a warrant, or by consent. “Forensic imaging” means “using an electronic device to download or transfer raw data from a portable electronic device onto another medium of digital storage,” but does not include photographing or transcribing information “observable from the portable electronic device by normal unaided human senses.”

    • Parents are worried about the new WiFi-connected Barbie, but should they be?

      Before Mattel’s new WiFi-connected, artificially-intelligent toy, Hello Barbie, had even made it onto store shelves, she was already generating terrifying news stories.

      “Your child’s talking Barbie doll may be eavesdropping on all of your private conversations,” claimed the New York Daily News. “Creepy,” wrote the Washington Post. “She’s not just creepy. She threatens children’s security,” added the Daily Beast. The New York Times warned that “synthetic friendship could supplant [kids’] real ones.”

    • ​Attorney for Edward Snowden to lead University of Hawaii law seminar

      Ben Wizner, a national ACLU attorney and head lawyer for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, will co-teach a seminar at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law this month.

      Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, will teach the week-long “Liberty and Security in the Age of Terrorism” seminar along with retired four-star Army Gen. David Bramlett.

    • ‘Secret expansion’: GCHQ may be employing ‘thousands more’ than it officially admits

      David Davis, a Conservative Party MP, told the Times that secrecy surrounding GCHQ’s numerical strength was “a bad opening chapter to this new era of transparency.”

      A spokesperson for GCHQ declined to give exact numbers of those employed in the agency and its partners.

      “The total number of people working for or with GCHQ constantly fluctuates due to the complex challenges we face and the threats we aim to counter,” the spokesperson told IBTimes UK, adding: “In a complex organization like GCHQ, as you would expect, our core mission is supported by a range of partners including industry and the military.”

      GCHQ employed 5,683 full-time staff in August 2014, according to official figures from the UK parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. MI5 had 3,926 and MI6 2,430 employees.

    • Targeted data collection could have prevented Paris terrorist attacks

      A more targeted approach to data collection could have helped French authorities prevent the Paris attacks last year, according to former NSA technical director William Binney.

      Binney told a parliamentary committee evaluating the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, however, that bulk data collection could leave analysts with too much information to carry out effective assessments.

    • Will proposed surveillance powers weaken security for UK startups?

      Instead, much of the Investigatory Powers Bill’s focus is on facilitating the practice of mass surveillance.

    • Germany restarts joint intelligence surveillance with US
    • Germany resumes domestic surveillance in collaboration with the NSA
    • German spies revive internet snooping work with US: reports
    • NSA whistleblower: ‘UK mass surveillance may cost lives’
    • ‘Snooper’s charter’ will cost British lives, MPs are warned

      He told MPs that “Britain should not go further down this road and risk making the same mistakes as my country did, or they will end up perpetuating the loss of life”.

    • The UK’s new snooping law changes are all about money, says ex-NSA tech chief

      Asked why he thinks the UK government is pressing for this kind of approach, Binney’s answer is simple: money.

      [...]

      He points to the $3.8 billion Trailblazer program to capture internet communications as evidence of this and said that people were moving freely between working for the NSA and working for a contracted firm.

      “The contractors were lobbying for this… They were trading the security of the people of the United States and the people of the free world for money,” he said.

      When questioned on whether he thought £247 million over 10 years to deploy the powers in the bill would be sufficient, Binney said that this may be enough for retention and storage, but not processing, interrogation or software development.

    • Bill Binney: New UK spying law is going to kill people, ex-NSA technical director and whistleblower warns

      He described as “absolute horses**t” the claims by government lawyers that it wouldn’t be possible to sift through data before it was collected.

    • An NSA whistleblower just told government that mass surveillance doesn’t work

      William Binney, the former technical director of the NSA, today warned a UK parliamentary committee that proposed mass surveillance laws will damage the country’s national security.

    • Ex-NSA Official to Warn UK Lawmakers Against Online Surveillance Bill
    • Mass surveillance and bulk data collection won’t prevent terrorism, warns ex-NSA director William Binney

      “If we did everything through analysis and collection smartly, in a targeted way, we’d give privacy to everybody in the world because you don’t take in their data.”

      Referring to the 9/11 attacks, Binney suggested that targeted surveillance rather than bulk surveillance could have stopped the whole tragedy from happening.

      “All of these people were in knowledge bases already. If they’d taken a targeted approach from the beginning, keeping the data finite, the analysts would have found the threats,” he claimed.

    • Mass-surveillance ‘undermines security’ and failed to stop 9/11 attacks, says ex-NSA officer
    • French intelligence ‘could have prevented Paris attacks’

      The Paris attacks might have been prevented if French intelligence services had targeted their surveillance, he told the committee scrutinising the draft bill on 6 January 2016.

    • Snooper’s charter would be out of date in five years, says defence industry

      Vodafone, the UK telecoms company, said the government’s bill risked “significantly undermining trust” and rejected any move to require them to hand over data passing over their networks from outside the UK,.

      The criticism from the Silicon Valley internet giants is perhaps the most serious for Home Office ministers as it was their rejection of proposed British government requests to require them to hand over their customers’ confidential web data which lay behind the Liberal Democrats’ veto of the last snooper’s charter bill in 2012.

    • NSA Stalwart to Tell Parliament: ‘Bulk Collection Costs Lives’

      Binney is also set to argue that the UK government has misled parliament in claiming that MPs and other sensitive groups would be protected under the bill because there is so much data flowing along the pipe it “isn’t intelligible at the point of inception.”

      “These statements are false,” he will say. “They were made by someone who does not understand the technology.”

    • New UK spying law is going to kill people, ex-NSA technical director and whistleblower Bill Binney warns

      “It is 99 per cent useless,” Mr Binney said in a letter sent to MPs. “Who wants to know everyone who has ever looked at Google or the BBC? We have known for decades that that swamps analysts.”

      He said that strategy had led directly to mistakes that allowed the attacks on 9/11 to go ahead. The US had collected information from the terrorists involved in the attacks, but had not been able to check them because of resources, he claimed.

    • NSA whistleblower William Binney: Bulk data collection costs lives

      For example, Microsoft reported that 82 billion photos had been viewed…

      The revelations should be worrisome, according to Martin Brinkmann, founder of Ghacks.net: “While it is unclear what data is exactly collected, it is clear that the company is collecting information about the use of individual applications and programs on Windows at the very least.”

  • Civil Rights

    • Has principle of “innocent until proven guilty” fallen wayside?

      “Innocent until proven guilty” is a phrase that is often bandied about. From popular cop shows on TV to courtroom dramas on the silver screen, this phrase has been repeated over and over again. While we are all familiar with the words, have we become desensitised to the true significance of those four words?

      It is human nature to pre-judge. In the high-tension environment of a courtroom, it is easy to get emotionally swayed which could in turn, return a verdict that may not end up serving the course of justice. This is why such rigorous steps have been put in place as the judiciary evolved to ensure that this risk is mitigated. Indeed, this is one of the reasons cited for why jury trials were abolished in Singapore. It was thought that laypersons without a holistic knowledge of the law might be easily manipulated by the machinations of a wily lawyer.

      With the advent of the Internet and the rapid evolution of the social media and blogs, which has revolutionalised the spread of information, has the sacrosanct principle of “innocent until proven guilty” fallen to the wayside?

    • The Big Lie in the War Against Drugs

      Since the beginning, the War on Drugs has been about controlling political power–by breaking up Black communities and the dissident left.

    • Judge Mocks Inmate Who Soiled Himself Because Guard Wouldn’t Let Him Go To The Bathroom

      An Ohio judge has elicited chuckles for a poem he wrote to shoot down an inmate’s lawsuit this week. The inmate, Darek Lathan, sued after guards at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient refused to let him go to the bathroom, causing him to have diarrhea in his pants.

      Lathan is serving a 17-month sentence for a vandalism conviction. In his lawsuit seeking $2 million in damages, Lathan said the officer wouldn’t let him get out of line to go to the bathroom, even after he told the guard the prison’s cold showers were making him sick.

    • Muslim Woman Ejected from Trump Rally as Crowd Hurls Epithets

      A Muslim woman wearing a shirt which read “Salam, I come in peace” was forcibly ejected from a Donald Trump rally Friday night as some supporters of the 2016 presidential candidate reportedly hurled Islamophobic epithets at her.

      Rose Hamid, a 56-year-old flight attendant, had attended the rally at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina with a small group of people who wore yellow stars with eight points, a reference to the markers Jews were forced to bear during the Holocaust. The symbols read “Muslim” and “Stop Islamophobia.”

    • WATCH: Trump Supporters Harass Muslim Woman as She Is Kicked out of Rally
    • 12 People Who Made a Difference (and You Can Too!)

      Take a sweeping look at history and you will discover that almost all movements that mattered started with just one or two people—from the fight to abolish slavery, to the creations of the environmental, trade union, consumer protection and civil rights movements. One voice becomes two, and then ten, and then thousands.

    • Everything is a culture war now – even sports. I just want to watch the game

      Everything is a culture war now. It’s everywhere. And it’s impossible to avoid, even in the movies and sports many of us go to in hopes of finding a brief respite from all the yelling we find online and off. Sometimes I just want to watch the game, you know? Maybe flip on the TV and forget for a few hours that Donald Trump could become president of the free world.

    • Unions brace for supreme court case that could be a heavy blow to liberals

      Justices prepare to hear arguments in of case of California teacher and co-plaintiffs who say ‘tyranny’ of unions violates their rights through forced dues

    • Right-Wing Network Puts Anti-Union Case in Samuel Alito’s Lap

      Justice Samuel Alito has been scouring the land looking for a case to make his mark on history.

      Could he find a way to hold a big bank accountable for ripping off millions of consumers? Could he interpret intellectual property law to give more desperately ill people access to essential medicines? Could he hold a chemical company to account for poisoning people and hiding it for decades?

      No. Alito apparently decided to make his mark by helping a massive right-wing funding machine crush wages for teachers, nurses, firefighters, cops and prison guards.

    • What It’s Like To Be Shia Inside The Ardently Sunni Saudi Kingdom

      That population has often been on the receiving end of Saudi Arabian posturing on geopolitical issues, especially as they relate to Iran. While the Kingdom might oppose extremist Sunni militant groups like ISIS, it continues to promote extremist views in favor of Sunni predominance in the Muslim world.

    • Oregon Sheriff Meets Ammon Bundy, Greets Him With Handshake Not Handcuffs

      On Thursday, Harney County, Oregon Sheriff Dave Ward met Ammon Bundy in a remote area near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Bundy has been leading an illegal armed occupation of a federal building for almost a week. But Ward greeted Bundy with a firm handshake instead of handcuffs.

    • The Proof Is In: The US Government Is The Most Complete Criminal Organization In Human History — Paul Craig Roberts

      Unique among the countries on earth, the US government insists that its laws and dictates take precedence over the sovereignty of nations. Washington asserts the power of US courts over foreign nationals and claims extra-territorial jurisdiction of US courts over foreign activities of which Washington or American interest groups disapprove. Perhaps the worst results of Washington’s disregard for the sovereignty of countries is the power Washington has exercised over foreign nationals solely on the basis of terrorism charges devoid of any evidence.

      Consider a few examples. Washington first forced the Swiss government to violate its own banking laws. Then Washington forced Switzerland to repeal its bank secrecy laws. Allegedly, Switzerland is a democracy, but the country’s laws are determined in Washington by people not elected by the Swiss to represent them.

      Consider the “soccer scandal” that Washington concocted, apparently for the purpose of embarrassing Russia. The soccer organization’s home is Switzerland, but this did not stop Washington from sending FBI agents into Switzerland to arrest Swiss citizens. Try to imagine Switzerland sending Swiss federal agents into the US to arrest Americans.

      Consider the $9 billion fine that Washington imposed on a French bank for failure to fully comply with Washington’s sanctions against Iran. This assertion of Washington’s control over a foreign financial institution is even more audaciously illegal in view of the fact that the sanctions Washington imposed on Iran and requires other sovereign countries to obey are themselves strictly illegal. Indeed, in this case we have a case of triple illegality as the sanctions were imposed on the basis of concocted and fabricated charges that were lies.

    • Atlanta Police Stop and Put Gun to Head of Rapper After He Withdraws $200,000 From His Bank

      According to Sam Benson — who goes by the stage name of “Blac Youngsta” — he had just exited a Wells Fargo branch in the upscale community of Buckhead after withdrawing $200,000 in order to buy a new car.

      “I come out the bank, I see the police, I’m walking to my car, I see one of them point to my bag like ‘him,’” explained the rapper. “They come bum-rushing me at the car, put me on the ground, putting guns to my head.”

    • When money matters more than lives: The poisonous cost of austerity in Flint, Michigan

      A few days ago my partner and I were sharing some of our less-pleasant encounters in the New York City subway system. Nothing too outrageous, just the kind of awkward run-ins with mentally unwell people that have long been part of living in this city (and have become harder to avoid as of late). If you live here long enough, you eventually become pretty inured to these moments; but they’re still always a little sad.

      Sometimes, though, they’re not so much sad as they are scary. Far more often than not, people suffering from severe mental health issues are harmless. But that’s not always the case. My partner, for example, recounted that once she accidentally — but very slightly — stepped on a woman’s foot. She apologized, but for the rest of the time my partner was on the train, this woman was screaming at her. My partner knew it wasn’t really about her, of course; but it was still a shitty experience.

    • Judge allowed to sit on sharia court set up by Hebdo protest cleric

      A crown court judge has been allowed to rule on sharia cases, in the first case of its kind.

      District Judge Shamim Qureshi, who sits at Bristol Crown Court, received permission from the Judicial Office to double as “presiding judge” at the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT).

      The MAT was established in 2007 by a hardline cleric, Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, who led an anti-Charlie Hebdo demonstration after 11 of the magazine’s staff were murdered by terrorists.

      Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is due to launch an independent review into sharia courts and councils amid concerns that a “parallel” justice system is developing in Britain. There are particular concerns that the courts are discriminatory towards women.

      Judge Qureshi has overseen MAT, which is based in Nuneaton, Warks, and has four other branches.

    • Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Wants to Keep Arresting Pot Smokers

      Wasserman-Schultz doesn’t explain how giving people criminal records for smoking pot makes them “safer,” and she appears to still subscribe to the discredited gateway theory that if people start with marijuana, they’re going to end up as heroin addicts.

    • Obama’s Legacy is Executive Abuse

      When I got back from my winter vacation, America was still being run by a two-term president who believes it’s his job to impose his notions of morality, safety and decency on everyone, often trying to work around the limits the system places on him. This week, Barack Obama is going to institute new restrictions on Americans unilaterally—expanding background checks, closing supposed “loopholes” and tightening the process for law-abiding gun owners—because Congress “won’t act” and also because he believes it’s the right thing to do. Neither of those is a compelling reason to legislate from the White House.

    • One Day After Obama Announced New Gun Reforms, Scott Walker Threatens Lawsuit

      Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker waited just one day after President Obama announced a package of modest gun control reforms before directing his attorney general to explore challenging the new rule — becoming the first governor to threaten legal action over the regulations.

      Accusing President Obama of “disregarding the constitutional principles of separation of powers and exceeding his authority as chief executive,” Walker said in a statement that the executive order creates “uncertainty and fear of prosecution for law-abiding citizens who wish to exercise their right to sell firearms lawfully. Forthcoming federal rules could also deprive millions of Americans of their Second Amendment rights without any indication of imminent danger.”

    • Will the Canadian government shed light on the no-fly list?

      In 2007, when the Passenger Protection Program (PPP) — copied on the U.S. model — was established in Canada, the Canadian government at the time failed to produce any concrete evidence of the efficiency of such a program. Canada was under a lot of pressure from the U.S. government to have this program and prevent “unwanted” travellers from boarding planes. The problem with this list is that it is shrouded in secrecy. The number of persons listed is not public. It is estimated to be between 500-2,000 persons. The government refused to release the exact number, claiming that this might help the terrorists in their plans to attack or harm us.

    • After Cologne, we can’t let the bigots steal feminism

      In a perverse sort of way, it’s progress. After months of dog-whistle xenophobia, European authorities have finally started to treat migrants as they would treat any other citizen. They have achieved this by choosing not to make a fuss when migrants are accused of raping and assaulting women.

      On New Year’s Eve in Cologne, Germany, hundreds of men, almost all of reportedly ‘Arabic and North African’ appearance and including many asylum seekers, viciously attacked women who were celebrating in the central plaza, robbing and groping and tearing off clothes. At least one rape complaint has been filed. The police and the press were initially slow to react, and the Mayor of Cologne reacted to eventual protests by suggesting that women should adopt a code of conduct in public and keep an ‘arm’s length’ distance between themselves and strange men.

      This is not the first time a European city administration has responded to an outbreak of sexual violence by blaming the women. It is the first time in recent history that the right-wing press has not joined in the condemnation of these wanton strumpets who dare to think they might be able to have a good time without worrying what ‘invitation’ they’re sending to men. Instead, the right wing blames… liberals. Who apparently caused all this by daring to suggest that refugees should be able to come to Europe in safety.

    • Truthdigger of the Week: Fatema Mernissi, a Founder of Islamic Feminism

      In her book “Islam and Democracy,” published in 1992, the feminist thinker also analyzed the role that the first Gulf war had in turning the Arab world against the idea of democracy, a concept many have come to conflate with “violence and religion in the west, as perceived by Arab observers of American broadcasts.”

    • Clinton Renews Criticism Of Sanders Gun Record

      Sanders has indeed expressed a desire to modify the law rather than simply repeal it, in part because he says gun sellers should not be liable for crimes they could not have anticipated when they sold someone a weapon.”If you are a gun shop owner in Vermont and you sell somebody a gun and that person flips out and then kills somebody, I don’t think it’s really fair to hold that person responsible, the gun shop owner,” Sanders said in October.

    • Bundy Militia Standoff Escalates When Another Heavily-Armed Group Arrives to Provide ‘Security’

      The Oregonian reports that the Pacific Patriot Network has sent armed “security” — some of whom are carrying semi-automatic rifles — to the standoff on Saturday. But an attorney mediating the dispute between Ammon Bundy and federal officials said Bundy wants them to leave.

      “We don’t need that. We don’t want it and we’re asking you to leave,” Todd MacFarlane, an attorney mediating the dispute on behalf of the Bundys, told reporters Saturday.

      In a press conference Saturday morning, a representative from the Bundy group said they are looking to de-escalate the situation.

      Locals in the area of the standoff have, in turn, condemned the Bundy takeover. Residents have expressed fear at the presence of armed militia and asked the outsiders to leave.

Patent Lawyers and Judges Don’t Understand Software Development and It Harms Programmers, Practicing Software Companies

Posted in America, Europe, Patents at 7:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Metaswitch logoSummary: Europeans, including European companies such as Metaswitch (British), continue to suffer from software patents in the United States and from British patent lawyers to whom the whole notion of software development is elusive, grossly misunderstood (they profit from the misunderstanding)

HAVING written literally thousands of articles on this subject, it often feels like repetition even when it isn’t. It’s never repetitive because new cases and new observations come to light. The other day, Patent Buddy fished out this recent court’s decision [PDF] (originally OOXML) and said that “TX [Texas] Magistrate Report Rejecting Alice101 Ineligibility Argument Against a Firewall Patent” (used against Metaswitch Networks, a British company). We have looked at this 18-page decision and found Alice mentioned in page 3 as follows: “The Supreme Court has held that there are three specific exceptions to patent eligibility under § 101: laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas. Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 601 (2010). In Mayo, the Supreme Court set out a two-step test for “distinguishing patents that claim laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those that claim patent-eligible applications of those concepts.” Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 355 (2014) (citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1296–97 (2012)).”

“So here we have a British company sued in the capital of patent trolls, by a company called Genband LLC, which is based in Frisco, Texas, the United States (where the lawsuit is also being poorly assessed, determined and ultimately ruled against a foreign company).”Alice is also mentioned many times in page 4, then 14-15 and in page 17 it says: “Metaswitch is likewise wrong to characterize “an application proxy” and “a packet filter” as inherently abstract components because they refer to “broad ‘types’ or ‘classes’ of firewall components and do not require or connote any specific structure.” (Dkt. No. 255 at 24). A hypothetical claim limitation directed to “a cup” might encompass an extensive class of objects of varying shapes, sizes, materials, and functions (a coffee mug, a champagne flute, a disposable paper cup), and thus the word “cup” is abstract in the sense that it spans many different structures. But a cup is not an “abstract idea” in the sense meant by Alice, and neither are the “application proxy” and “packet filter” components recited in the claims. These components are not “building blocks of human ingenuity,” “a method of organizing human activity,” a “fundamental truth,” an “idea of itself,” or the like. See Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2354–56. The “application proxy” and “packet filter” terms refer to specific components that have been construed to perform specific functions within a network. See (Dkt. No. 310 at 7–13). The fact that these components can be implemented in the form of “hardware and/or software” does not change their concrete, network-specific nature.”

So here we have a British company sued in the capital of patent trolls, by a company called Genband LLC, which is based in Frisco, Texas, the United States (where the lawsuit is also being poorly assessed, determined and ultimately ruled against a foreign company). In page 18 it says: “For the foregoing reasons, Claim 12 of the ’561 Patent is patent-eligible under § 101. The Court agrees with Metaswitch that Claim 12 is representative for purposes of the § 101 analysis; the other asserted claims of the ’561 Patent are likewise patent-eligible.”

Here is the court’s conclusion: “For the reasons stated above, summary judgment of no willful infringement should be GRANTED. Partial summary judgment of no indirect infringement prior to April 14, 2014 should be GRANTED. Partial summary judgment of no indirect infringement after April 14, 2014 should be DENIED. Summary judgment of invalidity under 35 U.S.C. § 101 should be DENIED.”

“Why is a British company on the receiving end of software patents when British law clearly does not include but preclude such patents?”This is a classic case where software is being described as non-abstract by trying to tie it to “network” and the likes of that. There is a whole infamous class of “over the Internet” patents and this one too resembles that. The decision cites a case of the world’s largest patent troll, Intellectual Ventures v. Capital One Bank, in page 4 along with Alice and Bilski.

How clueless could the judge be? Did the judge ever write a computer program? Was a degree in some scientific discipline earned/acquired? Was the judge bamboozled by mumbo-jumbo from lawyers? Why is a British company on the receiving end of software patents when British law clearly does not include but preclude such patents? Does US law dominate globally? Well, rhetorical question actually. This is similar to the cases of Finjan, which is a patent aggressor in a similar field of technology.

As a British programmer myself, I cannot help but worry that the Texan courts now threaten the British industry as well. The UPC would make things even worse and there are already signs of that happening with patent trolls that come to Europe and attack from London (Unwired Planet). Apple too is attacking companies from inside Europe, with help from ridiculous software patents that are found invalid by European courts after EPO negligently issues them. Recall the case of Wi-Lan v. Apple, which pro-software patents sites are writing about these days. Why is the industry tolerating this? How can anyone wrongly deduce that this is good for innovation, or in other words, encourages the creation of better computer products, programmes, etc. available in the market?

“Developers of software don’t brainstorm or innovate, they typically take existing building blocks (either Free/Open Source software or proprietary with compartmentalised modules/layers/standards) and combine these to form bug-free and increasingly efficient algorithms.”When patent lawyers, who don’t actually create anything, speak of (or hijack the word) “innovation” we end up with clueless blog posts such as this new one from IP Kat. While EPO coverage from IP Kat has been rather good, much of the rest constitutes UPC promotion, patent maximalism, and clueless prose such as this: “Second is the recurring assertion that the patent system is intended to encourage innovation. There are various implications that flow from this, most notably that any patent that does not further the innovation interest is at odds with the patent system. Weak patents, patent trolls, patent thickets, patent hold-up and other patent undesirables all derive from the underlying assumption that patents are the hand-maiden of innovation. As such, at least in the US, a material driver of proposed patent legislation is to better align the patent system with the needs of innovation. The only problem with this view is that it is not correct. Patents are about encouraging invention and not impeding competition in a manner consistent with the patent grant, where the legal system has developed tools to define invention. Some forms of innovation (however defined) can be expected to flow from improving the manner by which we encourage and protect invention, but innovation is not a surrogate for invention. Introducing innovation as a construct within the patent system, parallel to invention, novelty and inventive step, is simply inappropriate.”

“Software developers don’t “invent”. They write code, and some code may be better than other.”The above says “innovation is not a surrogate for invention”, but these are just clueless repetitions (regurgitations) or rather meaningless/vague terms, none of which actually alludes to or pertains to programming (these words predate computer programs). Developers of software don’t brainstorm or innovate, they typically take existing building blocks (either Free/Open Source software or proprietary with compartmentalised modules/layers/standards) and combine these to form bug-free and increasingly efficient algorithms. Everything is being reused and built on top of existing work. One should expect people who never saw or wrote a computer program to actually grasp this. The comments from readers, who are mostly patent lawyers, are equally clueless or weak. One says regarding “Innovation vs. Invention”: ”

If innovation = ‘new’
Then innovation is one prong of a three-prong test for invention.
The other two prongs are ‘useful’ and ‘non-obvious’

Software developers don’t “invent”. They write code, and some code may be better than other. Lawyers using terms like “innovation” are clueless. They’re reusing terms from centuries ago and another one says

One has to focus on the fact that the patent system is about disclosure of inventions. Although such disclosure may impact innovation, invention and innovation are not the same thing. One looks at various comments distinguishing the two.

What needs to be assessed is whether more (or less) code is generated which is solid and reliable in the presence of 100,000-1,000,000 software patents. Evidence suggests that patents have done virtually nothing to provide an incentive to write better (or more) algorithms; programmers don’t even bother reading patent applications (it’s infeasible). They just get sued, often by trolls that produce nothing at all.

“Evidence suggests that patents have done virtually nothing to provide an incentive to write better (or more) algorithms; programmers don’t even bother reading patent applications (it’s infeasible).”It should be noted that several people sent us links to the above article and several programmers expressed annoyance at this level of ignorance. Why is a system that presents itself as “protecting inventors” (or whatever) run by non-inventors? When will it be geeks and computer science professors running such courts* (if any courts “as such” are necessary at all)? The system, as is, became besieged by parasites preying on software developers, rather than people with the required skills and knowledge. It’s a form of takeover or coup. Programmers need to unite so as to fight to regain control. █
___
* I myself have been writing software since I was 14 and it’s what I currently do for a living in many languages and paradigms, as well as (peer) reviewing papers about software for international journals, so the opinions above don’t come from a position of cluelessness but from genuine concern for a scientific discipline which multinational conglomerates want to monopolise as a matter of law.

A La Oficina Europea de Patentes (OEP) no le gusta el Español, Así que PorQué los Espańoles la Toleran?

Posted in Europe, Patents at 5:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Publicado en Europe, Patents a las 8:18 am por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Contra EPO

Contra EPO

Sumario: Antiguas quejas contra la discriminación contra los Hispano hablentes, ha quedado demostrado actualmente al conversar con personal de la OEP.

El Español – es de acuerdo al algunos criterios y dependiendo las definiciones que uno escoge – el lenguaje más hablado en el mundo (basado en el número de países donde es lengua primaria). Techrights en Espańol es su segundo lenguage tiene árticulos públicados en Español

“El lenguaje Espańol raramente existe en la OEP. Definitivamente NO es tratado como debería y uno no necesita mirar muy atrás para ver como la OEP, basada en Munich máltrata a su personal Espańol.”La OEP díscrimina contra muchos lenguajes Europeos, pero sólo los Espańoles e Italianos tienen los huevos de hacerlo notar, en íncluso pelear acerca de esta materia tán importante (PERPETUAR POWER A TRAVES DE LA DOMINACION DEL IDIOMA, como los ingleses lo han hecho por siglos). La cuenta de Twitter de la OEP SOLO ESCRIBE EN INGLES, promoviendo traducciones automatizadas al día siguiente, pero éstas son inferiores. Aquí esta la herramiente ellos recomiendan (advertencia es una link de la OEP). ¨Tradusca Patentes,¨ dijeron en Twitter hace unos días, ¨viene con un corrector automático, que te permite proponer mejores traducciones¨ (bueno eso es ´crowdsourcing´ hacer a los Españoles ¨voluntarios¨ de las grandes CORPORACIONES – tóntos útiles- para sus propias ganancias).

El lenguaje Espańol raramente existe en la OEP. Definitivamente NO es tratado como debería y uno no necesita mirar muy atrás para ver como la OEP, basada en Munich máltrata a su personal Espańol. Uno de ellos tuvo una crisis nerviosa un par de meses atras después de haber sido maltratado por estos hijos de [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].

“Al menos pueden demandar que la OEP, no trata al Español como inexistente”Reciéntemente nos enteramos de otras formas de DISCRIMINACION contra los Españoles en la OEP. ¨Estaba leyendo este artículo,¨ una persona nos escrbió acerca de un artículo que publicamos en Español hace unos días¨, esta persona nos dijo ¨Pedí por Espańol como lenguaje de oposición, cuando estuvimos oponiéndonos a la Regalo de Amazon patente¨, ¨Recibimos una ´amable´ llamda teléfonic así como un corre eléctronico de la OEP diciéndonos que si queríamos Español, teniamos que pagar por un traductor, mientras que alemanes o franceses no tendrían que pagar por traducciones simúltaneas durante los proceduras orales.¨

Esto es revelador? No es cierto?

Decidimos investigar más profundamente esto por que es una queja común (compartida entre miembros de la Unión Europea); sólo los Espańoles tienen suficientemente voz fuerte (más población) y un buen argumento para incluir su lenguaje por que es increíblemente popular, (segundo lugar después del Chino, Arabe, e Inglés depende de la definición de popularity). Se hizo notar este prblema cuando se debatía la viabilidad del Corte Unitaria de Patentes una vez. La gerencia de la OEP quiere aprobar la UPC a todo lugar (CABILDEA POR ELLO ABIERTAMENTE), pero el pueblo Espańol si se organiza apropiadamente puede y DEBE evitarlo. Al menos pueden demandar que la OEP, no trate el idioma Espańol como inexistente. Algunos grupos ya se han quejado pero nada resulto del esfuerzo.

¨Envíamos esta solicitud en Espańol,¨ nos escribió la misma persona (cuyo nombre puede encontrarse en las links si uno esta desesperado de saberlo), y la traducción al Inglés es suya. Pobrecito, termino bajado miles de páginas en la OEP register para ubica el PDF correcto” en este enredo. La carta original es la siguiente (de la FFII):

Bruselas, 07 de mayo 2012

Sujeto: EP927945: el lenguaje de la vista oral de 12 de junio 2012

Estimados Miembros de la Oficina Europea de Patentes,

FFII eV ha recibido su carta del 16 de abril 2012 en relación con la elección de las lenguas de los procedimientos orales con respecto a nuestra oposición a la patente de regalo de Amazon EP927945.

Tenemos la intención de usar el español tanto para los procedimentos por vía oral (habla) como para la interpretación simultánea (escucha).

Saludos cordiales,

Y en Inglés:

Brussels, the 7 may 2012

Concerns: Amazon gift patent EP927945: language of the oral
proceedings of 12 June 2012

Dear Members of the European Patent Office,

FFII eV has well received your letter of 16th of April 2012 regarding the choice of languages of the oral proceedings regarding our opposition to the Amazon gift patent EP927945.

We intend to use Spanish for the both the language of the oral proceedings (speaking) and the simultaneous interpretation (listening).

Best regards,

¨La link para la registración de la OEP está aquí, dijo desafortunadamente su website es inferior que tu no puedes bajar el PDF con wget. Aquí esta nuestra respuesta a su rechazo. Tratando de encontrar el original en texto pleno…¨

“Qué mierda está pasando, cómo devino a tan malo, y porqué los Españoles no vociferan acerca de esto?”Su respuesta oficial esta aquí.

¨Tratando de recuperar el correo electrónico de (la persona) quien es Español,¨ escribió, ¨cuando recibió una llamada telefónica de la OEP que resulta en la siguiente antigua carta…¨

Lo suiguiente no necesita explicación:

Querido jurado,

este correo es privado, no lo replique, etc.

Una seńora hablando alemán de la OEP, acaba de llamar a la oficina. Hablaba como si siguiera un libreto. Pregunta de parte mía, respuesta de ella. Muy bien entrenada. He resumido.

El señor [redactado] ha enviado un fax en Español :-), pero el ESPAÑOL NO ES UNO DE LOS TRES LENGUAJES ACEPTADOS POR LA OEP, Por supuesto dije esto NO ES BUENO para las personas de habla Española en la Unión Europea, bla, bla. La clásica respuesta las tres lenguas oficiales de la OEP, bla, bla, adicionalmente la OEP ofrece a no costo una lista de traductores bla, bla, que podemos contratar (Y PAGAR a diferencia de los demás). Pedi por esta respuesta en escrito, ella dijo que no puede responder a un fax en Español, deberíamos enviarle un fax en uno de los tres lenguajes oficiales de la OEP y luego ella respondería. Pidió que lo hagamos rápido, ya que no se puede enviar faxes en Español desde la OEP.

En conclusión, extrañamente el Español esta siendo relegado por la OEP, mientras que el Francés (con mucha menos naciones que puedn hablarlo) es un lenguaje ¨oficial¨. Lo mismo para el Alemán que no mucha gente lo habla (excepto en Alemania misma). SON LOS MIEMBROS ESTADOS TRATADOS FAVORABLEMENTE DE ACUERDO A SU PODER FINANCIERO opuesto a su audiencia internacional y local (Portuges es más popular que Frances y Alemán, incluso combinados por otro criterio)? Qué mierda está pasando, cómo devino a tan malo, y porqué los Españoles no vociferan acerca de esto?

¨La Oficina Europea de Patentes nos está JODIENDO! Ya es tiempo de hacer algo. O se corrije la situación o Espańa debe abandonar la Unión Europea y su jurisdicción¨

Un Hispano hablante! █

“La Oficina Europea de Patentes es una Corrupta, Maliciosa Organizacion Que NO debería Existir”

–Richard Stallman

01.09.16

Links 10/1/2016: Linux Mint 17.3 “Rosa” Xfce and KDE Released

Posted in News Roundup at 6:33 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Sorry, grammar nerds. The singular ‘they’ has been declared Word of the Year.

    Singular “they,” the gender-neutral pronoun, has been named the Word of the Year by a crowd of over 200 linguists at the American Dialect Society’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on Friday evening.

    In a landslide vote, the language experts chose singular they over “thanks, Obama,” ammosexual, “on fleek,” and other contenders for this annual award given to the most significant term or word in the past year.

  • Science

    • Scientists At Odds With EPA Over Fracking Study

      In June, the Environmental Protection Agency released a draft report on fracking that concluded the practice has not led to “widespread, systemic impacts” on drinking water. Now, the agency’s own advisory board is taking some issue with those findings.

      In a draft peer review report released Thursday, the EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) said that it had concerns regarding the agency’s conclusion in the fracking report. Namely, it found that the EPA failed to “clearly describe the system(s) of interest (e.g., groundwater, surface water) nor the definitions of ‘systemic,’ ‘widespread,’ or ‘impacts.’” In addition, the review board said it was “concerned that this statement does not reflect the uncertainties and data limitations described in the body of the Report associated with such impacts.”

    • All of the Reasons Scientists Are Certain We Are Now Living in the Anthropocene

      “Human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on Earth.” So begins one of the more depressing scientific papers I’ve ever read.

      What follows in “The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene,” a new study published in Science, is a laundry list of human sins that, in total, add up to what its authors say is irrefutable evidence that Earth has entered a human-driven geological epoch that began midway through the 20th century and continues today.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Why Are We Dying From Drinking in Record Numbers?

      Almost 31,000 Americans died from drinking in 2014, a nearly 40 percent increase since 2002.

    • Campbell Announces Support for Mandatory GMO Labeling
    • ‘No GMO Soup for You’? Consumer Victory as Campbell Announces New Labels

      Campbell Soup’s announcement that it will become the first U.S. company to begin labeling genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in its products garnered accolades on Friday from food and safety groups, who heralded the development as a “significant win” for transparency.

      “The decision by Campbell’s sends a clear message to Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association which have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat GMO labeling laws,” Ronnie Cummins, the international director for advocacy group Organic Consumers Association, said in a statement.

    • Spike in Drug Shortages Worries ER Docs

      Drug shortages have jumped more than five-fold from 2008 to 2014, following a 7-year decline, and access issues are hurting emergency departments, researchers reported in Academic Emergency Medicine.

    • Lead Poisoned Kids in Flint Will Need More Than Apologies, Declarations

      The children of Flint will need more than new declarations of emergency, state-level resignations and public apologies to help reverse the damage that has been done to their young bodies and developing brains. And now is the time for the state to step in with a proven strategy to help the most vulnerable citizens among us.

      The tragic crisis in which too many Flint children have been poisoned by lead from drinking toxic water after lax state regulatory oversight requires an immediate and significant investment in proven interventions that already exist. That is why Michigan’s Children calls on the state to step in – without delay – to increase funding to Early On services, a proven and existing program that helps families with infants and toddlers birth to age three who have a developmental delay or a diagnosed health condition that could lead to such delay. Elevated lead is one of those health conditions that result in automatic eligibility for Early On due to its strong connection to cognitive impairment and developmental challenges.

    • President Obama Needs to Intervene in Flint Water Crisis

      It’s hard to believe that in 2016, people in the United States are contending with poisoned water, but that’s the sad, frustrating, outrageous problem facing many today in Flint, Michigan. Although Governor Rick Snyder finally declared a state of emergency, the problem has persisted for over a year, affecting almost 100,000 people, many of whom will feel the repercussions of this for years to come in the form of chronic health problems from lead exposure.

    • Important Reminder in the Flint Crisis: People Still Have No Safe Water

      The lead contaminated water crisis in Flint, Michigan is receiving increased national attention—yet what the people of the Rust Belt city urgently need to receive is clean drinking water.

      Republican Governor Rick Snyder on Thursday offered a second apology for the crisis, saying it’s an “unfortunate situation.” That problem, which began as the city was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, has left 200 children below the age of six with confirmed elevated blood lead levels, spurred calls for Snyder’s ouster, and prompted filmmaker Michael Moore to say the governor has to go to jail, as he “effectively poisoned, not just some, but apparently ALL of the children in my hometown of Flint, Michigan.”

    • Death Rates Rise for Young White Americans Too

      It’s not just midlife whites – mortality rates for whites ages 25 to 34 are also increasing

    • Comments about people with mental illness

      As a developer, I wouldn’t really like the idea of doctors meddling with my code, so why is it that some people in the IT and business community are so happy to meddle around in the domain of doctors, giving such strong opinions about something they have no expertise in?

    • Unpatriotic militants? No, Jeremy Hunt – doctors are just fighting to be able to care for us all.

      For the last 9 years I have been the medical director of an NHS service providing confidential help to doctors and dentists with mental health problems, seeing a rising number of doctors week on week.

      But our patients have changed.

      In our early days the ‘typical’ patient was an older male (GP or psychiatrist) with alcohol problems.

      Now nearly half of all new patients are under 30 years old. They come to us with depression, anxiety and symptoms akin to posttraumatic stress disorder. Many have worked in the NHS only a few years. They started out bushy tailed and bright eyed, but end up ‘burnt-out’ (a polite euphemism for depression) after only a few years working. Our youngest patients are only a few months qualified and many are in their Foundation years.

  • Security

    • Friday’s security updates
    • Hackers caused a major blackout for the first time

      Hackers were behind a cyber attack on Ukraine in December that had real offline consequences: A blackout that killed electricity to roughly 700,000 homes.

      On December 23, around half the homes in Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankivsk region lost power for at least a few hours. Initially reported in Ukrainian media as being caused by hackers, cybersecurity experts have now confirmed that was the case, saying the power company was infected with malicious software.

    • Finland extradites Russian hacking suspect to US

      US authorities are to escort Maxim Senakh out of Finland within a month. They suspect him of stealing millions of dollars from infected computer servers in the US, Finland and elsewhere.

    • Linux Ransomware creators third time unlucky as researchers crack encryption again

      Researchers find Linux.Encoder 3 version still uses buggy encryption and allows file recovery

      Much to the delight of security researchers, a group of malware creators are currently having difficulty getting cryptographic implementations right in their ransomware. This has not happened once but thrice.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • In Response to Continued Resonance of Awlaki Videos, US Relaunched Social Media Propaganda Campaign

      As far as we know, the perpetrators of the November attack on Paris were radicalized by each other, in specific neighborhoods in Europe.

      According to the complaint filed against his Enrique Marquez, the friend who got him guns, Syed Rizwan Farook, adopted radical beliefs after consuming the lectures, videos, and magazine of Anwar al-Awlaki. In fact, Farook and Marquez moved towards planning an attack in 2011, in the immediate wake of the drone killing of Awlaki and his son. As to Tashfeen Malik, Farook’s wife, while she did some searches on ISIS just before Farook started an attack on his workplace, public reporting suggests that like the French terrorists, she adopted extreme beliefs through relationships formed in brick and mortar life.

    • Saudi Arabia’s US-Backed Air War in Yemen May Have Committed War Crimes—Again

      Saudi Arabia is yet again adding to its trail of destruction in its war in Yemen, and its tactics are drawing condemnation from the United Nations. The Saudi’s latest actions include firing missiles on civilian buildings in the capital, Sanaa—striking a wedding hall, the Chamber of Commerce, and a center for the blind—as well as dropping US-made cluster bombs on at least two of Sanaa’s residential neighborhoods.

    • One by One, South Sudan Tries to Name Its War Victims

      It was December 16, 2013, just hours into a civil war pitting President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, the largest tribe in the country, against Riek Machar, his former vice president and a Nuer, the second largest tribe. The war has defied ceasefires and continues to this day despite a peace deal signed in August.

    • Does North Korea Need Nukes to Deter US Aggression?

      Question 1– How many governments has the United States overthrown or tried to overthrow since the Second World War?

      Answer: 57 (See William Blum.)

      Question 2– How many of those governments had nuclear weapons?

      Answer— 0

    • North Korea’s “H Bomb”: No Ado About Something

      In my opinion, a lot of the mockery of the North Korean nuclear test—the silly little man with his silly little bomb—is racism that reassures. It evokes the explanation for why many poor rural whites adopted a posture of racial exclusion instead of class solidarity with poor rural blacks in the American South: “because ‘If you ain’t better than a ****, who are you better than?’”. We may have our problems, in other words, but at least we’re not North Korea.

    • Decades After Atrocities During US-Backed Dirty Wars, Nations Take Promising Legal Steps

      El Salvador says will make arrests over notorious massacre of Jesuit priests; Guatemala arrests over a dozen former officials for rights abuses

    • US drone crashes in Iraq; not shot down by enemy fire

      U.S. military officials say an American Predator drone crashed Thursday in Iraq but say it was not shot down by enemy fire.

    • 112 Killed across Iraq; US Drone Crashes
    • We Are the Human Shields of the Political Class

      Sitting ducks, in other words, people that are easy to kill. This is why they are targeted, obviously. A “hard target”, on the other hand, is an individual, structure, or institution that is very hard to inflict much damage on by any organization other than a technologically advanced military. The Pentagon (with the exception of 9/11), White House, Congress, Homeland Security, the elites who can afford round-the-clock protection, all these come to mind. These “hard targets”, although safe from attack, are usually the ones chiefly responsible for whatever danger from terrorism that we “soft targets” are exposed to. Blowback, the retaliation by those angered at Western interventionism, is our lot in life in the thick of War on Terror hysteria.

    • Saudi Arabia Executed a Nonviolent Shiite Cleric – It’s Going To Cost Them Big

      Apparently not content to rest on those dubious laurels, Saudi authorities followed that high water mark by executing 47 people – by beheadings and firing squads – on New Year’s Day alone. It was the highest number of executions in a single day in the kingdom since 1980, when Saudi authorities publicly beheaded 63 Sunni fundamentalists behind the takeover of the Kaaba during the 1979 Hajj.

      The majority of those killed on January 1 were alleged terrorists convicted on charges stemming from the country’s al-Qaeda insurgency, which wreaked havoc across Saudi Arabia in the mid-2000s. Four, however, were Shiites – including the internationally revered Ayatollah Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, a vocal advocate for the kingdom’s oppressed Shiite minority.

    • Taking On the Nuclear Goliath

      Say hello to the Marshall Islands, the tiny, heroic island nation in Micronesia, with a population just over 70,000. This former U.S. territory, which still bears the terrible scars of 67 aboveground nuclear blasts between 1946 and 1958, when this country used it as an expendable nuclear test site, has engaged the United States – and, indeed, all nine nations that possess nuclear weapons – in lawsuits demanding that they comply with the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and begin the process of negotiating global nuclear disarmament.

    • Kenya has become a perilous place to be a teacher with the threat of al-Shabaab leaving young people in crisis

      Morning was several hours off when passengers boarded the ill-fated bus bound for Nairobi. Among them, teachers heading home for the long holidays started to doze off, others murmured quietly.

      An hour into the journey from Mandera in northern Kenya, Osinga Atibu was awoken from his reverie by the sound of gunfire. Masked men, armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, forced the driver to a shuddering halt. A short while later, the terrified passengers were ordered off the bus, non-Muslims singled out, and forced to lie face down on the ground.

    • Saudi Arabia a Force for Stability? Dream On!

      The Saudi mass beheadings on January 2 proved nothing new to a world that well knows Saudi Arabia is still a tribal police state with a moral code of medieval barbarity. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni-Muslim country that executes people for witchcraft, adultery, apostasy, and homosexuality (among other things). And the Saudi regime is perfectly willing to torture and kill a Shi’a-Muslim cleric for the crime of speaking truth to power, knowing that that judicial murder will inflame his followers and drive the region toward wider war. The Saudi provocation is as transparent as it is despicable, and yet the Saudis are held to no account, as usual.

    • U.N. Chief to U.S.-Backed Saudi Air Coalition: You May Be Committing War Crimes in Yemen

      The U.N. has asked Yemen to reverse its decision to expel a top U.N. human rights official after cluster-bomb complaints.

    • Noam Chomsky: Electing the President of An Empire

      The spectrum is broad but in an odd sense. The spectrum is basically center to extreme right. Extreme right. Way off the spectrum. The Republican Party about 20 years ago basically abandoned any pretense of being a normal political party. In fact, the distinguished, respected conservative commentators, from the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank, like Norman Ornstein, described the Republican Party as a radical insurgency which has abandoned parliamentary politics. They just don’t want anything to happen. Their only policies are “don’t do anything” or bomb. That’s not a political party.

    • Regime Change Madness: Hillary, Obama and Murderous Mayhem in the Muslim World

      Still, recalling that it was a Democratic U.S. president (Jimmy Carter) who first provided the resources that made Osama bin Laden a force to be reckoned with and that leading Democrat Hillary Clinton voted (as a U.S. Senator) for Bush’s invasion, responsible observers of U.S. policy need to give the current Democratic president, Barack Obama, and the next one, his former Secretary of State, Hillary, equal credit for growing deadly Sunni extremism. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have pursued aggressive policies of regime change that have opened the door for jihadist expansion. They have done so over and against the opposition and warnings not just of peace activists but also of top U.S. military analysts and officials.

    • Russia, as Explained to Russians by Americans

      This is rather odd because who needs propaganda when the Russians can read the Western media themselves and see firsthand all the lies it puts forth about them and the demonizing of Putin. There are several political-debate shows on Russian television where they invite Western journalists or politicians; on one there frequently is a really funny American journalist, Michael Bohm, who keeps regurgitating all the western propaganda, arguing with his Russian counterparts. It’s pretty surreal to watch him display the worst political stereotypes of Americans: arrogant, gullible, and ignorant. He stands there and lectures high ranking Russian politicians, “explaining” to them the “real” Russian foreign policy, and the “real” intentions behind their actions, as opposed to anything they say. The man is shockingly irony-impaired. It is as funny to watch as it is sad and scary.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Federal Judge Finds NYPD Engaged In Evidence Spoliation By Destroying Documents Related To Summons Quota Lawsuit

      Just recently, we discussed the revelation that former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s emails were deleted right as he was exiting office — despite being ordered by a federal court to preserve all communications relevant to a summons quota lawsuit.

      The city claimed it was a clerical error, but the plaintiffs pointed out that, despite the retention order being issued in 2010, the city had yet to produce a single email from Kelly’s account in response to its discovery requests.

    • FBI Finally Completes FOIA Request 1,393 Days After It Was Filed; Withholds All 509 Responsive Pages

      Michael Morisy — founder of FOIA clearinghouse MuckRock — has been waiting since February of 2012 for the FBI to hand over information on its GPS tracking devices. Specifically, Morisy was looking for information on any devices it deactivated/recollected after the Supreme Court (US v. Jones) declared the warrantless, long-term tracking of individuals could amount to a Fourth Amendment violation.

      The decision didn’t explicitly state GPS tracking devices now needed to be accompanied by warrants, but it was enough that the FBI began shutting down its 3,000 devices. (It turned most of them back on a month later after securing the proper paperwork. Only 250 or so were permanently switched off. And, of course, the FBI grumbled about having to obtain warrants for devices it had already deployed, because the Fourth Amendment doesn’t do anything but slow down law enforcement.)

    • US Courts Administrative Office Sued Because PACER’s Bad Math Is Overcharging Users

      There’s plenty to complain about when discussing the federal court’s document filing system known as PACER. Lots.

      [...]

      Then there’s the fact that PACER hands over PDFs like the pages are rolling off the Xerox. To access a digital file, you’ll be paying $0.10 a page. Sure, it caps at $3.00 (30 pages) but that’s only per individual PDF. Download another from the same case and you’re back to square one, paying a dime a page. Opinions are free, which helps, but everything else steadily adds up.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Emergency Declared by Governor as Massive Methane Leak in Los Angeles Spews Record Amounts of Pollution
    • FBI to Track Animal Abuse Like Homicide—But Which Animals?

      Activists say new system is step in the right direction, but reveals bias that favors household pets over farm animals

    • More droughts may mean less power

      Rising temperatures and reduced rainfall will make the flow of rivers less dependable, affecting supplies to the electricity generators that rely on them.

    • Donald Trump fined for pollution from one of his private jets

      US presidential candidate joins the Bahrain royal family and Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox America whose aircraft have all fallen foul of the EU’s emissions trading scheme

    • The U.S. Was Hit With Seriously High Temperatures In 2015

      If you thought 2015 was unusually hot, you were right. Last year was the second hottest on record in the United States since data collection began in 1895, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.

      Last year was also the 19th consecutive time that average temperatures in the U.S. exceeded the 20th century average, which means everyone born after 1996 has only experienced warmer than normal temperatures. NOAA also reported that December was record warm for the contiguous United States, with temperatures at 6°F above average. Twenty-nine states had their warmest December on record, while no state was record cold. The last time the country saw a warmer December was in 1939.

      This year-over-year trend could continue in 2016. For this winter, NOAA said in October that above-average temperatures are forecast across much of the West and the northern half of the contiguous United States. Temperatures are also predicted to be above-average in Alaska and much of Hawaii.

    • New US Diet Guidelines Say Yes to Meat, Screw the Climate

      Every five years, the government tries to tell Americans what to put in their bodies. Eat more vegetables. Dial back the fats. It’s all based on the best available science for leading a healthy life. But the best available science also has a lot to say about what those food choices do to the environment, and some researchers are peeved that new dietary recommendations released yesterday seem to utterly ignore that fact.

      Broadly, the 2016-2020 dietary recommendations aim for balance: More veggies, leaner meats, try some fish! Oh, and eat way less sugar, no more than 10 percent of your total diet.

    • Charles Koch Is Disappointed That He Can’t Buy More Influence

      There are two interesting things going on here. First is Koch’s disappointment that his money doesn’t buy him more influence. It’s easy to laugh at that, but he’s probably right. He’s raised a lot of money. But it’s hard to see that Republican views have changed in his direction much. The entire party denies climate change and wants to lower taxes already, so there was no work to be done there. But a less aggressive foreign policy? An end to corporate welfare? Turning down the volume on social issues? Koch is right: all his money has had no effect on that. It’s only had a significant effect when he’s pushing in the same direction that the GOP wind is already blowing.

    • The Arctic Is Melting at a Record Pace — and It’s Having a Scary Impact on Global Weather

      Arctic sea ice is melting at a record pace – and every summer looks grimmer. This past summer saw the ice pack at its fourth-lowest level on record, and the overall trend in recent decades suggests this will only continue.

    • Look What We’ve Done: Human-Made Epoch of Nightmares Is Here

      There’s no question about it. A new epoch—the Anthropocene—has begun.

      So says an international group of geoscientists, in a paper published Friday in the journal Science. They point to waste disposal, fossil fuel combustion, increased fertilizer use, the testing and dropping of nuclear weapons, deforestation, and more as evidence that human activity has pushed the Earth into the new age that takes its name from the Greek anthropos, or human being.

      Some argue the new era began in the 1950s, the decade that marks the beginning of the so-called “Great Acceleration,” when human population and its consumption patterns suddenly speeded up, and nuclear weapons tests dispersed radioactive elements across the globe.

  • Finance

    • Basic Income, Basic Issues

      But basic income is much more than that because it addresses the basic human right without which all other rights are impossible: the right to material existence.

    • Yet Another Fabricated Jobs Report — Paul Craig Roberts

      Americans of prime working age, 25 years old to 54 year old, only received 16,000 or 5% of the new jobs.

      Those aged 46 to 54 lost 165,000 jobs. In other words, middle aged people are losing their jobs before they can provide for their retirement.

      There are 527,000 more Americans working multiple jobs in December 2015 than in December 2014.

    • Hillary Clinton Made More in 12 Speeches to Big Banks Than Most of Us Earn in a Lifetime

      Clinton’s most lucrative year was 2013, right after stepping down as secretary of state. That year, she made $2.3 million for three speeches to Goldman Sachs and individual speeches to Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity Investments, Apollo Management Holdings, UBS, Bank of America, and Golden Tree Asset Managers.

      The following year, she picked up $485,000 for a speech to Deutsche Bank and an address to Ameriprise. Last year, she made $150,000 from a lecture before the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

      To put these numbers into perspective, compare them to lifetime earnings of the median American worker. In 2011, the Census Bureau estimated that, across all majors, a “bachelor’s degree holder can expect to earn about $2.4 million over his or her work life.” A Pew Research analysis published the same year estimated that a “typical high school graduate” can expect to make just $770,000 over the course of his or her lifetime.

    • Paul Krugman: Are We Heading to a Global Economic Catastrophe?

      Paul Krugman does his best to analyze the current economic crisis and venture a guess about whether it will trigger a worldwide economic catastophe in Friday’s column.

    • The corporate university and its threat to academic freedom

      Neoliberalism has facilitated the emergence of the ‘corporate’ university, which dangerously prioritises market rationality and public relations over academic freedom.

    • How to Spend Less So You Can Afford to Save More
    • 6 Creepy Schemes Companies Use To Bury You In Debt

      Unless you come from an obscenely rich family, one of the first things you find out when you hit adulthood is that your future might depend on your willingness to take on debt. Do you want to go to college? You’ll probably need a loan for that. Need a car? That’s going to require a loan. Ready to put down some roots and settle in a permanent place of your own? Unless your name is Mr. or Ms. Money Bags, get ready to borrow.

      And the fact that borrowing is a part of adulthood isn’t even the bad news. If you were paying attention as a child, you saw that one coming. The bad news is that your car, education, and house are only the tip of the debt iceberg. Beneath the sea is a whole other landmass of ways the world wants to keep you in the red.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Nuclear Perceptions: North Korea and the arts of Guerrilla Partisanship

      Nuclear weapons have always had a habit of inviting games of perception. Will the state in possession of a nuclear option make use of it? Obviously, there is always precedent that any state with an option will, at some point, make do with it. The importance here is one of perception.

      The DPRK has tended to be in the business of mastering perceptions over reality for much of its existence. In many ways, it has had to. In the face of a dominant United States, a retreating Russia, and a China that has proven to be more qualified about its support, Pyongyang has become more boisterous and terrier-like in its pronouncements.

    • How is citizen journalism transforming the BBC’s Newsroom practices?

      User-generated content offers new ways of covering ‘black hole’ stories such as the Syrian conflict. But how do journalists make sense of what is happening on the ground?

    • Latest: Trump crowd estimated at 2,000, plus protests

      Donald Trump says the crowd for his speech Thursday night in Burlington was 25,000.

      Untrue, according to the city police chief.

      About 2,000 people lined up starting at 4:30 a.m. for access to the Flynn Center, Chief Brandon del Pozo told the Burlington Free Press. The Trump campaign instituted a loyalty test at the door and allowed into the 1,400-seat Flynn Center only people who professed support for the candidate.

    • ESPN Employees Keep Failing To Disclose Their Advertising Tweets As Advertising
    • Bernie Sanders Goes on the Offensive Against Trump: He’s “Doing What Demagogues Always Do”

      Sanders noted that the American worker is making far less today “in real, inflation adjusted for dollars” than thirty years ago, and that Trump is tapping into the anger that’s creating. “What I am saying is you have a right to be angry. Let’s create an economy that gets to the root cause of greed and corporate greed. Let’s take them on.”

      “You know what Trump is saying?” he asked. “The cause of your problems is that Latino tomato picker who’s making $8 an hour, or that Muslim engineering student — that’s the old-fashioned scapegoating, it’s doing what demagogues always do.”

    • Muslim Woman Gets Kicked Out Of Donald Trump Rally For Being Muslim

      A Muslim woman was kicked out of a Donald Trump rally on Friday night for no apparent reason. The woman, Rose Hamid, told CNN that she “came to the rally to let Trump supporters see what a Muslim looks like.” She stood silently with a t-shirt that read “I Come In Peace.”

      About halfway through the rally, held in Rock Hill, South Carolina, some people in the crowd “turned pretty ugly” toward the woman, shouting “epithets.” She was then escorted out by security.

    • Donald Trump’s Supporters Are Poorly Paid, Distrustful and Convinced They’re Anything but Racist
    • Trump’s angry white men – and why there are more of them than you think

      Michael has presumably had a rough day. Nine hours working as an exterminator takes a physical toll on the 45-year-old, who didn’t go to college, makes $33,000 a year, and relies on a steady swarm of pests to pester people in his 90% rural county.

      But home, with a glass of wine and Fox News, he’s excited to hear from the only candidate who’s making any sense these days: Donald Trump.

    • Fox Downplays Sexual Assault, Until It Fits Their Anti-Muslim Refugee Agenda

      Fox News devoted numerous segments to reports of mass sexual assaults committed in Cologne, Germany on New Year’s Eve by men “having a ‘North African or Arabic’ appearance,” using the story to fearmonger about the “direct threat” posed by “how fast you allow … Syrian refugees into this country.” This reporting stands in contrast to Fox’s history of downplaying sexual assaults when it doesn’t fit their anti-refugee agenda.

  • Censorship

    • Canadian Company Netsweeper to Censor Bahrain’s Internet for $1.2M

      A Canadian company has offered to provide the Bahraini government with internet censorship technology, according to a tender published on Thursday—the latest in a string of questionable partnerships the company has forged in recent years.

    • ‘Censorship should be at the individual level’

      Censorship of any kind has to be individual wherein a person who does not like something should not watch or read it, said eminent author Nayantara Sahgal here on Friday.

    • Twitter Celebrates The Return Of Politwoops, Which It Tried To Murder

      Well, Politwoops has been resurrected, and here to tell us how great that is, is the new CEO of Twitter, the company that initially killed it off.

      [...]

      It’s a nice, well-crafted message, to be sure. That said, it wouldn’t feel right to laud Twitter for about-facing a terrible attempt to knee-cap the usefulness of its own site. If Twitter is a platform chiefly about inter-expression, then hiding any of that expression is antithetical to its very purpose. Reinstating a service primarily useful to the public, once murdered out of deference to the elite class, is self-evidently the right thing to do, and the only lesson to be learned here is that Twitter’s initial treatment of Politwoops was a major mistake to begin with.

    • The Pirate Bay Now Starts Operating From New .MS Domain

      Notorious file-sharing website The Pirate Bay has just started operating from a new .MS domain name. Notably, The Pirate Bay already registered the new .MS extension many years ago but it didn’t use it as a primary domain until now. If we recall the recent troubles faced by the website operators over the copyright issues, the future of .MS domain name seems very uncertain.

    • Hong Kong Bookseller Abducted by Chinese Government Thugs
    • Sense and censorship

      A committee led by Shyam Benegal may have been set up to look into revamping the Censor Board. But if not censorship, then what system should films be subjected to?

    • Poll: Colleges Should Punish Students for Offensive Speech

      A new HuffPost/YouGov survey found majority support for the position that colleges should punish students who engage in racially offensive speech.

      Respondents consisted of 1,000 random adults from around the country—not just college students, in other words. Fifty-three percent agreed that colleges should discipline students for making racially insensitive comments. Just 28 percent disagreed, and 19 percent weren’t sure.

  • Privacy

    • Note to Congress: The NSA Seizes More than Just Your Conversations with Israeli Leaders

      Over the holiday break, Congress was up in arms over a Wall Street Journal report revealing lawmakers’ private conversations with Israeli officials and interest groups were swept up by the National Security Agency during the US-Iran nuclear negotiations. But these aren’t the only congressional communications collected by the NSA.

      How vast is the dragnet? On what other national policy matters has NSA surveillance impacted Members of Congress? A congressional investigation remains long overdue, but these revelations should prompt Congress to create a Church Committee for the 21st Century.

    • The NYPD spied on Muslim Americans. Will a court settlement change anything?

      Five years ago, news broke that the NYPD was engaged in an expansive domestic spying operation targeting American Muslim communities for surveillance, mapping and infiltration. Two lawsuits were filed in the New York federal courts in response to these practices and in defense New York City Muslims’ – and all minority communities’ – right to equal treatment and religious freedom.

    • Your Apps, Please? China Shows how Surveillance Leads to Intimidation and Software Censorship

      Xinjiang, home of the China’s muslim Uighur minority, has long been the world’s laboratory for Internet repression. Faced with widespread local unrest, and online debate, China has done everything it can to enforce its vision of the Net in the region, from imprisoning bloggers and online publishers, to quarantining the entire Xinjiang network from the rest of the Internet for over ten months in 2009. Nonetheless, Xinjiang residents still circumvent censorship and surveillance in the pursuit of privacy and free expression. They use virtual private networks and other methods to get around the Great Firewall. They use popular messaging apps that they have heard could defend them against surveillance, like WhatsApp and Telegram.

    • After Spending Time As Surveillance Subjects, Intelligence Oversight Committee Suddenly Performing Some Oversight

      Once again, it appears the only way to make our nation’s intelligence oversight committees care about surveillance is to include them in the “fun.”

      Fervent surveillance apologist Dianne Feinstein had zero fucks to give about the steady stream of leaks until it became apparent that the CIA was spying on her staffers while they put together the Torture Report. Likewise, many members of the House Intelligence Committee couldn’t be bothered to care much about domestic surveillance until they, too, were “inadvertently” included in the NSA’s dragnet.

    • White House Raises Encryption Threat in Silicon Valley Summit
    • Germany reportedly resumes domestic surveillance efforts with the NSA

      After halting its internet surveillance targeting German companies and officials last May, the country’s BND intelligence agency has resumed its spying operations in collaboration with the NSA, according to Reuters.

      German media reported that collaboration between the two agencies have started up again at the Bad Aibling surveillance station and that the BND has resumed supplying intelligence to the NSA.

    • Forbes, ad blockers and malware

      If you’ve been following the news about ad blockers, you might have heard about Forbes asking its readers to turn off ad blockers to access its content. Apparently the site promised to provide an “ad light” version of its site that provides less ads or something like that.

      Well one guy, Brian Baskins, turned off his ad blocker and promptly got some pop-under malware on the Forbes site.

    • The Transatlantic Data War

      The United States faces a profound choice. It can continue to work in a world of blurred lines and unilateral demands, making no concessions on surveillance and denouncing privacy rights as protectionism in disguise. Yet if it does so, it is U.S. companies that will suffer.

      Alternatively, it can recognize that globalization comes in different flavors and that Europeans have real and legitimate problems with ubiquitous U.S. surveillance and unilateralism. An ambitious strategy would seek to reform EU and U.S. privacy rules so as to put in place a comprehensive institutional infrastructure that could protect the privacy rights of European and U.S. citizens alike, creating rules and institutions to restrict general surveillance to uses that are genuinely in the security interests of all the countries.

      More broadly, the United States needs to disentangle the power of a U.S.-led order from the temptations of manipulating that order to its national security advantage. If it wants globalization to continue working as it has in the past, the United States is going to have to stop thinking of flows of goods and information as weapons and start seeing them as public goods that need to be maintained and nurtured. Ultimately, it is U.S. firms and the American economy that stand to benefit most.

    • How the US Is Playing Both Ends on Data Privacy

      There’s an excellent article in Foreign Affairs on how the European insistence on data privacy — most recently illustrated by their invalidation of the “safe harbor” agreement — is really about the US talking out of both sides of its mouth on the issue: championing privacy in public, but spying on everyone in private. As long as the US keeps this up, the authors argue, this issue will get worse.

    • House with Banksy mural mocking GCHQ spooks goes on sale for £350,000
    • United States network NBC News reports on ‘$300K sale’ of Cheltenham’s Banksy house
    • Millionaire businessman to put in offer for Banksy house with aim of turning it into a ‘spy museum’
    • Juniper will scrap code giving NSA backdoor access
    • Juniper promises to scrap firmware code that granted NSA backdoor access
    • New Questions Swirl About Security Failure at Tech Giant Juniper Networks
    • Juniper will release another patch for its backdoored firewalls
    • Juniper Networks will drop code tied to National Security Agency
    • Juniper’s products are still insecure; more evidence that the company was complicit

      It’s been a month since Juniper admitted that its firewalls had back-doors in them, possibly inserted by (or to aid) US intelligence agencies. In the month since, Juniper has failed to comprehensively seal those doors, and more suspicious information has come to light.

      U Illinois researcher Stephen Checkoway has revealed that Juniper’s backdoor was only possible because the company added a known-insecure random number generator, Dual_EC, years after the company had started using a more-secure alternative, ANSI X9.31, deliberately introducing a vulnerability into its product.

    • ‘Insider Threat’ Program: Hundred Thousand Pentagon Personnel Under Total Surveillance

      At least a hundred thousand military, civilian, and contractor personnel at the Defense Department have been subjected to a “continuous evaluation” or total surveillance of their electronic activities and communications. The surveillance is part of the department’s “Insider Threat” program and raises concerns about the extent to which whistleblower communications are being intercepted.

      According to a 2015 report to Congress obtained by Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News, “Multiple pilots and concept demonstrations using ‘push’ and ‘pull’ capabilities to conduct continuous evaluation” have been used to monitor personnel with access to classified information.

    • Top White House Officials Talk Encryption in Silicon Valley
    • Gmail Creator Named Head of Y Combinator’s Tech Startup Incubator

      Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s largest startup factory, is rejiggering responsibilities at the executive level and adding more staff. Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail and of Google’s onetime slogan “Don’t be evil,” replaces Sam Altman as managing partner of Y Combinator’s main accelerator program, which helped launch companies including Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, and Stripe.

    • This is the web browser you should be using if you care at all about security

      No matter what you’ve heard about the Tor network, the basics of the service are simple: Tor keeps anyone who uses it safe, secure, and anonymous on the Internet.

      Originally created by the U.S. Navy, Tor can be used to browse the Web anonymously, send and receive private communications, or make other computer software anonymous by integrating it with Tor software.

      Tor’s reputation, however, is less straightforward. Many equate the anonymity the network provides with those who decide to use it for illegal purposes. From terms like “Dark Net” and ”Deep Web” to who actually uses the privacy software, here’s everything you need to know about Tor.

  • Civil Rights

    • Neoliberalism and its forgotten alternative

      …the natural ‘commons’ is turned into a potential new source of value which can be speculated on by investors…

    • On the edge of a nation, sitting on the border

      Life in UK’s indefinite immigration detention regime evokes the ‘barbed wire disease’ experienced by ‘enemy aliens’ interned during the World Wars. We must learn from our past to end detention.

    • Mein Trumpf Makes a Stop in Vermont
    • VIDEO: Is Right-Wing Populism the New Normal?

      In this video from The Guardian, Younge describes the ascent of rightwing populist leaders as the result of democracy in crisis…

    • San Bernardino Police Abuse Victims May Get Screwed Over by Bankruptcy

      Today, three and a half years later, The Wall Street Journal reports that the city wants to find its way out of bankruptcy by wriggling out of its police abuse settlements.

    • Migrants In Europe Are Getting Stereotyped As Dangerous Criminals

      At least 18 migrants are among the 31 people believed to have carried out a spate of attacks on women at a New Year’s Eve celebration in Cologne, Germany. More than 170 criminal complaints have been filed, the majority of which claim sexually motivated attacks. A spree of similar attacks across Europe has been used to justify fears that so many Middle East and North Africa natives will not be able to fully integrate into European societies.

    • When Men and Women Work Together, Men Get All the Credit

      Anne Case and Angus Deaton recently wrote a paper that’s gotten a lot of attention. One of the minor ways it’s gotten attention is in the way a lot of people talk about it: as the Deaton paper, or the Deaton/Case paper, despite the fact that it’s traditional in economics to list authors alphabetically.

    • A Left-Wing Hero of Brazil, Jean Wyllys, Comes Under Fire for Israel Trip, Anti-Palestine Comments

      A POPULAR LEFT-WING Brazilian congressman known for his leadership in the social justice movement is trying to fend off a major backlash from his left flank while he travels in Israel. The legislator, Jean Wyllys, has angered much of the base of the leftist Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), which he represents, after participating in a conference at an Israeli university with deep ties to human rights abuses against Palestinians and then defending that decision with anti-Palestinian talking points common among hard-core Israel defenders. Wyllys’ unexpected stance is one of the most powerful cases yet to highlight the tried-and-true tactic of exploiting liberal social issues to generate left-wing support for militarism.

    • For Maine Gov. Paul LePage, “Cocaine Negroes” Have Given Way to Horny Heroin Dealers

      Says “guys by the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” drive north from New York and Connecticut to sell drugs and knock up local girls.

    • Here’s Gov. Paul LePage’s Non-Apology for Comments About Drug Dealers “Impregnating” White Women

      “You’s don’t like me and I don’t like you.”

      That’s how Gov. Paul LePage began his press conference on Friday to formally address the racially charged remarks he made this week about drug dealers with names like “D-Money” and “Smoothie” coming to “impregnate” young white girls in Maine.

      LePage’s opening line, which he cited as a quote from the film “Rocky,” was aimed squarely at media and reporters in the room.

      “I made one slip up,” he said. “I was going impromptu and my brain didn’t catch up to my mouth.”

      “Instead of saying Maine women, I said white women,” he added. “I’m not going to apologize to the Maine women for that because if you go to Maine, you will see we are 95 percent white.”

    • Yo Guv, We Mighta Found Smoothie, Still Looking For D-Money and Shifty

      Sigh. Our racist imbecile of a governor Paul LePage is making news again for projectile vomiting moronic words out of his face – this time, blaming Maine’s real, ruinous, death-dealing heroin epidemic on imaginary black dudes named D-Money, Smoothie and Shifty, who come here from New York and Connecticut to sell dope, impregnate white girls, maybe rap a bit and then go home. After everybody freaked out that he actually out loud said those things, he sorta lumbered through an even more stunningly offensive non-apology that utterly, miraculously missed the point, blathering about how his “brain (sic) didn’t catch up to my mouth” and why are these lefty bloggers out to get him for One Little Slip-Up and anyway who said anything about race, not him, nope, uh uh. Twitter was on it. Samples: “The governor of Maine’s comments are disgusting. D-money, smoothie & shifty are actually stand-up guys once you get to know em” and “Je suis smoothie.”

    • Governor Delivers Racist Rant At Public Meeting
    • Right-Wing Governor LePage Issues Appalling Defense of His Racist Remarks

      He did add that perhaps his brain was slower than his mouth. “Instead of ‘Maine women,’ I said ‘white women’ and I’m not going to apologize to the Maine women for that because if you go to Maine, you’ll see that we’re essentially 95 percent white.”

    • Man Shoots Officer While Pledging Allegiance To ISIS, But Mayor Says He Doesn’t Represent Islam

      The shooting comes at a time when police deaths are actually at a low point, but when anti-Islam incidents — where American Muslims are harassed, shot, or have their houses of worship damaged or destroyed — are on the rise.

    • Cop Arrested Twice for Assaulting Women, Stayed a Cop and Was Just Arrested a Third Time

      Philadelphia police officer Deric Lewis was recently arrested for the third time, after being arrested on two other occasions and losing his job as a result. In his two previous arrests, Lewis was charged with assault and reckless endangerment, and was reported as being violent in both situations.

    • America Must See the Truth About Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan

      The Obama administration must see Turkey under the reign of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for what it is.

    • Saudi Arabia executions: Philip Hammond condemned by rights campaigners for ‘excusing’ mass killings

      The Foreign Secretary says ‘just to be clear, these people were terrorists’ – despite at least four of the 47 being arrested over political protests. Rights groups say Britain continues to ‘parrot the propaganda’ of its Middle East ally

    • Artist protests naked at Cologne cathedral

      “Respect us! We are not fair game, even when we’re naked,” Moiré’s sign read.

      The 32-year-old Swiss artist stood on the square outside Cologne’s world-famous cathedral for around 20 minutes on Friday morning, watched by members of the public and a few police officers, who joined the group of onlookers but took no action against Moiré.

      “I stand for women’s freedom to move freely. For the things we’ve achieved in the past 50 years – for women’s emancipation,” Moiré told Bild.

      “I don’t want people to trample on these values and for women to have to adapt themselves. Women must be able to live their values of freedom, with self-determination and self-awareness,” she said.

    • Former Cardinals Scouting Coach To Plead Guilty To Hacking In Espionage Case

      But media reports speculated that charged officials could incur heavy penalties for computer hacking under the controversial Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) — a law that has been used to convict malicious hackers but has also been used to prosecute more innocuous online behavior, such as downloading documents or using a shared password.

      Internet activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide after the Justice Department charged him with criminal hacking under the CFAA for downloading documents from a research database. He was facing up to 35 years and $1 million in fines for downloading millions of academic articles.

    • The 2 Refugees Charged With Terrorism-Related Crimes, In Context

      Two Palestinian refugees, both born in Iraq, were arrested in Sacramento and Houston respectively on Thursday for terror related charges. The arrests have already elicited responses from certain U.S. governors who vowed to not accept Syrian refugees.

      “This is precisely why I called for a halt to refugees entering the U.S. from countries substantially controlled by terrorists,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said in a statement, according to Fox News. “I once again urge the President to halt the resettlement of these refugees in the United States until there is an effective vetting process that will ensure refugees do not compromise the safety of Americans and Texans.”

    • Teacher Says She Was Fired For Teaching Students About The Central Park Five

      A New York City high school teacher says she was fired after teaching her class about the Central Park Five — a case involving five black and Hispanic men who were accused of raping a jogger as teenagers but later exonerated after spending between six to 13 years in prison — because administrators were worried the lesson would “rile up” students of color.

    • Alabama Cops, Confederate Flags, Racism, and an Over-Eager Media

      Last month, dozens of news outletsshared a “bombshell” story about a cabal of neo-Confederate police officers in Dothan, Alabama. The officers had allegedly been systematically planting evidence on innocent black men for decades, resulting in hundreds of wrongful convictions.

    • 7 of 2015′s Most Outrageous Killings by the Drug War Police

      Drug law enforcement operations in the US killed people at the rate of more than one a week last year.

    • What The San Francisco Police Wants You To Do With Your Smartphone Instead Of Recording Police Misconduct

      San Francisco police want onlookers to turn their smartphone camera on suspected criminal activity — instead of police behavior.

      The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is reportedly developing a crime-reporting app, Fight Crime SF, that will allow citizens to submit photos and video of suspected criminal activity. The app doesn’t have a release date but is expected to be released to the public early this year, according to SFD spokeswoman Officer Susan Merritt’s statements in a recent issue of the police union’s journal.

    • The Rise of France’s Far Right

      France’s far right benefits from almost everything in the country: a broken economy; a still-rising unemployment rate; job insecurity and a fear of loss of social status; an endangered welfare system and public services; a repellent “European project”; a wave of migration, heightened by chaos in some Arab countries; coordinated attacks planned by those who claim to act in the name of Islam. And a Socialist Party that for almost 30 years has shared with the right the responsibility for neoliberal policies now locked in through European treaties, and a project of remaining in power indefinitely by presenting itself every election as the last defence against the Front National (FN).

      [...]

      Like the far right, the mainstream right likes to lambast the politically correct.

    • Europe Besieged

      More than a million requests for asylum; dozens of boats landing daily on Greek and Maltese beaches; a record number of deaths in the Mediterranean; armies sent in to control borders — migration in 2015 was exceptional in scale, and has challenged how the EU functions. Between August and October, Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia all reintroduced border controls to try to stem the influx.

    • Why the Feds Punk Out When Confronting White Rightwing Insurgents

      When a criminal justice system born in Native American genocide and Black slave patrolling finds itself in conflict with conservative white Christian landowners, it short-circuits.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • T-Mobile CEO John Legere got caught lying by the EFF, and now he’s totally losing it

      The Electronic Frontier Foundation caught T-Mobile and its bombastic CEO John Legere in a huge lie, and instead of addressing the findings, Legere is quickly becoming unhinged. Here’s the short version: T-Mobile has been claiming that its “BingeOn” program, which offers some free video from select partners to customers, and also downgrades the quality of all other video as part of an opt-out program, is collectively a form of video “optimization.” Three days ago, the EFF published an investigation that exposed T-Mobile’s marketing language for the euphemistic misdirection it is: instead of “optimizing” video streams, the company has been identifying video traffic and then throttling that traffic to 1.5Mbps.

      In other words, it’s the biggest fuck you to net neutrality that any company has dared since the FCC passed new rules in 2015. And John Legere wants you to thank T-Mobile for it.

  • DRM

    • iPhone & iTunes sync – Don’t want

      Aesthetics and hardware aside, iPhone 6 does not have a single usability advantage over its rivals. None whatsoever. Moreover, the ultra-restrictive way you must do things is frustrating and maddening and utterly sub-100 IQ. Fine for people who believe California is the center of the Universe, less so for people who can spell cynicism without getting confused. I will not partake in this silliness. Which means the moment my bunch of Apple stocks finally makes some kind of a profit, I will most likely dump them all back into the shares sea. There is no reason to keep investing in this. All I wanted was to play an MP3 file. That’s all I asked. Won’t let me play? Won’t give you my money. Fair deal. And you’re welcome, dear readers. I’m suffering so you don’t have to. We’re done.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Monsanto + Syngenta: Agribusiness Giants Get Even Bigger

      A merger between agricultural biotech giants Monsanto and Syngenta is becoming likelier by the minute. The proposed merger has generated much commentary and speculation in the business world as well as among anti-GMO activists since the resulting corporation would control 45% of the global seed market and 30% of the agrochemical market (1).

      In 2015 the US-based Monsanto tried to buy Syngenta twice, and was twice spurned by the European corporation. But Monsanto is not the only suitor. Syngenta has also been courted with similar buyout bids by Germany’s BASF and Asian corporate colossus ChemChina.

    • A Pill That Cures Hepatitis Costs Just $4, but If You Live in America It’s $1,000

      On April 8, 2013, the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, Inc., filed a New Drug Application claiming to be able to cure hepatitis C. They received the FDA’s coveted Breakthrough Therapy Designation, which is is given to drugs that show significant treatment advantages to existing options.

Microsoft to Make Vista 10 ‘Upgrade’ Virtually Mandatory to Virtually All Windows Users (Unless They’re Technical Enough to Block it)

Posted in Microsoft, Vista 10, Windows at 7:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Force-fed like malnourished children

Baby squirrel

Summary: The same old vanity and the abusive behaviour of Microsoft is showing again, as the company disregards the will of users and essentially takes over their machines, putting Orwellian levels of surveillance on them (in the name of ‘security’, of course!)

THE WORLD’S most aggressive software company (which doesn’t even make all that much software, as a lot of the code gets acquired, not developed) is forcing people to change. It is imposing its spyware, Vista 10, on people’s PCs unless they’re savvy enough to stop it.

“Say goodbye to this abusive behaviour from Microsoft as it’s only going to get worse in future years.”According to this article, one needs to actually follow guides to manage to prevent Microsoft from doing this. “If you’re using a PC running Windows 7 or 8,” it explains, “you may be getting a little sick of endless popup screens telling you to upgrade to version 10. And you may be worried about inadvertently installing the upgrade as part of a security update. Microsoft will start pushing out a Windows 10 upgrade as a recommended, virtually mandatory, update very soon (it’s right now only an optional download). Some people are tempted to turn off Windows Update completely to avoid getting the new operating system – don’t.”

Well, don’t, indeed. Just install GNU/Linux on the PC. Say goodbye to this abusive behaviour from Microsoft as it’s only going to get worse in future years. Microsoft inadvertently made it known some days ago that it is stalking Windows users in real time. This one new article says: “We now know just how much Windows 10 is spying on everybody, and it’s all thanks to Microsoft itself. In a Windows Blog post, Microsoft details a number of stats related to Windows 10 usage. However, these usage stats inadvertently reveal how much data the company is collecting on Windows 10 users.”

“When North Korea does something similar by creating its own warped distribution of GNU/Linux the Western press jumps/capitalises on the old news to berate GNU/Linux, not when Vista 10 does the same or worse.”If it was some small company doing the same thing, there would be severe consequences, like having their offices raided by law enforcement and employees escorted into custody in handcuffs. Microsoft, however, is very well connected with the US government and with the NSA. Microsoft gives them advantage on the espionage front. When North Korea does something similar by creating its own warped distribution of GNU/Linux the Western press jumps/capitalises on the old news to berate GNU/Linux, but not when Vista 10 does the same or worse.

Microsoft has already kick-started FUD tactics, warning people that they’ll get hurt (in the security sense) if they don’t ‘upgrade’. Now is a good time to dump Windows altogether. █

“You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.”

–Al Capone

China-US Trade Wars With Patent Raids, Confiscations, Embargoes, and Low-quality Patent Stockpiling

Posted in America, Asia, Patents at 7:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Companies can now literally steal other companies’ products because they claim that patent infringement is “theft”

Executed
Death penalty: killing people to demonstrate that killing is wrong

Summary: Companies from the US are trying to teach companies from China that ‘stealing’ (alleged patent infringement) is wrong by basically stealing (literally!) their products in a trade show in the US, even though both China and the US have a notoriously low bar for patenting (includes abstract concepts, as long as they’re not framed as such)

TWO countries where the quality of patents is notoriously low (hence a high number of patents) are China and the US. We wrote many articles about it before. Quite a few Chinese companies are now building up/amassing stocks of thousands of patents, catching up with their US-based counterparts (which manufacture all their products in China anyway). Who benefits from this? Conglomerates and their lawyers, at everybody else’s expense.

“Quite a few Chinese companies are now building up/amassing stocks of thousands of patents, catching up with their US-based counterparts (which manufacture all their products in China anyway).”Years ago we showed how trade shows had been transformed into raiding opportunities [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13], causing a major scene out in public, degrading confidence, and destroying the reputation of certain events/trade shows. These raids are now a reality in the US because Onewheel from Future Motion decided to go litigious with patents and actually confiscate another company’s products, which it can make itself in China. This has raised quite a few eyebrows. What would attract east Asian companies to America (or the US), where you can officially — but without notice — be raided over patents? All this disruptive U.S. Marshals’ involvement because of patents alone? As a little background to this, see TechDirt‘s coverage: “One of the big stories coming out of CES this week is the bizarre situation in which US Marshals showed up here at the event yesterday and completely shut down the booth of a Chinese company, named Changzhou First International Trade Co. This happened after a judge granted a motion for a temporary restraining order, filed by US company Future Motion, following a seven minute hearing about the matter, in which Changzhou was not present and had no say. [...] In other words, there’s a fair bit of evidence to support that the patent infringement case is fairly strong. That said, it still seems quite troubling for US Marshals to then get involved and completely shut down Changzhou First International Trade Co.’s booth at CES right in the middle of the show, when the company doesn’t get a chance to present to the judge until January 14th, long after CES has packed up and left town.”

This story involves a Chinese company coming to the US. China and the US have some things in common when it comes to patents, as both countries’ patent offices (SIPO and USPTO) have very low-quality patents and approve almost everything (poor quality control). Patents for patents’ sake, regardless of the consequences! In the US, unless you’re a rich and highly determined defendant, you never know if a patent is worth something unless challenged for years in the courts. USPTO examination is being grossly rushed, so prior art search is somewhat of a joke. We wrote about this for years. There is this new article titled “U.S. and Chinese Courts’ Software Patent Requirements” and it says that “In China, software inventions that comprise only rules and methods for intellectual activities are not patentable. Thus, a claim that describes an algorithm, mathematical rules, or computer program “as such” and alone may not be patented. However, software inventions that comprise both rules and methods for intellectual activities and technical features of means in order to solve technical problems and obtain technical effects can be patented. Software that (a) uses a technical solution to (b) solve a technical problem concerning (c) a law of nature, may comprise patent eligible subject matter and are subject to patent law protection. The subject of the patent must pass the three part test and still must satisfy the basic requirements for patentability—novelty, non-obviousness, and usefulness—the same as in the U.S.”

“A lot of startups in the US are rightly worried about software patents.”Notice the use of the term “as such” and recall how Brimelow arguably brought to Europe or made it possible to bring to Europe software patents.

A lot of startups in the US are rightly worried about software patents. A couple of days ago somebody published “Arguments you can make against software patents as a startup CTO” [via Bessen and Henrion].

To quote some bits from it:

Most software engineers believe that software patents are bad for innovation, and shouldn’t exist. Unfortunately, this isn’t a good argument against filing for software patents, since it’s essentially a complaint about the rules of the game, but as a startup CTO you still have to play the game, regardless of what you think of the rules.

Many CTOs of seed or A-round companies find themselves under pressure from non-technical co-founders and investors to spend time and money on software patents. While I don’t always win the debate, I can say with confidence that the return on investment on all of this time and effort was precisely $0 in every case.

[...]

When people ask about my “IP defensibility” strategy, I generally argue for trade secrets. They’re free, require no effort, you’re not disclosing potentially important information to competitors, and they basically lack any of the other shortcomings I describe above.

IBM’s Manny Schecter/Schechter has just published this paper. It speaks about the effects of Alice on business method patents, not just software patents, which Schecter and his employer support [1, 2]. “Many sources track aspects of PTAB outcomes,” says the abstract, “but none have specifically analyzed CBM outcomes at both the institution and final decision stages by ground. Practitioners, policymakers, patentees, and petitioners can benefit from an empirical analysis of outcomes. Our study analyzes CBM outcomes according to the basis for the challenge and examines whether the Supreme Court’s ruling in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S.Ct. 2347 (2014) (Alice) makes § 101 grounds more popular in CBM petitions. We also investigate the effect of Alice on CBM petition filing and success. We determined that there were more § 101 challenges in CBM filings post-Alice.”

Patent lawyers are rightly worried (for themselves) that a lot of patents would no longer withstand challenges in/from a court of law. There is more uncertainty for them. Whether or not these patents are worth something, injunctions, embargoes and even raids remain a scary prospect to companies that actually produce things. █

“Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.”

–Dwight Eisenhower

01.08.16

Abogados de Patentes Dicen ¨Todavía No se Ha Confirmado Cómo la OEP Limitará el Número de Patentes un Aplicante Puede Solicitar¨

Posted in Europe, Patents at 11:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Publicado en Europe, Patents a las 4:20 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

La manera correcta es la más lenta, es lo que las PYMEs europeas están consiguiendo al momento.

Roadworks

Sumario: Abogados de Patentes de Barker Brettel LLP inádvertidamente revelarón que incluso para aquellos que son cercanos a la OEP pueden ver los obvios problemas de PACE (acelerar el proceso de aplicaciones de patentes para las grandes CORPORACIONES) como si la línea rápida so se atascaría si todos se registrarían por ella.

El programa PACE de la OEP es una VERGUENZA y ESTAFA por que actualmente favorece sólo a las grandes corporaciones, muchas de ellas ni siquiera europeas. Esto destruye mitos (del equipo de la OEP dedicado a crear mitos [para ¨mecer¨ a la gente) y claramente interfiere con toda la propaganda que la OEP disemina en Twitter y en su propio sitio web, así como en varios sitios de noticias donde se pinta a la OEP como el ¨amigo¨ de Europa y el protector de inventores vulnerables.

“El completamente discriminatorio régimen favorece aquellos que aplican en masa, por ello es inherently BENEFICIOSO sólo para las grandes empresas.”“La OEP recientemente publicó una notificación con respecto a cambios a y aclaraciones del procedimiento de PASO a implementarse este mes (enero 2016),” escribió Barker Brettell LLP (abogados de patente cuyo sitio de Web hace su próposito bastante aparente incluso en su homepage). Ellos publicaron algunos comentarios en los medios de comunicación de los abogados sobre el ASOLAPAMIENTO sobre lo que escribimos en inglés y luego en español (recientemente publicamos la traducción española, literalmente hace unos cuantos minutos). Los abogados dicen que los cambios de “la OEP , en particular, tiene un impacto en solicitantes que aplican en masa (volumen) y quiénes actualmente petición PACE en todas las aplicaciones. Todavía no se ha comprobado sin embargo, cómo la OEP limitará el número de aplicaciones por PACE un solicitante puede hacer.”

Bueno esto NO se espera que sea efectivo. El entero discriminatorio *régime favorece aquellos que aplican al por mayor, por ello es *inherentemente BENEFICIOSO A EMPRESAS GRANDES. Más tarde este mes compartiremos al público más historias de PYMEs europeas que cada vez más han sido conscientes (y se quejaron por ello) de las prácticas discriminatorias de la OEP en contra quienes son pequeños e impotentes. █

“El poder de observación cuidadosa es llamado cinismo generalmente por quienes no lo han adquirido.”

–George Bernard Shaw

Links 8/1/2016: Polaroid, Freetel Android Devices, More From CES

Posted in News Roundup at 4:27 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Thinking Outside The (Linux) Box

    So, what does this have to do with Linux or computers in general? It illustrates an important truth about technology and that is that it is not and never will be perfect. Anyone who wants to use any technology to make life easier or to accomplish a task must be prepared to live with imperfection and learn how to work around it. If you can’t handle that concept then you will find yourself very frustrated. Sometimes a little analytical thinking and judicious application of pragmatic logic are necessary to get the most from a complex system. Anyone not prepared to roll with the changes is doomed to failure. The Linux ecosystem is vast and developers are constantly working to find new ways to get things done, deprecating the old and embracing the new. It will never be perfect, it will never be one-size-fits-all. The number of choices are dizzying and that is a good thing because it gives you options to deal with these little imperfections and stumbling blocks as the present themselves.

  • Server

    • Behind the scenes: How the FCC migrated to the cloud

      “We literally retired two Sun E25Ks, which as background, these systems each weigh one ton. We clearly did not want to load those into the trucks, and they were 11 years old. Those were moved to newer server blades that were lighter, more modular, etc., so that they could be more easily transported to the commercial data facility. Those one-ton systems could now be gracefully retired and disposed of as appropriate,” Bray said.

    • Introducing dumb-init, an init system for Docker containers

      At Yelp we use Docker containers everywhere: we run tests in them, build tools around them, and even deploy them into production. In this post we introduce dumb-init, a simple init system written in C which we use inside our containers.

      Lightweight containers have made running a single process without normal init systems like systemd or sysvinit practical. However, omitting an init system often leads to incorrect handling of processes and signals, and can result in problems such as containers which can’t be gracefully stopped, or leaking containers which should have been destroyed.

  • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Podcast Season 4 Episode 01

      In this episode: Ian Murdoch, creator of Debian, has died. AMD is overhauling its open source driver approach. Linux has been made to run on a PS4. IPv6 is now at 10% adoption, after only 20 years. And there’s an outbreak of common sense at the Dutch Government. All this plus our regular Finds, Brains and Voices sections. Plus, One. More. Thing.

  • Kernel Space

    • diff -u: What’s New in Kernel Development

      There’s an ongoing impulse among a diversity of developers to be able to compile some or all of the Linux kernel as a library, so that a piece of software could use kernel services and APIs while running under a different kernel entirely, or a different operating system.

    • FIXME and TODO comments in the Linux kernel source

      While looking at some code in the Linux Kernel this morning I spotted a few FIXME comments and that got me wondering just how many there are in the source code. After a quick grep I found nearly 4200 in v4.4.0-rc8 and that got me thinking about other similar comment tags such as TODO that are in the source and how this has been changing over time.

    • The Thousands Of FIXMEs & TODOs In The Linux Kernel

      Canonical’s Colin King has looked at the number of FIXME and TODO comments within the Linux kernel tree.

      King found that currently there are more than four thousand “FIXME” comments within the Linux 4.4 kernel source code. After becoming curious, he found almost 4,500 “TODO” comments in the kernel source code as well.

    • Automotive Grade Linux makes the grade with AGL UCB for Ford, Subaru, Mazda & Mistubishi

      Automotive Grade Linux , connected car open source software, announced that Subaru, Mitsubishi Motors, Mazda Motor Corporation and Ford Motor Company are joining The Linux Foundation and AGL. Ford Motor Company is the first U.S. car manufacturer to join AGL. These latest automakers join existing members Toyota Motor Corporation, Nissan Motor Company Ltd. and Linux Foundation board member Jaguar Land Rover to round-up the list of OEM supporters within AGL.

    • Graphics Stack

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Akonadi – still alive and rocking

        It’s been a while since I wrote anything about Akonadi but that does not mean I was slacking all the time Wink The KDE PIM team has ported PIM to KDE Frameworks 5 and Qt 5 and released the first KF5-based version in August 2015 and even before that we already did some major changes under the hood that were not possible in the KDE4 version due to API and ABI freezes of kdepimlibs. The KF5-based version of Akonadi libraries (and all the other KDE PIM libraries for that matter) have no guarantees of stable API yet, so we can bend and twist the libraries to our needs to improve stability and performance. Here’s an overview of what has happened (mostly in Akonadi) since we started porting to KDE Frameworks 5. It is slightly more technical than I originally intended to, sorry about that.

      • KDE Plasma 5.5: The Quintessential 2016 Review

        It’s the start of 2016 and over the past year KDE developers have brought numerous new features and improvements to the Plasma 5 desktop, some tangible with others more under-the-hood.

        With the sun set on 2015 it marks the first full year since Plasma 4, a stable workhorse which many users still rely on for day-to-day computing, has been discontinued. Plasma 5 is on the clock for users who need to know if the widgets, settings, and some painful regressions have been sorted out to see if it’s safe to embrace modern Plasma in the new year.

        This review will cover the evolution of KDE Plasma and its applications since the release of 5.2, listing many of the biggest differences and examining if they have caught up with Plasma 4 to a satisfactory degree for everyday users looking for a supported daily driver. We will also look at the desktop from the viewpoint of users who are thinking of trying or returning to the KDE/Plasma ecosystem, and may not necessarily know about some of the core Plasma functionality.

        While I have avoided bias to the best of my ability, for full disclosure I am a member of the KDE Visual Design Group.

      • Updates on KBibTeX

        In this posting, I am going to tell about the changes and development done in KBibTeX during the last few months. Most notably, KBibTeX has been ported to KDE Frameworks 5, but also some effort has been spent into code quality.

      • Care to help test?
      • Creating lessons with Cantor

        As a student from the competition Google Code In, I saw that there is a task to create lessons in Cantor. Although I haven’t worked with this KDE software before, I accepted the task.

      • The Kubuntu Podcast team’s latest video is live

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • GNOME’s Mutter Now Supports Screen Rotation On Wayland

        Thanks to work that landed today by GNOME’s Carlos Garnacho, there is now support on the GNOME desktop for supporting screen rotation on Wayland.

        Mutter has picked up native, DRM-based CRTC rotation based upon the modes exposed by the DRM kernel graphics driver. This implementation is only for drivers/hardware supporting rotation modes and is not yet a driver-independent solution. The other caveat, which isn’t anything really unique, is that when screen rotation takes place GNOME falls back to using a software cursor.

      • Watch: GNOME Desktop Environment Makes Appearance in Justin Bieber’s ‘Sorry’ Video

        It’s almost weekend, so we’re continuing our “Watch” series of articles with a really funny one, the latest video of Justin Bieber for the song Sorry, where you can see the GNOME Shell user interface of the GNOME desktop environment for GNU/Linux OSes.

  • Distributions

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Nvidia unveils Drive PX 2 platform for self-driving cars

      Nvidia unveiled a “Drive PX 2” platform for self-driving cars, an update to its earlier Tegra-based Drive PX automotive mainboard design.

      Nvidia and Qualcomm showed off new automotive platforms at CES that demonstrate the power of their advanced GPUs to achieve sophisticated computer vision capabilities. Qualcomm’s new Linux- and Android-ready Snapdragon 820a is an automotive spin on its quad-core 820 SoC, that targets in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Here, we look at Nvidia’s Drive PX 2 platform for self-driving cars, an update to its Tegra-based Drive PX automotive board with 16nm Tegras that haven’t even been announced yet.

    • Qualcomm aims new Snapdragon 820a SoC at smart cars

      Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 820a, a version of its 64-bit Snapdragon 820 SoC targeting automotive applications including IVI and ADAS.

      Nvidia and Qualcomm showed off new automotive platforms at CES that demonstrate the power of their advanced GPUs to achieve sophisticated computer vision capabilities. Nvidia’s Drive PX 2 platform is aimed at self-driving cars, and updates the Tegra-based Drive PX automotive board with 16nm Tegras that haven’t even been announced yet. Here, we look at Qualcomm’s Linux- and Android-ready Snapdragon 820a, an automotive spin on its quad-core 820 SoC designed for in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

    • Augmented reality helmet moves to Skylake, RealSense, Linux

      Daqri has upgraded its augmented reality Smart Helmet, which now runs Linux on a 6th Gen Intel Core M7 processor, and includes an Intel RealSense camera.

      Daqri first announced its Daqri Smart Helmet in Sept. 2014, and rolled it out to aerospace, construction, oil & gas, and other industrial firms for pilot programs shortly thereafter. At CES this week, Daqri showed off a second generation model of the Linux-based augmented reality helmet that will ship commercially later this quarter.

    • Latest Intel Compute Sticks use Skylake and Cherry Trail CPUs

      With its relatively high, $89 (Linux) to $149 (Windows) price, middling Bay Trail processor, and one lonely USB port, the Intel Compute Stick was clearly in need of some improvements. At CES, Intel launched several second-gen versions that add more USB ports, faster 802.11ac 2×2 WiFi, and much faster processors.

    • Phones

Free Software/Open Source

  • Half of AT&T’s networks are controlled by open-source SDN code

    AT&T says it has replaced nearly half of the software in its vast operations with open-source software-defined networking (SDN) code.

    Speaking to developers just before this year’s CES conference kicked off on Tuesday, technology and operations veep John Donovan dropped that number as evidence that the operator’s SDN strategy is working.

  • Open-source ‘ecosystem’ central to fight against Ebola

    Harnessing open-source software and the voters’ roll solved the issue.

  • Embracing open source as a visual artist

    I’d heard about Linux, but I thought it was scrolling green terminal output on black monitors for Hollywood hackers and geeks. Reading Sennett write about Linux in such a way that connected free, open source software to craftsmanship (and radical, avant-garde politics) piqued my interest. Unhappy with the standard computing options and wanting a deeper understanding of the means of media production, I made a leap into the void and built a Linux desktop. It was my first rig and my first distro (Ubuntu). The learning curve was steep and the new environment put a serious hamper on my creative output as there was no 1:1 correlation between the tools with which I was familiar. I began working with openFrameworks and while a visualist-in-residence at The Institute of Cultural Inquiry, created my first truly open source art work.

  • Was 2015 the Year When Open Source Software Finally Won?

    Open source software has made huge strides in a short time. But do platforms like the cloud, IoT and Android help or hinder the mission of free and open source code?

  • The role the channel can play in managing open source security

    With the growing popularity of wearables providing determined hackers with yet another means of accessing the sensitive information they desire, this year will see a need for security to extend beyond the perimeter as these hackers continue to find ways into IT infrastructure through alternative, less prioritised routes.

  • Raspberry Pi-based home AI project open-sources key components

    Mycroft.ai, which is working to create a home AI platform based on Raspberry Pi, Arduino and an extensive in-house software stack, has opened an important part of that stack to developers everywhere as of Wednesday.

  • WD and ownCloud team up on consumer cloud device

    ownCloud started off as a humble ‘free software’ file syncing project from Germany. But that project has evolved into an open source company that is now headquartered in Boston, Mass. And ownCloud has become a platform that does much more than just file syncing: It has an online collaborative document like Office 365, it has apps like mail, it has calendar, and much more.

  • A new home AI system, an open-source AI engine, and Apple’s acquisition of AI company Emotient—SD Times news digest: Jan. 8, 2016
  • AT&T software plans gain steam, focus on cloud and open source

    AT&T continues to steadily march towards a virtualized future, which will see the carrier hit software control of 75% of its network by 2020 using software-defined networking and network functions virtualization technologies.

  • Mycroft Open Sources Artificial Intelligence Library for IoT Devices

    Mycroft says it aims to assure the future of open source artificial intelligence through its release this week of Adapt, an intent parser engine for embedded devices, as an open source project.

    Mycroft’s main product is a device of the same name that is designed to manage IoT devices in the smart home and office. The chief selling point of the Mycroft is its ability to predict and learn what users want in an intelligent way.

  • Events

    • The Linux Foundation Announces 2016 Events Schedule

      The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced its 2016 events schedule. Linux Foundation events are where the creators, maintainers and practitioners of the world’s most important open source projects meet. Linux Foundation events in 2015 attracted nearly 15,000 developers, maintainers, sysadmins, thought leaders, business executives and other industry professionals from more than 3,100 organizations across 85 countries.

    • International Free Software Conference in Havana Cuba

      The 100 EUR (General Admission) Ticket is for people from economically developed countries (but if you happen to be rich in a poorer country, please stick to this category). The 20 EUR category is for people from economically developing countries (we are naming Africa, Middle- and South America – if you happen to come from another country, please contact us individually).

    • Spotlight! Call for Proposals and Event Suggestions!

      You, and your suggestions and proposals, are the heart of Penguicon’s programming. The deadline for all event proposals and suggestions is February 1st, 2016, in 3 short weeks! This is a great time to tell us what you’d like to present, or suggest ideas our track heads can use, using our forms.

    • Bad Voltage Live in Los Angeles: Why You Should Be There
    • We Need Your Answers
    • Speaking at SCALE 14x

      I’m working on my GIMP talk for SCALE 14x, the Southern California Linux Expo in Pasadena.

    • Developer: Tizen Community Dinner at FOSDEM 2016

      Last year the event attracted 5000+ attendees and its looks like a similar number for this year. There will be a number of Tizen talks and you will have the opportunity to meet and listen to Tizen developers from all over Europe (and further away). There will be a EFL / Tizen booth where developers can learn about the Tizen ecosystem, available devices and also about coding using EFL.

    • Design Hackfest in Rio de Janeiro

      In a week and a half, a bunch of us that are involved in GNOME design will be heading to Rio de Janeiro, in order to spend some time with the good people at Endless. (If you don’t know them yet, Endless are selling computers for the developing world, all of which run a GNOME-based operating system. Their latest device, the Endless Mini has been getting some good press recently.)

    • Shuttleworth at SCALE, Google Rolls Over & More…

      To SCALE or not to SCALE: If you live somewhere within driving distance of Southern California and you’ve been sitting on the fence trying to decide whether to attend SCALE 14X (that’s the Southern California Linux Expo for the jargon impaired), then we’re about to give you a tidbit that might help you make up your mind. FOSS Force has learned from a SCALE official that FOSS rocket man and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth will be giving the keynote address at SCALE on Saturday January 23. Although Shuttleworth’s scheduling has not been posted on the event’s website as we go to press, it’s presumed that he will speak at 10:00 a.m. According to our source, Shuttleworth will most likely discuss Linux on Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

  • Web Browsers

  • Databases

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Third bug hunting session for LibreOffice 5.1

      The LibreOffice community is working hard on the next major release of LibreOffice 5.1 – planned for early February – with a bug hunting session focused on new features and fixes for bugs and regressions, to test the second release candidate.

      The session will last 3 days, from January 15 to January 17, 2016. On those dates, mentors will be available from 08AM UTC to 10PM UTC to help volunteers to triage bugs, on the QA IRC channel and via email on the QA mailing list.

    • A first look at Collabora/LibreOffice online (and a little bit of frustration)

      Recently, I read a blog article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols about an initiative from Collabora, an “Open Source consulting” firm, OwnCloud, an Open Source Cloud solution and the well-known LibreOffice office suite (actually a fork of OpenOffice.org, which itself is a fork of StarOffice), to release an online version of LibreOffice. Finally!

  • CMS

    • How to perform Drupal 7 integration tests with Red Test

      The spotlight is back on Drupal with the 8.0.0 release. The successful launch is a testament to the hard work put in by members of the Drupal community, but Drupal 7 still has a huge install base and likely will for many years to come. To support Drupal 7 development, let’s take a look at a testing platform built exclusively for the platform. Red Test is an open source integration testing framework aimed at making life easier for Drupal developers.

    • Drupal sites at risk due to insecure update mechanism

      The update mechanism of the popular Drupal content management system is insecure in several ways, allowing attackers to trick administrators into installing malicious updates.

      Researcher Fernando Arnaboldi from security firm IOActive noticed that Drupal will not inform administrators that an update check has failed, for example due to inability to access the update server. Instead, the back-end panel will continue to report that the CMS is up to date, even if it’s not.

      This can be a problem, considering that hackers are quick to exploit vulnerabilities in popular content management systems like Drupal, WordPress or Joomla, after they appear. In one case in 2014, users had only a seven-hour window to deploy a critical Drupal patch until attackers started exploiting the vulnerability that it fixed.

  • Education

    • How students can get started contributing to open source software

      As a student, getting involved in open source is a great way to improve your programming skills. From my experience, it can even help kickstart your career. But where do you begin? And how do you get involved?

      I started my open source journey during my high school days when I had a lot more free time on my hands (and lived on IRC). It was through that experience that I learned how to contribute to open source through communication media like IRC and Usenet. Open source has grown since those olden days, and there are now more formal ways to get involved with open source as a student.

    • Rapid Router: why Ocado Technology turned to open source

      Ocado Technology has open-sourced its free coding education application to encourage a wider community of contributors.

      The firm’s free Rapid Router coding education resource is teaching 38,500 people across the UK to code.

  • Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

    • Facebook and Google Use Open Source To Recruit Developers

      Artificial Intelligence (AI)—technology that is adept at identifying images, recognizing spoken words and translating information from one language to another—is the hottest new topic in Silicon Valley. In fact, as of late, both Google and Facebook have found themselves in a race to secure the most brilliant software engineers to continuously improve upon this technology for their own purposes. Specifically, in an attempt to get a leg up on Google, Facebook recently opened sourced its AI software in an effort to draw in top-level developers.

    • How tech giants spread open source programming love

      “Go is a programming language designed by Google to help solve Google’s problems.” So said Rob Pike, one of the Go language’s designers.

      That may be the case, yet the open source language is increasingly being adopted by enterprises around the world for building applications at large scale.

  • BSD

    • Pre-5.9 pledge(2) update

      In a continuing series of pledge(2) reports, Theo de Raadt (deraadt@) gives us the latest update before the 5.9 freeze.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GnuTLS 3.4.8

      Released GnuTLS 3.3.20 and GnuTLS 3.4.8 which are bug fix releases in the previous and current stable branches.

    • The Licensing and Compliance Lab interviews Guillaume Roguez, Ring Project Director

      Ring is multi-media communication platform with secured multi-media channels, that doesn’t require centralized servers to work. It is developed by Savoir-faire Linux, a Canadian company located in Montréal, Québec. It is a potential free-software replacement for Skype, and possibly more.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Blackpool becomes third NHS trust to get open-source EPR

      Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is the third UK health trust to decide to implement the open-source electronic patient record system (EPR) from supplier IMS Maxims.

      The trust began implementing the EPR in December and aims to go live within the next 12 months.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Source Seed — the past meets the future

      Open-source seeds offer farmers and alternative to other types of seeds.

    • The Origins of Totalitarianism: Interlude on The Commons

      One of the primary goals of neoliberals is to take over the commons.

    • Open Hardware

      • Open Source RISC-V Core Designs, Why Google Cares and Why They Matter

        The CPU is one of the most crucial components of our computers, responsible of performing basic calculations, logical comparisons and moving data around. These simple tasks are the building blocks of any more complex operation, and make running our systems and programs possible.

        How these operations are done is not random: an Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) defines what they are and what computer processors are supposed to do.

        An ISA defines supported instructions and features, but not how these instructions are specifically carried out. Think of it like a cooking recipe — let’s say it’s for bagels: while the recipe is the same, each chef will carry it out differently, arranging the sesame seeds differently for instance. The chef cooking based on the recipe is, in our example, the computer processor carrying out instructions as per the defined ISA. The result will always be the same in theory, though: a tasty bagel.

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Science

  • Hardware

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • North Korea’s Nuclear Ambition and the U.S. Presidential Campaign

      We must demand answers to these questions about the greatest imminent existential threat to our world. We cannot rely on the hope that someone else will take care of this or the notion that I cannot make a difference. In our democracy each of us has a duty and responsibility to be informed and to take action.

    • Media Demonstrate GOP Hypocrisy In Blaming Obama And Hillary Clinton For North Korea’s Nuclear Testing
    • Hillary Clinton Suggests She May Oppose Obama’s $1 Trillion Nuclear Arms Upgrade

      In October, the administration awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to develop next-generation long-range bombers capable of firing nuclear weapons, a project that analysts expect will swell to $80 billion.

    • To End North Korea’s Nuclear Program, End the Korean War

      Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test may be a last-ditch effort to get on the U.S. agenda before Obama leaves office and a hawkish new president comes in.

    • Taking on the Nuclear Goliath

      Say hello to the Marshall Islands, the tiny, heroic island nation in Micronesia, with a population just over 70,000. This former U.S. territory, which still bears the terrible scars of 67 above-ground nuclear blasts between 1946 and 1958, when this country used it as an expendable nuclear test site, has engaged the United States — and, indeed, all nine nations that possess nuclear weapons — in lawsuits demanding that they comply with the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and begin the process of negotiating global nuclear disarmament.

    • A lot of chatter about terrorism

      Tim Wilson (TW): Privacy is a human right, but there is a difference between privacy and secrecy. Private information is information that we don’t want publicly disclosed. But some of that information does need to be accessed by third parties such as the government. The issue and the challenge is, if the information is going to be disclosed, who gets to decide that and then who gets to access it, and under what circumstances.

      Think about it in terms of, for example, a data retention regime. If I use my phone now, I go through with my ISP and online content providers. At every point I have voluntarily said the trade-off for accessing information is that I have put out a certain amount of material about myself to these different companies. The question is how they long they store my information for, and who can access and on what terms.

    • New Research Explains Why Immigrants Are Fleeing Latin America

      In 2005, Mexico’s homicide rates was 9.5 homicides per 100,000 people. By 2010, that rate more than doubled to 22 per 100,000. Homicides have not subsided — May 2015 saw at least 1,621 homicides, marking one of the deadliest months since January 2014.

    • Saudi Arabia: the West’s Chosen Islamist Head-Cutters

      The latest executions in Saudi Arabia should make it very clear that the Western powers’ “war on terror” has nothing to do with opposition to chopping off heads and sectarian religious fanaticism. Instead of condemning this crime, the U.S., UK and other Western powers have continued to give the Saudi regime, if not their public political blessing, at least their practical backing – in the name of the necessary alliances they claim flow from that “war on terror”.

    • Why Is North Korea Our Problem?

      Why, then, are 25,000 U.S. troops still in South Korea?

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • A Look Into the Future at How TPP Could Create Environmental Nightmares

      The TPP makes the rights of companies sacrosanct, including the right to mine. But what about the rights of people who live in the way of proposed mining sites?

    • ‘Environmental’ Comic Strip’s Author Wants Global Warming Believers to ‘Get Real’

      The leading environmental-themed comic strip in the United States, Mark Trail, is apparently written by a climate-change denier.

      The strip’s expanded Sunday editions are intended to be educational, and this week’s (1/3/16) featured a lesson about sulfur dioxide. “Sulfur dioxide is a major cause of acid rain!” the title character, a naturalist, exclaims. He notes that it’s “a byproduct of large-scale farms, power plants and other industries,” as well as “the burning of fossil fuels by large transportation vehicles.”

    • Republicans Are Pushing a Bill That Could Make It Much Harder to Sue Volkswagen

      Volkswagen will likely be spending a lot of time in court over the next few years. On Monday, the automaker was presented with a new lawsuit from the Justice Department over allegations that it had illegally rigged half a million cars sold in the United States to cheat on emissions tests. The suit is the first step the Obama administration has taken to hold VW accountable for the scandal, and it could leave the company on the hook for billions of dollars in fines. Federal criminal charges could also be forthcoming.

      Meanwhile, VW is also facing a torrent of outrage from some of the folks who bought those cars, which include the diesel-powered versions of Jetta and Golf models made since 2009. A court in Northern California is scheduled to decide this month whether to hear a group of more than 350 class-action lawsuits from VW customers who feel they were misled about the environmental benefits of the cars before buying them.

    • Warming fuels rise in methane threat

      Higher temperatures and permafrost thaw could cause an increase of up to 50 per cent in emissions of a key greenhouse gas from northern lakes and ponds by 2100.

    • Calls for Michigan Gov. Snyder’s Arrest as Flint Poisoning Scandal Implicates Top Staffers

      “The source of the Flint Water Crisis leads directly to Gov. Rick Snyder and the fiscal austerity policies that he and his Republican colleagues have been pushing for years on Michigan residents,” said Lonnie Scott, executive director of Progress Michigan,” in a statement released Thursday. “Families in Flint were forced to drink lead-tainted water while the administration scoffed at their concerns and cries for help. An entire generation of Michiganders now face an uncertain future because of Republican cuts to essential and life-giving services.”

    • How Michigan literally poisoned an entire city to save a few bucks

      You know what’s bad? Brain damage.

      Flint, Michigan, is finding this out after it accidentally gave its entire population at least a little bit of lead poisoning when it switched up their water supply. In an attempt to save money for a cash-strapped city, Flint started drinking water from the Flint River — but ended up contaminating children with a poisonous heavy metal. Governor Rick Snyder has declared a state of emergency, and the federal government is investigating.

    • Calls for Michigan Gov. Snyder’s Arrest as Flint Poisoning Scandal Implicates Top Staffers
    • The Geopolitics of Cheap Oil

      There are a number of reasons for the price drop, but it boils down to supply (more of it) and demand (less of it). The United States boosted oil production by 66 percent over the last five years, making it the largest oil and natural gas producer in the world in 2015. Other producers, like Saudi Arabia, also didn’t scale back, in part to stick it to a sanctions-hobbled Iran and snatch up its clients. Meanwhile, greater fuel efficiency and slower economic growth around the world (particularly in China) have reduced demand.

    • How the Koch Brothers’ ‘Bankers’ Snuck an Anti-Wind Op-Ed Past the New York Times

      Since 1997, the Kochs have given more than $79 million to groups that distort climate science and malign renewable energy.

    • TransCanada Goes Legal On US Government Over The Rejection Of Keystone; Will It Wake Obama To The Problems Of Corporate Sovereignty?

      Over the last few years, there’s been a big controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline project, a massive planned project to build an oil pipeline from Canada to the US that many folks had been protesting, and which (after years and years of debate), President Obama finally rejected a few months back. That’s not a topic that we’ve really covered here, other than a single mention when we questioned why the FBI had spied on activists protesting the potential pipeline.

    • The Company Behind Keystone XL Now Wants $15 Billion From US Taxpayers

      In its NAFTA complaint, TransCanada alleges that “the politically-driven denial of Keystone’s application was contrary to all precedent; inconsistent with any reasonable and expected application of the relevant rules and regulations; and arbitrary, discriminatory, and expropriatory.”

    • Trans-Canada Sue US Government for $15 Billion over Tar Sands Pipeline Cancellation
    • The EPA Finally Admitted That the World’s Most Popular Pesticide Kills Bees—20 Years Too Late

      Bees are dying in record numbers—and now the government admits that an extremely common pesticide is at least partially to blame.

    • Exposing the EPA’s Dark Side

      The federal agency has a broken process for regulating pesticides.

    • It’s Official: 2015 Was America’s Second-Hottest Year on Record

      It’s official. The United States roasted in 2015. All that unseasonably warm December weather that saw flowers blooming in Central Park and shirtless Christmas Day volleyball set a record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which released its year-end findings on Thursday. In fact, 29 states in the eastern half of the country experienced their hottest Decembers on record, a phenomenon that sealed 2015′s fate: It was the second-warmest year ever recorded in the contiguous United States.

    • Severe cold causing havoc on railway, public transport

      The deep freeze that has descended upon Finland is causing disruptions to train traffic in several areas of the country. On Wednesday night some trains were delayed by hours and problems appear to be continuing.

    • Governor declares state of emergency in connection with California methane leak

      On Wednesday evening, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles County in connection with a massive natural gas leak that’s ongoing at a Southern California Gas Company storage facility. The leak, which began on October 23, has been spewing methane into the air at a rate of tens of thousands of kilograms (PDF) per hour.

      Governor Brown’s declaration of a state of emergency requires that SoCal Gas and other gas storage facility operators throughout California start conducting daily inspections of well heads and implement infrared imaging technology to detect leaks. Facility operators will have to monitor the wells for mechanical integrity, gas pressure, and safety on an ongoing basis.

      The emergency declaration doesn’t earmark any state funds to help fund a cleanup, but it orders the California Public Utilities Commission to “ensure that Southern California Gas Company covers costs related to the natural gas leak and its response, while protecting ratepayers.”

  • Finance

    • Con man Chancellor George Osborne terrified game is up amid dire economic warnings

      Con man George Osborne screeching “Not me, Gov!” is the whine of a spineless Chancer of the Exchequer terrified the game is up.

      Blaming everything and everybody except himself for Britain’s faltering economic “recovery” – China, oil, Middle East, that big boy with a stick who ran away – is the spineless politics of a dishonest politician.

      Oh my how his tune has changed, not since an election when Osborne deliberately gave the impression we’d be wading knee deep in milk and honey to swindle voters, but also from just before Christmas when, boasted the Treasury chiseller, the country was “growing fast”.

      Spewing out alibis for the gathering storm after statisticians cut growth figures will convince only the criminally gullible.

    • Everything Is (Even More) Awesome!

      As we enter 2016, Americans are still feeling grouchy. Only one-fourth of the public believes the United States is heading in the right direction. The Republican presidential debates have been malaise-a-thons, competitions to portray American decline in the most apocalyptic terms possible, while Bernie Sanders is pursuing the Democratic nomination with a message so depressing that professional curmudgeon Larry David has basically played him straight. A year after I wrote an article only somewhat ironically titled Everything Is Awesome, cable news is an endless Debbie Downer loop of terrorism fears and market jitters, periodically interrupted by a weirdly coifed nativist blowhard promising to Make America Great Again.

    • K12 Inc. Tries to Pivot from Virtual School Failures to Profit from “Non-Managed” Schools

      Big, Big Payouts to Execs at Taxpayer Expense

      In its recommendation that shareholders vote against the pay proposal, the advisory firm Glass Lewis & Co. said K12 exemplifies a “substantial disconnect between compensation and performance results.” Glass Lewis gave the company an “F” for how it paid its executives compared to peers.

      In 2015, K12 CEO Nathaniel Davis was making $5.3 million and CFO James Rhyu was making $3.6 million. Their base salaries were $700,000 and 478,500, respectively, which were dwarfed by additional pay and stock for their “performance.” (See more details on their total compensation in the pdf uploaded below.)

      In all, K12′s five highest paid executives received a total of more than $12 million in compensation last year. That’s one of the reasons CMD has called K12 Inc.’s former CEO, Ron Packard, the highest paid elementary and secondary school educator in the nation.

    • This Map Shows How Student Debt Is Crushing Your Community

      Student debt is an elephant in the room of the American economy. Total educational debt has ballooned from $840 billion in 2010 to more than $1.3 trillion this year, according to the Federal Reserve. And yet the Education Department has been reluctant to share data on the federal government’s student loan portfolio, meaning that, until recently, there has been very little detailed information available on the burgeoning crisis.

    • Denials and devaluation as China’s currency tumbles to five-year low

      The phrase “currency war” speaks to a seemingly phoney battle between the world’s major trading powers over the price of exports. It has all the attributes of an illusory conflict because no one ever agrees that a genuine dispute has taken place. And as long as everyone denies they have drawn swords to slash their currency to compete with rival powers, talk of a war fizzles and dies.

    • Is a $15 an Hour Minimum Wage Adequate?

      Social movements calling for raising the minimum wage to $15/ hour with yearly adjustments for increases in the cost of living deserve support. However, earning $15/ hour will not guarantee a decent standard of living.

      An individual working forty hours a week at $15/ hour for an entire year earns $31,200, an income that is more than two and a half times the 2014 official poverty threshold of $12,316 for one adult. One might readily conclude that this individual is doing well since $15/ hour is also more than twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25/ hour.

    • Making America safer for predatory capitalism

      Forcing customers into arbitration makes it easier to rip them off

    • Bernie Sander’s Plan to Tame Wall Street Riles Team Clinton

      Sanders’ presidential campaign is making history in other ways. Sanders raised more than $33 million in the final three months of last year, $73 million for the year, compared to Clinton’s $37 million in the last quarter for a total of $112 million for the year. But the vast majority of Sanders big bucks came from very small donors. The 2,513,665 donations to Sanders’ campaign broke the record set four years ago by President Barack Obama’s re-election committee.

    • How Corrupt Officials Screwed Up An Extremely Poor Town’s Big Break

      But while the columns hearken back to the town’s prosperous times, Yanceyville has long been one of the poorest places in the country. More than half of the population lived below the poverty line in 2013 and the median household income was $14,500. Poverty falls harder on African-American residents, 64 percent of whom lived below the poverty line, compared to 29 percent of white residents. At the county level, African Americans suffer from an unemployment rate of 18 percent (although as recently as 2011, it was over 20 percent).

    • How Jeb Bush Plans To Destroy Anti-Poverty Programs
    • Turkey Seeks Inclusion in US-EU TTIP Free Trade Deal – Turkish Deputy PM

      Turkey hopes to renegotiate its current trade agreements with the European Union, so it can be included in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) free trade deal between the United States and EU, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Wash. Post Highlights How Trump’s Media Dominance “Obscure[s]” Ted Cruz’s Extremism — To His Benefit

      The Washington Post’s David Weigel highlighted how Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz “actually benefits from Trump’s full-spectrum dominance of the national media conversation,” which “obscure[s]” Cruz’s extreme positions.

    • Ted Cruz is a Natural Born Citizen

      May lightening not strike me, but I am going to help Ted Cruz now. Ted is a natural-born citizen and he can be president. There is no ambiguity, no legal question. It is very clear.

    • O’Reilly: Trump’s Attack Ad Against Hillary Clinton Is So Vile It Might Have Been Made By Hitler
    • The Problem With Hillary Clinton Using a Progressive Hero to Attack Bernie Sanders

      Hillary Clinton is using a prominent surrogate to attack Bernie Sanders’s emphatic proposals for reforming Wall Street: Gary Gensler, former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

      Gensler, who is the Clinton campaign’s chief financial officer, has enormous credibility among financial reformers after his aggressive (and lonely) efforts to rein in banks during the early years of the Obama administration.

    • Feminism A Neo-Con Tool

      Catching up on a fortnight’s news, I have spent five hours searching in vain for criticism of Simon Danczuk from prominent or even just declared feminists. The Guardian was the obvious place to start, but while they had two articles by feminist writers condemning Chris Gayle’s clumsy attempt to chat up a presenter, their legion of feminist columnists were entirely silent on Danczuk. The only opinion piece was strongly defending him.

      This is very peculiar. The allegation against Danczuk which is under police investigation – of initiating sex with a sleeping woman – is identical to the worst interpretation of the worst accusation against Julian Assange. The Assange allegation brought literally hundreds, probably thousands of condemnatory articles from feminist writers across the entire range of the mainstream media. I have dug up 57 in the Guardian alone with a simple and far from exhaustive search. In the case of Danczuk I can find nothing, zilch, nada. Not a single feminist peep.

      The Assange case is not isolated. Tommy Sheridan has been pursuing a lone legal battle against the Murdoch empire for a decade, some of it in prison when the judicial system decided his “perjury” was imprisonable but Andy Coulson’s admitted perjury on the Murdoch side in the same case was not. I personally witnessed in court in Edinburgh last month Tommy Sheridan, with no lawyer (he has no money) arguing against a seven man Murdoch legal team including three QCs, that a letter from the husband of Jackie Bird of BBC Scotland should be admitted in evidence. Bird was working for Murdoch and suggested in his letter that a witness should be “got out of the country” to avoid giving evidence. The bias exhibited by the leading judge I found astonishing beyond belief. I was the only media in the court.

    • Wall Street Journal Flip-Flops To Attack Obamacare, Praise GOP

      Reversing on their past condemnation of the use of a budget procedure called “reconciliation,” The Wall Street Journal praised Republicans for using the tactic in their latest attempt to repeal Obamacare. The Journal also bashed, the law falsely claiming the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has resulted in “huge” premium increases, and showed little concern for the millions of Americans who would lose healthcare if the law is repealed.

    • Just Because Donald Trump Says It Doesn’t Mean You Have to Report It

      Stop it, stop it, stop it, STOP IT! Just because Donald Trump says something calculatingly stupid and provocative doesn’t mean it has to be reported as front-page news. Everyone knows that his “Cruz is a Canadian” thing is ridiculous—and he wouldn’t bother saying it if he didn’t know that it was going to get loudly amplified by a media that just can’t say no to him.

    • Washington Post Fact Checker Has A Double Standard On Gun Claims

      Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler ruled that a true statement by President Obama on how guns are sold was inaccurate because it was “confusing,” just weeks after writing that an unprovable claim about mass shootings made by GOP hopeful Marco Rubio was true.

    • Official Member Of Trump Campaign Joins Oregon Militia

      The co-chairman of Donald Trump’s New Hampshire “Veterans for Trump” group has arrived in Burns, Oregon, to assist the small cadre of armed men who are seeking to provoke a standoff with federal officials there.

      That not-quite-standoff began over the weekend when a handful of men led by Ammon Bundy decided to turn a much larger peaceful protest over a decision to send two ranchers back to jail for arson into an armed struggle. The group’s numbers are small – especially compared to the 300 who reportedly joined the peaceful protest of the re-sentencing – but they have now been reinforced by Jerry DeLemus, a former United States Marine living on the opposite side of the country.

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • More Needs to be Done to Strengthen Protection of Human Subjects in Scientific Experiments

      The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed a sweeping update to the federal regulations that govern scientific experiments involving human subjects, whether it’s studying behavior, testing biological specimens, or analyzing DNA. While the proposed policy [.pdf] generally moves in the right direction, EFF has filed formal comments outlining several serious concerns about how these rules will impact privacy.

      The “Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects”—often referred to as the “Common Rule”—is the ethical framework for biomedical and behavioral research established in the wake of medical scandals that shook the nation, including the now infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study, in which the U.S. government withheld treatment and medical information from rural African-American men suffering from the disease. Much of the Common Rule revolves around two concepts: informed consent and independent review. These principles reflect the need for people need to know the risks and benefits and what will happen to their specimens before agreeing to participate in an experiment and the idea that researchers will make better ethical decisions with the guidance of oversight bodies.

    • Fort Dix Five: Prosecuted by Christie, Muslim Brothers Get Rare Day in Court in FBI Entrapment Case

      In 2008, the Duka brothers—Shain, Dritan and Eljvir—were among five men from suburban New Jersey who were convicted of conspiring to kill American soldiers at the Fort Dix Army base. The three are serving life sentences, but their supporters say the men were entrapped by the FBI. On Wednesday, the three brothers appeared in a courthouse in Camden, New Jersey, for a rare court-ordered hearing to determine whether they received a fair trial and effective representation from their lawyers. We bring you voices from a rally organized in support of the three Duka brothers and speak with Robert Boyle, attorney for Shain Duka.

    • As Chris Christie Rises in Polls, Appeal of His Fort Dix Terrorism Case Moves Ahead

      A detailed investigation published last year by The Intercept suggested that the plot against the military base had actually been fomented by highly-paid government informants. Mahmoud Omar, one of the informants, told The Intercept that he believed the Dukas were innocent, describing them as “good people.”

    • U.S. Cops Already Killed More Since Xmas Than UK Cops Have Killed in Five Years

      In all of 2011, British police killed two people. In 2012, one. In 2013, a total of three shots were fired by British police, and no one was killed. In the last two years, a total of three people lost their lives because of British cops, bringing the total number of citizens killed in the UK to all of seven in the last five years.

    • Nebraska routinely holds children in solitary confinement, report finds

      Solitary confinement is a commonplace experience for children held in Nebraska juvenile detention facilities, a report has shown, with minors routinely detained in isolation for days, weeks, even months at a time.

      To varying degrees, in each of the state’s nine juvenile facilities children are placed in solitary confinement for “relatively minor offenses” such as keeping too many books, according to the report compiled by the state’s American Civil Liberties Union chapter. Other infractions triggering the “overused” practice included talking back to staff members or refusing to follow directions.

    • Report: Nebraska Lets Juveniles Be Locked in Solitary Confinement for 90 Days

      As a teenager, Jacob Rusher was detained at the Douglas County Youth Facility in Omaha, Nebraska. After he broke his ankle, he was told that he was being placed in “lockdown” — a form of solitary confinement — for “his own good.” He spent three months there, often pounding against the door begging to be released.

      “It was 23 hours a day alone, no TV or radio. You were in there with one book, a blanket, a mat, and a toothbrush. No art materials, no hobby items — everything was considered contraband,” he told the ACLU of Nebraska. “Nighttimes, you’d get a little crazy. They kept the light on and would wake us up every hour to check on you so you’d never get any good sleep.”

    • Washington’s Multi-Million-Dollar Saudi PR Machine

      Public image isn’t something one can always control, but Saudi Arabia is spending millions of dollars on Washington lobbyists and PR firms to improve the Kingdom’s reputation in the West. The execution of Shiite leader Sheik Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, followed by an attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran and the Kingdom’s severing of diplomatic relations with Iran, would seem to offer few upsides for the Saudi government. Riyadh’s behavior comes across as a desperate Hail-Mary pass to isolate Iran at the expense of regional efforts to negotiate a de-escalation of the Syrian civil war and defeat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

    • Two Years Behind Bars or 20? One Day, a Computer Formula May Have a Say

      Just looking at a defendant’s criminal record to decide a sentence could be racially biased, Ghandnoosh argues. “Criminal history measures criminal justice policies,” she said, adding that “people of color are more likely to be surveilled and arrested and convicted” for crimes, especially less serious ones. The fact that police departments tend to focus more on minorities means minorities are more likely to be arrested, which means members of these groups are more likely to have criminal records in the first place.

    • Tomgram: Rebecca Gordon, American War Crimes, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

      Yes, you read that correctly: tiny numbers of Americans live on a different tax planet from the rest of us. They’ve paid for the privilege, of course, and increasingly for the political class that oversees how our country runs. They’ve insulated themselves in a largely tax-free zone that ensures their “equality” before the law (such as it is) and your deepening inequality before the same — and before them. Their actions have garnered them the ultimate in impunity. In this election season in a country of more than 300 million people, for instance, a mere 158 families (and the companies they control) are putting their (largely tax-free) dollars where our mouths once were. By October, they had provided almost half the money thus far raised by presidential candidates in a move meant to ensure that American democracy becomes their system, their creature. (“Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision five years ago.”)

    • FBI Helps Shut Down Seattle Sex-Work Review Board

      So perhaps the only surprising thing about this Review Board situation is it produced a local TV news report (featuring Reason contributor Maggie McNeill) that doesn’t merely parrot police talking points. Newscasters actually allow sex workers to speak for themselves about the site’s shutdown and how it puts them at risk, while noting that Seattle recently received a $1.5 million grant from the Justice Department to help “eradicate human trafficking” and “end modern slavery.”

    • Don’t Fear the Refugees

      Americans are skeptical and afraid of allowing Middle East refugees into this country. Should they be?

    • The refugee question in Europe: ‘south’ vs ‘east’

      The refugee crisis has triggered a diplomatic row between Greece and certain ‘new’ member-states from Central and Eastern Europe. Does this tell us something about the various shades of Euroscepticism, whether ‘soft’ or ‘hard’, in the peripheries of the EU?

    • Govt Pays Millions in Reparations to 57 Victims of Worst Cop in History – Who Still Receives a Pension

      Former Chicago Police Commander received 13 commendations before his termination for torturing over 200 citizens.

    • Tunisia’s fight against its revolutionary youth

      The threat of terrorism has been exploited to justify anti-democratic laws and an escalation of arrests and detentions, apparently more focused on silencing dissent than anything else.

    • The illusion of security

      Jérémie Zimmermann (JZ): In the last year and a half, four security laws have been adopted in France in the name of combating terrorism. Now would be the right time to question their efficiency.

      Things did not start with Charlie Hebdo: in the last 15 years about fifteen other bills were adopted which closely followed the example of the US and some other European countries after 9/11. The most recent law, prolonging the state of emergency to three months and even renewable for longer, is the most striking because it coincides with the collective emotional shock and disorientation of French society as a whole after November 13. This state of emergency was adopted in an extremely rushed procedure, almost overnight, with no room for debate, so that one might surmise that most of the MPs did not have time to read the bill they voted for. It seems as if the political process has been poisoned by the intelligence agencies, who are given more power with less accountability requested every time they fail, so that this efficiency cannot even be assessed properly. We are in a downwards spiral, where policies that are driven by fear undermine the rule of law and fundamental rights, in favour of an illusion of more security.

    • 7 Myths About Gun Violence in America, Debunked

      On live television Thursday evening, President Barack Obama will hold a town hall meeting about gun violence. He will take questions from participants who support tighter gun laws and from others who want fewer restrictions on guns. It’s a prime-time moment for separating fact from fiction—so here’s a shortlist, with the data to back it up.

    • Wearing the Hijab in Solidarity Perpetuates Oppression

      Saturday night at the Dar Al Noor mosque in Manassas, Va., near Civil War battlefields, a girl of about 7 sat cross-legged in a dimly lit back corner of the prayer hall in the cramped “sisters’ section.” A tinted waist-high glass barrier separated the girl from the spacious “brothers’ section,” where about 50 men listened intently to a Saudi preacher who ignored the “sisters.”

      The girl’s hair was entirely covered by a scarf, per the mosque’s guidelines for “proper Islamic attire, including Hijab for girls, while boys dress modestly.”

      As mainstream Muslim women, we see the girl’s headscarf not as a signal of “choice,” but as a symbol of a dangerous purity culture, obsessed with honor and virginity, that has divided Muslim communities in our own civil war, or fitna, since the Saudi and Iranian regimes promulgated puritanical interpretations of Sunni and Shia Islam, after the 1970s Saudi oil boom and the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

    • Muslim cleric vows to behead anyone who speaks against Islam – Watch

      New Delhi: A Muslim cleric stirred a controversy recently when he announced on live TV that he would behead any person who speaks against Islam.

    • Saudi executions: beyond the numbers

      Freedom is the ability to speak out, including against the ruler, according to one’s opinions and beliefs, even—and especially—if those opinions and beliefs run counter to the ruling class or majority opinion.

    • Tears

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Binge On Lite? Ask for the Truth about T-Mobile Video Throttling

      Now, T-Mobile is on the defensive. John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile, is hosting a Q&A on Twitter today, starting at noon Pacific time, in an attempt to quell concerns. That means concerned members of the digital public have an opportunity to discuss the issues directly with Mr. Legere. Just use the hastag #AskJohn.

    • T-Mobile Doubles Down On Its Blatant Lies, Says Claims It’s Throttling Are ‘Bullshit’ And That I’m A ‘Jerk’

      There were a bunch of problems with this, starting with the fact that favoring some partner traffic over others to exempt it from a cap (i.e., zero rating) is a sketchy way to backdoor in net neutrality violations. But, the bigger issue was that almost everything about T-Mobile’s announcement implied that it was only “partner” video that was being “optimized” while the reality was that they were doing it for any video they could find (even downloaded, not streamed). The biggest problem of all, however, was that the video was not being “optimized” but throttled by slowing down video.

      Once the throttling was called out, T-Mobile went on a weird PR campaign, flat out lying, and saying that what they were doing was “optimizing” not throttling and that it would make videos stream faster and save users data. However, as we pointed out, that’s blatantly false. Videos from YouTube, for example, were encrypted, meaning that T-Mobile had no way to “optimize” it, and tests from EFF proved pretty conclusively that the only thing T-Mobile was doing was slowing connection speeds down to 1.5 Mbps when it sensed video downloads of any kind (so not even streaming), and that actually meant that the full amount of data was going through in many cases, rather than an “optimized” file. EFF even got T-Mobile to admit that this was all they were doing.

    • John Legere asks EFF, “Who the f**k are you, and who pays you?”
    • T-Mobile’s John Legere Goes Off The Deep End: ‘Who The Fuck Are You, EFF?’
    • T-Mobile Confirms It Slows Connections to Video Sites
    • T-Mobile CEO to EFF: ‘Who the Fuck Are You?’
    • Friends, Please Tell T-Mobile’s CEO About EFF

      We think the best response comes from the community of people who support our work. As a member-funded organization, EFF exists because of the donations of tens of thousands of regular people. And as an advocacy organization fighting for civil liberties in the digital world, we are able to influence powerful entities—from heads of state to elected officials to tech giants—because so many people stand with.

    • As Its CEO Continues To Claim It Doesn’t Throttle, T-Mobile Spokesperson Confirms Company Throttles

      And yet now the company is admitting that they are, in fact, slowing down YouTube, not “optimizing” it or making the resolution lower. As I said at the time, T-Mobile is flat out lying. And now two statements from the company directly contradict each other, and the company’s CEO is still insisting that the company isn’t doing what the company admits it’s doing.

      I’ve seen some corporate snafu meltdowns before, but this is reaching epic levels — and that’s bad news for a company that had spent so much time building up a reputation as a “straight shooter.” Good reputations are hard to build, but easy to let slip away….

    • Streaming Video Company Drops Out Of BingeOn To Protest John Legere’s Attack On EFF; It Will Still Get Throttled, Though

      Well, this has really turned into quite a week for T-Mobile CEO John Legere, huh? First, his lies about BingeOn throttling were exposed. Then he doubled down on the lie insisting that BingeOn wasn’t throttling despite clear evidence that it is. Then, he attacked EFF for exposing his lie. All the meanwhile, T-Mobile spokespeople were confirming that the company is, absolutely, slowing down all video traffic.

      And it appears the fallout from this keeps spreading. Legere keeps touting the number of partner video companies that have signed up for BingeOn, but it appears that number needs to go down by one.

  • DRM

    • Warner Bros and Intel Sue 4k Content Protection “Stripper”

      Warner Bros. and Intel’s daughter company Digital Content Protection have sued a hardware manufacturer that creates devices enabling consumers to bypass 4K copy protection. The devices, sold under the HDFury brand, can be used by pirates to copy 4k video from streaming platforms as well as other HDCP 2.2 protected content.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Target cleared in Rosa Parks image rights dispute

      Rosa Parks may be best known for her refusal to move from her seat on the bus, but her many years of campaigning for equality places her at the centre of the civil rights movement story in the US.

      And according to a judgment handed down by the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit yesterday, January 4, it is important that the story continues to be promoted without too many restrictions.

    • New Year Brings New Faces To IP World, Bids Others Farewell

      The New Year brings some new faces in the intellectual property world as several changes were announced at the end of 2015, in particular at the European Commission, in the private sector and non-governmental organisations. In Geneva, the coordination of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries changes, and the UN Plant Treaty is working on intersessional committees. And a leading light in the IP publishing world has retired.

    • Cartoonist Who Claimed ‘Kung Fu Panda’ Ripped Off His Work Might Be Headed To Prison

      Jayme Gordon, the other person to sue Dreamworks for allegedly copying his work has won the Worst Outcome Ever sweepstakes. The cartoonist claimed Dreamworks ripped off his sketches and he seemingly had the evidence to prove this — including a rarity in many of these little-guy-sues-big-studio lawsuits: actual registered works.

      Gordon demanded $12 million and a cut of the proceeds. He survived a motion to dismiss and seemed ready to take a serious run at the studio. Two years after he filed the lawsuit, Gordon suddenly dismissed it with prejudice and received no settlement for doing so.

      [...]

      That’s the bogus part of this prosecution. Sure, perjury is a given, considering the evidence uncovered by Dreamworks’ lawyers. But wire fraud? That’s just charge stacking. This office, however, isn’t exactly shy about trumping up charges to make itself seem more impressive. It’s the same US Attorney’s Office that was behind the investigation and prosecution of Aaron Swartz, so this could go very, very badly for Gordon.

    • Trademarks

      • Australian Federal Court Prevents Registration of the Word ‘Yellow’ As Trade Mark

        Yellow is one of this writer’s least favourite colours. Garish, sickeningly bright, and forever tarnished by its association with both liver disease and the band Coldplay, yellow is highly, highly overrated. But, credit where credit is due, it does tend to make things stand out. For this reason, it is the colour of choice for school buses, road signs, and, for historically anomalous reasons, telephone business directories – commonly known as Yellow Pages. This phrase, as well as its accompanying ‘Walking Fingers’ logo, are registered trade marks in many countries around the world, including the UK, Canada, and Australia – though curiously not the United States.

    • Copyrights

      • NY Public Library Embraces The Public Domain Big Time: Releases 180,000 High Resolution Images

        There’s some wonderful news from the NY Public Library, which has released over 180,000 high resolution digital images of public domain works that it found in its collection. We’ve seen too many organizations, mainly museums, try to claim copyright over public domain works, or otherwise limit access. The NY Public Library, on the other hand, is going the other direction. Not only are they releasing these works and making it clear that the works are in the public domain, but they’re releasing them as high resolution images and actively encouraging people to make use of them.

      • ‘Monkey selfie’ copyright claim rejected

        A US court has dismissed a claim filed by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in which the organisation claimed that the copyright to the ‘monkey selfie’ photograph should belong to a macaque ape.

        Judge William Orrick of the US District Court for the Northern District of California rejected PETA’s claim yesterday, January 6, stating that it is a matter for Congress not the courts.

      • German Publishers Still Upset That Google Sends Them Traffic Without Paying Them Too; File Lawsuit

        Oh boy. Remember VG Media? That’s the consortium of German news publishers who were so damn angry that Google News sends them all sorts of traffic without also paying them. A year and a half ago, they demanded money from Google. That failed, so they went crying to German regulators who laughed off the request. After there were some concerns that a new “ancillary copyright” right regime in Germany might require payment for posting such snippets, Google properly responded by removing the snippets for those publishers, who totally freaked out and called it blackmail.

      • Techdirt Reading Club: The Boy Who Could Change The World: The Writings Of Aaron Swartz

        We’re back again with another in our weekly reading list posts of books we think our community will find interesting and thought provoking. Once again, buying the book via the Amazon links in this story also helps support Techdirt.
        This week we have a brand new book, but one I’m disappointed needs to be a book. It’s the collected writings of Aaron Swartz, called The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz. As I’ve noted in the past, I knew Aaron as we worked in similar circles and interacted on a bunch of occasions, though I didn’t know him well. But, more importantly, I’d actually been following Aaron’s writings on his personal blog and elsewhere from a very early age (I particularly remember following his writings about his experience as a freshman at Stanford). As you probably know by now, Aaron committed suicide almost three years ago, while dealing with a ridiculous federal prosecution for downloading too many academic papers from a computer system at MIT, where the license was clear anyone could download as much as they wanted.

      • The New York Public Library Just Unleashed 180,000 Free Images. We Can’t Stop Looking at Them.

        The New York Public Library just digitized and made available more than 180,000 high resolution items, which the public can download for free.

        The images come from pieces in the library’s collection that have fallen out of copyright or are otherwise in the public domain. This includes botanical illustrations, ancient texts, historical maps–including the incredible Green Book collection of travel guides for African American travelers in mid-1900s. They’ve also released more than 40,000 stereoscopes, Berenice Abbott’s amazing documentation of New York City in 1930s and Lewis Hines’ photos of Ellis Island immigrants, as well as the letters of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, among other political figures.

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